Posted on 01/20/2007 7:13:51 PM PST by Flavius
The military regime in Burma is intent on wiping out Christianity in the country, according to claims in a secret document believed to have been leaked from a government ministry. Entitled "Programme to destroy the Christian religion in Burma", the incendiary memo contains point by point instructions on how to drive Christians out of the state.
The text, which opens with the line "There shall be no home where the Christian religion is practised", calls for anyone caught evangelising to be imprisoned. It advises: "The Christian religion is very gentle – identify and utilise its weakness."
Its discovery follows widespread reports of religious persecution, with churches burnt to the ground, Christians forced to convert to the state religion, Buddhism, and their children barred from school.
Human rights groups claim that the treatment meted out to Christians, who make up six per cent of the population, is part of a wider campaign by the regime, also targeted at ethnic minority tribes, to create a uniform society in which the race and language is Burmese and the only accepted religion is Buddhism.
In the past year, an estimated 27,000 members of the predominantly Christian Karen tribe were driven from their homes in eastern Burma.
In Koh Kyi village, in Arakan State, a monk backed by the military burnt down the local church. In another state, 300 monks were allegedly sent by the regime to forcibly convert the populace, all of whom belonged to the Chin ethnic group, which is mostly Christian.
The document, shown to The Sunday Telegraph by human rights groups, may have been produced by a state-sponsored Buddhist group, but with the tacit approval of the military junta. The regime has denied authorship of the document – which also calls for teenagers to be prevented from wearing Western clothes – but has made no public attempt to refute or repudiate its contents.
The dictatorship has long been accused of large-scale human rights abuses. In power since 1988, the generals annulled the National League for Democracy's sweeping 1990 election victory and jailed its leader, the Nobel peace prize-winner Aung San Suu Kyi. She remains under house arrest. Last week she was accused of tax evasion for failing to hand over any of her Nobel prize winnings to the authorities.
Eha Hsar Paw, a Karen Christian, who fled her village while heavily pregnant to a refugee camp near the border with Thailand, said: "The journey here was very difficult. It was hard to leave our village, but if we had stayed there we would all be dead."
" When a Buddhist monk burnt himself alive—something he had pre-arranged with a photographer, so the picture would be published in America—Diem's wife, Mme. Nhu, described it as a "barbecue."
I liked her style."
I hadn't thought of that in years. I do remember our reaction to the monk was "What an idiot!" And Mme Nhu, well Mme Nhu was one tough dragon lady!
Well the deal in Burma is the non-Burmese ethnic groups they don't like also tend to be Christians.
But it's hardly anything new - this persecution has been going on for decades.
Wowsers!! I've heard of bad tourist marketing campaigns before, but this one ranks right on up there with the worst of the worst.
Burma is starting to make a Disney vacation look attractive!!
The world is definately upside down. Neologism of the day - Bhuddhio-fascism.
Yeah right. It was the Buddhists who were violent.
The Promotion of Catholic Totalitarianism
Having consolidated the State machinery with loyal Catholics, and feeling sure of their loyalty, not to mention of the tacit and indeed active support of his protector, the U.S., Diem took the second step to make his dream come true. He undertook a systematic and well calculated policy against the non-Catholic religions.His policy was directed at the neutralization, disruption and finally elimination of the Buddhists or Buddhist inspired religions of Vietnam. These sects, many opposing each other on religious and political grounds, could nevertheless equal, and indeed effectively oppose any Catholic administration, had they created a united front.
Diem's policy was a subtle one. He encouraged their dissension. This he did by giving bribes, by sending agents in their midst, by promising official protection, and by denying the same to others. The result became apparent in no time. The religious sects fell into the Diem trap. They began to fight one another with increasing bitterness. This culminated with the internecine religious-political feud, between the Binh Xuyen, and the Hao Hao and the Cao Dai groups. Their enmity was not only religious, it was concretely real. Their battle was a bloody one. At one time various quarters of Saigon itself were devastated. The Buddhists set up a committee to give aid to the victims. Diem suppressed them at once.
That's what the mainstream media wants us to believe. If it wasn't for FreeRepublic, we wouldn't be aware of this persecution.
Avro Manhattan, world authority on Vatican politics, has blown the cover on the real reason our boys suffered and died in Vietnam. He traces their death to the Vatican's passionate desire to make Asia Roman Catholic.
This is from the Publisher's Preface from your source. The text in general is little different from it—that is, big on conspiracy and short on references. I'll have to set a deep-crank alert on this one. See http://www.reformation.org/publish.html for further wacky thrills.
It fits right in with your first comment. Big on style short on substance.
But I thought Buddhism was a religion of peace, too!
Q: What burns 5 gallons of gas but doesn't get anywhere?
A: A buddist monk
Now the government is outlawing Google.
Then . . . why did you post it? I mean, it's really nutty, with fantasies about the Jesuits out to force the world to convert to Catholicism. And this was supposed to be going on in the 1950s and 60s, when the Jesuit order was melting down into liberal ooze? That's just for starters.
You don't endorse this book, do you?
I was amazed by the ignorance of Buddhism displayed on this thread. Not to mention the ignorance about Bhutan which could be so easily dispelled with a Google search. The government in Bhutan is a military junta which has brutalized its entire population, which is mostly Buddhist, for quite some time. It wasn't you who said it so I don't expect you to answer; what Buddhist principles does the Bhutanese government embody?
I guess I'll just drop it.
You post does very little to prove your point.
Diem mishandled the Buddhist protests of mid-1963, they contended, by using a heavy hand instead of offering concessions. In truth, Diem did make concessions initially, but the Buddhists responded by accelerating their protests, enumerating more fictitious grievances, and demanding Diem's removal. Halberstam, Sheehan, and Karnow largely dismissed Diem's contention that the Buddhists were infiltrated with Communist agents, yet newly available Communist sources reveal that Diem was correct.
I seem to have forgotten how to create a link, but the url is: http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0122/p09s01-coop.html
Best, SS
Thanks. I'll check it out.
Which point? I made more than one.
Ha...Good luck with that.
We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed -- II Cor. 4:8-9
And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. -- Mat. 16:18
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