Politics
76: SHAN IDPs
While the SPDC junta wants $11 billions for reconstruction works in the Irrawady Delta, the Thai Burma Border Consortium’s deputy director Sally Thompson is asking for only $140,000 to make up for the deficit in its budget.
And while Sally Thompson talks about reconsidering the system of assistance being provided by TBBC to the border Shan IDPs (internally displaced persons) are already feeling the pinch of the global food crisis and the cyclone Nargis.
Although Shan IDPs as a whole are not starving yet, many of them are already hungrier than others and the camp elders now have the insurmountable task of finding 125% more money to buy rice to feed the present number of IDPs.
According to Debbie Stothard from the Human Rights Group ALTSEAN, there are frequent reports in eastern Shan State of SPDC military units seizing food and supplies from the local Shan population since cyclone Nargis hit the Irrawaddy Delta.
More IDPs are expected to trickle into the existing camps in their search for security, shelter and food. They come there by themselves in small groups or units of the SSA lead them on their way from patrols. By the time they reach the safety of IDP camps most of them will have been on the road for weeks and months hiding in jungles from SPDC troops in the day and daring to trek only at night. The wretched souls have absolutely nothing except the clothes they have on, when they arrive. Clothes, blankets, mosquito nets, pots and pans and rice are the first things they receive. A few days after they have rested they begin to build their own huts.
Already natural building materials like bamboo and thatch grass for roofing are not available in the immediate neighbourhood of the camps. They are now usually found in valleys as far away as two to three hours march. An able-bodied man can carry no more than a single bamboo pole, which weighs roughly 20-30 kilograms, at a time. Thatch grass has to be harvested and brought to camp in bundles. Cutting and bringing a bamboo pole or a bundle of thatch grass is a whole day’s exhausting work.
In three years termites make the huts unfit for living and the roofing begins to leak. The huts need to be rebuilt.
Since the new Thai Government took office at the beginning of the year bulldozers and graders have not been allowed to cross into Shan territory. We need them to carve out construction sites for huts and houses in the hills. Building materials like cement, sand, nails and iron rods, etc., etc. are not allowed to be brought across the border. They are strategic materials.
Medics at the dispensaries and clinics care for the sick and the post- operative patients. Thanks to HwF (Help without Frontiers) our clinic is fitted to take care of 30 in-patients. Although we do our best to provide adequate health care to the needy there are always a few who gripe at us.
Two months ago, Sita, one of our senior medics, delivered a set of twins. The mother, the twins and the midwife are doing well.
We intend to send Sita for formal training in midwifery at Dr. Cynthia’s hospital in Mae Sot soon.
Cases that require immediate specialist attention, surgical and difficult obstetrics cases, are referred to Thai hospitals. Each month we have 6,000 baht at our disposal for referral cases. Thanks to donation from HwF our clinic now has its own motorbike and the chief medic is able to go and see his patients in Thai hospitals. When they are discharged from hospital he gives his hosts the 6,000 baht he has and says, “This is all I have now. Please take them. I will come and settle the rest when I have more”. The longer our patients have to stay in hospitals the higher the bills.
The need for us to have a ‘guest house’ or ‘safe house’ is obvious. When the acute phase of the treatment in the hospital is over we can continue to take care of our referral cases in our ‘house’ with lower expense. We need funds for a small house with two rooms, a kitchen and a bathroom.
Malnutrition, especially in the young, is omnipresent.
Treating and minimizing common skin diseases is difficult undertaking in the face of inadequate water supply and the lack of a second set of clothes to change into and bedclothes. World health officials talk about the urgent need for water purification systems in the Irrawaddy Delta. IDPs should and must have them too.
Now that the monsoon has set in common colds, chest and abdominal complaints and malaria are rampant. If we had diagnostic kits we could easily diagnose AIDS/HIV and pulmonary TB and treat them.
Once a week we hold prenatal clinic. More and more pregnant women are attending it.
In family planning the use of condoms is not popular. It looks as if women have no say in the matter.
It is not a rare sight to see a mother with two small toddlers, one her own and the other her grandchild. Often I see a small child carrying an even younger sibling on her back and taking care of her while the parents are away picking tea leaves in the plantations.
Picking tea leaves is a family affair. Whole families work in the plantations the whole day. It is good money when they bring home 100 baht at sundown. There is always the potential danger of being exposed to pesticides in the plantations.
The plight of refugees and IDPs on the border falls into oblivion while donor nations of the world are appeasing and cajoling the Burmese junta to accept material aid and pledging financial help.
Shan refugees and IDPs are no less entitled to receive such aid.
Let us not waste time classifying who are refugees and who IDPs and who is entitled to what. The Burmese junta has robbed all of them of their homes, land and means of self-sustaining and self-esteem. They are hungry, thirsty, exposed to the elements without proper shelter, vulnerable to abuse and exploitation on both sides of the border.
When the callous and brutal junta relents and allows UN and other international aid workers into the Irrawaddy Delta to render aid to the victims of the cyclone Nargis, in the name of equality and humanity, help should and must be made available to Shan refugees and IDPs.
Maw Htun
Links
Thailand Burma Border Consortium
http://www.tbbc.org/
ALTSEAN (Alternative Asean Network on Burma)
http://altsean.org/
Help without Frontiers
http://www.helpwithoutfrontiers.org/