Buddhist nationalist demonstrators stepped up demands that the government recall the US ambassador amid a row over his use of the word ‘Rohingya’.
About 100 people, including monks, rallied in Yangon’s Bahan Township yesterday, shouting “No Rohingya in Myanmar”, the Myanmar Times reported.
“Former president U Thein Sein already announced there are no Rohingya in our country,” monk Pyin Nyein Da told the Times. “Now the NLD government has the duty to clarify the usage of the term ‘Rohingya’.”
The protest, which was sanctioned by authorities, happened on the same day that US Secretary of State John Kerry met Aung San Suu Kyi in Naypyitaw.
Demonstrators accused the recently appointed ambassador, Scot Marciel, of interfering with domestic politics and putting diplomatic relations at risk.
Protests have been held regularly across the country since last month when the embassy issued a statement referring to Muslims killed in a boat crash in Rakhine State as ‘Rohingya’. Nationalists dismiss the persecuted group, hundreds of thousands of who live in squalid internal displacement camps and villages in Rakhine, as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.
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