NOVANEWS
by Ridwan Sheikh
If Aung San Suu Kyi really stands for human rights, then why doesn’t that include Burma’s Rohingya Muslims?
September’s glitzy red carpet event in Capitol Hill, commemorating the US Congressional Gold Medal award, the highest civilian accolade given by the U.S government, honoured Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese politician, for her services to ‘democracy’. While back home, in the Western Myanmar state of Rakhine Myanmar (Burma), it is a different picture. The killings and persecution of the Rohingya’s, an ethnic minority group still goes unnoticed.
So, why is this happening? The hidden persecution of the Myanmar Rohingya Muslim minority is nothing new, dating back to the 15th century. Thousands of soldiers from Bengal arrived in the region, already inhabited by a small Rohingya population, under the orders of Jalaluddin Muhammad Shah of Bengal, after Burma’s Arakan king sought help from the Shah, realising his reign was under threat. Following the King’s dethronement by Burmese opposition, the soldiers decided to settle in the region. Later, Arab seafarers visited and settled in the region, and soon a mix of ethnicity of Turks, Persians, Central Asians, Pathans and Bengalis, shaped the area.
The current xenophobia is built on British colonisation in the 19th century, where a huge influx of Indian immigrants settled into Myanmar, changing the economic landscape. While the newly arrived immigrants enjoyed the bounties of the British with jobs in middle and upper civil positions, the local inhabitants were restricted to menial labour.
The idea of the current propaganda holding onto the past is mere fiction. It is misguided to believe the causes of dire economic despair for the nation’s estimated 70 million [1]people, is the work of roughly between 800,000 to 1 million poverty stricken Rohingya people. [2]
In a bygone era, where anti-government protests dominated Myanmar’s history, it is disturbing how its people and monks, once calling for an end to violations of human rights are now the chief instigators of threatening to wipe out an entire people.
It was thought, Aung San Suu Kyi’s return to the political fold, following her release, two years ago, under house arrest by the military dictatorship, a prisoner for 15 years of the 21 years, was supposed to bring political reform to a nation, ruled by the military for more than half a century. Two years later, nothing has changed.
The main antagonists of this tragedy, the Buddhist core, the military and police forces, and the silent Aung San Suu Kyi, have kept the flames of resentment burning by strengthening the peoples warped perception of persecuting the Rohingya’s, that routinely face discrimination, including large scale arrests, rape, torture, random killings, looting and destruction of homes and properties. [3]
A Muslim Rohingya man sits on the charred rubble of his home burnt earlier at a village in Minpyar in Rakhine state, October 28, 2012, photo: press tv
The Dalai Lama’s reaction was reduced to nothing more than a toned down letter, written to Aung San Suu Kyi, two months ago, describing how he felt “deeply saddened”, and “very concerned” of the plight of the Rohingya people, while refusing to condemn the aggressors. His ‘holiness’ brushed the matter aside, while continuing to tour the world, giving lectures, such as Peace and conflict resolution, in places like Kashmir.
A similar gesture was expressed by Aung San Suu Kyi, during her recent 17-day tour in the U.S, at the illustrious Harvard Kennedy School. During the question and answer session, one student, bravely asked:
You have been quite reluctant to speak up against the human rights violations in Rakhine State against the Rohingya … Can you explain why you have been so reluctant?
Aung San Suu Kyi, responded sheepishly:
You must not forget that there have been human rights violations on both sides of the communal divide. It’s not a matter of condemning one community or the other. I condemn all human rights violations,
before concluding that the commissioner in Burma was looking into the matter.
This half-hearted response reaffirms the ‘arrangement’ between the military Junta and Aung San Suu Kyi, allowing her to resume the leadership of the National League for Democracy’s political party, on condition she doesn’t criticise the ruling establishment.
Following decades of international isolation, after economic sanctions were imposed by the U.S government in 1988, the Myanmar’s President, Thein Sein, visit to the U.S in September 2012 signalled an end to the nation’s global economic exclusion. The meeting with the Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, paved the way for the U.S to relax its import sanctions on the nation.
Terms were further endorsed on 19th November, when the re-elected U.S President, Barack Obama, made an historic fly-by, six hour visit to Myanmar, becoming the first U.S President to visit the military ruling nation, then moving on to Thailand and Cambodia to complete his Asia visit, to cement U.S trade presence in the region.
While the media lapped up the sound bites of a bright economic future for Myanmar, the visit was of particular interest to the world’s corporations, specifically U.S corporations, as it added substance to its plans of extending corporate reach in South East Asia by finding ways to ruthlessly exploit and monopolise Myanmar’s natural resources and tap into the goldmine that labour provides.
It is Aung San Suu Kyi’s inaction, which is beginning to undermine her credibility as the bastion of human rights and freedom. This raises some troublesome questions. What are her motives, to look the other way as Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims are being killed and routinely persecuted? Doesn’t this silence threaten the very ideals of ‘Mother’ Suu, as she is affectionately known, in her pursuit of freedom and Justice in Myanmar?
Ethnic cleansing in Burma
Her political party, the National League for Democracy, are well aware of the persecution endured by this discarded community, but believe joining the Myanmar people, in rallying behind the President, Thein Sein’s, proposal of uprooting the Rohingya’s to another country, is more important to maintain the popular support base for the political party.
The main reason for her discourse is the lure of the 2015 elections, as promised by the untrusting ruling government. The chance to govern Myanmar yields a far greater prize for Aung San Suu Kyi. If it means abandoning her principles which form the core of her beliefs, and aligning herself to the majority view, then so be it.
Central to the carte blanche policy of persecuting an entire people, is the 1982 Citizenship law, which views the Rohingya’s as ‘stateless’, becoming refugees in their own homeland. To Myanmar nationalist leaders, the legislation adds further credence to their rhetoric and subjugates an ethnic group to live in deplorable living conditions, endure crippling unemployment and having inadequate healthcare and education.
The major propaganda drive comes from the Rakhine Nationalities Development Party, (RNDP), a political party in the state of Rakhine, priding itself in promoting ‘democratic’ values, with the slogan, ‘Democratic Voice of Burma’, while excluding the Rohingya’s, in its definition of, ‘Nationalities’, but it is very open about that.
Such hatred for an ethnic group reinforces the idea of how a nation’s top-level propaganda and conditioning, over a period of time, can absorb into the veins of society and eventually lead to horrific consequences, where vehement blind hatred replaces logic and reason.
One such group, the Arakanese monks illustrated the hatred in society by partaking in a protest march, opposed to the opening of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) offices, near Shwedagon Pagoda in Rangoon. Unashamedly, President Thein Sein heeded to such calls, halting the opening of OIC offices.
I am amazed that they arrested peace activists demonstrating in Yangon [Rangoon] over Kachin state, but just allow this promotion of hatred, especially by people like the monks, who would be the best actors to try to calm things down – it seems to be completely unbelievable,
said Chris Lewa, head of the Arakan Project, an independent human rights organisation in Asia.
Meanwhile, at the All-Arakanese Monks’ Solidarity Conference, a document was released, which was reminiscent to Gestapo tactics, urging locals to take pictures of anyone alleged to be supporting the Rohingya’s and distributing these images, with the intention of targeting sympathisers with violent attacks by nationalist extremists.
It may be ludicrous to suggest a nation would hold such a vindictive view against an ethnic minority group, as it’s always a handful of rogue elements that wrongly represent a nation, but recent atrocities, such as harrowing events in Rwanda and Srebrenica have dispelled this popular belief.
The future of Myanmar remains ominous, perhaps mirroring China, where dissent is more tightly controlled, with little International media scrutiny and strangely no political pressure to halt theses deplorable crimes against the Rohingya’s.
Footnotes
[1] Britain-based human rights agencies place the population as high as 70 million.
[2] Human Rights Watch.
[3] Burma Campaign UK.
