Who’ll stop the pain? Part 2

“The most suffering animal on the earth invented for itself: laughter.”—Nietzsche

I’ve often wondered what makes people laugh in the more repressive or deprived countries on this Earth. After 18 years of work on Burma and North Korea, among other Asian countries, I still don’t have an answer—although I do know of one man who gets a lot of laughs in Burma. His legal name is Maung Thura, and he makes a living as a dentist. His stage name is Zargana, and on stage is where he comes alive as a comedian. His is deeply, darkly funny, and much of his humor translates emphatically and hilariously into English. Little of what Zargana does, however, amuses the military government, which has for weeks stalled and obstructed delivery of international aid to victims of Tropical Cyclone Nargis, which struck May 2-3, killing 78,000 people and leaving a further 56,000 missing. Zargana was whisked from his home in recent days by officials working for the Burmese junta, after he spent days collecting and distributing aid for the millions of Burmese left homeless or alone after the storm.Zargana was first arrested in 1988 for his political activities and again for helping his mother during her campaign as a member of the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) for the May 1990 general elections. The NLD, led by Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, won by a landslide, but the junta refused to cede power.

Zargana was again detained last year after the “Saffron Revolution” that swept through Burma in September, led by monks and sparked by a massive rise in fuel prices. He was unexpectedly freed and returned home in his prison uniform, with a plastic spoon and bowl as prison mementos. “I believe I will have to participate in the areas where I’m needed,” he said prophetically in an interview in October. “I’ll always have to be ready when I’m needed…I would like to say that artists, including me, should not be reluctant to work for the people.”

The lives of Burmese youths “have been destroyed,” Zargana said. “They are in prison, and some have died. In prison, there were monks with gunshot wounds on their backs. I saw old monks around the age of 72 who got kicked in the ribs, and so they were leaning on one side.”

“It is really sad that these things happened in a Buddhist country.”

On Friday, Zargana’s elderly mother was devastated. “As a parent of a son who tried to do good deeds but got into trouble, I just want to ask, where are the gods? Where are the saints that are supposed to guard the do-gooders? I’m surprised and sad too,” Daw Kyi Oom said.

“I am now over 80, and never in our lifetime have we experienced this kind of thing,” she said. “For doing this good deed, Maung Thura has been arrested—for this, people with common sense realize that they don’t like you donating, they dare to stop you. If distressed people know about this, I don’t think they can do anything except cry or commit suicide.”

Authorities searched Zargana’s home before detaining him but found and seized only DVDs and CDs that contained songs in tribute to Nargis victims as well as contraband video—briefly available on the Internet—of the elaborate wedding of junta leader Than Shwe’s daughter.

Zargana is known throughout Burma as an irreverent comedian, but he also works as a producer, director, writer, and actor. Earlier this week, former political prisoner and sports journalist Zaw Thet Htwe said he and a large group of entertainers including Zargana were training young people in the worst-hit Irrawaddy delta to provide emotional support to cyclone victims.

Healthcare workers and survivors on the ground have said in separate interviews all week that the junta authorities are still diverting local and international aid away from those who need it most. International aid agencies and rights groups say many people in stricken areas still haven’t received any aid, and that the military regime continues to impose constraints on international rescue efforts. U.S. Navy ships laden with relief supplies steamed away from Burma on June 5, their helicopters barred from delivering supplies by the ruling junta. The USS Essex group, which includes four ships, 22 helicopters and 5,000 U.S. military personnel, had waited off the Burmese coast for three weeks.

International human rights group Amnesty International cited in a June 5 report 40 accounts of Burmese government soldiers or local officials having confiscated, diverted, or otherwise misused aid intended for cyclone survivors. Although the junta has granted greater access to the hardest-hit Irrawaddy delta, “recent incidents of corruption and diversion of aid suggest a potentially serious threat to effective distribution of aid,” the report said.

Most of the cases that were cited involved authorities confiscating aid from private donors or arresting them for refusing to hand the aid over. Amnesty also accused the authorities of forcing cyclone survivors to perform menial labor in exchange for food and stepped up a campaign to evict displaced citizens from aid shelters.

A major U.N. agency on Monday, however, caught junta officials trying to divert their aid after the officials insisted on accompanying the U.N. workers who were delivering it, Amnesty spokesman Benjamin Zawacki told a news conference in Bangkok. He declined to give additional details.