Asian_Geographic_Issue_4_2017

(John Hannent) #1

“We are willing to negotiate a ceasefire,


but that’s impossible when the military


keeps bombing our positions”


Gun Maw, KIA general


Not far from here, in the main hospital in Laiza,


where the KIA is based, patients can’t be treated for the


lack of medicines. They are so many that even those


with infectious diseases can’t be separated from the rest.


Here, the adoption of democracy hasn’t seen a change


for the better. “We also thought that over the last year


things would get a lot better, and we are still hoping


that they will, but unfortunately, what we are seeing at


the moment is an increase in fighting, not a decrease,


and people need to be able to get to places where they


can get aid,” the UN’s Office for the Coordination


of Humanitarian Affairs’ Mark Cutts told Al Jazeera


during an interview. He also conceded that access to


help for displaced people was easier with the military


government than it is now. “It’s baffling,” he says.


The KIA can’t afford to stop training new recruits.


Its camps are teeming with teenagers as young as 14


enrolling in military crash courses. Girls and boys


practise with wooden guns before they can handle


the homemade version of the Kalashnikov AK-47 and


be sent to the frontlines. “We have to fight for a future in


freedom,” says Maran, a 16-year-old “coach”. Her trainees


are barely one or two years younger than her – or older,


even – but they obey with diligence. Physical training


and strategy are taught in the morning. After a frugal


lunch, they sleep in bunks during the scorching hours


around noon, and then everything starts again. “It’s


exhausting, but we do it for our families. We have lost


everything to the army,” a young man explains.


Five hundred kilometres southeast in Kayin State,


the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) holds


similar training – but with a big difference: They are


now at peace with the Burmese military. Still, their


leaders expect war again at any time. Zipporah Sein, vice


president of the KNLA’s political arm, explains why:


“The only way to achieve permanent peace is to honour
what Suu Kyi’s father – Aung San, the hero of Burma’s
independence – promised 70 years ago: a federal state
where we all share power equally. Without that, ethnic
minorities will always feel discriminated against by the
Bamar majority, and they will fight for more autonomy
or even independence.”
The 1.3 million Rohingya in Rakhine State, just 150
kilometres to the east, fight for survival. Their tragic
situation has become the darkest stain on Suu Kyi’s
ballot sheet since she became a member of parliament.
“The Lady” has refused to call them Rohingya, and her
party refers to them as Bengalis, although the Muslim
group has lived in the Buddhist-majority country for
generations; Bangladesh has repeatedly refused to take
them in and those that fled to the country are kept in
crammed refugee camps.

left Kachin Independence
Army trainees on a break at
their barracks

bottom A child who was
hit by shrapnel during an
army offensive in Laiza,
Kachin State, in a wheelchair.
She gets no care apart from
what her family can offer her

IMAGES © ZIGOR ALDAMA

1988
Social unrest leads to a violent
crackdown by the military.
Thousands die

1948
Burma becomes an
independent country
six months after the
assassination of Aung San,
who made it possible

1960
Moderate U Nu wins Burma’s
first democratic elections.
Two years later, a coup d’état
ousts him and makes Burma
a military dictatorship

1945
Britain recovers Burma from
the Japanese with the help of
Aung San. Some groups fight
with the British in the hope of
an independent federal state


culture

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