Zofate zinga St.Stephen Award, Norway ram a dawng hmasa ber thusawi!.
November 13th, 2010 7:00 pm by flyingBy Victor Biak Lian
9 November, 2010, Oslo, Norway
Thank you very much for selecting me as the recipient of the St. Stephen award. There are many individuals, organizations and groups that I have to thank for their support, and recognition. In mid May, I received a call from my friend Mr. Ed Brown of the Norwegian Mission to the East to offer me the award. I was very surprised. What came to mind immediately was the fact that it is not my individual efforts that should be recognized but rather the efforts of all my colleagues and friends who are equally committed to the cause of the disenfranchised and suffering communities of Burma. It is with humility and them in mind that I accept this award.
First of all, many people in this room may not know much about me. I would like to introduce myself and tell you about my engagement in the struggle for democracy, freedom and human rights in Burma since the very beginning, in 1988.
I was a final year student at Rangoon University when the nationwide uprising began in Burma in 1988. As a young student and an ethnic nationalist, I took part in the demonstrations. At this time, there was a lot of anger against the government. The year before, the government demonetized the country’s currency without providing advance warning or compensation for lost savings. Imagine for a moment, if that happened in Norway, how would people respond? This has happened many times in Burma. I experienced it in 1987- overnight I had no money to pay for the bus or for food. Millions of people went empty-handed.
That was the true beginning of the 88 uprising. Then in March a student from the Rangoon Institute of Technology was shot dead by riot police for protesting against the government. When this happened, the anger of the students was beyond the control of the government, and the uprising spread like wild fire throughout the whole country. In March, the University closed down after riot police stormed the main campus, forcing the students to disperse. After the University closed, all the ethnic students were ordered to return to their homes. As an ethnic Chin, I headed to my native home in Hakha in the remote, western hills of Chin State.
But sending us home did not silence us. Popular uprisings broke out across the whole country on 8 of August, 1988 known as 8888, including in my homeland where I became one of the student leaders. In Hakha, we marched in the street demanding an end to military rule. But at midnight on 15 August, 1988, I was arrested by local police and military intelligence together with 9 other students. We were kept in the police lock up, but the next day the whole town came to demand our release. Unable to control the crowd, the police released us.
For the next two months, I lead demonstrations throughout Chin State. After the military coup in September, it became very unsafe to remain in the country as military intelligence began hunting down the student leaders responsible for organizing the demonstrations. Many of us including myself fled to a border town in India called Champhai in Mizoram State. Here, we all gathered together and asked the Government of India to open a refugee camp for us.
I stayed in this camp for 3 months and then left for the China border together with about 70 of my colleagues, to join a group of ethnic Kachin who were developing strategies to oppose the military. That was how I started to learn about the situation in other ethnic areas and especially in the conflict zones. I walked for more than 80 days toward China from India, and another 100 days to go to the Bangladesh border from China via the India border.
During my travels, I saw many villages that had been burnt down by the military regime. Many villages were empty as people fled into hiding in advance of military patrols. I saw children portering heavy loads for the Burma Army in the conflict areas. Sometimes no food was available. I remember one time, we had hardly anything to eat for 40 consecutive days. I saw many children crying, and dying. There was little I could do. I was half-dead myself due to starvation. There are so many difficult stories to tell.
I left Burma again in 1992 and became a refugee under UNHCR in Delhi for 5 years. I worked for the refugee community in Delhi, and as a refugee I helped establish the Chin Human Rights Organization along with several colleagues. Finally, in 1997 my wife and I resettled to Canada through Church sponsorship.
But being a world away did not silence me. I continued to engage in advocacy with the international community to bring attention to the struggle for democracy and ethnic unity in Burma. In 2004, I returned to Asia with my wife to volunteer for one year for the democracy movement. But that was 6 years ago and I’m still volunteering.
Unfortunately, in the years since I left Burma, the reign of terror perpetrated by the regime has affected hundreds of thousands of its citizens. Today, CHRO continues to document the suffering of the Chin people on the western front. The kind of human rights violations suffered by my people today are the same as those that have been extensively reported among ethnic Karen, Shan, and Karenni on the eastern border. These violations include arbitrary arrest and detention, forced labor, torture, rape and extrajudicial executions.
Chin people today estimate that around 90 percent of Chins are Christians. Christianity is an integral part of our culture for many Chins. Sadly, religious persecution at the hands of the military regime is a matter of primary concern among my people.
The authorities have destroyed Christian crosses erected by churches on hilltops throughout Chin State, most recently in July this year. Construction of new church buildings is prohibited. Christians must obtain prior authorization for even renovation of church buildings, which is virtually impossible. In remote villages and other rural areas in Chin State, army units on patrols have frequently mistreated, assaulted and tortured Christian pastors.
It is very risky for us to document these human rights violations. I believe many violations have never been reported, due to the risks involved. Successive UN Human Rights Rapporteurs on Burma have criticized the most egregious violations committed by the regime. Many governments and the United Nations have expressed their concern and condemnation of the systematic and targeted violations against civilians and the complete impunity enjoyed by the regime. And yet little has changed.
As a result, more than 140,000 refugees languish on the Thai-Burma border in 9 refugee camps, providing a clear example that many citizens are not safe in their own country. Hundreds of thousands of villagers in the border areas are living as internally displaced persons. Over the past 10 years, more than 100,000 refugees have poured into Malaysia to seek refugee status, around half of them Chin. Hundreds of thousands more struggle for survival in India and Bangladesh.
The route out of Burma and into exile is not easy. Refugees are forced to rely on human traffickers. Many have vanished between Thailand and Malaysia. The Chin Human Rights Organization has recorded the stories of Chin who have been sold into slavery on Thai fishing boats, and have miraculously managed to escape. There are reports of women being sold to brothels. Women are at high risk of abuse by brokers promising to smuggle them into safety.
I personally know several incidents of people who have died trying to get to Malaysia. In 2006, 40 people vanished in the Bay of Bengal when their small boat carrying more than 100 people was crushed by a fishing boat on Christmas Eve. Just this past May, 13 Chin, including several women and children, were killed in a horrific car accident while trying to enter into Malaysia with the help of human smugglers. After being identified by the police, the driver refused to stop and a high-speed chase ensued, ending in the car flipping and hitting a tree after the police shot out a tire. 9 people died on the spot while 9 others suffered serious injuries; 4 more succumbed to their injuries and died in the hospital including 3 children. The rest survived but were arrested by the Thai police.
When I heard about the accident, I immediately rushed to meet the survivors in jail. I could see in their eyes that they expected something from me. One young boy rushed to me and asked “where are my uncle and brother?�A woman near him whispered to me that they died on the spot, and I realized that they must have been among the 13 bodies lying in the Buddhist monasteries. I couldn’t say a word to the boy. How could I tell him he would never see his brother and his uncle again?
It is not difficult to understand what forces hundreds of people to risk their lives every day to make this kind of journey. Aung San Suu Kyi once said that “we are prisoners of our own country� which is true for the entire population in Burma. More than 2200 political prisoners are still being detained, demonstrating that the regime continues to be intolerant of political opposition. Some have been sentenced to 100 years imprisonment. Many suffer medical conditions, but are denied medical treatment by the authorities and refused permission to see their relatives and loved ones.
People live in extreme poverty. Food insecurity is everywhere in the country. Malnutrition rates are alarmingly high, particularly in the ethnic areas and conflict zones. Many households struggle from constant food shortages. For the past three years, large areas of Chin State have been devastated by a food crisis brought on by a rat infestation. In response to such humanitarian crises, the military government does nothing to assist the affected population, and instead continues to violate their rights with impunity.
Despite the desperate poverty experienced by much of the population, in 2007 the military regime removed fuel subsidies causing the price of diesel and petrol to sky rocket. If this kind of government action took place here in this country, how would citizens respond? The response in Burma was the 2007 Saffron Revolution. Instead of bringing about a much hoped for change in the country, the revolution resulted in hundreds dead including monks at the hands of the military regime.
The problems we are facing are not easy to bear and they are many. They are real and not easy to solve. But I believe they can be solved.
You may know that 2 days ago, there was an election held by the regime in Burma. This was the first election held in Burma for the last 20 years. Two decades ago, the result of the 1990 election, in which the National League for Democracy won by a landslide, was not honored. Instead many were arrested and Aung San Suu Kyi the leader of the NLD was put under house arrest where she has remained for 13 years. In the follow-up to this election, many speculate that Aung San Suu Kyi might be released on 13 November. I pray that the speculation may become true.
What we do know is that the 7 November 2010 elections are designed to give legitimacy to the military government in Burma. We all know that it will not lead to democracy. Like the 1990 elections, the military will still be in control after the elections. There will most likely be a shift from direct and full military control, to indirect but full control.
On the other hand, the elections may provide a limited opportunity for the ethnic communities to once again legitimately fight for their rights through a controlled political process. Some ethnic communities participated and contested in the elections to make use of their right to legitimately represent their communities and promote the concept that governments must be elected by the people. They also believe that people have the right to choose their representatives and hope that they’ll be able to push for incremental reforms. We can only hope that this process will open the door for positive change in Burma.
Civil war can be broke out throughout the country any time soon as many ethnic ceasefire groups rejected the proposal of their army to transform into “Border Guard Force� under their command without any political dialogue and settlement.
We will be watching carefully as the political landscape unfolds. We will continue to press for justice and accountability for human rights violations; national reconciliation; and genuine democracy. We have to remain hopeful. Change that is small and slow can quickly become big and widespread. I believe that one day this change will come and that I may return to my homeland- not as a Chin or an ethnic national but as a member of a unified, free, and democratic Burma.
Dear friends, in my conclusion, I would like to thank Norwegian Mission to the East leaders for this award for which I feel so honored. My friends at CHRO who are wonderful people that I enjoy working with immensely. My colleagues at the Chin Forum who are unique nationalists and intellectuals and have taught me so much about our Chin constitution, history and so on but most important, they taught me how to be patient.
My thanks go to Mr. Harn Yawnghwe, director of Euro-Burma office in Brussels, who provided me with the opportunity to work with the National Reconciliation Programme and later with the Euro-Burma Office. His advice and expertise on Burma is invaluable to me. I cannot forget my co-workers from the Ethnic Nationalities Council and Chin National Council. You are my heroes. I am honored to be able to work with all of you and pledge to continue this work until our objectives are met.
Finally, I would like to thank Chin community in Norway who come here from near and far to join us in this event. I also would like to to thank my family for their kind support for all my work. My special thanks go to my wife Khuang Cin Par. Despite the many difficulties of being left alone so many times, both on her own and later with 2 kids, she has never said “NO� to me when it came time for me to travel. Thank you.
Note: Private a ka dawn ka lawm pui em em leh ka chhuan em em ka rawn post chhawng ve.
