Myanmar clash a reminder of old, underlying tension - Reuters

Thai soldiers take cover as they react to explosions and sounds of gunfire at the Thai border with Myanmar in Mae Sot November 8, 2010. A clash erupted between ethnic minority Karen rebels and government soldiers in Myanmar's Myawaddy town opposite the Thai border town of Mae Sot, Reuters witnesses on the Thai side of the border said. Several rockets or mortar bombs fell on the Thai side, a witness said. There were no reports of casualties.

Credit: Reuters/Chaiwat Subprasom

By Robert Birsel

BANGKOK | Mon Nov 8, 2010 3:05am EST

BANGKOK (Reuters) - A day after Myanmar held an election meant to usher in peace and stability, clashes erupted between minority rebels and government soldiers, a reminder of divisions that have long bedeviled the country.

The fighting in the eastern town of Myawaddy on the Thai border between ethnic minority Karen rebels and government forces broke out early on Monday while the votes from Sunday's election were being counted.

Five Thai villagers were wounded when four rocket-propelled grenades landed on Thai soil, a Thai official said, as several thousand people fled the fighting in one of the main trade gateways along the 1,800 km (1,100 mile) border with Thailand.

Animosity between majority Burmans and ethnic minorities in the hilly borderlands that form a horseshoe around the central Irrawaddy river plain goes back centuries.

Sunday's election for a bicameral national parliament and 14 regional assemblies, the military-ruled country's first polls in 20 years, is not expected to bring any quick fix.

"Nothing's been resolved," said David Mathieson, a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch. "The election hasn't resolved any of the underlying causes of the civil war."

Karen fighters have passed their war against the government down the generations since the then-Burma won independence in 1948 from British colonial rulers who had taken advantage of ethnic divisions to help maintain control.

Karen nationalists at first demanded an independent state but more recently have sought autonomy within a federal Myanmar, as have other minorities such as the Kachin, Shan and Wa.

But such calls spell nothing but trouble in the eyes of the army which is dominated by Burmans, who make up about 65 percent of the population, and sees one of its most crucial roles as preventing the break-up of the country.

HOSTILITIES

Over the years, battered by an increasingly powerful army, most minority factions have struck ceasefires with the government under which they've been allowed to keep their weapons and run their enclaves.

But tension has flared as the army tried to absorb those groups into a military-run Border Guard Force by the election.

Main factions balked but with the election now out of the way, the army is expected to try to force them into line.

"It's quite possible hostilities will break out," said veteran Myanmar-analyst and author Bertil Lintner. "There's going to be trouble but exactly in what shape or form is hard to tell."

The Karen battling soldiers in Myawaddy are from a splinter faction of a ceasefire group that objects to being forced into the Border Guard Force. Other factions including the Kachin and the Wa along the border with China are also resisting.

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