06/01/2004

This man was the Village Council leader in his village in Chin state. In November 1993, members of the Chin National Army came to him and asked him to collect money for their cause from the villagers. Fearing the ethnic army, he did as he was asked. The SPDC found out that he had helped the Chin army, and in December 1993, three SPDC soldiers came to his house and hit him with a rifle butt many times on the back of his head, jaw and ear. He lost consciousness after half an hour, when he came to his senses, he was told that the SPDC was going to charge him in court for treason. Soon after that he fled to Mizoram with his wife and daughter.

Since the time of the evictions, he has been moving from town to town to avoid detection by the YMA, and has ended up in Simhui. Since 2003 summer, whenever he has tried to rent a room for his family, the landlords have refused to permit him to stay in the room, as all landlords in the area have been warned by the YMA not to rent property to Burmese. According to this man, "...in our situation we cannot go back and we cannot stay here as nobody will let us rent a house, we are in a very desperate situation, we need a savior."