Young monks urge senior monks to boycott SPDC

DVB ( 2 Feb 2004 )

Young Buddhist monks in Rangoon and Mandalay are urging senior monks and abbots to boycott the country’s military junta by not collecting nourishments and accepting donations provided by the families of Burmese army officers.

An anonymous group calling itself Scholar Monks distributed a letter describing the illegal arrests and forcibly disrobing of Buddhist monks, imposition of curfews on monks and the closures of Buddhists seminaries by Burma’s military junta, State Peace and Development Council (SPDC).

An abbot who doesn’t want to be identified told DVB that the letter emerged in response to the army officers’ pressures on the abbots of monasteries to control young monks from protesting by bribing them with nourishments, robes and material needs.

Hundreds of Buddhist monks have been arrested and forcibly disrobed and forced to join the army by the junta since anti-Muslim riots occurred last year at Mandalay and Kyaukse in central Burma.