Wednesday 11 April 2012

Young Burmese rapping for change

 If a picture paints a thousand words, then a Burmese democracy group is hoping graffiti can awaken a nation.
A house inside a small compound on the Thai-Burma border is home to about 10 young people who listen to hip hop, ride scooters and do some mad graffiti.
These men and women – many of them university graduates – also talk openly about democracy.
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Unlike their neighbours, the graffiti-stamped walls of their tightly guarded safe house are bright with democracy slogans.
Tagged ... Generation Wave's trademark.
This is the secret residence of Generation Wave, a group of young Burmese democracy activists.
Inside the carefully swept living room, the television cabinet is overflowing with posters and a copy of Time magazine, featuring the opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, affectionately called the Lady by her Burmese supporters, on the front cover.
Bo Bo, a member of the group, says they use false names to protect their identity and spare their families from arrest, intimidation or harassment from the Burmese government.
In Burma, renamed Myanmar by the regime, speaking openly about democracy can get you arrested, beaten and imprisoned. It has already happened to some of these young men and women; others say they're prepared to face it.
Despite recent reforms by President Thein Sein's government, including the release of Suu Kyi, which have earned it cautious praise from Western leaders, many Burmese are still sceptical of their government's intentions.
Twenty-two members of Generation Wave have been arrested by the regime since the group formed in 2007, including founders Aung Zay Phyo and Zayar Thaw.
Phyo and Thaw were among a few hundred of what human rights groups estimated to be thousands of political prisoners languishing in Burma's primitive and abusive jails who were released in 2010 as part of the newly elected government's amnesty pledge. A further 650 prisoners were released in a mass amnesty in January this year.
Generation Wave members Bo Bo and Aung Zay Phyo.  

Phyo was released in May 2010 after serving more than four years of a five-year sentence for being part of what the regime called an illegal organisation.
At the time of his arrest, he was organising a 20th anniversary commemoration for a popular student activist, one among thousands of Burmese killed in the 1988 uprising against the repressive junta.
After his arrest, Phyo was detained at an interrogation centre inside Rangoon's notorious Insein prison for several days and was beaten and tortured before his sentencing.
He says the prisoner amnesty was a publicity stunt by the junta and, despite being free for more than a year, he is still a target for persecution. He fears he could be arrested at any time.
“So far we cannot say that we are free. All the people in our country, their lives are not safe,” Phyo says.
“We're still trying to get freedom. But so far nothing has happened . . . we are constantly under watch. Our activities are monitored and the police keep tabs on which people are associating with us.”
Aung Zay Phyo with his Lady.
However, he says this is an important time for Generation Wave and the group is working harder than ever to deliver its policy of educating, uniting and mobilising young people to understand and demand democracy.
“Of course I worry about being imprisoned, but I cannot stop. It's my responsibility to do something for my country. That's why we are activists.
“We're trying to mobilise people, educate on human rights and democracy, collaborate with other student groups and improve the situation for our country.”
He says young people are the victims of the junta's repressive regime which has brought various trade and economic sanctions.
“Most of the youth in our country have lost their future. Even if we've gone through university, there are no job opportunities for us. We don't want this situation, not just for ourselves, but for the future of other young people in our country.
“We want their future to be guaranteed. As youth, we'd like to take responsibility for our country and improve the situation. That's why we founded this organisation.”
Zayar Thaw is a hip-hop artist and one of the key founders of Generation Wave. He's also the mastermind behind the catchy lyrics which are also the group's slogan.
“We're the left hand of the boxer but the people do the knockout. We will facilitate and agitate and motivate the young people,” Thaw says.
Despite being imprisoned for more than three years, he says there's no point in him being scared of the regime.
“If you're afraid of something, in your mind, you can't do anything clearly,” Thaw tells me across the table of one of the few Western coffee shops in Rangoon.
“I am a political activist, a Generation Wave member," he says.
"Right now the government didn't arrest me, but they can arrest me whenever they want because our group is deemed an illegal organisation.”
Through the window behind him, the sun reflects off the shiny barrel of an M16 machinegun carried by a Burmese soldier patrolling the perimeter of a five-star hotel, which Thaw tells me is frequented by high-ranking members of President Thein Sein's government.
Despite the heavy military presence which has become a way of life for the citizenry, Thaw says young people are becoming interested in politics and want to be involved in shaping the political future of Burma.
“We just want to live a normal life. We're not greedy or aggressive – we just want to live a simple, normal life,” he says.
“We are doing this for our birthright, our inherent rights. The government has stolen from us and we're going to ask them to give it back. That's all.”

Published: http://www.smh.com.au/world/inside-burmas-democracy-movement-20120305-1ucod.html#ixzz1rnMD7zbs

Burmese refugees face life in limbo


Dickson wants a better education for his students.
Dickson Hoo is 24 years old, a grade nine mathematics teacher and deputy principal at a mission school. He’s a bright young man who knows all his students by their first names. But instead of air-conditioned classrooms and computer screens, he teaches quadratics on a donated blackboard with a ragged piece of chalk while his students jostle for a place on rough wooden benches, their feet dangling above a well-swept dirt floor.
Dickson has lived and taught in Mae La refugee camp for the past five years. Mae La is the biggest of nine refugee camps peppered along the Thai border with Burma and overflowing with around 50,000 traumatised, desperate people.
Dickson’s father Saw Tar Hoo is a pastor, a tall solemn man who fled Rangoon with his wife Daisy and their children in 2006 to escape the brutal Burmese military regime. Dickson and his family belong to the Karen ethnic group, which has suffered at the hands of the Burmese government since the country’s independence from British rule in 1948.
The UN Human Rights Commission (UNHCR) reports over 90 per cent of Mae La’s refugees are of Karen ethnic origin and most have fled attacks in southeastern Burma.
Dickson, with his parents Daisy and Saw Tar Hoo.
Dickson says his students, around 1,300 boys and girls ranging from 11 to 20 years of age, are some of the lucky ones.
“There are still so many children in the camp who cannot come to school because we simply don’t have any more room for them,” he says sadly.
He proudly shows me their small library with rough wooden shelves stacked with books donated from various NGOs. A young Karen girl is sitting in the corner, bent over her books. Dickson says she’s busy studying for the end of year exams, although he sadly admits that for most of his students there are no further opportunities once they’ve finished their schooling.
“Around one or two per cent of our students may have the opportunity to go to a third country with their families and of course, that’s what everyone here is hoping for,” he says.
Dickson’s elder brother, Nickson, was one of those fortunate to be accepted in the last round of the UNHCR’s resettlement program and now lives in the US. His eyes light up as he tells me how he dreams of following his brother and finishing his own education at a western university.
“I want to get a good education, to become a qualified teacher then come back here to help my Karen people,” he tells me.
He had only just completed the second year of a mathematics degree at West Rangoon University in Burma’s former capital before being forced to abandon his studies, home and childhood friends when his family fled for the safety of the refugee camp.
Dickson says he tried to register himself and his family with the UNHCR and apply for the resettlement program as soon as they arrived in Mae La refugee camp on Boxing Day 2006, but was told by camp authorities the UN was not taking on any new refugees. He says he’s confused and angry because of conflicting information from camp authorities. “In 2007, they told me to wait until 2010, I went back later and they said 2011. Now they’ve told me maybe we can register in 2013 or 2014.”
One camp official told him to stop asking because the UN is not taking on any more refugees. “‘You’ll stay in this camp for the rest of your life,’ he told me.”
Nobody has told Dickson that unless the UNHCR can convince the Thai government to reopen its refugee pre-screening and registration program, his future and that of almost 70,000 other displaced Burmese, is in limbo.
Because his family arrived after the Thai government suspended its screening program in late 2005, he does not have official UNHCR refugee status and therefore cannot apply for third country resettlement. It also means he cannot leave the confines of the camp, go to a library, an internet café or the UNHCR field office in nearby Mae Sot because he does not possess an official UNHCR registration card, which is the only protection that refugees have against arrest and detention by Thai authorities.
Aid agency, the Thai Burma Border Consortium (TBBC), reported in October 2011 that almost 70,000 of some 150,000 of residents across all nine camps are unregistered refugees and most new arrivals since 2005 are not registered.
The UNHCR has resettled over 58,000 refugees in third countries since 2005, mostly the US, Canada and Australia, in a bid to alleviate the congestion in the camps. Some, including Mae La camp, have been operating for more than 20 years.
However, TBBC reports show that despite the mass resettlement program, the population of the camps has remained constant as thousands more displaced Burmese seek refuge from persecution.
However, Dickson and many others hoping to forget the torments of their past and start new lives in a third country do not realise that unless they registered before 2005, they have no chance.
The Thai government has been under pressure from Burmese authorities to close down the camps, giving vulnerable residents no choice but to return to the uncertainty and persecution from which they originally fled.
In April, Thai authorities said they had a three-year plan to close all nine refugee camps, something TBBC deputy executive director Sally Thompson says is unrealistic and premature.
“We all want the camps to close and for the people to return to their homes. But that can only happen when the situation in Burma improves and people are guaranteed safety and security. At the moment people do not feel safe to return,” Thompson says.
But Dickson’s father is growing weary with the desperation and hopelessness of their situation. “It’s like house arrest, we are prisoners here,” he says sadly, staring at the floor. “The Thai authorities won’t allow us to leave the camp but we can’t go back to Burma because we will be killed.”
Nestled at the base of a looming mountain range which is all that stands between the Thai border with Burma, Mae La refugee camp bakes quietly in the heat of the December sun.
Run by the Thai Ministry of Interior, the camp is surrounded by barbed wire and high bamboo fences topped with jagged spikes. A young man in uniform lounges in the sparse shade offered by a makeshift guard post.
A few hundred metres down the road at an official checkpoint, uniformed and armed authorities scrutinise the comings and goings of every vehicle. Burmese refugees caught without an official identity card face imprisonment and deportation.
But this hasn’t deterred a group of youths standing defiantly by the side of the road, around the corner and out of sight of the Thai guards. Theirs is not the bright and shiny world of shopping malls, video games and cinemas.
Even if they did manage to hitch a ride some 60 kilometres to the sleepy border town of Mae Sot, avoiding the various police checkpoints along the way, with no money and no understanding of the Thai language, they would be targets for exploitation by unscrupulous employers who prefer Burmese workers because they can pay them less than a third of the usual going daily rate, around 60 Baht, or $US2 per day.
Dickson says while people know the dangers, some prefer to take their chances because they are desperate and have lost hoping waiting for help in the camp. “Some people have been here 20 years … some have been resettled but so many of us are still here, waiting and wasting our lives.
“If I didn’t have my school … and my family here with me, sometimes I don’t know what I would do,” he says quietly. “Of course we want to go home … I want to see Burma, my country. But it’s not safe for us there.”
Then as a bell rings for the start of school, he squares his shoulders and follows a line of students inside the squat tin-roofed buildings for another day at High School Two, Mae La camp.

Published:
http://www.dvb.no/analysis/i-want-to-see-burma-my-country-but-it%E2%80%99s-not-safe-for-us-there/19297