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DM Monitoring
Naypyitaw: One of Myanmar’s oldest ethnic minority rebel groups has warned major conflict with the military could soon erupt and has called for international intervention and protection of its people forced to flee fighting.
The Karen National Union (KNU) which until 2012 fought one of the world’s longest-running insurgencies, is preparing its fighters for attacks on several fronts, as hostilities with the military reignite following a Feb. 1 coup.
With Myanmar in turmoil, the KNU and several other ethnic armies have sided with opponents of the junta, according to Reuters interviews with representatives of three such groups and the ousted civilian government.
The KNU is the dominant political organisation representing ethnic minority Karen communities in southwestern Karen State, officially known as Kayin State, bordering Thailand. Their objective is self-determination for the Karen people in a region of about 1.6 million people, roughly the size of Belgium, where they are the ethnic majority.
Marginalised in then Burma’s post-independence political process, the KNU started a rebellion in 1949, which it waged for nearly 70 years. One of its key grievances was the Bamar ethnic group’s dominance of Myanmar’s state and military. It generates revenue from collecting taxes, including through illegal border trades and from mining and other development projects.
The KNU and its military wing, the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) have historically been one of the biggest adversaries of the Tatmadaw, as the military is known, and long resisted ceasefire agreements. Activists have accused Myanmar soldiers of atrocities against the Karen, including murder, burning of villages, forced labour, torture and systematic rape of women and girls.
