In Thailand I found Burma

The first thing I found in Thailand was a book about Aung San Suu Kyi. Reading in the nights on my way to Bangkok I was still unaware that I would meet some of the people I read about.

Last week I joined a delegation led by Burma Campaign UK on a field trip to the border area in northern Thailand. What I saw, heard and and learned is impossible to forget. When we approached a new camp of internally displaced people on the Burmese side of the Salaween river on 15th of January I felt I was going somewhere, a one way trip bound to mark my soul.

Border tourism
Here in Chiang Mai too many tourist agencies also offer trips. "Long Neck & Elephant Riding" you read on their pamphlets. Or you get to see "Long Ears" but the Long Necks are especially popular. Far away from here you might think it is another exotic animal to ride. Unfortunately you did not guess too wrong. I haven't seen them myself but according to what the tour-sellers tell me it is a visit to a Karen tribe village where you pay an entrance fee of 5.50 euro. The fee is of course for the benefit of the village. Yes, sorry we are not talking about animals but about hill tribes that still live in the past (poor living conditions) and managed to preserve their cultures! The tourist agencies and guesthouses aim to please tourists who are interested in experiencing real traditional cultures. Tourists though can not be that ignorant and think they will ride a "Long Neck". Postcards sold or pictures trying to attract possible trip-buyers show the Karen women with their necks chained and as such prolonged to 20 or 30 cm. A rarity!

Lonely Planet offers a bit more information and gives answers most the tour-vendors could not. "If you pay an entrance fee, does it mean the village is closed? Who collects the fees and for what use?" One tour operator told me: "It is like a Zoo but especially Japanese and Koreans like it. The fee is collected by a Thai organisation but they give rice to the people." According to her you even pay 11 euro if you visit individually. In an older version of Lonely Planet you read that those Karen people have arrived here from Burma 14 years ago. The 2007 version is more realistic. Speaking of Padaung refugees, Padaung being a subgroup of the Karen, whose custom to wear brass rings was dying out but got reinvigorated by money from tourism. No evidence that this deformation damages their health. The business is controlled by the Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP), an insurgent group wanting to establish an independent state in eastern Burma. The women receive a small portion of the fees but also get income from selling handicrafts. As such the Thai authorities speak of Nai Soi, the biggest village, as a self-sustaining refugee camp and the fees are actually collected by the nice sounding 'Karenni Culture Department'.
What about responsible tourism? It is always a debate with arguments pro and contra. You can for example find some listed here.
An Australian article however gives some other sides of the stories of the villages. A refugee camp is like a prison. Everything is controlled and it is really hard to get an exit permission shows the story of a young girl who is not allowed to go to New Zealand. The article speaks about problems with refugee status and about resettlement to third countries by UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees). This brings me to my own experiences when I visited two camps on Burmese soil (IDP camps -internally displaced people is the term used to describe people who flee to another place but remain inside the country) and Mae La refugee camp in Thailand.

Seeking refuge
Refugees, emigrants and immigrants are often subject of intense debates and victims of tough times with bureaucracies. It is for those people that basic human rights and freedom are out of reach. People like you and me who just want to live. People who have done nothing wrong!

For two hours we went upstream the Salaween. Nature and a few people on both the Thai and the Burma shore. The Thai border post let us pass as 'missionaries'. Only one group of 'true' missionaries had visited the new IDP camp before to set up the school. It was the first time journalists or members of parliament arrived. The camp is hidden in the hills and exists of nothing else than some bamboo huts. The area is small and most houses are build on the slopes. There is hardly space for new huts but Saw Peter who provides the camp with as much help he can tells us about 70 more people on the way currently stuck in the jungle. He and his friends already look for more places to provide shelter for his fellow countrymen. The camp is not safe from attacks by the Burmese government forces (Tatmadaw). Saw Peter was proud to mention that they now have two boats to escape if needed. Insufficient of course. This camp has nothing. Everything has to come with the same long boat trip we did. But for all the people fleeing the brutal ethnic cleansing of the government this camp is the best option among bad options. The Thai authorities closed the borders already long ago. Many of those who manage to cross the border are repatriated via Mae Sot to Mawlamyine or to the IDP camps in Burma. For the IDP's there is no official registration as refugee by UNHCR, no access to basic health care, almost no access to food or clean water. Just a few hours before we arrived one woman had given birth in her hut without any assistance other then her husband. With the child in her arms she stood with grace and smiled. The school, a big bamboo hut was filled with children between 5 and 16. An old man an a young woman who had never been teachers before gave advice on health. The 400 people living here had travelled for weeks through the jungle after their villages had been attacked by the military. Their lives being the only thing they could save loosing ill and loved ones along the tough road. The hospital is an empty bamboo hut visited from time to time by health care workers from across the border. The people receive food aid, meaning small portions of rice, fish paste, beans, cooking oil and salt. This is what Burmese refugees eat for years, every day. Except from what they find in the forest or the little they can grow they are fully dependent on foreign aid. Saw Peter had to tell us that unfortunately the food aid will be reduced after March. The rice is too expensive. There is not enough money! For many more people hiding in the jungle support arrives only seldom. Saw Hla Henry, the Secretary of the Committee for Internally Displaced Karen People, shows me his current funding applications. They explain the causes of the food shortages: attacks by the Burma army, forced relocations, forced labour, etc.. The part describing the distribution of the relief assistance mentions trips taking four to six weeks. With the money he asks they will buy rice in a nearby township. The problem he explains is that he hardly can get the funds and every week his team finds new people in need of help.

Being a Backpacker in Burma
Seeing so much suffering moves you more then words and images quickly passing in newspapers and on television. But also the courage of people taking care of each other in places where the government simply does the opposite is breathtaking! The situation in eastern Burma is one of Chronic Emergency, the title of a report of the Back Packers Medical Health Team (BPHWT). I refer to the words of professional journalists for the reasons. The people I met from the BPHWT walk for weeks through the dangerous jungle filled with landmines and soldiers to bring some basic medicine to the displaced people. On our question if they cross the Thai-Burma border illegally they smile and say:"No, it is legal! We go to our own villages. The government of Burma is illegal!" The group laughs.

More thoughts on politics, the international community and foreign aid are upcoming ...