Monastery Closure Makes Mockery of Junta’s Buddhist Claims

Irrawaddy
by Wai Moe
November 30, 2007

The Burmese junta often claims it believes deeply in Buddhism and encourages the growth of the faith. It’s a claim that has the Burmese people shaking their heads in disbelief in view of the junta’s latest crackdown, on Rangoon’s Maggin Monastery.

The monastery was forced to close by soldiers on Thursday. No responsibility was taken by the authorities for the resettlement of the monks and lay people ejected from the compound.

The Alliance of All Burmese Buddhist Monks condemned the action as an “assault” on Buddhism and called on all Buddhists in Burma to defend their faith against regime actions they said threatened its survival.

In the Burmese ruby-mining town of Mogok, Mandalay Division, about 300 monks attempted to march from their monastery to a pagoda on Friday. They were stopped by the authorities.

Phyu Phyu Thin, a prominent Burmese activist, who used to work at Maggin Monastery’s treatment center and hospice for HIV/AIDS patients, told The Irrawaddy that the authorities in Rangoon had denied a request by the oldest monk at the monastery, the 80-year-old father of its detained abbot, to allow the monks and other residents one or two days to leave.

“The authorities forced monks and everybody else from the monastery,” Phyu Phyu Thin said. “The monks had to leave their belongings on the street. People who live near the monastery tried to help the monks move their things, but authorities stopped them giving any assistance.”

One resident said the authorities had warned that legal action would be taken against anybody found helping the evicted monks or giving them shelter. People who went to help the monks were warned to stay away.

The 80-year-old monk spent the day on the street, until he was granted refuge at a monastery in Thingangyun Township in Rangoon. But he can only stay there temporarily.

One resident of Thingangyun Township said he was sad because Buddhist monks were being displaced in a “Buddhist land”.

The renewed harassment of monks drew condemnation from the US State Department.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in a statement that the junta's "repression belies the regime's claims to cooperate fully with the United Nations, which has repeatedly sought an end to the detention of political activists."

He said continuing arrests "bring into serious question" Burma's commitment to talks on moving toward democracy.

"Apparently, it was ordered closed. No one knows why," Shari Villarosa, the top U.S. diplomat in Burma, told on Friday reporters in Bangkok, Thailand. "Arrests are continuing. We are getting reports on a daily basis of people being picked up," Villarosa said.

Maggin Monastery has been raided by soldiers four times since the September demonstrations. Its abbot, U Indaka, a former political prisoner, is still being detained at an unknown location.

In 1990, he was arrested and sentenced to five years imprisonment and defrocked for his role in a "patam nikkujjana kamma"—the boycott of alms from members of the military regime, which followed the junta’s raids on monasteries in Mandalay. He was released in late 1994.

Maggin Monastery also sheltered a hospice and treatment center for HIV/AIDS patients who came from all over the country to seek help there.