We had lunch with a couple of Karen medics; one had caught a rabbit with a trap in the jungle and roasted it.
Life without lawyers or road signs. They have no police. No courts. I asked detailed questions about their justice system. If someone is accused of a serious crime, the accused is sent to the Karen army who decides the outcome. For petty transgressions around the village, the perpetrator is tied up for one night. According to the brief explanation, villagers bind his ankles together but not his hands, and release him the next day. Sounded more like a humiliation, which also can occur in places like Afghanistan, though humiliation there can take the form of sodomy by man or implement.
“What would be a typical crime?” I asked. Sometimes a man gets drunk and burns down his own house. “Burns down his own house on purpose?” I asked. “Yes, sometimes a man burns down his own house.” “What do you do when there is fire?” I asked. “We build houses apart from each other.”
This jungle has it all: from malaria to cobras to land mines, but no doctors and little medicine. The British military would call this a “dirty jungle” as opposed to the “clean jungle” down in Borneo. Dirty jungles have more parasites, diseases, and other hazards that put down a lot of troops and inhabitants.
And then it was time to go. We walked back to the boat for the return trip.
The SPDC uses the river for transport where they face ambush, and so they travel as civilians. A Karen man said Karen soldiers had ambushed SPDC in a boat upriver some days before, and that about six SPDC were killed and wounded. He said the Karen intercepted SPDC radio chatter indicating six casualties.
Chugging downriver back to the Thailand exit, we found a corpse caught by a fishnet in the Salween River. Maybe the body belonged to an SPDC soldier and had floated down from the reported ambush. We could only imagine the surprise of a fisherman if he shows up with a light tonight. I took coordinates for Thai authorities.
In closing, my experience in Burma is eggshell thin. Many people have spent years with resistance organizations or providing help, or perhaps simply smuggling or running some sort of nefarious enterprise. Some are missionaries, others mercenaries, and, as the saying goes, others are misfits.
The mature business surrounding the conflict is complex and not always altruistic. There also is a continuum of “band aide for the buck”: some organizations will accomplish much, while others will do little and spend much time making videos to raise money.
Before deciding to help any causes here, or anywhere, due diligence is the first order. For every bullet there is a lie, and one must beware of crocodile tears.
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