Dear People:

THIS IS AN EXTREMELY URGENT AKHA ALERT!!!!!!!!!

HUUH MAH AKHA UNDER INCREDIBLE PRESSURE!!!!!!!

I have been monitoring the situation in Huuh Mah Akha since November of last year.

January a move was stopped, an eviction of this village by the Thai Army and Forestry. http://www.akha.org/eviction.htm

Huuh Mah Akha is surounded by Non native specie Pine plantations.

We are told that this is wanted for pulp for pressboard. We would dearly like to know what company is behind this, who is backing this Forestry, Army and Petroleum Authority of Thailand Joint venture.

If there is a western company providing seeds, a factory later on, you name it, we want their balls.

I remember now that I spotted a western consultant in these regions at the time of the clearing and planting of some of this pine but had no vehicle to investigate thoroughly at that time.

FOR THE LAST TWO DAYS Thai Army has been preparing the way for five helicopters which will come to Huuh Mah Akha on the 8th of may, simultaneous to the Asian Development Bank Protests in Chiangmai at that meeting.

A long dissused helo pad was surrounded by beautiful trees. Because of the large numbers of helicopters coming the Thai army made the villagers chop down all these beautiful trees in a perimeter around the pad.

I have been in and out of the village.

Today I went in because the woman from Mexico who was working as a monitor had to leave.

I passed humvees and army command cars leaving the village, more army was still there when I got there, making villagers smoothe the landing site further.

The observer from Mexico said that while she was there she was grilled by the head of at least one mission organization that says they are going to put a project in the village, that they are going to help develop it, and so forth.

Army says they are coming to develop the village.

A polotician is coming as well.

They are saying the will give gifts to the villagers that they are there to help them. These are the same people that two months ago didn't believe that the villagers didn't want to leave and made them vote twice. Maybe from all the wars, army is tone deaf?

The villagers are being told that if they will become Christian they will be given much more.

DAPA, the two faced mission org, now claims it is not a mission org and even has peace corps working for it.

This is the organization started by the famous population control and sterilization expert, Dr. Paul W. Lewis of the American Baptists. Development and Agriculture Project For Akha.

It works hand in hand with the missions, but now says it is not a mission org.

We wonder how this works?

Not a single village that this org works with is the culture promoted in it. They get money, they eat it. Good life. Know how to play golf anyone?

Window dressing.

Further more, people connected to this org are moving girls out of villages for Christian indoctrination. The girls say that they must abandon their culture and become Christian. We verified this in interviews made by international journalists.

We denounce anyone who claims to be a Christian but uses their religion, their church, their mission, to put down the culture or traditions of the Akha people, which includes almost all of them. And most backed by moneys from Church people in the US.

Imperialism.

We are also informed now that the 2001 Cobra Gold excercise that the US Military does each year with the Thai military, will be held in Chiangrai province as a joint "drug interdiction" project.

We highly protest this because this is one contributing factor to the militarization of the Akha Highlands. The Thai border is artificial and gives no consideration to the tribal peoples. Police raids for "drugs" are made at all times of day or night in villages full of old people and children, forcing men to flee the houses as they do not know what the attack is about, and if they are lost from the household the children will nearly starve. There is no concern for human rights in these large gun toting raids which I have sat through more than one time.

Can you imagine a pick up truck roaring into a village with a bunch of men dressed in black, carrying assault machine guns, racing through and around the hut you sit inside, no papers, no explanation, no concern for nothin. Explain that to an old lady who has had her village burned more than once.

CRAP!!!!I say, CRAP!!!!!!!

The UN so far is not interested in investigating this matter.

The citizens of Huuh Mah Akha told me that they are under severe pressure now from many politicized parties, mission and army and "ngo" to give up the sovereignty and control of the village to their projects.

We stand for security for Huuh Mah Akha. Not "development for consumerism industry, eco tour, more crap."

They are self sufficient for food, have solar power, have tons of rice terraces, fruit trees and forest. They are only short for peace and good medical care.

The villagers also have not asked for development, they have asked for books in Akha (not religious) have built their new gate and rededicated the village to the traditions of Akha, and they have asked for coffee plants and a traditional Akha language teacher.

They have asked for limited teaching in english for some of the children and some of the leaders.

As well, a very frightful illness has moved into the village in a very mysterious way.

A large number of villagers complain now of a strange fever. I took two back to the village from the hospital today.

Two men lost almost all their body weight in six days. When I visited the village two days ago they were very frightened, said their bodies hurt all over, and were coughing up blood right in front of me. They had just come back from the hospital where the doctors could not tell them what was wrong but gave them anti biotic anyway. They do not have TB. This illness occured in less than two weeks, healthy men going down to nothing with pain all over the bodies.

I immediately thought of the possibilities that these villagers have had their water tampered with.

There are complaints of illness throughout the village.

I suggested to the villagers today that there was the possibility that something was in the water. I suggested to them that they should check their water source and see if there had been any activity at the source.

They said the illness, how wide spread it was, was very unusual, that they are seldom sick at all in the village, and when you see how the village is, how they live, you can see how this is true.

They said that today the army was asking questions about their water source.

The turnoff for the entire Haen Taek region has been militarized. The corner road at Sam Yak Akha village where you turn to go into this region now has a heavily guarded military command. A second army command road stop is being built just before Bpah Mah Hahn Akha on this same road.

Huuh Mah Akha is a first class example of how an undisturbed village can be self sufficient, buys few consumer goods it doesn't need, and lives well from carefully cared for fields, terraces and orchards.

But this will no longer be the story, thanks to incredible stupidity of outsiders.

One mission org said it will go immediately to work on the road, which will increase traffic into the village.

Few Akha have reason to use the road at this point.

I would ask that if ANY of you know ANY international person who is qualified to come here and report what they see, and take that information to a world body, please contact them immediately and beg for this help. We also need full time observers at this point for monitors of this situation. Observers must be unobtrusive, there is a house provided, and a team of two is preferred. You must brings funds to contribute, must provide for your food, and the villagers will show you how to suitably cook in this situation.

You are there for the safety and security of this village. This is a full time job, pays nothing.

Also, call, don't talk, DEMAND to know from your local Thai embassy what the .... is going on here and why this village is being made to cut its beautiful trees and why it is being so visited by the army so much. These villagers are being harrassed in a crucible now, constructed especially for them.

AND BOYCOTT ALL THAI RESTAURANTS AND TELL THEM WHY!!!!!!!

It appears that the UN doesn't get off its ass till people are dead. The tell me they can't get involved, that they can't involve themselves in internal affairs.

But World Health Organization can deliver the Tetanus Toxoid vaccination, not once, not only twice but as many as three and four times to every Akha woman who dares get pregnant with pinpoint accuracy. Now go FIGURE!!!!

I received a call a few nights ago from a man with an American accent who asked if it was Matthew McDaniel speaking and then said, "Mr. McDaniel, you are going to be shot in the back of the head."

I hung up. There was no trace of the call on my phone.

Now one more thing.

I really appreciate all the people who write in and tell me what a wonderful job I am doing. I feel more it is just a job that needs doing.

But I would like to say, that this job does not happen for free.

I have no office, and I am even closing out my tiny room in Maesai.

So I can spend more time with my bride, which is my battered toyota pick up truck which I welded angle iron to the front of to keep from falling off. It is not that me and the truck are in love unless american style, because I really hate it. It beats me often, never says sorry, and never kisses me. It never goes dutch, always makes me pay and pay and pay.

So there will be no rent.

I don't recall that I take pay.

I eat. As long as it conforms to three rules. 1. I remember to. 2. I have the time. 3. Oddly, only when I have money.

But eating doesn't produce food, and driving doesn't produce fuel and repair parts and getting sick doesn't produce medicine, surgery, or doctors.

Thank yous come in, but donations don't.

I hate to talk about this, but you will not find a more committed individual, a more village centered, money spent in the villages project, in North Thailand and I would venture or in many places.

I spend all my time either on this computer, or on the road, or in the villages.

I go non stop. Seven days a week. I maintain, with the help of one friend now, one of the largest web sites on indigenous issues on the net. You may not agree with my commentaries but you won't come away without a firm idea of some of the issues if you visit Akha.com.

I receive no government money.

So if you like the work I do, donate please. It is the only way that there is medicine, fuel, parts, Akha books, plants, tree sapplings, visits to the doctor and the stopping of what other people would prefer to do in their theft of the Akha people.

For ten years now I have put every resource of my own, every inch of brawn, brain and keyboard, into this work non stop. I own ZERO assets either here or in the US.

I only know how to write the occasional story and when people are spitting blood, it is hard to remember what that one I had in my brain this morning was going to be.

If you care about these people, if you think my work valuable, then please donate.

I have unpaid internet bills, a balance for the woman in the hospital, urgently needed repairs to the truck, another Akha woman who need proper medication for hepetitis and needs for more medicine and vitamins. The elements that let me do my job well are not free, maybe my time my life is, but the components are not.

You will never find more bang for the buck that goes directly to a people, no strings attatched to spur their ranks and bolster them in time of need.

I don't even force them to believe in Jesus.

Please donate people, I make the money go very far, I use it to help these people very carefully.

Matthew McDaniel
Just back from Huuh Mah Akha.