The examination also suggests motives that are as much economic as religious. In Myanmar as a whole, Muslims account for 5 percent of the populace. In Meikhtila, they comprise a third. The recent violence threatens to knock long-established Muslim communities out of that equation, stoking speculation the unrest is part of a bigger struggle for influence in reform-era Myanmar.
The failure of Nobel Peace Prize-winner Aung San Suu Kyi, now opposition leader in parliament, to defuse the tension further undermines her image as a unifying moral force. Suu Kyi, a devout Buddhist, has said little, beyond warning that the violence could spread if not dealt with by rule of law. Suu Kyi declined to be interviewed for this story.
Aye Aye Naing, a year-old Buddhist woman, wanted to make an offering of food to local monks. But she needed money, she recalled, sitting in her home in Pyon Kout village. At about 9 a. With her husband and sister, she entered New Waint Sein, a Muslim-owned gold shop, which offered her , kyat. She wanted at least , Shop workers studied the gold, but the clip came back damaged, she said.
The shop owner, a young woman in her 20s, now offered just 50, The stout mother of five protested, calling the owner unreasonable. The owner slapped her, witnesses said. Onlookers gathered. Police arrived, detaining Aye Aye Naing and the owner.
No one was killed or injured, but the Muslim-owned building housing the gold shop and several others were nearly destroyed. They are quarrelsome. They have some hatred from the crowd. It suggested Muslims in Meikhtila were conspiring against Buddhists, assisted by money from Saudi Arabia, and holding shady meetings in mosques.
Tensions escalated. By about p. As a monk passed on the back of a motorbike, they attacked. One hit the driver with a sword, causing him to crash, witnesses said. One of the men doused him in fuel and set him on fire, said Soe Thein, a mechanic who saw the attack. The monk died in hospital. Soe Thein, a Buddhist, ran to the market. A monk has been killed! As he ran back, a mob followed and the riots began. Muslim homes and shops went up in flames.
Soe Thein identified the attackers by name and said he saw several in the village days after the monk was murdered. Police declined to say whether they were among 13 people arrested and under investigation related to the Meikhtila violence. That evening, flames devoured much of Mingalarzay Yone, a mostly Muslim ward in east Meikhtila. The fire razed a mosque, an orphanage and several homes. Hundreds fled. About packed into the thatched wooden home of Maung Maung, a Muslim elder.
Related Coverage. About police officers watched the riots in the neighborhood before leaving around midnight, he said. By about 4 a. Nearly a thousand Buddhists were outside. When dawn broke, at about 6 a. They slowly backed away, allowing the mob to attack, said Hla Thein, 48, a neighborhood Buddhist elder. The Muslims fled through the side of the house, chased by men with swords, sticks, iron rods and machetes.
Some were butchered in a nearby swamp, said Hla Thein, who recounted the events along with four other witnesses, both Buddhist and Muslim. Others were cut down as they ran toward a hilltop road. Police saved 47 of the Muslims, mostly women and children, by encircling them with their shields and firing warning shots in the air, Hla Thein said. Armed monks and Buddhist mobs terrorized the streets for the next three days, witnesses said.
They threatened Thein Zaw, a fireman trying to douse a burning mosque. He drove through a hail of stones, one striking below his eye, and crashed, he said, showing his wound. But aren't Buddhist monks meant to be the good guys of religion? Aggressive thoughts are inimical to all Buddhist teachings. Buddhism even comes equipped with a practical way to eliminate them.
Through meditation the distinction between your feelings and those of others should begin to dissolve, while your compassion for all living things grows. Of course, there is a strong strain of pacifism in Christian teachings too: "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you," were the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount.
But however any religion starts out, sooner or later it enters into a Faustian pact with state power. Buddhist monks looked to kings, the ultimate wielders of violence, for the support, patronage and order that only they could provide. Kings looked to monks to provide the popular legitimacy that only such a high moral vision can confer.
The result can seem ironic. If you have a strong sense of the overriding moral superiority of your worldview, then the need to protect and advance it can seem the most important duty of all. Christian crusaders, Islamist militants, or the leaders of "freedom-loving nations", all justify what they see as necessary violence in the name of a higher good. Buddhist rulers and monks have been no exception. So, historically, Buddhism has been no more a religion of peace than Christianity.
One of the most famous kings in Sri Lankan history is Dutugamanu, whose unification of the island in the 2nd Century BC is related in an important chronicle, the Mahavamsa.
It says that he placed a Buddhist relic in his spear and took monks with him along to war against a non-Buddhist king. He destroyed his opponents. After the bloodshed, some enlightened ones consoled him that the slain "were like animals; you will make the Buddha's faith shine".
Burmese rulers, known as "kings of righteousness", justified wars in the name of what they called true Buddhist doctrine. Eleven Buddhist villagers said Buddhists committed acts of violence, including killings. The government and army have repeatedly blamed Rohingya insurgents for burning villages and homes.
Security forces wore civilian clothes to avoid detection during raids, one of the paramilitary police officers said. Michael G. Karnavas, a U. So far, however, Myanmar has not faced international sanctions over the violence. They had hoped the election of her National League for Democracy party in would bring democratic reform and an opening of the country.
Instead, critics say, Suu Kyi is in thrall to the generals who freed her from house arrest in And we are not giving blanket denials. We have to ask the Ministry of Home Affairs and Myanmar police forces. It is very difficult in the current situation. Zaw Htay defended the military operation in Rakhine.
If that kind of terrorist attack took place in European countries, in the United States, in London, New York, Washington, what would the media say? The settlement is made up of a scattering of hamlets around a school, clinic and Buddhist monastery. Buddhist homes cluster in the northern part of the village. For many years there had been tensions between the Buddhists and their Muslim neighbors, who accounted for almost 90 percent of the roughly 7, people in the village.
But the two communities had managed to co-exist, fishing the coastal waters and cultivating rice in the paddies. In October , Rohingya militants attacked three police posts in northern Rakhine — the beginning of a new insurgency. After the attacks, Rohingya in Inn Din said many Buddhists stopped hiring them as farmhands and home help.
The Buddhists said the Rohingya stopped showing up for work. On Aug. The closest attack was just 4 km to the north. In Inn Din, several hundred fearful Buddhists took refuge in the monastery in the center of the village, more than a dozen of their number said. Two paramilitary police officers and Soe Chay, the retired soldier, said the troops belonged to the 11th infantry regiment of this division.
The army officer in charge told villagers they must cook for the soldiers and act as lookouts at night, Soe Chay said. The officer promised his troops would protect Buddhist villagers from their Rohingya neighbors. Five Buddhist villagers said the officer told them they could volunteer to join security operations. Myanmar media reported at the time that the three were sentenced to death by a district court.
Its ranks included Buddhist firefighters, school teachers, students and unemployed young men. They also had a handful of guns, according to one member. Two of the paramilitary police officers, both members of the 8th Security Police Battalion, said their battalion raided Rohingya hamlets with soldiers from the newly arrived 33rd Light Infantry.
The second police officer described taking part in several raids on villages north of Inn Din. The raids involved at least 20 soldiers and between five and seven police, he said. A military captain or major led the soldiers, while a police captain oversaw the police team. The purpose of the raids was to deter the Rohingya from returning. The image is deliberately blurred here; click on the arrow to view at full resolution. Reuters shared the photo with Luis Fondebrider, a forensic anthropologist.
A police spokesman, Colonel Myo Thu Soe, said he knew of no instances of security forces torching villages or wearing civilian clothing. A medical assistant at the Inn Din village clinic, Aung Myat Tun, 20, said he took part in several raids. The police said they will shoot and kill us if they see any of us taking photos. The night watchman San Thein, a leading member of the village security group, said troops first swept through the Muslim hamlets. Then, he said, the military sent in Buddhist villagers to burn the houses.
A Rakhine Buddhist youth said he thought he heard the sound of a child inside one Rohingya home that was burned. A second villager said he participated in burning a Rohingya home that was occupied. Soe Chay, the retired soldier who was to dig the grave for the 10 Rohingya men, said he participated in one killing.
He told Reuters that troops discovered three Rohingya men and a woman hiding beside a haystack in Inn Din on Aug. One of the men had a smartphone that could be used to take incriminating pictures. They pointed out the man with the phone and told him to stand up. Similar violence was playing out across a large part of northern Rakhine, dozens of Buddhist and Rohingya residents said.
Data from the U. Operational Satellite Applications Programme shows scores of Rohingya villages in Rakhine state burned in an area stretching km. New York-based Human Rights Watch says more than villages were torched over the three months from Aug.
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