"Burma VJ' wins HR film festival awards

Films about dissident journalists in Myanmar and dangerous river pollution in French Guiana won the top prizes at a human rights film festival and forum in Geneva, AFP reports.

Danish director Anders Hogsbro Ostergaard won the Grand Prix offered by the state of Geneva for his film "Burma VJ-Reporting from a closed country".

The film is about journalists who risked their lives to cover a revolt by Buddhist monks against Myanmar's military junta in 2007.

"By honoring the film, the panel of judges intended to support an entire people on the way towards liberty," the organizers said.

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Remembering Burma's Saffron Revolution

September 17 marks the day when monks rallied on the streets of Yangon two years ago to protest the oppression of the junta regime on the people of the State.

Exiled Burmese monk King Zero, one of the instigators of the 2007 Saffron Revolution, forewarns further democracy rallies in Burma. Unless the ruling military junta apologises for killing and imprisoning monks by October 2, King Zero says monks will launch a boycott and again lead demonstrations against the government.

King Zero says people power is needed again.

Click here for King Zero on video.

Earlier, in August 2007, the Burma government raised the price of gas. So pro-democracy activists began to lead demonstrations which led to the arrest of many.

Some Buddhist monks joined a demonstration in Pakokku north of Yangon on Sept 5, 2007. The peaceful demonstration was broken up violently by police. Three monks were tied to telephone polls and beaten with rifle butts. Ten monks were arrested.

Later that day, monks captured more than 10 high-ranking government and military officials in Pakokku and held them hostage, demanding the release of the arrested monks. The hostages were released unharmed after six hours, but the monks demanded the government to apologize, giving a deadline of September 17. The deadline expired without apology and tens of thousands of monks took to the streets in Yangon.

By late September, the government junta retaliated with police charging the monks with tear gas and clubs. Monasteries were raided. Hundreds of monks arrested and sent to prison camps. Many monks fled across the borders into Thailand or India. To this day, the number of casualties is unknown.

Monks under the eye of the junta

On the two-year anniversary of the monk-led September mass demonstrations, the military junta keeps a close eye on the estimated 400,000 Buddhist monks in Burma with continued surveillance and propaganda in the media.

Security forces are present at the annual examinations for monks from Sept. 14 to 30 at Sangha [Monk] University in Rangoon.

About 60 soldiers are stationed in the university compound, according to monks taking examinations.

Meanwhile, in recent months publications in Rangoon and other cities have printed stories warning people of the dangers of a division between Theravada Buddhists and Mahayana Buddhists. Most Burmese are Theravada Buddhist.

The papers accused well-known Buddhist writers such as Parugu, Aye Maung, Chit Nge, Ashin Thoma Buddhi and Kyaw Hein, a veteran actor turned monk, as fostering confusion among Buddhists.

A main target of the stories is a former political prisoner, Ashin Nyana, a monk who exposes an alternative view of Buddhism that differs from traditional Theravada Buddhism. Since the 1980s, Ashin Nyana has advocated what he calls Paccuppanna [the present] Karma Buddhism. Unlike most monks in Burma who wear saffron robes, he wears sky blue robes.

He was charged with discrediting Buddhism in 1983 and served three years in prison. He was arrested again in 1991and received a 10-year prison sentence. He was released in 1998 in an amnesty.

“People are saying now that these papers were published by the Military Affairs Security [military intelligence] or the government-backed Union Solidarity and Development Association to create dissension among monks,” said a journalist in Rangoon.

In fact, Buddhism actually promotes critical thinking. The Kalama Sutta said: “Do not accept anything by mere tradition...Do not accept anything just because it accords with your scriptures...Do not accept anything merely because it agrees with your pre-conceived notions...But when you know for yourselves—these things are moral, these things are blameless, these things are praised by the wise, these things, when performed and undertaken, conduce to well-being and happiness—then do you live acting accordingly.”

Correspondent Ba Saw Tin contributed reporting from Bangkok.

Source: The Irrawaddy