Wirathu - the pit bull of Myanmar regime

By Dr. Habib Sidddiqui

Myanmar's terrorist - Buddhist monk Wirathu is untouchable inside the country. In 2003 he was sentenced to 25 years in prison but was released in 2010 along with other political prisoners. Most keen observers knew the reason as to why this anti-Muslim zealot was freed by the regime. He was to serve as its pit bull and inciter for committing hate crimes and ethnic cleansing drives against the minority Muslims, esp. the Rohingya people that live in the Arakan (Rakhine) state of Myanmar, bordering Bangladesh.

And Wirathu continues to deliver for the regime. He has effectively become the face of Burmese Buddhism. His '969' fascist movement has led to widespread hate crimes and genocidal campaigns against the minority Muslims all across the Buddhist-dominated country, and has brutally rendered more than a million Muslims homeless. Many Burmese Muslims are risking their lives to get out of this den of hatred and intolerance, once called Burma. So frightening is the situation inside Myanmar, esp. the Rakhine state, even the Rohingya refugees that live under horrible conditions in makeshift camps inside Cox's Bazar district of Bangladesh don't want to return to their ancestral land inside the Buddhist country. 

That is what Buddhist terrorism has done for its victims! And Wirathu's signature is everywhere in all such genocidal activities against the minority Muslims since his release from the prison.

In recent days, Wirathu has again shown what a monster and ugly devil he is. He had the audacity of calling the UN special envoy - Yanghee Lee - a 'whore' and a 'bitch.'

So what was Ms. Lee's crime? Well, Ms Lee, who was on a 10-day trip to the South East Asian country, said the Rohingya faced systematic discrimination. She criticized draft legislation, proposed by a coalition of nationalist Buddhist monks, which includes curbs on interfaith marriage and religious conversions.

All these proposals and calling a spade a spade were too much for the Buddhist monk Wirathu to swallow. Last Friday, he spoke at a public rally where he criticized the UN interference and personally attacked Ms Lee, according to local media.

"We have explained about the race protection law, but the bitch criticized the laws without studying them properly," he said from the stage to the crowd.

"Don't assume that you are a respectable person because of your position. For us, you are a whore."

And yet, despite world-wide condemnations for his sexist and insulting remarks, the Myanmar government has not silenced its pit bull - the foul-mouthed monk - Wirathu.

I am not surprised. As already hinted, he is their guy, doing their evil, playing their games and ethnically cleansing Muslims from the face of Myanmar - which were/are all sanctioned by the Myanmar government for decades.

The Fortify Rights, a human rights group, last year provided evidences showing that discrimination of the Rohingya Muslims was the state policy. It was premeditated and willful. It said that the government's orders, shown in leaked documents, amounted to "state policies of persecution" in Rakhine state. In a report, Fortify Rights said it had analyzed 12 government documents from 1993 to 2013, and found that government policies imposed "extensive restrictions on the basic freedoms of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar's Rakhine state". The policies restricted Rohingya's "movement, marriage, childbirth, home repairs and construction of houses of worship", it said. Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine state were also prohibited from travelling between townships, or out of Rakhine, without permission, the report said.

The report said a government order stipulated that married Rohingya couples in parts of Rakhine state could not have more than two children, while another document said Rohingya had to apply for permission to marry, in what the report described as a "humiliating and financially prohibitive" process.

One document published in the report said officials should force a woman to breastfeed her child if there were doubts over whether she was the birth mother.

The restrictions against the Rohingyas have been known about for some time, but what's new for the world community back in February of 2014 was that campaigners said they had the official orders issued by the Buddhist-dominated local government in Rakhine state.

A year is approaching soon since the publication of the report from the Fortify Rights. And nothing has happened to motivate the criminal Myanmar regime and its murderous rank and file within the larger Buddhist community to change its genocidal policies against the Rohingya people, who remain the most persecuted people in our time.

Last week, the UN passed a resolution calling on Myanmar to give the Rohingya people citizenship.

It is highly unlikely that the Myanmar regime will oblige. Its pit bull – the face of Burmese Buddhism - has already opened its ugly mouth, insulting the UN, of which Myanmar remains a member state. The UN human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein has called on religious and political leaders in Myanmar to unequivocally condemn all forms of incitement to hatred including abhorrent public personal attack against Ms. Lee.

Buddhist monks are a powerful political lobby inside Myanmar. With a general election scheduled this year I doubt any political leader would speak up and risk Wirathu and the fascist monks turning on them.

It would be thus foolish of the world community to expect the unexpected from inside Myanmar. It has to take actions that are meaningful and that stop the extinction of the Rohingya people.

As I have said a number of times, feeding only carrots to an unruly donkey won't do the tricks. Only biting sanctions can sober the Myanmar’s pariah regime and its pit bull Wirathu. When they feel the pain they will know what have contributed to their pains and hopefully, change their demonic course for the better.

- Asian Tribune -