Gloomy Start to Burma’s Festival of Lights

Irrawaddy
by Yeni
October 26, 2007

Friday’s full moon over Burma signals the advent of the country’s Festival of Lights and the end of Buddhist Lent.

Houses, public buildings, pagodas and monasteries throughout Burma are festooned with lights, creating a colorful evening landscape. This year, however, the festive mood is dampened by the reappearance on the streets of Rangoon of hundreds of riot police armed with assault rifles and tear gas.
The ominous turnout, coming one week after the regime lifted the nighttime curfew on Rangoon, appears to be a security precaution on the one month’s anniversary of the start of the bloody crackdown on peaceful demonstrations led by Buddhist monks.

Rangoon residents said the eastern gate of Burma's landmark Shwedagon Pagoda and Sule pagodas—the city's top religious shrines and the focus of the recent protests—and some leading monasteries were tightly guarded by police and pro-government groups.

"We need to show up ID cards to the authorities even when we go into the monastery's compound," a businessman told The Irrawaddy.

Observers suggested the reappearance of heavy security in Rangoon is a sign that tension remains high between the people of Burma’s former capital and the country’s military rulers. Some sources say anti-regime posters and graffiti are appearing on buildings in downtown Rangoon. “Killer Than Shwe” and "Killer Tatmadaw (Armed Forces)" are two of the most popular slogans.

Constrained by these circumstances, Burmese monks have been prevented from carrying out their traditional practices, including their single-file walks beyond the monasteries to collect alms from crowds of devotees.

"We are still holding patam nikkujjana kamma (a boycott of alms from members of the military regime),” a Pakokku monk told The Irrawaddy. “We won't accept the alms they offer until they apologize for their treatment to the Sangha [the community of Buddhist monks].

"Sometime the authorities offer alms indirectly, but we send them back or we donate them to poor people who hunger."

Burmese monks began their patam nikkujjana kamma in protest at the violent way in which protesting monks were dispersed by the authorities and pro-junta thugs in Pakokku, Upper Burma, in early September. The monks called for a government apology, but received only violence in reply.

Asked by The Irrawaddy how the monks were surviving, one replied: "We can survive with the alms offered by local residents."

Burma's military regime claimed this week that "bogus" monks had connived with political activists they had previously met in prison in staging last month's mass anti-government protests.

The allegation was made by Religious Affairs Minister Brig-Gen Thura Myint Aung during a meeting with senior monks in Rangoon, and reported by state-run radio and television. The state-run New Light of Myanmar also claimed that 48 blocks of TNT were found two weeks ago after investigations that led to the arrest of U Kovida, a 23-year-old monk at Rangoon's Nan Oo monastery.

“They accuse us of being destructive elements,” said a Burmese monk, “In fact, they destroy our traditional religious practice through the use of military might.”

A senior Rangoon monk said: “We Buddhist monks make no overnight journeys except for an important reason until October full moon day. Now they force young monks who came from the rural areas to study Buddhist literature in the cities to go back home. This also is an insult to the community of monks.”

According to the Buddhist decree, monks must remain in their monasteries for the three months between the full moons of July and October. During this period, known as Buddhist Lent, they devote themselves to their religious duties.