Ethnic Wa rebels shut down churches or destroyed their buildings and temporarily detained several clergymen on 20 September.
On the border with China, soldiers of Myanmar’s largest ethnic rebel group, the United Wa State Army (UWSA), attacked the churches in the rebel’s autonomous region in Shan state, according to Christian leaders. The Wa people worship ancestral spirits, and the move by the UWSA was meant to hamper Christian missionary activity, said a leader.
Most of the targets were Baptist churches in Panghsang, where Wa soldiers destroyed crosses, the source said. The headquarters of the UWSA is located in Panhsang, on Burma’s border with China.
A video showing UWSA soldiers damaging a church building in Mong Maw town was widely circulated by Myanmar Facebook users. Local sources said schools built by Christian organisations in Panghsand town also have been shut down.
‘Not only churches in Panghsang city were shut down, but churches in Mong Maw town were also destroyed,’ said Ah Kar, a local resident in Mong Maw. ‘Some religious leaders were arrested, and some people who worship were briefly arrested, and they were head-shaved before release. Some of those who were head-shaved were women.’
Without permission
Local media reported that the UWSA rebels attacked because the church buildings were built without UWSA permission. In the previous week rebel soldiers had detained and questioned several Christian leaders in the UWSA controlled region, sources said.
U Nyi Rang is a spokesperson for the UWSA, and he told the Myanmar Times, a Yangon-based newspaper, that the rebels are controlled by extremist elements and said UWSA officials are looking into whether the arrested religious leaders are allowed to carry out their activities in rebel-controlled territory. ‘I heard that some churches were demolished that had been built without the permission of the UWSA central committee,’ U Nyi Rang told the newspaper. ‘We are trying to control the instability in the region caused by extremist, unregistered religious leaders from outside.’
Although most of the population in Wa territory worships spirits or Nats, there are also Buddhists as well as Christian communities such as Baptists and Roman Catholics. Many area members of ethnic minority groups, such as the Ahkar, Lahu and Kachin, as well as the Wa, are Christians, sources said.
‘We live in hills and were isolated,’ said Tat Nyi Nat, a Christian who lives in Nang Pang in the Wa region. ‘But we got a chance to study and became educated persons because of the Christian missionaries. We were happy. But we are not happy for the future of our children.’
