KAREN CONFLICT

KAREN CONFLICT

Subject : International Relations

Context : Guerrilla soldiers from Myanmar’s Karen ethnic minority burned down a government military outpost on Friday after capturing it without a fight when its garrison fled, a senior Karen officer said.

Concept :

Karen Conflict

• Marginalised in then Burma’s post-independence political process, the KNU started a rebellion in 1949, which it waged for nearly 70 years.
• One of its key grievances was the majority Bamar community’s dominance of Myanmar’s state and military.
• The conflict has been described as one of the world’s “longest running civil wars”.
• Karen insurgents have been fighting for an independent state known as Kawthoolei since 1949.

Karen National Union

• The KNU is the dominant political organisation representing ethnic minority Karen communities in Karen, or Kayin, State, bordering Thailand.
• Its aim is self-determination for the Karen people in a region of about 1.6 million people, roughly the size of Belgium, where they are the ethnic majority in the state.