God's Army: Persecution of 'the ghosts in the jungle'

source : The Nation

PEOPLE are still talking about God's Army. What is this attraction to and mystique about God's Army? Ironically, the truth is actually more fascinating than all the rumours, gossip, and speculation.



In the Tennaserim River valley in Burma's Tennaserim Division (Ta-now-see in Thai), the Karen people have lived for years in one of the most self-sufficient cultures in the world. Burma was to the west and Siam to the east, but most Karens never went to either place.

Eventually, the Karen insurgency - starting in urban, lower and central Burma - spread to their area. But the insurgents were Karen, spoke Karen, organised Karen festivals and cultural activities, and only really requested a few baskets of paddy tax each year and a place to stay and eat during their travels. So the two groups got along; yet it would be naïve to extrapolate from this to say the Karens here actually supported the "revolution", or any other modern political doctrine.

The Burmese, both army and people, on the other hand, were objects of horror and terror in many local stories. At a young age, you learn that the Burmese are bad, they kill and burn, and you run if ever the Burmese come. The Karen insurgents held the territory safe for many years, and the Karen people of the Tennaserim River valley carried on with their lives.

After the Thai authorities and businessmen and the Burmese authorities and their financiers, together with some Karen leaders who sold out, made economic deals - specifically concerning the Bong Ti-Tavoy road and Thailand's Western Seaboard project - the Burmese army was able to race into the Tennaserim River valley in 1997.

The Karen insurgent force retreated and the area was taken over; most people ran into the jungle, others to Thailand as refugees, while many villagers were shot and killed. The Burmese army troops burned all the houses and rice stores in any Karen village they came to. The villagers here have always grown up with guns and are very familiar with living, hunting, sleeping and eating in these jungles. When the force that was to protect them had abandoned them, and a foreign armed force had come into their homeland and terrorised them, their only legitimate reaction was to fight back.



With consideration not to over-simplify, and noting that most villagers do not speak Burmese, do not listen to BBC radio broadcasts, and are not considered politically astute by any measure, this appears more to be a territorial war, and not a political war for democracy or even Karen nationalism. Because the Tennaserim River valley villagers who took up arms can move like ghosts in the jungle, live and sleep (and ambush) anywhere, they have quickly developed a mystique among the Burmese army frontline soldiers.

In addition to this, these villagers were originally animist and later had some exposure to Buddhism, yet somewhat "converted" to Christianity about 100 years ago. This wonderful mixture of religious diversity, based on their own communalism and ecology and pitted against individualism and materialism, created the conditions for something like the Htoo twins to arise. It should not be surprising really. The twins actually did have some "visions" that proved to be "true", and the militia snowballed from there. The villagers of the Tennaserim River valley actually had a discussion and voted on what to call their newly-formed militia. God won out over Buddha and a diverse array of nature gods.

They actually have held the Burmese army at bay on many fronts, creating a low-grade, prolonged guerrilla war situation in the dense mountain jungles. But the Burmese army did finally reach their main base, Kamerplaw, and tried to attack, and lost. The only way in was through Thai territory

The Burmese army attacked God's Army, the Burmese army withdrew, and the Karen soldiers laid landmines to prevent a second attack. The Thai army heard the gunfire and later went to investigate and Thai soldiers ended up stepping on the landmines intended for the Burmese. Yes, it was in Thailand because that's where the Burmese army troops attacked from.

So, with the Thai army angry, and with God's Army supposedly still holding the Vigorous Student Warriors of the Bangkok Burmese embassy fame in their territory, the Thai army started to shell Kamerplaw. Radio reports indicated at least 50 villager casualties.

Mortars blew away grass and bamboo lean-tos from two-three kilometres away. But God's Army could not understand this for they have never had any conflict with Thailand, and most have never even been there.

First, they pleaded fruitlessly for the Thai army to stop the shelling. But later they convinced God's Army that they needed international attention (ie CNN) for their cause. The student warriors would help. They took the Burmese embassy, so why not some Thai government building? Some dissident Karen insurgent troops had also already joined God's Army, and they were trained and frustrated.

Therefore, under some type of misinformed concession by God's Army, these bold, jungle-trained, soldiers came into Thailand looking for a target, and stupidly chose the Ratchaburi Hospital, clearly showing their ignorance of any internationally accepted ethics in waging war. (Of course, in fighting against the Burmese army, they have never seen any ethics in war).

That force of 10 was likely about seven or eight Burmese of the Vigorous Student Warriors and two or three dissident Karen insurgent commandos. But it is very difficult to picture even one Tennaserim river valley villager in the group. Why would a jungle villager go to fight in an urban centre, to risk his life in a foreign place for some ideal still unclear?

God's Army are just villagers, and not a trained terrorist force. They are not interested in Thailand and have no contention with Thailand, except when Thai forces lob bombs at them.

They do not have modern weapons. All their weaponry is either their 20 to 30-year-old hunting rifles or weapons abandoned by Karen insurgents or stolen on raids on Burmese troops

The landmines? They could only initially come from two sources: the Thai army or the Burmese army. To say that God's Army is involved in, or even capable of, any planned attacks on anything in Thailand is absurd.

Furthermore, anyone using these speculations in any media statements is only attempting to use God's Army for their own political or witch-hunt purposes.

Leave God's Army alone. We do not necessarily have to support them, yet we also can, at the very least, understand their reasons and take a deeper look at the root causes of all this suffering

But to stir rumours and mock these Tennaserim river valley villagers is also an insult to a beautiful culture and people, unique in Burma and the world, caught in a horrible situation.

To exterminate them under another's political and/or economic agenda is a sad crime. Let their 100 or more people, with 90 or so guns, fight for their beautiful land.