[Locked up alongside academics and intellectuals, he was exposed to lofty conversations about history, economics and philosophy. He and his fellow prisoners would bury smuggled English dictionary pages under the muddy floors of their cells, studying them furiously when guards were not around. By the time he was released in 1993, Bo Bo Nge was fluent, and after a stint exporting taro stems harvested from Myanmar’s Inle Lake to South Korea, he moved to America’s lush, mountainous Berkshires, where he attended community college.]
He
made a new life, rising from dishwasher to an economist with a six-figure
salary. But his heart never left Myanmar, and armed with a PhD, he returned
home as a democratic transition took hold, leading to his appointment in 2017 as deputy
governor of the central bank — where he served alongside others who fought for
democracy three decades earlier.
Just
after dawn on Feb. 1, five soldiers appeared at Bo Bo Nge’s home in Myanmar’s
capital, Naypyidaw, and demanded he come with them, according to his wife. She
and his friends have not heard from him since.
Bo
Bo Nge’s fate, along with that of other intellectuals, lawyers and young
leaders detained in the military coup that deposed Aung San Suu Kyi’s civilian
government, once again epitomizes dashed hopes for a better future in Myanmar.
These reformers and technocrats, whose skills and experience helped salvage the
country’s antiquated financial system in recent years, are now silenced and
subject to the whims of isolationist generals.
[In
Myanmar coup, grievance and ambition drove military chief’s power grab]
At
the same time, Myanmar’s security forces are cracking down on protesters, killing 18 on Sunday. More than 1,130
people, including Bo Bo Nge, have been arrested since the coup.
His
predicament is made more urgent by his health issues and the fragile state of
Myanmar’s economy, already battered by the coronavirus pandemic. Banks have closed their doors as hundreds of thousands of
people, including tellers, resist the coup by refusing to go to work, pushing
the economic system closer to collapse. The few
military-linked banks that remain open have restricted customer numbers, while
the central bank is limiting withdrawals across financial institutions, raising
fears of a cash shortage.
“When
someone like Bo Bo arrived back in Myanmar, it was like a bottle of water to a
person in the desert,” said Ba Win, a former provost of Bard College at Simon’s
Rock, who helped Bo Bo Nge move to the United States. Bo Bo Nge, he added, “had
the intellectual training and discipline to look at economic issues in a way
that transcended parochial political interests.”
In an
interview with Frontier magazine, Win Thaw, the military’s chosen
replacement for Bo Bo Nge, accused protesters and those participating in the
civil disobedience movement of “destroying their own country’s economy.”
“Policies
differ from one government to another, but they should have a common goal,
which is to develop the country and not trouble the people,” he said. The
military government, he added, is “doing their best.”
An
immigrant story
Bo
Bo Nge’s first stint in detention was at Yangon’s Insein prison, where he
served more than four years for participating in the 1988 pro-democracy
uprising, which the military regime brutally crushed. The sprawling complex is
one of the city’s most visible landmarks, where behind towering metal gates
prisoners were subjected to torture
and other inhumane treatment. There, Bo Bo Nge’s health began to
deteriorate, and his teeth rotted from neglect, friends and family say.
Locked
up alongside academics and intellectuals, he was exposed to lofty conversations
about history, economics and philosophy. He and his fellow prisoners would bury
smuggled English dictionary pages under the muddy floors of their cells,
studying them furiously when guards were not around. By the time he was
released in 1993, Bo Bo Nge was fluent, and after a stint exporting taro stems
harvested from Myanmar’s Inle Lake to South Korea, he moved to America’s lush,
mountainous Berkshires, where he attended community college.
“He
was immediately helpful, kind and so good-natured,” said Marion Lathrop, 84,
who hosted Bo Bo Nge with her husband, Don, then a professor at Berkshire
Community College. “It was kind of hard to grasp the fact that someone with
that nature could have gone through that kind of ordeal.”
[Suu
Kyi’s ouster heralds return to military rule in Myanmar]
Immediately,
friends said, Bo Bo Nge got down to business, acquiring a driver’s license and
a car to drive between his odd jobs and college. In 2001, two years after his
arrival, he won a scholarship to Bard College, and after graduation, he pursued
a master’s degree in economics at Johns Hopkins University.
Through
those years, he maintained a long-distance love with his future wife, Hnin Wai
Lwin, better known by her nickname Me Kyi, whom he met on Inle Lake at her shop
where she sold trinkets under a famed pagoda. Their international calls were a
source of entertainment for her village — where residents could listen in on a
central broadcast as phones were scarce — before she joined him in
Massachusetts seven years after his departure, according to several friends.
His
first job was at a subsidiary
of the American Institute of Economic Research, where he eventually earned
six figures — epitomizing the American immigrant success story. Colleagues were
“immediately struck by his brilliance,” said Seth Hoffman, now vice president
of that subsidiary, American Investment Services.
“Given
his particular skill set, Bo Bo could have gone on, if he was reoriented in a
different direction, to be on a bond desk in a major investment bank,” Hoffman
said. “He could have had a more comfortable life.”
Economy
on the brink
But
Bo Bo Nge, heartened by a hopeful yet uncertain military-led transition to
democracy that began in 2010, wanted to do “something more than make money,”
according to Ba Win. Inspired by a conversation the two had about a lack of
skilled leaders in Myanmar — the military shuttered
its best universities after the 1988 uprising and reopened them only
in 2014 — Bo Bo Nge pursued a doctorate at the School of Oriental and
African Studies in London, where Suu Kyi was a research student in the 1980s.
When
he went back to join the government as deputy central bank governor in 2017, the
military had ceded some control to a civilian leadership and the economy was
making great strides. Poverty had been halved from
a decade prior, growth was picking up, and reformists were driving policy
changes, keeping down inflation and modernizing the central bank. In the recent
coup, several of Suu Kyi’s leading economic advisers were detained,
including Australian
economist Sean Turnell, and Min Ye Paing Hein, a
former World Bank economist who was the deputy industry minister. None
have been heard from since they were taken by authorities.
As
the military tightens its hold on power and the prospect of reconciliation
grows dim, the European Union and other Western countries are
readying sanctions against Myanmar’s generals and their economic interests,
following moves
by the United States.
[Myanmar
grinds to a halt as hundreds of thousands strike against military coup]
A general strike on Feb. 22, meanwhile, added momentum to
Myanmar’s civil disobedience movement. Many taking part in the resistance say
sacrificing the economy is their only way to bring down the junta and achieve
democracy.
Zaw
Zaw, a 41-year-old garment factory owner in Yangon, said he sold an apartment
and his car to support those who are forgoing a paycheck to participate in acts
of disobedience against military rule. Soon he will run out of things to sell,
he admits, but says he will do anything to keep the resistance afloat.
“The
country’s economy was already in danger” before the coup, he said. “Whether or
not the generals hold an election in a year as promised, the economy will
collapse anyway. So it is worthwhile to sacrifice everything to bring them
down.”
Asking
for Daddy
Since
her husband was taken on Feb. 1, Hnin Wai Lwin has had trouble sleeping and has
lost her appetite. Memories of basic facts — when they arrived in the United
States, her husband’s age — are fading or have become confused. She has moved
back to Shan state up north, away from the military-run capital, Naypyidaw, for
her safety and that of their 5-year old son, who she said is always asking for
his father, unable to comprehend what has happened.
She
cannot stop thinking about the health of her husband, who is in his 50s, and
whether he has run out of the limited supply of medicines she packed in a bag
before he left with the soldiers. In an interview, she said Bo Bo Nge was
suffering from gastrointestinal disease and hypertension, for which he needs
medical treatment.
“I
am also not in good health, and we are not together,” she said. “I am very
sorry. We should be together, whatever the circumstance.”
Kyaw
Ye Lynn in Yangon contributed to this report.