NEKKEI ASIA
Denis D. GrayMarch 31, 2021
Escaping Karen villagers, pictured on Mar.28: more than 10,000 members of the ethnic minority have been driven from their villages. © Karen Teacher Working Group/Reuters
Denis D. Gray is a former Associated Press correspondent. He has reported on Myanmar's ethnic minorities since the 1970s.
The world's attention has been focused on atrocities taking place in Myanmar's central heartland: the towns, cities and villages largely populated by the ethnic Burman majority, where pro-democracy demonstrators, enraged by the Feb. 1 coup, are being gunned down by the junta's forces.
But on the country's edge, ethnic minorities making up about 40% of the population are also being brutalized. The new push by Myanmar's military to target ethnic rural areas has opened up a dangerous front in the junta's bid to "pacify" the population, which has soundly rejected the power grab by Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing.