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February 17th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda More than a million Kachin live here, one of the largest of the ethnic groups that make up a third of the Burmese population and occupy a huge swath of its territory, areas that the Burmese junta always tightly controlled because of their vast wealth of natural resources.
The Kachin claim, perhaps romantically, to be descended from Mongolians, maybe from the armies of Genghis Khan himself. They have their own dialect and are predominantly Christian; a legacy of British missionaries. Their televised propaganda shows images of Jesus beaming down on marching KIA troops, or of Charlton Heston as Moses leading the Jews out of Egypt.
Since last June, when a 17-year cease fire between the KIA and the Burmese government broke, more than 100 KIA soldiers have died, and tens of thousands of Kachin have fled their homes as the battle raged around them. There is no record of civilian casualties.
Anxious to placate the international community, which has condemned the conflict, Thein Sein, the Burmese president, ordered his troops to stop their attacks. He was ignored.
“There is still fierce fighting every day. You can call it a war of self-defence because they are advancing into our areas,” said Brigadier General Sumlut Gun Maw, the 49-year-old vice chief of staff for the KIA.
Last week, fighting was fiercest in a zone controlled by the KIA’s third brigade around a key oil pipeline that will, when it is completed, give China a vital link to the Indian Ocean.
“It is hard to say how much control the government has over the Burmese army,” he added. “There are parts of our constitution which allow the army to disobey the president, and there is likely to be some disagreement at the top.”
The Burmese government now faces a dilemma. The United States and Europe have said economic sanctions against the country will not be lifted until the conflict with the Kachin, and other ethnic groups, ends.
But while they have entered into peace talks, the Kachin say they will not stop fighting until their petition for autonomy has been addressed.
Many of Burma’s other ethnic groups, such as the Shan and the Karen have similar aspirations for self-determination, including the right to control the resources under their feet.
“It is a nightmare for the new government, because they say if they give independence to us, they will have to give it to the other ethnic areas. And that is true,” said Sumlut Gam, the 69-year-old leader of a 12-man delegation that held peace talks with the Burmese government last month in the Chinese border town of Ruili.
Brig Gen Sumlut is relaxed enough about his new political power, despite heavy troop losses, to spend his afternoons playing golf on a six-hole course at his headquarters in Laiza.
His funding is arriving from taxes on the jade and gold mines under KIA control, and also from “overseas communities”. When the Telegraph visited, he was hosting a group of Kachin Christian missionaries who had arrived from the United States.
Outnumbered, the KIA appears to be losing the war, pressed back into a sliver of land against the Chinese border. In Laiza, military training has intensified. Among the 237 new recruits this week are several who appear to have only just reached their teens.
Meanwhile, at a military hospital nearby, the victims of the fighting lay on mattress-less beds. Four men, who had tripped enemy land mines and lost their feet, were waiting for prosthetic limbs.
“The enemy uses its strength of numbers, advancing line after line and firing large mortars,” said Kumbau Naw Mai, 29, who was peppered with shrapnel. “Our tactics vary. Sometimes we creep up on them, shoot and run. Sometimes we wait for them to come to us and then open fire.”
More than 50,000 villagers have been displaced by the fighting and are now living in 17 sprawling camps. At the vast Jayang camp, just outside Laiza, nearly 6,000 people are living in huts woven from bamboo, on rations of two cups of rice a day. “They give us rice, salt and cooking oil,” said Maran Hkawn Nan, a 35-year-old mother of three. “The children are always hungry”.
She left her home, a four-day walk away, after Burmese soldiers began arresting men in her village. “They think we are all rebel fighters,” she said. “We heard the men they took screaming and we do not know where they are now.”
One Christian aid group, Partners Relief Development, said it had evidence of potential war crimes by the Burmese army, including “torture, extrajudicial killing, (and) the specific targeting of civilians”.
The Kachin claim torture is widespread. “When our 12th battalion was captured, the Burmese soldiers raped, tortured and killed a mother of a three-month-old child,” said Labang Doi Pi Sa, the head of the Kachin relief committee. He added there had been “several” other cases, including one in which a husband had watched through binoculars as his wife, stripped below the waist, was dragged “like a doll” between Burmese soldiers before eventually disappearing.
At least 5,000 refugees have also fled into a triangle of China and are now living, in limbo, some in old logging cabins. Anxious not to offend either side, the Chinese have ordered them to return, but have not enforced the order. However, they will not permit any aid to reach them.
The conflict began after a series of provocations resulted in the death of a Kachin corporal in June. Until then, the KIA had held to an uneasy ceasefire as they pressed for political recognition that never came; in 2010 they were banned from national elections.
“We are focusing on a genuine union and an autonomous state,” said Mr Sumlut. “If they say no, it means they will not stop fighting us, and if they do not stop, we cannot stop.” He added: “Even as we held the last peace talks, they were advancing their troops.”
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