Thadar Del Village in Phapun District Burnt Down by Army

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Thadar Del village in Phapun district burnt down by army

Report by Nan Htoo San

Saturday, 24 July 2010 11:38 - Last Updated Saturday, 24 July 2010 21:59

The Burmese Army in an inhuman act burnt down Thadar Del village in Lu Thaw Township,
Phapun district. The village was set on fire by a column of the army at 2:30 pm on July 23
afternoon, a local said.

"Troops arrived at the Thadar Del village and set on fire the whole village at 2:30 pm. Before entering the village, they fired mortar shells into the village. Villagers escaped the shelling," a villager said.

Burmese Army soldiers and battalions under KNU Brigade 5 had running gun battles around the village area on July 23. After the clash, junta’s forces fired mortar shells into Thadar Del village. Because of the shelling, villagers fled from the village, Maj. Saw Kaleldo of KNU Brigade 5 said.

"We exchanged gunfire with junta’s forces yesterday. Then they fired mortar shells into Thadar
Del village. Villagers fled and nobody was left in the village. The army column came to the
village and burnt it down," Maj. Saw Kaledo told KIC.

The military column, which set fire to the village, is yet to be identified as to which battalion it
belongs to. Locals believe the column could belong to a battalion under the junta’s Military
Operation Command (MOC) 21 because these forces were patrolling the area.

Junta forces have patrolled the area in an unusually special military operation this month. A medical in-charge in this area said that burning down the village could be part of the special military operation.

Villagers are now heading for the jungle. It's learnt that the backpack health worker’s team (BPHWT) is preparing to provide medicines to the villagers fighting for survival in the jungle during the rainy season.

Thadar Del village is near the Burmese Army military camp and also on the patrol route of the
military column. The military column was in the village till last information received this evening.

Thadar Del village had about 50 houses with 500 people. Thadar Del village is located 40 miles north of Phapun town. The village is in the controlled area of KNU as well as in the patrol area of Burmese Army battalions under MOC 21.

Three Thadar Del villagers were killed by junta forces without reason in the paddy field near the
village in 2006.

Burmese rebels in India plea bargain

Image via Wikipedia

By JOSEPH ALLCHIN

Published: 2 July 2010

A group of Burmese ethnic rebels currently held in an Indian jail will next week enter into a plea bargain in what could be a momentous final stretch in a marathon 12-year fight for justice.

The group, composed of 10 fighters from the Karen National Union (KNU) and 24 from the now-defunct National Unity Party of Arakan (NUPA), were lured in 1998 to the Indian Andaman Islands by an Indian intelligence officer named Colonel Grewal, who offered them a safe haven. He has since disappeared, and evidence suggests he may have been a double agent working for the Burmese military.

On arriving on Indian soil the group were accused of weapons smuggling; six of the men were murdered by Indian security forces and the rest placed in detention, in what has come to be known as Operation Leech.

Their trial lawyer, Akshay Sharma, speaking exclusively to DVB in Delhi yesterday, said that use of the plea bargain – a predominantly western legal concept – was exceptionally rare in India, but was beneficial to all parties.

Moreover, human rights lawyer and chief advocate on the case, Nandita Haksar, said that “the Indian intelligence community are on trial here”. Indeed an intelligence officer, speaking under condition of anonymity, was quoted in the Indian press several months after the incident as saying that defense authorities were “deliberately adopting dilatory tactics”.

The implications of guilt for the Indian security services appeared in court after a 10-year wait for a single charge sheet to be produced, with evidence that Sharma said was “full of discrepancies”.

Image via Wikipedia

Key evidence such as the serial numbers of the supposedly smuggled weapons did not match, whilst “security reasons” stopped the Indian security services from bringing the explosives that the accused were charged with possessing to the Kolkata trial.

Lawyers have therefore suggested that the 12-year wait for a verdict and the “grey areas” have likely induced both prosecution and defence to for the plea bargain. One of the most telling of these “grey areas” was the failure by India’s own Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to produce key witnesses, such Colonel Grewal, the initial contact person for the freedom fighters. This was despite requests by the Indian state’s primary investigative bodies to produce this witness.

While the acquittal of the weapons smuggling charges has been “beneficial”, Haksar claimed that they conceal an ugly truth; a “hypocrisy” at the heart of Indian democracy. For whilst the 34 may soon walk free, it is now corroborated that the Indian security services have the blood of at least six Burmese rebels on their hands, while two more who were under custody “disappeared” during the course of the trial.

Their disappearance appears to be a misnomer when one considers the severity of the initial charges the Burmese were accused of. The charge of ‘waging war against the Indian state’ – a similar indictment to one brought on the Mumbai bombers – carries the maximum penalty of death, but they still managed to disappear, and no-one seems able to divulge their whereabouts, or indeed whether they are still alive. Moreoever, one of the early trial lawyers, T. Vasnatha, was murdered in what Sharma believes was an act of the Indian intelligence services.

Karen Rebel Army Forced to Retreat

Mizzima, Mae Sot, Larry Jagan, June 18 - Burma’s largest active ethnic rebel group has been forced to abandon its stronghold on the Burmese border with Thailand after weeks of fierce fighting with government troops and rival Karen guerrillas.

The Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), the armed wing of the Karen National Union (KNU), will now resort to guerrilla tactics to fight the Burmese Army rather than waste lives trying to defend territorial bases in eastern Burma, KNLA Commander Jonny told reporters on Thursday.

"The withdrawal from our 7th Division base does not mean we are defeated. It is a tactical redeployment. We also do not want to kill our fellow Karens in this battle," he said.

But many analysts believe this may be the beginning of the end for the KNLA, which has been fighting for self-determination from the Burmese government for sixty years.

Nonetheless, KNU and KNLA leaders insist that the struggle is far from over. “We will fight to the bitter end,” David Thackerbaw, a KNU spokesperson, told Mizzima. “We have no option but to continue fighting. We must hold onto every strip of land."

“We know what is at stake. The Burmese Army will continue to commit human rights abuses, seize our land and control our natural resources if we don’t resist them,” he added.

In the past few weeks thousands of ethnic Karen villagers have been forced to flee across the border into Thailand as the Burmese Army stepped up its assault on the Karen rebels.

Fierce fighting and constant mortar fire close to the Thai border by the Burmese Army has thus far forced more than four thousand ethnic Karen villagers to flee for their safety, according to aid workers in the area.

More than two weeks ago the Burmese Army and a pro-government militia – the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) – launched a major attack along part of the border with Thailand in a last ditch effort to finally destroy the KNLA.

In the past few days the Burmese Army has increased its offensive against the KNU’s armed wing, targeting the KNLA's strongest outfit, the 7th Brigade.

For several weeks the 7th Brigade was able to hold their own against the all-out joint assault, though the strategic relationship appears now to have altered. “If we cannot stand our ground, we will move away,” Thackerbaw emphasized. “We will not let our troops die unnecessarily.”

More than 300 fresh DKBA were brought up from Pa’an, capital of Karen State, over the weekend, reinforcing the already 600-strong force fighting alongside the Burmese Army, according to Karen sources in Burma.

“They intend to use a pincer maneuver to dislodge the KNLA,” a Thai military intelligence officer told Mizzima on condition of anonymity. “There are six Burmese Army battalions involved, with the two thousand Burmese troops split equally at the northern and southern ends of the 7th Brigade’s territory.”

“But it’s the 900-strong DKBA that will bear the brunt of the fighting as they lead the attack, with logistical support from the Burmese Army on either side,” he added.

The 7th Brigade is the KNLA's largest and best trained force. More critically it controls a long and strategically important stretch of land between the KNLA’s northern and southern forces.

Now that they are retreating the other two Karen strongholds are isolated and susceptible to being easily surrounded, according to military analysts in the region.

The KNU has been fighting for independence in the hills of eastern Burma and the world's longest running insurgency. They are one of a handful of rebel militias not to have signed a ceasefire agreement with the junta.

“There is no doubt that the junta, with the help of the DKBA, are going all-out to wrest control of the area along the border from the KNU,” Burmese academic and military specialist Win Min told Mizzima.

The renewed military campaign against the KNLA has been prompted by the regime’s planned elections next year and the proposed creation of a national border police force – comprised of disarmed ethnic rebel armies having reached ceasefire agreements with the regime.

However, thus far most ethnic groups have rejected the junta’s plans, though the DKBA has agreed in principle to become a border police force.

In the area along the Thai border where the KNLA is active, the Burmese Army has closed some 30 of its 100 military camps in the last few months, in anticipation of the DKBA taking control of the area, according to the Free Burma Rangers, who operate inside the country.

“They want to eliminate the KNU now because we have called on all Karen to boycott the elections,” speculated Thackerbaw. “The last thing they want is for other ethnic groups to follow our lead.”

Meanwhile, across the border in Burma many villagers are bracing themselves for further fighting and shelling, with the next few days likely to see the Burmese military substantially step up their operations, said a senior Thai military officer.

As the fighting continues more Karen refugees are certain to seek safety across the border in Thailand. So far refugees have fled from seven villages in the war zone, but there are more than 40 villages affected by the current fighting.

“If the fighting continues, at least 8,000 more villagers will have to escape across the border or die at the hands of the soldiers,” Zipporah Sein, General Secretary of the KNU, told Mizzima.