By Habib Siddiqui - Asian Tribune -
Every day I receive dozens of emails. Most of these
emails (at least 30) are about Myanmar’s inhuman treatment of the minorities.
It is simply depressing to read the sad stories of their extermination, aptly
termed the slow-burning genocide by Dr. Maung Zarni, a fellow human rights
activist.
Who would have thought that in a Buddhist country, run by
Suu Kyi, a winner of the Nobel Prize for peace, these unfortunate minorities –
mostly Muslims – will continue to be victimized for total annihilation simply
because of their different religious and ethnic identity? Obviously, the
non-violent messages of Siddhartha Gautam Buddha have miserably failed to
humanize the Buddhists of Myanmar. They remain mortgaged to their savage past
of extreme intolerance that had terrorized their neighbors for centuries.
I am aware that in the post-9/11 era, some world leaders
are willing to look the other ways or excuse the inexcusable crimes of Suu
Kyi’s government to stopping genocide of the Muslim minorities. But genocide is
a serious matter that deserves our serious attention. It would be utterly
irresponsible to overlook this grievous crime simply because the country is now
run by an elected, popular lady, a practicing Buddhist who was the poster lady
for democracy, and not a hated military junta that she successfully replaced.
The United Nations in 1948 defined genocide to mean any
of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a
national, ethnic, racial or religious group, including: (a) killing members of
the group (b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group (c)
deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring
about its physical destruction in whole or in part (d) imposing measures
intended to prevent births within the group (e) forcibly transferring children
of the group to another group.
As I have repeatedly mentioned since the mid-2000s, what
is happening with the minority Muslims in general, and particularly the
Rohingyas of Myanmar who mostly live in the Rakhine state (formerly Arakan)
bordering Bangladesh, is nothing short of genocide. The overwhelming verdict of
the subject matter experts, since at least 2012, is also the same. The
destruction of the Rohingya – politically, culturally and economically – is a
complete one that is carried out both by Buddhist civilians backed by the state
and perpetrated directly by state actors and state institutions. I have been
calling it a national project that is scripted and directed by the state since
the days of General Ne Win enjoying the full cooperation, collaboration,
contribution from, and execution by the Buddhist majority – monks, mobs and the
military.
As noted by Dr. Maung Zarni and Alice Cowley in their
seminal work “The slow-burning genocide of Myanmar’s Rohingya”, both the State
in Myanmar and the local community have committed four out of five acts of
genocide as spelled out by the 1948 Convention on the Punishment and Prevention
of the Crime of Genocide.
What is so disturbing with the on-going genocide of the
Rohingya and Muslim minorities in Myanmar is that it is happening in our time,
some 69 years after the UN Convention. For the sake of argument, one may find
some excuses for the major perpetrators of genocidal crimes of the pre-1948 era
saying that they did not know better (this is not to excuse their horrendous
crimes!) but what’s the excuse for Suu Kyi and her predecessors within the
military?
Our human history has repeatedly been tarnished by
genocidal crimes of the few. But rarely do we see genocide as a national
project with full participation of the all to annihilate the ‘other’ people.
And yet, such is the reality in today’s Myanmar.
After all, how can we explain the crimes of the Buddhist
people and government of Myanmar? For such crimes, I need neither go to the
history of ethnic cleansing drives of the 1930s and 1940s of the British era
nor even those of the newly independent Burma. Just the current events in the past
week are sufficient to understand the monumental crimes of the Buddhist Myanmar
against the minority Muslims.
An old Rohingya man was brutally killed by Rakhine
extremists, aided by Myanmar security forces, inside the premises of the Sittwe
University on Saturday, August 5, 2017 at around 9:30 a.m. The victim was
identified as Mohammad Abul, son of U Ali Ahmad of Kone Dagar (Konka Fara)
Rohingya IDP camp, Sittwe (formerly Akyab). Commenting on the brutal murder, a
Rohingya rights activist lamented the fact that under Suu Kyi’s watch and tacit
encouragement the “Rakhine extremist are trying to eradicate all Rohingya
Muslims from Myanmar systematically. The Buddhist community’s mission is ethnic
cleansing of the Rohingya minority.”
In the early hours of Thursday, August 3, a group of
about 30 Buddhists armed with sticks and swords attacked the Muslim-majority
Sakya Nwe Sin neighborhood in the former royal capital, Mandalay. A local
administrator said two young Muslim men were injured.
Mandalay residents told Reuters the incident had stirred
fears of a repeat of deadly communal violence that hit the same neighborhood in
2014.
Mandalay and other central towns have seen sporadic
outbreaks of hate crimes against the minority Muslims since Myanmar's
transition from full military rule began in 2011.
On Wednesday, August 2, small groups of Buddhist monks
with dozens of lay supporters set up two “boycott camps” close to country’s
most important Buddhist site, the Shwedagon pagoda, and at a Mandalay pagoda
just blocks from scene of the mob attack later that night.
Behind banners accusing Suu Kyi’s administration of
failing to protect Buddhism, the monks upturned their alms bowls - a
traditional symbol of defiance against the country’s rulers.
Since Tuesday, August 1, the minority Rohingya community
– comprising of some 650 people - living in the village of ‘Zaydi Pyin’ in
Rathedaung Township remains surrounded by State-backed Rakhine extremists.
Their access to food and to roads, forests and rivers are cut off with barbed
wire fences erected by the government-backed extremists, thereby restricting
their movement and forcing starvation on them. Unless the blockade is removed
immediately many Rohingyas may die.
A human rights activist said, “The main reason behind
such a blockade is to make them starve and die; and eventually force them to
leave their homes once and for all. So, the Myanmar government can tell the
world that the Rohingyas are leaving their homes on their own.”
Nearly 1000 Rohingyas died and tens of thousands were
displaced in 2012 in Rakhine state. Genocidal violence against the Rohingya
people escalated there last year after attacks on border posts allegedly by
Rohingya militants. The military operation sent an estimated 75,000 people
across the nearby border to Bangladesh, where many gave accounts of serious
abuses. A United Nations report issued earlier this year said Myanmar's
security forces had committed mass killings and gang rapes against Rohingya
during their campaign against the insurgents, which may amount to crimes
against humanity.
The European Union has similarly proposed the
investigation after the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights said the army's
operation in the northern part of Rakhine State - where most people are
Rohingyas - likely included crimes against humanity.
Reuters was among international media escorted to the
area last week in a tour closely overseen by security forces. Rohingya women
told reporters of husbands and sons arbitrarily detained, and of killings and
arson by security forces that broadly match the accounts from refugees in
Bangladesh. Typical of genocide deniers, Suu Kyi’s government continues to deny
such accusations and says most are fabricated.
In several recent cases, local officials have bowed to
nationalist pressure to shut down Muslim buildings that they say are operating
without official approval. Two madrassas were shuttered in May in Myanmar’s
largest city, Yangon.
Local media reported the closure of a mosque and another
Islamic school in Oatkan, on Yangon’s outskirts, this week.