Open letter from DKBA begs Karen for ‘forgiveness’

Senior commander allegedly expresses sorrow, claims militia duped by Burma’s military junta
An open letter of sorrow and regret allegedly from a senior commander of the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army is being circulated in Mae La refugee camp.
The letter, supposedly from Myaing Gyi Ngu and dated June 17, 2009, begs for forgiveness and understanding and issues a nation-wide apology to the Karen people.
It says the DKBA has been duped by the generals of Burma’s ruling military junta and its foot soldiers are now asking: “How can we say we support the four principles of Saw Ba U Gyi and fight for the Burma Army at the same time?”
Myaing Gyi Ngu says the DKBA leadership had no answer to this question for its soldiers.
He said the Burmese created the DKBA as a “religious army” and that should never have happened and constituted a “black spot in our Karen history”.
He goes further to say that what he is most ashamed of – working on the rationale that the DKBA is indeed a religious army – that it was unable to do anything to protect monks during the wholesale slaughter of September 2007.“All people of Burma in the whole world were raising questions to us that why the DKBA, who were supposed to be for religion, couldn’t do anything to protect the religion and the monks?”

He said at the time the DKBA dared not show their faces and hid at home because they were supposed to be “for religion and the Karen people”.
But, putting aside even being “for Karen people” the DKBA “couldn’t even do anything to protect religion and monks while the Burmese Army was shooting them and killing them”.
He said the DKBA was even ordered to kill monks “if necessary”.
Myaing Gyi Ngu said he now knew why Mannerplaw (the former Karen National Union headquarters and stronghold lost in 1995) fell so easily.
“Later as I considered it, the KNU didn’t fight us because we are Karen; the fact is Karen didn’t want to kill Karen,” he wrote. He said the DKBA was promised an independent state within a year of Mannerplaw falling.
“After that [promise] we, the DKBA, were conceited and proud of ourselves.”
But he said the promise was not fulfilled and instead DKBA leaders were given business opportunities and within Karen State it seemed like “we had the right to do whatever we wanted”.
As a result of this, he wrote, the Karen people learned about “gambling, began to use drugs and ran up debts of millions”.
He said much of the DKBA’s involvement in drug trafficking occurred under General Khin Nyunt (the former prime minister removed for corruption in 2004).
But he wrote the offer of becoming a border patrol force was a bitter pill to swallow and presented an excruciating choice for DKBA leaders.
He said what happened during Khin Nyunt’s time was well documented in the ruling generals’ intelligence files, with lists of names and activities.
So the DKBA had a choice: accept what the generals were offering or run.
He said the DKBA leaders were in big trouble.
“I am old. I am begging and apologise [but please] understand and forgive me.
The letter ended: “May the KNU and the Karen Liberating revolution have victory.”

Daniel Pedersen