New Military Offensive Creates More Misery for Burma’s Karen People

Saturday, 27 June 2009 17:08 Kong Janoi

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We go now to the Thai Burma border, where thousands of Burmese, ethnic Karen people have fled to recent weeks, following an escalation of fighting between Karen rebels the Burmese army and their former allies the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army.

Rebels claim that this latest offensive is aimed at wiping out any opposition ahead of the so-called multi-party elections scheduled for 2010.

About 4,000 refugees, mostly women and children have arrived since the offensive began in the first week of June.

They have brought little with them except stories of trauma and suffering and fears for those left behind, which they shared with our reporter Kong Janoi. It is the wet season in Mae On Son, a terrible time to be living in temporary shelters.

A sick child is crying. A thin plastic sheet is the only protection for this medical clinic. There is only one health work to care for the sick. Nan Hti arrived recently after the fight reached her village.

“After we heard gun fire, we all ran from our village, we could not take anything with us. I was struggling to run because I had five children with me. One child from our group died on the way while because of malaria.”

The refugees are taking shelter in a new camp about one hundred kilometers north of Mae Sot, a border town where around 100 hundred thousand other Karen refugees have settled.

It’s a thirty-minute hike up the mountain to reach the new camp.

Gun-fire from clashes between Burmese troops and Karen rebels can be heard in the distance.

The Burmese troops began this latest offensive against the Karen National Union rebels in early June after the rebel’s resisted attempts by the Junta, who is allied with the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) to establish a border force.

The rebels earlier rejected a ceasefire offer from the junta and the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, which demanded that the groups unite under one banner to establish a ‘Border Guard’ force.

The rebels say they would lose their army if they accepted the junta’s offer. They believe that their intention is to wipe out all opposition ahead of the promised multi-party elections scheduled for 2010.

Naw Paw Gay from the Karen Information Center says the Burmese troops and DKBA want to rid the area of Karen rebels troops in order to make border guard troop after coming election.

“This offensive against the Karen rebels KNU is amid to clear KNU from this area. As the junta constitution, in coming 2010 election, there were no aim groups in Burma so the groups can co-operate with junta as border guard otherwise the Burmese troops will fight them to end of their enemies. DKBA accepted junta policy as border guard so they have been collaborating with Burmese troop an offensive KNU."

To help there cause the Karen Information Center is distributing a video recording of fighting on the frontline.

Mahn Nyien Maung a Central committee member of the rebel group says they will fight until the end. He is wants all the people of Burma to rise up against military rule.

"As everybody knows the military government in Burma has done nothing to promote the transition to democracy and they offer no ethnic rights. They even kill our respected, innocent monks so they definitely don’t care about the people. All ethnic groups and civilians should unite. We should not be divided even though our enemy uses game amongst us and we should fight together to end military brutal rule and for democracy and ethnic rights in Burma.”

The KNU has been fighting for greater autonomy from Myanmar's central government for more than 60 years.

In a separate statement the Karen Women Organization (KWO) said two young Karen women were raped and murdered last week by Burmese soldiers.

Burmese soldiers captured the two women, aged 17 and 18, after their husbands fled into the jungle. One of them was pregnant whilst the other was a mother of a six-month old baby.

Karen Women’s Organisation secretary Dah Eh Kler says ASEAN countries should do more to help her people.

“We appeal to the international communities to put pressure on the junta over this latest offensive. Some countries may say it is a domestic problem but it is spreading to all our neighbor countries. Burma is an ASEAN member and ASEAN has a responsibility concerning human right abuses and escalating wars.”

The junta is reported to have assembled more troops in the region in recent days. The rebels are reported to have withdrawn from some strongholds after suffering heavy causalities.

Meanwhile more and more people are arriving at Mae On Son camp. More than 4,000 have come so far.

This is in addition to the 100,000 sheltering in camps to the south and nearly half a million, according to aid agencies, who are displaced inside eastern Burma.

Thai authorities and other aid agencies are struggling to provide essential aid.

Nan Hti doesn't know what to do next.

“We are just sitting here and thinking. If there is peace in my village I will go back. We love our home and we want to stay there. We left our farms and struggles there. We cannot run from the war anymore. It is too hard. We just want peace to last forever.”

After the Deluge: Burmese Remember Nargis One Year On

May 9th, 2009 by Kong Janoi

Asia Calling


Nearly one year after cyclone Nargis struck Burma’s Irrawaddy Delta, killing more than a hundred thousand people, many are still without basic necessities such as drinking water.

The United Nations says small gains have been made but the country and its people are still in desperate need of foreign assistance.

In Bangkok our reporter Kong Janoi spoke with aid groups still working in the Delta and produced this report.

Members of Bangkok’s Burmese community gathered in the Thai capital to mark the one year anniversary of the cyclone which swept across Burma’s Irrawaddy Delta on May the 2nd last year, killing more than 130,000 people.

This song was composed in its wake; it describes the powerful storm and the death and destruction it caused.

For two days Nargis battered the Irrawaddy. What the gusts of wind didn’t destroy was swept away by a massive tidal surge. Residents in the fertile rice-growing region, already among the poorest in the world, could do little to escape. Some 2.4 million were left homeless, their crops and animals destroyed.

Now one year on, some survivors say they are struggling to find the bare necessities. A Ryee Mya lost her husband in the disaster.

Tens of thousands of fishermen lost boats and nets in the disaster.

Ba Twe was one of them. He still can’t work because his boat and net have yet to be replaced.

“We don’t have any work to do now. We have no fishing nets. Nobody has been able to go back to work yet. In this village there are about 30 households, all of them have been unable to rebuild their houses. The plastic covering my hut, I won it in a lottery. I am lucky. They don’t have enough plastic for everyone so they have to distribute it by a lottery system.”

Farmers lost their rice crops and vast stretches of land were left unusable after being contaminated with sea-water. Many have been unable to pay back loans or find the funds to purchase new seeds, water buffaloes and equipment to plant crops.

U Poe Hla says he is still waiting for assistance promised by the government.

“We are all farmers here, we don’t have any supplies or money for farming. We need machines, gasoline or cows to grow rice. The government said they will provide us with credit but still we have not received it yet.”

The United Nations says some gains have been made. Almost all the children separated from their parents or orphaned have been reunited with their families or placed with new carers.

But more than half a million people are without adequate shelter, a big concern as the country approaches another monsoon season. And 350,000 people are still receiving food assistance.

Andrew Kirkwood is the director of Save the Children Fund in Burma. He says his organization is working overtime to provide drinking water for people in the Delta region.

“Save the children imported 10 machines to make water from out of salt water, plus three additional water treatment plants, those machine are working 24 hours a day. We are putting water into boat with big rubber platter and distributing water on a daily basis for 660,000 people in the delta. The amount water we are distributing about three liter per person, per day. It is the absolute minimum needed for survival.”

In the weeks after the disaster, the Burmese military government was condemned by the international community for its refusal to let foreign assistance into the country. Eventually some foreign workers were given access and many still remain there.

Frank Smithius is the Director of Medecins Sans Frontieres in Burma. He says foreign aids workers still face restrictions.

“It is not better than it was before Nargis, but it is also not worse than before Nargis. In Myanmar there are a numerous aresa that are not accessible for foreign organizations.”

What all aid agencies will say is that Burma is in desperate need of foreign donations. They point to the fact that donors have given 315 million dollars in aid - less than half of what the United Nations requested. By contrast the international community donated 12 billion dollars after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which killed more than 200,000 people.

NGO’s say ongoing sanctions against the military junta often discourage people from donating to funds to assist Burma. The country receives just two dollars-eighty in foreign per head of population each year. Next door, the people of Laos receive 49 dollars per head.

Frank Smithius says the international community needs to change its attitude towards Burma.

“The whole country has been ignored and that’s very unfortunate. In other third-world countries there is a lot of international aid, not in Myanmar. Nargis might have been positive trigger to change that for the future, I really hope so because the needs in the whole country are enormous and there are tens of thousands of people dying each year of diseases that are very easy to treat and I don’t think there is a good excuse for that.“