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| Smoke rises from burning houses around a mosque in riot-hit Meiktila in central Myanmar on Thursday. |
March 22, 2013
CNN
Phyo Wai Lin, Jethro Mullen and Kocha Olarn
Yangon, Myanmar -- Buddhist monks armed with swords and machetes stalked
the streets of a city in central Myanmar on Friday where sectarian
violence has left about 20 people dead and begun to spread to other
areas, according to local officials.
Members of the Buddhist and Muslim communities in Meiktila township have clashed this week after a dispute between a Muslim gold shop owner and two Buddhist sellers Wednesday ignited simmering communal tensions.
Rioters have set fire to houses, schools and mosques, prompting
thousands of residents to flee their homes amid unrest that had echoes
of sectarian troubles that killed scores of people in western Myanmar
last year.
The United Nations and the United States have expressed concern about
the violence in the lakeside city about 100 kilometers (60 miles) south
of Mandalay.
Win Htein, an opposition member of parliament for Meiktila, said the
number of dead in the city has risen to about 20 by his estimate -- most
of them Muslims -- after charred bodies were found in the streets.
"I have not seen this scale of violence before in my life," he said. "I am very sad. The community used to live in peace."
Myanmar is emerging from decades of military repression and has taken a
number of significant steps toward democracy in recent years under
President Thein Sein. But it has been plagued by bouts of ethnic
violence that some analysts say are a byproduct of the changing
political climate.
Burning mosques
A group of about 100 Buddhists, including some monks, went around
Meiktila on Thursday night torching mosques, said Police Lt. Col. Aung
Min, and while most of them have returned home, some are still wandering
the streets, carrying weapons.
Although Aung Min declined to provide an official death toll, he said
the violence had spread to a nearby town, Win Twin, where a mosque was
burned down overnight.
He said about 1,000 Muslims had taken temporary shelter in a soccer
stadium in Meiktila, where about 30% of the 100,000 residents are
estimated to be Muslims.
Win Htein said he believed that more than 5,000 Buddhists had fled to monasteries around the city to escape the violence.
Many members of both communities had lost their homes, he said.
Journalists in the city who tried to take photos of the clashes said
they were threatened by Buddhists, some of them monks, who were holding
sticks and knives.
Violence in Rakhine
In the western state of Rakhine,
tensions between the majority Buddhist community and the Rohingya, a
stateless ethnic Muslim group, boiled over into clashes that killed
scores of people and left tens of thousands of others living in
makeshift camps last year.
Most of the victims were Rohingya.
"The ongoing intercommunal strife in Rakhine State is of grave concern,"
the International Crisis Group said in a November report. "And there is
the potential for similar violence elsewhere, as nationalism and
ethno-nationalism rise and old prejudices resurface."
A failure by authorities to address deepening divisions between the
communities could result in a resumption of violence in the future, the
report said, "which would be to the detriment of both communities, and
of the country as a whole."
Vijay Nambiar, special adviser to the U.N. secretary-general on Myanmar,
on Thursday expressed "deep sorrow at the tragic loss of lives and
destruction" in Meiktila this week.
He called for "firm action" from Myanmar authorities, combined with "the
continued fostering of communal harmony and preservation of peace and
tranquility among the people."
Win Htein, the local lawmaker, said that he believed there were now about 1,000 police officers in the area.
He said he had spoken to Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel laureate and leader
of the opposition National League for Democracy, who had said local
authorities should use police to control the situation according to the
law.
The U.S. ambassador to Myanmar, Derek Mitchell, said Thursday that he was "deeply concerned" about the reports of violence.
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