Spotlight on Burma: the people's stories

Sarah's story

"I don't like conflict," Sarah Dawson said, crossing her legs nervously after being asked for her opinion on the sensitive topic of sanctions against Burma.

It was an ironic statement, considering how her family has been embroiled in Burma's conflict for generations. Myanmar, as Burma is now called, is controlled by a strict military regime that has been intelligently masked over several decades.

Dawson, a freshman at the UW, speaks fluent Thai after living in Thailand for what feels like half of her life, she said. Her maternal grandparents were missionaries in Thailand, which borders Burma, and her grandmother once sang for the Thai king. Her mother and father also worked in Thailand, but they found another calling in Burma.

Many of her family members are blacklisted by the Burmese government, which means special laws have been drafted to prevent her family from entering the country and providing aid to the people. That doesn't stop them, however.

Her uncle, aunt and their three children are currently living in the country, working with people deep in the jungle. Dawson said that her cousins love it.

"These people (the Burmese) live with it everyday; if we have to risk [our lives], we do it," Dawson said of her aunt and uncle's perspective on the risks to their children.

Dawson's uncle and mother once met revered pro-democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi in Rangoon, Burma, during one of the short times the Nobel Peace Prize winner was released from house arrest.

Dawson's uncle asked Aung San Suu Kyi what he could do to help her cause. Being both Buddhist and Christian, she replied that he should pray for them and help unite the ethnic groups of Burma, who are suffering under forced labor and other indignities.

Dawson's uncle eventually went to work with the Karen ethnic group along the border of Burma.

"People inside the jungle are dying. [Soldiers] burn everything and lay down land mines," Dawson said about the region.

Her uncle, a former U.S. Special Forces soldier, founded the Free Burma Rangers. The Rangers provide documentation of atrocities, humanitarian aid and basic medical training to remote villages in the Burmese jungle. The Rangers also operate an early warning communication system to warn other communities of Burma Army attacks.

According the Rangers' Web site (www.freeburmarangers.org), there are 25 teams active in the Karen state, the Shan state and other areas of Burma. Since its founding in 1997, the group has helped more than 700,000 people, according to the Web site.

"They bring doctors from America and Europe and journalists. The Rangers are the people helping themselves and each other," Dawson said.

Dawson has also been to Burma. One of the times ,she crossed legally and brought information from the Burmese jungle to the U.S. State Department in Rangoon.

Aside from having lived in Thailand and been to Burma, Dawson is also involved in the Burma Action Group on campus and is doing her own work to help Burmese at the UW.

An efficient, organized and enthusiastic bunch, the Burma Action Group has many ideas for the future, including the slogan "Keep the Light on Burma" and an effort to find big light bulbs. The group laughed often, but sobered when discussing a recently surfaced picture of what looked like a Burmese monk, dead and floating gently down a river.

Dawson also has many ideas for her own future. She would like to be involved in medical relief and is looking to study biochemistry, global health or human rights. There is also a need for involvement in the political side of the issue.

"It's just not my scene," she said. "I love the people."

Dawson wants to help them in her own way. Clean water and proper sanitation is rare in the refugee camps and devastated villages, so diseases flourish.

"A lot of the diseases can be prevented," she said.

Parasites can infest a host through even a tiny cut, and malaria and typhoid are dangerous in the conditions in which many people live.

Education is just as important as proper hygiene and sanitation, and teachers and students need notebooks and pens because the school buildings keep getting burned down, the children have nowhere to study and the teachers have nowhere to teach, she said.

"Some people don't even know where [Burma] is, and that's sad," she said despondently.

Raising awareness at school, as she does with the Burma Action Group, is important, but "you can't make someone care about an issue," she said.

"My dream would be to see a free Burma," she said about Burma's future. "I have hope."

Tin's story

A UW industrial engineering major from the Burmese city of Rangoon (now called Yangon), Tin Aung is eager to look for work in his field. He wants to take his education back to his home country, but it is not safe yet, he said. In 10-15 years he hopes to go back.

His mother still lives in the city, and he calls her when he can. He was able to come to the United States by getting a sponsor. Aung said the government likes to get rid of people who could make trouble for them. A Burmese monk he knows received the same treatment and came to the United States soon after he did.

Aung's mother could not come to the United States with her son because she was refused a visa, and they make do by talking over the phone. However, even that is dangerous.

"I cannot talk about this stuff with my ma," Aung said. "They listen. ... She tells me, 'Don't talk about anything. Just say if you're all right.'"

When Aung spoke of his life, his voice was without self-pity but full of passion. His father, who continued to live in Burma, just passed away at the age of 64.

"He is so proud of me," Aung said.

He could not go back home to attend the funeral, however. He thought his passport would be taken away if he attempted to go back now, leaving him unable to get back to the United States, he said. If government officials discovered he had participated in any demonstration in the United States against the Burmese military government, he might be jailed.

In Burma, Aung attended the Yangon Institute of Technology (YIT). Located in what used to be the country's capital city (it has since been moved to the remote city of Naypyidaw), YIT hosted a student riot in 1996 and was subsequently closed for three years.

Aung, who was one of the students involved in the riot, said the unrest began after five students were beaten by police. The students demanded an apology from the police and marched around the school, spreading the news of what had happened. Aung managed to escape the rally with his friends before the police crackdown.

Aung said the remaining students were defenseless, without even a stick arming them when the armed police ordered them to disperse. After a week of protests by students, the university was shut down.

In 1999 it was reopened but relocated far away from the city, preventing many students from returning to their studies and forcing Aung to take a bus.

By closing universities and promoting "distance" learning, the junta has sought to quell many students' revolutionary spirit for democracy.

Many of the ruling generals' children go to school in Singapore, flying to school by private jet in the morning and returning by jet in the evening, Aung said.

The Burmese education system is awful, he said, which left him no choice but to come to the United States to continue his education.

"You guys are so lucky," he said, shaking his head. "So lucky."

The junta released a "Roadmap to Democracy," and the United Nations has gotten involved in pressuring the government toward representation of the people.

However, it seems that real change is far off. The government continues to imprison, torture and kill its citizens, and with Burma's claims to state sovereignty, the international community has been rendered almost impotent.

Aung doesn't have hope for the development of democracy in Burma.

"They've got the gun," he said. "We need to negotiate with the government."

The government will not negotiate, Aung said.

The military junta leaves no room for discussion; however, the optimism of the students I interviewed seemed irrational but inextinguishable.

"I just hope people can keep it going," Dawson said.

[Reach reporter Erinn Unger at features@thedaily.washington.edu.]