A Mosque Burns in Lashio

If you have time, please read the preceding post first as a set-up for this one.

A couple of hours after I finished writing the last entry, I went for an evening stroll around the edge of the downtown core of Lashio. I came upon some kind of demonstration, with maybe 100 males in their teens and early 20s trying to break down an iron gate to some kind of compound. The number kept growing as messages were passed on by cell phones, and as friends arrived via their 90 cc motorcycles. My cluelessness as to the reason why was made bigger by the appearance of a dozen or so Buddhist monks on the inside of the compound. It didn’t look like a monastery to me, but it’s impossible to miss those saffron robes.

I was in total blackout as to what was going on. There was no one around me who spoke enough English to give me the lowdown. No Live Reporting from Action Central News When You Really Need It. But not having those cues let me look at the situation from a very stripped-down perspective. For the past two days wandering around Lashio I’ve seen countless young men either hanging out at tea shops, hanging out on their motorcycles, or hanging out in their three-wheeled taxis waiting for a fare to show up. A lot of young men with too much time on their hands. A lot of young men listening to messages of anti-Muslim hatred spoken by a renegade Buddhist monk in Mandalay. So last night I saw a lot of frustrated, angry young males waving their fists in the air, calling their friends to tell them “Get down here, there’s something happening,” and pushing against the iron gate. (I went and looked the next morning, and they never succeeded.)

My sense that something bad was about to happen was strong enough that I started moving in the general direction of my hotel, taking the long way. I walked down three streets that are normally filled from sidewalk to sidewalk with portable stalls with people selling stuff. There are three streets in Lashio that have three markets depending on the time of day. The morning fruit and vegetable market starts at 4:30 a.m., and if there’s one of the regular electricity blackouts at that time, the farmers and merchants sell their produce by candlelight. That market shuts down at 7 am, and two hours later the daytimers take over the same streets, selling a mix of produce, cooked food, and some non-edibles like toys. They leave around 5 pm to make space for the mostly clothing night market, which stays open until 10 or 11.

But tonight they knew something I didn’t, or they heard rumors I hadn’t, and as I was walking along two of those three streets all I saw were merchants working as fast as possible to pack their goods in boxes, tear down their stalls, and get out of Dodge. The storefront businesses behind the vendors, which are usually filled with customers during the evening hours, were already shuttered at 6:30.

For the next hour I watched a parade of older residents moving away from downtown. Cars that were normally parked on the street were gone. Almost all lights inside and outside the buildings surrounding my hotel were shut off. But there was not a single cop to be seen, which has been the SOP for several riots in Myanmar cities since mid-March. I will send three stories about those riots as attachments, and suggest that you read at least the first one.

Chances are you haven’t heard about those anti-Muslim riots, starting in a town outside of Mandalay and moving south toward Yangon. All kinds of strange details. Two Muslims accused of starting the fight that lead to the death of a Buddhist monk in one city were sentenced to 13 years in prison; they did not do the actual killing. Not a single Buddhist, lay person or monk, was arrested for burning down 30 Muslim houses and setting fire to a madrassa, killing 25 students inside. I’ve read multiple reports of cops standing along the sidelines, not doing anything to stop the violence at any of the riots. There were curfews in Yangon’s Muslim sector as rumors flew about potential attacks by local Buddhists. But as I said, in Lashio the young men I witnessed were trying to knock down an iron gate with monks on the other side, so at first the Muslim thing didn’t completely fit.

It turns out that it was all about the Muslim thing, and within two hours the main mosque, located three blocks from my hotel, was in flames. After the mob set fire to the mosque, it started roaming the streets looking for businesses “owned by Islamists,” as a fellow hotel resident, a Burmese, described it. As far as mobs go, the only one I saw was pretty small—50 young men max breaking into and destroying a digital photo processing shop two storefronts down from my hotel, where I was essentially sequestered. I couldn’t see anything from any window. But I heard the sounds of big, blunt objects striking folding metal doors, glass shattering, equipment being smashed, and cheers from the crowd over their mighty, mighty victory against the forces of Islam.

I saw a couple of isolated pickup trucks filled with either cops or soldiers during the evening, but no flashing lights and no sirens. Then I heard an announcement over a PA system that someone translated for me as signifying a curfew from 7 pm to 5 am. At 5:30 a.m. I left my hotel with my iPod camera, hoping to get just one shot of the mosque. I went down several side streets that I’d become familiar with over the preceding three days, trying my best to not look like a white Euro-American. I think it was my bald head that gave me away, I should’ve worn a hat. I might have gotten some shots had I left at exactly 5 a.m., but by 5:45 soldiers and cops were setting up barriers so that even local people couldn’t get near the mosque.

So, some unexpected excitement on my journey. I’m a semi-eyewitness to a disturbing trend in Myanmar: anti-Muslim riots. Again, I encourage you to read the first story I am sending, from an “alternative” Burmese news source operating out of Chiang Mai, Thailand. But if you’re pressed for time, I’ll just mention one aspect of this multi-faceted story: some Burmese believe that the riots have been purposefully set up and promoted by the uppermost echelon of the military, which does not like the “nominally civilian” government of the current president, Thein Sein. They are hoping that the riots do spread to Yangon, which would give them sufficient reason to enact a coup and regain power at the top.

I’m in no position to support/refute such an argument, and I'm reluctant to comment because I'm still the new kid on the block. But this is not 1962, when the last coup happened. My understanding is that the civilian government at that time was so corrupt and incompetent that many Burmese welcomed the shift to a military regime, although the socialist dictatorship that eventually emerged was a complete disaster. Times are very different.