After Decades of Fighting, a Onetime No Man’s Land Transforms

The town of Thaton is located on the highway linking Burma’s commercial capital, Rangoon, with the Mon State capital city of Moulmein. When we arrive in a taxi, we are greeted by a muscular man with tattooed arms, who takes us into a liaison office of an ethnic Karen rebel group, the Karen National Union (KNU).

He politely introduces himself, saying he will give us a ride to a base of the KNU’s military wing, the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA). The base is home to the KNLA’s Brigade 1. (Courtesy of irrawaddy.com)