The Irrawaddy Magazine (Mar. 2011 Vol.19 No.1)

TheIrrawaddy w w w. i r r a w a d d y. o r g

March 2011, Vol.19 No.1

THE CELL A Trip to Arakan State

A Port Heading for a Storm?

Battleground

It’s Written in the Stars

Contents

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38

Cover Story

Article

The Cell

Exiled Dreams

Kyaw Zwa Moe

Ba Kaung

Paintings by Htein Lin

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44

Travel

Book Review

A Trip to Arakan State

Love Among the Oppressed

Sein Htay

Hnin Wathan

22 article

46

A Port Heading for a Storm?

Htet Aung and Neil Lawrence

20

Culture & Society It’s Written in the Stars

Profile

Yeni

Bound and Gagged Ba Kaung

30 Photo Essay Battleground

Narciso Contreras Cover: Artist Htein Lin The Irrawaddy, published since 1993, was established by Burmese journalists living in exile. We are an independent, non-profit publication providing in-depth news and information on Burma and Southeast Asia. Editor: Aung Zaw Administrator: Win Thu Sales & Advertising: advertising@irrawaddy.org Subscription: subscriptions@irrawaddy.org mailing Address: The Irrawaddy, P.O.Box 242, CMU Post Office, Chiang Mai 50202, Thailand E-mail: editors@irrawaddy.org; information@irrawaddy.org Printer: Chotana Printing (Chiang Mai, Thailand) Subscription rates (1 Year)

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Dear Readers:

S

ometimes, they say, less is more. But then there are times when the bare essentials are just not enough. It’s a question of balance, and in the news media business, striking this balance is especially difficult, as audiences increasingly demand content that is both timely and in-depth.

This was the crux of the dilemma that faced The Irrawaddy at the end of last year. We had to decide whether to focus our energies on our website, which offers the sort of immediacy that readers expect in this digital age, or continue to pour a substantial portion of our resources into a magazine that provides a deeper perspective on events in Burma.

The decision we reached—to suspend publication of our monthly magazine—was not an easy one.

Nor did we imagine that it would resolve the issue of how best to meet the diverse needs of our readers. But it was a necessary move, considering the demands of a fast-changing media landscape and the challenges we face as a Burmese news organization working in exile.

Still, after years of bringing feature stories and detailed analysis of events in Burma to the world, we were keenly aware of the limitations of working within the 24-hour news cycle. Somehow, we thought, we had to find a way to return to our strength—giving our readers the background knowledge they need to understand what is really happening in Burma, as well as more intimate stories that highlight the human side of the country’s decades-old struggle to free itself from the grip of military rule.

Now, after a three-month hiatus, we believe we’ve found a solution. Starting with this issue, we are relaunching our print edition as a quarterly journal, available in print, as a flip-through e-magazine and as a downloadable PDF file.

Like our news magazine of years past, the new quarterly edition of The Irrawaddy will include the sort of thoroughly researched, exhaustive reporting that our long-time readers have come to expect from us. It will examine Burma’s changing social, economic and political landscape from a variety of angles, providing insight into a country where the military’s hold on power—unbroken for nearly half a century—belies a multitude of forces at work that could suddenly erupt at any time, with major consequences for the region.

The new print version will be both less and more.

While we will print fewer issues per year, each issue will contain longer articles, reflecting our readers’ desire for reportage of real substance. We will also add new sections, including feature stories profiling Burma’s prominent figures, travel pieces written by writers deeply familiar with the customs and unique attractions of some of the country’s most beautiful places, and articles examining Burma’s cultural and religious traditions.

At the same time, we will retain two of the most popular features from our previous print magazine—cartoons and photo essays—helping to shed light on the situation in Burma in ways that sometimes words cannot.

The success of this new venture will ultimately depend on you, our readers. Your input will be invaluable, so please take a look and let us know what you think.

Thank you.

The Irrawaddy

The Irrawaddy’s new quarterly edition is also available in print.

To subscribe, contact us at subscriptions@irrawaddy.org

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March 2011, Vol.19 No.1

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A Trip to Arakan State

A Port Heading for a Storm?

Battleground

It’s Written in the Stars

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A Trip to

Arakan State

By Sein Htay

S

ITTWE, Arakan State—As the setting sun sheds its golden rays, a fresh sea breeze washes over the lapping waves as they kiss the soft sand. A flock of girls stroll along the beach letting their brown skin bask in the dying light, while children and shirtless young men play football at the water’s edge. People in a dozen or so bamboo and nipa palm huts quietly sip beer, enjoying the tranquility of the coast as traditional ballads fill the air from a nearby restaurant.

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TheIrrawaddy

This idyllic scene is set just outside Sittwe, the capital of Arakan State in the west of Burma. This is not my first visit to the region, and during every trip I make time for a sunset stroll at this little beach up to a nearby viewpoint known locally as simply “The Point.”

The Point is in fact a park from which one can gaze at the Indian Ocean from amid swaying palms. There is an old look-out tower and modern lighthouse here, and it is a favorite spot for swooning young couples and students.

Travel Kothaung, the “Temple of 90,000 Buddha Images,” is the largest temple in Mrauk U.

old palaces are begging to be explored.

But Arakan State’s must-see attraction is undoubtedly Mrauk U. This crumbling relic can be reached by taking a five-hour bus ride from Sittwe along a dusty access road. Alternatively, there are boats which ply the route—taking nearly a whole day—while hiring a car is certainly the quickest way.

And the “open-air museum” of Mrauk U is the perfect place for anyone wishing to learn about the culture and heritage of the Arakanese people. Mrauk U was

March 2011

photo: Jean-Marie Hullot

Arakan State is blessed with countless wonders which would attract visitors from all over the world. Burma’s most beautiful stretch of sand is here—the picture perfect three kilometers of Ngapali Beach, which was apparently given its continentalsounding name by a homesick Italian.

Every undeveloped area of this desperately poor Southeast Asian nation is bursting with unique tourist sights, and Arakan State is no different. Centuries-old stupas and temples bejewel the landscape, while diverse ethnic groups and nostalgic

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photo: Jean-Marie Hullot

Fishermen sell their catch in Sittwe.

founded in 1430 by King Min Saw Mon, who oversaw the golden age of Arakan history, and was the last Arakanese stronghold before they were defeated by the Konbaung dynasty of Burma in 1784. In between these dates, the citadel thrived as a port and trading power-base in the Bay of Bengal region with extensive maritime connections to Europe and Arabia.

Evidence of the city’s former grandeur is easy to see, with its 19-mile fortification walls, moats and natural barriers betraying its previous riches.

However, due to internal instability and rebellion, the kingdom was finally invaded by Konbaung forces, for which many Arakanese people resent the ethnic Burmans even today. This animosity is further fueled by the ruling Burmese junta’s neglect of Arakan State and ignorance of its issues.

Although the junta earns many millions of dollars by exporting natural gas from the state, even basic needs such as reliable electricity are woefully inadequate here. Those living in Arakan State receive just a few hours of power per day, but are charged rates several times more expensive than residents of cities such as Rangoon and Mandalay.

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TheIrrawaddy

Local people are also bitter about government recovery efforts following Cyclone Giri, which struck in October 2010. The junta has done very little to help people here affected by the natural disaster, while at the same time limiting the humanitarian actions of private donors—much as it did following Cyclone Nargis, which devastated the Irrawaddy Delta in May 2008.

Old rivalries are still very much alive in Arakan State, perhaps emboldened by opposition to the ruling junta which is perceived as Burman. When Arakanese people are asked their opinions of the Burman ethnic group, a common response is: “You Bamar (Burmans) are never good to us. You took our Mahamuni image when you invaded and destroyed our kingdom; now you take our natural gas without giving us anything in return.”

It is hard not to feel sorry whenever such things are said, and it is easy to understand their feelings.

There are still many Burman people who feel angry at the British for invading the country and plundering resources such as teak, gems and other minerals. It is only natural that Arakanese people might feel the same.

Travel

Those who have been to Mandalay, Burma’s second largest city, might have seen the Mahamuni Buddha statue. It was taken away by Burmese forces from Arakan State as the spoils of war after the 18th century invasion of the Mrauk U Kingdom.

This beautiful bronze artifact only creates feelings of anger and sadness amongst Arakanese people these days, and many friends from the region become visibly upset when we discuss its fate.

On the dusty road to Mrauk U from Sittwe, visitors can drop by Kyauktaw Mahamuni Buddha Temple where Buddha images cast from leftover bronze remnants of the Mahamuni Buddha image can still be seen. The Mahamuni image, and some images at Kyauktaw, were cast in the lifetime of Gautama Buddha—the religion’s founder commonly regarded as the “supreme enlightened one”.

Many Arakanese people vehemently believe that these remaining Buddha images at Kyauktaw can never be removed from Arakan State, and that anyone who tries would be cursed. The Kyauktaw Mahamuni Buddha Temple compound also boasts a banyan tree, which is believed to help mothers who want to have a son. Pregnant women can often be seen praying here and making offerings in order to secure male offspring.

The state is home to many other stunning stupas and temples as well, some of which date back more than 300 years, and Arakanese historians believe there were once more than six million shrines and pagodas covering practically every hilltop. However, most of these have long fell into disrepair through lack of investment and skilled maintenance.

Many of the pagodas in Mrauk U display unique architectural motifs and vary greatly from places of worship in other parts of the country. One of the most dazzling temples in Mrauk U is Shite-thaung (80,000) Temple, which is enshrined with 84,000 Buddha images. Local people come here both for worship and shelter from the oppressive midday heat, with the cool underground chambers a welcome refuge from the blistering temperatures of the hot season.

Arakan State is also a place where myths and fables are still very much alive. Many locals continue to lament the tale of the monk U Mra Wah, who apparently could see into the future. He prophecized that Mrauk U was facing a momentous calamity and would soon fall to invading forces, but city-dwellers refused to heed his warning and the kingdom was lost forever.

Arakanese people are devout Buddhists and rarely marry outside of their ethnic group, so protecting their unique traditions. While talking to people here it becomes apparent that they consider themselves to be a race apart from the rest of the country, and have little connection with what happens in the big cities.

Nearby the ruins of Mrauk U are fascinating villages of the tattooed Chin tribe. The 52 different sub-groups display facial markings including dots, lines around the cheek-bones and even elaborate spider webs. Such tremendous anthropological wonders would surely attract millions of visitors from the four corners of the globe, if only the political situation and transport infrastructure would allow it.

The lack of tourists here means that there are none of the souvenir shops common in Bagan—the land of pagodas in central Burma. But many people dwelling in Arakan State believe that tourism, if allowed to flourish, could help local people by creating jobs.

The level of poverty in Arakan State is hard to miss, with many of the rural population struggling to find enough food to eat—which is especially galling for such a proud and formerly prosperous kingdom.

And while the junta only focuses on developing Naypyidaw—the soulless ghost-town that is Burma’s new capital—they steadfastly ignore development elsewhere in the country.

Arakan State is one of the most neglected areas with dilapidated infrastructure and unreliable transport links. The journey here from Rangoon is a tiring and uncomfortable one—often taking more than 32 hours by bus.

Throughout the long backbreaking trip, an appreciation grows for the hardships of the Arakanese people. Cramped and crowded with goods and in sweltering heat, passengers must crouch in the fetal position with legs tight against their chest. The lack of air-conditioning makes opening windows a necessity, but the clouds of dust billowing in does nothing to assuage the arid atmosphere.

Luckily for those who find the prospect of a day and a half in such stifling conditions intolerable, there are internal flights from Rangoon to Sittwe which take a mere fraction of the time. But even if one must endure the savage discomfort of the land route, there is no doubt that the richness of the culture and warmth of Arakan State’s people will make your brief hardship extremely rewarding.

March 2011

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In a country with thousands of active and former political prisoners, the cell has become a significant element in Burma’s political culture

The

CELL

By KYAW ZWA MOE

I

n Burma, the prison cell does not discriminate: it can just as easily be occupied by a student, businessman, physician or teacher as by a murderer, rapist or thief.

But in particular, the Burmese cell is where you will find political activists and anyone else who resists the will of the oppressive military regime.

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TheIrrawaddy

“Gate,” by Htein Lin

Cover Story

March 2011

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Throughout modern history, Burma’s prison cells have never had a shortage of political prisoners.

From the British era through U Nu’s democratic government and on to the late dictator Ne Win’s socialist regime, the number of political prisoners remained significant. Following the 1988 prodemocracy uprising, thousands more political prisoners were thrown into cells, and under Snr-Gen Than Shwe’s current junta the population of political prisoners remains at more than 2,000.

Burma therefore has thousands of living political activists who at one time or another spent time in prison. As a result, the cell has become an essential part of the country’s political culture—while life in a cell is hell, it also has the power to turn passive resisters into activists and activists into leaders and statesmen.

“The cell is a holy place where you go to be baptized to become a political activist or politician,” said Kyaw Win, a student activist who spent almost seven years in prison for participating in political protests.

A

Room for Everything: Lin Thant was another student activist, but he had more radical designs than his non-violent colleagues like Kyaw Win, who confined their resistance efforts to activities such as giving speeches, handing out anti-government literature and participating in street marches. In April 1990, Lin Thant was a 24-year-old university student cum secret agent who planned to change the course of Burmese history by assassinating the regime’s powerful chief of Military Intelligence, then Maj-Gen Khin Nyunt.

The young revolutionary meticulously prepared for his deadly task by taking target practice hundreds of times, and on the morning of the intended assassination he had a fully loaded 38 MM pistol under his jacket and managed to get within a couple of yards of Khin Nyunt. But the first-time assassin could not bring himself to pull the trigger, and that moment of hesitation ended his life as a university Detail from Htein Lin’s “Death Row”

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TheIrrawaddy

Cover Story “The cell is a holy place where you go to be baptized to become a political activist or politician.”

illustration: htein lin

student roaming around campus and began his life as a prisoner locked in a cell.

Lin Thant was sentenced to death, and on May 25, 1990 was thrown inside Cell No. 31 of Insein Prison’s death row cellblock. The twelve-by-seven-foot cell was bare except for a rough bamboo mat for sleeping and an earthen bowl for a toilet. Just outside the door, which was made of six vertical iron bars spaced roughly three inches apart, was another earthen pot containing drinking water. Two small openings high up on the thick walls did almost nothing to ventilate the still, stale air.

The cell cut Lin Thant off from everything he loved in this world: his family, his girlfriend, his society and his education. And the next two decades of his prime—the time when he should have been finishing his education, building his career, starting a family, enjoying his good health—all passed in isolation without event.

“If you consider the prison a graveyard, then the cell would be a tomb,” said Lin Thant. “It is a tomb for the living dead. And we suffered many deaths: our spirits, our hopes, our futures all expired in those cells.”

His death row cell in Insein Prison was an environment not to be wished upon anyone, even for a day, but Lin Thant’s entire existence revolved around a cell for 19 years.

“There was nothing there, but it was my bedroom, living room, dining room, toilet and worshiping room ... it was my room for everything,” Lin Thant said. “After years, the cell becomes your home whether you like it or not. It is the only place to sit, walk, eat, meditate, think, exercise, sleep, learn and piss.”

Lin Thant spent 23 hours a day in his “room for everything,” and by the time he was released in 2009, the total hours he had spent in a cell by far outnumbered the hours he had spent in his bedroom and classrooms before being imprisoned.

While Lin Thant stayed in dozens of different cells during his time in prison, 12 of those years were spent in a single cell that he said was his favorite— No. 12 of Cellblock 1 in Thayet Prison. During that time, he tried to keep as busy as possible by engaging

March 2011

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“Sitting at the Iron Gate,” by Htein Lin

in activities such as reading, playing chess, learning English and the horoscope, knitting wool shawls and bags, telling stories, cooking, planting, discussing politics, meditating and more.

“I always tried to be occupied with something,” he said. “Otherwise, I would have gone crazy.”

But many of these activities, especially reading, were against prison rules while Lin Thant was incarcerated, so a large part of staying occupied with something more interesting than staring at the ceiling involved finding a time, place and manner to do so without getting caught.

L

ife University’s Classroom: Like Lin Thant, I was arrested by the junta and put in prison, where I spent eight years—from 1991 until 1999—in a cell.

While I was fortunate enough not to be in isolation and had up to five cell mates at any given time, the same prohibitions on books and magazines

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TheIrrawaddy

that Lin Thant experienced on death row applied to my cellblock as well.

The Burmese military regime tried to execute not only our physical beings, but also our convictions and knowledge. We were determined, however, to defy the ruling generals—learning in a cell was not only our manner of staying sane and improving ourselves while behind bars, it was also our way of standing up to the junta and preparing for future battles in our fight for freedom and democracy.

“Hey Kyaw Zwa, are you sharpening your horns?”

Thar Ban, a fellow political prisoner who was a former editor at The Mirror newspaper and an Arakanese politician, used to shout from outside my cell.

The prison “library” that I used to “sharpen my horns” was a hollowed-out portion of our cell wall that we called “book hollow.” It was strategically located at the corner of our earthen bowl “toilet,” which could not be seen from the door. The book hollow started out the size and shape of an uneven rat hole, but after digging out four or five bricks it expanded to about two-by-two feet. We could not

Cover Story

see inside, and had to retrieve its contents by feeling around with our hand.

The book hollow kept all of my books and stationery: “Great Expectations” by Charles Dickens; an anthology of Bertrand Russell’s essays; “Wuthering Heights” by Emily Brontё; two yellowing dictionaries—the second edition of the “Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary,” which used to belong to my late grandfather, and a pocket Oxford dictionary; Burma’s 1947 Constitution; a pocket New Testament; some chapters of Exodus; some more books whose names I have forgotten; several old issues of Time and Newsweek magazines, whose pages were carefully torn out and rolled up to make them easier to hide; a pen and toilet paper used for writing; etc.

All reading and writing materials were illegal during my stay in prison—if I were caught my legs would be fastened with iron shackles and I could be sentenced to an additional prison term—so it was important to completely conceal these items in the hollow. But preparing and hiding the “illegal” materials was troublesome, time-consuming and required patience. It took half an hour at least, and I was the only one among my cellmates who could work fast enough to avoid detection. To be as efficient as possible, I had to memorize the order of the books and writing materials placed in the book hollow.

The book hollow served as a library for other political prisoners and I was its “librarian.” I opened the library two times a day: in the morning after the prison was opened and at night before going to bed.

After removing some books and magazine articles for me and other political prisoners to read, I put the rest back into the hollow and closed it using a concrete plate that fit in the opening. Wardens could search our cells at any time and it was important that everything was completely concealed. So after I closed the hollow I covered it with mud so that it would blend in with the cell’s wall color. Not a crack could be seen.

In 1995, however, prison authorities found many similar book hollows in cells at Insein Prison and some political prisoners were sentenced to

seven additional years imprisonment. After that, the wardens of my prison conducted meticulous searches in the cells that included testing walls, so my cellmates and I made the painful decision to seal the book hollow.

But we were not willing to relinquish our only link to the intellectual world and prime method of “sharpening our horns,” and when the situation settled down we looked for new locations and set up a new concealed library. We were determined to follow in the footsteps of our political prisoner forefathers, dating back to the British era, who dubbed prison “Life University.”

If Burmese prisons are universities for political prisoners who yearn to learn, then the cells are the classrooms.

F

orefathers’ Legacy: The “classrooms” that Lin Thant and I were locked-up in may have been the oldest in Burma, having existed for nearly one and a half centuries. Insein Prison was built in 1871, 14 years after the British invaded Lower Burma in 1857, and the British went on to build a prison in each district—35 in total—whose cells were often used to imprison Burmese patriots rebelling against colonial rule.

In the1930s, members of the Dohbama Asiayone (We Burmese Association) were prominent in the country’s independence movement. Most of the leading independence fighters were members of the association—including Aung San, Burma’s national hero and the father of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, and U Nu, the first prime minister following independence—and most of them were arrested at one point or another and detained in British prison cells.

U Nu wrote a book and several plays about life in prison. His book, “Yet-set Pabe Kwe” (“It’s So Cruel”), was written during the two years he was imprisoned in the early 1940s and is regarded one of Burma’s most important pieces of prison literature.

After Burma restored its independence in 1948,

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The prison “library” that I used to “sharpen my horns” was a hollowedout portion of our cell wall that we called “book hollow.”

the governments changed but the type of inmates confined in the cells did not. As during the colonial era, thousands of political activists have been locked up in the British-built cells from the time of independence to the present. And to keep up with the repressive times, the successive Burmese juntas have built another nine prisons to reach the current total of 44.

Even during the supposedly democratic government led by former political prisoner U Nu, the jails contained many dissidents— especially members of the Communist Party and their sympathizers, who denounced Burmese independence as an illusion and took up arms against U Nu’s government.

Tharawaddy Prison, about 70 miles from Rangoon, became a prison for political dissidents and shortly after independence its 300 cells and several wards contained nearly 3,000 communists and communist sympathizers. Kyaw Mya Than, a member of the Communist Party, wrote a book about his prison experience called “Hellish Cells of Tharawaddy Prison” that was awarded the National Literature Prize. In 1997, I was transferred from the Insein Prison Annex to that notorious prison and put in a cell for two years until my release.

Ne Win’s socialist regime continued to put communists in jail and added anyone who dared resist or criticize the government to the list of those subject to arrest and imprisonment. And of course Than Shwe, the current dictator, has been the most ruthless of all when it comes to removing any political opposition by either death or imprisonment.

A

Place of Camaraderie and Solidarity: One of those caught up in Ne Win’s political dragnet was Khun Saing, who in 1976 was a would-be physician pursuing his final academic year at the University of Medicine in Rangoon. When he decided to stage a protest against the dictatorial regime, however, he opened the door to a vicious circle of life in cells.

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Cover Story

For his initial activism, Khun Saing was put into an Insein Prison cell for two years. Upon release, he managed to stay out of jail for ten years, but when the Burmese people took to the streets to demonstrate in 1988, he again got involved and was again thrown into a cell. This time, beginning at the age of 36, he spent a total of four years in Insein and Thayet prisons.

In Thayet Prison, his cellmate was an illiterate bandit who Khun Saing taught to read in the space of six months. The activist also managed to compose about 40 songs while in prison, one of them about the release of South African leader Nelson Mandela after 27 years imprisonment.

“I devoted my time to three things—meditating, composing songs and teaching the bandit—so I was too busy to even think of release,” Khun Saing recalled about his second prison term.

When he was released in 1993, however, he never imagined he would one day be back in a cell. But on a hot day in April 1999, the now 44-year-old Khun Saing found himself on a train heading along the scenic route from Rangoon to Mandalay without any idea of his final destination, which turned out to be Oh Bo, Mandalay’s new prison.

Khun Saing’s crime this time was working with other political activists to produce a book documenting student movements throughout the history of Burma. He was sentenced to seven years and shortly thereafter found himself sitting on the floor of the filthy, rank-smelling train carriage alongside 80 other political prisoners. They were crammed inside an iron cage with a single hole in the floor that served as their toilet.

“It looked like a cage for pigs,” said Khun Saing, adding that in the past it had been unusual to transfer prisoners who had recently been sentenced to prisons far from home and family, but the junta had adopted this practice as a new method of torture.

Sitting a few feet away from Khun Saing was Kyaw Win, who at that time was a 20-year-old English major about to begin his first prison term after being sentenced to 21 years for political activism. Before being put on the prison train, he had initially been

placed in the eight-by-eight-foot Cell No. 11 in the Insein Prison Annex.

“The moment I stepped into the cell, I choked,” Kyaw Win recalled. “It had very thick walls and a strong iron door. The air was dense and the light was dim. I felt as if my chest was clenched by a big and powerful vise.”

Overwhelmed by his arrest, harsh sentence and imprisonment, Kyaw Win at first had difficulty adjusting to life in a cell. This was a place for criminals who committed crimes such as rape or murder, he thought, not for a university student engaged in political protests.

During his first days in the Insein Prison cell, question upon question rattled the cage of his mind.

“Why did this happen to me?”

“Why was I arrested when other political activists, including my friends, were not?”

“Why did I get 21 years for student activism? Was it because my family is poor?”

Before he could come up with any satisfactory answers, Kyaw Win was whisked out of his cell and tossed into the cage with Khun Saing on the train to Mandalay.

Everything about the trip was a new experience for Kyaw Win. He had never taken such a long train journey and spent much of the time in fear that he was being sent to Myingyan Prison, which a fellow political prisoner told him and others was reputedly a horrible place to be incarcerated. But when this prisoner expressed his fear of being sent to Myingyan to Thet Win Aung—a committed student union member who was serving his second stint as a political prisoner and was Kyaw Win’s cell neighbor in the Insein Prison annex jail—Kyaw Win heard Thet Win Aung reply calmly, “Prison is prison.”

To keep his mind occupied during the long train ride, Kyaw Win joined other prisoners singing political songs in a group effort to let people outside know that they were political prisoners. Some people gave them food at stations. The armed guards said nothing.

The songs and conversations with fellow political prisoners somewhat settled Kyaw Win’s nerves, but he said that Khun Saing’s presence was what reassured him the most.

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“Ko Khun Saing looked so calm and mature, while we were anxious about our new prison and how bad it would be,” Kyaw Win recalled. “But he seemed to have already passed through everything we talked about.”

“I know the young people looked up to me,” said Khun Saing. “I felt I had the responsibility not to lower their morale. But at that moment, actually, my own morale wasn’t as high as during my previous imprisonments. I was depressed and wondering whether I could survive my prison term this time, which was seven years. My parents were quite old and they took care of me a lot while I was in prison.

I felt I was a burden, a troublemaker for them. I was deeply sorry for them.”

After 18 hours in the crowded carriage, the prisoners arrived at Oh Bo Prison. Kyaw Win had never been to Burma’s ancient capital, and now that he was there, he could only view Mandalay Hill and its white-washed stupas and temples from behind bars—but at least there was a view.

“It was really nice to see that peaceful view and it was auspicious to hear Buddhist chants from the hill,” Kyaw Win said. “I liked Oh Bo Prison better than Insein Prison.”

One of Kyaw Win’s cellmates was Thet Win Aung, his comrade from the Insein Prison Annex, who he respected for his courage, strong commitment and humanity. In Oh Bo, Thet Win Aung meditated every morning and took care of his cellmates. Kyaw Win saw scars on his body that resulted from beatings he received during Military Intelligence interrogation, but despite the torture and the weight of a 59 year prison sentence, Kyaw Win saw no trace of fear, sadness or depression on Thet Win Aung’s face.

“Who do you think is our leader,” Thet Win Aung once asked Kyaw Win. “Daw Suu [Aung San Suu Kyi],” Kyaw Win said.

“No,” Thet Win Aung said. “Our leader is Min Ko Naing.”

Min Ko Naing, the prominent leader of the historic All Burma Federation of Students’ Unions since the time of the 1988 uprising, is now serving a 65year sentence in a cell of the remote

Kengtung Prison, Shan State, where the junta attempts to keep the inspirational pro-democracy activist as far away from his followers and as removed from any form of political debate as possible.

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oul Searching: After three days in Oh Bo, Kyaw Win was transferred once again, this time to Myingyan Prison— exactly where he didn’t want to go— and his worst fears were immediately confirmed when he was beaten repeatedly at the entrance of the prison.

Being sent to Myingyan and his torturous reception at the prison inevitably sent Kyaw Win’s mind reeling back to the string of “why” questions that had obsessed him back in the Insein Prison Annex. Still unable to come up with any answers, he turned his attention to observing life inside the cells, as well as inside his own being.

“In the cell, you have a lot of time for soul searching,” Kyaw Win said.

Kyaw Win saw that fate was as fickle and arbitrary for his cell mates as it had been for him: some prisoners were fortunate to have good cellmates, others not so lucky; some prisoners endured abuses from their wardens, others were mostly left alone; some prisoners had their sentences reduced, others did not. He then used these observations to develop a philosophy that saw him through the hardships of life in prison and beyond.

“My English teacher told me once that every cloud has a silver lining,” Kyaw Win said. “When you come to believe in fate, you will get an immediate and practical benefit—no bitterness, but just forgiveness. I harbor no grudge towards my captors, including SnrGen Than Shwe and his military regime.”

Despite the difficulty of surviving life in the cell, Kyaw Win found both an outer and inner solitude that allowed him to become detached from worldly matters. That, he said, was his “silver lining.”

“In the cell, you have a lot of time for soul searching.”

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Cover Story

“Death Row,” by Htein Lin

Kyaw Win was also fortunate to have access to reading material for the second half of his sentence.

In the early 2000s, the International Committee of the Red Cross helped persuade the Burmese authorities to allow political prisoners to read books, and Kyaw Win was able to enjoy international best sellers without worrying about searches being carried out by wardens.

Prior to his release in 2005, he read books such as “My Life” by Bill Clinton, “Living History” by Hillary Clinton, “Plan of Attack” by Bob Woodward and “The Lexus and the Olive Trees” by Thomas Friedman. He read “The Future of Freedom” by Fareed Zakaria in four days.

“I felt that I wouldn’t get that kind of concentration and time to finish a book if I were outside. And I’m sure my friends outside were not able to read like me. It’s a pity,” he said, admitting that he had not read as much since his release from prison as he had in his cell.

On Oct. 16, 2006, one year after his release, Kyaw Win tuned in to the BBC Burmese Radio service and

heard the tragic news that Thet Win Aung had died in prison at the age of 34.

With his comrade and mentor’s last words to him in Oh Bo prison, “See you again,” echoing in his mind, Kyaw Win went to the funeral the next day, where Thet Win Aung’s mother delivered a message that rang true with the philosophy that he had acquired in prison.

“Since our sons were young [Thet Win Aung’s brother was also a political prisoner], we told them how to pass their lives with steadiness and calmness.

We are sure that our sons have always overcome difficulties with their mental power.”

Kyaw Win’s other inspirational colleague, Khun Saing, was more fortunate than Thet Win Aung. He was transferred to Shwe Bo prison and remained there until his release in 2004. Although he once said that each stay in prison was an experience of its own, Khun Saing’s colleagues saw that during the 13 years he spent in cells one thing remained constant— his activist nature. He twice staged hunger strikes to protest the forced labor and torture of political

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prisoners, and although he was beaten for carrying out these protests, he survived and never regretted what he did.

After his release, however, Khun Saing’s three previous arrests continued to affect his family.

“My mother was afraid of the sound of any vehicle pulling up in front of our house at night,” he said. “She had seen me taken from home three times like that.”

When two former political prisoners, Thet Naing Oo and Aung Hlaing Win, were beaten to death by the authorities, Khun Saing’s mother worried that he would meet the same fate and told him he should leave the country.

But in hopes that a dialogue between the military regime and detained opposition leader Suu Kyi would take place, Khun Saing decided to wait. And having spent over a decade in prison, waiting was something that he was long accustomed to.

E “The Cell,” by Thiha Maung Maung

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ndless Waiting: In ordinary life, waiting is exhausting. But in a cell, waiting is routine and inescapable.

During my eight years in prison, we waited for the cell door to open every morning and afternoon; we waited for two awful meals each day; we waited to meet our family every fortnight; we waited for any piece of information from the outside world; we waited for the announcement of an amnesty or political change that could lead to our release; but most of all, we waited for the day of that release.

Some of the most excruciating waiting revolved around daily routines that most human beings take for granted. For example, there were up to six prisoners in our cell, and for those in urgent need of a toilet waiting became almost unbearable.

Small and shallow earthen bowls lined the corner of our cell. By the end of an evening, the primitive toilets were filled to the brim with excrement and the make-shift plastic covers were not sufficient to keep the stench from escaping. Those that had to go after the bowls were full ground their teeth and tried to control their bowels by squeezing their anus muscles while their faces turned from brown to red. The best

Cover Story

approach was to remain silent and completely still, but out of frustration some would curse their jailors and shout for them to open the door. In the morning, we waited desperately for the guards to unlock the cell door and liberate us from the unbearable odor that engulfed our cell.

Waiting to take a shower might seem like a lesser concern than waiting to relieve ourselves, but in the heat of the summer this waiting was almost unbearable as well. The cell had no flow of fresh air, its brick walls were heated by the sun and the temperature was further increased by our body heat.

We were allowed only thirty minutes and a limited number of cups of water for every person in our cell to bathe, but with ten or more cells in a block, the minutes of bath time were preceded by hours of waiting half-naked and soaked in sweat.

Yet waiting was at times precious. Visits from loved ones were invaluable, and we would have to wait two weeks for a chance to meet our families for the duration of only fifteen minutes.

During that time we took our whitest shirt and cleanest sarongs and placed them under our “beds,” consisting of one or two blankets, for a few days to flatten the creases.

On visiting day, we washed our faces and bodies more thoroughly than usual and combed our hair neatly and styled it with coconut oil to get a shine. Some prisoners even put tha-na-kha (traditional make-up) on their face.

When visiting day arrived, the agony of having waited for two weeks disappeared into thin air as we waited the final few hours for our families to arrive.

Smiles spread across our faces; our eyes filled with anticipation; and our ears went on full alert to hear our names being called out.

Only some families could afford to bring food, but all could bring an even more treasured commodity— information about what was going on in the outside world. Every bit of news about friends, neighbors and relatives, as well as national and international events, was welcome. These shreds of information made us

feel as if we had not lost touch with life beyond the prison walls. Even prisoners who did not have visitors waited anxiously to receive bits of information from their cellmates.

The person I always waited for was my beloved mother, who never missed a visit from the day I was first sentenced in early 1992. Each time she arrived with encouraging smiles, soothing words and some comfort food from home. Confined to a tiny cell, staring at the walls for many hours each day, her visits gave me one thing to look forward to.

But in August 1994, something I had not been waiting for arrived at the prison: news of my mother’s tragic death. A trishaw she was riding on had collided with a Hino car ferrying Air Force personnel. The trishaw was crushed underneath and she was killed instantly.

When the next visiting day arrived, with the knowledge that my mother would never come to visit me again I felt like I had nothing left to wait for other than the day of my release.

That day finally arrived in late 1999, and one year later I decided to leave for Thailand. Khun Saing also decided to leave Burma, as did Kyaw Win and Lin Thant. Like many former political prisoners, we have joined the thousands of other exiles waiting for positive change inside our country so we can return home without the risk of being put in a cell once again for expressing our political beliefs.

Upon our release from prison, each of us received our “Life University” diploma: a piece of cheap brown paper signed by the prison authority declaring our release. We all treasure our “Release Certificate” dearly because the time we spent in cells, while difficult, was an invaluable life experience, and we also know how fortunate we are not to have met the same fate as our colleague Thet Win Aung.

As with all former political prisoners, the cell is now a permanent part of our psyche and will shape our views and actions for the rest of our lives. And although we are in a sense “free” in our newly adopted countries, our hearts and minds are still with those 2,000 political prisoners who remain in Burmese cells.

In ordinary life, waiting is exhausting.

But in a cell, waiting is routine and inescapable.

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Bound and Gagged Although the Burmese military regime released Aung San Suu Kyi, it is still keeping student movement leaders such as Ko Ko Gyi out of sight and effectively incommunicado in remote prisons

By BA KAUNG

“

W

e have a long tradition of expecting the arrival of a king [to lead us in times of difficulties],” Ko Ko Gyi told a crowd of pro-democracy activists packed into a Rangoon house in 2007. “But democracy does not come from someone else. We ourselves must strive to achieve the thing which in English we call our ‘birthright.’”

Shortly after speaking these words, the man who is viewed as one of the main strategists behind Burma’s student-led opposition groups found himself at the Rangoon airport, hands cuffed and legs in shackles, with a police officer using an iron chain to drag him to an airplane like a dog.

The Burmese military regime was shipping Ko Ko Gyi off to the remote Mai Sat Prison in eastern Shan State to serve a 65-year, six-month prison sentence for the “crime” of participating in a peaceful 2007 protest against an unannounced rise in fuel prices.

He was officially charged with breaking Burma’s Electronics Act for issuing three political statements using his G-mail account.

Ko Ko Gyi’s political life officially began in March 1988, when two Rangoon Institute of Technology students were killed during a police crackdown on a small campus protest. Afterward, Ko Ko Gyi and some fellow Rangoon University students held a peaceful strike on campus on March 15, 1988 to demand an official investigation into the incident.

Then on Aug. 8, 1988—the day that the Burmese student unions called for a mass uprising—Ko Ko Gyi went to Rangoon University, stood on a jeep and gave a 15-minute speech emphasizing the importance of a democratic transition and demanding the official re-establishment of the banned student unions.

“He talked about national reconciliation and said that dialogue was the only way to resolve Burma’s

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crisis peacefully,” said Bo Kyi, a former Burmese political prisoner who is now the joint-secretary of the Thailand-based Association of Assistance for Political Prisoners in Burma.

In early September 1988, U Nu—Burma’s first democratically elected prime minister who had been removed from power by Ne Win’s military coup— announced the formation of an interim government.

Ko Ko Gyi promptly threw his support behind U Nu, even traveling to Pegu Division to campaign for public backing of the interim government, and was said to be indignant upon hearing that Aung San Suu Kyi, who had just emerged as a leading figure in the pro-democracy movement, did not support U Nu’s bold move.

“He even went to meet Suu Kyi and openly asked her why she said on the BBC that ‘she did not understand’ U Nu’s government,” said Ba Nyar. “He said to Daw Suu: ‘The military seized power from the people and now it is going back to the people. Why can’t you accept that?’”

Despite his criticism, however, Ko Ko Gyi still supported Suu Kyi. Tin Oo, the deputy leader of Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD), recalled the time around 1989 when he, Suu Kyi and Ko Ko Gyi gave political speeches together.

“I remember he was smart in articulating his views,” said Tin Oo, adding that the NLD owes a debt of gratitude to the efforts of students like Ko Ko Gyi. “If it weren’t for these students’ activities, the NLD would not have come into existence.”

Ko Ko Gyi was arrested in 1991 for his involvement in protests at Rangoon University urging the regime to transfer power to the NLD after the opposition party won the 1990 election. Sentenced to 20 years in jail, he was first held in Insein Prison in Rangoon and then in Thayet Prison in Central Burma.

Profile Colleagues close to Ko Ko Gyi describe him as a devout Buddhist who, unlike many student activists of the 1988 generation, is unsympathetic to communism.

“He protected the younger students and other NLD youth from the influence of communists in jail,” said a young political prisoner who lived with Ko Ko Gyi in prison.

After his release from prison in 2005, Ko Ko Gyi and the charasmatic student leader Min Ko Naing formed the 88 Generation Students group. The group’s activities—including its call for the public to directly send social justice complaints to the military chief, Snr-Gen Than Shwe—reignited the opposition movement’s political momentum, which had slowed since Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest in 2003.

“We are not afraid of being arrested again,” Ko Ko Gyi said in September 2006. “We know how to survive in prison because we have spent 14 to 15 years behind bars. We are only worried that we cannot work for the people of Burma.”

Nervous about the wave of support building behind the 88 Generation Students group, the junta made sure that Ko Ko Gyi’s concerns became a reality, as both he and Min Ko Naing found themselves behind bars once again in 2007.

During his initial years of incarceration, Ko Ko Gyi had been held in prisons close enough to home for his friends and family to visit. But this time the Burmese authorities seem determinined to ensure that the student movement leaders are as out of sight and incommunicado as possible, sending them to separate remote prisons.

There is a definite method to the junta’s madness.

By isolating Ko Ko Gyi and limiting his contacts with colleagues, the regime has taken away one of the student leader’s main strengths. Fellow activists said he is at his best in political discussions among small groups, because while he speaks slowly and clearly with sound argument, his slightly tense and subdued constitution and appearance make him a less powerful public speaker than his captivating and inspirational counterpart, Min Ko Naing.

In his own way, however, Ko Ko Gyi is a leader, as evidenced by his propensity to chart his own course rather than follow the crowd or conventional wisdom.

For example, in contrast to many students who went into the jungles and took up arms against the regime

in the aftermath of the failed 1988 uprising, Ko Ko Gyi stuck to his strong belief in finding solutions to the country’s political deadlock by political means only.

In addition, a US diplomatic cable from Rangoon leaked by Wikileaks late last year suggested that Ko Ko Gyi voiced his support among fellow political prisoners for opposition participation in the controversial 2010 elections, which Suu Kyi and the NLD boycotted.

If it is true that Ko Ko Gyi supported the election and was somewhat optimistic about Burma’s postelection scenario, this may undercut his informal role as a main political strategist for the studentled opposition movement, because the regime has shown no inclination to open up the country to true democracy either before, during or after the election.

But recently released political prisoners said that Ko Ko Gyi’s apparent support for the elections was quoted out of context. They said he only supported participation in polls on the pre-election conditions that political prisoners were released, a review of the 2008 Constitution took place and all political parties and their members were allowed to freely participate in the election.

If Ko Ko Gyi had supported the 2010 elections without these conditions, it is unlikely the regime would be taking such pains to continue Ko Ko Gyi to keep him muzzled.

The regime is clearly afraid that if the duo of Ko Ko Gyi and Min Ko Naing is released, they could team up with Suu Kyi to form a formidable opposition movement that could inspire future mass anti-government movements. In addition, given Suu Kyi’s advancing age, either could step into her role as national leader.

“In light of their personal sacrifices and political history, there is every possibility that student leaders like Ko Ko Gyi would become the country’s national leaders,” said Tin Oo. Ko Ko Gyi once said: “A constitution should embody the dignity and political standards of a country and its citizens.... Flexibility and malleability are the keys.”

For now, there is no sign in Burma’s post-election political landscape of the ruling generals becoming flexible or malleable. There is also no sign that Ko Ko Gyi will be released anytime soon. And that may be the best testimony of his value to the pro-democracy movement and his danger to the regime.

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A Port Heading for a Storm?

Tavoy is about to become the site of Burma’s first Special Economic Zone. But will this project succeed in transforming the country’s economy, or merely make Tavoy the latest victim of a “win-win” deal between its military rulers and their foreign partners?

By Htet Aung and Neil lawrence

Maungmagan beach, north of Tavoy, will be the site of Burma’s first Special Economic Zone.

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ome would say that Tavoy, a seaport located some 375 km southeast of Rangoon on Burma’s Andaman Sea coast, is a lucky place. Not without reason: In recent years, it has escaped unscathed from two of the worst natural disasters to hit this corner of Asia in decades—the deadly December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which claimed nearly a quarter of a million lives in 14 countries, and Cyclone Nargis, which left 140,000 people dead in Burma’s Irrawaddy Delta in May 2008.

But now Tavoy’s run of good luck is set to really take off— or run out, depending on how you look at it. After years of negotiations between Burma’s ruling military junta and Thai investors keen to use Tavoy as a short cut to international markets and a close-at-hand source of energy and raw materials to meet Thailand’s burgeoning needs, a deal has been struck that will transform this sleepy provincial backwater into Burma’s first and largest Special Economic Zone (SEZ).

photo: Durian Dan

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Expected to cost around US $8.6 billion to construct, the 250 square km deep-sea port and industrial zone that will be built just north of Tavoy by Italian Thai Development Co Ltd (ITD), Thailand’s largest construction conglomerate, could usher in a new era for Burma’s long-stagnant economy. It also has the potential to turn Tavoy into a regional powerhouse, creating thousands of jobs and attracting billions in further investment.

But while this is the message that ITD is eager to send, it’s far from clear to many people in the area that the Tavoy SEZ will actually bring any benefits at all, either to them or to the country as a whole.

The fear is that local people will lose what little hold they have on the land they use to support themselves, while massive and irreparable damage is done to the area’s pristine environment for the sake of enriching Burma’s ruling generals and multinational corporations.

The reason for this concern is not hard to find.

The Tavoy SEZ will be built close to Burma’s current biggest money earner—a pipeline carrying natural gas from the Yetagun and Yadana offshore gas fields in the Gulf of Martaban to Thailand. For years, this pipeline has been the subject of international lawsuits and human rights campaigns aimed at companies like Unocal (now a subsidiary of Chevron), Total and Thailand’s PTT Exploration and Production Public Co Ltd (PTTEP). All have been accused of complicity in abuses committed by the Burmese army in the process of building and “securing” the pipeline. Meanwhile, profits from natural gas sales to Thailand—estimated at US $2.5 billion in the 2007-8 fiscal year—have done nothing to alleviate widespread poverty in Burma.

Will the Tavoy SEZ be any different? In theory, at least, it should bring more direct benefits to local people by providing construction jobs over the ten years it is expected to take to complete, as well as further employment opportunities for the thousands of workers that will be needed to keep its factories operating—assuming that investors can be found to pour money into Burma’s moribund manufacturing sector, which has long been beset by poor infrastructure and Western economic sanctions.

On the other hand, the cost of this project to local people is likely to be enormous, both in the near term, as entire communities are displaced with little assurance of meaningful compensation, and in the long term, when the effect of heavily polluting

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industries begins to take its toll on the health of those who remain in the area.

Before any of this can happen, however, the project must first get off the ground. Although everything is in place, at least on paper, actual work has barely begun, and several concerns about its viability remain. Beyond the still unresolved issue of financing, there are also persistent questions about whether a project like this can succeed in a business environment dominated by generals with a record of interfering in economic affairs for “strategic” or other reasons. Despite the creation of the Myanmar Special Economic Zone Law in January and a similar law applying specifically to Tavoy promulgated in the same month, there are no real guarantees that the regime—even in its newly civilianized guise— will honor the concessions it has made to foreign investors.

But even with such risks, the potential rewards for the Burmese regime, ITD and Thailand are so great that the project, now started in earnest, is certain to continue for the foreseeable future. The only questions, then, are what potential pitfalls lie ahead for investors, and how the Tavoy SEZ, if successful, will impact the local population and Burma’s broader economic outlook.

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urma’s ruling junta signed a 60-year build, operate and transfer agreement with ITD just days before the country held its first elections in more than two decades on Nov. 7, 2010.

Years in the making, this deal was the culmination of a concerted effort by both sides to find a way to exploit Tavoy’s potential as a transport hub. An initial memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed between the Burmese and Thai governments in May 2008, followed soon after by an agreement between ITD and the Myanmar Port Authority, the Thai company’s local partner in the project. This was followed by a survey and site investigation, and by late 2009, ITD had a proposal to submit to the Burmese regime.

Now, after four months of work on the ground, the project is still at the preliminary stages. According to Siripat Trinvuthipong, the overseas project coordinator of ITD’s marine division, an upgrade of local roads in Tavoy is nearly finished, while a 160-km access road to the city from Pu Nam Ron, a village in Thailand’s Kanchanaburi Province opposite the village of Hki Hkee in Burma’s Tenasserim Division, is about 70 percent complete. This access

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road, used to transport equipment and manpower from Thailand to construction sites inside Burma, will later be part of a trans-border road connecting Tavoy to Bangkok, some 350 km away. A small port has also been built in Tavoy to facilitate shipment of equipment and construction materials from Ranong, about 450 km south of Tavoy on Thailand’s Andaman Sea coast.

From these modest beginnings, a project of unprecedented proportions in Burma is expected to emerge over the next 10 years. The Tavoy SEZ will be built in three overlapping five-year phases, and will include not only a two-basin deep-sea port capable of accommodating container ships, but also a shipbuilding and maintenance yard, a 4,000 MW coalfired power plant, a steel mill, an oil refinery, a fertilizer factory and light and medium industrial estates, as well as residential and commercial districts.

It’s easy to see why Thailand wants access to Tavoy. Even without the additional facilities, the port is invaluable as a direct route between Thailand’s industrial heartland and the Indian Ocean, bypassing the piracy-plagued Malacca Strait. Although Thailand has its own stretch of Andaman Sea coast from Ranong to the Malaysian border, this area appears to be off-limits, mostly because of popular opposition to plans to develop a major industrial zone in an area famous for tourism.

“We used to talk about the Southern Seaboard and Pak Bara deep-sea port projects in the past. But now, we’ll forget them,” said Narongchai Akrasanee, the director of Thailand’s National Economic and Social Development Board, referring to planned projects on the country’s Andaman coast.

“Thailand’s major investments, such as upstream steel projects, will absolutely head to Dawei [Tavoy].

Thai people have protested against those projects, so we cannot go any further anyway,” he added, according to a March 23 report in the Bangkok-based daily, The Nation.

But relocating to Burma doesn’t come cheaply.

In addition to $8.6 billion in construction costs, ITD has also agreed to pay $37.5 million directly to the country’s regime for an initial 30-year lease, extendable for up to another 45 years. (According to an ITD financial report, the first $1 million installment was paid in December 2010.)

For its part, the regime is contributing nothing more than the right to the 250-km project site and a number of incentives for businesses operating within the SEZ, along with promises to keep its

ITD’s conceptual plan for the Tavoy SEZ includes this map of Burma’s offshore natural gas fields.

hands off once it has been fully developed. Under the Myanmar Special Economic Zone Law, investors will receive tax exemptions on exports and be allowed to import machines, equipment and vehicles for the construction of factories duty free.

Another major concession that the regime has granted is “the right to open foreign accounts with any bank and carry out the matters of receipt and payment in foreign currency in accord with the stipulations,” according to Article 38 of the SEZ law, which applies not only to foreign investors, but also to local businesses operating within the SEZ. In the last chapter of the law, the junta guarantees that it won’t nationalize businesses in the SEZ “within the permitted period.”

ITD’s Trinvuthipong called the SEZ law a “good sign,” suggesting that it boded well for the future prospects of the project. But she also acknowledged substantial risks remained, chiefly from major economic disruptions like the Asian economic crisis of 1997.

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Although there are no confirmed reports yet of companies lining up to share this risk by investing in the Tavoy SEZ, it is widely believed that Thai energy giant PTTEP will be among those taking part in the project.

PTTEP, which has a 25.5 percent stake in the consortium that runs the Yadana project and a 19.31 percent stake in the Yetagun project, as well as full ownership of Blocks M3, M4, M7, M9 and M11 in the Gulf of Martaban—all close to the Tavoy SEZ—is “studying a plan to see how we can get involved, whether it’s co-investment or a joint-venture in a project,” PTTEP chief executive Prasert Bunsumpun told Reuters in November.

“This will, however, depend on [the Burmese government’s] legal restrictions and other benefits,” he added.

T source: www.bangkokpost.com

hailand’s strategic interest in Burma’s energy sector is immense. According to statistics released by Thailand’s Energy Policy and Planning Office (EPPO), the country’s imports of natural gas from Burma have increased from an average of two million standard cubic feet per day in 1998 to 803 million standard cubic feet per day in 2009. Most of this is used for generating electricity,

consumption of which is expected to more than double over the next two decades, from 23,249 MW in 2010 to 52,890 MW in 2030, according to the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT).

In order to meet this growing demand, Thailand is also investing heavily in two huge hydropower projects in Burma: the 1,190 MW Hutgyi Dam in Karen State and the 7,000 MW Tasang Dam in Shan State. The $6 billion Tasang Dam, which is scheduled for completion in 2022, will export nearly 85 percent of the electricity it generates to Thailand, according to the NGO Salween Watch.

So far, ITD’s biggest stake in Burma’s energy sector is in a 369 MW coal-powered thermal power plant in Mai Khot, in eastern Shan State, which will sell most of its energy to Thailand’s Chiang Rai Province when it goes online in 2016.

Although the Tavoy SEZ already has tremendous value for Thailand as a transport hub, by adding a massive power plant and a refinery for oil imported from the Middle East to the project, ITD has made it exponentially more important to the country’s strategic interests. But while the addition of these energy-related facilities to the Tavoy SEZ is clearly connected to its location and plans to turn it into

Artist’s impression of the Tavoy SEZ, from ITD’s conceptual plan

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a major manufacturing center, there are other compelling reasons for situating them in Tavoy.

While Burma has no lack of natural resources to attract foreign investors, there is something that the country doesn’t have that also makes it appealing to many: environmental protections that would hold corporations accountable for any damage that they do in the course of exploiting these resources.

Burma’s 2008 Constitution doesn’t give Burmese citizens the right to protect their own environment or natural resources. Instead, the government reserved that right for itself under Article 45 of the Constitution, which reads: “The Union shall protect and conserve the natural environment.”

So far, however, the Burmese regime has done almost nothing to ensure that the environment will be protected from the impact of the Tavoy SEZ. According to U Ohn, a leading Burmese environmentalist and the founder of the Forest Resource Environment Development and Conservation Association (FREDA), an environmental law has been drafted, but has not yet come into force.

U Ohn contrasted this with the regime’s alacrity in promulgating the SEZ law, with its promises of concessions to would-be investors.

“The SEZ law contains many positive points for economic growth, such as tax exemptions and other incentives for investors, but unfortunately it doesn’t contain any provisions requiring environmental or social impact assessments,” he said.

Although ITD says that it has carried out an Initial Environmental Examination—a preliminary study of the environmental impact of the Tavoy SEZ—its findings have not been released for independent scrutiny. Since it is not likely that the Burmese junta will carry out its own impact assessment or allow outside parties to do so, the only way to get some sense of how this project will affect the local environment is by comparing it with others of a similar nature.

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urma has no shortage of environmentally risky megaprojects, from poorly managed mines to massive hydropower dams, but to find one comparable to the Tavoy SEZ, one must look to neighboring Thailand, the country that will be the chief beneficiary of Burma’s largest development project to date.

Looking at the conceptual plan for the Tavoy SEZ, it is striking how similar it is to Thailand’s Eastern Seaboard Development Plan, which was first

conceived in the early 1980s to take advantage of the discovery of huge natural gas reserves in the Gulf of Thailand. This project, which was constructed around the port of Map Ta Phut in Rayong Province, includes the region’s largest petrochemical and chemical industrial complex and was intended to accelerate Thailand’s process of industrialization in much the same way that some believe the Tavoy SEZ will help transform Burma’s resource-based economy.

There are other similarities as well. There are 25 communities in the area around Map Ta Phut, while the number of villages that will be affected by the Tavoy SEZ is at least 35. In both places, local residents are mainly poor farmers or fishermen.

Both projects are also comparable in scale. When Map Ta Phut was transformed into an industrial estate, the initial investment was an estimated 370,000 million baht (US $11.93 billion). This money was used to turn an area of low-lying swampland into a complex of 117 heavy-industrial facilities, including 45 petrochemical plants, 11 ironworks and steel mills, two coal-fired power plants, two oil refineries, two hazardous waste landfills, one hazardous waste treatment facility and one chemical fertilizer factory.

Standing next to a model of the Tavoy SEZ at ITD’s head office in Bangkok, Gunn Bunchandranon, the company’s assistant vice-president of business development for the Dawei (Tavoy) Development Project, described an almost identical set of facilities: “We will build a steel mill, a fertilizer factory and a 4,000 megawatt coal-fired power plant in Zone A. We also intend to construct a steel industry zone in Zone C2 [close to Zone A], but it depends on the business investments.”

But for ITD, this is hopefully where the similarities end. For Map Ta Phut has been, in the eyes of residents of the area and environmentalists, not the engine of an economic miracle, but a disaster of the first order.

“If Thailand were a human body, [Map Ta Phut] would be a cancer,” said Tara Buakamsri, Greenpeace Southeast Asia’s country representative in Thailand.

“At the beginning, you are not aware of what is happening inside your body, but then one day, when you realize something’s wrong, it is very, very difficult to cure.”

It was in the late 1990s that public health problems in the area around Map Ta Phut started to gain attention. At the time, a large number of students and teachers at a local school were hospitalized after breathing toxic air, shocking people in all 25 local

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“The village headman came to me recently to say that I would be compensated, but so far that is all I have received—just words.”

communities around the area’s industrial complexes.

After this incident, Thai civil society organizations and local residents joined forces to initiate a scientific investigation of the growing environmental and public health problems at Map Ta Phut. What they found was levels of many chemicals, including some known carcinogens, far exceeding permissible limits.

This discovery, and growing evidence of abnormally high cancer rates around Map Ta Phut, set the stage for a drawn-out legal battle between local residents that culminated in a December 2009 ruling by Thailand’s Supreme Administrative Court to suspend 65 out of 76 projects under construction— worth a combined 400 billion baht (about $13 billion) at the Map Ta Phut industrial estate.

This decision was a blow to foreign investors and some of Thailand’s largest companies, but a major victory for local people and civil society groups, who were able to join forces to address concerns about the environmental and health costs of unmitigated industrialization.

I

t’s impossible to imagine a similar outcome in Burma, at least as long as it remains under its current form of government. This is why many observers have expressed concern about the longterm impact of the Tavoy SEZ. “Even in Thailand, which is ruled by a democratic government, we are facing environmental problems.

But it is even more dangerous to carry out major

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industrial projects like the Tavoy SEZ under a regime that doesn’t allow independent democratic institutions,” said Tara Buakamsri of Greenpeace Southeast Asia.

But some observers say that it is precisely this absence of genuine rule of law in Burma that makes the Tavoy SEZ so appealing to Thailand now that it can no longer ignore the concerns of its own citizens.

In January, for instance, Thailand’s leading Englishlanguage newspaper, The Bangkok Post, published an editorial that stated, “By moving to Burma, they [Thai companies] can leave behind the environmental problems of Map Ta Phut and Rayong courts.”

Even Thailand’s prime minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, was quoted in an article by the The International Herald Tribune as saying, “Some industries are not suitable to be located in Thailand. This is why they decided to set up [in Tavoy]”—without explaining that what made Tavoy more suitable is the fact that Thailand wouldn’t have to deal with legal battles or the long-term effects of pollution from an industrial estate located outside its own borders.

In the short term, however, another issue could arise that will put Thai investors in the Tavoy project in the hot seat: the displacement of local populations and human rights abuses that could arise as villagers are forced to leave their homes.

So far, there have been few reports of such abuses in the area, in part because the project is just starting. But ITD, which says it has already begun compensating local people for some loss of property, has been careful to stress that it is committed to dealing with affected villagers “on a fair basis,” chiefly through mechanisms involving the local authorities.

According to ITD’s Sirapat Trinvuthipong, the company has already held a number of consultations to discuss the issue of compensation.

“We have had meetings involving everyone from the high authorities to the local people themselves.

The meetings are attended by local people, legal officers and the local authorities, including our partners in the contract, and [officials from] the Ministries of Labor and Home Affairs,” she said.

However, villagers who spoke to The Irrawaddy said the process has been far from transparent. They confirmed that meetings have been held, but said they chiefly involved a relocation committee consisting of representatives of ITD and the Burmese junta, with Tavoy township authorities, including some from the local housing and agricultural departments, among its members.

Article

It remains unclear, then, how much say the affected population actually has in the matter of addressing compensation claims. While ITD says that it is speaking to “local people,” it appears that these are mostly township officials or perhaps village leaders handpicked by the authorities. Everyone else, it seems, is in the dark.

This has created a great sense of unease among people living in the area, who say that they have only been informed after the fact of any decisions made on their behalf. One man in his 60s, for instance, said that the road connecting Tavoy to the Thai border had been built through his cashew plantation, but compensation was only discussed after construction started.

“The village headman came to me recently to say that I would be compensated, but so far that is all I have received—just words,” he said.

Another man who regularly travels in the area said that many other farmers have also been affected, with few receiving any compensation so far.

“The new highway to Thailand has been proceeding smoothly and construction is speeding up, but many people whose land has been affected say they haven’t received anything for their losses. Now their hopes of being compensated are beginning to dim,” he said.

“Of course people are worried. Anybody would feel the same way. If we were them, we would feel the same,” said Trinvuthipong. “But we are doing this on a fair basis, so it will be a win-win situation.”

T

he one clear winner if the Tavoy SEZ project works out as planned is the Burmese regime, which will have tapped into yet another source of revenue to ensure that it has the means to maintain its grip on power, which it has strengthened as a result of last year’s elections. Indeed, it may be because it feels its position is now more secure than ever that it has decided to go ahead with this project.

“The Burmese government may think that it can solve the ethnic conflicts along the border in the 10 years that it will take to complete the Tavoy project,” said Dr Naruemon Thubchumpon, the director of the International Development Studies Program at Thailand’s Chulalongkorn University.

A long-time observer of Burma’s political situation, Naruemon said that the country’s history of ethnic conflict represents one of the greatest risks to the Tavoy project—something that ITD also acknowledged as it moved carefully to avoid

becoming caught up in Burma’s ethnic tensions.

“As you know, there are some political conflicts, and along the road, there are some Karen villages,” said Trinvuthipong, explaining why the company has so far hired few local people to work on the project.

“We try not to get involved with either party. What we try to do is use our own people and equipment along the road alignment.”

Despite the risks posed by Burma’s decades of endemic conflict, however, Naruemon sees the Tavoy SEZ as something that could ultimately benefit the country, even if it is carried out by a military regime.

“If you look at Thailand’s economic development, it started the same thing [SEZs] during the General Prem [Tinsulanonda] period under the suggestions of the World Bank and Asian Development Bank,” she said.

She noted, however, that while the military controlled Thai politics at the time, it didn’t try to control the economy. She suggested a similar approach would be needed in Burma for the Tavoy SEZ to succeed in lifting the country out of poverty.

A Burmese economist who formerly worked for an international financial institution also stressed that the regime would have to abandon its habit of interfering in economic matters and instead work to ensure that it created the right conditions for it to take off like other SEZs in the region.

“The government must ensure three major economic guarantees—a stable monetary system, trade and market freedom and property ownership right—if they really want to end the long-term economic stagnation of the country,” said the economist, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“Transparency is key to implementing the above three economic guarantees as well as to reduce corruption and nepotism in the economic sector,” he added.

Seen from this point of view, however, the Tavoy SEZ is already heading for troubled waters, as both of the main parties in its development—the Burmese junta and ITD—have shown scant regard for transparency and the rule of law. While this deal may indeed turn out to be a win-win proposition for the regime and its foreign business partners, Burmese citizens could once again find themselves losing far more than they stand to gain from an arrangement that barely begins to take their needs into consideration.

Myat Kyawt contributed to this story from Tavoy.

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Text and Photos: Narciso Contreras

Battleg

Left: A KNLA Battalion 101 sniper Center: Through the eye of a Karen sniper

Photo Essay

ground O

n Nov. 7, as Burma was holding its first election in nearly 20 years, Col Saw Lah Pwe, the commander of the breakaway Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) Brigade 5, surprised the Burmese regime by mobilizing his troops in the border town of Myawaddy. Within days, more than 10,000 refugees spilled over into Thailand.

This was the first military action taken by any of the various ethnic armed groups resisting the Burmese junta’s plan to integrate them into a border guard force under Burmese army command.

A new chapter in the decades-long conflict between ethnic minorities and the ruling junta was opened.

The timing of this action on the day people went to the polls to vote for in a general election was to highlight the gross injustice ethic minorities continually face.

From remote combat operations posts throughout Karen State, Burmese government forces have maintained a grinding presence in an attempt to hold the ground that the rebel Karen armies claim for independence.

Some 100 days later, daily guerrilla-style combat continues, resulting in thousands of civilians getting caught amid the fighting, many of whom have no choice but to flee across the border to safety.

Meanwhile, the military regime tries to reinforce its army in the border areas, sending more troops and pushing the rebel alliance—DKBA Brigade 5, the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) and the All Burma Students’ Democratic Front—into the mountains.

The government forces have killed many civilians or forced them to work as porters for the army. This has devastated the local community. But despite the fact that the regime has poured thousands of troops into the area, they have not been able to beat the rebels.

As soon as one crosses the Moei River and faces the hills inside Karen State, the fear of landmines eats at you. The quiet landscape is torn apart by the sudden blast of mortars and artillery fire.

Although the enemy has better weapons and a larger army, the rebels are more familiar with the rugged mountain terrain—it is the perfect hideout and acts as a mobile base of operations. They use their local knowledge to ambush the government troops who continually suffer higher casualty rates than the rebels.

Although an end to the conflict may be far away, the rebel insurgents are standing on firm ground.

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Photo Essay

Top left: A Karen rebel prepares for battle in Pahlu.

Bottom left: Mortars belonging to the rebel alliance Right: A DKBA Brigade 5 soldier with an RPG near Pahlu in southern Karen State

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Left: A KNLA Battalion 101 soldier at the front line near Walley Top right: A sign nailed to a tree near Walley in southern Karen State reads: “Caution—You are nearing the front line.”

Bottom right: DKBA and KNLA rebels prepare for battle in Pahlu.

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Photo Essay

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Photo Essay

Top left: A KNLA Battalion 101 soldier whose leg was blown off by a landmine Bottom left: A DKBA Brigade 5 soldier Right: The view from the front line

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Exiled

Dreams Despite years living outside their native country and the military junta’s seemingly endless ability to maintain power, Burmese exiles universally dream of someday returning home

By BA KAUNG

T

here are few people alive who know more about Burmese life and culture than Win Pe, 76, who is probably the best known and most versatile Burmese artist of the last half-century.

Formerly a successful film director in Burma and still an accomplished painter, writer, musician and cartoonist, Win Pe is now a radio host for Burmese radio stations in Washington D.C. and London.

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Article

For many Burmese, scenes like this are just a distant memory. photo: afp

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“I understand my country and my people only. When I say this I don’t refer to the regime, I mean the culture, the waters, the mountains, the land and the forests, which I understand because they are in my bones and in my blood.”

He draws on his voluminous knowledge about Burma—as well as his vast personal recollections and insightful observations— for his weekly BBC Burmese radio talk show called “Win Pe’s Bag.” The diverse topics he touches on range from the traditional funeral rites for a Burmese monk to the Burmese film industry to Burmese local medical therapy to the Burmese historical ballads which he recites so graciously that he leaves his audience mesmerized.

It has been 16 years since Win Pe migrated to the United States to live in self-imposed exile after escaping a regime which inflicted numerous prohibitions upon his artistic life.

Despite all these years in exile, however, he said that not a day goes by when he doesn’t long for a return to his homeland.

“Oh, it’s been ages since I left home,” Win Pe said in a melancholy tone. “I have been living outside Burma only because life was impossible there.”

He is not alone in his heartbreak, but rather one of thousands of exiles who suffer from severe nostalgia for their motherland but see little hope of going back as long as Burma’s military dictatorship persists.

“My heart is only with my country and my

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people,” Win Pe lamented. “I understand my country and my people only. When I say this I don’t refer to the regime, I mean the culture, the waters, the mountains, the land and the forests, which I understand because they are in my bones and in my blood. I don’t wish to understand anything outside my country nor will I ever understand those things foreign to me.”

The Burmese diaspora began after what was once the second wealthiest nation in Southeast Asia was transformed into one of the poorest nations in the world by successive military juntas, the first being Gen Ne Win’s regime, which seized power from a democratic government in 1962.

The 1962 military coup forced political opponents and their family members into exile.

Furthermore, the regime’s nationalization of private industries resulted in hosts of other people leaving the country, many of whom have been unable to return home since. In addition, the military rulers’ new media censorship rules began to take their toll on artists like Win Pe, who in the early 1970s also served as the principal of the State School of Fine Art in Mandalay, where he was born into a distinguished artist’s family.

Article

Life under military rule was intolerable for Win Pe, so when he came to the United States in 1994 after being invited as a writer by the University of Iowa, he decided not to return to Burma until meaningful political change took place.

“As artists, we are so sensitive,” he said. “In fact, I am not the kind of person who wants to get mixed up with political stuff. I was even able to tolerate harassment directed at me, but I could not stand to see what others suffered.”

As a radio journalist, Win Pe first worked for nine years at Radio Free Asia, Burmese Service in Washington D.C. He now holds a full-time job at the Voice of America Burmese, where he conducts an editorial program about US foreign policy, in addition to his weekly program on the BBC Burmese station in London.

But despite these successful radio programs, Win Pe’s choice to remain outside his home country comes at great creative cost, because it is in his native land where his artistic talents most thrive.

“I often imagine that if I were inside Burma, I could write such a novel or draw such a painting. I could sing such kind of music, film such kind of movie,” he said.

To compensate as much as he can for having to live abroad, Win Pe collects as much music, film, literature and art coming out of Burma as possible.

“They are my blood and my relatives, whether they are good or bad. That’s how I remain constantly in touch with life inside the country,” he said.

His obsession with Burma is attested to by the nearly five hundred paintings he has produced since leaving the country, all of which were related to Burmese life and culture—not a single painting was about his life in exile.

Every day, Win Pe holds fast to his origins by singing or playing a Burmese song, by joining Burmese gatherings at Buddhist monasteries or by participating in Burmese literary talks held by the Burmese community in the US.

“Before I left Burma, I always thought the outside world was just a place for a short visit.

There is not a single spot in the outside world that I wish to call my home,” he said.

Like a spirit who still wanders in the past, unaware of his new existence, Win Pe’s dreams continue to swirl around his experiences in Burma rather than his life in exile. One dream will be in Maymyo, then the next in Rangoon and another in Mandalay “In those dreams, I found myself filming or discussing art with friends in Burma,” he said. “Only one out of a hundred dreams is about the US.” Asked which place he missed most in Burma, he paused for a while and then came up with a long list.

“I could say I miss Mandalay Hill, the Mahamuni Buddha image and Mandalay Moat,” he said. “But when I think deeply, I miss Burma as a whole. I miss the jade mines I had been in, Inle Lake and Chin State, the Pegu Mountain Range I once visited, and Shwedagon Pagoda, of course.”

The longing for a return to Burma by younger exiles might not be as desperate as Win Pe’s, but their dreams of doing so still run deep in their consciousness.

“Although I never had a strong interest in religion, I dream of one day making a tour of pagodas in Burma with my mother who lives in Rangoon,” said Dr. Naing Aung, who started out as a medical doctor, turned into an armed fighter against the Burmese regime and is now living in the Thai border town of Mae Sot, a hotbed of Burmese exiles.

Naing Aung was once the leader of the All Burmese Students’ Democratic Front, an armed student group formed in the aftermath of the 1988 uprising against the military regime. At the age of 26, he left his parents, his two sisters and his medical profession (which his parents had compelled him to take up) to join the armed struggle.

He was joined in the jungle by an estimated 10,000 students, all of whom left home and family to fight for democracy. Many of them

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are now exiles, scattered like grains of sesame on a bamboo tray, as the Burmese saying goes, throughout the West.

Naing Aung said that during his days as a rebel in the jungle he sometimes pondered whether he was doing the right thing, but camaraderie with his fellow revolutionaries did not allow him to express thoughts of going home.

“I sometimes wondered whether it was possible for me to serve my country while living with my family,” he said. “Maybe I was foolish, but I could not allow those thoughts to develop while my comrades were fighting and dying.”

In a symbolic gesture, his parents in Rangoon officially renounced him with the intention of making it clear to the regime that they had nothing to do with their rebel son, thus preventing any retribution from government authorities.

But although his parents did not renounce Naing Aung in their hearts, he never had a chance to meet with either of them again.

Naing Aung’s father died in 1993 while the young rebel was still in the jungles of Karen State. Then in the late 1990’s, after the armed struggle in the jungle proved futile, he settled down in Mae Sot, Thailand and continued his political activities without ever returning to Rangoon to see his mother.

“I haven’t met my mother since I left home,” he said. “She wants to see me while she is still alive, but she worries that I will get into trouble if I go back home.”

In addition to being reunited with his mother, Naing Aung said he wants to visit the places he once frequented during his school days, see for himself the new places which have emerged in Rangoon during his absence and catch up with some cultural events such as A-Nyient, a Burmese theatrical performance which has been dying fast.

“I miss the water festival and also the teashops where I once spent time with my friends,” he said.

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There is no official data about how many Burmese exiles are spread across the world.

But over the past two decades, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has helped thousands of Burmese dissidents seek political asylum in the West, and several thousand asylum seekers are still awaiting a similar chance while living in Burmese refugee camps in Thailand.

During the years 2004-08, the United States resettled 114,000 Burmese refugees.

Many of them were internally displaced ethnic minorities, but they also included hundreds of political dissidents who faced jail threats if they returned to Burma.

The opposition in Burma’s new parliament is pushing for an amnesty granting the exiles a safe passage back home and a reunion with their families, arguing that the return of exiles would boost the country’s much-needed human resources.

But Win Pe said he would not go back if government oppression inside Burma does not change. He said that top-ranking Burmese government officials who were once his school classmates previously assured him of his personal safety if he returned, but he declined the offer.

“As long as my fellow countrymen are being tormented, I won’t go back,” Win Pe said. But he remains confident that real change will come about in Burma.

“I hope every moment that change will come out of the blue because their [the military rulers] stability is so fragile and vulnerable,” he said. “But I sometimes wonder at the regime’s capacity for holding onto power for such a long time despite all the mistakes it has made.”

In contrast to Win Pe, both Naing Aung and Dr. Tin Maung Than, a Burmese exile living in the US who was formerly a medical doctor and successful magazine editor in Rangoon, said they would go back to Burma if they had a chance to directly contribute to their society once again.

Article

“If I can freely participate in politics, then I would even promise the authorities that I will not be involved in any public anti-government protest for five years. I wish to listen to the people’s voices to decide how I can help them best. On such a condition, I will go back home,” said Naing Aung.

But he said he would take such a personal initiative very cautiously because of possible misunderstanding in the opposition movement about his decision.

“I don’t wish to hear my comrades saying ‘Oh, our brother has finally surrendered to the regime,’” he said.

Tin Maung Than, 40, a native of Monywa Township in Upper Burma, also said that if he could go back home he would resume his writing career and do a research paper on how the country’s ruling and opposition leaders differently approach crises and issues.

“I wish to write short stories again. Also, I wish to share my knowledge with young people,” he said, but added that he was not very hopeful about exiles being able to return to Burma in the near future due to the continued political stalemate.

“Generally, I think it will take time for the government to allow the exiles to enter Burma again. In theory, their return would suggest that the government is comfortable in terms of security.”

In the meantime, Burma has forever lost some of its brightest intellectuals, artists and technocrats among those who have died in exile. A prime example is Tin Moe, Burma’s best known poet, who after serving a prison sentence for his political activities left Burma in 1999 and became an exile in the United States. Subsequently, all his published works were banned in Burma.

“He would tell us that we could find him at the Rangoon Airport once we heard Burma had democracy,” said Moe Cho Thin, the daughter of the poet who now lives in California.

Moe Cho Thin said her father was never as happy as when he was in Burma, and

although he had no shortage of friends or fans of his poems while in exile, he was desperate to go back home before he died. She once asked him, however, whether he would agree to write pro-regime articles for state-run newspapers in exchange for being allowed to return home.

“The answer was a clear ‘no,’” Moe Cho Thin said. “He said he wouldn’t go back home like that. He would not exchange his nostalgic pain by standing with falsehood.”

In 2007, Tin Moe died at the age of 73 while sitting with his friends in a teashop in a Los Angelas, California neighborhood that, according to Moe Cho Thin, the poet had psychologically adopted as his own just before he passed away because of its resemblance to his native Burma, including a small grove of toddy trees.

His last poem, which he wrote the day before he died, aspires to the peace and unity Burma is yet to achieve—the days when prisoners inside Burma are released and exiles living outside the country can return home.

You all as well as I With a desire for the joyful day Overcome the past mistakes.

With a desire for the Truth, Merrily we climb the pagoda.

Here is my message, I want to entertain all with a drum troupe.

Referring to the fact that the Burmese people live in a virtual police state, democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi once said, “We are still prisoners in our own country.” But if one aspect of being a prisoner means that a person is unable to return home and meet loved ones, then Burma has hundreds of thousands of prisoners outside its boundaries as well.

And so long as Burma’s political deadlock remains unresolved, these “prisoners” in exile will keep dreaming of their cherished pagodas and the sound of Burmese drums only from afar—possibly to the end of their lives.

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Love Among the Oppressed A Canadian author intermixes the story of her passionate love affair with an exiled Burmese rebel with the heartwrenching stories of people struggling to survive the oppression of a brutal regime

By HNIN WATHAN

K

aren Connelly received her first Burmese lesson within two hours of arrival in Rangoon when she learned the Burmese word for beautiful: hla deh.

But the beauty of Burma is not what she highlights in her memoir “Burmese Lessons, A True Love Story.� She focuses instead on the grim reality that she encountered during her personal journey on which she discovered not only Burma and its people, but her own true love.

The memoir begins with Connelly traveling to Burma in 1996 to collect information on political prisoners for a series of articles. While her memoir does not include any discussions with political prisoners, she writes about meeting Burmese people from many walks of life—literary figures, a former political-activist-turned-tourist-guide,

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a horse-cart driver and a nine-year-old boy working in a tea shop by the roadside. In the process, she learns about the draconian censorship that Burmese writers have to endure; she meets Burmese artists who are incredulous about governments that provide grants for artists and writers; she uses drawings in an attempt to explain what a condom is to a horse-cart driver and his wife who do not have a clue about family planning; and she discovers firsthand how rampant child labor is in many parts of Burma.

When students stage protests against the military junta in 1996, Connelly participates in the demonstrations and witnesses the brutality of police and soldiers against civilians. After the arrest and deportation of her friend, a Swedish journalist, she decides to flee to Thailand for her safety.

Book Review

At a party in Chiang Mai in northern Thailand, Connelly meets the hero of her love story—a man named Maung, a revolutionary leader in one of Burma’s resistance groups who asks her to “give her heart to Asia.”

Connelly bares her love scenes with unexpectedly explicit descriptions.

Lines such as: “His wetness turns into my own—his tongue in my mouth pulls liquid silk between my legs” are comparable to love scenes in Sidney Sheldon’s “The Sands of Time.” At times, her entangled emotions seem like those of a love-struck girl who is not yet a woman.

From the time she meets her lover, it is difficult to discern whether Connelly intends to focus her memoir on her love story or her experiences with the people of Burma. She sometimes alternates her chapters between detailing her passionate love affair with Maung and presenting her heartfelt truth about Burmese people—just as one is still reeling from disbelief regarding a Thai woman’s attitude towards a young Burmese girl, Connelly throws us into a chapter about her own emotional turmoil.

She also writes about meeting a number of people in various towns in Thailand—including Burmese dissidents and refugees in Mae Sot, Mae Sariang, and a refugee camp, as well as foreigners working for Burma’s cause.

Her accounts are sincere. She touches on raw issues such as the “territorial” nature of “whiteys” and the split of the ABSDF (All Burma Students’ Democratic Front), one of Burma’s resistance groups. She tugs at readers’ heart strings with her story of the death of a two or three-year-old child from malaria in a refugee camp and the resulting anguish of the child’s mother.

For many, Connelly’s memoir might not measure up to “Lizard Cage,” her previous novel centering on the prison life of a Burmese political activist which won her the Orange Broadband Award for new writers. But this is a memoir, after all, and the book reveals a very

personal side of Connelly. Her humility is visible when she helps the women in an ABSDF camp carry stones from the stream up to the top of a hill. And her reflections are critical—such as “I should know that the Westerner is allowed to make such distinctions between one Asian race and another. The Westerner knows. We are entitled to knowledge, among other things. That is what makes us experts.”

Of the many books regarding Burma in recent years—Pascal Khoo Thwe’s “From the Land of Green Ghosts,” Emma Larkin’s “Finding George Orwell in Burma,” Andrew Marshall’s “The Trouser People” and Zoya Phan’s “Little Daughter,” Connelly’s memoir stands out for its intimate details of her love

Connelly’s memoir stands out for its intimate details of her love scenes and the way she has mingled them with her encounters of Burma and its people.

scenes and the way she has mingled them with her encounters of Burma and its people.

How does Connelly’s love story end?

Perhaps she offers a hint when upon her departure from Burma she says: “Leaving is my consummate and cursed talent.”

Has she learned her Burmese lessons well? Reading her memoir will certainly provide enough evidence to decide—even for Connelly herself.

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Culture

& Society

It’s Written in the Stars Burma’s destiny has for centuries been influenced by soothsayers and astrologers

By YENI

I

Burmese junta leader Snr-Gen Than Shwe and other top generals attend a Union Day dinner in Naypyidaw on Feb. 12, 2011. Burmese observers were surprised to see the military strongman and his closest associates wearing women’s longyis. photo: ap

n Burmese, there’s a saying: “A good yadaya can get rid of a potential king.” So it’s no surprise to learn that many people in Burma believe strongly in the role of yadaya—a form of occultism still practiced widely across the country—after seeing 78-year-old Burmese dictator Snr-Gen Than Shwe appearing at a state dinner in February dressed in a women’s longyi.

According to a persistent rumor in Burma, astrologers have long predicted that a woman is destined to rule the country. Therefore, by dressing in women’s clothing, Than Shwe and his clique are banking that the gesture is sufficient to fulfill the prophecy—desperately hoping in the meantime that their cross-dressing gesture will neutralize the power of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Burma’s aging dictator and his wife, Kyaing Kyaing, are famed for their superstitions. Kyaing Kyaing is said to have been told by an astrologer in the 1980s that her husband would one day head the government. After the prediction came true, Than Shwe quickly became interested in astrology and occultism, and he too began to seek the advice of astrologers and soothsayers.

Than Shwe’s biographer Benedict Rogers noted that Than Shwe has seven personal astrologers, some of whom are tasked with focusing solely on Suu Kyi.

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It is not really surprising to see Than Shwe and his wife practicing ancient spiritual beliefs. Occultism, quite simply, is a source of personal guidance and inspiration for them.

The former postal clerk, who models himself on ancient Burmese warrior kings, even went so far as to build a new capital in the central Burma wilderness, a city he named “Naypyidaw,” meaning “The Abode of Kings.”

In 2005, Than Shwe ordered all administrative and military bureaus to be moved from the former capital, Rangoon, to Naypyidaw at a precise time and date that was ordained by his astrologers. At the new flag-raising ceremony in August last year, Than Shwe sent orders to all government offices across the country that the designated officials who were to lower the old flags must be Tuesdayborn, while the new flags were to be raised by Wednesday-born officials.

But in fact, Burma’s first couple is not alone in observing such practices. For centuries, superstitious beliefs and supernatural omens have been deeply embedded in the Burmese psyche and have influenced attitudes and behavior at almost every level of society. From simple farmers to influential businessmen, most Burmese own an astrological chart which was drawn up at their birth. Many seek an astrologer’s advice in choosing names for children or for setting a time, date and place for a wedding, an inauguration, building a house or opening a business.

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Like most other Asians, Burmese generally believe that their existence and destiny are at least partly related to the movements of the planets and the stars. Reputed astrologers and psychics have no shortage of customers.

One renowned astrologer, San Zarni Bo, told The Irrawaddy that the astrological advice many people rely on is based on occult sciences. “It is a ‘Renaissance science’ that once disappeared and has now been resurrected,” he said.

Some 89 percent of people in Burma consider themselves Theravada Buddhists.

The philosophical religion has predominated in Burma for a millennium. But for as long as Buddhism has been a cornerstone of Burmese spiritualism, it has coexisted alongside a widespread belief in alchemy, magic and occultism.

Historical texts clearly portray Burmese culture as being made up of an eclectic mix of traditions that involve various branches of Buddhism, including Mahayana and Tantric (or magical) Buddhism, Brahmanism and indigenous animist cults that were practised by ethnic groups long before King Anawrahta of Pagan united the country in the 11th century and instituted Theravada Buddhism as the national religion.

According to Burmese historians, Anawrahta suppressed an already established sect of heretical Buddhist monks known as the Ari, who were patrons of myriad cults. All the celestial images of both planetary and Hindu gods were seized and placed in a Vishnu temple, which was renamed “The Prison of the Gods.” Some writers said that the Ari monks were defrocked and made to serve in the royal armies. Many left the shrines to become traveling musicians, dancers and actors.

Whatever the historical accuracy of the Burmese legend, epigraphic and archaeological evidence indicate that Anawrahta took a more eclectic approach to religion than portrayed.

Dr. Patrick Pranke, a professor in the Department of Humanities at the University of Louisville in the USA, wrote in the Encyclopedia of Buddhism that while promoting Theravada Buddhism as the national religion, King

Culture

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Anawrahta “circulated in his own kingdom votive tablets adorned with Maharani imagery.

“Anawrahta also supported a royal cult of nat or spirit propitiation dedicated to the very deities said to have been worshipped by the Ari monks,” he noted.

Evidently, Buddhism did not overwhelm primal beliefs and rituals in Burma. Instead of disappearing or being outlawed, occultism modified its rites and integrated with the philosophy of Theravada Buddhism down the centuries. With the passing of time, Burmese learned to accept that the ancient spiritual practices are part and parcel of their version of Buddhism.

Burmese were influenced throughout their history by occultism, says late historian Dr. Than Tun in his article, “The Influence of Occultism in Myanma History (with Special Reference to Bodawpaya’s Reign 1782-1819).” From his research, Than Tun concluded that occultism was involved in the decisions of the country’s ruler on foreign, military and religious affairs.

Burmese occultism comes in various guises: an, uin, khalai, lapphwai, gatha, mantan, piya, bedan. But it is yadaya that carries the mystic power to win love or destroy one’s opposition.

If forewarned of danger by an astrologer, it is yadaya that one turns to counter or avert the impending danger.

All possibilities can have both a negative and a positive outcome. Persons who use the power believe they are invulnerable or have neutralized the power of their enemy, Than Tun noted.

Yadaya has its own lexicon of branches to guide practitioners: the most influential form is atit, meaning to draw an analogy between what is happening at present with what is likely to happen in the near future; namit, a prophesy of impending danger sensed by those who have intuition; tabbon, a folk song which, when correctly interpreted, predicts accurately events that are about to happen; and canan, the unrestricted voice, not necessarily human, that conveys some sense of what is likely to happen soon.

In Burmese history, kings sought out the soothsayer who could interpret those divinations

and appointed him his adviser, offering the royal title of Ayudaw Mingalar.

The role of both occultism and Buddhism weakened during the British colonial administration of the country while government policies were secular. Neither local occultism nor Buddhism were patronized by the colonial government. This resulted in tensions between the colonized Buddhists and their British rulers.

However, since independence in 1948, all modern rulers of Burma—whether democratically elected or dictatorial—have to some degree returned to embrace this traditional practice, promoting Theravada Buddhism as the national religion while consulting soothsayers and astrologers for practical advice.

Several events in recent Burmese history reflect advice from astrologers: U Nu, a devout Buddhist, formally declared Burma’s independence from Britain on Jan. 4, 1948, at 4:20 am, a time considered most auspicious by astrologers.

Then, after seizing power in 1962, late dictator Gen Ne Win relied heavily on astrologers and numerologists for policy advice. In 1987, he stunned the financial markets by removing from circulation 50- and 100-kyat notes, and introducing 45-kyat and 90-kyat notes. The move could only be attributed to his faith in the number nine.

So it is not really surprising to see Than Shwe and his wife practicing ancient spiritual beliefs.

Occultism, quite simply, is a source of personal guidance and inspiration for them.

In fact, the craze knows no borders: it seems neighboring Thailand’s leaders also have faith in the Burmese occult. According to sources in Rangoon, a famous Burmese psychic, ET (also known as E Thi), was flown to Bangkok several times to meet Thai political and business leaders and to offer advice.

The latest story is that Malaysia’s state oil company Petronas took ET on a helicopter ride along the coastline of Malaysia and asked her to point out the best places to drill for gas and oil.

Perhaps, in the modern world, Burma has lost its political and economic status—but in the mystic world, it is clearly a superpower.

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INTERVIEW

Renaissance Man

San Zarni Bo is one of Burma’s leading astrologers and palm readers.

He was awarded the prestigious International Man of the Year award in Astrology and Palmistry for 1997 by the International Biographical Centre in Cambridge, UK. He currently broadcasts his daily predictions on Yangon City FM radio in Rangoon

By YENI

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Question: According to traditional Buddhism, Burmese people understand that there are two forms of spiritual development: lokiya, the ‘mundane,’ and lokuttara, the ‘supramundane.’ The division is made to show a distinction between the knowledge of ‘earthly’ persons and ‘noble’ persons. Earthly persons are said to have mundane knowledge [lokiya] while noble persons’ experience is supramundane [lokuttara]. Most Burmese favor or tend to rely on the experience of lokiya rather than the heavenly or ‘noble’ knowledge. What is your opinion?

Answer: This does not only occur in Burma. People around the world are the same. Earthly people are everywhere. Saints are rare. To my understanding, people are more interested in things related to the earthly world. Let’s take science—it began with alchemy, which was only renamed called ‘occult’ some time later.

Sciences such as chemistry, physics and mathematics all are related to lokiya. Because of these lokiya matters, people can now use the Internet, construct high-rise buildings and produce so many consumer goods. It is better for human development.

Lokuttara is religious, so it is totally the opposite of lokiya. People tend to prefer science to religion.

That’s why they, both in Burma and around the world, are more interested in the former. Religious fundamentalism is out of date. So it is not surprising to learn that not many people practice religious theories any more.

In Burma, lokiya is generally understood to include the so-called occult sciences. Lokiya is a renaissance science—it disappeared and is now being resurrected.

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When we were in the 8th grade, we were told to choose between sciences and the arts. A majority chose science, because not many youngsters were interested in studying Burmese, history, English and economics. Perhaps they were considered less exciting.

Q: I remember something from when I was young. There is ahtat lan [an upper path] and ouk lan [a lower path]. What are they?

A: They are black magic and white magic. Black is an evil method of occultism, whereas white magic aims toward goodness. For instance, to have a badashin lon [crystal ball] aimed at extending human life is the foremost in Burmese alchemy. It is white magic.

Q: What kind of occult science is astrology?

A: Astrology is based on mathematical calculation and the movement of the planets. Let’s take a few names—Copernicus, Galileo, Einstein. If we say that astrology is based on Heliocentrism that was founded

by Copernicus and later developed by Galileo, then it is a science. And Einstein, who greatly contributed to mankind with his Theory of Relativity, did not undermine or underestimate astrology.

Astrology and astronomy should both be called sciences. After all, we can see that there are many experts who are studying the movement of the stars and positions of the galaxies in the universe.

Let’s take numerology. If it is rooted in Pythagorean movement, it should be considered mathematical.

Magic Squares—in Burmese, an—have been applied with computerized systems nowadays.

Talismans—in Burmese, khalai and lapphwai—are similar to other household products we use to protect ourselves or for safety. It’s similar to using umbrellas or condoms.

Chinese feng shui resembles architecture. If you look at ancient buildings and cathedrals in Europe, and others that are influenced by Gothic and Roman designs, you can see their concept of architecture is similar to the currently popular feng shui.

Q: How about all the akyar amyin saya [soothsayers] who are becoming more popular these days?

A: They are psychics. Psychics can read people’s minds through hypnosis. We can trace it back it to the theories of Sigmund Freud.

The Psychology Department at the University of Rangoon teaches the theories of Freud, including the clinical method of psychoanalysis for investigating the mind and treating psychopathology through dialogue between a patient and a psychoanalyst.

Here we can also see many nat-win-the [spirit mediums] like Uri Geller, who has strong psychic power. In lokuttara, people pay respect, worship and show their admiration for the Buddha for the wisdom of his teachings. It is the same in lokiya. People who trust psychics also pay similar respect to them.

Q: In Burmese, there is a saying, ‘A good yadaya can get rid of a potential king.’ Tell me something about yadaya.

A: It is a remedy. It is a cure. In computer terms, it is the same as a trouble-shooter.

Q: Throughout history, Burmese kings relied on atit, namit and tabbon to predict their fortunes, did they not?

A: It is true. Those forms of occultism are methods to get to know what people are talking about, and what the current issues are. Basically, tabbon came to exist from poetry. Kings listened to those verses to predict their reigns. In Burmese history, there were two men known for their expertise in predictions— Ayudawmingalar U Noe and a person who served King Rajadarit (1368–1422 CE).

Q: Is there much difference between the work of the state-formed Myanmar Astrologer’s Association and Ayudawmingalar?

A: The members of the Myanmar Astrologer’s Association provide suggestions to the state only in accordance with the Burmese calendar. But individuals among Burma’s ruling authorities have their own astrologers or psychics who they believe in.

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Cartoon

A Sad Reflection

Success! Than Shwe Balances the Budget.

illustrations: harn lay/the irrawaddy

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