Interviews with Cynthia Maung

We felt that since we left from Burma, they put under — because our medical license [was] censored. And in 1990, they were going to do the elections, so all the people have to go back for national verification. So at that time, they take away all of our names because we are not going back. And gradually, they identify that we are people [who] continue [to] resist the military regime. And then we also advocate for political social change, especially the suffering of the people is because direct impact of the mismanagement and human rights violation from the government. So they consider us, not only as, like, all illegal operation; also they are very good network in the information system.

So all the people who are become leadership role on the border, they have all the records. So I think people who live in Thailand right now – even we live in Thailand – we cannot move around freely. But at the same time people always — threats that you can be, if you’re not very careful on your movement, you can be — because the people on the border, we have many people can be arrested and deported all the time. So if you are on the list of the government, you can be arrested and deported.

Cynthia Maung is a refugee from Burma who established a world-renowned clinic near the Thai-Burma border for her fellow refugees, as well as for internally displaced persons within Burma.

Dr. Cynthia, as she is known, was born into an ethnic Karen family in Rangoon in 1959. After finishing medical school, she moved to a village in Karen State where she served as a doctor for poor people of several ethnic groups. When the military seized power in 1988 and began cracking down on pro-democracy activists, she was among thousands who fled to the jungle. Like many of the others, she eventually made it across the Thai-Burma border.

At first, Dr. Cynthia worked at a small hospital in Thailand treating those who were fleeing the fighting inside Burma. In 1989, after consulting with residents of refugee camps along the border about the medical needs of refugees and internally displaced persons , she established her clinic in a dilapidated building with bare dirt floors on the outskirts of Mae Sot. Her makeshift clinic had few supplies and almost no money, but she improvised by sterilizing her few instruments in a rice cooker and soliciting medicine and food from Catholic relief workers. Today, Dr. Cynthia’s clinic treats more than 75,000 patients each year.