AUSTCARE'S BURMA/THAILAND TOUR REPO

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Subject: AUSTCARE'S BURMA/THAILAND TOUR REPORT, MAY-1996.

/* posted Mon 24 Jun 6:00am 1996 by DRUNOO@xxxxxxxxxxxx in igc:reg.burma */

BURMA/THAILAND TOUR REPORT BY AUSTCARE, MAY-1996.
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The AUSTCARE, an Australian NGO, has prepared "Tour Report" for
Thailand-Burma border refugee situation. The AUSTCARE project officer,
Simon Ernst, made tour to the refugee camps in Thailand on 3-13 May
and reported the situation. A copy of it may be obtained from AUSTCARE,
69-71 PARRAMATTA ROAD CAMPERDOWN NSW 2050 (Fax: (02) 9550 4509). They also
have their own home page (see information below). The "Tour Report" 
also described the current situation of NGO workers. 

Following article from The Australian news magazine is by susan 
surokawa, and is for refugee weeks 23-29 july in Australia. -- U Ne Oo.
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THE AUSTRALIAN MAGAZINE, 22-23 JUNE 1996.
MAKE CONNECTION by Susan Kurosawa

Every day some 10,000 people become refugees. It's shock-horror statistic
that kept creeping to mind while I was helping a friend move house last
month. I was sitting in his empty terrace waiting for techincians of
various types and degrees of reliability to come and drill, disconnect,
repair and remove rubbish. Not a personal possession in sight, save afew
bent coathangers, some cobwebby coins wedged under skirting boards and, on
one wall, a torn pop-idol poster abandoned by a fickle sub-teen. It felt as
if all the imprints of my friend's existence had been erased.

I sat looking at the poster and started to cry. It reminded me of one I'd
seen just over a year ago, in a refugee hut at Holachanee camp on the
Thailand/Burma border. A rickety shack hinged on a mud-caked slope with no
personality, no preprietorial ornamentation. On the floor had been placed,
oddly neat and ordered, a few precious belongings: a soucepan, tow
mismatched shoes, a child's rattle made from bamboo and seeds. And the
poster with its absurdly bright lettering and too-smiley starlet adding a
pathetic splash of colour.

Living in the hut were new camp arrivals Nah Win Nine and his extended
family, who'd walked for five days through dense jungle, with two young
mothers breastfeeding their babies. Left behind was a small farm on wiich
they couldn't afford to pay the land taxes imposed by the SLORC, the
hideously brittle acronym for Burma's State Law and Order Restoration
Council, boasted to be the biggest military forces in South-East Asia.

There are around 95,000 Karen, Karenni and Mon refugees held in camps along
the jungly border between Burma and Thailand, If you count those sheltering
on Burma's other borders, the total approaches 144,500, with more arriving
each day to add to that chilling world total. The minority bribespeople
have beenforced to escape their homeland, running from village-razing SLORC
soldiers whose grim calling card is one of rape, pillage, mutilation and
kidmapping of able-bidied men to work as military porters.

Refugee Week, which is sponsored jointly by Austcare and the Refugee
Council of Australia, starts this weekend across the country under the
umbrella theme of "Help Make the Connection". Some of the figures that will
emerge are sure to stun: there are now more than 27 million refugees
worldwide, plus 26 million people displaced within their homelands. One
person in every 115 on earth is or has been a refugee and approximately 80
per cent of that number are women and dependent children under the age of
14.

And as Austcare points out, there are uncounted millions who have suffered
injustice, persecution, torture and human rights abuse because of their
race, religion, nationality, social group or political opinion. Still more
have been displaced due to natural disasters.

When the now-annual Refugee Week was launched in 1986, there were 11
million refugees. As well as the numbers, the nature of the refugee
situation is changing, too. Primarily, conflict has become commonplace
within States, rather than between them.

Australians will be asked to but a Connection badge for $@ from
street-sellers in Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne and Perth next Friday or from
selected outlets until the end of the month. If you up the donation to $20,
it buys 300 books for a refugee literacy project; $30 pays for immunisation
for three children. The money is not intended for Band-aid measures but for
long-term strategies of empowerment, rehabilitation, training and
education. One of the main aims of Refugee Week is to change the stereotype
of refugees as helpless and hopeless.

As most of us sit in our middle-class bungalows or apartments, perhaps
surrounded, as I am, with cluttered memorabilia and statements of self,
let's spare a thought next week for those who have lost their homes. The
millions whose history has been exterminated and for wom the future is as
uncertain as that of Nah Win Nine and his family, sheltering in a leaky,
leaf-foofed hut straddling a no man's strip between a homeland bent on
cleansing itself of minorities and a lassez-faire Thailand which refuses to
sign the international conventions and protocols that afford United Nations
protection to those with refugee status.

A $2 donation, at the very least, is a gesture we can all afford. We can
also make a stand about human rights abuses. In this vein, as The
Australian's travel editor, I am boycotting Burma, especially in terms of
refusing to promote or publicise the SLORC's 1996 tourist drive
(desperately and ironically behind schedule, it's unlikely to start until
October ). Burmese citizens are being forced to work in a slave-labour
condition to prepare the infrastructure (roads, railways, hotels) needed to
attract foreign tourists and investors. National League for Democracy
leader Aung San Suu Kyi has inplored visitors to stay away until the ruling
military junta shows real signs of a stride toward democracy.

We may feel our small donations or personal stands can't make a difference,
but to use a worn metaphor, if enough of us light a candle, there will be a
litting of darkness. And new beams of hope shall shine.

by SUSAN KUROSAWA
[Details of Refugee Week events and projects are available from Austcare on
(02) 565 9111 or web site http://www.austcare.com.au ]
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ARTICLE FROM THE AUSTRALIAN MAGAZINE (22-23 JUNE 1996)