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BurmaNet: New Year's Issue/Refugees
- Subject: BurmaNet: New Year's Issue/Refugees
- From: strider@xxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 31 Dec 1994 22:27:00
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Date: Sat, 31 Dec 1994 22:27:51 -0800
************************** BurmaNet **************************
"Appropriate Information Technologies, Practical Strategies"
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January 1, 1995
Special Issue: "Forty Million Hostages, Three Million Slaves and a
Million Refugees."
The soc.culture.burma and reg.burma newsgroups are now both one
year old. To mark the anniversary, BurmaNet is posting this
special issue on the situation of refugees from Burma with a focus
on the Thai/Burma border.
**********************************************
Contents:
1 PREFACE
2 BURMANET: OVERVIEW OF THE SITUATION ON THE THAI/BURMA BORDER
3 BURMANET: AN ANTHROPOLOGIST'S PAPER ON HUMAN RIGHTS IN KARENLAND
4 FEER: PHYSICIAN IN EXILE
5 ICJ: REFUGEES FROM MYANMAR [MAILED SEPARATELY DUE TO LENGTH]
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PREFACE
Burma's population has grown by over three million since the
release of Martin Smith's documentary, "Forty Million Hostages."
Little else has changed so that if the film were updated today, it
could appropriately be titled "Forty Million Hostages, Three
Million Slaves and a Million Refugees."
There are over 75,000 refugees in camps along the Thai/Burma
border. These are ones that are easy to count. Harder to count
are the 300,000-500,000 "illegal immigrants" in Thailand, many of
whom are in reality, refugees. There are also more than 100,000
Rohingya refugees remaining in Bangladesh as well as smaller
numbers of refugees in India and China. The largest number of
refugees, however, are those inside the country. Estimates of
people displaced internally run as high as one million, most of
whom are in the ethnic minority areas.
It is impossible to separate the issue of refugees outside Burma's
borders from political repression, the civil war and forced labor
inside the country which gave rise to the refugee outflows in the
first place. Prior to December, 1994, there had for two years,
been little fighting along the lower Thai/Burma border and yet the
number of refugees continued to climb. The major reason for this
is the massive increase in the use of forced labor inside Burma
since 1988. According to the best estimates of Burma watchers, the
number of forced laborers on any given day is about 500,000 during
the dry season. These laborers are drawn from primarily from the
ethnic minorities and the entire pool of those subject to slave
labor is estimated to be about three million. Although the issues
of forced labor and refugees are inextricably linked, to keep this
report to a manageable length, this special issue of the BurmaNet
News will focus on the refugees in isolation. A special issue on
forced labor is forthcoming.
**********************************************************
BURMANET: OVERVIEW OF THE SITUATION ON THE THAI/BURMA BORDER
December 27, 1994
The Thai/Burma border shelters approximately 30 camps holding over
75,000 refugees from Burma. The first refugees started coming to
the border in 1984 and the numbers have increased steadily over the
past decade. With the most recent fighting up and down the border,
a further surge can be expected. This article is an attempt to
provide an overview of how the refugees got there as well as
something of how they live.
Like much of the information that goes out under the BurmaNet name,
the credit for the research on this report belongs elsewhere but
must remain unacknowledged.
************************
Burma is populated by over a dozen main ethnic groups. There has
been continual armed rebellion since the country gained
independence from the British in 1948.
In 1962, Ne Win staged a military coup and over the next 25 years,
relentlessly took control of all facets of Burmese life,
withdrawing any cultural identity permitted to the ethnic
minorities and isolating Burma from the rest of the world.
Fighting rarely spilled over into Thailand until 1984, when the
Burmese army mounted a concerted attack on Karen bases bordering
Thailand. Over 9000 civilians crossed over into Thailand for
temporary refuge in Tak province. Since 1984, the Burmese army has
launched a series of annual dry season offensives against the
ethnic minorities, resulting in a population of 20,000 seeking
refuge by 1988.
Burma's trading isolation and costly war, reduced its economy to
ruins and internal problems began to mount. By 1988, students were
out on the streets protesting and were violently suppressed. -
however, the call was now full-on for democracy and thousands took
to the streets in every city - but again the militarily brutally
crushed the democracy uprisings, martial law was established, the
military set up the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC)
and thousands of Burmese students and pro-democracy advocates fled
to camps along the border for refuge.
The military repeated its pledge to wipe out ethnic minority
resistance and relaunched a heavy military offensive. They bought
hard currency by selling off the country's natural resources of
teak, fish, minerals and oil in order to expand the army and buy
massive arms shipments.
During the 1989 & 1990 dry seasons, the Burmese army made huge
inroads into ethnic minority areas, whose positions had been
weakened by logging activities by Thai concessionaires and access
to supplies from Thailand by the Burmese army . Karenni refugees
began arriving in Mae Hong Son province and Karen and Mon
refugees also began to arrive in Kanchanaburi province, bringing a
rise in population to 44,000 by the end of 1990.
Despite the absence of any dry season offensive in 1993 and 1994,
SLORC continues to systematically relocate villages in ethnic
controlled areas to SLORC controlled areas and camps, where the
people are used as labourers for railway and road construction for
which they usually receive no food or payment. Frequently they are
conscripted as porters for the army to carry ammunition and food
supplies to the front line .
The result of this has been a steady flow of refugees coming across
the border bringing the population to over 75,000 by mid 1994.
In 1984 the Ministry of the Interior (MOI) invited groups of NGOs
to provide emergency assistance to the Karen. It was expected that
the situation would be temporary and MOI stressed the need not to
overreact and to restrict aid to essential levels only. Nothing
should be done which might encourage more refugees to come across
Into Thailand, or those who had already come, to stay longer than
necessary. Thailand did not wish to be accused by the Burmese of
supporting the Karen resistance.
Refugee profile
There are 4 distinct ethnic groups - Karen, Mon, Karenni, Burmese
/ Tavoyian each with their own language. The common language is
Burmese. The majority are Buddhist or animist, but there are many
Christians, particularly among the Karen community leaders, and
there are also some Muslims. Some leaders have a good command of
English.
The majority of refugees are from a rural farming background. Their
houses are traditionally built of bamboo, wood and thatch. Water
collection is usually from traditional wells or rivers. Rice is the
traditional staple, along with fish paste or chillies. Many
refugees have come as whole communities. The family structure has
remained largely intact and there is not a significant number of
female head of households. They maintain a strong moral code and
among the Karen, adultery carries an average 3 year jail sentence.
Many have fled because their villages have been attacked and their
crops burnt. Others have been forced to relocate to areas far away
from their fields, making it impossible to tend to their land.
Others have fled to escape being taken as porters.
The ethnic minorities have a long experience of jungle survival.
They are used to running away from the Burmese army - traditionally
when the Burmese come near the village, everyone runs into the
forest to hide - they wait for the army to pass through the
village, who will then take men left behind as porters and rape of
women is not uncommon. They help themselves to everything in the
village - often burning houses and destroying paddy. Sometimes
people hide for a few days before returning, Sometimes they have to
move from one hiding place to another - but they try to stay as
close to their village as possible, in order to return to their
fields at the first opportunity.
Their problems.
There are over 75,000 refugees of 4 different ethnic backgrounds,
spread along Thai / Burma border of 1500 kms. throughout the
mountains and bamboo forests. it is possible to forage in
surrounding forest, for leaves, roots and fruits as well as to
collect materials for building houses. Due to their remote
locations, access is severely curtailed in the rainy season with
some areas cut off by road for 6 months. The ethnic minorities
still control some territory on the Burmese side of the border, but
there is limited opportunity to grow crops in these areas. Some
people are able to find low paid seasonal work in Thailand, but the
refugees are keen to return home as soon as possible. Malaria and
respiratory diseases are the major health problems MOI regulations
prohibit cultivation inside Thailand and economic enterprise, and
require NGO staff to be kept to a minimum. They suggested food and
medical needs be considered separately and was to be purely
humanitarian.
The Karen refugees were the first ethnic group to come into
Thailand (4 years before others followed) and therefore it was
through them that the pattern of the relief programme took shape.
Initially contact had been made with the non-governmental
organizations(NGOs) through the different village leaders community
leaders or district leaders relying on their own contacts through
different church organisations. The ethnic minorities set up their
own refugee and relief committees to control the refugee population
and they draw support from a consortium of Thai and international
church groups.
Food supplies are readily available in Thailand throughout the
border areas and areas of land can be found with adequate building
materials and water supplies, although access to these areas can be
difficult. Each camp elects its own leader and committee from
amongst the refugees, and these people are responsible for all
organisation within the camp, including distribution of supplies
and population statistics.
The Thai Ministry of the Interior has issued formal guidelines
limiting assistance to food, clothing and medicine, restricting
agency staff to the minimum necessary, and requiring monthly
requests to be submitted in advance.
As well as camp leaders, the camps are also subdivided into
sections, each with their own leader. They are also responsible for
cleanliness, social harmony and medical emergencies. Camp
committees are male dominated, but most have at least one woman.
Camps are built by the refugees from local materials. Refugees
sustain all community activities themselves, including schools from
kindergarten through to high school.
Refugee committees are responsible for finding suitable sites and
ensuring that camps adhere to Thai authority regulations and where
possible, also supply teachers and medical workers to the camps.
The current food ration is a response to the changing degree of
refugee food security over the years. Initially refugees had some
resource to their home plots and trading opportunities in Burma. As
the short-term emergency developed into one of long term and
opportunities for refugees to contribute to their own food security
decreased, the food ration was increased to 95% of requirements.
lodized salt and fish paste are now included.
A careful watch for signs of malnutrition has been kept by the
medical agencies. There are supplementary feeding programmes for
four vulnerable groups, under weight children, pregnant women,
lactating women and tuberculosis patients. These are coordinated
with the acting medical agencies and the budget for ingredients is
provided and includes eggs, dried fish, beans, sugar, milk powder,
vegetable oil and fish paste.
Emergency needs sometimes arise during camp evacuations, fighting,
camp relocations and flooding. Items provided have included plastic
sheeting, cooking utensils and water drums. Building materials are
not usually supplied, but sometimes roofing (thatch) is given when
camps have to be moved out of season and materials are difficult to
find.
********************************************************
BURMANET: ANTHROPOLOGIST'S PAPER ON HUMAN RIGHTS IN KARENLAND
Christina Fink recently completed her doctorate in Anthropology
at the University of California at Berkeley. Her focus was on
the Karen of Burma. She presented the following paper on human
rights and the Karen at the American Anthropological Meetings in
Atlanta on Dec. 1, 1994. BurmaNet apologizes for the loss in
transmission of a small segment of her paper.
Dr. Christina Fink
fink@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
******************************
[Part 1 of 2]
Introduction
Long oppressed by more powerful others, the Karen in both
Thailand andBurma have only recently begun to express their
outrage through a discourse of human rights. An ethnic minority
group numbering roughly 300,000 in Thailand (Department of Public
Welfare, 1991) and perhaps as many as four million in Burma
(Smith, 1991), the Karen have been fairlypeacefully integrated
into the Thai state, but they have been engaged in a 45 year
civil war forpolitical autonomy in Burma. Because of their
different historical experiences, it is difficult, if not
impossible, to come up with a list of characteristics which all
Karen share.
Whereas three hundred years ago, virtually all Karen were
animists, worshipping ancestors and nature spirits, many Karen
today are Christian or Buddhist.
Moreover, not all Karen continue to cultivate rice and live in
small villages; indeed, a number of Karen have grown up in cities
and can be found in every occupation, from doctor to lawyer to
shop-keeper. Language also divides the Karen, for overthe
centuries several dialects have emerged which are not always
mutually intelligible.
Finally, the Karen in Thailand and Burma have not shared the same
recent history. TheKaren in Burma were subject to much harsher
treatment by the Burmans but they were also able to benefit from
schooling and military training provided by the British during
theperiod of British colonization.
The Karen in Thailand, on the other hand, were largely ignored by
Thai rulers until recently, and they did not undergo an
experience of colonial rule as Thailand was never colonized.
Today many Karen inBurma have joinedthe Karen National Union in a
fight for autonomy while the Karen in Thailand struggle to obtain
Thai citizenship and protection from eviction. Nevertheless,what
the Karen do share is an experience of suffering at the hands of
more powerful others.
Whether in Burma or Thailand, the Karen are generally treated by
the dominant groups as inferior. However, I argue that the
production of suffering among the Karen in Burma in Thailand
should not be viewed merely as a local, cultural issue. Instead,
I follow Paul Farmer, an anthropologist who has worked in Haiti,
in insisting that weexamine the role of international actors in
facilitating human rights abuses.In the case of the Karen,
international investment in Thailand and Burma and the supply of
arms to the Burmese military in particular has brought about an
escalation in human rights abuses.
At the same time, the Karen have not received much press coverage
or international assistance, partly because they have not been
effective in expressing their suffering through the discourse of
human rights.
In this paper,then, I address three related issues. First, I
discuss the different types ofhuman rights abuses experienced by
three sets of Karen; namely, Karen inhabitants of Burma, Karen
inhabitants of Thailand, and Karen refugees on the Thai-Burma
border.
Second, I considerthe importance of the articulation of
experiences of oppression through the discourse of human rights,
and third, I explore how abuses of human rights in Thailand and
Burma have been facilitated by international actors. Because the
histories and presentpolitical concerns of the Karen in Thailand
and Burma differ, the human rightsproblems which they face are
not exactly the same. Yet, I argue that these differences should
not prevent us from recognizing the significant ways in which
sets of international actors have directly or indirectly
supported abusive governments and therefore globalized local
conflicts.
A History of Oppression: The Karen in Burma
The Karen have experienced centuries of mistreatment by the
Burmans. Although the Karen are knownto have inhabited the
territory now called Burma before the Burmans did, the Karen did
not develop large-scale political organizations. When the Burmans
established powerful kingdoms in central Burma beginning in the
ninth century, the Karen were powerless to resist.
According to a booklet printed by the Karen National Union,
during the pre-colonial period, the Karen suffered untold
miseries at the handsof their Burmanlords. Persecution, torture
and killings, suppression, oppression and exploitation were the
order of the day. At that time, many Karens had to flee for their
lives to the high mountains and thick jungles...the rest of the
Karens were made slaves. We were forced to do hard labour and
were cruelly treated (Karen National Union, 1992a:6-7).
Such treatment continued during the period of British
colonization, when Western missionaries first began prosyletizing
in Burma. As Mr. Abbott, a Baptist missionary recorded in his
diary 1842,sad tidings again are brought from the disciples in
Burma. Not only are they subject to the common oppression, but,
as Christians, they are especially liable to suffer from
relentless extortion. The populations of wholevillages, after
suffering to the last point of endurance, - their all, even
totheir supply of food, wrung from them, - have fled hither and
thither, obligedto conceal themselves, and to borrow or beg till
they can make another harvest.
He continues, The following case is but one of the kind: one of
the assistants, while preaching on Sunday, was interrupted by a
petty officer, who entered, seized the book from his hand, and
ordered him to interpret its contents into Burmese. The preacher
did so; and the officer, in a rage, struck him on the face with
the book, fined him fifty rupees, and, as security, took the
assistant's wife, and walked away with her tohis own house. The
only alternatives for the injured man were to let his wiferemain
a slave, or pay the fine...There is no help in such a case. Had
the man appealed to higher authorities, he would probably have
been beaten and imprisoned, and fined fifty rupees more (quoted
in Carpenter, 1883:71).
Nevertheless, many Karen in Burma consider the period of British
rule the golden period of their history, for they were able to
pursue higher education and professional careers, and the British
treated them equally to the Burmans. American missionaries were
active among the Karen, instructing them not only about the Bible
but also teaching literacy in Karen and opening up schools at all
levels for Karen students.
Several Karen were able to further theirstudies in the West, and
numbers of Karen became doctors, nurses, lawyers, pastors, and
educators. Others joined the British Army and got an education in
military organization and modern warfare. This training served
them well, for they were able to use what they had learned to
establish their own army after the British left Burma in 1947. It
wasduring this period that educated Karen began thinking about
the possibility ofestablishing a separate state.
During World War II, the Karen fought with the British against
the Japanese, who were supported by the Burmans. After the war,
the British began to prepare to withdraw. The Karen demanded that
Tenasserim Division, whichwas populated largely by Karen, be
considered as a separate state and sent a goodwill mission to
Great Britain to make their intentions clear.
In 1947, however, British and the Burmans signed an agreement,
the Aung San - Atlee Agreement, which mentioned nothing about the
Karen. After the British granted independence to Burma, theKaren
continued to press the Burmans for the establishment of a
separate Karenstate. When it became clear that the British would
not enforce the promise of a federal system,the Burman leaders
stopped seriously negotiating with the Karen.
In late 1948and early 1949, the Burman Army massacred many Karen.
Enraged, the Karen tookup arms and begana military fight for
autonomy in July, 1949. Karen history since 1949 has consisted of
an endless series of battles and failed negotiations with
successive Burmese governments, who will accept nothing less than
total surrender. After the Burmese military's brutal crushing of
pro-democracy protests in 1988, many Burmese students fled to
Karen-controlled territory (Kawthoolei) to be trained as soldiers
by Karen troops.
Then, when the present military regime known as the State Law and
Order Restoration Council, or SLORC, refused to allow the
democratically-elected government to take power in 1990, a number
of Burmese elected officials fled and sought refuge at the Karen
military headquarters (Manerplaw). Karen military headquarters
hasalso become the coordinating center for all ethnic
nationalities in Burma who are fighting for self-determination,
although many groups have recently signed cease-fire agreements
with SLORC.
Because Karen military headquarters is the primary organizing
center for anti-SLORC activity and the Karen are one of the few
remaining groups to refuse to sign a ceasefire agreement with
SLORC, the Karen have continued to experience extreme human
rights abuses. Besides launching dry season military offensives
against Karen soldiers, the Burmese Army has sought to intimidate
and demoralize Karen civilians. Members of the Burmese Army
regularly torture and execute Karen villagers suspected of
collaborating with the Karen National Liberation Army. There are
no trials. SLORC troops also use Karen villagers as slave
laborers, giving them neither food nor money in return. For
example, the Karen Human Rights Group reported in June, 1994 that
SLORC's Southwestern command had issued orders forbidding
villagers to cut, saw, or buy theirown timber. However, each
village was ordered to supply 75 tons of hardwood logs and 5 tons
of cut and bundled firewood, which SLORC troops then transport to
the city and sell for a profit.
Any village which does not cooperate was told it would
receive"the dreaded bullet, charcoal, and chillies in an envelope
from the SLORC camp(Karen Human Rights Group Commentary, June 6,
1994:1)." As one SLORC officer explained to a confused villager,
the bullet means we'll kill all you villagers, the charcoal means
we'll burn down the whole village, and the chillie means we'll
cook all your animals into curry. If we set your village on fire
then everyone in your village will have to flee, and everything
you leave in the village becomes ours (Karen Human RightsGroup
Commentary, June 6, 1994:1).
Burmese soldiers also routinely rape women, loot homes, and take
adults to work as porters and human mine-sweepers. One female
civilian who was captured by SLORC troops but escaped after 22
days gave the following testimony in 1992:
While I was cooking, a group of SLORC soldiers came to my house
and forced me to go along with them to Byu Ha military camp. At
the camp they made me join a group of over 100 porters, including
40 women aged from 15 to 50. The soldiers gave four 81mm mortar
bombs to carry, the same load as they gave many of the male
porters. They made us carry our loads over high mountains all
day, and then every night I was raped along with the other women.
It was very hard for usto keep carrying our loads in these
conditions. All we got to eat was a bit of rotten bad-smelling
rice, and we didn't even get that regularly... Along the way the
SLORC soldiers were completely destroying the villages we came
to. I saw them steal paddy (rice) from thevillagers and burn down
their houses and paddy barns.
I also saw them steal an elephant from one villager, and they
killed many village animals for food, but we never got any of
it... When it was still dark one morning I heard DawAye Hla say
she was going into the forest. I thought she was going to escape
so I went with her. The four of us didn't know which way to go
and walked all day in the forest. After dark, we followed a river
until we heard someone shouting, "Daw Bway! Daw Bway!" (Sister!
Sister! in Karen). When I first heard the voices I was very
afraid, but when it turned out they were Karen soldiers and they
were kind to us and I was very happy (KNU, 1992b:3-4).
This woman was lucky to escape, but many other Karen who are
taken as porters die of starvation or disease or are killed by
SLORC soldiers. Even worse, in the Irawaddy Delta area, SLORC
soldiers themselves have admitted that whenever they make an
offensive, the SLORC soldiers who have contracted AIDS are
usedspecially to rape all the women, young and old, so that all
these women will get AIDS and the Karen generation will end soon
(Karen Human Rights Group, December 6, 1994:1).
"With conditions like these, it is not surprising that tens of
thousands of Karen have fled torefugee camps along the Thai-Burma
border in order to escape persecution.
The Plight of Karen Refugees Along the Thai-Burma Border Over
70,000 refugees from Burma, the majority of whom are Karen, are
now living in camps along the Thai border. None of these
individuals are recognized by the Thai government as "refugees"
eventhough international human rights groups have repeatedly
pressed the Thai government to do so. The Thai government has not
accorded refugee status to these people for severalreasons.
First, Thai officials have lost their patience for refugees,
having had to deal with Cambodian, Lao, and Vietnamese refugees
along their eastern border for over ten years.
Second, the Thai government has developed increasingly cosy
relations with SLORC and has no desire to anger SLORC by
assisting the refugees. Third, the Thai government believes it
can get away with mistreating the refugees because Western
leaders have not expressed much public concern over the status of
the refugees. The UNHCR has not insisted that the Thai government
recognize these people as refugees, and while USAID has
appropriated some money for refugee assistance, the United
States' and other Western countries' main concern with Burma has
been the release of Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi from
house arrest in Rangoon.
Denied formal refugee status, the Karen and others have no chance
of asylum in Thailand or elsewhere, and they can be pushed back
into Burma at any time. Indeed, in June, 1994, the Karen Human
Rights Group reported that in one area,the Thai Army is already
in the process ofrepatriating all refugees in their territory.
Camps have been burned down andrefugees deliberately driven into
brutally inhospitable, overcrowded and inaccessible sites just
across the border from SLORC camps. Now heavily armed Thai troops
are storming camps by surprise, waving their weapons and shouting
false threats that there will be no more rice supply, trying to
intimidate the refugees back across the border. (Karen Human
Rights Group Commentary: June 6, 1994).
In July, the Thai army did force 6000 mostly Mon and also Karen
refugees to leave their camp in Thailand and return to an area in
Burma where SLORC soldiers were stationed. Moreover, the ThaiArmy
is trying to stop any more refugees from crossing the border. One
senior Thai intelligence officer told representatives of the
Karen Human Rights Group that his main job was to stop any more
refugees from trying to cross.
"We're expecting a lot of them, first from this railway and then
from the gas pipeline (Karen Human Rights Group Commentary: June
6, 1994)." The railway is being constructed in Southeastern Burma
using slave labor, with villagers being required to work for days
at a time without being given anyfood or money. Meanwhile, they
are unable to attend to their own fields and livestock. Another
project for which SLORC is depending on coerced labor, the gas
pipeline, will bring gas from the Gulf of Martaban to Thailand
and is being financed by Total,Unocal, Texaco, and Thailand's
government oil company.
Some Karen andothers have left the despair of the refugee camps
and made their way down to Bangkok, with the help of money-hungry
Thai middlemen (often police) who take them to work in
sweatshopsand brothels. Many of these Karen are later arrested by
the Thai police and taken to Immigration Detention Centers where
they are "stripped of all belongings, beaten and raped, and then
piled onto open trucks and sent back into SLORC hands at the
border(Karen Human Rights Group Commentary: June 6, 1994:2)."
These types ofabuses against the Karen in Burma and Karen
refugees in Thailand are not the exception but the rule. The
systematized nature of human rights abuses against the Karen in
Burma and Karen refugees in Thailand itself is shocking, but what
is more shocking is howlittle attention these abuses have
received from international governments and agencies.
(continued in Part 2)
[Part 2 of2]Dishonored Rights: Indigenous Karen in Thailand
The Karen who
live permanently in Thailand have experienced far fewer
egregiousabuses than the Karen in Burma or the Karen in refugee
camps. Mo st Karen cameto Thailand from Burma during periods of
warfare in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (Keyes, 1979),
although some Karen may have been living in Thailand as early as
thetwelfth century (Renard, 1980:51).
Inhabiting mountainous
regions far from the centers of power, the Karen were generally
only asked to send annual tribute to Thai kings and princes
during the pre-modern period. Since the establishment of a
civilian government, however, Karen villages have been
incorporated into the polity through the imposition of a
standardized administrative structure.
As citizens of Thailand,
Karen inhabitants have the same rights as ethnic Thais, and many
Karen have in fact become indistinguishable from ethnic Thais by
moving into towns and cities and adopting Thai speech and
culture. Nevertheless, those Karen who live in the mostdistant
villages often have difficulty obtaining citizenship papers even
if their ancestors have lived in Thailand for generations.
Undocumented Karen who are stopped by the police are considered
illegal aliens and can be expelled from the country, although
they are usually released if they can pay a bribe.
In the area
where I conducted research inNorthwestern Thailand, the district
office had only seriously begun to processcitizenship papers in
1991. Without the necessary papers, most Karen individuals I knew
did not dare to travel to or through towns and cities, because
they were afraid of being arrested. More serious, the Karen who
live in forests, all of which havebeen claimed by the government
as state property, have been facing threats of eviction. Even
though the Karen had been living in those areas long before they
were claimed by the state, the government now treats them as
illegal intruders. Without citizenship papers, these Karen face
the possibility of being forced off their land and deported to
Burma. The preservation of national forests and the wildlife
within them is only arecent interest of the Thai government which
has been encouraged by such organizations as UNESCO and the World
Wildlife Fund. While the protection of forests is certainly a
laudable cause, the rights of the original inhabitants also needs
to be seriously considered.
The creation of Thungyai Naresuan
Wildlife Sanctuary is a case in point. Now recognized by UNESCO
as a World Heritage Site, the sanctuary isalso home to 4000 Karen
villagers whom the Thai government plans to evict (Fahn,
1994a:B1). Although most of the damage to the forest and the
virtual extinction of some typesof wildlife in the area can be
traced to illegal Thai logging operations and military hunting
expeditions, the Karen are being blamed.
Thai officials argue
that the Karen must be relocated so that the animals can survive.
Here the issue appearsto be one of human versus animal rights.
>From the Thai government's perspective, the animals take
precedence over the Karen, even though numerous conservationists
have argued that the Karen are the most qualified to preserve and
maintain the forests and theiranimal populations. With tourism
having become the leading income generator in Thailand, the
government hopes to make Thungyai Naresuan Wildlife Sanctuary
into an important tourist destination.
Because the tourists would
be coming to see the animals not the people, the Karen are deemed
expendable. In effect, then, tourists and their potential to
generate income are valued more than the rights of local
inhabitants. Moreover, some powerful citizens are able to claim
forest land for themselves while less powerful others are being
evicted. One Thai general has recently had a mansion built for
himself on 5000 rai of national forest land (Burmanet, Nov. 7,
1994) while the Karen, who have lived there for generations, are
being removed.
Clearly the real issue is power and money rather
than environmental or animal protection.The Inaudibility of Local
Discourses of Suffering Karen villagers in Thailand and Burma,
then, are subject to a number of abuses which tend to go
unreported. When the Karen are thevictims of torture, rape, or
forcible relocation, rarely are there any journalists on hand.
Unlike in Los Angeles, Beijing, or Bangkok, no local people own
video cameras which could be used to document events or fax
machines which could be utilized to broadcast accounts of abuses.
Karen voices and images do not explode on television screens
around the world, and the Karen are left to flee or make do as
best they can.
Why are Karen human rights abuses so
under-represented in international coverage when compared to
human rights abuses elsewhere? One reason is the
inaccessibility of many of the areas where the abuses take place,
but another significant problem is the culturally specific ways
in which the Karen tend to interpret and present their suffering.
As I stated earlier, what all Karen share is a history of being
imposed on and mistreated by others. Preserved in poetic verse
("uta" Sgaw Karen; "tay" Pwo Karen) and in myths, and known to
all Karen, are the stories of the Karens' inferior place in
relation to others.
Most important of these is the Karen origin
myth which tells of three brothers who are each given a book of
knowledge by God. The older white brother was given the gold
book, the middle brother, either Thai or Burmese, was given the
silver book, and the Karen little brother received only a
hide-covered book. Because the Karen did not take care of their
book but left it in the fields where it was rained on and eaten
by animals, the Karen today cannot compete with the Thais or
Burmese and especially not with white people. Nevertheless, the
myth predicts that the white brother will eventually return to
give the knowledge back to the Karen, and the days of oppression
will finally come to an end. Belief in this myth lead many Karen
in Burma to interpret the arrival of Western missionaries in the
early 1800s as the return of the white brother with the book of
knowledge. Messianic Buddhist sects active among the Karen along
the Thai-Burmese border also posit that the Karen will rise to
rule their own great kingdom when the white brother brings the
long-lost knowledge back to the Karen (Stern, 1968, 1990).
This
myth and other stories like it, which compare the Karen to
orphans and tell of the abuses Karen have had to suffer under
exploitative Thai and Burmese princes, serve an explanatory
function for the Karen. Their lived experiences and the myths
reinforce each other, as the Karen expect to be treated badly by
the Thai and Burmese and when they are, they remember the myths
which tell them it is their fate.
What is important here, is that
the Karen, in expressing their suffering in a culturally-specific
way, do not get attention from the international public. Because
they do not talk about their experiences in terms of "human
rights abuses", Karen suffering is often not treated as a case of
human rights abuse. For example, when the evictions of the Karen
from Thungyai Naresuan Wildlife Sanctuary were proposed, the
Karen did not make public appeals to protect their rights
butseemed resigned to their fate.
One Karen went so far as as to
say "if we are evicted, we will have to put the blame on our
ancestors. They protected this forest so that today, it is a
World Heritage Site. And because of that, we cannot stay here
anymore (Malee, 1992:C1)." Because the Karen often do not
perceive their victimization as a human rights abuse which would
be deplored around the world, they donot document their
experiences or attempt to convey their message to the rest of the
world. Their grief and anger inaudible, the Karen have continued
to suffer at the hands of more powerful others who facilely deny
committing any abuses.
The Discourse of Human Rights
In order to get international attention, it is necessary to
express suffering
through the discourse of human rights, which is accorded greater
legitimacy than stories of suffering recounted in local
discourses which are unfamiliar to international audiences.
However local people may conceptualize their victimization, they
must understand and use the language of human rights abuses to
represent themselves publicly. The discourse of human rights has
become an international accepted onebecause of its sponsorship by
the United Nations, specifically in the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights, and because of its widespread use by NGOs,
international organizations, and governments.
Groups which report
cases of exploitation and suffering using the vocabulary of human
rights abuses can reach vast numbers of people who would not
listento them otherwise. The presentation of human rights abuses
in a particular standardized format gives added credibility.
Particular kinds of information such as names,ages, hometowns,
and types of abuses must be provided, particular terms be used,
and a particular way of organizing the information should be
followed. To deviate from the vocabulary and procedures is to
lose legitimacy.
For example, as I described above in the case of
the potential evictions of Karen inhabitants from the Thungyai
Naresuan Wildlife Sanctuary, one Karen man said that the Karen
would just have to blame their ancestors for their sad plight.
This language does not resonate with human rights discourse in
which there is no place for non-materialistic explanations for
human rights abuses. Moreover, the Karen man did not clearly
identify Thai authorities as the source of the problem, and he
did not present himself as suffering a "human rights abuse".
Because the Karen have typically told their stories of suffering
using references to fate, sin, and ancestors, and the loss of the
book of knowledge, their accounts are not given attention or
legitimacy by outside sources.
The abuses are not considered "facts" unless they are presented
in a language which makes sense to Western or Western-educated
audiences. For this reason, concerned Thai lawyers and NGOs went
to Thungyai Naresuan Wildlife Sanctuary in early 1994 in order to
"help teach them about their rights under the law - a fuzzy
concept among the Karen - and generally bolster their self-esteem
(Fahn, 1994b:C3)."
Sympathetic outsiders realized that until the Karen
could present themselves as suffering human rights abuses and
communicate their experiences to outsiders, the Karen in wildlife
preserves would continue to be treated unjustly by the Thai
government. Similarly, in January,1993, a Canadian man named
Kevin Heppner established the Karen Human Rights Group together
with some Karen in Kawthoolei. Recognizing the need for Amnesty
International style documentation, Kevin has trained a number of
Karen in the techniques of gathering and writing up accounts of
abuses in ways which will be accorded legitimacy by Western
governments (see appendix). Each report includes the name, age,
sex, ethnicity, occupation and hometown of the victim. The
accounts then describe specifically how theperson's rights were
abused and if possible, names the army personnel or at least
gives the division number.
There is never any mention of blaming
ancestors or having to accept one's fate, although some of the
victims must certainly have made such comments. These reports are
then typed on a computer and distributed by mail and onthe
internet to concerned individuals, journalists, human rights
groups, and sympathetic politicians all over the world. Another
NGO bought video cameras and trained selected Karen to use them
for documenting human rights abuses and torture wounds on
victims' bodies as well as for recording victims telling their
stories. Previously, when the Karen have accused SLORC of
perpetrating human rights abuses against the Karen, SLORC has
been able to argue that the Karen had no real proof.
Western oil companies investing in Burma have also been able to
claim that there is no evidence of human rights abuses in the
Karen-inhabited areas, because until recently there were few
photographs, videos, or Western-style reports documenting such
abuses. While Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch Asia
have gathered evidence of human rights abuses in Burma,the
importance of having local groups actively monitoring and
documenting abuses in remote areas cannot be overestimated. The
Karen Human Rights Group is serving as an important link,
collecting stories of exploitation, writing them up in a
standardizedformat, and distributing them to individuals and
organizations worldwide.
While merely getting the stories out in a
form which is accorded truth-value will not result in other
governments rushing eagerly to assist the Karen, activist groups
and individuals now have "legitimate" evidence to use against the
Burmese and Thai governments and transnational companies. Whether
they are the perpetrators or collaborators, the governments and
companies can no longer so easily deny the reality of
overwhelming and regular human rights abuses, and other countries
can use the accounts to put pressure on SLORC and the Thai
government to improve their records on human rights in the
future.
Human Rights: A Cultural Discourse?
The Burmese military
regime has followed the example of China, Singapore, and other
Asian countries in asserting thathuman rights discourse is a
Western cultural invention which has no place in Asia. These
countries insist that their cultures value communal rights and
stability over the individual, and that the West cannot impose
its cultural practices on Asian countries. Should we accept such
explanations? I argue that we should not.
While it is true tha the discourse of human rights was developed
in the West and privileges the presentation of information in a
Western format, it is also true that the victims of such abuses
do not believe that their suffering is justified because they are
Asian. Indeed, massive student protests occurred in 1988 in Burma
precisely because Burmese civilians refused to accept the
legitimacy of a government which committed incessanthuman rights
abuses. Asian governments use cultural explanations to accountfor
their actions as a tactic to limit Western interference in their
internal affairs. The fact that citizens have protested abuses in
China, Indonesia, Thailand, and Burma demonstrates that the
citizens do not accept such abuses as natural, but they
aregenerally frightened into silence.
Still under house arrest, Nobel Prize
Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi recently argued against the cultural
relativity of human rights, stating thatThere is evidence that
culture and development can be made to serve as pretexts for
resistingcalls for democracy and human rights. Moreover, it is
widely known that some governments argue that democracy is a
western concept alien to indigenous values; it has also been
asserted that economic development often conflicts with
democratic rights andthat the second should give way to the
first. In the light of such arguments, culture and development
need to be carefully examined and defined that they maynot be
misused to block the aspirations of peoples (Aung San Suu Kyi,
Nov. 21,1994).
The discourse of human rights, while Western in
origin, is important because it creates a bridge between victims
and concerned outsiders around the world. If stories of suffering
are expressed in terms of local discourses, they are either not
heard or easily discounted. Stories following standard forms
accorded international truth value, on the other hand, are both
understood and believed by non-local people. As anthropologists,
we are often more interested in exploring local discourses of
suffering and what those indicate about local worldviews and
local practices.
In our fascination with culture, we can be
loathe to discuss or interpret local experiences in terms of
Western discourses, which seem to be uninteresting or irrelevant.
Nevertheless, as Paul Farmer has argued, when we begin to
recognize that human rights abuses are often facilitated by
international actors, it becomes clear that these are not merely
cultural issues.
The Political Economy of Human Rights Abuses
It is true that the Burmans began abusing the Karen long before
there was Western involvement in the region orthe term "human
rights" had been coined. This does not mean, however, that
weshould not address the way in which human rights abuses are
facilitated by international actors today. The growth of
international investment and the steady supply of weaponsto Burma
has enabled SLORC to carry out increasing human rights abuses.
Over the past three years, China has given the Burmese government
over 1 billion dollars worth of weapons in return for teakwood
and other natural resources.
Open international arms sales have
also allowed SLORC to purchase great numbers of weapons from
Singapore and Western countries, which has made it much easier
for the previously poorly equipped armyto harass and coerce
unarmed Karen villagers.
Rich in resources, Burma oughtto be a
wealthy country, but years of poorly implemented state-sponsored
socialism have impoverished the country. Strapped for cash, the
military governmentwas previously unable to buy the necessary
weapons and hire enough soldiers to wipe out the Karen and other
ethnic nationalities. However, as SLORC has begun to liberalize
the economy and to invite transnational companies to invest in
Burma, the government has been ableto significantly increase its
financial resources, boosting its ability to oppress enemies of
the state. Moreover, some of the projects in which transnational
companies are involved have resulted in SLORC using slave laborto
do most of the work.
In particular, SLORC has been coercing Mon and Karen villagers to
clear the land in the area where a gas pipeline is to be built.
This pipeline, partially funded by Total, Amoco, and the Thai
national oil company, will transfer gas from the Gulf of Martaban
across south-eastern Burma to Thailand. The land which it crosses
is claimedby the Mon, an ethnic nationality also fighting for
autonomy, but many Karen also live in this area. While Total and
Amoco deny the use of slave labor, the Karen Human RightsGroup
has documented that over 60,000 people have already been coerced
into working on the project. Western companies' denial of the
human rights abuses taking place and input of capital have not
only facilitated human rights abuses but also legitimatedthem.
The removal of Karen inhabitants from wildlife sanctuaries in
Thailand must also be understood as an international issue. Until
recently, the Thai government had little interest in preserving
its forests or its wildlife and allowed massive legal and illegal
logging and hunting to take place. While there were regulations
limiting logging and forbidding hunting in national forests, they
were rarely enforced. It wasn't until the terrible floods of
1989, when severe deforestation was recognized as having
dramatically increased the severity of the floods, that the
government began to take forest preservation more seriously.
International organizationshad already been pressing Thailand to
give more attention to environmental preservation, and the
declaration of Thungyai Naresuan as a World Heritage Site brought
unprecedented international attention. With revenues from tourism
consistently providing the country's number one source of income,
the government realized that Thungyai Naresuan and other wildlife
sanctuaries could be used to draw even more tourists. However,
the Karen inhabitants posed a problem, not only because they cut
down some trees and shot some animals, but because according to
Western touristic standards, wildlife preserves are not supposed
to be inhabited.
Valuing Western tourists and good press from
international organizations over the rights of the Karen
inhabitants, the Thai government decided to evict the Karen.
Finally, most governments, Asian and Western, have begun to work
with SLORC even though human rights abuses have, if anything,
worsened. Unable to pass up potential business opportunities in
Burma, Western and Asian governments have endorsed a policy of
"constructive engagement", arguing thatby establishing relations
with SLORC, they will better be able to influence SLORC to treat
its citizens properly.
Even the United States, which under
Clinton has been the most critical of SLORC's record of human
rights abuses, is moving toward a policyof constructive
engagement. Western governments and Japan have told SLORC that if
SLORC would only release Aung San Suu Kyi, diplomatic relations
and aid could be restored. None of these governments are
insisting on a cessation of human rights abuses against the Karen
or other ethnic nationalities, because they are more interested
in obtaining access to Burma's natural resources and domestic
markets. Moreover, the United States, which threatened to punish
the Thai military for its abusive treatment of Karen and other
refugees on the border (as well as for continuing to support the
Khmer Rouge), ended up doing nothing.
Originally, US officials stated that support for Thai military
personnel to come to the United States for education and training
would be cut. However, the US government ultimately was not
willing to damage relations with Thailand - a major trading
partner and military ally, so US officials later issued a
statement saying that the aid would continue to be offered as
usual. Such actions send a signal that human rights abuses will
be overlooked by countries who have any significant political or
economic interests there.
Conclusion
The production of human rights abuses is facilitated by
international actors through their investments in and sale of
weapons to governments which routinely commit human rights abuses
as well as by their denial of human rights abuses or their
willingness to work with such governments despite the abuses.
This being the case, it is critical that those who suffer human
rights abuses document and publicize their experiences of
suffering by using the discourse of human rights, which is
accorded legitimacy and is more likely to receive international
attention.
The discourse of human rights must be recognized as a
discourse of empowerment that allows local groups to connect with
the international community to put pressure on oppressive
regimes. In June 1991, only 8% of the households in my research
area had the household registration documents which are a
pre-requisite forcitizenship cards (Tribal Research Institute,
1991).
However, it is noteworthy that in a similar preservation project
in Om Koi District, Chiang Mai Province, the Queen of Thailand
ordered that the Karen not be removed from the forest even though
the government had originally intended to evict them. In one
instance in 1989, however, Martin Smith and a television crew
from Britain's Channel Four secretly filmed a Burmese Army unit
systematically looting a civilian Karen village which it had
taken over the day before (Smith, 1991:260).
In some versions, the Karen was given the best book, but the
white brother stole it from him. Most versions blame the Karen,
however, for not taking better care of their book. Some Karen in
Thungyai Naresuan Wildlife Sanctuary did not accept their fate
passively however.
Frustrated by the fact that they still did not have Thai
citizenship papers and were about to be expelled, and fed up with
continual harassment by Thai Border Patrol Police stationed in
the area,they murdered 6 Border Patrol Police. Seeking a more
secure life for themselves, many Karen in the area had begun
following a religious leader who preached vegetarianism,
abstention from drugs and alcohol, and a return to the old ways.
While their religious beliefs did not endorse militant action,
Thai officials immediately branded the Karen involved as radical
cultists or communists (Nation, 1992; Fahn, 1994a, 1994b), thus
refusing to accept any responsibility for the conditions which
provoked the killings. See "Clinton's Call for Pacific Harmony
Meets a Chorus of Criticism From Asians" in the New York Times
May 2, 1994
********
Notes
Estimates of the Karen population in Burma vary widely. The
Burmese government, in an attempt to deny the size of non-Burman
populations in Burma, systematically understates the Karen
population by counting Buddhist Karen as Burman. Estimates by the
Karen, however, may be overstated. Smith (1991:30) notes that the
1931 census conducted by the British recorded 1,367,673 Karen,
but the Japanese during World War II came up with a population
figure of 4.5 million. The Burmese government in 1988 said that
the Karen numbered less than 2 million while the Karen National
Union put the population at 7 million. Smith says that neutral
estimates suggest there are presently 3 to 4 million Karen in
Burma.
"Burman" refers to someone who is ethnically Burman. "Burmese"
refers to a citizen of Burma. Following the pleas of the
democratically-elected government which the military prevented
from assuming power, I continue to call the country "Burma". The
name "Myanmar" is not used, because it was imposed by an
unelected government. The British did not treat the Karen
asequals to themselves however. For more accounts of human rights
abuses in Burma, see the 1992 KNU Report and 1993-4 Reports by
the Karen Human Rights Group,which are posted on Burmanet
monthly.
In June 1991, only 8% of the households in my researh area had
the household registration documents which are a pre-requisite
for citizenship cards (Tribal Research Institute, 1991). However,
it is noteworthy that in a similar preservation project in Om Koi
District, Chiang Mai Province, the Queen of Thailand ordered that
the Karen not be removed from the forest even though [some text
cut off here].
********************************************************
FEER: PHYSICIAN IN EXILE
November 24, 1994 By Michael Vatikiotis
For a doctor who fled Burma in 1988, medicine knows no borders
The engraved brass plate reads: "Dr. Cynthia's Clinic." It looks
like the sort of plate that might hang outside an expensive
private practice. But few well-heeled patients visit Cynthia
Maung's humble surgery in the Thai town of Mae Sot, just a
stone's throw from the Burmese border.
The 35-year-old doctor, a graduate of the University of Rangoon's
medical school, looks up at the plaque. "A gift from friends in
England," she says with a shy smile. Six years ago, Maung was
practising medicine in Burma, where she worked in overcrowded
hospitals as an intern, and later in a village clinic.
When Burma's military government cracked down on angry students
after the 1988 elections, Maung joined thousands of other Burmese
who fled their country to Thailand. But she doesn't call herself
a political refugee; she left, she says, to help her people.
"The students who fled into the jungle had no resistance to
diseases like malaria," she says, recalling the 50 or so who
died in the first year.
With her qualifications and good English, she might have secured
a good job outside Burma. Instead, she opted to stay at the
border, tending to the health of a stream of refugees from her
homeland. "This year, more patients are coming because more
people are leaving Burma," she says in a gentle voice. Of the
30-40 patients attending the clinic each day, at least 10 are
newly registered.
Despite the comparative safety of Thailand, practising medicine
here is no easy task. Her clinic is housed in a modest wooden
building on the edge of Mae Sot, a dusty border town. The
compound belongs to the Karen National Union, whose forces are
still sporadically battling with the Burmese army across the
border. are fewer horrific war-wounds to deal with, Maung says.
Now the major health problems she tackles are malaria and
tuberculosis. In a corner of the clinic lies a man with a large
abscess on one leg. His bed is a floor mat; his treatment
consists of antibiotics and a clean dressing.
It's not so very different from the medical problems Maung
confronted as a doctor in Burma. There were only limited places
for government doctors in the city, so after graduating, she
found work at a Karen village clinic in Pa'an district. "I'm
used to the city. I grew up in Moulmein. But I had no choice but
to work in a village," she recalls.
The rural experience brought her into contact with illness and
suffering that she believes could easily be prevented with a
basic level of health care. The diminishing intensity of armed
conflict now allows her to address this problem by sending
paramedic teams from Mae Sot into Burma's rural areas. Perhaps
it says something about the situation along the border that
instead of treating gun-shot and shrapnel wounds, she is now
training
Part of the problem, is the dislocation of local communities
caused by the irredentist conflict. "People move from place to
place, without a community; it is very difficult to do any
preventative health care she explains. The work of her two
medical team operating across the border is obviously fulfilling
a need. Nowadays patients are referred to her clinic from as far
as 30 kilometres inside Burma.
She gets financier support from several Thai and foreign
agencies. They pay for drugs, administrative overheads and the
cost of sending patients to the Mae Sot district hospital. "We
can only perform minor surgery here," Maung explains, pointing
to a wooden trellis table. Almost all patients are treated for
free. "If they can afford to, we ask them to pay for their
drugs," she says.
Early one evening, it is hard to imagine that she manages to have
any personal life. She is married to Thaw Hein, a student from
Burma whom she met in Mae Sot, and they have two young children.
Even after working hours, patients come to her door while she is
breast- feeding her infant daughter. "l start at 6 a.m. and
sometimes don't finish until 10 at night," she says with only a
mild hint of complaint. She smiles, comforts her child, and says
that one day, when things are better in Burma, she would like to
return home.
Michael Vatikiotis is a REVIEW correspondent based in Bangkok.
*********************************************************
NEWS SOURCES REGULARLY COVERED/ABBREVIATIONS USED BY BURMANET:
*********************************************************
AP: ASSOCIATED PRESS
AFP: AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
AW: ASIAWEEK
AWSJ: ASIAN WALL STREET JOURNAL
Bt.: THAI BAHT; 25 Bt.=US$1 (APPROX),
BBC: BRITISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION
BI: BURMA ISSUES
BKK POST: BANGKOK POST (DAILY NEWSPAPER, BANGKOK)
BRC-CM: BURMESE RELIEF CENTER-CHIANG MAI
BRC-J: BURMESE RELIEF CENTER-JAPAN
CPPSM: C'TEE FOR PUBLICITY OF THE PEOPLE'S STRUGGLE IN MONLAND
FEER: FAR EAST ECONOMIC REVIEW
IRRAWADDY: NEWSLETTER PUBLISHED BY BURMA INFORMATION GROUP
JIR: JANE'S INTELLIGENCE REVIEW
KHRG: KAREN HUMAN RIGHTS GROUP
Kt. BURMESE KYAT; UP TO 150 KYAT=US$1 BLACK MARKET
100 KYAT=US$1 SEMI-OFFICIAL
6 KYAT=US$1 OFFICIAL
MOA: MIRROR OF ARAKAN
NATION: THE NATION (DAILY NEWSPAPER, BANGKOK)
NLM: NEW LIGHT OF MYANMAR (DAILY STATE-RUN NEWSPAPER, RANGOON)
S.C.B.:SOC.CULTURE.BURMA NEWSGROUP
S.C.T.:SOC.CULTURE.THAI NEWSGROUP
SEASIA-L: S.E.ASIA BITNET MAILING LIST
SLORC: STATE LAW AND ORDER RESTORATION COUNCIL
USG: UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT
XNA: XINHUA NEWS AGENCY (PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA)
**************************************************************