Thailand Prisoner Support

Thailand continues to deny  its citizens and others freedom of expression, in what is a continual eroding of Human Rights in this country, once known for being a leader of democracy in the region.

Since the 2006 military coup, freedom of the press and freedom of speech in Thailand have been under continual attack. In recent months, there has been a dramatic spike in lese majeste prosecutions by the government and police, and many people are suffering in Thailand’s abominable prisons for speaking their minds. This week, an American-Thai citizen was convicted of a ‘lese majeste’ offense and sentenced to 2.5 years in prison. This, only a week after 61 year old Ampon Tangnoppakul was sentenced to 20 years for sending four text messages deemed ‘insulting to the monarchy’ in what was widely reported as a trial with a ‘presumed guilty, unless proven innocent’ bias.

While much media in Thailand is self-censored and not reporting the growing public outcry at these recent ‘lese majeste’ arrests and convictions, calls within Thailand by ordinary citizens to abolish the law continue. On Saturday, fifty brave demonstrators took action and marched in the streets of Bangkok in protest. This was the second such protest in as many days.

Despite local and international calls to abolish the ‘lese majeste’ law, including the UN issuing a statement that the law is “neither necessary nor proportionate, and violates Thai human rights obligations,” the Deputy Prime Minister of Thailand  vows to aggressively pursue prosecutions of those deemed to be ‘insulting the monarchy.’

We must continue to bravely speak out against this and other draconian laws in Thailand that keep people in fear and undermine any chance of real democracy, and to continually fight for basic Human Rights for all.

When is this dangerous, inhumane madness going to end?

This worldwide madness of perpetuating hypocritical, fundamentally inhumane policies called: War on Drugs…

Thailand this year announced a renewal of their ‘War on Drugs,’ a war which saw a tripling of their prison population since 2000, and thousands of documented extra-judiciary killings by police of suspected drugs dealers and other ‘undesirables’… Every day in Bangkwang prison, I visit men serving 100 year sentences for possession of drugs who survive the hellish prison by using these same illegal drugs supplied by their jailers.

Ludicrous and Inhumane, we say…

And yet, here in Canada, Harper also wages war against people suffering from the disease of addiction. In addition to moving Canada towards a super-max prison state, his government pursues vigorously a court case against Vancouver’s Insite facility, .

Since 2003, Insite has been offering a safe injection site for people to inject their illegal drugs in a supervised environment with clean apparatus and within view of medical personnel and support workers who can respond to medical crises, provide counseling, and offer options, such as a detox center.

Insite operates within a framework of harm reduction, the premise that:

1)    Addiction is a public health issue, not a criminal one

2)    Providing services for addicts that minimize the damage done and offering options, education and social support works better and is fundamentally more humane and economical than criminalizing people for their disease.

What is criminal is forcing an already marginalized population further into the margins, leaving them to inject in alleys with dirty needles and sanitation and help, because of the fear of imprisonment. Criminalizing this behaviour also forces people to purchase impure, dirty drugs, thereby greatly increasing their risk of overdose and death.

Accessing a safe, non-judgmental place to inject puts a marginalized community in touch with health services not just for their drug addiction, but also greatly increases the chances that the person will continue to access other social services, including detox. This ultimately leads to a decrease in long-term health and legal costs associated with the addiction.

Insite has operated to proven success at reducing deaths and overdoses from drugs. A recent, independent, peer-reviewed study found that fatal overdoses within 500 metres of Insite decreased by 35% after the facility opened compared to a decrease of 9% in the rest of Vancouver. Insite and facilities like it around the world have been shown to reduce crime, the spread of new cases of HIV and hepatitis, as well as increase the likelihood of people entering detox programs.

Yet Harper’s government continues to try to shut down this critical facility, and despite being defeated twice in Lower Courts, has taken this challenge to the Supreme Court of Canada in a misguided and deadly mission.

For our taxpayer dollars to fund Harper’s conservative government’s lengthy and immoral war against the health of some of our most marginalized citizens is sickening. Hopefully our highest courts will put an end to this madness.

For more information:

http://supervisedinjection.vch.ca/

I received an email from the Canadian Embassy in Bangkok last night informing me that Adrian, the Canadian/Dutch dual citizen I have been visiting for six years in Bangkwang has finally been granted a transfer to Holland, effective April 2011. Adrian has been riding an emotional roller coaster for the last few years, as he sees his hopes raises and dashed repeatedly that he may be released, only to have endless delays… Just a month ago, I saw him and he was holding his breath in anticipation of the latest round of meetings dealing with his case — and finally: Great news! He is being transferred to the Netherlands. Although his wife and countless others remain imprisoned, each person who gets out is another reason to celebrate and to appreciate another chance at a new life! WISHING YOU ONLY THE BEST, ADRIAN!!!

Thailand has launched the new year with a new ‘War on Drugs,’ which is making me and others very nervous about the potential for human rights’ abuses in Thailand. During the last, now infamous, War on Drugs in 2003, Thailand’s police committed over 2500 extra-judiciary killings of suspected drug dealers, drug users, and anyone else caught in the middle of their campaign. Human Rights’ groups criticized these actions and caution against a repeat of these illegal and despicable actions, but Thailand’s government has not allayed anyone’s fears so far. In addition to these human rights’ violations, there is concern that drug addicts will not get the medical treatment they need, but rather will be thrown into the already overcrowded prisons and left to languish. Given that 50% of Thailand’s drug users are estimated to be HIV positive, this represents a serious failure in Thailand’s care of its citizens. International scientists and researchers the world over have learned that drug prohibition policies which criminalize the users cause serious harm to individuals suffering from addiction and/or HIV, and, in fact, exacerbate the HIV epidemic. ‘ War on Drugs’ policies and action do significant harm, especially to already vulnerable populations, and lead to human rights abuses. Please read more at: http://www.viennadeclaration.com/the-declaration/

I hesitated before writing this post, conflicted about what to say and how to say it…I am writing this as a caution, reporting this reality so that well-intentioned people who may be writing to inmates, or may want to visit them at Bangkwang use prudence and do not get suckered, or taken advantage of…
There is a large number of inmates in Bangkwang who spend their time trying to get money from pen-pals, particularly from Christian pen-pals. They send different versions of a form letter about how they are poor, made a terrible mistake, regret deeply their one transgression, and now have turned their life around (with the help of God or thanks to their new ‘best’ friend, the pen-pal). They ask for financial help to help them survive the prison, often requesting money for ‘medical expenses’ or ‘airplane tickets’ that will allow them to fly home upon release. As they have nothing but time to work on these scams, these inmates demand money from many, many Western pen-pals, seeing them as rich benefactors.
Aware of this potential for manipulation between inmate and pen-pal, I caution potential pen-pals not to send money. I’m concerned about increasing numbers of well-intentioned people who are sending hundreds or thousands of dollars into the prison, thinking that they are the only hope for this ‘poor’ inmate inside.
This scam culture, like gambling and contraband goods inside the prison, flourishes — there is a black market in Western pen-pals’ names, with inmates hoping to get more and more contacts on the outside to scam. There is a large amount of smuggled contraband drugs, items and cash inside the prison, including cell-phones — which can cost as much as $3000 to purchase inside — many of these inmates have large sums of cash and definately are not starving, nor are they in need of any of the items that well-meaning people send to them. These inmates contemptuously dismiss ‘banana visits,’ whereby a visitor to the prison has brought ‘only’ a friendly smile and conversation, rather than tangible goods or cash. When Christian charities send in care packages to a large number of inmates, with toiletry items and basic items, many of the inmates who claim poverty don’t even bother to collect their packages, scoffing at the ‘paltry’ supplies, and preferring to focus on their campaigns to demand large amounts of cash from their visitors and pen-pals.

It is an unfortunate reality that the poorest prisoner with no support and no visitors are generally in no position to obtain visitors, as they are often depressed, with no English skills, and no ability to contact outsiders or to get needed support, while other inmates who claim poverty to their pen-pals often have a whole slew of visitors and packages. A disproportionate amount of the goods and cash going to the foreign prisoners gets to a small percentage of inmates, including the scam artists who don’t actually need the support.

I don’t want people to be discouraged in their impulse to give charity or to support prisoners, but I ask people to be prudent and to set clear boundaries. If you are offering your support to an inmate, please be clear that you are offering friendship, and not financial support, unless you are prepared to be taken in. An inmate with vast amounts of time is may be highly motivation to try to take as much as possible from anyone they can get it from — it’s human nature. They will also stop their letters as soon as they have taken everything they can from a pen-pal.

The men I concentrate my support on are thrilled to have a friend, someone to talk to, someone who listens and treats them as human, rather than as a prisoner. I bring basic food items and toiletries and sometimes clothing, but I do not deposit cash to their prison accounts. That is my choice, and everyone has their own choice to make on how best to support someone in that situation, but I caution: Support for an inmate needs to include some self-awareness on the part of the pen-pal, some basic common sense boundaries in order for there to be respect and dignity for both parties involved.

I met with several ex-pp and their families who are some of the many Burmese in the borders and margins of Mae Sot, Thailand. Granted no refugee status, no rights, no ability to work, Thi-Ha Yarzer, who spent 18 years of his life imprisoned and tortured for advocating democracy in Burma, was released two years ago and came to this Thai border town. “I feel like I am still in prison,” he says, “I am a stateless person, forced to live like a thief here.” Due to persecution by the Burmese SPDC (government), his family members in Burma lost their jobs, their homes, and have joined him in Thailand, where, they too, have no rights, and face constant scrutiny and harassment by Thai Police, who threaten and extort money from them at every chance.

I met also Andrew, one of the VJs from Burma VJ, who now also ‘stays’ in Mae Sot — as it cannot be called ‘living’ — he too, faces certain imprisonment if the Thais force them over the border, as they have been threatening to do, since the recent November 2010 sham elections in Burma.

The Royal Thai Government has refused to grant refugee status to increasing numbers of Burmese fleeing persecution and war in Burma and for the past two years has been forcing thousands of people back into Burma. In November, tens of thousands of Burmese villagers fleeing fighting in their villages in Burma were detained and returned to Burma by Thai Police. They return to villages that have been burned, or where re-newed fighting forces them back through the jungle and across the river to Thailand. Those who choose to stay in their villages are killed by either the Burmese military or the rebel forces.

Existing now in this shadow liminal border town, with no rights, no access to id documents, no country, these people ask only for basic human rights — the right to live free from persecution: “We need an identity, a country. We are not safe in Thailand, we cannot return to Burma.”

It is imperative that the Royal Thai government act with the UNHCR to recognize and register the ex-pp and other Burmese refugees and start a resettlement process in another country, so that they may live, work, have a future and their children may have a future free from fear and persecution.

Please watch more: http://enigmaimages.wordpress.com/2010/09/11/former-political-prisoners-need-urgent-unhcr-action/

We are greeted by a woman, MN, who has made the arrangements for me to visit, as she has lived here for decades and is in good standing with the Thai police. She takes my hand and leads me past the gates, where I drop off the 24 beer for the two guards. After some negotiation and waiting, they wave me through.

We proceed through this incredible ‘town’ of tiny steep dirt ‘streets’ no larger than footpaths winding up and around thousands of bamboo huts, market places. Although many families live their whole lives here, UN refugee regulations stipulate that building material in refugee camps must be ‘impermanent,’ and therefore, these people’s homes cannot have tin roofs or concrete floor to protect against the monsoon floods or the biting cold mountain nights. Some people layer their bamboo palm roofs with plastic bags or bits of cardboard paper to create insulation — it is wholly inadequate. Many children die of the cold and malnutrition, disease.

After an hour of walking up and down winding paths, across tiny bridges and through different areas of the ‘camp’ — through Muslim neighbourhoods, Karen neighbourhoods, past small fields of children playing, we see the ‘orphanage’, a section of the camp where hundreds of parent-less children of all ages live together. We pass a high school, a mosque, a church — all simple huts with small signs indicating their function.

TN is eager for me to meet his ad hoc English language class. Other classes run by ngos with western teachers exist in the camp, but this class is a beginner’s class started by a Burmese refugee wanting to help his people to access greater learning and knowledge – and to stave off the incredible boredom here, the teacher later tells me. He teaches three hours per day to two groups of roughly 20 students. He has no material, except a small whiteboard and erasable pens.

We cross a crude bamboo bridge and outside the school are several smiling Burmese. I wave at the eager students awaiting my arrival, and they usher me inside. We sit crosslegged on the floor and someone places a glass of Sprite and a bun in front of me.

We introduce ourselves – there are students of almost all ethnic minority groups from the surrounding areas: Shan, Akha, Kachin, Karen, Karenni, Mon. They start to pepper me with questions:

- Where are you from? What are your hobbies? What is the language of Canada?

We discuss for about an hour – for most, it is their first chance to practice speaking with a native English speaker. They crave news of the outside world.

- What do you think of our camp? Do you think Burma will achieve democracy?

I pause and weigh my answers, speaking slowly, not wanting to bullshit them, but wanting to offer some hope as well. I say I feel sick in my heart at the conditions that they and all Burmese suffer from no matter where they exist – hiding in Thai towns illegally, forced from their homes and families into refugee camps, oppressed by their brutal government. I say I have no idea whether real democracy will come to Burma, especially as India, China, Thailand and others are aligning themselves with Burma to
get at its oil and natural gas resources… these powerful allies have no interest in pressuring Burma’s rulers to address their human rights records or genocidal practices towards their own people. But, I add, that many people around the world do care and continue to act in the hopes that the Burmese people will one day be free, and that the incredible resilience and determination of the Burmese people in this struggle for freedom must succeed.

- God, I sound so patronizing, I think.

Then, one student asks me: Please, what is your feeling of democracy?

I repeat back his question, paraphrasing, trying to understand the question: do you mean…what do I feel about democracy? He shakes his head. After a few attempts, the class teacher explains:
- Please, you must understand…we have never lived in a democratic country. We want to know…what is it like to live in a democracy… the feeling you have in your country… What does democracy feel like?

What does democracy feel like? I stare at him blankly.

Not… what does it looks like in practice, with voting booths and candidates and elections, proportional representation… What does it feel like?

I have no idea what to say – I have never been asked this, and never thought about it. Democracy is something that I think of as one of many imperfect systems, an important ideal to fight for in places where it doesn’t exist, but also deeply flawed and corrupt, often serving the elite. Not once in my entire life, have I ever stopped to think what democracy feels like. Like the proverbial fish asked to describe the feeling of water, it is impossible for me to describe. My mind is racing a thousand miles a minute: what do I say to people who have never experienced the privilege and freedom I have?

In the few seconds I pause, a thousand half-formed thoughts whirl…

My mind goes to the easy grumbling I could make about Canadians not appreciating the freedoms we have: about low voter turnout, widespread apathy and cynicism, and grumbling about politicians even while we are often too lazy to do anything concrete about it. But I think: how can I tell these people that we are so used to our freedom and privileges in Canada, that many can no longer be bothered to exercise our right and responsibilities in a democracy to hold our governments accountable, to engage with the system and government?

I’ve spent years at university discussing inherent problems in liberal democracies, advocating for people in Canada who are socially and economically marginalized. We have a hell of a long way to go on First Nation’s issues, and so much more…but it would be disrespectful for me to complain about the problems of modern Canadian society, problems which Burmese people are literally dying to have the chance to have…

I have a responsibility to not dismiss any person’s life in this room, each Burmese person I have met who has shared moments of their story, their life.

I think of a man I met in Mae Sot two days ago – imprisoned for participating the 1988 student protests against the government, he was held in five different prisons and tortured for 18 years, before being
released a few years ago, his wife since dead and infant daughter grown and gone. When the Burmese military continued to persecute his remaining family members, he fled Burma to Thailand. He, like thousands of others, lives illegally in Mae Sot, in limbo, a no-man’s land, always afraid that
Thai police will catch him and send him back to Burma. He continues in his struggle for freedom in Burma from the oppressive regime, while existing in the shadows here, unable to know safety. Some of his extended family are also in Mae Sot, where they live in fear because of their association with this ex-political prisoner.

I think of two men I met when I first came to Mae Sot, five years ago. I am helping to teach a French class for migrant workers. One night after class, two students ask if we can continue our discussions of French literature and language. A group of us makes our way to a nearby cafe — the two Burmese men very nervous of police — but protected by the presence of three white people. These two men were students arrested in the 1996 Burma government’s closure of universities and imprisonment of students. Imprisoned and tortured for more than a decade for the crime of attending university, these two men have only escaped across the border to this town ten days earlier. Since arriving in Mae Sot, they seek out all opportunity to learn and to educate themselves.

I think of one of the young students I met today, sitting beside me on a crude bamboo bench in the shade of the hot sun, as we wait for the Thai police to agree to let me walk around the camp — the police are contemplating demanding an additional bribe for my presence…

He smiles at me and says very softly:
- for 15 years, I am afraid of my own government, and I come here three years ago, and now I am afraid of the Thai government…
He laughs, a typically Burmese way to diffuse tension and to mask anger.
- we have no country, no home, no safety, we cannot say anything. Inside, we shout.
He smiles.

Every person I have met in the five years I have been coming here has a similar story to share — villages bombed, Burmese military attacking and killing their families, escaping across treacherous mountain passes, fighting disease, starvation, malaria and the land mines that line the border. Then, extortion, beating, and cruelty from the Thais, who refuse to grant them any status or human rights.

I learn that a few years ago, Thailand stopped allowing people to register as refugees with the UN. I learn the 19,000 Burmese who crossed the border last week have been sent back to Burma against their wishes in a deal the Royal Thai Government made with Burma’s ruling junta.

Back in the camp with the students, I realize that I cannot answer their question properly. I think of how, in Canada, I bitch about the erosion of our civil liberties and how Canada is turning into a police state,
especially for certain minorities…but this is hardly in the same ballpark…on election day, we don’t wake up to machine guns trained on us, and grenades bombing our homes. In Canada, we don’t fear being taken from our homes, raped, and used as forced labour or human land mine detectors by our military until we drop dead of starvation, exhaustion, or are blown to bits.

They wait in silence, staring at me, expectantly. I am acutely aware that I need to respond. I start slowly with the first concrete image that comes to my mind in which my life in my country contrasts starkly with their own:

- In Canada, I say, I am allowed to say anything I want about the government. I can criticize the government freely – it is my right. In a democracy, the people do not fear the government — instead, the government fears the people.
A lump comes into my throat.

(Of course, I know milquetoast-mannered Stephen Harper’s minority government doesn’t actually fear the people in any real and palpable sense of the term. But the enormity of the question is starting to hit me.)

I tell the students that, in Canada, a police officer has no right to ask me what I am doing and to demand if if I am simply walking down the street.
- Here, I have to show my passport every 5 minutes to the police, I say, and everyone laughs.

-Tell us, what is it like when YOU enter Thailand with a Canadian passport? I tell them that I am automatically granted a free, re-newable visa, no questions asked. They all look at each other and shake their heads.

I know that I will never be able to understand a Burmese person’s experience of their country, and the violence they experience at the hands of their own government and Thailand’s. I think maybe what I cannot express to them is my lack of fear, a sense of entitlement, of ‘righteous’ indignation when I perceive injustice, and the freedom to express my outrage.

My response has been inadequate, and I realize I have no idea what the *feeling* of democracy is…and my not knowing speaks volumes.

We break and walk around the camp for a few more hours. We stop at a Buddhist celebration and I pay the required bribes to the head monks. Then I exit the camp, get in the back of a pickup truck and say goodbye to TN, and the other students who wave at me from behind the fence and barbed wire.

The warm night air refreshes me on the two hours’ drive back to Mae Sot. The only other passenger in the pickup heaves his stomach contents over the side of the truck as I watch the full moon rise in the pink sky over the mountains.

I am writing from the Thai-Burma border, having left Salt Spring two weeks ago.

I was at the Prison in Bangkok last week, and checked in on some of the men, and there are many more to visit in the months ahead.

I am now up in the town of Mae Sot, on the border with Burma, enjoying the cooler air outside Bangkok, where it gets down to 18 degrees Celsius at night. I will return to Bangkok in a few days to continue the prison visitations.

I have been to this border/frontier town several time in the past few years, and I felt compelled to return this week. After the election scam perpetrated by the Burmese military junta a few weeks ago, thousands of Burmese people fled their country, spilling across the river into Mae Sot and a few other towns along the border.

Often called ‘The City of Exiles,’ Mae Sot is a town full of ‘illegal’ Burmese migrants living in the shadows and margins of the streets, hoping to eke out an existence without being caught by Thai police. Thousands of others used as slaves by the Thais have permission to ‘work’ here, although often don’t get paid, and have no right to travel outside this town. The many military and police checkpoints that surround Mae Sot ensure that the cheap Burmese labour cannot try at a better life or look for work in places like Bangkok. Three refugee camps are within a three-hour radius for still thousands of others who await the slim chance of being accepted as refugees into a Western country.

I came here to be a Western witness to the most recent group of 19,000 Burmese that the Thais are holding at the Mae Sot airport — all villagers who have fled the Burmese military clashes with rebels, just a few kilometres from here, in Burma. Thailand is refusing to recognize these people as legitimate refugees, and threatening to send them back over to Burma, to the waiting military. I wonder if documenting their situation and trying to alert the West about their situation will be of any help. I am particularly hoping to speak with Burmese women and to document some of their stories.

I have also come to meet TN, a Burmese man I have been corresponding with for a few years, since trying to help him and a few other Burmese labourers get work permits for Canada under a Skilled Workers program. Themen are qualified construction workers and had job offers lined up in Vancouver’s then booming construction industry. After difficult months of gathering necessary documentation to satisfy Canada’s requirements, they had high hopes of being able to leave their oppressive, poverty-riddled lives in order to provide for their families in a new country. Unfortunately, during the final stages of the application process, the three men were refused at the Bangkok Embassy, for reasons of…well, being Burmese.

Devastated for them, I have maintained contact with TN ever since, sending him small amounts of money occasionally, out of guilt. Despite his extreme poverty, he is able to send me an email once or twice per year. Now 30 years old, TN fled Burma two years ago for this town, and now ‘resides’ in
Umpium refugee camp, about two hours’ drive from here. Here, he exists in legal limbo, a state-less person like hundreds of thousands of others, with no country, no rights in Thailand. He exists, along with the roughly 25,000 other Burmese in this camp, mostly ethnic minority Karen, in this small ‘village’ made of bamboo poles and bamboo thatch — not allowed to work, no means of making money, relying on the monthly UN rations of rice, cooking oil and charcoal. I learn from him that that one of the other men trying to come to Canada returned to Burma only to be imprisoned — a common occurrence for anyone who dares to return to Burma after leaving.

TN has secured permission from the Thai military guarding the camp to come to Mae Sot to meet me — at a price, of course. We meet outside my guesthouse in Mae Sot and, after a brief hesitation about the appropriateness, I give him a huge hug. We spend the day walking around the town, meeting other Burmese friends, talking in Burmese coffee shops filled with pictures of Aung San Suu Kyi, Che Guevara, Martin Luther King, Jr, Ghandi, and countless Burmese monks and activist leaders.

Finally, after a long day, TN and I make a plan to take an early morning pickup truck to the camp. He says he gets ‘dizzy’ during the portion of the trip that winds up mountain roads, and I nod, but I forget it as soon as he mentions it.

I am up at 5:20 am, ready to go when TN arrives at my guesthouse at 5:40. We walk along the early morning streets with the 24-case of beer I have been instructed to bring for the Thai police. TN is quite nervous walking openly in the streets of this town, where Thai police extort money from Burmese illegals at every opportunity, or beat them and threaten them with deportation over the border 3 kilometres away. He and I both know that my white skin and Canadian passport keep him safe today. Waiting for the ‘bus,’ we drink sweet coffee in a Muslim coffee-shop and watch a huge rat with open wounds run around the shop while several boys and men try to smash it with metal bars. Finally, after a few hours of waiting, we get on the back of the pick-up buses, called songthaews, that have two benches running along the sides, and a partially covered roof.

We are 16 passengers, sitting cramped around and on bags of rice and cooking oil, and the last four to arrive stand on the tailgate for the whole ride. After 45 minutes on flat highway, the truck starts up the
winding mountain road towards the camp, taking each corner at breakneck speed.

Instantly, all the passengers except me are retching out the side of the truck, hanging their heads over the sides and vomiting violently. I am shocked by the sudden, simultaneous retching. One small girl is holding a plastic bag into which she spits and vomits every few seconds, her face tired, but stoic. After ten minutes of vomiting, she falls asleep against her sick brother, clutching her plastic baggie of vomit, waking occasionally to puke more into the bag. TN is green and violently retching the whole way.

We pass several military checkpoints where everyone except me is required to produce id and papers. TN stares straight ahead, his body rigid with fear, as the police examine his paper. After another hour, we arrive at the camp, and the Burmese climb wretchedly off the bus, looking drawn and pale.

The site of the camp is stunningly beautiful, a village built into the side of mountains covered in bamboo palms, with mist everywhere — however, the barbed wire and Thai police at the gates remind one instantly that this ‘village’ differs from the others we pass on the way. Here, the caged inhabitants do what all humans do despite the severe restriction on their movement, their rights, their ability to have paid employment…

They build community, build schools, gathering places, markets, churches, mosques; they have children and dream of better futures; make gardens and tend animals along the steep narrow, garbage-filled paths that run between the huts. Many are born here and have hopes and dreams of education, of
freedom, of lives outside this camp. Some eventually get set to ‘third’ countries: US, Canada, Australia, Sweden, as registered UN refugees — but most live out their entire lives and die here.

“We, the undersigned fifty ex-political prisoners from Burma, write to you in desperation. We have no further avenues for appeal and are living in an unbearable fear of forced repatriation to Burma following the 2010 elections.

Currently, there are over 140,000 refugees residing within nine main Refugee Camps on the Thai-Burma border. Of these nine camps, only two house ex-political prisoners – Umpiem Camp and Nu Po Camp. There are a total of one hundred and twenty three ex-political prisoners. The undersigned are the ex-political prisoners of Umpiem Camp but we write to you on behalf all ex-political prisoners. We plead for your understanding that, as ex-political prisoners, we have been identified as dissidents by the Junta.

They know who we are, they know our family members. Many of us are published on the Junta’s most wanted list. We have not committed any criminal acts. We were unlawfully incarcerated for speaking out against the regime. Some of us spent almost twenty years in prison. We know that we will face certain death or imprisonment should we be forced to return to Burma. Ex-political prisoners are an especially vulnerable group and, in light of the current political context, we plead for your assistance…”

For more information… www.thebestfriend.org/2010/09/10/open-letter/

Thanks to all who have supported me with kind words or a few dollars here and there…Special thanks to PharmaSave owners Linda and Gary on Salt Spring Island, who, once again this year, sent me off to Thailand with a donated bag of toiletries, vitamins and painkillers for the inmates. Every bit counts and your generosity and kindness is truly appreciated by me and the inmates!