A military 'Walter Mitty' in Myanmar's jungles

By Brian McCartan

MAE SOT, Thailand - Along Thailand's western border with Myanmar, this frontier town has long attracted a mix of idealists and mountebanks, hoping alternately to help or win fame and fortune. It also attracts men - and the occasional woman - who aim to be the next Che Guevara, arriving on the guerilla war scene with military skills to help bolster the insurgent Karen against their Myanmar army adversaries.

Since the early days of the Karen's armed struggle - now the world's longest-running insurgency - foreign fighters have been drawn to the remote jungle conflict. In the 1980s, several Frenchmen as well as a smattering of British, Americans, Australians and Japanese offered their personal military assistance. At least three Frenchmen, one Australian and a Japanese were killed fighting with the Karen in the 1980s and 1990s. In 1989, an American reporter with Soldier of Fortune magazine was killed while covering a firefight near the Thai border.
Some of these foreign fighters no doubt believed that they were doing the right thing, helping an underdog against an oppressor. Others no doubt simply saw the fight as a high-adrenaline adventure or a boost to their mercenary resume. Now there is 62-year-old Thomas Bleming, the latest addition to the long list of adventurers and would-be Guevaras.

An American citizen, Bleming told Asia Times Online that he heard about the Karen struggle in 2006 while watching an Australian documentary in the United States and decided to come to Thailand and see what the conflict was all about. Armed with the knowledge he received from another American who had written a news story about the Karen for Soldier of Fortune magazine and a Lonely Planet guidebook to Southeast Asia, Bleming made the trip from the US in February 2007.

Bleming said he first came to Southeast Asia as an American soldier with the 52nd Air Assault Company and fought in the US's conflicts in Vietnam and Laos. He makes frequent mention of his time in Vietnam in his book entitled War in Karen Country, a sort of memoir of his recent time with the Karen which was published in late 2007 by Universe in Lincoln, Nebraska. He also claims to have participated in at least nine civil wars and revolutions, spanning Africa and South and Central America.

That storied record may or may not be true. However, a 2003 article in the Panama News about Bleming claimed that he was "a US Army vet eventually diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome and given full disability benefits".

Reluctant recruiters
The Karen have never actively recruited foreigners to serve in their armed wing, the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA). Most foreigners stumble across them either through military or mercenary contacts, through magazines such as Soldier of Fortune, or even simply while backpacking as tourists through Thailand. Most have fantasies of fighting on the frontline or leading troops into battle, but most are usually given training duties - often to simply keep them out of harm's way, according to Karen officials.

After almost 60 years of guerilla warfare in remote mountainous tropical jungle terrain, Karen soldiers have become proficient fighters and are now able to discern foreign professionals from wannabe adventurers. As one Karen officer commented, "We didn't want to turn them away, so the ones who had skills we needed we ask to teach us. The ones we knew didn't have special skills we ask to teach marksmanship."

Where Bleming fits into that continuum is unclear. He claims he was interviewed by a "KNLA official" who later put him in contact with Colonel Saw Ner Dah, a staff officer at the KNLA's headquarters. Retrieved from his tourist guest house in Mae Sot, Bleming was then taken to a KNLA military camp across the border in Myanmar where he stayed for three weeks, although with a several day hiatus to get a new Thailand tourist visa.

In an interview, Bleming refers to himself as "a revolutionary" and claims to have gone on a KNLA "combat patrol" in the Dawna, a mountain range along Myanmar's eastern border with Thailand. He also claims to have "fought" at Maw Kee, a village several kilometers from the border.

His book relates a slightly different version, revealing that the combat patrol involved riding in a truck for several hours to a village and then walking for a mile. After what he describes as a five-minute firefight, the patrol then moved on several kilometers. However, Bleming, was unable to continue due to dehydration and returned to the camp. The patrol, it seems, lasted only for one evening.

The rest of Bleming's stay with the Karen, as documented in his book, is spent mostly loitering around a KNLA camp. He tells with great pride of how the insurgent group let him carry an AK-47 assault rifle with a sniper scope, which he contends shows that the KNLA considered him one of them.

Such fraternity didn't always put his mind at ease. As he recounts in his book, he couldn't sleep for much of the time he was in the camp. He also details several incidents of imagining explosions and being surrounded by gunfire. At one point, during what he called an "100% alert", he took a carbine from a sleeping Karen major so that he could have his own weapon next to him while he slept.

Nonetheless, Bleming was full of bravado back in Mae Sot. In an interview he said he was prepared to go back to the "frontline". "I am committed to the destruction and bringing down of the military junta and the restoration of a democratic form of government [in Myanmar]. I will carry an AK-47 if able at 80 [years of age]." He does not see himself as a soldier of fortune, but rather "a citizen fighting for my adopted country".

Talk like this goes down poorly with the small pool of aid workers and human-rights monitors who regularly spend weeks or months inside Myanmar, much further into the considerably more dangerous interior, where they genuinely assist the Karen and the humanitarian crisis that they face. So, too, does his blatant lying and obfuscation.

Contested accounts
In his book he claims to be the only person to have chronicled the KNLA's fight, saying, "Never before has anyone been permitted to capture the everyday life of a Karen soldier. To be able to place those named within the pages of this book along with these photos, truly is a first of its kind ... For now this is the premier showing of the Karen National Liberation Army, and a story that has never been told." Detailed reports, articles and documentaries of the situation by relief agencies, human-rights groups and news agencies, of course, are readily available on the Internet.

Indeed, Bleming claims to be at the center of a growing foreign movement to assist the Karen. "I'm receiving e-mails from soldiers and others to come and fight. There are plans to form an International Brigade to come and fight. There are others coming this month from the US to join. They are ex-military. The new guys are Iraqi vets. They are coming to stake their futures." He does make it clear, however, that he did not recruit anyone. "They contacted me, I didn't recruit them."

He also claims that a new offensive against the Myanmar army is in the offing, to be backed by foreign fighters and new foreign weapons. "In the next few months, the Karen army will be very well equipped to fight in such a way that the Burmese will be begging for peace. In the next few months there will be additional men at the front from the States and equipment to take out targets that we plan to take out."

He claimed in an interview to have plans to add Stinger missiles capable of downing aircraft to the Karen's arsenal, saying, "We will send out notice internationally first before using them."

His announcement of a new foreign-abetted offensive against the Myanmar army came as a big surprise to several senior Karen officers. Western intelligence agencies take note: senior KNU and KNLA officials are adamant that they are not in the market for surface-to-air missiles and scoff at the idea as "ludicrous".

In fact, it is unclear who exactly Bleming plans to shoot down from the sky, since the Myanmar Air Force hasn't used its aircraft against insurgent targets since the early 1990s.

Bleming makes much of his contact with Colonel Ner Dah, who he refers to as the "provisional head of state of the Republic of Kawthoolei", bestowed on him the position of counsel general in the United States and that he would be granted a plot of land when the war is won as reward for his efforts. Ner Dah admits to have meeting Bleming, but has repeatedly denied his claims of granting him any honorary positions.

Sources in the Karen National Union (KNU) have likewise denied his accounts, saying that Ner Dah has no authority to appoint anyone and that the idea of forming a separate country goes against the Manerplaw Agreement signed by the Karen and other ethnic groups in 1992, in which they all gave up their separatist claims and agreed to form a federal union. The document was signed by Ner Dah's father, the late former leader of the KNU General Saw Bo Mya.

Me and my dog
Bleming said that he considers Kawthoolei a "heaven on Earth" and is making plans to stay. "When hostilities cease I am going back to get my dog, clear up business and head back over here to live in the Republic of Kawthoolei for the rest of my life." He also says he has big plans for his promised patch of an independent Karen state. "Ner Dah wants an international airport and casinos. We want to charge people to come and see the war. It will be for Walter Mittys."

Bleming fits that same profile and seems blithely unaware of the questionable legality of his actions. He told Asia Times Online he was not afraid of the Thai authorities arresting him for illegally crossing the border since, "I am a dual citizen and an official government representative. I have a legal right to go back to my home country." When asked about the possibility of problems with American authorities, Bleming replied, "The United States has recognized the Karen struggle. There is no law against US citizens fighting overseas, as long as they are not against the US."

The US Neutrality Act proscribes fines and lengthy prison terms for destroying the property of foreign governments and instigating or supporting military expeditions against foreign states with which the United States is at peace. Due to the US's broad definition of a terrorist organization, Bleming could also face charges under the Patriot Act. Moreover, Bleming seems unaware or unconcerned of the consequences his actions may have on the foreign aid and rights workers who are not in Mae Sot for an adventure holiday.

The military situation has changed from the more free-wheeling 1970s and 1980s, when the Thai government implemented a buffer state rather than engagement policy towards Myanmar and was often willing to look the other way at foreigners crossing the border to the camps of the Karen and other ethnic insurgent groups.

A senior Karen officer told Asia Times Online, "Now people like Thomas Bleming could make problems for us because the Thais will be unhappy. The SPDC [State Peace and Development Council] can use this to pressure the Thais to pressure the KNU." Ner Dah said in an e-mail communication, "We don't need foreigners to fight for us. In the past we had some foreigners, but because we lacked the equipment and materials, we always ended up in conflict."

Another statement, purportedly issued on behalf of Ner Dah about Bleming appeared in the March 26 edition of the New Mandala blog, saying, "The Karen people are very warm-hearted and friendly. Therefore we treat anyone with respect and share the little we have with them. But we are not able to cure people who come to us with mental problems they got mostly during the war in Vietnam."

While Bleming seems well intentioned - he insisted on holding a large party for a Karen camp for his birthday, sent a truckload of non-lethal supplies for Karen soldiers when he left for the US, and claims to be donating all the royalties from his book to Ner Dah - his naivete and delusions are likely to cause more detriment than benefit to the Karen's cause. In the end, he cuts the profile of a lost, lonely and possibly deranged old man - similar in a poignant way to the lost and forgotten Vietnam war vets often seen carrying signs saying "will work for food" on the streets of American cities.
"I have gone from a soldier of fortune and Vietnam vet world traveler to accomplished author and representative of a foreign nation and head of state," he told Asia Times Online, "I feel half dead in the States. I have no say in government and no power in the US, but in Kawthoolei I do. They sit and listen to me. I would like to be remembered in Karen history books as someone who came over to help."