Burma - Memories from Rangoon and Bagan in 2000

For nearly twenty years human rights groups around the world have organised protest after protest in their attempts to pressure world leaders to take action to restore democracy in Burma. But it seems their voice has never been loud enough - especially in the ears of Asian governments. For instance, the Chinese and Japanese governments have major interests in Burma and conduct their business ignoring totally the fact that the Burmese people are oppressed by one of the most ruthless military juntas on the planet.

The raw violence of the Burmese military against their own citizens in 1988 - and continuously ever since then, has pushed millions of Burmese to take refuge in neighbouring countries. In Thailand there are now about 150,000 political asylum seekers and about 2 million Burmese working in the lowest paid jobs, some documented some not, at about 2 USD a day [40% of minimum wage].

These political immigrants are very exposed and vulnerable to all kind of abuse from both the employers and Thai government authorities. Many get arrested and deported back to Burma and must pay money to completely corrupt military authorities all down the line.

For the 20 years that millions of Burmese have been taking refuge in Thailand they have never been granted any rights of citizenship and can receive no social welfare. They have always been obliged to live, as in a trap, in poverty, having to run and hide like animals when their factories and campsites are raided by Thai police.

We have let 50 million Burmese people suffer far too long.

After observing first hand (short article below) conditions of absolute poverty along the Irrawaddy, one of the richest rivers in Asia, in 2003 the Thai Labour Campaign (TLC) established a programme to fight for the rights of Burmese workers in Thailand. This work has been supported by Norwegian Church Aid (Norway) and Diakonia (Sweden). To facilitate this work TLC has established an office in Mae Sot, a refugee town on the Thai-Burma border.

"We will go to demonstrate for Democracy in Burma at Government House" my friends told me in Sydney during a 2-month exposure programme in Australia in 1990. The action was organised to mark 2 years since the day of the military crack-down in Burma and to remember the thousands of people who were killed on 8th August 1988.

Since then I have participated in many protests and actions for democracy in Burma.

Missions to Burma for Altsean-Burma (Alternative ASEAN Network on Burma) in 2000 and 2001 brought me face-to-face with the awful reality of the living conditions of the Burmese peoples. Going to Rangoon on both trips, I soon began to understand what "the absolute poverty of the people in Burma" meant in real terms, and also what the expression "business has no boundaries" can mean in practice.

Every hotel was hung with pictures of military officers, and my companion Steve Beeby and myself learnt that the military authorities have made it their custom to demand a free stake in hotel ownerships. On the second trip we stayed at a hotel popular among Asian businessmen - from Singapore, China, Korea and Japan. Thai are most visible as the organisers and managers of hotel and service business.

In Rangoon we were approached by a skinny Burmese boy: "Do you like to take a tour to Bagan?". After following us for half a day he finally succeeded in convincing us that we could go by taxi to Bagan, 350 kms to the north, and return to Rangoon within two days.

About half-way to Bagan, on a terrible road, we realized that neither our guide or taxi driver knew what they were doing. The promised 6 - 8 hour drive became 14. We went through endless check-points at which our poor guide, muttering that "everyone has to pay", had to keep forking out Kyat.

At one stop he received information that his brother had died. He was very sad, and we sad for him. We suggested we return to Rangoon, but he refused. His need of money was now even greater than when we started the trip.

Travelling back to Rangoon we visited 2 roadside villages. In one, the villagers took us on a tour of their community. They were very poor, each family living in a shack made of bamboo and any materials that could be scavenged. They were short of everything: blankets, medicines, healthy food and future.

A member of one of the families we visited was sick: "We have to look after him as best we can here. We can't take him to the hospital it is too far away and we don't have any money". We were told that it was not just this family, but that more than 100 kilometers from Rangoon there is no village along the whole Irrawaddy that has any means to get their sick to a hospital.

Although many years have now passed since those trips, my memories of the living conditions in Burma remain vivid.

I hope for change in Burma. I hope that all of us, the whole world, will focus the attention that is required to bring peace and democracy to Burma - NOW.

We may not permit the shedding of yet more innocent blood in Burma. In the past 20 years the Burmese have lost far, far too many of their loved ones.

The peoples of Burma have suffered enough."