One Day the Soldiers Came - Charles London [39]
Land mines litter the regions where members of the minority groups settle, and internecine fighting displaces thousands into the jungle. In addition, the military levies a heavy tax from the people, as a soldier’s wages are not adequate. To keep the war going, civilians are conscripted into forced labor, acting as porters or builders for military projects without pay. Many of the porters who are sent with units into fighting are killed. If they cannot carry their loads they are beaten and abandoned. Often, their bodies are left where they lie when the soldiers move on.
According to a recent Human Rights Watch report, the Burmese army recruits more child soldiers than any other army in the world. The report, “My Gun Was as Tall as Me,” puts in the number of soldiers under eighteen in the SPDC ranks at around seventy thousand. The children fight, cook, clean, and carry for the army. As economic conditions in the country continue to decay, families are left with fewer options and more children join the armed forces, on one side or another. It can be a method of protecting one’s family to have a child in the army, though children are sometimes taken and forced to join as well.
To escape these dangers, many Burmese of dissenting opinions or from minority ethnic groups flee to Thailand. In stable, prosperous Thailand, the Burmese hope to find work, safety, and a future for their children. They find none of these.
Current Thai policy creates arbitrary guidelines for classification of Burmese into various categories, such as “economic migrant,” “person of concern,” and “temporarily displaced persons.” These classifications can be misleading and dangerous for the refugees, as they determine their legal status and level of assistance. Often, the classifications deny the underlying causes of migration to Thailand: civil strife, persecution, and human rights abuses.
The Thai government recognizes some 138,000 “temporarily displaced” persons, mostly from the Karen and Karenni ethnic groups, whom the Thais have determined were “fleeing fighting,” ignoring the nearly 2 million from various ethnic groups that live as registered migrant workers or illegal migrants in the country. Those illegal “migrants” are an embarrassment to the Burmese government, which passed Law 367/120-(b) (1), making it illegal to travel to Thailand without authorization. In the eyes of the Burmese government, all these “migrants” are criminals, and the Thais are quick to agree.
In an attempt to improve relations with their profitable neighbor and avoid a massive refugee influx, Thailand discourages the Burmese from migrating. Given the economic boom in Thailand and the need for unskilled labor, a registration process was initiated for Burmese workers, but the process was expensive and the burden fell largely on the employers, who benefit from illegal and frightened employees. The registration process became a way to crack down on the migrants rather than protect them. Police extortion of the refugees is overlooked, as evidenced by a set of brutal murders in the town of Mae Sot in the summer of 2003.
Migrant children are not given access to school or health care (unless provided by the migrant community themselves), even though these are promised rights under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child to which Thailand is a signatory.
Siha, his aunt, his mother, his cousin, and my translator are all illegal migrants from Burma, members of the Shan ethnic group. They