Who can bring peace to Myanmar?
To the Times:
Can a religious minority bring peace to Myanmar? Many years ago, Myanmar was known as Burma. On Feb. 1,the military staged a coup and deposed the democratically-elected members of the nation’s ruling party, the National League of Democracy. The new military rulers annulled the 2020 election.
This was a cynical move. According to the Wikipedia website, most of the nation’s people are satisfied with the election results. Myanmar, though a democracy, wasn’t without significant problems. According to a report in the Global Conflict Tracker (3/18/21), there are about 1.3 million Burmese Rohinyga people, who are predominantly Muslim. Ninety % of Myanmar’s people are Buddhists. Since August 2017, over 700,000 people are estimated to have fled Myanmar into Bangladesh. According to Asia Society (2/24/17), “over the past several months, the Rohingya Muslim minority in Myanmar’s Rakhine state has been subject to a large scale military and police crackdown that has yielded widespread reports of rape, torture, and random killings (including of children).”
The military crackdown left hundreds dead. It was reportedly in response to an attack the previous October allegedly carried out by an insurgent group that left nine police officers dead.
As noted, the overwhelming majority of people in Myanmar are Buddhists. Only slightly over 6% are Christians. Eighty % of the Christians are Protestants, mostly Baptists. The remainder are primarily Catholics. Why do I believe it’s possible Catholics may bring peace to Myanmar? It’s not that most Catholics are pacifists (most aren’t) nor that Buddhists as a faith are warmongers. An informative article in Our Sunday Visitor news weekly (3/17/21) noted that since Feb. 1 (the onset of the coup), at least 138 people (including children) have been killed by security forces. More than 2,100 citizens have been detained, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.
Christine Schraner Burgener, the United Nations Special Envoy on Myanmar, decried “the ongoing brutality, including against medical personnel and destruction of public infrastructure, (which) severely undermines any prospects for peace and stability.” Ms. Burgener also said she had heard from contacts in the wartorn nation of accounts of mistreatment of demonstrators and torture of prisoners. Pope Francis has called for dialogue, and proclaimed that bloodshed “resolves nothing.”
I think most Americans regardless of their faith (or lack thereof) respect Pope Francis’calls for world peace. However, I believe his pro-life stand is hardly surprising. But on Feb. 28 of this year, a Catholic nun, Sister Ann Nu Thawng, knelt in front of police and soldiers to shield peaceful protesters during an anti-coup demonstration. Relatively few people in Myanmar are Christians, let alone Catholics. Yet, perhaps the peaceful kneeling of Sister Ann in the face of violent security forces will sway the military to stop its violent assault on both innocent people and democracy.
The military crackdown left hundreds dead. It was reportedly in response to an attack the previous October allegedly carried out by an insurgent group that left nine police officers dead.
Tim Donovan, Prospect
Park