, logo = Flag of the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army.svg , caption = Flag of the MNDAA , active= – present , leader = Peng Daxun , ideology = Kokang nationalism

Separatism Separatism is the advocacy of cultural, ethnic, tribal, religious, racial, governmental or gender separation from the larger group. As with secession, separatism conventionally refers to full political separation. Groups simply seeking greate ...

, partof = Myanmar National Truth and Justice Party , predecessor =

Communist Party of Burma The Communist Party of Burma (CPB), also known as the Burma Communist Party (BCP), is a clandestine communist party in Myanmar (Burma). It is the oldest existing political party in the country. Founded in 1939, the CPB initially fought ag ...

, successor =

Mongko Region Defence Army The Mongko Region Defence Army ( my, မုန်းကိုး ကာကွယ်ရေးတပ်; abbreviated MRDA) was an insurgent group based in Mongko, Shan State, Myanmar. The then-ruling military junta in Myanmar, the State Peac ...

(split in 1995) , headquarters = , area =

Kokang Self-Administered Zone The Kokang Self-Administered Zone ( my, ကိုးကန့် ကိုယ်ပိုင်အုပ်ချုပ်ခွင့်ရ ဒေသ ), as stipulated by the 2008 Constitution of Myanmar, is a self-administered zone in northern ...

Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...

, size = 10,000 , allies =

Northern Alliance The Northern Alliance, officially known as the United Islamic National Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan ( prs, جبهه متحد اسلامی ملی برای نجات افغانستان ''Jabha-yi Muttahid-i Islāmi-yi Millī barāyi Nijāt ...

Arakan Army The Arakan Army ( my, ရက္ခိုင့်တပ်တော်, Rakhaing Tattaw; abbreviated AA) is an ethnic armed organisation based in Rakhine State (Arakan). Founded on 10 April 2009, the AA is the military wing of the United Lea ...

Kachin Independence Army The Kachin Independence Army (KIA; Kachin: ''ShangLawt Hpyen''; my, ကချင်လွတ်လပ်ရေးတပ်မတော်) is a non-state armed group and the military wing of the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO), a po ...

Ta'ang National Liberation Army The Ta'ang National Liberation Army ( my, တအောင်း အမျိုးသား လွတ်မြောက်ရေး တပ်မတော်; abbreviated TNLA) in Myanmar (Burma), is the armed wing of the Palaung State Liberati ...

Other allies * People's Defence Force * Karenni Nationalities Defence Force , opponents = *

Tatmadaw Tatmadaw (, , ) is the official name of the armed forces of Myanmar (formerly Burma). It is administered by the Ministry of Defence and composed of the Myanmar Army, the Myanmar Navy and the Myanmar Air Force. Auxiliary services include th ...

Myanmar Police Force The Myanmar Police Force ( my, မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ ရဲတပ်ဖွဲ့), formerly the People's Police Force (), is the law enforcement agency of Myanmar. It was established in 1964 as an independent department under ...

Union of Myanmar The State Peace and Development Council ( my, နိုင်ငံတော် အေးချမ်းသာယာရေး နှင့် ဖွံ့ဖြိုးရေး ကောင်စီ ; abbreviated SPDC or , ) was the offi ...

(until 2011) , battles =

Internal conflict in Myanmar Insurgencies have been ongoing in Myanmar since 1948, the year the country, then known as Burma, gained independence from the United Kingdom. The conflict has largely been ethnic-based, with several ethnic armed groups fighting Myanmar's ...

2009 Kokang incident The Kokang incident was a violent series of skirmishes that broke out in August 2009 in Kokang in Myanmar's northern Shan State. Several clashes between the Burmese military junta forces (including the Myanmar Armed Forces, also known as Tat ...

2015 Kokang offensive The 2015 Kokang offensive was a series of military operations launched by the Myanmar Army in 2015 in Kokang in northern Shan State, Myanmar (Burma). Several clashes between the Myanmar Army and Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army had t ...

* Muse offensive *

Myanmar civil war (2021–present) Insurgencies have been ongoing in Myanmar since 1948, the year the country, then known as Burma, gained independence from the United Kingdom. The conflict has largely been ethnic-based, with several ethnic armed groups fighting Myanmar's ...

, website = The Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) is an armed

resistance group A resistance movement is an organized effort by some portion of the civil population of a country to withstand the legally established government or an occupying power and to disrupt civil order and stability. It may seek to achieve its objectives ...

in the

Kokang Kokang ( my, ကိုးကန့်; ) is a region in Myanmar (Burma). It is located in the northern part of Shan State, with the Salween River to its west, and sharing a border with China's Yunnan Province to the east. Its total land area i ...

region,

(Burma). The army has existed since 1989, having been the first one to sign a

ceasefire A ceasefire (also known as a truce or armistice), also spelled cease fire (the antonym of 'open fire'), is a temporary stoppage of a war in which each side agrees with the other to suspend aggressive actions. Ceasefires may be between state act ...

agreement with the

Burmese government Myanmar ( also known as Burma) operates ''de jure'' as a unitary assembly-independent republic under its 2008 constitution. On 1 February 2021, Myanmar's military took over the government in a coup, causing ongoing anti-coup protests. P ...

. The ceasefire lasted for about two decades.

History

The group was formed on 12 March 1989, after the local

leader,

Pheung Kya-shin Pheung Kya-shin (; my, ဖုန်းကြားရှင်; 5 February 1931 – 16 February 2022) was the chairman of the Kokang Special Region in Myanmar (Burma) and the leader of the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA). B ...

(also spelt Peng Jia Sheng or Phone Kyar Shin), dissatisfied with the communist government, broke away and formed the MNDAA.South, Ashley (2008). ''Ethnic politics in Burma: states of conflict.'' Taylor & Francis. p. 140. . Along with his brother, Peng Jiafu, they became the new unit in

.Rotberg, Robert (1998). ''Burma: prospects for a democratic future.'' Brookings Institution Press. p. 169. The strength of the army is between 1,500 and 2,000 men. The rebels soon became the first group to agree to a ceasefire with the government troops. Thus the Burmese government refers to the Kokang region controlled by the MNDAA as "

Shan State Special Region 1 Kokang ( my, ကိုးကန့်; ) is a region in Myanmar (Burma). It is located in the northern part of Shan State, with the Salween River to its west, and sharing a border with China's Yunnan Province to the east. Its total land area ...

", indicating the MNDAA was the first group in the area of Shan State to sign a ceasefire agreement. After the ceasefire, the area underwent an economic boom, with both the MNDAA and regional

Myanmar Armed Forces Tatmadaw (, , ) is the official name of the armed forces of Myanmar (formerly Burma). It is administered by the Ministry of Defence and composed of the Myanmar Army, the Myanmar Navy and the Myanmar Air Force. Auxiliary services include t ...

(Tatmadaw) troops profiting from increased

opium Opium (or poppy tears, scientific name: ''Lachryma papaveris'') is dried latex obtained from the seed capsules of the opium poppy '' Papaver somniferum''. Approximately 12 percent of opium is made up of the analgesic alkaloid morphine, whic ...

harvests and

heroin Heroin, also known as diacetylmorphine and diamorphine among other names, is a potent opioid mainly used as a recreational drug for its euphoric effects. Medical grade diamorphine is used as a pure hydrochloride salt. Various white and brown ...

-refining. The area also produces

methamphetamine Methamphetamine (contracted from ) is a potent central nervous system (CNS) stimulant that is mainly used as a recreational drug and less commonly as a second-line treatment for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and obesity. Methamph ...

.Shanty, Frank; Mishra, Patit Paban (2007). ''Organized crime: from trafficking to terrorism.'' ABC-CLIO. p. 70. The MNDAA and other

paramilitary A paramilitary is an organization whose structure, tactics, training, subculture, and (often) function are similar to those of a professional military, but is not part of a country's official or legitimate armed forces. Paramilitary units carr ...

groups control the cultivation areas, making them an easy target for

drug trafficking A drug is any chemical substance that causes a change in an organism's physiology or psychology when consumed. Drugs are typically distinguished from food and substances that provide nutritional support. Consumption of drugs can be via inhalati ...

and organised crime groups. The Peace Myanmar Group allegedly launders and reinvests MNDAA's drug profits into the legal economy.

2009 Kokang conflict

In August 2009, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army became involved in a violent conflict with the Myanmar Armed Forces. This was the largest outbreak of fighting between ethnic armies and government troops since the signing of the ceasefire 20 years earlier. As a result of the conflict, the MNDAA lost control of the

, and as many as 30,000

refugee A refugee, conventionally speaking, is a displaced person who has crossed national borders and who cannot or is unwilling to return home due to well-founded fear of persecution.

s fled to

Yunnan Yunnan , () is a landlocked province in the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the ...

province in neighbouring China.

2015 offensive

On 9 February 2015 the MNDAA tried to retake the area, clashing with Burmese government forces in Laukkai. The skirmishes left a total of 47 Government soldiers dead and 73 wounded. After several months of intense conflict, Kokang insurgents had failed to capture Laukkai. Following the incident, the government of China was accused of giving military assistance to the ethnic Kokang soldiers.

2017 clashes

On 6 March 2017, MNDAA insurgents attacked police and military posts in Laukkai, resulting in the deaths of 30 people.

2021 post-coup resistance

Clashes with the

resumed after the

military coup A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...

, with MNDAA alongside its allies, AA and

, attacking a police station south of

Lashio Lashio ( ; Shan: ) is the largest town in northern Shan State, Myanmar, about north-east of Mandalay. It is situated on a low mountain spur overlooking the valley of the Yaw River. Loi Leng, the highest mountain of the Shan Hills, is located ...

, killing at least 14 police officers and burning the station to the ground. MNDAA and TNLA further launched attacks in multiple locations in Northern Shan State on 4 and 5 May 2021, inflicting heavy casualties on the Myanmar military.

Notes

References

External links

* * {{Insurgent groups in Myanmar Rebel groups in Myanmar Paramilitary organisations based in Myanmar Kokang 1989 establishments in Myanmar