Saffron Revolution Anniversary – 260 monks still
imprisoned
Today we commemorate the four-year anniversary
of the Saffron Revolution. It has been four years since we, my friends in Burma
and I, have seen each other. Before the Saffron Revolution we studied together,
ate together, held meetings, spread pamphlets, and worked for freedom and
democracy in our country. During the Saffron Revolution we walked in peace
together. But now many of my friends are in prison.
We monks have never been used to hard labor. We
learned by studying the Buddha’s teachings about how to meditate, and how to
spread Dharma. We have never experienced hard labor. But now a lot of monks are
suffering in labor camps and prisons.
U Gambira
One of my friends, U Gambira, is in jail. He
has been sentenced to 63 years. He is a good and brave leader. He was the
leader of the Sangha Young Monk Union in Rangoon. He worked hard and tried to
connect with other groups who were working for freedom and democracy. He had
been active since before the Saffron Revolution. The authorities were already
searching for him before 2007. He had been using messengers and sent them to
other people who were active and wanted to work for freedom and democracy
together.
He worked very tirelessly. I remember when we
first met, and he told me during a meeting in Rangoon, “I have to hide. The
military regime is searching for me. I have to move to different places from
time-to-time because the regime is following me.”
U Kheminda
Another friend of mine is U Kheminda. He was
sentenced to 35 years in jail. He is a senior monk, older than me. In 1990
there was a ceremony to commemorate the 1988 uprising in Mandalay. During the
1988 uprising, students, monks, and ordinary people protested together. The
military regime shot the people on the streets. In 1990, a big ceremony was
held, and Burmese people wanted to give donations to 600 monks.
The military regime tried to stop this
ceremony. They shot, beat, and tortured Monks on the streets. Many senior monks
did not like the actions of the military and started a boycott. Cities like Mandalay,
Rangoon, Sagaing, and Pegu followed the boycott. It spread all over the
country. The military regime got very angry. Monks did not come to their houses
anymore. The monks did not accept their offerings, and refused to be associated
with the regime anymore. The regime tried to stop this boycott by sending monks
to jail. Senior monks, famous monks, monks that were well-respected by the
people—all sent to jail.
U Kheminda was very bravely working for this
boycott at that time. He was caught and sent to jail for five years. After his
release in 1995 he started working for democracy again right away. Later, we
contacted him when we tried to build the Sangha Monks Union in Mandalay. U Kheminda
participated in our group. He told all monks, “We need to offer our lives for
our country. In 1990 I promised to devote my life for the freedom of our
country, and I was sent to jail. Until now, I’m still devoted to that cause
because the lives of our people are very poor. It doesn’t change, so we have to
try to change our country’s system.”
Some monks were released after three years in
very bad conditions after 1990. It was very difficult to endure the time in
prison. They had been tortured. Even after this experience, U Kheminda
continued his work for democracy. He tried to connect with other monks and
people who were working in the same way.
My contact with him began in 2006. We came
together in the Sangha Union in Mandalay. Together with U Khemnida, U
Pannasiri, U Lin, me and many other friends. It was very, very difficult. If
the military regime had known that we are participating in the Sangha Union, we
could have been sent to jail for 30–40 years. So we formed this Sangha Union as
an underground group. We worked and distributed our statements very secretly,
preparing for the Saffron Revolution.
U Pannasiri
U Pannasiri was arrested, and later escaped
from a labor camp in Chin State to New Dehli, India. After that we met online.
He told me, “My friend, you should not live inside Burma. They will catch you.”
I told him that I had to stay to continue my work, that it was very important.
After I had to leave Burma in 2008 and arrived
in Mae Sot, I met U Pannasiri in person, and I asked him, “Why did you tell me
at that time to leave the country?”
He said, “When I was in jail, they asked me
questions about you, U Gambira, and U Lin. They beat and tortured me a lot. I
was very worried for you. It is terrible in jail. People suffer a lot. They
beat and torture all the time. I did not want to see you go to such a place.”
During his time in jail, he wanted to commit
suicide. He tried to kill himself by hitting his head against the wall. He
could not bear the torture anymore. This is why he was worried for me and why
he wrote me to leave the country in 2007.
Now, it is the four-year anniversary of the
Saffron Revolution. Over 260 monks and 7 nuns are still in prisons across
Burma. They are not imprisoned for something they did, but for their own lives.
What they did was for the people of our country. For the freedom of us all. All
Burmese people have the responsibility to work for the freedom of all political
prisoners, including our monks and nuns. We have to try to gain the release of
all political prisoners and monks. We must try to demonstrate for that on the
streets again.
ေရွှဝါ
ေရာင်ေတာ်လှန်ေရး ေလးနှစ်ြပည့်အထိမ်းအမှတ်အြဖစ် ထိုင်းနိုင်ငံ
ချင်းမိုင်းြမို့မှာ ထိုင်းနိုင်ငံသားေတွနဲ့ ြမန်မာနိုင်ငံသားေတွ
ပူးေပါင်းြပီး စီတန်းလမ်းေလျှာက် ဆန္ဒထုတ်ေဖာ်ြကပါတယ်။
On 26 September
the military started to shoot, beat, and torture monks on the streets.
Monks were arrested and sent to jail. I think the authorities arrested
more than 1,000 monks at that time. They entered over 60 monasteries.
Every night. They forced the senior monks to send the young monks back
to their villages. They said, “If you don’t send the young monks back
home, we will close your monastery, and we will arrest you and send you
to jail.” Even though the abbots did not want to send the junior monks
back home, they did it because they were afraid. 
