Burmese Connection. Ashish Basu

from the ankle-deep mud on the roadside ditch and said, “You sure can, my son. I think it is the divine that sent you here. I have been struggling to move them. These young men are badly hurt. Both of them need immediate medical attention. Looks like they have lost a lot of blood already. They are very weak; they are in no position to even stand properly—forget about walking.

      “If you and your men can help me to transport them to my church, I will treat them with the medicines we have at the church and look after them till they get better.”

      Aung understood and sent one of his scouts to commandeer a hand drawn cart from the nearby village immediately. After that, the three of them brought the wounded soldiers to the back of the church for treatment. Aung and his scouts helped the Father set up makeshift beds in one corner, removed the soiled uniforms from the soldiers, and dressed their wounds.

      They erected a small partition and made a workspace for the Father. Both soldiers were in their late teens, like Aung had seen earlier during the war. The Father said they would heal quickly and recover from the injuries. The church had its own small supply of medicines—the Father used those on the soldiers. He then asked the two scouts to help him make lentil soup for the wounded soldiers.

      “They were probably starving for many days before they landed on that roadside ditch. When they wake up in a few hours, they will be hungry. Hot soup will give them the nutrition their bodies need, and that will help them recover quickly.” The Father smiled and commented while looking at the semi-conscious, emaciated faces of the two young soldiers. Aung Lung had not seen such acts of kindness toward fellow human beings in a very long time in Northern Burma.

      He had seen so much death, destruction, and suffering around him lately that he had forgotten that such things even existed. People all around were just struggling to survive that there has been no time for higher order values like kindness, Aung thought to himself. War changed everything.

      When they were about to leave, the Father came to Aung and said, “Who are you?”

      Aung told the Father about his Shan Chaofa family and then introduced his Kachin scouts, briefly mentioning that they assisted the Allied forces in the war effort. He also told the Father that the wounded were probably part of the Chinese forces that came to fight the Japanese along with the Galahad to provide some context.

      The Father said, “Who they were does not matter. Now, they are in God’s house; we try to save people here. We have to look after them—we have food and some medicine here. We will talk to them at length when they can, after they recover completely.” The Father looked at Aung and said, “Christianity came to the Kachin Hills much before your war, my son. We baptized and converted the first Kachins way back in 1882, and the Kachin church was founded during that year. Kachin literature was accepted by the British government way back in 1895. The Kachin Baptist Churches organization to which his church belonged was founded in 1890. We are familiar with these hills of Northern Burma, my son. We do God’s work and try to alleviate suffering. We do know what the war is doing to the people of these hills. It does not help, but people still go to war. Violence cannot solve any problem; it aggravates agony for the aggressors and the innocent.”

      The Father spoke both Shan and Kachin: he spoke with Aung in Shan and his scouts in Kachin. One of his scouts told the Father his uncle and aunt became Christians just before the war. After a while, the Father said to Aung, “You and your friends have God in your hearts. You are most welcome to stay in the shed in the rear of the church if you like. You do not have to pay rent to the church, but the place might need a bit of fixing all around. You can easily get that done with your boys.” Aung was quite surprised by the generosity of the Father.

      He accepted the offer and also told the Father to let him know if they could help the church in any other way. In two weeks, he and his two scouts converted that shed meant for farm tools into a functional home for themselves. They started liking it a lot. Gradually, Aung got to know the Father well. On some evenings, after his day’s work was done, the Father would talk to Aung about the Kachin Baptist Convention and its work. From him, Aung came to know how American Reverend George J. Geis, a Baptist minister and anthropologist, came to Northeastern Burma in the 1890s and started promoting Christianity amongst the local Kachins and Shans. Most of the Kachins and Lisu were animists at that time. He established missions throughout Kachin and Shan States. He traveled extensively to preach and also wrote about his experience. Since then, more and more Kachins came to the church and showed greater interest in the universal message of the gospel.

      The Reverend tried his best to understand the hill tribes. Hundreds from the distant north came down to Myitkyina on bamboo rafts for the first time to hear the story of Jesus. The Reverend Geis frequently reported on his travels in the hills. He talked about his growing friendship with the local people, the opening of the first location in the mountains, and the substantial site that the government had granted. Kachins responded to the overtures by the Reverend with a lot of respect. Aung was amazed by the scale of the effort. He had no idea that the church had done so much for the tribes in such a short time. Most members of his scouts team sheltered around the Myitkyina Airport road; that place was getting crowded for the large scouts team.

      Aung knew that the support they had from the British and Americans would dry up soon after the war was over. Aung was hoping that the tribes would have a chance to influence independent Burma, but he was not sure. The Burmar and Mon folks who were Japanese leaning were already switching sides to the Allies. They were better positioned to control Burma’s national agenda, and they knew it. Aung and his scouts had no steady job or source of income, so he started planning some vocational training for his scouts. They were also helping the church in running a school for the Kachins and a field hospital on Sundays. Food and supplies were scarce, and abject poverty was everywhere, but the optimism for the future of their homeland kept them happy and motivated. Everyone was thinking that the difficult times would pass, and all ethnic minorities would have a better future in independent Burma. They had high hopes because in independent Burma, the Burmese would make decisions about their peace and well-being.

      Reality turned out to be quite different. Aung was ecstatic when Burma became independent. But his euphoria did not last long. During the first few years after independence, insurgencies continued unabated—sometimes led by the Red Flag Communists or the White Flag or led by army rebels calling themselves the Revolutionary Burma Army. Remote areas of Northern Burma were controlled by Kuomingtang (KMT) forces after Mao’s victory in mainland China. Burma accepted foreign assistance in rebuilding the country in these early years, but continued American support for the Chinese Nationalist military presence in Burma continued to be a problem.

      Burma refused to participate in the SEATO, or Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, and did not support the Bandung Conference of 1955. Burma generally tried its best to be neutral in world affairs. It was one of the first countries in the world to recognize Israel and Mao’s People’s Republic of China. By 1958, the country was beginning to recover. Aung and his scouts started getting odd jobs in local security—protection of government facilities. Economic activities were picking up slowly. However, politically, Burma was breaking apart in its seams. The political situation became very unstable, when U Nu survived a no-confidence vote in parliament only with the support of the National United Front. The National United Front had communists among them, so they were not liked by everyone—many saw them as Chinese plants. Army hardliners saw this as an opportunity, and then Army Chief of Staff General Ne Win was “invited,” or he “invited himself,” to take over the country. It was a matter of semantics.

      By this time, Aung joined the Shan Federal Movement because he thought that was best way to help the Shan cause. He visited Rangoon dozens of times, met with the leaders, and thought he could agree with their vision of autonomy, peace, and prosperity for the Shan people. It was becoming clearer to Aung that the Shan needed to be part of the national platform in Rangoon. The Shan were not the ethnic majority in independent Burma, so isolation in the hills of Northern Burma was not a practical option. Having seen armed struggle from close quarters, Aung knew its limitations. He was doing his very best to convince his leadership to focus on education, health care, and development of the Shan.

      He told them, “If those issues are addressed, many other things will automatically