This month started with some shocking news for me. Aung Lwin, my subsistence farmer friend has been attacked and stabbed. He was taken to hospital by his friends when they found him by the side of his field. Fr J says he has arranged for a friend to stay in hospital with him to make sure he is OK. He also tells me that 30 IDP huts have been destroyed by the Thai authorities in a village near the border. There are thousands of these people who cross the border for temporary shelter but don’t wish to register as refugees as they want to return home as soon as it is possible. The authorities don’t like these settlements and so destroy them from time to time.
More positive news arrives about Burma with the visit of Hilary Clinton. Barrack Obama has sent ASSK a personal letter that says ‘We are with you now and always’. This news is greeted with excitement, but as ASSK says this is only the ‘beginning of the beginning’ and ‘there is a long way to go’. When we ask our friends if they think this is a turning point they all say ‘50/50’. They have been through this before and don’t want to get excited to be let down again.
Our work with FTUK continues. They are planning the first of five trips inside Karen state. This first one goes deep inside, taking seven days to walk to the village in which they will do the training. They will spend a week in the village and then start the long walk home. They will need a military escort as it goes close by or through SPDC controlled areas. I don’t ask too many questions as I can see they don’t want to think too much about the dangers themselves.
Declan has befriended EQ, a street child aged 14. This boy has been selling snacks around Mae Sot for all the years we have been coming, so at least 7 years. He works with his mother, Phon. He remembers Declan from previous visits and can now speak good English. Phon doesn’t speak any English so EQ translates for her. I remember EQ when he was very young and his mother used to carry him around Mae Sot late into the night when he was very tired. EQ doesn’t know his father. EQ and Phon invite us to visit their home as they are very proud to have just moved into a flat for the first time. The flat is just a concrete cell with a shared bathroom, but they are very proud to have their own home. All their possessions are in a small corner of the room. Everything could be fitted into two plastic carrier bags. Phon wears an ASSK ‘Freedom to lead’ T shirt which she is very proud to wear. She thinks she would be arrested in Burma for wearing it
December 5th is the King of Thailand’s birthday and we hear the news that the ‘Friendship bridge’ has re-opened. The bridge has been closed for over a year since fighting broke out in Myawaddy, the town on the other side of the river. However, now there is a lull in fighting and the possibility of a ‘cease-fire’, so it appears that the authorities think it is safe to reopen it and chose the King’s birthday to honour him. The papers report that one quarter of Thailand’s border trade goes over this bridge. Most of the trade had continued without the bridge with goods going across the river on wooden barges with the ‘tax’ going to the gangs who organize the illegal crossings. Both governments were losing a lot in tax revenue.
I spent three days this week at a teacher training college working with about 40 trainee teachers from various areas across Burma. They are wonderfully enthusiastic and enjoy (really) my input. The sad issue here is that in a class of 40 there are two landmine victims – one girl who has had her leg blown off and a boy who has lost an arm. If peace does come to Karen state then it will still be impossible to return to many areas because of the many thousands of landmines that have been planted, and nobody knows where they are.
Goods news about Aung Lwin. He is out of hospital. I go to see him and his scar is huge – about 18 long, but it looks clean and he looks well. Hopefully, he should be fine. The surgeon opened him up to check for internal damage and it seems there is no damage.
Our visa requires us to leave Thailand every 90 days, so we fly to Burma to visit our friends in Rangoon and Pathein. Arriving in Burma still shocks us. Although Burma is a much poorer country than Thailand it is much more expensive place to visit. We can only stay at registered hotels which are all very expensive, costing up to 200 USD per night! We have booked into the cheapest one we can find which costs 20 USD per room per night. But you get what you pay for!! We arrived in the dark to Karaoke music blasting out and cobwebs all over our room. The room is huge and very colonial. You could imagine it in the 1920’s as a magnificent hotel but as it had not been painted or updated since then. The manager dashes off to the local police station with our passports to register us. We are the first foreign visitors they have ever had. Surprisingly we slept well despite the music but woke up to a floor covered in cock roaches!! The staff are so helpful and apologetic about our room. They offer us other rooms. After looking at them we realize we have the best rooms in the hotel. The staff are very poorly paid at about 50 USD a month. Many stay all week as they cannot afford the daily journey to work at about 1 USD. Next night we hear about the ‘Fashion show’ in the Karaoke bar. Here young girls parade on stage in front of an audience of men. If a man thinks they are beautiful he pays for a garland to be put around the girl and she comes to sit with him and talk to him. The girls can earn up to 30 USD for ‘talking’ to the man. There is no dancing allowed and only ‘talking’ takes place – so we are told? Very strange but common around big cities in Burma.
Food poisoning lays Declan and I low for two days. I guess we can’t be surprised. We have sat outside restaurants eating our meal watching rats running along the streets. We have seen inside some of the kitchens and know hygiene standards are so low. We are careful where we eat and what we eat. Back at the hotel we are getting to know the hotel staff well and have seen where they ‘live’. Their sleeping accommodation is so pitiful. Two sleep in the kitchen and another in the store room, others in a shed. We are shocked but they are thankful as they say their boss is a good one – he allows them to stay at the hotel, saving them on transport costs, and feeds them.
An FTUK colleague asks us to contact B, a friend who is a university lecturer in politics at Myanmar Institute of Theology. He is very happy to talk about the current political situation and has a picture of ASSK in his office. He says that speaking about politics is not wrong and that he tries to encourage his students not be afraid, but admits that after 50 years of dictatorship this is difficult. After getting to know him he confides in us that he is married and that his wife and three children live in Mae La refugee camp. He used to work in Mae Sot, knows most of the FTUK staff, and has travelled recently to the USA. He hasn’t seen his family for three years. The last time he visited, the security service in Thailand visited him. He was frightened of arrest and deportation so now he uses a false name and no-one knows his past at his place of work. He takes us to see the bothers of our FTUK friend. We tell them their brother is alive and well. They are so thankful to hear news of a brother who never contacts them for security reasons. We ask to take a photo but they are too frightened. B persuades them it will be safe but they will only agree to a photo with their heads cut off! We tell them that they have a new baby nephew and they are delighted to hear the news. They will tell their mother she has another grandchild. It is incredulous to us that they fear contacting family to tell them such joyous news. B tells us he is off to Karen state with some friends for the Christmas period. He is going to look for his mother – he hasn’t had contact for some years but will head to where he thinks she is living as he has heard that the fighting has stopped. The best Christmas present he will get is to hold his mother once again and know she is alive and well. He says he is frightened to go into the ‘war-zone’ in Karen state showing us a bullet wound in his leg and missing finger from a previous encounter with the SPDC. We wish him well. He asks us to visit his wife and children in Mae La and tell them he loves them and that he is well. With tears in our eyes we promise to take a photo of him to them when we go into Mae La in January.
‘If there is to be trouble, let it be in my time, so that my children can have peace’.
Many have sacrificed so much already.
‘We are with you now and always’
Barrack Obama’s message to Aung San Suu Kyi
NASUWTinBurma 