Freedom is a state of mind. It is a deep-seated belief
that you have the right to follow your own dreams and choose your own path
without being directed to serve the demands of a self-appointed potentate,
federal agent or the bully down the street. Freedom means you're not their
property.
It is not necessary to be an American to be a hero of
freedom. It's not even required that one be a great orator, writer or
inspirational leader of a movement. It's enough that you understand the
difference between brute force and the right to choose - and that you
stand like a rock for the latter.
Some of our greatest heroes have been those who have
suffered in silence in the blackest holes of totalitarianism. In spite of
torture, solitary confinement, deception, betrayal and fear of death, they
cling to that one spark of truth - that, as human beings, they have the
right of free will to speak their thoughts, travel without restraint,
succeed or fail and pursue happiness on their own initiative. In short,
freedom exists because they exist, no matter how small the cell they are
temporarily forced to occupy.
In the United States of America there are eight women
held against their will, guilty of no crime except the undying desire for
freedom, tortured daily with the threat of being sentenced to certain
death. Since 1993 they have suffered in a maximum-security prison simply
because they ran to escape the forced abortion and sterilization policies
of the People's Republic of China.
The eight were part of 286 who used their life savings
to board a rickety ship, the Golden Venture, in June of 1993, to
sail to America in a desperate attempt to escape the brutal Chinese
regime. Their flight to freedom had taken most of them more than a year of
running through steaming jungles, hiding from pursuing authorities and
surviving the cramped, stifling, tiny hold of the ship. The ship ran
aground near New York Harbor and they were forced to swim to shore in icy
waters.
But as they stood on the shore, in the shadow of the
Statue of Liberty, the trouble for these scared, desperate, cold, hungry,
courageous women had just begun. One might wonder which is worse - the
quick, cold scalpel of the Chinese abortionists, or the brutally
impersonal, tortuous manipulation of the American bureaucracy and the
betrayal of an American President.
Whatever the case, the 286 illegal refugees were
gathered up and placed in the custody of the U.S. Immigration Service.
Only twenty four women were on board; four were granted asylum in the
U.S., one got a student visa to Costa Rica, nine were granted asylum in
Ecuador, one was paroled for medical reasons and one was released for
humanitarian reasons. But eight remain in custody in the Lerdo
maximum-security prison north of Los Angeles awaiting deportation back to
China and certain death.
Each of the eight tell a horrifying, yet inspirational
story of their failed dash for freedom that rivals the legends of freedom
fighters from throughout the ages.
Dai Bo Mai is a tiny woman of 34, born in a remote
farming village near Shanghai. She is guilty of having two children, a
boy, 15 and a girl, 12. Multiple children are illegal in China and the
government fined her $3,000 and told her that she must be sterilized for
having her daughter.
She ignored the order for sterilization until one day a
gang of thugs captured and tied her and delivered Dai Bo Mai to a crude
clinic for forced sterilization. There was no sanitation and she became
infected. The resulting pain and infection prevented her from working in
the fields. Because she could no longer work or have babies, her husband
rejected her. She went back to the clinic and complained that they had
ruined her life. They laughed, raised her fine to $10,000 and had her
house destroyed.
Knowing she would never see her children or family
again, Dai Bo Mai decided to flee to America by walking out of China,
climbing across the mountains, and eventually boarding the Golden
Venture.
Another of the women, Qu Ai Yue also came from the same
primitive agrarian background. She had two children and became pregnant
with a third. The government found out and forced her to have an abortion
at six months. Then they told her she must be sterilized. Afraid of the
operation, she and her husband ran to hide in the city.
Both she and her husband wanted to try to make it to
America, but there was only money for one. He sent her on her way, across
the mountains, and through the mosquito-infested jungles of Burma, almost
dying of disease along the way. In Thailand she spent three months in a
small crowded room waiting for a ship. Finally, she too boarded the Golden
Venture.
But freedom burns brightly in Qu Ai Yau. After such a
terrifying ordeal, only to find herself in an American prison betrayed by
the American government, she still longs for America's freedoms. In an
interview she spoke of her husband and said, "maybe he will be able
to come later." Such a hope for life in a nation that she has known
only from behind prison walls. How bad must China be?
But why were these eight selected for such treatment,
even after the Bush Administration had issued an executive order granting
asylum for women fleeing China's brutal "family planning"
policies? Politics. Two days into his Administration, Bill Clinton
rescinded the order. He wanted to make an example of these women in order
to stop more from fleeing. Again in April, 1996, after the U.S. Congress
passed a bill that would reinstate asylum for such women and grant those
from the Golden Venture their freedom, Bill Clinton vetoed it. It's
embarrassing to the Chinese, you see. Clinton didn't want to harm trade
relations with such a respected member of the international community.
So the women sit in their cells, waiting for the order
that will send them back to China where they will face certain
sterilization, the lawful punishment for any women who runs from the
"family planning" program. More than likely, they will face a
death sentence for their "crimes." China, meanwhile, has been
rewarded with Most Favored Nation status by their friend, Bill Clinton.
Human beings are all different individuals. Some take
great pleasure in controlling others. Some readily accept that control and
mold their lives to fit the circumstances. But a few carry a flame in
their hearts. As they pace their cages of tyranny and crash against its
bars, a constant thought burns in their mind, "I want to be
free."
Without such souls there would be no freedom. It is
they who drag the others toward the light of Freedom's torch. And so the
women of the Golden Venture, in their own humble way, regardless of
the fate that awaits them, know that their run for freedom was worth it
because, for a brief moment they were deciding their own destiny. Such is
the determination it takes to join the ranks of Freedom's
