Late monk’s prophecy says the generals’ days are numbered

 
The Abbot of Chaungwa Temple in Rangoon’s Hlaing township was said to have foretold the following before his death:

• Mandalay Pya Pon (Mandalay will become a heap of ashes)
• Yangon A-Hmike Pon (Rangoon will become a heap of garbage)
• Pyinmana Ayo Pon (Pyinmana will become a heap of bones)

 
Pyinmana is the town where the ruling junta had established Burma’s new capital Naypyidaw in 2005.
 
Mandalay was gutted by fire on 25 February and Rangoon by the Cyclone Nargis on 2 May. “Now the only prophecy left to be fulfilled is Pyinmana Ayo Pon,” said a Shan Rangooner. “Some people are even warning their relatives working in Pyinmana to stay clear of it.”
 
Another forecast made in the New Year also say January to May are the months for people to endure extreme miseries. “From June thenceforth, it would be the rulers’ turn to suffer. The rumor is that the generals have also taken heart to it and are depending on their own astrologers to avert the oncoming disaster,” he said.
 
Other omens, considered ill, have also become the talk of the town:

• Two Moonless days in a month in August (“King Thibaw was taken and exiled to India in such a year,” a neighbor was quoted as saying)
• Bamboos bearing too many flowers which is unusual (“They are known as flowers of gloom, according to the elderly Shans”, he said. “Our Burman neighbors also hold the same belief.”)

“As in 1885, where the third and last Anglo-Burman war was fought, elders fear the country may be in for hostilities,” he added, “and they have urged their children and grandchildren to hoard up rice and salt, despite the soaring prices.”
 
A few others also likened Cyclone Nargis to the 10 plagues in the Bible which Moses called down to force the Egyptian king to allow the Hebrew slaves to go free. “The Encyclopedia of World Religions” (1998 by Book Builders Inc) noted that the disasters appear to be “loosely related” to natural phenomena.
 
Burma has been under military rule for 46 years.

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