Arakan Watch
May 14, 2017
Burmese Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services Senior
General Min Aung Hlaing has said that the Muslim residents of Arakan must first
accept themselves as ‘Bangalis’, NOT Rohingya. The local ethnics as well as the
Burmese people have never accepted ‘Bengalis’ in Burma.
General Min Aung Hlaing was talking during his meeting
with the representatives of Inter Mediate of Britain led by Mr. Jonathan Powell
at the parlour of Bayintnaung Villa in Nay Pyi Taw on Thursday morning, May 11,
2017. In his official statement released
on 12th May 2017, he also said that Burmese people will not accept any attempt to name Rohingya and
create a new situation in Burma.
General Min Aung Hlaing reiterated that in spite of
having ‘religious freedom’, Burma could not recognize Rohingya, who were the
‘illegal immigrant Bengalis’ as they came from the land of Bengal.
During this bilateral meeting, Mr. Jonathan Powell and
his entourage discussed their experiences in solving conflicts and peace
process in Northern Ireland, Africa and Columbia and offering assistance in the
peace process of Burma especially the Rohingya issue in Arakan.
The delegation members, regarding the Rakhine issue,
suggested that unlike other peace processes, that issue should be addressed in
a different way based on experiences they gained earlier.
With regard to the issue of Rakhine State, the Senior
General said ‘Bengalis’ who came in Arakan from Bangadesh were the minority
while local Rakhine ethnics were the majority in the region. As ‘Bangalis’
became the majority gradually and Rakhine Buddhist were the minority in the
region, the urge for effective security measures raised and were taken
effectively to protect the territory of Burma from ‘infiltrators’
Min Aung Hlaing also urged that the military force
(Tatmadaw ) helped the police to take security measures in the conflict zone of
Arakan state after the October attack last year. He also defended his
military’s violent crackdown on Rohingya Muslims by comparing it to Britain’s
campaign to tackle sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland. This post-attack
military operation killed at least 1000 Rohingya, compelling some 75,000 to
flee across the border to Bangladesh, bringing harrowing accounts of rape and
torture by Burmese soldiers.
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| The destructed houses of Muslim Rohingya as in the name of so-called clearance operation |
The UN investigators accused Burmese security forces may
have carried out ethnic cleansing of Rohingya minority during the month-long operation that also
amounts to Crimes Against Humanity. The UN has drafted a resolution unanimously
to send an international fact-finding mission to the conflict zone and
investigate into the alleged crimes commited against the innocent Rohingya
Muslims.
The General underscored on the ‘concept of accepting the
Bangali indentity’ by the ethnic Rohingya themselves and urged that it would
have diminished tensions to bothsides. “If they have agreed to the concept,
they need to accept enumeration, registration, and citizenship scrutiny under
the law”, he said to the delegates.
Chief of the General Staff (Army, Navy and Air) General
Mya Tun Oo and Lt-Gen Soe Htut of the Office of the Commander-in-Chief (Army)
were accompanied with the Senior General at the meeting.
Powell helped broker the Good Friday agreement in 1998
that ended decade’s long violence between Catholic Irish nationalists and
Protestant British unionists in Northern Ireland and now heads conflict
resolution NGO Inter Mediate.