Karenni National People's Liberation Front

Karenni National People's Liberation Front
ကရင်နီပြည်လူမျိုးပေါင်းစုံပြည်သူ့လွတ်မြောက်ရေးတပ်ဦး
LeadersU Tun Kyaw[1]
Dates of operation1978 (1978)–2009 (2009), 2023–present (2023–present)
Split fromKarenni Army
HeadquartersPankan village, Loikaw Township[2]
Active regionsKayah State
Myanmar-Thailand border
IdeologyMarxism-Leninism[3]
Revolutionary socialism[4]
Karenni nationalism
Federalism
Size2,000 (2021)[5]
Allies

State allies:

Non-state allies:

Opponents

State opponents:

Non-state opponents:

Battles and wars

Internal conflict in Myanmar

Flag

The Karenni National People's Liberation Front (KNPLF) is a communist and Karenni nationalist insurgent group active in Kayah State, Myanmar (Burma). It agreed to become a government-sponsored border guard force on 8 November 2009 although it remains active under the name of KNPLF.[10] Starting from 13 June 2023, it has decided to change sides to the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), Karenni Army (KA), Karenni Nationalities Defense Force (KNDF), and People's Defense Force (PDF) and fight the military regime.

History

The KNPLF was formed in 1978, when a group of left-wing fighters split from the Karenni Army due to ideological differences. In 1983, under CPB's leadership, KNPLF alongside Kayan New Land Party and Shan State National Liberation Organisation formed the central regional command.[4] The group maintained close ties with the Communist Party of Burma (CPB), receiving training, supplies, and armed support from the group until the latter's disarmament in 1989.[10]

In 1989, a ceasefire deal was negotiated between the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) and the KNPLF, which was finalised in 1994.[10] The group had since helped government soldiers combat other armed insurgent groups, most notably the Karenni Army, and on 8 November 2009, the group agreed to transform into a "border guard force".[11]

The KNPLF has been accused of using child soldiers and landmines in the past,[12] with one child soldier named Koo Reh at age 13 saying:

I was watching the film [in the cinema], and he [the recruiter] sat and talked to me. He said if I joined I would be happy and receive a salary and uniform. I do not remember his name but he was from KNPLF. I agreed to join. He spoke to many people in the cinema, one by one, 20 or 25 people, adults, women, boys. About six people went with him. The older ones were 16 or 17, the younger ones 11, 12 or 13. I went home but didn't tell my mother, then I went with him.[13]

Recent events

Four KNPLF / BGF soldiers were murdered alongside at least 45 civilians during the Mo So massacre committed by the Burmese military on the Christmas Eve of 2021. KNPLF / BGF personnel tried to negotiate with soldiers from the Burmese army to stop them from burning civilians alive but were instead murdered by being shot in their heads.[14][15][16]

KNPLF has also received weapons from the powerful United Wa State Army (UWSA) post-military coup and allegedly been involved in resistance efforts against the Burmese military despite being reformed as a Border Guard Force.[17] Chit Tun, a high ranking member of KNPLF was appointed as one of the two Deputy Ministers of Federal Union Affairs in the National Unity Government (NUG), a parallel government formed by elected lawmakers and members of parliament ousted in the coup d'état. KNPLF announced its support for NUG and some low ranking KNPLF members fought alongside Karenni Nationalities Defence Force against the Burmese military.[18][19]

In June 2023, KNPLF openly defected to anti-junta forces and joined forces with Karenni Army, Karenni Nationalities Defence Force, Karen National Liberation Army, and People's Defence Force and began attacking Burmese military positions.[20] The combined resistance forces seized junta outposts and took over Maese township in Eastern Kayah State.[21]

References

  1. ^ "KNPLF Says No Fake Peace". BNI. 6 March 2020. Retrieved 29 June 2023.
  2. ^ "KNPLF celebrates 25 years of ceasefire in Loikaw". Ministry Of Information. Myanmar Ministry of Information. Retrieved 11 May 2020.
  3. ^ Beng, Ooi Kee (2014). ISEAS Perspective: Selections 2012–2013. Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. p. 107. ISBN 978-981-4519-26-7. Archived from the original on 11 September 2022. Retrieved 11 May 2020.
  4. ^ a b Aik Ni (Phyuu) (7 September 2020). "ပြန်လည်နိုးထလာတဲ့ ကရင်နီပြည်က ဖီးနစ်ငှက်" (in Burmese). Retrieved 26 May 2024.
  5. ^ Khin, Aung; Aung, Nyan Lin (9 December 2021). "ကရင်နီကာကွယ်ရေးတပ်ဖွဲ့". Voice of America (in Burmese). Archived from the original on 7 July 2022. Retrieved 3 July 2022.
  6. ^ "Intense clash in Mese, Karenni State". Democratic Voice of Burma (in Burmese). 20 June 2023.
  7. ^ "The 4K, the clash in Mese, and the military movement of Karenni State". People's Spring (in Burmese). 20 June 2023.
  8. ^ Davis, Anthony (22 February 2022). "Wa an early winner of Myanmar's post-coup war". Asia Times. Archived from the original on 7 October 2022. Retrieved 24 September 2022.
  9. ^ J, Esther (10 November 2023). "After attacking military target in Karenni State, KNDF and KNPLF announce launch of 'Operation 1107'". Myanmar Now. Archived from the original on 10 November 2023. Retrieved 10 November 2023.
  10. ^ a b c "Karenni National People's Liberation Front". Archived from the original on 10 May 2017. Retrieved 27 February 2016.
  11. ^ Murray, Lucy; Byardu, Beh Reh (25 March 2005). "Karenni rebels dig in for last stand". Asia Times. Archived from the original on 26 March 2005. Retrieved 29 November 2018.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  12. ^ "Geneva Call – Karenni National Peoples Liberation Front (KNPLF)". Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 27 February 2016.
  13. ^ "Sold to be Soldiers: The Recruitment and Use of Child Soldiers in Burma: VI. Child Soldiers in Non-State Armed Groups". www.hrw.org. Human Rights Watch. Archived from the original on 10 May 2017. Retrieved 29 November 2018.
  14. ^ J, Esther (25 December 2021). "ဖရူဆိုတွင် အစုအပြုံလိုက် မီးရှို့ခံထားရသည့်ထဲတွင် ကလေးငယ်ပင်ပါဝင်". Myanmar Now (in Burmese). Archived from the original on 3 July 2022. Retrieved 3 July 2022.
  15. ^ J, Esther (7 January 2022). "စစ်ကောင်စီ ဖုံးသမျှပေါ်နေသည့် ယာဉ်နှင့်လူများ မီးပုံရှို့မှု". Myanmar Now (in Burmese). Archived from the original on 3 July 2022. Retrieved 3 July 2022.
  16. ^ Phoe Khwar, Saw (1 March 2022). "မိုဆိုရွာ သတ်ဖြတ်မှု စစ်တပ်လက်ချက်လို့ NUG အထောက်အထားတွေ ထုတ်ပြန်". Radio Free Asia (in Burmese). Archived from the original on 3 July 2022. Retrieved 3 July 2022.
  17. ^ Davis, Anthony (22 February 2022). "Wa an early winner of Myanmar's post-coup war". Asia Times. Archived from the original on 14 June 2022. Retrieved 3 July 2022.
  18. ^ "NUG နဲ့ အတူ ဘယ်သူတွေ ရပ်တည်နေကြသလဲ". The Irrawaddy (in Burmese). 25 April 2021. Archived from the original on 3 July 2022. Retrieved 3 July 2022.
  19. ^ "Kayah State Resistance Groups Reject Ceasefire with Myanmar Junta". The Irrawaddy. 17 June 2021. Archived from the original on 3 July 2022. Retrieved 3 July 2022.
  20. ^ J, Esther (23 June 2023). "Karenni BGF battalions confirm role in recent raids on junta outposts". Myanmar Now. Archived from the original on 27 November 2023. Retrieved 28 June 2023.
  21. ^ "Myanmar Junta Outposts Fall to Karenni Resistance in Kayah State". The Irrawaddy. 26 June 2023. Archived from the original on 22 March 2024. Retrieved 28 June 2023.
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