Myanmar: the mockingjay that wants to be free
When, 10 years ago, I traveled to myanmar for the first time, I felt a lurch in my heart that would be the prelude to the love relationship that he would end up having with that country and its people.
For three weeks, I toured beautiful parts of a nation that was beginning to open up to the outside world, as a result of a transition towards democracy that, after 50 years of iron military dictatorship , had begun with the release of the opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi (kept under house arrest for 15 years) and that would culminate in the democratic elections of 2015.
However, in that 2011, the fear was still there.
In the monumental city of Bagan – declared UNESCO World Heritage Site in Summer 2019 -, among the more than 3,500 pagodas which form one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen, I found a humble fisherman who would become a friend for life.
sooleuy he started talking to me just because of that curiosity, bonhomie and hospitality inherent to the Burmese . What started as a simple conversation about the great Spanish soccer team that had won the World Cup in South Africa a year earlier, turned into a real cultural exchange with which I managed to delve into the mind and history of the Burmese.
Those hot Burmese afternoons, Sooleuy and I swam in the milky waters of the mythical Ayeyarwady River until reaching a small island of sand that was formed due to the low flow typical of the dry season.
David Escribano on his travels in Myanmar
That, Sooleuy told me, It was a safe place to talk about politics and all the ills and suffering that the Military Junta brought to the people. that supposedly had to defend and care . And it is that, as he told me, the military had informants everywhere . Friends of his had been taken, one morning, from his humble shacks, being arrested for having criticized the regime in a talk in a bar, or in the street.
He had participated in the 2007 anti-government protests – known as the Saffron Revolution , because of the color of the robes of the Buddhist monks who supported and promoted her – being arrested for it. He paid for his rebellion with several of his teeth (pulled out with pliers) and his house, which was bulldozed while he was in prison.
That year I said goodbye with great sadness to my friend, thinking that I would never see him again , because he didn't even have a mobile phone or an email address in a hermetic country in which I was without communication to the outside during my entire stay.
Fate wanted me to meet Myanmar in 2015, shortly before the elections. Since then, and until the end of 2019, I worked there as a guide several months a year. . Every year, every trip, every experience, he loved more and knew better a country whose main treasure is its people. An honest, kind, respectful, generous, noble and affectionate people. A people who deserve the freedom they fight for.
That 2015, moreover, I had the joy of meeting Sooleuy again.
The magic of Inle Lake
During the four years that had passed since our first meeting, his image and our conversations, far from being erased from my mind, had become an idealized episode of my travels . For this reason, the first time I returned to Bagan as a tour guide, I rented a motorcycle and dedicated myself to looking for him in the same area of the river where we had met.
I had little hope of finding him, but nothing can be done against the Buddha's designs. Or destiny... Or whatever you want to call it. Finally, after asking in more than twenty bars and shops, someone said that he thought he knew him. He was still fishing, but he no longer had a baby, but three beautiful children. . It could be him… And it was.
The reunion was so moving that both of us – and his wife – burst into tears.
Since then, I have visited Sooleuy and his family every year , and I have also worked a deep friendship with other men and women of Yangon , the mystical Inle Lake, the villages lost in the mountains of the Shan state, the religious and stately Mandalay, or the spiritual Mount Popa.
Every conversation, every hug, every laugh, every new Burmese word learned , each farewell, has brought me closer and closer to the mind and heart of a people now bleeding to death for their brave, and lonely, opposition to returning to the darkness of the past.
Between 2015 and 2020 the country was opened. I noticed it in the new freedom of the press, the proliferation of “modernities” – mobile phones everywhere, social networks, western style bars, the classic KFC, the way of dressing -, economic development, the appearance of a new middle class and, in general, a greater joy of living. live without fear.
The damn coronavirus made me unable to enjoy what were, to date, the last months of democracy in Myanmar. To see my people one last time.
Since the coup broke out, I have tried to keep in touch with all my Burmese friends.
During the first weeks of February it was simple. Most of them answered me by Facebook – social network preferred by the Burmese – and they tried to reassure me , telling me that the resistance was peaceful and that this would be how they would fight for their fundamental rights, hoping for international help. That fictitious calm did not last long.
"That fictitious calm didn't last long..."
A few days after the start of the riots, the Burmese police and military began to open fire , throughout the country, against some unarmed protesters who responded - as if it were a protective spell - raising their arms and joining the three central fingers of the hand, a sign of defiance to the oppressive power taken from the books of The Hunger Games.
But the first mockingjay, only 20 years old, died on February 19 , after 10 days fighting for his life after receiving a bullet in the head. Since then, almost 600 people - according to the official count, but it is very likely that there are many more - have lost their lives across the country, and there are at least 3,000 detainees for opposing the regime.
“We no longer expect anything from any international body. The UN and ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) will not come to our aid as long as the Junta continues to have the support of China , Myanmar's largest investor and economic partner. Even the French company TOTAL says it must pay taxes on its energy holdings to the Board. That they must comply with the law, even knowing that this money finances the bullets that are fired at us. It is a shame . But we are not going to give up. There is no turning back now and we are going to try to achieve unity and the support of all ethnic groups in Myanmar. It's going to be hard. Many people are going to die, but we are going to fight.” That's what Fred told me in his last email, which I received just a few days ago.
German-born Fred fell in love with Myanmar decades ago . He married a beautiful Burmese woman and his children were born in the country. Later, I created a travel agency and, in September 2019, they bought a nice farm about 3 hours from yangon.
During the lockdown, Fred and his family sent me photos of the farm and told me that they had been very lucky to be able to get through this hard time working in those beautiful fields full of plants and flowers.
In that last email, Fred told me that they had suspected that some neighbor had ratted them out and they had run away. Hours after his escape, the soldiers searched the farm and, since then, have occupied it, shooting into the air when someone tries to approach.
He also told me that he did not know when he would be able to communicate with me again, since only the fiber optic was working well and the military had just announced that they would also they would cut off telephone communications as of April 12.
fred and aung – My dear Inle Lake guide, who has opened the door of his house for me so many times – they are, for now, the last friends with whom I maintain communication. They both have fiber optics. The rest have been falling into silence. A silence that bothers and saddens me in equal parts. A silence that should serve as a cry of despair to the stagnant and cowardly international community.
Sooleuy, Min Mon, Nwel, Than Theik, Semnye, Yaowla, Thung Myo … All silenced by the horror of the bullets, the oppression and the blood. And I'm sure they're still there. They are still alive, without kneeling and fighting for a freedom that, after only savoring it for a few years, they no longer want to leave behind..
Now every night I dream that I travel to Myanmar and see them again. Happy. smileys Free in a beautiful and generous country . A country where mockingjays fly into the hot tropical sun, reminding everyone that there are no longer any cages to contain them.
Author's note: all the people and testimonies cited in this article are real, but the names have been changed to avoid possible reprisals or problems for the protagonists.
Protest in front of the White House