In Burma, everyone who is remotely informed about the ways the military works knows the Hidden Hand behind what academics call "ethno-religious mobilization" (mobilizing public opinion along racial/religious lines scapegoating weak and vulnerable minorities for all the ills and hardships in society). In Germany of 1920's and 1930's, the Nazi party was the main mobilizer.
In Burma today, the army uses the Sangha or Buddhist Order - conservative, typically racist, ill-educated in terms of intellectual outlooks and growth of its members, and rural (parochial) - as its proxy mobilizer.
The military - at the senior most level of leadership - has patronized a tiny gang of influential monks to do the army's bidding - racist divide and rule within the society that is generally anti-military.
Here two monks, namely Sitagu and Wirathu, are seen travelling with their security details.
This is the strategic symbiosis which has served the Burmese military's objectives of social control extremely well. It has enabled the military to keep the NLD - with absolutely no capacity for intelligence gathering or control of security forces - on its toes in terms of the socially destablizing impact of such racist mobilization by monks - with state impunity.
The last picture is the most influential monk Sitagu with Karen Border Guard Force (under Myanmar army's command) in Karen State where the army intelligence attempted to incite anti-Muslim violence, in collaboration with the border guard force and Karen monks). (Taken in March 2017)
The first several pictures are Wirathu, very recent travels in Rakhine state including Rohingya towns.
