Yee Tip on SSA and amputees

Leung Yee Tip is a Shan who currently lives in Chiang Mai, Thailand, where he works for the Shan Helath Committee. Among his many projects he supervises an amputee prosthetics clinic in northern Thailand. This is a transcript of a short interview on the subjects with him, February 2010.

Do you have an age in which people are allowed to work?

An age?

Yes, like children, or an age?

We don't use children.

How old are you in Shan to not be a child?

Eighteen. And also in the army too is 18.

How old is too old to be in the army?

Forty-five. Is mean that they can join between 18 and 45, and they can stay until 60 or 65. And also sometime, some of the children when they come with the SSA soldier they want to be a soldier, but we just send them to the school. Because some of their parents have been killed by the SPDC so they want to join the army.

Who is the funder for this farm project?

They is funder from CPI from America. (the anti-landmine organization Clear Path International)

How many amputees are there?

Here at this camp has 37 amputees. And then we choose from them who want to do this farming. And then we form a small company to look after this farm.

How did they become amputees?

Most of them are old soldiers from the MTA (Muang Tai Army, the predecessor to the current rebel SSA).

Land mines?

Land mines, and some in battle.

Do you get many new amputees?

Not, I did see a new one, some of them I think are new.

Does the SSA have people go out to look for land mines like in Loi Kaw Wan?

No here it's dangerous for them. If you don't know technically exactly how to search for land mines.

Gwan Kham, Loi Tai Leng Orphan

22 years old. Recounts being 11 years old when his village was attacked and he became separated from his family. He now works as a teacher and English-Shan interpreter in Loi Tai Leng. -February 2010

“I was in jungle, I went to look after buffalo, and then I come back to my village I don't see anybody, just only like the burnt house.

Did you try to find them?

No. I was very afraid about this. So I went to the jungle, and suddenly the military, about the SSA, come to the near our village and I saw them. And because they can speak Shan, right? So they ask me 'why you stay here alone?' 'I don't know. Because my family no here.'

I didn't know anything, but I want to go. So they ask me 'do you want to go with us? OK, we have food, we have everything for you,' like this. I got here when I was 12 years old. I stayed in the jungle with the military for five months.

Why didn't they take you here fast?

Because there is very bad weather. They cannot come here, because the Salween is like, flooding.

Is it correct that you were alone for four weeks, and then the SSA came and found you?

Yes.

Do you know if your family's still alive?

I don't know right now. Maybe until now they are, I don't know. Maybe they already go away from our world.

What did you do when you came here?

Go to school.

Had you had much school before?

No. I didn't have money to attend the school until I was 11, when I was in the Shan State.

How did you learn English so well?

I like to learn grammar, and I love to go to another person when I saw foreigner, I would like to talk with them.

Are you still in school?

I'm finished and now I'm working in the school.

What do you teach?

Before, English. And right now history, because I love to teach history.

Do you get paid to teach?

Mm-hm. Two thousand (baht) per month. ($67)

Do you think you'll ever go back to Shan State?

I think so.

Would you like to?

Yes.”

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.

Gong Mong Mung (Hill View Place) LDP camp

Gong Mong Mung is the newest of the SSA's IDP camps. “Mung” is the same as that in “Muang Tai,” the Shan's name for Shan State. The Shan call themselves the Tai. Mung means state, or place. Roughly translated, Gong Mong Mung means “Hill View Place.” It was established in 2007, but not as a result of the September 2007 monks' Saffron Revolution. Most of its 60 families came from a nearby Burmese town that was formerly the headquarters of the Muang Tai Army, until the MTA leader surrendered and the Burmese attacked. Life is still hard for them there because of that.

Unlike the other IDP camps, many of the buildings are adobe. It may be because there is a much larger than usual proportion of Wa and Pa'o mixed in with the Shan. The Commander's place is adobe, with a kitchen, a bedroom and a main room a quarter full with supplies like mosquito nets. He also has wood-shuttered windows, a well made bamboo gazebo, raised flower beds and bamboo fencing. Here, as in Loi Tai Leng, electric cables are strung down the street on sturdy poles.

The SSA commander is a strange looking man. Pale, broad faced, bad haircut and sores on his chin. He wears an expensive looking watch, a ruby ring and a “We Love Shan State” T-shirt.

It's a tiny village, with a tiny feel. For now there are only four orphans, only one land mine amputee. Most of the town sits in a bowl shaped valley perhaps half a kilometre across, surrounded by steep forested hills. At Gong Mong Mung's main entrance stands a blue oriental archway. Just a few hundred feet before that is the Thai-Burma border with a Thai military checkpoint, with a red and white striped barrier pole and just one young border guard manning the hut. The kilometre of dirt road before him is met by farmland, then a Chinese village on a lake. It's a beautiful, peaceful setting.

There are three teachers and 50 students in the school, between Grades 1-3. Higher grades will be added as the town grows, more teachers come, and the school adds more classrooms. It is currently quite small – one tiny class building one office building, one dining hut.

As in the refugee camps and other IDP villages many of the students were sent ahead to live with extended family. In Gong Mong Mung they can get better education than inside. The school teaches Thai, English, Burmese, Shan, History, Geography and Math. Later, their families may move here to join them.

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.

The Commander of Loi Sam Sip

Another illegal trip into Burma, using what the local connection calls “positive corruption” (whiskey) another dusty refugee village, another SSA commander. 


Since the rest of the party moves like a glacier, and because I wander off without regard, I soon became separated from the others and didn't know where in the village I was or they were. Behind a weak bamboo fence was what was obviously a mini military compound, because it was painted. I saw a truck in there that looked like ours, so, well, they must have driven in and be waiting. There is a compound guard in a little thatched gazebo at the fence, with an MK balanced on his lap. When I walked in, surely the first blonde in months, he looked at me, and I looked at him, and neither of us admitted anything was unusual. There's an army troop truck inside, and a set of flags, so it's a place for some important person. 


After moseying around long enough a woman motioned me in to one of the hot, dark houses, or offices, or whatever. Inside was a man sitting crossed-legged on the raised floor, obviously eating his lunch—rice and dark brown stuff and dark green fluid with black mounds of stuff. He looked at me and I looked at him. I said hello. He said something authoritative to the women, who showed me to sit down, and scurried off. A walkie-talkie buzzed on the table in a corner of the room, which was heavily decorated with maps of Burma and pictures of military processions. I sat down across from him and we looked at each other. 


His English was laboured, but he was the only one around who could speak it, and the only man about the place. “What country you from?” “Canada.” “Hm. Canada.” A woman came with a bowl of rice, for me. “Nam nam nam!” he said, and she returned with a glass of water. I spooned the broth from the black stuff onto my rice, which made whoever this guy was laugh. It was strange him being here, since word was all the village men had left to work in the fields. “Yum, good. Thank you.” “You are medicine?” “Medic? No.” “No medic?” He looked at me sideways and I hesitated and looked at him sideways. “I'm...a...journalist. Newspaper.” He raised his eyebrows and frowned and looked at my camera. Then he laughed but not a happy laugh, rather a slow laugh. “News. How you come?” “Someone brought.” “Who brought?” We stared at each other. I shook my head. “I don't know who.” “Sai Sam?” “No. I don't know. You medic?” “Ha ha!” “You're a soldier?” “Hm, yes soldier.” The walkie-talkie buzzed intermittently, and I accidentally looked at it every time it did. The woman brought another dish, of green and red crusty stuff, and another bowl of rice. “For you, I can't eat more,” I told him, but he shook his head and waved me to load up. “OK, you're big, I'm small.” “Ha ha!” “I take half, you take half,” and I did. “You SSA soldier?” “SSA...You come Dr. Myron?” “Dr. Myron?” then I breathed relief. If he knew of Myron then whoever he was it was probably OK. I told him yes yes, with Dr. Myron. He asked how many of us came, whether we were staying the night, how I liked his food. I ate as heartily as I could to ease the long pauses between our exchanges. He told me Myron was coming to the compound, and I knew I just had to bide my time and so on. Of course, the reason this man was still in town when most others had left to farm, was because he's the regional rebel commander। He's running the place। Jeez, I'm glad he liked me, because eating with him even before I knew who I was with was a bit of a pickle.By the way, he gave me an SSA 2009 calendar.

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.

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.

Uncle Sam

“Don't take my picture. Don't say where I take you. Don't call me my name, call me 'Uncle Sam,' I have enough problems before with foreigners.” Uncle Sam began his life when he was born in Rangoon in 1951. That was before the junta. His mother was a midwife and his father was a health assistant for the government. Even though they were Shan, they had little to fear from the government because of their jobs, and because things weren't so bad then. 


When he finished high school and had to choose a career, Uncle Sam chose jade trading. Moving gem stones out of Burma was a popular business. His dad gave him some start-up funds, which Sam quickly ran through. The trade wasn't as easy as he thought, so rather than face his father with the bad news, Sam went to work construction in Bangkok for three years. His father wasn't an idiot. He entreated Sam repeatedly to come home and try something else.


“You don't have a head for business Sam. My friend will set you up with a job in the hospital mixing drugs.” Sam took the job. Although he wasn't impressed with the pay he found he liked being in Health. Eventually he became a health administrator for the government as his father had been. As such he was assigned to government convoys sent to the Shan countryside, forcing development projects along the way. Much of what employees like himself told the Shan about the projects and the benefits was just propaganda. They never got much. Shan nationalism was growing then. The people weren't happy, not with the government, not with the union, not with the starvation. Kun Se's rebel Maung Tai army was getting stronger, really at its peak back then. They had real weaponry, real training, tens of thousands of volunteers. And of course, such a charismatic leader. Uncle Sam began to help them secretly. As a government employee, the son of a government employee, from Rangoon, he was above suspicion. He wasn't counted among the Shan, even while he stole medicine from the government and gave it away. 


Things were going fine and he wasn't particularly worried about being found out, until Kun Se surrendered to the Burmese in 1996 and went into house arrest in Rangoon. The Maung Tai army broke into pieces, and in the crumbling Uncle Sam was ratted out. “Betrayed me!” he says. He fled to Thailand. 


When he arrived there he found a reunion of rebels. A little disoriented, he served briefly in what was left of the rebel army. By 1997 he knew soldiering wasn't for him any more than gem trading. He learned of the medic training centre in Thailand, further south along the border. The Shan sent him there, where he trained for two years to become something of a rough and ready doctor. He was good at that. And ambitious with it. Before too long he brought his skills to camps of displaced Shan scattered along the northern Thai-Burma border, where the Shan were pushed by a furious Burmese army. Those refugees are still there. Uncle Sam still sends them medicine. 


Today he lives permanently in Thailand, fat and loquacious. Canadians bought him a migrant worker ID, and as long as he has that he can stay. He is happy in his young career. He takes Shan teenagers and makes field medics of them. He butts heads with rebel commanders who stew along the border in new villages of displaced ethnic minorities. Butts heads with well-meaning foreign doctors who come to help him train. Can't ever go back. He betrayed the Burmese government, and then was betrayed himself, so he cannot go back and keep his life.

Shan Village Representatives Interview

Village heads from central Shan state travelled to the SSA camp for a secret conference on the future of the nation. Four of them agreed to meet for an interview, no pictures. With them at the table in a dark SSA hut was the English interpreter, two SSA soldiers who took thorough-looking notes, and me.

All of this entry is exclusively what they told me, drawn from my written notes of the interview.

The village reps all speak, often in unison, responding strongly to certain questions. They had come to the camp to discuss issues of Shan unity, and unity between the Shan and other ethnic groups fighting the junta. Unity, they explain, is one of the six policies of the Shan movement. The others are freedom, democracy, independence, development, anti-narcotics and peace.

They all want Shan state to be an independent country, as they claim was promised to them when Burma gained its independence from England. There are 26 ethnic groups in Shan State (the Shan compose about 60% of the population), but they have faith the 26 will cooperate to build a democratic country. They are even willing to work with the majority ethnicities of the other warring states: the Chin, Karen, Mon, to build a new country from all their lands. Any configuration is acceptable as long as it doesn't include the Burmese. This would result in a state shaped like a horseshoe wrapped around the Irrawaddy delta, but they are confident it can work.

They say it's always been the policy of the military government—the SPDC, to pit the ethnic groups against each other. Now that the election is coming and the SPDC needs to guarantee it will go smoothly, bribes are everywhere. Cars, houses, business opportunities and women all appear where the SPDC wants support. Suddenly, the SPDC has started holding weekly pep meetings in places they never visited peacefully before, laying out food and fine promises for all the villagers who turn out. The reps say everyone inside knows the gifts are meant to buy submission.

The same thing happened in 2008 before the constitutional referendum, in which nobody needed to vote and an appalling constitution was adopted.

They say they never see international aid, NGOs, or foreigners. Only in Taunggyi, the capital city of Shan where tourists are allowed to pass through on their way to Lake Inle, are foreigners ever spotted. But these men can't hang around Taunggyi, and they say they're alone out in the countryside. Not only does the SPDC forbid tourists from going anywhere they want to, foreigners are warned against venturing into the countryside, where they're told the Shan guerrillas will slaughter them.

The reps say come, someone please come and see the situation. They promise that a visitor would see the Shan aren't dangerous, they are friendly and ready to tell the truth. In particular, the men say, if a journalist comes that person would be worshipped for their daring.

One says the reason he came to the IDP camp conference was for the chance to meet a foreigner, and tell these things. They hope that in getting exposure, maybe humanitarian aid will come to Shan. They repeatedly ask the SPDC for health and education supplies, but nothing comes. Nothing but the army.

Since 1962 the army has always meant beatings, lootings, forced labour, extortion and death. If on their way home any are caught having come here they are certain they'll be arrested, they aren't certain of the consequences after that. Whatever happens, they say they are accustomed to being threatened with jail, injury, arbitrary fines and threats to their family. They will pass many checkpoints on their way back inside, and their only plan is to tell the military they were travelling to find work or visiting family on the Salween river.

It's common for Shan to cross into China, Thailand and Laos to find work, usually construction or farm labouring. This is because even without the military a family rarely makes enough at home to subsist on. So many people have crossed the border to work illegally that some Shan villages are made up entirely of old people. These village reps are trying to teach the youth about the independence struggle, but most choose to leave.

Another, almost final way to make enough money is to grow opium. After the fall of the Muang Tai Army in 1996, the SPDC took over the MTA's opium business, forcing farmers to continue growing it. and charging taxes on it. Despite its control of the opium trade the SPDC will also arrest people for it.

If life is hard without the SPDC at its worst, it's nearly impossible when it's on the attack. When the army arrives in a village without an outpost, it orders people away from their farms in order to act as slaves, building a base and carrying army equipment to the next site. It seizes food, supplies and accommodations, punishing anyone who opposes them. A few months ago the army burned two villages to the ground.

Rebel forces aren't thought of as a fighting resource equal to the SPDC. The SSA won't battle the Burmese near a village, as villages suspecting of helping rebels have been severely punished. Instead, rebels are all guerrilla fighters, ambushing government forces in the mountain forests. They say the SPDC hate the Free Burma Rangers the most, because the FBR carry a satellite Internet connection and post pictures of SPDC destruction online immediately after they find it. No matter what, the Shan reps feel like there is no way out. They believe their countrymen living a good life in Rangoon or Mandalay don't know the reality of life for the Shan, but they do know the SPDC are an evil force.

Why is the SPDC doing this? The consensus among the village reps is that this is ethnic cleansing. It always has been. The Burmese in power want the Shan and all the other ethnic groups to disappear, whether by assimilating, leaving or dying.

What the Shan want is the world to know, including the UN, so that they can get humanitarian aid, and eventually freedom. Some of the truth of what life is like in Burma was revealed during the democracy movement and massacre of 1988, but it's always been extremely hard for the Shan's voice to be heard. They say what the world sees of the Shan is just a shadow, not the body.

Interpreter Sang Won

Sang Wan was the interpreter for the Shan village reps interview. He's 34 years old, and he perfected his English by living in India for ten years. Apparently, for Shan who can afford higher education, going to India is a common way to study abroad for cheap.

After India he lived in Rangoon, then worked in Bangkok for a year and a half as a Thai-English translator before moving to Loi Tai Leng nearly a year ago. Now he's a member of the Shan army, working in the foreign affairs office and interpreting for foreign visitors.

He's a nice little man with wide-spaced teeth and a brown leather jacket. I first met him on the main road through Loi Tai Leng. It was evening and after a day of driving to camp we were finally there, so I walked out to have a look at the place. Sang Wan passed by and immediately began chatting, introducing himself, asking when we were likely to meet again. He wasn't the first English speaker I'd met in camp, so already I was impressed at the difference between people here and in Loi Kaw Wan.

After the interview finishes he and I walk with one of the soldiers who monitored me, whom happens to be a former member of the Free Burma Rangers and a friend of Sang Wan's from training days.

“If you extend your visa for six or seven months and come back here, you can go to the front lines.”

“I've been asking to go with the SSA for a year. I don't believe you.”

“You want to go?”

“Of course. I can't see anything from just the camps.”

For some reason the three of us began to joke around and do mock kung fu moves on each other.

“But in the jungle, you have to go like this,” said Sang Wan as he put me in a head lock and pretended to break my neck.

Interview with medic Bay Da, Shan State, February 2010

From an interview with 27-year-old medic Bay Da, Loi Kaw Wan, Burma, February 2010

What is Loi Kaw Wan?

Loi Kaw Wan is one of the IDP camp. People move from inside Shan State to live here. 

What year did Loi Kaw Wan begin?

Since 2000. During I am here, I didn't hear any problems around here.

We're still in Burma. Why is this place safer than further inside Shan State?

Because how to say that, we have like SSA (rebel Shan State Army) around here to protect this village.

If you're in Burma, in Shan State, how do people get to the IDP camps?

Very difficult. Walking, mostly.

Are you in the SSA?

Yes, I'm medic.

Do all the men have to be in the SSA, or they can choose?

They can choose. Not all. Depend on their mind.

Can they pay their soldiers?

No—which one?

Can the SSA pay?

Yes.

A lot of money?

No. I don't know about that. Not so much.

Do medics get paid good money?

Not so much, in the middle. 1,500 baht. (Per month. =$50)

That's enough?

Not enough.

Is there any way to make money here?

Yes, like, we have to go and pick tea leaves, in Thailand. And then sometimes we farm by ourself. Rice, pig, some rice farm.

Why do the Shan people need medics? Are there no doctors here?

No. Like inside Shan State? Most of the people there get sick, but no doctor, no health worker there. Nobody, like, very few medics.

How many medics are there here in Loi Kaw Wan now?

All of the medics here, 30. But all of them not here.

Where do they go?

Backpack inside. They go inside Shan State and look, take care of the patient inside.

Is it dangerous?

Yes, dangerous. Maybe sometime they're—I don't know, about the SPDC (the Burmese government and army). We have to be careful.

You're only giving medicine. What's wrong with that?

They don't like.

Why not?

They think that we are against them.

Are you?

Yes.

What does the SPDC want to do to the Shan?

They want, like, how to say? They want the Shan all, the Shan people, like no any, like, how to say? They want to do ethnic clean, cleansing. They want Shans to disappear.

But there are eight million Shans.

Yes. They try to control. They make us can't do anything. Like in Shan State they don't allow Shan people to study our language, like that. Like, sometime we study our language in a small village or monastery, temple.

In secret?

Yes.

So do they want you to become like the Burmese, or to disappear?

Maybe both.

How many ethnic groups are in Shan State?

Oh, about 20 ethnic. Shan, Palong, Wa, Kogank, Lahu, Akha, and Chinese. Pa'o, Kayin, many many, but I can't remember. Biggest group is Shan.

Do they want them to disappear too?

Yes, also the same. Everybody in Shan State.

Are there things in Shan State that the Burmese government wants?

Yes, things like natural resources. Wood. How to say, silver. The mines. Mining. No oil. Like gold. Diamond, yes they need a lot. Teak. They don't care about environment.

Do you want to go back to Shan State if you can?

Yes, but if the situation doesn't change it's not safe for me to go back.

What do you think could happen to you?

The SPDC they know from here, they will catch me and torture and they will kill me maybe. I don't know.

Have you seen them torture people before?

Yes.

Who?

My dad. When I was young, about eight or 10 years. They came and took my dad to be a porter and they torture him with cigarette and burn him, burn his cheek.

What did you do?

At that time I'm just children, I don't know. I can't do anything. And my mom only crying.

How long did the SPDC stay with you?

About one or two days. In my village they come from the city.

Did they tell you why?

I don't know. I can't speak their language. I don't know, I don't know. I just see. Make me sad.

Do they do this many times?

Many many times in my village.

Do you know now why they came?

I don't know.

When the SPDC comes to the Shan villages are they all soldiers, or other kinds?

All soldier.

They make you do porter work—

Yes. When I was young I used to go and build house for them.

You built their house?

Yes. Build, and dig. Dig the ground for their fighting.

But they're fighting the Shan.

Yes, but they force us to go to do for them.

So they force you to build their barracks to fight you. Are you angry?

Very angry.

You said they came when you were eight, that was almost 20 years ago. Are they doing the same thing today?

Worse than that. Like last year, they burn the house inside Shan State. They burn the village.

Have you been interviewed before?

Yes, I think two or three times.

Do you think it's helping when you tell your story?

Yes, I think it helps.

Does it make you tired, or sad though?

Yes, makes me sad but, also make me strong.

Can you still contact your family in Shan State?

Yes, by telephone. Sometimes, maybe once a year.

Why not more?

If they don't call me I cannot call them, because they are very far from the town. They come to the town and call me. Give me bad news.

What is the news they gave you this week?

I lost my nephew.

How old was he?

About four years.

How did he die?

From disease. Some disease but I don't know. They don't know. I also ask them, but they don't know.

Didn't he go to a hospital?

No, no hospital there. Just wait and see. Sometimes a little bit herbal medicine from the forest, but not help very much. I lost three younger brother and one sister and one nephew. Five of them, from different diseases.

Do you think about the election anymore?

I don't think the election will be fair. I don't think.

Do you know when it will be?

I don't know. They won't tell. I have no idea about that. Nobody knows.

Can you vote in the election?

No. Most of them, most of the Shan people that live in the small village outside the town they don't have ID, how can they vote? To get ID we have to pay a lot of money.