Karen People

Why in news?

• Myanmar’s military launched air strikes on a village and outpost near the Thai border after ethnic minority Karen insurgents attacked a Myanmar army post in some of the worst clashes since a Feb. 1 coup.

About Karen People:

• The Karen are an ethnolinguistic group of Sino-Tibetan language-speaking peoples.
• The group as a whole is heterogeneous and disparate as many Karen ethnic groups do not associate or identify with each other culturally or linguistically.
•  These Karen groups reside primarily in Kayin State, southern and southeastern Myanmar.
• The Karen, approximately five million people, account for approximately seven percent of the Burmese population.
• A few Karen have settled in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India, and other Southeast Asian and East Asian countries

About Karen Nationalists:

• The Karen National Union is a political organisation with an armed wing, the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), that claims to represent the Karen people of Myanmar (Burma).
• It operates in mountainous eastern Myanmar and has underground networks in other areas of Myanmar where Karen people live as a minority group.
• The aim of the KNU at first was independence, but since 1976 the armed group has called for a federal system rather than an independent Karen State.
• The KNU and its military wing, the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), have historically been one of the biggest adversaries of Myanmar's military.

Prelims Question

” Karen Nationalist Union” recently in news is related to:
(a)Angola
(b)Myanmar
(c)Venezuela
(d)Lebanon

Answer to Prelims question