*11.12.2005 

Many Burmese of different races; Bama, Chin, Rakhine, Shans etc and different religions: Buddhists, Muslims Christians etc are suffering out side and inside Burma. As I am here in Malaysia for about 10 years and married a Malaysian to get the citizenship (actually a desperate and selfish act but I have no choice , never regret and took care of my wife and children here.) I heard and seen a lot of fellow Burmese’s sufferings here. They were abused and exploited by their bosses, Malaysian Police, Immigration, Rela members (voluntary force like Kyant Phut) , and gangsters. Esp. Malaysian Police is regularly extorting money, and robbed them of their hand phones, watches etc. There is even a Burmese Robbery gang terrorizing, robbing kidnapping the fellow Burmese. In the detention camps they are tortured, blackmailed and exploited by the detention camp authorities and jail officers. There is no one to protect them. But there is one Malaysian NGO, Tanaganita, headed by Malaysian Southern Indian, Madam Irene Fernendaz. She is recently awarded the alternative Noble prize.

 In Malaysia, Police is very powerful and army is just like other civil servants only. This is because the present “democratic” Malaysian Government continues to stay in power by using Police Force. Especially during the sacking of Deputy Prime Minister Mr Anwar and to stop his Reformasi movement, police brutally crushed the opposition so that Mahathier’s government could stay in power. The government is indebted to the king maker, police force. So the police got a free hand exploiting, extorting, robbing and torturing almost all the detainees and Burmese became their easy soft target. They are not doing on illegals or undocumented persons only but on Burmese and others with proper documents also. They sometimes threatened the legal foreigners that as the police they had drugs and firearms and could easily plant in the victim’s car or on the body if refused to pay. What a day light robbery! They have connections with the gangsters, politicians and their own chiefs. In the current abuse of Chinese girl’s video clip which I attached, the Deputy Home Minister and Deputy Inspector General of Police openly defended them. We Burmese, including me are scared to complaint because we had seen the revenge and victimization of the persons who dare to report the abuses. Even those Chinese girls’ houses were raided by police at mid night after they exposed their plight at the Parliament. Presently  police are targeting all the Chinese girls during raids around the country. 

There is a court case on 63 Burmese protesters on 12.12.05. There is a report that they are tortured in prison. The Burmese Rohingya brothers who attacked the Burmese Embassy also claimed that they were assaulted by the police to the Magistrate and showed the wounds. (Reported in the newspapers) They had smuggled out a letter from the prison that they were tortured in the prison and appealing to the other countries to intervene. I saw the copy of that letter and advised that person to send a copy to Burma Digest.

 Burmese prisoners have to pay bribe to be deported quickly. They were sold to the Thai Immigration during the deportation. Some claim that if given enough bribe some could follow back the Malaysian deporting authorities. There are claims that if the Burmese deportees could not pay ransom money to Thai police/ Immigration, Burmese females were sold to the Thai pimps and Burmese men were sold to the Thai deep sea fishing boats as slave labours.

Shwe Ba