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.

Mae Tao Clinic's HIV Program

For the past seven years the Mae Tao Clinic has run a voluntary HIV counselling and testing program. Every month the clinic hosts a get-together for the program members, usually to the Tai Watanaram monastery. Today, about forty patients came, some with their families. They took a yoga class at the foot of the monastery's three-story reclining Buddha while their children ran around.

Naturally the program members are all HIV positive, and many have additional problems like tuberculosis, liver disease and gynaecological problems, but they all look young and healthy. They're in their twenties, many with children. Of course those who are very sick probably don't come to the group outings, nonetheless all the vibrant looking people here are infected.

Saw Than Iwin is the program manager. He's an angular young man from Burma, living here and working for the Mae Tao Clinic illegally. He says that when the program started between 60 and 80 people volunteered to be tested for HIV every month. Over the past few years it's levelled off at 100 at month. Since the Mae Tao Clinic caters to the Burmese border community, it's Burmese who are in this AIDS group. About half of them live in Burma and cross over for treatment, and outings like today's.


“A very small percent knows about HIV and how it's transmitted,” says Iwin of the patients coming from Burma. There is some HIV-AIDS education within Burma, but it is only delivered by NGOs like UNICEF, mainly on TV. “Still not enough,” Iwin says.

Iwin and the program's staff are busy with counselling, explaining treatment and organizing program events. The members are like people anywhere else in the world. They complain if outings aren't interesting, make excuses about not using condoms. As each patient is different (some have other illnesses, some are less diligent about taking the anti-retroviral drugs supplied by the city hospital, some can afford a better diet and more relaxed lifestyle than others) no one can predict how long any of them will live.

The commonest way to become infected in the Mae Sot-Myawaddy area is through sexual transmission, but some others are victims of poisonous blood transfusions. That's how one 14-year-old girl in the group became infected several years ago. Iwin says her family brought her in for testing after she became mysteriously ill following her transfusion. The tests came back negative, but she continued to get inexplicably sick. When the family brought her back for another HIV test they learned she was indeed infected. Still, Iwin says the patients are all counselled not to worry about the future.

Ma La; the Biggest Refugee Camp in Thailand

Elvis' father loved The King, so he named his son “Elvis.” He's from a Karen village near Rangoon. The Tatmadaw (Burmese state army) burned his village down in 2008, driving Elvis and his wife into the jungle. They walked through the forests for a month with a group of 55, aiming for the Thai border.

The Karen National Union (KNU) army provided what help they could to get the group to Mae La refugee camp, several miles from Mae Sot and the Friendship Bridge that funnels tourists into Burma. Mae La is the largest refugee camp in Thailand—40,000 people live here. It's also the oldest at 24 years. It's built along the highway so it's not difficult for tourists to see this spectacle. Go, see it.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is the umbrella administrator for the refugee camp, however it's presence is barely palpable. Instead, it is the KNU that involves itself in the daily life of Karen refugees. Elvis explains “they help. If they do not help all refugees then all have no hope. All die I think...Now many people are running in the jungle...so we pray for them.”


With a year's experience teaching in Burma, he was hired on to teach at one of Mae La's many schools (the camp has eight high schools, 18 primaries, three colleges and “many” kindergartens. None of these are sophisticated education centres. Rather, they are bamboo long houses. If they're lucky they have concrete floors and tin roofs, otherwise they have dirt floors and thatched roofs).

The KNU organizes a curriculum close to that in Burma. As in many other Burmese refugee and IDP camps, half of the curriculum is devoted to learning languages. The subjects taught are English, Thai, Karen, Burmese, Math, Science and History. This seems to apply around the entire border, with only the ethno-specific language changing. Despite the difficulties of life in a refugee camp, many Burmese send their children their for education, a type of war zone boarding school where children are relatively safe and the standard of education is slightly better. Many return to Burma for the holidays.

Some problems are easy to guess – there is never enough food. Water can be tight, housing is very crowded and there's only a rudimentary economy. Of the nearly 2,000 homes in Elvis' section of the camp, 10 have electricity.

The reason there isn't enough food is partially due to the fact that the UNHCR office is not permanently open to register refugees. Instead, registration only occurs every four to five years. The Thai border authority (TBBC) registers newcomers immediately, but it's the UNHCR that administers food rations, and it sets a limit on how many will be registered for rations and an ID card that allows them in and out of camp. Elvis says between 13,000 and 14,000 of Mae La's 40,000 residents are registered with the UNHCR. To make up for the shortage the KNU and smaller NGOs bring in extra supplies, and registered residents share what they have. In general, everyone gets two basic meals a day.


To Elvis, the biggest problem is resignation, especially among those growing up in the camp. Some have spent their entire life here. They can't understand life in Burma, Thailand or the magical “third country” on which everyone pins their hopes.


New arrivals know what life is in Burma, so they decide to work as hard as they can to make a new life. Elvis' new students work harder in school, believing if they do it will improve their chances at being accepted into Thailand or for emigration to a third country. Students native to the camp know the third countries, usually the US and Australia, only take a few dozen out of 40,000 every year. They know a life of boredom and free food.

“Some students have a high value of learning,” says Elvis. “Some are not interested because if you're born in camp you get your rations and no working. It's not a lot but... if you're used to eat that much, so, it's OK.” He says he tries to coax them into hope. “Don't prefer your life for your rations. You should try hard.”


The CIA World Factbook states there were 132,000 refugees in Thailand as of 2007. That doesn't count legal and illegal migrants, which are estimated to be two million Burmese in Thailand.