Ukhrul, August 17: A Kachin student organization based in the United States has called for urgent dialogue between Kachin and Naga leaders as tensions rise over alleged abductions and forced conscriptions carried out by the Kachin Independence Army.
In a statement issued on Monday, the Kachin Wesean Students Association (KWSA) said it was “deeply alarmed” by reports from the Naga Students’ Organization, which last month accused Kachin forces of “unprovoked acts of aggression” against Naga civilians. The student group, which represents members of the Kachin diaspora, acknowledged that dozens of Naga youths had gone missing in recent weeks and warned that such actions threatened to fracture long-standing ties between the two ethnic groups.
“No revolutionary cause can justify kidnapping or intimidation of civilians,” the statement read. While praising the KIA’s resistance against Myanmar’s military junta, the group demanded the release of all Naga detainees and a halt to what it called “renewed waves of abductions.”
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The Kachin-Naga relationship, rooted in shared struggles against colonialism and Myanmar’s centralized military rule, has in the past been a source of solidarity. Many families straddle the ethnic line, and communities have long celebrated festivals and religious traditions together. “That history of solidarity is our greatest strength,” the KWSA said, “not a liability.”
But the association also placed some of the blame on Naga armed factions that have engaged with Myanmar’s military authorities in Sagaing Region. The statement criticized such dealings as tacit collaboration with a junta that has “employed divide-and-rule tactics for decades to weaken ethnic unity.”
The student group reserved its harshest words for Myanmar’s military, which seized power in a coup in 2021 and has since presided over a brutal campaign of repression. Human rights groups estimate that thousands of civilians have been killed, villages razed, and entire communities displaced. “It is the junta, not us, that has benefited from conflict between Kachins and Nagas,” the statement said.
Though the KWSA is based far from the conflict zones, with most of its members living in the United States, the group said many of its members still have family in Kachin State and Naga areas of Sagaing. “Distant is not the same as disinterested,” the statement said. “Our hearts bleed at the news of every village burned or every child conscripted.”
The association urged leaders from both communities — including student groups, civil society organizations, and armed factions — to come together “without preconditions” for dialogue. “The junta’s survival depends on our disunity; our liberation depends on our solidarity,” it said.
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The statement ended with a rare note of contrition. “If any act of ours has caused pain to Nagas, we sincerely apologize and commit to rectifying it,” the association wrote, before calling for Kachins and Nagas to “stand shoulder to shoulder against oppression.”