Trouble in the Triangle

If ever there was a country in need of a program to identify the players, it is cloistered, xenophobic Burma. Particularly in the uncharted "Golden Triangle," where a slice of northeastern Burma meets Thailand and Laos, the situation is a demographer's and political analyst's nightmare. Remnants of a Kuomintang army that fled China at the time of the Communist takeover vie with independent warlords for control of the region's rich opium crop, while armed independence movements representing a bewildering host of ethnic and tribal groups periodically challenge the Rangoon government of General Ne Win.

Now another threat has arisen. Since last fall a murky little war that pits the Burmese army against a large-scale offensive by a resurgent Burma Communist Party has been raging in the northeast. It is the largest rebellion to threaten Burma since the country gained its independence from Britain in 1948.

The Burma Communist Party launched its first major offensive at the end of 1971 by laying siege to the administrative outpost of Kunlong in the Wa States in the northeasternmost corner of Burma. The intensity of the Communist attack came as a surprise to Rangoon, which had hitherto paid scant attention to the existence of the small and weak party. But between 1968 and 1971, a group of Burmese Communists who had been given ideological training in China set up a strong organization among the peasants of the Shan State. The resulting attack on Kunlong ended in a standoff after six weeks. The B.C. P. withdrew east across the Salween River to the primitive Wa States, where they regrouped their forces.

Last fall the B.C.P. suddenly struck again. An estimated 10,000 insurgents overran the government garrison at Mongyang and threatened the city of Kengtung, which commands the approach to the strategic Mekong River and to Thailand. In December government forces regained Mongyang. The insurgents apparently still control some 10,000 sq. mi. north of Kengtung, where they have tied up as many as 20 battalions of the 135,000-man Burmese army.

Western intelligence experts know very little about the B.C.P. and where it gets its support. Some observers in Rangoon fear that the offensive represents a Chinese military thrust into the area. At the very least, the AK-47 rifles, howitzers and machine guns used by the B.C.P. could have come only from China's Yunnan province just across the border. According to U.S. State Department estimates, the vast majority of rank and file soldiers are ethnic Burmese. But most of the officers and cadres down to the company level are probably ethnic Chinese trained in China. Still, nobody can say for certain that they are regular Chinese soldiers. Along Burma's porous and largely unpoliced border with China, it is very difficult to know exactly who is who among the various ethnic groups and rebellious armies.

Puzzled Analysts. Nonetheless, there is some evidence that Peking is paying considerable attention to its Burmese border, although Western experts are not sure why. Since Burma and China resumed their fractured relations in mid-1971, there have been cordial high-level official visits, cultural exchanges and the reinstatement of a $56 million aid program by Peking. Burma also has a nonaggression pact with its giant northern neighbor, the only treaty that Rangoon has with any country in the world. Puzzled analysts speculate that China's long-range interest is in creating a buffer zone in Burma that would give the Chinese added security along its southern borders. The Chinese may be worried about countering growing Soviet influence in neighboring India and Bangladesh.

Whatever China's intentions and their own suspicions, officials in Rangoon have scrupulously avoided public accusations of Chinese involvement in the ongoing battle. Yet when government forces retook Mongyang, journalists were flown to the village and suggestively shown large maps of China and Yunnan province. That alone was daring enough for Rangoon, which is hesitant to do anything that might upset its delicate relations with Peking. Meanwhile, Ne Win's troubled forces face their greatest challenge without any foreign aid. Although there are no programs for military assistance and the military budget is being fast depleted, the government remains, at this point, not interested in outside help.

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