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‘We are not terrorists’ – an exclusive interview with an ARSA commander
Syed Zain Al-MahmoodManik Miazee
Published at 11:34 PM September 23, 2017
Last updated at 02:03 PM September 24, 2017
Abdus Shakoor, a commander of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army in the Maungdaw district in northern Rakhine Syed Zain Al-Mahmood/Dhaka Tribune
An Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army commander in an exclusive interview with the Dhaka Tribune recounts the story of the August 25 attack on a Myanmar border guard post and claims that his outfit isn’t a terrorist organisation
The man sat slumped in a chair inside the thatched hut, the shadows lengthening over his face in the gathering dusk. Tall and gaunt, he was in his mid-twenties but sounded younger. Wearing a traditional blue-and-white check lungi and a cotton shirt, he did not really look like a rebel.
His youthful voice hardened, however, as he reeled off the names of the villages which had been burnt down by the Myanmar army in his home state of Rakhine since August 25, when his organisation attacked border posts and an army base, an operation in which he took part with “200 men from our area.”
“We hit their soldiers, they hit our women and children,” he said. “The Burmese military are cowards.”
An intermediary introduced him as Abdus Shakoor, a commander of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army or ARSA in the Maungdaw district in northern Rakhine. We met him near a barbed wire fence separating Bangladesh and Myanmar after a long trek through swaying rice fields and rolling hills, a deceptively pristine setting for a desperate tale of loss, recklessness and forlorn hope.
After a succession of guides took turns to lead us through a maze of dirt tracks, we came upon a cluster of huts. Children played in a clearing nearby. Chickens scrabbled in the dirt. There were no guns in sight. It was oddly appropriate for the insurgency that Shakoor was describing – almost entirely rural, a peasant war fought in the Rakhine countryside.
The meeting with the ARSA commander was set up after a week of enquiries, dead-ends, and several false starts. ARSA fighters are under severe pressure from the Myanmar army, which has reacted to the August 25 attacks with a scorched-earth campaign that the UN and international human rights groups have denounced as ethnic cleansing.
Yangon has denied that the security forces have targeted civilians, claiming that the army is trying to hunt down terrorists.
It is an accusation to which Shakoor is extremely sensitive. “We are not terrorists,” he said, using the English word, which he pronounced as ‘tetarist.’ “We stood up for our haqq, our rights. There’s nothing else that we want, nothing!”
The Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), a group previously known as Harakah al-Yaqin, or “Faith Movement,” attacked border guard posts, police stations, and army bases on August 25, killing at least 10 policemen and an army soldier.
Shakoor described why and how his group planned and carried out the attack.
“Our zimmadars or elders said we must fight back because the Myanmar government was starving us, killing us slowly. They slaughter our people for no reason, they dishonour our women. They want to uproot us from the land that was handed down from our forefathers.
“To save our people, to save our mothers and sisters, to take back our rights, we took up sticks, and axes and knives and rose up against the oppressors.”
For several nights before the attack, his men took stock of the situation around the army post, he said, noting troop strength, weapons and duty shifts. Similar preparations were taken in other districts in Rakhine.
Then around 1am, the coordinated attacks began.
Although some units in other parts of Rakhine had a small number of firearms, his fighters didn’t have guns, Shakoor said. “We just had knives and axes and some homemade bombs that didn’t explode,” he said almost ruefully.
That statement seems to tally with an official statement from the Myanmar army released on August 26. “In the early morning at 1am, the extremist Bengali insurgents started their attack on the police post … with the man-made bombs and small weapons,” said the army, referring to the Rohingya with the derogatory term implying they are interlopers from Bangladesh.
“If we had weapons, we would have defeated them,” Shakoor said. “We knew we were going up against guns and mortars. We resolved to die so our people could live free.”
He said he carried an axe that he used to chop wood and a couple of Molotov cocktails. His men had hoped that the Myanmar soldiers would be asleep. “We had the numbers. But maybe they had advance warning, because they started firing as soon as we approached.”
The army response – a “clearance operation” – has pushed 400,000 Rohingyas out of Rakhine. Did he think the attack on the army base and the outposts were a mistake?
He paused for a moment before responding, “Our zimmadars made decisions that we thought were necessary under those circumstances.”
Shakoor claimed that the Al-Yaqeen outfit has given rise to a potent insurgency, which has grown in size and morphed from an armed group of a few hundred men into something more akin to a widespread movement.
“Our qaum – or people – support us,” he said. “They know what we want. If the Shaan or Karen people in Myanmar can fight for their rights, so can we.”
He is quick to point out that his outfit hasn’t attacked civilians. “We have nothing against Rakhine people or any other people,” he claimed. “The huqumat or regime is guilty of oppression.”
Shakoor joined ARSA just under a year ago, after the group came out of nowhere to stage attacks on Myanmar police posts, killing nine policemen in October 2016. He was a student at a clandestine madrasa in Maungdaw near the river Naf. The Myanmar authorities had banned schools and madrasas and placed restrictions on the Rohingya which denied them education, he said. “We even have to study in secret,” he said.
The ARSA group is led by a man believed to have been born into a Rohingya family in Pakistan who goes by the name Ata Ullah.
Shakoor said he had never seen Ata Ullah. “He is the ameer (commander or leader in Arabic) and our zimmadaar (senior officials) relay his instructions verbally or through audio-video recordings.”
Because Shakoor had some education, he was quickly appointed a supervisor and then a commander. Now, he says the future is uncertain.
“We want the international community to help us,” he said. “We want nothing more than to live in peace as human beings.”
As the darkness deepens and the hut is illuminated by a single bulb powered by a solar panel placed in the yard, Shakoor says his people are grateful to Bangladesh for allowing 400,000 Rohingya to take refuge in the country.
“Bangladeshis have done a great thing by helping our women and children,” he said. “They have acted like human beings.”
http://www.dhakatribune.com/world/south-asia/2017/09/23/we-resolved-die-our-people-live-free/
Syed Zain Al-MahmoodManik Miazee
Published at 11:34 PM September 23, 2017
Last updated at 02:03 PM September 24, 2017
Abdus Shakoor, a commander of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army in the Maungdaw district in northern Rakhine Syed Zain Al-Mahmood/Dhaka Tribune
An Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army commander in an exclusive interview with the Dhaka Tribune recounts the story of the August 25 attack on a Myanmar border guard post and claims that his outfit isn’t a terrorist organisation
The man sat slumped in a chair inside the thatched hut, the shadows lengthening over his face in the gathering dusk. Tall and gaunt, he was in his mid-twenties but sounded younger. Wearing a traditional blue-and-white check lungi and a cotton shirt, he did not really look like a rebel.
His youthful voice hardened, however, as he reeled off the names of the villages which had been burnt down by the Myanmar army in his home state of Rakhine since August 25, when his organisation attacked border posts and an army base, an operation in which he took part with “200 men from our area.”
“We hit their soldiers, they hit our women and children,” he said. “The Burmese military are cowards.”
An intermediary introduced him as Abdus Shakoor, a commander of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army or ARSA in the Maungdaw district in northern Rakhine. We met him near a barbed wire fence separating Bangladesh and Myanmar after a long trek through swaying rice fields and rolling hills, a deceptively pristine setting for a desperate tale of loss, recklessness and forlorn hope.
After a succession of guides took turns to lead us through a maze of dirt tracks, we came upon a cluster of huts. Children played in a clearing nearby. Chickens scrabbled in the dirt. There were no guns in sight. It was oddly appropriate for the insurgency that Shakoor was describing – almost entirely rural, a peasant war fought in the Rakhine countryside.
The meeting with the ARSA commander was set up after a week of enquiries, dead-ends, and several false starts. ARSA fighters are under severe pressure from the Myanmar army, which has reacted to the August 25 attacks with a scorched-earth campaign that the UN and international human rights groups have denounced as ethnic cleansing.
Yangon has denied that the security forces have targeted civilians, claiming that the army is trying to hunt down terrorists.
It is an accusation to which Shakoor is extremely sensitive. “We are not terrorists,” he said, using the English word, which he pronounced as ‘tetarist.’ “We stood up for our haqq, our rights. There’s nothing else that we want, nothing!”
The Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), a group previously known as Harakah al-Yaqin, or “Faith Movement,” attacked border guard posts, police stations, and army bases on August 25, killing at least 10 policemen and an army soldier.
Shakoor described why and how his group planned and carried out the attack.
“Our zimmadars or elders said we must fight back because the Myanmar government was starving us, killing us slowly. They slaughter our people for no reason, they dishonour our women. They want to uproot us from the land that was handed down from our forefathers.
“To save our people, to save our mothers and sisters, to take back our rights, we took up sticks, and axes and knives and rose up against the oppressors.”
Then around 1am, the coordinated attacks began.
Although some units in other parts of Rakhine had a small number of firearms, his fighters didn’t have guns, Shakoor said. “We just had knives and axes and some homemade bombs that didn’t explode,” he said almost ruefully.
That statement seems to tally with an official statement from the Myanmar army released on August 26. “In the early morning at 1am, the extremist Bengali insurgents started their attack on the police post … with the man-made bombs and small weapons,” said the army, referring to the Rohingya with the derogatory term implying they are interlopers from Bangladesh.
“If we had weapons, we would have defeated them,” Shakoor said. “We knew we were going up against guns and mortars. We resolved to die so our people could live free.”
He said he carried an axe that he used to chop wood and a couple of Molotov cocktails. His men had hoped that the Myanmar soldiers would be asleep. “We had the numbers. But maybe they had advance warning, because they started firing as soon as we approached.”
The army response – a “clearance operation” – has pushed 400,000 Rohingyas out of Rakhine. Did he think the attack on the army base and the outposts were a mistake?
He paused for a moment before responding, “Our zimmadars made decisions that we thought were necessary under those circumstances.”
Shakoor claimed that the Al-Yaqeen outfit has given rise to a potent insurgency, which has grown in size and morphed from an armed group of a few hundred men into something more akin to a widespread movement.
“Our qaum – or people – support us,” he said. “They know what we want. If the Shaan or Karen people in Myanmar can fight for their rights, so can we.”
He is quick to point out that his outfit hasn’t attacked civilians. “We have nothing against Rakhine people or any other people,” he claimed. “The huqumat or regime is guilty of oppression.”
Shakoor joined ARSA just under a year ago, after the group came out of nowhere to stage attacks on Myanmar police posts, killing nine policemen in October 2016. He was a student at a clandestine madrasa in Maungdaw near the river Naf. The Myanmar authorities had banned schools and madrasas and placed restrictions on the Rohingya which denied them education, he said. “We even have to study in secret,” he said.
The ARSA group is led by a man believed to have been born into a Rohingya family in Pakistan who goes by the name Ata Ullah.
Shakoor said he had never seen Ata Ullah. “He is the ameer (commander or leader in Arabic) and our zimmadaar (senior officials) relay his instructions verbally or through audio-video recordings.”
Because Shakoor had some education, he was quickly appointed a supervisor and then a commander. Now, he says the future is uncertain.
“We want the international community to help us,” he said. “We want nothing more than to live in peace as human beings.”
As the darkness deepens and the hut is illuminated by a single bulb powered by a solar panel placed in the yard, Shakoor says his people are grateful to Bangladesh for allowing 400,000 Rohingya to take refuge in the country.
“Bangladeshis have done a great thing by helping our women and children,” he said. “They have acted like human beings.”
http://www.dhakatribune.com/world/south-asia/2017/09/23/we-resolved-die-our-people-live-free/
ARSA_The Army @ARSA_Official
