IBEC denies accusation against Buddhist monks siding with military government
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Khit / Myo Gyi (NP News) - Aug 24
The International Buddhist Education Centre’s principal and Stockholm World Peace Prize Holder Buddhist Sayadaw Dr. Ashin Sobhita denied accusations made by anti-military coalitions in the international community that Buddhist monks sided with the military government.
Sayadaw Ashin Sobhita made this remark during his speech at World Peace International Conference held on August 21, 2022 in Stockholm, Sweden.
Since the military took power in 2021, there have been subsequent attacks against the Buddhist order by the so-called people’s defense forces, Sayadaw said.
The country has been peacefully living together among 135 ethnic nationalities as well as between four major religious followers of Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism. Although the Buddhist population accounts for nearly 90%, we tended to respect and celebrate all religions, added Sayadaw in his speech.
Buddhist monks always stood and participated for peace, justice and democracy since the anti-colonial era against British rule. 2007 Saffron Revolution is another prominent uprising of Buddhist monks-led public revolution in the country.
“However, we are now constantly attacked by the activists, exiles and international supporters as we call for peace and reconciliation in Myanmar. Meanwhile, they call for total victory over the military government by waging a very violent war against not just the military units but also unarmed and innocent civilians. This insanity must be stopped,” Sayadaw said.
“Please allow me to bring a specific-statistics that should alarm all peace-loving people around the world. According to the IAPP survey, in Myanmar many innocent people were detained and killed during the recent conflict, among them, 54Buddhist Monks have been killed and hundreds & Thousands of their followers and houses were targeted and burned. Therefore, I would like to make a special request from this Stockholm World Peace Conference that all political forces including Myanmar Army, exiled National Unity Government, PDF, and ethnic armed organizations stop the wars and violence in order to prevent the lives of innocent people from being destroyed,” Sayadaw added.
There are requests to stop the terror attacks on innocent civilians and monks by some political parties in the country and requests to solve the conflict through political ways.