By M.S. Anwar | Analysis & Opinion
Once again, the Burmese military has staged violence against
the country’s ethnic minority, Rohingya, considered by UN as the World’s most
persecuted people, since October 9, 2016. In June 2012, the Burmese Regime
triggered violence against the same community that literally paralyzed half of
around 1.3 million Rohingya populations in Arakan State. Many human rights
groups have termed the crimes against the Rohingya as Crimes against humanity,
ethnic cleansing or crimes amounting to Genocide. Unfortunately, the
international authoritative bodies have failed to stop this slow burning
genocide despite ample of evidences proving the government’s hands behind.
 |
Hmuu Zaw incited hate speech against
Rohingya in 2012, while holding the position
of the minister of the President Office.
He called this inflammatory post
a personal opinion.
|
U Zaw Htay alias Hmuu Zaw, the current Presidential
Spokesman and ex-army major, notorious as a propaganda minister, held a similar
position in the President Office under U Thein Sein government in 2012. He,
from within the President Office, loudly incited hate speech against the
Rohingya on many ocassions. On June 1, 2012, he arbitrarily labelled the
Rohingyas as militants through his Facebook post ‘Infiltration of RSO (Rohingya
Solidarity Organization) — which was declared as defunct post 2001 — militants
in Maungdaw’ to turn the country’s Buddhist population against the Rohingya and
as an advance move to justify the impending state-sponsored violence.
Fast forward to October 9, 2016, a group of unknown
assailants carried out attacks on the three Border Guard Police (BGP) posts in
Maungdaw Township. Since then, the Burmese military has launched full-fledged
brutal assaults on the Rohingya civilians on pretext of ‘Operation Clearance.’
The Burmese troops have been committing all sorts of crimes
against the Rohingya such as extrajudicial killings, burning homes, plundering
properties, raping women, tortures, and arbitrary arrests; blocking
humanitarian groups to the region; and what not?
It goes without saying that no responsible government will
kill the unconcerned civilians en masse in the name of the crackdown on the
assailants/militants.
Few days later, some (unverified) videos of a group of
people — in T-Shirts and Sarongs/Lungis holding Swords, sticks and some assault
guns — claiming to be the people behind the raids on the three BGP posts
surfaced social media. They claimed they are a group of people of resisting the
decades-long persecutions and the genocide committed by the Burmese governments
against the Rohingya, named their activities as ‘Faith Movement’ and
categorically denied to have any links with the foreign based terror groups.
However, the Burmese army through its proxy, Zaw Htay, in
the President U Htin Kyaw’s Office, and the domestic media deliberately chose
to take the name of an unknown or little known group with a devised term ‘Aqa
Mul Mujahideen’ — which allegedly has links with the Pakistan based militant
groups — to be behind the attacks. Without an iota of doubt, this move by the
military to use the term is to justify the extrajudicial killings and
large-scale destructions of the Rohingya minority.
 |
Two Rohingya youths were arrested at
KoeTanKauk on November 5 and labelled
as terrorists to justify army’s large-scale
atrocities.
|
Unsurprisingly, the Burmese military; the neo-nazi
propaganda machine, the Presidential Spokesman U Zaw Htay; and the Burmese
domestic media are now very quick to tag a ‘Militant Label’ to any Rohingya
civilian arrested in the on-going raids at Rohingya villages all over Maungdaw
and Rathedaung. To give an instance, the Burmese troops arrested and severely tortured
two innocent Rohingya youths during yesterday’s raids at KoeTanKauk (Donseik
Fara) in Rathedaung. They were later transferred to the Inn Dinn (Aan Daang)
BGP Camp, only to label them as militants and announce it through the portal of
Ministry of Information (MOI) (being operated upon the direction of Zaw Htay).
For weeks, the Burmese troops have been committing such
kinds of large-scale atrocities with impunity, simultaneously successfully
blocking the access of the international media, human rights observers and the
aid groups to the region.
On one hand, the Burmese troops are arresting and torturing
the innocent civilians. On the other hand, they are conveniently labeling them
as militants or terrorists to justify their crimes against humanity. One shot,
two birds! All look so easy for the Burmese military, while the international
community chooses to just look on.
M.S. Anwar is an activist, reporter on the issues of
Arakan and news editor of Rohingya Vision TV. He can be reached at: editor@rvisiontv.com