karen

The Karen have fought for autonomy from Myanmar for decades. January 31 is considered "Karen Revolutionary Day" among the Karen. That day commemorates the day in 1949 when the fight for autonomy began.

Distribution

The Karen live mostly in the hilly eastern border region of Myanmar, primarily in Karen State, with some in Kayah State (Karenni State), southern Shan State (MoBye Region), Ayeyarwady Division (Irrawaddy Division), Southern Kawthoolei (Tenasserim Coastal Region) and in western Thailand.

The total number of Karen is difficult to estimate. The last reliable census of Myanmar was conducted in the 1930s. A 2006 VOA article cites an estimate of seven million in Myanmar. There are another 400,000^{citation needed]} Karen in Thailand, where they are by far the largest of the hill tribes.

History

The Karen aided the British during World War II, when the Japanese occupied the region. Many of them were slaughtered by both the Japanese and Burma Independence Army soldiers who helped the Japanese invade the country.

The Karen people aspired to have the areas where they were the majority formed into a subdivision or "state" within Burma similar to what the Chin, Shan and Kachin peoples had been given. The British promised to consider the case of the Karen after the war. While the situation of the Karen was discussed, nothing practical was done before the British left Burma.

After the war ended, Burma was granted independence in 1948, and the Karen, led by the Karen National Union (KNU), attempted to peacefully co-exist with the Burman ethnic majority. Karen people held leading positions in the government and the army. In the fall of 1948, the Burmese government began raising and arming irregular political militias known as "Sitwundun". These militas were outside the control of the regular army. In January 1949, some of these militias went on a rampage through Karen communities. In late January, the head of the army who was a Karen was removed from office and imprisoned. He was replaced by fanatic Burmese nationalist Ne Win. These events happened at exactly the same time a commission looking into the Karen problem was due to make its report to the government. The events effectively killed the report. The Karen people then rose up in an insurgency against the government. Years later, the Karen had become the largest of 20 minority groups participating in an insurgency against the military dictatorship in Rangoon. During the 1980s, the KNU fighting force numbered approximately 20,000. After an uprising of the people of Burma in 1988, the dictatorship expanded the army and launched a series of major offensives against the KNU. By 2006, the KNU's strength had shrunk to less than 4,000, opposing what is now a 400,000-man Burmese army.

The conflict continues as of 2006, with KNU headquarters in Mu Aye Pu, on the Burmese–Thai border. In 2004, BBC cited aid agencies estimates that up to 200,000 Karen have been driven from their homes during decades of war, with 120,000 more refugees from Burma, mostly Karen, living in refugee camps on the Thai side of the border.

Many [1] including Karen people [2] [3] accuse the military government of Myanmar of ethnic cleansing. The U.S. State Department has also cited the Burmese government for suppression of religious freedom [4], a source of particular trouble to the Karen as between thirty and forty percent of them are Christians [5][6], and thus among the Burmese religious minority.

Language

The Karen languages are members of the Tibeto-Burman group of the Sino-Tibetan language family. The three main branches are Sgaw, Pwo, and Pa'o; they are not considered to be mutually intelligible (Lewis 1984). Karenni (also known Kayah or Red Karen) and Kayan (also known as Padaung) are related to the Sgaw branch. They are almost unique among the Tibeto-Burman languages in having a Subject Verb Object word order; other than Karen and Bai, Tibeto-Burman languages feature a Subject Object Verb order [7]. This is likely due to influence from neighboring Mon and Tai languages (Matisoff 1991).

References

• Burma:International Religious Freedom Report 2005. U.S. State Department (2005-11-08). Retrieved on 2006-07-18.
• Karen Weblinks. Retrieved on 2006-07-18.
• Kendal, Elizabeth (2006-03-09). Day of Prayer for Burma. Christian Monitor. Retrieved on 2006-07-18.
• Description of the Sino-Tibetan Language Family. Retrieved on 2006-07-18.
• Delang, Claudio O. (Ed.) (2003). Living at the Edge of Thai Society: The Karen in the Highlands of Northern Thailand. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-32331-2.
• Lewis, Paul, Elaine Lewis (1984). Peoples of the Golden Triangle. London: Thames and Hudson Ltd. ISBN 0-500-97472-1.
• Matisoff, James A. (1991). "Sino-Tibetan Linguistics: Present State and Future Prospects". Annual Review of Anthropology 20: 469–504.

External links

• The Karen Hilltribes Trust a UK charity helping the Thai Karen. They work in partnership with the local Karen on a number of projects such as installing clean water systems and teaching English in the schools.
• Kawthoolei, meaning ‘a land without evil’, is the Karen name of the land of Karen people. An independent and impartial media outlet aimed to provide contemporary information of all kinds — social, cultural, educational and political
• Karen Human Rights Group, a new website documenting the human rights situation of Karen villagers in rural Burma
• Karenpeople.org, a non-profit web portal on the Karen peoples run by Singapore-based Karen People Development Fund
• Karen.org, The website of the Karen National League of Bakersfield, California
• Burma's Karen Face Hard Times as Insurgency Begins Sixth Decade, a February 2006 Voice of America article
• Burma's disorientated rebels, a November 2004 BBC article
• Free Burma Rangers, website of Non-Governmental Organization that provides humanitarian assistance to Internally Displaced People
• U.S. Dept. of State 2005 International Religious Freedom Report on Burma
• Index of IRF reports on Burma 2001-5
• Article about Karen, 2006
• Help without Frontiers