Burma’s Influential Figures
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Dr Cynthia Maung
Her tireless work providing medical care to refugees and migrant workers from Burma who live along the Thai-Burma border has earned her the nickname "Burma’s Mother Teresa." An ethnic Karen from Rangoon now in her 40s, Cynthia Maung left Burma after the military killed thousands of pro-democracy protesters and seized power in 1988. A year later she founded the Mae Tao Clinic in the Thai border town Mae Sot. The clinic now treats up to 200 patients each day who are required to pay only a registration fee of 25 cents. Humble and soft-spoken, she has operated the clinic amid the political turbulence that often grips the border town. She has received much international recognition for her work, including the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 2002 for community leadership. And in April, Time magazine included her on its list of Asia’s Heroes.
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Social Commentator
Ludu Daw Amar
Burma’s most venerated female literary figure, Ludu Daw Amar has articulated her thoughts to the public for more than 65 years. She turned 88 in November and remains an energetic political commentator and a progressive journalist from her home in Mandalay. She was a courageous dissident, brandishing her pen to fight against British colonial rule. She made her mark in Burmese literary circles with her 1938 translation of Maurice Collis’s book Trial in Burma. In 1946, she and her late husband, Ludu U Hla, founded the Ludu Daily News. It was perhaps the most influential paper in Burma before the military regime banned it in 1967.
She has penned several books on culture, politics and key individuals, and has recently captured the public’s attention with her series of critical articles that disapprove of social decadence, titled Amay Shay Sagaa (Mother’s Old Sayings).
Burma’s current military rulers keep their eye on her, too. After the May 30 ambush on Burma’s opposition party, Ludu Daw Amar remarked that Burma can achieve democracy only after more bloodshed. The comment was broadcast on foreign radio stations, moving the censor board to temporarily ban her writings.
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Ethnic Ceasefire Groups
Bao Yuxiang
Bao Yuxiang (or Pao Yuchang) is the leader of 20,000 troops that comprise the ethnic United Wa State Army, or UWSA. Commanded by former comrades in the Communist Party of Burma, the UWSA is regarded as one of the world’s largest producers of heroin and, since 1994, methamphetamines. Bao Yuxiang made headlines earlier this year when he had to put down accusations that he was plotting to assassinate Thailand’s prime minister, who launched a campaign to rid the kingdom of drugs.
Though the international press calls him a major drug lord, his official title is leader of the Wa National Group, located in Northern Shan State Special Region (2).
Bao, in his early 50s, says he has no connection to the drug trade and has promised to eliminate drug production from Wa areas by 2005. He has since pushed back the deadline to 2007, and told reporters that anybody caught using drugs under his jurisdiction would be executed.
Since the Wa signed a ceasefire agreement with Burma’s military junta in 1989, he has forged close links with Gen Khin Nyunt, who was named prime minister in August. Shortly after the appointment, Wa leaders convened an emergency meeting, perhaps to rethink their political tactics, observers say. Bao recently visited the PM in Rangoon, and Wa leaders are showing interest in attending the National Convention.
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Ethnic Leaders
Hkun Htun Oo
He is Chairman of the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy, which captured most of the vote in Shan State in the 1990 election. Born in Thibaw and raised in Taunggyi, Hkun Htun Oo later studied law and now lives in Rangoon.
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