 |
| File photo of Gen Khin Nyunt |
By Dr.Maung Zarni
Myanmar military
leaders have waged a war against the "Muslims of Rakhine" or Rohingya
based on the deliberate un-truths, not unlike the Cold War's Arms Race which
was waged by USA, on the knowingly FALSE information, according to Colonel
& Dr Daniel Ellsberg of the Pentagon, the Snowden of 1960's.
Here, Ex-General and
Founder of Na Sa Ka Khin Nyunt tells his version of Nagamin of King Dragon
Operations (racially and religiously-targeted campaign immigration check
operation of Feb 1978) and Hamsa or Hintha Operations (Receiving back the
repatriated Rohingya).
1) Ex-intelligence
chief who served in the front line of Western Burma as Regiment Commander
(Lt-Colonel) from Jan 1978 to 1981 was instrumental in Naga Min Operation
(launched in the second week of February of 1978), under the command of Western
Command Commander Brigadier Min Gaung who later became Home Minister.
(Min Gaung's
original name was Than Maung and was a hanger-on at my grandfather's travelling
casino business in Eastern Mandalay in the 1950's. I learned about Min Gaung's
background direct from my late grandfather).
2) Khin Nyunt talked
about 'fleeing Muslims from Rakhine' into Bangladesh - never the other way
around.
In his 1993
"top secret" lecture, which initially appeared on the Internet and
later reprinted in the compiled interviews with Myat Khaing in 2014, he
described one major source of tensions between Bangladesh and Burma as
"fleeing Muslims from Rakhine".
Noteworthy is this:
this characterization - "fleeing Muslims from Rakhine" - was repeated
by Khin Nyunt in his biography published in 2016.
3) Khin Nyunt
described the agreement between Burma and Bangladesh to take back those Muslims
who fled to Bangladesh as a result of Naga Min Operation. The repatriated
"Muslims from Rakhine" were received under the banner of Hin Tha (
Burmese traditional mythical bird operation). But he did not give any
explantion as to why Ne Win's military government - then known as Burma Socialist
Programme Party Gov. had to take all the Muslims back - over 200,000. - with
UNHCR oversight and involvement in the summer of 1978.
Besides he stated
that 11 reception camps were opened to receive, return and resettle the
returnees, that they were all carefully scrutinized in terms of their country
of origin, and that the small number who came along, from Bangladesh, with the
returning Muslims from Rakhine were sent back to their country.
4) Finally, he
offered an explanation as to the growth of the population of the Muslims in
Rakhine as the direct result of the intermingling between those who lived on
Bangladesh side and those who live in Northern Arakan state of Western Burma.
He argued that
because many a Muslim in Northern Rakhine - overwhelmingly Rohingya special
administration district - does not speak Burmese or Rakhine, but only
"Bengali", they must all be from Bangladesh, not from Burma!
(Zarni's comment:
there are Kachins, Karens, Karenni, Shan, Wa, etc. who have very little contact
with the dominant Bama, from cradle to grave, and they hardly speak Burmese.
Internationally, there are Chinese diasporas where it is not uncommon to find
Chinese who do not speak a word of English, living in places like Brighton, UK
or San Francisco, USA. For their communities are large and their social
interactions confined to among themselves. In the Rohingya situation where for
nearly 2 generations, the Rohingya are forced to exist, in effect, in an
enforced apartheid it would be impossible to find many linguistically
integrated Rohingya. Besides Rohingya and Bengali languages have similarities,
but are NOT the same - the same way Rakhine and Bama languages share similar
features and words, but are more than sufficiently different.
Using the lack of
Bama or Rakhine language command among the segregated Rohingya - or Muslims
from Rakhine, as Khin Nyunt refers to them - as a key indicator or marker of
'foreignness' 'immigrants' is empirically and analytically false.
But the country has
been fed a fabricated lie that there have been a constant flow of
"Bengali" - there are east Bengali now named "Bangladeshi"
- and west Bengali - with its center in Kolkata, named "Indians".
They share a common language, but two different national identities and
political consciousnesses.
As long as Myanmar's
top civilian and military leaders - including Aung San Suu Kyi today - are
intellectually and psychologically unable to overcome their deep personal racist
views towards Muslims and particularly the Rohingya there can be no peaceful
and/or internal Myanmar solution to the Rohingya persecution - now widely
considered a slow genocide and crime against humanity, internationally.
