Product Description

The gentle Karen, a tribe in Burma's eastern regions, call their country "a land without evil". They number between four and five million, and have been fighting for half a century to keep their land and identity. Many - at least 40 per cent - are Christians, and have suffered particularly harsh treatment. Burma today, and Karen State in particular, is a land torn apart by evil. It is a land ruled by a regime which took power by force, ignored the will of the people in an election, and survives by creating a climate of fear. It is a land terrorised by a military regime which to this day perpetrates a catalogue of crimes against humanity. It takes people for forced labour, uses villagers as human minesweepers, captures children and forces them to become soldiers, systematically rapes ethnic minority women, and burns down villages and crops. It is a regime which has killed thousands of people in the ethnic minority areas. This compassionate but unflinching account of the Karen's predicament is an important step in galvanising Western opinion about this ongoing act of genocide.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #829423 in Books
• Published on: 2004-04-08
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

About the Author
Ben Rogers is a freelance journalist and human rights campaigner who currently lives in Washington, DC, where he is setting up the Christian Solidarity Worldwide American base. Ben has visited the Karen people on both sides of the Thai-Burmese border six times since 2000. From 1997 until 2002, Ben worked as a journalist in Hong Kong. He has also worked in East Timor and China. He has an MA in China Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies.

Customer Reviews

An eye-opener!
This book opened my eyes to the scale and extent of the suffering of the people of Burma, now called Myanmar, and to what is happening in that country today. Here are stories of amazing courage in times of adversity, where faith overcomes the deprivation that the Karen people face daily. We are reminded of our debt to those who supported the British sixty years ago to bring freedom to their country, only to be left now in their struggle to survive in a hostile environment. Too many are being driven out of their own country and democracy is still denied them. This book has inspired us to become involved in seeking to help them in any way we can.

Bad purchase
The book was greatly disappointing and it is peppered with religious quotes from start to finish. I'm sure there are better books out there.