The 75th Karen Revolution Day at the Karen National Union’s (KNU) headquarters in Hpa-an District, Karen State, on Wednesday vowed to build a federal union and abolish Myanmar’s military dictatorship.
The KNU’s armed wings, the Karen National Liberation Army and Karen National Defense Organization, are fighting the regime in Karen and Mon states and Tanintharyi and Bago regions.
Other anti-regime forces, including the All Burma Student’s Democratic Front, Arakan Liberation Party, Democratic Party for a New Society, Karenni National Progress Party, Burma People’s Liberation Army, Pa-o National Federal Council, Chin Brotherhood Alliance, sent messages of solidarity to the KNU to mark the anniversary, vowing to root out the military dictatorship.
KNU President Padoh Saw Kwe Htoo Win told the event that building a sustainable peace required a federal, democratic union supported by the whole nation.
“The only way to build peace and development for the country and for the benefit of neighboring countries is to abolish authoritarianism and make a federal, democratic union that fully guarantees national equality and rights to self-determination,” Saw Kwe Htoo Win said.
He said the Karen had been affected by wars for more than 70 years and the people demanded an end to military rule.
Armed struggle was the only path to free the country from dictatorship, said the KNU chief in his Karen New Year speech this month.
A Karen woman told The Irrawaddy: “For the Karen people and comrades of the Karen revolution, including our late leader Saw Ba Oo Gyi, I want the military dictatorship to fall and to build a federal democracy with autonomy for ethnic groups.”
The KNU’s resistance began on January 31, 1949, following the post-independence government’s denunciation of the group as an unlawful organization after months of protests demanding Karen equality.
Saw Kwe Htoo Win called for all Karen armed groups and organizations to recover the unity of 1949.
Last week Karen State’s Border Guard Force ended its alliance with Myanmar’s military and stopped receiving funding and supplies from the regime.
The KNU signed the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement in October 2015 with the then Naypyitaw government but it announced in August that it had abandoned the deal, which was rendered void by the 2021 coup.
Since the coup, the KNU has provided shelter to thousands of activists, including politicians, striking government staff and artists, fleeing the junta.
It has trained to several thousand anti-regime activists from across the country as fighters who have formed People’s Defense Forces elsewhere in Myanmar.
