by Peter Popham
On February 9th, they were still in Rangoon, making preparations: “An Australian senator came to see Ma Ma at 8 am,” Ma Thanegi recorded. He had also been to see General Saw Maung, “who told him elections would be held soon, after discussions with parties. . . . Spent the night at Ma Ma’s place. Ma Ma up and down stairs whole evening, signing letters, seeing to papers, books. Dr. Michael phoned after Ma Ma finished writing a letter to him.” Nobody wanted to miss the trip, starting in the morning. “Ko Maw”—Ma Thanegi’s small, grouchy, short-sighted colleague—“is ill, but coming along anyway.” Others along for the ride included a medical student and democracy activist called Ma Thida. Suu’s personal bodyguards on the trip—Ma Thanegi refers to them collectively as “the boys” or “the kids”—were to include Aung Aung, the son of Suu’s father’s personal bodyguard Bo Min Lwin, and Win Thein, a student who had survived one of the March massacres before deciding to dedicate his life to Suu and the democracy struggle.
Suu and some of her “boys,” student members of the NLD who were her loyal bodyguards during campaign tours. The blazing smiles reflect the optimism of the party’s heady first months in 1988 and ’89.
*
They set off by car on February 10, 1989, “Tiger” at the wheel as usual, Suu elegant as ever in a mauve longyi and blue jacket, sitting in the back with Ma Thanegi. The journey along Burma’s atrocious roads would be long, and the start was brutally early.
Left Rangoon 4:45 am, fifteen minutes late. Ma Ma a bit annoyed. She was sleepy in the early part of the morning. I held her down by the shoulders on bumpy roads; fragile and light as a papier-mâché doll. Forced to stop unplanned at Pyawbwe . . . Ma Ma VERY annoyed. Stopped for sugarcane juice at Tat-kone: delicious! Ma Ma loved it. Lunch at Ye Tar Shay. People in the villages amazed and overjoyed to see Ma Ma. Ate lunch, fried rice ordered from Chinese restaurant next door.
Among Ma Thanegi’s many duties was ensuring that Suu did not eat anything that might upset her stomach: “Ma Ma looked so wistful when I swiped chili sauce and onions from under her very nose. Later I relented and picked out onions sans sauce for her. Chili sauce v. unhealthy stuff in Burma.”
Eleven hours after leaving University Avenue they arrived in the Shan States, high up in the chilly hills, to a reception far grander than Suu was prepared to accept. One is reminded of the ironical remark made about the Mahatma by one of his long-suffering aides: “It costs a lot to keep Gandhi poor . . .”3
“Reached Kalaw 5:30 PM and taken to Kalaw Hotel and told about elaborate preparations that have been made for her: New bed, new dressing table. Ma Ma dug in her heels as expected and we all went to stay in a small cottage.” The whole party had to sleep in a single, freezing cold room in the cottage. “Darn cold,” Ma Thanegi remarked. “Found out later that poor Tiger sat up all night, couldn’t sleep. Ma Ma ate no dinner, just some slices of banana and squashed avocado. Very cold, so Ma Ma put on flannel pajamas, long-sleeved thick t-shirt, thick socks; buried under thick quilts. Ma Ma slept badly because the kids [the student bodyguards sharing the room] who couldn’t sleep because of the cold kept talking.”
“Told me she missed Rangoon. Then she said she missed Oxford: the heating system, and Dr. Michael’s (warm) feet.”
Despite these privations, the following morning they had another early start.
February 11: she wore green plaid longyi, white jacket, green cardigan with matching scarf and gloves. Got up (had to) at 4:30. Left for Loilam at 5:30, after I insisted she eat soft-boiled eggs.
At her request I borrowed a tape of Fifties and Sixties songs to listen to on the way, coincidentally the same we were listening to in Rangoon. I remember her singing along loudly “Love you more than I can say” as she scooted upstairs. We sang along with the tape on the way: “Seven lonely days,” etcetera.
Ma Ma v. annoyed at easy-going plans. There was supposed to be a convoy on the road “for our protection” but there was no one in sight. We reached Loilam without seeing any. Ma Ma hit the roof.
Later they learned that anti-regime Shan insurgents, a powerful presence in these hills, had chosen a different way to keep them safe. “Found out later that trucks traveling along the road had been forced by insurgents to stay two or three nights at villages. The insurgents were clearing the way for our cars!”
As Tiger negotiated the narrow, winding, potholed road through the hills, Suu reminisced about her family life, about Alex and Kim. “She talked about how [her fifteen-year-old son] Alex had once poured ink all over a carpet, a white one; and how [her eleven-year-old son] Kim, visiting Rangoon with his brother and Michael in January and fed up with all the attention, “said he wanted a notice put in his grandmother’s funeral program, ‘Do not pet Kim’ . . .
“Lunch at Loilam, hurriedly prepared . . . pickled soybeans, we loved them.” The work of the tour was getting under way, without impediment from the army—and now they found out why: “Held two or three meetings in Loilam, crowds gathered. One man came up to Aung Aung and said he and his people were taking care of security and not to worry. He was not wearing an NLD badge, so Aung Aung asked who he was . . . reply was ‘Shan insurgent’ and he left hurriedly. Aung delighted.”
By the evening they had arrived in the town of Panglong, where Aung San signed his famous agreement. Suu’s preference for spartan accommodation was tempered by an appreciation of modern plumbing which Ma Thanegi shared. “A clean, grand house,” Ma Thanegi noted, “with a functioning toilet. ‘The flush actually works!’ Ma Ma said, very delightedly. ‘And there’s loo paper, too . . .’
“Discussion with youth etc. after dinner. Preparing for bed she said she’d love to go to Oxford for two weeks, just to recharge her batteries. Seems very homesick because of cold weather. Said she was planning to plead sick and stay in bed for three days after return to Rangoon (she didn’t).”
The following day, February 12th, was the anniversary of the Panglong Agreement, to be commemorated with a ceremony, so shrugging off her melancholy Suu “worked late by candlelight preparing her address for the next day” after the electricity failed. After she went to bed the students in the room next door were again talking late, “so I went out to shush them, whereupon they started snoring loudly.”
For the ceremony the next day, Ma Thanegi records, Suu wore red. It was held in the morning; NLD central committee member U Aung Lwin, a well-known actor, read out a declaration pledging to strive for democracy, which all repeated. “Young people in the typical costume of various ethnic nationalities clustered behind Ma Ma on the stage. She gave a short speech, then on to a large prayer hall for talks. Gradually audience swelled to about two thousand. I stayed outside the meeting and tended to the toenails of the boys, which needed cutting.”
Before lunch they were back on the road. “On to Nan sam, Maipon, Ho-pone. Lunch at Nan Sam. They had prepared Burmese food, pork and chicken curry, soup. We would have preferred Shan food! Most people we met during the tour were very worried about what sort of food we would eat, but in fact we ate anything and everything.”
Ma Thanegi seems more interested in recording the practical minutiae of the trip than the political discussions along the way, but she does note down the occasional pregnant exchange: “Someone in the Shan States party said Bogyoke [i.e. Aung San] had forgotten his promise to the Shan States”—his promise to give them wide autonomy within the Union of Burma, with the right to secede from it after ten years. “Ma Ma said no, he didn’t forget, he died.”
They were driving west now, and arrived in Taunggyi, the capital of the Shan States, in the late afternoon. “Not too cold. Burmese food for dinner AGAIN.” They were put up at a monastery: The hospitality and support of the sangha, the community of Buddhist monks, was to become crucial in the history of her party. “At bedtime Ma Ma referred to her pink cotton bed sheet that she had brought from home as her security blanket. ‘If it’s dirty at least I know it’s my own dirt . . .’”
On February 13th Suu wore a grey checked
longyi and a “pinni” jacket of the sort that had become part of her party’s uniform. “Shan-style breakfast, ‘Hin Htoke,’ rice and meat packed in leaves. Ma Ma liked it. I didn’t. Nor did the boys: I found them later at a tea-shop, gorging on usual fare of nan bread and cream and tea and buns.”
Bad though unsurprising news reached them from Rangoon: a reiteration by the regime of the allegations that the NLD had been penetrated by communists. Ma Thanegi records no particular reaction on the part of Suu to what was becoming the theme song of the junta. “We paid calls on other parties in the town, the local NLD office and the Holy Infant Jesus Convent for Handicapped Children at Payaphyu. Ma Ma v. impressed by it, made a donation of 1050 kyats collected from all of us.” Ma Thanegi, who has a very limited tolerance for what she regards as maudlin sentiment, ducked out of the event. “I’m glad I didn’t go, couldn’t have borne hearing blind boy sing a song he composed about his lost parents. Instead I went to two bazaars and spent time at the house taking up the hems of Ma Ma’s longyis.”
Like Gandhi, Suu was acquiring corporate sponsors, though on a humbler plane. “Dinner offered by Kyar-Pyan cheroot people,” Ma Thanegi records. “Other guests looking dazzling in silk and gold etc, and we trooped in, dusty and rumpled. After our kids [the student bodyguards] were seated, someone said they were not included in invitation, so we (the kids and I, although they implored me to stay) walked out to eat at Chinese restaurant nearby. Pissed off.”
Military Intelligence (MI) continued to keep a close eye on Suu, as Ma Thanegi notes, but already she had discovered the knack of how to charm them. “Had fried rice, going Dutch, then went back to the house where Suu was having dinner with the cheroot people, to wait for her. Later, going back all together to the place where we were staying, Tiger lost his way. Our two attendant MI agents were trailing us on a scooter, and Ma Ma told Win Thein to ask them to lead the way back home. They did so willingly and seemed so proud when Ma Ma thanked them sweetly. The two of them huddled together, grinning.
“In bed, lights out, she giggled and said they looked like two crooks from a movie. I said very inferior movie, definitely Grade C.”
To try to persuade the Shan that no Burman chauvinist lurked behind her winning smile, Suu wore Shan national costume the next day, though declined the headdress.
She said she felt funny about wearing fancy dress. Left early for Shwenyaung, then Nyaung Shwe, then Inlay . . . went to Phaung-daw Oo Paya. Then to a monastery: abbot with loud and very dramatically tuneful voice gave blessings and recited prayers, which we had to repeat, during which Ma Ma bravely kept herself solemn, but I couldn’t. Disgraced myself with two bouts of giggles, relieved to learn afterwards that most of us nearly in fits.
That night, too, they were guests of a Shan monastery. “Abbot there youngish and so nice and helpful. I don’t know if proper to refer to a monk as being ‘sweet’ but definitely he is.” But the monastic prohibition against the close interaction of monks with women caused a small problem. “Men lucky as they could use monks’ loo,” Ma Thanegi noted, “but Ma Ma and I had to march right outside, to public loo, which consisted of many small rooms high above water, with a very large rectangular hole in the floor of each. Ma Ma terrified, said she was thin enough to slip right through.
“Three of us, Ma Ma, Ma Thida and I, slept on floor on thick mattress in the room of one of the monks, who slept in guest room.” Bathing during the trip usually consisted of freezing dips in convenient streams, but the state of the pond here ruled it out. “We couldn’t bathe in it. Boys swam in swampy-looking water nearby, and got rashes next day . . .”
They did however enjoy an outing on Inlay Lake, the great tourist draw of the Shan States, famous for floating gardens, fishermen who propel their boats standing up with a single oar, and the Temple of the Jumping Cats. “On boat ride on Lake Inlay, Ma Ma felt the glare of the sun in her eyes and covered her face with white hanky kept in place by hat and hat band. We told her people are going to say Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is VERY fair! Video and cameramen in another boat circled us to get her picture and their jaws dropped when they encountered Ma Ma, face covered!”
Next day they again embarked on the lake.
2/15/1989: sea-green jacket and Arakanese longyi same color. Left Inlay early morning. Just as boat leaving, U Thuriya marched out to supply us with blankets. Ma Ma slept for a while in boat, on and under pile of blankets. Nyaung Shwe NLD people upset because we didn’t spend night there. Blamed boys of NLD Inlay for it. Ma Ma explained at length, several times, how it had been fixed in Rangoon by Electoral Commission. This is the sort of thing that annoys her about thick skulls.
After driving for a couple of hours through the gentle, pastoral, almost European countryside, its Asian setting only betrayed by the broad-brimmed hats of the farmers, they arrived at Pindaya, famous for its limestone caves chock-full of Buddha images. “Then to Pindaya cave pagoda . . . stiff climb, all of us except Ma Ma puffing. Cool, beautiful, eerie place. On to Ywet-hla to put up NLD sign. Then to Aungban for overnight stop. Discussions till late. Receive pamphlet denouncing Ma Ma for not being agreeable to armed movement, possibly produced by group in Taunggyi.”
That night they stayed in a big wooden house, with what Ma Thanegi describes as “a funny loo—two people can sit facing each other, chatting.
“Bedtime remark: Laughing, Suu said, ‘Everyone is attacking me! Whatever possessed me to get involved in all this? When I could have stayed peacefully in Oxford!’”
*
2/16/1989: Red Arakanese longyi; same color jacket. Red flowers in hair. Left Aungban at 7:00 AM. Lunch at Hpe-khon, where we were met by two bands, one of them “western-style” with lovely flutes and drums. Band played “Hail to the Chief” with Ma Ma in step behind them, having to walk slow and looking bashful, hands behind her back, growing red in the face.
Gave us Kaung-ye (rice wine) to drink . . . sweet and cool and not strong. In all three villages met by flute and drum bands. One man shouted, “May you become president!” Ma Ma forced to step out of car to walk through crowds which included Padaung women [the so-called “giraffe women” who wear numerous brass rings around their necks]. Two of them, old ladies in traditional dress, separately handed Ma Ma five kyat notes! One of them touched the badge of one of our boys with a picture of Bogyoke on it, and said “This our father.” The boy nearly cried he was so touched, said he came out in goose pimples.
Now they were on the homeward stretch, heading south in Kayah state—called Karen state until the regime changed the name—on the road to Rangoon. Ma Thanegi was showing signs of losing patience with the proceedings. “Overnight stop at Loikaw. Got there late afternoon. Meetings held at separate places because two NLD groups in heated rivalry. Meals at separate places; put up at neutral house. A lot of bloody fuss and bloody long-winded meetings.”
But there were compensations: “House very nice, clean loo. Ma Ma said I can write loo guide for Burma . . .
“Ma Ma received Kayah style dress, she was feeling silly about all the fancy dress she was expected to wear. I said, since she’d worn Shan national costume it was only fair to wear the others or else they will all be screaming. Told her let’s hope she won’t receive Naga dress . . .” In a note for Michael Aris, Ma Thanegi wrote, “I hope you know what it’s like, Dr. M . . .” Traditionally the women of the Naga tribes on Burma’s north-western border went bare-breasted.
Ma Thanegi recorded another of Suu’s jocular indications that the controversies into which she was being sucked were getting on her nerves. “Ma Ma said sometimes when everyone is attacking her she would like to have a tantrum like a child and scream ‘It’s not fair, it’s not fair!’ . . .”
It was the penultimate day of the journey, and Ma Thanegi allowed herself to kick back a little, to Suu’s consternation.
2/17/1989: Dark olive green Arakanese longyi and same color jacket. Left early for Faruso, Dimawso. Talks. Wild greetings at Dimawso in colorful traditional dresses, bands, dan
ces etc. One group of men wearing black shorts with colored woolly pieces and pom-poms and tiny white buttons all over them. I told Ma Ma I am going to get one for Dr. M and she giggled . . . said March 27 his birthday. Lunch at Dimawso, in old chapel. Band played Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer while we were having lunch. I had sampled Kaung-ye rice wine while she was talking to crowds and was nearly dead drunk only nobody noticed. Thanks to father’s training I could handle liquor—father drank like fish.
I warned Ma Ma during lunch not to touch Kaung Ye and why.
It was not a warning that Suu was likely to require—she had not touched alcohol since experimentally sampling sherry with Indian friends in the ladies’ loo of Oxford’s Bodleian Library, more than twenty years before.4 “She was startled and asked me why I had drunk so much. I said only half a glass. Learnt later it was three-year-old rice wine. If it were any older I’d be under table, father’s training or not.”
The bodyguards, too, were starting to relax. “Boys very interested in traditional dress, esp. that of the Padaung women, and I’m afraid they asked point-blank how necks were washed.5 (Strips of straw inserted under brass rings and pulled to and fro.) I dared not ask them what else they asked. . . . Got back to Loikaw . . . huge Chinese dinner. Same dishes for boys, too: I checked. In some places ‘top’ table dishes better than other tables. Boys ate like horses. Ma Ma ate more than usual and threw up twice during meetings afterwards. She said wryly, ‘everything’s gone.’” She had caved in to the pleas that she wear tribal dress. “She wore Kayah longyi and big Kayah shawl to dinner.”
*
February 18: Left Loikaw early, 7 AM. Blue checked longyi, blue jacket, red sweater. She had rice gruel for breakfast. Speech at Newma monastery. Said she would love some strawberries but we couldn’t get any so we will do so in Rangoon.