The Pastors Fellowship nih Senator Ben Cardin i Chief of Staff an ton.
The Pastors Fellowship le Senator Ben Cardin i Chief of Staff an i ton i, Kawlram kong le a bik in Chin State kong bia an i ruah hna. Senator Ben Cardin sin ah The Pastors Fellowship nih pekmi ca kan vun tar.
The Burmese Military’s Atrocity
As the Burmese military started to use military force to crack down the peaceful protests against the military coup, a steady influx of internally displaced persons has continued to gather at the border of India. The worst of it happened when the Burmese military burned Thantlang, a town situated less than 30 miles from the boundary of India, on September 18, 2021.
The Burmese military’s artillery shelling that directly hit houses in Thantlang on September 18, 2021, was a deliberate inhuman act with the purpose of wiping out the town’s residents.
Pastor Cung Biak Hum who on his way to help to extinguish the flaming houses, was gunned down by the standby Burmese soldier. This was an atrocity being planned and calculated to ensure maximum fear and terror in the populace of the town. After the burning of 19 houses, and the killing of the pastor (whose wedding ring the shooter extricated by cutting off the pastor’s finger), less than a dozen residents remain in town and the rest have fled to the border of India. Some of them have crossed over to the Indian side to find safety with relatives living in Mizoram.
The sight of Thantlang being engulfed in flames was horrifying. Particularly harrowing was the Burmese soldiers ravaging and looting houses amidst people scrambling to flee the town. This all showed the Burmese soldiers’ ability to operate with impunity. It is of course a common practice of the Burmese military in ethnic states such as Kachin, Karen, and Shan where the Burmese soldiers routinely committed atrocity to subdue the ethnic populations.
Currently the IDPs have overwhelmed villages around the border of India within the district of Thantlang. They number more than twenty thousand, which goes way beyond the capacity of these villages to accommodate.
The Pastors Fellowship
Some 69 pastors serving in churches across the USA, who grew up in the Thantlang District of Chin State, Burma, formed the Pastors Fellowship on 24 September 2021 and registered in the State of Michigan. The purpose is “to raise the awareness and the interest of the Chin congregations in the USA served by pastors who are of the border front area of Chin State, Burma, resulting in both increasing spiritual resources and humanitarian aid focused on that border front area and the people therein.”
The military coup of February 1, 2021 is yet another of two military coups in the past, one in 1962 and another in 1988. What differentiate this from the past is that the whole Burma has said this time “enough is enough” by means of peaceful protests, resisting against the military coup’s attempt to alter the fair and free election of the November 2020 that the National League for Democracy (NLD) won in landslide. What is the same, however, is the excessive use of military force to suppress the peaceful protests, resulting in the thousands of innocent deaths, arbitrary arrest of political leaders and prominent civilians. Several hundred thousand people have fled to neighboring countries. Youths by the thousands have been forced to bear arms, fighting for their own protection, in hope also for the elimination of the long-standing military rule that has reduced the country almost to a failed state.
The People Defense Force (PDF) (bearing different names along the ethnic lines such as Chinland Defense Force (CDF) etc.,) have been formed and put-up strong resistances against the Burmese military forces across Burma. The Chinland Defense Force, for one has done a lot of pushbacks lately in the Thantlang area, confining the Burmese military to the one post within Thantlang. Majority of the Thantlang area, especially that close to the border of India, is thus almost a liberated area now. It is this area to which the Pastors Fellowship has been able to ship medical and food supplies from Mizoram State, India. It is with the support of the local people of Mizoram state that such humanitarian aids are made possible to the IDPs at the border of India. The Pastors Fellowship is, however, leery that activities at the border might give false alarm to the Indian government resulting in border security forces being deployed. Such action could greatly hinder the shipment of humanitarian aids (medical supplies and foods) to the IDPs.
The Pastors Fellowship would therefore like to request United States assistance in reassuring the Government of India that the IDPs seeking shelter and safety in the Borderland area of Burma; and that action against them, or interference with the flow of humanitarian aid; would be seen in a very negative light by the United States.
The IDP situation is of course far more urgent than the humanitarian aids the Pastors Fellowship can provide. Therefore, we urgently request that the United States make clear to the Indian government the importance of allowing help agencies to have access to the IDPs at the borderland through Mizoram State.
Respectfully submitted,
Rev. Cung Lian Hup Rev. Rollin Van Bik, Chairman Secretary
The Pastors Fellowship
