Myanmar govt flays radical Buddhist group

YANGON: Myanmar’s government has denounced an influential Buddhist nationalist group after failing to speak against it strongly while others were accusing it of using hate speech and inspiring violence against Muslims.
The Ma Ba Tha organization’s charismatic leader, the monk Wirathu, responded Wednesday by calling the country’s de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, a “dictatorial woman.” The Sangha Council, a state institution that oversees Buddhist monastic discipline, declared Tuesday that it did not recognize Ma Ba Tha as a member of the country’s Buddhist order.
Last week, the government’s minister for Yangon, Phyo Min Thein, said the group shouldn’t exist, rejecting Ma Ba Tha’s demands on official policy toward the Muslim Rohingya minority. The group planned, then called a protest against the minister.
Most politicians have been reluctant to criticize the group because its nationalist message seemed popular in overwhelmingly Buddhist Myanmar. Even Suu Kyi disappointed admirers of her decades-long nonviolent struggle for democracy by failing to crack down on the group, which has been blamed for stirring up deadly violence.
Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party took power in March, and she was named State Counselor.