Saturday, January 24, 2009
မုန္႔သူခိုး (The Cookie Thief)
Friday, January 16, 2009
ဘာသာျပန္ - ေခါဟ္လံင္ဖါ့သိုင့္(ေဒါန)
တစ္ညမွာ မိန္းမပ်ဳိတစ္ေယာက္ဟာ ေလဆိပ္တစ္ခုမွာ သူရဲ့ေလယာဥ္မထြက္ခြါခင္ အခ်ိန္ၾကာျမင့္စြာ ေစာင့္ေနခဲ့တယ္။ ေလဆိပ္မွာရွိတဲ့ စာအုပ္ဆိုင္ေတြမွာ သူမဖတ္ဖို႔ စာအုပ္ေတြရွာခဲ့တယ္။ ျပီးေတာ့ မုန္႔တစ္ထုပ္၀ယ္ၿပီး တစ္ေနရာမွာ ထုိင္လိုက္တယ္။သူမဟာ သူမစာအုပ္ထဲမွာသာ စိတ္၀င္စားေနေသာ္လည္း သူရဲ့အနားမွာ ေယာက်ၤားတစ္ေယာက္ ထိုင္ေနတာကို သတိထားမိလိုက္တယ္။ အဲ့ဒီလူက အတင့္ရဲလွခ်ီရဲ့။ အဲ့ဒီလူက ႏွစ္ေယာက္ၾကားမွာရွိတဲ့ မုန္႔အိပ္ထဲကေန မုန္႔ တစ္ခု၊ ႏွစ္ခု ယူစားလိုက္တယ္။ အဲ့ဒီလူ မုန္႔ယူစားေနတာကို သူမကမရင္ဆိုင္လိုကာ မသိသလိုေနလိုက္တယ္။ဇဲြေကာင္းတဲ့ မုန္႔သူခိုးက သူမကိုဘာမွဂရုမစိုက္၊ ဒါနဲ႔ သူမဟာ မုန္႔ေတြကို ၀ါးစားၿပီး ခပ္လွမ္းလွမ္းမွာ ကပ္ထားတဲ့နာရီကို လွမ္းၾကည့္လိုက္တယ္။ အခ်ိန္နာရီမိနစ္ေတြ တျဖည္းျဖည္းေရြ႕သြားတာနဲ႔အမွ် သူမဟာ ပိုၿပီး ေဒါသထြက္ စိတ္ေတြတိုလာတယ္။ သူမက တစ္ခုေတြးမိလိုက္တယ္။ အေတြးေလးက - ငါသာစိတ္မေကာင္းဘူးဆိုရင္ ဒီလူရဲ့မ်က္လံုးမွာ အညိဳကြက္ေပၚသြားေအာင္ ထိုးမိလိမ့္မယ္။သူမမုန္႔တစ္ခုယူစားတိုင္း အဲ့ဒီလူကလည္း တစ္ခုယူစားတယ္။ မုန္႔တစ္ခုတည္းသာ က်န္တဲ့အခ်ိန္မွာေတာ့ သူမက အဲ့ဒီလူ ဘာဆက္လုပ္မလဲဆိုတာကို ေစာင့္စားသိခ်င္ေနခဲ့တယ္။ အဲ့ဒီလူက ျပံဳးၿပီး ဇေ၀ဇ၀ါရယ္ကာ ေနာက္ဆံုးက်န္တဲ့မုန္႔တစ္ခုကို ႏွစ္ျခမ္းခဲြလိုက္တယ္။တစ္ပိုင္းကို သူမကို စားဖို႔ကမ္းလွမ္းလုိက္ျပီး က်န္တစ္ပိုင္းကို သူစားလုိက္တယ္။ သူမက ကမ္းလွမ္းလာတဲ့မုန္႔ တစ္ျခမ္းကို ဆတ္ခနဲ ဆဲြယူလိုက္ၿပီး တစ္ခုေတြးလိုက္တယ္ - အို႔ ဒီလူ၊ ဒီလူဟာ ေတာ္ေတာ္ေၾကာင္ၿပီး ရိုင္းလည္းရိုင္းတယ္။ ေက်းဇူးတရားနည္းနည္းမွေတာင္ မသိတတ္ဘူး။သူမ ဒီလိုမ်ဳိးေအာင့္သက္သက္ခံရတာမ်ဳိး တစ္ခါမွ မၾကံဳဖူးပါ။ သူမက ေလယာဥ္ကိုေခၚသံၾကားေတာ့ စိတ္သက္သာရာ သက္ျပင္းခ်လိုက္တယ္။ ဒါနဲ႔ သူမရဲ့ပစၥည္းေတြကို သိမ္းၿပီး ဂိတ္ဆီသို႔ ဦးတည္ခဲ့တယ္။ အရိုင္းအစိုင္းမုန္႔သူခိုးကို တစ္ခ်က္မွ ျပန္လွည့္မၾကည့္ပါ။ေလယာဥ္ေပၚတက္ၿပီး သူမရဲ့ခုန္မွာ ၀င္ထိုင္လိုက္တယ္။ ၿပီးေတာ့ သူမရဲ့စာအုပ္ေတြကို ရွာေဖြခဲ့တယ္။ စာအုပ္ေတြ အျပည့္အစံုပါပဲ။ သူမရဲ့အထုပ္အပိုးနားေရာက္ေတာ့ တအံ့တေအာ သက္ျပင္းခ်လိုက္တယ္။ သူမရဲ့မ်က္စိတည့္တည့္မွာ သူမရဲ့မုန္႔အိပ္ကို ေတြ႔လုိက္ရတယ္။သူမက - စိတ္ပ်က္လက္ပ်က္ညည္းကာ ငါ့မုန္႔က ဒီမွာဆိုရင္ ဟိုမုန္႔က သူဟာေပါ့၊ အို႔ သူငါ့ကို ေစတနာရွိရွိ ေ၀ငွခဲ့တယ္။ ဒီအခ်ိန္မွာေတာ့သူမဟာ ေတာင္းပန္ဖို႔ ေနာက္က်သြားၿပီ။ သူမကသာ အရိုင္းအစိုင္း၊ သူခိုးဆိုတာ ပူေဆြးေသာကမ်ားစြာနဲ႔ သိရွိလိုက္ရတယ္။ က်ေနာ္၊ က်မတို႔ရဲ့ဘ၀မွာ မ်က္လံုးအစံုမိတ္ၿပီး မွန္တယ္လို႔ယံုၾကည္ထားတဲ့အရာေတြဟာ တကယ္တမ္းေတာ့ အမွားျဖစ္ေနတာကို ေနာက္မွ ရွာေဖြသိရွိလာခဲ့ရတဲ့အႀကိမ္ေပါင္း ဘယ္ေလာက္ေတာင္ရွိေနခဲ့ၿပီလဲ။ :-)Valerie Cox သီကံုးထားေသာThe Cookie Thief ဆိုသည့္ကဗ်ာမွာ ျပန္လည္ ျပန္ဆိုထားျခင္း ျဖစ္ပါသည္။
Posted by ေဒါနေျမ at 5:13 PM
ဘာသာျပန္ - ေခါဟ္လံင္ဖါ့သိုင့္(ေဒါန)
တစ္ညမွာ မိန္းမပ်ဳိတစ္ေယာက္ဟာ ေလဆိပ္တစ္ခုမွာ သူရဲ့ေလယာဥ္မထြက္ခြါခင္ အခ်ိန္ၾကာျမင့္စြာ ေစာင့္ေနခဲ့တယ္။ ေလဆိပ္မွာရွိတဲ့ စာအုပ္ဆိုင္ေတြမွာ သူမဖတ္ဖို႔ စာအုပ္ေတြရွာခဲ့တယ္။ ျပီးေတာ့ မုန္႔တစ္ထုပ္၀ယ္ၿပီး တစ္ေနရာမွာ ထုိင္လိုက္တယ္။သူမဟာ သူမစာအုပ္ထဲမွာသာ စိတ္၀င္စားေနေသာ္လည္း သူရဲ့အနားမွာ ေယာက်ၤားတစ္ေယာက္ ထိုင္ေနတာကို သတိထားမိလိုက္တယ္။ အဲ့ဒီလူက အတင့္ရဲလွခ်ီရဲ့။ အဲ့ဒီလူက ႏွစ္ေယာက္ၾကားမွာရွိတဲ့ မုန္႔အိပ္ထဲကေန မုန္႔ တစ္ခု၊ ႏွစ္ခု ယူစားလိုက္တယ္။ အဲ့ဒီလူ မုန္႔ယူစားေနတာကို သူမကမရင္ဆိုင္လိုကာ မသိသလိုေနလိုက္တယ္။ဇဲြေကာင္းတဲ့ မုန္႔သူခိုးက သူမကိုဘာမွဂရုမစိုက္၊ ဒါနဲ႔ သူမဟာ မုန္႔ေတြကို ၀ါးစားၿပီး ခပ္လွမ္းလွမ္းမွာ ကပ္ထားတဲ့နာရီကို လွမ္းၾကည့္လိုက္တယ္။ အခ်ိန္နာရီမိနစ္ေတြ တျဖည္းျဖည္းေရြ႕သြားတာနဲ႔အမွ် သူမဟာ ပိုၿပီး ေဒါသထြက္ စိတ္ေတြတိုလာတယ္။ သူမက တစ္ခုေတြးမိလိုက္တယ္။ အေတြးေလးက - ငါသာစိတ္မေကာင္းဘူးဆိုရင္ ဒီလူရဲ့မ်က္လံုးမွာ အညိဳကြက္ေပၚသြားေအာင္ ထိုးမိလိမ့္မယ္။သူမမုန္႔တစ္ခုယူစားတိုင္း အဲ့ဒီလူကလည္း တစ္ခုယူစားတယ္။ မုန္႔တစ္ခုတည္းသာ က်န္တဲ့အခ်ိန္မွာေတာ့ သူမက အဲ့ဒီလူ ဘာဆက္လုပ္မလဲဆိုတာကို ေစာင့္စားသိခ်င္ေနခဲ့တယ္။ အဲ့ဒီလူက ျပံဳးၿပီး ဇေ၀ဇ၀ါရယ္ကာ ေနာက္ဆံုးက်န္တဲ့မုန္႔တစ္ခုကို ႏွစ္ျခမ္းခဲြလိုက္တယ္။တစ္ပိုင္းကို သူမကို စားဖို႔ကမ္းလွမ္းလုိက္ျပီး က်န္တစ္ပိုင္းကို သူစားလုိက္တယ္။ သူမက ကမ္းလွမ္းလာတဲ့မုန္႔ တစ္ျခမ္းကို ဆတ္ခနဲ ဆဲြယူလိုက္ၿပီး တစ္ခုေတြးလိုက္တယ္ - အို႔ ဒီလူ၊ ဒီလူဟာ ေတာ္ေတာ္ေၾကာင္ၿပီး ရိုင္းလည္းရိုင္းတယ္။ ေက်းဇူးတရားနည္းနည္းမွေတာင္ မသိတတ္ဘူး။သူမ ဒီလိုမ်ဳိးေအာင့္သက္သက္ခံရတာမ်ဳိး တစ္ခါမွ မၾကံဳဖူးပါ။ သူမက ေလယာဥ္ကိုေခၚသံၾကားေတာ့ စိတ္သက္သာရာ သက္ျပင္းခ်လိုက္တယ္။ ဒါနဲ႔ သူမရဲ့ပစၥည္းေတြကို သိမ္းၿပီး ဂိတ္ဆီသို႔ ဦးတည္ခဲ့တယ္။ အရိုင္းအစိုင္းမုန္႔သူခိုးကို တစ္ခ်က္မွ ျပန္လွည့္မၾကည့္ပါ။ေလယာဥ္ေပၚတက္ၿပီး သူမရဲ့ခုန္မွာ ၀င္ထိုင္လိုက္တယ္။ ၿပီးေတာ့ သူမရဲ့စာအုပ္ေတြကို ရွာေဖြခဲ့တယ္။ စာအုပ္ေတြ အျပည့္အစံုပါပဲ။ သူမရဲ့အထုပ္အပိုးနားေရာက္ေတာ့ တအံ့တေအာ သက္ျပင္းခ်လိုက္တယ္။ သူမရဲ့မ်က္စိတည့္တည့္မွာ သူမရဲ့မုန္႔အိပ္ကို ေတြ႔လုိက္ရတယ္။သူမက - စိတ္ပ်က္လက္ပ်က္ညည္းကာ ငါ့မုန္႔က ဒီမွာဆိုရင္ ဟိုမုန္႔က သူဟာေပါ့၊ အို႔ သူငါ့ကို ေစတနာရွိရွိ ေ၀ငွခဲ့တယ္။ ဒီအခ်ိန္မွာေတာ့သူမဟာ ေတာင္းပန္ဖို႔ ေနာက္က်သြားၿပီ။ သူမကသာ အရိုင္းအစိုင္း၊ သူခိုးဆိုတာ ပူေဆြးေသာကမ်ားစြာနဲ႔ သိရွိလိုက္ရတယ္။ က်ေနာ္၊ က်မတို႔ရဲ့ဘ၀မွာ မ်က္လံုးအစံုမိတ္ၿပီး မွန္တယ္လို႔ယံုၾကည္ထားတဲ့အရာေတြဟာ တကယ္တမ္းေတာ့ အမွားျဖစ္ေနတာကို ေနာက္မွ ရွာေဖြသိရွိလာခဲ့ရတဲ့အႀကိမ္ေပါင္း ဘယ္ေလာက္ေတာင္ရွိေနခဲ့ၿပီလဲ။ :-)Valerie Cox သီကံုးထားေသာThe Cookie Thief ဆိုသည့္ကဗ်ာမွာ ျပန္လည္ ျပန္ဆိုထားျခင္း ျဖစ္ပါသည္။
Posted by ေဒါနေျမ at 5:13 PM
ျမန္မာ ဒီမိုကေရစီ အေရးကို ကူညီဖို ့ သင္စာေရးပါ
အိုဘားမား နဲ ့သူဇနီးထံ စာေရးၾကပါ။ သမၼတ ဘာရက္ အိုဘားမားနဲ ့သူဇနီး မစ္ရွယ္ အိုဘားမား ( Michelle Obarma) တို ့ကို ဆက္သြယ္ နိင္တဲ႔ အီးေမးလ္ ကေတာ့ (info@barackobama.com) ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။ ျမန္မာ ဒီမိုကေရစီ အေရးကို ကူညီဖို ့ သင္စာေရးပါ။
Villagers forced to provide porters for Burmese army in Karen State
January 22, 2009 · No Comments
HURFOM: Eleven villages in Karen state have been forced provide unpaid porters for the Burmese army, says a HURFOM field reporter in the area.On January 1st Column No. 2 of Light Infantry Battalion No. 284, lead by captain Myo Zet Tun and Infantry Battalion No. 548 ordered every village to provide 15 men to carry supplies. The porters were required to bring food, munitions and other materials from Ah Zin to Mae Ka Tee, a distance of about 5 kilometers. The men were required to work from January 4 to 13th, without a day of rest.Affected villages include Mae Ka Tee, Htaw Tha Nor Chanug Phyar, Mor Tha Ya, Htee Mae Bow, Htee Yo Chaung Phyar, Par Kalore Kee, Htee War Par Lu, Ah Zin Chaung Phya, Kalore Kee, Htee War Par Lu, and Ah Zin Chaung Phya.The work was backbreaking, said a porter who spoke with HURFOM. And it kept him away from paid work that could support his family. “I could not finish cutting my paddy, and I could not bring the paddy home yet [because I was working as a porter],” said the man. “I had to leave the paddy there for long time and now it has been stolen.”Other villagers said that the supplies are for an offensive the Burmese army is launching against the Karen National Union, an armed rebel group that has been fighting in the area for over six decades.The offensive, they said, will bring more abuses. “Now more troops have arrived in our village and there are very strict rules about going out of the village,” said the source. “[Abuses like the recent portering] will not finish, more unpaid labor and restrictions will come to our village.http://rehmonnya.org/archives/602
HURFOM: Eleven villages in Karen state have been forced provide unpaid porters for the Burmese army, says a HURFOM field reporter in the area.On January 1st Column No. 2 of Light Infantry Battalion No. 284, lead by captain Myo Zet Tun and Infantry Battalion No. 548 ordered every village to provide 15 men to carry supplies. The porters were required to bring food, munitions and other materials from Ah Zin to Mae Ka Tee, a distance of about 5 kilometers. The men were required to work from January 4 to 13th, without a day of rest.Affected villages include Mae Ka Tee, Htaw Tha Nor Chanug Phyar, Mor Tha Ya, Htee Mae Bow, Htee Yo Chaung Phyar, Par Kalore Kee, Htee War Par Lu, Ah Zin Chaung Phya, Kalore Kee, Htee War Par Lu, and Ah Zin Chaung Phya.The work was backbreaking, said a porter who spoke with HURFOM. And it kept him away from paid work that could support his family. “I could not finish cutting my paddy, and I could not bring the paddy home yet [because I was working as a porter],” said the man. “I had to leave the paddy there for long time and now it has been stolen.”Other villagers said that the supplies are for an offensive the Burmese army is launching against the Karen National Union, an armed rebel group that has been fighting in the area for over six decades.The offensive, they said, will bring more abuses. “Now more troops have arrived in our village and there are very strict rules about going out of the village,” said the source. “[Abuses like the recent portering] will not finish, more unpaid labor and restrictions will come to our village.http://rehmonnya.org/archives/602
Karen revolution and the legacy of General Bo Mya
January 21, 2009 ·
Wednesday, 21 January 2009 17:31
by Daniel Pedersen
Mae Sot (Mizzima) –
The general was tired. He walked with a slow, unsteady gait and heaved sighs as he settled into his chair. General Bo Mya had been fighting against Burma’s military in all its forms for more than fifty years when we first met in 2000 and, if anything, he was farther than ever from achieving his goal.
A legend in the Karen struggle for self-determination, he bristled with hatred for Burma’s military and was visibly frustrated talking about his war. Where could he begin? And what good was talk?He had spent his lifetime at war and during that time talk had generally proven to be but a prelude to some form of treachery or simply a continuation of the status quo. Burma’s generals had many times wanted him to lay down his arms. But how could the veteran Karen revolutionary lay down his arms during a war? He could not – for that would mean surrender.
On January 20, 2009, on what would have been Bo Mya’s 82nd birthday, the sun burned away the morning mist and for an hour or so our surroundings of commercial agricultural flatlands were revealed. By the time the second choir had completed a Karen folk song, smoke and tropical haze had taken the place of the morning damp. A middle-aged woman lifted her head as the songs ended – eyes moist, perhaps from recollection.
Nerdah Mya, General Bo Mya’s eldest son, welcomed everyone.
“There are, of course, two reasons why we are here today. The first is to remember our late father and all the good things he brought to his family and those around him, and the second is to give thanks for the New Year.”
“On this family thanksgiving we must all praise the Lord that we are still alive, we wish you all the best – may you find prosperity, happiness and peace of mind in this coming year,” offered the son of the fallen hero, who passed in late December, 2006.
Having weathered half a century of conflict, General Bo Mya remained adamant until his death that the military defeat of Burma’s generals was possible. It really came down to a matter of beliefs, tactics and hardware.
Of course any assistance in grinding down the generals was greatly appreciated, and he acknowledged that economic sanctions also hurt the generals and, by default, assisted his army. He was also adamant that the illicit trade in drugs, predominantly methamphetamines and heroin, combined with foreign aid, propped up the junta.
“They [countries engaging with the junta] are simply killing people. People are dying and the drugs keep coming. The country is poor but the military is not. The country is poor because the SPDC [Burmese Army] refuses to stop fighting. Serious sanctions by the international community can certainly help - already the Burmese have accumulated debts they cannot pay,” thundered the now deceased General.
Eight years after I first met Bo Mya I found myself sitting opposite his son, Nerdah Mya, in August of last year. He echoed the sentiments of his father, simply iterating, “I am obligated to work for the struggle.”
“You know my Dad told me when he got really sick: ‘All my life I have been calling for my people to fight for their freedom. They have died for it, they have sacrificed for it and you cannot go abroad and escape, you have to stand up and fight.’ Otherwise, my Dad said, he would be betraying the people who have fought and died,” related Nerdah Mya.
“And I told him ‘Yes, I will carry on’,” and Nerdah Mya thumped his fist on the table, not for dramatic effect, but rather as an indication of his resolve.
“I remember my Dad would go out and get one deer and we would share it with all the households, we would share with everybody,” continued Nerdah Mya. “And I respect those strong family ties among the Karen people. It is good to preserve this kind of culture and loving one another.”
Tuesday’s memorial found more than 150 people gathered to reflect on the year past and to give thanks for the coming New Year, the Karen year of 2748.
Every single person in attendance wanted the war to take its place in the dustbin of history. But less than an hour’s drive from where we gathered, between 300 and 400 men – three Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) battalions and one Burmese Army battalion, had 100 Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) soldiers surrounded at Wah Lay Kee, base camp of the Sixth Brigade’s 201st battalion.Meanwhile, the KNLA 101st battalion, consisting of about 160 soldiers and seven nurses, to the northwest of Mae La refugee camp, is involved in fighting daily. And intense fighting has also broken out in both Shan and Karenni states.
Nerdah Mya bluntly says all this activity is a concerted push to quash insurgents before the 2010 “elections”. The generals want calm, according to several observers, so the military and its public relations people can manage a smooth process that will institutionalize military rule through a ‘democratic’ process.
Of solutions to the world’s longest-running war, recently-elected Karen National Union Vice-Chairman David Takapaw says, in words reminiscent of the late General, that the only way forward is to defeat the “fascist” Burmese military.
“Ever since the military came to power in 1962, the ultimate goal of the military establishment is to set up the fourth Burman empire. Of course in this time and age, only fascists would think of setting up an empire in a multi-ethnic state like Burma,” ruminated the Vice-Chairman. “Non-Burman ethnic people will never accept that.”
“The states don’t have any power – any political power, the power to legislate, the power to adjudicate, the power to manage, executive power, they don’t have any of that – all of the power is centralized in the hands of the majority Burman. The ethnic people don’t have any rights. They don’t have economic rights. They don’t have human rights. They don’t have any political power. That is why many ethnic people at one time…were fighting against the central government, the Burmans.”
Takapaw proceeded with his indictment of the current regime: “But that arrangement hasn’t changed, the regime in power, now known as the SPDC, has drafted a constitution, held a referendum and confirmed…that non-Burman ethnicities will not have any power.”
And did he look to the United States for support in the Karen military campaign to force change in Burma?
“Well, from the United States, maybe. But I think perhaps they do not see much national interest in this case. And the Cold War has ended. In the case of Vietnam of course the Cold War was going on. Geopolitics effects, directly or indirectly, our struggle,” summarized the Vice-Chairman.
This year, the late General’s birthday falls on the eve of Barack Obama being sworn in as the 44th President of the United States. It is also just one day after Aung San Suu Kyi was awarded the Trumpet of Conscience Award, which commemorates the late Martin Luther King, Jr.
US Campaign for Burma’s executive director Aung Din, accepting the award on Suu Kyi’s behalf, said he hoped Obama would uphold existing economic sanctions against Burma and lead a strong diplomatic effort to organize the international community to pressure the military junta.
Chief editor at the Jakarta Post, Endy M. Bayuni, writing in The New York Times suggested Obama’s four years in Jakarta, from 1967 to 1971, when the country was adjusting to the harsh realities of the Sukarno era, will have served him well.
Obama is described as a United States president who has lived under a dictatorship and in a country in which “military control was widespread and . . . students attended indoctrination classes where they would profess their loyalty to the state. Dissent and criticism were not tolerated in public life. There was barely freedom of thought,” wrote Bayuni.
Yet, while such comparisons are chilling, it would be reckless to see any promise in historical coincidences.
New Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva may well chart a different course for his country vis-à-vis Burma, but it will not involve cutting back on the Kingdom’s commitment to three mega-dams planned for Burma’s Salween River, nor reviews of natural gas deals with the junta.
Meanwhile, India’s politicians are still basking in the success of securing a deal in September of last year to construct two vast hydropower projects on the Chindwin River.
Further, without agreement among the permanent five Security Council members, all with the power of veto, the United Nations is crippled when it comes to taking any action. As such, unilateral intervention appears the solitary choice Obama is left with when it comes to a definitive move to liberate Burma.
But back along the Thai-Burma border on Tuesday, as a couple sang a duet in the distance, Nerdah Mya said he hoped Obama might be able to do something, to make a significant contribution to change in Burma, but added, “How much he can do is another question.”
Asked for a message for the West from the frontlines of the world’s longest-running insurgency, Nerdah Mya was blunt, “We must stop the tyranny. We can’t just sit and watch. Otherwise more people will die.”
In agreement with Nerdah Mya’s sentiments is a close friend, Myat Thu, an ethnic Burman and an exile of the 1988 student uprising during which thousands perished and the aftermath of which left thousands more mired in limbo.
He too knew General Bo Mya and was among the founders of the All Burma Students Democratic Front (ABSDF) along the Thai-Burma border.
Bo Mya’s army took the ABSDF in and trained them in the discipline of warfare.
In the words of one exile, Win Cho: “I started in 1989. At that time I was fighting with the KNU (Karen National Union). You know I have nothing but respect for the KNU, they helped us so much, until we met them we had nothing, no healthcare, one set of clothes, we had nothing.
Win Cho was an ABSDF commander, but plays down such a vote of confidence from his peers.
“I was hardly a commander, in those days we were totally dependent on the Karen, we didn’t go out on operations by ourselves. We hadn’t learned how to survive out there by ourselves at that point,” elaborated Win Cho.
Both Myat Thu and Win Cho speak highly of Bo Mya and his no-nonsense, uncompromising attitude towards discipline.
As secretary, Myat Thu is a high ranking officer of the newly-formed 2009 Collective Action Committee, a gathering of representatives from the ethnic nationalities, the National League for Democracy (NLD) and the monkhood, whose aim is to “impede the forthcoming bogus elections of 2010″.
The collective’s motto is drawn from a senior NLD leader, but could just have easily been uttered by Bo Mya himself: “Seek not to escape from this conflict – but rather to confront it and break through it.
Wednesday, 21 January 2009 17:31
by Daniel Pedersen
Mae Sot (Mizzima) –
The general was tired. He walked with a slow, unsteady gait and heaved sighs as he settled into his chair. General Bo Mya had been fighting against Burma’s military in all its forms for more than fifty years when we first met in 2000 and, if anything, he was farther than ever from achieving his goal.
A legend in the Karen struggle for self-determination, he bristled with hatred for Burma’s military and was visibly frustrated talking about his war. Where could he begin? And what good was talk?He had spent his lifetime at war and during that time talk had generally proven to be but a prelude to some form of treachery or simply a continuation of the status quo. Burma’s generals had many times wanted him to lay down his arms. But how could the veteran Karen revolutionary lay down his arms during a war? He could not – for that would mean surrender.
On January 20, 2009, on what would have been Bo Mya’s 82nd birthday, the sun burned away the morning mist and for an hour or so our surroundings of commercial agricultural flatlands were revealed. By the time the second choir had completed a Karen folk song, smoke and tropical haze had taken the place of the morning damp. A middle-aged woman lifted her head as the songs ended – eyes moist, perhaps from recollection.
Nerdah Mya, General Bo Mya’s eldest son, welcomed everyone.
“There are, of course, two reasons why we are here today. The first is to remember our late father and all the good things he brought to his family and those around him, and the second is to give thanks for the New Year.”
“On this family thanksgiving we must all praise the Lord that we are still alive, we wish you all the best – may you find prosperity, happiness and peace of mind in this coming year,” offered the son of the fallen hero, who passed in late December, 2006.
Having weathered half a century of conflict, General Bo Mya remained adamant until his death that the military defeat of Burma’s generals was possible. It really came down to a matter of beliefs, tactics and hardware.
Of course any assistance in grinding down the generals was greatly appreciated, and he acknowledged that economic sanctions also hurt the generals and, by default, assisted his army. He was also adamant that the illicit trade in drugs, predominantly methamphetamines and heroin, combined with foreign aid, propped up the junta.
“They [countries engaging with the junta] are simply killing people. People are dying and the drugs keep coming. The country is poor but the military is not. The country is poor because the SPDC [Burmese Army] refuses to stop fighting. Serious sanctions by the international community can certainly help - already the Burmese have accumulated debts they cannot pay,” thundered the now deceased General.
Eight years after I first met Bo Mya I found myself sitting opposite his son, Nerdah Mya, in August of last year. He echoed the sentiments of his father, simply iterating, “I am obligated to work for the struggle.”
“You know my Dad told me when he got really sick: ‘All my life I have been calling for my people to fight for their freedom. They have died for it, they have sacrificed for it and you cannot go abroad and escape, you have to stand up and fight.’ Otherwise, my Dad said, he would be betraying the people who have fought and died,” related Nerdah Mya.
“And I told him ‘Yes, I will carry on’,” and Nerdah Mya thumped his fist on the table, not for dramatic effect, but rather as an indication of his resolve.
“I remember my Dad would go out and get one deer and we would share it with all the households, we would share with everybody,” continued Nerdah Mya. “And I respect those strong family ties among the Karen people. It is good to preserve this kind of culture and loving one another.”
Tuesday’s memorial found more than 150 people gathered to reflect on the year past and to give thanks for the coming New Year, the Karen year of 2748.
Every single person in attendance wanted the war to take its place in the dustbin of history. But less than an hour’s drive from where we gathered, between 300 and 400 men – three Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) battalions and one Burmese Army battalion, had 100 Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) soldiers surrounded at Wah Lay Kee, base camp of the Sixth Brigade’s 201st battalion.Meanwhile, the KNLA 101st battalion, consisting of about 160 soldiers and seven nurses, to the northwest of Mae La refugee camp, is involved in fighting daily. And intense fighting has also broken out in both Shan and Karenni states.
Nerdah Mya bluntly says all this activity is a concerted push to quash insurgents before the 2010 “elections”. The generals want calm, according to several observers, so the military and its public relations people can manage a smooth process that will institutionalize military rule through a ‘democratic’ process.
Of solutions to the world’s longest-running war, recently-elected Karen National Union Vice-Chairman David Takapaw says, in words reminiscent of the late General, that the only way forward is to defeat the “fascist” Burmese military.
“Ever since the military came to power in 1962, the ultimate goal of the military establishment is to set up the fourth Burman empire. Of course in this time and age, only fascists would think of setting up an empire in a multi-ethnic state like Burma,” ruminated the Vice-Chairman. “Non-Burman ethnic people will never accept that.”
“The states don’t have any power – any political power, the power to legislate, the power to adjudicate, the power to manage, executive power, they don’t have any of that – all of the power is centralized in the hands of the majority Burman. The ethnic people don’t have any rights. They don’t have economic rights. They don’t have human rights. They don’t have any political power. That is why many ethnic people at one time…were fighting against the central government, the Burmans.”
Takapaw proceeded with his indictment of the current regime: “But that arrangement hasn’t changed, the regime in power, now known as the SPDC, has drafted a constitution, held a referendum and confirmed…that non-Burman ethnicities will not have any power.”
And did he look to the United States for support in the Karen military campaign to force change in Burma?
“Well, from the United States, maybe. But I think perhaps they do not see much national interest in this case. And the Cold War has ended. In the case of Vietnam of course the Cold War was going on. Geopolitics effects, directly or indirectly, our struggle,” summarized the Vice-Chairman.
This year, the late General’s birthday falls on the eve of Barack Obama being sworn in as the 44th President of the United States. It is also just one day after Aung San Suu Kyi was awarded the Trumpet of Conscience Award, which commemorates the late Martin Luther King, Jr.
US Campaign for Burma’s executive director Aung Din, accepting the award on Suu Kyi’s behalf, said he hoped Obama would uphold existing economic sanctions against Burma and lead a strong diplomatic effort to organize the international community to pressure the military junta.
Chief editor at the Jakarta Post, Endy M. Bayuni, writing in The New York Times suggested Obama’s four years in Jakarta, from 1967 to 1971, when the country was adjusting to the harsh realities of the Sukarno era, will have served him well.
Obama is described as a United States president who has lived under a dictatorship and in a country in which “military control was widespread and . . . students attended indoctrination classes where they would profess their loyalty to the state. Dissent and criticism were not tolerated in public life. There was barely freedom of thought,” wrote Bayuni.
Yet, while such comparisons are chilling, it would be reckless to see any promise in historical coincidences.
New Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva may well chart a different course for his country vis-à-vis Burma, but it will not involve cutting back on the Kingdom’s commitment to three mega-dams planned for Burma’s Salween River, nor reviews of natural gas deals with the junta.
Meanwhile, India’s politicians are still basking in the success of securing a deal in September of last year to construct two vast hydropower projects on the Chindwin River.
Further, without agreement among the permanent five Security Council members, all with the power of veto, the United Nations is crippled when it comes to taking any action. As such, unilateral intervention appears the solitary choice Obama is left with when it comes to a definitive move to liberate Burma.
But back along the Thai-Burma border on Tuesday, as a couple sang a duet in the distance, Nerdah Mya said he hoped Obama might be able to do something, to make a significant contribution to change in Burma, but added, “How much he can do is another question.”
Asked for a message for the West from the frontlines of the world’s longest-running insurgency, Nerdah Mya was blunt, “We must stop the tyranny. We can’t just sit and watch. Otherwise more people will die.”
In agreement with Nerdah Mya’s sentiments is a close friend, Myat Thu, an ethnic Burman and an exile of the 1988 student uprising during which thousands perished and the aftermath of which left thousands more mired in limbo.
He too knew General Bo Mya and was among the founders of the All Burma Students Democratic Front (ABSDF) along the Thai-Burma border.
Bo Mya’s army took the ABSDF in and trained them in the discipline of warfare.
In the words of one exile, Win Cho: “I started in 1989. At that time I was fighting with the KNU (Karen National Union). You know I have nothing but respect for the KNU, they helped us so much, until we met them we had nothing, no healthcare, one set of clothes, we had nothing.
Win Cho was an ABSDF commander, but plays down such a vote of confidence from his peers.
“I was hardly a commander, in those days we were totally dependent on the Karen, we didn’t go out on operations by ourselves. We hadn’t learned how to survive out there by ourselves at that point,” elaborated Win Cho.
Both Myat Thu and Win Cho speak highly of Bo Mya and his no-nonsense, uncompromising attitude towards discipline.
As secretary, Myat Thu is a high ranking officer of the newly-formed 2009 Collective Action Committee, a gathering of representatives from the ethnic nationalities, the National League for Democracy (NLD) and the monkhood, whose aim is to “impede the forthcoming bogus elections of 2010″.
The collective’s motto is drawn from a senior NLD leader, but could just have easily been uttered by Bo Mya himself: “Seek not to escape from this conflict – but rather to confront it and break through it.
Friday, January 23, 2009
ကြယ္လြန္သူ ေကအန္ယူဥကၠ႒ေဟာင္း ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ႀကီးေစာဘိုျမ၏ (၈၃) ႏွစ္ျပည့္ ေမြးေန႔အမွတ္တရ ဂုဏ္ျပဳေဆာင္းပါး
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ျမ (သို႔မဟုတ္) ေတာ္လွန္ေရးမုန္တိုင္းအတြင္းမွ သစ္တပင္မန္းရွာလားဖန္း
ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ျမ (သို႔မဟုတ္) ေတာ္လွန္ေရးမုန္တိုင္းအတြင္းမွ သစ္တပင္မန္းရွာလားဖန္း
၁၉၈၈ စက္တင္ဘာ (၁၈) ရက္ န၀တစစ္အုပ္စု အာဏာသိမ္းမႈအၿပီး လူငယ္၊ ေက်ာင္းသားမ်ားႏွင့္ ရဟန္းရွင္ လူျပည္သူမ်ား တေသာင္းနီးပါး ကရင့္ေတာ္လွန္ေရး၏ အေျခခံေဒသအတြင္းသို႔ ဆိုက္ေရာက္လာၾကသည့္အ ခါျမန္မာျပည္အတြင္း ႏုိင္ငံေရးဆက္ဆံမႈႏွင့္ ေ႐ြ႕လ်ားမႈသည္ ေနာက္ထပ္မွတ္တိုင္တခုသို႔ ေရာက္႐ွိလာသည္။ဤအေျခအေနတြင္ က်ေနာ့္အေနျဖင့္ ဤႏိုင္ငံေရးဆက္ဆံမႈကို အေၾကာင္းျပဳ၍ ၁၉၈၈ ခု ႏိုင္ငံေရးစစ္တမ္း တေစာင္ကိုေရးခဲ့ၿပီး ဤႏိုင္ငံေရးစစ္တမ္းကို ‘စက္တင္ဘာ ႏိုင္ငံေရးစစ္တမ္း’ ဟု ေခါင္းစဥ္တပ္ခဲ့သည္။ KNU ဥကၠ႒ ဗုိလ္ခ်ဳပ္ျမ၊ ဒု-ဥကၠ႒ ပဒိုေစာသန္းေအာင္ႏွင့္ မဒတ အတြင္းေရးမႉး ခိုင္စိုးႏိုင္ေအာင္တို႔ကို ေပးအပ္ ေလ့လာေစခဲ့ပါသည္။ ပဒိုေစာသန္းေအာင္က “မင္းကိုယ္တိုင္ ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ျမနဲ႔ ေတြ႔ဆံုေဆြးေႏြးျပဖို႔လည္း လိုအပ္ တယ္” ဟုေျပာၿပီး သူ၏ စီစဥ္မႈေၾကာင့္ ေအာက္တိုဘာလ၏ ညတညတြင္ ဤစစ္တမ္းပါ အေၾကာင္းအရာမ်ား ကို ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ျမအား ေဆြးေႏြးတင္ျပခဲ့ၿပီး ဒု-ဥကၠ႒ေစာသန္းေအာင္လည္း အေလးအနက္ ပါ၀င္နားေထာင္ ေ၀ ဖန္သုံးသပ္မႈျပဳခဲ့ပါသည္။ဤစစ္တမ္းတြင္ တည္ရွိေနသည့္ လူမ်ဳိးစုေတာ္လွန္ေရး စစ္မ်က္ႏွာအျပင္ ေနာက္ထပ္ဒီမုိကေရစီတိုက္ပဲြ စစ္ မ်က္ႏွာအသစ္ေပၚထြန္းလာၿပီး ဤတိုက္ပဲြစစ္မ်က္ႏွာသစ္သည္ ယခင္ကာလမ်ားကကဲ့သို႔ စစ္အုပ္စုက လြယ္ ကူစြာ ၿငိႇမ္းသတ္ႏိုင္ေတာ့မည္မဟုတ္ေၾကာင္း၊ ၈၈ အေရးေတာ္ပုံႀကီးသည္ လက္နက္ကိုင္တိုက္ပဲြႏွင့္ လူထု တိုက္ပဲြကုိ ဆက္စပ္ေပါင္းကူးေပးခဲ့ေၾကာင္း၊ ဤ ၈၈ အေရးေတာ္ပုံႀကီးအၿပီးတြင္ လူမ်ဳိးစုမ်ား၏ အမ်ဳိးသား အင္အားစုႏွင့္ ဒီမိုကေရစီအင္အားစုမ်ားအၾကား ခဲြျခားထားသည့္ တံတိုင္းႀကီး ၿပိဳက်ခဲ့ၿပီး ဤအင္အားစုႀကီး ႏွစ္ရပ္ ဆက္စပ္ေပါင္းစည္းသြားေၾကာင္း၊ ျမန္မာျပည္အတြင္း စစ္အာဏာရွင္ႀကီးစိုးမႈ ျဖစ္တည္ခဲ့ၿပီးေနာက္ ဤ ၈၈ အေရးေတာ္ပံုသည္ စစ္အာဏာရွင္စနစ္ စတင္က်ဆင္းလာသည့္ လကၡဏာျဖစ္ေၾကာင္း၊ လက္ရွိကာ လ၏ အဓိကတာ၀န္သည္ စစ္အာဏာရွင္ႀကီးစိုးမႈကို ဆန္႔က်င္သည့္ အင္အားစုအားလံုးကိုစုစည္း၍ တုိက္ပြဲကို ျမႇင့္တင္သြားရန္ျဖစ္ေၾကာင္း သုံးသပ္ေဖာ္ျပထားပါသည္။ဗုိလ္ခ်ဳပ္ျမသည္ ဤသံုးသပ္ခ်က္ကို သေဘာတူခဲ့ၿပီး ျပည္လုံးဆိုင္ရာ စစ္အာဏာရွင္ႀကီးစိုးမႈ ဆန္႔က်င္ေရးညီ လာခံႀကီးတခုကို NDF ၏ ဦးစီးမႈျဖင့္ ျပဳလုပ္ရန္ သေဘာတူခဲ့ေလသည္။ ၁၉၈၈ ႏို၀င္ဘာ (၁၅) ရက္ စစ္အုပ္ စုဆန္႔က်င္ေရး ျပည္လံုးကြၽတ္ညီလာခံကို ဘားအံခ႐ုိင္ မယ္သီရိတြင္ က်င္းပခဲ့ၿပီး ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ျမကို DAB ဥကၠ႒ အျဖစ္ ေ႐ြးခ်ယ္တင္ေျမႇာက္ခဲ့ၾကသည္။ ဒု-ဥကၠ႒မ်ားအျဖစ္ ဥကၠ႒ ဘရန္ဆိုင္း၊ ဥကၠ႒ ႏိုင္ေ႐ႊက်င္၊ ဥကၠ႒ ဦး သြင္တို႔ကို ေ႐ြးခ်ယ္တင္ေျမႇာက္သည္။ ဦးတင္ေမာင္၀င္းကိုလည္း အတြင္းေရးမႉးအျဖစ္ တညီတၫြတ္တည္း ေ႐ြးခ်ယ္ၾကသည္။ ထုိ႔ေနာက္ ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ျမက သူ၏ ႀကီးေလးသည့္ တာ၀န္မ်ားကို ထမ္းေဆာင္ရာတြင္ အနီးကပ္ ကူညီရန္ က်ေနာ့္ကို ေတာင္းခံ၍ KNU ဒု-ဥကၠ႒ ပဒိုေစာသန္းေအာင္က ဗဟိုေခါင္းေဆာင္မ်ား၏ သေဘာတူ ညီခ်က္ျဖင့္ က်ေနာ့္ကို ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ျမ၏ ကိုယ္ေရးအတြင္းေရးမႉးအျဖစ္ ဒီဇင္ဘာလကုန္ပိုင္းတြင္ ခန္႔အပ္ရာ က် ေနာ္ႏွင့္ ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ျမသည္ တ႐ုံးတည္း စားပဲြတလုံးတည္းတြင္ ၁၉၈၈ မွ ၁၉၉၅ အထိ ခက္ခဲႀကီးမားသည့္ တာ ၀န္မ်ားကို နီးနီးကပ္ကပ္ ထမ္းေဆာင္ခဲ့ၾကရ႐ုံမက ၁၉၉၅ ခု KNU ၏ တြဲဖက္အေထြေထြအတြင္းေရးမႉးအျဖစ္ လည္းေကာင္း၊ ထုိ႔ေနာက္ အေထြေထြအတြင္းေရးမႉးအျဖစ္လည္းေကာင္း ေ႐ြးခ်ယ္ခံရၿပီးသည့္ေနာက္တြင္ လည္း ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ျမႏွင့္ နီးနီးကပ္ကပ္ အလုပ္လုပ္ခဲ့ရသည္။ထို႔ေၾကာင့္ ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ျမ မကြယ္လြန္မီကပင္ ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ျမ၏ တသက္တာတြင္ သူ၏ အဓိကအက်ဳိးျပဳမႈမ်ားသည္ အဘယ္အရာနည္းဟူေသာ အခ်က္မ်ားကို က်ေနာ္စူးစမ္းရွာေဖြေနခဲ့ပါသည္။ ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ျမႏွင့္ပတ္သက္၍ အမ်ဳိး မ်ဳိးေျပာဆိုမႈမ်ားကို က်ေနာ္ မ်ားစြာၾကားေနခဲ့ရပါသည္။ သို႔ရာတြင္ က်ေနာ္ ဘာမွ်အေထြအထူး ေျပာဆိုခဲ့ျခင္း မရွိဘဲ အမ်ား၏ ေျပာဆိုမႈကိုသာ အဓိကအားျဖင့္ နားေထာင္ခဲ့ပါသည္။သို႔ရာတြင္ ၂၀၀၆ ခု ဇန္န၀ါရီ (၂၀) ရက္ သူ၏ ေမြးေန႔တြင္မူ က်ေနာ့္ကို စကားေျပာရန္ ေမြးေန႔စီစဥ္သူမ်ားက စီစဥ္ထားသည့္အတြက္ ဤေန႔တြင္ ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ျမအေနျဖင့္ မည္သည့္အေရးပါသည့္ လုပ္ေဆာင္မႈမ်ားကို အမွန္ တကယ္ လုပ္ေဆာင္ခဲ့ပါသနည္းဟူေသာ အခ်က္မ်ားကို ထုတ္ေဖာ္ေျပာဆိုခဲ့ရပါသည္။ဤအခမ္းအနားတြင္ က်ေနာ္ေတြ႕ရွိ ေျပာဆိုခဲ့သည့္ အခ်က္ (၃) ခ်က္မွာ ပထမအေနျဖင့္ ၁၉၆၃ မွ ၁၉၇၄ အ ထိ ႏွစ္ျခမ္းကဲြေနသည့္ ကရင့္အမ်ဳိးသားေတာ္လွန္ေရးႀကီးကို ျပန္လည္ဆက္စပ္ ေပါင္းစည္းေပးရာတြင္ ဥကၠ႒ ႀကီး မန္းဘဇန္၊ ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္မန္းျမေမာင္၊ ဖူးစေကာလယ္ေတာတို႔ႏွင့္အတူ ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ျမအေနျဖင့္ အဆုံးအျဖတ္အ ခန္းမွပါ၀င္ခဲ့သည္။ ဤစည္းလံုးညီၫြတ္မႈကို ျပန္လည္တည္ေဆာက္ႏိုင္ခဲ့သည့္အတြက္ တပ္မႉး၊ တပ္သားမ်ား၊ ကရင္အမ်ဳိးသားမ်ား ျပန္လည္၍ အားတက္ခဲ့ၾက၊ ျပန္လည္၍ တက္ႂကြလန္းဆန္းလာခဲ့ၾက၊ ယံုၾကည္စိတ္ ပိုမို ခိုင္မာလာခဲ့ၾကသည္။ဒုတိယအေနျဖင့္ ၁၉၈၀ ျပည့္ႏွစ္မွစ၍ အလြန္ႀကီးမား ရက္စက္ျပင္းထန္သည့္ ရန္သူ၏ထိုးစစ္ႀကီးမ်ားကို တပြဲ ၿပီးတပြဲ အဆက္မျပတ္ တိုက္ဖ်က္ခဲ့ရသည့္ တိုက္ပြဲႀကီးမ်ားကို ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ျမကိုယ္တိုင္ ရဲရဲရင့္ရင့္ ဦးစီးၫႊန္ၾကား ၿပီး၊ဤတိုက္ပြဲႀကီးေျမာက္ျမားစြာမွ အေျမာက္သံမ်ားသည္ ကရင္အမ်ဳိးသားမ်ားအေနျဖင့္ သူတို႔၏ ေမြးရာပါ အခြင့္အေရး ဆံုး႐ႈံးေနေၾကာင္း၊ ကရင္ျပည္သူမ်ား မတရားအၾကမ္းဖက္ စစ္ဆင္သတ္ျဖတ္ခံေနရေၾကာင္းကို ျပည္တြင္းျပည္ပႏွစ္ရပ္စလံုးအား ၾကားသိေစခဲ့႐ံုမက ျပည္တြင္းျပည္ပ၏ စာနာမႈကိုလည္း တိုးတက္ရရွိႏုိင္ခဲ့ပါ သည္။တတိယအခ်က္ေနျဖင့္ ၈၈ အေရးေတာ္ပုံအၿပီး လက္နက္ကိုင္တိုက္ပြဲႏွင့္ လူထုတိုက္ပြဲဆက္စပ္ေရး၊ အမ်ဳိး သား အင္အားစုႏွင့္ ဒီမုိကေရစီအင္အားစု ဆက္စပ္ေပါင္းစည္းေရးလုပ္ငန္းႀကီးကို အုတ္ျမစ္ခ်ထူေထာင္ရာ တြင္ ႀကီးမားသည့္အခန္းမွ ပါ၀င္ခဲ့ျခင္း စသည့္အခ်က္မ်ားကို ထင္ထင္ရွားရွားေတြ႔ရွိခဲ့ရေၾကာင္း သူ၏ေမြးေန႔ တြင္ က်ေနာ္ ထုတ္ေဖာ္ေျပာဆိုခဲ့ပါသည္။ ဤေမြးေန႔သည္ သူ၏ ေနာက္ဆံုး (၇၉) ႏွစ္ေျမာက္ ေမြးေန႔ျဖစ္ၿပီး ထိုကာလတြင္ သူ၏ က်န္းမာေရးသည္လည္း အလြန္ဆိုး၀ါးေနၿပီျဖစ္သည္။စင္စစ္အားျဖင့္ သူ၏ အျခားအေရးႀကီးသည့္ ပါ၀င္စြမ္းေဆာင္မႈမ်ားလည္းရွိပါသည္။ ၎မွာ ၁၉၇၆ ခု လူမ်ဳိးစု ေတာ္လွန္ေရးအဖြဲ႔အစည္းမ်ားကို စုစည္းၿပီး မဒတကို ထူေထာင္ခဲ့စဥ္က ဥကၠ႒ႀကီး မန္းဘဇန္၊ ဥကၠ႔ေစာေမာ္ ရယ္၊ ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္မန္းေအာင္သန္းေလးတို႔ႏွင့္အတူ အျခားလူမ်ဳိးစုေခါင္းေဆာင္မ်ားႏွင့္ ေပါင္းစည္း၍ တက္တက္ ႂကြႂကြ ပါ၀င္ေဆာင္႐ြက္ခဲ့႐ံုမက မဒတ ဥကၠ႒အျဖစ္ ၁၉၇၆ မွ ၁၉၈၆ အထိ (၁၁) ႏွစ္တိုင္တိုင္ တာ၀န္ယူခဲ့၊ မဒတ၏ အက်ဳိးကို ေဆာင္ရြက္ခဲ့ပါသည္။တဆက္တည္းတြင္ ကရင္အမ်ဳိးသားေခါင္းေဆာင္ ေစာဘဦးႀကီး ခ်မွတ္ခဲ့သည့္ ကရင့္ေတာ္လွန္ေရးႀကီး၏ အ ေျခခံမူႀကီးေလးခ်က္ကို ထိန္းသိမ္းကာကြယ္ခဲ့ၾကရာတြင္ ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ျမ၏ အခန္းက႑သည္ အေရးပါေသာ ေန ရာတြင္ ရွိေနခဲ့သည္မွာလည္း အမွန္ပင္ျဖစ္သည္။ရွည္လ်ားသည့္ကာလအတြင္း ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ျမႏွင့္ အလုပ္လုပ္ခဲ့ရာတြင္ က်ေနာ့္အေနျဖင့္ အမွတ္ရစရာ အျဖစ္အ ပ်က္မ်ားစြာ ရွိခဲ့ပါသည္။ ၎တုိ႔အနက္မွ က်ေနာ္မၾကာခဏ သတိရေနသည့္ အျဖစ္အပ်က္ အခ်ဳိ႕ရွိပါသည္။ ၁၉၉၂ ခု KNU ဌာနခ်ဳပ္ကို မတ္လ (၂၇) ရက္မတိုင္မီ စစ္အုပ္စုက အၿပီးသိမ္းယူမည့္ စစ္ဆင္ေရးတြင္ျဖစ္ သည္။ မတ္လ၏ ရက္တရက္တြင္ ေခြးအိပ္ေတာင္ကို တသုတ္ၿပီးတသုတ္ ဗံုးႀကဲပစ္ခတ္ေနသည့္ နအဖစစ္ တိုက္ေလယာဥ္မ်ားကို ဒံုးက်ည္မ်ား၊ စက္အေျမာက္မ်ားျဖင့္ ပစ္ခတ္ေနသည့္ေနရာသို႔ တက္ေရာက္ၿပီး ထုိပစ္ ခတ္မႈကို ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ျမကိုယ္တိုင္ ၫႊန္ၾကားခဲ့သည့္ ျဖစ္ရပ္ပင္ျဖစ္သည္။က်ေနာ္တို႔သည္ ထုိေနရာသို႔ ကားျဖင့္တက္ေရာက္ခဲ့ၿပီးေနာက္ ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ျမသည္ နာရီေပါင္းမ်ားစြာ စစ္သားတ ဦးႏွင့္မျခား ၿငိမ္သက္စြာေနၿပီး ပစ္ခတ္မႈကို ၫႊန္ၾကားေနခဲ့သည္။ ထုိကုန္းသို႔ ဥကၠ႒ ဘရန္ဆိုင္း အပါအ၀င္ ေခါင္းေဆာင္အေတာ္မ်ားမ်ားေရာက္ရွိၿပီး ေခြးအိပ္ေတာင္တိုက္ပြဲႏွင့္ ရန္သူ၏ ေလေၾကာင္းတိုက္ခိုက္မႈကို တက္ေရာက္ၾကည့္႐ႈခဲ့ၾကသည္။ရက္မ်ားမၾကာမီ ေနာ္တေရွ႕တန္း စစ္မ်က္ႏွာသို႔ သြားေရာက္စစ္ေဆးၿပီး တပ္မႉးမ်ားကို အားေပးစကားေျပာ ရာတြင္ သာမန္တပ္သားတဦးသဖြယ္ က်ေနာ္တို႔ႏွင့္အတူ ေျမႀကီးေပၚတြင္ထိုင္၍ ေန႔လည္စာကို စားခဲ့ၾက သည္။ ၎ေနာက္ ထုိရက္ပိုင္းအတြင္းမွာပင္ သူကိုယ္တိုင္စားပင္တပင္တြင္ ငွက္ (၆၈) ေကာင္ပစ္ၿပီး က်ေနာ့္ ကို သူ႔အိမ္တြင္ေခၚ၍ သူႏွင့္ ညစာစားခဲ့ၾကျခင္းပင္ျဖစ္သည္။ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ျမႏွင့္ ရွည္ၾကာစြာ အနီးကပ္ ေတာ္လွန္ေရးတာ၀န္မ်ားကို ထမ္းေဆာင္ရင္း သူမၾကာခဏ ထုတ္ေဖာ္ ေျပာဆိုခဲ့သည့္ စကားအမ်ားအျပားကိုလည္း ၾကားေနခဲ့ရပါသည္။ ဤစကားမ်ားစြာအနက္ စကားအခ်ဳိ႕ကို လည္း ထူးထူးျခားျခား က်ေနာ္သတိျပဳမိသည္မ်ားလည္း ရွိခဲ့ပါသည္။၎မွာ - “ကရင့္ေတာ္လွန္ေရးရဲ႕ ရန္သူဟာ ဗမာအမ်ဳိးသားေတြ မဟုတ္ဘူး။ မဟာလူမ်ဳိးႀကီး၀ါဒနဲ႔ စစ္အာဏာရွင္စနစ္ေတြသာ ကရင့္ေတာ္လွန္ေရးရဲ႕ ရန္သူအစစ္အမွန္ျဖစ္တယ္” ဟူေသာ စကားကို ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ျမ မၾကာခဏ ေျပာခဲ့ပါသည္။ ဤစကားကို သတင္းဌာနမ်ားသို႔လည္းေကာင္း၊ အျခားႏိုင္ငံေရး ေခါင္း ေဆာင္မ်ားကိုလည္းေကာင္း၊ ABSDF ႏွင့္ လူငယ္ႏိုင္ငံေရးသမားမ်ားကိုလည္းေကာင္း၊ အႀကိမ္ႀကိမ္ ေျပာခဲ့ ႐ုံမက စစ္အာဏာရွင္ထိပ္သီး ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ခင္ၫြန္႔ ကိုယ္တိုင္ကိုပင္လွ်င္ ၂၀၀၄ ခု ဇန္န၀ါရီက မ်က္ႏွာခ်င္းဆိုင္ ေျပာခဲ့ပါသည္။ေနာက္စကားတခုမွာ “ေတာ္လွန္ေရးဆိုတာ လက္နက္ခ် အညံ့မခံဘူး၊ အ႐ံႈးမေပးဘူးဆိုရင္ ဘယ္ ေတာ့မွ မ႐ံႈးႏိုင္ဘူး” ဆိုေသာ စကားပင္ျဖစ္သည္။ ဤစကားသည္ ကရင္တမ်ဳိးသားလုံး ရန္ကုန္ဆင္းၿပီး လက္နက္ခ်အညံ့ခံျခင္း မျပဳသေ႐ြ႕ ကရင့္ေတာ္လွန္ေရး ဘယ္ေသာအခါမွ မ႐ံႈးႏိုင္ဟူေသာ ေစာဘဦးႀကီး၏ ၾသ၀ါဒလမ္းၫႊန္ခ်က္ကို ျပန္လည္၍ ေျပာဆိုခဲ့ျခင္းပင္ျဖစ္သည္။ေနာက္ထပ္စကားတခုမွာ “ေတာ္လွန္ေရးဆိုတာ ဆုံးခန္းတိုင္ေအာင္ပဲြရတဲ့အထိ လုပ္ရမယ့္အလုပ္ျဖစ္ တယ္။ မလုပ္တတ္ရင္ေတာ့ ကိုယ္ကိုယ္တိုင္နဲ႔ ကိုယ့္လူမ်ဳိး တရားခံဘ၀ကို ေရာက္သြားႏိုင္တယ္။ ဒါ ကို အထူးသတိျပဳၾကရမယ္” ဆိုေသာ စကားပင္ျဖစ္သည္။ ေတာ္လွန္ေရးအဖဲြဥႏအစည္းအမ်ားအျပား၊ ေတာ္လွန္ေရးေခါင္းေဆာင္ အမ်ားအျပားသည္ မြန္ျမတ္ေသာ ေတာ္လွန္ေရးကိုလုပ္ရင္းႏွင့္ လမ္းေပၚမွေန၍ လမ္းေပ်ာက္ခဲ့ၾကၿပီး တရားခံမ်ားဘ၀ျဖင့္ ဇာတ္သိမ္းခဲ့ၾကရ၊ မိမိအမ်ဳိးသား၊ မိမိျပည္သူမ်ား၏ အက်ဳိးစီးပြား မ်ားစြာထိခိုက္ခဲ့ရသည့္ အျဖစ္မ်ဳိး မ်ားစြာရွိေနခဲ့၊ ရိွေနျခင္းကို ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ျမ ေကာင္းေကာင္းသိရွိသျဖင့္ ဤသို႔ ထုတ္ေဖာ္ေျပာဆိုေနခဲ့ျခင္းပင္ျဖစ္သည္။ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ျမကိုယ္တိုင္ ေနာက္ဆုံးေျပာခဲ့သည့္စကားမွာ ၂၀၀၆ ခု ဇူလိုင္ (၁၃) ရက္တြင္ ျဖစ္ပါသည္။ ထုိေန႔က နအဖက ဆရာ၀န္အခ်ဳိ႕ကိုလႊတ္ၿပီး သူ႔ကို ရန္ကုန္သို႔ ဖိတ္ေခၚၿပီး ေဆးကုသေပးရန္ ေခၚယူေနသည့္ကိစၥႏွင့္ ပတ္သက္၍ က်ေနာ္တို႔ကို ေခၚယူရွင္းျပျခင္းျဖစ္သည္။ ထိုေန႔က KNU ဥကၠ႒ ပဒိုေစာဘသင္၊ ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ေစာ ကစယ္ဒို၊ တဲြဖက္အတြင္းေရးမႉး ေစာထူးထူးေလး၊ ဗိုလ္မႉးႀကီးေစာေနစိုး၊ ပဒိုေသာသီဘဲြႏွင့္ က်ေနာ္တို႔ကုိ သူ႔ ထံသုိ႔ သူေခၚယူ၍ ေရာက္ရွိခဲ့ျခင္းျဖစ္သည္။ ထိုေန႔က သူစကားမ်ားမ်ား ေျပာႏိုင္ျခင္း မရွိေတာ့သည့္အခ်ိန္ ျဖစ္သည္။ သူက -“နအဖက ငါ့ကိုေဆးကုဖို႔ ရန္ကုန္ကို ေခၚတယ္။ ကရင္ျပည္မေပးရင္ ငါမသြားႏိုင္ဘူး။ သူတို႔က ဒို႔ ကရင္အမ်ဳိးသားေတြကို စစ္ဆင္ေနတယ္၊ သတ္ျဖတ္ေနတယ္၊ သစၥာကတိမတည္ဘူး၊ ႐ုိးသားမႈမရွိ ဘူး၊ ကရင့္ေတာ္လွန္ေရးဟာ လက္နက္ခ်ဖို႔မေျပာနဲ႔ လက္နက္ခ်စကားေတာင္ မေျပာရဘူး” ဟု ေလး နက္စြာ ေျပာခဲ့ပါသည္။ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ျမသည္ ေခတ္မီတကၠသိုလ္တခုခုတြင္ ေအာင္ျမင္ၿပီးေနာက္ ေတာ္လွန္ေရးနယ္ေျမသို႔ ေရာက္ရိွခဲ့သူ မဟုတ္ေခ်။ စစ္တကၠသိုလ္တခုခုတြင္ ေအာင္ျမင္ၿပီးေနာက္ ေတာ္လွန္ေရးနယ္ေျမသို႔ ေရာက္ရွိခဲ့သူလည္း မ ဟုတ္ေခ်။ သူသည္ ေသးငယ္သည့္ အညတရ ေတာင္ေပၚကရင္႐ြာေလးတ႐ြာတြင္ ေမြးဖြားခဲ့ၿပီး ေက်းလက္မွာ ပင္ ပညာသင္ၿပီး ေတာ္လွန္ေရးနယ္ေျမသို႔ ေရာက္ခဲ့သူျဖစ္သည္။သူ႔ဘ၀သည္ ေတာ္လွန္ေရးစစ္သည္ဘ၀မွ ေတာ္လွန္ေရးေခါင္းေဆာင္ျဖစ္လာသူတဦးျဖစ္၍ ႐ုိး႐ိုးရွင္းရွင္းသာ ေျပာဆိုေနထိုင္တတ္၊ ႐ုိး႐ိုးရွင္းရွင္းသာ ဆက္ဆံတတ္သူျဖစ္သည္။ သူ၏ ႐ုိးစင္းပုံတခုကို ေျပာရမည္ဆိုလွ်င္ ေခတ္ၿပိင္သတင္းစာ ထူေထာင္ခါစတြင္ျဖစ္သည္။ ေခတ္ၿပိင္သတင္းစာကို ဦးစီးထုတ္ေ၀ေနေသာ ဦးတင္ ေမာင္၀င္းက မာနယ္ပေလာသို႔ ေရာက္လာၿပီး ေခတ္ၿပိင္အေျခအေနကို ရွင္းျပပါသည္။ဦးတင္ေမာင္၀င္းက “ဥကၠ႒ႀကီးေရ ေခတ္ၿပိင္ကေတာ့ ဂူတလုံးတည္းမွာ ျခေသၤ့ (၂) ေကာင္ ၀င္ေအာင္းသလို ျဖစ္ေနၿပီ၊ က်ေနာ့္ဆရာႀကီး (၂) ဦးက ဘယ္လိုမွ ေပါင္းစပ္ေပးလို႔မရေအာင္ ျဖစ္ေနတယ္၊ ဥကၠ႒ႀကီး ဘယ္လို အၾကံေပးမလဲ၊ က်ေနာ့္ကို ကူပါဦး” ဟု ေျပာေသာအခါ ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ျမက “လြယ္ပါတယ္ဗ်ာ၊ ျခေသၤ့ႏွစ္ေကာင္ျဖစ္ ေနရင္ တေကာင္ကို အထီးလုပ္ခိုင္းၿပီး က်န္တေကာင္ကို အမလုပ္ခိုင္းလိုက္႐ံုပဲေပါ့ဗ်ာ” ဟု ျပန္ေျပာလိုက္ သည့္အခါ ဤစကား၀ိုင္းေလးတြင္ ပြဲက်ခဲ့ရဖူးပါသည္။ထိုကိစၥကို က်ေနာ့္မိတ္ေဆြ ကာယကံရွင္ႀကီးကို ေျပာျပရာ ထိုပုဂၢိဳလ္က “ေဟ့ .. ငါ့မ်က္ႏွာကို ေသေသခ်ာခ်ာ ၾကည့္၊ ျခေသၤ့မေတာ့ ဘယ္ေတာ့မွ မလုပ္ႏုိင္ဘူးကြ” ဟု ျပန္ေျပာသျဖင့္ ပြဲက်ခဲ့ရျပန္ေလသည္။ရန္သူမ်ားက သူ႔ကို “ေသာင္းက်န္းသူ ငျမ” ဟု ထပ္ခါတလဲလဲ မေရမတြက္ႏိုင္ေအာင္ ေခၚဆိုေရးသားျခင္းကို ခံခဲ့ရၿပီး ေတာ္လွန္ေရးအင္အားစုမ်ားက သူ႔ကို ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ျမဟုလည္းေကာင္း၊ ဥကၠ႒ႀကီးဟုလည္းေကာင္း၊ အဖိုး ဟုလည္းေကာင္း၊ ေလးေလးစားစားေခၚခဲ့ၾကသည့္ ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ျမသည္ ဆယ္ႏွစ္ဆယ္မိုးမေျပာႏွင့္ တႏွစ္တာ ေလာက္ကိုပင္ အသက္ကိုေပး၍ ခက္ခဲစြာဆင္ႏႊဲၾကရသည့္ ေတာ္လွန္ေရးအလုပ္မ်ဳိးကို သူသည္ (၅၇) ႏွစ္ တိုင္တိုင္ ထမ္းေဆာင္ခဲ့သူျဖစ္သည္။သူသည္ တပ္သားဘ၀မွေန၍ စစ္ဦးႀကီးခ်ဳပ္၊ KNU ဥကၠ႒၊ NDF ဥကၠ႒၊ DAB ဥကၠ႒၊ NCUB ဥကၠ႒ စသည့္ တာ၀န္အမ်ဳိးမ်ဳိး အဆင့္ဆင့္ကို ထမ္းေဆာင္ခဲ့ၿပီးေနာက္ ယခုအခါ သူ႔လုပ္ေဖာ္ကိုင္ဖက္မ်ား၊ သူ႔ရဲေဘာ္မ်ား၊ သူ႔အမ်ဳိးသားမ်ား၊ သူ႔ျပည္သူမ်ားကို စြန္႔ခြာ၍ အနားယူသြားခဲ့ၿပီျဖစ္သည္။ သူ၏ တသက္တာသည္ သူ႔ထက္ အဆမတန္အင္အားႀကီးမားသည့္ ရန္သူ႔တပ္၊ ရန္သူ၏ ထိုးစစ္ႀကီးမ်ားကို အႏိုင္မခံအ႐ံႈးမေပးဘဲ ရာစုႏွစ္၀က္ ေက်ာ္ ဦးစီးတိုက္ခိုက္ခဲ့သည့္ ေတာ္လွန္ေရးတသက္တာပင္ျဖစ္သည္။သူကြယ္လြန္သြားၿပီးေနာက္ ေနာင္လာေနာက္သားမ်ားသည္ သူ၏ တသက္တာအတြင္းမွ၊ ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ျမဆိုေသာ သစ္ပင္၏ ပင္စည္အတြင္းမွ သူ၏အျမစ္၊ သူ၏အႏွစ္၊ သူ၏အကာ၊ သူ၏အကိုင္း၊ သူ၏အခက္၊ သူ၏အရြက္၊ သူ၏အပြင့္၊ သူ၏အသီး၊ သူ၏အဆင္း၊ သူ၏ရနံ႔မ်ားကို ခြဲျခမ္းရွာေဖြၾကည့္ပါက၊ ရွာေဖြတတ္ပါက ဤသစ္ပင္ သည္ မည္သို႔ေသာ သစ္ပင္နည္းဟူေသာ အသိႏွင့္အတူ လြတ္လပ္မႈ၊ တရားမွ်တမႈအတြက္ လိုအပ္သည့္ အ သိခြန္အားမ်ားကို ရရွိေစႏိုင္ေၾကာင္း ေဖာ္ျပလိုက္ရပါသည္။
မန္းရွာလားဖန္း
(ေခတ္ၿပိဳင္ဂ်ာနယ္ ၂၀၀၇ ခုႏွစ္ ဇန္န၀ါရီလထုတ္မွ ...)
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Attacks, Displacement and Oppression in Karen and Karenni States
January 20, 2009 ·
FBR REPORT: Pictures of Oppression: Attacks, Displacement and Oppression in Karen and Karenni StatesKaren State, Burma19 January, 2009
Small Child carries his belongings into hiding as Burma Army troops attack.
Central Karen State: Burma Army and DKBA troops continue to attack civilians and KNLA troops in central Karen State along the Thai border. Villagers now have fewer and fewer places to hide.Northern Karen State: Relief in the Face of Attacks. Over 200 Internally Displaced People (IDPs) fled Burma Army attacks in the area of Takawder village in Kyauk Kyi Township.Karenni State: In southern Karenni State the Burma Army is trying to terrorize the population into submission by attacking those in hiding, capturing and forcing villagers to act as guides and porters.Dear Friends,Here are some photos and information we are sending directly from the field from our relief teams in areas of northern and central Karen State as well as Karenni State. We hope these photos help to paint a clearer picture of Burma Army attacks and oppression over the last several weeks. All photos were taken in December 2008 or January 2009.
The photos from central Karen State show some of the recently displaced, as villagers are fleeing attacks by the Burma Army and one of its proxy armies, the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA). The photos from northern Karen State also show villagers fleeing, in hiding, and relief teams giving medical treatment in the midst of recent attacks in Nyaunglebin District. The photo from Karenni State shows a newly placed Burma Army landmine, one of the main weapons the Burma Army uses to terrorize local populations into permanent displacement.
We want to thank all of you who continue to stand with the people of Burma as they face the attacks and oppression of Burma’s dictators.
http://www.freeburmarangers.org/Reports/2009/20090119.html
FBR REPORT: Pictures of Oppression: Attacks, Displacement and Oppression in Karen and Karenni StatesKaren State, Burma19 January, 2009
Small Child carries his belongings into hiding as Burma Army troops attack.
Central Karen State: Burma Army and DKBA troops continue to attack civilians and KNLA troops in central Karen State along the Thai border. Villagers now have fewer and fewer places to hide.Northern Karen State: Relief in the Face of Attacks. Over 200 Internally Displaced People (IDPs) fled Burma Army attacks in the area of Takawder village in Kyauk Kyi Township.Karenni State: In southern Karenni State the Burma Army is trying to terrorize the population into submission by attacking those in hiding, capturing and forcing villagers to act as guides and porters.Dear Friends,Here are some photos and information we are sending directly from the field from our relief teams in areas of northern and central Karen State as well as Karenni State. We hope these photos help to paint a clearer picture of Burma Army attacks and oppression over the last several weeks. All photos were taken in December 2008 or January 2009.
The photos from central Karen State show some of the recently displaced, as villagers are fleeing attacks by the Burma Army and one of its proxy armies, the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA). The photos from northern Karen State also show villagers fleeing, in hiding, and relief teams giving medical treatment in the midst of recent attacks in Nyaunglebin District. The photo from Karenni State shows a newly placed Burma Army landmine, one of the main weapons the Burma Army uses to terrorize local populations into permanent displacement.
We want to thank all of you who continue to stand with the people of Burma as they face the attacks and oppression of Burma’s dictators.
http://www.freeburmarangers.org/Reports/2009/20090119.html
Sunday, January 18, 2009
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