By Maung Zarni – Visiting Fellow (2011-2013), Civil Society and Human Security Research Unit, London School of Economics & Visiting Senior Research Fellow, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur.

Burma’s conflicts are neither new nor are they singular. Conflicts along multiple-lines – class and ideology, civil society and the military, and ethnic groups– have been going on for nearly 65 years, that is, since Burma’s independence from Britain in 1947/1948.[1]Understanding its conflict requires appreciation of the ‘deep’ historical dimensions; Burmese modern history is conflict-soaked(1947-present). Historically, the country was born out of pre-colonial and colonial conflicts in terms of ethnic relations, class divisions, and domestic power cliques, and into a new set of conflicts upon independence in January 1948. We can roughly divide the periods of conflict thus: the Cold War (1945-1989), the immediate post-Cold War period with its signature Western triumphalism (e.g., ‘The End of History’) (1988/89-2008), and the ‘new Cold War’ or new ‘Containment’[2] (2008-present)

When we talk about conflicts and advocacy, this periodization is crucial, because shifting external contexts and macro-level developments in international relations and the world economy have had significant impacts on both the country’s internal conflicts and the Burma advocacy, whether the advocacy is done by the West or the Burmese themselves.

It is inaccurate to frame Burma’s conflicts as ‘internal’ and advocacy as ‘Western.’ The term ‘internal conflicts’ is misleading because it implies neat discursive boundaries, as if Burma’s internal conflicts were simply confined within the country’s geographic national boundaries, with no real or significant outside players or interests (for instance, the U.S., the EU, ASEAN, China, India, and so on).Historically and sociologically, the methods of advocacy, the ethics or official rationale behind certain Western policy stances, and the impacts on the targeted conflict(s) (that is, Burma’s conflicts) shift depending on the discourse of security at play.

Three discourses of security as a macro-analytical framework dominate:

 1) ‘National Security’ (i.e., ‘regime security’) – internal interests and value system

 2) Global Security (For whom? Toward what end(s)? In whose interest?)

 3) Human Security (i.e., security of humans as individuals and communities) (a liberal humanistic discourse of well-being, physical safety, and public welfare, which contrasts sharply with the former two institution-centered securities/interests)

The first two are more or less two sides of the same dominant coin. Interstate global capitalism is stitched together by the UN, ASEAN, the EU, the ANU, the OIC, and IFIs (IMF, World Bank, ADB, etc.), where nation-states, both the institutions and the individuals who manage them, serve as building blocks of the global political economy in which private corporate interests reign supreme. This is a marriage of convenience—although there may or may not be love in these marriages, namely an ideological/cultural affinity or compatibility. And there is certainly room for intra-marriage conflicts and competition, but also internal elite interests and outside/external interests.

The third – human- or people-centered – security trails asa distant third in Western policy making. This reality is opposed to public discussions, where the omnipresent rhetoric of human rights masks its diminished status.

Advocacy in the Burmese context

My discussion will be confined to two periods: the post-Cold War Western triumphalist era (starting with the fall of Berlin Wall in 1989 and ending with the first Obama presidency, which marked the beginning of a radical shift in Washington’s Burma policy) and the new ‘Cold War’ or ‘China Containment.’

In the Post-Cold War era, he chief advocates were (in order of importance and influence):Aung San SuuKyi and her Burmese followers and international supporters, individual and institutional, from grassroots to ‘high-level advocacy’ (a loose global coalition of activists, advocates, lobbyists, and institutions in the fields of Human Rights, Environment, Policy and Legislative Affairs, Corporate Social Responsibility, Religion, Social Justice, and Women’s Affairs); and ethnic minority advocates. Their work was grounded in liberal ideals including freedom, democracy and human rights, as well as non- violence and new environmental/ecological outlooks and ideas.

Their methods of advocacy included old-fashioned face-to-face lobbying, grassroots direct actions, media advocacy, personal connections (the ‘champions,’ GOP Senator Mitch McConnell, Andrew Samak, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, and St. Antony’s College web of Michael Aris and colleagues and friends). The policies they advocated were largely punitive, more sticks than carrots. There were three waves of punitive measures since the uprisings and bloody crackdowns in the fall of 1988, further facilitated by the nearing end of the Cold War: starting with the downgrading of U.S. diplomatic relations from Ambassadorial to Charge d’Affairs, eventually culminating in various economic sanctions, including the highly restrictive financial sanctions, denial of ‘development assistance,’ humanitarian aid, and resumption of loans from the World Bank and other IFIs and development banks).

Here it is crucial to recognize the ‘circularity’ or ‘circular nature’ of policy substance, messages, and rationales. To be more specific, the chief advocate in Burma, Aung San SuuKyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD), and Western Burma advocates – Burmese and non-Burmese, individual and institutional, grassroots and high-level – crafted the messages and rationale in a concerted fashion for about twenty years. Some messages originated in Rangoon and were amplified in the West, while others were formulated in key Western capitals such as Washington and London and subsequently ‘blessed’ by the NLD leadership.

Unlike during the Cold War era, with regard to Burma policy advocacy efforts, insofar as they existed, the effective promotion of circular Burma policy ideas and substance was greatly enhanced by the rise of the information technology, such as the worldwide web, personal e-mails, fax machines, and other digital technologies.

Impacts on the conflicts inside Burma—and society at large 

Burma has already been isolated for 25 years under the one-party dictatorship of General Ne Win (1962-88),which was fully supported by the West, when, following the Cold War, the West shifted its Burma policy discourse and priorities, and, in line with calls from the NDL activists, further isolated the country internationally. The result was to arrest Burma’s ‘natural’ political and societal evolution with devastating long-term social and institutional consequences.

Contrast this to the Western approach to the equally repressive VietNam, especially Washington’s embrace of VietNam while both Rangoon and Hanoi attempted to open their countries’ economies along the state-led ‘Free Marketization’ process. Western advocacy further inflamed the main society-military conflicts as the former pushed for democratization and human rights in Burma. Among the ruling military circles in Burma and in ASEAN and Asian governments, this was nothing more than a typical Western double standard (as the West continued to support Suharto’s Indonesia and patched up with authoritarian VietNam).

Fearful of the West’s ‘hidden agenda’ under the disguise of human rights and democracy, the military intensified its repression against the Western-backed dissidents led by Aung San SuuKyi, while making ceasefire deals with armed ethnic minority resistance groups, thereby constraining the Burmese generals’ fight to a single-front battle, against the mainstream opposition of Aung San SuuKyi and the West.

This liberal Western advocacy was made possible because Burma was one of the places where the West felt it could afford to live out its liberal values,as it was pursuing its ‘core interests’ in places like the Middle East and, to a lesser extent, elsewhere in East and Southeast Asia. In other words, advocacy of human security was allowed to dominate Burma policy discussions and media coverage because other Western interests in Burma were not deemed very important.

Further, a typical defense of the West’s pro-isolationist and categorically punitive policies towards Burma in those years is that as a liberal democratic bloc it had no choice but to adopt the sanctions against the country under military rule. For the military held the general elections in 1990 and then simply nullified the NLD’s landslide electoral victory, a rather weak rationale considering that the West behaved differently towards Algeria and Nigeria which too held the elections the same year.

One significant negative impact of the last twenty-five years is the manufacturing of Aung San SuuKyi as a human rights icon and the adoption of her as ‘the darling of the capitalist West’ whose messages of individual rights lacked any critical class and economic analyses. Consequently, mainstream society’s conflict with the ruling military came to be personalized, erasing all other important aspects of the domestic conflicts such as class and ideological differences within the pro-democracy opposition and promoting the narrative of an Oxford-educated daughter of a martyred Asian nationalist taking on a beastly military regime of home-grown thugs and brutes This liberal narrative devoid of a crucial class understanding resonated with do-gooding Western audiences that generally view their West as a global force for good.

Despite the circulation of liberal vocabularies such as human rights or democracy, Suu Kyi’s opposition – and its societal supporters – failed to internalize any ideals they advocated – human rights, ethnic equality, liberty, universal brotherhood (and sisterhood). The opposition’s notable silence, starting with Aung San SuuKyi’s refusal to condemn the state-facilitated violence primarily against the Muslim Rohingya population, to the second and third line leaderships, is a case in point of the absence of any value transformation in the Burmese opposition in particular and in the pro-opposition society in general. This needs to be viewed as the inefficacy of the Western advocacy model to facilitate diverse voices for human rights and democratization. The West was trapped in its choice method of anointing a single voice – that is, Aung San SuuKyi – as the sole voice of the voiceless Burmese people, “the hope of Burma”.

Also noteworthy is that the nearly two dozen ethnic minority resistance groups, with the exception of the Karen National Union (KNU), the oldest armed non-state revolutionary group, did not feel a need to engage with Western advocacy because they were in various disparate ceasefire arrangements with the Burmese military . Even if these groups had engaged with the West on its Burma policies, it is doubtful whether their voices would have been taken as seriously as that of Aung San SuuKyi and the National League for Democracy. The KNU certainly did not gain any support, material or otherwise, from any Western government it had lobbied.

The New Cold War Era (2008-present)

There is a new crop of chief advocates that has come to overpower the old Burma democracy advocates, including Aung San SuuKyi. With regard to outside interests, for instance, Washington and the EU, both national governments and as a bloc, have reassessed and re-prioritized their respective Burma policies in the context of the decline of Western global influence and economic woes at home .None other than Obama’s White House led the charge in shifting Western advocacy from a focus on democracy and human rights, into line with the ‘Asian pivot’ or ‘new balancing’ paradigm. Luckily for the West, because it has long made Aung San SuuKyi the ‘voice of the voiceless’ in Burma, it found it relatively easy to bring on board a single dissident leader to accept the terms of (her) engagement with the ruling military.

Meanwhile, a ‘new’ discourse of ‘civil society’ has been developed and promoted by various Western advocacy groups, INGOs, media outlets, business interests, and faith-based organizations backed by Western governments, international development agencies, the UN, and other multilateral organizations. I put the word ‘new’ in quotation marks because this political and analytical notion has been around in modern political history since the days of the resistance movements against authoritarian regimes in Eastern Europe. But, only in the later days of Western advocacy did Western governmental-sponsors of social and institutional change along ‘free market’ lines (for instance, the U.S. State Department and the U.K.’s Department of International Development) begin to promote the language of civil society, breeding a new group of urban elite Burmese tolerated by and/or with symbiotic ties to the Burmese military and its ruling circles.

One of the most crucial developments to note here is that Western advocacy is no longer circular in its direction or substance. In the new era of ‘re-balancing’ or the ‘Asian pivot,’ the West, specifically Washington, no longer needed Burmese dissidents, morally speaking, for the substance of its strategic and policy messages beyond Aung San SuuKyi’s public ‘blessings.’ On their part, the mushrooming of civil society groups and advocates – many of them led by Western-funded and -trained ‘civil society actors’ – are used as an alternative ‘domestic’ social force, a dynamic alternative to the snail-paced, elderly-dominated National League for Democracy of Aung San SuuKyi. Many of these Burmese ‘civil society’ actors are used in Western advocacy at multiple levels: at the grassroots, these local groups are supported by the West in what I call the ‘NGO-ization’ of national and local politics, while the ones with close ties to the generals and ex-generals serve as ‘fixers' or ‘high-level advocacy’ local proxies for Western interests.

Further, since 2008, when the Obama Administration began its Burma policy review as part of its overall national security interest paradigm shift,the West has focused on lobbying the Burmese regime. This time, Washington has a new Burma mission: to create a new comfort zone for the generals and ex- generals wherein they would do business with the West, one step removed from Beijing. The new Western advocacy is about realpolitik while it continues to speak of Burma’s internal national reconciliation, gradual democratic transition, and human rights.

One other important development in terms of the emergence of new chief advocates is the fact that individuals and institutions with close ties to Western strategic and commercial interests (for instance, the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, etc.) have come to occupy the center stage of Burma advocacy. Instead of the usual liberal human rights discourse, Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke of bringing world-class American investors to Burma and sending the CIA chief to Burma in promotion of the country’s reforms. On their part, international financial institutions (IFIs), development banks and organizations, the UN, and humanitarian INGOs have gotten with the program.

As is to be expected, Burma advocates and advocacy groups – with their human rights, environmental issues, corporate social responsibility, women’s and ethnic rights, etc. –have found themselves on their back foot in the face of the ‘new’ Burma advocacy groups who speak the language of ‘political pragmatism,’ ‘economic developmentalism,’ ‘the Middle-Class-before-human-rights,’ ‘gradualism,’ and so on.

Despite the same pervasive human rights violations, perpetual humanitarian crises, the genocide against the Rohingya, a full-blown war against the Kachins in northern Burma, and mining and development-induced mass displacement of rural and ethnic communities, President Obama went on to frame Burma, in effect, as ‘a success story’ of his U.S. foreign policy.

The Messages

Human rights is out. ‘State capacity building’ is in. Ethnic conflicts are no longer to be resolved, but to be allowed to run their course without outside intervention – the kind that Ed Luttwak suggested in the case of the Israel-Palestine conflict and the kind the Sri Lankan army pursued.

In the name of political realism, the same Western advocacy that punished the Burmese generals for refusing to honor the results of the 1990 general elections, which would have made Aung San SuuKyi effectively a new Prime Minister in the post-Ne Win era, is now rewarding the same military, albeit under a new management, for allowing her to take her a largely symbolic seat in the Parliament that was created in accord with the anti-democratic – not just unfair or undemocratic – Constitution written by and for the military.

The Ethics

In spite of the liberal veneer of reforms, democratic transition and the operational rationale behind a new Western advocacy – this time dominated by powerful national security and commercial interests in Western capitals – is realpolitik through and through. When ‘pragmatism’ roars, liberal humanism retreats into quiet if disgruntled quarters populated by marginalized Burmese dissidents and their international Western solidarity groups. The new discourses of civil society, gradual reforms, and democratic transition are still justified in the name of human welfare and the human progress of the Burmese. This new ‘messaging’ can only be fully understood and appreciated if one places the new Western advocacy – insofar as it has been completely taken over by national security and commercial interests – in the typology of the‘three securities’ – national/regime security (of the Burmese regime), global security of commercial and strategic interests, and human security.

This time, the dominant Western advocacy no longer deems the promotion of human rights, beyond the rhetoric of Western and Burmese officials, as something affordable. But the ugly realities of human insecurity as lived by the great majority of Burmese Buddhist farmers, Rohingya Muslims, and Burmese Christians are difficult, if not impossible to address. So, Western advocacy is experiencing a Buddhist turn for the first time in the past twenty-five years: it’s all in the state of mind. If you can’t change the reality, change your perception, and the way you frame it, especially when doing so advances your national interest, however defined – hence, President Obama and his showcasing Burma as ‘a success story’ of his foreign policy.

The Impacts

The full consequences of this new Western advocacy will not be known for a long time. But if history is any indication, Western engagement with Burma’s authoritarian regimes (or, for that matter, with any other unsavory regimes) that is not informed by any humanistic principles but is largely driven by the West’s ‘core interests’ in Burma has not advanced the cause of public welfare.

[1]Post-WWII Britain in effect agreed to Burma’s independence the same year as India’s independence–1947, but for astrological reasons the Burmese nationalist leaders chose to do the formal transfer of power only in the early morningof4 January 1948.

[2]I amusing the Cold War-era vocabularies with full awareness of differences and new developments in the emerging ‘balance of power' scenarios and the Cold War-past.

Published here

Associated Press

March 25, 2013

YANGON, Myanmar – Anti-Muslim mobs rampaged through three more towns in Myanmar's predominantly Buddhist heartland over the weekend, destroying mosques and burning dozens of homes despite government efforts to stop the nation's latest outbreak of sectarian violence from spreading. 

President Thein Sein declared a state of emergency in central Myanmar on Friday and deployed army troops to the worst hit city, Meikhtila, where 32 people were killed and 10,000 mostly Muslim residents were displaced. But even as soldiers imposed order there after several days of anarchy that saw armed Buddhists torch the city's Muslim quarters, anti-Muslim unrest has spread south toward the capital, Naypyitaw. 

A Muslim resident of Tatkone, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) from Meikhtila, said by telephone that a group of about 20 men ransacked a one-story brick mosque there late Sunday night, pelting it with stones and smashing windows before soldiers fired shots to drive them away. Speaking on condition of anonymity because of security concerns, he said he believed the perpetrators were not from Tatkone. 

A day earlier, another mob burned down a mosque and 50 homes in the nearby town of Yamethin, state television reported. Another mosque and several buildings were also destroyed the same day in Lewei, farther south. It was not immediately clear who was behind the violence, and no clashes or casualties were reported in the three towns. 

The upsurge in sectarian unrest is casting a shadow over Thein Sein's administration as it struggles to bring democratic reform the Southeast Asian country after half a century of army rule officially ended two years ago this month. 

Two similar episodes rocked western Rakhine state last year, pitting ethnic Rakhine Buddhists against Rohingya Muslims in bloodshed that killed hundreds and drove 100,000 from their homes. 

The Rohingya are widely denigrated as illegal migrants from Bangladesh and most are denied passports as a result. The Muslim population of central Myanmar, by contrast, is mostly of Indian origin and does not face the same questions over nationality. 

The emergence of sectarian conflict beyond Rakhine state is an ominous development, one that indicates anti-Muslim sentiment has intensified nationwide since last year and, if left unchecked, could spread. 

Sectarian and ethnic tensions are not new in Myanmar. 

Muslims account for about four percent of the nation's roughly 60 million people, and during the long era of authoritarian rule, military governments twice drove out hundreds of thousands of Rohingya, while smaller clashes had occurred elsewhere. About one third of the population is comprised of ethnic minorities that practice Christianity or animism, and most have waged wars against the government for autonomy. 

Analysts say racism has also played a role. Unlike the ethnic Burman majority, most Muslims in Myanmar are of South Asian descent, populations with darker skin that migrated to Myanmar centuries ago from what are now parts of India and Bangladesh. 

The latest bloodshed "shows that inter-communal tensions in Myanmar are not just limited to the Rakhine and Rohingya in northern Rakhine state," said Jim Della-Giacoma of the International Crisis Group. "Myanmar is a country with dozens of localized fault lines and grievances that were papered over during the authoritarian years that we are just beginning to see and understand. It is a paradox of transitions that greater freedom does allow these local conflicts to resurface." 

"If a democratic state is the nation's goal, they need to find a place for all its people as equal citizens," Della-Giacoma said. "Given the country's history, it won't be easy." 

The government has put the total death toll in Meikhtila at 32, and authorities say they have detained at least 35 people allegedly involved in arson and violence in the region. 

On Sunday, Vijay Nambiar, the U.N. secretary-general's special adviser on Myanmar, toured Meikhtila and called on the government to punish those responsible. 

He also visited some of the nearly 10,000 people driven from their homes in the unrest. Most of the displaced are minority Muslims, who appeared to have suffered the brunt of the violence as armed Buddhist mobs roamed city. 

Nambiar said he was encouraged to learn that some individuals in both communities had helped each other and that religious leaders were now advocating peace. He said the people he spoke to believe the violence "was the work of outsiders," but he gave no details. 

"There is a certain degree of fear and anxiety among the people, but there is no hatred," Nambiar said after visiting both groups on Sunday and promising the United Nations would provide as much help as it can to get the city back on its feet. "They feel a sense of community and that it is a very good thing because they have worked together and lived together." 

But he added: "It is important to catch the perpetrators. It is important that they be caught and punished." 

In Meikthila, at least five mosques were set ablaze from Wednesday to Friday. The majority of homes and shops burned in the city also belonged to Muslims, and most of the displaced are Muslim. Dozens of corpses were piled in the streets, some of them charred beyond recognition. 

"The city is calm and some shops have reopened, but many still live in fear. Some still dare not return to their homes," said Win Htein, an opposition lawmaker from the city. 

Myanma Ahlin, a state-run newspaper, carried a statement from Buddhist, Muslim, Christian and Hindu leaders expressing sorrow for the loss of life and property and calling on Buddhist monks to help ease tensions. 

"We would like to call upon the government to provide sufficient security and to protect the displaced people and to investigate and take legal measures as urgently as possible," the statement from the Interfaith Friendship Organization said. 

Muslims, who make up about 30 percent of Meikhtila's 100,000 inhabitants, have stayed off the streets since their shops and homes were burned and Buddhist mobs armed with machetes and swords began roaming the city. 

Little appeared to be left of some palm tree-lined neighborhoods, where the legs of victims could be seen poking out from smoldering masses of twisted debris and ash. Broken glass, charred cars and motorcycles and overturned tables littered roads beside rows of burned-out homes and shops, evidence of the widespread chaos that swept the town. 

Chaos began Wednesday after an argument broke out between a Muslim gold shop owner and his Buddhist customers. Once news spread that a Muslim man had killed a Buddhist monk, Buddhist mobs rampaged through a Muslim neighborhood and the situation quickly spiraled out of control. 

Residents and activists said the police did little to stop the rioters or reacted too slowly, allowing the violence to escalate. 

___ 

Associated Press writers Todd Pitman and Grant Peck contributed to this report from Bangkok.

Dr. Maung Zarni

March 24, 2013

What is 9-6-9 or 969? 

Listen to a typical anti-Islam hate speech by 969 leader Wirathu here

It is the most dangerous, but fast-growing neo-Nazi "Buddhist" movement in Burma founded post-Rohingya slaughter last year. It is led, most prominently by a Saffron-robed pseudo-monk Mr Wirathu. In its national network are Buddhist Sar-thin-tike or teaching Buddhist colleges. In broad day light Buddhist lecturers and teachers from this network, for instance, in Moulmein were seen giving hate-speeches disguised as "Buddhist sermons", with absolutely no interruptions from local authorities.

969 is Myanmar's home-grown neo-Nazi group founded and led by extremist Buddhist monks with the avowed aim of defending Buddhist faith, Myanmar race and Buddhist nation from Burmese Muslims. 

9 stands for the nine special attributes of Lord Buddha, 6 for the six special attributes of Buddha's teachings and the last 9 for the nine special attributes of the Buddhist Sangha or Order.

969 appears to work in close collaboration with Burma's security forces, the new Burmese media and the People's Relations and Psychological Warfare Division of the Ko Ministry of Defense. 

A categorically anti-Muslim/anti-Islam message tinged with the language of nationalist and national security is consistently and commonly coming from these sources:

1) Myanmar's new media such as the late medical Dr Nay Win Maung's The Voice, another medical Dr Than Tun Aung's Eleven News Group; 

2) official media outlets and offices such as the Ministry of Defense-run Myawaddy News and President Office's spokesperson Hmu Zaw or ex-Major Zaw Htay; and

3) 969 of Buddhist skin-heads the likes of Wirathu and his fellow skinhead monks

President Thein Sein's reformist government at best tolerates its categorically anti-Islam hate speeches and activities and at worst backs, if tacitly, the group and its incitement of violence against the country's Muslims.

Any democratic country in the world where hate speech is not protected by' the freedom of speech' would certainly arrest the leaders of 969 for their fear-mongering, hate speeches against a particular religious community.

One of the best known leaders of this group is Mr Wirathu, a Saffron-robed fake Buddhist monk and preacher, who was jailed in 2003 for his direct involvement in the massacre of Muslim families and destruction of a mosque in the up-country town of Kyauk-hse, the birthplace of the aging and retired despot Senior General Than Shwe.

969 calls for boycott of Muslim businesses, social ostracism of all Muslims and purging of Burmese Muslims from all positions of wealth, influence and power in Burma. It also stokes the historical anti-Muslim and anti-Indian popular sentiment among the predominantly Buddhist population of the country. 

One should not be surprised if 969 turns out to be a strategic proxy organization founded by the radical, hard-line elements within the military leadership that plans to discredit Aung San Suu Kyi and other opposition figures in Burma through the 969's messages of anti-civilian politicians and activists. 

969 openly frames Aung San Suu Kyi as a stooge of rich and cunning Muslim enemies who are hell-bent on taking over Buddhist Myanmar nation and destroying Buddhism.

969 leaders position themselves as the ones who are most nationalistically mindful and who are best positioned to defend 'Buddhist faith, Bama or Myanmar race and Buddhist nation' against the sole enemy of Muslims'.

Through its incitement of religious discrimination, Buddhist apartheid, violence against Muslims and acts of grassroots hate-mobilization against the country's Muslims, 969 is most definitely involved in violent crimes against the Muslims in Burma. It is a group whose activities need to be closely monitored by the international community. 

Before the next wave of skin-head violence by organized "Buddhist" mobs against the Muslims and other religious and ethnic minorities washes hits the country of otherwise peaceful and acquiescent Burmese of all ethnic and religious backgrounds, the anti-hate speech campaigners and concerned citizens, governments and international NGOs must get pro-active in nipping this home-grown "Buddhist" neo-Nazi movement in the military-ruled Myanmar.

Aung Zaw

The Irrawaddy

March 25, 2013

There is no doubt that the violent attacks on Muslims in Meiktila, a garrison city in central Burma, were politically motivated. It has been a gruesome spectacle. Muslims were beaten, dragged out into the streets, doused with petrol and burned alive.

The police were slow to restore law and order. As the attackers, who were armed with knives, machetes and walkie-talkies, roamed the city, the police just stood by and watched. Some thugs allegedly pushed though police lines to attack Muslims, and still the police did little to protect them, according to eyewitnesses. 

Min Ko Naing, a former student leader and prominent activist, rushed to the scene with some monks to stop the violence. At one point, a group of people involved in the attacks threatened to kill them. 

When he arrived Meiktila, Min Ko Naing pleaded with the marauding mobs to stop their attacks. His words were not well received, however, and he was forced to retreat. Within hours, photos likening him to an Al Qaeda terrorist were posted on Facebook. This came after weeks of anti-Muslim vitriol filled social media sites. Clearly, there has been a very well-orchestrated campaign to vilify Muslims in Burma and discredit anyone seen as sympathetic to them. 

Journalists were among those singled out for intimidation. Despite efforts to silence them, however, many said that the violence they witnessed seemed systematic and well-planned. 

Several witnesses and reporters on the ground said that the killers rode around the city on motorcycles looking for Muslims to murder. Nobody made any attempt to stop them. In addition, “monks” from other parts of the country joined in the carnage, while local authorities stood idly by.

It’s hard to believe that Burma’s security forces and riot police, who have a reputation for ruthlessly suppressing protests, have suddenly lost their nerve. In 1988, they did not hesitate to gun down people who took to the streets to call for an end to military rule. And in 2007, they violently cracked down on monks without a second’s thought. So what happened in Meikhtila? 

Many suspect that last week’s violence in central Burma involved the same people who took part in attacks and riots in Arakan State last year. But so far there is no evidence to support this claim. I’m more inclined to believe that masterminds behind the Meikhtila attacks are people too big to catch. The government has yet to apprehend anyone involved in the recurring spasms of violence that continue to traumatize the country. 

So who organized the attacks? One theory is that hardcore elements in the establishment are behind the violence. Some speculate that they may be enemies of the Thein Sein government who want to undermine the president’s reforms. Others suggest that the malefactors may be powerful countries and businessmen who feel that they are losing out because of Burma’s new opening to the outside world. 

At any rate, the clear winners here are the military, which was called in to quell the riots after Thein Sein ordered a state of emergency last Friday. In the current atmosphere, the sight of troops in the streets is almost reassuring. This has raised fears that if the situation deteriorates further, the military could take over the reins of power completely to restore law and order. 

It is also clear that Burma’s Buddhists—particularly its monks—have suffered an enormous black eye due to the actions of a shadowy group of chauvinists who have used religion as a pretext for terrorizing a segment of Burma’s population. 

The sad truth, however, is that this is not the first time that Buddhism has been twisted beyond recognition to serve the interests of a tiny cabal with malicious intentions. After all, for half a century, successive military dictatorships employed a grotesque parody of Buddhism to manipulate the masses. 

Non-Buddhists have always had a hard time in Burma’s armed forces, at least since independence in 1948. But the situation deteriorated even further after the military seized power in 1962, after which only ethnic Burman Buddhists stood any chance of rising through the ranks. 

The military also sought to impose ethnic purity on the nation as a whole, by relegating non-Burmans and non-Buddhists to the very fringes of society. Eventually, even Buddhists, who watched helplessly as their religion was degraded by power-hungry murderers, were marginalized along with everyone else who did not wear a uniform. 

Although they portrayed themselves as devout Buddhists, Burma’s military rulers showed no compassion toward anyone who did not bow before them. They repressed not only ethnic minorities, but also critics and dissidents, often with brutal force. 

The outcome is that we now have countless “Buddhist extremists” in Burma. Sadly, they are everywhere. They are out on the streets and sitting in Parliament, wearing military fatigues, business suits and monk’s robes. 

So the rise of “Buddhist” fascists in Burma comes as no surprise to anyone who has witnessed the machinations of the country’s rulers over the past half-century. Their presence in the streets of Meikhtila is no more than a throwback to the darkest days of military rule, and one that will not be exorcised easily.

Operation Rohingya

The Peoples Press

March 25, 2013

It is vital the information we are going to share with you is made viral as quickly as possible. The ethnic Rohingya people of Myanmar (Burma) in Southeast Asia are being massacred. These barbarous acts are being carried out by Neo-Nazi racist groups like the RNDP (Rakhine Nationalities Development Party), ALA (Arakan Liberation Army), NaSaKa border police and 969 monks led by Monk Wirathu, the self proclaimed Bin Laden of Buddhism. The Government of Myanmar is at best ignoring the slaughter of these people, just like the rest of the international community, and at worst is participating in the crimes.

The persecution of the Rohingya people is severe. The Burmese junta considers them to be sub-human and denies them almost all basic human rights. Often they are subject to torture, gang rape, starvation, slave labor, and forced to reside in the most dire camps in the world – some call these refugee camps but they are concentration camps.

Over the past few months, thousands of Rohingya have been encouraged onto boats and sent out to sea with not enough food or fuel, and left there to die. Some of the boats were attacked and sunk, with women and children on board.

While the United States claims to defend human rights, their record clearly reflects a government that will only intercede when their business interests are threatened. While politicians occasionally pay lip service to the horrific conditions in Myanmar no action is ever taken.

The only people neglecting the situation in Myanmar worse than the U.S. are the press who consistently ignored these atrocities or reported them as ‘ethnic clashes’. Since they have failed to document these crimes in any way, we consider the media to be complicit in concealing them from the rest of the world.

The acts of genocide being committed against the Rohingya people must no longer be ignored. We call on Anonymous and all supporters of human rights to stand against this great injustice and lend the Rohingya people a voice, before they are completely eliminated.

The Rohingya are now anticipating a third massacre, in which Rakhine have declared they will leave no Rohingya left on the land, just a few left as exhibits for the museum.

Please join us urgently to help prevent this massacre from occuring, through the following actions:

(1) Sign the following petitions:

• http://endgenocide.org/actions/protect-the-rohingya/
• http://www.avaaz.org/en/justice_for_rohingya_muslims/
• http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/36335
• http://www.activism.com/en_CA/petition/petition-to-the-canadian-government-on-behalf-of-the-rohingya-muslims-of-burma/42370
• http://www.petitions24.net/tous_contre_le_massacre_de_rohingyas_en_birmanie

(2) Call, fax, email (FLOOD, SPAM, ANNOY) demanding that URGENT action be IMMEDIATELY taken to save the Rohingya.

Office of the Spokesperson for the Secretary General

Tel. 212-963-7162

Fax. 212-963-7055

http://www.un.org/en/contactus/

Embassy of the Republic of Myanmar

202 332-3344

202 332-4350

202 332-4352

Fax: 202 332-4351

info@mewashingtondc.com

U.S. Department of State

202-647-4000

202-647-6575

http://contact-us.state.gov/app/ask/session/L3RpbWUvMTM2NDAwNDU2OC9zaWQvX2U0VGZSbGw%3D

Departments of MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Government of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar

ASEAN Affairs Department

Director General: U Aung Lin

Deputy Director General: Daw Aye Aye Mu

Political and Security Division: 95-67-412 360

Economic and Functional Cooperation Division: 95-67-412-357

Coordination Division: 95-67-412 345

The World Bank

1818 H Street, NW

Washington, DC 20433 USA

tel: (202) 473-1000

fax: (202) 477-6391

(3) In the coming days we will be releasing a twitter storm package for #OpRohingya. Stay tuned. In the meantime, follow on twitter @OpRohingya, @JamilaHanan, @Aungaungsittwe and @GeorgieBC for Rohingya updates.

We Are Anonymous.

We Are Everywhere.

We Are the voice of Voiceless.

We Are Legion.

Tyrants of the World,

Expect Us!

#OpRohingya Engaged.

Displaced people rest at a relief camp in Meiktila, central Myanmar on March 24, 2013.

Phyo Wai Lin, Jethro Mullen and Kocha Olarn
CNN
March 25, 2013

Yangon, Myanmar -- Residents of the city in central Myanmar where clashes between Buddhists and the Muslim minority killed dozens of people last week struggled to resume their daily lives on Monday with a state of emergency still in place. 

Even as an uneasy calm prevailed in Meiktila, the city at the heart of the unrest, police reported fresh arson attacks on Muslim properties in other areas, showing the challenges Myanmar authorities face in reining in communal tensions in this nascent democracy. 

A group of Buddhists on Saturday night torched 65 houses and religious buildings in Yemethin Township, which is about 40 kilometers south of Meiktila and not under a state of emergency, according to Lt. Col. Aung Min, a spokesman for the Myanmar Police Force. 

And on Sunday night, smaller outbreaks of arson took place in other towns further south, including Okpo and Tatkon, he said.

The attacks over the weekend caused property damage, but didn't result in any deaths, Aung Min said. That contrasts with the violence in Meiktila last week, which killed at least 32 people, according to the New Light of Myanmar, a state-run newspaper. 

In the Meiktila clashes, which were reportedly set off by a dispute between a Muslim gold shop owner and two Buddhist sellers, rioters set fire to houses schools and mosques, prompting thousands of residents to flee their homes. 

State of emergency 

As the violence threatened to spiral out of control, authorities declared a state of emergency on Friday, which allows the military to help reinstate order. 

Police confiscated weapons such as swords and machetes from groups of Buddhists -- some of them monks -- who were roaming the streets, officials said. 

As authorities began to clear up after the mayhem, they found more than 20 bodies so badly burned they couldn't be identified, the New Light of Myanmar reported. 

The newspaper said Sunday the unrest had left 8,707 people living in temporary shelters such as a soccer stadium and a monastery in Meiktila, a lakeside city about 130 kilometers north of the administrative capital, Naypyidaw. 

But Win Htein, an opposition member of parliament for the area, on Monday gave a higher estimate for the number of people displaced by the unrest, saying 10,000 Muslims and 7,000 Buddhists had been driven from their homes. 

"We are facing the problem of not having enough food and blankets," he said. 

At the same time, he said, the overall situation in the city had improved,with shops starting to reopen. 

Win Htein had said last week that he believed that most of those killed in the violence were Muslims. 

Police have detained a total of 36 people in relation to the recent clashes in Meiktila and other towns, Aung Min said Monday. 

Concerns after previous unrest 

The United Nations and the United States have both expressed concern about the recent violence in Myanmar, which is emerging from decades of military repression and has taken a number of significant steps toward democracy in recent years under President Thein Sein. 

The sudden boiling over of tensions between Buddhists and Muslims in central Myanmar follows sectarian troubles that killed scores of people in the west of the country last year. 

Those clashes, in Rakhine State, took place between the Buddhist majority and the Rohingya, a stateless ethnic Muslim group. 

Most of the victims in that unrest were Rohingya. Tens of thousands more were left living in makeshift camps, and many of them have since joined those who attempt each year to flee to Thailand and Malaysia in flimsy boats. 

Journalist Phyo Wai Lin reported from Yangon, CNN's Kocha Olarn reported from Bangkok, Thailand, and CNN's Jethro Mullen reported and wrote from Hong Kong.

Aye Win Myint 

Reuters

March 25, 2013

MEIKHTILA, Myanmar (Reuters) - Myanmar's government is struggling to contain anti-Muslim violence that touched the outskirts of the capital, Naypyitaw, at the weekend and forced it to send troops to patrol the streets in the town where the recent trouble started. 

Four houses and a small mosque in Tatkon township on the northern edges of Naypyitaw were set ablaze late on Sunday, a civil servant in the capital told Reuters on Monday. 

Communal tension, stifled under half a century of army rule, has resurfaced since President Thein Sein's reformist government took office in 2011. 

It has released dissidents and relaxed media censorship, but was also criticised for failing to quell last year's violence in Rakhine State in western Myanmar. Official figures say 110 people were killed and 120,000 were left homeless, most of them Rohingya Muslims. 

The latest unrest began last Wednesday in Meikhtila, 130 km (80 miles) north of the capital and sparked by an argument between a Buddhist couple and the Muslim owners of a gold shop that escalated into rioting in which 32 people died, official figures show. 

Police were criticised in the media and by local people for making little effort to halt the violence as ethnic Burmese Buddhists including monks stalked the streets armed with swords and knives. 

More than 2,000 people are now living in makeshift camps, but calm has been restored by the military, sent in on Friday when the government declared martial law in the area. 

"I think I am safe now and I can reopen my shop because of soldiers guarding the town," 52-year-old Khin Mya told Reuters. "Soon after soldiers arrived, we got peace. The situation had been very, very dangerous in previous days." 

Vijay Nambiar, U.N. special adviser on Myanmar, told Reuters after visiting the area on Sunday that the government had said to him it would not hesitate to send troops in elsewhere if needed. 

In a statement, the United Nations warned the sectarian unrest could endanger the reforms initiated by Thein Sein. 

"Religious leaders and other community leaders must also publicly call on their followers to abjure violence, respect the law and promote peace," Nambiar said in the statement. 

State-run MRTV said on Sunday police had arrested 35 people in Meikhtila and two other townships in connection with the violence. 

In one incident late on Saturday, unknown assailants torched more than 40 homes, 38 belonging to Muslims, in Ywadan village in Yamaethin township, said Soe Lwin, a local official. The village is 66 km (41 miles) south of Meikhtila. 

"At about 8 p.m., around 100 people turned up shouting 'Let's burn it down, let's burn it down,' and started destroying our house first," said a 35-year-old shop owner in Ywadan, asking not to be named. 

"It didn't look like they were outsiders. I think it's the people from this area," he said, speaking through the fence of a school where Muslims had taken refuge. "I could feel the way they looked at us had changed since Meikhtila happened." 

Tension was high in certain parts of Yangon, the former capital and Myanmar's biggest city. Police were stationed outside mosques on Sunday evening. 

Myanmar is a predominately Buddhist country, but about 5 percent of its 60 million people are Muslims. 

(Reporting by Aung Hla Tun in Yangon, Soe Zeya Tun in Ywadan and Andrew R.C. Marshall in Bangkok; Writing by Paul Carsten; Editing by Alan Raybould)

The Irrawaddy

March 24, 2013

MEIKHTILA — Dozens of building were destroyed by fire on Saturday in the latest outbreak of violence in central Burma since clashes between Buddhists and Muslims began last Wednesday, leaving at least 32 people dead. 

Local sources said that a brawl broke out at a Muslim-owned teashop in Ywa Tan, a village in Yamethin Town, Mandalay Division, at around 7 pm Saturday night. In the ensuing violence, a mob torched 58 buildings, including the teashop, the sources said. 

It was unclear who the attackers were, but 50 of the destroyed buildings were reportedly Muslim-owned. There were no immediate reports of casualties. 

Yamethin is located about 34 miles (55 km) from Meikhtila, the scene of three days of violence that left at least 32 people dead, according to the latest official figures announced by state-run television on Saturday night. 

When contacted by The Irrawaddy, an official from Yamethin Police Station confirmed that a fire had broken out in Ywa Tin at around 7 pm Saturday, but he declined to say if it was related to the violence in Meikhtila. 

“We are still investigating the cause of this incident and who is involved, so at this moment we can’t disclose any detailed information,” he said. 

In Saturday’s broadcast, state media said that a total of 8,189 people had been displaced by the violence, with most now taking shelter in six camps set up by the government. 

Order was largely restored in the city by Saturday, after a state of emergency was ordered by President Thein Sein on Friday and the army was brought in to patrol the streets. 

On Sunday morning, Vijay Nambiar, the special advisor on Burma to the UN secretary-general, visited relief camps in the city and called on the government to punish those responsible for the riots. 

According to a report by the Associated Press, Nambiar said he was encouraged to learn that some individuals in both the Buddhist and Muslim communities had bravely helped each other, and that local religious leaders were now advocating peace. 

“There is a certain degree of fear and anxiety among the people, but there is no hatred,” he said. 

His remarks came a day after Burma’s Interfaith Friendship Organization issued a statement urging Buddhist monks and followers of different religions in the country to help ease the tension, maintain community harmony and keep themselves away from unnecessary conflict. 

The statement, by Buddhist, Muslim, Christian and Hindu leaders, also called on the government to take action as necessary under the law as soon as possible.

It was not too long ago that we witnessed the grisly massacre of minority Rohingya Muslims in the Arakan (Rakhine) state of Myanmar (Burma). Many of the western observers who grew up seeing the smiling face of Dalai Lama were simply shocked to see armed Buddhist monks participating in that ethnic cleansing of the unarmed Rohingya Muslims.

Not only had the monks participated in those violent criminal acts with their fellow Buddhist Rakhine zealots terrorizing the minority Muslims of the western frontier state but they were also guilty of providing the very rationale – a criminal one - for such inhuman crimes against the members of a non-Buddhist faith who were different ethnically, culturally and religiously.

In that pogrom, while we may never know the exact casualty figure because of government complicity in the tragedy – Rohingyas probably died in thousands, and hundreds remain unaccounted for even after nine months. With international pressure, and worldwide condemnation, while that pogrom of last year (May-October, 2012) against the minority Rohingyas has stopped, albeit temporarily, there were many ominous signs for any keen observer to predict of a troubling future awaiting the non-Buddhists living inside Myanmar.

The Buddhist monks in Myanmar with very few exceptions have essentially become not only the collaborators of the quasi-military regime that runs the country but also the vanguards of a new Myanmarism in which people who are different are increasingly marginalized and/or dehumanized. Buddhist monks, dependent on begging and handouts, have had always thrived on donations and gifts made by others, esp. the rich patrons and Buddhist kings. That benevolent role is now filled in by the government. (As the Muslim and Hindu lands are confiscated, their homes and shops, religious centers, shrines and mosques burnt down or razed to the ground often times Buddhist pagodas are built on such confiscated or evicted and destroyed places.)

The level of collaboration runs so deep that when last year the so-called reform minded President Thein Sein called for expelling the Rohingyas to a third country and that the UN should take charge of them, it was the Buddhist monks who were at the forefront of the processions demanding such expulsion. They have hitherto called upon the government to creating apartheid zones for the Muslim minorities, away from the Buddhist majority people, let alone demanding the exclusion of Muslims from jobs, and even enacting laws that prohibit selling to and buying from Muslims. It is an all-out apartheid system that they have been promoting against the much-discriminated and despised non-Buddhist minorities in the Buddhist-majority Myanmar.

As a result, in recent months tens of thousands of Rohingya Muslims have become the ‘boat people’ of the Southeast Asia braving the scorching sun and tumultuous seas hoping to find a place under the sun in this vast planet of ours to live without being slaughtered like lambs in the slaughterhouse of Myanmar. Hundreds have died and many have ended up in prisons. The Christian-majority Kachin state to the north is also bleeding because of marauding attacks from the Myanmar government forces there. Nearly a quarter million internally displaced persons of the Christian and Muslim faiths now live in sub-human conditions in Kachin and Rakhine states, respectively. Buddhist monks and politicians have also barred necessary relief items from reaching the intended victims.

Tomas Ojea Quintana, U.N. Special Rapporteur for human rights in Burma, recently told the U.N. Human Rights Council that rights violations linked to the Kachin conflict—along with ethnic tensions between Rohingya Muslims and Rakhine Buddhists in western Burma—remain unresolved in Myanmar. “While the process of reform is continuing in the right direction, there are significant human rights shortcomings that remain unaddressed, such as discrimination against the Rohingya in Rakhine state and the ongoing human rights violations in relation to the conflict in Kachin state,” said Quintana, who visited Burma last month.

Obviously, Buddhism has failed and is failing miserably or so it seems when it comes to enlightening the savage and non-enlightened souls amongst its own people inside Myanmar. The word ‘non-violence’ has lost its meaning in Myanmar. One only has to be different, the ‘other’ people – racially or religiously – to see the ugly side of such pogroms, which have sadly become the norms and not exceptions.

So, it was not a question of why but when we would be revisited by a new violence. As the recent events in Meikhtila, a town roughly 80 miles north of the capital Naypyidaw, showed Myanmar is increasingly becoming difficult and almost impossible for non-Buddhists to live in this once multi-racial and multi-religious country.

Last Wednesday, a heated argument between a Muslim gold shop owner in Meikhtila and his Buddhist customers erupted, which spiraled into a street brawl. Soon thereafter Buddhist mobs roamed the streets with sticks and swords and set Muslim buildings ablaze. Rioting and arson attacks spread on Friday to villages outside Meiktila, as mobs of Buddhists, some led by monks, continued a three-day rampage through Muslim areas. Several mosques were burned down. Hundreds of Muslim homes were ransacked first and then set on fire.

According to the New York Times (NYT), witnesses reached by phone said security forces did little to stop the violence. “Mobs were destroying buildings and killing people in cold blood,” said U Nyan Lynn, a former political prisoner who witnessed what he described as massacres. “Nobody stopped them — I saw hundreds of riot police there.”

“Images from Meiktila showed entire neighborhoods burned to the ground, some with only blackened trees left standing. Lifeless legs poked from beneath rubble. And charred corpses spoke to the use of fire as a main tool of the rioting mobs,” writes Thomas Fuller of the NYT.

“I can’t handle what I saw there,” said Daw Nilar Thein, a human rights activist. She described the violence as anarchic and unspeakable.

One video posted to Facebook by Radio Free Asia on Friday showed Muslim women and men cowering and shielding their heads from flying objects as they fled their attackers. Onlookers are overheard shouting, “Oooh! Look how many of them. Kill them! Kill them!”

On Friday, a group of Buddhist monks threatened news photographers, including one who works for The Associated Press, with a sword and homemade weapons. With a monk holding a blade to his neck, U Khin Maung Win, the A.P. photographer, handed over his camera’s memory card. “We are trying to leave the town,” Mr. Khin Maung Win said by telephone. “They are now after journalists, too.”

Just as in Arakan the past year, those Buddhists behind the violence in Meiktila are trying to stop images of the destruction from getting out.

The exact numbers of those killed and injured since Wednesday in Meikhtila are still unknown, but the numbers may reach more than 100.

Whatever the figure, the culture of impunity surrounding ethnic violence must end in Myanmar. Who would have thought that a failed sales negotiation in a jewelry shop would trigger a religious riot? The whole episode smells of the Hitler-era Nazism in which Jewish homes and businesses were targeted by his dreaded SS. In Myanmar’s context, the Buddhist monks and their inspired zealots within the Buddhist population are increasingly behaving like those criminal SS thugs of the Nazi era. It is, thus, not difficult to understand why in such pre-planned sinister riots the security forces behave more as spectators -- if they, of course, choose not to join the Buddhist mob -- than as law enforcing government agents.

As I have maintained before, these kinds of targeted violence against Muslims and other religious minorities do enjoy wider popular support within this Buddhist-majority apartheid state and are endorsed from the top echelon in politics. Shamelessly, therefore, the lawmakers like opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi have remained silent on how to the end ethnic violence racking the country in recent months.

Like many human rights advocates and activists, Mark Farmaner of Burma Campaign UK has condemned such sinister silence. Recently he said, "Staying silent is clearly not working, because in that vacuum, those who are inciting more violence are free to operate when they need to be challenged and tackled head on." "There needs to be a change of approach not just from Suu Kyi,” he says, “but from all the political and religious leaders in the country to acknowledge that there is this growing anti-Muslim feeling in the country."

The Euro-Burma Office, a respected Brussels-based advocacy group, warned on Friday of a "Rwandan-like genocide" of Myanmar's Muslims.

As we have noticed previously with the Rakhine state, President Thein Sein has issued a state of emergency on Friday. The state-run New Light of Myanmar newspaper has urged the public to expose those who led and attempted to instigate.

Muslims have been put in Meiktila’s sports stadium, where food and water are scarce. Photographs showed frightened-looking people rushing to the stadium, clutching belongings and carrying their children and the elderly, amid jeering Buddhist crowds.

The state of emergency is a half-hearted reactive measure that will not prevent Muslims and other vulnerable minorities from becoming objects of ethnic cleansing and religious riots in the future.

"Governments are meant to guarantee rights, ensure that people are treated equally before the law, that nondiscrimination is the rule of the land, and that minorities have their rights protected," said Phil Robertson of Human Rights Watch. "After seeing this [violence in Meikhtila], would anyone be confident in saying that the government is doing a good job?"

Surely not! But with western appetite for Myanmar’s natural resources on the rise, human rights have taken a back seat. And thus, none of the veto-wielding countries are stopping this extermination campaign against the Muslims of Myanmar, and punishing the regime for its monumental failure, or worse yet collusion, to safeguarding their lives and properties. In their failure, the notion of Buddhists, especially monks, rampaging through Muslim neighborhoods with weapons is becoming a recurring phenomenon. And this specter must stop not only for the health of Buddhism but also for greater good of humanity.

Bangkok Post
March 24, 2013

Hin Lat village is at the centre of a controversy involving murdered members of the group. And while locals claim only altruistic motives in helping them, others suspect complicity in trafficking

For thousands of Rohingya fleeing Myanmar's troubled Rakhine state, the sleepy fishing village of Ban Hin Lat is the first port of call on their difficult quest to find better lives.

If they make it to the village in the Khura Buri district of Phangnga they will find a relatively well-off fishing community and locals more than sympathetic to their plight. Most of the locals are Muslims, and some Myanmar nationals work legally on fishing boats. 

In the grounds of the local mosque, out of sight from the main road, is a 10m Rohingya vessel inscribed in Thai with the words "Rohingya people _ the forgotten citizens of the world". 

Ga, a 43-year-old Thai Muslim who heads the unofficial Rohingya Help Centre in Hin Lat, says she had a negative attitude toward the Rohingya before she got to know them. 

"Once I got to talk to them, I realised we are so much alike," said Ga, who requested her full name not be used. 

"First of all, the Rohingya are strict Muslims. They practise their religion _ such as praying five times a day _ just like us.

"Even though we speak a different language, we believe in the same things and we do no harm to other people. They are just seeking a peaceful and better place to live where they can feel safe and be treated as equals ... as human beings." 

Ga, who works on Koh Surin as a cook, played a key role in the drama last month involving 133 Rohingya that led to allegations that the Royal Thai Navy shot at a group of them, resulting in the deaths of two men. 

It was Ga who first noticed the Rohingya vessel on Feb 20 and sent a speedboat to tow it to Koh Surin. The weary passengers, who had set out from Rakhine state on Feb 5 were fed on the island by Ga and her friends, who then contacted the navy. The feeding of the Rohingya was organised and paid for by the help centre. 

Ga believed the Rohingya would be taken out to sea, but alternative plans were made to send them to a temporary shelter at Hin Lat on the mainland. However, the vessel never arrived and two bodies were found in the water off Koh Phra Thong near Hin Lat a week later, while five other Rohingya men were rescued from the sea. 

Ga, who took footage of the rescued Rohingya on her mobile phone, was on hand when the bodies were recovered, saying she later identified them in the hospital from their clothing. She also provided a Bangladeshi-speaking roti seller to act as an interpreter for the five rescued men.

Bang Bao, a senior religious leader in the village, says because of its location, Hin Lat is a natural stopping-off point for Rohingya boatpeople as they inevitably run out of fuel or provisions here, although their intended destination may be Malaysia or Indonesia. 

"Since about November last year until February this year, there have been so many Rohingya arriving illegally by boat," he said. 

"From the conversations I've had with the Rohingya who made it here, they said their boats run out of fuel when they reach Thai waters. 

"They just wait for the tide to take them closer to land. It almost sounds like it is well-planned. Most of the boats usually make landfall near Koh Phra Thong or Koh Surin." 

Surapong Kongchantuk, of the Lawyers' Council of Thailand, is chairman of the Human Rights Subcommittee on Ethnic Minorities, Stateless, Migrant Workers and Displaced Persons. He said he had not heard from his contacts about smuggling through the village. 

However, he said the situation at Hin Lat sounded typical of the smuggling rings involving Rohingya and locals who work in conjunction with the Thai military. 

Often this involves a local "spotter" who notifies the human traffickers of a boat's arrival. 

"On every boat carrying Rohingya people, there are usually one or two traffickers," he said. "They are the ones who have the mobile phones with different SIMs for each country. They call the traffickers on the other side to report their location and when they expect to arrive." 

Mr Surapong said a call is then made to a contact on the mainland to prepare for the arrival of the boatpeople. 

"Once they arrive, government officials make it appear they are under arrest, but in fact they are sent to a safe house to wait for people to buy them," he said. 

"But that was before the government came up with the idea of pushing the boats back out to sea and not allowing the Rohingya ashore on the mainland," he said referring to the new government policy of returning the boats to sea, rather than having the Rohingya land and be processed by immigration officials. Prior to this policy change, Rohingya who landed or who were intercepted and sent to the mainland were dealt with by the Internal Security Operations Command or the immigration police. 

Mr Surapong said while the modus operandi at Hin Lat closely matched other Rohingya trafficking cases, he was not drawing any conclusions that local villagers were involved in human smuggling. 

"They may simply be helping other Muslims," he said. 

Mr Bao said they allowed the Rohingya Help Centre to use the mosque as a headquarters and gathering point because of a shortage of facilities. 

He said the help centre was set up at the request of the Khura Buri district office. When Rohingya are sent to the mainland the villagers offer them food and temporary accommodation before they are taken to the shelter. 

"We were all quite happy to do it because the Rohingya are Muslims just like us," Mr Bao said of the help centre. 

"We believe that we are all the same _ brothers and sisters. Therefore, we have to offer each other help." 

Regarding the Feb 20 incident, Mr Bao said a worker related to Ga on Surin island had phoned ahead to tell the villagers to prepare for the arrival of the vessel that night.

Mr Bao said that as the boatpeople had landed on Koh Surin, he believed they had effectively reached Thai territory and had to be processed by immigration officials, rather than being pushed back out to sea. 

THE LITTLE FISH ARE SWEETER 

Rohingya women and children who make it to the mainland in the province are sent to the Phangnga Shelter for Children and Families, 100km south of Hin Lat. 

Dararat Suthes, head of the centre, said police transferred the first batch of Rohingya _ eight women, 10 boys and seven girls _ to them on Jan 16. 

''After that, there were a lot more sent to our shelter almost daily for a week, and more once a week after that,'' she said. 

At present, there are 68 Rohingya in the shelter; 35 boys, nine girls and 24 women. 

''We only have nine people, including myself, to take care of the 16 Thai kids we have,'' she said. 

''With the Rohingya, now we have to take care of an extra 68 people. We only have enough money to feed 30 people _ 60 baht per person per day. Without donations of food, clothes and money we wouldn't be able to take care of these people.'' 

Mrs Dararat also said six boys had run away from the shelter after a visit by a group of men in early February who were posing as a Muslim welfare group checking whether they were being fed the right food and allowed to practise their religious beliefs. 

''A group of men who called themselves the Muslim Association came to visit the Rohingya to check on their welfare and how they were getting on,'' she said. 

''After that day, two boys ran away on Feb 11, and another two days later,'' he said ''The Muslim Association came back at the beginning of March and another three boys disappeared on March 4. 

''I believe the people pretending to be from the Muslim Association must be behind all this. There was one time in February when a group of men came to the shelter around 7pm and asked us directly how much one Rohingya would cost? One of my staff was very scared. She told them that people here are not for sale.'' 

Mrs Dararat said the Rohingya seemed to trust only other Muslims, especially those from Malaysia. 

''If you pretend to be a Muslim from Malaysia you will get their full attention,'' she said. 

A member of the Spectrum team posed as a Malaysian Muslim to test the theory. Several of the boys ran to their rooms and returned with telephone numbers written on pieces of paper. Mrs Dararat believed these were contact details of human smugglers. Some of the children said in broken English ''Me go Malaysia, with you OK?'' 

Mrs Dararat said she did not know how much longer the Rohingya would be at the shelter. 

''The Phangnga provincial office promised that they will be at the shelter for only six months and then they will be transferred elsewhere,'' she said. 

''I only hope they can go where they want without being sold as if they are pieces of meat.'' 

Mr Surapong said it was not unusual that staff at the shelter would be asked to sell Rohingya. 

''There are some shelters in the South where Rohingya can easily be bought,'' he said. 

''This is big business. One Rohingya can cost up to 50,000 baht. Sometimes a whole boatload can cost more than 1.5 million baht. That is why people are involved in trafficking.'' 

BEATING THE TRAFFICK 

Through her work at the Rohingya Help Centre, Ga echoes the sentiments of Mrs Dararat on the recent increase in the number of Rohingya coming through Hin Lat. 

''They never came in these numbers before,'' she said. ''I've seen them in the past and I believed they were looking for asylum since there were men and women travelling together and their ages ranged from young to old. 

''Now I feel there are more seeking jobs through human-trafficking agents. There are a lot more Rohingya travelling through Thailand to Malaysia and most of them are adult men.'' 

Despite her growing scepticism about the motives for their journeys, Ga says the local Muslim community has no qualms about feeding the Rohingya halal food and offering them a place at the mosque. 

''They can spend the night before government officials come to take them to Rohingya shelters in Phangnga, Surat Thani, Songkhla and other provinces in the South,'' she said. 

''We spend community funds to pay for food and supplies for the Rohingya who arrive at our village. Sometimes we have to cover some expenses ourselves, but we don't mind helping out.'' 

Ga said when the two bodies were found by fishermen on Feb 28 she covered the expenses to retrieve them. ''I paid for the fuel for another boat to bring the bodies back to our village and I took the bodies to the hospital with my own truck.'' 

Ga also revealed the villagers had played a key role in keeping the five rescued survivors away from the navy. 

''Fishermen from our village discovered them and took them back to the village where we kept them hidden,'' she said. ''They were quite scared of the navy and asked to stay. 

''We provided their accommodation, but I can't reveal where. Most have already left and continued on their journey.'' 

Ga also said that sometimes Rohingya in temporary accommodation in Hin Lat fled before they were taken to government shelters. 

''I know that the Rohingya who came here already had the contact details of human traffickers who are able to get them to where they want to go,'' she said. ''I've long suspected that government officials are somehow involved with the trafficking.'' 

Mr Surapong said the ''mass shooting'' near Koh Phra Thong had changed the relationship between the Rohingya and the Thai ''men in uniform'' involved in the human smuggling racket. In the past, corruption and bribes had been an accepted part of the deal to reach their destination, but the Rohingya would not tolerate Thai officials allegedly firing on them. 

''They were happy to see Thai government officials involved in human trafficking activities, until the deaths of the two Rohingya,'' he said. 

The two bodies recovered had autopsies performed on them at the Khura Buri Chaipat Hospital on Feb 28. Neither the hospital nor the local police were willing to reveal the results of the autopsies and the bodies have been buried. 

Pol Col Weerasin Kwancheng, superintendent of Khura Buri Police Station told Spectrum on Thursday the causes of death of the two men were unknown. 

''The Khura Buri Chaipat Hospital performed autopsies on the two unidentified men found floating in the water off Ko Phra Thong on Feb 28, but they couldn't find out the causes of death. The bodies were badly decayed and the hospital didn't have the equipment for more thorough autopsies. Therefore, the hospital couldn't determine the actual causes of death.'' 

Mr Surapong said that at a human trafficking seminar he held in Bangkok on March 14, a group of angry Rohingya claimed 15 Rohingya had been killed in Khura Buri. 

Mr Surapong said the government needed a clearer policy to deal with Rohingya otherwise the same tragedies would be repeated every year. 

''They should now close the border and not allow any more Rohingya to enter the country,'' he said. 

''We should deal with the 1,700 Rohingya that are here by sending them back to their place of origin. 

''The most important step is to find out who is behind this and punish them. Though it's difficult, it can be done.'' 

A COMMUNITY FULL OF COLOUR 

The village of Ban Hin Lat dates back to 1945, when it was settled by Muslims from Krabi and Nakhon Si Thammarat provinces. Today, the thriving community is home to 2,227 people, of which 80% percent are Muslim, including a number of migrant fishermen from Myanmar. 

Fishing is a key driver of the local economy, along with its rubber and palm tree plantations. 

Architecturally, Hin Lat is a blend of ancient and modern. Traditional fishermen's cottages sit comfortably alongside the colourful modern homes of the village's wealthier residents. 

The bright paintwork is typical of Muslim homes in southern Thailand, where vibrant hues are used as a sign of prosperity. 

Most properties in the village are single storey, except for the small number belonging to civic leaders and other prominent figures. 

Unlike many villages in Thailand, Hin Lat has a paved road running through its central area. Though despite the nod to modern infrastructure, much of the activity in the community revolves around the market areas and back streets, where rows of vendors tout their wares and local folk chat among themselves in their distinctive southern dialect. 

At one end of the main street is the harbour. Tourists can catch a boat there to Koh Pra Thong, one of Phangnga's main attractions. 

Close to the entrance to the village is the community mosque at Hin Lat Moo 3. As well as providing a religious focal point for the community, the mosque is home to the Rohingya Help Centre. Suitably, within its grounds is a small fishing boat that was used by a group of Rohingya people to flee Myanmar and later put on display by the local people. 

Villagers told Spectrum that they preserved the boat as a reminder of the 120 Rohingya people who sailed in it from Myanmar to Thailand, and whose lives they helped to save. 

Written in Thai along the side of the vessel are the words, ''Rohingya people _ the forgotten citizens of the world''.