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The Betrayal of the Karens: The British Colonisation of Burma, Part 4

© John Walsh

The Karens are a group of different Tibeto-Burman peoples who have settled in different parts of Burma (Myanmar) and Thailand. Some adopted Buddhism and some retained animist beliefs. Some lived in Karen states on the border between Burma and Thailand which were scarcely penetrated by outsiders while others had integrated into Burmese regions. The only thing that united them was the variety of their lifestyles and cultural practices.

Many Karens had been subjugated and enslaved by the Burman majority and, consequently, resented this Burman majority. When the British began to colonise the country, therefore, most Karens supported their arrival, although most did not take an active involvement in military actions. It was widely reported by the British that the Karens were good and loyal subjects of the British Empire, although this was something of an oversimplification.

From about the 1820s, American missionaries had been active in trying to convert the Karens and others to their particular brand of Christianity. A strong emphasis is usually placed on bible study by American Christians of various sorts and, as a result, efforts were made to create a written form of Karen language for the first time, so that a version of the bible could be translated into Karen. Karens who converted to Christianity, therefore, received access to education and learning that enabled them to gain political control over the non-Christian Karens. This led to the subversion of traditional political and authority models in the Karen villages that made up the tiny Karen states. As the twentieth century succeeded the nineteenth, Karens were involved in creating a sense of Karen sensibility, in the same way that Burmans were creating their own sense of national identity as an oppressed people in their own country.

The Second World War in Burma

During the Second World War, the Japanese forced the disintegration of the British army in Burma that caused a power vacuum in the country. The Burmese Independence Army (BIA) had begun before the war as an anti-British resistance force and some had been using Japanese controlled China as a base for anti-British activities. When the BIA moved into Karen areas, it was inevitable that tensions and violence would flare, since the British-Karen alliance had continued to be strengthened on both sides.

At the end of the war, British administration of Burma resumed but soon found that irregular paramilitary forces could, if used, have made the country ungovernable. Aung San, the great independence leader, had moved from the military to the political sphere but still retained his ability to mobilise the irregular troops if required. An independent settlement of some sort must necessarily be arranged. The Karens generally varied between the wish to join an independent Burma as an autonomous region of some sort or else outright independence.