Bridge Over the River Moei: Video

On the Thai-Myanmar border, the ethnic Karen people have suffered through political and military setbacks, with thousands of people displaced, in their 58-year fight for independence from Myanmar.

ON THE THAI-MYANMAR BORDER - The Karen people — one of hundreds of different ethnic groups within Myanmar (formerly called Burma) — have fought the longest civil war in the world, a 58-year effort to win autonomy from the military junta that rules the country.

But the Karen have faced a number of political and military setbacks in the last ten years that have resulted in more than 125,000 refugees fleeing across the border to live in camps on the Thai side. Thousands more gather in camps and temporary villages along the Myanmar border lands.

It is, their leaders say, a desperate situation in which an entire group of people seems stuck in limbo with verbal support, but little actual assistance, from the international community.

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VIDEO TRANSCRIPT 

KEVIN SITES voice-over:
It is a rebel army whose only major victory is staying together after 58 long years.

The Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) has fought for autonomy for the ethnic Karen people for decades and generations. But after a splinter group of rebels joined the Myanmar government in 1995, the KNLA was pushed out of its jungle headquarters.

Beset by divisions, an aging leadership and a lack of military equipment, today they are reduced to playing defense.

The KNLA is observing a two-year cease-fire with the government, even while they say the army continues to mount offensives against Karen villages inside Myanmar. These attacks have swelled the number of Karen refugees on both sides of the Thailand-Myanmar border.

The KNLA's 22nd Battalion, 7th Division » View

We travel by boat up the Moei River, then by foot to reach the Ler Per Her refugee camp inside Myanmar.

Today many of the families have come to the camp's health clinic to get de-worming medicine and vitamin A supplements for their children — necessary because of the poor hygienic conditions. Dozens of others have come for malaria medication, a disease which becomes rampant during the rainy season here.

There are no doctors, only a handful of Karen medical technicians, trained by NGOs (non-governmental organizations) to treat the camp's 750 residents.

Many more Karen refugees, feeling unsafe here, have fled to the Thai side of the border, or somewhere in between.

KEVIN SITES, on camera:
Behind me is the Thai-Myanmar Friendship Bridge. Now, this is the official crossing point between the two countries in this area. But for many Burmese, crossing the border unofficially is a fairly easy affair. Once they are here they're cheap labor. They'll work for as little as 100 baht a day — about 3 U.S. dollars.

KEVIN SITES, voice-over:
The Thai government says it won't accept any more Myanmar refugees. But Karen officials say the cheap labor source is a boon for agricultural production, causing the Thais to look the other way. But in Thailand the refugees bring their problems with them — wounds both physical and psychological from years of this conflict.

The Mae Tao clinic in Thailand is an unregistered medical center that treats Myanmar refugees, including the hundreds of individuals wounded by land mines. Here they are fitted for prosthetic limbs.

As a KNLA soldier, Pa No Htoo lost both of his arms and his eyesight to a land mine. Ironically it was one he set himself, and accidentally triggered with his hand. Now he lives at a handicap center at the Mae La refugee camp, and says his only happiness comes from singing.

His voice — one of the few things not lost in the violence, but discovered after — a small but soothing relief that many Karen civilians seem to hope for, after so many years of war.

Reporting from the Hot Zone, I'm Kevin Sites, on the Thai-Myanmar border.

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