Pro-Government Militias
Documentation for Democratic Karen Buddhist Army
May 23, 1995 United Press International
July 25, 1995 Economic Newswire
May 7, 1996 Associated Press Worldstream
Jan. 30, 1997 Agence France Presse -- English
Renegade ethnic Karen bands have burned and looted two camps in Thailand housing more than 10,000 refugees, the Karen Refugee Committee (KRC) said T..
The Democratic Kayin (Karen) Buddhist Army (DKBA) launched simultaneous assaults Tuesday night on the Wangka and Don Pa Kiang refugee camps, ...Thai relief workers and media accused the Burmese military's State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) of being behind the raid, noting that there were Burmese bases within a few kilometers (miles) of the camps.
Feb. 23, 1997 The Observer
Aug. 11, 1997 BANGKOK POST
March 27, 1998 Deutsche Presse-Agentur
Kohkoh is the headquarters of the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), which broke away from the Christian-led KNU in December 1994.
The Yangon-backed DKBA has been blamed for at least three violent incursions this month into Thailand, which have strained Thai-Myanmar relations and proved an embarrassment to the Thai military.
Nov. 16, 1999 BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific
Nov. 15, 2000 Courier Mail (Queensland, Australia)
SPDC and DKBA troops consider anyone moving through the area to be with the rebel army
Dec. 16, 2001 BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific
Khoke Ko base camp of the DKBA Democratic Karen Buddhist Army near Myawadi was attacked by KNU Karen National Union forces at about 0300 today. There were a number of casualties in the ensuing two-hour battle.
Oct. 18, 2002 BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific
Oct. 23, 2003 BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific - Political
We have previously reported about the offensive launched against the Karen National Union (KNU) by the SPDC State Peace and Development Army and the DKBA Democratic Karen Buddhist Army troops. We have been given to understand that the KNU retreated on 16 October because of the ferocity of the attacks.
Jan. 31, 2004 The Nation (Thailand)
The DKBA, an insurgent group allied to the Burmese military junta, split with the larger Karen National Union (KNU) in the mid-1990s after an internal conflic
July 22, 2005 BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific
The DKBA broke away from the Karen National Union in 1995 and signed a cease-fire agreement with Rangoon... Lt-Gen Thein Sein of Burma's State Peace and Development Council [SPDC] met with DKBA group chairman xxx in Karen State on 13 July to announce the SPDC's proposed support for agricultural and infrastructure improvements,..xxx has denied recent reports that the Burmese military has asked DKBA for assistance in its ongoing campaign against the KNU [Karen National Union ]...."So far, the SPDC has said nothing about helping them to fight the KNU," xxx
April 12, 2007 BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific
Troops from the Karen National Union (KNU) and the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) have been fighting since 7 April and we have learned that the KNU's stronghold - 7th Brigade - has fallen.
..News gathered from the border areas indicate that the combined forces of the SPDC and the DKBA [Democratic Karen Buddhist Army] have taken over some bases of the 7th Brigade. But this does not mean that the 7th Brigade has lost all its bases. At least four of its bases, including the major ones, have been overrun.
Dec. 21, 2007 BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific
Excerpt from report by Norway-based Burmese Democratic Voice of Burma website, on 20 December
Troops belonging to the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) shot and killed five soldiers from the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army on 16 December while the two forces were jointly conducting a campaign in the territory of the 6th Brigade of the Karen National Union (KNU).
Feb. 21, 2008 BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific
According to one source close to DKBA leaders, the killing was most likely carried out by San Pyote (a.k.a. Soe Myint) and several other members of DKBA Battalion 999 who disappeared from territory controlled by the group shortly after last Thursday's shooting death of Mahn Sha, who was the general secretary of the Karen National Union (KNU).
Aug. 22, 2009 The International Herald Tribune
The government's local allies, the Democratic Kayin Buddhist Army, led the charge toward his camp at Mae Salid, across the river from the Thai town of the same name.
May 3, 2010 BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific
Significant clashes between the two armies came as the DKBA soldiers moved east.
Karen National Liberation Army sources last night, adding that the DKBA soldiers were "coming back, but not the commanders, of course".
Karen National Union vice-president David Takapaw said he had heard that many DKBA soldiers were unhappy with recent demands made by the SPDC and that some had begun to defect. (…)
The question is to what extent the DKBA will be damaged by such a mutiny by its foot soldiers. A few hundred soldiers is many, but not much of an indent on overall DKBA numbers. But a warlord is nothing without the loyalty of his men. Chit Thu must now be questioning loyalty among the remaining men he leads.
With SPDC troops hunting DKBA defectors as they make their way towards KNLA territory, the prospect of the whole of the DKBA peacefully transforming into a Border Guard Force (BGF) looks marginal. (…)
Deadlines for the DKBA to transform into a BGF have come and gone, and as each one passes the SPDC raises the pressure a notch. The junta's programme is essentially a system of creating local militias commanded by SPDC officers. According to its programme of transformation, the DKBA would disarm, change uniforms and then be re-armed. Soldiers would receive a wage equivalent to 1,200 baht a month.
July 26, 2010 BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific
It has been reported for several months that the usually pro junta DKBA were vertically split as to whether to support the BGF proposal, which would mean that SPDC officers would be assimilated at brigadier level in all ethnic armies while rumours have also circulated that clashes between the SPDC and DKBA had already occurred.
Aug. 7, 2010 BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific
"We will accept the BGF if it can give a better life to our Karen people. But we can't accept it because we don't believe the junta. The people who had accepted the BGF had trust in the junta," the DKBA battalion commander said. "But some of them are compelled and forced to accept it."
Aug. 27, 2010 BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific
"In the past, they [the children] were DKBA soldiers but now they have become BGF soldiers," a soldier from the Border Guard Force (BGF) central office told Mizzima. "As far as I know, there are about 40 child soldiers in the 999th Brigade and Kalohtoobaw's battalion alone," he added.
Some officers and soldiers from the DKBA (which reportedly had more than 7,000 troops) resigned, some retired and some joined the BGF, so it is estimated that about 1,000 DKBA troops have rejected the junta's proposal to join the force.
A former DKBA soldier from the 7th battalion under the 999th Brigade said: "The force's priority is to accept the youths. Some are about 16 years old, but they appear older than 20. Some children were forced to join the DKBA and some joined of their own accord."
The DKBA recruited many child soldiers, Aung Myo Min, director of the Human Rights Education Institute of Burma (HREIB) based in Thailand, said.
Nov. 8, 2010 BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific
The attack by DKBA battalion 907, which is a part of DKBA Brigade 5 led by Col Saw Lah Pwe, also known as Na Kham Mwe, has come as a result of mounting tension between Burmese junta forces and DKBA Brigade 5, which was the only DKBA unit to reject the Burmese military governments Border Guard Force plan (BGF). Brigade 5 is thought to have around 1,000 troops.
The rest of the DKBA troops, estimated to be at least 5,000 in number, joined the Burmese government's BGF plan, which entails putting their forces under the Junta's military command as part of the one unified military force stipulated by the 2008 Constitution.
Jan. 11, 2011 BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific
Feb. 24, 2012 BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific
Most DKBA troops are a breakaway faction of the Karen National Union (KNU) that separated from the KNU in 1994. They agreed to join the government's BGF under the command of Burmese officers on August 18, 2010
Feb. 24, 2012 BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific
Most DKBA troops are a breakaway faction of the Karen National Union (KNU) that separated from the KNU in 1994. They agreed to join the government's BGF under the command of Burmese officers on August 18, 2010
Oct. 13, 2014 The Nation
Residents said the attack was probably linked to recent fighting between troops and rebels from the Democratic Karen Buddhist Association (DKBA), a splinter group of the larger Karen National Union.
Neither side was immediately available for comment but the army has a post near the road.
There have been clashes in Karen state for more than a fortnight after the DKBA apparently baulked at the movement of soldiers in the tense area, even though the group signed a peace accord with the army more than a decade ago.
Efforts to negotiate a nationwide end to decades of civil conflicts in minority borderlands have been a government priority.
Myanmar has so far signed ceasefires with 14 of the 16 major armed ethnic groups.