(၂၉)ၾကိမ္ေျမာက္ခ်စ္ၾကည္ေရးပြဲေတာ္

(၂၉)ၾကိမ္ေျမာက္ခ်စ္ၾကည္ေရးပဲြေတာ္

ဂ်ပန္တြင္အေျခခ်ေနထိုင္သည္႕ဒုကၡသည္မ်ားယဥ္ေက်းမႈပဲြေတာ္

၂၀၀၈-၁၀-၂၆ ေန႕တြင္ေန႕လည္ ၁း၀၀မွညေန၄း၃၀အထိက်င္

Shinjuku Bunka Centerတြင္ျပဳလုပ္က်င္းခဲ့သည္၊၊

ဂ်ပန္ ေျခစိုက္တိုင္းရင္းသားအဖဲြ႔မ်ားေတာင္ကိုရီးယားနိုင္ငံသို႕ ထြက္ခြါ

ဂ်ပန္အေျခစိုက္တိုင္းရင္းသားအဖဲြ ့မ်ားျမန္မာနဳိင္ငံတိုင္းရင္းသားေဒသ
မ်ား၌ လူအခြင္႔အေရးခ်ိဳးေဖာက္ခံေနရမႈမ်ားကိုသက္ေသႏွင့္တကြ
ေဆြးေႏြးတင္ျပရန္ ေတာင္ကိူရီးယားနဳိင္ငံသို႕ထြက္ခြါ

၂၅-၁၀-၂၀၀၈ေန႕၌ေတာင္ကိုရီးယားနိဳင္ငံတြင္ျပဳလုပ္မည္ျဖစ္ေသာ

( ၅ ) ၾကိမ္ေျမာက္နိဳင္ငံတကာအမတ္မ်ားသမဂၢအဖဲြ႕ညီလာခံ၏ ဖိတ္ၾကားခ်က္အရ
မဆိုင္းဘူ
မစင္(န္)ဟိန္း KACHIN NATIONAL ORGANIZATION-JAPAN

( KNO-JAPAN )

ေစာဘလွသိန္း KAREN NATIONAL LEAGUE-JAPAN

( KNL-JAPAN )

စိုင္းစီဝမ္း SHANNATIONALTTIES FOR DEMOCRACY-JAPAN

( SND-JAPAN )

ဦးေဇာ္မင္းခိုင္ ARAKAN LEAGUE FOR DEMOCRACY-EXILE -JAPAN

( ALD-EXILE-JAPAN )

မင္းမ်ဳိးခ်စ္ PONNYAGARI MON NATIONAL SOCIETY-JAPAN

( PMNS-JAPAN )

မိုင္ေက်ာ္ဦး
ေစာဥမၼာ PALAUNG NATIONAL SOSIETY-JAPAN

( PNS-JAPAN)

တို႕သည္ ၂၄-၁၀-၂၀၀၈ေန႕တြင္ ေတာင္ကိုရီးယားနိဳင္ငံသို႕

ထြက္ခြါသြားသည္။ အေရွ႕ေတာင္အာရွနဳိင္ငံမ်ားမွလူအခြင့္အေရးခ်ဳိး ေဖါက္ခံေနရမႈမ်ားကို အဓိကထားေတြးေႏြးမည္႕ အဆိုပါညီလာခံတြင္ ျမန္မာနိင္ငံတိုင္းရင္းသားမ်ားႏွင့္တိုင္းရင္းသားေဒသမ်ားအားစစ္ အုပ္စု၏လူ႕အခြင့္အေရးခ်ဳိးေဖါက္မႈမ်ာႏွင့္ ပတ္သက္ျပီးသက္ေသႏွင့္တကြတင္ျပ ေဆြးေႏြးသြားမည္ျဖစ္ေၾကာင္း ဂ်ပန္အေခ်စိုက္ တိုင္းရင္းသားအဖဲြ႕မွေျပာၾကားသြားပါသည္။ယင္းညီလာခံသို႕
ျမန္မာနဳိင္ငံအမတ္မ်ားသမဂၢအဖဲြ႕မွတိုင္းရင္းသားအမတ္တဦးျဖစ္သူ
ဦးတယ္ဒီဘူရီ (ကယား)လည္းတက္ေရာက္မည္ဟုသတင္းရရွိပါသည္။
၎ညီလာခံသို႕နိဳင္ငံ ( ၅၀ )မွလႊတ္ေတာ္အမတ္မ်ားတက္ေရာက္မည္ျဖစ္သည္
ထိုညီလာခံတြင္တင္ျပျဖန္႕ေဝသြားမည္႕ကရင္ျပည္နယ္မွသတင္းအခ်က္
အလက္မ်ားအခ်ဳိ႕ကိုလည္းေစာစတီ(ဗ္)CIDKP၊ေစာေက်ာ္ထင္ထူးႏွင့္
ေနာ္ေဖာလင္း KNL-JAPAN တို႕မွစုစည္းေကာက္ႏႈတ္ေပးပို႕ပါသည္။

ေတာင္ကိုရီးယားနဳိင္ငံသို႕ထြက္ခြါသြားေသာဂ်ပန္အေျခစိုက္တိုင္းရင္းသားအဖဲြ႕

မ်ားအားလိိုက္လံပို႕ ေဆာင္သူ၊သတင္းေပးပို႕သူမ်ားႏွင့္ အတူေတြ႕ရစဥ္

သတင္းေပးပို႕သူစညီညီလြင္ ( KNL-JAPAN )

UN Human Rights Envoys Strain to Praise Myanmar and North Korea, Callibrated Capitulation?

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis

UNITED NATIONS, October 23 -- The UN system's surprising craven stance toward Myanmar's military government was on display on Thursday, as the Special Rapporteur on human rights in that country, Tomas Ojea Quintana, spoke to the General Assembly's Third Committee and to the Press. Quintana told the Committee that "restoration of full democracy cannot happen overnight; it will take generations. In the meantime.... I am appealing to you all to assist the government of Myanmar."

Inner City Press asked about assistance the military government has taken for itself, in the form of the 20 to 25 percent loss the UN suffered in exchanging money raised in the name of Cyclone Nargis into government-required Foreign Exchange Certificates, and only then into the local currency, kyat. A UN memo leaked to Inner City Press discloses the 25% loss. But Quintana refused to comment on this, or even on how he converted and spent money during his four day visit to Myanmar in August. Video here.

Likewise when Inner City Press asked about reports of the government conditioning the distribution of UN aid on the recipients working on road projects for the military, Quintana said to ask elsewhere. So what does he, in fact, cover?



Ban and Quintana, 25% loss to Myanmar's Than Shwe government not shown


Also speaking on Thursday was the Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in North Korea, Vitit Muntarbhorn. He has not even been allowed into the country. Inner City Press asked him if there are, in fact, 300,000 people confined to 15 political prisons. He said that's what he hears, but cannot verify. Nevertheless he recommends "a calibrated approach within the UN so as to utilize leverage through the UN system to influence positive changes in the country."

Does that mean, for example, that the UN Development Program, which left the country after financial irregularities were exposed, should return to Pyongyang? While Muntarbhorn seemed to say yes, later on Thursday the Deputy Permanent Representative of Japan said that there are many issues to watch about UNDP, that there must be sticks as well as carrots.

Both envoys, but particularly Myanmar's Quintana, were full of carrots Thursday, going out of their way to offer praise to the regimes no matter how flawed the logic. Myanmar has at least 2000 political prisons, and recently released seven, one by mistake. Still Quintana praised the Than Shwe government.

Muntarbhorn said "on the positive side, it can first be recalled that the DPRK is a party to four human rights treaties." But seen from another angle, that simply devalues the treaties.

SawBoMya

(၁၄) ႀကိမ္ေျမာက္ ေကအန္ယူ ကြန္ဂရက္ က်င္းပၿပီးစီး (ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္)ေစာတာမလာေဘာအားဥကၠ႒သစ္အျဖစ္ေရြးခ်ယ္တင္ေျမႇာက္

(၁၄) ႀကိမ္ေျမာက္ ေကအန္ယူ ကြန္ဂရက္ က်င္းပၿပီးစီး (ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္)ေစာတာမလာေဘာအားဥကၠ႒သစ္အျဖစ္ေရြးခ်ယ္တင္ေျမႇာက္

NEJ/၁၈ ေအာက္တိုဘာ ၂၀၀၈။ ။ ကရင္အမ်ိဳးသားအစည္းအ႐ံုး KNU ၏ (၁၄) ႀကိမ္ေျမာက္ ကြန္ဂရက္တြင္ (ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္) ေစာတာမလာေဘာအား ဥကၠ႒အျဖစ္ ေ႐ြးခ်ယ္ တင္ေျမႇာက္လိုက္သည္။
KNUစတင္ဖြဲ႔စည္းခ်ိန္မွ ယေန႔အထိ ဥကၠ႒ (၇) ဦး ရွိၿပီျဖစ္သည္။ ၎တုိ႔မွာ ေစာစံဖိုးသင္၊ ေစာဘဦးႀကီး၊ ေစာဟန္တာတာ ေမြး၊ မန္းဘဇန္၊ ေစာဘိုျမ၊ ပဒိုေစာဘသင္စိန္ႏွင့္ ပဒိုေစာတာမလာေဘာ တို႔ျဖစ္သည္။
ကရင္အမ်ိဳးသားအစည္းအ႐ံုး KNU ၏ ဒု ဥကၠ႒အျဖစ္ ပဒိုေဒးဗစ္သာကေပၚကုိ တင္ေျမႇာက္လုိက္ျပီး ကြယ္လြန္သူ ပဒိုမန္းရွာေနရာတြင္ အေထြေထြအတြင္းေရးမႉးအျဖစ္ ေနာ္စီဖုိးရာစိန္ကုိ ေရြးခ်ယ္လုိက္သည္။
(၁၄) ႀကိမ္ေျမာက္ကြန္ဂရက္ကုိ ယခုလ (၆) ရက္ေန႔မွ (၁၈) ရက္ေန႔ထိ ကရင္အမ်ိဳးအစည္းအ႐ံုးလက္ေအာက္ခံ ခ႐ိုင္တခုတြင္ က်င္းပျခင္းျဖစ္ၿပီး တက္ေရာက္လာသည့္ ဗဟို၊ ခ႐ိုင္မ်ားႏွင့္တပ္မဟာအသီးသီးမွ ကိုယ္စားလွယ္မ်ားက ဒီမိုကေရစီနည္းျဖင့္ ေ႐ြးခ်ယ္တင္ေျမာက္ခဲ့ျခင္း ျဖစ္သည္။
KNU ၏ (၁၄) ႀကိမ္ေျမာက္ ကြန္ဂရက္တြင္ ၿပီးခဲ့သည့္သက္တမ္းႏွင့္ ပတ္သက္၍ အေထြေထြအတြင္းေရးမႉး ပဒိုထူးထူးေလး တင္သြင္းသည့္ လုပ္ငန္းအစီရင္ခံစာကုိ ညီလာခံကိုယ္စားလွယ္မ်ားက ျပန္လွန္သံုးသပ္ေဆြးေႏြးခဲ့ၾကၿပီး လာမည့္သက္တမ္းအတြက္ ေရွ႕လုပ္ငန္းစဥ္မ်ား ခ်မွတ္ခဲ့သည္။
ျပည္တြင္းျပည္ပရွိ ကရင္အမ်ိဳးသားထုအတြင္း သို႔ေလာသို႔ေလာ ေျပာဆိုေနၾကသည့္ ကရင္အမ်ိဳးသား ေခါင္းေဆာင္ ေစာဘဦးႀကီး ခ်မွတ္ခဲ့သည့္ မူေလးခ်က္ကို ျပင္ဆင္မည့္ကိစၥ၊ ေတြ႕ဆံုေဆြးေႏြးေရး ဆိုင္ရာ သေဘာထားမ်ားႏွင့္ အျခားမူ၀ါဒေရးရာမ်ားအေပၚ ေ၀ဖန္ သုံးသပ္မႈမ်ားႏွင့္ပတ္သက္၍ ယခု ကြန္ဂရက္ တြင္ KNU အေနျဖင့္ စုစည္းက်စ္လစ္ညီၫြတ္မူကို ပိုမိုတည္ေဆာက္ႏုိင္ခဲ့ၿပီး KNU ဗဟို၏ ဦးေဆာင္မႈ မူ၀ါဒအတိုင္း ေရွ႕လုပ္ငန္းစဥ္မ်ားကို ယခုကြန္ဂရက္တြင္ ခ်မွတ္ႏိုင္ခဲ့သည္ဟု ညီလာခံ တက္ေရာက္ခဲ့သည့္ ကရင္အမ်ိဳးသား အစည္းအ႐ံုး ဖားအံခ႐ိုင္ဥကၠ႒ ပဒိုေစာအားတိုးက ေခတ္ၿပိဳင္သို႔ ေျပာၾကားသည္။
ကရင္အမ်ိဳးသားအစည္းအ႐ုံးသည္ ကရင္အမ်ိဳးသားေခါင္းေဆာင္ ေစာဘဦးႀကီး ခ်မွတ္ခဲ့သည့္မူ (၄) ခ်က္ကို ယေန႔အထိ အခိုင္အမာ ကိုင္စြဲထားၿပီး ၎မူေလးခ်က္မွာ -(၁) လက္နက္ခ်စကားအလ်ဥ္း မေျပာရ။ (၂) ကရင့္လက္နက္ ကရင့္လက္ထဲတြင္ ရွိရမည္။ (၃) ကရင့္ကံၾကမၼာ ကရင္ဖန္တီးမည္။ (၄) ကရင္ျပည္ကို အသိအမွတ္ျပဳျခင္း ၿပီးျပည့္စုံေစရမည္ ဟူသည့္ အခ်က္(၄)ခ်က္ ျဖစ္သည္။ အဆိုပါမူ (၄) ခ်က္အား KNU ဥကၠ႒ ေစာဘဦးႀကီးသည္ ၁၉၅၀ခုႏွစ္ ဇူလိုင္လ (၁၇) ရက္ေန႔မွ (၁၉) ရက္ေန႔အထိ ဖာပြန္ၿမိဳ႕တြင္ က်င္းပေသာ ကရင္ အမ်ိဳးသား ညီလာခံအၿပီးတြင္ ၎အခ်ိန္က ေမာ္ခ်ီးတြင္ရွိသည့္ ေကာ္သူးေလ အသံလႊင့္ဌာနမွ ေၾကညာခဲ့သည္။
ကရင္အမ်ိဳးသားအစည္းအ႐ုံး KNU ကို ၁၉၄၇ ခုႏွစ္ ေဖေဖာ္၀ါရီလ (၅) ရက္ေန႔တြင္ စတင္ဖြဲ႔စည္းခဲ့သည္။ စတင္ဖြဲ႔စည္းခ်ိန္၌ ပထမဆုံး ဥကၠ႒မွာ ေစာစံဖိုးသင္ျဖစ္ၿပီး ထိုစဥ္က အုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ခဲ့သည့္ ျမန္မာအစိုးရမွ ၁၉၄၉ ခုႏွစ္ ဇန္န၀ါရီလ (၃၀) ရက္ေန႔တြင္ ကရင္အမ်ိဳးသားအစည္း အ႐ုံး KNU ႏွင့္ ကရင့္ အမ်ိဳးသား ကာကြယ္ေရးတပ္ဖြဲ႔ KNDO ကို မတရားအသင္း ေၾကညာခဲ့အၿပီး ၁၉၄၉ ခုႏွစ္ ဇန္န၀ါရီလ (၃၁) ရက္ေန႔တြင္ ကရင့္လက္နက္ကိုင္ ေတာ္လွန္ေရး စတင္ျဖစ္ေပၚခဲ့သည္။
ကရင္အမ်ိဳးသားအစည္းအ႐ုံး KNU ကြန္ဂရက္ကို ပုံမွန္(၄)ႏွစ္တႀကိမ္ က်င္းပၿပီး စစ္ေရး၊ ႏိုင္ငံေရး အေျခအေနမ်ားအေပၚ မူတည္၍လည္း ေျပာင္းလဲက်င္းပမႈမ်ား ရွိခဲ့သည္။ ယခုကြန္ဂရက္သည္ (၁၄) ႀကိမ္ေျမာက္ျဖစ္ၿပီး ကရင္အမ်ိဳးသားအစည္းအ႐ုံး ဗဟိုမွအရပ္ဘက္၊ စစ္ဘက္ ကိုယ္စားလွယ္မ်ား ၊ ကရင္အမ်ိဳးသား လြတ္ေျမာက္ေရးတပ္မေတာ္ တပ္မဟာ (၇) ခုမွ ကိုယ္စားလွယ္မ်ား ဖားအံခ႐ိုင္၊ သထုံခ႐ိုင္၊ ဖာပြန္ ခ႐ိုင္၊ ေညာင္ေလးပင္ခ႐ိုင္၊ ေတာင္ငူခ႐ိုင္၊ ဒူးပလာယာခ႐ိုင္၊ ၿဗိတ္-ထား၀ယ္ခ႐ိုင္မွ ကိုယ္စားလွယ္မ်ား ကရင္အမ်ိဳးသမီးအစည္းအ႐ုံးမွ ကိုယ္စားလွယ္မ်ားႏွင့္ ေလ့လာသူမ်ား စုံညီစြာ တက္ေရာက္ခဲ့ၾကသည္။
လာမည့္ရက္ပိုင္းအတြင္း ကရင္အမ်ိဳးသားအစည္းအ႐ုံးမွ သတင္းစာရွင္းလင္းပြဲတရပ္ က်င္းပျပဳလုပ္မည္ဟု သိရွိရသည္။

A Call for 'Karenland'

A Call for 'Karenland'
As Burma entered the 20th Century the colonial government rocked by a number of protests in India began to rethink its position regarding administration in its Asian colonies. In 1917 the Chelmsford-Montague hearings were held in India to discuss giving more self-governance to the colony.
Chelmsford-Montague hearings
San C Po
The Young Monks Buddhist Association (YMBA), which had been formed in 1908 by Maung Maung Gyi, Maung Ba Pe and number of others, sent a delegation to the hearing to ask for separation from Burma. Similarly a Daw K'lu delegation comprising amongst others San C Po, who had by then studied under the missionary Charles Nichols and had completed part of his education in America, also found themselves at the meeting, but in contrast to the YMBA, had reported, ever fearful of Burman domination, that Burma was not ready for self-determination, and instead should remain under the British Government, an opinion which found no support amongst the Burmans in attendance.
Colonial officials started making plans to introduce separate constitutions for India and Burma. Regardless of the decisions made during the earlier meeting the British Government did not implement anything until 1921 when they organized the Whyte committee to discuss political reform. The committee chaired by the then President of the Indian Legislative Assembly, Sir Frederick Whyte, also included two Burmans, one India and representing the Karens, San C Po.

Whyte committee
San C Po (far left)The committee, which intended to allow separate seats for the Karen in the Burmese Legislative Council, was well received by the majority Christian Karens. However, the Burmese, distrusting the British and believing that such an action would only divide the country, attempted to sabotage the committee by organizing a boycott. Regardless of the Burman objections and aware that the majority Burmans would most likely take all seats, the committee recommended that five seats be reserved in the Legislative Council for the Karens. Despite being given a nominal role in the decision making of the country, Defence, Immigration and taxation were still controlled by the colonialist authorities. The situation in Burma continued to be tense as a number of Burmans vented their frustrations at the fact they were not able to fully exercise self-rule.
Sir San C Po, a member of the Legislative Council, also became president of the Daw K'lu in 1925, was still maintaining the idea that the British government should exercise authority over Burma. In 1928 he traveled to London to argue that Burma was not ready for self-rule, and aired his fears that should this happen then the Karens would be once again victims of the prejudices of the Burmans. The Karens were already victims of Burman assimilation and should the administration be turned over to them they would be victims of yet more discrimination in regards to education, and the justice system.
Aware that should the Burmans be given that control he requested that the Karens be given their own territory with the right of self-governance. He believed that Tenneserim, which had amongst the many other nationalities living there, including Mons and Burmans, a sizable Karen community, would be the best place to choose.
As debate went on Burman nationalists, began to be increasingly frustrated by the colonial presence in their country, demonstrations and rebellions ignited across the country.
In order to be recognized, Buddhist Karens under the guidance of Sayadaw U Panda Wuntha and Saw Ba Than Shwe formed the Burma Karen National Association (BKNA) and opened a number of branches throughout the country including Bassein, Insein, and Pegu to represent Buddhist Karen views.
On December the 22nd, 1930 a peasant rebellion, with over ten thousand farmers, led by former monk Saya San broke out in Tharawaddy, with Karens from Tharawaddy and Insein joining in the attack against colonial power. The uprising was finally quelled with the help of Karen volunteers. Shortly after in the same year racial tension was fuelled between the Burmese and Indian communities throughout the country.
The British organized a round table to discuss the plans to write a new constitution and to separate Burma from India. San C Po and Sidney Loo Nee attended with the latter requesting a federation of the different races of Burma and a provision there would be no racial or religious discrimination, that a Karen representative be elected for every district in lower Burma, and that armed Karen force be included in the Burma army.
Burmese students became restless and continued to speak out and organize demonstrations against imperialism. In 1936 a student strike was called by the Students United Front (SUF) including Karens Saw Sankey who had become a member of the 'Do Bamar Asi-ayone' , Saw Way Thaw and 14 others from Papun.
India and Burma was separated in 1937 and a new constitution was introduced. The British instituted a House of Representatives and a Upper House, half of whose members were elected. The Burmans were once again incensed by the British Governments insistence that a number of seats in the House of Representatives, 12 for the Karens, be reserved for ethnic nationalities.
San C Po, became an elected member of Parliament under the new constitution and a draft law recognizing the first day of the month of 'Pyatho' as Karen New Years Day was approved and recognized by the British government December 21st, 1938 with the first celebrations commencing in 1939. Karen members of Parliament by the end the year included San C Po, Sydney Loo Nee, Mahn Shwe Bar, U Hla Pe, and Saw Pe Tha.
Burman sentiment still continued to boil under the surface and a number of students still yearned for total self-rule. A number of student nationalists, who saw the only way to the end of colonial rule was to throw out the British and liberate their country, made plans to contact the Japanese dreaming that they would return and rule their country, it would be a long and bloody path for the Karens

Personalities

Personalities
Ba Thein Sein, Saw
Maw Reh, Saw
Ba U Gyi, Saw
Padoh Mahn Sha
Ba Zan, Mahn
Sankey, Saw
Benson, Naw Louisa
Sgaw Ler Taw
Bo Mya, Saw
Tamla Baw, Saw
Hla Pe, U
Than Aung, Saw
Hunter Thamwe, Saw
U Thuzana
Kyadoe, Saw Henson
Lin Tin, Saw
Loo Nee, Saw Sydney

Ba Thein Sein, Saw
Born in 1927 in Henzada where he studied at the American Baptist Mission High School worked as a clerk at the war office in Rangoon until 1946. Became involved in the Insein uprising and shortly after joined 2nd Division commander Thackerbaw in the Taungoo-Kawkereik-Hlaingbwe area. 1n 1963 became a member of the KNU central committee and was appointed as education minister during the seventies and eighties, became a KNU General Secretary and Prime minister of Kawthoolei in 1984 and his now President of the KNU.

Ba U Gyi, Saw
Born in Bassin in 1905 to a wealthy landlord, after completing University in Rangoon, in 1925, he became a lawyer and was called to the English Bar two years later. Joined the Burmese Government in 1937 as Minster of revenue. After the war he formed the Karen Nation Union, in 1946, to represent Karen interests in post independence Burma and to call on the British to allow the Karens their own state. He accepted the post of Minister of Information from 1946 to February 1947 and then Minister of Transport before resigning in April 1947. In January 1949 led the Karen uprising in Insein. Was killed in an ambush on the 12th August 1950, near a small village 170 miles away from Moulmein.
The journalist U Thaung, who wasone of the reporters called to the scene recounts the following in his book 'A journalist, A General and an Army in Burma.'
'The military officers continued the press conference on the plane. Saw Ba U Gyi was captured dead, along with a high ranking Karen rebel leader (Saw Sankey) and an English Major who had been imprisoned for supplying arms (believed to be Captain Vivien who provided the arms in the Aung san assassination) they claimed. The journalist succeeded in getting the true story after cross examining them.
The rebel chieftain were captured alive and killed even though they had surrendered. 'They tried to run away when we arranged to take them to our nearest military camp. We couldn't help it. There was no way we could save them in such a situation. They said we could not print the truth so we used the official version 'Captured dead'.'
In order to avoid making a shrine to the fallen Karen hero Saw Ba U Gyi's body was thrown into the sea. To this day the 12th August is respected as Martyr's Day and ceremonies marking Saw Ba U Gyi's death are conducted by Karens throughout the world.

Ba Zan, Mahn (speeches)
Born in 1916 in Maubin where he later became a school teacher . Mahn Ba Zan joined the KNU in early 1947 and became the first commander of its military wing, the Karen Nation Defence Organisation (KNDO), on the 16th July that year.
A strong socialist and political ideologue, he negotiated an alliance with the Communist Party of Burma, in 1952, which then led to the formation of an umbrella organisation; the National Democratic United Front (NDUF).
As Vice chairman of the KNU, and steering force behind it's vanguard party - the Karen National United Party (KNUP) he was responsible for unifying the delta and the eastern Karens, led by Bo Mya, together in 1968. He was KNU Chairman from 1969 until 10th August 1976 when he became Chairman of the newly formed National Democratic Front. He died at Manerplaw in May 1982.

Benson, Naw Louisa
Born in Rangoon in 1941 the daughter of a Portuguese Jew and his Karen wife. Naw Louisa became Miss Burma in both 1956 and 1958 and acted in number of a films. After studying in Boston she returned to Burma and, in 1964, married ex-5th Brigade Commander Lin Tin who had surrendered with Saw Hunter Tha Mwe. After LIn Tin's death a year later near Thaton, she led his 5th Brigade back into the revolution. In 1967 she married an American, Glen Craing, and now lives in California where she is active in a number of overseas Karen organisations and pro-democracy groups.
Hla Pe, U
Born in 1909 in Thanpayapinseik village, Thaton. U Hla Pe, an ethnic Pa-O, was minister of forestry in Dr Ba Maw's government during the Japanese occupation and worked closely with Saw Ba U gyi after the war as vice-chairman of the Karen National Union was responsible for organising the Pa-O rebellion before succumbing to asthma on the 25th September 1975.
Hunter Thamwe, Saw
Born in 1905 in Bassein. Saw Hunter Thamwe studied at Judson College in Rangoon before becoming District educational inspector in Henzada. He joined the KNU in 1947 and was closely involved in the uprising in 1949. Leader of Karen forces in the delta and a strong rightwinger, Hunter Thamwe became chairman of the KNU from 1956 until 1963. Musso Kawkasa (emperor) as he became know surrendered to the Burmese in 1963. he died in Rangoon on the 2nd January 1980.
Kya Doe, Saw Henson
Born in 1907 in Myaungmya to a secondary school heamaster, entered Sandhurst military acadamy in 1930. Stayed behind during the second world war and joined the Burma Defence Army. A member of the anti-Japanese resistance in 1945 he became vice chief of staff after the war before leaving the army in the early fifties joined U Nu in the sixties and surrendered during the 1980 amnesty when he returned to Rangoon. He was appointed to the election commision in 1988.
Lin Tin
Born in 1925 in Thamaing near Rangoon. Lin Tin served with the Japanese forces as an interpreter for the Kempentei. In 1948 he joined the KNDO and participated in the rebellion one year later. He became commander, in 1956, of 5th Brigade in Thaton, and in 1961 was responsible for sending his troops to attack Mae Sot in what was believed to be retaliation after a dispute with Thai traders. In 1963 he surrendered with Saw Hunter Thamwe and married film actress and former Miss Burma Naw Louisa Benson. He was killed by Burmese agents in September 1965.
Saw Sydey Loo Nee
Saw Sydney Loo Nee was born in Rangoon, Arlone Karen section, on the third of November 1882 by the mother of Naw Kalaya Loo Nee and the father of Oo Loo Nee. He was the oldest son amount the three. All Sydney Loo Nee decedent were educated, popular and famous in national and political affair amount the Karen.
Dr T Than Bya, Oo Loo Nee (Sydney Loo Nee's father), and his uncle, formed the Daw K'lu K'run, Karen National Association (KNA). Sydney Loo Nee's father was a pastor and he acted as a General Secretary in the Karen National Association. After his father and uncle passed away, he and his relatives took responsibility for the Karen National Association. When the Karen National Association was first formed, Loo Nee's relatives took positions as General Secretary, Chairman, and Vice Chairman.
After he finished high school, he went to India to continue his education. Then he went to England to get his honor degree of Bar at Law. After he got a degree he came back to Burma.
When he came back to Burma, he continued to service in the Karen National Association, he did work for any other services. He devoted his full time to national affairs including political affairs till he was 40 years old and on April 27, 1922 he got married with Naw Andis Loo Nee and had one son and one daughter.
His duties were external and internal affairs of KNA. In addition, he also served as a member of the House of Representative, Chairman of Parliament, School Principal, a member of the Taungoo Development Agency, Director of the Union Bank Board, and chairman of the YMCA.
To reform the diarchy in Burma, so that the Karens would get a opportunity in the administration, Sydney Loo Nee and his representatives were sent to India on the twentieth of August 1917. There were one hundred and three members of parliament in the Diarchy administration. In 1923, there were five Karen representatives in the Burma Legislative council.
Sydney Loo Nee took a job as a member of representatives in the northern part of Bassein, from 1938 until 1941. During that administration, there were thirty-six members in the House of Commons and House of Representatives, eighteen people in each. Among these members, eighteen people were selected by the governor and the others were elected by the people. Three Karens took positions in parliament. Saw Sydney Loo Nee, took the position of chairperson in the house of representative within a month.
In 1946, he headed the Karen delegation to go to England representing the Daw K'lu Association. In 1939, the first Karen New Year was celebrated and five Karen leaders, including Sydney Loo Nee, signed a New Year facilitation to the Karen people. When he became a municipal councilor he named roads in the Karen quarter after his uncle and his father.
He died on the sixteenth of June 1965.
Maw Reh, Saw
A native Karenni born in in 1920 in In-Gyaw Village, Taungoo District. Saw Meh Raw was actively involved in the anti-Japanese movement during World War II and later joined the Karen Rifles. Unhappy with the Government, he formed the Karenni National Organisation in 1947 and one year later the United Karenni States' Independence Army which allied itself with the KNDO. He was captured and imprisoned by the Burmese Army in 1949. After his release in 1953, he rejoined the Karenni struggle and became Chairman of the KNPP from 1960 1977. Two years later he became chairman of the NDF and stayed in that position until 1991.
Padoh Mahn Sha Laphan

General Secreatary, Karen National Union.
Bo Mya, Saw

Born on the 20th January 1927, in Htee Moo Kee village, Papun District. He started school at the age of 10 in Papun district before having to abandon his studies due the outbreak in Asia of the second world war. He became a policeman and served under the Japanese regime before abandoning the position and joining Force 136. After the war he joined the AFPFL government's Uniion Military Police (UMP).
At the beginning of the Revolution he joined with the rank of corporal before being promoted Sergeant in 1949. By 1956 he had become company commander. By 1963 a rift had occurred between two separate factions of the Karen resistance movement led by Saw Hunter Thamwe and Mahn Ba Zan. He decided to support Mahn Ba Zan and was elected as a KNUP Central Committee member, however unhappy with the political stance the KNUP was taking, he split in 1965 to form the KNLC.
With the need for a united Karen front in 1968 both he and Mahn Ba Zan formed the Karen National United Front (KNUF) with Mahn Ba Zan as Chairman and Saw Bo Mya as Vice-Chairman, this organisation later changed, in 1969, into the Karen National Union.
In 1976, at an emergency meeting in Manerplaw, he was appointed President of the KNU and remained in that position until 2000. He is now vice-president and Supreme Commander of the Karen armed forces.

Sankey, Saw
Born in 1914 in Armherst, Moulmein Saw was a captain with Force 136 and later became a member of the Frontier Areas Committee of Enquiry (FACE) which had been set up to try settle the ethnic disputes before independence. He became a commander in the KNDO in 1947 and joined Saw Ba U Gyi and died with him during a Burmese ambush on 12th August 1950.
Sgaw Ler Taw
Born in 1914 in Kyaunkpya, Taungoo he completed his studies at Judson College and became a headmaster in Tharrawaddy. He Force 136 during the war after which he returned to be an Headmaster. With the outbreak of the revolution he joined the KNU and became the acting chairman between 1953 and 1956. A leader of the KNUP in the Pego Yomas he led a delegation to meet the communst Party of Burma. He returned to Manerplaw where he was responsible for editing the English Language KNU Bulletin.
He died in Manerplaw on the 7th March 1989.

Tamla Baw, Saw
Born in 1920 in Moulmein, Saw Tamla Baw was a Lance corporal in the 2nd Burma rifles until the Japanese during which he joined Major Seagrim. He was captured by the Japanese and imprisoned but was able to escape four months later and join Force 136. He became an office in the First Karen Rifles after the war, he joined the Karen uprising in 1949 and participated in a number of conflict in Taungoo. He joined the KNLA in 1969 and is presently Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces.
Than Aung, Saw
Born in in 1928 in Insein Township, Rangoon he completed his education at an Indian School in the Burmese capital where later he ran a transport company. After joining the Karen Revolution in January 1949 he joined Saw Hunter Thamwe worked both in the Taungoo-Papun areas and the Pegu Yomas. An official in the KNUP he became General Secretary of the KNU from 1975-1984 and Vice-president from 1984 until his death in Chiang Mai on the 2nd April 1992.

U Thuzana
Born Maung Than Sein in Noh Hta Village, 45 miles north of Pa-an, 1310 ME, the 8th of 12 Children. Entered Kaw Karet Monastery at 8 years old until fourth standard when he moved to May Dar We Sarthintike (Monastery), Moulmein, Mon State. After three years he moved to Gardayon Sarthintike, Thaton. Became a member of people's militia after which, at the age of 20, he was ordained as a monk. Promulgated Buddhist teachings in KNU controlled areas around Mudon and Myaing Gyi Ngu. Was heavily involved in the incident at Thu Mwe Hta where his Buddhist followers amongst the Karen National Liberation Army revolted against the leadership leading to U Thuzana forming the Democatic Karen Buddhist Association (Organisation) on December 21st 1994 and some days later the armed wing of the faction - the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army.