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| Burnt houses are seen in Meikhtila, March 21, 2013. Photo: Reuters/Soe Zeya Tun |
Reuters
March 22, 2013
Unrest between Buddhists and Muslims in central Myanmar has reduced
neighborhoods to ashes and stoked fears that last year's sectarian
bloodshed is spreading into the country's heartland in a test of Asia's
newest democracy.
Buildings in Meikhtila were still burning early on Friday and agitated Buddhist crowds roamed the otherwise near-deserted streets after three days of turbulence, said Reuters reporters in the city 540 km (336 miles) north of the commercial capital Yangon.
Five people, including a Buddhist monk, have been killed and dozens
wounded since Wednesday, state media reported. Other authorities put the
death toll at 10 or higher.
The unleashing of ethnic hatred, suppressed during 49 years of military
rule that ended in March 2011, is challenging the reformist government
of one of Asia's most ethnically diverse countries.
Jailed dissidents have been released, a free election held and
censorship lifted in Myanmar's historic democratic transition. But the
government has faced mounting criticism over its failure to stop the
bloodshed between Buddhists and Muslims.
"I am really sad over what happened here because this is not just
happening to one person. It's affecting all of us," said Maung Maung, a
Buddhist ward leader in Meikhtila.
Hundreds of Muslims have fled their homes to shelter at a sports
stadium, said local officials. The unrest is a bloody reprise of last
year's violence in Rakhine State in western Myanmar, which officially
killed 110 people and left 120,000 people homeless, most of them
stateless Rohingya Muslims.
BURNING MOSQUE, ARMED RESIDENTS
Locals complained there were too few police in this city of about
180,000 people to subdue the unrest. It erupted after an argument
between a Buddhist couple and the Muslim owners of a gold shop spiraled
into a riot involving hundreds of people, said police.
Reuters saw some Meikhtila residents arming themselves with knives and
sticks in an eerie echo of the Rakhine violence in 2012, when pitched
battles between the two communities later morphed into orchestrated
attacks on Muslim communities by organized gangs of ethnic Rakhine
Buddhists.
The United Nations warned the sectarian unrest could endanger a fragile
reform program launched after Myanmar's quasi-civilian government
replaced a decades-old military dictatorship in 2011.
"Religious leaders and other community leaders must also publicly call
on their followers to abjure violence, respect the law and promote
peace," Vijay Nambiar, U.N. special adviser of the secretary-general,
said in a statement.
Myanmar is a predominantly Buddhist country, but about 5 percent of its
60 million people are Muslims. There are large and long-established
communities in Yangon and Mandalay, Myanmar's two largest cities, where
tensions are simmering.
"Everyone is in shock here. We never expected this to happen," said a Muslim teacher in Mandalay, requesting anonymity.
Rumors that violent agitators were heading for the city had set its
Muslim community on edge, he said. Buddhist monks known for their
anti-Islamic views last year staged several street protests in Mandalay.
In Meikhtila, at least one mosque, an Islamic religious school, several
shops and a government office were set alight, said a fire service
official, who declined to be named. Reuters saw both Buddhist and Muslim
homes burned.
Sectarian unrest is common in central Myanmar, although reports were stifled under the military dictatorship.
Three people died in Sinbyukyun in 2006 when Buddhists attacked homes
and shops belonging to Muslims and ethnic Indians, according to a U.S.
diplomatic cable.
"The incident reveals underlying tense inter-ethnic relations in the
heartland," said the cable, which also referenced similar communal riots
in Kyaukse, a town near Meikhtila, in 2003.
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