As my cell phone continually rang; I wondered who was calling me. It was my friend Jo. We planed to go to Thailand a little while ago because Jo, like me, is interested in getting involved in helping the people of Burma, even though he is American.
Therefore, I wanted Jo to know more about the situations of people of Burma.
When visiting to Thailand, Jo and I met a lot of people who are former political prisoners, children, freedom fighters, and social workers. We interviewed these people about their experiences for documentary purposes because we would like to summit this humanitarian crisis to the international community and assist these people who desperately need help. It is very dangerous if you are illegal in Thailand because Thai immigration and police can arrest and send you back to your own country/Burma. If you were involved in Burma’s democracy movement and were deported, it is even more dangerous for you because you could get arrested, tortured, and even killed by the army. Therefore, I worry and wonder about how the people from Burma will stay in Thailand.
As a patriot, it is my responsibility to help my people who are refugees, migrant workers, and internally displaced people. When I interviewed an education worker, she told me about the situation of children in the Mea Sot area. Conditions there are horrible, because they estimate about 30,000 are children who are underage, coming to the border areas to get better education. If you are one of the lucky few, you can get access to go to school either Thai schools or non-government organizations (NGO) schools.
However, these lucky children are about 8,000. There are about 22,000 children who are forced to be child soldiers, child laborers, or child prostitutes in this town of Mea Sot.We visited these young underage victims at a NGO’ s safe house and met children who have terrible diseases like HIV, various disabilities, and other mysterious diseases.
These young children should be under the care of their parents but unfortunately they have no parents at all. I saw a five-year-old little girl lying down on the floor. She did not look too well so I asked what happened to her because it was obvious that some thing was wrong. A Social worker, explained to me about her situation. Both of her parents died with HIV disease. She contracted HIV from her mother when she was born. This is one of the heartbreaking situations.
We visited some schools, which are helped by some NGOs. I wondered why these young children came cross the border areas illegally to get a better education. I interviewed some girls and boys about why they are here and wanted to go to Thailand. In the interviews, they told me the same answer. They informed me that their parents could not afford to get education in Burma because everything is too expensive. Therefore both parents and children agreed to go to Thailand for a better education.*I was so excited to meet my former comrades, who are former political prisoners and have spent ten, fourteen, or fifteen years in prisons for their political beliefs. We were happy and sad at the same time. The sad thing that we remembered was our other comrades who were killed in the prisons and Junta’s detention centers. But we were happy to see each other in person for the first time in eighteen years.I wanted to know about their experiences in prison. They told me that they were tortured both physically and mentally. Every political prisoner released from prison speaks of his or her unidentified health problems. Some died by unknown health problem soon after their release and some have chronic health problems, there are over 2,000 political prisoners who remain in prisons in Burma, today. Every time there is a demonstration or due to the whims of persons in authority, political activists are subjected to additional investigations or put into prison again and again. If this can happen one or two more times, you could die in the prison or the Junta’s detention center. The situation for political activist is not stable. Therefore, there are only two ways of coping with this abuse.
Political activist must decide either you want to stay in prison constantly for their whole life or you leave the country so you can do something about your country from outside of the country.Something is wrong with the fundamental nature of the government under the Junta. Consequently one’s desire to make changes in the government in a formal and internationally recognized way awakens the true believer in you. So the political activists must determine within themselves not to give up the nation to the junta for any thing because what the junta does still affects your remaining family members. The lives of the remaining family members of political prisoners become very difficult. To better demonstrate these difficulties, indulge me for a moment. Let’s say this Junta had power in the USA. Let’s say for example, you live in Buffalo, New York and you spoke out against the Junta. You would then be arrested and sent to a prison in Miami, Florida. It would be difficult for your spouse or your parents because it is more expensive for your family to travel to a remote area to supply with food, water, and other materials needed for your survival.
In the prisons, prisoners are not provided with healthy food, an adequate amount of fresh clean water, medical treatment, or medicine. So your parents or spouse must bring these foods and other items to meet your needs. Most everybody cannot get food from their family members frequently because their family members cannot afford to get there and meet them regularly.
Additionally, since you are a family member of a political prisoner or you have been involved in Burma’s democracy movement, the Junta can discriminate against you and pressure you. For example you are a lawyer; you could lose your license to practice law. As a government servant, you can get fired any time. You become poor and fall into destitution. *Increasing population of the refugees from Burma in recent years, the UN, U. S, and other human rights organizations are concerned about the situation in the country. They estimate that there are more than half one million refugees from Burma that make up the humanitarian crisis. Ethnic revolutionary groups and pro-democracy supporters were being oppressed by the Junta during the 1990's. This led to major refugee outflows into neighboring countries, including Thailand, Malaysia, and Bangladesh.
*There is a lot of international discussion about the millions of internally displaced people (IDP) in Darfur, Sudan, Africa. The situation there is in the news constantly. Yet, at the same time millions of people are being displaced in Burma as well. Sadly, there is no media attention regarding the IDP situation in Burma at all. It is hard to accept the fact that an estimated two million IDP, reported by some human rights organizations, receive no attention from the international press. The Junta’s army forcefully displaces these IDP because they are accused of lending support to the ethnic revolutionary organizations. These ethnic revolutionary organizations fight for self-determination.
These estimated two million do not want to leave their homelands so they become IDP.
The Junta’s brutal displacement policy is linked to the same basic thought pattern seen earlier in history. During the Chinese communist revolution, Mao Zedong used to speak to his supporters about people, power, and revolution. The people are water and revolutionaries are fish. The fish cannot survive without water, so take water away from the fishes therefore fish cannot survive and die eventually that is the basic idea behind the
“Four Cuts Policy”. Therefore being based on this idea the junta accuses all of the people who live in the areas as being the ethnic revolutionaries. Following this line of reasoning, they must support the people who are against the Junta. When the Junta’s army goes into these areas their standard operating procedure is to burn the villages and kill the people. These ethnic people, who know the areas, run away from the Junta’s army into the jungle. Sometimes in their flight, they step on the land mines losing part of their bodies or are killed.
Living in jungle also increases their chances of contracting malaria, children suffer from malnutrition, infant and those less than five years old have a high mortality rate, and other diseases are spread due to unsanitary conditions. The Junta’s army trains their soldiers so that when they see a man automatically think it is a dead body. This means kill the men. When the soldiers see a woman, assume she is a prostitute. Therefore you can rape her. When soldiers see a cow, they are taught kill it to feed yourself. When the soldiers see a cart, they think of firewood. So soldiers have a way to cook their food. Burning the cart also destroys the people’s means of transportation. This practice is called the
“Four Cuts Policy”.
The purpose of the
“Four Cuts Policy” is to cut off food, funds, communication, and heads to eliminate the potential recruitment of villagers to the ethnic revolutionary organizations. This policy has been put in place to weaken the ethnic revolutionary forces. Those victims are ethnic people, who have the different history and languages from the majority people of Burma who speak Burmese.The generally accepted solution for the above mentioned problems is that democratic forces such as the National League for Democracy (NLD), which won 82 percent of the parliamentary seats in 1990’s multiparty election, and other ethnic revolutionaries who want to rectify the situations in country, ask for dialogue with the Junta to solve these problems at the table. However, the Junta has always refused to engage in a dialogue; it is obvious that the Junta has no plan to hand over power to the elected NLD. The Junta considers itself the only government to maintain the country’s unity with stability.
They believe no other civilian government can do it. The Junta wants all ethnic revolutionaries to be ineffectual and the role of the elected NLD to fade, then the Junta can have unopposed control and power forever.
