INTERVIEW
YORKSHIRE POST - Tuesday, January, 15th, 2008
The Karen of Burma
I met Karen refugees living in Sheffield on the day they celebrated their New
Year. The Karen are one of the most oppressed ethnic minorities in
Burma/Myanmar and have waged an armed struggle against then ruling military
junta for 60 years.
A GROUP of young children stand in line on stage singing and clapping their
hands to music. They shuffle their feet as they dance and smile and laugh as
their parents watch.
It's a scene reminiscent of any school performance, but for these Burmese
children, taking part in their New Year celebrations in Sheffield has extra
significance.
Over the past two years, the Gateway Project has been giving persecuted
members of the Karen ethnicity the chance of freedom and Aung Than Mynt, who
arrived in the city from a refugee camp on the Thai-Burmese border nearly 18
months ago, reflects the views of the 200 or so others when he says: "This is
what life should be about."
For the first time in his life, Aung has real hope for the future and the
knowledge that his four young children will grow up in a safe environment and
in a country that embraces democracy and human rights. Here, unlike in Burma
where 150,000 refugees have languished in camps, some for decades, the group
can meet freely and teach their children the Karen language, culture and
history without fear of arrest and torture.
Since shortly after the end of the Second World War, the Karen, one of the
most oppressed ethnic minorities in Burma, have been engaged in a 60-year
battle for survival against the military regime, a prolonged struggle that has
been largely ignored by the Western world.
For Aung, one of the lucky few to have been granted sanctuary in the UK after
fleeing a brutal military junta accused of gross human rights abuses, the
recent spectacle of hundreds of saffron-robed monks leading pro-democracy
protests in Burma, renamed Myanmar by the military, brought back painful
memories. As he watched graphic television images showing the violent
repression of peaceful demonstrations in Rangoon, Aung remembered how his
niece died at the hands of Burma's pariah military rulers.
"In 1997, the Burmese army attacked our refugee camps on the Thai border and
killed 100 people," he says. "My niece Maw Ka Moo Paw died. She was only 16 years old. When I watched the pictures on television I felt for the protesters who were attacked and arrested. But I also thought to myself, that this has been happening for more than 50 years and no-one seems to care."
The Karen people, whose ancestors were refugees from Tibet, live mostly in the
hilly eastern border region of Burma. There have long been ethnic tensions in
the country and after centuries of discrimination and servitude, the Karen
fought with the British during the Second World War against the Burmans and
the Japanese.
However, promises of autonomy for their efforts were never kept, leaving the
Karen battling for their freedom ever since.
"As many as 100,000 of our people have died, many during the forced relocation
of the Karen during the 1990s when the military embarked on Operation Dragon
King to ethnically cleanse our land," says Aung.
It's a policy that continues today in Burma. Villagers have reported
widespread violations of international humanitarian and human rights law,
destruction of houses and crops, forced labour, kidnapping and torture.
Extrajudicial killings of Karen civilians has increased,and many people faced
food shortages after the authorities banned them from leaving their villages
to farm or buy food.
It remains a desperate situation, one that Aung, and his fellow refugees, Thin
and Taw, are familiar with.
"The whole village – 300 houses – was destroyed. Some people were caught. The
soldiers tied them upside down and poured boiling water into their noses,"
says Aung, who became a refugee in 1985, fleeing his village Llaingbwe when it
was attacked by government troops.
Thin, who lived in south Burma, ended up in a refugee camp more recently, two
years ago, after his family suffered persecution, while Taw spent 20 years
with the rebel army in the jungle. All three men ended up with their families
in one of the nine camps.
"In Burma, we were discriminated in every aspect of our lives and not even
allowed to use the Karen language," says Thin, who until 1999 was a medic with
the Karen National Liberation Army, tending to victims of the war in the
jungle, including enemy soldiers. "It was not much of an existence."
Following the 1988 pro-democracy protests in his homeland, Taw says, up to
10,000 refugees fled to the Karen areas from cities when the military junta
cracked down on dissidents and he fears history may very well repeat itself.
The only viable solution to end the humanitarian crisis, these three men say,
is for the international community to undertake military action against the ruling government and to replace the existing political system with a set-up similar to the UK's,
whereby different regions would have some degree of self-autonomy.
"The recent protests gave us hope but sanctions have not affected the regime,"
says Aung. "Nothing will change unless force is used. Unfortunately, this
would mean some people would die – but the alternative is that the Karen and
other oppressed minorities continue to suffer for another 50 years. How many
people have to die?
"Sheffield may not have the climate of our home country, but the people have
made us so welcome and we do want to thank them for that.
"I was a virtual prisoner for 20 years and there is no greater thing than
freedom."
Taw and Thin nod their heads in agreement, knowing that for many thousands of
others in Burma the future is far from secure.
