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Report from ABYMU Arakan



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Buddhist Relief Mission
DATE:March 17, 1995
TIME: 2:31PMJST
SUBJ:From All Burma Young Monks' Union (Arakan)

>From LIGHT
All Burma Young Monks' Union (Arakan)
All correspondence to
GPO Box 2496
Dhakka 1000
Bangladesh

A Word from the President:

Under the iron-handed control of the Slorc, the Buddha
Sasana has been subjected to the same method of
defamation and trumped up charges as Ne Win's old
guard used to adopt.  To wrest control from the Sangha,
the Slorc now offers honorary titles to senior monks at
home and abroad.  To the junta-favoured monks and
monasteries such material luxuries as TV and video sets,
and lump sum donations are made.  As a face-saving-drive the junta also arrang
es display of holy
relies across
the country and sponsors elaborate ceremonies.

The formation of the Sangha Maha Nayaka Committee
in 1980 against all objections underlied politically
motivated objectives of the military strongman.  Since
the  unification and purification' as stated by the BSPP
regarding the Buddhist monks is traditionally conducted
intermittently from the time of the Buddha as occasions
arise.  So the measure was not only superfluous but also
nakedly politically motivated.

The junta is now detaining more than twelve hundred
Buddhist monks, many of whom are well over 70.  The
usual defamatory charges against them are: robbery,
womanizing, drunken wrangle, smuggling , drug dealing
or taking, gambling, participating in anti-government
activities, etc.  In fact, these venerable monks have
mostly been detained and tortured for their undaunted
stand against the inhuman violations of human rights by
the Slorc.

In recent years the junta has repeatedly tried to smarten
up and improve its soiled image by embarking on a
major campaign in the US through Lester Wolff (who is
paid $10,000 a month by the junta), and many other
Slorc cronies appointed in the multinational companies
working in Burma.  In the United Nations the junta again
and again has barked that the jailed monks have been
impostors, etc.

The shameless junta can never hide the fact that its anti-people stand is star
kly evident by the six-year
long house
arrest of Aung San Suu Kyi.  Suu Kyi herself said that
she is not interested in any sort of personality cult or
personality politics.  In her interview with Philip
Shennon she once said that the foreign governments
should really consider whether their trade with SLORC
is really helping the people or is it simply helping the
government to dig in its heels.  She recently denied any
supposed understanding with the Slorc, reiterating her
staunch stand with the people.  We hail her courage.

The ABYMU (Arakan) expresses its solidarity with all
the sister organizations, and the opposition umbrella
group to the call of renewed efforts to 'liberate' the
country from the ruling inhuman  junta.  Burma is now
at crossroads, we believe, facing paths either "toward a
national reconciliation" or "toward despotic rule under
the junta".

Through unity, discipline perseverance, and nonviolence 
the entire nation should redouble their efforts to bring
down the shameless military despots.  Domestic
opposition and international pressure should be escalated
to bring a peaceful transition of peace and democracy to
the oppressed people of Burma

While printing this newsletter the news of the fall of
Marnerplaw under repeated shelling and attacks with
chemical weapons by the Burmese army came in.  For
forty years Marnerplaw was considered as the liberated
area.  The blow is severe since many guerrilla
organizations besides the predominant KNU, like the
ABYMU and the ABSDF were stationed there.  But does
this fall mean restoration of peace, human rights and
democracy in Burma is in the offing?  Rather it only
intensifies the people's hate of the junta.

Ven. U Thi Ha, President ABYMU (ARAKAN)

An Introduction to the ABYMU (Arakan)

The All Arakan Young Monks Union (AAYMU) was an
organization which emerged during the 1988 Democratic
Movement in Burma.  We  the members of AAYMU
took a leading part in that historic mass uprising in
Arakan State.  After the military takeover by the SLORC
on Sept. 18, 1988, the active members of our
organization inevitably had to take shelter along the
Burma-Bangladesh border to evade repression.  To be
able to carry out our future movement in a larger scale
we established contacts with the monks who were taking
refuge at the eastern frontier where they formed the All
Burma Young Monks Union (ABYMU) a member
organisation of the Democratic Alliance of Burma.  For
the sake of broader unity among the monks who have
devoted their lives for the religion and the nation all the
members of the AAYMU joined the ABYMU on July 7,
1991.

WHY ARE MONKS INVOLVED IN POLITICS?

Buddhist monks in principle do not get involved in
politics.  But the mass movements in Burma was so all-encompassing that the Sa
ngha could not keep
themselves
aloof from the democratic ideals of the teaching of the
Buddha and the democratic inspiration of the people who
upheld them.  Because the people had faith in them, they
in return inevitably showed support to their inspirations
which were democratic and humane. The participation of
monks in Burmese politics is nothing new since U
Ottama, the Venerable Arakanese monk took leading
part in the anti-colonial struggles against the British.

NEWS IN BRIEF FROM ARAKAN

Forced Labour:
In construction of roads in all the townships of Rakhine
State, the respective Township Law and Order Councils
are making use of forced labour.  In some townships
army barracks are also constructed by utilizing forced
labour, government employees, businessmen and
common citizens are compelled to work under constant
threat.  The government employees are held under the
threat of dismissal and punitive measures in case of non-compliance of the SLO
RC's orders.  Civilians
at large,
on the other hand face more threats like forced
relocation, arrest, torture, porterage, even extrajudicial
killings.  The villages and town dwellers alike, already
miserable under severe poverty, have been left with no
other choice than complying with any whimsical order of
the Slorc thugs.

Arakan League for Democracy
Elected MP from Tathedaung (Seat 2) and the General
Secretary of the ALD, U Tha Noe and some other leaders
of the party defected across the border under unavoidable
circumstances.  The ALD came out as the third largest
party in the May 1990 general elections.  The number of
seats it won was more than that of NUP--the ghost of Ne
Win's BSPP.

The motto of ALD has been "Equality among the
indigenous races under a Democratic Federal Union."...

Fleeing Paletwa
About 150 minority families from along the Pichaung
Creek under Paletwa township crossed the border and
came into Bangladesh in July-August 1994.  They are
either Rakhines, Khumis, or Khamis.  They were forced 
to quit their villages under the oppression of the Slorc
soldiers which included forced labour, physical torture,
rape and killings.

Na Sa Ka and the Smugglers
The Na-Sa-Ka (Border Administrative Body of the
Slorc) have been reported to operate in collusion with
smugglers in the Bangladesh-Burma border.  Besides
extorting hush money, the smugglers are put to work as
 informers' who collect intelligence reports on the
democratic movement and armed ethnic guerillas along
the border.

Extortion by Slorc Soldiers
The Slorc boastfully declares to the world how they have
developed the infrastructure of the country.  If the world
could know about the means the Slorc adopts to make
roads, build bridges and repair the existing ones, the true
face of the military will be unveiled.

For instance, let us look at Mayu road, Sittwe.  This
road, mostly used by the very important military officers,
was build by utilizing 2,700 kyin of stone.  Such a big
quantity of stone was not bought with the money from
the government exchequer.  The villagers along the
Lemro river were assigned to supply all the requisite
quantity of stone free of cost.  Keeping aside their daily
farm work, the villagers including minor children, the
aged, and pregnant women were forced to carry boulders
from distant quarries on free labour which the Slorc calls
 voluntary labour.'  The matter did not rest there.  As the
responsibility to transport the stones which also assigned
to them, the villagers had to bear the costs of hired
transports to Sittwe.  Such inhuman slavery and forced
labour are pressed into service in Slorc's Rakhine State.

The porterage or Slorc brand of slavery has grown so
ubiquitous that, at least twice a month soldiers come
asking for unpaid labour.  The labourers are selected
from the villagers.  If the assigned person fails to report
due to illness or because he feels unwilling to work, a
sum of 200 kyat ($40) is charged by the army.

In constructing army barracks, the requested quantity of
timber, bamboo, firewood (for brick making), rice,
chicken, cattle, and other foodstuff for the soldiers are
forced to be provided by the villagers.

Illegal toll collection by the soldiers is so rampant that a
bamboo cutter has to pay 100 kyat for every 1,000
bamboos.  In like manner a green chili grower has to pay
5 kyat for every viss (3.5 lbs) of chili, a peanut grower
pays 15 kyat for 10 of peanut, sesame grower pays 25
kyat, mustard grower 20 kyat, etc.  The traders who
carry vegetables and fruits in boats have to pay tolls at
every Slorc outpost along the way at a rate of 10 kyat to
25 kyat.  These facts are accurate to the point that such
were the rates during 1993-1994.

A peculiar practice can be found at Maung Daw.  Here
everybody crossing the Aungbala Bridge is charged 5
kyat.  The length of the bridge?  Just 135 steps!  Any
more you want to know about the hellish conditions in
Rakhine?  Why not pay a visit in 1996--the year of
visiting Myanmar?


May all beings live in peace!  Sabbe satta sukhita hontu!