Burmese monks challenge junta

Bangkok Post
20 Sept 2007

Rangoon (dpa) - Members of Burma's opposition party cheered when hundreds of defiant monks marched past their headquarters Thursday on the third day of the monks' anti-military protests in the former capital, said witnesses.

Diplomats said that by walking by the headquarters of opposition heroine Aung San Suu Kyi in Rangoon the marchers had raised the protests to a new level.

The National League for Democracy won 1990 elections by a landslide, but the result was ignored by the military. Aung San Suu Kyi currently is held under house arrest in Rangoon. The 500 or so monks went on to enter the Shwedagon Pagoda, which towers above the city, before parading downtown, where they dispersed at 4 pm.

A second march numbering some 400 monks proceeded towards the Shwedagon from a different direction and also ended downtown. Hundreds of ordinary citizens followed the processions of red-robed young men who are highly revered in this strongly Buddhist country.

A loose organization of monks has stepped up dignified protests this week after failing to extract an apology from the regime for its rough handling of a procession of monks in the north earlier this month.

More groups of monks were reported to have marched in the northern city of Mandalay in another show of open dissatisfaction with the military that has ruled since it seized power in 1962.

Hundreds of people are reported to have followed both lines of monks in the Rangoon marches, which in itself is a form of defiance in a country where the authorities have scant tolerance of dissent.

The highly unusual protests against economic hardship and inflation started when a few individuals staged protests some seven months ago.

The monkhood has now taken on the job of confronting the regime after the junta sharply lifted energy and transport prices a month ago without warning, causing deep problems for ordinary people who already struggle to survive.

As in Thailand, monks are revered in Burma, which makes it tricky for the authorities to crack down on them. Yet they have also traditionally been in the vanguard of moves against authoritarian governments, be they colonial or military.

Many of Burma's monks are young, feisty men with the guts to confront armed soldiers, strengthened by the knowledge that they are admired in the country for their moral toughness.

The protest marches have broken out in several locations this month, making it harder for the authorities to crack down. The monks have also driven home their displeasure with the regime by refusing to accepted alms from soldiers.

The regime attempted this week to paint the marching monks as deviants or fakes in stories in the state-controlled newspapers. Foreign and exiled observers are divided over whether these robed protestors will trigger the wider nationwide demonstrations that threatened to bring down the regime in 1988.