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NEWS- Cornered, Former Students Fig
- Subject: NEWS- Cornered, Former Students Fig
- From: BurmaJapan@xxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 23 Dec 1997 10:58:00
Cornered, Former Students Fight for Democracy in Burma
AP
22-DEC-97
DAWN GWIN CAMP, Thai-Burma Border
(AP) A decade ago they were among
Burma's best and brightest, young
idealists on the road to becoming lawyers,
engineers and doctors in what they
dreamed would be a democratic society.
In that year of revolt, 1988, student
activists manned the front lines in the
attempt to bring down entrenched military
rule. Some fell to bullets and bayonets.
Others were tortured and imprisoned. And
some fled to remote frontier areas to carry
on the fight.
Today, the hard-core remnants are just
hanging on. They live in disease-ridden
jungle camps, dependent on foreign
donors and the fickle sympathies of Thai
officials. Although dedication to the cause
remains strong, their road seems headed
for a dead end.
"Some revolutions are long-term, but we
believe that all dictators must fall. So we
will never give up our objectives or
beliefs," said Sai Myint Thu, a one-time
chemical engineering student and now a
leader in the All Burma Students
Democratic Front.
Many have in fact given up. Originally
10,000-strong, the Democratic Front
fighting force has dwindled to 1,700. And
some among these hope for asylum in the
West.
The international focus isn't on these
forlorn guerrillas but rather on Aung San
Suu Kyi, the pro-democracy leader and
Nobel Peace Prize-winner locked in an
indecisive struggle with Burma's military
rulers in the capital, Rangoon. Her portrait
hangs inside many of the guerrillas' huts.
Camp life is hard, sometimes lethal. The
rebel movement's headquarters, once
inside Burma, has been forced to relocate
seven times in the past three years under
attack from Burmese troops. Several
hundred former students have been killed.
Now, the headquarters is just inside Thai
territory in the rugged northwestern
province of Mae Hong Son.
The Dawn Gwin camp, housing 160
rebels, is a collection of thatch and
bamboo huts on a jungled hillside. Almost
inaccessible by vehicle during the rainy
season, the area is rife with malaria and
other diseases. Food and medicine,
provided by Western humanitarian
groups, are basic. Loneliness and fatalism
pervade.
No longer devil-may-care students, most
of the fighters are now men in their late
20s or early 30s who haven't been able
marry. Only 10 percent of Dawn Gwin's
residents are women, some trying to raise
a new generation in the jungle.
"I won't return to see my homeland and my
family until there is democracy in Burma. I
may die in action," Thant Zin Oo said
sadly.
Like most of the guerrillas, he hasn't had
contact with his family since 1988.
Their blueprint for a future Burma is not be
detailed and the jargon of leftist causes is
sometimes used. But the aims are clear:
an end to 35 years of military rule, free
elections, reconciliation between ethnic
Burmans and the country's many ethnic
minorities.
The Democratic Front operates out of nine
camps, seven along the Thai border and
one each on the Chinese and Indian
frontiers.
They mingle with more than 150,000 other
refugees, mainly from ethnic minority
groups that once battled Burma's
government seeking autonomy.
The Burmese army has forged cease-fires
with most of the groups, leaving the Karen
National Union as the only major military
opposition and one the ex-students still
depend on for weapons and protection.
Thailand plays a chameleon-like role.
Officially it maintains good relations with
Burma's government, and the rebels are
sometimes harassed, jailed or forced to
pay bribes. Yet, the Thai government
allows rebel camps and offices on its
territory, and some officials are openly
supportive.
The rebellion has been hampered from
the beginning by its division into a welter
of resistance movements. Although they
nominally operate under the umbrella of a
self-styled government-in-exile, the
National Coalition Government of the
Union of Burma, the groups have never
forged a unified command.
"Some governments and NGOs would
prefer to deal with and support one united
group. They are confused," said Sai Myint
Thu, the Democratic Front leader, sitting
on a bamboo bench outside his makeshift
hut.
Night falls and parents teach their children
Burmese reading by candlelight. The
clatter of an old typewriter is replaced by
the sounds of the enveloping forest, and
music.
"I am a rock, I am an island," someone
sings the Simon and Garfunkel song,
along with other protest anthems of the
1960s. It lends an aura of the past to a
place where the words "comrades" and
"revolution" are often heard.
The onetime students, some of whom
count battered guitars among their only
possessions, have composed four
cassettes worth of songs about
democracy, patriotism and suffering.
"Like a little bird deprived of a license to
fly," one goes. "Though full-fledged, our
lives are little appreciated. We're just
young outcasts."