Následující text není historickou studií. Jedná se o převyprávění pamětníkových životních osudů na základě jeho vzpomínek zaznamenaných v rozhovoru. Vyprávění zpracovali externí spolupracovníci Paměti národa. V některých případech jsou při zpracování medailonu využity materiály zpřístupněné Archivem bezpečnostních složek (ABS), Státními okresními archivy (SOA), Národním archivem (NA), či jinými institucemi. Užíváme je pouze jako doplněk pamětníkova svědectví. Citované strany svazků jsou uloženy v sekci Dodatečné materiály.

Pokud máte k textu připomínky nebo jej chcete doplnit, kontaktujte prosím šéfredaktora Paměti národa. (michal.smid@ustrcr.cz)

Thandar (aka) Hnin Pan Eain (* 1966)

• .

When Thandar was 6 months old, her father was arrested due to his political activities and, only after three years, their family knew where he was incarcerated. Her father was sent to CoCo Island and he participated in 52 days hunger strike for closing the island completely. Later, he was freed after being moved to Insein prison. When he was released from prison, Ma Thandar was 7 years old and she hesitated to talk with him as she had not seen him before. It was very sad occasion for both she and her father. The time she grew up was lacking peace and losing human rights. Therefore, she had suffered the impacts of both life and bad system. Her father was arrested again when she was 12 and this made her to quit from school. Then, she worked as a helper at her aunt’s house. She got the mental suffering as a result of quitting from school and she was sad when she heard the bell ringing from school and saw students with school uniforms.

When the public uprising occured, she could not hide her father blood and participated in 8888 uprising. Afterward, she worked for NLD as a youth member in Thingangyun Township. She was married to politician Ko Nay Oo and got one son.

She and her husband Nay Oo have same ambition. They got married in 1991 and their son was born in 1993. Her husband was arrested in 1998 for undertaking political activities and sent to Maw Like Lay prison located in Kalay which is far from their home. At that time, her son was only 4 years old. She mortgaged her house with the high interest rate in order to make prison visit. Finally, she lost her house as she was not able to make loan repayment. Then, she moved to Kalay and sold fish paste in order to visit to her husband and other 15 political prisoners and to solve the problems for their living. Therefore, she was called as democracy fish paste seller.

After being freed, his husband was involved in 2007 Saffron Revolution and he also participated in aid programmes implemented in 2008 Cyclone Nagris affected regions. Due to his involvements in those activities, they might be caught by Myanmar authorities. Therefore, they moved to Noe Pho refugee camp located in Thailand in order to avoid this and they returned to Myanmar five years later.

She met with Ludu Daw Amar, journalist from Ludu news publishing house, in Mandalay when she was back from long range prison visit and she started writing due to the encouragement of Ludu Daw Ahmar. She won the first prize in essay competition held in commemoration of 54th Birthday of People Leader Daw Aung San Su Kyi and it brought her to literature world. Since then, we has been writing the literature with author name of Hnin Pang Eain and received 5 literature awards so far.

Ma Thandar explained her experience “we are still scare and afraid of the voice of saying Visitors Inspection. Why? If something happened, we heard the sound of combat boots. When they inspect visitor, they came into the house without removing their shoes. They lifted mosquito nets and it interrupted women prestige. We lost human dignity and privacy. Since I was young, I do not want to see the locked doors and I always want to open it. Why? Because my father is right behind the locked door. My husband is there too. Those doors separated our family and our love. The sound of combat boots and the word Visitors Inspection is something that will break our family. I always say, it is like breaking the plat and our family life smashed in pieces. Not only us, all the political prisoners’ families happen like that. Even I can talk today but there are many people who died without having the chance to talk. Our family is never incomplete when we have a meal. Our family photos are never incomplete. That is the point I hurt most. When we miss our parents, we look at the photos.  But someone ask about our family photo, I don’t have it. Similarly, my son couldn’t learn well. We moved to refugee camp when he was a grade 9 student. Then, he studied at the school opened for migrant workers. We were discriminated when we become refugee. Other ethnics don’t see clearly between Burma and military as they were abused by military. Therefore, we receive hate from both sides.”