Protestants rise up against Burmese dictators

FRANCE 24 English, Sep 29, 2023; Pfc. Sandoval, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Theravada Buddhists and visitors enjoy the great Shwedagon Pagoda in Rangoon, Burma.

Burma: Inside the Protestant Chin ethnic group's armed resistance against ruling junta

Hateful nationalist monk Ashin Wirathu (AP)

(FRANCE 24 English) France 24 is a French public broadcast service. Since the February 2021 coup in Burma (renamed "Myanmar" by the new military dictators), the Protestant Christian Chin ethnic minority -- one of 135 officially recognized in Burma -- has taken up arms to defend its land, identity and ideals against the all-powerful ruling junta in the Theravada Buddhist-majority country. The team reports. Read more about this story in this article: f24.my/9p4i.y

Myanmar: How the Chin are fighting the Junta

(DW Documentary) DW is a German public broadcast service. Aug. 8, 2023:  After another military coup in Burma (Myanmar) in 2021, the Christian Chin ethnic minority took up arms. The Chin people are fighting to defend their territory, their identity, and their democratic principles against the junta (military dictatorship). In the mountains in the remote west of Burma, a bitter war is raging. The Chin, a primarily Christian minority, still control most of the area after putting up a fierce resistance against the Myanmar military. The resistance fighters train in the mountains along the peaceful Indian border. Hundreds of young people gave up their jobs or studies to join the battle. Although they’re equipped with little more than light weapons, they’re determined to stand their ground. But the civilian population is paying a high price for the war. Thousands of villagers have been bombed by the junta, their homes destroyed. Many have been forced to flee. Nevertheless, the Chin remain committed to the fight to overthrow the military regime. #Myanmar

COMMENTARY

As monks we oppose this bad gov't.

It is not quite correct to call the generals that form the military junta after the coup "Buddhists," they do tend to be Buddhists in name only, as they kill and oppress Buddhist monks and nuns (sayalays), as during the Saffron Revolution when Buddhist monastics stood up against the military dictatorship and were brutally suppressed.

Gen. Than Shwe: Come back, Hillary

That suppression came with the aid and blessing of U.S. presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton, who was in the country making deals with Aung San Suu Kyi to fight a proxy war against China and exploit Burma's resources for the U.S. and Western markets.

As Clinton lost in a humiliating defeat to dumb Donald Trump, the whole plan of setting up a fake nominal democracy in the style of America's farcical one-party system (the Money Party with two wings, moderate and extreme-right) fell through.

Aung San Suu Kyi (Time cover)

After the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya Muslim minority and their return, the Myanmar military committed more atrocities against perceived enemies of the junta (military dictatorship).

The Rohingya, Karens, and Chin are just three of the ethnic minorities so suffer at the hands of oppressive military rule in this police state (which has suffered troubles since the British invasion and arising of George Orwell, who was born here and served in the Royal Forces as a soldier who did not want to side with Great Britain. Much of what he wrote in Nineteen Eighty-Four was witnessed and learned in Burma under British rule and applied to England and the West.

Miraculously, Theravada Buddhism survives and is practiced, benefiting from its isolation from Western tourists and outsiders.

While the Burmese people are open to visitors, particularly Westerners, the country's rulers are not interested in anything but the foreign currency tourists bring. So visiting at this time may not be the best idea out of humanitarian concerns.

The Irish Buddhist: The Forgotten Monk

However, a closed Buddhist country, as for example Bhutan once remained closed, preserves culture. Burma has already been exposed to Western influences: British imperial oppression, the first Western Buddhist monk to be fully ordained being an Irishman more than a century ago who also opposed the British and Christian proselytizers and got in a lot of trouble as a rebel and excellent public speaker. (See the Western Dharma bum Ven. U Dhammaloka).

Then Burma was wooed by its Chinese neighbors, who advanced the corruption of new military leaders out to enrich themselves and their families. Then Burma was made promises by Secretary of State Clinton, promises that fell through, leaving Aung San Suu Kyi in the lurch and disgraced -- and the ASEAN country in turmoil.

Suu Kyi, after years of house arrest, entered government but was such a nationalist and patriot, she could not see the crimes of the real rulers behind the scenes (the junta left in place by Clinton as the country move toward the appearance of parliamentary democracy), the junta attempting to expel or annihilate the Rohingya.

So the world turned against this once great female peace activist who was the greatest hope of the majority of Burmese, as Suu Kyi's father was once a great national hero. She was destined for greatness, restoring the Buddhist country to greatness, but it was not to be. See Burma VJ for a look into the Saffron Revolution and the silly American movie Beyond Rangoon for a hint of what happened that led down this road.

• The Irish Buddhist: The Forgotten Monk who Faced Down the British Empire (Alicia Turner, Laurence Cox, Brian Bocking)

Calling Burma's Bluff

Wall Street Journal

Aung San Suu Kyi throws down the gauntlet before elections. Burma's generals are embracing democracy this year — "discipline-flourishing democracy," as they like to put it — and some of the junta's friends are buying in to the program. "There is a new beginning after the elections," said ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Secretary General Surin Pitsawan last month, calling them "a step forward." But not Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the opposition party that won Burma's last elections in 1990. At her bidding, Ms. Suu Kyi's party announced...

Meet Burma's Opposition (WQ/BBC)

As the trial of its pro-democracy leader continues in Burma, the BBC assesses the mood of the country's opposition movement.*

To arrange an interview with the leader of the youth wing of Burma's National League of Democracy (NLD) was difficult. It had taken a week to meet him, complicated by the fact that phone calls are routinely tapped and e-mails closely monitored by the military authorities. But at last we were told to go a secret location.

There we waited, concerned - as an hour ticked by -- that he was not coming, or perhaps had been arrested. Finally there was a knock at the door. We shook hands and sat down together. This was the man who could tell us if there were going to be any organised protests against the widely expected conviction of jailed opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi (pronounced ON song SUE chi).

Election concerns
Ms. Suu Kyi is on trial on charges of breaking the terms of her house arrest. Burma's generals have detained her for 13 of the past 19 years, and she has been held in the notorious Insein jail near Rangoon for almost two months. I asked the NLD activist why the government was delaying the conclusion of Ms. Suu Kyi's trial.

"They cannot let her be free before the elections," was the response. Everyone I asked said the same. The Burmese military has pledged to hold elections early next year -- the first since 1990, when the NLD won a landslide victory but the army refused to let them take power. And now the ruling generals still do not wish Ms. Suu Kyi -- whom locals refer to with reverence as The Lady -- to take part.

The opposition activist I was talking to was one of the leaders of pro-democracy protests in 1988, which followed then ruler General Ne Win's decision to suddenly devalue the currency, wiping out the savings of thousands of Burmese people. These protests were met with a violent crackdown, in which human rights groups say at least 3,000 people were killed. Soldiers sprayed automatic rifle fire into crowds of protesters, and other demonstrators were carried away in trucks and never seen again.

The NLD man I met also played a leading role in the protests in 2007, when a fuel price hike triggered anti-government demonstrations. The protests spread from monks to students, and became an uprising -- the most significant challenge to Burma's generals in almost two decades. But again there was a crackdown. At least 10 people were confirmed dead in the military's response to the protests, and many thousands more -- including many Buddhist monks -- were reportedly arrested. Amnesty International estimates that over 2,100 people are still in jail as a result.

Fear of reprisals
The man I spoke was arrested after both protests, and has spent many years in prison -- but he's still not given up. More>>

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*For the safety of those spoken to, the BBC cannot reveal names of anyone involved.