The Karen: Prospects for a Durable

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Subject: The Karen: Prospects for a Durable Peace

>From BURMA DEBATE
Nov/Dec 1996

The Karen: Prospects for a Durable Peace

This paper was prepared by a spokesperson of the Karen National Union
Supreme Headquarters

The situation of the Karen people has significantly deteriorated since Burma
received its independence from the British in 1948, due to the war imposed
on them by Burma's successive central governments. 

The roots of the conflict go back far into history. After the subjugation
and almost total annihilation of the Mon people in the 18th Century, the
Burmans found the Karen in the Irrawaddy delta to be ungovernable and a
hindrance to their ambition to control the coast-line. Karen resistance
against the Burman attempt to dominate them was not unlike what is taking
place today. Though the resistance was low-intensity, the cost to the Burman
military was considerable. 

The 1800s saw a series of Anglo-Burman wars, which served both to establish
a long relationship between the Karen and the British and drive a greater
divide between the Karen and the Burmans. When the British annexed the
Tenasserim and Arakan regions after the first Anglo-Burman war, the Karen
embraced the British as their liberators. During the second Anglo-Burman war
in 1845, the Karen served as scouts and advance guards for the British
troops. According to one account, at the start of that war the Burmans
eliminated all Karen within a 50 mile radius of Rangoon. 

The British occupation of lower Burma meant the end of harassment and
oppression by the Burman troops for the Karen and others in the Irrawaddy
delta. It also brought better administration, order and prosperity. Many
Karen in the Irrawaddy delta and Toungoo areas were converted to
Christianity by the American Baptist Missionaries (ABM), and many joined the
police force. 

Though the Burman population welcomed the new prosperity and respite from
heavy taxation and arbitrary treatment by soldiers under the rule of the
Burman kings, they resented the British rule and domination. To the Burman
nationalists, the British were "the infidels, destroyers of the Buddhist
faith, culture and the Burman race." 

The Karen were among the troops used by the British to quell a number of
rebellions following the complete annexation of Burma and during the era of
the Great Depression. As a result the most extreme Burman nationalists
branded the Karen as lackeys and spies of the British. This animosity
towards the Karen people flared into an ethnic war launched by elements of
the Burma Independence Army (BIA) against the Karen soon after the
occupation of Burma by the Japanese Imperial Army in 1942. As in all ethnic
wars, many atrocities took place. The British reoccupation of Burma in 1945
brought a great relief to the Karen. 

When independence was approaching in 1947, rather than feelings of
jubilation, the majority of the Karen population was wracked by fear,
confusion and almost total despair. Aung San (or General Aung San as he was
popularly known) was almost the only politician who rose above the racial
animosity and hatred toward the ethnic minorities commonly harbored by the
Burman politicians. The majority of the Burman leaders regarded the Karen as
a foothold left by the British for a future reoccupation of Burma. The
general perception among the Karen was that once the power was in the hands
of the Burmans, they would start to eliminate the Karen racially, culturally
and religiously. 

The assassination of Aung San extinguished any flicker of hope that the
Karen people had held for freedom and equal treatment in Burma. Rather than
that of a reasoned, balanced approach regarding the question of ethnic
nationalities, the period of independence was a time of 'hot -headedness' on
both sides. 

As the Karen had suspected, troops of General Ne Win began to commit
atrocities against Karen villagers in the Tenasserim, in December 1948. Soon
the attacks spread to the Irrawaddy delta and to Karen quarters in Rangoon
and Insein.  Resistance  by the Karen broke out in areas where the Karen
population formed more or less a majority. Since the Karen are a minority
vis-a-vis the Burmans, however, the Karen were forced to gradually give up
ground. During those long years of resistance, which now has lasted nearly
half a century, there is not a Karen village that has not suffered an
attack, at one time or another. A conservative estimate is that more than
half a million Karen have died as a direct or indirect consequence of the
civil war. 

The SLORC's pre-conditions for serious talks are, "to enter the legal fold;
to renounce the so-called armed revolutionary line and to promise to lay
down arms one day." The terms are, "when a cease-fire is in effect, the KNU,
and its armed wing, the KNLA will have to live within areas having a three
to five mile radius. The KNU cannot have any political dealings or freedom
of movement." 

The SLORC rejected the KNU's call for political dialogue once a cease-fire
agreement is reached. The KNU, on the other hand rejected the SLORC's
preconditions as irrelevant. 

The KNU knows how the people "in the legal fold" are treated and it is not
ready to submit to the same treatment. The KNU is not holding arms in order
to gain political power, but for self-defence. 
It is the position of the KNU that all parties must hold a dialogue for
settling political problems through political means. Only then can a durable
and genuine peace be achieved. The KNU is studying developments and
relations between the SLORC and cease-fire groups. To all appearances, the
SLORC is just buying time and using various means to weaken these groups.
When the SLORC feels that it can crush the groups militarily, it will demand
surrender from them or resume military actions. 

Even following the initiation of talks with the KNU, SLORC troops continue
to commit wide-spread 
violations of human rights against villagers in Karen areas and encouraging
religious fanatics to attack and harass the refugee camps. For these reasons
it is hard for the KNU to feel confident about the SLORC. 
Dialogue is the best solution for settling the underlying political problems
of the civil war and freedom for political activities. 

However, nonviolent means alone cannot bring peace and democracy, if SLORC
does not change its hard-lined position of retaining power by any means, and
crushing its opposition through brutal methods. 
The aspirations of the Karen people are to have democratic freedom, equality
and self-determination as a people within a genuine federal system of
government. Judging by the pronouncements of Aung San Suu Kyi and the
National League for Democracy's (NLD) position regarding the ethnic peoples,
the NLD would be able to correctly resolve the ethnic question to the
satisfaction of most ethnic groups. It seems that the NLD is the only major
political party that does not reek of racial chauvinism. 

The chances of true reconciliation within Burma are good. With foreign
pressure and the increasingly negative image of its pariah status, the SLORC
is seen to be weakening, one small step at a time, in spite of all the
defiance it has been demonstrating. It is our hope that SLORC's military
leaders will sooner or later soften their stand and agree to "a tripartite
dialogue" for solving the underlying political problems of the civil war. In
a genuinely democratic and federal Burma, there is no doubt that the Karen,
as well as other ethnic peoples, would enjoy fair and equal treatment. 




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