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A Rohingya girl who was displaced following 2012 sectarian violence carries a baby at Nga Chaung Refugee Camp in Pauktaw, Rakhine state, last year. Pic: AP.


By Kyle Lawrence Mullin
Asian Correspondent
June 3, 2014

The riots have ceased and the machetes are sheathed, but Maung Kyaw Nu says Rohingya are in more danger now than ever before. In his eyes, the 2012 knife attacks inflicted on his fellow Burmese Muslims pale in comparison to their current lack of scalpels, medicine and qualified doctors.

“The attacks were big, but they aren’t always happening. The health problems that the Rohingya face are their biggest concern now,” says Maung, president of the Burmese Rohingya Association of Thailand, of the dismal conditions his people are contending with, during a recent telephone interview with Asian Correspondent.

Maung (whose association helps Rohingya refugees settle in Thailand) adds that the issue stems all the way back to the summer of 2012 when more than 100,000 members of Burma’s Muslim minority were displaced by mobs of torch toting, knife wielding Rakhine Buddhists. Since then, those homeless Rohingya have taken refuge in small camps in Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine State, on the nation’s west coast. But critics compare those facilities to detainment centers, where the Rohingya are restricted in both movement and supplies.

“The Rohingya are effectively locked down in their settlements and IDP camps, without adequate access to health care,” Phil Robertson, the deputy director for the Asian division of Human Rights Watch, says during a recent interview with Asian Correspondent. He adds: “The severe restrictions that prevent Rohingya from getting to hospitals and other health care facilities are killing people.”

Fears of a humanitarian crisis have been mounting since February when the government of Burma (Myanmar) ousted Medecins Sans Frontiers-Holland (MSF-H), the chief aid group offering health care to the refugees. Activists like Maung say the thousands of Rohingya refugees in Rakhine face a brutal dilemma: risk another Buddhist attack while venturing out to nearby hospitals; or huddle in the camps as resources dwindle, diarrhea becomes fatal for more children, and fewer pregnant mothers survive childbirth. (MSF-H declined to be interviewed for this story as negotiations with Burmese authorities are ongoing. Burmese health officials were also unresponsive to requests for comment).

Ko Aung, of the Rohingya Association of Thailand, says the expulsion of MSF-H made the government’s intentions clear.

“The Rakhine state government and Buddhist extremists made plans to kick out NGOs including MSF, giving different unacceptable excuses,” he says, adding that he disputes government claims that some of these aid organizations provided weapons to the Rohingya during the 2012 riots, or that their hiring policies are biased toward Muslims. He goes on to say: “These are their policies to repress the Rohingya, giving many poor excuses to the international community and keeping the Muslims in a difficult situation so that they will flee wherever they can. It’s long-term ethnic cleansing.”

International organizations are, for the most part, more tactful in their statements about the issue. But they mostly agree that the Rohingya are being repressed, with a statement from the United Nations saying at least 40 members of the Muslim minority were killed by rioting Rakhine Buddhists early this year. The Burmese government, however, says no such murders took place.

Meanwhile, Rakhine state officials say the Rohingya share much of the blame for their current healthcare ails. State spokesman Win Myaing, in a recent interview with Reuters,said: “There is a group of people in one of these camps that shows the same sick children to anyone who visits. Even when the government arranges for treatment, they refuse it.”

But Robertson doubts Win’s claims, saying the government spokesperson has lied about the state’s handling of the Rohingya matters on numerous occasions (Win could not be reached for comment before press time).

“Win Myaing has been deliberately deceitful on a regular basis when it comes to… his past denials of obvious facts, such as the existence of racist, discriminatory policies like the two-child policy enforced on stateless Rohingya,” Robertson says, adding: “Fortunately, his statements are so ludicrous and divorced from reality that they inspire ridicule, and expose the Rakhine state government’s ethical bankruptcy when it comes to how they deal with the Rohingya.”

And yet Win is not the only one who says the Rohingya refused treatment. Dr. Liviu Vedrasco, health cluster coordinator for the World Health Organization (a branch of the UN overseeing medical collaborations in the region between the Red Cross, the Myanmar Nurse and Midwife Association, and other groups) agrees that some of the Rohingya have declined aid, and the situation is far more nuanced than it appears.

“Some patients on a number of occasions over the last month have indeed refused to be referred to the Sittwe General Hospital,” Vedrasco said in an interview with Asian Correspondent, adding that he estimates at least a few dozen Rohingya have declined treatment in the last month.

Vedrasco went on to say that despite rampant criticism from many international organizations, the government has stepped up its healthcare efforts at the camps as of late.

“Access to health care in the IDP camps in Rakhine has improved in May compared to April. And most of the camps are visited regularly by mobile clinics organized jointly by the Ministry of Health and NGO partners,” he says, adding that the number of patient consultations in May has jumped to 13,000, compared to April’s 6,000.

That encouraging trend has not been enough to sway all of the Burmese government’s critics. Robertson (of Human Rights Watch) says many Rohingya may be refusing treatment because their afflictions won’t be as deadly as the commute to the nearby Sittwe hospital.

“I suspect many Rohingya would fear that they cannot receive any real guarantee of protection if they were transferred to Sittwe General Hospital,” Robertson says of the Rakhine attacks that are still fresh in the Muslims’ minds, especially since Buddhist rioters escalated the situation by lashing out at foreign aid workers in late March. He adds that a lack of management on the authorities’ part is also a serious concern: “The delays that the Rakhine dominated state government and security forces impose on such transfers likely leads to many preventable deaths.”

But even some of the government’s harshest detractors admit that it has taken steps to amend some of its worst missteps, especially at the federal level.

Police trucks in Sittwe, Rakhine State, Monday. Pic: AP.


 By Francis Wade
April 2, 2014

Attacks on NGO workers and offices in western Burma occurred last week after an international aid worker in the town of Sittwe removed a Buddhist flag that had been placed in front of the office. Tensions there are evidently at boiling point.

On Tuesday I spoke with a senior staff member with an international aid group there to get an update on the situation, and he explained on condition of anonymity that the total evacuation of foreign workers (and non-Rakhine nationals) from Sittwe was only the tip of the iceberg.

It is now effectively impossible for the international community to deliver any aid in Rakhine state, said the source, adding that the aid delivery infrastructure had been systematically made inoperable through intimidation and the destruction of the vehicles and boats used to deliver supplies in remote areas.

International groups had provided the vast majority of aid to camps in Rakhine state, which in total hold close to 200,000 displaced Rohingya Muslims, as well as Rakhine Buddhists. These attacks appear a major step towards isolating displaced Rohingya, who are largely dependent on aid.

Although foreign aid workers play a key role in the delivery of aid in the region, much of the day-to-day coordination and delivery is carried out by local Burmese workers. These Rakhine employees have been warned by their own communities not to participate in aid work and are denied basic services and even face threats of violence if they do not comply. Communities are reportedly cirulating lists containing the names of ‘betrayers’ who work with aid organizations.

The attacks on NGO offices have been far more extensive than reported, with suggestions that the violence was carefully planned. More than 30 different properties were attacked in last week’s incidents; a World Food Programme warehouse containing food for both communities was among seven warehouses destroyed.

Those behind the shutdown of aid operations in western Burma are not only targeting workers and properties, but also destroying the means by which the aid is delivered. Boats, in particular, are being targeted in the knowledge that they are the only way to access many of the refugee camps once rainy season begins.

The small handful of UN workers still in the town are being kept under heavy guard. The response of the Burmese government has been to send the army in and militarise Sittwe, a move that does nothing to restore aid delivery.

There has also been clarification on the incident that sparked last week’s violence. The female aid worker removed the Buddhist flag from outside an office for just 5 minutes, before replacing it. Reports that she danced with the flag or placed it on her waist are untrue. Nevertheless, an angry crowd gathered so quickly after the removal of the flag that it appears this was an orchestrated incident designed to bring a halt to humanitarian efforts in Rakhine state.

When MSF was expelled from Rakhine state in early March, UN special rapporteur Tomas Ojea Quintana said the decision by the government could be “part of a strategy toward consolidating not only the segregation of Rohingyas, but also the oppression against them, including complete limitation to access to health.” This appears to have now been achieved. Rainy season is approaching and the boats are the only way to deliver aid to some of the camps. It’s hard to read their destruction as anything other than a deliberate attempt to completely cut off the supply of outside assistance.

By Francis Wade
February 17, 2014

Next month the Burmese government will begin the country’s first nationwide census since the early 1980s. As preparation for the start date on 30 March gets underway, several groups have highlighted their concerns about how the census could work to further inflame violent nationalism and exclude minority groups. The International Crisis Group released a strong briefing last week that covers various important issues associated with the census, focusing in particular upon the requirement to list religion and ethnicity – a real danger at present given the recent violence directed towards the country’s Muslim population, and the Rohingya minority in particular.

As the ICG briefing notes, the problems are manifold, and affect all of the country’s ethnic groups (the number of which is contested). It says that minorities will only be allowed to field representatives for local government if their population, as recorded by the census, is above a certain number. “Groups fear that if their communities are subdivided or misclassified, they may be denied that political representation. There is no possibility to report mixed ethnicity, forcing people into a single identity, to the potential disadvantage of some smaller groups.”

Smoke and flames billow from a burning building set ablaze during sectarian violence in Meikhtila last year. (Photo: AP)
It also makes a key point on the issue of how the census, even if carried out accurately and fairly (namely, allowing minority groups to record their identity according to what they believe it to be), could fuel anti-Muslim sentiment. “Currently, it is widely believed that Myanmar’s [Burma] population is 4 per cent Muslim, a figure reported in the 1983 census. However, there are strong indications that the real figure collected then was over 10 per cent, but that a political decision was taken to publish a more acceptable figure of 4 per cent. The results of the current census could therefore be mistakenly interpreted as providing evidence for a three-fold increase in the Muslim population in the country over the last 30 years, a potentially dangerous call to arms for extremist movements [emphasis added].”

There is also the issue of whether Rohingya will be allowed to label themselves as Rohingya. Various rights groups have said the census should be suspended until this category is included, or until the government agrees to remove the demand that ethnicity be listed, lest it inflame an already tense situation. But some worrying comments on this matter have been made by Khin Yi, who is heading up the census (and who, incidentally, played a key role in orchestrating the military crackdown on protestors in 2007, when he was police chief in Yangon). He has already said that “Rohingya” will not be an option on the ethnicity list. Here he is quoted recently in local media:

“They say that their race is Rohingya. When a person says that his race is “B”, because he doesn’t want to mention his race as “A”, that means that race “A” no longer exists, but the race “B” is a new race. Since race “B” is a new race, there will be questions, such as “how did the race enter (the country)?” or “are they encroaching here?” When things become radical, I worry that it could harm peace and stability …. We will record what the person says. If he says “A” then we will fill the form as “A”. The result will be, like I said before, that even if that term “A” is Rohingya, we will not recognize Rohingya as one of the 135 ethnic groups in Myanmar [emphasis added].”

It’s not just minority Muslims who stand to lose out in the census. On a recent trip to southern Chin state I met a young Baptist man who had been struck off the family registration list in his remote village by Buddhist elders who demanded he convert to Buddhism. He has already been blocked from using services in his village – including buying food and water – and has been told by the elders that he’ll be prevented from taking part in the census, of which he said family registration is a requirement. His experience, and that of hundreds of thousands of others, shows that religious persecution isn’t just about religion – one’s beliefs are being used to determine who and who isn’t Burmese.

The UN Population Fund (UNFPA), which is providing assistance for the census, is now in a tricky position – its involvement ostensibly lends support to a project that could soon institutionalize and make official a policy of discrimination towards minorities that the UN itself has criticized. The UN spokesperson said in response to a journalist’s recent question on the issue that it was “supporting the Government to ensure that the census is fully inclusive and conducted according to international standards”. But still, as Khin Yi made clear, even if respondents are allowed to record the identity of their choosing, it will ultimately matter little – the Baptist man in Chin state may not even be allowed to fill out the form, and the Rohingya will still be regarded as non-citizens, and therefore stateless.

As the ICG further notes, “some extremist Rakhine political actors undoubtedly fear that the census would establish a baseline Rohingya population that would make it more difficult to sustain the narrative of recent migration in the future.” In light of all this it’s clear that a suspension of the census is necessary, given that carrying it out now in any form will worsen a fragile situation – if it is done fairly, it could antagonize ultra-nationalist Buddhists who see other religions, whether they be Muslim or Christian, as non-Burmese, and likely spur greater violence; if done unfairly, in its current form, it will disenfranchise minority groups and deny them political and civil rights for the foreseeable future.

Rohingua MP Shwe Maung. Pic: Screengrab from Shwe Maung's YouTube channel.

By Mark Inkey
February 5, 2014

Rohingya MP Shwe Maung has been interrogated and threatened with a defamation lawsuit after he accused local police of involvement in the burning of Rohingya homes in Du Char Yar Tan village in late January, the latest effort by the Burmese government to silence accusations of wrongdoing in the country’s ongoing sectarian conflict.

Burma’s President Thein Sein wrote to the speaker of the House, Shwe Mann, saying he said that he wanted to interrogate Shwe Maung about an interview given to Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) in which he said that he believed police were involved in the burning of 16 Rohingya homes on January 28.

Du Char Yar Tan (also spelt Duchira Dan) is a Rohingya village in southern Maungdaw Township, Rakhine State.

The incident in late January follows an alleged massacre in the village earlier in the month in which at least 40 Rohingya are believed to have been killed. There were also reports of rapes. According to the UN, which condemned the incident and called for an investigation, at least 48 people were killed.

The Arakan Project said many people were stabbed rather than shot, suggesting they were not killed by the security forces who would have used guns, but killed by the mob as the security forces looked on.

Then, on January 28, a fire tore through the village and destroyed between 16 and 22 homes, according to DVB.

In his controversial interview, Shwe Maung said that on January 27 the Rohingya men who were guarding their neighborhood were replaced by policemen. That evening, according to Shwe Maun, at around 8.45pm fire broke out in one house and quickly spread as the police looked on.

He said: “It happened after the police took over guard duty of that part of the village.”

“Also, I have solid information from locals in nearby villages who phoned me and said they saw the police setting the houses on fire,” he added.

He also claimed that the police prevented villagers from trying to put out the fires.

Shwe Maung is a Rohingya MP in Burma’s Lower House representing Buthidaung constituency, which is next to Maungdaw Township where the fire broke out.

He denied all the charges against him.

He said: “I never did anything to defame the State and Myanmar Police Force. What I do is for the good of my nation and people according to the Constitution and Pyithu Hlutraw Law. I always emphasize tability, peaceful existence, development, rule of law, justice and equal rights.”

The government appears intent on shutting down any reporting or discussion of the events in Du Char Yar Tan.

In January it accused AP (Associated Press), which originally broke the story of the murders, of false reporting.

Chief Minister of Rakhine State, Hla Maung Tin, also talked of “false news published and aired by foreign media that children and women were killed in the violence” on the Ministry of Information website.

The Burmese government also reacted angrily when UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay called for an investigation into the deaths.

Ye Htut, spokesman for the office of President Thein Sein, told The Irrawaddy: “It was sad to see a statement issued by the UN, not using information from their local office staff, but quoting unreliable information and issuing the statement. These accusations are unacceptable.”

The US and British embassies have also called for independent investigations into the killings.

Screengrab from BBC on training of Burmese army personnel by British army this month. The full report is embedded at the end of this article. Pic: BBC.

By Mark Inkey
January 24, 2014

The British army provided training to Burmese armed forces personnel this month despite the Southeast Asian nation’s refusal to sign the UN Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative (PSVI) and fresh reports of rape of ethnic women by Burmese soldiers.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague launched the PSVI initiative at the UN General Assembly on September 24. At the end of the conference Mr Hague proudly announced that that 115 countries had signed up to the PSVI. (As of October 2013, 134 countries had signed up.) Signatories included countries with appalling records of sexual violence, including the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sierra Leone. Burma, however, refused to sign up.

When President Thein Sein visited Britain last July the British Government offered to pay for the British Army to train 30 senior Burmese army officers, a deal that was also endorsed by Burmese opposition leader and democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi.

The deal was as good as unconditional; the only condition the British made for the training was that the Burmese military sever all ties with the North Korean Army.

A British Foreign Office spokesman said that Britain was the biggest provider of bilateral aid to Burma but that none of that aid, including the military training, would be conditional on the Burma signing the PSVI.

In a letter to Burma Campaign UK Mr Hague said: “The president [Thein Sein] welcomed my initiative on preventing sexual violence in conflict.

“We continue to call for an end to the use of sexual violence in Burma. At a minimum there must be strengthened accountability and better access to justice for victims of sexual violence.”

Clearly, Thein Sein completely ignored Mr Hague.

At the end of December, just before the British military trainers arrived in Burma reports emerged of the Burmese Army forcing Rohingya women to become sex slaves and prostitutes on army bases.

As the two week course was running in Naypyidaw this month more reports were emerging of horrific rapes being committed by the Burmese Army.

The day after the training started the Irrawaddy reported that the Burmese army was launching an investigation into the rape of a 13-year-old girl by a soldier in Kawzar sub-township, Mon State.

The Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK (BROUK) also reported that a group of military and police forces entered a house in Kiladuang Village, Arakan State and demanded gold and jewellery from a Rohingya woman who lived there. When she refused they raped and killed her. They then opened fire on villagers. Three Rohingya women, three children and one man were killed, while four people were wounded, according to the report.

As the military training continued the Women’s League of Burma (WLB) held an international launch of their report ‘Same Impunity, Same Patterns’. It highlights the use of rape as a weapon against ethnic people. It contains many examples of systematic and authorized raping and gang raping by Burmese soldiers, including high-ranking officers.

At the launch of the report in Chiang Mai Naw K’nyaw Paw, the General Secretary of the Karen Women’s Organisation (KWO), was asked what she thought about the British government offering to train the Burmese army.

She said: “We think it is still too soon. They are giving the training without questioning or addressing anything.

“We wrote a letter and asked that they don’t give training directly to the army because they continue to commit crimes with impunity. They should hold their soldiers accountable before they give training.”

She believes that the association with the British army will wrongly give the Burmese Army an air of legitimacy.

Dr Laura Cleary of Cranfield College, the military course coordinator, said that the course would involve no offensive military training.

She said: “The purpose of this engagement is to encourage the Burmese military to normalize their role within society, to improve the respect for human rights and enhance the governance of those security force.”

Unfortunately it will be impossible to find out if this happens because as British Defence Minister Mark François admitted: “Active post-course monitoring of participants is not practicable.”

Watch report from BBC’s Jonah Fisher here:


A Buddhist monk shows an anti-Rohingya message on his palm. (Photo: AP)

By Francis Wade
January 24, 2014

As more details emerge of the massacre on January 13 of at least 40 Rohingya men, women and children in western Burma, the government predictably has gone on the defensive. The UN is now claiming that police in the remote village of Du Chee Yar Tan, northern Arakan state, were among the mob of Arakanese who attacked and killed villagers, allegedly in response to the slaying of a policemen following an earlier bout of violence in January that left at least eight dead. Even though the death toll is likely a conservative one, it stands as the deadliest single incident in Arakan state since October 2012.

The first international media outlet to report on the massacre was Associated Press, drawing on eye-witness testimonies collected by The Arakan Project, which for years has maintained an extensive list of sources on the ground in northern Arakan state. The reason why AP went to The Arakan Project for information is because the government has for years banned journalists from accessing this region (AP’s Robin McDowell last year managed to visit the town of Maungdaw, the first journalist in a long time to do so, but it now sounds like Naypyidaw has reinstated its ban). Upon publishing its report, AP journalists weresummoned by the Ministry of Information. A statement on the ministry’s website said AP’s article “differed from the situation” and that AP “will be responsible if incidents that may harm the tranquility and the Rule of Law take place because of the agency’s reporting.”

This veiled threat shouldn’t come as a surprise, given the government’s continued sensitivity to reports that emerge from Burma’s various media black spots, of which northern Arakan is perhaps the most concerning. They are black spots, as appointed so by the central government, precisely because the situation there reflects very poorly on an administration attempting to claim that it has mended its ways. On top of the restrictions on access to education and healthcare that accompanies the denial of citizenship to Rohingya, humanitarian access to the townships there is severely limited, hence the argument put forward by many observers that the government is trying to starve out the unwanted Muslim minority.

So in light of this, the ministry can hardly demand that journalists “avoid at best erroneous news that are groundless and misleading” whilst denying them access to sites – that seems to be a no brainer, but we’ve become use to them. What this sort of statement attempts to do, were the world as gullible as the government might like to think, is both deny the atrocity, and deflect blame for future atrocities – should violence break out there again, it’ll be the result of AP’s report, and not ultra-nationalist Arakanese groups conspiring with local security forces to make Burma uninhabitable for Rohingya (an issue that these reports are needed to highlight).

The government’s reaction to the TIME Magazine article of June 2013 on extremist monk U Wirathu mirrors the diversionary tactics it is using against AP. Rather than engaging with the actual issues raised in the article – that monks are at the vanguard of an anti-Muslim movement that has spread from Arakan to cover the entire country – its response focused on how such reporting could affect government efforts to rebuild harmony between Buddhists and Muslims, or sully the reputation of Buddhism.

The pressure the government must now feel it is under, given the UN’s accusation that police essentially murdered Rohingya (including children in a retaliatory attack is a shocker that outdoes many of the atrocities the region has witnessed), will likely lead to it further smearing its ‘enemies’, such as AP and other independent media. Its continued unwillingness to open up northern Arakan state to foreign journalists begs the grim question of whether it intends to prolong its maltreatment of Rohingya there, hidden from prying eyes. Otherwise, why not allow journalists in?

Controversial Buddhist monk Wirathu. Photo: AP

By Mark Inkey
January 2, 2014

The past year has seen a rise in religious intolerance against Muslim people in Burma fanned by radical Buddhists whose most vocal spokesperson has been the monk Wirathu.

The problems first surfaced in 2012 in Arakan State when tensions between Buddhists and the minority Muslim Rohingya erupted into violence. In the months of June and October 2012, 192 people were killed in mob violence.

In 2013 the attacks increased and spread to other areas with Muslims of any background, rather than just Rohingya Muslims, becoming targets.

Bill Davis, one of the authors of a Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) report on violence against Muslims published in August 2013 said: “The deadly wave of violence in Burma has spread beyond the Rohingya devastating Muslim communities throughout the country.”

The most serious of these incidents occurred in Meiktila, a town in central Burma with a sizeable Muslim population, on March 26-29 2013. It was sparked by an argument in a Muslim-owned gold shop between female staff and a female Buddhist customer. An angry crowd gathered and police arrested the staff members.

The situation seemed to have calmed, but then a false rumour that the female customer died spread. The crowd, including some monks, ransacked the shop. The police were outnumbered and they allegedly told the crowd they could destroy the shop, but that they then had to disperse. The crowd destroyed the shop and looted and destroyed several nearby Muslim shops.

Later, possibly in retaliation, a group of Muslim men attacked a monk on a motorcycle who later died from his injuries.

When news of this spread a mob of over 1,000 people gathered and ran riot. The violence continued for two days and spread to other regions in Mandalay Division.

The final death toll was 40 people, including at least 20 students and four teachers killed at a madrassa. Additionally, 1,500 Muslim homes and 12 of Meiktila’s 13 mosques were destroyed. The PHR report’s researchers were told that in the days prior to the trouble Muslim homes were sprayed with the number 786 to indicate which homes should be attacked.

Followig the violence 16 Muslims were imprisoned for between two years and life while 28 Buddhists were imprisoned for between three and 15 years.

Outside of Rakhine State this was the largest incidence of violence against Muslims, though 2013 saw other incidences of violence against Muslims in different parts of the country.

In February 2013 a Muslim school and business in Thaketa Township, Rangoon was destroyed by a mob who mistakenly thought the school was going to be turned into a mosque after it sought permission to renovate the roof.

On April 30 in Oakkan in Rangoon Division a Muslim woman bumped into a novice monk causing him to drop and damage his Alms bowl. After she was detained rumours spread that Muslims were organizing revenge attacks. Mobs of 200-300 armed Buddhists decided to pre-empt any attacks by attacking Muslim villages in surrounding areas and destroying homes and mosques. At least one person was killed.

On May 4 in Hpakant in Kachin State a group of 30 Buddhists attacked Muslim owned houses and shops in three different areas for no apparent reason.

On May 28-29 May in Lashio, Shan State, violence erupted and a mosque was burned down after a Muslim man was accused of quarreling with a female gas attendant, covering her in petrol and setting her on fire. Journalists and humanitarian aid workers also reported being threatened by the mob. The man was later sentenced to 26 years in prison.

On May 29 at Mone, a small town in Bago divison, two brothers in law, one a Buddhist, the other a Muslim, got into a fight. The Buddhist was injured and both were taken to the police station. A mob gathered and demanded that the Muslim be charged with a serious crime before destroying a mosque and a madrassa.

On June 30 one or two men, allegedly Muslim, raped a woman in Thandwe Township, Rakhine State. A mob of 50 people gathered outside the police station and went on to destroy several Muslim homes and injure three Muslims. The next day the mob burned down another Muslim home. Violence also broke out in Thandwe between September 29 and October 2 when mobs killed Muslims in a series of attacks.

On August 20 and 23 there were reports of Muslims being attacked by monks from Thayathaw Monastery in Pha’an City in Karen State.

On August 24 in Htan Koe village in Sagaing division rumours spread that a Buddhist woman had been raped by three Muslim men. Mobs gathered near the police station, in the evening they were joined by others from nearby villages and they started attacking Muslims. 46 Muslim homes, 12 shops and a rice mill were torched. It was reported that security forces stood by and watched.

According to PHR: “Serious human rights violations, including anti-Muslim violence, have resulted in the displacement of nearly 250,000 people since June 2011, as well as the destruction of more than 10,000 homes, scores of mosques, and a dozen monasteries.

The police response has also been criticized. In Meiktila the police were rapidly outnumbered and completely failed to control the situation.

According to the International Crisis Group report that could have been because the police may have been unwilling to appear too heavy handed following strong criticism of their actions at the protest against Letpadaung copper mine in November 2012 when they seriously burnt protesters, including a group of monks.

The report says that since the incidences in Meiktila and particularly since Lashio the police have responded more quickly and more assertively meaning that the mob violence has lasted hours rather than days and the casualties have been less.

The police have arrested and prosecuted a significant number of people for violence and arson. Initially there were concerns that only Muslims were being arrested, but in reality many more Buddhists than Muslims have been arrested and prosecuted. In July 25 Buddhists, including two monks were found guilty of murder, assault and violence during the troubles in Meiktila.

The rise in popularity of the Buddhist 969 Campaign led by the Mandalay based monk Wirathu has also been blamed for encouraging anti-Muslim violence.

From 2003 till 2012 Wirathu was jailed for inciting anti-Muslim hatred.

The number 969 was chosen to represent the nine special attributes of the Lord Buddha, the six core Buddhist teachings and the nine attributes of monkhood. The campaign was allegedly intended to promote peace.

In reality the 969 movement has conducted a campaign of extreme rhetoric and made wild claims of a Muslim plot to take over the country.

These include claims that Muslims, who make up 5 per cent of the population, threaten to become the majority and overtake Buddhists, who make up 90 per cent of the population. They have also made claims that there are jihadi infiltrators and that there is a scheme to pay Muslim men to marry Buddhist women and convert them. In June 2013 Wirathu called for a law to ban interfaith marriages.

The 969 movement has called for a boycott of Muslim businesses and encourages Buddhist businesses to paint the number 969 on their premises to show their support and show that they are Buddhist. Many Buddhist business owners, whatever their views, have displayed the numbers, partly out of fear of retaliation from 969 supporters and partly because they fear they will lose business if they do not display them.

There have even been reports of Buddhists being beaten up by 969 followers for using Muslim businesses.

The 969 movement has spread its message by widely distributing leaflets and DVDs. Monks who support the movement have also toured the country making speeches and sermons.

In one recent example Irrawaddy reported that in December seven leading monks of the 969 movement from the Mon state capital Moulmein went to Arakan state, where violence against the Rohingya first broke out, to spread the message of the 969 movement.

Wirathu has denied that the 969 movement has contributed to anti-Muslim violence but he concedes that it may be causing Burmans to have a greater hatred of Muslims because they are spreading “the truth about Muslims.”

Very few people have spoken out against the 969 movement despite the fact that it seems to go against many of the tenets of Buddhism. This is because its followers are promoting it as Buddhist solidarity movement aimed at strengthening the religion rather than an attack on islam. They paint themselves as devout Buddhists. This makes people who oppose the movement very wary of speaking out because they fear they will be seen as critical of Buddhism itself.

In June the Burmese dissident Dr Maung Zarni claimed that the state was behind the rise of Wirathu and the anti-Muslim campaign across the whole of Burma.

While this cannot be directly proved it is certain that the state has made no efforts to reign in the rhetoric of Wirathu and the 969 movement.

Even the opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has not spoken out against the movement. Many believe this is a politically led decision, which she has taken because she does not want to risk alienating her supporters who follow the 969 movement or are anti-Muslim.

In June the UN Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay expressed concern over human rights violations and violence against Burma’s Muslims and the lack of accountability for such acts.

As we enter 2014 it seems that little has changed and that the persecution of Burmese Muslims will continue.

Rohingya migrants sit on a police van in southern Thailand. (Photo: AP)
By Saksith Saiyasombut & Siam Voices
December 19, 2013 

The Royal Thai Navy has filed defamation charges against international journalists for their reports on authorities being involved in human trafficking of ethnic Rohingya refugees. The move sends a chilling reminder to the media about the dismal state of press freedom in Thailand, the easy exploitation of flawed laws and how little outside inquiry Thailand’s military tolerates.

Ever since the deadly persecution of the Rohingya people, an ethnic minority denied citizenship in Burma, in 2012 that caused tens of thousands to flee, mostly on frail and overcrowded vessels on the Andaman Sea, the plight of Rohingya refugees in Thailand has been well documented in the past 12 months*. Reports of abuse, rape, inhumane detention conditions and human trafficking have persistently accompanied the coverage of the refugees in Thailand. A deadline imposed by the Thai government to find and transfer the refugees to another country passed in July with no results and further developments being made, leaving the Rohingyas in legal limbo.

While this story is almost exclusively covered in foreign media and mostly met with apathy in the mainstream Thai media, Phuket Wan has been regularly reporting and unearthing accounts of the mistreatment of Rohingya people, including selling to human traffickers by Thai authorities. In July, Phuket Wan was quoting from an investigative special report by theReuters news agency that accuses certain sections of the Royal Thai Navy of actively taking part in the smuggling of Rohingya refugees.

This was followed up by Reuters with another special report in December that also carries “startling admissions” by the DSI chief Tharit Pengdit and the Deputy Commissioner General of the Royal Thai Police Maj-Gen Chatchawal Suksomjit over the existence of illegal camps in southern Thailand. In the aftermath of the coverage, both the United Nations and the United States have called on Thailand to investigate the findings of the Reuters report.

This is how the Royal Thai Navy responded to these accusations:
A captain acting on behalf of the Royal Thai Navy has accused two Phuketwan journalists of damaging the reputation of the service and of breaching the Computer Crimes Act. Two other journalists from the Reutersnews agency are expected to face similar charges shortly.
The Phuketwan journalists, Alan Morison and Chutima Sidasathian, denied the charges and were fingerprinted when they presented themselves today at Vichit Police Station, south of Phuket City. They are due to reappear on December 24. The pair face a maximum jail term of five years and/or a fine of up to 100,000, baht 
It’s believed to be the first time an arm of the military in Thailand has sued journalists for criminal defamation using the controversial Computer Crimes Act. (…)
In response to presentation of the charges today, Alan Morison and Chutima Sidasathian issued the following statement:
(…) We are shocked to learn now that the Navy is using a controversial law to sue Phuketwan for criminal defamation. The allegations in the article are not made by Phuketwan. They are made by the highly-respectedReuters news agency, following a thorough investigation. (…)
The Rohingya have no spokesperson, no leader, but through Phuketwan’s ongoing coverage, the torment of these people continues to be revealed. Their forced exodus from Burma is a great tragedy. Yet how they are treated in the seas off Thailand and in Thailand remains a constant puzzle.
We wish the Royal Thai Navy would clear its reputation by explaining precisely what is happening to the Rohingya in the Andaman Sea and in Thailand. By instead using a controversial law against us, the Navy is, we believe, acting out of character.
We can only wonder why a good organisation finds it necessary to take such unusual action instead of making a telephone call or holding a media conference.
This is an extremely worrying development. The navy is not only using the libel law against the two journalists, but also the controversial Computer Crimes Act of 2007 (CCA). Thanks to the CCA’s flawed and vague wording, it opens up the possibility for arbitrary charges against all online users to be held liable not only for their own content, but also for the content of third parties that the user is hosting. Recently, the Appeal Court upheld the suspended sentence against Chiranuch Premchaiporn, the webmaster of the news website Prachatai, for not deleting web comments deemed lèse majesté quickly enough.

Another aspect is that it also shows that allegations of human trafficking are hardly being investigated, let alone by somebody outside of the military. After allegations of human trafficking against army officers earlier this January, an inquiry found the men at no fault but they were transferred out to another region nonetheless.

Earlier this year, we blogged about the then-defence minister Sukumpol Suwanatat’s “fear of too much press freedom” and this move again reflects the armed forces’ self-image that is still being maintained until today: an essential part of the Thai power apparatus that is not to be questioned or criticized, especially by outsiders.

*NOTE: The plight of the Rohingya refugees will be highlighted as part of a special 2013 year-in-review series starting December 26, 2013 on Siam Voices.

About the author: 

Saksith Saiyasombut is a Thai blogger and freelance foreign correspondent. He writes about Thai politics and current affairs since 2010 and reports for international news media like Channel NewsAsia. Read his full bio on about.me/saksith.

Photo: Swe Win's Facebook

By Francis Wade
October 4, 2013

The latest bout of violence in western Burma, where the death toll currently stands at six, all of whom are Muslim, hasn’t taken many by surprise. Leaders on both sides of the political divide have mostly responded with empty phrases that appear to be aimed more at placating their critics, rather than cutting to the core problems of intolerance and exploitation of a crisis. As a result, houses belonging to Muslim families in Arakan state have once again turned to ash, and the body count slowly climbs.

The slaying of a 94-year-old woman marks a new low in the violence – largely incapacitated through old age, she hardly presented an existential threat to the Buddhist population there (NB: pages 24-25 of this Harvard report statistically debunks claims that Muslims are ‘taking over’ Arakan state). Instead her death is a classic tool of intimidation, a message to the country’s entire Muslim population that none are safe. This is only reinforced by the fact that the recent attacks in Thandwe were against Kaman Muslims, who are distinct from the Rohingya (against whom past violence in Arakan state has been targeted), who have citizenship and with whom Arakanese had enjoyed harmonious relations.

The speed with which the violence in Thandwe spread from Sunday onwards raises further suspicions about the degree of organizing going on behind the scenes. The trigger on Sunday last week was a petty argument between a Buddhist taxi driver and the leader of the Kaman Muslim Party, Kyaw Zan Hla. Word then spread round the district that Kyaw Zan Hla had ‘insulted Buddhism’; mobs then formed with surprising speed and torched a mosque and several houses. Attacks spread over the following days to villages around Thandwe, and as of Wednesday dozens of houses have been razed. A photo today from a local journalist showed a truckload of Arakanese Buddhists, all brandishing spears and swords, and all wearing red bandanas.

It took the tiniest of triggers to spark a rampage. A similar chain of events happened in April in Oakkan, when a young Muslim girl riding a bike knocked an alms bowl out of a monk’s hand. As word spread of the incident, large Buddhist mobs quickly formed and attacked a mosque and Muslim homes, eventually destroying 77 and leaving one person dead and nine injured. The month before, inhabitants of Meikhtila in Mandalay division spoke of convoys of trucks carrying ‘ousiders’ into the town as anti-Muslim violence gathered pace. Similar reports of ‘outsider’ mobs came out of Sittwe in Arakan state during last year’s rioting.

It’s easy to get conspiratorial about this, and it’s often the knee-jerk reaction of Burma observers to blame the government, or government-affiliated networks. But as well as the events listed above, the attacks on Muslims in Shan state’s Lashio in May don’t necessarily fit the picture of an upsurge of solely local public anger – a New York Times report said mobs there were heard singing Burmese nationalist songs, something that you’d be hard pressed to find any Shan person doing. Moreover, footage from the violence in Meikhtila in March showed police standing by and watching while mobs torched shops, which is consistent with local reports that security forces allowed the attacks to proceed.

Of course there’s no smoking gun in all this, no paper trail that leads all the way to the top. What President Thein Sein really makes of the miserable state of inter-religious harmony isn’t clear, though his wispy, pussyfooting responses over the past year have only sharpened the feeling that he is reluctant to put his foot down. Why? Perhaps because powerful forces close to him, who are uncomfortable with the transition in Burma, will benefit from this – particularly the military, which fears a potential waning of its influence and which can draw on these fissures to reassert its relevance. (Take the Arakanese, for instance, who were once so vehemently opposed to army presence in their state but who now ask for its protection, or prominent student activists who spent their lives fighting the army, but who now say they will join hands to repel Muslim ‘invaders’).

Moreover, is mob mentality so strong among disparate Burmese across the land that the chain of events in Sittwe last year – the speedy formation of mobs, types of weapons used, methods of destruction – can be replicated so strikingly in Mandalay division, in Shan state, and even up in Kachin state, where there’s no history of anti-Muslim hostility? And that since the Oakkan violence, the trigger needed for the attacks has in fact become weaker, and not stronger, as should be the case if the government is really tackling this?

U Win Myaing, spokesman for the Arakan state government who was interviewed by the NYT, suggests in fact that the severity of the actual event that causes these rampages is not important, but merely who is involved: “You can see in all the recent conflicts that Bengalis [reference to Muslim Rohingya] sparked the incidents. The problems always begin with them.” At the very least, by reinforcing the fear that an enemy lives among us, the government is tacitly encouraging the attacks; Win Myaing almost legitimizes them. But the eerie similarities of the nearly 10 bouts of anti-Muslim violence since June last year suggests there may be something more than merely communal violence happening here.

Zin Linn
August 4, 2013

Burma’s quasi-civilian government headed by President Thein Sein has taken office in March 2011 and declaring itself as a reformist administration since then. Now, it has to meet head-on a major challenge in order to show its true color concerning constitutional revision which has been calling by various oppositions.

As the demands for constitutional amendment increases gradually, the Union Parliament of Burma has accepted a proposal forming a 109-member Joint Committee to Review the 2008 Constitution on 25 July with the intention of probing indispensable changes.

The deputy speaker of the Union Parliament has to act as chairman of the committee along with the deputy speaker of the Lower House and the deputy speaker of the Upper House reserved for vice chairman. The committee was formed with members of parliament, members of political parties, military MPs and individuals.

The political competition seems looking for resolution to the boiling constitution issue on the agenda for the 2015 general election. Parliamentarians from Burma’s ruling party on March 15 took the first step towards the possible revision of the constitution which was drawn up under the previous military junta and intentionally vetoes the opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi from the presidency.

On the other hand, the three-day Ethnic Conference organized by the United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC) that ended on 31 July in Chiang Mai had unanimously rejected the military-sponsored 2008 constitution, after a quite longer debate. A total of 122 delegates appeared at the conference: representing the UNFC-member organizations, 18 resistance organizations, the United Nationality Alliance, 4 political parties of ethnic nationalities, academics and active individuals.

The current 2008 Constitution practiced by current government is not accepted, as it is devoid of democratic essence and not in accordance with the principles of federalism, Khun Okkar, spokesman of the UNFC said at the press conference on 2 August in Chiang Mai, Thailand. (Photo: Saw Tun Lin-KIC)
According to the statement dated 2 August issued by the UNFC, the historic conference unanimously adopted the following important positions and decisions: –
To form the present Union of Burma/Myanmar into a Federal Union of national states and nationalities states, having national equality and self-determination; To practice federal democracy in this Federal Union; To form federal union defense forces that will defend the Federal Union from external dangers; The current 2008 Constitution practiced by U Thein Sein government is not accepted, as it is devoid of democratic essence and not in accordance with the principles of federalism; A new constitution based on genuine federal principles will be drafted and promoted for practice; The UNFC and the UNA will lead in drafting the new constitution, and a drafting committee consisting of representatives from the democratic forces, women organizations, youth organizations, CBOs, and other organizations will be formed, as part of the realization of the aim; In political dialogue and negotiation, the 6-point political program laid down by the Ethnic National Conference held in September 2012 will be followed; In political dialogue and negotiation, all the resistance organizations are to be represented as a bloc, and not individually.
After three-day conference, the ethnic nationalities delegates held meetings on 1 August with representatives from eight democratic forces from inside and abroad and agreed to jointly carry out the common programs.

As reported by Shan Herald Agency for News (S.H.A.N.) on 18 July, the remaining Working Group for Ethnic Coordination (WGEC) members, particularly the Karen National Union (KNU) and the Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS), upon receiving reports that the UNFC had already called for an ‘Ethnic Conference for Peace and Reconciliation’, said a parallel conference would only serve confusion the people both at home and abroad.

An unconfirmed report said the WGEC may be planning to hold a conference inside Burma.

An ethnic outcry said that a nationwide ceasefire agreement without adequate guarantees of a political dialogue and monitoring mechanisms is unacceptable. There is a constant demand from the country’s ethnic groups to enjoy equal political, social and economic rights. The Constitution must guarantee the rights of self-determination and of equal representation for every ethnic group in the Parliament.

The new charter itself emerged in the course of a charade referendum (May 2008) which held unfairly after a week of the Nargis cyclone that caused more than 138,000 dead and millions homeless. The bill was ratified by the parliament in January 2011. The biggest flaw in the constitution is the privileged 25 percent of the seats in the parliament are set aside for the soldiers who are basically appointed to the legislative body by the commander-in-chief.

Moreover, the junta-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) won a landslide in the polls which declared seizing 882 out of 1154 seats in parliaments. Remarkably, 77 percent of the parliamentary seats have been seized by the military-backed USDP in the 2010 polls which were distinguished for vote-rigging show.

Aung San Suu Kyi has affirmed her readiness serving as president her Burma and her party’s target to amend the undemocratic clauses in the constitution in every way. Suu Kyi said it is her duty as leader of her National League for Democracy to be willing to take the executive office if that is what the people want. She said a clause in the constitution effectively barring her from the job is one of several her party seeks to change.

Several analysts believe the 15-chapter and 194-page constitution drawn under the close guidance of the retired Sen. Gen. Than Shwe to protect the legacy of military autocracy that refuses self-determination of ethnic peoples.
Muslims villagers flee sectarian violence in Rakhine state in western Burma in June 2012. Pic: AP.
Casey Hynes
June 18, 2013

Last week marked the somber one-year anniversary of the violent sectarian conflict in Rakhine state that broke out last June and enflamed tensions between Buddhists and Muslims there. That set off a long 12 months of disquiet and tragedy for Burma’s Muslim population, and their woes are likely to be exacerbated as they continue to see higher rates of punishment for the unrest.

What began as conflict between ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims has spread in the last year to more widespread anti-Muslim violence throughout Burma and increasing instability for thousands upon thousands of people. To date, there are 150,000 displaced Muslims living desperate existences within the confines of overcrowded IDP camps.

A 40-year-old woman named Daw Khin Htwe, a Muslim married to a Rohingya man, told her harrowing story to IRIN News. She and her children witnessed the brutal murder of her mother-in-law and another relative. IRIN quotes her as saying, “We know who did this, but also know nothing will come of it. How can our communities ever reconcile if such crimes go unpunished? Will there be any accountability? Only if the authorities arrest and punish those responsible is there any real prospect for reconciliation. What will happen to us if we return to our homes now? It could happen all over again.”

Daw Khin Htwe raised an important point about crimes going unpunished, as Muslims seem to bear the brunt of the prosecutions that result from these all-too-frequent outbreaks of violence.

“Anti-Muslim discrimination by the state in Myanmar [Burma] runs deep. We can see it in the disproportionate arrests and prosecutions of Muslims in the aftermaths of anti-Muslim violence,” Matthew Smith, executive director of Fortify Rights International, said via email.

Smith noted that by the government’s own admission, 75 percent of the arrests made in regard to the June riots have been of Muslims, a staggering number when you consider that many of the outbreaks were due to anti-Muslim sentiment.

A Muslim man was sentenced to 26 years in prison last week, after being accused of lighting a Buddhist woman on fire and setting off two days of anti-Muslim rioting in Lashio. In May, two Muslim men were arrested for their alleged involvement in the deaths of two Buddhists during rioting in Meikhtila in March. The violent, deadly riots were largely targeted at Muslims, with Buddhist monks stirring anti-Muslim sentiment. However, Buddhists have up this point seen less harsh punishment than Muslims. Voice of America reported on May 21 that no Buddhists had been convicted in connection with the riots up to that point.

On May 10, five Buddhists who had been arrested on charges of defaming religion, aggravated burglary, unlawful assembly and vandalism, were released on bail, according to Democratic Voice of Burma.

However, two Buddhists were arrested in early May following an attack on a Muslim-owned shop.

The disproportionate targeting of Muslims for prosecution seems to fall in line with a larger trend of the government seeming to further, rather than alleviate, the tenuous situation.

Human Rights Watch accused the Burmese government of engaging in an ethnic cleansing campaign against the Rohingya, and condemned its actions and lack thereof when it comes to acting on the rights of this people.

“The situation in Rakhine State is not improving. Instances of violence by state security forces against Rohingya are continuing, entire communities of displaced Muslims still lack adequate aid, and the authorities have made no moves to facilitate the voluntary returns of displaced Muslims,” Smith said. “It has been an entire year of displacement and tens of thousands of displaced Rohingya still lack adequate access to health care. This is not due to a lack of expertise in the country. The problems are the result of persecution.”

Even if more proportionate arrests and punishment are seen, that will not address the underlying causes of the violence. The anti-Muslim sentiment that has spread throughout parts of the country can only serve to further divide the people living in Burma and cause more poverty and hardship for tens of thousands who live there. The government has sanctioned military action against Muslim communities, and as Smith pointed out, done little to improve their living conditions. This kind of institutional discrimination, in addition to the jailings, will only reinforce prejudices against them and pave the way for more violence. A genuine defense of basic human rights is necessary to prevent the need for arrests and jailings in the first place.

Aung San Suu Kyi. Maybe not as squeaky clean as people had hoped. (Photo - AP)
Francis Wade
Asian Correspondent
January 15, 2013

A very interesting piece ran in The Times (UK) today under the headline, ‘Suu Kyi under fire for taking money from cronies of the former regime’. The paper cited sources from her National League for Democracy (NLD) party who admitted to “receiving hundreds of thousands of pounds from companies owned by the reviled bosses”, who reportedly include Tay Za and Zaw Zaw, two of the country’s most notorious tycoons. 

According to a recent Irrawaddy article, the Tay Za-owned conglomerate, Htoo Trading, donated $82,353 to NLD education and health initiaves. Suu Kyi responded to the criticism by saying that the businessmen had contributed to a good cause. “What is wrong with that? … People may have become rich in different ways. What must be investigated is whether they were involved in any illegal action to make themselves rich,” she said. 

That final statement is a bizarre one for her to make, given the notoriety of the cronies. A US cable from 2009 states: “Rumors abound that Tay Za has long smuggled Chinese weapons into Burma via his aviation and trading businesses.” Another donor, Kyaw Win, who gave $158,824 to the NLD via his subsidiary company Sky Net, is closely linked with recent land confiscations, while Zaw Zaw, like the rest, had been under US and EU sanctions (the magnate’s Max Myanmar consortium is one of Burma’s biggest, and helped build the new capital Naypyidaw). Considering the backgrounds of the donors, the money may well be tainted. 

Suu Kyi is believed to have met with both Tay Za and Zaw Zaw several times between her release from house arrest and election to parliament in April 2012, although it is unclear what the nature of the meetings was. The NLD has not revealed whether it probed how each donor generated the funds. 

Prior to becoming a politician, the opposition icon had long supported sanctions against the former junta and its cronies who dominate the economy. In a 1997 interview she said: “Unless there is free and fair competition, there can’t be healthy economic development. And what we have in Burma now is not an open-market economy that allows free and fair competition, but a form of colonialism makes a few people very, very wealthy. It’s what you would call crony capitalism.” 

The use of Tay Za’s donations are particularly irksome, considering the relationship between Burma’s military and the opposition. As well as the alleged procurement of Chinese weapons, his Myanmar Avia Company is thought to have close business ties with Russia’s major state-owned military aircraft manufacturer, MAPO. “Opposition groups and military analysts say Tay Za’s position at Avia Export made him instrumental in the military’s purchase in 2001 of 10 MiG 29 jet fighters valued at US$130 million,” said Asia Times in 2008. 

At a time when the Burmese military is using air strikes on Kachin army positions in the north, and yesterday’s shelling of the town of Laiza, which killed three civilians, Suu Kyi’s attempts to shrug off the controversy will grate. During a UK parliamentary session yesterday on the attacks in Kachin state, an MP said that “the planes [used by Burmese army] are of Chinese origin and the gunships are Russian.” 

The Nobel Peace Laureate has been criticized for failing to speak out on behalf of the Kachin, and her recent statements on cronies (“Give them a chance to reform”) and the military (“I have a soft spot for the army”) won’t help. Benedict Rogers, from Christian Solidarity Worldwide, thinks the revelations “disappointing for many who viewed her as a moral leader in the mould of Gandhi or Martin Luther King.” 

A feeling is growing that the democracy icon is treading on increasingly thin ice – she has refused to condemn army assaults in Kachin state, and speak out on the ethno-religious crisis in Arakan state. She would do well to really tackle head on the recent criticism she has received, rather than the high-handed responses she is increasingly deploying to answer critics.
By Francis Wade
June 27, 2012

Much has been made of the recent sectarian unrest in western Burma and its ramifications for the country’s fragile reform process. It’s important to note that the violence and subsequent outpouring of anti-Rohingya anger is not a niche issue confined to a specific locale – instead it should be viewed as something more pervasive among many Burman and Arakanese, both inside Burma and abroad, that threatens to contaminate the wider discourse on how to move the country forward.

Among the key catalysts of anti-Rohingya sentiment are, surprisingly, prominent members of Burma’s pro-democracy movement. The hypocrisy of their attempts to vilify an entire ethnic group – labelling them variously as “terrorists”, “illegal immigrants”, “not worthy of citizenship”, and so on – appears lost on them.

Tin Maung Htoo, director of Canadian Friends of Burma (CFOB), was forced by the organisation’s Board to retract a statement in early June in which he said the Rohingya were the remnants of a Mujahideen movement in western Burma that had tried to gain citizenship after their “Jihad” failed (like all the country’s ethnic minorities, there is no fixed date for their arrival, though one study done of dialects in Arakan State back in 1799 references “Rooinga”).

That, and other inflammatory comments posted on the internet, are merely the tip of the iceberg for many of Burma’s “democrats”, whose rhetoric implicitly encourages the ongoing persecution of the Rohingya. Burma Democratic Concern (BDC), based in the UK, states on its website that a special battalion of Burmese troops should be deployed to northern Arakan state “to protect the lives of the minority Buddhist Burmese Araknese who are living in the middle of barbaric so-called Rohingya Bengali Muslims”, whom it claims have massacred “tens of thousands of Burmese Buddhist Arakanese in the past”.

The founders of BDC and CFOB were themselves forced into exile after the Burmese military was given free rein to put down the 1988 student uprising in the name of “protecting the nation”. The fact that these same people have also felt most painfully the scourge of state-sanctioned abuse and statelessness likewise gets lost in the fury.

Calls for the Rohingya to be expelled from Burma on the grounds that they are not citizens have been made by the very same people who were allowed to remain in their countries of asylum for years before citizenship was finally awarded – they assert however that this gesture should not be extended to the Rohingya.

Ko Ko Gyi, a former leader of Burma's prominent 88 Generation Students Group, pictured in Yangon earlier this month. (Photo: AP)

Tin Maung Htoo has lauded prominent activist Ko Ko Gyi’s proclamation that the Rohingya are not an ethnic nationality of Burma; but nor is he one of Canada. He and others seem to have a hard time explaining the rationale behind their comments.

What the “anti-Rohingya but pro-democracy lobby” also seem to misunderstand is that they have become effective lackeys of a regime that they have dedicated their lives to reforming or doing away with. A key policy of successive Burmese juntas is the divide and rule of ethnic groups, which has allowed the government to foment unrest, justify heavy-handed control and which has historically provided the excuse for why the country is not ready for democracy.

It is of great irony and great sadness that the country’s civilians, both at home and abroad, have finally lent their hand to this, only months into the transition process and after decades of resisting state propaganda. As far afield as London, the front door of Tun Khin, who heads the Burma Rohingya Organisation UK, has been kicked in, while anti-Rohingya protests have been targeted against Burma Campaign UK and the BBC, often by veterans of Burma’s pro-democracy movement who, exiled from their homeland, have gained citizenship in the UK.

Aung San Suu Kyi’s reaction to the unrest was to call for rule of law to be the decider of the status of Rohingya – a deliberately non-committal and vague standpoint. As Sai Latt notes in Asia Sentinel, “The Rohingya case provides a very clear example why the law itself can be a source of problems. Statelessness, ill treatment, and discrimination against the Rohingyas are not simply the results of a lack of the rule of law. Quite contrary, they are legally produced.”

The hypocrisy underpinning the Rohingya crisis calls into question the notion of equal rights, and indeed democracy, espoused by Burma’s pro-democracy movement; indeed that the gestures accorded to them should not be extended to those of different origin, religion, skin colour, or whatever it is that makes the Rohingya such vile creatures in the eyes of those engaged in their persecution. The inability of many to see the double standards being deployed is perhaps a sign that the mindset of the regime, a master of psychological warfare, lurks within those who have spent years rallying against it, and becomes yet another factor in the sobering realisation that Burma’s transition will be a long and painful process.


    • Rohingya Exodus