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Story by
Kyaw Thein Kha
July 18, 2009.

It was very hot in the crowd and the cell was very noisy with crying children and chattering. Some were Mon and Burmese and I saw some Karen and Chin, too. I looked over all around the jail for a place to lie down, as I knew that I had to spend three days and two nights there. Then, I found a space near the window that was good enough for me to spend the two nights there. I spread my longyi (most of Burmese men in Burma wear longyi instead of pant or jeans trousers) on the cement floor. After a few minutes, a Burmese broker and Thai staff entered into the cell and took our pictures. We had to fill out forms and have our finger prints taken, before being deported to Burma.

Now my anxiety had disappeared as I was with the people who are in the same situation as me. I talked with three boys who were supposed to be about twenty five. They said that they had worked in Malaysia for five years and they had been in that cell for one week. They also told me that they had already paid all the money to the brokers in Kuala Lumpur to be deported to Burma. As their broker in KL had not given the specific amount of money to the hands of the brokers who were working with the Thai immigration officers in Thai-Malaysia border, the Thai immigration officers had not transferred them to the hands of another brokers who would transferred them into the Thai immigration in Mae Sot. So, the boys had been detained in the cell for such a long time. When they called the broker’s number in KL, he didn’t answer the phone. The boys told me all about their situation with sad faces and I knew that the boys were cheated by the broker in KL. But I didn’t tell them this as I didn’t want to scare them. I, myself, was so sad to know all about their situation. If they encountered such a problem in KL, I would be able to help them. But for now, I was in the same situation with others who were being detained in the cell and would be deported to Burma.

In the next morning, the broker who brought me into the cell brought a bottle of drinking water and a box of fried rice. If I compared him with the other brokers, he was better than others. The jail authorities also fed us three meals per day. The curry was only soup, mixed with the cucumber and gourd and a boiled duck egg. The rice was packed in a plastic bag. We had to eat the same curry in every meal. Some people could buy fried rice and some other better food from outside as they could save some amount of money before they planned to go back home to Burma. They could ask someone outside to buy food from outside. One person helped them to buy food from outside, but the detainees had to give him some extra money for his service. There were some other mobile food stalls outside the window. I still had forty five Malaysian ringgits (about US$12), and some coins in my pocket. I bought Thai papaya salad and sticky rice through iron bars of the window. I remembered the days when I ate papaya salad and Thai noodle soup with the children when I worked as a volunteer in children’s home in Thai-Burma border in 2005.

I took a bath in the bathroom as my whole body was sweating and I smelt bad, but there was no soap. The bathroom was built together with toilet. I had to breathe the bad smell of the toilet and there was no cup to take water from the tank, but I could use the cup from the toilet if I wanted. I didn’t know how the other detainees took a bath and which cup they used when they did, so I asked the mobile food stall owner outside the window for an empty drinking water bottle made of plastic. I asked her to cut the bottle from the middle part. She gave it to me through the window. Then, I could use the bottom part of the bottle as a cup when I took a bath, but I still didn’t have any soap. At least I could wash and was now fresh.

By now, I had stayed in the Thai immigration cell for three days and two nights. On the afternoon of the third day, a broker came into the cell and called each of our names and asked us to stand in lines. Some detainees asked him if their name was written on the list. I saw that the three boys were also asking the broker about the list; it was a list of detainees who would be deported soon. The broker said with a loud voice, “Is there anybody here whom the broker Ko Myo brought?” The detainees who were brought by the broker ‘Ko Myo’ raised their hands. Then, the broker checked the listed detainees one by one. My name was also on the list. The three boys encouraged me, “Don’t worry, brother. You’ll have to go together with those people and be deported soon.” I asked them if their names were listed to be deported and they said, “No.” I was very sorry to hear about that.

The brokers and the immigration authorities separated the detainees into two groups – those whose names were listed to be deported and whose names were not. The broker collected 200 Baht from each detainee. He said that the collected money would be used to buy food on the way. We had to stand in lines and were asked to get on a truck. The truck had good ventilation. I was thinking about the 54 Burmese victims, who died in the enclosed truck when they were smuggled to southern Thailand from Burma in April, 2008. It was an international headline and caught international interest. A man who could read Thai in our group informed us that “Thai Immigration” was written on two sides of the truck and we didn’t need to worry about the police in checked points. I counted all the people on the truck. In total, there were sixty five people who would be deported to Burma.

It had already been about seven o’clock in the evening when the truck started to leave the immigration cell. The driver drove the truck non-stop all the way. At about 10 pm at night, the driver stopped the truck near a Seven Eleven shop. He gave us a pack of food each. I opened the paper in which rice and curry was packed. The curry was the same kind of food that we ate in the immigration cell. None of us complained about that although we had paid 200 Baht for food on the way. Instead, we ate all the food as we were so hungry; we were also very excited to be deported to our land where we would arrive safely.

Then, the driver started the journey again and drove the car non-stop through the whole night. At about seven o’clock in the next morning, a pregnant woman in our group could not resist her abdominal pain and she asked us to ask the driver to stop the car. We strongly beat the truck’s frame from behind so that the driver could hear us and stop the car. We were very lucky as some people in our group could speak Thai. The driver stopped the car near a petrol shop and contacted a hospital. After a few minutes, an ambulance arrived and the doctors and nurses checked the pregnant women and said that the baby had died in her uterus. The woman was to stay at the hospital for necessary treatments, but we all had to wait until our driver received a letter of recommendation from the medical superintendent. The letter was to be shown in the Thai immigration office in Mae Sot. The driver brought sixty five people on the truck, but now one was to be left at the hospital. He’d be able to transfer only sixty four of us to the hands of Thai immigration office in Mae Sot. This is why he needed to bring a letter of recommendation from the medical superintendent. The sister of the woman in our group was also pregnant, she cried loudly as she was sorry for her sister and also worried about abortion or if the baby was dead in her uterus like her sister. All the women joined together to comfort her, and then, she stopped crying.

The truck, on which sixty four Burmese were brought, set forth on its journey and it arrived in Mae Sot, the town on Thai-Burma border, at 7 pm. The truck stopped at the Mae Sot immigration. We all had to sleep in Mae Sot immigration cell for one night. Early the next morning, the immigration officer asked us to stand in lines and we had to give our finger prints again. In the mean time, a Burmese broker woman who was supposed to have a good relationship with the Thai immigration officials came to us and said that we were going to be deported to the hands of the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA). DKBA is a breakaway group of Buddhist former soldiers and officers of the Karen National Liberation Army, one of the larger insurgent armies in Burma. Since shortly after their breakaway in 1994, the DKBA have enjoyed a ceasefire with the Burmese army. More than 3,000 Karen villagers have recently fled to Thailand because of the fighting between DKBA and Karen National Union (KNU). According to the woman broker, DKBA would check us and they would keep all our mobile phones and cameras. So we kept all our cameras and phones in the hands of the broker. She said that she’d return us all those things after we had been checked in DKBA and passed its check point.

We all were locked in the Thai immigration truck and deported on the bank of Moi River (Thaung Yin River) which separates Thailand and Burma. A boat man who was believed to be a soldier from DKBA was ready on the boat, waiting for us to bring to Burma. We all got on the boat and the man rowed; finally we were all deported into the hands of DKBA soldiers in Burma’s side. Part III, to be continued …………..