“Please help the Burmese refugees around the world”

[Eva Libre]

Interview with the Venerable Ashin Kawida, Secretary of the International Burmese Monks Organization (IBMO) and member of the All Burma Young Monks League during his visit in Berlin on 25th June 2011.  

“Please support Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and her party, the National League for Democracy. Aung San Suu Kyi is not only important for our country, but she can help the whole world as the democracy icon she has become. Many international leaders recognize that. If Daw Aung San Suu Kyi can become prime minister of Burma, she can help solve many problems in Southeast Asia and the world. So please support Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, and don’t recognize the disguised military government in Burma and its 2008 ‘Nargis constitution’.”

Venerable Ashin Kawida is 66 years old. Born on 19 November 1945 in Mount Popa, central Burma, he became a novice at 14 years old. He was fully ordained as a Buddhist monk at the age of 19 at his birthplace. This year he will have been a monk for 48 years.

After Daw Aung San Suu Kyi visited his monastery in 1989, he was followed and watched by military intelligence. He had to sign three papers not to meet with Aung San Suu Kyi again. He was warned if he met with Aung San Suu Kyi again, he would be put on trial in a military court. The authorities told him that Aung San Suu Kyi was guilty of high treason. They said she had broken the bond between the army and the people. This, the officers told him, was a very big sin.

In the years before 1989, Ashin Kawida was a leader of the All Burma Young Monks Leage (ABYML). This organization was originally founded in 1946 during the time Burma was under the colonial rule of the English. Many Indians had come to Burma. The English colonial rulers practiced governance according to the principal of ‘divide and rule’. Burmese people had no jobs, could not get a higher education, and were not accepted for police, army, or government jobs. Those positions were reserved only for Burma’s ethnic people and Indians. Many monks, including Ashin Kawida’s abbot, began to revolt against English rule, and the All Burma Young Monks Leage (ABYML) was founded. ABYML became very famous in Burma and had more than 70,000 members around the country.

In 1946 the English government violently put down a demonstration led by ABYML monks in Mandalay. Seven monks and ten laypeople died on the streets. Anger over the incident led to widespread hostility against the English colonial government.

Venerable Ashin Kawida was fourteen when general Ne Win performed a military coup and seized power. Since that time Burma has become one of the poorest countries in Southeast Asia.

In 1988 when monks and students refused to be silent anymore, he led the people in his hometown. “It was the time to speak out, to demonstrate. We secretly organized and started our protest on 8 August 1988 at 8 a.m.”

But the military soon turned their guns on the demonstrators. “So many people died. We thought about 10,000 people had been killed by the Burmese soldiers, but the internationally known number is 3,000 people. At that time we had no digital cameras, no Internet access, and no journalists to report about what had happened. So today people know little about it.”

“After that most of the communist countries collapsed: Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary. We started in Burma first, and one year later there were  big demonstrations in China. Everybody knows about the Chinese demonstrations because many reporters were there at Tiananmen Square when the Chinese military massacared between 300 and 3,000 people.”

After the ‘88 demonstrations, many people, students and monks were arrested. Ashin Kawida was followed and observed by a military intelligence officer named Lu Ley. Lu Ley came to his monastery and told him, ‘I have the duty to watch you closely’. Then he came everyday at 7 a.m. to U Kawida’s office at the monastery and stayed until 5 p.m. in the evening.

“I gave him food. He ate at my monastery every day. After about three months we became friends. He knew I was not doing any wrong. But he reminded me not to speak to foreign reporters like I had in the past. He said, ‘If you continue to speak to foreign reporters, I will arrest you.’ U Kawida realized the imminent danger and decided to leave his country.

He had written a book about his travels to Bodhgaya in India. One day a famous writer came to his monastery because his wife had liked his book very much. “When we sat down to talk, I told him that Lu Ley was a military police officer, as he was in the room with us. Lu Ley got very angry with me. ‘You have no right to introduce me as a military police officer’, he said. But I had to do this for the safety of my visitor.”

The writer and his wife helped U Kawida to depart for Bangkok. He had to wait for six months to get a passport, and left his country on 16 July 1991. “I will never forget that day. I left from Rangoon to Bangkok. I have been back to Burma only two times very shortly in 1994 and in 2004. Both times I noticed military intelligence everywhere, following me everywhere and watching my every step. So I decided to leave again.”

In 1996 he arrived in Canada. The Burmese Buddhist Organization had invited him to stay at their monastery as abbot. He has been living in Canada since then.

“I love my country, but I feel very sad. After the elections of the new government last year, everybody thought that maybe we could go home freely now. But no. They have only changed their clothes; the persons have not changed. It is all former army generals disguised as an ordinary civilian government. It is still a military government.

“We call the 2008 constitution the ‘Nargis constitution’ because the referendum was imposed on the people just after Cyclone Nargis hit the country. This constitution is designed not to protect the people, but to protect the military government. We can not call this a legal constitution; it is an illegal constitution.”

Ashin Kawida worries about Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s safety. He thinks the government will try to kill her.

“We feel that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is still our country’s leader. She was elected by the people in 1990. She got 89% of the votes, she won in a landslide. She is a very intelligent and honest woman. She has sacrificed a lot for our country. She did not leave when her husband died, she could not be there with her little sons. Every woman can imagine how difficult that must have been for her. So we will always support her.”

Ashin Kawida has been following the uprisings in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya. Comparing those events to the situation inside Burma, he says, “Our Burmese people are very soft people. We believe in Buddhism, unlike people in Egypt, Tunisia, or Libya. The people in those countries are very brave. Burmese people believe in Karma and the five precepts. That is part of the reason why the military has been able to rule for such a long time in Burma.“

Even though the militray generals claim to be Buddhists as well, we have to distinguish between a practicing Buddhist and a traditional Buddhist, he says. “A practicing Buddhist follows the Buddha’s teachings and live life in accordance with it. A traditional Buddhist will call himself a Buddhist but doesn’t know about the teachings of the Buddha, and doesn’t follow them. They only use Buddhism to get support from the ordinary people.”