By MOE MYINT 15 June
2017
YANGON – The Arakan
National Party (ANP) led 300 people, including Buddhist monks and local
Arakanese, in a protest outside the UN offices in Maungdaw Township, Rakhine
State on Wednesday, urging the agency to protect the Buddhist minority Chakma
in Bangladesh.
Police Maj Kyaw Mya
Win confirmed that the demonstration was granted permission by the authorities
to proceed and that the rally participants went to the office of the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), located on the outskirts of
Maungdaw Township, which shares a border with Bangladesh.
The
demonstrators held signs written in English, stating: “We want justice! Where
is the UN? Where is the human right? What is UN doing?”
The Chakma are
locally known in Myanmar as ethnic Thet, a Rakhine sub-ethnicity also
recognized as an indigenous tribe in Bangladesh.
Police Maj Kyaw Mya
Win told The Irrawaddy on Thursday that hundreds of Chakma homes in Rangamati
Langadu in the Chittagong hill tracts were set on fire on June 2 by a mob made
up of members of the Bengali majority. One 75-year-old woman was killed, 300
houses destroyed, and hundreds of people from three villages were displaced.
The arson followed
the June 1 murder of Bengali motorcycle taxi driver Nurul Islam Noyon, who was
also reportedly an activist, according to the Dhaka Tribune. Rumors immediately
circulated that Chakma men were responsible for Noyon’s death, erupting in the
burning of the homes of ethnic Chakma in the area. Locals described the mob
violence as “communal,” but noted that it had appeared law enforcement did
little to halt it.
Buddhist Arakanese
from Maungdaw now say that the Bangladesh-based branch of the UNHCR should
encourage authorities to prevent further violence against the Chakma, and
protect them within existing legal frameworks.
Last week, Myanmar’s
Union Solidarity and Development Party and 16 Rakhine civil society
organizations released a joint statement demanding that the UN provide
mediation to prevent attacks on the Chakma in Bangladesh, and to urge
authorities to take action against the perpetrators.
In response to the
conflict, the Bangladeshi police have prohibited large gatherings in the region
and have arrested seven individuals in connection with the acts of arson; 400
have been reportedly charged, and a three-member team has been formed to probe
the incident.
Atul P. Chakma, a
resident from Arunacha town, near Rangamati, told The Irrawaddy that several
Chakma civil society organizations will continue to protest against the
authorities, demanding that they take action against the attackers.