UN Chief Tells Myanmar to Make Rohingyas Citizens

July 10,2013
AP
PETER JAMES SPIELMANN

 The U.N. chief on Wednesday warned Myanmar that it must end Buddhist attacks on minority Muslims in the Southeast Asian country if it wants to be seen as a credible nation.
Sectarian violence against Rohingya Muslims in the predominantly Buddhist nation has killed hundreds in the past year, and uprooted about 140,000, in what some say presents a threat to Myanmar's political reforms because it could encourage security forces to re-assert control.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Wednesday: "It is important for the Myanmar authorities to take necessary steps to address the legitimate grievances of minority communities, including the citizenship demands of the Muslim/Rohingya."
He says failing to do so could risk "undermining the reform process and triggering negative regional repercussions."
In 1982, Myanmar passed a citizenship law recognizing eight races and 130 minority groups — but omitted the nation's 800,000 Rohingyas, among Myanmar's 60 million people. Many Myanmar Buddhists view the Rohingyas as interlopers brought in by the British colonialists when the nation was known as Burma.
Earlier this year, Myanmar passed a law limiting Rohingyas in two townships in the western state of Rakhine, bordering Bangladesh, to having two children, a law that does not apply to Buddhists. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi criticized the law, and was widely denounced by Buddhists in Myanmar. Seen as likely to be elected president of Myanmar, she has had little else to say about Rohingya rights.
Myanmar had been ostracized by most of the world for 50 years after a coup that instituted military rule. But in recent years the country has been cautiously welcomed after it freed many political prisoners and ended the house arrest of Syu Kyi and instituted reforms. President Barack Obama visited the country last year on an Asian tour, as a hallmark of Myanmar's rehabilitation.
Muslim ambassadors on Wednesday said Myanmar cannot rejoin the community of democratic nations if it doesn't protect minority rights.
"It is not enough to just have elections, you have to end the killings and persecutions," Saudi Arabian U.N. Ambassador Abdallah Yahya al-Mouallemi told reporters. He said the Rohingya are barred from citizenship, work, travel, religious practice, and even the proper burial of their dead.
Djibouti's U.N. Ambassador Roble Olhaye, representing the Organization of the Islamic Conference, said that the Rohingya live in "permanent segregation in what amounts to ethnic cleansing."
A call to the Myanmar U.N. Mission went unanswered on Wednesday evening.

Ban spoke at a meeting of ambassadors from the "Group of Friends on Myanmar," consisting of Australia, China, France, India, Indonesia, Japan, Norway, Russia, Singapore, Thailand, Britain, the United States, Vietnam, and the country holding the presidency of the European Union, currently Lithuania.

AP Impact: Massacre of Muslims in Myanmar ignored

ADVANCE FOR USE SUNDAY, JULY 7 AND THEREAFTER - In this May 25, 2013 photo, debris is scattered among the ruins of the Himayathul Islamic Boarding School in the Mingalar Zayone neighborhood of Meikhtila, Myanmar. What happened there on March 21, 2013, is the story of one of Myanmar's single darkest days since its post-junta leaders promised the dawn of a new, democratic era two years ago _ a day on which 36 Muslims, most of them teenagers, were slaughtered before the eyes of police and local officials who did almost nothing to stop it. Photo: Gemunu Amarasinghe         

July 6, 2013
AP
Todd Pitman

MEIKHTILA, Myanmar (AP) — Their bones are scattered in blackened patches of earth across a hillside overlooking the wrecked Islamic boarding school they once called home.

Smashed fragments of skulls rest atop the dirt. A shattered jaw cradles half a set of teeth. And among the remains lie the sharpened bamboo staves attackers used to beat dozens of people to the ground before drowning their still-twitching bodies in gasoline and burning them alive.

The mobs that March morning were Buddhists enraged by the killing of a monk. The victims were Muslims who had nothing to do with it — students and teachers from a prestigious Islamic school in central Myanmar who were so close to being saved.

In the last hours of their lives, police had been dispatched to rescue them from a burning compound surrounded by swarms of angry men. And when they emerged cowering, hands atop their heads, they only had to make it to four police trucks waiting on the road above.

It wasn't far to go — just one hill.

What happened on the way is the story of one of Myanmar's darkest days since this Southeast Asian country's post-junta leaders promised the dawn of a new, democratic era two years ago — a day on which 36 Muslims, most teenagers, were slaughtered before the eyes of police and local officials who did almost nothing to stop it.

And what has happened since shows just how hollow the promise of change has been for a neglected religious minority that has received neither protection nor justice.

The president of this predominantly Buddhist nation never came to Meikhtila to mourn the dead or comfort the living. Police investigators never roped this place off or collected the evidence of carnage left behind on these slopes. And despite video clips online that show mobs clubbing students to death and cheering as flames leap from corpses, not a single suspect has been convicted.

International rights groups say the lack of justice fuels impunity among Buddhist mobs and paves the way for more violence. It also reflects the reality that despite Myanmar's bid to reform, power remains concentrated in the hands of an ethnic Burman, Buddhist elite that dominates all branches of government.

"If the rule of law exists at all in Myanmar, it is something only Buddhists can enjoy," says Thida, whose husband was slain in Meikhtila. Like other survivors, she asked not to be identified by her full name for fear of retribution. "We know there is no such thing as justice for Muslims."

___

The Associated Press pieced together the story of the March 21 massacre from the accounts of 10 witnesses, including seven survivors who only agreed to meet outside their homes for security reasons. The AP cross-checked their testimony against video clips taken by private citizens, many with the date and time embedded; public media footage; dozens of photos; a site inspection, and information from local officials.

The day before the massacre began like every other at the Mingalar Zayone Islamic Boarding School — with a call to prayer echoing through the darkness before dawn.

It was Wednesday, March 20, and 120 drowsy students blinked their eyes, rising from a sea of mats spread across the floors of a vast two-story dormitory.

Set behind the walls of a modest compound in a Muslim neighborhood of Meikhtila, the all-male madrassa attracted students from across the region whose parents hoped they would one day become Islamic scholars or clerics.

The school had a soccer pitch, a mosque and 10 teachers. It also had a reputation for discipline and insularity — the headmaster, a strict yet kind man with a wispy beard, only allowed students outside once a week. Muslims made up about a third of Meikhtila's 100,000 inhabitants, compared with just 5 percent of Myanmar's population, and they lived peacefully with Buddhists.

Myanmar Bans Time Magazine for Story About Monk

June 25, 2013

AP

Myanmar's government has banned this week's issue of Time magazine because of a cover story about a Buddhist monk accused of fueling recent religious violence in the country.
State television announced Tuesday that the decision was made "in order to prevent the recurrence of racial and religious riots."
The magazine's cover carries a photo of a Buddhist monk, Wirathu, with the words "The Face of Buddhist Terror." Wirathu is a leader of a radical movement of monks that preaches that the country's small Muslim minority threatens racial purity and national security. He has called for restrictions on marriages between Buddhists and Muslims, and for boycotts of Muslim-owned businesses.
Nearly 250 people have died and tens of thousands, mostly Muslims, have fled their homes in religious violence in the past year. Buddhist mobs have marched through villages burning houses and mosques and brandishing machetes and clubs.
A special committee led by the home minister to deal with the recent violence said the Time article could damage government efforts to build trust among people of different religions, state television said.
The article quotes Wirathu as saying, "Now is the time to rise up, to make your blood boil." Nevertheless, Witharu insists he's a man of peace.
The article has drawn anger from Buddhists. On Sunday, the President's Office issued a statement denouncing the story and saying it damages the image of Buddhism.
The recent violence has threatened to undermine political and economic reforms undertaken by President Thein Sein, who came to power in 2011 after almost five decades of repressive military rule.

New freedoms of speech under Thein Sein have made it easier to disseminate radical views, while exposing deep-seeded racism felt by much of the population toward Muslims and other minorities.

Extremist Myanmar monk lashes out at Time after being called Buddhism’s ‘face of terror’

June 21,2013

AP

YANGON, Myanmar — Upon seeing his photo splashed across the cover of Time magazine with the words “Face of Buddhist Terror,” Myanmar’s most-talked-about monk was unfazed, saying no amount of bad publicity could hurt him.
The 46-year-old is accustomed to — even flattered by — the foreign reporters who steadily parade through his monastery in the city of Mandalay to ask about religious violence that has swept his predominantly Buddhist nation in the last year — fueled in no small part by his anti-Muslim rhetoric.

Nearly 250 people have died and tens of thousands have fled their homes, threatening to destabilize the quasi-civilian government that came to power just two years ago after five decades of military rule.
“A genuine ruby will shine,” said Wirathu, “even if you try to sink it in mud.”
New freedoms of speech have made it easier to disseminate radical views, while exposing deep-seeded racism felt by much of the population toward Muslims and other minorities.
There has been almost no public outcry when Buddhist mobs have marched into villages brandishing machetes and clubs, but the appearance of a Burmese monk on the cover of the glossy international magazine with an inflammatory title was apparently too much.
The social networking site Facebook was alight with criticism.
Dozens changed their profiles to mock-covers of Time with the word “Boycott.” One person lamented that the image of his country — and faith — was being tarnished.
“Some people misunderstood the title ... seeing it as an insult to religion,” said Dr. Yan Myo Thein, a political analyst. “They believe it’s equating Buddhism with terrorism.”
Few took the opportunity to criticize Wirathu, however, saying it was further evidence of media bias. The monk has repeatedly called on Buddhists to unite against the “threat” Muslims pose to the country and its culture, accusing them of breeding too fast and hijacking the business community.
The Time article quoted him as saying this was not the time to stay calm.
“Now is the time to rise up, to make your blood boil,” he said.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Malaysia warns Myanmar immigrants fearing sectarian clashes

Fighting in several neighborhoods around Kuala Lumpur earlier this month triggered worries in Malaysia that tensions between Myanmar's Buddhists and Muslim minority had spilled over to a country that hosts hundreds of thousands of Myanmar nationals. (Reuters)

June 13, 2013

Associated Press

Malaysia's government on Thursday warned immigrants from neighboring Myanmar not to restart sectarian clashes that recently killed four people. 

The fighting in several neighborhoods around Kuala Lumpur earlier this month triggered worries in Malaysia that tensions between Myanmar's Buddhists and Muslim minority had spilled over to a country that hosts hundreds of thousands of Myanmar nationals. 

Malaysian police are holding 250 Myanmar citizens from a security sweep following the violence because they were found without valid immigration documents. It is not clear whether they would be charged in court or deported. 

"The quarrel they have back home is brought to our country,'' Malaysian Deputy Home Minister Wan Junaidi Jaafar told reporters after a meeting with Myanmar's deputy ministers for foreign affairs and labor. 

Police are now monitoring locations where Myanmar immigrants are known to work, the home ministry said in a statement. 

Myanmar Deputy Foreign Minister U Zin Yaw said rival gangs in Kuala Lumpur appeared to have used religious grievances as an excuse to start fights that were not directly related to waves of violence targeting mostly members of the Muslim Rohingya community in Myanmar in the past year that killed several hundred people.

Myanmar Police Kill 3 Rohingya in Clash Over Homes

June 5, 2013 

AP

At least three women from Myanmar's Rohingya minority were shot dead this week in a clash with security officials over new housing arrangements, police and activists said.
A police officer in Mrauk-U township in western Rakhine state said three women died in the clash Tuesday in Parein village. The women and others were defying efforts to relocate them from the housing in which they have been living since their original homes were burned by Buddhists in a wave of sectarian clashes last year.
The officer from the Special Branch political police, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to release information, said Wednesday that six villagers were injured in the clash.
A website covering Rohingya news, Rohingya Blogger, said four women were shot dead and five other villagers wounded in the confrontation, which broke out when workers from another township came to unload wood to build new dwellings. It said that when Parein villagers sought to stop the unloading, they began quarreling with police, who opened fire on them.
The police officer said some in the Rohingya crowd carried knives, sticks and slingshots.
Several hundred people were killed and about 140,000 fled or lost their homes in Rakhine last year in two waves of sectarian violence that targeted mostly members of the Muslim Rohingya community. While the conflict seemed contained at the time, communal violence spread this year to central and northeastern Myanmar, with Muslims again targeted and several dozen people killed.
The violence threatens to undermine the political and economic reforms undertaken by President Thein Sein, who came to power as an elected chief executive in 2011 after almost five decades of military rule.
The government's failure to effectively tackle the problem also risks shaking the confidence of Western countries, which have rewarded Thein Sein's reforms by lifting sanctions that were applied against the previous repressive army regime.
The latest incident took place just ahead of a regional meeting of the World Economic Forum in Myanmar's capital, Naypyitaw. The meeting will be attended by hundreds of business leaders and opinion-makers from around the world and is meant to showcase the positive changes made under the new government.

Similar, though not fatal, confrontations over relocation of Muslim Rohingya were reported last month, when officials sought to move reluctant residents from camps thought to be vulnerable to damage from an expected cyclone. In the end, Cyclone Mahasen veered away from Myanmar, causing no damage. But aid workers note that many of the camps, almost all of which shelter Rohingya, have inadequate shelter, medical care and other basic services.

UN Calls Myanmar 2-Child Policy Discriminatory

May 30, 2013 

AP

The United Nations says a decision by authorities in western Myanmar to restore a two-child limit on a Muslim minority group would be discriminatory and a violation of human rights of Muslims and the Rohingya community.
U.N. deputy spokesman Eduardo del Buey said Thursday that U.N. human rights bodies have called on the authorities in Rakhine state "to remove such policies or practices."
Authorities in the strife-torn state said this past weekend that they were restoring a measure imposed during past military rule that banned Rohingya Muslim families from having more than two children. The policy applies to two Rakhine townships that border Bangladesh and have the highest Muslim populations in the state.

The order is likely to bring further criticism that Muslims are being discriminated against in Buddhist-majority Myanmar.

Myanmar Muslims jailed for killing Buddhist monk

May 21, 2013
Associated Press
KHIN MAUNG WIN

• 

• Associated Press/Khin Maung Win - Muslim men shout following their trial at a township court in Meikhtila, central Myanmar, Tuesday, May 21, 2013. A court in Myanmar sentenced seven Muslims to terms ranging …more 

• A Muslim man is escorted by police 

MEIKHTILA, Myanmar (AP) — A Myanmar court sentenced seven Muslims to prison Tuesday — one of them to a life term — in the killing of a Buddhist monk amid deadly sectarian violence that was overwhelmingly directed against minority Muslims but has not led to any criminal trials against members of the country's Buddhist majority.

As the country tries to rebuild democracy after decades of military rule, the issue poses a dilemma for politicians who would lose support if they embraced justice for the unpopular Muslim minority. Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who spent years under house arrest under the former ruling junta but now hopes to bring her party to power, spoke of the law but not of sectarian tensions when asked about the verdict.

At least 44 people were killed and 12,000 displaced, most of them Muslim, in more than a week of conflicts with Buddhists that began March 20 in the central Myanmar city of Meikhtila. A dispute at a Muslim-owned gold shop triggered rioting by Buddhists and retaliation by their Muslim targets, and the lynching of the monk after the gold shop was sacked enflamed passions, leading to large-scale violence.
While the violence is now contained, questions are arising over whether minority Muslims can find justice in overwhelmingly Buddhist Myanmar. Hundreds more Muslims have been killed, and tens of thousands have been made homeless, in violence across the country over the past year.
The sectarian strife has tarnished the image of Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace laureate who has been criticized for failing to speak out strongly in defense of the country's Muslims despite her long commitment to human rights. Her supporters, especially abroad, fear she is afraid to take a politically unpopular stand now that her party will mount a bid for power in the next general election in 2015. Prejudice against Muslims is widespread in Myanmar, and it is hard to find public figures willing to speak in defense of the Muslim community.
In a press conference Tuesday in the capital, Naypyitaw, she did not directly address the plight of the Muslim minority. Instead, she spoke in familiar terms about the rule of law when asked about the verdict.
"There is no transparency in Myanmar's justice system and there is too much influence from the administrative branch," she said, echoing the opinions of many human rights groups. "The judicial system has to be independent to be credible."
Suu Kyi has been criticized for failing to take a strong stand on attacks last year against the Muslim Rohingya community in western Rakhine state. Mobs of Buddhists armed with machetes razed thousands of homes, leaving hundreds dead and forcing 125,000 people, mostly Muslims, to flee,
When asked whether she was concerned about her reputation over the issue, she said she wasn't worried. "If I had to be concerned about my image, I should not have become a politician right from the beginning," she said.

The issue of ethnic strife also marred this week's Washington trip by President Thein Sein, a trip otherwise filled with accolades for the first leader of Myanmar to visit the White House in 47 years.

President Barack Obama praised Thein Sein on Monday for his efforts to lead his country back on the path to democracy, but also said he expressed concern to his counterpart about violence against Muslims. "The displacement of people, the violence directed toward them needs to stop," he said.
Thein Than Oo, a lawyer defending the men sentenced Tuesday, said one of his clients, Myat Ko Ko, was given life in prison for murder. Myat Ko Ko was also sentenced to an additional two years for unlawful assembly and two for religious disrespect.
Of the remaining defendants, one received a two-year sentence while the others received terms ranging from six to 28 years. Four of them, including a minor tried in a separate court, were convicted of charges including abetting murder. Two were convicted only on lesser counts. Mandalay Advocate General Ye Aung Myint confirmed the sentences.
"It's not fair!" shouted one of the convicted men shouted from inside a prison van as they were being driven away after the trial.
But members of a crowd of about 30 people outside the court house expressed unhappiness over the verdict for a different reason: They said they wished the death penalty had been applied against those who were convicted of killing the monk. Myanmar has the death penalty for premeditated murder, but the defendants were charged under a different murder category.
Thein Than Oo said he would await his clients' instructions on whether to appeal the verdicts.
The lynching of the Buddhist monk enflamed passions in Meikhtila, especially after photos circulated widely on social media of what was purported to be his body after he was pulled off a motorbike, attacked and burned. Monks are highly respected both for their religious devotion and as community leaders.

Entire Muslim neighborhoods were engulfed in flames, and charred bodies piled in the roads. The government declared a state of emergency and deployed the army to restore order, but the unrest later spread to other parts of central Myanmar.

In parliament in Monday, Religious Affairs Minister Hsan Hsint gave the official figures for casualties and damage from March 20 to 28: 44 people killed, 90 injured, 1,818 houses, 27 mosques and 14 Islamic schools destroyed. He said 143 people were arrested in connection with the violence, out of which 47 have been formally charged. Parliament on Tuesday formally approved the state of emergency.

The gold shop owner and two employees, all Muslims, were sentenced in April to 14 years in prison each on charges of theft and causing grievous bodily harm.

Hsan Hsint did not break down arrests and charges by religion, but no major cases involving Buddhist suspects have been announced.
Asked why only Muslims have faced trial in Meikhtila, Ye Aung Myint, the advocate general, said the courts were starting with the initial incidents that triggered the violence, and those involved in later incidents would be tried subsequently.
"There is no discrimination in bringing justice. We dealt with the first two cases and 11 more cases involving Buddhists will be dealt with very soon," he said, adding that about 70 people will face charges for murder, arson and looting.

Thein Sein's administration, which came to power in 2011 after half a century of military rule, has been heavily criticized for not doing enough to protect Muslims or stop the violence from spreading since it began with clashes between ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and Muslim Rohingya last year.

In a speech Monday at a university in Washington, Thein Sein vowed to ensure an end to the violence and justice for the perpetrators. He also called for a new era in U.S.-Myanmar relations.

Rights groups have criticized Thein Sein's U.S. visit, saying human rights injustices are still rampant in Myanmar despite progress made in freeing political prisoners, and in granting more freedom to political opponents and the media, among other changes.

U.S.-based Physicians for Human Rights released a report Monday detailing a gruesome massacre carried out by Buddhist mobs who hunted down and killed at least 24 Muslim students and teachers from an Islamic school as Meikhtila descended into anarchy in March. The report, based on interviews with survivors, accuses state authorities and police of standing idly by while the killings were carried out.
Richard Sollom, the report's lead author, called for Thein Sein to support an independent investigation into the killings and speak out more forcefully against anti-Muslim violence.
___
AP writers Aye Aye Win in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, and Matthew Pennington and Nedra Pickler in Washington contributed to this report.

Boats carrying more than 100 Rohingya minority capsize off Myanmar; 42 known survivors

AP

SITTWE, Myanmar — An overcrowded boat capsized while trying to escape a cyclone bearing down on Myanmar, tossing dozens of people into the sea. Eight bodies were found and more than 50 people were missing and feared dead, the United Nations said Tuesday.

More than 100 Rohingya were aboard the boat when it set sail late Monday night, said James Munn, an official with the U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

The U.N. said tens of thousands of Rohingya were endangered by the storm. About 140,000 people — mostly Rohingya — are living in flimsy tents and makeshift shelters in Rakhine state. They sought refuge in the camps after two outbreaks of Buddhist-Rohingya violence last year.
Ashok Nigam, the United Nations’ humanitarian coordinator in Myanmar, said nearly 70,000 of the displaced should be moved to higher ground. They are in low-lying areas along the coast that are highly susceptible to tidal surges and flooding. It was raining at the camps on Tuesday.
Cyclone Mahasen is expected to make landfall late Thursday or early Friday. The storm was heading toward Chittagong, Bangladesh, but could shift east and deliver a more direct hit on Rakhine state, according to Myanmar’s Meteorology Department. Heavy rains and strong winds are expected to batter Rakhine.
Myanmar state television reported Monday that 5,158 people had been relocated from low-lying camps in the Rakhine state capital Sittwe to safer shelters, and an unspecified number from other areas. The U.N. said the government’s plan had been to evacuate 38,000 internally displaced people on Monday and Tuesday.
International rights and aid agencies urged that the evacuations be stepped up.
“If the government fails to evacuate those at risk, any disaster that results will not be natural, but man-made,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch.
Many people in Buddhist-majority Myanmar see Rohingya Muslims as illegal migrants from Bangladesh, even though many have lived in Myanmar for generations, and they are denied citizenship as a result.
Myanmar’s southern delta was devastated in 2008 by Cyclone Nargis, which swept away entire farming villages and killed more than 130,000 people.

Fear begets fear in Myanmar: Citizens take on security as Buddhist extremism, violence spread

In this photo taken on April 27, 2013, a Buddhist, right, and a Muslim, left, man a barricade they set up about a month ago in Mingalar Taung Nyunt township in Yangon, Myanmar. As sectarian violence sweeps the country, threatening to destabilize its fragile democracy, fearful citizens are taking charge of their own security. (AP Photo/Khin Maung Win) (The Associated Press)

May 02, 2013

AP

YANGON, Myanmar –  They have seen how the troubles start from the smallest things. They have seen the police powerless before mobs fired with religious zeal and armed with bricks and swords. They have seen on TV and in newspapers the burning homes of people just like them light up the night. And so they have erected rusted barbed-wire barricades and volunteered to sit on street corners, 10 men at time, watching for signs of trouble through the night.
Fear courses through the streets of Yangon, Myanmar's biggest city, especially among its Muslim minority. They have watched the country's spreading religious violence, which threatens to destabilize its fragile democracy, creep closer to home. With little faith in the government's ability to protect them and a growing movement of Buddhist extremism, some feel they have little choice but to try to defend themselves.
Residents in some neighborhoods have started their own patrols. They have shuttered Muslim schools, which have been the target of attacks elsewhere. A few lucky enough to get tourist visas to Muslim-majority Malaysia have simply left.
The once-bustling streets of Mingalar Taung Nyunt, a Yangon township where Buddhists and Muslims live side by side, grow quiet around 10 p.m. An occasional cycle rickshaw passes beneath the few functioning streetlights. Jury-rigged roadblocks of desks, street carts and barbed wire barricades dot the corners.
The neighborhood watch volunteers, who man the corners from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., are armed only with mobile phones. Some 50 block leaders have pledged to call each other at the first sign of trouble. Others patrol the streets in a van and a ramshackle truck plastered with peace stickers.
"This group is not just for Buddhists or Muslims, it's for everybody who lives in this township," says Khin Maryar Htwee, a 36-year-old Muslim woman who helped organize the group. "We have lived in this community forever. We are afraid this relationship will break up. That's why all religions are volunteering."
The religious violence started last year in remote Rakhine state, where at least 192 people died in two outbreaks of violence. Then in March an altercation in a gold shop in Meikhtila in central Myanmar sparked three days of rioting that killed at least 43 while police stood idly by.
The chaos reached Okkan, roughly 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of Yangon, this week. On Tuesday, a Muslim woman and Buddhist monk bumped into each other at a crowded market, knocking the monk's alms bowl to the ground. By Wednesday, one man was dead, and nearly 160 mosques, homes and shops had been destroyed. Stunned women and children sat staring at wisps of smoke rising from a field of charred beams and ash where they used to live. Okkan had a neighborhood watch, but it was unable to stop the attack.
"This country is like a lawless country," says Ko Aye Thaung a thickset 48-year-old from one of the Muslim villages in Okkan that were destroyed. "The whole village was burned down, it was like nothing happened."
Mingalar Taung Nyunt organized its neighborhood watch after the March Meikhtila riots.
Tun Kyi, a 45-year-old Muslim activist who helped form the group, says that if trouble comes, he will call in the monks from one of the township's Buddhist monasteries to restore peace. He does not mention the police.
A few weeks ago, a car sped through, driving crazily, packed with boys shouting insults. People took it as a warning.
"We chased them, and they ran away," says Thant Zaw, a 26-year-old Muslim shopkeeper who naps two hours to make up for the sleep he loses manning one of five informal checkpoints on his street overnight.
Next to him, Thura Than, a 25-year-old shopkeeper, gestures to a young man with tattoos running down his muscled arms. "I'm Muslim and he's Buddhist," he says. "We don't worry about people here. We worry about outsiders."
Adding to the unease is the growth of a radical Buddhist movement called 969, which was founded late last year. It urges Buddhists to shop only at Buddhist stores and not to marry, sell property to or hire Muslims. Though 969 professes to be peaceful, some residents of Okkan believe this week's violence is related to the 969 stickers that now adorn most motorbikes in town, and local politician Myint Thein says 969 supporters were involved in the riots.
Tun Kyi, of Mingalar Taung Nyunt township's neighborhood watch program, says harassment of Muslims has worsened with the spread of 969 in Yangon. "It's because of the 969 effect," he says.
The movement has caught on in Kyauk Myaung, a Buddhist-only neighborhood that borders Mingalar Taung Nyunt. Even before 969, residents wouldn't sell or rent their homes to Muslims.
Around 10 Islamic religious schools in Mingalar Taung Nyunt township have been closed, as a precautionary measure, since late March. In Kyauk Myaung, 969 followers have been opening religious schools for Buddhist children.
The schools are run by the Hitataya Foundation, which was founded by Wimalar Biwuntha, one of the monks who started the 969 movement. He is part of a network of monks in southern Mon state whose motto is: "We will make fences of our bones if we must."
"It means it is noble and great to die for the religion," says 969 supporter Swe Aung.
An herbal medicine salesman, Swe Aung spends his Sundays as a volunteer teacher at Hitataya Foundation schools. Around 20 such schools have opened in Yangon since September, he says, while nationwide there are more than 200.
Rows of students in matching brown sashes given to them by the foundation bow before a monk at Zay Ya Mingalar monastery. Organizers say 300 students have registered at this school alone. Teachers say the curriculum focuses on Buddhist morality, history and meditation.
"We don't teach the children to hate," says Swe Aung.
Swe Aung is also scared, of religious violence and Muslim world domination.
A map purporting to show that 64 percent of the world's population is Muslim hangs at the front of the class. A study by the Pew Research Center and the John Templeton Foundation found that Muslims made up 23.4 percent of the world's population in 2010.
"I'm afraid of the Muslim people, so I want to build a fence," Swe Aung says. "In Islam, they have the right to kill according to their religion and they can go to heaven. If the Muslim community can guarantee that they will not kill Buddhist people, we will shop and eat in their shops and let them live in our homes."
When night falls, the residents of Mingalar Taung Nyunt and Kyauk Myaung prefer to stay apart.
Near midnight, slim silhouettes appear on the balconies of Mingalar Taung Nyunt, suspicious of the visiting journalists on the rough street below. Who has come? What's wrong?
Young men come out of their homes and gather near the checkpoint.
They are afraid of 969. Afraid of arrest. Afraid their houses will be burned down. They are afraid of conspiracies they will never be able to prove. They are afraid the tender fabric of their mixed neighborhood, will be torn apart by large, dark forces they cannot control.
"It's a sensitive situation," says Khin Maryar Htwee, hustling the journalists away. "They've had trauma. It can't be cured."
___
Associated Press video journalist Raul Gallego Abellan in Okkan, Myanmar, contributed to this report.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/05/02/fear-begets-fear-in-myanmar-citizens-take-on-security-as-buddhist-extremism/#ixzz2SFHmkGjj

Several Myanmar villages burned as new anti-Muslim violence kills 1, injures at least 9

(Zin Chit Aung/ Associated Press ) - In this April 30, 2013 photo, Muslim children take refuge in forests along a road in Okkan, about 70 miles (110 kilometers) north of Yangon, Myanmar. Buddhist mobs hurling bricks overran a pair of mosques and set hundreds of homes ablaze in central Myanmar on Tuesday, injuring at least 10 people in the latest anti-Muslim violence to shake the Southeast Asian nation.

May 1, 2013

Associated Press

OKKAN, Myanmar — Buddhist mobs hurling bricks overran a pair of mosques and torched more than 100 homes in central Myanmar, killing one person and injuring at least nine more in the latest anti-Muslim violence to shake the Southeast Asian nation. 

Terrified Muslim families who fled the assaults around Okkan, about 70 miles (110 kilometers) north of Yangon, could be seen late Tuesday hiding in forests along roads and crouching in paddy fields afterward. Some, in a state of shock, wept as their houses burned in the night and young men with buckets futilely tried to douse the flames.

The unrest was the first reported since late March, when similar Buddhist-led violence swept the town of Meikthila, further north, killing at least 43 people. It underscored the failure of reformist President Thein Sein’s government to curb increasing attacks on minority Muslims in a nation struggling to emerge from half a century of oppressive military rule.

Residents said as many as 400 Buddhists armed with bricks and sticks rampaged through Okkan on Tuesday afternoon. They targeted Muslim shops and ransacked two mosques; about 20 riot police were later deployed to guard one of them, a single-story structure, which had its doors broken and windows smashed.

The worst-hit areas were three outlying villages that form part of the town. Each village contained at least 60 mostly Muslim homes; all were torched. Columns of smoke and leaping flames could be seen rising from burning homes in the villages as a team of police approached, pausing to take pictures with their cellphones.

Thet Lwin, a deputy commissioner of police for the region, said one of the 10 people wounded Tuesday died overnight.

He said police have so far detained 18 attackers who destroyed 157 homes and shops in the town of Okkan and three outlying villages, which were quiet Wednesday with around 300 police on guard.

Police gave no details on who was behind the assault. Khin Maung Than, a Muslim in Okkan, said he recognized some of the attackers but many faces were unfamiliar.

The mobs smashed his shop, stealing watches, breaking glass, and leaving overturned lamps and furniture scattered across the floor.

He said he climbed to the roof to escape and then took refuge with Buddhist neighbors who hid him. Returning to the shop that doubles as his home, he said: “I am speechless. I have never experienced such riots in my life.”

The 60-year-old, who is married to a Buddhist woman, said he had heard of last month’s violence in Meikhtila, but: “I didn’t realize we’d face this because our town was very peaceful.”

His wife, San Htay, said police in the town were quickly overwhelmed. They tried to disperse the crowds, she said, and several were injured in the mayhem.

“I can’t explain how desperately sad I am now. My heart beats so fast because of fear,” she told The Associated Press.

Stopping the spread of sectarian violence has proven a major challenge for Thein Sein’s government since it erupted in western Rakhine state last year. Human rights groups have recently accused his administration of failing to crack down on Buddhist extremists as violence has spread closer to the economic capital, Yangon, at times overwhelming riot police who have stood by as machete-wielding crowds attacked Muslims and their property.

Muslims account for about 4 percent of the nation’s roughly 60 million people, and during the long era of authoritarian rule, military governments twice drove out hundreds of thousands of Rohingya, while smaller clashes occurred elsewhere. About one third of the nation’s population consists of ethnic minority groups, and most have waged wars against the government for autonomy.

Last week, Human Rights Watch issued the most comprehensive and detailed account yet of the violence in Rakhine state. The report accused authorities — including Buddhist monks, local politicians and government officials, and state security forces — of fomenting an organized campaign of “ethnic cleansing” against a Muslim minority known as the Rohingya. Hundreds of people were killed there, and some 125,000 people, mostly Muslims, remain displaced with large swathes of the state effectively segregated along sectarian lines.

On Monday, a government-appointed commission investigating the Rakhine violence issued proposals to ease tensions there— including doubling the number of security forces in the volatile region and introducing family planning programs to stem population growth among minority Muslims.

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Associated Press video journalist Raul Gallego Abellan contributed to this report.

New anti-Muslim violence in central Myanmar injures 10, destroys mosques

A woman from Panipin Village, Oakkan Township was crying as her house was burnt down by the mobs (Photo: Sai Zaw)

April 30, 2013

Associated Press

Yadana Htun

OKKAN, Myanmar - Anti-Muslim violence flared anew in central Myanmar on Tuesday as angry mobs destroyed two mosques and set fire to hundreds of homes and shops in unrest that injured at least 10 people in the predominantly Buddhist nation.

Associated Press journalists who travelled to the area, about 70 miles (110 kilometres) north of the commercial capital of Yangon, saw terrified Muslim families who fled their homes, hiding in dense vegetation. Many, in a state of shock, cried as fires burned in the night.

Two mosques in the town of Okkan were damaged and looted. Columns of smoke rose outside Okkan, where regional police chief Win Naing said mobs launched arson attacks in three villages.

He said there were no immediate reports of deaths in the unrest, but at least 10 people had been injured.

Stopping the spread of anti-Muslim violence that rocked central Myanmar last month and western Rakhine state last year has proven a serious challenge for President Thein Sein's government. Human rights groups accuse his administration of failing to crack down on extremists, with overwhelmed police standing by as machete-wielding mobs attacked Muslims and their property.

Muslims make up about 4 per cent of the nation's roughly 60 million people.

Myanmar government panel recommends family planning, security boost to stem sectarian clashes

The commission presents the findings of its long-awaited Arakan investigation report (Photo: Simon Roughneen / The Irrawaddy)

April 29, 2013

Associated Press

YANGON, Myanmar — A Myanmar government commission investigating sectarian violence in the country’s west last year has issued proposals to ease tensions — including doubling the number of security forces in the volatile region and introducing family planning programs to stem population growth among minority Muslims.

An executive summary of the report, obtained by The Associated Press on Monday, said concerns by Buddhists over the rising population of Muslims they see as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh have “undermined peaceful coexistence” between the two communities. It said family planning education should be voluntary, but “would go some way to mitigating” toward ameliorating the crisis.

Two outbreaks of unrest between ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims left nearly 200 people dead and forced more than 125,000, mostly Muslims, from their homes. The violence appeared to have begun spontaneously in June, but by October it had morphed into anti-Muslim pogroms across western Rakhine state, human rights groups say.

The segregation of Buddhists and Muslims has since become a de facto reality across the state, and the report said that was a temporary solution but one that must be enforced for now. It also called for a crackdown on hate speech and stepped-up aid for the displaced ahead of monsoon rains expected in May.

“While keeping the two communities apart is not a long-term solution, it must be enforced at least until the overt emotions subside,” the report said.

President Thein Sein appointed a 27-member panel last year to investigate the causes of the conflict and recommend measures to prevent further violence. Its findings had been delayed several times.

The report did not use the word Rohingya, instead conforming to the government practice of calling the Rohingya “Bengalis,” a reference to their South Asian roots.

Predominantly Buddhist Myanmar does not include Rohingya as one of 135 recognized ethnicities.

The panel’s report also called on the government to determine the citizenship status of all those living in Rakhine state. Most Rohingya are effectively stateless despite the fact that some have lived in Myanmar for generations.

Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch, said the report “fails to address the need for accountability for ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity that happened in last June and October.”

“By failing to hold responsible the individuals who committed these grievous crimes, the government will miss deterring precisely those extremists who are prepared to use more violence in the future to achieve their aims,” Robertson said.

He also said that doubling the number of security forces “without first ensuring implementation of reforms to end those forces’ impunity is a potential disaster.”

Last week, Human Rights Watch issued the most comprehensive and detailed account yet of what happened in Rakhine state last year. The group’s report accused authorities — including Buddhist monks, local politicians and government officials, and state security forces — of fomenting an organized campaign of “ethnic cleansing” against the Rohingya.

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Associated Press writer Todd Pitman contributed to this report from Bangkok.

969 - hate by numbers in Myanmar

28 April, 2013 

AP

Sapa

A woman carries a load on her head through a neighbourhood that was partially burned down during the clashes between Muslims and Buddhists earlier this year, in Meikhtila.
Image by: DAMIR SAGOLJ / REUTERS

Wrapped in a saffron robe, Buddhist monk Wirathu insists he is a man of peace.

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Never mind his nine years in prison for inciting deadly violence against Muslims. Never mind the gruesome photos outside his office of Buddhists allegedly massacred by Muslims.
Never mind that in the new Myanmar, the man dubbed the “Burmese bin Laden” has emerged as the spiritual leader of a pro-Buddhist fringe movement accused of fueling a bloody campaign of sectarian violence.
Wirathu insists the world has misunderstood him.
“If they knew my true ideas, they would call me saviour,” he says.
Wirathu has become the figurehead of a virulent strain of religious nationalism being spread by some of the most venerated members of Burmese society: Buddhist monks. Their core message is that Buddhists must unite against a growing Muslim threat.
While these monks are a minority, some argue they provide an ideological justification for the religious violence that has ripped through Myanmar over the last year, threatening to destabilise the country’s still-fragile democracy and raising the spectre of a return to military rule. Their rhetoric also reinforces a vision of a divided society as Myanmar tries to integrate its many ethnic and religious minorities after decades of internal conflict.
The spread of this new radicalism has been helped by the very reforms it threatens to derail. A quasi-civilian government came to power in 2011 after five decades of brutal military rule. New freedoms of speech and assembly soon followed, which have made it easier to disseminate radical views. Wirathu himself was unleashed in early 2012 as part of a widely-praised amnesty for political and other prisoners.
A short man, with a quick smile and evident charisma, Wirathu is the public face of a fast-spreading but still small campaign called “969.” Each digit enumerates virtues of the Lord Buddha, his teachings and the community of monks. The campaign urges Buddhists to shop only at Buddhist stores and avoid marrying, hiring or selling their homes or land to Muslims. Stickers and signs bearing the 969 emblem have been popping up on shops, taxis, and buses, marking them as Buddhist. Local 969 groups have been starting religious education classes for children.
The movement, says Wirathu, has one aim: “To protect race and religion.”
To suggest that Wirathu is the main force behind anti-Muslim propaganda is to overstate his influence and underestimate how dispersed the ideas he espouses are.
Countless grassroots movements, some branded as 969 and others not, propagate the ideas of Buddhist supremacy through sloppily photocopied handbills, unmarked bootleg DVDs, videos that have gone viral on mobile phones, and for the few with Internet access, social networking sites like Facebook.
By cloaking itself in piety, the 969 campaign and others like it have managed to tap into widespread anti-Muslim feeling and temper critics wary of being seen as anti-Buddhist.
Wirathu and others insist 969 is merely a peaceful movement to strengthen Buddhism and that it is being wrongly blamed for inciting religious violence that rolled through central Myanmar in March.
Mobs, including monks, led a 10-day streak of anti-Muslim riots that left over 40 dead as police stood idly by. Irrespective of its role in the latest violence, the movement has successfully opened an economic front in the religious war brewing in Myanmar.
One Muslim shopkeeper in northern Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city, says his sales have fallen by two-thirds since a video of Wirathu preaching began circulating a month and a half ago.
Buddhists, he says, stopped coming to his shop. If business doesn’t pick up, he’s considering becoming a taxi driver.
“969 is very dangerous,” says the man, who spoke on condition of anonymity fearing retribution.
“They want to hurt Muslim businesses. When our business goes down, the Burmese will be rich.”  Followers say 969 is a response to 786, a number long used by Muslims in Myanmar to mark halal restaurants and shops.
Some erroneously read into 786 — a number whose digits add up to 21 — a secret plan for Muslim world domination in the 21st century.
The number is actually derived from a short prayer invoking the name of God. The Arabic letters in the phrase have numeric values that add up to 786, explains Maung Maung, a Muslim tea shop owner in Mandalay, Myanmar’s spiritual capital and Wirathu’s base.
Maung Maung, who helped form an interfaith group after Buddhist-Muslim violence in western Myanmar last year, says he has no problem with Buddhists using 969 to mark their shops but is troubled by the minority of religious leaders, including Wirathu, who use the symbol to campaign against Muslims.
“Some people are trying to use it in the wrong way for their own ends,” he says. “They don’t represent the monks’ community or the community at large.”  In western Yangon, 969 and 786 signs hang side by side above chunks of goat meat gathering flies at Kyimyindaing market. A woman nearby holds an orange peel to her nose to block the smell of pig ribs ripening in the April heat.
Aye Aye Khine, 41, sits beneath two 969 placards at her meat shop. She made the signs herself, copying them from the cover of a 969 DVD a friend gave her. “Before I didn’t think about whether people were Buddhist or Muslim,” she says. “After listening, I learned how to keep the Buddhist faith.”  Business is up 50% since she posted the signs a month ago, she says.
Much of the Buddhist-dominated market has been won over to 969, thanks to a few enterprising shopkeepers who decided to start their own chapter.
All men, they met in tea shops and came up with a manifesto, which they photocopied and passed around the neighbourhood.
They printed T-shirts with the 969 logo and the words “Spread Good Deeds,” and say they have recruited 50 members and raised 150 000 kyat ($170) in donations since launching on March 27. They hope to link up with other chapters.
“We intend to unite together,” says Wai Phyo, one of the founders, who spent ten years as a monk before opening a rickety DVD stand at Kyimyindaing market. “If something happens, we are ready to organise.”
“It’s not to fight,” he adds. “It’s to protect.” 
Outside Wirathu’s office at the New Ma Soe Yein monastery hangs a large poster of him gazing heavenward next to a dove with an olive branch in its beak. Dozens of faithful mill nearby, buying DVDs of his sermons and ogling the photos of dead Buddhists — some with skulls split like coconuts or faces burned beyond recognition. The thriving monastery houses 2,855 monks, a school, a library and a medical clinic.
The son of a tractor driver, Wirathu does not have the mind of a philosopher. The family moved frequently when he was young, disrupting his schooling. When he became a monk at 17, he had only completed eighth grade. Today, at 44, he prefers the concrete to abstraction. He habitually makes lists, of reasons, goals and real or imagined atrocities committed by Muslims against Buddhists. He gestures gently with his small hands as he talks about the violence. His enumerations of rapes, lynching and hateful slurs sound a familiar schoolyard complaint: They started it.
He says he began to weld an anti-Muslim ideology to the number 969 in 2001. He lectured about the need to unite against the threat of a rich Muslim minority bent on marrying and converting Buddhist women, buying up land with foreign funding and flooding the population with Muslim babies.
Only around 4% of Myanmar is Muslim, according to official statistics. Muslims here are seen as relatively prosperous, which has fuelled economic jealousies — though Buddhist businessmen with ties to the old regime and military-linked companies dominate the economy. Still, Wirathu maintains that Muslim domination is a pressing threat.
“It’s a very dangerous situation because in some cases the whole village becomes Muslim,” he says. He likens Muslims to African catfish, an invasive species.
“The African catfish have a very great population and they eat each other and destroy nature. These catfish are not allowed into the country to breed.”
969 began to coalesce as a political movement after Buddhist-Muslim riots in western Rakhine state last June and October. More than 200 were killed, 70% of them Muslim. Over 125,000 remain homeless.
About 50 monks in the southern city of Moulmein began meeting late last year, according to Wirathu and one of the monks involved. They branded the ideas of 969 with a logo: the iconic lion statue of India’s Buddhist emperor, Ashoka the Great, set against a prayer wheel and the colorful stripes of the Buddhist prayer flag.
Wirathu says 969 supporters have popped up in almost every town, but the movement is strongest in Yangon, Mandalay, Moulmein and Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine state. “It’s because of me the ideas spread,” he says.
Around four months after the campaign was born, masked men dressed as monks rampaged through the central town of Meikhtila with swords, burning mosques and Muslim shops. Muslims also killed Buddhists. The attacks left charred bodies in the streets and around 12,000 people, mostly Muslim, without homes. The government declared a state of emergency as the violence spread to 14 more townships. Over 40 people died.
The chaos reinforced the power of the army, which was called in to restore peace, and fueled widespread speculation that the instability was orchestrated by hardline interests seeking to derail reform and strengthen the hand of the military.
“We also condemn these acts,” Wirathu says. “969 doesn’t accept terrorism.”  Human rights groups, however, have documented a pattern to the anti-Muslim pogroms of the past year: Words precede the bloodshed.
Human Rights Watch says that before the October violence in Rakhine, monks distributed anti-Muslim pamphlets with rhetoric similar to 969’s and political parties advocated ethnic cleansing.
The Burma Campaign U.K. found anti-Muslim leaflets, without the 969 logo, that were circulated in Meikhtila before the attacks. The riots radiated from Meikhtila to Bago region, where Buddhists marked their homes and shops with 969 so they would not be harmed, said Tun Kyi, a Muslim activist from Yangon who visited two townships there. “Even in their homes they have to write 969 with chalk,” he said.
“The 969 campaign is more than a boycott. It’s clearly becoming a rationale for violence,” says Jim Della-Giacoma, South East Asia Project Director for the International Crisis Group. “It’s creating an existential threat to Buddhism and the country that’s not there and then blaming Muslims for it. Then what we see is this violence.”  On March 28, eight days after the violence in Meikhtila erupted, Myanmar’s president Thein Sein issued a warning to “political opportunists and religious extremists” who have “tried to plant hatred among people of different faiths.”  Police arrested dozens of people in conjunction with the March riots, but so far only three — all Muslims — have been convicted.
Plainclothes police also seized one of Wirathu’s followers, a 969 supporter named Ye Min Oo. His family members and lawyer say police accuse him of inciting violence against Muslims and supporting extremist monks, including Wirathu. Ye Min Oo denies wrongdoing.
“The government is assaulting Buddhism,” Ye Min Oo shouted, his cuffed hands high above his head, as police pushed him through a crowd outside a Yangon courthouse recently.
Wirathu says he now fears arrest as well.
To critics, the government’s response, which comes after allegations from human rights groups that security forces failed to halt and, in some cases, abetted atrocities against Muslims, is too little too late.
Moderate voices say Wirathu’s vision of an “us” and a “them” is not sustainable. Pannasiha, a monk who goes by one name and teaches at a prestigious Buddhist academy in Yangon, says Myanmar cannot thrive as a collection of separate communities living side by side. He opposes the 969 ideology, though he does not see Wirathu as anti-Muslim.
“We can’t live separately,” he says. “Maybe for a few days or months, but we have many years.”

Buddhist, Muslims from Myanmar clash in Indonesia

(Photo: AP)

April 5, 2013
Associated Press
Binsar Bakkara

Sectarian and ethnic tensions running high in Myanmar boiled over far outside the country's borders Friday, when Buddhist fishermen and Muslim asylum seekers from the country brawled with knives and rocks at an Indonesian immigration detention center, leaving eight dead and another 15 injured. 

The melee broke out in North Sumatra province, where more than 100 Rohingya migrants — most intercepted off Indonesia's coast after fleeing their homeland in rickety boats — and 11 Buddhists accused of illegal fishing were being housed together, said local police chief Endro Kiswanto. 

He said witnesses told police the clash started early Friday after a Rohingya Muslim cleric and a fisherman got into a heated debate about sectarian violence that erupted last month in central Myanmar when mobs of armed Buddhists torched Muslim-owned homes and shops, killing dozens and forcing thousands to flee. 

The argument apparently started after the Rohingya migrants saw photos showing destruction caused by the recent violence, said Yusuf Umardani, detention center chief. Insults were traded, and the cleric was allegedly attacked by a fisherman. When the cleric screamed, his friends jumped in to help. From there, the rumble broke out so quickly, security guards were too late to stop it. 

"The violence took place so fast, and it was completely unexpected because they had been living peacefully here so far," Umardani said. "Most of the dead victims suffered severe head injuries. Apparently, they fought using anything that they could get — rocks, wood, chairs and knives."

Eight Buddhists were killed, and 15 Rohingya were injured. Three other Buddhists escaped unharmed, Kiswanto said. 

Local police spokesman Col. Raden Heru Prakoso said 18 Rohingya detainees have been named as suspects. 

"Our friends were covered in blood," surviving fisherman Win Thike Oo told an Associated Press photographer at the scene. "If we were there at the time, we would also be dead." 

About 280 people are crammed into the overcrowded detention center — more than double its capacity. It is filled with a mix of mostly asylum seekers from different countries, including Afghanistan and Sri Lanka. 

Boatloads of Rohingya have been washing up on Indonesia's shores following a wave of violence last year in western Myanmar, where they are considered illegal Muslim settlers from neighboring Bangladesh. Hundreds have been killed and more than 100,000 left homeless in clashes between ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya. 

The tensions have tested Myanmar's fledgling reformist government as it attempts to institute political and economic liberalization after nearly half a century of military rule. 

"We actually don't understand about what is happening in my country," said survivor Oo, who has been detained for nine months at the center after being nabbed for illegal fishing in Indonesian waters. "We are only fishermen. We don't care about politics or conflict." 

All of the victims from the detention center were rushed to a hospital in the provincial capital, Medan, about 23 kilometers (14 miles) south of the port town of Belawan. The three surviving fishermen have been moved to a separate building and hundreds of police have been deployed to secure the center. A forensics team was working to collect evidence and surveillance recordings were being reviewed. 

The UN Refugee Agency issued a statement saying it was saddened by news of the deaths. 

"UNHCR is calling for calm among the groups and urging the Indonesian authorities to take action to prevent further violence, including moving individuals into community housing as soon as possible," it said. 

Maj. Zaw Htay, the director of the president's office in Myanmar, said the country's embassy in Jakarta has urged Indonesian authorities to investigate and punish those involved. 

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Associated Press writers Niniek Karmini in Jakarta, Indonesia, and Aye Aye Win in Yangon, Myanmar, contributed to this report.

Source:Here