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War, Love, Loss, and... Hope
By Mahn Robert Ba Zan
Introduction: A Testimonial on War
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Mahn Robert Ba Zahn
"Phu Khi Doh"
with Homemade rocket launcher
Kawthoolei, 1996
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In the following brief narrative, War, Love, Loss, and...Hope, Karen
guerilla fighter, Mahn Robert Ba Zan, recounts his war experiences in an
honest and no holds barred fashion. Members of Zan's ethnic group, the Karen,
have been embroiled in armed conflict with successive Burmese governments for
the last 50 years. His accounts clearly show the heavy price this war has
extolled on combatants on both sides, as well as the civilian population.
Zan's story is one of both victory and waste, revolutionary fervor and
hopelessness, and is perhaps, a miniature representation of the nature of war
itself. Living in a torturous paradox, Zan, a man who detests killing, feels
impelled to shield his people from the savagery of the Burmese Army. Despite
the travails of war, Zan holds fast to his ideals and wishes to see all those
who are abused and exploited by the Burmese regime, including the Burmese foot
soldiers whom he must face on the battlefield, to someday realize the dream of
peace and hope for Burma.
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Phu Khi Doh
at the front line
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Background: The Struggle
The Karen revolutionary struggle in Burma is
among the most brutal, longest running, and least known armed conflicts of the
modern era. The current military dictatorship in Burma, whom the Karen
revolutionaries oppose, has been staunchly criticized by a myriad of nations,
as well as world, religious, and human rights organizations for brutalizing
its own people. Today, in the hills and jungles of Burma the Karen and a
handful of other anti-Burmese military dictatorship groups continue to hold
out against the illegal and abusive Burmese regime. Presently, there are
nearly 300,000 people from Burma that are refugees.
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