Word: karens
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...Karen, they were deities. To the Thais, they were demons. But when they staggered down from the mountains of Burma (now known as Myanmar) at dusk last Tuesday, Johnny and Luther Htoo bore neither miracles nor M-16s, just Bibles in their knapsacks. The tiny teenage twins and leaders of the mysterious rebel force known as God's Army approached a company of Thai soldiers and asked for sanctuary. Whisked to a police compound in the nearby town of Suan Phung, they soon found themselves exchanging bewildered stares with Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai and a dozen of Thailand...
...Karen have been fighting for independence from military dictators in Rangoon for a half-century; by 1997 their rebellion was near collapse. Most Karen fighters fled, but not Johnny and Luther. Leading a half-dozen rebels, the stories go, they beat back entire companies of Burmese soldiers. Their followers swore they had magic powers and were impervious to bullets. For a desperate people, the boys became messiahs. At the police station, they seemed anything but saviors. Shorn of their weapons and fatigues, they appeared to be scrawny, stunted children smoking Thai cigarettes and munching on shortbread cookies. So what were...
...They're just kids," said General Surayud Chulanont, commander in chief of the Thai army, after meeting them. "We think they may have been used as fronts by older rebels." But at least one Karen elder gives them credit. "They really did defeat the Burmese with just a handful of men," he says. Karen Christian priests, who also had frequent contact with God's Army, confirmed the twins' exploits. If the boys were natural-born fighters, it was clearly in the interests of their band to elevate them to something more...
...Surayud who ensnared the boys, engaging a group of Karen elders to persuade God's Army to talk to the government, slowly building contacts between the two sides. The strategy seemed to be working, until New Year's Eve when the rebels got into a dispute with a group of drunken Thai villagers and opened fire. The slaying of the six Thais was the death knell for God's Army. The Thai public demanded retribution. A combined force of soldiers, police and border-patrol units cut off the rebels' supply routes to Thailand, hoping to starve them out. Though...
...been residing in a Thai refugee camp, Thai authorities said. Meanwhile, not all of God's Army have been cast down from the mountain. About 30 rebels still roam the jungle. Refugees still walk over the border and hide in Burma's forests, fleeing Rangoon's soldiers. Some Karen refuse to believe the twins are finished. They say the boys will grow strong again and return to vanquish their foes. The Karen are a people still in need of a savior. And so in the mist-covered mountains of the Thai-Burma border, many will be praying for the second...