History
At the time of Burma's independence from the British in 1948, there was considerable tension between the Karen community and the Burmese majority. Some Karens sought independence while others attempted co-existence within Burma. The KNLA was previously called the Karen National Defence Organisation (KNDO). The KNDO was an armed organisation which was formed by the KNU in 1947 to defend Karen communities and interests. Most KNDO soldiers had previously served in the forces of British Burma.
In early 1949, portions of a socialist political militia raised by the government went on a rampage in Karen civilian areas. The Burmese government then arrested the Karen leader of the armed forces and replaced him with radical Burmese anti-Karen nationalist Ne Win. Continued attacks against Karen dominated townships around Rangoon and the arrest of Karen political leaders led the Karen national Union to declare armed struggle, and the world's longest running civil war began.
Early in the fighting, Karen forces overran much of Northern Burma including towns such as Mandalay and established strong positions outside Rangoon at Insein Township. But lacking a port from which to receive military supplies, the Karen forces gradually withdrew to the southeast of Burma.
In 1976 the Karen National Union changed its policy on wanting an independent state, and joined a new alliance, the National Democratic Front. This alliance of armed ethnic political parties supported a federal union of Burma.
Read more about this topic: Karen National Liberation Army
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“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“Most events recorded in history are more remarkable than important, like eclipses of the sun and moon, by which all are attracted, but whose effects no one takes the trouble to calculate.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“There is nothing truer than myth: history, in its attempt to “realize” myth, distorts it, stops halfway; when history claims to have “succeeded” this is nothing but humbug and mystification. Everything we dream is “realizable.” Reality does not have to be: it is simply what it is.”
—Eugène Ionesco (b. 1912)