Myanmar's Karen insurgents burn another government outpost

Guerrilla forces from Myanmar’s Karen ethnic minority say they burned down a government military outpost after capturing it without a fight when its garrison fled

BANGKOK -- Guerrilla soldiers from Myanmar’s Karen ethnic minority burned down a government military outpost on Friday after capturing it without a fight when its garrison fled, a senior Karen officer said. The position is approximately 15 kilometers (nine miles) from a larger camp that the Karen National Liberation Army stormed and burned 10 days earlier. The KNLA is the armed wing of the Karen National Union, the main political organization representing the Karen minority, whose homeland is in eastern Myanmar. The Karen and the Kachin in northern Myanmar are the two major ethnic armed organizations that have allied themselves with the movement against the junta that took power in Myanmar after the army ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February. The role of the ethnic fighting groups has become more important as the number of people joining street protests in Myanmar’s cities and towns has declined, in large part due to deadly violence increasingly used by security forces to suppress them. Hundreds of demonstrators and bystanders have died.