Where Are The Monks Of Burma?

Burma, monks, Tibet, China, human rights abuse, citizen journalism, protest, Beijing Olympics

A third of the monks are missing. Many have been rounded up in the large cities and sent to smaller hamlets in the countryside.

By Citizen Correspondent David Mixner

Date Posted: 04/18/08

Reader Rating:

The world community remains strangely quiet about the missing monks of Burma. It has been nine months since we all were riveted by the bravery of tens of thousands of monks parading in quiet dignity through the streets of Yangon. Their saffron robes adding a ceremonial flourish to their procession, their rice bowls turned upside down in protest, they marched for all the citizens who lived in fear or who already had filled the jails as political prisoners.

The news footage and photographs starkly chronicled the monks' seeming lack of fear in facing down the brutal military junta of Burma.

Their non-violence was in direct contradiction to the 500,000 soldiers in the military who had already killed thousands in 1988 seeking freedom. The monks, who are the most revered citizens of Burma, captured the hearts and minds of an entire planet.

Every evening the news would be filled with visuals of the brave spirits confronting military might. Now we are lucky to even hear a story about Burma -- and when we do, it invariably turns out to be a flat, "What is happening now?" sort of article.

A third of the monks are missing. Many have been rounded up in the large cities and sent to smaller hamlets in the countryside. After the military stopped the protests, hundreds of the holy men became political prisoners, and many were brutally tortured and, in some cases, killed. Photographs smuggled out of the country show waterways filled with bodies covered in saffron. They became rivers of death.

Families who with great pride had sent sons to become monks, found themselves the victims of retaliation by the military - homes and livelihoods were destroyed. All in the name of a corrupt military junta. The nation became a hellish nightmare for those who dared to think or share their souls for freedom.

The monks all taught us the most valuable lessons about bravery in the face of might, quiet dignity in the face of hell and most importantly they emerged as the most affecting voice of non-violence since Dr. Martin Luther King.

We owe it to them to keep the pressure on for the safe return of those not already dead.