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Report: Myanmar’s Military Is Destroying Churches in Chin …… | News & Reporting

Last August, a Myanmar Air Force fighter jet dropped two bombs on the village of Ramthlo in Myanmar’s Chin State. One bomb hit the spacious Ramthlo Baptist Church, blowing a gaping hole through its roof and covering the wood pews with dust and debris. The other bomb damaged nearby houses, injuring seven people.

The bombings were originally reported by Khit Thit Media, certainly one of the few independent news outlets within the country, and the nonprofit Myanmar Witness recently verified the attack using geolocation and digital data collection. The investigation confirmed claims that churches in Myanmar’s majority-Christian Chin State have faced extensive damage amid the present civil war.

This January, Myanmar Witness (a project of the UK-based Centre for Information Resilience) published a report analyzing 10 claims of physical damage to Chin churches between March and August 2023, most of which involved airstrikes. All of the incidents occurred in areas under martial law.

The Myanmar military has destroyed no less than 107 religious buildings, including 67 churches, in Chin State for the reason that military coup began nearly three years ago, according to the Chin Human Rights Organization. Elsewhere within the country, the destruction of homes of worship, including Buddhist temples and churches, can be growing. In mid-January, junta soldiers burned down a 129-year-old Catholic church in Sagaing Region.

While the Myanmar Witness report didn’t comment on whether the military is deliberately targeting churches, Chin Christians and rights activists imagine it’s. They claim the federal government sees churches as an emblem of Christian identity, a sanctuary for the resistance, and a haven for the displaced.

“The military pilots feel so free to attack churches … because we’ve practiced a faith different from theirs,” said a Chin Christian scholar who asked to not be named resulting from security concerns. “There is an extended history of spiritual persecution against us.”

Ethnic minorities in Myanmar, including the Chin, have long fought with the military junta, desiring increased autonomy for his or her communities. At the identical time, Buddhist nationalism is deeply ingrained within the country; former Burmese prime minister U Nu famously touted the concept “to be a Burmese is to be a Buddhist” in 1961.

This ideology resulted within the ethnic cleansing of the Muslim Rohingya people, killing hundreds and forcing 700,000 to flee to Bangladesh. Buddhists make up 88 percent of the population, while 6 percent of Myanmar is Christian and 4 percent is Muslim.

Although Myanmar began to open up and change into increasingly democratic in 2010, in 2021, the military overthrew the elected government, setting off an ongoing war that pitted the well-funded Myanmar military against the People’s Defense Force (civilian militias) and ethnic armed groups. Yet since late October, the tide appears to be turning as three ethnic armed groups have began to gain control of towns within the country’s north, west, and southeast, stretching the military’s capability.

The Myanmar Witness report conducted five in-depth case studies (4 Baptist and one Presbyterian church) to evaluate damage to churches in Chin State. Some of the cases included claims of multiple churches in the identical town being bombed by airstrikes, damaging windows, roofs, and sanctuaries. Others included claims that government troops ransacked and looted churches following the air attacks.

It concluded that the attacks in all five case studies may very well be verified, indicating a wider impact on the cultural and spiritual landscape of Chin State. “The examples analyzed on this report reflect the degradation of Myanmar’s built environment, including sites with special protections under international law during armed conflict,” the report read.

The group also analyzed data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, which collects information on violent conflicts world wide, and located 28 reports of harm to churches in Chin State between 2021 and 2023.

It also found that while in 2021–2022 churches were reportedly mostly damaged by arson and artillery attacks, in 2023, airstrikes were allegedly involved in a lot of the cases: “The Myanmar Air Force (MAF) maintains overwhelming air superiority across Myanmar, supporting the claim that the Myanmar military is accountable for the alleged airstrikes.”

“Airstrikes were pretty rare in Burma until about 2012, they usually were mostly focused on the Kachin [ethnic group] … but then after the coup they’ve gone in every single place in Burma,” said Dave Eubank, director of the Christian humanitarian service movement Free Burma Rangers.

Eubank, who has worked extensively within the largely Christian state of Karenni, noted that their churches have also been targeted. “Just about every church I’ve seen in Karenni State has been either destroyed, burned, or hit by small arms, fire, airstrikes, and mortars,” he said. “Over 100 churches up here [have] been destroyed for the reason that coup, it’s systematic destruction.”

He noted that before the coup, attacks on churches were “episodic” and relied on the military commander. Now, the churches are “deliberately attacked, bombed, and destroyed.”

Another factor as to why the military targets churches is that houses of worship are seen as providing shelter or assistance to resistance groups, Salai Mang Hre Lian of the Chin Human Rights Organization told the Associated Press.

“[The attacks] send a robust signal to all civilians that even in places protected by international humanitarian laws, in the event that they support non-junta groups, they will likely be targets,” he said.

David Moe, a lecturer of Southeast Asian studies at Yale University, said the fighting in Chin State is so intense because after the coup, the Chin were certainly one of the primary groups to withstand the junta.

Church buildings have change into a goal because they “symbolize Christian identity,” which bristles against Buddhist nationalism, said Moe, who grew up in Chin State. Also, “the church has change into a spot to deal with refugees or internally displaced people,” Moe said. “The military is attempting to stop people [from] joining the resistance and is attempting to cause them to fear bizarre church people.” He said the military fears refugees can be more open to Christianity, which they consider to be Western.

Chin Christians are actually among the many thousands and thousands displaced by the war, said the Chin scholar. Many live in camps on the border of Chin State in addition to in Mizoram in northeast India.

“The military can destroy the church because the constructing, however the military cannot destroy the body of Christ,” Moe said. “Christians gather together at private houses just like the early church did—quietly trying their best to worship. They might use Zoom or gather within the jungle.”

Eubank sees an analogous story playing out in Karenni State. While the deliberate targeting of churches goals to discourage people from participating within the resistance by causing fear, chaos, and confusion, there’s hope and life among the many persecuted and displaced believers.

“Christians don’t surrender,” Eubank said. “We just had a church service [in a Karenni refugee camp] yesterday. … The very first thing they do is construct a church, which can be the varsity in the course of the week, they usually’re praying on a regular basis. There’s going to be a marriage today amongst our team leaders here in a displaced community. They don’t surrender praising Jesus.”

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