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After a grueling decade-long wait in a Thai refugee camp, two thousand Burmese Karen refugees are finally to be given a permanent home in Canada.
After a grueling decade-long wait in a Thai refugee camp, two thousand Burmese Karen refugees are finally to be given a permanent home in Canada. This is the second Karen refugee group to resettle in Canada, following an agreement last year for another, smaller, group. Most Karens fled to Thailand following a major offensive directed at them by the Burmese military regime in 1995. The resettlement plan – expected to be carried out over the next two years – was announced last week by Diane Finley, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC). She said that 712 of the 810 refugees from the first group have arrived and are settling in cities across the country. Ninety are living in London, Ontario. "Most of these refugees have stayed at the Mae La Oon refugee camp in Thailand for seven to twelve years," said Joe Hantha, president of Karen Canadian Community, based in London, Ontario. Hantha lived in a jungle camp in the Karen control area for three years before coming to Canada more than a decade ago. Karens, one of the seven Burmese ethnic minority groups, have been fighting with the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) military regime for their rights and independence since 1948. "Many of these Burmese refugees had suffered from torture, murder, and forced relocation imposed by the SPDC troops," said Tin Maung Htoo, spokesperson of Canadian Friends of Burma, based in Ottawa. "Men, women, the elderly, or children are used as forced labor to porter and build military infrastructures." "The majority of the refugees coming to Canada are villagers," said Tin Maung Htoo "Before they came, these refugees were filled with worries about how to adapt to the new environment and where to get help as needed." Hantha says the refugees feel grateful for the financial support provided by Canadian government for housing and food supplies, as well as community support from church and volunteer groups. But the newcomers, while optimistic about their new life in Canada, face a series of challenges. According to Hantha, the language barrier, which hinders communication and transactions in their daily life, is the biggest obstacle. Adapting to a new lifestyle is another challenge. The refugees will require one-on-one training to learn basic skills, such as taking public transport, grocery shopping, household safety, as well as maintaining a healthy way of life. The cold weather, something they never experienced in Burma, will require some adjustment as well. "They need to learn how to stay warm and teach their children to stay warm." said Tin Maung Htoo. Approximately one million Burmese have been chased out of their homes and become internally displaced persons. They still remain in Burma because they either cannot make it to the country's borders or are hoping to return home, according to the Canadian Friends of Burma. "Before the 1988 democratic uprising, they lived normal lives just like everybody else, and some of them worked as teachers or government employees, etc. After the democratic movement, they fled to the jungles because they did not want to be tortured by the military regime," said Hantha. The 140,000 Burmese refugees who fled to Thailand were accommodated in nine camps, the Mae La Oon camp being one of them. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has recognized the resettlement of refugees in Mae La Oon as a priority. A CIC news release revealed that the facility has poor accessibility, overcrowded living conditions, and lacks sanitation and water facilities. In addition, landslides threaten the camp, which is situated in a valley. Of the nine Thai camps, Mae La Oon is the most remote and enclosed. "It takes a whole day to go to a city from the camp," said Hantha. "A lot of refugees in that camp had low hemoglobin due to lacking of nutritious food. Some were infected with tuberculosis and malaria. There was not enough medical care," he said. "All people in Burma experience human rights atrocities committed by the ruling military junta; however, ethnic minorities are an especially vulnerable target," states Australian People for Health, Education and Development Abroad (APHEDA). APHEDA adds that Burmese troops use rape and sexual violation as a systematic weapon of war to terrorize ethnic women.
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