Today the Ma Ba Tha has significant political power and only a few months ago managed to successfully campaign for four laws “for the protection of race and religion” which were widely criticized by human rights groups both for violating women’s rights and for being discriminatory towards religions other than Buddhism.
The fact that the message propagated by the Ma Ba Tha echoes the former military dictatorship’s propaganda – “nationalism” and “unity” are all but new slogans – also fosters doubts about the organizations’ real aims. To put it simply, many believe that the Ma Ba Tha works closely with the Union Solidarity Development Party (USDP), which is currently in power and has close ties to the military.
“They are being used by the military elite, it is part of their plan to cling on to power,” says Khin Ohmar, the coordinator of Burma Partnership, a human rights NGO, according to whom the army is all too fond of being at the helm of the country, even if hidden behind a democratic façade.
“Before, they did not need anyone. But now it is different, they need some form of public support and the easiest card to play is targeting the Muslim minority. It is easy to orchestrate an Islamophobic campaign,” she told East.
This would explain why eminent members of the Ma Ba Tha have often criticized the National League for Democracy (NLD) – Aung San Suu Kyi’s party and the main adversary of the USDP in the upcoming November elections – by branding it an “Islamic party” and calling on people to vote for the incumbent government.
“We all should forget the bad that they have done in the past,” Bhaddamta Vimala, the movement’s secretary, said last June. “I want this government to have one more term to run this country because I do not want our immature democracy to be damaged.”
These messages have struck a chord with part of the population and have provided Aung San Suu Kyi with a difficult problem to solve. Should she speak up for the Rohingyas and the rest of the Muslim community, she would likely suffer a loss of votes. Not doing so is denting the image of near-sanctity she gained through years under house arrests during the junta era.
Today the Ma Ba Tha has significant political power and only a few months ago managed to successfully campaign for four laws “for the protection of race and religion” which were widely criticized by human rights groups both for violating women’s rights and for being discriminatory towards religions other than Buddhism.The fact that the message propagated by the Ma Ba Tha echoes the former military dictatorship’s propaganda – “nationalism” and “unity” are all but new slogans – also fosters doubts about the organizations’ real aims. To put it simply, many believe that the Ma Ba Tha works closely with the Union Solidarity Development Party (USDP), which is currently in power and has close ties to the military.“They are being used by the military elite, it is part of their plan to cling on to power,” says Khin Ohmar, the coordinator of Burma Partnership, a human rights NGO, according to whom the army is all too fond of being at the helm of the country, even if hidden behind a democratic façade.“Before, they did not need anyone. But now it is different, they need some form of public support and the easiest card to play is targeting the Muslim minority. It is easy to orchestrate an Islamophobic campaign,” she told East.This would explain why eminent members of the Ma Ba Tha have often criticized the National League for Democracy (NLD) – Aung San Suu Kyi’s party and the main adversary of the USDP in the upcoming November elections – by branding it an “Islamic party” and calling on people to vote for the incumbent government.“We all should forget the bad that they have done in the past,” Bhaddamta Vimala, the movement’s secretary, said last June. “I want this government to have one more term to run this country because I do not want our immature democracy to be damaged.”These messages have struck a chord with part of the population and have provided Aung San Suu Kyi with a difficult problem to solve. Should she speak up for the Rohingyas and the rest of the Muslim community, she would likely suffer a loss of votes. Not doing so is denting the image of near-sanctity she gained through years under house arrests during the junta era.
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