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World Buddhist summit opens in Burma despite boycott call
A world Buddhist summit has opened in Burma, despite a boycott call.
An estimated 1,500 people, including monks and officials, gathered in the capital, Rangoon, for a ceremonial ringing of 108 bells to open the three-day event.
Japan’s Nenbutsushu sect, which has held the summit every two years in a Buddhist nation, withdrew its sponsorship after the sacking in October of the regime’s then-premier, Khin Nyunt.
The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a Thailand-based rights group, called for a boycott of the conference because of the continued detention of an estimated 300 monks by the regime.
But despite the protests, Burma says the fourth summit of its kind will still be a “landmark in the history of Buddhism.”
Delegates are mainly from Asia and include the premiers of Thailand and Laos, but there are also representatives from nations such as the United States, Britain, and Australia.
The military has ruled Burma since a coup in 1962 despite Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy winning elections in 1990 by a landslide.
Ms Suu Kyi has been under house arrest since May last year following a clash between her supporters and pro-junta demonstrators.
It is her third period of house arrest since the late 1980s.
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