NO FARM NO LAND NO FUTURE

ETHNocide BY MISSIONARIES Non-Fiction Beautiful Written by: Naughty HumanMy interest for writing this article has very little to do with South East Asia and is mostly focused on preservation of natural resources, culture, and language. At very young age, I became fascinated with tribal community and life style. In my childhood I remember scavenging the Mojave Desert floor in search of arrowhead artifacts. When I would pick up an arrowhead off the desert floor, I would spit on the old chipped stone softening the dried dust and dirt that had gathered up in the tiny creases of an ancient hunting tool, wiping away the miscellaneous debris to see the arrow tip in the sun. Finding arrowheads had a strong impact on me, raising questions like, “Who crafted the tips of these arrows, and how did they make such a sharp edge without modern tools?” I would think to myself while holding the freshly found ground score up to the sunlight. “I wonder what happened to these people and where did they go?” At home when I would browse my collection of arrowheads I would try to imagine what language was spoken when this arrowhead was chipped, or what they called it, and how did these people survived in the harsh elements of a high desert terrain? How did our ancestors live a life without supermarkets, automobiles, or modern weapons? The Akha are Indigenous Mountain Peoples that live in tribal communities through out the hills of Northern Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, and China (Yunan). The Akha are about 500,000 strong in population. The Akha speak a Tibeto-Burmese language rich in oral tradition. It is believed that the Akha migrated some 2,000 years ago from Mongolia and Tibet forced to relocate in the hills of South East Asia to escape the oppressive force of a majority group. The Akha men can quote their geneology over 60 generations all the way back to Tibet. The Akha are amazing farmers that once practiced swidden farming. Swidden… when the tribe slowly moves around in a cycle, farming one section of land and moving to the next section of land every 10 to 15 years. The Akha have practiced this kind of farming technique in order to keep the jungle reforested. This type of agriculture will ensure a community forest for their future generations. A very large amount of Thailand has been logged with very little mature forest left. This makes swidden farming very difficult, yet makes cash crop agriculture and human zoo tourism very beneficial for the Thai majority groups. Human Zoo is an expression I picked up while living with the Akha in Thailand. The human zoo is a phrase for a tourist attraction that exploits indigenous people. Many foreigners can come to South East Asia to observe the rare life style of hill tribes. You can walk down almost any street in Chiang Rai or Chaing Mai and you’ll see advertisements for trekking guides or tours. A trek is essentially a hike through the jungle to a village where food and shelter are provided at a price of about $40 USD a day. Often times this money is pocketed and the hill tribe people will never see it. I know that the present director of A.F.E.C.T (Association for Akha Education and Culture in Thailand) is having a very hard time giving any money back to his own people that live in villages. A big part of the tourist industry is based on the fact that people from all over the world want to photograph the beautiful jungle people wearing their colorful garments. Often times these photographs are copyrighted and the image are to be sold for profit as postcards to other tourist. You will see these postcards all over the world. The tour guides pay the villagers off so they will be more enthused about being photographed often giving villagers methamphetamines in small orange pill form. Where ever coke a cola goes the trekking goes. The Akha also have to deal with TOUR-ON’S. A touron is a word I made up when I visited a hill tribe stuck in a human zoo life style. A touron is a mixture of two words: tourist and moron. I came up with this word after, witnessing a British Photo- journalist slap a young Akha boy in the face in order to make him cry. An emotional hate for capital swelled up inside of me, never seeing such an arrogance approach for profit. Many missionary groups use these photos of dirty crying naked children as a media tool to inspire others to make donations. In my line of work, the Media Business we call this advertising tactic “Guilt by association”. Almost everyone in the whole world wants to do a good deed for a less fortunate soul, because you feel good knowing that you made a positive impact on someone’s life. We live in a world where Genocide and ethnic cleansing have and are accruing on a regular basis by do-gooder missionary groups that get millions of dollars to build boarding schools, and orphanages to re- educate and baptize indigenous children. This type of activity has been going on for along time, and in the grand scheme of global order I must conceder this organizing of culture and race a crime against humanity. Does anyone out there remember when the missionaries came to sugar coat the imperialistic mass murder of Native Americans? If the missionaries can infect the minds of one generation there is a strong chance that the traditional way of life will be lost.Take a look at what’s going on in the Congo so that civilization can have cell-phones and computers. We live in a world where human survival is based on the success of our technological advances instead perfecting harmony with our environment. We live in a world where blood is worth less than oil, and where you can jump on an airplane, get a Thai massage with benefits from an open ended and underpaid massage therapist whom probably was led away from his/her village by a PIMP. Many Akha are working in “Happy Massage” parlors.In Thailand 80 percent of the Akha have been converted with only about 30 traditional Akha villages left. Unfortunately for the children the money that is donated for their boarding schools and orphanages is usually spent on Privet secluded compounds that hold big houses, new SUV’s, and Harley Davidson Motorcycles. This is the imagery I experienced when I went to visit the Eden House orphanage out side of Chiang Rai, a couple nice pimped out Bling Bling houses and plenty of big boy cherry rides. There was an orphanage filled with young Akha girls I wonder where the boys were? I cannot prove this but I do believe my gut instinct. After briefly talking with an Akha girl at the Eden House orphanage I cant help but think that VERN the ring leader of the Eden House has some lewd habits he needs to control while caring for young Akha girls. You’re a sick puppy VERN.Vern and his wife in this video Say We remove children from their villages and that their vision is to make the kids grow fruits for exportation across the world so Vern can get Rich..In the village of Seang Charoen South, west of Chiang Rai city, I was invited to a healing ceremony for an elder in the tribe. The tribe acquired a pig to sacrifice as an offering of good health. A large gathering of friends and family showed up to participate in the ceremony, in which the family member would tie a white cotton threads around the elder’s hand before the ceremonial feast. I had spent a lot of time with the Akha by now, and I pick up on a technique for curing meat before the food is served. When I ate the Lizard, we built a fire and then put the whole dragon inside the fire holding the reptile by its tail. This was done in order to burn the scales and skin off, curing the meat of it impurities. Scraping the burnt remains off with a stick, allowing for the meat to cool down, before they began chopping the meat with butcher knifes on round wooden boards. I am sure that many western minded churchgoers have walked off the airplane and straight into the jungle, gung ho to spread the good word. With culture shock in effect, I can see how easy a devoted western missionary could perceive food preparation as a satanic blood orgy of wickedness; that’s not the case now is it. Missionary groups are Big Business in third world countries. Lets look the group called CGT, (Children of the Golden Triangle) I received a tip from a former volunteer that children where missing from the CGT Orphanage near Mae Suai in Thailand. If you look at a map just a little North West of Mae Suai is an Akha village of Saeng Charoen. I spent some night here doing undercover intelligence work on David Stevenson and his Akha Wife from the bushes at the CGT orphanage. I was told by some neighborhood Katz, “That in the past few weeks two children went missing.” What I saw spying from the bushes at CGT was quit interesting. The kids are forced to get up early in the morning to work in the field. I think they make them get up early so, that this way no one can see that the kids are being worked like slaves. They did not look while feed and there are about 500 kids sleeping on the floor in a filthy room. (Only if my camera hadn’t been stolen previously during this investigation)As the hill tribes move out of the traditional forest home and into the modern environment they will also have to face influences of a modern world threatening their unique culture. Due to the limitations of land caused by deforestation, industrialism, and urbanization. The hill tribes are forced to relocate their villages or the village will be forced to work in a mono-crop tourist system. The Akha have to find ways to integrate themselves into a modern society but it comes at a very high price: losing the knowledge of traditional life.The Akha Dress in hand made cotton clothes with vibrant colorful geometric hand stitched designs and often times the garments will have beautiful silver pieces sewn onto the back and front of the vests, headdresses, and handbags. These silver pieces are prized because they will last much longer then any old paper note, at the same time make a charming sound while walking or dancing to music. The Akha are very kin to the silver coins that come from India because of the quality of silver.It’s this beautiful color that brings tourists to hillsides where many Akha communities like in Doi Chaang, grow coffee and tea. The Akha are told to wear their colorful regalia to the fields to encourage tourism in the Chiang Rai province of Northern Thailand. Each village has a different situation from the next village depending on regional location this including oral dialects. As an example, the HoNa Akha living in Muang Sing, located in the Luang Namtha province of Laos get far less benefits growing sugar cane and Agar rubber in comparison to the Doi Chaang villages in Northern Thailand growing coffee and tea. HoNa Akha in Laos are paid very little Kip. (Kip, is the Laotian Note) The Chinese employ the HoNa Akha to grow and harvest the sugar cane, and then trucks ship the sugar cane across the Chinese border to a refinery. The refined sugar is sold back to the Laotian people. The HoNa Akha village are paid in a group as opposed to individually.The Luang Namtha province in Laos has the largest population of hill tribe peoples in South East Asia. The Luang Namtha province is located in the North Western part of Laos in between Myanmar and China. Laos has planted rubber trees on about 28,700 hectares of land nation wide. Agar is known as the Para rubber tree ( Hevea brasiliensis), often simply called rubber tree. Agar comes from the Malay word agar-agar (meaning jelly). Chemically, agar is a polymer made up of subunits of the sugar galactose. The Agar tree produces essential oils used in perfumes, incense, and some medicines. Agar wood is a rare plant hardly found in nature and has gained in popularity in the last five years. Many religious groups prize the incense in meditation, as it helps calm the mind and spirit. In Japan, Agar is used to anoint the dead and in Buddhism, also used it as a major ingredient in incense. Japanese investors pay about $5,000 US per Kilogram of bark. 10,000 of these hectares are planted in the Luang Namhta province. One hectare is 2.471 043 9 acres. The estimated yield is about 6,000 tons per year if the plantation covers 4,900 hectares. The yield is exported to the ASEAN market (The Association of Southeast Asian Nations). In May 2007 the Quang Minh Rubber Joint Stock Company plans on spreading plantations throughout the Attapu province and Xia Kong Province in southern Laos. The Vietnamese rubber project has invested 15 million dollars, which is about 144.4 billion Kip. It will provide about 1,000 jobs in the next 50 years, and has already employed 400 families. The Science Technology Environment Agency (S.T.E.A.), has been experimenting with an Anti Fungal Vaccination for the trees, and getting successful results. Dr. Sourioudong Sundara who works for S.T.E.A. say’s " The trees are producing 10 times more essential oils and is raising the value of the tree." S.T.E.A is campaigning the use fungal vaccination in order to keep the Agar yield high in the rubber tree. The National Academy of Sciences and royal society leading scientific bodies of the US and Britain said in their joint report of July 2000: Modern Agriculture is intrinsically destructive to the environment. It is particularly destructive to biological diversity. The wide spread application of conventional agricultural technologies, such as herbicides, pesticides, fertilizers, and tillage has resulted in sever environmental damage in many parts of the world. So, the most effective way to feed the majority of the world’s poor is to ensure that small farmers have good access to thriving local markets. (Disinformation Company, “The Little Earth Book” James Bruges 2004)Two years ago Muang Sing, Laos was once a beautiful jungle but now due to sugar and rubber tree plantation, Muang Sing has become a dry desert. There are many Akha people caught in the status quo of spraying herbicides and pesticides on the cash crops, leaving their hands and feet in a state of deformation after long exposure to the toxic chemicals. The exposure has killed off their small gardens as well. The Hooh Yoh Akha in Thailand are currently in the confused state over a land dispute. The Queen of Thailand has a Royal project running the land of the Hooh Yoh Akha. The royal projects I visited are all in the department of Agriculture. 20 years ago, the village that once resided on the hilltop of Doi Chaang was forcibly removed from the premises and relocated, The Thai government is growing Pine Tree Farms on the land. The hill tribes living on Doi Tung and around Doi Mae Salong have shared this apparently popular situation. Now the Hooh Yoh Akha are bearing this weight. The community forest was rapidly extracted to nurture the pine trees farms that destroy the soil because of the high content of acids in the needles of the pine leafs. If you observe any mono crop you will notice that there is a shortage of wildlife in the fields, and that there will be a no other types of vegetation. If you live in a semi permanent hunter gather society like many of the traditional Akha, you depend upon the community forest to feed your family not the Super Market. During my time living in the Akha villages of Samakhi (near Mae Fan Lang, out side of Chiang Rai.) I was asked to join the man in a hunt through the community forest. I was told that by oral text that the Akha believe if there is no community forest then there is no Akha life. Traditional Akha go to the forest as an alternative of going to the store. Traditional Akha only bring the necessities with them into the forest, spices and rice wrapped up in banana leaves instead of plastic packaging. The Akha are very good at making traps to catch wild game and have a great aim with their slingshots or crossbow. In fact the akha actually pride themselves that they don’t participate in the mass production of meats. The community forest inhabits wild birds, lizards, snakes, bamboo rats, honey, medicinal plants, and many other different types of vegetation we could eat. In the forest we gathered mushroom called grandmothers ears, and ate wild forest mango. The Akha men taught me how to make chopsticks, cups, and bowls out of bamboo, and at night we made small shelters out of giant banana leaves. In the morning we threw every thing in the fire, walking away from the camp leaving no trace behind that we were once there. The hill tribes have a reputation for growing opium in the regional area of the Golden Triangle. The Golden Triangle is where Laos, Thailand, and Myanmar all come together, divided by the Mekong River. There are two museums dedicated to the colorful hill tribe people that grow the poppy flower and harvest the opium sap. Traditionally the Akha never grew opium. It’s believed that Alexander the Great introduced the poppy seed to the Chinese around 356-323 B.C. to monopolize the opium trade. Great Britain gained a large profit from the opium caravan. It is still unknown who discovered opium; however, it’s known that opium originated in the Mediterranean. Greece, Rome, Persia, and Egypt all called the plant opium (meaning fruit juice), and then learned to use it medicinally as a narcotic. There are many Greek epics like Iliad, Helen of Troy, and Hippocrates. Hippocrates wrote the Hippocratic oath, which Western doctors profess, before becoming a medical practitioner. During the 19th century and the 20th centuries the hill tribes brought the opium with them to the hills of South East Asia during their migration. Around the time of the Vietnam War hill tribes like the Akha, Hmong, Yao, and Keran started growing opium as a cash crop for the pharmaceutical companies. Even though, Akha don’t have a traditional oral text about opium, the museum in Chiang Sean suggests that they do. Inside the museum you can read the Akha opium story hanging on the wall next to all the Akha portraits. This is upsetting to me because tourist will walk away from the museum misinformed. I’m sure the Akha opium story came about the same time as the opium trade but it’s certain that the story didn’t come from old school tradition. AKHA STORY OF OPIUM A long time ago lived a very beautiful young girl. She smelled wonderful like a precious flower and she had many suitors come to her, like wild bees drawn to the sweet pollen of a flower. Many men tried to take her hand in marriage. The young girl was only interested in 7 men. She was impressed with all 7 men and didn’t want to choose one over the other, because she was afraid that she might hurt one of the men by making one jealous or sad. So she decided to give her love to all 7 men. She knew that the love of seven men would surely bring her death. She decided that sacrificing herself. She told her family and the 7 men that she would give her life and love to all the men, instead on marrying one over the other. She told them that when she could no longer take all the love she would ask for death and reincarnate as a flower. She told the 7 men and her family that the flower would come out of her heart from her grave. She said that her love was so strong that the flower would bleed white milk. She told the men and her family that any one who tasted the nectar of her love would bear the strength of both good and evil, but will always desire the taste of the nectar that bleeds from her heart. 1. Names of Missions Is this mission a foursquare, evangelist, supporting org, internationally networking, running clinics, boarding schools, a branch, or a religious sect? Does the ORG have an affiliations or single operations? Do they even consider themselves to be mission organizations? 2. Funding Sources Is the ORG Funded by Donors, NGO's or Government? What is their Annual amount, growth, projection? Would donors give money if their where no residents? 3. What do you use the funds for? Facilities, purpose, goals, projects, locations, plans What are the total gross assets of all facilities, and Total annual budget? 4. Staff Number of staff, educational and guardian dynamic, positions, duties, motivation, and pay. 5. Converts How many adults to children, refugees or ethnic minorities convert comparisons to Thais? Geographical areas, does staff get paid on a convert ion rate? 6. Residents How do residents maintain contact with their families? Is traditional culture and religious beliefs honored by ORG? 7. Policies Do they do criminal background or educational checks on staff before employment? 8. Problems Does the Org leave free people strong enough to stand on their own feet?