Political and Security Questions 163 mandant. The area in which they operated was The Kuomintang forces had also interfered in divided into three zones: zone No. 1 was the the internal affairs of Burma, it was stated, and area east of the Salween River, containing some had everywhere engaged in subversive propa- 4,000 men; zone No. 2, in the north-eastern ganda against the Government. For example, sector, contained about 3,000 men; zone No. 3 when they had occupied the Mong Hsu area, comprised the Mong Hsat and Mong Pan area, they had deposed the ruling chief and replaced with some 4,000 men. him with one of their own, to whom they had The representative of Burma then gave a geo- given a Chinese bride. They also had issued leaf- graphical description of the general area around lets in Burmese and Shan inciting the citizens of Mong Hsat, explaining that the open spaces in the Union of Burma to rebel. Their objective was the immediate vicinity of Mong Hsat provided obviously to set the minority groups inhabit- excellent air drop zones and training grounds. ing the eastern portions of the Union of Burma The Kuomintang forces had set about improving against the lawfully established government. It and enlarging the air strip which had been built was obvious therefore that those self-styled anti- by the Allied forces during the war as an emer- Communist crusaders were not fighting the troops gency landing strip at Mong Hsat. Photographs of the People's Republic of China but were un- taken of the airfield at Mong Hsat, together with dermining the authority of the Burmese Govern- photographs of Kuomintang troops undergoing ment in the hope that they would eventually training at Mong Nyen training camp, gave evi- succeed in replacing it with a government more dence of these facts. amenable to their desires. There could be no clearer case of aggression than that. Emphasizing the rapid expansion of the Kuo- mintang troops in Eastern Burma at the begin- Referring to some of the depredations carried ning of 1952, the representative of Burma stated out by the Kuomintang troops against the ci- that, as early as January 1952, contact had been vilian population, the representative of Burma established between those troops and the Karen said that the most common crime had been for- insurgents in the Mawchi area, and early in 1952 cible demands for supplies or services. Since the Kuomintang troops had been sent to join with eastern portion of the Shan State was compara- the insurgents in their fight against Burmese tively poor, whole villages had been abandoned, forces. By the middle of 1952, about 1,000 Kuo- owing to inability to meet the demands of the mintang troops had been fighting side by side troops. In other instances, the villages had been with the insurgents in the area in which the ransacked or burnt down. The Kuomintang troops Karen rebellion had been still active. At the had demanded, in addition to food, building same time, small groups of Kuomintang troops material and labour. The Mong Hsat airfield had had made their way westward and northward been enlarged and improved by forced labour. across the Salween River and by December 1952 The local population had also been subjected to the Kuomintang concentrations in the Mong Hsu taxation and tolls of various kinds. There had and the Mong Pan areas had become so great been instances where villagers had been seized that they had been able to take forcible posses- and held for ransom. Some had been killed even sion of those States in the following months. The though the ransom had been paid. In other cases, significant fact about all the activities was that villagers had been seized and put to death on they had occurred in widely separated parts of suspicion of being spies of the Government or the Union of Burma at approximately the same otherwise unfriendly to the Kuomintang troops. time. That fact, the representative of Burma Civilian officials of the Government had been stated, indicated the existence of a concerted at- killed as part of a deliberate policy of disrupt- tempt on the part of the Kuomintang High ing the administration. Women had not been Command to gain control of areas within the spared. Furthermore, the Kuomintang troops had Union of Burma extending from the extreme engaged in large-scale smuggling of opium and northern limits of the Shan State to the sea in organized gambling. coasts at Moulmein and as far westward as Loi The representative of Burma then explained Kaw, in the Kayah State. The Burmese Govern- why his Government held that the activities of ment, he said, had conclusive evidence that the the Kuomintang troops in Burma were directed linking of the Kuomintang troops with the Karen and supported by the Taipei Government. Gen- insurgents was no mere accident but part of a eral Li Mi, he said, was the recognized leader of deliberate policy of the Kuomintang High Com- these forces. After the withdrawal of his forces mand to undermine the authority of the Govern- to Mong Hsat towards the end of 1951, the ment of the Union of Burma. General, according to newspaper dispatches, had