The Lady and the Peacock (22 page)

That difficult memory brought her round inevitably to the subject she has veered away from in every interview since, and which has long provided fuel of various sorts to her enemies: her commitment to her own family, in particular to her sons Alex and Kim. “Obviously you have to put the family second,” she said. “But the kids are at an important age. Really families need to be together all the time.” She paused, then said, “. . . My mother was very ill,” and here a tear ran down her cheek, “it was important to be here with her.”

It was the conundrum in which she was caught. Her bond to her mother had brought her running across the world to nurse her. But now a family bond which was even more commanding—the care and nurture she owed her sons, both at crucial, tender ages—had been cast off—in favor of what?

As Ma Thanegi's diaries reveal, Suu did harbor doubts in those early days—though if she shared with her friend the agony she felt in being separated from her family, Ma Thanegi, writing the diary for Michael's consumption, was tactful enough to keep it to herself. But the only way to deal with doubt, if you did not intend to surrender to it, was to live your new commitment to the full, holding nothing back at all. The most terrifying test was yet to come.

*

The day after Suu's rare confession that she felt tired they were off again, once more to the Irrawaddy Delta, which drew them as a flame draws a moth throughout the early months of 1989. Here, in the sodden hinterland of the capital, the expectant crowds were huge—but matched by a fierceness of repression seen nowhere else in the country.

Ma Thanegi wrote in her diary,

March 24, left Rangoon 6
AM
by boat . . . At Htan Manaing village had to eat lunch in five minutes because someone said he had already told the abbot of the monastery that we were coming and there was no time to waste. Then on to Wa Balauk Thauk village in small boats, along streams winding through swamp-like jungle country, very much like the Vietcong country we have seen in movies. Ma Ma said how Kim would love it.

Reached Kim Yang Gaung in evening but no one came out of their houses. The whole place deserted, people peeping from deep inside darkened huts, only a few dogs going about their business. Learned that a local man who was democratic-minded was shot dead through forehead by army sergeant or corporal one week ago.

From there a long cart ride to Let Khote Kon. Easier to have gone on by boat but one of the NLD organizers felt we should visit that place and he was right. Ma Ma made speech in compound of a dainty little old lady named Ma Yin Nu. A very big crowd. I gave Ma Yin Nu a photo of Ma Ma . . .

Equally long cart ride back to boat, though it felt longer. Soon it became very dark. We never saw such large stars. As usual I pestered Ma Ma, telling her the names of my favorites. Halfway along our cart met a bunch of armed soldiers, five or six, who rudely called out to us, asking who we were, where we were going etc. There were about six carts in our caravan, our boys were traveling behind us but immediately they brought their cart up and parked it between us and the soldiers . . .

Back on boat at 8:30
PM
and found out that we couldn't leave because it was overloaded with people—NLD people from the villages we had visited had come along for the ride. Damn. And the tide was going out. Our luggage in Kunchangon where we thought we would stay the night. We slept on moored boat, one corner partitioned off with two mosquito nets where Ma Ma and I curled up unwashed.

March 25: boat left very early with the tide. We arrived in Kunchangon at 4:30, staggered sleepily and dirtily into village, rested a bit then bath and breakfast and on to Ingapu by car.

Back in January when they were in this area the local army commander, Brigadier Myint Aung, had done everything in his power to stop their party from meeting the local people: Suu had told Michael she was having a “battle royal” with him. Now they were on the opposite bank to his headquarters, and none of them had forgotten the feud.

“On the way out to the Irrawaddy river we passed Dedaye on the other side of the bank,” Ma Thanegi wrote, “and since it is in Irrawaddy division we talked wistfully about how nice it would be to drop in unexpectedly and annoy Myint Aung, the very tough guy who hates NLD. Toyed with the idea of placing large raft in middle of the river, the boundary line between Rangoon and Irrawaddy divisions, and holding a rally there, people would come in boats and if Myint Aung appeared would slide over to the Rangoon side.

An hour after passing Dedaye, a boat with two NLD men caught up with us, both hopping mad that we passed close to Dedaye without stopping because they'd been told that we would stop. Utter bewilderment and confusion. Found out they had been assured last night that we would stop and nobody told us anything. They were actually jumping up and down in fury. So back we went to Dedaye where Ma Ma had to go on land to make a speech to hundreds waiting patiently.

They had trespassed on Myint Aung's patch after all, without even planning to. “We were delayed by two hours, but we enjoyed that unexpected fulfillment of our wishes. Back on boat we talked about how mad Myint Aung would be.” As they puttered back to Rangoon's Pansodan Jetty and home, they laughed at the brigadier and his rages. Less than a fortnight later the joke would backfire on them, with nearly fatal consequences.

*

The harshest season of the year was upon them: The mildness of Burma's brief winter was only a memory, the relief of the monsoon still a month
or more away. The water festival of
Thingyan
, the Burmese New Year, the time when everyone soaks everyone else and all bonds of manners and hierarchy are briefly relaxed, was still weeks ahead; beyond that, a month or more of fierce heat awaited them—and, for Suu and her colleagues, weeks of frantic traveling and organizing.
⁵

Back at home, Ma Thanegi squeezed the chores of everyday life into a few quiet hours but Suu hardly stopped to draw breath:

March 26: I stayed home, did laundry etc, firmly requesting Ma Ma to rest as I left. Not having much faith in her I called in during the afternoon to find out she was holding a press conference which had actually been scheduled for the next day. I rushed over but it was a wonderful show . . .

March 29: Ma Ma upstairs for hours. I thought she was resting but she was cleaning out bedroom and came down at intervals with loads of papers, photos, cards etc and looking apologetic.

More party members were being arrested: The persecution of democratic activists was already growing familiar. And, as Ma Thanegi noted, word of the growing discord between students and their elders inside the party had reached the outside world.

“April 3: In evening met with families of NLD members arrested in Mon state . . . Ma Ma saw
Asiaweek
article about split between students and NLD . . . Someone denied having sent out an open letter about the split . . .”

The next day Suu, Ma Thanegi and their convoy were on the road again, back to the Irrawaddy Delta for the fourth time since January—heading for the encounter which would imprint forever an image of almost unbelievable courage on Suu's name.

“April 4: left home at 5:30 and had to wait for an hour at Insein jetty. We took two cars, Tiger's car and a green pickup. Arrived at Meizali village, army said we could not stay there.” They set off again, stopping by the roadside to drink sugar-cane juice while they waited for the green pickup, which had fallen behind, to catch up.

Leaving Rangoon they had driven almost due west; at Meizali they joined a river which they now followed as far as the next village, Hsar Malauk: “A long village,” Ma Thanegi recalled, her descriptive powers failing her for once, with “a nice loo.” “Ma Ma stood on a table at the front door of the NLD office,” she added, “to address public.”

But trouble was brewing again.

Near end of her speech two cars arrived and parked on either side of the crowd, and started blaring on about decree law 2/88 etcetera [the martial law provision banning public assemblies, of which Suu and her party were flagrantly in breach everywhere they went] and making such a racket. Ma Ma talked through this and the crowd which had until that point listened in silence started clapping and cheering and whistling. Then one car after another in turn repeated the announcements. We all made a show of listening carefully, Ma Ma included, turning our heads to each car in turn, then when one of them was a bit delayed Ma Ma called out “Aren't you going to start?”—at which they gave up and went away.

Ma Ma said goodbye to crowd and we went home to lunch. A lot of reserve firefighters and people's voluntary forces standing around but looking sympathetic. Lovely lunch of nice seafood—sellers in market had cut prices to get rid of their wares faster so they could listen to the speech. Ma Ma able to rest in the afternoon, boys had football match on the beach in evening. Lovely dinner also, fish, fish.

Next day they left Hsar Malauk and drove north alongside a waterway so broad you could barely see the far side, to the township of Danubyu, where in 1824, during the First Burma War, the Burmese Army had lost a critical battle to the British. The authorities here, under Suu's old enemy Brigadier Myint Aung, had decided to make things difficult for them. As at the village of Kim Yang Gaung, which they had visited on March 24th, the army had ordered the population at gunpoint to stay indoors—though not all obeyed. And at the entrance to the town Suu's convoy was stopped and told they could not drive through the town's main street but must take a different, circuitous route to reach the party's office.

“April 5,” Ma Thanegi wrote, “arrived in Danubyu and found there were certain roads which we were not allowed to pass through. They had given us a longer alternative route.” The two sides parlayed tensely over the arbitrary restriction, until Suu discovered the perfect loophole, an excellent legalistic reason why they could not obey: The new route “unfortunately meant we had to go the wrong way down a one-way street. Ma Ma firmly said we must not break traffic rules, so joyfully Tiger turned into the forbidden road leading to the market past cheering crowds and then to NLD office. Local SLORC secretary followed and parked a little way off, looking furious.” Win Thein, one of the student bodyguards,
remembered seeing scores of soldiers lined up in front of the party office, guns at the ready.

The officer in charge of the troops, Captain Myint U, acting under the orders of Myint Aung, told Suu that Danubyu was under martial law and that she was therefore forbidden to address the public. Suu was obliged to compromise. “Ma Ma made a speech inside NLD office, then we all left the office to walk to a jetty nearby, intending to take a boat to some of the outlying villages.” With the local supporters who had joined them, Win Thein remembers there being some eighty people in the group—but under the dire regime of Brigadier Myint Aung, even walking in a group was a violation of martial law. “As we walked along, SLORC followed in a car warning us not to walk in a procession,” Ma Thanegi wrote in her diary. “Three warnings were given to the effect that if we did not break up they would shoot to kill.”

It was the first time they had been subject to such a direct threat to their lives.

“Order was given to load and aim. Arms loudly loaded by soldiers standing near officers as we passed and we looked calmly at them and walked on. Ma Ma told one soldier, ‘Hey, they are telling you to load, aren't you going to, soldier?' They raised their rifles on first warning but after that we were at jetty and already on boats.”

They were on the water, and safe. “Stopped at villages, glorious lunch which I sat through with gritted teeth while party supporters recited two poems. With the exception of very few I would like to hit poets who are writing poetry, usually very bad, about doing this and doing that in the movement and reading them aloud . . .”

The military presence did not stop at the town limit. “Armed soldiers all along the way,” Ma Thanegi wrote. “Two majors followed in their own boat and one soldier on it grinned and nodded several times when we waved at him.”

Despite all the intimidation they had experienced in Danubyu, they planned to return to the town in the evening and spend the night. Not everyone in the party thought this was a good idea: Win Thein says that he was among the voices urging Suu to pass the town by and land further downriver; their cars could drive down from Danubyu and pick them up there. But Suu insisted on sticking to the original program.

Sure enough, the army was there on their return to the town, in the form of a single guard, forbidding them to disembark. “Came back to Danubyu at 6 pm,” Ma Thanegi wrote, “when armed and lone soldier tried to stop us from landing. But we said no we are landing. You mustn't come on land, he said, yes we will we said. And we did.”

They set off through the almost deserted streets to walk back to the NLD office for dinner. But even though the market was long closed and the townspeople were indoors, the army was still determined to impede their progress. “On the way we were told by one military policeman that the road in front of market was not allowed to us.” The order seemed ridiculous to Suu—just another attempt to bully and humiliate them. “Market closed by that time and streets almost deserted. Route given quite a bit longer . . .” Again Suu flatly ignored the army's command. “Ma Ma said ‘We'll take shorter one.' MP shouting angrily after us as we passed him.”

By now the sense of danger was acute. “I quickened pace to get ahead of Ma Ma and boys . . . I managed to get right out in front beside Bo Lwin, our very tall, very dark and very nice cameraman and Win Thein, our hot-tempered bodyguard who was carrying the flag.” Meanwhile an army jeep roared up and screeched to a halt at the end of the road down which they were walking.

I kept one eye on Win Thein and one on Captain Myint U, who had halted his jeep at the top of the road. Six or seven soldiers jumped down from the jeep and took positions, three or four kneeling, three standing. The kneeling chaps pointing guns somewhat low, at our midriffs, standing ones guns pointed upwards. Someone on jeep turned on a song about army not breaking up etcetera—we had heard the same song played from afar this morning as Ma Ma spoke at Danubyu's NLD office.