The Rohingya genocide - no longer a myth
A genocide is taking place against the Rohingyas of Myanmar. It is
not a new one in this Buddhist-majority country and has been an on-going ethnic
cleansing national program to erase Muslim presence since Burma emerged as an
independent state.
After General Ne Win took power in 1962 in a military coup,
the status of Rohingya further deteriorated. His military junta adopted a policy of "Myanmarisation", which was an
ultra-nationalist ideology based on the racial purity of the Myanma (or more
properly Bama) ethnicity and its Buddhist faith.
By 1977, the Rohingyas had witnessed at least 13 pogroms. Their
condition turned worse in 1978 when the Naga Min or King Dragon Operation started on February 6 from the
biggest Muslim village of Sakkipara in Akyab (now called Sittwe). The purpose of this operation was to scrutinize
each individual within the state as either a citizen or alleged "illegal
immigrant". It sent shock waves over the whole region within a
short time. The news of mass arrest of Muslims, male and female, young and old,
torture, rape and killing in Akyab panicked Muslims greatly in other towns of
North Arakan (now called the Rakhine state).
In March 1978 the operation reached Buthidaung and Maungdaw
(close to the border with Bangladesh). Hundreds of Muslim men and women were
thrown into the jail and many of them were tortured and killed. Muslim women
were raped freely in the detention centers. Terrified by the utter ferocity and
ruthlessness of the operation and total uncertainty of their life, property,
honor and dignity, a large number Rohingya Muslims left their homes to cross the
Burma-Bangladesh border. Within 3 months nearly a quarter million Rohingyas
took shelter in makeshift camps erected by Bangladesh Government. The United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) recognized them as genuine
refugees and started relief operations. Many
of the refugees were later repatriated to Myanmar where they faced further torture,
rape, jail and death.
To justify the
on-going ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya, the Burma
Citizenship Law (1982), co-authored by a wicked Rakhine academic Aye Kyaw, was
passed during the Ne Win era. The Rohingyas were not listed as one of the country’s
135 “national races” entitled to Burmese citizenship, effectively making them a
people without a state — even after living for generations in Arakan. They
became the most persecuted people in our planet.
“Stripped officially of
their citizenship, the Rohingya found their lives in limbo: prohibited from the
right to own land or property, barred from travelling outside their villages,
repairing their decaying places of worship, receiving an education in any
language or even marrying and having children without rarely granted government
permission. The Rohingya have also been subjected to modern-day slavery, forced
to work on infrastructure projects, such as constructing ‘model villages’ to
house the Myanmar settlers intended to displace them, reminiscent of their
treatment at the hands of the Burmese kings of history,” Professor Akbar Ahmed observes.
To further terrorize the already marginalized Rohingya people,
the Pyi Thaya Operation (or Operation Clean and Beautiful Nation) was launched by the military in
July 1991. This major pogrom lasting for nearly a year resulted in the exodus
of some 268,000 Rohingyas to Bangladesh. The
United Nations Refugee Agency referred to those operations as “ethnic cleansing campaigns led by the military junta
itself.”
Dr. Michael W. Charney, a University of London scholar who
specializes in South East Asian studies, wrote in his paper Buddhism in Arakan: Theory and
Historiography of the Religious Basis of the Ethnonym that the “Rohingya
[…] are compelled to thrive under really testing conditions where even their
personal lives are under strict state scrutiny. Whatever property they
inherited from their ancestors have been forcefully taken away from them, and
granted to the Buddhist majority under the banner of different national schemes
that served to institutionalize and hence legitimize racist discrimination of
Rohingya”.
Benjamin Zawacki, Senior Legal Advisor for Southeast Asia at
the International Commission of Jurists, in his article Defining Myanmar’s “Rohingya Problem,”
this is “a political, social, and economic system – manifested in law, policy,
and practice – designed to discriminate against this ethnic and religious
minority [which] makes such direct violence against the Rohingya far more
possible and likely than it would be otherwise”.
In spite of murderous
activities of the junta and their henchmen, the Rohingyas of Arakan refused to
vanish from the Mogher Mulluk of
Burma. So, the military junta come with a new program, no less sinister than
the previous ones.
NaSaKa (Nay-Sat Kut-kwey Ye), a border
security/military force, was create in 1992 to terrorize the Rohingyas of
Arakan on a daily basis. It was to be found only in North Arakan (Rakhine)
state, where they became the main perpetrators of human rights abuse against
the Rohingya. The day-to-day lives of the Rohingya took a dramatic turn for the
worse. They faced severe restrictions on their movement and were subjected to
forced labor and arbitrary land seizure and forced displacement, and endured
excessive taxes and extortion. Since 1994, it has been illegal for married
Rohingya to have more than two children. In the words of Pulitzer-winning
journalist and photographer Greg Constantine “almost all aspects of their lives
in North Rakhine are controlled or exploited by NaSaKa.”
The persecution and abuses of power by the NaSaKa, terrorizing
the Rohingya, continued unabated for decades until it was disbanded with the advent
of a so-called reform government that was led by Thein Sein, an ex-military
general. He promised democracy and opened the doors of Myanmar for foreign
investment. The gesture was reciprocated by the West by withdrawing its
economic and military sanctions against the once-pariah government. During
Thein Sein’s time, the old IDs and national cards were all seized from the
Rohingya people who were also banned from participating in the general elections.
What is worse, his regime empowered Buddhist terrorist monks who through popular
religio-fascist organizations like the MaBaTha continued to spread hate crimes and
prepare the groundwork for the latest genocidal crimes against all Muslims,
esp. the Rohingyas of Arakan. The latter were falsely portrayed as ‘illegals’
from nearby Bangladesh who are’ threatening’ the Buddhist identity of the
country through ‘high birth rates’. Deliberately omitted in such narratives was
the mere fact that the percentage of Muslims have been declining since Burma
won independence from Britain.
Shwe Maung, a Rakhine politician, told The Economist that “[Rohingyas] are trying to Islamize us through their
terrible birth rate.” Wirathu, the terrorist Buddhist monk,
mentioned to Global Post “Muslims are like the African carp. They breed quickly
and they are very violent. They eat their own kind.” Finally, President
Thein Sein reiterated that, for the government, “the Rohingya were not citizens of Myanmar”
and that he wished to “hand over the entire ethnic group to the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in order to settle them in a different
country.”
It was in this highly poisonous environment that the 2012
genocidal campaigns against the Rohingya was unleashed. Within weeks in June
nearly a quarter million Muslims were internally displaced inside Myanmar in an
orgy of Buddhist violence that was participated from top to bottom, enjoying
full support from the government, politicians and the Buddhist monks. It was
Rwanda all over again in this genocidal crime against the Muslims, esp. the
Rohingyas, of Myanmar.
And I am not alone when I
state that the Rohingyas are victims of genocide. From the Human Rights Watch
to the academic experts on genocide concur. Phil Robertson, Asia director for Humans
Right Watch, wrote nearly four years ago that “the Burmese government engaged in a campaign of ethnic
cleansing against the Rohingya that continues today”. Professor
William Schabas, former President of the International Association of Genocide
Scholars, went a step further and cautioned, “we’re moving into a zone where the [genocide] word can
be used.”
Whatever doubt, if any, against the use of the term ‘genocide’
have to be shelved after October 9 of this year (2016) when the Myanmar
security forces attacked Rohingya villages, ethnically cleansing these. According
to ARNO, more than 500 innocent Rohingya civilians were killed, many hundreds
of women raped, about 3,500 houses were burned down, unknown number of people
arrested and involuntarily disappeared, and at least 40,000 internally
displaced, in addition to systematic destruction of rice, paddy and food
products. About 10,000 people had also fled to Bangladesh. Regular humanitarian assistance has been disrupted
for many weeks, putting at risk over 150,000 vulnerable people. Reports
indicate a marked deterioration of the human rights situation in northern
Rakhine State. And yet, Suu Kyi remains nonchalant by such gross
violations of her security forces. Like a sly politician who is more interested
in solidifying her hold to power, she seems approving of the war crimes of her
murderous military who continues to use her as a pawn to carry out their religio-fascist
Myanmarism.
The Rohingya predicament underlines
a paradox for Buddhism, which emphasizes compassion and kindness and yet, we
see little evidence of this in its dealings with the Rohingya people.
Will our generation ever see the end of this monstrous crime?
I simply don’t know the answer. And yet,
like many other well-wishers of the persecuted peoples in our planet, I would
like to see a quick end to this shameful event. The sooner the better!
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