The current situation

KNU soldiers in their front line on Thailand-Burma border. (Photo: Saw Yan Naing / The Irrawaddy)

There is a good short summary of the current situation in this Irrawaddy article: “Kayin State’s Fragile Peace” I seems balanced and careful and is well-documented.

[You may get warnings from your browser that the site is dangerous, however if you ask for the details it appears Google found as many as "0" problems when they visited! As far as I can see the warning is a error.]

An iPad in a refugee camp

Take a teacher with an iPad, her name is Diane, put her in a refugee camp with just three hours electricity per day. Mai La Ooon is out in the forest hours from the town of Mai Sariang in northwest Thailand.

She showed students how to tell their stories, in this case food:

Diane also tells her story. It is also about food as well as iPads

Videos of the fire

Here are videos of the fire. Still no news of the people…

Karen News reports that a fire has devastated the KKBBSC buildings

Photo of the fire from the Karen News website

A fire has destroyed a bible school and other buildings in Mae La Refugee Camp, 57km north of the Thai town of Mae Sot at 12.30pm today. Camp residents managed to put out the fire after about an hour.

A camp resident whom witnessed the fire explained to Karen News that the fire destroyed several buildings in the Kawthoolei Karen Baptist Bible School and College (KKBBSC) compound located in Zone C.1A of Mae La refugee camp.

“The fire started in the food storage building. Now many buildings including the school, food storage, library, teachers’ houses and other buildings were destroyed by the fire.”

Progress in Burma

Twelve-year-old Myitung Brang Shawng found his mother shot and dumped in a cesspit (Image from the BBC report)

There’s been so much hopeful news from Burma recently, not least the bye-elections, and the talks between the government and various ethnic groups.

And yet this BBC report from Kachin State shows how in many ways and places the army is continuing “business as usual”.

At this time of hope, but uncertainty, Burma needs your hope more than ever. And our governments need wisdom, to nt release sanctions too fast, but yet to encourage the reformers.

Child labour?

The teens and their vege patches

The question of when child labour is a traditional form of community self-help has come up a couple of times for me recently.

The example nearer home came from a friend of ours working on the border in a village that runs dormitories and a school for teens and kids who otherwise would miss out (falling between two countries systems, an ongoing war and just plain remoteness). She writes(with a few identifying details changed)  of a new project at the village, a vege garden:

As I have watched the transformation of scrubland into well ordered farm, a conundrum has arisen in my mind. My Western Social Work self asks if this is a form of abuse and exploitation of a captive youth labour force compelled to do whatever their elders “ask” of them. As one new 18 year old student assertively told the Principal, “I have never had to get out of bed at 5.30 a.m. and have never had to work like this in all my life. I came here to study  so I can go to university”. Then my K’nyaw wah (white Karen) self sees one boy playing guitar and singing alongside of other boys who are splitting bamboo stakes 1, and I see the bwadawar (community) at work and it all seems perfectly normal – a  community that sows together, reaps together, producing nutritious food,  developing new skills and combating the passive donor aid mentality that so permeates the border – just one of many casualties of this 62 year old war.

Please share with me your thoughts – I would appreciate some dialogue on this.

My “take” is simple:

• if the labour is for the children’s benefit, as in this case since they will eat the results instead of eating a more minimal diet
• if no one but the children is profiting from the work, as in this case since the food is grown as food not for sale
• if the children learn and grow themselves – as in this case for growing (even a little of) your own food is rewarding and builds a sense of one’s own worth as well as practicing skills of collaboration and dependability

then it is not child labour but community development.

The first example came up in a discussion on Fair Trade chocolate and the accusations of slavery in the Ivory Coast. David Ker pointed me to a post by a friend of his (a link which I have somehow lost The friend had spent time working in Ivory Coast and argued that (at least) many of the cases of supposed child labour there were the common African phenomenon of children being sent to live with relatives for their schooling, and while there helping out the family with family work.

On the whole the case he described, which fits with what we knew in Zaire/Congo, is similar to the case above, with the added benefit that the adults involved are relatives, but the complication that it is a cash crop being grown.

(On the general case of Ivory Coast I am not convinced, there are what seem to be well-documented reports from reputable organisations, e.g. the US State Department, that claim regular trafficking of children for work in cocoa plantations.)

What do you think? How would you answer my friend?

Murray McCully refuses to answer the question

I wrote to the Rt Hon Murray McCully (NZ’s foreign minister) back at the very start of March: Double standards? An open letter to Murray McCully. That letter basically suggested that the UN operated a system of double standards:

The United Nations operates a system of double standards. When in North Africa (close to Europe as so “visible”) a military dictator begins attacking civilians the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon and Security Council reacted quickly to Colonel Gaddafi’s attacks on Libyan civilians. The Security Council passed a unanimous resolution demanding an end to the attacks, imposed sanctions, and refered Libya to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

In Burma ethnic minority civilians have been attacked by the state for decades.

I then mentioned the KNU’s appeal “asking UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to take effective action to immediately stop the Burmese regime’s military operations and human rights violations in Karen areas. ” and asked:

Is NZ supporting this appeal? If so how? If not why not?

Mr McCully’s answer only took about 12 weeks to compose and basically says: No, but we do support some humanitarian projects in Burma, and did oppose the unjust imprisonment of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

Basically this does not answer the question. So I will reply like this:

Dear Murray,

Further to my letter of 4th March and your reply of 30th May, as I understand your answer it is a firm: No. But you seem also to claim that somehow our support of some humanitarian projects and campaigning for the release of one prominent political prisoner (out of thousands), Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, somehow absolves us from complicity in the ongoing abuse (amounting according to many observers to attempted ethnic cleansing)  of the ethnic  minorities by the regime’s armed forces. Can you please explain the logic of this to me. If it was my daughter being raped, or my brother maimed by landmines I doubt I would see NZ’s support for the release of one prisoner as a great support.

Yours faithfully,

 

Tim Bulkeley

Thai Governor’s remarks out of touch with reality

There has been heavy fighting just across this peaceful river in recent weeks.

Several sources have been reporting remarks made recently by the Thai Governor of Tak province (where most of the Burmese refugees in Thailand are) these all refer to a report on Alert Net: Thailand wants Myanmar asylum seekers to go home – official

The headline is a touch misleading, since it has always been Thai policy that the refugees return home once there is no fighting and their homes are safe. The refugees wait for that day too. What is new and involves a flagrant disregard for the truth is the claim that the elections in Burma have ended the fighting and removed the need for the refugees to remain. In view of the shelling, mortar fire and repeated gunfire (heard in Mae Sot as well as in smaller Thai towns close to the border) this claim either betrays a total disconnect from reality, or a blatant lie by Govenor Loifah.

Loifah said Myanmar was no longer violent and “we should start considering asking them to return voluntarily”.

But the United Nations’ refugee agency UNHCR said voluntary returns should only happen if there was no longer any fighting and refugees could sign papers saying they wanted to go back.

“That means Myanmar would have to be welcoming them home and guaranteeing their rights when they go home. UNHCR would need to be able to monitor their safety when they go home. It’s fairly clear that none of these conditions exist right now in the areas these refugees come from,” said UNHCR spokeswoman Kitty McKinsey.

Loifah said he would be happy to work with the European Union and the UNHCR if they started reducing spending on assistance to the camps to persuade residents to leave.

“Ideally, the province would like to be able to set a deadline for closing these camps but realistically, it’s hard to do so because of international organisations. So it’s likely to drag on,” he added.

Coping with earthquakes

Snr-Gen Than Shwe seems to have learned some lessons from other dictators who ignore the welfare of their people, he has built a fine bunker close to his home!

When NZ and Japan were struck by earthquakes recently each country welcomed International search and rescue teams to help hard-pressed local teams.

When a nearly 7 point quake shook a tribal area in northern Burma (Myanmar) the generals who have the power reacted just as they did to previous national disasters. The Irrawaddy reports:

However, the junta once again prioritized internal security above the lives of its own downtrodden population while stubbornly refusing to request any direct international humanitarian assistance. This repeated self-centric slow disaster management was compounded by the lack of any rescue expertize or equipment.

Although the junta eventually accepted material support from the international community, the generals remained reluctant to invite in foreign rescue teams with well-equipped experts. They seem to think it would be a national humiliation, and chose to let the people suffer more and die merely to save face.

But even if such deplorable motives for the refusal of international aid comes as no surprise, it does nothing to explain why domestic efforts were similarly thwarted. Local civic groups and Burmese volunteers who—individually or in groups—rushed to the disaster areas to provide victims with assistance were turned away.

These military rulers really seem to be men without heart or soul.

Photo of Burma Army (Thatmadaw) using prisoners for forced labour

A post last month: Reducing the number of political prisoners? spoke of the Burma Army using political prisoners for forced labour. The Free Burma Rangers have provided photos (including this one):