BANGKOK, Thailand -- Buddhists and Muslims are clashing with
increasing ferocity in Myanmar, Thailand and Sri Lanka where minority
Islamic ethnic groups blame racism by majority Buddhists more than
religious intolerance.
"It is like the K.K.K. (Klu Klux Klan) in America during the period of
the civil rights movement," said Myo Win, a Muslim activist based in
Yangon, Myanmar, comparing recent deadly attacks by Buddhists in his
Southeast Asian country with white U.S. mobs lynching blacks during
the 1960s.
"We are really afraid," Myo Win said on May 9 addressing a Bangkok
conference titled, "Violence in the Name of Buddhism."
In Myanmar, also known as Burma, the powerful military and its
civilian government representatives refuse to accept 800,000 minority
Muslims as citizens.
Myanmar insists they are illegal ethnic Bengali immigrants from
impoverished Muslim-majority Bangladesh, who describe themselves as
indigenous ethnic Rohingya in western Rakhine state.
"There is some kind of internally racist, Orientalist," propaganda
voiced against "darker-skinned" Muslims by politicians and other
Buddhists, said Maung Zarni, a Buddhist from Myanmar who is a human
rights activist and visiting fellow in the London School of Economics.
Stereotypes include complaints that Buddhists in "Rakhine [state] are
losing their land because they are not as hard-working and thrifty as
the Rohingya," Maung Zarni told the conference.
"This is not about which god they are worshipping," he said. "There
is an issue of bread and butter here, a very clear economic
dimension."
A nationwide Buddhist campaign known as "969" -- symbolic Buddhist
numbers -- also rouses followers to boycott Muslims' businesses and
not marry or hire Muslims.
It warns that Islam will soon dominate Myanmar, despite Muslims
forming only five percent of the population.
The 969 campaign is led by a Mandalay-based Buddhist monk, Ashin Wirathu, 45.
He convinces countless Buddhist shops to display his stickers, and
hear his speeches on DVDs.
Hatred turned into bloodshed when 200 people died, 70 percent of them
Muslims, and 120,000 people fled because Buddhist mobs torched their
homes during June and October in Rakhine state, also known as Arakan.
"Burmese officials, community leaders, and Buddhist monks organized
and encouraged ethnic Arakanese -- backed by state security forces --
to conduct coordinated attacks on Muslim neighborhoods and villages in
October 2012 to terrorize and forcibly relocate the population," New
York-based Human Rights Watch reported in April.
"We don't need to pay attention to any such reports as the Human
Rights Watch," said Myanmar's Deputy Information Minister, Ye Htut.
Clashes spread to central Myanmar in March, killing 40 people on both
sides and leaving thousands more Muslims homeless.
On May 10, a court imprisoned 10 Buddhist men in Rakhine, with
sentences ranging from nine months to three years, because they
destroyed Muslims' homes.
In neighboring Buddhist-majority Thailand, meanwhile, a quest to
control potentially lucrative territory and enact Islamic sharia laws,
is inspiring Muslim guerrillas to fight for autonomy or independence
in the south.
More than 5,000 people on all sides have died in the fighting since 2004.
Minority ethnic Malay-Thai Muslims form a majority in Thailand's four
southernmost provinces and complain of discrimination and unequal
justice under Bangkok's rule.
The government's National Security Council recently began talks with
some Islamist insurgents, but the two sides continue to battle.
Joined by Pattani United Liberation Organization (PULO) rebels, allied
Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN) separatists gave Bangkok's "Siamese
imperialists" five demands on April 28.
These included amnesty for all southern insurgents.
The increasingly sophisticated rebels are using assassinations, arson,
improvised bombs and other assaults to kill Thai troops, Buddhist
monks, businessmen, teachers, civilians and Muslim informants.
Thailand is a non-NATO U.S. ally. Its military has been expensively
trained by the Pentagon for decades, but appears confused when
confronted by the hit-and-run rebels.
Allegations by international human rights groups against the military
for extrajudicial executions, torture and other abuses spotlight other
failings.
Nearby on the tiny island of Sri Lanka, southwest from Myanmar and
Thailand, minority Muslims who are mostly ethnic Moors are threatened
by Buddhist monks who are primarily from the ethnic Sinhalese
majority.
A new Sri Lankan Buddhist group called "Bodu Bala Sena," or Buddhist
Force, demands an island-wide boycott of Muslim businesses and
demolition of a 10th century mosque in Kuragala which allegedly
occupies the site of 2,000-year-old Buddhist monastery.
On May 5, Sri Lanka briefly detained opposition politician Azath
Sally, leader of the Muslim National Unity Alliance.
Mr. Sally, 49, had said the government supported Buddhists who set
fire to Muslim-owned businesses in March.
The Dalai Lama, who usually focuses on Tibet's Buddhists, blamed
Buddhist monks in Myanmar and Sri Lanka for attacking Muslims in those
countries.
"Killing people in the name of religion is really very sad,
unthinkable," the Nobel Peace laureate told a University of Maryland
audience on May 7.
"Even Buddhists are now involved, in Burma and Sri Lanka also.
Buddhist monks...destroy Muslim mosques or Muslim families. Really
very sad," the Dalai Lama said.
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Richard S. Ehrlich is a Bangkok-based journalist from San Francisco,
California, reporting news from Asia since 1978, and recipient of
Columbia University's Foreign Correspondent's Award. He is a co-author
of three non-fiction books about Thailand, including "Hello My Big Big
Honey!" Love Letters to Bangkok Bar Girls and Their Revealing
Interviews; 60 Stories of Royal Lineage; and Chronicle of Thailand:
Headline News Since 1946. Mr. Ehrlich also contributed to the final
chapter, Ceremonies and Regalia, in a new book titled King Bhumibol
Adulyadej, A Life's Work: Thailand's Monarchy in Perspective.
His websites are
Asia Correspondent
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(Copyright 2013 Richard S Ehrlich)
