Rangoon’s military is one again playing the religious card in an effort to divide and undermine one of the last ethnic armies still actively fi ghting its rule, according to officials from the besieged Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP).

Abel Tweed, foreign affairs minister for the KNPP, said the central government had co-opted the influential Bishop of Loikaw, the religious leader of Karennidominated Kayah state, into becoming a “medium” for Rangoon’s message that the rebels should lay down their weapons and return to the “legal fold”.

KNPP officials said they feared that Rangoon was seeking to re-create the kind of dissension among Its followers that led to the demise of another ethnic group, the Karen National Union, earlier this year.

The Burmese military has been accused of orchestrating a mutiny by Buddhist foot-soldiers against the Baptist leadership of the KNU. The revolt led to the fall of the rebel group’s largest based along the KNU as a legitimate military force.

“Unlike the Karens we are all of the same religion,” Tweed said.

“But if this continues it could get serious in the future with the Catholics divided into two parts, one part pro-bishop and the others against him.”

Rev Edward Evans, a Catholic scholar who recently visited Kayah state said the Bishop had been placed between the “hammer and the anvil.”

“He was weak although you can’t fault him. His people are suffering and he wants to help them.

“Th e Karenni are very devout. They will listen to him for everything. But now he has gone too far..he has placed himself in Slorc’s hands,” he said referring to the State Law and Order Restoration Council, the official name of Burma’s ruling junta.

Karenni and Catholic sources say the KNPP’s troubles with the Bishop began last year when he approached Slorc strongman Khin Nyunt for reli ef from a campaign of military persecution.

In addition to the usual litany of Burmese army abuses that have been documented by human rights groups such as the rounding up of young men and children for portering, force labour, the theft of crops, and dislocation of villages, the Rangoon military in Kayah state had, according to the Karennis, rounded up villages in three concentration camps and been carrying out a systematic campaign to crush the Catholic religion. Priest and nuns were arrested and harassed, Karenni cemetries and religions sites desecrated and destroyed.

Catholics and Karennis said Khin Nyunt, stepped in to order the release of a pries who had been arrested on a charge of aiding communist rebels.

In return he asked the Bi shop to act as a go-between for Grangoon in its dealings with the Karennist.

Since then, the Bishop has made 10 trips to see the KNPP leadership who are based along the Thai-Burmese border and addressed refugee camps as an advocate of Rangoon’s peace plan.

In fact, the Karenni are one of 15 ethnin groups that have already reached ceasefire agreements with the Burmese government. But fighting resumed between government soldiers and Karenni troops within three months of the ceasefi re cermo ny on Mar 22 this year.

Since june 14, KNPP officials esti mate Rangoon has moved more than 4,000 troops into Kayah state in a bid to crush their four-decade old insurgency.

Thai military and other observers suggested that the cause of the fighting had more to do with the lucrative trade in teak across the Thai-Burma border than politics.

Tweed conceded that timber was a factor in the fighting but denied it was the main cause.

“It’s not because of the logs but because we are a thieat to the three principles,” he said referring to Slorc’s stated aims of preventing the break up of the country.

Raymond Htoo, KNPP secretary general, said the news of the ceasefire and its almost immediate repudiation by the Karennis had embarrassed and angered Rangoon.

“It looked bad for them. They said the Karenni have surrendered and returned to the legal fold but the next day we declared we would continue to struggle for our political objectives. They were very angry.” He said.

Rangoon’s official reasons for launching the rainy season offerisive against the Karennis were threefold: a/ that they needed to protect the national logging trade from bandits and Thais: b/ the military needed access through Kayah state for their offensive against Shan warlord Khun Sa in the north: and c/ they needed to secure strategic points along the border with Thailand should relations wi th Thailand further detetiorate as a result of th e Thai national election on July.

The KNPP claims that more th an 300 burmese soldiers have been wounded in the fighting as a result of guerilla attacks, landmines and disease. They did not have a figure for fatalities. The gu errilla group reported six Karenni deaths and eight wounded.

Independent sources doubted the casualty tolls were as high as those claimeed by the KNPP.

“The Slorc troops are close and here in force but there are not a lot of eople getti ng killed,” said a guerilla with the All Burma Students Democratic Front which holds a mountain-top base near the Thai border.

“You can hear the Burmese at night, shouting and shooting at random and sometimes tripping a land mine,” the student guerrilla said.

Raymond Htoo said the Burmse aojectives were the remaining two border passes controlled by the KNPP. Asked what the KNPP would do to finance their struggle for autonomy should the passes fall, he shrugged his shoulders and replied, “I don’t know.”

Student dissidents said heavy rain and the harsh mountainous jungle conditions had blunted the Burmese offensive but predicted fighting would intensify once the wet season had passed.

Tweed said the KNPP would continue their fight for independence and I f that could not be achieved then they would settle for autonomy.

“But lets take it to the table not the battlefield,“he said.

The foreign minister said the KNPP had not been in contact with Rangoon since they received a letter from Khin Nyunt setting an August 13 deadline for the guerrillas to halt their hostilities. Other dissident sources however said that a senior KNPP intelligence officer had been in Rangoon since March and the two sides were talking.

Tweed said he was not optimistic an agreement could be reached.

“They just want to wipe us out”, he said and warned that the situation could get critical next year because the Burmese authorities had refused to release irrigation water from the Loikaw dam for this year’s rice planning.
“They are planning to flood the area in November during havest time and wipe out what crops have been grown,” he said.

 

“People are very afraid that next year thay will be starving.”