REPORTER: John Martinkus:
These Karen troops have walked for six weeks into Burma for this ambush in the Pa'an district, over 100km from Thailand. They are attacking a Burmese supply column. But things start to go wrong. The Burmese return fire with heavy machine guns and mortars. The whistles are the Burmese troops being urged to advance. As the Burmese get closer, the worn-out weapons of the Karen National Liberation Army, the KNLA, jam again and again.
Confronted by a force much larger than expected, the KNLA run for their lives to avoid Burmese heavy machine gun fire. This rare footage, shot in 2003 by a Canadian freelancer, was the last time combat was filmed in this forgotten war.
Three years later, and just five hours by air from Darwin, this conflict rages on in the jungles of Burma's Karen state.
I have come to the KNLA camp of Colonel Ner Dah Mya inside Karen state, in Burma... to find out what is happening now with this unreported war.
Colonel Ner Dah Mya is the son of the Karen leader General Bo Mya, who began the fight against the Burmese in 1949. His father served with the British Army in World War II. When the British left, abandoning their promise of a free Karen state, Ner Dah's father led his tiny nation to war.
After returning from school in the US, Ner Dah, took up the fight. He now commands 4 of the KNLA's 25 battalions and is their most high-profile leader.
COLONEL NER DAH MYA, KAREN NATIONAL LIBERATION ARMY (Translation): The majority of our people are in refugee camps and are treated as if they were nothing. They are not respected. Do you hear me?
Some people, they are afraid of the Burmese army and we are not afraid of them. From now on we have to tell them... if they are doing something wrong, we have to tell them, "You do something wrong." We have to stand up for our rights.
We are quite close to the enemy and we always have to be on alert, on guard and we are patrolling every day here. Also in this area we are taking care of many villagers here, to protect many villagers here.
This village is just across the border from Thailand in Karen state. It was attacked by Burmese troops last January. The KNLA is the only force that can protect the village.
COLONEL NER DAH MYA: These villagers are Karen people and they see us as their protectors. And we love them and we want to protect them because whenever the Burmese soldiers come into the villages, they burn, they rape, and they loot everything belongs to the people, so the people are always also on the run.
They don't want the Burmese to come. And also we do what we can over here to protect those villagers and those villages not to be burnt. And because they outnumber us but anyway we do our best to protect these villages.
They are always afraid of the Burmese army.
Two years ago, the Karen were the last of Burma's ethnic groups to agree to a cease-fire with the Burmese military regime, now called the State Peace and Development Council, the SPDC. But it made no difference.
COLONEL NER DAH MYA: Operations still going on, killings still going on. So it seems, like a cease-fire with the SPDC, with the Burmese army doesn't make any sense.
The Colonel reveals a systematic program of ethnic cleansing by the Burmese military.
COLONEL NER DAH MYA: They are carrying out what we call the ethnic cleansing. They kill, rape, they burn, intermarriage. They do whatever to eliminate the whole race. So what we are doing right now is to protect, to maintain our identity, to fight for our motherland and fight for our Karen freedom.
Sometimes we are frustrated also about what the world is trying to do. Too slow. People are dying every day.
After dark, as the rain falls on their leaking huts, I realise that for the 60 men based here at the camp inside Burma this existence is hard, isolated and monotonous. The only communication with the outside world is a cheap radio and very rarely, if ever, do they hear reports of their own war. But they know the latest on the AWB scandal.
REPORTER ON RADIO: A request from the American-led occupying government in Iraq to detail all the kickbacks that have been paid was actually passed on to the Department of Foreign Affairs back in 2003.
The lack of reporting on the war isn't because there is no information available. It's because the international community and the media don't appear to care.
These images shot by human rights workers show Karen landmine victims, Karen civilians and KNLA fighters fleeing operations inside Burma last year.
KEVIN HEPPNER, KAREN HUMAN RIGHTS GROUP CO-ORDINATOR: The cease-fire is not holding so much now and the types of human rights abuses which were happening more before the cease-fire are making a comeback now - the really more violent abuses, the killings, the summary executions, the rapes and things like that.
Kevin Heppner has spent the last 10 years living on the Thai border, trying to bring details of this conflict to the outside world.
KEVIN HEPPNER: There is a systematic effort here to starve people out of the hills into state-controlled areas. That's the SPDC's main strategy in Karen areas now. And this is what they were trying to do in October-November 2005 - a total violation of the cease-fire.
REPORTER: We have just been talking to KNLA leaders and they express that their only option left is to continue fighting. Do you think that is the only solution?
KEVIN HEPPNER: Internationally, people seem to think war bad, peace good, and they don't see that surrender is not always good for human rights. So you have to look at what is causing the worst human rights situation in Burma, and it's not the armed conflict - it's unilateral human rights abuses committed through militarisation.
In January 2004 General Bo Mya visited Rangoon and held talks with the generals, resulting in the gentlemen's agreement to cease operations in Karen state. Ironically, the idea of peace talks came from the US-based public relations firm DCI, which had been hired by the regime to improve its image in Washington. DCI's other clients have included the National Rifle Association, the tobacco industry and President George W. Bush. The cease-fire with the Karen was a PR coup for the generals but was never taken seriously by the Burmese Army.
Back in the Karen rebel camp inside Burma, there is no cease-fire. The men solemnly raise the flag of their nation, as yet unrecognised by the outside world. They sing the melancholy Karen national anthem. Among them is an unlikely sight - a middle-aged American in uniform.
REPORTER: We're surprised to find you up here. Maybe you can explain exactly what you are doing up here?
MAJOR ROB: Actually, I am just here to help with bringing in supplies for the children. I bring in blankets, rice, medicine, food, just things that they need.
REPORTER: What's your motivation? Why are you doing this?
MAJOR ROB: It's the heart of God.
Try as I might, the honorary Major in the Karen Army isn't saying too much about what he is doing here.
REPORTER: Because you believe these people need help?
MAJOR ROB: No-one's giving it to them. Yeah, yeah.
REPORTER: What do you think of their struggle? Do you think it's an honourable struggle? Do you think it's a hopeless struggle?
MAJOR ROB: They're protecting their home. This is their land, their country. I'd do the same thing.
It's not clear how far the Major's practical assistance for the KNLA goes.
REPORTER: Even as a deeply religious man, you have no qualms with the fact they are essentially fighters?
MAJOR ROB: Sometimes you have to fight. Most freedom has been won by arms because sometimes, most of the time, talk just doesn't work, and you have to show force, a strong hand. If you don't, you're run over, and they'll be a lost people.
Major Rob is part of a long tradition of Christian missionary support for the Karen. They were first exposed to Christian evangelists in the 1880s. Now they are the only ones helping them out.
The Karen troops prepare for another day patrolling their area to keep the Burmese out and to protect the nearby villages. Over breakfast Colonel Ner Dah Mya tells me his plans.
COLONEL NER DAH MYA: Whether the world will recognise us or not is not a problem. Here we live, we have our governing system here, we have our own troops, we have our territory, we don't have to pay any tax to the Burmese Government, we are free here and we are controlling our area, governing our own people here, eating our own food. Yes.
My strategy is, next time we fight, we will fight and make the whole world know about it. We fight, we make everybody stand up and fight. All the villagers carry guns and weapons and booby traps, whatever, knives. We go out together.
One day maybe 1,000 people will die. No problem. We occupy towns and cities and we make all the villagers stand up and fight for their rights. Now we are waging guerrilla warfare, waiting for the right moment.
These are fighting words but, after 57 years of war, the Karen now control less territory than ever before. After breakfast we cross back into Thailand, drive along the border, and re-enter Karen state further north to visit a village of people displaced by the Burmese military.
This road, I am told, runs all the way to Rangoon and on a good day you can drive 100km without running into the Burmese army.
COLONEL NER DAH MYA: This is part of a checkpoint to secure the area. We have different locations to secure. We have different soldiers stationed to put...
REPORTER: This is to make sure there are no...?
COLONEL NER DAH MYA: No Burmese troops coming in.
Like all villages in Karen state, this one receives no international aid at all. But the people, who have fled the military deeper inside Burma, prefer to stay here and be free rather than in the camps inside Thailand. The only aid delivered comes from Major Rob.
We are not talking about a handful of people. There are an estimated 8 million Karen, and human rights organisations believe almost a million of those are displaced inside Burma. But here, where the people have nothing, these blankets and school books mean a lot. It's all they'll get.
MAJOR ROB: I think it's because of the lack of world politics involved. It takes individuals like me coming here, and the won't let individuals in here, actually.
Despite the cease-fire, this village was attacked in January 2005 and these people found themselves in the middle of fighting between KNLA and Burmese troops. In these areas close to the border, the Karen army can protect its people. But even though it is safer here, life is harsh and, away from their farms and villages, food is scarce.
We drive four hours back across the border and further north, where those Karen who have fled Burma are stuck in camps like this one, guarded by the Thai military.
Media access is banned. We manage to enter by claiming association with the church. It is rare for journalists to get inside these camps. There are 40,000 Karen refugees here in Mae La alone. Many of them have been here for years. The biggest wave of refugees came over 10 years ago, when the KNLA lost large areas to the Burmese military. They are still arriving and almost all of them are never allowed to leave the camp.
OLD MAN, (Translation): Because of the oppression we had to flee from our home. They forced us to carry ammunition for the Burmese military without payment, even though they had money allotted for that. If we couldnt serve as porters theyd force us to do it. And if we couldnt carry the load theyd beat and kick us.
PASTOR SIMON, BAPTIST MINISTER: This morning we are really grateful to God that we have friends who have come to visit us and also to try to find the situation of our people, the plight of our Karen people.
Pastor Simon, a refugee himself, heads the Baptist church in the camp.
PASTOR SIMON: We came to this camp since 1990 so we are already entering 16 years in this camp. But in spite of all the difficulties, restrictions and limitations, we are trying our best to provide education to these young men and women.
CHILDREN SING NATIONAL ANTHEM, (Translation): Our Karen land from where we fled, is the land blessed by God.
In October 2005, the Thai Government announced plans to send 80,000 of the 150,000 Karen refugees back to Burma. The plan was shelved after pressure from Western governments but the future of these people is still uncertain.
This year the US Government announced it would take 10,000 refugees from camps like this one. Australia, the UK, Canada and the EU have offered to settle a further 5,000.
CHILDREN SING NATIONAL ANTHEM, (Translation): But one day the time will come to regain our beautiful land and live peacefully again.
I asked Pastor Simon if he saw this as a solution.
PASTOR SIMON: By opening the door for these people to be resettled in a third country, but most of us, most of the leaders, including me also, I don't think that is, that it would be - what you call - the best solution to solve the problem of the refugees.
I think it is the best solution is to have our country, because peace and democracy will be restored, where we can go back and live in our land with peace and justice, with dignity.
Back in the guerrilla camp inside Burma, Colonel Ner Dah Mya is adamant the Karen should stay and fight.
COLONEL NER DAH MYA: We have to fight for our freedom, we have to stand up and, if all the educated people are leaving, or people who are supposed to fight for their freedom leaving the country, then who's going to fight for their freedom? They are the ones who have to fight for their freedom.
The Americans and the international community can support and can give help but they are the ones who have to die for their freedom. Some people need to die and we need to tell the SPDC that we will die for our freedom.
You cannot come and oppress, you cannot come and kill our people.
Despite his dilemma, his troops head out again to defend their homeland. These men fight because they have no alternative. Whether the world recognises their struggle or not, the Karen say they will continue their war against the Burmese regime until they are free or, sadly, until they are annihilated.
These Karen troops have walked for six weeks into Burma for this ambush in the Pa'an district, over 100km from Thailand. They are attacking a Burmese supply column. But things start to go wrong. The Burmese return fire with heavy machine guns and mortars. The whistles are the Burmese troops being urged to advance. As the Burmese get closer, the worn-out weapons of the Karen National Liberation Army, the KNLA, jam again and again.
Confronted by a force much larger than expected, the KNLA run for their lives to avoid Burmese heavy machine gun fire. This rare footage, shot in 2003 by a Canadian freelancer, was the last time combat was filmed in this forgotten war.
Three years later, and just five hours by air from Darwin, this conflict rages on in the jungles of Burma's Karen state.
I have come to the KNLA camp of Colonel Ner Dah Mya inside Karen state, in Burma... to find out what is happening now with this unreported war.
Colonel Ner Dah Mya is the son of the Karen leader General Bo Mya, who began the fight against the Burmese in 1949. His father served with the British Army in World War II. When the British left, abandoning their promise of a free Karen state, Ner Dah's father led his tiny nation to war.
After returning from school in the US, Ner Dah, took up the fight. He now commands 4 of the KNLA's 25 battalions and is their most high-profile leader.
COLONEL NER DAH MYA, KAREN NATIONAL LIBERATION ARMY (Translation): The majority of our people are in refugee camps and are treated as if they were nothing. They are not respected. Do you hear me?
Some people, they are afraid of the Burmese army and we are not afraid of them. From now on we have to tell them... if they are doing something wrong, we have to tell them, "You do something wrong." We have to stand up for our rights.
We are quite close to the enemy and we always have to be on alert, on guard and we are patrolling every day here. Also in this area we are taking care of many villagers here, to protect many villagers here.
This village is just across the border from Thailand in Karen state. It was attacked by Burmese troops last January. The KNLA is the only force that can protect the village.
COLONEL NER DAH MYA: These villagers are Karen people and they see us as their protectors. And we love them and we want to protect them because whenever the Burmese soldiers come into the villages, they burn, they rape, and they loot everything belongs to the people, so the people are always also on the run.
They don't want the Burmese to come. And also we do what we can over here to protect those villagers and those villages not to be burnt. And because they outnumber us but anyway we do our best to protect these villages.
They are always afraid of the Burmese army.
Two years ago, the Karen were the last of Burma's ethnic groups to agree to a cease-fire with the Burmese military regime, now called the State Peace and Development Council, the SPDC. But it made no difference.
COLONEL NER DAH MYA: Operations still going on, killings still going on. So it seems, like a cease-fire with the SPDC, with the Burmese army doesn't make any sense.
The Colonel reveals a systematic program of ethnic cleansing by the Burmese military.
COLONEL NER DAH MYA: They are carrying out what we call the ethnic cleansing. They kill, rape, they burn, intermarriage. They do whatever to eliminate the whole race. So what we are doing right now is to protect, to maintain our identity, to fight for our motherland and fight for our Karen freedom.
Sometimes we are frustrated also about what the world is trying to do. Too slow. People are dying every day.
After dark, as the rain falls on their leaking huts, I realise that for the 60 men based here at the camp inside Burma this existence is hard, isolated and monotonous. The only communication with the outside world is a cheap radio and very rarely, if ever, do they hear reports of their own war. But they know the latest on the AWB scandal.
REPORTER ON RADIO: A request from the American-led occupying government in Iraq to detail all the kickbacks that have been paid was actually passed on to the Department of Foreign Affairs back in 2003.
The lack of reporting on the war isn't because there is no information available. It's because the international community and the media don't appear to care.
These images shot by human rights workers show Karen landmine victims, Karen civilians and KNLA fighters fleeing operations inside Burma last year.
KEVIN HEPPNER, KAREN HUMAN RIGHTS GROUP CO-ORDINATOR: The cease-fire is not holding so much now and the types of human rights abuses which were happening more before the cease-fire are making a comeback now - the really more violent abuses, the killings, the summary executions, the rapes and things like that.
Kevin Heppner has spent the last 10 years living on the Thai border, trying to bring details of this conflict to the outside world.
KEVIN HEPPNER: There is a systematic effort here to starve people out of the hills into state-controlled areas. That's the SPDC's main strategy in Karen areas now. And this is what they were trying to do in October-November 2005 - a total violation of the cease-fire.
REPORTER: We have just been talking to KNLA leaders and they express that their only option left is to continue fighting. Do you think that is the only solution?
KEVIN HEPPNER: Internationally, people seem to think war bad, peace good, and they don't see that surrender is not always good for human rights. So you have to look at what is causing the worst human rights situation in Burma, and it's not the armed conflict - it's unilateral human rights abuses committed through militarisation.
In January 2004 General Bo Mya visited Rangoon and held talks with the generals, resulting in the gentlemen's agreement to cease operations in Karen state. Ironically, the idea of peace talks came from the US-based public relations firm DCI, which had been hired by the regime to improve its image in Washington. DCI's other clients have included the National Rifle Association, the tobacco industry and President George W. Bush. The cease-fire with the Karen was a PR coup for the generals but was never taken seriously by the Burmese Army.
Back in the Karen rebel camp inside Burma, there is no cease-fire. The men solemnly raise the flag of their nation, as yet unrecognised by the outside world. They sing the melancholy Karen national anthem. Among them is an unlikely sight - a middle-aged American in uniform.
REPORTER: We're surprised to find you up here. Maybe you can explain exactly what you are doing up here?
MAJOR ROB: Actually, I am just here to help with bringing in supplies for the children. I bring in blankets, rice, medicine, food, just things that they need.
REPORTER: What's your motivation? Why are you doing this?
MAJOR ROB: It's the heart of God.
Try as I might, the honorary Major in the Karen Army isn't saying too much about what he is doing here.
REPORTER: Because you believe these people need help?
MAJOR ROB: No-one's giving it to them. Yeah, yeah.
REPORTER: What do you think of their struggle? Do you think it's an honourable struggle? Do you think it's a hopeless struggle?
MAJOR ROB: They're protecting their home. This is their land, their country. I'd do the same thing.
It's not clear how far the Major's practical assistance for the KNLA goes.
REPORTER: Even as a deeply religious man, you have no qualms with the fact they are essentially fighters?
MAJOR ROB: Sometimes you have to fight. Most freedom has been won by arms because sometimes, most of the time, talk just doesn't work, and you have to show force, a strong hand. If you don't, you're run over, and they'll be a lost people.
Major Rob is part of a long tradition of Christian missionary support for the Karen. They were first exposed to Christian evangelists in the 1880s. Now they are the only ones helping them out.
The Karen troops prepare for another day patrolling their area to keep the Burmese out and to protect the nearby villages. Over breakfast Colonel Ner Dah Mya tells me his plans.
COLONEL NER DAH MYA: Whether the world will recognise us or not is not a problem. Here we live, we have our governing system here, we have our own troops, we have our territory, we don't have to pay any tax to the Burmese Government, we are free here and we are controlling our area, governing our own people here, eating our own food. Yes.
My strategy is, next time we fight, we will fight and make the whole world know about it. We fight, we make everybody stand up and fight. All the villagers carry guns and weapons and booby traps, whatever, knives. We go out together.
One day maybe 1,000 people will die. No problem. We occupy towns and cities and we make all the villagers stand up and fight for their rights. Now we are waging guerrilla warfare, waiting for the right moment.
These are fighting words but, after 57 years of war, the Karen now control less territory than ever before. After breakfast we cross back into Thailand, drive along the border, and re-enter Karen state further north to visit a village of people displaced by the Burmese military.
This road, I am told, runs all the way to Rangoon and on a good day you can drive 100km without running into the Burmese army.
COLONEL NER DAH MYA: This is part of a checkpoint to secure the area. We have different locations to secure. We have different soldiers stationed to put...
REPORTER: This is to make sure there are no...?
COLONEL NER DAH MYA: No Burmese troops coming in.
Like all villages in Karen state, this one receives no international aid at all. But the people, who have fled the military deeper inside Burma, prefer to stay here and be free rather than in the camps inside Thailand. The only aid delivered comes from Major Rob.
We are not talking about a handful of people. There are an estimated 8 million Karen, and human rights organisations believe almost a million of those are displaced inside Burma. But here, where the people have nothing, these blankets and school books mean a lot. It's all they'll get.
MAJOR ROB: I think it's because of the lack of world politics involved. It takes individuals like me coming here, and the won't let individuals in here, actually.
Despite the cease-fire, this village was attacked in January 2005 and these people found themselves in the middle of fighting between KNLA and Burmese troops. In these areas close to the border, the Karen army can protect its people. But even though it is safer here, life is harsh and, away from their farms and villages, food is scarce.
We drive four hours back across the border and further north, where those Karen who have fled Burma are stuck in camps like this one, guarded by the Thai military.
Media access is banned. We manage to enter by claiming association with the church. It is rare for journalists to get inside these camps. There are 40,000 Karen refugees here in Mae La alone. Many of them have been here for years. The biggest wave of refugees came over 10 years ago, when the KNLA lost large areas to the Burmese military. They are still arriving and almost all of them are never allowed to leave the camp.
OLD MAN, (Translation): Because of the oppression we had to flee from our home. They forced us to carry ammunition for the Burmese military without payment, even though they had money allotted for that. If we couldnt serve as porters theyd force us to do it. And if we couldnt carry the load theyd beat and kick us.
PASTOR SIMON, BAPTIST MINISTER: This morning we are really grateful to God that we have friends who have come to visit us and also to try to find the situation of our people, the plight of our Karen people.
Pastor Simon, a refugee himself, heads the Baptist church in the camp.
PASTOR SIMON: We came to this camp since 1990 so we are already entering 16 years in this camp. But in spite of all the difficulties, restrictions and limitations, we are trying our best to provide education to these young men and women.
CHILDREN SING NATIONAL ANTHEM, (Translation): Our Karen land from where we fled, is the land blessed by God.
In October 2005, the Thai Government announced plans to send 80,000 of the 150,000 Karen refugees back to Burma. The plan was shelved after pressure from Western governments but the future of these people is still uncertain.
This year the US Government announced it would take 10,000 refugees from camps like this one. Australia, the UK, Canada and the EU have offered to settle a further 5,000.
CHILDREN SING NATIONAL ANTHEM, (Translation): But one day the time will come to regain our beautiful land and live peacefully again.
I asked Pastor Simon if he saw this as a solution.
PASTOR SIMON: By opening the door for these people to be resettled in a third country, but most of us, most of the leaders, including me also, I don't think that is, that it would be - what you call - the best solution to solve the problem of the refugees.
I think it is the best solution is to have our country, because peace and democracy will be restored, where we can go back and live in our land with peace and justice, with dignity.
Back in the guerrilla camp inside Burma, Colonel Ner Dah Mya is adamant the Karen should stay and fight.
COLONEL NER DAH MYA: We have to fight for our freedom, we have to stand up and, if all the educated people are leaving, or people who are supposed to fight for their freedom leaving the country, then who's going to fight for their freedom? They are the ones who have to fight for their freedom.
The Americans and the international community can support and can give help but they are the ones who have to die for their freedom. Some people need to die and we need to tell the SPDC that we will die for our freedom.
You cannot come and oppress, you cannot come and kill our people.
Despite his dilemma, his troops head out again to defend their homeland. These men fight because they have no alternative. Whether the world recognises their struggle or not, the Karen say they will continue their war against the Burmese regime until they are free or, sadly, until they are annihilated.