Gambari failed us, says protest leader

Sydney Morning Herald

Connie Levett Herald Correspondent in Mae Sot, Thailand-Burma border
October 11, 2007


AN organiser of the protest movement in Rangoon has blasted the United Nations special envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, for bowing to the junta and gaining nothing in his visit to Burma.

Surinder Karkar, also known as Ayea Myint and U Pancha (the Punjabi), was among the Burmese who organised civilian protection circles that ringed monks as they marched through the streets of Rangoon for eight days last month.

"Nothing was achieved … Whatever the regime told him, he did. While he was there we were being shot, we were being detained. After he left there was more rounding up of people," the 43-year-old Sikh Burmese said.

He called on Dr Gambari to publicly release what the detained opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, had said to him during two meetings in Burma.

U Pancha, a veteran of mass protests in 1988, is now in Mae Sot where many Burmese opposition groups are based. In his first interview since arriving in Thailand, he gave a rare insight into the first days of the protests, and how the organisers responded as the movement grew.

"I took up the protest again because prices were rising and people were starving around me. I was not at all frightened. I participated in the forefront, I was prepared to die," he said.

He met monks and a few civilians at the Shwedagon Pagoda, the most important Buddhist temple in Rangoon, on Monday, September 17.

"The idea was to bring down petrol prices, to get dialogue and an apology for the way the monks were beaten at Pakokku. There were only about 100 to start with," he said. "We let the monks lead."

He recalls being "very anxious" on September 18, the first day of the marches. "We were worried whether people would follow us, but from the beginning they joined in; we were very encouraged. That night we had a hurried meeting because of the support and made three streams of people to go to different points in the city. On the 19th the groups exceeded 100,000," he said.

But that night, they got word the military had issued a shoot-to-kill edict. "We had a heated meeting about the next day and the danger. We decided if one stream was shot, the others would come together with it. In the midst of our marching, Battalion 77 refused to take the order to shoot to kill."

From September 21 to 25, the protests were peaceful and the crowds kept increasing. On the night of the 25th, the protesters' informant network let them down. The military command had changed from 77th battalion to 66th battalion. He remembers the next two days as the most bloody.

"We didn't get that information until 10am on September 26. Within 15 minutes of getting the news, the army had surrounded us, blocked the four ways out of the pagoda. When three monks went to beg them not to use violence they started beating the monks and shooting," U Pancha said. "The force became uneven so we encouraged people to come with weapons - bricks, stones, rocks."

He said that on the 26th, 100,000 civilians marched with 5000 to 6000 monks. "People were not scared. I thought we were winning, in the midst of flying bullets we were able to march. We had people in side streets with stones and rocks ready to give protection to the protesters."

But on Thursday, September 27, the monks were gone, and the crowd dwindled to between 2000 and 3000. "Many people were scared," he said.

"When the Japanese [the photographer Kenji Nagai] was shot, they [knew] the Government would shoot even foreigners." By Friday the movement had all but disintegrated.

U Pancha waited in Rangoon, hiding until October 4 to see the outcome of the UN mission, then bitterly disappointed, fled to Thailand. He remains determined to fight on. "I am still a leader, we have leaders inside and outside," he said. "We are only pausing, not surrendering."