Gender Specific Human Rights

One day, representatives from the Shan Women's Action Network (SWAN) came to Loi Kaw Wan on a regular visit. SWAN oversees various projects in Loi Kaw Wan, such as a sewing program for village women to earn money making clothes, and a kindergarten. SWAN works hard to help women on both sides of the northern Thai-Burma border. The women need it. Life is very difficult and abuse is common, whether women are still living in Burma or have moved to work (usually illegally) in Thailand.

As part of its visit to Loi Kaw Wan SWAN planned to hold a meeting for all interested women in the village. There, they could get news from Shan state, hear about the latest atrocities, discuss issues of work, family, sexual health, pregnancy, rape and women's rights. Two visiting female Canadian doctors were invited to participate. Reps were especially interested in sharing information about legislation in Burma that granted soldiers a “license to rape” women from specific ethnic groups.

The women who came varied. Old and young, some were shy, some apathetic, others outspoken, some keen to find out how to make their husbands happy without having anymore children and some clearly just happy to be doing something different.

Loi Kaw Wan's men grumbled. “What about men's rights?” asked Hsur, the school vice principal. “We have no club, no one comes to talk about our rights. Our life is hard too.” The answer was, as it usually is to that question, that men get every other club. In matters of “human rights,” men seem to collect on them first, while women continue to suffer. And internally, not always internally, we believe that they are only complaining because they fear uppity women; or simply fear the repercussions of women obtaining equality.

But even if women suffer more, admitting or addressing it does little to alleviate the men's suffering. Hsur was right. There is no similar club, no venue to unashamedly check the normalcy of their marriage, determine if there are particular rights that, for them, are disproportionately violated or escape even for two hours the drudgery of their lives.

While the women in the sewing project rightly complained that the town commander had forced them to sew army uniforms for 50 cents apiece, the men were compelled to wear them, and tour through the jungle in search of Burmese soldiers, or risk being run out of the village. This is a serious threat, since the village is an IDP camp. It was founded by refugees fleeing Burmese pogroms. To leave the safety of the rebel-held town could mean punishment, even death in Burma, or a life of wage slavery and racism in Thailand.

Rather than offer statistics-laden arguments about which gender suffers more, the men deserve to be acknowledged. Brushing them off for possibly suffering less will create resentment and frustration on top of the problems they already face. I agree with Hsur. The men should have something too. Something that can be used to explain the women's specific problems, why they have advocacy groups, and most importantly can be used to help the men address their problem with the same methods women are given. Surely they too would benefit from the chance to share their troubles with a group of peers. It would likely save the women from many men's suspicion that their wives and sisters are getting undeserved benefits and gossip sessions.

Htam Khur - On the Shan

An abridged version of an interview with the school principal of a Shan IDP camp, February 2010.

What's your name?

My name is Htam Khur, Sai Htam Khur. I'm 35 years old.

Are you Shan?

Yes.

Tell me about the Shan and Burmese.

Shan people, we have our kingdom in the past, and Burmese people they also have their kingdom in the past. And these two, our kings, they are always fighting. If the Burmese win the Shan people need to live under control of the Burmese, and if the Shan people win again the Burmese people need to live under control of the Shan people.

Burma became the colony of British in 1885, and Shan become colony of British in 1887. At that time Shan recognize their people by themself. If the British want to order the Shan to do something they just order to the Shan people directly, not to the Burmese.

When the time that our people need to get freedom from the British the Burmese they want to get the freedom also. General Aung San came to the meeting of the Shan people. If we will take the freedom together we will get the freedom very quickly from the British like that. And so some of the Shan people did not want to get the freedom together with the Burmese people, but some of the Shan leaders think that if we get together we can get the freedom quickly.

So at that time we took the freedom together with the Burmese, but we have agreement. We will organize the country together, during 10 years. After 10 years if the Shan people don't want to be in the union the Burmese, we can separate off by them to be Shan State. But, in 1962 General Nye Win became the dictator and take every power from the people and so until now we are under the Burmese.

Do the Shan still want to be a separate country?

Some of the Shan people want to get the freedom, but most of the people want the rights, the human rights. Rangoon is well developed and Shan state is not. But everything like the teak or the stone, they get it from Shan state or from the other states, but the states are not organized. And also the roads to go to Rangoon, from Daunggyi to Ga Lo the roads are not so good. But from Ga Lo to Rangoon is big road.

Where are you from?

I am from Taunggyi. I live in Taunggyi until 2003. When I finished university I get misunderstanding with my older brother, and I run away from my home to Tachilek. I heard they (Loi Kaw Wan) need a teacher to teach the children. The children are orphans, and people here is like the refugee and they are running away from the SPDC to build the village. So, I join with them and come here. Before I came here I am a shop keeper.

Are you a soldier in the rebel Shan State Army here?

Sometimes we are similar like the soldier, you know? Helping them. But really we are not. I am not a soldier.

Can you go back to inner Burma?

Yes, I can go back, but very dangerous because they (Burmese government officials) will ask me the information about this area. And even I answer them they will not believe on me, and they will put me into the prison. I just organize the school and the orphanage. About the (rebel Shan) army, I don't know many things about the army because I am not a soldier, you know? But the Burmese soldier will not believe on me.

How many students and orphans are here?

298 students. Now we have just 65 orphans.

Where do they come from?

The orphans are coming from near this area. In 1999 the SPDC (Burmese government) forced the people to move from their village, and when they run into the border they are far away from their father and mother and their father and mother don't know where are they. And some of their father and mother getting disease in the forest. And that time, if the people walking in the jungle met with the SPDC soldier, Burmese soldier, without question they shooting to the people walking in the jungle. Like that. So some people die during their running to the border.

Is it better now?

Now is better because not so much are fled from their village. Just in 1996 until 2001, very worse for the Shan people. Because at that time Burmese soldier force the people move from the village to live close to town, and the villager they don't have the money to stay near the town and don't know what kind of job they can do. So they are running to the border.

Tell me about LKW

LKW is an IDP camp. IDP is the internally displaced people. If they stay inside Burma the SPDC will force them to be porter and if they live inside Thailand they don't have the ID card. If they live among the SSA (rebel Shan State Army) the SPDC cannot come and force them to anything. And also the Thai people cannot make the trouble to them also. Yes, is small place.

Is the SPDC here in town?

No, just near our area they have their guard. And they cannot come into the village. But spy, we don't know about the spy. Sometimes spy can be Shan people. And can be Lahu, can be Akha, we don't know. Can be anyone. But even the people who want to come and visit the village if they want to like stay for one night or two night who will receive them to stay in their house, the village committee have to know about their background.

How many people live in LKW?

I heard from the village committee they said over 2,800 live here.

Do you think the SPDC could attack LKW?

Yes. Because it's a resistance group area. If the SPDC want to disappear the SSA, they will attack us.

Do you think it's dangerous here?

Not dangerous. I have lived here for seven years and I have seen no fighting during seven years.

Back in Shan state, in Burma, what does the SPDC do to the Shan?

Now? Now in northern Shan state is very worse for the people. I have a, sometimes I call to my house with my mobile, and sometimes I'm asking about the people who live inside Shan. They said northern Shan state is very worse for the people because now is like ceasefire group and SPDC. SPDC want the ceasefire group to be the border guard, ceasefire group did not want to be the border guard. Ceasefire is not over, just depend on the Burmese. The Burmese want to go around all the ceasefire groups, and they sent their troops every way to the ceasefire group. If the Burmese soldier group is going into the forest they need a porter.

Why do they force civilians to act as porters?

They don't want to carry their things, you know? Because they want to disappear the ceasefire group, and if they are matched against the ceasefire group they want the porters to be their cover. Put the porter in front of them and the ceasefire group cannot shoot them, you know? Ten years ago the same thing, you know? When the Burmese attacked the Muang Tai Army in Hong Mung they bring many Shan people, Shan porter from Shan state. And cover in front of them. And put the porter go first, put their uniforms on the porters and force the porter to go first. The porter, mine, pew! Like that. Is for them, for save their lives they get many porter for them.

Did the MTA know those were porters, not soldiers?

The first they don't know. But when the first attack is finished, when they clean the attacking area they saw the people who die are the Shan people. It's very hard for the MTA to attack the Burmese soldier.

What year did this problem begin between the Burmese government and the Shan?

1947. But at that time most of the Shan people, most of the Shan leaders believe on the Burmese. After the 10-year agreement no Shan people believe on the Burmese.

Are the problems in Shan state worse now, or better, or the same?

The same. You know, during 1962 until 1990, that time the Burmese soldier they are force the people move from the village and burn everything in the village. And next let the people to stay in their village again. And after one and two years force the people out again and burn the village again like that.

The reason why they do like that is to destroy everything of the Shan people, like the history book. Because our culture we'd write our history book and put at the monastery. Who can bring everything? Can't bring everything, so after we move from the village they burn everything. And if we come to stay again we bring back that again and put at the monastery. And for us to move again, we cannot bring most of – you know? And we lose the history book and culture also. And if we mix, like, SPDC get married with the Shan woman, the salary will get higher.

Why is the Burmese government doing this to the Shan? What is the goal?

They want to genocide the Shan people like that. I have heard from the Burmese when I was a university student, “next 10 year the Shan people will be disappeared. No Shan people will speak Shan language,” they said. Some of the Burmese soldier they said like that. When I was a university student I don't know how to speak Shan language.

Not even at home?

Just little. Just get understanding. But when I need to explain something in Shan I can't, just explain in Burmese language.

What language do people speak in Daunggyi?

Mostly is Burmese language. And now, even now my nephew if I call to my house he can't speak Shan. Just Burmese language to me.

------formal interview ends. While walking to the school kitchen Htam Khur recounts how he made a point to learn Shan in university. After graduation he was contracted to teach for three months in a Shan village. After several weeks the local SPDC captain told him to stop the classes and return home. Htam Khur refused. Over a number of days the captain became more enraged at Htam Khur's refusal to leave. The situation came to a head one evening as he was walking home, and the captain stopped him in the street.----- At this point in the story I turned the recorder back on.

'Leave now.'

'No.' I said 'no' again. Yeah he is very angry. He feel very angry and take out a gun, and point to me, you know? And I still said no. We are talking is very loud, very loud. And the villagers heard that and I think 20 or 30 villagers running out from their home, and we two, and they surround all of us. And the Captain cannot do anything. He is very angry and he said to me “now I cannot do you anything, but in the future I'm not sure.” Again, you know?

And I'm coming back with the villager to my rest-house. And the villager said, “hey teacher, this is a problem. You need to go back.”

“No, I had the promise with all of you. I need to stay here. Even he is not allow me to stay with you I will stay here for three months. Because of the promise, and teaching is still running, not finished yet.” And the village is very worried for me.

But I'm a little bit lucky, you know? The battalion from the Daunggyi base, they visit the village. This battalion leader we are know each other. And he come and visit me with the Captain. This captain very afraid of me that time, you know? If I say, “this captain he doing to me.”

You told?

No no, I didn't. The Major, he's the leader of the battalion. I didn't tell to the Major anything. And the Captain feel a little bit good.

And the next day he come and visit me. The Captain, “hey hey, sorry, everything that I do on you.” If they have some people afraid they are very kind people, you know?

But the Major heard about us from the villager. And when the major go back to Loi Lem base he ordered to the Loi Lem leader, the Loi Lem leader changing the Captain to the other area.

James Fu on the SPDC

Loi Kaw Wan Vice Principal and long-term SSA soldier, James Fu

Do you think the Chinese government will get involved in the Wa army issue?

Oh, they do not care for the Wa army. Really, because they just looking for the gas from Rakhine. You know the gas? In the mountain, not mountain, from the sea. The sea, Rakhine, from Bangladesh. They have some, how you call, natural resource. Gas. They will brought gas from Rakkan and through the Shan State to Yunnan and to Peking.

No way, not Beijing. Maybe Guangzhou.

Not Guangzhou. Ah, not Peking, maybe through Yunnan state to Shanghai. Maybe from Shanghai they will carry it to Beijing or some place. So they don't care for Wa, no no no. Before Wa is OK, important for China. Now, no use, nevermind.

Just in the past two weeks the vice president of Maing La, you know Maing La? Beside Wa, Maing La troop their vice president has been killed.

Really? Who?

The Burmese do that. Now they got a big problem. They angry angry now.

Do you think the SSA and Wa Army will ever get together?

Now they are very good friends now. They are waiting for fighting. If the Burmese come, nevermind, we are now OK, the same. If Wa start this fighting, he will be lost. He has to sacrifice too many things for this fighting.

Do you know how big the Burmese army is?

They are saying they have 300,000 Burmese soldiers. If Wa and Shan altogether they have just 50,000. But, with the person Burmese soldier is more. But we have to look at the fighting area. Fighting area is the higher mountain, and forest. Burmese soldier not skilled in mountain, not skilled in forest. They don't know which way to go. SSA Wa know everything. They spot a small path in mountain forests. But this time Burmese soldier, they said if they come to fight this time they will not use the soldier. First they will use the jet and mortar cannon. One-oh-five cannon. Now they have many weapons, they bought it from North Korea. They want to test their new weapon and find how effective it is. They want to test their new weapon so they want some fighting.

The election's coming—

The election no use. Even the referendum pass, no use. One village, one town ,one area, just one person represents all. 'OK, our village have 200 (he gestures on person filling out ballots) SPDC, SPDC good, good good.' Just one person do it. And this election the same. Finally the winner is SPDC. Finally everything, the SPDC is the winner, you trust this. No doubt. The winner is SPDC. Sure. SPDC the winner.

Some people don't care about election. No, some people they are very poor, they have to think about their daily life. What must they have to do, they just have to think about their job. No extra time they have to think about election. No use.

Do you think in the Shan cities like Taunggyi they have the same ideas about the election?

The same. All the same. All know the winner will be SPDC. They just play the trick, play the trick for the world. 'I already make election for the people, and finally the winner is me.'

The world must know and must not waste the time about the election. You want information you must NCGUB. You know NCGUB? NCGUB is, what we call NCGUB? Dr. Sang Win. Their organization, ah, how do I say? Now they plan to make the army that includes Burmese, Shan, Karen, Kachin, like that, they want to make together, all one army.

They who? The rebels?

Yeah, they want to do like the army under the president, Dr. Sang Win.

Can they cooperate enough to make it work?

I don't know. Last month they announce. To say is easy, but to do is very difficult. Even for one army, for one nation is too much trouble. Not the same ethnic group you have to get together is very difficult. And some are not the same in policy. Wa, communism. Shan are not communist. So how will they build a country? I cannot understand.

If the SPDC falls will all the rebel commanders give up their power for democracy?

Even I want freedom. I like freedom, I don't want any oppress, so I come here. I think here is be some freedom, but now I got no freedom. Now I'm like a small bird in a cage, I can't do nothing. Some, even some simple words I can't talk here. So you stay your life outside is better than us. You must understand about us, about our life. Some we cannot tell, we cannot talk, you know.

Do you mean you're not allowed?

I mean some word we cannot tell, we cannot tell the truth sometimes because we have to effect something behind us, we have to effect some shadow. Our imagine and our suggestion are not the same to other people. I stay too many place before and I know everything, I know everything. Sometimes I want to make like Diogeny. You know the story about Diogeny, in the text book? In the midday use a lantern and walk around the city to find the honest man. It's what I have to do here. 'Oh, what are you doing?' 'I'm looking for an honest man.'

In fact I like the army to stay the army. Don't come and interrupt in the village, in education. If you know you can come and give some idea. If you don't know about education then don't come and interrupt. You don't know about education and you come and order 'do like this do like this,' don't do that. If going on like this they lose so many people, so many soldier. So many soldier accept to stay. OK, no use, no hope left. Go away, better move.

Vice Principal Hsur

Hsur is the vice principal of the school in this refugee town in Burma. His English name is "James Fu," given to him when he was a student. Fu is his original surname, but that was destroyed a long time ago.

He's another refugee from deeper inside Shan state. A wiry, small-set guy who looks taller than his five and a half feet. He was born in Yunnan, in China. To all their misfortune his family decided to immigrate to Burma when he was a child. Hsur still speaks perfect Mandarin, using it with the odd Kumintang descendent.

His father died he was 17, so Hsur joined the Shan State Army. Once he became a soldier for these rebels his family destroyed his identification and pretended he was dead, to save themselves and him from the government wrath they would suffer if it was discovered he was a rebel. For 10 years Hsur was a soldier in the forest.

There was never enough food to fill him. From his looks there wasn't enough food to grow on. He looks like his body never met its potential. As a soldier it was always sleeping in the forest, hiking steep mountains with cheap Chinese army boots that fall apart in three weeks. Suffering in the rains from mosquitoes and malaria and mud. Always creeping after the Burmese army. He is dried sinew, not a 32-year-old man.

He's against using child warriors. He's fought against the Burmese' child soldiers, 15-year-olds. He feels guilty about that. Children don't know right from wrong. Adults do, and if an adult is given an order that is illegal, or wrong, they would know it, they can refuse. Children don't know. They just become killing machines that nobody wants to attack.

He's been in this town for seven years, working as this and that, now the vice principal, teaching classes and doing everything else. He's still an SSA soldier, waiting in reserve should they call him back to the forest.

When he gets a chance, he's eager to talk about intelligent things. About politics and language and how much money a person needs. About the similarities between Shan and Laos and Thai, about the Commander. Tells about the rebel Wa Army along the Burma-Yunnan border. "Go there," he says. "Go to the Wa Army near Yunnan. Yeah, they will talk to you."

He's friendly, and willing to work and talk, but he's sad. In a sad state. There is no wife, no family, not even his own grass hut. Just a bed in the office. He's in Shan country, but he's not a Shan. Everyone here dreams of their homeland, but his is one altogether different. Even when he laughs he looks alone.

Pre-election

February 2009
The election the SPDC has scheduled for spring 2010 hangs over this town like a doomsday. What is the SPDC's plan, because surely they have one. They know right now what the outcome will be, if only we did. I can guess. So can the townspeople. Homm wants to have a baby, but she and her husband are waiting until the 2010 election is in the past, just in case it brings war to Loi Kaw Wan, they'll have one less life to protect if they wait to have the baby. We're working to save money to buy Homm a Burmese passport. It will cost about $1,000. It's $1,000 if she mails her ID card into the government and they mail the passport back, about $650 if she travels to Rangoon and applies in person, plus $350 in bribes to get there safely. I don't want her to go to Rangoon. She lives here under an assumed name, but it's still risky to travel. What if there are spies who know her? What if it's enough to be Shan to get into trouble on the route she takes? We have to get her that passport before the election, just in case. Maybe anticipating the fallout of the election is the reason the Commander wants the hospital expansion to be so big. A lot of new people may be moving to Loi Kaw Wan. Maybe it's for them that he wants it big, but maybe he wants MMC to pay for an operations office for his army. We don't know and I'd have to visit with him every day for months before he'd tell me, and we only get one invitation a year to visit him.

Shan State Army

 They're peasants and teachers, spread too thin over too much jungle to scare anyone. Every man in the village owns a machete, but they're still just school teachers and skinny farmers in uniform. I would give a lot if I thought it would get me embedded with this army. Kang Hseng says growing up in Taunggyi he'd never heard of the SSA, not until it was time for him to pick a career and his uncle told him about coming here to be a medic, under guard of the SSA. They have few weapons. A pair of AKs seem to be floating around town for special occasions, that and gardening machetes is about it for Loi Kaw Wan. A radio tower, a small cinder block house for the Commander, one flat bed truck, that's all I've seen. 
Do they have international support? Why should they? They make money only from taxing the people they mingle with, and corruption, like opium traffic, maybe some lumber like all the others. Corporal Hsuo said he didn't know how many SSA soldiers exist. I guessed 25,000 for him and he agreed that was possible, and that 50,000 isn't possible. The vice principal says it's hard to get new soldiers, and I think it was hard to get them from the start. The intention is good, but with no pay, no food, no clothes, no strength, how many can they entice to join? That's why there's only 25,000 ill-armed farmers spread from Chiang Mai to Yunnan. Manyof the women here are married to a soldier, meaning most of the men here are soldiers, even the ones who look too old and hard-lived to be.

All day long they trickle by. One, ambling. Two if by motor bike. Sometimes wave, sometimes salute, and smile when they realize who they saluted. The SSA guard the Thai-Burma border before Loi Kaw Wan, posted in a sunny grass hut, with a lazy dog. I think they let anybody in, including the Thai guards. How can those two teenagers stop the Thai guards from walking down the road to take pictures of the whites in Loi Kaw Wan who aren't supposed to be here?

Bay Da

We arrived in Loi Kaw Wan in the afternoon. Once we came through town to the medic compound, we stood and looked around at things. Suddenly a tall young man running at full tilt leapt onto Dr. Semkuley and hugged him with his arms and legs. That's the most emotional reunion I've ever seen between two men. The man was Bay Da, whom everyone knows has the biggest smile since Eddie Murphy, and much nicer than Murphy's. Especially since the corners of Bay Da's mouth curve up, even when he stops smiling, which he eventually did. He smiled so much those first few days anyone would think he was the happiest man in the borderlands. Of course, his smile fell into disrepair over the next two weeks. It began with slow fractures, changing from joy at having Myron back, to worry, nervous smiling. Beaten dog smiling. Shorter smiles, frowning in between, right in front of us. It took two weeks for Bay Da to stop being formally gracious, open up, and say enough for me. Two weeks to say something to me that could make me cry. When the woman watching her mother die of AIDS in the clinic down the road only made me angry. Bay Da climbed down from the frame he and the others spent all day building to hold these mega big solar panels, so the clinic will finally have night light. We sat on the grass together and he took off his Chinese army boots, inside which his feet had stewed all day without socks. Man what a stink! Like grade C ham left under the deck for a week. I moved to sit up wind and we joked about the smell. He said I should write about how people in Loi Kaw Wan are too poor for soap so donors would send some for his feet. Then we headed off to bring the tools someplace for safe keeping.


“Sometimes when we walked in the forest for four or five...or seven days, very difficult to get clean. No soap and got very dirty.” “You mean you were in the forest for that long?” “Yes” “What were you doing in the forest for seven days?” “Hiding, from Burmese soldiers.” “Oh. You were one of those people.” “Yes.” “What would happen if they caught you?” “They want to make us porters. Porters carry their weapons and food, and big bombs. A big bomb... They burned my father.” My skin crawled. “They took cigarettes, pressed on his face. You know when cigarettes burn, and the end is red? They burned on his face, here,” he traced his finger along his cheeks, “here.” “They tortured.” “Yes, tortured. I was seven...or six. I never forget that in all my life.” Earlier we had also joked about how he would like to be president. The things he would do, notably enact litter laws. Bay Da is an environmentalist, dislikes litter, and takes the decimation of the local teak forests by the SPDC personally. As he should, the SPDC are raping his people in order to rape his land. Anyway, his president talk ends with a smile and he says “in my next life.” “I want to have some coffee.” “I want my freedom.” “And what will you do with your freedom?” “I will travel, and present about Burma's politics and the environment.”


I didn't expect him to have an answer so ready. After we put the tools away, and after he told me about his father's torture and I tried to keep my head tilted up so tears wouldn't fall out of my eyes and perhaps he was doing the same thing, he told me more. “I will tell you my real dream. This is real, what I wish. I want to go to a small village and teach English. Have maybe 50? students. I teach English and improve my English. At my home town we have waterfall,” he showed with his hands, “a beautiful waterfall. And land is flat and soil is very...good.” “It's no good here?” “No. Very hilly, and difficult to bring water.” The Shan aren't a mountain people. They are traditional farmers who are used to rich plains where they can grow just about anything. This place is Akha land. The Akha like the rugged land, but they had to move aside here to make room for the Shan refugees. 


“I want to have a house, and around the house, trees, because I like the environment. I would have trees. That is my real dream.” “Do you want this in Shan, or Thailand?” “Shan. If I can, I don't like in Thailand.” 


The whole time, his nervous smile would flicker by. It's surprising how a face constructed to fall so naturally into a wide grin can drop into such exhausted despair. He'd mentioned even on the first day that he doesn't think about worrying things because it would just make him depressed. But I knew when he said that, even though I didn't know him, that he must think about those things all the time.

Shan AIDS

Bay Da said in 2007 he saw about 10 HIV positive patients. That he generally sees “a lot,” and they are typically male, under 40, and soldiers. I don't know why he said “2007” instead of “2008,” unless he hasn't counted up the 2008 cases yet. The first AIDS patient I saw was on February 11. She was, well she still is at the moment, a 52-year-old woman who had been in the week before (although this one looks so shrunken that I find it hard to believe it's the patient they're referring to) with an infected tooth socket. This patient is very wasted, certainly under 100 lbs and probably around 75 lbs, black lips surrounded by sores. Her daughter is with her, a healthy-looking, distressed woman, also a young man and a bunch of same-aged kids who may just be in for the show. The daughter is so upset that she won't let me take pictures, Khang Seng is busy putting her IV in and he looks up to tell me to stop. So I'll wait until the family leaves the In-Patient ward for awhile, if they do at all. The photo is necessary Why is the photo necessary? Because she's part of her people's genocide। Burma has enough money to have kept her safe and well if it wanted to. Her death is a victory for them. Word is, the woman will die within days without medicine, which can only serve to hold her on a little longer, slow the deterioration. That much is probably obvious to anyone. Amy says that her daughter said that this woman's husband died a few years ago. 

“Of the same thing Mom has now.” The next day she's still alive. She has tuberculosis and pneumonia, and what all the medics call “CD4,” which is code for HIV. I ask Homm Noon if people here understand the phrase “HIV.” She says they do. I ask her if they've told the woman's daughter she has HIV. She says no. I ask her if it will embarrass the woman's daughter if they say “HIV.” She says like she always does when I wish she'd be precise. “Yeah sure.” “But they must guess that she has AIDS.” “No I don't think they guess it.” “Why did they bring her in?” “Some abdominal pain."

The air around her bed smells dangerously rotten। A terrible smell around her, but it's not that she's soiled herself. I don't know what can take the nasty smell of death off her body. It's not the same as feces or vomit. It's unnatural decomposition. Like something breathing of a dead body. Anyway. The next morning I come in to take her picture if I can. She's awake. She nods when I show her my camera, and she pushes down the comforter and lifts up her blouse so I can see her emaciation.

Kang Hseng

Within three days of arriving in Loi Kaw Wan, we all had a Kang Hseng crush, and he knew it. Kang is hot to begin with, but being one of the few city boys in Loi Kaw Wan, he possesses unusual charisma. This is what he said: Kang was born and raised in the capital city of Shan state: Taunggyi (Dong-chi). He has two older sisters, both of whom have been to college and now have relatively good jobs in retail. His father was an opium addict for 25 years. He paid for his habit by dealing. It's a little fuzzy, but he may have been a bootlegger too. The work put Kang's family squarely in Taunggyi's middle class. When it was evident Kang was on the verge of growing up, he had to decide what to do with his life. He's Shan, but because they lived in the city and his father had a mind for business they never felt threatened by the Burmese. 


At first Kang wanted to be an engineer, but he fell 5 per cent short on the entrance exam. His uncle in Singapore offered him a job. “Come work for me in Singapore. I'll set you up with a position and you can make a good living here,” his uncle told him. No. Another uncle is a monk in San Francisco, but Kang didn't want to be there either. A third uncle told him about the rebel Shan State Army, which he knew nothing of before, and the medics who bring aid to the Shan huddled along the border. 


That was the job 19-year-old Kang took. When Kang first told me this I thought “well you're a good guy Kang, but you're the only one here who can go home anytime you want. It doesn't have to be a serious thing for you.” Then I realized how much it meant. He could have chosen so many other lives. He was one of the rare ones; safe, comfortable, educated. He chose to go in when the others ran out. Almost three years later. He likes Loi Kaw Wan. He's a good medic and when the supplies hold he's the town dentist. He'll only leave if he wins a spot in the Mae Sot training clinic. And after that he would come back. Plus, he's staying because he's fallen in love with a 20-year-old student down the hill. He's a clothes horse with a choker of black beads like the surfers wear, and a black motorcycle jacket. His motorbike lust is strong, but with the honorarium salary he gets it will take him years to save up for one. He has an elfish face, likes to smile and show-off. His anime haircut makes him look like Bruce Lee and he loves it when people tell him that. 


He has no desire to be a soldier, but he calls the SSA “our organization.” Many Shan change their names when they escape or become rebels. Kang didn't change his, because he wants people to know it's him doing these things. Dangerous. He has his own private house; a bamboo and thatch hut the size of a backyard tool shed, with a dirt floor. There's a bare light bulb in the thatch that works for the two hours a night the generator's running. Between the bamboo cot and the rest of the house is a rack of clothes that acts as a wall. The door hangs onto the upper corner of its frame literally by a thread. He loves his house, because it's his only private place. In a few months he and the other two single male medics will be moved into a dorm, and he's not looking forward to it. 


Early every morning he took Cody and Sanjeev down to the clinic yard to teach them kung fu. Now and then he'd find one of the medics' guitars and play, which he was good at, and sing, which he needs to brush up on. Every night when all the others went to bed, Kang and I stayed up together to talk. We would play cards and tease and flirt. He told me all his secret gripes about how the Commander runs the town when there are no strangers to see it. Talked about politics and the genocide in Shan and how it's all going to end. And what happens after the end. He reminds me so much of another friend.

Burma's Thai Babies

The families in Loi Kaw Wan know there are advantages in their children having Thai citizenship. Citizenship isn't something countries just hand out, and in Thailand even the newborns have to work for it.

When we arrived in Loi Kaw Wan early Sunday morning, Homm Noon was waiting to greet us. She was at the end of her pregnancy, her face had become fat and freckled. The greeting was brief, because she was holding out just long enough to see us and then with her mom climbed into the tinny pick-up truck that dropped us off at the border post, and was driven away to the nearest Thai hospital to give birth.

Since she and her mother are the only trained midwives in the village, it made sense that she wouldn't want to deliver her first child alone in Loi Kaw Wan. The other benefits were realized later on. If Homm Noon's children are born in Thailand, they're Thais. In an area where you're either a Thai or an illegal refugee, the choice seems obvious.

It isn't a simple matter of being born in Thailand though – the babies need a Thai parent. There are men in Thailand, usually old men, who each take money to claim he is the father of a woman's baby. Homm Noon and her husband found such a man to do this for them, as did every other family in Loi Kaw Wan who's children are Thai citizens.

It must be a terrible choice for these families, for the father to give up any official connection he has to his own children, replacing his name with some grasping stranger's. Surely it isn't a secret either. The doctors who register the births can't believe for very long that the old men who come in with young Burmese women are really the fathers of all those children. The Thai government must be aware of the trick as well, still it continues. After the birth the women return home with a newborn, probably hoping never to meet the official father of their child again.

At the end of our time in Loi Kaw Wan we returned to Thailand and paid a visit to Homm Noon. She had delivered a baby boy and was resting in a safe house in Thailand until the baby could get some vaccinations. The safe house is used for Burmese patients sent to the Thai hospital. It's a small warehouse among a line of other warehouses and loading docks.

Homm Noon, her husbadn and the baby had blankets laid out on the floor of the empty storage unit, with some clothes hung up in the corner. She introduced her healthy little baby. We asked his name, and she gave one but said it's only his Thai name, for the birth certificate. He doesn't have a real name yet.

Loi Kaw Wan's Latest Landmine Victim

From an interview with Loi Kaw Wan medic Bay Da as he gives a tour of the village's medical compound. The interview begins as we leave the in-patient building, after having spoken briefly with a patient who lost both his hands in a land mine explosion several months earlier.

Tell me what happened to him. How did he lose his hands and his eye?

He went to outside. He went to inside Shan State. And the SPDC they put the mine, land mine. And then he tried to, how do you say? Check. He was looking for land mines.

Was he alone or with other people?

With other people. But only one, only him get injury. But other, they are far away from him.

He was reaching on the ground like this?

Yes, his hands gone. His hands is on the trees.

How far away, how many hours away were they from here?

About four hours.

They had to take him all the way back?

Yes. He is, like, strong. Strong mind. Not sad. Somebody when they are not really strong, when they get injury like this they can die. Depend on our mind.

So they brought him back here. Did he stay here or go to Thailand?

No, direct to Thailand. To Thoed Thai. To Thoed Thai and Thoed Thai sent him to Chiang Rai. He stay in Chiang Rai hospital for one month.

Is it free when a patient like that goes to the Thai hospital?

Not free, no. Very expensive.

Can he pay?

No, he cannot pay.

What can he do?

Our clinic takes responsibility for that. We have to sign for it.

The clinic here has to pay for his bill?

Yes. If he get money from some organization we can pay. If he don't get we just leave like that. It's difficult problem.

And he has to go to Thailand? They can't get medical help here?

Yes. Most of them. Most of the serious condition, like broken arm or mine injury.

Is he the first land mine victim, or are there other amputees here in Loi Kaw Wan?

Other. Many others. About 10.

Do they all get them the same way? Going into Burma?

Yes, the same way.