The Stuff of Movies
Wed 11 Oct 2006
Wong Kim Hoh – The Singapore Straits Times
October 8: Charm Tong’s parents put her on a donkey and sent her from Burma’s war-torn Shan state to an orphanage in Thailand. She’s now a human rights activist for her people
Chiang Mai: The car leaves the town of Chiangmai behind, slowly snaking its way past verdant hills up Piang Luang, a tribal village just a stone’s throw away from the Myanmar border.
In the backseat sits Nang Charm Tong, calmly narrating the atrocities that the Myanmar military has allegedly inflicted upon the country’s ethnic minorities, particularly the denizens of Shan state.
Shan state – which is about 64,000 sq km in size – was once an autonomous region in Myanmar.
When Burma gained independence from the British in 1948, the Shans were promised the right to secede after 10 years. (The country was renamed Myanmar in 1989.)
The promise for secession was not kept. Instead, the Shans, who number at least eight million, have been persecuted by the Myanmar militia which want to preserve rule over them.
Adversity, it has been said, breeds greatness.
It has certainly given Charm Tong, a Shan native, a wisdom and self-assuredness far beyond her 24 years.
Face devoid of make-up and clad in blue polo T-shirt and blue jeans, she looks like any ordinary young woman.
But looks lie. At 16, she started working for a human rights group, interviewing Shans who had been raped, tortured or forced to become illegal migrants or sex workers.
At 17, she addressed a few hundred people at the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva, condemning the Myanmar military’s campaign against her people.
Last year, she urged United States president George W. Bush to step up action against Myanmar’s military government.
Her life is the stuff of movies.
‘I grew up in Central Shan state where there was constant fighting,’ says the gutsy woman, the fifth of seven children of a Shan State Army commander and his wife.
When she was six, her parents put her put her on a donkey and sent her from Burma’s war-torn Shan state.
She ended up in an orphanage run by Sister Mary Phoehan, who has devoted her life to looking after and educating orphaned Shan children.
Now 69, Sister Mary is a sprightly and compassionate Shan woman who left her husband in Shan state 30 years ago after he took another wife.
At the orphanage, Charm Tong and nearly 30 other children woke up daily at the break of dawn to attend English lessons conducted by Sister Mary.
‘I also went to a local Thai school from 8am to 4pm, and then in the evening, to another school to learn Chinese,’ she recalls.
‘I would see my parents once or twice a year. I didn’t understand why we had to be separated then. It was all very sad.’
At 16, she began working for a Shan human rights group after chancing upon one of its newsletters.
She started out interviewing Shan refugees, many of whom were forced to work as illegal workers or prostitutes because the Shans do not have refugee status in Thailand.
She went to construction sites, brothels and refugee camps, recording horror stories of rape, torture and pillage.
‘I saw, heard and learnt a lot,’ she says.
One year later, she got an internship with the Alternative Asean Network on Burma (Altsean-Burma), a network of activists, NGOs, academics and politicians who support human rights, democracy and peace in Myanmar.
‘I learnt how to campaign and do lobby work,’ she says.
She proved such a quick and intelligent learner that she was tasked to give an address at the UN Commission for Human Rights in Geneva in 1999.
She remembers her voice shaking as she gave an impassioned speech about the persecutions against her people.
‘It was very emotional, I had to stop several times, but after I finished my speech, many people came up to hug me,’ she says.
She has since made many international presentations and taken part in many conferences the world over, including the Winnipeg Conference on War-Affected Children in 2000.
In 1999, she and 39 other Shan women activists came together to form Swan (Shan Women’s Action Network) to promote the role of women from Myanmar in the struggle for democracy and human rights in their country.
The group currently runs more than a dozen schools and many programmes, including women’s empowerment and crisis support.
One of their most impactful projects – for which Charm Tong was spokesman
- was a report, Licensed To Rape, which was released in 2002.
It documented the reported rape of more than 600 women – including girls as young as four – by the Myanmar military.
‘We need to build awareness and solidarity – not just among our people, but also among the international community so that we can put a stop to all this,’ says the feisty young woman who also trains young Shans in human rights advocacy.
Her remarkable passion and tenacity has won her a string of international accolades, including the Reebok Human Rights Award in 2000 and the Marie Claire Women of the World award in 2004.
Last October, she was invited to the White House, where she had a 50-minute meeting with Mr Bush.
‘The conversation was casual, but he seemed to know what was going on and he asked a lot of questions. I told him about our human rights situation and told him the US has to help,’ she says.
Not suprisingly, she is held up as a role model by the Shan community.
Mr Sai Leng, the head of a Shan refugee camp in Kuang Kyaw in Piang Luang,
says: ‘We have pictures of her in our classes. She has done so much for the Shan people. I want children to be inspired by her. We are so proud of her.’
However, her high profile has made her a public enemy of the Myanmar military.
‘I worry for her security. She has no bodyguards, she does everything alone,’ says Mr Sai Leng.
Charm Tong – who sneaks across once or twice a year to see her mother (her father died two years ago) and siblings – is not intimidated.
‘You can’t live in fear. What we’re doing is the right thing, and we are speaking the truth.’
When not talking work, she displays a cheery side. She likes to banter and laughs often, lighting up when I taught her the phrase ‘eat like a horse’.
‘I’m hungry. Are you hungry? Let’s all eat like a horse,’ she says, as we head for dinner.
She laughs again when asked what she does in her free time.
‘Free time? Haha… I tell people what we do. But seriously, I enjoy doing this. I really do.’
Log on to www.shanwomen.org for more information on the Shan Women’s Action Network.
New Asian Heroes is sponsored by DBS Bank. It is a six-part series on Asians who lead inspiring lives.
