Nearly two months later I came to Yangon, and I wanted to try to engage the movement again. So I organized and I discussed with 1988 students, also 1996 students, and 2007 students; also the NLD MP [National League for Democracy Members of Parliament] also who are working in politics, I met them secretly.
And then one of my friends who lives in Mandalay messaged to me, “ Okay, my friend, you shouldn’t come to Mandalay because they want to catch you. They asked me for your photo, where you live, and where the best place to find you. They will catch you.” But I went to Mandalay secretly two times. But they don’t know when I arrived in Mandalay, when I came back to Yangon. They don’t know when I went to Mandalay, because they want to catch me and they asked my friend. They sent me information.
But I help also the [Cyclone] Nargis victims. And the Nargis victim also – the SPDC [State Peace and Development Council, official title for the Burmese military regime] never helped support the people . So at the time I helped them, and what they needed – water, food, medicine – also I gave them. And also on the other hand, I am working on politics. I already discussed. I also working on the “Generation Wave,” we call it GW. That’s young students. They want to share a lot of papers I copied for them, because I have a computer and a copy machine. So I copy for them. And when I want to share a lot of papers, they also help me; they also share to everywhere. And we already discussed very secretly in a lot of ways.
And then October 2008, SPDC caught eight Generation [Generation Wave student group] members. So two members are very friendly to me; he know about me very well and he has also been in my family’s house. So at the time I think, they torture and they beat a lot. So they asked about me a lot, I think. So at the time they answer to them. So at that time the SPDC knows about me very well. Before, they don’t know. They know only me the King Zero name. They don’t know who I am. King Zero is – who is King Zero? They don’t know.
After that eight members of Generation, they know very well about me: my real name, my pen name, and then my family name, my family house. They know very well. At that time they tried to catch me. When I move to that place, they arrive to that place. And I cannot move more and more.
So at that time I went to my house very secretly, yeah? And I asked to my family, okay, that case is my case. If they don’t catch me, they can catch my brother or my family, yeah? So I asked my family. At that time my family told me, “Okay, you need to move. Whatever is it, we can face it. When we are arrested: three years. When you are arrested: 65 or 70 years. So you cannot work more. You are very important, you can work a lot. We cannot work for our country more. So whatever is it, you need to move.” So at that time I decided to move into the Mae Sot place, and at the time I changed color, like a layman, yeah? So at that time I borrowed an ID, and I came to Yangon and in Bago and Kawkareik and in Myawaddy and I came to the Mae Sot. On 21st October of 2008, I arrived in Mae Sot.
Venerable Ashin Issariya (“King Zero”) is a Buddhist monk from Burma. In 2007 he was a principal organizer of the nationwide protests that became known as the “Saffron Revolution.”
After the Burmese military regime used violence to break up a peaceful march by monks who were calling attention to poverty and starvation in the town of Pakkoku, Ashin Issariya and other monks organized nationwide protests against the violence. Over 100,000 monks and tens of thousands of ordinary citizens demonstrated in Rangoon, Mandalay, and other places throughout the country, often chanting Buddha’s teachings on “loving kindness”. The government responded with more violence, killing dozens of monks and other protestors and inflicting serious injuries on hundreds more.
Ashin Issariya became widely known in Burma and around the world under the name “King Zero”— which, as he explained in his Freedom Collection interview, meant that Burma should have no kings and no dictators. But it took the government some time to uncover his real identity, so he was able to spend several months assisting victims of Cyclone Nargis before fleeing to Thailand in 2008. He now lives in a monastery near the Thai-Burma border and remains in close touch with democracy advocates inside and outside Burma.
Burma, a Southeast Asian country with about 57 million people, is ruled by a military regime that seized power in 1962. Although the reformist National League for Democracy (NLD) won overwhelmingly in a 1990 election, the country’s military rulers ignored the results and arrested NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 “for her nonviolent struggle for democracy and human rights.” The military government held a referendum on a new constitution in 2008 and a parliamentary election in 2010, neither of which was regarded by international observers as free or fair, and both of which resulted in overwhelming majorities for pro-government positions and candidates. The military regime has committed widespread and systematic human rights violations, including extrajudicial killing, torture, rape, and denial of freedom of expression, association, assembly, and religion.
Throughout its existence, the regime has been at war with a number of Burma’s ethnic minority groups. Ethnic minority voters overwhelmingly supported the NLD in the 1990 election, and after the suppression of the democracy movement several of these groups continued or resumed armed resistance to the de facto government. Although the government signed cease-fire agreements with several of these groups ostensibly granting them autonomy within their respective regions, the Burmese military has used a range of brutal techniques, including the killing of civilians, forced labor, rape, and the destruction of homes, crops, and villages, in cease-fire zones as well as in areas where there is still armed resistance.
In 2007, as on several previous occasions, there were mass demonstrations throughout the country demanding freedom and democracy. The 2007 demonstrations were led by Buddhist monks and eventually became known as the “Saffron Revolution” after the color of the monks’ robes. The armed forces brutally suppressed these demonstrations—estimates of the number of protestors killed range from 31 to several thousand—and intensified popular dissatisfaction with the government by the killing, beating, and public humiliation of monks.
The nominally civilian government resulting from the 2010 election has been widely regarded as a façade for continuing military rule. However, in October 2011, the government released 206 of Burma’s estimated 2,000 prisoners of conscience. The next month, the government announced that it would soon release all remaining political prisoners. The NLD, which had declined to participate in the 2010 election, registered to participate in the next election and announced that Aung San Suu Kyi would be among the NLD candidates.
Although the military regime announced in 1989 that it had changed the English name of the country from Burma to “Myanmar,” the United States government and other international supporters of democracy in Burma have generally continued to call the country Burma because this is the name preferred by Aung San Suu Kyi and other democracy advocates who won the 1990 election.
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