——Recalling the 1968 Burmese Annual“Khutdaung”in the GDR

   by Maung Chan ( Burma’s Chinese)

   In the Burmese annual “Khutdaung” issued in the GDR,I have published in 1968 an article with the title “Debts of blood Must Be Paid in Blood!”.

    I can still remember:

   It was very dark mid-night, with the dead silence surrounding the foreign student hostel of Dresden University when I wrote the article “Debts of blood Must Be Paid in Blood! ”.

   Although having passed already 6 painful years, at that very night I still could see clearly before me how our Rangoon University students had been shot dead by the military regime on 7 July 1962.

   More than 120 students with lifeblood, were standing in front of me, shouting and denouncing:

   --We demontstate peacefully, WHY kill us!?

   --A desire for democracy is death crime?

   --General Ne Win announced via radio: “knifes against knifes, guns against guns!”.

   But look! they have weapens and we have nothing!”

   --The junta dynamited our anti-colonial Students Union Building, with the protesting students inside...... Are they Buddhist?! Are they mankind?!

   By writing the article "Debts of blood Must Be Paid in Blood!",I cried the whole night:

   “Dear schoolfellows! you died for democracy and freedom! I respect you whole of my life! I was lucky not to be shot dead! Now I am abroad enjoying democracy and freedom. If I still keep silent and do nothing, how can I face you patriot?! how can I face your parents who have lost heroic sons and daughters?! How can I face the suffering people of all our ethnic nationalities ?! ”

    “We students held high the flag of fighting peacock, used effectively the student magazine “Khutdaung”and struggled bravely against the English colonists during the colonial time.We have been using the same flag and the same magazine fighting the dictatorial junta since 1962”.

   “in 1967 the Burmese students in Prag published the Fighting Peacock annual. They were punished severely: their scholarships were cut off and their parents were penalized. It was our turn in GDR to publish the magazine in 1968".

   “ It is incumbent upon us to do so. We must hold high the flag of a righteous cause and wage the just struggle!”

    Recalling the junta massacring students, city-people and monks ,

   Remembering the junta killing, plundering ,burning and raping the ethnic people,

   Thinking of the junta robbing the hard-working Burma’s Chinese by means of “natinalization” and discriminating them by Burmese Chauvinism..........

   I wrote in red-ink the article with the title “Debts of blood Must Be Paid in Blood!”

   YES! Debts of blood Must Be, Indeed , Paid in Blood!

   （7-7-2006）