Dispatches from the delegation

Day Two Blog, Monday 21 July 2008
Chiang Mai, Thailand


Our day started a bit early with a briefing at 7:30 am. The inevitable question of the morning when we first meet is “So, how did you sleep last night?” Sometimes jet lag seems to hit as soon as you step foot off the plane. Other times you start out by sleeping well and then a few days into a trip you go to bed to find you seem to be awake more than asleep during the night. The next day it can be a serious challenge to not drag yourself through the day.

Generally members of a group seem to “take turns” with troubled sleep, which means that at least some are alert and energetic on any given day. The big challenge comes when the entire group has a night or two of bad sleep! It seems inevitable. It is too early in our journey for that to happen, but given that many of us have flown about 24 hours to get here the jet lag menace always seems to be lurking.

After two nights of incredible sleep (including the eleven plus hours on the plane to Bangkok), last night was not enough hours of sleep and waking up too often when I was in bed. It wasn’t a really bad jet lag attack, but it does make you jittery worrying that it is just the prelude to days of insomnia.

We all seemed to be in pretty decent shape when we began our morning, but by the time we got back to our hotel at 7:00 this evening, every one of us was looking more than a little drained. Anyone who’s been on a delegation like this one knows that days often are long and that’s to be expected. But for all of the delegation members today, it is fair to say that it wasn’t the number of hours in our day, but what we learned from the courageous and committed women we met with throughout the day.

After our briefing that covered both the situation in Burma and that of Burmese living in Thailand, we headed off to the Women’s Studies Department of Chiang Mai University, which was cosponsoring and hosting various activities for our delegation today. The Women’s Studies Department, along with a working group of women from Thailand and Burma, planned the events which not only gave us the opportunity for closed meetings with Thai women of ethnic minorities and women from Burma living here under precarious circumstances, but also afforded some representatives of those women the rare opportunity to participate in a four-hour-long seminar with our delegation before an audience of well over 700 people at the University’s auditorium. On our very first day of work, we were able to meet one of our goals of using our access to provide a forum for women who feel they are never heard to speak to a large audience and the media, if they chose.

Even as they seemed to feel it an undreamed of experience, for me it was yet another experience where I’ve emerged more motivated having been inspired by women who, under the most adverse circumstances, work for the recognition and acceptance of their human rights, not only to advance women, but also because they believe that when women’s rights are accepted and promoted, all of humanity benefits.

In our closed sessions of the morning we listened to ethnic women of Thailand talk about the disenfranchisement of their people, which in turn reinforced their own status as second class members of their communities. I was simply stunned to listen to their determination to be women politically active in their communities. Our next session was with about 20 women from Burma – every one of them spoke English, even those who’d not had the opportunity to complete even a high school education. These meetings were also preparation for the afternoon’s seminar…….

TO BE CONTINUED. Unfortunately, the day did not give me enough time to finish this blog. Nor can I tell you about the unbelievable students from Burma who are studying here to return to Burma and continue the struggle for democracy as well as share what they have learned here. Shortly we are on our way to the town of Mae Sot – about a five hour ride from here into the mountainous area on the Burmese border. Not surprisingly, there is no internet connection there, so I’ll get back to you at the end of the week when we’re back in Bangkok!

Check out Mia's blog as well!

After arriving from various parts of the globe in Bangkok, the delegation members met and set out for Chiang Mai – a short one-hour flight to this city north of Bangkok. Everyone’s energy and excitement for our trip is high and for me in particular it’s been great to meet up again with Mia Farrow, well-known actress-activist on peace for Darfur, as well as Dr. Sima Samar, head of the Independent Human Rights Council of Afghanistan as well as the U.N.’s Special Rapporteur on human rights in Sudan.

I met both Mia and Sima a little over a year ago in Abeche, Chad. Sima was a member of a UN High Level Mission on Darfur that I was leading, and totally coincidentally Mia, who I’d been talking with on the phone about the delegation, arrived in Abeche, Chad, at the same time our Mission was there – all of us were on our way to visit various Darfuri refugee camps from there.

So, here we are, together again, this time in Thailand, along with the other women who make up this delegation. But almost until the last minute, we were not sure that Sima would be able to join us. Because she had to face so many difficulties in getting a visa to enter Thailand, we were on the verge of despair and fairly convinced that we’d not see her here. It took intense work by the staff of the Nobel Women’s Initiative along with friends and colleagues at the UN and other places to finally secure the visa. What is among the most shocking things about how difficult it was for her is that Sima holds a diplomatic passport and a certificate from the U.N. But even with that, in addition to her Afghan passport, it was a struggle.

We’ve checked in to our hotel here in Chiang Mai and 15 minutes late, we met for dinner and of course, discussion about what we want to accomplish while we are here. Tomorrow, Monday, will be our first full day of work when we meet with women from Thailand and Burma throughout the morning and then participate in a seminar hosted by Chiang Mai University for our delegation.

I have high expectations for tomorrow. We are here not only to share our various experiences – in Darfur, in South Sudan, in Afghanistan, in China – but primarily to listen to the women we have come so far to meet. In addition to their stories, we want to hear their strategies for advancing women’s human rights in Burma, Thailand – indeed in the region.

Many of the women from Burma we will be with are highly organized and are very clear about their visions for sustainable peace in their country. We hope to come away with a better understanding of the impact of Cyclone Nargis on the overall political situation in the country as well as how much humanitarian aid has reached the approximately 2.5 million people affected by the cyclone.

As women activists, too often we invoke UN resolution 1325 – an important resolution that calls for the inclusion of women at all levels of peace making and peace building. But when we do call for implementation of 1325, we generally don’t give very clear and specific examples of what that inclusion would look like. If we cannot be clear, it is too easy to dismiss the urgency and importance of not just increased involvement of women in building sustainable peace – but that such involvement cannot be token participation but must be broad and deep and representative of the fact that women make up more than half the population of our planet and suffer disproportionately in armed conflict and its aftermath……..

I’m back from dinner now, thinking I’d have finished this blog entry beforehand. But we worked on what we hope to accomplish on this long trip and I thought I’d share it with you.

Members of the delegation had a spirited discussion and ended up agreeing with the following:

Given that the Nobel Women’s Initiative seeks:

* To spotlight the massive violations of women and women’s rights – which are nothing less than human rights – that occur daily and not only have an impact on women individually but also on their families, their communities, and often the entire fabric of a society;

* To spotlight the struggle for human rights which when recognized and accepted also reinforce efforts to bring about participatory governance in Burma and the Sudan (indeed throughout the world); and

* To call upon citizens around the world to take individual and collective action to build sustainable peace as well as to insist that the international community implement existing commitments for peace, justice and equality in Burma and Sudan;

We have come to the area of the Thai/Burma border and will continue on to South Sudan and Darfuri refugee camps in Chad,

* To build alliances with women and women’s organizations there by:

* Listening to their unique stories, perspectives and experiences;

* Learning from their work to build sustainable peace in their communities how they see the role of women in actively negotiating peace agreements in their countries and in rebuilding their communities and societies when the conflicts have ended;

* Conveying their messages to other women’s organizations where we live and work and through our collective networks as well as to the media and to governments at national, regional and international levels; and by

* Highlighting China’s influential role in these crises and their peaceful resolution. ###

So, that’s it for now from Chiang Mai, Thailand. More later…..

ps: In addition to posting here during this trip, Mia blogs regularly about humanitarian and advocacy information HERE.