Myanmar’s reformist government has drawn international praise for bringing the country back into the folds of democracy. Most western sanctions imposed during its military era have been lifted and in May this year, President Thein Sein became the first Myanmarese leader to visit the White House in five decades. There, his liberal reforms were lauded and the US administration pledged support for the country’s development.
Unfortunately though, these blessings are a bit ahead of time, given the fact that there is little assurance on the implementation of democratic changes in the former pariah state.
Myanmar continues to condone brutal religious riots, most of them targeted towards the Muslim communities of the country.
A fresh wave of violence erupted last week, after rumours were floated regarding the assault against a Buddhist woman by a Muslim man. Buddhist mobs demanded that the police hand over the man to them. Upon their refusal to do so, the mob attacked Muslim households and shops in the Kantbalu outskirts, in north-west Myanmar. While no injuries have been reported, about 35 houses and 12 shops were destroyed before the police could control the area.
In March this year, Meiktila, a central Myanmarese town, saw savage violence, with 40 people killed, and entire Muslim neighbourhoods razed to the ground. Buddhist mobs also hacked and burnt to death 20 students at a Muslim school, while a large crowd of people cheered on the perpetrators. The police merely stood on one side, helpless or condoning this bloodshed.
Meanwhile, the most serious of human rights violations are constantly carried out in plain light against the Rohingya, a linguistic and religious minority in the coastal Arakan state of western Myanmar. But these violations, institutionalised by Myanmarese law, do nothing to impede America’s no-strings–attached commitment. While US President Barack Obama did urge the Myanmar president to stop the repression of the Rohingya community in a speech during the latter’s trip, honestly speaking, few eyebrows are raised about an issue that finds minimal publicity or sympathy.
The rest of the world is no better as it sits mum over the atrocities against and outright persecution of the Rohingya community. Obviously, access to Myanmar’s gems, and its plentiful natural energy resources of oil, gas and minerals is a far more important foreign policy goal than standing up for the rights of a pulverised minority.
While international actors care little about the human rights issues in the country, even the popular opposition leader of Myanmar, Aung San Su Kyi is reluctant about taking sides, perhaps scared that this may affect her likelihood of becoming president of a primarily Buddhist country.
Poor, friendless, persecuted and mostly stateless, the Rohingya Muslims of Myanmar live in a state of utter wretchedness within the country’s borders and beyond. The government calls them illegal immigrants, Bengalis or a derogatory local term, “kalar”. Time and again, it has forced them to evacuate their homes and properties, pushing them into Bangladesh, which refuses to recognise them as its citizens — and rightly so.
The Rohingya are effectively foreigners in their own country, despite proof of ethnic lineage that connects them to the Arakan region for centuries. They are not allowed to travel out of their villages without permission, cannot own land or property, need to pay heavy bribes to have their marriages registered, and are deprived of an education. A new discriminatory policy also seeks to apply a two-child limit on the Rohingya in Arakan state — a move that finds subtle approval within the government. And it is quite unlikely that even the two children born to Rohingya couples will have the right to a Myanmarese nationality, when they cannot have a birth certificate issued.
Last year, the Rohingya Muslims were the target of a planned campaign of ethnic cleansing by the Arakanese majority. Aided, and honed on by compliant local authorities and the government, they turned against the Rohingyas, keen on displacing and driving them out of Myanmar.
The Human Rights Watch (HRW) released a report this April, documenting this campaign of terror, where Myanmarese politicians, local officials and Buddhist monks conspired and encouraged the Arakanese to carry out series of attacks on Rohingya villages.
Months before the attacks were carried out, Buddhist politicians and monks issued anti-Rohingya pamphlets and statements, calling for their permanent removal from the country because they had no ethnic roots in Myanmar. Sometimes, they even used the words ‘ethnic cleansing’. This was how the Myanmarese society, mostly followers of a supposedly pacifist religion of the world, Buddhism, was prepared to engage in the eventual campaign of savage violence against the Rohingya.
Last October, the Arakanese used machetes, swords, homemade guns and Molotov cocktails to kill hundreds of Rohingyas, before hurriedly burying them in mass graves to prevent accountability. Entire towns and villages were razed to the ground, mosques destroyed and more than 125,000 Rohingyas and other Muslims displaced in the violence.
According to Phil Robertson, the deputy Asia director for Human Rights Watch, “... the government knew what was happening and could have stopped it”. Local police, riot police and soldiers sent to protect the Rohingyas were documented by the HRW to have looked the other way or participated actively in the ruthless attacks.
After every bout of communal riots and planned massacres, the displaced Muslims move to overcrowded camps where their movements are restricted by Myanmarese soldiers. Supposedly there to protect them, the soldiers confine them at the camp, turning it into a de facto jail. Humanitarian aid is often blocked and the refugees are denied access to food, water, medicine or proper sanitation.
The government shows no interest in resettling them back in their own villages, and most of them are too scared to return anyway, given the lack of official assurance regarding their security.
Yet, no one asks the ‘democratic’ Myanmarese government for answers and foreign investment keeps pouring in. It does make you wonder what absurdity passes as democracy in most countries nowadays.
The exclusion of the Rohingyas from Myanmarese society has its origins in 1947. At the Panglong conference, Aung San, Father of modern-day Myanmar, called for all minorities in Myanmar to register themselves as ‘national races’. Unfortunately, there was no delegation to represent the Rohingya community at this meet. Hence, it was left bereft of the honourable status of ‘national race’, a circumstance that began to truly matter in 1962, when the socialist dictatorship took over the reigns of the country. The military government began operations to rid the country of illegal foreigners. Without the coveted ‘national race’ title, the Rohingyas belonged to this group. Since then, their persecution, already practised in small, random ways, became more large scale.
At the bottom of Myanmar’s policy of segregation, discrimination and outright persecution of the Rohingya is the Citizenship Law of 1982. Introduced by the military leadership of General Ne Win, it was part of his efforts to woo the Buddhist majority and bolster ultra-nationalism in Myanmar. Rather than define who belonged to Myanmar, it focussed on who did not.
According to this law, because the Rohingya do no belong to any of the eight recognised ‘national races’, they were not legible for Myanmarese citizenship. This officiated the subtle discrimination suffered by the Rohingya over the years, and resulted in about 800,000 Rohingyas becoming stateless.
At present, more than 300,000 Rohingyas live as refugees in Bangladesh. Thousands of others have tried to use shabby sea rafts to try and reach the shores of Thailand and Malaysia. Most have died on the way.
Yet, Myanmar is unapologetic about this colossal loss of lives, for it refuses to recognise the Rohingyas as its own people. If the Myanmarese government is truly committed to democratic reforms, it needs to do away with oppressive, discriminatory laws and policies. Trampling on the rights of minorities, in order to appeal to the majority is nothing to cheer.
The world has been premature in getting the celebratory fireworks going, for Myanmar has yet to prove its worth as a recipient of western patronage.
We need to hold back on the jubilance until human rights violations cease in the country, the Rohingyas are granted citizenship and Muslims the dignity to live as equal citizens of Myanmar.
Rabia Alavi is a Dubai-based writer. You can follow her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/RabiaAlavi
