Thai aid to KMT: Linter 2, p. 115.
Ba U Gyi “lackey of imperialism”: Martin Smith, p. 149.
Burma army takes over businesses/takes over as caretaker government, takes on the KMT with the help of the PLA: Thant Myint-U, pp. 276/284-288, respectively.
KMT sold guns to other insurgents: Kahin and Kahin, p. 11.
The KMT’s role in opium trafficking has been widely reported. McCoy is one extensive source, pp. 162-178, as well as chapters 7 and 8.
New Shan army: Thant Myint-U, p. 287.
New Kachin army: Thant Myint-U, p. 288.
Karen had been pushed back to the hills: Thant Myint-U, p. 276.
Ba U Gyi gunned down: Keenan, p. 19; Lintner 2, p. 276.
Ne Win:workin’ at the post office: Lintner 2, p. 36; Thant Myint-U, p. 294.
childhood dreams, losing the election, staging a coup, starting to ruin everything for everybody except golf buddy LBJ: Thant Myint-U, pp. 281-302.
VII.
Insein biggest prison/built by British: AAPP (Burma) 4.
Burma has 44 prisons: Bo Kyi.
For a thorough, if maybe not superbly rendered, Westerner’s account of doing time in a Burmese prison, see Mawdsley.
Red Cross started visiting Burmese prisons in 1999: ICRC.
Prison authorities bugged a UN interview: The Irrawaddy 4.
Red Cross basically kicked out of Burma after 2005: ICRC.
There’s more accounting of porters’ wounds in Pascal Khoo Thwe, pp. 237- 238.
Burma army officers studied British warfare abroad: Aung Zaw 1.
KNU claimed tens of millions in revenue: Martin Smith, p. 283.
Tatmadaw fights through the rainy season: Martin Smith, p. 395, has a detailed account of the end of dry-season-only offensives, which started in ’84.
10,000 Burmese refugees in Thailand by 1984: CCSDPT 1.
80,000 by 1994: UNHCR 2.
KNU used villagers as porters: Burma Issues 2, p. 19.
KNU leaders saving all the chocolate and cigarettes for themselves: Rogers, p. 145.
DKBA’s being buddies with the junta: Thornton, p. 198, recounts that Karen villagers have collected radio transcripts in which the Burma army orders the DKBA to attack the KNLA. See also US House Committee on International Relations.
Karen soldiers’ defection to DKBA: Tucker, pp. 231-232; Fong; Pedersen.
7,000 refugees at Huay Kaloke in 1997: Karen Refugee Committee 1.
For an account of the second burning of Huay Kaloke more official than—and still in line with—Htan Dah’s, see KHRG 1.
“We accept that we were inactive”: National Security Council Secretary-General Boonsak Kamheangridirong, quoted in The Nation 2.
For one collection of official testimonies on Thailand’s forcibly repatriating Burmese refugees, see US House Committee on International Relations in sources. Also Lang 1; Burma Issues 1; Thompson.
Thailand signatory to Convention on the Rights of the Child: UNHCHR.
UN, EU, US not happy about repatriation: Thompson.
Thailand’s commander in chief says refugees want to be thrown out: Burma Issues 1; Thompson.
“violations appear to be committed consistently”: United Nations 3.
Karen refugees not victims of warfare: Nanuam and Srat-tha.
UNHCR says more than 105,000 Burmese refugees in Thailand in 1997/it’s helping 2,100 of them: UNHCR 1, p. 57 (pdf page).
Thai authorities forbidding refugees from cutting bamboo/NGO got refugees shack-building materials: TBBC 10.
Other camps that have burned down: Thompson.
Population of Umpiem Mai eventually 20,000: Karen Refugee Committee 2.
Potters for Peace info/Burmese Youth Project: Bradner/Bradner.
4,000 kids killed by unsanitary water per day: Prüss-Üstün et al.
Adoniram Judson in first overseas-American-missionary crew: Global Ministries; Judson College.
Judson’s first baptism: Judson, p. 132.
The conveniently Christian-y Karen lore: Rogers, pp. 41-43. Though you can also get this same story plenty of other places, including from a Christian Karen.
My particular favorite historian with a doctorate in Oriental studies: Lieberman.
Hottest missionary spot on the globe: Catholics and Seventh Day Adventists, for example, also got in on the action. See Jackson and Land, respectively.
“This field belongs appropriately to the American Baptist churches”: Knowles, p. 317.
“a very marked decline in the cult of the Karen”: Ireland, p. 64.
The missionaries’ good works: Harry Ignatius Marshall, pp. 300, 309.
Widely published American missionary tracts: Wayland, Judson, Knowles (in sources) are just a few of the volumes. Ann Judson’s memoir was in its tenth edition within ten years of its original printing; Trager, p. 114, also discusses their popularity.
“almost to a man dishonest”: Wayland, p. 150.
“the tigers do not seem so ferocious”/“go down to the tomb without God and without hope”: Quoted in Trager, p. x.
“the best . . . means of eventually introducing the humanizing influences of the Christian religion”: Quoted in Trager, p. ix.
Tucker, p. 32, talks about the devastation of undermining the crucial Buddhist Burmese social fabric; Trager, p. 145, too, remarks on the prevalence of boozing, gambling, and opium-doing thirty years into British rule.
Christian Karen being crucified: Rogers, p. 54.
74 churches attended by nearly 8,000 Burmese Christians by Judson’s death: World Council of Churches.
Estimates of how Christian the Karen population in Burma is: Falla, p. 46 (20 percent); Barron et al., p. 28 (30 percent); Rogers, p. 32 (40 percent); South, p. 37 (citing the Burma Ethnic Research Group, 25 to 30 percent).
60 percent of Karen in Thai refugee camps Christian: ZOA Refugee Care Thailand 1, p. 46. This survey strikes me as having particularly thorough sampling. Another estimate, from the International Rescue Committee, p. 2, puts the percentage at a nearby 52.
Missionary speculation that the Karen must have met the Nestorians: Smeaton, p. 189.
Or maybe a really early Italian missionary made it to the Karen: Smeaton, p. 188.
British guy mistaken for the messiah: Don Richardson, pp. 65-67.
Muslim guy probably not the messiah: Don Richardson, p. 68.
Burma spends about 1 percent of GDP on education: Watkins et al. p. 267. Some estimates put the number at more like .3 percent.
Burmese government reports adult literacy at more than 90 percent: UNESCO Institute for Statistics.
Burmese government reports 20 percent adult literacy in LDC app: United Nations 2, pp. 18-19; Cortez.
Only half of Burmese children enrolled in secondary school: UNICEF, p. 135.
Way more than in Afghanistan: Just 28 percent of Afghan boys/9 percent of girls are enrolled in secondary school. UNICEF, p. 134.
Pascal Khoo Thwe weirded out: Pascal Khoo Thwe, p. 276.
Educational journals shut down: The Irrawaddy 5.
There’s a thorough discussion of corruption and graft in the teaching system in Fink. Expensive after-hours tutoring is on p. 178.
Unless otherwise noted, the details about the refugee camp education system are from ZOA Refugee Care Thailand 1 and van der Stouwe and Oh, both available online.
60 schools and 1,000 classrooms: ZOA Refugee Care Thailand 2.
Library program: Shanti Volunteer Association, p. 3.
Mine-issues program: Handicap International.
Also involved in camp education are Catholic Office for Emergency Relief and Refugees, the International Rescue Committee, Jesuit Refugee Service, Women’s Education for Advancement and Empowerment, and the Taipei Overseas Peace Service. CCSDPT 2.
40,000 students: ZOA Refugee Care Thailand 2.
Bigger than at least 98 percent of United States school districts: US Department of Education.
Highest proportion of temporary clas
srooms: UNHCR 3, p. 5.
$7 million education budget: CCSDPT 3, p. 18.
12 percent comes from the US: CCSDPT 3, p. 20.
USAID money: Solomon.
Budget shortfalls: CCSDPT 3, p. 20.
Australian-university courses, graduates: Solomon.
Some graduates trained to be teachers: World Education.
Camp schools offer FSP, LMC, EIP: Solomon.
VIII.
Thant Myint-U has colorful descriptions of the Burma-Siam fights, pp. 70-99.
Pascal Khoo Thwe overheard Burmese military officials at an embassy griping that Thais were whining about one of their villages being burned down, p. 266.
“Thai and Burmese troops have clashed twice”: The Nation 4.
“Four Thai rangers”: Bachoe.
A good rundown of KNU history and structure, including communist rifts, can be found at the Transnational and Non-State Armed Groups database online.
Seventh Day Adventist (Bo Mya) presiding over Old Testament-strict KNU: Rogers, p. 105.
You can see a picture of someone modeling the anti-communist Karen Freedom Fighter shirt in Falla, p. 104.
Scary Shan/Chinese/commie alliances . . . Thailand started selling KNU arms and letting them hang out on Thai soil: Thant Myint-U, pp. 298-299. Anyone who’s ever been on the ground there could confirm the KNU- Thailand friendship just as well.
Thailand and Burma become trading partners in 1990: McCoy, p. 423; Lintner 3.
KNU colonel arrested, charged, released by Thais: Min Lwin 8.
Thais giving KNU leftover US military-operation ammo: The Nation 3.
Frenchman says Karen and Siamese are happy together/King Chulalongkorn grants citizenship, writes poetry about tranquility: Falla, pp. 187-188.
Writes poetry about stinkiness: Falla, p. 37.
IX.
Zero percent of refugees in camp have no religion: ZOA Refugee Care Thailand 1, p. 46. Pascal Khoo Thwe posits, p. 65, that nothing could eradicate the Burmese’s extreme spirituality—at least not while their physical lives are so poor.
Thailand Burma Border Consortium history, budget, rations: TBBC 8 and 10; Thompson.
Increased rations for pregnant women/severely malnourished children: TBBC 10.
For an account of being a drunk infant, rather than an account of white girls freaking out about one, see Pascal Khoo Thwe, p. 21.
UN definition of IDP: UNOCHA, Introduction #2.
Burma one of world’s worst displacement situations four years running: IDMC 1-4. It has also appeared on the list of places in which an IDP is least likely to receive support from the government (IDMC 5).
Well more than half a million IDPs in eastern Burma alone: 451,000 just in rural areas there. TBBC 9.
More than twice as many IDPs as in Afghanistan: IDMC 7.
Advocacy-group definition of IDP: Nanda Kyaw Thu, p. 4.
The story of the great Japanese-stalking tiger: Webster, pp. 48-49, as told to him by Japanese private Atsumi Oda.
Killer tree: Natives’ anecdotes; Hendricks. Beware the Antiaris toxicaria.
How to survive in the jungle: US Army Air Forces Office of Flying Safety, Safety Education Division.
Pascal Khoo Thwe describes helpful jungle-rice-cooking tips on pp. 216-217.
“in stark contrast to the complete rejection of mine use”: International Campaign to Ban Landmines.
Land mines cause 1 in 25 deaths in eastern Burma: Mullany, with caveats; this is a good example of one of those facts that tests the meaning of “fact”: “The stat . . . may or may not be ‘true.’ Clearly it depends on where in eastern Burma, when, and in what time period. . . . [W]e report that overall, 4% of deaths were due to landmines, which is equivalent to 1 in 25—Now, I don’t have the raw data at my fingertips, but I believe the uncertainty around that estimate must range from 1 in 15 deaths to about 1 in 44 deaths....”
Many of Burma’s IDP kids suffer from acute malnutrition: 9.5 percent. UK Department for International Development, p. 19.
IDP children in eastern Burma have one-in-five chance of dying before age five: Back Pack Health Worker Team, p. 32.
Details about the Back Pack Health Worker Team: Wells.
Nobody knows how many Karen there are: Barron et al. cite the lack of info on p. 28.
Burma hasn’t had a census in decades: Lintner; Martin Smith, p. 30.
More than 150,000 refugees in Thailand by 2006: TBBC 1.
Nearly 100,000 Burmese refugees outside Thailand: UNHCR 9.
For descriptions from visitors to Karen State before the fall of Manerplaw, see Mirante (around p. 88) and Falla.
For an account of the fall of Manerplaw, see Rogers, p. 143.
FBR’s Dave (Eubank) very rarely gives interviews, but there’s an extensive one in Rogers, starting on p. 181. The quotes from Dave and his wife, as well as some of the information about them and FBR, come from there. Other details: Eubank; Fitzgerald. Data and stats about the FBR teams are available on FBR’s website. You can watch their training exercises, along with the footage described, on their YouTube channel.
Galatians quote is from 6:9.
Find the State Department’s Country Reports on Human Rights Practices at state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/.
State Department-report rejection: Permanent Mission of the Union of Myanmar to the United Nations Office and Other International Organizations, Geneva.
Martus is open-source software supported by a nonprofit tech organization, Benetech, in Palo Alto, California. In the BA database, the guys document their names, organization, and region and as much information about the perpetrators as is available—Burma army unit, soldier rank, name. That’s followed by a narrative of the testimony they collected:In late April 2004, a woman who lived in the suburban area of Murng-Su town was gang-raped and stabbed to death in the neck with a knife by a group of SPDC troops, in a forest near her cucumber garden just outside the town.
On 25 April 2004, Naang Zum, aged 18, was watering her cucumber garden when a group of about 15 SPDC troops came and forcibly took her into a nearby forest. . . .
X.
You can read Cruel and Vicious Repression of Myanmar Peoples by Imperialists and Fascists and the True Story about the Plunder of the Royal Jewels at the Library of Congress. If you’re so inclined.
No TV until 1980: Newcomb, p. 2147.
Burma becomes a net rice importer: Pascal Khoo Thwe, pp. 56-57.
“Burma is a country that has never known, and can never know, famine”: Scott 1, p. 145.
The displayed royal jewels are rumored to be fake: Andrew Marshall, pp. 70-71.
You can read about Ne Win’s demonetization in Lintner 2, pp. 273-274, and Pascal Khoo Thwe, pp. 134-135.
Cities guarded by the gates of the zodiac: Thant Myint-U, p. 45.
“Tuesday and Saturday are bad days to do anything”: Scott 1, p. 127.
Up to 80 percent of the country’s currency became useless: Lintner 2, p. 273.
There are dozens of published accounts of the tea-shop fight and ensuing riots. A good one can be found in Lintner 2, pp. 274-275. Pascal Khoo Thwe, who was there, talks about the 1988 protests on pp. 155-164.
Burmese students protested Rangoon University Act: Aye Kyaw, p. 86; Tucker, p. 219.
Ne Win’s resignation speech: Thant Myint-U, p. 32.
He’d previously banned all opposition parties: Martin Smith, p. 204.
8.8.88: Thant Myint-U dramatically reenacts the scene starting on p. 33. Find a detailed account also in Martin Smith, beginning on p. 4.
“It is hard to describe the thrill”: Pascal Khoo Thwe, p. 160.
JWI-hiring company superclose to junta: R. Jeffrey Smith; McAllister; Barnes; Eaves.
Speculation that the PR firms were involved in the name change: The Washington Post; Tan.
For a longer list of preapproved party insignia, as well as the other very specific details of the 1990 elections, see Martin Smith, p. 412.
“Don’t gamble with the Bur
mans”: US Army Air Forces Tactical Center Arctic, Desert and Tropic Information Center. More good advice: Don’t “argue with Hindus about caste” or go fishing in Buddhist temple pools, and know that if you stare at a Muslim woman, “her male relatives may kill you both.”
Censorship of publications and porn: 1962 Printers and Publishers Registration Law; OpenNet Initiative 1, p. 5.; Article 19, pp. 29-33; Freedom House.
BBC and Voice of America broadcasts jammed: In 1995. Connors; Article 19, p. 32 (pdf page).
One of the occasions when CNN was blacked out came during the 2008 anti-government protests in neighboring Thailand. See Saw Yan Naing 1.
Universities shut down all the time, for long periods at a time: Steinberg.
Students spread out away from main campuses: Min Khet Maung.
200,000 Tatmadaw soldiers in ’88: Selth 2, p. 11.
400,000 in ’96: Arnott 1, p. 3.
You can read about Pascal Khoo Thwe’s personal post-demonstration flight into the jungle beginning on p. 189, some firefights with the Burma army starting on pp. 226 and 237, and the regime’s creepy radio entreaties and leaflet-dropping on pp. 189 and 209, respectively.
Thant Myint-U was with the student rebels while they were hoping for US/ Western reinforcements, pp. vii and 39.
Pascal Khoo Thwe was at the failed conference of the student/ethnic rebel coalition, pp. 208-209.
The ’88 melee barely covered in the United States: The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Associated Press did run the story, but in no way commensurate with its significance, nothing even remotely comparable to, for example, 2009’s protests in Iran. A quick search in ProQuest turns up five times as many article hits for the latter.
“jealousy against establishment of a peaceful and prosperous socialist state”: Mirante, p. 309.
XI.
American journalist drugged, stripped, and covered in shit: Jenkins.
Rangoon spy facility: Sydney Morning Herald; Chenard; Bangkok Post 5; The Irrawaddy 2.
Thai army general speculating on Burma’s intelligence spending/Thais concerned Burmese spies getting migrant IDs: Bangkok Phuchatkan.
Thais recommended making civilians spies that spy on Burmese spies: The Nation 4.
For Us Surrender Is Out of the Question Page 33