Eyes to Burma » Arrested Illegal immigrants

October 18, 2009 – 12:28 pm | One Comment

I visited the garbage dump many times over the course of several months in 2008-2009 while filming for my documentary.
Fred and I had the idea to create a movie to get some awareness to raise some money for supplies for the inhabitants of the dump.

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Illegal Immigrants

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Burma Crisis

Arrested Illegal immigrants

Submitted by Pieter-Henk on October 18, 2009 – 11:34 amNo Comment

Aliens: On the 23rd of January, 200 members from the Mae Sot police force, volunteer forces, municipality of Mae Sot, and Tak immigration department arrested illegal immigrants in the Mae Sot area. They arrested 116 people in total, made up of Burma, Bangladeshi, and Karen people.

What the paper didn’t mention is that they stole all the pots & pans, food, money and all other supplies the inhabitants of the garbage dump.
We’ve donated 200 blankets 2 weeks before the crackdown, they also where all taken.

The trucks where overloaded so the Thai authorities used sticks to hit and push the people in the caged trucks.
After several hours of interrogation they released the people inside Burma under the custody of the DKBA, which is a Burmese guerrilla army.

The Thai authorities brought along a firetruck and mentioned to the inhabitants that they do not belong in Thailand, and if they come back they will burn everything down.



	
	
		
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Political Imprisonment »

Political Imprisonment – Khin Cho Myint

Interview with Khin Cho Myint, a former political prisoner:

Khin Cho Myint was detained for five years and nine months, because of her activity in a democratic student union.

I didn’t hope for 10 years. At the time the military intelligence asked me if I could guess my sentence. I told them about six months. They where laughing.

Where you treated different as a political prisoner?

Yes, we where kept separated from the other prisoners. We couldn’t see our family, when other prisoners could. Other prisoners could also possess stuff like food. They could buy it from the prison staff. We couldn’t buy food. We didn’t have anything.

Projects & Experiences »

I call her ‘Song’

As I earn the refugees’ trust, they invite me into their huts. I went into one shack near the dump that houses a family of eight. There was a little girl who was crouched down on the bare floor. She was beautiful but sad. Her mother called her over and I noticed her thins arms and legs. She was 13 years old, but she was like a skeleton. Her mother touched her head and she let me touch her head to feel her fever. I picked her up and the heat from her body made me sweat.

Refugees »

Mae La refugee camp

(Thailand Burma Border Consortium (TBBC.org) 2009)

Mae La is also known as ‘Beh Klaw’ in Karen, which means ‘cotton field’ due to the agricultural activities for which Karen leaders first negotiated permission for refugees to cross into the area in 1984.
History:
The camp was originally established following the fall of the KNU base at the Thai village of Mae La on the border in 1984 with a population of 1,100. Shortly afterwards, due to security concerns, it was moved to the site where Zone C currently lies. After the fall of Manerplaw in January 1995, a number of camps were attacked in cross-border raids and the Thai authorities began to consolidate camps to improve security; Mae La was designated as the main consolidation camp in the area.