The Rohingya Crisis

12 Pages·2017·0.53 MB·English

The Rohingya Crisis: Suu Kyi’s False Flag and Eth-
nic Cleansing in Arakan
Md. Mahmudul Hasan
The dominant ethnic group Bamar
(alsoknownasBurmeseorBurman)com-
prises about 60% of Myanmar’s popula-
tion and has long been controlling the
country’s politics and economy since in-
dependence in 1948. Needless to say, the
former name of the country, Burma, is an
inflection of Bamar or Burman. In post-
independence Burma, the Burmese ruling
elite expelled the non-Burmese from mili-
tary and government posts and pursued a
An estimated 400,000 to 600,000 Rohingyas have fled to
strategy of repression to contain opposi-
BangladeshtoescapeethnicclensinginMyanmar.
tion. From1962to1988whenGeneralNe
Win (1911 - 2002) dominated the govern-
ment, repression on non-Burmese people
Introduction
exacerbated.
The mountainous strip of Arakan or After the fall of Ne Win, subsequent
RakhineStateborderingwithBangladesh rulers adopted new strategies to perpet-
in the northwest is a western province of uate Burmese dominance. They started
what is now the Union of Myanmar. It is identifyingthepopulationintermsofreli-
geographically separated from the rest of gion not ethnicity. The religion card gave
the country by the long, near-impassable the rulers a big dividend, as Buddhism is
mountain range of Arakan Yoma. There the main religion among all ethnic groups
have been ‘longstanding social tensions’1 except the Rohingya. Now the rulers
between its two major ethnic-religious present themselves - especially to rebel-
groups, Rohingya Muslims and Rakhine lious ethnic groups such as Rakhaings,
Buddhists (also known as Maghs). Dur- Kachins and Shans - as belonging to
ing the 1942 massacre on Muslims, they 89.8% Buddhist majority as opposed to
were pushed to the north and the Bud- 60% Burmese majority,3 whereas Chris-
dhist Maghs occupied the southern half tians make ‘6.3 percent, and Muslims 2.3
of Arakan ‘where they now form major- percent.’4
ity.’2 Hence the largest concentration of Like other ethnic minorities in Myan-
Muslims is in the northern areas such as mar, the Buddhist Rakhaings are polit-
Maungdaw and Buthidaung. ically disaffected and their ‘struggle for
1Engy Abdelkader, ‘Myanmar’s Democracy Struggle: The Impact of Communal Violence upon
Rohingya Women and Youth’, Pacific Rim Law & Policy Journal, 23.3(2014): 511-42, p. 513.
2MohammedYunus,A historyof Arakan: Past and Present, Chittagong: University of Chittagong,
1994, p. 11.
3Gautam Das, ‘Why No Muslims Got Nomination in Burma’s Elections’, The Daily Nayadiganta,
8 October 2017. Retrieved on 3 November 2017 from dailynayadiganta.com/detail/news/258246
4Imtiyaz Yusuf, ‘Nationalist Ethnicities as Religious Identities: Islam, Buddhism and Citizenship
in Myanmar’, American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, 34.4(2017): 100-119, p. 105.
50
recognition within the new Myanmar is With the formation of the Union Soli-
marked by anxiety about ethnic identity darityandDevelopmentParty(USDP)in
and national belonging ... when politi- June2010,themilitaryjuntakeptstirring
cal reforms at the center of the state pro- up religious hatred and intensifying its
duce ambiguities about their own posi- agenda of presenting the Muslims as the
tion.’5 However, both the centre and the commonenemyintherun-uptothelarge-
Rakhaings regard the ‘presence of a ma- scale genocide that was launched in Octo-
jority Muslim population in Arakan ... ber 2016 onwards. Through using various
as a real problem’ and seemed to have propaganda machines, the establishment
reached ‘a secret agreement’ that the for- made the anti-Muslim agenda as the only
mer would give more rights to the lat- way to do politics in Myanmar. It helped
ter only when ‘the Muslim problem is establishAshinWirathu’sracistCommit-
fully tackled.’6 Hence, both the ruling tee for the Protection of Nationality and
elite at the centre and local Rakhaings Religion(MaBaTha)thatcontributedto
have joined together to purge Rohingya ethnic cleansing both by mobilizing pop-
Muslims from Arakan. Moreover, if the ulist sentiment and participating in mass
Rakhaings can be kept busy ‘tacking’ Ro- killings and mayhem. Aung San Suu Kyi
hingyas in ‘a proxy war,’7 they would toed the line and became complicit with
not have time to complain about their the anti-Muslim agenda and her National
economic deprivations, Arakan being the League for Democracy (NLD) did not
poorest among all provinces in Myanmar. chooseasingleMuslimcandidatetostand
Hence, the state has stoked the Rakhaing for her party in the 2015, not even in the
Buddhists to re-start anti-Muslim acts Muslim-majority Arakan region. Thus,
of vengeance and ethnic cleansing even as Myanmar’s de facto leader and part of
though, previously, except for some tur- the political elite, the Nobel laureate and
bulent times, Arakanese Buddhists and oncedubbedassymbolofdemocracy,Suu
Muslims had co-existed peacefully espe- Kyi has condoned and virtually presided
cially during Mrauk-U (1430-1785) and over the recent genocide in Arakan.
British (1826-1948) periods.
As part of this state-sponsored hatred Major Waves of Genocides
for Rohingya Muslims, in 1989, as the of-
ficial name of the country was changed The first time Rohingya Muslims had
from Burma to the Union of Myanmar, found themselves second-class citizens in
the name of the state of Arakan was their own land was in 1785 when the
changed to Rakhine and its capital city Burmese invaded and annexed Arakan.
Akyab, to Sittwe. Since etymologically Theconquerorscommittedmassacresand
the terms ‘Arakan’ and ‘Akyab’ have used thousands of prisoners as slaves:
Arabic-Islamic associations, this name-
change is considered part of cultural op- [A]s many as 6,000 Arakanese
pression on Rohingyas and is slanted in youth were sent to renovate
favour of the Buddhist Rakhaings. the Meiktila Lake and none
5Juliane Schober, ‘Belonging in a New Myanmar: Identity, Law, and Gender in the Anthropology
of Contemporary Buddhism’, Religion and Society: Advances in Research 8.1(2017): 158-172, p. 162.
6Yunus, A history of Arakan, p. 64.
7Emanuel Stoakes, ‘A ‘proxy war’ between Myanmar’s Buddhists and Muslims’, aljazeera.com, 28
October 2017. Retrieved on 5 November 2017 from aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/10/
proxy-war-myanmar-buddhists-muslims-151027110344281.html
51
of them returned. In addi- massacre of the Rohingya Muslims that
tion, Arakanese forced labour cost more than 100,000 lives.9
wasextractedtobuildthe500 After Burma became independent in
feet tall pagoda in Mingun 1948, elements among the Arakanese
in Burma. In 1791, an un- sought autonomy. In 1962, General Ne
successfulattemptagainstthe Win (1911-2002) seized power in a mili-
Burman rule in Arakan was tary coup and began widespread persecu-
followed by massive reprisal tion of Rohingyas and declared them for-
... [and] 200,000 Arakanese eigners (Bengalis) arguably for the first
were murdered. Another at- time in history.10 Then again in Febru-
tempt in 1796 ended in fail- ary 1978, Ne Win ‘launched a large-
ure and resulted in mas- scale program named ‘Operation Dragon
sive influx of Arakan refugees King’ (Naga-Min)’ that caused death of
into the Cox’s Bazar area [in nearly ‘tens of thousands of Rohingyas’
Bangladesh].8 and mass exodus to Bangladesh of more
than 200,000 of them.11 The next big
During those difficult years of mass
blow on the Rohingyas came four years
execution and mass slavery, many
later in the form of the 1982 Citizen-
Arakanese Muslims took shelter in the
ship Law. The recent violence and mass-
neighbouring areas of what is now
killings of 2012, 2014 and 2016-17 cost
Bangladesh. When,aftertheFirstAnglo-
thousands of lives, a higher incidence of
Burmese War (1824-26), British India
gang rape, burning down of hundreds of
annexed Arakan and much of Burma
villages and mass migration of nearly a
in 1826, many expatriate Rohingyas as
million genocide survivors.
well as Bengalis were brought to Arakan
mainlytoserveBritishinterests. Muslims
had a relatively peaceful time in Arakan Statelessness and Slavery
until WWII when they found themselves
in the line of fire between the British and Although Rohingya Muslims have been
Japanese forces. The Arakanese were living in Arakan since the eighth cen-
thought to be on the side of the British tury,12 with military rule in 1982 they
who eventually abandoned them to the suddenly became stateless through a pro-
mercy of the Japanese and the Burmese cess of ‘arbitrary deprivation of citizen-
mob during the Japanese occupation pe- ship.’13 The government adopted Citi-
riod (1942-45), which facilitated the 1942 zenship Law which approved of a list of
8C.R. Abrar, ‘Repatriation of Rohingya Refugees,’ p. 5; retrieved on 2 November 2017 from
burmalibrary.org/docs21/Abrar-NM-Repatriation_of_Rohingya_refugees-en.pdf
9Yunus, A history of Arakan, p. 38.
10Ramzy Baroud believes that the ‘false notion that the Rohingya are outsiders’ started in 1785
whenArakanwasconqueredandhundredsofthousandswereforcedtoflee(‘Bigoil,faileddemocracy
and the worldâĂŹs shame in Myanmar’, Arab News, 11 September 2017).
11 Syeda Naushin Parnini, Mohammad Redzuan Othman and Amer Saifude Ghazali, ‘The Ro-
hingya Refugee Crisis and Bangladesh-Myanmar Relations’, Asian and Pacific Migration Journal,
22.1 (2013): 133-46, p. 136.
12Syed Zain Al-Mahmood, ‘Timeline: A Short History of Myanmar’s Rohingya Minority’, The
Wall Street Journal, 23 December 2016. Retrieved on 4 November 2017 from blogs.wsj.com/
indiarealtime/2016/12/23/timeline-a-short-history-of-myanmars-rohingya-minority/
13International Migration Policy Report, New York: Center for Migration Studies (CMS), June
2017, p. 7.
52
135 recognized ethnic groups in the coun- process of citizenship verification which
try; it derecognized and delisted the Ro- was designed in such a way that very
hingya.14 few would be able to qualify, as they
were required to show evidence that their
Muslims are recorded to have partic-
ancestors had lived in Myanmar before
ipated in the administration of Arakan
182319 and speak fluently one of the ‘na-
as early as the fifteenth century begin-
tional’ languages and the Rohingya lan-
ning with the historic Mrauk-U dynasty
guage is not considered one. That means
(1430-1785), the golden era in terms of
Rohingya Muslims lost citizenship com-
Muslim-Buddhist coexistence. In pre-
pletely after 31 May 2015, hence could
1962 Burma, ‘there had been several Ro-
not participate in the November 2015
hingya members of parliament and minis-
general elections.
ters in the cabinet.’15 More specifically, in
1951 and 1956 elections, ‘at least eleven Since the 2015 general elections her-
Rohingyas, including women, returned to alded the end of 50-year direct military
Burmese Parliament as MPs.’16 However, rule, it was widely dubbed as a victory
during the military regime from 1962 to of democracy in Myanmar. Little did the
1995, not a single Muslim was given any media highlight the fact that a significant
ministerial post.17 Then in pre-2015 par- portion of the people of Myanmar were
liament, Suu Kyi’s National League for denied the right to vote. What has been
Democracy party had a number Muslim paraded as reform is not muchbeyond ac-
MPs. commodating Suu Kyi and giving her po-
litical space. Suu Kyi’s personal gain was
On the basis of the 1982 citizenship
interpreted as great reforms in Myamnar
law, in 1989 the state divided the peo-
and facilitated the regime’s legitimacy in
ple in Arakan into three categories: ‘na-
thewest, which indirectly gave the Myan-
tive’ or ‘indigenous’ citizens who are is-
mar government free license to further
sued pink (full citizenship) cards; non-
caricature and marginalize Muslims.
indigenous citizens who are given blue
(associatecitizenship)cards; andnatural- With white cards, Rohingya Muslims
ized citizens who are issued green cards.18 cannot travel and, since their movement
Rohingya Muslims were stripped of cit- is restricted, cannot work outside their
izenship and were given none of these villages and towns. If they want to travel
cards. Later in 1995, partly because of even within the country, they are re-
UNHCR’s intervention, they were given quired to make payment to the author-
white cards known as Temporary Regis- ity and the amount is determined by the
tration Card (TRC). However, later they length of time one wants to stay out-
were ordered to return them by 31 May side their village. Moreover, Rohingya
2015 only to be subject to a complex Muslims have been subjected to invol-
14For a complete list of the 135 ethnic groups, please go to: embassyofmyanmar.be/ABOUT/
ethnicgroups.htm
15Parnini, Othman and Ghazali, ‘The Rohingya Refugee Crisis’, p. 136.
16Iftekhar Iqbal, ‘Locating the Rohingya in time and space’,Al-Jazeera.com, 27 Sept 2017. Re-
trieved on 3 November 2017 from aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/locating-rohingya-time-
space-170927100542729.html
17Parnini, Othman and Ghazali, ‘The Rohingya Refugee Crisis’, p. 136.
18Donald M. Seekins, Historical Dictionary of Burma (Myanmar). Lanham, Maryland: Rowman
& Littlefield, 2017, p. 567.
19Yusuf, ‘Nationalist Ethnicities as Religious Identities’, p. 110.
53
untary servitude. The rest of the world drenareforcedtogowiththearmytodif-
did not know about, or did not do any- ferent places including jungles and carry
thing to stop, this modern-day slavery. loads for them.21 As Tyler R. Giannini
Forced labour without any payment (in states:
cash or kind) is exacted from Rohingyas
in various forms. Three types of forced
One particularly notorious
labour are more common: One is ‘sentry
method of forced labor is por-
duty’whichmeansthateveryablebodied
tering in which villagers are
Rohngya man has to work for the army
forced to carry the ammuni-
fromsunsettodawn3to4timesamonth.
tion and supplies of the mili-
The only way to avoid this forced labour
tary. In addition to maltreat-
is to give money to the military. If any-
ment by the soldiers, porters
one is found resting or sleeping while on
often have to act as human
sentry duty, he has to pay a fine in the
minesweepers, and many are
form of chicken. Another form of forced
killed or injured. Porters who
labour is daytime drudgery (from dawn
are sick, injured, or cannot
to dusk) and involves agricultural work,
carry their heavy loads are of-
construction, maintenance or cleaning of
ten beaten and left behind in
houses belonging to the military. Again
the jungle to die. Women
everyablebodiedRohingyahastodothis
porters often have to serve
duty 3 to 4 times a month or has to pay
‘double duty,’ carrying the
a fine if they want to avoid this. One ac-
loads during the day and be-
count of forced labour goes as follows:
ing raped by the soldiers at
night.22
My father was a day la-
borer.... [T]hearmycameand
took him and some other peo- Since able-bodied family members es-
ple for forced laborâĂŤthey pecially men have to go on a regular basis
forced the people to build em- for sentry duty, forced labour and por-
bankments on a shrimp farm tering without any remuneration what-
north of our village. The soever, Rohingya families have no one
army kept my father for three left to work full time to earn a liveli-
daysâĂŤduring that time my hood.23 Eventually, they are forced to
family thought about him a leaveMyanmarand, oncetheyhavetaken
lot, and we cried.20 this path to avoid exploitation and abuse,
they can never come back because they
Thethirdformofforcedlabourispor- have no papers to claim that they are cit-
tering in which Rohingyas including chil- izens of the country.
20Maggie Lemere and Zoë West, Nowhere to Be Home: Narratives from Survivors of Burma’s
Military Regime, San Francisco: McSweeney’s, 2011, p. 291.
21 Why Burma’s Rohingya Muslims are among the world’s most persecuted people’, CBS News,
25 May 2015. Retrieved on 3 November 2017 from cbc.ca/news/world/why-burma-s-rohingya-
muslims-are-among-the-world-s-most-persecuted-people-1.3086261
22Tyler R. Giannini,‘Destructive Engagement: A Decade of Foreign Investment in Burma’, Wash-
ington, DC/Seattle/Bangkok: Selbstverlag, 1999, p. 8. Retrieved on 31 October 2017 from
earthrights.org/sites/default/files/publications/destructive-engagement.pdf
23Needless to say, since Arakan is least developed as the government has neglected this region, the
only livelihood they have is working in the agricultural field or doing menial jobs.
54
NaSaKa and Extortions Maungdaw Township, a 45-
year old Rohingya man was
The NaSaKa or border security force
arrested for possession of
was formed in 1992 mainly to contain
a mobile phone charger,
Rohingya Muslims and its recruits were
and released on payment of
from all ethnic-religious groups except
a 500,000 kyat (USD$500)
the Rohingya. Once NaSaKa’s notori-
bribe. Four Mosque commit-
ety reached a sickening height, in July
tee members were arrested for
2013 the government replaced it with the
extending the veranda of a re-
Border Security Police (BGP). Since the
ligious building. They were
BGPismannedmostlybythepeoplewho
released on 9 March 2009 af-
were once part of NaSaKa, it is simply
ter paying a 3,000,000 Kyat
the same old wine in a new bottle. On
(USD$3,000) bribe, which is a
1 July 2014, the BGP chief Major Tin
phenomenalamountofmoney
Ko Ko convened a meeting with the local
in Myanmar.25
administrators of Maungdaw to inform
them that he would be re-implementing Rohingyas face both travel and mar-
NaSaKa-style raids and census operation riage restrictions. They are barred from
soon, which obviously frightened the Ro- marrying Buddhists and have to pay to
hingyapeopleastheyknewverywellthat get permission to get married, as mar-
what he actually meant was torture and riage without permission or payment in-
extortion.24 volvesimprisonmentandtorture. Ittakes
One of NaSaKa’s oppressive measures about one month to get permission. Once
was gradual depopulation of Rohingya married, they cannot have more than two
people through ‘Swe Tin Sit’ or census children, and this law is exclusive for the
operation. The army and NaSaKa mem- Muslims. According to Majumder:
bers make annual (and sometimes sur-
prise) visits to Rohingya families to take A Rohingya family has to
photosforwhichtheyhavetopay. Names pay 50000 kyat for marriage
of family members absent during photo (as informed by respondents).
sessions are erased from the family cen- Parents of both the couples
sus. Rohingyas have to pay security have to deposit the fee. The
forces for both having the names of the amount of money is not [the]
absentees deleted and those of the new- same for all. It varies from
borns, added. Apart from these methodi- one place to another. Parents
cal exorbitant charges, financial exploita- of good looking daughters are
tion takes a myriad of forms varying from demanded more money for
random extortion to bribery. For exam- marriage so that the girls
ple: can’t get married [and be
available for rape by the mili-
On 20 March [2009] in tary].26
24 Sindhi Khan, ‘Myanmar Border Police to Resume Nasaka’s Oppressive Mechanism against Ro-
hingya’, Rohingya Vision, 2 June 2014. Retrieved on 2 Nov 2017 from rvisiontv.com/myanmar-
border-police-resume-nasakas-oppressive-mechanism-rohingya/
25Dylan Grey, ‘The crisisin NorthernRakhine State’, New Mandala, 30 April2009; retrievedon 31
October 2017 from newmandala.org/the-crisis-in-northern-rakhine-state/
26Suchismita Majumder, ‘Rohingyas languishing behind the bar’ pp. 8-9. Retrieved on 31 October
2017 from mcrg.ac.in/Rohingyas/Draft_Papers/Suchismita.pdf
55
Such financial exploitation has added and pay for the woman to be
intensity given that Arakan is the ‘least released.28
developed state, with a poverty rate of
The predicament of raped women
78 percent, compared to the 37.5 percent
nationalaverage.’27 Thus, apartfromsys- does not end there. Rape victims face the
risk of receiving social stigma and nega-
tematic daily humiliations, in the pre-
tive social attitudes which in some cases
2015 (precursor-to-genocide) period, se-
ruin their family life if they are married,
curity forces used four methods to com-
and render them inferior as marriage can-
pel Rohingya people to leave the coun-
didates if unmarried. Because of reduced
try: Forced labour or slavery; financial
self-esteem and social isolation that ac-
exploitation in the forms of fees, fines and
company rape, victims are generally reti-
bribes; arson; and rape.
cent to admit to being sexually violated,
Rohingya women are doubly victim-
as men are also unwilling to admit that
izedforbeingRohingyaandfemale. Even
their wives or daughters have been help-
in ‘normal’ circumstances of exploitation,
less victims of lustful brutes. Therefore,
rape by security forces has been a persis-
thefullextentofsexualvictimhoodofRo-
tent reality for them for decades. Some-
hingya women may not be known.
times security forces raid a house, or-
der the men of the family out, rape the
womenandleave. Or, theystormintothe 2012-2014
house and make off with the women some
In the recent past, ethnic-cleansing
of whom are released after being raped
restartedwiththereportedrapeandmur-
for days and come back home, and some
der of a Rakhine woman on 28 May
others are raped and killed, and never re-
2012. Through a questionable judiciary
turn. Heavily pregnant women are not
process, three Muslim men were accused,
spared, as they are forced delivered and
arrested and charged. The matter could
their newborns, thrown away. One narra-
resolvejudiciallyandendthere. However,
tive of rape goes as follows:
that was not the case. After the men
[Some women] were attacked were charged, racial tension was stirred
by the NaSaKaâĂŤthey were up through the mass media. As a re-
arrested and raped in deten- sult, a bus carrying ten Muslim men was
tion. When the families came stopped by a mob of few hundred Bud-
toknowofthis,theyhadtogo dhists. The Muslim men were forced off
to the NaSaKa base and give the bus and beaten to death, which was
some money for the woman followed by further outbreaks of mayhem
to be released. If a family and widespread violence against Muslims
was not able to give enough in the region and beyond. The gov-
money, the NaSaKa would ernment banned Muslims’ Friday prayers
keepthewoman, andthefam- but Muslims in Muslim-majority areas ig-
ily had to beg the people in noredthebanandbecamesubjecttobru-
the village for help. Once tality and punitive responses by the po-
they raised the money, they lice, NaSaKa and the army. In the follow-
could return to the NaSaKa ingmonths, nearlyathousandofMuslims
27‘The Rohingya Crisis’, Council on Foreign Relations, 4 October 2017. Retrieved on 3 November
2017 from cfr.org/backgrounder/rohingya-crisis
28Lemere and West, Nowhere to Be Home, pp. 290-91.
56
were killed. A climate of fear, emotional unfoundedrumourscirculatedonlinethat
unrest and uncertainty gripped the Mus- aBuddhistwomanhadbeenrapedbyher
lim community around the country. Muslim employers.
Muslims were dispossessed and their
houses were burnt to varying extents
2016-2017: Full-scale Geno-
or occupied by the Buddhists and their
cide
lands, confiscated. As many as 140,000
Rohingyas were put in the squalid IDP The current wave of genocide started in
(internally displaced person) camps and October 2016 on the pretext of avenging
are branded as refugees from Bangladesh, alleged 9 October 2016 pre-dawn attacks
while the Rakhaings were relocated in on military outposts by Rohingya insur-
the occupied houses. Many Rohingyas gents. This is the final phase and is de-
came to the camps after they failed to signed to exterminate Rohingya people
flee the country through ‘deadly jour- completely. In two weeks from 9 Octo-
neys’ through dark jungles or in ‘floating ber 2016, hundreds were killed, innumer-
coffins’ in choppy waters. In some other able women were raped and thousands
cases, the original Rohingya owners are of houses were razed to the ground and
allowed to stay in their houses but are 75,000Rohingyasfledto Bangladesh, and
required to pay rent to live in their own that was in addition to hundreds of thou-
houses. sands of them who had migrated there
Those who made risky and life- over time to escape earlier ethnic clean-
threatening ventures to flee the country ing.
fell in the hands of ‘agents’ (human traf- Then the genocide that started on 25
fickers) and became victims of the torture August 2017 has literally spared noth-
and exploitation of the Thai police be- ing, as the current commander-in-chief of
yond the borders on their efforts to go the Myanmar Armed Forces, Sr. Gen.
to Malaysia. Many of them were killed Min Aung Hlaing regards this as the
en route by security forces or by torture, ‘unfinished business’ of ‘clearing the Ro-
hunger, exhaustion or disease and buried hingya.’30 Jeffrey Gettleman’s account
in the jungles in the border region be- of one Rajuma’s predicament may give a
tweenThailandandMalaysia.29 TheIDP hint what has been happening during this
campinmatesreceivenosupportfromthe recent genocide:
Myanmar government. They have rather
become a source of its foreign currency, She told me (and every-
as their relatives who have managed to thing she said was consis-
flee to other countries and humanitarian tent with dozens of other wit-
bodies regularly send money for their up- ness accounts) that Myanmar
keep. Theethniccleansingthatstartedin government soldiers stormed
2012 continued until 2014 when in early into her village in August
July communal riots broke out in Myan- and burned down each house.
mar’s second largest city Mandalay after They separated the men from
29For more details, please see ‘Thailand: Mass Graves of Rohingya Found in Trafficking Camp’,
Human Rights Watch, 1May2015. Retrievedon5November2017fromhrw.org/news/2015/05/01/
thailand-mass-graves-rohingya-found-trafficking-camp
30JamesHookway, ‘MyanmarSaysClearingofRohingyaIsUnfinishedBusinessFromWWII’,Wall
Street Journal,2September2017. Retrievedon5November2017fromwsj.com/articles/myanmar-
army-chief-defends-clearing-rohingya-villages-1504410530
57
thewomenandsummarilyex- of the Rohingyas who fled to Bangladesh
ecuted the men. Then they suggests that the genocide was well-
raped the women. But be- orchestrated and the alleged attack was
fore raping her, Rajuma said, part of a bigger plot. According to them,
thesoldierssnatchedherbaby ten days before this supposed ARSA at-
boy from her arms and threw tack happened, the Myanmar army came
him into a fire. The baby to all Rohingya houses and seized house-
was screaming for her as he hold tools such as kitchen knives and
burned to death.31 other sharp objects so that they would
not have to face even minimum resis-
Along with many others, she was tance during their pre-planned genocide
forced to stand chest-high in a river. She and cleansing operations.33
was holding her 18-month baby boy tight
and was gripped by a distressing fear According to Rohingya Muslim Syed
of imminent death, as ‘two soldiers then Hossain, the allegation of ARSA attacks
pulled her into a house, tore off her veil on police and army camps is based on a
and dress and raped her. She said that total lie. Shahidul Islam of Maungdaw
her two sisters were raped and killed in says that the army came on 13 August
the same room, and that in the next 2017 and snatched away all sharp objects
room, hermotherand10-year-oldbrother fromthehousesandsaidthatallwouldbe
were shot.’32 Eventually she managed to returned after Eidul Adha. Little he and
flee to Bangladesh. Rajuma’s story has othervillagersknewthat,thatwaspartof
been widely circulated, but hers is not the army’s plan of cunningly-constructed
an isolated case. Thousands of Rohingya massivegenocideandoutrightextermina-
women have faced comparable ordeals. tions of Rohingyas.34
The first time Suu Kyi broke her
The ‘ARSA Attack’
long silence on this round of genocide in
The current full-blown genocide started Arakan on Tuesday 19 September 2017,
after the so-called Arakan Rohingya Sal- her inordinate focus on ARSA was most
vation Army (ARSA) allegedly attacked staggering, as if this group ‘is the only
police and army posts in Arakan on 25 identity that Rohingya will be attached
August 2017. Even though the whole to, from her perspective and she hopes
world seems to have been credulous to from the international perspective.’35 In
believe the ARSA attack, the narrative the eyes of the Myanmar establishment,
31‘My Interview With a Rohingya Refugee: What Do You Say to a Woman Whose Baby
Was Thrown Into a Fire?’, The New York Times, 19 October 2017. Retrieved on 4 November
2017 from nytimes.com/2017/10/19/insider/my-interview-with-a-rohingya-refugee-what-
do-you-say-to-a-woman-whose-baby-was-thrown-into-a-fire.html
32Jeffrey Gettleman, ‘Rohingya Recount Atrocities: ‘They Threw My Baby into a Fire’,’ The New
YorkTimes,19October2017. Retrievedon4November2017fromnytimes.com/2017/10/11/world/
asia/rohingya-myanmar-atrocities.html
33Abu Saleh Akon, ‘Ethnic Cleaning Pre-Planned’, The Daily Nayadiganta, 28 September 2017.
Retrieved on 3 November 2017 from dailynayadiganta.com/detail/news/255618
34Ibid.
35James Griffiths, ‘5 dubious claims Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi made in her speech’, CNN, 20
September 2017. Retrieved on 5 November 2017 from cnn.com/2017/09/18/asia/aung-san-suu-
kyi-speech-rohingya/index.html
58
the existence of the few dozen36 ARSA her side big powers who have strategic
members is all that matters and the suf- and transnational corporate interests in
ferings of over 1.5 million Rohingya peo- Myanmarandwhoaimtogettheirgreedy
ple, andthekillingsofthousandsofthem, hands on the country’s untapped min-
atthehandsofthesecurityforcesandthe eral and other resources especially in the
Buddhist mob do not. Arakan region. As the journalist Ramzy
Some video images presumably circu- Baroud puts it: ‘Massive deposits un-
lated by a string of anti-Muslim propa- tapped because of the Western boycott
ganda also arouse questions of credibil- of Myanmar’s junta are now available to
ity and reliability. One video clip where the highest bidder. It is a bonanza, and
some presumably Muslim men are walk- all are invited.’39
ing - some of them armed with archaic Therefore, while western powers are
weapons - does not suggest that they are largelysilentoverMyanmar’smassivehu-
professional fighters or fighters by choice. man rights violations, China and India
They seem to have been given arms, have long been protecting it from any
herded together and paraded by forces meaningful international retribution by
beyond their comprehension or control in regarding the various forms of oppres-
orderforthestatetoportraythemas‘ter- sion in the Arakan region as internal is-
rorists’ in the media and thus ‘justify’ the sues, as for both the countries ‘Myan-
coordinated ethnic cleansing and large- mar’s geostrategic location at the tri-
scale massacres, rapes, arson and forced junctionofEastAsia, SoutheastAsiaand
mass migration.37 SouthAsiaisofcriticalsignificance.’40 As
Zarni and Cowley state:
Corporate greed and the si- Despite growing evidence of
lence over Rohingya genocide genocide, the international
community has so far avoided
SuuKyihasbeendismissiveandindenial calling this large scale human
concerning the ongoing genocide. Her suffering genocide because no
flagrant and defiant statement that she powerfulmemberstatesofthe
‘does not fear international scrutiny’38 UNSecurityCouncilhaveany
maynotbeamanifestationofchildishau- appetite to forego their com-
dacityvisitedonamaturehead. Perhaps, mercialandstrategicinterests
it has wider implication that she has on in Burma to address the slow-
36Faisal Edroos, ‘ARSA: Who are the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army?’ Al-Jazeera.com, 13
Sept 2017. Retrieved on 3 November 2017 from aljazeera.com/news/2017/09/myanmar-arakan-
rohingya-salvation-army-170912060700394.html
37Please see: youtube.com/watch?v=CCFp4mV6Xxc (retrieved on 5 November 2017).
38Caroline Mortimer, ‘Aung San Suu Kyi ‘burying her head in the sand’ over Burma’s ’ethnic
cleansing’ofRohingya,saysAmnestyInternational’,Independent,19September2017. Retrievedon5
November 2017 from independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/aung-san-suu-kyi-burma-myanmar-
rohingya-horror-state-persecution-refugee-crisis-a7954561.html
39‘Big oil, failed democracy and the world’s shame in Myanmar’, Arab News, 11 September 2017.
Retrieved on 3 November 2017 from arabnews.com/node/1159486
40Zhao Hong, ‘China and India Courting Myanmar for Good Relations’. In Emile Kok-Kheng Yeoh
(Ed), Facets of a Transforming China: Resource, Trade and Equity (pp. 64-78). Kuala Lumpur:
Institute of China Studies, 2008, p. 64.
41MaungZarniandAliceCowley,‘Theslow-burninggenocideofMyanmar’sRohingya’,PacificRim
Law & Policy Journal, 23.3 (2014): 683-754, p.683.
59