By RSIS August 5, 2013 The controversial Buddhist monk Wirathu, putative leader of the Buddhist fundamentalist 969 movement in Myanmar, has fuelled Buddhist-Muslim violence in the past year. Liberal responses to let the marketplace of ideas drown his extremist rhetoric are unlikely to suffice. By Kumar Ramakrishna THE CONTROVERSIAL monk Ashin Wirathu, putative leader of the Buddhist fundamentalist 969 movement in Myanmar, has drawn world attention in recent weeks with his extremist rhetoric. Wirathu has graced the cover of Time magazine and even been called the Burmese bin Laden because his sermons have been blamed for fuelling the anti-Muslim violence that has rocked Myanmar the past year. Between June and October last year, 200 people, mainly Muslims, were killed in Buddhist-Muslim riots in the western Rakhine region of Myanmar, and 110,000 villagers, mostly Muslim Rohingya, displaced. Periodic episodes of Buddhist-Muslim violence have continued in 2013 and commu