EAO Region, 16 December 2021 -- For the 55 million Myanmar citizens it is already their 11th month of living in darkness. It was on the first day of February 2021 that all hopes of a bright future for the people of Myanmar were shattered. The country’s ruling party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), was deposed by the unjust and cruel military.

       The country known as the land of smiles has become the land of tears and of cries now. Up to now, more than 1500 innocent civilians, including children, have been killed. We are facing one of the cruelest dictators in the world: People have been tied with chains and burnt alive, some villages and houses set on fire, and other villages bombed from helicopters. Doctors and nurses have been arrested for the simple reason that they gave treatment to poor people. Peaceful protesters who were not holding even a stone in their hands were run over by cars. Thousands of people had to run away from the villages and are staying in the jungle with very little food and medicine. At present there are more than 233,000 internally displaced people in Myanmar.

       Abusing the natural resources that belong to the people of Myanmar, the military buys ammunition just to kill its own people. For the Myanmar people who are known for being peaceful and compassionate, the things that are happening before their eyes are unbelievable, unimaginable. The most corrupt people, the Myanmar military leaders unjustly accused the national Leader Daw Aung San Su Kyi of different charges and now she has been sentenced to two years in jail.

       Thanks to PIME Asia News there are some updates on happenings in Myamar:

       * Soldiers stormed the health facility in Karuna, Diocese of Loikaw, stole medical supplies, and arrested 18 doctors and medical staff. Police seized five Sisters of Mary the Child along with a parish priest and health volunteer in the same diocese. Their whereabouts are still unknown.

       * The casualties also include religious buildings, which continue to be the target of military attacks. Last week, army artillery hit the Sacred Heart of Jesus church in Pekhon, a city in Shan state, where a nunnery was shelled and 10,000 fled the city due to violence.

       * Myanmar’s military has been accused of burning 11 people alive in the central Sagaing Region. Although the claim could not be independently verified, several pictures have been posted on social media and a video can be accessed on Myanmar Now showing the remains of charred bodies. According to local residents, at around 11 am last Tuesday, government soldiers attacked Don Taw, a village in Salingyi Township, after anti-coup fighters attacked a military convoy with explosives. The military responded by going into the village and “brutally killing anyone they could find,” a local witness said. About 3000 Don Taw residents fled their homes.

       * According to the Chin Defence Force, government soldiers recently used a 24-year-old man as a human shield during an operation, then set him on fire. Similar incidents have been reported in the Magwe and Sagaing regions and in Chin, Shan and Kayah states, where guerrilla groups are most active.

       * Civilian resistance is affecting the economy, as more and more people refuse to pay the taxes and bills that fund the regime. As military costs rise, the junta is running out of money. On Tuesday an Uzbekistan Airways plane landed in Yangon with loads of paper for printing banknotes. After the coup, the kyat, Myanmar’s currency, dropped by 24 per cent and economists predict rising inflationary pressure.

       Also Card Charles Bo, SDB (Archbishop of Yangoon) has appealed once again before Christmas for peace: “Real Christmas is when this country believes in peaceful means. Let the prophecy of Isiah, prominently displayed in the UN building, become our reality from this Advent season.” As the good book says: They shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks” and “the ‘Nation shall not lift sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore (Is 2:4)’.”

       And this is the deep heartfelt feeling of our Myanmar brothers and sisters: "We do not know how many lives are still to be sacrificed in Myanmar until we get the freedom all the people of Myanmar very much long for. Please, remember us in your prayers."

       May our prayers and creative solidarity continue!

• Christmas Appeal of Card. Charles Bo
• Myanmar - A Forgotten Crisis (PIME)

 

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