zarafa

BURMA APPEAL

"Pray for the Dead and Fight like Hell for the Living"
Dame Anita Roddick 1942-2007

This week the world news on the situation has decreased and images are in short supply, yet the violent crackdown by the junta continues. The news we are receiving from Rangoon is awful. Pre-dawn raids on monasteries continue. Notorious Insein Prison and temporary detention centres are filled with monks and civilians. These arguably are the lucky ones as we have eyewitness accounts of many dead.

"In one instance, the monastery at an obscure neighborhood of Rangoon, called Ngwe Kyar Yan (on Wei-za-yan-tar Road)had been raided. A troop of lone-tein (riot police comprised of paid thugs) protected by the military trucks, raided the monastery with 200 studying monks. They systematically ordered all the monks to line up and banged and crushed each one's head against the brick wall of the monastery. One by one, the peaceful, non resisting monks, fell to the ground, screaming in pain. Then, they tore off the red robe and threw them all in the military trucks (like rice bags) and took the bodies away. The head monk of the monastery, was tied up in the middle of the monastery, tortured bludgeoned, and later died the same day. Tens of thousands of people gathered outside the monastery, warded off by troops with bayoneted rifles, unable to help their helpless monks being slaughtered inside the monastery."