Communal/Religious Clashes Threaten Progress in Burma
TRANSCEND MEMBERS, 18 Jun 2012
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service
Violent clashes in early June between Buddhists and Muslim communities in the western Burmese state of Arakan on the frontier with Bangladesh could endanger the progress toward greater freedom in Myanmar symbolized by the election of Aung San Suu Kyi to the Parliament. It is difficult from a distance to analyse motivations and manipulations in communal conflicts. While there are a good number of NGOs working on the Thai-Burma frontier, there are few on the Burma-Bangladesh side. The United Nations has just pulled all but a minimum staff — mostly dealing with refugee flows between Burma and Bangladesh — from the area as violence might get turned against foreigners.
It would seem that the spark to the current wave of violence was the rape of a young Buddhist woman by a Muslim man, leading to a burning of villages and places of worship and a new refugee flow toward Bangladesh. However, it has been said that there are Army soldiers wearing Buddhist monk’s robes who are playing an active role. There can be ‘diehard’ elements in the Army who fear that some recent moves of the government toward democratic structures will weaken their control and financial benefits. Higher ranking officers in the Army have important shares in much of the economy. Although Arakan State is little developed, it is heavily forested with some teak of commercial value. There are also said to be large reserves of oil off the Arakan coast. Yet political rather than economic motives may be at the heart of the unrest.
This is not the first time that there has been communal violence. In December 1991, there was a massive flight of Rohingyas (the name of the members of the Islamic community) to Bangladesh, largely pushed there by Army action. There were some 3,000 Rohingyas per day entering Bangladesh, some 200,000 after several months.
At the time, I was the regional representative of Peace Brigades International (PBI) at the United Nations in Geneva. I was asked by the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees if we could provide teams to place on the Burma- Bangladesh frontier. There was a need for a fairly large team, at least a couple of hundred people, in three weeks time. Although I did a good bit of telephoning, it was impossible to assemble that large a group in such a short time. Although the idea of a “rapid response brigade” was part of PBI planning from the start, they have never developed in practice. Fortunately, relief organizations such as the French Medecin sans Frontieres are more structured to move fast and there are international storehouses with tents etc on which to draw. However, relief organizations do not usually deal with the socio-political reasons for refugees and do not work directly on conflict resolution.
Although I had been in close contact with leaders of the national minorities of Burma on the Thai frontier — Karen, Kachin, Mon — I knew less about the Rohingya. Fortunately, Brother Jarlath D’Souza, a Catholic monk from Bangladesh and a member of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation Executive Committee was a specialist on the Rohingyas. He kindly sent me his studies on the complex situation. There is wide agreement among the inhabitants of Arakan State that they wish greater autonomy from the Central Government. In fact, in the late 1940s, with left-over weapons abandoned by the Japanese soldiers who had occupied the area, there was an armed revolt, first against the British and shortly after Independence, against the Buddhist-led Burmese government. The Rohingya militia was led by the Mujahid Bahini (Army of Religious Volunteers) with internecine leadership struggles with the Jihad Council. Since that time on, there have been Muslim armed movements, often changing names and leadership, particularly active during the 1970s and early 1980s, always met by Army repression.
The inhabitants of Arakan are divided at least into two major groups, the Muslim Arakanese (Rohingyas) and the Buddhist Arakanese (Rakhines). While there are divisions within each of the two groups, when there is violence, each community closes in on itself, and there are few individuals who are “bridge-builders”. It is estimated that there are now more Rohingyas living in Bangladesh (perhaps one million) than in Burma (700,000) but population statistics in both countries are week. While there are a good number of NGOs in Bangladesh, the country as a whole is poor, and help to refugees is not a major priority. From time to time, the Bangladesh authorities round up Rohingyas and send some back to Burma.
As I noted at the start, it is difficult to know if the current violence is a momentary flair up of emotions which will die down shortly, if the violence is encouraged and manipulated by the military for its own ends, or if the violence indicates a deep division within the population which will continue and perhaps grow worse. What I believe is true is that there have been few efforts of reconciliation and of training for conflict resolution. This is a major need and perhaps, with the greater openness of the Myanmar government, courses in conflict resolution could be organized.
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René Wadlow, a member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation and of its Task Force on the Middle East, is president and U.N. representative (Geneva) of the Association of World Citizens. He is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment.
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 18 Jun 2012.
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