This man guided us to a village that had been burned to the ground by the SPDC (Burma's ruling military dictatorship) the week before. He is wearing a British WWII helmet, it was given to him by a British soldier during the Brits time in Karen State. The Karen fought along side the allies and helped to take Burma back from the Japanese. The Karen believed, partly because the British told them so, they would be rewarded a sovereign Karen State when the war was over. The Brits instead gave the whole of Burma to the Burmans, who sided with the Japanese against the Brits during the war, and the Karen have been left to fight the Burmans since. The SPDC continues to use torture and blistering oppression learned from the Japanese against the Karen and other ethnic populations of Burma.
