Border Guard Forces

Border Guard Forces
Shoulder sleeve insignia of the Border Guard Forces
FoundedApril 2009 (2009-04)
Country Myanmar
Branch Myanmar Army
TypeBorder guard
Light infantry
RoleBorder control
Counterinsurgency
Counterintelligence
Forward observer
Guerrilla warfare
HUMINT
Indirect fire
Internal security
Irregular warfare
Jungle warfare
Mountain Warfare
Patrolling
Raiding
Reconnaissance
Screening
Tracking
Size8,000 (Karenic Kayin BGF)
4,000 (Karenic Kayan BGF)
5,000 (Karenic Pa-O BGF)
2,000 (Kachin KDA+NDA-K)
1,000 (Kokang BGF)
= 20,000 (total)
Part ofTatmadaw
Nickname(s)BGF
Commanders
Minister of DefenceGeneral Mya Tun Oo
Commander-in-Chief of Myanmar Armed ForcesSenior General Min Aung Hlaing
Regional commandersSeveral generals, including Saw Chit Thu
Insignia
Flag of Myanmar Border Guard Forces
Military unit

Border Guard Forces (Burmese: နယ်ခြားစောင့်တပ်; abbreviated BGF) are subdivisions of the Tatmadaw (Myanmar Armed Forces) consisting of former insurgent groups in Myanmar under the instruction of Regional Military Commands. The government announced its plan to create Border Guard Forces in April 2009, in the hopes of ending hostilities between the government and insurgent groups leading up to the 2010 general election.

History

In 2008 the new constitution made it mandatory for insurgent groups to transition into a BGF before the government would agree to engage in peace talks.[1] Following the government announcement on BGFs, the government set a deadline for all insurgent groups to transition into BGFs, and that all ceasefire agreements prior to the deadline would become "null and void". The deadline was originally set to be June 2009, but was delayed five times until September 2010.[2][3]

In April 2009, Lieutenant General Ye Myint led a government entourage to meet with Kokang, Shan and Wa insurgent groups, to discuss plans to create "collective security" formed by insurgent groups and under the command of the Tatmadaw, which would eventually lead to the creation of the Border Guard Forces.[4] In 2009, four of the insurgent groups, the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, the Kachin Defence Army (4th Brigade of the KIA), the New Democratic Army - Kachin (NDA-K) and the Pa-O National Organisation/Army (PNO/A), accepted the transition plan's terms and transformed into BGF groups.[5]

On 20 August 2009, Tatmadaw soldiers and recently transitioned BGF groups gathered outside the town of Laukkai, Kokang, in preparation for an attempt to recapture the town from the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), after they refused to transform into a BGF.[6][7]

The government changed its aggressive stance towards BGFs and ceasefires on 18 August 2011, when then President of Myanmar Thein Sein pledged to "make the ethnic issue a national priority" by offering open dialogue between the government and all insurgent groups, without the BGF requirement.[2]

In 2010, a powerful commander of DKBA Saw Chit Thu accepted the Burma government’s demands to transform itself into the Border Guard Force, under the command of the Tatmadaw and serving as the leader.[8]

In January 2021, the Tatmadaw pressured Saw Chit Thu and other high-ranking officers, including Major Saw Mout Thon and Major Saw Tin Win, to resign from the BGF. Major Saw Mout Thon of BGF Battalion 1022 resigned on January 8, along with 13 commanders, 77 officers, and 13 battalions from 4 regiments who collectively signed and submitted their resignations.[9] Amid controversy and under pressure, at least 7,000 BGF members resigned to protest the ouster of their top leaders. However, Saw refused to retire.[10]

On 23 January 2024, Saw Chit Thu told the media that he discussed with Vice-Senior General Soe Win, the Deputy Commander-in-Chief, that the Border Guard Force (BGF), would no longer wish to accept money and supplies from the military. They aim to stand independently, and he also claimed that they don't want to fight against their fellow Karen people.[11][12] On 6 March, the Karen BGF announced it would rename itself to the "Karen National Army" later in the month.[13]


Structure

There are no official government guidelines regarding BGFs, but there are lines in the Burmese constitution that reference them. The following are de facto rules set by the Tatmadaw upon creation of the Border Guard Forces:[2][4]

  • BGFs may only operate in the area they are assigned by the government
  • All members of a BGF are to be paid the same salary as a regular soldier in the Tatmadaw
  • Each BGF is to have exactly 326 personnel, 30 of whom are to be regular Tatmadaw soldiers
  • Important administrative positions are to be held only by Tatmadaw soldiers

List of Border Guard Forces

Current Border Guard Forces

All according to Asia Foundation[14]

Name Years Active Transformation Date(s) Headquarters Township(s) BFG # Notes
New Democratic Army – Kachin 1989-2009 8 November 2009 Pangwah 1001-1003 Originated as a communist faction of the Kachin Independence Organisation
Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (BGF-faction) 1989-2009 4 December 2009 Laukkai 1006 Originated out of a mutiny against the MNDAA after the 2009 Kokang incident
Kachin Defense Army 1990-2010 January 2010 Kawnghka M12-M19 Originated as the 4th Brigade of the Kachin Independence Army
Democratic Karen Buddhist Army 1994-2010 18-21 August 2010 Myawaddy 1011-1022
  • Originated from Buddhist soldiers that split from the Karen National Liberation Army
  • Brigade 5 split off in 2010
  • Distanced itself from junta since January 2024, with leader Colonel Saw Chit Thu announcing the BGF would refuse to fight, refuse junta salaries, and rename itself to the "Karen National Army"[15][16]
Lahu Democratic Front/Force ?-2010 30 March 2010/18 May 2010 Mongton 1007-1009 BGF-1008 includes Jakuni militia forces alongside the LDF
Karen Peace Force[17] 1997-2010 21-23 August 2010 Kawkareik 1023 Originated as a battalion of the Karen National Liberation Army

Former Border Guard Forces

Name Years Active Transformation Date Defection Date Headquarters Township(s) Former BFG # Notes
Karenni National People's Liberation Front 1978-2009, 2023-Present 9 November 2009 13 June 2023 Loikaw Township 1004-1005 Originated as a communist faction of the Karenni Army

Ranks

Rank group General / flag officers Senior officers Junior officers Officer cadet
Border Guard Forces
ဗိုလ်မှူးကြီး
bohmu:gyi:
ဒုတိယ ဗိုလ်မှူးကြီး
du.ti.ya. bohmu:gyi:
ဗိုလ်မှူး
bohmu:
ဗိုလ်ကြီး
bogyi:
ဗိုလ်
bo
ဒုတိယ ဗိုလ်
du.ti.ya. bo
Rank group Senior NCOs Junior NCOs Enlisted
Border Guard Forces No insignia
အရာခံဗိုလ်
ăyaganbo
ဒုအရာခံဗိုလ်
du.ăyaganbo
တပ်ခွဲတပ်ကြပ်ကြီး
tathkwè:tatkyatkyi:
တပ်ကြပ်ကြီး
tatkyatkyi:
တပ်ကြပ်
tatkyat
ဒုတပ်ကြပ်
du.tatkyatkyi:
တပ်သား
tattha:

References

  1. ^ "Border guard plan could fuel ethnic conflict". IRIN. 29 November 2010. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 8 May 2016.
  2. ^ a b c "Border Guard Force Scheme". www.mmpeacemonitor.org. Myanmar Peace Monitor. 11 January 2013. Archived from the original on 15 May 2016. Retrieved 8 May 2016.
  3. ^ McCartan, Brian (30 April 2010). "Myanmar ceasefires on a tripwire". Asia Times. Archived from the original on 1 May 2010. Retrieved 21 March 2012.
  4. ^ a b Wai Moe (31 August 2009). "Border Guard Force Plan Leads to End of Ceasefire". The Irrawaddy. Archived from the original on 2 March 2011. Retrieved 21 March 2012.
  5. ^ "NDF Report on Ceasefire Groups Resisting SPDC's Pressure and Instability" (PDF). National Democratic Front (Burma). Mae Sot, Thailand. 7 March 2010. Archived (PDF) from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 21 March 2012.
  6. ^ "Tension sparks people to flee into China". Shan Herald. 24 August 2009. Archived from the original on 2 September 2009. Retrieved 29 August 2009.
  7. ^ Dittmer, Lowell (30 September 2010). Burma Or Myanmar? the Struggle for National Identity. World Scientific. ISBN 9789814313643.
  8. ^ "Kayin State BGF officers and others collectively resign". Eleven Media Group. 16 January 2021. Archived from the original on 29 September 2022. Retrieved 12 September 2023.
  9. ^ "BGF ထိပ်သီးခေါင်း‌ဆောင်များ နုတ်ထွက်ခြင်းမပြုရန် တပ်မတော်တိုက်တွန်း". Myanmar NOW (in Burmese). 15 January 2021.
  10. ^ "ယူနီဖောင်းချွတ်ရန် အစီအစဉ် မရှိသေးဟု ဗိုလ်မှူးကြီးစောချစ်သူပြော". Mizzima (in Burmese). 12 January 2021.
  11. ^ "ကရင်နယ်ခြားစောင့်တပ် သီးခြားရပ်တည်ရေး ဒုတပ်ချုပ်နဲ့ ဗိုလ်မှူးကြီးစောချစ်သူဆွေးနွေး". Radio Free Asia (in Burmese).
  12. ^ "ဒုတိယ ဗိုလ်ချုပ်မှူးကြီးစိုးဝင်း ကရင်ပြည်နယ်ကို နေ့ချင်းပြန်သွားရောက်". BBC News မြန်မာ (in Burmese). 23 January 2024.
  13. ^ "Karen BGF to rename itself 'Karen National Army'". Myanmar Now. 6 March 2024.
  14. ^ "Militias in Myanmar" (PDF). Asia Foundation. July 2016.
  15. ^ "Kayin Border Guard Force cuts ties with Myanmar junta". Radio Free Asia. 25 January 2024.
  16. ^ "Karen BGF to rename itself 'Karen National Army'". Myanmar Now. 6 March 2024.
  17. ^ "DKBA CONTINUE TO FORCIBLY RECRUIT VILLAGERS WHILE THE KAREN PEACE FORCE JOINS THE BURMA ARMY BORDER GUARD FORCE". Free Burma Rangers. 28 September 2010.
  18. ^ https://acleddata.com/dashboard/#/dashboard
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