Associated Press

June 30, 2013

SITTWE, Burma — From inside the neighborhood that has become their prison, they can look over the walls and fences and into a living city.

Stores are open out there. Sidewalk restaurants are serving bottles of Mandalay beer. There are no barbed-wire roadblocks marking neighborhood boundaries, no armed policemen guarding checkpoints. In the rest of Sittwe, this city of 200,000 people along Burma’s coast, no one pays a bribe to take a sick baby to the doctor.

But here it’s different.

Aung Mingalar is just a few square blocks. You can walk it in 10 minutes, stopping only when you come to the end of the road — 7/8 any road — and a policeman with an assault rifle waves you back inside, back into a maze of shuttered storefronts, unemployment and boredom.

In the evenings, when bats fly through the twilight, the men gather for prayers at Aung Mingalar’s main mosque, the one that wasn’t destroyed in last year’s violence.

Zahad Tuson is among them. He had spent his life pedaling fares around this state capital, a fraying town, built by British colonials, full of bureaucrats and monsoon-battered concrete buildings. Now his bicycle rickshaw sits at home unused. He hasn’t left Aung Mingalar in nearly a year.

“We could go out whenever we wanted!” he says. His voice is a mixture of anger and wonder.

What has caused this place to become a ghetto that no one can leave and few can enter? A basic fact: Aung Mingalar is a Muslim neighborhood.

A year after sectarian violence tore through Burma, the fury of religious pogroms has hardened into an officially sanctioned sectarian divide, a foray into apartheid-style policies that has turned Aung Mingalar into a prison for Sittwe’s Muslims and that threatens this country’s fragile transition to democracy.

Muslims, Tuson says, are not welcome in today’s Burma.

It’s simple, he says: “They want us gone.”

___

For generations, Aung Mingalar existed as just another tangle of streets and alleys in the heart of Sittwe. It was a Muslim quarter; everybody knew that. But the distinction seldom meant much.

Until suddenly it meant everything.

Last year, violence twice erupted between two ethnic groups in this part of Burma: the Rakhine, who are Buddhist, and a Muslim minority known as the Rohingya. While carnage was widespread on both sides of the religious divide, it was Muslims who suffered most, and who continue to suffer badly more than a year later.

Across Rakhine state, more than 200 people were killed, 70 percent of them Muslim. In Sittwe, where Muslims were once almost half the population, five of the six Muslim neighborhoods were destroyed. Over 135,000 people remain homeless in Rakhine state, the vast majority of them Muslims forced into bamboo refugee camps that smell of dust and wood smoke and too many people living too close together.

The troubles here were, at least initially, driven by ethnicity as much as religion. To the Rakhine, who dominate this state, as well as to Burma’s central government, the Rohingya are here illegally, “Bengalis” whose families slipped across the nearby border from what is now Bangladesh. Historians say Rohingya have been here for centuries, though many did come more recently. Their modern history has been a litany of oppression: the riots of 1942, the mass expulsions of 1978, the citizenship laws of 1982.

What started with the Rohingya has evolved into a broader anti-Muslim movement, helping ignite a series of attacks across Myanmar — from Meikhtila in the country’s center, where Buddhist mobs beat dozens of Muslim students to death in March, to Lashio near the Chinese border, where Buddhist men swarmed through the city burning scores of Muslim-owned stores in May.

The violence is about religion and ethnicity, but also about what happens when decades of military rule begin giving way in the nation [also known as Myanmar], and old political equations are clouded by the complexities of democracy.

In 2010, political change finally came to Myanmar, a profoundly isolated nation long ruled by a series of mysterious generals. Opposition leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi was freed from house imprisonment. National elections were held. Former political prisoners became politicians.

Amid the tumult — and with the military still wielding immense power behind the scenes — old animosities and new politicians flourished. Ethnic groups formed powerful regional parties. Buddhist nationalists, with a deep-seated suspicion of Muslims, moved from the fringes into the mainstream.

Political frustration fed on economic frustration, with millions of poor rural residents flocking to Burma’s cities only to find continued poverty in ever-growing slums. In a country that is about 90 percent Buddhist, Burma’s Muslims, who number as little as 4 percent of the population, became political bogeymen.

U Shwe Maung, a top official with the Rakhine Nationalities Development Party, the state’s most powerful party, will tell you about the problems with the Rohingya: They have too many children, they are angling for political clout, they claim to be citizens.

“We are not willing to live with them,” the onetime high-school English teacher says in his quiet voice. He’s an avuncular man, friendly and unfailingly polite. “They want to Muslimize this land. They want power.”

Anti-Muslim sentiment has been magnified by an increasingly virulent strain of Buddhist nationalism, as a once-obscure group of monks nurtures populist fears of a growing Muslim threat. Muslims are criminals, they say, a “poison” driving up land prices and pushing aside the Buddhist working class. Crowds pack monasteries and prayer halls to hear the monks’ speeches. Recordings are sold in sidewalk stalls along Burma’s streets.

“They will destroy our country, our religion, our people. They will destroy the next-generation Buddhist women, since their aim is to mix their blood with ours,” a popular monk, Ashin Tayzaw Thar Ra, said in a speech earlier this year. “Soon, Buddhists will have to worship in silence and fear.”

___

In Aung Mingalar, they know all about fear.

The neighborhood is where Maung Than Win once served hundreds of meals a day at the little restaurant his father had opened, and where residents gathered at the Chat Cafe to gossip in the cool of twilight. It is where dozens of boys showed up every day for classes at Hafeez Skee’s Islamic school, but most children attended secular schools.

It was widely seen as the wealthiest of Sittwe’s Muslim neighborhoods, but it was hardly an island of economic isolation. It was a place where day laborers built thatch huts for themselves, and rich businessmen, their fortunes often made on small fleets of wooden fishing boats that troll the Bay of Bengal, built sprawling houses covered in shiny green tiles. A few families farmed gardens of watercress in a swampy area between some of the alleys. The main streets, once brick or cobblestone, had turned to dirt over the years.

“My grandfather was from Aung Mingalar. My father was from Aung Mingalar. I’m from Aung Mingalar,” says Win, his teeth stained red from years of chewing betel nuts. At 32 he has spent nearly his entire life working at his restaurant, the Love Tea Shop. It filled with people every day, particularly after prayers at the mosque. “I just want to stay as long as I can.”

Not that everything was perfect. Buddhist and Muslim residents of Sittwe agree at least on that.

There were fights, though they tended to be just one person against another. In the last sectarian violence, in 2001, only one person died in Sittwe. The last widespread bloodshed was during World War II, when the Rohingya backed the British colonial forces and the Rakhine supported the Japanese. Hundreds of people were killed.

“I had heard about the troubles then,” says Ferus Ahmad, a pharmacist. “We thought something like this could never happen again.”

But it did. It began last year on May 28, with the rape and murder of a Buddhist woman by a group of Rohingya men in a village a few hours from here. Days later, a bus carrying Muslim travelers was surrounded by a Buddhist mob and ten Muslims were killed. Five days after that, Rohingya mobs attacked Rakhine near the Bangladesh border. It’s unclear how many people died.

With fear spiraling on both sides, trouble came to Sittwe. Over five days, Rakhine and Rohingya mobs battled one another. By the end, hundreds of Rakhine homes had been destroyed, as had nearly every Rohingya neighborhood. Today, other than Aung Mingalar, Muslim Sittwe is little more than destroyed mosques and once-crowded communities grown over with grass and weeds, completely empty of residents.

During the street battles, the women and children of Aung Mingalar were put into a mosque for safety, while the men protected the neighborhood’s edges. Then something unusual happened: The security forces arrived to help.

Across Burma, the army and the police have done little to protect Muslims through a year of violence, and rights groups say they have often joined in the attacks. It’s still unclear why it was different in Aung Mingalar.

But while they arrived as protectors, those soldiers soon became jailers. Today, the security forces enforce the official ghetto. And the dominant story line remains: Not only did Muslims never need protection from Buddhists, but they destroyed their own neighborhoods.

“The Bengalis lit their own houses on fire, because they knew they would get another house” in the refugee camps, says U Win Myaing, the Rakhine state assistant director for communications. “Plus, they thought the fires would spread to Rakhine areas and burn those houses down.”

Increasingly, such stories about Muslims are believed across Burma.

___

Today, Aung Mingalar is consuming itself.

House after wooden house has been torn down for firewood. The dead, who can no longer be taken out to the Muslim cemetery, are buried behind the mosque. Food, which comes from occasional government handouts and the twice-weekly markets some residents can attend, is scarce and expensive.

There are no stores left open, just a few food stalls and a makeshift pharmacy that sells laxatives and herbal headache medicine.

There are also few heroes. Residents say wealthy Rohingya have bought land from poorer or more desperate neighbors. While the authorities occasionally allow some Rohingya into the neighborhood to sell supplies, they charge double what customers pay on the outside.

“People aren’t competing with each other,” says Win, the tea shop owner, “but they are not working together either.”

Officials refuse to say when — or if — Aung Mingalar will be allowed to rejoin the rest of Sittwe.

There is one way to get out. The bribe to pass the checkpoints is 10,000 kyats (about $10) each way, according to current and former residents. That’s a lot of money here, but plenty of people are paying it. While no one is sure of the neighborhood’s size — aid workers say it was probably about 4,000 before the violence — it’s now dropping fast.

“When everything they have is gone, people just want to leave,” Win says.

Thousands have left Burma, paying smugglers to slip them into Malaysia or Thailand. But most head to the refugee camps outside towns, endless rows of bamboo shelters filled with Rohingya. Many of the camps are restricted areas — residents are not allowed to come and go as they wish — but most are also large enough to have their own economies.

Across Burma, many Muslims are now more closed-off than they once were, barricading their neighborhoods at night against possible attackers. But so far, at least, Aung Mingalar is the only sealed ghetto.

Ahmad, the pharmacist, lived in Aung Mingalar for 38 years. Until the violence of 2012, he owned a pharmacy in Sittwe’s main market, a warren of shops near the port. But soon after the trouble started, Aung Mingalar was sealed and Ahmad couldn’t get to his shop. The medicines expired. His customers went elsewhere. The shop has been closed for months.

Ahmad wonders at what has happened to his country. The 2010 transition was supposed to bring change, but he’s seen nothing to encourage him.

“We now have a president, a government,” says Ahmad, his button-down shirt faded from so many washings. “But it’s like there is no ruler.”

For many like him, the main sustenance now is memories. That is what keeps Ahmad going.

A couple of times a week, back when things were good, Ahmad would close his pharmacy, pick up his wife and two children at home and head to the Sittwe beach, barely a mile away. Now, only Rakhine are allowed at the beach and Ahmad has left the neighborhood where he grew up. His family is still there, but he has moved to the refugee camps, where he seeks work and tries to remember what normal felt like.

“We’d just walk along the beach,” he says of those family outings. “I dream about that sometimes.”

Peter Popham

Peter Popham on why Aung San Suu Kyi is silent on the murder of Muslims

There is no concealing the disappointment felt by many of Aung San Suu Kyi’s supporters around the world in the face of her failure to denounce the attacks on Burmese Muslims by members of her own community, the Buddhists who constitute more than 90 per cent of the population.

Perhaps she couldn’t stop it, people say, but at least she could have taken a stand. She is seen as the teacher, the mother of her nation; moral rebirth has been at the centre of her mission ever since she signed up with the democracy movement; her most influential essay was titled A Revolution of the Spirit. How can she possibly stay silent as Muslims are slaughtered?

The first attacks came in June 2012, just as she was embarking on her first trip abroad in 24 years. A young Buddhist woman in Arakan state, which borders the overwhelmingly Muslim nation of Bangladesh in the west, was raped and murdered by two Muslim men. In retaliation, a group of non-Muslim men stopped a bus and killed the Muslims on board, and the spiral of murder quickly got out of control. There were many victims on both sides but the Muslims were in the majority. Many thousand lost their homes and were resettled in squalid temporary camps.

Another, even more serious wave of attacks came in October. Unlike June’s events, these were initiated by the majority community and closely co-ordinated, as a recent investigation by Human Rights Watch explained in detail (http://www.hrw.org/features/burma-ethnic-cleansing-arakan-state). And although there have been no recent attacks as vicious or widespread as October’s, the fire has not burned out. Instead it has spread across the country. And still Suu Kyi holds her tongue.

How are we to explain it?

The glaringly obvious reason is that, upon her election to parliament in April 2012, Suu Kyi became a politician. As Hillary Clinton presciently warned her a few months earlier, there is a world of difference between being an activist and a politician. In the heyday of her activism, addressing crowds gathered outside her home in Rangoon in the mid-90s, Suu Kyi happily teased and chastised the ruling military regime. Today she sits alongside them in parliament: one-quarter of the seats are occupied by unelected soldiers.

And not only does she have to share their space, she has to do business with them – serious business.

Burma is scheduled to hold general elections, followed by presidential ones (the president is elected by members of parliament), in 2015. Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), is much the most popular in the country. If the elections are run fairly, like the by-elections in 2012 that brought her to parliament, the NLD is likely to win by a landslide. But if they are rigged, like the general elections of 2010, that victory could be stolen. So between now and then she has two pre-eminent challenges: to retain the support of the great majority of her people; and to persuade the generals who still hold power behind the scenes that she and her colleagues can be trusted.

There is a third challenge: to change the constitution. Suu Kyi has made it clear in recent weeks that she hopes to become Burma’s president. But Section 59 (f) of the 2008 constitution requires that none of the children of a presidential candidate shall “be subject of a foreign power or citizen of a foreign country” – and both of Suu Kyi’s sons are British citizens. It appears that this requirement was written in deliberately to bar her way to the highest office. To remove it would require 75 per cent support in parliament. Until 2015, she is walking on eggshells. 

Suu Kyi, then, has ample reason to choose her words with care. Her recent affectionate descriptions of the army are examples of this. But why can’t she denounce something as grotesque as the attacks on Muslims?

There has been bad blood between Buddhists and Muslims in Burma for many years. In particular in Arakan state, the issue of large-scale illegal immigration of Muslims from Bangladesh has stoked riots and protests over the course of many years. Anti-Muslim prejudice is common even at the top of Suu Kyi’s party, and among leading dissident activists. If Suu Kyi were to speak out loud and clear about the attacks she would win the applause of people in the West. But it would be the quickest way for her to plummet in the approval of the Burmese masses. 

Some believe that senior military figures hostile to her orchestrated the violence in Arakan state last year for precisely this reason: by goading Suu Kyi into speaking out on the issue, they hoped to destroy her popularity. If that is true, she has disappointed them – and proved, perhaps, that she can be as slippery a politician as the next one. That may not endear her to the west, but shrewdness is a necessary attribute of politicians everywhere; even those the world would prefer to regard as saints.

By Dr. Habib Siddiqui

Asian Tribune

June 30, 2013

In its July 1 issue, the Time magazine has covered the recent genocidal activities against the Muslims of Myanmar. In this, reporter Hannah Beech has done an excellent job analyzing the role played by Wirathu, a Buddhist monk, who has become the face of Buddhist terrorism. Her report has stirred up a hornet’s nest among the Buddhists. They are very upset.

Unlike OBL, whose views had forced him to settle for a life of refuge outside the country, Wirathu who likes to call him ‘the Burmese bin Laden’ is quite popular inside Myanmar. He is an abbot who has a significant following not just within the Sangha but also within the government, military, and civilian population of his Buddhist-majority country. Soon after the publication of the Times issue, President Thein Sein came to his defense and said, "Buddhist monks, also known as Sanghas, are noble people who keep the 277 precepts or moral rules, and strive peacefully for the prosperity of Buddhism.” From such testimonials, it is not difficult to understand the level of support that Wirathu’s 969 Movement – or more correctly creed - enjoys inside Myanmar. And this is troubling. It paints a very damning picture not only about Myanmar – long known for its gruesome records of human rights violations but also about its Buddhist faith sanctioning such horrendous crimes.

After all, there is nothing honorable about the 969 Movement, which Wirathu launched in 2001. It draws its inspiration from fascism and Nazism and is racist, bigotry-ridden and apartheid to the core calling for boycott of anything Muslim the same way Jews of Germany were depicted and treated in the 1930s and 1940s until the fall of Hitler. "We have a slogan: When you eat, eat 969; when you go, go 969; when you buy, buy 969," Wirathu declared at his monastery in Mandalay. (Translation: If you're eating, traveling or buying anything, do it with a Buddhist.) This apartheid 969 creed led to sharp increase in anti-Muslim violence in Myanmar, especially after the Bamiyan statues were destroyed by Taliban in March of 2001. As a result, several mosques were destroyed by Buddhist monks. The sporadic violence which included killing of several Muslims and destruction of Muslim properties and mosques would continue until 2003 when he was arrested. The military regime sentenced him to 25 years in prison for distributing anti-Muslim pamphlets that incited communal riots in his birthplace of Kyaukse, a town near Meikhtila. At least 10 Muslims were killed in Kyaukse by a Buddhist mob, according to a U.S. State Department report.

Wirathu was freed last year from jail during an amnesty for hundreds of political prisoners, among the most celebrated reforms of Myanmar's post-military rule. He is now an abbot in Mandalay's Masoeyein Monastery, an expansive complex where he leads about 60 monks and has influence over more than 2,500 residing there. From that power base, he is again preaching hatred and intolerance. Many monks are highly influenced by his hateful messages, and are directly involved in genocidal campaigns against the minority Muslim population in Myanmar. They are also supported by government agencies at all levels - from local to central.

It is widely believed by Dr. Maung Zarni and many other independent researchers that the government of Thein Sein is using Wirathu and his terrorist monks, with wide support within the Buddhist society, to do what it could not do officially. Thus, the crimes of Wirathu cannot be separated from those of Thein Sein. They are in collusion.

Nyi Nyi Lwin, a former monk better known as U Gambira who led the "Saffron Revolution" democracy uprising in 2007 that was crushed by the military told Reuters that if government was serious to stop anti-Muslim pogroms, it could do it. "In the past, they prevented monks from giving speeches about democracy and politics. This time they don't stop these incendiary speeches. They are supporting them," he said. "Because Wirathu is an abbot at a big monastery of about 2,500 monks, no one dares to speak back to him. The government needs to take action against him."

Last year in May-October when Rohingya Muslims were killed in the Arakan state, the Buddhist monks played major roles not only in inciting violence against them, they allowed their monasteries to be used as arms depot and also participated themselves in the slaughter. Government security forces and ultra-racist Rakhine politicians also participated in such raids. The anti-Muslim pogroms last year led to the death of hundreds of Muslims and homelessness of nearly 140,000 Muslims in the Rakhine state.

Seventy Muslims were slaughtered in a daylong massacre in one hamlet alone, according to Human Rights Watch. Children were hacked apart and women torched. In several instances, monks were seen goading on frenzied Buddhists. Muslim townships and villages were totally wiped out from the map. As usual, in this Buddhist country not a single Buddhist was found guilty for committing such horrendous crimes against the minority Muslims.

The communal violence, which the government has done little to check, has since migrated to other parts of the country. In March, dozens were killed and tens of thousands left homeless as homes and mosques were razed in Meikhtila. As widely documented, Buddhist monks led the massacre of Muslims and destruction of Muslim properties there. Rioters spray-painted "969" on destroyed businesses. A knife-wielding Buddhist monk was video-taped holding a Muslim girl. "If you follow us, I'll kill her," the monk taunted police, as a Buddhist mob armed with machetes and swords chased nearly 100 Muslims in this city in central Myanmar. It was Thursday, March 21. Within hours, the Buddhist monks led the mob to kill dozens of Muslims. The killings took place in plain view of police, with no intervention by the local or central government. The police were told not to intervene. The region's military commander, Aung Kyaw Moe, could have stopped the riots with a few stern orders - especially given that thousands of soldiers are permanently stationed in Meikhtila and nearby. [That pattern echoed what Reuters reporters found last year in an examination of October's anti-Muslim violence in Myanmar's western Rakhine State. There, a wave of deadly attacks was organized, according to central-government military sources. They were led by Rakhine Buddhist nationalists tied to a powerful political party in the state, incited by Buddhist monks, and assisted by local security forces.]

Graffiti scrawled on one wall in Meikhtila called for a "Muslim extermination." The Buddhist mob dragged their bloodied bodies up a hill in a neighborhood called Mingalarzay Yone and set the corpses on fire. Some were found butchered in a reedy swamp. A Reuter’s cameraman saw the charred remains of two children, aged 10 or younger. As noted by Min Ko Naing, a revered former political prisoner, bulldozers were used to destroy Muslim properties. Some 1600 Muslim owned homes and businesses were destroyed in Meikhtila. A historic mosque and an orphanage were also burned. By March 29, at least 15 towns and villages in central Myanmar had suffered anti-Muslims pogroms. In many of these incidents, Buddhist monks not only stopped firemen from dousing fire but also participated in killings of Muslims.

In his report, Tomas Ojea Quintana, the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar said he had received reports of "state involvement" in the violence. Soldiers and police sometimes stood by "while atrocities have been committed before their very eyes, including by well-organized ultra-nationalist Buddhist mobs," said the rapporteur.

Wirathu had a quick answer to the question of who caused Meikhtila's unrest: the Buddhist woman who tried to sell the hair clip. "She shouldn't have done business with Muslims."

As I have repeatedly said in my speeches and writings, genocide of Muslims has become a national project in Myanmar in which most Buddhists at all levels – from sly President Thein Sein to ignoble Nobel Laureate Suu Kyi to racist politicians to terrorist monk Wirathu to ordinary monks to criminal members of the security forces to general public – are involved one way or another. That is why Suu Kyi is silent on this greatest crime of the 21st century. Her criminal silence to condemn the anti-Muslim pogroms in her country has disgraced the Nobel Peace Prize!

Naturally, Wirathu's fascist movement is working: 969 stickers and signs are proliferating everywhere like mushroom — often accompanied by violence. Anti-Muslim mobs in Bago Region, close to Yangon, erupted after traveling monks preached about the 969 movement. Stickers bearing pastel hues overlaid with the numerals 969 are appearing on street stalls, motorbikes, posters and cars across the central heartlands. In his speech in a community center in Minhla, a town of about 100,000 people, which is a few hours' drive from Yangon, on February 26 and 27, in front of thousands of Buddhist monks, Wimalar Biwuntha, an abbot from Mon State, explained how monks in his state began using 969 to boycott a popular Muslim-owned bus company.

After the speeches, the mood in Minhla turned ugly. Muslims were jeered. A month later, about 800 Buddhists armed with metal pipes and hammers destroyed three mosques and 17 Muslim homes and businesses, according to police. No one was killed, but two-thirds of Minhla's Muslims fled and haven't returned, police said. One attacker was armed with a chainsaw, he said.

As reported by Reuters a local police official made a deal with the mob: Rioters were allowed 30 minutes to ransack a mosque before police would disperse the crowd, according to two witnesses. They tore it apart for the next half hour, the witnesses said. A hollowed-out structure remains.

Two days earlier in Gyobingauk, a town of 110,000 people just north of Minhla, a mob destroyed a mosque and 23 houses after three days of speeches by a monk preaching 969. Witnesses said they appeared well organized, razing some buildings with a bulldozer.

On April 2, 13 Muslim boys died in a fire at a Yangon religious school. The floors were surprisingly slick with oil during the blaze, clearly pointing out that the blaze was deliberately set by others. However, the local police blamed the fire on electric problem.

For too long we in the West had entertained a very romantic view of Buddhism. Forgotten or ignored there was the ground reality of Buddhist crimes done under the name of religion, let alone its people. As I have noted in my book ‘Rohingya: the forgotten people of our time’, for hundreds of years the Arakanese Buddhist Maghs terrorized Bengal and neighboring territories of Muslim-ruled India. That history is a blood-soaked history of unfathomable cruelty and savagery that devastated Bengal (today’s Bangladesh and the state of West Bengal of India). According to the words of historian Shihabuddin Talish, an eye witness: "They [Buddhist Maghs] carried off the Hindus and Muslims, male and female, great and small, few and many that they could seize, pierced the palms of their hands, passed thin canes through the holes and threw them one above another under the deck of their ships.” He continued, “The Magh did not leave a bird in the air, or a beast on the land from Chatgaon [Chittagong] to Jagdia, the frontier of Bengal, increased the desolation, thickened the jungles, destroyed the land, closed the road so well that even the snake and the wild could not pass through.”

As also noted by British historian G.E. Harvey, “The Arakan pirates, both Magh and feringhi, used to come by the water-route and plunder Bengal. Mohammedans underwent such oppression, as they had not to suffer in Europe. As they continually practiced raids for a long time, Bengal daily became more and more desolate and less and less able to resist them. Not a house was left inhabited on their side of the rivers lying on their track from Chittagong to Dacca. The district of Bakla [Backergunge and part of Dacca], which formerly abounded in houses and cultivated fields and yield a large revenue as duty on betel-nuts, was swept so clean with their broom of plunder and abduction that none was left to tenant any house or kindle a light in that region.”

While the children of abducted slaves of Africa are recognized as citizens in the USA, the children of those abducted Bengali Muslims, settled in Arakan state and elsewhere inside Myanmar, are now denied their due citizenship rights.

I wish I could have said that the savagery of the Buddhist Maghs and Bamars of Myanmar had stopped. Alas, the recent history of Myanmar has once again proven that they are beyond reform. They never understood civility and like to remain buried in their savage past. Thus, rather than condemning the religio-racist violence led by a criminal Buddhist monk, Wirathu is celebrated as a national hero and his horrendous crimes are condoned by the highest authority of the land. Only in Mogher Mulluk can one witness such an amazing thing!

One should thank the Time magazine and its courageous reporter Hannah Beech for a much needed factual account of a war criminal like Wirathu who is a disgrace to any religion. With the religious edicts he and other terrorist monks make they soil the good name of their faith, and portray the ugly side of what Theravada Buddhism has become in Myanmar that scripts and directs genocide against an unarmed minority. It is disgraceful!

Thein Sein cannot hoodwink the rest of the world with his appeasing comments that these terrorist monks are model Buddhists who only strive for Buddhist prosperity. At whose expense is such prosperity earned? Is genocide or pogrom of another people acceptable in that goal of selective prosperity? If not, his government better stop Wirathu and his terrorist supporters now. If the answer is yes, then he better accept the grim reality that Buddhism in Myanmar means genocide of other non-Buddhists, esp. its Muslim population. Period and simple! Thein Sein and other Buddhists of Myanmar cannot have it both ways.

When asked about the Time cover story, Wirathu said, "This is being done because the Islamic extremists want my downfall. ... If I fall down, it will be very easy for the extremist who wants to overwhelm Burma with their extreme beliefs. They want me to be arrested, or killed. That’s why, they put me on the [Time] cover, I think. … Extremists are trying to turn Burma into an Islamic country. There is financial, technological, human resources support for this, even media support. I’ve observed these things and because I’m speaking out to show these things to the world, I have become their number 1 enemy, so they are targeting me."

He repeats the same mantra uttered by every damn Nazi and fascist before him. Pure nonsense to justify their savagery unto the minority people! It is inexcusable.

Is there any hope in Myanmar? I am glad that a monk like U Pantavunsa is speaking out against such monstrosity done in the name of Buddhism. How far such dissent voices would succeed, I don't know.

Nonetheless, it is high time for conscientious human beings inside and outside Burma to condemn the 969 movement and its executioners for the crimes against humanity.

They must also demand restoration of citizenship and human rights for all the residents of Myanmar.

Bernama

June 30, 2013

KUALA LUMPUR -- Malaysia has urged the Myanmar government to take immediate action to address the ongoing inter-communal violence in the country.

This was voiced by Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Anifah Aman in a bilateral meeting with Myanmar's Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin on the sideline of the 46th Asean Foreign Ministers Meeting (AMM) in Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei which commenced yesterday.

A statement from the Asean-Malaysia National Secretariat, Foreign Affairs Ministry here said Anifah conveyed Malaysia's concerned on the ongoing violence, saying it had also affected neighbouring countries, including Malaysia.

He also urged the Myanmar government to take necessary measures to bring the perpetrators of violence to justice in a fair and transparent manner.

The minister had also sought the agreement of the Myanmar government to allow the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Contact Group to visit Myanmar and be given fullest cooperation in fulfilling its mandate.

Anifah is leading the Malaysian delegation at a series of Asean-related meetings in Bandar Seri Begawan from June 29 to July 2.

Besides the 46th AMM, other meetings include Post-Ministerial Conferences (PMC), 20th Asean Regional Forum, Asean Plus Three Foreign Ministers' Meeting and the 3rd East Asia Summit Foreign Ministers' Meeting.

Buddhist monk Wirathu (C), leader of the 969 movement, greets other monks as he attends a meeting on the National Protection Law at a monastery outside Yangon, June 27, 2013.

VOA News
June 28, 2013

RANGOON — This week's Time Magazine cover bearing the image of Wirathu, a monk who has come under international scrutiny for spreading anti-Muslim hate speech was banned in Burma. Has hate-speech on the internet and in sermons delivered by Buddhist monks led to religious violence, and has the government fulfilled its responsibility in dealing with hate speech? 

Burma has only just recently stopped censoring print news media, but when Time magazine ran a cover story detailing the anti-Muslim hate-speeches of influential Buddhist monk Wirathu, the issue was banned because the information ministry feared it could incite further violence. 

Since June of last year, five separate incidents of communal violence perpetrated against Muslims across the country have left scores dead, and over 150,000 displaced. 

Watch related video of the U.S. Embassy in Burma hosting a workshop:

At a workshop on preventing hate speech in Burma on Friday U.S. ambassador Derek Mitchell delivered opening remarks in which he stated that the government's ability to deal with hate speech will determine the country's future, and cautioned against the potential for uncontrolled hate speech to incite violence.

"This country has been at war with itself. For decades the talk has been one of enemies within," he said. "This attitude has been a major cause of this country's underdevelopment. As a close observer who cares deeply about the future of your country, it is very sad to see that talk continue and take new forms."

Wirathu's rhetoric includes calls for Muslim blood at public sermons where audiences number several thousand.

Deputy Minister of Information Ye Htut believes it was necessary to ban the magazine, and blamed social media like Facebook for spreading hate speech. He blamed Burma's tight media controls in the past for contributing to people's inability to effectively deal with newfound freedoms, and said he doesn't believe Wirathu's speeches qualify as hate speech.

"We have to differentiate between what is a strong opinion and what is a hate speech," said Ye. "We have to allow the freedom of speech and also we have to make clear guidelines on what is hate speech. That's why one of the monk reminded U Wirathu to control his emotion."

Wirathu was jailed in 2003 for inciting violence, and released in 2011. He has continued to make speeches without interference from the government.

Many citizens feel dissatisfied with the government's response to controlling anti-Muslim sentiment, among other reasons because Burmese courts that have convicted Muslims after incidents of communal violence have yet to convict a single Buddhist with incitement.

Thet Ko Ko, a Muslim from Moulmein, home to the monastery from which the anti-Muslim "969" movement originated, traveled to Rangoon to attend the workshop, and says he's very disappointed in what was said at the workshop.

"My religion faces discrimination from the state and the majority especially some Buddhist monks. I'm not satisfied," said Ko Ko. "We need government to prevent hate speech in Myanmar [Burma], especially by law. I mean public speeches, there are a lot of information in many villages they distribute. Why they didn't prevent this activities is the main point. Very weak [in not preventing this] prevent in this."

Next week, the Ministry of Religious Affairs is expected to make an announcement about the controversial drafting of a new law that would prevent interfaith marriage between Buddhist women and Muslim men.

DPA/Yangon

June 28, 2013

Hundreds of Myanmar Buddhist monks yesterday supported a proposed interfaith marriage law that would place restrictions on women seeking to wed a Muslim man.

The draft law, authored by extremist monk Wirathu, was endorsed by some 1,500 monks from throughout the nation who had gathered in Yangon to debate the controversial legislation.

“All the senior monks attending today’s meeting agreed to support the law to protect Myanmar nationals,” said Damapiya, a spokesman for the monks, who included members of the Sangha - the equivalent to the Buddhist clergy.

The draft legislation, to be submitted to parliament eventually, has met with opposition from Myanmar women’s groups, including opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

Suu Kyi last week criticized the proposed law for discriminating against women and running counter to human rights.

The law, if enacted, would require a Buddist woman seeking to marry a Muslim to get prior permission from her parents and authorities, and the man to convert to Buddhism.

Buddhism is the dominant religion in Myanmar, where Muslims represent a small minority of less than 5% of the population.

The main proponent of the law, the Mandalay-based Wirathu, has been blamed for fueling anti-Muslim sentiments this year. Sectarian clashes in central and northern Myanmar claimed more than 30 dead.

In February, Wirathu launched the 969 campaign, calling on Buddhists to boycott Muslim shops and businesses.

Wirathu in 2003 was sentenced to 25 years in prison by the previous ruling junta for inciting religious hatred, but released last year under a general amnesty.

The current elected government has been reluctant to crack down on his campaigns.

Myanmar’s President Thein Sein earlier this week criticised Time magazine’s “Buddhist terror” cover story on Wirathu for undermining government efforts to ease sectarian tensions.

On Wednesday the magazine’s July 1 edition was banned from circulation.

Rising sectarian violence is one of the greatest challenges to Thein Sein, who came to power in March 2011, and has since pushed through political and economic reforms.

In June 2012, Buddhist communities in the Rakhine State attacked Rohingya Muslims, leaving 167 people dead and 125,000 people homeless.

There have been at least three anti-Muslim riots this year in central and northern Myanmar, leaving thousands homeless.

Joshua Kurlantzick

In late May, the Myanmar president Thein Sein arrived in Washington, DC for a historic meeting with Barack Obama. The US president praised him lavishly at the press briefing that followed their summit. He lauded his leadership "in moving Myanmar down a path of both political and economic reform", before discussing joint projects that US assistance will focus on in Myanmar, such as improving agriculture. Pleased, Thein Sein replied: "I take this opportunity to reiterate that Myanmar and I will continue to … move forward so that we can build a new democratic state, a new Myanmar."

Only three years earlier, nearly every Myanmar leader had been barred from entering the US because of sanctions imposed on the country's military-ruled government. Congress regularly castigated Myanmar as one of the most tyrannical societies on earth, and when former president George W Bush found himself in the mid-2000s in an anteroom with Myanmar's then-leader at an Asian summit, he steadfastly refused to acknowledge the other man's presence.Now, the situation had flipped so rapidly that many longtime Myanmar-watchers cannot keep track of the changes. While once American policymakers blasted Myanmar and its government as a tyranny, now they paint it as a model of emerging democratisation.

By the time Thein Sein arrived in May, Washington had lifted sanctions, corporate leaders were jostling to meet him and the distinguished global organisation International Crisis Group had presented the Myanmar leader with its annual "Pursuit of Peace" prize.

Other democracies around the world had lifted sanctions as well, and so much cash had already begun flowing into Myanmar that Lex Rieffel, an expert on development and Myanmar at the Brookings Institution, warns that donors are already duplicating projects, disregarding the wishes of the Myanmar government and wasting huge sums. Western and Japanese companies, which had been mostly barred for two decades by the sanctions, are arriving in droves, since Myanmar is probably the last large untapped emerging market in the world and also contains large quantities of oil, gas, minerals and other natural resources. Myanmar's latest round of auctions for offshore oil blocks attracted 59 bidders, including many of the largest resources companies in the world. Meanwhile, the opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi continued her own global tour. Besides stops in Washington, Tokyo and other world capitals to pick up multiple awards, she travelled to such places as Ulan Bator in Mongolia, for the annual meeting of the Community of Democracies, a global group of democratic nations.

Yet neither the cartoonish portrayals of Myanmar in the past nor today's idyllic pictures of its future are correct. While the country has taken important steps towards democracy, its opening, which began in 2010, has also unleashed dangerous forces that have led to scores of violent attacks against Myanmar's Muslim minority, who make up about four to five per cent of the country's 60 million people.

The attacks, which last year seemed confined to the western Myanmar state called Rakhine (also known as Arakan), have now spread. Nearly every day, the Myanmar press reports burnings, beatings and evictions of Muslims from towns across the country. These attacks have led to angry responses by some groups of armed Muslims and by several of Myanmar's large Muslim-majority neighbours. And though the government denies involvement in the pogroms and its president has issued stern warnings against future violence, a recent comprehensive report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) found "the Burmese [ie Myanmar] government engaged in a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya [Muslims] that continues today". The Rohingya originally settled in present-day Myanmar from areas west of the country populated by ethnic Bengalis. Some are first or second-generation arrivals, but others have lived in Myanmar for centuries.

At least 100,000 Muslims have been made homeless in the past two years by violent attacks, and hundreds if not thousands have been killed, along with a much smaller number of Buddhists. Left unchecked, rising ethnic hatred and increasing attacks could push the country into a terrible period of ethnic cleansing.

Myanmar has had a long history of xenophobia and inter-ethnic tensions, exacerbated by the army's oppressive five-decade rule over the country. Outside North Korea, Myanmar was until 2010 probably the most closed nation in the world. In that year, the army began a transition to a civilian government, holding elections that helped create a civilian parliament and formally renouncing its control of the presidency.

Yet the new "civilian" president was Thein Sein, a supposedly moderate former general. In previous army commands, he had been in charge of an area in northern Myanmar notorious for rights abuses by the army, as well as drug and weapons trafficking; even today, Myanmar remains the dominant producer of methamphetamines in East Asia and one of the world's biggest producers of heroin. As regional commander, it would have been unlikely that Thein Sein did not know about these activities, notes an article in Asia Times Online, a leading regional web publication.

Still, Myanmar has witnessed enormous change in the past three years and, whatever his past, Thein Sein has been genuinely interested in promoting reform. Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) swept last year's by-elections, the first truly fair elections in two decades. Parliament has become more than just a rubber stamp for the army and in the 2015 elections the NLD may well win a majority, which could theoretically put them in a position to run the country.

But this rapid shift has, as in other former autocratic and diverse states, also unleashed severe tensions. The inter-religious violence began last year in Rakhine, near the border with Bangladesh. The exact cause of the fighting remains unclear, but after rumours spread that several Muslim men had attacked Buddhist women, crowds of Buddhists began attacking areas of the state populated by Rohingya.

One of the biggest towns, Sittwe, saw its Muslim area burnt to the ground. Tens of thousands of Rohingya fled into the hills, tried to escape into Bangladesh or boarded makeshift boats to flee to Thailand, Malaysia, or Indonesia. Many drowned or were turned back by the Thai navy, which often picks off refugees' boats and then sends them back to sea to drown if they do not have money to pay the navy. (Thailand's military has historically harboured great animosity towards Myanmar and there are widespread allegations that some Thai navy men killed fleeing refugees or forced them into bonded labour.)

Last year, Thein Sein and Suu Kyi suggested that the violence was confined to Rakhine and centred primarily on local Buddhists' perceptions (right or wrong) that Rohingya were outsiders. In other words, that the violence was sparked by anger over immigration and job losses, not by religious and ethnic differences. This claim seemed dubious at the time, and the spread of violence has since shown it to be untrue.

In a statement earlier this year, Suu Kyi's spokesperson said she has little interest in supporting the Rohingya's claims for rights and citizenship - a surprising response by the Nobel laureate, a woman renowned around the world as a champion of freedom and rights. Yet within Suu Kyi's party, I have found that most activists express disdain for Myanmar's Muslims. Even the famed activist Ko Ko Gyi said that the violence in western Myanmar was the fault of Muslims themselves. Many in Suu Kyi's party even condone a government policy that has, over the past decade, limited Rohingya to two children, a rule no one else in the country has to follow. (Suu Kyi has not endorsed this policy.) Last week, Myanmar's Minister of Immigration and Population Khin Yi publicly backed the two-child policy for Rohingya.

Even more important, neither the government nor Suu Kyi has offered a viable plan for how to create a more federal state, which will be essential in a country with so many ethnic minority and religious groups and so little trust of the central government. In other countries in the region, such as Indonesia, which emerged from its own chaotic transition to democracy in the late 1990s, federal rule and decentralisation have been critical to reducing ethnic tensions and empowering local leaders across the country. Also, in Myanmar no prominent opposition leaders, activists or government officials have concurred with the findings that ethnic cleansing has taken place in Myanmar.

No matter the original source of the violence in Rakhine, government's ineffectiveness - or complicity in the attacks, according to HRW - seems to have encouraged anti-Muslim extremists throughout the country. In its comprehensive report on last year's attacks, HRW found that on numerous occasions of violence against Rohingya, crowds of marauding Buddhists appeared to be organised well in advance and ignored by the police, who often simply vanished once mobs started attacking and burning mosques, Muslim-owned shops and homes.

Since the violence appeared to be targeted, HRW labelled it ethnic cleansing. Its report showed that security forces participated in the attacks, burnt mosques and often prevented anyone from assisting injured and dying Muslims.

Meanwhile, Suu Kyi said little. Thein Sein more recently has deplored the violence, but has taken few concrete steps to stop it. (In one speech in May, Thein Sein said the government would "take all necessary action to ensure the basic human rights of Muslims".) Indeed, on his watch, the police and army this year have conducted several investigations of the Rakhine attacks, but wound up primarily detaining groups of young Muslim men.

Now the Myanmar government faces far broader unrest, killings that threaten to tear the country apart and completely undermine the recent economic and political reforms.

Emboldened by the lack of action taken against marauders last year, Buddhist extremists have launched a national anti-Muslim campaign, led by nationalist monks. The campaign, called the 969 Movement (the name comes from Buddhist numerology), calls on Buddhists to avoid Muslim shops and properties and tacitly encourages evictions and even attacks. The movement's followers encourage Buddhist shop-owners to put 969 stickers on their stores, identifying them as Buddhist-run, and have at times reportedly attacked Buddhist merchants for doing business with Muslims. One 969 leader, nationalist monk U Wirathu, has given numerous interviews calling for the expulsion of Muslims from the country or worse. When he gives sermons, Wirathu now draws thousands of followers, like a nationalist rock star. In a much-covered speech in February, Wirathu told followers: "Once these evil Muslims have control, they will not let us practise our religion … If you buy from Muslim shops, your money doesn't just stop there. It will eventually go towards destroying your race and religion." Some liberal commentators have compared the movement to neo-Nazis, and in March militant monks in the town of Meiktila carried swords and knives, watching over Muslims being force-marched out of the area.

Violence has exploded across the country. Mobs of Buddhists, some with ties to the 969 Movement, have struck in the towns of Meiktila, Nay Pyi Taw, Bago and now in Yangon, the largest city. Earlier this year in Meiktila, groups of men burnt Muslims' homes and then attacked survivors, killing at least 40 people, including schoolchildren. U Wirathu publicly praised these actions. Many of the mobs also appear to have ties to several long-standing paramilitary organisations that previously worked with the army to enforce military rule, according to several Myanmar rights activists. Police provide protection for U Wirathu as he travels, as if he were a state leader.

In Okekan, another town in central Myanmar, gangs of Buddhists attacked Muslims, even though there had been few previous signs of inter-religious tension. The leading Myanmar publication The Irrawaddy reported that the gangs "appeared to be a well-organised mob, complete with scouts and checkpoints" in scenes eerily reminiscent of the organised violence of Rwanda in 1994. At least 10 people were killed in Okekan, though the exact number of deaths remains unclear.

Even in towns where there was no history of inter-religious tensions, attacks on Muslims have erupted. In Lashio, a town in north-eastern Shan State, Buddhist gangs armed with knives and petrol bombs attacked the major mosque and burnt it down in late May. Some locals claimed that the gangs had even burnt down a Muslim orphanage, although it was difficult to confirm these reports.

Thein Sein has declared states of emergency in several parts of the country, deploying the army in an attempt to stop violence, yet the army has little knowledge of how to quell protests peacefully. And though some police officers may have acted bravely, overall the authorities have either been absent during the rioting or too poorly trained to do anything. In Lashio, the government has only arrested one man, a Muslim.

Outside of Indonesia and other South East Asian nations directly affected by Myanmar's tensions, the world seems to have paid little attention to this looming catastrophe. Yet Myanmar's tensions are creating instability in the middle of Asia. Already, militants in Indonesia angry at the attacks on Muslims in Myanmar allegedly tried to bomb the Myanmar embassy in Jakarta, a plot foiled by Indonesian security forces. And in the past two weeks, at least four people have been killed in Malaysia as Buddhist and Muslims from Myanmar have begun attacking each other in Kuala Lumpur. This comes just after violence between Myanmar Buddhist and Muslim refugees in Indonesia resulted in several deaths. Malaysia has this week detained several groups of refugees for fear of greater violence.

On the day HRW released its damning report, the European Union lifted its remaining trade sanctions on Myanmar. The US, other western nations and Japan see a strategic prize in Myanmar that could potentially offset China's growing power in the region: before the western democracies lifted sanctions, China was by far the largest donor to and investor in Myanmar.

The government, Suu Kyi and foreign donors that have poured into Myanmar must act rapidly and develop a plan for devolution and federal government. Thein Sein should purge senior military leaders shown to be disobeying his commands. Suu Kyi needs to be less reticent in speaking out on the rights of all people in Myanmar and on the need to halt ethnic and religious attacks.

In addition, the Myanmar government and donors need to focus incoming aid on areas crucial to restoring peace. These include creating a civilian-controlled police force, to reduce the need for army intervention in conflict areas; training young journalists to understand the need for sourcing stories; and launching mediation efforts to increase dialogue among ethnic groups and religions.

At the same time, regional governments and western donors could plan more effectively for outflows of refugees from Myanmar's conflicts. Relief agencies and wealthier nations could provide funds for temporary camps for refugees in Thailand, as well as help some resettle elsewhere abroad.

Meanwhile, the Association of South East Asian Nations could adopt a common approach to intercepting refugee boats and agree to accept people fleeing Myanmar, assured that the economic burden would not fall on them alone. Otherwise the world could be left watching, as it was in Rwanda two decades ago, as slaughter feeds upon slaughter.

Joshua Kurlantzick is fellow for South East Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Quartz

June 27, 2013

Rohingya Aye Myaing

RB News

June 27, 2013

The devastations caused by the forced Bengalization of Rohingyas in the village of Khawar Bil (Kyi Kan Pyin), Maung Daw, have recently been reported here: http://bit.ly/11BsXUZ.

Below is a list of Rohingyas, mostly women, who were beaten, tortured, humiliated, forced to give bio-metric finger prints and forcefully Bengalized. The women were insulted, tortured and forced to sign in the absences of their men. 

On 20th June, 2013

(1) Yasmin D/o U Marmod (29)

(2) Sarjedar D/o U Seraz (52)

(3) Marjedar D/o U Zafor Ahamed (18)

These three were severely beaten and humiliated.

On 21st June, 2013

(1) Futar Nei D/o Abu Bakkar (52)

(2) Dilkayas D/o Nawzir Ahamed (25)

(3) Sarjedar D/o Nawzir Ahamed (35)

(4) Harsenar D/o Aftar Ahamed (20)

(5) Bellua D/o Fazol Kawrim (42)

(6) Shukkur S/o Salay Ahamed (28)

(7) Duru Nei D/o Salay Ahamed (15)

(8) Shawbikar D/o ? (16)

(9) Mawriyan Kartu D/o Md Khan (14)

(10) Halar Buri D/o Salay Ahamed (18)

(11) Tawyufa D/o Harbi (30)

(12) Enose S/o Karmal (36)

On 22nd June, 2013

(1) Rowshida D/o Auli Ahamed (47)

(2) Madar D/o Kawlimullah (17)

(3) Zaidar D/o Kawlimullah (15)

(4) Jarmalidar D/o Moggul Ahamed (45)

(5) Nur Karyas D/o Nur Md (14)

(6) Lylar D/o ? (46)

(7) Rajumar D/o Sarlay Ahamed (40)

(8) Tawsmin D/o Kawlimullah (16)

(9) Adularzei S/o Kawlimullah (14)

(10) Sawmira D/o Sawtia Akbar (14)

(11) Saytara D/o Unknown (45)

(12) Lylar D/o Harlot (35)

(13) Saytara D/o Md Rawshid (15)

(14) Rowhimar Kartu D/o Md Rawshid (13)

(15) Gulbar D/o Harun (48)

(16) Yasmine Ara D/o ? (30)

(17) Mosanar D/o Faru Ahamed (35)

(18) Mawriyan Kartu D/o Harlu(Harbi) (50)

(19) Dawlu D/o Adumunap (75)

“D/o” stands for “Daughter of” and “S/o” does for “Son of.”

Now, decide yourself how cruel Myanmar authorities have been with Rohingyas, male and female alike, young and old alike! A sample form that has been being used to forcefully Bengalize Rohingyas is also attached below.

Forced Bengalization Form

RB News

June 27, 2013

Pauktaw, Arakan – Two Rohingyas were shot dead and five more were wounded in Pauktaw Township, Arakan State during the military operation asking refugees at gun points to work as forced laborers in the Kyein Ni Pyin Rohingya refugees camp.

“Today morning the army who were in Pauktaw as security forces has entered into the Rohingya refugee camp and beaten the refugees like thugs. Then forced refugees to work as laborers with them.” a local told to RB News.

As the security forces were beating anyone who were in front of them and forced them to work as forced-laborers. When the refugees refused their order to work, the security forces fired into the crowd and two Rohingya refugees were killed on the spot and five more were wounded. 

The two refugees who were shot dead by the security forces are:

(1) Bawdar S/o U Saw Tar (24 –years-old-male) 

(2) Salim S/o U Monu (19 years-old-male)

The security forces and staffs from Pauktaw Township administration took away the corpse of Bawdar and the body of Salim is still in the camp. 

The profiles of five persons who got injured are being collected and will be posted soon.

According to the local, the security forces and Nasaka (Border Security Forces) are still surrounding the camp and are forcing the refugees to work as forced-laborers. Locals are still not sure that there will be an investigation on the killing or it will be covered up by false accusation blaming the innocent refugees the cause of the incident.

Brendan Brady

The Daily Beast

June 27, 2013

Muslims from an obscure ethnic group in western Burma have become targets of vicious Buddhist mob attacks. Brendan Brady reports from Rakhine state on the increasing violence.

As mobs wielding torches and machetes rampaged through his neighborhood, Abdul had a strangely candid encounter with one assailant. Recognizing the man as his long-time neighbor – the same man who had once showed great affection towards Abdul’s children – Abdul yelled to his would-be executioner: "‘Why are you doing this?’ He told me, ‘Sorry, I’m fighting for my people.’” Abdul, whose full name is withheld to protect his identity, is a Muslim from the Rohingya ethnic group and his attacker, a Buddhist. Abdul kept him and other members of the mob at bay by throwing his valuables out of his window onto the street. As they were distracted collecting the cash and jewelry, another group of Buddhists from his street approached his house from the rear. They, too, were armed but they had come to escort Abdul and his family out of the besieged neighborhood. “They saved our lives.”

The conflict in western Burma’s Rakhine State erupted last June, when reports spread that a Buddhist woman was raped and murdered by three Rohingya men. Shortly after, a mob of Buddhists exacted retribution by pulling over a bus carrying Muslims and beating ten passengers to death. The incidents ignited sectarian violence throughout the state. Nearly 200 were killed and many more injured, and some 10,000 homes were destroyed. The vast majority of the estimated 140,000 displaced were Rohingyas, and a year after their violent upheaval they continue to languish in squalid temporary encampments. 

In recent months, the violence spread to include attacks on Muslim communities in other parts of the country. In March, provoked by a small dispute in a Muslim-owned gold shop, a Buddhist mob tore through a town in central Burma, killing over 40 people, burning mosques and Muslim homes, and displacing thousands. In May, 1,200 Muslims in the country’s northeast fled from their homes when throngs of armed Buddhists mobilized after unconfirmed reports that a Muslim man killed a Buddhist woman in the area. 

The turmoil carries worrying implications for national reconciliation and the sustainability of democratic reforms in Burma, also known as Myanmar, which is in the first stages of transitioning from military to civilian rule. Since independence, in 1948, Burma’s government has been in alternately hot and cold conflicts with myriad ethnic minority groups in the country’s border regions. The xenophobic generals who seized power by coup in 1962 justified their iron-fisted rule as necessary to hold together a fractured country. The junta stepped down in 2011 and Burma’s new semi-civilian government has carried out surprisingly comprehensive reforms: loosening controls on political association, civil society and the press, as well as releasing hundreds of political prisoners. But fresh sectarian violence serves as fodder to the army’s insistence on remaining a backstop to the fragile civilian government and maintaining ultimate authority. It also raises questions about how far democratic reforms will extend to minorities. 

Regarded in many quarters as the most persecuted ethnic group in Asia, the Rohingya live in the borderlands between Burma and Bangladesh but are officially a stateless people. There are around a million Rohingyas in Burma today. Their exact roots are debated but many likely settled in Burma in the 19th century, having migrated from modern-day Bangladesh into the newly-acquired lands of the British empire. Today, the Rohingya, along with a few other maligned minorities, are excluded from the 135 ethnic groups Burma’s government recognizes as citizens. Many Burmese say the Rohingya should “go back” to Bangladesh, whose government also disavows the Rohingya. Among other consequences of apartheid policies against them, the Rohingya need special permission to travel and marry and face severe discrimination in access to employment, education and medical care.

Last year’s violence unveiled particularly chilling dimensions of racial and religious hatred towards the Rohingya. When the wife of Mohamed Salam was found dead floating in a river, her body carried a sinister message. She was abducted along with two of her children in June, and Salam was later told by sympathetic Buddhists how they had died. According to them, her captors said her breasts gave milk to Muslim babies and her womb gave birth to future generations of Muslims. Her breasts were then hacked off and her genitalia mutilated with sharpened bamboo. Her teenage son was tethered to a motorbike and dragged across a rocky road. Salam would not elaborate on how his daughter met her end. Today, he cares for his remaining 5-year-old boy in a camp for displaced people outside of Sittwe, the state capital, and the prospect of receiving justice is even more illusory than his chances of returning to his home and job. 

Human Rights Watch alleges last year’s bloodshed amounted to ethnic cleansing. In a detailed report released in April, the international rights monitor said state security forces did more to facilitate than to prevent abuses against Rohingyas, and sometimes even directly participated in atrocities. The group profiled one particularly brutal episode, last October, in which 70 Rohingyas, including 28 children, were left easy prey for a Buddhist mob to butcher after local riot police disarmed the Rohingyas of rudimentary weapons they carried to defend themselves. The report said local Buddhist politicians and monks publicly demonized the Rohingya – describing them as a threat to Burmese society and encouraging their removal from the state – “in full view” of authorities, “who raised no concerns”. Burmese rights groups have criticized Human Rights Watch’s assessment as one-sided, and instead described the violence as “communal”. 

Such labels aside, what may be most foreboding are the dim prospects for a normalization (in relative terms) of life for Rohingyas in Burma. Time has not softened the vitriol many Buddhists in Rakhine State feel towards the group. “We cannot go back to living together,” says Hla Moe Thu, a 58-year-old Buddhist woman living in a camp for displaced people on the outskirts of Sittwe. “They should go to Bangladesh, where they came from, or they should be killed,” she adds, as her grandchild sits beside her. According to Ashin Ariya, the head monk of Shwezedi Monastery in Sittwe, Rohingyas have wicked designs: to rape Buddhist women, colonize Buddhist land, and convert non-Muslims to Islam. “The Muslims like to kill people and rape women, and they want to take over the whole area and make everyone Muslim,” he says matter-of-factly. 

Paradoxically, democratic reforms have fed the jingoistic chorus. Over the past year, Burma’s new government has dialed back the heavy press and Internet censorship of the previous military regime, allowing journalists greater independence and web users nearly limitless access to sites. But freedom of speech has unleashed pent-up prejudices. Online forums contain rafts of posts referring to the Rohingya in expletive-filled terms, and Burmese newspapers have shown the Rohingya no quarter. Eleven, one of Burma’s largest-circulation newspapers, has focused its coverage of Rakhine State on slamming the Rohingya. Ho Than Hlaing, their correspondent in Sittwe, says the “Bengalis” living in relief camps are quarrelsome freeloaders who receive better care than displaced Buddhists – in fact, conditions in camps for the much smaller number of displaced Buddhists are markedly better than those in Rohingya camps, some of which are blocked by authorities from receiving international aid.

The rhetoric has carried over into daily life. A recently launched campaign urges Burmese to only patronize shops that display “969” signs– a code referring to Buddhist teaching – in their storefronts. The group of zealous monks spearheading the movement allege it is intended to promote Buddhist pride, but its true aim seems to be to marginalize Muslims. 

Aung Naing Oo, a member of the Myanmar Peace Center, a governmental group that advises on ethnic disputes, likens the dangerous nationalism in Burma today to the escalation of ethnic tensions in former Yugoslavia after the fall of the Soviet Union: no longer fettered by the strictures of a military state, people are freer to act on long-suppressed prejudices. But even within this scheme, animosity towards the Rohingyas is singularly severe. Indeed, they are viewed both as carpet-bagging intruders and low-caste detritus. “Indians” – including various peoples from the subcontinent and those with South Asian features – are resented in Burma because many arrived following the British takeover and soon emerged as a dominant group in urban commerce. Rohingyas are viewed with particular suspicion and scorn for their religion and distinctly dark skin. And, to top it off, they are seen to epitomize the existential threat posed by neighboring Bangladesh, whose large and poor population Burmese feel is perpetually on the cusp of spilling over en masse into Burma. 

The turmoil in Rakhine State is further complicated by hostilities between the local Buddhist population, from the Arakanese ethnic group, and the Burman majority and central government they dominate. The Arakanese were the ancestors of a small kingdom that used to control what is modern-day Rakhine State and, like many ethnic groups in Burma, they desire autonomy. Beyond ethnic pride, the Arakanese resent that Rakhine is Burma’s second-poorest state despite its natural riches – the area’s timber, oil, gas and precious metals have for decades been pillaged by the military and their cronies. “Our people want a real federal state with self-determination and our share of profits from natural resources,” says Than Thun, a community leader in Sittwe. But Arakanese autonomists like Than Thun have, for the time being, found common cause with the central government in directing their ire towards the Rohingya, who are easy scapegoats. 

Few figures inside Burma have spoken out against the anti-Rohingya sloganeering. Most conspicuous has been the near silence of the country’s iconic human rights and democracy icon, Aung San Suu Kyi. After 15 years under house arrest, Suu Kyi is now a parliamentarian and has political calculations to consider. Observers believe she sees support for the Rohingya as going treacherously against the tide of popular opinion. The new president, Thein Sein, has said he will crackdown on “political opportunists and religious extremists”, but his intentions and ability to control eruptions of violence remain unclear. Thein Sein is a former high-ranking general who has surprised many in and outside the country with his moderation but that may not extend to his feelings towards the Rohingya. And observers note the upper-echelons of his government remain stocked with former military figures who delight in the potential for sectarian violence to steer power back towards the army. 

In the meantime, Rohingyas in and outside the camps are in greater numbers turning to the sea to escape their dire prospects. Chris Lewa, head of the Arakan Project, an NGO that tracks rights abuses in Rakhine State, estimates that nearly 28,000 Rohingya attempted to flee through the Bay of Bengal during the recent dry season, three times the normal rate. The journey is perilous: hundreds die every year from starvation, dehydration and drowning aboard barges that are ill-equipped for ocean travel and steered by mercenary crews. 

In Boomay – a Rohingya quarter just outside of Sittwe that is hemmed in by a series of army checkpoints – a group of men in a shanty teashop are watching an ancient television tuned to a news channel with footage of Rohingyas on barges intercepted by the Bangladeshi navy. The program shows Rohingyas kneeling under tarps on the deck of a boat as waves come crashing against the bow. The teashop’s owner pays little attention to scenes of horror – she has already determined her daughter will attempt a similar voyage to join her husband in Malaysia, where he is working illegally but earning steady wages. “If we could stay here in peace and have some freedom, then it would be better to stay here and not take this risk,” says the daughter, who is in her early twenties and plans to take her five-year-old child along. “But we don’t know if that will ever be the case.”