Storyteller

by Zoe Daniel

  Late Friday night I bake the requested butterfly cake, rich with pink and purple icing, and cupcakes in the shape of ladybirds. We have a party in our garden and the kids run wild with their friends, Pearl blowing bubbles and chasing them in the breeze. She wears a pretty red dress, handmade in Cambodia, that I’ve been saving for a party. It’s a size 2 and already tight. Like every parent before me, I suddenly realise how quickly my children are growing up.

  It’s a tough conflict between wanting to be home and craving the next adventure. Part of me would prefer to go back to being a stay-at-home mum, but the lure of the road is strong. So, with the birthday cake sliced and sent to kindy in Tupperware, I’m off on my first trip to Burma, a place of mystery and intrigue.

  Burma, also known as Myanmar, is about to hold a general election – the first in twenty years. We’ve decided to go in for a few days a couple of weeks before the 7 November poll to collect material about the political situation and assess the mood of the people. The last election resulted in a big win for the opposition, but the victory was ignored. Ever since, those who have spoken out against the government have been punished, often with jail time.

  After decades as a British colony under sufferance, Burma gained independence in 1948, but in 1962 it was taken over by the military and has been ruled by a brutal junta ever since. Attempts to achieve change through protest have been met with swift and violent reactions from government forces. The country is also rife with ethnic conflict: minority groups are treated mercilessly by the military and millions of people have fled overseas. The forced conscription of convict porters (who are made to carry army supplies through minefields), the conscription of child soldiers and rape are all commonplace. International sanctions have prevented business investment and economic support from organisations like the World Bank, and Burma has been virtually closed to media and many NGOs.

  Burma has an understandably strong pull for journalists. It’s an incredibly difficult place to work, but it’s also an untapped well of stories. The hardline junta and resultant human rights situation mean that covering it is all the more important.

  Having worked illegally as a journalist in Zimbabwe, I’m well aware of the difficulties of going undercover. We haven’t even attempted to get media visas, knowing they’ll be refused, but I’ve been issued a tourist visa on my clean second passport that contains no evidence of my profession. Producer Paul Gates is also issued with a tourist visa. David is banned from Burma – the result of stories from an earlier trip that aggravated the junta.

  We’ve spent a lot of time planning what gear we’ll take to film stories without being caught and deported. It’s one of those times when I wish I was a print journalist with just a notebook and pen. By necessity, our kit will be two digital cameras that record video: one pocket-sized and one a bit larger, a Canon EOS SLR. I’m struck by how much the technology has improved in the five years since I entered Zimbabwe. Microphones are still a problem, though. We have to sneak them in, hidden in our bags. We take small lapel mikes and cross fingers.

  Paul and I want to talk to ordinary people as well as dissidents and opposition figures, and we don’t want to get anyone arrested. We’ll be walking a tricky tightrope to get the material we need. We’ve also enlisted the help of a Burmese cameraman who will film for us in places where we would stand out too much.

  Posing as siblings on a holiday, we stay in Yangon, Burma’s former capital. Our hotel is beige in every way except that it overlooks a breathtaking golden monument, the Shwedagon Pagoda. The idea is not to draw any attention to ourselves. That’s not too difficult, as there are plenty of Western tourists around, although we feel suspicious eyes on us once or twice.

  Eye-popping as it is on the surface, I find Yangon a depressing place. Compared to the rest of Southeast Asia, it’s desperately poor and the people have the appearance of being so worn down and wearied by their situation that they can’t even see the possibility of change. We spend a few days covertly filming interviews about the forthcoming election, discussing whether it will lead to any real improvement in the lives of ordinary people. The consensus is that it’s unlikely.

  Not only is there general pessimism that the election will fix anything, but there are also concerns that it may do the reverse, triggering civil war. Serious conflicts continue unabated between the Burmese military and ethnic groups in the country’s border areas. Meanwhile, opposition leader and democracy advocate Aung San Suu Kyi, whose National League for Democracy Party won the last election (in 1990) in a landslide, is under house arrest and her party is boycotting the poll. Under these circumstances, the election is flawed before it even gets underway.

  Ahead of the poll, the junta’s generals have made a great show of resigning from the military and calling themselves civilians. Notably, junta leader and hardline general Than Shwe has ‘retired’. Twenty-five per cent of the parliament is still officially held by the military, while the rest is made up of soldiers in civilian clothes.

  Predictably, at election time there are irregularities during the voting. Some citizens are prevented from casting their ballots, while others say they’re forced to support the junta.

  Fighting breaks out, causing refugees to flee across the Thai–Burma border. As I spend the days after the election covering this exodus, I’m fearful for the people. It takes me back to so many trips in Africa. In the Thai town of Mae Sot, I talk to men and women in makeshift camps who have carried little other than their terrified children away from gunshots and bombs.

  Aung San Suu Kyi is due to be released soon after the election. For almost fifteen of the twenty-odd years since her party’s democratic victory, she’s been locked in her house in Yangon on the shores of Inya Lake, cut off from the outside world. Her campaign of peaceful resistance has made her a global icon.

  It has also cost her dearly. Her sons, Kim and Alexander, spent years separated from her, living with their father in London who then died of cancer in her absence. In 1991, they received a Nobel Peace Prize on her behalf. As a mother I believe she’s made an incredible personal sacrifice for her cause. My biggest fear, reporting from countries like Burma, is getting arrested and being unable to see my children grow up. The very thought is enough to give me nightmares.

  There’s been a lot of debate about whether the junta will actually release her on the due date. Her period of house arrest has been arbitrarily extended a number of times, notably by eighteen months when an American man swam up to her house in 2009. We’re all half-expecting another last-minute excuse to keep her out of the public eye. At the same time, though, the election is over. How much damage can she possibly do when the next poll (if it happens) is five years away?

  We’re back in Bangkok and it’s late on a Friday afternoon when we get word of activity at her home. Jum hits the phone hard and manages to confirm that Aung San Suu Kyi will soon be freed. We go live on radio and TV with the news.

  The next day the world holds its breath until the diminutive woman with flowers in her hair appears at her front gate in front of a media circus and thousands of Burmese. Information is still scant about whether conditions have been imposed on her release, but for the moment her smiling face is enough to make the crowd of long-suffering Burmese weep and laugh and cheer. Still in Bangkok, I listen to a crackly live feed of her speech on Radio Free Asia. It’s in Burmese, but that doesn’t matter – the emotion is easy to comprehend.

  David has worked for years in Southeast Asia, and he’s seen her released and rearrested before. ‘Ask someone to hand her a phone,’ he says. ‘She’ll talk to Australia.’

  As we deliver round-the-clock live crosses, TV and radio stories to the ABC’s various outlets, Jum has one job: to get Aung San Suu Kyi on the phone. She’s yet to do any interviews. Jum spends a whole day calling our various contacts again and again while Paul, David and I concentrate on covering the story.

  It’s Sunday evening around six o’clock when Jum pops her head into my office. ‘Got her! Sh
e’ll be on the phone in five minutes.’

  I dash into the radio booth and set up a recording session. We open an output so that David can make a second recording, just in case. This is one interview we don’t want to make any mistakes with.

  I try to centre myself. It’s hard not to be completely starstruck, and I’ve been told that Aung San Suu Kyi can be prickly and has a low tolerance for personal questions. We’ve also been warned that she will give us five minutes only.

  When Jum gets our contact on the phone, we’re all sick with nerves that the line will drop out. I patch him through and ask, ‘Can you hear me?’

  ‘Yes. Are you ready?’

  I swallow and indicate that I am indeed.

  There’s some fumbling and talking in the background. ‘It’s ABC Australia,’ I hear him say. A second later, ‘Hello?’ It’s the unmistakable Oxford English accent of the woman everyone wants to talk to.

  ‘Hello Daw Suu,’ I say, using the Burmese honorific that denotes respect to older women. ‘Thank you for talking to us. My name is Zoe.’

  ‘I’m having trouble hearing you,’ she says. She will later say that she doesn’t much enjoy talking on mobile phones, which of course didn’t exist when she was placed under house arrest. There was no internet either.

  I fiddle with a few dials to increase the volume, and we’re underway. ‘Can you tell me, to start with, what is your key message to the Burmese people both inside and outside Burma?’

  ‘That we all have to work together and that unity is strength,’ she says. ‘We’ve got to find new ways and we have got to make our movement wider. We have broadened our movement and we’ve got to find new people and new ways in support of our dream.’

  ‘How are you going to do that up against the difficult environment that is Burma?’

  ‘Well, difficulties are a challenge and challenges are there to be overcome.’

  ‘Will you engage with the military junta?’

  ‘We would like to engage with the military junta. We would like to engage with everybody who we think would help the democratic process.’

  ‘What would you say to General Than Shwe if you could speak with him today?’

  ‘Well, the first thing is that I would like to have the opportunity to say something to him; that is to say that it would be good if we could talk to each other.’

  ‘Little has changed politically in Burma since your detention. How do you feel about that – coming out of such a long period of detention to still see your people so depleted?’

  ‘Of course I feel very sad about that. I noticed today how poor a lot of our people are and I was very touched by the fact that in spite of their obvious difficulties, the hardships that they have to face, they were so warm in their welcome and so enthusiastic.’

  ‘Do you think that the election has made things better or worse?’

  ‘At the moment I don’t see any change at all. I am not sure whether things are better or things are worse. I think we have got to wait for a little bit to find out.’

  ‘And how much pressure do you feel personally because they view you so much as the hero of their country who can fix their problems?’

  ‘Do you mean that do I feel I am being pressured to do something?’

  ‘Yes, do you feel pressured?’

  ‘I don’t think that I feel that because, after all, I chose to do what I am doing and nobody pressured me into working for the movement for democracy.’

  ‘Do you fear that you may be arrested again?’

  ‘I don’t know whether I shall be arrested again or not. This is not in my department. I am not the one who goes around arresting people so I am not in a position to say whether this one or that one including myself might be arrested, but I hope not because there is so much that I want to do.’

  ‘Will that stop you from doing anything?’

  ‘No, of course not. I have to do what I feel that my duty dictates.’

  ‘Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, I was on the border during the week with refugees who had fled fighting between ethnic groups and the Burmese military. How high do you think the risk is of increased fighting and potential civil war?’

  ‘I have also heard news about the fighting on the border. Of course, I haven’t been there as you have so I would not view the situation as well as you do, but I am very saddened by this – the problems in this country should be resolved through dialogue, not through force of arms.’

  ‘International governments, including Australia, have offered support to you. What do you need from them?’

  ‘I would like to talk to them. I would like to see how they think they can support us. I think there has to be an exchange. I have just come out of house arrest after six years and I don’t just want to go around and tell people you do this and you do that, we want this and we want that. I would like to have a genuine exchange to find out what we can do to help each other.’

  ‘Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, lovely to talk to you and thank you for your time.’

  ‘Thank you very much and my very warmest thanks to the people of Australia for all that they have done for us.’

  I exit the radio booth and give Jum a big hug.

  We’re one of only a few networks to talk directly to ‘the Lady of Burma’ so soon after her release. Our interview airs on ABC radio’s AM program the next morning. As Australians eat their Weet-Bix, walk their dogs and drive to work, they hear Aung San Suu Kyi thank them for their support.

  By mid November my family barely remembers who I am. I’ve been either on the road or at the office from 6 a.m. for weeks on end when I get a call from Sydney: the foreign editor will be relieving me for a few days.

  Rowan and I fly off with the kids to Krabi, a beach town in Thailand’s south. We jump on a longboat to Railei Beach, where awe-inspiring cliffs frame white sand fringed with trees. The kids are in bright-yellow life jackets, bouncing as we hit the waves and grinning from ear to ear. The groceries are piled up with our suitcases in the front.

  By the time we reach the shore, the sky has opened and we’re caught in a torrential downpour. We drag all our stuff, dripping wet, to the little Thai timber house that will be our home for a few days. There’s no air-conditioning, no hot water, no TV, no phone, just soft beds draped with white mosquito nets and wooden shutters on the windows to keep the monkeys out.

  The kids and I dance on the deck in the warm rain. The year is drawing to a close and I finally feel like I can breathe. When the sun shines we play in the sea and make sandcastles, and at night I dream of redshirts and deadlines and soaring mountains and rushing rivers and birthday cakes – and Burma.

  FIVE

  A week later, when we’re back in Bangkok, the phone rings at 1 a.m.

  I fumble through the mozzie net to answer it, but years of conditioning – or ‘heightened awareness’, as the counsellors call it – mean I snap awake fast. ‘Yep?’

  ‘Zoe, it’s Shaun on the foreign desk in Sydney. Sorry to wake you.’

  ‘That’s okay. What’s up?’ I get an instant adrenaline surge. Earthquakes, tsunamis, bombs, plane crashes?

  ‘There’s an unfolding disaster in Cambodia – a stampede at the Water Festival.’

  My heart sinks. I think of friends who might have been at the biggest party of the year in Phnom Penh, where millions watch boat races and fireworks to celebrate the end of the rains.

  After hanging up the phone, I go downstairs to make calls, check the newswires and file for radio while simultaneously booking flights. The time difference means I have to file by 2 a.m. to feed the 6 a.m. radio bulletins, and we’ll need to move fast to catch a plane, shoot a story and file in time for that night’s 7 p.m. TV news. It’s going to be a scramble.

  Information is always vague this soon after a disaster. At the moment the death toll is around three hundred, mostly young women who were on their way across a river footbridge when something caused mass panic. They were either crushed to death or jumped off and drowned. One thing I learnt while li
ving there is that most Cambodians can’t swim very well, if at all. I used to take Arkie and Pearl to swimming lessons at a pool just a few hundred metres from the river, close to the fatal footbridge. I wish I could have given free lessons to the Khmer kids we knew, especially the ones from the squatter camps.

  While I work I leave the lights off except for a couple of soft lamps. Behind me, through the insect screens, I can hear the familiar sound of frogs in the garden. I try to record my voice in between the loudest croaks but, as always, I wonder if they’re heard by people in places like Melbourne and Hobart and Sydney and Perth as they listen to the news on the way to work, or if the nocturnal soundtrack of the Asian tropics is drowned out in the Australian morning rush.

  My radio reporter drone must have woken Pearl because her little head appears beside me while I’m concentrating on the computer screen. She makes me jump.

  ‘What are you doing, Mumma?’

  ‘Just working, darling.’

  Despite the hour, that seems to be an acceptable answer for a two year old. I put her into bed with Rowan, then pack and get dressed in the dark. As I’m leaving, I hesitate and duck back into the bedroom to rummage through a pile of jewellery on my desk. I pull out a bronze disc on a leather strap, embossed with the abstract imprint of a woman and child. According to the Cambodian shop I bought it from, it’s a Buddhist symbol of female strength and wellbeing. I might be needing that today.

  David and I meet at the office to grab the kit. I speak to our regular Khmer fixer, a crucial guide who’ll meet us at the airport and drive us where we need to go, as well as translating interviews for me.

  At Bangkok Airport I front up to the Thai Airways counter and buy two seats on the first plane to Phnom Penh with my credit card. It’s around 6 a.m. and I’m already shattered, having had only an hour or two of sleep. I brace myself for a long day covering an awful tragedy. Then, when the flight’s being called, my phone rings. It’s Rowan. ‘You’d better talk to Arkie.’