Kachin state is home to the last rebel insurgency left fighting in Myanmar that hasn’t signed a cease-fire with President Thein Sein’s government. Although the hills around Laiza have grown quiet for now, the dramatic upsurge in fighting underscored how far Myanmar is from achieving one of the things it needs most – a political settlement to end not just the war with the Kachin, but simmering conflicts with more than a dozen other rebel armies which have plagued the country for decades and still threaten its future.

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