We decided we would not take our Burmese friends on the streets with us, we would just hang around at the back of the crowds and watch what was happening. We tended to walk along the route of the march, in the opposite direction, to watch what was going on, or sometimes we took a taxi. On one occasion our taxi got stopped by the crowd, it couldn’t go any further, and so we got out and walked. The atmosphere was lovely. The people thought we were marching with them, and they really welcomed us. What impressed me was that ordinary people were out, linking hands to form a barrier to protect the monks. It was pouring with rain and they were getting saturated, but they held hands instead of umbrellas. The monks were chanting ‘We can do this peacefully.’
On 21 September, the All Burma Monks Alliance went even further, denouncing ‘the evil military dictatorship’ and promising to ‘banish the common enemy evil regime from Burmese soil forever’.15 Over the course of the following three days, the crowds swelled, and by 24 September between 30,000 and 50,000 monks joined by an equal number of civilians were on the streets in Rangoon, shouting openly political slogans such as ‘Free Aung San Suu Kyi’ and ‘Free all political prisoners’. Similar protests took place in at least twenty-five towns and cities across Burma.16
That evening, the minister for religious affairs, Brigadier General Thura Myint Maung, issued a warning broadcast on state television, dismissing the protesting monks as ‘only two per cent of the nationwide monk population’ and warning that they would ‘be faced with the law’ if they did not operate ‘according to Buddhist rules’.17 Trucks with loudspeakers then drove through Rangoon, announcing the imposition of Order 2/88, which bans gatherings of more than five people. Anyone taking part in the demonstrations would face punishment under Section 144 of the Burmese Penal Code, which provides for a jail term of up to two years.18
Despite this, the protests continued the next day. On 25 September an estimated 1,500 monks marched down University Avenue, as earlier described. U Pyin Nyar Disa marched, along with several thousand others, from Shwedagon pagoda to the Kaba Aye Sangha University temple. ‘We had to cross in front of the Ministry of Religious Affairs,’ he recalls. ‘We knew the authorities might shoot, but we carried on.’ That day, the guns stayed silent, but the tension was mounting. ‘We delivered speeches at the temple, and then we went to protest, peacefully, outside the radio station. We gave speeches for thirty minutes, urging officials to listen to the people, not to the SPDC.’19
The next day, after receiving a notice calling all monks to gather at the Shwedagon pagoda, U Pyin Nyar Disa went out early in the morning, and arrived at 9 a.m. No other monks had come, however, because soldiers had blocked every entrance and junction. Instead, they gathered at a nearby monastery, to decide what to do next. They all knew that Section 144 had been invoked, that they could face jail, and that the military might well adopt a shoot to kill policy. Despite this, they decided to continue, and they marched to the east entrance of the pagoda. ‘Many people requested the monks not to go,’ said U Pyin Nyar Disa. ‘They had seen many tragedies in 1988, they had seen many people die. But the monks explained that we are the sons of Buddha, we work for our country and our people, not for our own interests.’20
That day, it became clear that the crackdown would begin. A group of monks who marched to the Maha Wizaya temple, which had been built by Ne Win, were disrupted by the police chief, Major General Khin Yi. People arrived to give food to the monks, but were turned away by soldiers. Two trucks carrying more soldiers, guns and ammunition arrived, and the monks moved back to the Shwedagon, where they found themselves surrounded by police and soldiers. The police chief ordered the monks to disperse, but they refused to move until their four demands were met. ‘The police said “These are not your concerns”,’ recalls U Pyin Nyar Disa. ‘They told us to go back to our monasteries, and if we did not move, they would shoot. We moved to the middle of the Shwedagon pagoda. The authorities planned to shoot us there – but then they decided it was not a suitable place. They opened the east gate, and many monks came out.’21
At the end of the street, however, soldiers, guns at the ready, were blocking the way. At least 700 monks were hemmed in by soldiers at the front, led by the Rangoon Divisional commander General Myint Shwe. ‘All the roads were blocked. We requested the authorities to allow us to go back to our monasteries, and we promised to withdraw the rest of the day’s programme. But the authorities refused. We then sat down and prayed. Another 1,000 monks tried to march to the Shwedagon to rescue us, but they were blocked by the army.’
Then the moment many had feared and yet some believed would never happen came. ‘The soldiers began to beat us. Four or five monks collapsed. Monks started to jump the seven- or eight-foot walls nearby to escape, and many were crushed. The army began firing tear gas, and disorder broke out,’ recalls U Pyin Nyar Disa. ‘I was injured on my nose and hand in the crush. The soldiers started beating and kicking people.’ Another monk I met in Mae Sot on the Thailand–Burma border just five months after the Saffron Revolution told me he had been a leader of the protest, and had had a loudspeaker in his hand which he used to mobilise the monks. ‘I was beaten, but I didn’t take any notice because I was looking after other demonstrators who were being beaten,’ he said. ‘I only accepted medical treatment at 5 p.m. the following day.’22 A third monk told me he was also beaten with rubber batons, as he tried to protect an older monk. ‘I was surprised and shocked,’ he said. ‘I did not think the soldiers would beat monks. In Burma, religion is like a parent. The military beat their parents.’23 Yet another monk said: ‘I saw many monks with head injuries, and tried to help them. We then tried to march in another direction wearing protective masks against the tear gas. Soldiers shot at the marchers many times. There were many trucks of soldiers. Many people died.’24
Two and a half years later, I walked down the street to the east gate of the Shwedagon. My mind was full of the images I had seen on television and the stories I had been told by monks who had escaped. The eerie, calm normality on the surface masked the bloodstains which, though they had long since been washed away from the concrete, remained in people’s memories. That evening, listening to a live band in a hotel bar, I requested Bob Dylan’s ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’. The band sang it, but the lyrics referring to freedom, death and suffering were carefully omitted.
In late September 2007 a rumour spread that four monks had been killed, and so more than 2,000 gathered in the street in anger. ‘We marched then from Shwedagon to the NLD office in Bahan Township, and from there to Sanchaung Township. We saw three foreigners. Two of them took photographs; one of them was crying. There were many journalists at the NLD office,’ said U Pyin Nyar Disa. But at the intersection near the Nine-Steps Buddha Statue at Bagara, the army blocked the way again, and ordered the monks to go home within five minutes or they would shoot. ‘The monks refused. The soldiers began to fire into the air, and then ordered the monks to leave one by one,’ he described. After about eighty monks had already left, the remaining monks asked that civilians be allowed to leave too, but the soldiers refused. Clearly, the regime was getting ready to punish the civilians once the monks were out of the way. The soldiers warned the monks that they would be shot if they tried to help the civilians.
The monks then dispersed to Sanchaung Township, where many were arrested. ‘At that point I escaped,’ said U Pyin Nyar Disa. ‘I fled into a building, where a resident helped me to get a taxi, and I went directly back to my monastery. When I reached the monastery, I put my monk’s robes in a box, and moved to another monastery, but it was impossible to stay there because the army were searching every monastery and many monks had already fled.’ Seeking a hiding place, U Pyin Nyar Disa found a bush beside Inya Lake, and spent the night there.
Another monk, twenty-two-year-old U Tiloka, also marched on 26 September, and he witnessed some horrific scenes. ‘I saw nearly eighty soldiers shooting at us,’ he told me. ‘I saw two girls beaten to death with rifle butts. I saw anot
her monk wounded in his left arm, and I am not sure if he died. I saw a young monk beaten with a stick.’25
Viro Sana witnessed similar incidents. Soldiers with loudspeakers were declaring that they had orders to shoot. ‘They opened fire. I saw four people – a girl and three monks – wounded. I don’t know if they were dead or not. I ran away, down a small road, and then took a taxi along with four other monks.’26
Across town, Jean Roxburgh, who had witnessed the peaceful build-up of the protests, saw the first signs of the crackdown as well. Sitting at a table near the window in one of the city’s major hotels, where she had had lunch, she saw the crowds getting bigger and realised something was about to happen. ‘I went through the hotel and out the side entrance, just to be a bit nearer Sule Pagoda. As I came out of that door, that’s when I heard the first gunshot, and saw people running for their lives.’
The hotel staff were not allowing any foreigners out at this point, but Roxburgh convinced them that her own hotel was just a few hundred yards away, and they allowed her to leave. ‘I went back to my hotel, and the rest of that day I kept my balcony door open and I had the news on the television. It was on all the channels – BBC, CNN and Channel News Asia. The sounds that were coming from the television were exactly the same as the sounds that were coming from the streets,’ she said.
The following day, Rangoon descended into bloodshed. U Pyin Nyar Disa emerged from his lakeside refuge and took a bus into downtown Rangoon, with another monk, to see what had happened. ‘I heard many gunshots,’ he described. ‘When I wanted to get off the bus, many people tried to stop me, for my own protection, but I got off the bus – and I was hit by a rubber bullet in my neck.’
On 37th Street, U Pyin Nyar Disa ran into a building owned by a Muslim family, who helped him to hide. Not far behind him were soldiers, looking for monks. ‘Soldiers asked the Muslims, “Where are the monks?”, but the Muslims replied, “We are Muslims – how can a monk enter here?”’ he recalls, laughing. ‘The soldiers left, and I escaped.’
A former schoolteacher from Bago who came to Rangoon to participate in the protests also witnessed the crackdown. He saw people fleeing any way they could, including two people, one of whom was a monk, jumping at least eighteen feet from a bridge. Several monks broke their legs trying to escape, he said. The following day, he went to downtown Rangoon and found a horrific sight. ‘There were so many bloody spots on the street,’ he said. ‘So many discarded flip-flops.’27
That day, Roxburgh saw people climbing the fence of her hotel, across the courtyard and out the other side. ‘Of course, the soldiers were marching and people were being pursued. That day I saw lorry after lorry after lorry of soldiers, hundreds of them, followed by thugs who would then go and beat people up. I also saw soldiers pointing guns into our hotel – they didn’t shoot, but they pointed their guns at us.’ At just one barricade alone, on the way to Sule Pagoda, Roxburgh counted forty soldiers.
After the shooting in the streets, the soldiers began raiding apartments and monasteries, searching for anyone who had taken part in the protests. The raids on monasteries actually began on 26 September, when at least fifteen monasteries were raided and 600 monks arrested.28 On 27 September the Maggin monastery was raided. I spoke to one of the monks who had come from that monastery, and had fled into hiding that night. He told me that at least one hundred soldiers and seventy USDA thugs charged into the monastery. ‘Many monks have disappeared, and we do not know where they have gone,’ he said. ‘Some have been sent to forced labour camps. There used to be 100,000 monks in Rangoon, and now we hardly see any. The SPDC checks all the young monks aged between eighteen and forty, and has arrested many.’29
One man from south Okkalapa Township, who fled to the Thailand– Burma border in October, said that a protest was held at Ngwe Kyar Wan monastery on 27 September, after it had been raided the previous night. Many monks had been arrested and beaten, and when they heard the news a group of ten local people came to the monastery the next day and demanded to know what had happened to the monks. According to this eyewitness, tension mounted between the people and the soldiers and the crowd grew to as many as 10,000. At around noon, some people cut down a tree and placed it between the soldiers and the crowd, and the soldiers fired tear gas and started beating people. Two were beaten to death, their bodies dragged into trucks, provoking even more anger from the crowd. Then the shooting started, and five people were killed.30
According to U Tiloka, sixteen truckloads of soldiers came to monasteries on the night of 28 September. ‘We heard from another monastery that the soldiers were coming, and so we arranged our security – five monks served on lookout duty, so we could know in advance when the soldiers were coming, how many, and where we could hide,’ he told me. ‘I hid in a water tank, along with two other monks. All the monks fled from our monastery. I heard one monk telling everyone to flee.’31
In Burma every locality has a neighbourhood watch scheme, not to fight crime but to keep an eye on the population. In every street, the photographs and names of residents are displayed, and anyone who is not a registered resident must have permission from the police to spend the night as a guest of a resident. According to Roxburgh, soldiers and thugs went door to door and arrested anyone who was not a resident, on suspicion of being a participant in the protests. ‘They were released eventually, but they were held for a while, even if they were nothing to do with it,’ said Roxburgh. In addition, during the protests the police and military intelligence had been at work, videoing and photographing everyone in sight. Anyone caught on camera clapping as the protestors marched past, giving the monks water, medicine or food, or even simply, as an innocent bystander, turning their head towards the monks as they passed, was tracked down and arrested. Informers passed information to the authorities – incentivised by payment of 3,000 kyats (2 dollars) a day, double the average worker’s wage.32
A Chin law student at Rangoon University was among the many to be photographed. On 25 September he and a friend donated water to the monks, and the next day he joined the marches, walking hand in hand in a human chain with other demonstrators. The following day he donated food to the monks, and on 28 September again he joined the protests. Then the military dispersed the crowds with tear gas, firing bullets into the air. ‘I didn’t see if anyone was shot – I was running too fast,’ he told me. Not daring to return to his home, he went into hiding, but telephoned friends the next day. They told him that the police and army had gone to his office and his home, looking for him. One policeman saw his photograph displayed in his apartment block, and said: ‘I saw him yesterday [in the protest]. Where is he?’ Police came again to his office on 12 October, with a photograph of him giving water to the monks. On 16 October, they forced his wife to sign a statement agreeing to assist them in the search for her husband. At that point, he decided to escape, and fled to Malaysia. Breaking down in tears as he told his story just four months later, in February 2008, he said he had had no contact with his wife since he fled.33
In the final days of September 2007, Rangoon went quiet. ‘The silence was worse than the noise,’ recalls Roxburgh. When she went out on the almost-deserted streets and greeted hotel staff, taxi drivers, street children and stallholders, whom she had got to know over previous weeks, ‘the impression really was that people were so grateful that we were still there’. In one shop she went into at three o’clock one afternoon, the elderly shopkeeper told her she was the first customer she had had that day. ‘Everybody was suffering,’ she said. Taxi drivers had no business, and one offered to take Roxburgh somewhere. ‘I thought, “Well why not?” So we went to the Shwedagon pagoda. It was havoc. People were absolutely devastated. There were tour guides who tried to grab us because they obviously didn’t have any work. There were several groups of workmen mending broken tiles – there had obviously been some damage there. There was an elderly Buddhist monk standing with his hands outstretched, and the look on his face was one of total devastation.’ A curfew
had been imposed from 11 p.m. until 5 a.m., which initially Roxburgh thought was ridiculous. ‘It turned out that they were attacking the monasteries at night, and they wanted to stop the public from trying to protect the monks,’ she explained.
During the following days, those who were capable of it fled Rangoon. Two months later, I met three monks and two civilians in hiding in Mae Sot, Thailand, and in February 2008 I was able to meet three more monks and a civilian in Mae Sot and three Chin activists who had escaped to Malaysia. Their escape stories are extraordinary.
One monk, who had organised a demonstration of at least 50,000 people, including 30,000 monks, in Bago on 24 September, decided to move to Rangoon. On the night of 25 September he travelled with thirty-five other monks to Rangoon, but their path was blocked at Hlegu, a small town between Bago and Rangoon, by troops from Light Infantry Battalion 77. The monks decided simply to take a different route and, walking all night, they arrived the next day in Tamwe Township. There they witnessed one of the Saffron Revolution’s worst tragedies.
At the Basic Education High School No. 3 in Tamwe Township, seven truckloads of soldiers arrived. The school was just finishing for the day and children were leaving. As the trucks pulled up, according to the monk who witnessed it, some children were hit by the army vehicles. Eight children and a teacher were killed. The monks tried to rescue the dying children, but when they did the soldiers shot at the monks. Two fourteen-year-old girls were also shot by the soldiers. The monk I met in Thailand five months later told me that when he tried to rescue some of the children, he was knocked unconscious by a soldier. The bodies of the children who were shot, or crushed by the trucks, were thrown into the trucks, and those who died were instantly cremated. According to the monk, the parents were warned not to mourn, weep or even hold a funeral ceremony, but just to keep quiet. The family of the teacher that was killed was given 20,000 kyats compensation, but warned not to speak out. ‘If you tell anyone, we will kill you,’ the soldiers said.34
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