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Agga is a survivor.
The Buddhist monk, who 18 months ago slipped out of Burma to avoid persecution in the aftermath of the Saffron uprising, is now looking at a life beyond South East Asia.
I met the 26-year-old monk on a recent visit to Mae Sot, the Thai town that sits close to the eastern edge of Burma, and where Agga was staying in a monastery on the outskirts of town. There have been a number of monks who have escaped from Burma and recounted their stories but this was the time I’d had the chance to interview one of them and there was lots to ask.
First off, Agga suggested that the uprising in September 2007 had come together spontaneously. You may recall that in the summer of 2007, a small number of activists known as the 1988 Students Generation Group had launched a series of small demonstrations in Rangoon, seizing on the issue of rising fuel prices around which to rally people. While the monks were aware of these protests, Agga told me, it was the assault by government troops on several monks in the town of Pakokku that really made them decide to demonstrate.
“That monk was very badly abused. We gave them two weeks to apologise but they did not apologise,” Agga said. “That was why we marched. Before, in the summer, we were not involved.”
He added: “When we were marching we were very satisfied. We were chanting ‘loving kindness’ . We thought we might be beaten but we thought it was better to do something that nothing.”
