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Burma Report



Posted by:   Richard Aung Myint, Mountain View, CA on 3/23/98

                   Article has been edited for spelling, grammar and sensitive
info.
                   USA plan to support self sustaining farm project Burmese
Refugees
                   will follow, including organization and funding and
schedule.

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******************

Subj.:	Situation report from Thai Burma border.

Date: Wed, 25 Feb. 1998 14:19:33 +0700


The situation we have at the Burma-Thai border has gotten worse with Burmese
illegals been deported and handed over to the Burmese authorities because of
the economic downturn in Thailand.

You may have seen parts of it on the news about Mae Sot and Myawadee, where
people are been stripped of their savings and possessions on both side of the
border and worse, they are forced to return to a home where they all know jobs
and opportunities are non-existent and their future not looking any better.

Two years ago, I was in Mandalay, arriving through the illegal route,
traveling in trucks registered to Special Bureau of Investigation. As you
know, all departments and institution in Burma have made self-profit as their
sole aim of life. Under the head office name no one at check points dare to
look inside the trucks for taxable goods nor do they check passengers for ID
card.

In Mandalay, I stayed in a monastery with a monk whom I had met in Chiang Mai.
These young monks having been involved in protests and demonstrations also
have a reputation for being hard to handle by government agents, that no one
really questioned my arrival. They also had their own connections in the
Immigration Department to have an ID card made for me. For about two months I
stayed, visiting relatives in nearby cities and went on to see the actual
situation around the country for myself.

The poverty in which the majority of the people in Buma live, would humble all
social workers in America, dramatizing the filth and injustice that exist in
city ghettos. I can see no outside agencies that will help them cope with
their distress, and even schooling  opportunities is lacking. The rich can buy
whatever they want, for a price, with every luxury items imaginable now
legally displayed on store shelves. No one checks where all this wealth comes
from anymore. 

The poor live in relative despicable state. Children covered in grease,
wearing rags, work in mechanic shops, cutting up empty oil barrels and
recycling the useable metal and plastic. They break rocks at construction
sites, peddle wares and help out in tea shops and liquor shops. And as to the
life at home they return to, communal water wells still provides all basic
needs of the poor. Electricity, up to today, is still absent in most homes,
which are mostly small square structures of bamboo and thatch with stinking,
dirty outhouses. Schools are dark and on bare ground and teachers salaries are
less than what the children can earn on the streets. Universities are closed
for the year and grade schools are shut down, awaiting the country's entry
into ASEAN. Proof that anything monstrously possible is possible in Burma and
can be blamed on this military regime.

I personally  know of families literally given notice to leave their
residences, some forty or so homes. They explained that the people had a
choice of a small plot of land in new suburban town or can buy back a room
inside one of these apartment building they had in mind to construct on this
newly vacated land, for a small price of K 700,000. And there were families
who had to made a second move to outer periphery of the city, with the price
of sky rocketing real estate every newly rich, wealthy and the powerful have a
hand in the speculation and the direction of a nation on a path of self
destruction. Thus no one can blame the people for seeking jobs where they can.

We are thinking to form a NGO and set up relief sites to help this situation
in some ways at the border area. Only a month ago. Thai government has given
out a notice for Burmese illegals working in Thailand to leave before the end
of March deadline or face the consequence of possible mass arrest and
deportation. And rumors abound with the Burmese government threatening to
imprison all returnee arriving after their own June deadline. Its not hard to
surmise that all this is a crazy planned affair between neighboring
governments. Since every one living here knows that its the Thai police who
brings the illegals in from the border for a fee and make more profit by
arresting and detaining them for extortion. Now they are still on the make
with the illegal return to the border. People are petrified at this recent
situation and many are voluntarily leaving in groups on chartered buses and
trucks. These poor people are then surprised as the bus drivers (some of them
being off-duty police officers) hand over their passengers at the police gate
after taking away what they can get such as gold, silver, money and electronic
items, to be put through the second half of the gauntlet where the Burmese
soldiers repeat the same procedure of search and seizure.

There is an estimated over a million of these illegal migrant workers in
Thailand. We have found that they have no place to turn to and many agencies
assure us, they can do little to go against Thai government policies. As to
our assessment what these people need is a job and a secured place to do this.
We believe the border area is a perfect heaven since Thai laborer would never
stay to work with wages less than half the minimum daily wages. Yet with these
inadequacies Thai authorities force  themselves in to give hard time to sweat
shops that pay less than 60 bahts a day, arresting everyone for want of extra
income and raping of women. 

We hope to intervene by creating jobs farming land owned by ex-parliament
ministers (Thais who are sympathetic to the Burmese). For this we have plotted
100 acres more or less along the Burma-Thai border. We have the manpower to
get it all started as I have discussed this idea to different groups at the
border and illegal work places in the cities and towns. This will provide a
livelihood and food for the refugees and also a chance to work and share in
the profits from their labor.

I have also spoken to agencies who are willing to provide personnel to come to
us in the border area to offer their assistance in training and guidance, as
we have plans to expand into various other fields of work. We will insist that
these projects are planned to be self sustaining after a short time such as
six to twelve months.

We will work in stages, initially operating farms to gain a foothold in the
border area. We will use whatever help we can get. I have talked to agencies
who would be willing to send people to provide technical assistance and
guidance. Later, we may go into manufacturing of furniture, provide funding
for people who desire to start their own businesses and set up schools,
medical clinics and administrative offices.

I ask your help to be our representative to register ourselves in Washington.
Everyone has a high regard of your work and as a person. Thus I am approaching
you, as to be the first confidant to this plan.