228 Burmese Asylum Seekers and Refugees Arrested by RELA

SUARAM is informed that 228 asylum seekers and refugees from Burma were arrested in an operation by the Malaysian Immigration and RELA (People’s Voluntary Corps) raid today (25 June 2007). About 2.00am, the joint force raided the Chin Refugee Centre and Chin communities at Jalan Imbi and Jalan San Peng, Kuala Lumpur.

Most of the detainees are recognised as refugees by the United Nations High Commission of Refugees (UNHCR). Among them, 30 people are underaged, 5 are pregnant women and 10 are people who will be sent to the United States of America tomorrow for resettlement. Chin refugee leader U Sang was also among those arrested.   more »

By Salai Za Uk Ling
www.chinlandguardian.com

11 April 2007 – Kuala Lumpur: Dally Sui Hlei Par, a 7 year-old refugee girl who was found murdered and mutilated a week after she went missing on March 20 was finally laid to rest in Kuala Lumpur this afternoon.

More than 500 Chins and local sympathizers attended the emotional funeral and burial service at Cheras Christian cemetery. Funeral goers braved the drizzling rain to pay their last respect to Dally whose decomposing body was discovered under the bushes near the family’s home with both her hands severed at the wrists.

Dally’s peers and classmates sang an emotional farewell song dedicated to her memory.

Like other refugee and undocumented children, Dally didn’t have access to formal primary education in Malaysia. Chin refugee children receive informal education in community schools run by groups such as Chin Students Organization and Chin Women’s Organization.

Read more...

Van Biak Thang
www.chinlandguardian.com

A distant knell echoed 'long the horizon
Like a whisper that blows a hollow horn;
Tears dropped and hearts ached in silent pain
Over a tragic brutal loss of a seven-year old girl,
So sweet and lovely, Delly Sui Hlei Par.
She loved to play, pray and her stories share:
How she wanted to be free and live to care
When the family's to the States fly in hours
All her dreams but turned into a nighmare
Vanishing like a puff of smoke into breezy air   more »

(CHRO Press Release)

CHRO joins the Malaysian Parliamentary Caucus for Democracy in Burma in their call for the Malaysian government to take immediate action in the case of Dally Sui and to protect all Burmese children living in Malaysia. As a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, Malaysia has a responsibility to uphold and ensure the rights of all children, including refugee and undocumented children, are protected.

THE CASE OF DALLY SUI

Dally Sui is seven year old Chin girl who was abducted on 20 March. Her body was later found with her hands severed at the wrist on 27 March. Dally Sui and her family fled Burma, and had been living in Malaysia as refugees since 2002. She went missing the day before she and her family were scheduled to leave Malaysia to be resettled to the United States.

After becoming aware that Dally Sui had disappeared, her parents immediately filed a missing persons report with the police. As the hours turned into days and the search for Dally Sui spread throughout the Chin community in Kuala Lumpur, the police did little to help. Despite repeated requests for their involvement, the authorities failed to take exert the effort even to simply speak to the distraught parents or interview the neighbors

In the end, Dally Sui was found dead with her body dumped in some undergrowth just 4 kilometers from her parent’s house. Her hands remain unaccounted for and her killer has still not been identified by the authorities. Her parent’s must now face leaving for the United States without receiving answers about the death of their little girl.   more »

The CHRO has released a new edition of the Rhododendron, their newsletter covering events in Chin State and the Chin community worldwide. They should have a regular version available on their website soon, or you can read the attached pdf here. Posted below is the text of Lian Hmung Sakhong's acceptance speech for the Martin Luther King prize.   more »

Immigration raids and arrests have been steadily increasing in Malaysia, as the government announced plans to arrest up to half a million illegal migrants this year. Rela, the People's Volunteer Corps, has been mobilized to do immigration's dirty work. Rela has become known for their violent raids and abuse of power. Suaram, the Malaysian human rights NGO, reported last year on several incidents of abuse by Rela officers, including beatings, theft during raids, and arrest of individuals with valid documents. One raid on a market was followed by five bodies being pulled from a nearby lake.

More recently, on March 12, Rela conducted a raid in Jalan Imbi, a neighborhood known to be home to a large number of Burmese nationals - mostly asylum-seekers and refugees from Chin State. The Chin Refugee Center is also located in Jalan Imbi. According to the Chinland Guardian,

"The raid began around 1:00 am and continued for several hours. Forty-eight Chin asylum seekers from Burma, including ten women, have been taken to Seminyah detention camp, where they will await deportation.

Among those arrested and detained is, Salai Ni Kio, a resettled refugee visiting from Denmark on valid travel documents. According to our sources, the Malaysian authorities have confiscated his travel documents and are refusing to release him. The Danish Embassy has been notified about the situation."

   more »

March 8th was International Women's Day, and although this post is a day late, it's still a good time to reflect on the issue of women's rights. The International Women's Day 2007 site has a history of IWD. I find it unfortunate that in reading that page, I didn't come across one bit of information that I already knew. According to the site, the first National Women's Day was observed in the U.S on February 28th, a year after 15,000 women marched through New York city demanding better work conditions and the right to vote. In 1911, "More than one million women and men attended IWD rallies campaigning for women's rights to work, vote, be trained, to hold public office and end discrimination."   more »

By Salai Elaisa Vahnie
Chinland Guardian

February 27, 2007-New York: Cheery Zahau of Women League of Chinland ( WLC) spoke today at the United Nations held the panel discussion at its 51st Session of Commission on the Status of Women at the UN Headquarters building in New York. The panel discussion focused on discrimination and violence against women in Burma and Sudan. The panelists presented about rape and sexual violence in both countries where Mass Rape have been practiced as a State Sanctioned Weapon.

In her panel presentation, Cheery, coordinator of WLC, figured the total number of victims documented in several different sources of reports prepared by Women organizations in Burma to be as many as 1,859 girls and women.   more »

By Salai Za Uk Ling
www.chinlandguardian.net

23 February 2007 – Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian authorities on Wednesday detained a 2 week-old refugee baby and her Chin parents after the parents tried to register the child’s birth with the National Registration Department here in Kuala Lumpur.

The new-born child and both her parents were placed in custody yesterday afternoon when the parents tried to register the child as a person born in Malaysia. As of late this evening, they remain in detention at the National Registration Department office in Damansara. Under Malaysia’s immigration law, every child born in the country must be registered within 14 days of birth.

According to a relative who accompanied them to the office yesterday, both parents of the baby are unwell. The mother reportedly still hasn’t completely recovered from child birth and was still bleeding at the time of being detained. The father also had just been released only a few hours earlier from hospital where he was treated for temporary paralysis of the limbs when they were placed in immigration custody. “I was waiting outside of the office until the office closed only to find out that they had been detained inside,” the relative told Chinland Guardian.

Dawt Hlei Tial, the mother, is registered a principal with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees as a Person of Concern to the office and is awaiting a final decision on her refugee status. According to the relative, the father has also been notified to appear for interview with UNHCR.

The detention came only a few weeks after Malaysian Home Affairs Minister made a public statement in which he threw criticism at UNHCR for “interfering” with law enforcement’s operations against “illegal immigrants” in the country. In his statement, the Minister further said that his government does not recognize the functions of UNHCR in Malaysia.

According to sources from the Home Ministry, Malaysia currently detains more than 2,000 persons from Burma alone of which a third of them are Chin asylum seekers and refugees. Last year, Home Minister Radzi Sheik Ahmad was quoted by the Malaysian newspaper as saying that his government would intensify crackdowns on “illegal immigrants” despite overcrowded detention centers. “If they [illegal immigrants] have to sleep on the floor next to each other, then so be it,” he was quoted as saying by the New Straits Times.

“We are constantly dealing with arrest and detention every single day,” says Salai San Aung, Secretary of Chin Refugee Committee. According to CRC records, the organization has so far secured the release of 78 Chin refugees in February alone from various police lock-ups and detention.

CHRO is deeply concerned and dismayed by the recent statements made by Malaysia’s Home Affairs Minister, Datuk Seri Radzi Sheikh Ahmad, regarding United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in Malaysia. CHRO urges the Minister to consider the implications of his statements in conjunction with the realities of the refugee situation in Malaysia.

On 1 February 2007, the Minister reportedly criticized UNHCR for getting in the way of the operations of agencies such as RELA and the Immigration Department. The Minister further indicated that Malaysia “accepts UNHCR’s presence, but not their powers.”   more »

The Chinland Guardian has recently posted an interview with Benedict Rogers, the author of the recent report on religious persecution in Burma by Christian Solidarity Worldwide.

I should note that my previous post on the topic was a response to other blogger's reactions to the article and report rather than a response to the report itself or the author. The report hadn't even been released at that point in time. If you follow 'Burma' on the blogosphere, then like me, you noticed a significant increase in activity after The Independent article about this report was published. Most of those blog posts were either from Christian bloggers, or from non-religious bloggers who held it up as an example of why religion was bad. But, there were few bloggers who made the effort to acknowledge the bigger story of Burma or called for people to become more informed. I have to wonder if all the other Christian bloggers calling for prayer would have an equal amount of compassion for those Chin who don't go to church, who aren't the same denomination as them, or who aren't even Christian.

I've never closely followed Benedict Roger's work or his writing, but I was pleased to know that he shares an objective, universal view of human rights wherein religous freedom lies.

...I was always a little bit reluctant to highlight too much the issue of religious persecutions because I thought I took the view that everybody in Burma is suffering, although of course I always mentioned religious persecution alongside other human rights issues. But I didn’t want to single out Christians above other people. But when organisations and individuals who were approaching this issue, not from a Christian perspective, said to me, “Why don’t you do a report on this Christian persecution,” I couldn’t really ignore that. That’s the main prompting to do it.

What's unfortunate is that trying to publicise human rights abuses and situations like Burma's is such a minefield of public perception and politics. Those reporting and working on the issues from the a human rights perspective have to do their best to get the word out to a world where a basic understanding human rights is lacking.

The Chinland Guardian site seems to be down at the moment, so I'm including the full transcript of the interview after the cut.   more »

Dr. Lian Hmung Sakhong, a prominent Chin community leader and academic, was awarded the Martin Luther King Prize for 2007. The Martin Luther King Prize was established by a coalition of Swedish peace groups in honor of the late civil rights activist in 2003. Dr. Lian Hmung Sakhong is the third recipient of the prize since its inception, and was presented the award in a ceremony on January 15 at the Swedish Parliament. In addition to the honor of winning, the prize brings with it US $25,000.   more »

It would seem I've fallen a bit behind on journaling my trip to Malaysia. I'm going to consider it a positive that I was too busy actually doing things to write about them in a timely fashion, and just forge ahead as if I'm not a month behind. I'm not big on end of year retrospectives or new year's resolutions, anyway.

December 6th started with breakfast with Simon's wife - Simon was the coordinator at the CRC last year who I'd spent so much time with, and who's now in Australia. Last year I had ijagwe and coffee with him every morning, so the plan was to call him so we could chat over breakfast again. Unfortunately, his new job on a farm somewhere around Adelaide pre-empted our conversation.

After breakfast Goi and I went to visit the Chin Women's Organization. They have a set of flats on the other side of the city and run their own projects, providing a safe house for women and children when necessary, running a few classes taught by foreign volunteers for women and children, and a new handicraft project. When we arrived, Zi, the director, led us up to the second flat, where she lives with her husband, and where they had a table set up with their handicraft products so I could look through them and pick some to bring back with me. There was also a teenage boy and an older man sitting quietly against the opposite wall - I've gotten used to there always being random people about, so I don't really pay much attention.   more »

By Salai Za Uk Ling

24 Dec 2006 - Kuala Lumpur: Signs of festivities are everywhere as Chin refugee community in Malaysia prepares for festive celebrations. But hundreds of them will be spending this year’s Christmas in detention centers across Malaysia. More than 500 Chin refugees and asylum seekers are languishing in Malaysian jails and detention centers after being arrested for immigration offences. Detainees range from young single males to entire family members; to mothers and pregnant women to children as young as three years old.

Just last week, 43 Chins were arrested during an immigration raid in a construction worksite near Singaporean border in government’s ongoing operation against “illegal immigrants.” Mr. Peng had been working in the site for more than one month to support his wife and two young children before being arrested in last week’s sweep. Like other recognized refugees in the country, Mr. Peng is not legally permitted to work in Malaysia. Last month, he found a menial work in a construction site in Jahor, more than three hundred kilometers away from Kuala Lumpur where he and his family live. He took the job there, though it meant having to leave his family alone. He needed to earn extra money for the family this Christmas. He and his family are awaiting resettlement in a third country and were recently interviewed for relocation in the United States. His plan was to come back to Kuala Lumpur to spend Christmas with his family, but he is now being detained with dozens of his co-workers and is facing prospects of prolonged detention and even deportation. His wife and two children are now spending this Christmas without Mr. Peng.

Read more at the Chinland Guardian

Later Monday evening, Uncle asks if he could show me his rejection letter from the U.S. His case had been referred to the DHS for a resettlement interview, but wasn't accepted. The letter shows a list of possible reasons for rejection, with the relevant option ticked. The reason he was rejected was that the interviewing officer had given him an 'opportunity to present evidence to support his case', but as he could not produce it, he was rejected. The evidence he was asked to produce was a photo of him and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, proving he was a member of the NLD. He'd left the photo at home, and asked if he couldn't bring it back to show him. The interviewing officer told him there was no time. And that was that.   more »

On Monday, the fourth, I went with Victor and Ling to the magistrate court to watch the proceedings for 23 Chin who were arrested in the raid two months ago. The court is a sprawling marvel of Moorish (as the internet tells me) architecture, with golden domed minarets and spiraling stairwells. The whitewashed hallways are dappled with ornately patterned sunlight streaming through the iron latticework in the dome shaped windows.

The hallways are lined with courtrooms, each with heavy hardwood double doors. There appeared to be hundreds of rooms on several floors in the building. We didn't yet know which room the 23 would be brought to, so we ended up wandering up and down the hallway, someone occasionally popping their head into an open door. We finally met up with the lawyer who was sent by the UNHCR to represent them.   more »

I am starting to remember last Sunday more and more fondly as the week goes by. Why? You may ask - did something fun or interesting happen on Sunday? The answer to that is no. Nothing happened on Sunday. It was a wonderfully unproductive day that I got the better part of to myself. I even got to take a nap. It being Sunday, many people, including Uncle, who seems to be there every time I turn around, were in church. He made a great effort to guilt me into going, but the fact is that I hate church. I am already trying to plot how I can be absent from the neighborhood this coming Sunday, as I gained reprieve last week by telling them 'maybe next week'.   more »

Saturday was a lazy day compared to Friday. Breakfast was Ijagwe and coffee again, with both Uncle and Belle*, who may possibly be the saddest girl in the world. I've spent enough time listening to Uncle tell me how great his god is and that he's praying for me to become Christian, and I know she feels the same way. I often notice her looking at me with an expression that strikes me as being a mixture of pity and regret, and I feel like she's imagining my poor heathen soul burning in hell. I could be wrong though, and it's just as likely that she looks at everyone like that.

I spent the afternoon wandering around with Zaw at the mall, looking for a plug adaptor for my laptop. They have Christmas decorations up in all the malls, and the shopping crowds to match. The crowds, however, are par for the course in a country where shopping seems to be a national past-time.   more »

For my first full day here, the CRC had a meeting with the UNHCR to discuss re-opening registration, so I made arrangements to visit with Li from the Kachin Development Organization. We met up after my requisite breakfast of ijagwe, Chinese doughnuts made Burmese style, and sweet milky coffee.

When I was here a year ago, the KDO was just starting to get organized, and they didn't yet have a proper office to operate out of. They had asked me lots of questions about organizing and operating that I'm hardly qualified to answer, and told me that next time I visited, they would be able to show me their office. Li did just that. Besides the advocacy work he does, like helping Kachins with employment, getting referral letters for hospital visits, and networking with other NGOs, they are also starting up a Kachin radio program, and a handicraft program to generate income. He showed me the room where they have their office set up, with a computer on a low table, and a pile of equipment I didn't recognize that was used for their radio program. He asked what I thought of it and I told him it looked just like a student office. He asked if it didn't look like an 'underground' office - I'm not sure I've ever seen an underground office before, but said it probably did.   more »

It seemed to be business as usual here in Malaysia when I arrived on Thursday. I ended up having to make my own way from the airport to the CRC, a relatively simple task, but I still managed to get ripped off. The guys at the CRC were busy preparing a report for the UNHCR for a meeting to discuss the re-opening of registration. The CRC registers Chin asylum-seekers and then the UNHCR schedules interviews according to the order they are registered. At some point, though, the UNHCR lost the queue, and scores of people got passed over. General registration has been closed for well over a year now, but they are now going to re-open it - for the CRC's 2004 registration list.

There are a few new faces and a few old faces missing here. Simon, the old coordinator that I shadowed for two months last year is now in Australia, waiting for his new wife to join him. Van, the secretary, will be leaving for Australia within a week, while the new coordinator, Philemon expects to be leaving for America sometime next year. There are a few new staff members, more teachers, and the secretary's new baby, as well as a little gray and white cat courtesy of the UNHCR.   more »

Before I take off for Malaysia, I thought it would be worthwhile to post a general overview of the situation with Burmese refugees there, and what I will be doing.

My first trip to Malaysia was just over a year ago - I stayed there during November and December after I left Thailand, and before I returned home to the U.S. I went after being asked to do so by Victor, a Chin community leader who lives and works in Chiang Mai. The idea was to help the Chin Refugee Committee with improving their office operations - stuff like organizing, writing reports and grant applications etc. At least, I think that's what the idea was, although I'm not sure how much I actually helped with that. I did write up a few reports for grant applications, and I wrote a couple official letters to other agencies. I also helped facilitate a few meetings with the Executive Committee to determine priorities for the CRC's future development, and come up with ideas for restructuring the organization to fix some problems they were facing. Unforutanetly, many of these solutions, like having staff members who were focused on community outreach, and developing a communications strategy, required money that's hard to come by. The CRC was formed with the moral support of the UNHCR, and they were tasked with managing the Chin community and handling pre-registration of asylum-seekers, but to the best of my knowledge, that moral support was not backed up by financial support. All of the CRC staff were volunteers, working for room and board, and small stipends to cover some work related costs.   more »

It's not often I come across apparently good news relating to Burma that doesn't make me think, "Hmm...well, I guess we'll just have to wait and see...". Burma being added to the UN Security Council Agenda? Well, we'll just have to wait and see what happens when the paper tiger roars. ASEAN rebukes junta? Yeah, well, we'll just have to wait and see how that goes.

But, the recent news that the US Secretary of State has waived application of the material support clause to ethnic Chin refugees? Well, that's great news. I won't stand up and praise the government for undoing something that should have never been done, but I am unreservedly happy for Chin people all over Asia. This most recent waiver seems to have come about after the visit of the Assistant Secretary of State Ellen Sauerbrey's visit to Southeast Asia in August to review the refugee situation. While the US government pats itself on the back for it's commitment to "freedom and human dignity", we should give credit where credit is due - to the hardworking lawyers, human rights professionals, activists and citizens around the world who have been struggling to clean up after and change the mess that this administration created in its effort to label anything that moves or talks funny a terrorist. I'm sure there's a few people in Malaysia who would want to shake your hand right now, Tyler Giannini.

What this means now is that the UNHCR will be able to resume its normal registration process for Chin people in Malaysia, and that the IOM will also be able to get involved in the registration and resettlement process to bring Chin people to the U.S. There have been reports/rumors that the U.S. is looking to resettle a sizable group of Chin refugees, but there is no particular reason to think that this waiver will do anything to improve the already cumbrous and drawn out application process for refugee status and resettlement. There are many many refugees from Burma who are not Chin or Karen, but who face the same circumstances and are equally in need. There are also many Chin refugees in India and Bangladesh who the UNHCR is not reccommending or processing for resettlement, and who will gain little from this.

The waiver may also be cold comfort for the 500 Chin people who have recently been arrested by Malaysian authorities.

There I go again qualifying my good news with cynicism. I'm not sure why the US government seems intent on meting out waivers peicemeal to specific ethnic groups, and I am tyring my best not to think that they are giving preference to those groups that are predominately Christian. But we should all take a moment to appreciate the good news and the hope that it will bring to many Chin people.

On Saturday I and Biak, the interpreter, took statements from 4 men who've arrived in the last month or so. They had all spent five years in prison for supporting the Chin National Front, and also for leaving the country illegally (by going to India without permission). For all of the terrible things I read about the Junta, it always amazes me that there seems to be no end to the new things I learn. I am also continually amazed at the apparent endurance and will of humans, both body and spirit. There were two interviews for the five, and it took at least four hours altogether. Four hours of listening to the ways they were tortured in interrogation; beaten, burned, strung up from the ceiling, and left without food or water for 6 days. The interrogators used a thick stick to beat them so it caused swelling and inflammation, but no bruises. Still, the stick was often broken.   more »

Its been nearly a month now that I've been in Malaysia. When I look back, it feels like I've been here for ages. Its amazing how quickly new situations can become normal and comfortable. But when I look forward, and realize there are only two weeks left, I feel like I haven't had any time at all, and there is still so much to do.

All of the Chin people I meet here are very thankful, even though I'm not sure that my being here alone is worth such thanks, it still makes me happy. Several have told me that I am the first person to ever come and live with the Chin like I have. I'm not sure if that's true if you include the Chin in Burma and India, but it seems to be true in Malaysia at least. In light of this, I feel like I should be doing more to record my experiences, like I should be keeping some kind of personal journal that if found 50 years from now would inspire movies and books. As it is, everything I've written you've seen here on this site.

Still, I want to share more about the things I've been doing everyday. Last weekend I had a fantastic experience visiting Chin who are working outside KL. But for various reasons I can't really give the details of the trip, perhaps later. The last week, though, has been heavy, to say the least. Squeezing it all into one post, though, is difficult, so I'll have to give you installments, not necessarily in chronological order.   more »

I remember once when I was about ten years old, sitting on the bus on the way to school when a friend sitting next to me started to tell me of some problem she was having. She talked for ages spilling her story, not letting me get a word in edgewise. So I sat listening quietly, and after she finished, she told me that I was a really good listener because I didn't try to offer her advice. But the truth was, the whole time I was sitting anxiously, thinking that when she finished I would have to say something important to make her feel better, and I had no idea what that thing was. I wonder that nothing seems to have changed in the last 16 years.   more »

Deciding what to write about while here in Kuala Lumpur has been difficult. On the one hand, I feel I should take advantage of the opportunity to share the stories and experiences of the people I am working with, and on the other, I want to be able to show things through my own perspective, and to share the stories of my friends as I know them. I think that on the surface, it probably seems that these two options are not contradictory, and perhaps they aren't really, but when it comes to 'refugees' finding a balance of how to represent people and events can be very complicated.

Pretty much everywhere, there is a great deal of prejudice against asylum-seekers and refugees. In Australia a few years ago, there were many asylum-seekers on temporary visas, many of them young Hazara men who had fled because they were targeted by the Taliban. I remember hearing of an anthropologist who had been doing research with them, and found that they when they were doing interviews or being photographed for the media, they were all reluctant to have it revealed that they owned mobile phones. They were well aware of the perceptions of the general public and knew that something as simple as owning a mobile phone could be skewed in the minds of many to mean that they weren't 'real' refugees, or in need of help. Of course the idea that owning a mobile phone has anything to do with political persecution is absurd, but their concerns were entirely valid - because statements to the effect that 'they own mobile phones' were used in the media and among the public with the implicit meaning that the asylum-seekers could not be sincere.   more »

That's what being in Malaysia has been like so far. In Chiang Mai, I would sit on the floor at my Kachin friends' house, and Naw Kham would tell me traditional stories from the Jinghpaw, their tribe. Here in KL, I sit in the kitchen of the CRC offices and Zaw Zaw, a guy about my age who teaches the Chin children math in the afternoons, tells me stories about the times they'd all been arrested by the 'rayalah'. Somehow they are humorous stories. Like the time Roy, a skinny guy with dimples who laughs at nearly everything, escaped one of the raids after the rayalah officers had rounded up a group of people. Standing in the middle of the group, he slowly inched his way toward to the edge, where he ducked into the crowd of spectators and disappeared. Of course, retelling the story is not as funny as imagining Roy's face as he escapes with a sort of exaggerated nonchalance like a character in a black comedy. Roy has already been arrested twice in raids on the CRC office.   more »

So far, this hasn't been much of a personal blog, but having recently arrived in Kuala Lumpur to do some actual work, I don't have the time it takes to sort and read through the news for blogging. But that's okay - I'm an interesting person, you'll like my stories.

I haven't done much in the way of work yet, but being in KL has been a bit of a whirlwind. I arrived Wednesday afternoon from Chiang Mai, and finally got to meet Simon, the coordinator here at the Chin Refugee Committee. Simon is also Chin, and like all the other Chin he helps, is also lacking legal residency here. His English is excellent, and he has been generous in sharing his personal story with me. He's been in Malaysia for over 10 years I beleive, and spent many of those years working in construction. He now spends all his time on the phone, meeting with UNHCR and embassy representatives, assisting people in filing their refugee applications, getting to clinics, getting to interviews. He negotiates with the police whenever someone is arrested, even though he too could be arrested. He is a busy busy man.   more »

I decided several months ago that I would return home at Christmas. As much as I love Chiang Mai, I was quite happy with this decision, and I felt I left myself plenty of time to plan my strategy for leaving. Because it does take a strategy, as much as I'm sure that for all appearances I seem to be operating according to no plan at all. But leaving, and saying goodbye to people and places is a complicated process, the only advantage of which is that it is a fairly predictable process. There's a certian range of emotions one has to go through, from being excited about going, and seeing new things, (or old friends), to falling in love all over again with the place and the people you're leaving behind. In between of course, are all the feelings of sadness and guilt at having to say goodbye to people you care about. But, I find that if you plan in advance and give yourself enough time to manage all the emotions of leaving, makes it easier to say goodbye without any regrets. Having time makes it easier to deal with the emotions one at a time.   more »