Heritage Background: The Singapore Seminar - Paul Keenan

The Singapore Seminar

A low key seminar that took place in Singapore on the 6th and 7th June 2003. In what appeared to be a fairly innocuous gathering titled ‘Rebuilding our Nation’ a wealthy Singapore based Karen businessman Saw Blah Htoo brought together a number of diverse Karens to discuss a roadmap for a future Karen State.
  Unequivocally Christian in tone, although with a nominal Pwo Karen attendee, the participants included the Malaysia based Reverend Augustus, Pastor Timothy representing the Thai/Burma Border and Naw May Oo one of the KNU’s promising young members.
  Working with a similar group formed in Rangoon and headed by Dr Simon Tha, the Karen Development Committee, the meeting lead to the formation of a new working committee the Karen Social Development Foundation (KSDF) the main aims of which were stated to be:

1. To form a working committee with Karens who are currently active for similar visions and also with credible track records of both moral and actions. (sic)

2. To identify potential leaders and invite them to become members of the foundation.

3. To draw up appropriate constitution and elect the officals and representative committee for action plan.

  The fact that such actions were in parallel to, if not supplanted, the Karen National Union seems to have been overlooked. Item 3 alone states that the KSDF would draw up a constitution for a Karen State, a process which at the time was already underway by the Karen National Union, and there is no doubt at least some of the participants were aware of this. Surprisingly no high rankng KNU representatives were present with only Pastor Timothy, at the time a KNU member working part-time with the Defense department, speaking on the situation regarding Karens on the Border.
  Although Naw May, also at the time a KNU member, was involved her main focus seems to have been working on one of the many road maps that the KSDF, if not the KDC, had evolved for the future of a Karen state. Somewhat ambitious in outlook the 12 Road Maps covered all aspects of governance – responsibilities that the Karen National Union have been responsible for. The fact that the KNU had all but been sidelined throughout the roadmaps, although it must be noted that there was a strong emphasis on youth ‘being developed’ to take leadership roles (no doubt under the auspices of their mentors) begs the question how the KSDF expected to bring their plans to fruition without KNU support. The Road Maps themselves identified 12 areas that required attention:

1. Community Development
2. Culture, Literature and Language
3. Economic, Finance and Banking
4. Education and Vocational Training
5. Infrastructure
6. Internal and External Relation
7. Mass Media
8. Public Administration
9. Political
10. Peace and Reconciliation
11. Statistic and Database
12. Health Care

While it cannot be denied that the KNU had failed to successfully address a number of the items raised during the seminer and there is very little doubt that the leadership had been unable to best untilise its newer generation of Karen leaders – the idea that any organisation could achieve any form of agreement without the participation of the KNU was, and remains, an extremely misguided one.
  While the KSDF had created a highly detailed framework for a future Karen State it still failed to address fundamental issues that the KNU had also been unable to find a solution to. The organisation was still heavily Christian inspired with a Leadership Assessment form measuring a person’s abilites often on whether there choice was to lean towards either God, Man or Satan with points given in that order. The people involved also suggested that while the good intentions of the participants were without doubt it seemed yet another attempt of a small elite of Karens to improve themselves at the expense of the majority.

extracted from 'A Just Country' by Paul Keenan