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Response from the KNU News, Informa



Subject: Response from the KNU News, Information and Research Department to "The View from

             OFFICE OF THE SUPREME HEADAUARTERS
                        KAREN NATIONAL UNION
                             KAW THOO LEI


     Response from the KNU and KNU News, Information and Research         
                                        Department
                                              to 
             "The View from the Embassy of Myanmar in Ottawa"

     

         With reference to "The View from the Embassy of Myanmar in Ottawa"
dated May 29,1997, the Karen National Union, the political wing of Karen
resistance in Burma, and its News, Information and Research Department have
to say that the "View" is a standard propaganda that has been used by the
racist chauvinist military regime in Rangoon, the so-called State Law and
Order Restoration Council (SLORC). 
             In a brief response to this, we would like to begin by saying
that like all the propaganda of the SLORC and the racist chauvinist regime
before it, the Burma Socialist Program Party (BSPP) regime, it is a mixture
of a few facts with a great deal of fiction and misleading half truths.
             The reality is that the Karen population outside of the present
Karen State, which was created in 1945, is not less than 6 million. The
majority of them live in Inter-mingled patterns with other peoples, such as
Baik-tha, Ta-weh-tha, Mon, Burman, Karenni and Shan, in the Tanessarim
Division, Irrawaddy Division, Pegu Division, the Mon State, Karenni Land
(Kayah State) and the Shan state. The Karen population in the Karen State
itself is barely a million. A large section of the Karen people aspires to
nationhood.
             The Karen in the Irrawaddy and Pegu Division were brutally
subjugated by the BSPP regime, with military operations from 1964 to 1975, in
a similar manner as the ongoing offensive against the KNU and the Kaen
civilians. However Karen as people, have never lost their sense of ethnic
identity, wherever they are, even though they have to live coweringly under
the repressive rule of SLORC military regime. They look up to the KNU as the
organization truly representative of their free will and aspirations.
                 The persecution the Karen and other ethnic nationalities by
the militant section of the Burman dated far back to the days of Burman
feudalism. The British colonialists did not have to formulate any
divide-and-rule policy. They just maintained the ethinic divisions that had
already been there because of persecutrion or misrule. In fact, the British
incorporated the free territories of the ethnic peoples into their
British-Burma and placed them under a similar system of administration and
created a semblance of one nation state out of their new possesssions. The
initial Burma as the British found it at the time of their annexation in
1885, was a little more than part of the Irrawaddy valley and Sittang valley.
                       At the time of the country's independence from Britain
in 1948, the political power passed into the hands of the ethnic Burman
majority. Had not Gen. Aung San, an ethnic Burman and regarded as the father
of Burma's independence, who had a deep insight of the ethnic problems and
with a strong attitude of compromise and flexibility with regard to the
questions of non-Burman ethnic nationalities, been assassinated , the
situation could have been completely different. U Nu who inherited power, was
weak-willed and a little more than a figurehead. The actual power soon passed
into the hands of arch racist chauvinists and militants like Gen. Ne Win and
his cohorts. Using the Burma Army as his power base, Gen. Ne Win seized power
in 1962. His policy towards the non-Burman nationalities was simple and
clear. It was forced assimilation through total subjugation and annihilation,
to set up the 4th Burman Empire. 
                        The problem of racist chauvinists is their blind
faith in the Burman history written by court historians who described the
power and grandeur of Burman kings in glowing terms. The propaganda churned
out during the anti-colonialist period further enhanced the feeling of racial
superiority of the Burman patriots with limited education or insight.
                     Karen rebellion started in January 1949, in self-defence
and in reaction to attacks from the pocket army of Gen. Ne Win, known as
Burma Territorial Force, on Karen villages and populations in Tanessarim, the
Irrawaddy delta and Insein town.
                     The Karen had legitimate fear of total annihilation or
wholesale subjubation and enslavement as a result of horrible experience of
atrocities at the hands of the Burma Independence Army. There was not a word
of compromise either from U Nu or other Burman leaders at peace negotiations.
Negotiations broke down because of the insistence on total surrender by the
other side. The Karen sees it as the hungry tiger asking the deer to shed its
antlers for peace. The 
SLORC military junta has nothing different to offer. On the other hand, it is
more savage, ignorant and more deeply influenced by terrorism, militarism and
what we called racial chauvinism.
                       The KNU knows that the majority of Burman is peace
loving, tolerant and humane. That is why it has no problem cooperating with
the pro-democracy forces, which are overwhelmingly Burman, ethnically
speaking. The KNU advocates genuine federalism and democracy, with multi
ethnicity similar to that of the Swiss federation, rather than irrational
fear, war, subjugation and separatism. The Karen resistance has an armed wing
organized out of the Karen civilians specifically for self-defense against
the SLORC's troops, which have been raining death and destruction upon the
innocent Karen, indiscriminately. The Karen are being widely persecuted by
the SLORC on political, ethnic and, in some cases, on religious grounds and,
as a result, they have to bear the atrocities and oppression more than the
other grups opposing the SLORC. The armed resistance of the Karen people is
not to gain political power or to retain it. That is why the KNU regards the
SLORC's demand on it to renounce the "armed revolutionary program" as
irrelevant and even ludicrous.
                        The cease-fire agreements the SLORC has reached with
the16 groups, being a trick, are tenuous and will have nolasting effect on
peace. Of the 15, only the KIO and the Mon  can be said of having some
political and ethnic orientation. The rest, except the Wa, are small in size
and with hardly any political conviction. They are groups that have been in
opium culture and trade together with the BSPP, previously, and the SLORC, at
the present. It is said that the KIO agreed to the cease-fire under the
Chinese pressure and guarantee, and it has never accepted the legal-fold
condition. The trick of the SLORC is to reach cease-fire agreements with as
many groups quickly so as to crush the KNU with its overwhelming military
might and then crush the other smaller groups one by one, subsequently.
                          The so-called "national convention" touted by the
SLORC is a sham body stacked with SLORC's handpicked delegates. It is said
that 80% of the delegates of the convention are from the pro-SLORC
organizations or groups under the total control of the SLORC. Judging by the
principles for the "future state constitution" it has laid down, there is not
a whit of doubt that the convention is a device strictly controlled by SLORC
for the perpetuation of military dictatorship.
                           The SLORC propaganda would have us believe that
the civil war and the social instability in the country are a family problem.
The death of probably more than a million Karen caused directly by the civil
war, in nearly half a century of resistance, the shooting to death of
thousands of demonstrators in pro-democracy movements since Gen. Ne Win
seized power in 1962, the flight of thousands of refugees into Bengladesh and
Thailand on account of persecution, the exodus of thousands working as
illegal immigrants because of extortion and slave labor by the SLORC troops,
the severe oppression of legitimate political parties and etc. have caused a
serious concern for the International Community.
                         It is true that the civil war in Burma has greatly
stifled the economic development of the country. The successive regimes,
since the time of independence, has to allocate an ever larger amount of the
state budget for terrorizing and the killing of innocent civilians, the
destruction of villages and the livelihood of the villagers. The SLORC is
said to be spending more than 60% of the country's budget on its war effort
and its effort to keep the civil population under control.
                           The contry is now in such a state that billions of
dollars and at least one or two decades of hard labor would be necessary ofr
the rehabilitation and development of the country so as to make it reach the
stage where it can stant on its own two feet. By coddling with and being
subservient to militant China, the SLORC has dangerously disturbed the
traditional balance of power in the region. 
                           That is why, the KNU has been carnestly calling
for the resolution of the political problems, that has been the underlying
causes of the civil war and instability in Burma, by political means. In
other words the KNU is 
convinced that it is urgently necessary to resolve the problems of the
country, by peaceful means through dialouge, for genuine and lasting peace
with the participation of the three main groups, namely, the ethnic
nationalities, the pro-democracy forces and the SLORC. In the present
situation, there is no other means but this three-way or tripartite dialogue,
as called for by the United Nations as well, which can realistically find a
comprehensive and permanent solutions to the problems of the country.


KNU and KNU News, Information and Research Department.

June 7,1997.                          























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