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Japan Times, Wednesday, May 7, 1997

ALL QUIET ON THE THAI-MYANMAR BORDER

by James Whitlow Delano

	"We couldn't make radio contact with the KNU [Karen National Union]
rebels," said the human rights monitor.  "It's the monsoon, so there may be
no trucks coming to Thailand from Burma [Myanmar]."
	"Besides," she added, "it's possible that the Thai border guards wouldn't
let a foreigner pass, anyhow.  You're not Asian, are you?  That would make
it easier."
	"No," I answered.
	As I stepped out of the telephone booth, I realized I wouldn't be able to
enter the KNU's free state, which still provides sanctuary for the KNU and
the All-Burma Students Democratic Front (ABSDF).  Instead I boarded a
predawn bus bound for the border town of Mae Sot.
	In Mae Sot I caught a /songthaew/ carrying refugees back to camp from the
Mae Sot central market.  Songthaews are canopied Japanese pickups used
throughout the countryside as public transportation.  About halfway to my
destination, Mae La, a Myanmar family flagged down the songthaew.  Faces
covered with yellow /thanaka/, the women climbed in first, removing their
giant conical sun hats.  Thanaka is a paste made from tree bark, used as
makeup and sunblock.
	The eldest woman cradled a struggling cock under her arm.  The youngest
woman flashed a shy smile, her flawless skin contrasting with the deep lines
marking her grandmother's withered face.  The men, wearing /longyi/
(sarongs) loaded dusty sacks of rice and potatoes between passengers' knees.
	When the paved road gave to dirt in a steep jungle canyon, passengers
squinted and held batik handkerchiefs to their noses and mouths.  Dust in
our wake filtered through the jungle trees crowding the road.  The teak
trees, in yellow-green bloom, stood out from the canopy.
	The songthaew came to its first scheduled stop at a Karen-style village.
	"Mae La?" I asked, gesturing toward the village.
	"Bek Loh," the tiny grandmother said, and climbed out.
	I made note of Bek Loh and decided to return there after Mae La.  White
cliffs rose behind the village.  Vegetation swarmed over every surface.
Hundreds of raised Karen-style huts lined the road; broad, dry leaves
shingled gently pitched roofs.  Banana trees stood between the houses.
	Mae La overlooks a bend in the Moei River.  The forbidden state of Kayin
("Karen" in Burmese) lay on the opposite shore.  Forested mountains rose
from the horizon above gray pitched roofs faintly visible through high bamboo.
	I followed the road along the river.  It was well covered by Thai military
placements; two smiling Thai soldiers waved down from their machine gun nest
commanding a sweeping view of the valley spreading out on both sides of the
border.
	There were no refugees in Mae La.  It was a Thai village.  At a Buddhist
school, a Karen woman teacher named Moola sent a young boy to find a
motorcycle to take me to the refugee camp -- at Bek Loh.
	The Karen have been offering armed resistance since the autonomy promised
in the Panglong Agreement of 1947, which also gave Burma independence from
the British, was not honored by the Burmese.  (The name Myanmar was not
adopted until 1989.)  The current government, the State Law and Order
Restoration Council (SLORC), took advantage of a rift between Christian and
Buddhist Karen by extending support to the Buddhists in January 1995.
Violating a ceasefire, their combined forces made a great advance.  The KNU
is now barely holding on after 50 years of resistance.
	The motorcycle arrived as the clouds, now gray, were building.  We sped
toward Bek Loh, passing a concrete watchtower.  A jeep was parked out front
with a machine gun mounted on it.  How far, I wondered, would the Thai
military go to defend foreign refugees?
	Large raindrops pounded harmlessly on giant leaves used as umbrellas by two
old Karen women.  Men, disregarding the rain, walked along the road burdened
with rattan backpacks.  A swashbuckling KNU rebel sporting a flowing black
bandanna on his head exploded from the forest and swung himself up on the
back of the songthaew with one hand, pointing his automatic rifle skyward
with the other.
	The motorcycle ran out of gas in front of the soldiers guarding the main
entrance to Bek Loh refugee camp.  Almost apologetically, I approached the
soldiers, expecting to be denied entry into the camp.  Two were playing
cards while a third reclined on a bamboo cot.  Barely acknowledging my
presence, they motioned me to pass.
	The words "refugee camp" call to mind sprawling shanty towns of corrugated
steel and plastic sheeting, festering in squalor.  Bek Loh was different.
In a way, the camp was merely an overgrown Karen village like those which,
in much smaller versions, dot the Karen homeland along the Myanmar-Thai
border, spreading into the Irrawaddy River delta and throughout the Bago
Yoma Mountains of central Myanmar.
	The sun broke through and sent steam rising from my rain-drenched clothing.
Shops opened onto a market street selling anything from foodstuffs to
battery-powered electronics.  Restaurants offered hot food and fabric stores
sold brightly colored longyi.  No foul odors filled the air.
	Myanmar me drew water from a well while women and children bathed in a
stream.  Women carried baskets on their heads, some with babies in longyi
slung across their backs.  Some Muslim men in white skullcaps and long robes
crossed a log bridge on the way to afternoon prayers.
	An old white-haired man with a mustache left a circle of tattooed men
watching a saber-less cockfight.  In halting English, he invited me to tea
at his house.  Taking my shoes off, I climbed onto Puka Su's open veranda.
There were no doors to lock or windows to close.  Teak posts supported the
roof.  We sat cross-legged on the split bamboo floor looking out over a
grove of banana trees.
	I asked about the life he'd left behind in Myanmar.
	"I left Rangoon in 1947," he said.  "I have eight children, four in
Thailand and four in Burma." Yellowing 1970s snapshots of his full-grown
children hung in frames behind us.
	"The guerrilla war was hard," he said, "and now I am too old to fight.  Bek
Loh is about 10 years old but I've been here for two.  There may be 10,000
people here, but who knows?"
	There is little outside work for the refugees in nearby Thai communities,
but still the refugees of Bek Loh could count themselves among the more
fortunate.  Bek Loh is the only refugee camp in the Mae Sot area
administered by the Thai government's Interior Ministry.  As a result, there
is greater security, better health services and government schooling for
children.
	As tensions grow once again in Myanmar, Puka Su and tens of thousands of
other refugees make the most of their sanctuary along the Myanmar-Thai
border.  It is uncertain how long the refugees will be welcome or what their
fate will be if forced to return to Myanmar.  Until the oligarchs of Myanmar
loosen their grip on that nation, the refugees will try to remain in
Thailand, the occasional mortar attacks being the lesser evil.
	(A refugee camp is not recommended as a tourist destination.  Travelers may
help refugees through human rights groups and relief organizations such a
Earth Rights International in Kanchanaburi and the Karen Refugee Committee
in Mae Sot.  It is best to visit in conjunction with one of these groups.)

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