Shwedagone Pagoda (where most of the monks went to pray before demonstrating) seen through a glass murkily -- pastel drawing and photograph copyright Kyi May Kaung.There is some descrepancy between the write-up in English and the detailed original reporting by Thar Nyunt Oo in Burmese. I think it is due to the English write-up being a summary, so many salients facts have been glossed over and generalized.
If you understand Burmese, make sure you listen to the Burmese sound bites! Or get someone who does to do so and summarize/translate for you.
The English version just says Pinhiero went to Bago (spelled Pegu, when Burma was still officially called Burma). It is about 40 miles from Rangoon, where most of the demonstrations took place. I doubt many foreigners will know where Bago or Pegu is. I saw an international TV newscast recently where "Rangoon" was shown at the southernmost tip of the Indian subcontinent. I know Americans and maybe most Westerners are very insular and not international, and the National Geographic famously conducted a survey once which showed Americans general ignorance of world geography. But this was ridiculous.
Thar Nyunt Oo's report points out through several interviews that if Pinhiero is just"escorted" around to the places his military regime guides take him, his trip won't be much use.
The Kya Hkat Waing monastery's head abbot in Pegu, whom Pinhiero was taken to see by the junta authorities, is the notorious one who "complained" to authorities on Sept 24th, that a glass window in his monastery was broken because 2 monks threw empty water bottles into his garden! I suppose that was a government set up to illustrate the demonstrators were "violent."
The Mah Soe Yein Sayadaw ("Not to Fret" Abbot) in exile that Thar Nyunt Oo talked to said, (if Pinhiero goes there, to Kya Khat Waing) "he will only get the point of view of a pro-junta monk."
Ko Bo Kyi of AAPPB (Association for the Assistance of Political Prisoners Burma) said that he had met Pinhiero in person and had full confidence in Pinhiero himself "as he has his own experiences with an authoritarian government" but "it won't be much use if he can't go where he wishes, like Gambari." Bo Kyi said that he had already given the detailed statistics he had collected to Mr. Pinhiero as an official report.
Another interviewee said that Pinhiero for sure needs to see Min Ko Naing and other 1988 leaders still under detention, and go to the monasteries that were raided and sacked.
I want to stress here I am only giving an impressionistic summary. If you need a exact verbatim translation it would be best to approach VOA or have someone do it independently.
The English version gives a rather positive impression of Pinhiero's trip while the original reporting in Burmese by Thar Nyunt Oo does not.
Commentary here copyright Kyi May Kaung.
