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Posted on 12/27/2007 7:50:59 AM PST by BGHater
Twelve village churches were burned and ransacked in eastern India over Christmas as Hindu extremists clashed with members of the Christian minority.
One person died and more than 25 were injured in the violence in Orissa state.
It was sparked after Hindu hard-liners objected to the scale of a Christmas Eve prayer vigil, according to the Catholic Bishops Conference in New Delhi.
More than 450 police had to be deployed to quell the violence, which saw groups of Hindus rampaging through villages in the Kandhamal district, burning the mud and thatch village churches.
By yesterday afternoon police said the worst of the violence appeared to have subsided.
However, local Christian leaders accused the state authorities of failing to intervene quickly enough, drawing comparison with the anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat in 2002, which left more than 1,000 dead and were state-sponsored according to human rights groups.
"I feel the government has allowed them to continue this sort of thing somehow, because I am afraid they are repeating what happened in Gujarat in the last two-three years," Raphael Cheenath, the Archbishop of Bhubaneswar, the state capital, told local television.
The violence is part of periodic flare-ups between Christians and followers of India's dominant religion who accuse the missionaries of trying to convert low-caste Hindus.
Missionary activity is a source of serious tension in parts of India where hard-line Christian groups talk of "liberating" low-caste Hindus.
Rising anti-missionary sentiment has caused several Indian state governments to pass anti-conversion laws which India's Christians - who represent 2.5 per cent of the country's 1.1 billion population - are fighting in court.
The Sikhs did the same thing - ‘”liberating” low-caste Hindus.’
The Sikhs had a very different history. The first son and first daughter of every Hindu family was given to the Sikh religion so that they could fight the Islamic invaders. Yes, Sikhism has a definite aversion to the caste system but the history and origins of Sikhism are rooted in Hindu opposition to the Islamic invaders.
Big news when a Hindu mob does something, but the media don’t even bother reporting when Muslims do far worse.
Ping... regarding our earlier discussion.
Low caste Hindus, you have a choice. You can believe you are inferior or you can throw off the false religion of the Hindus. Tough choice!
Isn’t it interesting how so much of the world is totally nuts and insane over various religions and belief in so called God’s?
Who has killed the most people, religion or various forms of Marxism and/or socialism, etc?
Or according to the food nanny/fascists McDonalds, Burger King, KFC etc?
And besides George Bush of course.
This is myth. In India muslim an christian also follow cast system. The conversion only makes them anti-national. Pawns in the power struggle.
Primitive beliefs and primitive people in a nation which is a nuclear power.
Damn Hitler and Togo for destroying the English Empire!
India ping
Well, the answer to the question “who has killed more, the marxist/communist team or those fighting for a religion?” would be the marxist/communists by gazillions.
Is a “gazillion” kinda like a Brazilian?
Aren’t they supposed to be peaceful? So much for that.
A gazillion is just a word to indicate that the Communists and Marxists far outscore any religion with regard to war dead. Someone else reading this thread probably has the stats at hand. I just didn’t want the old straw man about the vicious theists to go unanswered. That’s all.
I didn't realize that the country of Togo was a member of the Axis.
Donald Rumsfeld is giving the president his daily briefing. He concludes by saying: "Yesterday, 3 Brazilian soldiers were killed."
"OH NO!" the President exclaims. "That's terrible!"
His staff sits stunned at this display of emotion, nervously watching as the President sits, head in hands.
Finally, the President looks up and asks, "How many is a brazillion?"
They played their part, but so did the Americans, who hated the British Empire for ideological and practical reasons (It was an economic and political rival on the world stage). Britain was forced to relinquish it’s Empire and it’s position as a rival power to the United States after the war in return for economic, military and political aid. The price Britain paid for US aid in the Second World war was to be reduced to a state of dependence and semi-subservience to the United States.
The irony is, if we had stayed neutral as we could have done during the Second World War (Hitler had no interest in fighting Britain and viewed the ‘Anglo-Saxon’ British as close relatives of the German Volk), we would probably still have had our Empire today...
And the other side would also be informative. I mean: who has built more hospitals, schools, libraries, and universities; who has negotiated more truces and peaces (is that a word?) who has encouraged more research into the natural sciences? (Bear in mind that though Albert the Great thought alchemy was a science, he also said that nothing should be held as true in natural sciences unless it could be verified by experiment. This was a couple of hundred years before Bacon and the Novum Organum.)
You don't remember the deadly coconut bombs? One of those babies lands on your head, it's all over.
Where do you think the expression "pineapple" for a grenade came from?
Togo -- the Arsenal of Fascism!
And don't even get me started on Vanuatu....
Christmas-eve clashes leave 4 hurt in Orissa
25 Dec 2007, 0103 hrs IST
BHUBANESWAR: Communal clashes left at least four injured in a remote Brahmanigaon area of Orissa's Kandhmal district on Monday, the eve of Christmas.
Vishwa Hindu Parishad's local leader Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati was attacked on his way to the spot.
Saraswati's bodyguard and driver also sustained injuries and his vehicle damaged, sparking tension in the region.
The saffron brigade immediately observed a districtwide bandh, burning tyres and shutting down businesses. This forced security personnel to rush in and prevent further conflagration.
Trouble started at around 10 am when a group of Christmas revellers faced opposition from members of another religious community for having set up a temporary gate at Brahmanigaon bazaar.
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Thursday, December 27, 2007 (Kandhmal)
Houses set on fire in Orissa
Two companies of the Central Reserve Police force have been sent to Orissa to control the situation that seems to be spinning out of control. |
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Excerpts:
There were conflicting reports of what sparked the unrest in Orissa, a state in eastern India with a history of violence against the area's tiny Christian minority. Mahapatra called the violence a "sensitive matter" and refused to discuss how it began.
Some reports said that Christians had attacked a hardline Hindu leader, Laxmanananda Saraswati of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad group, who had been leading an anti-conversion movement.
"The situation was aggravated by some Christians forcibly stopping the 80-year-old Hindu leader Laxmanananda Saraswati and attempting to attack him," said Giriraj Kishore of the VHP.
"When they were prevented from attacking him by his followers the Christians hit someone with an ax and one Hindu died," he told reporters in New Delhi.
It’s possible that the minority is attacking the majority. It’s possible that the Christians would do so knowing that the likely consequence is a type of pogrom. It’s possible that the Christians would attack thier neighbors at Christmas rather than worship. It’s possible that the Christians would attack their neighbors for no reason in violation of their faith. But I don’t buy it.
Damn Hitler and Togo for destroying the English Empire!
Don't be an idiot.
This incident happened in a remote, eastern tribal district, a region where both "Christians" and "Hindus" follow animist ways more than they do either Hinduism or Christianity.
You might find this interesting:
http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/stone-age-tribe-kills-castaways/2006/02/09/1139379613195.html
Police on India's Andamans are planning to sneak onto a forbidden island to retrieve the bodies of two castaways killed by members of an isolated tribe, officials said today.
Fishermen Sunder Raj and Pandit Tiwari fell asleep in their row boat which drifted to the shores of North Sentinal island, 40 kilometres from the Andaman's administrative capital of Port Blair, Dharmendra Kumar, police chief of the Indian Ocean archipelago.
They were killed with bows and arrows by Sentinalese tribespeople when they arrived on the shores of the island, which is out of bounds even to Indian authorities.
The attack occurred some 10 days ago and the "Stone Age" aborigines have buried the pair in separate shallow graves next to their boat from where police hope to retrieve the bodies.
"Right now, it is impossible. There'll be casualties on both sides," said Kumar.
"Right now, they are coming out in large numbers and so let things cool down and once these tribals move to the island's other end we'll try and sneak in and bring back the bodies," the police chief told AFP by telephone from Port Blair.
Relatives of the slain fishermen were taken by government boats and shown the two graves through binoculars, said B S Negi, Andaman's chief civilian administrator, adding the area was still surrounded by 20 naked Sentinalese.
Kumar's plan if executed is likely to be criticised by environmental groups who accuse the authorities of failing to protect the archipelago's five aboriginal groups who have lived on the island cluster for 60,000 years.
"It will be crazy if the police land on the island. They will be condemned by the whole world," warned Samir Achorya, founder of Society of Andaman and Nicobar Ecology environmental group.
Achorya said the two slain men were poaching lobsters and crabs in the off-limit waters of Sentinal.
"These two were petty criminals and have been imprisoned many times so we don't know what the police will gain by retrieving their rotting corpses from the island, which is the legal exclusive preserve of the aborigines," he said.
Survival International, an international pressure forum for near-extinct tribes, accused the archipelago's administration of not doing enough to prevent fishing boats entering the island's waters, which are even forbidden to naval ships.
"These tragic deaths could have been avoided if authorities had been enforcing the law," forum director Stephen Corry said in a statement.
Beside the Sentinalese, four other Stone Age tribes -- the 99-member Onge, 350-member Shompens, 39 of the almost extinct Andamanese and 350 Jarawas --- live on the Andamans.
Only a handful died in the tsunami waves which lashed the archipelago on December 26, 2004, killing some 3,500 people in the Andamans. Another 5,000 are still listed as missing.
A military reconnaissance helicopter surveying a tsunami shipwreck near the island strayed too close to its shores last year and received a volley of arrows, one of which pierced the cockpit glass narrowly missing its startled pilot.
AFP
Hinduism, another ROP. And to think that Mother Theresa spent a lifetime in India to take care of their sick and dying. How soon they forget. Or perhaps they just don’t care.
Looks like some brands of Hinduism rival Islam as a “religion of peace”.
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According to Intrade, the winner of the December 12th GOP debate was... Duncan Hunter.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1938773/posts
Why the smart money is on Duncan Hunter
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1926032/posts
In this poll Hunter is up 3% and even with Paul and Thompson.
http://www.wxyz.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=3481ef60-8195-46a9-af04-b87b907bcfdd
Of course you wouldn't.
The National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) was formed in December 1989 for the purpose of seceding from India in order to create an independent Christian fundamentalist state of Tripura. The group was banned under the Unlawful Activies Prevention Act of 1967.
The headquarters of NLFT is located in the Khagrachari district of Bangladesh, about 40-45 km southeast of Simanapur.
In Tripura a systematic surrender of arms by a faction of NLFT insurgents and NLFT fringe groups is due to the increased security pressure and to infighting within NLFT insurgent ranks. Since 2000 a few hundred militants have surrendered in small groups to the security forces, handing in their weapons. The NLFT leadership engaged in peace talks with Mizoram Chief Zoramthanga in April 2001, however the NLFT has not promised acceptance of any future peace process.
The NLFT has set up a number of camps in Bangladesh's Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), in the Sylhet, Maulavi Bazar, Habiganj and Comilla regions. NLFT also has ties with Pakistan’s external intelligence agency, the Inter Services Intelligence Agency (ISI).
Source:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/para/nlft.htm
bookmark
| Friday, 29 November, 2002, 22:29 GMT Indian rebels ban women
News  Sharmila and Makai left the rebel group to be together
Separatist rebels in India's north-eastern state of Tripura have said they will not recruit any more women into their ranks. The National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) says it has executed three of its guerrillas in the last two months after they had been found trying to elope with female rebels they had been courting.
The group has recruited 70 women in the last five years. The order, issued by the NLFT and signed by its chairman Biswamohan Debbarma - known as D Baithang - was disclosed by a guerrilla of the organisation who surrendered to the state police last week. 'Normal life' Tripura police spokesman Jaidev Das told the BBC: "Many of these young guerrillas are totally frustrated with the life in the jungles. "When they meet females, some of them want to marry and return to normal life." But despite the executions, one NLFT "sergeant" Makai Debbarma married his colleague Sharmila and surrendered to police recently. Mr Debbarma said: "I was fed up with killing people. I was fed up with running around in the jungles. When I fell in love with Sharmila, I was determined to marry her and flee." But Sharmila and Makai are scared. "The NLFT will try to kill him and me," Sharmila explained and added: "They will not tolerate this. So we will have to be very careful." Lucrative package Taking advantage of the frustration amongst the rebels, the Tripura Government has announced a lucrative rehabilitation package for rebels who surrender.
"I am sure many of the rebels will take advantage of the package and surrender," said Jaidev Das. The NLFT guerrillas have been accused of carrying out a large number of rapes in Tripura since the rebel group was formed in 1992. Last year, the Tripura Women's Commission detailed at least 30 such rapes by the rebels since 1996. Most of the victims belonged to the Reang tribe who straddle Tripura's borders with Mizoram and Bangladesh's Chittagong Hill Tracts. An actress, Anita Reang, who has acted in some local films, had to flee from Tripura after her family was asked to give her hand in marriage to the NLFT's commander-in-chief Dhanu Koloi. Anita now lives in the Hailakandi region of neighbouring Assam. Gang rapes In late 2000, the NLFT was accused of gang-raping seven Bengali Muslims at Raiabari in southern Tripura.
The youngest of the victims, who was just 12-years-old, said she was gang-raped by three NLFT guerrillas. This was the first time any tribal guerrilla group in India's troubled north-east has been accused of such large scale rapes. Sex in the north-eastern states - which are dominated by tribes of Mongoloid origin with a matriarchal social structure - is not considered taboo and rapes are rare. So when the NLFT was faced with such large scale allegations of rape, its leaders decided to increase the recruitment of women. But then instead of living with them or having occasional sex, the NLFT guerrillas started getting married in their bases. After marriage, many of the guerrilla couples started fleeing from the bases and some of them surrendered. Dhananjoy Reang, the NLFT's founder-chairman said: "It is fine for leaders to get married because they stay with their families and plan strategies. "But if large numbers of guerrillas who are involved in combat get married, it will surely dampen their morale." Mr Reang is now back to normal life, having surrendered seven years ago. |
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So do some brands of Christianity.
The article with the burning of 12 Christian churces was from Orissa in India, not in Bangladesh. Orissa from what I read is 1% Christian, so it’s 94 to 1 Hindu to Christian there (with 5% Muslim).
I don’t buy that the Christians started this.
Primitives like these should be pushed out of the way so that civilized people could enjoy the islands.
Orissa may have only one-percent of Christians. But it would be idiotic to apply a macroscopic view over what is essentially an incident that happened in a town with a Christian majority. You would have known this had you read the articles more carefully.
Now you are going to some group in UGANDA?
Bottom line, 94% Hindu, 1% Christian in Orissa. The Hindu’s burned down the Christian’s churches.
You can’t claim the Hindus acted rightfully so why bother to defend them in this instance?
The article does not say anywhere that the Christians were a majority in those towns. The only word I saw was minority.
http://mangalorean.com/news.php?newstype=local&newsid=62028
Bhubaneswar/New Delhi, Dec 27 (IANS) Fresh clashes between Hindus and Christians erupted in Orissa's Kandhamal district Thursday with reports of several churches being set afire and hundreds of houses belonging to Hindus being torched in retaliation as the central government expressed concern over the escalating violence.
The violence, which began on Christmas eve in Kandhamal, formerly known as Phulbani district, has left one person dead and dozens injured.
Local Christian leader Rev Basant Diggal alleged that Hindu fanatics had torched near about a dozen churches in different places in Kandhamal, around 200 km from the state capital, Thursday.
Seven churches have been burnt in villages located near the district headquarter of Phulbani while others were set ablaze in another part of the district, he said.
On the other hand, a leader of Vishwa Hindu Parishad at Bhubaneswar alleged that Christian villagers had torched hundreds of houses of Hindus in Brahmanigaon village.
Reports reaching here said that angry Hindu mobs attacked the house of local Member of Parliament (Congress) Radhakanta Naik at Dasingibadi village.
District police chief Narasimha Bhol told IANS that at least 500 people with arms rushed to the police station at Brahmanigaon village with an intention to attack. However the police managed to stop them, he said.
State Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik accompanied by state police chief Gopal Nanda visited Phulbani, the district headquarter of Kandhamal, and assessed the situation.
The chief minister appealed to the people to help bring normalcy to the region and maintain harmony.
Troopers of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), which had staged a flag march in the district headquarters of Phulbani, were expected to march through other areas too.
In New Delhi, Sriprakash Jaiswal, minister of state for home affairs, said: "If the situation is not under control today, we'll send a team. We have to get the violence under control and strict action has to be taken.
"We are taking this very seriously," the minister said.
The National Commission for Minorities (NCM) Thursday sought a report from the state government on the increasing attacks on churches and the Christian community.
The minority panel, which has taken suo moto cognisance of the reports appeared in media, asked the state chief secretary to submit a report on the violence there. According to NCM sources, a delegation would be visiting the violence-hit areas for an on-the-spot assessment of the situation.
In Kandhamal, villagers blocked roads with logs in many places to prevent police and CRPF troopers from reaching all the riot-affected regions, Bhol said.
The curfew imposed Tuesday would continue till the situation returns to normalcy, he said.
The district of Kandhamal (old Phulbani district) is considered one of the most communally sensitive regions in the state with numerous clashes reported between Hindus and Christians in the past.
The latest trouble started Monday morning in the Christian-majority Brahmanigaon village, 150 km from Phulbani, over Christmas celebrations.
While the Christian community wanted to celebrate the day in a grand way, a section of Hindus opposed the plan. This led to clashes between the Hindu and Christian groups.
The tension escalated when some people attacked the vehicle of local Hindu leader Swami Laxmananda Saraswati near Daringbadi when he was on his way to perform a yagna there. Saraswati and a person accompanying him were injured and their vehicle partially damaged. Hindu group Vishwa Hindu Parishad called for a four-hour shutdown on Tuesday to protest the attack.
The trouble escalated with people burning dozen of churches, torching private and police vehicles and attacking houses of Christians. At least one person died and dozens were injured in the clashes.
IANS
Related News
Because neither the original article, nor the posters mouthing off after it, acknowledge the fact that the Christians had a part to play in the violence, too.
That’s an article you read . . . that’s not the article posted. Geez. I’m not all knowing or telepathic.
So the one village was majority Christian . . . and had it’s Churches burned down because the greater numbers of Hindus from surrounding villages torched them . . .
Bottom line is that they shouldn’t burn down peoples churches. Why defend this?
Those tribals are so primitive, various efforts to rehabilitate them have failed severely. Even the British tried.
Last time, the Boxing Day Tsunami washed the islands bare, but these people mysteriously survived.
God knows the world needs another island resort for fatass tourists to waddle around in a pool next to the beach.
Would you also raze the Parthenon to make way for a McDonald's and a parking lot?
Neither should the Christians have attacked the man mentioned in the article, which sparked off the violence.
Oh, and by the way, I am curious about your passivity over the wonderful acts of the NLTF. Care to break the silence?
What on earth is the NLTF?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1944743/posts?page=27#27
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1944743/posts?page=29#29
I can understand you want to defend Indians from false accusations or biased reporting. Unfortunately, in this case a huge majority burned the churches of a tiny minority. There will be bias in the Hindu papers on the incident likely as well. The thing is that both these groups are Indian, so in reality, you are defending the Hindu burning of Christian churches in my view, and that is not a good cause.
Oh yes, an old man going to that place to disrupt the service. If you can call free speech, ‘disruption,’ that is.
Those “churches” were thatched huts. The articles mention ‘hundreds’ of Hindu homes being burnt, too.
Face it, both sides are at fault. The Christians weren’t as innocent as they were portrayed.
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