14 - “Big Brain” on the border

Summary

I first came across Des Ball's name in 2001 while interviewing Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) soldiers at a sniper camp in eastern Burma. It seemed like an unlikely setting to bump up against an esteemed academic — the hot jungle clearing was a long way from the Australian National University professor's book-lined office in Canberra. At the time, reporting on Burma was difficult. Its isolation and a ban on international journalists made it hard to verify stories in time for news bulletins. By the time footage and witness reports were smuggled out the story had usually moved on to another international hot spot. Closed off and isolated from much of the outside world, the military regime had at the time stepped up its attacks on who it perceived as “enemies of the state” — its own citizens, ethnic minorities and the political opposition. I was in the sniper camp at the invitation of a KNLA officer and was on my way to interview Karen villagers recently displaced by the Burmese Army and now taking shelter in jungle hideouts.

A group of KNLA soldiers had just completed a series of morning drills and were making their way back to their small bamboo platforms to take rest and clean up before lunch. The hurried sound of food being readied could be heard above the soldiers’ banter. Work-hardened men in singlets and shorts chopped meat and vegetables into tidy piles, their bare arms mapped with hand-etched tattoos. A blackened aluminium rice pot steamed over dull red coals. A group of young men milled around. They wore an assortment of ragged T-shirts and sarongs hiked up around their thighs. Black-ink tattoos trailed up their legs, arms and naked shoulders. Some smoked and puffed on green-leafed cheroots. The camp had about forty soldiers in it. Some of the men carried weapons, others towels and soap as they walked down the steep slope to the river to wash. Shallow foxholes dotted the edge of the camp.

I asked permission from the camp leader to interview soldiers, wanting to talk mainly about their backgrounds and motivations for fighting. I noticed a small hut built more solidly than the soldiers’ basic bamboo platforms. An antenna and wires ran from the roof through a hole cut in an exterior wall. Inside the hut three KNLA soldiers were busy chatting and scribbling.