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.

However, most of my 'work' there seemed to consist of just being there. What I did certianly didn't seem proportional to what I received in return, in any event. There were a number of people who seemed enourmously pleased to find out I was staying with the CRC, even though they had no idea what I was doing there or who I really was. I'm not sure the gratitude is deserved, but I guess if I can make people happy just be being there and occasionally listening to their stories, then who am I to argue?

I don't know yet how much of the changes we had discussed the CRC was actually able to implement after I left. I recently spoke with U Sang, the new director of the CRC since Simon moved to Australia a couple months ago, and he said that things were going well - he had a couple new staff members to assist him so he could focus on more important work - but they are currently in immigration detention after being arrested during a raid recently.

This current trip will be just two and a half weeks, which isn't very long. This time around, though, I'm already familiar with the situation and have had time to think ahead about what I'd like to accomplish while there. In addition to being reacquainted with everyone and everything there, my main goals while there are to write - to write as much as possible while there, and to take as many notes as possible so I can write when I get back - and to find ways to stay more involved and help after I come back. That goes not just for the CRC, but for other refugee groups there as well.

I'll be staying with the Chin Refugee Committee in Kuala Lumpur City Center while I'm there, but I will also be meeting up with the Kachin Development Organization, and the Arakanese Refugee Relief Center while there. I met up with the guys at the KDO last time I was there as well, as a Kachin friend in Chiang Mai has a brother who works there. I haven't yet met up with the ARRC, in fact, I have yet to meet anyone from Arakan State in person, and I'm fairly unfamiliar with the situation of Arakanese refugees in Malaysia. Part of the reason I'm making writing one of my priorities is that there seems to be very limited information available in general on Burmese refugees in Malaysia, but particularly little information on Kachin or Arakanese refugees.

Wikipedia tells me there are 12,000 Arakanese living in Malaysia, and 15,000 Chin. U Sang estimates that as many as 5,000 more Chin have come to Malaysia just in 2006, which would bring that number up to 20,000. It's hard to know how many more Arakanese there might be, or whether that figure includes the population of Muslim Rohingyas from Arakan State. There are likely just a couple thousand Kachin in Malaysia. There are no refugee camps in Malaysia, a nation which is not signatory to the refugee convention. Although there are bound to be officials sympathetic to the situation of refugees, asylum-seekers and registered refugees are still often treated like illegal immigrants. A lot of people, including refugees themselves, have worked hard to advocate for refugees' rights, but the situation there seems more tied to economic conditions and public opinion than anything else. When the economy is good, and there's work to go around, the arrests and deportations go down. Economy goes down, "illegal immigrants" are blamed for stealing jobs, the government arrests and deports them to win public brownie points.

There are many refugees living in makeshift camps in the jungles, working on construction sites and plantations, but there are probably more living in the towns and cities.

Attached to this post is a PDF report entitled "Seeking a Safe Haven: An update on the situation of the Chin in Malaysia", (HTML version) which was produced by the Chin Human Rights Organization in Canada. It pretty much covers the basic facts, and has some good photos in the PDF version.

You can also find information on the Chin at Edith Mirante's website, Project Maje. There aren't any documents specifically on Malaysia, but it's informative nonetheless.

Wikipedia has two articles on Arakan State and Arakanese people: Rakhine People, and Rakhine State. There may be some more specific info on Arakanese in Malaysia, but I haven't yet found it. However, a quick Google search will provide numerous documents relating to the general sitauation for refugees in Malaysia.

There's also little information on the Kachin refugees in Malaysia, but there are a few media sites run by Kachins that can provide info to those willing to look for it.

You can also find my archived posts from the time I was there last year in the category Chin in Malaysia.