"The following is from an interview with a 56-year-old man from Myaungmya Town, deep in the Irrawaddy Delta west of Rangoon, who left the Delta in June 1995. The Irrawaddy Delta is populated by a few million people, 50% of them Karen and 50% Burmans. In recent decades it has been sealed off from the outside world more than almost any other area of Burma, and the Tatmadaw (Burmese Army) has been able to get away with any form of repression it likes. In 1991, the Karen National Union managed to send some soldiers and weapons into the Delta in an effort to restart the resistance struggle there which had been quiet for decades, but the troops were exposed. In events which became known as the Bogalay Crisis, the Tatmadaw launched a huge offensive into the area to wipe out the small number of KNLA forces and all seeds of civilian resistance. Villages were burned, helicopter gunships strafed villages and schools, and thousands of Karen community leaders, pastors and schoolteachers were arrested, sentenced en masse and imprisoned. The Tatmadaw began a brutal campaign of repression, killings and disappearances against Karen in the area, which still remains almost completely unknown to the outside world. As a result, the SLORC now feels confident enough of its control in the area that it has recently opened up some parts of it to tourism..."