Reuters-Myanmar lies persecuting Ch

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Subject: Reuters-Myanmar lies persecuting Christian minority 

Myanmar denies persecuting Christian minority
07:49 a.m. Aug 25, 1999 Eastern
BANGKOK, Aug 25 (Reuters) - Myanmar's military rulers on Wednesday denied a
report that they were persecuting members of a Christian minority, forcing
them to flee to India.

A government statement said a report last week by a foreign news agency on
the Naga minority was ``part and parcel of the ongoing smear campaign
disseminated by anti-government forces.''

``Myanmar is (a) nation where the peoples of all religions live together in
peace and harmony and freedom of religion is fully practised,'' it said.

``Regretfully there have been distorted and fabricated reports on religious
persecution of the Christian Naga.''

The agency report quoted the Nagaland Baptist Church as saying 1,000 members
of the tribe in northwestern Myanmar had fled to India in the past month
after attempts by the military and Buddhist clergy to force them to renounce
their faith.

The church leaders were quoted as saying that most of the tribespeople's
churches in Myanmar's Sagaing Division had been forced to close. Similar
reports have been carried in Indian newspapers.

``The report on the persecution of the Christian Naga is totally
groundless,'' the Myanmar government statement said.

``There has never been such an incident on the Indian-Myanmar border as well
as any other place in Myanmar.''

Myanmar, widely criticised for its human rights record, has drawn fire in
the past for its treatment of its Moslem minority living near its western
border with Bangladesh.

More than 250,000 Moslems fled to Bangladesh in early 1992, saying they were
being persecuted at home. Their repatriation began in September that year
under the supervision of the UNHCR.

The process stopped in July 1997 with some 21,000 refugees still in
Bangladesh, but has since resumed at a snail's pace.