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The Akha:
Matt's
Weekly AHF Journal: Feb 2001
AHF Weekly Journal
February 2001
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February 9, 2001
Dear Friends:
1. Is Thailand Forestry
Department using Forestry Law in the broad sense of the word for
ethnic cleansing of mountain areas?
Joh Hoh Akha is another Akha village that is being broken up.
We were not informed about this untill after the village was already
emptied of 15 families.
The villagers were told they would be given land if they agreed
to move, they were not.
At any rate, Joh Hoh Akha in Chiang Mai Province near Phyao has
already been shattered. Of more than 22 families, 15 have already
left the village for other places and only seven families remain.
On my visit there of last week workmen were picking through the
rubble of broken homes.
The village farms very small land, within a great forest, it is
obvious that trees ARE NOT BEING cut, and the access road to the
village is very small. The village knew that it didn't have an
ideal situation for farming rice so they invested in bits of coffee
and fruit trees. But this year the forestry department has forbid
them to take care of the fruit trees, some three thousand, which
provided them substantial income.
As well they have been told that they can and can not work their
fields so they really do not know what to do.
The villagers who have left have already split off in at least
three or four directions. Not good for a village, not good for
precedent.
This is once again a glaring case of Forestry department being
unwilling to work with hill tribe people as an alliance with the
forest rather than enemy.
Joh Hoh village was at this location for 18 years. Previously
they were pushed out of Burma but not given refugee status, then
pushed out of the Doi Maesalong area and now they are pushed out
of the Joh Hoh area.
It was very odd to find foreign tourists sleeping in the village.
The village being milked for its last drop of blood by a guide,
the tourists paying 2000 baht each, the villagers getting 20 baht
each and the tourists not having a clue that the village was being
torn down around them.
So much for eco tourism with a heart in Thailand.
This year numerous Villages have complained about arrests or threats
of arrest from Forestry personell over farming their own land,
land they paid for, which is in the mountain village areas.
Akha.org is being moved to a new server, and soon as that is done
I will post the link to see the video about Joh Hoh Akha.
These video movies are several meg and of fairly good quality
as I want people to be able to gain a clear idea of what is occuring,
rather than for entertainment. However, since they can be permanently
downloaded the benefit is that they can be collected and viewed
again.
2. The bakery is up
and going, running as often as we can get donations of flour.
One batch of bread is 100 kilo of flour, making about 400 loaves
of bread, enough for the children in 5 Akha villages. 100 kilo's
of flour cost about $40.
3. The Fish Tank project
is proceeding. Dredge pump and water pump are purchased and waiting
as we continue to dig on a very big well hole, some five meters
across and going deeper.
Will let you know when the water system is fully in place for
the Catfish project.
4. The credit card
donation site is down in the US, so contact me if you wish to
make a donation.
Your donation is what keeps this work going and the assistance
moving into the villages.
Matthew McDaniel
Maesai, Chiangrai, Thailand
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February 18, 2001
Dear Friends:
We have a small drawn out war here in Maesai, Thailand. Maesai
was hit with numerous mortars and the border closed and the Thais
shelled several Burmese outposts.
I have a short video for you but both Akha.org and Akha.com are
down for the moment.
Burmese feuding with the Shans has made spillover likely along
long stretches of the Thai border, mostly occupied with the Akha
villages I work with, so the villages have lots of army in them,
trucks, tanks, mortars dug in and armoured personell carriers.
This is adding stress on the already impoverished Akha, as well,
many can not go to the fields. Of course it is the uncertainty
about how much this may escalate that is bothering most of the
villages.
People are concerned that it might be used as just one more reason
to press for village relocation, etc.
I was down in Lampang seeing villages there when Maesai flared
up, but am in and out of town now.
I am nearly complete with the building of the village circuits,
with over 250 villages on the route now and will be breaking this
up into route segments so that I get to all the villages.
But I am needing much more of your support for fuel, first aid
meds, and wells.
I do quite a lot here on nothing much, of hundreds of people who
get this newsletter less than 12 donate regularly.
That adds up to $200 per month that I can sort of depend on.
Not much. For everything that has to get done.
The press was coming to the building, then the owner got busy
and changed his mind, so we still need to just get that paid off
and moved. Nearly $900 remaining on that.
The fish well is down to the water level and soon as I get a break
I will take five days and finish it. The pumps are purchased for
the well. It is quite wide, nearly twenty feet, and will go down
sixty five feet time we are done. It will supply water for the
fish tanks, up to twenty sets, and will also supply water for
the host village vegetable gardens since they own no other land
except what is next to their huts.
If you can help with this work with the Akha, please donate. If
you have doubts, then please come over and ride along and see
what this is all about.
The travel in the 4 wheel drive is NOT for the faint of heart.
Which reminds me, I am hoping, in some kind of wild and foolish
imagination, that some day, I can get a used hummer here which
has the width and stoutness required for this village circuit,
the ground clearance for the roads and the power for the grades.
Funny how any one town in the US, of the same size as the Akha
population, some 70,000 here in Thailand, but scattered over a
vast area, well, any one town of that size will have millions
of dollars invested in public service vehicles but many people
would begrudge me a vehicle that could get the job done here,
just one.
Funny how people see the poor.
Matthew
Maesai, Chiangrai, Thailand
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February 25, 2001
Dear Friends:
The Maesai War has simmered down to just about nothing. The Shan
and the Burmese traded one hill top back and forth near Bala Akha,
along the border. That was about the height of it. The Thais moved
a lot of trucks, men, mortars, artillery and armour into Chiangrai
province and trampled into a lot of Akha villages.
Other than that, life got a little harder for the Akha, the farming
interrupted. But possibly now the bridge will open again, the
China Thailand road more important than the Burmese all combined,
and things will return to normal?
Repairs on the truck are ongoing, as the village circuit gets
anchored down. Despite the recombination of a number of villages
into one central village, there are still more than 250 villages
on my route now, and there are anywhere from 30 to 50 villages
and village fragments still not accounted for.
So I will continue to add those.
In a few days I should be commencing with the final dig on the
fish well and will let you know when that is done. This is a large
well that will have the capacity to feed water to up to twenty
tank sets as well as vegetable water for the host village.
Other than that, the printing press is the only infrastructure
project that we have left, still hung up at $900.
The focus on the village circuit is first aid medicine, networking
between the villages and books in Akha language including the
Akha Village Journal.
Matthew
Maesai, Thailand
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