The "Four-Foot Colonel" Gen Saw Smith Dun ( 1906 - 1979 )

The "Four-Foot Colonel" Gen. Smith Dun ( 1906 - 1979 )

In 1946, during the World War II victory parade in London, Field Marshal William Slim and Col Smith Dun were having a conversation. Slim, the commander of the British-Indian forces that had recaptured Burma from the Japanese, turned to nearby reporters and jokingly introduced his companion: “This is Colonel Dun who is o¬nly four-feet tall,” he said. Ever since, Smith Dun has been known as the “Four-foot Colonel.”

The diminutive colonel—an ethnic Karen—received his training at the Indian Military Academy, where he won the first Sword of Honor (given to the best cadet in each year’s intake), and later helmed a contingent of Karen guerrilla forces from the Irrawaddy delta during World War II.

Smith Dun played a key role in the early years of Burma’s independence. He was appointed head of Burma’s armed forces and promoted to the rank of general in a move agreed to by ethnic parties and Burmese nationalists to foster confidence in a future Burmese union that would include all ethnic minority groups.

Mahn Win Maung, President of Burma in 1957

Mahn Win Maung was an ethnic Karen born on 17 April 1916 in the Irrawaddy delta, son of Daw Tharya and U Shwe Yin. He graduated with a B.A. from Yangon University's Judson College in 1937. Between 1947 and 1956 he was variously Minister of Ministry of Mining and Labour, Minister of the Ministry of Transport and Telecommunication and Minister of the Ministry of Water, Air and Costal Ship. He was imprisoned between 1962 to 1967. Mahn Win Maung died in 1989, 4july when he was 73 years old.

Karen Costumes

There are a lot of Karen dresses for Karen women. People weave white, green, blue, red, yellow, black long and short dresses with many different colors.

Karen people have many different types of traditions regarding dress. Costume is very important for us. Our costume is very pretty, they have dignity and many other ethnic nationalities like to wear it. All the costumes have different meanings. Our ancestors wanted other people to recognize us and they made a sign when they were weaving.

A long time ago there were no factories, people planted cotton, made the cotton to become thread and they always hand weaved it. Now there are many machines to produce clothes so many people have sadly, forgotten how to weave.

Karen Culture Wrist Tying Ceremony

(Contributed by Mahn Kyaw Swe)
"Before Buddhism or Christianity was introduced to the Karen people, our ancient ancestors and great grandmothers and grandfathers, lived in fear of different spirits. Therefore, our parents and grandparents used white thread, which they tied on the wrists of children after calling back their spirits. It meant that the person and one's spirit would stay together and could live free from fear," one of the participants explained in English to the visitors.

People who attend the wrist tying ceremony must wear full traditional costume. The ceremony could only be sponsored by an elderly couple who had lived together as husband and wife for their entire married life. This senior couple called upon the spirits of the children to come back from the place of darkness and to stay with parents, grandparents and relatives. The senior couple then prayed that the young children would behave themselves well, and act with good discipline and preserve our culture. There are seven materials are used for wrist tying ceremony:

1. A glass of cold water
2. Three white threads
3. Seven rice balls
4. Seven triangular-shaped lumps of sticky rice in the packages
5. Seven boiled bananas
6. Seven (Paw Woung) branches of flowers
7. Seven pieces of sugarcane

The Myaungmya Massacres

After the British retreat and in the wake of the Japanese invasion Burman officials immediately took over administering the predominantly Karen area of Myaungmya. One of their first actions was to release all the convicts from the local jail and within days the convicts were rampaging through the locality looting and robbing from the local Karen, Chinese and Indian communities.

The first BIA detachment, commanded by Bo Aung and Bo Myint, soon arrived in the area and, similar to BIA units in Papun, were primarily comprised of a number of young miscreants. Within days the unit had confiscated all weapons and had begun collecting money from the local villagers and government servants. In addition they also attempted to round up ex-British soldiers, mainly Karens, and under this pretext looted and stole as many possessions from the townspeople as they could. In a show of bravado the BIA arrested two Karens, supposedly on separate charges of rape and theft, and, outside the BIA Headquarters, bayoneted them to death before hacking the corpses to pieces.

Such actions were hardly designed to produce trust in the local community and soon there was a state of open communal warfare as the BIA tore through the district burning down Karen villages and in response to such actions the Karens retaliated by destroying Burman villages. The victims - innocent villagers - found themselves scattered throughout the countryside living in small shelters and scavenging for food.

Padoh Mahn Sha Lar Phan

WAKE UP MALAYSIA by Cobem Ethnics

            Tens of thousands of refugees and asylum seekers are at undue risk for arrest in the upcoming raids all over Malaysia. Saturday afternoon, February 11, at the beautiful Central Market in Kota Raya downtown Kuala Lumpur, while many tourists and locals shopped, more than 100 people (including illegal migrant workers, asylum seekers, and refugees) were arrested for illegally workin...g. Just twenty minutes after the arrests were finished, one looking at the market would never even have known that anything out of the ordinary had occurred. Onlookers must be unaware of the situation involving many of the arrested and the at risk individuals for arrest.

Need to be Next to You