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Yangon's anti-rebel offensive rages
on
By Nelson Rand
KAREN
STATE, Myanmar - Earth-shattering thunder over the
jungle canopy made it difficult to distinguish the storm
from incoming mortar rounds as 80 ethnic Karen rebels
were trying to fend off some 400 attacking government
soldiers on Tuesday. Pounding the Karen lines with
artillery, heavy machine-guns, rocket-propelled grenades
and automatic rifles, junta soldiers aimed to take the
high ground on the mountain where the rebels were dug in
with fewer men and less powerful weapons - but with the
distinct advantage of firing down on the government
troops as they ascended the heavily mined mountainside.
After a fierce battle that lasted about
30 minutes and brought the closest attackers within
100 meters of rebel positions, the government forces
ceased fire and retreated - leaving four of their soldiers
dead, according to radio transmissions intercepted by
rebels later that day. The defenders of the Karen
National Liberation Army (KNLA) held off the assault
without incurring casualties, albeit wet, cold and tired
- and without eliminating the threat of the 400
government soldiers still within striking distance of
their jungle trenches.
Tuesday's battle was part
of a decades-long war between Yangon and the Karen, who
are fighting for an independent homeland in eastern
Myanmar. The Network Media Group, quoting Tato Hmu, the
KNLA 7th Brigade chief of organization, reported on
Wednesday that the Karen are facing the biggest
onslaught by Yangon's forces since the battle of
Manerplaw in 1995.
This particular battle in
Myanmar's Myawady township, near the KNLA's 7th Brigade
headquarters at Ta Kaw Bee Tah (just across the border
from Thailand's Mae Ramat district in Tak province), is
part of a larger operation launched by the junta in
early August to clear the area of Karen insurgents,
according to KNLA Colonel Saw Ner Dah Mya. "Their
objective is to capture our 7th brigade headquarters.
Our objective is to hurt them as much as possible," he
said. The KNLA has seven brigades with a total strength
of about 5,000 troops.
There has been no
response by Myanmar's secretive junta on the latest
fighting and official casualty figures are unavailable.
Two days before Tuesday's battle, 11 Myanmar
army porters reached KNLA positions after escaping and
walking through the mine-infested jungle for four days.
They were all taken from jails in Myanmar and forced to
carry ammunition and supplies for the army.
One
of the escapees, Zaw Win, 46, said he was forced to
carry 2,000 rounds of ammunition, weighing about 25
kilograms, for more than a month. He was taken from a
prison in Pegu Division where he was jailed for
involvement in an underground lottery. He said about
1,000 forced porters, mainly prisoners, are being used
for this particular offensive - which includes 10
battalions of government troops, according to Ner Dah.
The 400 attackers on Tuesday were a combined force from
Myanmar's 701, 702 and 704 battalions, Ner Dah said.
"All the porters are afraid," said Win. "They
want to run away but they are afraid of landmines and
they don't know the way," he said.
The 11
escaped porters also said that at times they were used
as "human minesweepers" - walking in front of the
soldiers in places suspected of being mined - a practice
in Myanmar that has been reported in the past by various
human-rights groups.
Win said that when the
porters are walking with Myanmar soldiers they must keep
pace or they are punished. "You cannot rest. If you do
they will kick you or hit you with a stick," he said.
The 11 escapees were all underweight and said
they had been fed only once a day for over a month. They
ate nothing for their four-day ordeal to rebel lines -
where they now say they are being treated well.
Many of them, such as Thang Saw, 26, had badly
cut shoulders caused by rope burn from carrying supplies
on their backs in bamboo baskets. Saw was also taken
from a prison in Pegu Division where he was jailed for
knife-fighting. Asked what he thought about the soldiers
that he was forced to porter for, he replied: "They are
very, very cruel."
Win said the porters were
told by their captors that if they escaped and managed
to reach KNLA positions, the rebels would kill them. But
Win said it wasn't the rebels he was afraid of, so he
took his chances and fled his unit on the morning of
October 8 with another porter, Aung Min, 45. Their
captors were wrong. "I'm just afraid of the SPDC," Win
said, referring to the official name of the junta - the
State Peace and Development Council.
Myanmar's
ruling military junta has been blasted repeatedly by the
international community for its poor human-rights record
and for stonewalling the democracy process. The
detainment of opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi
since May 30 has prompted the United States and the
European Union to slap extended sanctions on the county.
Myanmar views the KNLA as an illegal
organization that has been interfering with national
unity since the group took up arms against the
government shortly after Myanmar - then known as Burma -
received independence from Britain in 1948.
According to the rebels, this particular
operation, launched in August by the SPDC, has forced
about 1,000 Karen families in Loo Baw village tract and
Thee Wa Po village tract to flee their homes. Tah Doh
Moo, deputy head of information and organization for
KNLA-controlled territory in the 7th Brigade, said these
families are trapped in the jungle unable to return to
their villages because of landmines laid by the SPDC and
they are unable to flee to Thailand because the route is
blocked by government soldiers. These families are
currently about 20 kilometers from the Thai border, or
about 15km east of the location of Tuesday's battle, Moo
said.
Colonel Ner Dah said he expected the
fighting to continue and that Karen reinforcements were
being sent into the area.
(Copyright 2003 Nelson
Rand.)
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