July 9, 2006

I called Myo Myint as arranged at 8:30 am from in front of the UNHCR office. He answered and said that he’d send someone to get me. I don’t know if this was for security for him or convenience for me. I noticed a man having trouble getting his bike across the traffic and attributed it to the beach shoes he was wearing. He turned out to be one of my escorts, and as we rode our bikes together I realized that it wasn’t a beach shoe but the bottom of his prosthetic that I’d spotted. I was escorted to a room in a compound and eventually Myo Myint, former political prisoner entered. He used crutches, since he has no right leg, a right arm that ends just below the elbow, and one or two fingers on his left hand.

I’d been asked to “help him” by one of our recent supporters, but he launched into how he could help me. He shared his history as political prisoner for 14 years in Burma. He told me of his suicide attempt a month ago, the scars on his neck still healing. He also shared his plans to join his siblings in Indiana and his efforts with the UNHCR to accomplish this. We agreed that his recent crisis was over and that he would connect with me when he reached the US and we would reassess his situation and respond accordingly.

He told me that I should talk to his friend, Khun Saing, a Burmese doctor who’d been imprisoned by the regime and had just come to Thailand. He called Khun Saing and I followed the man who’d originally met me down a dirt road on our bicycles, he kicking at the chain to keep it on, and both of us dodging the many cows who were ambling down the path.
Khun Saing is a tall, very thin man who seems about 50. He is staying at the office and museum of the Association of Political Prisoners, but because he has no legal status in Thailand and no documentation, he rarely leaves the compound. He very graciously described his experience, being arrested three times for a total of 13 years. He was kept on death row at one point, but he didn’t specifically say that he’d been sentenced to death. He described being moved from the infamous Insein prison after he and a friend organized a strike inside. I believe that is the friend who was then housed with insane inmates and eventually attacked from behind by one of them and killed. He expressed guilt at not having seen his father before the older man died, too sick at the time to make the trip to the prison where Khun Saing was then confined. He also talked of his sorrow and guilt at having left his colleagues behind in Burma to continue the struggle while he left for Thailand. He also described his current state of depression. I was able to conversationally respond to these issues, citing the responsibility of the dictatorship for his lack of final contact with his father, the understandable emotion of “survivor guilt”. I wondered if his depressive symptoms were actually manifestations of grief, and that resonated with him. He showed me around the one room museum and demonstrated some of the techniques the were used on him and other prisoners. He was enthusiastic about my description of EMDR and we made plans to have him attend one of the trainings in November. I told him I’d call him during the week.

A friend of his is attempting to get him documentation in Bangkok. I told him that Danielle and I would stay in touch with him and told him that if his friend is unsuccessful, BBP would step in and get him what he needs. He was smiling as I left, I think buoyed by the idea of learning something that he can use to help his colleagues. When I stated that he’d left one form of confinement for another, he laughed me off, saying that this was not a four by six foot cell.
I checked in with him two days later and he told me that a doctor and former prisoner friend of his had just arrived. He said that his friend was not as well off mentally as he was , but that he’d told him of the EMDR training and his friend was enthusiastic to take the training as well.