Buddhist vigilantes kill 9 Muslims in Myanmar violence

Reuters ^ | Mon Jun 4, 2012 4:45am EDT | Aung Hla Tun

[Olog-hai]

Buddhist vigilantes in western Myanmar attacked a passenger bus and killed nine Muslims, police said on Monday, the deadliest communal violence in the tense region since a reformist government took power a year ago.

The bus was besieged near Taunggoke town in the western state of Rakhine on Sunday evening by a group who blamed some of its passengers for the murder of a Buddhist woman a week ago, said local residents and politicians. One of those killed was travelling in a separate car.

Rakhine is home to Myanmar's largest concentration of Muslims, but their presence is often resented by the Buddhist majority. The resentment is particularly sharp for Rohingya Muslims, whose roots date back to the 1820s when they were brought to the country as laborers by colonial power Britain.

Ko Kyaw Lay, a local Muslim and a human rights activist who belongs to an opposition party, said none of those killed were Rohingyas.

Police could not immediately confirm all of the details. …

In a separate incident on Sunday in Sittwe, the Rakhine capital, 10 people were shot and wounded when riot police tried to break up a protest, witnesses said. They said the rally by some 200 people was unrelated to the attack on the bus.

Protesters threw rocks at police, who responded by firing into the air and a 13-year-old novice monk was among those wounded, the witnesses said.

Myanmar is one of Southeast Asia's most ethnically diverse countries, where sectarian and ethnic tensions still persist, despite a new political climate and broad reforms by a civilian-led government that says it has made peace and national unity a priority since it replaced a military junta 15 months ago. …

[Lurker]

You need to do a lot more research before you go pronouncing judgement on who is and who isn’t a pagan. Because what you just posted was absolutely beyond stupid.

[Colonel Kangaroo]

Congratulations. You managed to offend just about the whole board with that one post—including me.

I outdid myself on that one. Within reason a little heterodoxy is good for the cause. But at least we agreed the other day on the thread about Mark 16:9-20 and the Majority Text.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Olog-hai.

Big news.

Why, this is just as bad as 9/11!

/s

When Buddhists take up arms to defend themselves, their “victims” are the ones to blame.

[Steve Van Doorn]

"Our view of God and eternity is closer to Islam than it is to paganism."

I hope you meant that as a joke?
If not you need to read up on what Islam is. To start they don't even call themselves a religion.

[Steve Van Doorn]

"When Buddhists take up arms to defend themselves, their “victims” are the ones to blame."

Same as it was in Kosovo and the one that got us involved on the wrong side of history is now Secretary of State