Cardinal Bo slams Myanmar military for brutality in Kachin

Sep 14, 2018

MANDALAY: Myanmar’s military continues to persecute ethnic Kachin, the predominant Christian group in a conflict-torn part of the country, as well as Rohingya Muslims, said Cardinal Charles Maung Bo of Yangon, Myanmar.

Speaking Sept 1 at a peace forum in South Korea, Cardinal Bo said the suffering the Rohingya have endured has captured the world’s attention. He described their plight as an “appalling scar on the conscience of my country.”

Yet, he continued, other targeted groups are being overlooked as ethnic fighting rages on in northern Myanmar, with thousands of ethnic minorities killed and displaced.

“Villages are bombed and burned, women raped, churches destroyed, villagers used as human minesweepers and human shields,” Cardinal Bo told peace experts at the Catholic University of Korea in Seoul.

The cardinal elaborated on military air strikes in Kachin in February and a major offensive in April that led to more than 7,000 people being displaced.

He said a series of “wars” was being waged in Myanmar against those who espouse religious freedom by forces preaching religious intolerance and hatred.

Cardinal Bo also lamented several violent conflicts stemming from land ownership disputes and other concerns, including human trafficking, environmental degradation, drug abuse by young people, poverty and a lack of protection of basic rights.

“These ‘wars’ continue even though Myanmar has moved over the past eight years through reforms and made a fragile transition from a military dictatorship to a fragile democracy,” he said.

Sporadic fighting has occurred in the Christian stronghold of Kachin state since the country, then known as Burma, broke free of its colonial shackles in 1948 by gaining independence from British rule. The situation deteriorated in 2011 when some 100,000 people were displaced. Most of the state’s 1.7 million Kachins are Christians, including 116,000 Catholics.

Cardinal Bo said the military retains supreme power, especially in its control of three key ministries, while the civilian government has little or no effective control over its activities.

This, combined with rising Buddhist nationalism and militancy, has created a dangerous cocktail of hatred and repression that denies ethnic and religious minorities the “peace and human dignity” they deserve, he said. -- CNS