Refugees safe in Biloela

“THE best thing about Australia is freedom,” Robinson Bithang said.

Robinson is one of the members of five Burmese refugee families who recently moved to Biloela as part of a Rural Employment Assistance Project (REAP) funded by the Federal Government.

Robinson said his entire family, including his parents and sisters, fled the oppressive Burmese regime, fleeing across the border to India.

He said the army attacked his village, a common occurrence in Burma where the military takes young boys and men as porters and do a lot worse with young village females.

Robinson and his family spent five years in India, applying through the United Nations High Commission to settle in Australia as refugees.

The family had to wait a year to hear they would be start a new life in Australia, but Robinson had to leave his pregnant wife Zahau Mawi in India.

Robinson has been in Australia for two years, living in Logan, but Zahau and his 15-month-old daughter Jennet Roluahmawi only arrived in Australia three months ago. “It's been hard,” Robinson said of living without his family for almost two years, including not seeing his child.

Robinson, who working at the Biloela meatworks, said while he has studied English at TAFE, there were still a lot of words he didn't know.

The 24-year-old, who spoke to Central Telegraph at a welcome for the refugee families at the Biloela Baptist Church on Saturday, said he wanted to open up his own shop or restaurant.

“If you work hard, you can have whatever you want – buy a car, home. You can be what you want,” he said.

Robinson's 18-year-old sister Rinfeli Bithang said she loved living in Australia, where you could do what you wanted; there is democracy and respect for women.

Rinfeli, studying Year 11, hopes to get into nursing.

Another of the refugees, Salai Robin Seng, said he fled Burma in 2000 after his village was attacked and headed to Malaysia, also applying to the UN for a new home down under.

The 26-year-old, who is also working at the Biloela meatworks after 18 months in Logan, said he could not go see his family back in Burma, as it was still not safe. “I want to settle here to start a new life,” Salai said.

Thirteen adults and 13 children form the five families moved here under REAP, with Logan company Access helping in the setting up and consulting with schools churches, police, and other support agencies.

Burma is ruled by a military regime called the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC).

Power is centralised within the SPDC, which maintains strict authoritarian rule over the people through intimidation by security forces, censorship, repression of individual rights and suppression of ethnic minority groups.

Only this week, one ethnic group, Karen, is reporting stepped-up attacks by Burma’s military on villages in eastern Karen state, including torching of homes, forcing hundreds to flee into the jungle.

Around 118,000 people in eastern Burma have been displaced in the past 18 months, according to one human rights group.

A military regime in some form has ruled Burma since 1962. The regime changed Burma’s name to Myanmar in 1989 but the US and Australian governments both use Burma.

On January 4, Burma’s independence day, Senior General Than Shwe announced plans for elections in Burma this year. Elections have long been foreshadowed under the Burmese military’s so-called "Roadmap to Democracy". If they do take place, they will be the first in 20 years.

In February, Minister for Foreign Affairs Stephen Smith said Australia "has long been appalled both by the Burmese military’s suppression of the democratic aspirations of the Burmese people and by its disrespect for their human rights".

At the recent leaders’ summit of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), Burma’s government faced pressure from regional governments to ensure the planned elections were credible. It also faced calls to release opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi from house detention.

Aung San Suu Kyi’s opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) was disbanded after it refused to participate in the elections. The NLD won elections in 1990 by a landslide but the military refused to recognise the result and instead undertook a campaign of harassment and arrest of opposition politicians.

In March, Burmese authorities published five electoral laws, included banning the NLD from participating if Aung San Suu Kyi was still a member.

Mr Smith told Parliament in March: "We are now very gravely concerned as to any potential for an election to be conducted in a full, free and fair manner."

Last week, authorities granted a permit to participate in the elections to an opposition party that split from the NLD. New waves of refugees are fleeing as the regime steps up its pre-election campaign.