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ABYMU Statement



A B Y M U Statement regarding Interference in Sangha Higher Grade Pali Exam
by Military Dictatorship Clique

1. The SPDC military clique has been cunningly and wickedly engaged in the
acts of barring 20,000 Buddhist monks from the State Sangha Higher Grade
Pali Exam to be held nation-wide,  pressuring, with threats, the State
Sangha Supreme Council (SSSC) to accept  supervision of the Exam by
soldiers,  arresting 3 SSSC-member abbot monks for having protested the
demand by the military to supervise the Exam, forcing the monks to sign by
a batch of 6 on each application form and pressuring the abbot monks to
take the responsibility for preventing any move of making various kinds of
demand for staging a strike. As these activities are not pursuant to those
of a civilized society, we, the All-Burma Young Monk Union (ABYMU),
strongly denounce them. 
2. The Sangha examinees have warned that if the  SPDC fails to comply with
their demands by March 30, 1998, strikes will be staged nation-wide, during
the exam period, starting from 7 cities. The demands are:
(a) To have freedom in the exam;
(b) To permit all the student Sanghas to appear in the exam;
(c) To pass all the Sanghas who were accepted to appear in the exam in 1997
academic year;
(d) To withdraw the arrangement to supervise of the exam by the soldiers;
(e) To release all the Sanghas in prisons;
(f) To settle the case of the loss of sacred relics enshrined in the living
Buddha Image of Mahamyatmuni.
3. The Sangha Higher Grade Pali Exams were held during the feudal days of
Yadanabon era and the British colonial period, but there had never been any
interference, like the SPDC,  by the governments of those days, and it is
found that the exams were always free.
4. As the situation is becoming tense, we, the ABYMU, would like to urge
all the  organizations at home and abroad, fighting for democracy and human
rights, to be on the alert, so as to demonstrate in support, if and when a
strike breaks out.
5. The ABYMU has been in consultation with the student and the ethnic
forces at home,  and the democratic forces abroad, and shall respond as
necessary.

All-Burma Buddhist Monks are Reverently Urged to Unite!

                               Central Leading Committee
                               All-Burma Young Monks Union 
March, 28, 1998