вЂњFor them, itвЂ™s as if the war has never ended,вЂќ Steen said. She has been working with them since 1998, when she met a former soldier on a trip to Thailand who asked her to вЂњinform his officersвЂќ of his extreme poverty. Sally Steen, a British mother-of-three, runs a small charity that helps the veterans in the UK. The Karen who fought with the British often got singled out for persecution. Successive military governments have tried toВ crush the separatist movement, forcing many to flee across the border to Thailand.ДЄround 130,000 refugees, mostly Karen, live in camps along the border to this day. Soon after BurmaвЂ™s independence, the Karen launched an armed insurgency to fight for their own state or greater autonomy вЂ“ a struggle that continues today, despite a ceasefire signed in 2012.

Historic tensions between the majority Burmese and the Karen heightened due to the war. Some officers actively supported their calls for a separate homeland after the war, but the Karen lands were included in the borders of an independent Burma in 1948.

Thousands of these Karen volunteers served alongside British officers, who forged close bonds with them. The Japanese advanced quickly, forcing the British to retreat to India, but some British officers volunteered to stay behind and others were later parachuted in to organise resistance forces in the mountains and jungles of eastern Burma. They had been favoured under colonial rule, and many followed Christian beliefs. However, some tribes in the frontier areas, including the Karen, remained fiercely loyal to the British. The Burma Independence Army, led by General Aung San вЂ“ later the first leader of independent Burma, and the father of todayвЂ™s icon of democracy, Aung San Suu Kyi вЂ“ aided the Japanese invasion, though it later switched sides. When the Japanese invaded in 1942, they presented themselves as liberators from the much despised colonial rule, and were welcomed by many Burmese nationalists. The Allied victory in BurmaВ owed a lot to men like Saw Noe and his comrades in the Karen hills, according to historians and the British officers who served with them. Sitting in a simple house where he lives with relatives in Loikaw, eastern Myanmar, Saw Noe said:В вЂњThe British people and the British government love the Karen, I know.вЂќ Instead, they captured and killed it in a trap made from sharpened bamboo stakes.Дecades later, despite being abandoned by the British whom they served so loyally, Saw Noe talks fondly of colonial rule and their wartime experiences. He served with British officers behind enemy lines, looking after stores and collecting the arms and foodВ supplies that were dropped by parachute twice a week into the jungle where his guerrillaВ unit of Karen tribesmen hid.ДЄt one time, he recalls, a man-eating tiger prowled around their camp each night, but they were unable to shoot it for fear of giving their position away to the Japanese.

вЂњUndoubtedly his work contributed a large measure to the success against the enemy in this region.вЂќДЄt 95, he is frail and bedridden, but Saw Noe lights up with pride when he talks of his days fighting the Japanese in World War II Burma, now known as Myanmar. вЂњHe organised working parties and elephant and coolie transport, advising me soundly on many matters concerning the Karen people,вЂќ the officer said of Saw Noe, a member of eastern MyanmarвЂ™s Karen tribe. Loikaw, Myanmar вЂ“ Former guerrilla fighter Saw Noe served the British вЂњin a most loyal and wholehearted fashionвЂќ, one of the British officers he served with wrote in a letter of recommendation dated August 27, 1945, a week before the Japanese surrendered.

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