For local Burmese dissident, distant battle is close to home

Seth Rosen / Charlottesville Daily Progress
Published: September 21, 2007

When many of Burma's leading pro-democracy advocates were arrested last month by the country's repressive military junta, Zaw Min was overcome by sadness and outrage, but also felt a tinge of guilt.

The dissidents - detained in the wake of rare public demonstrations triggered by an unexpected three-fold hike in fuel prices - are Zaw Min's friends and colleagues, men and women with whom he has intimately worked for the past two decades to bring democracy to the Southeast Asian country.

Together they helped spearhead the national uprising in 1988 that laid the groundwork for free elections two years later. Together they took to the streets to demand an end to the regime's oppressive policies and the resource-rich nation's isolation in the international community. Together they were arrested and tortured, sentenced to lengthy jail terms after the elections were nullified.

Now those same opposition figures again were at the forefront of national protests and again languish in prisons. But this time, Zaw Min watched the volatile situation unfold from a safe distance - his Charlottesville townhouse.

It has been a trying month for Zaw Min. He is accustomed to being the one who organizes rallies, drafts communiqués and meets with foreign diplomats to garner their tacit support for the democracy movement.

Yet thousands of miles away, his influence is limited. He clandestinely speaks on the phone with democracy advocates in hiding in Burma, now officially known as Myanmar, and listens incessantly to opposition radio stations run by exiles. Earlier this month he led a protest outside Burma's embassy in Washington and plans to do the same next week in New York at the opening of the U.N. General Assembly.

To be far away when his country needs him most is exasperating for a man who spent 13 years in prison for promoting democracy. But Zaw Min knows he is certain to be arrested if he returns home.

"I am angry because I am here," he said through an interpreter, while dining on a traditional meal of tea leaf salad. "I wish I was still inside Burma. I want to be on the streets with a megaphone in my hand."

Life in prison

For four straight nights after his arrest, Zaw Min did not sleep. Every few hours he was interrogated in a windowless cell, questioned about his political activities and beliefs. He was beaten so severely that he now can barely hear out of his left ear, even following three operations.

After a week he was transferred to the infamous Insein Prison, in the capital, Rangoon.

"The first time I saw daytime, I thought it was so long," Zaw Min said of leaving the interrogation cell.

When Zaw Min entered Insein in December 1991, the prison was home to hundreds of political prisoners, rounded up as part of the military regime's brutal suppression of a student-led rebellion. In the aftermath of the uprising and an annulled election, the junta killed an estimated 3,000 people and imprisoned and tortured many more.

The authoritarian regime came to power in the early 1960s, when Gen. Ne Win overthrew the democratically elected government. For the next 25 years he ruled with an iron fist, regularly harassing and detaining political opponents. He established a pervasive police state, with his security apparatus monitoring the activities of residents, and eliminated the independent judiciary. The government curtailed free speech and regularly infringed on citizens' rights.

But as nascent democratic movements in 1988 began sweeping Eastern Europe, similar stirrings for freedom and expanded human rights were occurring in Burma.

Zaw Min was a third-year geography major at a university in Rangoon when he attended his first student protest in the spring of that year. He quickly rose through the ranks of the student union, called the "88 Generation Students Group," becoming its joint secretary and heading up three committees - information, organization and foreign affairs.

During the massive protests that summer, he was responsible for writing bulletins, coordinating the marches and discussing student demands with diplomats.

"He was part of a dynamic team that activated and educated people," said Aung Din, a leader with Zaw Min of the student union, who is now the policy director of the Washington-based U.S. Campaign for Burma "He is a hardworking, tireless person."

That August, Ne Win resigned. The following year, the junta held a general election, which saw the student-supported National League for Democracy, headed by Aung San Suu Kyi, garner 80 percent of the vote. But the military refused to abdicate power, placing Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest, where she has remained intermittently for the past 18 years.

The nullification of the election results only served to increase the determination of Zaw Min and the other student leaders to fight the regime. But soon he was detained and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Coming to Charlottesville

In jail, Zaw Min was mostly left alone, with beatings reserved for "special occasions." He occupied his time stitching elaborate knit patchwork. Later, he was transferred to another prison a two-day trip from Rangoon, now called Yangon. His wife was allowed to visit infrequently, and he would typically see his daughter, who was a baby when he was thrown in jail, once a year.

Finally, in March 2005, he was released. Wasting little time, he began working with other democracy advocates and meeting again with foreign diplomats. After 13 years in prison his resolve for a free Burma had not diminished.

"Politics involves sacrifice," he said. "I sacrificed for the people of Burma. It was the clear thing to do."

The regime, meanwhile, had kept a close eye on his return to activism. Last September, police came to arrest Zaw Min at his house in Rangoon. But he had left the day before for Thailand, where he had a scholarship to study community organizing at a university. Three of his colleagues were not so lucky and were sent to prison.

In Thailand it became clear that it was not safe for him to return home, and he applied for refugee status. The International Rescue Committee resettled Zaw Min, his wife and teenage daughter in Charlottesville, which has a burgeoning Burmese refugee population of about 150.

Despite his illustrious background - he is revered in the local Burmese community for his activism and time in prison - Zaw Min was seen in Charlottesville as an anonymous immigrant who didn't speak much English.

He loves Charlottesville, calling it "a beautiful university town," but acknowledges that his family has struggled here. He is frustrated that he has been unable to land a job that employs his political acumen. After receiving training at Piedmont Virginia Community College, he works as an electrical wiring technician.

"He's a very, very intelligent person, but if you don't have the language capabilities, it is difficult to get any job other than manual labor," said Cherry Stewart, who is married to a Burmese man and provided Zaw Min's family with clothing when they arrived last fall.

Advocacy from afar

Much of Zaw Min's free time is spent trying to share his experiences with domestic and international policymakers and encouraging them to take a harder stand against the Burmese regime. The ongoing protests, which have led to the arrests of at least 150 opposition figures, is the greatest threat since the 1988 student-led insurrection to the authority of the generals.

The immediate cause of the demonstrations is the sharp spike in prices, Aung Din said. But the underlying dynamics, he said, are similar to the problems that gripped the country 20 years ago, during the last bout of unrest: a lack of personal and political freedoms and continued violations of human rights.

"They are showing their dissatisfaction with the regime," he added. "There are so many causes to make the people of Burma angry."

Zaw Min has been particularly pleased with the Bush administration's swift and forceful condemnation of the recent arrests.

First lady Laura Bush has publicly denounced the junta's actions, and the president told business and political leaders at a forum in Australia that "we must press the regime in Burma to stop arresting, harassing and assaulting pro-democracy activists."

There are limits to what the administration can do to influence the junta's leaders, Zaw Min acknowledged. In January, the U.S. introduced a resolution calling for Burma to take steps toward democracy, but it was vetoed by China and Russia. One step the administration should take is pressuring the Chinese to force the general to release political prisoners, he said.

By protesting at the U.N. next week and, he hopes, meeting with officials there, Zaw Min believes the international body could take a tougher position on Burma and enact harsher sanctions.

"The people of Burma are in a crisis," he said. "The international community has to recognize that and sympathize with the struggle of the people."

In the near term, the situation could get worse, he acknowledged. The arrests will likely continue unabated, and the economy may further deteriorate because of the price increases.

Yet there are promising signs that the democracy movement is strengthening. The student union that Zaw Min helped lead in the late 1980s reformed earlier this month. And Buddhist monks, revered throughout the country, have begun staging increasingly larger protests.

Sitting in his living room, a picture of a gold-plated Buddhist temple in Rangoon hanging over his shoulder, Zaw Min speaks of his desire to return to Burma as soon as it is safe. For now, though, all he can do is send a simple, poignant message to his people:

"Be brave and know that we are with you."