Myanmar military slams ``exploitati

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Subject: Myanmar military slams ``exploitation'' of top monks 

Myanmar military slams ``exploitation'' of top monks
07:05 a.m. Jan 04, 2000 Eastern
YANGON, Jan 4 (Reuters) - Myanmar's military government said on Tuesday two
prominent Buddhist monks who urged it to enter a dialogue with the
pro-democracy opposition had been exploited for political ends.

Two of the top Sayadaws, or presiding monks, in the devoutly Buddhist
country wrote appeals to both the ruling military council and the opposition
National League for Democracy urging them to work for national
reconciliation.

The monks were the abbots of the Kyakhet Wain monastery near Bago, about 80
km (50 miles) north of Yangon, and of the Maha Gandayone monastery in
Mandalay, the country's second city.

``It is quite regretful to learn that some quarters have been exploiting the
Venerable Sayadaws for their own ends,'' a government statement said.

It said the monks had been made to participate ``unwittingly'' in activities
strictly prohibited in the Buddhist religion, and rumours had been spread
suggesting their opinions reflected those of the whole monkhood.

``Nevertheless,'' the statement said, ``The government agrees with the
opinion of the said two Sayadaws and hopes that in this auspicious time of
the beginning of the new millennium the National League for Democracy is
willing to adopt a more realistic and flexible policy...''

There are about two dozen Sayadaws in Myanmar, who as the senior monks in a
400,000-strong monastic order can be extremely influential.

Earlier on Tuesday, one of Myanmar's surviving independence leaders appealed
in a statement issued at an independence day ceremony for the military and
the opposition to follow the monks' advice.

Bohmu Aung, 90, said Myanmar was in political turmoil due to a failure to
convene a People's Parliament elected in the last general election in 1990,
which Suu Kyi's NLD won by a landslide.

Bohmu Aung was one of Myanmar's ``Thirty Comrades,'' the group which led the
struggle for independence won in 1948.

The government and NLD, which is led by 1991 Nobel Peace laureate Aung San
Suu Kyi blame each other for a lack of dialogue

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