By MICHAEL CASEY, Associated Press Writer
Sun Mar 26, 9:06 PM ET
BANGKOK, Thailand - Myanmar’s military rulers have launched an offensive against separatist guerrillas, attacking villages and forcing thousands to flee in an attempt to quash a five-decade insurgency by Karen ethnic rebels, a rights group said Sunday.
The Karen, one of Myanmar’s eight major ethnic groups, have been fighting for independence for more than 50 years in one of the world’s longest-running insurgencies. The rebels, who live in the east, began peace talks with the ruling junta in 2003 and reached a provisional truce, but sporadic fighting has continued.
Hundreds of government troops attacked at least six villages and townships in recent weeks, terrorizing villagers and destroying scores of homes, said The Free Burma Rangers, an advocacy group that works inside impoverished Myanmar, also known as Burma.
"It seems to be aimed at cutting off all support for the resistance as well as stopping all rice, medicine and other needed material from reaching the displaced people who are living in these areas," the group said in a statement posted on its Web site.
A spokesman for the Myanmar government could not be immediately reached for comment.
Hundreds of thousands have died in a conflict largely hidden from the international spotlight, according to some experts’ estimates.
The violence against the Karen and other insurgent groups has spawned an estimated one million internal refugees over the years, and another 400,000 people have fled to neighboring Thailand, the Burma Border Consortium, a refugee aid group, said earlier this year.
The conflict in eastern Myanmar has destroyed some 3,000 villages and displaced 80,000 people a year in most recent times, the group claimed.
The junta took power in 1988 after violently suppressing mass pro-democracy protests. It held a general election in 1990, but refused to recognize the landslide victory by the National League of Democracy by Aung San Suu Kyi. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 and has spent 10 of the last 16 years in detention.
A former junta member, Gen. Khin Nyunt, had negotiated cease-fires with 17 insurgent groups, but his ouster in 2004 reinforced hard-liners within the ruling group and "resulted in increasing hostility directed at ethnic minority groups," U.S.-based Human Rights Watch said in its 2006 report.
Burma was colonized by Great Britain in 1886 and became independent in 1948.