"The Burmese have been sighted in the hills surrounding base camp,"
says the head officer, Captain Jar Jar. "We intercepted a Burmese radio
transmission and they may be nearby. Today, we will patrol the mountains
to make sure no Burmese soldiers are left.
"The 30 men quickly eat their breakfast of rice, boiled eggs and fried
fungus then gather before the Karen national flag. They sing the Karen
national anthem, say a prayer and file onto a narrow path leading to the
thick jungle beyond base camp. According to many Karen, the very survival
of their people depends on these KNU guerrillas. They are fighting for
independence against Burma which is ruled by a military junta called the
State Peace and Development Council (SPDC).
VIOLENT ASSIMILATION
The KNU allege the SPDC is eliminating the
Karen population under a violent assimilation programme. SPDC troops
regularly terrorise Karen villagers. Those suspected of collaborating with
the KNU are tortured and often sent to forced labour camps. In one of the
world's longest and least known civil wars, thousands have been killed and
maimed. "We are different from the Burmese" says 21 year old Nae Wa, a
Sergeant with the KNU.
"Our language, culture, writing system, religion-our way of life-they
are all unique. But the SPDC wants to make us Burmese and that is why they
are killing us." Nae Wa explains how his village was overrun by SPDC
troops when he was fourteen years old. "The SPDC came to my village in
1995. Everyone tried to escape, but many of my friends were captured and
killed. Then [the SPDC] burned my village. Now my home is gone.
"Nae Wa and fifty others escaped into the jungle, where they lived for
two months. "We ate whatever we could find...worms, bananas, insects. Then
we cleared some forest and grew rice and fruit. This is how many Karen
have been made to live."
Nae Wa joined the KNU army when he was 16 years old and says that he
will fight the SPDC until he dies. Fourteen year old Swa is a soldier with
the KNU and has a similar story. He explains that his home town of
Mannerplow, the former Karen capital, was bombed for weeks by
Chinese-supplied jets until the SPDC troops arrived. "Of course, everyone
tried to flee. The KNU army held the [SPDC] army back for a few days, but
still the SPDC came and many Karen were caught and killed.
"My mother was taken by the SPDC when she tried to run. Then,
[Mannerplow] was burned-now, [Mannerplow] is gone completely."Asked if he
knows what happened to his mother, he quickly answers: "I don't know."
LIVING IN FEAR
Tens of thousands of Karen have been driven
into refugee camps in Northern Thailand by SPDC attacks. Heidi Perkov, an
American nurse and activist who works with the Karen refugees
explains:"The Karen [refugees] that I work with left Burma out of fear.
Karen villagers live in terror of the SPDC army. "If SPDC troops are
sighted by scouts, villagers have two choices. They can either stay and be
sent to SPDC forced labour camps or to work on the oil pipelines, or they
can flee into the forest to forage.
"If they flee, they are considered enemies of the state and are hunted
down and killed. Some, like the refugees [in Thailand] cross the border.
Others fight with the KNU as guerrillas." One Karen refugee who calls
herself Hellen now lives in Mae Sot, Thailand. She lived in a Karen
refugee camp for 16 years before receiving Thai citizenship. "Inside
Burma, there are camps where the Burmese send Karen people-everyone knows
that when you are taken to one [of the camps] you never come out.
At least every month the SPDC burns a [Karen] village and sends people
to these camps. This is why I left Burma, I heard the SPDC troops were
coming, and I fled for my life to Thailand." The Burmese government's
oppressive policies are not only directed towards the Karen. The junta is
notorious for its poor human rights record due to its oppressive policies
against pro-democracy activists.
In 1988, when mass pro-democracy demonstrations broke out across the
country, the army responded by firing on crowds and arresting and
torturing dissidents.
DEATH IN THE SUMMER
According to the Friends of Burma
Coalition, a Western group which lobbies for democracy in the country,
10,000 demonstrators were killed during the four day "Democracy Summer."
To improve its international image, the Burmese government, then called
the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), held elections in
1990. When the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD), led by
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, won by an overwhelming 83% of
the vote, SLORC refused to recognise the results.
Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest, where she remained for several
years. But while the Burmese government's suppression of pro-democracy
activists is well-documented and has brought condemnation from the
international community, news of the ongoing persecution of the Karen
rarely reaches the outside world. The Karen live in isolated parts of
Burma, and the SPDC does not allow reporters or tourists near the conflict
areas.
Nevertheless, Nerdah Wah, the KNU's secretary for foreign affairs, is
fighting a political battle to break the SPDC's iron curtain and travels
the world to lobby for the Karen cause. Educated at Berkley University in
the USA, and a native Karen, Nerdah believes that the international
community can do much for the Karen Cause.
"The world must know of the atrocities being committed by the SPDC. I
know that if people put enough pressure on the SPDC, their junta will not
survive. This war is not against the Burmese people-[the Burmese] are also
being tortured and killed. This war is against the SPDC military
government. Burmese people like Aung San Suu Kyi realise that the Karen
are being persecuted. But we need the international community's help."
KIWI IN THE KAREN
Meanwhile, the plight of the Karen is
slowly reaching the outside world through Karen student groups and
grassroots lobbyists. And it was their stories of the Karen resistance
that brought a former soldier in the New Zealand army to fight with the
KNU.
He asked that his name not be published, and was vague about his
reasons for fighting with the KNU. "I heard about the cause ten years ago
and came here nearly a month ago to fight with them." When asked if he is
afraid of being injured or killed he did not respond.
He speaks no Karen, Thai, or Burmese but regularly travels on patrol
with the KNU. "I am not sure how long I will stay to fight
[with the KNU], probably for as long as it takes." He lives like the
other soldiers-in a small bamboo hut, eating whatever is available and
drinking water from the local streams.
TOUGH TERRAIN
Today's patrol will take eight hours, and
will follow a trail near the Thai border. After loading their weapons, the
soldiers file into the dense rainforest surrounding base camp.
Immediately beyond, the terrain becomes nearly impassable. We follow a
path measuring about one meter across. The mud is often knee deep, and the
monsoon rains have washed out much of it.
"We must be very careful,"says Nae Wa. "There are land mines
everywhere. You must never leave the trail-not even for one step." As we
climb a steep, bamboo covered mountain, Nae Wa points to his left, cupping
his hand to signal a land mine.
The invisible explosive is buried less than than six inches from the
narrow path. "The SPDC loses at least one soldier [to a mine] every time
they travel this trail," he explains. As we walk in single file past the
mine, each soldier points it out to the soldier behind. Three hundred
meters further on, the path divides in two, then meets up fifteen meters
beyond.
"The left side [of the path] is mined and booby trapped, the other side
is safe," says Nae Wa.
I ask him how he knows where the mines are. He answers that there is
always one soldier on a patrol who has memorised the location of the booby
traps and mines in the area. During the eight-hour journey, Nae Wa points
out more than 30 mines and booby traps.
SURVIVING THE JUNGLE
After two hours of walking, we stop for a
brief rest to remove the dozens of leeches on our legs.
"In the wet season, we can't cook rice because the wood is too wet to
light fires, so we just eat our food raw," says Nae Wa. "If we are lucky,
we may shoot a monkey or a rat or something. Sometimes we live in the
jungle like this for a month. But it is no problem. We always find food
and water. Unlike the SPDC, we can drink water from the jungle without
getting sick-the KNU stomach is very strong. We also get malaria much less
[than the SPDC].
To kill the parasites we eat chilies. To clean cuts we use tooth
paste."When asked why he keeps fighting, Nae Wa answers: "for two reasons:
I love my people and I know I have no choice. We either fight or lay down
our arms and be destroyed by the SPDC." Despite their determination, the
Karen face overwhelming odds. The SPDC is well supplied with arms from
China, while the Karen receive almost no outside support. The Karen
population in Burma, about 3 million, is dwarfed by the Burmese population
of about 47 million. "We survive for two reasons," says Nae Wa.
"Our refusal to give up and because of the low morale of SPDC troops.
SPDC soldiers are badly paid and forced to fight. Their training is poor,
and they're oppressed and afraid. "When we capture them as prisoners, we
give them the option to either go back to Burma, or to Thailand as
refugees-they always choose to go to Thailand." Although they are
chronically under supplied with weapons and food, the Karen do not engage
in drug cultivation and smuggling to finance their efforts.
In contrast, the Burmese SPDC government and many other ethnic
minorities, including the Wa and the Shan, have been repeatedly cited for
opium and amphetamine trafficking.
The KNU enforce strict anti-drug rules among their people for religious
and political reasons. "There are two reasons that we do not sell drugs.
First, if we did the Thais would close their borders to us. We would loose
the limited support we have and Karen refugees would not be able to flee
to Thailand.
"Secondly, we do not want to be seen as drug dealers-our cause is
self-determination, not money," says Nerdah. "If we find drug addicts we
force them to rehabilitate."In Karen base camp, three amphetamine addicts
were digging and performing exercises. "When they are cured, we send them
back to the villages on condition that they never use drugs again." After
the day long patrol through the jungle, the KNU troops are still energetic
and in good spirits. As a heavy rain begins to fall, the soldiers head for
their bamboo huts where they smoke, talk and laugh.
The day was no problem for these people because they didn't come across
any SPDC soldiers. However, these KNU fighters know only too well that in
the approaching dry season they will be on month-long patrols, and under
heavy fire.
"But it's okay," says one fighter, "because we know that one day there
will be peace in a Karen free state."- George McLeod is a Canadian
freelance journalist, with a Bachelor's Degree in History from Simon
Fraser University, Vancouver.
