TSUNAMI-IMPACT: Burmese Migrant Victims Remain Invisible

By Marwaan Macan-Markar Reprint | | Print |

Marwaan Macan-Markar

BAN NAM KEM, Thailand, Nov 23 2005 (IPS) - The death of his 26-year-old sister and three nephews in last December’s tsunami gives Maung Newe Win a narrative of grief that entitles him to an invitation to official events being planned to mark the disaster.

But the 28-year-old Win fears that he will not have a place in the commemorative ceremonies on Dec. 26, planned at many points along Thailand’s southern coastline that was ravaged by the powerful Indian Ocean waves.

”No one from our (Burmese migrant) community who lost a relative has been asked to come,” he said on a recent afternoon in a shop selling plastic flowers in this village, that is home to a Thai fishing community. ”I really want to be there, because I lost my sister.”

Win requires little probing to reveal why he fears he may be shut out from the memorial service and the tsunami memorial foundation stone laying ceremony. ”It feels like the (Thai) government does not want Burmese workers, who suffered from the tsunami, mixing with the other people,” he says, tugging at his baseball cap.

Win’s tale of exclusion is one that other Burmese migrants in this village share. And activists championing the rights of these workers estimate that their numbers could run into hundreds, if not thousands, because of the high death toll among this labour force in the province of Phang-nga.

Out of the 4,224 people killed by raging sea waters in Phang-nga, some 1,320 bodies could not be identified, prompting many rights activists to conclude that they were largely the corpses of Burmese workers.

In Ban Nam Kem, a village of small houses that line the narrow streets, 30 fishing boats carrying at least 20 migrant workers each were destroyed when the tsunami struck.

Thailand witnessed 8,345 deaths due to the tsunami, placing it fourth in a numbing list of deaths that began with Indonesia’s northern province of Aceh, where 163,795 people perished, then Sri Lanka, where 35,399 people died, and southern India, which saw 16,389 deaths.

In all, the Indian Ocean tsunami, which flattened the coastlines of 11 countries, killed 224,495 people.

But the Thai government’s plans to mark the disaster reveals a prejudiced official attitude towards a community that suffered the same as thousands of tourists and Thais did. No mention, for instance, is made of the Burmese victims nor is there any provision to remember them on the government’s web page, detailing the plans to commemorate the first anniversary of the tsunami.

Bangkok also has relatives of the foreign tourists and Thais killed along the coast very much in mind when it talks about the plans to invite 14,000 people to mark the event on its official web site. ”It is expected that around 6,000 to 7,000 Thais and foreigners will accept the invitation to attend the ceremonies,” the web page adds.

The discrimination has further marginalised an already excluded community of over 30,000 Burmese migrants working in Phang-Nga province and is in keeping with a trend that has dominated Bangkok’s policies towards the labour force since the tsunami.

”The Thai government has made no effort to compensate the Burmese affected by the tsunami in the same way help was offered to the affected Thai communities,” says Sutthiphong Khongkhaphon, southern coordinator for the Migrant Action Programme (MAP), a Thai non-governmental group that lobbies for migrants’ rights.

It is not only an upsetting pattern but an ironic one, too, he explained during an interview. After all, the Burmese migrants, in their capacity as construction workers, have been pivotal in building the posh hotels that dot Thailand’s southern coast.

What is more, he added, the Burmese who survived the tsunami have played a significant part in the restoration and rebuilding of the damaged hotels and buildings, including those in the crown jewel of Thai tourism in this area, the resort island of Phuket.

The strip along Patong beach, the most famous of Phuket’s coves, bears this out. The hotels and restaurants, massage parlours and hostess bars, are currently alive with tourists back to have a good time. The only reminder of the tsunami comes in the form of the photographs and DVDs of the disaster sold by street vendors.

But a return to the good life means little to the migrant workers, since the Burmese have been subject to increased harassment after the tsunami, states the Tsunami Action Group (TAG), a coalition of human rights and migrants’ rights group.

”Migrants continue to face isolation and discrimination in these difficult times,” revealed a study by TAG, that was presented this week during a U.N. conference on the impact of the tsunami on vulnerable groups, held in Phuket. ”Many women have lost their husbands, husbands have lost their wives and some families have lost their children.”

These uncertain times only worsen the conditions that Burmese migrant workers have to put up with in other times and elsewhere across Thailand where they are employed. They form close to 80 percent of the nearly 1.2 million migrant workers in Thailand. The others come from Laos and Cambodia.

These Burmese, who fled the economic hardship and iron grip of their military ruled country, work in jobs ranging from the garment industry, the agriculture sector and domestic work, in addition to fisheries and construction.

According to available records, the economic contribution the migrant workers make towards the Thai economy runs into millions of dollars. And it is a result of this that Bangkok took the lead in 2004 to offer a new and more accommodating deal to help this migrant force.

But the aftermath of the tsunami has exposed the shallowness of such goodwill, as Ban Nam Kem reveals. It is a community by the sea that has two stories to tell- that of the recovery after the tsunami and the silent suffering of the Burmese in its midst, like Win.

To ensure that the Burmese tale also gets its due on Dec. 26, Win and other migrants have begun giving thought to remembering their dead with a commemoration of their own.

”We are planning to have a remembrance programme in the village,” he says.