Alexandre Dereims, Director of "A Secret Genocide", Speaks to Prost Amerika

Alexandre DEREIMS is 39 and worked as a documentary editor for more than ten years. Five years ago, he had the opportunity to make his first documentary as a director, "Calcutta’s Rickhawalas, an outcast life". Controversy has never been far away from Alexandre. He tackled the scandal in France where 15,000 people died during a heatwave, unemployment in Northern France, and Christmas at Manchester (2004) before turning his attention to Kampuchea and making a documentary about the Khmer Rouge, "A Trial Against Oblivion" (2005). In it he interviewed Khieu Samphan, the former president and one of the accused in the genocide trial.

His debut appearance at SIFF was with "A Secret Genocide" which won a special jury prize at FIGRA and an ICRC prize at Monte Carlo in 2007. "A Secret Genocide" is a documentary on the genocide perpetrated by the Burmese military junta on the Karen ethnic group. It was filmed and produced between fall 2005 and spring 2006. This movie was made clandestinely in the middle of the Burmese jungle with the Karen fighters of the KNLA, under very difficult conditions. It lasts 66 minutes, and the crew stayed there until it was felt their lives were at great risk if they remained.

Prost Amerika: Do you try and keep in touch with the fate of any of the Karen in your film since the crew left?

Alexandre Dereims: Since I have finished the shooting I stayed in touch with many Karen, calling them every week and by email too. Last April, much of the KNLA bases have been taken by a Karen dissident group named DKBA, a Buddhist militia that help the Burmese army, the SPDC, in their death raids on the Karen villages.

Some soldiers I have filmed died in the fights. This year, more than 50 000 Karens had to run away from the SPDC attacks and more than 5000 Karens have found refuge on the Burmese side of the Salaween river. They are stuck there and they can't cross to the refugee camps in Thailand.

Prost Amerika: What do you make of current events in Burma?

Alexandre Dereims: What's happening now in Burma is maybe the last chance the Burmese people took to put the junta down. They play their last and their most important card, the monks.

1988 was a student uprising back with the workers people, 2007 is a monk protest back with the middle class people. The economic is so bad in Burma, that even the wealthy ones are deeply touched. The business men in Rangoon were forced to pay the gas for the military truck. The military bank where all the soldiers must save their money went into bankruptcy and the soldiers and low rank officers have not received any salary for months.

And when the price of the oil was increased by 400 per cent in a day, the democrats activists of LND and generation 88 started a protest in the street. It was the 22nd of August. More than 400 protesters were arrested. So the leaders of 88 uprising met the monks and asked them to fight with us to put the junta down and establish democracy. They plan together a new way to protest, a Buddhist way of non-violence, inspired by Gandhi.

For more than 2500 years, every morning the monks go into the streets to gather their food from the people. The Buddhists must feed their monks, it is a big responsibility. In September, when the monks decided to refuse the food, they just make the people starving them. This is a strong message against the junta.

After the 1990 elections were cancelled by the military, the junta communication was all about being a good Buddhist. The military gave a lot of money to the monasteries, bought many senior abbots in the country. They message was: the Burmese people can trust us because we are the real Buddhist. All these efforts were crushed with the monks protests. The junta shows its real face by killing monks, the divorce with the Burmese people is big, they will never forget that and they feel that the junta is dooming them.

Many Burmese democrat activist I met told me that the protest will start again but it is difficult to know exactly what's going to happen. More and more soldiers and officers are bored with the junta, and we can expect a military uprising. More than 50 per cent of the SPDC troops deserted this year.

Prost Amerika: Do foreign governments do enough to put pressure on the Burmese government?

Alexandre Dereims: The Than Shwe military regime will never give up or release Aun San Suu Kyi, they already went too far by killing monks. For them, there is no way back. They try to gain time as they ever did.

China wants Tha Shwe out but that not mean they want democracy. They will pick one top military guy and say this one is a democrat. Aun San Suu Kyi is pro western, so she is not the right person for China to rule Burma

The Burmese look the western countries asking them to do more for democracy in Burma, but every one knows that this the Chinese and Indian government that got the keys of the problem. And it is harder to pressure these countries to sanction Burma when we got so many companies collaborating and doing business with the junta. Western countries have to send a clear message and make real steps to make their anti-junta policy credible for the Asian country. That means force the western companies like Total, Daewoo or Chevron out of Burma.

What we can do is boycotting these companies by stopping the purchase of their products. Think twice before you stop at a Total gas station.

Remember the impact of the sanctions and the boycott against the South African apartheid regime.

Prost Amerika: How much could the Thai Government alleviate the suffering of the Karen?

Alexandre Dereims: Thailand is a country that shelter hundred of thousands of refugees the last 30 years. From Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Burma. They say that they already did the best they can and received no support from Asian or western countries. South Asia is not united like Europe, Asean is a new born organization. They didn't agree on the refugee issue yet.

They are huge economics interests between Thailand and Burma, mostly in the energy. Most of the natural gas Thais use arrive from Burma. Stopping all relations with the junta could create a crash of the Thai economy. So Thailand doesn't want to anger Burma by helping the Karen. If the junta collapse we can expect a lot of refugees trying to cross to Thailand. The Thais need the help of the western countries in the refugee case.

Prost Amerika: Can you tell us how the differing ethnic groups in Burma interact with the mainstream opposition to the army?

Alexandre Dereims: In 1988, many students took refuge inside the Karen bases. It was the beginning of a friendship that still until now. KNLA took care of them, fed them, trained them. But they are many ethnic groups in Burma and they have their own strategy and history with Burmese.

There are some organizations like the national Coalition Governement for the Union of Burma that try to create an unified strategy about the junta, but it's going slow and no ethnic guerilla take the opportunity of the protests to attack the SPDC. The KNLA try to stop SPDC convoys to Rangoon by attacking them once killing SPDC soldiers. But the Karen army is too weak to do the job alone.

Prost Amerika: Indonesia went from military dictatorship to multi-ethnic democracy. Is this a role model for Burma?

Alexandre Dereims: The fall of Suharto did not destroy Indonesia as many believed at this time.

But maybe Indonesia is not the best democracy on earth, and they had to manage problems like Timor.

The biggest problem in Burma is the ethnic issue. Some believe that Burma will fall apart in a civil war with the ethnics liberation army. This is also what says the junta. For the ethnics leaders I met recently, Burma will stands as a federal country and nobody will try to make secession.

Maybe Burma will not be dismantled if the junta collapse, but nobody wants to ruin all the efforts made toward democracy with a civil war. But what could happen is huge fights inside the ethnics between those who support the junta and those who fight in the jungle. For example between KNLA and DKBA.

Prost Amerika: Does documentary change anything?

Alexandre Dereims: Seattle was a great opportunity for this documentary to be seen by the American audience. Thank you very much. Many people contact me. I want to find television broadcast in the US for A Secret Genocide. If you got some advice.

Prost Amerika: What is your next project?

Alexandre Dereims: I'm finishing a documentary named HAN about the North Korean refugees that escape from North Korea. I investigate in China where more than 300,000 refugees hide. I met some of them, a North Korean smuggler and a man that help the refugees to go to Seoul. I follow this man during one of his missions. In China it is completely forbidden to meet and interview the North Korean refugee. The North Korean who are arrested are sent back to North Korea where they risk execution or concentration camps sentence. To reach Seoul they have to cross all China to the Mekong river and cross to Thailand. There they are jailed for months before go to Seoul. In China, dozens of thousands young North Korean women are victim of human trafficking, they are sold 100 dollars each to the sex slaves network. I follow one young woman during her escape across Asia to Seoul.

I will finish it this month.

Thank you very much and see you next year, I hope.

October 29, 2007