Kachin Independence Army (KIA) torched a building owned by Yuzana Co Ltd, destroying vehicles and other expensive machines in the warehouse located near Lido Road, in Hukawng Valley, Kachin State.

According to an eyewitness, KIA’s Battalion14 attacked the company, located in the village of Bangkok, in Tanai Township, at 1 am on Thursday, April 1. The fire destroyed a backhoe, bulldozer, five vehicles, three road graders and two road rollers. Typically the premises is protected by Burma Army soldiers but no-one was present during the attack.

Yuzana Co Ltd was established in 1994 by Htay Myint, who has close ties with previous regime leader Than Shwe and Khin Nyunt, Chief of Intelligence under Than Shwe.

Since 2006, the company seized over 400,000 acres of land from farmers for its cassava and sugarcane agribusiness in Kachin State. The company is also involved in the construction, hospitality, real estate and fishery industries.

On March 11, KIA destroyed a Burma Army military camp, attacked a People’s Militia Force camp and police station, several days after the junta’s armed forces gunned down two protesters in Myitkyina. Burma Army responded with an airstrike on the ethnic armed organization the same day.

KIA recaptured a strategic mountaintop camp from Burma Army, in addition to several other camps located between Laiza and Mai Ja Yang in Kachin, on March 25. Burma Army took the mountain, which is located in Momauk Township, from KIA in the early ’90s.