Cyclone a weapon of civil war in Burma?

by Jane Still

A leader in the Australian Karen community has expressed fears that Burma's military junta is using the devastation of Cyclone Nargis as another means of perpetrating genocide against the Karen people.

It has been hard to escape the news of the escalating death toll from the devastating sweep of Cyclone Nargis across South West Burma last month. What is less well known is that the worst of the cyclone hit a part of Burma that has a large population of the Karen ethnic group, who have been in conflict with the military rulers of Burma for over sixty years in their quest to form an independent state. The Karen are predominantly Christian, and many are Anglican, with strong links to the Anglican community in Australia.

Ganemy Kunoo, the National General Secretary to the Australian Karen Organisation and President of the Ethnic Nationalities Organisation, says that the ruling junta's response to past uprisings and now to the current natural disaster, has been nothing short of genocide.

“The military would be glad not to have to buy bullets for a while,” he told TMA.

If Ganemy is cynical, it is a cynicism he no doubt feels he has earned, fighting for eighteen years in the jungles of Burma in one of the oldest current armed conflicts in the world.

“As Operations Commander with the Karen National Union, I went with the troops to many provinces, and saw many killings and atrocities,” he said. If Karen rebels defeated Burmese troops, there would be civilian killings in retaliation and as a fear tactic to extract information. “It has been a policy of 'cut down the tree and dig out the root'.”

Burma attracted renewed international attention in late 2007 when a rise in fuel prices prompted strong protests from the country's Buddhist monks. The military's violent response drew strong international condemnation, but no real relief for the people.

Since the cyclone hit the region, governments and aid agencies have been even more cautious in their comments to the Burmese government in order to gain access to those who are desperately in need of food, shelter, clean water and medical attention. At the time of writing, two weeks after the cyclone hit, some small concessions had been made to ASEAN (the Association of South East Asian Nations) to allow disaster relief experts into affected areas.

Ganemy Kurnoo has little patience left for diplomacy, however. His frustration was obvious as he described the peace resolutions, diplomatic processes, and the election and detention of the popularly supported Aung San Suu Kyi. The ruling junta know the human rights requirements by heart, he said, and yet now “Burma is the most impoverished, least developed country in the region”.

Ganemy said that the cyclone, along with the devastation, may have brought a rainbow for the Karen people. The natural disaster may have broken down the barriers irrevocably, and the world can no longer ignore the situation.

“Cyclone Nargis has shown the character of these people,” he says. “The Berlin Wall came down - why can't it be so for the Karen? The world needs to step in, now.”