Arresting video

Neat idea!

Food and culture evening

If you are in Auckland, 15th March, you can enjoy loads of delicious Burmese and ethnic foods, with a short report from Dr Aung Mang of MEGST on cyclone relief and Christian witness as well as a cultural display with ethnic dancing. A fun and informative evening out.

5pm-8pm at Laidlaw College (ex-BCNZ) just $30. The details are here do tell your friends of make up a party!

Dawn raid

Getting across the border out of Burma does not mean safety for the ethnic minorities. If they integrate into a refugee camp life is restricted to the confines of the camp, and with no working allowed, but is secure, since an NGO and the UNHCR seek to protect your “rights”. On the other hand as “illegal immigrants” people can work, and even move around, with no rights and a fear of the authorities. If however you are “caught” by the authorities, or a vigilante group, in the new country, then things get tough. This account arrived today from a friend of ours in Malaysia:

I attempted to access our 2 friends who were arrested in the recent dawn raid. I went to 2 airports, 2 immigration detention camps, an immigration office and negotiated with 2 police men, 4 RELA officers and 5 immigration officials. In the end, despite my utmost efforts and much pleading with the officer in charge, I was denied access but was at least allowed to leave clean clothes, soap and toothbrushes for them. Today they had to face immigration charges in court. Unfortunately it was a closed court and I was again denied access. The UNHCR lawyer, however, was able to make an appearance at my request. We are hoping that the representation of the UN lawyer will avoid our friends being sentenced to severe whipping. Our friends have now been transferred to prison where I will make a renewed attempt to access them and ascertain their condition.

Please pray!

A face and a name

Burma Army on road near burned house in Ler Mu Plaw (Partners)

Burma Army on road near burned house in Ler Mu Plaw (Partners)

Reading about the concerted effeorts of the Burma Army to build roads, that are “protected” by landmines to extend their grasp on Karen State sounds clinical and academic, there’s even a map in the FBR report that makes it all look almost like a traditional AA roadmap. Though the images of soldiers and burned out homes is a less cheerful note.

Mary Wa and baby the day after recovering (Partners)

It all becomes more real when you scroll down and read the story of Mary Wah without the picture and story she’d be just one more number in the statistics of horror. But with the picture and her story the story of the road becomes more real. Mary has a seven month old baby, but she does not want to live (she overdosed on quinine the anti-malarial). She used to have a husband, but he stepped on a landmine trying to cross the Ler Mu Plaw road. In his agony after the mine blew off his leg he shot himself with his hunting rifle, to avoid being caught by the Burma army.

As a child Mary had a home, but:

On November 11, 2006, at 11:10 am, Burma Army troops came to their village. They burned down 12-18 homes, shot and wounded one villager, and destroyed all their rice barns. Mary Wah, her
family, and all the other villagers escaped unharmed but lost all of their possessions and homes. Mary Wah and her friends finished the school year in the jungle.

As an IDP, a homeless refugee in her own country, she married Mo Chi Wah (another IDP) in 2007 when she was just 15. Now she is a widow. She said: “I felt very confused. I could not cope. I decided to kill myself.”

The cold facts leave me cold and angry. Mary’s story reduces me to tears. Do look at the Free Burma Rangers website and get some facts and some stories about what is going on in Burma.

Humanity and survival

An elderly woman sells sticky rice in the street in Rangoon. (Photo: Aung Thet Wine/The Irrawaddy)

Burmese Bloggers with out Borders has a worrying but insightful post The need for humanity amidst the need for survival in which Thway Ni (a member of the Burmese diaspora) first presents the near desperation of most of the population of Burma. The situation he describes, of an country ruled by a greedy out of touch kleptocracy, while ordinary people’s possibility of living slowly dwindles, is one that is familiar to us from Zaïre in the 1980s.

With the kind of government whose focus is just to fill their own pockets as much as possible, and after being hit by the natural disaster like Nargis, Burma has become like an abyss when it comes to donations. Everywhere, everything – be it health care, education, social well-being of the people, political prisoners and their families, etc – is deteriorating and at every turn in the streets,  we are faced with the sights of poverty and suffering aplenty. Many people point to the junta as the root cause of all this. That is true. However, I’ve come to realise that while this junta is still in power, we must find ways to help alleviate the suffering of our people. And money or rather donation has become essential.

The problem is that we are experiencing a global economic crisis, whether a recession like the ones we’ve had from time to time over recent decades, or something more like the Great Depression does not really matter. In a climate of lay offs and interest rates smaller than inflation, generosity is at risk. But if generosity dies, what remains?

Such happenings make me wonder whether our sense of humanity will eventually be annihilated in our struggle for survival. If such day were to come, I cannot imagine what might happen to the people in a country – where some people lose their lives or face serious health risks as they have to resort to illegal means of abortion just because there is no proper education and subsidy for family planning methods and they cannot afford to have another child: another mouth to feed [Irrawaddy - "Desperate Decisions"].

Dormitory Report

We have a final report on the project Tim’s 60th birthday party supported. The Thoo Mweh Kee Hostel included the dorm and bathroom facilities, for IDP children from Burma to attend school.

The project was over budget by a small amount, but this included higher costs for materials as well as a small miscalculation of what was required, so they did much better than most projects round here

When construction was finished a team from NZ (we think from Beachlands) helped with the painting, so there’s been quite an Auckland input to the project

A huge thank you to everyone who contributed, you have helped these boys to get an education in a safe, friendly and Christian  environment. Please continue to pray for their homeland and people this Christmas.

Candle in the falling rain: children

A Karen pastor has a dream:

Boarding houses are established to protect children from IDP (internally displaced people) areas within Burma. Children arrive, often unaccompanied, in the refugee camp to seek protection from the violence within Burma and to receive an education. Many of the children become workers during their pre age. There are a lot of the migrant parents workers who can not protect their children to seek for education. Children’s future is becoming a candle in the falling rain.

As a Karen people from Burma we are seeking for peace and justice to change the situation in Burma. But it already more than 60 years, our dream is wandering in the air and we are living in the imprisonment of injustice. The only effort that we can make for our future generation is just to protect them for gaining the skill and receiving education.

We now would like to establish a new dormitory, especially for the Karen people whom no one care when they attend the Thai school. They are not refugee, they don’t know who they are, they can’t read and write their own language, they don’t know how to dream, they don’t finish the high school, they can’t go to the university, they don’t receiving any care and health and they don’t even receiving the parent’s care. Can read and write is the only motto that enough for their whole life. Children should communicate with their wishes and feeling effectively for their vision. We would like to let them carry the candle with light toward their goal for gaining the high school certificate and degree in any field.

Towards this dream (with money donated from UK and Australia) two dormitories have been built. Some people have committed to a monthly amount. A lump sum from the USA also helped. But, last
week the children arrived. The project budgeted for less children than have come!

There is funding for a dozen children but 26 are living in the dormitories. It costs about 1000 baht (US$ 30 NZ$50) per child per month. If you would be willing to sponsor a child do contact me.

More villages attacked

Villagers In Hiding after being displaced in Pa-An District. Oct. 2008

Since late September there have been a number of reports of increased activity by the DKBA (a Burma/Myanmar Army front force). On several occasions villages have fled across the border into Thailand. There are some reports of attacks into Thailand.

Partners’ Sarah Armitage today wrote a summary which included this paragraph:

Since the 21st September the DKBA (Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, who are allies with the Burma Army) have attacked a number of Karen villages inside Burma. The villagers are now not allowed to leave without permission. Villagers are being used as forced labour and minesweepers. So far, four people have stepped on landmines – two have died from their injuries.

Areas under recent attack

Over 250 people in surrounding areas have fled to the border near Mae Sot, seeking safety. More are expected to arrive in the next week or so. Partners has been able to immediately supply rice, medicine, knives, cooking pots, mats, blankets, mosquito nets and stoves to those who are in desperate need of help.

Prayers and practical help are needed!

The photo and map are from the FBR report, which gives much more detail.

Since May was the last time I included the Partners details in case youwant to send help quickly:

NZ Partners Relief and Development at Westpac Bank (Upper Hutt branch) 03 0774 0598181 000

Canadians wishing to obtain a receipt for tax purposes should make donations at the Partners Canada website. www.partnersworld.ca

Americans wishing to obtain a receipt for tax purposes should make donations at the Partners USA website. www.partnersworld.org

Norwegians can find the information needed to make donations in Norway at: www.partnersnorge.no

Australians can find the information needed to make donations in Australia at: www.partnersworld.org.au

UK Residents can find the information needed to make donations in the UK at: www.partnersworld.org.uk

Macaques in the garden

A friend of a friend (on Facebook) wanted “more monkey videos” this is the best I can manage, but it did remind me to upload some more of the superb scenery from Sri Lanka, maybe after the weekend and before the marking

Sri Lanka has three species of macaque, we spotted these guys running wild in the botanic gardens outside Kandy, and another species in the gardens at Haggala (the gardeners were not as pleased – I wish I’d got a shot of the chase

Blog Action Day: Poverty

Since I signed up to participate in Blog Action Day and saw that the topic was “poverty” the global economic meltdown has moved from being a relatively minor blip in the US (and some other’s) economy to what the pundits are comparing to the Great Depression. The banking system has for decades enabled many to act rich as they spend borrowed resources that they have neither grown nor earned.

Banks have achieved this “something for nothing” gift by loaning many, many times more money than they have themselves been loaned. This ensured that saving was not well rewarded, while spending was. Banks and others vied with each other as they woed the borrowers. (When was the last time you saw a TV ad for a banks savings interest rate, how many ads have you seen recently – or at least before the “shame” of governments throwing money at them to “bail them out” – begging you to borrow more? If you pay off your credit card each month you will be used to the company raising your cretit limit higher and higher (Till it becomes a large fraction of your annual pay!) in the hopes of enticing you into accepting a loan.

And now the house of cards has begun to fall.

And now we see real poverty, not among bankers and financiers (they have their Platinum Parachutes, negotiated long ago in the boomtime days) but among those already poor.

• Watch as the prices of commodities, like coffee, cocao, rubber and the other products poor peasant farmer produce  tumble – more people who cannot afford medical care for sick family members.
• Listen as charities that feed the refugees, with falling donations, have to cut the meagre allowances of those who cannot grow their own because war-lords and “governments” drive them from their land.

This is what poverty means in the wake of economic crisis, but don’t worry, you will not be troubled (much) by seeing it on your TV or reading dense paragraphs of analysis of their plight in your newspaper. The focus will remain on how to protect the rich from the consequences of greed, not on how to protect the poor from disaster. NZ and the USA have elections at present. Anyone care to guess how often the world’s poorest and most exploited will get a mention as the politicians bid for your votes?

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