- Feb 5, 2002
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In war torn Myanmar, thirteen villages are all that remains of the Bayingyi, a proud people who were once known for producing the finest artillerymen in Southeast Asia. They are the descendants of a long line of servants to Kings—and, indeed, of Kings. The Bayingyi are the Portuguese of Myanmar: a forgotten, forsaken people of Portuguese origin and Catholic faith, still soldiering on after five centuries of solitude. Their story is extraordinary in glory, as well as in pain.
This lost tribe of Portugal has suffered bitterly in recent years. A cruel wave of attacks—bloody pogroms that have wreaked havoc among Myanmar’s Luso-Catholics—began shortly after the military coup of 2021. In December of that year, as the community prepared itself for Christmas, the country’s corrupt, oppressive military, the Tatmadaw, invaded the tiny village of Chaung Yoe. The attack was entirely unprovoked; its sole motivation was anti-Christian hatred. Over the course of six months, the Tatmadaw’s men destroyed 280 of Chaung Yoe’s homes. In Chan-tha-ywa, another Bayingyi settlement, regime soldiers reportedly “ransacked homes, killed animals, and imprisoned the elderly and sick who could not escape.” The horror was denounced by former East Timorese President and 1996 Nobel Peace Prize laureate José Ramos-Horta, who decriedthe arbitrary killings of innocent Christians, the destruction of villages, and the many thousands of Bayingyi who had been forced to become refugees.
Continued below.
europeanconservative.com
This lost tribe of Portugal has suffered bitterly in recent years. A cruel wave of attacks—bloody pogroms that have wreaked havoc among Myanmar’s Luso-Catholics—began shortly after the military coup of 2021. In December of that year, as the community prepared itself for Christmas, the country’s corrupt, oppressive military, the Tatmadaw, invaded the tiny village of Chaung Yoe. The attack was entirely unprovoked; its sole motivation was anti-Christian hatred. Over the course of six months, the Tatmadaw’s men destroyed 280 of Chaung Yoe’s homes. In Chan-tha-ywa, another Bayingyi settlement, regime soldiers reportedly “ransacked homes, killed animals, and imprisoned the elderly and sick who could not escape.” The horror was denounced by former East Timorese President and 1996 Nobel Peace Prize laureate José Ramos-Horta, who decriedthe arbitrary killings of innocent Christians, the destruction of villages, and the many thousands of Bayingyi who had been forced to become refugees.
The stubborn Portuguese of Myanmar
Continued below.
The Bayingyi of Myanmar: Catholics under Siege
Since the 2021 Burmese coup, thousands of Portuguese descendants have been slain or unlawfully detained by the regime.
europeanconservative.com
