More Dissidents Flee to Thai-Burmese Border

A group of six Burmese dissidents, including one monk and two members of the 88 Generation Students Group, became the latest newcomers to Mae Sot on the Thai-Burmese border.

Burmese crowd onto a local taxi as they make their way across the Thai-Burmese border [Photo: AP]

As the military authorities in Rangoon continue their crackdown through nighttime raids on those they suspect of taking part in the monk-led protests last month, more activists are fleeing for safety to the Thai-Burmese border.

The latest six protesters were taken in by exiled Burmese dissident groups. Up to ten demonstrators, including monks, have fled to Thailand in recent weeks, according to dissident groups, adding that a Burmese official who refused to attack protesting monks had also fled and was seeking asylum in Norway with his son.

A 31-year-old monk who recently fled from a monastery called State Pariyatti Sasana University in Kabar Aye in Rangoon’s Mayangone Township told The Irrawaddy on Tuesday, “The soldiers raid homes, especially at nighttime. They compare suspects with photos of those who were involved in the protests. Also, they employ an increased number of soldiers when they raid monasteries.”

“In the daytime, it is fine,” he said. “But at night the monks are living in fear. They worry that the troops will raid their monasteries. Some people are afraid of accepting monks in their homes.”

The security forces also patrol the streets with loudspeakers, announcing that homeowners should not take in monks and that, if found out, the authorities will take action against the homeowner, said the monk who requested anonymity for his family’s safety.

He added that if the security forces do not find the suspects they are looking for, they often arrest family members in their place. Authorities have been using members of the United Solidarity and Development Association to gather information about the protesters and the monks.

Some monks have even left the sangha (monkhood) in fear for their lives, he said, adding that he was also personally checked at border checkpoints during his trip to Thailand.

Meanwhile, Ye Htun Kyaw and Nay Win Hlaing, members of the 88 Generation Students Group, finally decided to leave for the Thai-Burmese border after being continuously hunted down by the Burmese authorities.

On learning that the security forces were planning to raid them, the two 88 Generation members changed location within Rangoon. “However,” Ye Htun Kyaw said, “We didn’t feel safe any more. We thought about giving ourselves up, but in the end we chose to come to the border.”

Nay Win Hlaing said that he worried for those who were being held in isolated detention. “The security forces acted brutally in public,” he said. “So, behind closed doors, the detainees will have it much worse.”  

Also, police are trying to put names to faces from the video footage of the protests, according to local sources.

The sources said that after security forces brutally cracked down on the protesters in Rangoon the small monasteries that line both sides of the road were mostly locked and empty, while wooden blockades and bales of rusted barbed wire that police used to block off Shwedagon Pagoda are heaped on the street. Police and soldiers with armed weapons have been positioned outside the mostly silent monasteries, they added.

On October 12, prominent activists Mie Mie, Aung Thu and 88 Generation leader, Htay Kywe, as well as their friend Ko Ko, were arrested by authorities in a hiding place.

Meanwhile, sources say that the detainees, including monks, were tortured in detention centers and given insufficient food, water and medication. Some of those hospitalized including well-known 88 Generation Students Group leader Min Ko Naing. Some detainees died in detention in Rangoon, claimed the sources.

According to Burma's state-run newspaper, the New Light of Myanmar, raids on 18 monasteries resulted in the arrests of more than 2,000 protesters. The paper added that 10 people were killed.

However, diplomats and dissidents say the death toll is likely much higher and that up to 6,000 people were seized, including over 1,000 monks who led the rallies.