reply to Reverend U Rewata

[yawnghwe@xxxxxxxxxx]

>A REPLY TO REVEREND U REWATA
>
>BY: CHAO TZANG YAWNGHWE
>
>
>Firstly, I have met U Rewata and have great respect for him as a highly 
knowledgeable Buddhist personage.  It is within character for U Rewata to 
attribute to Khun Nyunt and SLORC leaders good intentions and Buddhist 
morals.  In deed, it may well be that Khin Nyunt is a gentle Buddhist with 
good morals.  However, the fact is that Khin Nyunt and companions are actors 
on a political stage, and they have, as Ne Win's henchmen, and as 
powerholding, political "soldiers", committed crimes against Burma and the 
Taingyintha (including the Bama people).  They are holding the whole country 
hostage at gunpoint. They say they are soldiers, and wear appropriate 
uniforms and colored ribbons, but they have not acted like soldiers.  
Uniforms do not a soldier make, as goes an old saying.
>
>U Rewata is no doubt aware -- who isn't -- of the claims being made by 
SLORC (morning, noon and night) that soldiers are the saviors of Burma, that 
they have done much for the country, and so forth.  But what are the facts?  
Everyone knows what the fact are, including U Rewata.
>
>The people of  Burma would be eternally grateful to U Rewata if he is able 
to transform Khin Nyunt, Than Shwe, Kyaw Ba, and those wearing uniforms into 
genuine soldiers.  This is all that the country wants of them, and this is 
what Daw Aungsan Suukyi's wishes for Burma.
>
>Being genuine soldiers means being the servant of the people and the 
country, not lords and masters.  Real soldiers do not rape, pillage, 
plunder, or engage in shady business deals, such as selling the people's 
birth rights.  If those in uniform wish to be ministers and leaders, all 
they have to do is to doff their uniforms, and become politicians like 
everyone else, or like Bogyoke Aung San (that's a very good model to 
follow).  And if they wish to become millionaires, there is nothing to 
prevent them form giving up their guns and arm themselves with mobile 
phones, calculators, fax machines, etc., like real businessmen.  Let us not 
have the childish nonsense of soldiers being everything, and entitled to 
rule just because they kill and main their own citizens.
>
>U Rewata misses the point entirely in alluding to the need for Daw Aungsan 
Suukyi to compromise with "patriotic" soldiers.  The problem is that in 
Burma, so-called soldiers like Khin Nyunt do not seem to know what a genuine 
soldier is, and by inference, their understanding of the meaning of 
"patriotism" must also be doubted.
>
>I therefore urge U Rewata to spend a year in Burma, continuously, instead 
of flying in and out, and do what he can to make "soldiers", such as Khin 
Nyunt and the rest get a grip on what being "patriot soldiers" entails.  If 
he can accomplish this, he, not Aungsan Suukyi, will be the real savior of 
Burma, and he will be thus honored like Bogyoke Aung San, for many 
generations to come.
>
>Vancouver
>October, 1995
>