MA SU MONMA SU MON

32, journalist

ETHNICITY: Burman

BIRTHPLACE: Rangoon, Burma

INTERVIEWED IN: Bangkok, Thailand

Ma Su Mon became involved in Burma’s democracy movement in 1996, when the ruling military junta shut down all of the nation’s universities for four years. She began studying at the National League for Democracy office, where she met “Auntie”—Daw Aung San Suu Kyi¹¹—and was inspired to become a full youth member of the opposition group. As a result of her involvement with the NLD, Ma Su Mon was arrested by military intelligence officers and taken to Insein Prison, where she was subjected to cruel treatment, deprived of adequate food, and held in solitary confinement for eleven months. She was twenty-two years old. Since her release, she has become a journalist and is now living in Thailand, where she is pursuing her master’s degree in communications and a career in journalism.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is the General Secretary of the National League for Democracy (NLD) and winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize. Her party was the decisive winner of the 1990 election. For fifteen of the last twenty-one years she has been held under house arrest. The prefix “Daw” is a Burmese title used as a sign of respect for older women. See appendix pages 455-456 and 464-465 for further detail.

I was born in Rangoon in 1978. My father is a government staff member in the Ministry of Agriculture. I have four brothers and one sister, and I am the oldest daughter. In my childhood I had to wear boys’ shirts and shoes because my mom bought us all the same clothes and school uniforms. When my brothers would go out and play like boys, I went out, too, so I could play like them. I acted like a boy—I really liked climbing trees, playing, and running. I could do whatever they did. But my other two older brothers didn’t want to take me along to play because I always made a lot of trouble when we were playing games. My brothers had to fix my problems and take responsibility for whatever I had done, so they told me to stay in the house. But I always followed them.

My father is really quiet. He never said much, so if he said one word, it was really big for us. My mom was just talking, talking, talking. We didn’t hear her. But if my father said one word, we had to obey.

My mom and dad were really sorry for us. They would always say, “We cannot give any money to you, like other parents. We can give you only education. Concentrate on your education, because it can make your life better. You should do better than your parents.” So that’s why, even though I liked to play in my childhood, I always focused on my education.

I DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT DEMOCRACY

In 1988, I was ten years old. I was a fifth standard student. My father brought me to see some demonstrations nearby, where a lot of people were gathered, and they were shouting slogans, speaking their minds. I felt happy. But then I could see that my father and my mom felt worried about us; three of my brothers had gone out in the morning, and they were involved in something. We had heard that there was shooting and that the army killed some protestors. I can remember some parts of what happened, but not everything. I think maybe at the time, everyone thought that we could get democracy, but we didn’t know what democracy was.

My father said, “We can get democracy right now, because the whole country is demonstrating. We can change our lives.” Everyone knew that the government censored the truth about what was really happening in our country, so everyone thought the government had to change.

My father had a very low salary because the economy was bad. He thought that if we could get democracy, if we could get some rights, things could be better. At the time, I thought democracy was just a big thing my father could bring to our home. I didn’t know; I just felt happy. We were all shouting, “Okay, now we can get democracy!” When we would play, we would play demonstrations because we saw this kind of thing in front of us.

But after that, a really bad thing happened to our family.

When the new military government started ruling our country after the ’88 uprising, they decided to claim some land and force the people living there to move to a remote area.²² When the government wants to build a government compound, they just claim all the buildings in that place and send the people elsewhere. They had a lot of space and electric fences around their compounds, but I think maybe they were still afraid for their security. After the SLORC took power in 1988, my father said we had to obey them—we didn’t have a chance to say no.³³

In 1988, there was a nationwide popular uprising against Ne Win’s one-party rule. In response to the Burma Socialist Programme Party’s failed attempts to quell the demonstrations, the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), a group of generals, took control of the government through a military coup. See appendix VIII for information about the uprising.

Framed as a caretaker government, the SLORC—State Law and Order Restoration Council—has remained in power since the 1988 coup. In 1997 they changed their names to the SPDC—State Peace and Development Council. See appendix pages 465-467 for further detail.

They made a new town and sent us there. We had lived for ten years inside Rangoon city, but now, in 1990, we had to move to this new town, North Dagon Myothit. It was two hours away by bus. It had no school, no hospital, no transportation. We had to go to school in another rural area called North Okkalapa on the other side of the river; it was very difficult to go there in the rainy season.

The military government didn’t say directly to my family that we had to move. They told the head of our town. We had to give our land to the government without receiving any compensation. This happens in other places too—forced relocation.⁴⁴ When we moved to a new place, we had to pay money.

Land confiscation and forced relocation by the military junta have been well documented. In 1988, whole areas of Rangoon were cleared and the SPDC’s four-cuts policy regularly removes inhabitants in ethnic nationality areas where the military regime has been at war with armed ethnic opposition groups. People are also forcibly relocated in SPDC-backed development projects, like dam-building, throughout the country. For more on the four-cuts policy see appendix pages 461-462.

They gave us a deadline to move. Some people didn’t want to move, because they were living on the land where their grandparents had lived. The government sent some very big army trucks to send us to the new place with our things. Some people stayed in their compounds, but I heard that if someone didn’t move they would use the bulldozer to clear the buildings.

Because Rangoon is a city where people are in the public eye, we were given some time to prepare our things and move, but in other divisions or other states—where other ethnic groups lived—they didn’t have any time. They didn’t even get a deadline, like one day or two days. They didn’t want to move right away, but they had to just do it. The army can do whatever they want in rural areas. If the government says to move, you move. You have no choice.

When we moved to North Dagon Myothit, my father was old at the time, maybe fifty years old. He became really sick with tuberculosis and was forced to retire from his job. When that happened, three of my brothers decided to work for our family. They were about sixteen, eighteen, and twenty years old; my oldest brother was only in tenth standard. They were really young, but they had to find money for us because we had three children who needed to continue their education.

My brothers sold betel leaf, because everybody chews that in Burma.⁵⁵ My brothers were working in a big market, very far from our home. My parents thought they were going out to see friends, but my mom went to the market one day and saw my youngest brother carrying something that was too heavy for him. She cried a lot and said we had to do something to change the situation. My father never forced my brothers to work, he just wanted to see his children become educated people. But my brother said, “This is our responsibility for our family. We’re just handling our business.” They said they didn’t want to keep studying because the education fee was really expensive for the three of them.

Betel leaf is a heart-shaped leaf common throughout Southeast Asia. In Burma, it is chewed with the areca nut (and the combination is casually referred to as “betel nut”), and often combined with tobacco and assorted spices.

I KNEW IT WAS DANGEROUS TO PROTEST

When I passed high school, I was only interested in education. My goal was to be a lecturer at a university. But when I was a first-year university student in 1996, there were student demonstrations at our university. Though I didn’t know anything about politics at the time, I followed the older students, my seniors, when they started demonstrating and protesting for democracy. Then the government closed the university without reason.

I knew it was dangerous to protest, but when I started there were a lot of students and many people surrounding us who gave us water and food. I thought it would be fun. I was really happy to continue demonstrating with my seniors and to shout, “We want to study, open the university!” We were demonstrating at the Hledan Junction, a very famous place in front of Rangoon University, near Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s house. At the time, all of the people from different universities were gathering there. When they shouted, we shouted. Then something happened in front of me.

I saw the police come and beat our student leaders. This was really my first experience seeing people beaten in front of me. We had to run. Some of the student leaders pulled me along because I was young and I didn’t know where to go. We went to hide, and later we heard on the radio that the police had arrested a lot of student leaders. Some of them had been beaten very badly, almost to death. General Khin Nyunt announced that the military was just protecting the security of our country.⁶⁶

General Khin Nyunt was Chief of Intelligence. In October 2004, during an apparent power struggle between him and SPDC Chairman Than Shwe, General Khin Nyunt was removed from power, arrested, and has been held under house arrest ever since.

We hadn’t done anything—we didn’t have any weapons, we just demonstrated in peace—but after the demonstrations they closed the universities for almost four years. My parents were worried about me. “Why did you follow them?” they asked. “You should not do things like that. If you just want to be an educated person, you should concentrate on your education, not get involved in political demonstrations.”

During the protest, I didn’t know I was involved in politics, I just wanted to do what my seniors did. But then I saw my seniors get beaten and a lot of bad things were happening around me. Some of our seniors said, “You should go back, sister, you are too young and you’re a girl.” But I didn’t like hearing that—I could do whatever I wanted.

I SAW AUNTIE FOR THE FIRST TIME

The government closed the universities from 1996 to 2000. They said they didn’t want to open them again because of security concerns, because they were worried that demonstrations would happen again. They arrested all of the students who were active in the political movement. I felt really upset, and I was also worried about my future—I was afraid I’d never be able to study again. None of my college friends knew what to do either, so we started to look for a place where we could get some kind of education. I think I was lucky, because some of my friends who were NLD members invited us to go to the headquarters of the National League for Democracy, where they had a library and also English training for youth.⁷⁷ We followed them there and we eventually met Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

The National League for Democracy is a political party in Burma formed in the aftermath of the 1988 pro-democracy uprising, and is headed by General Secretary Aung San Suu Kyi. In the 1990 general elections, the party garnered 59 percent of the general vote and 80 percent of the parliamentary seats, but the military junta never ceded power to them. In 2010 the military declared the party to be illegal. See appendix pages 465-468 and 473 for further detail.

When I went to the NLD office for the first time, I was really afraid. I didn’t know where it was so my friend took me there, and when we got off at the bus stop, we walked to the office and saw the red sign—it said NATIONAL LEAGUE FOR DEMOCRACY. Their flag has a peacock and a star.⁸⁸ I had seen this flag before, because my parents showed it to me when they voted for the NLD. I felt strange and nervous when I entered the building, and I didn’t feel safe because we knew about the government’s propaganda against the NLD.

The image of the peacock has been used on flags as an emblem of Burmese nationality throughout Burma’s modern history. The National League for Democracy’s flag, which displays the peacock in a fighting stance, was first used by student activists against British colonial rule, in order to connote a sense of power and defiance that the NLD has come to represent.

A lot of people were at the office, just gathered around and whispering to each other. Before I entered the building, I felt strange because we could not see inside. The office was very old and fading, very dark and narrow, with really old furniture. But when we entered the building, we saw a lot of people who really welcomed us and also some student leaders, like the central youth leader of the NLD. They gave us a place to sit and we saw they had a lot of big pictures of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and other leaders. We saw a picture of General Aung San, which we had never seen in public before.⁹⁹ The pictures were looking down at us.

General Aung San was the architect of Burmese independence. He founded Burma’s army (the Tatmadaw) and the Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League. He was assassinated in July 1947, six months before the end of colonial rule. For more on Aung San, see appendix pages 459-460.

I was really amazed when we went to the office. There was so much activity, and some of the members there were important people who might inspire us. Everything was really different from our university classes. We were so happy at the NLD office and we kept returning to study more. I didn’t tell my parents about my involvement with the NLD because I knew they would stop me. I had an excuse—I said I wanted to attend computer trainings and go to some places to discuss jobs with my friend. Since the university was closed, my parents said I could go. They said, “You should find some place to learn English and also about computers.” So I never lied, but I found an excuse.

At the time we were not full members of the NLD, but we would go whenever they had group discussions about books and poets. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was also involved in these discussions. They didn’t put pressure on us to become full NLD members—they said we could just come and stay with them, because they were really impressed with the students.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi made a big library in the office. We could find books that had been banned by the government, like history and educational books. There were some books by famous Burmese writers; some of them were in prison or had already died.

I trusted the NLD leaders. The NLD had won the 1990 election with 80 percent of the seats, but then the military government arrested every NLD member who had been elected to parliament. Some of the parliament members have been in prison since 1990. The junta arrested Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, and they put her under house arrest. We call Daw Aung San Suu Kyi “Auntie”—she is the role model of our young generation and all of the party members. We love her.

About a year later, in 1999, I became a full NLD member. When I became a full member of the NLD, it was because I was so impressed by Auntie. I love her work and her actions. The leaders chose some of us from the student movement to accompany Auntie whenever she went somewhere in Rangoon. We also went to Auntie’s house to do some political things.

Auntie’s house is on University Row. It’s really old and big, with a lot of grass in the compound, and it has really simple furniture. The library has a lot of books, and she has a piano too. Even though she is really the leader of our country, she lives like a simple person. Some of the NLD members stayed with her inside her compound to take care of daily things, but other members had to stay outside so they wouldn’t create a security risk for her.

From about 1997 until 1999, we would do some activities in her compound, like ceremonies for our national days. Everybody could go and visit the compound then. Sometimes Auntie would put out a lot of sweets on the table and play the piano for us while we had discussions about the books in her library. She’d smile at everybody inside the office. She said our members were like our brothers and sisters—and she called us her sons and daughters, like she was our real mom.

Sometimes we made a lot of trouble and challenged the SPDC, and she worried about our security, but we had to do something more. We challenged the SPDC in many ways. Even though it was against the SPDC’s rules, we did political activities in public, like going to the pagoda to pray for the release of political prisoners. It caused conflict, because some of the NLD leaders tried to stop us, but we didn’t obey them. But when Auntie told us to stop, we obeyed her.

NOW WE’LL TAKE YOUR DAUGHTER

When I became a full member of the NLD, I was just doing very simple things at first. But things changed after March 13, 2000, when we celebrated Human Rights Day in Burma. March 13 is the day in 1988 that the student Phone Maw died. The ’88 uprising happened because of this.¹⁰¹⁰

Engineering student Ko Phone Maw was murdered by the military on his school’s campus while participating in pro-democracy protests. See appendix VIII for more details on the events of 1988.

The NLD had a ceremony for Myanmar Human Rights Day, and we also had a poetry and picture competition. I wrote about my university experience in Burma, about how I was very worried about not being able to continue my education. I wrote that the military government’s oppression made me want to fully participate in the political movement; I realized that politics was the new university in my life. My poem won and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi handed me the prize at the ceremony.

We were really busy that month. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was traveling to our towns to help set up networks of NLD members and to assign student leader positions. Each town had three top youth leaders—first leader, second leader, and third leader. I was chosen to be the third leader in my town.

We knew that we could get arrested, so some of my friends didn’t stay at their family’s homes. I had been thinking that they would not do arrests during the Burmese New Year, because there is the traditional Burmese water festival. I knew that something would happen to us when our leaders gave us those positions, but I didn’t think it would happen so soon. Soon the government started arresting all the members, and then they came to my house.

I was still living with my family in Dagon. It was April 12, which was our New Year in Burma, so I went to the NLD office for some festivities. When I went back home, my brothers picked me up at the bus stop because it was very late. I saw that a really nice car had stopped in front of my house. It was really unusual to see this. It had tinted windows, and we knew that only government officers could use those cars. But we didn’t know the car was for me.

I entered my house and went into my room. Maybe ten or fifteen minutes later, someone knocked on the door of my house. I think there were more than twenty people, but some of them stayed outside. Some of them were in uniform, like the local police. There were military intelligence (MI) people—they never wear a uniform. They have walkie-talkies and very short hair. The leader of their group was from MI. I think they also had people from the USDA—they’re not soldiers, not police, but they’re supporters of the government.¹¹¹¹ The local authority person talked to my mom and said they wanted to check the list of family members. They read my name and said, “Where is Ma Su Mon?”

The Union Solidarity and Development Association is a mass organization formed and led by Burma’s military junta. It plays many roles in local governance, including engaging in business, paramilitary activities, and education in subjects ranging from Buddhism to computers.

They just entered my room and started searching everywhere. They found some papers—some official statements and the document from when I won the poetry prize. They took everything. I was really afraid at the time, really nervous. I couldn’t stand on my two feet.

I knew that I would be arrested one day if I was involved in political activities, so that’s why I knew to ask one question before they searched my room: “Do you have any permission to enter my room?”

“Oh, you’re very clever, you’re bright. Who taught you this kind of question—did your Auntie teach you that?” They made fun of me like that. But I knew the law—they needed to show a warrant to search my room, but they were just doing whatever they wanted.

When they found the papers in my room, I still felt comfortable because they were official statements, signed by our leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. I believed that it wasn’t anything illegal. Then they asked my mom, “Can we bring your daughter in to ask some questions? It will be very short. After that we will give you back your daughter.” My mom didn’t know that I was involved with the NLD, so she said, “Okay, daughter, you can go. Don’t forget the Buddha—pray for him.”

IT WOULD BE SHAMEFUL

It took about twenty-five minutes for the military officers to collect all of my papers. They had my mom and the local township authorities sign a paper saying they knew and approved that they were taking me from my home. They blindfolded me, and they were very rough when they put me in the car. My brothers came very close to the car and said, “What are you doing?” One of the MI officers said, “None of your business. If you want to know, you should ask your sister when she comes back to you.” My brothers got into a shouting fight with the MI officers, and then the officers closed the door.

When they took me to the military intelligence compound, there were maybe a hundred people there who had been arrested and brought in for interrogation. I could see the others—some of my friends had been arrested—but we couldn’t talk to each other.

The MI officers said, “If you sign this paper, you can go back home right now.” The paper said, “I will not be involved in any kind of political movement. I will not participate any more in politics. I will not support this any more.”

Some of my friends signed the paper, but I never signed it. It would be shameful for me, because I could not promise that. Some of them signed the paper so they could tell people on the outside what was happening on the inside, but that was a risk for their reputation. Some of the people who signed the paper might continue in politics anyway, but some of them never came back to us. Maybe they were afraid for their family’s security, or afraid for their business or something. In our party, if we signed that paper, it was really shameful. It’s like you’re not thinking about other people, just thinking about yourself.

After I said I would not sign, they divided us all into two groups. They put hoods over our heads, like they do for people getting the death sentence. We couldn’t see anything. Then they put our group in a police van, the kind with the bars. There were so many people we couldn’t even breathe. We couldn’t see each other, we didn’t know who was who. Maybe the trip took just a minute, but it felt like an hour until they opened the door of the van. They had sent us to Insein Prison, the biggest prison in our country.¹²¹²

Insein Prison was a British colonial prison, now famous for holding Burma’s political prisoners.

SOLITARY

The hood smelled so bad. They pushed my head down because the prisoners are not allowed to stand straight when they cross the yard—it’s the rule. There was a special door for prisoners to walk through, and it was very hard for us because we had to kneel down when we walked.

After that we had to take off our hoods, and I saw that it was all females in the room with me. I was the youngest. Everybody knew each other from working in politics, and they said, “Don’t cry, don’t be afraid. We can go back home one day. They can’t do anything to us, we will take care of each other.” There were some old people, like sixty-five- and eighty-year-old women in our group.

I felt sorry for my father when I was at the prison, because they wrote my family name on a piece of paper that I had to hold when they took my prisoner photo—one photo from the front, and one from the side. I thought, I am the daughter in prison. But I hoped maybe my father would still be proud of me.

After that, they put me directly in a cell. It was in a special place, usually for people with a death sentence or for people who break the prison rules—solitary confinement. It was really narrow and very dark. There were three doors—iron, wood, and aluminum.

Everybody is afraid of this kind of cell. We were the first group of people who came to the prison that they put directly into this kind of cell. They put us in there because they didn’t want other people to see us, and maybe for other reasons. Other prisoners were in a very big hall together, but we were each alone.

After they put us in the cells, they started interrogations. They interrogated us many, many times and gave us no food for three and a half days. We got one bottle of water in the morning. There was just a little bowl for a toilet, and they gave nothing for us to clean ourselves with. When I saw this, I said, “Why do you give only one bottle, for cleaning my face, for cleaning my toilet, and for drinking? You are not Buddhist. If you are Buddhist, you cannot clean yourself and drink from the same bottle.” I really felt angry, so I just left the bottle there.

“You think this is your family home?” they said. “This is prison. You can’t complain about this kind of thing.”

“Okay, so I will not drink any more. If I cannot get another bottle, I don’t want to clean this toilet, and I don’t want to drink.” Then there was some conflict between the prison wardens, and they talked to the MI. A military intelligence officer came and said, “You want two waters, right? Okay, give them to her.” Then I asked about other people, because there were a lot of older women. So they got two bottles for everybody.

For the interrogations, an officer would take me out of the cell and put a hood on me and then lead me. We had to sit on these very high stools so our feet couldn’t touch the floor. We sat like that for long hours during the interrogation. They didn’t give us any food at that time, but I wasn’t hungry. I felt tired, and they just kept talking, talking, talking.

They cover the faces of every political prisoner in Burma. I think maybe they don’t want to show our faces to other people in the compound so that we don’t know who was arrested and who was released. For example, even if my friend and I were across from each other in our cells, we wouldn’t know. We could not talk each other.

During the interrogation, the intelligence officer said to me in Burmese, “You are a very useless person. You all want to destroy the country.”

I couldn’t listen any more. “Why are we useless people? If we really are useless, why do you spend so much time on us?” And then he slapped me.

When they put me back in the cell, the warden said, “You should not do that any more. They can kill you at any time.”

At that time, they were putting pressure on other people to sign the paper. I heard that maybe two or three weeks later, some of them were able to return to their homes. But my parents didn’t even know where I was.

THEY REALLY HATED US

When they slapped me, when they interrogated me, I didn’t feel anything. But after those first four days, I saw the food we had to eat and I started to cry. It was rice, but not regular rice—it was the kind we feed to pigs. If it was hot, okay, I could eat it. But it was cold, like raw rice. I said, “How can I eat this kind of food?” and I started crying.

They brought me to another room. There was a very big table with a lot of food. I couldn’t stand it—oh my god, it was really delicious food. They said, “You only got involved in politics because of the NLD, right? They were pressuring you, and you made the wrong decision. It’s okay, we understand. You can’t eat the prison food, right? If you eat this, you can go back and just sign that paper.” Then they said, “And then you can tell us some information about who is involved in the democracy movement.” I shook my head and said, “Please, I just want to go back to my room. I don’t want to eat any more.” I saw that this was their strategy, because they thought I couldn’t stand this kind of situation. I really wanted to eat the food, because I hadn’t eaten for five days. I couldn’t stand on my feet, and my hands were shaking. But it was just food.

When I went back to my room, I didn’t eat the food in my cell that day. After that, some of my friends said to me, “If you don’t eat it, you will die here. Just try to eat a little bit.” They were worried about my health, so I thought, Okay, I will eat it for tomorrow. I want to see my family. I want to go outside. I want to see Auntie.

They interrogated me for one month. For the first week it was day and night, but after one week, they only questioned me once in a while. They compared the things different political prisoners said and tried to confuse us. “Your friends said you did this, it was you.” But we always denied it, whether we had done it or not.

We had to wear the hood every time we were interrogated. It smelled so bad—we could smell blood, it smelled like death. The smell was all around the compound. We had to answer some of their questions. For example, if they asked, “Why were you involved in this political situation?” we would answer, “Because we believe in it.” But if they asked about our activities or maybe some secret thing, we would always deny it. If you laughed at them during the interrogation, they would beat or kick you. I think they do things like that when they cannot control your mind.

I was twenty-two years old when I entered the prison. The man who slapped me was maybe my father’s age—maybe I was his daughter’s age. They only slapped me, and just once, but they did more horrible things to other people—you can’t imagine. We knew that some of the officers at Insein were beating people really horribly. They beat monks and even pregnant women, and after they beat them, the women had miscarriages. We could not understand their minds; I don’t think they were human any more. Maybe the prison officers just wanted to do their duty, but I think they really hated us.

They didn’t tell me how long I would stay in jail; they just put me in jail with no charges or anything. I was in solitary confinement the whole time. You can’t see any light in this kind of cell and it is very cold, made of concrete. You can only walk back and forth. They gave each of us a piece of wood to sleep on in the rainy season, because there are heavy rains from April to July. We didn’t have any blankets, and they gave us only two sets of prisoner clothes. Prisoner clothes are all white—a white shirt and a white longyi.¹³¹³ We didn’t wash our clothes in the rainy season, because we were afraid they wouldn’t dry. So there was a lot of skin disease, and the smell was bad. Some people got TB; they had problems with their lungs.¹⁴¹⁴ After six months like this, you feel like you’re not even human—no clean clothes, not enough food, dirty hair.

A longyi is a cylindrically sewn cloth sheet worn throughout Burma. It generally drapes from the waist to the feet. It is worn by both men and women.

According to the World Health Organization, approximately 1.5 percent of Burma’s population becomes infected with tuberculosis every year. High-density prisons compound the spread of communicable diseases like TB, and treatment is particularly scarce in rural areas where the majority of prisoners are held.

We could leave the cell two times a day. One time was to empty our toilet bowls, take a bath for five minutes, and clean our plates. We were outside the cell for fifteen minutes each, one at a time. After that they closed the door and let us out again at 2 or 3 p.m. to throw away our things and clean one more time.

When they let us outside, I really loved to breathe the air. I would just look around, and it made me feel really good. I wanted to escape. I would cry, but never in front of them. They were always monitoring us, so if they saw me cry they would come and say something to me like, “You are very brave.” It was like they were playing games with us, so we didn’t ever show our emotions in front of them. I would cry in the night, when they closed the wooden door. We’re human; we missed our families.

When we were outside, we could talk to each other using hand signs. After three months, we would just be saying things like, “Don’t give up.” But if they saw us talking to each other, they wouldn’t let us out for one day. That always happened to me, because I always tried to talk to other people. I would also sing songs in the cell, so they said I was too noisy. They used so many reasons to keep us inside our cells.

We weren’t allowed to read or write in prison, but we found many ways to communicate with each other secretly. We would write on plastic bags, using our nails to carve messages, and then roll it up and throw it into someone’s cell when we crossed the hall. We wrote messages mostly just about good news we had heard, rumors in the prison. Sometimes it was about a problem, or just taking care of each other. We didn’t know anything about the outside world.

WE DON’T KNOW ABOUT THE FUTURE

One morning the prison staff came to us and said, “You should prepare to leave this cell.” We thought they were sending us to receive a sentence, or to another prison. But they released all of us who had been arrested on the same day—more than a hundred people. It had been almost one year.

We were really excited when we went outside the prison, because a lot of people had gathered to watch us. There were international journalists waiting to take pictures and ask questions. The officials were smiling for the camera. That’s when we knew they were releasing us. I felt confused. They gathered us in front of the prison and one of the highest-ranking military intelligence officers gave us a lecture. He said we should not talk to the foreign press about this issue. He said, “We kept you because of security concerns. But we treated you very well, right?”

After they gave us the first lecture, the military intelligence from our townships put us into cars and brought us to offices in our different towns. Then they gave us another lecture, explaining again that they had arrested us because of a security concern. Then we were brought home by military intelligence and an authorized military person from our town.

The government can do whatever it wants. They arrested us without reason, and they released us without reason. We can’t be sure about tomorrow, whether they will arrest us again or not. We don’t know about the future.

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO?

When I arrived back home, everything felt really strange and new. After almost one year in jail, suddenly I could go outside. I felt really dizzy, and I couldn’t walk any more. My legs had become weak and swollen from the prison, because it’s very narrow there and we could not walk around very much.

My family was really proud of me. That first night, my parents said to me, “We don’t blame you for anything that happened. But you should think about your future now. What do you want to do?”

I went back to the NLD office the next morning to report back about my experience. It was really crowded because so many of us had been released. The leaders welcomed us and asked if we were okay, and told us we should go to the hospital to get blood tests and heart check-ups because we would all be weak from being in jail. They suspected that we might have been drinking unsafe water in jail, and that they might have given us the wrong medicine. I continued going to the NLD office, but not very often.

I felt lonely at home, but my family treated me well. Sometimes I had nightmares and I thought I was still in prison. When I heard a car start near my house, I felt like someone was coming to take me to prison or something like that.

Since the jail food was really horrible, we used to all talk and dream about the kind of food we would eat if we were released. But when I got home and my mother cooked the things I liked for me, I couldn’t actually eat it. The smell and the taste were so good, but after one or two spoonfuls, I could not continue. My body wouldn’t accept this kind of food for a couple of months. During that time my mom just gave me soup, like chicken soup or rice soup.

My mind wasn’t normal. I felt sad, because some of my friends were still in jail. This made me feel sorry, even when I saw the food. Can you imagine this kind of feeling? Every time I drink a nice coffee or eat nice food, I still feel this way.

WE SUSPECT EVERYONE

After I was released from prison, I didn’t want to stay around my hometown because our neighbors looked down on me. There were a lot of government officers in my community, so everyone was really scared of me. They talked about it to their children and friends, and they didn’t make visits to my home. It made me really sad and uncomfortable; I wanted to run away.

I decided to go to my grandma’s village, which was three hours away by boat. My mom said I shouldn’t go because of the weather, but I went. When I arrived, someone from the village was using my grandmother’s boat and told me she’d died while I was in prison. I didn’t cry; I just felt the pain in my mind.

Before, when I had visited my grandma, everybody would be shouting and yelling to welcome me. But this time, it was like I was a different person, and they didn’t want me there. I thought maybe my auntie and uncle and cousins would want to talk to me, so I went to their house. But even they were afraid—of me, of the government, or something like that. They knew I hadn’t done anything wrong, but they’re villagers and they’re afraid of everything because they know very well about the SPDC. I stayed about an hour, and then I went back to my parents’ house.

We don’t trust each other in Burma—we cannot even trust our own family members. In our country, you cannot even sit for one minute before someone sits down next to you; anybody could be MI, and they will watch you. We cannot discuss our political party in public. Some of our leaders say we should not even trust our friends. We suspect everyone.

I DON’T THINK I CAN COME BACK

When I was released from jail, the universities had already opened again. But when I tried to attend my university, they told me I had to sign a paper saying I’d obey the university rules and not be involved in any political movements, or else I couldn’t attend class. It was like the paper they wanted us to sign in jail. I said I didn’t want to sign the paper, so they suspended me for a year. After a year, I was able to attend without signing the paper.

When I started university again, I was interested in becoming a reporter because I had met some journalists when I was released from jail and they’d suggested it. So in 2001, in my second year at university, I started working with a privately owned journal as a “rookie.” I was doing a BSc in chemistry, but I really wanted to be a reporter. I just continued my education to please my parents.

I graduated from university in 2003 and continued working for the journal. There was a lot of censorship by the government; they were always watching these kinds of publications. Inside Burma, we could see everything that was happening around us, but we could not write about it. We could hear what everyone was feeling, but we could not report it. If you report these things, the government will destroy your publication, and the journalists can be arrested.

At the time, we had no official journalism training in our country, but young journalists could take trainings from certain organizations. From these trainings in Burma, people would be chosen to go to Thailand for further training sessions. In 2004, while I was still working at the journal, I did one of these trainings and was then one of the people chosen to go to Thailand. Luckily I got a passport—it’s normally very difficult to get a passport in Burma.

I returned to Burma after that training session, and then in April 2005, I got the chance to attend a year-long journalism training in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

In April 2006, I went back to Burma after the training. I wasn’t involved in political activities—I was just doing my job as a reporter—but the government still had a problem with me because I had been in prison. They thought I was attending trainings arranged by an opposition group in Thailand. They had gone to my house and asked my parents what I was doing there and who’d arranged it. They tried to link me with the Americans, because they hate the Americans. I didn’t know they were still watching me.

The first week I was back, they didn’t come to my home; I was usually out every day looking for news stories. But that Sunday, four people from military intelligence came to my house and spoke to my father and me. I was surprised, because they were quite polite. They asked about my trip to Thailand, how I’d arranged it and who had paid for it.

The trainers had said I should report to them if I ever had a problem, so I told them that MI had come to my house to ask questions. My trainers said I should leave Burma. Some of my friends also suggested it. The government says people who go for trainings in Thailand are terrorists being trained to destroy the country—what if they came to my house to take me away? I told my editor I should leave as soon as possible, and he agreed.

I was lucky, because I got help leaving Burma immediately by plane. My father said, “So, you cannot come back to us, right?” I said, “I’m not sure… I don’t think I can.” My mom didn’t say much—she just cried. You can imagine how painful it is for a mother and daughter to say goodbye when they know they will not see each other for a long time, and especially when they know that one of them could even die before it would be possible to reunite. My parents were already old and they had given up so much for me. They allowed me to go because they knew it was better for me. It was really sad.

But I’m lucky, because for other people who’ve left Burma, their parents don’t know where they are. The parents of many student activists don’t even know if their kids are dead or not, because some of them have been in the jungle fighting since 1988. I have been gone for almost six years, but some of these activists left their homes in Burma twenty-one years ago. Their family might have moved to another place, but they don’t know.

When I call my parents now from Thailand, I cannot talk much about what I’m doing, because I have to think about their security. If it’s known they are in contact with someone in exile, they can be arrested. The government can do whatever they want.

I don’t think I can go back home again, but I hope that one day it’s possible.

THERE IS A LOT OF STATIC

All of the media in Burma, including the two television channels, the radio, and the newspapers, are controlled by the government. Even private journals, books, and music are under the control of government censorship. If they don’t like one word they will cancel a whole program. I think this is why even nowadays, Burman people inside Burma don’t know about the ethnic minority issues or about international news.

When I was young, I listened to the BBC, Radio Free Asia, and Voice of America with my father. We felt like these radio stations had real news. The government says that stations like that are liars and that they want to destroy the country. People in Burma cannot listen to those radio stations very loudly, and the connection is not clear—there is a lot of static.

After I fled Burma, I went back to Chiang Mai and became a producer and reporter for the Burmese section of the BBC World Service Trust. It was my first experience in radio—I didn’t even know how to use an audio recorder, but my editors were always taking care of me and teaching me how to do things. One of the first aired projects I did for them was produced in Mae Sot, where I was reporting about health education and HIV/AIDS.¹⁵¹⁵ I had a ten-minute program in which I interviewed people at a medical clinic there. It was really new for me, but after that, I became more familiar with this kind of thing.

Mae Sot is a town in western Thailand, on the border with Burma.

When my parents heard my voice on the radio, my father told all his friends. He would tell people at gatherings that his daughter worked for the BBC, and they didn’t believe him. It was scary for them. “Well, if you don’t believe me you can listen to the BBC,” he’d say. He would promote my program, but my mom said he shouldn’t tell people about his daughter because she was afraid.

When I did radio shows at the BBC, and now working as a stringer at Radio Free Asia, I don’t use my family name. Still, I think that the Burmese embassy in Bangkok knows that I’m a reporter for RFA. That’s why government people sometimes go to my parents’ house and ask about where I am and what I’m doing. I told my parents they can just say that I’m studying in Thailand, or they can say, “She does whatever her heart is set on doing.” And if they start to pressure my parents, they can say that I am no longer their daughter. But so far, they just ask where I am.

It’s okay for me to stay in Thailand because I have a student visa from the university where I am studying for a master’s degree. When my visa expires, I will have to find another way to stay here. If you hold a Burmese passport in Thailand, it’s really difficult to extend your visa or passport. The Burmese embassy has a list of people who work for media and other organizations, so if I went there and showed my passport, they would know my real name and they could take my passport and send me back.

There are a lot of people from the Burmese government in Bangkok, but we don’t know who’s who. In Mae Sot, it’s not safe either. Now even the Thai army goes to the opposition organizations in Mae Sot and Chiang Mai and searches their offices. Sometimes they arrest people. They say they have a reason to search, that maybe the opposition groups hold weapons or something. We don’t know how the government of Thailand is connected to the Burmese government.

Even though I’m now working for exile media outside Burma, it’s still very difficult. If I call someone on the phone and say I’m from RFA, sometimes they just stop the conversation. Everybody’s afraid. But some people really do want to speak and talk about what’s happening inside, so we do not use their real names. We cannot always get both sides, because the government usually refuses to give any information. I don’t feel comfortable with this—I want both sides.

Sometimes I can’t help having questions in my mind—is this really freedom of press? Are we doing real journalism or not? We have self-censorship—sometimes we hear information about something bad, like a corruption case in a migrant organization or an international organization working on Burma issues, but we don’t report all of the information because we have to think about our people and our country’s situation. There are a couple of million migrant workers from Burma who are living in Thailand, and most of them are here illegally. They have no documents for security, so sometimes it’s better if we don’t report certain things that will cause problems for the groups that help migrant workers and refugees.

IT IS NOT ENOUGH

Last year I received an award for my journalist friend, who was arrested and jailed in Burma. It’s called the Kenji Nagai Award. Kenji Nagai is the Japanese journalist who was shot and killed in Burma.¹⁶¹⁶ There was an awards ceremony in Chiang Mai and I accepted the award on my friend’s behalf because her family could not come to Thailand to accept the award for her.

Kenji Nagai, a well-known Japanese photojournalist, was shot dead while covering pro-democracy protests in September of 2007. His death was initially explained as the result of stray bullets, but Japanese video footage later revealed he was shot at pointblank range by a Burmese soldier who subsequently confiscated his camera.

She was arrested by the government when she was trying to help Cyclone Nargis victims seek assistance. She was so young, and they sent her to jail for a year.

The situation for journalists is really bad in Burma right now. Last month, some young journalists were arrested. The government doesn’t like journalists because they are always watching what the government is doing.

I WONDER HOW THEY WILL SURVIVE

When I lived in Burma, I thought the people were really powerless in our country. But now that I’m outside, I see that people from our country face different challenges in Thailand. Migrant and stateless people here have to survive by themselves—nobody takes care of them.¹⁷¹⁷ I wonder how they will survive.

In Thailand there are around 150,000 people who fled Burma living in refugee camps and about 1.5 to 2 million Burmese “migrant laborers” working in garment, tourist, sex, domestic labor, and other industries. In Thailand, migrant laborers enjoy few protections. A groundbreaking report by Human Rights Watch titled “From the Tiger to the Crocodile” documents abuses in the workplace and at the hands of the police.

I sometimes go to a school for migrant workers and children in Mae Sot—they have a big project for the people who live on the garbage dump. I spend time with the migrant children and play games with them. I tell them stories and I donate books and some money. Sometimes I go with my friends from university, and we bring food too. Some of the children are stateless, and they have no opportunity to study. They come with their family when they’re three or four years old—they have no hope, no future. If their parents cannot take care of them, they’ll become workers, to help their families survive. When I ask them what they want to be, sometimes they answer, “I want to be a Thai police officer.” The Thai police are their role models, because they think the Thai police can control everyone. They also sometimes say they want to be a hua na—“boss” in Thai—for example at a construction site.

I think what I do is not enough for them, but I don’t know what else we should do. I think some organizations and some people do take responsibility for the migrant people, but more should be done for them.

EVERYTHING IS BROKEN

The question of what would happen if Auntie were not here any more is on my mind, because the army has tried to kill her many times. The army tried to kill her one time in 2003 in Depayin, in the middle of Burma. It was before her current house arrest started, and she was traveling all over the country. We heard that there was some conflict between the higher military intelligence and the army officers, and this is why they attacked her. They attacked her while she was traveling and they killed a lot of people. We call it the Depayin Massacre.¹⁸¹⁸ That is the last time they tried to kill her, but they have tried to kill her many times before.

The Depayin Massacre refers to a government-sponsored ambush of a large convoy of National League for Democracy members in May 2003, allegedly aimed at assassinating General Secretary Aung San Suu Kyi.

In one famous speech, Auntie said that she would die for the country if it meant the country could have democracy. She said that if the country would change if she passed away, then she would be ready to die for it, like her father did. At the time that we heard that, we were really sad and very sorry because she has two sons. At her home, she had a big picture of her family in front of her desk, but she never talked about them. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi never gets to see her sons, and she cannot see her granddaughter or her grandson now. When her husband passed away, she could not leave Burma to attend his funeral and she could not see his body again. I am really grateful to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s family; they may be very hungry to see their mother, but they have given her to us.

If Daw Aung San Suu Kyi passed away, I’m not sure if anything would change. Maybe some student activists like Min Ko Naing would take responsibility for our country’s situation and lead the country. But Min Ko Naing is now serving a sixty-five-year prison term.¹⁹¹⁹

Min Ko Naing is a well-known political dissident who entered Burma’s political arena as a prominent leader of the student protests that took place in the late 1980s. He was formerly chairman of the All Burma Federation of Student Unions (ABFSU), and is currently being held in prison for his role in the 2007 Saffron Revolution.

After the Depayin case, everybody was silent. In 2007, after they killed the monks in the September revolution, everyone was silent again. There was more fear. It was twenty years between the 1988 and 2007 uprisings. We don’t know if a revolution will happen again or not. The people have had enough already, but they are in fear; there is a silence in the land. The people don’t smile at all. I never criticize the people living inside Burma because I know their feelings and their pain. This is why Daw Aung San Suu Kyi wrote a book about attaining freedom from fear.²⁰²⁰

Freedom from Fear is a collection of essays written by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and published in 1991, one year after her party’s victory in the general election.

Nowadays I try to think about what we have to do. I mean, we should not just depend on Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. We all put everything on her shoulders, and it’s not fair for her; she’s an old woman now. I believe in the National League for Democracy, and I believe in their ways, but we have to change something. Our young generation has to take over from the old generation. We have to work to change our country. The youth should prepare for our future.

Right now there are just old people and kids in Burma. In certain regions, there are no youth left. Like me, the youth have all gone to Malaysia, Thailand, and Singapore to try to survive. All people from Burma want to go back, but they have nothing left—no property, no business. We have to start from the very basics. We will need educated people, so we all have to prepare ourselves.

I think there will be a lot of work to do in our country, and that is why I am working on my education. We will need a generation of young, educated people to rebuild our country. There are no educated people left inside Burma. Right now everything is broken—the education system, the health care system, everything. Even as a former NLD member and a former political prisoner, I am no longer involved in any of the political and campaigning activities. Aside from working with AAPP two times, I’m just studying and reporting.²¹²¹ I have to make something of myself with the time I have. I’m a journalist and I do the right thing for my people by reporting on Burmese issues.

AAPP(B) is the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma), a nonprofit started by a group of Burmese political prisoners in March 2000. In 2009, Ma Su Mon participated in their signature-raising campaign called “Free Burma’s Political Prisoners Now,” which began on Burma’s Human Rights Day in 2009 and attempted to collect 888,888 signatures calling on Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon to work toward the release of political prisoners in Burma. A delegation of Burma advocates delivered it to the UN envoy to Burma, Ibrahim Gambari, in June of 2009.

When I reported on the radio about the government crackdown on the major demonstrations in 2007, I could not control myself. I was crying. My editor from Washington, D.C. said, “You are a journalist, you should not cry like that.” I said, “This is my country’s situation. I am Buddhist—they have even beaten our monks.” I couldn’t stand it any more, but I had to report what had happened in Burma.

In 2008, the government had a constitutional referendum, but I wasn’t involved and I didn’t vote. I don’t believe in the 2010 elections—I won’t vote in them. The 2010 elections will not be free because the regime is still arresting many people. They’re just playing the game. If Burma does change one day, I will go back and report on it.

If I went back to Burma, the first thing I would do is go to the pagoda. I would go to the biggest one, the Shwedagon Pagoda. The Shwedagon Pagoda is the first place I went the morning after I was released from jail. I went there because I believe in my religion and I believe in Buddha. I really want to go back to Burma and pray to Buddha. I also hope my parents are still alive when I go back home. Maybe I will go home tomorrow, or maybe it will be another day. I hope to knock on the door of my home again one day.

¹ Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is the General Secretary of the National League for Democracy (NLD) and winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize. Her party was the decisive winner of the 1990 election. For fifteen of the last twenty-one years she has been held under house arrest. The prefix “Daw” is a Burmese title used as a sign of respect for older women. See appendix pages 455-456 and 464-465 for further detail.

² In 1988, there was a nationwide popular uprising against Ne Win’s one-party rule. In response to the Burma Socialist Programme Party’s failed attempts to quell the demonstrations, the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), a group of generals, took control of the government through a military coup. See appendix VIII for information about the uprising.

³ Framed as a caretaker government, the SLORC—State Law and Order Restoration Council—has remained in power since the 1988 coup. In 1997 they changed their names to the SPDC—State Peace and Development Council. See appendix pages 465-467 for further detail.

⁴ Land confiscation and forced relocation by the military junta have been well documented. In 1988, whole areas of Rangoon were cleared and the SPDC’s four-cuts policy regularly removes inhabitants in ethnic nationality areas where the military regime has been at war with armed ethnic opposition groups. People are also forcibly relocated in SPDC-backed development projects, like dam-building, throughout the country. For more on the four-cuts policy see appendix pages 461-462.

⁵ Betel leaf is a heart-shaped leaf common throughout Southeast Asia. In Burma, it is chewed with the areca nut (and the combination is casually referred to as “betel nut”), and often combined with tobacco and assorted spices.

⁶ General Khin Nyunt was Chief of Intelligence. In October 2004, during an apparent power struggle between him and SPDC Chairman Than Shwe, General Khin Nyunt was removed from power, arrested, and has been held under house arrest ever since.

⁷ The National League for Democracy is a political party in Burma formed in the aftermath of the 1988 pro-democracy uprising, and is headed by General Secretary Aung San Suu Kyi. In the 1990 general elections, the party garnered 59 percent of the general vote and 80 percent of the parliamentary seats, but the military junta never ceded power to them. In 2010 the military declared the party to be illegal. See appendix pages 465-468 and 473 for further detail.

⁸ The image of the peacock has been used on flags as an emblem of Burmese nationality throughout Burma’s modern history. The National League for Democracy’s flag, which displays the peacock in a fighting stance, was first used by student activists against British colonial rule, in order to connote a sense of power and defiance that the NLD has come to represent.

⁹ General Aung San was the architect of Burmese independence. He founded Burma’s army (the Tatmadaw) and the Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League. He was assassinated in July 1947, six months before the end of colonial rule. For more on Aung San, see appendix pages 459-460.

¹⁰ Engineering student Ko Phone Maw was murdered by the military on his school’s campus while participating in pro-democracy protests. See appendix VIII for more details on the events of 1988.

¹¹ The Union Solidarity and Development Association is a mass organization formed and led by Burma’s military junta. It plays many roles in local governance, including engaging in business, paramilitary activities, and education in subjects ranging from Buddhism to computers.

¹² Insein Prison was a British colonial prison, now famous for holding Burma’s political prisoners.

¹³ A longyi is a cylindrically sewn cloth sheet worn throughout Burma. It generally drapes from the waist to the feet. It is worn by both men and women.

¹⁴ According to the World Health Organization, approximately 1.5 percent of Burma’s population becomes infected with tuberculosis every year. High-density prisons compound the spread of communicable diseases like TB, and treatment is particularly scarce in rural areas where the majority of prisoners are held.

¹⁵ Mae Sot is a town in western Thailand, on the border with Burma.

¹⁶ Kenji Nagai, a well-known Japanese photojournalist, was shot dead while covering pro-democracy protests in September of 2007. His death was initially explained as the result of stray bullets, but Japanese video footage later revealed he was shot at point-blank range by a Burmese soldier who subsequently confiscated his camera.

¹⁷ In Thailand there are around 150,000 people who fled Burma living in refugee camps and about 1.5 to 2 million Burmese “migrant laborers” working in garment, tourist, sex, domestic labor, and other industries. In Thailand, migrant laborers enjoy few protections. A groundbreaking report by Human Rights Watch titled “From the Tiger to the Crocodile” documents abuses in the workplace and at the hands of the police.

¹⁸ The Depayin Massacre refers to a government-sponsored ambush of a large convoy of National League for Democracy members in May 2003, allegedly aimed at assassinating General Secretary Aung San Suu Kyi.

¹⁹ Min Ko Naing is a well-known political dissident who entered Burma’s political arena as a prominent leader of the student protests that took place in the late 1980s. He was formerly chairman of the All Burma Federation of Student Unions (ABFSU), and is currently being held in prison for his role in the 2007 Saffron Revolution.

²⁰ Freedom from Fear is a collection of essays written by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and published in 1991, one year after her party’s victory in the general election.

²¹ AAPP(B) is the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma), a nonprofit started by a group of Burmese political prisoners in March 2000. In 2009, Ma Su Mon participated in their signature-raising campaign called “Free Burma’s Political Prisoners Now,” which began on Burma’s Human Rights Day in 2009 and attempted to collect 888,888 signatures calling on Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon to work toward the release of political prisoners in Burma. A delegation of Burma advocates delivered it to the UN envoy to Burma, Ibrahim Gambari, in June of 2009.