Burma- a Nation at the Crossroads

by Benedict Rogers

  In 1995, she was released from six years of house arrest, and began to tour the country, defying bans restricting her to Rangoon. She reiterated her central message of dialogue with the Generals, telling Asiaweek: ‘We would like to find common ground … we must be prepared to talk about everything … That is the essence of true dialogue: that we should not rule out anything.’54 Once again the regime rejected the offer, and instead she was harassed and attacked by pro-regime thugs. On 2 September 1998, police blocked her car at Dala, a suburb of Rangoon. She remained in her car for nine days, defiantly refusing to turn back. Eventually, she was forced back, but immediately announced plans to travel to Mandalay by train. The day she intended to travel, the authorities closed the entire station.

  Despite these restrictions on travel, for five years she had a certain degree of freedom in Rangoon, holding weekly public meetings at her home in University Avenue, where she would address crowds of thousands over the garden wall. One young British man visited her six or seven times during this period. ‘I went to University Avenue to hear her speak, as she did every Saturday,’ he recalls. ‘There was a great crowd, and a large number of NLD people living in the compound.’ A friend of his had recently interviewed her, so after one of these public meetings, he telephoned her. ‘She invited me for tea. I took provisions – copies of the Economist, a radio and batteries, and I spent an hour with her. She gave over an incredible aura. She has real presence, charm, extraordinary serenity, but also awesome steel and will. She invited us to come again the next day, for lunch. From then on, I made a point of visiting as often as I could.’

  Security was tight and he was watched closely. ‘I was photographed, and my ID was taken when I went to visit. The military intelligence officers were at the end of the street, at the gate, and inside the gate.’ The house, he recalls, was falling into disrepair. ‘It was increasingly dilapidated, and needed several coats of paint. There was a problem of damp on the outer walls.’ One of her requests was for films, because she held a film night every weekend for the NLD activists who lived with her. ‘She liked quaint English films, early classics. I remember Breakfast at Tiffany’s was one. I also brought Oliver Twist, Il Postino, Braveheart, Pride and Prejudice, Schindler’s List, Gone with the Wind and Mr Bean. I would try to slot in up-to-date films as well.’ He noted that she had varied tastes in music, preferring classical, baroque and Gregorian chants, but admitting a fondness for Bob Marley and the rock group Grateful Dead, introduced to her by her sons. In addition to bringing her films, he would deliver messages from her to Michael Aris.

  Conversation was wide-ranging, he recalls. ‘We talked quite a lot about the situation in Burma, and how best to bring about pressure on the regime, from mobilising British politicians to pressure from other Asian countries, particularly the Japanese, Singaporeans and Thais. She was rather focused on the UN machinery.’ Concern about her own role, however, was also highlighted, and she expressed a clear desire not to be a one-woman band. ‘Everyone demanded to see her personally and party workers refused to settle for anyone else, which placed a massive burden and formidable responsibility on her,’ recalls this visitor. Yet it was easy to understand why she was in such demand, given her speeches at public meetings, which both informed and inspired people. At one gathering in April 1996, according to a foreign visitor, she talked about the defeat of fascism in Europe in 1945, and the development of democracy in the Czech Republic. ‘Throughout, she had the audience eating out of her hand. There was frequent laughter, nodding of heads, interspersed with bursts of enthusiastic applause.’

  However, those who attended her public gatherings did so at significant risk. On one occasion in 1997, at least ten people were arrested, one of many signs of a tightening up. That same year, Aung San Suu Kyi’s telephone was cut off, University Avenue closed and on-spec visits proved impossible. Her situation, said one foreign visitor, ‘was physically and perhaps politically more isolated than on my previous visits’. According to one observer, while the previous year her compound was full of NLD workers playing football, and her assistant U Aye Win had talked openly in the garden, by 1997 he and many others were in prison and the compound deserted.

  In 1999, Michael Aris died of cancer, and in an example of its cruelty and inhumanity the regime refused to allow him to visit Suu Kyi before he died. She was forced to choose between leaving the country to be with him, in the knowledge that the regime would never allow her back, or staying with her people. She stayed. A year later, she was again put under house arrest, this time for two years.

  A further brief period of freedom followed when she was released in 2002. Again, she began to tour the country. Alarmed that her popularity remained undimmed, the regime orchestrated an attack on her at Depayin in Sagaing Division on 30 May 2003. Over a hundred of her supporters were beaten to death by thugs from the pro-regime militia, the Union Solidarity Development Association (USDA). Armed with iron bars, bamboo sticks and wooden bats, an estimated 3,000 thugs, some dressed as monks, lay in wait beside the road to ambush her convoy.55 Her supporters were beaten, stabbed and knocked to the ground, where their heads were repeatedly smashed on the road until they cracked. Aung San Suu Kyi only narrowly escaped, protected by some of her brave young followers who linked hands and surrounded her car. It was a clear assassination attempt.

  Aung San Suu Kyi returned to Rangoon, and was briefly detained in Insein Prison, before being returned to house arrest. Her telephone lines were cut once again, and she was more isolated than ever. Ironically, according to one young Burmese, it was the attack at Depayin and her subsequent detention that gained the attention of the new generation. ‘In the past, if I was asked whether I liked the military government, I did not even know how to answer,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know whether their rule was legitimate or not. But now, at least we know why we dislike the government so much. Aung San Suu Kyi had not made much impact on my growing up, but Depayin made her more visible. The younger generation is compelled to know more about her and what she is fighting for as a result.’

  Six years later, following a sham trial, her house arrest was extended for a further eighteen months. Accused of breaking the terms of her house arrest after an American, John Yettaw, swam across Inya Lake and spent the night in her home, Aung San Suu Kyi was deliberately kept out of the way ahead of the regime’s sham elections planned for 2010, and was only finally released when her term expired, conveniently, six days after the elections.

  Meanwhile, what had happened to the student activists from 1988? Many were jailed and endured horrific torture. Those who fled to Burma’s borders encountered new challenges. Mostly from the cities, they were unaccustomed to jungle life. ‘I fell sick so easily,’ recalls Khin Ohmar. ‘I was stubborn and insisted on going, but in fact I had the least tolerance for the conditions.’ She joined the ABSDF. ‘We were so peaceful on the streets in 1988, and they killed us for nothing. So I wanted to join with the KNU, and take up arms,’ she says. Her commitment to armed struggle, however, did not last long. ‘When I got to the jungle, I came to realise I was not for armed struggle. It was out of anger and outrage. I realised I was not for violence.’ Education, she believed, was a better weapon to fight the military regime and end the cycle of violence in the country, so she went to the United States to study for a degree. After gaining experience working for Human Rights Watch and Refugees International, she returned to Thailand to continue her work as an activist, and now leads the Burmese Women’s Union, the Network for Democracy and Development, and the Burma Partnership, a network of activists throughout the Asia-Pacific region.56

  Besides adjusting to jungle life, Burman students who fled to the ethnic areas from the cities had another challenge to deal with: the suspicion, and sometimes hostility, of the non-Burman ethnic peoples. Having suffered for decades at the hands of different Burman-dominated governments, many ethnic peoples were wary of the Burman students. ‘When we got to the border, my eyes opened up to understand the suffering of the eth
nic peoples,’ says Khin Ohmar. ‘It was painful. When somebody looks at you with hateful eyes, you feel it. But I learned why as I felt hatred towards the army itself.’

  3

  A Campaign of Brutality in the East

  ‘I believe that even amid today’s mortar bursts and whining bullets, there is still hope for a brighter tomorrow. I believe that wounded justice, lying prostrate on the blood-flowing streets of our nations, can be lifted from the dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men. I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits.’

  Martin Luther King Jr.

  JUST BEFORE SUNSET, at the end of the school day, children lined up in straight rows in front of the flagpole. With extraordinary dignity, inspiring discipline and a perfect, modest, natural sense of pride in their culture, these young Karens sang their anthem as their flag was lowered. They were not singing the regime’s national anthem for Burma, nor were they lowering the junta’s flag – instead, with defiance but no sense of vengeance, they sang their own national anthem and raised the flag of their land which they call ‘Kawthoolei’. They were internally displaced people, whose original villages had been either overrun or burned down by the Tatmadaw. This place, on the banks of the Moei River just opposite Thailand, was their place of sanctuary, one of the few remaining places where they could celebrate their culture. Even here, however, they were not safe.

  As I stood in the heat and listened to them sing, it was a struggle to hold back the tears. My heart and mind swirled with a whole mix of emotions: grief, in the knowledge of what these people had already been through, illustrated to me in the stories I had heard that day and on many previous visits; humility, in the knowledge that I doubt I would have the same grace and courage to stand to attention and quietly, gently, sing an anthem I knew would never be recognised legally, and lower a flag which meant nothing to the rest of the world; and fear, for what might yet still be inflicted upon them, despite their many years of suffering already endured. My emotions were stirred still further by the words of Rainbow, the schoolteacher – a young man I knew well. After translating the stories of new arrivals earlier in the day, Rainbow turned to me with a gentle smile and said: ‘We don’t fight the Burmans – we fight their policies.’ After allowing that thought to sink in, he added, ‘We can be friends with them. We can be brothers. Please pray for the regime. Pray for the regime more than you pray for the Karen people. Pray for them to change their policies, and change their hearts.’

  Less than four months later, the Ler Per Her settlement was overrun by Burma Army troops and their accomplices, the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA). Rainbow and thousands of others from Ler Per Her and the surrounding area were forced to flee – yet again. This time they had to get into boats and go across the river to Thailand. They had nowhere else to run. If they had stayed, it is a safe bet that many of the women would have been raped, and the men taken for forced labour.

  I had been to Ler Per Her more than a dozen times, and heard many painful stories of people who had fled their villages. But in February 2009 there was an extra level of poignancy, made sharper with hindsight given the further misery inflicted upon them. I met one man who will always be in my memory. He had arrived just two days previously. In October 2008, Tatmadaw and DKBA troops had come to his village, and he had fled into the jungle. His home, along with most of the rest of the village, was burned down. After the attack, he returned to see whether he could salvage any property or livestock. As he approached the place where his house had stood, and walked across the ashes which were all that remained, his life changed for ever. The DKBA had laid a landmine, and he stepped on it.

  This man then endured what most people in the developed world would count as an epic struggle for survival. ‘My relatives carried me for an entire day, to the nearby town for medical treatment,’ he told me calmly and quietly as we sat in a bamboo hut in Ler Per Her. ‘I lost consciousness. After receiving medical treatment, I decided to come here, with my wife and four children. I travelled for two days through the jungle, using crutches.’ I glanced at the stump of his leg which protruded from his longyi in front of me. ‘I felt unable to stay in my own village. With only one leg, I cannot walk well, and so it is better to come here. I worry a lot about my future. I feel safe here, but I would like to go home when the situation is better. I really want all the people of Burma to have peace and freedom. If there is no peace and freedom, I cannot go home.’

  When I heard the news about the attacks on Ler Per Her four months later, those words – ‘I feel safe here’ – echoed in my mind. Where can the Karen possibly feel safe? In 1997 and 1998, Tatmadaw soldiers attacked refugee camps in Thailand, burning homes and shooting people. Naw December, a Karen refugee now living in the United Kingdom, and her son were hit by mortar shells in Wang Ka camp. The Thai Army turned a blind eye to the attack.

  Even those 3,000 people who fled to Thailand from Ler Per Her found only temporary respite, as within eight months they were harassed by the Thai authorities and forced to return to their occupied, heavily mined land. In February 2010, I was taken to the temporary camp on the Thai side of the border, opposite Ler Per Her, to meet some of those who had fled. Foreign activists and journalists were not allowed into the camp by the Thais, so we went at night, crossing paddy fields secretly. Each time a motorbike went past, we crouched down, silently, to avoid being caught in the headlights.

  When we reached the camp, we had to creep through quietly, until we reached the bamboo huts. There, we heard the stories of some of those who had fled. One man, exactly my age, sat and talked by candlelight, surrounded by his wife and five children. As he talked, I noticed the stumps of his two legs, blown off by a landmine he had stepped on while in the jungle gathering vegetables. ‘When I had two legs, I could earn money for the whole family and I could give my children money for snacks,’ he told me. ‘Now I cannot provide for them. It is not a normal life. It is hard to earn money. If I stay here, the Thais will not give me a chance to go out. I cannot do anything for the children now. I have no legs, no rations, and I have to stay in camp and share my wife’s rations.’ Despite his injuries, the Thai authorities continued to harass him, urging him to return to Burma. ‘Inside Burma I had to flee the Burma Army many times. I did portering for the Burma Army many times,’ he said. Then he looked into my eyes and said words which sum up the plight of the Karen: ‘Run and run and run until now – this is my life.’1

  Since 1949, the Karens have been fighting an armed struggle for basic human rights, a degree of autonomy, and more recently a battle for existence. ‘They will try to wipe us out,’ KNU Vice-President David Thackerbaw once told me. ‘Their plan is to eliminate the Karen as a people.’

  Although there would be Karens whose first choice, if asked, would be an independent state, the official policy of the KNU – as with almost all the ethnic nationalities in Burma – is autonomy within a federal, democratic union. The Karens’ struggle today is with the regime which has sought, at least in part if not in whole, to eradicate them. However, the roots of the struggle go much deeper. The Karens, earlier settlers in Burma than the Burmans, had faced centuries of oppression at the hands of Burman kings. When the British colonised Burma, accompanied by missionaries, the Karens believed they had found their liberators. In turn, the British favoured the Karen, and provided opportunities in education and government service. By 1939 Karen troops outnumbered Burmans in the British Burma Army by a ratio of three to one.2 Their loyalty to the British colonial rulers drew further Burman wrath. In the Second World War, while the Burmans sided with the Japanese, the Karen fought loyally alongside the Allies, in return for vague promises of independence, or at least autonomy and protection, after the war.

  There are still Karens alive today who remember British rule – and have not forgotten the promises that were made and broken. In 2010, I
met an elderly man in Mae La refugee camp whose son-in-law had been killed two and a half years previously. Twice, the villages he lived in were attacked by the Burma Army, and burned down, and he had been forced to work as a porter. On one occasion, his cousin was beaten and left blinded by Tatmadaw soldiers. This elderly man had fought in the Second World War, under the command of a Captain Wilson. ‘I kept my army ID card but when the village was burned [by the Burma Army], it was all burned – nothing left but ashes. I worked for the British because we were suffering under the Japanese, and I thought that if I worked for the British I expected something better,’ he said. ‘To my British friends, I say I am still expecting [help]. May you have mercy on us, one way or another, and help us.’3

  The KNU’s chairman, Saw Tamlabaw, fought with the British in the infamous Force 136. His daughter, Zipporah Sein, was elected the KNU’s first woman General Secretary in 2008, and the Karen struggle is all she has ever known. ‘I came from a revolutionary family because my father has been involved with the Karen revolution since it started,’ she told me.

  The plain truth is, the British made false promises during the Second World War, on which they completely reneged once Burma became independent. Cut adrift, the Karen decided to soldier on alone in their struggle for recognition. In August 1946, unhappy with the lack of a coherent British response, a Karen ‘Goodwill Mission’ led by Sydney Loo Nee, Saw Than Din and Saw Ba U Gyi went to London.4 They returned to Burma empty-handed and betrayed, and within a few months of Burma’s independence, following unprovoked attacks by Burmans on Karen communities, their armed struggle began.