Burma Past and Present: Same and Different

The last week of August 2002 was an unusually rainy week. Even after 20 years, I remember that because I spent that week in what was the most hostile, violent and stressful place in my life. Up to now, I can revisit the fear I felt— fear of losing a future, of never seeing my beloved ones again. 

Photo: Burma Campaign UK

I was a third-year engineering student at that time. The final exam was drawing near, and that one evening of late August, I was studying while Mom and others were busy preparing for her 50th birthday treat the next morning. 

At about 11 pm, three men in plainclothes came, searched my study room, and took me away. “National Bureau of Intelligence,” they said to my family, without giving their names and ranks or showing their IDs. “We have a few questions for him.” 

“We’ll send him back soon,” they told my family, “Do not make any complaint to any entity.” But I understood that in Burma, also known as Myanmar, a country under military rule for decades, a person taken away at midnight could only return after years, or perhaps never. As we left, Mom did not cry although she looked obviously worried, as did the rest of the family. I was sad that I was to miss her birthday.

“Where is Soe?” they asked me, only once, during that quiet journey. “No idea,” I replied, sitting in the back seat of a Toyota Mark-II sedan in between two of them. I did not know our way as I had been instructed to close my eyes and put my face on my knees. The car stopped after what I felt was about 30 minutes. They handcuffed and blindfolded me after I’d got off, and took me to a small room in a one-story structure that I thought looked like a school building, with a series of rooms along a corridor.

My interrogator—a stout, dark-skinned man who spoke Burmese with an accent—was one of the same guys who came to my house. He asked my biography, about my parents, about my relatives. They took my photos. About an hour later, I was taken to a much bigger room where I was joined by about two dozen other men like me, my friends. We were made to stand in lines with our hands up.

“Where is Soe?” we heard the ostensibly stern voice of probably a man of higher authority. “I can shoot you and make you all disappear if I want,” he threatened us. Then he pulled back the slide of his pistol and released a round into the chamber. “Don’t you dare be rebellious. Tell us where Soe is.” 

He cursed us for what seemed like half an hour, then went off. We were left in that big room standing with our hands up. After some of us had collapsed, their guard let us sit on the floor and sleep. In the morning, they took each of us back to the first, small room of the previous night, and a series of long-hour interrogations continued. 

How I came to know Soe, how close we were, when we last met, what we did, what we discussed – everything about Soe from my point of view! I said I didn’t know where he was; he didn’t tell anyone indeed. I felt the MI guy’s questions came like a loop – in recurrent patterns. I lost track of time, and could only steal naps when he went out.

The man called Soe, who they were rigorously hunting for, had written a letter in which he wrote he was unhappy with military rule, and was going to publicly protest it. He then mailed copies of this letter to the head of the junta at that time, Than Shwe, to his cabinet members, deputy ministers, and even the junta’s puppet university rectors. After posting this letter, he went into hiding.

I had known Soe as a law student. A well-read and soft-spoken provincial man in his mid-20s, his eyes always sparkled behind a pair of glasses. But in our group – a network of politically active students from different academic and vocational universities around Yangon, Soe was a lone wolf— impulsive, appearing to be obsessed with heroism more than tactics and strategies. 

We were a group inspired by our older generations of student activists and their activism. In 1996, our senior students left their classrooms, and demanded academic freedom and student rights. The junta threw the leaders in jail. We felt that it was our responsibility to continue their legacy. In Burma, students had been at the forefront of every political movement, be it against colonizer or military dictators.

We were not actually intent on doing subversive things, at least for that time. We only wanted to be ready when it was time. So, we read political books, talked to old politicians, and raised political awareness in the universities. We published on-campus publications with what, on the surface, were literary content.

We monitored how things were playing out politically. Aung San Suu Kyi had been released from her house arrest for the second time since May of that year, and was visiting the “development projects” in her junta-arranged trips. She was apparently trying to play their game but we did not know what were actually on her mind. When it came to the junta, we were skeptic, and kept our vigilance. 

In early August, Soe disclosed to us, all of a sudden, his plan for a solo public protest. He said he was not patient with that status quo. We disapproved his idea. His action could not be helpful to any party. “What’s the point?” we asked Soe. “Either you die in prison or survive at the risk of your health. The world might speak out, and the next minute they forget you.” 

But Soe was stubborn. We wished him good luck sadly, having a premonition of a disaster for us as well.

Dozens of copies of Soe’s letter to the junta prompted the military intelligence (MI) to urgently launch an “operation”. They searched his home but didn’t find him. They rounded up everyone in our group, which had been under their surveillance for a long time. They got us but did not get the answer they wanted, for we really did not know where Soe was. Two days after our arrest, Soe emerged from his hideout and staged a solo protest in front of the City Hall, holding a banner with political statements. Minutes later, he was arrested.

Now they had got Soe. By now, they had got a bigger picture constructed from pieces of our stories. Them being convinced that the protest was Soe’s independent action, the tense atmosphere during our sessions relaxed somewhat. Food became better, and we could talk to each other but not to Soe. Our eyes were no longer covered most of the time. 

After the officers had crosschecked our confessions, made them all consistent, and summarized them in their handwritten reports, they read these out to each of us and had us sign them. I believed they had a longer report with findings and recommendations as well, to which our confessions were annexed.

Although we had been cleared from involvement with Soe’s protest, we still had our own “charges” to face—we were doing “activities unrelated to” our studies—activities that had already crossed them. Earlier, they had hinted that action would be taken against us all. Soe was one hundred percent sure to go to jail, but for us, the odds were 50-50. We had to await an order from Khin Nyunt, their boss and then junta’s spy chief. 

Exactly a week after, all of us except Soe (he was given a seven-year sentence later) were “handed over” to our parents in a ceremony. Also present were our rectors, who looked like sheep in front of the MI officers. The guy who threatened to shoot us on the first night gave a speech. He didn’t give his name and rank, but just said he was a “responsible person for peaceful education of the students.” [Later we found out that he was one of Khin Nyunt’s right-hand men, Major General Than Tun.] 

“It was Soe who tried to taint your children’s innocent minds,” he said. “Your children only wanted to be engaged in colourless [non-political] activities but Soe was a black sheep.” 

He said his superiors were “generous” that they forgave us (but not Soe) just like parents never mind their nasty kids. It was our parents’ responsibility, he warned, to keep a watchful eye on us. 

Turning to our rectors, he continued: “Professors, please, do not expel your students.” The poker-faced rectors quickly bowed their heads lower than necessary, acting as if they really had autonomy in affairs like this. 

However generous and forgiving he might sound, at the end of his speech nobody thanked him or his superiors. Our parents had stern faces, he kept a straight one. It was an awkward ceremony – no laughter, no applause, no smiles till the end. We stank as we hadn’t bathed and changed our clothes for a week, and our parents also didn’t dress up. Only they were in new, formal dresses. 

Each of us then signed a confession that we were involved in activities “unsuitable” to students, and that we knew we would get punished if we did them again. Earlier in the speech, it was said that we were only engaged in “colourless” activities, that we were innocent. How come we had to confess now that we were wrong?

Back home, my family and I talked into late hours. I learned that Mom’s guests on her birthday were sad to hear my news but surprised that Mom remained calm. For the first time in years, that night I slept with Dad and Mom in their bed, me in the middle. They said it was fear of losing me forever that had kept them awake every night during my weeklong absence. I believed my return was a perfect birthday present for Mom.

Many people, including journalists from such as the BBC Burmese, wondered if we were mistreated. Yes, we were punched, yelled at, subjected to torture positions but the treatment we received would be nothing compared to what hundreds of other detainees faced. And it was worth asking, given that the junta were enraged by whatever trouble our group may have given them, why they released us. 

The reason could be that they did not view us a serious threat, or they thought jailing us could earn them a backlash while they were trying to play good guys. In a time when they were bluffing by such as releasing Suu Kyi and allowing her party offices to reopen, when optimism was running high, maybe they did not want to jeopardize it.

Spending a week with the MI’s helped me see the junta’s true faces. Their leaders may carry reconciliatory tones but their thirst for wealth and power, their arrogance, their distrust of civilians, and their hate for Aung San Suu Kyi were deeply reflected in the words and actions of the low-ranking MI officers we met.

And they proved my doubt. In May 2003, they placed Suu Kyi under house arrest again, dashing any delusion about “reconciliation”. In October 2004, Khin Nyunt was purged as spy chief in an internal power struggle with his boss Than Shwe. His notorious spy network was completely dissolved and replaced with a new one.

Fast forward to 2022, two decades later: After a decade (2011-2020) of relative freedom and some prosperity, Burma is back in the darkness.

The interrogation centres where our seniors, and my friends and I once spent time in, are now occupied by our juniors. Many of today’s detainees were kids, or perhaps still in their mothers’ wombs, when I was taken away 20 years ago. How time flies, but how little has really changed.

One thing that has changed, however. The whole country, including the Bamar in the heartland who had never been affected by fighting in the ethnic lands and barely understood the true cause of civil war, now realises that the junta will never have a change of heart. Change will have to be forced on it.

A new generation – braver, more clever and more resourceful than we have ever seen in our past – is continuing their seniors’ legacy. They are determined to bring about real change by freeing future generations from the decades-old cycle of fear that has ruled Burma for far too long. END

This story was originally published on Reporting ASEAN's website.