Myanmar responds with force to ethnic rebel group meeting

Myanmar responds with force to ethnic rebel group meeting

By Teena Amrit Gill

BANGKOK: The Myanmar army has moved swiftly and with a strong
show of force, to pre-empt a possible reunion of ethnic minority
rebel groups who have voiced support for popular pro-democracy
leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

The latest military offensive against the Karen National Union
(KNU) has sent thousands of refugees, located near Mae Sot, about
400 kms north-east of Bangkok, scurrying further into Thai
territory in search of cover.

"We will continue to attack them until they (the refugees)
all return to Myanmar," said Captain Htu War, of the Myanmar
government backed Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA).

The DKBA commander acknowledged that Myanmar troops had
provided arms and supplies for the operations against Karen
refugees along the Thai-Myanmar border.

The DKBA was formed in late 1994 by a splinter group of
Buddhist soldiers from the predominantly Christian KNU -- one of
the few ethnic groups yet to sign a ceasefire with Yangon.

Htu War accused the refugees of allowing the KNU to use their
camps as bases to launch attacks on the DKBA.

But Myanmar dissident groups in Thailand say the real reason
behind the last month's offensive against the refugees is due to
the KNU's role in organizing a meeting in the middle of January,
of 15 ethnic groups from across Myanmar to discuss the political
situation in the country, and debate on directions for change.

Among those present at the meeting, were representatives of
ethnic Wa, or Karenni, Kachin and Mon groups with whom the ruling
junta has signed ceasefire agreements over the last few years.

Significantly at the meeting of ethnic groups, there was
common support for Suu Kyi and her party, the National League for
Democracy (NLD), and for the need for tripartite dialogue between
the Myanmar regime, the NLD and ethnic groups, "for the
resolution of political problems by political means".

The meeting also described efforts by the State Law and Order
Restoration Council (SLORC), as the ruling military regime calls
itself, to draft a new constitution, as a "sham".

"Armed subjugation by successive regimes, practicing racial
chauvinism for the last 49 years has been a disastrous experience
of suffering, unprecedented in history, for ethnic nationalities
(in Myanmar)," said the ethnic groups in a statement distributed
on Internet. "Brutal suppression of the ethnic nationalities
through the use of armed might is still continuing," they added.

The regime, according to observers, is also upset over the
very possibility of ethnic rebel groups getting back together.
The SLORC has trumpeted its ceasefire agreements with a majority
of Myanmar's ethnic groups as a major achievement.

"The military does not have the guts to attack the Mon, Wa or
Shan groups because they are strong and well armed," says Zou
Min, of the Bangkok-based All Myanmar Student's Democratic Front.
"But the Karen are a weak target so its easier to attack them."

Another reason for targeting the KNU, which has been fighting
for an independent Karen state since 1948, is also seen to be the
growing impatience of the junta in persuading them to sign a
ceasefire agreement, like 15 other ethnic groups across Myanmar.

Just prior to the January attack, a SLORC delegation went to
the KNU headquarters to negotiate a ceasefire. But reports
reaching Bangkok state that the KNU made clear it is unwilling to
lay down arms till some sort of political settlement is reached.

In addition, by killing or forcing the approximately 100,000
pro-KNU Karens back into Myanmar or into the folds of the
breakaway Karen group, the DKBA, the military junta, say
observers, hopes to break the back of the KNU.

The military gained a strategic victory against the KNU in
early 1995 when it sacked Manerplaw, the organization's
headquarters near the Thai border.

Since then, the U.S-based Human Rights Watch Asia estimates
that some 200,000 Myanmar people, including thousands of children
from the Karen and Shan ethnic communities, have been displaced
-- many fleeing across the Thai border.

What has shocked some political observers, has been the
absence of any resistance by the Thai armed forces, despite the
fact that the DKBA has moved several kms into Thai territory.

"This situation is most worrying and shows not just how weak
the Thai government is but also their increasing and open support
of SLORC," said a senior Myanmar dissident in Bangkok.

A recent indication of Thai government support for the Yangon
regime came earlier this month when Foreign Minister Prachuab
Chaiyasan asked Western nations to tell Suu Kyi to tone down her
stance in order to help reach a compromise with the SLORC.

The previous two democratically elected governments in
Thailand have been much stronger in their condemnation of the
Myanmar regime's human rights abuses and failure to recognize the
NLD as the overwhelming winner of elections held more than six
years ago.

The SLORC, which seized power after crushing pro-democracy
protests in 1988, had refused to recognize the victory of Suu
Kyi's NLD in the 1990 vote.

Moreover, the SLORC has resorted to military force to crush
any opposition -- political or otherwise -- while cocking a deaf
ear to calls from the international community to enter into
dialogue with Suu Kyi to try to defuse the political tension.

-- IPS