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Old Flames, from Burma Issues, Marc



Burma Issues
March 1998

The Border

Old Flames

Around 1 a.m. on March 11, Hway Ka Loke (a.k.a. Wangka) refugee camp in
western Thailand was attacked using light and heavy weapons, then set
ablaze. According to estimates, as much as 90% of the camp, which houses
9,000 Karen and other Burmese refugees, was destroyed by fire. Roughly 1,500
homes, the majority of personal belongings, and most public buildings such
as schools and clinics were consumed by fire. At least 30 people were
injured, several seriously, threatening to raise the death toll above the
three confirmed fatalities. Within 24 hours, two other major refugee camps
in the same province were under alert, anticipating attacks from across the
border.

This event was in fact a better organized repeat of a similar incursion on
January 27, 1997, over one year ago. Like last year, a well-armed contingent
of the Democratic Kayin/Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) entered the camp
unimpeded. Splitting into three groups, they took advantage of the confusion
created by mortar fire to set the camp alight.  There are many reports of
random shooting at the fleeing population. This year's attack differs
significantly in that people were targeted, not just the physical structures
of the camp itself.

The attack on Hway Ka Loke marks a further deterioration of the political
situation on both sides of the border, particularly in Karen-held territory
north of Three Pagodas Pass. It seems to be rooted in a tense and serious
power struggle between the DKBA and the Karen National Union (KNU), locked
in a struggle to establish greater power vis-a-vis the Burma Army. Clearly,
the DKBA is responsible for this attack. The origins of the current
conflict, however, seem to have less to do with refugee issues as such than
military events across the border in the regions commonly called (KNU) 7th
and northern 6th brigades, where the KNU and DKBA are vying for control of
the civilian population.

In the last three years, the DKBA has grown from a SLORC-sponsored puppet
militia to a large, if poorly organized and ill-disciplined, collection of
nationalist Karen field commanders operating throughout the northern Karen
border areas. Under the symbolic and political leadership of U Thuzana, the
Myaing Kyi Ngu Sayadaw (meaning abbot of Myaing Kyi Ngu), the DKBA claims
its identity as a representative of the Karen Buddhist majority which failed
to share a voice in the KNU.  The DKBA headquarters at Myaing Kyi Ngu has
become both a political and military center and a religious colony, styled
loosely after the famous Pa-an forest monastery at Thammanya, whose abbot is
one of the most revered monks in Burma.

The growth of the DKBA has presented a particularly acute dilemma to the
KNU, which has faced a serious decline in economic, political and symbolic
power in the last several years. Fighting its traditional enemy, the Burma
Army, had always strengthened the KNU's symbolic position regardless of its
results. Putting up a fight was good enough to reinforce the belief that
Karen people were struggling for something better. To many Karens, the KNU,
despite its faults, still represents Karen people resisting oppression by
their traditional enemy. They identify it as a struggle to establish
"Kawthoolei", a Karen homeland which would fulfill the mythological destiny
of the Karen people, who describe themselves as forsaken, misunderstood and
perpetually vulnerable to subjugation by alien races. An essential part of
the Karen resistance to this oppression is a conviction that the Karen
people are in fact united against a common enemy, either the Burma Army or
the Burman people, depending on who one asks. The idea of a Karen enemy,
embodied in the DKBA, destroys both the belief in a united nationality as
well as the familiarity of fighting a traditional enemy.

But for many Karens, the DKBA offered a Karen alternative to the KNU. For
some, the DKBA redressed the exploitation of Karen by their own people,
challenging a flawed KNU military-administrative machine. This sense was
heightened when the SLORC granted the DKBA at least limited autonomy in
Karen-populated territories in eastern Burma, making a nominal reality the
Karen homeland which figures so heavily in nationalist propaganda.
Regardless of the Burmese military's role in starting up the DKBA, by 1998
it had become a nationalist Karen movement in its own right, relatively
well-armed under the auspices of a watchful Burma Army, relying on an
extensive network throughout the border regions.

For the last year, the KNU has been taking increasingly desperate measures
to fight off the DKBA's influence in the Karen state. The landmine problem
has been increasing throughout the contested border regions along the Dawna
mountain rage. Mines, an under-gunned KNU's weapon of choice for holding
territory, have been the cause of so many civilian and military casualties
that for the first time in the last five years people are expressing fear of
returning to their villages because of them. With the DKBA, KNU, and Burma
Army all mining roads and fields and then eventually withdrawing from the
area, the civilian population is the only sure target. In addition to
extensive mining, the KNU has been using very unpopular hit-and-run tactics
against the DKBA, including on February 19, an attack on a village Buddhist
festival at Ker Gho, a DKBA-held area, in which civilian revelers as well as
DKBA soldiers were killed. According to local sources, KNU units near Myaing
Kyi Ngu have been kidnapping villagers to extort money, a common practice in
Burmese insurgent movements, but one which has created immense animosity
among people in the area.

The rise of the DKBA's influence throughout Karen State and the heightened
tensions in the civil war zones have intensified rivalries with the KNU. The
Thai refugee camps are still seen as safe havens for KNU supporters; and
indeed they do provide food security, education and shelter for people
regardless of political affiliation. Nevertheless, they have always served
as logistics, recruitment and economic centers for the KNU. The DKBA,
wishing to even the playing field, plans to destroy all the camps and force
the people back to Burma in order to destroy the KNU's popular support and
force it to abandon its own counter-insurgency programs in DKBA-contested areas.

This analysis raises the question of the Burma Army's involvement in the
refugee camp attack. The general consensus is that regardless of who else
may have been in cooperation, this was a DKBA operation. Of course, the
arming and transport of DKBA soldiers past the garrison and trade town of
Myawaddy necessitated Burma Army cooperation. Refugee camp residents,
clinging to the belief that only the traditional enemy, not other Karen,
would be capable of such brutality, cite several clues to a Burmese
conspiracy, such as that some of the attackers spoke in Burmese, not Karen.
Nevertheless, the DKBA has its own agenda in relation to the KNU, its own
arms and a strong feeling of independence.

Reliable first-hand reports from DKBA headquarters at Myaing Kyi Ngu further
indicate that not only was Wednesday's attack a DKBA plan, but that it is
the first in a series of attacks to be expected this season. As early as the
first week of March, people in Myaing Kyi Ngu were aware of the DKBA's
intentions to attack Hway Ka Loke. On March 11 and 12, truckloads of
well-armed DKBA soldiers were spotted heading north of the road to Bae Klaw
(a.k.a. Mae La) refugee camp, on their way to begin an operation against the
camp, under command of Maung Chit Thoo. Beginning on March 12, Bae Klaw camp
and the surrounding hillsides have been subject to mortar shelling as KNU,
DKBA, and Thai military forces all jockey for advantage.

This background serves to provide some frame of reference for Wednesday's
events, but it also suggests what the future holds for the refugees.
Clearly, there will be no security for them in Thailand, no matter what
demands are made, and whether or not the U.N. attempts to intervene. The
Thai military is neither prepared nor is disposed to provide long-term
security for anyone, Thai or Karen, along this border. Indeed, these
large-scale attacks merely serve as reminders of the overall collapse of
security in the border districts, where armed bandits terrorize not only
refugee camps but Thai villages and highways as well. Unless Thai and
international policies towards Burmese refugees change, the refugees will
face two clearly troubling options: living in increasing insecurity along
the border or going back to Burma.

This ultimatum is a hitter reality for many people. Some have lived in Thai
refugee camps for over a decade, cut off from Burma, addicted to
humanitarian aid and waiting on some kind of useful leadership. The
universal response from refugees up and down the border to questions about
the future is that they simply don't know. They wish for protection and aid
from the U.N. or the Thai government, yet neither has the will nor the power
to intervene meaningfully at this late stage of the crisis. Those refugees
who support the KNU hold a similar wish for external salvation: aid from the
U.N., arms from America, succor and unconditional support from the outside.
The prospect of returning to Burma is, perhaps ironically, the only option
with a glimmer of hope at all. For many, the struggle for peace and human
dignity was knocked off course as soon as they began to see themselves as
refugees and define their problems as such. The long-held refrain that the
refugees would go back to Burma once peace and democracy reigned was not
hope at all, but the antithesis of hope, a resignation that to build a
better future was out of one's hands. Attacks on the refugees provide
another powerful jolt - a shocking realization for the people about how
off-course they have wandered, from people struggling for dignity within
their own country to unwanted exiles divorced from it.

In the final analysis, the peace and justice they yearn for can only be
achieved from within Burma, by their own effort and responsibility. But
going back to Burma in itself is not the answer, for it is a dangerous and
insecure process. If people will return, they must do so with the support
and observation of a world community that understands that their struggle
continues to be on the other side of the border. Building peace inside Burma
is a daunting task, but one more hopeful and worthy of support than the road
which brought them here.

By Chris Cusano
http://www2.gol.com/users/brelief/Index.htm