Dr. Salai Pa Cin, a Chin doctor and pro-democracy activist, arrived at Three Pagodas Pass near the Thai border with Burma in October 1989. Like most of his fellow democracy campaigners, he left the country to continue the struggle after the failed uprising of 1988.

But as a pro-democracy activist heading to join the fight on the border, he had to be very careful. So he had destroyed everything—all his papers, including his medical license and ID card—to hide his identity so that he was not recognized at checkpoints along the way.

However, he had stubbornly kept his old stethoscope, one of the essential tools of his trade.

The doctor was lucky; he made it to border without any trouble, and the stethoscope soon came in very handy.

Not long after his arrival, he came to Manerplaw. As an educated Chin, the Chin National Front (CNF), wanted him to work for the organization. But it was the time when ABSDF leaders were thinking seriously about sending a mission to the Wa area. He met our group’s chairman, Moe Thee Zun, General Secretary Kyaw Kyaw and Secretary-1 Aung Htoo in Manerplaw at the office of the Democratic Alliance of Burma (DAB).

They told him we needed a doctor to join the mission to the Wa area, and he readily agreed to the challenge. By this time, ABSDF leaders had already persuaded Zaw Htun, a medical student from Regiment 208, to join the mission.

The doctor accepted the challenge and came with us to the Wa area as part of the medical team of our mission.

Once we arrived in San Lou Yong, Dr. Pa Cin and Zaw Htun were sent immediately to help out at the hospital with the many patients who had been wounded at the front line fighting Khun Sa’s army. They started working immediately.

The hospital had about 30 patients daily, most of whom needed minor surgery, which mostly involved, as Dr Pa Cin put it, “taking the bullets out of the wounds.” During their stay at San Lou Yong, the doctor and the medical student were able to build a small operating theater at the hospital.

Their contribution to the Wa was immense, helping them to save money, time and above all lives and sparing the wounded soldiers a few hours journey to seek medical attention in Thailand.

Previously the Wa camp had no trained doctor, just a Chinese chief administrator who doubled as the medical officer despite his lack of any real qualification. Worse still, the administrator was believed to be corrupt and was the source of displeasure, Dr. Pa Cin and Zaw Htun told us often. They felt that the wounded soldiers were not properly fed.  

Then in March—more than two months after we arrived—the fighting between the Wa and Khun Sa’s army intensified. Dr. Pa Cin and Zaw Htun were struggling to respond to the sudden upsurge in wounded fighters. 

So on March 27—Burma’s Armed Forces Day—the two decided to set up a field hospital in a location close to the front line, which in fact was about two hours away, so that the wounded could be saved in time and the medical work would be a lot easier. The Wa officers agreed.

The fighting seemed to be very intense that very night. The doctor and the medical student received 72 patients that night. They did not know how many had died at the front line.

One of the wounded was in serious condition, brought to the hospital with a gunshot wound to his thigh and bleeding profusely.

By the time he arrived at the makeshift front-line infirmary, the patient was already in shock. The medical team asked the Wa commander to take the wounded soldier to Thailand. But it was already late  at night. So all the duo could do was to provide general care and anti-shock treatment.

Unfortunately, the soldier died the next morning before he could be sent to the proper hospital in Thailand.

Zaw Tun, who was just a few months away from graduating before the uprising that drove him into exile, was dedicated to his work. When they wanted to relax from their unpaid, overworked volunteer job, Dr. Pa Cin and Zaw Tun often visited our school for a drink and a chat.

Dr. Pa Cin distinctly remembered a night when Zaw Tun stayed by the bed of a malaria patient, talking to him all night, realizing that he was going to die. A few days earlier, this patient appeared to be recovering. Then suddenly one day he got up from his bed, walked a bit and then fell over. He never regained consciousness.

Throughout their time with the Wa, those were the only two deaths.

Six months after their sojourn with the Wa began, they returned to Manerplaw, where Dr. Salai Pa Cin and Zaw Htun said goodbye to each other, not knowing if they would see each other again. Zaw Htun was going back to his mother unit and the doctor was going to work for CNF.

But after working together for six months in such difficult conditions, they had grown as close as brothers and the parting was difficult. So they decided to exchange personal items as memorabilia.

Zaw Tun had his own stethoscope—a new one given to him by a Japanese reporter who had earlier visited Three Pagodas Pass, where Zaw Htun was based. The generous reporter had given such stethoscopes to several medical students, telling them, “Now go and take care of the Burmese with my presents.”

“It was Litman brand and cost around US $250 in Burma during the 1970s,” Dr. Pa Cin said of the gift. As a doctor from a socialist country, he knew how much doctors valued good medical equipment.

Before the two bid each other farewell, Zaw Htun proposed that Dr. Pa Cin accept his new stethoscope because he had nothing else to give the doctor to as a parting gift. Dr. Pa Cin refused knowing that his old stethoscope was not worth as much as Zaw Htun’s. But Zaw Htun was adamant, so the good doctor obliged to make his “little brother” happy.

A year and a half later, towards the end of 1992, some officers from the Karen National Union (KNU) killed Zaw Htun, accusing him of being a communist. By the time he was killed, he was said to be distributing leftist materials in Manerplaw, the headquarters of the KNU and various armed ethnic and pro-democracy groups.

Zaw Htun was simple and dedicated. He believed in the need for purity in the revolution and did not like some of the leaders with a “political agenda.” His natural response to injustice led to his estrangement from his ABSDF commander, who thought his followers were favoring the young, up-and-coming and more idealistic Zaw Htun.

It was suspicious that the commander had a hand in asking the KNU to take action against Zaw Htun, accusing him of being a left-wing activist. The KNU was staunchly anti-communist, having had bitter experience with their own members who were sympathetic to the communists.

But an ABSDF leader who knew Zaw Htun saw only two copies of a leftist magazine in his hand. It was a time when any literature on politics was rare in the jungle. Everyone, especially the students, grabbed any kind of paper or magazine they could find to read, regardless of their ideology. It seems to me that Zaw Htun became the victim of the backstabbing politics of a power play.

Zaw Htun fully understood the negative outlook the ethnic minorities had on the ordinary Burmese due to actions of the Burmese troops in ethnic areas. He once told me about his visit to a Lahu village.

At the invitation of a Lahu elder, he visited a Lahu village in the conflict area. Upon his arrival, the elder announced to his household that he had brought a “Makalu” (Burmese) visitor. Upon hearing this, a young Lahu boy about 12 years of age immediately grabbed a rifle to attack Zaw Htun. The elder had to calm him down telling him that the Makalu he had brought was a good Makalu fighting the Burmese army. 

Before leaving for the Wa mission, Zaw Htun and Dr. Pa Cin stayed together. During this time, the doctor helped Zaw Htun’s work in searching for culturally appropriate and relevant words and phrases for his translation of Che’s “Guerilla Warfare” into Burmese. It was Zaw Htun’s contribution to the revolution. 

Dr. Pa Cin left Manerplaw for India in May 1991. Zaw Htun visited him before his departure. He told the doctor that he was going to the KNU’s 6th Brigade area. The doctor warned him to be careful. He told his little brother it was not a good idea to travel alone.

He had good reason to be worried. Both he and Zaw Htun had been openly accused of distributing the propaganda of the Communist Party of Burma (CPB). The accusation came from the top of the KNU hierarchy, the late Gen Bo Mya himself.

The late Phado Mahn Sha, the KNU Secretary General who was gunned down by unknown assassins in February 2008, was in a meeting in Manerplaw in which Gen Bo Mya spoke of the two who were accused of disseminating “CPB propaganda” in his headquarters. Knowing full well the danger the two faced, Phado Mahn Sha went to see Dr. Pa Cin and warned him not to distribute CPB papers.     

Zaw Htun seemed unaware of the danger, perhaps partly because he could not fully understand the depth of anti-communist sentiment in some of the key leaders within the KNU, including Gen Bo Mya himself.

The good doctor did not know Zaw Htun had been killed. Only after an ABSDF leader visited him in India in 1993 did he learn that his little brother was dead. He was devastated.

I was shocked and dismayed when I heard the news. We lost a good leader.  Later when I learned more about his siblings I felt even sadder. Zaw Htun was one of the five children who were all medical doctors. His eldest brother, Zaw Min, spent a long time in prison for his role in the struggle for democracy.

Many years later, Dr. Salai Pa Cin resettled in Australia. Among the belongings he carried with him when he went to Melbourne was the stethoscope given to him by Zaw Htun.

The good doctor has kept Zaw Htun’s stethoscope ever since. For the past 20 years, he has hoped that someday he may be able to return it to Zaw Htun’s family.

It is now hanging in the living room of Dr. Pa Cin’s Melbourne house, dangling on wall, still waiting to be returned to its rightful owner.