Despite Reform, Christians Remain Under Military Attack in Burma
Jarmal Ahamed, General Secretary of the Burmese Rohingya Organisation U.K., said: “Since June 2012 more than 5,000 Rohingyas have been killed, some burned alive. Homes and mosques have been destroyed, hundreds of women and girls have been raped, often in front of family members, and 140,000 have been forced to leave their homes. Many have nothing to eat, nowhere to go, and are dying of hunger and disease.”
That conflict is often portrayed as inter-communal violence between the Rohingya and Rakhine tribes; the former Muslim, the latter Buddhist. But Jarmal Ahamed described the attacks as “state organized and sanctioned, backed up by the federal government.”
Hkanhpa Sadan, of the Kachin National Organisation, said non-Buddhist religious minorities were being deliberately targeted under a policy of Burmanisation. “Their motive is ‘one nation, one command.’ They want us to be Burman, to be Buddhist, and to follow their orders,” he told World Watch Monitor.
While people around the world were praying for Burma, the National League for Democracy (NLD) was holding its historic first Congress in Rangoon. In a recorded message to the London event, U Tin Oo, the Deputy Leader of the NLD acknowledged: “There are still tangible violations of human rights along the border region. The victims are facing great damage and devastation [and] do not have access to food and shelter. Conditions there are gradually deteriorating.”
U Tin Oo, a former commander-in-chief of the Burmese armed forces and a Buddhist, said: “I do pray with you for relief and a remedy to cure the great poverty [of these] helpless refugees.”
But the event heard criticism that the NLD, and specifically its newly re-elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi was not doing enough to help the persecuted ethnic and religious minorities. The opposition leader took a seat in Parliament after by-elections in April 2012 and is widely expected to be voted in to lead the country in the presidential elections in 2015.
“Aung San Suu Kyi has been a disappointment,” said Hkanhpa Sadan, of the KNO. “She was our only hope. But she has failed to speak up for the ethnic minorities, failed to visit the refugees. She is afraid of offending the army and has one eye towards the elections in 2015. Our message to Aung San Suu Kyi is, ‘Please help us. Use your liberty to speak up for us.'” It was Aung San Suu Kyi who first initiated the annual Global Day of Prayer for Burma in 1997.
Burmese President Thein Sein has been in Europe on a quest for international legitimacy, and on March 4 he appealed to the E.U. to lift remaining sanctions against his country. Europe has already suspended all non-military sanctions for a year.
But Baroness Cox is adamant that sanctions must remain in force. She told the BBC that Sein’s visit to Europe was for “propaganda” purposes, and the international community risked turning a blind eye to injustice because of the desire to trade with Burma, which is rich in resources. She continued: “Do not lift those sanctions until there is peace, justice, equality and freedom for all the peoples of Burma.”
In a specially written prayer for the Global Day of Prayer, the Catholic archbishop of Rangoon, Charles Maung Bo, said: “We pray that Myanmar [Burma] becomes a land whose future belongs to her sons and daughters and not to outsiders, the business makers, the peace-makers and the hundreds of NGOs. … We pray for a nation built on compassion and mercy, justice and peace.”
London event organizer Ben Rogers described the Day of Prayer as a success: “Our aim was to help people see that Burma still has many challenges, and while it is right to give thanks for the signs of hope, there is a danger of premature euphoria.
“The situation in Kachin is extremely serious and we must redouble our prayers for Burma to have genuine freedom and peace,” he continued. “For that to be permanent, it must turn into a peace process, a meaningful political dialogue that leads to a lasting political solution for Burma’s ethnic nationalities.”
