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Bangkok Post January 30, 1998: A r
- Subject: Bangkok Post January 30, 1998: A r
- From: suriya@xxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 30 Jan 1998 06:51:00
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.
© The Post Publishing Public Co., Ltd. All rights reserved 1998
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Last Modified: Fri, Jan 30, 1998