Our Background
The 1988 democracy uprising in Burma swept away its 26-year old military rule in name only since a new military regime the so-called State Law and Order Restoration Council [SLORC] (new Burmese military regime) is still shamelessly clinging to the people‘s power and severely controlling the country. The Burmese military regime is openly challenging the world by refusing to take responsibility for its gross human rights violations as well as by ignoring the results of May 27, election, and they dogmatically declare that they intend to rule Burma in the future.A large number of elected representatives, students, respected monks, and activists remain in prisons. Rapes, killings, and arresting of innocent people as slave labors occur in several villages. Grave human rights violations increase, and thousands of people are fleeing the country to take sanctuary along the Thai-Burma border
As we have been fighting the Burmese military regime since 1988 uprising, we Mons are deeply concerned about the human rights violations and devastating in our homeland. We are Mon Buddhist Monks, Mon students, and Mon activists of the 1988 uprising. In solidarity with our comrades who have been fighting the Burmese military regime and all the oppressed people Burma, we wholeheartedly founded the Monland Restoration Council [MRC] on the 5th of November 1993 in the United States of America in order to fulfill the following objectives:
Our Objectives
1. To work to end civil war in Burma and to struggle for the establishment of a genuine democratic federal union of Burma that guarantees autonomy, equality, and ethnic nationalities’ rights to self-determination.
2. To defend the basic human rights of the Mon people, and to strive to restore the language, culture, literature and customs (that have been suppressed by the successive Burmese military)
3. To assist those Mon refugees who have been persecuted by the Burmese military.
4. To destroy and annihilate the inhuman cruel practices that the military have adopted and to establish everlasting peace.
a. Our Program, b. Our Belief, c. Our Commitment
a. Our program – The Monland Restoration Council embraces a political program for peace and will adopt the path of non violence. To obtain retain power by means of violence and guns will shunned. Power obtained unlawfully by force of arms is denounced.
b. Our Belief — The peace will never be obtained by force of arms without a mandate from people. To obtain the support of the people, a genuine democratic federal state must be established ( Union of federated states). Only then will genuine peace prevail.
c. Our Commitment — As peace loving politicians living in foreign lands striving to obtain peace for the fifty million people in Burma we commit ourselves to be armed not with murder weapons but with four noble virtues of Brahmavishara (i.e. Mitta, Karuna, Mudita, Uppakkha).