Exile, Canadian-Style

By AUNG ZAW
The Irrawaddy News

Myo Min pointed to the on-board computer in his police patrol car. “This is how we track down the bad guys,” he boasted, clearly relishing his newfound role as a high-tech crime fighter.

But this is Canada, and bureaucracy soon stood in the way of his desire to show off. He couldn’t let me into the vehicle, he said, without getting permission from his supervisor at least 48 hours in advance. I did, however, notice that he was playing a song by Burmese rock star Zaw Win Htut in the car’s cassette player.

It was a brutally cold night, and Myo Min was on duty patrolling the streets of Ottawa, doing his bit to keep the Canadian capital safe from drug traffickers and drunk drivers and free of domestic violence and illegal weapons.

Stopping by the apartment where I was staying with a friend, he adjusted his bulletproof vest and started telling me about his journey from the jungles of the Thai-Burmese border to Canada. Every few minutes, our conversation was interrupted by radio communication from his walkie-talkie.

Twenty years ago, Myo Min was one of thousands of young Burmese who left their country to resist a regime that had just seized power in a bloody coup. He joined the All Burma Students’ Democratic Front (ABSDF), a student army formed in the jungles of eastern Burma, but after several years, he grew disillusioned with the armed struggle and factional infighting within the students’ army. He left for resettlement in Canada in 1997.

In 2003, he joined the police force in Ottawa. These days, he doesn’t talk much about bringing down the regime in Burma. But like many former activists living abroad, he still dreams of returning to his homeland someday.

According to Kevin McLeod, an active member of Canadian Friends of Burma (CFOB) and self-described “unemployed student,” many Burmese asylum seekers in Canada are struggling to keep their heads above water in their new country.

“They have emotional stress and frustration and suffer from depression,” he said of some of his many Burmese friends and acquaintances.

He noted that Burmese who migrated to Canada in the 1960s were better educated and more financially secure than those who migrated after fleeing political persecution in 1988. Most of these later immigrants came with nothing and have had to rebuild their lives from scratch, making integration much more difficult for them.

McLeod is perhaps uniquely sympathetic to the difficulties faced by Burmese living in Canada. His Burmese friends jokingly call him a “Canadian refugee,” because like many former student activists from Burma, he hasn’t completed his university studies and is often broke. But he is an avid student of Burmese affairs, reading many books on the country and spending countless hours talking with Burmese friends, on whose couches he often finds himself spending the night.

In some cases, the failure to adapt to life in Canada has ended in tragedy. Several years ago, a young activist named Aung Ko jumped off Niagara Falls. Close friends said that he suffered from depression and may have had a drug-abuse problem. Later, another young Burmese activist hung himself in his room in Toronto.

But all is not doom and gloom for Burmese living in Canada. Tin Maung Htoo, the current executive director of CFOB, said that Canada offers great opportunities to Burmese.

As former members of Burma’s clandestine high-school student union, Tin Maung Htoo and his close friend and fellow CFOB member Toe Kyi have followed a familiar trajectory from student activism inside Burma to eventual third-country resettlement.

But in their case, they managed to avoid imprisonment in Burma—a common fate among activists—only to end up spending three years in the Special Detention Center in Bangkok for attempting to protest against the Salween dam project in 1993.

The Thai authorities refused to release Tin Maung Htoo and Toe Kyi onto Thai soil, so the two friends finally agreed to go to Canada. They were taken directly from the detention center to the airport.

Tin Maung Htoo, who studied at the University of Western ontario, said that he especially appreciates the educational opportunities in Canada, both for himself and his children. He also thinks he is lucky because he has been able to continue his involvement in the Burmese pro-democracy movement. These days, he said, he can go to Parliament to meet politicians and senior foreign ministry officials to discuss Burma and Canadian foreign policy. Several years ago, he said, this would have been impossible. “Doors were closed and we were blocked.” But under Tin Maung Htoo, CFOB has become an effective lobby group.

But Tin Maung Htoo’s friend, Toe Kyi, was more skeptical about how well Canadians and Burmese really understand each other. He recounted how the pastor at the church where he stayed when he first arrived in Canada attempted to convert him to Christianity. When it came time for the baptism, the pastor asked Toe Kyi if he could forgive his enemies, including the military leaders in Burma. He shook his head to indicate that he would never forgive the generals who had ruined his country, and the ceremony came to an abrupt end. He added, with a touch of chagrin, that he saw many other Burmese activists convert to Christianity in Thailand or Canada just to ensure their survival.

Today, Toe Kyi and his Burmese wife and child enjoy their life in Canada, where his political interests have expanded over the years. In their living room, Toe Kyi and his wife are watching CBC news coverage of the US presidential election campaign—they are both big fans of Hillary Clinton. He is also a supporter of the Dalai Lama, who held formal talks with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper during a visit to Ottawa last November.

When US President George W. Bush made an official visit to Canada in 2004, Toe Kyi joined protests against the immensely unpopular American leader. He said that he and fellow protestors braved baton-wielding police and tear gas to show their opposition to US foreign policy. I joked that the experience probably made him nostalgic for his days as an activist during the 1988 uprising against military rule in Burma.

Toe Kyi, who now works for CompuCorps Mentoring in Ottawa, a non-profit organization that donates hundreds of used computers to African countries, hasn’t forgotten about his country and his people. He recently arranged a donation of over 100 computers for refugees recently arrived from the Thai-Burmese border. He said that he wants to set up a voluntary service inside Burma to do community development work.

The best thing about Canada, he said, is its respect for the rule of law and democratic values. Despite this, however, he only reluctantly became a Canadian citizen after several years of living in the country.

Many Burmese are deeply ambivalent about life in Canada, noted Kevin McLeod from CFOB, who attributed this to their strong attachment to the Burmese pro-democracy struggle. “They are very devoted,” he said.

Though Burmese enjoy life in a democratic country, they haven’t learned to be united and democratic, according to another Canadian observer married to a former student activist. After years of working on the Thai-Burmese border, she returned to live in Vancouver, where she said that many of the Burmese she met seemed like lost souls.

Not all Burmese are completely directionless, however. In fact, most have simply moved on, finding jobs and trying to get ahead in life. Some have even joined the Canadian Armed Forces. Zaw Latt, a former member of the Burmese high school student union, is now a Canadian soldier assigned to Afghanistan. His friends joke that he really wishes he had been sent to Naypyidaw to fight.

Many activists want Canada to do more on Burma. CFOB is asking Canada to support Burma groups along the Thai-Burmese border and take a tougher stance toward the regime. Many Burmese activists think Canada’s recent comprehensive sanctions on the junta were a good start, but others say that Canada has yet to show much commitment to Burmese issues.

The Canadian government recently held a one-day Burma conference in Quebec City, with UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari as a keynote speaker. At the gathering, some NGOs and activists expressed concern that Ottawa seems more interested in supporting the UN’s fruitless missions and providing humanitarian assistance inside Burma than in addressing Burma’s political impasse more directly.

Most Burmese in Canada would like to see Ottawa send a stronger message to the regime in Naypyidaw.

Even Burmese who have been hurt by the sanctions that are now in place say that they support punitive measures against the junta.

Zaw Win Aung, a former ABSDF member and owner of the Golden Burma grocery store in Toronto, and Aung Tin, another grocery store owner and member of the National League for Democracy, said that the sanctions made it harder for them to import goods such as betel nuts from Burma. But, said Zaw Win Aung with a smile, “It is good” that Canada has taken action against the regime.

As I spoke with Zaw Win Aung, some newly arrived Karen refugees walked into his store to buy some betel nut. Outside, the weather was bitterly cold. Suddenly, a BMW 318 with the words “Free Burma” painted on it and with photographs of detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and monks in the rear windows pulled over in front of the shop. A window rolled down and a familiar face smiled and said hello to his friends and the new arrivals. He was Si Thu, a former ABSDF member who arrived in Canada in the early 1990s.

For a moment, the Karen family from the Mae La refugee camp in Thailand looked at the car and its owner with admiration, recognizing both familiar images from their homeland and a symbol of success in their new country. But after a few moments, they returned to their own reality—far from the struggle in Burma, and equally distant from any sense of belonging in Canada—and walked back to their small apartment.