Magwe On The Brink Of Another Muslim Riots

(Direct translation of news articles from Shin Wirathu’s Blog this week.)

Magwe City the capital of Magwe Administrative Division in Middle Burma is on the brink of another Muslim riots after the horrible news of a 50-year old Muslim Kalar man raping a very young Burmese Buddhist girl multiple times.

The 9 year old girl and her mother were working as the cleaners for the Muslim man’s dairy on the outskirts of Magwe Town when the multiple child rapes were horribly committed. The rapes were in last August but the frightened child did not tell anyone till she was physically ill of the horrible injuries from repeated rapes and she had to visit a free-clinic opened and managed by local Buddhist monks.

The doctors at the clinic discovered the rape injuries and finally she told them of her horrible rapes by the Muslim boss then living at 19^th Street of Ywar-thit Ward in Magwe.

The monks called the police but the local police who apparently had already taken a large sum of money as the bribe from the town’s rich Muslims’ mosque did not take any action.

Only when the monks warned them that if the law didn’t take any actions they would take care of themselves Buddhist style the Magwe police finally took action and arrested the 50 year old Muslim kalar for multiple child rapes.

Right now the child-rapist is held securely in the Magwe Jail as the town Buddhists gathered as mobs in various places all over town waiting to attack the Muslim properties and mosques while the town security is heavily reinforced by at least two Security-Police (Lone-Htain) battalions and armed local militia.

Buddhist Women Protest against Child-rapes by Muslims.

2006 Anti-Muslim Riots in Magwe Division

First Muslim riots broke out in Oak-shit-kone village in Sin Phyu Kyun township of Magwe division on February 16, 2006 before spreading to Salin, Pwintphyu and Chauk townships within days. Two mosques were destroyed, houses and shops damaged and several people were injured during the unrest.

Forty one people have also been arrested by the authorities in connection with more anti-Muslim riots in Chauk town of Magwe division. Initially, 14 people were arrested, interrogated by divisional police officers and sentenced to two years in Thayet prison after riots erupted in the town two weeks ago.

(Following is the leaked cable from US Embassy on the 2006 riots in Magwe.)

COMMUNAL RIOTS IN MAGWAY DIVISION

Date: 2006 February 22, 09:02 (Wednesday) Canonical ID:06RANGOON248_a

Original Classification: CONFIDENTIAL    Current Classification: CONFIDENTIAL

B. 03 RANGOON 1361

Classified By: Poloff Dean Tidwell for Reasons 1.4 (b, d)

1. (SBU) SUMMARY: Communal rioting erupted between Buddhist and Muslim communities in central Burma on February 16. Sources report that three people died and ten others sustained injuries as Buddhist Burmans attacked Muslim and Indian shops, homes, and mosques.  Authorities imposed a news blackout and curfews in the region in an effort to prevent a spread to other regions, as happened after similar communal riots in 2003.  END SUMMARY.

2. (C) Embassy sources corroborated international media reports that rioting erupted between Buddhist and Muslim/Indian communities in Magway Division in central Burma on February 16.  Following rumors that Muslim men had allegedly raped a Burman woman near Sinbyukyun town, ethnic Burmans attacked and torched Muslim and ethnic Indian homes, shops, and mosques.  The rioting and looting spread to other towns on February 17 and 18, including Chauk, about 25 miles south of Bagan.  According to media reports, local security forces initially did not intervene, but as the violence spread authorities imposed a strict curfew in several towns.

3. (C) An Embassy source said that authorities arrested 17 people in Sinbyukyun, including four NLD members.  The same source said that police arrested 55 persons in Chauk, most of whom were Muslim.  Unofficial sources claimed that three people died in the riots and another 10 were injured.

ANOTHER VERSION

Buddhist monks confronting the riot-police.

4. (C) According to a Muslim cleric contact in Rangoon, it was not a rape, but an ethnic misunderstanding that sparked the riots.  A Muslim-operated taxi did not stop when the lone Burman woman passenger asked to get off.  The driver was reportedly listening to music through earphones and did not hear her.  When the vehicle did not stop, the woman panicked, jumped off the moving vehicle, and broke her leg.  Burman sources claimed, instead, that Muslim youths had raped the local woman, the daughter of a prominent Buddhist abbot, and dropped her along the roadside to die.  Assuming the latter, local ethnic Burman men commenced reprisal attacks against Muslims and South Asians.

5. (C) COMMENT: In October 2003, similar communal riots between Buddhist and Muslims in Kyaukse, Mandalay Division rapidly spread to other parts of the country (reftels).  The GOB reacted more quickly this time, but the incident reveals underlying tense inter-ethnic relations in the heartland.  As a result of the regime's tight control of information, rumormongering takes on added importance.  Rumormongering combined with ethnic tensions makes single incidents all the more combustible and likely to spread.  END COMMENT.

VILLAROSA

Magwe Administrative Division of Burma.