Radio Show Highlights Plight of Burmese Refugees

I was driving my 9-year-old son home from his piano lesson and switched radio stations from my usual NPR frequency to a radio station at Bellevue Community College. I heard a woman talking about taking care of landmine amputees without arms and eyesight. Naturally, it caught my attention right away. She was talking about the Mae La refugee camp, where Clear Path International provides round-the-clock care for 16 resident mine victims who suffered similar losses at the "Care Villa" run by the Karen Handicap Welfare Association.

Then I heard the familiar sounds of traditional Karen folks songs and instruments. I was back with our men at the Care Villa who perform songs about their ethnic homeland across the border in Burma every time we come to visit. I heard interviews with the Karen Women's Organization. I heard the reporter go on a rickety wooden bridge across the river into Burma to territory held by the Karen Union. And finally we were back at Dr. Cynthia's Mae Tao clinic, whose prosthetics department Clear path has supported for nearly five years. There and at three other places on the border, CPI has assisted more than 500 landmine accident survivors.

The show is called "Kawthoolei," an audio odyssey into the troubled border region between Thailand and Burma. It's part of the "Outer Voices" project documenting the critical work of women in six places around the world: www.outervoices.org. It tells the story of the 500,000 villagers displaced by Burmese troops; about the 140,000 refugees in the nine camps on the Thai side of the border; about the 70 backpacking teams dispensing medical treatment to these homeless wanderers who are trying to avoid being raped, tortured or shot by government troops, used as human shields or mine clearers or weapons carriers and often succumb to diseases, starvation or injuries from landmine accidents.

Listening to the folk music, sounds from the camps and interviews with some of the people we work with brought me right back to the border. It was a powerful reminder why we are active there as an organization with a mission to help those suffering from the results of accidental mine and bomb explosions. I recommend going the site and listening to the show or ordering the CD. It's the next best thing to flying to Bangkok and taking the bus to the Thai-Burma border in person