COver StOry

During a visit to these positions on Jan. 16 and 17, there was an air of expectancy amongst the dug-in KIA soldiers since there had been no government attack for days. As they waited smoke rose up in the distance, where Tatmadaw soldiers were reportedly torching Nalung village.

The rebels—a mix of young and older men, equipped with plastic helmets, KIA-made automatic assault rifles and captured Tatmadaw guns—were calm. They seemed accustomed to the brutal attack methods that the Myanmar military had deployed since late December.

“Artillery is used first, then ground forces, and occasionally air support in the form of jet fighters and helicopter strafing,” Lt La Din told me. “It was difficult during the first two weeks because the KIA was not used to air attacks.”

In the late afternoon of Jan. 17, the Tatmadaw began its attacks on the Lajayang area with a prolonged artillery barrage. I dropped back behind the frontline at Upper Lajayang village and heard up to six 105-mm and 120-mm shells explode per minute for several hours.

The next morning on Jan. 18, after a sustained overnight attack, these outposts had fallen to the Tatmadaw and the KIA soldiers had retreated a few miles down the road to Laiza. The southern ground approach to the town was now difficult to defend for the rebels.

While the Tatmadaw attacked the Lajayang area it had also launched ferocious air, artillery and ground assaults on the Hkaya Bum mountain top outposts. But despite the heavy bombardments the KIA held out.

The government nonetheless announced on the evening of Friday Jan. 18 that all military operations had ceased as its strategic targets had been conquered.

The fact that the KIA had held Hkaya Bum perhaps surprised the government, which appeared to have planned the ceasefire announcement ahead of an important meeting with international donor countries on Jan. 19-20. Despite the government’s public promises, Tatmadaw assaults on Hkaya Bum would not end, although air attacks ceased.

A visit to the mountaintop position on Jan. 19 revealed that sporadic gunfire and mortar shelling continued that day. KIA soldiers made use of the relative calm to uncover three of their comrades, who had been buried alive when their bunker sustained a direct hit from an airstrike a day before.

The next day, Jan. 20, a large number of Tatmadaw ground forces launched a frontal assault on KIA positions on the mountaintop.

In the trenches there, I witnessed the Kachin soldiers taking regular casualties and two injured rebels were dragged to the safety of a dug-out bunker.

Yet, in the heat of the conflict they seemed almost casual. Some threw hand grenades, while another admonished his fellow fighter for shooting without aiming properly, saying “You should shoot better; otherwise they will laugh at us.”

Despite the KIA’s apparent resilience, the continuous attacks— from early Jan. 20 throughout the night until the afternoon the next day— proved too much for the rebels. “We relinquished our Hkaya Bum positions to avoid further loss of soldiers,” Col Zaw Tawng told me on Jan. 21.

Now, the Myanmar military held full control over the mountains around Laiza as well as the southern ground approach to the town. The KIA head- quarters and the Kachin town—where some 20,000 residents and another 15,000 displaced civilians had sought refuge—were vulnerable to Tatmadaw attacks.

It was only then that the heavy fighting ceased. Sporadic clashes continued but the KIA began to consolidate their last remaining defense positions on the outskirts of Laiza, the town that had been its stronghold since 1994.

With the government’s negotiating position strengthened and the KIA’s defense situation weakened, government peace negotiator U Aung Min and