Leadership looms for armed group key to Myanmar’s peace process

YANGON: Myanmar´s strongest ethnic armed group is set for its biggest leadership shake-up in a quarter century, senior sources told Reuters, raising the prospect of a period of instability in a group that is key to Aung San Suu Kyi´s signature peace process.

The United Wa State Army (UWSA) boasts some 30,000 soldiers who control a secretive, China-dominated statelet the size of Belgium in the remote hills on Myanmar´s eastern border.

This year the group´s political wing, the United Wa State Party (UWSP), is holding elections for the first time since 1992, with at least some of the old guard who have led the statelet since its 1989 formation set to stand down, three senior Wa officials said.

"The election will also include the chairman, but whether he will be replaced is unknown," said one of the sources.

"Those who are sick or old would retire.

The party is going to cultivate a new group of young talents," the person added, referring to the party´s top decision-making Politburo.

A second Wa official with direct knowledge of the matter described the vote as an "earth-shattering" event within the reclusive Wa State hierarchy.

Reuters visited the self-proclaimed Wa State in October - a rare trip by a major international news organisation - where officials described for the first time its inner workings.

The reshuffle could pose a new headache for Suu Kyi´s nine-month-old civilian administration, already grappling with escalating clashes between government forces and other ethnic armed groups along the mountainous border with China and a military crackdown in the Muslim-majority northwest that has sent 65,000 people fleeing to neighbouring Bangladesh.

After sweeping to power following a November 2015 election, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Suu Kyi has made ending the ethnic conflicts that kept Myanmar in a state of perpetual civil war through decades of military rule a priority.

As the biggest ethnic army, the UWSA will be crucial to the success of that goal, but the group has so far declined to actively participate in the peace process launched by Suu Kyi last year.

"Suu Kyi´s peace process is almost impossible without Wa´s participation," said Yangon-based political analyst Soe Naing, a former member of the Central Committee of the UWSP.

"Wa is a mediator between government and several ethnic armed groups who are still fighting against the Myanmar army."

The Wa State, which has not fought the Myanmar army in years but has declined to disarm, is currently led by UWSP Chairman Pao Yu Hsiang, a veteran of the Communist Party of Burma, which disintegrated and split into various ethnic factions in the late 1980s.

Pao is in poor health that prevents him from travelling, but remains the ultimate decision-maker, three sources close to the leadership said.  The UWSP operates on a rotating duty leader system.