Narinjara News
Akyab, May 5
Khin Nyunt portrait pulled down from all Buddhist
sites in Arakan
The ousted Burmese Prime
Minister Khin Nyunt's portraits were pulled down by
authorities from all the Buddhist temples and monasteries in Arakan, said a well-known Gopaka
member, a pagoda trustee from Akyab.
"The local authority
ordered us to pull down all the portraits of the former Prime Minister, Khin
Nyunt, from Lokanada Pagoda and said to replace it
with the newly appointed Prime Minister Soe Win's portraits", he said.
Locananda is 108 feet high and was built with forced labor
under the supervision of Khin Nyunt, the then Prime Minister of the junta, in
the
This order was issued by the
local authority after Senior General Than Shwe, the
head of the state, visited the pagoda during the Arakanese
New Years period. Than Shwe also visited the Thyan Gran (water festival) with
some of his cabinet members. The visit went from the 13th to 18th of
April, 2005.
All temples and monasteries
in Arakan are currently pulling down all portraits of
the former Prime Minister Khin Nyunt.
In Arakan
there are a large number of Buddhist temples that hanged the former Prime
Minister's portraits. The portraits were drawn by excellent artists and
these portraits are very expensive, said a Pagoda trustee from Buthi Daung, a northern townn of Arakan .
The trustee added that there
has not been any instruction by the authority to the Pagoda trustees on what to
do with the portraits of Khin Nyunt after removing them form the Buddhist temples.
Hence, many of the pagoda
trustees in Arakan are now facing a dilemma. Will the
portraits of former Prime Minister, Khin Nyunt be burned or kept in the store?
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