Human zoo
Neck-ringing refugees

PHOTO: MARCUS ROSE

A new and disturbing tourist attraction has appeared on the troubled border between Burma and Thailand. Ma Nang has been winding brass rings onto the necks of young Padaung women for 34 years. Mostly she has worked in Burma, but for the last five years she has lived in one of two 'tourist villages' in Mae Hong Son province, Thailand.

There are many refugee camps along the Thai-Burmese border. Since 1962 an estimated 1.5 million people have fled the oppression of Burma's military dictatorship. The Thai Government has been a reluctant host to many of them.

But the Padaung were actively encouraged to cross the border. The Thais benefit from the extra income generated by the influx of tourists to the region. At the 'tourist villages' there is an entrance fee. The Padaung women receive some of the revenue but most is taken by Karens, of whom the Padaung are a sub-group. The money helps pay for the struggle against the Burmese Government.

Traditionally the Padaung women wear brass neck-rings which give the appearance of elongating the wearer's neck (in fact they depress the collarbone). The neck-rings can be removed, but the weakened neck muscles are unable to support the weight of the head - to do so without help would result in the windpipe being crushed.

Inside Burma the tradition has been dying. Women would even cross into Thailand to have the rings removed in hospital, where they would need to wait months for their necks to recover. Now, due to the 'tourist villages', the practice has been given an extended lease of life.

Ma Nang explained a significant change in the application of the rings since her arrival in Thailand. In Burma a girl child wears her first rings, weighing one kilo, at the age of five. Two more rings are added at 10 and 15 and another two before the age of 20, to make a total of five.

This process takes too long to sustain the main attraction to the 'tourist villages'. So the process has been speeded up - the first ring worn at the age of five, the second at eight, the third at 13 and the final two by the time the girl is 15.

Inside the camps the women sit at the front of their wooden huts making bracelets, woven bags and dolls to sell to tourists, stopping to pose for the cameras. When asked about the tedium of her life Ma Nang says: 'What do you do? I'm sure your work too must be boring sometimes. This is just the same - a job to earn money.'

Even so, other Padaung women have opted to live in the harsher conditions of the regular Karen refugee camps rather than submit to this practice.

Marcus Rose

Death direct
A company that sells cigarettes and 'shag' rolling tobacco under the - at least - honest brand name of 'Death' has found a European Union loophole that enables it to circumvent tax duties imposed by the British Government. Captain Black Ltd promises to deliver Death to British consumers at half cost by supplying the tobacco from Luxembourg at duty-free European prices. It may be difficult for a government that derives large tax revenues from duties on tobacco and refuses to restrict cigarette advertising targeted at children, to take a high moral stance on this one.

Captain Black Ltd press release

KCNA / CAMERA PRESS

Bargain embalming
When Russian morticians were selected for the task of preserving the mortal remains of North Korea's Great Leader Kim II Sung, international soothsayers carefully studied the geopolitical entrails to try and find out what this might mean. Why turn to Moscow for expertise and not to Beijing or Hanoi?

All three capitals have a reputation for state-of-the-art embalming with an impressive backlist of modern mummies including Lenin, Stalin, 'Uncle' Ho Chi Minh and Mao Zedong. But the main clue may lie in the price tag. At $300,000 the Russians came in with a low-ball bid.

World Press Review Vol 41, no 12

The sneakier sex?
'Do women make better spies than men?' asks New Delhi's Times of India. They certainly seem to be on the increase. Britain, for example, now has more female than male agents in its security service, MI5, which is headed by a woman, Stella Rimington. During perestroika Katya Mayorava held a highly visible position in the KGB. And in the US female agents have recently been challenging institutional sexual discrimination within the CIA.

World Press Review Vol 41, no 12.

CAMERA PRESS

 

The fall of poets
Poets used to be as popular as rock stars in Russia. Fans used to fill sports arenas to attend emotional poetry recitals by bards such as Yevgeny Yevtushenko. Others - who struggled with the censors - commanded underground audiences. Not now. Ironically, poetry has come under a kind of capitalist repression from publishers who don't want to bother with it, according to Moscow's liberal Izvestia. Konstantin Kedrov writes: 'If Yevtushenko has to run around the bookstores to distribute his books, then what hope is there for anyone else?'

Steven Shabad,
World Press Review Vol 41, no 12.

 

All for a strawberry yoghurt
A German study has found that to produce a 150-gram pot of yoghurt and get it to a distribution outlet in south Germany, ingredients were transported from Poland, from the Netherlands, and from north, west and east Germany. The manufacturer of the aluminium cover for the jar, for example, was 300 kilometres away. Not surprisingly, the truck emerged as the main polluter. Driving one truckload of 150-gram strawberry yoghurts to a distribution outlet in southern Germany would result in more than 10,000 litres of diesel being burned, emitting nitrogen oxides, sulphur dioxide and other toxic contaminants into the air.

Safe Alliance Newsletter
38 Ebury Street, London SW1W OLU, England

 

NATIVE PEOPLES

Framed
Suspect case against jailed activist

PHOTO: ALAN HUGHES

The two-decade-long fight by Native American Indian activist Leonard Peltier to clear his name may be about to enter a new phase. Peltier, a feisty 50-year-old Lakota-Chippewa, is serving two consecutive life sentences (50 years) in Leavenworth Prison, Kansas for the alleged murder in 1975 of two FBI agents in the United States.

Soon after the shootings Peltier fled to Canada and immediately sought political asylum. Washington asked for a quick extradition and it wasn't long before Peltier was back in a US courtroom. Now, after years of pressure from human-rights campaigners, the Canadian Government has finally agreed to review its decision to extradite.

Was Peltier framed? It seems likely. When it became clear that there was insufficient evidence to charge him and thus no basis for his extradition, the FBI set about concocting it.

The case was based on two affidavits sworn by Myrtle Poor Bear, an Indian woman with a history of mental illness. She signed conflicting affidavits saying she saw Peltier shoot two FBI agents on the Pine Ridge reservation. The affidavits were obtained only after the Canadian prosecutor told the FBI there was insufficient evidence to extradite Peltier. Poor Bear recanted her testimony and the US prosecutors subsequently admitted it was unreliable. According to Peltier supporters all the remaining evidence is circumstantial, simply proving he was in the region where the crime was committed.

There is also reason to believe the FBI and the US Justice Department knew they were presenting false evidence to the Canadian court. In 1978 the US Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals said the submission of evidence was 'to say the least a clear abuse of the investigative process of the FBI'.

Peltier supporters are hoping the recent Canadian decision to allow the Parliamentary Justice Committee to review the case will finally force the US Government to face up to FBI 'dirty tricks' and at last release one of America's most celebrated political prisoners.

Alan Hughes

For more information contact:
The Leonard Peltier Defense Committee,
43 Chandler Drive, Scarborough, Ontario, Canada M1G 1Z1.

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