Now banned to foreign journalists and lacking an Internet connection to the outside world, Myanmar’s citizens have recently faced turmoil at the hands of an oppressive regime, and on Friday, a group of student activists half a world away took the initiative to try to speak for the many Burmese demonstrators who have been silenced.
About 50 protesters dressed in red marched from the John Harvard Statue at Harvard University to Harvard Square to protest the military regime known as the State Peace and Development Council in Myanmar.
In response to a drastic increase in gas and oil prices in the country, Buddhist monks in Myanmar have taken to the streets by the thousands in peaceful protest of the military junta, said Shanti Maung, a Harvard University senior and president of the Burma Action Movement.
“The military raised the price of gas to five times the amount and oil to two times the amount,” Maung said. “So now ordinary people have a hard time affording just rice, much less the transportation to go to work everyday.”
Led by two Chinese nuns from the Boston Buddhist Cultural Center, protesters at Harvard rallied together with chants for peace and freedom commonly recited by monks in Myanmar.
“This is a global issue,” said Man Kuang, a Chinese nun. “I think everything can be cured peacefully.”
On Sept. 23, The New York Times reported 20,000 monks marched through the streets of Rangoon toward the home of Aung San Suu Kyi, a pro-democracy activist who was elected prime minister in 1990 but blocked from the position by the military.
Marchers were met by armed troops, barbed wire and additional barricades, preventing them from reaching Suu Kyi’s home.
The junta has oppressed the people of Myanmar since taking power in 1988, culminating most recently in today’s high fuel prices, which Maung said inspired her to organize the protest in Cambridge to spread information few people are aware of.
The current protests in Myanmar are the first to gain widespread support in the country in almost two decades, said Aung Kgaw, a protester who also attended the 1988 Burma uprising.
“Today, the whole world is watching Burma, the Burma government,” he said. “So they cannot do as they wish.”
Rep. Byron Rushing (D-Cambridge) called for increased pressure on nations with close economic ties to Myanmar — such as China, Japan and India — to prompt faster intervention from the United Nations.
“It’s so exciting, after all of these years of intimidation and suppression, to see people come out on the streets and demand [the Burmese people’s] freedom,” Rushing said. “We will stand with you.”
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