Democratic Voice of Burma

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Migrants demonstrate against ‘broker agency’ in Mae Sot Posted: 11 Jun 2013 02:23 AM PDT Burmese migrants protested outside the office of a "broker agency" in Mae Sot on Monday after paying exorbitant rates for fraudulent documents that later led to their arrest. According to the protestors, in March a group of 45 Burmese migrants in Mae Sot paid 12,000 baht each to an agent known only as "Charlie", who took them to Chiang Mai to apply for temporary passports. Once in the northern Thai capital, the migrants were arrested for filing counterfeit paperwork. "The [agent] promised us the passports and took us to [Chiang Mai], with all the necessary paperwork," said one of the migrants joining the protest during an interview with DVB. "But when we got there, we were arrested by the police – they said, 'we don't want to see your faces again. You aren't here legally and the [paperwork] is fake'." Thirty-nine of the migrants were released after four days in detention and later returned to Mae Sot. On Monday, the group staged a protest in front of the agent's office calling for the release of the remaining six migrants who are still incarcerated. The migrants also demanded refunds if their temporary passports are not granted to them. "And now the [agent] said he will only give us back 8000 Baht each," said the migrant. According to the Charlie, he had no intention of coercing the group and claimed to have completed the procedure numerous times for migrants in Thailand. "I have sent four groups before and they didn't get arrested – just this group now," said the agent. Following the protest, the agent agreed promised to deliver their passports by 19 June. "Now we are going to sign an agreement [to wait until 19 June] and we will wait and see whether we'll get the passports or not," said the migrant interviewed by DVB. Due to mass corruption and bureaucratic failures on both sides of the border, migrants are often coerced and extorted by "agents" while trying to secure the necessary legal documents and find work in Thailand. Migrants in Thailand make up an estimated five percent of the county's workforce, and provide a vital source of labour for low-skilled industries. Up to three million people, or about 80 percent, are estimated to come from Burma, and are forced to live a quasi-legal existence that leaves them vulnerable to exploitation.

Burma grounds planes over safety concerns Posted: 11 Jun 2013 12:11 AM PDT Burma has grounded its Chinese-made MA60 planes for safety checks following two landing incidents involving the aircraft in the past month, a senior official said on Tuesday. An MA60 carrying about 60 passengers skidded off a runway at a domestic airport in southern Burma on Monday but nobody was injured. In mid-May, an MA60 overshot the end of a runway at an airport in eastern Shan State, injuring two people. “I think the accidents happened because of system failure. We will check all the systems. That’s why we stopped the operation of the planes,” Tin Naing Tun, director general of the Civil Aviation Department, told AFP. “The systems also showed warnings before,” he added. He said state-owned Myanma Airways operated three turbo-prop MA60 planes. The same type of aircraft crash-landed at an airport in eastern Indonesia on Monday, leaving two people with minor injuries. In May 2011, an MA-60 operated by Indonesia’s Merpati Nusantara crashed in West Papua province, killing 25 people. Following that accident, Indonesian authorities banned the plane – manufactured by Xi’an Aircraft Industrial Corp. – from landing at three airports with difficult approaches.

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