Stateless and Poor, Some Boys in Thai Cave Had Already Beaten Long
Odds
Image
Classmates of Adul Sam-on, one of the boys trapped in Tham Luang
Cave, visited a tribute for the Wild Boars soccer team on Monday. Credit Lauren Decicca/Getty Images
By Hannah Beech
·
July 10, 2018
·
MAE SAI, Thailand — Adul Sam-on, 14, has never been a stranger
to peril.
At age 6, Adul had already escaped a
territory in Myanmar known for guerrilla warfare, opium cultivation and
methamphetamine trafficking. His parents slipped him into Thailand, in the
hopes that proper schooling would provide him with a better life than that of
his illiterate, impoverished family.
But his greatest escape came on
Tuesday, when he and 11 other members of a youth soccer team, along with their
coach, were all finally freed from the Tham Luang Cave in northern Thailand,
after an ordeal stretching more than two weeks.
For 10 days,
Adul and his fellow Wild Boars soccer squad survived deep in the cave complex
as their food, flashlights and drinking water diminished. By the time British
divers found them on July 2, the Wild Boars and their coach looked skeletal.
It was Adul,
the stateless descendant of a Wa ethnic tribal branch once known for
headhunting, who played a critical role in the rescue, acting as interpreter
for the British divers.
Image
A video grab shows some of the members of a soccer team, with Adul
Sam-on on the right, in a section of Tham Luang Cave. Credit Thai Navy Seals
Proficient in English, Thai,
Burmese, Mandarin and Wa, Adul politely communicated to the British divers his
squad’s greatest needs: food and clarity on just how long they had stayed alive.
When a teammate piped up in broken
English, “eat, eat, eat,” Adul said he had already covered that point. In
images released by the Thai Navy SEAL force, he had a huge grin on his gaunt
face.
On Tuesday, the border town of Mae
Sai, where Adul lived at a church, finally had cause to celebrate, as the Wild
Boars’ 18-day ordeal came to an end. In a three-day rescue mission, Adul and 12
others were safely extracted from the cave by a team of dozens of divers,
doctors and support staff.
The
extraordinary rescue of the youth soccer squad has been a rare cause for cheer
in a nation that has endured four years of military governance and a growing
rural-urban divide.
Mae Sai,
where the Wild Boars play soccer, seems an unlikely place for a resurgence in
Thai pride. Located not far from where Thailand, Myanmar and Laos meet in the
Golden Triangle, Mae Sai is home to a population that has at times been
skeptical of the Thai state and its institutions.
Image
Military personnel prepared to go into the Tham Luang cave complex
last week. Credit Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters
The Golden Triangle is a smuggling
center, and a sanctuary for members of various ethnic militias that have spent
decades pushing for autonomy from a government in Myanmar that routinely
represses them.
Three of the trapped soccer players,
as well as their coach, Ekkapol Chantawong, are stateless ethnic minorities,
accustomed to slipping across the border to Myanmar one day and returning for a
soccer game in Thailand the next.
Their presence undercuts a Thai
sense of nationhood that is girded by a triumvirate of institutions: the
military, the monarchy and the Buddhist monastery.
After years of reputational decline
because of an army coup in 2014 — one of a dozen successful putsches since the
country abolished an absolute monarchy in 1932 — Thailand’s military has been
handed an opportunity to burnish its image.
Thai Navy
SEAL divers became the faces of the rescue operation. And a retired Thai SEAL
diver, Saman Gunan, 38, died during the effort to bring air tanks into the cave
to aid in the rescue. On Monday evening, Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha of
Thailand, the nation’s junta chief, made his second visit to the cave site.
“The military will score some points
here,” said Rangsiman Rome, a student leader who has called for a restoration
to democracy in Thailand, even as the military has repeatedly delayed elections
and extended its rule. “They get the credit in this mission.”
Thailand’s monarchy has also been
buoyed by the outpouring of support for the 13 members of the trapped team.
King Maha Vajiralongkorn
Bodindradebayavarangkun, who ascended to the throne in 2016, has engaged with
the public more intensely during the caving crisis than at any time during his
brief reign.
The monarch’s 13-year-old son,
Prince Dipangkorn Rasmijoti, wrote a card in German, wishing the rescue mission
success, according to the Royal Household Bureau. Among other donations,
the king contributed 2,000 raincoats to the effort.
With the
English he used to communicate with the British divers on July 2, Adul was
crucial in ensuring the safety of the Wild Boars. He is the top student in his
class at the Ban Wiang Phan School in Mae Sai. His academic record and sporting
prowess have earned him free tuition and daily lunch.
Image
Onlookers cheered as a helicopter flew toward the cave on Monday
to transport a rescued boy. CreditLauren Decicca/Getty
Images
After crossing into Thailand eight
years ago, Adul’s parents dropped him off at a local Baptist church in Mae Sai,
asking that the pastor and his wife care for him. A quality education was not
available in Myanmar’s self-governing Wa region, where young boys can be in
danger of getting dragooned into the local guerrilla force.
At the Ban Wiang Phan School, where
20 percent of students are stateless and half are ethnic minorities, the
principal, Punnawit Thepsurin, said the boy’s uncertain status — he has no
citizenship papers from any country — had helped hone his strength. “Stateless
children have a fighting spirit that makes them want to excel,” he said. “Adul
is the best of the best.”
At least 440,000 stateless people
live in Thailand, many of whom are victims of Myanmar’s long years of ethnic
strife, according to the United Nations refugee agency. Human rights groups say
the true number could be as high as 3 million — in a nation of nearly 70
million — even though the Thai government has refused to ratify the United
Nations convention guaranteeing rights for refugees.
With little legal protection,
undocumented workers in Thailand can be at the mercy of human traffickers or
unscrupulous employers. But the Wild Boars provided a haven for stateless and
Thai children alike. On weekends, the squad would often go on outdoor
excursions in nearby jungles.
While a sign
outside the Tham Luang Cave warns that monsoon downpours can transform internal
passageways into powerful rivers within a few hours, the boys had explored its
caverns before. A forecast of rain on June 23 did not dissuade the team from
its adventure.
Image
Divers testing the mini-submarine built by Elon Musk’s engineers
to help rescue 12 boys and their soccer coach from a flooded Thai cave. The
capsule was built with SpaceX parts. In the end, the cave proved too narrow and
rescuers said the sub was “not practical.” Credit Elon Musk, via Reuters
“They are at
an age when they want to explore and learn new things,” said Nopparat
Khanthawong, the team’s head coach, who did not join the fated expedition.
“It’s natural for them to go to the cave.”
Initially, there was some
speculation whether Mr. Ekkapol, the 25-year-old coach who took the boys into
Tham Luang Cave, might be criminally culpable for overseeing a trip gone wrong.
But local officials quickly dismissed such talk.
The parents of the Wild Boars have
written letters supporting Mr. Ekkapol. “Coach Ek,” said Adul’s parents in a
note dictated to an intermediary, “thank you for taking care of the boys and
for helping them stay safe in the dark.”
A stateless member of the ethnic
Shan minority, Mr. Ekkapol has long experience caring for children. After his
parents died in Myanmar when he was a young boy, he entered the Buddhist
monkhood in Thailand for nearly a decade, a common option for orphans
untethered from financial support.
One of Mr.
Ekkapol’s duties after he was ordained was taking care of younger novices, said
Patcharadanai Kittisophano, a monk at the Phrathat Doi Wao temple, where the
young coach now works as a custodian.
Image
A billboard reading “Welcome home, boys” in Chiang Rai Province on
Monday. CreditTyrone Siu/Reuters
Mr. Ekkapol’s years of spiritual
training paid off in other ways. “In the cave, he taught the boys how to
meditate so they could pass the time without stress,” Mr. Patcharadanai said.
“That helped save their lives.”
While in the
cave, Mr. Ekkapol sent out a note with navy divers apologizing to the boys’
parents for having led the team astray.
“Ek must have been blaming himself,”
said Prayuth Jetiyanukarn, the abbot of the Prathat Doi Wao temple, as he
celebrated news of the whole team’s extraction from the cave. “He had to be
mindful and conquer his doubts so he could be strong for the kids.”
Mr. Nopparat, the head coach, said
that Mr. Ekkapol had even withheld food and water from himself in the cave to
provide for the boys.
“He would rather die than lose a
single Wild Boar,” Mr. Nopparat said. “That’s the kind of person he is.”
As for Adul’s parents, they
counseled the only one of their five children lucky enough to study in Thailand
to be on his best behavior, even during the most traumatic of times.
“After you
come out of the cave,” they instructed their son in a note, “you have to say
thank you to every single officer.”
Muktita Suhartono contributed
reporting.
A
version of this article appears in print on July 11, 2018, on
Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Poor,
Stateless and Used to Beating Long Odds.
Donations can be sent
to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD
21218. Ph: 410-323-1607; Email: mobuszewski2001 [at] comcast.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
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