Back in Mae Sot I took a badly needed shower and relaxed with a cold beer while contemplating the challenge of getting into Kawthoolei (the Karen State) to visit the guerrillas. A year earlier I had met Saw Ting Win, an officer in the Karen National Liberation Army, through a friend. He had given me his card and I kept it in the back of my notebook. When I arrived in Mae Sot to begin work on this story it was with the intention of contacting him; in fact the whole project hinged on this one contact and I was hoping he would remember me from the year before. I was more than a little nervous, but I had come a long way and so despite my apprehension I walked to a pay phone near my room and made the call. I needn't have worried though, Ting Win was receptive to the idea of allowing me to enter Kawthoolei to take some photographs, promising to call me back in a couple of days. But weeks had passed since then with no word. I had made inquiries, and left messages but he was away somewhere. Time was running short and the fear of having to return home unsuccessful began to outweigh my fear of entering the war zone. As the days passed and my departure date crept closer I grew increasingly apprehensive. In the end though persistence paid off and I was able to get back in touch with Ting Win.
As it turned out the rebel leader was under intense pressure as the authorities were tightening the screws on the rebel movement. Historically the Karens have provided a convenient buffer between the hostile Burmese and Thai governments, and so the insurgency had come to depend on a certain measure of support from the Thais. Recent years have seen an increasingly friendly relationship between the Burmese and Thais, and as business develops between the two, the leverage of the Burmese increases, and the Karens become less important. The fact that there are tens of thousands of refugees along the border from several different ethnic groups has become increasingly embarrassing for the Regime in Burma as it attempts to clean up its image as a global citizen, and for the last couple of years there has been talk of repatriation. To the north of Mae Sot, police checkpoints had increased in number in order to restrict the movement and activity of illegal immigrants, and refugees.
A few days after getting back in touch with Ting Win I found myself in a small pickup truck with him and several of his men bound for a base camp in the jungle in Kawthoolei. As we drove he spoke passionately about the plight of the Karen people. "The UNHCR and the Thai authorities are talking about repatriating the refugees," he said, "we have to hurry to try to secure some safe area for them inside Burma before this happens."
He talked about how many Karens wanted to return to their land, where they had lived and farmed for generations, but couldn't. Burmese people had moved in and taken over in their absence, and built homes and villages and temples. He talked about the hopelessness of the situation, how years and years of struggle with no end in sight was taking its toll on the Karen people, how drug dealers were starting to get to the youth who languished in the camps with no jobs, and no opportunities.
On the trip along the border we passed through a number of police check points, where officers armed with assault rifles were searching every vehicle for the new drug of choice in Thailand; amphetamines. Manufactured locally and sold cheaply to laborers and refugees, a person could make more money in one day transporting easily concealed speed pills than in half a year driving a truck. Luck was with us and we passed through without being stopped.
