As regular Moral Compass readers know, Buddhists haven’t just gone on rampages in Sri Lanka recently: they’ve also organized into murder mobs across the Bay of Bengal, in Myanmar (the former Burma), 1,400 miles away.

Today, Swe Win, a reporter for the International Herald Tribune, provides on-the-ground reporting from Myanmar. The pandemonium that eye witnesses described to him is horrific enough that he or his editor headlined the piece “Kristallnacht in Myanmar.”

The violence stemmed from a trivial row over a broken gold clip between a Muslim jeweler and a Buddhist customer last Wednesday morning [March 20]. The brawl, which left the Buddhist customer with an injury to the head, happened in Meiktila, a trading town of 100,000 people at the center of the country, with an army base and no history of sectarian violence. The town’s Muslims have no links to the stateless Rohingyas in western Myanmar; they have a long and peaceful lineage here.

Still, by that same afternoon anti-Muslim mobs were destroying the Muslim gold shops of Meiktila’s market area. Then, in revenge, local Muslims stabbed to death a monk traveling from a nearby village. That murder in turn unleashed a killing spree of Muslims on Wednesday night and over the next two days. “Any Muslim, old or young, including babies, was killed that night,” Myo Htut, an eyewitness, told me this week.

“A Muslim man around 40-years-old had his legs tied to a motorcycle and was dragged on the road. Since he was still half alive after that torture, the crowd beat him up with sticks and then burned him on the motorcycle.” Myo Htut estimated that the death toll from the three days of violence reached around 200. State media put it at 40.

Other witnesses Swe Win spoke with described

…wild mobs — including saffron-robed monks with sticks and knives — hunting down Muslims and torching entire blocks, including at least five mosques, in Muslim neighborhoods.

Swe Win himself appears to be a Buddhist, if his Twitter photo is any guide. It is to his great credit that he’s made no attempt to sweep the atrocities of his fellow Buddhists under the rug.

By contrast, one Buddhist commenter on reddit wasn’t too contrite about his tribe’s violent shenanigans.

History teaches Buddhists that when Buddhism and Islam meet, Buddhists die. … And, no, I don’t excuse [the violence in Myanmar]. I think its horrible. I wish the army would come in to separate the two communities again. However, people have a right to defend themselves as well. [emphasis added]

Read the Herald Tribune‘s account and tell me if the Buddhist brutality seems remotely like self-defense to you.

If there’s one faith that displays nothing but good will toward all, as well as peacefulness and inner calm, it’s gotta be Buddhism, right?

Yeah, about that:

Several people have been injured in Sri Lanka’s capital, Colombo, when Buddhist monks led hundreds in an assault on a Muslim-owned clothing warehouse. Buddhist monks were filmed throwing stones at the storage centre of popular garment chain Fashion Bug in a suburb of the capital on Thursday night. … The attack comes as hard-line Buddhist groups step up a campaign against the lifestyles of Muslims. ….

…The BBC’s Charles Haviland in Colombo said the monks led a crowd which quickly swelled to about 500, yelling insults against the shop’s Muslim owners and rounding on journalists seeking to cover the events. Five or six were injured, including a cameraman who needed stitches.

Eyewitnesses said the police stood and watched although after the trouble spread they brought it under control.

Reportedly, no arrests were made. The cops will no doubt get another chance, because Buddhist nationalists appear to be baying for blood:

[The] hard-line Buddhist party in the governing coalition issued a statement saying: “Sinhalese Buddhists should be determined to teach such Muslim extremists a lesson that they will never forget”.

The hatred and violence are not exactly unprecedented. For instance, last year,

A mosque in the central town of Dambulla was attacked with petrol bombs and vandalized by a mob led by radical Buddhist monks. To add insult to injury, the government bowed to the mob’s demand and ordered the mosque’s demolition and relocation.

[image via Colombo Telegraph]