Arakan News Agency
Ma Ba Tha — or should we say, Dhamma Vansanurakhitta Association — leader Wirathu landed in Arakan State yesterday, raising suspicions as to the motivations behind the radical monk’s visit.
As The Voice reports, Wirathu flew from Yangon to Sittwe for a trip that will also see him visiting both Buthidaung and Maungdaw.
A Ma Ba Tha monk who is accompanying Wirathu told The Voice that the latter was there to hand out basic supplies to the town’s residents. Buthidaung and Maungdaw are home to the majority of the state’s Rohingya Muslim population and have been highly volatile since the border post attacks last October.
However, Arakan State police official Colonel Sein Lwin explained to Radio Free Asia: “He [Wirathu] can go to Maungdaw because there is no fighting there… There is fighting in some places far from Maungdaw. We are working on security for everybody who travels in the Maungdaw area. He is traveling only to donate food and clothing to people.” Wirathu will have a police detail for the entirety of his trip.
Another prominent authority figure who is also scheduled to fly to Sittwe today is the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur for Human Rights to Myanmar Yanghee Lee, who will be paying her sixth visit to Arakan State.
Earlier this year, Lee pushed for a high-level inquiry into abuses against the Rohingya Muslim community, the majority of whom reside in Arakan State.
In 2015, Wirathu called Lee a ‘whore’ for criticizing draft laws that discriminated against women and non-Buddhists. Condemning her for being biased towards Rohingya Muslims, Wirathu was quoted as saying: “Just because you hold a position in the United Nations doesn’t make you an honorable woman. In our country, you are just a whore…You can offer your arse to the kalars if you so wish but you are not selling off our Arakan State.”
However, Ma Ba Tha denies that their trip was motivated by Yanghee Lee’s own visit, saying, “We didn’t come to Rakhine just because the UN special envoy is here. We planned this trip about a month ago. Our trip to Arakan is not connected to Yanghee Lee’s visit.”
