Amina Masood Janua - mother of three – searching for her disappeared husband Masood Janjua since 2004 – founder of the NGO Defence for Human Rights in Pakistan. To express her solidarity with Shui Meng, the wife of Magasaysay award winning development worker Sombat Somphone who disappeared on 15th December 2012, wrote a letter to her. Both have never met each other. They have been introduced to each other by AFAD.
We are sharing their letters to give you a glimpse of their love and their commitment to truth and justice.
Dear Shui Meng,
May you be blessed and stay strong. It is not an ordinary letter of words but of feelings being transferred from one broken heart to another. You are one of my own sisters who has become closer to me than my real sister, as we are united by a strong bond of a shared pain. I came to know you through Mary Aileen. She always admired your devotion, strength and dedication to find your disappeared husband. She told me how you are in great pain and stress and even then how determined and strong to bring justice to those disappeared like your husband Sombath Somphone.
I want to tell you about myself, it might add to your strength, faith and commitment. My sweet sister, my husband Masood Janjua disappeared on 30th July 2005 while he and his friend were on their way to another city. They never reached their destination, nor did I hear his sweet voice or saw his handsome face since that day. Just as Sombath was a kind and loving husband to you, Masood was to me. Masood was a successful businessman and an educator.
My world darkened as this news fell on me and my three children (1 daughter and 2 sons.) For months and months I was in trauma, crying hysterically and not willing to understand what has happened. Gradually with the help of my children I pulled myself together and decided to find Masood no matter what.
Since that day I have never rested. I also read your statement in which you said that the pain of being separated with the man you love most has never left you even though 2 years have passed. This is so true; I feel the same, the pain has never left me even though 10 years have passed that I am forcefully separated from my husband. It looks like an impossible thing to happen but all these years I had been so very busy in search of Masood and tried so hard that I didn't even realize the speed of time. It is indeed a greatest torture at the face of which we can never give up.
Nor lose hope nor lose heart. No matter how difficult and painful the path to of our struggle may be. Our love and life has been forcefully stolen from us and this is unacceptable. My school going kids grew up and reached universities. In the beginning they were busy playing and could not understand but now they know who took their loving father away. I have brought them up with great pains and efforts and struggled hard to make them good citizen and human beings.
This is what I have learnt through this personal tragedy and dilemma that, I pray, may never break any body's heart. You and me know how much our hearts burn and how much our sours bleed throughout the night. I cry in the same way as you do in longing. There are no words to explain our common pain and sorrow . And yet when the night turns into the day we wipe our tears alike and convert our grief into energy to continue our quest and fight for our disappeared husbands. We are two distant sisters who belong to two different worlds of faith, culture and history yet our grief is one. We know that cruelty and torture in civil and military ranks of governments have only one name that is of an oppressor.
Don't lose heart dear sister, we will fight the brutal forces and defeat their atrocities one day. You are my strength and I am yours. Let us stay together in our joint struggle and be determined more than ever that we will find our loved ones. We will get Sombath and Masood freed from their illegal detention and make them reach home safe and sound.
I pray to God that this dawn of blissful reunion with our husbands may rise sooner than ever. Ameen.
With all my love.
Amina Masood Janjua
My dearest sister, Ameen
I read and re-read your letter many times - each word resonates with so much love and so much empathy. I am truly touched to the core of my heart and soul that I have you as my sister in pain and in strength, closer in mind and heart than even blood sisters.
No one, but us - you, I, and all women who have lost their beloved husbands to the tyranny of the oppressors, can ever understand our language of pain and despair. But you and I also know very well that we cannot accept such violations in silence and in fear. We can never let pain and despair immobilize us. We will never be cowered by fear and we will never be silenced. We will give voice to our struggle for justice; we demand to be heard; and we demand that those who have violated us and tore our lives apart, be brought to justice -- no matter how many years we have to fight.
The perpetrators think that time is on their side, and that our friends and supporters, and even our family members will forget. But we say to our oppressors once and for all that time can never erase our pain, or erase our anger and our thirst for justice. With each passing day, we get stronger, we demand louder, and we demand truth and justice until we know what happened to our beloved husbands.
My dearest sister Ameen, geographic distance means nothing for we are united in our rightful struggle. I send you and your family my love and my solidarity. I hope to meet you and your children face-to-face one day. I know in my heart that our struggle will not be in vain and we will be reunited with our loving husbands again. It is for that we continue to live, and it is for that we continue our struggle.
I hope that the new year will bless us all with love strength, faith, hope, and peace.
With all my love, Shui Meng
