This is a terrific video from the besieged Kachin micro-state in northern Myanmar, published today by the NY Times.
In case you can't watch the embedded video above, here's the link to the permanent URL: NY TIMES Kachin Video
In 2008, I spent a month in the part of Myanmar portrayed in the video, reporting for the Pulitzer Center and teaching journalism workshops with Documentary Arts Asia. Here are a couple of my articles about Kachin:
Ryan Libre has lived for several extended periods in Kachin, working as a documentary photographer and filmmaker. He maintains the site FreeKachin.org.
After almost two decades of uneasy peace, war has returned to Kachin, in the north of Burma. The Burmese military and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) have been fighting for almost a week in an area close to controversial Chinese hydro-electric projects. Both sides have suffered fatalities, civilians are fleeing to the Chinese border, and the Kachins are accusing the Burmese of torturing and killing prisoners of war.
The fighting in Kachin is not unexpected. The Kachin people - who are predominantly Christian - insist on a political role within a federal union of Burma, while the Burmese government attempts to exert exclusive economic and political control over Kachin's rich natural resources. Tensions have been rising in recent years, and many observers felt that only China's watchful and wary presence had kept the two antagonists at bay until now.
Although the Burmese government and media has been silent about the fighting in Kachin, the news is hitting worldwide media, helped along by a very savvy media relations campaign within the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO). The KIO's policy of promoting a free media and inviting foreign journalists (like myself) into their territory stands in stark contrast to the fierce repression that muzzles the media in most of Burma.
In my opinion, the one thing that some foreign media is getting wrong, however, is the framing of this conflict, which is too often portrayed as tribal and remote - fighting between tribes in a lawless land. Kachin is not a remote jungle backwater, the Kachin people are not tribal head-hunters, and Kachin soldiers do NOT hack the ears off their enemies. The territory at stake is one of the most economically important and politically open parts of Burma, and the Kachin people are fully aware of their situation and how it fits within a contemporary global context.
Many Kachins can speak eloquently about their political dilemma in at least four languages, including English, Chinese, Burmese and Jinghpaw. The political leadership is expert in diplomacy and eager to develop and democratize.
Kachin leaders like Gun Maw, a chief negotiator for the KIO, embody an alternative leadership for a new Burma that recognizes human rights. Unlike the sclerotic and ineffective domestic opposition, embodied by the National League for Democracy, the KIO leadership is seasoned by the experience of governing through challenging times.
Historically, the Kachin quest for international recognition and political legitimacy was hamstrung by involvement in the drug trade, but since a 1994 ceasefire, and especially in the past three years, the KIO has campaigned extensively against the cultivation, distribution, and use of opium and other illegal drugs. The Kachin gamble was that political legitimacy and international awareness would prove more valuable than money from the drug trade.
"We need a lot of help," commented a Kachin leader during my visit in 2008. "We need moral support, material support, political support, and legal support."
Much is at stake in Kachin. The KIO is calling for Beijing to mediate the current conflict, but the Chinese are in close communication with the Burmese military. Whether or not the conflict spreads may depend on the extent to which the front line units of the Burmese army will answer to the military command. It may also depend on the willingness of the international community to address a conflict that is playing out in China's backyard.
The article has gone popular on Digg.com and is generating thousands of page-views and much needed publicity for the struggle of pious people facing horrific oppression.
Please share the article as widely as you can. The people of Kachin need our help right now.
Here is a video of Kachin people singing Christmas carols last year:
On a blustery afternoon last December, senior officers in the Kachin Independence Army gathered for lunch in the Himalayan foothills of northern Myanmar, just a stone’s throw from the Chinese border, at a wartime military base called Pajau.
Lunch was a classy affair, served outside on a picnic table next to the liaison office. The officers ate and drank with the mountain sun on their faces. They were in their 50s and 60s, and had fought the Burmese military in these mountains since their teenage years.
Ever since a ceasefire agreement was signed in 1994, there has been peace in Kachin land. On this December day, the officers attended a graduation ceremony for Kachin army clerks, followed by lunch in the sun with two American journalists.
The food was rich and fatty, and attentive young soldiers stood by with Merlot and Johnny Walker Black. The officers leaned back in their chairs, loosened their belts and soaked it all in.
Zeng Haw, a 61-year-old colonel wearing a U.S. Army jacket with BATMAN on the name badge, commented happily on the scene.
“Before the ceasefire, we never had enough rice. There was no salt, and we were always cold. Life was hard. Now we have wine and pork and American guests.”
After lunch, two of the officers drove down the switchbacks from Pajau to Laiza, the Kachin’s peacetime headquarters. On the way, they stopped at Victory Hill.
“Four-hundred of our soldiers died here in ’91,” one said. “We killed eight-hundred Burmese and took the hill.”
Down in the valley there was no wind and military academy cadets practiced advancing under fire, a sort of one-legged crab run through the dust.
These cadets were polite, smooth-skinned and eager for war. They wanted freedom. They wanted development. They wanted to fight Burmese.
“I have a degree in economics, but there is no job for me,” said a 22-year-old, his AK-47 loosely slung over his shoulder. “There are no good positions for Kachin people. There is oppression and exploitation everywhere.”
“My generation thinks there will be a war, but we don’t know what the leadership will decide. We will follow their orders.” …….
There is no freedom in Kachin land. Ordinary Kachins are mired in desperate poverty. Heroin use is epidemic among the youth.
Has the Kachin leadership gone soft and sold out their nation?
Some think so. Others say peace is a blessing in any form. Most agree that good or bad, the peace is fragile, and cannot last for long.
The Kachin flag displays a pair of traditional crossed swords on a red and green background. The red represents the blood of martyrs who sacrificed themselves for freedom. The green represents the natural beauty of the Kachin homeland.
Young Kachins like the man in this photo tend to support a renewed struggle against the Burmese military, but their elders are tired of fighting. As the natural landscape of Kachin is despoiled through jade mining, logging and hydro-power projects, the anger of the youth becomes harder for their leaders to contain.
The generation who fought in the jungles were hailed as masters of guerrilla warfare but crippled by a lack of sophisticated military hardware and communication technology.
In this photo, the head of the Kachin military academy stands in a brand-new computer center located on the edge of the jungle near the Chinese border. The Kachins are desperate to engage with the outside world and keep abreast of modern trends.
One military academy cadet described his generation's desire for development and frustration with the lack of opportunity since the ceasefire:
"Internationally, this is the era of economic development. But if we look at the economy in Kachin, it’s been over ten years since the ceasefire and nothing significant has changed. We try to develop in many ways ourselves, but the Burmese military government hasn’t given rights to Kachins. They gradually restrict our rights more and more. "
Possession of the Human Rights Watch report on the 2007 crackdown on Buddhist monks by the Myanmar military would be grounds for arrest, interrogation and imprisonment in most of Myanmar, but not in the small pockets of territory controlled by the Kachin Independence Organization.
Although indigenous Burmese opposition to the Myanmar military government has drawn attention in recent years, the ethnic insurgencies on the fringes of Myanmar are largely ignored by aid organizations and Western media alike.
These are the 5 pledges Kachin military academy cadets repeat everyday at dawn and dusk.
1. “We will keep our promise to the nation and people for all eternity.”
2. “We will fight for the independence of our nation and people.”
3. “We will follow the leadership of the Kachin Independence Organization without deviation.”
4. “We will always keep our promise to the martyrs who sacrificed their lives for the nation and people.”
5. “We will never give up our arms.”
The graves of the founders of the Kachin Independence Army are located just a few hundred yards from a Burmese military position. Many of the original Kachin patriots are now dead. For young soldiers, war is an abstract idea. For the veterans who survived, the memories of death, cold, hunger and fear are still present in every hill along the Chinese frontier.
As you probably know by now, I love to babble about my travels - where I've been, where I'm going, the dirty details of my latest existential crisis.
But my trip to the far north of Myanmar had to be kept secret. I didn't have a Myanmar visa, wore a disguise in public places and snuck back into China by wading across a cold river in the middle of the night. Not exactly the sort of activity it's smart to advertise in advance.
But now the trip is done. I've decided to forget about writing under a pen-name and just let the chips fall where they may...
Ryan Libre and I just spent one month in territory held by the Kachin Independence Army on a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. At the moment we're holed up in Hong Kong, eating instant ramen in a tiny room and sorting through piles of notes, thousands of photos and hours of video footage.
We'll be blogging about the trip at the Pulitzer Center's Untold Stories website, so please go there to check out the first post in the series. I'll add an excerpt here with a link to the full article.
Apart from a brief introduction to the Chief of Staff of the Kachin Independence Army, we spent our first day in Myanmar locked inside a hotel room. Our Kachin hosts were apologetic but firm. At the moment, it was too risky to go outside...
Here's the link to the complete post over at Untold Stories - I'd love to see your comments there!
