Western Mercenaries Teach guerrillas in Burma How to Kill

by Richard S. Ehrlich

BANGKOK, Thailand -- The stocky, Western mercenary finished training a group of Burmese guerrillas and students in the jungles of eastern Burma, and secretly made his way back into neighboring Thailand.

But he was worried the young men he taught still faced overwhelming odds.

The mercenary's worst fears came true.

Shortly after he left, Burma's army unleashed a heavy artillery barrage, followed by ground troops, and recently captured a key rebel stronghold near where the mercenary was operating.

"I'm going into Burma again," the Western mercenary said in an interview.

"The rebels and students need someone to help them. Some of them are only 15 years old.

"I basically teach small-unit tactics such as intelligence gathering, organization, delegation of responsibility, map reading, and immediate action drills like ambushes, anti-ambushes, AK-47 training, 81-millimeter mortar firing and so on," the mercenary added.

As proof, he displayed dozens of photographs showing himself at the jungle camps of minority ethnic Karen rebels, instructing armed young men to shoot Chinese-made AK-47 assault rifles and mortars, wade across rivers while armed, run an outdoor obstacle course, and attack thatched houses.

Foreign soldiers, seeking various fortunes, have been arriving in Thailand and sneaking into Burma -- or across the Mekong River into Laos -- during the past several years.

They give relatively unknown, almost-lost-cause insurgent groups desperately needed, clandestine help.

The Western combat veterans are attracted by a combination of macho adventure, ideological anti-communist commitment, and deep personal friendships among the guerrillas.

Some amateur mercenaries naively hope to make money, but are quickly disappointed because Southeast Asia's broke guerrillas don't have much in the way of cash to give.

Western diplomats, and the Thai government, strongly oppose the foreigners' deadly intervention, because the self-styled Rambos puncture border security, heighten or prolong rebellions, and -- if things go wrong -- create diplomatic nightmares for their home countries and for Bangkok, which is trying to improve relations with its troubled neighbors.

Two mercenaries were killed in 1985 because they went to the front lines where Karen guerrillas are fighting government forces in eastern Burma.

A Burmese army sniper is said to have killed one of the mercenaries, a Frenchman.

The other mercenary, an Australian, reportedly died of wounds from a mortar attack.

But the mercenaries' bodies did not fall into Burmese government hands.

"You're a real detriment if you are dead and your body is captured by the government you are fighting against," the Western mercenary warned, asking not be identified.

"It is a dumb thing, because then your body is a propaganda victory for that government to discredit the rebels.

"I started doing this by going into Cambodia in 1981 with the Khmer Serei, who are now called the Khmer Peoples National Liberation Front," fighting against Vietnamese forces in Cambodia across Thailand's eastern frontier.

"Since 1982, I've gone into Burma several times to help the Karen rebels.

"My last trip was to help the students, the All Burma Students Democratic Front, who have joined the Karens."

Together they battle Burma's unelected military regime.

The inexperienced Burmese students are also learning how to fight so they can return to Burma's capital, Rangoon, and launch an urban insurrection to press their demands for nationwide democracy, he said.

Their 1988 Rangoon uprising, which left more than 1,000 people dead, was crushed by Burma's junta leader Saw Maung.

The Karen tribe, who now host more than 3,000 non-Karen students who fled Rangoon, are simultaneously waging their own tragic, 40-year-old war for an independent homeland in Burma's eastern jungles.

The mercenary said his motivation was a "belief in the Karen cause, and the students."

He insisted he was not being paid.

"I am helping a minority group against an oppressive regime. The students, being students, have a long way to go."

Like most of the dozen or so soldiers of fortune who come to Southeast Asia each year, he spent much of his time training and advising, and only slipped in a bit of live fighting alongside the rebels "just to keep my hand in."

The mercenary added, "It's exotic territory out there.

"You see blackmarket trading, midnight river crossings, gem smugglers and all sorts of people."

While he spoke, he idly sketched examples of jungle ambushes in the shape of the letters "X" and "L," and explained the dynamics of "sneak attacks."

The battle-hardened Karens have often received training from Western mercenaries over the years.

Burma is currently torn by nearly a dozen ethnic insurgencies, including some who rely on heroin production in the notorious Golden Triangle region to finance their fight.

Karens, however, attract the majority of mercenaries in Southeast Asia because they are friendly, Baptist-dominated, speak good English, and are easily accessible by crossing the porous Thai-Burmese border.

Tiny communist Laos, meanwhile, is also harassed by several obscure rebel bands, but those insurgent groups have dwindled so much that Western diplomats have all but lost track of them.

Some US mercenaries enter Laos looking for American prisoners of war, who they claim are still being held from the days of the US-Vietnam War -- though there is no confirmed public proof that any Americans from the war are alive in captivity.

Copyright by Richard S. Ehrlich

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