25/03/2010
Myanmar refugees in Malaysia
NARRATOR: It's Sunday morning and the 25 refugees who share this apartment are waking up and preparing for church. Lal Pe Nu, a Burmese refugee, is a deacon so he and his family hurry to arrive before the service starts. Sunday is the one day of the week they will all venture out of this cramped apartment. A local church allows the refugees to hold their own service and is one of the few times this community comes together and forgets the violence they left behind.
Lal Pe Nu: A soldier pointed a pistol in my mouth and ordered me to move my daughter away who was sitting on my legs. My daughter did not want to go away from me, even though I asked her. My two other daughters were crying loudly and then the soldier grabbed my daughter and threw her out of the house. Then she did not dare to cry out, she just wept.
NARRATOR: The family is ethnic Chin from Myanmar. With the aid of smugglers, the family got to Malaysia safely. But when Lal Pe Nu's wife and daughters followed a year later they were caught and thrown in detention for seven months. The experience traumatized the entire family and they live in fear of being imprisoned again.
Lal Pe Nu: When I saw my daughter she was so thin and very, very weak. I could not express how hurt I felt to see them. When I found them, they had already been in detention for 23 days. They didn't understand the language so they were confused. They were so depressed and so downhearted. My daughter told me she may die but I encouraged her and I prayed for her.
NARRATOR: It turns out that their fears of detention were not unjustified. Once they left the service, a police group sent many of the parishioners back to the sanctuary of the church to wait out the raid. Malaysia is an urban country. More than 60% of its population lives in cities. More than seven million people live in the capital Kuala Lumpur and the nearby Klang valley. Most of the migrants come as part of a Malaysian government guest worker programme and work legally in construction and service sectors. However, tens of thousands of refugees have also come to the city looking for refuge. Yet they are not allowed to work legally and this exacerbates their already tenuous existence.
While refugees from Myanmar represent the largest group exiled in Malaysia there are also smaller number of Somalis, Afghans, Sri Lankans and other nationalities. There are over 67,000 refugees and asylum seekers registered with UNHCR. However, the refugee community estimate there may be another 30,000 unregistered. Since there are no refugee camps in Malaysia, the uprooted end up in cities like Kuala Lumpur as we hear from Yante Ismael from the refugee office in Malaysia:
Yante Ismael: In light of this, facing a population that's scattered throughout the vast geographic vista, and a population that's frequently mobile, reaching them and trying to provide services to them can be quite a challenge.
NARRATOR: City life poses problems for the refugees and also for those trying to help them. In the urban context the refugees tend to blend into the crowd. And trying to locate, identify and assist these people is a challenge, especially when they're afraid.
SFX
A sewing group was formed to help refugee women to support their families and give them more confidence in their new environment. Many come here together to work once a week but mostly they work from home creating handmade traditional crafts that are sold oversees and at local markets.
Swee par is a refugee and teaches other women how to sew. They can't afford to go to private clinics and many can't communicate with the doctors so they need specialized services. This clinic is staffed by volunteers who speak the local languages and understand their circumstances.
While there are services to help the refugees, primary preoccupation remains security. They feel completely vulnerable every time they leave their apartments. UNHCR registers refugees and asylum seekers and issues them a refugee ID card. Registration allows UNHCR to have a record of each refugee and their protection needs. Once they have the card, refugees feel less vulnerable but according to Yante Ismael, it's not a guarantee of complete safety.
Yante Ismael: What we've learned from the refugees is that they do live in a constant state of fear of law enforcement agencies. Many refugees talk to us about raids that's done in order to weed out the undocumented migrants where refugees are also swept up in these operations. And of course this creates a constant state of stress and fear for the refugees.
NARRATOR: For the refugees, life can easily become a cycle of insecurity and poverty. They arrive in debt because they owe money to a smuggler. They can't work so they borrow more. When they're detained, they're obliged to pay fines and they rarely get ahead and many families fall into a spiral of despair.
Tin Thluai: My dream and what I am now praying for is that if I could change my life, our lives, I would change our current fearful life into a peaceful one without fear of arrest.
Dear Sir and Madam,
ReplyDeleteWe are Myanmar group in Malaysia; we lived in Malaysia over decade and always went to one of temple in Taman Desa Jaya, Kepong, Kuala Lumpur and we were very sad and regreting with the committees of temple because they are using our monks in wrong conception of Buddhist teaching or Buddhist rules. We came to temple to help our monks and respected of our religion.
That temple is president of name:Yip Kum Fook, that our monks said and he is invited our monks from Myanmar to in charge of that temple but without pay anything to our monks, added he and his not respecting of our monks and sometime he ordered of his people to collected item such as paper, mineral water etc. without inform any words to our monks. In our religious believed we can’t take anything of holy place, if we done we are sin.
In pervious, our monk said the committees always asked money from him, when our monks gave RM20,000.00 in cash on 2001 to the committees, then committees keep silent, later committees make problem with our monk again and cancelled of our monk Visa permit to stayed in Malaysia, then our monks( Sadayaw Nandiya) go to Australia and our monk not come that temple at long time. “Yip Kom Fook gave our monk notebook computer for to cover of that amount of money our monk said”
Many local people around temple said, now no more people come to this temple because committees is always make problem and we are heard from local people said: Yip Kum Fook ordered of his people to put fire of Hindu temple at Taman Daya, Kepong because he needed that place to make his business about many years ago. “Everybody known what he done for Hindu temple at Taman Daya, Kepong”
Last time also he invited police to arrest the monks at holy place(temple) and locked the temple without afraid and shameful of people because he believed committee is big and has more authority, also his son always say to people: this temple is belonging of his father. “This temple donated from public, we are work hard for this temple”
This temple the committees always changed the monks, now they change the new monk to in charge of temple, this new monk also complaint the bad things of committees because committees also wait for donation box only, they without help anything to our monks. And committees controlled of our monks not to talk more or complaint more, our monks lived there as slaver and afraid of committees members.
In new building where remaining of Buddha statue marble; we have renovation of Buddha statue because that Buddha statue is put very low, we lift to highest the committees don’t like and unhappy. In our country, anyone be able to come temple to worship the Buddha but in Malaysia is different temple controlling by committees.
We hope everyone preserve of Buddhist teachings, and please safety of our monks, not see only money as this of temple. When we asked some of our people ( Myanmar) and local people, the committees are very low of idea because is very narrow mind and without education of religions. And committees will not disturbing of our monks, monks are like our father to take care of Buddhism and temple is like our place of resolving of our problem.
Recently, our monk(Sadayaw Ashin Indaka original from Madalay, Myanmar) has been staying in this temple also unhappy because the committees are not pay anythings to him, he is working in hardly to advise people and we also unhappy and very sad when heard the bad news from our monks. Sometime the committees people came and shouting in the temple without have any reason and done what they need to do, our monk said, the committees of this temple don’t have Buddhist teachings in their mind, may be next time Buddhist can destroy.
From Myanmar Buddhist group in Malaysia but many word complaint by local Buddhist community in Malaysia. If anyone receive of this message(email), please forward or send to your friends to protection Buddhism in Malaysia.
.-March 10th, 2010 at 8:55 am