30, fisherman
ETHNICITY: Burman
BIRTHPLACE: Pegu Division, Burma
INTERVIEWED IN: Puchong, Malaysia
Ko Mg Mg left Burma ten years ago in an effort to relieve his family’s crippling economic situation, which was exacerbated by forced labor imposed by the Burmese military. When we met Ko Mg Mg in a small, refugee-initiated Burmese community office, his pneumonia had left him physically frail. He had spent the day of the interview writing down his story in a notebook, because he knew his pneumonia would limit his speaking ability. Ko Mg Mg was warm and candid while recounting his personal history of being caught in a cycle of trafficking and slave labor in the Southeast Asian fishing industry. He maintained a gentle smile during the many hours we spent together.
When I was nearly twenty years old, I decided I had to flee from Burma. The first reason I had to leave was because I was afraid to be taken for forced labor. The second reason I left is that I wanted to get a good job to support my parents.
I don’t remember exactly, but it has been over ten years since I’ve had contact with my family because of the many difficulties I’ve encountered. I don’t know where my parents are now, or if they are alive or not. It makes me feel so sorry. My family does not know, but I am now an HIV patient.
In Thailand I did many jobs, but even though I tried so much, I didn’t earn any money. At first I thought that after I got money I would send it to my parents, that I would contact them. But slowly, slowly, there was no contact because I didn’t earn any money, and now it has been a very long time. HIV is a very serious disease, so now I cannot work and I cannot send money.
I feel very sad when I think about my mother and father, and when I remember their personalities. If I talk about them I will probably start crying, so—I’m so sorry. Every time I remember them, I miss them.
NO ONE CAN ESCAPE FROM THEM
I was born in the lower part of Burma, in an area called Pegu Division. I lived in a village. There are five members in my family—my father, my mother, my two younger brothers, and me. We rented our home—it was on the ground floor, and it was very small, with only one room. My father was a mechanic, and my mother was a housewife.
Where I come from there are many Burmese military camps, so the ethnic rebel groups are also there, always fighting with the government. This means that our village and nearby villages are battlefields for the ethnic groups and the Burmese soldiers. During battle times, we have to go with the military to carry their rations and their arms. This is called forced labor in our country. Some people also call it portering. The military comes to your village and says that you have to go to porter. If you don’t go, they will arrest you. We faced this reality all the time; they never let us be free. They even took women, children and elders, so I was even afraid for my grandparents.
One of the ways that the military called us to do forced labor for them was to go to the village head’s house, and then call the whole village with a loudspeaker. They would say, “Okay, the whole village must come to us for a meeting. We have something important to say to you.” So the whole village would come, sit on the ground, and the soldiers would point their guns and say who had to go with them.
There are many types of forced labor. Sometimes the military came inside the village and called a few people to go with them to clean the whole military camp. You would stay morning to evening and they would release you within one day. That was okay. There was also short-term forced labor like cleaning the road.
If you couldn’t go for short-term forced labor—maybe because you were very busy working or maybe because of sickness—you had to hire people to do the forced labor in your place. You had to pay 1,000 kyats to one person for one day.11 At first I was paying people to go for me like that. After that, the military told us directly, “Okay, if you can’t do the forced labor today, you have to give us 2,000 or 3,000 kyats.” The military even made the head of the village do forced labor. No one can escape from them.
There was also longer-term forced labor. I never did this, but other people in the village did. The army would take people and make them walk in front of the soldiers on the way to the battlefield, so that the laborers would be the first to step on the landmines. If you’re taken for this kind of forced labor, you have to run away.
When there were no battles, the government soldiers would come into our village and ask for food. We had to give them food at least once a month. They would take all the rice, some chickens and pigs, and sometimes even our cows.
MAYBE I WOULD FIND SOME GOOD JOBS
I went to school through sixth standard. At the start of seventh standard, I struggled. I dropped out when I was around twelve years old. First, I was not a good student, as I was playing with my friends. Second, I had to think about my family’s economic problems, and I had to help them.
After I dropped out of school, I stayed in my village for about eight years doing forced labor and many different kinds of jobs. I worked with my uncle, who’s a truck driver—he carries goods from one city to another. I was staying at my mother’s house, but sometimes my uncle and I would go for two or three days or longer. My uncle gave me a small salary, and with this money I helped my father and mother.
Because of the economic slow-down, and with only my father earning a real income, we sometimes didn’t have enough to eat. I thought that if I left, maybe I would find some good jobs and escape from forced labor. I was really worried that I would soon be taken for long-term forced labor.
THAILAND
I decided to leave for Thailand with two friends from the village. I am sorry to say that most of my friends were in a similar economic situation. One of the people who left with me was my best friend Aung Soe. We went down to Dawei, in the lower part of Burma, and from there we went down to the southernmost city in Burma, called Kawthaung. We had to be careful, because the Burmese military doesn’t allow people from one state to easily travel to another state or city.22
In Kawthaung we found brokers who agreed to send us to Thailand, but to cover the agent and travel fees we had to agree to work for them once we’d arrived. They took us in a small boat and sent us to a coastal city in southern Thailand. They gave us jobs on an illegal fishing boat, and we had to work for six months to pay back our broker fees.
In Thailand I had to spend most of my time out at sea. We always spent at least one month out. The longest time I was at sea at any one time was maybe three or four months.
There are many fishing boats, and the captains are usually from Thailand. Before going out to sea, the captain calls to the different workers, “Okay, how much money do you want?” And the advance may be a limited amount. You can ask for 500, 1,000, or 2,000 baht, and this would be your advance.33
When the bell started ringing in the morning, we had to wake up and get ready to work. On a typical day, when the first bell rang, we would put the nets in the water. After we got the fish out of the nets, we would put them in a box with ice, put the boxes inside the storeroom on the boat, and then we could rest a little. When the bell rang the next time, we had to go and put the net back in the water. We had to take the net out three, sometimes six times a day. If there were many fish in that area, we would have to do it again and again, two or three hours apart. By that time we would be very tired, and if we didn’t do the job as they said, the captain would beat us. Sometimes we got body and eye injuries, and we could not carry on.
If someone gets sick, the way they’re treated depends on the captain. If the captain is good, he’ll give you some medication. But some captains killed workers—they dropped them into the sea if they were too sick to work. So many people have been thrown into the sea. One time, I saw a captain ask a Thai worker, “Do you know how to do this work?” The worker answered, “Oh no, at home I never did this kind of job.” So the captain just threw him into the sea, and then the fishing boat went home. I think he must have died.
After three or four months, we got to go back to land again, but most of the time the employer didn’t give us a full salary. After you come back from working on the fishing boat, almost all captains put a gun on one side and the money on another side—“Which one do you want?” That’s how they threaten you.
If we choose money, they will give us so little that it’s almost as if we didn’t get any money at all. Some captains say, “Well, we didn’t get so many fish, so we have no profit—so you cannot get a salary.” If we asked them seriously for our money, we would get shot. I was paid, but never even half as much as they said they would. If they told me they would give me 5,000 baht, I might get less than 2,500 baht, something like that.44
If the captain was good, I was happy to work. But never mind how good a captain is, he’ll never want to give the right salary and payment for hard work. Even though this made me unhappy, I was happy when we could go to land with even a little money.
WE NEVER BELIEVED THEY WOULD TRICK US
After a year, one of my friends said he wanted to go to Ranong, a city in Thailand that is very close to Burma—it’s the city nearest to Kawthaung. My friend asked me to go with him, so I accompanied him along with Aung Soe and one other friend. The three of us went with my friend, but when we reached Ranong, we realized we were part of a trade. My friend had sold us to an illegal fishing boat.
On that fishing boat, my friends and I met with a lot of difficulties while working. We didn’t get paid anything, and the employer beat us. After a very long time—maybe after over one year of working on the boats—we got a chance to flee. We rushed to the bus station and got tickets to a city called Pattani. We didn’t know the place. When we got there, we met a Burmese couple who said they would help us find jobs. In Thailand there are many Burmese people facing difficulties like me; when we meet Burmese people like that, who’ve lived in Thailand for a long time and speak Thai fluently, we rely on them for help. The Burmese couple allowed us to sleep at their house for free for seven days. Then they told us that they didn’t have any jobs available for three months, and that we had to pay them to stay with them during those three months.
After three months, a fishing boat came in and the Burmese couple handed us over to the captain. Because the boat was still on land, the captain said, “You three have to stay on the boat because on land there are many police.” So he left us on that boat and they all disappeared. After the captain came back an hour later, we realized we’d been sold a second time.
We never believed that the Burmese couple would trick us, or bring us difficulty and trouble. They talked with the captain in Thai so we couldn’t understand, and then they just left us there.
I couldn’t do anything. I could only feel angry and disappointed. I didn’t know anything about Thailand and I didn’t know how to get help.
INDONESIA
After the Burmese people sold us to the fishing boat, we stayed on that boat for much longer than we’d ever experienced. The boat went to Indonesia—I never thought I would reach a country so far away.
It took us nearly two months to get there. All along the way we stopped and fished. Eventually we arrived at a small island in a very rural area, where there were no motorbikes and no cars.
We would go out to sea and come back to the island to sell the fish. We had to unload all the fish boxes from the ship and take them to the harbor, but the boxes were so heavy that we couldn’t do it well. We were beaten so much because we couldn’t do what they said.
One day, we heard that our captain had bought a gun, and we thought this meant he would shoot us the next time there was a problem. My friend Aung Soe and I discussed what we should do. Aung Soe and I had gone to Thailand from Burma together, and he was always by my side. He’s my best friend because he has a good mind, and I can share everything with him. After discussing our situation, Aung Soe and I finally decided to run away together. While the boat was docked, the captain would sometimes be staying below deck on the fishing boat, or drinking, or having fun at the harbor, so that was the only chance for us to run away.
We jumped in the water and swam to a nearby island. I was so frightened that I was taking care to not make any sounds while swimming. After we swam to land, we slept there for one night. The next morning we walked through the island and reached a very small village. We were saved.
THEY BUY PEOPLE TO WORK FOR THEM
When we entered the village, the locals came to know that we were foreigners. They tried to ask me where we were from, but we didn’t understand each other at first. Eventually we got a place to live there, in the household of a large family.
The family was very good to us. They fed us, gave us a place to sleep, and they gave us a job cutting fruit with them. I didn’t want to stay very long there because it was so boring—every day was the same.
After three months, someone told Aung Soe and me that a fishing boat captain was coming to capture us. Aung Soe said that if a captain found a worker who’d run away, he would kill him. We were so afraid that we decided to flee from that village and try to get back to Thailand.
Aung Soe and I ran away together and found the Indonesian police. I explained our story—our problems with the captain, and how we wanted to go to Thailand. I trusted them, and thought that they would save us. They said they would help us to go to Thailand—but they were just pretending. They arrested us. Then two different captains came—one of them took me, and the other one took Aung Soe.
When I was staying on that island, I didn’t realize that the illegal fishing boat would try to find me. But now I know that there are many illegal Thai fishing boats between the Indonesian islands that never give salaries—they only buy people to work for them. The captains contact the Indonesian police when many workers have fled from their boats because of the tiring work and the beatings. Then, when the police arrest a worker, they send him back to the Thai boat. Maybe they get money or they get something paid back to them.
After the police handed me over, the captain took me to his fishing boat, and some Thai people tied me by the hands with a rope. I had on handcuffs and I was hanging. The captain beat me with the back of a scalpel and left a scar on my head. I was so afraid that they would kill me, so I said, “I will do a good job for you.” I was tied up all night, until the next morning.
The fishing boat went around the islands catching fish. There were Mon people working on the boat, and I became friends with one of them. The Mon are one of the ethnic groups from the southern part of Burma. When our boat eventually reached a village, my friend and I jumped from the boat and escaped. From there, I had to go from village to village for nearly two years, trying to survive.
Finally, after I had been traveling for a long time, I reached a village where there were many Thai fishing boats that had some Burmese workers. I went to one of the boats and I asked for a job at the port. I told them that I wanted a salary of maybe 100,000 Indonesian rupiah,55 which is very little money for them. I worked at the port and they gave me the money I asked for, as well as eight or nine tins of oil.
I STARTED TO THINK THIS WAS FATE
At that time, my only wish was to go back to Thailand because I had no acquaintances in Indonesia. In Thailand I had some friends, some different kinds of jobs available. I’d get little things to survive on even if I didn’t get a full salary or full payment. I worked at the port and every time a fishing boat came in, I told the boat workers my story, that I wanted to go back to Thailand. They pitied me, but they said I couldn’t go with them because of many different inconveniences.
One day, after waiting for six months, a Thai fishing boat came in. As usual, I told my story to them. The captain told me that one of his friends had five Burmese workers, but that they didn’t know how to work on a fishing boat. He asked me if I wanted to work there, so I said yes and he sent me to that boat. After a few months in that fishing boat, we reached Pattani, Thailand, and I went to the house of the Burmese couple who had sold me. I asked them to give me back my money, but they said they didn’t have any.
At first I was angry at the people who’d sold me, betrayed me, lied to me. But after some time, I started to think that this was fate. In Buddhism, it’s like karma, the consequences of the past life. Burmese people believe that if you are in trouble or face difficulties, it’s because you did not do good things in your past life. I am relieved by this thought every time.
HE DIDN’T KNOW THAT I’D SEEN HIM
Once I was back in Thailand, I started to live in Pattani city again. I made some friends after a while, and one day one of them told me that he wanted me to do a job on a fishing boat with him. At that time, I was between jobs and had nothing to choose from, so I had to take another job on a fishing boat.
I joined him and we went to one of the boats, where there were four other Burmese workers. The captain was Thai and his name was Amon. One day, before going out to sea, my friends had a drink on the fishing boat. When Burmese drink beer, they talk too much, and then they fight, and then afterwards everyone is friends again. From the outside, people would think we were fighting, but we weren’t really—Burmese people are just like that. So that day, we were being loud—we were talking and shouting a lot. I went to the back of the boat to get something to drink and Amon was nearby, drinking on a boat next to us. Because we were very loud and it sounded like we were fighting, Amon got very angry. He went over to my friends and he shot all four of them dead. He didn’t know that I’d seen him.
I fled immediately from that fishing boat for Malaysia.
WE HAD A NONSTOP CONVERSATION
In 2007, I reached Malaysia. I traveled to Klang Valley and stayed with a friend. One day I went to a place on the coast with many fishing boats—I had to look for a job there because I only knew how to do that kind of work. There were many other Burmese people there, maybe from Arakan State.
I told them about my difficult situation, and they fed me—they cooked for me and we had a conversation. I told them I had a best friend called Aung Soe whom I had originally gone to Thailand with, and that we had been working together in the same fishing boat. Just as I was telling them my best friend’s name, I saw that Aung Soe was walking down to the fishing boat—it was amazing! When we first saw each other, we told each other about what had happened since we separated. We had a nonstop conversation for nearly four hours!
A short time after I’d found Aung Soe again and started working on the boats, I started to feel seriously ill. I decided to go to the ACTS clinic just outside of Kuala Lampur.66 When I went there, they said that they needed to check my blood; I didn’t know at that time what they were looking for. But after they checked my blood, they said there was HIV in it.
IT IS A SORRY SITUATION
When I found out that I had HIV, I was very frightened and disappointed. I knew the disease was very serious and couldn’t be cured—it could only lead to death. I got seriously sick; I became thin and so tired. I went back to the ACTS clinic and was then hospitalized.
In Malaysia, they don’t recognize refugees and asylum seekers. They see us as illegal migrants. For Malaysian citizens, it’s very cheap to get medication and health care. If you’re a foreign citizen and you have a permit, it is possible to get care, but for refugees and asylum seekers, we can’t get any medication at state clinics and hospitals if we don’t have UNHCR documents.
HIV and tuberculosis medicines are very expensive in this city—only hospitals and medical centers have them, and you can’t get them freely. The hospital asks if you have a UNHCR document, and if you have it, then you can be hospitalized. If we can show it, we pay the same medical costs as local people. But it does not benefit us much, because we still do not have enough money to pay.
At the clinic, they tried to get the UNHCR to help me. In 2008, I went to the UNHCR to try to get refugee status and a UNHCR document. After I had tried so hard, they gave me a document saying that I was under consideration to be registered as a refugee—not a real refugee card. So it is not a UNHCR card, but with this document we can go to the hospital.
I got that document in June, and the day they gave it to me they referred me to a community home for people with HIV. The UNHCR called them, and they brought me to their center. The center is very small. They provide HIV patients with some antiretroviral drugs, so I stay there. The community home provides many rooms for HIV patients to stay in and rehabilitate, while the community center offers some classes and activities. Because we don’t have any money to pay, they allow us to stay for free.
I would like to say something, but it is very difficult to say. The center is not very good for those of us who are not Malaysian citizens because they mostly focus on Malaysian people—those with HIV and drug addictions. They help people from Burma because of the cooperation of the UNHCR and many ethnic organizations, but they make us do things like cleaning—if a patient can walk or stand, then he has to clean. At times it’s no problem, but once I was so seriously sick that I couldn’t even eat, I couldn’t walk. I was so disappointed because they still made me clean. For meals, they provide us with leftover food that is past the expiration date and then maybe some bread. It is a sorry situation for the refugees.
I know that one of the refugee organizations provides the community home with an amount of money for each HIV patient. Many churches and many organizations also donate to them. We see every day that they provide the clothes, food, and materials, but none of it goes to the patients—not to Malaysians, Chinese, or Burmese.
Later on, after many interviews about my RSD—refugee status determination—the UNHCR officer said that I was not eligible for refugee status.77 I didn’t receive refugee status because I answered a question wrong at the last interview. The UNHCR officer had asked me, “Can you go back to Burma or not?” At that time, because of the interpreter, I misunderstood that as “Do you want to go to Burma or not?” So I explained to him that I did want to go back. But what I didn’t say was that I couldn’t go back because of the forced labor, and that the military would look for me.
The UNHCR was not able to provide me with a Burman interpreter. Sometimes ethnic minorities don’t understand Burmese language very well, so they don’t understand what we say and they could interpret it in a certain way that means Burman people might be refused asylum or refugee status.
The officer thought I said I could go back to Burma. He said that if you could go back to Burma, you weren’t eligible for refugee status. They gave me a rejection document, but the interpreter said to me, “You can write an appeal letter within one month.” So I found an organization to write the appeal letter for me, but when I sent the letter to the UNHCR, they told me my letter was too late. It was over.
Because I am staying with other refugees, I know many stories like mine. Burman people are facing difficulties with interpreters. A lot of people say that Burman people are not refugees. They think that because most of the military is Burman and because Burmans are Buddhist, that the military government never persecutes us—it is not true. For example, Buddhist Burman monks suffered in the 2007 uprising.
The military has only one philosophy: to maintain their power. They kill without discrimination. If you are Burman, they can still kill you, just like that.
I WANT FREEDOM
I can’t do any job now because of pneumonia—if I speak too much or walk for a short distance, I feel so tired. I have had pneumonia in the lower airway many times. It’s very closely related to asthma. I take two tablets a day of the HIV drug—that’s sixty tablets a month.
I didn’t tell any of my acquaintances or my friends that I have the disease. One or two of my friends called me to visit their homes, but I told them I couldn’t go—I gave some excuse. I feel so much shame and I don’t want them to worry for me. Since I got HIV, I have had no contact with Aung Soe, my best friend. He doesn’t know that I have HIV. We haven’t been in contact since last year, I think.
I don’t want to go back to Burma, because if I went back I would have to tell my parents that I have the disease. I feel so much shame—I don’t want them to see that I have HIV.
I now regret and grieve so much. Before, when I had a bit of money, I used to find happiness with beer, girls, that kind of thing. Maybe that’s how I got the disease. I really have so much regret.
Because I’ve had so many bad experiences in my life, I am not sure how to decide if a person can be trusted or not. A friend is someone who, even if they’ve got only one thing, they will give it to their friend. A friend never takes. So I don’t know who to trust anymore.
I want to feed and support my family before they die. I want to find them. I’m always thinking about how to support them; it’s in my mind every day. Now, my biggest desire is to be cured, so I can support my parents. I want freedom from the disease.
1 Approximately US$1.
2 Travel restrictions are enforced by checkpoints throughout Burma, especially in areas where non-state armed groups are active.
3 500 baht is approximately US$15; 1,000 baht is approximately US$30; 2,000 baht is approximately US$60.
4 5,000 baht is approximately US$160; 2,500 baht is approximately US$80.
5 Approximately US$11.00
6 ACTS is a faith-based organization that serves refugees and asylum seekers in Malyasia. The organization has two locations as well as mobile health units.
7 Refugee Status Determination refers to a title given by government or UNHCR officials to individuals seeking asylum or international refugee status. The 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 like the right to obtain travel documents or the right to UNHCR’s international protection, relocation, or assistance as a refugee. See appendix pages 482-483 for further detail.