Killed for fish paste

A Myanmar mother mourns her ambulance driver son, murdered by the junta for delivering food.

They killed him over fish paste.

That’s what people told me – a volunteer ambulance driver, snatched at a Myanmar junta checkpoint for fish paste. Earlier this year, in rebel-held southern Myanmar, his mother agreed to tell me the story.

His name and phone number still topped a list of emergency contacts on a shop front.

Inside, his mother, *Aye, 55, sat among gunny sacks, paring areca nuts. The kernel would be wrapped into heart-shaped betel leaves, peppered with spices, sometimes tobacco and slaked lime, and folded into a small parcel that jolted the chewer awake. Known together as betel nut, it’s addictive, and, chewed enough to stain the teeth, cancerous.

Betel nuts are big business in Tanintharyi, like rubber plantations and palm oil. But the trade isn’t limited to landowners and companies. Aye’s friend, the shop owner, dealt in betel on the side, and offered her work after her son was killed.

Aye pulled out a tissue from a plastic box, dabbed herbal tea puddled on the table, and, after taking a deep breath, told us about it.