Dalai Lama lashes out at Myanmar, Lanka Buddhist violence
10 May, 2013 - The Dalai Lama has implored Buddhist monks in Myanmar and Sri Lanka
to put an end to a series of recent attacks on Muslims in their countries. The Tibetan
Buddhist spiritual leader spoke Tuesday night about religious violence when asked
questions following a speech he delivered to 15,000 people at the University of Maryland
in the United States. Myanmar, formerly Burma, has been wracked by sectarian violence
that has killed hundreds and displaced more than 135,000 over the past year, while
Sri Lankan Buddhist groups have recently attacked Muslim businesses. ``Killing people
in the name of religion is really very sad, unthinkable, very sad,'' the 1989 Nobel
Peace laureate said. He expressed deep sadness that nowadays even Buddhist monks destroy
Muslim mosques or Muslim families. The Dalai Lama is the head of the Tibetan
school of Buddhism, while Buddhism in Myanmar and Sri Lanka is dominated by the separate
Theravada branch, which does not answer to his authority. The sectarian violence in
Myanmar first flared in western Rakhine state nearly a year ago, when mobs of Buddhists
armed with machetes razed thousands of Muslim homes, leaving hundreds dead and forcing
125,000 people to flee, mostly Muslims. That violence has since spread into a campaign
against the country's Muslim community in other regions. (Source: AP)