Burmese refugees see no change from summit

By Autumn Evans, Olive Porter and Melissa Zimmermann
Bengal News West Reporters
                 When Myo Thant began protesting his government at age 24, he never expected where it would lead him. He couldn’t have known he would become a target in his own land, forced into hiding in a neighboring country, eventually ending up separated from his home and family on a different continent.

     As a political refugee from Myanmar, formerly Burma, however, Thant  is far from the only one of his countrymen to go through that process. He and others now living or working on the West Side are watching with interest the conference that is casting international attention in Myanmar and its politics.

     Myanmar will host a major diplomatic event next month in its capital of Naypyidaw.  The 25th Summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations is a conference to be attended by leaders of East Asian countries, as well as Western leaders, including United States President Barack Obama. The conference will begin on Nov. 9 and last through Nov. 11. 

     Once known for its oppressive military regime and human rights violations, the government in Myanmar underwent reform in 2011 under President Thein Sein. Since then, it has released some of its political prisoners and enacted laws to protect human rights.

     The effect those reforms have had on the international community is evident in Myanmar’s successful bid to play host to ASEAN this year. The country attempted to do the same in 2006, when pressure from the United States and European Union caused the country to surrender the position to the Philippines.

     However, some Burmese refugees on the West Side, including Thant, now 42, argue that politics in Myanmar haven’t really changed at all, calling the summit  a way for Myanmar to improve its relationship with the West without making any lasting political changes.

     “It’s a political game, to make people confused,” he said. “In reality, they’re squeezing opposition’s neck and killing innocent people.”

Myo Thant, on leaving his homeland, the former Burma:

  
     The politics  Thant is familiar with are the ones he began protesting as a student activist alongside Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi in 1995. Though Aung San Suu Kyi recently was released released from house arrest, she was still a target for Myanmar’s military junta. Through his association with her,  Thant also became a target. He stayed in a compound with Aung San Suu Kyi for two years, until the situation became too dangerous to continue.

     “I couldn’t go back home, I couldn’t go back to the compound, so I had two options. You have to go to jail or you have to leave the country,” he said. 
      Fearing the physical and psychological torture political dissidents might face in prison, he decided to leave.

     Thant spent the next two years hiding in Thailand illegally. When the Thai government reopened its Burmese refugee camp in 1999, he registered there and applied to go to Australia. When he was denied, he decided to try again in February, this time applying for passage to the United States. In late October, he stepped off an airplane and into Buffalo, where has lived   for 15 years.

Since then, he’s seen many political refugees from Myanmar resettle in Buffalo.

       So has Barrett Gordon, co-owner of the WASHProject, a community group at Massachusetts Avenue and 18th Street serving Buffalo’s refugees.  Because his co-owner, Zaw Win, is a political refugee from Myanmar, one of the groups served there is the Burmese.

       “They all have different stories,” Gordon said.   “A lot of them are from war-torn countries, dictatorships, certainly coming from difficult situations.”

Among those refugees is Soe Maung, 28, who arrived in the United States about nine years ago. Now, he runs Kyen Sein Hein, a Burmese restaurant in the West Side Bazaar. 

       Maung was still in school when his family was forced to leave Myanmar because of his parents’ political affiliations. Though the new government is said to be less restrictive, he doesn’t think there has been much change.

       “Burma is hurt. They have released some political prisoners, but they still arrest more,” Maung said. “What I see for my country, they just wore a military uniform, that is all that’s changed. We won’t know if they have changed until (the) 2015 election.”

       Maung hasn’t been back to his homeland, but he said he would like to go back, if the government became truly democratic.

       Thant, on the other hand, has been back to Myanmar. Under the new government, he applied for a Visa last year and was accepted. He said he felt safe while he was there, but he avoided talking about politics there. He also said he felt there had been little actual change in Myanmar’s government, because the military holds most of the power. He said a freelance journalist, a friend of his, was arrested just weeks ago for photographing a fight between military and ethnic minorities.
       “The army has so much power still,” he said. “The old regime still exists.”