Lending an ear to the stories of dissidents in Burma where the military junta has not lost its power even after the recent parliamentary and presidential elections, the first one within half a century, makes us realise how important the ethnic dimension is in understanding Burma. The idea of having so many different players in one country, with varying stakes makes for a complicated mosaic. And that is probably why the discourse more frequently heard is often simplified to the repression of the “innocent Burmese people”, as one entity, by the “evil Burmese military”. The differences between various ethnic groups comprising Burma are easily ignored.
ON THE BORDER
“I'm afraid the news is not good,” Colonel NerDah Mya, who heads the sixth brigade of the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), says over the phone. “I would love to take you inside Burma, to our base camp, but there’s a lot of fighting and it’s unsafe… I wouldn’t want to risk your security.”
Ner Dah’s voice seems tense. Our chances of entering Burma along with the rebel army seem bleaker with every passing day. It’s been five days of waiting in Mae Sot, a Thai town close to the Burmese border. The Thai authorities have issued a warning to Ner Dah, saying they would arrest him if he was caught crossing over to Burma illegally again.
Members of the KNLA routinely shuttle in and out of Burma through the country’s border with Thailand, making the latter an informal base for the KNLA’s operations. The conflict between the rebel group and the Burmese military has long been the cause of skirmishes in the area, leading to instability along the border. The latest spate of clashes has vexed the Thai authorities, prompting them to take a harsh stand on the ethnic army’s movements.
Ner Dah explains: “The situation over the border is getting trickier. It has been quite bad since the parliamentary elections in Burma”. His claims can be quantified by the number of Karen refugees who fled to Thailand in the weeks following the elections in November 2010. Nearly 20,000 Karen people fled their villages after fresh post-election offensives launched by the Burmese military.
The conflict between the KNLA and the Burmese military has lasted 62 years, making it one of the longest wars in modern history. In an immensely diverse environment, the Karen are an ethnic minority that make up seven percent of Burma’s 55 million and occupy the south and southeast of the country.
Given the dissimilarities between their history, language, and culture and that of the majority in Burma, the former have been waging an armed struggle for self-determination and independence since 1948, when the country gained independence from British imperialism. With its seven brigades the KNLA is the armed wing of the Karen National Union (KNU), a body that represents the voices of the Karen people. In the mid-1970s, the KNLA changed its demands from independence to establishing a federal state. Other ethnicities like the Shan, the Mon, the Kayah and the Rohingyas (to name a few) comprise 40 percent of Burma’s population. More than 20 ethnic armies represent different ethnicities in their fight against the Burmese junta’s repression.
A SILENT GENOCIDE
“The Karen people are suffering. I cannot live in peace while my people are not free. If they are not free, neither am I. I won’t have peace of mind until I set them free,” Ner Dah says. Reports suggest that the military has burned down over 3,200 villages in eastern Burma, which is largely Karen dominated, in the past decade. The junta has been accused of ethnic cleansing; some suggest that the Karen have been victims of genocide at the hands of the regime. “We want freedom and self determination in a democratic Burma, and we will achieve it,” Ner Dah is certain. But it’s easy to detect a sense of defeat in his voice. He is unquestionably tired: “It’s been a long war. We have been fighting for 62 years. This is now the 63rd year of our struggle”.
Generations of Karen people have sacrificed their lives in the war. Ner Dah is just one among hundreds. His father General Bo Mya fought for Karen liberation all his life. Ner Dah and his brother Tay Lay Mya joined the fight in their youth. “My father’s generation… fought bravely… We will finish what they sought to achieve. If we don’t solve the problem, the next generation will be slaves. If we do, the next generation will be free,” he says.
From hunting birds to taking aim at Burmese targets, the transition has been harsh for Ner Dah. “I have killed people. If you are supposed to kill, you kill. If not, you don’t… If you have to kill innocent people, then you don’t feel right. In a war zone, you sometimes cannot avoid innocent people getting killed,” he says. He is proud to be Christian. Fifteen minutes into the interview and he quotes the bible. “Before I go to the battlefield, I pray to God…”
The innocent are not only civilians. Soldiers on both sides of the war are victims as well. While it is convenient to paint a picture of the Burmese military as heartless brutes killing their own people, that is a misconception that is far from reality. Burmese soldiers suffer from working under horrible conditions for measly salaries and most are forced to join the army. According to Human Rights Watch, 20 percent or more of the active soldiers in the Burmese army are under 18 years of age.
MONKS AS SOLDIERS
We drive on a dusty lane in Ner Dah’s car. The uphill path leads straight to the monastery where we meet Rambo monk. Some modern-day Buddhist members of the KNLA broke away to form the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), alleging the former of favoring the Christian community over the Buddhist. The DKBA has since gone back and forth over ceasefire agreements with the military government. There have been further splinter factions within the army over several disputes. Currently the fifth brigade of the DKBA, led by commander Na Kham We, has rejoined the KNLA.
Rambo monk has played a major role in reconciling differences within the Christian and Buddhist groups over the past years. “He left his monastery to fight for the Karen cause. He doesn’t care what religion people are. He only feels strongly about the Karen struggle,” Ner Dah informs us. A monk fighting a war is quite unheard of and raises many questions – aren’t Buddhist monks supposed to be non-violent, aren’t they supposed to be apolitical? Throw these questions at Rambo monk and he dodges them astutely, “I have seen my people suffer. When there is such injustice meted out against innocent people, somebody must do something. I wish I was privileged to fight non-violently like Gandhi. The Burmese military doesn’t understand non-violence.”
RELIGION AND POLITICS
Rambo monk is from a school of thought different from that of the thousands of monks who protested peacefully against the Burmese military’s hard-line tactics in 2007. They rose up unarmed against the junta in what later became known as the Saffron Revolution. The protests met a bloody end, with the Burmese military killing hundreds of monks and scores of peaceful protesters who joined them.
The Saffron Revolution attracted a lot of international attention and led to the Burmese junta’s decision to lay out their ‘roadmap to democracy’ – a seven step transition of Burma from military dictatorship towards civilian rule. A constitution was drafted, electoral laws written and elections held. The election results and the nomination of a few pro-democracy parties occupying seats in the parliament haven’t changed the situation on the ground. The military continues to run the country, only now under a garb of legitimacy.
Rambo monk offers to give us a tour of the monastery he is building for the displaced people of Burma. “I started building this monastery two years ago. I had a dream about building it and that’s how I started this mission,” he says proudly. “Burmese people who cross the border are looking for some peace too. They can come here and feel at home”.
FAITH IN PEACE
Sitting in front of David Thackrabaw, the vice president of the KNU, we observe how patiently he deals with everyone at the table. In his late seventies, he is undoubtedly the most revered in the room. A lot of questions are asked, a lot of answers expected. The most pressing and pertinent question is the future of the various ethnic rebel groups in Burma. Thackrabaw is a spokesperson of the new ethnic alliance between 12 major ethnic armies.
“It’s a way to bring together different ethnic armies on one pedestal. The main aim is to have a meaningful dialogue with the Burmese military. We want a peaceful reconciliation,” he says. Carefully masked behind this genuine sentiment is a hapless plea. The armed ethnic groups have been gradually losing territory to the Burmese military over the past decades. The rebel armies, with their limited weapons and personnel, are fighting an unfair war against a military that aims to expand to 500,000 men and is obtaining sophisticated weapons with foreign assistance from countries like China, India, Russia and even Ukraine.
Thackrabaw stresses the need for a peaceful way ahead once again. “We don’t want to fight anymore. We want to talk to the government, but it has to be meaningful. Our demands have to be respected as well,” he says. You can notice the weariness in his voice. “I joined the KNU as a soldier when I was 14. Once I turned 18, I went off to study. When I returned I ended up in the jungles and fought in the war for many years. It’s a long story…,” he concludes hastily.
At one point, he speaks dreamy-eyed, “I want to take a holiday after this war is over, after my people are free. I love flying. I want to have my own airbase by a waterfall. I want to fly a plane and come and land in the jungle. I imagine having a barbecue with my friends at sunset…”
That’s our final rendezvous with Ner Dah. The situation hasn’t changed much since we left Thailand. “It’s still very bad,” is the most common response we hear. The democratic transformation of the dictatorship seems to bring no true relief to those who are the most suppressed and deprived of freedom. The democratic federation of equal ethnicities remains only a dream.
