REAL FREEDOM
THE IRRAWADDY: Vol. 8 No.2, February 2000
Ye Min Aung learns about the real meaning of freedom from his friend and fellow activist, James Mawdsley, who is currently serving a 17-year prison sentence in Burma In early January 1997, a car carrying two white men and a white woman drove into our camp in the jungle.
It was a rare sight, so I followed the car out of curiosity and to see if they needed help with their luggage. A camp executive introduced one of the white men to me. This was my first meeting with James. At the time, James was just 24 years old, and like a lot of young western guys, he seemed to be curious about our life in the jungle. When I met him, he had a shaved head that he covered with a cowboy hat. He explained that he had come to teach us English. He didn''t seem to know much about why we were out there in the jungle, but it didn''t matter: we were just happy to have a chance to study English for the first time since 1988, when we were forced to end our studies after the crackdown on the pro- democracy movement. That night, I was responsible for preparing the beds of our guests. I took three blankets and mosquito nets and showed them the way to the bamboo hut where they would be staying. Being quite tall, James hit his head on the roof of the hut. Later he asked where he could find the toilet. I was embarrassed to tell him that we didn''t have a proper water closet just an uncomfortable bamboo toilet. I also explained that our small old generator, our only source of electricity in the camp, stopped running at nine every night. I thought that like most foreigners who came to visit us, James wouldn''t stay long. At that time, I had just returned from the front lines, where most student soldiers spent six months to two years before returning to the rear camp.
I was happy to have a chance to use my time learning English and speaking with James. He asked me about the events of August 8, 1988, when our nationwide movement to restore democracy in Burma started. After learning about our struggle in detail, he expressed his sympathy for the student political prisoners and those who had left their families to join the All Burma Students'' Democratic Front (ABSDF) in the jungle. But he did not really seem interested in hearing about students taking up arms and fighting in battlefields. He said the best way to achieve democracy was through non- violence. He also said that since all men all over the world are brothers, Burmese affairs are also his affairs. I will never forget these words. Our camp, Regiment No. 1 of the ABSDF, was called Minthamee, and was located beside the Tenasserim River.
Usually there were just a few student soldiers, women and children staying there. Life in the jungle was hard, and at first we doubted that James could stand our diet of rice, fish paste, and chili. According to Burmese custom, we served our guest the best that we could offer: noodles and fresh vegetables from our riverside garden. But one day, he followed me back to my quarters after I served him his lunch. When he saw my comrades and me eating plain rice and dried fish paste, he scolded us, saying he was also our comrade, so he should be given the same food as everybody else. So from then on, he started eating the same food as the rest of us. I remember one day some comrades came back from a hunting trip with three monkeys.
We all looked forward to a meal of monkey curry, which we made by cooking the stomachs with some herbs and spices. When we offered some to James, he asked us what part of the monkey we had used. When I accidentally said that it was the monkey''s shit, James jumped back in surprise. After he realized that I had really meant to say stomach, he decided to give it a try. He really liked it. The last time we met in Bangkok, just before his third arrest in 1999, he joked that he had come back to Thailand to have some monkey stomach curry. Sometimes James also joined families at the camp for dinner, eating food with just his bare hand, Burmese-style.
He became friendly with the children in our regiment compound and said that he was concerned about their future. He worried that they would grow up to become child soldiers without any education. Later he learned that many children inside Burma are also deprived of even the most basic education, because the country''s military dictators believe that it is more important to strengthen the army than the minds of future generations. To help the orphans and the children of our married comrades to have a better future, James spent a lot of time teaching them English at our small school, called Pyo Pan Wai, which means, ""growing flowers are blooming"". James seldom became angry, but I was surprised one time when I asked him what he would think if we Burmese students started using terrorism like the IRA in Britain. I was not serious, but he did not think it was a joke to even suggest such an idea. He said that the Burmese students were fighting for human rights and democracy, so they should never resort to terrorism. I reassured him that we would never do such a thing. I realized then how strongly he opposed the use of violence. How ridiculous it is that the military dictators in Burma call him a ""mercenary terrorist""! James was not a soldier, but he always showed solidarity with our struggle. Every day at 7 a.m. and 5 p.m., all members of our regiment gathered in the parade field to salute the Fighting Peacock flag, and James was always there without fail.
In the third week of February 1997, our camp and Karen National Union (KNU) Brigade No. 4 came under fierce attack from Light Infantry Battalions (LIB) 55 and 56 under the Rangoon regime''s Southeastern Military Command. A platoon was immediately ordered to go to the front line to take defensive action. James and I watched as a motorboat carrying about 20 students singing marching songs made their way to the battlefield. Later that night, we sat in front of James'' hut discussing the offensive as we listened to the sound of mortar shells, grenades and rockets exploding in the distance. When I was given an order that same night to prepare to go into action, James offered me a pair of army boots that he had bought in Australia. I was very happy to accept them, because unlike most soldiers, we students did not have a complete set of battle gear.
But it saddened me to see tears in James'' eyes when our commander told him that he would have to leave our camp and return to Thailand. The enemy troops were quickly advancing, but James said he did not want to leave his students and comrades. At dawn the next day, I saw James again as my platoon patrolled the camp. He was sitting in front of his hut looking very exhausted. Later he told me that he wanted to stay and surrender to the government troops so that he could negotiate with their commander to prevent further casualties.
I replied that they would never respect his attempts to engage in negotiations if they could easily overrun the camp. But at last I agreed that it might be worthwhile to try a non-violent approach. Finally, however, our camp commander rejected the idea. The next day, I had to go to the front line without having a chance to say goodbye to James. When we were later forced to retreat back to the camp, James and the regiment''s women and children had already left for the border to stay at a refugee camp. As a member of the superior command, I had to help burn down our camp before the advancing enemy troops arrived. Although I considered myself a battle-hardened soldier, I cried when we set fire to James'' hut. I thought about his proposal to surrender himself to the enemy troops, believing that he could end the fighting through non-violence.
I am not sure that he would have succeeded, but perhaps he could have drawn the world''s attention to the situation in Burma. When I learned later of his plans to go into Burma to protest against the military regime''s human rights violations, I was not surprised. After our first encounter, I could clearly see that he was determined to open people''s eyes to what was happening inside Burma. I met James again in late August 1997, after the fall of Minthamee camp. We met in Bangkok, where I had gone because I could no longer stay on the border. At that time, I told James the sad news that our commander and some other freedom fighters had been killed in battle. His face showed inexpressible sorrow, but he said we must never give up our non-violent struggle to achieve democracy and human rights in Burma.
A few days later, James told me about his plan to make his first trip to Burma on a tourist visa. The next month I heard about his arrest in Rangoon for protesting against military rule. He had handcuffed himself to the school gate of State High School No. 6 in Botataung, located opposite the Prime Minister''s Office, and started shouting pro-democracy slogans. A few days later he was back in Bangkok with a wrist injury caused by his rough handling by agents of the Military Intelligence Services (MIS). When I saw him, I made a joke about the warm reception he had received from the military dictators in Rangoon. We thought that he would be satisfied with the publicity his protest had attracted to our cause, but he insisted that he would return to Burma again to further raise people''s awareness. When I met James again, on April 10, 1998, I was the one behind bars. The Thai police had arrested me for illegal entry, and James came to bring me some food while I was in custody.
He looked upset when he saw the living conditions of Burmese students in the detention center, but when I reminded him that there were still many students in Burma''s notorious prisons a decade after the pro-democracy uprising of 1988, he understood that we had no desire to complain about our present circumstances. Then he confided to me that he was planning to return to Burma again soon. When I was released a few weeks later, I heard that he had been arrested again, this time in Moulmein, in southern Burma, for distributing pro-democracy pamphlets. Ninety-nine days later, after effective pressure from the British and Australian embassies in Rangoon, he was once again deported and sent straight back to Britain. I did not have a chance to meet him again until later in the year, when he returned to Bangkok after working for several months in Australia.
He was sunburned from working hard to raise money to support refugees on the Thai-Burma border. I also noticed that he was wearing the same old clothing that he had when he first came to stay with us in the jungle. When I asked him jokingly how he had enjoyed the dictators'' hospitality during his latest visit to Burma, he could not stop talking about the life of political prisoners in Insein jail. He also told me how he had been tortured during his second prison experience. But he still wanted to return to Burma again to continue his non- violent protests against the regime. This time, however, he could not get back into the country, so he decided to write an account of his experiences working with the orphaned students of Pyo Pan Wai, hoping to raise money to establish a new school for his former students and other refugees stranded on the border.
In the last week of July 1999, James was back in Bangkok to attempt another entry into Burma. He stayed with me in my apartment, bringing with him many copies of Real Freedom, his book about his experiences in the jungle. A few days later he set off to the border to try to re-enter Burma. I joked that this time he would probably be in prison until Burma achieved democracy, so I asked him to meet us at the airport in Rangoon when we returned. He replied that he believed that day would come soon. Although we joked about these things, I still worried about James and tried to convince him not to return to Burma. But I could not change his mind, and I admired his courage and his desire to reveal the true situation in Burma to the international community through acts of passive resistance. Ye Min Aung contributed this article to The Irrawaddy.
