FORCED TO KNEEL FOR DAYS

The Electric New Paper
Monks lured by breakfast ploy were detained and...
FORCED TO KNEEL FOR DAYS
09 October 2007

THE Myanmar soldiers arrived at the Buddhist monastery before dawn. Breakfast on us, they told the wary monks inside.

But it was just a ploy to get them out, an 18-year-old monk told AFP.

Instead, the monks were hauled to a windowless building on the campus of a government school, where they were disrobed, beaten and interrogated by troops.

The detentions followed last month's peaceful street demonstrations in Yangon, which two weeks ago swelled to 100,000 people led by monks.

The military used baton charges, teargas and live weapons to break up the crowds, leaving at least 13 dead.

Many monks were among those arrested.

Scores were released after spending six days in the torpid heat and squalor of a building where 1,000 detainees were forced to use the concrete floor as a toilet and where they were fed only one small meal each day.

The teenage monk recounted: 'We were forced to sit like prisoners in the building, kneeling with our heads down.'

A novice monk told the Sunday Telegraph: 'If we spoke, looked up or fell asleep, we would be hit.'

The novice, who had bruises on his face and arms, said: 'We weren't allowed to move at all, not even to go to the lavatory - we had to just do it where we were sitting.

'Once in the morning and once in the afternoon, the guards would come and give us water, but it would be only one or two bottles for 50 people or more.'

He said many inmates passed out. He believed three died from their injuries. The 18-year-old monk said: 'We sat like this for two days before we were disrobed.'

Monks from pro-government sects stripped the detainees of their maroon cloth and forced them to wear civilian clothes, he said.

While the monks were told it was because their robes were filthy, many saw it as a symbolic 'defrocking' designed to humiliate them.

The teenage monk said they were beaten again after that. 'We were divided into groups of 10 and then questioned one by one.'

ARRESTED BY MISTAKE

Sitting on the floor, the prisoners were grilled by plainclothes intelligence officers.

'They asked us if we had joined the protests and who was the leader in our monastery,' he said.

Many inmates were innocent bystanders who had been arrested by mistake, the novice said.

Both men, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said even some of the soldiers were horrified at the treatment of the monks.

'The Buddhist soldiers came to apologise and ask forgiveness,' the teen monk said. 'Some of the monks told the Buddhist soldiers that they would go to hell one day, and the soldiers cried because they knew that this was true.'

The monk said comrades from the Ngwekyaryan monastery, where there was violent resistance, were seriously injured.

'Their eyes were swollen shut because they were beaten so badly... They had injuries on their heads and arms. Some had bones sticking out of their skin.'

Eventually, the monk was released after he convinced the authorities he had never joined the protests. Now he hopes to run away to the village where he was born.

Meanwhile, the novice, who was released last week, was ordered to return to his home village.

As a condition for his release, he had to agree not to tell anyone about what had happened to him. But he decided to speak out anyway.

Exactly how many others are still in custody remains unclear.

The Myanmar authorities admit to having detained nearly 3,000 and said all but 109 have been freed.

But human rights groups and Myanmar journalists are sceptical.

One local political analyst said: 'We think there could be anything up to 9,000 in jail right now, and the government is still looking for people.'