Syed Zarir Hussain
Moreh (Myanmar-India Border), Sep 28 (IANS) The military crackdown on protesting monks in Myanmar is stoking public anger against the junta with fears that several ethnic rebel armies in the impoverished nation could hijack the pro-democracy movement.
It was the 11th straight day Friday that large protests have erupted against the ruling junta, which caused outrage by doubling fuel prices on Aug 15. Some 11 Buddhist monks have been killed and more than 300 clergymen arrested in separate raids since Wednesday across Myanmar when the protests first became violent, according to information reaching this border town in India’s northeastern state Manipur.
“After the monks were arrested or confined by the military regime in their monasteries what we see now is that the common people are taking up the cudgels and this movement would surely gather momentum,” Min Maung, an exiled Burmese student leader and now a correspondent for the British Broadcasting Service (Burmese Service), said by telephone.
“Monks are highly revered in Myanmar and the recent brutal attacks on their protests by the junta is uniting the common people to make the anti-government movement more strident,” Kyaw Than, president of the All Burmese Students’ League, told IANS.
Than is among 2,500 Myanmarese nationals who fled to India after the military rulers cracked down on pro-democracy leaders in 1988. He is currently based in Imphal, the Manipur capital.
The country of 47 million people is home to about 25 ethnic guerrilla groups fighting for separate homelands. The recent chaos in Myanmar could well propel some of the groups to capitalise on the developments.
“Groups like the Karen National Union could try and mingle with the people and offer an armed resistance to the junta,” Than said.
However, 18 of the ethnic rebel groups are in ceasefire mode with the junta or neutralised. “People in general have realised the power of a mass struggle through non-violent means. The rebel groups may try to influence the movement in some ways,” Maung said.
With all the top monks now arrested, several pro-democracy groups like the Sangha, 88 Generation Students’ and the Nationality Youth Cooperation Association, have threatened to intensify the uprising across the country.
“The way people, including the elderly and the teenaged boys and girls, are taking to the streets defying curfew orders and ready to face the bullets of the soldiers is something unprecedented. More and more people are determined to shed blood if required for putting an end to the brutality,” said a leader of the Association by e-mail.
The current uprising led by Buddhist monks, pro-democracy activists and thousands of ordinary people is reminiscent of the failed popular insurrection in 1988 when the junta crushed the movement in which some 3,000 people were killed.
But unlike in 1988, the current pro-democracy movement in Myanmar, earlier known as Burma, has an edge with the recent turmoil filtering to the rest of the world with visual images sent through e-mail and mobile telephones.
“In 1988, the junta did whatever they wanted as there was no way news or photographs reached the outside world. Now with technological advancement, newspapers and TV stations are showing the brutal attacks on ordinary people almost in real time and hence the worldwide condemnation,” Than said.