Burmese monk's mission to tell world how it is

By Connie Levett

March 10, 2008 - THE Burmese junta mobilised a powerful new adversary when it brutally suppressed the monks' uprising in September, igniting monks worldwide to campaign to force a change of government.

The monk Pannya Vamsa, co-founder of the International Burmese Monks Organisation, has called on Australia to support sanctions, co-ordinate with other governments for a unified response and use its influence on China, Burma's most important backer and arms supplier, to improve civil rights and allow democratic progress.

Pannya Vamsa, 79, in Australia on a two-week speaking tour, has had a working relationship with the regime in the past. For 50 years he has promoted Buddhism internationally and received honours from the regime in 1994 and 1998. He set up a monks' educational training centre in Rangoon in the 1990s and built 15 temples in the United States, East Asia, Europe and Australasia.

Now he is campaigning to overthrow the military government. In 2002 the Government took over his Rangoon training centre because "they were afraid of it", Pannya Vamsa said. "They [the regime] liked me; I never liked them," he said of his previous co-operation. "When governments ask what to do, I say you have to choose between good and evil.

"The Burmese Government is wrong in every field - religiously, socially and commercially. They cannot handle the [country], there is not enough to eat, and they make divisions."

The International Burmese Monks Association was formed on October 27 last year after the arrest and detention of thousands of monks by the army in the wake of the peaceful uprising.

"In Burma, the present situation, the monks say, 'We cannot do anything. The military government is torturing and killing, and we cannot live peacefully. Help us tell the world leaders, political and religious, what is happening,"' he said.

There are an estimated 400,000 to 500,000 monks and nuns in Burma, the same as the number of soldiers. "We think about 100 monks were killed and thousands of monks and nuns were arrested [last September]," Pannya Vamsa said.

After the uprising the regime closed the monasteries in and around Rangoon, detained senior monks and sent the novices back to their villages. "In Rangoon now about 10 per cent of the monks are left," Pannya Vamsa said.

"In Mandalay [the second largest city] there are about 40 per cent." Monks who tried to return were investigated, their faces checked against the photographs of the marches to see if they were involved in the protests, he said.

Pannya Vamsa dismissed the junta's referendum in May to approve a new constitution as "probably a trick" and predicted there would be another uprising. "They torture so much, people cannot stand it. There is no limitation; they nearly explode. They have tolerated it for so many years. It is not just wishful thinking. Feelings first, actions later."

He said the uprising in September had resulted in one big change: people worldwide were once again aware of and cared about what was happening in Burma.

Source: Sydney Morning Herald