Monk Who Led Marchers to Suu Kyi's House Escapes to Thailand

Irrawaddy
by Yeni/Mae Sot
November 1, 2007

Sitting in a small, dark apartment in Mae Sot on the Thai-Burmese border, a 24-year-old monk speaks in a soft, quiet voice, "I am an ordinary monk."

But, Ashin Kawvida, is far from ordinary. He was among the leaders of the first column of monks who marched through the streets of Rangoon on September 18.
But September 22 is the day Ashin Kawvida will remember forever. It will go down in Burmese history books.

As the leader of a marching column of monks, he decided to turn a corner and enter University Avenue, the street where Aung San Suu Kyi lives.

"I wanted our beloved national leader to meet the people and the monks she cares for," he said slowly. After he and his fellow monks successfully negotiated with security police at a barricade, they marched through a checkpoint to the sounds of clapping hands spreading through the accompanying crowd of laypeople.
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In a few moments, the column arrived in front of Suu Kyi's house, and the monks stopped and turned, facing her home. Behind the monks, laypeople stood with hands joined.

"Before us, the police security personnel stood rigid with metal shields held in front of their bodies," Ashin Kawvida said, his breath rising. "We began chanting the 'Metta Sutta.' I think Daw Aung San Suu Kyi heard our chanting because she appeared at the gate in front of her home to meet us. As that moment, many people began crying and shouting erupted."

"We hope you are free soon." "Live in good health."

It was an exhilarating moment. Only weeks before, Ashin Kawvida could never have imagined that his ordinary life as a monk would take such dramatic turns in the coming days and weeks.

On October 18, the day he arrived in Mae Sot, the regime's newspaper, The New Light of Myanmar publicly named him as the monk responsible for hiding 48 TNT explosive cartridges in Rangoon's Nan Oo monastery, where he was studying to become a teacher of Buddhist scripture.

"I have no idea what you call this explosive stuff," he said, gently. "For my whole life, I have been practicing only the peaceful ways taught by Lord Buddha."

Ashin Kawvida was lucky to have gone into hiding when he did and to have successfully made the journey to the Thai border.

Until the monk-led uprising, his life as a monk had been ordinary. He entered the Sangha as a 12-year-old novice in a monastery in his native town of Ann in western Arakan (Rakhine) State. As a novice, he studied Buddhist scriptures at the city's renowned Pannitayama monastery. By age 20, he had passed the high-level Pahtamaji examination, and he moved to Rangoon to complete studies to become a teacher of Buddhist scripture.

In early September, when security forces violently beat and arrested monks engaged in peaceful demonstrations in Pakokku in central Burma, Ashin Kawvida said, "It was hard to believe that it happen in this Buddhist country."

Then he heard reports on the BBC's Burmese-language news service about the underground monks who called themselves the “Alliance of All Burma Buddhist Monks.” They had called on the regime to apologize for its brutality or monks would hold a patam nikkujjana kamma—a boycott of alms from members of the military government.

"I am not a member of this underground network, and I had never met the monks who gave the interview with the BBC," said Ashin Kawvida, but he agreed with their call for relief of the people's suffering, the release of political prisoners and the start of a process of national reconciliation.

"There is interdependence between the public and the monks," he said. "How can the monks survive when people are starving?"

On September 19, the second day of the marches in Rangoon, the monks were quickly joined by about 1,500 laypeople, mostly university students, and Ashin Kawvida said it was clear they needed to form a committee to ensure the demonstrations continued peacefully.

Ashin Kawvida and a group of monks met on the tile floor in Sule Pagoda, a focal point of the protests, and they formed the Sangha Kosahlal Aphwe, or "Monks Representative Group," with 15 members.

By September 27, the junta's crackdown had turned bloody and dangerous and to escape arrests, many monks began to flee Rangoon. Ashin Kawvida took off his robe, put on civilian clothes, and went to a village about 40 miles away where he hid in room for two weeks.

Had he not gone into hiding, he said, "You wouldn't see me here alive."

Friends and supporters brought him food occasionally, but it wasn't easy.

"I used a plastic bucket as my daily toilet," he said. "I was so scared…anything could get the attention of the neighbors."

A short while later, he heard the news that a woman he calls his adoptive mother had been arrested, and he decided it was not safe to stay in his hideout.

"I ran into the night barefooted," he said. "I ran down the highway to Rangoon."

In Rangoon, he colored his short hair, now grown out for two weeks, blond, and he purchased black sunglasses in a local market. He met up with friends who had worked as migrant laborers in Mae Sot and finally got a telephone number of a labor rights activist who promised to help. Several days later, he boarded a bus heading east toward the Thai border.

Using a false identity card, he made it through about eight government checkpoints and reached the border town of Myawaddy on October 17. The next morning he crossed the Moei River to enter Mae Sot, Thailand.

His mind is no longer filled with fear, said Ashin Kawvida. He knows he has been lucky. Pointing at the cover of The Irrawaddy magazine's October issue, he said: "I heard the news that eight members of my group are still missing, and six others are in hiding."

Also, he knows it's possible that he could still be arrested or forcibly taken back into Burma from Thailand.

Ashin Kawvida said he plans to seek refugee status in Thailand and eventually seek political asylum in a third country.

"If I am deported back to Burma, I definitely face torture and prison," he said.