(Written in April of 1992)
DAVID AND GOLIATH IN THE DAWNA MOUNTAINS
The overtly-Christian leadership of the Karen revolution is quite fond of drawing parallels between Biblical tales and elements of their own struggle. At one point they justified the length of their war by comparing it to the forty years that the Jews wandered in the desert, but the notion that God would only test them for the same period of time as the Jews was abandoned when their forty-year mark came and went and the fighting only intensified. A more appropriate Biblical parallel, the story of David and Goliath, is currently in vogue.
The “Goliath” of the 1992 dry season offensive is the Tatmadaw, the Burmese government forces, under the command of Burma’s notorious ruling junta, the State Law and Order Restoration Council (know by its acronym SLORC). Bolstered by over one billion dollars’ worth of weaponry from China and war planes from the former Yugoslavia, SLORC and its army have reached new levels of military might (in large part due to outside assistance) at a time when the regime is almost universally acknowledged as one of the most deplorable on the planet.
In the role of “David” is the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA). Hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned, they are known for their tenacity, while man-for-man their skill as jungle fighters is far superior to that of the SLORC soldiers. Accurate figures for troop strengths at the current fronts are nearly impossible to come by, but it is safe to say that SLORC troops outnumber KNLA guerrillas by at least 3-to-1 in most areas. As for weapons and ammunition supplies, the ratio is even more drastically tilted in favor of SLORC, a fact reflected in the approximate sixfold increase in KNLA casualties since the beginning of this offensive.
SLORC’s goal this dry season has been to capture Manerplaw, long-time headquarters of the KNLA and a location that has gained increasing political significance since the ruling junta brutally crushed a pro-democracy uprising in 1988. By the time SLORC decided that it had sufficient weaponry to move on Manerplaw, the jungle headquarters had become home to an umbrella organization comprised of nearly every movement (ethnic and otherwise) that was in open revolt against the junta, as well as being the seat of a parallel government that carried the true mandate of the Burmese people. Thus the capture of Manerplaw would be a crushing defeat not only for the Karen, but for the Democratic Alliance of Burma, Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, and the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma.
SLORC announced that they would hold a feast at Manerplaw on March 27th, Burmese Armed Forces Day. When the KNLA lost control of Sleeping Dog Mountain a few weeks prior to this deadline, both SLORC and much of the Western media shouted the imminent demise of Manerplaw. To do so, however, was to seriously misunderstand the nature of this type of fighting and the rate at which ground can be occupied and held.
SLORC’s main thrust started from the west, and control of Sleeping Dog gave them command of the front area’s high ground, where they could move their artillery pieces within striking distance of Manerplaw for the first time in the history of the war. Nevertheless, as the Burmese forces pushed down the eastern slopes of the high mountains, they met the entrenched KNLA, and that is how the situation remains through the second week of April.
It seems unlikely that this front will change much during the remainder of the dry season. To actually reach Manerplaw, SLORC troops would have to push the KNLA down to and across the Salween River, at which time the KNLA would immediately occupy the considerable high ground east of the Salween. SLORC would then have to move its soldiers, porters, and heavy weapons across the wide and swift-running Salween in an area where there are no bridges and start a Sleeping Dog-type assault all over again, fighting up and over another large mountain range before there would even be a possibility of moving infantry into Manerplaw.
SLORC seems to realize all of this, and has started a second thrust at Manerplaw from the south.
The KNLA appear more worried about this front, even though in terms of actual distance it is farther away from Manerplaw than the Sleeping Dog front. This concern no doubt stems from the very real possibility that SLORC will be able to push some artillery pieces into range of Manerplaw from this direction prior to the start of the monsoons, and that these weapons will be able to more accurately target the headquarters than those already in position in the Sleeping Dog area.
The wild card in all of this is the usage of SLORC’s recently-acquired fighter aircraft. As yet the Burmese pilots are inexperienced, and their bombing/strafing runs on Manerplaw and the Sleeping Dog front have been largely inaccurate and ineffective. Also, SLORC knows that the KNLA has managed to obtain some SAM-7 surface-to-air missiles, so the planes are, for the most part, flying high and out of range. However, proper utilization of SLORC’s air capabilities in the future could drastically alter the face of the war.
With anywhere from five to eight weeks remaining before the arrival of the monsoons and the traditional slowing of the fighting, it seems unlikely that Manerplaw will fall into SLORC hands this year. Yet in a certain sense, the junta has already scored something of a military victory there. The once-busy hub of resistance to Rangoon has become a ghost town, evacuated of all non-essential personnel and manned only by a skeleton crew. The leaders of the various revolutionary organizations have temporarily scattered to the winds, thus affecting communication and exchange between them at a time when solidarity is all the more vital. KNLA leadership has said both that “Manerplaw will never be lost” and that “There are a thousand Manerplaws.” As long as SLORC artillery remains within striking distance, it would appear that the second line of thought is the most realistic.