http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...1/wburma21.xml

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.


Human 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."

__________________
the cave mouth shines
by pure force of will
i look down on the world
from the top of this lonesome hill
and you can run, and run some more
from here all the way to singapore
but i will carry you home in my teeth
-mountain goats

Another feel good story for a Sunday Morn.... All is good with the world

Christians like being burnt alive, second only to crucifixion.

Aung San Suu Kyi hasn't aged very well. I think Burmese dissidents need a younger, prettier leader.

militant buddhism makes me horny in a juxtaposed way

I was unaware that militant buddhism exists.

Isnt "militant buddhism" an oxymoron. Strange days indeed.

i was thinking that to.... kind of flies in the face of what the belief system is supposed to be, peacefull resolution?

same here. makes me really sad. i used to say that buddhism was the only religion that didnt torment other religions and now thats gone, too.

__________________
the cave mouth shines
by pure force of will
i look down on the world
from the top of this lonesome hill
and you can run, and run some more
from here all the way to singapore
but i will carry you home in my teeth
-mountain goats

When is Burma ever gonna get its shit together?
Its got the world's largest army in proportion to its population and its got no enemies except for its OWN PEOPLE.

Christianity may threaten the group leadership and conditioning.

Any human being who is becoming independent of conditionings, of religions, scriptures, prophets and messiahs, has arrived home. He has found the treasure which was hidden in his own being.

Love of self leads to freedom; and freedom creates chaos.

Love of self is required in many religions.

Agreed, but the expression of this love causes problems. The ego also intentionally creates problems, and the intellect feels a need to curtail these individual expressions of love and joy. Love frees the individual from the need for security in the group; the group responds by limiting the freedom of the individual to this self expression.

Only the individual can be free; only self love can set one free.

stfu

Religions trick people into believing that they cannot be free without following the conditionings of the group leaders and saints. The individual is taught to love others, yet hypocritcally the religions turn the individual away from modes of thinking and activities that develop self love. It is a rather clever system. This story reveals some secrets... the truth has fallen before the eyes of the world, yet most cannot perceive it clearly.

No one needs to be lead to the inner kingdom once one finds the the beauty revealed. No priest has taken the journey if he should keep others blind.

Part of the draw of Buddism to me has always been that the religion was invoked for violence less often than Western religions.

What is your favourite colour?

ditto

Any group assembled for authentically religious purpose would be a structure for spiritual growth for the individual. Any such group would gain and lose members in a systematic growth pattern. Like the mighty ancient tree in a maple forrest which takes nutrients from the earth and atmosphere and transfers these elementals to the extremities, where the seeds of proliferation (the samaras) can be free to sprout their own individual system for growth. In Burma they are harboring their vessels from the winds of change.

You are fucking atrocious.