Guerrilla Warfare :
Requiem for a Resistance

KAWTHOOLEI, Burma -- Perhaps the most bizarre episode in the history of resistance against Burma's repressive military junta ended three weeks ago when legendary teen Karen twins and rebel leaders, Johnny and Luther Htoo, turned themselves in to Thai security forces in Ratchaburi in the rugged foothills that separate Thailand from Burma. But the rise and fall of their God's Army wasn't the handiwork of the notorious junta alone. Rather, it was Rangoon's unholy alliance with the Thai government and foreign oil companies that ultimately led to the demise of one of the most feared and enigmatic Karen groups to have fought for a federated Burmese republic since World War II.

The origin of God's Army lies in a controversial pipeline project -- a four-way partnership launched in 1993 by France's Total, California-based Unocal, the Petroleum Authority of Thailand and the state-owned Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise. The $1.2 billion project, expected to fill the cash-strapped junta's coffers with $400 million annually, called for a 36-inch-diameter pipeline stretching from the Yadana natural gas field off the coast of Burma to a refinery in Thailand. Trouble was, it had to pass through an active war-zone tentatively held by the Karen National Union, the main Karen resistance movement.

It was a recipe for conflict. Wishing to protect their investments, Total and Unocal employed Burmese troops for security. To the Karen, however, the pipeline was merely a pretext for further incursions into their ethnic homeland by the junta's troops.

But this time the Burmese government had the sanction of Western businesses and governments. United States and Thai diplomats pressured the Karen not to resist. According to General Saw Bo Mya, then KNU president, U.S. officials in Bangkok told Karen leaders that an attack on the pipeline would be considered an act of "terrorism" and result in an end to humanitarian aid and food shipments to Karen refugee camps.

Thai authorities, too, threatened to cut off unofficial trade and supply routes to the Karen inside Burma. The Tenasserim mountain range is inhospitable land, unsuitable for growing food crops, forcing the Karen to rely on Thai border guards to turn a blind eye to the smuggling of food and other goods across the frontier. Hamstrung, the KNU agreed not to resist. Meanwhile, Burmese troops charged with protecting the pipeline swept through the area, attacking villages, subduing Karen and forcing many of them into porterage. In just a few years, what was once a Karen stronghold fell firmly under Rangoon's control.

Unocal and Total maintain that no human rights abuses, such as slave labor or forced relocations, occurred during construction of the pipeline. But eyewitness reports say otherwise, and a declassified U.S. embassy report of a May 1995 meeting with a Unocal executive shows U.S. officials weren't exactly buying the companies' line. "We have heard other claims that this kind of relocation sometimes takes place before foreigners arrive on the scene to witness such abuse," the report said.

Neither did Unocal representatives acknowledge credible reports of Karen press-ganged to work on related projects -- the building of roads chief among them. "As [the Unocal official's] denial of company responsibility for the forced road-clearing attests, it is impossible to operate in a completely abuse-free environment when you have the Burmese government as a partner," the embassy report concluded.

After four years of oppression, the local Karen were pushed to the breaking point. Legend has it that after their village was attacked in 1997 to make way for the pipeline, the two 10-year-old twins, Johnny and Luther Htoo, were inspired by visions to take up arms, and they convinced seven Karen soldiers to join them. According to KNU leaders, it was after a successful surprise assault, routing a full battalion of the junta's shock troops, that the ranks of God's Army began to swell with disaffected KNU soldiers.

Most accounts of God's Army have focused on the group's spiritual teachings – a blend of Christian piety and local animism. Certainly the twins' band of followers developed some unusual beliefs. For instance, they thought that if the tide of battle turned against God's Army, angels would materialize to fight alongside them. The boy-prophets were said to turn invisible at will and bullets bounced off of them. Landmines purportedly were rendered harmless under their feet.

This made for some colorful stories in the Western media which painted the God's Army as either comicly fraudulent Christians or rabid fanatics whose beliefs encouraged them to take up arms. But the band's own religion was a symptom rather than a cause of its desperate fight for survival. Christian Karen are Baptist and Presbyterian -- a legacy from missionaries of the early 1800s – but embattled villagers inside Burma have long been cut off from the structured worship of the Karen in Thailand's refugee camps. "Because they are so isolated and it's such a desperate situation, they've deviated from standard [Christian] practices," explained Jim Jacobson, a missionary who directs the U.S.-based humanitarian outfit Christian Freedom International. "But they truly believe that Jesus is their salvation."

After several more God's Army victories against government troops the twins grew in mythic stature, so much so that the even the KNU leadership expressed admiration for their fighting ability. But there was a day of reckoning. It came when a dissident group of pro-democracy activists from Rangoon, the Vigorous Burmese Student Warriors, took refuge with God's Army in the hills after staging several terrorist attacks against the junta. These included the Oct. 1999 seizure of the Burmese embassy in Bangkok, in which hostages were freed in exchange for safe passage back to Burma. That last act, which ended peacefully but humiliated Thai authorities, placed God's Army firmly in the crosshairs of both the Thai and Burmese governments.

Several months later, God's Army was tracked to a village on the Burmese border, where they and innocent Karen villagers were pummeled by Thai and Burmese artillery. (Thai military has claimed it was firing only warning shots to keep the combatants at bay.) Ten members of God's Army slipped across the border and laid siege to a hospital in Ratchaburi, demanding that Thai doctors treat their wounded. Thai security forces stormed the hospital and, according to eyewitness reports, summarily executed them.

With threats renewed to cut off aid and food supplies, the KNU distanced itself even further from God's Army. Thai military presence along the border increased significantly, and shipments of rice allegedly bound for the twins from sympathizers were confiscated. As hunger set in, the ranks of God's Army dwindled. Rumors of infighting seemed to be borne out in late December when a faction of God's Army killed six Thai villagers, infuriating the Thai government. Starving and unable to evade capture much longer, the Htoo twins turned themselves in to Thai authorities with about a dozen child-soldier followers on Jan. 23. The twins say they would like to live with their mother in a Karen refugee camp, but Thai officials are still weighing whether to press charges.

With the twins' capture, the myths that grew up around them may subside. But it's likely other groups will form in the area, born of the desperation of local Karen, attacked on all sides. The true origin of the God's Army rebellion is not to be found in their strange mixture of Christian and animist beliefs, but in the alliance of business and governments determined to protect the natural gas pipeline at any cost. As the U.S. embassy report suggests, there's little chance of creating an abuse-free environment around a business venture as long as the Burmese government is involved.

Mr. Dealey is an editorial page writer for The Asian Wall Street Journal.