Holocaust of Mon

The Mon are a people of Burma, subjected to many invasions since 2500 B.C.

Among the present inhabitants of Burma today, the Mon are the oldest. They arrived in Burma as early as 2500 B.C. The Mon people had established their own sovereign kingdoms and enjoyed freedom and prosperity for so many centuries. However, because of successive Burman rulers aggressive policies toward the Mon, Mon kingdoms were invaded and occupied by Burman many times.

The last occupation of Mon Kingdom by Burman was Hongsawatoi or Pegu, which covered the whole of today's Lower Burma. It was occupied by the Burman King, Aung Zay Ya (Alaung Phaya) on the 8th waning day of the second month of the year 1110 of the Mon/Burmese lunar calendar (Christian Era AD 1757). This occupation became the most cruel military occupation in Burmese history because it was not only conquering the land of the Mon but also an attempt to exterminate Mon people.

After the annexation of the kingdom, the blood-thirsty Burman king, Aung Zay Ya, cold-bloodily exterminated hundreds of thousands of non-combatant innocent Mon people. In the capital city of Hongsawatoi alone, more than 7,000 pregnant women, 6,000 infant, and 5,000 children were brutally massacred . Most of them were forced into several stockades and burnt them alive. Over 3,000 Mon Buddhist monks were also executed in various most cruel methods, including forced trampling by elephants. The extermination of the Mon people by the Burman king was tantamount to the destruction of Jews by the Nazis during the Second World War.

To escape the genocidal operations of the Burman king, hundreds of thousands of the populace fled into neighboring Siam (Thailand) for asylum. Since the fall of the last kingdom, the Mon people have been left without a country. Today, the Mon people, are struggling for fundamental rights such as teaching Mon language and literature, practicing Mon cultures, and self-determination for Mon people in Burma.