The response of the Burmese ruling military Junta to last week’s cyclone and the ever–growing humanitarian disaster has shown the government’s disregard for its citizens and a ruthless obsession with power and control. International criticism has been directed towards the ruling Junta for its stalling of the aid process by granting very few visas to aid workers, restricting the flow of supplies coming in, and insisting that the government direct aid efforts rather than international aid organizations. All while the Burmese people suffer, aid sitting at the borders.
While this latest tragedy unfolds, remember that Burma is home to another disaster which also highlights the military regime as one with a brutal grip on power and an unwillingness to bend. The battle of ethnic minorities within Burma to secure political and cultural autonomy has been raging since Burma gained independence from Britain in 1948. One of the few minorities to remain in the fight after over 50 years of conflict is the ethnic Karen.
The Karen are an ethnic minority within eastern Burma who are now entering their sixth decade of their war with the central governments army, or as the Junta call it, the State Peace and Development Council. The Karen desire political and cultural autonomy to secure a homeland within Burma.
The Karen National Union, or KNU, have been beaten back over the years to a narrow band along Thailand’s border where they can ferry supplies quickly to bases and slip away if overrun. Their lands are all but lost and many of their people, brutalized by the SPDC, are driven to the refugee camps on Thailand’s borders. With 17 of the 20 or so minority groups which have been fighting for independence recently signing cease–fire deals with the central government, the government has been able to bring more of its 400,000–strong army to bear on the KNU.
The KNU is now down to fielding less than 4,000 soldiers as opposed to an upper estimate of 20,000 soldiers in the ‘80s. The KNU is only holding on due to the advantages of terrain, an iron will and the dream of a homeland.
