Over 370,000 Myanmar Rohingya, a sect of mostly Sunni Muslims, have fled to nearby Muslim-nation, Bangladesh. Fleeing to one of poorest nations on earth, a nation that is periodically mostly underwater from horrific floods from the Brahmaputra River? Who flees to Bangladesh? How bad must life be in Myanmar (where these Rohingya are struggling to leave) for people to choose Bangladesh instead? Although there are over 1.1 Rohingya in mostly Buddhist Myanmar (formerly Burma), the estimated population of 60 million practices mostly (almost 90%) a deeply religious form of Buddhism – Theravada.
While we normally think of Buddhists as the most non-violent people on earth, this is hardly the case, particularly in the eastern Rakhine State on the Bay of Bengal, where there is a heavy concentration of Rohingya peoples. Tales of the slaughter of Rohingya men, women and children, the razing and burning of entire villages, seem to be increasingly documented. See the picture above. “The Myanmar government said that villagers set fire to their own homes…” BBC.com, September 14th. Seriously?! Life for Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine has placed them on the edge of subsistence survival for as long as anyone can remember.
Ask a Rakhine Buddhist what’s going on with the Rohingya, and you are likely to get a description of a murderous terrorist. Ask the United Nations what’s going on, and you are going to get a very sordid description of “ethnic cleansing” where massacres of Rohingya by angry Buddhists (directed by the military government) seem to be among the worst cases of contemporary ethnic cleansing on earth. Insurgency or ethnic cleansing? Separatists or a persecuted minority? Radical jihadists or people struggling to survive? Are those “murdering terrorists” doing nothing more than a rather weak, token effort at Rohingya self-defense? Who are these people?
“[The Rohingya] are an ethnic group, majority of whom are Muslim, who have lived for centuries in the majority Buddhist Myanmar. Currently, there are about 1.1 million Rohingya who live in the Southeast Asian country.
“The Rohingya speak Rohingya or Ruaingga, a dialect that is distinct to others spoken in Rakhine State and throughout Myanmar. They are not considered one of the country's 135 official ethnic groups and have been denied citizenship in Myanmar since 1982, which has effectively rendered them stateless…
“[The Rohingya in the] western coastal state of Rakhine… are not allowed to leave without government permission. It is one the poorest states in the country with ghetto-like camps and a lack of basic services and opportunities… Due to ongoing violence and persecution, hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have fled to neighbouring countries either by land or boat over the course of many decades…
“Muslims have lived in the area now known as Myanmar since as early as the 12th century, according to many historians and Rohingya groups… The Arakan Rohingya National Organisation has said, ‘Rohingyas have been living in Arakan from time immemorial,’ referring to the area now known as Rakhine.
“During the more than 100 years of British rule (1824-1948), there was a significant amount of migration of labourers to what is now known as Myanmar from today's India and Bangladesh… Because the British administered Myanmar as a province of India, such migration was considered internal, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW)… The migration of labourers was viewed negatively by the majority of the native population.
“After independence, the government viewed the migration that took place during British rule as ‘illegal, and it is on this basis that they refuse citizenship to the majority of Rohingya,’ HRW said in a 2000 report… This has led many Buddhists to consider the Rohingya to be Bengali, rejecting the term Rohingya as a recent invention, created for political reasons.” Aljazeera.com, September 13th. The government claims it has spent decades trying to control the same kind of mujahideen fighters waging war all across the Muslim world. The government and local Buddhists have amped up their push to rid the country of Rohingya. They cannot travel without government permission, but the government is trying to get rid of them? Huh?
“The Rohingya have faced violence and discrimination in the majority-Buddhist country for decades, but they are now fleeing in unprecedented numbers from violence that the United Nations human rights chief, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, has called ‘a textbook example of ethnic cleansing.’” New York Times, September 13th. After a closed door session on September 13th, the United Nations Security Council unanimously condemned this ethnic violence in Myanmar. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres openly stated that “ethnic cleansing” is taking place in Myanmar against the Rohingya Muslim minority. Guterres called for Myanmar government authorities to suspend military action and end the violence, saying that the alleged attacks by security forces on Rohingya Muslims were completely unacceptable.
Anti-Myanmar protesters around the world have criticized Myanmar leader (“State Counselor,” not the president) Aung San Suu Kyi, asking whether she was really given her Nobel Peace Prize for promoting peace or for persecuting Rohingya Muslims… and why is she not standing up for her principles? Her defenders say that not only does she hold her political position solely by the grace of the local generals, who in fact control the nation, but should she call what is happening to the local Rohingya “ethnic cleansing,” she would instantly lose her massive mostly Buddhist following. Aung San Suu Kyiannounced that she will skip her previously accepted attendance at the U.N. General Assembly in late September because, according to the official Myanmar government spokesperson, of the “terrorist attacks” in Rakhine State... the State Counselor will try to “calm the situation”… as the government deals with the “security issue” caused by the Rohingya “rebels.” The situation is going from horrible to beyond disgusting.
I’m Peter Dekom, and what is happening in Rakhine State, Myanmar is horribly wrong and cannot be justified by any conceivable argument that has been or can be made.
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