Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Monday, March 7, 2011
Articles in English
Homesick on the Thai-Burma border
Tuesday, 27 January 2009 09:26 Htet Aung Kyaw COMMENTARY
Although the word 'vacation' is still a strange one to most ordinary Burmese inside the country, many Burmese in exile, including this correspondent, enjoy taking holidays.
But it may be hard for the western community to understand why many exiles would spend their holidays on the Thai-Burma border rather going to Phuket or one of the other beach resorts popular with western tourists.
According to Burmese dissidents in Mae Sot, about 100 exiles who have resettled in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Australia and New Zealand visited the border town last year. "Why do so many of you come here?" I was asked by a dissident who runs a restaurant in downtown Mae Sot.
After 20 years far from home, I believe that many exiles come here to treat their homesickness. They want to see the Burmese community in Mae Sot, or "Little Burma" as it is sometimes referred to, and maybe take a look across the Moei River to Myawaddy on the Burmese side. For me, as an activist turned journalist, I wanted to learn what was going on in the dissident movement in Mae Sot and the rebel-controlled areas.
The changing face of Mae Sot
In 1941, Mae Sot was a normal border village where the Burma Independence Army (BIA) was briefly based before re-entering the country to fight against British colonial rule. General Aung San and the rest of the 30 comrades led the BIA to Mae Sot and two other border towns on the route back to Burma after they were trained by Japanese army. I had read about the exploits of the 30 comrades in a school history book before coming to Mae Sot, which may be why some western analysts have criticized our romanticism in dreaming of following in general Aung San's footsteps.
My first trip to Mae Sot was in mid-November 1988, just after the All Burma Students' Democratic Front (ABSDF) was founded. I came from southern Burma and stayed at the home of Major Soe Soe of the Karen National Union in Mae Sot before going to attend the ABSDF meeting at Kaladay Camp.
Twenty years after my first trip, Mae Sot has changed a lot. The road to Myawaddy, on the Thai side at least, is now a six-lane paved highway where 20 years ago I walked in the dust. Major Soe Soe's house, where KNU travel passes were once issued for travel from Mae Sot to KNU headquarters in Manerplaw in Burma, without any questions from Thai authorities, is now the Peace Development office.
But today, while the Major still screens and issues travel receipts, KNU travel passes no longer offer any guarantees on Thai soil. The KNU's general secretary, Pado Mahn Shar, was himself killed by unknown gunmen in downtown Mae Sot last February. Officials from the KNU's rival, the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), and Burmese government officials, travel to Mae Sot, which I never saw 20 years ago. Additionally, many Burmese dissidents have been arrested and some deported to Myawaddy, which I would never have thought possible two decades previously.
Yet, despite many challenges, Mae Sot is still the hub of the Burmese dissident movement, especially after the fall of Manerplaw in 1995. I met and chatted with dozens of dissident leaders in Mae Sot. "After the killing of Pado Mahn Shar, no one is safe here. But we cannot use our own guards or guns as we did in the jungle on their soil," said an ABSDF leader who is now working for the Forum for Democracy in Burma.
Although there is no security, "We must still work here. This is because Mae Sot is the closest place to Burma," he explained to me from his hideout. And it is not only politicians who choose to stay in Mae Sot but also social workers. "We must operate here as much as we can. I would never think of going to a third country," said Dr. Cynthia Maung, know as Burma's Mother Teresa, who runs the Mae Tao clinic off the highway between Mae Sot and Myawaddy.
She was one of a few students whom I met at Major Soe Soe's house 20 years ago. I personally helped her to clean out an ageing mud hut to run as a clinic in 1989. Now I see about 100 patients on beds, 200 outpatients and about 30 new buildings beside the old hut that I helped clean. A dozen foreign medics, 50 Burmese staff members and an annual budget of 40 million baht (approx. US$ 1.14 million) are today overseen by Dr. Cynthia.
From idealism to realism?
"Twenty years on, Cynthia's battalion is the biggest in the Student Army," jokes a former ABSDF member who is currently working as a volunteer at the Mae Tao clinic. It is difficult to find hard evidence of how much the rebels and exile politicians have done for the people in past 20 years, although they claim to have been working for the country's 50 million people. "But in Cynthia's clinic, you will see with your own eyes how many people she helps," the former ABSDF member told me.
"How many people have you helped with your own hands, my comrade?" he asked me while I was interviewing his patients. I could not answer him immediately. In fact, despite my 10 years as a freedom fighter and a further 10 years working in the media, I have never been able to help people physically like he has, but only through ideas or words.
I was seized with the desire to do something to help when I met people from Tavoy, my hometown, who were living as illegal migrant workers along the border between Sangkhlaburi and Phuket, some of the two million Burmese migrants and hundreds of thousands of refugees on Thai soil. It was them to whom I once promised to bring freedom and democracy in a speech during the 1988 uprising. Now, 20 years later, I was meeting them on the Thai border, far from my home city, and I was somewhat ashamed that I had not yet honored my promise.
In the end, the only help I could give them was the contact details of some social organizations run by comrades, such as Dr. Cynthia's Mae Tao Clinic (www. maetaoclinic .org), Aye Aye Mar's social network (http://socialactionfor women.blogspot.com/), Myat Thu's children's fund (www.aiyafund.com) and Moe Swe's labour rights group (http:// yaungchioo.org) in Mae Sot, Aung Myo Min's human rights group (http://www.hreib.com/) in Chiang Mai and Htoo Chit's organisation (http://www.ghre.org) in Phuket.
Nevertheless, Dr. Cynthia was unhappy when I told her about my feelings, saying "Changing politics and ideology are more important than social work. We all are doing our duty and we shouldn't be blaming each other."
Armed struggle and unwanted guests
Apart from politicians and social workers, I met another group of former ABSDF members who had been waiting for four years at No Poe Refugee camp to go to a third country. "We were all rejected by U.S. authorities because we were all ABSDF or armed men," one former ABSDF member who was visiting Mae Sot told me. "But they allow fake refugees in with no difficulties. Please tell the true story to the outside world," he pleaded.
According to him, those rejected by the US can be divided into three groups. First, those, like him, who have been rejected by the U.S. but can apply to other countries. Second, those whose applications have been stalled but not yet rejected – meaning they can do nothing but wait. And third, the men who have been rejected by Washington while their wives and children were allowed to go to the U.S. – effectively splitting up the family.
ABSDF and KNU officials confirmed that U.S. authorities have rejected all of their former members since the attacks of 11 September 2001. They also confirmed the allegations of 'fake refugees' and human trafficking. "[The camp authorities] let the new arrivals in from Rangoon who can pay a half million baht (approx. US$ 14,000) each to replace the old ones who have no money after living in the camp for many years," a KNU official told me. Unfortunately, I did not have enough time to investigate this accusation for myself.
However, a Burmese journalist in Mae Sot gave me a different view. "As far as human trafficking goes, I agree that the UN and Thai officials need to investigate it urgently," he said. "But as for the meaning of refugee, I think all people in Burma today are suffering and in need of a refuge, so why are the dissidents opposing the new arrivals when they claim they are working for all 50 million [Burmese] people?" he asked.
ABSDF and KNU officials are not only worried about being rejected by U.S. authorities but also about the changing mindset of former members who have resettled in the west. "Donations from our former members in the U.S. have been reducing month by month since 9/11," an ABSDF financial worker told me. Strangely, the highest number of donations is coming from Japan and Korea, where there are no former members of the ABSDF or the KNU.
Change we need: Where is Burma's Abhisit?
After a three-week vacation in Mae Sot, Chiang Mai, Sangkhlaburi and Ranong, I met some Burmese, Thai and western journalists in Bangkok. One western journalist began to question me. "Do you think there will be any change in Burma after the 2010 election? What is the role of the exiles in the coming election?" he asked.
"Yes, there will be a few changes – from khaki uniforms to white shirts. Don't hope for too much," I replied. But as for the role of exiles, I'm not ready to answer that. However, a Thai journalist who has been following Burmese affairs for over a decade said, "The exiles are not interested in the 2010 election because they are all too busy with their own election," he joked, referring to a statement by the exile coalition who claimed to be founding a new government in exile in 2009.
A Burmese journalist who was at the gathering suggested, "They should try to found a real government in Rangoon, not in exile. They also should learn some new methods from the new [Thai] Prime Minister Abhisit [Vejjajiva]".
There have been at least 12 changes of government in Bangkok in the past 20 years while nothing has changed at all in Rangoon or Naypyidaw. Some observers have contrasted the rise to power of the 44-year-old new Thai premier Abhisit last month with the fate of 46-year-old Burmese 88 generation student leader Min Ko Naing, who was most recently jailed for 65 years in November.
"That is why I suggested you look to Abhisit," the journalist went on. "Then you would find some creative ideas about how to break a 20-year political deadlock rather than holding on to traditional ways of thinking such as 'kill or be killed', or 'aggression or destitution'."
Htet Aung Kyaw is a senior journalist for the Oslo-based Democratic Voice of Burma. He published a book last month in Thailand called, "Far from Home: 20 years in Exile".
http://www.mizzima.com/edop/commentary/1606-homesick-on-the-thai-burma-border.html
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Press Release in English about DVB kick out HAK.
Explanation to DVB audience, Democracy activists regarding dismissal
from DVB's Journalist.
280211 (Htet Aung Kyaw)
(a) The latest situation
-An official letter stating the dismissal of 3 persons; Htet Aung
Kyaw, Khin Hnin Htet and Nang Kham Kaew from DVB was given by board
team on 22 February. Therefore, we have ceased all our daily
activities last Friday 25 February.
(b) Explanation on dismissal from job– indiscrepancy
-Regarding dismissal from job, in the first section (initially), as
there is difference in some places between the notice letter of board
team sent to all staff and what are really happening, I write this
letter so that all staff will know the true sequence of events.
1. according to the email sent around 9pm on 19 January to all DVB
staff from DVB board team, it was not said that we 3 are to be
dismissed, just that if we desire, we could go and work in Chiangmai
office, (and) that we will be given entitlements given to staff of
Chiangmai office, (and) that we will be given help as much as possible
on our Norwegian refugee travel documents we are holding, by
negotiating/cooperating with Norway Immigration department officials.
(It was also said at the plenary meeting on the following day). Board
chairman himself said and promised.
But at the individual meeting between us who were going to be
dismissed from job and board chairman, DVB director and deputy
director, only 4 people on 7 February, all these words were put aside
(withdrawn) and, as the current Norwegian refugee travel document you
are holding is not valid for living outside Norway for more than 7
months, the original statement of (you) going to carrying out in
Chiangmai office for years is not possible anymore. At least you
should try to get a permanent document/status in Norway first and
re-apply for the job. Only then we will reconsider it, the three
authorities said. To sum up, in the first section (initially), it was
not said directly that we are dismissed from job, but that we are to
be transferred to Chiangmai to carry out duties. Then, we were made to
appear as if we want to cling on to Norway and that we do not want to
return to Chiangmai with Chiangmai salary, in a dishonest way and
dismissed us. (In fact, with current document we can stay outside the
country for six months each.)
2. Before the decision was made, the points we put forward both in
letters and orally to board team, were; we have no objection to the
fact that the administration team needs to decide to reduce staff for
budget deficit, the cessation of broadcast and such a thing. This is
their rights, but what we did argue was (We had said it to the
administration team and board team, both orally and by letter more
than twice) why we three were chosen for dismissal; isn’t it possible
not to dismiss staff who served more than 15 years and couldn’t it be
possible to solve it by other means, isn’t it possible to reduce the
budget of all departments by percent (to recover) just 3 millions
deficit out of 23 millions, is it not possible to recheck the budget
of internal network properly which uses much budget to get a little
bit more (money), couldn’t we get a bit more if we take out Youth
Voice which is not made up with permanent staff and appointed while
there was donor and now that there is no donor, and that there are
people who are already Norwegian citizens and got permanent status who
should go and work in Thailand in terms of work, (and) currently if we
give Thai salary to those who are taking Norway salary and living in
Thailand, could we not get a bit more (money) for the deficit money?
Moreover, according to the rule and regulations of organizations and
companies, when it is inevitable to dismiss (someone), we argued that
there is the nature that, (it is done) in accordance with the
years/length of service; people with the highest years of service are
dismissed only after people with lowest years of service are
dismissed.
3. And although this case is titled budget case, I questioned that if
there are other hidden agendas of the two directors. The fact that
triggered such a question thus is, just before we the letter notifying
our dismissal from job, (an incident) occurred. News editor Ko Moe Aye
was suspended from the duty of news editor in relationship with
disputes/rows in TV broadcast room, internal network problems and
other matters. But he was not dismissed from DVB. The emergence of the
decision and thinking to dismiss us 3 from job who have been carrying
out duties under him (his supervision) during the days he was
suspended from editor duty, could not just be a coincidence.
Another coincidence is, all the 3 people who are dismissed from job
are singles with no family, (and) people who could not afford to buy
house. What I mean is, by dismissing us from job, is it done (with the
thinking that) we could not face family problems like others and (our)
house could not be repossessed because we could not pay monthly house
debts/rents – is a point.
(c) Our views ignored
These facts were put forward at the meeting on 7 February and
explained properly in a letter sent to board team before the meeting
but, 6 board members (board chairman said on 22 there are 8 board
members and Prime Minister and another person didn’t give their
opinion during the job dismissal letter giving meeting) and two
directors didn’t reconsider (to) amend their decision. And on 22
February, we were all summoned and given dismissal from job letter.
I state thus so that all DVB staff can know about it because as I said
at the last meeting, this decision has no strong reason, the thinking
that caused this decision has no strong reason, (and that) as they are
only thinking and decision without thinking properly from every
viewpoint, every corner, I could not agree with it, (that) although I
have no plan to file lawsuit in accordance with the law regarding the
decision, I would continue to expose the true states to the public and
audience by using every means.
(d) Future activity
-The last thing I want to say is, I, Htet Aung Kyaw will inevitably
have to go through the phase of unemployed life due to current
situation. Beyond this phase, I will continue to carry out
revolutionary duties and media duties either at media that has no
direct relation with DVB administration team (or) revolutionary
organizations (or) social organizations or as an individual.
(e) What I want to urge democracy activists, DVB audience, media within
and without Burma is –
If DVB regards itself as an organization for democracy, democracy
activists including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi must study and investigate
whether the decisions within DVB and other factors are democratic or
not, whether these decisions are giving impetus to democracy movements
or weakening it, and advise people responsible in DVB accordingly.
Another thing is, I want to urge other colleague media, internet
media, ethnic national media to study this incident for the truth to
come out.
At the same time, I want to alert international news reporter
protection organizations including CPJ, RSF, Burmese media association
outside Burma and news reporter protection organization just formed
inside Burma to study and assess this incident, and strive for the
emergence of independent news organization and more protection of the
rights of each news reporter.
Respect to all
Htet Aung Kyaw
28-02-2011
Oslo, Norway.
..................................................................................................
from DVB's Journalist.
280211 (Htet Aung Kyaw)
(a) The latest situation
-An official letter stating the dismissal of 3 persons; Htet Aung
Kyaw, Khin Hnin Htet and Nang Kham Kaew from DVB was given by board
team on 22 February. Therefore, we have ceased all our daily
activities last Friday 25 February.
(b) Explanation on dismissal from job– indiscrepancy
-Regarding dismissal from job, in the first section (initially), as
there is difference in some places between the notice letter of board
team sent to all staff and what are really happening, I write this
letter so that all staff will know the true sequence of events.
1. according to the email sent around 9pm on 19 January to all DVB
staff from DVB board team, it was not said that we 3 are to be
dismissed, just that if we desire, we could go and work in Chiangmai
office, (and) that we will be given entitlements given to staff of
Chiangmai office, (and) that we will be given help as much as possible
on our Norwegian refugee travel documents we are holding, by
negotiating/cooperating with Norway Immigration department officials.
(It was also said at the plenary meeting on the following day). Board
chairman himself said and promised.
But at the individual meeting between us who were going to be
dismissed from job and board chairman, DVB director and deputy
director, only 4 people on 7 February, all these words were put aside
(withdrawn) and, as the current Norwegian refugee travel document you
are holding is not valid for living outside Norway for more than 7
months, the original statement of (you) going to carrying out in
Chiangmai office for years is not possible anymore. At least you
should try to get a permanent document/status in Norway first and
re-apply for the job. Only then we will reconsider it, the three
authorities said. To sum up, in the first section (initially), it was
not said directly that we are dismissed from job, but that we are to
be transferred to Chiangmai to carry out duties. Then, we were made to
appear as if we want to cling on to Norway and that we do not want to
return to Chiangmai with Chiangmai salary, in a dishonest way and
dismissed us. (In fact, with current document we can stay outside the
country for six months each.)
2. Before the decision was made, the points we put forward both in
letters and orally to board team, were; we have no objection to the
fact that the administration team needs to decide to reduce staff for
budget deficit, the cessation of broadcast and such a thing. This is
their rights, but what we did argue was (We had said it to the
administration team and board team, both orally and by letter more
than twice) why we three were chosen for dismissal; isn’t it possible
not to dismiss staff who served more than 15 years and couldn’t it be
possible to solve it by other means, isn’t it possible to reduce the
budget of all departments by percent (to recover) just 3 millions
deficit out of 23 millions, is it not possible to recheck the budget
of internal network properly which uses much budget to get a little
bit more (money), couldn’t we get a bit more if we take out Youth
Voice which is not made up with permanent staff and appointed while
there was donor and now that there is no donor, and that there are
people who are already Norwegian citizens and got permanent status who
should go and work in Thailand in terms of work, (and) currently if we
give Thai salary to those who are taking Norway salary and living in
Thailand, could we not get a bit more (money) for the deficit money?
Moreover, according to the rule and regulations of organizations and
companies, when it is inevitable to dismiss (someone), we argued that
there is the nature that, (it is done) in accordance with the
years/length of service; people with the highest years of service are
dismissed only after people with lowest years of service are
dismissed.
3. And although this case is titled budget case, I questioned that if
there are other hidden agendas of the two directors. The fact that
triggered such a question thus is, just before we the letter notifying
our dismissal from job, (an incident) occurred. News editor Ko Moe Aye
was suspended from the duty of news editor in relationship with
disputes/rows in TV broadcast room, internal network problems and
other matters. But he was not dismissed from DVB. The emergence of the
decision and thinking to dismiss us 3 from job who have been carrying
out duties under him (his supervision) during the days he was
suspended from editor duty, could not just be a coincidence.
Another coincidence is, all the 3 people who are dismissed from job
are singles with no family, (and) people who could not afford to buy
house. What I mean is, by dismissing us from job, is it done (with the
thinking that) we could not face family problems like others and (our)
house could not be repossessed because we could not pay monthly house
debts/rents – is a point.
(c) Our views ignored
These facts were put forward at the meeting on 7 February and
explained properly in a letter sent to board team before the meeting
but, 6 board members (board chairman said on 22 there are 8 board
members and Prime Minister and another person didn’t give their
opinion during the job dismissal letter giving meeting) and two
directors didn’t reconsider (to) amend their decision. And on 22
February, we were all summoned and given dismissal from job letter.
I state thus so that all DVB staff can know about it because as I said
at the last meeting, this decision has no strong reason, the thinking
that caused this decision has no strong reason, (and that) as they are
only thinking and decision without thinking properly from every
viewpoint, every corner, I could not agree with it, (that) although I
have no plan to file lawsuit in accordance with the law regarding the
decision, I would continue to expose the true states to the public and
audience by using every means.
(d) Future activity
-The last thing I want to say is, I, Htet Aung Kyaw will inevitably
have to go through the phase of unemployed life due to current
situation. Beyond this phase, I will continue to carry out
revolutionary duties and media duties either at media that has no
direct relation with DVB administration team (or) revolutionary
organizations (or) social organizations or as an individual.
(e) What I want to urge democracy activists, DVB audience, media within
and without Burma is –
If DVB regards itself as an organization for democracy, democracy
activists including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi must study and investigate
whether the decisions within DVB and other factors are democratic or
not, whether these decisions are giving impetus to democracy movements
or weakening it, and advise people responsible in DVB accordingly.
Another thing is, I want to urge other colleague media, internet
media, ethnic national media to study this incident for the truth to
come out.
At the same time, I want to alert international news reporter
protection organizations including CPJ, RSF, Burmese media association
outside Burma and news reporter protection organization just formed
inside Burma to study and assess this incident, and strive for the
emergence of independent news organization and more protection of the
rights of each news reporter.
Respect to all
Htet Aung Kyaw
28-02-2011
Oslo, Norway.
..................................................................................................
မွတ္ခ်က္-...။ က်ေနာ္တုိ့ကုိထုတ္တာ တနွစ္နီးပါးျကာပီျဖစ္ေပမဲ့ ထုတ္ရျခင္းအေျကာင္းျပစာပါ အခ်က္ေတြအတုိင္း မနက္ပုိင္းေရဒီယုိကိုလဲ ရပ္တန့္ျခင္းမရွိေသးပါ။ ေရဒိယုိ-အခန္းျဖစ္တဲ့ တတိယ ထပ္ကိုလဲ ျပန္လည္အပ္နွံျခင္းမရွိေသးပါ။ ေနာက္တခါ ဘတ္ဂ်က္မရွိလုိ့ ျဖုတ္လုိက္ပါတယ္ဆုိတဲ့ ဒီဗီြဘီ အင္တာေတးမင္းဌာနလဲ ရွိျမဲရွိေနဆဲျဖစ္ပီး အခု ဆုိရင္ အင္တာေတးမင္းတာ၀န္ခံဆုိသူဟာ အဲဒီေခါင္းစဥ္နဲ့ စင္ကာပူအထိေတာင္ နုိင္ငံေတာ္ ေငြနဲ့ ခရီးဆန့္ေနပီျဖစ္ပါတယ္။
တခ်ိန္တည္းမွာဘဲ့ ေငြမရွိလုိ့ အလုပ္ထုတ္ပီးကာမွ ဒီဗြီဘီ-အတြင္း ေဒၚလာ ၄-သိန္းနီးပါးတန္ လာဒ္စားမႈ ျကပီးျဖစ္ေပၚလာပါတယ္။ အဲဒီအမႈကိုေဖၚထုတ္နုိင္ဖုိ့ ေဒၚလာ ၂-သိန္းတန္ ေရွ့ေန့အဖြဲ့ကို ငွားရမ္းခဲ့ပါတယ္။
ဒါေျကာင့္ က်ေနာ္တုိ့ကို အလုပ္ထုတ္တာဟာ ေငြေျကးအက်ပ္တည္းေျကာင့္မဟုတ္ဘဲ နုိ္င္ငံေရးေျကာင့္။ ဒီဗီံၤြဘီ- အုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ေရးအဖြဲ့ရဲ့ မတရားလာဒ္စားမႈ။ ျခစားမႈ။ အရည္ခ်င္းမျပည့္၀မႈေတြအေပၚ ေ၀ဖန္မႈ ေျကာင့္ ဆုိတာ တေျဖးေျဖးထင္ရွားလာေနပါတယ္။ ပရိသတ္ေတြ ဆက္လက္ေလ့လာေစခ်င္ပါတယ္။
အားလုံးကိုေလးစားလ်က္။
တခ်ိန္တည္းမွာဘဲ့ ေငြမရွိလုိ့ အလုပ္ထုတ္ပီးကာမွ ဒီဗြီဘီ-အတြင္း ေဒၚလာ ၄-သိန္းနီးပါးတန္ လာဒ္စားမႈ ျကပီးျဖစ္ေပၚလာပါတယ္။ အဲဒီအမႈကိုေဖၚထုတ္နုိင္ဖုိ့ ေဒၚလာ ၂-သိန္းတန္ ေရွ့ေန့အဖြဲ့ကို ငွားရမ္းခဲ့ပါတယ္။
ဒါေျကာင့္ က်ေနာ္တုိ့ကို အလုပ္ထုတ္တာဟာ ေငြေျကးအက်ပ္တည္းေျကာင့္မဟုတ္ဘဲ နုိ္င္ငံေရးေျကာင့္။ ဒီဗီံၤြဘီ- အုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ေရးအဖြဲ့ရဲ့ မတရားလာဒ္စားမႈ။ ျခစားမႈ။ အရည္ခ်င္းမျပည့္၀မႈေတြအေပၚ ေ၀ဖန္မႈ ေျကာင့္ ဆုိတာ တေျဖးေျဖးထင္ရွားလာေနပါတယ္။ ပရိသတ္ေတြ ဆက္လက္ေလ့လာေစခ်င္ပါတယ္။
အားလုံးကိုေလးစားလ်က္။
Until now, they not yet return the third flood as they say in statement to return after dismissed ours.
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