We’re not a spent force, says Karen military leader

It may be spread thinly, but the KNLA soldiers on

General Mu Tu is angry. He’s angry at the Burmese military regime for attacking thousands of unarmed Karen villagers and forcing them to take refuge in jungle hideouts. He’s angry with media pundits and academics for deciding the Karen are a spent force and their struggle dead. And he’s angry with the international community for not doing more to free Burma’s 2,100 political prisoners and to stop the displacement of hundreds of thousands of ethnic people.
Gen Mu Tu waves a newspaper clipping and says: “The international community needs to send its ‘experts’ to come and investigate displacements in Karen State instead of relying on what some academics and journalists write. I don’t know where they get their information – it’s not from going inside, and it’s certainly not from us.”

Gen Mu Tu is the leader of the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA). He looks more like the grandfather he is than the leader of the largest resistance force fighting the Burmese military regime. But looks can deceive. We met in a safe house on the Thai-Burma border where he discussed how the KNLA has had to adapt its battle plans to match its loss of territory and inability to renew its weaponry.

In June, 1,300 government troops attacked Ler Per Her displacement camp, situated on the Burmese side of the River Moei. Thai authorities say more than 4,000 Karen villagers living in the camp and in the surrounding area sought safety in Thailand. Before Burmese soldiers left Ler Per Her, they booby-trapped and land-mined walkways; waterholes, rice stores, schoolyards and homes, making the old village uninhabitable.

Freedom from Military dictators is the best hope for peace and democracy in Burma by Zaw Naing Wynn, Canberra, Australia

5 September 2009, u4097123@alumni.anu.edu.au

‘Freedom’ is one of the most contested concepts. My concept of freedom in this article is about freedom from the Military dictators; freedom to live our daily lives without from interference by the Military dictators; freedom to choose and define our own future without taking orders from the dictators and et cetera.

When our founding fathers and Bogyoke Aung San set our nation of Burma freed from the colonial and fascist rules; they set us freed from colonialism and fascism; they set us freed so that we, Burmese, can define and set our own future.

Based on that freedom they set a new order of the new dawn for Burma. For the first time ever in our history, Burma had Parliamentary democracy. The people had freedom of choice to choose their government and freedom to express and speak the truth.

Burma was known as “Rice Bowl of Asia’ at that time. Education system was one of the tops in all East Asia. Its economy was one of the tops in Asia with the most ever educated population, very well established institutions and infrastructures, and progressive societies. That were all due to the freedom our founding fathers fought for us, the freedom that their fore fathers fought generation after generation.

But that freedom was taken away from us on 2 March 1962 by the then dictator, Ne Win. Since then the new dawn of Burma has steadily been slaughtered by successive Military dictators.

The people defied military orders and rose up against their dictatorial rules since 1962. The 1988 people uprising was the largest and the most brutal crackdown by their own dictatorial rulers in the history of Burma. Thousands sacrificed their lives and many more are still paying their lives behind bars for lost freedom and democracy.

Again in the 2007 Saffron Revolution led by monks, the people rose up against the brutal Military dictators and sacrificed their lives for peace and democracy.

We learnt, through sacrifices and bitter experience, that ‘freedom’ is never willingly given by the oppressors; it has to be fought and won by the oppressed people.

Let’s build a new army for Saw Ba U Gyi by Pado Man Sha,s daughter Zoya Phan

Let’s build a new army for Saw Ba U Gyi

By Zoya Phan

‘Give me liberty or give me death’ read a sign at Manerplaw, which for many years was the headquarters of the Karen National Union (KNU). We have fight for our liberty, as if we don’t our people will continue to be killed, and our culture destroyed. If the dictatorship carries on like they are now there will be no Karen left in Burma. Faced with this choice, as Saw Ba U Gyi said, surrender is out of the question.

When Manerplaw was overrun by the Burmese Army there was much speculation about what it meant about the future of the KNU. Many observers predicted the end of the KNU, and the end of our struggle for liberty.

For myself, as a 14 year old child who had been born and brought up in Manerplaw, it seemed like the end of the world. It was a personal disaster for all of us who had been forced to flee for our lives, and seemed like a major disaster for Karen people and our struggle for freedom. I feared for the future, but there was no surrender. The struggle continued.

The recent media articles and comments about the fall of the 7th Brigade headquarters are very similar to what was written 14 years ago. Once again observers are predicting the imminent end of our struggle, and the demise of the KNU. Once again, they are wrong.

Predictions of the end of our struggle are nothing new. They were also made when we were forced out of Insein in 1949.

Six high ranking officers of the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) were sacked from their posts on September 2 (Wednesday) to pre-empt factionalism akin to the recent split in the Kokang ceasefire group engineered by the Burmese ruling junta, said KIO sources.

A KIO officer based in its Laiza headquarters on the Sino-Burma border in Burma’s northern Kachin State told KNG today, that six senior officers were dismissed from the organization in a pre-emptive move because they posed a danger of creating fissures in the party.
The six sacked officers are Dr. Manam Tu Ja, Vice-president No. 2 of KIO, N’Ja Naw Rip Deputy General Secretary of KIO, Dukaba Mung Hkawng, Dukaba Paushi Zau Hpan, Dukaba Nuk Le and Salang kaba Sabaw Krang, said KIO officers in Laiza.

The KIO will make an official announcement about the dismissal soon, added KIO officers.

French-NGO Clinic Attacked With Crude Bomb In Northern Burma

Saturday, 05 September 2009 15:24
A crude bomb was hurled at a small clinic run by an international non-governmental organization (INGO) on August 25 evening in Burma’s northern Kachin State. No one was injured, said local sources.

The special clinic for Intravenous Drug Users (IDUs), which is run by Frence-rooted health NGO known as Medecins du Monde (MDM), also called Doctors of the World, in Ubyit village, 10 miles north of Kachin State’s capital Myitkyina, was attacked with a crude bomb, said villagers.
According to villagers, the police are yet to find out who is responsible. A woman in the village, who sells gun powder for making ‘fishing bombs’, was arrested by policemen from No. 1 Police Station in Myitkyina.

The incident is not linked to any of the Kachin ceasefire groups. Neither is it related to the current military tension between the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) and the Burmese ruling junta, said village sources.

Information by sawtaquee

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Border Relation Committee Mae Sod by Kwekalu Karen News

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