By TEJ PARIKH, Global Policy Analyst
MAY 13, 2017
Anti-Muslim vigilante groups led by Buddhist nationalists
risk stirring communal tensions in Myanmar’s most populated and ethnically
diverse city.
In recent months, extremist mobs have descended upon
Yangon’s various townships in an attempt to clampdown on followers of Islam,
and to hunt-down Rohingya Muslims, who are widely considered illegal immigrants
in the majority Buddhist nation.
Alongside holding protests and stopping religious
ceremonies, on April 28, hardline monks and their followers forced the
temporary closure of two Muslims schools they believed were also serving as
mosques. o
On early Wednesday morning, a group reportedly of around
30 Buddhists led a failed search for Rohingya in a Yangon district with a large
Muslim population—culminating in a melee between the nationalists, locals and
authorities, with police firing shots to disperse the crowd.
In a media conference on Thursday in Yangon, a senior
leader of the Patriotic Monks Union (PMU)—the group responsible for both
incidents—vowed to “protect race and religion” in Myanmar on behalf of
“reluctant” authorities. Reuters later reported that two radicals from the PMU
had been arrested, and that police had warrants to make further arrests.
For the densely populated city of over 5 million
people—home to a notable Muslim community—recent events and the free presence
of nationalists are a deeply troubling sign in a country plagued by visceral
ethno-religious tension.
Decades of state-led nationalism aimed at shielding the
predominantly Buddhist Bamar ethnic group—estimated at 68% of the population
today—has gained impetus among Myanmar’s monkhood, an institution with
gargantuan civilian sway.
Since 2011, organizations like the 969 Movement, championed
by Buddhist cleric Ashin Wirathu—who has been dubbed by foreign media as the
“Buddhist bin Laden”— have won strong following for their nativist vitriol
using online platforms amid censorship-loosening reforms.
The hatred has largely targeted the nation’s roughly 4%
Muslim population—particularly Rakhine state’s ethnic Rohingya, who the United
Nations consider “one of the world’s most persecuted minorities.”
In 2012, deadly communal Muslim-Buddhist violence broke
out in the northwestern state, displacing thousands of Rohingya. Compounding
decades of repression, in October the military began a violent crackdown on the
minority after the murder of border security guards allegedly by Rohingya
militants.
The recent incidents in Yangon were linked to court
appearances by PMU seniors in the city, who faced incitement charges earlier on
each day, according to local magazine Frontier Myanmar—which also noted the
role of extremist social media accounts in trying to mobilize and spread rumors
to feed Wednesday’s showdown.
Given that spurious claims online helped to fuel previous
violent communal episodes, the combination of mistrust, nationalist sentiment
and confined urban spaces in Yangon is a powder keg for authorities who face
little chance of maintaining the rule of law amid the speed of online
organization and messaging.
Though the arrest warrants show some willingness on
behalf of Aung San Suu Kyi’s government to quell ethnic tensions—something the
Nobel laureate has been widely criticized for ignoring—the increasingly
explosive environment also exposes the limits of the de facto leader’s reach.
Her National League for Democracy party—which won
landslide elections in 2015—may risk sparking a backlash from nationalist
sympathizers. “[I]t’s very sensitive when you’re dealing with monks in this
very highly Buddhist country,” the former US Ambassador to Myanmar Derek
Mitchell told Voice of America’s Burmese Service, following Wednesday’s events.
Given the nationalist threats to enact their own form of
urban mob justice, Brigadier General Mya Win, the commander of Yangon’s regional
police security command, told Reuters that police were on high alert. “We are
patrolling around Muslim areas and have taken security measures around places
of worship.”
With about 10,000 monks expected to attend a major
extremist group’s nationwide congress in Yangon in a fortnight, many are
watching on nervously.