A firebrand monk slammed Aung San Suu Kyi as a "dictator" Wednesday, accusing Myanmar's civilian-led government of trying to destroy an ultra-nationalist Buddhist group blamed for a surge in sectarian violence across the country. The attack came after the body representing Myanmar's top monks distanced itself from the hard-line Ma Ba Tha movement, a blow to its clerical legitimacy. The Ma Ba Tha is a noisy, monk-led group at the forefront of virulently anti-Muslim protests in Myanmar in the three years since it was founded.
Wirathu, the movement's most prominent figure, posted his scathing remarks on Facebook. "I have seen that the ruling party and the new civilian government is stepping forward to target me as 'Enemy Number One' to destroy the whole Ma Ba Tha group to the end," he wrote. He also described the administration as "a woman dictator's government which is going to put me in prison".
Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy won a landslide victory at last November's elections. Wirathu's comments came after the Sangha Maha Nayaka Committee, which represents the upper echelons of the clergy in the overwhelmingly Buddhist country, issued a statement late Tuesday saying it had never endorsed Ma Ba Tha.
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