Burma’s Other Struggle

"Their objective is to eliminate all resistance, to keep a tight grip on the population," explains a 25-year-old American volunteer whose Karen nickname is Wee. "And they do it quite brutally, with no regard for basic human rights. Last month they burned down at least two villages in northern Karen state with no concern for whether they were harming men, women or children. They'll take whatever they like, shoot the place up, burn down the village and set land mines on the trails leading to farms. People are regularly maimed or killed."

After the army loots and destroys villages, any villager seen is shot on sight, witnesses say. The soldiers' slow pace, coupled with security provided by the Karen National Union (KNU), means most people are able to escape. The KNU has tried to set up an early warning network in the state. Villagers flee into the jungle, often to hiding places prepared in advance. Once the soldiers leave the area, ethnic Karen try to return to their villages and farms—or at least to somewhere nearby. Often the devastation is such that they can do neither, and they become internally displaced people.

At the Rangers' headquarters, the young American volunteers mix with Thai and Burmese colleagues, putting together videos, care packages, educational supplies, information packets—whatever it takes. They see their mission as providing "help, hope and love." And they are not here in any kind of paid capacity. Each volunteer is responsible for his or her own upkeep, and they all have people or churches or businesses back home supporting them. As Wee speaks the TV flickers with images of distraught Karen villagers recounting atrocities committed by Burmese troops. The video shows a man burying his face in his hands, crying as he tells about his children being captured by soldiers, killed, and then burned. They were so young, he says incredulously, between sobs. How could they have been any kind of threat? "They didn't even know their right hand from their left hand," he wails.

Watching the video, Wee says quietly, "When there are babies and moms and others around you and you're all running in the jungle to get away from the SPDC troops, it kind of takes away your fears for your own safety."

Don remembers a report by a television crew that accompanied the Rangers on a mission. The presenter suggested that under attack the Rangers had run away and left some people behind. It still angers Don, even now, a couple of years later. "We have a rule that we don't run if people are there," he says. "You know, when people want to join us, we look for moral courage. Well, that's the moral courage. You don't run if the people can't run."

He says that in 10 years there have been fewer than 10 situations in which he has come under indirect fire—mortar, rocket-propelled grenades and such—and only twice has been "under direct fire, nothing between them and me." In one incident he "could feel their bloodlust at the back of my head," he recalls.