“Every religion can be twisted into a destructive force poisoned by ideas that are antithetical to its foundations. Now it’s Buddhism’s turn”.
This expression is contained in Time Magazine’s cover article “The Face Of Buddhist Terror” issued on July 1, 2013.
This article highlighted the nationalist monk U Wirathu and wrote about Buddhism becoming a religion used for violence by extremists like him.
The death of an Arakan woman, Ma Thidar Htwe, who was raped in Rakhine State in 2021, was propagated by the government media using terms that could cause ethnic conflict.
In addition, the news of the killing of 10 Muslim people was also published using the word racist again, causing the people agitated by the news of Ma Thidar Htwe.
As a result, long-standing grievances between the local ethnic groups based on race and religion led to the killing of each other.
It is a result of the purposeful propaganda by the government of the transfer of military officers to civilian departments that would condemn a case in any religion that happened because different religious people have invaded and insulted this case.
Thein Sein-led government used the situation of the Rakhine conflict in 2012 to rise up the anti-Islamic propaganda spread by the SPDC military regime (State Peace and Development Council) among the majority of Buddhists.
“The events that occurred in Rakhine State made a strong wave of anti-Muslim sentiment and spread throughout the country,” according to the Justice Trust report, which has a detailed investigation into the ethnic and religious conflicts that took place at the time.
In addition, the Justice Trust’s report stated that the ‘969 Movement’ had led the way in spreading it.
The SPDC military regime instilled decades of anti-Muslim ideology among Buddhists, and its successor, the military regime, gave way to a crime case that was just in time to portray that hatred and incitement.
After that, it will be the starting point for radical nationalist movements that will shape Buddhism as a form of terrorism for non-believers.
Adolf Hitler’s Story and U Wirathu’s Biography
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U Wirathu, who is considered to be the leader of the 969 Movement, portrays his biography on his website Wirathu.com, as that of Hitler, the founder of the Nazi Party, who killed six million Jews as genocide.
A part of this will be extracted and compared.
U Wirathu named Mg Win Khaing Oo, who would become known as The Face of Buddhist Terror, was born in Kyaukse town in 1968, six years after General Ne Win’s Revolutionary Council coup.
The Revolutionary Council created the Sino-Burmese Uprising in 1967 to divert attention from the nationwide rice shortages due to their mismanagement.
Amid rumors that two Chinese students raped a Burmese teacher, it was broadcast while there was tension between the teachers and Chinese students who came to school wearing the banned portrait of Mao Zedong.
Thus, Mg Win Khaing Oo was born during the period of ethnic conflicts created by Myanmar’s first military dictator.
Maung Win Khaing Oo’s father was a tractor driver of the government, so he had to move from place to place in poverty like Hitler, who was born in Bavaria State, Austria, in 1889.
Like Hitler, who got the emotional hatred that would intensify nationalism after he dropped out of school and went to Vienna to paint after his father’s death, Maung Win Khaing Oo’s hatred also started when his father died.
Hitler dropped out of school at the age of 16, and Maung Win Khaing Oo was a novice in the Buddhist Order at the age of 17.
When Hitler was trying to get admission to school in Vienna and was facing difficulties as a laborer, Maung Win Khaing Oo also struggled to stay as a novice in the religious community.
Maung Win Khaing Oo felt hatred towards his relatives, including his mother, who left his father before his death and found a new marriage.
In addition, his mother married a non-believer, and from that time, Maung Win Khaing Oo’s resentment against non-believers began to take root.
When he wanted to continue in the life of a monk, his father died. He was the second eldest son among 8 siblings. When he became responsible for taking care of the younger ones, his mother remarried, so he was going to leave as a novice in the religious order.
Hitler, who was not admitted to school in Vienna, became a street artist. After living the life of a laborer, he became a politician by reading a lot.
As for Mg Win Khaing Oo, he was able to pursue his dream of studying Buddhist literature as a monk as his uncle adopted his siblings and he was not responsible for taking care of his siblings.
After that, Hitler joined the war in World War I, and lived like a great fighter in the war, and became the leader of the Nazi Party in the political arena.
U Wirathu, named Maung Win Khaing Oo, was an excellent and versed monk in Buddhist literary work, and his writings were supported by many monks and people.
His anti-Muslim teachings were widely accepted, and he was hailed as a Theravada Buddhism hero.
Therefore, it is said that the SPDC military regime became hostile to U Wirathu who gained public support while Aung San Suu Kyi was under house arrest.
Thus, in October 2003, U Wirathu was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Like Hitler, who attempted a coup after the establishment of the Nazi Party and was sentenced to five years in prison when his followers gained strength.
While U Wirathu was in prison, he also witnessed the violence in prison by the SPDC military regime.
But he was able to endure. He still wrote nationalist literature and political and religious literature in prison. But his writings were largely ignored.
Then, U Wirathu was released from prison in 2012 and will continue to carry out his unfinished duties.
He has the responsibility to ensure the perpetuation of the Buddhist religion so that the Myanmar people are not oppressed by foreigners.
U Wirathu will continue to shout just as Hitler shouted for the glory of the German people with nationalistic slogans.
Some of these contents are taken from U Wira’s autobiographical texts and reshaped.
In reality, U Wirathu is just a puppet at the hands of the generals, as will be seen below.
U Wirathu, Puppet, raised by Military Generals
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U Wirathu, who became a monk after being a novice from his teenage years, was also late in teaching Priyatti literature.
However, due to his indomitable efforts, he became a literate monk who wanted to show off his knowledge and even attacked fellow Buddhists with literature.
He wrote books such as Theravada Battle and he published his religious books despite the religious authorities did not allow to be published.
He was a good speaker, so his books quickly spread among the people. For the SPDC military regime, they would be able to use a person like U Wirathu, who had strong religious and ethnic biases and was a good speaker, as a military bureaucrat for a long time and would not let him go.
However, he seemed to be a nuisance and not to be useful for the military regime at the moment. So he would be sentenced to prison.
In October 2003, U Wirathu was charged with Political Section 5 (J) and sentenced to 25 years in prison for the Theravada Battle and Priyattishwe Zanyang books published without permission, and for his preaching related to those books.
Before being imprisoned, U Wirathu was active in the 969 movement. In October 2003, a nationalist sermon was preached in the religious temple inside the Lay Myit Nar pagoda in Kyaukse town, resulting major religious riot.
During the conflict, 7 Muslim women and 4 young Muslim men were burned alive and one of the killed women was pregnant.
A week after the conflict, he was arrested by the SPDC military regime. After more than seven years, U Thein Sein released U Wirathu in January 2012.
Five months after U Wirathu’s release, Ma Thidar Htwe accident happened, and ethnic conflicts based on religion in Rakhine State led to violence.
The military regime has started to fan the flames of religious and ethnic conflict, and U Wirathu has come to his role.
In May 2012, former Industry Minister, General U Aung Thaung visited and met U Wirathu, who had been released from prison. U Wirathu explained that U Aung Thaung and U Khin Nyunt came to him only to pay their respects and not for any other matter.
After that, he wrote and spread anti-Muslim hate speech on his Facebook social Wira Thu, and the 969 movement started to active.
Buddhists are convinced that the 969 refers to the nine, six, and nine supreme qualities attributed to the Buddha, Dhamma, and Saṅgha.
However, the 969 movement was boycotting Muslim businesses and spreading anti-Muslim propaganda.
In June 2012, U Wirathu went to Rakhine after the Rakhine conflicts that arose out of the Ma Thidar Htwe incident.
He went to Thandwe and the southern Rakhine Regions and preached to justify the conflict in northern Rakhine and to strongly respond to the Muslims.
The conflicts happened again in Rakhine State at the end of October, and the violent incidents happened in 9 townships of Minbya, Myauk-U, Kyauk Phyu, Kyauktaw, Yethaedaung, Thandwe, Ramme, Mayebon, and Pauktaw of Rakhine State.
During these violent incidents, more than 35,000 people were forced to flee their homes, and most of those who fled were Muslims.
The Justice Trust reports that the U Wirathu’s 969 movements are related to the conflicts, stating a point to note here is that whenever the violence happened in Rakhine State since October 2012, the 969 group’s preaching was usually preceded by U Wirathu.
After the second outbreak of the Rakhine conflict in October 2012, U Wirathu used the Wira Thu Facebook page to spread anti-Muslim hate speech.
U Wirathu started spreading false information through his Facebook page in November 2012, which could lead to the impression that Muslims are abusing Buddhists in Mithila.
This may have been a foreshadowing of the Mithila conflict, which is about to turn violent in the coming months.
U Wirathu, who was jailed for creating a riot that killed 11 people in Kyaukse in 2003, had arrived in Mithila, more than 120 miles away from Kyaukse, more than a year after being released from prison.
It had seen the effects of the 969 movement which had been active in Mithila since U Wirathu’s release from prison.
The 969 stickers have been seen all over Mithila since the end of 2012. In addition, the spread of anti-Muslim pamphlets has been strong, one of which is a pamphlet that Muslims are organizing in mosques to harm Buddhists with the support of Saudi Arabia.
On the morning of March 20, 2013, when a Buddhist woman and her husband were selling gold at a gold shop owned by a Muslim in Mithila town, this couple was beaten up by three employees of the shop due to inconvenience.
The incident was kept and conciliated by security guards, but the crowd around this incident shouted anti-Muslim slogans and destroyed some shops owned by Muslims near the gold shop.
Then, this violence breakout, and a Buddhist monk was killed in the evening. After the killing, the eager of monks and the crowd holding knives, sticks, and bricks began to fall on the Muslims.
At least 40 Muslims from Mithila were brutally killed during the brutal violence.
Among those killed were more than 30 students and teachers attending the Islamic religious schools that were burned down.
Thousands of Muslims fled, and many Muslim-owned buildings, including mosques, were burned down.
What is worse than that Muslims continued to suffer discrimination even a decade after the conflict, due to the nationalist fervor that permeated the minds of the residents of Mithila.
Even after the Mithila conflict, the 969 nationalist movement led by U Wirathu continued to spread Islamophobia throughout the country.
As a result, religious-based terrorist incidents break out near Yangon City like Ukkan and Lashio incidents in Shan State.
A Muslim woman accidentally bumped a bowl of a novice who was offering alms in Ukkan town, and violence broke out under the pretext of breaking the novice’s bowl.
A trustee of the monastery where this novice lived filed a case against the woman who assaulted the novice at the police station, and the police accepted the case.
A large crowd of about 200 Buddhists then came to a mosque near the market where the incident took place, expressing their displeasure that the novice’s bowl was broken.
At that time, about ten people from the crowd threw stones at the mosque and ran away. Then, more than twenty people entered and destroyed 25 shops belonging to Muslims in the market.
A person was killed and some were injured after the conflict was stopped by security guards. In the Ukkan incident, the perpetrators of violence were only around 20 people, and the others were only those who came because of incitement.
Most residents, who had been strongly propagated by nationalist extremists, participated in the violent events in Mithila, but in the Ukkan incident, the people commanded behind the conflict could not hide anymore.
Those command people’s masks would appear vividly in the Lashio terrorist events that happened on May 28, 2013.
That morning, a Muslim man doused a Buddhist woman with gasoline and set her on fire in Lashio. Then, a group of people who claimed to be dissatisfied with the incident set fire to a mosque and a religious monastery at night.
A person was killed and at least four others were injured during the violence. After that, the Myanmar army and police came to provide security in Lashio.
However, a group of people who were trying to commit terrorist acts were rioting around the town on motorcycles like gangsters and wielding machetes in the town that was protected by the army and the police.
Those people spread the news among residents that they were hunting Muslims, and burned down a Muslim religious school and shops.
During the Lashio terrorist attack, 44 of the perpetrators were arrested, and U Aung Min, a minister of U Thein Sein-led government at the time, said that there may be a systematic mastermind behind the Lashio incident.
The incidents of terrorism justified by religion often happened in 2013, and on the other hand, the 969 movement has also made elaborate movements for the emergence of the Patriotic Association of Myanmar known as Ma Bha Tha, which will rise to the next level.
Ma Ba Tha Emergence
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The conflicts in Rakhine in 2012 happened due to the deeds of the military regime. Also, due to these conflicts, the anti-Islamic movement of the 969 nationalists has been continuously accelerated.
Two months after the first round of conflicts in Rakhine State in August 2012, Turkey’s Foreign Minister asked the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to open a branch office in Myanmar, claiming that it would help the Rohingya.
According to the information recorded by the independent media, the Rakhine and Buddhist groups were more affected when the first conflict happened in areas of Buthidaung and Maungdaw in northern Rakhine State in 2012.
That fact became an opportunity for the nationalists to speed up the 969 movement, and the Turkish minister’s request to open an OIC branch office became more timely.
In addition to U Wirathu, the nationalists led by U Parmoukha who is popularly known as a Ma Ba Tha monk in Magway, staged protests against the opening of the OIC branch office in Myanmar.
On the other hand, Buddhist monks were organized to mediate the conflicts and to help ethnic people who are Buddhists amid ethnic and religious conflicts
When the conflicts in Rakhine State returned in August 2012, the Mawlamyaing Ganawaska Sangha Network, which the nationalists identified as the initial gathering of Ma Bha Tha, had emerged in Mawlamyaing.
As for U Wirathu, he was not a member of this Mawlamyaing Sangha Network, but he was doing 969 activities as if he were an independent. During the recurring Rakhine conflicts, he was spreading anti-Islamic nationalism in the conflict areas.
People like U Wirathu and nationalist extremists who pushed the path of terrorism were the core members in the 969 movement that led to the emergence of the Ma Bha Tha, and Non-violent monks such as Ashin Panayar Watha from Dhammaduta Pariyatti Seminary in Theinzayat town, Mon State were also involved in the 969 movement.
Ashin Panyar Watha who got a Dhamasariya degree preached and spread the teachings of non-violent boycott against Islam in the 969 movement.
Nationalists particularly liked Bhawa Lankhwel Dhama of Ashin Panayar Watha. The Buddha guides the middle way (Majjhimāpaṭipadā), where two extremes ought not to be practiced, and Buddhists are proud of this middle way of their God.
Similarly, Buddhists believe that violent and revenge reactions are not Buddha’s teaching due to Buddha’s practice of mettā.
Therefore, rather than U Wirathu’s teaching with full of anti-Islamic content, the teaching of Ashin Panyar Watha on the Buddha’s non-violent path had a greater impact on the monks and educated Buddhists.
When the 969 movements led by U Wirathu lost their reputation because of the violence they were creating, the movement re-gained the support of educated Buddhists because of the teaching of Ashin Panyar Watha who said that they would not deviate from the Buddha’s path.
U Wirathu made another time move, and he requested Sitagu Sayadaw Dr. Ashin Nyanissara who was very influential among Buddhists, to act as chairman in the formation of the Ma Ba Tha.
Sitagu Sayadaw who is now a mentor of the coup leader, had asked the Insein Sayawadaw, Tilawka Bhiwantha, to take over the position of Ma Ba Tha chairman.
Ashin Tilawka Bhiwantha who would become the chairperson of Ma Ba Tha, was a member of the State Saṅgha Mahā Nāyaka Committee, which was formed in 1980 and included 47 monks and he was jailed for a year for not having contact with the military regime that killed people in 1990.
Thus, Ashin Tilawka Bhiwantha took over as chairman and formed the Ma Ba Tha Center in June 2013. U Wirathu was in charge of Upper Myanmar, Ashin Tilawka Bhiwantha was in charge of Lower Myanmar, and Magway Sayadaw U Pamaukka was in charge of Yangon Region.
Then, three months later, all 969 active monks like U Wirathu joined the Ma Ba Tha, and it started to emerge as a Sangha organization parallel to the powerful Mahana the State Saṅgha Mahā Nāyaka Committee. It is also seen that Ma Ba Tha has grown in strength to the point that it has more than 170 sub-groups nationwide within 2 years of its formation.
Due to the publication of the objectives of Ma Ba Tha: to protect of national religion, to be sustainable development, to prevent ethnic and religious violence conflicts in the country, and to be able to connect with charity groups and support each other, Ma Ba Tha gained the unanimous participation of the Saṅgha.
However, contrary to these objectives, the activities of the Ma BA Tha only fueled the fires of conflict in the country. For the nationalists, the formation of the Ma Ba Tha seemed to give them a good cover for their radical actions.
Ma Ba Tha was able to gain the support of Buddhists by opening Summer Dhamma Schools and Training. In the early days of Ma Ba Tha, monks from the Saffron Revolution were also members of Ma Ba Tha, and Ma Ba Tha became an untouchable organization.
Myanmar Interfaith Marriage Law asked by Ma Ba Tha
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After the Ma Ba Tha was formed in 2013, Ma Ba Tha monks, including U Wirathu, had been working on activities to enact the Myanmar Interfaith Marriage Law.
They propagated to the public saying that the reason they are asking for the enactment of the Myanmar Interfaith Marriage Law is not to harm other religions but to protect Buddhism.
U Wirathu gave a talk aimed at not amending Article 59 (f), which prevented Daw Aung San Suu Kyi from becoming president, and campaigned against Daw Aung San Suu Kyi for demanding for the promulgation of the Myanmar Interfaith Marriage Law.
On the other hand, the NLD party collected signatures from the public to amend section 59 (f) of the 2008 constitution, and in parallel, Ma Ba Tha collected signatures from the people they organized for the enforcement of the Myanmar Interfaith Marriage Law.
After that, the chairman of Ma Ba Tha, Insein Sayawadaw, Tilawka Bhiwantha, presented to President Thein Sein the signatures organized for the approval of the Myanmar Interfaith Marriage Law. Although U Thein Sein did not officially recognize Ma Ba Tha, he submitted to the Hluttaw that he had received the requests sent by the Insein Sayawadaw, Tilawka Bhiwantha.
At that time, U Shwe Mann, the chairperson of the Union Hluttaw, did not discuss the Myanmar Interfaith Marriage Law at the Hluttaw, but returned them to the government to draft a bill.
The Myanmar Interfaith Marriage Law includes four laws: the Religious Conversion Law, the Myanmar Buddhist Women’s Special Marriage Law, the Law Relating to the Monogamous System, and the Health Care in the Adjustment of Population Increase Law.
These laws have been widely opposed by civil society organizations and human rights activists as the laws breach the basic liberties of women and minorities.
Such objections were attacked by Ma Ba Tha, including U Wirathu, on social networks and by preaching in the sermons in various forms.
Ashin Kanna Sakkabhiwan from Mandalay, one of Ma Ba Tha leading Sayawadaw, and Ashin Ratha signed a decree declaring more than a hundred civil organizations that opposed the Myanmar Interfaith Marriage Law as national traitors in 2014.
Similarly, Sagaing Ma Ba Tha president, Sayawadaw Baddanta Panyarnanda, and Sayawadaw Bhadanta Dhammappiya also announced that they considered these organizations as traitors.
At that time, Ma Ba Tha was very strong, so most political activists avoided confronting them.
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi also did not object to the Myanmar Interfaith Marriage Law which violates the rights of minorities and women, except saying that it should be done within the framework of the law.
Thus, the U Thein Sein-led government enacted the Myanmar Interfaith Marriage Law during the last period of its government term in 2015, so it became the most successful period for Ma Ba Tha.
However, the Myanmar Interfaith Marriage Law was not the ultimate goal of the Ma Ba Tha. The crowd with more than 2,000 monks from Ma Ba Tha and around 100,000 Buddhists celebrated in a massive victory ceremony for the enforcement of the Myanmar Interfaith Marriage Law at Thuwunna Stadium of Yangon in October 2015.
At the ceremony, Sitagu Sayadaw Dr. Ashin Nyanissara who was not publicly a member of the Ma Ba Tha, delivered a speech about the next steps to take after the success of the Myanmar Interfaith Marriage Law.
He said, “There will be next step. It is the Highest Authorizer. The highest authority in the country must be a religious leader. According to Iran’s regulations, not only the political leader and the president but also the religious leader of the country must be the highest power in the Iran country. We, all the monks know where the position of the State Saṅgha Mahā Nāyaka is in the Union of Myanmar. In Iran, the Islamic religious leader is at the top. He is an authority in politics, health, education, as well as religion. That’s why I think if the people and the monks know that there are different things like this authority, there will be many steps to take.”
This is the ultimate goal of the Ma Ba Tha. At that time, Ma Ba Tha Groups were campaigning throughout the country to vote only for the USDP party (Union Solidarity and Development Party) that would protect religion in the election.
As a result, many monks did not accept Ma Ba Tha doctrine among the Saṅgha, and explicit criticism against the Ma Ba Tha actions also arose.
The Ma Ba Tha monks responded with strong hate speech to the non-Ma Ba Tha monks who criticized them. In this situation, the Sitagu Sayawadaw taught a story of a giant bird and a kite to move carefully without crossing boundaries.
However, he urged people to form political parties based on religion and did not spread communism to Europe, and he added what had been done in Rome after the founding of the Christian Democratic Party.
“This Christian Democratic Party spread all over Europe. It happened that the communists could not enter Italy, Germany, and Switzerland. So I mean I am not saying that monks and nuns should join politics, but should watch the situation carefully. As I have just said, where the giant bird’s territory is plow in the field, and where the kite’s territory is the sky. Like this story, I said to watch from our pasture. The Christian Democratic Party still has a hint of it all over Europe today,” Sitagu Sayawadaw said.
Masterminds behind Ma Ba Tha
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After U Aung Thaung visited U Wirathu in 2012, the 969 movement became stronger. It will be seen that the U Thein Sein-led government is also involved in the events of the Rakhine conflict that occurred at the right time.
The Ma Ba Tha groups activating the 969 Movement were in the ethnic and religious terrorist incidents that happened in Rakhine, Lashio, Meiktila, Ukkan, and Mandalay areas from 2012 to 2014. The Myanmar army and U Thein Sein-led government did not effectively take action against a group of people who committed violence during these conflicts.
In 2014 when the Myanmar Interfaith Marriage Law was being promoted, the Ma Ba Tha groups led by U Wirathu deliberately acted to cause the violence incidents in Mandalay City.
On June 30, 2014, U Wirathu intentionally spread hate speech through his Facebook page by writing about the incident of rape that did not happen, and the next day at night, a group of people who were not residents of Mandalay created riots in Mandalay city.
The Justic Trust issued a report after conducting a detailed investigation into the incidents of violence, including the Mandalay conflict. The report revealed that during the conflict in Mandalay, only a group of people who did not know where they came from, not the Mandalay residents, led the violence.
The Justice Trust met and interviewed the Mandalay monks and residents of Mandalay. Those revealed that a group of people inciting violence came to resident monks and encouraged them to reinforce and join this group.
In the terrorist conflict of Mandalay, Meiktila, Lashio, Ukkan and Rakhine, a group of people who created riot violence intervened in the uprising violence as only the residents did.
After the conflict happened, the perpetrators were not prosecuted, and the police replaced the residents instead of the perpetrators and arrested those residents. According to investigations by civil society organizations and independent media, Ma Ba Tha was supported by army leaders, the USDP party leaders, and some cronies associated with the leaders.
Despite spreading hate speech and creating violence, U Thein Sein’s Minister of Religious Affairs, U San Hsint, even delivered that Ma Ba Tha was serving the mission of sustaining the spread of the religion.
The Myanmar military leaders, who violently suppressed the monks during the 2007 Saffron Revolution, were deeply loathed by Buddhists and monks. Due to the impact of the incident, the 2008 Constitution was quickly approved by the SPDC military regime (State Peace and Development Council), which paved the way for a golden era of democracy.
Therefore, after the generals transferred from military to civilian, the military regime portrayed themselves as the guardians of the religion and tried to regain support from the Saṅgha monks.
That’s why, the 969 movement was ignored and the enforcement of the Myanmar Interfaith Marriage Law was done. On the other hand, Ma Ba Tha groups have been campaigning for the USDP party for election all over the country.
The Justic Trust report revealed that the 969 Movement and Ma Ba Tha groups were provided by the military leaders, USDP party leaders, and the rich people associated with them behind the scenes.
After the defeat of the USDP party in the 2015 election, Ma Ba Tha groups have no longer the right to violate as before. Due to spreading hate speech and incitement to cause religious and ethnic conflict, it became disunited among the monks.
U Phyo Min Thein, a member of the NLD Central Executive Committee, who was also the Chief Minister of Yangon Region, said that the State Saṅgha Mahā Nāyaka already formed, so there is no need for Ma Ba Tha even in the initial period of his government. After that, the State Saṅgha Mahā Nāyaka issued an instruction to dissolve the Ma Ba Tha in 2017.
Initially, the Ma Ba Tha groups did not accept the instruction of the State Saṅgha Mahā Nāyaka, but when they announced that if Ma Ba Tha did not follow the instruction, they would be taken action by the government authority, and then the leading monks resigned from the Ma Ba Tha group.
However, instead of Ma Ba Tha’s name, the name was changed to Buddha Dharma Charity Foundation and continued to stand. The Myanmar military even openly supported the renamed foundation.
Throughout the tenure of the NLD government, nationalist extremists who were members of Ma Ba Tha continued to spread the Islamophobic ideology of the 969 movement among the public.
During the investigation into the assassination of U Ko Ni, nationalist extremists threatened the news media and those investigating the case at the trial of the defendants, saying ‘Eat rice full’.
In 2018, the accounts of Ma Ba Tha groups, including U Wirathu, who were using Facebook to spread hate speech against the Rohingya and the Muslim community, were permanently removed from Facebook.
During the period of the NLD government, the nationalist extremists called Ma Ba Tha held massive support rallies, saying that they strongly supported the Myanmar army. On the other hand, they accused the NLD government of destroying religion.
It will see that the Ma Ba Tha are the people who hold the ideology of the Myanmar army that the army will never betray nationalism.
During the NLD-led government, U Wirathu had been issued an arrest warrant, but he was not arrested by the Home Affairs Ministry under the military, so he was free, and just days before the coup, the nationalist extremists, including him, who had an arrest warrant, came and were arrested.
However, it will see that the military junta leader released those nationalist extremists arrested, on amnesty.
Even after the military coup, nationalist extremists from Ma Ba Tha supported the military coup, and Ma Ba Tha monks like Ashin Wasthawa from Kantbalu Township, Sagaing Region, are leading and organizing pro-junta Pyu Saw Htee militias to support and reinforce the military.
Similarly, it is also seen that Sitagu Sayadaw Dr. Ashin Nyanissara and Insein Ywama Sayadaw, who are Ma Ba Tha leaders, became the teachers of the military junta’s leader.
In conclusion, at the victory ceremony of the Myanmar Interfaith Marriage Law, as Sitagu Sayadaw said that the religious leaders should be the highest authority in the country, Wasi Peik Sayadaw and Sitagu Sayadaw were also included in the main role in the instigation for the military coup.
The military leaders have been using these nationalist extremists for ages, and now that they have lost their military power, they are even arming the Rohingyas, who are fiercely opposed by the Ma Ba Tha, and incorporating those Rohingyas into their military.
But the nationalists don’t seem willing to change their ways. After the military coup, the nationalist extremists have been propagating extremist hate speech by identifying themselves as the news media, to support and help the military junta.
Through the propaganda channels, these nationalist extremists are carrying out insults to all the organizations and individuals who opposed the military junta, and spreading hate speech and racial discrimination.
However, their hate speech propaganda and ideology are no longer useful in the present day.
Last March, nationalist extremists led by U Thu Sita, Ma Ba Tha monk, conspired even to create terror riots and conflicts in Pyu township, like during U Thein Sein’s era, conflicts in Rakhine, Meiktila, Mandalay were created by religious delusions.
On February 27, 2024, a nonbeliever boyfriend stabbed to kill his Buddhist girlfriend in a courtship dispute in Phyu town.
The nationalist extremists, including U Thu Sita, had arrived in Phyu town related to this incident and created a riot with a religious delusion among the resident people, but the residents did not participate in their persuaded incitements, so those extremists had to give up.
Nationalist extremists claim to defend Buddhism, but they never follow Gautama Buddha’s path of endless mettā (love).
In addition, it will be seen that the five precepts of Buddhism which are the basic human moral virtues have not been followed and practiced since those nationalists spread hate speech and committed terror violence, and killing, by intoxication.
Even those nationalists do not practice and distribute the Buddha’s dhamma teaching which is the essence of Buddhism, to become free from the cycle of rebirth (samsara).
Therefore, it can be said that the Ma Ba Tha renamed as the Buddha Dharma Charity Foundation is not only an organization that is directed towards hatred and violence, but also those who are trying to perpetuate the military bureaucrats of military dictators, by making a stepping-stone of Buddha.