We know how to cut off the financial valve to Myanmar’s military. The world just needs the resolve to act

Jonathan Liljeblad, Australian National UniversitySince the coup in Myanmar on February 1, the international community has struggled to agree on coherent action against the military (also known as the Tatmadaw).

Tough action by the UN Security Council has been stymied by China, Russia, India and Vietnam, who see the Myanmar crisis as an internal affair.

Outside the UN, a strong, coordinated response by Myanmar’s neighbours in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has also been lacking due to their reluctance to interfere in each other’s affairs. Thai political expert Thitinan Pongsudhirak called it an “existential crisis” for the bloc.

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Read more:
As killings, beatings and disappearances escalate, what’s the end game in Myanmar?

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This reluctance, which has now cost the lives of over 500 civilians, rules out the use of military force to stop the violence, peacekeeping operations or even a humanitarian intervention.

It has left the international community with one remaining option for a coordinated response that could change the military’s behaviour: the imposition of economic sanctions. But even this action has been subject to much debate.

Follow the money

General sanctions that try to change the behaviour of authoritarian regimes by damaging their economies have proven problematic in the past. Many leaders have invariably found ways around the sanctions, meaning civilians have disproportionately borne the costs of isolation.

In contrast, targeted sanctions against the specific financial interests that sustain authoritarian regimes have been more effective. These can impose pressure on regimes without affecting the broader population.

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Ethical minefields: the dirty business of doing deals with Myanmar’s military

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This is where the international community has the greatest potential to punish the Tatmadaw.

Since the US and other countries pursued more general sanctions on Myanmar in the 1990s and 2000s — with mixed results — the international community has gained a greater understanding of the Tatmadaw’s transnational revenue streams.

In particular, in 2019, the UN Fact-Finding Mission (UNFFM) on Myanmar released a report detailing the diverse Tatmadaw-linked enterprises that funnel revenue from foreign business transactions to the military’s leaders and units.

More recently, this list of potential targets has been expanded by non-government organisations and investigative journalists.

Researchers have also outlined the Tatmadaw’s dealings in illegal trade in drugs, gemstones, timber, wildlife and human trafficking.

The extent of information on the Tatmadaw’s financial flows shows just how vulnerable the military’s leaders are to international pressure.

Tracking the military’s legal and illegal business dealings makes it possible to identify its business partners in other countries. Governments in those countries can then take legal action against these business partners and shut off the flow of money keeping the junta afloat.

To some degree, this is starting to happen with Myanmar. The US and UK recently decided, for instance, to freeze assets and halt corporate trading with two Tatmadaw conglomerates — Myanmar Economic Corporation and Myanma Economic Holdings Limited. Both of these oversee a range of holdings in businesses that divert revenues directly to the Tatmadaw.

Myanmar’s trading partners can do more

This is only a starting point, though. To tighten the pressure on the junta, targeted sanctions need to be imposed against the full suite of entities identified by the UNFFM. These include groups like Justice for Myanmar and journalists.

The sanctions need to be accompanied by broader investigations into the Tatmadaw’s revenues from illicit trade. To counter this, Human Rights Watch has urged governments to enforce anti-money laundering and anti-corruption measures, including the freezing of assets.

Singapore’s central bank has reportedly told financial institutions to be on the look-out for suspicious transactions or money flows between the city-state and Myanmar. Singapore is the largest foreign investor in the country.

Moreover, for maximum impact, targeted sanctions need to be imposed not just by the West, but by Myanmar’s largest trading partners in the region. This includes Singapore, along with China, India, Indonesia, Japan and Thailand.

Business leaders in these countries have historically had the closest ties with Myanmar’s military and business elites. But their participation in a multi-national targeted sanctions strategy is not out of the question. For one, this would not require direct intervention within Myanmar, something they are loath to do. Imposing targeted sanctions would merely entail enforcing their domestic laws regarding appropriate business practices.

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Read more:
Resistance to military regime in Myanmar mounts as nurses, bankers join protests – despite bloody crackdown

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International action is becoming more urgent. Beyond the concerns about the killings of unarmed civilians, there is a larger issue of the violence extending beyond Myanmar’s borders. There are growing fears the crisis could turn Myanmar into a failed state, driving refugee flows capable of destabilising the entire region.

In short, this is no longer an “internal” matter for Myanmar — it is becoming a transnational problem that will affect regional peace and security. The tools are there to stop the financial flows to the Tatmadaw and curtail their operations. It is critical to act before the Myanmar crisis grows into an international disaster.

Jonathan Liljeblad, Senior Lecturer, Australian National University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

ISIS’s Cash Problem?

Time to Reassess Afghan Policy

There is no doubt in my mind as to the complete separation of the state and the Christian church. The United States government, the Australian government and all other governments involved in the war against terror are not acting as Christian Crusaders, but as responsible modern nations seeking to bring freedom from terror to oppressed peoples around the world. Having said that, in light of such articles as that previous in this Blog, perhaps it is time that the allies in the war on terror, reassess their policy on Afghanistan (and the same would be true of Iraq and Pakistan). Clearly, should the allies withdraw from the country, it seems relatively clear that it would only be a matter of time before the country moves towards an oppressive Islamic regime.

Why should western nations promoting human rights, democracy, freedom from terror and other worthwhile goals, continue to pour resources (human, financial, etc) into a country where overall, its citizens continue to espouse the rhetoric and policies of the enemy?  Already it seems clear that the principles of our freedoms are despised by the vast majority of the Afghan nation. Without a long-term commitment to police the country and keep the policies being promoted by the western allies, there is no point continuing the current mission in Afghanistan (or Iraq, Pakistan, etc). Do we have the capacity and the stomach to pay the price for such a continuing mission, when the undoubted price in human lives, finances and other resources, will continue to mount and become such that our own people will be unable to bear the dearness of the cost?

US Evangelical Lutheran Church approves homosexual clergy

On Friday, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) voted in favor of allowing practicing homosexuals, in committed relationships, to hold positions of authority within the sect, reports Thaddeus M. Baklinski, LifeSiteNews.com.

By a vote of 559 to 451 at last week’s national convention, representatives of the largest Lutheran denomination in the United States decided “to open the ministry of the church to gay and lesbian pastors and other professional workers living in committed relationships.”

“The actions here change the church’s policy, which previously allowed gays and lesbians into the ordained ministry only if they remained celibate,” ELCA information director John Brook told AFP.

“This is not simply rules and procedures for implementing something new,” said Rev. Stanley Olson, executive director of ELCA Vocation and Education. “We have these policies because we are committed to having the kind of leaders who will serve the Gospel of Jesus Christ, who will respect this church and other churches, and who will have the world in view.”

Members of Lutheran CORE (Coalition for Reform), representing over 400 conservative congregations that fought against the homosexualist resolution, renounced the ELCA vote.

“ELCA has broken faith with its members and Lutherans worldwide,” CORE said in a statement released on Friday.

“Lutheran CORE is continuing in the Christian faith as it has been passed down to us by generations of Christians,” Rev. Paul Spring, chairman of Lutheran CORE, said in the statement. “I am saddened that a Lutheran Church that was founded on a firm commitment to the Bible has come to the point that the ELCA would vote to reject the Bible’s teaching on marriage and homosexual behavior. It breaks my heart.”

Rev. Spring said CORE will encourage ELCA members and congregations to withdraw financial support from the denomination.

“Lutheran CORE leaders are inviting faithful Lutheran congregations and individuals to direct funding away from the national church body because of the decisions made this week by the Churchwide Assembly. Lutheran CORE will participate in and support faithful ELCA ministries, but cannot support ELCA ministries that reject the authority of God’s Word,” the group’s statement stated.

Rev. Richard Mahan, pastor at St. Timothy Lutheran Church in Charleston, W.Va., told AFP that he believed a majority of his congregation would want to now break away from the ELCA.

“This will cause an ever greater loss in members and finances. I can’t believe the church I loved and served for 40 years can condone what God condemns,” Mahan said. “Nowhere in Scripture does it say homosexuality and same-sex marriage is acceptable to God. Instead, it says it is immoral and perverted.”

Lutheran CORE announced it will hold a convention in Indianapolis, September 25-26, to plan its further response to the ELCA announcement.

Report from the Christian Telegraph

TANZANIA: ZANZIBAR EVICTS CONGREGATION FROM GOVERNMENT BUILDING

Officials on island cite ‘renovations,’ but pastor sees pandering to Muslims.

NAIROBI, Kenya, June 22 (Compass Direct News) – A pastor in Zanzibar City said his church is without a worship place after government officials, at the instigation of radical Islamists, evicted the congregation from their rented building on Tanzania’s Zanzibar Island off the coast of East Africa.

With just two days’ notice, government officials ordered Christians of the Church of God Zanzibar from their rented government building effective April 19, ostensibly to pave the way for renovations. But two months later, said pastor Lucian Mgayway, no renovation work has begun and none appears to be forthcoming.

The government has not only failed to renovate the building but has since turned it into a business site, Pastor Mgaywa said. The church had been worshipping in the building since October 2000.

In evicting the church from its building in the Kariakoo area of Zanzibar City, Pastor Mgaywa said, the government gave in to partisan demands.

“Our being told to vacate the premise by the government was a calculated move to disintegrate the church and to please the Muslims who do not want us to be in this particular area,” he said.

Forced to rent different worship venues each week, the congregation can no longer bear the financial burden that comes with it, said Pastor Mgaywa.

“Hire venues are available, but we can no longer afford it due to limited finances,” he said. “Reasons for our being kicked out are purely religious.”

The church’s 50 members had seen signs that the eviction was coming. With increasing frequency Muslim youths had passed by the church hurling insults because they felt Christians had intruded on their territory, Pastor Mgaywa said.

“The church had been experiencing stone-throwing on the roof of the building by the Muslims during worship service,” he said. He added that since the eviction notice, members of the congregation have been increasingly harassed by area Muslims.

Pastor Mgaywa said that after receiving the order on April 17 to vacate by April 19, the congregation sought an audience with the acting director of the Zanzibar Social Security Fund, identified only by his surname of Hassan. Officials, however, rejected the church’s request to continue using the premises.

Otherwise, when the government gave two days’ notice to vacate the premises for “renovations” to be carried out, the congregation obliged; they did not seek legal redress, he said, as they had trusted that officials’ stated intentions were genuine.

Now that the congregation is left without site options, the pastor said, he has been visiting members in their homes to worship together.

Shut-downs and attacks are not unknown on the predominantly Muslim, semi-autonomous island as a resurgent Christian movement makes inroads. On May 9 Muslim extremists expelled Zanzibar Pentecostal Church worshippers from their rented property at Ungunja Ukuu, on the outskirts of Zanzibar City (see “Radical Muslims Drive Church from Worship Place in Zanzibar”).

The attackers had been angered by a recent upsurge in Christian evangelism in the area. Radical Muslims had sent ominous threats to the Christians warning them to stop their activities.

The church had undertaken a two-day evangelism campaign culminating in an Easter celebration. On the morning of the assault, more than 20 church members had gathered for Saturday fellowship when word reached them that Muslim extremists were about to attack. As the radical group approached, the Christians fled in fear of their lives.

In predominately Sunni Muslim Zanzibar, churches face other hurdles. There are restrictions on getting land to build churches, open preaching is outlawed and there is limited time on national television to air Christian programs. In government schools, only Islamic Religious knowledge is taught, not Christian Religious Education.

Zanzibar is the informal designation for the island of Unguja in the Indian Ocean. The Zanzibar archipelago united with Tanganyika to form the present day Tanzania in 1964.

Muslim traders from the Persian Gulf had settled in the region early in the 10th century after monsoon winds propelled them through the Gulf of Aden and Somalia. The 1964 merger left island Muslims uneasy about Christianity, seeing it as a means by which mainland Tanzania might dominate them, and tensions have persisted.

Report from Compass Direct News

TURKEY: LOCAL OFFICIALS’ ROLE EMERGES IN MALATYA MURDERS

Former police commander, university researcher, suspected ringleader’s father testify.

MALATYA, Turkey, April 15 (Compass Direct News) – Two years after the murder of three Christians in this city in southeastern Turkey, lawyers at a hearing here on Monday (April 13) uncovered important information on the role that local security forces played in the slaughter.

At the 16th hearing of the murder case at the Malatya Third Criminal Court, plaintiff attorneys called a heavy slate of witnesses, including Mehmet Ulger, the gendarmerie commander of Malatya province during the April 2007 murders who was arrested on March 12 for his alleged connection to a political conspiracy, and Ruhi Abat, a theology instructor at the local Ismet Inonu University.

Two Turkish Christians, Necati Aydin and Ugur Yuksel, and a German Christian, Tilmann Geske, were tied up and stabbed to death at Zirve Publishing Co. offices on April 18, 2007. Plaintiff attorneys have moved the focus of the trial away from the five suspects – Salih Gurler, Cuma Ozdemir, Hamit Ceker, Abuzer Yildirim, and alleged ringleader Emre Gunaydin – to local officials believed to be liaisons or masterminds of the murders.

The retired gendarmerie commander and the theology researcher have suspected links to the crime. In January an anonymous letter sent to Turkish churches and obtained by the media claimed that then-commander Ulger instigated the murders and directed Abat to prepare arguments against missionary activity.

According to phone records, Abat made 1,415 telephone calls to gendarmerie intelligence forces in the six-month period prior to the 2007 murders. During his cross examination, he told the courtroom that the frequent contact resulted from gendarmerie requesting information on his research of local missionary activity.

Abat was part of a team of six researchers that focused on the social effects of missionary activity within the Malatya region.

“The information I gave the police and gendarmerie was aimed at answering the criticisms that missionaries had about Islam,” he said.

When plaintiff attorneys asked Ulger if this level of communication was typical, the former gendarmerie commander said that they communicated on other issues such as translating Arabic documents and further teaching engagements. But lawyers said this level of communication was unusual.

“He called the gendarmerie the equivalent of 10 times a day, seven days a week, which suggests something abnormal going on,” said plaintiff attorney Orhan Kemal Cengiz. “You wouldn’t talk that much to your mother.”

In a heated exchange at the end of the hearing, Ozkan Yucel, plaintiff attorney representing the families of the victims, pressed Ulger to answer whether he considered Christian missionary activity in Turkey to be a crime.

Avoiding a direct answer, Ulger said no such crime existed in Turkey’s penal system, but that gendarmerie classified such activity as “extreme right-wing.”

“The gendarmerie considers this to be the same [level of extremism] as radical Islamic activity,” he said.

 

Suspected Ringleader’s Family Testifies

Onur Dulkadir, a cousin and former classmate of Gunaydin, the suspected ringleader, testified on his interactions with Gunaydin and Malatya’s local Christian community prior to the murders.

Dulkadir claimed that a few months before the crime, he and Gunaydin attended a Christian meeting at a Malatya hotel where approximately 50 people were in attendance. He said they left when someone handed him a brochure about “missionary activity.”

Dulkadir told the court that after they left, Gunaydin said, “I am watching how they structure themselves,” and, “Very soon I am going to be rich.” In past hearings, Gunaydin claimed the Turkish state had promised him support if he would carry out the attacks successfully.

Gunaydin’s father, Mustafa Gunaydin, testified at the hearing that he didn’t believe his son had led the group of five to commit the grisly murder of the three Christians, two of them converts from Islam.

“I went once a week to the jail to see my son, and every time I spoke with my son I tried to bring out the identity of those behind the murders,” said Mustafa Gunaydin. “He swore to me there was nobody behind it . . . I still believe my son couldn’t have done anything. My child is afraid of blood.”

Mustafa Gunaydin works as a technician at Ismet Inonu University. Plaintiff attorneys asked him if he was acquainted with professor Fatih Hilmioglu, recently jailed in a mass arrest of professors associated with a national conspiracy known as Ergenekon. He replied that he knew Hilmioglu, but that he also knew about 70 percent of the university personnel and did not have a close friendship with the arrested professor.

The prosecuting attorneys have frequently contended that Ergenekon, a loose collection of ultra-nationalist generals, businessmen, mafia and journalists who planned to engineer domestic chaos and overthrow the Turkish government, instigated Emre Gunaydin to commit the murders.

Ulger was arrested as part of the Turkish state’s investigations into Ergenekon.

 

Cryptic Comments

Among Emre Gunaydin’s most prominent suspect links to Ergenekon is his jailed former co-worker Varol Bulent Aral, who was arrested in February for being a possible liaison between the five youths on trial for the murders and the true masterminds.

Hamit Ozpolat, owner of a newspaper and radio station in Adiyaman, testified at the hearing that Aral made cryptic comments in regard to his connections with the criminal organization. When Aral approached Ozpolat for a job at one of his news outlets, he declined his application, which he said resulted in Aral shouting threats against him. When police came, Ozpolat testified, Aral shouted, “You can’t do anything to me, I am a member of the deep state.”

Plaintiff attorneys have suspected a connection between the Malatya murder case and Ergenekon for several months, attempting to merge the two cases since last August.

But in a strange turn, the National Intelligence Agency (MIT) has issued a report claiming that Ergenekon and Christian missionary agencies were working together to destroy the Turkish nation. This claim would seem to contradict older Ergenekon documents that make reference to church members in Izmir, Mersin and Trabzon, three Turkish cities where Christians were attacked or killed in the following years.

Malatya plaintiff attorneys told Compass the theory of Christians wanting to destroy Turkey exists in the national consciousness but has no basis in reality.

“One of the core activities of Ergenekon is to struggle against missionary activity,” plaintiff attorney Cengiz said. “They are very hostile against missionary activities, as they see them as an extension of the external enemies in Turkey.”

On Monday (April 13), police raided the home of professor Turkan Saylan, 74-year old president of the Association for Support of Progressive Life (CYDD) and a cancer patient. The seven-hour raid took place on the basis of a MIT report stating her organization had received funds from the American Board, the oldest organization in Turkey with missionary status. The American Board is known in Turkey for building schools and hospitals and funding development projects.

Police reportedly raided her home and office in an attempt to find information linking CYDD finances to the American Board and proselytizing activities. Saylan’s organization has opened three court cases against MIT for past accusations of missionary activities.

In an online report published by Haber50 today, Saylan said that her premises were raided as retaliation for the cases opened against MIT, which for years has been trying to destroy her organization’s reputation in the press.

In addition, the report says Yasar Yaser, president of the Health and Education Association (SEV), used her organization’s printing press in order to produce Bibles.

“The terrible truth is some media, including some Muslim newspapers, were very eager to cover this story,” plaintiff attorney Cengiz said. He emphasized that suspicions of Christian groups in Turkey having such a subversive agenda were baseless.

This Saturday (April 18) will mark the second anniversary of the stabbing deaths of the three Christians. Churches across Turkey will commemorate the event through special services, and the Turkish Protestant Alliance has designated the day as an international day of prayer.

The next hearing of the case is scheduled to take place on May 22.

Report from Compass News Direct

BURMA: REPORT DOCUMENTS ABUSE OF CHIN CHRISTIANS

Human Rights Watch shows systematic, officially sanctioned religious freedom violations.

DUBLIN, February 20 (Compass Direct News) – A Human Rights Watch (HRW) report released in January details serious and ongoing abuses against the Chin people, a minority group in Burma’s northwest who claim to be 90 percent Christian.

HRW’s research echoes a 2004 report by the Chin Human Rights Organization (CHRO) that described targeted abuse of Christians in Chin state, with the Burmese army subjecting pastors and church members to forced labor, arbitrary arrest and detention, torture and sometimes death.

While religious oppression is extreme in Chin state, restrictions also apply elsewhere in Burma, also known as Myanmar. Most recently, officials in January forced the closure of more than 100 churches in Rangoon and ordered owners of apartment buildings and conference facilities not to rent their properties to religious groups.

Based on interviews with Chin refugees in India and Malaysia between 2003 and 2008, HRW’s report describes how an increasing number of army battalions stationed in Chin state since 1988 have inflicted forced labor and arbitrary fines on the Chin people, as well as bullied them away from Christianity toward Buddhism.

“When we meet the army, we are shaking,” a Chin refugee pastor told HRW. “Whatever they want is law.”

The HRW report, entitled “We Are Like Forgotten People,” notes that soldiers frequently forced Christians to donate finances and labor to pagoda construction projects in areas where there were few or no Buddhist residents.

They also occasionally forced Christians to worship in Buddhist pagodas. One Chin pastor described how Burmese soldiers brought him to a pagoda and prodded him with their guns, commanding him to pray as a Buddhist.

“They said that this is a Buddhist country and that I should not practice Christianity,” he told HRW.

The military forced village headmen to present “volunteers” for military training or army construction projects and secured “donations” such as food or finance for army battalions. Soldiers severely beat or detained headmen if a village failed to meet quotas, seizing livestock or property in retribution.

Pastors often faced similar treatment, particularly if church members were accused – often without proof – of involvement with the Chin National Front insurgency group. HRW listed arrest, detention and torture as methods used against those accused of being part of the Chin National Front, based across the border in northeast India. Torture included beatings with sticks or guns and electric shocks via metal clips attached to high-voltage batteries. Such measures were also used to crush dissent against army policies such as failure to pay extortionate and arbitrary fees.

The military government promoted Buddhism over all other religions in Chin state through threats and inducements, destroying churches and other religious symbols, and restricting the printing and importing of Bibles and other Christian literature, HRW reported.

A judge in 1999 sentenced one man from Falam township to three years in prison for bringing Chin language Bibles into Burma, contravening Burma’s 1965 Censor Law. Authorities also burned 16,000 copies of Chin and other ethnic language Bibles brought into neighboring Sagaing Division, another Chin majority area, in 2000.

 

‘Campaign of Ethnocide’

CHRO’s 2004 report, “Religious Persecution: A Campaign of Ethnocide Against Chin Christians in Burma,” explained that Christianity had become inseparable from Chin culture following the arrival of American Baptist missionaries in 1899.

The report, based on information gathered in Chin state, gave numerous examples of the destruction of churches and crosses, the burning of Bibles and restrictions on other religious publications and activities between 1993 and 2004 – including the extrajudicial killings of four Chin Christians in 1993.

Burmese authorities routinely denied permission for the construction of new churches and required permits for large church gatherings, although lengthy bureaucratic processes meant that most of these gatherings were eventually postponed or cancelled.

A September 2008 U.S. Department of State report confirmed that Chin state authorities have not granted permission to build a new church since 2003.

As recently as last November, a government official ordered residents of Tayawaddy village in neighboring Sagaing Division to destroy the foundations of a new church building erected by members of a Chin Christian student fellowship. A report in the Chinland Guardian claimed villagers were subsequently ordered not to rent their homes to Chin students or the homes would be destroyed.

 

Enticement to Convert

CHRO’s report gave clear evidence of government support for coerced conversions. For example, the government offered free secular education to several children from impoverished families, only to place them as novice monks in Buddhist monasteries in Rangoon.

The Ministry of Religious Affairs has also sent Buddhist monks to villages and towns throughout Chin state under the Hill Regions Buddhist Mission program, one of several Buddhist missionary initiatives highlighted on the ministry’s website. Chin residents who spoke to CHRO likened these monks to “military intelligence” operatives who worked in partnership with Burmese soldiers to control the Chin people.

According to one Chin resident, “Anyone who doesn’t abide by the monks’ orders is reported to the State Peace and Development Council [Burmese government officials] and punished by the army.”

Another Chin man from Matupi township attended a government-sponsored “social welfare” training session only to discover that it was a propaganda session led by a Buddhist monk.

“In the training we were taught the 17 facts of how to attack and disfigure Christians,” he explained.

The 17-point method encouraged converts to criticize Christian ways of life as corrupting culture in Burma, to point out weaknesses in Christianity, and to attack Christians by both violent and non-violent means.

“We were promised that 1,200 kyats per month [US$190] would be provided to those families who became Buddhist,” the training participant added. That amount of money is significant in the Burmese economy.

The instructor also ensured participants that they would be exempt from “portering” and other forms of forced labor and compulsory “donations” if they converted, and that the government would provide education for their children.

“I became a Buddhist because of such privileges rather than because I think Buddhism is better than Christianity,” the Chin participant told CHRO.

 

Religious Policy Elsewhere

According to CHRO, both the Burmese army and the monks are pursuing an unofficial government policy summed up in three words; “Amyo, Batha, Thathana,” which translates as “One race, one language, one religion” – or Burman, Burmese and Buddhist.

This policy was exemplified by the forced closure in January of more than 100 churches in the capital, Rangoon.

Officials on Jan. 5 invited pastors from more than 100 Rangoon churches to a meeting where they were ordered to sign documents pledging to cease operation of their churches or face imprisonment. About 50 pastors attended, according to Burmese news agency Mizzima.

A CHRO spokesman told Compass yesterday that a significant number of these churches were ethnic rather than majority Burman churches.

In mid-January, officials ordered several other major Rangoon churches to close, including Wather Hope Church, Emmanuel Church and an Assemblies of God Church. (See Compass Direct News, “Burma Clamps Down on Christians,” Jan. 21.)

Officials from the Ministry of Religious Affairs in January summoned the owners of buildings where churches met and ordered them not to rent their properties to religious groups, according to another local online news source, the Democratic Voice of Burma.

In the late 1990s, Burma stopped issuing permits for land purchase or the construction of new churches in Rangoon and elsewhere, leading many Burmese Christians to conduct services in rented apartments or office buildings.

The church closure orders may simply be an extension of Burma’s existing religious policies, which elevate Buddhism in an effort to solidify national identity. The country’s population is 82 percent Buddhist, 9 percent Christian and 4 percent Muslim, with traditional ethnic, Chinese and Hindu religions accounting for the rest.

In a 2007 report describing religious persecution throughout Burma, including Chin state, Christian Solidarity Worldwide cited the “Program to Destroy the Christian Religion in Burma,” a 17-point document that had circulated widely in Rangoon. Allegedly authorized by the Ministry of Religious Affairs, the program’s first point declared that, “There shall be no home where the Christian religion is practiced.”

The Ministry of Religious Affairs subsequently pressured religious organizations to publicly condemn CSW’s report and deny all claims of religious discrimination in Burma.  

Report from Compass Direct News

PAKISTAN: PASTOR SUFFERS POLICE ATTACKS, DEATH THREATS

Officers from different police stations beat him; murder suspect threatens to kill him.

ISTANBUL, October 9 (Compass Direct News) – A Pakistani pastor and his family in Punjab province have been living in fear for months after death threats from a murder suspect and repeated attacks on their house by police squads.

Pastor Christopher Manzer, 55, of Jhugian Baja Singh, told Compass by telephone that a Muslim man blames him for the loss of his wife and unborn baby and has enlisted extremist Muslim groups to mount a wave of attacks on him.

“I’m a Christian pastor, and in Pakistan you know it is a trend to hurt the Christians,” said Manzer, pastor of Pentecostal Church of Jesus Disciples, by telephone from Jhugian Baja Singh, 26 kilometers (16 miles) southwest of Lahore. “Most Christians are suffering very much.”

Mohammad Nawaz considers the pastor responsible for his divorce and the subsequent deaths of his ex-wife and unborn baby following an abortion. Nawaz’s uncle, a man identified only as Makha whom Nishter Colony police are seeking in connection with the murders of two Christian men in the past three months, has called the pastor twice telling him to leave town or die.

Manzer said he received the first death threat from Makha on Sept. 21, and then again on Saturday (Oct. 4) at 7 p.m.

“Be careful, I’m going to kill you – you have only a few days left in the world … your days are numbered,” Makha told Manzer on the phone last month.

“He is still receiving death threats,” said Shahzad Kamran of Sharing Life Ministry Pakistan (SLMP). “Makha is giving life threats to Pastor Christopher and telling him to leave the area and go to another place, otherwise they we will kill him and his family. They are afraid.”

 

Seeds of Grudge

Nawaz and the daughter of a member of Manzer’s church converted to Islam in order to elope, hoping that Islamic law would shield them from their families, who were opposed to their marriage.

Convinced that his daughter, Sana Bibi, had been kidnapped, Anwer Masih sought help from Manzer and others to get her back. Soon after Nawaz and Bibi were married, Nawaz became increasingly Islamic in his views, prompting her to seek help from her family to find a way out of the marriage.

Manzer stepped in to help reconcile Masih to his daughter, forgive her and take her back. On July 16, 2007 she filed for divorce, which was approved on March 28. In January, Nawaz had opened a dispute case against Manzer and Masih. A Pakistani court dismissed the case.

Bibi returned to her Christian faith and practices with the encouragement of Manzer. On April 7, however, members of the Liberty police station in Lahore broke into Manzer’s house, kicked him and beat him with sticks for an hour, verbally harassing him and his wife as well as their four children, ages 8 to 21.

Manzer was able to identify the police station because of the van that officers drove and parked near his house. The officers handcuffed him and took him to his church, where believers were gathered for a prayer meeting, and continued to beat him.

This was the first of five beatings and arrests by officers of police stations from other townships around Lahore. Each time friends came to Manzer’s rescue with a bribe, police relented and claimed to have caught the wrong man. The pastor said that paying police to keep them from beating him has exhausted his and his parishioners’ finances.

He said the beatings, which occurred twice in the middle of the night at his home, twice at the church and once at the police station, took place between April 7 and July 5. On two occasions Manzer was able to identify the responsible police station as Model Town Lahore.

The police station of his area, Manga Mandi, supports the pastor but cannot take action against other police stations, a station officer reportedly told the pastor.

On Aug. 26, Nawaz opened a second court case in a First Incident Report (FIR) at Manga Mandi police station against Manzer, Masih and seven other individuals, accusing them of forcibly entering his house in January, physically attacking him and his family and kidnapping Bibi. He further claimed that they threatened to kill him and stole 10,000 rupees (US$125) and gold objects.

“It is a fabricated story,” said Kamran of the SLMP.

Masih told SLMP staff, “Nawaz has relations with some Muslims who support him; he already has implicated us in a false case of quarrel … Now he again implicated us in a murder case of my daughter.”

In May, about five months after Bibi left Nawaz, she was admitted into the hospital with a high fever. She was treated by a midwife but died on May 27. SLMP staff confirmed that she had been pregnant and had had an abortion. According to her medical report, she died due to septic shock.

Manzer said Nawaz enlisted the help of extremist Muslims and his uncle out of anger over his ordeal and because Manzer was acquitted in the first court case against him in January.

“When Muslim groups saw the local police’s good behavior toward me, they approached Liberty and Model Town Police Stations in Lahore to take action against me,” he told the SLMP. “Police from both stations raided my house unlawfully.”

The pastor bears marks of the torture he underwent, while both his wife and eldest daughter have undergone psychological treatment after the attacks on Manzer in their home.

The first hearing in the case opened against Manzer, Masih and the other community members is scheduled for Oct. 19. Manzer said his faith has imbued him with a deep sense of charity toward Nawaz.

“We are praying for protection from God, and that God blesses Nawaz, because I am thinking of him,” said Manzer. “I don’t want to do anything to Nawaz, because I love him.”

Report from Compass Direct News

SARAH PALIN’S PENTECOSTAL BACKGROUND: A Look at the Alleged Pentecostal Candidate for the US Vice Presidency

A video has emerged in the last day or so of US Republican Vice Presidency candidate Sarah Palin being blessed by a Kenyan bishop for protection from witchcraft.

The footage shows Sarah Palin standing before the congregation of the Wasilla Assembly of God Church in Anchorage, Alaska. Palin stands at the front with a man on either side placing their hands on her shoulders as Bishop Thomas Muthee leads the church in ‘prayer,’ seeking God’s aid to assist Palin in running for governor of Alaska. This assistance would include finances, to be saved from Satan and protection from witchcraft. Palin credits the Kenyan bishop for helping her attain the office of governor.

Officials for the McCain-Palin campaign say that Palin is not Pentecostal and that she attends different churches – certainly the church in the video is ‘different.’

The video is posted below – make what you will of the footage:

 

 

GETTING ON WITH THE JOB

After many disappointments in the past year, mostly having to do with my own finances, sickness and sin, I am trying to get on with the job here at Aussie Outpost. By the grace and mercy of God the tough way ahead can be traversed to the Lord’s greater glory and this is the path upon which I am resolved to travel. This doesn’t make me a hero or anyone special, just simply a Christian seeking to do that which is my duty to do.

Though I have struggled over the past year, Aussie Outpost has still moved ahead, even if it was slow going at times. The year ahead looks as though it has continuing challenges and trials, as well as having the opportunity for the Aussie Outpost ministry to forge ahead in all of it’s many facets. I really look forward to what is now beginning Aussie Outpost’s third year of existence, even if not always named that, having been previously named the NRBC Homepage (Northlake’s Reformed Baptist Church).

There is so much to do – now I need to redeem the time in order to do it.