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Muslims Thidar Hla (left) and her daughter Hnin Ei Phyu say their relationships with Buddhist friends have been restored following last year's deadly sectarian violence.


By David Grunebaum
CNN
June 10, 2014

Meiktila, Myanmar -- Hnin Ei Phyu rides her motorbike across the city, goes out to dinner with Buddhist friends and has resumed her studies at a local university.

Life has made a 180-degree turn for this 20-year-old Muslim woman. In March last year, her life was shattered by an explosion of sectarian violence between Buddhists and Muslims in her hometown of Meiktila in central Myanmar, which left more than 40 people dead and thousands more homeless.

Hnin Ei Phyu's family fled for their lives during the first of three days of rioting and spent more than a month in a shelter at a nearby sports stadium.

Violent clashes

During the clashes, which reportedly erupted after a dispute between a Muslim gold shop owner and two Buddhist sellers, rioters set fire to houses, schools, businesses and mosques. People were also beaten, doused with gasoline and set on fire.

Meiktila's Muslims were heavily outnumbered and suffered the bulk of the casualties. For more than a month, few (if any) Muslims remained in their homes because they were either destroyed or it simply wasn't safe for them to stay there.

Hnin Ei Phyu's family was among the first group of Muslims to return home after the worst of the violence. Unlike others, their house was still standing.

While some Muslims were returning, interviews with many people across the city made it clear that trust between Muslims and their Buddhist neighbors was broken. Police and soldiers were now stationed on streets where Muslims lived to protect them against further attacks.

Hnin Ei Phyu's university was shut down. She was no longer in contact with her Buddhist friends and her parents would not allow her to go more than a short distance from their home.

More than a year on, a return trip to the city revealed that although extremist elements remain, relations have warmed between many Buddhists and Muslims in the community.

"We're close again," Hnin Ei Phyu said about her relationships with Buddhist friends. "We spend time after classes and enjoy each other's company now, whether we talk about movies or eat together."

Time heals wounds

Her mother, Thidar Hla, agreed distrust has gradually given way to friendship. "Time healed many of the wounds," she said. There are no longer police or troops stationed on Thidar Hla's street, and her family is no longer afraid to go anywhere in the city.

This change in attitude is not exclusive to one side of the sectarian divide.

Last year, U Aung Khin, a 51-year-old Buddhist man, told me he stopped talking to his Muslim friends and would not even go to his usual Muslim butcher because he was afraid his food might be poisoned. "Now I'd go to a Muslim butcher and my relationships with my Muslim friends are back to normal," he said.

Sann Win Shein, a Muslim and vice president of a local interfaith group called Meiktila Unity and Prosperity Association, says people have not forgotten what happened but realize that it wasn't necessarily their neighbors who were the main culprits behind the riots.

He blames extremist groups, adding that when angry mobs are divided along sectarian lines, normally peaceful people can get caught up in the rage and emotion. He also blames the local police for not stepping in early on -- last year's violence didn't stop until President Thein Sein declared a state of emergency and called in the military after three days of rioting.

Leaders of the interfaith group acknowledge that the attitudes of some people might never change, but they insist they're in the minority. "Within six months many people were back to being friends," said Khin Soe, a Buddhist. Khin Soe says he's optimistic this community can avoid a repeat of last year's deadly riots. "So many of these people have lived side by side for years and have been friends for years," he said.

This interfaith group, made up of Buddhists and Muslims from the community, started in May 2013 and during the course of an eight-month campaign handed out thousands of t-shirts, baseball caps and stickers with words that translate to "No religious violence because of me."

Long-persecuted Rohingya

The rekindling of friendships between Buddhists and Muslims in Meiktila is quite different from the situation between Rohingya Muslims and ethnic Rakhines in Myanmar's western Rakhine State. The Rohingya are a long-persecuted minority in Myanmar who are denied citizenship and usually are not allowed to leave Rakhine.

Unlike Meiktila, where Buddhists and Muslims live side by side, the Rohingya live in separate villages -- more than 140,000 live in camps for the displaced after their homes were destroyed in riots two years ago. The communal violence there also resulted in the deaths of hundreds of people.

Many Rohingya have lived in Myanmar for generations and were brought here from India when Myanmar was a British colony called Burma. Many ethnic Burmese view the Rohingya as illegal intruders from what's now Bangladesh, and refuse to call them Rohingya, using the term Bengali instead.

But in Meiktila, where trust between Buddhists and Muslims is being rebuilt, sections of the city remain in ruins. In the Muslim majority Thiri Mingalar Quarter, there are only rocks and dirt where many homes and businesses used to stand. A few people, who have the financial means, have started rebuilding.

Rebuilding lives

The only section of the city that has a lot of construction underway is Chan Aye Tharyar Quarter. All 760 homes in the neighborhood were lost -- the majority of them belonged to Muslim families. Construction has started on about 350 houses. "I want to bring back those families who lost their homes to these new homes," said construction project manager, U Myint Htwe, adding that they're building homes for Muslims, Buddhists, Christians and Hindus.

He says the government is covering the costs of building roads, water lines and utility lines, but the money to cover the estimated $6 million needed to replace the homes is being raised privately.

Most of the donors are Muslims living in Yangon, the country's biggest city and commercial capital. MM Raunat Group, which is connected to a mosque in Yangon, is handling the fundraising and the rebuilding of Chan Aye Tharyar Quarter. But U Myint Htwe says organizers have only been able to raise half of the money they need so far. He says he has no idea when he'll be able to finish the project.

Returning home

Nwe Nwe Oo is one of the Chan Aye Tharyar residents who hope to go back. "I'm always thinking about it," she said. "I even cry."

She's one of more than 5,000 people still living in shelters and camps for the displaced. Nwe Nwe Oo's shelter is for Muslims and is on the grounds of a local university about 14 miles outside of Meiktila. She has spent more than a year living inside a 15 by 20 foot room in a bamboo shelter without running water with her husband and two children, aged 12 and 14. They have to walk for a few minutes to access the nearest toilet and shower.

Nwe Nwe Oo cooks the family's meals over a tiny, charcoal barbecue, one of dozens lined in orderly rows in the camp. Despite the tight living quarters, Nwe Nwe Oo says she is thankful. "I'm grateful to have a safe place to stay," she said.

Memories of the riots in Meiktila haven't faded, but many people here are cautiously optimistic about the direction things are heading.

Last year, they talked about distrust and broken bonds. Now some of those same people discuss rebuilding the city and rekindling friendships between Buddhists and Muslims, all the while hoping that extremists don't find a way to divide their community again.


David Grunebaum
May 22, 2013

Meiktila, Myanmar -- Nineteen-year-old Hnin Ei Phyu is on her knees at home, whispering her prayers. It's a small sign of normality in a community where things have been anything but normal in recent months.

This young Muslim woman can't go inside her family's mosque because it was shut down after being vandalized. And for more than a month, she had to say her prayers from inside a shelter at a nearby sports stadium in Meiktila, a city in central Myanmar.

Fearing for their lives, Hnin Ei Phyu's family fled their home on March 20 during the first of three days of rioting that tore apart this city of 100,000 people.

A wave of sectarian violence between Buddhists and Muslims resulted in the deaths of at least 43 people and displaced thousands more, according to the Myanmar government.

During the clashes, reportedly set off by a dispute between a Muslim gold shop owner and two Buddhist sellers, rioters set fire to houses, schools and mosques, while people were also beaten, doused with gasoline and set on fire.

Many Muslims complain that the police stood by and did nothing during the violence. The rioting was only stopped after President Thein Sein declared a state of emergency and called in the military. By then thousands had fled their homes in terror.

Meiktila's Muslims were heavily outnumbered and suffered the bulk of the casualties. Few remained in their homes because they were either destroyed by rampaging mobs or it simply wasn't safe for them to stay there.

It wasn't until earlier this month that Muslims whose houses were not destroyed were able to leave the shelters and return home.

"Tears came out of my eyes when I got back home," said Hnin Ei Phyu's mother, Thidar Hla. "I'm extremely happy to be back home." But the 43-year old said that when she walks down the streets of this predominantly Buddhist city, it's clear things are not the way they were before the riots. "We (Muslims and Buddhists) don't interact with each other the way we used too," she said. "People are keeping a mental distance between each other."

Thidar Hla and her extended family share a collection of rickety houses along a side street in a modest neighborhood of Meiktila. A security post manned by police and soldiers has been set up just a short walk away.

Similar arrangements are in place in other parts of the city where Muslims live -- a sign of the times since March. "There are soldiers and security guards on each end of the street," Thidar Hla said, before adding that she hopes they can keep her family safe.

But in areas that bore the brunt of the rioting, little has been rebuilt more than two months on. The blackened frames of burned down homes are all that stand in some places.

Metal sheets that once served as roofs now lie in pieces on the ashen ground. The government says it will replace all of the approximately 1,600 homes that were destroyed -- an easier task than repairing the trust between Muslims and Buddhists.

"Right now we don't trust them and they don't trust us," said U Aung Khin, a 50-year-old Buddhist man. Aung Khin is married with five kids between the ages of five and 24. He says he has numerous Muslim friends, but things have been strained since the riots.

"After this we don't really have to talk. It isn't necessary for us to talk with each other at all," he said. "I'm afraid to trust them right now." He said he used to buy meat from a Muslim butcher but won't now because he's afraid his food might be poisoned.

Meanwhile, Thidar Hla's family says they're playing it safe by buying their food from other Muslims. She has also instructed her daughter to stay close to home. She's a student at a local university that has not reopened since the riots.

Hnin Ei Phyu says she has several Buddhist friends at school and is hoping her relationships with them go back to normal. But she hasn't contacted them since the violence and they haven't been in touch with her.

Though Myanmar is about 90% Buddhist, Muslims have generally coexisted peacefully with the Buddhist majority -- their children go to school together and their parents often work together. But as with Meiktila, ethnic fault lines have been exposed in some areas as the country emerges from decades of military repression.

Last year, at least 110 people were killed in attacks on Muslims in western Myanmar's Rakhine State. The Muslim Rohingya people are a stateless Muslim minority living in Rakhine -- thought to number between 800,000 and one million -- who claim they were persecuted by Myanmar's military during its decades of authoritarian rule.

Myanmar does not recognize them as citizens or as one of the 135 recognized ethnic groups living in the country. Much of this is rooted in their heritage in East Bengal, now called Bangladesh.

Though many Rohingya have only known life in Myanmar, they are viewed by the Buddhist majority as intruders from across the border.

Across the country, a budding movement known as "969" has been spreading anti-Muslim sentiment by encouraging Buddhists to avoid Muslim-run businesses. "969" stickers are increasingly found in businesses and taxis in Yangon, the country's largest and most ethnically diverse city.

Police recently stepped up patrols in Yangon following the Meiktila clashes, though serious fighting has yet to spread there. However, in several communities within 100 kilometers (62 miles) of Yangon, Buddhist mobs reportedly vandalized mosques as well as Muslim businesses and houses.

The wave of religious unrest has prompted the 57-nation Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) urge Burmese authorities to allow a delegation to visit Myanmar to discuss the issue -- a request the authorities in Naypyidaw have so far rebuffed.

    • Rohingya Exodus