As Violence Continues, Rohingya Find Few Defenders in Myanmar

HONG KONG - Violence has continued this week in western Myanmar, as an apparent campaign of ethnic cleansing is being carried out against the Muslim minority group known as the Rohingya - with little response or outcry from Aung San Suu Kyi or other human rights and pro-democracy activists in the country.

A group of several thousand Burmese marched on a Rohingya village on Tuesday to force the residents there to relocate, according to a new report from Radio Free Asia. At least one person was killed when security forces fired on the mob.

Over the past 10 days, violence by extremists and vigilantes in Rakhine State has left at least 89 people dead. Nearly 30,000 people have been rendered homeless, most of them Muslims, pushed into squalid refugee camps. Countless other Rohingya have taken to the sea in a frantic exodus of houseboats, barges and fishing vessels.

Satellite photos published by Human Rights Watch showed a Muslim sector in the town of Kyaukpyu leveled by what appeared to be methodical and premeditated arson - more than 600 homes and nearly 200 houseboats were destroyed. Before-and-after images of the sector can be seen here.

“The opposition, including democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi and other prominent figures, has hopelessly failed to intervene or calm the situation,” said the analyst and editor Aung Zaw in a commentary published Monday in his magazine, Irrawaddy.

“Many, especially in the international community and human rights organizations, were disheartened to see such inaction from those who still claim to represent the democracy movement.”

Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi has been notably restrained in the few comments she has made on the Rohingya clashes, generally saying that both sides are culpable and that the rule of law must prevail. But the Burmese activist Maung Zarni, a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics, said Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi's belief that the violence was purely s ectarian showed “a shocking naivete.”

“She should know better,” Maung Zarni said, adding that the Rohingya now have so few advocates in Myanmar that they've become “a people who feel they are drowning in the sea of Burma's popular ‘Buddhist' racist nationalism.”

During a forum at Harvard's Kennedy School last month, according to a story in Global Post, a student from Thailand asked Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi to “explain why you have been so reluctant” to comment about the oppression of the Rohingya.

“The mood in the room suddenly shifted,” the article said. “Suu Kyi's tone and expression changed. With an edge in her voice, she answered: ‘You must not forget that there have been human rights violations on both sides of the communal divide. It's not a matter of condemning one community or the other. I condemn all human rights violations.' ”

The South Asia director of Human Rights Watch, Meenakshi Ganguly, said in a statement quoted by Zee News:

The Rohingyas seem to have become the nowhere people. The authorities in Burma have failed to protect them, and Bangladesh refuses to provide asylum to those fleeing the attacks.

It appears that many are in stranded in boats hoping for refuge. India, with its long history of providing shelter, in fact to both Burmese and Bangladeshi refugees, should perhaps press both governments to do the right thing.

Burma needs to act swiftly to ensure the rights of its Rohingya population instead of disputing their citizenship. Bangladesh should open its borders and provide relief.

The Rohingya, who are Muslim, are not recognized as citizens by the Myanmar government, nor are they are among the 135 official ethnic groups in the country formerly known as Burma. Deeply impoverished and effectively stateless, the Rohingya are viewed by the Buddhist majority as unwelcome immigrants who have crossed over illegally from neighborin g Bangladesh.

Just getting the terms and identifiers right can be a challenge. The Rohingya are referred to locally as Bengalis, after their language. And members of the Buddhist majority in the area are typically called Rakhines, after the state. Rakhine State was formerly known as Arakan, and the people there are sometimes called the Araknese.

It was a bloody summer in Rakhine, with anti-Muslim riots triggered in June by the rape and murder of a young Buddhist woman, a crime that was blamed on Muslims. Dozens were killed in the fighting, and 75,000 fled, most of them Muslims.

President Thein Sein initiated a Riot Inquiry Commission after that violence and asked for the panel's findings by Nov. 14. That deadline, commission members say, will not be met.

“We do not have enough cooperation from all sides,” said one member, Maung Thura, the country's most famous comedian, who is widely known as Zarganar, his stage name.

“The local ethnic Rak hine, Muslim community, government offices, and even the members of Parliament have become increasingly less willing to participate,” Zarganar, a former political prisoner, told Radio Free Asia.

“It is very disturbing to see that the conflict has worsened,” Zaw Nay Aung, a democracy activist, told Rendezvous in an e-mail on Wednesday. “The Burmese, the majority of whom are Buddhists, are Islamophobic.”

He said anti-Islamic pamphlets have lately been circulating in western Myanmar, stirring up fear and anger among the Buddhists there. Some believe the military-dominated government is behind the propaganda campaign.

“These small booklets are not officially published but rather secretly disseminated,” said Zaw Nay Aung, who called the pamphlets “hate-literature” that suggests global Islam has embarked on a plan to make inroads into non-Muslim countries. The alleged methods in Myanmar are the practice of polygamy, the building and expansion o f mosques and the seeking of ethnic minority status for the Rohingya.

Zaw Nay Aung's pro-democracy group, Burma Independence Advocates, which is based in London, is preparing a report “about the regime's possible conspiracy on the communal strife,” he said.

“I think this whole mess is deliberately created by the regime to have an effect of rally-round-the flag,” he said. “Many people in Burma today support President Thein Sein for his stance on the Rohingya. He said he would run for a second term, and he's getting more and more support because of this religious/racial crisis.”

Aung Zaw, the Irrawaddy editor, described one theory that “the strife was intended to allow the Burmese armed forces, or Tatmadaw, to return to the spotlight.”

“In the past,” he said, “the former junta launched several military campaigns against the Rohingya - and every time the Burmese people rallied behind the military.”