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(Page 6) Several newly formed ethnic minority nationalist movements, spearheaded by the Karen National Union (formed in 1947), took up arms

to press theirdemands

for more autonomy and equal rights in the Union.It is the propaganda of successive Burmese regimes, since the time of PM U Nu that the Karen started armed insurrection. The Karen people’s movement for their rights had been peaceful. It was Gen. Ne Win who provoked the Karen with armedattacks. The Karen took up arms in self-defense,

not

to press their demands.Please see my observation below to get the Karen people’s perspective of their armed resistance.

Karen Uprising

All the ethnic armed resistances, including that of the Karen, were all provoked by the Burmese regimes in power. Aung San, the hero of Burma’sindependence, promised to consider the Karen’s demand for designating theIrrawaddy Delta as Karen State after independence, because the majority of the Karen people lived there (Not less than 60% of the population). He told the Karen leadersthat the Karen people would get “one Kyat and the Burman one Kyat”

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meaning thatthere would be complete equality between the Karen and the Burman. However, Aung San and his entire cabinet were assassinated beforeindependence (on July 19, 1947). The power passed into the hands of U Nu, who wasunder the sway of Burman ultra-nationalists and not as farsighted as Aung San.After independence, Gen Ne Win, a power monger, was vice-chief-of-staff of the Burma armed forces. Chief-of-staff was Gen. Smith Dun, a Karen. The Karen people’s movement for a homeland was peaceful. Prime Minister U Nu totallyrejected Aung San’s promise to the Karen people

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. Ne Win wanted to get rid of theKaren chief of staff and suppress the Karen people’s peaceful movement for their rights

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.He therefore used his pocket army troops, the militia known as Levies (BurmaTerritorial Force, or Sit Win Dan in Burmese), to create racial strife

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by armed attacks

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One of the slogans on the placards carried by the Karen people in their peaceful demonstration onFebruary 11, 1948 was

“Show ‘Karen one Kyat, Burman one Kyat’ at Once.”

The slogan was theecho of Gen. Aung San’s assurance to the Karen leaders.

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Prime Minister U Nu accused the Karen of demanding milking part of the whole cow, meaning thatthe Karen’s demand was unreasonable. The Burman ultra-nationalists assumed that the Irrawaddy Deltawas the exclusive possession of the Burman, by right of conquest, during the feudal days.

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Ultra-nationalist Gen. Ne Win’s plan was to provoke the Karen into insurrection and crush it withmilitary might within 2 to 3 years’ time. However, the Karen resistance is still alive and well after morethan 60 years of struggle. The prominent trait of the Burman ultra-nationalists is over estimation of their own military might and prowess, and underestimation of the ethnic nationalities. It is still truewith the SPDC.

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In early days of Japanese occupation of Burma in 1942, the Burma Independence Army (BIA) troopscommitted atrocities against the Karens in the Irrawaddy Delta and Papun areas. The Karens resisted

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on the Karen civilians in Moulmein district in December 1948. His troops thenattacked and burned down Karen quarters in Ahlone, Rangoon, and then in Thamine,a town about 8 kilometers from Rangoon, in January 1949. The Karen finally had toresist when Ne Win’s troops attacked the Karen quarters in Insein, which was about 9kilometers from Rangoon. That was how the Karen armed resistance, or revolutionstarted.

Geopolitics & Dictatorships

Prime Minister U Nu followed neutral foreign policy and he was one of thefounders of non-aligned movement. The periods covering the 50s up to early 80s werea time when the Cold War was at a high point. The Western powers such as Britain,France, the U.S. and etc. did not like neutrality, because with a neutral foreign policy,Burma could fall under the control of international Communism. The West had a handin the split of the AFPFL party and also in Ne Win’s seizure of power, in 1958. In the1960 general elections, U Nu won a landslide victory and he continued to follow theneutral foreign policy. One serious mistake he made was making Buddhism the statereligion on his return to power. In 1961-62, the ethnic leaders of Shan, Chin, Kachin, Karenni etc. demanded achange in the Constitution so as to make Burma a genuine Federal Union, as promised by Aung San. Once again Ne Win, the opportunist and power monger, seized power inMarch 1962

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. The West quietly gave assistance and advice to Ne Win to fight theBurmese Communists

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. However, he fought against the ethnic rebels also, as he had the intention of building Burma into the Fourth Burman Empire, according to aspirations of theBurman ultra-nationalists

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. He hated federalism. He said that federalism meantdisintegration of the country. In spite of aid from the West, Burma was reduced toLLDC in 1987 as a result of the Burma Socialist Program Party (=National SocialistParty, or

Nationalsozialismus

) policies and the war.It was geopolitics of the time (in the 60s and 70s) that spawned dictators inBurma, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Pakistan, South Africa, Congo,Argentina etc. The left dictatorships sprung up in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Cuba, Nicaragua etc.

New Geopolitics and Entrenchment of Dictatorship

After the collapse of the Soviet Empire in 1991, the Cold War ended and theWest had no more use of the dictators it had supported. However, once in place, it is

and it became a full blown incident of racial strife. Gen. Aung San, who was commander in chief of theBIA, was away in Myitkyina, in the far north with the Japanese troops. When he learned about theincident on his return, he immediately met with Karen leaders and apologized for the crimes committed by the BIA. He also started Burman-Karen friendship movement.

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Ne Win’s excuse for seizing power was ‘to save the Union from disintegration’.

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West Germany built factories for producing G3 assault rifles and the Italian Beretta sub-machineguns, Britain gave commando training and introduced the infamous ‘4-Cut’ strategy and the US helpedwith Rader stations and the so-called anti-drug funding.

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The ultra-nationalist plan was to suppress all the movements of the ethnic nationalities for autonomyand making Burma into a highly centralized unitary state.

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very difficult to remove dictatorships, like the SPDC and Taliban. After the fall of theSoviet Empire, the neo-liberals of the West advocate the “Development Ideology”(DI) to go with globalization, in the post Cold War era.Countries like Germany, Denmark, Britain, Japan etc. have earnestlyadvocated unconditional acceptance of DI

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. In the case of Burma, the DI advocatescall for

appeasing the SPDC and collaboration with it

for development. Accordingto them, development will bring human rights and democracy, automatically. Theysay that the SPDC is clinging to power simply out of fear

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.In contrast, it is the belief of the opposition forces that development isimpossible under the rule of the SPDC, which will continue to rule the country evenafter the 2010 elections, under another name and in a different guise. The oppositionforces see the junta as the source of all problems in the country, because of itsFascist/Nazi like ideology of extreme racism, militarism and feudalism.With huge funding, some pro-SPDC European NGOs have gained somefollowers among the democratic and ethnic forces. These followers are preaching the propaganda that the SPDC is an indispensable stake holder and they believe that the participation of SPDC in a long transition period is necessary for peace, stability andto resolve problems of the country. On the other hand, it is the view of the democraticand ethnic forces that the junta may participate in a short interim period (2 to 4 years)of power sharing, during the process of establishing democracy and federalism. After the interim period, the military is not to have any political role in the future of thecountry.The DI encourages the SPDC to cling to power and makes it to become moreentrenched in power

. At the same time, the DI has caused serious dissension amongthe opposition forces, the ethnic as well as democratic organizations, as some of themhave become dependent on funds handed out by the pro-SPDC or DI NGOs.It was the DI and the advocates of DI, who had persuaded the KachinIndependence organization (KIO), others in the Shan State, the New Mon State Party(NMSP) and, for a short time, the Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP) toreach ceasefire agreement

with the military dictatorship in the mid 1990s. Gen.Khin Nyunt, the architect of the ceasefire agreements with the ethnic organizations,managed to get support of some European countries, Japan

, China and Thailand inhis activities to persuade the ethnic organizations to enter into ceasefire agreements.

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The DI serves the purpose of the industrialized countries for turning under developed countries into amarket for their investment, manufactured goods and obtaining cheap labor and natural resources.

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The SPDC is incarcerating Daw Suu out of hate and not out of fear. According to its ideology, theSPDC has to totally control the people, lands and natural resources of the country. For that, it has tototally suppress all opposition.

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The trial of Daw Suu is not by accident. The SPDC sees that pressure by the West, ASEAN and theUN is mainly hot air and it has no need to fear for continuing with its plan to install the Fascist/Nazilike political system.

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The strategy of the SPDC has been to make easy ceasefire agreements with some groups. Offer impossible terms to the remaining groups and crush them with overwhelming military might.

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