(Commentary) – For the past three years, I have personally experienced the meaning of World Refugee Day (June 20).
Before World Refugee Day this year there was a call to provide food and clothes to needy new refugees at our refugee camp. Life in our camp is hard.
The number of refugees is constantly increasing in our camps rather than decreasing. The news of more refugees arriving to the new camps with new names in new places hurts our hearts.The war refugees from Karen State live not far from our refugee camp and many people are still taking refuge in the deep forest as displaced persons. They brought some rice carried on their foreheads with slings, their bodies wrapped in plastic sheets. They did not wear footwear because they had to cross deep forests. They had many bruises and cuts on the perilous journey.
Why are new wars breaking out even though a new government has been installed? Where are the MPs now who said that they would speak in Parliament to silence the guns?
I remember an article written by Dagon Taryar.
‘The form of the struggle is determined by the oppressors, not by the oppressed. The oppressed have to resist armed oppression by arms’, writer Dagon Taryar said.
A new round of fighting is underway in Karen State. Ours is an agricultural country. Farmers grow their crops in the monsoon season. If they cannot grow their crops now, then they have to flee from their paddy fields as war refugees.
Recent refugees from Hlaingbwe told me about their plight:
‘We are farmers living with slash and burn farming (Taungyar). This is our farming season. In some places, we use cows for plowing. In Taungyar, we slash and burn in the summer season because the soil is so hard. In monsoon season, we use bamboo spikes to till the soil for better harvest.
‘In previous years, it was peaceful in the monsoon season, but now we have to worry about war. My grandmother once said that she had heard gunfire for 60 years. When someone shouted “Burmese soldiers are coming” the message was relayed to one another and all the villagers prepared to run'.‘We cannot do our work well because of this war. Recently, for much of the time, we had to stay in the forest. We gathered firewood. We starved when the war dragged on. In wartime, we cannot cook our food. We gulped down dried rice with water while hiding in the forest.’
‘Adults slept under the trees in exhaustion. Boys performed sentry duty in the night. We prepared to flee from our camp when we heard the barking of dogs. In the forest, only the Burmese soldiers wear combat boots. They want us to perform as forced porters in their military operation. A lot of people are in deep trouble this monsoon season.
‘The most annoying thing for me is the crying of children. They cry in hunger. We will have nothing to eat when the war stops. Some die of diarrhea and high fever in the forest while fleeing from the war. We came to this refugee camp because some of our relatives are here. I had five children during these years while running between our work and our hiding places in the forest. I wonder if we will ever have peace.
‘World Refugee Day was observed in our camp. The officials from the UN and Thai camp officials spoke on this occasion. The refugees also spoke about their feelings both for themselves and other ethnic refugees on this day. Some observed this day by writing articles.
‘If I were a painter, I would draw a painting on this World Refugee Day. In the painting, I would show a map of Burma in only one color–red.
‘Yes, why? Because in our country, the new president claims they are building for peace by fighting against the “non-disintegration of the union”, but he is writing peace with blood not with ink. Our country is red with the blood and the cries of our children'.
