The Karen National Union (KNU) said on Tuesday it had recaptured its headquarters from the Myanmar military, almost 30 years after it was forced out.
Forces under the command of the KNU seized Manerplaw on the Thai border following days of fighting, KNU leader Saw Thamain Tun told AFP.
Myanmar regime forces “still want to take it back and they used drones and tried to bomb our troops. But our troops took the base already,” he said.
For years Manerplaw was the headquarters of the KNU’s decades-long armed struggle for rights for the Karen minority and home to other dissident politicians opposing Myanmar’s then junta.
Following a split within the Christian-majority KNU, the junta and a breakaway Buddhist faction captured the base in 1995, sending thousands fleeing into Thailand.
After the fall of Manerplaw, the junta put the Democratic Karen Buddhist Organisation, an allied armed group. . .
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