Myanmar shuts AIDS monastery

The Myanmar junta has shut down a Yangon monastery, which served as a hospice for HIV/AIDS...

The Myanmar junta has shut down a Yangon monastery, which served as a hospice for HIV/AIDS patients and expelled its monks, an opposition lawyer said on Friday.

“The authorities sealed Maggin monastery yesterday afternoon” and expelled the monks, said Aung Thein of detained democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy. “The authorities did not give them any documents and did not say under which law the action was taken, so we cannot do anything to provide them with legal assistance,” he added.

United Nations special envoy Ibrahim Gambari criticised the closure of the monastery, which was a refuge for provincial patients who came to Yangon for medicines.

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“Any action that runs counter to the spirit of national reconciliation, any action that will undermine the dialogue between the Government and those who disagree with the policy of the Government should be avoided,” Gambari said in Phnom Penh.

“And I’d like to repeat that,” he told reporters during a visit to Cambodia on a regional tour before returning to Myanmar next month for more talks with the Government and probably Suu Kyi.

The abbots of Maggin monastery have long had the reputation of supporting pro-democracy campaigns, such as the one led by monks in September which the junta crushed. The official death toll is 15, but diplomats believe it is much higher. The suppression caused such international outrage the junta allowed Gambari to visit and it appointed a senior general as intermediary with Suu Kyi, who has spent 12 of the past 18 years under some form of detention.

Gambari, who expects to return to Myanmar in December, said after his last visit he had received assurances the crackdown would stop.