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THE jungle
trail is perilous. Even that is a treacherous
understatement. To get to the refugee camps, the off-road
vehicle has to be hauled up a steep incline from a winch.
Then you have to slog through the quagmire of the monsoon
season in the alternating heat and rain.
The camps
are also beset by flashfloods, landslides and erosion. And
to exacerbate the danger, they’re a mere two klicks away
from the Burmese border, eminently within sniper range
from a Chinese-made Russian Dragunov sniper rifle that
fires a steel-jacketed 7.62-mm bullet that, upon impact,
instantly turns a human body into jelly.
It’s
definitely not the Hilton or the air-conditioned confines
of the corporate offices of United Laboratories, but for
Ben Mendoza, the refugee camps that stretch across the
Thailand-Myanmar border are the best places on God’s green
earth.
Road to
Damascus
Men of his
age would have found their calling and their place in the
world decades ago. But it brings back a strange
fulfillment, a feeling he first felt during his Ateneo
Catechetical Instruction League years back in school.
We all
have our road to
Damascus.
In the most mysterious of ways, the Lord God communicates
to us and reaches out to His wayward sons and daughters.
Ben
Mendoza confesses his being less than devout once
upon a time. He was always content to let his family stay
inside for Mass while he stood outside waiting for the
hour to pass by.
A long
marketing career with United Laboratories and Wyeth found
him working overseas, mostly in
Thailand
and in the United States. But he was always drawn back to
Thailand.
“There was
something more than the picture-perfect beaches and the
cuisine,” he says, trying to put a finger to his point.
“There’s an innate beauty to the country—the warmth,
openness and diversity of the people.”
While at
Mass in Bangkok one Sunday—standing outside, as usual—he
heard a guest priest talk about Mission Sunday, where the
Catholic Church was involved in helping refugees from
war-torn Myanmar, also known as Burma. Before he knew it,
he had made his way inside and listened intently to the
human-crisis situation that was happening a mere five
hours’ drive from his comfortable Bangkok digs. He went
home profoundly affected, the seed having been sown.
Watching
television a few weeks later, he saw the same priest
talking about the strife in
Myanmar
and the refugees in Thailand. Around the same time, there
was an ad in the papers looking for a field manager who
could work in the camps and help raise the funding needed
for the refugee work. And Mendoza knew he could no longer
ignore the call. His children were all done with school,
and he had no other obligations to work and pay for. He
quit his job and figured that he could put his management
skills to best use with the organization. Little did he
know that his life was to undergo a radical change.
Spirit of
the bayonet
There’s a
frail and elderly woman looking every bit her age. Twenty
years of living in the squalor of various refugee camps
after fleeing the strife in Myanmar have withered her
body. But surprisingly, it has not affected her mind or
her spirit. Not even her memories.
She pulls
a refugee-camp volunteer close. “Thank you for the food
and shelter,” she slowly intones in her native Karen,
perhaps to emphasize the urgency of her message. “But give
us guns so we may end this conflict once and for all.”
This is
one of two haunting memories that are grafted onto
Mendoza’s soul. It’s a chilling testimonial to the blunt
nature of the conflict in Myanmar—it is a long, long way
from being resolved.
There are
two things that change the world’s geography: nature and
war. While we are far removed from the disappeared land
bridges and the eruptions of volcanoes like Vesuvius and
Krakatoa that have defined borders and destroyed
civilizations, war, on the other hand, is a persistent and
dangerous man-made threat that has constantly rearranged
boundaries even in this day and age.
The days
of colonialism may be a distant memory, but for many, the
ramifications are still felt today. It was common then for
the European powers to employ “divide-and-conquer” tactics
by pitting minorities against one another. It allowed them
to govern with a small and well-armed occupying force that
tasked locals to do their bidding. And long after the last
Western flag was hauled down from Southeast Asia, racial
intolerance and age-old enmities have become a flashpoint
for violence and slaughter of biblical proportions.
You would
think people would have learned from the Khmer Rouge’s
killing fields in Cambodia. Yet in neighboring Burma, the
senseless and wanton killing goes on and has been
unchecked for decades now.
Tired and
wretched refuse
Since the
Vietnam conflict ended, Thailand has graciously opened her
borders for refugees from her war-wracked neighbors while
providing military protection. Thailand’s Catholic Office
for Emergency Relief and Refugees, where Mendoza serves as
program director, has been working with various
organizations like Caritas, the United Nations Human
Rights Commission, Unicef and the local government in
providing help to Myanmar refugees.
To date,
there are 150,000 refugees scattered in nine different
camps along the Thai-Myanmar border. There are 609 program
and camp staff, social workers, doctors and teachers who
work in the camps, which lack electricity and running
water.
By day,
the refugees are taught skills that they can use once they
return to their home country. Children are sent to school
while the adults either plant indigenous crops, which also
serve as an additional source of food, or sew or
manufacture soap and candles—which are also a light
source. However, come nighttime, any illumination is put
out for security reasons.
These
refugees are forbidden to hold jobs in Thailand, more so
to leave the camp’s premises. They’re housed according to
ethnic group (65 percent are Karen while 18 percent are
Karenni) and have learned to coexist through a tenuous
truce. Boredom is a huge problem while hope…hope is a
lofty and nebulous ideal. And these refugees are entirely
dependent on external humanitarian aid.
“I’ve been
here for a while but I can’t say I’m jaded,” adds Mendoza.
“I look at the selflessness of the volunteers, many of
whom are [Bangkok] college graduates, and they’re here.
They’ll make more in private corporations, yet somehow for
them, this is a more rewarding and enriching experience.”
Lifeline
of hope
It is a
complex political and social issue up here in the
hinterlands at the border between
Thailand
and Myanmar. The recent killings of Buddhist monks and
other dissenters have sent a fresh wave of refugees and
panic, not just in this corner of
Southeast Asia and the rest of the world, but in the camps.
The second
haunting image that burns in Mendoza’s soul is that of a
mother holding her child close at night. It isn’t simply
one mother. There are thousands and thousands more like
her. But it’s always the same scenario.
What does
a mother tell her child before they fall asleep? To study
well for a brighter future? How does she make them
understand that, when they face an uncertain tomorrow? How
can she say that everything will be all right when they’re
not only living on borrowed land but on borrowed time?
There are
no answers for now, but for people like Ben Mendoza and
the thousands who willingly give their time, effort, care
and money, that’s why they’re spread across nine camps in
the jungle. They’re working to find a lasting solution and
to give hope. Even in a place where it’s in such short
supply.
****
The author, together with some good friends, met with Ben
Mendoza recently in Siam Paragon in Bangkok, Thailand.
Despite being busy coordinating rescue efforts after a
mudslide in one of the camps, Mr. Mendoza found a couple
of hours to talk about the Myanmar refugee situation.
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