Hello. My name is Tony Carnes. I’m your host for A Journey through NYC religions Television.
This coming Sunday, we will have an extraordinary report from a journalist in Rangoon, Burma. On February 1, the military launched a coup d’etat against the democratically elected government. A renegade Buddhist monk has advised the military to shoot every demonstrator in the head and to pick out one example for execution in the villages that start with the letter “M.”
Most Buddhists support the democratic leaders as do the Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, and others. There are hundreds of thousands who have fled for their lives.
Our producer Brian Finnerty called to wake me up one morning and said, we have a New York reporter who is in Rangoon, Burma, or Myanmar, as it’s officially called, that can tell us what is going on there.
We had to do the phone interview without a video of the reporter, and we anonymized his name as “Journalist” and slightly altered his voice. He has already been wounded once.
At any moment, the government may cut off all internet connections to the outside world. So if we have a sudden cessation of the interview, you will know that’s what’s happened. But we believe we were able to get just under the wire before the government clamped down with the help of Chinese military cyber-warriors.
Rest of transcript continued at the end of the post.
Statement by Cardinal Charles Bo of Burma provided to Journey TV:
“Myanmar today is in yet another chapter of darkness, bloodshed and repression. After a decade of reform and opening, in which – despite many challenges and storm clouds along the way – we thought we had glimpsed the sun beginning to rise over our beautiful land and the prospect – however fragile or faltering – of emerging into a new dawn of democracy, freedom, peace and justice, Today, we have been set back by more than a decade, taken back to the nightmare of military repression, brutality, violence and dictatorship.
Yet in these dark, dark times, we hear the voice of the Lord calling the Church still to be a witness, to be an instrument for justice, peace and reconciliation, to be His hands and feet in providing assistance to the poor and those in fear, to counter hatred with love.
We hear that voice in Isaiah 65: 17-21, the first reading in the liturgy of the Mass in the Catholic Church around the world today. “Thus says the Lord: Now I create new heavens and a new earth, and the past will not be remembered, and will come no more to men’s minds. Be glad and rejoice for ever and ever for what I am creating, because I now create Jerusalem ‘Joy’ and her people ‘Gladness’ …. No more will the sound of weeping or the sound of cries be heard in her; no more will be found the infant living a few days only … They will build houses and inhabit them, plant vineyards and eat their fruit.”
We will pray and work for a new Myanmar to be born out of this current tragedy, a Myanmar where truly every human being has an equal stake in the country and equal rights to basic freedoms, a Myanmar where ethnic and religious diversity is celebrated and where we enjoy real peace, a Myanmar where the soldiers put down their guns, step back from power and do what an army is meant to do: defend rather than attack the people. A Myanmar to which God says – as Jesus said to the father of the dying man in the Gospel – “Your son will live. You will live.” A Myanmar that rises again from the ashes.
How do we get there? By faith, prayer, love, dialogue and courage. By speaking out for truth, justice, freedom, peace and democracy. And so we need your prayers now more than ever. Please pray for this vision for Myanmar.”
Burmese in New York City
We should also consider the Burmese Americans who live in New York City. They are not the whole of the Burmese community in America. They are only a small part of the whole, less than 5% perhaps of the 190,000 Burmese living in the United States.. Still, the Burmese Americans have significant concentrations in Queens and Brooklyn. Further, they have founded a number of religious works in those boroughs.
There is a popular Burmese rhyme that mixes religious tastes: “of all the fruit, the mango’s the best; of all the meat, the pork’s the best; and of all the leaves, lahpet‘s the best.” People of all faiths eat the mango. Buddhists have many stories of this “divine fruit” in the life of Buddha. Muslims and Buddhists may avoid pork, while Burmese of other faiths seldom do. And lahpet, fermented or pickled tea leaves, is an exclusive Burmese food offering used as a doormat of welcome visitors, and a peace offering to offended neighbors. One of the great things about our city is that we have some Burmese restaurants where you can savor divine dishes with religious history at the same time.
That opportunity comes because we have seven thousand or more Burmese clustered in the Queens neighborhoods of Jackson Heights, Sunnyside, Woodside, and Elmhurst and Brooklyn’s Homecest and Sunset Park. We don’t have more because many Burmese only stay awhile in the city before joining the large Burmese community in Buffalo, New York or elsewhere where it is cheaper to live.
Religions of Burmese Americans in NYC
The religious affiliations of Burmese Americans typically fall along the ethnic lines found in their home country. For example, Burmans, Rakhine, and Mon are mostly Buddhist. Karen people are approximately seventy percent Christian and thirty percent Buddhist or animist. Most Chin and Kachin are Christians.
Currently, New York City has several Theravada Buddhist temples and monasteries in Queens, in addition to the American Burma Buddhist Association meditation centers in Brooklyn, for example, The Universal Peace Buddha Temple of New York. There are two evangelical Christian Burmese churches pastored by Burmese ministers: Myanmar Baptist Church New York with Rev. U Myo Maw; and Calvary Harvest Church with Rev Mew Myo Maw. Catholic Burmese have a network that arranges for worship and other religious events.
See some other hidden Asian American communities in Queens!
Full transcript for the program:
SPEAKERS
T Carnes, Brian Finnerty, Journalist
T Carnes 00:07
Hello, my name is Tony Carnes. I’m your host for A Journey through NYC religions Television. Welcome. Today we have an extra ordinary special treat. That’s a very important for you to pay attention to.
My producer called woke me up this morning and said, we have a New Yorker who is in Rangoon, Burma or Myanmar as its officially call that it can’t tell us what is going on in Burma.
In this state, there has been a crackdown by the socialist military. And who has killed hundreds of people and throughout the legitimate democratically elected government? We are having to make do this interview if we can get a hold of him momentarily without a picture of him, and I’m going to call him a journalist. Because we need to anonymize his biography and we will also slightly alter the voice. At any moment, the government may cut off all internet connections to the outside world. So if we have a sudden cessation of the interview, you’ll know that’s what’s happened. But we believe we’re getting just under the wire to do one of the last interviews that will be possible to be done in Burma if the government goes through with their threat to cut off the internet. there in that country. Hello. Journalists are are you there?
Journalist 02:14
Yes, I am.
T Carnes 02:17
And by the way, what time is it your time right now?
Journalist 02:22
Right now, it’s 10:26pm.
T Carnes 02:25
Is there any conflict today in the capital?
Journalist 02:33
Yes, there are conflicts here and throughout the entire country.
T Carnes 02:38
What kind of conflict? Is it just people demonstrating or is it more serious?
Journalist 02:49
Simply now, chaos. Chinese troops have been brought in by the Communist Party.
T Carnes 02:58
How many troops were brought in? Do you know?
Journalist 03:02
You hear me?
T Carnes 03:03
Yes, I can hear you quite well.
Journalist 03:07
They made they made very clear that most of the people who have been killed by the government who the people who will be killing will be shot in the head.
A fake monk was on television, who is the generalissimo’s spiritual advisor. He’s not a real monk. Specifically for him for the general to win this war he would have to shoot for the head. And what that turned out to be is that these people, even children, have already been killed. 500 people altogether and these are unarmed peaceful protesters. I mean, they’re screaming and yelling, but they don’t have weapons, and who have been killed. And because of this half of them’ve been shot in the head and their corpses are immediately taken away from the scene. We have videotape. I said this I said to Brian already. The bodies are, all the inner organs are removed. And the body is sent back to the families. It’s been clear that China has been buying these organs and reselling them inside of China. We’ve been doing Xinjiang Uighyers as well.
T Carnes 04:21
Really. You, some people have done videotape of this taking place?
Journalist 04:30
Yes, I’ve sent it to Brian already but I can send to you after this call.
T Carnes 04:42
Are all of these ethnic groups in the Capitol or who is demonstrating in the Capitol?
Journalist 04:47
I have never seen anyone demonstrate for the military. There have been a couple of a couple of classes. But when you look the only examine these people. These are rough These are criminals who have been left out of prison. These are the people in the sanitariums who have been people who have been cured of heroin addiction. They have been given incentives to start fires and to rob people to cause general mayhem. The people who are here aren’t buying it, but they’re not. Many often these people are dressed as monks. And one of the unfortunate things about Buddhism here is that it’s an established law amongst the faithful, faithful Buddhists, to not it’s not a matter of respecting a monk. They are required to even respect the orange saffron robes they wear. So they were so if someone wishes to claim to be a monk or does horrible damage to someone else while wearing these ropes, the common people are not allowed even to restrain them.
T Carnes 05:52
Oh, my God. So you have
Journalist 05:54
These are faked monks, fake monks who are criminals. It just dressed up to the monks. And they’re just causing general mayhem. They would be in my neighborhood, some of them were stopped from committing arson probably about five times. Grabbing people’s cell phones, probably about a dozen times. These people just maraurade through neighborhoods. They get dressed as monks and doing horrible things.
T Carnes 06:31
Is there more conflict in the countryside than in Rangoon?
Journalist 06:35
I guess I’m specifically saying the atrocities have happened all, throughout the entire country. In tiny little villages is where they mostly attack. They believe that if they just kill one person in each village, then the entire nation will just simply bow to them. It’s clear that these are people just people with protest signs, who are being shot at, areshot in the head, with 50 children well under the age of 18, 13-14 also. They kill, their bodies brought to some processing plant. All their organs are removed. I hardly think they’re doing. post-mortems to the organs. They are removed. They show the husk of the corpse which is returned to the families and are with a strict order that the body is cremated immediately. The process for Buddhists normally the mourning period, the body stays intact for two weeks. That’s mostly so that relatives who live from far away can come to the wake. But the soldiers and police who are working together force the family.
Brian Finnerty 08:08
Think we may have temporarily lost the communications Hold on.
T Carnes 08:13
Viewers, we have been in contact with a journalist in Rangoon who has filled us in on some really shocking news that the Chinese have sent troops into Burma to help the government to suppress the people. And furthermore, the Chinese with the Burmese government, when they kill somebody, are harvesting their organs to ship back to China so they can go on the market for organ replacements and perhaps even sold here in the United States. And this is happening all over Burma, or Myanmar, as it’s officially called, but popularly called Burma.
And the government seems to have a belief that if they kill a few people, one or more in each village, they will be able to cower the demonstrators. We also learned that the demonstrators are peaceful. They have signs, they yell but peaceful. But the government has pulled a trick. It’s an old trick. They have taken people that were criminals and in psychiatric wards for people who are on heroin addiction to addicts, and they’ve offered an extreme bargain. They can stay out on the street as long as they create mayhem. On the street, the government hopes to make it seem like the demonstrators are burning and looting and so forth. And then the government has an excuse to shoot the demonstrators.
And furthermore, some of these criminals and addicts are being dressed up in Buddhist robes and are told to go do this mayhem for two reasons. One is that people are very reluctant to enter interfere with a Buddhist monk. We have our source back on the line again. Okay, we have our journalists back on the line. I asked him, and we’ll see if he can hear this, that some of the ethnic groups have particular religious coloration, the many of the Karin group are Christians of some sort. And my question is, is that playing any role in this conflict?
Journalist 11:18
Anti-christian feeling has been encouraged since the British left, and actually before they left. In Burma, there have been 1000 Christian villages torched, burned to the ground in the last few years, but most recently. These Christians are a minority here. The Buddhists make up about 65% of the country. They are mostly lovely people. The rest of Burma is made up of 147, or thereabouts, ethnicities. They are the ones who are more likely to convert to Christianity, and specifically, Catholicism. And these have been targeted. Again, some of the people have been fighting the world’s longest secret Civil War ever since the British left
T Carnes 12:12
In this recent conflict, have they targeted religious leaders, hurting them or killing them?
Journalist 12:22
It has been very clear that the Catholic bishop has begged the army to not hurt unarmed protestors. And all the protesters are unarmed because they are just simply no weapons in the country. And the only ones who have weapons are the Burmese army and the police. And apparently Chinese agents and soldiers, marines who have been called in from there. A few nights, a few weeks ago, seven airplanes from China came in the middle of the night, unloading equipment to block electronic emissions, telephones incidents such things. The planes were also loaded with Chinese troops.
T Carnes 13:08
So what happened when the Catholic leader urged peace? Were there any repercussions against him are the church?
Journalist 13:20
Not that I know of. Other churches have been shuttered for a year, I think it was just over a year ago just a few days ago, because of COVID. So there are Catholics here who just simply aren’t involved on a weekly basis with the parishes. So, that really can’t be said one way or another. There has been a crackdown on some Protestant groups. These are desperate people. These are people who are good, good-hearted. They are the kindest, most gentle, generous people, to a man. These are lovely people, and they don’t deserve this kind of treatment But this is one of the most brutal regimes in the world. Most people just don’t know about it, because Burma just simply fell off the map. When the British Raj left, they had a couple of years of stability under democratic leadership. But then the military started muscling that caused horrific damage.
T Carnes 14:34
What are some of the needs? What can people here do to help what’s going on with the people of Burma?
Journalist 14:54
Catholic universities have to offer letters of applicant acceptance so that the youth can continue their studies in America. The American embassy and several other European embassies are very happy to offer education visas mostly without problems or restrictions. As long as the kids can speak English, the universities will are glad to accept them. I request Catholic ones because I think that we have an understanding, understanding of social justice and humanitarianism that we need to help these kids out. They can’t be much younger than 18. Of course, we really could use donations, especially from big airlines to take these kids away. These are not kids who are necessarily going to be staying or living forever in America and Europe. They’re staying there, temporarily, earning a degree, and then hoping to come back to their families here. The families are extremely tight, both Buddhist and Catholic. So these are not kids who are wanting to get away from the country. If airline tickets can be bought and sent here, let’s say through the American Embassy or some other European embassy waiting for these kids, that would be super. We need on this side is to just get student visas.
T Carnes 16:30
Why do you expect will happen tomorrow?
Journalist 16:40
You can’t imagine the kind of cruelty here. You will read about these things on Nazi Germany, you read about the Chinese treatment of the Uighurs with just blatant disregard for the sanctity of human life. They are just simply shooting children into the jungle also.
T Carnes 17:07
Well, as a journalist, you could be targeted.
Journalist 17:14
So, the protests persist all throughout the entire country, in the hinterlands, in the northern part of Burma at the foothills of the Himalayas. The worst atrocities were in a small town called Michi (?). This is one of the horrific things. The fake monk, whose nickname in Burmese is “Shut Mouth,” a very ominous name. Is he saying that everyone else should be shutting their mouths, or that he will keep his mouth shut? He’s clearly not among us. He’s bald, and he has orange robes. But e’s not really among any group of monks. He speaks like an educated person. He’s the sock puppet for the generals.
He specifically made two sorts of prophetic pronouncements. One was that the generals reasonably can only win these games if they go for the head. And immediately after death by being shot in the head, the bodies are retrieved so their organs can be harvested. Then, the empty husks (cadavers) are returned to families.
And the second pseudo-prophetic pronouncement was that the generalissimo would win this conflict if he restricted his fighting only to villages and neighborhoods and towns and cities that begin with letter M. That is the craziest thing you could imagine. But if you look at the list all of them begin with the letter M. And this was announced on national television. So, Mandalay was immediately hit. And the atrocities there have been horrific. Poor people, who struggle just to even buy a bag of rice for their children, are being attacked by the Army’s dogs who rip apart the food. I’ve seen these people picking up grains of rice with their fingertips inside of a broken bag, just so they can feed their children. The next afternoon was at Mitria (?), which is a city in the region called Chin state; in the Chen language, they call it Zolab. 85% of the people in Chin State are Christians, a majority are Catholics. And in the atrocities that I mentioned, it was horrific to me, I dare say that they are even legendary in their horror. I don’t want to even recount them to you.
However, the Buddhists here are warm and welcoming, and loving of Catholics. Prejudiced feelings against Catholics and Protestants is largely due to the military. The military has had a long history of claiming that Christians are not real Burmese. And even going so far as to say the Muslims are … really horrific language, I would not want to repeat it right now. But calling Muslims, the ones who were here, about 2% of the country as not human. Aung San Suu Kyi, the legitimate leader of the country who is now under arrest on trumped-up charges, was always very kind to the other ethnicities here. As I mentioned, Bamars are 65% of the country, then there’s the other 147. It depends on how you count. The number could be anywhere from 135 to up to 158. People here are very kind towards Catholics. But the army and the military are not.
T Carnes 21:33
I don’t know what faith you are. And I don’t want to know, but I’m sure that many of our viewers would like to pray over you. Would you mind them doing that? What can they pray about? And understand I just want to be sensitive, because I don’t know what faith you’re from if any, and I just want to be sensitive to that. But if they are praying for you, what should they pray for?
Journalist 22:12
I say if you go to the Holy Spirit because you want the big-ticket items. And that is because miracles happen. And God is in charge.
I believe that it brings the Holy Spirit and specifically asking for a cessation to the violence and the cessation against shooting children, those shooting unarmed protesters.
The thing that is happening in the country is every shop is shut. So if you wish, for people who wish to pray, pray that the military takes the hint. It is no longer like the previous two times the communists took over. Now everyone has access to the internet or will have it for the next two hours. My point is that they now understand what democracy is. Everyone here has met foreigners. And they’ve learned about the West. And they learn about democracy. And they laugh when they hear about socialists in America and Europe, who pretend that somehow they’re suffering. If people would like to suffer and think that a communist country is better, they are welcomed to come here.
Anything else that we should pray for? I hope that listeners will pray that these evil people lay down their arms. The Holy Spirit is able to make them put aside their ego, make them put aside their selfishness and come to experience God’s love in Jesus Christ. Imagine life wherever you are, in the states in the first world in Europe, all coming to a crashing end. So if anybody wants to know what it is that they need to pray for, imagine that they’re comfortable lifestyle where they’re happy with their children and their grandchildren, their neighbors and their church or temple or synagogue or whatever is crashing in around them. That’s what life is like here.
So all their prayers, and I firmly believe in the efficacy of prayer. I’ve seen prayer work here. This is the most harrowing experience that I have ever had but I’ve learned what true friendship. I have learned what family.
Strangers who picked me up off the street, being caught in a stampede of peaceful protesters escaping from live ammunition and weapons held by people who don’t care who they hit. I, I’ve seen people laying in streets because of flashbang grenades, or the holding of their arm or her leg because it’s been shot at. And the strangers they couldn’t possibly know them, scooping them up, dragging them to streets, hiding them because they hit me. I’ve been in these protests. I’ve been saved by these people who don’t know me. But they see a foreigner here. And they seem hopeful. Evil doesn’t last very long. It can’t sustain itself. And that’s all these harming junta and police collaborators are. That’s it.
T Carnes 26:28
Well, thank you very much for talking with us. We’ll keep you in prayer. And we look forward to talking with you. openly and freely.
Journalist 26:40
You are very kind.
T Carnes 26:40
Well, I better tell our viewers goodbye. My name is Tony Carnes. I’m your host here at A Journey through NYC religions Television. We’re talking with a journalist from Rangoon, Burma, or Myanmar as it’s called, who has roots in New York. But is there helping people, reporting on people, and what’s going on in Burma. We’re so glad that Journalist could be with us who we have to keep anonymous. Thank you, viewers, for joining us. We hope that this program really motivates you to prayer and action. And also with knowledge. We will include some links and options for doing things on our website. And we’ll be broadcasting also on MNN, Manhattan Neighborhood Network. And you can also watch it on our website. Thank you very much. Good day!
