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Window on Burma #7




BINA  -- The Burma Independent News Agency  --  

Window on Burma  #7    --   Interview with Dr. Cynthia Maung

(From Mojo, Issue #4, July 1999)

INTUITION AND EDUCATION: THE FOUNDATIONS OF HUMAN SECURITY

[Translator?s note: On June 22, Burmese refugee Dr. Cynthia Maung was
presented
in absentia with the first-ever Jonathan Mann Award for Global Health and
Human
Rights, in Arlington, Virginia (USA), by former President Jimmy Carter.  Dr.
Cynthia, as she is known by her many patients and friends, was chosen from
among 50 nominees worldwide.  Being herself stateless, however, she was unable
to leave Thailand to appear for the award ceremony, for fear of not being
allowed to return to her work.

Her small rural clinic, located among the Thai rice fields only a few
kilometers from the Burmese border, offers consultation, treatment, and a bed
when necessary, to thousands of refugees and migrant workers every year.
Along
with the usual malaria, tuberculosis, dysentery, and AIDS problems, she also
manages maternity care, birth, infant nutrition, vaccination, and family
planning programs. With her volunteer staff, she has sheltered orphans, fed
the
destitute, trained medics who return to Burma, and helped nurture a community
of stateless, homeless people that may number more than one million, according
to some estimates.  

BINA, whose office is just down the road from Dr. Cynthia?s clinic, prevailed
on her for a videotape interview, some excerpts of which were published in
?Mojo? Issue #4.  Please note that although Dr. Cynthia?s English is
excellent,
the original interview was conducted in Burmese, so the words in quotation are
actually an ?interpretation? of her remarks.  

Dr. Cynthia is married, has two small children, and lives with her family near
the Mae Tao clinic.]

The Myanmar Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs recently addressed a 3-day
migrant
workers conference in Bangkok, saying that the Burmese who fled illegally into
Thailand came not because of political oppression, but for economic reasons. 
We do not think that the refugees themselves would make the same
distinction as
the Vice-Minister, but one refugee who would certainly disagree is Dr. Cynthia
Maung.

For more than a decade now, Dr. Cynthia has worked tirelessly to help clean up
the human disaster that has followed from ten years of SLORC/SPDC rule in
Burma.  In addition to managing a wide variety of medical problems for her
patients, she has been faced with all the social and economic problems that a
mass dislocation of a society can produce.  Refugees with war injuries both
physical and mental, people with diseases of poverty and deprivation, orphaned
children, abused illegal workers, women sold into prostitution, all come to
find help, comfort, and a sense of security at the Mae Tao clinic.

<<As human beings, we have to fight against negativity and ill will with our
own intuitive knowledge of truth.  And we must study as well, in order to
improve our lives and to benefit others.>>  

At 40 years old, Dr. Cynthia has spent nearly her entire life under the
boot of
one of the world?s most vicious military dictatorships.  

<<As a child, I lived in a suburb of Moulemein.  Most of the children in my
neighborhood could not attend school.  The young girls my age, ten or twelve
years old, were sent to the shops to roll cigars and cheroots, because their
families needed the income.>>

Watching people live under such a government deeply affected Dr. Cynthia?s own
understanding of truth.  Her father is a medical worker, and also runs his own
business in order to take care of his seven children.

<<I attended the Regional College for two years, and then was allowed to enter
the Medical College #2 at Mingaladon.  While traveling between Moulemein and
Rangoon for my studies, I sometimes saw the police arresting the young boys
and
girls who sold food on the train.  I came to know that some of the people
arrested were taken by the army.>>

<<Once I graduated medical college and began my duties at the hospital, I had
many patients who could not afford to buy the medicines I prescribed. Some
mothers, in despair of being able to care for their newborn, ran away from the
hospital after delivery, leaving the malnourished child behind.  Since there
were also no medicines at the hospital, I began to feel frustrated and
anxious.  I thought, We Burmese are all in the same boat. The trouble is
because of our damaged political system.  What will happen to us?>>

The problems of the patients she saw at Rangoon General, at Bassein Hospital,
at the Eain Du village clinic, all came to the same thing for Dr. Cynthia. 

<<A few people with good businesses could look after themselves, but 90% of
the
population has to face poverty.  Some people sold themselves as porters (to
help the army fight the ethnic mountain people), but the ones in outlying
villages were captured and taken by the army without pay.  I finally realized
that we had all lost our rights, and that we would now have to fight to get
them back.  So when the chance came, I joined the student uprising for
democracy.>>

<<On September 22, 1988, I left Burma for the Thai border to offer my help to
the students who were gathering there. First I worked at Mae La refugee camp,
then at Huay Kalok refugee camp, learning and helping wherever I could.  Then
there were so many students from so many districts, I did not know how we
would
manage.  Finally some merchants from Mae Sot City decided to help, and put us
in contact with the Karen National Union.>>

Dr. Cynthia had never dreamed she would get her own clinic.  But she had no
time to relax.  As the refugees continued flooding in, so did her problems:
not
enough medicine, not enough medical staff, no money for help from the local
Thai hospital. 

Seeing her working so selflessly for the region?s politically destitute,
others
began to respond.  The KNU first helped her to get funding from a church, and
then, in 1992, a well-known international medical group, Medecins Sans
Frontieres, stepped in to provide her with medicine and equipment.  

In 1994, Burmese migrant workers began to show up at the clinic door.  This
second wave of economic refugees was bigger than the first.  Living on a
dollar-a-day wage, with no access to social services, subject to abuse by
their
bosses and to arrest by the Thai police at any time, these pitiful creatures
gathered around Dr. Cynthia like children around their mother.  How could she
turn them away?

By 1996, thanks to a curious press and a sympathetic international audience,
doctors around the world began talking about Dr. Cynthia.  Medical students,
arriving in Thailand on tourist visas, made their way to the clinic and
offered
to help.  They were gratefully and warmly received.

Today the Mae Tao clinic is a hospital, pharmacy, and social center, a home
and
school for orphans, a medical educational institute, a center for outreach
into
rural Burma, and a beacon of hope to the thousands of refugees fleeing the
soldiers of their own country?s army.  Many patients now come daily from
inside
Burma, a country where the government seems to care nothing for ordinary
people, and walk across the Thai border to get attention, medicine, and
courage
from Dr. Cynthia?s clinic.

Dr. Cynthia herself is still a refugee.  To the Burmese dictators, she is a
political criminal; to the Thais, an illegal (although tolerated) alien.  But
to the rest of the world, she is an example of how ordinary people, in the
midst of desperate circumstances, can rise to become extraordinary expressions
of human devotion, compassion, and energy, and therefore worthy of our
collective admiration. 

Asked to comment on receiving the Jonathan Mann Award by the Global Health
Council, Dr. Cynthia said: <<On behalf of my parents and teachers, who gave me
my education and reminded me to use it to help others, I am very happy to
accept this honor, with great appreciation?  I suppose I could go abroad
now to
continue my medical studies, which I have always wanted to do.  But taking
care
of the people is my first responsibility, so I cannot leave yet.>> 

The staff at <Mojo> joins the rest of the world in saluting Dr. Cynthia 


****************************************************************************
***

ERRATA:  In Window on Burma #5, we published a story about a missing Member of
Parliament and his family.  The name of the MP was given as U Min Boo, which
was in error.  His name is actually U Soe Myint, and he is MP from Minboo
Township (2).  The rest of the story is correct.  BINA apologies for this
error, and will double check copy in the future before posting. Thanks.