FREE BURMA RANGERS: PROVIDING HUMANITARIAN RELIEF; NOT

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 CHIANG MAI 000188

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/20/2017
TAGS: PREF PHUM MOPS BM TH
SUBJECT: FREE BURMA RANGERS: PROVIDING HUMANITARIAN RELIEF; NOT
ARMING INSURGENTS

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CLASSIFIED BY: Alex Barrasso, Chief, Pol/Econ, CG Chiang Mai.
REASON: 1.4 (b),(d)



Summary
--------------


1. (C) The Free Burma Rangers (FBR) provide humanitarian
assistance and do not funnel weapons to armed groups that oppose
the Burmese regime, FBR contacts told us in separate meetings on
November 6 and 7. FBR's main mission is to provide assistance
to civilians in conflict areas, they emphasized, through relief
teams that offer medical care and counseling. FBR is also
trying to improve communication between villages so they can
warn each other of impending attacks, and to enhance its own
ability to disseminate timely information about atrocities
committed by the Burma Army. Despite an incident several years
ago that led us to limit USG contact with the FBR, the group
remains a good source of information about events in Burma's
ethnic states, primarily along the Thai-Burma border, and post
intends to maintain appropriate contact with the group. End
Summary.

The Mission and Omission
--------------


2. (C) The Free Burma Rangers was founded in 1997 by AmCit
David Eubank and his wife Karen. Their main mission is to
assist civilians under attack by the Burma Army (BA) in Burma's
ethnic states, primarily along the Thai-Burma border. FBR
contacts told officers from CG Chiang Mai and Embassy Rangoon on
November 7 that they have approximately 40 relief teams on the
ground in Burma's ethnic states, with the vast majority (roughly
24) deployed to Karen State. The rest of the teams are in
Karenni, Kachin, Shan, and Rakhine States. Each team, they
said, is composed of four to six members, including one to two
medics, one or two reporters/videographers/photographers, a
pastor, and a security officer.


3. (C) The Eubank family itself often spends weeks or months at
a time inside Burma. While David travels with relief teams,
Karen runs educational programs for school children in ethnic
areas that are not currently under attack. David told us on
October 12 that he was heading into Burma over the October 13-14
weekend, and that he did not expect to return to Thailand until
sometime early next year. While we were at the FBR's offices on
November 7, David spoke to us by satellite phone from Burma. At
the office, which is provided free of charge by an NGO called
Partners World, we observed two full-time American staff. FBR
does not appear to employ any Thai nationals. The relief teams
are composed mostly of Burmese from the ethnic states to which
they deploy. David told us on October 12 that the organization
has good relations with Thai authorities.


4. (C) In response to questions about security for the teams
and how they cross the Burma-Thai border, Laurie Dawson, David
Eubank's sister and the U.S.-based representative of the FBR,
told us on November 6 that FBR relies primarily on the Karen
National Liberation Army (KNLA--the military wing of the Karen
National Union) to provide security for the teams and to escort
them across the border. She said the KNLA sometimes also
provides security during actual relief operations, something
KNLA leaders confirmed in a separate meeting with Chiang Mai and
Rangoon officers on November 9 in Mae Sot. (Comment: Rangoon's
Defense Attache notes that he has observed Eubank in Shan State
during several of Eubank's most recent trips to Burma, which
means that FBR would have been operating under the auspices of
the Shan State Army (SSA),which is suspected of involvement in
the drug trade. When we saw Eubank on October 12, he said he
had recently returned from Shan State.)


5. (C) According to Dawson, FBR provides training to each
team's security officer, but does not provide them with weapons.
Some, she said, procure and carry their own weapons, but others
serve as security officers without any arms. Security officers
primarily rely on gathering and sharing intelligence on the
location and activity of the BA to protect their teams,
according to Dawson. Dawson also stated that FBR's mandate does
not include arming or providing any military equipment to the
KNLA or any other ethnic group, and that FBR does not engage in
any such activity. Ethnic groups often ask for weapons, she
added, but FBR refuses all such requests. (Comment: We believe
there are other individuals who do help armed ethnic groups in
Burma procure weapons, some of whom are former U.S. military.
Due to the nature of his work, Eubank is probably aware of who
they are and precisely what activities they are engaged in.)


6. (C) FBR's relief teams endeavor to give medical care to
wounded civilians, provide counseling by members of the clergy

CHIANG MAI 00000188 002.2 OF 002


to those in need of it, and document atrocities committed by the
BA. The medics on the relief teams are trained by western
doctors or members of the Karen Health Workers Association,
while the pastors are often trained by ethnic organizations.
The training for each team as a whole, Dawson said, is designed
by her brother to prepare them to work in "war zones," and is
based on David's experience with the U.S. Special Forces. The
role of the photographers is to document the BA's abuse of the
civilian population and to transmit the information to FBR's
U.S.-based webmaster, where the organization's reports are then
posted on its website (www.freeburmarangers.org) and distributed
by e-mail. Dawson and Nathan Collins, who coordinates logistics
and communications for the relief teams, also stated that FBR is
in the process of equipping villagers with handheld radios so
they can communicate with each other and with FBR to pass on
information about the BA's whereabouts. FBR also provides
leadership, human rights, and computer training through its
partnerships with ethnic groups such as the Karen Human Rights
Group, Karenni Youth Organization, and the Committee for
Internally Displaced Karen. FBR's objective, Dawson stated, is
to staff relief teams that bridge ethnic divides.


7. (C) According to Dawson and Collins, the FBR obtains most of
its funding from donations by individuals and churches in the
U.S. and Europe. Both said that FBR has a relatively loyal base
of supporters, many of whom make regular, sizable gifts to the
organization. The NGO Partners World also provides substantial
funding. According to Partners' Steve Gumaer, 60 percent of his
organization's funds are used to purchase medicine and other
medical supplies for FBR's relief teams. (Note: According to
Gumaer, Partners' budget in 2006 was roughly $600,000. He said
he expects that figure to be closer to $1 million this year.)
This month alone, Partners spent $150,000 on handheld radios for
villagers. According to Dawson, FBR's annual budget averages
around $400,000, with most of the money spent on training relief
teams.

Observations on Karen State
--------------


8. (C) Due to the nature of its work, FBR is well-placed to
provide insight into events in Karen State, which Dawson and
Collins openly shared with us. Faced with a depleted KNLA, they
said, villagers have devised their own tactics in an effort to
protect themselves. They cited the planting of landmines at
entry and exit points to villages by villagers themselves as one
example. When the mines go off, the villagers know that Burma
Army troops are not far behind, and they try to flee as quickly
as they can. Though Dawson observed that the geographic area
under attack by the BA in Karen State is decreasing, she
emphasized that the human suffering and displacement caused by
the BA is worse than ever. Over 30,000 have been displaced
since February 2006, she said, adding that more would be
displaced due to the BA's on-going attacks on rice fields
villagers are attempting to harvest. Collins observed that the
BA and Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA - a KNU splinter
group allied with the ruling military regime) are coordinating
their attacks more closely than they previously did. He said FBR
estimates one to two battalions of BA and DKBA soldiers, each
with 120 men, carry out the attacks. Villagers, he said, have a
harder time fleeing now, because there are several roads under
construction, and the BA patrols them constantly.

Comment
--------------


9. (C) David Eubank allowing himself to be caught on camera
several years ago at a Shan National Day Rally at SSA
headquarters wearing part of a U.S. Army uniform was clearly a
mistake--one from which he and FBR learned. This incident
created a perception that FBR was providing weapons to the SSA,
and perhaps to other ethnic groups as well. It, along with some
stark disagreements between Eubank and the Department over Thai
refugee policy, also prompted the Department to instruct Eubank
to resign from the Army Reserves and to limit contact with the
FBR. The Burmese regime claimed the photo was evidence that the
U.S. military was working with Shan terrorists, and called in
the Defense Attache in Rangoon over the issue. FBR now
understands that it conducts its activities entirely independent
of the USG, and that the USG will not come to FBR's aid in the
event some of its members are captured or otherwise directly
attacked by the Burma Army. FBR's work does not appear to
conflict with USG interests in Burma, and the group remains a
good source of information about the situation in Burma's
conflict areas near the Thai-Burma border. Post intends to
continue cultivating its relationship with FBR to augment Burma
reporting.


10. (U) This cable was coordinated with Embassies Rangoon and
Bangkok.
MORROW