A history of ‘complete repression’ in Arakan state

Source DVB, 13 Dec

 

2012

People displaced by the recent violence in the Kyukphyu township sit together after arriving to Thaechaung refugee camp, outside of Sittwe on 28 October 2012. (Reuters)

 

 

Ethnic cleansing does not have to, by definition, emanate from a government.

However after nearly 50 years of military rule, the apparatus of the state is entrenched in the fabric of Burmese society and as the pogrom continues in Arakan state, the back story provides unnerving evidence that systematic official behavior has lead to the current crisis.

What has occurred in western Burma has been described as a sectarian conflict between two communities who simply hate each other. This prognosis is demonstrably false and a look at the situation in Arakan provides ample evidence that there is a systematic pattern, which in most cases would amount to crimes against humanity.

One element of this picture is the improbability of a 'sectarian conflict'. Arakan state has a population of almost 4 million, making the Muslim or Rohingya population only about or less than quarter of the inhabitants, thus making a two-sided conflict highly illogical.

Further, the minority population has been controlled by the state to the extent that they are unable to travel between towns, renovate a mosque or even have a child or marry without a permit from the military.

The control of this population has long been perpetuated not just by uniformed military or Nasaka (border guard) personnel but also by quasi-civilian militias, as has been the case in much of the country. Indeed in Burma the ruling party, the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) grew out of the Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA).

This organisation had perhaps its most notorious hour in 2003, when it attacked Aung San Suu Kyi's convoy in central Burma. The authorities naturally tried to portray it as a clash between two rival political groups. However, only one side, the National League for Democracy (NLD), suffered 70 deaths and only one side's supporters were arrested – also the NLD.

In the wake of the Depayin massacre, the US embassy dispatched a cable back to Washington entitled: "MOSQUE RAZED, PARAMILITARIES TRAINED."

In the cable, one of the militia's discussed was, "the USDA-affiliated 'Power Ranger' militia" that was receiving "rudimentary riot-control and military training." One of its other jobs was to hold up the Americans in case of an invasion, while the government was "training a paramilitary 'Peoples Militia' in Arakan state to assist in putting down any general uprising."

"Rohingya Muslims specifically, suffer from an aggravated, systematic, institutionalised form of persecution"

According to the cable, "Local officials on July 22 (2003) reportedly tore down a mosque in Sittwe, 70 miles SE of the Bangladeshi border, and arrested seven Muslims, one of whom subsequently died in custody."

The dispatch goes on to explain that the mosque was demolished because the worshippers "made unauthorized improvements to the structure, resulting in the decision by local authorities to tear down the whole building."

The embassy concludes that, "We frequently hear stories of pro-SPDC 'fake monks' allegedly inciting violence against Muslims to deflect anti-regime ire."

Dr Kyaw Yin Hlaing, who is now on the commission to investigate June's violence in Arakan state, also notes this type of tactic being used. In 2008, he wrote in a US legal journal that:

"Before former intelligence chief General Khin Nyunt was dismissed and his intelligence agency disbanded, the junta could almost always uncover opposition groups that were planning to organise protests. In 1997, for instance, the junta became aware of monks' plans to protest a regional commander's improper renovation of a famous Buddha statue in Mandalay. Before the monks could launch the protest, a rumour emerged that a Buddhist woman had been raped by a Muslim businessman. The government diverted their attention from the regional commander to the Muslim businessman, eventually causing an anti-Muslim riot."

He concludes that: "intelligence agents have often instigated anti-Muslim riots in order to prevent angry monks from engaging in anti-government activities."

Given the uncanny resemblance of this case and the details surrounding late May's 'spark incident', one must ask questions about the current government and the legitimacy of the reform process.

Khin Nyunt was not only adept at preventing anti-government actions, he was also good at neutralising ethnic insurgent groups and casually referred to the entire nation of India as "kalars" – a pejorative term used in Burma to describe Muslims and individuals of South Asian descent.

Government policy then was described as "pervasive and sometimes aggressive religious discrimination that favours Burma's Buddhist majority."

While the US embassy noted in a cable in 2005 that the UNHCR head at the time Jean-François Durieux described "the situation in northern Arakan as 'shocking,' with the GOB [government of Burma] in constant denial of the true situation. Although Muslims have some religious freedom in Rangoon, the GOB has a policy of 'complete repression' of Rohingyas in northern Arakan. He noted that Buddhist temples are 'springing up everywhere,' although he estimates the Buddhist population as only one percent of the population [in northern Arakan]."

If there is any doubt that there is systematic repression against the population, the US embassy noted that, "The military has effectively sealed the Rohingyas off from the world and keeps them at the bare subsistence level – it is an internment camp." They further correctly forecasted that, "We should not assume that any future democratic government will accord these people their basic human rights."

Needless to say however despite this and the accumulated evidence, the US government has lifted punitive measures against the government.

The lack of civil rights is overshadowed moreover by the basic human indicators that have been thrust on the population by the government, as the US embassy noted: "Infant mortality is four times the national average (71 per 1000 births); 64% of children under five are chronically malnourished and stunted growth is common." Infant mortality then is roughly equivalent to that of Ethiopia, which is chronically affected by drought, and 80% of the population is illiterate with one teacher for every 79 students.

If this were not systematic, the discrepancies with other regions of the country would not be so severe. The government has been more than able to prevent freedom of movement for the roughly 850,000 Rohingya still in existence in the area, it would then seem that with one of the largest armed forces in Asia controlling the movement of mobs would be easy.

According to jurist Guy Horton writing in 2005, "the Rohingya Muslims specifically, suffer from an aggravated, systematic, institutionalised form of persecution designed to destroy them through exclusion, rather than assimilation."

Whilst according to the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide:

"…any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing 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; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."

Given that Thein Sein has attempted to off load the entire population onto the UNHCR, it is evident that he too is in favour of removing the population. With the well-documented government abuses against the population, there is not much of a case to suggest that what is occurring now in Arakan state is anything less than genocide.

-The opinions and views expressed in this piece are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect DVB's editorial policy.