Several months ago in the Karen State, soliders of the Democratic Kayan Buddhist Army (DKBA) under the control of the SLORC, entered a small village and called all of the people together. They demanded that everyone join their organization or the local church would be burned to the ground. Few people, Christian or Buddhist, heeded their orders. The leader of the DKBA troops then went to the Buddhist monastery which has a small generator, to get fuel to burn the Christian church. According to a peasant present at the event, the Buddhist monk told the DKBA, "I will give you the fuel. Then when you have burned the church, come and burn down my monastery. If you do not, I will do it myself. The Christians and Buddhists have lived together in peace for many years. When they have a celebration, we help them. When we have a celebration, they help us. We all drink from the same river." The DKBA hung their heads in disappointment and left.

While it all may seem a bit hopeless, it is not. There are many signs of hope and there is much that canbe done to support that hope. The people of Burma, especially those living in the deep interior areas, have been creatively fighting for peace and justice for many decades now. We need not so much teach them as we need to support them. This could be done in many ways including:

1. New political and economic structures for Burma should be built from the grassroots (most fringe of the society) up, based on their traditional forms of economy, leadership, and decision making. These are the only kinds of structures which these grassroots people can effectively and fully participate in.

All opposition groups and NGOs must take seriously the village level structure which already exist and use the wisdom of the villagers to build the new Burma. If this does not happen, conflict will continue.

2. New forms of non-violent resistance need to be developed to confront the global economic warfare which is now at the center of international conflicts and whihc so victimize the grassroots. These new forms of non-violent resistance may already exist at the grassroots level. They should be identified and shared with the internaitonal movements for justice.

3. Peace-making activities in Burma must focus on the root causes of oppression in order to promote peace which is a true and lasting peace with justice. Care must be taken to not overly emphasize the writing of new constitutions, or designing new federal systems for Burma. These systems, while perhaps very democratic and well organized, will not bring peace to Burma if the root causes of conflict have not been identified and dealt with in a straightforward and effective manner.

4. The UN, especially the UNHCR, needs to reorganize so that it can respond to the oppressed rather than the oppressors.

It is important to remeber that the only hope for true and lasting peace in Burma is for full and free participation by the) village people. They must have a very strong role in designing the economic and political structures which will rule Burma in the future. NGOs who wish to work in and for Burma should always make certain that they do not present an obstacle to such a movement.