{"id":42218,"date":"2014-05-05T12:00:06","date_gmt":"2014-05-05T11:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=42218"},"modified":"2015-05-05T21:35:03","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T20:35:03","slug":"myanmars-rohingya-persecution-frequently-asked-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2014\/05\/myanmars-rohingya-persecution-frequently-asked-questions\/","title":{"rendered":"Myanmar\u2019s Rohingya Persecution – Frequently Asked Questions"},"content":{"rendered":"

What is really happening to Myanmar\u2019s Muslim Rohingya?\u00a0 Why is it significant?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A slow burning genocide of 36-years with periodic spikes of violence and killings followed by waves of exoduses of fleeing Refugees to nearby Bangladesh, as well as Thailand, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Australia and other Western countries.<\/p>\n

Myanmar\u2019s genocidal treatment of Rohingya over the past 36 years calls into question the legitimacy, moral authority and effectiveness of the United Nations and its constitutive global governance institutions such as the International Criminal Court and the Security Council.\u00a0\u00a0 Further, it calls into question the meaning of what it means to be conscientious human beings in the 21st<\/sup> century. Do human beings today willfully ignore large scale suffering of 2 million Rohingya with no means to defend themselves, no livelihood systems or social foundations?<\/p>\n

Since February 1978 Myanmar has instituted a policy of genocide under the disguise of anti-immigration operations, which are in fact designed to destroy Rohingya as a distinct ethnic group.\u00a0\u00a0 In the official media and by various bureaucracies including Education, Home Affairs, Defense and Foreign Affairs Myanmar has portrayed wrongly Rohingya as \u201cBengali\u201d, that is, illegal economic migrants from neighboring. Aside from the violent \u2018anti-immigration\u2019 operations whereby local Rakhine racist extremists and central government authorities coordinate numerous forms of attacks on Rohingya neighborhoods, places of worships (mosques), businesses and properties, including organized acts of arson, summary execution, looting, sexual violence, etc.<\/p>\n

Over 1 million has fled the country since the first wave of genocidal attacks on Rohingya.\u00a0\u00a0 Nearly 200,000 Rohingya have been forcibly relocated by central government troops into refugee camps where they live in inhumane conditions, without access to market, jobs or food systems.\u00a0\u00a0 Local extremists have become strident for their call to block even emergency relief aid to the camps and threatened to attack any international NGO who provide Rohingya internationally displaced persons (or IDPs) basic services.\u00a0\u00a0 Myanmar\u2019s central government refuses to give INGOs unfettered humanitarian access to Rohingya camps as well as neighborhood.<\/p>\n

Thousands of Rohinya who originally co-existed in peace with local Buddhist communities in Southern Rakhine state have been transferred to Northern Rakhine state adjacent to Bangladesh, creating 90% Rohingya pockets. These pockets are placed in the hands of the Ministry of Defence which has absolute administrative power. The military is aided by a small minority of all-Rakhine civil servants and police officials, thus making Northern Rakhine state\u2019s Rohingya neighborhood an apartheid. As early as July 1978, the Far Eastern Economic Review called it \u2018Burma\u2019s Brand of Apartheid\u2019 (14 July 1978, FEER).<\/p>\n

Of all Myanmar\u2019s ethnic groups, only the Rohinya are subject to birth and population control on account of their distinct ethnicity.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The doctor patient ratio for Myanmar\u2019s Rohingya is worse than Syria during the current civil war (40 doctors: 2 million in Syria where is 1 doctor: 73,000 -86,000 Rohingya in peace time).\u00a0\u00a0 Rohingya are not permitted to study medicine or midwifery in Myanmar\u2019s universities, if they are admitted at all. Myanmar also maintains a set of severe restrictions on Rohingya marriages.\u00a0\u00a0 Rohingya are required daily permit from the security forces to travel to even the next village or neighborhood.<\/p>\n

Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and successive UN Special Rapporteurs have characterized Myanmar\u2019s treatment of more than 1 million Rohingya who remain in the country as \u2018crimes against humanity\u2019 and \u2018ethnic cleansing\u2019.<\/p>\n

In fact, many human rights specialists and UN officials understand that the decades of persecution and destruction of Rohingya amounts to a genocide, but out of \u2018pragmatic\u2019 considerations no international body is so far prepared to call Rohingya genocide by its proper name: genocide.<\/p>\n

How is it that Buddhist monks seem to be involved? I thought they were into peace and compassion?<\/strong><\/p>\n

While Buddhism as a philosophical system is about universal loving kindness, impermanence and non-essentializable or solid ego or individual, Myanmar\u2019s Buddhism and Buddhist monks are contaminated with the country\u2019s racist nationalism.\u00a0\u00a0 No practicing Buddhists, monks\/nuns or laymen and \u2013women can claim to be nationalist or patriotic or defenders of Buddhist faith.<\/p>\n

Monks\u2019 involvement in anti-Muslim deeds and words is more to do with racism and nationalism than with Buddhism as a spiritual philosophy.<\/p>\n

Historically, Myanmar\u2019s military government has categorized university students and Buddhist monks as two biggest threats to its power.\u00a0\u00a0 Of the two only Buddhist monks remain a strong social force as was evidenced by the so-called Saffron Revolution of 2007 during which the entire Buddhist Order rose up against the military government. Since then, the military has pursued a pre-emptive strategy of diversion. That is, the military\u2019s propaganda departments including Religious Affairs has portrayed Islam and Muslims of Myanmar, including Rohingya Muslims, as the biggest existential threat to Burmese Buddhist way of life \u2013 in spite of the fact that Muslims in Myanmar make up for less than 5% of the total population 80-85% of whom are Buddhists. In this way, Buddhist monks and nuns are pre-occupied with what they come to see as \u2018a threat from Islam to Buddhism and Burmese race\u2019.<\/p>\n

Reuters\u2019s Pulitzer-prize winning investigative reports have documented the state\u2019s instrumental role in manufacturing and popularizing anti-Muslim hatred in Myanmar.<\/p>\n

So this is Buddhists against Muslims?<\/strong><\/p>\n

No, absolutely not.<\/p>\n

Again as explained above, it is in fact Myanmar nationalists acting irrationally towards the manufactured enemy of Buddhist faith and Myanmar race, Muslims of all ethnic backgrounds.\u00a0\u00a0 Because Rohingya are concentrated in the pockets in Northern Rakhine State, unlike other Muslim communities that are scattered across the country, Rohingya Muslims have become the easiest target for organized attacks and state-sponsored persecution.<\/p>\n

Isn’t this just a symptom of the reforms that the government is being praised for?<\/p>\n

No, the discrimination, persecution and violence against Rohingya began in 1976, that is, 3 decades before the Burmese military leadership embarked on its much-lauded reforms in 2011. As a matter of fact, it is the country\u2019s successive military regimes headed by General Ne Win (1962-88), General Saw Maung (1988-1992), General Than Shwe (1992-2011) and ex-General Thein Sein (2011-present) who have uniformly maintained the national policies of discrimination and persecution of Rohingya.\u00a0\u00a0 It is verifiably incorrect to argue that the violence and conflicts in Rakhine state are primarily \u2018communal\u2019 in nature, symptomatic of the transitional societies with a large multiethnic make-up.<\/p>\n

Why isn\u2019t then the majority Burmese of predominantly Buddhist faith and 90% Christian Kachin and Chin ethnic communities as well as the Karens and Shan, with their armed ethnic armies, not having \u2018communal violence\u2019?<\/p>\n

What solid evidence is there that the military and \/or government are involved?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Virtually all human rights reports on the situation of Rohingya, including reports of the UN Human Rights Rapporteurs on Myanmar have noted both direct and indirect involvement of Myanmar\u2019s security forces, which are centrally \u2013 not locally from Rakhine state administration based in Sittwe – commanded from the Ministry of Defence in the violence towards Rohingya. Rohingya affairs are under the direct command of the military government, now quasi-civilian government of Thein Sein, at the highest level.<\/p>\n

Despite all evidence of its involvement, Myanmar governments have blatantly denied having a policy of discrimination and persecution of Rohingya.\u00a0\u00a0 The widely reported massacre at a Rohingya village named Ducheera Dan in January this year is only the latest example of the government\u2019s denial of its direct involvement in the violence and persecution of Rohingya.\u00a0\u00a0 It is common knowledge that no commander, local or national, has ever been persecuted for their mistreatment, abuses and rights violations of any Rohingya, men, women, children or the elderly.\u00a0\u00a0 In short, Myanmar government\u2019s official involvement is evidenced in the state impunity it has granted to any official or civilian that attacks Rohingya individuals and those who otherwise destroy Rohingya as an ethnic community.<\/p>\n

If it was actually genocide then wouldn\u2019t there be scenes like in Rwanda or Cambodia\u2019s Killing Fields?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Popular perception of a genocide is about dramatic spikes of mass killings as in Cambodia of Khmer Rouge days (1975-79) or 1994 Rwanda.\u00a0\u00a0 But a genocide is not simply about media-genic scenes of mass killings.\u00a0\u00a0 The single most influential \u2013 and one and only \u2013 universally accepted legal definition of a genocide as spelled out by the Geneva Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (January 1948) and Article 6 of the Rome Statute (July 2002) \u2013 specify 4 other genocidal acts: \u201ccausing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group\u201d, besides \u201ckilling members of the group\u201d, with the intent to destroy an ethnical or national group, in whole or in part<\/em>.<\/p>\n

While there may be no Hitler like genocidal demagogues in Myanmar, over the past 36 years there is a consistent and verifiable pattern of Myanmar\u2019s discrimination and persecution of Rohingya which have resulted spikes of organized and well-structured violence, led to untold number of Rohingya deaths, destroyed Rohingya communities, butchered the group\u2019s identity, and ultimately rendered life for Rohingya into such a living hell that thousands and thousands of Rohingya families have been choosing risks of death and other high risks fleeing the country on foot or by boats.<\/p>\n

Wouldn\u2019t the United Nations or US have done something if this was really important? \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

In its 2009 report, the Human Rights Watch prophetically observed that helping Rohingya advances no strategic or commercial interests. Decades of Rohingya persecution and destruction by Myanmar, a UN member state, are well-known and well-documented to all 5 permanent members of the Security Council. The OIC and its member states including Malaysia and Indonesia in Myanmar\u2019s neighborhood have repeatedly expressed grave concerns about the plight of Rohingya.\u00a0\u00a0 But beyond rhetoric there has not been a concerted effort or a political will to bring an end to the slow burning genocide of Myanmar\u2019s Rohingya.\u00a0\u00a0 Rohingya are now becoming Asia\u2019s Palestinians.\u00a0\u00a0 Even the Palestinians have greater support and recognition from the United Nations.\u00a0\u00a0 As a matter of fact, the UN agencies operating in Myanmar, as well as the United Nations Population Fund may be culpable in the ethnocide (destruction of an ethnic identity and culture) and the genocide.\u00a0\u00a0 For the UN High Commission on Refugees have gagged its local and international staff in Myanmar and instructed them not to use even words like \u2018segregation\u2019 to describe the Rohingya persecution and discrimination, let alone report the case to the UN as that of a genocide by design and structure, with the intent \u2013 and result \u2013 of Rohingya group destruction.<\/p>\n

And what about Aung San Suu Kyi and other Myanmar people?\u00a0 What are they doing about this?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Aung San Suu Kyi has not only maintained a willful silence over the persecution of Rohingya but she has categorically denied that the \u2018ethnic cleansing\u2019 of Rohingya is taking place.\u00a0\u00a0 Extremist Rakhine leaders who are her fellow parliamentarians are on the record stating that they have told her never to utter the word \u2018Rohingya\u2019, or lose any type of popular votes from 3 million Rakhine.\u00a0\u00a0 In addition, she herself has proven to be an anti-Muslim Myanmar racist nationalist, not unlike the majority of the Burmese public. She both offered and justified Myanmar Buddhists\u2019s fear of Muslims and global Muslim power, in a Radio Four interview on BBC in London in the fall of 2013.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Q: What is really happening to Myanmar\u2019s Muslim Rohingya? Why is it significant?
\nA: A slow burning genocide of 36-years with periodic spikes of violence and killings followed by waves of exoduses of fleeing Refugees to nearby Bangladesh, as well as Thailand, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Australia and other Western countries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-analysis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42218\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}