Burma’s Leader Admits Deadly Attacks on Muslims

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A satellite image of Kyaukpyu on 9 March. Click to see image showing scale of destruction. Photograph: Human Rights Watch Burma's president has admitted an unprecedented wave of ethnic violence has targeted his country's Rohingya Muslim population, destroying whole villages and large parts of towns.

Thein Sein's acknowledgement follows the release of satellite images showing the severe scale of the destruction in one coastal town, where most – if not all – of the Muslim population appears to have been displaced and their homes destroyed. The pictures, acquired by Human Rights Watchshow destruction to the coastal town of Kyaukpyu in the country's west. They reveal an area of destruction 35 acres in size in which some 811 buildings and boats have been destroyed.

The images confirm reports of an orgy of destruction in the town which occurred in a 24-hour period in the middle of last week after violence in the province broke out again on 21 October. The attacks in Arakan province in the country's west – also known as Rakhine – appears to have been part of a wave of communal violence pitting Arakan Buddhists against Muslims that has hit five separate towns and displaced thousands of people.

"There have been incidents of whole villages and parts of the towns being burned down in Arakan state," Thein Sein's spokesman said. A government spokesman put the death toll up until Friday at 112. But within hours state media revised it to 67 killed from 21-25 October, with 95 wounded and nearly 3,000 houses destroyed. The president's comments followed a warning from the office of the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, that ethnic violence was endangering political progress in Burma.

"The vigilante attacks, targeted threats and extremist rhetoric must be stopped. If this is not done … the reform and opening-up process being currently pursued by the government is likely to be jeopardised," the statement said. The Burmese government is struggling to contain ethnic and religious tensions suppressed during nearly half a century of military rule that ended last year. Inter-ethnic violence broke out earlier this year, triggered by the rape and murder of a Buddhist woman by three Muslim men.

Releasing the satellite images, Human Rights Watch said it had identified 633 buildings and 178 houseboats and floating barges which were destroyed in an area occupied predominantly by Rohingya. A committee of MPs led by the Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi called on Friday for security reinforcements and swift legal action against those behind the killings and destruction. According to Reuters, dozens of boats full of Rohingyas with no food or water fled Kyaukpyu, an industrial zone important to China, and other recent hotspots and were seeking access on Friday to overcrowded refugee camps around the state capital, Sittwe.

Some 3,000 Rohingya were reported to have been blocked from reaching Sittwe by government forces and landed on a nearby island. "These latest incidents between Muslim Rohingyas and Buddhists demonstrate how urgent it is that the authorities intervene to protect everyone, and break the cycle of discrimination and violence," Amnesty International's Asia-Pacific deputy director, Isabelle Arradon, said.

The latest violence erupted as a Burmese website in Norway – the Democratic Voice of Burma – reported it had acquired a document by a group calling itself the All-Arakanese Monks' Solidarity Conference. calling for all Rohingya to be expelled from the country. "Burma's government urgently needs to provide security for the Rohingya in Arakan state, who are under vicious attack," said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "Unless the authorities also start addressing the root causes of the violence, it is only likely to get worse."

Human Rights Watch fears the death toll is far higher, based on allegations from witnesses fleeing scenes of carnage and the government's well-documented history of underestimating figures that might lead to criticism of the state. The Rohingya are officially stateless. Buddhist-majority Burma's government regards the estimated 800,000 of them in the country as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, and not as one of the country's 135 official ethnic groups, and denies them citizenship. But many of those expelled from Kyaukpyu are not Rohingya but Muslims from the officially recognised Kaman minority, said Chris Lewa, director of the Rohingya advocacy group, Arakan Project.

"It's not just anti-Rohingya violence anymore, it's anti-Muslim," she said. It was unclear what set off the latest arson and killing on Sunday.

(the Guardian)

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Zionist Massacre of Muslims in Burma

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With the official backing of the government, during the anti-Muslim riots, intermittent massacre of Muslims by Hindus has become a permanent feature of India. In the last few years, more than 3,000 unnamed graves of the innocent Muslims, found in mutilated forms were discovered in the various areas of the Indian occupied Kashmir. Notably, human rights groups have RAW sponsored brutality against Muslims disclosed that the unmarked graves included those Muslims, killed by the Indian security forces in the fake encounters. Similarly the genocide of several innocent Muslim women and children by the Serb forces in Bosnia, Herzegovina and Kosovo presents another example.

While, these atrocities are still fresh in the minds of every Muslim; recently bloodshed of the Rohingya Muslim community at the hands of the Rakhine extremist Buddhists in Burma (present Myanmar) has broken all the record of religious cleansing.

In the recent months, thousands of Burmese Muslims have been butchered, while brutal methods of torturing, killing, inflicting physical and causing mental harm on them were employed by the Buddhists who are in majority in the country. Instead of resolving the problem by protecting the minority Muslims, the Burmese military regime, covertly supported the Buddhist rioters, which created greater hardships for the Muslims.

Eye witnesses disclosed that Buddhist extremists torched several mosques, shops and houses of Muslims, while police and security forces of Myanmar remain silent. Even Burmese military and police have been found involved in massacre, targeted killings, disappearances and rape of Muslim women.
According to reports, 650 of nearly one million Rohingya Muslims have been murdered as of June 28, this year, while 1,200 others are missing and 90,000 more have been displaced.

In 1992, 250,000 Rohingyas fled to neighbouring Bangladesh to escape the persecution. More than 20,000 of them are still in the same refugee camps and around 100,000 more are living in the Gulf States, Pakistan, Malaysia and Thailand. Due to fear of extreme repression, Rohingya Muslims left the northern Arakan region, especially Buthidaung and Maungdaw.

Historically, Rohingya Muslims arrived in Myanmar in early seventh century, but Myanmar military regime maintains that their immigrants came from India during British colonial rule. However, in the seventies, the military junta embarked on a systematic program of religious cleansing of the Burmese Muslims who are denied their basic rights, i.e. the right to freedom of movement, marriage, faith, identity, ownership, language, culture, citizenship, education etc. They have also been barred from government employment. Deplorable as it is, the Muslims in Myanmar are among the most persecuted minorities in the world, according to UN. Although permanently settled in Western Myanmar and making 1/3rd of total population of Burma, they are not recognised as the legal minority.

In March 11, 2006, about the Rohingya Muslims of western Burma’s Arakan Statem BBC reported, “They have been called one of the world’s most persecuted people….in addition to their almost total lack of legal rights, many have been regularly beaten by police, forced to do slave labour and jailed for little or no reason.”

Unfortunately, the Myanmar opposition leader and the Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi only fulfilled formality on July 25 by calling to protect the rights of the strife-torn nation’s myriad ethnic minorities. But she did not ask US or Security Council to take practical measures against the military rulers. It seems that she has forgotten her own words when she had remarked, “The struggle for democracy and human rights in Burma is a struggle for life and dignity.”

Although the US and some western countries which claim to be the champion of human rights in the world, have issued some verbal statements regarding humanitarian tragedy in Myanmar, yet no practical action has been taken against the brutal military rulers of the country. Even UN has been fulfilling formality over the slaughter of Muslims. Question arises as to why UN Security Council is silent over this humanitarian catastrophe? However, these powerful entities have remained much active in case of Libya, Syria and elsewhere in the world.

In fact, particularly, US double standard is part of its strategic game in Burma. America has also included India in this game. In the recent past, Obama administration lifted restrictions on the US investment in Myanmar. American companies are now free to get partnership with the state-owned energy corporations—the Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE). India has also been availing the opportunity of economic benefits in the country. Now, Burma is undergoing an arranged political change, designed to legitimise its regime, and enlist US-led India and some western partners to evade the influence of China.

Notably, in June 9, 2005 governments of Bangladesh and China were urged by their business leaders to establish a road link between two countries through Burma on a priority basis to boost trade and investment. Nevertheless, for achieving their political and financial goals, US and India have given a free hand to their secret agencies CIA and RAW to support the military regime’s repression of its people and particularly of Muslims as also part of the ongoing anti-Muslim campaign, noted in some other Islamic countries.

As regards the recent genocide of Muslims, Burma’s Hindu organizations which are in collusion with Buddhists have been propagating that the latter are the most peaceful citizens, and called Muslims as trouble makers and terrorists. Buddhists not only enjoy the tacit assistance of politico-military regime including CIA and RAW, but are also being encouraged by Hindu religious extremists to wipe out the Muslims from Myanmar. Nonetheless, it is the right hour that human rights organisations, OIC, Security Council and international media must play their active role so as to prevent wretched treatment meted out to Muslim minority, and to stop their bloodshed in Burma.

By Sajjad Shaukat
He writes on international affairs and is author of the book: US vs Islamic Militants, Invisible Balance of Power: Dangerous Shift in International Relations


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