Hictoric Segment

Prayers from Kawthoolei - A Documentary by Joe Hill White - 31 Minutes

Historic Segment

Photos from the book, "The Peanut Brittle House." Used with permission from the author, Dr. Harold P. Klein.

The Karens are the largest ethnic minority group in Burma, renamed Myanmar by the junta. For decades, they have resisted oppression by the military dictatorship of Burma. The Karens still seek justice, equality, democracy and peace which they were promised by the British at the end of World War II. (Note: During that war, Karen soldiers played a major role in forcing the Japanese invaders out of Southeast Asia.) Now, these people are being systematically and ruthlessly forced from their homes and villages by the ruling Burmese military junta.

During World War II, in 1942, the Japanese invaded Burma with the help of the Burma Independence Army (BIA), who led them into the country. These BIA troops took full advantage of the situation by insinuating that the Karens were spies and puppets of the British, and therefore were enemies of the Japanese and the Burman. With the help of the Japanese, they began to attack the Karen villages, using a scheme to wipe out the entire Karen populace especially in Myaung Mya and Papun. The Karens in many parts of the country were arrested, tortured and killed. Their properties were looted, their womenfolk raped and killed, and their hearths and homes burned. Conditions were so unbearable that in some areas the Karens retaliated fiercely enough to attract the attention of the Japanese Government, which mediated and somewhat controlled the situation.

Karen National Union (KNU) is the largest ethnic resistance group still fighting against Burmese military rules since 1949, a year after Burma gained independence from Britain, right after Karen civilians were brutally attacked by Burma’s army soldiers in Insein-Rangoon, Maulamein and Tavoy.

From then on, several Burmese regimes launched all forms of mass destructions, known as Four Cuts Agenda, against Karen civilians. The four cuts includes cutting lines for supplying provisions, cutting the line of contact between the masses and the revolutionaries, cutting all revolutionary financial income and resources, and cutting off the heads of all revolutionaries. To make the four cuts operation successful, the Burmese troops are using strong suppressive measures. They destroy the fields of crops planted by the villagers and eat their grains and livestock. They take away whatever they like and destroy the things they cannot carry away. Captured villagers, men as well as women and adolescents, are made to carry heavy loads as porters for the Burmese soldiers. Many of the villagers have been forced to work as porters for several months; they are deliberately starved, and regularly beaten, raped, or murdered. When the Burmese soldiers enter a village, they shoot the villagers who try to escape. Some of the villagers have been accused of helping the revolutionaries and then have been killed. In certain areas, the villagers have been forced to leave their villages and have been moved to camps some distance away. They are not permitted to leave the camps without permission from the Burmese guards. Some of the villagers, who have been found in their villages after being ordered to move to the camps, have been shot and killed by the Burmese soldiers with no questions asked.

Situations such as these and sometimes worse are happening constantly throughout Kawthoolei and are causing a large number of Karens in Kawthoolei to leave their villages and take refuge along the Thai border: a difficult situation for them, as they do not have direct assistance from outside to provide for these refugees.

A large-scale military offensive, which began in 1995, has forced 120 thousand Karens to flee into Thailand. An additional 1,000,000 "internal refugees" are being robbed, raped, tortured, murdered in their own country. Thousands are trying to survive in the jungle. They are living under wretched conditions - lacking food, shelter, mosquito nets, medicine, medical care and protection.