The Silence of the Monasteries

That some senior monks initially came out against the protests and tried to get young monks off the streets is not that surprising given Buddhism's tenets and perhaps more important, the ruthlessness of the junta. Buddhism eschews politics and certainly, violence. Several senior monks were uncomfortable with the spectacle of monks marching, many shouting political slogans, including calls for freeing jailed democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Worse, the military regime directed the Sangha, the 47-man Buddhist leadership council based in Kabaraye, to order junior monks back to the monasteries. While the abbot at Kya Khat Waing was most egregious in his enthusiasm, several senior monks did comply. 

"The SPDC [State Peace and Development Council] approached the senior monks to urge junior monks to stop, and they [the generals] used a combination of pressure and offering senior monks various 'luxuries' at pagodas, which are supported by donations," says Saw David Taw, a spokesman with the Karen National Union, an ethnic opposition party. "There was a split among the senior monks then. But when monks were arrested, beaten and killed, it turned those monks who had opposed demonstrating, because they could not stand with the regime. From that point, the senior monks did not oppose the junior ones."

One monk in Amarapura confirmed that sequence. "Abbots were even pressured by the SPDC to not allow monks, who had gone to demonstrate, to return," he says. "Of course the abbots refused. Many monks are back here again."

Recalcitrant senior monks did not always get away scot-free. The abbot of Ngwe Kyar Yan monastery in Rangoon's South Okklapa township was severely beaten, and many monks there were said to have been injured in beatings and then driven away in military trucks. Unconfirmed reports say the head monk died of his injuries.

The decision by Senior Gen. Than Shwe and the rest of the junta to deal harshly with the monks has been having the desired effect. Shocked, even traumatized, by the treatment of revered monks in a country where at least 80 percent of the population is Buddhist, people have grown more docile, at least for now. If the regime will deal so harshly with monks, they reason, what chance do civilians have? In the meantime, monks in Rangoon say they are being watched by the paranoid regime and its seemingly inexhaustible phalanx of snitches. But Ms. Villarosa remains optimistic: "Yes, they're cowed, yes they're more terrified than they were before. But they're angry. It's not over yet."

Ultimately, the regime may pay for its own harsh actions by radicalizing a group known for its gentleness and pacifism. Asked what foreigners could do to help, a young monk in Mandalay forms a trigger with his finger and makes the sound of a gun being fired. Reminded that Buddhism abhors violence, he says: "Well, people have nothing. They ask the government for help and get nothing. What else can we do?"

© 2007