Myanmar Junta Drops Plan to Place Buddhist Monks on Military Roadblocks

[ajay0]

Myanmar Junta Drops Plan to Place Buddhist Monks on Military Roadblocks | Buddhistdoor

The efforts by the Myanmar military dictatorship to bolster support for their rule by recruiting buddhist monks to man military checkpoints and and to discourage pro-democracy protests. has been abandoned in the face of opposition from the monastic sangha, local media sources report.

Buddhist monastics stood at the forefront of pro-democracy protests against the previous military junta in 2007, a movement known as the Saffron Revolution, which helped to bolster grassroots support. Buddhist monks are estimated to number in excess of 500,000, mainly centered in and around the cities of Yangon and Mandalay, along with some 75,000 Buddhist nuns.

A coup d'état in Myanmar began on the morning of 1 February 2021, when democratically elected members of the country's ruling party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), were deposed by the Tatmadaw—Myanmar's military—which then vested power in a stratocracy.