Land of Jade

by Bertil Lintner

  The little girl was so beautiful. I had tears in my eyes myself when I took her in my arms. Luckily, she was still too young to be frightened by my ghastly appearance. She had no name as yet, but during our clandestine correspondence, Hseng Noung and I had agreed to call her ‘Ee Ying’ for the time being, which means ‘Little Girl’ in Shan. In accordance with the traditions of the many peoples of Burma, we had decided to wait for an appropriate name to be conferred on her by village elders or by Buddhist monks.

  After they had left me four weeks before, Hseng Noung and the baby had gone by jeep to a house on the outskirts of Kohima. A young Chakhesang couple, friends of Kewezeko’s, had agreed to put them up. Hseng Noung’s new hosts were fairly typical young Nagas: hard-working, family centred and deeply religious.

  “At first, I thought Kewezeko would give them at least an idea of who I was. But he didn’t,” Hseng Noung said as we sat down on my bed in the cubbyhole. “But I thought it was unfair not to tell them when they were being so helpful. They were curious as the baby was so unusually tall and fair.”

  Hseng Noung’s revelation stunned her host even more than my story had surprised Sakulemba. But they had no objections; apparently, they found the whole adventure very exciting and were glad they could help us.

  Hseng Noung and the baby stayed with me in the cubby-hole for a few days. Sakulemba and Narola insisted they should stay longer, but I was concerned about our security. The baby had already attracted the attention of some neighbours who had come over to have a look—while I hid in the small room. Hseng Noung’s host came by to pick her up on Sunday on his way home from church. He was an unpretentious, honest young man. Knowing that I was a journalist, he had even bought a notebook as a present for me. Again, we were amazed at the hospitality of the Nagas and their ability to keep secrets. We estimated that nearly 60 people in Kohima and Dimapur knew about us. But not a word ever leaked out to the police or state authorities.

  Sakulemba made one more trip up to Mon to see Tongwang. There was no response from the NSCN, but the situation in ‘the East’ appeared to have calmed down. We decided to go. It proved possible to borrow a jeep without much trouble. Then we disguised the vehicle with military-looking flags, actually a Naga one with an oval shield superimposed on two crossed spears, and a big sign with an unidentifiable acronym. We hoped that our jeep flying these flags would look official and, therefore, not be stopped at any checkpoints. Neivetso, another young Naga, had decided to help us also. The acronym he had placed on the front of the jeep included the letter “F”.

  “Nobody would know what that means. But they would probably guess it stands for some kind of ‘force’,” Neivetso said with a laugh.

  I would have to pretend I was a high-ranking Indian Army officer and since many of them prefer to speak English, all I had to do if we were stopped would be to put on a singsong accent. To perfect my disguise, I had discarded my wig and dyed my hair and beard black. With sun-glasses, a field jacket and an Indian bush hat I was confident I would be able to talk my way through any confrontations along the way.

  Hseng Noung and Ee Ying were brought over on Saturday 19. We packed our bags that night and shared a jug of Naga beer brewed from rice to celebrate our departure.

  At five the following morning our alarm clock roused us. I looked in my diary and realised we had spent 85 days in hiding in Kohima. It was more than three months since we had reached Dimapur.

  After dressing hastily and a hurried cup of tea, we walked a few hundred metres up the slope to the place where Neivetso was waiting with the fancifully decorated jeep. I found my legs were trembling even over this short distance after months without exercise. My eyes were also smarting from the light, even though it was barely dawn. Ee Ying was still asleep and Hseng Noung carried her wrapped in a woollen Naga shawl to protect her from the early morning chill. Sakulemba seemed exhilarated and talked continuously.

  On Sundays Nagaland comes to a virtual halt with hardly a shop open so, as there would not be much traffic, we chose to leave then. I was sitting in the canvas-covered rear of the jeep and as daylight broke we drove through Kohima. We passed the War Cemetery and I saw, for the first time, the memorial stone I had heard so much about.

  Neivetso drove northwards as fast as the engine and the road would allow. The road narrowed and wound its way over the verdant mountainsides. I had expected to see more trees and even jungle. But nearly all the hillsides were denuded.

  “It’s because of the Indian Army,” Sakulemba leant over to me and said. “They felled the forest during the sixties to deny cover to the Naga guerrillas.”

  While this was a plausible explanation, I could not help suspect that one of the region’s worst causes, illegal logging by both the military and unscrupulous businessmen, must have played a role in the deforestation as well. The ecological damage is irreparable.

  The first town we reached after Kohima was Wokha, and there was a small police checkpoint just before it with its gate closed as we approached. The duty policemen immediately sprung to open on spotting the flags and signs on our jeep.

  Wokha was quiet. The shutters outside the shops were down but Sunday strollers with Naga shawls draped over their shoulders filled the streets. We halted at a petrol station and Sakulemba got out to buy some food to take along. He was gone for about half an hour and Neivetso began to get nervous. He decided, as I was crouched in the rear, that this looked odd so he opened the jeep’s bonnet to cover me from view and began tinkering with the engine. Sakulemba came running back after some time carrying an old-style enamel tiffin box full of rice and curry. We were off again.

  We stopped at the Doyang bridge just north of Wokha and had our lunch in a clump of trees on the riverbank. It was bliss to be in the open air and in natural surroundings again. We had rice and spicy curry and there was milk for Ee Ying who seemed to be composedly managing the jeep-ride; she slept quietly in her mother’s arms apart occasionally waking to hungrily whimper.

  Mokokchung was the next town we reached and it was as quiet as Wokha. The road actually ran though an army camp near the town. Neivetso, however, did not even slow down the jeep at the entrance. He just honked the horn aggressively—and the surprised sentry woke up from his slumber, spotted our flags and the sign. They worked effectively once again; the sentry straightened up and saluted stiffly as we drove past. We found it all hilarious. Ours must have been the most peculiar VIP vehicle which has ever appeared on the roads of Nagaland. Two Naga students, a Shan girl with her new-born baby, and a peregrinating Swedish journalist all crammed in a jeep from whose superstructure nappies were fluttering in the wind as it flashed by.

  Since there were few other vehicles out on this Sunday, we could make the necessary stops by mountain streams without worrying in order to wash Ee Ying’s nappies. This also gave us a chance to top up the jeep’s radiator; the terrain was extremely mountainous.

  The jeep laboured up the steep ascents and suddenly I realised we were climbing exactly those blue hills I had gazed at through the bathroom window in Zanietso’s house a few months back. The day we had been awaiting for so long had eventually arrived.

  We reached Tuli, a small town in the foothills of Nagaland west of Mokokchung, in the late afternoon. The 240 km long journey from Kohima had taken all day. We decided to spend the night there, since it was only a few kilometers from the Assam border gate and we would have attracted unwelcome attention if we had passed through at night. We had agreed to travel as openly as possible to live up to our pretence of being high-ranking officials on an inspection tour.

  Fortunately, Sakulemba had a friend in Tuli so we drove to his house. Without hesitation, he agreed to put us up for the night. When we told him about our journey, he laughed heartily. We slept upstairs in a small room in his house and left the next morning after breakfast.

  As we had anticipated, the Amguri checkpoint posed no problem. A policeman simply waved us through. We were now back in the plains and we had to drive for 70 kms th
rough Assam. I pretended I was asleep in the rear of the jeep and lay face down on one of its seats. We passed a number of small towns where I caught occasional glimpses of crowds of people, wandering cattle and rickshaws. Loudspeakers blared out music and advertising slogans. It was India again, if only for a few brief hours.

  At Sonari, we left the main Assam highway and swung eastwards, back towards of Nagaland. Again, we decided to act as if we had nothing to hide; we stopped the jeep and rolled down the canvas. I jumped into the front seat and tried to look as if I really were an army officer. I put on my sunglasses and bush hat with the right brim buttoned up. If anybody were to stop us, I had my story prepared. I was going to behave arrogantly, speak fast Indian-accented English and, if necessary, browbeat the local policeman for lack of respect for my pretended high rank. If they asked who Hseng Noung and the baby were, that was when I was going to lose my temper:

  “How long have you been in Nagaland? Winning the hearts and the minds of the people is our main strategy here. I’ve picked up a poor, young mother and her little baby and offered them a ride and you dare to ask who they are? This war can never be won with people like you posted at important places! Give me your name, rank and number!”

  October 1985. The border between India and Burma.

  We slowed down as we were approaching the first checkpoint, just before Tizit inside the Nagaland border. Neivetso honked the horn. I crossed my arms over my chest to give myself an air of aloof importance. It worked. They opened the gate and we drove through. We continued at a moderately slow pace through the spread-out Tizit town for a few kilometres to the next checkpoint. This one was not like the first manned by the more easy-going Nagaland police, but by the Assam Rifles. This paramilitary outfit is supposed to carefully check any movements in and out of Mon district.

  The armed guards by the gate stared at our jeep, scrutinised the sign and the flags—and then me. I was, admittedly, nervous since this was where everything could go wrong. In my mind I rehearsed my prepared harangue while trying to project an impression of disdainful authority. Then, one of them pulled on the rope to raise the gate. He saluted me. I snapped off one myself.

  We drove past at a slow pace so as not to arouse any suspicion. No attempt was made to call us back. Neivetso did not speed up until we were about a hundred metres beyond the checkpoint. Then he accelerated away, back into the hill country again. We had entered Konyak country: wild, rugged hills and denser forest than anything we had seen elsewhere in Nagaland. Even the people looked like real jungle-dwellers. Some of them were almost naked and trudged along the roadside using spears as walking sticks.

  Normally, I find deep wilderness thrilling and inviting; here I felt distinctively ill at ease. Perhaps physical fatigue and months of tension made the craggy, dark jungle-clad ridges seem sinister to me. We knew we had passed the main official checkpoints—or, at least, most of them—but what lay ahead of us would almost certainly contain more unpredictable challenges.

  We reached Mon at 4 pm. To call it a town would be an exaggeration, consisting as it did of little more than a hilly crossroads, lined with a few dozen wood and concrete houses. It was too late to even contemplate continuing up to Longva at the border. Vehicles driving at night along border roads were likely to be subjected to spot-checks at the army posts closer to Burma.

  Tongwang, our local contact, however, was expecting us and willing to put us up at his house. We had dinner and tea and discussed the journey up to the border—our last 25 kms of Indian territory. Tongwang seemed certain it would not be any problem if he came along. He had often travelled along that road and knew several of the army officers personally. No probing questions were likely to be asked, he assured us.

  We slept soundly that night and left shortly after breakfast. Sakulemba came along as our guide and interpreter. But before leaving Mon, we said goodbye to Neivetso and thanked him for all his help. Tongwang took the lead in his jeep and we followed behind with Sakulemba driving our vehicle. The rough gravel road ran uphill. We entered the Patkai border range and the two jeeps laboured up the steep slopes towards the crest—the longed for frontier.

  There were two army checkpoints along the way. When we reached the first one, I saw an Indian Army officer in green fatigues with a walkie-talkie in his hand rush out to stop the first jeep in which Tongwang was travelling. I sat tensed up as our jeep also came to a halt. But Tongwang waved us on and our jeep started up again. As we passed him, he was getting out to talk to the army officer. We carried on for a few kilometres to a lonely stretch of the road and waited. All was going in accordance with the plan we had worked out the previous night.

  After some time, we caught sight of Tongwang’s jeep climbing up towards us along the road on a denuded hillside. The driver pulled up. Tongwang got out and came across to explain, with a smile, that the check had been little more than a short friendly chat. The officer had even said he would radio the next checkpoint and inform them there was nothing to be suspicious of. Since no army men were patrolling the road further on, the message apparently had got through.

  We drove into Longva at noon. It did actually straddle the frontier and consisted of about fifty ramshackle bamboo huts on either side of the border ridge. I saw only a few people around; they were mostly naked children and bare-breasted Konyak women with only a tiny piece of cloth wrapped around their hips. Since it was midday, most of the men were out working in the fields.

  We unloaded our packs virtually on the border itself and watched as Tongwang and some of his friends who had come along, set off back towards Mon, using both jeeps. Sakulemba stayed with us as agreed and we had also in our party a young Konyak girl who Tongwang had told to come along and help take care of the baby. She was pretty but muscular, like a young man, and she wore blue jeans, a green sport shirt and tennis shoes.

  We assumed we would continue on foot immediately. But, in the usual Naga manner, there were unexpected and totally unnecessary delays. Sakulemba hesitated to cross into Burma without some kind of clearance, he said. From whom I had no idea, but I almost lost my temper for the first time in Nagaland.

  “We can’t stop here! Right in the village! And there’s an Indian Army camp only a few kilometres away. They must have informers here. We must at least cross over and get to the first village inside Burma!”

  Sakulemba smiled awkwardly.

  “We must be a bit flexible.”

  “Flexible? I’m sure the Indian Army won’t be at all flexible if they find us here! What are we waiting for? Let’s go!”

  “It’s better to stay here until tomorrow so we can get a proper guide and some porters to help carry our luggage. Now, they’re all in the fields.”

  “All my previous experience in crossing into rebel-held areas in Burma has taught me the border is the most crucial point. You can’t stay there! You must cross it as soon as possible and find a safer place on the other side!”

  While we were arguing, two young Nagas in khaki uniforms approached along a dirt track. I turned in their direction.

  “Who are they?”

  “Must be Naga guerrillas.”

  They were not. I looked at their badges. They were Village Guards, a local militia under the command of the Indian Army. I was sure we had had it. The guards were curious and, looking at me, naturally wanted to know what we were doing there. Sakulemba had to handle this since the militiamen spoke no English. He told them I came from Bombay and spoke only Hindi. A mistake, since the people of Bombay usually speak Marathi, another Indian language.

  The guards, fortunately, did not seem to be aware of that. Nor did they know what to make of me. But Sakulemba’s hilarious improvisations, strangely enough, seemed to satisfy them. They nodded politely and walked away along the track. Despite this, I was really worried who they might tell of their unusual encounter in the village.

  I did not like Longva. We felt exposed and insecure in the tiny hilltop village. Being a main border crossing point used by insurgents, the qu
estion was not if the Indian Army had any informers there—but how many. The people who passed us seemed reserved and no one approached us in a friendly manner. I could not share Sakulemba’s confidence in them.

  “Don’t worry. They’re Nagas also. They won’t tell anything to the Indians.”

  I was less than convinced and kept on insisting that we must cross immediately. Eventually, after several hours’ delay, Sakulemba gave in. On October 22, 1985 at 3.20pm Indian time, 4.20 Burmese, we started the descent from the crest on which Longva was built, into the Burmese wilderness seven months after starting our journey from Bangkok.

  I looked behind as we hurried along the wide path: Sakulemba and myself in lead and then Hseng Noung and the Konyak girl with Ee Ying in a diagonal cloth sling over one shoulder. Nobody was following us or paying any attention to our fast movements downhill on the other side.

  We continued for about an hour and stopped at a small hill paddy field on the eastern slope of the Longva ridge. We spotted a group of five uniformed men outside a small hut in the field. Their guns were semi-automatic rifles of Chinese origin. This time there was no doubt. They came from the NSCN.

  5

  LONGVA—KESAN CHANLAM

  That night we spent in the small straw-and-bamboo hut in the paddy field where we had met the NSCN soldiers. They were confused by our arrival, but Sakulemba explained we were on their way to their headquarters and that letters had been sent in advance. Their commander, a swarthy young Konyak who spoke no English, agreed to provide us with an escort for the next day’s march.