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CFIVA News
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CHRIS BACKS THE KAREN Tuesday, April 10, 2007 From our member Chris Morris: Many members of our Association have recognised the cause of the ethnic Karen people, who have been in armed struggle for nearly sixty years with the authoritarian regime in Burma. In January 2006 I expressed my personal solidarity by being present in a Karen National Liberation Army training camp for the annual Karen Independence Day military parade. I was invited by the Karen National Union joint-General Secretary and driven to the Thai-Burmese border personally by him. Many other foreign relief workers and journalists were also present. The General Secretary is also the founder of the Committee for Internally Displaced Karen People and co-founder of the jungle-based medics group, the Free Burma Rangers, who deliver medical assistance and comfort to villagers who have been attacked by the Burmese Military. The FBR rely upon donations mainly from American and British church groups and deliver blankets, money, medicine and clothing, all carried into Burma over the arduous jungle tracks. They work closely with the KNLA, which provides security and gathers intelligence. Recently the Karen hills were attacked by thousands of government troops and eighteen thousand ethnic Karen people were forced to flee, one of the biggest movements of internally displaced persons in south-east Asia since the Khmer Rouge evacuated Pnomh Penh. The Karen's desperate plea for some form of international intervention has been ignored by a world caught up with bigger crises and more pressing issues. In the words of a Welsh journalist Evan Williams: How long can they hold out in the face of a relentless enemy who seems to relish the crimes they can perpetuate while keeping Burma off the worlds news pages.
CFIVA |
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