14 Agenda
Monks’ path of resistance
“
T
hey kicked and
beat my face
after every
question. They
were wearing
army boots. At
that time, I
knew only to
contemplate
the teachings of
the Buddha, to concentrate on them
because I could not bear any more. I knew I
was dying because if they did this
repeatedly, I would die soon,” says monk
Ashin Panna Siri.
He pauses, remembering how he was
arrested for helping to organise Myanmar’s
2007 mass pro-democracy uprisings. The
protests, led by the Buddhist monks, were
brutally put down by the military regime in
a clampdown that began two years ago
yesterday.
After the crackdown he went into
hiding, but was caught and tortured in a
police interrogation centre in the
Myanmese city of Monywa the following
month. Officers from Myanmar’s military
intelligence unit, who wanted him to admit
being involved in the protests, demanded
he disrobe. He refused to buckle, but a
confession mattered little to the regime.
The 28-year-old was convicted of
illegally possessing foreign currency and
sentenced to three years’ imprisonment
with hard labour in January last year. After
serving seven months in Monywa jail, he
was moved to Kale prison before finally
being transferred to Lin Dan hard labour
camp near Myanmar’s western border with
India. He was beaten, starved, chained and
forced to work repairing a highway. Meals
were meagre. Prisoners were fed rice mixed
with rat faeces.
Fearing he would not survive, he
escaped on foot through mountainous
jungle terrain into India a year ago. He was
the only leader of the All Burma Monks
Alliance (Abma), an underground group
that helped mastermind the protests, to
escape from detention.
When about 150,000 monks spilled onto
the streets of Myanmar’s cities and towns to
demand the regime ease crushing poverty
and political repression, momentum grew
and protests soon spread. The generals
knew the protests must be halted to save
their skins. The ruling State Peace and
Development Council imposed martial law
and deployed thousands of riot police and
soldiers, who opened fire on the peaceful
protesters.
About 31 people were killed.
Monasteries were raided. More than 4,000
people were arrested, including fellow
Abma leader U Gambira, 30. As the junta
continued to restrict the monks’ freedoms,
Abma, along with other pro-democracy
groups, splintered. Although the monks
were forced to scatter, they have re-formed
and forged new links with student
organisations and political groups –
including the main opposition party the
National League for Democracy (NLD) –
and are planning fresh mass
demonstrations.
Ashin Panna Siri still maintains links
with his Abma colleagues in Myanmar. “We
are planning mass protests. We are still
discussing whether we should do mass
protests, because if the next movement
comes, how can we take power and
manage power?” he said from his new
home in New Delhi. “I cannot say whether
there will be mass protests or not, but we
will do something. Suppose the NLD takes
responsibility; we can make a mass
movement day or night.”
The gravity of his words should not be
underestimated; the power Myanmar’s
400,000 monks to mobilise the country’s 55
million people is beyond doubt. Monks
Your pet might be leaving more than just hairs
Cute, but you really don’t know what it
might be carrying …
Buddhists monks, protected by supporters, march down the street in Myanmar’s largest city, Yangon, during the ‘Saffron Revolution’ two years ago to protest against military rule. Photo: AFP
Myanmar’s sangha may rise up again two years after
junta crushed protests. Rajeshree Sisodia reports
normally shy away from politics and have
no direct influence over the junta, yet what
they say and do matters in the devoutly
Buddhist country. Historically, monks also
have the spiritual authority to grant, and
take away, legitimacy from the country’s
rulers. They must intervene if the well-
being of the people or the faith is in danger.
The junta released about 100 political
prisoners this month. There is also rising
speculation that it is planning to install an
interim government in the weeks to come,
to mollify the monks, and stall the
likelihood of further demonstrations.
The decision by some monks – though,
importantly, not all – to protest two years
ago is not unusual. Monks led peaceful
opposition against British colonial rule of
what was then Burma in the 1920s.
The military regime also tortured
dissident members of the clergy from the
1970s to the 1990s. But the junta sank to a
new low with its systematic attacks on
monks, nuns and monasteries in 2007. And
its refusal to publicly apologise has not
been forgiven.
Dr Ingrid Jordt, associate professor of
anthropology at the University of
Wisconsin, in Milwaukee, and a specialist
on Buddhism in Myanmar, says this refusal
to repent, coupled with growing political
repression and poverty, means conditions
for further protests are ripe. “Another
monks’ uprising may very well be on
the horizon,” she said. “It’s a
tinderbox. Grievances against
the SPDC following the
2007 ‘Saffron Revolution’
...............................................................
The New York Times
For decades, the drug-resistant bug MRSA
was almost exclusively a concern of
humans, usually in hospitals.
But in recent years, the germ has
become a growing problem for
veterinarians, with an increasing number
of infections turning up in birds, cats, dogs,
horses, pigs, rabbits and rodents. And that,
infectious-disease experts say, is becoming
a hazard to humans who own or spend
time with these animals.
“What’s happened, for the first time that
we’ve noticed, is that you’re getting flip
back and forth,” said Dr Scott Shaw, head
of the infection control committee at the
Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine
at Tufts University.
It is unknown how often pets play a role
in human infections by methicillin-
resistant Staphylococcus aureus and vice
versa; physicians and veterinarians do not
routinely trace such infections to their
source. When such scientific sleuthing is
conducted, however – usually in the case of
multiple or recurring infections – the
results suggest a strong link.
Last year, for example, an elephant calf
and 20 of its caretakers at the San Diego
remain widespread within the sangha
[monkhood] and the Buddhist populace,
including many members of the military.
“Theravada Buddhists consider
shedding the blood of a monk an
unforgivable act and the SPDC has lost all
political legitimacy in Buddhist terms. This
time, if the monks rise up, there will almost
certainly be immediate and co-ordinated
participation from a broad segment of the
religious order and also a broader segment
of the lay population.”
More than 5,000 monks in Myanmar are
Zoo contracted MRSA skin infections. An
investigation by the zoo and state health
officials determined that the calf, which
was eventually put down, had probably
been infected by a keeper who
unknowingly carried the bacteria.
Still, experts are not recommending
routine testing of pets and their humans.
Instead, they call for the same kinds of
precautions that apply to other pathogens,
especially frequent washing of hands
before and after playing with a pet.
The first cases of MRSA in pets, about
five years ago, appeared to be in therapy
dogs and other animals exposed to patients
or health care workers. Those animals are
still thought to be at greatest risk, but the
pattern might be changing.
In a study this summer in The American
Journal of Infection Control, Dr Elizabeth
Scott and colleagues at the Centre for
Hygiene and Health in Home and
Community at Simmons College in Boston
swabbed household surfaces at 35
randomly selected addresses to see what
germs they would find. They found MRSA
in nearly half of the homes they sampled.
When they tried to figure out what
might make it more likely to have the
bacteria at home, they ruled out many
in hiding, missing, have left the sangha or
are in prison. Another 300 fled to India, Sri
Lanka, Thailand, Bangladesh and the West.
U Pyinya Zawta, 48, is one of the exiled
monks rebuilding his life in the United
States. He is a veteran of the 1988 mass pro-
democracy protests in Myanmar, when
millions of demonstrators protested against
the dictatorship’s one-party rule and a
crumbling economy. He has spent a decade
in prison after being convicted of pro-
democracy activities – first in 1990 and
again in 1997.
The prison system
taught me how to
become more
systematic in rebelling
against the government.
It gave me a kind of
determination that
we are doing the
right thing
...............................................................
U Pyinya Zawta, exiled Myanmese monk
supposed risk factors, including working
out at a gym, having children who attended
day care, having a recent infection or
recent antibiotic use, and even working in a
health care facility.
The one variable that overwhelmingly
predicted the presence of the germ was the
presence of a cat. Cat owners were eight
times more likely than others to have
MRSA at home.
“There are a number of papers coming
out now showing that pets pick up MRSA
from us,” Scott said, “and that they shed it
back into the environment again”.
Scott’s next study will screen patients
scheduled for elective surgeries. When she
finds MRSA, she will also test their pets.
“This is a burgeoning epidemic,” said
Dr Richard Oehler, an infectious disease
specialist at the University of South Florida
college of medicine in Tampa, who
reviewed case reports of MRSA jumping
between people and animals. Oehler’s
paper appeared in July in The Lancet.
For protection, Oehler recommends
hand washing or using hand gels before
and after playing with a pet, not letting a
pet lick people around the face, and not
washing pet food or water bowls in the
same sink that food is prepared in.
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2009 SUNDAY MORNING POST
commitment to helping the people of
Myanmar has not faltered. As Abma’s
executive-director-in-exile, he campaigns
to raise awareness in the West about the
plight of Myanmar’s imprisoned monks,
provides support to exiled monks and
liaises with Abma and other pro-democracy
groups in Myanmar.
The 2007 uprisings started after the
U Pyinya Zawta says: “What I realised junta increased prices for liquified natural
from going into prison was that Myanmese gas and diesel. People already struggling to
people are suffering more than I imagined, survive faced further huge price rises for
so going into prison made me even more public transport and food.
committed to change the political system in Two years on, the forecast for
Burma. The prison system taught me how Myanmar’s political and economic future
to become more systematic in rebelling remains bleak. Abma, the NLD and most
against the government. It gave me a kind governments in the West have condemned
of determination that we are doing the right the coming elections as little more than an
thing.” attempt by the junta to legitimise its
As one of Abma’s senior leaders, he was authoritarian rule. Its new constitution
also a linchpin in the protests two years ago, automatically sets aside 25 per cent of
helping to decide where and how the lawmakers’ seats for the military.
demonstrations in Yangon, formerly Although the NLD has yet to decide
Rangoon, would take place and how to whether to contest the polls, Nyo Ohn
monitor similar protests across the country. Myint, an exiled NLD spokesman, says it is
But when the junta announced in very unlikely the party will participate.
September 2007 that he was on a Poverty is also growing. The junta’s
government wanted list, he knew he had to continued financial mismanagement
flee Myanmar. After three months in hiding
in the south of the country, he headed east
means most Myanmese are no better off
than they were 20 years ago, earning less
on foot to the Thai border town of Mae Sot.
He arrived in the US in September last year.
than US$1 a day.
It may be too early to predict whether
U Pyinya Zawta had good reason to fear the monks will initiate a new uprising
arrest. The Resistance of the Monks: before the polls. Yet a warning by monk U
Buddhism and Activism in Burma, a report Gambira before he was arrested and
released last week by Human Rights Watch,
reveals the junta is continuing to clamp
sentenced to 63 years in jail for his role in
the protests two years ago suggests it is only
down further to ensure elections set for
early next year are free of trouble. It says:
a matter of time before Myanmar’s monks
stand up to the regime again, and with it
“The government’s crackdown on the face more bloodshed.
monks continues to this day, with “We adhere to non-violence, but our
oppressive surveillance, continued arrests spine is made of steel,” he said.
of monks suspected of involvement in “There is no turning back. It matters
political activities, and many monks little if my life or the lives of colleagues
undergoing secret and unfair trials and should be sacrificed on this journey. Others
receiving draconian sentences.” will fill our sandals and more will join and
Despite living in exile, U Pyinya Zawta’s follow.”
People should also wear gloves when
attending to pets that have open wounds,
he said, and should keep any of their own
broken skin bandaged.
And Oehler advised owners to be more
attentive to their pets’ health in general.
“In many of these cases, there was a lack
of awareness that the animal was ill,” he
said. “If a pet has a wound, they need that
evaluated.”
Scott Weese, a microbiologist at the
University of Guelph in Ontario, estimated
that relatively few animals were infected
but agreed that attentiveness was in order.
“In the grand scheme of things with MRSA,
pets are a pretty minor thing,” he said. “But
when you consider how many MRSA
infections are occurring in North America
at the moment, if they’re a minor
component of a major disease, that’s still
something we need to be aware of.”
And pets may pose a particular hazard
because their relationships with people can
be very close. “If you think about the
individuals with whom you have the
closest contact in terms of duration,
intensity, intimacy, in most people, it’s
going to be the spouse, then small children,
then pets,” Weese said. “For some people, … and there are some very nasty bugs out
pets are No 1 on the list.” there. Photos: AFP, Dustin Shum