Open the Door, Jailer

The main cellblock of Rangoon's big central jail rang to a chorus of angry chants: "Rebellion, Rebellion; Rise, Rise. Jail, Jail; Open, Open!" The Prisoners' Union -- latest manifestation of a contagious Burman fever for organizing -- was holding a protest meeting.

The 40 members listened gravely to their leaders (two well-educated robbers) and solemnly passed a resolution, proposed by a Buddhist monk, which censured the Government for using batons in breaking up Communist demonstrations, and arresting demonstrators before their wounds had healed. The prisoners warned that if the Government did not meet its demands, the union would not be responsible for unrest in the jail.

Unable to back up their protests by walking out, as had inmates of Rangoon's leper colony (TIME, Dec. 9), the prisoners joined three jailed women Communists in a hunger strike.

There were many Communists in Burma's jails, but Rangoon's police itched to get their fingers on one more. Hefty Thakin Soe had cost them face. Arrested, he slipped out of their grip and fled into Rangoon's famed Shwe Dagon Pagoda. Police right behind him had to stop and remove their boots before entering the Buddhist temple. For most of a day bootless police combed its labyrinth of passages and rest houses, guarded every exit. They paid little heed to a bent and evidently blind nun who slowly made her way down the main steps. Not until much later did the police learn that the blind Buddhist nun was Communist Thakin Soe.

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