Skip to footer

Myanmar cease-fire: Who are the Karen rebels?

Cease-fire talks between the Myanmar government and the Karen ethnic minority could bring an end to one of the world's longest wars. But who exactly are the Karen? 

1. Who are the Karen people?

  • By Whitney Eulich Correspondent

The ethnic Karens are one of more than 100 minority groups in Myanmar.

They are predominately concentrated in the hill country along the border with Thailand. While Myanmar has no official state religion, about 89 percent of the country practice Buddhism. The Karen are predominately Christian, though also comprised of Buddhists and animists.

Following persecution in Myanmar, close to 140,000 predominately Karen refugees have fled to rudimentary camps in Thailand across the border. Still, they've had some of the largest number of fighters among the ethnic groups fighting for self rule in Myanmar.

While Myanmar hasn't had a census since 1983, recent estimates put Karens at some 7 million people, or 7 percent of the country's approximately 50 million people, reports the Monitor.

There are three main Karen languages, and a number of dialects.

1 of 4
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.