Burma’s military regime is loosening its grip after more than 40 years of repression. Political prisoners are getting released, sanctions have been lifted and the regime opens towards tourism and foreign media. But as the country reforms, there are still numerous internal conflicts going on. Through Burma’s transformation, there were in fact even numerous new problems created. My project is a collection of the places where things still go fatally wrong. In the last four years, I visited the old conflicts – the places where there is fighting and dying for many decades. On the other side I’m looking on the new issues and problems that the country is facing. My first trip took place beginning of 2012. I visited the troubled boarder region of Thailand and Burma. Since 1948 the Burmese military is depressing the ethnic minority of the Karen people. Hundreds of thousands are living in refugee camps along the Thai side of the boarder. My second trip took place in February 2013. I went to Kachin State in the far north of the country. I visited the unofficial capital of the Kachin people, Laiza. In this region, there is still active fighting going on between the Burmese Army and the KIA, the Kachin Independence Army. So far, thousands have been killed in recent years. The third trip took me to the west of the country, where with the change of government a religious conflict flared up. In June 2012 violence broke out in Burma’s second poorest province – Rakhine State. In the regional capital Sittwe, buddhist Rhakines clashed with moslem Rohingyas. The riots lasted for over a week, resulting in hundreds of casualties and thousands displaced. At my forth and most recent trip, I investigated on the issue of Opium/Heroin production and the wide spread usage of these drugs. Burma is the worlds second biggest producer of Heroin for the global market. The usage of Heroine is a enormous problem under burmese youth, especially in the war torn regions in the north.
Shan State / Burma / Flowering poppy-fields in southern Shan State. This area is Burma’s biggest opium production area. The village that belongs to this field is cultivating 100 percent poppy. 09.02.2015 © Julius Schrank / Agentur Focus
Shan State / Burma / Flowering poppy-fields in southern Shan State. This area is Burma’s biggest opium production area. The village that belongs to this field is cultivating 100 percent poppy. 09.02.2015 © Julius Schrank / Agentur Focus
Sittwe / Rakhine State / Burma / Asia / Teenage moslems playing soccer in Sittwe’s urban quarter of “ Aung Mingalar “. This Rohingya-area is completely shut of by the military and can be considered as a slum, that nobody can exit and only few are allowed to visit. Since June 2012 Rakhine State is shook by ethnic clashes between muslim Rohingyas and buddhist Rakhines. Since the first attacks violence spread all over the country and resulted in around 650 dead Rohingyas, over 7000 burned down houses and more than 100 000 displaced. 21.08.2013 © Julius Schrank / Agentur Focus
Mytkyina / Kachin State / Burma / A young guy is shooting up Heroine in a suburb of Kachin states capital, Myitkyina. Heroine usage is a enormous problem under the Kachin youth. 15.02.2015 © Julius Schrank / Agentur Focus
Rakhine State / Burma / Asia / Portret of a moslim Rohingya-woman in a refugee camp near Sittwe. Since June 2012 Rakhine State is shook by ethnic clashes between muslim Rohingyas and buddhist Rakhines. Since June 2012 Rakhine State is shook by ethnic clashes between muslim Rohingyas and buddhist Rakhines. Since the first attacks violance spread all over the country and resulted in around 650 dead Rohingyas, over 7000 burned down houses and more than 100 000 displaced. 18.08.2013 © Julius Schrank / Agentur Focus
Rakhine State / Burma / Asia / Moslem man praying in a makeshift mosque in a IDP (Internally displaced person) refugee camp near Sittwe. Since June 2012 Rakhine State is shook by ethnic clashes between muslim Rohingyas and buddhist Rakhines. Since the first attacks violance spread all over the country and resulted in around 650 dead Rohingyas, over 7000 burned down houses and more than 100 000 displaced. 18.08.2013 © Julius Schrank / Agentur Focus
Meiktila / Mandalay Region / Burma / Asia / Burned school material is seen lying in the ashes of a destroyed school in the central city of Meiktila. In march 2013 a massacre on muslim students took place at this school. It resulted in 32 deaths, including 28 teenage students. Since June 2012 Rakhine State is shook by ethnic clashes between muslim Rohingyas and buddhist Rakhines. Since the first attacks violance spread all over the country and resulted in around 650 dead Rohingyas, over 7000 burned down houses and more than 100 000 displaced. 24.08.2013 © Julius Schrank / Agentur Focus
Laiza / Kachin State / Burma / Asia / Kachin Independence Army fighters are drinking and celebrating at a funeral of one of their commanders who died that day before. The city of Laiza is under siege by the Burmese army. The Kachin-conflict originally started in 1961, but there was a ceasefire agreement in place since 1994. After the resignation of the military-junta, the 17 years lasting ceasefire broke down in 2011. New fighting had erupted and is going on until today. 15.03.2013 © Julius Schrank / Agentur Focus
Kachin State / Burma / Asia / A group of children is seen struggling for a plate of rice at a IDP (Internally displaced person) camp close to the chinese boarder. The kids walked up from northern Shawn state, where also fighting is taking place. With a group of around 100 kinds they followed their school-teacher to KIA controlled area and ended up in this camp. They life fully self-supportive under almost no supervision of adults. The Kachin-conflict originally started in 1961, but there was a ceasefire agreement in place since 1994. After the resignation of the military-junta, the 17 years lasting ceasefire broke down in 2011. New fighting had erupted and is going on until today. 18.03.2013 © Julius Schrank / Agentur Focus
Laiza / Kachin State / Burma / Asia / A young IDP (Internally displaced person) boy with a undiagnosed skin disease in the primitive hospital of Laiza. The Kachin-conflict originally started in 1961, but there was a ceasefire agreement in place since 1994. After the resignation of the military-junta, the 17 years lasting ceasefire broke down in 2011. New fighting had erupted and is going on until today. 13.03.2013 © Julius Schrank / Agentur Focus
Karen State / Burma / Asia / A soldier of the KNLA (Karen national liberation Army) guerrilla unit patrols in Burmas Karen state. For more than 60 years, they resist against the Burmese military forces. It is the longest ongoing civil war in the world. 12.03.2012
Laiza / Kachin State / Burma / Asia / A young girl with her violin at a school next to a IDP camp (Internally displaced person) in Laiza. Some of the IDP-kids get the chance to join the regular school program. Learning to play an instrument is part of the regular scedule. The Kachin-conflict originally started in 1961, but there was a ceasefire agreement in place since 1994. After the resignation of the military-junta, the 17 years lasting ceasefire broke down in 2011. New fighting had erupted and is going on until today. 11.03.2013 © Julius Schrank / Agentur Focus
Rakhine State / Burma / Asia / A woman with her baby walks through the rain in a Rakhine refugee-camp. There is also a small number of buddhist Rakhines that lost there homes during the religious clashes. Those camps are government supported and in a much better shape than the improvised moslem-camps. Since June 2012 Rakhine State is shook by ethnic clashes between muslim Rohingyas and buddhist Rakhines. Since the first attacks violence spread all over the country and resulted in around 650 dead Rohingyas, over 7000 burned down houses and more than 100 000 displaced. 19.08.2013 © Julius Schrank / Agentur Focus
Mae Sot / Thailand / Asia / At the local landfill in Mae Sot. Around 60 familys live and work on the dump site. Most of them are illegal karen refugees from burma. As they don’t hold any passport and are not recognised as official refugees, they are threatened of getting arrested or deported back to Burma. 05.03.2012
Karen State / Burma / Asia / At a christian mass in Burmas Karen state. Most of the Karen are christians. 11.03.2012
Meiktila / Mandalay Region / Burma / Asia / At a burned and bulldozed Moslem-quarter in Meiktila. In March 2013 a mob of the radical buddhist 969-movement was looting and burning down hundreds of moslem houses. The city of Meiktila is more or less ethnically cleaned from moslems. Since June 2012 Rakhine State is shook by ethnic clashes between muslim Rohingyas and buddhist Rakhines. Since the first attacks violance spread all over the country and resulted in around 650 dead Rohingyas, over 7000 burned down houses and more than 100 000 displaced. 23.08.2013 © Julius Schrank / Agentur Focus
Bio
Julius Schrank is a German photojournalist, currently based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. In 2007 he studied photojournalism and documentary photography at the Hannover University of Applied Sciences in Germany. Julius has mainly worked for the Dutch daily newspaper De Volkskrant. When he’s not working on assignments for the paper, Schrank spends a lot of time on his free longterm projects. Since 2011 he intensely traveled in southeast Asia and worked on story’s in Indonesia, Thailand, Laos, The Philippines, Cambodia and Burma. Beginning of 2012 he started the project “New Burma’s Shadows”, for which he recently finished his 5th trip and that was awarded with a first price in the category Daily Life – Singles in the 2014 World Press Award. Schrank is a regular contributor to magazines like National Geographic, Geo, Der Spiegel and others.
Related links
Julius Schrank
Attracted to some of the more striking and powerful photographs in this portfolio, I was compelled immediately to look at the photographer’s website: an experience that rewards the viewer with highly focused stories on Kachin State, Karen State, and Religious Conflict — these document what Julius Schrank calls “New Burma’s Shadows”. Excellent photojournalism. One question though: I wonder if Julius Schrank agonized whether to present this portfolio as it is or to base it on a selection from only one of the stories?
My own experience in Burma is limited to a three-day visit in early 2014 to the Shan State: in a small tour bus with a dozen people on a Thai company tour; their main interest was in visiting Buddhist temples and shopping. We visited Tachilek, Mongla and Kentong. Two things struck me.
First, Burma seemed to be the sort of place in which it was difficult to find out what was going on and what was true. For example, I wanted to know whether schools in the Shan state taught in Burmese or in the local Shan language. The Shans speak a northern Thai language. In Kentong, where they have access to Thai TV, most usually can understand standard Thai. That meant I could communicate in Thai. But when I asked what language was taught in the schools I got different answers: some people said Shan, others said Burmese — I found it hard to believe that state schools would not teach in Burmese, the national language. On the other hand, could it be that there are only private schools or temple schools, and that these teach in Shan?
Second, while Tachilek has casinos and border trade with Thailand and Mongla (on the Chinese border) is studded with casinos, night clubs and shops selling luxury-brand products to Chinese tourists, it is difficult to see the economic basis for Kentong, the largest city in the Shan State. Kentong looks relarively prosperous and has a huge number of Buddhist temples. Yet it is located in in a countryside of subsistence agriculture. That would make it seem that its economy has been based largely on the narcotics economy. This would make it seem that displacing drug production and trade is likely to be difficult and take a long time.
–Mitch/Chiang Mai
Only one comment so far? What a pity…
I think this is an excellent essay in every way. The photography ranges from good to great, it is on message, and each frame tells an eloquent story, all different but all related not only by subject but by mood, approach, aesthetic, etc.
Where are all the old commenters hanging out these days? At least Mitch came through.
Good luck to you Julius. Good work.
You are right, Sidney. I miss the great Burn dialogues of old. My excuse this time is I am traveling in a situation in which I have no net service, but once or twice a day I drop into the lobby of a hotel casino and borrow their wireless and log in by phone for a short time. Phone is not a good medium to view and critique a Burn essay on, so I will just second your observations.
I am back from my trip and am able to look at this on my 27 inch iMac, not just on my iPhone. Truly excellent essay – difficult and risky to have shot; informative, contemplative and thought-provoking – an essay worthy of good, old-fashioned, Burn commentary.
You said it, Frostfrog. This portfolio, indeed, provides a lot of thought-proving basis for interesting discussion: in terms of the pictures themselves and the conditions under which they were taken, for example. The lack of comments, not just from the usual suspects, makes me wonder whether the viewership of Burn has declined?
I hope not, Mitch. One can’t help but wonder. I do recall that David stated awhile back that their statistics showed the readership to still be strong. I hope that is the case.