-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
Physicians for Human Rights has released a report (pdf) detailing their investigation of Buddhist terrorists who burned Muslim houses and killed Muslim students in the town of Meiktila in central Myanmar (formerly known as Burma). The victims, who attended the Mingalar Zayyone Islamic boarding school, included one boy who was decapitated and another who was set on fire. One Buddhist monk, in his red saffron robe, told the mob to wait until the Muslims leave the Buddhist part of town before killing them, “otherwise the Kalar’s ghosts will come here.” (Kalar means “foreigner” and is used as an anti-Muslim slur.)
On the evening of 20 March 2013 a mob of Buddhists, angered by – it doesn’t really matter, nothing could justify their actions – marched to the school. The seven teachers and 120 students fled into a nearby bog to hide in small groups in the tall grass. They remained standing in water-logged mud, filled with snakes, until about 4 am when a car’s headlights illuminated a boy hiding in the grass. The mob descended into the weeds and killed two boys. The other students fled to a nearby residential compound.
Inside the compound the students took refuge in four small buildings. The mob soon surrounded the compound and started throwing rocks and “fire sticks,” pieces of wood wrapped in cloth soaked in gasoline and then ignited. Police stood by on a nearby embankment and watched the attack. Onlookers cheered the mob.
At 8 am, approximately 15 to 20 riot police arrived and encircled the compound calling for those inside to come out with their hands on their heads. The teachers and students left the compound and went past the mob who threw bricks and clubbed the students. The riot police did not intervene to prevent the beatings. As the students neared the Muslim part of town, hundreds of people, including 10 monks, would not let them pass. When one of the boys moved to protect an elderly woman who was being beaten with a bamboo stick, one of the mob took his long knife and sliced the boy’s neck and then sliced off the boy’s face with a second blow.
Another student was beaten until he lay face down on the ground. When he lifted up his head, a man struck the back of his neck with a sword, decapitating him.
In another incident, one of the students was attacked by two men. The first used a sword to open a gash in the student’s thigh. The second man poured gasoline on the bleeding wound and set it on fire. A 10-year-old student was beaten with bamboo poles and gasoline was poured on him and set on fire.
Member of Parliment Win Htein said the police commissioner and district commissioner were present along with 200 other police and none did anything to stop the massacre.
During the three day period, 1500 Muslim homes were burned, more that a dozen mosques and three madrasas were destroyed, and more that 100 people, Muslims, were killed.
TIME International recently feature a cover story about Buddhist monk, Ashin Wirathu, and reported that “violence is being fanned by extremist Buddhist monks, who preach a dangerous form of religious chauvinism to their followers.” This issue has been banned in Myanmar.
H/T: Howard Friedman, New York Times, globalpost, New York Times.
At this point, I’m thinking the benchmark is “do they have resources we want”.
Darren, I think the benchmark is 6 million.
You have to wonder at what point does behavior such as this rise to the level where the world community considers it a genocide. How many people have to suffer before some form of sanction is made, a thousand? A Million?
And that the police stood by and supported it, I don’t know how much more obvious it needs to be their gov’t (at least at the local level) has some bloody hands here.
Sorry all, bad fingers or keyboard. Anyway, was at a port in Sri Lanka, just one ship at the quay. Bus pulls up and folks get out. Seems they were Tamil’s that were going through “remediation” process. If I made this up you’d call me a liar. Interesting short moment in life.
started, not finished, bad f
Porkchop, Long s
This story meshes well with the one Mike S. posted last night. Extremism and mob rule in the name of religion has killed untold numbers of people and brought down civilizations. However, when I saw that Buddhists were responsible for this latest outrage, I confess it did give me pause. I should have said “self-proclaimed” Buddhists, because it does not fit what I always thought Buddhism was all about.
On the other hand, when one stops to think about it, I don’t think Jesus would approve of the excesses and murders done in his name either.
Disgusting. Thanks for airing this story David. The extreme religious fanatics at play here and in our country and the middle east have one thing in common. They are not following what their prophets or gods taught them. Maybe John Lennon was right when he suggested , Imagine there’s no heaven, no religion too. (paraphrased, by memory!)
“The ability of fanatics to pervert any belief, religious, political, or philosophical knows no bounds.” – Mike S
Bingo.
Et tu Dolphins? Next those Bhuddists will be spying on our emails and phone call logs from Mynamar. And did you know that when the dolphins are working the bow of your boat and squealing up at ya that they are taking down your boat number and reporting it to the NSA when they swim home and get on the DolphinLogue Machine? Meanwhile Venezuela says that they will give Snowden asylum but he needs a ride. Right now the U.S. wont let his plane fly over so called nation states like Germany and the Germans have no say. So he might get on a boat. Snowden: If you go by sea watch out for dolphins.
maybe Buddhism is just as bad as every other religion. they all preach altruism, that is the real evil.
altruism subverts self to others.
all religions preach some form of altruism.
all religions deny the self to some degree.
all religions have “fanatics”[?] who kill in the name of religion.
all religious killings have altruism as their moral basis.
I think Gene might be on to something, not that Buddhists aren’t as capable of barbarity as anyone else. I once had a neighbor who rescued a puppy in China that was drowning in a fountain as a group of Buddhist monks were watching.
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I really don’t like the idea of dismissing the incident that incited the mob into rage – On the evening of 20 March 2013 a mob of Buddhists, angered by – it doesn’t really matter, nothing could justify their actions –. If you want to report an incident, then give the facts and leave the moralizing to the peanut gallery I would think as lawyers, you’d want to know what caused the mob to commit these acts: it goes to motivation.
People commonly assume that holding the “right” beliefs will translate into morally superior actions. The evidence speaks otherwise. There are no magically transformative beliefs that convert ordinary humans into saints. This is why people are often so surprised to learn not only that there are pedophile priests but there are MANY of them.
Myanmar aka Burma as Gene said is in a major way of hurt…. But this is no way that a Buddha would act…..
neighbordave,
I think you are going to need a very large island for this project. I don’t see how one would effectively isolate the know-it-all leaders from the true-believer followers.
And yes, it is minority Hindu Tamils (the Tamil Tigers) versus majority Buddhist Sinhalese in Sri Lanka. There was active civil war until the 2009 surrender of most of the Tamil Tigers, although, depending on who you ask, the impetus to fight may have been more on the Tamil side than on the Sinhalese side. Some of the Tigers escaped to India (which had provided covert support for their fellow Hindus for a number of years).
For years I have promoted the idea of a new reality show called “Fundamentalist Island”, upon which we maroon fundamentalists from around the globe. No other prodding or plot need be devised, just isolate them together. Just the “know it alls”, and no minions. What to you think?
In Sri Lanka it is the Buddhists and the Hindus who are (were?) at violent odds with each other.
Mike,
In fact, he taught the exact opposite. Religious tolerance is a strong theme in Buddhism. This just shows again that any tool is only as good as the user. Myanmar is also a bit of a political mess. I suspect that underneath this there is a distinct hint of nationalism. Although predominately a Buddhist country, they have a history of authoritarian, militaristic rulers. It’s not as if such leaders haven’t used religion as their proxy in oppression before.
Extremist Muslims, extremist Christians (obliterated with bombs from drones instead of slicing necks with knives is less gruesome to hear), extremist Jews, so it’s not at all surprising that Buddhists have grown closer to murdering those that are different. Many religious sects promote murdering innocents as long as it’s for God’s sake.
The ability of fanatics to pervert any belief, religious, political, or philosophical knows no bounds. The Buddha never preached this form of hatred, but his sociopathic followers are able to pervert any teaching for their own sick purposes. Those that believe this form of evil is confined to any faith or philosophy are deluding themselves.
“For reference, we provided a link to the No True Scotsman fallacy.”
Okay, well just to get it out of the way so the discussion can move on — No “True Buddhist” would do such a thing. Those faux Buddhists seem to be pretty vicious, though.