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A robe donation ceremony held by the Tatmadaw at
the Uyittaw
Pagoda in Ponnagyun Township in 2004.
Photo: MOI
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Tatmadaw urges Buddhist civilians to arm themselves against
Muslim insurgents
Myanmar military officials met with Rakhine Buddhist leaders
in Ponnagyun Township on Monday to encourage them to take up arms against
Muslim terrorists brigades that threatening the country’s security.
A local source told Myanmar Observer that the Rakhine
leaders responded by saying they were “ready for the ultimate sacrifice in the
defense of the country and would not allow Arakan to become another
Bangladesh”.
The meeting took place within the Uyittaw Pagoda compound in
Ponnagyun. Ponnagyun is a Buddhist-majority township near Sittwe with a
Rohingya enclave concentrated in the Sidurkul village tract.
Myanmar Observer reports that Rohingya residents of the town
had no knowledge of the Tatmadaw meeting because they have been blockaded
within their villages since the 2012 riots. Some of the participants in
Monday’s meeting are said to be affiliated with Ma Ba Tha, a
Buddhist-nationalist movement that has regularly stoked tensions against
Muslims in Myanmar, sometimes resulting in physical violence.
Unlike Rohingya communities in northern Rakhine State,
Muslims in Ponnagyun are vastly outnumbered by local Buddhists, and in the
event of an attack, would find themselves surrounded and without access to an
international border. Thousands of Rohingya refugees in the north have fled
violence perpetrated by the Tatmadaw to seek refuge in Bangladesh, though
hundreds have either died on the way or been sent back by Bangladeshi authorities.
The Myanmar Police Force announced in early November that it
would begin arming and training Rakhine civilians to fight Rohingya insurgents.
Human rights and conflict resolution groups said at the time
that arming and training non-Muslims in Rakhine State had the potential to make
the situation on the ground worse.