Please ask the world to pray for us …

A correspondent Mae Sot, Thailand

A battle for control of the Burmese border is raging back and forth across northern Thailand’s borders.

Pitched against each other are forces of Burma’s ruling military junta, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), its slave militia, the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) and the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), the armed wing of the Karen National Union.

SPDC forces are today using unarmed villagers, suspected Christians, as slaves to dig trenches and build Buddhist monuments around the village of Kawser, just on the Burmese side.

They have wrested control of strategically-critical base camps controlled by the Christian-led KNLA and torched them.

This week’s action is on the southern side of a peninsula of land near the northern Thai region of Phop Phra, near Umphang.

It is a region of immense natural beauty that attracts trekking tourists from the world over.

In cleared areas corn is cropped and it is now harvest time, which will stretch into December.

DKBA forces began their latest offensive on October 7 in the Thai village of Mae Klaw Kee, summarily executing KNLA Captain Taw Naw Po.

DKBA soldiers then looted corn storages and torched the empty buildings.

A Thai Captain was killed the next day during a clean up, causing a redeployment of Thai Army units from the flatlands of Tak, about five hours’ drive from the mountainous border region.

But operating in rough territory they have not been able to prevent the DKBA forces crossing into Thailand and using the neighbouring country as a launch-pad for attacks.
Since Wednesday KNLA reservists have been moved to the region and their weapons stock bolstered.

After a clandestine KNLA weapons drop on Wednesday, Thai security forces seized the guns but later returned them after meeting with KNLA commanders.

That they handed them back is a simple indication the common enemy is the Burmese junta’s forces.

On Thursday DKBA soldiers arrested the entire population of Way Key Klo, on the Burmese side, shooting on sight anyone trying to flee, in a bid to root out KNLA sympathisers or reservists.

Most were simply terrified corn farmers, in many cases women and children.

Those who did make it to the border were turned back by Thai soldiers, leaving them in a desperate no-man’s land.

With his forces rapidly losing control of the entire border line, KNLA commander Colonel Nerdah said they had resorted to guerilla warfare.

“We will never give in,” he said.

“Please just ask the world to pray for us.”

This comes just months after a battle that lasted a week (from June 30 until July 6) between SPDC soldiers and the KNLA had left scores dead.

That battle was on the opposite side of the peninsula to the newest outbreak of violence, to the north.

In all, in the past few days, four villages have been razed, there is a large clutch of refugees hiding in Thailand illegally and a non-governmental organisation is attempting to feed them.

Colonel Nerdah, the son of the late General Bo Mya, who began his campaign for independence from Burmese rule in 1949, described the running battles inn that region a couple of days later, at another camp.

“The Burmese crossed into Thailand last week, Monday morning, at about 5am and started firing at base camp and they took the highest position.

“And they stayed there, they were ordered to stay there and clear the area.

“On Tuesday morning we started fighting back, the fighting lasted for two or three days.

“On the last day the second-in-charge was wounded, he was seriously wounded and many people were killed.

“They had a lot of casualties and then they retreated, they crossed back into Thailand.

“One of them surrendered to the Thai military and he was sent back.”

I asked Colonel Nerdah what would have happened to the SPDC soldier who threw himself at the mercy of the Thai military and was then sent home.

“Oh, he will be punished and dishonored

“First of all he should not have surrendered to the Thais because he knew very well they had some kind of agreement that if the Burmese troops are caught by the Thais then they must be sent back.

“This is a border agreement they have in place.”

I questioned whether the SPDC soldier had been capable of making a rational decision at the time of his surrender.

“I think he was lost and he didn’t know where to go back to, he was totally lost, but also I sort of think he made the right decision in the end, otherwise he would have been captured by our troops.

“Then he would have had bigger problems.”

It is quite well known that SPDC soldiers face punishment should they lose their weapons in the heat of battle, because that is where many of the KNLA’s stock weapons come from.

The soldier who surrendered to Thai troops did lose his weapon and I asked Colonel Nerdah what sort of punishment the soldier could expect.

“Well, officially it could be capital punishment, but I would expect 20 years in jail, or they might kill him.”

In the months leading up to the stoush there had been a significant escalation in fighting between units of Burma’s State Peace and Development Council and soldiers of the KNLA opposite the northern Thailand province of Tak.

A major push by the SPDC to take a long-standing base camp of the KNLA, the headquarters of its Sixth Brigade 201st battalion had however been thwarted.

The SPDC offensive to take Wah Lay Kee, launched from Thai territory, began at 5am June 30.

That the SPDC soldiers were prepared to intrude on Thai sovereignty is an indication of how determined they were to take the KNLA camp.

And they did.

But by evening they had lost it again, and 200 SPDC soldiers had been surrounded by four KNLA units of between 10 and 30 men.

The KNLA dug in close in heavy jungle, one group about 20 metres away from their enemies.

Both sides took heavy casualties as a result of landmines.

The region surrounding Phop Phra is an eccentricity of border demarcation between these two Southeast Asian nations.

On Wednesday, July 2, the KNLA seized a 50-calibre Browning machine-gun, the type usually mounted on top of armoured vehicles.

A 50-calibre Browning can cut buildings to pieces.

While the SPDC took responsibility for Monday’s initial assault, light units of the DKBA eventually backed them.

Mae Sot General Hospital, on Thai territory, was left full of casualties from all sides.

For instance on Friday, July 4, three DKBA soldiers stepped on landmines and two SPDC soldiers were shot, but not killed.

All sides in this protracted conflict use landmines extensively

There were dead on both sides just hours after the SPDC launched the offensive against Wah Lay Kee on June 30.

By the next day 16 SPDC soldiers were dead, 13 had fled to Thailand and were in the hands of the Thai military.

A KNLA soldier was dead, two wounded and soldiers of the DKBA and KNLA were lying in beds close to one another at Mae Sot General Hospital, eyeing each other off.

One porter, seized at gunpoint from a nearby village by SPDC troops, had his leg amputated in the same hospital, another innocent victim of the world’s longest-running insurgency.

Reports from soldiers present during the battle suggested as many as 50 SPDC soldiers were killed.

At an outpost on high ground close to the Thai territory of Umphang, also to the south of Mae Sot, I found KNLA soldiers with seized weapons banging away at barrels of World War II-era weapons.

The SPDC soldier who had once called it his own was dead and soldiers of a KNLA unit on a lonely hilltop were trying to repair the flaw that had jammed their enemy’s weapon.

The soldiers at that time were on a hill a few hours’ walk from Wah Lay Kee, at an outpost attached to another base camp that was secure until this week’s raid.

The KNLA establishes base camps close to areas of the Karen population and then props up outposts consisting of perhaps a roof made of leaves held up by bamboo.

From there, patrols are launched in a bid to protect the population of women, children and crippled or injured soldiers.

The standoff continued into August, and during the evening of August 8 four DKBA soldiers surrendered to KNLA troops.

Asked the reasons for such a surrender in the midst of a standoff in which there had of late been only sporadic action, Colonel Nerdah replied: “They were tired of operations in the rainy season, because they wanted to attack Wah Lay Kee.”

Asked why he thought the DKBA and SPDC put such importance on Wah Lay Kee, he said mainly because Wah Lay Kee was the headquarters of Sixth Brigade’s 201st battalion.

“It is really a symbol, it’s not a big area, but it is very important to the KNLA.

“Wah Lay Kee has never fallen to the Burmese and has been a secure base camp for many years now.

“It has stood since 1988 until now, there has been a lot of fighting, but it has never been taken over by the Burmese.

“And we have a military cemetery there, so we must hold it.

“One day they took the highest ground, but after two days of very, very bad fighting they retreated.”

Nerdah said the SPDC had adopted the tactic of wearing DKBA uniforms, to suggest a greater number of Karen soldiers fighting with them than there really were.

Asked how many SPDC soldiers he thought were killed in the battle he said between 40 and 50.

“We counted the dead bodies first, they left them behind.

“And then we buried them, you see we have a code of conduct that demands we bury them, to gratify their relatives, rather than cutting their heads off [as the SPDC has been known to do].”

But 900 SPDC reinforcements supported this week’s attacks. They came across the border in trucks at Myawaddy and headed south.

Now the KNLA is struggling to keep control of any of the border line.