IRIN
MYANMAR-THAILAND: Migrants rally to help at home
13 May 2008


BANGKOK, 13 May 2008 (IRIN) - As a coordinator for the Grassroots 
Foundation for Education and Development, an NGO that educates the 
children of migrant workers from Myanmar in Thailand, Hla Phone has been 
busy helping other migrants keep up with the developments since the 
disaster.

"We read the newspapers and internet and print them out and distribute 
them," he told IRIN. "People are very angry. They want the military 
government to allow international aid. They are waiting."

After Cyclone Nargis battered Myanmar, Phone was distraught with worry 
for his family in Bago, an area badly affected by the category four 
storm. "I was so worried - I could not make contact with my family or 
friends - no one," he said. "I could only watch CNN, so I knew that many 
people were dying."

But after many frustrating days, Phone finally got through to a friend 
in Bago and later established that his parents were unscathed.

Although the Bago area was battered by the cyclone, it was too far 
inland to be hit by the subsequent ferocious tidal surge that has been 
blamed for most of the 30,000 confirmed deaths.

Yet even now Phone, like all Burmese abroad, is gripped by the 
catastrophe.

Indeed, in factories, farms and construction sites around neighbouring 
Thailand, migrant workers and political exiles from Myanmar are watching 
the tragedy in their troubled homeland with shock, dismay and anger.

Many are seething as Myanmar's government is blamed for limiting the 
flow of international humanitarian aid into the disaster zone, where the 
UN estimates that between 1.5 and 1.9 million people are severely 
affected and particularly at risk from waterborne diseases.

Mobilising supplies

Other exiles are trying to help the struggling relief effort by sending 
cash and supplies through trusted channels, or even going back home to 
help on the ground.

"Everyone is mobilising - inside and outside the country," confirmed 
Aung Naing Oo, a Thailand-based analyst from Myanmar. "Everyone is 
trying to donate whatever they can. They are putting their money in and 
sending it to different organisations, and Burmese students in the UK 
and elsewhere are going back to help.

"The military is failing in its duty, foreigners cannot go to the area 
so we have to help," he explained. "The military said that local 
self-help groups can help each other, so everybody is trying to 
scramble."

Thailand is home to up to two million migrant workers and refugees from 
Myanmar, although the Irrawaddy Delta, the area worst affected, is not 
one of the main source areas for migrants heading to Thailand.

Htoo Chit, head of Grassroots, said migrants from the worst-affected 
areas working in the beach resorts of southern Thailand have since 
returned to Myanmar to search for family members or news of them.

"They are going to help, and they are also thinking they are going to 
bring their family to Thailand," he said.

Migrants' anger

In the Thai province of Samut Sakhon, migrants from Myanmar working in 
the sea-food processing industry for less than the minimum wage are 
collecting supplies to help their compatriots.

"The migrants are really angry that international people want to help 
the disaster victims, but the government is not allowing them to go 
there," said Ko Ko Aung, an activist from Myanmar with the Labour Rights 
Promotion Network in Samut Sakhon. "Even though the migrants' own 
situation is not so good, they are trying to collect clothes or medicine 
or money or whatever they can offer."

So far, he said, his organisation has collected six pick-up truck-loads 
of clothes, dried foods and other relief goods, which they will now try 
to get into the country for distribution through trusted networks.

In addition, Burmese academics are translating relevant information on 
such matters as disposing of corpses, purifying water and disaster 
management into Burmese to send to local community organisations working 
in the affected area.

"It's beyond stress and beyond sadness, seeing all your fellow citizens 
suffering like this," said Win Min, one of the translators, who comes 
from the hard-hit town of Bogolay. "It's very, very terrible - beyond 
comprehension."


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