The Fall of Manerplaw occurred on 27 January 1995, when the village of Manerplaw was captured by the

Tatmadaw The Tatmadaw, also known as the Sit-Tat, is the armed forces of Myanmar (formerly Burma). It is administered by the Ministry of Defence and composed of the Myanmar Army, the Myanmar Navy and the Myanmar Air Force. Auxiliary services include ...

(Myanmar Armed Forces) and the

Democratic Karen Buddhist Army The Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA; ) was an insurgent group of Buddhist soldiers and officers in Myanmar that split from the predominantly Christian-led Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), one of the largest rebel factions in Myanm ...

(DKBA). Manerplaw was the headquarters of two armed opposition groups, the Karen National Union (KNU) and the

All Burma Students' Democratic Front The All Burma Students' Democratic Front (; abbreviated ABSDF or မကဒတ) is an opposition group in Myanmar (also known as Burma). It was founded on 1 November 1988, after the 8888 protests in Yangon. The group's leadership consists mos ...

(ABSDF). The final military assault by the Tatmadaw, aided by positional information provided by the DKBA, was met with little resistance by the KNLA, whose leaders had ordered a tactical retreat.

Background

The

Karen people The Karen ( ), also known as the Kayin, are an ethnolinguistic group of peoples who speak Karenic languages and are indigenous to southern and southeastern Myanmar, including the Irrawaddy Delta, Irrawaddy delta and Kayin State. The Karen ac ...

Kayin State Kayin State (, ; ; , ), formerly known as Karen State, is a Administrative divisions of Myanmar, state of Myanmar. The capital city is Hpa-An, also spelled Pa-An. The terrain of the state is mountainous; with the Dawna Range running along the ...

(also known as Karen State) in eastern Myanmar (also known as Burma) are the third largest ethnic group in Myanmar, consisting of 7% of the country's total population, and have fought for independence and

self-determination Self-determination refers to a people's right to form its own political entity, and internal self-determination is the right to representative government with full suffrage. Self-determination is a cardinal principle in modern international la ...

since 1949. The initial aim of the KNU was to obtain independence for the Karen people. However, in 1976 they instead began to call for a

federal union A federation (also called a federal state) is an entity characterized by a union of partially self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a federal government (federalism). In a federation, the self-governing status of the co ...

in Myanmar with fair Karen representation, and the self-determination of the Karen people. Up until the fall of Manerplaw, the village had been subjected to several military offensives by the

, and the surrounding area was the location of several alleged human right abuses by the military junta, including forced labour and extrajudicial punishment.

Prelude

In December 1994,

Buddhist Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

and

Christian A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a Monotheism, monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the wo ...

factions of the KNU began to have disagreements on the construction of

pagoda A pagoda is a tiered tower with multiple eaves common to Thailand, Cambodia, Nepal, India, China, Japan, Korea, Myanmar, Vietnam, and other parts of Asia. Most pagodas were built to have a religious function, most often Buddhist, but some ...

s in Manerplaw. U Thuzana, a Karen Buddhist

monk A monk (; from , ''monachos'', "single, solitary" via Latin ) is a man who is a member of a religious order and lives in a monastery. A monk usually lives his life in prayer and contemplation. The concept is ancient and can be seen in many reli ...

who ordered the construction and was then a member of the KNU, revolted against the organisation with others who were dissatisfied with the group's Christian-dominated leadership. On 11 December 1994, the KNLA clashed with Buddhist dissidents in Manerplaw. This ultimately led to a split in the KNU and the establishment of the DKBA on 21 December 1994. U Thuzana later brokered a deal with Major General Maung Hla, the southeastern regional commander of the

Myanmar Army The Myanmar Army (; ) is the largest branch of the Tatmadaw, the armed forces of Myanmar, and has the primary responsibility of conducting land-based military operations. The Myanmar Army maintains the second largest active force in Southea ...

, and attempted to persuade Karen villagers to evacuate to DKBA protected refugee camps. U Thuzana also attempted to persuade Buddhist soldiers of the KNLA to defect to the DKBA and assist the Tatmadaw.

Tatmadaw and DKBA offensive

In January 1995, 4,000 to 10,000 Tatmadaw and DKBA troops advanced towards Manerplaw, capturing several nearby villages. The Min Yaw Kee ridge, which in 1992 had been fiercely defended by the KNLA, was captured without a single shot being fired. Soldiers from the DKBA assisted the Tatmadaw by providing information on KNLA positions and guiding them through the jungle to Manerplaw. As the Tatmadaw and DKBA approached Manerplaw, an estimated 9,000 to 10,000 civilians fled from the village and its surrounding area, including from nearby refugee camps. When the Tatmadaw and DKBA finally moved into Manerplaw on 27 January 1995, the leadership of the KNLA ordered their soldiers to retreat and to raze the village; the roughly 3,000 inhabitants of Manerplaw had already been evacuated by then.

Aftermath

Five Tatmadaw and ten KNLA soldiers were killed in the final assault. Of the KNLA troops who managed to escape the Tatmadaw advance, 50 were treated for their wounds. Most of the refugees who fled the fighting headed towards refugees camps in Thailand, near the Myanmar–Thailand border. After capturing Manerplaw, the Tatmadaw advanced towards nearby villages it previously could not reach, eventually reaching the southern KNU stronghold of Kawmoora, which fell to Tatmadaw soldiers on 21 February 1995. A direct consequence of the fall of Manerplaw and its aftermath was that the KNU lost most of its income derived from local tax revenue, logging deals and cross-border trade, as the Tatmadaw captured several border towns.

References

External links

The Ethnic Minority Fighting a Burmese Onslaught
Journeyman Pictures, April 1992 (documentary) {{coord, 17.725, N, 97.735, E, source:wikidata, display=title History of Myanmar (1948–present) Internal conflict in Myanmar Karen history 1995 in Myanmar February 1995 in Asia