Interview with a Buddhist monk on the arrests of monks

DVB (August 19,2003)

On the 12th of August, Kyauksri monastery in Pegu was raided by a local police force and two visiting monks were arrested with the excuse of not staying in their own monastery during Buddhist lent creating a clash between the resident monks and the local police force.

After 1988, there have been frequent clashes between the monks and the authorities and monks are regularly arrested and detained and forced to sign agreement promising not to get involved in politics.

Why have there been frequent problems between monks and the authorities?

How are the monks taking the treatments of the authorities?

DVB interviewed a teaching monk of a monastery in Pegu Division with more than 100 novice monks:

DVB : What are the rules set down by Lord Buddha for monks during lent?

A Buddhist monk : Monks are not allowed to visit other places during lent except in the cases of the ‘appointed’ matters. If a monk is forced to attend the appointed matters, he is allowed to be away from for seven days during lent. The appointed matters are maters related to the three gems (Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha), matters relating to parents and teachers and matters related to fellow monks in the monastery. Monks are allowed to travel on these conditions but they are allowed to be away for only seven days. If they need more time, they have to come back to the monastery to get further permission…

DVB : Is it suitable for a local police force to enter a monastery and check the guest list thus during lent?

A Buddhist monk : They always have been checking our monasteries with the excuse of checking the guest list. I even asked them what kind of guests they were looking for. In fact, they have no rights to do that.

DVB : After the Dipeyin incident, we heard that monks in the countries are forced by local authorities to sign the agreement promising not to get involved in politics. What are your views on that?

A Buddhist monk : I have heard about that but they did not do that in my monastery but 4-5-10 years ago, they forced me to sign a similar document. I refused and said to them that I do not get involved in politics. As far as I understand, ‘doing politics’ is related to power. But if you are doing things for your country, we call it working for the welfares of the country. I told them that I don’t ‘do’ politics in the past, in the present nor in the future but I will work for the betterment of my country. And, I refused to sign the document. To answer your question, the act of forcing monks to sign the confessional agreement is an unnecessary act – that is my view.

DVB : After 1988, there have been frequent problems between monks and local authorities. Why?

A Buddhist monk : In my view, they come out of grievances against the ruling government. To be precise, the grievances come out of injustice incurred on them by the government. People feel aggrieved because of the injustice and they exploded because of the grievances. They have been arresting monks lawlessly without notifications to or the permission of the top religious organisations. If I have to say it straight, they are behaving lawlessly. Things will be like this if they are lawless.

DVB : Had there been problems between monks and kings in Burmese history?

A Buddhist monk : Yes, there had been many problems between monks and rulers and kings, but things had never been as bad as they are now. Now, when it happens you have no time to think. The current situation leaves me speechless…We have been hearing that monks are being arrested and the like throughout the country. They are all true. We don’t know where to go and how to solve the problems.