Daily News - January 22 - 2005 - Saturday
  • Migrant workers from Burma become forgotten victims of Thailand's tsunami
  • Burma's military harassing freed student leader: US group
  • 'India happy with Burma's co-operation'
  • Clear Path Introduces New Prosthetics Technology on Thai-Burma Border
  • Burma launches ICT week to promote IT development
  • Myanmar, Chinese experts to study earthquake belt of extinct volcanoes



    • Migrant workers from Burma become forgotten victims of Thailand's tsunami

    AP

    When Asia's tsunami struck Thailand, killing thousands of its citizens and foreign tourists, survivors from both groups soon received an outpouring of help from the government, relief agencies and volunteers.

    Officials at 37 embassies in Bangkok, the capital, raced to the hard-hit beach resorts in the south to help victims from their countries, and the Thai government announced it would pay Thai survivors up to 20,000 baht (US$518, euro399) each to help rebuild their lives.

    But another group of victims _ thousands of legal and illegal migrant workers from neighboring Burma _ soon became the forgotten victims of the catastrophe.

    Burma's repressive military government didn't send anyone to Thailand to help the survivors from its country, and Thailand's government didn't offer them any money.


    A Burmese migrant family sits outside their simple wood house in a village in Kho Khao Island, southern of Thailand, Sunday, Jan. 16, 2005.

    Many illegal migrant workers from Burma soon went into hiding in hard-hit areas to avoid being caught by police, according to activists and relief agencies. Others lost their low-paying jobs at construction sites, on fishing boats or at rubber plantations when the businesses they worked for were destroyed by the tsunami.

    And many legal migrant workers who had survived the killer wave lost the Thai government registration cards required to work in Thailand when they lost everything during the Dec. 26 disaster, which killed more than 5,300 people and left more than 3,100 missing and presumed dead.

    Some officials believe that as many as 1,000 people from Burma may have died in the tsunami, but the large number of undocumented migrants means the exact number may never be known.

    Also, many migrants refused to go to official mortuaries to identify their colleagues, fearing that police would arrest them for not having their government registration cards, aid workers said.

    "Many Burmese working on construction sites lived near the beaches," Myint Myint Sau, a Myanmar relief worker, said in an interview. "Their shelters are gone, but no one knows how many of them died."

    "Some Burmese workers who are in hiding have called us, asking for food, water and clothes, but they don't know how to give directions," she said.

    About 30,000 laborers from Burma are registered with the Thai government in the tsunami-affected area, according to the Labor Ministry in Bangkok.

    They are among hundreds of thousands who fled Burma's repressive military government and high unemployment in search of jobs in richer Thailand, many working illegally.

    Despite carrying out much of the backbreaking labor that has propelled the region's economy, the migrants often seem to be regarded by their employers as property.

    One international relief agency that was helping migrant workers in Ban Thab Lamu village was attacked by Thai residents. On Jan. 12, while three Myanmar workers from World Vision, a U.S.-based relief agency, were providing food and medical help to the tsunami victims and paying to send them home, the headman of the fishing village, Thawee Paeyai, intervened. Thawee, wealthy owner of fishing business, knew their departure would deprive the area of their cheap labor, and that many Thai employers had paid for their workers' government registration cards.

    So under his influence, about 30 local residents seized the World Vision workers _ a doctor and two volunteers _ from their office and put them in a cage, police said. When a fourth Thai World Vision staff member, came to negotiate for their release, he was beaten up by the mob. Eventually, Thai police arrived in Ban Thab Lamu village, took the four relief workers into protective custody and helped them leave the area.

    On Wednesday, Somyos Leetrakul, the World Vision worker who was beaten, said in an interview that villagers armed with weapons had set up four checkpoints on roads in the area.

    Traveling through other hard-hit areas of southern Thailand, it was clear that many other migrant workers from Burma were getting far less help than Thais victims and foreign tourists.

    Many said they couldn't survive in southern Thailand because their employers had died or lost their businesses, but they didn't have the money needed to return home to Burma. Htu, a 34-year-old Burmese woman who had two children forced from her arms by the tsunami, has not found their bodies in her fishing village of Nam Khem, 30 kilometers (20 miles) north of Ban Thab Lamu.

    "I have no home. I have nothing left. ... I want to return home, but I don't have money," said Htu, who like many Myanmar residents uses only one name. "I don't have employers. My two employers died."

    In the same village, Si Nge, a 19-year-old maid from Burma, said she lost her oldest brother, Nye Bu. Before the tsunami, she and another brother had earned 5,000 to 6,000 baht (US$130-155, euro100-120 ) a month.

    "I was told that my brother was on a fishing boat sitting at the pier and he was rolled into a giant fishing net and could not escape," said Si Nge.

    Traumatized by the ordeal, she wants to journey home to Burma, but she can't afford to.

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    Burma's military harassing freed student leader: US group

    WASHINGTON, Jan 21 (AFP) - Burma's military junta is harassing student leader Min Ko Naing, whom it released after nearly 16 years in prison, a US-based group charged.

    For the past few weeks, military intelligence "followed and harassed" Min Ko Naing as he sought to recover from serious ailments contracted during his time behind bars as the country's second-most-prominent political prisoner, said the US Campaign for Burma.

    Upon medical advice, Min Ko Naing had left Rangoon on December 30 to stay with his uncles and visit other relatives and friends several miles outside the capital city but was harassed by the military, the US Campaign for Burma said.

    Local authorities twice forced their way into his uncles' homes at midnight and interrogated and intimidated friends and relatives whom he visited.

    "The 'midnight knock' is one of the scariest tactics used by the regime," said Aung Din, policy director of US Campaign for Burma who was tortured and served over four years behind bars as a political prisoner in Burma.

    "The regime invades family privacy in the middle of the night in an attempt to instill fear among the Burmese people," he said.

    Min Ko Naing is Burma's second most prominent leader after 1991 Nobel Peace Prize recipient and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, currently under house arrest.

    At least 1,400 other political prisoners remain behind bars in Burma, named by US Secretary of State designate Condoleezza Rice this week as an "outpost of tyranny."

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    'India happy with Burma's co-operation'

    The Times Of India

    KOLKATA - Union defence minister Pranab Mukherjee on Friday expressed satisfaction at the level of co-operation available from the Burmese army in crushing camps of militants from the north-east in Burma.

    Talking to newspersons in Kolkata, he said the Myanmar army had carried out an operation to flush out militants. "The perception is quite clear. Myanmar has agreed not to allow its land to be used for subversive activities against India. They will do as far as it is possible for them."

    He indicated that the operations being carried out by the Indian army in Manipur and by the Burmese army in Burma across the Manipur and Nagaland borders would be long-drawn. The border was a long one and the terrain difficult, he said. "The operations will be time-consuming and difficult."

    Army operations in Chandel and Churachandpur districts would continue as long as it was necessary to bring the militant groups under control. "Insurgency is not something that can be controlled at one go."

    India could only request Bangladesh to carry out a similar flush-out operation against militant camps situated in the country. "They have a government, I don't know how far they will do. We can only request."

    Mukherjee said the army had no objection if a border trade was started between India and China at the Nathula pass in Sikkim. "In fact, as foreign minister, I had earlier supported the idea." At present border trade between the two countries was going on through Lipulek and Sipkilla passes, both in the western sector. Nathula would soon be added to the list.

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    Clear Path Introduces New Prosthetics Technology on Thai-Burma Border

    Clear Path International - USA (http://cpi.org)

    MAE SOT, Thailand -- More Burmese landmine accident survivors will have access to stronger and lighter below-the-knee prostheses thanks to the introduction of two new technologies by Clear Path International and its partner Prosthetics Research Study of Seattle.

    With the generous support of Rotary, CPI and PRS are bringing thermoplastics production and improved measurement technology to the Mae Tao Clinic for Karen refugees on the border between Thailand and Burma.

    Bioengineer Brian Hafner and prosthetist/orthotist Kate Allyn from PRS conducted a two-week training session for 15 technicians from four prosthetics fabrication shops along the border, two on the Thai side and two just inside Burma.

    The shops currently make artificial limbs using the more traditional lamination technique, a toxic and time-consuming process that makes for a somewhat heavy prosthesis with various components. Thermoplastics production is a faster odorless process using softened plastic molded around the positive cast of the amputee’s leg and finished with only three basic parts. The thermoplastics leg known as the Monolimb is lighter and generally more durable. At about $35 per leg, the Monolimb’s raw materials are half the cost of those used in lamination.

    In conjunction with thermoplastics production, Hafner and Allyn also introduced the technicians to the Transtibial Alignment System (TTAS), a PRS invention completed with support from CPI.

    TTAS is designed to allow traveling technicians or medics to take amputees’ residual limb measurements in remote settings and recreate the same alignment in the fabrication shop so the patient doesn’t have to come in to be fitted. The TTAS will allow Burmese amputees who can’t make it out of Burma to still get artificial legs.

    Hafner and Allyn will return to the Mae Tao Clinic for additional training and troubleshooting this spring. CPI’s goal is to experiment with the introduction of the new technology and all its corresponding equipment at the Mae Tao Clinic, then eventually support its use at the other fabrication shops in Kho Key, Pa An and north of Chiang Dao.

    The Rotary clubs of Bainbridge Island and Mae Sot were instrumental in facilitating the project at the clinic and securing funding for it from the Rotary Foundation and their respective Rotary districts.

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    Burma launches ICT week to promote IT development

    Angola Press

    RANGOON - Burma unveiled a series of ICT week activities here Friday to promote the development of the country`s information technology (IT) sector.

    The week-long activities, held at the Rangoon ICT Park, include exhibition of ICT (information and communications technology) products from companies both at home and abroad, ICT-related talks and workshops as well as ICT contests.

    The Rangoon ICT park, built at a cost of about 10 million US dollars, was inaugurated in January 2002 to provide modern communication services to local and foreign IT companies for e( electronic)-commerce, e-learning and other IT-related works.

    Following the establishment of the ICT park in the capital, there emerged the second in Mandalay, the country`s second largest city, in August 2003, creating higher standard education and job opportunities for the young generation and giving rise to computer training centers and helping set up the e-government system in the country.

    For education and human resources development in the IT sector, the government is also offering encouragement and incentives to investment in the field.

    Burma has been implementing an ICT development master plan under the Initiative for ASEAN Integration (IAI) for the progress of the sector.

    The ICT development is among the four priority areas under the IAI agreed at the summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 2000, aimed at narrowing the development gap among the regional members by assisting the four newer members -- Cambodia, Laos, Burma and Vietnam.

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    Myanmar, Chinese experts to study earthquake belt of extinct volcanoes

    People's Daily, China

    Myanmar and Chinese experts will conduct a joint study in April of the detailed nature of the earthquake belt and igneous rocks lying in Myanmar's extinct volcanoes, local press Flower News reported in its latest issue.

    Estimating that Myanmar's volcano belt is linked with that of China's Yunnan province, the two sides will study the quake belt of three died-out volcanoes and igneous rocks in Myanmar, near the Wundo area where northernmost Kachin state and northwestern Sagaing division meet, the Meteorology and Hydrology Department (MHD) was quoted as saying.

    It will be the second time for the two countries' experts to carry out such activities since last November in collaboration with personnel from the Myanmar Engineers' Association, MHD, Yangon University and Technical College.

    During the last study involving geologists from Tengchong Earthquake Administration of Yunnan and covering Popa, Monywa, Sagaing and Shwebo, 30 igneous rocks were taken for laboratory analysis, the report said.

    According to Myanmar officials, Myanmar is a country located on the Alphide Himalaya earthquake belt with frequent activities in the past.

    In April 2003, China presented two sets of digital seismographsto Myanmar to help promote the country's seismographic activities.

    Meanwhile, Myanmar has laid down a project to draw a geological micro-zonation indicator map for Yangon to guide building construction work in the capital as a precaution against quake.

    The project will take at least one year and will be extended to other major cities of Mandalay, Bago and Phyu.

    Myanmar is also undertaking a coastal storm and tidal surge forecast project for improving weather forecast services. The project, being implemented with the assistance of the Honolulu-based PACON International (the Pacific Congress on Marine Science Technology), involves the utilization of numerical prediction method to provide advance warning of storm and tidal surge.

    It is officially reported that the country was registered with 64 people killed, 56 injured in coastal areas in the tsunami on Dec. 26. The tidal wave destroyed over 600 houses in 29 villages, leaving 3,460 people homeless in some of the regions in six divisions and states -- Tanintharyi, Yangon, Bago, Ayeyawaddy, Rakhine and Shan (South).

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