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‘Beyond Section 10′ is a portrait of one Karen refugee in the run up to elections in Burma. Although he lives in a Thai refugee camp he has also served as a soldier in the KNLA since he was thirteen. He has recently become a father and as an increased level of fighting looms in the coming months he is torn for the first time between his love for his people and a desire to see his baby grow up.

The film is designed to highlight the plight of the Karen people and offer an accessible, human face to one of the victims of a brutal regime in a nation under persecution.

Mike Garrod is an English filmmaker who has worked on documentaries and drama since 2000 for broadcasters such as BBC, HBO, Sky and Al Jazeera. He is currently based in Stockholm and London and has been coming to Karen State since 2009. The film is currently being edited in London and is expecting a release in the summer.

Mike is putting out an appeal for footage that anybody can donate to the film and is especially interested in the following: Burmese news stories about the Karen and ethnic groups in general. Burmese news stories about the 2010 elections. Burmese movies depicting the Karen or other ethnic groups. International media news stories about the ethnic groups/elections. Footage of the Karen discussing elections. Karen festivals or holidays (new year?). Karen singing/music. Conflict footage inside Karen state. Burmese military parades.

Please contact through this site or mail@mikegarrod.com.

Mike Garrod

A group of rebel soldiers has given Sky News rare access to Burma ahead of the country’s first parliamentary elections in 20 years.

Critics say the polls, which are due to be held on Sunday, are a facade as the country’s military junta tightens its grip on power.

A US internet security firm says Burma’s internet has been taken down in a cyber attack ahead of the poll, raising fears the regime is attempting to control information going into and out of the country.

Tens of thousands of Burmese live in squalid refugee camps in the town of Mae Sot in Thailand.

Surrounded by barbed wire fences, conditions are prison-like but residents say anything is better than returning home.

Zabuda fled across the border to Thailand three years ago with her four children after government troops destroyed their village.

“They told us we had to get out to make way for a new military camp,” she said.

“I was still thinking about how I would pack all our belongings when they set fire to our home. We lost everything.”

On a nearby rubbish tip several Burmese refugee families live among the filth collecting waste for 50 pence a day.

When they come to the Karen villages, they will rape, they will burn and then they will destroy all the crops and animals. Then they leave behind land mines.

It is a measure of their desperation that they consider it a better life than the one they left behind.

“The army came and kidnapped my husband,” said Thwe Aye, who has worked on the dump for two years.

“They took him away and forced him to carry their equipment for no pay.”

Other refugees complain of beatings and rapes carried out by government soldiers.

After years of international condemnation over human rights abuses, the group of generals who rule Burma have decided to go ahead with the country’s first parliamentary elections since 1990.

But pro-democracy activists, including Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, are not optimistic.

The last time Burma went to the polls the people voted overwhelmingly for Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy (NLD).

The military junta responded by ignoring the result and jailing party members.

This time around the NLD is boycotting the election, convinced it is a sham.

Under Burma’s new constitution a quarter of all seats are reserved for military officers while the two main parties are widely viewed as proxies for the current military rulers.

Foreign journalists have been denied entry to Burma to report on the polling but Sky News was given rare access to the country by a group of rebel soldiers.

From bases hidden in the jungles of eastern Burma, the Karen National Liberation Army is fighting for the survival of the Karen, one of several ethnic groups at war with the regime.

Their American-educated commander is Colonel Nerdah Mya.

With weapons dating back to the Second World War, his men are massively outgunned but they are determined to fight to the end against a government that Colonel Nerdah accuses of ethnic cleansing.

“When they come to the Karen villages, they will rape, they will burn and then they will destroy all the crops and animals,” he said.

“Then they leave behind land mines.”

The village of Oo Kray Kee was burned to the ground by government troops two years ago.

Karen soldiers helped rebuild it, and now guard it against fresh attacks.

Like millions of other Burmese the villagers will not be casting any votes in the election.

“They don’t believe it will bring any real change,” said Colonel Mya.

“Many of them don’t even know that they’re holding an election at all.”

Meanwhile, Burma’s internet has been hit by a major cyber attack.

The disruption started last month and has intensified in the last few days, US IT security firm Arbor Networks said.

The Burmese government cracked down on internet provision during the 2007 pro-democracy protests, preventing demonstrators blogging and posting pictures of the unrest and the response by the army.

It is not known who is behind the current outage.

But it is being caused by the country’s state-owned internet provider, the Ministry of Post and Telecommunication, being flooded by data, known as a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack.

Arbor Networks chief scientist Craig Labovitz wrote in a blog posting: “Yesterday, Myanmar once again fell off the Internet.

“While DDoS against e-commerce and commercial sites are common (hundreds per day), large-scale geo-politically motivated attacks – especially ones targeting an entire country – remain rare with a few.”

Mr Labovitz said the attack was “several hundred times” more than enough to overwhelm the country’s terrestrial and satellite links.

Sky News

By DVB

Remnants of a burned village in Karen state: Photo - Burma Matters Now.

Footage has been released that shows the shocking aftermath of a recent scorched earth campaign by the Burmese army in eastern Karen state.

More than 900 people escaped into the surrounding jungle after the village of Dutado (or Tha Dah Der) in Hpapun district came under artillery fire on 23 July. A member of the Thailand-based Back Pack Health Worker Team was shot dead by troops, and the village was razed to the ground. Eye-witness reports said that the artillery fire lasted for around four hours.

The Burmese army left the village the following afternoon as the ruins of some 70 houses, a school and a church were left smouldering. A report released today by the Free Burma Rangers medical group said that “the troops occupied the village through the next day, burning, looting and killing livestock.”

Landmines had reportedly been laid to prevent anyone from returning, a tactic often used to assume indirect control over an area. Karen state is littered with landmines laid by both the Burmese army and armed opposition groups.

Graphic images have also been released of a similar incident that happened on 22 March this year in Nyaunglebin district of Bago division, which borders Hpapun. Villagers from Hoh Lu had been returning from a nearby village, when they encountered a number of Burmese troops from an army base close to Hoh Lu.

The troops opened fire, killing a five-month-old boy and another five-year-old. The mother of one of the children managed to escape. Specific details of the incident and the reasons for the killings remain unclear, but Karen civilians are regularly accused of collaborating with armed rebel groups in the border region, much of which is a shoot-to-kill zone.

Karen state has hosted one of the world’s longest-running civil wars as the Karen National Union (KNU) and its armed wing, the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), vie for autonomy from the ruling junta. More than six decades of low-intensity conflict has forced millions from their homes, while villages are regularly burnt to the ground by the Burmese army.

The 12,000-strong KNLA’s wide support base in Karen state means that the Burmese army often exploits a perceived blurred line between civilian and KNLA collaborator, leading to incidents such as these where innocent children are killed. Junta chief Than Shwe, who has presided over Burma’s estimated 500,000-strong army, is now facing calls to be investigated for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

DVB

‘Stop the killing’

Letter a desperate plea for action

Karen National Union

  Kwathoolei, Karen state

March 5, 2010

While we, the Karen National Union (KNU), welcome UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s expression of concern regarding new attacks on the Karen people, we do not believe that this alone is an adequate response to the current crisis. We would like to remind the Secretary General that these attacks have been taking place for more than 60 years, and that numerous requests and expressions of concern, and even resolutions from the United Nations General Assembly, and a Presidential Statement from the United Nations Security Council, have failed to halt these attacks and persuade the SPDC military dictatorship to enter into genuine dialogue.

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Junta details how to assault ethnic minorities, decimate development of Christian church

www.danielpedersen.org

Daniel Pedersen

  Mae Sariang, Thailand

November 28, 2009

Leaked documents from Burma’s ruling military junta provide shocking insight of the inner workings of a fascist regime bent on eliminating diversity within its own people.

The documents are detailed directives about how to assault ethnic minorities and decimate development of the Christian church in Burma.

Two telling documents have been acquired by ethnic minority organisations, one detailing payment incentives for impregnating ethnic minority women so as to dilute their bloodlines, the other how best to purge Christianity from Burmese society.

Both documents refer to the Burmese “master race” and relate a desperate desire to maintain Burman domination over myriad ethnic minorities who populate much of Burma’s landmass.

The brochure claims the State Peace and Development Council, Burma’s ruling military clique, has set a budget of five million pounds sterling (GBP) annually to fund “Human on Human conquest”.

Monthly incentives being offered to members of the Burman majority are staggered from 500 kyat ($A84 at the official rate) for impregnating a “commoner or ordinary woman” to 2,700 kyat to the “daughter or niece of an educated, wealthy person”.

At the unofficial or black market rate by which everyone in Burma operates – about 1,000 kyat to the US dollar – making a “commoner” pregnant would attract a payment of little more than 50 Australian cents a month.

Currently in Burma rice is retailing for about 1,000 kyat per 2.5kg, enough staple for a person on an extremely lean diet to eat for five days.

Rice prices soar

The Burman majority is thought to constitute about 60 per cent of Burma’s population, the sum of the rest divided among a swathe of ethnic minorities, the two most-populous being Karen and Shan, each thought to make up about seven per cent of the population.

The brochure being distributed in ethnic minority areas is headed “A notice urging Burmese comrades to act” and suggests “Burmese comrades shall assault other ethnic groups of Burma by all possible means; both economic and social”.

It says the main objective of the assault is the “everlasting dominance of the Burman race”.

And it says the easiest way to achieve this is “subjugating non-Burman women through inter-racial breeding”.

It spells out measures that can be employed by Burman men loyal to their “comrades”.

“Typically, ethnic women lack moral principles, and tend to like and envy Burman men. In order to attract ethnic women into Burman society we should exploit these characteristics,” the brochure says.

“Ultimately non-Burman women shall effectively become prostitutes if offered money in an affectionate manner by Burman men,” it says.

“Dear comrades, if we are unable to carry out the above, ethnic people will become a poisonous substance that will harm the Burman race,” says the brochure.

“Oh my dear comrades, there is no time greater than the present to proceed with the above, we shall therefore work to subjugate non-Burman women by offering financial disbursement to encourage sexual relationships.”

It then goes on to list prices for impregnating women of various social levels.

It also deals with the possibility of a forced withdrawal from the ethnic areas in the future and the “benefits” of such a breeding programme in the long-term.

“We must entrench ourselves as firmly as we can in every corner … In case we have to leave the ethnic regions permanently one day, we shall leave our bloodline established,” the brochure says.

It closes with instructions to distribute the brochure – its fourth edition – only to Burmans who can be trusted to keep the matter confidential.

The documents relating to “eradication of Christianity” have supposedly been issued by the “Religious Order of Highest Honored Monks” and are marked “top secret”.

They constitute guidelines issued by a special unit supposedly established by monks to deal with Christianity – it is referred to as the “Cleansing Association”.

Given the Burmese Sangha’s (the monks’ supreme body) current hostility to the junta it seems highly unlikely they would pen such a document, particularly one that flies in the face of Buddhism’s ideals.

Under a heading “annihilate”, its first recommendation is to oppose the development of Christianity and every Christian household.

The Burmese documents suggest multi-faceted discrimination against Christians will be used as an offensive tactic to scupper the religion’s growth.

It also recommends “all means necessary” to defeat the rise of Christianity, “be they violent or peaceful means”.

The documents also suggest attacking the concept of creation with “scientific” theory and exposing what are considered inherent weaknesses of Christianity, such as its “gentleness and politeness”.

It portrays Christianity as narrow-minded, as opposed to Buddhism, which it claims is free of all prejudice.

It also suggested the “indecent apparel of morally bereft Christian youth” could be exposed among laypeople to Buddhism’s advantage.

These violent discriminatory tactics have been well known by ethnic minorities for years now – they have been subjected to racial and religious attacks for decades.

But the acquisition of these documents points to a determined campaign by the military junta to oppress, or even eventually eradicate, ethnic minorities, particularly those who have embraced Christianity.

The Karen have largely adopted Christianity, having always believed in a single god and a single book of his commandments.

Such was their dedication to these beliefs that upon “discovery” by American Baptist missionaries in the mid 1800s it was speculated they might have been a lost tribe of Israel.

From “tribe” to “state”: An official view of Karen identity

New editions of these documents do not augur well for recognition of ethnic minorities’ rights in next year’s planned elections, nor do they bode well for countries that believe the junta’s attitudes can be changed via “engagement”.

These tactics are anything but new.

In 2001 I interviewed a 19-year-old defector from Burma’s Army, Htun Htun, and he recounted religiously inspired attacks on villages.

“We walked into Ka La Ner, a Muslim village.

“First we burned the mosque then told everyone to leave for three days.

“We then began forcibly relocating anyone who refused to leave and seized control of the village and 25 others surrounding it,” he said.

Htun Htun said when the SPDC troops had finished using the village as a base they burned it down, wiping out more than 100 families’ homes.

Or take the case of Ye Ye Aye, whom I interviewed in December 2000 just days after she had arrived at Mae Lae refugee camp, to Mae Sot’s north.

She said in August 2000, soldiers of the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, a militia allied with the SPDC, marched into her home village of Aong Daw.

She said they immediately began terrorising people and grouping at gunpoint those who admitted to being Christian.

They were then marched out of town, never to be seen again.

Ye Ye Aye was at the time 25 years old, is a Christian and a mother of three.

She, like others from her home village all those years ago, lied about being Christian and used to pray only when she knew she would not be discovered.

The soldiers who took control of the village were strict vegetarian Buddhists, she said, and each night searched every house for any evidence of meat or eggs.

Anyone found with such “contraband” was jailed in a bamboo compound.

Ye Ye Aye fled her home village in a moment of opportunity with her husband, 32-year-old Hla Kah Paw and her three children on December 12, 2000.

She still lives in Thailand’s Mae La refugee camp and thanks God that she and her family survived.

ENDS

www.danielpedersen.org

Don Talenywun

  Mae Sot, Thailand

October 14, 2009

Unauthorised meetings with Burma’s ruling junta, the State Peace and development Council, in Rangoon and Naypidaw last year ensured Nay Soe Mya’s ouster from his father’s beloved Karen National Union and Karen National Liberation Army.

The KNU now regards him as a traitor and people who once thought of themselves as comrades-in-arms want nothing to do with him.

Better known as Tay Lay, the late General Bo Mya’s youngest son crossed into Thailand this month, driving a car with Thai registration plates, carrying a Thai passport and doing the rounds of his old stomping ground of Mae Sot, a town where whispers were exchanged in his wake.

He’s still got the same disarming grin and remains loose with the facts.

He’s stacked on weight around the gut, but sticks with his tight, black T-shirts that make clear he shares the broad shoulders of his famous father, the late General Bo Mya.

Tay Lay Mya likes to wear dark glasses, slip-on dress shoes, a nice cut of trouser and considers himself quite the ladies’ man.

Once a prominent figure in Karen circles, Tay Lay has now aligned himself with his uncle, former KNLA Brigadier-General Htein Maung.

Htein Maung was once KNLA Seventh Brigade commander, but absconded in 2006 amid allegations of multi-million baht theft.

Tay Lay has now joined Htein Maung’s ranks.

He brags about having taken 42 soldiers from KNLA Seventh Brigade’s 202 Battalion with him when he jumped ship to work with Naypidaw.

He’s a little more reserved when he admits he only got four from Sixth Brigade’s 201 Battalion, the hardcore crew that held onto the stronghold of Wah Lay Kee for months either side of the new year in the face of constant attacks.

“The Peace Council has a problem with the SPDC,” he says matter-of-factly, as he pulls up a plastic seat and orders a glass of milk at a Mae Sot cafe.

“Two months ago they [the SPDC] asked Htein Maung to fight the KNU.

“We have said we will not fight the KNU.

“We have been asked to change badges for an SPDC insignia, some DKBA [the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, a KNU splinter group allied with the SPDC] commanders have agreed, some have not. We have not.

“Some of the leaders have said it would be considered a move against the Karen people,” he said.

Tay Lay said the current pressure from the SPDC for militia armies to “join the legal fold” and transform into “Border Guard Forces” backed by the SPDC was not working for the greater Karen community.

“The SPDC will order the border guard forces to fight the KNU,” he said.

The entity to which he is now aligned, the ambiguously-named KNU/KNLA Peace Council, has refused to fight the KNU and will not transform itself into a border guard force if that is a pre-requisite.

“But Htein Maung [the supreme KNU/KNLA Peace Council leader] has said we must control the borderline,” said Tay Lay.

Control of border territory relates directly to the Peace Council’s interest in trade with Thailand.

It seems this is not an area where conflict with the KNLA is likely anyway.

KNLA Special Warfare Branch chief, Brigadier-General Saw Hsar Gay, earlier this month said border fighting was not on the KLNA’s agenda, regarding it as an expensive waste of ammunition.

The KNLA’s intention is to move deeper inside Burma, he said.

So it would seem the Peace Council and the DKBA will have the border to themselves – and have to sort out who takes what cut on which deal, a potentially messy business.

Peace Council members are widely regarded within the KNU as money-grabbing opportunists.

And the SPDC has reinforced this view, rewarding their desertion with revenues from Thai-Burma border trade, showering them with “gifts” and essentially giving them their own carriage on the junta’s gravy train.

“We are close to the SPDC, but don’t agree with everything they say,” Tay Lay said of the Peace Council.

He, for one, has done well out of his shift from the KNU.

He shows me snapshots of his three new homes in Burma and says he now owns 12 vehicles, one a jeep with an M-60 machine-gun mounted on top.

For the record, the American-designed M-60 is capable of firing 550 7.62mm rounds per minute.

But, according to its own leaders, the Peace Council is not in conflict with anyone.

Tay Lay says he is now in the jade business, teaming up with SPDC vice chairman Maung Aye’s sister-in-law, selling jade internationally.

“We’re working together, she came to me and asked how she could help,” he said.

Tay Lay carries two passports, Thai and Burmese, and has homes at To Kau Ko, Myawaddy and Rangoon, but says he doesn’t live in Rangoon because he’s not really sure how the SPDC feels about him and worries they may assassinate him.

Much of Tay Lay’s cash comes from the Myawaddy-Mae Sot and Shwe Kokko-Kokko tax gates.

“We’re also planning a new road to To Kaw Ko,” he said, and quickly sketched a map showing To Kaw Ko directly west of Mae La refugee camp, across the dividing Dawna Mountain Range.

The sketch showed a rough square, bordered by Myadwaddy on the Moei, Kaw Ka Klae to the west, To Kaw Ko to the north and Mae Lae in the east.

This is apparently Tay Lay’s patch.

He said he personally commanded 1,800 men, the Peace Council’s Company One, which he described as a “special company”, comprising Battalions 709, 708, 37 and 777.

This flies in the face of KNLA Colonel Nerdah Mya’s (Tay Lay’s older brother) estimates of the Peace Council’s strength.

“They have about 300 men,” he said earlier this year.

Tay Lay said the major difference between the Peace Council and the SPDC and its ally, the DKBA, was that the Peace Council’s prime motivation was helping the Karen people, whereas the DKBA and SPDC thought about making money first.

“The schools are not good, they need to be helped first,” he said.

“The villages get 20,000 kyat a month from the SPDC, that’s not even enough for food.”

He said donations such as that from World Vision, which he claimed on September 27 donated books to a school in Karen State amid much fanfare, were welcome additions to sparse resources.

He said the Peace Council wanted to establish offices in Mae Sot, Thailand, “for the Karen people”, that could help administer aid distribution and trade deals over the other side of the border.

Cash doesn’t seem to be a problem for Tay Lay and just before he left to return to Myawaddy he said he intended to buy a helicopter.

But where would he buy a helicopter from?

“From the Thais of course,” he said, mocking me as if I were a fool for not realising the Thai military did deals with outlaw businessmen aligned to Burma’s military junta.

And for how much?

“Four hundred and fifty thousand baht, it’s an old one,” he said.

“I’ll only fly it once, but I want to fly over Nerdah’s house.”

Tay Lay said his motivation for buying a helicopter was “a show of strength in the face of the SPDC”.

Asked about Tay Lay’s hopes to buy a chopper, Colonel Nerdah simply laughed and said he cannot buy a helicopter”.

“He’s a businessman now, he just comes over the border to see his family,” he said.

Tay Lay’s wife and children live in Khamphaeng Phet.

ENDS

Special Warfare Branch to strike deep, hit strategic targets

MIZZIMA

Don Talenywun

  Mae Sot, Thailand

October 15, 2009

When two explosions rocked the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army compound in the middle of the night, destroying a bulldozer and excavator, the Karen National Liberation Army’s Special Warfare Branch headed for the hills.

It was a rude post-midnight awakening for the DKBA soldiers of Brigade 999, but they quickly assembled a pursuit team.

And they struck out from Ta-ah Tah village, straight up into unforgiving terrain of the Dawna Mountain Range.

They had been hit by a KNLA strike deep behind the lines, a tactic favoured by Karen National Union Vice President David Thackrabaw, and they knew there would be hell to pay for destruction of such expensive machinery.

It is not the first such strike and will not be the last.

The Special Warfare Branch, headed by Brigadier-General Saw Hsar Gay, says this is the result of a new warfare doctrine, using small teams and hitting strategic targets.

The targets are of such value that the teams know hot pursuit will follow and prepare in advance to create a matrix of booby traps that will inflict maximum injury and death on their pursuers.

Some of the key weapons of these matrices are Claymore-style, directional anti-personnel mines, bounding and stake mines.

Brig-Gen Hsar Gay said these weapons were all detonated at the time of engagement, and so proved no danger to the civilian population later on and technically weren’t considered landmines.

“They are triggered either by remote control, electric trigger or a tripwire and, provided strict technical specifications are followed, can be manufactured anywhere.

“They represent the premium defensive weapons as small demolition squads withdraw under fire, or a lethal ambush weapon where a handful of men can hit entire enemy columns without expending ammunition.

“There’s also the benefit of the low risk of casualties,” he said.

These tactics will be spread throughout KNLA battalions.

“It is important to standardise construction of all our boobytraps,” said Brig-Gen Hsar Gay.

“Wherever they are assembled they must be identical, so that performance is streamlined and training and user manuals don’t differ.

“That means our special warfare soldiers can move between battalions and brigades and train others.

“Stealth communications and night warfare are also part of our new doctrine, but implementing these across the force means forming a centralised, homogenous programme using the same hardware, so battalions can carry out very similar coordinated operations, even if they are hundreds of miles from each other.

We’ve changed tactics, out of necessity we must make our weaknesses our strengths,” said Brig-Gen Hsar Gay.

“It’s quite contrary to previous doctrines, where we [the KNLA] wasted a lot of ammunition engaging the enemy in firefights.

“We created the section in 2001 and have since used it to pioneer new tactics that will be employed increasingly in the field by all of our troops,” he said.

“These are unorthodox tactics – behind-the-lines missions and Claymore ambush warfare – that are ideally suited to our outgunned army.”

“The Americans used these tactics as part of their ambush doctrine during the Vietnam War, but only as an ambush initiator, followed by a lot of small arms and machinegun fire, or even heavier weapons.

“But in Karen State we’re doing the opposite – the Claymores, stake and bounding mines are the main weapons and small arms fire is used only for self-defence or if the opportunity to seize enemy weapons and equipment presents itself and covering fire is needed,” he said.

“Our Second and Third brigades are using special warfare tactics with great success, particularly multiple Claymore and boobytrap withdrawals, that’s why the SPDC casualty figures are so high in those brigades.

“But now Sixth Brigade and Seventh Brigade are becoming more capable.

“We’ve trained NCOs [non-commissioned officers] and specially-selected soldiers from most brigades, but the better the tactics are understood by battalion and brigade commanders, the more easier and effective implementation is.”

While the logistical benefits are fairly obvious – the potential loss of life is minimised using small teams, valuable ammunition is preserved and premium weapons carried – there are also direct political benefits.

Earlier this year, frustrated by border warfare marked by shelling and heavy machine-gun fire, Thai authorities ordered leaders of the Karen National Union and its armed wing, the KNLA, off Thai soil.

Things had got out of control and pressuring the side perceived to be weaker – the KNU – was identified as the quickest solution to calm the border region and facilitate trade.

The DKBA, allied with the Burma Army and pitched against the KNLA, was running rampant up and down the border, launching attacks against the KNLA from Thai soil and terrorising Thai villages thought sympathetic to the KNU.

The KNLA tactics of small teams trekking through the jungle for days with one target in mind and avoiding fighting on the borderline will ease relations with the Thais as the matter will be considered an “internal affair” for the Burmese to deal with, said Brig-Gen Hsar Gay.

“The border fighting creates the false impression the KNLA is supported from the other side [the Thai side] of the border.

“It’s important not to affect Thailand’s security interests,” he said.

“And it also shows the KNLA’s ability to fight the Burma Army deep inside areas they claim to control.”

The DKBA broke with the KNLA in the mid nineties, claiming religious persecution of Buddhists by the largely Christian leadership of the KNU.

From its days as a rag-tag bunch of deserters it has developed into a formidable military force.

The DKBA is also one of the few ethnic minority armies to agree with Burma’s military junta, the State Peace and Development Council, and its proposal to form Border Guard Forces from disparate armies controlling areas of Burma.

However, the DKBA is not seen to have the loyalties of the greater Karen population.

Its submission to the will of the SPDC does not augur well with people hard done by for decades at the hands of the Burma Army.

There is little doubt a small band of KNLA specialists on the run from a larger unit of DKBA pursuers would be given sound advice on local conditions or a sock of rice by villagers in a bid to render their mission successful.

Such sentiments are not lost on DKBA foot soldiers.

And now, with their transformation into a border guard force, the DKBA are being issued with badges to be sewn into their uniforms bearing the motifs of the Burma Army.

This is creating dissension in the ranks according to one venerated retired KNLA soldier.

“The [DKBA] brigades are now operating independently of one another, doing what they wish, employing tactics of their own making, following allegiances held by their commanders,” he said.

At a clandestine meeting in Thailand, a commander of another breakaway military clique, the KNU/KNLA Peace Council, said both the SPDC and DKBA had plans to attack a KNLA stronghold opposite northern Thailand, across the Salween River “as soon as the rain stops and things dry up”.

Tay Lay Mya, a son of former KNU general Bo Mya and a surprise defector from the KNLA earlier this year, said both the SPDC and DKBA had their sights set on KNLA Fifth Brigade in coming months.

The once-traditional time for major military offensives by the Burma Army is the dry season, which begins late in the year, about November, and continues through until April.

Both sides are now well-advanced in their preparations for heavy fighting.

One senior KNLA commander involved in these preparations predicted as many as 2,000 refugees Karen could flood out of Burma during the dry season as the battles ensue.

ENDS

OFFICE OF THE SUPREME HEADQUARTERS

KAREN NATIONAL UNION

KAWTHOOLEI

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Restrictions fueling frustration, anger and violence

MIZZIMA

Don Talenywun

  Umphang, Tak, Thailand

September 28, 2009

Trouble is brewing among the refugees of Burma’s war.

Stranded in northern Thailand, fed on rations donated by international community, unable to travel freely and not allowed to work, the populations of the camps strung out along Burma’s border are ready to blow.

Umpheim Mai refugee camp is on tenterhooks, with violence threatening to break out among residents at any time.

A football game on Saturday afternoon descended into crowd violence at game’s end, with gangs of young men attacking each other.

Some camp residents described it as a mini riot.

The current trouble started earlier this month, with a murder of a Burmese resident when he allegedly failed to pay for a cow he had already taken possession of.

When it became obvious he could not pay, the owner is said to have sought his money back, only to find the potential buyer had already slaughtered the beast.

A dispute escalated rapidly from a verbal stoush among two groups of men into physical violence.

Whatever ensued, the alleged “buyer” is now dead.

The camp, situated in Thailand’s in Tak province to the south of Mae Sot and officially home to about 15,000 people, spent months earlier this year on high alert and these latest events have done nothing to ease ethnic tensions.

Residents for months waited in anticipation of an attack by the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, a militia allied with the Burma Army, the armed wing of Burma’s ruling military junta, the State Peace and Development Council.

Rumours ran wild that the remote camp would be destroyed, with much of the population packed up and ready to flee at a moment’s notice.

It only takes a rumour for a large group of isolated, traumatised people to react unpredictably to minor events.

Law and order in the camps has long been a taboo subject with Thai authorities, lumbered with policing communities that would not exist but for a grinding war of attrition in Burma’s ethnic minority-dominated north.

Thai authorities maintain stringent guidelines for allowing Burmese citizens to become part of the camps, requiring them to be fleeing fighting orchestrated by soldiers of the state.

Thai authorities do not recognise soldiers of the DKBA as soldiers of the Burmese state, creating a propensity by the Burma Army to use allied ethnic militias where it can, and paint the conflict as an ethno-centric struggle for power among rival warlords.

Economic migrants or those fleeing human rights abuses or forced labour do not qualify as refugees, inadvertently creating a vast pool of people who have quietly slipped over Burma’s borders and become part of an illegal workforce.

This workforce, satisfied to work for as little as half the wage of a Thai worker, is estimated by some organisations to number as many as two million.

But for those who do qualify as people who have literally run for their lives, containment in a refugee camp and the inability to achieve anything for themselves results in a frustrated existence.

In Umpheim Mai refugee camp on Saturday that frustration bubbled over into mob violence.

“Football is banned now,” said one refugee.

“And rumour from on high is that the Palat [Thai camp commander] may close the gates [put the camp into total lockdown].

“Things are not good, I’ve never seen it like this before, there is a definite vibe in the air,” said the refugee resident.

“Thai patrols through the camp are random now and the soldiers are clipped up and ready to go [carrying live ammunition in the event they have to quash a riot or mob violence],” he said.

ENDS

Two DKBA soldiers killed, two seriously wounded in daring operation

MIZZIMA

Don Talenywun

  Mae Sot, Thailand

September 29, 2009

A special KNLA squad, formed from Sixth Brigade’s 201 and 103 battalions, took construction machines out with two kilograms of TNT - Photo: Steve Sandford

The special KNLA squad, formed from Sixth Brigade’s 201 and 103 battalions, took the machines out with two kilograms of TNT.

The depot is on the western side of the southern reaches of the Dawna Mountain Range, about five days’ walk from the Burmese border town of Myawaddy.

KNLA forward scouts strapped the explosives beneath the engines and remotely detonated them at 1am on September 21.

Soldiers of the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, a militia allied with the Burma Army, gave chase after the explosions rocked their depot.

The KNLA soldiers evaded their pursuers, from the DKBA’s 907 Battalion, for more than two hours, and then led them into a claymore booby trap, killing two and seriously wounding another two.

The earthmoving machines were being used to build a new military road.

The D6 Caterpillar was estimated to be worth about three million Thai baht and the excavator two million baht.

They were the only two machines stationed at the depot.

DKBA Battalion 907 was instrumental in the offensive against KNLA Seventh Brigade during June and July this year that forced more than 5,000 Karen civilians across the Thai border.

Battalion 907 has since been deployed to the Sixth Brigade region.

The formation of a demolition squad specifically to destroy the machines would seem to be an extension of Karen National Union Vice President David Thackrabaw’s declaration earlier this year that the KNLA had to start operating “deep behind enemy lines”.

The KNLA has endured serious territorial losses in the past 12 months.

ENDS

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Remnant population of KNU Seventh Brigade struggle on

MIZZIMA

Don Talenywun

  Mae Sot, Thailand

September 16, 2009

Despite their tough living conditions the children at the orphanage aren’t unhappy – they simply forge on.

Individual donors are starting to assist new refugees at Safe Haven Orphanage.

About 200 people have gathered on the grounds of Safe Haven, many of whom are children.

They fled Karen State, finally giving up their shaky hold on homes constantly in danger of attack, during an offensive by the Burma Army and the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army.

The DKBA and Burma Army troops seemed determined to displace the majority of people living in the Seventh Brigade region, suspecting them of supporting Karen National Liberation Army soldiers somehow.

A child yet to be registered squats in the rain in July, after the main offensive thrust by soldiers of the DKBA and SPDC. A cluster of about 200 people found their way to the grounds of Safe Haven Orphanage after the attacks.

But much of the KNLA guerilla force left the area before the enemy arrived.

They left landmines behind them however, and many of the DKBA dead and wounded, which both numbered in the hundreds according to the KNU, fell foul of these booby traps.

But left in limbo were the civilians who lost their homes.

With no shelter at the height of the rainy season they trod up and down mountains, finally crossing the Moei River to relative safety in Thailand.

For now they are allowed to stay where they are, but the chances of establishing a new camp for between 5,000 and 6,000 people displaced is almost nil, because nowhere is secure along the border.

“Gloria”, biological mother to eight children with one on the way and the guardian of another two adopted kids, teaches a small class at Safe Haven.

DKBA are camped not far from Safe Haven, just over the other side of the river in view of anyone from the Thai side.

For now they have not attacked the camp and donors are providing the necessities of life, but mostly things that can be carried so all is not lost in the event of an attack.

More help is needed, mosquito nets and sleeping mats are most important.

Money is urgently needed to buy food and essential items for basic living.
This is an open appeal to anyone who can afford to help these people, victims of an ongoing campaign of genocide to force them from their home country.

ENDS

One DKBA captain killed, two SPDC soldiers wounded by landmines

MIZZIMA

Don Talenywun

  Mae Sot, Thailand

September 16, 2009

A former Karen National Liberation Army captain who defected to the Burma Army has been killed in an attack by his former battalion.

Captain Ta Baw, who defected to the Burma’s ruling military junta, the State Peace and Development Council last year, was killed on Saturday September 5 during an ambush by soldiers of KNLA Sixth Brigade’s Battalion 201.

After the former KNLA commander defected to the SPDC earlier this year he was set to work with the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army.

He retained his rank of captain.

Neither side considered his defection as being of any great significance.

He walked away from the KNLA alone and without a weapon, yet leaked intelligence to the DKBA and SPDC about Wah Lay Kee’s defences, 201’s former base camp, before it fell earlier this year.

Wah Lay Kee was lost on April 28 this year, when the KNLA pulled out after a 14-day siege that left many dead and scores injured.

Neither side lamented Captain Ta Baw’s death.

While he died during an ambush, he was killed by landmines – he stepped on one mine, then staggered onto another.

DKBA Captain Ta Baw died of blood loss in the field.

Two SPDC soldiers were also wounded in the same skirmish, one later dying.

The attack occurred in the Kanelay area of Karen State, in the mountainous area between Wah Lay Kee and Umphiem Mai refugee camp, to the south of Mae Sot.

Colonel Nerdah Mya, a KNLA commander, said the SPDC nor the DKBA would be sorry Ta Baw was dead.

“They don’t care,” he said.

“It’s just another dead Karen, better we die fighting each other in their eyes.”

Just out of the field this morning (September 14), Colonel Nerdah backed a claim made last week by Karen National Union Vice President David Thackrabaw that DKBA leaders were feuding.

“That’s right, they know that if the KNU is eliminated then they will be next,” he said.

“They’ve got to be smarter than that, surely.”

An anticipated attack on KNLA Fifth Brigade, near Mae Sariang, across the Moei River, has not yet occurred.

After the KNLA’s rapid defeat in Seventh Brigade, during June and July, commanders expected a rapid advance to Fifth Brigade.

It has not yet happened, but an attack on Fifth Brigade headquarter is expected soon.

That brigade is better armed than Seventh Brigade and morale is high.

Thackrabaw last week said Seventh Brigade was the KNLA’s weakest, still reeling after former Brigadier-General Htein Maung’s defection in 2006 to form the KNU/KNLA Peace Council.

Peace Council vehicles, once boldly emblazoned with the militia’s name, still move around Mae Sot, but have been stripped of all markings, some observers suggesting they too have fallen foul of Thai authorities.

Thailand early this year demanded all KNLA commanders and senior KNU figures leave safe havens in Thailand, upping the pressure on the ethnic army, that has in the past enjoyed cordial relations with senior Thai military figures.

But that was when the KNLA held much more territory.

These days the Thais deal with the DKBA.

ENDS

Militia anguishes over slaughter of brethren

Mizzima

Daniel Pedersen

  Mae Salid

September 7, 2009

While the KNLA battles on, the DKBA questions their role in SPDC's 'New Order' - Photo: Steve Stanford

Leaders of the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, which broke away from the KNLA in 1994, are said to be split over the role the militia should play in a theatre of war that pitches soldiers against their brethren.

And in a bid to bolster its numbers the DKBA has begun to raid Karen villages to muster legions of child soldiers, said a senior KNLA source.

The DKBA has hit the KNLA’s Sixth and Seventh Brigades, to the south and north of the Thai town of Mae Sot, hard in the past 12 months.

But Karen National Union vice president David Thackrabaw said the DKBA and SPDC should steel itself for a fight in the north.

The KNLA’s Seventh Brigade fell in June, after a two-week offensive, but DKBA casualties were heavy.

“The DKBA suffered heavy casualties attacking Seventh Brigade,” said Thackrabaw. The KNU is the KNLA’s political overseer.

“They had 100 dead and about 300 wounded in just two weeks.

“Now the SPDC (Burma’s ruling military junta, the State Peace and Development Council) has a plan to launch an operation against the KNU Fifth Brigade and also Sixth Brigade [again],” he said.

“But there is a quarrel, a lot of disagreement among the DKBA leaders.

“Some say they are just being used as cannon fodder by the SPDC, they will be just wiped out if they keep attacking the KNU.

“This is the junta’s policy and the other ceasefire organisations should draw a lesson – if they agree to become a border guard force then they will be used to attack other groups or other organisations still carrying on the resistance.

“Now they have attacked the Kokang, the Kokang is very weak comparatively [to others in the region] – it only has about 1,500 troops.

“They are saying the Kokang are producing their own weapons, they are saying they are still producing drugs, but drugs have been eradicated [in the Kokang area].

“It was in 2006 that the regime itself announced the Kokang region had become a drug-free area,” said Thackrabaw.

Asked if it was true that the Kokang had indeed stopped producing drugs, namely heroin, he said it was, and that the Kokang drug “era” had begun only in 2000 and had ended by 2006.

“They got help from the UN and substituted [drugs] for rubber and rubber is more or less a steady crop for export, so they have more trade and they don’t have to depend on drugs.

“Of course many groups [near the China border] didn’t agree to the transformation into a border guard force, including the Kokang, and so they are being attacked, the smallest, the weakest, as a warning to the others.

“But groups like the UWSA, the Wa, and the Kachin, I really don’t think the military dictatorship has the capacity to override them,” said Thackrabaw.

“The Wa are 20,000 strong and they have a number of heavy weapons also.

“Then you have the Mong La, the Mong La is the group below [to the south of] the Wa. It has about 5,000 troops,” said Thackrabaw.

“So the Wa, Mong La and the Kachin should stand firm, they don’t have to fear,” said Thackrabaw.

“They have nothing to fear because within the SPDC morale is low, they may have good weapons, but morale is low and the terrain favours the ceasefire groups.

“The SPDC does not care about any of the ethnic minorities, their ideology is to eliminate all of the ethnic peoples, by hook or by crook.

“They will employ methods of assimilation, or ethnic cleansing or genocide,” he said.

Thackrabaw said the KNLA’s Fifth Brigade was well prepared for an anticipated onslaught, perhaps at the beginning of the dry season.

“Fifth Brigade is well prepared, they have been fighting for a long time,” he said.

“Seventh Brigade was weak because of the actions of Htein Maung [the former brigadier-general who defected in 2006 to form the KNU/KNLA Peace Council].

“It would be fair to say it is the weakest brigade of the KNLA.”

He said the determination that saw the SPDC and the DKBA join forces and fight for more than six months in Sixth Brigade (to Mae Sot’s south) was largely to do with money.

“I think the DKBA particularly was encouraged by Thai business who want to log and who want to mine in our areas,” he said.

“The operation in Seventh Brigade was an SPDC test for the DKBA, in preparation for their transformation to a border guard force, to which they’ve agreed.

“They [the DKBA] have begun a campaign of recruiting, you know, forced recruiting, and if a village cannot provide troops then they have to pay 300,000 kyat.

“It’s based on a population scale, the larger villages have to provide more troops.

“In some cases they have to provide one person per household, that is fairly drastic we believe, one person per household.

“And they have started taking child-soldier recruits and so some people, they ran into Thailand to escape these human rights violations.

“But the Thais have said ‘the shooting has stopped, you had better go back, you can go back now,’ but they cannot,” he said.

“They would be going back to human rights violations, so the Thai policy is also against humanitarian values, it’s very immoral.”

Thackrabaw said the DKBA maintained no minimum age limit for its soldiers.

ENDS