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Joint Force Focuses Offensive on KNLA Brigade 7 Headquarters

By SAW YAN NAING Saturday, June 20, 2009
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A joint force of troops from the Burmese army and the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), a ceasefire militia group, has focused its offensive on the headquarters of Brigade 7 of the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), according to Karen sources.

In response, KNLA Brigade 7 has increased its mortar shelling of the joint force, said the sources.

The clash between the two armed groups has been intensifying around the KNLA Brigade 7 headquarters since early this week, with heavy shelling being carried out by both sides.

The joint force, which earlier vowed that it would take over the KNLA Brigade 7 headquarters by June 16, is still facing stiff resistance.

On June 17, fighting and mortar shelling continued for almost an entire day without interruption, according to Saw Steve, a relief worker who is also a leader of the Committee for Internally Displaced Karen People, whose units operate in the fighting zone.

“KNLA Brigade 7 is not going to lose its headquarters easily,” he added.

The combined force has already taken over three military bases belonging to Battalions 21, 22 and 101 of KNLA Brigade 7.

Sources from the Karen Nation Union (KNU), the political wing of the KNLA, said that they allowed the three military bases to be captured because they did not want to kill fellow Karen soldiers who were fighting alongside Burmese troops.

The KNU claimed about 20 soldiers from the joint force were killed and about 50 were injured, while five KNLA soldiers were hospitalized in Mae Sot, a Thai border town.

Sources said that the fighting is expected to intensify further as KNLA Brigade 7 seeks to defend its headquarters.

The joint force started its offensive against KNLA Brigade 7 in the first week of June. Fierce fighting between the two sides since then has forced about 4,000 Karen refugees to flee to Thailand for safety.

The DKBA split from its mother organization, the KNU, and reached a ceasefire agreement with the Burmese regime in 1995.

The KNU has been fighting for autonomy for six decades and has never signed a ceasefire agreement with the Burmese military government.



COMMENTS (7)
 
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Ursus Wrote:
27/06/2009
titi,

I am always for peaceful solutions, but you must be aware that serious consequences will be the extermination of the Karens and other ethnic groups once they decide to lay down their weapons and capitulate to the Burmese regime.

DKBA is nothing else than cannon fodder for the SPDC and as soon as they have eliminated the KNLA they will be in a fatal situation as well as all the Karens. Burmese generals are proven mentally sick and therefore very dangerous and erratic. DKBA should know this fact.

titi Wrote:
25/06/2009
yeah Ursus, I would have felt the same thing because two of my relatives had experienced that and I'm sure some of the DKBA members had also been mistreated by the Burmese military before. Thats what we are talking about ... FOCUS on the lower level of democracy rather than fighting for those opposition groups. I would prefer our Karen fighters are fighting for a peaceful solution for the Karen people rather than for the whole Burmese people. If we can't solve our own problem how can we (as the longest insurgent group in Burma) help solve the problem for the whole country?

Ursus Wrote:
25/06/2009
titi and htee, I wonder how you guys would react if your own little kids were raped and killed by the SPDC. If you don't know it yet, there's an ethnic cleansing going on, not only on the Karens but also on other ethnic groups. I know that you deny this fact but I know what I'm talking about. I myself know a 6 years old girl who was raped and tortured by the Burmese army! She is an orphan, her parents have been killed. Believe it or not, but a six-year-old child doesn't lie!

nono Wrote:
23/06/2009
It is too dark to make a clear decision right now in Burma. Nobody see the future of Burma, even the generals. Fighting in the darkness is to hope for the light.

htee Wrote:
23/06/2009
Yes, titi, you are right, you are absolutely right. Yes ,our KNLA and KNU, are also brainwashed by the Burmese opposition o
organizations. Even they are Burmese opposition organizations, but Burmese idealogy is Burmese idealogy. Our KNLA and KNU, they don't know themselves. Now they have also became tools of Burmese opposition organizations. They also used our KNU and KNLA names. Either way, let's see. Time will tell.

titi Wrote:
23/06/2009
The same goes for the KNLA and KNU, who are also brainwashed by the Burmese opposition organizations based in Thailand or third country—to fight, fight, fight. Who are suffering now? The civilians are suffering. And who are fighting? The KNLA and DKBA. And who are there for them? The Burmese opposition organizations? They were just only "talking" in the news while the KNLA are fighting in the jungles. Some of them don't really know who they are fighting for.. The KNU in Mae Sot? Burmese opposition organizations in third countries? Or their Karen people in the jungle? I hope they make a clear decision now, and the priority should be on their fellow Karen people.

Ursus Wrote:
21/06/2009
It will be the DKBA who are going to pay the bill for betraying their own people. In fact, I do not believe that they are Karen people anymore! They are brainwashed by the SPDC.








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