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A WALK WITH THE FREE BURMA RANGERS There are over one million Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the Karen, Karenni, and Shan States of Burma. They have been driven from their homes and villages by orders from the military dictators who tightly rule Burma. This dictatorship, known currently as the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), slaughtered thousands of students in the streets of Rangoon in 1988, changed the name of the country from Burma to Myanmar without the peoples consent in 1989, and negated the free and fair elections of 1991. They continue to hold the leader of the democracy movement, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, under house arrest and have jailed thousands for political reasons. The SPDC uses intimidation, torture, forced relocations, rape and-divide-and-conquer strategies as tools to maintain and increase its power over the people of Burma. The ethnic nationalities face a systematic policy of ethnic “cleansing” and some of the most horrible human rights abuses in Burma. Photo: Laurie sings to refugees hiding in the jungle. Earlier this year, I was able to journey with the Free Burma Rangers (FBR) and was a witness to the oppression that the people in Burma face as well as their ability to help one another survive. The teams had been told that there were possibly one thousand villagers hiding in a ravine near the Karen/Karenni State border. On December 31, 2003, they had fled their homes as three Burma Army battalions swept through the southern Karenni State and into the northern Karen State. On January 4, 2004, I traveled with several FBR teams to reach the ravine. With enough medicine to treat over 4000 IDPs, we walked by foot for two days, crossing land-mined roads that had been taken by the Burma Army to separate the Karen people in the Karen State from each other. The teams also carried Good Life Club (GLC) gifts, Bibles, hymnals and clothes donated by churches, students and individuals from all over the world. We entered the ravine quietly just before noon, and the teams moved quickly ahead, disappearing down the trail. I stopped, stunned at what I saw, and was hit by deep grief. Although I had seen photos and read stories of villagers fleeing the Burma Army I had never directly witnessed it. I could see family groups who had been on the run for several days, gathered quietly and somberly on both sides of the trail. They were living in between trees and bushes, their faces serious and quiet. Baskets lay upright on the ground beside them, still packed with their belongings in case they had to pick up and run again. Small fires smoldered in preparation for the upcoming meal and the setting of the sun, for at this time of year temperatures could be near freezing at night. At that moment, the violence and oppression in the land of Burma, which attempts to crush all in its path was made vividly clear. However, I became profoundly aware, that those most directly affected by such terror and cruelty continue to strive, with all they have, to survive, even as their children, their spouses, their homes and lands, their very lives are all being stripped away. They are persevering with a strong faith, reminding all of us that "there is good in this world, and it is worth fighting for." I stood alone on the trail when Gyi Htoo and Ee Oo (also known by their nicknames as Golden Cat and Silver Squirrel) appeared behind me with smiles and outstretched arms. I had last seen these two Karen nurses a year ago and they had made a lasting impression on me. Beautifully dressed and with bright smiles, they had jumped in and joined the FBR at the first medical treatment site during that relief mission. They left their villages and their own families and journeyed with the teams for ten days by foot, often walking from dawn to dusk into remote areas to reach villagers who had been forced to flee the attacks of the Burma Army. At each treatment site they would be up before dawn helping to prepare breakfast. Then they would work tirelessly, treating villagers for various ailments, such as acute respiratory syndrome, malaria and dysentery as well helping a Karen mother to deliver a baby girl in the early hours of the morning. I was not only impressed by their skills, generosity and goodness, but also by their ability to stay so clean and neat amidst the constant movement, which we all faced in the jungle. As I embraced them joyfully, I was painfully aware that I must have been a sorry sight. There were brambles in my hair, dirt under my fingernails and dust in the wrinkles of my face. However, they did not seem to mind and ushered me on. I realized that they must have heard that the FBR teams were back and, dropping everything they were doing had walked from their village to help. Their presence and energy uplifted my spirit. It was then that I learned that there were five hundred villagers from six different villages in that immediate area and over a thousand hiding in the surrounding hills. Another thousand or more were still hiding just across the border in the Karenni State. The villagers had escaped only with what they could carry and were running low on food. Many of them reported incidents of capture and escape, of being beaten and running for their lives, and of burned rice barns and homes. The headmen of each village explained that the Burma Army had delivered orders on December 30, 2003, to fifty villages in the Karenni State, commanding them to move to a relocation site within ten days or be categorized as rebels and shot. The Burma Army did not allow them the ten days but arrived in three days, unannounced and heavily armed, forcing the villagers to gather their belongings and run into the jungle for fear of being captured or killed. The Burma Army patrols then penetrated into the Karen State, entered the villages, took livestock, laid land mines and burned down two rice barns, each filled with two years' supply of rice. One of the Karen villagers whose rice barn had been destroyed was asked if she felt anger toward the Burma Army. She quietly responded, "Would being angry bring back my rice?" When I heard those words I was struck by the amazing fortitude of the Karen and Karenni people. They needed to get back to their homes, their rice fields and their animals. Their families needed feeding and their children kept in school. Though exhausted, they were fighting with all of their energy and their spirit to retain the good in their lives, so they could once again enjoy village life together. They were fighting with hope, not with anger. That night the fires burned brightly, and the children sang. The medical clinic looked quite inviting as the FBR teams used leaves to create a waterproof roof and built a warm fire over which a delicious soup and steaming cups of Milo were prepared for the patients. Golden Cat handed me a beautiful, brightly colored woven shoulder bag which she had made after we met her last year, hoping she would see all of us again one day. We gathered for a time of prayer, huddled together in the coldness of the night, sipped on the delicious hot, sweet and creamy Photo: Villagers running from the Burma Army. The morning broke with word from Paw Htoo (also known as Barking Deer), the Karen FBR head nurse. With a bright smile she said, "Last night there were 500 people here. This morning there are 501 - a baby has been born." We all were overwhelmed with joy. In the midst of great uncertainty and potential despair new life was entering into the world, and nothing was able to stop that - not darkness, not oppression - nothing! I quickly followed the FBR teams to see the baby. We rejoiced with the family in the goodness that had entered their lives. We thanked God for the mother, the nurses and medics who worked through the night to help bring forth this precious life, this little boy. As I stood in wonder at this birth I remembered the more than twenty pregnant women I had seen who were close to delivery and wondered: "Could I be so strong if I had to flee my home and bear my child on the run?" Food was running low for the villagers. They were anxious to return to their homes but were concerned about the safety of their villages with the presence of the Burma Army only hours away. With that in mind, members of the FBR teams set out to enter the nearest village three hours walk away, with the hope of helping the villagers return. A Burma Army patrol had just left the village the night before. The threat of newly laid land mines was of serious concern, for the standard behavior of the Burma Army has been to lay land mines around or near a village after they leave. Several hours later we received word that the teams had entered the village, and, while documenting the smoldering rice barns, an explosion occurred approximately two hundred meters from where they all stood. When the boy arrived it was evident that he needed to be rushed to the nearest medical clinic. This was a good three-day walk away and required a dangerous crossing of the same Burma Army controlled road that the teams had crossed earlier. The nurses and medics set about preparing the boy for the arduous journey. Silver Squirrel quickly filled her shoulder bag with medicines, flashlights and batteries. It was almost ten o'clock at night. Yet she had no hesitation or fear as she said good bye and departed with her patient. It was five days before I saw her again. During those five days the teams were able to provide medical treatment to over a thousand people. They helped some of the Karen villagers return to their homes to gather more rice and food and to feed their animals. But the Burma Army patrols continued to be a threatening presence, so the villagers had to move and hide. Those from the Karenni State were in an even more precarious position, as the Burma Army was patrolling almost all of their land. Reports from the Karenni FBR team were harrowing. Several homes and a church had been burned to the ground in one village, and many villagers had been taken to work as porters for the Burma Army. Also, there were reports that several villagers had starved to death, and that others had been captured, beaten and killed. The FBR teams then divided the duties, with some members remaining to look after the IDPs in the immediate area and the rest going out to find and help those hiding in other areas.
Before I left the Karen State, I traveled with several of the FBR team members to try to visit some of the people whom we had met on a previous trip to this area. One was a young girl named Naw Moo Day Wah. She had been shot in the abdomen by a Burma Army patrol in October 2002, and had nearly died. The relief teams heard about her and visited her in January 2003.2 They learned that the bullet was still lodged in her abdomen. It had been too difficult to remove. As they talked with her they saw the immense pain in her face and she could not bring herself to smile. Her story was documented and sent out to the international community. Congressman Joseph Pitts from Pennsylvania took a great interest in her. During a Congressional hearing on Burma in October 2003, he requested that she be found and promised to help her if she needed to have the bullet removed. I did not know how the teams would find her now. However, we got word that she was living in a village a day's walk away from where we were. When we arrived at the village where Naw Moo Day Wah was living, Silver Squirrel appeared. She reported that the boy who had stepped on a land mine was now at the clinic where his leg had been amputated above the knee. I was grateful that he was alive and hoped to see him again. We soon met with little Naw Moo Day Wah, who had just had her tenth birthday. She was as somber and serious as she had been before. But when we asked her if she remembered us, we could see a smile come into her eyes as she nodded. She told us she still felt pain during the rainy season. We asked her and her father if they would like to receive help from the outside world. They agreed to that, so arrangements were made to get them both to a place where she could be X-rayed. When I saw her a few days later she had the beginnings of a beautiful smile on her lips. I traveled separately from Naw Moo Day Wah and her father, so I did not see her again. I learned later that after the X-ray she would smile easily and laugh. The X-ray showed that a whole bullet was lodged in her liver, close to her spine. The doctors who examined her believed that removing the bullet would cause her death, but that she could live a normal life, although with some pain, if the bullet remained. Even with this prognosis Naw Moo Day Wah now could smile easily and I look forward to seeing her again. Her story is a powerful reminder that just a desire to help someone in need and a commitment to see it through can change a person's perspective on life. Naw Moo Day Wah saw clearly that people cared about her, that her life was important, and that what happened to her had not been ignored. Congressman Pitts, cared deeply enough to say, "Find her and if she needs help we will do everything we can." Every day - actually, almost every moment I breathe - I think of all the people in and from Burma and about how they face their struggles with such great courage and hope. I think about the beauty of their land and the joy I have being with them in their land. I pray for their freedom and for their peace.
The deep agony I feel for the people suffering in Burma is balanced only by the knowledge that those most directly affected live in the truth that darkness and violence will never put out the light of love or kill the joy of freedom. Their example has helped me to better understand what it means to be free, to love, to hold on to what is good in this world and to fight for it with all one has to give. The Free Burma Rangers (FBR) strive to bring help, hope and love through FBR teams that provide emergency medical, educational, spiritual, material and general assistance to people who suffer under the oppression of the dictators of Burma. Teams move through out the conflict areas to give aid and comfort and also conduct leadership training, as well as medical, educational, reporting and general capacity building for people inside Burma. Teams also document human rights violations and report to the relevant authorities. Priority of assistance goes to the Internally Displaced People (IDP) of Burma as well as to those whose villages have recently been attacked by the Burma Army. FBR teams stand in solidarity with those who suffer and assist people of all races and faiths. These teams consist almost completely of volunteers from Burma who believe that nothing can stop people from loving and serving one another. |
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Together we rushed on down the trail to join the teams who were busy clearing an area for the treatment site. Already, fallen branches and brush had been removed to establish a central medical treatment area, a dental clinic, and a gift distribution site. The cold damp ground was covered with soft green leaves and dry straw. A young woman and a boy weak from malaria and anemia, were the first patients to arrive and had to be carried in. Golden Cat and Silver Squirrel quickly joined the FBR nurses and medics to administer IVs and medicines. Those in hiding began to gather for treatment. GLC kits, toothbrushes, Bibles, hymnals, and clothes were spread out on a sheet of plastic ready for distribution as more and more men, women and children appeared.
coffee and then went to sleep.
When the FBR teams immediately raced to the scene they discovered that a seventeen-year-old boy had stepped on a land mine, which had blown off his left leg below the knee. When the teams reached him he was losing massive amounts of blood. The medics took quick action. They stopped the bleeding, removed the shrapnel, amputated as much of his leg as they could and transported him in a hammock strapped to a bamboo pole over the steep terrain to the central treatment area where I had remained with the nurses and some of the medics. 
One of the hardest parts of my journey into Burma was leaving those in hiding and all of the incredible people in their great suffering and uncertainty. I would later learn that five thousand villagers had been forced to flee their homes between December 30, 2003 and January 23, 2004. Dealing with that agony of leaving continues to haunt me. 
Photo: American Laurie Dawson