Home is a distant place

I remembered Sharbat Gula last Sunday. She with the beautiful face framed by a veil, she with the stunning sea-green eyes with flecks of brown, pupils constricted, gazing out from the National Geographic brochure that circulated around the world for several years. Sharbat Gula was a 1985 NG cover girl with no name. But she gave a face to the plight of war refugees the world over.

She was simply called ``Afghan refugee.’’ No one knew, not even photographer Steve McCurry, what her name was until 17 years later. I did write about her two years ago when this NG poster girl, after a long search, was tracked down somewhere in Afghanistan. With the use of scientific methods, she was identified through the pools of her eyes.

I remembered Sharbat Gula last Sunday, World Refugee Day. This year’s theme is ``A Place Called Home.’’ Note that I didn’t say that it was celebrated. Observed, is more appropriate. For what is there to celebrate? Photos and television footage showed, not people in celebration, but human beings with longing in their eyes.

Commemorated is an appropriate word too, if the courage of those who left home, crossed borders and lost their lives in the process are to be taken into consideration. The quest for freedom--from want, from fear--and to leave home to find a new one in a strange place requires much courage. Brave are those who made the step, even braver are those who chose to lead and serve, putting their own interests aside so that others may live free, or simply survive.

Several brave individual women and men who have dedicated their lives in this way have been honored in the recent years by the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation (RMAF) and have been written about. It is good that the young get to read about their great deeds.



There is one special person who was honored in 1964, whose life and struggle unravels like a movie. I know this because RMAF is preparing a book for the young generation, on the lives of the special people who have been honored in the past 50 years.

Father Augustine Nguyen Lac Hoa was one of them. He was a lifesaver, refugee, soldier, priest. World Refugee Day is for people like him and for the 17 million refugees worldwide for whom, right now, home is a distant place.

Fr. Hoa’s life and work would make a dramatic suspense movie. War and strife, escape and death-defying stunts, hunger and disease, faith and politics. His story is about a journey across several countries and the search for freedom and a place to call home. It is a story about human endurance in the face of oppression and a people’s continuing struggle to break free.

Fr. Hoa had seen it all. Said he: ``You may say that it is easy for me as a priest to think of love above war, but facts have proved that love is the only way for us to win. It is the only way for us to survive.’’(Note: This par. could be deleted.)

Fr. Hoa was born in China in 1908. He trained to be a Catholic priest. While serving as a pastor, he was conscripted into the military and led a band of guerrillas to fight the invading Japanese. The war over, he thought he could go back to his priestly duties. But the new communist government wanted Catholics to give up allegiance to Rome. To make a long story short, Fr. Hoa resisted. He left the country but upon his return, he was arrested.

After his release, Fr. Hoa escaped to North Vietnam. He helped more than 2,000 people who wanted to escape persecution to cross over. But their stay in North Vietnam was short. Ho Chi Minh’s communist forces had control of the area and constantly harassed them.

Fr. Hoa’s search for a new home for the band of refugees led him to Laos and Thailand. Finally, they decided on Cambodia. With the help of the French authorities, many of them were airlifted to Cambodia. They settled in Kratie Province, 40 miles from the Combodian-Vietnamese border.

Well, what do you know, Cambodia recognized communist China in 1958 and the refugees again feared for their lives. The refugees were again on the run. Their destination: South Vietnam.

The weary stateless band settled in a place that was hardly habitable. They buckled down to work to transform the place so it would feel like home. Fr. Hoa named their new home Binh Hung, meaning to flatten and clear. Brackish water, mosquitoes and dense forests did not daunt them. With help from the government, the refugees were able to buy farm animals and till their little farms.

Then the communist Viet Cong started to make their presence felt. With his combat experience, Fr. Hoa was able to train the refugees to fight back. Their village was turned into self-defense barracks with Fr. Hoa in command. Villagers returned fire when attacked. Their obsolete firearms and ammunition were no match to their attackers’ firepower but the refugees stood their ground.

In 1960, their village was always under siege the whole year round. They were practically marooned. Help came via helicopter drops of supplies from the government, the Catholic Relief services and other groups.

Because of their bravery, Fr. Hoa’s fighters became a regular unit of the Armed Forces. They called themselves Sea Swallows. Fr. Hoa’s religious superiors tolerated his soldier-priest role and recognized the villagers’ dependence on him.

Meanwhile, the Viet Cong continued to make life difficult, destroying crops and making hit-and-run raids on the village. But by 1963 the Sea Swallows was able to secure some 200 square kilometers populated by 18,000 inhabitants and defended by some 400 guerillas. But the fight was far from over…

There’s more but we’re running out of space.

Remember, we have our own internal refugees who have been displaced by the wars in many fronts. They, too, yearn for home.