Former Burmese political prisoner and current democracy activist Bo Kyi spoke to a classroom of about 50 Fletcher School students on Wednesday evening at an event sponsored by the Fletcher School and PANGEA.
Kyi, the Joint-Secretary of the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners in Burma, was introduced by Susan Banke, a Ph.D. student studying refugees and migration, who gave the audience a brief history of Burma and showed slides of Burmese refugees in Thailand.
The southeast Asian nation, one of the poorest in the world (in 2000 its health systems were ranked 190th of 190 countries by the World Health Organization), gained its independence from Britain in 1948, but it has been ruled by a military junta since a coup in 1962. Although the government officially renamed the country Myanmar in 1989, the move has met with resistance among some scholars and many Western nations, including the United States.
The speakers described how, though the country continues to hold democratic elections, the victors often end up imprisoned or killed by the military regime, as in the case of 1991 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who is currently behind bars.
Before handing the floor over to Kyi, Banke painted a picture of Burma as a country with three million refugees, heavy involvement in the drug trade (in 2000 the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime listed its opium production as the second highest in the world) and a high level of poverty.
Kyi spoke of his time as a university student in the late 1980s at Rangoon University.
He said he became a student there to "help find out what I could do for the sake of my country," because the Burmese "have no freedom of assembly or press."
"Anyone can be arrested at anytime," he said.
As a student, Kyi started demonstrating in favor of democracy. He vividly recalled one demonstration on Mar. 14, 1988 that started out peacefully but ended with the group being shot at by soldiers, leaving several of Kyi's colleagues dead or severely injured.
"My colleague died in my lap. How could I ever forget that?" said Kyi, explaining how he was able withstand the interrogations and torture to which he would later be subjected.
In 1990, he was arrested at another demonstration and taken to a martial court, where he was asked one question: "Did you commit a crime?" Kyi replied that he hadn't, and was sentenced to three years behind bars.
In prison, he was taken into an interrogation room where he was deprived of all food and liquids while soldiers tried to get him to reveal the names and location of others who had demonstrated with him.
"When I could not stand up anymore, they pulled me up by my face. I told them 'I'm just a student, I did nothing wrong,' but they just kicked me and slapped my face," Kyi said.
He was then deprived of sleep for four days, during which he endured further torture until he could no longer stand up. "I was bitten by bugs and couldn't move," he said.
When he asked for a drink, they made him drink from the toilet in order to "degrade my dignity. I had no other way to survive," he said.
While in prison, Kyi learned English from a professor in the cell next door to his. When the professor would say a sentence, Kyi would write it on a slab of concrete and then erase it to prevent from being noticed by the guards.
When he was finally released, he started looking for a job. He considered working for a business, but changed his mind because "I would have had to stay away from politics. It's an unwritten law."
He recalled being asked to write an article for a newspaper, with the title "When I was in prison, I was well treated." Naturally, Kyi declined.
"[The military regime] threatens demonstrators psychologically. They wanted me to give up my beliefs, they wanted to kill me intellectually," he said.
The second time he was arrested, in 1992, Kyi was having lunch with his mother when soldiers stormed his house. He spent a total of seven years in prison before finally fleeing from Burma in 1999.
He concluded his speech by stressing the importance of imposing economic sanctions against the military regime. He also stressed the need for proper education, where students can learn without the fear of imprisonment.
After Kyi's speech, Amnesty International worker Simon Billenness - one of the coordinators of the event - urged students to send letters to their senators requesting the renewal of the Burma Freedom and Democracy Act. The act, which puts pressure on companies doing business in Burma to advocate for improved democracy, must be renewed on a yearly basis.
When the speakers were finished, participants were able to enjoy a traditional Burmese meal.
