‘Second Chance City’ Welcomes another Leading Burmese Monk

By JIM ANDREWS

MAE SOT — Secretly, singly or in small groups, Burmese monks who led the September 2007 uprising and then escaped the regime crackdown are leaving their hideout in Thailand and making their way to new lives in the US.

The latest to take this route to freedom is U Agga, 26, who slipped away from a “safe house” near Mae Sot on the Thai-Burmese border on Tuesday and boarded a midnight flight from Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport, bound for Seoul, South Korea.

From Seoul, he flew to New York, to be met by another fugitive from Burmese oppression, Pyinnya Jota, former deputy abbot of Rangoon’s Maggin Monastery. They’ll be settling in the New York State university town of Utica, which offered a new home to several monks who escaped to Thailand in the nightmare months following the September 2007 uprising.

Twenty monks who sought refuge in Mae Sot have been resettled in New York State, Arizona, California and France.

Six monks who shared a simple room with U Agga in the safety of a friendly Thai monastery near Mae Sot are still waiting for their resettlement formalities to be completed.

“Please don’t name the monastery,” pleaded U Agga. “There are Burmese government agents everywhere. Don’t even mention my former Burmese monastery.”

The group of fugitive monks moved to their secret quarters outside Mae Sot from a monastery near the Friendship Bridge connecting Mae Sot with the Burmese border town of Myawaddy. “We were told our safety couldn’t be guaranteed there,” U Agga said.

The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, based in Mae Sot, says 146 monks and seven nuns arrested during and after the September 2007 uprising have been sentenced to imprisonment or are still being detained.

Dozens escaped to Thailand and more than 100 fled to Bangla Desh, according to U Agga. For all, it was a hazardous journey to freedom.

U Agga escaped to the border area traveling in plain clothes and by bus and then laid low in a monastery for one month before crossing to Thailand.

“Most of us changed from our monks’ robes into civilian clothes,” U Agga said. “One donned a wig and posed as a bus conductor, riding that way to the border. A passenger complained when he took the bus out of its way, but the driver was a sympathizer and sorted it out.”

U Agga is determined that his new life in the US will allow him plenty of room to speak out for human rights in Burma.

“Wherever I live, I must continue to work for the freedom of the Burmese people, who are suffering under a brutal military dictatorship,” he said in a farewell message.

“The struggle continues. It didn’t end in September 2007. The regime didn’t defeat us, it just gave us new strength.”

U Agga’s new home, Utica, is a cultural melting pot, absorbing thousands of refugees from Bosnia, Somalia, Cambodia and Thailand. The publication Reader’s Digest has dubbed it “Second Chance City.”

Utica also has a reputation as a cultural and educational center, and U Agga hopes to devote himself to study.

In Burma, U Agga saw the monks’ engagement in the September 2007 uprising as a non-political demonstration of solidarity with an oppressed population.

“We didn’t make any politics, we acted just for the welfare of our country,” he said. “We did not demand a handover of power by the military to us or Aung San Suu Kyi. We just requested the military to treat people fairly and kindly.

“We still send our loving-kindness to the military leaders because they are hungry for it.”

Nevertheless, the events of September 2007 did leave their effect on U Agga’s thinking. At his monastery in Burma, he studied Buddhist scripture and meditation practices. In Utica, he said, “I want to study political science.”