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Marking Time in Thailand
The tent homes occupied by Burmese refugees stand side by side at the Tham Hin refugee camp in Ratchaburi province in southwestern Thailand in April 2005.
(By Apichart Weerawong -- Associated Press)
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"They are saying the same things," she said. "They have the same level of outrage on their faces."
The hope among Burmese here is that, this time, after all the attention brought into focus by Internet reports and video images, international pressure will force change on the 12-member junta, the State Peace and Development Council, she said.
A special U.N. envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, met separately on Tuesday with the junta chief, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi in hopes of loosening controls and starting dialogue between the two camps, the Reuters news agency reported from Rangoon. There was no word on what if any results the talks yielded.
Gambari, a former Nigerian foreign minister, carried a message from Suu Kyi to the military government, U.N. sources said, and was to return to New York on Friday. Gambari expects to return to the country in early November at the government's request, the sources said.
But the refugees here have heard talk of dialogue before, and they are still in the camps. "If the international [community] doesn't give pressure, if it's only voices, then there is no hope," said Say, the medical worker, as he stood just outside the fence separating Mae La's refugees from the rest of Thailand.
Say, 35, who sought asylum here 20 years ago, said that as a young teenager he fought in the Burmese jungle alongside Karen separatists, who have mounted one of at least three long-running ethnic rebellions against the junta's 400,000-member army. More than half the camp's 40,000 residents are Karen, he said, but some are also ethnic Burmese similar to those protesting in the cities now.
Monks from that group organized a protest Sunday in the camp, he added. And whatever their ethnic groups, he said, the refugees have been tuning in shortwave radios to listen to news from abroad about what is happening in their country. They all share the goal of returning home, said another veteran of the Karen rebellion, Maede La, 35.
"Living here is like confinement," Say said.
