(Vientiane) The Burmese junta and an armed ethnic group both claimed control of Lashio, a town in Shan State (north) home to a major military site, on Thursday after several days of clashes.
Since July 3 and the launch of an offensive against the army by armed movements from ethnic minorities, fighting has been raging in Lashio, where the Burmese army command for the north-east is located.
According to media outlets close to the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), the group “completely seized the headquarters of the Northeast military command in Lashio” on Thursday morning and also took the town of 150,000 people.
MNDAA spokesman Li Jiawen confirmed that his group’s fighters had captured Lashio, without giving further details. Junta spokesman Zaw Min Tun described the information as “false.”
“The insurgents infiltrated the outskirts of Lashio,” he told reporters via Viber messaging service, “and security forces tracked and cleared them.” He did not provide details.
Recent resumption of fighting
On social media, a video allegedly taken in the morning in Lashio shows deserted streets with no soldiers in sight. AFP journalists geolocated the video to an area about two kilometers from the command post in northern Lashio.
The military has carried out several airstrikes around the city during the fighting, some residents said. Dozens of civilians have been killed or wounded in the recent fighting, according to the military, which has ruled since a 2021 coup, and local rescue workers.
Fighting resumed in Shan State in June, undermining a ceasefire brokered in January by Beijing with the MNDAA as well as the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) and the Arakan Army (AA).
China is a major ally of the Burmese junta, supplying it with weapons, but analysts say it also maintains ties with ethnic armed groups that hold territory near its border.
Beijing “pays great attention to the situation in northern Burma” and calls for an end to the fighting, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning told reporters on Thursday.
The Chinese government urges relevant parties “not to endanger the security of China’s borders and people in border areas, as well as Chinese projects, enterprises and personnel in Burma,” it added.
Criticisms from ASEAN States
According to MNDAA spokesman Li Jiawen, three people were killed and 10 others injured, including three Chinese nationals, in airstrikes this week on Laukkai, a MNDAA-held town on the Chinese border.
The MNDAA had retaken Laukkai in January, from which it had been driven out in 2009 by troops then led by the current head of the junta, Min Aung Hlaing.
Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi on Thursday condemned the unwillingness of Myanmar’s generals to engage in a regional peace plan aimed at resolving the civil war that has ravaged Myanmar since a 2021 coup.
Retno Marsudi denounced “the lack of commitment” of Burmese generals, on the sidelines of a meeting of foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Vientiane, Laos.
A few weeks after taking power in 2021, the Burmese junta signed a peace plan proposed by ASEAN, but never implemented it. “We share the same view on the lack of commitment of the military junta in Burma to implement the five-point consensus,” wrote Mme Marsudi on his X account.
The Burmese crisis is a source of discord within ASEAN itself, with some countries such as Indonesia and the Philippines calling for tough measures, while others such as Thailand are holding bilateral discussions with the junta.
Diplomatic efforts by Burma’s neighbours to find a way out of the crisis have so far yielded no tangible results.
Since October 2021, the generals have been sidelined from ASEAN summits and ministerial meetings and have refused to send a junior representative. But this time, a senior official from Naypyidaw is present in Vientiane.
This willingness to return to the negotiating table is a “sign of the weakening of the junta,” a diplomat who will participate in the talks told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
For months, the junta has suffered defeat after defeat at the hands of ethnic armed groups and pro-democracy forces fighting it. Foreign ministers struggled to agree on a common position for the meeting’s final communiqué, a diplomatic source told AFP.
“The Burma issue is not yet resolved, but we are almost there,” said the source, who requested anonymity to speak to the media.
In a provisional document that AFP was able to consult, the ministers plan to “firmly condemn” the continuation of the violence.