Burma's regime goes on the offensive against Karen rebels

Hungry Karen family hiding in a jungle shelter, having fled from
the Burmese Army offensive with only that which they could carry

Burmese Army moves against Karen rebels
by Eric Jackson, from international sources

"The situation is grave," said Thomas J. Bleming, a man who has fought with or reported on insurgencies on three continents and wrote a book about the ethnic Karen rebels in Burma. In early October elements of the Burmese Army moved on villages along the Thai border whose residents are loyal to the Karen National Union and who were defended by that organization's military wing, the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA).

The internationally isolated Burmese "State Peace and Development Council" hopes to hold another of its controlled elections in 2010, and wants to rout the various ethnic insurgents operating in different parts of the country before then.

With respect to the Karen, the junta is playing religious cards: the offensive is being carried out by a Karen splinter faction, the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), which has made its peace with the army. Most Burmese are Buddhist, but the Karen are divided among Buddhists, Christians and Animists, with the Christians slightly dominant in the rebel heartland of eastern Burma that the KNU calls the Republic of Kawthoolei and the government calls Karen State. Christianity came to the Karen in the 1840s with American Baptist missionaries, and the Christian Karen ties to the English-speaking world were expressed in World War II, when most of the Karen supported the British and Americans against the Japanese and their Burmese supporters. This history is used by the military junta to portray the Christian Karen as tools of western intervention and a hostile alien element within Burma. The KNLA has Christians, Buddhists, Animists and non-religious fighters in its ranks and seeks to establish a secular, self-governing Karen republic. The DKBA is for Karen autonomy within a Burma in which Buddhism is the official religion of the national and regional governments.

In leaflets the DBKA has alleged that its offensive against the KNLA began because the latter would not agree to the building of Buddhist pagodas in the areas it controlled. Other observers note that the offensive was timed to begin on the eve of the area's corn harvest, which they say the government and its allies want to seize from farmers who support the KNLA.

The KNLA, like all guerrilla armies that have survived over time, retreats in the face of superior force and that's what they did in the recent offensive. That left a lot of villagers unprotected and sent them fleeing into the wilderness or toward the Thai border.

At one point the DKBA crossed into Thailand and attacked a village that had been taking in war refugees. The Thai government, weakened by internal challenges, has been trying in vain to calm the situation so as to keep the fighting on the other side of their border, and during the incursion into its territory bombarded Burmese positions opposite Mae Sot, apparently as a warning.

Several international non-governmental aid groups, most notably the Free Burma Rangers and the Committee for Internally Displaced Karen People, have been working to get assistance to the displaced civilians. The Burmese military government isn't letting any aid workers into the area that it holds, and has been planting land mines to keep people from returning to rebuild Karen villages that have been destroyed in the offensive.

Meanwhile, the KNLA is getting some international military support from a small foreign legion recruited from several countries, including the United States, that has moved into the battle zone.

The Karen guerrillas have been fighting against the Burmese government since 1949 and are unlikely to be eradicated anytime soon. They might, however, be militarily driven into remote hideouts or politically forced into concessions that they'd rather not make. As this current government offensive unfolded in October, the KNU held a congress at which a younger generation of leaders was elected and political strategies of negotiating for autonomy versus holding out for independence were debated. This offensive thus represents the first big test for the new Karen leadership.

Karen civilians fleeing ahead of hostile troops

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