By Dr. Habib Siddiqui
Asian Tribune
November 11, 2012

In a meeting (in which I was invited to speak on the Rohingya problem) held in Luton (located 30 miles north of London), UK, on October 13, a British MP mentioned close parallel between what is happening today against the Rohingya Muslims in Arakan and what happened in Bosnia in the early 1990s against the Bosnian Muslims. He is right.

The Arakan state, which per estimates made by Dr. Shwe Lu Maung alias Shahnewaz Khan, in his book – The Price of Silence: Muslim-Buddhist War of Bangladesh and Myanmar – a Social Darwinist’s Analysis – had probably as many Rohingya Muslims as there were Rakhine Buddhists living in its four districts before the latest extermination campaign that began on June 3 of this year, is now almost devoid of any Muslim village that is unharmed or intact by Buddhist Rakhine terrorism.

The UN and other international human rights groups have called the Rohingya Muslims, and rightly so, the worst persecuted people in our planet. Because of their race and religion, they are victims of genocide in the Buddhist-majority Myanmar.

Truly, no other word in the English language but genocide can describe what the Rohingya people are facing. The use of this term should not come as a surprise since the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines genocide as "the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political or cultural group.” As noted by experts, the term can be applied to such destructions in whole or in part of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group. By any definition, the Rohingya people of Arakan are ethnically, racially, religiously different than the Rakhine Buddhists and majority Burmans in Myanmar.

In his book – Worse than War – Dr. Daniel Jonah Goldhagen cites five principal forms of elimination: transformation, repression, expulsion, prevention of reproduction, and extermination. Transformation involves the destruction of a targeted group’s essential and defining political, social, or cultural identities. As I have mentioned earlier, in spite of their ties to the soil of Arakan since time immemorial, the Rohingyas are falsely alleged by the dominant ethnic groups as new settlers from nearby Bangladesh.

Repression entails keeping the hated, deprecated, or feared people within territorial reach and reducing, with violent domination, their ability to inflict real or imagined harm upon others. Such repression has been a regular feature of Rohingya life inside Myanmar.

Expulsion, often called deportation, is a third eliminationist option. It removes unwanted people more thoroughly, by driving them beyond a country’s borders, or from one region of a country to another, or compelling them en masse into camps. The Myanmar government since the days of Ne Win has been guilty of this crime.

Prevention of reproduction is the fourth eliminationist act, which the Myanmar government has been employing in conjunction with others. Not only are the Rohingya families restricted from marrying, the women are often forcibly sterilized, forced to abort and very often raped. In recent months, during attacks on Muslim homes, villages and towns the kidnapping of the Rohingya girls and women have become a recurring event.

Extermination is the fifth eliminationist act in which the targeted groups are killed, often with the excuse that their very existence poses a mortal threat. It promises not an interim, not a piecemeal, not only a probable, but a “final solution” to the putative problem. It is not difficult to see why in recent weeks, poisoned oil and food were sold to the Rohingya people by Rakhine businessmen to kill them. The latest activities by the Rakhine terrorists, aided by racist monks and others within the larger Myanmar society, including murderous politicians and government authorities, thus, clearly show that Rohingyas are victims of an extermination act.

A comparison with the previously cited list of crimes of the Myanmar government clearly shows that Rohingyas are facing all the five forms of elimination. It is a complete package of annihilation of the Rohingya people!

Genocide requires preparation and planning. It begins in the minds of men and needs mass mobilization to commit the horror against the targeted group. The perpetrators or the executioners must not only feel secure but also must be self-motivated and zealous to commit their horrendous crimes. Often times, the task of preparing the mind is left to ideologues and chauvinist intellectuals who sell the poison tablet of intolerance against the targeted group. Without political leadership the overwhelming majority of the perpetrators would not lift a finger in harm. However, once set in motion, typically with a few encouraging and enabling words, they, both the eliminationist regimes’ shock troops and their societies’ ordinary members give themselves, body and soul, to death. They do so easily, effortlessly. And this is what we are witnessing today in Myanmar, esp. the Arakan state.

Taking a cue from other places where genocides have taken place, the leaders of this greatest crime of our time - the Myanmar government, the local Rakhine politicians and intelligentsia, and their racist Buddhist monks within the general population -- have been feeding many myths for public consumption that not only distort the history of the Rohingyas and other non-Buddhists but also exaggerate the potential benefits that could come from ‘purifying’ the soils of Myanmar and Arakan by eliminating the ‘other’ people, esp. the Rohingya Muslims. Thanks to the poisonous writings of Rakhine chauvinists like Aye Chan, (late) Aye Kyaw, Khin Maung Saw and others, the Muslim population is deemed an ‘influx virus,’ a threat to the Buddhist identity of Myanmar, esp. of Arakan. Thus, a pervasive slogan that is often heard and discussed in the media is that the Rakhine people can’t live any more with the Rohingya ‘terrorists.’ Forgotten in such biased reporting is the mere fact that all the victims of the carnage have been Rohingya people. It is they who are terrorized by Buddhist terrorism, and not the other way around!

The causes of mass murder can often be found in the ideology that the state espouses. Social and ethnic compositions are usually the fault lines along which such elimination projects emanate. As I have noted elsewhere, the Myanmar government espouses a new Myanmarism in which racism and bigotry are the defining ideologies to purify its soil of all the non-Buddhists and non-Mongoloid races. Its mosaic of identities - ethnic, racial, religious, linguistic and cultural, and the resulting diversity, which could have been its greatest strength is seen in this toxic ideology as its greatest weakness.

In 1935, years before the Jewish Holocaust happened in Germany, anti-Jewish racist and bigotry-ridden laws were promulgated in the German city of Nuremberg stopping social and economic contacts with the Jews. The Jews also lost the right to vote and hold office. Within the next eight years, 13 implementation ordinances were issued dealing with the enforcement of the Reich Citizenship Law that progressively marginalized the Jewish community in Germany.

Anyone violating these laws was punished by hard labor, imprisonment and/or fines. Such laws were exploited by hard-core Nazis to destroy properties of a people that the authorities would not generally protect. Truly, it is hard to imagine the Jewish Holocaust in Europe without those Nuremberg Laws. The recently issued religious edicts from Buddhist monks banning social and economic ties with the Rohingya people, in particular, and the Muslims, in general, is a sufficient reminder and a dire warning about the ugly head of genocide that is emerging now in Myanmar, esp. in its western state of Arakan.

As I have noted in my keynote speech at the Bangkok Conference on “Contemplating Burma’s Rohingya People’s Future in Reconciliation and (Democratic) Reform,” the new Myanmarism, espoused by the Buddhist political leadership inside Myanmar, is totalitarian and is akin to neo-Nazi Fascism. Its leaders and followers erase distinction between politics and religion, wanting to merge their racist and fascist politics with and subordinate to radical Theravada Buddhism that is extremist, fundamentalist, racist, violent and intolerant of all religions except its own. This toxic ideology is a sure recipe for disaster in a country like Myanmar with some 140 ethnic groups and minority Muslims, Christians, Sikhs and Hindus comprising 15 to 20 percent of the total population. It breeds intolerance and promotes violence that is officially sanctioned by people in authority and supported by vast majority of its people as a national project. This hybrid cocktail of Burmese racist supremacy and intolerant Buddhism is a threat not only to its minority races and religions, but also to the entire region.

Sadly, however, because of the western appetite for Myanmar’s natural resources, the crimes of the Myanmar and Rakhine government are overlooked. And instead, the root causes behind the targeted violence against the Rohingya Muslims are falsely attributed to poverty and lack of economic opportunities – points recently made by Victoria Nuland of the U.S. State Department.

There is, however, no doubt that in spite of Myanmar’s enormous natural resources, the country remains the poorest of the ASEAN countries, and South-east Asia. But to say that poverty is at the heart of the genocidal campaign is a linguistic camouflage to justice U.S. State Department’s silence on the grievous nature of the crimes committed by the murderous Myanmar government. We have heard similar excuses during the Bosnian and Rwandan genocidal campaigns. There are many countries with worse poverty but the powerful majority there doesn’t commit acts of genocide against the minority. For genocide to happen, it is always a national project in which people of all walks of life participate, and that is what is happening with the Rohingya problem inside Myanmar.

For years, China, India and other Asia Pacific countries have been doing business with the brutal military regime in Myanmar. Human rights were never a priority. Many of the European and North American countries were left out from a share at that Myanmar pie.

For them to join in, they needed a face change with Myanmar. And that devious process started first with the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Suu Kyi – who did not merit it, and then with the change of the uniform of the old guards who not long ago had donned the military dress to claim that they are reform-minded. It was a Glasnost moment for Burma, which was renamed Myanmar. That claim was followed with a controversial election held in 2010 (followed by a by-election in which Suu Kyi’s NLD enthusiastically participated) to show that Myanmar was moving from a fascist military oligarchy into a democracy, and then the trip of Suu Kyi as Thein Sein’s unofficial ambassador to the western world pleading for opening up trade and commerce relationship with the government. And in this warming up session, the last play was played during Thein Sein’s trip to the UN where he met with Ban Ki-Moon and other western leaders.

Soon thereafter one after another of the western governments, too keen to eat their share of the pie, lifted all previous bans against the murderous regime. They promised huge investments. Emboldened by such moves, the Thein Sein government does not feel that it is obligated to honor any previous pledge made to the world community. Soon after his return from the UN session, the racist Buddhist monks conducted stage managed demonstrations asking the government to force out or relocate Muslims. In government managed newspapers, they announced dire consequences against anyone doing any business with Muslims including selling food and buying or renting out homes to and from them. As hinted above, it is a copy of the Nazi era policy. It is a total package of ethnically cleansing Myanmar of the Muslim population, in general, and the Rohingyas, in particular. So insidious is Myanmar’s Buddhist fascism, the Rakhine Buddhists living inside and outside Arakan and their patrons in the Buddhist-majority Myanmar do not want any Muslim, esp. the Rohingya, living inside Myanmar, esp. in the Rakhine state.

As I have noted elsewhere, ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya people has now become a national project in Myanmar in which most Buddhists of Myanmar including the so-called democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi are willing participants one way or another. Even when they are not personally participating in this heinous crime, through their sinister silence and/or endorsement of the regime’s anti-Rohingya policy and the genocidal campaign that is carried out by criminal Rakhine Buddhists, they have essentially become partners in this crime. The Rakhine Buddhists now have their own version of Kristallnacht. They are mimicking the Nazi Party's series of pogroms in 1938, whereby one Jewish township after another was attacked. At this rate of destruction, there won’t be any Muslim locality left inside Arakan, their ancestral home.

None of these attacks since June 3 are isolated, unplanned, or spontaneous offenses. Already made stateless by the highly discriminatory 1982 Citizenship Law that is at variance with scores of international laws, the Rohingyas are falsely blamed by fascist Rakhine politicians for crimes that they did not commit so that the Buddhist populace could be incited to accept and assist the progressively savage operations of "race purification." Lynching attacks are organized by Aye Maung’s fascist party - RNDP and other equally racist Rakhine politicians and greedy businessmen to loot Rohingya properties and burn their homes, businesses and mosques.

Rohingya property is confiscated. In this task the Rakhine-dominated security forces and police are willing partners. As a result, the Rohingyas are now caged in concentration-like camps and ghettos or pushed into exile. The genocidal program is progressing in fury and irresponsibility to the "final solution" to make them an extinct people.

We can still stop this extinction if our powerful western governments act. They can pressure the Thein Sein government through the UN Security Council not only to stop this ethnic cleansing and restore Rohingya citizenship, but also ensure that the Rohingyas are compensated for their loss of lives and properties and live with safety and security under UN-monitored safe havens created to the west of the Kaladan River. If the regime resists such tangible changes, the UNSC members can take the criminal leaders of Myanmar and the Rakhine state to a Nuremberg-type trial for committing heinous crimes against humanity, let alone ban all economic transactions with the rogue regime.

Unfortunately, the attitude of the powerful nations towards the Rohingya problem is a reminiscent of the Nazi era; they refuse to see and hear the obvious truth. It is simply immoral and inexcusable. They are buying and parroting the Myanmar regime's argument, that the conflict is basically two-sided with two large racial groups attacking each other. This is a false equivalence. When all the townships that are burning, and refugees, are from one side – the Rohingya, and when renowned activists, Buddhist monks, and local Rakhine politicians and students are using language reminiscent of the Nazi propaganda, something truly catastrophic is underway seeking "final solution" of the Rohingya problem. Nothing can hide this ugly truth!

The Rakhine (Arakan) state now looks like a prison-like ghetto for the Rohingya people. Now, the Rohingya homes are ring-fenced by burnt-out buildings and military checkpoints. Outside the capital city of Sittwe (Akyab), up to 100,000 more Rohingyas are living in a series of sweltering refugee camps where malnourishment and disease are rife and where security forces and local Rakhine activists impede aid workers from operating freely. As a result of years of persecution and a slow but steady genocidal campaign, half the Rohingya population has already been pushed out. Others living inside are counting their days to get out of this living hell. Can our generation allow such an obliteration of an entire community?

How many Rohingya deaths and destruction of their homes would qualify for these powerful nations to act and stop this most far-flung and terrible racial persecution of our time? How can we ignore or tolerate such a calculated, malignant and devastating crime, which epitomizes racial hatreds, religious bigotry, terrorism and violence, and the arrogance and cruelty of power?

It is sad to see that we have not learned anything from genocides of the past – neither from Hitler’s Germany nor from the more recent ones in Bosnia, Kosovo and Rwanda. Linguistic camouflages are still used to minimize the nature of the crime faced by the Rohingya people. Many reporters relaying the events are using prefixes like “alleged” only to obfuscate what is really happening. Many local reporters are absolutely biased and are guilty of disseminating government propaganda.

In his closing remarks before the International Military Tribunal at the Nuremberg Trials in 1946, Robert Jackson, the U.S. Chief Prosecutor, issued the following warning: “The reality is that in the long perspective of history the present century will not hold an admirable position, unless its second half is to redeem its first. These two-score years in the twentieth century will be recorded in the book of years as one of the most bloody in all annals. Two World Wars have left a legacy of dead which number more than all the armies engaged in any way that made ancient or medieval history. No half-century ever witnessed slaughter on such a scale, such cruelties and inhumanities, such wholesale deportations of peoples into slavery, such annihilations of minorities. The terror of Torquemada pales before the Nazi Inquisition. These deeds are the overshadowing historical facts by which generations to come will remember this decade. If we cannot eliminate the causes and prevent the repetition of these barbaric events, it is not an irresponsible prophecy to say that this twentieth century may yet succeed in bringing the doom of civilization.”

Witnessing the latest genocidal campaign against the Rohingyas of Myanmar, it is obvious that we have failed on both counts - to eliminate "the causes" and to prevent "the repetition of these barbaric events." 

Completed

Genocideof the Rohingyas of Myanmar – Part 1

The Rohingya’s statelessness is at the heart of two major outbreaks of fighting between the Buddhist and Muslim communities that has left 180 people dead and forced 110,000 Rohingya into makeshift camps.

Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, told reporters, that a change in the law is required, "This should include a review of the citizenship law to ensure that Rohingya have equal access to citizenship," she said.

The Rohingya have no legal status and are regarded by most Burmese as immigrants from neighbor Bangladesh.

Bangladesh doesn’t recognize them either, leaving them effectively stateless.

 

Voice of Russia, RT

ARNO President Nurul Islam said “Burma opposition leader and democracy icon Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is uncharacteristically silent on the mass destruction and racial extermination of Rohingya. She is reluctant to call a spade a spade lest it will hurt the sentiments of the majority Buddhists. It appears that if the Rakhine were in the situation of Rohingya she would definitely speak out. We believe, she could have stopped or reduced the violence in Arakan by simply admonishing the fellow countrymen to respect the human rights of the Rohingyas”.

Baroness Cox from house Lords said she joined to protest to show that how much she care about Rohingya people. She will make sure to pressure British government and international community. She said that now everybody have right interference duty to protect Rohingya people of Arakan. She will be questioning house lords next week to get UN Peace keeping force, Humanitarian aid and try to get Burmese government repeal 1982 citizenship law.

Rushnara Ali MP said “We as parliamentarians are with you. We on labour side twill do as we can to pressure the British government to speak up people for Rohingyas and others the people who are facing HR violations. We keep up the pressure in Parliament and elsewhere to make sure that this issue is not forgotten that we all campaign together to make sure people lives are protected. Later today I will deliver a letter on behalf of shadow front bench team labour party that letter will send to all our colleagues in parliament from labour party to send to Foreign Secretary to take action.

MP Jonathan Ashworth said he raised Rohingya issue last week foreign secretary and he joined to the protest to show solidarity as Member of Parliament. He also said we stand on justice raised it again today houses of Parliament. When we are seeing thousands of home destroyed, thousands people displaced .When we are seeing lives lost we cannot stand by doing nothing.

BROUK President Tun Khin said “President Thein Sein told the UNHCR in July that Burma/Myanmar will not take responsibility for the Rohingya because they are not citizens of Burma and illegal immigrant.” When he proposed ethnic cleansing they stayed silent, and even when ethnic cleansing takes place they stay silent. He urged it is time to show action from British government and international community to Put pressure on the Burmese government to stop all violence and intimidation against Rohingyas, Support sending UN Peacekeeping Force and International Observers to Arakan, Unhindered delivery of humanitarian aids to the victims,Support for the establishment of a UN Commission of Inquiry in order to establish the true facts and bring those responsible to justice.

Mark Farmener from BCUK said “The international community is now paying attention to the situation in Rakhine State, but is not yet taking practical action. The purpose of the international day of action was to push the international community to take practical action to help pressure the government of Burma to take steps to stop the violence, allow full humanitarian access, and repeal the 1982 Citizenship Law.”

Mabrur Ahmed, Co-Director of Restless Beings, then ended the protest calling for theactivism of ALL, questioning the impotence of the democracy and free world that is hailed all across the world, yet remains silent on this issue. ‘’Where is the democracy when villages are being razed because they’re not the right religion, ethnicity or race, and yet President Obama will meet with President Thein Sein on the 16th November to discuss the supposed Burmese democracy.’’ He went on to question: ‘’Where are YOU when it comes to YOUR freedom and YOUR democracy? One day YOU will be too black, too white, too Muslim, too Christian, too Hindu, too Jewish, too fat, too skinny, one day YOU will not be deemed good enough to exist, who will speak for you on that day?’’

RB News Desk

In a joint statement, nine embassies in Yangon urged “all parties to work together to bring an immediate end to the violence”.

They appealed for “a full, transparent and independent investigation” to determine the roots of the Buddhist-Muslim clashes.

“We further encourage the government to enable safe, timely, and unhindered humanitarian access across Rakhine State to all persons in need,” according to the statement, which was also signed by the embassies of Australia, Egypt, France, Germany, Japan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

More than 100,000 people have been displaced and about 180 killed since clashes between ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims erupted in June, followed by another outbreak of violence in October.

A foreign diplomat in Yangon who did not want to be named said that although Myanmar was showing “a real willingness to cooperate” in aid efforts, security concerns in certain areas were a hurdle to deliveries.

The UN Refugee Agency has warned that the influx of internal refugees has pushed the Rakhine camps “beyond capacity in terms of space, shelter and basic supplies such as food and water”.

Doctors Without Borders said earlier this week its teams were struggling to reach most communities affected by the violence owing to “antagonism generated by deep ethnic divisions”.

Most of the displaced are stateless Rohingya, considered by the UN to be among the most persecuted minorities in the world.

Some ethnic Rakhine leaders have campaigned against international aid agencies in recent months, arguing they favour the Rohingya.

President Thein Sein said last month his government was open to aid from foreign donors, following a series of protests by Buddhists against efforts by a world Islamic body to help Muslims affected by the violence.

The country, which is emerging from decades of military rule, was the target of international criticism over its reluctance to allow outside aid to victims of a cyclone in 2008 that left more than 138,000 people dead or missing.

The UN human rights chief called on Myanmar yesterday to allow Muslim Rohingya to become citizens.

The Rohingya have no legal status, with the government and many Burmese regarding them as illegal immigrants from neighbouring Bangladesh.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay added her voice to calls for the problem to be resolved and urged a change in the law, saying the Rohingya had been excluded from the reform process.

“This should include a review of the citizenship law to ensure that Rohingya have equal access to citizenship,” Pillay said at the Bali Democracy Forum in Indonesia.

She also warned that the violence could hinder Myanmar’s much-heralded reform drive.

“While we can positively commend the government for the progress made towards democratic transition and national reconciliation, the communal violence, if not resolved, can undermine the reform process,” she said.

Local authorities in Rakhine said they had begun a process of verifying the nationality of all the state’s Muslims, amid widespread calls for those deemed “illegal” to be sent to another country. The precise goal of the survey was unclear.

Separately, Pillay said she pressed Myanmar’s Deputy Foreign Minister U Thant Kyaw at the Bali meeting to secure the release of a local UN refugee agency employee detained in Myanmar for almost five months. He gave her no response.

“If the government detains UN people carrying out their professional functions, it doesn’t sit very well with their reform agenda,” she said.

Vivian Tan, a spokeswoman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, said that the agency had asked Myanmar for details of the charges but received no response.

Other UN aid workers were detained earlier this year over their alleged roles in the sectarian unrest, but have since been released.

Source: AFP

LONDON (Alertnet) – Activists from one of the world’s most persecuted minorities have called for U.N. peacekeepers and international observers to be sent to western Myanmar where an explosion of violence has left scores of people dead and displaced more than 100,000.

Simmering tensions between Buddhist Rakhines and Muslim Rohingyas in volatile Rakhine State first boiled over in June. The clashes were followed by further bloodshed in late October.

Rohingya organisations around the world declared Nov. 8 a global day of action to draw attention to the plight of Rohingyas in Myanmar, and called for demonstrations outside Myanmar embassies and foreign ministries.

In a joint statement signed by groups in 10 countries around the world, they called for a U.N. Commission of Inquiry into the violence and full access for delivery of aid. Rights groups have said the Rohingyas' plight has made them one of the world's most persecuted minorities.

An estimated 800,000 Rohingyas live in Myanmar but they are officially stateless. The Buddhist-majority government regards them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and denies them citizenship.

Bangladesh, which does not recognise them either, has refused to grant Rohingyas refugee status since 1992 and the United Nations calls them "virtually friendless".

Thousands of homes have been destroyed in the recent violence and neighbourhoods have been burned to the ground, according to advocacy group Refugees International.

Tens of thousands of Rohingyas are now living in overcrowded camps with little water, sanitation or medical help. Rakhines have also been displaced but in far smaller numbers.

Melanie Teff, a senior advocate with Refugees International who visited Rakhine State in September, told AlertNet that conditions in the Rohingya camps “ranged from bad to utterly appalling”. A survey in August identified 2,000 acutely malnourished children at risk of dying.

Barriers have been erected on roads separating the two communities. Teff said restrictions on the movement of the Rohingyas meant many people had been cut off from their livelihoods.

Donors and aid agencies are worried that the displacement could lead to prolonged segregation which would entrench the Rohingyas’ marginalisation.

The statement, signed by Rohingya groups in Myanmar, Britain, Thailand, Malaysia, Japan, Australia, Germany, Netherlands, Denmark and Norway, also demands Myanmar repeal its 1982 citizenship law to end the Rohingyas’ stateless condition.

Sources : Alertnet

November 8, 2012 - Amsterdam, Netherlands: Burmese Rohingya Community in Netherlands demonstrated in front of Netherlands parliament in Den Haag.

The Rohingya activists and sympathizers of Rohingya in Netherlands demonstrated showing their Solidarity with other Rohingya organizations all over the world on the Day of Global Action against the state-sponsored genocides of Rohingyas and Kamans being carried in Arakan since June 2012. They demanded Myanmar government to immediately stop the genocidal killings and to send European special inquiry team and humanitarian aids to effected areas, to place displaced victims in their own land and to restore citizenship of Rohingya and recognize back as ethnic group of Burma.

The demonstration held from 12 pm to 4 pm.

RB News

M.S. Anwar

RB Article

November 8, 2012

Major section of Burmese society have been brainwashed by the hardcore dictatorship ruling the country for decades. They have been drowned in the delusion of racial purity and religious superiority. As a result, that has led them into being racists and fascists today. They hardly care about anyone and other religions besides their Burman race of Mongoloid origin and their religion Buddhism. For the worse, though they claim to be hardcore Buddhists, they never practice the soul principle of Buddhism, Metta (the loving-kindness). They think Metta is only for their own people or the people of their own kind. They seem to forget humanity. Were Gautama Buddha alive, he would be much disgusted with the skinned-head fascists and bigots in the saffron who falsely claim to preach Metta for humanity.

However, it will really be dismal to think that the Burmese regime is the sole stakeholder behind destabilizing the country because there can be many sides of a story rather than two. The purpose of the involvements of Rakhine terrorists in the mass-killings of Rohnigyas and Kamans is crystal clear: they want to have a separate and independent Arakan. Yet, there might be many more unseen powers playing to create unrest in the country so that they can take stronger base in the country and defeat one another politically and economically.

As I were saying, though 4% Muslim population in the country can hardly pose any threats, be it to the sovereignty of the nation or to Buddhism, the fanatic and supremacist Burmese dictators and the ultra-nationalist Burmese see the Muslims or Islam as the biggest threat. Therefore, it has become necessary for them to cleanse the Muslims first. The turns of the people of the faiths of Christianity, Hinduism and others etc might be followed.

Therefore, today’s anti-Rohingya and anti-Muslim movements can turn into anti-Indians, anti-Whites and Anti-Semitism tomorrow. Or it can turn into anti-Hindus, anti-Christians and anti-Jews etc when there are no more Muslims in the country. They are implementing their fascist policy step by step. (Note: In the violence in Arakan, many Hindus, too, have been killed together with Muslims because of their same physical appearances with Muslims. Majority of both Muslims and Hindus in Arakan are of Indo-Aryan descendants i.e. Indians. Indo-Aryans are the natives of the place called Arakan today. In the history, they had their own separate kingdoms. Later, Arakan was invaded by a feudal Burman king called Maung Wai and included into the Burma's map.)

After all, Burman ultranationalists carry resentment against British, Indian administrators and soldiers [whom Burman supremacists think inferior to them (Burman)] for dethroning their Supreme Kings. Besides, they were Indian Chettiers or money lenders, most of whom were South-Indian Hindu's, who did take much land used as collateral on loans that defaulted in the post-1900 economic downturn. It subsequently led Burman fanatics to riot against Indians which later came to be known as Kular-Bamar Riot. Thus, Burmese supremacist regime always wants to avenge these inferior creatures who once challenged their supremacy or supreme kingdoms whether or not it is possible. In short, Burmese supremacists are none other than modern Pro-Nazis and Neo-Fascists who want nothing but the sole Buddhism made up with the people of purely Burman of Mongoloid origin.

M.S. Anwar is an activist and student studying Bachelor of Arts in Business Studies at Westminster International College, Malaysia.

For Muslim Americans and other concerned citizens across the nation, news of still more violence against the largely Muslim Rohingya of Burma highlights the plight of one of the world’s most persecuted communities and the need for a global response. The latest bloodshed, coupled with two prior months of riots and murders, has left more than 700 dead and 80,000 homeless. This violence has been compounded by the behavior of the Burmese security forces who, according to major human rights organizations, have participated in killings and rapes as well as mass arrests against the Rohingya. 

By David Eimer, Bangkok

08 Nov 2012

8 November 2012

The violence in western Burma between Rohingya and Arakanese has evolved in recent weeks, and now there is a distinct possibility that a religious war is unfolding that could spread far beyond Arakan state. The most concerning sign is the recent attacks by Arakanese and security forces on Kaman Muslims, who had previously lived comfortably alongside Buddhist communities, and who have citizenship (the citizenship issue had been one of the main justifications used by Arakanese and the government for mistreatment of the Rohingya, who are stateless). 

Earlier this month a group of monks in Sittwe, the Arakan state capital, released a statement calling for Arakanese to “expose sympathisers of Bengali Kalars [a derogatory term for Rohingya] as national traitors along with photos and spread the information to every township”. A similar message was circulated by monks in Karen state, in eastern Burma, which has a far smaller population of Muslims. It said that anyone who interacted with Muslims – marry, trade with, and so on – would receive “critical punishment”. 

It is becoming increasingly hard to dismiss the violence as something local to western Burma. People in Arakan state appear eager to publicise that they are not Muslim: “Hindu boys we met working in the market had a tag hanging around their neck claiming they are Hindu with their home address (issued and signed by the ward leader), and they are not even full citizens,” a foreign NGO worker said of a recent visit to Sittwe in Arakan state. 

I had some interesting correspondence recently with another Thailand-based NGO worker who traveled to Bangladesh in late October and met with journalists – Arakanese, Rohingya, and Bangladeshi – and government officials. Below are some excerpts. 

“Both Rohingya and Arakanese reporters gave current anecdotes about small groups on the ground (in plain clothes), operating with impunity by authorities, actively trying to stir up religious conflict. They told detailed stories of daylight attacks on religious buildings, including brazenly burning the Kuran and attacking temples and mosques. 

“The Arakanese reporters seem nervous to write about these things as they fear attacks by their own people, but admitted that the authorities, especially the army, are openly trying to organise anti-Muslim activities and it is getting worse. They felt that many Arakanese leaders seem reluctant to carry out these activities again because of the damage they have already suffered and therefore the Tatmadaw [Burma army] is having to take even more aggressive measures to fuel this religious war.” 

The NGO worker, who doesn’t want to be named, also recounted discrimination experienced by colleagues in Karen and Karenni state in October. 

“Recently several of our partners went back into Karen and Karenni state to renew their Burmese ID’s. In two separate cases, in two separate areas, they said the question asked at the government office was whether they are Muslim. Also, after they “proved” they were not, the authorities explained they are now making a list of all Muslims in their areas. One office official said the list was being prepared to disenfranchise Muslims there.” 

To be sure, a lot of the stories being circulated are anecdotal, but put together, it suggests an evolution of this conflict that should be of pressing concern to all stakeholders. Both sides have committee grave abuses, but attempts so far at reconciliation seem to be hitting a brick wall. If it is true however that a belief system, rather than an ethnicity, is now being targeted, then the ramifications could be far-reaching.


-asiancorrespondent-