Longer than any prospectus

Karen oral traditions of a “river of running sand” are widely told. Absolute ancient dates in promotional blurbs are not chronology.36

The KNU was founded in 1947. Armed conflict with the Burmese state began in 1949 and is among Asia’s longest civil wars. Displacement filled Thai-border camps — Mae La, Mae La Oon, Nu Po and others — with on the order of 100,000 people at peaks.4

A 2012 ceasefire and the 2015 Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement opened a temporary weather of return, roads, investors — and land grabs. That is the climate in which lodge and “free city” paper was written.4

The 2021 coup ended that weather. Airstrikes hit the Salween Peace Park. Any history that stops in 2018 is incomplete.4

A dated documentary timeline, including the development chapter, is in the Archive.