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President and Mrs. Bush Meet with Ashun Kovida

Posted by arakankovida Tuesday, January 3, 2012 0 comments

September 23, 2008

Ashun Kovida, an Arakanese Monk who is native birth in Ann, was invited to a Freedom Agenda lunch with President Bush on September 23, 2008 on Governors' Island during the UN General Assembly meetings in New York.

The lunch had brought together democratic luminaries and democratic activists from repressive regimes of Burma and provided them with an opportunity to recount how they triumphed over tyranny, share lessons learned and made recommendations to advance liberty more effectively.

The event included a photo opportunity with the President after the event, there were attending only 16 people including the President and his staff during the lunch.

This event was organized by The National Security Council(NSC), which specifically requested to Ashun Kovida as one who attandended as due to his role in Burma's Saffron protests in October 2007.

Source; Ashun Kovida

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The Monk Made Famous in Exile

Posted by arakankovida Monday, January 2, 2012 0 comments

Tue, 11/20/2007 - 12:07

On October 18th, Ashin Kovida, 24, secretly crossed the Thai border, escaping Burma by dyeing his hair blond, wearing a crucifix and holding a false identification card. He spent two weeks hiding in a safe house, not taking a shower or anything, just waiting. He says that the people of Burma will never “forgive and forget” the Burmese military regime’s insult to the Buddhist religion.

The Refugees International Board delegation met Ashin Kovida in Mae Sot, a town along the border which is home to Mae La refugee camp with its 44,000 inhabitants and thousands of other Burmese migrant workers. It also boasts the Friendship Bridge that spans the river and connects Burma with Thailand.

He became an activist and chair of the Monks Representative Group after hearing about the warning shots fired at protesting monks in Pakokku on September 5. He began planning marches in Yangon and got in contact with students he knew.

We asked him: What was the critical turning point for the monks? When did they decide to get involved? “The monks have contact with the public,” he told us. “We saw the poverty, especially among the children, who came to the monks for food. Many of the children cannot go to schools. They needed to collect rubbish and sell it. We see the poverty and the situation. The monks also rely on the people for alms. You don’t need to know any more – go see the bowls of the monks. There is nothing in them.

And then there is bloodshed. It is a military insult to religion. People will not forgive and forget. They are waiting for change. Even now, they are impatient.”

Ashin Kovida believes that an estimated 1,000 monks are in detention and that many monks are running and hiding. His adoptive mother was kidnapped by members of the government of Burma, known as the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC). He was on the list and SPDC security personnel came into houses looking for him. But, he escaped. On September 26, he went to Mae Li monastery, which is a learning university. There are usually 200 monks there, but he could find only one. The rest, he said, were arrested.

On October 6, there was an article in the newspaper which said that the government raided 18 monasteries because the monks “agitate and destabilize the country.”

About his future, Ashin Kovida tells us, “I cannot return anymore till democracy comes. I did participate as a leader.” He says the authorities have his picture. On October 12, his adoptive family was kidnapped. He is now living in Thailand -- undocumented and in fear for his life.

“I arrived in Thailand October 18. I have to hide. I have been in a new place for two nights. Every day my concern is increasing. I need education. I want to be educated. What should I do for the future? Education. Even if I am educated, I will struggle for the people. I will not forget about my people. My mother was arrested and always taught me to work for the people. I want to fulfill her wish.

I want to ask when will there be democracy in Burma and when will the UN Security Council focus on democracy in Burma and how many people will have to struggle and how much bloodshed before democracy in Burma. When will the Security Council take concrete action?”

Ashin is now waiting for his asylum claim to be processed in Thailand. Meanwhile, Refugees International continues to urge the U.S. to work with the Thai government so that the UN Refugee Agency can facilitate a transparent process that allows Burmese refugees to quickly attain refugee status and receive assistance.

Eileen Shields-West recently completed a 10-day mission to evaluate the situation for Burmese refugees in Thailand along with other members of Refugees International’s Board of Directors.

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Venerable U Kovida Testifies Before Human Rights Caucus

Posted by arakankovida 0 comments

On April 10, Refugees International hosted the Venerable U Kovida in Washington, DC as he testified before the House of Representatives' Human Rights Caucus. Ven. Kovida is a Burmese monk who helped lead the September protests in his home country. He was recently resettled to the United States as a refugee after a harrowing escape from Burma to Thailand. The following is the text of his testimony:

Respected Congressmen, staff members, Ladies and Gentlemen.

I would like, first of all, to offer my sincere thanks to all of you who have given me a chance to share what I have experienced and those who are here to listen and pay attention to what I have to say.

Secondly, I would like to thank the President of the United States and the American people for giving me this opportunity to explain the predicament and dire situation the people are facing in Burma on behalf of our leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and the oppressed Burmese.

I am, as you all know, one of the participants during the so-called “Saffron-Revolution” in September 2007. Burma is infamous for its violation of Basic Human Rights, disrespect to the freedom of religion, one of the least developed and poorest countries in the world with the lowest living standard where the civil war has been going on for the past 50 years.

These are the reason why we, people of Burma, have wanted a change in the government system. We have wanted to have a higher living standard, and lived in a better and developed country. The people in Burma have struggled and fought for change since 1962. We have struggled and fought to achieve such change throughout the history and the demonstrations and protests in 1962, 1974, 1988, 1996, 2003, and 2007 are significant. But all of our voices, pleas and struggles were answered by the brutality of the military government which used weapons, brutal suppressions, torture, and imprisonments.

The international community witnessed the brutal suppression of monks who demonstrated peacefully in September 2007. But there have been many incidents of oppressions, violation and torture that have been going on inside Burma without anyone knowing for many decades.

What I would like to point out here in the harmless and helpless Burmese have very high hope and are depending on the assistance and intervention from the United Nations and the international community in the past 20 years. Sadly and unfortunately, there hasn’t been any positive effect on the people of Burma. There were so many decisions by the United Nations. There were many UN representatives who have visited Burma, but the future looks bleak. We were greatly discouraged by the fact that the Security Council merely suggested the military which was killing its own people and monks, to engage in talks. What I am saying to you now is exactly what the people of Burma would like to speak out.

Ladies and gentlemen, the people of Burma are not only suffering from extreme poverty, hardship, sub-standard in health care, education and social services but also facing oppression by the military government on a daily basis. When monks in Burma understood, realized, and felt the hardship the people had to go through, we decided to protest peacefully on behalf of the people. And everyone knows how we were dealt with. We appreciate that you are trying to oppose the constitution drafted by the military and its hand-picked representatives. We strongly support your effort at the UN to reject any referendum and constitutions without the participation of all people concerned.

Right now the military government is planning to have a constitutional referendum in May. In many areas in Burma, people are illegally forced as well as offered financial incentives to vote. In other area, people are threatened. Some of the activists were brutally beaten up by unknown assailants very recently. The closer the May referendum is, the more scared and concerned the people are about their safety and security. Securities have been tightened inside Rangoon. Police and security forces are deployed on the main streets of Rangoon.

Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to emphasize the fact that we need help and assistance in order to change the government system in Burma. We cannot accept the constitutional referendum and planned general election in 2010 organized by the military government which totally ignored the results of people voices in 1990 general election, and whose sole aim is to prolong and ensure the military influence in Burma politics for many more years to come. We strongly urge you to reject any effort by the military government to legitimize itself.

In conclusion, I would like to thank once again the international community, governments and administrations, respected congressman as well as the people who love democracy and who are supporting our course. I thank Refugees International to facilitate my appearance here at the congress.

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'It Was Clear to Us That We Could All Die'

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Young Burmese monk Ashin Ven Kovida talks to SPIEGEL about how he became one of the leaders of the Yangon uprising, how the army cracked down on protests and why he had to flee across the border to Thailand.

Ashin Ven Kovida was a leader of the recent peaceful protests in Myanmar. In this photo, taken in a safe house in Thailand on Oct. 30, he stands next to a photo of himself with fellow monks marching in Yangon.

Roger Arnold

Ashin Ven Kovida was a leader of the recent peaceful protests in Myanmar. In this photo, taken in a safe house in Thailand on Oct. 30, he stands next to a photo of himself with fellow monks marching in Yangon.

My name is Ashin Ven Kovida and I am 24 years old. Together with 14 other monks and many students, I organized the protests in Yangon.

The government in Burma calls itself the State Peace and Development Council. But we see it as a group of criminals with blood on their hands. I was forced to flee to Thailand because they order their troops to shoot at us and torture us. They say that I'm a terrorist and that explosives were found in my room. Those are nothing but lies.

The army's Western Command has its headquarters in my hometown of Ann in western Burma. My father is a carpenter and my mother is a market trader. We are poor, but we had enough to eat. Ever since I was a child, I wanted to become a monk. I entered the Wannitarama Monastery when I was 12 and was admitted as a monk at 20. When my abbot there could not teach me anything more, he sent me to Yangon.

FROM THE MAGAZINE

The Nian Oo monastery, where I was accepted, is small. Only 30 monks live there, but it has a good reputation. We have no personal property, which is why we go into the streets every morning to beg for our food. This has become more and more difficult recently, with so many people not having enough to eat themselves. I sometimes encountered students while I was out begging for alms. We talked a lot, and it was clear to us that something has to change in Burma. We were waiting for the right moment.

We heard on the BBC's Burmese service and on (Norway-based dissident media organization) the Democratic Voice of Burma that monks had been beaten in the town of Pakokku on Sept. 5 after a demonstration against the recent fuel price increase. At our monastery, we discussed what we could about it. We had heard that the monks in Pakokku had established the All Burma Monks Alliance. Should we try to contact them, we wondered? Our abbot was afraid. We would all be thrown in jail if we demonstrated, he said. You don't understand the military's brutality, he told us.

I went to see my student friends the next morning. They knew how to use computers, and we began printing flyers. Only a few of the monks from my monastery participated. We took the flyers to all the monasteries in Yangon, as well as to a few outside the city.

When the leaders of the All Burma Monks Alliance called for demonstrations on the radio on Sept. 18, I went to our monastery to get the monastery's flag, and that afternoon about 200 monks started walking toward the Botataung Pagoda. I don't know exactly how many there were, because I was walking in the front row. We chanted the sutra of benevolence. The people along the side of the street were clapping, which gave us confidence.

On Sept. 19, we set out shortly after noon, 2,000 demonstrators, including 500 young monks, first to the Shwedagon Pagoda. We were singing, and many brothers joined our march. We reached the Sule Pagoda at about 4 p.m. We sat down on the ground, but we didn't know what to do next. Our problem was that we didn't have a leader.

I mumbled a short prayer, gathered my courage and stood up. I was facing a sea of red robes. Someone handed me a megaphone. We needed leaders, I said, to make sure that the demonstration could continue peacefully. I asked for 10 monks to volunteer. About 20 or 25 stood up, and 15 were selected.

We called our group the "Sangha Representative Committee" -- an alliance of monks. I was elected to be their leader, and others were put in charge of food, donations, finances and maintaining order. Then I gave a speech. Our country is in a great crisis, I said. The people are starving. Horrible human rights violations are taking place under the military dictatorship. This is why I call upon all the people in Yangon to march with us. We will continue to demonstrate until we win, I said. This time we will not give up.

We would meet in the morning, discuss our plans and set out after breakfast. One of our rules was that each monk was to fold his robe precisely according to the rules of the clergy. This would enable us to immediately recognize government spies pretending to be monks.

One of the biggest problems was finding food for all the monks. The famous actor Zarganar, his colleague Kyaw Thu and the poet Aung Way helped us get rice for our brothers. The demonstrations grew from day to day. The military held back, clearing the roadblocks when we came. Some even bowed to us. The crowd had grown to more than 100,000. The people applauded. We hoped that the regime would soon relent. But that was a fallacy, as we learned on Sept. 26.

Someone called me at about 4 a.m. to report that the police had raided the Mingalayama monastery at midnight. That's the Buddhist university where they teach the ancient Pali script. Normally more than 200 monks live there. Their quarters were ransacked, books and furniture were scattered on the floor, torn robes and blood were everywhere. The soldiers and police had dragged off all the brothers.

Buddhist monks march in protest in Yangon on Sept. 24.

AFP

Buddhist monks march in protest in Yangon on Sept. 24.

We decided to set out even earlier that morning. It was raining. We arrived at the eastern gate of the Shwedagon Pagoda at about 11:30 a.m. Covered steps lead up to the pagoda from that entrance. It's a popular meeting place, and it was also where (opposition leader) Aung San Suu Kyi gave her first speech during the protests in 1988. That day our group consisted of 300 monks and nuns. We headed for downtown Yangon. But soldiers blocked our path before we could continue walking. We had the brick wall of a monastery at our backs.

An officer said: You cannot march into the city, but if you get on our truck we will take you there. It was a trick, of course. We sat down in the streets and sang religious songs. The soldiers didn't know what to do.

Then they attacked. They used tear gas, they tore the robes off of nuns, and many of us were arrested. Nevertheless, most of the group managed to make it to the Thein Gyi Zay market in downtown Yangon by about 4:30 p.m. I was about to give a speech when the military began launching tear gas grenades and moving in our direction. A few demonstrators threw rocks back at them. We fled.

That evening, when our committee sat down to discuss what to do next, we felt helpless. Many were afraid. It was clear to us that we could all die. Nevertheless, we went out to demonstrate again the next day. This time there were about 1,000 protestors and 300 monks. Security forces stopped us at a roadblock near the Kyaik Ka San Pagoda on the outskirts of Yangon around 3:30 p.m. Arrest them, an officer shouted, but his soldiers stood there as if they were paralyzed. The officer, seething with rage, began slapping soldiers in the front row. Then they attacked again. The crowd dispersed in a panic. I too ran away.

We held our last meeting that night, at the Malekukka monastery. Everyone was talking at the same time. There were rumors that hundreds were dead and that people had been arrested and taken away by the truckload. This convinced us to withdraw. Then we removed our robes. It was incredibly sad. I hadn't worn a longyi (Burmese sarong-style garment) and a T-shirt in years.

I hid in a dark, empty hut outside Yangon until Oct. 12. My hair had grown by then, and friends helped me to dye it blonde, got me a fake ID card and a cross, which I hung around my neck as a disguise when I got on a bus. There are more than eight police roadblocks on the road to the border town of Myawadi, but I wasn't discovered, and I arrived there late in the evening on Oct. 17.

At dawn, I took a boat across the Moi River to the Thai city of Mae Sot. Friends had given me the address of a Burmese exile organization, which gave me a place to hide.

The Thai police might arrest and deport me at any time, because I came here as an illegal immigrant. Besides, the city is full of spies for the Burmese military.

Perhaps it would be better for me to go into hiding again. But we won't give up that quickly.

Recorded by Jürgen Kremb.

ARTICLE...

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Burma's Most Wanted By LESLIE HOOK

Posted by arakankovida Monday, February 7, 2011 0 comments

February 2, 2008; Mae Sot, Thailand

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Burma's Most Wanted
font-weight: bold;">By LESLIE HOOK
Page A11
justify;"> 'We did not reach final victory. We were defeated in the middle of our struggle," says the young Burmese monk sitting in front of me. "It will be very hard to have another demonstration."

He should know. Ashin Kovida chaired the impromptu committee that organized last year's democracy protests in Rangoon, Burma. The marches, sparked by an economic crisis, brought more than 100,000 people to the streets to demand democracy and the release of political prisoners, including opposition leader and Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. The ensuing crackdown left at least 31 civilians dead, and thousands more beaten or jailed.

The protest leaders -- Mr. Ashin included -- fled for their lives. Exchanging his monks' robes for civilian clothes and a crucifix necklace, Mr. Ashin hid in a shack outside Rangoon for several weeks. After he made it over the border into Mae Sot, Mr. Ashin holed up in a safe house, leaving only to be shuttled to occasional meetings or interviews. Finding a safe venue for our meeting proved a challenge. We agreed I'd wait in my hotel for a phone call from a "friend," who would tell me how to proceed. "There are many different kinds of people at your hotel," Mr. Ashin said. "Maybe not safe."

When our agreed interview time passed, I worried if he'd been snagged by the Burmese spies trawling this town. An hour later, there was a soft knock on my door. When I opened it two men scuttled inside: Mr. Ashin, a skinny 24-year-old in flame-colored robes, and Kyaw Lin, a friend and interpreter. The monk looked horrified when I shook his hand, averting his gaze. It's only afterward that I realized this violated his vows to touch a woman.

Mr. Ashin had no special preparation to become a freedom fighter; if anything, he had a typical, impoverished Burmese childhood. Born in 1983 in a village near Ann, a town in the eastern state of Arakan, he joined a monastery at age 12. His parents were farmers, and they sent him, their second son, to become a monk at the nearest monastery so that he could get an education. He lived there until 2003, then moved to Nan Oo monastery in Rangoon to pursue further monastic studies.

Meanwhile, his country was falling into grave disrepair. Since the junta took power in 1962, the generals have stripped the country for their own personal gain through a combination of brutal oppression, continuing ethnic wars, and a massive standing army of more than 400,000 soldiers. Today it is difficult for most citizens to obtain basic food and clothing. Per capita GDP is around $300, in league with the world's poorest countries.

Political activism in this environment is difficult, at best. But monks in Burma have a tradition of being involved. Their daily alms rounds keep them in touch with citizens' lives, and their vows require them to act for the well-being of their community. In 1988, when students and citizens took to the streets to protest for democracy, the monks marched alongside them. Those demonstrations ended with the massacre of several thousand demonstrators.

But the way he tells it, Mr. Ashin's activism wasn't originally part of a national movement; rather, it evolved from a grass-roots level, organically. After several monks were beaten during a Sept. 5 protest in Pakokku, a city in central Burma, Mr. Ashin and his fellow monks were so outraged that they printed and distributed pamphlets demanding an apology from the government. Mr. Ashin says he spent Sept. 10-13 wandering the streets of Rangoon with a bag full of pamphlets, distributing them to major monasteries.

"We demanded that the government apologize [for what happened in Pakokku]," Mr. Ashin explains. "If there was no apology by Sept. 18, then the monks would take to the streets. On Sept. 18 there was no response. On Sept. 19, my colleagues and I thought we needed an organization to organize the protests and keep them on the right track."

Thus the Sangha (Monks) Representative Committee -- an organization that would soon become the nexus of the demonstrations in Rangoon -- was born. The committee was composed of 15 volunteer monks, aged 24-28, who had met each other during earlier protests in August and September. "Everyone was invited," Mr. Ashin says. "I did not even know the names of the others -- most of them used nicknames for their security."

Mr. Ashin was elected chairman, and the committee agreed to meet every morning at 9 a.m. at the East gate of the Shwedagon Pagoda -- Burma's holiest shrine and the temple from which Aung San Suu Kyi addressed her followers during the protests of 1988. Its purpose?

"The committee was there to control the demonstrations and make sure they were peaceful," he tells me. They wanted "just to help the people, and to show how much people are suffering. The monks did not have any political objectives. We want for people to have a right to fight for power . . . the monks just paved the way for them."

Unlike 1988, the monks had new tools available to help their cause. Cell phones and the Internet played a crucial role in enabling the protests, and in alerting the outside world. All of the recent arrivals I met in Mae Sot, including Mr. Ashin, said they used Gmail chat ("gtalk," they call it) to keep in touch with their friends and family inside Burma. Yahoo! is blocked inside Burma.

To avoid confrontation with the government, the organizing committee asked people not to display any signs or flags other than the "sasana," a Buddhist flag used in religious ceremonies. The committee also had a practical function: to ensure that monks, who gather alms in the morning for food, could forego that duty to walk into the city center and join the marches (some walked for hours to get there). "All classes of people joined together to prepare food," he says, adding that famous Burmese actors and models pitched in, too.

It was a grass-roots political movement from the start. Mr. Ashin says none of his colleagues were members of any political groups. No one on the committee had contact with Ms. Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy until the party asked the committee for permission to display its flag, he says.

A few days after the committee formed, representatives from the NLD and some student political groups did ask. And so the yellow phoenix -- a sign of NLD unity during 1988 -- was displayed on the streets of Rangoon once again. The committee also allowed public speeches on Sept. 25.

For the military junta, that was a step too far. That night, the first of a series of brutal midnight raids on monasteries began.

The next morning, only seven of the 15 committee members showed up at their meeting place, Mr. Ashin says. As people came out to march, they found that the military had cordoned off the areas around Shwedagon Pagoda where they usually met. Disjointed groups began to coalesce, and Mr. Ashin said he found himself in the midst of about 300 people surrounded by walls and riot police. The police tried at first to persuade the protesters to let them "take them home" -- which the protesters understood to mean arrest -- and then began forcibly arresting protesters.

Mr. Ashin remembers that as a dark afternoon. He himself received several blows to the stomach before he scaled a wall to safety. "The monks and students started throwing stones at the security forces. There was a violent mood. [People from the committee] tried to convince people to stop and not be violent."

Across the rest of Rangoon similar scenes played out. In some places soldiers opened fire on the demonstrators, and day's end saw dozens dead or wounded.

On Sept. 27, the committee couldn't meet at all. Some people tried to continue the protests, but a massive security presence resulted in further violent clashes. That night, Mr. Ashin took off his robes and went into hiding.

The government didn't forget about him, though. State-run newspapers carried his photograph and labeled him a "fake monk." The junta's English mouthpiece, the New Light of Myanmar, accused him of being responsible for 48 cartridges of TNT found buried near a residence in Rangoon. While he was in hiding in a suburb, police canvassed nearby streets, searching for him.

Contrary to the propaganda the regime conjures up, Mr. Ashin says he was completely unconnected to the Burmese governments-in-exile that has sprung up in Thailand. He left Rangoon without a backup plan, and arrived in Mae Sot with a single phone number of a man he had never met.

Mr. Ashin is clearly devastated by what he perceives as the "failure" and the "defeat" of the protests. But most of his disappointment is directed not at the lackluster efforts of the United Nations -- "people outside seem to forget about Burma," he says -- but at his fellow Burmese.

"If the MPs had been actively involved, then our demonstrations could have changed something," he says. "It is a great loss for our struggle. But they were just watching and waiting." It's also evidence of how well the junta has done its cruel job that the massive street protests did not result in mass defections from the civil service or army, and saw almost no support from politicians in power.

Four months after the demonstrations Burma has largely fallen off of the world's radar screen. The U.S. and the EU were quick to implement tighter economic sanctions on the regime after the protests, but for Burma's major trading partners, it's been business as usual. Neighboring China, Thailand and India were all reluctant to comment on the events inside Burma, and have avoided putting pressure on the regime. The U.N. Security Council issued a statement "strongly deploring" the use of violence.

The situation on the ground in Burma is every bit as dire now as it was in September, and many say it is getting even worse, as fuel and food shortages continue.

Mr. Ashin's group, the Monks' Representative Committee, reorganized in several cities inside Burma earlier this year with 50 new members. They've issued a statement pledging to protest again this month if the government doesn't take action for political reconciliation. But with leaders like Mr. Ashin out of the picture and the junta on the lookout, it's difficult for them even to meet.

Mr. Ashin says he will be relocated to the U.S. soon, where he has been granted political asylum. He wants to continue working to bring change to Burma, but isn't sure how he will do so from a distant shore. Step one will be improving his English, so that he can tell the world what is going on.

Ms. Hook is an editorial page writer for The Wall Street Journal Asia.

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FROM RANGOON TO WESTON

Posted by arakankovida Sunday, November 7, 2010 0 comments

FROM RANGOON TO WESTON
BY ERIN LEVI

THE UNBELIEVABLE TALE OF A BURMESE MONK REFUGEE

“ARE YOU FROM BURMA?” I ASKED A
MONK IN A SAFFRON ROBE STANDING
ALONE NEAR SOME PARKED BICYCLES AND
LIT STREET LAMPS OUTSIDE OF COOPER
UNION IN NEW YORK CITY.

His subtle glances towards me while I attempted to make a phone call suggested he was open to conversation.

“Yes, but now I live California, since March 2008,” he said with an accent. A warm smile crept across his youthful face as his tamarind colored eyes gleamed below a cleanly shaved head. At only about 5’3”, his presence was unexpectedly commanding and serene.

I had just left a big benefit for the International Burmese Monks Organization and victims of Cyclone Nargis. The event was to provide humanitarian assistance to survivors of a community who suffered an estimated 146,000 deaths from this natural disaster as well as commemorate the one-year anniversary of the Saffron Revolution. The Saffron Revolution originated from civilian protests that were sparked by the government’s decision to increase fuel costs. This was not the first time civilians hit the streets out of dissent. However, when a monk in Pakokku was publicly beaten to death by the military, thousands of monks nationwide organized anti-government protests in solidarity with the people. In a piously Buddhist country where monks have remained largely apolitical, this was unprecedented. The Burmese Government’s brutal killings and countless arrests of unarmed monks in the streets shocked its own citizens and placed the country under intense scrutiny and pressure from the International community.

Nevertheless, the repressive military government, which has been running the country (which it renamed Mynamar) since 1988, still refuses to release the 2,100 political prisoners and concede its power to the National League for Democracy, which won the 1990 elections by a landslide. The NLD’s leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, was subsequently sentenced to house arrest where she remains today championing her cause for Democracy. One can only hope that Secretary of State Hilary Clinton’s recent visit and Senator Jim Webb’s meeting with Suu Kyi are signs that political pressure is moving the military towards reconciling. However, Burma’s alliance with North Korea – the rogue state that assists the Junta in building a nuclear reactor – is anything but settling.

The majority of the dissident monks present that night was from a Buddhist Monastery in Elmhurst, Queens, so I was surprised to hear that this one resided in California. “Did you come all the way from California just for this event?”

“No,” he corrected me, “I came to meet with the President.”

The President? Which one? I wondered. It was, after all, the week of the U.N. General Assembly.

“President Bush and Laura Bush,” he said.

The President. He was right, at least in a national and grammatical sense. Still a bit skeptical, I asked him, “Really? You met them?

Where?”

“Yes, for lunch on Governor’s Island.”

“When?”

“Today.”

“What was the lunch for?” My curiosity was insatiable.

“We meet to talk about human rights, to talk about Burma,” he explained.

“I see, and how did that go?”

“Very well,” he said, grinning widely. “I think President Bush want to do good things before he dies.”

Before he dies. Why was this monk smiling? Did he have some strange psychic powers or was it just his Buddhist philosophy: the importance of doing good deeds in one’s lifetime? I repeated those three ominous words, adding an overly large and perplexed question mark at the end.

“Yes, before he dies in November.”

Oh, the election! He meant leaving office…“So, how did you learn English?” I asked.

“I teach myself and go to class since six months. I don’t know why I don’t know better, I have so much energy,” he lamented.

The monk then switched topics and asked if he could take a picture with me. I apologized for not having a camera. Little did I expect that he would produce one from beneath his robe. Had Mary Poppins only known about the incredible storage powers of Buddhist robes, she might not have needed to carry a purse at all! Before saying goodbye, the monk wrote down his contact information and name, Ashin (or U) Kovida, so that we could stay in touch. In Burmese, U is a title of respect and Ashin is a title reserved especially for monks.

During our email exchanges that evening, I discovered that Ashin Kovida wasn’t just any monk: he was the so-called “poster monk” of the Saffron Revolution, a key organizer of the protests and the fifth most wanted individual by the Burmese Government. He is even described by some to be the “James Bond” of Burma, escaping the military Junta by hiding for one month in a village outside of Rangoon, the former capital (which the Junta calls Yangon) then surviving a harrowing escape into Thailand to eventually seek asylum in America. In order to do so, he relinquished his sacred robe for an inconspicuous tshirt and crucifix, and bleached his hair that grew out while in hiding.

In one message he sent me, I clicked on links to articles written about him in the New York Times, BBC World, CNN – all recounting his incredible tale – and viewed attached photographs of his meeting with President Bush and the First Lady earlier that day. Amongst the group of officials dressed conservatively in suits, Ashin Kovida’s attire popped. He was the only one in saffron – the only monk to meet with the President. I owed serendipity a thank you note for introducing us.

His public reputation was well deserved. By age 20, Ashin Kovida, who had entered monastic life at 12 years old, became bored of the government- implemented curriculum that forced the monks to study Pali – a literary language which none of them could read or write after years of practice. Instead, his mind became politically focused as he noticed the disparity between the rich government and impoverished people. After learning about the killing of the monk in Pakokku (which is a Buddhist center in Central Burma), Ashin Kovida, at 24 years old, took the initiative to contact the other monasteries in Rangoon and became the chairperson of a committee of 15 who organized the massive protests. Ashin Kovida’s brave defiance of the military junta – fueled by a love for humankind, belief in non-violent change and strong sense of responsibility to be the voice of his powerless compatriots – makes him a hero and moral leader. Yet, when asked if he would ever want to govern his country, he answered, “I do not care about me to be president. I only care about the people. I want to do good for the people.” Selfless, as any politician should be. He added in jest, “But when you become President and live in White House, Erin, please make me advisor, ok?”

And so the unlikely friendship developed between a dissident monk from Burma and a former Westonite living in New York. Thanks to technology, we were able to stay connected and even bond despite the long distance and the initial linguistic challenges. Thanks to his high level of intelligence and extreme diligence at school (always scoring at the top of his class as he did back in Burma), Kovida’s grasp of the English language improved dramatically in little time. Kovida would send me everything from news updates on his former country to music videos of his favorite songs, a poem he had written about a compassionate encounter with a homeless person, as well as photos of his biking trips and bedroom in Oakland. His room seemed clean, simple, peaceful and intellectual, with the biographies and autobiographies of President Obama, the Dalai Lama, Che Guevara, Mahatma Gandhi, and President Lincoln filling his bookshelves adorned with Buddhas and plants. I imagined that Kovida might feel especially aligned with the Dalai Lama, the head of state and spiritual leader of the Tibetan people, who has been living in exile in India since 1959, peacefully fighting for Tibet’s independence from China.

During one of our first phone conversations, I remember Kovida explaining why he felt so lucky to be from Burma and to have experienced what most do not even wish to imagine: “I was lucky because I was born in Burma. I have chance with human rights, to help Burma. If I born in
Europe, experience with books but no experience with self.” Kovida’s main impetus is to bring about positive change in Burma in a peaceful way, and he urges the UN Security Council and the world to take action against the Junta. As a refugee, his messages are now spread via news agencies, public speaking, social media and meetings with politicians.

Over time, we continued to talk about his sleepless nights, his worries about the future of his people back home, and his sadness from the possibility of never seeing his family again, who live without computers and electricity in Arakan, the strategic strip of coastal and mountainous land bordering the Bay of Bengal and Bangladesh. Kovida was granted political asylum because his life was at risk; if he ever returned to Burma, he and his family would most likely be jailed, tortured or killed. He would always end our conversations graciously, thanking me for “being with [him]” – because the fact that there was someone there for him brought him the encouragement he needed to keep going in this strange and foreign land.

Finally the opportunity arose for us to meet again in person. As he would be on the East Coast following a meeting with his Congresswoman, Rep. Barbara Lee, in Washington, DC, I invited him to Weston, where I was headed for the weekend. Since the first time my mom heard about Kovida – tears streaming down her face out of awe and compassion – she had a strong desire to meet him.

Kovida and I met in New York City and took the train together to Westport. Upon arriving, I greeted my mother in a typical fashion: with kisses and embraces. Kovida looked on longingly and said, “Erin, you make me jealous. I have no mother here to hold.” Overflowing with love, my mom instantly invited him into our family. “I’ll be your mom, Kovida, and you can be my son.” I never expected to gain a sibling at the age of 26, but I was pleased it was someone as compassionate and impressive as Kovida.

Over dinner, Kovida spoke about his life and the history of his country. His detailed recollection of historical facts was impressive, considering his knowledge was acquired orally. As a young child, Kovida had no access to books. In order to learn about the past, he would bring tea to all the elders in his village and listen to their stories in exchange.

By morning, I could see that Kovida really was my long lost brother. Shuffling into the living room half asleep, I thought maybe I was still dreaming when I caught the image of my father supine like a beetle with Kovida stretching him in unexpected ways. My father had just come in
from a long bike ride. Kovida said he enjoyed cycling, too, before his road bike was stolen. Kovida had also been mugged twice. It shocked me that he would be given asylum in Oakland, considering the high crime rate. To me, that’s gratuitous hardship. But to Kovida, these are just non-issue obstacles that would never get in the way of him achieving his goals. His resilience was impressive. He once wrote: “Oh! My dearest Erin, life is not easy, but don't be sorry please. I can do how difficult for me in my life. I don't care. I have a dream that I would like to spend doing somethings good for the people happily rest of time of my life [sic].”

Kovida would crack jokes and often break out in song, moving my mother to tears; despite personal tragedy, he was able to embrace the beauty of life. As he entered my family, I began to witness how easily someone from a diverse background could embrace the differences of
a new society and bring laughter and joy to the lives that he encountered. We were saddened when his short visit came to an end, and begged him to come back for longer, which he did.

Kovida’s second visit was even more memorable, marked by a few endearing moments: food-shopping with “Mom” at Trader Joe’s, he asked for one of the yellow balloons and innocently carried it around all day; confused at a coffee shop, he sucked the honey from the top of the squirt bottle instead of squeezing it; and finding himself locked out on our second-
story porch, he managed to get back in the house by climbing over the fence, jumping down from the garage and knocking on the front door.

Kovida seemed to have an abundance of playful energy and loved physical activity, which complimented his contemplative, studious side quite well. He managed to keep up with my road-racing father on a heavy, old hybrid bike, and even shimmied his way up a tree while I was giving him a tour of our backyard (apparently he preferred an aerial view).

Given this, I felt compelled to bring Kovida to Devil’s Den, as it had always proved to be a place of excitement and challenge when I was little. When we arrived, he looked around and said that it reminded him of the town where he was born. He recalled that there was a forest with a creek near his house where he had proudly once caught a fish. Unlike the areas around the Den, his town had no paved roads. The infrastructure in Burma is very minimal – the fault of the government which enriches itself instead of its people with the country’s natural resources, such as teak, rubies, gas, oil, as well as the opium trade.

He removed his shoes, and with precision and incredible balance, nimbly moved from one moss-covered rock to the next, crossing a stream and then scaling a large boulder on the other side. He shouted, “Erin, take off your shoes. Shoes no good. Come join me.” He made his way back in even quicker time. Watching him, I could easily imagine his escape from the Junta. Kovida had the unique ability to size up situations and people very quickly, and manoeuvre himself around obstacles.

On our drive back along Valley Forge Road, my father pointed out the Saugatuck Reservoir. Kovida said, “We have many reservoirs in my county. Military government make many reservoir. But sometimes they break and town and people under water die. It happened in Mandalay. When military make reservoir, they write in newspaper, ‘We build reservoir, it is good for the people.’ When dam breaks, they don’t write in newspaper [sic].” This was just another example of how the military, concerned only with itself, skirted responsibility to care for its people: what a contrast to my fortunate upbringing in Weston. It was no wonder that there had been so much dissent in Burma over the years.

Together on a walk along Lord’s Highway, Kovida asked me, “Erin, why am I here in Weston with you? How am I, from Rangoon, with you, from Weston?” It was a philosophical question. Had fate brought us together for a reason? Or was this just another example of the unpredictability of life? I felt that Kovida leaned towards the former as evidenced by an email he once wrote: “I know that life is full of surprises, we were born in very far away places but the fate give us a chance to meet, to be friends with each other that was very value for me. However, divided by higher mountains, big oceans, rivers and creek, I will always be with you as a best friend [sic].” Whether it was fate or chance, each moment with Kovida was a blessing to me. I felt honoured to know someone as driven as he to change the world and fight for human rights. Somehow, Burma’s future started to look less bleak.

Erin Levi grew up in Weston, CT and currently lives and works in New

York City. She welcomes readers to get in touch with Ashin Kovida by

following him on twitter (@kovidau), friending him on Facebook (Ashin

Kovida, East Bay, CA), or writing to him at kovidau@gmail.com.

Full Story

Ashin Kovida on 2 days that shook the world in 2007 ( JOTMAN NETWORK )

Posted by arakankovida Saturday, November 6, 2010 0 comments

TUESDAY, JANUARY 1, 2008

This is Part II (here is Part I) of my exclusive interview with Ashin Kovida, Chairperson of the Monks Representative Group. I spoke with this prominent leader of the September 2007 mass protests at a safe house near the Thai-Burma border.

JOTMAN: Where were you the night of the 25th?

KOVIDA: On the night of the 25th of September raids on the monasteries occurred in Rangoon. The next day there were blood stains in the monasteries. They beat up monks. They arrested monks. They left blood stains on the floors.
My monastery had only a few monks. They raided mainly the big monasteries.

JOTMAN: What happened on the 26th? (Note: here is my summary of news reports out of Burma on 09/26, and for further context here is my September timeline ).

KOVIDA: On the 26th the security was very tight. I was at She Shwedagon -- around a kind of bonze Buddha in front of Swadagon. At the times the main roads in Rangoon inside the city were blocked by the security.

JOTMAN: And the protest continued?

KOVIDA: The people couldn't go close to the Shwedagon Pagoda. But fortunately about 300 monks and townsfolk reached it, taking sneaky routes to get there. And as soon as they arrived in the compound, the security immediately came out and pushed them away, telling them to "move, move, move," forcing them down the streets. . .

So they were blocked, and they couldn't go anywhere, so what they had to do was . . .

It was very hot at the time, under the sun. I was negotiating with the police officers there. Meanwhile, the monks started reciting the metta sutta (sutra of loving kindness). During the negotiations, the police kept saying you can't be here. No more than 5 people they said, referring to the curfew. Now they said, "we will prepare the car. we will bring you back to your monasteries." But we don't trust them. Because on the 25th they had raided the monasteries and beaten up the monks. And if we accepted their offer of transport, we had no idea where they would take us.

So after about an hour of negotiations the security forces started arresting -- I mean pulling students out from the group. And I was shouting, "Hey, don't touch the people! You cannot do this!" They were hesitant.

That was when one young novice monk started moving and running so the other people -- you know all the people were under the pressure of a difficult situation -- and so this one person breaks away. I mean he explodes. He's off running as fast as he can. And others break away too, they are racing.

We all ran. We ran hard until we came to a wall. Soon a lot of people are trying to climb the wall. As they are trying to get over it, the security forces are pulling at their legs. They pull some down. Girls and some nuns are pulled down by their sarongs. These they tear off. They beat people on their heads. Brutally.

Only about 70 people were able to escape, including myself; only those of us who could climb the wall to reach the other side. Although I made it there I got hit by a policeman's rubber baton.

JOTMAN: What happened next?

KOVIDA: It so happened that after we crossed the wall, on the other side was a monastery. And we found people gathering there to go to Shwedagon Pagoda. This group of people had gotten very angry because the military had begun beating the monks. So they started throwing stones and bricks at the riot police and soldiers. I think the riot police shot a tear-gas bomb into the crowd. So the situation was worsening before our eyes.

At this point I tried to request to the people not to do violence. Although, of course, the troops had started the violence. So I am trying to explain to the people that we are doing a peaceful demonstration and we want it to end up in a peaceful way.

Full Story

Burmese Refugees Recall How the Protests Evolved ( The Washington Post )

Posted by arakankovida 0 comments

By Jill Drew

Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, October 26, 2007

MAE SOT, Thailand, Oct. 25 --

The young Buddhist monk arrived here by boat last week from Burma, exhausted and disheveled, with no passport, the stubble of his hair dyed blond for a disguise, and wearing a traditional Burmese longyi wrap instead of his saffron-colored robe. He had to elude capture by running barefoot, racing two miles down a highway, and jumping into bushes when cars passed.

Burmese troops had been hunting Ashin Kovida for three weeks, since he helped lead pro-democracy protests in Burma's largest city, Rangoon. Ashin Kovida, 24, came to the safety of this mountain town on Thailand's western border, joining about 20 other refugees, many bringing with them new details of the ongoing crackdown in Burma, stories of dramatic escapes and fresh insights into the weeks of peaceful protests that prompted the military junta's violent response.
From the refugees' stories, a fuller picture is emerging of how a peaceful and apolitical movement by Burma's revered Buddhist monks morphed into the most serious challenge to the junta in two decades. After at least tacitly allowing the demonstrations to take place, the government launched its crackdown when a banned student group and the country's largest opposition party openly joined in and hoisted their banners.
The refugees also offered first-person accounts of seeing unarmed protesters shot and killed. These accounts could not be independently verified, and Burma, which the generals call Myanmar, remains largely closed to foreign journalists. The government has yet to give a full accounting of recent events.

The monks had planned for the demonstrations to last nine days, from Sept. 18 -- nine being a special number in Buddhist tradition. And they had planned for their protests to be peaceful, according to Ashin Kovida and another new refugee here, U Pan Cha, a businessman who managed security for the Rangoon demonstrations.Pan Cha, who was seasoned in protest during Burma's student uprising in 1988, said in an interview here that when last month's protests began, he held a regular nightly meeting with a Rangoon government official to outline the next day's plans and guarantee security. Pan Cha said the official did not try to stop the demonstrations but told him only that the marches must remain peaceful.Pan Cha's version of events also seemed to conform with widespread reports at the time that a battle-hardened Burmese army unit was moved into Rangoon to put down the protests. Pan Cha said that on the second day of the protests, he saw soldiers clapping as the procession passed their post. He said he learned that night that Senior Gen. Than Shwe, head of the junta, had issued an order to shoot the protesters but that the local official said he would not follow the order. On Sept. 26, Pan Cha said, he received word that a different army unit, from the 66th Division, which for years had battled ethnic minority rebels from Karen state, had been brought to Rangoon. That day, the violence began.

The government has officially confirmed that 10 people were killed in the crackdown against the demonstrations, which were organized by various groups, some loosely affiliated, in different Burmese cities. Pan Cha said he saw snipers shoot and kill six monks directly in front of him at the Shwedagon Pagoda on Sept. 26, and he saw others killed and hundreds beaten and dragged into trucks. "I cannot imagine how many people were hurt," he said. "Blood was like a stream of water" running down the pagoda road.
The Rangoon demonstrations were sparked by the government's violent reaction to a peaceful protest by monks in the central city of Pakokku. They were opposing a government-mandated fuel price increase in August that would be crippling to the poor. But when they began protesting in solidarity with the people, they were beaten by local officials; video of the beatings quickly appeared on the Internet. The monks and many laypeople were shocked by the government's actions.
Pan Cha said he was asked by a monk friend to help with security for planned protests. He met the monks Sept. 17, the day before their first protest, and planned strategy. The monks insisted there be no violence, and Pan Cha agreed.
On Sept. 18, the marches began. Thousands of monks emerged from Shwedagon Pagoda about 1 p.m., chanting a Buddhist mantra for peace and loving kindness. It was raining. Passersby stopped and prayed with the monks. Soon, many joined the march. Pan Cha asked them to join hands and walk outside the monks, forming a kind of protective chain.
Ashin Kovida was one of the march organizers. He said he knew the people would join the monks, so he routed the marches from Shwedagon Pagoda to Sule Pagoda -- the two most prominent temples in Rangoon -- because their busy streets meant that many people would see what was happening.For several days, the marches met no government resistance. They grew in numbers.

On Sept. 22, the monks and their supporters won a key symbolic victory. They were allowed to march past the home of Aung San Suu Kyi, the opposition party leader under house arrest. Pan Cha had outlined the plan to march past her house in his regular nightly meeting with the government official. When the marchers arrived at University Avenue, where the Nobel Peace laureate's house is located, an army captain let them pass after conferring on the phone and with other officers and police on the scene.
"I was so happy I cried," Pan Cha said, his voice rising as he recalled the moment. "All the world leaders who want to meet with her and are not allowed, but we are allowed to meet. We could make the world know the Burmese people showed unity in support of Suu Kyi."
At this point, the marches were becoming more political. On Sept. 23, Pan Cha discussed with the monks a request by the All-Burma Federation of Student Unions, a government-banned group that had been marching with the monks but not officially declaring its presence. Now the students wanted to hold their banner when they marched. The monks decided to allow the students to hold the sign starting on Sept. 24, and members of Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party were also allowed to hold signs.
The decision caused a subtle shift in the character of the demonstrations, Pan Cha said. "The main protesting before was for the country and for respecting religion, not for politics," he said.
The next two days of marches were peaceful, but when Pan Cha went to meet his contact the night of Sept. 25, the government official did not show up. Pan Cha, suspicious, called a meeting of the monks. "I told them we have to be cautious tomorrow," he said.
The violence began Sept. 26. Army troops from the regiment newly arrived from outside Rangoon, as well as police, surrounded the monks who had gathered at Shwedagon Pagoda to start their march. All four corners of the pagoda grounds were blocked.A group of monks sat down in an attempt to begin negotiations to defuse the situation. "They started to pray, but the police just started beating them," Pan Cha said. Instantly, 50 to 100 police officers jumped from hiding places wielding wooden batons. A loudspeaker started blaring, telling people to go away. But there was nowhere to run; soldiers and police blocked all the exits.

Ashin Kovida felt the blow to his belly before he saw the stick coming. He was one of the seated monks and had raised his praying hands to his forehead as he chanted the Buddhist mantra for peace. As he doubled over from the blow, he saw novice monks trying to scramble up a high wall behind them. "People were trying to escape by climbing that wall, but the police were pulling them down and kicking them, even a girl."
Next, Ashin Kovida felt the tear gas. "I wondered if I might die when I was being beaten," he said. "I had never seen anything like that before." He ran to the wall and climbed over, dropping onto the ground at his Nan Oo monastery, next door to the pagoda. He and others climbed the wall on the other side and saw masses of people, their way into the pagoda complex blocked by troops. He called to them to turn and walk the other way, into the street and toward Sule Pagoda. He soon had a group of about 1,000 following him.
Ashin Kovida did not reach Sule Pagoda. Too many roads were blocked. He decided to go home to his monastery, a small one that had not yet been raided by police.
Pan Cha, meanwhile, tried to march a group to the Chinese Embassy to protest the bloodshed, but the roads were blocked. Police started beating the protesters and dragging them to trucks. Pan Cha was pulled into a house by people trying to protect him. They gave him clean clothes and took his bloodstained ones, then took him behind the house and helped him escape.The next day, Ashin Kovida got on a bus with other monks, looking for a place clear of government troops to start marching. As they were making their way to Sule Pagoda, a friend called to tell him to avoid Sule; government forces were again shooting people.

He headed back to his monastery, but he and the other monks were afraid that it was only a matter of time before soldiers raided it, too. Ashin Kovida found a hiding place, where he stayed until Oct. 12. He heard that police had his photo and were hunting him. The government newspaper published his name in a list of 20 monk leaders who were "making the country unstable."
"It was getting worse and worse," he said. "But I didn't know where to go. I didn't have any connection outside of Burma."
After fleeing his safe house Oct. 12, Ashin Kovida found a new place and started preparing to leave the country. He dyed his hair, exchanged his robe for a longyi and obtained a fake ID.
The next morning, he crossed into Thailand by boat and hired a motorbike to take him to Mae Sot. Later, he was somewhat amused to learn that he had been cheated by the driver, who charged him double the usual rate.
Ashin Kovida is not sure what he will do next. He knows he wants to keep working in the movement for democracy in Burma. He knows he wants to remain a monk.
He worries about the woman he calls his adoptive mother and her two daughters, ages 5 and 10. He does not know what happened to them, but said, "Because of me, she was arrested."
Of the 15 monks who were part of his leadership group, he has heard that eight have been arrested and six are in hiding. The government is still trying to find him. On Oct. 18, the junta's newspaper published an article linking Ashin Kovida to the discovery of a small stash of TNT.
"Because the monks' peaceful demonstrations got international support and the support of the people of Burma, the government does not know how to take more actions against the monks," he said. "So they are trying to say monks are going to use violence. If they take action against the monks without telling a story, it's not good in the international community."

Full Story

'How Many Monks Must Die Before The UN Moves?' ( IPS News )

Posted by arakankovida Friday, November 5, 2010 0 comments

By Marwaan Macan-Markar

Ven. Ashin Kovida
Credit:Marwaan Macan-Markar/IPS

MAE SOT, Thailand, Feb 5, 2008 (IPS) - For one Buddhist monk from Burma, the brutal crackdown of peaceful street protests in the country last September was anything but a victory for the military regime.

The force used by the junta exposed its true character to the world. ‘’The international community really got to know how oppressive the Burmese military regime is,’’ said the monk, leaning slightly forward on the chair he was seated on as if to emphasise the point. ‘’That is one of the advantages of our struggle.’’

‘’There were many people who were killed - monks, students, the public - when the military brutally attacked the people who were demonstrating,’’ he went on. ‘’It also showed why the military regime is responsible for the way Burmese Buddhism has been treated. The history is ugly.’’

But the junta is not the only body that comes to mind as he reflects on what has happened over four months after the crackdown of street protests, the likes of which have not been seen in nearly two decades in that South-east Asian country. ‘’I want to ask the U.N. Security Council how many monks and people have to be sacrificed before the U.N. Security Council intervenes,’’ he continues.

And the Ven. Ashin Kovida is the ideal candidate to speak out against both entities. He was in Rangoon when the junta ordered its heavily armed troops to fire at the unarmed demonstrators. He was also the head of the committee of monks that helped shape the march of thousands through the streets of Rangoon during that brief September cry for economic relief and political freedom.

The march that the 15-member Buddhist Monks’ Representative Committee led had over 100,000 people on to the streets of Rangoon, a large number of whom were monks from the former capital wearing deep maroon robes. According to the United Nations, 31 people were killed and hundreds were arrested during the crackdown. But opposition and human rights groups place a much higher casualty rate, with over 100 deaths and over a thousand protesters arrested.

The monks were among the victims, too, states one group, the All-Burma Monks Alliance. Three monks were killed, one of whom was beaten to death, while another died after being tortured, it revealed in late January. The fate of 44 monks and nuns who were arrested when the military raided 53 monasteries across Burma, also known as Myanmar, still remain unknown, it added.

Such oppression appears to have enraged an already beleaguered population. ‘’The people have continued to suffer as they did before September,’’ Kovida said through an interpreter during an interview with IPS. ‘’The struggle against the military regime will continue this year. There is a strong desire among the people to do so.’’

Yet the likelihood of Kovida being in the forefront of new public protests against the junta appears remote. For after the September protests, he had to flee his country for the safety of Mae Sot, a Thai town on the Thai-Burma border, to evade arrest.

It was a flight from oppression that took over three weeks. The thin, 24-year-old monk had to hide in a house some 40 miles out of Rangoon to evade the Burmese forces searching for him, with copies of his photograph in their hand. For his trip to the Thai border, Kovida had to let the hair on his shaven head grow, tinted it gold, and to complete the disguise of a hip teenager, shed his robes for street clothes. He even sported a bracelet for added affect during the bus-ride to the border.

Currently, there are 23 monks in this border town who have fled Burma following the crackdown. They, like Kovida, are all young, in their 20s, confirming a view that gained ground during the September protests that it were the young angry monks from among the country’s 400,000-strong Buddhist clergy who led the way to challenge the junta. And 10 of them, including Kovida, have applied to the U.N. refugee agency to seek political asylum.

But there is more to Kovida’s story than that of a young monk who dared to take on one of this region’s brutal regimes. It is a tale of political enlightenment of a Burmese who grew up in poverty in a small village of 20 houses in the western region of the country. When he arrived in Rangoon in 2003 to further his studies as a monk - his only route to education - he was marginally aware of the military’s notorious record since grabbing power in a 1962 coup.

‘’During my free time I began to learn English at the British Council and at the American Centre, and through some friends I was able to see videotapes of what happened in ’88,’’ said Kovida, referring to the bloody crackdown of a pro-democracy uprising in Burma in August 1988, where some 3,000 pro-democracy activists were killed by the military.

That political education beyond the walls of the monastery soon led to a new train of thought. ‘’I started to ask why there was such a big difference between the poor people in my village and the rich in the city,’’ he said. ‘’I wanted to know why there were so many poor people when Burma has so much natural wealth.’’

Before long, his journey of inquiry had led him to the obvious answer. ‘’I realised that the fault was with our military government,’’ he revealed. ‘’I felt very angry thereafter and felt I had to do something.’’

The junta’s decision to raise the price of oil by 500 percent overnight with no warning, last August, added to Kovida’s growing rage. ‘’We began to see more people suffering, children who could not afford to go to school, more children begging for food on the streets,’’ he said. ‘’Many monks could not ignore this because these were the people who always gave the monks food in the mornings.’’

Then came the trigger that saw the transformation of Kovida from a Rangoon outsider to the protest leader in the city. In early September, Burmese soldiers clashed with monks who were protesting against the spike in oil prices in the central town of Pakokku. The soldiers dragged away 10 of the 300 monks who had been protesting and beat them with bamboo sticks.

‘’The military regime failed to apologise for what was done in Pakkoku by the deadline the monks set, Sep. 17,’’ said Kovida. ‘’We then start to organise for a protest in Rangoon but realised there was no leadership. A new committee had to be set up.’’

It was out of such an atmosphere of rage and uncertainty that the Buddhist Monks’ Representative Committee was born. And young Kovida stepped forward when the monks in Rangoon called for a leader to head the committee. ‘’Our plan was for the monks to start marching and lead the crowds,’’ he said. ‘’We agreed that we had to be systematic. And the march had to be peaceful.’’

Full Story

Global Peace Centre

President and Mrs. Bush Meet with Ashun Kovida

The Monk Made Famous in Exile

Venerable U Kovida Testifies Before Human Rights Caucus

'It Was Clear to Us That We Could All Die'

FROM THE MAGAZINE

ARTICLE...

Burma's Most Wanted By LESLIE HOOK

FROM RANGOON TO WESTON

Ashin Kovida on 2 days that shook the world in 2007 ( JOTMAN NETWORK )

TUESDAY, JANUARY 1, 2008

Burmese Refugees Recall How the Protests Evolved ( The Washington Post )

'How Many Monks Must Die Before The UN Moves?' ( IPS News )

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