Christian Karen community killing at least one civilian and causing hundreds to flee, after BosNewsLife established earlier that another ceasefire agreement was broken.
Christian Solidarity Worldwide, a UK based religious rights group, said Monday, September 26, that forces of the ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) launched at least "three new attacks" against members of the Karen community in the Karen State region, most of them refugees from previously attacked villages.
The SPDC is a group of generals which has ruled Burma, which it calls Myanmar, without a constitution or legislature since 1988 after suppressing nationwide anti-military protests. SPDC troops and their allies also "closed three main roads in Toungoo District, in an attempt to block all assistance from villagers to Karen resistance forces" known as the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), added CSW.
CSW, which has been investigating religious persecution in the region, said "two Burma Army
battalions" pounded KNLA troops in the Nyaunglebein District area of the Western Karen State since September 18. One civilian, Saw Tho Tha, was killed, the organization added.
KNLA HEADQUARTERS RAIDED
It said that three days later two Burmese infantry battalions raided the KNLA battalion headquarters in Nyaunglebein District, "an area where many displaced villagers were sheltering." One KNLA soldier was wounded in the attack and "over 400 villagers are now hiding," apparently in jungle areas, CSW claimed.
CSW quoted anonymous sources on the ground as saying that the new offensive was a "deliberate attempt to starve" the internally displaced people (IDP) in the mountains north and west of Toungoo and to pressure the KNLA troops. Rice reportedly could not be brought from the plains of Toungoo, which CSW sources said was endangering the lives of Karen people who rely on the purchase of rice.
Although the military has not yet made a statement about the alleged offensive, Burmese officials have in the past denied human rights abuses.
The outnumbered KNLA troops say they are fighting to defend villagers and for an independent Karen state, which was promised to them during World War Two by British allies, who later abandoned the agreement. Before the latest reported offensive several other settlements in Burma, including Thue Mwe Nee near Thailand, were shelled by government forces in recent months despite promises of a ceasefire, BosNewsLife established in Burma.
LIVING IN FEAR
"We everyday live in fear," said 37-year old Manner, who supports the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) in Thue Mwe Nee. The jungle village was set up over a year ago, after locals were driven out of their homes in nearby areas by SPDC forces.
Up to 1.5 million people, many of them Christian Karens, internally displaced in Burma, human rights watchers say. Over 2,500 villages in eastern Burma have been destroyed since 1996, CSW reported. Human rights groups claim 10,000 people have died at the hands of the military regime annually since it seized power.
Pastor Tad Sandford, who leads the Christian Freedom International Vocational School for 
Karen orphans in neighboring Thailand told BosNewsLife there is also evidence the military specifically targets Karen children, although it was unclear whether that also happened during the new offensive.
"Our contacts in Burma told us there were yellow rivers…Those children in this yellow t-shirts were all butchered by the Burmese army and their bodies were laying in the water," Sandford told BosNewsLife in the Thai town of Mae Sot in August. "We believe at least hundreds of children died, although the final number may be thousands of villagers. Those same children to whom we tried to give hope, were among those killed…," he said.
MILITARY FEARS
Human rights watchers have linked the reported military actions against Karen and other ethnic minorities with a significant Christian population to fears within the military that the spread of Christianity will undermine its powerbase as it is seen as a foreign, Western backed, religion.
"These latest attacks demonstrate plainly that Burma’s military regime shows no intention of stopping its slow genocide of the Karen people. It is now high time these issues were put before the UN Security Council, since every other possible avenue has been tried and has failed," stressed CSW Chief Executive, Mervyn Thomas.
A recent report commissioned by former President Vaclav Havel and Bishop Desmond Tutu urges the United Nations Security Council to take up the situation in Burma "immediately". The report, entitled ‘Threat to the Peace – A Call for the UN Security Council to Act in Burma’ was prepared by DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary, a global law firm, CSW said.
"The situation in Burma constitutes "a threat to the peace," thereby authorizing Security Council action. Binding Security Council intervention is a necessary international and multilateral vehicle to restore the peace, promote national reconciliation, and facilitate a return to democratic rule," CSW quoted the report as saying.
