A
military 'Walter Mitty' in Myanmar's
jungles By Brian McCartan
MAE SOT, Thailand - Along Thailand's
western border with Myanmar, this frontier town
has long attracted a mix of idealists and
mountebanks, hoping alternately to help or win
fame and fortune. It also attracts men - and the
occasional woman - who aim to be the next Che
Guevara, arriving on the guerilla war scene with
military skills to help bolster the insurgent
Karen against their Myanmar army adversaries.
Since the early days of the Karen's armed
struggle - now the world's longest-running
insurgency - foreign fighters have been drawn to
the remote jungle conflict. In the 1980s, several
Frenchmen as well as a smattering of British,
Americans, Australians and Japanese offered their
personal military assistance. At least three
Frenchmen, one Australian and a Japanese were
killed fighting with the Karen in the 1980s
and
1990s.
In 1989, an American reporter with Soldier of
Fortune magazine was killed while covering a
firefight near the Thai border. Some of these
foreign fighters no doubt believed that they were
doing the right thing, helping an underdog against
an oppressor. Others no doubt simply saw the fight
as a high-adrenaline adventure or a boost to their
mercenary resume. Now there is 62-year-old Thomas
Bleming, the latest addition to the long list of
adventurers and would-be Guevaras.
An
American citizen, Bleming told Asia Times Online
that he heard about the Karen struggle in 2006
while watching an Australian documentary in the
United States and decided to come to Thailand and
see what the conflict was all about. Armed with
the knowledge he received from another American
who had written a news story about the Karen for
Soldier of Fortune magazine and a Lonely Planet
guidebook to Southeast Asia, Bleming made the trip
from the US in February 2007.
Bleming said
he first came to Southeast Asia as an American
soldier with the 52nd Air Assault Company and
fought in the US's conflicts in Vietnam and Laos.
He makes frequent mention of his time in Vietnam
in his book entitled War in Karen Country,
a sort of memoir of his recent time with the Karen
which was published in late 2007 by Universe in
Lincoln, Nebraska. He also claims to have
participated in at least nine civil wars and
revolutions, spanning Africa and South and Central
America.
That storied record may or may
not be true. However, a 2003 article in the Panama
News about Bleming claimed that he was "a US Army
vet eventually diagnosed with Post-Traumatic
Stress Syndrome and given full disability
benefits".
Reluctant
recruiters The Karen have never
actively recruited foreigners to serve in their
armed wing, the Karen National Liberation Army
(KNLA). Most foreigners stumble across them either
through military or mercenary contacts, through
magazines such as Soldier of Fortune, or even
simply while backpacking as tourists through
Thailand. Most have fantasies of fighting on the
frontline or leading troops into battle, but most
are usually given training duties - often to
simply keep them out of harm's way, according to
Karen officials.
After almost 60 years of
guerilla warfare in remote mountainous tropical
jungle terrain, Karen soldiers have become
proficient fighters and are now able to discern
foreign professionals from wannabe adventurers. As
one Karen officer commented, "We didn't want to
turn them away, so the ones who had skills we
needed we ask to teach us. The ones we knew didn't
have special skills we ask to teach marksmanship."
Where Bleming fits into that continuum is
unclear. He claims he was interviewed by a "KNLA
official" who later put him in contact with
Colonel Saw Ner Dah, a staff officer at the KNLA's
headquarters. Retrieved from his tourist guest
house in Mae Sot, Bleming was then taken to a KNLA
military camp across the border in Myanmar where
he stayed for three weeks, although with a several
day hiatus to get a new Thailand tourist visa.
In an interview, Bleming refers to himself
as "a revolutionary" and claims to have gone on a
KNLA "combat patrol" in the Dawna, a mountain
range along Myanmar's eastern border with
Thailand. He also claims to have "fought" at Maw
Kee, a village several kilometers from the border.
His book relates a slightly different
version, revealing that the combat patrol involved
riding in a truck for several hours to a village
and then walking for a mile. After what he
describes as a five-minute firefight, the patrol
then moved on several kilometers. However,
Bleming, was unable to continue due to dehydration
and returned to the camp. The patrol, it seems,
lasted only for one evening.
The rest of
Bleming's stay with the Karen, as documented in
his book, is spent mostly loitering around a KNLA
camp. He tells with great pride of how the
insurgent group let him carry an AK-47 assault
rifle with a sniper scope, which he contends shows
that the KNLA considered him one of them.
Such fraternity didn't always put his mind
at ease. As he recounts in his book, he couldn't
sleep for much of the time he was in the camp. He
also details several incidents of imagining
explosions and being surrounded by gunfire. At one
point, during what he called an "100% alert", he
took a carbine from a sleeping Karen major so that
he could have his own weapon next to him while he
slept.
Nonetheless, Bleming was full of
bravado back in Mae Sot. In an interview he said
he was prepared to go back to the "frontline". "I
am committed to the destruction and bringing down
of the military junta and the restoration of a
democratic form of government [in Myanmar]. I will
carry an AK-47 if able at 80 [years of age]." He
does not see himself as a soldier of fortune, but
rather "a citizen fighting for my adopted
country".
Talk like this goes down poorly
with the small pool of aid workers and
human-rights monitors who regularly spend weeks or
months inside Myanmar, much further into the
considerably more dangerous interior, where they
genuinely assist the Karen and the humanitarian
crisis that they face. So, too, does his blatant
lying and obfuscation.
Contested
accounts In his book he claims to be
the only person to have chronicled the KNLA's
fight, saying, "Never before has anyone been
permitted to capture the everyday life of a Karen
soldier. To be able to place those named within
the pages of this book along with these photos,
truly is a first of its kind ... For now this is
the premier showing of the Karen National
Liberation Army, and a story that has never been
told." Detailed reports, articles and
documentaries of the situation by relief agencies,
human-rights groups and news agencies, of course,
are readily available on the Internet.
Indeed, Bleming claims to be at the center
of a growing foreign movement to assist the Karen.
"I'm receiving e-mails from soldiers and others to
come and fight. There are plans to form an
International Brigade to come and fight. There are
others coming this month from the US to join. They
are ex-military. The new guys are Iraqi vets. They
are coming to stake their futures." He does make
it clear, however, that he did not recruit anyone.
"They contacted me, I didn't recruit them."
He also claims that a new offensive
against the Myanmar army is in the offing, to be
backed by foreign fighters and new foreign
weapons. "In the next few months, the Karen army
will be very well equipped to fight in such a way
that the Burmese will be begging for peace. In the
next few months there will be additional men at
the front from the States and equipment to take
out targets that we plan to take out."
He
claimed in an interview to have plans to add
Stinger missiles capable of downing aircraft to
the Karen's arsenal, saying, "We will send out
notice internationally first before using them."
His announcement of a new foreign-abetted
offensive against the Myanmar army came as a big
surprise to several senior Karen officers. Western
intelligence agencies take note: senior KNU and
KNLA officials are adamant that they are not in
the market for surface-to-air missiles and scoff
at the idea as "ludicrous".
In fact, it is
unclear who exactly Bleming plans to shoot down
from the sky, since the Myanmar Air Force hasn't
used its aircraft against insurgent targets since
the early 1990s.
Bleming makes much of his
contact with Colonel Ner Dah, who he refers to as
the "provisional head of state of the Republic of
Kawthoolei", bestowed on him the position of
counsel general in the United States and that he
would be granted a plot of land when the war is
won as reward for his efforts. Ner Dah admits to
have meeting Bleming, but has repeatedly denied
his claims of granting him any honorary positions.
Sources in the Karen National Union (KNU)
have likewise denied his accounts, saying that Ner
Dah has no authority to appoint anyone and that
the idea of forming a separate country goes
against the Manerplaw Agreement signed by the
Karen and other ethnic groups in 1992, in which
they all gave up their separatist claims and
agreed to form a federal union. The document was
signed by Ner Dah's father, the late former leader
of the KNU General Saw Bo Mya.
Me and
my dog Bleming said that he considers
Kawthoolei a "heaven on Earth" and is making plans
to stay. "When hostilities cease I am going back
to get my dog, clear up business and head back
over here to live in the Republic of Kawthoolei
for the rest of my life." He also says he has big
plans for his promised patch of an independent
Karen state. "Ner Dah wants an international
airport and casinos. We want to charge people to
come and see the war. It will be for Walter
Mittys."
Bleming fits that same profile
and seems blithely unaware of the questionable
legality of his actions. He told Asia Times Online
he was not afraid of the Thai authorities
arresting him for illegally crossing the border
since, "I am a dual citizen and an official
government representative. I have a legal right to
go back to my home country." When asked about the
possibility of problems with American authorities,
Bleming replied, "The United States has recognized
the Karen struggle. There is no law against US
citizens fighting overseas, as long as they are
not against the US."
The US Neutrality Act
proscribes fines and lengthy prison terms for
destroying the property of foreign governments and
instigating or supporting military expeditions
against foreign states with which the United
States is at peace. Due to the US's broad
definition of a terrorist organization, Bleming
could also face charges under the Patriot Act.
Moreover, Bleming seems unaware or unconcerned of
the consequences his actions may have on the
foreign aid and rights workers who are not in Mae
Sot for an adventure holiday.
The military
situation has changed from the more free-wheeling
1970s and 1980s, when the Thai government
implemented a buffer state rather than engagement
policy towards Myanmar and was often willing to
look the other way at foreigners crossing the
border to the camps of the Karen and other ethnic
insurgent groups.
A senior Karen officer
told Asia Times Online, "Now people like Thomas
Bleming could make problems for us because the
Thais will be unhappy. The SPDC [State Peace and
Development Council] can use this to pressure the
Thais to pressure the KNU." Ner Dah said in an
e-mail communication, "We don't need foreigners to
fight for us. In the past we had some foreigners,
but because we lacked the equipment and materials,
we always ended up in conflict."
Another
statement, purportedly issued on behalf of Ner Dah
about Bleming appeared in the March 26 edition of
the New Mandala blog, saying, "The Karen people
are very warm-hearted and friendly. Therefore we
treat anyone with respect and share the little we
have with them. But we are not able to cure people
who come to us with mental problems they got
mostly during the war in Vietnam."
While
Bleming seems well intentioned - he insisted on
holding a large party for a Karen camp for his
birthday, sent a truckload of non-lethal supplies
for Karen soldiers when he left for the US, and
claims to be donating all the royalties from his
book to Ner Dah - his naivete and delusions are
likely to cause more detriment than benefit to the
Karen's cause. In the end, he cuts the profile of
a lost, lonely and possibly deranged old man -
similar in a poignant way to the lost and
forgotten Vietnam war vets often seen carrying
signs saying "will work for food" on the streets
of American cities. "I have gone from a
soldier of fortune and Vietnam vet world traveler
to accomplished author and representative of a
foreign nation and head of state," he told Asia
Times Online, "I feel half dead in the States. I
have no say in government and no power in the US,
but in Kawthoolei I do. They sit and listen to me.
I would like to be remembered in Karen history
books as someone who came over to help."
Brian McCartan
is a Thailand-based freelance journalist.
(Copyright 2008 Asia Times Online Ltd. All
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