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By ALEX ELLGEE Saturday, August 7, 2010
MAE SOT — For months, Burma's ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) has been pressuring the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) to become a border guard force (BGF) under Burmese military command. Now, however, it appears that the regime's efforts have backfired.
While two senior leaders of the DKBA, Gen Kyaw Than and Col Chit Thu, have opted to join the BGF, a third, Col Saw Lah Pwe, has taken an unequivocal stand against it.
“How could I betray my people?” he asked, explaining why he decided to break away from the DKBA with some 1,500 troops under his command and join forces with the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), the DKBA's longtime rival, from which the group split in 1994.
Saw Lah Pwe—also known as Na Kham Mwe, or “Mr Beard”—is the commander of DKBA Brigade 5 and a battle-hardened soldier who has spent most of his life involved in an ethnic insurgency that has seen many divisions over the past six decades.
Now some of the scars of personal rivalry and religious grievances could be healed as Saw Lah Pwe vows to fight alongside the KNLA and other Karen armed groups if Burmese regime troops attack. If it comes to that, he said, two-thirds of the DKBA will rejoin the Karen struggle, and Kyaw Than and Chit Thu, who control Brigades 7 and 9 of the DKBA, “will be forced to flee the country.”
Now that Saw Lah Pwe has changed sides, hostilities could break out at any moment. On Friday morning, leaders of the KNLA and the breakaway DKBA faction held an emergency meeting in the Thai border town of Mae Sot, where the KNLA agreed to support their new allies if they come under attack.
Sitting outside one of his many bases deep inside DKBA territory, Saw Lah Pwe seemed unfazed. Smoking a cigarette through his signature black filter, he juggles telephones as one heavily armed guard arrives to replace another.
“Are they bringing more artillery in?” he asks a soldier on the front line. “You know how to defend your line. Just make sure they don't cross the line.”
As he puts down the phone, he grins and says: “We are ready.”
Saw Lah Pwe said that although he will join forces with fellow Karen, including the Karen Peace Council, another cease-fire group that has rejected the regime's BGF scheme, he will continue to fight as a DKBA soldier.
“I am a DKBA soldier and will fight for my people,” he said, waving his arms. “Even if they tell me to give them my weapons and badge, I will never hand them over. That would be like taking our bones and just leaving flesh.”
In a sign of how volatile the situation has become in the area, there were recent reports of a clash between SPDC troops and a DKBA unit that had been stopped en route to Kawkareik. Four Burmese soldiers were killed in the confrontation, which reportedly involved DKBA troops under Chit Thu's command.
In another incident on Thursday, a Burmese army convoy escorting Lt-Gen Khin Zaw to a meeting with the DKBA and Karen Peace Council to discuss the BGF proposal was ambushed by KNLA soldiers. A source in Myawaddy said claymore mines and machine guns were used in the attack, which left a number of Khin Zaw’s guards seriously injured and his three cars littered with bullet holes. Khin Zaw managed to escape and is believed to be sheltering in Kawkareik.
Although it was unknown at first who was behind the attack, the message was clear: Karen groups are reuniting and the Burmese regime is no longer welcome on the border.
Speaking to The Irrawaddy before the attack was reported, Saw Lah Pwe said he had sent a DKBA officer to the meeting to tell Khin Zaw three things: “I am not afraid to die and I am not afraid to fight; I am only afraid of betraying my people.”
Saw Lah Pwe said that the atmosphere has changed dramatically in the area under his command since he rejected the BGF plan. SPDC troops continue to patrol through his territory, but they look terrified, and communication with them has stopped completely. He said he sees most of them as spies and has taken precautions since receiving reports that Burmese troops have been ordered to capture or assassinate him. When this reporter’s escort passed 20 SPDC troops and porters, information about their location, numbers and weapons was immediately sent to DKBA Brigade 5 headquarters.
“All military posts are on high alert. They are watching every move the SPDC makes,” he said, looking at a map showing all of the DKBA's posts and Burmese army camps. “The area around Myawaddy is the tensest at the moment. But we won’t be the first to attack.”
Fearing renewed fighting in their area, villagers were flocking past the headquarters on tractors to the Thai border. Taking all of their possessions, most of the villagers in the area had packed up their homes and were taking their children to safety. At one river close to the border, more than 100 villagers were sheltering from the rain and waiting for the Thai army to finish their patrols before crossing over to safety at night.
One villager who was on her way to the border told The Irrawaddy that in her village all 800 people had left to avoid fighting. She said they were sad about leaving their possessions behind, but everyone supported Saw Law Pwe’s decision to reject the BGF, knowing what would happen to their lives if he had accepted.
“We have all lived under the control of the Burmese army before,” she said. “If [Saw Lah Pwe] had accepted the BGF, then he would have become part of the Burmese army. We would have lost all our possessions anyway and had no peace. The Burmese army would have taken everything and used us as forced porters.”
It appears that support for Saw Lah Pwe's decision is not confined to Karen State. Halfway through his interview with The Irrawaddy, the DKBA leader received a phone call from a Buddhist abbot in Rangoon who wanted to let him know that people throughout the country are behind him.
“The BGF is not only a border issue but a problem for all ethnic groups,” Saw Lah Pwe said. “People thought that the KNLA was finished after last year's defeats, but now that the DKBA is going up against the SPDC, we are hearing reports that people in Rangoon and throughout Burma are interested in the revolution again.”
If the DKBA joined the BGF, he said, his people would lose the relative peace they have had in their region in recent years.
“We have built a nice area, with bridges, schools and a hospital. The SPDC did not help, but now they want to come and take control,” he said. “They will not bring peace but just more problems for Karen people and take everything away from us that we have achieved.”
Saw Lah Pwe said that the regime had tried, unsuccessfully, to sway him by appealing to his self-interest. As he spoke, he produced a four-page letter from Lt-Gen Ye Myint, the Burmese military intelligence chief who has been the junta's lead negotiator in talks over the BGF issue, showing that the regime had offered him a car and a monthly stipend of 200,000 kyat (US $200) in exchange for his compliance.
“But I’m not like Chit Thu and Kyaw Than,” he said, waving the letter in the air. “I am a soldier and have always fought for the people. I don’t want peace for me, I want peace for all my people.
“The other two leaders only care about their possessions, their material belongings, and not about the people. They have had a taste of business and are like fish on a hook.”
Saw Lah Pwe said that the united Karen forces have a military plan to retake control of the border, but added that international support was still important to achieve peace in the region.
“The international community must recognize that the SPDC has no intention of bringing peace to our people,” he said.
As evidence of this, he told The Irrawaddy that the Burmese army has begun moving artillery into the area near his headquarters. Soon after his interview, he left for the front line to prepare for what looks to be the beginning of a war that will pit the SPDC against an alliance of Karen armed groups who once fought each other, but who are now united and ready to fight for the Karen people.
From Irrawaddy News
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