Palau becomes refuge to politically displaced

The police came to Aye Aye Thant’s home late one night soon after the ruling Myanmar junta had declared her a dangerous political dissident.

The officer was a family friend who came with a discreet warning: Thant and her cousin, a Buddhist monk, would soon be thrown into prison.

So the pair fled their native land, paying $250 apiece, they say, to bribe immigration officials to let them slip out of the troubled military-ruled nation on a plane bound for Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Now Thant and her cousin are spending their days in Palau, a remote Pacific island known more as a tropical tourist haven than as a refuge for the world’s politically displaced castoffs.

Along with nine other Burmese, they are awaiting political asylum, hopefully in Australia. The 10 men and one woman arrived in February after first seeking a home in the Philippines.

“The Palauan people have treated us like human beings,” said Thant, a petite 34-year-old English teacher. “In our country, the government offers no such respect. But here we can say we’ve tasted human rights.”

This independent republic has recently opened its arms to two groups of foreign drifters -- one gesture causing little fanfare and the other making news worldwide.

Palauan President Johnson Toribiong early this month agreed to accept 13 Chinese Uighurs who had been detained for years as suspected terrorists at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The men are no longer considered enemy combatants and the Obama administration has sought to find them a new home -- part of its plan to shut down the prison next year.

Palau, a former U.S. territory 500 miles east of the Philippines, wants to be considered a valued U.S. ally, said Toribiong, in agreeing to take the men who are deemed political criminals by China and subject to arrest if sent back home.

Their welcome has been criticized by citizens of Palau including former President Tommy Remengesau Jr.

For her part, Thant is thankful to Palau.

Last year, Thant, while assisting survivors of Cyclone Nargis, was briefly jailed along with 30 other volunteers for illegally congregating. Thant’s cousin, Agga Nana, was vulnerable as well for having taken part in an anti-government uprising by monks in 2007.

Fleeing Myanmar, the pair traveled to Malaysia and then to the Philippines. Worried they might be deported from Manila, they heard from friends that Palau had visa-free entry.

Several of the other refugees had protested the Myanmar regime while working in Malaysia and were fearful of returning home.

One, an engineer, still has scars he said he received while being tortured in Mandalay’s notorious Ohbo prison, where guards rolled atop iron pipes that had been laid across his legs.

“The tales of our government’s oppression are as common as the tales in the ‘1,001 Arabian Nights,’ ” Thant said.

“They control the Internet and education and getting a job. They brainwash.”

Many of the refugees are lonely, spending hours watching the cars pass from a balcony of a cramped three-bedroom apartment. But it could be worse: The climate and cuisine here are like home in Myanmar.

“We go to the beach and people see us and know who we are,” Thant said. “Without us asking, they give us soft drinks and food and offer us fresh fish.

“We have left behind everything, our possessions and our families. But the people on this island have welcomed us here, even though we are strangers.”

The refugees were first taken in by a Catholic priest, but when his funds began to run short, President Toribiong stepped up.

“I talked to my brother and he just decided to take all of them,” the president said, referring to his younger brother, a Palauan senator.

Joel Toribiong said the asylum seekers were welcome to stay at his rural farmhouse until activists from the National League for Democracy, a Myanmar dissident group, arrive in August to help relocate them.

“I just felt sorry for them,” he said. “The priest is a friend of mine and I saw his empty wallet.”

Recently the group prepared for the move to the farm, their suitcases and sacks of rice stacked inside the sweltering apartment.

Thant was nervous about the long drive into the jungle.

“The house we’re going to is a lot like the one in the Tarzan movies,” she said. “There are lots of mosquitoes and crocodiles. It’s in the middle of the forest. They say there are no snakes there.”

She paused. “I’m going to be brave.”

--

john.glionna@latimes.com