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BBC-Inside Burma with the Karen



World: Asia-Pacific

Inside Burma with the Karen

The refugee camps have even been attacked by Burmese troops

Simon Ingram reports on the fight for independence by the Karen people of
Burma
On the jungle border between Thailand and Burma, tens of thousands of
refugees belonging to the ethnic Karen minority are nervously awaiting
another dry season offensive by the Burmese army. SImon Ingram reports from
Burma where the army has razed villages to the ground It is 50 years since
leaders of the Karen took up arms against the government in Rangoon to press
their demands for a homeland of their own.

The forces of the Karen National Union have suffered serious military
setbacks in recent years, but the nationalist struggle - one the world has
often overlooked - shows no sign of exhaustion.

Entering the real Burma

There is a drought looming in the forested hills that line Thailand's
western border.

The rice paddies are cracked and parched. Most of the teak saplings have
lost their leaves. So meagre were the rains that fell here in what should
have been the wet season that the river Moie, dividing Thai from Burmese
territory, has slowed to a sedate trickle.

Entering Burma by crossing the river may be an unorthodox route, but the
authorities in Rangoon leave foreign journalists with little choice.

The few reporters allowed into the country do so under strict conditions
that would certainly preclude access to the border areas we were hoping to
learn more about.

At the top of the river bank we found an encampment of fragile bamboos hacks
where about 4,000 people had settled, and more were arriving all the time.

Homes razed to the ground

These people had brought next to nothing with them, so hastily had they fled
their home villages. An old woman described how her family had heard
shooting in the woods beside their home, and realised that army troops were
closing in.

The displaced Karen ethnic minority find their villages burned to the ground
We gathered up the children and ran, she said. Next morning, one of the men
ventured back to see what had become of the village. He found it had been
razed to the ground.


The scorched-earth tactics of the Burmese army against the various ethnic
minorities living in the east of the country are nothing new. But this year,
there is compelling evidence that the campaign against the 7 million Karens
is being waged with particular viciousness.

Village after village is burned down, crops and livestock are destroyed or
stolen. Those people who do not escape are used as forced labour, or made to
serve as human mine detectors, walking in front of the advancing Burmese
troops.

Stories of rape are becoming increasingly common. The chilling phrase
"ethnic cleansing" is one that human rights monitors based along the border
are using with growing regularity.

Kevin Heppner of the Karen Human Rights Group says: "They just can't survive
any more. They can't work their fields any more and they're also terrified
of being shot on sight in their fields which often happens, or shot for
fleeing forced labour, so they have no choice but to run."

Rangoon losing its grip

In spite of its annual offensives, Rangoon's grip over the Karen border
regions is less than total.

The Karen National Liberation Army claims its guerilla tactics are working
well The rebel forces of the Karen National Union have lost most of their
territory, but senior officers claim their guerrilla tactics are inflicting
significant and regular losses on the Burmese troops.

But the claim is hard to verify in a conflict which splutters on virtually
unnoticed by the outside world, and whose very existence the Burmese
authorities routinely deny.

On the evening of my visit to the riverside refugee camp, the news on
Myanmar (Burmese) television showed a uniformed and smiling official bearing
the sinister title of Secretary Number One being greeted by respectful
residents of some provincial town.

The ruling State Peace and Development Council likes to talk about its drive
to achieve national reconciliation - but nothing that could ever be
construed as ethnic cleansing.

British debt to the Karen people

In a remote jungle clearing, we waited under the watchful eye of several
Karen fighters carrying M16 rifles for our meeting with the KNU's veteran
president, Bo Mya.

Symbolically he had chosen to meet us inside Burmese - or as he would have
it - Karen territory.

The general looked tired - as well he might. For 20 years, he has led his
people's armed struggle against Rangoon.

He had 12,000 men under his command, he said, ready to fight and die for the
cause. You British should be doing more to help us, he added, with an
accusing glance.

The Karen people sided with Britain against the Japanese in WWII, he went
on. But you forgot our sacrifice and handed power to the Burmans in Rangoon.

What the Karen see as the betrayal they suffered at the hands of Burma's
former colonial masters has become a persistent stain on the national
consciousness.

In the crowded refugee camps inside Thailand - themselves the target of
armed attacks over the years - a different, more hopeful consciousness
flourishes.

The camp elders produced a troupe of children in white national costumes to
perform traditional Karen dances for us. As I watched their graceful

movements, it occurred to me that many of the dancers probably knew nothing
except a life in exile.

Fifty years after the Karen took up arms against Rangoon, there is no
telling when - or if - their struggle for a secure homeland will be finally
accomplished.