The country wife
The Chronicle-Telegram Elyria, Ohio
July 29, 2001
by Pat Leimbach
For more than 10 years now my friends Ken and Visakha Kawasaki have been sending me bulletins concerning the plight of the Burmese refugees encamped in the jungles of Thailand along the Burmese border, forced from their homeland by the inhumane dictatorship of Ne Win. This week, finally they brought to visit us 5 of those refugees, Dr Kyaw Thet Oo and his family, whom they have succeeded in bringing to the U.S. for political asylum.
Dr. Oo had just completed his medical internship in 1988 when the massive non-violent movement for a free Burma was overthrown in a violent military coup. The military fired on the pro-democracy crowd who gathered, and thousands were killed. Many survivors, of whom Dr. Oo was one, fled to the jungles. (Their leader, a pretty young woman named Aung San Suu Kyi has been under house arrest off and on in Rangoon ever since. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her faithfulness to her cause for justice.)
There on the borders, at first in the Burmese jungle, later across the river in Thailand the doctor set up his medical clinics making do with what little was available. The refugees received a modicum of aid from non governmental organizations like Doctors Without Borders, but increasingly through his 10 years in refugee camps Dr. Oo's help came from my friends Ken and Visakha and their Burmese Relief Center. They collected medicines,equipment, hygienic supplies, money, and anything else they could use from Japan (where they then lived), the U.S., and elsewhere.
As the only physician for thousands of people in the area, he did everything surgeries, fractures, many amputations, tropical diseases, baby deliveries, etc.
"Five times I moved my hospital," he told me. "It would be shelled or burned or moved and I had to start over." The borderlands were often shelled upon and land mines were everywhere so wounds were typical of a war zone. I recall a photo that Ken had taken in which the Dr. was using a fork for a retractor in an operation.
It was in the camp that he met and married a pretty, young teacher named Zune May. Her father had been an influential ethnic leader in Burma and was tortured to death in a Burmese prison following the military coup.
Toward the end of the nineties the Thai government grew more and more aggressive in its efforts to rid its jungles of the Burmese refugees. Camp after camp was burned, and life became more and more tenuous for Dr. Oo and his family. Returning to Burma meant certain imprisonment for both of them, and now they had 3 children, 2 of their own and an abandoned child they had reared.
Ken and Visakha, through long and complex negotiation and guarantees of support have succeeded in resettling about 15 people from Dr. Oo's comrades in Flint, Michigan, buying them homes, finding them work, and language training. Dr. Oo devotes his time to his medical studies, hoping to catch up on the 20 years of medical advancement he has missed. He says his med school text books were already out of date when he studied in the eighties.
He was busy studying even as my house guest and hopes to pass qualifying exams to practice medicine and support himself within the year. He made it clear to me that he had no designs on a permanent practice. "America has plenty of doctors, but my people need well-trained doctors." His conversation was full of statements beginning, "When we return to Burma..." Having lived on hope for 13 years, hope becomes a way of life.
As long as Aung San Suu Kyi maintains her vigil there under house arrest instead of fleeing to freedom in some other country, these people will continue to hope.