Refugees flee violence in Myanmar

Hundreds were killed by government forces today in Myanmar, previously Burma, during the second week of protests begun by tens of thousands of monks protesting the restrictive junta.

The junta came to power in 1988 and enacted a highly restrictive police state that is known to use violence and to infringe upon the human rights of its people. The junta canceled the results of a democratic election in 1990, won by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, and placed Mrs. Kyi under house arrest, where she has been since 1991.

Protest of the government has reached an all-time high, leading to extremely violent measures taken by the junta. Things got started when small groups of students protested high fuel prices in August 2007. Things took a more serious turn when highly-respected Buddhist monks joined in.  By Sept. 23, more than 100,000 people joined a procession led by monks chanting “Release Suu Kyi.”

Despite the arrival of a U.N. envoy Saturday, the Burmese government continues to persecute protestors, arresting, confining and killing numbers that are difficult to estimate. The Democratic Voice of Burma, a nonprofit journalism organization, estimates that 6,000 demonstrators, including at least 1,400 monks, are being held in makeshift detention centers. And that’s because the jails are filled with 1,100 political prisoners. Myanmar will not allow journalists or officials into the country to measure the death toll. Furthermore, because Burma is a Buddhist state, the dead will be cremated, making identification impossible.

Because of Myanmar’s dangerously hostile policy toward journalists, most of the reports on the current situation are coming from Bangkok, the capital of the friendlier neighbor, Thailand.

Thailand isn’t just getting journalists; it’s getting refugees, and lots of them. As expected, when political persecution and violence occur in a country, refugees flock to its neighboring states.

More than 155,000 currently crowd nine camps along the Thai-Myanmar border. Refugees began arriving in 1984 as the junta entered the Karen state. Aid workers at the camp have estimated that 500-600 refugees arrive from Myanmar each month.

Thailand’s Mae La Camp is home to 50,000 people, mostly from Myanmar’s Karen ethnic majority, a group terrorized by the military junta by forced labor, murder, and crop destruction.

Aside from limiting necessary resources, overcrowding in the camps has led to social ills such as alcoholism, domestic violence and drug abuse that result from a feeling of hopelessness, aid workers say.

The situation in Myanmar is not only dangerous and hostile for who remain inside the country, but it has created desperate situation for those lucky enough to have fled.