Humanities and Social Sciences

Media Studies Program

Student Showcase

The Agony of Exile: Burmese Pray for the Nightmare to End

By Joan Robinson
Email: joan@intrepidmedia.com.au

"I felt very anxious that I couldn't get an opportunity to say good-bye to my beloved parents. Whenever I think about that, I become emotional and I can't forgive myself." When John Pickko left his home in 1988, he did not know that he would never see or talk to his mother again.

He misses his family terribly but he cannot contact them. If he does, he puts their safety in danger. "What can I do. I can't ring home, it's too risky - so I don't." After John left his home town, the government separated his family. Both his parents worked in the public service - they were immediately posted to different locations. They never lived together again. "These are consequences of what I have done," said John. His mother died of cancer in 1993.

John fled his home and family on September 18, 1988. If he had stayed and was caught, he would have been tortured and then executed or jailed for 20 years. "I was very lucky that I didn't get caught," he said, but added a little later, that in some ways he wished he had been caught. Many of his friends were captured and tortured and killed.

He details, in a low emotionless voice, the usual methods of torture. He mentions three chairs, a kick in the back to start with, a plastic bag put on the prisoner's head, the use of electric shock and the placement of an electric probe in the prisoner's anus. He looks distant, somewhere else.

John's hometown is Loi Kaw, Kayah State - 1,000 kilometres from Rangoon, in Burma. Now he is a resident of Melbourne, unable to return home to see his family or friends. Over the last three years his nightmares have reduced a little. He always dreams of people chasing him, "you're always running, trying to escape and you wake up and think 'no' I'm in Australia ... Mentally it influences you, everything you do, it influences your life. It [the nightmares] change a lot your thinking, your mind."

In 1988 John was a University student in his final year of veterinary science. He was also a leader of the student democracy movement in Burma. The military have ruled the country since they seized power in a coup d'etat in 1962. He marched with thousands of other students and civilians in a pro-democracy demonstration on August 8, 1988, and witnessed the massacre of hundreds of people that followed. "I saw for myself the government's brutal treatment of its own people. I couldn't believe they were going to treat their people like enemies in a peaceful demonstration."

Troubled by what he had witnessed John, together with other students from Kayah State, organised a general strike for September 7. Students, former politicians, civilians and representatives from each of the State's six townships, marched through city streets yelling anti-government slogans and seized the township council and state council buildings. During this period the military tried to assassinate the student leaders. A number of attempts were made on John's life.

On September 18 the government imposed martial law. Realising the danger that all student activists were in, John and some friends went into hiding. That night many students were arrested. Every one of John's relatives' homes were raided that night at the same time. The Military Intelligence were looking for him. They interrogated, threatened and terrorised his family. John remembers the 18th day of September in 1988 well, "as this was my last chance to see my brothers, sisters and relatives. It changed my whole life and drew me away from my family and relatives."

John talked at length about that day and the days immediately following. He talked of how he had to hide his identity - pretending to be a villager; of how he and his friends hid and were smuggled from village to village. Eventually John escaped to the Thai border and lived in a makeshift jungle camp on the Burmese side of the border. There wasn't enough food, shelter or medicine.

The following year he was forced to move to the Thai side of the border after his camp was attacked and burned down during a Burmese military offensive.

Because of the high incidence of malaria, John set up a clinic and started treating people. "Sometimes I even had to operate on patients. Sometimes there were emergency cases which came from the front line of the war. I never imagined during veterinary training that I would be treating humans. It was much more difficult than I imagined at first." He also didn't imagine that he would be living on the border and treating people for 5 years. "We thought we would grab guns and would get victory quickly."

Now he lives in Australia and studies medical laboratory science at RMIT. He came to Australia on an Australian Government scholarship. He tries to explain the guilt he feels about being here; safe and studying. "You feel guilty, that you've abandoned your colleagues in your unconscious mind. But you try to adjust your strategy - what's better? Here you can have a greater effect. Being here, being educated is a good long term strategy. It is a difficult issue."

John grew up in a family that valued education highly. He talks proudly of his father, who was one of a handful in the Kayah State to be educated. His father speaks nine languages. John has heard that his father is not well. It is unlikely that John will ever see his father again. He looks away, picks up a book and shows me a story he had written about his grandfather. A story his father told him.

"My own grandfather, just over one hundred years ago, was in a village in Kayah State when the very first missionary came to that area. The people of that village thought he must be an animal. They had never before seen a white person with a beard. So they put him in a cage in the piggery, and some wanted to kill him because he looked dangerous. They even took off his boots, which they had also never seen before, and cooked and ate them.

"But my grandfather said to the villagers. 'No, he is a human being like us. Let him go.' After that, the missionary was freed ... When he was free, the missionary said to my grandfather: 'Because you saved my life, your family will be blessed for seven generations,' and he prayed over him."

This is John's story.

[This article was published in The Age, 20/11/98] Reprinted with permission from the author