KEY POINTS:
YANGON - "We cannot turn back now. Whether it takes a month, a year or more, we will not stop."
With his robes pulled around his knees, rocking back and forth on a low, wooden stool, the senior monk spoke quietly but determinedly.
Over the past few days, the monk, in his early 60s, has seen many of his fellow Buddhists rounded up and carted away as Myanmar's military regime brutally cracked down on protests.
Pools of blood stain monastery doorways, memories linger of monks as young as 15 being clobbered over the head with truncheons and rifle butts. But it is the atrocities which the Burmese people have suffered that he wants to discuss.
The people are living under rulers busy enriching themselves with natural gas, timber, and diamonds, while spending less on health care per head than nearly any other country on earth.
"As monks, we see everything in society. We go everywhere, to ask for our food and we see how people live. We know that they give to us when they themselves do not have enough to eat, because there is no work and the costs of living are so high. We also see how the wealthy live. We see how everything is getting worse and worse."
He said they will continue the fight: "We knew well the risks before we started. It is up to us. We have to see this through to the end, whatever the end will be."
Inside the monastery, for now untouched by soldiers, monks are gathered around a television, apparently glued to a gymnastics display. On closer examination, the soundtrack is the Democratic Voice of Burma, broadcasting reports from exiled journalists in Norway.
The monks can monitor the backlash against the junta, but quickly flick the covert soundtrack off, should the military's prying eyes come calling.
- Independent
