Elvis E'hgay & 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.

Interview with Global Neighbors founder Dave Heppner, of Saskatchewan

Digging a well by hand to irrigate the Global Neighbors farm in Mae Sot.


Tell me about Global Neighbors. What is it, how did it get going? 
Heather (Heppner's wife) and I travelled to Thailand in 2004 and we were introduced to the situation on the borderline. We actually visited a small school, Saw Thoo Lei, I don't know if you've visited that school or not. We decided we couldn't change the entire world, obviously, but we did think that we could make a difference in this one place. So Heather and I decided to help the one small school. And we came back to Prince Albert and started talking to business people in the city here and people rallied behind us and they joined in and we bought some land and built a school for Hsa Thoo Lei and then after that we bought the land where the school was built and we built a dormitory for 200 kids right next to the school. And after that we built a day-care for abut 80 kids and so it just kind of kept on going. We just finished our last dormitory, as far as the education goes we built a dorm for 200 kids. The old dormitory is going to be used for future training and offices for the Burmese migrant workers association.
So that's basically how we got going, and from that point we branched out into two agricultural projects. 
We bought 79 Rai (30 acres) in Krep Lo, which is just outside of Mae Sot. We've had it for one year, and that's the farm we bought. We have title to it. And there's another agriculture project we're working on as well which is the school of 360 kids in the area and they are and were in extreme need of funding. So instead of funding the school we set up an agricultural project there as well. We bought about 40 Rai in that area, which is probably around 20 acres or so (approximately 16 acres), and we built a hog barn for them there and set up an irrigation system. And hopefully we'll help them into self sufficiency within the next couple years.

Who introduced you here?
What happened is, the reason Heather and myself went is my daughter and our son-in-law were hired to set up a program in Thailand, an experiential program with a university. My son-in-law couldn't go so the director of the program and my daughter went and they asked us to join them. And while auditing and eating with a member of the Chiang Mai University and the International Justice Mission - the International Justice Mission works with getting kids out of the sex trade, and so at the end of the meeting, which was actually quite graphic, they said there's another issue that's more pressing and that's the migrant situation on the borderland. After hearing that said we need to basically check it out. We rented a van and we picked up a Karen translator in Mae Sariang and then we drove down to Mae Sot. He showed us Mae La refugee camp, and then we also went to Mae Sot overnight and just before we left in the morning we spent about 15 minutes at the school. And so that's basically how we got to Mae Sot.

So you were hooked on the Karen?
Yes I was. We were very much engaged. After, we wanted to help them. There were some very very good people with a very difficult past and a rather bleak future from the way it looks right now. But hopefully things will change in Burma so they can go back to their homeland.

Tell me about your plans for the farm. Henry (farm manager Henry Tha Won Phirachenchie) took us out there the other day, now I'd like to hear about it from you.
Well first of all I'd just like to say that Henry is a gem of a man. We're just so privileged to work with him. He is a positive, energetic guy, who's just very happy to be helping his people. Did Henry give you the story of what he did before?

Yes, he said he was a caretaker with his family for a bunch of orphans in Mae La, but not too too much.
Well, basically what happened is he started a school (in Mae La refugee camp) there's about 200 odd kids there and he started the school, and he funded the school entirely on his own. He worked for Princess Cruise Lines. And he has had Hep B since birth, lots of people in Mae La camp have it. They did testing after about four or so, four or five years of him being with Princess Cruise Lines, and they tested for hep B and he had Hep B and therefore he could no longer work. And so here he was left with the dormitory and the school and no funding. And this is where we kind of intersected our lives. I was very impressed with him when he was translating for us and I asked him if he would like to be the manager of our farm. And he was very very excited about that and he still is to this day. So that's kind of how we bumped into Henry.
So what we've done now is it's one year of operations, it's been a fairly intense year because it's a large farm, by Thai standards, and everything is basically done by hand. We do have a tractor there and we do have some automated equipment like the rice planter and we also plant beans with like the big rototiller, the iron ox I call it. But we've got plans to grow fish. We've got probably around 30,000 and 40,000 fish. We had bought just 10,000 catfish for the four little ponds you saw there. And the bigger pond is supposed to have 30,000 fish in it, I'm not sure how many are there actually.

You won't know 'til you take them out.
No we won't know 'til we take them out. We're learning as we go. There's, I think there's some serpent heads in there that et fish and so we, what we're planning on doing is just leave them as they are, pull them out and then we'll drain the pond and clean the bottom out and make sure there's no predators in there. So we can be more effective in that particular pond.
We've got a sort of makeshift irrigation system going right now. Obviously for the dry season we need to irrigate, and we'd like to set up a permanent irrigation system. Now they're just kind of hauling pipes around here and there and keeping things wet. When there's excess water they'll just flood the rice paddies and then they irrigate that way as well. 
So our plans for the farm, we're building a workshop, storage area and a small office in the front of our property. They're putting footings down right now. So we're vying to do a workshop where we're hoping to train students in some vocational training like wood working and welding. Also, when we bring our teams over we'd like to do the construction of desks onsite as well. And we'll be working with an organization called Youth Connect, they're in Mae Sot. and they work with kids once they've got out of school. And some of those that don't succeed in school, like if there's a 17 or 18-year-old fellow and he's in grade 5 for example and he's not going to make it we'll try and get him trained up with welding or some of the other trades, electrical or whatever, And so they can use our facility, and then we're going to store our equipment in the warehouse as well, and then we're hoping to, there's an organization called Compassion International, and they have excess materials in a warehouse in Victoria. Like when manufacturers have overproduction they get materials from them. So we can have the materials for free if we pay for shipping. And so we'd like to have a distribution centre there to be used for distribution out of the building as well. So those are our immediate plans. We'd like to have the farm as a profitable entity and we can use all of our profits in the borderline area.

What made you decide on starting a farm out here? Was it that you wanted to use the food, or to use the money out here and train people up?
Well Heather and myself have been on the grain farm out here for 30 some odd years, so we're familiar with farming. We also thought it would be something that would keep on giving if we, once we were gone, or not here anymore in a few years time. The farm will still be operating and still be generating income for people in need over there. It's just a sustainable kind of a thing where we can either provide food or we can provide funds for projects. And I think we're probably going to be doing both. We've planted fruit trees, and hopefully in a couple years we'll be producing a fairly large quantity of fruit that we can either sell or we can bring to the kids in the camp. There's no problem getting rid of food.

How long did it take to raise funds? This sounds like a big project for a young NGO.
We are a fairly young NGO, we registered in 2005. We've been very fortunate with some of the people who travel with us. Some of the business people really like what we're doing and they've joined in with us. So we've got large number of supporters in Saskatchewan, mostly. We've got a few in Alberta, but mostly in Saskatchewan. And some of the supporters will take on entire projects. The hog barn was built by a retired fellow from Roster, actually he lives in Hague, his business was in Roster, and he raised all of the funds to build hog barn. And so he was out there supervising the job with the local people, and he funded the netire barn. So we've had some very very good support. A lady from north of Pié, her husband farmed for most of his life, and he passed away a couple years ago and on his death bed he told his wife that she needed to share some of her funds with people that needed help. Their family donated a tractor and rototiller. It's just been that kind of thing where people have joined in and helped out.

How much does it all cost? 
The equipment, that's the tractor, it's a 70 horse power with a blade on it, we've got a rototiller, we've got a disc, and we've got something else, a corn planter, and I think that was around $37,000 for that. The land cost us around $200,000. The warehouse will probably be around $30,000, that they're building now. And Propera was around $30,000. So yeah, there's been a lot of contributions.
(totals nearly $300,000)

And this is dollars, not baht?
No, we're talking dollars here... Part of the reason for our success is that all of our funds that we raise go right over to Thailand. We have less than one per cent is what I would say is going into accounting fees and stationery and that sort of stuff. Up to this point we have raised - 100 per cent of our money is going over to Thailand. I'm not certain we can continue doing that, but it will be very close to 100, it will be in the high 90s. For some organizations, and I don't criticize them because you do need to have full time staff when you hit a certain size, but we're small enough that we don't have any paid staff. Everyone pays for their own way, and all of the money that we raise goes to Thailand.

Do you or your wife have any development experience, or did you just take the plunge?
No we didn't. Actually we didn't anticipate it growing this quickly. But we've never done this kind of work before. So it's not just my wife and myself. At this point we've got a board of directors who've done a good amount of work when it comes to fundraising, so it's not just my wife and myself.

How many people do you expect to employ at the farm, and who are they going to be?
They're all going to be local workers. The amount of workers we employ varies. Like, during the harvest time everything they do is by hand, there's no swathers. So everything, all the beans are cut by hand. We have about 25 workers that work on the farm during harvest season. Then it cuts down, I think he's probably got about five or so. He's got roughly five working now, they're just putting on fertilizer and there's something they spray on the soybeans to get them to set nitrogen. They do that just by hand, by hand sprayers. So everything is done pretty much by hand.

Have you had any successes so far you'd like to tell me about?
Well, our rice harvest was quite successful. We're growing jasmine rice, that's for export. Henry is the one who decides what we're going to plant and he's very keen on trying to maximize our return. So he went for an export quality rice. We don't have it hulled yet, we're buying a rice huller within the next month or so. There's 280 bags and they weigh about 200 pounds each. They're really huge bags and they're all full of rice. We don't really know what we're going to get until it's been hulled. It's like an oat or a barley seed, it needs to be hulled before you can see the rice. So we're going to hull it and bag it and sell it. And the price has been fairly good, I think we would have had at least an average crop of rice.
The beans were, the green beans were fairly good. We had some issues with, there were some annual grasses or perrennial grasses growing in the field and they took away some of the yield. We've since found out that if you put Roundup on it it kills that quite significantly. So we've put Roundup on the piece that was grassy and it's quite nice and clean right now. So next year I think we're going to anticipate a bit better yield with the green beans, but the prices were really high this year.

Do you find that you're learning a lot about the difference in farming out here in the tropics and that in Saskatchewan?
Yeah there's a huge difference, there's no rest over there. In Saskatchewan when you finish the harvest you do your fall work, you basically put your equipment away and you wait for spring. You anticipate and you prepare for spring and do your planning. But over there you're already planning and doing your next crop before your crop is harvested, and as soon as you've got your crop off your working on getting another crop planted. So there is quite a difference there. Also with irrigation it's something that I'm not familiar with but and I'm not familiar with growing rice and some of the other crops there. But I do have some experience with some of it.

What is your own background?
I'm also in real estate. We have some real estate properties that we still own. And I've done some land development. So we're self sufficient at this point, we're not needing to take income from donors for doing this kind of work, so we're self sufficient that way.

What are some of the problems with the project? Henry said when locals found out the farm was a foreigners' project they raised their prices, is that true?
Yeah the land prices all around us have quadrupled since we bought, so if you want to buy another piece of land you have to pay four times as much. And we were wanting to buy a small piece of land to put the warehouse and office on there, but we've since decided that the prices are too high now, so we're just going to put the warehouse on our own land. We do have a little bit of problems with the authorities, but not a lot. We're trying to work in conjunction with the Thai people, so we do have Thai people that work alongside us as well. It's not just foreigners and people from the migrant community. We do have people working with us and we're trying to work in conjunction with the head villager and – Apataw is his name and it's kind of like the district manager. So they're quite aware of what we're doing and we're trying to work in conjunction with them.

What did you do here during your February visit?
Well we had to make some decisions. We did the final design plans on the building at the rear of the property. Henry's going to live at the back, he's going to have residence there. We're going to have workers' accommodations, we want to be able to have four rooms for workers. We're going to have two rooms for kids from Mae La refugee camp. There's 12 kids who'd like to go to higher education next year so we're going to put them and a dining room and staff rooms there in the back.

Do you want to become firmly established as a Mae Sot NGO, or are you willing to help out in other borderline areas?
We would consider other locations. Right now we're quite fully engaged in this project. We're planning to do the sow operation at the Mae Tao farm, we'll be starting the sow barn within the next month. We'll be building the sow barn in Mae Sot and then the hog, the finishing barns in Saew Ki and Propera. Then taking the weanlings from the other barn and then we're hoping that they'll learn how to butcher hogs and then we don't have to sell them into the market, we'll actually butcher them. We'll butcher them in Mae Sot and in Propera. And just try to create as much industry as we can and employment for these people. So we want to have a value-added kind of proponent for it.

What is the big problem for the Karen?
The big problem is they need their land back. Until that happens we're really in a tough spot. These are stateless people. If they go back to Burma they're in serious trouble because of the political issues there. What needs to happen, and we've talked to the Canadian ambassador in Bangkok on a number of occassions, we're working hard to try to get some political solution to Burma. If we can do that then we could build on something that would be more predictable. Right now they do need education, but they do need their homeland is what they need. That's a tough thing, but for myself now if I were trying to farm in Sasksatchean and somebody would burn my house and chase me off the farm, and then put me in another country where I wasn't really appreciated then it would be very tough for me. The solution would be for me to get my farm back. It's the same for them.

Before the first time you came here did you know much about the Burmese situation or the Karen?
We knew absolutely nothing. That was one of the shockers for us. We thought we were fairly well acquainted with the issues in the world, but we had never heard of the 50 or 60 year civil war in Burma and the plight of the migrant people in the area. And it's more than just Karen too, there's many different ethnic tribes. There's the Shan and the Mon and there's East Indians and the Muslim community has also been removed from Burma, so they're in a plight as well.

Karen & Beekeeping at the Global Neighbors Farm

The Karen people are packed up along the border, fill huge refugee camps here, sneak in to work illegally throughout Thailand, wear traditional brass rings meant to elongate their necks in the hopes of attracting tourist money, even though the practice had nearly died out before the tourists came.

Their language is quite different from Thai, making it harder for them to blend in and disappear than for the Shan, whose language is closely related to Thai. The Karen are as persecuted in Burma as the Shan (and Mon, Arakan, Rohingya, Chin, Wa...). Like the other ethnic groups they have a rebel army fighting vicious ambush warfare against the Burmese military in jungle.

Here in Mae Sot Karen trickle in from the Burmese countryside, cross the Friendship Bridge from Myawaddy town, take boats across the muddy river, and escape the Mae La refugee camp not far from here. They come for work and help.

A young NGO from Saskatchewan called Global Neighbors has a farm on the edge of town meant to train Karen migrants and make money to pour back into Mae La or other refugee aid projects.

The Karen staff's temporary living quarters on the farm is a typical raised bamboo longhouse, thatched with layers of dried leaves. Chester explains a slideshow about beekeeping to a group crowded around his computer. Through Henry Tha Won Phirachenchei's interpreting, the group ask if the bees sting, why do beekeepers blow smoke into the hive, how to extract honey. They laugh at pictures of a beekeeper clipping the queen bee's wings, saying they don't think they could be that careful. Outside the hut geckos, chickens and dogs compete for sound space.

The Karen are dark, with angular faces accentuated by strong jaws and high cheek bones. Their teeth are filed straight and often stained from chewing betelnut.

"So," Henry asks, "we need to plant many many flowers?...So, I will plant around the stream here, flower flower flower... Now I will try to call someone. Behind the house have a very big hive." Henry is all action. Already he's on his cellphone, still watching the bee video from the corner of his eye.

The crowd grows in the hut as young men come in for lunch. When Henry's finished on the phone they start asking questions again: How do you catch a swarm? Do bees sleep in the day? Should they look for the big bees that live in the trees, or the little ones in the ground? How big should they make the hive boxes?

The air becomes thick with the smell of betelnut once men fill the hut. They wear longgyis or faded jeans.

Mae Sot

The streets of Mae Sot are always hot. I can't tell if it's humid or not. The heat makes me sweat so fast that I'm always sticky even if the air's not.

Unlike in the north, cultural differences, ethnic differences are pronounced here. There are different ethnic groups in Shan, but the differences are hard for an outsider to notice unless they're in traditional dress. Mae Sot is a town of migrants, refugees, aid workers, tourists excited about a day trip into Burma on the other side of the bridge. 

The Burmese don't try to hide. Some are pale, round faced women, their cheeks painted yellow with home made sunscreen. The men wear their longyi – the Burmese name for sarong. Muslim Burmese are here too. They look like Malay, East Indian, something I can't place. They wear embroidered fezzes and the women wear the kind of hijab that makes a circle of their face.

Mae La Oo Refugee Camp

With 16,000 registered residents, Mae La Oo is one of Thailand's mid-sized camps for Burmese refugees. It's estimated there are thousands more people than this living here, but the UNHCR provides rations for 16,000, so that's how many are permitted to register to live here.

The Thai policy is to let no foreigners into the camp, but as with everything else, as Hlah Tay says, they “have an understanding” (bribe) about letting them in anyway. “Everything here is under the table. Like we are travelling today, it is under the table. You saw the driver give the guard the money... Everything is an understanding under the table...it's very difficult for anybody to get out.”

It's expensive to get in too, or at least it was when the ABSDF brought us in. A "pass" comes to 1,500 Baht per person, about $50, plus 2,500 Baht ($85'ish) to hire a driver, each way. Hlah Tay estimates "no more than 100" foreigners visit the camp every year. Most are NGO workers, some are undocumented guests like us.

NGOs and the UN pays for everything in the camp, including the salaries of some of the border police. The Thai government pays nothing. The country does benefit financially because it's from Thailand that supplies are bought and drivers are hired. Even lumber and bamboo is bought in Thailand and trucked in, since it is illegal for refugees to cut teak or bamboo, and they could be arrested if caught doing so.

Cutting teak will bring a 6–7 year jail sentence. Trucked-in bamboo costs 25 baht per pole, wood is 200 baht per pole, with transportation charged on top of that. There is almost no way to make money in camp, but there are somehow many ways to spend it.

Even if there were as many residents as food rations, it's unlikely there would be enough to go around. The camp is divided into more than a dozen sections. Each section has a committee in charge of distributing food. However, rations can be skimmed. On our trip out, our group sat on top of bags of rice the truck driver bought in camp, saying it was a lot cheaper for him to buy food there, presumably from the section storage house,  than in town.

Hlah Tay believes there are 8 refugee camps in the Karen-Karenni region. There are some more in the south, and one registered Shan camp; about a dozen official camps in total. After that are IDP communities, unregistered refugee communities, legal and illegal migrants, bringing the number of Burmese refugees in Thailand or near the border to around 2 million, though no one is sure.

The camp has a very cramped, ramshackle feel. Refugees can't leave this camp for Thailand because it is very remote, and the road has a number of Thai border guard check points along the way. There is no need for a fence. There's no sign anywhere of a UN presence, for example row or prefab housing, signs, offices. Word is the Thai government works hard to keep the UN out, though the UNHCR is the umbrella organization for Mae La Oo.

Motor bikes are illegal here, again permitted “under the table,” so of course they're all over the place. I ask how I'm going to leave the camp, and Hlah Tay explains: “Yes, we will make arrangements. You can go by motorbike.” I ask if I can't hitch a ride with an out-going transport truck. “Oh no, because driver would not dare.” I do leave by motor bike the next day, with an ABSDF driver.

The inhabitants of Mae La Oon are a mixed bag compared to Shan land. There are a few Shan here, like  the man building a new house who does push-ups every morning, and practices his English in the hopes it will help his resettlement application. He has been in camp for six months, and wants to go to the US.

Others range from curly-haired East Indian looking people, to square-faced Mongolians, to round-faced, pale people with full red lips.

It's crowded. Dogs, poultry, pigs and people are close together in small, often randomly arranged bamboo structures. Theirs is an accentuated appearance of poverty as they are forbidden from creating permanent concrete structures. There is a narrow paved road through the centre of camp, some of the rest of it has gravel, most is packed dirt. Even the school is a bamboo platform on top of muddy sandbags and dangerously eroded packed earth.

Hotel Mae La Oo, February 2009

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.

Sang Wan

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.

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.

Burma's Thai Babies

The families in Loi Kaw Wan know there are advantages in their children having Thai citizenship. Citizenship isn't something countries just hand out, and in Thailand even the newborns have to work for it.

When we arrived in Loi Kaw Wan early Sunday morning, Homm Noon was waiting to greet us. She was at the end of her pregnancy, her face had become fat and freckled. The greeting was brief, because she was holding out just long enough to see us and then with her mom climbed into the tinny pick-up truck that dropped us off at the border post, and was driven away to the nearest Thai hospital to give birth.

Since she and her mother are the only trained midwives in the village, it made sense that she wouldn't want to deliver her first child alone in Loi Kaw Wan. The other benefits were realized later on. If Homm Noon's children are born in Thailand, they're Thais. In an area where you're either a Thai or an illegal refugee, the choice seems obvious.

It isn't a simple matter of being born in Thailand though – the babies need a Thai parent. There are men in Thailand, usually old men, who each take money to claim he is the father of a woman's baby. Homm Noon and her husband found such a man to do this for them, as did every other family in Loi Kaw Wan who's children are Thai citizens.

It must be a terrible choice for these families, for the father to give up any official connection he has to his own children, replacing his name with some grasping stranger's. Surely it isn't a secret either. The doctors who register the births can't believe for very long that the old men who come in with young Burmese women are really the fathers of all those children. The Thai government must be aware of the trick as well, still it continues. After the birth the women return home with a newborn, probably hoping never to meet the official father of their child again.

At the end of our time in Loi Kaw Wan we returned to Thailand and paid a visit to Homm Noon. She had delivered a baby boy and was resting in a safe house in Thailand until the baby could get some vaccinations. The safe house is used for Burmese patients sent to the Thai hospital. It's a small warehouse among a line of other warehouses and loading docks.

Homm Noon, her husbadn and the baby had blankets laid out on the floor of the empty storage unit, with some clothes hung up in the corner. She introduced her healthy little baby. We asked his name, and she gave one but said it's only his Thai name, for the birth certificate. He doesn't have a real name yet.