Secret Genocide - Daniel Pedersen

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It is almost 60 years since the Karen took up arms against the Burmese dictatorship to fight for an independent homeland, but theirs is a nationalist struggle that shows no sign of exhaustion.Secret Genocide is a scholarly book on the plight of the Karen of Burma. Author Daniel Pedersen writes about the secret genocide of the Karen people at the hands of the Burmese junta, who use murder, rape, forced labour and torture to quell their enemies. Decades after the Karen took up arms against Rangoon; there is no telling when - or if - their struggle for a secure homeland will be finally accomplished.Buy it here... http://www.maverickhouse.com/book.html?bid=104&title=Secret%20Genocide&no_cache=1OR on www.amazon.com in Kindle and paperback format

Transcript of Secret Genocide - Daniel Pedersen

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Secret Genocide

Voices of The Karen of Burma

Daniel Pedersen

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Every effort has been made to contact the copyright holders of material reproduced in this text. In cases where these efforts have been unsuccessful, the copyright holders are asked to contact the publishers directly.

Published in 2011 by Maverick House Publishers, Office 19, Dunboyne Business Park, Dunboyne, Co. Meath, Ireland.http://[email protected]

ISBN: 978-1-905379-62-0

Copyright for text © 2011 Daniel Pedersen.Copyright for typesetting, editing, layout, design © Maverick HouseAll internal photographs courtesy of Steve Sandford (www.asiareports.net).

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The paper used in this book comes from wood pulp of managed forests. For every tree felled, at least one tree is planted, thereby renewing natural resources.

The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

All rights reserved.No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for insertion in a newspaper, magazine or broadcast.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library and the Irish Copyright libraries.

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ACkNOwLEDgEMENtS

this book would have proven impossible without the assistance of my family, particularly my parents Jack and Doreen, and the Mya family, particularly

the late Bo Mya and his sons, Nerdah and tay Lay. to them I offer my humble thanks.

For their help and faith throughout, I would like to thank my wife Methinet and my friends Richard, John, kevin, warwick, Jo, Myat Thu, and Steve and Am Sandford.

I also offer many thanks for the tutelage I received from those embroiled in this protracted conflict: Hellerpaw Buhtoo, the late Mahn Sha, David Tharckabaw, Brigadier-general Hsar gay, and Chris.

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the following is an extract from Resolution 260 (III) A of the United Nations general Assembly on December 9, 1948, which officially came into

force on January 12, 1951:

Article I: The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish.

Article II: In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) killing members of the group;(b) Causing serious bodily or mental

harm to members of the group;(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group

conditions of life calculated to bring

gENOCIDE DEFINED

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about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Article III: The following acts shall be punishable:

(a) genocide;(b) Conspiracy to commit genocide;(c) Direct and public incitement to

commit genocide;(d) Attempt to commit genocide;(e) Complicity in genocide.

Article IV: Persons committing genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in article III shall be punished, whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals.

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tHE FOUR PRINCIPLES OF tHE kAREN REvOLUtION

the following are the four principles of the karen revolution, as laid down by Saw Ba U gyi, the first leader of the karen Revolution:

1. For us, surrender is out of the question.

2. The karen, we shall retain our arms.

3. The recognition of karen State must be complete.

4. The karen, they shall decide their own destiny.

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‘You can compromise on many matters, and I believe in compromise, but you cannot compromise on a principle.’

KNLA Brigadier-General Saw Hsar Gay

In 1949, the karen people first declared to the world that they would defend themselves and their cultural identity. Since then, man has walked on the moon,

television, internet and satellite technologies have become part of everyday life, and Burma’s neighbours have taken their place on the world’s economic stage. And still, the karen have not found their peace. Some would say the modern world has bypassed the karen people, while others speculate they have become entrapped by it, cast as pawns while the rest of the world establishes new economic and political hierarchies.

In little bamboo huts hidden in the jungle, their barefoot children are taught their language, rudimentary mathematics, and history as the karen know it. There is no internet. There are mostly no telephones. Often, there are no books. Sometimes, backpacking medics turn up out of the blue and tend to festering bullet wounds and chronic ailments, reminding the karen that they have not been completely forgotten about. At other times, however, Burmese troops or their allied soldiers turn up and burn down the karen’s schools and churches, before turning

CHAPtER ONE

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their torches on their bamboo homes. generally, the karen have fled by the time the enemy arrives, and while their villages are being reduced to scorched earth and ash, they are already searching for a new place to live—preferably somewhere with a water supply and stands of bamboo from which they can carve a new settlement. But every now and then, the people give up, unable to take the constant threat of violence against their communities anymore, and make for the Thai border, where they become lost in the refugee camps a few kilometres beyond the frontier.

In the camps, they find a form of compromised peace, but freedom remains an elusive dream. They witness the freedoms enjoyed by their neighbours from behind bamboo fences and barbed wire. Through the slats, they see a country thriving, with flashy cars driving back and forth past their camps. They also see the soldiers, the one constant in their lives, penning them in and taking advantage of their plight. The karen refugees are entirely dispossessed. They are not permitted to leave the camps, and they are not allowed to work because they don’t have the proper permits. Yet they must somehow be fed and, in many instances, they are sent on to a third country where they have to learn to make their own way, far removed from their customs and culture, their friends and family.

It was immediately after Burma’s independence from Britain in 1948 that this period of persecution against the karen began, and it has now spanned more than sixty years. In the post-wwII period, great Britain’s decolonisation programme sped forward, constantly gaining momentum. The British were determined to pull out of the colonies, and when it came to Burma, the decolonisation process had reached breakneck speed. There was virtually no

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period of winding down; the British simply up and left. when Burma was granted its independence, a relatively minor Burman (Burma’s predominant ethnic group) general, general Ne win, was appointed vice chief of staff of the armed forces, or Tatmadaw. Ne win was not a particularly prominent general, and there were others who could have been appointed just as easily. His appointment was a happenstance of history, and no one at the time could have predicted what he would become. The following year, in 1949, he was appointed Chief of Staff of the armed forces, replacing general Smith Dun, an ethnic karen. Ne win now had total control of the army, and by 1962, he had consolidated enough power to seize control of the entire country by armed force.

At the time of independence, David Tharckabaw was a mere boy of 13 years. David is karen and was educated in Rangoon, Burma’s largest city and the country’s most important commercial centre. He is now, at the age of 73, the karen National Union’s (kNU—the political organisation representing karen interests) vice president. He likes a drink, smokes heavily, and speaks slowly and with great reserve, thinking carefully before answering any question. His election to his current position occurred in 2008, and he takes his role as vice president very seriously indeed. Some call him hard-line, while others say he is simply pragmatic, and a chorus within the karen movement claim he lacks the charisma required of a leader of stature. But after several recent high-level defections from the kNU to Burma’s State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), the ruling military junta controlling Burma (sometimes referred to simply as ‘the generals’),

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David Tharckabaw was the man people turned to in their hour of need. He had been elected on the belief that he was morally sound, and the people now trusted him not to backflip on his policies in the face of enormous pressure and corruption from the junta, who routinely use bribery to get what they want.

I first met David through a mutual acquaintance, just days after he was elected. He came to my restaurant in Mae Sot for dinner, with the express purpose of being interviewed for this book. He and I have since become good friends. Over a post-dinner coffee, David relaxed a little, and as tired staff cleared our table of Burmese curries, we retreated from the banter of the other kNU executive council members and their supporters.

‘very few people know that this war was started by the Burmese regime [now] in power, only a few know,’ he said quietly, as he laid down the fundamentals of my education, as he saw it. ‘Because, according to the propaganda of the ruling class, it was the karen armed resistance [that declared war], and actually that is not true. It was started by Ne win, who was vice chief of staff of the armed forces after independence, and he used his pocket army troops to attack karen quarters in Ahlone, right in Rangoon. There were also attacks in Insein and Bake-Daweh (Mergui-tavoy) areas to the south of Moulmein. well, when it got to Insein, of course, the karen could no longer just sit,’ he said. Insein was at that time the headquarters of the karen National Union, the political body representing karen interests in the newly-independent Burma.

‘And that is how the karen resistance against successive regimes started, and now we have had the 60th anniversary of the karen resistance,’ he continued. ‘we sometimes call it the “karen Revolution”.’

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