Burmese Language
Monk Gambira taken by police
Burma detained a prominent Buddhist monk for questioning on Friday, less than month since he was freed from jail where he was sent for leading an anti-government uprising, an official said.
Gambira was one of hundreds of political prisoners released in January, cutting short a 68-year jail term imposed for his key role in the 2007 “Saffron Revolution”, which was brutally crushed by the former junta.
Since he was freed, Gambira has breached regulations by breaking into monasteries that were closed by the government following the mass monk-led demonstrations, the government official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
“He was taken this morning from his monastery for questioning because he broke the locks of three monasteries since his release,” the official said, adding that he was taken in Rangoon in the early hours of the morning.
The government’s release of about 500 political prisoners since October has been hailed by Western countries, which have long demanded the freeing of such detainees before they would consider lifting sanctions.
The quasi-civilian government, which came to power in March last year after almost half a century of outright military rule, has impressed observers with its apparent desire to reform and open up to the outside world.
The 2007 protests that landed Gambira in jail began as small rallies against the rising cost of living but escalated into huge anti-government demonstrations led by crowds of monks.
They posed the biggest challenge to military rule in nearly two decades, leading to a bloody crackdown by the authorities. At least 31 people were killed by security forces while hundreds were beaten and detained.
Tags: burma, gambira, monk, myanmar
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Ah!
There’s the Burma we know so well!
Buddhist monks dragged away in the early hours of the morning for the criminal offense of being in a Buddhist monastery!
Who would have thought that those silly Buddhist monks would have been so brazen as to have assumed they could occupy Buddhist monasteries?
C’mon fellas, get with the program!
The new Burma doesn’t need monks and monasteries, they need entrepreneurs and quaint properties which can be converted into tourist guest houses!
Play your cards right and the regime will probably hook you up with investors among their cronies who would probably even allow you to become houseboys and gardeners who can work for a living, make a few kyat a day, and pay union dues and income taxes.
Don’t wait too long though, since the new regime is supposedly ending a half century of Burma army deployments in the ethnic homelands, there are going to be a lot of former Burma army shock-troops who will be given priority status for new jobs in the cities.
But don’t worry too much about their well-being as they transition from their previous jobs as murderers, rapists, and extortionists to their new lives as businessmen, shopkeepers, and merchants, because like all current and former Burma army Generals, they have been well trained to take whatever they want from the civilians around them.
Just wait until thousands of unemployed people who THINK there are going to be a lot of new jobs in the cities find themselves placed on buses headed out of the cities to non-edible agro-projects built on confiscated ricefields leased to regime cronies and their international investors.
As for you Buddhist monks who are locked-out of your monasteries, look at the bright side, if you had been ethnic minority Christians, your monasteries would not have simply been locked-up, they would have been destroyed, along with your schools, clinics, and ricefields.