News normally comes and goes for every day’s life, but some news could make you think and feel when it linked to your personal occurrence in the past. The news with regard to the death of Ma (Ms) Mar Mar Oo’s father woke me up with many thoughts. At the same time the similar news I heard in the past also came back and brought my memories way back to the past further. In reality, this kind of news was not something new for the prisoners, who already hurt their feelings by the similar news of their own.
I understood that, for someone, who determined to pay the family visits to a political prisoner like Ma Mar Mar Oo sentenced with sixty five years imprisonment at a prison located in the remote area in Burma, it required a lot of sacrifices. The old man as a loving and caring father had no choice but carried on with it no matter what, even though he didn’t make it in the end. Still everyone in her prison was talking about his love crossing such sea of trouble without regarding his age and health condition. It was unimaginable for an old man to take such long journey for the family visit to a prisoner with long term imprisonment frequently. Nothing ever was easy for him. For instance, getting a Form.10, which was the only proof for them to show the prison in charge making sure their family member was in the prison, took some tour. Otherwise, no prison authority would allow the family visit without it. Some prison in charge like U Ngwe San might allow a few visits, but not always though. Most prison in charge, who always appealed the army’s favor, wouldn’t do it at all. In any case, my sympathy and prayers would always be upon both her and the deceased father in this case.
Ma Mar Mar Oo’s difficulties were a lot more than that. She had to think and prepare to bear with the absent of her regular visitor, who would never be there anymore, whenever the time had come for the regular visits. At the same time, she would never know why her father didn’t show up until someone dared to tell her the truth. She had to be mentally strong in this case as well. Otherwise, she might be collapsed and broken down what she heard about it. Again, the great expectation for both the relatives and the political prisoners was the successful family visit to the prisons.
When I was in the prison, I had the familiarity of this sort of regrettable news with regard to the deaths of one of the parents or both. But, I kept two incidents that I’d never forgotten.
Most family members outside tried to cover up something because they didn’t want their love ones in the prisons necessarily knew and felt sorry about it especially in the case of someone’s death. It was like the rests of the whole family had a responsibility to keep the secret. No one must mention about it in front of the political prisoners, under any circumstance, whenever they came to visit.
One event was directly related to the 8888 popular uprising in Burma. U Nay Min was a journalist reporting the details of the 8888 uprising to a BBC reporter named Christopher Garnett, who could manage to spread the uprising all over the world in 1988. U Nay Min ended up in the prison after the military coup.
One day, his two sisters were dead by an auto accident on their way back from the family visit to him in the prison. The rests of his family had never informed him even if he asked their whereabouts. Thus, the family had to do the make up stories like his sisters had to move to the Shan state with the promotions, by bringing the fake the products from the Shan State to give him on their behalf.
We, the rests of the fellow prisoners, who knew the truth needed to keep our mouths shut as well in this regard. Still, it hurt me every time I saw him enjoying with these Shan gifts. It was very awkward for us to be sad when someone supposed to be sad looked happy. I couldn’t imagine how he would suffer if he knew the truth. Still, they kept on bringing those Shan gifts for him to be happy instead.
The other one was the similar one for us to perform the same attitude on our part. As the political prisoners, we thought we were pretty much prepared for everything including such sad stories. But, the family members outside still did not want to give us another sufferings nonetheless. As a result, the rests of the prisoners had to perform their parts for the cover ups. It’s more likely to be the act of humanity on our part than simply following their plots.
His name was Ko Ye Win from case. 4828. Since his father was a former army officer, he was knowledgeable for us for the inside information of the army. We couldn’t wait to hear more what his father’s messages in this case. Since, his father’s name was U Koe (nine in Burmese), Ko Jimmy, an 88 generation always said, “Did you hear anything from Mr. Nine yet.”, to him. His father was not healthy but just had a surgery to take the part of upper gastrointestinal tract out. I was amazed with U Koe’s love for not mentioning about his dying wife in bed until after her death whenever he came for the family visit. He tried to cover it up by all means possible on his part. The rests of us who already knew had to keep it quiet as usual.
Ko Ye Win’s first imprisonment was for helping General Kyaw Zaw, one of the thirty comrades led by General Aung San, to escape from the persecution by the junta. With regard to his past experience for the first imprisonment, he said, “During the other imprisonment, a friend of mine looks so sad when he saw his girlfriend’s wedding news in a piece of newspaper.” I sensed that his friend found it out from a cheroot butt, knowing that we were not allowed to read a newspaper in the prison then. The Burmese cheroot butts made by the pieces of newspapers in those days were the only windows for us to see what was happening in the outside world.
We sometime worried if Ko Ye Win might find out his mother’s death from one of these cheroot butts. He still kept asking about the progress of his mother in bed, and always shared his concern about her health with us. But, he never found out until he was released because of his father’s successful conspiracy.
In this case, one might have a question about my own experience in this regard. Well, I might as well say that no one was immune to such circumstance. Death was inevitable for anyone and any family in life.
The relationship between me and my father was like a never ended story to talk about in my village. Regardless of our differences of opinions, he would always be there for me. He rushed to the jail where I was arrested. He would always bring what I might need in the jail for every two weeks. He would make my sister’s family visits to me even when he couldn’t make it, after I was sentenced for ten years imprisonment.
In 2003 during the raining season, I hadn’t seen him for a while. First, I thought he might have gotten regular seasonal sick by the bad weather in those days. But, my family did good job to cover up until I was informed his death three months later by some old friends.
One day, when my sisters came for the family visit, I said, “How’s father hanging? Is he feeling ok?” by acting like I didn’t know anything about. Meantime, I was learning how their faces and body languages would react to my questions. Amazingly, my elder sister should win an academy award pretending like nothing ever happened and said, “Of course, he is better now and he asks you to take care of your health as well.” At that point, I felt bad. I didn’t want to pretend it anymore. I finally told them that I already knew his death and said, “I prepared for everything since the day one. I know that I will face any unexpected on my journey including his death.”
My elder started to cry and explained what’d happened to my father. The day he was about to pass away, his consciousness was in and out along with irregular heart beats. My mother wanted to make sure if he was conscious by warning him to meditate in accordance with our religion. Also, she asked him if he knew who she was, and he said, “Yes, of course, I know you are my son, the Buddhist Monk.”
The sounds of my sister’s cry were getting louder for me to barely control myself not to follow suit. Though, my eyes started to blur in emotion for not having a chance to comfort my father’s last moment, and to fulfill his final wish to see me.
Finally, I completely understood why the family members wanted to keep the secret during their visits to us.
Ashin Zawana
Former Political Prisoner
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