Burma’s potential for a nationwide religious war

[kobiraaz]

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Burma’s potential for a nationwide religious war | Asia News – Politics, Media, Education | Asian Correspondent

 

[kobiraaz]

Unforgiving history

IN THE morning sunlight, the panorama from the Shwethaung pagoda, on the highest hill in Mrauk-u, looked magical: lush rice paddy, sparkling lakes and wooded hills, many topped by other glinting gilt pagodas. But in one spot, black smoke was billowing. Another village was burning. From October 22nd-24th Mrauk-u, a tourist centre in Rakhine state in Myanmar, and former capital of the independent kingdom of Arakan, turned into a war zone.

Below the pagoda a spontaneous, medieval army was massing. Hundreds of young men were on the march: packed on the backs of pickups, on motorcycles, on trishaws, tuk-tuks and bicycles, but mostly on foot. They carried spears, swords, cleavers, bamboo staves, slingshots, crossbows and the occasional petrol bomb. Violence between the Buddhist majority and the mostly Muslim Rohingya minority has wracked Rakhine since June. These were angry Buddhists seeking to avenge the deaths of three of their kin, killed, they said, by Muslims. One tugged at an imaginary beard and made a grisly throat-cutting gesture.

Both sides in this dispute have long memories. For most Rakhines, Rohingyas do not really exist. They say the term was coined in 1951 to describe Bengali settlers who had been brought in by the British Raj. Many more followed, they say, as illegal immigrants. So for Rakhines, the struggle, as one tract puts it, is “about an invasion of Bengali land-grabbers”. The north of the state, near the Bangladeshi border, is already more than 90% Muslim, despite a government rule limiting Muslims to two children.

Many Rakhines also resent the central government, dominated by ethnic Burmans. They see themselves as victims of serial invasions: by the Burmans in 1784, by the British in the 1820s and by Bengalis ever since. That most of the Bengali immigrants are Muslims adds religious tension. In Sittwe Aung Kyaw Zan, a writer, says Rakhines are “sandwiched between Burmanisation and Islamisation”. Shwe Maung, of a Rakhine political party, says “they are trying to Islamise us through their terrible birth rate.”

Seeing the children reciting the Koran in Arabic at a madrassa in the teeming Thet Kay Pyin camp outside Sittwe for displaced Rohingyas, the fears of ethnic and religious swamping become comprehensible. But Rohingya politicians say it is nonsense that Muslims have more children than Buddhists. And Kyaw Min, who is based in Yangon, Myanmar’s biggest city, also argues that “Rohingyas have been in Rakhine from the creation of the world. Arakan was ours; it was an Indian land for 1,000 years.”

Both sides exaggerate. Some Rakhines claim no Rohingyas deserve to be citizens; Rohingyas assert that there is not one illegal Bengali immigrant. Internationally, the Rohingyas have sympathy but little support. Nationally, the Rakhine arguments have won. At independence the new rulers of what was then Burma tried to limit citizenship to those whose roots in the country predated 1823 and British rule. The 1982 Citizenship Act does not recognise Rohingyas as an ethnic group, though those in Burma for three generations could become citizens. In practice, most of the 1m or so in Burma are stateless—far more are already overseas.

Rohingyas are not allowed to leave the northern towns or the camps in Sittwe. Buddhist monks have led a campaign for a commercial boycott. Khayk Marsara, the influential head of the Dhetkaung monastery, portrays it as a religious duty to mobilise popular anger against “greedy merchants” selling to Muslims. In Mrauk-u, where the trouble started with the mob killing of a trader caught selling rice to Muslims, one local Rakhine resident concedes that Muslims are “hungry and thirsty”.

In October Rakhine Buddhists won another victory when the government backed out of an agreement to let the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation open an office to help Rohingyas. Some frankly say they want the Rohingyas gone. They see other countries using foreign aid as a way to avoid offering them a home.

A matter of time

In the absence of mass deportation, Rakhine’s Buddhists are intent on absolute segregation. “How can we live with these terrorists?” asks one young woman in a camp in Sittwe for displaced Rakhines. That question lours over the cordoned-off quarter of Aung Mingala, Sittwe’s sole remaining Muslim district. At Friday prayers the mosque is packed—others in town, even if not destroyed, are out of bounds. The mood is subdued and desperate.

With the rainy season over, many Rohingyas are already risking their lives as boat people. This week dozens may have died when their boat sank in the Bay of Bengal. Others will try to sneak across the land border to Bangladesh. If the past is any guide, most will be turned back. Those left behind in towns as yet untouched by the violence in Rakhine find themselves shunned by their Buddhist friends and neighbours. The one belief both groups still share is that more trouble will come, at any time.
Banyan: Unforgiving history | The Economist


Within days the trouble had spread across Rakhine, a strip of Myanmar’s western coastline that borders Bangladesh in the north. The government reported 82 killed, 4,600 houses burned and more than 22,000 people displaced—all almost certainly underestimates. Satellite imagery shows the utter destruction of a Muslim quarter of the coastal town of Kyaukphyu, from where oil-and-gas pipelines are to cross Myanmar to China.

Many of its residents had fled by sea for the state capital, Sittwe, to join some 75,000 others, mostly Rohingyas, who have been confined to squalid camps since June, when the conflict flared up after the rape and murder of a Buddhist woman. A state of emergency was imposed. Sittwe has been under curfew ever since, as now are some other parts of Rakhine. Some blame the central government for fuelling the violence: some ministers made inflammatory statements, perhaps hoping to derail Myanmar’s democratic reforms. The need to contain ethnic strife and separatism was long used to justify the army’s 50-year dictatorship. Some must mourn its passing.

 

[Kazhugu]

that would be an unequal fight.....

 

[Tshering22]

Well in such a case, Bangladesh has to be alert as the liklihood of these guys spilling over into Bangladesh is high.

 

[animelive]

that would be an unequal fight.....

more like one sided slaughtering

 

[kobiraaz]

luckily Al Quida is busy in Libya, Syria and Mali.......

 

[BJP*]

Myanmar has full right to preserve local culture. India and china has already extended their full support to Myanmar Govt.

 

[BJP*]

luckily Al Quida is busy in Libya, Syria and Mali.......

they dont have any guts to do anything in Mayanmar, even if they are free

 

[kobiraaz]

Myanmar has full right to preserve local culture. India and china has already extended their full support to Myanmar Govt.

lets start slaughtering Sikhs in Canada, idiot......

 

[animelive]

Myanmar has full right to preserve local culture. India and china has already extended their full support to Myanmar Govt.

If everyone had the mentality of yours, the world would have been destroyed long ago. Idiots like you shouldn't breed

 

[integra]

There was an interesting article some weeks ago
about the location of all this violence occurring in places
adjacent to newly discovered gas fields (including the
middle east). Chinese companies are digging deep
while US wants a piece of the action. Ang Sun not
surprisingly wants less Chinese and more US investments,
with her Hypocrisy.

Apparently some Texas billionaires have started injecting huge
cash in NGOs which are speculated to be channeled for riots.
The ASEAN chief also hinted about a geopolitical orchestra.
Therefore China is actually being played upon by uncle Sam,
won't be surprised if one of our neighbors are involved also.

 

[Zabaniyah]

Very interesting read.

Please, go on.

Ang Sun not
surprisingly wants less Chinese and more US investments,
with her Hypocrisy.

It's not just her.

You'd be surprised just how much the Burmans on the street hate the Chinese.

How much I regret having faith on her over all these years....

 

[DarkPrince]

Very interesting read.

Please, go on.



It's not just her.

You'd be surprised just how much the Burmans on the street hate the Chinese.

How much I regret having faith on her over all these years....

never liked her

 

[alaungphaya]

But your opinions are entirely irrelevant. She has the trust and goodwill of the country and of the west and her motives are ones of serving her country's best interests.

BTW why is the preference for more US involvement and less Chinese involvement so hard to take? We have a long and complicated relationship with the Chinese and they have had hegemonic intents in Myanmar for thousands of years. They also defended the junta in the past so naturally Suu Kyi dislikes them as do her followers.

I have a feeling that a lot of you look up to the Chinese as your master race like how you used to look up to the British as your master race.

 

[madooxno9]

lets start slaughtering Sikhs in Canada, idiot......

Go ahead !! and try that please , I would really like to see the consequences . Oh sorry !! i forgot you are just an internet warrior
oh sorry again , you are a sympathizer of AL-Queda ,which is getting slaughtered everyday