Akha Sterilizations by American Missionary

Akha Sterilizations by American Missionary

Akha Sterilizations and Blood Theft

Sterilization and Blood Theft Perpetrated against Akha People by American Baptist Missionary

Rumored widely for many years witnesses have now stepped forward who claim that the American Baptist Missionary Paul Lewis sterilized more than 20,000 Akha Hill Tribe women in Burma's Eastern Shan State alone, running his operation on trust that he had built as a missionary and student of their culture.

This project was done secretly without the approval of the Burmese Government by requiring the women to come into Thailand for the procedure, using many people in the Baptist Church hierarchy to organize the movement of the trusting women, who now claim they had little education as to what the long term effect on their lives would be. Government leaders in this region of Burma now know about the project and say that it was illegal in that it did not have Burmese government approval or proper documentation that the rights of the women were not being violated. Although Burma is much maligned for human rights violations, activities of western organizations such as this appear to be disregarded by the same agencies which make the human rights reports. In addition witnesses now verify the rumor that blood was simultaneously stolen from these women for resale. Taken during the sterilization procedure blood was collected in amounts of 200 and 300 ml. Attending family members or friends of the women were witness to this as well. Women who received local anethesia only saw for themselves that the blood was being taken. They did not know why the blood was being taken out of their arm at the same time as the rather unrelated surgery. The women were only paid for the cost of the truck to come down to the clinic where they would be sterilized just south of the border in Thailand.

There was no follow up care and even to this day in this region of Burma medical care is very difficult to come by for the poor. Of the more than 20,000 who witnesses say were sterilized in Burma alone, they say that more than 3,000 women died. Many developed a weakened condition, began loosing weight, the pain related to the surgery did not subside and in the end they died. These deaths ranged from a period of time ranging in two months after the surgery to three years In a past video interview Paul Lewis claimed that any pain related to the surgery was simply phsycosomatic and that the sterilizations were the right thing to do and "should be done". Now the children of many women have died and they are unbable to have more children. Many women also experience weight gain problems that they can not control. More research is needed into the number of women sterilized in the Paul Lewis project and the number of those who have since died. Witness accounts seem to confirm that the number who died is extremely high as might be associated with any other kind of surgery. This same scene was repeated in Thailand. There appeared to be a lot of money connected with this project. Even now the witnesses are afraid to speak out against Paul Lewis publicly, stating that he is a very powerful man and that they fear people who continue to get money under the table from his Baptist related organizations will retaliate against them.

According to the Akha Traditional Culture system five people serve as the government in one village. This multiperson leadership system in villages was eliminated by many missionaries and replaced by single pastors who rule the villages with an iron fist, allowing no dissent or return to traditional ways. These pastors also ensure that the women do not speak of the difficulties they have experienced and the pastors continue to receive money from western missions. Paul Lewis, now safely in retirement in Claremont, California, could not be reached for comment.

The Paul W. Lewis Reply

The Paul W. Lewis Reply
From: "Paul W. Lewis" <pwlewis@juno.com>

REPLY BY PAUL W. LEWIS
I have received an article from the Akha News Service, Maesai, Chiangrai, Thailand which accuses me of several things. I would like to reply to these
accusations, and trust that my reply will receive the same coverage as the allegations received.

REPLY SUMMARY
1. ALLEGATION: Paul Lewis had more than 20,000 Akha women from Burma sterilized.
FACT: I helped between 300 and 350 Akha women from Burma receive an operation they greatly wanted and needed. They were most anxious to have the operation because they could not take care of the children they already had.

2. ALLEGATION: The project was done secretly.
FACT: The program to help tribal families was carried out under the auspices of the McCormick Hospital Family Planning Program based in Chiang Mai, with full authorization from Thai authorities. Citizens of Burma regularly come over to Thailand to receive the health assistance that is not available there.

3. ALLEGATION: The women did not know the long term effects on their bodies.
FACT: A Thai woman doctor trained at Johns Hopkins Medical School used the latest methods - the same as used in the USA. The long term effects for those women would be much the same as women who have the same operation in this country, with the exception that their living conditions are much, much worse.

4. ALLEGATION: Blood was stolen from these women for resale.
FACT: This is the most obscene statement that could possibly be made, and totally false. Surely such activities would have been found by alert authorities in Thailand, who monitored the whole program. A local anesthetic was used, and there was an IV drip started well before the operation, and continued during, and after the operation. Blood was not drawn, except in a few of the early cases to check for malaria. We found so many of the women from Burma had malaria that we no longer bothered to check, but simply gave a full course of malaria medicine to each woman from Burma, as well as to accompanying members of her family, when they arrived at the hospital.

5. ALLEGATION: Of the 20,000 women sterilized more than 3,000 have died.
FACT: Since there were not more than 350 Akha women from Burma who received the operation, for over 3,000 of them to die is totally impossible, and reveals something of the lengths the author is going to in order to discredit the program.

REPLIES TO SPECIFIC STATEMENTS IN THE ARTICLE
1. "Paul Lewis sterilized more than 20,000 Akha Hill Tribe women in
Burmaís Eastern Shan State aloneÖ"

As part of a family planning program I helped to conduct for the Lahu, Akha and Lisu tribal groups of Thailand, at their urgent request, we began to
offer sterilization to those couples who did not want to have more children. They knew very well that they would not have more children following the
operation - there was full disclosure and full consent. It was explained to them in their own language, and hundreds of couples came for help.

There was fully informed consent in every aspect of the program - as an anthropologist and as a follower of Jesus Christ this was a top priority for me. The local committees which I helped organize to guide and oversee the tribal family planning program (one Akha, one Lisu and two Lahu committees) decided that only couples with two living children should be accepted for sterilization, and then only if they lived near medical facilities. For those couples who lived further away from good health care centers, they felt we should not sterilize any couple that had less than three living children.

During the early years of the program we provided family planning service for Lahu, Akha and Lisu in Thailand. After we had been conducting the program for a year or two, several tribal people from Kengtung State in Burma (both Lahu and Akha) came to ask if they could receive the same help, since it was not available in their country, and they were desperate. I checked with the Chief Medical Officer in Chiang Rai Province and he said, "We do not ask ëWhere are you from?í, but ëWhere does it hurt?í Of course they can come. We already serve hundreds of patients from Burma every month in the hospitals in Mae Sai and Chiang Rai." I knew this to be true, since I was often asked to translate for the people from Burma.

Over the last four years of our seven year six month program we began to accept couples from Burma to receive sterilization. A very skilled Thai woman doctor, who received her training in sterilization at Johns Hopkins Medical School, would travel with her team to a modern Government hospital in Phayao the last Friday and Saturday of each month. Her brother was the Director of that hospital. She would give sterilizations to the tribal women who came from Thailand, and then later from Burma as well. She always did it in a spirit of love and compassion.

Since all of this happened some 20 years ago I do not have all of the figures with me in Claremont, CA, but I do know that in the total program there were
fewer than 3,000 (three thousand) women who received the operation as a part of our program. As I recall the number was 2,978. There were
approximately 64 men who had vasectomies as part of our program. [Note: All of the statistical material I produced has been turned over to the Akha
people in Burma and Thailand. There would also be some statistics in the Family Planning files of McCormick Hospital, but in those figures we did not
separate the patients by tribal group or place of residence.]

Of the 2,978 sterilizations, about half of them were done in Chiang Mai. The operations done there were for tribal couples living in Thailand. We only accepted couples from Burma in the Phayao Hospital, and later in a Lahu village in Chiang Rai Province which was nearer to tribal villages (Akha, Lisu and Lahu) and closer to the Burma border. I would presume that Dr. Arunee Fongsri performed roughly 1,500 sterilizations in Chiang Rai Province, either using the laparascope or performing mini-laparotamies. Of those 1,500 cases a little less than half of the patients were from Burma (roughly 750). If my memory serves me correctly, about 40% of these would be Akha (that is, about 300 women), 45% were Lahu, and the other 15% were Lisu, Kachin, Tai Loi, Shan, etc. Just to make sure I do not understate the total, let me estimate that up to 350 Akha women from Burma received sterilization in our program.

Logistically speaking it would have been impossible for us to perform the number of operations claimed by the Akha Heritage Foundation. Dr. Arunee Fongsri would perform the operation on about 35-40 women the last Friday and Saturday of each month, ten months out of the year. Even if all of the women she operated on for a four year period were Akha women from Burma, that would still be just 400 women per year, or a total of approximately 1,600 over that time - much less than the 20,000 claimed. But they were not the only ones coming. They represented about 40% of the ones who came, although I do recall one trip when the Akha women from Burma constituted approximately half of all of those receiving the operation. That large a percent of Akha women from Burma did not happen very often, however.

2. "This project was done secretly without the approval of the Burmese Government by requiring the women to come into Thailand for the procedure Ö
Government leaders in this region of Burma now know about the project and say that it was illegal in that it did not have Burmese government approval or
proper documentation that the rights of the women were not being violated."

When people along the border of Burma are sick or need to see a doctor, they do not need to get approval from the Burmese government to seek help
in Thailand. At the time of our project family planning was virtually illegal in Burma, except for military officers and their families. Medical care and
medicines were extremely difficult to obtain, which increased the problems tribal families faced as many couples had a baby every two years or less. They
pleaded with us for help!

3. The term is used, "Öthey had little education as to what the long term effect on their lives would be."

We followed up many of the women who had the operation, and found very good results from the operation itself. The sterilization they received
(whether by the $10,000 laparascope or by the simpler but just as effective mini-laparotomy) is the VERY SAME that American women receive! There was
one Lahu woman from Thailand who had a "bleeder" following the operation, but this was taken care of before it became serious.

In the hills of eastern Burma many women die in child birth. I know. I have driven many tribal women (Lahu, Akha, Wa) having trouble giving birth to a hospital so that their lives could be saved. The long term effect of not having the operation was often death!

Also, we found that almost all of the women coming from Burma had malaria. At first we only gave malaria medicine to those who were having an active case. As time went by we changed and gave EACH OF THEM a full course of malaria medicine the moment they arrived in Phayao, since most of them had it in their system. They were most grateful for this. One Lahu woman who had the operation came back about a year later bringing her sister for the operation, and said that she had not had a malarial attack since we gave her the medicine when she had come for her surgery.

I should mention here that I was deeply concerned about the long term effect of all family planning methods. That is one of the reasons I worked to receive a Ph.D. in Medical Anthropology from the University of Oregon. Also, our program had wonderful backing from McCormick Hospital in Chiang Mai in all of these matters. The world-renowned family planning expert, Dr. Edwin McDaniel, was advisor to the project, and it was their program that lent the excellent services of Dr. Arunee Fongsri to us. At the time, she had performed over 50,000 sterilizations in Thailand, and was very highly thought of by the whole medical establishment. She was frequently asked to give papers in family planning conferences in Thailand and other countries about her superb program of training others to perform this operation.

It is true that sometimes there was some scarring following the operation - which can happen in this country as well. Also, it is true that the diets of the tribal women in Southeast Asia are often very poor, and that there are various other things that can cause serious diseases among them, but usually these matters are not related to the sterilization.

4. "In addition witnesses now verify the rumor that blood was simultaneously stolen from these women for resale."

This is total fabrication! When women were first coming from Burma we thought it might be good to test for malaria, and enough blood was taken to
cover a slide! When we found that over 70% exhibited malaria in their blood we did not bother to do that any more. As I mentioned above we simply gave
every woman a full course of malaria medicine.

While we were in Thailand there were wild rumors about people going around to steal blood to sell etc. There was never proof of this, but lots of fear. We never took blood to sell - or even thought of doing so. We did give blood transfusions to a few women who were very weak. I remember a Lahu woman from Burma who had almost bled to death during her last miscarriage. She was given blood before and after the sterilization, as were a few others. We also provided powdered milk for those still nursing babies and needing extra nourishment. Believe me, we did everything we possibly could to help those families get the very best service possible. Twenty years later for a group that calls itself "Akha Heritage Foundation" to put a totally blatant lie like this on the internet is staggering to say the least!

5. "Ö to this day in this region of Burma medical care is very difficult to come by for the poor."
Right! And that is why we paid their travel and even for their food for the journey. That is also why we knocked ourselves out to help them past this hurdle in their lives, because there was no way a couple could continue to feed and care for their children when they were having ten children or so before the woman was 35 years of age - and we had many such cases!

6. "Of the more than 20,000 who witnesses say were sterilized in Burma alone, they say that more than 3,000 women died."

To make the statement that over 3,000 women died from the outpatient operation when there were fewer than 350 Akha women from Burma who received that operation stretches the imagination! In 1996 when I was attending a conference related to the Hani and Akha in Chiang Mai, Thailand, I was confronted by a Westerner charging that the women in Burma who were sterilized were in terrible pain from the operation, with many of them dying. I checked around with some Akha leaders from Burma and Thailand asking if this was true. They were amazed to hear this (including one Akha in-law of the Westerner who made the accusation), and told me it was not true. The wife of one of the men told how as a little girl she had been with her mother when she went to the Phayao hospital to receive this operation, and how grateful her mother and father were to me for helping out in this way. Then they asked me where I had heard about women being in serious pain. When I told them who said it they laughed and said, "It sounds like something he would say!"

7. "Ö Paul Lewis claimed that any pain related to the surgery was simply psychosomaticÖ"
Tribal women in Southeast Asia have lots of pains and problems. I remember a Lahu woman who had had sterilization coming to our home while we
still lived in Chiang Mai and saying that because of the surgery she had a terrible rash on her legs. We looked. Sure enough, she had a bad rash. We said
that it was not due to the surgery. "But I never had it before the operation, so that must be the reason" she said. We took her to a hospital and got medicine
for her, and the rash cleared up. If I made a statement to the effect that "any pain was simply psychosomatic" Iím afraid I did not state my own convictions
very well.
Many such pains can be psychosomatic, but many of them are the result of intestinal worms, cancer, poor diet, working much harder than they should, adhesions from various causes, etc. etc. As far as we could tell, within five years after the end of the program, there was not one fatality that could be considered a result of the operation. This may be a better record than in some Western countries.

8. The author calls me a "very powerful man", and claims I was giving "money under the table from his Baptist-related organizations".

Money sent to the field for work went through the Lahu and Akha themselves. I did not receive it. Actually, none of the money for the family planning program came from Baptist sources, and funds for education and development often come from Sweden, Germany and other countries. I must acknowledge the generous funding of the group called Family Planning International Assistance for supporting the Hill Tribes Family Planning Program of McCormick Hospital.

For over 40 years I gave my life and talent to help these people in every way possible, but I always worked WITH them, and sought to turn over all aspects of the work to them as quickly as possible. In regard to the family planning program, I turned all of that over to the Thai Government at the end of our seven and a half years of service.

9. The author speaks of the pastors in Christian Akha villages upsetting the traditional cultural system. (Actually, I do not know where the part about the
"five men" comes from.)

If and when an Akha pastor does that, I am not happy. I firmly believe in the division of church and state, and in allowing the Akha to determine the
type of culture in which they wish to live. Often, of course, the pastor is the only person in the village who has had at least a basic education and can speak
Burmese or Thai, so when officials and others come to the village they may talk with him more than the headman - which is unfortunate. Anyone who
knows what I did in both Burma and Thailand will know that I pushed for an education for ALL tribal people, young and old, male and female. I can
honestly say that I have not personally been in any Christian Akha village in either Burma or Thailand where the headman has been superceded by the
pastor. I know there are some mission groups that tend to bring this type of thing about, but it certainly is not the Baptist way. I am afraid that the author of
these statements does not really understand either me, or the Akha people.

10. "Paul Lewis, now safely in retirement in Claremont, California, could not be
reached to comment."

There are a number of Akha people living in and near Mae Sai who could have given the author my address, telephone number and e-mail address. It
would have been the ethical thing to do for the author to have at least contacted me before spreading these accusations around the world on the web.
Perhaps I could have saved him some embarrassment, if nothing else.

CREDENTIALS OF PAUL W. LEWIS
I was born in Denver, Colorado June 30, 1924. In 1946, while attending seminary in Philadelphia, I learned that a "great tribe in the hills of Eastern
Burma did not have their language reduced to writing", and I felt that was not fair. It was the Akha people, I later learned. After intensive linguistic training
my wife and I went to Burma in the fall of 1947 and were there until April 1966. There we served the Lahu and Akha people under the auspices of the
Board of International Ministries, American Baptist Churches/USA (with headquarters in Valley Forge, PA).
After studying Lahu first and then Akha, I reduced the Akha language to writing in 1950, and began to produce literature. Dr. Frank Laubach, the world-renowned literacy expert, came through Rangoon at that time, so my wife and I took an Akha young man and two Lahu men with us to work with Dr. Laubach in producing Akha and Lahu primers especially designed for adults. Using a pattern Dr. Laubach taught us we also produced readers for new literates for both tribes.

I was asked by the Human Relations Area File in New Haven to write up my findings concerning the Akha people of Burma, so before we left Burma in 1966 I spent 15 months doing intensive research into their fascinating culture. I produced four volumes entitled "Ethnographic Notes on the Akha of Burma". These were published by HRAF. It will be noted that I sought to include the Akha words for all of their ceremonies and other cultural activities. I wished to help others know and understand these great people.

We went to serve the Lahu in Thailand in 1968. During our early years there I taught anthropology one year at the University of Chiang Mai (I had an MA in anthropology at that time from the University of Colorado). I also began collecting ethnographic notes on all six tribes in Thailand, which eventually was useful in writing the book my wife Elaine and I authored called, "Peoples of the Golden Triangle". It was published in English, German, French and Thai, and the latter translation is currently being used in teaching anthropology in Universities in Thailand.

I received a Ph.D. in Medical Anthropology at the University of Oregon in 1978. Much of my reason for studying in that field was that I wanted to do NOTHING to harm the wonderful people I had totally fallen in love with - the Lahu and Akha people of Southeast Asia! My dissertation is entitled: "Introducing Family Planning to the Akha People of Thailand", and is available on micro-film. I sent my own copy of this dissertation to an Akha Cultural Center in Chiang Mai, which is just now being developed by some Akha leaders in Burma and Thailand.

I have produced two Akha dictionaries, the first published by Cornell University, the second (greatly enlarged, and with many Thai terms included) was published in Thailand by the Development and Agricultural Project for Akha (DAPA), a development organization which I helped to start, and which was made possible by financial help from Diakonia of Sweden.
Besides various books and magazines I helped to produce in Burma, as well as the Akha New Testament and an Akha hymnal, I produced the following Akha books in Thailand toward the end of my stay there: Akha Ballads, Poems and Songs (313 pages); Akha Riddles and Proverbs (113 pages); Akha Stories (330 pages); Akha Health Book (131 pages).

I must acknowledge the wonderful backing I have had from various groups - first and foremost being the International Ministries of American Baptists. They made it possible for my wife and me to share Godís infinite love with the people in Southeast Asia, which was always our basic goal. I was far from being a "perfect" missionary, but I appreciate so much the compassionate and creative backing the American Baptists gave to us and our work. Then I must also thank the Lahu and Akha people of both Burma and Thailand who have taught me so many wonderful things.
My address is:

Dr. Paul W. Lewis
560 W. 8th St.
Claremont, CA 91711
U.S.A.

My phone number is: (909) 625-3350.
My e-mail address uses my initials (pwlewis) with @juno.com.
There is also a fax number for the Pilgrim Place community, where I live.
That number is: (909) 399-5508 (my name must be included in the beginning of the fax, since many people use this number).
Paul W. Lewis
March 18, 1999

12 May 99, Akha Response

This is the Akha Response:
You may delete if of no interest to you.
It is rather lengthy and difficult to read in some places but is the original handwritten response.
This is the Akha response to the issues of how their language has been manipulated and how they were increasingly marginalized by the "pioneering" of sterilizations among the Akha which has continued on through to this day.
This response is written by a number of Akha who fear for their safety should they make their names public. Threats have already been made by people involved with the protestant missions.
April 4, 1999
Maesai, Chiangrai, Thailand

A reply to comments of Paul W. Lewis that the Akha have not been exploited by the protestant missions, that blood was not taken, and that sterilizations did not happen in large numbers, were not done carelessly, and did not cause a lot of women to die:

One Elder states:
"Paul Lewis says that our statement that blood was taken from women being sterilized is "obscene".
Obscene as compared to all the women who died?
Just what is he talking about?

"Of seven ladies that had sterilization in our village, two passed away shortly after the sterilization. Although the Akha do not currently have the funds to research the exact number who died away it is indeed quite high. Why? They went to receive sterilization because they were poor. After being sterilized since they could not become rich automatically they had to go and work as usual. So they had to suffer pain from their operation. Since their poverty demanding them not to stop their job, they had to face with new disease of feeling pain all the time. Later, they had to pass away with new disease. Thatís why, the help given by others turned out to be a trap for most of the Akha ladies who were being sterilized. Those who survived, still many are suffering from various kind of diseases and social abnormalities. Some became opium addicts, still some became very thin and suffering from bleeding.

Who did all these things? To me it seems to be like a systematic way of killing our hill tribe, to annihilate us. Why I dare say like that? As they are experts in these fields, they know ahead for sure that those who underwent operation some or somehow would not be able to do hard labor in the rest of her life. Knowing it properly, they persuaded hill tribes women to undertake such operation by offering bonus to individual person to lower down the population of hill tribes people for sure.
They killed the best of our people. Since our people knew about it very little, they accepted it like a fish which sees the bait but not the hook.

Now I feel very bad for my suffering people. To whom shall I blame? To my poor people or to those so called experts who jumped in with lots of money as if they were our generous benefactors?
Whatever it be, from my personal experiences and eye witnessing, this project did not do any good for our people. Why such a great and well known man like Dr. Paul Lewis, intentionally and willingly tried to carry out such expensive project particularly just for our hill tribes people? Since they are well educated and being able to foresee what will be the result of their project, why they did such to our tribe? It is still remaining as a mystery for our people especially for those young people who love their people very much.

Regarding the Baptist missionaries, they seemed that they did not show any interest for our culture. Why? They did not encourage to name the new born children in the traditional name. They just eager to build big churches in every village. Even if there is just one christian family in a village where there are over 100 households, they try very hard to build a big church for that family. Such thing happen in Akha villages. There may be only one christian family, but the villagers did not allow him to build a church but he did not listen so he built a small church, later the villagers pulled it down. Why? Because they are afraid that there will be division among the villagers, later the villagers will become two groups that they will start to speak bad to one another. So at last there will be division in the village. As examples we may find up to two or three churches in just one small village, how one will belong to Baptist mission, another to church of Christ and another one still to Pentecostals, etc. and you will not find anyone from among these various churches for our culture. Why?"

Another Akha:

"I was not Baptist but lived among many Baptist villages. I could get the best news that there were going on with the Baptist Church when Paul Lewis was staying in Burma as well as in Thailand. He was so friendly with many Baptist Pastors that what he is going to tell us indeed coming out from the mouths of the pastors.
Regarding the sterilizations, he said that women not only from Tachilek district at the border, but also from Mong Phyak, Mong Yog, Mong Hkat, Mong Yan, Mong Pin as well as Keng Tung were sterilized. Almost all of them came from Baptist villages.

Why? Because those who came to bring these women down (receiving payment for getting as many women as possible) also mostly came from pastorís society. Time they trusted to their Chief Pastor very much that it seemed they did not think very much that it would be right or wrong. Only later when they came to realize that sterilization was not good at all for hill tribe women for many suffered and died of this. Since women came from many many villages for more than ten years at least, the number would be very great and those who passed away most probably would be more than three thousand already. Still other remain who are still suffering. Basing on what many came across from all these we dare say that much perhaps even more than that.
I do not understand why Dr. Paul Lewis spent lots of money to carry out this project? Apart from giving money to each patient he also gave all the traveling expenses to them and 3,000 baht to the agent, which at that time was a lot of money, for bringing the women in. That is why in those days his project became a good income for those agents who managed to bring down the patients to the surgery. Most of these agents came from pastorís societies. To be able to get that 3,000 baht as a bonus, many tried to fulfill this project enthusiastically, so that became a sort of economy for them. Because of such situation it seemed that many women received only good stories of what would follow suit after sterilization. No body told them the bad side effects that would come out from that project. But fact is fact. Most of those ladies who underwent sterilization met with various types of disasters. To whom shall we blame for al these things? It is plain truth in our villages. Whoever denies it will be just cheating the world. I am still wondering why such a great man initiated such a bad thing to our hill tribe? I am very eager to know the answer.

Some claimed that certain amount of blood was drawn away from their bodies varying to one another. The patients themselves also never knew why the drawing of blood was done upon them. This was more than what would be made to come out for a blood test. How true it is would be left over with the persons who were paid to do the sterilizations and have access to all the records.
For the time being, so many patients could not work anymore, many became very thin and suffering from various form of disease. Many others still becoming socially abnormal that they felt shy for being like that. But how to solve it? There is no answer.
At the beginning when christianity was arising among the Akha people, they burnt down our gates, and ancestor offering boxes. Slowly we were named with christian names that traditional names and naming system were disappearing away slowly. By now when a new child is born, he or she will be named in christian way either by the mistress of the pastor or by the pastor himself, eliminating our ancient naming system by which we count our generations back. Now the children can not do that, because the naming system was interfered with and destroyed by these christian mission people.

By looking at this to be Akha means needs to know our genealogical line. If they are pushing away such good custom of Akha, no doubt they donít care if they push away the culture of Akha people also. Thus at first they threw away our culture, later divisions came among the people although they are same christians. In that way, there sprouting up one church after another in the same village. Now not only division among the villages but also division among the families are arising. How to solve it? What a miserable situation is going on among our people in Burma from western missions coming in from Thailand.

Regarding the education given by missionaries, that was very good indeed. Many young people came to know how to uplift the living standards of our people. At the beginning it seemed to be very good. As the years gone by, boarding departments also show interest only for girls. Why? Especially in Thailand. Due to having prostitution so highly, under the name of safeguarding young women, boarding schools for girls sprouting up. But then the girls no longer feel to marry Akha men. So where will the Akha children come from and what will happen to our people and villages? They do not come back to the villages. In this way the Akha women are being taken away from the Akha world. That is why the present education being given by the missionaries should be closed down quickly and changing into new educational system. Education should be given in village level thus giving chances to both boys and girls in the village life. Then we will be able to preserve ourselves, instead of having the young women "bought out" from us, then we can also save our language.

We do not know why the so called missionaries are trying to throw away our culture so eagerly? Isnít there any good thing in our culture? If there is not even a single good point, why then are they making business by selling Akha head dresses and other things also? Making lots and lots of money by writing about our people, culture, custom and history? After all, to be able to write such things from where do they get all these informations? Indeed, all these informations are given by my people and they are still poor as usual. What about those authors? They become rich and well known to the world for writing and knowing about us.
For example, Dr. Paul Lewis when he came to Burma in 1947 he hardy acquired any degree. Through his zeal and eagerness to learn he gained his MA and Ph.D. while he was in Burma and Thailand. In fact he gained great knowledge from us. So many Akha elders who were well informed regarding Akha Zauh had to sacrifice lots of their time so that a person like Paul Lewis, who did not understand even a single Akha could become an Akha expert up to writing books in Akha. Who are his teachers? We the Akha. He became very famous by writing about Akha Zauh in english under four volumes and they are in Cornell University. What are the contents of these four volumes? The real culture of Akha was never suitable for Akha readers. Paul Lewisís mission had Bibles, not books on our culture. The so called four volumes written about Akha Zauh was never written in Akha. Now we even doubt that Paul Lewis might have written about Akha in an oppressive way. If he is forbidding our Zauh, why then he is writing all of this? The book called "People of the Golden Triangle" which has sold thousands of books in many languages must have made him some name and some money. Does he deny he made great name off us, but lives safely while we still die?
So our poor people did not make any trouble for him, instead helping him to be more learned man and more wealthy man. People like to call him a "great man of God". But why did he dropped down such a bad seed called sterilization which has been carrying on by other people? My people were so good to him that he gave us back the worst thing!? Can we tell or name him that he is still a christian? Now he is retiring with lots of wealth while we are remaining still very poor?

Regarding the religion, at the beginning it seemed to be very good. Converting one village after another. Later it turned out to be division among the people. Why? Some became Catholics, some protestants, some still holding their ancestor offering while others became Buddhists. All these even though they are Akhas and sons of the same Sooh Meeh Oh, they could not face to one another. Why? First they took away our culture which has been handed down upon over 1500 years already by naming it that it was bad to carry. Now we want to raise a question, how good the christianity is then. If that is good enough, why there are so many groups, teaching about Jesus and yet fighting to one another? First they divided our people, now they are dividing our villages and lately they are dividing our families by building many churches just in one village. On Burma side and Thailand, it looks like a testing ground for their different groups of religion. Our people are indeed confusing a lot. Better not to have one of them than having all of them. They are just trying to take the best from us and leaving us in despair. We seems to be like a prey for them.

Regarding the Akha scripts, before Paul Lewis was born, Catholic Akha script was already there, printed by Msgr. Bonetta from Toungoo Press. And the present Catholic script is the third improvement and already taken into shape before 1950 and done by Fr. Protuluppi. The earliest Akha prayer book was printed somewhere around 1917 already. By starting a new one, Baptist mission started with their own script to make a difference between Catholic and Baptist. They would not agree to work together. Due to this which one we shall choose? Just to take an escape from all of this we worked with the people at the Akha Heritage Foundation to make a script which solved the problems inherent in both the others, and that took no religious side. With this we can record all our Akha Zauh accurately and it can be typed, read and learned quickly. For sure we would be most criticized by the missionaries first, but we donít care, we just care that all our Zauh should be recorded for the children before we pass away.
The missionaries quickly seized upon the killing of twins at birth in Akha culture as a means to vilify the whole culture and turn many Akha against anything and everything Akha. Divide us. Conquer us? On every culture, which we can ever find in the world, since they are formed long time ago, some of them will not be up to the mark of modern society, some may seem to be with error. In Old Testament time they are human sacrificing even. Cannibalism is still going on in some part of Africa.

In that way, our culture also some seems to be very cruel. For such case, instead of understanding upon our culture, missionaries would like to mock at us, with that they blamed that our culture was indeed very bad in that we killed new born twins. In those days, they presumed that only animals would give birth to more than one. If two or three babies are born from the same womb at the same moment, the presumed that they would bring bad luck to the society. So they killed them. In those days people were waging war in our land all the time and migrating from one place to another all the time also. If the mother had to care two or three at the same time, it would be very hard for the family. They might have their own reasons for all of this.
Today I would like to ask to those concerned about it properly since killing is wrong indeed, why then abortion is going on and on all the time especially in US where all the missionaries come from? Is that not against the violation of human right? Even in your churches? Why such thing is going on and on all the time? To us we castrate only animals, to make them become fat quickly especially for rearing pigs. In abroad they are sterilizing ladies, this also what a strange thing for us here. Due to those authors who tried to exaggerate our culture so much in a mockery way that readers presumed we Akha people might really be primitive people. Because of that, when they converted an Akha village into Christianity they burnt down our gates, ancestor shrines, swing etc. Apart from that , they also stopped us from doing traditional burial, naming to new born children in traditional way of names, no more recitations, no dancing allowed. In fact all these things made the Akha people to persevere their culture and language over one thousand five hundred years already. If these can keep the Akha people for such a long tie as a group of people, we donít think that all these would be very bad. Thatís why we want to ask you, whether it is not it is worth to keep them instead of condemning them and throwing them all away?

For example, gate of the village means fence of the village like the fence of our compound. Is that wrong to have a fence of the village? To the Akhas, swing ceremony represents to Godís creation of human, they say that the Akha has descended from God through the swing. Is it wrong to commemorate that? Is it wrong to name an Akha new born child after the name of their respective lineage? Thatís why missionaries should reconsider it over again and should change their way of teachings.
If all these cultures are bad as they named, can we say that sterilization is justified?
Now sterilization is still going on from the seeds that Paul Lewis dropped down. All these can be seen in the stream of life here.
From our close observation we came to know that when the missionaries arrived these missionaries selected some ones so that later these people would be able to take their place. In this way they formed a lot of Akha elite thus taking them away, from the ordinary people. They made them into a group to be extra ordinary Akhas, thus giving them best education, best facilities of the world. That is why there small group could buy the latest cars one after the other. They became very powerful that they could pin point anybody whom they want and start ordering what they like. Why they did like that? Only those concerned would know the purpose of doing that? Now these young leaders replacing old missionaries. They think that they belong to upper class and they donít want to admit that they also came from the same people.

From where all these divisive ideas came from? From the foreign missionaries? If that is true, why did they do that? We have no proper leader, no country, no land to be able to claim as ours, no wealth, no education, number also very limited. To such a poor people, why did they do that? It seems that they are having to faces. Under the title of help they suppress us. To the world they gained their reputation as benefactors of disappearing tribes. They built their reputations on us for many years. While many Akhas served to assist this reputation for many years, assistance came back only to a few.
The way they behaved upon us seemed as if we did not know about God before they arrived here. Why do missionaries think they are the only ones who can perceive God? If there is no good teachings among the Akhas, we are sure that we can not have survived until this day.