A Reuters article on Yahoo News is about China deporting Kachin refugees back to Myanmar (aka Burma). The article mentions a Kachin Independence Army, which gives you an idea of what Burma faces.
The CIA's World Factbook lists 68% of Burma's people as ethnically Burman. In other words, roughly one third of the nation's people are "something else" - of another ethnicity. The Karen are roughly 7%, the Shan 9%, the Rakhine 4%, the Chinese 3%, the Indian 2%, the Mon 2%, and other 5%. I suppose the Kachin are part of the "other" 5%.
People wonder how the people of Burma have put up with a military government for so long. The answer lies in the country's ethnic diversity.
The Burman are trying to hold the country together, the Kachin and Karin, among others are trying to pull it apart. The government and army represent the Burman two-thirds and Burmese unity and nationalism, many (if not most) of the rest would like to carve their own independent countries out of Burmese territory.
Substantial numbers of Burma's minority peoples live in refugee camps in adjacent nations, having been driven there by Burmese army ethnic cleansing.
