The Mongko Region Defence Army ( my, မုန်းကိုး ကာကွယ်ရေးတပ်;

abbreviated An abbreviation (from Latin ''brevis'', meaning ''short'') is a shortened form of a word or phrase, by any method. It may consist of a group of letters or words taken from the full version of the word or phrase; for example, the word ''abbrevia ...

MRDA) was an insurgent group based in Mongko,

Shan State Shan State ( my, ရှမ်းပြည်နယ်, ; shn, မိူင်းတႆး, italics=no) also known by the Endonym and exonym, endonyms Shanland, Muang Tai, and Tailong, is a administrative divisions of Myanmar, state of Myanmar. ...

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 C. Wells, Joh ...

. The then-ruling military junta in Myanmar, the

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

(SPDC), allegedly encouraged the MRDA to cooperate with narcos on the

China–Myanmar border The China–Myanmar border is the international border between the territory of the People's Republic of China and Myanmar (formerly ''Burma''). The border is 2,129 km (1,323 mi) in length and run from the tripoint with India in the nor ...

History

In August 1995, Mong Hsala announced his split with Yang Maoliang and the

Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army , logo = Flag of the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army.svg , caption = Flag of the MNDAA , active= – present , leader = Peng Daxun , ideology = Kokang nationalismSeparatism , partof = Myanmar National Truth and Justice Party ...

(MNDAA), and renamed a brigade under his command to the Mongko Region Defence Army (MRDA). Immediately afterwards, the group signed a ceasefire with the government of Myanmar. In September 2000, deputy commander Li Nimen mutinied and ousted Mong Hsala from the group, with support from

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 ...

leader Peng Jiasheng, who had ousted Yang Maoliang from the MNDAA several years prior. After Li Nimen attempted to ambush government soldiers stationed around Mongko, the

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 ...

launched Operation ''Black Dragon'', capturing, disarming and executing Li Nimen and most of his men. The remaining members of the MRDA were forcibly enlisted into the

Myanmar Army The Myanmar Army ( my, တပ်မတော်(ကြည်း), ) is the largest branch of the Tatmadaw, Armed Forces (''Tatmadaw'') of Myanmar (Burma) and has the primary responsibility of conducting land-based military operations. The My ...

and the group was dissolved.

References

Paramilitary organisations based in Myanmar Rebel groups in Myanmar {{Myanmar-stub