Hre Mang

Thousands of Burmese took to the street in August 1988 to protest the military dictatorship that controls Burma.  Hre Mang was among the students who marched in the scorching sun. 

“Many more people including civilians came to join us. Together, we marched in front of government buildings and shouted the military government down.  It was amazing to see people’s power on the street this way,” Mang, said.     

But as they approached a Buddhist monastery, soldiers blocked their way, pulled out their guns and pointed them at the unarmed students.

 “We stood face to face as they started shooting us,” said Mang, who was 19 at the time and studying physics at a Burmese university.  “Some people got shoot on the street and they couldn’t run away. We students escaped any way we could.”

Mang estimates that 10,000 students were killed in 1988, although military government estimates are much lower. Since then, many more student demonstrators have been arrested or kidnapped, he said. And Mang believes 2,000 to 3,000 of his fellow students remain political prisoners within his native country.

Following the uprising, Mang left his hometown, fleeing to the Chinese border with others in Burma’s pro-democratic student movement.

Along the way, he witnessed the brutality of Burma’s military junta. 

 “I saw with my own eyes bodies laid out in the jungle. The Burmese military recruited adult villagers to carry the army equipment and rations.  And if the villager was unable to go any further, they just kneeled on the path and died.” 

In 1991, Mang spent three months trekking through the dense jungle on foot, traveling through Myanmar, Bangladesh and India, encouraging others to support the student pro-democracy movement.

He next studied theology in New Delhi, India and earned a master’s degree.

Though Mang moved to New Delhi in 1993 to become a fulltime student, he remained an active participant in Burma’s student movement.  He married fellow Burmese student and civil engineer Lynda Tumpar while living in India.

In 2000 Mang abandoned the commerce degree he had nearly completed at New Delhi University to come to America as part of the Burmese Refugee Scholarship Program. Mandated by Congress in 1990, the program was designed to assist refugees fleeing persecution by Myanmar’s military junta. 

With the help of that financial aid, Mang graduated with a bachelor’s degree in political science from Hartwick College in Oneonta, N.Y. He also has a master’s in public affairs from Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis.

Today, Mang lives in Indianapolis with his wife and their two young sons.

 His mother and father, a rural politician for 20 years, still live in Myanmar.

Mang said he and his father don’t agree politically:

“He said to me: ‘We do not have enough political resources to remove the military regime.’

“And I said to him: ‘We have to create and generate the necessary political resources to topple the military regime.’”

Nonetheless, Mang is swift to point out how much he has learned from following his father’s political journey – how the government is administered and its weaknesses and failures.

“My father’s sacrifice inspired me most to have interest in politics and public affairs,” Mang said.

Mang continues to worry about his family and his homeland’s future.

“The only option we have is demonstration.  By protesting, we can display the public’s unhappiness and dissatisfaction with government,” Mang said.

 “That’s the way to display to the world that we are oppressed by Burma’s military dictatorship.”

ASSISTANT EDITORS: Genevieve Yedlicka, 16; Pratik Cherian, 16.

Copyright 2008 Y-Press