Land of Jade

by Bertil Lintner

  “Yes. I married a Kachin girl a few years ago. We’ve got two children, a boy and a baby girl. They must be waiting for me now.”

  He had been very close to Yaw Htung and he did not hide his bitterness over the debacle at Kesan Chanlam.

  “I’m a Christian, too. And my mother actually was among the first missionaries to the eastern Nagas. But our attitude has always been that God only helps those who help themselves. It’s ridiculous to build a camp with no defences and then rely on divine protection if there’s an attack.”

  He shook his head bitterly. I tried to change the subject by asking if his platoon had known what their mission was all about when they first had left Kachin State. He gave a laugh.

  “No we didn’t. Only Yaw Htung. But immediately after we’d crossed the Chindwin, he called a meeting in a jungle camp and told us all about it. You can guess we were taken aback when he said we were going to pick up foreign journalists. And in the Naga Hills of all places! But we found it exciting, too. It was a great honour to have been selected for this very special duty.”

  When Lashi Naw Ja had returned to his lean-to, Hseng Noung and I went to sleep with little Ee Ying between us on our bed of banana leaves and Naga shawls. It was pitch-dark in the jungle and the foliage around us was dense. But between the crowns of the trees, we could glimpse the moon and the stars. The only sound that could be heard came from a stream which rippled through the forest nearby.

  On January 3, 1986, the Lintners crossed the Chindwin River. They had just celebrated New Year’s Eve together with their KIA escorts in a small village near the river. The dramatic events at Kesan Chanlam were still fresh in their memories. A pig was roasted over open fire to celebrate the new year.

  The trek to Kachin State went through dense jungle and wet marshland. When they at last reached a fishing village by the Nam Byu River, the first Kachin settlement, villagers came out to greet them.

  There was only one major mountain along our way, Wan Tuk Bum, a long range which forms the border between Sagaing Division and Kachin State. We traversed it on January 8 and began our descent towards the Hukawng Valley. The same day, I came down with a high fever. We spent the night in some abandoned gold panners’ huts where I lay shivering in my sleeping bag and under a stack of Naga shawls. Zau Shan, the medical NCO, came over and examined me. He thought I had malaria—as I did myself—and administered a strong dose of quinine.

  But at dawn my condition had scarcely improved. Weak and feverish, I laboured on, but before long noticed my right foot had begun swelling. With a pang of apprehension, I recalled all the leeches I and everybody else had earlier been pulling off legs and feet. While the Kachins had made frequent detours around pools by climbing over rocks, I, given my extra height and weight, had generally waded through regardless. It dawned on me that I had probably caught an infection through the open, bleeding sores left by the leeches on my feet. The water through which I had been wading had been green and murky and contaminated by elephant dung and droppings from other wild animals.

  The sixth day of our march from the Chindwin was the most arduous. Slipping my left shoe off, I bound an elastic bandage tightly around the foot and then set off favouring my right foot and supporting as much of my weight as possible on a bamboo staff. The pain was considerable. But the sight of Hseng Noung with Ee Ying on her back ahead of me gave me the strength to keep going.

  That morning we reached the Nam Byu. Lashi Naw Ja had sent a message downstream to Kawng Ja, his home village, and informed the rebel authorities there of our imminent arrival. To our delight, three village mahouts with elephants had been sent to pick us up. The elephants’ howdahs resembled high rattan baskets, shaped to fit the curve of the animal’s back. One of the elephants knelt and I was helped by two Kachin soldiers into the howdah. Hseng Noung and Ee Ying mounted the second elephant; the third was for Karang, the Naga officer who was still with us with his section.

  We sat swaying in the howdahs, as the elephants lumbered in stately caravan along a jungle track that paralleled the river. Ahead of us and behind marched the guerrillas. It had been decided that we would not go as far as Kawng Ja, since merchants from the government-controlled town of Tanai on the Ledo Road often visited the village and news of our arrival might easily leak out. Instead, we headed for a nearby fishing camp. The enterprise had been established by the rebels with a view to selling the catch at the Hpakan jade mines to the south, where anything fetches an inflated price. Given the cheapness of fish elsewhere in Kachin State, it was an ingenious way of supplementing rebel coffers.

  We reached the fishing camp at noon and I was assisted into a tiny hut by the river. By this point, my right foot was nearing the size of a football and the pain was excruciating. Hseng Noung unrolled my sleeping bag on the split-bamboo floor. When I sat down and there was no pressure on my foot, it was somewhat less painful. Looking around the hut, we discovered Lashi Naw Ja’s foresight had encompassed not only transport: on the floor was a bag of Shwe Kyaung coffee and a tin of sweet condensed milk while for Hseng Noung he had left a pile of khaopuk.

  This savoury cake made from sticky rice flour was originally a Shan delicacy since adopted by the Kachins and many other hillpeoples in the region. During our evening talks, Hseng Noung had once teasingly asked him if we could find khaopuk in the Nam Byu valley since the Kachins there had adopted so many other Shan customs and habits. And sure enough we had now enough khaopuk to feed a whole platoon. Once we had put Ee Ying to sleep, we toasted some of the sticky cakes on bamboo skewers over the fire and the fragrance of fresh coffee filled the hut by the river.

  Since a message had to be sent to 2nd Brigade headquarters, east of the Ledo Road, we were told to wait at the fishing camp for a few days. As the Burmese Army maintains a substantial force along the road, we clearly needed more than our own escort for the crossing. While waiting for the reinforcements, a delegation of rebel administrators came to see us. They had heard from Lashi Naw Ja that we had run out of money. One of the officials offered us a loan of 2,000 Kyats which he later could claim from general headquarters. He also explained that the KIA had means of transferring money from Thailand or Hong Kong. Once at Pa Jau, it would be a routine matter to arrange repayment from Bangkok where we still had a bank account and some money.

  Map 3: The Hukawng valley—The Triangle—Pa Jau

  Maj. Pan Awng who escorted the party from Nam Byu to Tanai Yang in western Kachin State.

  As we were now back in a monetary economy, our lack of cash had become an embarrassment. In the Naga Hills, the people produced or bartered whatever they needed, there had been nothing to buy and our financial straits had never worried us. Now we were happy to sign the chit and accept a loan; it was a strange feeling to be dealing with bank notes again after weeks in an almost Neolithic world.

  Soon afterwards, the people from Kawng Ja and other villages in the Nam Byu valley came to greet us formally and welcome us to Kachin State. They were dressed in their traditional costumes, the men in baggy trousers with turbans on their heads and big dahs, or swords, in their belts; while the women wore red dresses and bodices covered with elaborate silver ornaments. My foot was heavily bandaged and although it was agony to stand, I forced myself to remain upright in recognition of the honour they were doing us.

  Nor was it my impression that this welcome had been arranged by the KIA. The villagers seemed genuinely happy to receive a pair of foreign guests. Some of the old men told me with pride they had served with the guerrilla forces organised by the Allies to fight behind Japanese lines in World War Two.

  Bertil and Maj. Pan Awng study maps before crossing the Ledo Road in the Hukawng Valley.

  A village elder with a thin, white beard solemnly handed me a Kachin shoulder bag and a silver handled dah. Then a woman with a kind, wrinkled face—presumably his wife—handed Hseng Noung a colourful baby-carrier which she proudly announced had been smuggled in from China. Then the villagers came forward with baskets of sticky rice, fried c
hicken, rice liquor and all kinds of delicacies. After the tribulations of the road, it was a welcome that moved us deeply. Most of the villagers spoke Burmese and were eager to hear of our experiences in Nagaland and the gathering turned into a lively picnic by the banks of the Nam Byu.

  Over the next few days, the state of my foot deteriorated rapidly. At night I hardly slept. My medical supplies were all but exhausted and after the long journey not even Zau Shan had much left. He went off to Kawng Ja where he was able to obtain a few phials of penicillin. By the time he returned, the infection was spreading alarmingly to my calf. It was obviously blood poisoning and I feared for a while the foot might have to be amputated.

  After days of agony and several penicillin injections, two large blisters appeared on the top of the foot. And these I pierced carefully with a sterilised knife. It was as if I had punctured a balloon full of water. Yellowish pus and a black slimy liquid burst forth suddenly in a foul fountain that shot over a metre across the room and then slowed to a steady flow. Within seconds, the split-bamboo floor was splattered with the stinking, infectious fluid and the wood had to be cleaned with hot water.

  The pressure thus eased, the foot felt instantly better A gaping cavity remained and I could walk only with the aid of a bamboo staff. But the crisis was over and I was again able to focus on the journey ahead.

  A peasant with his bullocks passing KIA troops on the Ledo Road.

  Late in the evening of January 15, almost a week after our arrival at the fishing camp, we heard someone running up to our hut. It was a courier with an urgent message.

  “Major Pan Awng’s arrived at Kawng Ja. He’s got 230 soldiers with him. Be ready to leave tomorrow morning.” The Kachin soldier panted as he gave us the news.

  At 9.30 on the following day, we were ready. Our bags were packed and two elephants with mahouts had arrived from Kawng Ja. For about an hour we followed the river until we reached the village. It was a prosperous settlement with grocery shops, a school, a church and, on its outskirts, extensive irrigated paddy fields and fruit orchards. Lashi Naw Ja was standing with his wife and two children outside the village tract office, waving goodbye. The elephant walked on to a closely guarded part of Kawng Ja where soldiers with assault rifles, light machine-guns, bazookas and M-79 grenade launchers were scattered. When our elephants and escorts arrived, one of the guards looked up. Spotting me in the howdah, he gaped for a moment and then tapped the shoulder of the soldier standing next to him. There were similar reactions from all the soldiers around. This was reassuring; security had been tight.

  The elephant halted outside a large bamboo house. It knelt for me to get down and two soldiers helped me inside. A short but robust-looking man in his late thirties sat cross-legged on a mat on the floor by the fireplace. He shook my hand as I sat down beside him.

  A jeep with drug traffickers is stopped and searched by the KIA.

  “How’s your foot?” he asked in Burmese, puffing a cigarette.

  “Not too bad, but I still can’t walk,” I replied through Hseng Noung.

  “Good. Ride the elephant. We’re leaving in thirty minutes.”

  Maj. Pan Awng was as his reputation had him: tough, competent, taciturn. He told a nurse in his party to clean my wound and we left on schedule. I was on the elephant, surrounded by heavily armed troops. Hseng Noung walked and a girl soldier carried Ee Ying in the new Chinese baby-carrier we had been given by the Nam Byu villagers. We passed a few prosperous Kachin farming villages with cactus hedges and vegetable gardens. There were even curtains in the windows. Although the Kachins are originally a hill people, here in the Hukawng Valley at least, many had adopted lowland customs.

  We spent the night in some empty huts beside a paddy field and left early the next morning. We followed a small river called Nam Hpyek and entered a big village of the same name in the afternoon. Some villagers came out to look at our more than 200-strong column. In an effort to disguise myself, I had borrowed Pan Awng’s KIA cap and wore sunglasses. The Ledo Road cut right through the village and we crossed it at 4 pm.

  Bertil rides into Tanai Yang, the 2nd Brigade headquarters of the KIA.

  During the World War Two, Gen. Stilwell’s men had built a ten metre wide, dual-tracked, metalled, ditched, banked and bridged all-weather road down which flowed weapon-carriers, guns and tanks. But little of that remained. Like the infrastructure elsewhere in Burma, it had been woefully neglected and fallen into total disrepair. Jungle creepers and grass had encroached on more than half the width of the road, leaving little more than a dirt track. Closer to the Indian border, it had been completely reclaimed by the jungle. But indicative of its military origins, it ran straight without a hint of a curve.

  The soldiers took up positions along the road sealing off about a mile of it with machine-guns and heavy arms posted at regular intervals. The nearest Burmese Army outpost, at Tingkawk village, was only a few kilometres away, and Pan Awng, directing his men by walkie-talkie, was not taking any chances. I rode along the road for about a hundred metres before the mahout turned the elephant east, skirting Nam Hpyek village. Hseng Noung stayed behind to take photos. She told me later that only minutes after I had left, one of the outer sentries reported over the walkie-talkie a jeep was approaching from the south.

  “Military or civilian?” snapped Pan Awng.

  “Civilian, Sir.”

  “Good. We need some pictures of traffic on the road. Let them pass.”

  A party was held at Tanai Yang to celebrate the arrival of “Mr. Hamilton”.

  Pan Awng had been standing in the middle of the road and as the jeep approached, he held up his hand like a traffic policeman. The vehicle stopped right in front of him. He stepped round beside the driver and looked inside at four distinctly nervous passengers. From their clothes, they were obviously merchants from a town. But if their tension was anything to go by, these were no ordinary traders; their fear suggested they might be drug traffickers; to maintain access to the towns such people often act as government informers.

  “Carrying any drugs?” was his greeting.

  “Drugs? No, Sir. Of course not, Sir.” The jeep’s occupants were positively grovelling.

  “Right. Out you get. I need to borrow this for a while,” he barked, patting the bonnet.

  The men sprang out of the vehicle with loud protestations of delight that they could be of service. Pan Awng then drove the jeep backwards and forwards until Hseng Noung had got all the shots she needed. Returning the vehicle to its owner, the major ordered.

  “You’re sleeping in Nam Hpyek village tonight. You can leave tomorrow. Leave before that and my men will blow your jeep up.”

  “What do you mean, Sir? Do you think we would ever tell the authorities anything?”

  “That’s right! You can trust us, Sir!”

  “You heard me,” Pan Awng growled as he turned away.

  As we bivouacked near a paddy field only a few kilometres to the east, more than 100 soldiers were posted at tactical locations along the Ledo Road that night. And lest fighting should break out, we slept fully clothed. Pan Awng kept in constant touch by his walkie-talkie with the rear guard along the road. My foot hurt badly that night. Having sterilised a pair of forceps, I cleaned out more yellowish pus, leaving a hole about three centimetres deep—reaching almost to the bone—and five across. But I was pleased to note healthy raw flesh was now visible.

  Even if the Burmese Army had got wind of our crossing the road, there were no signs of patrols that night. I woke to an incongruous reveille of Country and Western music from Pan Awng’s portable tape-recorder. After a hasty breakfast of hot coffee and khaopuk, we began to climb once more into the hills. By mid-morning we could make out the mighty Kumon Range, its more than 3,000 metres high peaks towering in the distance. This mountain bastion, effectively the backbone of Kachin State, separates the Hukawng Valley region from the northern Kachin country around the rivers Mali Hka and Nmai Hka.

  By next day we had put considerab
le distance between ourselves and the Ledo Road posts and security relaxed. The path was wide and smooth and led uphill, over a mountain range. In the afternoon, we descended into the narrow valley of the Tanai River, the major tributary of the Chindwin. During the climb down, distant music floated up to us, including what sounded curiously like electric guitars. But I concluded, my ears were playing tricks on me.

  Once on the valley floor, the column halted. We were now nearing the 2nd Brigade headquarters and Pan Awng explained it was best for me to make a formal entry on horseback; from the height of my elephant I would not be able to shake hands with all the people who were waiting for us at the camp. A mountain horse was led forward. It was the largest available but having mounted, I found my legs dangling almost to the ground.

  In this inglorious fashion, I rode on towards a bamboo arch which obviously had been constructed for the occasion. On it hung a large cloth banner bearing the inscription: “Warm Welcome to Mr John Hamilton and Family.” I rode through it with Hseng Noung close behind. Hundreds of soldiers and villagers lined the approach to the camp, shouting “Welcome! Welcome!” in Kachin. Women pushed forward to present flowers and I rode along the line shaking a multitude of hands. Then an almost surreal sight met my eyes. Standing on a bamboo platform was a band of young men in immaculate white suits and ties playing electric guitars, powered by a field generator. Thus it was, to the beat of rock music, surrounded by cheering crowds, and with a soldier leading my horse, that I made my triumphal entry into the camp. I felt almost like a king on the way to his coronation. We finally arrived at a large bamboo house by the river.