Eastern Burma: Another Darfur?

By SAW YAN NAING
The Irrawaddy News

You could say it runs in the family—45-year-old Saw Lubermoo’s grandmother and grandfather were IDPs (Internally Displaced Persons), his parents were IDPs, and now he is an IDP.

The ethnic Karen says he has been constantly on the move and hiding in the jungle since he was four years of age.

He is among hundreds of thousands of ethnic Karen, Karenni, Mon and Shan civilians who have been displaced in eastern Burma for decades.

According to a 2008 report by the Thailand Burma Border Consortium, an umbrella group of donors and humanitarian organizations, the total number of IDPs in eastern Burma is likely to be well over half a million with at least 451,000 people estimated to have been displaced in rural areas alone. The group also says that many IDP cases in eastern Burma go unreported.

According to Shan and Karen relief groups, there are currently about 20,000 IDPs in hiding in the jungles of central Shan State and northern Karen State.

A separate group of some 4,000 Karen villagers fled during the joint Burmese army– Democratic Karen Buddhist Army offensive against the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) in June and are presently being sheltered on Thai soil.

Shan community-based rights groups, including the Shan Women’s Action Network (SWAN), reported on August 13 that in the previous two weeks, the Burmese army had burned down more than 500 houses and forced about 40 villages to relocate, mostly in Laikha Township in Shan State.

On Wednesday, a top US administration official expressed anxiety over the displacement of thousands of civilians in northeastern parts of Burma due to the Burmese army’s military activities.

“We have been deeply concerned by very recent reports of large-scale displacement, perhaps as many or more than 10,000 civilians,” the Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration, Eric Schwartz, told reporters on Wednesday at a special briefing at the Foggy Bottom headquarters of the US State Department.

Observers and human rights advocacy groups have said that the conditions under which villagers are forced to become IDPs in eastern Burma is conducive with the criteria regarded by the International Criminal Court (ICC) as “crimes against humanity.”

Aung Htoo, the general-secretary of the exiled Burma Lawyers’ Council (BLC), said, “We can say with certainty that crimes against humanity and war crimes are being committed in Burma.

Charm Tong, a spokesperson for SWAN, said, “The regime brazenly committed these crimes even as the whole world was watching them during the trial of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.”

Several activists have said that crimes committed by soldiers of the Burmese regime include murder, rape, torture, looting, forced relocations and displacement. Many compare the situation in eastern Burma to the Darfur crisis in western Sudan where about 300,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million have been displaced.

The ICC has issued a warrant for the arrest of President Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir, accusing him of being responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Sudan.

Since 1997, the Burmese regime has destroyed over 3,000 villages and displaced over half a million civilians in eastern Burma. Karen sources report that there have been many unreported displacements and destroyed villages in Karen State alone since 1949 when the Karen armed revolution began.

International and regional rights groups, such as the International Federation for Human Rights, Altsean-Burma and Burma Lawyers’ Council, have urged the European Union to support the establishment of a UN Security Council Commission of Inquiry into crimes against humanity and war crimes in Burma.

Regional activist, Debbie Stothard, the coordinator of Altsean-Burma, said, “How can the SPDC’s planned elections be given any credence when war still rages in eastern Burma?”

A Karen rebel commander with the KNLA for more than two decades said he decided to join the fight against the Burmese army after he witnessed the bloodthirsty murder of children by Burmese soldiers.

He could not control his emotions as he told the story. “In one village, I saw the Burmese army kill women and infants. This event motivated me to pick up a gun and protect my Karen people,” he said.

“I have asked myself many times why Burmese soldiers are killing civilians. But, I have never found an answer.”

A Karen girl, Taw Oo Paw, 13, said, “I pray every night before I go to bed that I can be reunited with my mother and my sisters, and return to my village and live in peace.”

Her father was killed by the Burmese army and she has been separated from her mother and sisters for two years. She said that she hopes for a family reunion, one day.

Washington-based The Irrawaddy correspondent Lalit K Jha also contributed into this article.

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A Journey to another World

Scenes of everyday life in the Karenni Refugee Camp-1, near Mae Hong Son.
(Photo: Kyaw Zwa Moe/The Irrawaddy)

By KYAW ZWA MOE
The Irrawaddy News

Mae Hong Son, Thailand – The journey took only 30 minutes or so but it brought me into a different world. The old motorcycle, bouncing along on a rough, unpaved path, sent up clouds of dirt that penetrated my mask and scarf. It was a rollercoaster ride, through steep mountain slopes that dropped away on either side.

Small groups of people made way for us and children looked enviously at the motorcycle, as if dreaming that one day they perhaps could also drive one home.

The snarling machine maneuvered its way stubbornly upwards until another world opened up before me. A world of tiny huts, people carrying bamboo and timber poles, others waiting for their rations, children in soiled clothes playing in the dirt in front of their makeshift school.

Many of the adults wore longyi, the traditional Burmese sarong, and their lips were stained scarlet from chewing betel nuts.

Thousands of huts huddled on the hillsides, cut off from the outside world. No permanent building was to be seen, no power lines, no telephones, no paved roads, only a few motorcycles negotiating the rough paths.

Welcome to Karenni Refugee Camp-1, located only 15 km from Mae Hong Son, a bustling resort town in northern Thailand. The camp houses more than 20,000 ethnic Karenni from Burma’s Karenni (Kayah) State in eastern Burma. A further 4,000 Karenni refugees live in a second settlement, Camp-2.

The camps—and eight others along the Thai-Burmese border—are products of the decades-long rule of Burma’s oppressive military regime. More than 148,000 refugees live in the 10 camps, which are supported by the Thailand Burma Border Consortium, a non-governmental humanitarian relief and development agency financed by 11 charities and other donors.

Across the nearby border, other Karenni refugees—estimated at the end of 2007 to number some 81,000—are living rough or in relocation sites, classed as internally displaced persons, or IDPs. Fighting between government forces and ethnic rebel groups such as the Karenni National Progressive Party uprooted them and sent them seeking the safety of the jungle.

More than 30 percent of the 300,000 Karenni population are refugees or IDPs. As today’s IDPs are the refugees of tomorrow, Camp-1—like the others along the Thai-Burmese border—is preparing to take in more in the future.

The refugees have dramatic and heartbreaking stories to tell.

A teacher told me how his brother was arrested and tortured to death by government troops. He died in the early 2000s shortly after visiting his brother in Camp-1.

“Our family lost him,” said the soft-talking teacher. “I felt so sorry for my brother.”

Many young people in their 20s know no other world than the camp. They were born and grew up here, educated in the camp schools and starting families of their own. A few had managed to visit Thai towns beyond the camp gates.

Kay Mehl, 23, was born in the jungle, daughter of a Karenni rebel soldier. She can’t even imagine what her homeland looks like. “I’ve never seen the Salween river,” she said—referring to one of Burma’s biggest rivers, which runs close to the border.

As hope fades of ever seeing her homeland, Kay Mehl wants to be accepted for resettlement in the US.

Her aim is shared by many refugees. Five hundred residents of Camp-1 have been resettled in western countries so far, while others have been waiting for up to 20 years—living in the hope that one day their turn will come.

Young people were happily playing chinlone and football in the late afternoon sunshine as I left the camp. The images and the questions played in my mind on the rough ride back to the comforts of Mae Hong Son—how long will they have to wait before they lead normal lives, how long will the refugee camps be in existence? How long, indeed, until Burma’s leaders create a country where every citizen can live happily in peace and freedom?

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Is there a holistic approach to Burma’s refugee problem?

With the Rohingya boat people washing up almost daily on Thai shores, it is appropriate and as well, a welcome initiative for the Thai government to call for a conference, involving and consulting all concerned countries, including Burma, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia and India to find durable solutions. In other words, applying a holistic or comprehensive approach, like an opinion piece on 26 January of The Nation rightly pointed out.

By Sai Wansai
Shan Herald Agency for News
29 January 2009

The heart of the Rohingya problem is the Burmese military regime’s denial of rights to exist officially as an accepted ethnic group, within the larger national context of Burma. The bulk of Rohingya’s population, mostly a Muslim ethnic group, resides in northern Arakan state of western Burma

It is believed that 800,000 Rohingya live in Burma, but have not been granted citizenship.

Around a half-million Rohingya fled military crackdowns in 1978 and 1991, the majority moved to Bangladesh and many remain exiled in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Thailand and Malaysia

While the Rohingya problem has aroused willingness for the concerned states to look for solution in a comprehensive and holistic way, it should also be noted that the woes of the refugees stemming from Shan, Karen, Karenni and Mon states bordering Thailand are identical, where oppression, ethnic cleansing and human rights abuses are concerned.

According to Thailand Burma Border Consortium’s (TBBC) conservative estimate count in eastern Burma - Shan, Karen, Karenni and Mon states -, the internally displaced persons population is said to be 500,000. Grand total refugees from Burma for all sites within Thailand is numbered 1 44,455.

Thus, it is quite clear that all these illegal migration spreading out in all directions across the regional is fast becoming a transnational issue and multilateral approach is the only way out.

But what is actually the root cause of such illegal migration?

The answer lies in the Burmese military regimes failed policies and its entrenched racist mind-set.

In other words, its failure to recognise that Burma is a multi-ethnic state and that the Union of Burma is a newly developed territorial entity, founded by a treaty, the Panglong Agreement, where independent territories merged together on equal basis.

The successive military dominated regimes, including the present ruling State Peace and Development Council, see Burma as an existing unified nation since the reign of Anawratha thousands of years ago. As such, all other non-Burmans – Shan, Kachin, Chin, Arakanese, Mon, Karen and Karenni - are seen as minorities, which must be controlled and suppressed, lest they break up the country.

To achieve its goal, the Burmese military goes about with its implementation of protecting “national sovereignty” and “national unity” at all cost. This, in turn, gives way to open conflict resulting in more suppression and gross human rights violations. The intolerance of the military to and its inspiration to “racial supremacy” and to political domination and control has no limit and this could be seen by its refusal to hand over power to the winners of 1990 nation-wide election, the National League for Democracy (NLD), Shan Nationalities League for Democracy (SNLD) and other ethnic parties. The genuine federalism platform, which the NLD and ethnic nationalities embrace, is a threat to its racist mind-set and obsession of domination and control.

In short, the Burmese military regime must come to term that its zero-sum game plan of “total elimination” of the opposition parties, racial supremacy implementation and gross human rights violations are not working to its advantage. Instead, it should opt for real democratisation process, all-inclusiveness and equality to create a better future for the country and its people.

If there is anything that could underpin the condition for holistic approach regarding the Rohingya issue and illegal migration in general, it will be creating a peaceful and harmonious atmosphere within Burma. And the concerned stakeholders should coax or persuade the ruling generals to pave way for such positive change. Otherwise, the refugee problem, stemming from Burma, affecting neighbouring countries will continue to exist for a long time to come.

(Sai Wansai is the General Secretary of the exiled Shan Democratic Union - Editor)

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