Monks’ Walk for Justice
Sep 27th, 2007 by Tian
Street protests growing in Rangoon
Buddhist monks in Burma have been protesting for about 10 days already. The monks started by protesting against the petroleum price hike. Now they are calling for political reforms.
About 2-3 days ago, more than 10 thousand monks participated in the marches all over Burma. It is by coincidence that lawyers in Malaysia too marched.
There are a few similarities between lawyers and the monks in Burma. Both are elites with high social status who uphold high ethical standards. Monks and lawyers mostly are not typical radical activists who invoke the right to free assembly every time there is a problem.
When monks (or lawyers) march, problems must be very serious. However most autocratic regimes are not so smart. They are usually also too lazy to study history.
Dictatorship always repeat the mistakes of the past. Some 24 hours ago, the military began to open fire at the monks and civilian protesters. To date, probably a dozen people have been killed, including a Japanese journalist Kenji Nagai. (another parallel with Malaysia: remember at Pantai Batu Burok the police fired live bullets into the crowd?)
The regime that kills its own people will not last. If the military is foolish enough to continue its violent crackdown, its days are numbered.
More regrettable is the position of Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar. He continues to cling to the most backward and irrelevant non-intervention policy of Asean. His statement reiterated that the Malaysian Government considers the crackdown against the monks is purely an internal affair of the Burmese Government. In other words, Syed Hamid is giving a signal of Malaysia’s “greenlight” for the junta to carry on with violent repression.
Asean cannot continue to be indifferent to the suffering of our neighbour. It’s time to act, and time to change!