Karen Pushed Over Thai Border by Burmese Troops

Nearly 4,000 ethnic Karen are said to have abandoned a camp and villages in eastern Burma to seek refuge in Thailand following attacks on Karen guerrillas by government troops.

Burmese troops were shelling and attempting to advance on five encampments of Karen insurgents as villagers continued to flee in one of the largest movements of refugees across the border in a decade, Karen spokesman David Thaw said.

Thai troops have been deployed along the frontier to keep fighting from spilling over.



June 09, 2009

The ethnic group’s Karen National Union has been fighting for more than 60 years for greater autonomy from Burma’s junta, but its strength has dwindled over the past decade due to army offensives and divisions within its ranks.

Human rights groups and the United Nations have accused Burma’s government of torture, killings and rape of Karen civilians in their attempts to stamp out the insurgency. But this appears to have had no effect and the military regime has denied the charges.

“Once again, the international community is looking the other way while my people are attacked and forced to run for their lives,” Zoya Phan, a Karen with the Burma Campaign UK, said in a statement. “Why hasn’t a single government called for an end to these attacks?”

Some 100,000 mostly ethnic Karen refugees already shelter in camps in Thailand after fleeing counterinsurgency operations, while aid agencies say nearly half a million others are internally displaced inside eastern Burma.

Thaw said a camp in Burma that sheltered internal refugees had been abandoned, and that the government and the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army were trying to overrun five Karen positions nearby.

The Democratic Karen Buddhist Army split from the predominantly Christian Karen National Union in 1995.

About 25 opposing troops have been killed or wounded since the fighting began over the weekend, the spokesman said. He said he had no information about Karen casualties.

Thailand doesn’t allow the refugees to enter established camps in the country, so they are relying on Buddhist monasteries near the border, Thaw said. AP