David's Journal December 2011

The word “Geek” is old German for a brilliant , cheerful and probably not completely honest trickster, performer or tumbler, most probably part of a medieval circus. Now it refers to a person of high intelligence working with computers – not your average run, who see things from a different perspective. PUB has been fortunate to run across one of these. The border is being continually enriched with people of different and remarkable talent, which gives it for the rest of us its fascination and charm. Michael Cariaso first came here three or four years ago to work in Paw Ray’s school for Karen migrant children and set up the school with Computers. He firmly believes that by spreading the gospel of the internet a new age will be born. Looking at the changes that have taken place with the Arab Spring, that was made possible through social networking communication, it looks as though he might well be right. When he is not taking time off here, he works with the computerization of the human genome, and which prophetically he feels will completely change the face of medicine. We live in a world of huge potential. It just needs to be grasped. As an established Geek, employment for Michael is not a problem. He recently spent a year working with a group in the Netherlands. When he finished with them he traveled in Georgia, and then spent time in Malaysia, before finding a car and driving up the Peninsular and through the floods. His experiences, his exceptional photographs, and the benefits of his knowledge of the genome can be experienced by visiting www.cariaso.com and is well worth it. Right now he is spending 2 days a week with our students in the computer department at the Kaw Tha Blay Learning Centre that PUB supports. We and our students are remarkably fortunate.

Niang Win, Kyaw Chit and Soe Maung were amongst the first children to come to Kshakalu’s Kaw Tha Blay Hostel at Mae Lah camp in 2001 when they were ten years old. They were even by Karen standards quite small; a genetic advantage that prevents them in a food shortage of growing beyond their strength. Niang Win’s father had died. He has a sister. They are very poor. His mother sent him to Kshakalu for their survival and also that he might have an education. He went to school at the Seventh Day Adventist School, run by Helen Hall, a remarkable and dedicated Australian. Very quickly it was obvious that Niang Win was out of the ordinary and a Geek in his own right and almost monotonously began to collect top prize in his class every year. As a matter of course, he sent the prize money home to his mother every year. Once he had finished grade 10, he taught for a year with Helen Hall, then acted as the leader for Kaw Tha Blay Learning Centre during the ‘summer’w months, before going to a post grade 10 University preparation college called MinMahHaw in Mae Sot. From there he hopes to get a scholarship to study Math and Economics in a university in Hong Kong. The scholarships may be backed up by a Swiss NGO, called Childsdream, through the Canadian international Agency CIDA and through a similar Australian agency. Niang Win will be going back to see his mother in Pa’an this Christmas. The advances and possibilities that we are seeing now would not have been imagined when Niang Win arrived in Mae Lah in 2001.

We badly need some good news from Burma to hurry up history. I am not sure we have that much time to take this long. Recently the Free Burma Rangers reported that on the 29th. of October in the village of Tee Ma Mayn, not very far from Pa’an, the capital of Karen State, the government Light infantry division commanded by Than Mat Soe entered and fired into a house, killing the owner 36 year old Saw Pa Kok, and also took money and jewellery. In response, the KNLA, the Karen National Liberation Army, ambushed members of the Light infantry Division, killing two and wounding six. The government troop again in response, fired two mortars into the village and then entered the village found four women whom they beat and captured twenty-two others, whom they took off to act as human mine detectors. No one died then and they were let go after two days. Although in a remarkable change of direction, Current Prime Minister, formerly General, Thein Sein, cancelled the building of the Myitsone damn by the Chinese in Kachin State, the building of the Toh Boh Damn on the Salween river however is continuing, which will destroy 12 villages and 5000 acres of excellent farmland.

Thein Sein recently met the premier of India and was present at the recent Asean Summit in Bali. Apparent moves to decrease the dependency on Beijing. The Clinton visit and the present tolerance of the new USD – read replacement for SPDC – for Aung San Suu Kyi are welcome moves, but it is hard to know at this stage how much they indicate. At present the very minimal release of political prisoners suggests the government has not gone through any sort of an epiphany as far as Civil Rights are concerned. However the Burmese Elitists are not stupid and they must look with some anxiety at events in the Middle East and wonder whether it is practical to try to hold on to so much power, in a world society where it is hopefully becoming more and more difficult to rule outside of a proper moral code. We can hope that Thein Sein, as a person, is both sane and unafraid. Emerging from a military dictatorship, and a very splintered country, it is not easy to decide on an appropriate mode of government. Events in Teen Ma Mayn could well indicate that in some areas, the local commanders have a free range and often operate more as independent brigands than part of an army structure that we are more familiar with. The same leopard is still running the country for now, but we can hope that with time and continued contact with the all the outside world, the spots will begin to fade.

Next Time current peace talks and what they may or may not mean