The Thai Army responded decisively. It was her proudest moment in school. [4][5], God's Army was formed in an area of eastern Burma populated by the Karen ethnic group, who had been fighting against Burmese army at various times for over fifty years, primarily through the Karen National Union. Yet he has to plead for money from his mother to keep his cellphone active. It took her mother 24 times to pass her driver’s test. They have been described as a terrorist organisation. Luther, 32, in Myanmar. Johnny, left, resting at home with his cousins. Adult soldiers often prayed in a circle and lifted the twins on their shoulders during battle, like child amulets. “Always drunk.”. He thinks he can become invisible again, if the incantations are right. [10] The members believed the brothers shouted "God's Army! But neighbors stared when Karen families tried to dry fish outside. This year, Ms. Sel Lay Moo won a scholarship to the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. When a xenophobic general overthrew the civilian government in 1962, he justified military rule as necessary to keep the union from collapse. [9] The Burmese authorities had destroyed villages, killed Karen fighters, raped dozens of women and caused thousands to flee. “We will live another day. Three God’s Army men were killed in that battle. On Johnny’s arm is a tattoo, its Karen script rough like that of a child who grew up in the rainforest, measuring his height against an M16 rifle. As Myanmar’s borderlands remain at war, United Nations investigators have accused the nation’s army of acting with genocidal intent against its own people. When Luther and Johnny were toddling around, Myanmar soldiers had begun clearing the forest to make way for a natural gas pipeline that would bring riches to the country’s military dictatorship. For other uses, see, seizure of the Myanmar embassy in Bangkok, "Burmese Rebel Chief More Boy Than Warrior", "Child Terrorists Hold Hundreds Hostage in Thailand (washingtonpost.com)", "God's Army -- Myanmar | Terrorist Groups | TRAC", "Terrorist Organization Profile: God's Army", National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, "Bizarre 'God's Army' Led By Young Boys Surrenders", "PressReader.com - Connecting People Through News", "Burmese Rebel Twins and 14 Followers Surrender in Thailand", "BBC News | Asia-Pacific | Embassy gunmen flee", "Child Terrorists Hold Hundreds Hostage in Thailand", Campaign at the China–Burma border (1960–1961), https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=God%27s_Army_(revolutionary_group)&oldid=983444576, Paramilitary organisations based in Myanmar, Articles containing Burmese-language text, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 14 October 2020, at 07:58. “After Johnny and Luther were born, life got better. But neither was right. At least 100 of God’s Army’s fighters, some children, were killed in years of battle. He scrolled through the Naws, looking for one that pleased him. Within a year, the twins had surrendered to the Thai Army and ended up in a refugee camp in Thailand. “He misses his family,” she said. “We were bulletproof.”. The boys were barely taller than their rifles. Some fight the Myanmar Army. “For peace, we want to fight again,” Luther said. She is the first member of her family to go to college. “But they need to fight for our people, for our freedom.”. Many of the rest retreated into the malarial bush, only to abandon their shacks when Myanmar soldiers launched offensives. He learned about Swedish kings and socialism. “We did not drink alcohol, and we prayed every day to ask permission from God to make us safe,” said Eh Na Wah, a former God’s Army major. “I worry that the Burmese Army will shoot him,” she said. He sleeps when others are awake, curled up like a quotation mark missing its companion. Groups and individuals included in TRAC's database range from actual perpetrators of social or political violence to more passive groups that support or condone (perhaps unwittingly) such violence. Luther lasted a decade in Gotene, a small town with three other Karen families and one Chinese restaurant. As Myanmar infantrymen surged over the densely forested hills, the Karen National Liberation Army lost hundreds of soldiers. They planted "booby" traps in the hospital and threatened to blow up the hospital. ‘We Were Bulletproof’: As Child Soldiers Grow Up, Legacy of War Lingers. Now adults, they are contending with the trauma of exile, alcohol and loss. There was much to learn: ATMs, car insurance, boneless chicken breasts. The villagers had longed for a messiah, and they received two. It didn’t seem to matter that the twins cursed and chain-smoked cheroots, that they were just boys. Some cease-fires exist in paper form only. Hundreds of miles away, in the forests of eastern Myanmar, the light from a cheap cellphone shone on Luther Htoo’s bare chest, where a tattoo of the flag of the Karen people covered his heart. Many more lost limbs, livelihoods and their grip on reality. Verses from the Bible were used as battle directives. They never stepped on land mines. The former child soldier returned to the country after seeking status as a refugee in Sweden. Yet more than one-third of Burmese Americans, of whom the majority of arrivals this century are Karen refugees, live below the poverty line, according to the Pew Research Center. Members of the Karen National Liberation Army in 1988. After a short siege, Thai officials arranged a getaway by helicopter for them to the Myanmar border area where God's Army was based. The Karen who lived on the land received almost nothing. The twins’ mother, Ms. Pe Khen, video-chats with Johnny, too. They have been described as a terrorist organisation. But emotional wounds are harder to close, especially when refugee life means a constant struggle with menial jobs and still unfamiliar cultures. “Maybe those guys were something before. But their followers, descendants of Baptists converted by American missionaries, worshiped the twins. The Karen revitalized New Bern’s Baptist ministries. One study found that the rate of ulcers among Karen refugees in the United States was significantly higher than normal, not just from the stress of war, but also from the hardship of making a new home. Some fight each other. Separatist / New Regime Nationalist / Ethnic Nationalist, Hostage Taking and Barricade as a Terrorist Tactic. Meanwhile, the Burmese army had 21,000 troops in the area. Karen insurgents, who had once controlled a ministate within Myanmar, lost most of their territory. The night insects hurtled at the screen, attracted by the light. One day, in his home in Gotene, Sweden, a woolen hat on his head, Luther went on Facebook and plugged in a common Karen woman’s moniker: Naw. He didn’t know much about the country. Everyone is isolated, Ms. Pe Khen said, even if a dozen relatives live together. [14] They abandoned the Karens' goal of an autonomous or independent homeland, in exchange for permission to stay in Thailand. There was the tale of the time when Luther went to bathe in a stream and shape-shifted into an old man who might have been an apostle. The couple now lives mostly on the edge of a forest, sleeping in a hammock or in a shack above the chickens. Even for the younger generation, those who have never set foot in Myanmar, their lives are tied to a village long gone or an army since beaten. Luther talks of a cache of weapons he and his followers can access. The Htoo boys — one with flowing hair and the poignant contemplation of a Raphael, the other with a fierce determination that belied his young years — generated worldwide attention when their crusade ended in a storm of bullets. After years in exile, Johnny and Luther’s fighters — and even Johnny and Luther themselves — have watched their physical scars heal. [6] Some of its members also called themselves as ''Jesus Warriors'' or ''Jesus Commandos''. Johnny’s cousin soothes him and holds his hands, which shake with tremors. “Yes, Ma’am,” she said. He did two years ago, Swedish passport in hand. His girlfriend concedes that they once prayed together on a full moon night, and Luther remained visible. God's Army -- Myanmar, also known as God's Army of the Holy Mountain is an inactive group formed c. 1997. Her paper earned an “excellent” in assessments. If you choose to subscribe at the end of the trial, the trial cost will be deducted from the price of your subscription.

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