Burma military buildup has put Karn

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Subject: Burma military buildup has put Karnes on alert (The Asian Age, 12/2/97)

Burma military buildup has put Karens on alert
The Asian Age (New Delhi), 12/2/97.
 
Bangkok, Feb. 11 : Defeated two years ago and doubtful that the peace 
talks will ever bear fruit, Burma's ethnic Karen rebels are bracing for a 
new onslaught from the government forces.
 
The ethnic group's main rebel force, the Karen National Union, says it 
has been monitoring movements by large numbers of Burmese troops in areas 
near pockets of territory controlled by the KNU in eastern Burma. 
Merchants crossing from Burma on Monday into the north-western Thai 
border town of Mae Sot said 12 trucks had arrived in the area packed with 
Burmese troops who were conscripting porters, sources in Mac Sot said. 
The Burmese Army has long relied on porters, who human rights groups say 
are pressed into service. to carry the heavy weapons and supplies needed 
for. military offensives in the rugged terrain of the border regions.
 
Rangoon denies an offensive is in the works to wipe out Burma's oldest 
insurgency, and despite the KNU's trepidation, Rangoon says it is still 
holding out an olive branch to the rebels despite the failure of' four 
rounds of peace talks. "Some government troops were sent in for a 
security patrol along the border area." a Burmese government official 
said in a statement front Rangoon on Monday in response to questions. The 
statement followed recent attacks in Thailand on refugee camps housing 
ethnic Karens, many of' whom maintain close ties to the KNU, by renegade 
Karens who the KNU says are supported by the Burmese government.
 
Two camps were razed in simultaneous attacks on January 28. while a third 
was attacked the same night by the Democratic Buddhist Kayin Army, which 
helped the Burmese government overrun two key KNU bases in early 1995. A 
Burmese official said his government was waiting "with the doors wide 
open" for the new Karen peace talk proposal.
 
For their part, KNU officials in Mae Sot say they are waiting for Rangoon 
to respond to their latest proposal for a fifth round of cease-fire 
talks. But they say they hold out little hope of either side being able 
to make the necessary compromises with which to forge a cease-fire. 
"Until now the SLORC has been demanding that we surrender and enter the 
legal fold," said Major General Maung Maung, 72, a KNU veteran who has 
spent the better part of five decades battling the central governments in 
Rangoon. "We are demanding that we must have a cease-fire a agreement 
first," the Karen general, who is recovering from an eye operation in Mae 
Sot, said in an interview. (AFP)