TR EMERITUS

By Eugene Yeo

It was reported in the Straits Times that Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong is on a four-day visit to Myanmar. His visit is at the invitation of General Thein Sein, Myanmar’s Prime Minister. (read article here)

According to the Prime Minister’s Office, Mr Goh’s trip will cover the cities of Yangon, Mandalay and Taunggyi, to better understand “developments” in other parts of Myanmar. He will also travel two hours by road and boat from Yangon to open a hospital in Kayin Chaung village.

In all likelihood, SM Goh will be shown a grand Burmese “wayang kulit” and come away convinced that the country’s military dictators are “developing” Burma for the good of its citizens.

The old British administrative Yangon (formerly Rangoon), the imperial capital of the Konbaung dynasty in Mandalay and the hill-station outpost in Shan state, Taunggyi are one of the more “decent” cities in Burma.

In fact, the three of them form a “tourist triangle” which together with Bagan, are the only cities open to foreigners on a tourist visa. The rest of the country is out of bounds to tourists.

Even by ASEAN standards, Yangon and Mandalay lag far behind its sister cities in nearby Bangkok and Chiang Mai in terms of development.

Yangon looks like Singapore in the 1960s with its low rise colonial era buildings, narrow alleys and shophouses.

Mandalay is now getting a sleazy image with the influx of Chinese businessmen from Yunnan province opening KTV lounges, gambling dens and budget hotels in the old city center.

Taunggyi is a pleasant, cool and rustic place at 2,000 feet above sea level. It will have great tourism potential if not for its somewhat precarious position near the drug towns of Mong An and Mong Tao.

During my first trip to Burma as an undergraduate on a “humanitarian” project organized by the Singapore International Foundation, I was treated to a Burmese “wayang kulit” too.

Our Burmese hosts were the most polite, friendly and obliging people I had ever met in my life. We were put up at a 4 star hotel and served palatable Chinese/Burmese cuisine everyday.

We travelled by coach with the entourage being escorted by officials from the Ministry of Education at every stop. Of course, like SM Goh, we were brought to an orphanage in the suburbs where we did some “community” work and brainwashed with state propaganda, aka Burmese style, about the regime’s “nation-building” efforts. (seriously, the Burmese still have a lot to learnt from SPH/PAP on how to spin a tale without being too obvious)

My second trip to Burma was a real eye-opener. I signed up with a Christian-based charity in Mae Sot, Thailand which was funding Dr Cynthia Maung’s Mae Tao clinic for Burmese refugees stranded along the Thai-Burma border. (read more here)

Dr Cynthia Maung is an ethnic Karen, one of the many ethnic groups in Burma. The majority of the Karens are Christians in pre-dominantly Buddhist Burma.

In 1988, following the military’s crackdown on pro-democracy protests in Yangon, Dr Cynthia Maung fled with her family to Mae Sot, where she subsequently set up the Mae Tao clinic with help from foreign donors to provide basic healthcare to the Burmese refugees.

The military junta had embarked on an ethnic cleansing campaign since 1962 to bring the various ethnic groups clamouring for independence under its direct control.

According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, there are an estimated 150,000 refugees living in 11 camps along the 2,400 km long Thai-Burma border. Most of them are ethnic Karen and Karennei who were forcefully evicted from their villages by the military. Many were enslaved and forced to work as porters, laborers and even soldiers. The number of internally displaced people IDRs in Burma today remains unclear.

During my stint at the refugee camp, I was attached to a mobile medical unit to provide medical services to IDRs scattered on both sides of the border which is porous and accessible at several crossings.

Forced labor with workers chained by the legs paving roads, child soldiers with AK-47s slinged over their shoulders and amputees begging on the streets are a common sight on the Burmese side of the border.

Stories of systematic torture, rape and executions were aplenty. Entire villages were emptied and razed to the ground with its male inhabitants forcefully conscripted into the army to fight the insurgents.

General Thein Sein will never show SM Goh the harsh reality on the ground. He will be brought to where the Burmese want him to be and see.

It is a shame that ASEAN is turning a blind eye to the lagest humanitarian crisis on the Thai-Burma border while continuing to cultivate business and political ties with the obnoxious military junta.

As for Singapore, our government will continue to invest in the country to bring “development” to the blood-thirsty generals and its inner circle of cronies, leaving the rest of the populace improverished, hungry and deprived.

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