Monday, March 12, 2018

The Irrawaddy Magazine

The Irrawaddy Magazine

Public Lacks Understanding of Gov’t Finances, Groups Say

Posted: 12 Mar 2018 07:57 AM PDT

CHIANG MAI, Thailand – The Myanmar public needs to be better educated about budget information, civil society organizations said, as such information plays a key role in their advocacy, development and humanitarian support work.

As part of this awareness campaign, the national development organization Local Resource Centre (LRC) and the international development organization Asia Foundation co-organized the State Budget Transparency Forum in Naypyitaw on March 10-11.

The forum was aimed at informing CSO workers, lawmakers and public servants about the need to increase budget transparency, boosting their knowledge of public financial management and strengthening cooperation among the various states and regions of Myanmar, the two groups said in a press release.

"The Public Accounts Committee also shared its view, developed at discussion forums we have held since last year, that state and regional lawmakers should work with CSOs to ensure transparency in budgeting," said U Nyi Nyi Aung, the LRC's programme director.

In recent years, Myanmar's reforms to improve fiscal transparency have led to the establishment of new institutions such as the Public Accounts Committee and the Treasury Department at the Union level, as well as new practices such as the publication of citizens' budgets at the state and regional levels and dissemination of the Union Budget Law on the Ministry of Finance website.

The Asia Foundation and the LRC have conducted a series of budget transparency forums at the state and regional levels since 2017. The first was held in Yangon in December of that year; over 50 people from CSOs in Bago and Magwe regions and Rakhine and Kayah states participated. They discussed the roles of CSOs in public finance management, ways to improve budget transparency and issues related to gender and disability.

In January, the second and third forums were conducted in Mandalay and Mawlamyine. In Mandalay, CSOs from Sagaing region, Shan, Chin and Kachin states participated, while the Mawlamyine event drew CSOs from Yangon and Tanintharyi regions and Mon and Karen states.

U Nyi Nyi Aung said the forums had raised the "awareness of the participants, including regional lawmakers and civil society representatives, about how to access the budget and about existing laws. It also made the CSOs aware of the process, and how to take part."

He said the goal is for the public and the CSOs to become conscious that "civic participation is the key to monitoring any abuses in the budget expenditures, so that we can help to decrease corruption and ensure the accountability of the government."

As the state budget is now based on taxation — despite tax receipts still being relatively rare — the public is becoming more interested in getting budget information, U Nyi Nyi Aung said.

"But there is so much more that needs to be done, because some state and regional governments have not been able to release citizens' budgets, while a few others [states/regions] have," he said. "The parliamentarians told us that the long process and time limitations are some of the challenges they are facing."

On Sunday, the forum saw the launch of two research reports: "Attitudes Towards Taxation in Myanmar: Insights from Urban Citizens" and "Budget Monitoring and Oversight System in Myanmar" by the Asia Foundation.

"Attitudes Towards Taxation in Myanmar" was based on the City Life Survey conducted in five urban areas in Yangon, Paan in Karen state and Taunggyi in Shan State in 2017. It found that people are "not strongly anti-tax" and that urban people, who are generally more knowledgeable than rural populations, consider paying income, commercial and property taxes as fair.

However, "Urban residents prefer a progressive tax system whereby the rich pay more of their income as tax than the poor," according to a summary of the study's findings. "At the same time, Myanmar's urban citizens have a poor understanding of the tax system," it adds.

The post Public Lacks Understanding of Gov't Finances, Groups Say appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Kachin Designers Stage Fashion Show for Charity

Posted: 12 Mar 2018 05:07 AM PDT

YANGON — Eight well-known Kachin designers will join the One1ness Kachin Charity Fashion Show later this month to raise money for people in Kachin and Shan states displaced by war and natural disasters.

The show is being organized by the Ma Naw Ah Hla Charity Group and will take place on March 25 at Taw Win Garden from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m.

"The Ma Naw Ah Hla Charity Group includes Kachin singers, models and fashion designers, and we intend to donate to all kinds of people who need help," said L Khun Yi, the group’s president.

"Yes, we are a Kachin charity group, but we are willing to help other ethnic groups as well. That's why this time we plan to go to Shan State and support the people who need help," she said.

Models sporting some of the creations of the designers in the show. / Supplied

The fashion designers joining the show include Y Stone (Yaw Bawn), Mr. Jet (Laiza), Ahlatt Lummuyang, Lazing Gamhtoi, Seng Latt (Maka), Htu Aung Gunhtang, Zau Send (Man Made) and Ah Put. Some 50 models will be sporting their creations.

Kachin singers L Sai Zi, L Loon War, N Kai Yar and others will also perform at the event.

"This is the second time I am participating in this event, and I'm so happy that I can help people with my design knowledge thanks to everyone who is helping us with this event," said Y Stone.

Tickets are 10,000 kyat and 20,000 kyat per person. The organizers will inform the public where to buy tickets later.

The post Kachin Designers Stage Fashion Show for Charity appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

U Win Tin’s Lasting Legacy

Posted: 12 Mar 2018 03:54 AM PDT

U Win Tin, who died four years ago, would have been 88 today. On his birthday, The Irrawaddy looks back on the enduring legacy of the beloved democracy activist, journalist and long-time political prisoner, who lives on as an emblem of persistence and bravery for those seeking true democratic change in Myanmar.

He spent 19 years in prison for his opposition to the former military regime, but his principles never wavered. With this article from The Irrawaddy archives, originally published on April 22, 2014, we revisit what it was he stood for and his relevance today.

Burma has much to learn from the life of veteran journalist and pro-democracy activist Win Tin, a man of courage and integrity who passed away on Monday morning while seeking care for several health ailments at a general hospital in Rangoon.

The 84-year-old was a founding member of the National League for Democracy (NLD) party, led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. She called him "a man of courage and integrity" and said he was instrumental in spearheading the country's democracy movement.

But for any oppressive government, Win Tin was a great enemy. Due to his political activities, the former regime put him in jail for nearly two decades, tortured him, withheld medical treatment and confiscated his home. When they eventually released him in 2008, they demanded that he remain on parole. Still, despite their pressure, he never backed down from his principles.

While in prison, Win Tin created a motto, known in Burmese as Suu Hlut Twe, which laid out a simple and suitable path toward democracy. If Burma's ruling leaders are even remotely serious about their current reform process, they would do well to take his message to heart.

Suu stands for Suu Kyi and the release of all political prisoners. Hlut, a shortening of the Burmese word Hluttaw, or parliament, refers to the assembly of a national legislature with representatives who were chosen in the 1990 election, which the NLD won by landslide. Twe, the Burmese word for "meeting," refers to political dialogue between the ruling government and opposition groups.

This motto was quickly embraced by political prisoners and opposition politicians, but calls for Suu Hlut Twe fell on deaf ears within the former military regime, led by dictator Snr-Gen Than Shwe. Today under President Thein Sein, the dictator's hand-picked leader for a reformist government, some progress has been made on the first of Win Tin's three principles. Since 2011, nearly 2,000 political prisoners have been released from jail, although some remain behind bars.

The second principle, Hlut, has never fully come to fruition. The results of the 1990 election were nullified by Than Shwe's regime, which subsequently rigged the 2010 elections to ensure that the majority of seats in Parliament were filled by representatives of the ruling party. Still, free and fair by-elections in 2012 saw Suu Kyi and other NLD members earn 43 seats in the legislature, moving somewhat closer toward Win Tin's vision.

Political dialogue, the last principle, is the most important. Opposition groups have called repeatedly to negotiate with ruling leaders over the past two decades, with support from the United Nations and others in the international community, but political dialogue has yet to occur. In dealing with ethnic groups, Naypyidaw continues to delay substantive talks about political issues, saying it must first secure a nationwide ceasefire. Meanwhile, Suu Kyi's requests for four-way talks with Thein Sein, the army chief and the speaker of Parliament have been ignored, in an embarrassing show of the government's shaky commitment to reform.

Perhaps we should look elsewhere for advice on these matters. In particular, the Burmese today can learn from South Africa's struggle to dismantle the apartheid system. During a speech in 2012 at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, former South African President F.W. de Klerk shared how he and Nelson Mandela worked to adopt their country's first fully democratic constitution in late 1993. He offered five lessons for transitioning to democracy.

"First, if you want to break out of the cycle of violence, if you want to lay the foundations for a more prosperous society, if you want to democratize, then the departure point is that leaders must become convinced that fundamental change is necessary," he said.

The movement to end apartheid eventually won support from both black and white leaders in South Africa. But in Burma, despite some progress over the past three years, the government does not seem convinced that fundamental change is necessary, especially since limited reforms have already won praise from the international community.

"Secondly," de Klerk said, "any new dispensation will best succeed if it is based on agreements forged in inclusive negotiations. Why do I put the emphasis on 'inclusive' negotiations? In most conflicts there are many parties involved in the conflict, with different agendas, with different concerns, with different fears and different aspirations.

"And only if you reach an agreement based on a broad consensus—one that is inclusive of an overwhelming majority of the population, who then say, 'We take ownership of this new constitution, of the principles of this agreement reached in negotiations'—can you be sure that it will last."

In a third and related point, the former president said, "Such negotiations, and the agreements reached as the result of negotiation, must accommodate the reasonable concerns and aspirations of the parties to the conflict. This means sacrifice from all sides. It means that the negotiation process should not end with victor and vanquished. The point I want to make is the negotiations must be on a give-and-take basis. Everyone has to have some pain, but everyone also has to get some satisfaction out of the negotiations."

In Burma, inclusiveness is scant. There is no give and take in negotiations, as the government allows only limited input from opposition and ethnic groups.

Fourth, de Klerk said it was necessary to "strike a balance between unity and diversity."

"The challenge is how to accommodate diversity, how to manage diversity. And if you want to resolve the problems, if you want to bring peace to those countries in transition, you need to strike a balance between unity and diversity," he said. "Important minorities need to feel that they are not marginalized, that they are recognized as important constituent parts of the whole."

This is a complicated issue for Burma, a country comprising many ethnic minority groups which have fought against the government for several decades. The ruling party remains unwilling to establish a federal system, as ethnic groups have requested.

Finally, de Klerk spoke about finding a formula for dealing with past political crimes.

"In many countries there is one big stumbling block to successful negotiation. It is one that prevents leaders from taking initiative to change the situation, to move toward democracy, toward greater freedom. It can be summed up in two questions: 'But if I lose power, will I go to jail? Will there be retribution against me?'" he said.

Burma's former generals definitely live in a similar state of fear, as do the country's current military leaders, government officials and lawmakers from the ruling party. In this regard, the option of a mass amnesty might be discussed during political dialogue between the government and opposition groups, following in the footsteps of negotiations in South Africa. Opposition leaders here would likely be willing to let go of desires for retribution in exchange for full inclusion in a genuine reform process.

But again, this can only happen if political dialogue occurs, which brings us back to the third principle of Win Tin's motto: Twe. Without dialogue, this country will never reach democracy. And unless the ruling leaders, including military leaders, believe that fundamental change is necessary, dialogue will never take place.

Unfortunately, although the ruling leaders who viewed Win Tin as "hard-liner" might shed crocodile tears on his death, they will likely not take his political suggestions seriously. The past three years of reform have offered little indication that the country's military leaders believe in fundamental change.

As a pragmatist, Win Tin understood this, which is why he did not trust Thein Sein's government. During an interview at his home in 2012, the veteran journalist told me that leading members of the current government could be seen as "a bunch of thieves."

He added, "All of us, including journalists, are still in the tunnel. Journalists must break out if there is no exit."

Living alone for many years, even before his arrest, Win Tin seemed to have just one attachment in life: the fight for democracy. "I will try to dismantle the military dictatorship until my final breath, with all my remaining strength and power," he told The Irrawaddy before the 2010 elections.

Until the very end, he stayed true to that promise. With his passing, Burma has lost a great man.

The post U Win Tin’s Lasting Legacy appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

TNLA Claims 3 Kills in Latest Clash with Rival Armed Group

Posted: 12 Mar 2018 01:44 AM PDT

YANGON — The Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) says its soldiers killed three members of the Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS) and seized some of the rival ethnic armed group’s weapons and ammunition during two days of fighting in northern Shan State.

TNLA spokesman Colonel Tar Aike Kyaw said the two groups clashed on Saturday and Sunday, first along the border between Kyaukme and Namhsan townships — where it says the RCSS was building a new base and its three soldiers were killed — and the next day in Namtu Township.

"They tried to establish a new base in our area of control, so we attacked them to make them leave our area," said Col. Tar Aike Kyaw.

"Some of our members were wounded, but no one was killed," he said.

The TNLA first attacked the RCSS base in January. But is says the Myanmar Army, or Tatmadaw, attacked its soldiers to help the RCSS and drove them back.

Col. Tar Aike Kyaw said Sunday’s fighting in Namtu broke out when TNLA and RCSS soldiers confronted each other in a local village.

"We told them not to enter our area of control, but they tried to get inside," the spokesman said.

A spokesman for the RCSS, Colonel Sai Oo, said he did not know about the fighting.

The TNLA and RCSS clashed repeatedly in northern Shan State last year, driving hundreds of villagers from their homes. Some have since returned home, but others remain in camps, mostly in Namtu.

The RCSS concentrates its forces mainly in the south of Shan State, near the Thai border. The TNLA accuses the group of deploying more of its soldiers in the north after it signed the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement with the government and Tatmadaw in 2015, though the RCSS says it has always had soldiers in the area.

The TNLA has not signed the ceasefire agreement and occasionally clashes with the Tatmadaw as well.

The post TNLA Claims 3 Kills in Latest Clash with Rival Armed Group appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Police Arrest Elephant Poaching Ring in Irrawaddy Region

Posted: 12 Mar 2018 12:32 AM PDT

PATHEIN, Irrawaddy Region — The Forestry Police arrested an elephant poaching ring in Irrawaddy Region's Ngapudaw Township on March 9.

Acting on a tip, combined forces from the Forestry Police, Nga Yoke Kaung sub-township police department, the Forestry Department, village administrators and Elephant Emergency Response Units (EERU) cornered the ring in Myittayar Forest Reserve in Ngapudaw Township. Two poachers were arrested and one escaped, local village tract administrator U Kyaw Myint Tun told The Irrawaddy.

"We arrested two hunters with poaching equipment. Another poacher got away, but we are going after him. We are undertaking plans to prevent elephant poaching in our region," he said.

The two hunters who were arrested are respectively from Rakhine State's Taungup Township and Ngapudaw Township. The third poacher from Magwe Region is still at large.

Percussion firearms, metal bolts, iron rods, arrows, gunpowder and more were seized from the poachers, according to the Forestry Police.

"It is important to arrest poachers before they kill an elephant," said Ko Sai Zaw Oo, an official of a local elephant conservation group in Ngapudaw Township.

Equipment used in elephant poaching. / The Irrawaddy

Police have opened a case against the two poachers. Last year, 13 wild elephants were killed in Pathein, Ngapudaw and Thabaung, and Irrawaddy Region remains the main elephant poaching ground in Myanmar.

In February, the European Union urged the Myanmar government to strengthen efforts to protect its wild elephant population, warning that it is on the brink of extinction due to poaching to supply the illegal trade of ivory and skins.

EU ambassadors also urged the Myanmar government to end the open sale of elephant and other illegal wildlife parts in markets in its major cities, at popular tourist sites and along its borders.

According to WWF-Myanmar, at least one elephant is killed by hunters in Myanmar every week. Elephant skin, hair, teeth and ivory are sold at tourist sites such as the Golden Rock (Kyaiktiyo Pagoda in Bago Region), while ivory is sold in Yangon and Mandalay. Large markets also operate in the 'Golden Triangle' border area Myanmar shares with China, Laos and Thailand.

In mid-February, the government launched The Myanmar Elephant Conservation Action Plan (MECAP), a strategy for the next 10 years (2018–27) with the overall aim of securing viable and ecologically functional elephant populations in Myanmar for the next century and beyond with support from international and local organizations.

According to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation, 18 wild elephants were poached in 2016, and 30 were killed last year. The current population is estimated at just 1,400-2,000, compared to 10,000 in 1997.

Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko.

The post Police Arrest Elephant Poaching Ring in Irrawaddy Region appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Not Just Theater: US Officials Defend Trump-Kim Meeting

Posted: 11 Mar 2018 10:00 PM PDT

WASHINGTON — US officials on Sunday defended President Donald Trump’s decision to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, saying the move was not just for show and not a gift to Pyongyang.

“President Trump isn’t doing this for theater. He’s going to solve a problem,” said Central Intelligence Agency Director Mike Pompeo on the “Fox News Sunday” program.

The United States expects North Korea to halt all nuclear and missile testing in advance of any meeting, Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said on Sunday news shows.

The goal of the meeting remains denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, something Kim has agreed to discuss, they said. Pompeo said US military exercises in the region would continue in the lead-up to the talks.

The Republican president agreed on Thursday to accept an invitation from the North Korean leader to meet by May after months of escalating tensions over Pyongyang’s advancing nuclear and missile programs.

Trump would become the first sitting US president to meet with a leader of the reclusive country. The two men would face each other after a public volley of insults, with Trump calling Kim “Little Rocket Man” and Kim referring to Trump as a “dotard.”

No venue or date for the meeting has been determined, but Trump’s prompt acceptance set off a flurry of activity.

The South Korean officials who carried Kim’s invitation to Washington will split up to visit the leaders of China and Japan this week to update them on the talks, a South Korean presidential official said on Sunday.

China, North Korea’s main ally, has encouraged dialogue over Pyongyang’s nuclear program, and its state media on Saturday credited Beijing for helping ease tensions.

“China continues to be helpful!” Trump tweeted on Saturday.

North Korea’s leaders have sought a face-to-face meeting with a US president for decades but have been rebuffed over human rights concerns as well as the nuclear ambitions.

US student Otto Warmbier died last summer shortly after his release from a 17-month detention. Three Americans remain detained in North Korea.

Many Democrats as well as Trump’s fellow Republicans said the United States should have demanded concessions before granting North Korea a meeting.

“Before they get that kind of prize, we should insist that they make some real changes, verifiable changes to their programs,” Democratic US Senator Elizabeth Warren said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Warren said she was worried the North would “take advantage” of Trump.

“Eyes Wide Open”

Pompeo and Mnuchin said the United States would make no concessions and would keep the pressure on North Korea by maintaining economic sanctions and a strong US defense posture before the meeting. They also dismissed criticism that Trump’s decision to meet elevated the North Korean leader on an international stage.

“This administration has its eyes wide open, and the whole time this conversation takes place the pressure will continue to mount on North Korea,” Pompeo said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

The United States slapped sanctions on individuals and groups in North Korea in October over “flagrant” human rights abuses and added sanctions in February.

Six Republican senators last week sent a letter asking Trump to share his plan to keep up pressure on “this heinous regime.”

One of them, Republican Cory Gardner, told CBS on Sunday it was important to see concrete steps from North Korea before the meeting. “After this meeting, there’s going to be very little left of that diplomatic runway,” he said.

Mnuchin addressed criticism that Trump has not used more diplomacy to contain Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions. “So the president is going to sit down and see if he can cut a deal,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

The prospect of doing something no American president has done — especially on such an intractable geopolitical problem — was irresistible to Trump, Eurasia Group President Ian Bremmer said on CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS.”

“So it’s the first. It’s incredible television. Clearly Trump wants to make this happen,” Bremmer said. “But that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen.”

The post Not Just Theater: US Officials Defend Trump-Kim Meeting appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Chinese State Media Defends Removing Presidential Term Limits

Posted: 11 Mar 2018 09:53 PM PDT

BEIJING — Chinese state media on Monday attacked critics of ending presidential term limits, which effectively now allows President Xi Jinping to stay in office indefinitely, saying the key to China’s path was following the Communist Party.

China’s largely rubber stamp Parliament on Sunday overwhelmingly voted to amend the Constitution, scrapping term limits and adding clauses to further strengthen the party’s already dominating role in politics.

In the run-up to the vote, critics on Chinese social media attacked the move and drew parallels to North Korea or suggested a Mao Zedong-type cult of personality was forming. The party only announced the proposals last month.

In an editorial, widely read tabloid the Global Times said Western political theories were of no use to China.

“We are increasingly confident that the key to China’s path lies in upholding strong Party leadership and firmly following the leadership of the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at the core,” it said.

“In these years we have seen the rise and decline of countries and particularly the harsh reality that the Western political system doesn’t apply to developing countries and produces dreadful results.”

The official China Daily reiterated a point previously made by the party’s People’s Daily that the amendment did not “imply lifetime tenure for any leader.”

“Yet some people in the West insist otherwise, even though it is only through specious speculation that they claim to know better,” the English-language paper said.

Such people — it did not name names — have a deep-rooted ideological bias against China and have made one failed prediction after another about China, it added.

“Their erroneous judgements are only a litany of short-sighted calumnies against the party and the nation.”

While social media accounts of major state media outlets either disabled their comments section or only made visible comments praising the party, some words of dissent did manage to make it past the censors.

“How is it that socialism which is praised has become a monarchy making law?” wrote one user on the Twitter-like Weibo micro-blogging site.

“Why have they not released the voting tally?” wrote another.

Only two “no” votes were cast, with three abstentions, from almost 3,000 delegates in Parliament.

The US-based group Human Rights in China said there were huge risks in allowing such a concentration of power.

“Ending the two-term limit ignores the painful lesson of the Mao era and exposes the Chinese people again to the massive human suffering, abuses and national catastrophe that could result from unaccountable power concentrated in the hands of one person,” Sharon Hom, the group’s executive director, said in a statement.

The post Chinese State Media Defends Removing Presidential Term Limits appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Sri Lankan Police Ask Who Promoted Violence Against Muslims

Posted: 11 Mar 2018 09:32 PM PDT

KANDY/COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Sri Lankan police said on Friday they were investigating whether 10 suspected ringleaders of a wave of attacks on Muslims by Sinhalese Buddhists had outside funding or foreign help.

The suspected leader of the group, Amith Jeewan Weerasinghe, and nine others were detained on Thursday on suspicion of involvement in attacks on mosques and Muslim-owned properties in the central Kandy district by nationalist crowds.

At least two people have been killed in the clashes, which began on Sunday.

“We are investigating who funded them, their future plans, and whether they have any local political leadership and whether there was any foreign involvement behind this,” police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekara told reporters in Colombo.

He said all 10 suspects had been remanded in custody for 14 days and brought to Colombo for questioning. He said three were from Kandy and the other seven from outside the district.

In the 24 hours to 6 a.m. on Friday, six properties were reported to have been damaged while 65 people were arrested across Kandy, Gunasekara said.

A Reuters reporter saw a house in a suburb of the town of Kandy that had been gutted by fire after the owner and his family left in fear of an attack.

Cabinet spokesman Dayasiri Jayasekara said police in some places had failed to carry out orders to curb the violence.

Sri Lanka’s Muslims make up about 9 percent of its 21 million people and mostly live in the east and center of the island. Buddhist Sinhalese account for about 70 percent and ethnic Tamils, most of whom are Hindus, about 13 percent.

Some Buddhist nationalists have protested against the presence in Sri Lanka of Muslim Rohingya asylum-seekers from mostly Buddhist Myanmar, where Buddhist nationalism has also been on the rise.

However, in some areas, Sinhalese have helped Muslims to protect mosques, Muslim community leaders told Reuters.

Hundreds of Sinhalese including monks held a rally against the violence in Colombo on Friday, while many Muslim shopkeepers closed their doors in protest at the attacks.

Police reimposed a curfew in Kandy from 8 p.m. on Friday until 5 a.m. on Saturday.

However, foreign visitors to the town, a prime tourist destination, were to be allowed out in the curfew if they had their passports with them.

Sri Lanka was for decades plagued by war between government forces and Tamil separatists. The government defeated the rebels in 2009.

The post Sri Lankan Police Ask Who Promoted Violence Against Muslims appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Myanmar Monk Returns to Preaching After Ban, Denies Fueling Rakhine Violence

Posted: 11 Mar 2018 09:24 PM PDT

YANGON — Myanmar Buddhist monk Wirathu said on Saturday his anti-Muslim rhetoric had nothing to do with violence in the western state of Rakhine, as he emerged from a one-year preaching ban.

Wirathu is the most prominent of Myanmar’s hard-line nationalist monks, who have emerged as a political force since the country’s transition from full military rule began in 2011.

Violence has hit Muslim communities across the Buddhist-majority country, but the nationalists’ sharpest vitriol is reserved for the Rohingya Muslim minority in Rakhine, who many see as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, or 'Bengalis."

Nearly 700,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh since insurgents attacked police and army posts on Aug. 25, sparking a furious military-led response the United Nations has said constituted ethnic cleansing and possibly genocide.

Rakhine was experiencing "terrorism of Bengalis," Wirathu said on Saturday, dismissing claims he had “created” conflict there. He cited the relative peace of his hometown, Mandalay.

“If Wirathu creates conflict, Mandalay would become ash. The world doesn't know this truth,” the monk said, referring to himself at a ceremony in Myanmar’s largest city, Yangon, to celebrate his return to preaching.

The central Myanmar city of Mandalay was hit by communal riots that killed two people in 2014 after news spread of what turned out to be a false claim that Muslims had raped a Buddhist woman.

Wirathu traveled at least twice in the past year to the violence-hit northern part of Rakhine, despite Myanmar's highest religious authority imposing a one-year preaching ban in March 2017.

The state-linked body’s move was seen as an attempt by the government of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi to stifle nationalists who threaten to undermine the young administration. Another nationalist monk, Parmaukkha, was released from prison on Friday after serving three months for a 2016 protest against the US government’s use of the word “Rohingya”.

Wirathu reacted to his silencing by posting online photographs of himself with his mouth taped over, and by continuing to post videos and comments online. But his Facebook account has not been accessible in recent months.

Facebook suspends and sometimes removes anyone that "consistently shares content promoting hate," a spokesperson said in response to a question about Wirathu’s account.

“Our community standards prohibit organizations and people dedicated to promoting hatred and violence against others based on their protected characteristics,” the spokesperson said by email.

Wirathu said he would continue his "nationalist work."

“When Facebook shuts (me) off, I rely on YouTube. YouTube is not wide-reaching enough so I will use Twitter to continue the nationalist work,” he said.

The post Myanmar Monk Returns to Preaching After Ban, Denies Fueling Rakhine Violence appeared first on The Irrawaddy.
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