Border Guard Forces

Not to be confused with the Border Guard Police.

Border Guard Forces

Shoulder sleeve insignia of the Border Guard Forces

Founded| April 2009 (2009-4)
Country|  Myanmar
Branch|  Myanmar Army
Type| Border guard
Light infantry
Role| Border control
Counterinsurgency
Counterintelligence
Forward observer
Guerrilla warfare
HUMINT
Indirect fire
Internal security
Irregular warfare
Jungle warfare
Mountain Warfare
Patrolling
Raiding
Reconnaissance
Screening
Tracking
Size| 8,000 (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 of| Tatmadaw
Nickname(s)| BGF
Commanders
Minister of Defence| General Mya Tun Oo
Commander-in-Chief of Myanmar Armed Forces| Senior General Min Aung Hlaing
Regional commanders| Several generals, including Saw Chit Thu
Insignia
Flag of Myanmar Border Guard Forces[1][2][3]|

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

[edit]

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.[4] 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.[5][6]

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.[7] 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.[8]

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.[9][10]

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.[5]

### Karen Border Guard Forces

[edit]

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.[11]

### Karen BGF Split

[edit]

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.[12] 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.[13]

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.[14][15] On 6 March, the Karen BGF announced it would rename itself to the "Karen National Army" later in the month.[16]

## Structure

[edit]

There are no official government guidelines regarding BGFs, but there are lines in the Burmese constitution that reference them.[17] The following are de facto rules set by the Tatmadaw upon creation of the Border Guard Forces:[5][7]

* 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 battalion 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

[edit]

### Current Border Guard Forces

[edit]

All according to Asia Foundation[18]

BFG #  | Transformation Date  | Township(s)  | Previous Status  | Notes

|
|
|
|

1007  | 30 March 2010  | Mong Ton | Lahu Democratic Front  |
1008  | 30 March 2010  | Mong Yawng | Lahu Militia; Jakuni Militia  | Combination of both Lahu and Jakuni militias
1009  | 18 May 2010  | Tachileik | Lahu Militia  |
1010  | 20 May 2010  | Metman | Metman Militia  |
1011–1023  | 18–21 August 2009  | Kayin State |  Democratic Karen Buddhist Army | Several elements of the Karen BGF have remained loyal to the Tatmadaw and continue to be active throughout Karen State

### Former Border Guard Forces

[edit]

BGF #  | New Status  | Transformation Date  | Date of Change  | Township(s)  | Previous Status  | Notes

|
|
|
|
|
|

1001  | Captured and disarmed  | 8 November 2009  | 31 October 2024[19] |

* Chipwi
* Hsawlaw

|  New Democratic Army – Kachin |

* Formerly handled administration of Phimaw
* Captured by Kachin Independence Army

1002  | Captured and disarmed  | 8 November 2009  | 15 October 2024[20] |

* Chipwi
* Hsawlaw

|  New Democratic Army – Kachin |

* Formerly handled administration of Pang War
* Captured by Kachin Independence Army

1003  | Captured and disarmed  | 8 November 2009  | 20 November 2024  | Waingmaw |  New Democratic Army – Kachin |

* Formerly handled administration of Kanpaikti
* Captured by Kachin Independence Army[21]

1004  |  Karenni National People's Liberation Front | 8 November 2009  | 13 June 2023  |

* Hpasawng
* Loikaw

|  Karenni National People's Liberation Front | Defected to anti-junta resistance in June 2023
1005  |  Karenni National People's Liberation Front | 8 November 2009  | 13 June 2023  |

* Bawlakhe
* Mese

|  Karenni National People's Liberation Front | Defected to anti-junta resistance in June 2023
1006  | Disarmed  | 9 December 2009  | 5 January 2024  | Laukkai |  Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (BGF-faction)  |

* Originated out of a mutiny against the MNDAA after the 2009 Kokang incident
* Formerly handled administration of Kokang
* "Wiped out" and disarmed by MNDAA during the Battle of Laukkai[22]

1011  |  Karen National Army | 18 August 2009  | January 2024  | Hlaingbwe |  Democratic Karen Buddhist Army | Karen BGF No. 1011–1023 began distancing themselves from the junta in January 2024, eventually defecting to form the Karen National Army
1012  |  Karen National Army | 18 August 2009  | January 2024  | Hlaingbwe |  Democratic Karen Buddhist Army |
1013  |  Karen National Army | 18 August 2009  | January 2024  | Hpapun |  Democratic Karen Buddhist Army |
1014  |  Karen National Army | 18 August 2009  | January 2024  | Hpapun |  Democratic Karen Buddhist Army |
1015  |  Karen National Army | 20 August 2009  | January 2024  | Hlaingbwe |  Democratic Karen Buddhist Army |
1016  |  Karen National Army | 20 August 2009  | January 2024  | Hlaingbwe |  Democratic Karen Buddhist Army |
1017  |  Karen National Army | 20 August 2009  | January 2024  | Myawaddy |  Democratic Karen Buddhist Army |
1018  |  Karen National Army | 20 August 2009  | January 2024  | Myawaddy |  Democratic Karen Buddhist Army |
1019  |  Karen National Army | 20 August 2009  | January 2024  | Myawaddy |  Democratic Karen Buddhist Army |
1020  |  Karen National Army | 21 August 2009  | January 2024  | Myawaddy |  Democratic Karen Buddhist Army |
1021  |  Karen National Army | 21 August 2009  | January 2024  | Kawkareik |  Democratic Karen Buddhist Army |
1022  |  Karen National Army | 21 August 2009  | January 2024  | Kawkareik |  Democratic Karen Buddhist Army |
1023  |  Karen National Army | 21 August 2009  | January 2024  | Kyain Seikgyi | Karen Peace Force  |

## Ranks

[edit]

Rank group  | General / flag officers  | Senior officers  | Junior officers

|
|
|

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

[edit]

1. ^ "Myanmar Bangladesh border guard raising their flags 2020".
2. ^ "Myanmar Bangladesh border guard raising their flags 2022".
3. ^ "Tatmadaw order to change the arm patch of local people's militia".
4. ^ "Border guard plan could fuel ethnic conflict". IRIN. 29 November 2010. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 8 May 2016.
5. ^ 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.
6. ^ McCartan, Brian (30 April 2010). "Myanmar ceasefires on a tripwire". Asia Times. Archived from the original on 1 May 2010. Retrieved 21 March 2012.
7. ^ 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.
8. ^ "NDF Report on Ceasefire Groups Resisting SPDC's Pressure and Instability" (PDF). National Democratic Front (Burma). Mae Sot, Thailand. 7 March 2010. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 21 March 2012.
9. ^ "Tension sparks people to flee into China". Shan Herald. 24 August 2009. Archived from the original on 2 September 2009. Retrieved 29 August 2009.
10. ^ Dittmer, Lowell (30 September 2010). Burma Or Myanmar? the Struggle for National Identity. World Scientific. ISBN 9789814313643.
11. ^ "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.
12. ^ "BGF ထိပ်သီးခေါင်း‌ဆောင်များ နုတ်ထွက်ခြင်းမပြုရန် တပ်မတော်တိုက်တွန်း". Myanmar NOW (in Burmese). 15 January 2021. Archived from the original on September 29, 2022.
13. ^ "ယူနီဖောင်းချွတ်ရန် အစီအစဉ် မရှိသေးဟု ဗိုလ်မှူးကြီးစောချစ်သူပြော". Mizzima (in Burmese). 12 January 2021. Archived from the original on April 17, 2021.
14. ^ "ကရင်နယ်ခြားစောင့်တပ် သီးခြားရပ်တည်ရေး ဒုတပ်ချုပ်နဲ့ ဗိုလ်မှူးကြီးစောချစ်သူဆွေးနွေး". Radio Free Asia (in Burmese). Archived from the original on January 25, 2024.
15. ^ "ဒုတိယ ဗိုလ်ချုပ်မှူးကြီးစိုးဝင်း ကရင်ပြည်နယ်ကို နေ့ချင်းပြန်သွားရောက်". BBC News မြန်မာ (in Burmese). 23 January 2024. Archived from the original on January 24, 2024.
16. ^ "Karen BGF to rename itself 'Karen National Army'". Myanmar Now. 6 March 2024.
17. ^ 2008 Constitution of Myanmar p. 5, 79, and 155
18. ^ "Militias in Myanmar" (PDF). John Buchanan. July 2016.
19. ^ KIA Seizes Final Border Force HQ Despite Chinese Pressure
20. ^ Myanmar Junta-Allied Border Battalion Falls in Kachin Rare Earth Hub
21. ^ "The KIA has captured and cleared the last remaining stronghold of the Border Guard under Chinese pressure". Kachin News Group (in Burmese). 20 November 2024.
22. ^ "'Business is back': BGF adapts under pressure". Frontier Myanmar. 8 April 2024. Archived from the original on April 23, 2024.

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