Dr Martin Panter is a voice for the voiceless in Burma. A doctor of 37 years, he regularly visits the country, where there is a price on his head and he risks his life in free fire black zones to speak to victims of the country's military junta. Denise Carter talks to him about his cry for justice

Martin Panter lives between two worlds.

There’s his life as a general practitioner in Mareeba and among his family. And there is his life as a human rights advocate, in which he visits the developing world.

Every time he boards a plane to travel to Burma, where there is a price on his head, there is a distinct possibility he will not return alive.

"There’s always the degree of apprehension," Martin says.

"But that doesn’t stop you going because I think that the needs are so great."

Martin’s first trip to Burma was in 1989 and from the UK, where he was raised, and where he studied to be a doctor.

He specialised in tropical medicine and initially travelled to teach primary health care in the region.

When cerebral malaria was killing thousands, he set up health clinics. He has also set up an eye program that has performed almost 10,000 cataract operations to date.

During his time working as a doctor, he learned of what he terms the real problem of the Burmese: oppression.

Having met Baroness Caroline Cox, the deputy speaker of the House of Lords and a passionate human rights activist, he joined Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW).

He is now president of the Australasian branch.

Martin’s faith is central to his life and the primary reason for his work.

"To me, Christianity has always meant action," he says.

He describes CSW as a voice for people who have no voice.

"We’re a small organisation," he says.

"We’re like the Danish beer that describes itself as reaching a place that other beers don’t reach."

Martin visits Burma, also known as Myanmar, on factfinding missions regularly to hear first-hand the stories of refugees and to take their words home so he can speak on their behalf.

He speaks with speed, as if he is trying to compact a litany of the country’s anguishes into a two-minute time slot.

"I met a lady a couple of years ago, a 21-year-old mother of three children," Martin says.

"She was washing her clothes down by the river and she found herself surrounded by Burmese soldiers.

"And they said to her either we rape you or we kill you."

The woman thought of her children and submitted to the rape but six months later she told Martin she was still "racked with guilt".

Martin has spoken to parents whose children were used as target practice by the ruling junta.

And he says, "The regime will often use children as human minesweepers and will get them to walk ahead of the army so if there are mines the children will get blown up first".

On his latest, and 50th, visit to Burma on March 20 this year, he met a 40-year-old woman who "told us through her tears she had lost five of her eight children due to malaria and diarrhoeal diseases while she was an internally displaced person (IDP)".

Her children would have survived had they had adequate medical care.

From villages throughout Burma ethnic minorities such as the Karen, Karenni, the Shan and the Chin are ousted from their homes with just minutes notice by the junta; their villages and livestock are destroyed, and old and young are left to wander through the jungles.

If they attempt to return to their villages, they face the danger of landmines left by the soldiers, "just like that young boy with his legs blown up (see pic on next page)," Martin says.

Villagers camp in makeshift shelters of banana palms and leaves and often suffer from starvation.

Those who make it to the border are housed in camps where their basic needs are met but they are not allowed into Thailand and are left in camps indefinitely.

In Mae Lae, the largest camp, there are now 50,000 people and conditions are far from ideal.

"Every time I go back there’s another strand of barbed wire that the Thais put there, making it more like a prison," Martin says.

"These people are not recognised as refugees but displaced people," he says.

"So they have really no rights at all and they are even charged rent for the camps."

Burma came into the media spotlight last September when Buddhist monks marched in Rangoon against rising food costs.

The food hike, Martin says, was deliberately made by the junta to encourage more informers.

The average wage in Burma is an equivalent of 40 Australian cents a day whereas informers can earn four times as much.

On his latest trip, Martin met with leaders of the Rangoon march.

"They said the streets literally ran with blood because the military came and they bashed them with their rifle butts," he says.

Since then many monks have gone missing – some have gone voluntarily into hiding, but according to CSW at least 200 were killed and thousands were arrested and are still in custody, reputedly subject to torture.

In early April, the plight of refugees came to the fore when 54 of 121 people who paid to be smuggled over the Burmese border into Thailand to live as migrant workers were suffocated in the back of a truck.

Overcrowded and forced to stand up while travelling, they pounded on the insides of the seafood vehicle as the airconditioning broke down and their air both dwindled and heated. The temperature outside the truck was 34C.

Survivors were fined for illegally entering Thailand, and when they couldn’t pay were sentenced to three days’ jail and deportation back to Burma.

And last Saturday’s cyclone has completely devastated the region.

Martin feels the pain of the Burmese people each time he visits and each time it takes a toll on his own life.

"There’s such a degree of culture shock," Martin says.

"When you see the degree of pain and heartache, you’re heartbroken, I mean you can’t help that," he says.

So each time Martin returns to work in his clinic in Mareeba, there’s a settling-in period when he re-adjusts to what he sees as his privileged life.

His family all support his overseas work, even though they worry for his safety.

"I think probably the hardest thing is for my wife because she knows every time I go I may not come back again," Martin says.

Both his adult daughters have accompanied him to Burma and the next time he visits his son, who is a pilot, will fly him there.

Martin has attracted attention at times because of his work at home and abroad.

He received the Australian Centenary medal in 2003 for distinguished service to medicine and the community.

And in 2005 he was at the centre of an international media frenzy when he reported Burma’s regime was using chemical weapons on rebels.

But he sometimes doubts the real value of his efforts.

"The needs are so great I sometimes wonder what we actually do," he says.

He recalls one moment when it all seemed worthwhile.

"A couple of years ago I was with my daughter and we were in a refugee camp," Martin says.

"We were walking out to pick up the car and the pastor’s wife said, ‘when is you dad coming back’," he says.

"My daughter said ‘in around four months’. The reply was, ‘we’ll live ’til your next visit’."

Martin says those words spoke volumes.

"Although we may not be able to do anything much, they (the people of Burma) know we’re going to speak for them, and I think that actually means a lot."

His greatest wish is for Burma to be free of the regime CSW says is guilty of every possible human violation including potential attempted genocide.

To become a reality, though, he says the UN needs to be tough and get "teeth to their sticks".

In the meantime Martin continues to cross Burma’s dangerous borders.

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