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.”

Loi Tai Leng Clinic

Loi Tai Leng Clinic interview transcript with Head Medic Paw Shar Gay, February 2010

How many medics do you have here?

Here we have two medics, and the other people is me, Ba Tay is finished from Dr. Cynthia's clinic and then the other is finished the Siesta Blue training. Siesta Blue training Community Health Worker. Total staff at the clinic is 22 people.

How many patients do you get here per day?

One day is maybe 20, sometimes 30.

Are they mostly from Loi Tai Leng, or from inside Burma too?

Some people is from outside, some people is from here. But mostly IPD (In-Patient Department) is outside.

Loi Tai Leng's problem is ARI (acute respiratory infection), also skin infection is high. And rainy season is rain all the time, four months no sun. Sometimes is maybe one week or two week sun is come out. You know, our dress we make the fire wood and the fire make dry. The sun cannot make dry. And then UTI (urinary tract infection) is become high.

What do you do to help people prevent it?

Every year we plan to prevent it. Our clinic do like the home visit. One month we will going to section and home by home, give education. And then give information and vitamin A.

Do you see vitamin A deficiency here?

Sometimes we see like one year maybe one case or two case.

Do you always have enough medicine?

Enough medicine? Yeah is enough. Before the medicine did not enough and then we ask more money to buy the medicine. And the Partner did not came in here and also backpack, FBR (Free Burma Rangers) did not come in here. From outside, we take medicine here to outside and go and give the people who live outside Loi Tai Leng, like mobile team, and then our medicine did not enough.

The donor says 'Paw Shar Gay, you say every year medicine did not enough. How about this year, this is enough?' Last year he come back. And then I said, 'yes, before medicine did not enough, but this year enough.'

And then he laughing and said 'why medicine did enough this year?'

'Backpack is coming here, and then FBR is coming here and go outside outside, and same the Partner group is outside and then our medicine we use here not outside.' So here is enough for me.

Are there any backpack medics here?

Backpack medics is four, five people. Yes, sometimes if they come back from inside they coming here. If he going inside maybe two months or one month he will come back here.

Are people's gardens here big enough that their nutrition is good?

Yeah, we see now better than years before. And then we can get vegetables. Big garden (in reference to the sponsored one in the valley) but the vegetables is not enough. Some the shopping go down to Burma part and buy vegetable. Because you know here we can plant in the rainy season. This season no water. We can't plant, we have to buy outside. But in the rainy season is enough. We can buy here and sell here, in the garden. It's like, how do you say, save the money for us. But in the dry season is cannot save the money.

Do you have a computer?

Yeah. One computer is not so good. Internet if we going to the leader's house and check the Internet. But our computer is maybe five years. Is working very very slowly.

Do you see health here looks better now than when you began as a medic 14 years ago?

When I arrived here in 1999, no clinic. In 2000 one clinic. The people, the leader here is building the one clinic, like small like this, this room. We treat the villager, also the military. We treat both. And then clinic is very small, in Section 3.

At that time the people is not know about health. Not health education, they did not know about this so much. They did not know about the family planning. You know in the year 2000 we delivered 120 babies. At that time population is maybe 1,000. And now population is 2,600. More people here but the people know about the education and then they can provide and think. And this year is 42 babies delivered. Very different.

Then you know about the vaccine? Before two year, three year they don't want to receive the vaccine immunization, because the people said if they get the immunization her children is become sick and then is painful, cannot sleeping enough for the night time, because the baby is crying. Very painful, they don't want to come. The health worker is work hard, like go down and give education like this. Because immunization is very very important. But many people they also tell me, 'before we did not receive, we never receive vaccine. But we alive until now. We did not get other disease like you say.'

They ask me and then I answer, 'before is like the before. Before is the disease is not like this. So your baby, how do you say? Like, you is very old, and then you will dead. Your baby is growing and then in the future you will not see. Your baby, maybe your baby can get some anything you did not know about. If you receive the vaccine maybe the vaccine can help like the infection is coming less. Not 100 per cent. Maybe 50 per cent. Explain the parent about the vaccine. And then now, if we looking in the register book the vaccine is become improved. And many children is receive the full course of the vaccine, immunization. For me I think is improved.

And then the last one is education about diarrhoea. We need to boiling the water and then drinking. If you boiling the water, water will be safe for our life. Cannot get the disease easy like the diarrhoea, something like that. Washing the hands for you going to toilet, but if after you finish the toilet after you come back wash your hands before eating.

One man is very old, and then he ask me, because we give toilets, we have the budget for building the toilets. We ask to building the toilets and one man he ask me, 'Sa Mah,' they call me Sa Mah, 'I never believe about this because now my age is 70 and I never boiling the water and drinking the water because if you boiling the water, the water is not sweet. If you go to taking in the river and then drink, is sweet. And then sometimes we did not go in the toilet, we go in the forest. Sometimes we going pass stool in the river,' he said like this.

And then I'm about this question thinking, because I cannot answer yet. I thinking, and then I remember my Sir tell me that if you go in the community you will get many many problems. The people will ask you many questions. And then I remember. I ask that man, 'OK, you say is true. The water you carry from the river is sweet. If you boiling then is not so sweet, right, true. But at that time,' I call him uncle, 'Uncle, at that time how many household at that village?'

And then he answer me 'not so much.'

'And then you see now, many people in this village. And then if the one people going to pass stool at the river, and another people is going to pass, it will put a lot of things in the water. It will be clouding. If only Uncle you going to pass in the river maybe the river will pass stool with the river, but many people not so good.

And the pig, they did not make the pen, they did not have a pen for a pig, they will free for the pig. And then maybe that pig will go pass stool at the river. And then maybe the rabbit, some rabbit is move down to the river. And then this water is sweet. So then uncle is drinking some stool from the river, so become sweet. So that uncle not believe me. Only uncle can pass in the river, but for the other people I think it's not so good if you go down to pass in the river or in the forest. You need to build the toilet. The toilet it will save the stool and then not so smell.

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.