Word: karens
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...protest recent shelling by Thai military units, who were cooperating with the Burmese military junta to roust out hill tribes and make way for border trade and roads. But the impulsive raid quickly dissolved into a debacle. Marching into a hospital with guns and explosives squandered any sympathy the Karen rebels had had in Thailand, their traditional safe haven. Within 24 hours, Thai commandos stormed the building, shot dead all the rebels and trussed the bodies in white sheets to show the world that Thailand would not give in to blackmail...
Luther and Johnny reportedly emerged as leaders in 1997, when other Karen fighters fled in disarray ahead of a massive government assault on the country's last unruly region. The Htoo twins told their villagers to stay and fight. "At one point there were just seven of them surrounded by Burmese troops," says Father Augustine, a Thai missionary who has frequent access to the twins. "Somehow they fought their way out, and some believe an army of spirits came to help them." After the twins' initial success, other guerrillas joined them, leading to more victories over the Burmese army. Soon...
...mystique has spread far. Karen villagers interviewed along the Thai border last week said that the boys could not be hit by bullets and that people who walked with them were immune from harm. They cited cases of followers who stepped on land mines that failed to detonate. "The twins have special powers," asserts Plee, 20, a Karen woman who grew up in Johnny and Luther's village. She has taken refuge in Thailand, but still occasionally sees the twins. "I am sure they won't be killed in battle," she says. "They are able to control a large number...
...Karen do. "They are just like normal kids," says Avudh Aree, 60, a Karen living across the Thai border who also knows the twins and thinks the stories of their special powers are exaggerated. "They play with dogs and cats, climb trees." Some suspect they are manipulated by adults. Members of the mainstream Karen resistance, who are more conventional Christians, regard the twins as little better than heretics. "They aren't God's Army--they are Satan's Army," says Major Mary Ohn of the Karen Refugee Committee. "God has no children with guns." The mainstream Karen rebels have reason...
...most of the Karen villagers who live close to the God's Army base still believe the twins have the supernatural strength to defy the Burmese army and allow them to return to a peaceful life free of outside interference. Plee, the refugee Karen woman, nostalgically recalled a Christmas feast in 1998 in Ka Mar Pa Law, where the main dishes were a giant lizard, monkey, deer and wild vegetables. "We ate three times a day, and there was singing and dancing all night...