U Gambira and Ashin Issariya (kingzero):The Minds behind The saffron Revolution

 In 2007, 100.000 Burmese monks took to the streets, touched by the ongoing suffering of the people in Burma under the military rule. Peacefully chanting the Metta Sutta and asking for a dialog. Joined by ten thousands of ordinary people it became the biggest call for Democracy in Burma’s history since 1988. U Gambira and King Zero had prepared for something like this for several years. Both had worked tirelessly to inform and educate Burma’s monks and people about the real situation of their country.
As the struggle goes on U Gambira and many of his colleges are now behind bars in prisons and labor camps. This is the story of two main organizers of the Saffron Revolution, told by King Zero.

U Gambira

I met U Gambira in January 2007 in a coffee shop in Yangon for the first time. U Lin, a friend of mine introduced us. He told me that U Gambira wanted to meet me. I agreed because U Lin and I had worked together for some time and I knew about U Gambira’s activities, even though we had never met.
U Gambira was active in a very similar way to me. He had been spreading pamphlets since 2006, and I had been doing the same. I had been working on a Metta campaign since the beginning of 2006. During this campaign I had shared a lot of stickers and pamphlets with the message “Stop Violence”. I also wrote many articles about how to learn and how to become active for our country, which I shared secretly with others. I tried to organize many people and monks.
At that time most of the monks in our country did not know about the real situation of our country. They studied only Pali and the Buddha’s teaching. They had no chance to learn more because it was not designated in the monastic curriculum. There was no chance to study other subjects, or even to read a book about other things. I think education is very important. People need to know more and share information whenever possible.
My first teacher was very interested in politics. This was a great advantage for me. As he always listened to BBC, I could also hear it every day. In this way I learned about the situation of our country. He also read a lot. With all the books around me I also started to read whenever I had free time.

 When I moved to Gungyangone my new teacher there turned out to also be very interested in politics. I could sometimes watch a film of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi giving a speech and listen to discussions about our country. This rose my interest even more and I felt very strongly that when I grew up I would need to do something strong for our country.
I started to be active in 1999. In the years before I had to complete my studies in Pali and the Buddha’s teaching and take a lot of examinations. When I attended the State Sassana University in Yangon, I started the first Best Friend Library together with Ashin Sopaka. Through the library I could make contacts, organize many people, and share a lot of information. Very secretly I went to the NLD (National League for Democracy) office where I got information pamphlets. I copied and allocated them carefully. If my friends asked me where I got the political papers, I always told them not to ask me. If anyone had known that I had visited the NLD office I would have been expelled from the university. If someone had found out that I handed out this kind of information I would have been arrested.
U Gambira had essentially done the same. He had shared information wherever possible and spread pamphlets on walls. He had heard about my actions as I had heard about him.

Email from U Gambira to King Zero

We started to meet regularly. Sometimes in Yangon, sometimes in Mandalay. On September 1, 2007 he came to meet me in Mandalay. Together with several monks we met very secretly and discussed what we could do for our country. I was working at that time in the Sangha Union, and U Gambira was in the Young Monk Union. He lived in Yangon; I lived in Mandalay.

We had discussions every Thursday in different places. Sometimes in the monastery of a friend, then the next time in another monastery. We had to communicate mainly through Internet messengers; it was very difficult.

Handwritten statement

When the Pakokku situation happened on 5 September 2007 we immediately met—U Gambira, U Lin, U Khelasa and I—to discuss what to do and how to do it. We agreed to write a statement and try to send it to the BBC and spread it. I wrote the statement telling the military regime that they have the responsibility to apologize to the monks by September 11. We chose U Khelasa to read it to the BBC. If I had read the statement they would have easily known it was me because I had opened the library and many people knew me. I secretly made many copies and shared the statement in many places. I also sent it to Ashin Sopaka in Germany.
Around that time I noticed that some informers were following me. I knew if I made any more statements, they would catch me. We discussed about it and I decided to leave Mandalay for Yangon. Yangon was a very important place for us. We needed to share our information there. We agreed to stay in contact through the Internet to always inform each other about what we were doing. We also agreed to move the date. Until September 11 was not enough time; we wanted to give them more time. So we changed the date to the 17th.
We had made a strong connection to each other with trust. It was very important that we all knew we had been working for our country for a long time.
Luckily I had very good connection with printing companies in Yangon and Mandalay. They knew me well and trusted me, and I knew I could trust them. During the day it was impossible to print our pamphlets—too dangerous. They printed our statements at night, sometimes 500 pieces or more. With these leaflets I went to many different monasteries and shared them with as many friends as I could. Those friends also spread it at other monasteries throughout the whole country, like in Pakokku, Monya monastery, Arakan State, and so on.
All this we did at night. And of course I needed money for all this. I got support from my friends outside the country and money donations from Dharma talks I gave. When I received Dhana (donations) I used it for this campaign.

Email from U Gambira to King Zero

When U Gambira wrote me to change the date one more time from 17th to 19th, it was too late—I had already given out all the information. So he agreed to keep September 17th as the final day for the military junta to apologize.

We started our boycott on September 18th with the recitation of the Metta Sutra. We had shared so many pamphlets and stickers and information around the country, but we had no way of knowing how many monks would join our boycott. I could not talk openly about it. All our actions were done at night. During the daytime I listened to how the other monks reacted. I heard many monks saying, “Okay, we have to do it, we have to follow this”. I was very happy to hear this. During the first three days more and more monks joined our demonstrations and it was a great feeling. I shared e-mails, pictures, and videos, and made phone calls to my friends outside the country to let the world know what was going on.
We had planned to do it like this from the beginning. We wanted the world to know exactly what was going on in our country. So the contacts to my friends in foreign countries were very important.
U Gambira and U Pannasiri were at that time together in Mandalay, taking part in the marching on the streets, while I was in Yangon. We had regular telephone and e-mail contacts to inform each other about the situation in each city and to coordinate the next steps.
In Yangon I was relatively unknown and it was much easier for me to hide there than in Mandalay. On September 26 the military started shooting and beating people in the streets. Every night they entered monasteries, destroyed everything, beat the monks wildly and deported many to jail. Nobody knew which monastery would be next. No monastery was safe. We sat up all night waiting and thinking about what we could do if they entered our monastery.
Then on September 28 one of my brothers came to me at my monastery with a message from my mother. She wanted to let me know that Yangon was not safe for me anymore. If I stayed there I could be arrested and would no longer be able to work for our country. I needed to hide, she had told my brother. I knew she was right and decided to adjourn to another place, far from Yangon, by the seaside.

Chat between King Zero and U Gambira

In the monastery there I had several friends. They, of course, knew what was going on in Mandalay and Yangon, but only a very few close friends knew about my involvement. When somebody asked me, “do you know U Gambira?”, I normally said “no”. “Do you know who is leading this Saffron Revolution?” I said, “no”.
At that time every monk had heard U Gambira’s name because he had given many interviews and spoken to BBC. But nobody knew who he was and everybody wanted to know more about him. It was one of the main questions between the monks at the time, “Who is U Gambira?”. I could not tell anybody about him. During those days the spies were everywhere. They wanted to find the leaders of the Saffron Revolution very urgently.
Even my teacher asked me if I knew U Gambira, but I had to say “no”. We could not know whether someone was a plainclothes agent or not. Someone could tell, for example, to another person, “you know my monk is a very close friend of U Gambira, the leader of the Saffron Revolution”. In this way the word would spread and reach the junta.
So mostly no one knew about my political activities. I did things to hide my activities and not make people suspicious of me. When, for example, I stuck information on the wall behind my sleeping place at night, and another monk asked me the next morning, “Did you see this?”, I would answer as if I was very surprised, “What! Who put that there?”
I had to act like that for my safety. Only very few close friends knew about me. That was very important. If someone acted proud after putting a pamphlet on the wall he would be caught easily. I had been working like this for a long time but the authorities did not know for sure about me. They sometimes came to me and asked me directly, “Are you politically-interested?” I always answered them, “Politics? No, I have never been interested in that, I’m only interested in education. I learn at the university, I write poems and articles. My only interest is writing, not in politics.”
I had read a lot of books from General Aung San, Mahatma Ghandi, Nelson Mandela. I tried to learn from them. Even at movies, I always searched for a way to help my country’s situation.
At the seaside I had to hide for one month. I could listen to the radio, to BBC to find out what was going on. Then I went back to Yangon. When I checked my e-mails, my friends were surprised that I was still free. Everybody thought I had been arrested. Another monk with the same name Issariya had been arrested, and everyone thought it was me.
I continued my work, picked up connections that were left. U Gambira had already been arrested on November 4. I worried a lot about him. I knew he would be tortured. He had given many speeches and talked on the radio. Everybody knew him and liked him very much.
We did not know if some friends were arrested or were in hiding. Some might still be in hiding until now. I contacted the 88 Generation students. I traveled a lot, stayed at private houses or in different monasteries. Again I shared many papers and information. I said, “We need to continue. We need to start again. Many leaders have been arrested or left our country, so we need to start new.” I also worked together with members of Generation Wave.
Ashin Sopaka and Khaing Gyi from Generation Wave had done a peace walk together from Bangkok to Mae Sot. Khaing Gyi came to me and we worked together. I helped them with the printing and also writing. Generation Wave shared a lot of papers. Secretly I went to Mandalay for one week. My friends there had sent me a message not to come because the officials were searching for me there intensively. They asked around for a photo of King Zero. Until that time they did not know who King Zero was. We discussed about it, and I went back to Yangon.
When I came back there I heard they already knew that I had been in Mandalay. Luckily they found out too late. They must have been very angry with the spies when they knew that they missed me! I used several names at that time to distract them.

King Zero giving out donations to Cyclone Nargis victims

I was able to help the victims of Cyclone Nargis for a long time without being found out. With money from my friends outside the country and Burmese people, I could do a lot.
Some came to my monastery and we went out to the people together. We could help many directly by giving out water, food and clothes. Whatever they needed we offered it to them, and they were very thankful. The military regime did not do much of anything to help the people. At that time no organization could give the supplies directly to the victims. Everything had to be given to the military, and they kept the biggest part of it for themselves.
In this situation I could channel the help directly to the people through monks. I gave contacts to the helpers. The regime was still afraid of the monks, they did not want to confront us directly out of fear that we might demonstrate again.
After the Saffron Revolution there were checkpoints everywhere. It was much more difficult to travel freely. I was controlled many times. “What is your name? In which monastery do you live? What is the name of your teacher?” I always gave them very difficult wrong names and always asked questions back to them like “Why do you ask me that?”.
Then, in October 2008 a member of Generation Wave, with whom I had been working, and who was a student of U Gambira, was arrested by the regime. He must have been tortured intensively. Two persons came to my library in Yangon. It turned out they now knew my real name, my family name, and my pen name. They asked my friend about my whereabouts. My friend called me secretly and warned me. “Please don’t come here, there are many spies and police here now.” A short time later another friend phoned me and told me to leave Yangon: “They are searching for you here everywhere with plainclothes officers and police.”
I quickly moved to another city, but after a short time they arrived there also. I was hiding and listening closely. Then they arrived at my family’s home and met my brother. My brother had lent me a motorcycle so I could go to a monastery in Gungyangone.
Now the SPDC (State Peace and Development Council) had found out that I had just been there. They asked the town police, the mayor, neighbors. So a spy found my brother at a tea shop. They told him they had money they wanted to give to me. But my brother understood the true situation and gave them the wrong directions. He told them I had gone to Yangon, that he had brought me to the bus station. They asked him, “When will he come back?”, and my brother told them he doesn’t know, that I normally would not tell him when I would be back. They tried to trick him by telling him they only want to meet me to take a photo, not to arrest me. But my brother knew and understood very well.
He came to my monastery later and told me everything. For safety he took a very complicated way. Hiding in several different places to come and meet me.
Later that night at 10 p.m. he sent me a motorcycle to bring me to my family’s home. I told my family very frankly about my situation. I told them that this is my problem, that I should face this, not you. I knew that if they could not catch me, they would try to arrest my brother. So I asked them if they were able to deal with this situation or not. My family told me to move. They said, “We can face this problem, it doesn’t matter for us. If they arrest any one of us, we will be sentenced to maybe 3 years. If they arrest you, you will be in prison for 60 years.” I would not be able to work for our country anymore, like this they told me. So I agreed to flee. My brother-in-law gave me his ID card and clothes. I went back to Gonyangoon city, disrobed, and got on the bus to Yangon in the early morning. I traveled straight without a break and arrived in Myawaddy in the evening.
In Myawaddy a friend of Ashin Sopaka’s, an old soldier, gave me shelter for the night. He arranged for me to pass over the border to Thailand. He rented me a motorcycle, went with me under the bridge, and talked to the soldier there under the bridge. He introduced me as a friend of his who wanted to go to Mae Sot, and in this way I was able to pass over without a problem.
This friend also told me to go to the market in Mae Sot. I had no contacts there; I had no telephone. I wanted to go to an Internet café, but did not know where to find one or how to use it. So I asked several Burmese people for a Burmese political group and finally found one.
When I arrived there I sat down in a chair. After five minutes a person came in—a layman but somehow familiar. When he started to speak I recognized him as a friend of mine. He had been a monk in Burma. When I spoke to him first he did not recognize me until I took of my hat. It was a great elation. He at once brought me monks’ robes to wear. I then went to the Internet café and contacted my friend Ashin Sopaka. Ashin Sopaka made contact with AFA media and I did an interview with them.

Email from U Gambira to King Zero

Pamphlet from U Gambira

U Gambira

King Zero at Saffron Revolution

King Zero at Saffron Revolution

King Zero at Saffron Revolution

Handwritten pamphlet

Peacock sign spreat by U Gambira

Handwritten pamphlet

Pamphlet

Pamphlet

Advertisement with "Killer Than Shwe"

Chat between U Gambira and King Zero

Email from U Gambira to King Zero

Pamphlet by U Gambira

My brother was hiding for about one week until I arrived in Mae Sot. After the interview he was able to come out from hiding, and the authorities did not follow him anymore.
I moved from one friend’s place to another. I was used to giving Dharma talks in Burma, and I started giving those talks here. From that I could make some money to build up the new library in Mae Sot.
By Alexandra Rösch
http://www.thebestfriend.org/2010/05/26/u-gambira-and-king-zero-2/