Buddhist monks in Myanmar excommunicate junta, protest again

While this may not sound like much in the western world, this means everything in Myanmar where the population is very Buddhist. Taking firm action like this is incredibly bold and potentially dangerous, as in deadly.

Thousands of Buddhist monks marching in defiance of Burma's oppressive military regime have decided to excommunicate the government and its supporters by refusing alms or donations from anyone linked to the junta. At one of several ceremonies held before saffron-robed clerics marched peacefully through the former colonial capital, Rangoon, and other cities this week, the monks vowed to refuse offerings from the "pitiless soldier kings" in charge of the country now known as Myanmar.

"Reverend clergy, may you listen to my words," a Buddhist abbot told one such gathering. "The violent, mean, cruel, ruthless, pitiless kings – the great thieves who live by stealing from the national treasury – have killed a monk at Pakokku and also arrested reverend clergymen by trussing them up with rope. They beat and tortured, verbally abused and threatened them.

"The clergy ... must boycott the violent, mean, cruel, ruthless, pitiless soldier kings. They must also refuse donations and preaching. This is to inform, advise and propose."

With the monks entering their fourth day of protest which is unheard of in Myanmar, tensions have to be high. In a country where government control is enforced through arrest, torture and hard labor this is an absolutely incredible display of peaceful protest for human rights. Think of the US civil rights movements in the 1950s and 1960s or Gandhi in India.