Border Zones: Fronteras Burma!

Mae Sot, Thailand, is a town situated right on the border of Thailand and Burma. Last week, 4 of us from GHRE (an NGO supporting Burmese migrant rights in southern Thailand) took a trip up to Mae Sot in order to do some research - to speak with other NGOs with similar mandates to our own and share ideas. There are 21 NGOs in Mae Sot working to protect Burmese people, which gives a sense of the extreme need in the area. The city's Burmese population is higher than its Thai population.

Not that that means the Burmese migrants are in any sort of power position.

The border: There is a bridge to cross the river - one side is Thailand, the other Burma. For a foreigner, it costs 1000Baht (apprx. 30$) to cross on the Thai side, and then 500B on the Burmese side to enter into Burma (and they keep your passport). If you are Burmese, you can obtain a day-pass paper into Thailand for 150B.
OR
You can jump over the fence and climb down the wooden ladder and take an inner tube across for 6Baht. Or if you don't mind getting wet you can wade across... quite shallow this time of year. That's free.

Wierd thing is, that there's a tank with 4 or5 Thai military infront of the bridge - to stop illegal entrance, of course. They apparently are all ill with severe neck disorders that prohibit them from tilting their heads down to see those hundreds crossing casually by inner tube throughout the day.

The reason for this negligence is of course, that Thailand needs the cheap labour. A burmese migrant working in a rubber plantation is paid about 150 (women) to 180 (men) Baht per day. Minimum wage for Thai workers is set at about 250. In factories, the women are paid as low as 40 Baht / day - (and are essentially prisoners as their employers hold onto their papers. If they go to the market without them and are stopped by police, they are arrested and sent back to Burma. Most only risk going as far as across the street.)

The other reason is that the police are corrupt. They're not paid enough and so arrest Burmese at will and demand bribes (usually around 5000Baht).

Standing on the edge of the river, it's easy to observe what's happening and comment - what a fascinating place... that this is happening here... right here... that I am watching this... What an interesting place. But the luxury of being observer, or researcher, or philosopher on the situation is really impossible because the difficulties for Burmese are simply too present.

We were brought first to a community of Burmese squaters. They don't own their land, and they make minimal amounts of money by collecting garbage, paper and plastic, and selling it to the factories. They have nothing. They were hungry. I'd never actually seen poverty that extreme. We were visiting in order to observe their nursery.... but instead we sat down to listen to the villagers. The night before, at about 4am, the Thai police (or military... they weren't sure... uniforms they didn't recognize) arrived and ransaked their homes. They took everything... earnings, necklaces, if there was 5 baht (33Baht=1$) they took it. Stealing from the poorest of the poor. They also arrested 100 people and took them away, back to Burma, in a caged-truck.

One woman explained to us that they took her 3 sons. Her sons were born in Thailand and have never been to Burma. She was worried that they wouldn't know how to live, how to protect themselves in Burma. The military could easily find them, suggest to them a good job - with food and pay - and they would easily follow and be forced then to join the military.

Nobody tracked who was arrested, and nobody knows how to find them.