In Eastern Myanmar, the Karen Watch over a Revolutionary Forest

Mar 4, 2020 | Benjamin D. Hodgdon
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For more than 70 years, since shortly after the country formerly known as Burma gained independence, a low-boil insurgency has fought for Karen self-determination, promised first by the British and then the Burmese. Over the intervening decades, far from granting the Karen meaningful rights, the Myanmar military has waged a grinding war of attrition against them.

It has been devastatingly successful. Thousands of Karen communities have been displaced, and more than 200,000 Karen have fled the country. Multiple efforts to negotiate peace have failed. Meanwhile, the area under Karen control has dwindled to a small fraction of what it was when the revolution began in 1949. As a result, many Karen have accepted that autonomy will never be realized.