MASSACRE OF MUSLIMS
in
MYANMAR
Compiled by: Bro. Taj Siddiqui
The following material is copied from various internet websites. These are only bits and pieces. A number of news articles, commentaries, photographs, and videos on this topic are available on the internet. Please write to the UN Secretary General for immediate action, and pray for your fellow Muslims. May Allah help them. Aameen.
The Demographics : Myanmar (Burma) is a sovereign country in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by India, Bangladesh, China, Laos, and Thailand. It has a population of about 56 million. There are over 53 million Buddhists, about three million Christians, about three million Muslims, and about one million Hindus and those who believe in other religions. 89% of the country’s population is Buddhist. 4% of the population practices Christianity; 4%, Islam; 1%, traditional animistic beliefs; and 2% follow other religions, Independent researchers put the Muslim population at 6 to 10% of the population. Ethnic minorities such as the Muslim Rohingya people (about 800,000), have their citizenship status denied and treated as illegal immigrants instead.
Report from Amnesty International
Amnesty International has received credible reports of human rights abuses against Rohingyas and other Muslims– including physical abuse, rape, destruction of property, and unlawful killings – carried out by both Buddhists and security forces. The authorities should stop these acts and prevent others from occurring. On 3 June, 2012, a large group of local Buddhists killed 10 Muslims in Rakhine State, who were returning by bus to their homes in Yangon. Myanmar’s National Human Rights Commission said on 11 July that at least 78 people have been killed since the violence began, but unofficial estimates exceed 100. Between 50,000 and 90,000 people are estimated to have been displaced. The Myanmar authorities are compounding the error by exacerbating the suffering of those displaced by the violence and violations.
History of Anti-Muslim Riots from Wikipedia
1962 : After the coup d’état of General Ne Win , the status of Muslims changed for the worse. Muslims were expelled from the army and were rapidly marginalized. The generic racist slur of “kala” (black) used against perceived “foreigners” gained especially negative connotations when referring to Burmese Muslims during this time. Accusations of “terrorism” were made against Muslim organizations such as the All Burma Muslim Union, causing Muslims to join armed resistance groups to fight for greater freedoms.
1997 : following reports of an attempted rape by Muslim men, a mob of about 1,000-1,500 Buddhist monks and others gathered in Mandalay. They targeted the mosques first for attack, followed by Muslim shop-houses and transportation vehicles in the vicinity of mosques.
Looting, destruction of property, assault, and religious desecration all were reported. At least three people were killed and around 100 monks arrested.
2001 : Tension between Buddhists and Muslims was also high in Sittwe. The resentments are deeply rooted, and result from both communities feeling that they are under siege from the other. The violence in February 2001 flared up after an incident in which seven young monks refused to pay a Muslim stall holder for cakes they had just eaten. The Muslim seller, a woman, retaliated by beating one of the novices, according to a Muslim witness. He attested that several senior monks then came to protest and a brawl ensued. One of the monks was hit over the head by the Muslim seller’s husband and started to bleed. Riots then broke out. A full-scale riot erupted after dusk and carried on for several hours. Buddhists poured gasoline on Muslim homes and properties and set them alight. More than thirty homes and a Muslim guest house were burned down. Police and soldiers reportedly stood by and did nothing to stop the violence initially. There are no reliable estimates of the death toll or the number of injuries. More than twenty died according to some Muslim activists. The fighting took place in the predominantly Muslim part of town and so it was predominantly Muslim property that was damaged.
The Conflict in June 2012
The Riots : Buddhists started genocide in Rakhine in June 2012, after Myanmar’s President Thein Sein has said Rohingya Muslims must be expelled from the country and sent to refugee camps run by the United Nations. It all started on 3rd June 2012 when 11 innocent Muslims were killed by the Burmese Army and the Buddhist mobs after bringing them down from a bus. A vehement protest was carried out in the Muslim majority province of Arakan, but the protestors fell victim to the tyranny of the mobs and the army. More than 50 people were reported killed and thousands of homes destroyed in fires as Muslim-ethnic Rohingya and Buddhist-ethnic Arakanese clashed in western Burma.
The Alleged Rape : The wave of violence in June was sparked by the alleged rape and murder of a Buddhist woman by three Muslim men in a Rakhine village. In fact, a Muslim boy was in love with a Buddhist girl and both married and eloped to avoid wrath of local people. Two other Muslim boys helped them in arranging marriage and also to elope subsequently. All three boys were arrested by the police and one who had married the Buddhist girl was killed in the police custody. The two other boys have been sentenced to death and are to be executed.
Devastation of a Major City : In Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine state, the scars of recent conflict were everywhere.
Burned homes, shops and entire markets dot the Buddhist-majority city of nearly 200,000 people. Traditionally Muslim neighborhoods, such as Shwe Pyar, Nazi Konetan and Mawlike, were deserted, locked up, or living in deep secrecy. Prominent mosques and buildings bear signs from the municipality reading, “No one is allowed to enter.” In some areas of Sittwe, the devastation from the violence that peaked in June is comparable to Cyclone Nargis, which struck Myanmar in 2008. Most striking was the almost completely absence of the Rohingya population that once made up nearly one-third of the city’s residents, and the largest portion of its working class. The impact of that loss was obvious. The Rohingya who worked as the city’s ever-present ricksaw drivers and porters at the jetty and markets are now gone. There are no signs of Muslims at the airport, the boat shuttles that ferry passengers to outlying islands, or even the local busses that run Buthidaung to Maungdaw, two Rohingya-majority states.
Mass Graves : HRW says hundreds of men and boys were rounded up in mass arrests, their whereabouts still unknown. Informal Rohingya estimates put the number of missing and arrested in the thousands. On the hushed streets of Sittwe and in the tent city outside Bhumei, Rohinyga speak of the brutality of the Rakhine and the Myanmar forces, and of the many loved ones still missing from the conflict. In a series of interviews with off-duty security officers at bars and restaurants in Sittwe, a picture emerged of what some Myanmar military and police think about the Rohingya. An ethnic Rakhine soldier from the 352 Light Infantry Battalion claimed he and his comrades killed “300 Rohingya” from Myothugyi village near the area of Three Mile between Buthidaung and Maundaw townships on the night of June 8. “I put the butt of my gun here at [the right side of] my waist and shot down many Muslims while keeping my left hand on magazines so that I could quickly fill up my bullets,” said the soldier, now stationed at a village outside Maungdaw. “There were so many dead bodies that we even had to call in a bulldozer to make a mass grave.” Another ethnic Rakhine soldier boasted that he and his troops killed an uncountable number of Rohingya in the village of Nyaung Chaung in the countryside around Maungdaw during the early June crackdown.
Refugee Camps : The United Nations has estimated that 80,000 people are still displaced around the cities of Sittwe and Maungdaw. Outside Sittwe, where the fleeing Rohingya had gathered, the situation was worse. The village of Bhumei, a few kilometres to the west, was overrun by thousands of refugees who said they were forced from the city, first by mobs, then by security troops. The refugees endured the current monsoon rains in mud-floored tents, living mostly on bags of rice provided by the UN’s World Food Program. There is no clinic, proper bathroom or clean water. One woman was crying in the street with her rain-soaked children on her lap. She said they were sick and there was no clinic to look after them or food to eat.
The Real Story
The country has one of Asia’s biggest oil and gas reserves. It already produces 90 per cent of the world’s rubies while its jade is the world’s finest. Burma’s jungle give 80 per cent of the world’s teak and its rivers have plentiful hydropower potential. All these resources assumed great importance as Chinese and Indian appetite for natural resources grew phenomenally. Both the economic giants share border with Burma. Most of these resources are, however, in areas that belong to non-Burman ethnic minorities while the military junta, and especially its elite, is exclusively Burman. Arakan is the region where oil and gas exploration companies from China, India and elsewhere are stationed. Arakanese are a non-Burman minority that never had cordial relations with the majority but professes the same religion – Buddhism; while Rohingyas who are native to the same region are Muslims. A violent conflict in Arakan is in the best interest of the military junta. As they side with the Buddhists, it helps them project themselves as pious Buddhist but more importantly it gives them the reason to intervene and directly control the area. Martial law was imposed in the region following the recent violence. So while Arkans and Rohingyas fight over petty faith issues, the Burman military enjoys the riches of oil. As it stands, the vast majority of Rohingya is denied Myanmar citizenship, cannot own businesses, marry or relocate. Whether this long-simmering dispute is founded in race, religion or population, matters little to the Rohingya stuck in camps such as Bhumei. Nor to the Rakhine who live in majority Rohingya areas and claim to live in constant fear of attack. Some scholars claim the animosity between Rakhine and Rohingya began during the Second World War, when Buddhist backed the Japanese and Muslims the British. In either case, unless the government or international bodies intervene, the violence and discrimination seem destined to continue.
