Wig’s Secret War – Plight of the Karen

Whilst the record has been set straight about those killed in the crash of Flight KN

584 (They are no longer “Missing in Action”), relatives are still unable to visit the

burial site. This is because it is located in an area which is not open to visitors

because on an ongoing conflict between the Myanmar army and Karen insurgents.

With all the publicity surrounding the Rohingya population in western Myanmar,

the ongoing insurgencies involving both the Karen in the south east, and the

Kachin on the Chinese border, get little play in the western media. The Karen

have been struggling for self-determination for more than a century. And there

are around 150,000 refugees living in camps across the Thai border with a further

50,000 having settled in western countries.

Read more about this topic.

There is a long-running need for a new constitutional settlement in Myanmar and

the establishment of a federal state recognising the many ethnic groups within the country. This was mooted by Churchill in the 1940s. But his proposals were shelved following the election of the Attlee Labour government in 1945.