Posted: 05/20/2010 at 3:15pm | IP Logged

BURMA (ANS) -- The brutal war against the tribal Karen people, one of Burma's largest ethnic minorities, has passed its 61st year making it the longest running civil war in history.

Karen Veteran has seen over 40 battles with the Burmese Regime

For the Karen National Union (KNU) the leading political organization of the Karen people, the news of Burma's dictatorship holding elections this year offers little hope for freedom. The National League for Democracy, the party of Aung Sung Suu Kyi and the National Democratic Front (NDF) an alliance of ethnic minorities, have announced they will boycott the elections.

Their pessimism is easily justified as the international community has been virtually stymied for decades in trying to deal with Burma's unflinching military dictatorship and never ending human rights abuses.
 

Children at a IDP camp in Karen State-photo taken 2009

The KNU's defense forces, the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) continue defending their people from ethnic cleansing and in a historic event have reclaimed some villages destroyed under Burma's scorched earth policy.

In early 2010 I ventured into Karen State, the disputed territory between the Burmese regime and ethnic Karens. Here in a jungle camp I visited the Karen soldiers defending their people who are trying to rebuild their villages. The area is located near the Thai border and the villages were attacked with mortars and burned by Burmese troops in 2009. The village defenses were impressive given the KNU is virtually unsupported by other countries. Burma on the other hand receives an ample supply of weapons and military hardware from many countries including China, Russia and North Korea.

The KNU have taken upon it themselves to reintegrate their refugees back to their ancestral lands, with a Karen volunteer force to defend the returnees from further attacks. Village life offers a welcome change for former refugees who can escape the drudgery of refugee camps that are now birthing a second generation of stateless people. The rebuilding was work in progress however and charred remains of destroyed huts could still be seen. There were even markers pointing out areas yet un-cleared of Burmese landmines.

In the nearby military camp I met the commander of these "Special Force" troops guarding the villages. The commander was none other than the son of legendary Karen General and former KNU president Bo Mya. General Mya began his career in World War II fighting with the British having served with the famous 136 Brigade.
 

Colonel Ner Dah and some of his Special Force Troops

While Bo Mya passed away in 2006 at the age of 79, now in this forest headquarters his eldest son Colonel Ner Dah demonstrated every intention to follow his father's footsteps. Ner Dah in his thirties was determined not to allow this region to fall back into enemy hands.

"This is the first reclaimed village" he declared. "We want to show to the SPDC that we will never give up. Doesn't matter what they do to our people. We have a heart for freedom. Not because we want to fight but we want to live as a normal people. We want to have our basic freedom and that's why we are fighting to defend our territory".

Ner Dah was armed with an M-16 and carried an automatic pistol. His troops guided us through the camp and led us along a jungle trail to the reclaimed villages. The soldiers carried automatic weapons, some captured from the battlefield and in an orderly professional manner they patrolled our immediate area. They fanned out when we met the villagers who were constructing homes, cutting bamboo beams and going about their daily business.
 

Villagers and KNLA troops mingle at a reclaimed village

We asked the villages to describe what had happened to their former village. A woman spoke up, and Ner Dah interpreted her describing the 2009 attack, "When the Burmese came they burned everything so they didn't dare stay in this village. They move out before the Burmese arrive because before they arrive they were shelling mortars, so she got some babies and ran to Thailand across the border." The woman had lived in a refugee camp before recently returning under the protection of this Special Force Unit.

The humanitarian situation is incredulous along the Thai/Burma border and refugees number in the hundreds of thousands. Mai La refugee camp in Thailand for example officially has some 33,000 refugees. The actual figure however, is much higher estimated at over 50,000 people. Inside Burma, the Thai Burma Border Consortium estimates there are possibly one million internally displaced people (IDPs) from the various ethnic minority states, including Chins, Kachins, Wa, Mons, Karenni, Shan and others. All are victims of the SPDC's scorched earth policy.

General Than Shwe is the mastermind behind this humanitarian crisis and his government, a military mafia is ironically called the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC). Natural gas, mining, logging, forced labor, amphetamine dealing are all enterprises his cronies controls. The SPDC's hands are infamously drenched in blood and countless NGOs and governments have crowned them one of the world's most repressive regimes.

In the jungle camp, Ner Dah described the SPDC's scorched earth tactic. "What the Burmese are trying to do is there execute genocide against our people, when they come to the Karen villages they rape woman, they kill, they use people for forced labour, they will run people up and put in the front lines".

In the villages, I saw at least three people who had lost legs to landmines. Virtually everyone there, soldiers and civilians, men woman and children had experienced the brutality of the SPDC. Ner Dah, himself saw many burned villages and described them in detail.

"When the Burmese come to their village even though sometime they burn and sometime they don't burn but they lay the land mines, and also they kill everything when they come to the village. They kill chicken, cows, they disrupt lives such as the plantation of the civilians. So when they do like that many starve to death in the jungle living without medicine, without health care and many children die from malaria and diarrhoea".
 

Women and children guarded by a KNLA soldier with a newly rebuilt house in the background

Earlier, in Thailand, I spoke to the General Secretary of the KNU, Zipporra Sein who said within the last 10 years some "3000 Karen villages have been destroyed" by the SPDC and an estimated "7,000 farms and orchards destroyed and forcibly abandoned". She also described the horrors of the Burmese army using rape as a weapon against Karen woman in various reports issued by the Karen Woman's Organization.

One night in the jungle camp, we sat with Ner Dah and his soldiers in a newly constructed longhouse. We drank tea and discussed the future of the Karen struggle. Ner Dah lamented, "We have been struggling for our freedom about 61 years already. One generation is gone, second generation is coming up. It is something we have to carry on because we cannot give up". One veteran, an older soldier also told his story, how his father and stepfather were killed by Burmese soldiers. He himself had been in over 40 battles with Burmese troops and been wounded several times. He showed no sign of ever surrendering and only wanted peace for his people.

The KNU leaders live in exile in Thailand and I spoke to the Vice President David Tharkabaw. He has been targeted for assassination by the SPDC many times and experienced their trickery for over 40 years. He described their promise of free elections this year as a "farce" saying the consequences would be dire if they accepted this ploy. "The whole Karen people, the whole Mon people, the whole Shan people would become you know, third grade citizens or fourth grade..become slaves. So long as this military regime is in power there will be no peace, no stability and no development".

The Vice President spoke in a quiet dignified manner, "We will go on in a non violent way, but the violent way, the Karen struggle is armed struggle, but essentially self defense. So we cannot give up." He exhibited a determination born out of faith, decency and the love of one's people. It was what Ner Dah had said to me in the jungle camp - "A heart for freedom".

Source: (ANS) www.assistnews.net