18, refugee
ETHNICITY: Rakhine
BIRTHPLACE: Northern Arakan State, Burma
INTERVIEWED IN: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Khine Kyaw is a Rakhine teenager who fled Burma to avoid forced conscription in the Burmese military.11 Within a week, he went from being a normal sixteen-year-old—hanging out with his friends and working on his family’s farm—to living and working illegally in Thailand, cut off from almost everything he knew. We met Khine Kyaw in a community refugee center in Malaysia, where he lived and studied. Although he had to spend most of his time within the center for his own security, he still managed to sport a styled hairdo and self-customized, funky jeans. Khine Kyaw gently and thoughtfully recalled the unexpected path his life has taken. Several months after our first interview, Khine Kyaw found a job at a cookie factory in Penang, Malaysia. He is awaiting further information about his possible resettlement to a third country.
* * *
I was sixteen when I had to flee Burma. Several days earlier, three government soldiers had kidnapped me and forced me to join the government army. I just wanted to stay in Arakan State, to live with my family on our farm, and one day become a singer. I felt so much pain leaving my home, and I kept thinking about how I would never go back there again.
It happened in late 2007. I had the day off from school, and I was walking around when I came across three government soldiers who were drunk. They were in their thirties, and they spoke to me in Burmese. In Burma there are many languages, but all the soldiers speak Burmese. They said, “Come with us.” They said they wanted me to go with them to their camp to help with their work. When I refused, two of them grabbed my arms and pulled me away. I was very scared and I was shouting for help, but there was no one around. I had no idea what I should do. I only felt fear.
I’d heard that this happened often in Arakan State. Government soldiers would go out to look for recruits and just collect boys from the village streets.22 The kids are usually alone, happily going around the village when they are arrested by a soldier. I think the Tatmadaw takes young boys because they don’t have enough men joining the army.33 The boys don’t agree but they are forced to join. The soldiers would also come to our village and harass the women and children. Sometimes they would eat at a restaurant and refuse to pay the bill. Sometimes they even raped women. In Burma, the Tatmadaw has all the power and they can do anything they like.
It took about half an hour to get to the camp. On the way, I asked the soldiers to take me home, but they replied that they were taking me to the camp and that they would only respond to my request after we had arrived there. I thought that they would release me after I’d helped them with some work.
They brought me to Battalion 376, a small government army camp. I asked them again to let me go home. They refused, and then they ordered me to sign a paper agreeing to enter the military. When I refused to sign the paper, one of the soldiers punched me in the forehead four times. I couldn’t see very clearly at the time, but I think he had a ring on his finger. After that, he was punching and slapping me. It hurt very badly, and as long as I wouldn’t sign the paper, the soldier kept hitting me. It felt like it lasted for hours—it was like hell. I was so scared that eventually I signed the paper. They didn’t give me anything to treat the injury on my head, so I have a scar now.
After they beat me, the soldiers took me to a hut and told me to stay there, on the floor. There were five or six soldiers around. Some of them stayed in the hut and some were sitting outside. I was afraid to stay there and I didn’t want to be a soldier. Things are very bad living in the army. They force the young soldiers to do very hard work and they pay them a low salary, not even enough to pay for their food and clothing. Although they are soldiers, their superiors order them to carry very heavy things like stones for building roads, and they force them to plant and harvest rice. I didn’t want that future for myself. I was so young, and I was supposed to be in school.
I decided to escape. The door to the hut was not locked, so I escaped while the soldiers were sleeping, between midnight and one in the morning. At first I just started running without knowing where to go, but later I remembered the way to my house. It took me over thirty minutes to get to my mother’s house, and I was afraid the whole time.
When I got home, my parents were very happy to see me. They had been searching for me all over and asking the people in the village if they’d seen me. When I explained what had happened, they became very worried. My mother told me I had to run away because the government army would come and search for me. She was worried that they would come and arrest me. The army searches for and arrests people who flee from them, and then they force them to join the army again. My mother told me that I could no longer stay in my home. I didn’t know at all what would happen next—I just knew that my signature was on that paper, agreeing to join the army.
Three or four days after I got back, my mother contacted my uncle about sending me to Thailand. My uncle told me to be strong, and he said, “Don’t worry. I am in touch with my friend who lives in Thailand—I will send you to him.” Then my mother introduced me to a guy from the village who was working as a broker on the Thailand–Burma border.44
Words cannot express how sorry my mother felt to say goodbye to me. I said goodbye only to my family. I think all my friends must worry about me when they think of me now. I was very young at the time, and I was always hanging out with them and visiting them when there was no school. I wish it were possible to see them again, but it’s only a dream for me to go back to my country. I feel very sad when I think about it because I will never get the chance.
I DIDN’T KNOW WHAT TO DO
I escaped in a boat that went from Arakan State to Kawthaung, which is on the border of Burma and Thailand.55 The boat carried over 100 bags of rice, and there were another four or five people traveling in it. They were Chin and Rakhine. We each had to pay the broker 6,000 baht for the boat ride—it was expensive.66 During the nine days we spent on the boat, they talked to me and tried to make me feel better. We had enough food and drinking water on the boat, and we would go into the sea to bathe.
I felt safe on the boat because we went directly to Kawthaung without stopping on the way. When we reached Kawthaung, we crossed into Thailand in a small boat. On the way there, my mind wasn’t clear. I didn’t know what I would have to do when I arrived in Thailand. I had heard that it was nice, but I had also heard that it wasn’t safe. I thought that if I made smart choices while living in Thailand, it would be better than living in Burma. I thought that, compared to the situation in Burma, people in Thailand earned enough money each month for their food, clothing, and shelter, and that the country had electricity all day and night for their citizens. But in Burma, everything is the opposite. Burmese people don’t have enough food to eat, even though they work the entire day. It was my thought that Thailand would be better—a small child’s thought. I didn’t know how hard it would be.
THE PRAWN FARM
I had to stay two days at the broker’s apartment in a village in Thailand. There were some other people there, mostly Rakhine, who had come to Thailand for all different reasons—persecution, economic problems. I was the only young person there without family, so most of them called me Nyee Che, which means “younger brother” in Rakhine language. They asked me why I was coming to Thailand so young, and they gave me information about living there. I felt like they would take care of me.
While I was at the broker’s apartment, he contacted a man about finding work for me. The man looked at me and felt nervous about giving me a job because I was so young. In the end he decided to give me a job at a prawn farm, frightening away the birds so they wouldn’t go into the prawn pond.
The prawn farm was far from any town or village. I liked that job because I could act like a child, running around and scaring the birds. First I would try throwing firecrackers at them, but if that didn’t work I had to run after them. The birds came twice a day, in the morning and evening. They didn’t usually come in the afternoon, so I had free time to relax.
They gave me a small tent to sit in during the day, near the grid of prawn ponds. I tried to control my thoughts when I was sitting in the tent; even though I wanted to go back to Burma, I pretended to be happy.
I slept in a separate room that my boss gave me, and they gave me a pot and some rice so I could cook. Since I was just a kid, they only paid me 1,500 baht each month—the other men got over 4,000 baht per month.77 My salary was not enough. I had to pay back some money to a man who fed me when I arrived in Thailand, and I had to buy some clothes.
When I first arrived there, I didn’t dared leave the prawn farm because I didn’t have any documents—I could be arrested by the Thai police if I went out. After a while, I went out and encountered the Thai police. They interrogated me and I had to pay them money for my release. In Thailand, when Burmese people are caught without documents, some of us are sent to jail and some are sent back to Burma. I was a stranger there and the worst thing was that I could not speak Thai.
I didn’t really know what I should do at that time. I couldn’t live in Thailand forever, but I couldn’t go back to Burma. I didn’t know if I should stay in Thailand or go to a new country. I was very young and I didn’t have any friends there. I was very lonely, and I missed my friends and family in Burma. Sometimes I felt that I wanted to go back to Burma because Thailand was not my country. There were no other young people working at the prawn farm, so I didn’t talk to anyone about this.
I really liked working on the prawn farm, but I wanted to leave that job because my salary was very low. After working there for two months, I got in contact with my friend who lived near the Thai–Malay border. He was one of my new friends that I’d met when I first arrived in Thailand. He said I could get 4,000 baht a month by working with him on a fishing boat. He got me a job on the fishing boat, and I left the prawn farm without any problems from my boss.
WE ALWAYS FEARED FOR OUR LIVES
Another person working at the prawn farm decided to leave with me. We took a bus to the port town and stayed there one night. The next morning, we prepared to go to sea on the fishing boat. We prepared food, drinks, and also ice for keeping the fish we caught fresh. My first day on the boat, I got seasick and was vomiting because I had never worked at sea before. I couldn’t stand on my feet, I could only lie down. The next day I felt a little bit stronger and only a little dizzy. On the third day I felt even better, and then by the fourth day I was used to it.
There were about eight of us living on the boat, including the captain, and we worked each day from start to finish. I tried hard to do what they wanted me to. During our breaks, the other workers and I talked to each other like friends; I could talk about my feelings with them. Because I was young, the boss called me Dtua Lek, which means “little boy” in Thai.
Sometimes we prepared hooks to catch fish whenever we had a short break. We could sell those fish on our own to make a little extra money, apart from our monthly salary.
When it started to get dark, we had to shine a light under the boat so that fish would gather around the light, and then we would catch them in a net. We couldn’t see the land—we could only see fishing boats around us, and the lights from other boats at night.
My salary was 4,000 baht per month, and I could get another 1,000 baht per month by selling fish I caught on my own.88 We spent fifteen days at a time on the boat, so we went to land twice a month. We sometimes visited the shops where my co-worker’s friends worked—they were also illegal workers—but I didn’t go to many places because I feared being arrested.
The Burmese people there had small shops selling betel nut and cigarettes.99 These people had good relationships with their landlords, who allowed them to open their shops, but they had to pay the police bribes in order to keep the shops open. The Burmese people were informed of raids by their landlords ahead of time, so they could avoid arrest and move their shop to another port.
I really didn’t like working on the fishing boat, but I tried to be happy. My co-workers and I always feared for our lives, because when we came to land after fifteen days at sea, gangsters would be waiting. The gangsters were Thai people, including Thai Muslims. There are many Thai Muslims in southern Thailand, and they are fighting for their own state. The gangsters are not afraid of the police. They knew we would have money when we got to land, so they would come and put a gun to a fisherman’s head and ask for money. If you didn’t give them money, they would shoot and kill you. They never pointed a gun at me, but they did hold me up with a big knife two times.
My co-workers and I didn’t want to sleep on the boat when we were at shore, because we were afraid to be killed by the gangsters. If you died, your body would lie at the bottom of the sea without anybody knowing. I felt very frightened living in Thailand.
The first man I saw killed was a fisherman. He was an ethnic Pa-O from Burma, and he was in Thailand illegally.1010 One day when he was on land, he slept on the deck of the boat while his friend slept inside. Some gangsters came on the boat and asked him for money, and the fisherman cursed at them because he was drunk. They started beating him very badly with their fists and with sticks. His friend inside the boat saw him being beaten, but he didn’t dare help his friend—he would have been beaten too, and they would have died together. The next morning I saw the man’s body in the boat, and I thought about when my turn would come. In Thailand, it’s easy to take away a life—it’s like killing a chicken. There were no laws to protect us because we are illegal migrants, so we had to be careful every single day. For example, we never went out alone when we had to go out to buy things.
Another man who was killed was drunk one night and singing karaoke at a place not too far from our boat. I think the man was Cambodian. His body was found beside the karaoke shop. My friends and I saw the police checking the corpse the next morning. It was covered in so much blood. His throat had been cut. We didn’t get too close.
There is so much violence in Thailand, especially on the coast. One killing after another. Living there was like hell—I was very, very eager to leave.
Sometimes I saw people from other countries relaxing, swimming and playing on small islands. I felt sorry about my life when I saw them, because I wanted to be happy like that. They could go to any country they wanted to, and they could relax and not worry about food or clothing, or about penalties for being illegal. We wanted to escape our suffering, but I had nothing, not even a chance. I couldn’t control my sadness when I saw them.
I HAD NEVER WALKED FOR SUCH A LONG TIME
After about three months of working on that fishing boat, one of my coworkers told me he was going to Malaysia. I was afraid to go with him at first, so he said I could contact him after he arrived. He gave me a phone number and left. He was like a brother to me, always showing me what to do and what not to do. I felt like I could trust him, because he helped me distinguish between good people and bad people. He was twenty-two or twenty-three years old, also Rakhine. After he left, I continued working on the fishing boat for another month. When he was settled in Malaysia, he got in touch and said, “Why don’t you come meet me?” I said I wanted to go, so he paid a broker to take me there.
I didn’t tell my boss that I was going to Malaysia. The next time we were on land, at the end of the month, I hid for three days in my friends’ grocery shop near the beach. I never went back to the boat.
The broker picked me up in a car and took me to his place, which was in a town on the border between Thailand and Malaysia. I had to stay there for three days because we were waiting for another person he was taking to Malaysia. The brokers never take only one person—they wait until they have at least three to five people so they can make more money for each trip. The broker took care of me because my friend in Malaysia had sent him a lot of money—1,500 Malaysian ringgits.1111 I traveled by bus with three other people to the border. We were all from Burma—Rakhine, Chin, Karen, and Karenni. When we arrived at the Thai–Malay border, we could see a highway and a rubber tree forest. We couldn’t go on the highway, so we had to wait until around seven or eight o’clock that evening to cross the rubber forest.
I thought it could be dangerous to cross the rubber forest because there were many police on the border. We heard that if they saw people crossing the border, they would shoot them with their guns. They also had dogs to chase the people who were crossing.
We looked around to make sure we didn’t see police, and then we all started crossing the rubber forest with the broker. We walked all night. Some parts of the rubber forest were very dense and hard to cross, but other parts were clear and easy to walk through. While we were crossing the rubber forest, we got very dirty from the mud—we were the color of the earth, so the police could not see us.
After three hours of walking, my thighs were red and had abrasions and my muscles were tired. I had never walked for such a long time. Sometimes I couldn’t keep walking and I felt like I would fall down.
When we arrived at the Malaysian border, there was a small hill. We drank from a small pool of water in the ground, the way an ox would drink. At the border, we had to take off our clothes to jump over two electric fences—we didn’t want them to get caught, so we threw them over the fences. It felt like we were soldiers in training. It was really difficult to go over the fences, and I was very afraid because there were Thai police with dogs searching for illegal immigrants.
After we had jumped the fences, we put our clothes back on. We saw many police standing with their dogs, but they couldn’t see us because we were hiding in the rubber forest. Everyone was afraid because the dogs could smell people, and if the police saw us, they would shoot and kill us on the spot. I think I was more afraid than the other people because I was a kid and I had no experience crossing the border. The broker said not to look around, to just stay silent and look straight ahead while we crossed the field. He told us to walk under the trees.
I think it was July 6, 2008 when I crossed into Malaysia.
I AM ALWAYS AFRAID BECAUSE I AM ILLEGAL
I thought it would be nice to get directly to my friend’s house without having any obstacles on the way. Before going to Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia, we all rested at a construction site which was near the forest in a small town. It was far from Kuala Lumpur. We slept there for one night, in huts inside the contruction site. I was scared because I heard that there were one or two raids in that area every year. In the morning, they sent us one by one to stay with our friends or family. We went to Kuala Lumpur by bus, accompanied by the broker.
When we arrived in Kuala Lumpur, we hadn’t been able to bathe for three days and we had been wearing the same clothes for a long time, so we all smelled very bad. We didn’t want to sit near other people, because we were afraid they would smell us.
I am always afraid because I am illegal. Right now I feel afraid too.
THE UN IS LIKE A MOTHER AND FATHER TO ME
After arriving at my friend’s house, I got the chance to work in a cookie factory in Kuala Lumpur. After I’d been working there for one month, I noticed someone who was observing the workers in the factory. I just thought he was a customer coming to buy cookies. After a while he left, and then about fourteen police and immigration officers surrounded our factory and came inside and asked the workers to sit down. We were all making cookies, but we were forced to sit. Then they asked for passports from us, which we didn’t have. About fifteen of us got arrested—there were two Rakhine people including me, and the rest were other ethnic people from Burma.
The Malaysian authorities arrest many illegal migrants from Burma and other countries. If people from Indonesia or maybe countries in Africa are arrested, they have a chance of getting help from their government. But I never saw the Burmese government come to help the Burmese people.
I didn’t have any legal documents but I showed them my Rakhine refugee card, which is issued here by the ARRC—the Arakan Refugee Relief Committee. But the police didn’t accept it and they handcuffed every one of us and took us to the police station. The police took me to jail, and I stayed there for fifteen days. They fed us a small plastic bowl of rice twice a day, but it wasn’t enough to eat.
We had to sleep on the cement floor in only our underwear, with no blanket. The place where we ate was practically the same place as the toilet. There was no drinking water, so we had to drink the same water that was used to flush the toilet.
All ages stayed together and there were between seven and ten people in each cell, depending on the size of the cell. I think I was unlucky because I was in a cell with two Indian men and two Chinese men who were all bigger than me. They had been arrested for an opium case. As soon as I entered the cell they slapped my face and were using crude language, asking me where I was from. Then they said things to me like, “I will fuck your ass.” I was very afraid. The new people in jail have to do what they’re told by the others. Because I was young, they told me to clean the toilets and give massages to the older people. If I didn’t listen to them they would beat me. They did that for about one week.
I was finally able to contact the ARRC. It makes me feel strong that my community has an office like this. I was so happy when I found out about it, because I never dreamed there would be something like this for my community. The ARRC is helping Rakhine refugees in Malaysia, negotiating with the government, NGOs, and the UNHCR.1212 It’s especially good for health problems; if we get sick, our office helps us go to the clinic and pay the cheapest price. The Rakhine people in Malaysia must have an ARRC ID card to live in their community center because there are often police arrests.
When a Rakhine person is arrested by the police, the ARRC can help them get released. But once the Arakanese person is taken to court or to jail, the ARRC can’t help anymore. One of the ARRC leaders came to try to free me, but he couldn’t do anything, so he contacted the UNHCR for me.
Some UNHCR officers came and interviewed me in jail. As soon as they saw me and my co-workers, they greeted us warmly and gave us encouragement. They told us not to be afraid, that we would be freed.
“We’ll try as much as we can,” they said. After they gave a report to the UNHCR about my arrest, a UNHCR officer came to the jail and gave me a paper saying I was registered as a “person of concern.” Then I was freed. I was very, very happy.
The fifteen days I spent there were like hell for me, because I had never been in jail before. Once the UNHCR came, it was the happiest day of my life. Since I don’t have many relatives here in Malaysia who can help me, it’s like the UN is a mother and father to me. They’re the only ones I can depend on.
Before I got registered for my UNHCR card, the UNHCR interviewed me again and again. I have done at least three interviews with the UNHCR, I think. Aside from those interviews, I had never told my life story—this is the first time I’ve explained my history. After I passed the interviews, I got my UNHCR registration card. In September 2009, I have to apply for resettlement to a third country—it’s called RSD.1313 I can’t go back to Burma; I would have to return to the military because I signed that paper.
IT’S LIKE WE ARE UNDER HOUSE ARREST
After I was released from jail, I joined the ARRC and started attending their school and living there. I’ve been at the ARRC for six months. They have an office where they provide English-speaking classes and computer classes—I take both classes. Even though I am lucky to live here, I still feel very unhappy. I was happier when I lived in Arakan State, because I could go outside. I was a citizen, so I felt very free. In Malaysia, we can live with our Rakhine community but we have no opportunity to go outside. It’s like we are living under house arrest. Police are everywhere, and they always ask for money from refugees if they see them. The police don’t even accept refugees’ UNHCR cards.1414
I don’t feel like I can relax here because even though we’re from the same community, I still feel like a stranger. I just came and asked for permission to live here. Sometimes I don’t know what I should do—should I be doing something? Should I sweep the floor? I want the community leader to like me, but I don’t know what the best thing to do is. Some of the other students here have parents, and even though they have hard jobs, they can support their children with some money. But I have no one, so it makes me upset.
I’ve been able to talk to my mom twice since coming to Malaysia. First I had to send a message to a small town near my village. I told them my name, what village I come from, and then I asked them to send a message to my family to arrange a phone call. The message takes only one day to get to my family. The first time I spoke to my mother on the phone, I said, “Mother, do not worry for me. I live in the Arakan Refugee Relief Committee center, so I’m not alone. There are many refugees here. We are living together and studying together here at the refugee center.” I felt both happy and sad to speak to her. Sometimes my words could not come out. I found it difficult to talk to her because I was feeling really choked up. I almost cried, but the tears did not come. The sadness came like waves in the sea.
THEY HAD NO POWER TO HELP US
I was arrested at a celebration for Aung San Suu Kyi’s birthday, on June 19, 2009.1515
The party was organized by the local branch of the National League for Democracy (NLD). I didn’t know very much about Aung San Suu Kyi. I just knew that many people in Burma like her and support what she is doing. My friends called me to go with them, so I followed them because I had never been to a party like that and I wanted to have a new experience.
We had barely started the ceremony when a police car arrived. The police surrounded us and they had clubs—we were very surprised. They asked me to show my identity card, passport, or Malaysian citizenship documents. I showed them my UNHCR card and they said, “Okay, come to the police station. We’ll talk about it later.” So we got into the car and went to the police station.
At the station, the immigration officer was checking if our UNHCR cards were real or not. The officer took my card and wrote down my name and card number. They were also asking other people for passports and testing those. They made a record of our documents and then left without saying anything. We were left with the police officers, and they released some of the people who had passports. All of us who had UNHCR cards, as well as the refugees who had no cards, had to go to an interrogation camp in Petaling Jayar. They kept me at the camp for one week.
Later I understood that, according to Malaysian law, we didn’t have permission to hold the celebration. We were supposed to apply for a permit first. We had relied on Anwar, the opposition party leader in Malaysia, to help us, but I think there were also problems between his party and the Malaysian government. The government arrested us to show that the opposition party had no power to help us.
After interrogation, we were sent to jail. Many journalists and cameramen came to the jail to take photos and interview us about our birthday celebration for Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. There were Rakhine, Karen, and Burman people in the jail, with five or six people in each cell. The journalists wanted to see what was happening in the jail and they took many photos—it was like we were actors. The thing I was most worried about was that the Burmese military would see my photos and see that I was involved in Aung San Suu Kyi’s birthday celebration. I worried that the Malaysian government would send me back to Burma. If they did, the military would end my life in Burma.
After more than two weeks, the UNHCR came to release us from the jail.
IT’S BEEN MY DREAM
If Burma got democracy, or new leaders in the government, I would go back and live there happily because Arakan State is one of the most beautiful states in Burma. It has rivers, the sea, mountains, and a lot of greenery. Since I was young, around seven or eight years old, I used to go along with my father to the farm, where we grew rice paddies. Farming was very hard work, but I felt so happy there. I had no intention of leaving.
I don’t think we can get democracy in Burma easily. Right now we have Than Shwe, the head of the military regime—he is getting old and will die soon. He will choose the next person, someone with the same opinions as him, to control the country after his death. I don’t think we can get democracy in Burma by being peaceful and asking, like Aung San Suu Kyi does. She has been asking for it for so many years throughout her life. I believe the only way we can get democracy is if all the ethnic groups from Burma work together to fight the military regime with guns. I don’t really know about the armies fighting the SPDC, but I’ve seen pictures of some of the ethnic armies fighting the SPDC on the border between Burma and India.
Most kids haven’t experienced as many bad things as I have. I’d like to read stories about people who’ve had experiences like mine, so that I know about the people who’ve suffered the same way I have. I want to believe they’ve all become more experienced in life.
I don’t want to take things quite so seriously now. Because I have experienced serious problems, I don’t care about small problems and regular daily hardship. I want to study, because I’m at the age where I should be studying—it’s the right time. There was a high school in my town in Burma, but I only attended up to sixth standard. Now that I have my UNHCR registration card, I might get the chance to go to a third country.1616 If I get that chance, I will try to study again there. I would like to learn a language like English, and some computer skills for my future.
I really like pop music, so I’d like to be a pop singer—it’s been my dream since I was young. Whether that will come true or not, I don’t know. But I believe that after I attend college, or get some higher education, I will have more experience than now and I’ll be able to make a decision about what I should be. But right now I want to be a singer, and I want to get an education so I can change my life.
1 Rakhine is the original word for the majority Buddhist ethnic group that lives in Arakan State. Arakan is the name given by the British to describe both the state and the people. In this book, we use the term Arakanese for anyone from Arakan State and Rakhine to demarcate the ethnic group.
2 Burma is frequently cited as being one of the countries with the most child soldiers in the world. The Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child sets eighteen as the minimum age for direct participation in hostilities, for recruitment into armed groups, and for compulsory recruitment by governments.
3 The Tatmadaw is Burma’s armed forces, founded by General Aung San to fight the British. Since 1962 Burma has been ruled by its military. See the Brief History of Burma section of the appendix for further details on the Tatmadaw.
4 A broker is someone who is paid for assistance in illegally crossing a border.
5 Kawthaung is a city on the southernmost point of Burma, about 800 km from the capital, Rangoon. It is a common border crossing between Burma and Thailand.
6 Approximately US$200.
7 1,500 baht is approximately US$50; 4,000 baht is approximately US$130.
8 4,000 baht is approximately US$130; 1,000 baht is approximately US$30.
9 Betel leaf is a heart-shaped leaf common throughout Southeast Asia. In Burma it is chewed with the areca nut (and the combination is casually referred to as “betel nut”), and often combined with tobacco and assorted spices.
10 Pa-O is an ethnic nationality group that lives mostly in Burma’s Shan State.
11 Approximately US$475.
12 The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees is a United Nations organization with headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. The primary mandate of UNHCR is the protection of refugees and finding solutions for refugees, including assisting in the voluntary repatriation of refugees to their home country, integration into the country of asylum, or resettling refugees to a third country.
13 Refugee Status Determination is the process by which a government or UNHCR determines whether someone qualifies as a refugee. Refugee status is granted based on a strict set of criteria, and once granted, confers the right against forced return, as well as a host of other rights, including the right to obtain travel documents or the right to UNHCR’s international protection.
14 For more information about the refugee situation in Malaysia, please refer to pages 484-485 of appendix.
15 Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is the General Secretary of the National League for Democracy (NLD) and winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize. Her party was the decisive winner of the 1990 election. For fifteen of the last twenty years she was held under house arrest. The pre-fix “Daw” is a Burmese title used as a sign of respect for older women. See appendix pages 455-456 for further detail.
16 Third-country resettlement refers to when a refugee is resettled in a country other then the one that they fled to or the one they are fleeing.