The Karen National League, as a non-armed Karen organization, seeks to uplift the lot of the Karen people and bring about the rule of law and true democracy to Burma. It engages in any and all lawful activities incidental to the foregoing purposes.

From: Burma Debate, Vol. 5, No. 4, Fall 1998

Ending the systematic violence against ethnic people: A precursor to meaningful political dialogue By Saw Kapi

It has been months since I read a news release by the Karen Information Center about the horrifying rape and ruthless murder of a 16 year old Karen girl by a Burmese Army company commander. The incident took place on 20th July 1998, around midnight. Aung Myint Sein, from the Light Infantry Battalian 230, entered Tah Paw village with his troops, raped Naw Paw Lu, age 16, then shot her with a carbine. The bullet travelled through her body and lodged in her brain. She died instantly.

It was around that time that I also read of the deaths of three Irish brothers in a terrorist bomb attack. The news received wide international attention, perhaps because it happened to take place in Great Britain rather than in the jungles of Burma. Yet the consequences of both events are the same: both claimed the lives of innocent children under the age of 18. In the case of the Karen girl, it hardly seems to matter to the governments of neighboring countries, since most of them appear to care more about maintaining stability through military suppression than finding lasting peace. But it is hard to believe that any one of us with a modicum of decency and social consciousness would ignore the suffering of Burma?s innocent people.

I am compelled to conclude that when a whole race becomes the enemy of a cruel military regime, a child is no longer seen as a child. Although the young Karen girl was innocent and harmless, she was seen by the soldiers as an enemy and treated as one.

For the Karen villagers who live in remote areas of the country, this type of grisly act is quite common. Several local and international human rights organizations have documented the regime?s systematic, scorched-earth campaigns which include larceny, indiscriminate burning of entire villages, and massacres. The inhuman treatment and the resulting death of the innocent Karen girl is just part of such barbarous deeds. When members of an army who view themselves as racially superior come to the homeland of ethnic people that they believe are inferior to them, the most grotesque things we can imagine may happen.

One thing will always remain true. Neither the demands of ethnic peoples for their political rights, nor their desire for lasting peace, will vanish under the rule of a military dictatorship. The Karen resistance movement was not born out of hatred of any ethnic nationality. In fact, the nearly half-a-century-long Karen struggle in many ways symbolizes a call for national unity. In his interview with the Bangkok Post on October 6, 1996, Gen. Saw Bo Mya, President of the Karen National Union (KNU), stated as clearly as could be. "We, the Karens, don't hate the Burmans. What we detest is the adoption of a superior race policy, military and authoritarian rule. . . . . . [W]e have always formed alliances with the Burmans. We once formed a united front with U Nu and now it has been the same with the students [All Burma Students' Democratic Front (ABSDF)]."

If the ongoing ethnic oppression continues, with daily human rights abuses in ethnic areas by the military regime, it is difficult to be hopeful for peace in the near future. The longer the oppression goes on, the harder it will become to achieve durable peace and national reconciliation. The question here is not what is the solution to the problems of Burma, but how can we insure that neither military suppression nor ethnic oppression is seen as a desirable means of resolution? A half-century- long civil war is more than enough to prove this.

The ruling military junta claims that it has successfully negotiated cease-fire agreements with 15 armed ?insurgent groups,? with the exception of the Karen National Union (KNU). However, few in the international community, or even inside the country, really know what the agreements contained. The only thing the regime announces is that those groups have returned to the ?legal fold? and ?exchanged their arms for peace.? The fact that the ruling junta refused to reach an agreement with the ethnic groups collectively, through the Democratic Alliance of Burma (DAB), and secretly made separate deals with individual groups reveals the regime?s insincerity and unwillingness for genuine peace. Not surprisingly, the Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP) has resumed fighting again, and so have some factions of the New Mon State Party (NMSP). Despite the cease-fire agreements, they have cited the regime?s broken promises and continued military offensives against their people as reasons for returning to armed conflict.

Even though it was one of the first groups to sign a cease-fire agreement, the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) has never agreed to renounce armed struggle nor to enter the ?legal fold.? Neither has the New Mon State Party (NMSP) made these terms part of their cease-fire agreement. And while the regime had temporarily postponed military engagement with those ethnic resistance groups, it continues to build its army and extensively increased military activities in Karen areas. When the KNU refused to give up armed resistance the regime unilaterally discontinued talks with KNU and ruthlessly resumed its wholesale military offensives against the Karen villages both within and outside of KNU-controlled territories.

What is regrettable at this point, is that merely expanding the strength of the regime?s armed forces will not solve the political problems that have plagued Burma, nor can lasting stability and national unity be achieved in this way. Even more perilous for the future of the country is the attitude of the military regime itself. So long as the Burmese military regime is incapable of seeing the country?s ethnic problems as political ones, there will be little hope for meaningful dialogue between the regime and ethnic resistance forces. In fact, it is nothing more than a hypocritical, self-glorifying conviction of the regime to think that only the military (Tatmadaw) loves the country, and that it is her savior.

I recently came across a very brief article about SLORC?s offensive against the Karen in the Nation, an English-language newspaper published in Bangkok, Thailand. That article offers a rather groundless approach to the political problems of Burma. While agreeing that the problem is a political one, the article says, ?Rangoon?s action against the Karen must be understood in the context of its fears over ethnic fragmentation.? Boldly enough, it continues to state that, ?[s]o long as the KNU uses guerrilla warfare to try and settle its problems with the center, the response will predictably be a military one.?

The message articulated in this short article is especially important. It appears as though the author is telling us that the fear of ethnic fragmentation can be removed through ethnic cleansing campaigns and suggests that ethnic cleansing by a military government with a numerical majority over the minorities is an acceptable, and perhaps the only way, of preventing fragmentation.

If the SPDC was indeed concerned about ?ethnic fragmentation? and so desired to build trust with ethnic nationalities in the country as it often attests, it would first stop all the military offensives, forced relocations and ethnic cleansing campaigns against the various ethnic nationalities. The regime needs to accept the fact that ethnic nationalities in Burma have been fighting for their political rights, and unless these fundamental issues are sincerely and candidly addressed, their struggles will continue in one form or another.

At this historical moment for Burma, to call for a moratorium on the regime?s militaristic and ethnocentric behaviors is by no means to make less important the people?s aspiration for a democratic system. The suspension of brutal violence and human right violitions against ethnic nationalities is an essential step that will pave the way for a genuine national reconciliation and create a climate where fragile cease-fires and ?informal talks? can be replaced with meaningful political dialogue that includes the regime leaders of ethnic nationalities and NLD members including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

 

Released by: Communication and Information Division P.O Box 320 518 San Francisco, CA 94132 U.S.A. Email: KNLcomm@aol.com

Return to Documents