Innocent but guilty villagers.

By Victor Khambil

The rain is pouring down with the lightning reinforcing it, as if coalition forces are bombing the terrorist hideouts in Tora Bora. The boisterous sound of a thunderbolt is shaking the earth as if another bomb is exploding. The sun is completely engulfed by the thick darkening fog. The rainy season is accompanying Mr. Monsoon from the south-west into the hilly region of Chinland and is trumpeting with a thundering voice to all the Chin people to announce that it is time to start their farming - from sowing the seeds to herding domestic animals into pens - while all the creeks and rivers are flooding down. Wives and daughters are busy with preparing rice, matches, scimitars, pick-axes, hoes, locally rolled cigarettes, local pump-guns, and rucksacks for the month long absences of their husbands and fathers who will head out to farm soon.

Pu Lai Mang turned to his youngest daughter and kissed her a couple of times before leaving his family for their paddy field. “Papa, bring many fish home when you come back," said his little daughter. Pu Lai Mang has been living with his wife Pi Tial Sung for forty years and the couple is blessed with seven children - four young daughters and three elder sons. The neighbours love Pu Lai Mang as if he is their father too. Pu Lai Mang is an illiterate but largely knowledgeable person in terms of rural society. He is strong, open-minded, undisguised and full of muscles even if he has reached 60.

A small creek on which Pu Lai Mang and the villagers have been depending upon for their survival for decades is swelling to the satisfaction of all, as it will provide them with enough water to plough and safeguard their sowing seeds throughout the rainy season. The rain is still dropping unstoppably when Pu Lai Mang reached his paddy-field. After praying in his little hut, he went out to walk around the paddy-field. Suddenly, he saw a group of people with full military fatigues on the other side of the creek. Three young men beckoned Pu Lai to come near them, speaking in Chin, Lai dialect, with a full accent. “Ka pu, zang fah te in na bawm kho lai maw?“. Uncle, could you please help us? Pu Lai Mang directly approached them as he was so sure that they are not enemies, but relatives, or his beloved Chin sons. “What can I help you with, sons?" asked Pu Lai Mang. “We are in trouble as one of our colleagues got very sick and we need your help," said a man from the group. “Go to the upper side of the river as there is a small wooden bridge which you can cross over to reach my hut," said Pu Lai. He went towards the bridge himself and waited for them. The group of four young men brought a boy who looked pale and weak. “We are the Chin National Army, my name is Pa Kung," said the man who seemed to be the group leader. Escorting them into his hut, Pu Lai first invited them to pray, saying “Let us pray, sons. God is with us, he will be fine." All the young men were nodding their heads together in front of Pu Lai who prayed loudly to God. After finishing the prayer, he asked, “By the way, what are you guys doing in the rain with this boy?" He was chiding the rest of the boys as if they were his own children. “Uncle, we have been walking 18 days by today as we are heading to the border," said Pa Kung. "The boy got sick last week, and we are now left with no medicines," said Pa Kung to Pu Lai as if he is also talking to his own uncle.

“Okay, sons, you cook for yourself here tonight. Here is rice, frying oil, bag of salt and a fowl which I shot on my way here," said Pu Lai. After telling them all they have to do, Pu Lai prepared himself to go home in order to find a way to help his sick son. He went straight to a local midwife's house and spent about an hour there before leaving with her hastily rushing back to Pu Lai's farm. The family of Pu Lai did not even know that he had come to the village and accompanied the midwife Pi Par Chin back to his farm. Pu Lai was carrying a bag for Pi Par Chin. Upon arrival at his hut, Pi Par Chin was greeted by all the boys with genuine respect, but they hid their deep feeling of thanks for her assistance. Pi Par Chin said, "Brother, lie down with your face upward - which part is pain?" The boy pointed to the right side of his stomach. “Why are you guys all still bleeding?" Interrupted Pu Lai while Pi Par Chin was assisting the boy. “Uncle, you know jungle leeches are terrible and big enough to suck us dry," said the other young boy as he was pulling down another big leech from his shin, having just come back from the creek after fetching water. “Brother, you need to rest for days," said Pi Par Chin, with tears pooling in her eyes. Pu Lai suddenly asked what they should do. After feeding him a bunch of medical tablets, Pi Par Chin advised that the boy be secretly brought to the village. The boy needs a long, long rest.

At midnight, the boy was brought to the village under the glimmering torchlight and sheltered at Pu Cung Kam’s house, as Pu Cung Kam is chairman of the village council. At dawn, the boy passed away. All the villagers came out in their surprise and viewed the face of a young boy who they had never seen before in the village. “Who is he?" "How did he die here?" people are asking each other. Pu Lai Mang was hugging the boy’s neck and weeping over the body as if he had lost his own son. Pi Par Chin was explaining to the villagers how the boy died as she shed tears. Pu Cung Kam was busy preparing for how the body would be buried. Few of the villagers knew that the boy was from Matupi township. In a hastily fetched, scratched bamboo coffin, the body of the boy was placed and shrouded with a khaki blanket while surrounded by local elder women. An old grandmother who was covering herself from her head was stooping down to the body and lamenting as below:
Oh! My charming son, what brought you here
Strong like a lion, beautiful as a reindeer
You outclassed all stars in the skies,
Well done over your enemies.
Oh! My dear, firmly erected mast in the wind
You’re my hero and the hero of Chinland
You’re standing for all, guarding in front
One for all, all for one.

One week after the body was laid to rest, the fiercest military regime on earth sent a platoon to the village and summoned every villager out to the village primary school, where the captain had tied three persons like pigs ready for market. Pu Lai Mang, Pu Cung Kam and Pi Par Chin were tied up like a bundle ready to be shipped out abroad in front of all the villagers. No one knew how the Myanmar military directly identified the three persons who had helped the boy who recently passed away. The villagers stood in total surprise and bafflement. In their heart, they murmured, "They are innocent, completely innocent. How on earth could these three persons be guilty?" They rebel against no one. Last year, a Myanmar military soldier was very sick and he was looked after by Pu Cung Kam’s family. Pu Cung Kam was even rewarded by a patrolling military commander with an expensive jacket that no other villager can wear, because of his humanitarian assistance to a soldier. Is humanity a guilt? Helplessly stuck between two armed rivals but living with genuine humanity, the villagers were fallen victims to looting criminals for decades. No one is free from guilt in Myanmar as the military regime has made the country into a prison - the nation itself is a prison where innocent civilians are prisoners. These three villagers are innocent, but guilty under the guilty-minded military regime. It is sure that there is no way for them to get freedom as long as they are the prisoners in this prison-nation. They are just innocent but guilty civilians. They are already charged, not in the court, but in the mouth of military regime. No law rules over the military regime in Myanmar. Whatever comes out of the military's mouth is law for all citizens.

The sudden disappearance of the three most reliable persons from the village into the hands of monsters within a split second is a shocking mystery. However, these innocent villagers do not know that they all are innocently guilty before the Myanmar military regime and can be whisked away by monsters at anytime. With just a speck of suspicion the Myanmar military can punish with death. This men-hunting-thugs-ruled-nation will spare no creature shackled with their chain of suspicion. Living with the twenty-four seven haunting of evils in this hilly region of Chin State, where innocence and justice are eclipsed into military regime lawlessness, the saying of “All Men Are Created Equal” is written on a flying paper blowing away in the wind.

The mourning of all the villagers over the losses of the beloved boy, and the mother and fathers of the village into the hand of military criminals desperately clouded the brightest sky. Agonizing in the pain of innocent but guilty, the whimpering sound of the villagers is wholly engulfed with the unstoppable thunderstorm and monsoon rain pouring down heavily from the sky. The heavy rain soaking the whole earth can not wash the pain of the hearts of all the villagers, but only pushes it deeper and deeper into the scarred feeling of all who are left behind with no future.

After two years, since the disappearance of the three villagers, a young Chin boy came by himself to the village and verbally informed the family of Pu Cung Kam about the demise of their father. Pu Cung Kam passed away after two years in a military forced labor camp in Sagaing Division. Pu Lai Mang has been transferred to other forced labour camp separate from Pu Cung Kam. Pu Lai will not know that his pal Pu Cung Kam passed away. The children of Pu Lai Mang left their schools as they can no longer afford it and determined to help their mother in the village. Pi Par Chin's whereabouts are still unknown.

Are they really guilty enough to end up in a Forced Labour Camp ?

Yes! They are guilty because this is a prison-nation called Myanmar.