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My prison university student life
As a young boy who had to grow up for my whole life under the Burmese
Socialist Programme Party (BSPP), which pulled Burma down to the
lowest developed country. I have to confess to everybody that I
knew nothing about democracy and democracy education. What I knew
was that I must be a medical doctor or an engineer in order to have
a good salary and opportunities for my family. What's more, I must
know whom was the most important person who would help me obtain
a job with a government office.
Before the 1988 popular uprising, all parents wanted their lobed
ones to be doctors or engineer, and all students, even though they
were interested in other subjects, wanted the same. Why?
At that time, and now also, only medicine and engineering could
guarantee a job for one's life.
Under the BSPP, every high school student studying science had
to learn about physics and chemistry at ninth grade. They had to
be familiar with Newton and Einstein. Although they were no laboratories.
There was no practical room to show that hydrogen plus oxygen makes
water (H2+02=H20) and so on.
For me at that time, I wanted to be a great physicist like Einstein.
Although most of the students, including me, wanted to know more
about Newton and Einstein than was in the curriculum, another problem
was that there was no school library. Surprisingly, our teachers
who taught physics and chemistry could not explain more than the
curriculum. Finally, some students who were very eager to know about
this tried to go and see some older people who had read a lot. However
the big problem was that our parents and teachers warned us not
to meet with these people, because according to them (our parents
and teachers), they were old politicians-most of them in this way
we learned about physics and chemistry without practical lessons.
Worse, we were taught in Burmese for all subjects. All we knew about
Time and Newsweek magazines was that they were useful for covering
our textbooks and writing books. We used to compete with each other
for whose cover was better. Because of the lack of public libraries
and of general knowledge, we didn't know the value of books and
magazines. A few families would push their loved ones to read books
and magazines not concerned with the school curriculum in order
to know general knowledge. Most of the students, however, used to
try to read only love stories and love novels written in Burmese
in order to write and speak to their sweethearts.
When I was in tenth grade (the last standard of high school), my
relatives warned me to study hard so I could attend the medical
institute or Rangoon Institute of Technology. My parents also warned
me that if my examination marks were too low to attend those institutions,
they would not send me to another university or college. At that
time (and still now), all graduates except those from medical and
engineering institutes could not get government jobs unless they
had a good relationship with government officer.
Whatever the students' interests were, they had to try only to
attend medical and engineering institutes for a guaranteed future
job. Tenth grade examination marks would determine a student's future
life. If a student did not do well in the examination, there were
no other opportunities in the future to try again. Nobody could
choose the subjects they wanted to study. For example, although
a student may want to be an electronic engineer, if he didn't get
sufficiently high examination marks in the tenth grade he could
not attend a engineering institute. He would never be an engineer
for his whole life as long as he lived in Burma. Because the entry
qualifications are so rigid, students cannot pursue their interests.
A student interested in history may be required to study mathematics,
While a student who wants to study mathematics may have to study
history.
Although I reached the Rangoon Institute of Technology (RIT) after
passing tenth grade, I knew nothing about engineering. In reality,
I was interested only in physics but I dared not study it because
there was no guarantee for my future and because of my parents'
refusal to support me studying physics. On the surface, there were
many engineering textbooks and reference books in English rather
than Burmese at the RIT library. Every one overestimated those students
attending the Medical Institute and RIT. In fact, most of those
students could not study themselves because they had poor English.
At last, most of those who could afford it had to attend private
tuition given by the same teachers who were teaching the RIT Engineering
course. During the university classes the teachers would not explain
things clearly and would speak softly. Many students did not attend
these classes. The private tuition was much more crowded, and the
teachers would give clear explanations using microphones. To pass
the course it was virtually essential to attend the private tuition,
but not the official classes. This did not happen just at RIT but
at all universities and high schools. The teachers needed to do
this to supplement their salaries, which were inadequate, as students
paid to attend the private tuition. I did not have enough money
to attend the tuition, but I was still able to attend RIT. Other
students could not afford even to pay the university, hostel and
other fees and had to leave RIT.
Then, the 1988 popular uprising occurred in Burma. All students
actively joined the uprising that could change everyone's situation
in Burma. The then ruling party realized that it must change its
strategy to hold power. The military was convinced that they must
become involved in the situation in order to protect the ruling
party leaders who had helped them get their high positions in the
military. For old politicians, it was a great chance to change the
country from a dictatorship to a democracy. The students understood
that they must read books and study in English as much as they could.
From my experience in the uprising, some students chose me to explain
to one foreign reporter about our movement. They thought I could
explain to him because I was an RIT student and older than them.
In reality, I could not explain to the reporter in English. I felt
too shy. Another experience was that although one officer from an
embassy in Rangoon asked me about our situation I could not tell
him in detail what I wanted to. Worse, he showed me an article written
about Martin Luther King and asked my opinion, but I was too poor
in English to understand to article. After that I realized I would
have to study English very hard.
After the bloody military coup in September 1988, I tried to study
English very hard while I was involved in politics. I still remember
that at that time I emphasized only politics and studying English.
While my study was progressing fast, I was arrested by the military
intelligence service in November 1990 and given seven years imprisonment.
At that time I felt so sad about my life, not because of my imprisonment
but because of having to stop my study. As everybody knows, there
are no rights for political prisoners, whose situation is worse
than criminals. Since my arrival in a small and dirty cell in Insein
Special jail, I had been thinking how I could study English as much
as possible. For the first six months I could do nothing under the
tight security of the warders. At that time I had to live together
with another four political prisoners, including one MP from the
NLD. I learned some vocabulary from the MP, who patiently explained
words and usage as much as he could. At night he taught us to speak
in English. We had nothing to write with or make notes; we just
tried to remember it.
After six months, we had no teacher to teach us because the MP
was transferred to another prison. I was also transferred to another
cell along with two political prisoners. At that time, we discovered
a way to write on plastic bags with a small sharp stick broken off
from our sleeping mats. We collected the plastic bags when our families
sent us food. Plastic bags were the only way that food was allowed
to be sent to us, because they could be easily checked. We would
keep the plastic bags and clean them when we washed ourselves. We
would try to dry the plastic bags on our sarongs so that we could
scratch words onto them later with the sticks. We had to hide the
plastic bags from the prison authorities because they would have
confiscated them, so we hid them under our sleeping mats, in our
clothing or in our mouths. By writing on the plastic bags we could
study English and also communicate with other prisoners when the
bags were passed to them. The plastic bags were a means of taking
notes, because we would be beaten if we wrote on the walls. In 1994
two prisoners, San Myaing and Aung Myo kyaw wrote English vocabulary
on the walls with broken bricks. They were beaten and put into solitary
confinement for two weeks, and then transferred to another prison
far from Rangoon.
We also knew how to approach warders who sympathized with us. Most
of the low ranking warders had applied for their jobs because they
needed to survive. Previously, all political prisoners had tried
to demand the authorities to allow us to read and study in prison,
but had never succeeded. All were brutally beaten and put into solitary
confinement. So we had to choose another way. Finally we decided
to choose a warder who sympathized with us and needed some money
for his family's survival. Before doing so, we had to discuss with
each other for many hours in our cell whether using the warder was
fair or not. If the warder were caught bringing us study materials
he would be sentenced to seven years imprisonment. We also discussed
whether our method would encourage corruption.
Finally, we discussed with the warder about how he could help our
strong desire to study English. He said, "I understand your
wish to study, as students. If someone knows or finds out that I
have helped to smuggle any books into prison for you, I will be
not only be fired from my prisoners. But I will try my best to smuggle
in any paper written in English. Is that OK?"
I said hopefully, "At the moment we can not pay you money
because, as you know, we have on right to have money in here. We
have nothing. But your kind help is much appreciated and will be
recorded in our history. We will never forget it."
The next day, he came to the front of the cell and looked around.
Then, he approached nearer the cell and took a piece of folded paper
out of his underpants and threw it into our cell. He went away telling
us to destroy it after reading it.
We were very anxious to read it and I could not explain how happy
I felt. I pretended to be going to the toilet at the corner of the
cell and unfolded it. I still remember that it was three pages from
an old English novel. When I carefully checked, I saw that it was
from the book "Exodus." The problem was that we did not
have a dictionary and the pages were not the beginning or the end
of the story. There was a lot of new vocabulary for us but we tried
to understand it as much as we could. The next day the warder requested
us to give a promise that if some officer found it in the cell we
would never say who smuggled it in. We firmly gave the promise he
wanted.
At that time an MP from one of the ethnic groups was put into the
next cell and he was good at English. When no warder was around,
we tried to softly ask him about some words we didn't understand.
At the same time we had to be careful about security because in
prison the authorities always carried out special searches of the
cells two times a week. While we were studying, we worried about
the searches. Sometimes their searches took place at midnight but
usually they were in the early morning and evening. So we had to
be alert the whole day. I took responsibility for destroying the
paper by eating it or explaining to the authorities if I did not
have enough time to destroy it. Over the years I do not remember
how many times I had to swallow paper and how many pages were in
my stomach. (One month after I arrived in Thailand, I was hospitalized
and had an operation on my appendix in Chiang Mai hospital. I don't
know if it was concerned with the pages in my stomach. Here I'd
like to give my great thanks to "Burma Information Group,"
Christina (US), Lyndel and Brenda (Inmages Asia), and Leslie B.Kean
(US) who helped me morally and financially during my time in hospital).
After two years in prison, we had improved our study system and
organized some warders who would help us. An understanding was reached
between us and the warders who would help us. If a warder was found
by the officers with any papers, he would not say who they were
for. If we were found with any papers we would not say who had brought
them.
According to the prison rules, our families had the right to send
us milk powder made in China to use in case we were sick. At that
time one packet of milk powder cost nearly 200 Kyats, a price most
of our families could not afford. We requested our families to bring
it every time they visited us, which was once every two weeks. As
we understood the situation of our families, we asked them to substitute
milk powder for some of the food they were giving us. Why did we
need milk powder so badly?
In prison, the easiest way to buy and sell things was milk powder,
sugar and coffee powder. As political prisoners, we did not have
the right to have boiling water, so the coffee powder and milk powder
were useless to us. However, there were many prisoners who had rights
and privileges. They could pay bribe money to the authorities, so
they could drink coffee and tea, read books and even inject drugs.
They always needed to buy it from outside. The warders were not
supposed to leave the prison while they were on duty, so it was
difficult for them to obtain milk powder. After they discovered
that we also needed to sell it, warders always bought it from us
without going out. I still don't know if we did the right thing
or not. We were supporting criminals and allowing privileged prisoners
to live better than other prisoners. But we had to do it for our
future. The junta thought that putting us in prison would help to
deafen our ears, to blind our eyes, to kill our knowledge. We needed
to show the junta that its wish would never be fulfilled. Although
it wanted prison to be hell for us, we tried to make prison our
university.
From our experiences, we realize that we had to have a good dictionary
to know about words exactly, and Times and Newsweek magazines to
catch up with the world. The problem was that any good dictionary,
even a pocket dictionary, was too big to smuggle in and difficult
to store and destroy. Outside, a pocket dictionary cost nearly 300
Kyats and Times and Newsweek magazines cost nearly 150 Kyats each.
Plus we needed to pay the warders some money for travel expenses
and pocket money. The final cost for a pocket dictionary would be
nearly 500 Kyats, and for the magazines 300 Kyats. There fore we
organized a secret committee to collect sugar, snacks and milk powder.
Although some were not interested in studying they donated towards
it as much as they could. Here also, I'd like to express my great
thanks and appreciation to Ko Phone Mying Tun (now living in Japan)
who actively donated for and encouraged others' study.
After successfully collecting, we had to think about how to bring
in and keep the dictionary. Firstly, we advised the warders to tear
pagers from the dictionary sequentially and to smuggle them in little
by little. Then we distributed them to other cells in turn, so that
each cell had three or four days to study the pages, and would then
exchange them for pages from another cell. The committee had to
plan the distribution and advised all cells that if something went
wrong, they should not say anything about the committee and should
solve the problem themselves without hurting anybody else-and especially
without stopping the system. Another problem was that some prisoners
wanted to read articles in Time or News week after they had been
translated into Burmese in order to know what was happening in the
world. It meant that we needed paper and a pen or pencil.
After three years in prison, I could translate more than before.
I took responsibility for it and tried to distribute the translations
to those who wanted to read in Burmese. Before we could try to smuggle
pen and paper into prison, we had to collect used plastic in order
to write articles in Burmese. We wrote on the bags with a sharp
mat stick. We had to do all this under great pressure. We were always
worried about security. On one hand we were trying to study, on
the another we were trying to prepare to face the possible dangers.
If we were found with a pen or pencil or any paper, we would be
punished by being put into solitary confinement with iron shackles
for at least 45 days-including the cancellation of our family's
prison visits. In 1992 this happened to two prisoners -Thet Tun
and Bo Bo (ABFSU)-when pencils were found in their cells. Thet Tun's
legs were crippled, and under the prison rules this should have
exempted him from having to wear shackles, but the authorities insisted
that he still wear them.
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