Nationalist monks angered by Myanmar official’s comment

By Kyaw Ye Lynn

YANGON, Myanmar (AA) – Nationalist monks have demanded an apology from Myanmar’s government and ruling party over a senior official’s comment against an ultra-nationalist organization that rights group have accused of inciting anti-Muslim violence in past years.

The Association for the Protection of Race and Religion, better known as Ma Ba Tha in its Burmese acronym, held a contingency meeting Thursday in its headquarters in Yangon after the commercial capital’s chief minister Phyo Min Thein criticized its existence.

Ma Ba Tha’s firebrand monk Wirathu told reporters after the gathering, “we demand an apology from the government and the National League for Democracy [NLD] party within one week… Otherwise they would face a series of activities against them.”

He added that Ma Ba Tha plans to send complaint letters to President Htin Kyaw, State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi and NLD patron Tin Oo over the comments of Phyo Min Thein, an NLD member.

In a meeting with the Myanmar community in Singapore last week, Phyo Min Thein had questioned the need for Ma Ba Tha’s existence as the country already has Ma Ha Na, the government-sponsored State Sangha Mahayanaka Committee tasked with regulating Buddhist orders.

On Wednesday evening, nearly a dozen Ma Ba Tha supporters gathered outside Yangon International Airport to protest Phyo Min Thein upon his return from Singapore.

Speaking to media at the airport, Phyo Min Thein reiterated his comment.

“In fact, since Ma Ha Na already exists in Myanmar, the country does not need Ma Ba Tha,” he was quoted as saying by local media.

Prior to Thursday’s meeting, Ma Ba Tha chairman Tilawka Bhivamsa -- also known as the Insein Ywama Sayadaw -- had said the NLD must address if Phyo Min Thein’s comment represented the party’s policy toward the group.

After the NLD won the Nov. 8 election, a group of monks from Ma Ba Tha accompanied marchers campaigning in February against any change to a law that could have seen Suu Kyi become president, however others said they had no problem with her leading the country.

Ma Ba Tha rose to prominence on the back of communal violence between Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims which broke out in western Rakhine state in mid-2012, and pressured former President Thein Sein into enacting a set of four Race and Religion Protection Laws deemed to target Muslims.

Anti-Muslim rhetoric from Ma Ba Tha has been seen as deliberately stoking the flames of religious hatred against the country's Muslims, with Wirathu blaming them for communal conflicts, and accusing them of attempting to 'Islamize' the country of 57 million people.