WHERE 825 PEOPLE ARE MURDERED EACH YEAR

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 544, 22 December 1928, Page 13

WHERE 825 PEOPLE ARE MURDERED EACH YEAR

GRIME IN BURMA

“The new wine or Western civilisation is showing a tendency to burst its old bottles of Eastern make, and much red wine will be spilt before Burma has the ordered civilisation and high educational standards of England.” This comment by the lieputy Inspector-General of Police, Southern Range, Burma, on the number of murders in the Tharrawaddy district, appears in the report on police administration in Burma for 1927. There were 825 cases of murder during the year, a decrease of 42. “Although this decrease is satisfactory, the fact remains that the number of murders in the province is appalling,” the report adds. • Among the records of an amazing amount of crime is an account of what is described as an abortive conspiracy against the British Government, the prime mover in which was a hermit. This rising was planned in the Tabayin Township by a hermit named Bandaka. The rank and file were composed of illiterate and ignorant villagers, whose very credulousness led them to anticipate the overthrow of the British Empire by the aid of a few local-made guns and defective powder. Propaganda was carried on for several months, tattooing was practised, and magic medicines distributed. When the conspiracy case came to light the hermit absconded, and has not since been traced. His followers, under the leadership of bad characters, turned to dacoity and robbery, and a half-hearted attack was made on Tabayin Police Station. In the Ayadaw Township of the Lower Chindwin district there was a good deal of sympathy with Bandaka’s movement, and the notorious dacoit absconder, Kyaw Zan, gave some trouble before he was finally killed by one of his followers. There is no evidence to show that Kyaw Zan was connected with the Bandaka conspiracy, adds the report, but he undoubtedly took advantage of the unrest which it caused. The disturbance lasted some months longer than it should have done owing to the refusal of the villagers to assist in the restoration of order, and to their harbouring absconders.