Posted by: "Rhododendron Online" rhododendron_online@yahoo.co.in rhododendron_online
Fri Feb 20, 2009 2:46 pm (PST)
Lead story - Friday February 20, 2009 BURMA: REPORT DOCUMENTS ABUSE OF CHIN CHRISTIANSHuman Rights Watch shows systematic, officially sanctioned religious freedom violations.DUBLIN, February 20 (Compass
Direct News) – A Human Rights Watch (HRW) report released in January
details serious and ongoing abuses against the Chin people, a minority
group in Burma’s northwest who claim to be 90 percent Christian.
HRW’s research echoes a 2004 report by the Chin Human Rights
Organization (CHRO) that described targeted abuse of Christians in Chin
state, with the Burmese army subjecting pastors and church members to
forced labor, arbitrary arrest and detention, torture and sometimes
death.
While religious oppression is extreme in Chin state,
restrictions also apply elsewhere in Burma, also known as Myanmar. Most
recently, officials in January forced the closure of more than 100
churches in Rangoon and ordered owners of apartment buildings and
conference facilities not to rent their properties to religious groups.
Based on interviews with Chin refugees in India and Malaysia
between 2003 and 2008, HRW’s report describes how an increasing number
of army battalions stationed in Chin state since 1988 have inflicted
forced labor and arbitrary fines on the Chin people, as well as bullied
them away from Christianity toward Buddhism.
“When we meet the army, we are shaking,” a Chin refugee pastor told HRW. “Whatever they want is law.”
The HRW report, entitled “We Are Like Forgotten People,” notes
that soldiers frequently forced Christians to donate finances and labor
to pagoda construction projects in areas where there were few or no
Buddhist residents.
They also occasionally forced Christians to worship in Buddhist
pagodas. One Chin pastor described how Burmese soldiers brought him to
a pagoda and prodded him with their guns, commanding him to pray as a
Buddhist.
“They said that this is a Buddhist country and that I should not practice Christianity,” he told HRW.
The military forced village headmen to present “volunteers” for
military training or army construction projects and secured “donations”
such as food or finance for army battalions. Soldiers severely beat or
detained headmen if a village failed to meet quotas, seizing livestock
or property in retribution.
Pastors often faced similar treatment, particularly if church
members were accused – often without proof – of involvement with the
Chin National Front insurgency group. HRW listed arrest, detention and
torture as methods used against those accused of being part of the Chin
National Front, based across the border in northeast India. Torture
included beatings with sticks or guns and electric shocks via metal
clips attached to high-voltage batteries. Such measures were also used
to crush dissent against army policies such as failure to pay
extortionate and arbitrary fees.
The military government promoted Buddhism over all other
religions in Chin state through threats and inducements, destroying
churches and other religious symbols, and restricting the printing and
importing of Bibles and other Christian literature, HRW reported.
A judge in 1999 sentenced one man from Falam township to three
years in prison for bringing Chin language Bibles into Burma,
contravening Burma’s 1965 Censor Law. Authorities also burned 16,000
copies of Chin and other ethnic language Bibles brought into
neighboring Sagaing Division, another Chin majority area, in 2000.
‘Campaign of Ethnocide’
CHRO’s 2004 report, “Religious Persecution: A Campaign of
Ethnocide Against Chin Christians in Burma,” explained that
Christianity had become inseparable from Chin culture following the
arrival of American Baptist missionaries in 1899.
The report, based on information gathered in Chin state, gave
numerous examples of the destruction of churches and crosses, the
burning of Bibles and restrictions on other religious publications and
activities between 1993 and 2004 – including the extrajudicial killings
of four Chin Christians in 1993.
Burmese authorities routinely denied permission for the
construction of new churches and required permits for large church
gatherings, although lengthy bureaucratic processes meant that most of
these gatherings were eventually postponed or cancelled.
A September 2008 U.S. Department of State report confirmed that
Chin state authorities have not granted permission to build a new
church since 2003.
As recently as last November, a government official ordered
residents of Tayawaddy village in neighboring Sagaing Division to
destroy the foundations of a new church building erected by members of
a Chin Christian student fellowship. A report in the Chinland Guardian claimed villagers were subsequently ordered not to rent their homes to Chin students or the homes would be destroyed.
Enticement to Convert
CHRO’s report gave clear evidence of government support for
coerced conversions. For example, the government offered free secular
education to several children from impoverished families, only to place
them as novice monks in Buddhist monasteries in Rangoon.
The Ministry of Religious Affairs has also sent Buddhist monks
to villages and towns throughout Chin state under the Hill Regions
Buddhist Mission program, one of several Buddhist missionary
initiatives highlighted on the ministry’s website. Chin residents who
spoke to CHRO likened these monks to “military intelligence” operatives
who worked in partnership with Burmese soldiers to control the Chin
people.
According to one Chin resident, “Anyone who doesn’t abide by the
monks’ orders is reported to the State Peace and Development Council
[Burmese government officials] and punished by the army.”
Another Chin man from Matupi township attended a
government-sponsore d “social welfare” training session only to discover
that it was a propaganda session led by a Buddhist monk.
“In the training we were taught the 17 facts of how to attack and disfigure Christians,” he explained.
The 17-point method encouraged converts to criticize Christian
ways of life as corrupting culture in Burma, to point out weaknesses in
Christianity, and to attack Christians by both violent and non-violent
means.
“We were promised that 1,200 kyats per month [US$190] would be
provided to those families who became Buddhist,” the training
participant added. That amount of money is significant in the Burmese
economy.
The instructor also ensured participants that they would be
exempt from “portering” and other forms of forced labor and compulsory
“donations” if they converted, and that the government would provide
education for their children.
“I became a Buddhist because of such privileges rather than
because I think Buddhism is better than Christianity,” the Chin
participant told CHRO.
Religious Policy Elsewhere
According to CHRO, both the Burmese army and the monks are pursuing an unofficial government policy summed up in three words; “Amyo, Batha, Thathana,” which translates as “One race, one language, one religion” – or Burman, Burmese and Buddhist.
This policy was exemplified by the forced closure in January of more than 100 churches in the capital, Rangoon.
Officials on Jan. 5 invited pastors from more than 100 Rangoon
churches to a meeting where they were ordered to sign documents
pledging to cease operation of their churches or face imprisonment.
About 50 pastors attended, according to Burmese news agency Mizzima.
A CHRO spokesman told Compass yesterday that a significant
number of these churches were ethnic rather than majority Burman
churches.
In mid-January, officials ordered several other major Rangoon
churches to close, including Wather Hope Church, Emmanuel Church and an
Assemblies of God Church. (See Compass Direct News, “Burma Clamps Down on Christians,” Jan. 21.)
Officials from the Ministry of Religious Affairs in January
summoned the owners of buildings where churches met and ordered them
not to rent their properties to religious groups, according to another
local online news source, the Democratic Voice of Burma.
In the late 1990s, Burma stopped issuing permits for land
purchase or the construction of new churches in Rangoon and elsewhere,
leading many Burmese Christians to conduct services in rented
apartments or office buildings.
The church closure orders may simply be an extension of Burma’s
existing religious policies, which elevate Buddhism in an effort to
solidify national identity. The country’s population is 82 percent
Buddhist, 9 percent Christian and 4 percent Muslim, with traditional
ethnic, Chinese and Hindu religions accounting for the rest.
In a 2007 report describing religious persecution throughout
Burma, including Chin state, Christian Solidarity Worldwide cited the
“Program to Destroy the Christian Religion in Burma,” a 17-point
document that had circulated widely in Rangoon. Allegedly authorized by
the Ministry of Religious Affairs, the program’s first point declared
that, “There shall be no home where the Christian religion is
practiced.”
The Ministry of Religious Affairs subsequently pressured
religious organizations to publicly condemn CSW’s report and deny all
claims of religious discrimination in Burma.
END
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