Buddhist monks, who are sworn to shun all violence, fired metal balls from slingshots and threw burning gasoline bottles at each other as a long-simmering conflict erupted into fighting at a temple in northwestern Cambodia, officials said yesterday.
The "monks' war," which resulted in a number of injuries, broke out Thursday at Russey pagoda in the northwestern province of Battambang, said Pel Kosal, a local deputy police chief.
He said the violence followed more than two years of conflict between two temple factions over the selection of a new committee to manage the temple's affairs and funds. Each side has about 20 monks.
The rivalry began when the pagoda's abbot, 34-year-old So Youwath, accused a layman at the temple of corruption and tried to bar him from running for the committee's top job.
"I am used to seeing drunken men fighting, but here we had tea-drinking monks involved in a fight. It's strange and degrading for Buddhism in our country," Pel Kosal said.
He said authorities had asked both sides to leave the temple after the conflict began in mid-2002. One faction, headed by the unidentified layman, initially agreed to go but decided to stay on after So Youwath ignored the request.
The two sides engaged in periodic clashes but on Thursday "they just got nastier. They threw stones, fired slingshots, threw burning gasoline bottles at each other," Pel Kosal said by telephone from Battambang.
One civilian and seven monks were injured, one seriously, while fire caused damage to some parts of the temple.
All monks were evicted from the temple grounds following the clash.
So Youwath said in a telephone interview that one of his supporters suffered a twisted ankle and another coughed blood after he was beaten by opponents.
"Five monks on my side were wounded. Some of them bled from their heads after they were hit by slingshot balls," he said, adding that he suffered cuts from broken glass.
He claimed that his side did not engage in violence and blamed his opponents for starting the incident, "which was like a war."
But the abbot said he and his supporters had stocked up on wooden staves to guard themselves against their rivals.
The pagoda is now closed to its former occupants pending action by the government and is being guarded by about 30 policemen, said Pel Kosal.
Battambang's provincial capital is situated about 250km northwest of the capital Phnom Penh.
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband is to serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing a cocktail given to her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Feb. 14, 2022, with a
DELA ROSA CASE: The whereabouts of the senator, who is wanted by the ICC, was unclear, while President Marcos faces a political test over the senate situation Philippine authorities yesterday were seeking confirmation of reports that a top politician wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) had fled, a day after gunfire rang out at the Philippine Senate where he had taken refuge fearing his arrest. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former national police chief and top enforcer of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” has been under Senate protection and is wanted for crimes against humanity, the same charges Duterte is accused of. “Several sources confirmed that the senator, Senator Bato, is no longer in the Senate premises, but we are still getting confirmation,” Presidential
HELP DENIED? The US Department of State said that the Cuban leadership refuses to allow the US to provide aid to Cubans, ‘who are in desperate need of assistance’ US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday said that Cuba’s leadership must change, as Washington renewed an offer of US$100 million in aid if the communist nation agrees to cooperate. Cuba has been suffering severe economic tumult led by an energy shortage that plunged 65 percent of the country into darkness on Tuesday. Cuba’s leaders have blamed US sanctions, but Rubio, a Cuban American and critic of the government established by Fidel Castro, said the system was to blame, including corruption by the military. “It’s a broken, nonfunctional economy, and it’s impossible to change it. I wish it were different,” he told
Myanmar yesterday published a parliamentary bill proposing the death sentence for those who detain or violently coerce people into working in online scam centers. Internet fraud factories have flourished in Myanmar, part of Southeast Asia’s scam economy, targeting Internet users worldwide with romance and cryptocurrency investment cons. The multibillion-dollar black market attracts many willing employees, but repatriated foreigners have also reported being trafficked to sites in Myanmar and tortured by scam center operators. The draft legislation would allow capital punishment for “violence, torture, unlawful arrest and detention, or cruel treatment against another person for the purpose of forcing them to commit online scams.” The
RSS