page_title: Karen conflict
section_title: Role of Thailand and the United States
hierarchical_section_title: Karen conflict / Development of the Karen conflict / Role of Thailand and the United States
caption_attribution_description: English: Karen girls just outside their school in March 2010. Unmarried girls usually wear the simple white dresses as shown in the image. I am not sure why the girl on the left is wearing a short blue blouse as it isn't the usual dress for a married woman either. These girls belong to the Pagaguryor subgroup (Thai script: ปกากะญอ; RTGS Pakakayo), better known as the "Skaw Karen" or "S'gaw Karen" in literature, who are the main Karen subgroup in Thailand. This image was made in Ban Nong Haeng, in tambon Mueang Pon, Khun Yuam District, Mae Hong Son Province, Thailand.
context_page_description: The Karen conflict is an armed conflict in Kayin State, Myanmar. The conflict has been described as one of the world's "longest running civil wars".
  Karen nationalists have been fighting for an independent state known as Kawthoolei since 1949. In the over seventy-year-long conflict there have been many different combatants, the most influential of which are the Karen National Union and their Karen National Liberation Army, and the Tatmadaw, the armed forces of Myanmar. Tens of thousands of Karen people have faced genocide, torture, and gang rape at the hands of the Tatmadaw. Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been displaced throughout the course of the conflict, 200,000 of whom have fled to neighbouring Thailand and are still currently confined to refugee camps.
context_section_description: The Thai government historically used Karen State as a buffer zone against the Burmese. After the Second World War the Thai were afraid of a communist insurgency developing from a union between Thai and Burmese communists, supported by China. Thus the Thai and US government supported Karen rebellions through the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. The US government however also supported the Burmese government to fight communists. The US government provided weapons and American produced helicopters. The KNU has claimed that these weapons have been used against them. General Bo Mya once described the KNU as Thailands' 'foreign legion', because the KNU guarded the border the organisation prevented Thai and Burmese communists from unification. The strong shift to the right in 1976 under Bo Mya was a strategy to gain support from the Thai government. Thailands' policy changed in the 1990s when the Thai government started engaging its neighbours national government as equals. In 1997 Burma became a member of the ASEAN. The Thai government subsequently turned away from supporting the Karen armed groups.
  The first Karen started to cross the border with Thailand in 1984 as a result from a major Four Cuts offensive by the Tatmadaw which lasted up to 1990. By the mid-1990s tens of thousands of Karen refugees were living in camps along the Thai border. After the fall of Manerplaw in 1995, 10,000 refugees crossed the border, most of them Karen.
  The Karen Conflict has been able to run for several decades because it has profited from being located in a border area. The introduction of the Burmese Way to Socialism helped to create a financial base for the KNU which has profited greatly from bordertrade with Thailand. The KNU levied taxes on in- and outgoing products. Besides that the KNU and other Karen armed groups have used the refugee camps in Thailand as sources for limited material support. KNU/KNLA family members received shelter in and supplies from the camps.
  After the fall of Manerplaw in 1995, the KNU leadership has moved their headquarters to the border town of Mae Sot in Thailand. This has caused tension between the KNU leadership and the KNU officers on the ground within Burma. There is also disagreement amongst the Brigade leaders themselves, particularly between the Third and Fifth Brigades and the Fourth Brigade in the South, in the Tenasserim region. The Tatmadaw opened a new offensive in 1997. This again resulted in a new stream of Karen refugees towards Thailand. The border at Mae Sot was closed for a short period in 2010 because of rising tensions between the KNU and the DKBA.
  The organisational structure of the KNU was so successful it has been copied by other insurgent groups in Burma. Each unit of the KNU was self-supporting. Not only the armed units, but also the hospitals and schools were self-supporting. The strength of this strategy is that it is hard to erase such a movement since it is very spread out and lacks a centre. The weakness and disadvantage of the KNU has been that KNU units had trouble getting help from their neighbouring KNU units.
caption: S'gaw Karen girls of Khun Yuam District, Mae Hong Son Province, Thailand
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