Burmese Soldiers Guard De

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/* Written  9:33 am  Jun  8, 1994 by wov.central@xxxxxxx in igc:soc.cult.burma */
/* ---------- "Burmese Soldiers Guard De" ---------- */
Subject : Burmese Soldiers Guard Destruction of Mosque

   MAE SOT, Thailand (Reuter) - Burmese soldiers armed with
automatic rifles supervized the demolition of a mosque to make
way for expansion of a road despite Muslim community pleas to
save the building, Burmese traders said Tuesday.
   The destruction of the sole mosque in Thingan Nyinaung,
about 12 miles west of the southeast Burmese border town of
Myawadi last Sunday, raised fears in the Muslim community that
other mosques along the road would be pulled down.
   Muslims in Thingan Nyinaung had appealed to both local and
national authorities in a futile attempt to save the 70-year-old
mosque, said traders arriving this Thai border town.
   Soldiers threw up a tight security cordon around the mosque
Sunday and ordered about 200 workers to tear it down, they said.
   The traders, some of them Muslim, said the Muslim community
in southeast Burma was now deeply concerend that two other
mosques near the road would also be demolished.
   Thousands of people have been evicted from roadside
dwellings along a 24 mile stretch of the road running west from
Myawadi, they said.
   Several million of Burma's 42 million people are Muslim.
Most of the Muslims in central Burma's towns and cities moved to
predominantly Buddhist Burma during a period of British colonial
rule which ended in 1948.


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