Monks should advise Than Shwe: Amyotheryei Win Naing

Nga Ngai
Mizzima News: 7July, 2006

The self-styled national politician Win Naing has called on Burma's Buddhist monks to use their status to advise military leader senior general Than Shwe against corruption and unfair taxation.

In a letter dated July 3, Amyotheryei Win Naing called on Burma's Buddhist monks to ask Than Shwe to take action against corruption and mafia-style governance.

"Today, Burma has been deteriorating politically, economically and socially . . . To lighten the pain of the Burmese people, only your holiness monks and senior general Than Shwe can do it now," the letter said.

"Your holiness monks should give guidance and senior general Than Shwe can implement it."

Buddhist monks played a key role in the 1988 popular uprising in Burma, but after many were slaughtered by the military regime few remained engaged in the struggle for democracy.

Win Naing also called on Burma's leading monks to advise the setting up of a "Nation Building Welfare Organisation" comprising intellectuals and scholars, which would work to solve the economic crisis in the country.

"I am not asking the generals to hand over the power to some one, I am just asking to solve the current problems and troubles of the people inside the country," Win Naing told Mizzima.

"If you go to some new towns such as Hlaing Thayar, Shwe Pyi Tha, you will see people are feeling shortage of food and they are starving, they seemed to be dead in one or two months, they are very poor."

Win Naing said that since Buddhist monks were so revered by the military's top leaders, he thought Than Shwe was more likely to respond to their advice than to international or regional pressure.

U Pyinyawara, head of New Delhi-based 8888 monastery, said he agreed with Win Naing.

"I hope the monks should involve in the current Burma's political situation because we are doing for the sake and the benefit of our people and the country."