EVEN by Burma’s bizarre standards it was a mysterious move motivated partly by paranoia, partly by superstition and partly by practicality.
But now the decision to relocate the capital from the 250-year-old port of Rangoon to a small, remote town in the jungle is threatening a refugee crisis.
According to non-governmental organisations in eastern Burma, thousands of unarmed civilians have been driven from their homes by government soldiers who are securing the country’s new administrative centre, the town of Pyinmana.
The UN has recorded a 15-fold surge in the number of refugees crossing into Thailand. According to refugees and Christian aid groups, thousands more are trapped in the jungle, their escape route blocked by government troops.
Refugees and aid workers described how soldiers of the Burmese junta had forced civilians to labour in their camps, burning villages and murdering their inhabitants. “Five of our neighbours were killed by the military,” said Maw Leah, who had spent ten days travelling to the border. “They set up military camps, they force us to work for them. If we don’t, they make us pay them. We couldn’t exist any more in our own homes.”
“The problem is the ones that we cannot reach,” said Nay Thablay, an activist and member of the Karen ethnic minority in Oo Dak Klo. “Many of them are stuck in the jungle and no one can get to them.” For decades Burma’s notorious junta, the State Peace and Development Council, has fought insurgents of the Karen ethnic minority along the border with Thailand. Central parts of the country around Pyinmana have been spared the worst of its depredations. Then last November, Burmese officials and foreign diplomats were amazed to learn that the country’s administrative functions were to be moved from Rangoon to Pyinmana. The main exodus occurred at 11am on November 11, when 1,100 army trucks departed, carrying 11 military battalions and staff from 11 government ministries.
There is much speculation about the reasons for the move. As named members of what Condoleezza Rice called the “outposts of tyranny”, the generals may have felt exposed in Rangoon. Apart from being farther from the reach of any ocean-borne enemy task force, Pyinmana is also sequestered from supporters of the opposition National League for Democracy and its leader, Aung San Suu Kyi,who is held in Rangoon under house arrest.
But it is also closer to the rebellious Karen and Shan states, and a good base for their pacification. And it is this that seems to have caused the new refugee problem. According to Hanne Mathisen, of the UN High Commission for Refugees in northwest Thailand, the typical number of Burmese crossing into Mae Hong Son was 15 to 20 a month. Since December, however, 900 have made the journey.
In December Burmese troops appeared close to Sha See Bo, a village of 200 people. On January 6, one man, Bray Gi, was shot dead. Two days later five more disappeared. Three weeks later their bodies were found in shallow graves. “They had been tortured to death,” Maw Leah said. “We don’t know how things will be in Thailand. But it is impossible for us to stay in our village.”
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SHIFTING CITIES
Brazil Built from scratch in 1956 to replace Rio de Janeiro, Brazilia now has more than two million inhabitants
Turkey Ankara provided a base for resistance during the war of independence, then replaced Istanbul as the capital
USA Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton agreed in 1790 that Washington should be the site for the capital. The federal government met in New York and Philadelphia until it was ready in 1800
Nigeria Decided in 1976 to move administrative buildings inland from Lagos. Abuja became the capital in 1991, but much of it is still not complete
