A8 | SUNDAY, JUNE 5, 2011 | THE COURIER-JOURNAL KY- dy slope where his wife, Lah Eh Paw, and five children cook their rations of rice, beans, oil and fish sauce. “My hope is to go to the U.S., but it is not easy.” His older brother, Hsar Say, is among the lucky few who got out. After six years in Umpium Mai, he was resettled half a world away to a new home in south Louisville in 2008 — one of nearly 2,400 refu- gees from Myanmar who have been brought to Kentucky since 2006. They’ve quietly grown to be- come one of the commonwealth’s largest refugee groups, spread among Louisville, Bowling Green and Owensboro. Many are concen- trated in Louisville’s South End, where they’ve become an increas- ingly common presence in local factories, churches and schools. But their new lives haven’t been easy. Most arrive with limited edu- cations, farming backgrounds and a lack of work history from years in the camps, where there are no jobs, resettlement officials said. “We are happy to be here, but it’s difficult,” acknowledged Hsar Say, 42, who fled Myanmar after participating in 1988 democracy protests that prompted a military crackdown. “I hope to go back someday. But I’m not sure where to go back. There is no home any- more.” U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R- Ky., has long been an outspoken critic of the Myanmar regime and staunch advocate of sanctions de- signed to bring democratic change there. But he believes that’s a dis- tant prospect. “I’ve never spent more time on something with fewer results,” said McConnell, who said his field of- fices now help the new Kentucky refugees whenever possible. “I can’t envision how you bring this regime down.” Despite more than 50,000 Myanmar refugees being brought to the U.S. in recent years, the num- bers in the refugee camps continue to swell. “Only a minority is resettled, and everybody has left behind fam- ily and friends,” said John Koehlin- ger, a program leader at Kentucky Refugee Ministries, which, along with Catholic Charities, has reset- tled refugees. “It’s a cruel thing.” Squeezed by military junta Louisville resident Hsar Say’s roots are deep in Myanmar, a poor country of ancient kingdoms and rural rice-farming villages. The former British colony gained its in- dependence in 1947, but not before foreign rule planted the seeds of conflict between the Burmese and Karen ethnic groups. The son of a pig butcher, Hsar Say grew up during a time when the socialist military regime’s pro- gram of nationalization and mone- tary policies devastated family sav- ings and plunged the country’s economy into disarray. His family lived in a modest home made partly from bamboo in a town outside the former capital of Rangoon. He attended school at a time when many children did not, but his family sometimes struggled to earn enough money to eat, he said. In the largely agrarian world where Hsar Say lived, many eked out a living as impoverished sub- sistence farmers, sheltering in small huts clustered in villages. Hoping to become a teacher, Hsar Say eventually studied bota- ny at Mandalay University. But in the summer of 1988, he joined na- tionwide demonstrations that pushed for democratic change. The government crackdown left 3,000 dead in six weeks. And when a new junta, calling itself the State Peace and Development Council, seized control and re- named the country Myanmar, Hsar Say began to see his friends arrest- ed or disappear. “We weren’t safe. I thought if I stayed there, all of us would be ar- rested,” he said. “So we fled.” He went to the remote jungles near the Thai border where the Karen National Liberation Army battled the government. But it left him constantly on the run from army attacks that burned villages and crops and forced men into ser- vitude as laborers. Hsar Say eventually crossed the Thai border to the town of Mae Sot, where he found work with a dissident advocacy group. He mar- ried and started a family, then de- cided he needed to seek a safer life. “I tried to avoid the camps. But at least there are schools and health clinics,” he said. Late last year, after five decades of military rule, Myanmar’s parlia- ment elected career army official Thein Sein as president. But the country’s critics say the election was nothing more than pretense of democracy, and most of the new government’s top leaders are for- mer senior military officers. In Yangon, Hsar Say’s friend Saw Blessing, a world politics in- structor at the Myanmar Institute of Theology, said many are still afraid of the government. Human-rights abuses, govern- ment corruption and jailing of po- litical prisoners are common, according to the United Nations. “They control people by con- trolling what people see and hear and do,” said David Brickey Bloomer, who works for an inter- national aid organization operating in Myamar. “There’s a lot of hope- lessness.” Safety but uncertainty Over the Thai border, Hsar Htoo sat cross-legged on the bam- boo slats of his home in the sprawl- ing Umpium Mai refugee camp, where the huts and small gardens of 4,000 families climb over the hil- ly terrain. A former boxer, Htoo said po- lice had arrested and interrogated him four times in his village near Yangon, accusing him of being in league with armed Karen rebels. He once spent three months in prison and was banned from work- ing. In 2009 he headed to the safety of the camps and now lives a short walk away from Hsar Say’s sister- in-law, Si Yo Paw, and her husband, Tha Htau. The story is similar for Tha Htau, who six years ago was living in a village when soldiers interro- gated everyone, suspecting them of being connected to Karen sep- aratists, and nearly killed a teacher. Three years later, Tha Htau’s family came to the camps. Their children attend the camp school, and Htau earns $8 a month from aid groups distributing food. Still, he said he feels stuck. “We cannot go forward; we cannot go back,” he said. Inside the wire, most cramped huts have no running water, toilets or electricity. Camp residents rely on international aid groups that provide food, basic education and clinics to treat malaria and dengue fever. In a warehouse filled with ra- tion bags of rice and tins of oil stacked on pallets, camp leaders said aid groups have been reducing the help they provide because of tightened budgets. Hsar Tum Mwae, a camp leader who lost his arm fighting with the insurgency, said many camp resi- dents grow weary of feeling con- fined and having no work. “If they stay here too long, they are depressed,” Mwae said. Some sneak out to buy supplies or risk working as day laborers in nearby villages. Hsar Say recalled several times having to bribe Thai police to avoid being arrested. The past six years, the refugees’ plight — some have been stuck in the camps since the 1980s — has prompted the United Nations to work with other countries to find them homes. As a result, U.S. refugee admis- sions have jumped from 1,056 in 2004 to 18,139 by 2008, the year that Hsar Say was approved with his family to come to America. He took orientation classes that taught proper nutrition and cultur- al customs, as well as life skills such as how to fly on an airplane and change a diaper. “It was a way to try to become a real human,” he said of the decision to leave his homeland. “You can’t live in a cage.” All of Hsar Say’s relatives inter- viewed at the camp said they hoped to join him abroad, but not all residents want to emigrate. Camp resident Johnson Kim said many are eager to return home. “They just wait for the situation to change in Burma, but it never does,” he said. Relief, new trials in U.S. On a spring day in Louisville, Steve Clark and Annette Ellard picked up two refugee students to drive them to Atherton High School — a commitment they’ve made to help ensure the 18- and 20-year old siblings graduate. They spend 12-hour days help- ing refugees navigate schools, clin- ics, Medicaid offices and family homes. They attend court dates and hospital births and respond to constant emergency calls — such as when a refugee got lost on the bus and was found hunkered down for the night next to a grocery store. The couple, who became in- volved in the refugees’ plight after a mission trip, shares a unique win- dow into their struggles and tri- umphs. They visited Thar Tin, who re- cently got a job at a Louisville meatpacking plant. Sitting near a Karen flag he’d hung on the wall in his South End apartment, Tin’s wife, Gay Htoo, served bowls of co- conut rice pudding as he explained that he’d fled his homeland be- cause soldiers were forcing men to work as porters and human mine- sweepers. He spent nine years at the camps before coming to Louisville three years ago. “There was no good education in Burma or in camp; here they have good school and good jobs,” he said, noting his children are do- ing well in school. “And you don’t have to sneak out to work.” Yet many refugees have strug- gled, speaking little or no English and usually lacking experience with formal schooling and struc- tured jobs. “They arrive happy to be where they are, and then reality sets in; they’re overwhelmed,” Ellard said. “The reality for many of these refu- gees is they would like to go back home and live life in the traditional way, but they don’t have that choice.” Ka Waw, 38, the son of rice farm- ers who arrived in Louisville in February after spending nearly two decades in a camp, said he was “very nervous to come here.” Interpreters in schools and hos- pitals are still hard to come by, since most of the refugees speak their own Karen language. Although he’s received help for medical care and housing assist- ance from local resettlement agen- cies, and is studying for his GED, he’s still unemployed. He has an advantage because he speaks Eng- lish, but his newfound freedom has brought a new set of anxieties. “In the camp, I didn’t worry about food. We could at least sur- vive,” he said. “I worry now, who will take care of my family if some- thing happens to me?” Refugees brought to America get a one-time $900 federal payout for rent deposit, bus tickets and furniture. The resettlement agencies find them housing, job training, English classes and other aid, funded part- ly by donations. Families can qual- ify for Medicaid or Kentucky Tem- porary Assistance Program assist- ance. Churches are tapped to help sponsor them. But the temporary aid runs out. Federal cash assistance lasts just eight months, although families can qualify for 60 months’ worth of welfare. Resettlement agencies continue to work with the families to help them find jobs. Fellow refugee Hsar Say and his family, including his wife, Hsel Ku, and children Ma Ma Sharal,11, and Poe Khwa Hsee, 7, live in a South End basement apartment. More than two years into his stay in Louisville, he often trans- lates for Catholic Charities, but has struggled to find work during the recession. He’s still considering moving to Iowa for work in a cattle- processing plant, he said. The Louisville refugees from Myanmar have established com- munities at several churches, in- cluding Crescent Hill Baptist Church. Others gather to practice their Buddhist faith. On any given day, they share rides to jobs and help translate at schools. At several South Louis- ville apartment complexes, groups of Myanmar refugees gather to cel- ebrate births and share traditional meals along with tips on navigating life in the U.S. Last week, several Karen refu- gees were set to graduate from Atherton High, among the first group to gain diplomas, Clark said. Many of those brought here say they would like to return if things changed in Myanmar. But for now, they remain in apartments and modest homes, quietly carving out a new life while keeping one eye on their homeland. “If there’s no peace, I dare not go home,” Ka Waw said. “Right now, I have no hope of going back.” Reporter Chris Kenning can be reached at (502) 582-4697. MYANMAR | Unable to return home, oppressed refugees wait to be resettled Continued from A1 Photos by Geoff Oliver Bugbee, Special to The Courier-Journal The huts of 4,000 families cover the hilly terrain at the Umpium Mai refugee camp in Thailand. Nearly150,000 Myanmar refugees live in nine such camps. Unwilling to return home to a hostile regime, they hope to be among a fortunate few who are resettled in the U.S. or other countries. Louisville resident Hsar Say fled Myanmar after a1988 government crackdown, and his extended family lives in the Umpium Mai camp. They include his sister-in-law, Si Yo Paw, right; her husband, Tha Htau; and their children Rosy, Daisy and Harryo. Of his dissident friends, Hsar Say said, “I thought if I stayed there, all of us would be arrested.” FLEEING MYANMAR Time: 06-04-2011 20:59 User: mstollhaus PubDate: 06-05-2011 Zone: KY Edition: 1 Page Name: A8 Color: Cyan Magenta Yellow Black