US embassy cable - 04RANGOON881

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 RANGOON 000881 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR EAP/BCLTV, DRL 
USPACOM FOR FPA 
COMMERCE FOR ITA JEAN KELLY 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/12/2014 
TAGS: PGOV, PHUM, KISL, BM, Human Rights 
SUBJECT: KYAUKSE: THAN SHWE'S TIKRIT 
 
REF: A. RANGOON 219 
 
     B. RANGOON 5 
     C. 03 RANGOON 1361 
 
Classified By: COM Carmen M. Martinez for Reasons 1.4 (B,D) 
 
 1.  (C) Summary: A visit to Senior General Than Shwe's 
hometown of Kyaukse revealed a town of above average 
development, but with lingering religious tensions.  After 
Buddhist-Muslim religious riots here in October 2003, there 
seems to have been little attempt by anyone to systematically 
eliminate the root causes.  Neither, however, do the tensions 
seem to have affected people's daily life  -- focused like 
most other Burmese lives on subsistence.  End summary. 
 
In Search of Peace and Development? Try Kyaukse. 
 
2.  (U) Embassy Officers visited Senior General Than Shwe's 
hometown of Kyaukse in central Burma on June 28 and found 
tidy, leafy streets with neat houses radiating out from a 
small, yet bustling town center. The ten burned out 
Muslim-owned four-story buildings, in various stages of 
reconstruction, around the town's center square are a 
reminder of the religious riots that occurred here last 
October.  Beside this, though, there were none of the usual 
signs of government neglect so evident in other towns and 
villages in Burma -- a fringe benefit of being a senior 
general's hometown (ref A).  Kyaukse is located in Mandalay 
Division, an hour's drive south of Mandalay city along a 
well-engineered four-lane divided highway with 
concrete-reinforced bridges over most of the major creeks. 
 
Kyaukse USDA Leaves Us at the Altar 
 
3.  (C) The Secretary of the Kyaukse District Union 
Solidarity and Development Association (USDA), the GOB's mass 
member organization, evidently had obligations at the 
National Convention in Rangoon and was unavailable to meet 
with us.  Instead, Poloff attempted to meet with 
township-level USDA officials.  However, they never showed up 
at the district offices as promised, and finally the head of 
the USDA local office said that without the permission from a 
"higher authority the USDA cannot meet any foreign guest." 
 
Legacy Remains of Religious Violence 
 
4.  (C) Poloff visited the residence of a Muslim family to 
ask about the inter-communal riots in October 2003 (ref C) 
and was told the family was forced to flee for their lives 
when Buddhist mobs attacked Muslim shops and homes in the 
middle of the town. The arrival of intelligence agents ended 
our dialogue with the family, but they added that nine 
Muslims burned to death in their homes that day.  Muslim 
leaders in Rangoon had previously given us accounts of the 
violence and the GOB's response (refs B and C). 
 
5.  (C) To get the other side of the story, Poloff visited 
the Kyaukthinbaw monastery on Kyaukse hill, which currently 
houses 30 monks.  Poloff met with monks who informed him that 
the Abbot of the monastery, Ven. Wisuda (73) and his young 
driver were killed by a Muslim mob from Letpan village, four 
miles away from Kyaukse, on their way to a Buddhist "robe 
offering ceremony" in his native village.  Their bodies were 
dumped into Zawgyi Creek.  This event re-ignited "dormant" 
tensions between the Buddhist and Muslim communities, and 
culminated with riots in Kyaukse on October 22. 
 
6.  (C) Kyaukse's finest scoured Letpan for four days in 
search of the culprits responsible for the Abbot's murder. 
The monks informed Poloff that authorities told them 26 
Muslims were arrested and put on trial at the Mandalay 
Divisional Court.  Of these, 20 were sentenced to death, five 
were given long prison terms, and one minor was given seven 
years imprisonment. Though these numbers differ slightly from 
our previous understanding (ref B), local Muslim sources 
verified these monks' figures.  (Note: though not mentioned 
in Kyaukse, the GOB also took stern legal and administrative 
measures against Buddhist monks in Rangoon for their part in 
subsequent religious violence in the capital.) 
7.  (C) Notably, the monks stated their belief that tensions 
between the two religious groups was what sparked the 
religious violence.  Hence, they are eager to engage in 
inter-faith dialogue to mitigate the situation.  This account 
contradicts statements by Rangoon Muslim leaders who were 
quick to blame GOB provocateurs, not latent religious 
tension, for the riots (ref B). 
 
Comment: Not in His Backyard 
 
8.  (C) Though there has been no decisive resolution to last 
year's religious riots, tensions seem to have dissipated and 
they do not seemed to have caused a change in the behavior of 
Kyaukse's ordinary citizens.  The harsh punishments doled out 
by the regime in response to last October's events hammer 
home its conviction that there is no room in Burma for 
"instability," religiously inspired or not, especially in The 
Big Boss' hometown.  End Comment. 
Martinez