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Mission to the Misty
North-East -
V
By Lipika Bansal
The van-driver is of Indian origin, born and raised in Burma. Many Indians from Burma fled after Ne Win (the former dictator of Burma) took power in 1962. He took all the businesses from the Indians and Chinese, as they were mostly controlling the business in Burma. As they had no ways of income, they went to India. But they didn’t feel at home in India, as Burma was their country. Now many Indians, especially Tamils from Burma live in Moreh, in the border town, and earn a living by border trade.
We were supposed to meet with a branch of the ABSDF- the KSDF- Kuki Students’ Democratic Front. They work together. The president of the KSDF was in a very big hurry to get us out of the ABSDF office. He said that you cannot trust the Burmese people, they are informers. This was quite sad to hear, as they are supposed to work together and cooperate, but as long as there is no trust there can never be any solution. Most ethnic groups in Burma don’t like Burmese, because the Burmese army has been terrorizing the ethnic peoples for decennia. So now they mistrust all Burmese, although there are many Burmese political refugees struggling for the same cause as the ethnic peoples. Anyway as I mentioned before some ethnic groups were divided in India and Burma, the same story is applicable to the Kuki; there are Indian Kukis and Burmese Kukis. The Kukis have 4 enemies. The Indian Kukis and Burmese Kukis fight together. They fight the Indian government, the Burmese government, the Nagas and Meiteis/ Manipuris. They want their own land back- Zalengam, which means Freeland.
Anyway the KSDF president had arranged a place for us to stay, with an Indian Kuki. She also helped us to cross the border to Namphalang the big border market. The ABSDF told us not to go to Tamu, but we wanted to try to go there as well. At the border checkpoint our Kuki friend showed her ID card, on which she can take 3 more people; Jang and I were supposed to be her sisters. At this moment I was most afraid, because she didn’t inform us about anything, she just went, and gave us some false names. I didn’t even know my false name. But there was no problem. It was written in big letters that no photography was allowed. Unfortunately we were obedient this time and we didn’t bring our camera. Of course we had to be careful, and couldn’t talk openly as Burma has his ears always open. We took the horse-cart to Tamu.
In comparison to Moreh, the roads are in perfect condition; well the evidence was there in front of my eyes. After having talked to so many people, and having read so much about forced labor, seeing is again a complete different thing. It stings in your heart. There were 3 people, and then 5 soldiers with huge rifles, hanging practically over them, forcing to construct the road. We continued our way to Tamu, and it was the opposite of Moreh. Nice, new built constructions. Good roads, yes very nice, to force the farmers to make the roads and buildings. In this way they have no time anymore to work on their own farms and for farmers to miss one week of work on land, can destroy their whole crop. Many times they have to sell their land and go to the bordering countries, such as Thailand, Bangladesh and India for economic reasons. The Burmese regime is trying to create an attractive border town, to attract businessmen. We heard in our previous interviews, but not visible with the naked eye, that they are opening many prostitution bars in Tamu as well.
We went back and looked a bit around in Namphalang, and back to the end of the world –Moreh. We went to an unusual local Kuki tradition. With I don’t know how many people, but they were all family. It was amazing to see how big this family was; crazy…the president of KSDF, his wife was having some kind of ceremony that she was going to be independent from her parents for the third time. But I didn’t understand this exceptional ritual. Her parents still live in Burma, so they had come with a super-super-big-fat pig, and this was shared among the whole family. Later we were taken separately to another house, so that we could interview the Kuki Women’s Organization. They didn’t speak English, but one lady spoke Hindi. So I was able to interview her, although they were still extremely inexperienced in their work. She was the vice-president, but she didn’t have the answers to my questions, she had to ask many things to her sister, and if she didn’t know, an ABSDF member who went along with us, would give answers in Burmese for her, and translate in Hindi.
They have trained 20 women to sew in a year and a half. If asked what AIDS is, they only knew that it is a terrible disease. It is because there is no communication in this town. No phone lines, it is closed from the world. Nobody would even imagine people living here, or that such a place exists. There is one health clinic, but no doctors, just few nurses. The day before we went there was a warning, about not going to Moreh, because there was some kind of virus. Anyway we met 2 women who were suffering from the viral. But no action was taken. We stayed in the Indian Kuki’s home, which had helped us across the border, she is a teacher, and she wasn’t paid for the last 4 months. She had to take care of her 3 little kids, she didn’t have a husband anymore, and she was having that strange virus. Very terrible condition. Because foreigners are not allowed in this area, she had only seen ‘white’ people on TV, and said oh they are very big and tall people, right?
The next morning we had promised to be there at 6.30 am. But before we had also promised to talk with the KSDF, they tried to keep us some extra hours in Moreh, although we wanted to, but we couldn’t because we had to catch our flight. We quickly said bye to everyone, and went off again with Dr. Thura and the nice van-driver, early morning, before the official gates opens. It opens at 8.00 am, but we left 1, 5 before, but again we were so lucky, that we explained that we had to catch our flight and that’s why we had to go and hurry. We hurried off, and quickly packed our backpack, said bye again to these warm and helpful people, and the van-driver and Dr. Thura dropped us at the airport. Very high security at the airport, they checked our hand-luggage thoroughly. We had to take out all batteries, nail-clipper, tweezer etc. 2 hours flight delay, no problem got a glimpse of the World cup at the airport. Later we heard that Manipur is a black area in India. Black area means, that there are fights and killings, but we had successfully passed the black zone of India.
to
be continued......
(The author attends the University of Amsterdam in Holland majoring in International Communications)
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