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Mahn Robert Ba Zahn “Phu Khi Doh” with Homemade rocket launcher Kawthoolei, 1996
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War, Love, Loss,
and... Hope
By Mahn Robert Ba Zan
Introduction: A Testimonial on War
In the following brief narrative, War, Love, Loss, and...Hope, Karen guerilla
fighter, Mahn Robert Ba Zan, recants his war experiences in an honest and no
holds barred fashion. Members of Zan’s ethnic group, the Karen, have been
embroiled in armed conflict with successive Burmese governments for the last 50
years. His accounts clearly show the heavy price this war has extolled on
combatants on both sides, as well as the civilian population. Zan’s story is one
of both victory and waste, revolutionary fervor and hopelessness, and is
perhaps, a miniature representation of the nature of war itself. Living in a
torturous paradox, Zan, a man who detests killing, feels impelled to shield his
people from the savagery of the Burmese Army. Despite the travails of war, Zan
holds fast to his ideals and wishes to see all those who are abused and
exploited by the Burmese regime, including the Burmese foot soldiers whom he
must face on the battlefield, to someday realize the dream of peace and hope for
Burma.
Phu Khi Doh at the front line
Background: The Struggle
The Karen revolutionary struggle in Burma is among the most brutal, longest
running, and least known armed conflicts of the modern era. The current military
dictatorship in Burma, whom the Karen revolutionaries oppose, has been staunchly
criticized by a myriad of nations, as well as world, religious, and human rights
organizations for brutalizing its own people. Today, in the hills and jungles of
Burma the Karen and a handful of other anti-Burmese military dictatorship groups
continue to hold out against the illegal and abusive Burmese regime. Presently,
there are nearly 300,000 peoples from Burma that are refugees.
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