Birth of KNLA fighter

2009 May 3
tags: Human Rights, world focus on Burma, Junta, Burma, Karen, Genocide, KNU, KNLA, DKBA Killers
by peacerunning
by Daniel Pedersen on May.02, 2009
October, 2000WE travelled in a dugout canoe through the rapids of the Moei River that marks the border of Thailand and Burma.Thick jungle shrouded the banks and all eyes scanned for Burmese troops.In the slow, barely manoeuvreable canoe we were sitting ducks had a soldier decided to take a pot shot at us.And we knew they were out there somewhere.The canoe was laden down with dry food and canned fish.On arrival at a KNLA base camp I spotted a child squatting near a small fire.He was just 10 years old, his name was Pa Law Meh, and two months earlier he had watched, terrified, as Burmese State Peace and Development troops kicked his father to death because he refused to give them one of his chickens.As SPDC troops killed his father in Yaw Bo village, in central Karen state, they screamed at his family members that they were nothing more than animals and deserved to die.Now the Karen child is going to be a soldier and kill Burmese troops.He made his way to a unit of Battalion 202 of the Karen National Liberation Army’s Fifth Brigade.Pa Law Meh hates the Burmese and his childhood has ended.His family does not know where his is, only that he has been gone for more than a month.He says he will not return home, he is not afraid of being shot and that KNLA soldiers are very brave.Pa Law Meh will soon be handed a gun, the newest generation of soldier in a long line of freedom fighters.ENDS