“Progress can be seen only in big cities, not in our hometown,” says 61-year-old Saw Raw, sitting on the balcony of his house at the Mae La Oon refugee camp in Mae Sariang District in northern Thailand.“I think the day is still far away when we will get to go back home,” Saw Raw adds,
Raw is one of the roughly 140,000 Burmese refugees living in nine camps on Thai-Burmese border since 1984. Armed ethnic minority groups, like the Karen National Union (KNU), have been fighting for autonomy since 1948, but the government remains unwilling to discuss devolution.
“I think refugee repatriation is still far away,” he says. “It will be possible only when peace and stability prevail in the ethnic homelands.”
Sally Thompson, the deputy director of the Thailand Burma Border Consortium, says that refugees are eager to return home but the armed conflicts in Burma, especially in Kachin State, are growing despite the recent reforms. There are about 500,000 internally displaced ethnic civilians in the east, north and south of Burma due to armed conflicts, she points out. “We always hope that the refugees are able to return home sometime,” Thompson says. She added, however, that she can’t predict when this will be possible. About 70,000 Burmese refugees have been resettled in third countries, but many have not opted for that in hope of returning home, says Thompson.
Religious faith is strong among many ethnic Karen. Every Sunday, they pray at their churches for the realization of their dream of returning home. While some express optimism, few believe that it will be possible to return home in the near future.
Meanwhile, the relative calm in Karen State contrasts starkly with the deadly war that has been waged in Kachin State since last June, when the government ended a truce that had lasted 17 years. La Nan, the spokesperson for the Kachin Independence Organization, the 10,000-strong armed group that is battling Burmese army forces, says the government has been using helicopters not only to carry out injured soldiers, but also to send ammunition and troops to the combat zone since Nov. 25. Local sources say the war in Kachin State has already displaced more than 45,000 Kachin civilians, and it's impossible to say when they will be able to return to their homes.
“The civil war will go on for a long time if the government doesn’t make real peace with ethnic minorities,” warns La Nan. Last November, Physicians for Human Rights conducted an investigation into allegations of rights abuses and atrocities by the Burmese military in Kachin State and found that between June and September 2011, the army looted food from civilians, fired indiscriminately at villagers, threatened them with attacks, and forcibly used them as porters and minesweepers. According to the Thailand-based Kachin News Group, on Nov. 30—the same day that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Burma for a landmark visit—government troops killed civilians and burned their houses in Kachin State.
Ashley South, a Burma watcher, says that the international community should encourage reforms by the government of President Thein Sein, but serious and widespread human rights abuses, particularly in areas affected by on-going armed conflicts, must not be ignored. Without addressing the aspirations and grievances of ethnic minorities, social and political problems cannot be solved, South adds.