Land of Jade

by Bertil Lintner

  A priest was reading from the Bible and the happy couple sat at the front in their best clothes: Hein Wom in a grey, Western-style suit and tie, but with a Kachin shoulderbag and a big dah slung on a cord over his shoulder; his bride, a nurse, in traditional costume with elaborate silver ornaments. Squeezing in beside Brang Seng on a wooden pew, I requested in a whisper that the story be transmitted to the camp on the Thai border and passed on to the Review’s office in Bangkok.

  He took the copy and, without reading it, summoned a duty orderly who was sent off to the wireless station on the hill opposite the church. The wedding ceremony continued with hymn singing and prayers. When it was over, a reception was held in a nearby community hall. Hein Wom and his wife were beaming while one friend after another proposed a toast, wishing them a long and happy life.

  It turned out that the two CPB representatives at Pa Jau were also at the reception: an elderly man called Zaw Win and his assistant, Kyaw Nyunt, a Rangoon-educated intellectual in his early thirties. Both were dressed in baggy, green fatigues and Chinese army caps with plastic red stars in them. I had heard that Kyaw Nyunt spoke good English, so I moved over to their table.

  Kyaw Nyunt was a genial fellow with an easy-going sense of humour. He told me he had been a student activist in Rangoon in the mid-1970s and, following the arrests of several of his comrades, he had fled to the CPB’s base area along the Chinese frontier in northeastern Shan State. Zaw Win, on the other hand, was a party veteran who had joined the armed struggle in the early 1950s and subsequently spent many years in China before the CPB re-entered Burma in 1968, setting up a new base area along the Chinese frontier.

  I told them I was interested in visiting their headquarters at Panghsang, especially in view of the recently concluded CPB-NDF pact. Kyaw Nyunt translated my request to Zaw Win who nodded in appreciation and replied in Burmese. Kyaw Nyunt translated again:

  “We’d like to welcome you, too. But first we have to contact our leaders and see what they say.” Kyaw Nyunt had an irritating habit of giggling nervously after almost every statement he made. I asked if the request could be made by radio.

  “Yes, of course. Our leaders get the Far Eastern Economic Review in Panghsang every week, so they know you by name. There should be no problem. But it might take a few days to get an answer.”

  The prospect was an exciting one. Since the CPB had risen in arms against Rangoon shortly after Burma’s independence in 1948, no foreign journalist had ever visited its guerrilla forces—which, given that most insurgent movements are eager to ensure sympathetic media coverage, was extraordinary enough in itself. So an interview with the CPB’s ageing, almost legendary chairman, Thakin Ba Thein Tin, would be a journalistic scoop of no small proportions.

  The very name Panghsang—headquarters of Asia’s only remaining Maoist insurgency of any significance—held for me a certain resonance. While similar movements in Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia had failed, or, like the Filipino New People’s Army adopted a more independent line, the CPB alone had struggled on in the remote Sino-Burmese border mountains to realise a political ideal that had become curiously anachronistic in the world of the 1980s. But such was Burma: in its isolation, time seemed to have passed it by. And this was as true in several insurgent-held territories as in government-run regions.

  I had heard much about Panghsang from my old SSA contacts, who had visited the place in the 1970s when the Shan insurgents first forged a miltary alliance with the CPB. And for all its ossified beliefs, the CPB was still the single most powerful resistance army in the country. To gain a complete picture of the insurgency in Burma, a visit to the CPB was imperative.

  About a week later, Hseng Noung and I left Ja Reng in the care of Ma Shwe and Atom and strolled over to the CPB’s office. It was located on the outskirts of Pa Jau, a kilometre from the other houses, and guarded by a few young communist soldiers. They were all Was, from the dominant hill tribe in the CPB’s area, physically dark, and stocky. The Was, like the Nagas, had been headhunters before insurgents had taken over their wild mountains in the early 1970s. Now, they made up the bulk of the CPB’s 10,000-strong fighting force.

  Zaw Win answered the door with a smile. As he spoke no English, he sent one of the Wa boys to call Kyaw Nyunt. Apparently, he had something important to tell us. Kyaw Nyunt came after a while with a piece of paper in his hand.

  “Ah! Glad you’ve come today. We’ve just received a radio message from Panghsang.”

  He handed me the paper as we sat down around the fire in the hearth on the mud floor. Zaw Win’s Chinese wife served us tea in little bowls. The message was from Thakin Ba Thein Tin. We were invited to visit the CPB’s area and the communist leaders would be waiting for us at Panghsang.

  “This is really great,” I told Zaw Win through Kyaw Nyunt. “But I think we’ll have to stay here at Pa Jau over the rainy season. Maybe we can leave for Panghsang in September or October.”

  They agreed readily enough. It was already May and the monsoon had set in making travel difficult. Waiting out the rains would thus give us several months at Pa Jau where I could finish my research on the Kachin movement. And Ja Reng would get the rest we felt she needed after spending her whole life so far on the move.

  We returned to our house after a few more obligatory cups of Chinese tea, looking forward to a new stage on the journey. But for the first time we also began pondering the question of how exactly we would get out of Burma. To return to India was out of the question, while the trek down to Thailand was far too long and risky. Before setting out, we had already reached the conclusion that the only practical route was through China to Hong Kong.

  The question now was, how. If we were to make an official approach, the Chinese authorities would inevitably rebuff it. The only alternative was to cross into China without permission, be arrested for illegal entry and then deported. In this context, Ja Reng was our strongest card; we could plead humanitarian considerations and hope the Chinese would be reasonable. As we now intended to extend our journey down to Panghsang, the problem was not yet a pressing one, however. We could still bide our time and enjoy our stay at Pa Jau.

  Shortly after our arrival at Pa Jau we also met the delegation from the SSA. They too had their own house and their leader, Capt. Sai Tu, was an old friend. He was assisted by a few young Shan soldiers and the radio operator, Pui Hpa, became especially close to us. He was twenty years old, lively, tall and comparatively dark for a Shan. His home village near Mong Hsu in central Shan State had long been a resistance stronghold. He had, he told us, run away from home and joined the insurgents when he was only 15 years old.

  His own story said much about how insurgency has become a way of life in some parts of Burma. In his early teens, he had been a novice in the small Buddhist monastery of his home village. Whenever a contingent of Shan rebels marched through, they always stopped to rest in the shade of a banyan tree near the pagoda. Villagers would bring them water and chat while the young novice Pui Hpa looked on from a distance. In the boy’s impressionable mind, the rebels were figures of romance.

  “It looked so exciting and I wanted to be one of them. They all carried rifles and a few had what looked like big yellow eggs fastened to belts around their waists. I didn’t realise what they were then. But now, of course, I know that they are M-79 grenades.”

  His driving ambition, he explained, had been to become a soldier. But being a Shan, he had never for a moment considered joining the government army, or the “Burmese”, as the villagers called them. An awareness of the political implications of the rebel struggle only came with time and study.

  We both admired Pui Hpa. He had had virtually no formal education apart from his few years as a novice, and consequently, he spoke very little Burmese. Even his native Shan he had only learnt to read and write in the underground. Now he was an experienced radio operator and was learning to become a cipher clerk. He also spent several hours every evening improving his still limited grasp of Burmese.

>   Like most Shans, Capt. Sai Tu was a devout Buddhist and meditated daily. He knew all major Buddhist chants by heart and once when we visited him, he suggested that our daughter should have a Shan name as well:

  “Her mother’s Shan, so she’s Shan, too!”

  To accord with Shan custom, the name had to be given on the day of the week when she was born—in Ja Reng’s case a Friday—and at the exact time of her birth. According to Sai Tu’s calculations, Friday, May 9, 11.30 am was the auspicious time. On that day, he came over to our house, dressed in his SSA uniform and with a selection of Buddhist prayers in his hand.

  Our little daughter’s second name-giving ceremony was more of a family affair than her first at Tanai Yang which had been the occasion for a village feast. Now there were just the three of us and the baby. Sai Tu chanted from the Buddhist scriptures and then announced her new name: Hseng Tai, Shan Jewel.

  It was a beautiful name and, as parents, we were both happy with it. But should we call her Ja Reng or Hseng Tai? We decided eventually that both names should be included on the official registration form in Sweden, while we would call her Hseng Tai ourselves. But for the time being, and to Ma Shwe and Atom who took care of her, she was still Ee Ying, ‘little girl’.

  I quickly typed out a report to the Swedish authorities, including all the details of our daughter’s birth and names. I put the letter in an envelope and asked a Kachin officer to mail it for me in China. Hopefully, Hseng Tai Ja Reng Lintner now would be properly entered on the parish register in Alvdalen county in northern Sweden where both Hseng Noung and I were already listed.

  That evening, we invited friends from all over Pa Jau to a dinner party to celebrate the event. I liked to think that to the KIA and the SSA, our daughter’s double name was also a symbol of the newly forged Kachin-Shan unity. In the past, the two rebel groups had often been at loggerheads, a reflection of the perennial friction between hill peoples and valley dwellers. One could only hope that one day the same friendship would develop between all Burma’s once contending peoples.

  About a week after the name-giving ceremony, I was sitting at my desk writing by the light of a hurricane lamp. There was a knock on the door. N’Chyaw Tang, the old major who had welcomed us on our arrival, stepped in with a transistor radio in his hand.

  “I’ve just been listening to the BBC,” he said excitedly. “They quoted the story you wrote for the Far Eastern Economic Review about the NDF meeting here at Pa Jau and the treaty with the CPB.”

  I was delighted to hear the report I had sent on the day of Hein Wom’s wedding had reached Bangkok and been published. However, this also meant the military authorities in Rangoon now would have no doubts about my true identity or whereabouts; John Hamilton was no more. The story had been datelined Pa Jau and although we were safe inside the headquarters area, we would inevitably have to take good precautions when we left for Panghsang after the rainy season.

  The day after the BBC broadcast, I was pleased to learn my story had received considerable attention, being subsequently picked up by other radio stations and newspapers. And since everybody else in Pa Jau had a big sign outside their offices, I had one painted for us also: “Far Eastern Economic Review, Pa Jau Bureau” in bold blue letters. I pinned the sign to the door of our house and called Hseng Noung out to have a look. Most of our neighbours were amused. But for me the sign said something more: it was a token of neutrality, a visible statement that we were visiting journalists and not part of Pa Jau’s insurgent establishment.

  With the passing of the days, the rains intensified and we spent more and more time indoors. Hseng Noung, who was still awaiting new supplies of film from Thailand, had also to economise with her few remaining rolls.

  In the meantime, the Review’s Bangkok bureau had decided to lend a helping hand to its tiny branch office in the Burmese hills; it had paid 10,000 Thai Baht in advance for my stories and passed on the sum to our Kachin contact in Bangkok. He, in turn, had radioed Pa Jau and one day the chief accountant came over to our house with that amount in Kyats. It was a much needed financial boost since the money we had borrowed at Nam Byu had run out and had yet to be paid back. An advance was the best the Review could do; our trip was after all illegal, precluding the possibility of direct support.

  Brang Seng I met often, but soon discovered that it was much harder for him to spare time for interviews than it had been for the NSCN’s leaders, who had visited me almost daily. He was an extremely busy man whose duties involved receiving a steady stream of visitors—and not only from the rebel-held areas of Kachin State. He lived in a large wooden house just above ours, and we observed one delegation after another arriving.

  Some were representatives from the Baptist Church while others were ordinary people from towns and villages seeking his advice on various issues. Although I refrained from asking about such sensitive matters, I had the strong impression that some of Brang Seng’s visitors were government officials from Myitkyina maintaining covert contact with the rebels.

  Brang Seng himself was an extraordinary personality, quite unlike any other ethnic rebel leader I had met. He was better educated, spoke good English and revealed a wide knowledge of political as well as regional issues which I had not expected to find in remote, land-locked Kachin State.

  He had been born in a small village near the Hpakan jade mines in 1930, the son of an illiterate petty trader. His father had wanted all seven brothers and sisters to stay at home and help support the family. But an uncle, seeing the intelligence of the young Brang Seng, sent him off to school. His studies were interrupted by the Japanese invasion of 1942, when, along with many other Kachins, he went into hiding in the jungles of the Triangle. He completed his studies after the war, spent a few months in Singapore as part of Burma’s delegation to the YMCA, and then returned to his native Kachin State to become headmaster of the Kachin Baptist High School in Myitkyina, and later its principal.

  In 1963, Brang Seng joined the Kachin rebels. At the time, few of the authorities were aware that he had already been secretly active in the Kachin nationalist movement for some time, working clandestinely in Myitkyina. I asked him why he had taken that step in the early 1960s, and not worked for change within a constitutional framework. Clasping his hands on the table, he paused before answering:

  “You see, we Kachins did not take up arms against the government in Rangoon until 1961. We were one of the last minorities in Burma to rise up. The Karens began their struggle in 1949. The Mons and the Karennis went into rebellion at about the same time. And the Shans followed in 1958. We thought it would be possible to work for an improvement of our position without having to wage an armed struggle. But one disappointment followed another. War reparations from the Japanese government never reached Kachin State, despite our having fought more tenaciously than anybody during the War. There were Japanese jeeps only for the officials in the state government, nothing for the people. There was no development, only neglect and decay. So we Kachin students in Rangoon began secretly organising ourselves. We often met in my room in the student hostel in Rangoon.”

  After years of simmering discontent, the Kachins went into open rebellion in 1961. The same year, the Burmese parliament decided to establish Buddhism as the state religion of Burma—a move seen by the predominantly Christian Kachins as an open provocation. The first stated purpose of the young Kachin nationalists was to oppose this decision and what they termed the “Burman chauvinism” they believed it reflected. At the same time, Burma had also reached a border agreement with China according to which a few Kachin villages had been handed over to the Chinese in exchange for Burmese sovereignty over an area near Namkham known as the Namwan Assigned Tract, which the British had originally leased from China in the 19th century.

  The deal was not unfair by international standards. But rumours soon spread across Kachin State to the effect that vast tracts of Kachin territory had been ceded to China. Even today, it is not unusual for many Kachins to point across the b
order at a piece of land, which was not even discussed during the Sino-Burmese talks, and claim that it was given to China by Rangoon. The failure of the central government to clarify the nature of the border agreement was at the root of the misunderstandings which drove hundreds of young Kachins underground.

  The original leaders of the Kachin revolt were three brothers, Zau Seng, Zau Tu and Zau Dan. Their first bases were not in Kachin State itself but in the Kachin-inhabited areas of northeastern Shan State, where the KIA’s 4th Brigade was now active. Their first armed band consisted of only thirty men with rifles of World War Two vintage. Zau Tu funded the uprising by robbing the treasury in the Shan State centre of Lashio of 90,000 Kyats. The rebellion spread northwards, into Kachin State proper, where the guerrillas established a stronghold in the Triangle. Eventually, the insurrection attained its present dimensions, encompassing nearly all of Kachin State apart from the major towns and roads. This rapid a growth of an insurgency, without any outside assistance, is almost certainly unique in the Southeast Asian context.

  The KIA’s success, however, had actually been preceded by an earlier but abortive attempt at building a Kachin rebel army. Already during the World War Two, Naw Seng, a brilliant warrior in the British-sponsored Kachin Levies, had harboured separatist ideas. According to Ian Fellowes-Gordon, who had known him well, the young fighter had a “dream of an independent Kachin country, independent like Nepal, and prospering as that gallant country does, by hiring out its fighting men.” After the war, Naw Seng was awarded the Burma Gallantry Medal and Bar by the colonial authorities for fighting against the Japanese. The Burmese he saw as traitors who had sided with the Japanese.