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UNSC – The Karen Conflict (Myanmar)

Committee Introduction: UNSC

The Security Council has primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace
and security. It has 15 Members, and each Member has one vote. Five permanent
members with veto power: China, France, Russian Federation, United Kingdom of Great
Britain, and United States of America along with ten non-permanent members, five of which
are elected each year by the General Assembly for a two-year term. Under the Charter of the
United Nations, all Member States are obligated to comply with Council decisions.
The Security Council takes the lead in determining the existence of a threat to the peace or
act of aggression. It calls upon the parties to a dispute to settle it by peaceful means and
recommends methods of adjustment or terms of settlement. In some cases, the Security
Council can resort to imposing sanctions or even authorize the use of force to maintain or
restore international peace and security.
The UN's role in international collective security is defined by the UN Charter, which
authorizes the Security Council to investigate any situation threatening international peace;
recommend procedures for peaceful resolution of a dispute; call upon other member nations
to completely or partially interrupt economic relations as well as sea, air, postal and radio
communications, or to sever diplomatic relations; and enforce its decisions militarily, or by
any means necessary.
Under Chapter VI of the Charter, "Pacific Settlement of Disputes", the Security Council "may
investigate any dispute, or any situation which might lead to international friction or give rise
to a dispute". The Council may "recommend appropriate procedures or methods of
adjustment" if it determines that the situation might endanger international peace and
security. These recommendations are generally considered to not be binding, as they lack an
enforcement mechanism.
Under Chapter VII, the council has broader power to decide what measures are to be taken in
situations involving "threats to the peace, breaches of the peace, or acts of aggression." In
such situations, the council is not limited to recommendations but may take action including
the use of armed force "to maintain or restore international peace and security." Decisions
taken under Chapter VII, such as economic sanctions, are binding on UN members; the
Security Council is the only UN body with authority to issue binding resolutions.
The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court recognizes that the Security Council
has authority to refer cases to the Court in which the Court could not otherwise exercise
jurisdiction.
Security Council Resolution 1674, adopted on 28 April 2006, "reaffirms the provisions of
paragraphs 138 and 139 of the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document regarding the
responsibility to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes
against humanity". The Security Council reaffirmed this responsibility to
protect in Resolution 1706 on 31 August of that year. These resolutions commit the Security
Council to protect civilians in an armed conflict, including action against genocide, war
crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.

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UNSC – The Karen Conflict (Myanmar)

Introduction to the topic:

The Karen Conflict (1949–present day) is an armed conflict in Myanmar (Burma) known as
the 'longest civil war in the world'. The Karen nationalist movement has been fighting for
more autonomy and/or independence within Burma. The Karen people have been fighting for
an independent Karen state since 1949, to Karen known as Kawthoolei. In the sixty year long
conflict many different actors have participated. The two most influential actors were
the Karen National Union (abbreviated KNU), a political organization with an armed wing,
the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) and the Burmese Tatmadaw.

The conflict has mainly been fought in modern day Karen state, which was established in
1952 by the Burmese government. Only a minority of the total Karen population live within
the borders of this state. Hundreds of thousands of Karen and other ethnic groups have been
killed in the conflict. The conflict has also caused many Karen to flee Burma to Thailand.

History of the Karen People:

The Karen people are one of the largest ethnic groups in Southeast Asia. The Karen
constitutes a population of 5-7 million and around twenty different Karen dialects are
recognized of which Sgaw and Pwo Karen are the two most widely spoken. Other groups of
Karen are the Kayah, Bwe, Kayan, Bre, Pa-o and some other subgroups. The Karen
languages are part of the Tibeto-Burman languages which are a branch of the Sino-Tibetan
languages.

It is generally agreed that the Karen began to arrive in what is today known as Burma around
500 BC. The Karen are believed to come from what is known today as Mongolia and
travelled south through three river valleys: the Mekong Valley, the Irrawaddy Valley and the
Salween valley. The Karen traditionally have five oral legends which explains their ancestry.
The word 'Karen' is derived from different Tai and Burmese names for a collective term
referring to people in the forest and in the mountains. The term Karen was never used by the
people who are referred to by the term today. It was not until the nineteenth century that
Christian missionaries from America and British colonial officers labelled these people
'Karen'.

The Karen are not a homogenous group. Different groups of Karen did not share the same
history within the kingdoms of pre-colonial Burma or the British colonial empire. Some
Karen fulfilled functions as ministers in urbanized kingdoms like the Pegu kingdom in the
sixteenth century. Other Karen developed a subsistence way of living in the forests bordering
Thailand and some Karen still practice this way of life. Around 20% of the Karen are
Christian whereas 75% is Buddhists. A small percentage of Karen is animist and in the
lowland river delta the so-called 'black Karen', a small minority, is Muslim. The Pwo
speaking population constitutes around 80% of the total Karen population and they are
mainly Buddhist. The speakers of Pwo Karen live in the plains of central and lower Burma
and were assimilated into the dominant Mon social system throughout history. These 'Mon-
Karen' or Talaing Kayin had a special status and were an essential part of Mon court life.
The Bama Kayin or Sgaw Karen were either absorbed into Burmese society or pushed

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towards the mountains bordering Thailand in the east and Southeast of Burma by
the Burmese population. The Karen living in Burma’s eastern hills named the Dawna
Range and

the Tenasserim Hills bordering Thailand developed their own distinct society and history.
The hill Karen communities developed a subsistence way of life.

Today about three million Karen live in the Irrawaddy River delta, and they have developed
an urbanized society based on the agriculture of rice. Karen communities are religiously,
linguistically, culturally separated and geographically dispersed.

Karen Conflict in the 1900’s:

The Karen National Union declared war to the Burmese government on 31 January 1949.
Ever since the start the conflict has been characterized by seasonal dependent fighting,
internal struggles within the KNU and atrocities being committed by both sides. The
KNU/KNLA army has been divided into seven brigades. Occasionally a brigade Commander
would act independently from the KNU leadership.

Shortly after the outbreak of the conflict Then KNU president Saw Ba U Gyi created the Four
Principles: 1. Surrender is out of the question. 2. Recognition of the Karen State must be
completed. 3. We shall retain our arms. 4. We shall determine our destiny.

These hard-line principles have prevented the KNU from compromising and making any
concessions towards the Tatmadaw. In the 1950s the conflict was well under way. A
remarkable development was that prominent Karen such as General Smith Dun refused to
join the rebellion. The KNU booked several military successes against the Burmese army.
Yet this changed throughout the 1950s. In 1954 the British Service Mission (BSM) was
closed. The BSM was a legacy of the colonial time and many employees sympathized with
the Karen. Furthermore, during this decade, the Tatmadaw reorganized and transformed into
a modern standing army. The Tatmadaw introduced the Four Cuts strategy in the late 1960s.
The strategy is aimed to cut off rebellious groups of their four sources of food, funds,
intelligence and recruits. This strategy has been proven to be very effective. In 1963-1964
peace talks were held with no result.

The 1970s the KNU struggled with several internal rebellions like the rise of the Telecon.
This religious sect was found in the nineteenth century. The leaders of Telecon have
presented themselves as the true Karen, thus posing a threat to KNU leadership. In 1972
Telecon leaders were executed after an invitation from the KNLA's Sixth Brigade
Commander. Another example of internal KNU conflict is the case of Lt-Col. Thu Mu Hae.
Thu Mu Hae's Sixteenth Battalion under the command of the KNLA's Sixth Brigade
Commander had been acting independently since the late 1980s. Officials from the KNU
could only enter Kawkareik township if they were accompanied by fifty soldiers or more,
because Thu Mu Hae had in effect a private warlord army.

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The Karen Conflict has been portrayed by the outside world as a conflict which
was fought in the hills along the Thai-Burma border. But in the 1950s and 1960s Karen
insurgency groups also attacked Burmese targets in the Irrawaddy River delta. The Four Cuts
strategy of the Tatmadaw eventually forced the Karen armed units in the delta to continue
fighting from their stronghold in the border hills. Since 1966 General Bo Mya was the KNU
leader in the eastern division of the Karen conflict. A remarkable turnaround was in 1976, the
year when

General Bo Mya became the KNU's president. The KNU reformed under Gen. Bo Mya and
after 1976 the KNU developed a strong anti-communist character. In 1976 the KNU changed
its demand for an independent Karen State or Kawthoolei into a demand for more autonomy.
The history of the Karen insurgency was also rewritten and the history of the communist
inspired wing of the KNU, led by the Karen veteran and the KNU's strategist Mahn Ba Zan,
was left out. Mahn Ba Zan had led the Karen insurgency in the river delta in the 1950s and
1960s.

The KNU reached the height of its power in the 1980s and early 1990s. In 1989 a ceasefire
proposal designed by the Tatmadaw was refused by the Karen National Union. In 1994 peace
talks between the KNU leadership and the Tatmadaw were held again. But the KNU
leadership refused to accept a ceasefire. Former KNU Foreign Affairs Secretary David Taw
has described how in 1993 exile Burmese politicians told General Bo Mya not to pursue a
ceasefire with the military government. They expected that the 'international community'
would soon start to support the KNU through diplomacy. In December 1994 a thousand KNU
soldiers established the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army or DKBA. These Buddhists troops
had been complaining for years about anti-Buddhist discrimination by local Christian KNU
officers. These Buddhists Karen soldiers were dissatisfied with the Christian leadership and
corruption of the KNU and their decision to stop the ceasefire negotiations. A final split was
triggered by a dispute over the building of a Buddhist pagoda on a military strategic hill near
Manerplaw. With the help of the Tatmadaw this group overran the headquarter of the KNU in
the city of Manerplaw, near the border with Thailand. The DKBA developed into a stronger
and bigger organization than the KNU within several years.

In 1995, 1996 and 1997 several meetings were held between the KNU leadership and military
officials of the Tatmadaw. However General Bo Mya and other hard-liners refused to accept
any government constructed ceasefire proposal. In 1997 the KNU leadership hardened their
position, demanding the release of political prisoners and more political dialogue. This
resulted in further decimation of the strength of the KNU. In 1997 former KNU-KNLA
armed units established the Karen Peace Force or KPF. In 1998 the forestry minister of the
KNU established the P'doh Aung San Group. In the same year a small ceasefire group was
founded in Northern Karen State in Taungoo district. In the Southern part of Karen State or
Myanmar two twin brothers established God's Army in February 1997 in the immediate
aftermath of this offensive. The twin brothers led villagers and old KNLA members of the
Fourth Brigade of the Tenasserim Region into armed clashes with government troops,
separated from the KNU's leaders. Eventually the two hundred strong militia occupied a
hospital in Thailand's Ratchaburi and broke up after this.

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UNSC – The Karen Conflict (Myanmar)

After the fall of Manerplaw the KNU also lost its stronghold just north of it
called Kawmoora. A direct result of all this was that the KNU lost most of its income derived
from tax revenue, logging deals and cross-border trade. The loss of its financial base was also
due to changing international relations. The threat of Communism disappeared in the 1990s,
thus the U.S. and Thai government changed policies. When the KNU attacked an oil pipeline
in Karen state in 1995, the U.S. government gave an official warning to the KNU for the first
time.

From the start the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) has been affiliated with the
Burmese army. The DKBA always orientated for support to the Burmese government. The

DKBA has never developed a unifying Karen nationalist political policy. Party due to its lack
in English language skills the DKBA lacks international support. Unlike the KNU the DKBA
does not use terms like democratic, liberal, human rights and other terms welcomed by
Western democratic discourse. The DKBA controlled areas teach Burmese instead of Karen,
thus following official government policy. Most of the DKBA's armed units have been
transformed into Border Guard Forces or BGF's.

Karen Conflict since 2000:

The Karen split up into many different armed units after the 1990s. The Karen National
Union (KNU) was heavily weakened after this decade. In 2004 substantial ceasefire talks
were held again between Gen. Bo Mya and Burmese general Khin Nyunt. Unfortunately,
Khin Nyunt was expulsed from the government. In 2005 two more peace talks were held, but
it was clear that the new government under the leadership of Than Shwe was not interested in
establishing a ceasefire. In 2006 the long-term leader and Second World War Veteran
General Bo Mya died.
Old-time general secretary of the KNU, Padoh Mahn Sha Lah Phan took over Bo Mya's
function. Padoh Mahn Sha was important for political relations and the reorganisation of the
KNU. On 14 February 2008, he was assassinated. In 2007 Major General Htin Maung left
with a sizeable portion of the KNLA Seventh Brigade. This group now calls themselves
KNU-KNLA Peace Council. If further decimated the strength and influence of the KNU.
On 20 March 2010, 2 people were killed and 11 were wounded in a blast on a bus in Karen
state.
In November 2010 Myanmar–Thailand border areas saw an upsurge in fighting following
elections in November 2010. Twenty thousand people fled over the border to Thailand in
November 2010. For the first time in fifteen years, the KNU and the DKBA were united to
fight the Tatmadaw. But as of early 2011 the KNU is only one in seven Karen armed factions
that are active in fighting. The KNU barely holds any territory inside Burma and the future of
the organisation and the Karen struggle for independence is uncertain. An initial ceasefire
was reached on 12 January 2012 in Hpa-an and fighting has stopped in nearly all Karen State.
The KNU signed the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) with the government of
Myanmar on 15 October 2015, along with seven other insurgent groups. However, in March
2018, the government of Myanmar violated the agreement by sending 400 Tatmadaw soldiers
into KNU-held territory to build a road connecting two military bases. Armed clashes erupted

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between the KNU and the Myanmar Army in the Ler Mu Plaw area of Hpapun
District, resulting in the displacement of 2,000 people. On 17 May 2018, the Tatmadaw
agreed to "temporarily postpone" their road project and to withdraw troops from the area.
The KNU resumed its fight against the Myanmar government following the 2021 military
coup.
On 27 April 2021, KNU insurgents captured the army camp of Thaw Le Hta on the west bank
of the Salween River, which forms Myanmar's border with Thailand. The Tatmadaw later
retaliated with airstrikes on KNU positions. There were no casualties reported by either side.
On 21 March 2022, Karen forces overran the Maw Khee base near the Thai border in
Dooplaya District. The junta army suffered casualties when they tried to counter-attack the
KNLA in the village of Bla Doh.
On 17 May, the KNLA took back the Thay Baw Bo camp south of Myawaddy from the
Tatmadaw, which had occupied the camp since 1990.
The role of Thailand and the United States of America:

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 communist, supported by China. Thus, the Thai and
U.S. government supported Karen rebellions through the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. The U.S.
government however also supported the Burmese government to fight communist. The U.S.
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
Thailand’s 'foreign legion', because the KNU guarded the border the organization prevented
Thai and Burmese communist from unification. The strong shift to the right in 1976 under Bo
Mya was a strategy to gain support from the Thai government. Thailand’s policy changed in
the 1990s when the Thai government started engaging its neighbour’s 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 border trade 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

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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 organizational 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.

QUESTIONS A RESOLUTION MUST ANSWER (QARMA):

1. How did the Karen conflict start and major contributors?
2. How has the conflict aggravated over the years and the role of major stakeholders?
3. How has Myanmar’s government, breaking the ceasefire agreement affected peace in
the region?
4. How to initiate peace talks between the Karen people and government?
5. How can the international community and United Nations help with disarmament and
how can they intervene to stop armed conflict?
6. What threat does the Karen conflict impose on international security?
7. Is it viable to deploy peace keeping forces in the Myanmar region?
8. How to ensure long-term sustainability of peace agreements and cease fire agreements
in Myanmar region?

References
 https://www.un.org/securitycouncil/
 https://research.un.org/en/docs/sc
 https://www.detailedpedia.com/wiki-Karen_conflict
 https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/Karen_Conflict
 https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter