by Nandita Haksar
Friday, 20 November 2009 12:32
Mizzima News - (Commentary) For the lawyers practicing at the city sessions court in Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal Thursday, November 12th, 2009 was just another busy day. They passed by the court of Ms Kalpana Dey without as much as a second look. For them the scene was familiar - lawyers dressed in their black gowns, the court clerks sitting at the table and the judge dictating to the stenographer.
The curiosity of some lawyers was aroused when they heard some passionate arguments and they may have drifted into the room in the hope of hearing some interesting point of law. The Public Prosecutor was telling the Judge that foreigners could not be allowed to depose without proper summons. He argued that summons for foreigners had to be served in accordance with the proper procedure laid down under the Code of Criminal Procedure.
A look at the large wooden cage at the back of the airy courtroom held 34 men.
Most of them were too tired to stand and were squatting on the cold stone floor. In any case they could not understand English or the intricacies of the legal points being debated. There were, however, some men who were holding the bars straining to listen to the arguments. Anxiety writ large on their faces.
On the last of the three rows of chairs in the large court room sat two men, looking calm and unperturbed, but listening carefully.
Finally the lawyer for the 34 men inside the wooden cage had persuaded the judge to allow him to call his witness. The lawyer informed the Judge that the first defence witness was Mr Harn Yawnghwe.
Mr Yawnghwe stood up and walked to the witness box. The other person sitting next to him was requested to go out of the court. The rules did not allow the defence witnesses to listen to each other before they themselves had deposed.
Harn Yawnghwe stepped into the rickety wooden witness box and was told to take oath and was ready to depose. The men in the wooden cage could not hear him but his dignified presence and his calm demeanor commanded respect. The Bengali stenographer‘s struggle with Burmese names and unfamiliar accent lent a slightly comic air.
Harn Yawnghwe was born in Burma 62 years ago. Both his parents came from Shan aristocracy and that was evident in his bearing. In quiet, measured words he told the Court that his father had been the first President of the Union of Burma in 1948. However, when Gen Ne Win staged a coup his father was imprisoned and died in jail. His older brother was executed by Gen Ne Win. These tragic circumstances had forced his family to take refuge in neighbouring Thailand and after that Harn got asylum in Canada and was a Canadian citizen.
It was not only his parentage but his professional qualifications that were impressive. He was a trained mining engineer and financial analyst, living in Canada. But all his life he had been involved in the movement for the restoration of democracy in Burma.
Harn Yawnghwe had traveled all the way from Canada to testify in the court. He told the Judge that the 34 Burmese being held inside the wooden cage at the back of the court were genuine freedom fighters. He also told the court that he was now the executive director of the Euro Burma Office with its headquarters at Brussels. The Euro Burma Office had released funds for the costs of the trial. There was no way that such funding could be given if there was even a suspicion that the 34 were gun runners involved in violating Indian security interests.
After he finished his deposition he stepped down and the second witness was called. The second witness was Dr Tint Swe. Dr Tint Swe told the Court that he was a professional doctor and had practiced for 15 years before resigning from his job and joining the National League for Democracy, the party of the legendary Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. The doctor stood for election in 1990 and won. But the military junta refused to hand over power to the democratically elected representatives of the people. Instead they sentenced Dr Tint Swe to 25 years of imprisonment and he had to leave his home and country by walking six days and five nights to reach Mizoram, India.
Dr Tint Swe told the court that he knew that the 34 Burmese accused were framed by an Indian military intelligence officer called Lt Col Grewal. He told the court that he knew Grewal personally and he had been instrumental in deporting 11 other Burmese in 1996. Dr Tint Swe conveyed to the court that the Prime Minister of the Government in exile (National Coalition Government of Union of Burma) had wanted to depose in the court but he had not been given a visa.
That afternoon Mr Harn Yawnghwe and Dr Tint Swe were given permission to meet the men in the cage. Each of them shook hands with all the 34 freedom fighters, Arakans and Karens.
At that moment it seemed that Gen Aung San’s spirit descended in the court. Here were the leaders of the Burmans and ethnic nationalities working together for the release of Burmese freedom fighters. The 34 Burmese were Arakans and Karens, Harn Yawnghwe, a proud Shan, representing the Ethnic Nationalities Council (ENC) and Tint Swe, a nationalist Burman, representing the NCGUB. Was it the Spirit of Panglong that had come alive in the Kolkata court?
The majority of the Burmese media had failed to fully grasp the relevance of the moment, capture the poignancy of the handshakes. For 47 years the Burmese military has justified itself by following Buda-batha Myanmar-lumyo policy. The military has denied the people democracy and sought to obliterate the memory of Gen Aung San’s vision of a democratic and federal Burma. And that vision came alive in a Kolkata court.
In defiance of the Myanmar Junta the representatives of the Ethnic nationalities and the Burman majority community had come together to fight for the lives of 34 Burmese freedom fighters.
Indian human rights activists and Indian media were both absent. There was neither a sense of solidarity with the Burmese peoples’ struggle against the most brutal regime in the world, nor were they outraged by the fact that democratic India had kept Burmese freedom fighters in jail for more than 12 years. Indians could have learnt important lessons on the Panglong spirit and the need to build an inclusive democracy based on federalism.
As I walked out of the court that day I knew that the Panglong spirit had touched the court and perhaps the 34 Burmese freedom fighters would be free soon. But I felt an overwhelming sadness that we, Indians and Burmese, had missed an opportunity to learn a lesson from the moment in history when the Panglong spirit came alive in the court in Kolkata.
The author is a prominent Indian human rights lawyer and a writer. She had taken up the case of 34 Burmese freedom fighters since 1999. Her latest book “Rogue Agent: How India's Military Intelligence Betrayed the Burmese Resistance Movement” reveals that an Indian Military Intelligence officer named Lt. Col V.S. Grewal as the man masterminding the plot to betray the Burmese freedom fighters.
-nandita haksar: hakhon239@yahoo.co.in
Friday, November 20, 2009
Subscribe to email feed
