Scorched Earth, Scorched Intervention

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Year after year after each wet season, the Burmese dictatorship, ironically called the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), commences its annual "dry season offensive" against the country's ethnic minorities. When the seasonal rains subside, without fail the SPDC moves forward implementing its "scorched earth" policy of burning tribal villages, plundering their rice fields, and shooting livestock. SPDC soldiers routinely rape and murder the fleeing civilians and upon "cleansing" a village, they lay mines so the survivors cannot return.

The motivation is purely genocidal exploitation aimed at eliminating the tribal minorities so the SPDC can plunder the country's natural resources.

As result, there are today hundreds of thousands of refugees trapped along the Thai border, and, according to the Thai Burma Border Consortium, there may be as many as one million displaced people in Burma itself. As recently as June 3, the SPDC attacked a refugee camp called Ler Per Her, driving some 3,000 ethnic Karens across the border into Thailand.

For the ethnic Karen—one of Burma's largest ethnic minority groups of some 8 million persons—this suffering has become a generational lifestyle. Their political organization, the Karen National Union (KNU), recently recognized a 60-year anniversary of their struggle for freedom. After 60 years of persecution, however, one would think the free world could have done something to end the bloodshed.

Yet the SPDC continues unabated in its inglorious brutality, and news of this inhumanity just comes and goes as did the 2007 Saffron Revolution protests and 2008 Cyclone Nargis disaster. Aung San Suu Kyi's house arrest lingers in the media still, while China, Russia, and other nations feed the SPDC war machine and welcome the ongoing global impotence in confronting the SPDC.

To comprehend the injustice, one needs to envision the victims, the tribal minorities facing ethnic cleansing, their poor children, and orphans trapped in the world's longest running civil war. Today, along the Thai border, refugees are piling up in camps by the tens of thousands with little international protection.

In early 2009, I arrived in one of these refugee camps by traveling down the Salwin River along the Thai/Burma border. Here the border camps have become a bottleneck of trapped refugees and I was told by my KNU contacts that I needed to see them firsthand. Thus, I crossed the river in the dead of night by longboat.

Upon arrival in "Ei Tu Tah" refugee camp, I was greeted by the camp's leader, a former KNU soldier. He told me this camp had over 4,000 refugees. In the morning I wandered through the camp interviewing refugees, as my guides kept watch with the aid of walkie-talkies. Hut after hut the stories were the same—of shootings, relatives tortured and killed, and villages burned by the SPDC.

I met a Karen woman who spoke English and she told me of rapes and murders of Karen girls by Burmese soldiers. I asked if I could speak to any survivors but she shook her head saying it was culturally impossible for the victims to speak of their ordeal. Nevertheless, as I walked through the maze of huts, victims of other atrocities appeared as readily as rain.

I met a legless landmine victim, a child with a bullet-riddled arm. A man blinded in one eye, with numerous bullet wounds in his back and shoulder. An old woman hobbled over to me and showed me a bullet wound in her thigh. The SPDC burned her village in 2008 and she couldn't escape in time, and so the SPDC shot her. Now she is crippled. Hut by hut I met dozens of these gentle tribal people, women with babes strapped to their backs, families, all who described fleeing the Burmese army.

Of the 4,134 refugees in the camp over 1,200 were children. The camp leader said they received only rice and salt from aid groups, and that in the interior, the Karens were struggling under worse conditions. Over the mountains he said there was another nearby refugee camp called "Ler Per Her." On June 3, this camp would be attacked by the SPDC, resulting in thousands of Karen refugees fleeing into Thailand.

This deplorable situation has no effect on the SPDC who run the country like a giant mafia, albeit a mafia with powerful allies. China (though certainly not the only culprit) hovers over Burma like the grim reaper, supplying billions of dollars of arms to the SPDC, including tanks, helicopters, and automatic weapons that bring only death to the Burmese people. China is not only the SPDC's biggest arms supplier, but also their chief investor. Thus, it’s Beijing's money, arms, and trade that keep the SPDC regime alive.

Nevertheless, the KNU have gallantly held their own in eastern Burma as the war against them reaches its 60th year. David Tharkabaw, Vice President of the KNU, reports that in March and April 2009 the KNU had over 200 clashes with SPDC troops and repelled another SPDC offensive. An impressive yet desperate feat, given that the SPDC has some 200,000 soldiers at its disposal compared to the Karen who have only 8,000 regular troops. Tharkabaw states that what they lack in numbers, the KNU makes up in dedication to save their people. While unable to defeat the KNU and other ethnic minority armies, the SPDC, unfortunately, is showing no sign of going away.

Also, reports abound, indicating Burma is today trying to "go nuclear," emulating Iran and North Korea in its aspirations to stay in power. I spoke with long time Burma activist Roland Watson of Dictatorwatch, who reports in 2008 that KNU soldiers had intercepted SPDC communications describing attempts to shoot down unmanned drones flying over their military sites. Presumably, the drones were CIA, launched for spying on the SPDC's nuclear capabilities. What we do know, however, is the SPDC first announced in 2001 that Russia was supplying them with a nuclear reactor, and ever since, reports have surfaced implicating collaboration between the SPDC, North Korea, and even Iran on nuclear proliferation.

Watson points out that the Obama administration is months overdue in publishing its mandatory report on Burma's nuclear capabilities (as required by the Jade Act). Exposure of Burma's nuclear plans might, however, complicate matters as seen by the latest incident involving a North Korean cargo ship, the Kang Nam 1. Since June 17, a U.S. destroyer has been trailing this ship, which is reportedly carrying missiles and nuclear materials bound for Burma. A UN Security Council Resolution authorizes U.S. intervention, but in reality the resolution is almost unenforceable, having been watered down by pro-Burma allies, China and Russia.

Given the history of global impotence with the Burma problem, the world may soon have another rogue state joining the "nuclear club," and once "in the club," it becomes almost irreversible, while making it much more difficult to enforce respect for human rights or compel obedience to follow some UN resolution. China no doubt will be watching the spectacle and rubbing its paws with glee, for it has an oil and gas cross-border pipeline deal to construct with the SPDC. An estimated 400,000 barrels of oil a day will one day flow from Burma into China and in return, China will surely keep the sale of weapons flowing to the SPDC.

Scott Johnson is a lawyer, writer, and human rights activist, focusing on issues in South East Asia.