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 Posted: Thursday June 22, 2000 8pm EST The Statement Regarding to the call of National Reconciliation by the Burmese Buddhist Monks |
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The strongest Buddhist Monk Organization, "The Sangha Thamaggi" issued a statement inside Burma which demanded the ruling military junta, The State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) to start a constructive dialogue with the opposition party leaders the National League for Democracy (NLD), ten members of Committee Representing the Peoples' Parliament and respected well-known politicians with the supervision and patronage of Senior respected Sayadaws. If their demand is not meet within 99 days, which will be on May 25th, 2000, they will set up monasteries as their strike centers nation in every township, states, divisions and cities. We Civil Society for Burma, and Burmese Democratic Society (USA), Burmese Students' Democratic Organization (Canada), Burma Bureau (Germany) and Burmese Buddhist Mission (England) absolutely support the demand of the nationalist monks who are trying to find peace in our country. In Burma, the monks and the students are the two groups who love our county with pure hearts. Historically, the monks and the students were the ones who fought against the British colonialist and brought independence for our people. Sayadaw U Uttama and Sayadaw U Wisara were famous for their leading role in Burmese politics. Similarly, Ko Aung San (father of Aung San Suu Kyi), Ko Nu, Ko Ba Swe, and Ko Kyaw Nyein were transformed from student leaders to national leaders because of their commitment and activities in independence struggle. Today, the statute of U Wisara still standing on the Pillar of U Wisara road, and U Uttama Garden in Rangoon are the concrete remembrance of for their noble activities. SPDC's generals repeatedly warned that religious people should not be participated in national politics. At the same time, the nationalist monks were captured, tortured and thrown into prisons for vocalizing their opposition to the SPDC on the grounds of misused of power and human rights violations. In contrast, the generals repeatedly use religion as a tool for holding political power. The generals repair pagodas, put new umbrellas on the top of the pagodas, and donate robes to Sanghas in order to appear devout. The regime run media shamelessly advertise the religious pretense of the generals on national television and in state run newspapers. Sayadaw U Yewata, General Secretary of Thangha Thamaggi was forced to stripe off his monk robes and then severely tortured. The honorable monk U Yewata died soon after his release, undoubtedly from the torture inflicted upon him from the SPDC while he was imprisoned. His death is not only a loss for the monk organization but is also a loss of a true hero for our country. Most respectful three senior honorable monks, Pegu Kya Khet Wyne Sayadaw, Amarapura Maha Gandayon Sayadaw, and Sitt Kiang Shwe Hinn Tha Sayadaw requested the SPDC regime to start a peaceful dialogue with the NLD lead by Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi for the sake of our country. Burma has suffered tremendous moral, economic, educational down fall under the SPDC. The motive of the monks is to reconcile the two parties, NLD and SPDC. The monks are not acting out of their own personal interest but purely for the peace and harmony within the country. However, the SPDC ignored their request for a dialogue and furthermore restricted the monk travel and religious occasions. In addition, SPDC did not invite the three senior monks in the important Tri Pitaka, religious ceremony, attended by most top ranking monks in Burma. These actions show that SPDC leaders are attempting to suppress the monk views and demonstrate the unwillingness of the generals to negotiate for peace within our country. Even our Lord Buddha Gautamma stood between the Tha Ki Wun and Widadupa King when they were prepared to kill each other. Gautamma Buddha preached peace between two countries on two occasions. Therefore, the ideology that religion and politics should be separate is nonsense for a Buddhist country like Burma. The Buddhist monks are depending on the citizens of Burma. How can the Buddhist monks possibly remain silent as they watch their supporters suffer under a military dictatorship? Look at Burma today! The country is in economic, intellectual, moral and social decline. People must lie for their survival, steal food to eat, and accepted bribes to make their ends meet. This is the reality in Burma today. Nationalist monks know the situation and believe that they have a duty to improve their country. Thus the monk's movement was initiated and has accelerated. Their selfless demand is fair. We strongly support their brave demand. The SPDC planned to exploit the Buddhist religion by creating new religious titles. Three titles for teaching Buddhist literature, three titles for meditation field, two titles for speeches and preaching, four titles for Buddhist missionaries. They gave most of the titles to the monks who collaborate with them. In addition, they bribe the monks with donations such as luxury cars, color television sets and VCRs to control the leaders of the monks. As a result, some committee members of the Sangha Nayaka (highest monk Council) became corrupted. They forgot about the Buddhist teaching and practice to reach Nibbana. Further more they are not only enjoying the luxuries, but also prohibited the fellow monks from participating in politics. Thus they became a new breed "Bureaucratic Phone Phone" (Phone Phone =monk) produced by SPDC. In fact, the prohibition of fellow young monks for participation in politics means that they are doing politics for SPDC. There are two factions that exist within the monks. The majority group is Young Nationalist Monks who could not tolerate seeing the suffering of the Burmese people and who work to restore peace in their country. The other faction is the minority group lead by "Senior Bureaucratic Monks" and their followers who wanted to enjoy the power and bribes given by the regime as Sangha Nayaka Council members. Their numbers are small. Similarly, within the army the majority of the soldiers in the rank and file are fed up with the generals' misuse of power, dishonesty, and extravagance. Only a few of them support the generals because they benefit from the existing system. Even under British colonial rule, and Parliamentary democratic rule the yearly religious exams such as Dhamma Sariya, and Pali Pathama pyan continued to be promoted. Only under SPDC rule, they prohibit the exams. The Religious Minister declared that his government would not take responsibility to hold the religious exams. This is a direct contradiction with the propaganda made by SPDC that they are building a first world standard Buddhist University in Rangoon. This contradiction highlights the fact that SPDC is using Buddhism as a tool for their political benefit. Even though University students are always taking a leading role in Burmese politics, at the present moment they are too weak to organize with each other because the colleges and universities have been closed since 1996. The regime is promoting distance learning to prevent gathering of the students in one place. The colleges have been downgraded and regional high school classrooms have been planned to use for college and university students rather than in the university compound. Although the university students are dispersed in various places and their schools have been closed for four years, the high school students continue to study and communicate. It can be expected that the new breed of high school students will organize with the monks and recreate a movement similar to the four eights movement. In the past, when Chinese troops invaded Burma, the Burmese King sent a monk name "Ashin Dhitha Pamauk" to settle the dispute. The monk negotiated with the Chinese leader by using Buddhist ideology and teaching to settle the dispute. Also in the Pagan era, the potential war between the two princes for the throne was settled by "Panthaku Mathe" but later the younger prince Narathu broke his promise and poisoned his older brother Minshin Saw. The monk felt betrayed and insulted so he told Narathu that "I will not live under bad and dishonest king" and left to Ceylon. The evidence in Burmese history highlights the participation of Burmese Buddhist monks in politics in order to gain peace in the country. They participate in politics to prevent bloodshed and violence in their country. They have established a precedence of monks as peacemakers and negotiators. It is with this same desire to establish peace that the three senior honorable monks, Pegu Kya Khet Wyne Sayadaw, Amarapura Maha Gandayon Sayadaw, and Sitt Kiang Shwe Hinn Tha Sayadaw requested the regime and opposition party National League for Democracy to start a peaceful dialogue for the sake of the country. They act with honesty and a true desire for peace within Burma. There is no doubt about motivation. It is the generals who keep a strong fist around their political control who ignore the Sayadaw's request. We warned the SPDC regime not to use any violent means to crush the activities of the monks for their just and sincere demand. Violent action only produces a negative outcome. It does not move us toward peace. The only action that the generals need to make today is to loosen their grasp around the government and to support the emergence of the democratic government. The SPDC needs to respect the will of the people by enacting the 1990 freely elected parliament. Burma and its people need to be able to stand proudly as free citizens under a democratically elected parliament. This is the time to accept the offer from NLD party and start the dialogue for the emergence of the democratic government according to the people' will. We strongly believe that the Burmese people and NLD are willing to forget the past conflicts and work together for new Burma.
We believe that the three stages for the progress of our country are: Civil Society for Burma (USA)
U Htun Aung Gyaw Tel/Fax: (607) 266-8942 (H), (607) 255-7557 (off) May 23, 2000
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