Week Five Thai Burma border

 

8,8,88, twenty first anniversary celebrations this week to mark this significant event

 

Sunday 9^th August

 

 Declan and I needed to go over to Myawaddy to renew our visa's. I really hate giving my 500 baht to the smug Burmese immigration officers. I greet them with the Burmese hello "Minglaba: And they smile and reply "Minglaba" with their mouths full of the blood red betel nut that they are chewing. They are always keen to see my passport that I have visited Rangoon and ask me in Burmese will I return to Rangoon! I smile and do not answer. I thank them for returning my passport  "jesu tin ba day"  and say with respect, today I will not go into the border town Myawaddy  (as the spy has already attached himself to Declan and I).  We return back into Thailand over the so called friendship bridge, we see desperate Burmese trying to swim across the murky river and mothers scrubbing washing dirty clothes in the filthy waters.

 Tonight had a phone call from my Burmese friend. She was really upset she states her uncle has been picked up from his home this morning. He will be riding around Mae Sot in one of the caged vans picking up other Burmese before going to the holding centre. He then will be deported back to Burma, his only crime being Burmese.

 

 

Travelled up from Mae Sot to Maesariang.

 

Monday 10^th August

 

Along the way Paw Gay ( FTUK) tried to get us entry to one of  the new camps relocated from inside Burma (u tut tah) following the attack in June. This is another recent camp set up after the DKBA and SPDC attacked last month. Two days ago the local district commander had changed the rules. We went for a interview with the district commander and our good friend translated quietly and respectfully, he explained that we had rice and oil to take in the the village. The response initally in Thai left us with no doubt of the reply that we were not getting in to this camp. The Thai commander in his broken English then explained gently to us, it is too dangerous to allow foreigners in, the DKBA and SPDC are very close. We said no problem for us, but please let out Karen friends in with supplies, they were also refused as they had no official travel documentation. Paw Gay needed to assess what the conditions are like inside for the 2,000 refugees. I left feeling so upset but realized that Paw Gay had other plans and she did get the aid in the tricky way. You come to realise that everything our friends do to help their people is never easy., but their patience resilience and quiet selflessness is evisent all the time. Paw Gay explained that when the camp was attacked the people where so frightened that they did not wait for help from Thailand, they fled into the river old ladies swimming for their life with children on there backs.

Please see BBC report of the displaced camp N0 Bo and of our good friend the camp leader Rainbow http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/8095137.stm

 

Set up the contacts from two weeks ago so three friends hopefully coming out of Mae la Oon camp. This is the camp Declan Philip and I visited in week one. Since we visited the monsoon rains have been heavy and I was surprised they had managed to get out, knowing full well what they have to endure during the journey. Hla Min the principal of the college had got a lift on the back of the vegetable truck. Gay Mo, from Dr Cynthia's clinic had got the boat out even though it is so dangerous near DKBA posts and also the river is high. They both phoned as soon as they were within satellite phone access and were so happy to be meeting us that evening.

 

Tuesday 11^th August

 

The one person that we hadn't heard from was our very dear friend Hla Tay. Hla Tay is Burman from Rangoon. He spent one year studying in Newcastle 6 years ago. I meet him every year when I visited his camp. His organization is the ABSDF (All Burman Student Democratic Front). He was taken off his duties as head teacher of his school following the monks demonstration (the saffron revolution) in September 2007. He is an amazing person who works tirelessly for his people. When Philip videoed him in camp he stated that he was on the demonstrations on the 8,8,88 peacefully demonstrating against the universities closure. when his friend was shot dead and died in his arms. He realized as a member of a student union he would be picked up and interrogated and his family would be at risk. He fled to the border where he stayed in the jungle with the Karen, like thousands of Burmese until settling in one of the refugee camps. He states that life is hard in camp.  Lots of mental health problems and lack of nutritional food.  I asked him if he would come out to meet Tony who he hasn't met since leaving Newcastle, he said he would try.

We were getting ready to meet our friends at KRC office when Declan came up to our room in the guest house and said Hla Tay was downstairs, it was so good to see him, Quietly he told us he had travelled out of the camp the day before on his motorbike!. He set off at 9am and arrived in maesariang at 6pm that day. At times he said he had to carry the bike through the mud. We did not have a long time to speak as he had a meeting with his organization leaders so agreed to meet for breakfast.

At breakfast he talked about his school's situation. It is really desperate for funds. The teachers have not be been paid for two months as the  donar organizations withdrew funds following his organization issuing a statement after the monks demonstrated in support of the arms struggle. (Please watch Burma VJ film released documenting the saffron demonstration).

We agreed to give some personal emergency donation. Just before he left we told him we planned to go into Rangoon, he looked surprised. We asked have you any family you would like us to contact inside. He looked at us and said slowly he does not know whether his mother is still alive, with tears in his eyes he said he has not heard anything in twenty years or had contact with anyone from Rangoon to know if she is alive or dead. It is too dangerous to get in touch.

 

Received the news tonight that Aung San Suu Kyi has been convicted and found guilty.

 

The Prime Minister Gordon Brown has released a statement following the news that Aung San Suu Kyi will spend 1.5 further years under house arrest in Burma.

I am both saddened and angry at the verdict today, 11 August following the sham trial of Aung San Sue Kyi... The news - that she has been found guilty and sentenced to three years hard labor but that this has been "mitigated" to a suspended sentence of 1.5 years under house arrest - is further proof that the military regime in Burma is determined to act with total disregard for accepted standards of the rule of law and in defiance of international opinion. My thoughts today are with Aung San Suu Kyi - the human face of Burma's tragedy - and with the people of Burma who suffer on a daily basis. So long as Aung San Suu Kyi and all those political opponents imprisoned in Burma remain in detention and are prevented from playing their full part in the political process, the planned elections in 2010 will have no credibility or legitimacy.

The façade of her prosecution is made more monstrous because its real objective is to sever her bond with the people for whom she is a beacon of hope and resistance.

Please take action now, go to http://www.burmacampaign.org.uk/arms-embargo

Wednesday 12^th August

Travelled on to Mae Hon Son 1,184 curves in the road through the mountain pass.

MHS is on the surface a very beautifull sleepy tourist resort very different to Mae Sot. In this area there are 2 refugee camps for the Karenna people. Camp one has 15,000  and camp 2,500 the refugee camps are well guarded and no one gets in or out the tricky way.

Getting documentation to get intoKarenni camp 1 is really difficult. Tony and I get camp pass documents because of the work we do in Mae Sot with one of the big aid agencies also we have skills to deliver in the camp. Even so every year we have to have an interview with the district commander. This year was no exception. We were summoned to his office and after the Thai commander practicing his English permission was granted.

 

 These camps have also had there share of problems as the UN opened registration for some of the refugees to go to a third country. Most of the leaders have left to countries such as New Zealand and Australia. A lot more have gone to the US to be used as labour for there economy. The Burmese who go to the US have to get a job as soon as they arrive as they do not have benefits to live on. All the teachers we trained last year have left.

Into Karenni camp one and working with children with disability. On one of the home visits my information was being translated through three languages. English into Burmese then translated into local karenni language. My interpreter Jasmine spoke to me after the visit and said she had just heard through  passing monk that her father who was inside Burma in Shan state has recently died. He died from preventable heart disease. The herbalist in the village gave him a potent medicine of poisonous leaves

 

Attended a big meeting of all NGO's today I was asked to represent community bases organization of children with Special Needs. It really made me realize that local based grassroots organizations know more about what is going on than these big organizations.

When the cyclone hit the delta region in 2008 it is widely known that the most successful organizations getting aid in quickly and safely (without causing security problems for local people) was grass roots organisations.  In May last year, a day after Cyclone Nargis struck community workers from Dr Cynthia's clinic and other organisations came together to discuss what could be done to assist those affected.  Many of them originally came from the Cyclone affected areas. At first the discussion focussed on advocacy, as it was felt impossible to do any relief work since anyone from community organisations on the border would be arrested if they ever attempted to return to government run areas. But slowly people started to realise that they could do something. One person knew a monk that he could contact through someone in the market who travelled to Rangoon, another woman had an aunty who she could get a message to through a church group. Slowly the network grew until the clinic  set up the Emergency Assistance Team Burma with over 40 teams, which began providing relief immediately to those areas worst affected by the Cyclone and where no international agencies were able to reach. EAT is still operating in those areas using local community networks to bring relief and rehabilitation to villages.

Unlike international aid agencies, community organisations did not wait for permission from the regime to start rebuilding people's lives. They often met resistance from government troops and were forever frustrated by government corruption, but this did not stop them. Because EAT is not sanctioned by the Burmese government, it was felt important that it also played an advocacy role. International agencies are forced to work through the regime and therefore cannot speak out against some of the awful human rights abuses that have been conducted by the military during the rescue and recovery of the delta crisis.

The result is a new report that was released called After the Storm: Voices from the Delta. The report is based on interviews with 90 private relief workers, and documents that the SPDC obstructed relief to victims of the cyclone, arrested aid workers and severely restrained accurate information in the wake of the worst natural disaster to befall modern Burma. It shows how the Burmese military regime hindered cyclone relief efforts, confiscated aid supplies and land, and used forced labour,

Including forced child labour, in its reconstruction efforts. But it also illustrates the impressive capacity of ordinary Burmese citizens to assist their neighbours in a timely fashion.

 

Thursday 13^th August

 

Last day in camp and working with trade union leader one of many unsung hero's. Al Khune Karenni ethnic groups, he risks so much travelling into Karenni area's to deliver aid and relief to his people. He explaines on his last trip he had to go through military gates. The Thai's then Karenni then SPDC regime. He has to send a warning in advance to cease fire groups that he will be travelling with soldiers as otherwise he would be shot. A good book to read to understand the culture in this area is "The land of The Green Ghosts", by Pascal Khoo They. He explains the origins of the long neck tribe and the ethics relating to this group.

When we stopped at the long neck village, the catholic sisters we travel into camp with refer to it as the human zoo. Whilst carrying out home visits my interpreter has obviously been a long neck and has had the rings removed, as her neck was elongated and looked as if it would snap at any time.

During lunch of cheap meat rice and a cup of dirty warm water, I asked Al Khoune about his cousin. Last year he was worried about him as he had gone missing whilst campaigning for a no vote in the 2010 elections. He explains that he had been arrested inside Loikaw Burma and sentenced to 34 years in prison. His mother is very worried as she cannot visit him. He is 24 years old and has Malaria. He asked for some advice and had no knowledge about the political prisoners association. We put him in touch with AAPP in Mae Sot.

 

Friday 14^th August

 

This morning met Brother Francis who is working with JRS. The NGO organization we have been going into camp with. Francis is a Karenni Jesuit priest. He explained quietly that he had been in the delta region teaching when Cyclone Nargis hit. He was asked to go the area most affected to help his people as he can speak Burmese. Local grass roots community organizations and religious leaders where the only ones getting  access into these areas and it is well reported the devastation that they were faced with. He said it was the worst experience of his life, seeing all the corpses and people starving in the aftermath. Also knowing that aid was dispatched to Rangoon but the government would not let it in.  He said he felt so helpless but also empowered to see the strength of ordinary Burmese villages working together in difficult circumstances.

 

This afternoon travelling to BKK to visit Myanmar embassy (regime changed name). I do not think we will get Visa's but will try. I have been advised to change email account to protect the security and identity of the people. I have been given underground health contacts and have been asked to follow up a malaria protection programme inside Rangoon. Malaria as well as HIV is one of many big health problem's that the government knows about but chooses to ignore.

If we get visa's I will try ands send email's from inside Burma but this may be difficult due to regime blocking communication.