Australia neglecting needs of IDPs in Eastern Burma

By Sai Awn Tai

(Shanland) -Australia is neglecting what the Australian people want and what the right thing to do is for the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in eastern Burma, said Dr John Kaye, NSW Greens MP.

During the last week about 10,000 people from Shan State fled from their homes after the military attacked and burned down the villages.

Burma advocacy campaigners Nang Charm Tong and her colleagues from the Thai-Burma border have urged the Australian government to change its foreign aid policy to assist Shan, Karen and other ethnic IDPs.

They met Mr Bob McMullan, the parliamentary secretary for international development assistance on 19 August to press AusAid to change its policy.

“Mr McMullan was sympathized and said that he will talk with his government colleagues but the result is unlikely to come overnight.

“This is our first step on this advocacy campaigning. We will continue to lobby until the Australian government changes its cross-border aid policy,” said Charm Tong.

Australian foreign aid has increased from $A16 million to 29 million for Burma but none of this money will assist the IDPs and last year, only $A1.2 million went to refugees who live in refugee camps at the Thai-Burma border.

The Burmese community in Australia, surprised by the AusAid policy, has asked questions why the Australian government does not assist the cross-border people who urgently need assistance for health care and food.

“There appear to be strong links between the Australian government and the military regime,” said Paul Power, the Chief Executive Officer of Refugee Council of Australia.

“I would like to question the nature of cooperation between the Australian government and the government of Burma” he said.

“The Australian government is quite reluctant to provide aid assistance to the IDPs in eastern Burma saying it has to respect the sovereignty of Thailand and Burma. They are also worried about the risk factor on the ground if they provide cross-border assistance to the IDPs.”

“In addition, they want to focus the humanitarian assistance through Rangoon,” said Dr Myint Cho, the director of Australia Burma Campaign.

However, Dr John Kaye believes that AusAid can also fund cross-border programs to IDPs without affecting their programs already being funded in Burma.

“If we look at countries like Canada, Norway, Denmark and US who do give funds to IDPs, they have also continued to operate their programs through Rangoon without problems from the military regime,” he said.

READ MORE---> Australia neglecting needs of IDPs in Eastern Burma...

Despair, then death: The Rohingya riddle

The deaths of two teenagers held for seven months at Ranong detention centre highlight the inadequacies of government policies and facilities to deal with boat people

by: Piyaporn Wongruang

(Bangkok Post) -They say that despair can kill a man, and so it did with two teenage Rohingya held in the Ranong detention centre for seven months. Two doctors who treated the detainees at the centre said the pair basically starved themselves to death after becoming dispirited and refusing to eat or exercise. The official reason for the two teenagers' deaths is "natural causes" caused by cardiac arrest.

WAITING: Rohingya refugees at the immigration detention centre in Bangkok.

"Their minds were just so sick that they lost enthusiasm for everything," said one of the doctors based at the centre who preferred to remain anonymous. "They refused to take food and they refused to move around. They told me that they were desperate and didn't know what to do with their lives any more. They told me that it's better to kill them than to detain them like this."

The deaths go to the heart of Thailand's problems dealing with illegal immigrants and refugees, and the inadequacy of current policies and facilities to deal with the growing number of cases.

Abdul Salam, 18, died on June 30 on the way to Ranong Hospital. Hammatula, 15, was found dead in the detention centre at 4am on Aug 13, a day after a medical check by one of the doctors. The two were among 78 ethnic Muslim Rohingya boat people fleeing Burma who were intercepted by the navy near Surin Island on Jan 26, and sent to the centre a few days later.

Abdul's and Hammatula's bodies were covered in wounds, after allegedly being tortured by the Burmese military during their boat trip, according to the doctor at the centre. The medical team treated the teenagers' wounds in the first few months of their detention, but the pair were overwhelmed by a sense of hopelessness. According to the same doctor, they gradually became fatigued, hardly moving and sitting or lying down most of the time.

READ MORE---> Despair, then death: The Rohingya riddle...

They died from hopelessness

By: Voranai Vanijaka

(Bangkok Post) -Time heals all wounds, as the saying goes. Not only that, time also makes you forget and helps you to move on. In one particular case, it seems time has made Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and the people of Thailand forget about the Rohingya refugees.

Before the Songkran riot, before Sondhi Limthongkul's attempted assassination, before the Thaksin phone-ins and before the controversy over appointing the new police chief, the Rohingya was the issue that rocked the young prime minister's newly appointed government.

In January, Rohingya refugees arrived on the shores of Thailand. The story made headlines across the world due to alleged abuses by Thai security forces - abuses that included accusations of systematic torture and shipping them back out to sea with no food or water, to die. PM Abhisit went on CNN and other western media outlets, promising to investigate the matter and to rectify the Rohingya problem.

The media submitted photos and video clips of the alleged torture to the authorities. An internal government investigation found the evidence inconclusive, and then everyone forgot about the Rohingya.

We all moved on until this past week's reports that two Rohingya refugees, or illegal immigrants, died in the detention centre in Ranong. According to human rights activists, Abdul Salam, 18, died two months ago after vomiting blood several times. Last week Hammatula, 15, died without any signs of distress. However, Thongchai Keeratihatthayakorn, a doctor in Ranong, said the two had died of sudden inflammation of the heart.

An 18-year-old and a 15-year-old died from heart attacks? That's suspicious. Some reports speculate that they died from starvation. That's more likely, but yet they were fed regularly at the detention centre. Did they starve themselves to death on purpose? But then, to what purpose?

Read also: Despair, then death: the Rohingya riddle

No, heart attack or starvation may have been the nail in the coffin, but the true cause of their death was hopelessness. According to a source who's a doctor at the detention centre, the detainees received food and medical care in the Ranong detention centre. Which obviously wasn't five-star service, but nor was it death-inducing.

What the two Rohingya lacked, according to the source, was hope, a future.

Why were they hopeless?

Seven months of detention and counting, over 70 refugees (each has been fined 2,000 baht by the Ranong Court for entering Thailand illegally) cramped in a single room in a two-storey building. These aren't hardened criminals or prisoners of war. These are simply third world villagers and peasants. People who have suffered through poverty and oppression in their homeland, then braved the sea to find new hope and opportunity, only to be allegedly abused by Thai security forces and thrown into prison. Sitting cramped and idle for seven months and counting, not knowing what's to become of them.

The world has forgotten about them. They don't know how long they will remain there. Nobody tells them anything. They may not have been mistreated in the detention centre, but they have been neglected and mistreated all their lives and, for the past seven months, by the Thai authorities and all those concerned at the policy level.

Neglected and mistreated because the authorities did not have the care, the time or the inclination to solve the Rohingya problem. No direction, no policy and no solution. For seven months the two Rohingya who died sat cramped and idle.

Without hope and without a future, they simply became withdrawn, stopped eating and stopped caring. They had lost the will to live. Whether it's a sudden heart attack, vomiting to death, or simply lying down and dying - it's all one and the same. They died from hopelessness. If things do not change, Abdul Salam and Hammatula are simply the first two to go.

Meanwhile, another 10 or so have fallen sick due to fatigue and malnutrition from their long detention. The remaining Rohingya have been transferred to the detention centre at Suan Phlu, in Bangkok.

It has been seven months since the Rohingya story first broke. From then until now, the only change for these Rohingya has been from one detention centre to another. Meanwhile, the prime minister, the media, the people of Thailand and the world have moved on to what we see as "bigger problems" - and of course, the red versus yellow and the economy are issues that affect our lives directly. What happens to 78 (minus two) Rohingya won't change our lives any.

Deputy Immigration Bureau chief Phitak Jarusombuti said the bureau would not reveal how long the Rohingya would be detained. That's exactly the problem. How long will they have to endure until more of them simply lose all hope, lay down and wither away?

For the world at large, time may change, time may heal, time may make us forget and move on. But for the two dead Rohingya, nothing did change for seven months. They simply sat in the same place, looked at the same walls, cramped and idle, with nothing to do but see and remember their sufferings, locked in a prison in body and mind, unable to move on. Hopelessness.

Email: voranaiv@bangkokpost.co.th

READ MORE---> They died from hopelessness...

30 More Karens Flee Hlinebwe

By LAWI WENG
The Irrawaddy News

Some 30 Karen people from Hlinebwe District in Pa-an Township have fled to the Thai-Burmese border recently to escape forced recruitment and other abuses by the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), according to the refugee camp leader in Nu Po on the Thai side of the border.

Camp leader Saw Ta Su Mya told The Irrawaddy on Friday that the 30 new arrivals makes a total of 517 Karens that have fled from that area in the last two months and are now sheltering at Mae Salit, a village near Nu Po.

“Sometimes two or three people arrive a day. Other times, the women and children flee first and are followed by their male relatives later,” he said. “They are careful to keep out of sight of the DKBA on the way,” he added.

The DKBA has reportedly been forcing Karen villagers to work as porters and on other duties since a joint force of its troops and the Burmese army attacked and subsequently took over the rebel Karen National Liberation Army headquarters (Brigade 7) in June.

The pro-junta Karen army ordered headmen in local villages to conscript workers and threatened them if they didn’t comply, according to a source close to the DKBA.

The source said that the group extorts money—often more than 50,000 kyat (US $50)—from anyone who refuses to comply.

According to the sources, the Thai border authorities have been reluctant to allow the displaced Karens to stay in Mae Salit and are encouraging them to return home.

In the meantime, several relief teams from Mae Sot are providing emergency aid to the new arrivals, Saw Ta Su Mya said. “But they [the 517 Karens] may be pressured to return to Karen State soon,” he added.

Since the attacks by the Burmese army and the DKBA on the KNLA in June, some 4,000 villagers from northern Karen state have fled to the Thai-Burmese border.

Many people are worried that the joint force will resume its offensive in northern Karen State in September after the rainy season.

The Karen sources said they believed that if another offensive breaks out, thousands of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in northern Karen State and the more than 4,000 Karen refugees in Ei Tu Hta, a temporary camp on the Salween River, will be forced to flee to Thai soil.

Meanwhile, Karen monks in Thaton Township in Mon State have sent an open letter to the monk who formed the DKBA, U Thuzana, calling on him to instruct the Buddhist Karen army to cease fighting their Karen brothers, the KNLA, as the refugee crisis is escalating.

READ MORE---> 30 More Karens Flee Hlinebwe...

Refugees of the Maepa Rubbish Dump

By ARKAR MOE
The Irrawaddy News

MAE SOT, Thailand — Burmese refugee families have lived for years around a trash dump in Mae Sot, but with free medical care and free education for their children, it’s not all bad.

Many families have tried to return to Burma, but most came back to Mae Sot because the life was better. Still, they struggle daily, their wages are miniscule and their humble homes are periodically torn down by Thai authorities.

Burmese refugees sort through rubbish at the Maepa trash dump in Mae Sot. (Photo: Arkar Moe/ The Irrawaddy)

"I had decent pay before,” said 28-year-old Soe Win, as he washed a frayed jacket he found in the rubbish dump. “But now it’s hard to survive.”

An illegal migrant worker, he has worked around the trash dump for three years, ever since he came from Shwe Kyin Township in Burma to find a job in Thailand.

The Irrawaddy interviewed Burmese refugees who live around the Maepa trash dump in Mae Sot in Thailand’s Tak Province, only a few kilometers inside the Burmese-Thai border.

"There are 287 people here on the resident list. I came here eight years ago. In the past, I earned more than 100 baht per day. Most of people here get only 50 or 65 baht per day,” said Myint Aye, who works in the rubbish dump.

“This recycling factory was opened in May 2009, and there are about 26 workers,” he said. “We get only 2 baht for one kilogram.”

Myint Aye said the residents around the dump have problems with the Thai police who come into the area to remove homes in the spring of each year.

“Now, we all are worrying about it,” he said. “Thai authorities won’t even allow people to build huts here.”
Even so, there are about 70 houses and 290 people live around the rubbish dump, most Burmese or ethnic Karen, he said.

A 42-year-old woman, Than Myint, said: “I came here from Magwe Township two years ago. There are nine members in my family. Only three people work, but, we can survive here. Now I get at least 50 or 60 baht a day because the plastic recycling factory set up near us.” She said her makeshift hut was destroyed last year by authorities, and her bicycle confiscated.

She tried to return to work in Burma, she said, but faced more difficulties and went into debt. She returned, and things are better here, she said.

Makeshift dwellings around the trash dump are razed by Thai authorities annually. (Photo: Arkar Moe/ The Irrawaddy)

“We can get free health care and an education for our children,” she said. “We only need to pay a 50 baht school fee per year.”

The School Clinic or the Mae Tao Clinic, founded and directed by Dr. Cynthia Maung, provides free health care for refugees, migrant workers and other individuals who cross the border from Burma.

The dump ground community has a small school, built with the help of the Thai government and donor agencies.

Aung Zaw Oo, the headmaster of Moo (6) School, said: “Our school started in 2005 with the help of the World Education Center (WEC) and the Ministry of Education. Now, there are seven teachers and 92 students from kindergarten to grade five. We plan to expand to grade seven. We teach subjects about Myanmar, science, geography, English and mathematics. The Thai language is taught three times a week.”

A nongovernmental group, “Children on the Edge—New Zealand” helps to support the school with material and funding. The humanitarian agency was founded in 2006 to work on behalf of marginalized and vulnerable children from Burma.

Nan Aye Phyu, a Karen teacher, said, “I think our students get a better education here than children inside Burma.”

READ MORE---> Refugees of the Maepa Rubbish Dump...

Rise in child labour feared over Thai policy

Chiang Mai (Mizzima) - The Thai Government’s policy of not registering families of migrant workers is likely to escalate the problems of child labour, a social worker said.

Executive Director of the Labour Rights Promotion Network Foundation, Sompong Srakaew, who works in close tandem with migrants in Samut Sakorn Province, told Mizzima that the recent government policy to register and verify the nationality of migrant workers from neighbouring countries, particularly Burma, but excluding their family members, may create more child labour issues.

“Many of them have to tell lies that they are older, than their actual age, so that the Thai authorities let them live and work in Thailand, with their parents. Some of them were unable to go to school, because they had to take care of their younger sisters or brothers and help their parents to work,” he said.

In 2004, the Thai government had set up registration for family members of migrants, but later it cancelled this policy. During that time there were about 3,000 migrant children in Samut Sakorn Province, one of the biggest towns in Thailand, which has a thriving fisheries industry.

However, the total number of migrant children is expected to increase to 10, 000, only in Samut Sakorn.

Activists are of the opinion that the registration of these children would show the number of children, who should be in school and then medical and other necessary public facilities could be provided for them.

A 10-year-old girl in Mahachai district of Samut Sakorn told Mizzima that she was attending a local school, but after her sister was born her mother needed her to help at home.

“In addition, the school I went to was quite far from home, so it was difficult to continue,” she said.

The girl also said that in the morning she works at a small frozen prawn factory, while her mother also works there and in the evening she helps her mother take care of her sister.

Many children have to live alone, while their parents are working. Normally these are small rooms in apartments, where hundreds of workers live as a community.

The Thai authorities allow young people above 15, to work in some businesses, but a large number of children aged under 15 told the employers that they were 15 years old. Some employers also reported the child worker’s ages to the authorities and let them work, generally in bad conditions, both in below standard payment and environment.

Local authorities estimated that current statistics of workers in the province is up to 300, 000. Mainly they work in fishery industries, such as prawn shell peeling and cleaning seafood for frozen business. The biggest groups of workers are ethnic Mon, Burmese and some are Kachin and Karen people.

READ MORE---> Rise in child labour feared over Thai policy...

Myanmar migrants stuck in Malaysia detention camps

By JULIA ZAPPEI

SEPANG, Malaysia (SF Gate-AP) --A growing number of immigrants from Myanmar are ending up stuck, often for months, in crowded detention centers in Malaysia designed to hold people for only a few weeks.

Almost 2,800 Myanmarese were detained at camps in July, more than double the 1,200 in January, partly because of a crackdown on human trafficking, a step-up in raids and a slow economy that leaves the migrants without jobs. People from Myanmar, a desperately poor country with a military junta, are now the biggest group among the 7,000 foreigners at detention centers in Malaysia.

At a center near the Kuala Lumpur International Airport, some 120 men sat in neat rows on the floor. Many had their legs drawn to their chests, and all were barefoot. There was not enough space and not enough bedding.

"There is no soap for taking a shower, nothing. They don't give us anything," said Kyaw Zin Lin, 23, who said he fled to avoid being drafted into the Myanmar army. "Every day we eat the food just to survive. ... They treat us like animals."

"It's very difficult to stay here," said Aung Kuh The, a pale 26-year-old. "We have got a lot of problems. Some people, you know, we want to see the doctor but we don't have the chance."

One reason for the rise in detainees is a crackdown on trafficking. A report published in April by the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations cited firsthand accounts of Myanmarese who said immigration officers turned them over to traffickers.

That practice has all but stopped, Myanmar community leaders in Malaysia say.

Now, though, the Myanmarese are trapped in detention. The Myanmar embassy often takes six months to register its citizens for deportation and charges them 620 ringgit ($180), much more than neighboring Indonesia. By contrast, detainees from other countries are typically deported within a week.

Calls to the Myanmar embassy were repeatedly put on hold and then unanswered.

About half the Myanmarese — those fleeing persecution — may qualify for U.N. refugee status, but that process takes up to four months. The others are economic migrants. Some 140,000 Myanmarese work in Malaysia, but foreign workers who are laid off lose the right to stay.

Some Myanmarese have spent more than six months in crowded, dirty detention centers. One man, whose brother was in detention for four months, said he would rather be sold to traffickers from whom he could buy his freedom.

"I prefer to be trafficked," said the man, who would only be identified by his nickname, Ryan, to protect his relatives in Myanmar. "I don't mind paying 2,000 ringgit ($570)."

Five of Malaysia's 13 detention centers are overcrowded; four of the five have large Myanmarese populations, according to the immigration department. Journalists from The Associated Press accompanied the human rights group Amnesty International on a rare visit recently to three detention centers just south of Kuala Lumpur, the country's biggest city.

At the Lenggeng Detention Depot, 1,400 people are crammed into dormitories meant for 1,200. Of them about 300 are from Myanmar.

Hundreds of men jostle each other for room in the bare dormitories. One sleeps on a stone ledge in a bathroom. Each dormitory is fenced by wire mesh and barbed wire, giving detainees just a few meters (feet) of space for walking.

"The detention centers we saw fell short of international standards in many respects, as the immigration authorities themselves acknowledge," said Michael Bochenek of Amnesty International. "It's a facility of such size that infectious diseases are communicated readily."

Saw Pho Tun, a refugee community leader, said some immigration officers have singled out Myanmarese detainees for rough treatment, beating them and not allowing them medical assistance. Immigration officials deny beating detainees and say everyone has access to medical care.

On July 1, detainees at another center flung their food trays and damaged some of the mesh fence. Immigration officials blamed the riot on frustration about having to stay so long, but detainees say they rioted because they were afraid of abuse.

Most of the blocks have now been shut for repairs, so more than 1,000 detainees — including 700 from Myanmar — were transferred ot other already crowded centers.

Abdul Rahman Othman, the director general of the Immigration Department, said he was taking steps to prevent his officers from being "entangled" in trafficking syndicates. He said officers would be rotated to different posts every three years and have a buddy system to supervise each other.

"Ninety-nine percent of us in immigration are good people," he said, denying the problem is widespread.

Police arrested five officers on trafficking allegations last month. They say their investigations revealed immigration officials took Myanmar immigrants to the Thai border and sold them for up to 600 ringgit ($170) to traffickers. The traffickers then told the migrants to pay 2,000 ringgit ($570) for their freedom, or they would be forced to work in the fishing industry, police said.

Myanmar community leaders said women who failed to pay were sold into prostitution.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/08/15/international/i101830D28.DTL#ixzz0OIp3pVF1

READ MORE---> Myanmar migrants stuck in Malaysia detention camps...

Ex-Burmese child soldier in final fight to avoid deportation

By Jason Warick, Saskatoon StarPhoenix

SASKATOON (Vancouver Sun)— A former child soldier now living in Saskatoon has one final hearing Friday morning before a federal court judge in his fight against deportation, say advocates.

If Nay Myo Hein is sent back as scheduled next week to Burma, a southeast Asian military dictatorship also known as Myanmar, his Saskatoon lawyer and others say that as a deserter, he'll be imprisoned or worse.

He would be the first known case of a Burmese refugee claimant deported from Canada, said Kevin McLeod of the group Canadian Friends of Burma.

"He's at risk of being imprisoned, tortured and killed," Saskatoon lawyer Chris Veeman said Thursday. Veeman was meeting with Hein, Hein's mother-in-law Zin Marlin and friend Khaing Kyaw to plan for the federal court Friday.

While pursuing these final attempts at a legal solution, Veeman, McLeod and many in Saskatoon's 1,000-strong Burmese community are also appealing to Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan to intervene and grant a stay on deportation. McLeod said his group contacted the minister's office Thursday but no response has been received yet. The minister's office could not be reached late Thursday afternoon.

Hein, who repairs car bumpers in Saskatoon and has been in a common-law relationship with a Burmese immigrant in the city for the past year, said he was kidnapped by military officials while waiting for a train on the outskirts of the capital of Rangoon.

During his "training," he was beaten and abused. "I'm against killing and wanted to get as far away as possible from them," he told officials at a Canadian hearing, where he represented himself.

He fled to the Burmese countryside and finished high school with the assistance of his aunt. He lived in constant fear of being recaptured. When a fellow deserter was arrested and sentenced to prison, he decided to flee.

Hein paid an "agent" to obtain travel documents and bribe airport officials. He flew to Columbia, but was not allowed to stay. He made his way into a shipping container, which stopped in New Orleans.

American officials would not let him get off the ship. It sailed to Cuba, but Hein feared the Cubans would send him back to Burma, so he stayed put. After more than a month on board, the ship docked in New Brunswick on New Year's Eve, 2007.

Hein fled to a relative's house in Moncton before filing for refugee status.

He came to Saskatoon shortly after to live with an uncle, got a job and met his now common-law wife, Haymar Zin.

"I like Saskatoon. It's okay," Hein said. "I am very afraid. I don't want to go back to Burma. It just depends on the judge and the government."

Hein's claim was rejected a the first stage because the judge didn't believe his story. Another official didn't believe he faced danger if returned, according to Hein's advocates.

READ MORE---> Ex-Burmese child soldier in final fight to avoid deportation...

China Warns Commander to Avoid Instability in Shan State

By LAWI WENG
The Irrawaddy News

Chinese officials have warned the junta’s northeastern military commander not to create instability in Shan State bordering with China, according to sources on the Sino-Burmese border.

Two Chinese officials from Yunnan Province met with northeastern commander Aung Than Htut in Loigai Township on August 10.

Aung Kyaw Zaw, a Burmese analyst based on the border, said the Chinese officials told the commander they were worried about a migration of refugees from Shan State into China, if armed clashes between junta troops and ethnic armed groups break out.

About 10,000 people, including Kokang and Chinese migrants, reportedly entered China earlier this month after tension increased between government troops and the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), a Kokang ceasefire group.

The two Chinese officials expressed their views forcefully, according to the source.

Tension have increased following an attempted raid by 70 government troops on the home of the MNDAA chairman, in search of illegal drugs. About 300 Kokang troops blocked the government troops on their way to the residence, sources said.

Chinese officials reportedly told Vice Snr-Gen Maung Aye of the Burmese army, to handle border area conflicts among the ethnic armed ceasefire groups peacefully during his visit to China in June, according to sources.

The government is trying to force ethnic armed groups, the Wa, Kokang and Monglar, in Shan State to transform their forces into a border guard force under the military government.

The three groups have refused the offer, increasing tensions. The junta has deployed more troops in the area as a result. Some analysts say that the government appears to be preparing an offensive against the armed ethnic groups. Other sources say they believe government troops will not mount any immediate offensives in Shan State because of China’s concern and the upcoming national election in 2010.

The three ethnic armed ceasefire groups have formed an alliance to support each other if there are clashes with government troops, said sources in Shan State.

READ MORE---> China Warns Commander to Avoid Instability in Shan State...

KNU Asks Thai Government to Pull out of Salween Dam Project

By SAW YAN NAING
The Irrawaddy News

Burma’s Karen National Union (KNU) appealed on Tuesday to the Thai government to halt its involvement in the construction of the Hat Gyi Dam on the Salween River, warning that the project would cause “huge” environmental damage and human rights abuses.

The KNU made the appeal in a letter to Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva.

David Takapaw, KNU vice chairman, said: “The dam will result in huge environmental impacts and human rights abuses. It will force local villagers to flee to Thailand and become refugees. So we asked him: please, don’t continue the dam construction.”

In recent months, Thai engineers have conducted a field survey at the construction site on Salween River. Many villagers in the area are reportedly opposed to the dam project.

According to the Karen River Watch, a memorandum of understanding was signed in June 2006 between Burma’s Department of Electric Power, the Thai energy authority EGAT and China’s Sinohydro Corporation to build the Hat Gyi dam.

The dam is one of a series scheduled to be built on the Salween River in a joint Thai-Burmese government program. They are expected to generate 10,000 megawatts of electricity, much of which would be delivered to Thailand.

Some reports have claimed that theen

Copies of the KNU’s letter to Abhisit were also to be presented by Karen environmental advocates at a meeting in Bangkok on Tuesday attended by Thai environmental rights groups and Burmese environmental advocates.

The meeting was to focus on human rights abuses and environment issue related to the project, according to an ethnic Shan environmental advocate, Sai Sai, who attended the meeting.

Thailand plans an energy program known as the National Power Development Plan which includes the dams on the Salween River. The plan is expected to be completed by the year 2014, according to Sai Sai.

Meanwhile, his environmental group, the Shan Sapawa Environment Organization (SSEO), released on Tuesday a new report titled “Roots and Resilience” and charging that the construction of dams on the Salween River will result in human rights abuses and environmental damage and will benefit only the Burmese regime and Thai authorities.

SSEO Spokesman Sai Sai said: “Human rights abuses will widely happen if the dam is constructed. Villagers will come to Thailand en masse as refugees.”

Local villagers would receive no benefit from the dams, which would serve only the interests of the Burmese regime and neighboring Thailand, he said.

The environmental damage would include flooding, deforestation and the disappearance of traditional and cultural heritages, Sai Sai maintained.

The SSEO report said the biggest Salween River dam, the Tasang dam, would flood more than 100 villages, forcing thousands of villagers to relocate. One community of 15,000 in Keng Kham, Shan State, had been forced to move 10 years ago because of work on the dam, and most had fled to Thailand, the report said.

Most of the electricity generated by the 7,110 MW Tasang dam will be sold to Thailand. Project investors include the Thai MDX Company and China’s Gezhouba Group Company.

READ MORE---> KNU Asks Thai Government to Pull out of Salween Dam Project...

Burmese Migrant worker sentenced to life in Thai prison

IMNA - On July 27th, a judge from the Lan Suan court sentenced a Burmese migrant worker to life in prison. The trail began in 2007 after the migrant worker was accused, with two other suspects, of murdering a father and his two daughters.

On February 17th, 2007, a Burmese family was assaulted and murdered in Lamae village in Lan Suan district. The father, a Burmese migrant worker, Nai Toi, was shot in front of his home, and his two daughters, 8 and 12 years old, were stabbed to death. Nai Toi’s wife, Daw Khine, was badly injured and sent to the Lamae village hospital. Nai Toi and his family had been working at the Lamae rubber plantation for 5 years.

The migrant worker sentenced to life, Nai Chai, 26 years-old, and two other workers, Nai Maug Thu, 23 years-old and Kyaw Thu Soe, 20 years-old, were working near the rubber plantation that employed Nai Toi and his family. The three were arrested on February 18th by the Chonphon police. They were accused of having committed the murders, and have been held at the Lamae police station since 2007. They are from Thanphyuzayar township in Mon state and had been working in Thailand without ID’s.

“The three Burmese migrant workers (Nai Chai, Mung Thu and Kyaw Thu Soe) families contacted us to help them petition the Lan Suan court,” said Tin Tun Aung, the secretary of migrant rights at the Federation of Trade Unions (FTUB). “There, we [FTUB] and the Law Council of Thailand [LCT], requested that the judges of the Lan Suan court review the case. If the legal team had not gotten involved in this case, the three Burmese migrant workers would possibly receive the death penalty.”

According to FTUB sources, all thee migrant workers were innocent of the crimes they are being accusa of. The FTUB sources claim a local gang robbed and killed the three victims, and that the three men were badly beaten and toured by the police, so that they’d admit that they had killed the victims. However, Nai Toi wife, Daw Khine, stated in court that Nai Chai was involved in the case and killed her family. The Lamae police sent back Daw Khine back to Burma after her testimony before the court hearings were over.

“We requested that the court give compensation to Nai Maung Tun and Kyaw Thu Soe for their having lived in prison for 2 years, as Thai law states,” said Tin Tun Aung. “We also will try to request that the Lan Suan court review Nai Chai’s sentence of life in prison.”

According Nai Chai’s wife who is working in Thailand, her husband didn’t kill Nai Toi or his family. Her family and Nai Toi’s family had a very good relationship. She explained that her husband was drinking with his friend on the night Nai Toi was murdered. She also insisted there was no cause for the murder, “We were working at the Lamae village rubber plantation for 4 years, and we didn’t have conflict with anyone else.”

READ MORE---> Burmese Migrant worker sentenced to life in Thai prison...

Suffering and hope in a Burmese refugee camp

by Hnin Pan Ein

(This article describes the lives and hopes of Burmese refugees in a Thai-Burma border camp)

Mizzima News - Rays of sun pierce the clouds, bathing the entire mountain range and forest. At other times during monsoon season, drizzle and mist veil the mountains, including Noe Boe Mountain, hiding them from the outside world. In the far distance, from the village of Noe Boe, torrential streams of water can be seen cascading from surrounding mountains following the rain, the scent of seasonal wild flowers and the earth lingering in the air.

When night falls Noe Boe becomes silent, the sound of water flowing in the rain swollen streams mixed with night birds all that can be heard, ushering in mixed and sometimes haunting feelings for the forlorn and desolate refugees living in the camp.

These refugees came to this camp fleeing the severe oppression inflicted upon them politically, militarily, socially and religiously. Some have been here for over 12 years. Throughout their time in this camp they encounter only a miserable and hard life. For their survival they search for wild berries and vegetables in the dense forest along with frogs and fish from the streams. Occasionally, they make a salad by boiling banana buds and mixing them with raw onion, pea flour and seasoning powder. Those Karen refugees who arrived first serve as survival teachers for those who follow.

There are two types of refugees in the camp, those who receive a refugee ration and those who do not. Those with a ration need not worry about basic foodstuffs, while those without must rely on what they can scrounge from the forest and buy in the camp. For drinking water, rainwater is collected during the monsoon season from the leaf-woven roofs of huts, before it reaches the ground and turns reddish. To facilitate the collection, some build rainwater harvesting units comprising four bamboo poles and a plastic sheet. Bamboo, due to its versatility, is essential for the camp’s survival.

The monsoon season also brings with it melancholy feelings and stress, as refuges struggle to cope with daily livelihood and harsh weather conditions. Moreover, it is very sad for them to wonder when families may be reunited, when friends and colleagues can one day be visited and when they can again set foot again on the soil of their motherland. Yet, at other times the memories and thoughts of family, friends and home provides a feeling of closeness, togetherness, love and joy.

There is no proper work to be found in the camp, only the bartering of goods and services with fellow refugees. As a last resort, they have to rely on family members and friends who have been resettled in third countries to send back remittances.

The phone and Internet allows refugees, the latter at a more affordable rate, to keep in contact with family and friends abroad and update them as to their situation. Phone booths and Internet cafés are always busy and crowded, with refugees pouring out their despair, anxieties and hopes to those on the receiving end. It can be an experience of joy, pleasure, anger, sorrow and resentment – maybe even all at the same the time.

If friends living in outside countries do not want to talk with them or the money that is to be sent is not yet ready, they sometimes will not pick up the phone, leaving refugees to hear only the answering machine notifying them in a foreign language to repeatedly ‘Leave your message if any’. Phone booth owners warn them not to pick up the phone receiver before hearing the live voice on the other end to avoid unnecessary charges – a premature pick-up costing the dialer 10 baht to ‘converse’ with the answering machine, an expense few can afford on their shoestring budgets.

At other times family and friends will insist on calling back to save the refugees money. But sometimes refugees have to wait a long time at the phone booth for the return call, rushing forth whenever the phone rings, their necks extended like the ‘Padaung’ long-necks after waiting a long time in vain.

For those who can use the Internet, it is always hoped to find an Inbox full of mail. Even a single line from beloved friends can make them happy and bring encouragement. If they see friends online with a green light next to their name on Google Talk they are very happy and start to call them. And if those who are online try and ‘disappear’ once contacted in fear of being asked for money, refugees send an email to the concerned individual asking them not to try and avoid them, as they only wish to talk.

‘Peaceful coexistence’ for those in the camp encapsulates the feeling that the refugees live with body and soul existing separate. As most are simply waiting to leave, when the expected duration of wait becomes longer than expected their lives become more bitter and unpleasant, which sometimes brings with it cases of domestic violence and family conflict. It is natural to see counseling and psychotherapy services available in Noe Boe, while the owner of the liquor shop just outside the camp reaps a huge profit.

Asking each other about their situation and what news they have heard is habitual. And even if the news conveyed is false, anger is not shown, as the sharing of news is essential for the survival of everyone – daily news from prospective host countries, world news, news from around the camp and news of resettlement plans. We are happy when we hear encouraging news and despair when we hear bad news.

In the hope of expediting their departure and easing their transition into a new country, English lessons, especially with an English accent, are constantly sought after. It is a case of English, English everywhere, echoing forth from thatch roof huts and every nook and cranny of the camp.

New plants and trees are grown from seeds inadvertently thrown away during meal preparations. Around Noe Boe you can see chilly, pumpkin and papaya plants at almost every house with a courtyard. However, almost all papaya plants disappeared after a monk said, “If there is a papaya tree in front of your house, your departure date will be long” – though some housewives must lie to husbands not as superstitious, telling them that the plant was uprooted in strong winds. News spreads quickly around the camp of departure plans and the presence of any papaya plants in front of the concerned house.

Those who are lucky enough to leave and never again touch the red soil of the camp are seen off at the gate by those who are to remain behind, the sound of the engine starting on the blue bus which will carry those leaving for Mae Sot making those left behind further ponder just how long they will have to wait their turn. Tears of joy and sorrow mix in the eyes of farewells.

Those boarding the blue bus say to their friends after shaking hands, “Don’t worry, I’ll send pocket money to you when I get there”. And though they strolled together, fetched water together, gathered firewood together, searched for seasonal vegetables together, collected rations together, visited the market together, shared fortune and woe together around Noe Boe camp and the nearby forest – now these beloved friends are departing, not to return.

As for those left behind…it is back to the Internet cafes and phone booths in the hope of talking with a friend, securing a little pocket money and – just maybe – news on when they might in turn be boarding the blue bus to Mae Sot.

READ MORE---> Suffering and hope in a Burmese refugee camp...

Deputy FM: Migrant workers are good people

By Hseng Khio Fah

(Shanland) -A representative of the Burmese military government, while meeting with Thai labor mister last Saturday said families of migrant workers applying for new passport documents under the national verification process will not be harassed, according to The Manager Online, 11 July.

On 11 July, visiting Burma’ Deputy Foreign Minister Maung Myint and Thailand Labor Minister Paitoon Kaewthong met in Phuket on regulations for the verification of Burmese nationals in Thailand and in Burma in order to allow them to reside and work as legal laborers in Thailand.

Thailand Labor Minister Paitoon Kaewthong and Burma’ Deputy Foreign Minister Maung Myint (Photo: manager online)

Mr Paitoon said, about 20,000 applications have been sent to the Burmese government. But only some 7,000 were issued passports. Using non-Burmese language in filling up the forms and providing false information on the applicants’ home addresses were cited as problems for the rest. (JEG's: generals' kids and elite attached to junta can obtain passports with false data, perhaps the rejections were used to generate passports for the corrupted in need of a passport to travel abroad and enjoy the benefits of the west without being sanctioned)

About 500,000 migrant workers are registered with the labor ministry. Since early this month, the provincial employment authorities have been calling on new migrant workers for registration. They will be asked to fill up the new nationality identification forms starting 15 July.

The passport issuing offices will be opening along the Thai-Burma border at Myawaddy, Tachilek and Kawthawng (Victoria Point). About 200 workers will be accepted per day. The visa fee on the Thai side will be 2,000 Baht per person. They will be allowed to work for another 2 years with another 2 years of extension.

There are at least 2 million legal and illegal migrant workers in Thailand. But there is no law to protect those migrant workers.

“After July, crackdown operation on illegal migrants will be conducted,” the report quoted the minister as saying.

Maung Myint during the meeting, said many migrants are afraid to apply for the national verification process because of rumors that we [local authorities] will use their information to persecute their families.

“The government will never do so because it believes that people working in Thailand are good people and their jobs are also legal,” the report quoted him as saying.

He continued that the Burmese government has been trying to solve the problem of illegal Burmese migrant workers in Thailand for about 5 years. However, it had failed to achieve it until now because of many difficulties; among those were language problems and inaccurate addresses.

At the same time, there was a two day meeting of provincial authorities, doctors and provincial employment authorities with over two hundred employers from Chiangmai province to discuss the national verification process, according to Nang Hern Kham, Shan Radio Program and Education Media in Chiangmai.

“Most bosses seems to have less interest in the process as they think it is a waste of their time queuing up for their turns and others are worried for the security of their workers,” she said.

Phanthila Kaewboonrueng from provincial employment department office said that Thailand will not interrupt internal affairs of neighboring countries, in reply to the question by an employer, “Who is going to take responsibility if workers’ families are persecuted by the Burmese authorities.”

In 2006, Thailand and Burma agreed to set up nationality identification centers for Burmese migrant workers. But the two countries failed to successfully implement the agreement, when news of junta authorities terrorizing their families coercing them to pay bribes, after using their personal information received through the work permit process, to find their relatives, were reported.

READ MORE---> Deputy FM: Migrant workers are good people...

Bleak Future for Burmese Stateless Children

By THAWDAR
The Irrawaddy News

BANGKOK—Stateless Burmese children in Thailand are still being denied basic rights such as access to education and health services, and they are vulnerable to many kinds of exploitation and abuse, specialists say.

It is estimated that there are about one million stateless children in Thailand, with about two thirds of them thought to be born to Burmese migrant workers who come in search of a better life.

As migrant children face insurmountable challenges to entering the Thai education system, many pursue education in the migrant learning centers opened by NGOs. (Photo: Thawdar/ The Irrawaddy)

"The stateless children,” Kanchana Di-ut, Program officer with MAP Foundation, said, “are denied basic human rights from time of birth."

“They are denied birth registrations and certificates, which are essential to gaining access to basic education and health services,” Kanchana said.

The Thai government, which ratified the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), has instructed all state-hospitals to issue birth registration documents to any baby born to any parents, regardless of their backgrounds. However, in practice, many hospital staff reportedly fail to do so in the case of migrants.

Most Burmese women who are not registered migrants dare not go to state-hospitals to give birth, as they fear arrest and deportation if the hospital notices they are unregistered. As a result, they deliver their children at their work sites using local midwives.

Burmese migrant parents do not realize the importance of birth certificates for their children, nor do they know where and how to get them for their children.

Making matters worse is the possibility of arbitrary arrest and deportation facing unregistered migrants. This discourages parents from taking their children to local health-care facilities, risking their children missing basic inoculations against crippling diseases such as polio.

Stateless children are not given equal rights in the education system.

According to the Peace Way Foundation in Thailand, a migrant child can only be educated if a teacher is willing to accept the child, and the family can afford it. In some areas, children can attend classes, but with little hope of obtaining a Thai certificate of education, which is essential for further study.

In 2005, the government adopted a policy entitled "Education for All", which was intended to give all children in Thailand equal access to schooling. Practice does not reflect this policy, however.

Even Thailand's Deputy Education Minister, Chaiwut Bannawat, admitted that there remains a large number of children who fail to receive education, even though the Kingdom has strived to provide educational opportunities for all children.

While some children face the problem of a language barrier to enter Thai schools, others have to work to support their families.

The inability to get Thai certificates of education is another reason specialists give for Burmese children not continuing their education when they migrate to Thailand with their families.

A very low percentage of stateless children are able to further their studies in Thai schools and go on to foreign countries on scholarship programs.

Aye Aye Mar, the founder of Social Action for Women (SAW), said, “If children see no prospect for their future, they just take any job available in their community, which does not help them towards establishing better livelihoods.” SAW is an NGO providing shelter, training, and learning centers for Burmese women and children.

Aye Aye Mar also noted that many teenagers move to urban cities to seek better jobs using agents, which can make them vulnerable to human trafficking, exploitation, and abuse.

There are several cases of human trafficking in which teenagers are being illegally transported to the cities.

Tattiya Likitwong, a project coordinator for the Child Development Foundation, was quoted as saying that the child labor situation in Thailand has not improved because children, including stateless children from Burma, Laos and Cambodia, can be found working in businesses, particularly in the big cities.

Employers have registered more than 200,000 migrant children between the ages of 15 to 18 working in their business, while many more have not been registered, Tattiya Likitwong said. Many of the children work in the fishing industry, or sell flowers by the roadside or beg on the streets

Unlike refugees, these stateless children get neither recognition nor aid by regional and international agencies.

“Shockingly little is being done to protect the basic rights of millions of stateless children around the world,” said Maureen Lynch of Refugees International's Senior Advocate for Stateless Initiatives, and author of Futures Denied.

“These children are stigmatized and blocked from such basic services as health care and education because a government won't recognize them as citizens,” she said.

Lynch also said, “Although the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that everyone has the right to a nationality, these children are forced into an underclass with little hope for the future through no fault of their own.”

This girl had to drop out of the school in order to assist her family collecting and selling plastic bags for a living in Mae Sot. (Photo: Thawdar/ The Irrawaddy)

Lynch believes that reducing statelessness is achievable. “By ensuring that every child is registered at birth, granting citizenship in cases of disputed nationality, and strengthening the UN Refugee Agency so it can do more to resolve this problem are just a few of the simple steps that can help millions of children access a brighter future,” Lynch said.

Thai government amended the law on civil registration in 2008, which means that all children born in Thailand regardless of the legal status of their parents can receive birth registrations.

“Efforts are underway to ensure that the system is accessible and well known to parents, including stateless parents, local officials and communities,” Amanda Bissex, Chief of Child Protection Section with UNICEF Thailand, said.

She also maintains that systems also need to be developed between Thailand and neighboring countries to ensure children born in Thailand that have received birth registration here can receive nationality in the country of origin of their parents.

In a bid to promote and protect human rights, including those of vulnerable stateless children, the Asean Human Rights Body (AHRB) was created, and would be enforced sooner or later by the cooperation of the member states.

While some human rights specialists expect the AHRB would address the cross-border issues of registration, improve information sharing and systems between ASEAN countries to build a regional initiative for both birth registration and civil registration, some specialists doubt the effectiveness of the AHRB.

“The AHRB would be nothing more than a paper-tiger,” Aung Myo Min, director of Human Rights Education Institute of Burma, said, “if regional governments, most of which have records of violation of human rights in their countries, fail to respect it.”

READ MORE---> Bleak Future for Burmese Stateless Children...

Push-Back of Muslims to Burma Continues

Cox’sbazar (Narinjara): While the Bangladesh government is keen to repatriate Muslim refugees to Burma from Bangladesh, the number of Muslims entering the country illegally from Burma is reportedly continuing by the day.

Because of the continued increase, Bangladesh border forces have had to continually push back many Muslims from Burma repeatedly after arresting them on the border.

According to a local source, over 1,000 Muslims from Burma were pushed back to their homes in Arakan by Bangladesh authorities in the last two months.

Even though there is a high risk that they'll be caught and returned, Rohingya people from Burma continue to enter Bangladesh by crossing the Naff River.

Yesterday, Bangladesh Rifles at Teknaf pushed back 28 Burmese Muslims to Burma after arresting them.

According to a local source, the group included seven men, 11 women, and ten children.

They were held by Bangladesh border security at Shah Parir Dwip in Teknaf Town after they attempted to enter Bangladesh without authorization by crossing the Naff River.

Deputy Commander of 42 Rifles Battalion Major Shahinur Rahman also confirmed the incident.

Maung Tha Aye, who is a social activist on the border, said that the plan for repatriation would be good if it were possible, but it is not currently possible at present because there are many human rights violations being committed in Arakan State by the Burmese military authorities. The Bangladesh government needs to address the root causes of the migration into Bangladesh in order to solve the problem, he added.

READ MORE---> Push-Back of Muslims to Burma Continues...

Malaysia urged to stop caning immigrants

(news.com.au) Kuala Lumpur - Agence France-Presse

HUMAN rights watchdog Amnesty has urged Malaysia to abolish caning, saying that tens of thousands of migrants have received the "inhuman and degrading" punishment in recent years.

Amnesty cited a statement in Malaysian parliament last week that said local authorities had caned at least 34,923 migrants between 2002 and 2008, 60 per cent of them from neighbouring Indonesia.

"Amnesty International urges the Malaysian government to rid the country of this cruel punishment," the London-based group said.

"Whipping someone with a cane is cruel, inhuman and degrading, and international standards make clear that such treatment constitutes torture."

Apart from Indonesians, those caned were also from Bangladesh, India, Burma, Nepal, the Philippines and Thailand.

Malaysia, Southeast Asia's third largest economy, has 2.2 million migrant workers in Malaysia, who are the mainstay of the plantation and manufacturing sectors.

The caning sentence was added to Malaysian immigration laws since 2002, amid concern over the ramifications of having a large migrant workforce. Under the laws, those staying in Malaysia illegally are subject to a mandatory whipping of up to six strokes of the cane, fines and up to five years in jail.

Caning is also carried out for serious offences including rape and drug trafficking.

"The practice is humiliating, and causes such pain that people have reportedly fainted. Those caned often carry scars, psychological as well as physical, for years," Amnesty said.

READ MORE---> Malaysia urged to stop caning immigrants...

Burmese Injured in Malaysian Camp Riots

By LAWI WENG
The Irrawaddy News

Eight Burmese detainees were wounded after a small riot broke out at the Semenyih Immigration camp near Kajang Township, in Malaysia on Wednesday.

Speaking to The Irrawaddy on Thursday, Aung Lwin Oo, one of the detainees involved in the riot at the camp, said the trouble started at 8pm after camp authorities beat 30 detainees who were refusing to board a truck that was to take them to another camp.

The detainees began breaking up the walls of their rooms and throwing plates at security officers, demanding prison authorities release the 30 people who had been loaded onto the truck.

The police used tear gas to break up the riot.

“We are very angry after we heard they had beaten and forced fellow prisoners to get on a truck and be moved another camp. When they came for them they said it was only to meet officials from the UNHCR [United Nations High Commissioner of Refugees],” he said.

Aung Lwin Oo was in hiding as he talked to The Irrawaddy by phone from the camp. Camp authorities ban the use of mobile phones.

“On Tuesday, two Burmese detainees were also seriously beaten when they went to the clinic to ask for medicine. One detainee was beaten around the eyes,” Lwin Oo reported.

“We don’t know if he will regain his vision because his eyes are filled with blood. At the moment he can’t see,” he said. “The other detainee suffered cigarette burns on his body and is in serious condition now.”

Yante Ismail, a spokesperson for the UNHCR based in Kuala Lumpur told The Irrawaddy, Thursday, that a group from UNHCR left for the camp that morning to investigate the riot.

She said that she was unable to provide any further details on what happened at the camp.

The Malaysian National News Agency announced on their Bernama website that no one was injured during the riot and that the situation was under control.

According to Burmese rights groups in Malaysia, there are about 700 Burmese detainees at the Semenyih Immigration camp. They are accusing camp authorities of keeping people who have already served sentences in detention.

Roi Mon, a member of the Mon Refugees Organization based in Malaysia, said that inmates do not have enough food and water, and the camp is crowded because the authorities have refused to release detainees.

Meanwhile, in its annual Trafficking in Persons Report 2009 released in June, the US State Department put Malaysia back on the Tier 3 blacklist for its record of abuse and exploitation of migrant workers. Malaysia joins 16 other countries including Burma, North Korea, Sudan and Zimbabwe on the blacklist.

The report accused Malaysia authorities of deporting Burmese detainees to the Thai-Malaysia border and selling them to human traffickers, who then demanded ransoms for their release.

If payments were not made, the victims would be forced to work as slave labor on fishing boats in Thailand and Indonesia, and women could be forced to work as prostitutes in brothels.

Malaysian authorities have disputed the report’s conclusions.

According to the Kuala Lumpur-based Burma Workers’ Rights Protection Committee, about 500,000 Burmese migrants work in Malaysia, legally and illegally.

READ MORE---> Burmese Injured in Malaysian Camp Riots...

Hostages and Slaves

By WAI MOE
The Irrawaddy News
JULY, 2009 - VOLUME 17 NO.4

The underground world of human trafficking on the Malaysian-Thai border is one of corruption and broken dreams

ALOR SETAR, Malaysia — “Malaysian migration officers sold me to a human trafficking gang located near the Thai-Malaysian border,” said Lwin Ko, one of thousands of victims of human trafficking in Malaysia.

Like many other Burmese migrant workers and refugees in Malaysia, he was arrested for illegal entry into the country. After processing in an immigration detention center, he said, immigration officers transferred him directly to a gang of human traffickers, who treated him as a “hostage,” or slave, to be held for a lucrative ransom.

Migrant workers are apprehended and led to an open area by civilian security volunteers to have their documents inspected during an immigration raid in Kuala Lumpur in 2005. (Photo: AFP)

If no ransom was forthcoming after a few weeks, Lwin Ko would be passed on like many others to work as a crewman on a fishing boat or, for women, to work as household servants or as prostitutes in brothels.

When police arrested him, Lwin Ko, 17 years old at the time, was on his way to work in a Malaysian factory. “I did not have any money,” he said. “If I had about RM 100 [US $28], I could have paid the Malay police to release me.”

After serving six months in prison, he was transferred to a Malaysian immigration detention camp in Juru in Pulau Pinang Province, one of the most notorious detention centers in the country.

After one week, Malaysian immigration officers placed him in a truck with more than a dozen other Burmese migrants.

“We drove for three hours to the border town of Alor Setar,” Lwin Ko recalled. “The truck stopped at a roadside shop near a rubber plantation, where officers had a meeting with traffickers. Then we were moved to a traffickers’ truck where we were put with about 70 Burmese from the Juru detention camp.”

Lwin Ko received money from friends and paid RM 2,300 [$653] to return to his job in Kuala Lampur.

Recently, six victims of human trafficking in Malaysia told their stories to The Irrawaddy. Each told a similar tale, confirming that corrupt Malaysian immigration officers, organized trafficking gangs, and corrupt Thai officials, work in tandem to transfer hapless illegal migrants to human traffickers.

After leaving detention centers, luckless migrants eventually end up in buildings or homes along the Thai-Malaysia border owned by the gangs.

None knew the amount of money the traffickers paid the corrupt officers, but it’s estimated to be somewhere between RM 700 to 1,000 [$198- $286] for each person sold.

One of the victims, Win Tun, 26, who is from central Burma and who worked in Kuala Lumpur, said: “We were arrested by police and immigration officers, and they placed us in the hands of traffickers.”

The gangs told the trafficking victims they had to pay RM 1,900 to 2,300 [$539-$653] if they wanted to return to Kuala Lumpur or Burma. Most gang members, they said, were ethnic Mon from Burma. Gang leaders, however, were usually Thai or Malaysian, who appeared to be well connected to local Thai or Malaysian authorities. Some leaders were reportedly officers in either immigration or police services.

Sithu Aung, 30, who is from Rangoon and worked in Kuala Lumpur, recalled what happened when he arrived at the traffickers’ building.

“They let me call my friends in Kuala Lumpur to ask for money,” he said. “They asked me for RM 2,300 to take me from that border town back to Kuala Lumpur.”

Unlucky migrants who cannot afford to pay for their freedom are usually sold to owners of Thai fishing boats, where they work in slave-like conditions.

According to a Burmese man, a former member of a trafficking gang who is now in hiding in Kuala Lumpur, after Malaysian immigration officers sell victims to a trafficking gang, the gangs usually wait one or two weeks for money to arrive from a victim’s family or friends.

If no money comes by the third week, said the man, who goes by the name Wanna, the hostages are usually passed on to be sold into the fishing industry or into household service or prostitution.

“Taking an illegal migrant is like taking a hostage,” said Wanna. “If they have money, they cannot be freed until we are paid. If they don’t have money, they will be sold somewhere else.”

Traffickers have no fear of authorities, he said, because immigration officials see illegal migrants as “second-class humans.”

Latheeffa Koya, a well-known Malaysian human rights lawyer, said the human trafficking business along the border is nothing more than a form of slave trade in the contemporary world. The problem is transnational, she said, and to be remedied, all nations in the region must cooperate with each other.

“The reasons behind the problems are corrupt law enforcement and xenophobia,” she said. “The Malaysian people and the media have to know about this ugly issue.”

Why are Burmese the main victims in the slave trade on the Malaysian-Thai border?

Aegile Fernandez, the coordinator of Tenaganita, a Malaysian human rights group, explained: “Burmese are highly valuable goods [for traffickers] because as refugees they are not accepted by their own country.”

Some victims who are sold to traffickers had even registered with the UNHCR, the UN refugee agency. But Malaysia has not signed the UN refugee convention, she said, so it goes unrecognized and is of no help.

“We are sad to see that Malaysia has high corruption,” Aegile Fernanadez said. “Officials are so greedy for money. They look at illegal migrants as a valuable resource.”

The situation facing Burmese migrants in Malaysia, who total an estimated 500,000 people, is quite different from migrants from other countries in the region who work in the country. Malaysian human rights groups say that if Malaysian authorities arrest undocumented migrants from Indonesia, the Philippines or Bangladesh, they are returned back to their country through government-to-government cooperation.

However, the Burmese military regime is unwilling to cooperate with any country which has detained illegal Burmese migrants. When faced with immigration problems, even legal migrant workers who are in Malaysia via agents cannot get routine help from the Burmese embassy in Kuala Lumpur.

Sometimes Burmese embassies in Thailand and Malaysia even publish notices in Burmese that read: “Come in person, but don’t come with a problem.”

Of course, human traffickers operate on a two-way street, and also smuggle people out of Burma through Thailand and into Malaysia. All undocumented Burmese migrants interviewed by The Irrawaddy said that they paid up to 100,000 kyat [about US $100] to trafficking agents in Rangoon or Kawthoung, in southern Burma, to be smuggled into Malaysia.

Traffickers in Kawthoung transport migrants to the Thai town of Ranong by boat, where they then depart by bus or vehicle to cross the Malaysian border.

“I was put in a box that they placed in the baggage area of a bus,” said Myint Lwin, who recalled his journey into Malaysia.

Traffickers clearly have the help of local police and immigration officials, said one migrant.

“I saw people in uniform help traffickers in smuggling people from Thailand to Malaysia,” he said. “How else can we come to Malaysia through so many checkpoints?”

How to combat the human trafficking issue in Malaysia and all of Southeast Asia is a major issue for Malaysian authorities as well as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean). Human rights advocates and analysts say all Asean nations have a clear obligation under the new Asean charter.

Migrant issues in the region are recognized as an urgent problem that must be resolved, said Usana Berananda of the department of Asean Affairs in Thailand’s foreign ministry.

But recognizing a problem and taking concrete actions to solve it are not the same. Migrants and analysts are skeptical, pointing out that officials in many Asean countries still view migrants as an enemy, even though many significant industries and businesses in the region survive by employing a migrant workforce, often illegal.

“I do not see any good prospect for Burmese migrants and refugees unless governments in the region give up their bad policies on migrants,” Aegile Fernandez said. “We need the governments to take real action against corrupt immigration officers. However, it will be difficult because the immigration department is also the government itself.”

While activists and honest government officials struggle with the human trafficking problem in the region, average Burmese migrant workers in Malaysia simply hope they can avoid the corrupt officials and traffickers.

“I need to be aware of everything,” said Myint Lwin, who was sold to traffickers in late 2008. “Everything depends on karma. I am just praying to secure myself from arrest and human traffickers in the future.”

Stories such as Myint Lwin’s were outlined in a US State Department report this year, citing credible evidence of Malaysian immigration officials’ involvement in human trafficking. The report estimated that only 20 percent of the victims sold to traffickers by Malaysian officers are able to pay for their return. The unlucky people who cannot pay are passed on into a pitiless world of exploitation.

In June, the Malaysian government denied the US allegations in the report, issuing a statement calling the allegations “baseless.”

“The government has already initiated a few internal investigations, but [the accusations are] baseless,” said Malaysian Home Ministry Secretary Gen Mahmood Adam.

Such words ring hollow to the Burmese victims now toiling on Thai fishing boats or in houses of prostitution.

This story was written during a 2009 Southeast Asian Press Alliance Fellowship program.

READ MORE---> Hostages and Slaves...

Groups Fear Malaysia to Deport Burmese Protesters

By JULIA ZAPPEI / AP WRITER
The Irrawaddy News

KUALA LUMPUR — Malaysian authorities might deport up to 14 Burmese nationals who were arrested at a demonstration to mark jailed pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's birthday, human rights activists said Wednesday.

Police detained 16 Burmese nationals at a rally outside a Kuala Lumpur shopping mall Friday, but two of them were released after they were found to have valid immigration documents, said Latheefa Koya, a lawyer whose opposition party helped organize the demonstration.

At least five face the threat of being sent back to Burma, Latheefa said. The other nine are registered by the United Nations' refugee agency as asylum seekers who fled their military-ruled country, so they might be allowed to remain in Malaysia, she added.

Khalid Abu Bakar, police chief of central Selangor state, said officials were investigating whether the detainees were illegal immigrants. Some of them would be handed to immigration officials within two weeks, he said, but it was not clear when they might be deported.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch urged Malaysia to free all the detainees, who joined the demonstration to protest Suu Kyi's detention in Burma, which is also known as Myanmar.

"By detaining Burmese asylum seekers who were calling for democracy in their homeland, Malaysia was broadcasting support for Burma's despotic generals," the group's deputy Asia director, Elaine Pearson, said in a statement late Tuesday.

The UN refugee agency has registered more than 48,000 refugees in Malaysia, most from Burma. But community leaders estimate the number of people from Burma living in Malaysia is about twice that.

Those caught staying illegally face arrest and can be whipped as punishment before being deported. The government said recently that those who flee persecution in Burma and are registered as refugees are generally not deported.

Concerts, candlelight vigils and other gatherings for Suu Kyi's 64th birthday were held in cities worldwide last week. She has spent more than 13 of the past 19 years in detention without trial, mostly under house arrest.

Suu Kyi is being held in Rangoon's Insein Prison while being tried for violating the terms of her house arrest when an uninvited American man swam secretly to her closely guarded lakeside home last month and stayed two days. If convicted, she faces up to five years in prison.

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