The Longest War

The Karen National Liberation Army has waged the longest fight for independence in the world. Now, 58 years later, they may be no closer to their goal than when they started.

By Kevin Sites, Wed Jun 28, 4:54 PM ET

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KAREN STATE, Myanmar - When you are meeting a rebel army, I have learned, there is always a dirt road to travel. This occasion, it seems, is no different.

Off a well-paved highway running north from Mae Sot, Thailand, my driver, Nibo, makes a sudden left, wheeling the silver Toyota pickup onto a winding dirt pathway leading through a seemingly endless expanse of cornfields.

It is, as usual during monsoon season, dreary gray, on the cusp of another afternoon downpour. Rows of green stalks rustle in the wind, lulling me into an almost hypnotic calm. But then, after only a few minutes, the ride is over.

Exploring the KNLA encampment
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Nibo is out of the vehicle and leading me through the fields. We are mice in a maze of green. When we emerge on the other side, we are on the southeastern bank of the Moei River, which separates Thailand from what was once called Burma, renamed Myanmar in 1989 by the military junta that rules the country.

A long wooden dugout powered by a small outboard motor is waiting for us. We climb aboard and are transported only about 100 yards upriver before we tie up on the other side. Burma.

On the ledge above us I see the silhouette of two men in uniform. As I get closer I can see that one is in his early 20s and the other no younger than his late 50s. The older man extends his hand and introduces himself as Sanplo. He is wearing green fatigues and a maroon beret. He smiles broadly, revealing the few teeth he has left, badly stained brown from chewing betel nut.

"Please excuse me," he says, "my English is not so good."

He leads us over the ridge to an encampment of thatch buildings, including a large meeting place guarded by two young fighters, one armed with the most ubiquitous assault rifle in the world, the Russian-designed AK-47. The other holds an American-made M-16.

Inside, a handful of older men, mostly dressed like Sanplo, await my arrival. They are, I'm told, the leadership of Battalion 101 of the 7th Brigade of the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA).

The KNLA and its coordinating political arm, the Karen National Union (KNU), have waged a war of liberation against the Burmese military government since shortly after Burma's independence from Britain in 1948. It is a rebellion against ethnic oppression, according to the Karen people, which they have suffered at the hands of the military regime.

At 58 years and counting, the Karen conflict, one of several ethnic conflicts in Burma, is the oldest civil war in the world. From this exposure, it appears the men who are leading it have not missed much of that struggle.

The first commander is introduced to me as Colonel Pawdoh, 51, the youngest of the bunch. He wears a beret, striped polo shirt, black cargo pants and zip up combat boots. His mouth full of betel nut, he says he has been with the KNLA since he was 20 years old.

The second command is a 63-year-old, named Major Thasu, who claims he has fought with the KNLA for 44 years. The battalion's adjutant is a bespectacled and kindly-looking 65-year-old named Captain Raylo, a veteran of 42 years.

On the wall behind a lectern is a painting of Saw Ba U Gyi, the founder and first chairman of the Karen National Union (KNU). Flanking the painting on either side are the KNU's four principles, written in English on the left and in curvy Karen script on the right.

Fighting a regime » View

While we speak, I write them in my notebook:

1) For us, surrender is out of the question.
2) We shall retain our arms.
3) The recognition of the Karen State must be complete.
4) We shall decide our own political destiny.

They seem, as I look at them, to be ready-made demands, both reaffirmation of the struggle's purpose (probably necessary in one this protracted) as well as clear signposts of deal-breaking points in any negotiations with the Burmese government, known by its latest Big Brother-esque acronym, the SPDC, or State Peace and Development Council.

And at this point in its existence, both the political wing, the KNU, and the military arm, the KNLA, need all the reaffirmation they can muster. They are plagued by division, aging leadership and shortages of manpower and materials.

"At the present," says Pawdoh, "we have no operations going on. We are working on peaceful negotiations."

And in fact there is a kind of "gentlemen's agreement," as Pawdoh calls it, between the KNLA and the Burmese military — the result of a meeting with the military junta in Yangon two years ago.

But it seems to be, at best, a loose agreement. Regular violence is reported, with a flood of Karen and other Burmese refugees crossing the border into Thailand any time there is fresh fighting between the KNLA and government troops.

"The Burmese military constantly violates the cease-fire," says Mahn Sha, the general secretary of the Karen National Union, from a location in Mae Sot on the Thai side of the border. "If they don't stop their military offensive against the Karen people, we will be forced to defend ourselves."

But the threat seems to lack teeth. Quietly, many in the Karen leadership concede that the lengthy struggle has sapped the will of many of the Karen people to continue the fight.

One of the biggest setbacks to the KNU/KNLA's struggle came in 1995, when a breakaway faction called the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) split with the KNLA over disagreements with what they say was a bias in favor of Christians within the KNLA.

That group began working with the Burmese Army. Their insider knowledge, many Karen people believe, allowed the Burmese military to overrun the KNU headquarters at Manerplaw inside Burma in 1995, forcing the leadership and thousands of refugees to flee to the borderlands and across the Thai border.

It was a strategic defeat that both the KNU and KNLA have never fully recovered from.

Another major obstacle for the KNLA, as far as providing a military backbone to the KNU's political pressure, is the lack of military supplies to equip their army.

Major Thasu says the KNLA gets a lot of verbal support from the international community but few weapons, while the Burmese government is supplied with arms from China and India — and by some reports it is also getting new weapons from Russia.

The KNLA, says Thasu, must rely on small arms they can capture from the SPDC or weapons they can buy with money funneled to them through work operations like logging and farming by the Karen people.

Waiting inside the KNLA camp

But the weapons available to purchase, including Vietnam-era M-16s, are often aging as fast as the KNLA leadership.

Both the Burmese military and the KNLA have been accused of profiting from the drug trade (Burma is the second-largest opium producer in the world, behind

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Afghanistan) and using those funds to purchase weapons.

Thasu denies the charges that either the KNLA leadership or soldiers are involved with drugs.

"It's illegal," he says. "We take action against anyone who deals with drugs."

The KNLA does admit, however, to experimenting with the use of child soldiers in the mid-1980s, when they developed what they called "the Boy's Company," an entire unit of 14-, 15- and 16-year-old boys orphaned or made homeless through fighting with government troops.

Mahn Sha, the KNU's general secretary, says that international law and pressure made them disband the Boy's Company two years after it started.

However, in an impromptu visit to another KNLA Battalion inside Burma, I came across a boy easily between 12 and 14, shouldering an M-16.

I had clearly surprised him and the other adult soldier he was with. The boy nearly ran into the bush, while I captured just a few seconds of videotape of him.

Mahn Sha says this was an anomaly — that the boy probably just works in the 22nd Battalion's office and does not go to the front lines — even though he was carrying a weapon. Regardless, he said he would look into the incident.

Twenty-year-old Ehphno Roe of the 101st Battalion is old enough to go the front lines, though. He plans to start his day-and-a-half walk there tomorrow morning.

A contrasting youthful face to the KNLA elders I've just met, he says he's been with the rebel force for two years, and that his father is also a fighter.

"I'm not afraid to go to the front," he says with calm but underlying bravado. "The SPDC is oppressing our people. This is what we have to do."

But after 58 years, the lingering question is how much longer the KNLA will have to fight before the Karen people achieve the independence, or at least autonomy, they crave, or whether they will have to submit completely to the rule of the Burmese military government.