Ex-soldier shines light on hidden Myanmar war - Shaun Tandon

April 26, Agence France Presse
Ex-soldier shines light on hidden Myanmar war - Shaun Tandon

Washington - As protests engulfed Myanmar in 1988, Myo Myint faced a stark
decision. A soldier missing an arm and a leg, he believed he could persuade
the army to show mercy if he spoke out. Or he could be shot.

Lifting himself by his crutches, Myo Myint took to the podium outside the
military base. He wasn't shot and he won over soldiers who demonstrated in
uniform. But soon he was tracked down and sentenced to 15 dire years in
prison.

Now, however, Myo Myint has an audience as never before. A documentary on
his life -- including on his fateful choice to dissent -- will air next
month on US cable channel HBO and is being distributed clandestinely in
Myanmar.

"Burma Soldier," using the earlier name for Myanmar, features smuggled
footage as it traces Myo Myint from the front lines of the ethnic war to the
confines of prison to his new life as a refugee in the United States.

In an unusual step, the State Department held a public screening of "Burma
Soldier." Kurt Campbell, the assistant secretary of state for East Asia who
has spearheaded an engagement drive with Myanmar, called the film
"torturous."

"It's one of the most powerful things I have ever seen," Campbell said
Monday. "But at the same time it's incredibly inspirational."

Myo Myint was born in 1963, a year after the military seized power in the
ethnically diverse former British colony. In the film, he said that he grew
up wanting to be treated as a soldier but observed in hindsight, "I didn't
know the difference between people acting out of respect and acting out of
fear."

At age 17, he was already serving as an army "engineer," which meant laying
and clearing land mines. He recalled that the army would burn down homes at
will, forcing villagers from ethnic minority groups to haul heavy equipment
and to build roads.

In one graphic account, Myo Myint remembered how soldiers seized a young
minority woman and raped her throughout the night. Later, he heard several
shots and there was no further sign of her among the slave laborers.

After he was hit by a mortar that nearly cost him his life, Myo Myint was
transferred to a hospital in the largest city Yangon and discovered the
texts of Buddhism and other religions. With his pension money, he bought
banned books on history and politics.

Vowing "I will fight for peace," the soldier sought out Aung San Suu Kyi,
the pro-democracy campaigner icon who later won the Nobel Peace Prize.

After his arrest in 1989, Myo Myint said he was forced into a hood stained
by someone else's blood and was tortured with water. He said he was not
allowed to read or write for 10 of his 15 years in prison, although guards
occasionally smuggled him pens or books.

After his release, Myo Myint fled across the border to Mae Sot, Thailand,
and in 2008 flew to Fort Wayne in the Midwestern state of Indiana, a US hub
for refugees from Myanmar.

Attending the State Department screening of his film, Myo Myint pleaded for
international pressure to free more than 2,000 political prisoners still in
Myanmar and to stop Thailand from closing refugee camps.

"As a former refugee and a former political prisoner, I would like to
request you to do whatever you can for the refugees along the Thai-Burma
border," he said.

Thailand recently said it would send more than 100,000 refugees back to
Myanmar, saying that they had become a burden and pointing to the military's
recent handover to a new post-election government. Critics say that
Myanmar's changes have been purely cosmetic.

Journalist Nic Dunlop started work on "Burma Soldier" after meeting Myo
Myint in Thailand. The film was produced by Julie LeBrocquy, a former bond
trader who now focuses on making movies on otherwise overlooked subjects.

LeBrocquy said the film was also released in Myanmar through its network of
unofficial distributors and bootleggers and that it "seems to be a
blockbuster there in a Burmese way."

"I hope that this film has given a way for his voice not just to be heard in
the West but to be heard in Burma, which is where it really matters," she
said.



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