Daniel Pedersen

NDF chairman speaks out on ethnic resurgence: part 1

NDF chairman speaks out on ethnic resurgence: part 2

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TNI-BCN Burma policy briefing No. 5
February 2011

Following the shake-up of Burmese politics last year, the country’s military leaders now face the challenge of introducing a new system while ethnic tensions and exclusions remain.

Burma remains a land in ethnic crisis and political transition. In 2010 the military State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) laid out the landscape for a new era of parliamentary government. In 2011 the authorities face the challenge of introducing the new political system. Ethnic divisions and political exclusions, however, are emerging in national politics, threatening a new cycle of impasse and conflict.
A critical moment is approaching. A new political system is being introduced, and progressive decisions can yet be made. But uncertainty is increasing. Will the new government be the SPDC in new guise or will it be a platform from which ethnic peace and multi-party democracy can truly spread? The stakes could not be higher. The decisions made by Burma’s leaders in the coming year could well decide the country’s future for a generation Ethnic Politics in Burma: The Time for Solutions. Burma Policy Briefing Nr 5

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Restaurant bombing kills two

Daniel Pedersen

Mae Sot

Burma’s Myawaddy has again become an urban theatre of war, with two people killed in a bomb blast on Wednesday night near the Thai-Burma Friendship Bridge.

And witnesses said throughout the day on Tuesday they had heard sporadic gunfire from the Rim Moei Market, nestled on the riverbank directly opposite Myawaddy.

The Burmese frontier trading town became famous overnight on election day – November 7 – when soldiers of the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army revolted against their Burma Army overseers, sparking pitched battles in the town’s streets.

Since then, the situation has deteriorated along the border as the junta’s troops seek retribution.

There are more than 10,000 refugees spread along both sides of the Moei River, human minesweepers are being driven ahead of Burma Army troops and hostilities are regularly spilling onto the Thai side.

Said a Thai military intelligence officer: “They’re [both Karen and Burmese troops] using Thailand like a guesthouse.”

Burma’s ruling military junta, the State Peace and Development Council, has ordered its army to embark on a major offensive to secure the border area in a concerted effort to open it up for trade.

The Burma Army has introduced 110mm GPS-guided cannons to the border area and is regularly plying ethnic army-held areas with as many as 200 120mm mortars a day.

It is firepower the ethnic armies of this region cannot match and significant base camps have fallen like dominoes in recent weeks.

Landmines, the main defensive apparatus used to protect their villages, have been detonated by mortar and cannon fire.

To protect themselves against landmines that have not been detonated by heavy artillery, the Burma Army imported 600 prisoners taken from state-run jails to walk in front of them, essentially as mine fodder.

Some sustained serious injury and were hospitalised in Thailand, their stories were corroborated by three escapees who fled across the border.

Soldiers of the ethnic armies, the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army and the Karen National Liberation Army, have been left on the run, sleeping rough in the bush with few supplies.

The DKBA has so far borne the brunt of the Burma Army’s latest offensive.

Until the ruling junta’s November 7 election, the DKBA and the Burma Army had been considered allies.

But a revolt on that day by elements of the DKBA resulted in heavy fighting in the Burmese border town of Myawaddy, opposite Mae Sot in Thailand.

The ensuing onslaught in areas to the south of Mae Sot could be viewed as the Burma Army looking to teach its former ally a lesson.

But things have not gone so well for the Burma Army and it has still not managed to wrest control of the contested areas, according to interviews with former soldiers conducted by the Karen Human Rights Group.

One 17-year-old Burma Army deserter told KHRG: “Our camp was attacked and the ones who got injured the most were us, but the DKBA soldiers did not get injured a lot.

“There were around 500 to 600 soldiers when we started operations but the total soldiers who died by landmines or got shot were over 200,” he said.

He fled the fighting to save his life, he said.

Snipers have make on Burma Army base camps

Daniel Pedersen

Mae Sot

Combined ethnic Karen armies have besieged three Burma Army base camps near the Thai-Burma border to the south of Mae Sot.

The camps – at Toh Kyo, K’ne Ley and Maw Kee – are the government’s closest footprint to the Thai border in this mountainous region.

More than 160 soldiers of Burma’s ruling military junta, the State Peace and Development Council, are pinned down, living underground, not daring to raise their heads for fear of attracting fire.

The Burma Army soldiers constitute the main body of government troops that once controlled the border with its former ally, the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, which was employed as a forward fighting force.

The DKBA mutinied on November 7, the day of Burma’s much-maligned election, taking control of strategic points in the frontier trading town of Myawaddy.

Fighting persisted for two days before the DKBA pulled out.

Since then the DKBA has rejoined forces with the revolutionary Karen National Liberation Army, which has been fighting for an independent Karen state since 1949.

The two Karen factions first split in 1994.

The Burma Army base camps now besieged are on high ground, from where SPDC soldiers once commanded a comfortable bird’s-eye view as they directed their Karen allies during firefights.

But the wet season is now finished in this part of South East Asia and high ground is a liability, because streams fed by steady rains since June have dried up.

Now the Burma Army soldiers must make their own way down from hillside bunkers to access permanent water, making themselves vulnerable in the process.

The combined Karen forces have laid land mines and set Claymore booby traps on pathways leading to the creeks and their snipers maintain a silent, camouflaged vigil waiting for a chance to hit their enemies.

Drinking water for mere survival takes precedence over sanitary conditions and the SPDC troops now have not been able to wash for almost a month.

“Now they are really under attack,” said one KNLA “Black” Special Forces soldier.

“They’ve got a base camp at the top of the hill and the bottom of the hill is surrounded, we have snipers with .308 calibre rifles and telescopic sights at 600 yards, 300 yards and much closer, maybe not even 200 yards,” he said.

“They’re [the SPDC] spending most of their time underground.”

The base camps have formidable bunkers dug deep into what is now dry, rock-hard clay and the tops are armoured with hardwood logs.

Karen soldiers said foliage was very dense around the camps and it was difficult to see anything.

Nevertheless, on Saturday the SPDC soldiers were forced out of their bunkers in search of water.

They used M-79 grenade launchers to clear a path through landmines to gather drinking water.

One of the Karen snipers said, because of the dense foliage, night time had become an ally.

“Any time they turn on a light they get shot at.

“One guy lit a cigarette, he was shot, I don’t know whether I killed him or not, but the lights went out and the cigarette went down – that was from 600 yards,” the sniper said.

He also wounded another soldier in the leg at 1068 yards.

“I’m using a .308 Remington model 700 with a mid-range Bushnell scope, a 24-power variable magnification adjustable scope,” he said.

“So after that, they moved most of their troops to the other side [of the hilltop], mainly to get away from the snipers and a Chinese-made .50 calibre machine gun we’re using, but then on the other side we hit them with RPGs [rocket-propelled grenades] and 60mm mortars,” he said.

Their position, on the whole, was “not very good” he said, “really not good.”

“They’ve been on the radio begging for recruits to back them up, but they have been refused because three base camps in the area are all under attack.”

Other soldiers said there had been some return fire.

“There’s been some .50 calibre machine gun fire and some 81mm mortars but they haven’t come in on target,” he said.

“They really just don’t know what they’re shooting at.”

The Maw Kee base camp is the largest of the three under attack, home to between 80 and 100 men.

A little further north at K’ne Ley about 50 to 80 Burma Army soldiers are pinned down and “the only place they walk is back and forth in their holes”.

The most northern, and smallest, of the besieged government camps is Toh Kyo.

There too, the SPDC troops are stuck underground, with snipers at 800m, 400m and 200m

Ba Wa, the KNLA’s chief medic for the region, who has 15 medics at 10 different locations in the area, said the water supply to Toh Kyo had been surrounded with Claymore mines and land mines and snipers were laying in wait.

On Monday afternoon Ba Wa was at war with his mobile phone in Mae Sot.

Reports were constantly being called in about an ambush at Wa Shu Pu, between the Karen villages of K’ne Ley and Wah Lay.

A Burma Army unit of about 25 men was in the thick of a Claymore ambush and excited medics were calling their commanding officer to update him.

Terminating a final call before leaving town he said: “I’ve heard five [SPDC troops] injured by rifle fire and one has suffered a land mine injury, but it’s impossible to really know how many have been wounded because it’s still going on,” he said at about 2pm.

Ba Wa said his medics had been monitoring Burma Army radio transmissions and the men caught in the ambush had been reinforcements trying to sneak into Maw Kee.

The reinforcements didn’t get within a day’s walk of that besieged base camp.

 

 

 

 

ENDS

ABC Gippsland
By Celine Foenander

Why risk your life to tell a story few want to hear? Former Gippsland journalist, Daniel Pedersen went from writing about Sale to exposing the atrocities levelled against the Karen people of Burma.

Pedersen has dedicated the past eight years trying to dissect the complex web of Burmese politics, its military and the ethnic minority groups who are fighting for a share of their homeland.

With virtually no access to the ruling military junta, he has had to win over key figures from the ethnic minority armies to uncover the extent of the war which has raged for more than 60 years.

In the prologue to his soon to be released book, Secret Genocide, Pedersen writes: “This is a book about longing. About people longing for their homes, longing for their friends, longing for a sense of possession. About people being deprived of their very basic right to life.

“And no-one seems to care.”

Interview with Daniel Pedersen

Pedersen admits getting the story out to give the Western world an opportunity to “care” is an exercise in obstacles and potentially fatal consequences.

Add to that the Australian press, which either doesn’t understand or doesn’t see the news value in a long running war, so far away.

Pedersen, who now lives near the Thai-Burmese border, has returned to the family home at Airly, near Sale for a short while.

The reason for his visit, to reacquaint himself with his family. Perhaps too, he is hoping that distance will put the conflict into perspective.

“You’re talking about say, 50 million people and there’s been a great injustice done to so many, by so very few,” he told ABC Gippsland’s Mornings program.

“It’s interesting to explore the human motivation as to why people take up arms against the government.

“In the case of the Karen, it’s not very difficult to see why they take up arms. You have government troops coming in and burning down their schools, burning down their churches and then they go off somewhere a little bit safer and build them again, only to be discovered hiding there and the government comes and burns down the community facilities that they’ve built.”

Pedersen, the man, finds it difficult to comprehend.

Pedersen, the journalist, finds it difficult to put some balance in the story.

It’s not like the junta has a well-oiled public relations department.

“I haven’t travelled with militia aligned with the government troops, probably because you’d be arrested, possibly taken hostage,” he said.

“There is right and there is wrong in Burma and at the moment, what’s happening is wrong and as a contributor to human society, how do you contribute to stopping that injustice?

“How do you create a more equitable world? That’s the first step towards us moving forward as a society.”

Secret Genocide by Daniel Pedersen is published by Maverick House and will be released at the end of the month.

Genocide is not so secret anymore

The Irrawaddy
By Min Lwin

The Burmese Air Force (BAF) has bought 50 Mi-24 helicopters and 12 Mi-2 armored transport helicopters from Russia, according to a source from the BAF.

The purchase of the M-24s marks the first time the BAF, known in Burmese as Tatmadaw-Lay, has procured combat-equipped helicopters.

“50 Mi-24 fighter helicopters and a dozen Mi-2s were procured from Russia, and are now being assembled in Flying Training Base in Meikthila,” the source said. “After assembling the helicopters they will be divided among four squadrons at Magwe Air Base and Ela Air Base.”

Burma currently has 15 air bases. Ela Air Base, not far from Burma’s remote capital Naypyidaw, is the newest and is frequently used by Burma’s senior military generals and government officials for domestic and international flights.

The procurement of the Mi-24s comes a year after a request was made to Russia by BAF chief Lt-Gen Myat Hein in a bid to modernize Burma’s ailing air force and provide a weapon to conduct air strikes against infantry battalions, most likely in Burma’s ethnic areas where dozens of armed groups still exert control.

“The main reason for purchasing the Mi-24s is for counter-insurgency,” the source said.

In 1956, the BAF bought six Kawasaki Bell 47G helicopters from Japan, but did not upgrade its fleet until 1975 when the US provided 18 Bell 205A-1 helicopters as part of an anti-narcotics program.

Since then, Burma has acquired some 70 helicopters, few of which are still in service. The BAF has traditionally separated its helicopter fleet among air bases at Hmawbi in Rangoon Division, Namsang in Southern Shan State, Taungoo in Pegu Division and Ground Training Air Base in Meikthila, which is in Mandalay Division.

One Mi-17 helicopter crashed in 2001, taking the lives of several senior military officials, including Burmese army Chief-of-Staff Lt-Gen Tin Oo.

An Mi-2 helicopter from Taungoo Air Base crashed in June near Pindaya Township, resulting in four deaths.

The BAF was founded in 1947 before Burma gained independence. Its principal raison d’être for many years was a campaign against the the Burmese Communist Party in the jungles of Burma’s north and a decades-long war waged against several the country’s ethnic armies, most notably the Karen National Union.

The Irrawaddy

Another blow for Burma’s ethnic diversity at the hands of the generals

Peacerunning, August 10, 2010

Adopting a tough stand, the Burmese military junta yesterday ordered the removal of the Karen national flag from the gates and military camps of ceasefire groups in Karen State.

“The order to remove Karen flags was released at 9:30 am yesterday.  All the flags were removed by 3 pm, a DKBA soldier told KIC.

According to DKBA sources, the order came from Col. Khin Maung Htay of MOC 12, who is directly appointed by Nay Pyi Daw to solve border issues.

A Kawkareik local on condition of anonymity said that the removal of Karen flags was done in Myawaddy, Kawkareik, and Pa-an in Karen state. The DKBA and other ceasefire groups were ordered to remove Karen flags, he added.

“When I saw the Karen flag being removed, I felt a pang in my heart that a thing of heritage is being done away with,” a DKBA soldier from 999 gate said in a pained voice.

Among Karen ceasefire groups, are the DKBA, Karen Peace Council (KPC), Hong Thayaw special region, Phayar Gone ceasefire group, and Thantaung special region.

The removal of Karen flags is a temporary act because high ranking junta officials will come to their area, a soldier from KPC told KIC.

“The idea is to keep the flag away from the pole temporarily because senior junta officials will come. Representatives of MAS (Military Affairs Security) checked every gate at midday yesterday. Some gates are yet to remove the flags. Our gate (KPC gate), Kyauk Phyar gate has removed the flag,” the KPC soldier added.

“Our leader Saw Ba Oo Gyi had said Karen can create the future of Karen. We will raise the Karen flag wherever we are based,” a commander from the brigade of Col. Saw Lar Pwe, who rejected transformation to the junta’s Border Guard Force (BGF) said.

Since August 3, the Burmese Army has told ceasefire groups that if they go downtown, they should not wear uniforms and not carry weapons, which can be carried only in army camps.

Myawaddy locals said the Burmese Army will transform DKBA 999 brigade into BGF in Myawaddy town on August 16.

Major Saw Mauk Thon, a commander of DKBA Kalo Htoo Baw strategic command, accepted transformation to BGF on August 2. He has been helping DKBA soldiers sign the agreement in his office in Myawaddy.

“Soldiers came to Maj Mauk Thon’s house, which is also the office of the strategic command for three days. DKBA vehicles carrying solders also came to his house and signed the agreement with Maj Mauk Thon at his gate,” a woman eyewitness said.

According to ceasefire groups and locals, Lt. Gen. Khin Zaw, commander of the costal division, and Brig. Thet Naing, commander of north east military command, are already in Myawaddy.

Even though Col. Than Naing Win, commander of MOC 19, is responsible for the area of Thaung Yin River, which demarcates Thailand and Burma, Col. Khin Maung Htay, commander of MOC 12, took over the duty on July 30.

KIC news

KNU general-secretary says Saw La Bwe may come home, on one condition – no drugs

DVB

FRANCIS WADE

August 3, 2010

An order has been sent by senior Burmese army officials to troops in Karen state to capture the commander of a government-allied militia faction, as tensions appear to be escalating.

Officials have also introduced tight regulations on civilians in towns bordering territory belonging to the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army’s (DKBA) Brigade 5, whose commander, Saw La Bwe (also known as Na Kham Mwe), continues to refuse to transform into a Border Guard Force.

Fears that escalating tensions will erupt into fighting have already caused an exodus of refugees in Burma’s eastern Karen state into Thailand

An intelligence directive, received at the weekend by DVB, was sent by the Southeastern Regional Military Command to Burmese troops stationed close to DKBA Brigade 5 territory. It said that the “order by the Burmese army to capture the DKBA Brigade 5’s commander Saw La Bwe (a.k.a Na Kham Mwe) was dispatched to the frontline’s Military Operations Command 8”.

“However, according to the MOC8’s report, Saw Hla Bwe (a.k.a Na Kham Mwe) has gone into hiding in territory close to the KNU Brigade 6,” it added, referring to the opposition Karen National Union (KNU) whom the DKBA broke away from in 1994.

Zipporah Sein, general secretary of the KNU, said that there had been “no official information” as to Saw La Bwe’s whereabouts. “That’s the rumour – he was in KNU territory three months ago but it’s not clear where he is now.”

Since the split, the DKBA have been fighting alongside the Burmese army in their decades-old conflict against the KNU. Reports have surfaced in recent months of defections by DKBA members back to their old group.

“If [Saw La Bwe] fights against the Burmese army then we can accept him back, as long as he is no longer involved in drugs,” Zipporah said. The DKBA are reportedly involved in a number of illegal trade and activities, including trafficking of methamphetamine.

A wing of the Burmese army, known as the Frontline Military Strategic Command, has ordered troops in Payathonsu township, close to the Three Pagodas Pass in Karen state, to heighten surveillance on civilians. Brigade 5’s territory is said to stretch from Myawaddy, across the border from Thailand’s Mae Sot, to Payathonsu.

Regulations on civilians include a ban on carrying shoulder bags at night time – perhaps to diminish the threat of bomb attacks, although this is not clear – and a ban on civilians leaving or entering the town at night.

“Responsible personnel in the town are advised to keep collecting information and continue with other tasks,” it adds. Troops are also ordered to block communication between the DKBA Brigade 5 and members of the New Mon State Party (NMSP), another armed ceasefire group operating in the area.

“It is advised to use effective ways of punishment on the civilians who break the regulations,” the directive ends.

Saw La Bwe has repeatedly rejected the Border Guard Force plan, which would see his troops assimilated into the Burmese army. A Brigade 5 official said last week that the government had threatened force against the DKBA officials who were resistant to the idea.

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SPDC units in hot pursuit of defectors heading to Thai border

Mizzima

Daniel Pedersen

May 3, 2010

Hundreds of Democratic Karen Buddhist Army troops are reported to have broken their alliance with the Burma Army. Military field reports have the DKBA soldiers heading for the Thai border, with State Peace and Development Council units in hot pursuit.

There have been significant engagements between the two armies as the DKBA soldiers move east.

Karen National Liberation Army sources last night said the DKBA soldiers were “coming back, but not the commanders, of course”.

Karen National Union vice president David Takapaw said he had heard that many DKBA soldiers were unhappy with recent demands made by the SPDC and that some had begun to defect.

A split within the Karen National Union, between Buddhists and Christians, created the DKBA in 1994. It rapidly proved a destructive split.

In early 1995 the KNU stronghold of Mannerplaw, near the confluence of the Salween and Moei rivers, had fallen, with Burma Army troops guided into the natural fortress by KNU defectors flying the new DKBA flag. At the time the ruling military junta promised the DKBA leaders they would rule Karen State as they wished.

But in 2010 the DKBA does not so much manage Karen State as terrorise the countryside and milk urban areas of cash with standover tactics, while its leaders get rich on cross-border tax.

A photograph in last week’s edition of Mae Sot’s weekly tabloid Pan Din Maere, or Motherland, featured DKBA Batallion 999 leader Chit Thu posing with his family in front of his new home.

Even the local Mae Sot paper was invited to his Myawaddy house-warming party.

The house is a monument to new-found riches as only the nouveau-riche can manage. It is ostentatious and simply lighting the place for his three-day extravaganza would have cost a fortune.

Chit Thu has been one of the handful of individuals who have benefited from the DKBA’s creation. His Brigade 999 has a fearsome reputation and money to burn.

Until the SPDC started pressing his army for reform as a local militia, Chit Thu was riding high.

The question is to what extent the DKBA will be damaged by such a mutiny by its foot soldiers.A few hundred soldiers is many, but not much of an indent on overall DKBA numbers.

A warlord is nothing without the loyalty of his men. Chit Thu must now be questioning some of his men’s loyalty.

With SPDC troops hunting DKBA defectors as they make their way towards KNLA territory, the prospect of the whole of the DKBA peacefully transforming into a Border Guard Force looks marginal.

The DKBA still insists it supports KNU founder Saw Ba U Gyi’s four guiding principles of the “Karen revolution”.

They are:

1. For us surrender is out of the question
2. The Karen, we shall retain our arms
3. The recognition of Karen State must be complete
4. The Karen, we shall decide our own destiny

This, on face value, would have the DKBA opposed vehemently to the SPDC’s rule. But the split that festered in 1994 to become one of the most-damaging blows the KNU has ever felt is these days all about business.

The DKBA now manages border trade with the SPDC, as the KNU once did with the Thais. The KNU logged its border strongholds and oversaw tin, zinc and gold mining.

Now, all manner of goods, both legal and otherwise, cross back and forth, and the DKBA takes a cut on virtually every transaction.

Its leaders are becoming very rich.

But its foot soldiers, ever in danger from KNU landmines and ambushes, see a distinct separation from the lives they lead in the field and those of their leaders, whom the local media follow like celebrities.

Deadlines for the DKBA to transform into a Border Guard Force have come and gone, and as each one passes the SPDC ups the pressure a notch.

The junta’s BGF programme is essentially a system of creating local militias commanded by SPDC officers.

According to its programme of transformation, the DKBA would disarm, change uniforms and then be re-armed. As a BGF, the force would answer directly to the Burma Army. Soldiers would receive a wage, equivalent to 1,200 baht a month. Dropped would be the original DKBA shoulder patch, and most likely the name.

Such a move would take the DKBA further than ever away from its roots and its claims of being driven by Ba U Gyi’s principles.

ENDS