Burma 'orders Christians to be wiped out'

By Peter Pattisson in Kayin State, southern Burma, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 12:02am GMT 21/01/2007


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.

advertisementHuman 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."