mae la, Home or prison?
What is worse than having to choose between two things you like?....having to choose between two things you don't like. This is the reality that faces many of the citizens in present-day Myanmar. In a country that grips its people to the point of suffocation, many, mostly ethnic minorities, have chosen to flee to the border with Thailand. But some may refer to the differences between these two worlds as a blemished line. The refugee camps located along the Thai border with Myanmar have a strange reality, and though the immigrants find solace in the quiet of the camps, here they face the somber fate of stagnancy.
Mae La, the largest of 9 refugee camps running adjacent to the Thai-Myanmar border, stretches over a mile long and encompasses more than 20,000 bamboo dwellings. Its inhabitants, now swelling to over 50,000, have sought refuge here from their homeland, a place where the pervasive military junta has stretched its long arm into the homes and lives of its citizens.
After taking control in 1962, the ruling military government has been continuously criticized for the atrocities committed in regards to basic human rights and the list is long. It is well documented by Human Rights Watch (HRW), Amnesty International and other international NGO's that the Burmese have and continue to endure dismal circumstances within the borders of their own country. According to HRW, as of 1996, 3,077 villages have been burned to ashes and over a million people displaced. Thousands have fled to the border with Thailand; others are forced into government controlled relocation camps where they melt into an accessible pool of labor and food suppliers for military forces. The Burmese have also been used as free laborers for government needs, being forced to build roads and pipelines under harsh conditions, with little to no food and without any compensation. Not even pregnant women escape the ball and chain, sometimes made to carry their small children with them while they work. One Karenni woman told me of her encounter with forced labor...she has had three miscarriages in the last five years.
Substantial evidence by Human Rights Watch and Refugees International also states that the ruling junta has planted landmines in and around crops and homes to prevent locals from harvesting and providing anti-government insurgents with food supplies. But war concerns are not the only intention of depositing thousands of mines over ethnic-minority terrain as can be concluded from the mines that are sometimes placed inside residential homes. In a catalog of testimonies of Karen refugees assembled by the Karen Women's League, one woman dispelled her experience of being used as a human minesweeper, forced to walk in front of government troops to clear the path for them. HRW reports that to add insult to injury, the government will occasionally charge a fee to the family of a landmine victim on the grounds of "destruction of government property".
But these exploitations are a mere scratch on the surface of what one may find if he opens up the book of Burmese injustices. In a country where mistreatment is the rule rather than the exception and in a time when the world has millions of eyes and ears open to the glass lens, there is no doubt that surreptitious operations are going to be employed. A young Chinese/Burmese man who works in his aunt's internet cafe in Yangon imparted to me in a hushed tone the workings of this silenced world. Though internet cafes abound, all email accounts (hotmail, yahoo, gmail, etc.) are prohibited along with any anti-government sites; even Lonely Planet's access is denied due to its short chapter on Myanmar politics. The prices for international phone calls are so inflated at $5 to $6 a minute that hardly a Western tourist can afford it, let alone a native Burmese, effectively closing off the country to the outside world. The government-owned newspapers are the platform for propaganda with "The New Light of Myanmar" being dubbed locally as "The New Lies of Myanmar." The secretary of the NLD (National League for Democracy) revealed to me that the only section of the papers they read are the obituaries because "that is the only truthful news you can find in the country." And spies run so rampant that people are not only wary of the ever-present government officials, "they suspect even their closest neighbors", as one taxi driver confided to me. The military has successfully manufactured a society of fear. In an environment such as this, it is no surprise that thousands flee, in search of a life clear from the heavy fog of terror.
And it is a blessing that they have somewhere to run. But the confinement of Mae La, though it does represent an enclave of safety, intimates a prison. Set along the hilly backdrop of the Thai border with Myanmar, Mae La is an unforgettable image. Thousands of make-shift bamboo huts dot the mountainside, finished off with thatched dry-leaf roofs and replete with dirt-smudged children roaming the dusty paths. Constrained to the borders of the camp, thousands of Burmese simply exist here, some for over 25 years, their imagination the only escape to the outside world.
Though the inmates of this forced community have, through the generosities of the Thai government and various international NGO's, the bare necessities of life, they continue to have no access to jobs, money, personal medications, let alone the resources to explore the plains of their own individualities. The daily menu consists of rice with soup; meat is saved only for special occasions. They can hardly even grow their own food being that their personal plots are space enough only for a humble hut.
Some individuals do find ways to plant some vegetables or raise a few pigs, but there is no denying the intense struggle of this meager existence. And with nothing to engage their interests, nothing to busy their hands, nothing but idle time to nurture, it has been inevitable that drugs and discrimination, in many forms, have found a battleground to wage their wars.
While spending a couple days within the camp, I had the beautiful and heartbreaking privilege of spending an evening with the many "orphans" that reside within Mae La's walls. Though these children are alone in the camps, it does not necessarily mean that their parents have died; many walked alone for days through dangerous military zones to reach the camps, their parents hoping for a better life for them but not able to make the trek themselves. In their modest dorm rooms, literally wooden planks with a mat and pillow laid out, they discussed their dreams for the future. Doctors, nurses and teachers were the resounding cries, a small irony in a world where the only people they know with any power to help are the visiting humanitarian aid workers who teach and work in the clinics.
However, there are avenues for their education, the main enterprise for success in the lives of this fledgling generation. Libraries are built in the camps, sporting a few books in different languages. And the children attend school five days a week. There is even a center in Mae La where adults can earn their online degree and I had the honor of meeting a number of exceptional people who had done just that. With hungry eyes and ambitious smiles, they accepted our inspired praise, but underneath the residue of satisfaction in their accomplishments lays the grim realization that they may never get the chance to sow their seeds of knowledge in the world. One young girl expressed her concern with me about that understanding. With splendid English she extolled her fears and hopes about the future and the amount of love she has to share with humanity. What a crime that her intelligence and beauty may never have an object to beam its light upon.
But these youth are not the only ones that suffer for the future. Every man, woman and child in the camp yearns for a chance at a normal life. Many want to return home to their families, some having been born in the camp and have never even seen their own country. Others want to move on to try a life somewhere else in the world, in Thailand, or Europe or America. And there are plans to transfer some Mae La residents to other parts of the world, but the process is strict and consists of a number of tests to help weed out only the most educated, the only ones officials believe can survive in developed foreign countries. Some escape to nearby towns like Mae Sot and begin the process of trying to find work as an illegal alien; some are captured and sent back to the camp, some survive.
But the callous truth is that until the Myanmar government hands the reigns over to the elected democratic government of Aung San Suu Kyi, (leader of the National League for Democracy party who won a landslide victory in 1990 but whose triumph the junta refuses to recognize) the options for the millions of Burmese suffering the abuses in human rights and imprisoned lives are stark. And the options for the millions wanting to help are limited, but we can make a statement to the ruling leaders of this sad country. Travelers to Myanmar should be highly conscious of the current situation, avoiding at all costs, giving any money to the government. Going to the country at all is a controversial matter being that just getting a visa allots the government an easy $30. And it should be understood by all, that business enterprises with the country also provide millions of dollars to a leadership that kills and exploits its citizens and workers and silences the screams for help from millions of souls dying to be heard.
Mae La, the largest of 9 refugee camps running adjacent to the Thai-Myanmar border, stretches over a mile long and encompasses more than 20,000 bamboo dwellings. Its inhabitants, now swelling to over 50,000, have sought refuge here from their homeland, a place where the pervasive military junta has stretched its long arm into the homes and lives of its citizens.
After taking control in 1962, the ruling military government has been continuously criticized for the atrocities committed in regards to basic human rights and the list is long. It is well documented by Human Rights Watch (HRW), Amnesty International and other international NGO's that the Burmese have and continue to endure dismal circumstances within the borders of their own country. According to HRW, as of 1996, 3,077 villages have been burned to ashes and over a million people displaced. Thousands have fled to the border with Thailand; others are forced into government controlled relocation camps where they melt into an accessible pool of labor and food suppliers for military forces. The Burmese have also been used as free laborers for government needs, being forced to build roads and pipelines under harsh conditions, with little to no food and without any compensation. Not even pregnant women escape the ball and chain, sometimes made to carry their small children with them while they work. One Karenni woman told me of her encounter with forced labor...she has had three miscarriages in the last five years.
Substantial evidence by Human Rights Watch and Refugees International also states that the ruling junta has planted landmines in and around crops and homes to prevent locals from harvesting and providing anti-government insurgents with food supplies. But war concerns are not the only intention of depositing thousands of mines over ethnic-minority terrain as can be concluded from the mines that are sometimes placed inside residential homes. In a catalog of testimonies of Karen refugees assembled by the Karen Women's League, one woman dispelled her experience of being used as a human minesweeper, forced to walk in front of government troops to clear the path for them. HRW reports that to add insult to injury, the government will occasionally charge a fee to the family of a landmine victim on the grounds of "destruction of government property".
But these exploitations are a mere scratch on the surface of what one may find if he opens up the book of Burmese injustices. In a country where mistreatment is the rule rather than the exception and in a time when the world has millions of eyes and ears open to the glass lens, there is no doubt that surreptitious operations are going to be employed. A young Chinese/Burmese man who works in his aunt's internet cafe in Yangon imparted to me in a hushed tone the workings of this silenced world. Though internet cafes abound, all email accounts (hotmail, yahoo, gmail, etc.) are prohibited along with any anti-government sites; even Lonely Planet's access is denied due to its short chapter on Myanmar politics. The prices for international phone calls are so inflated at $5 to $6 a minute that hardly a Western tourist can afford it, let alone a native Burmese, effectively closing off the country to the outside world. The government-owned newspapers are the platform for propaganda with "The New Light of Myanmar" being dubbed locally as "The New Lies of Myanmar." The secretary of the NLD (National League for Democracy) revealed to me that the only section of the papers they read are the obituaries because "that is the only truthful news you can find in the country." And spies run so rampant that people are not only wary of the ever-present government officials, "they suspect even their closest neighbors", as one taxi driver confided to me. The military has successfully manufactured a society of fear. In an environment such as this, it is no surprise that thousands flee, in search of a life clear from the heavy fog of terror.
And it is a blessing that they have somewhere to run. But the confinement of Mae La, though it does represent an enclave of safety, intimates a prison. Set along the hilly backdrop of the Thai border with Myanmar, Mae La is an unforgettable image. Thousands of make-shift bamboo huts dot the mountainside, finished off with thatched dry-leaf roofs and replete with dirt-smudged children roaming the dusty paths. Constrained to the borders of the camp, thousands of Burmese simply exist here, some for over 25 years, their imagination the only escape to the outside world.
Though the inmates of this forced community have, through the generosities of the Thai government and various international NGO's, the bare necessities of life, they continue to have no access to jobs, money, personal medications, let alone the resources to explore the plains of their own individualities. The daily menu consists of rice with soup; meat is saved only for special occasions. They can hardly even grow their own food being that their personal plots are space enough only for a humble hut.
While spending a couple days within the camp, I had the beautiful and heartbreaking privilege of spending an evening with the many "orphans" that reside within Mae La's walls. Though these children are alone in the camps, it does not necessarily mean that their parents have died; many walked alone for days through dangerous military zones to reach the camps, their parents hoping for a better life for them but not able to make the trek themselves. In their modest dorm rooms, literally wooden planks with a mat and pillow laid out, they discussed their dreams for the future. Doctors, nurses and teachers were the resounding cries, a small irony in a world where the only people they know with any power to help are the visiting humanitarian aid workers who teach and work in the clinics.
However, there are avenues for their education, the main enterprise for success in the lives of this fledgling generation. Libraries are built in the camps, sporting a few books in different languages. And the children attend school five days a week. There is even a center in Mae La where adults can earn their online degree and I had the honor of meeting a number of exceptional people who had done just that. With hungry eyes and ambitious smiles, they accepted our inspired praise, but underneath the residue of satisfaction in their accomplishments lays the grim realization that they may never get the chance to sow their seeds of knowledge in the world. One young girl expressed her concern with me about that understanding. With splendid English she extolled her fears and hopes about the future and the amount of love she has to share with humanity. What a crime that her intelligence and beauty may never have an object to beam its light upon.
But the callous truth is that until the Myanmar government hands the reigns over to the elected democratic government of Aung San Suu Kyi, (leader of the National League for Democracy party who won a landslide victory in 1990 but whose triumph the junta refuses to recognize) the options for the millions of Burmese suffering the abuses in human rights and imprisoned lives are stark. And the options for the millions wanting to help are limited, but we can make a statement to the ruling leaders of this sad country. Travelers to Myanmar should be highly conscious of the current situation, avoiding at all costs, giving any money to the government. Going to the country at all is a controversial matter being that just getting a visa allots the government an easy $30. And it should be understood by all, that business enterprises with the country also provide millions of dollars to a leadership that kills and exploits its citizens and workers and silences the screams for help from millions of souls dying to be heard.
J.C.
