“I believe that hundreds of monks and civilians have died; thousands have been arrested. We do not know their whereabouts. The soldiers are surrounding monasteries and keeping devotees from giving alms and food to the monks. In this way they are effectively starving monks in their monasteries,” said Nay Tin Myint, a National League for Democracy Youth leader and former political prisoner, at the Asia Society on October 5, 2007.
Economic strife and ethnic tensions throughout the 1970s and 80s led to antigovernment protests in 1988. Nay Tin Myint was a student at the time and participated in the protest. The demonstrations started peacefully and ended in a massacre of an estimated 3,000 student protestors.
“In 1988 I gave a speech opposing the military government and was arrested on the spot by military intelligence and tortured in their interrogation camp. They severely beat me and used electric shock,” said Nay Tint Myint.
After the antigovernment riots in 1988, Aung San Suu Kyi became an important figure in the politics of Myanmar. She publicly addressed the Myanmar government for a change in elections and was placed under house arrest without a charge or a trial. She was offered freedom after four years of house arrest if she left Myanmar and withdrew from politics, but she refused. Despite the house arrest, Suu Kyi won the election in 1990 with 82% of parliamentary seats. But the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) refused to recognize the results. In 1995, after six years of house arrest, SLORC released Suu Kyi but she is heavily watched by the government.
Burma was the original name of Myanmar until 1989. The military government officially changed the name to Myanmar; however, the United States does not recognize the name Myanmar or the military regime that represents it.
According to Nay Tin Myint, the recent protests in 2007 began after the government raised the amount of fuel three to five times higher and people found it difficult to make ends meet.
“People of Burma were under military rule for 45 years, and we believe that it is time for a change,” said a monk leader in Myanmar during a telephone exchange at the Asia Society. “International assistance is needed urgently.”
At the Asia Society on October 5, 2007 two Buddhist monks and Nay Tin Myint (via teleconference) joined Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, the UN Special Rapporteur on Myanmar; Ashin Cando Bhasacara, of the Burma American Metta Buddhist Association; Aung Din, from the US Campaign for Burma and former political prisoner in Myanmar; Patrick Shank, of the Human Rights Education Institute of Burma who just returned from Myanmar; Ashin Nayaka, the founding director of Buddhist Missionary Society; and Maureen Aung-Thwin, director of the Burma Project/Southeast Asia Institute at the Open Society Institute (moderator) discussed the status of Myanmar and the outcry for the international community to intervene. The discussion panel believed that this is an emergency, and that the international community, especially democratic countries, need to step in to help.
“Many members of the UN are pressuring the Burmese government. But the UN as a whole tries to work on consensus with many countries whose populace is denied certain freedoms, including some guilty of human rights abuses, who do not want to have the same type of opprobrium pointed back to them. So they would rather remain neutral and not pressure,” said Maureen Aung-Thwin of the Open Society Institute. “To a certain extent, the UN Security Council seems to now finally be pressuring the Burmese government. But as in any organization where there is verbal pressure, much less action is based on consensus. It is difficult to get real results.”
The international community, especially Burma’s neighbor countries, abide by their policy of not intervening in the internal affairs of other sovereign states. However, international intervention perhaps is a necessary action, since more Burmese people will continue to be murdered, arrested, or injured by the military.
“The movement will not end. Now we reached a level where we are going to make a lot of sacrifices and many deaths will take place,” said Ashin Nayaka of Buddhist Missionary Society in New York.
Copyright 2007
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