969 Buddhist-Activist Monks Versus US Ambassador?

(Part of this post is direct translations of Op-Ed Articles from various Burmese Blogs.)

The 969 Buddhist Revival Movement in Burma is extremely popular among the Burmese Buddhists, even though bitterly demonised by International media, Islamic countries, and Burma’s own Muslims as a racist bigotry tethering on the genocidal context of ruining and driving the Bengali-Muslims out of Burma.

Recently at the US Embassy-sponsored forum titled “Freedom of Expression” held in the evening of May 8 at the American Centre the US Ambassador Derek Mitchell launched a thinly-veiled public attack on the 969 Buddhist Movement for inciting March anti-Muslim violence in Meikhtilar and earlier Islamic race riots in Arakan State last year.

Delivering his keynote speech to the sympathetic and mostly pro-American students of more than 300 he also urged strongly the Burmese government to take punitive legal actions against many pro-government blogs and Face book sites for inciting anti-Muslim racial hatred among the restless populace of Burma.

Self-Censorship or Punitive Legal Actions?

At the same forum another American diplomat Micheal D. Quinlan also pointed out the fact that US had a movie censorship system till early 1970s and since late 1970s that censorship system was withdrawn and only classification system has been put in place and self-sensorship has been encouraged.

He advised that Burmese Government should also follow US and take punitive legal actions instead of draconian censorship against irresponsible individuals and corporations who misuse the newly found media freedom in recently-reformed Burma.

IMHO the American diplomats in Burma are strongly and publicly urging the Burmese to impose self-censorship themselves; otherwise Burmese Government should punish them like what US government has been doing to its so-called mainstream media.

Thanks God for the First Amendment and fiercely-independent Supreme Court US still has a public media much freer than any other western democracy where saying anything anti-Muslims or anti-Islam is a hate-speech and treated as an act of so-called hate-crime.

So what the Burmese government should do? Punish the pro-government websites clearly operating on nationalist-Buddhist agenda and shut them down as the United States is urging? To answer these questions one has to know and understand which websites our Derek Mitchell has been referring to as the anti-Muslims agitators.

The slightly-anti-government news media Eleven Media Group has picked out following two pro-government internet-sites as the major culprits even though the US ambassador Derek Mitchell has avoided naming names in his speech.

- Myanmar Express Group believed to be controlled by a group of army officers from Burma Army’s Cyber Warfare Unit directly under the MAS (Military Affairs Security).

- Ludu Maung Karlu believed to be affiliated with the Shin Wirathu’s 969 Buddhist Movement Group or even directly controlled by the devout followers of the Nationalist monk waging war against the Muslims in Burma.

And there is very popular Dr. Sait Phwar (Dr. Goatee) who is now being investigated by a parliamentary committee specially formed to discover who really is or are behind that famous pseudonym.

Cyber Warriors-Cum-Army Officers

There are thousands of DSA (Defense Services Academy) graduated army officers studying for their graduate degrees in Russia. Many are studying for their masters and doctorates in Advanced Information Technology and they are part of the core group of army officers running various pro-government and pro-army sites on the Internet.

Many of them insist that they are just voluntarily doing their patriotic duty to defend their nation, religion, and race. But since they are active duty officers of an army which prohibits its officers even from using Face book that statement is doubtful.

I honestly believe they are directly controlled by the Army’s Cyber Warfare Unit which is closely linked to PLA’s Cyber Warfare Unit known as PLA Unit 61398.

Not only they defend Burmese government and their army actively like any self-respecting army officer should do they also wage aggressive cyber-warfare against anti-government sites and so-called prodemocracy sites. They even retaliated and took down Bangladeshi government sites during 2012 undeclared-cyber war between Burma and Bangladesh.

Equipped with PLA-developed Google’s Gmail-hack they frequently broke into many Gmail accounts of anti-Burma activists like the Burmese exiles working for RFA (Radio Free Asia) or VOA (Voice Of America) and threatened or blackmailed them with the hacked details of their private affairs.

Face book Warriors And The Opposite Eye

Opposite Eye Exposed?

Many active-duty army officers had Face Book accounts before their C-In-C Min Aung Hlaing has laid down a policy of blanket-ban on them only last month. During the last January offensive against KIA HQ at Laiza their various Face Book sites had timely posted the latest news and photos of war raging there on the border with China.

Eventually the army top brass might have concluded those sites were un-intentionally giving away army’s tactical secrets to the undesirables and so they shut them down. Only one Face Book account called “Opposite Eye” believed to have belonged to a junior boss of Cyber Warfare Unit Colonel Aung Myo Thant of MAS (Sa-Ya-Pha) has survived and still disseminating valuable inside information from the deeply-nationalist mindset of both government and army.

His site Myanmar Express is basically operating like any raunchy tabloid newspaper one could easily find in New York or London or Sydney. By reporting the raunchy stories about the bastard teenage daughter of Aung San Suu Kyi to the gruesome slaughter of Muslims in Mikhtilar and Arakan the extremely popular Myanmar Express has attracted more than 25 million hits so far in just two years.

Runaway Parliament & Recalcitrant Dr. Sait Phwar

Dr. Sait Phwar?

Nobody knows who really is Dr. Sait Phwar the highly popular pro-government Blogger who went too far and poked his pen too deep into the collective arse of Burma’s runaway parliamentarians.

Following is SEAPA (South East Asia Press Alliance) statement on Burma Parliament’s persecution of the pro-government blogger Dr. Sait Phwar.

“MYANMAR’s Hluttaw (Parliament) approved on 8 February a proposal to investigate a blogger for writing a critical article that “dishonored” the legislature.

A 17-member bicameral commission was formed to determine the identity and take action on a blogger who wrote under the pseudonym “Dr Sate Phwar”, who wrote a 17 January 2013 article entitled “Is the Hluttaw (Parliament) above the law?”.

Dr Soe Yin Calling to investigate who the hell is Dr. Sait Phwar.

The Hluttaw’s move stems from a 17 January proposal by lower house representative Dr Soe Yin of the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) from Kamaryut Constituency accusing the writer of dishonoring the dignity of Parliament, its members and performance, which could mislead the public and the international community.

His motion was passed on the same day by a 347 to 157 vote in favor of the investigation, with 42 abstentions. A commission was formed to be headed by U Mya Nyein, deputy speaker of the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (Assembly of the Union, the bicameral parliament) and U Nanda Kyaw Swa, deputy speaker of the Pyithu Hluttaw (House of Representatives), and 15 other members from both houses.

According to state-run Burmese language Kyaymon (The Mirror) newspaper, the Commission will investigate: whether the article defames the Parliament and its members; whether the facts contained can mislead the public; whether it violated the Electronic Transactions Law governing facsimile, email, internet, intranet and similar communication technologies; or whether Dr. Sate Phwar’s exercise of freedom of speech violates other laws related to national security, rule of law, peace and morality or if he was within his rights as a law abiding citizen.

The Commission is also given authority to give orders and consult with concerned government units to determine the identity of Dr. Sate Phwar.

The article, which was published on Dr Sate Phwar’s blog Voice of Myanmar, criticizes recent attempts by the Parliament to amend the Constitutional Tribunal Law, saying that such moves was intended to gain more control over the judiciary and was thus in breach of the 2008 Constitution.”

Colonel Ye Htut the Presidential Spokesman.

Recalcitrant but fearful Dr. Sait Phwar has now completely disappeared from the Internet and just a couple of days back the Parliamentary Commission chasing Dr. Sait Phwar relentlessly has announced that they had discovered the real identity of the man behind their hated-Dr. Sait Phwar.

Strangely the Commission hasn't revealed the real identity of Dr. Sait Phwar yet for some unexplained reason. But the reliable leaks from Nay Pyi Daw are that Dr. Sait Phwar is none other than Colonel Ye Htut the Deputy Minister for Information and the Government's Spokesperson.

969-Buddhist Monks Gone Offensive On Internet

Many 969 anti-Islam Buddhist movement monks have been actively running various blogs and Face book pages. The most outspoken, aggressive, and popular is “Ludu Maung Kar Lu” which is basically attacking any pro-democracy, pro-federal, pro-left, and so-called progressive political groups like ASSK’s NLD and Min Ko Naing’s 88-Generation Students.

Daily occurrences of the successful rescue of young Burmese-Buddhist girls from the evil clutches of rich Muslim men are regularly reported in such melodramatic way the site is a magnet for extreme Buddhist-nationalists all over Burma.

The monks defended their actions by claiming that they are rather reinforcing the severely-deteriorating fences of Buddhism than attacking Muslims. Segregation or building a solid wall between Muslims and Buddhists is their main purpose they said.

They said they do not tell their followers to burn down Muslim businesses and kill Muslims. They just ask them not to do business with the Muslims and not to socialize with them evil Muslims.

So what’s the Burmese Government gonna do to please the Americans? Shut up their own people and punish them or just ignore them till the Americans take a severe action like extending American financial sanctions one more year like US has just done last week!

A KIA officer and Colonel Ye Htut (1996).

Colonel Ye Htut in 1996 KIA peace talk at Myitkyinar.

Dr. Sait Phwar's offending article "Is Parliament Above the Law?" in Burmese.