Farewell to the “Liberated Area”

Thousands of political activists fled there after the 1988 pro-democracy uprising was brutally suppressed by regime forces.

Hundreds followed in May 2003 after regime thugs attacked opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her supporters, and in another exodus before the resumption of the National Convention last August.

Mae Sot, which sits on the Burmese border in Thailand’s Tak Province, became a second home for about 1,000 Burmese dissidents, who run dozens of offices representing exile interests.

The number is steadily shrinking, however, as exiled dissidents, either disillusioned by the absence of any movement within Burma or yielding to family interests, move on to Western countries willing to take them as refugees.

The resumption in late 2003 of ceasefire talks between the Karen National Union, or KNU, and the Burmese government, and the subsequent “informal” agreement between the two sides, prompted many exiled activists to renounce a struggle that began 56 years ago.

Others gave up campaigning after watching with dismay as Karen leader Gen Bo Mya hobnobbed with Burma’s top brass during a ground-breaking trip to Rangoon in 2004.

Most of the disillusioned exiles living in Thailand applied to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, or UNHCR, for refugee status as “Persons of Concern.” The flood of applications grew so large that the UNHCR temporarily suspended its processing procedure on January 6, 2004, the day after about 40 exile NLD activists—members of the National League for Democracy (Liberated Area), or NLD-LA—filed applications.

BURMESE STUDENT TROOPS ON THE BORDER: Shrinking

Until the resumption of ceasefire talks, most opposition groups in exile had banned their members from applying for “Persons of Concern” status. The apparent rapprochement between the KNU and the junta, however, sparked fears that Burmese exiles in Thailand could be arrested by the Thai authorities for failing to hold UN refugee status.

Six hundred Burmese exiles with UN documents left the so-called “Liberated Area” in 2004 to resettle in the US and Europe, and at least as many are expected to follow this year.

Ko Tate, Secretary of the Mae Sot-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, or AAPP, said 21 of the 100 or so members of his organization resettled last year in the US and Norway. The rest had applied for UN refugee status and were likely to follow.

Only four or five exiles would then be left to run the AAPP office in Mae Sot, Ko Tate lamented.

The Mae Sot office of the Democratic Party for a New Society, or DPNS, is in no better shape, with only about 10 of the 100 or so DPNS members expected to remain and run the party’s affairs.

Also of concern to exiled Burmese activists is the shrinking strength of the armed forces of the All Burma Students’ Democratic Front, or ABSDF, founded by students who fled Burma after the 1988 uprising.

The “student army” grew to a formidable force of several thousand young activists, who scored some spectacular military successes against the Burma Army. But their fortunes turned in 1995 when the Burma Army captured the Manerplaw headquarters of the Karen National Union, or KNU.

“The fall of Manerplaw was an immeasurable loss not only for the KNU but for the whole movement,” said ABSDF Secretary Kyaw Ko, who was among the original members of the student army.

Kyaw Ko said the ABSDF strength in border areas had shrunk to about 800 from a force which he maintained once numbered in the “tens of thousands.”

The ABSDF forbids its members to apply for UN refugee status, on pain of expulsion. Nevertheless, 50 members quit the movement last year in order to seek a new life in the West.

“Morally and physically, this resettlement process impacts on our movement,” said Kyaw Ko.

One of the DPNS secretaries, Ngwe Lin, said he understood why married exiles were seeking a new life in the West, but maintained the best location to conduct the campaign for Burmese democracy was in the “Liberated Area” of the Thai-Burma border.

Kyaw Thura says most are leaving for family reasons.