Burma's Pent-up Demands
A first-hand view of the rebellion's infancy
A kind, white-haired man dressed in a Burmese longyi pulls me aside. He looks over my shoulder to make sure no one is watching. He leans into me. Whispering into my ear, he says everyone hates the government. He motions around the office and keeps saying "everyone," stressing that all people in Burma feel this way. "We want them out," he says, "but we can't do anything."
It is 2004, and I have been living in Rangoon, Burma (renamed Yangon, Myanmar by the ruling junta) for the last year, working at the government-censored Myanmar Times and Business Review.
The white-haired man explains that the people can't protest because ... and then he motions with his hand like a gun ... soldiers will shoot.
He tells me the people are waiting for the time when the country opens up, and the people can speak out. He says that 1988 was so traumatic that people are now too afraid to protest. In 1988, hundreds of thousands of Burmese took to the streets to demand political reform. The junta responded by gunning down at least 3,000 people.
The man continues. But the people are waiting, he says, waiting for the right time.
I let out a sigh and respond: "I'm not holding my breath."
Four years later, I have been proven wrong. The people of Burma were waiting for their chance, and it came last month. They took over the streets of Rangoon, Mandalay, Sittwe, Bago, and cities across the country, demanding democratic rule and the release of Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and the hundreds of other political prisoners.
The uprising was triggered by the government raising fuel prices by 500 percent on August 15. Former political prisoners from the 1988 marches and other student activists took to the streets on August 19. It was only a few hundred people, but quite impressive for Burma, where all political dissent is usually crushed instantaneously. When I was living there, an activist was detained for handing out copies of the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights.
The movement gained steam when the country's monks - who bestow moral authority on the government - took up the cause. They stopped accepting alms from the generals, and thousands marched through the streets. Their maroon robes and sandals captured the international community's attention, and Burma finally made headlines around the world.
But then came the crackdown, starting on September 26. The junta proved that it does not care that the world is watching. The government opened fire on its own people and religious leaders. Troops have fired teargas into crowds and beat marchers. Soldiers have raided monasteries to rouse monks from their sleep to beat them up as well.
About 6,000 monks, nuns, and other protesters have been arrested since the crackdown began, according to opposition groups. The government says 10 people have died, but exiled media and opposition groups say the number is closer to 200.
Foreign correspondents are not allowed in Burma. People inside have been smuggling out photographs, video clips, and bits of information. They have provided the only window into the demonstrations and brutal crackdown. If caught smuggling out information, they are arrested or killed.
Photographs appeared on blogs covering the demonstrations of a monk found dead in a creek. His maroon robe is shown bunched up around his neck, and bits of seaweed and mud cover his body. Another photograph reveals a student's brains, blown out of his head, lying in a gutter. Video clips document soldiers beating up monks and other protesters.
The junta is working to clamp down on the spread of this information, cutting off most phone lines and Internet access. It has arrested at least four journalists, and fired at people taking photographs.
Despite the crackdown, news continues to leak out. Reports surfaced on blogs last weekend that the junta has turned a university into a prison to hold all of the monks and protesters arrested. The Daily Mail reported on a military intelligence officer, Hla Win, who defected from the junta after he was ordered to kill monks. He has fled to Thailand, hoping to get asylum in Norway. "Many more people have been killed in recent days than you've heard about. The bodies can be counted in several thousand," he said.
The protests, though, have dwindled. The junta locked the remaining monks in their monasteries and sent about 20,000 soldiers to patrol the streets of Rangoon.
My Burmese husband and I have watched the protests from Los Angeles. My husband, Morning, was born and raised in Rangoon and remembers watching the 1988 uprising as a child. Morning eventually fled Burma to work for the Irrawaddy, a magazine based in Thailand and run by Burmese exiles. He has therefore been blacklisted and cannot return home until there is a new government.
He can't reach his family to find out if they are safe. Even if the junta were not stifling the flow of news, he would not be able to call his parents. The vast majority of people in Burma, including my in-laws, are too poor to have a phone or access to the Internet. Morning must wait in Los Angeles, hopeful that the uprising will resume, the junta will be replaced by a democratically elected government, and he can one day return home.
Published: 10/11/2007
DIGG | del.icio.us | REDDIT
