KAREN
MYTHS
By David OHanlon
December 2006
This article is written
in response to widely held views about the Karen people of Burma and the Karen
National Union (KNU). They are views that are rarely explicitly spelt out
but which are close to axiomatic in international NGO, diplomatic and academic
circles, and as such have been implicit in much of the international
communitys policies towards the KNU. They have been enormously
influential in shaping the appallingly patronizing and muddled thinking which
has characterized western dealings with the Karen, and greatly contributed
to perpetuating their suffering. It is therefore high time that the implicit
be made explicit: that the assumptions behind such notions be examined and
the tacit emperors new clothes conventions sustaining them
be set aside.
There has been a long train of academics, journalists and NGO workers who
ever since the fall of Manerplaw have been predicting the imminent demise
of the KNU, or lining up to advise them, and who have been engaged,
with various degrees of subtlety, in persistent KNU bashing which masquerades
as objectivity. They are wont to strike the pose of objective and even sympathetic
observers of the Karen rather than the proponents of an agenda. The basic
argument appears to be, The KNU represent no-one but themselves
and theyre beat and ought to quit.
It is further argued that the SPDC is entrenched in power. It is worth remembering
however that former New Zealand Prime Minister David Lange once described
the Indonesian occupation of East Timor as irreversible. Like
other authoritarian regimes, despite an outward appearance of strength the
SPDC is more like a brittle house of cards in an increasingly gusty international
climate. Even the once formidable Tatmadaw, the SPDCs only true power
base, has been ground down to a half-starved and demoralized relic of its
former self.
In contrast, as a guerrilla organization all the KNU really has to do is stay
in the field and hang on like grim death. Success for the guerrilla is not
measured in conventional terms but in the political and financial cost they
impose upon the regime. Just because the struggle is asymmetrical does not
mean that its eventual result is as neatly predetermined as some would have
us believe.
It is not only the SPDC that has proved itself to be an enduring institution.
Love it or hate it, the KNU is an organic part of Karen society and it isnt
going anywhere without the complete destruction of the Karen people, which
is unfortunately exactly what the SPDC has in mind. Groups such as the KNU
can be ground down but never eliminated. Ultimately, Clausewitz was right:
the SPDC will not be able to find a purely military solution to what is in
essence a political question. But as long as they continue to try the Karen
will have to defend themselves, or resign themselves to destruction. In other
words, the KNU will fight on because the SPDC flatly refuse the Karen people
any other alternative. That is the harsh reality on the ground that all the
articles, talk, and at times not so subtle diplomatic pressure in the world
does not alter one jot.
It should also be pointed out that the KNU, far from being the intransigent
militarists that they have been characterized as being, cannot reasonably
be accused by anyone of not seeking a negotiated end to hostilities. Indeed,
it has been the KNUs determination to reach such an agreement that is
largely to blame for the appalling situation they find themselves in today.
To quote Nelson Mandela, Ultimately, the terms of the struggle are determined
by the oppressor. Continued fighting in Karen State is clearly a direct
result of a command decision by the SPDC.
One could say of the Karen what David Retief in his book Slaughterhouse
said of the Bosnians; that they had the bad taste to be sincere about their
freedom while the U.N. and the aid industry just wanted them to stop being
awkward and submit. Much the same views are held by foreign critics of the
KNU, who appear motivated by a heady mix of pacifism, self-interest and what
can be described as aidism. This is the idea that what is truly
required first and foremost in conflict zones is not security or even a political
settlement but aid
.
This mindset characterizes foreign political conflicts as being intrinsically
complex to the point of defying comprehension. It is indulged in by morally
ambivalent and bankrupt actors. In this schemata the only credible, moral
and intelligent response is aid and if this fails yet more aid. Aid assumes
a prerogative that overrides all other considerations such as politics, which
can only have merit to the degree that they facilitate the provision of aid
and its attendant plethora of international NGO administration. The drafters
of the agenda for the recent Wilton Park conference for example clearly presumed
that the only subject worth discussing was how, not if, aid should be distributed
in Burma.
Although the KNU can rightly be criticized for many things, much of the western
dissatisfaction with them is due to their failure to share this worldview
and instead hold to their own political agenda. For this reason cooperation
with the KNU has always been viewed as tainted and alternative Karen leadership
encouraged. The clearest articulation of this ideology to date was the report
commissioned by the UNHCR in 2005, ostensibly on the subject of child soldiers,
which proposed the aggressive de-KNU-ization of the refugee camps.
However, it has really only been the KNU, despite its faults, which has been
capable of generating leadership for the Karen.
Under General Bo Mya, the KNU suffered from disastrously defeatist, corrupt
and incompetent leadership. The KNUs religious intolerance in particular
made them their own worst enemies. But this does not mean that the Karen as
a whole do not benefit from the mere fact of the KNUs existence, or
would not benefit enormously from political unity. Neither does it mean that
as effective as many community-based (and often religiously-led) Delta Karen
organizations are, the KNU do not enjoy the sympathy of many in the wider
Karen community. In contrast, the Karen cause only suffers by having a breakaway
faction, to a man Bo Mya loyalists, turn against their people and side with
the SPDC. In the face of the challenges the Karen face to their very survival
as a people, it hardly behooves westerners to begrudge the KNU the right of
reorganizing under solid leadership from Padoh Mahn Sha and refusing, what
is clearly by any other name, surrender.
At this critical hour, when the Karen stand desperately in need, when the
international campaign against the SPDC is ironically at its zenith, and when
the moral imperative to halt the ethnic cleansing of the Dawna ranges could
not be stronger, moral relativism and sanctimonious neutralism is inopportune.
As a westerner I cannot speak for the Karen, but I am also unable to see how
undermining the KNU however subtly helps their cause. In contrast, if we are
sincere about physically stopping the slaughter of the Karen then the only
effective means at hand is through the KNU.