LIKE stand-up comics anywhere, The Moustache Brothers love to mock their political masters.

In Burma, however, such jokes are dangerous and Mandalay’s only dissident comedy troupe lives with the constant threat of a visit from the secret police. Two of the three men have already spent nearly five years chained together, breaking rocks in the company of drug addicts and hardened criminals in the mountains of Kachin State. Their crime: making the audience laugh at the military regime.

Undeterred, they still perform for tourists. “We’re illicit, blacklisted,” Lu Maw screeched at an audience of backpackers and package tourists squeezed into plastic chairs in his front room.

“That means you’re illegal, too, and the secret police are coming to arrest you,” he said before reassuring a worried Italian woman: “That was just a joke.”

They display banned photos of the stifled democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, and offer almost the only public manifestation of political dissent left in Burma.

Tour guides, rickshaw cyclists and English-speaking students in tea shops whisper their hatred of their rulers when they are confident no spies are eavesdropping. Even that risks an open-ended prison sentence. But the mustachioed brothers Par Par Lay and Lu Maw, with their cousin Lu Zaw, say what others only dare to think.

“Men from the Government quite often come and tell us to stop it, but we won’t,” Lu Maw said. “We don’t care. We won’t let them stop us. It’s the tourists who are keeping us alive, and the military only care about dollars. They don’t want to upset the foreign visitors by arresting us.” It is unclear exactly why the comedians have been tolerated by rulers.

Anyone who attempts to stage a demonstration, or even hand out a banned newspaper, can expect almost instant arrest.

The Moustache Brothers believe that they enjoy some protection thanks to their status on the backpacker circuit. They are even listed in the Lonely Planet guide book.

The three men, now in their fifties, grew up as traditional A-Nyeint performers — itinerant entertainers. They started with political jokes about the terrible roads, hospitals, and unemployment in Burma, and in 1996 decided to stage a comic rebellion in a performance before Aung San Suu Kyi.

Before it began the two brothers drew straws to see which of them would be jailed. Par Par Lay got the short straw and told this joke: “You used to call a thief a thief; now you call him a government servant.”

Three days later he was arrested. One newspaper, controlled by the Government, said: “Together they satirised and mischievously attacked the Government, disparaging its dignity and making it a laughing stock.” They now display that press cutting with pride.

The three are banned from performing before Burmese audiences and are confined to their home. Unlike Western human rights campaigners, they strongly believe tourists should come to Burma.

Lu Maw said: “Tourists are our Trojan Horses. Through tourists the rest of the world can learn of our plight.

“At the moment protest is impossible. Demonstrators would be arrested immediately. But one day we will see change in our country. I haven’t given up hope.”

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