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Bangkok Post January 30, 1998: A r



Bangkok Post January 30, 1998:  A revolutionary education
 Story and pictures by Peter Weekes a nd Jennifer Lipman

              Burma: The children of Burmese
              refugees in Thailand are taught the
              importance of democracy and human
              rights to prepare them to continue the
              struggle started by their parents 

             
              The moment the sound of the school bell is heard above the din
              of the Mae Sariang jungle, the children of a small Burmese
              refugee camp disappear. 

              Five-year-old December, running late with her morning chore of
              sweeping leaves from the dirt pavement around her home, drops
              her broom mid-swing. There is no time for hesitation. For the 40
              children of the camp, the school day has begun.

              December was born in a jungle camp in Mae Sariang district of
              Mae Hong Son, Thailand's northernmost province, five years
              ago; four years after her mother, Aye Aye Kheing, joined tens of
              thousands of fleeing students and workers escaping to the safety
              of the Thai border when the Burmese military junta brutally put
              down pro-democracy demonstrations in 1988.

              The vivacious little girl carries a heavy burden on her shoulders.
              The parents in the camp hope December and her classmates will
              carry the "revolutionary period to its conclusion" - the
              acceptance of democracy and respect for human rights in her
              home, Burma.

              Elsewhere in the camp, the former university students who are
              now approaching their mid-30s, stop to discuss the latest report
              on the BBC's world service or hurriedly prepare to record their
              own radio programme for the Norwegian-based Democratic
              Voice of Burma.

              Almost ten years after the students formed the All Burma
              Students' Democratic Front (ABSDF) - an army of students and
              workers - talk around the camp has changed from the need for
              armed insurrection to a more peaceful aim.

              Recognising the need to unite the divided country if change is to
              be lasting, their new call is for meaningful tripartite dialogue
              between the ruling junta, recently renamed the State Peace and
              Development Council (SPDC), the National League for
              Democracy led by Nobel Peace laureate Daw Aung San Suu
              Kyi.

              The passion and idealism that first led them to peacefully but
              publicly confront one of the world's most brutal military
              dictatorships remains as fresh as the memory of their slain
              comrades who littered the streets of Burma nine years ago.

              But after the hard years in the jungle - battling not only the
              Burmese military but also the ever-constant threat of malaria and
              other tropical diseases - there is no room for the naivety that
              absorbs 18-year-old student radicals elsewhere around the
              world.

              "We have come to the conclusion that there is no solution in the
              short term. Human rights and democracy will be achieved only in
              the long term," says Secretary One of ABSDF's Central
              Committee, Sai Myant Thu.

              "December and the other children will be the next generation of
              revolutionaries. It is our responsibility and duty to educate them
              for the future. If people cannot read and write, they cannot
              understand democracy and human rights."

              It is a duty which the organisation takes seriously.

              Burma once boasted one of the highest literacy rates in Asia, but
              after 30 years of civil war and dictatorship, the education system
              is in tatters. 

              Although compulsory, almost 40 percent of children never attend
              school and almost three-quarters fail to complete five years of
              primary education, according to a US State Department report
              on human rights. It cites Burmese government data which reveals
              that education's share of the country's operating expenditures
              continued to decline to 12 percent in 1994-95. 

              The Burmese military junta periodically close schools and
              universities when discontent grows too loud. It only re-opened
              the nation's schools in the middle of August last year after it
              closed them the previous December as part of a massive
              crackdown after student-led demonstrations.

              The universities and colleges, long viewed as a bastion of
              pro-democracy forces opposed to the junta, have not re-opened
              and the newly renamed SPDC is now considering moving the
              epicentre of student discontent, the Rangoon Institute of
              Technology, to the city's fringes, away from their supporters at
              Rangoon University and away from the majority of citizens.

              The principal of ABSDF's primary school at the refugee camp
              headquarters in Mae Hong Son, Kyaw Ning, says in a country
              where children have to work so their families can live, it is mostly
              the offspring of the Burmese privileged who receive a decent
              education. 

              Orphans and children of ordinary citizens fear school, he says.
              Reports of school children being kidnapped and forced to work
              as porters during military actions are widespread.

              In the jungle camp, inaccessible except by four-wheel drive,
              education is relished. At dusk, when the family has been fed and
              washed, parents sit with their children around a candle in their
              open-air bamboo huts as the youngsters complete the day's
              homework.

              The subjects of their studies are comparable to those in any
              western country, as is the method of education. As many
              governments in the region are just starting to question the benefits
              of rote learning where students are simply fed facts, the Burmese
              students' schools long ago adopted modern teaching methods
              which encourage independent thought and innovation.

              By the end of the first year of school, the camp's children can
              speak basic English as well as their Burmese mother tongue, and
              will have been introduced to the concepts of science,
              mathematics, history and geography.

              "We promote awareness of the importance of education which
              we think is important for democracy and human rights," says
              Secretary One Sai Myant Thu. "After all, these children could be
              the leaders of the new Burma, we have to look out for their
              future."

              ABSDF controls three refugee camps on the north-western Thai
              border. Like any quasi-government, there are departments for
              everything from foreign affairs to supplies and propaganda. But
              by far the largest is the education department which not only
              serves the 106 children in the three camps on the Thai border
              but also the hundreds of adults living there. The children's
              education, however, takes precedent.

              "If they improve their education, it will never be forgotten. This, I
              think, is how you become a developed country and maybe one
              day they will help to develop our country when we return," the
              primary school principal Kyaw Ning says.

              "We have big problems because of the unstable situation we live
              in. We don't have textbooks for the students, only one for each
              teacher. It makes it very difficult but it is worth it. I decided to
              become a teacher because it is one way I can help my country."

              The 15 teachers in the ABSDF camp have all completed teacher
              training courses organised by non-government organisations and
              use the same curriculum as the Burmese education system - with
              some crucial changes.

              "Subjects like maths are the same, but for geography and history
              we make some changes. The military dictatorship has renamed
              the country and many cities and towns, we do not recognise
              these changes. In history in Burma, you are told the military has
              saved the country and you can depend on them. That is simply
              not true," Sai Myant Thu said.

              "In our school, the children are made aware of the struggle and
              the true history of Burma. Our education system would like to
              produce democratic revolutionaries. If the children understand
              democracy and the military dictatorship, then they can love
              democracy and human rights whether they are 10 years old or
              50 years old."

              The lack of textbooks means great emphasis is placed on oral
              traditions of teaching, particularly song. In the hands of the
              Burmese students, such old and innocuous standards as John
              Denver's Take Me Home Country Road take on a
              revolutionary meaning. The lyrics from other western songs from
              the same era are taken and rewritten to tell the children of their
              country's, and their parent's, struggle for human rights.

              "They understand why they are living in the jungle," one parent
              told the Bangkok Post. "But it is sad they have never seen their
              home." Occasionally, they can sneak a peak at Burma from
              across the Salween river, but they dare not cross it for fear they
              will be shot.

              "It is hard for them," said Secretary One Sai Myant Thu.
              "Sometimes they go into town (Mae Sariang) to help get supplies
              and they see their aunt or uncle get arrested because they are
              Burmese. We have to explain to them that we stay in Thailand
              but we are Burmese.

              "They ask why they can't live in Thailand and we tell them it is
              not our motherland. We must explain this. They know about the
              1988 demonstrations and who our enemy is. Most of the
              children have experienced attacks by Slorc.

              "They are familiar with the sounds of mortars, so we explain the
              situation and our struggle and the principles of democracy and
              human rights."

              The use of the plural we is not accidental. In the camp, where
              families are on one side and single men and women on the other,
              the singles regularly cross over to play a game of takraw - similar
              to volleyball but using any part of the body except the arms, and
              played with a woven bamboo ball - with the children or explain a
              logarithm.

              The ABSDF headquarters was forced to move to its new site
              west of Mae Sariang in 1996 after the old headquarters inside
              Burma was overrun by the military junta following the student
              organisation's attempt to broker a peaceful settlement to a split
              within the ethnic Karen National Union army which was also
              fighting the Slorc.

              The ABDSF is reliant on a handful of non-governmental
              organisations which provide funding for food and health to
              varying amounts every year. The money is spread across 1,700
              people in refugee camps on Burma's three borders with
              Thailand, Bangladesh and China. Once divided, it allows for 70
              baht per person per month for food. That buys only two daily
              bowls of "refugee rice", the poorest of poor quality grain.
              Supplements, as they are called, are provided by the students
              themselves.

              Bush chickens run freely around the camp and vegetable gardens
              criss-cross the open spaces which have been hacked out of the
              jungle. Crudely laid plastic irrigation pipes bring water to the
              plots from the stream further down the hill. But their attempt to
              establish a relatively stable life on the Thai side of the border
              after the SLORC attack has come to nought.

              The Thai government announced mid-January it would finally
              crack down on illegal logging along the Salween River and would
              forcibly relocate up to 12,000 Burmese refugees, including the
              ABSDF camps, to the Sop Moei district, also in Mae Hong Son
              province. 

              The refugees believe it is unsafe for them to go back to camps
              which were previously overrun by the Burmese military and are
              resisting the Thai authorities' plan to move them. A deadline has
              been set for February 12 and a confrontation seems inevitable.

              When the thousands of students in their late teens and early
              twenties arrived in the jungle in 1988, most had no prior
              knowledge of life outside a city. They relied on supportive
              peasants and ethnic groups fighting the pre-Slorc junta to teach
              them how to build a base entirely from materials found in the
              jungle.

              Today, the 30-odd buildings at ABSDF headquarters, including
              a basic sound studio for recording radio programmes, are made
              only of bamboo tied together with vines. 

              But it is far from idyllic. There is at least one case of malaria in
              the camp each month. "We're used to it," they say dismissively. 

              Tuberculosis is another problem. In December last year, 56
              Karen refugees from Sho Klo camp, south of ABSDF
              headquarters, were hospitalised with the contagious disease.

              "It is a hard life, but we cannot go back until we win," says
              Secretary One Sai Myant Thu. "We cannot go back and take
              our children until we have human rights and democracy in
              Burma."

              When December passes the yearly exams and graduates from
              primary school, she could be transferred to one of the other
              ABSDF camps to attend secondary school, but more likely, the
              camp will establish its own secondary school as the children
              grow older.

              If December then wants to get a university degree, it will be
              beyond the capabilities of the ABSDF and she must throw
              herself on the political whims of governments like Australia or the
              United States to win some form of assistance and a safe place to
              live. 




                                     





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Last Modified: Fri, Jan 30, 1998