A group of Myanmar exiles led by a Canada-based 'prince' has declared independence for the Shan State, which borders Thailand in eastern Myanmar.

The group is led by 67-year-old Calgary based Sao Hkam Hpa who goes by the honorary title Shan Prince Sao Surkhanpha. He is the eldest son of the country's first president.

An open market in Shan the state in Myanmar

The move has angered Myanmar's military junta which has declared the Hkam Hpa's group illegal, saying people who help it will face up to five years in prison.

"The government will safeguard sovereignty and non-disintegration of the country, and will never permit any part of the country to be seceded," Information Minister Brigadier General Kyaw Hsan was quoted as saying by the Myanma Ahlin newspaper.

"The futile attempt to disintegrate the Union of Myanmar is not accepted by other ethnic groups," including those that have signed cease-fire agreements with the government, he said. Unperturbed, the self-appointed government of Shan State has called on Thailand to recognise its independence.

"We are in the process of seeking recognition from foreign countries and the United Nations," Hkun Hom the new "Shan foreign minister" said.

Hkun Hom said he would send a letter to the Thai government seeking support for Shan independence.

He said 855 people had secretly voted for independence in the past two years in Shan State, including the Shan State Army, led by Colonel Yod Serk. About eight million people live in Shan State.

Khuensai, director of the Chiang Mai-based Shan Herald Agency for News, said most Shan people in Thailand wanted an elected government, not a self-proclaimed one.

Myanmar's military government says it will never allow secession after ethnic Shan rebels declared independence, state-run newspapers reported recently.

Sao Shwe Thaike, a Shan, was the country's first president after it gained independence from Britain in 1948. He handed over the presidency in 1952 and was arrested a decade later when the late dictator General Ne Win took power.

Sao Shwe Thaike died in prison. His family staged an unsuccessful rebellion against the government in 1963 from Thailand and later moved to Canada.

Myanmar is made up of seven states inhabited mostly by ethnic minorities. Seven other areas, called divisions, are home to the majority Myanmar people. Shan territory is the largest of the ethnic states in eastern Myanmar bordering Thailand and China's Yunnan Province.

Chao Tzang Yawnghwe

One of the group's leaders Chao Tzang Yawnghwe, died from a brain tumour at his home in Vancouver last year.

He was one of the original leaders of the Shan State army that was fighting for a separate state in the northeast of the country.

But he was squeezed out by communist factions and settled in Thailand before moving to Canada.

Here he became a leading light among the exiled Myanmar community and was an adviser to a series of dissident movements.