Indonesian House of Representatives Speaker Marzuki Alie said on Tuesday that his country could send a delegation to Burma to look into alleged human rights violations against the Muslim Rohingya community in Arakan State.
“We are mulling sending a delegation, and I will talk with the House Commission I [overseeing foreign affairs] about the issue,” Marzuki said in an article by tribunnews.com on Tuesday.
He said that Indonesia, as the country with the largest Muslim population in the world, had an obligation to fight for the Rohingya’s cause.
“As a Muslim community, we have to fight for them so that global institutions could intervene,” he said.
Marzuki Alie said on Monday said that his counterpart in Burma had expressed condemnation for Marzuki’s earlier use of the term “genocide” to describe the ethnic violence in targeting the Muslim minority group Rohingya.
“I have just received a letter of protest from Myanmar’s parliament speaker [Khin Aung Myint] for my remarks on [my] statement to [Indonesian media],” Marzuki said. “The letter was very long, but the bottom line is they don’t agree with the term
On July 24, Marzuki Alie said the UN must address what he called “genocide” against minority Muslim Rohingyas in Burma;s westernmost Rakhine State, according to a report by UCANews.com.
In a written statement to Metrovnews.com, Alie said that Indonesia – the current chair of Asean – must be proactive in urging Burma to respect human rights and end ethnic tension following a series of clashes in recent months that have left Muslims and Buddhists dead, prompting many Rohingyas to flee.
“Such genocide and exile of the Rohingya Muslims resulting in their lack of nationality is the inhumane behavior of the state,” he said.
Marzuki Alie, the speaker of the House of Representatives in Indonesia. Photo: Third World Conference of Speakers of Parliament / flickr
He said that Indonesia, as the country with the largest Muslim population in the world, had an obligation to fight for the Rohingya’s cause.
“As a Muslim community, we have to fight for them so that global institutions could intervene,” he said.
Marzuki Alie said on Monday said that his counterpart in Burma had expressed condemnation for Marzuki’s earlier use of the term “genocide” to describe the ethnic violence in targeting the Muslim minority group Rohingya.
“I have just received a letter of protest from Myanmar’s parliament speaker [Khin Aung Myint] for my remarks on [my] statement to [Indonesian media],” Marzuki said. “The letter was very long, but the bottom line is they don’t agree with the term
On July 24, Marzuki Alie said the UN must address what he called “genocide” against minority Muslim Rohingyas in Burma;s westernmost Rakhine State, according to a report by UCANews.com.
In a written statement to Metrovnews.com, Alie said that Indonesia – the current chair of Asean – must be proactive in urging Burma to respect human rights and end ethnic tension following a series of clashes in recent months that have left Muslims and Buddhists dead, prompting many Rohingyas to flee.
“Such genocide and exile of the Rohingya Muslims resulting in their lack of nationality is the inhumane behavior of the state,” he said.
Rangoon (Mizzima) – Burmese authorities have added three new dusk-to-dawn curfews in Kyauktaw, Minbya and Mrauk-U in Sittwe District in Rakhine State since Wednesday, a Kyauktaw administrative staff member told Mizzima.
The curfews are effective from 7 p.m. to 5 a.m. in Kyauktaw, and from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. in Minbya and Mrauk-U.
Officials were preparing to donate food, medicine and money to Gokphtaung village, which was heavily damaged by armed clashes last week, according to Myat Hla, the secretary of Rakhine National Charity Group.
On August 4 to 5, more than 100 houses in Gokpihtaung village, located file miles from Kyauktaw, were set fire.
Meanwhile, the renewed violence reportedly claimed seven people dead in five villages located about 80 miles from Kyauktaw, in addition to dozens of burned homes and other property, according to local residents.
On June 8, the government imposed curfews in Sittwe, Buthidaung, Maungdaw, Kyaukphyu, Ramree and Thandwe.
On June 10, Burmese President Thein Sein declared a state of emergency in Rakhine State. Official figures say up to 80 people have died since the community unrest began in June.
Aye Kyawt Khine
Two men sit near the the remnants of their homes in Sittwe, the capital of Burma's western Rakhine State, following sectarian violence in June. Photo: IRIN
The curfews are effective from 7 p.m. to 5 a.m. in Kyauktaw, and from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. in Minbya and Mrauk-U.
Officials were preparing to donate food, medicine and money to Gokphtaung village, which was heavily damaged by armed clashes last week, according to Myat Hla, the secretary of Rakhine National Charity Group.
On August 4 to 5, more than 100 houses in Gokpihtaung village, located file miles from Kyauktaw, were set fire.
Meanwhile, the renewed violence reportedly claimed seven people dead in five villages located about 80 miles from Kyauktaw, in addition to dozens of burned homes and other property, according to local residents.
On June 8, the government imposed curfews in Sittwe, Buthidaung, Maungdaw, Kyaukphyu, Ramree and Thandwe.
On June 10, Burmese President Thein Sein declared a state of emergency in Rakhine State. Official figures say up to 80 people have died since the community unrest began in June.
Aye Kyawt Khine
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, who is leading a delegation of the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation (OIC) on a visit to Rakhine State, met with Burmese President Thein Sein in Naypyitaw on Thursday.
The officials discussed events in Rakine State, where the foreign minister is scheduled to deliver material aid and medicine on Friday.
Davutoglu, who is also the OIC secretary, will travel to the riot-hit Rakhine State on a fact-finding mission and the result of the findings will be presented to the upcoming OIC meeting, said Turkish officials.
The Turkish foreign minister is the second foreign official to have access to Rakhine state to monitor the situation after United Nations human rights envoy Tomas Ojea Quintana ended his six-day trip last Saturday.
The discussion also included trade relations, with Davutoglu noting that the current trade figure of US$ 100 million a year is expected to increase to US$ 500 million in five years, according to an article in The New Light of Myanmar, the state-run newspaper, on Friday.
Officials expect to sign a memorandum of understanding on trade cooperation and investment deals, with Turkey keen to invest in edible oil manufacturing and the energy sector.
The Turkish International Cooperation Agency plans to establish a Burmese office to provide assistance to Burma in cooperation with local organizations, Davutoglu said.
While in Burma, the minister will visit a war cemetery in Meiktila, where Turkish soliders are buried.
Thein Sein said he was “disheartened by hairsplitting” in the media in reports about the unrest in Rakhine State. The pictures of “genocide” spreading on the Internet show incidents in another country, and not things happening in Burma, he said.
He said food and drugs for 60,000 homeless people are needed in Rakhine State. The government is cooperating with UN agencies and nine NGOs, he said, and disease prevention measures are being carried out in Rakhine State, which is experiencing heavy rains.
Mizzima News
 |
| Burmese President Thein Sein, left, shakes hands with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu during a meeting in Naypyidaw on August 9, 2012. Davutoglu arrived in Burma on Thursday, and he will visit Rakhine State on Friday. Photo: AFP |
Davutoglu, who is also the OIC secretary, will travel to the riot-hit Rakhine State on a fact-finding mission and the result of the findings will be presented to the upcoming OIC meeting, said Turkish officials.
The Turkish foreign minister is the second foreign official to have access to Rakhine state to monitor the situation after United Nations human rights envoy Tomas Ojea Quintana ended his six-day trip last Saturday.
The discussion also included trade relations, with Davutoglu noting that the current trade figure of US$ 100 million a year is expected to increase to US$ 500 million in five years, according to an article in The New Light of Myanmar, the state-run newspaper, on Friday.
Officials expect to sign a memorandum of understanding on trade cooperation and investment deals, with Turkey keen to invest in edible oil manufacturing and the energy sector.
The Turkish International Cooperation Agency plans to establish a Burmese office to provide assistance to Burma in cooperation with local organizations, Davutoglu said.
While in Burma, the minister will visit a war cemetery in Meiktila, where Turkish soliders are buried.
Thein Sein said he was “disheartened by hairsplitting” in the media in reports about the unrest in Rakhine State. The pictures of “genocide” spreading on the Internet show incidents in another country, and not things happening in Burma, he said.
He said food and drugs for 60,000 homeless people are needed in Rakhine State. The government is cooperating with UN agencies and nine NGOs, he said, and disease prevention measures are being carried out in Rakhine State, which is experiencing heavy rains.
Mizzima News
I ‘m the one who value all human beings and adopt that all humans have equal value without discriminating who’s religion like Buddhism (or) Muslim (or) Christian (or ) who he ( or ) She is. Yes, this is what my perception of human values.
Now, please go to my point that what I have to request to the International Communities is………,
As you all have been known about the recent violence in Rakhine State of Myanmar, to know the reality, first , let’s start to know the meaning of the name of “ Arakan or Rakhine “. The name Rakhine was originated from Pali word Rakhapura meaning the land of the people of Rakshasa (Rakshasa > Rakha > Rakhine) who were titled this name in honor of preservation on their national heritage (describe in Myanmar language is a myo) and morality (describe this in Pali is sila ) . The pali word Sila means Morality. Wholesome moral living is an important ingredient for the practice of purifying mind. The word Rakhine means "one who maintains his own race." So, the Rakhine are predominantly Theravada Buddhists.
Well, until you reach this point, do you still want to argue that ones who are not Buddhism can be entitled to Rakhine Ethnic Group?
Now, let’s try to see the real factors which are related to the recent violence in Rakhine state of Myanmar. In 2010, RNU ( Rohingya National Union ) was formed in Tajikistan which is under the leading of the Organization of the Islamic Conference ( OIC ). Their basic strategy is to separate Butheetaung, Mawdaw and Rathaetaungs townships from the main land of Rakhine state and to build the Islamic Rohingya State. After that, they confiscate the whole Rakhine state and then to build the new Rohingya country.
The rich arab countries, some populous Muslim countries, Afghan Mujahideen and Al-Qaeda terrorist groups were stimulating and supporting the whole period those Rohingyas to fight and invade the Rakhine state. At the same time, Rohingyas who are taking our previous military government’s bad reputation as their opportunity, and then, fabricating a lot of Rohingya stories and showing those to the international community under the name of human rights. On the other hand, in our country, we have been fighting Democracy for more than two decades and so nobody gave attention to this issue while a large amount of Rohingyas were entering freely and illegally into our land because of the corruption of some immigrant servants. Then, Rohingyas and its Rohingya supporting communities which are formed under the name NGOs, some Myanmar political exiles and famous medias who got great support from Rohingyas gathered and started to make systematic plan to fight our Rakhine people.
So, Rohingyas are trying to invade the others’ own land and pushing this for human rights while Myanmar Military Government was getting more and more attention of the International Communities. So, in front of the International space, Rohingyas who got a great chance to fight Rakhine people by taking the previous military government’s bad reputation. Here, anybody who want to argue that Rohingyas who got the greatest benefit in this way is correct or not ?So, now, I want to point out the thing is that we are not fighting the Rohingyas, but Rohingyas are fighting our Rakhine People and trying to invade our country and threatening the our country’s sovereignty. Please be clear that invasion is totally different from the human rights. And, this conflict is not between the Muslim communities and our country but the Rohingya invaders and us. Because, some are creating this conflict to have misunderstanding among the Muslim communities. Ok, to be clear more about this, let me share the clear announcement of U Mya Aye who is one of the most famous 88 generation students. He is also Muslim religion and his daughter “Ma Wai Hin Pwint Thon ” who had to take part very actively and closely at the Rohingya Organization while his father U Mya Aye was keeping under jail as political prisoner. But, after his release from prison, U Mya Aye stopped his daughter’s activities for the Rohingya Organization and explained the reality was that Rohingyas are never included in Myanmar Ethnic Groups. So, I request to the International Communities to see the reality and the root of the problem of this issue. Please think deeply about that our Rakhine people have no good reason to set fire on our own houses and destroy our own land while we are trying to build Democracy. In fact , NGOs in Rakhine state are secretly connecting with the some terrorist groups like Al- Qaeda and RSO is unacceptable manner for us. Because, some local employees of the NGOs were arrested by the authorities with a lot of illegal documents and weapons which are planned to fight our Rakhine people. So, I request the International community to lead those NGOs’ unacceptable harassment and strongly supporting Rohingya community to fight us. Now, I hope that International Communities can see the reality and how our Rakhine people are getting into trouble by those Rohingyas. Please understand that we love our culture, our custom, our tradition, our people and our land is just like as you love your culture, your custom, your tradition, your people and your nation.
So, please don’t be doubt that the ones who love its own land. Yes , we love our land. We love our crescent land.
I invite you to feel my poem. We love the Crescent Land
The Crescent Land….,Which is beside the bay of Bengal,It has been used to the songs of sea waves.
It is not only our ancestors’ house,But also our ancestors’ history.
It is not only the territory of our Rakhine People who preserve their heritage and morality,
But also breathing freely and honestly at the condition of who we really are.
Danyawaddy, Waitharli, Laymro and Mrauk Oo eras
Which are not only to say frankly about the right chronicle of our being,
But also the real figurehead of our existence.
After Buddha arrival to ThayLarGiri KyaukTaw mountain in Rakhine Region,
We have been delighting the Buddha’s sermon since the very beginning of the time.
And, we ‘re such noble and pious person who believe our Buddha is saying that
“ As much as Orchids are flourishing everywhere in Arakan , so do pagodas.
We are not only to share our foods and land with our greatest sympathy to the ones (who are very
different from our culture, custom and religion ) who have been entering our land freely and illegally,
But, we also give freedom of religion to everyone and this is our honorable contribution and donation
to society.
Our loyalty and our concentration is to identify with our own existence,
We who love our land, our water and our customs affectionately is
Just the right to our freedom
Yes, it is ……….
Under this root of freedom,
We cherish them all the levels of everything of our activities…..
We love our aromatic “ Rakhine Mont D “ which is cooked with the most delicious roasted fish like golden pike conger
We love our traditional “ Aubergine Curry “ into a little bit burnt which is cooked with the simple shrimp paste
We love and enjoy our delicious and fragrant “ Pounded Ngapi “ which is made with the roasted shrimp paste and chili
We love the most beautiful sunset scene of our Aurittaw Pagoda and Gisapanadi River
We love the most beautiful dawn scene of our Laymro River when it’s covered with icy snows
We love our Rakhine traditional “ Ra Hta Sway Pwe (Tug-of- war ) which is held in the month of Dapodwe (Jan-Feb)
We love our honorable customs like “ sandal- wood grinding ceremony and offering of water to wash Buddha images on the eve of every Water Festival
We love our Rakhine traditional water festival where those smiling girls and boys who are playing water happily beside the wooden boat under the
most decorated pandal with hanging Gum-Kino Flowers
We love our pitiful and hopeless people who are lying on the Natural Gas Pipeline but eating under the light of traditional oil lamps
We love our sorrowful people who are full of fear under insecure condition of their own home land
We love our battered people who’s dignity and conditions are going to away because of the governance of the previous leaders’ perpetual corruption and selfish deeds
We love our honorable and grateful people who dare to give their lives at the entrance of the western gate of our Country without losing their ethic to protect us
We love our people who are suppressed, criticized and hidden from the reality under the negligence of those people
who are proclaiming human rights very loudly but at the same time breaking it themselves
We love all of our most admirable things not to lose our grip
We love you with all our heart
We love you “ The Crescent Land “
We love your sacrifice and further spiritual sacrifice for our land
photo-Zaw Lwin Win
"I do not know because when you talk about the Rohingya, we are not quite sure who you are talking about. As …I said there is a problem about who we are referring to.”
(Chairperson Daw Aung San Suu Kyi of National League for Democracy Party responded to the question whether the Rohingyas should be regarded as Myanmar nationals).
In accordance to the above-mentioned answer of Auntie Suu, we need to simplify first ‘Who are the Rohingyas?’ Despite it is a highly controversial topic, it is undeniable that the word ‘Rohingya’ appeared in the country in the 1950s. It should be reconsidered that if a certain race had inhabited in the country aeons ago, then why were they recognized only in the 1950s?
Ancient indigenous ethnics
There is a Rakhine ethnic called Kaman who believes in Islam are living in Rakhine State since ancient time. Historical records show Hindus also migrated into Myanmar in Wasali period. It should be clearly understood. Rohingyas are different from these people. The number of population of Kaman and Hindus were not high and they have been living peacefully. However those who have fully dominated Buthedaung and Maungdaw are not included in these ancient indigenous ethnics.
Who are the Rohingyas?
Historians remarked that the so-called Rohingyas infiltrated into Myanmar after the country had fallen into the British colony. Rather than mass migration, they gradually permeated the country. According to the existing law, the residents who descended from the races living in Myanmar before 1824 are regarded as the citizen. There was no usage of ‘Rohingya’. Instead, they were commonly known as the ‘Chittagonians’ descendants from Mayu Frontier area (East Pakistan in the past, now Chittagong of Bangladesh at present). This controversial issue is to be discussed by the researchers.
Who are the losers?
There are documentary evidences that local residents were displaced due to the mass infiltration of migrants from Chittagong into Buthedaung and Maungdaw areas after Rakhine State fell into British colony. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi said recently that the Rohingya issue becomes larger due to porous border area and illegal immigrants. While there has been a long history of accusing each other, the lack of rule of law has resulted in the losses for indigenous Rakhine ethnics. National races must be protected as they lost their rights. The real losers are Rakhine people. Who were resettled in Buthedaung and Maungdaw areas in Rakhine State?
In reviewing 1942 issue or 1988 issue, unrests broke out in the areas where Rakhine people are in the minority. They were the real losers. They had to migrate into the mainland and other countries.
Where was the starting point of the problem in recent unrest? The riots began in Buthedaung and Maungdaw areas where many Rohingyas are in the majority, as well as in Sittwe and nearby villages where about half of population is Rohingyas. Then who made arson attack? Bengalis burnt down their own houses and abandoned the area where they are in the minority there. Fire spread to the houses of Rakhine people. The losses from both sides are not much different in the official statistics. However, arsonists must be disclosed.
97 years old Rakhine Refugee in a shelter,photo-Zaw Lwin Win
Not a religious riot
This violence was not a religious riot mentioned by foreign media. Despite it was not allowed to construct a mosque near the collapsed World Trade Center in the United States, there is a mosque near the famous Sule Pagoda in downtown Yangon. Hindu temples and Christian churches are closely located near Buddhist monasteries in Myanmar. Religious festivals are joyously celebrated in the country.
Abusive remarks might be made during the disputes among the national races. But they do not loathe each other. Not only the national races but also various religions might suffer losses under the brutal regime in different eras. However, the national ethnics did not create their problems. Buddhists are living peacefully together with other disciplined religious members.
Bias reports
The reports of some foreign media were very awful. If the local media were accused of bias reporting from the side of national ethnics, it can also be concluded that those of foreign media are partial to Rohingyas. They presented their news with the accusations such as ‘genocide’ and ‘religious riot’. They also accused Myanmar media of inciting the riot through online. If Myanmar media could not send their reporters to the scenes and could not take record photos, the situation would be wrongly illustrated, causing to disgrace Rakhine people and Myanmar.
Some foreign newspapers and exiled media presented out of proportion on the loss of so-called Rohingyas. They should view the issue systematically. While the four reporters of the Eleven Media Group were covering the violence in Rakhine, the reports of foreign media were totally different from the actual happening in Rakhine State. They should go to the scene in person.
Which side did they stand for?
It was very curious about how foreign media stood behind Rohingyas. They first reported the army is shooting at Rohingyas. Then they mentioned that about 1,000 persons have lost. When these reports could not be confirmed, they continued reporting of ‘genocide’ and asked for intervention of UN. There reports were groundless. They even wrongly mentioned the Rakhine State is the land of Rohingyas. They posted the photos of Rohingya refugees. The photos of burnt down Rakhine houses were captioned as the destroyed houses of locals. Although the photos of Rohingyas who were are holding kerosene containers, kerosene torches and various weapons were not posted; foreign media mentioned the Rakhine people who are protecting their properties by holding bamboo weapons and going on patrolling by motor bikes. If we did not have recorded photos, people across the world would believe their reports.
Despite the United States earlier expressed their concerns about Rohingyas, the US and EU later praised the handling of Myanmar government on the issue when they realized the real circumstance. After Bangladesh issued their stance on Rohingyas, foreign countries have understood the attitude of Myanmar towards Rohingyas. There was an instance that these so-called Rohingyas were not accepted and immediately driven out by Thailand.
Creating hatred?
Thomas Fuller of the New York Times wrote a news article from Thailand entitled ‘Crisis in Myanmar Over Buddhist-Muslim Clash’. His news title triggered for the trend of religious riot. He also mentioned that ‘the Eleven Media Group, a publisher of one of the country’s leading weekly newspapers, displayed a string of hateful comments about Muslims from readers.’
His next article was also entitled ‘Internet Unshackled, Burmese Aim Venom at Ethnic Minority’.
The exiled media Irrawaddy where Myanmar journalists are working also criticized the Myanmar online community.
The article of Nyein Chan Aye who is expressed by the Irrawaddy website as IT expert living in Brisbane of Australia, criticized Myanmar society, “… In this circumstance, Myanmar society has been restricted in the limited boundary of ideology for many years as a frog in the well. Then they responded to the shocking violence with strong racial and religious believes. As their consciousness was not enough to control their emotion, the results were not good.”
A Rakhine Buddhist num in a shelter,photo-Demo Waiyan
Are we not worth freedom of expression?
Foreign media and Myanmar journalists working in foreign-based media have portrayed that Myanmar people should not be allowed to have freedom of expression.
Myanmar popular comedian Ko Zarganar who had been detained in prisons for many times due to his political campaigns and is now visiting foreign countries recently wrote in the Guardian Newspaper, “…I am concerned that the Burmese people are using their new freedom to express views which incite racial hatred….And we Burmese must use freedom of expression to promote peace, not conflict.”
Such kinds of portrayals are likely to be debatable.
Myanmar popular comedian Ko Zarganar who had been detained in prisons for many times due to his political campaigns and is now visiting foreign countries recently wrote in the Guardian Newspaper, “…I am concerned that the Burmese people are using their new freedom to express views which incite racial hatred….And we Burmese must use freedom of expression to promote peace, not conflict.”
Such kinds of portrayals are likely to be debatable.
The society who can use the Internet in Myanmar is a very few in amount. According to the statistics in 2009, the amount is only 0.02 percent of the population. Even if there is a sudden increase, it cannot be more than 2 percent or 3 percent. This percentage includes Myanmar users living abroad. Local users are very few especially in the regions and states. What I want to say is that the netizens are only acting in sympathy with the ethnic people. Only a selected few from this online society have used very harsh words towards people from different nationalities and religions. Even if there are some instigators, they are very few. When many generations of people are facing difficulties and hindrances, it is normal for them to lose their tempers if they have the chance. But they are only in words. There is no one who will actually go into action. They cannot do it anyway. Some foreign media have written as if they were true without considering the fact that the whole country does not know what were going on. Even if there were some incitements, they would fail to materialize.
The situation was not as serious as the one in the United States after 9/11 when there were suspicions and hatred against people from different religions. The comments of the minority were nothing compared to the treatments to the people from different religions. They were treated suspiciously and repeatedly at the check points of the airports and treated based on suspicious features. Even on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attack, the removing of strong comments on the Facebook page of the New York Times were seen. Even then, the comment “If 9/11 hadn’t happened then “2 million” Muslims wouldn’t of been killed” by Derek Cole is still there. This is happening in a well recognized democratic country.
Regarding the immigrant issue, it can be observed that how the United States is handling the illegal immigrants from Mexico. In Europe, there are over 500,000 stateless people. It is questionable to the European nations and the governments that always talk about democracy that how they are treating the stateless people. Controversies are still there about the people who are denied to be recognized as their nationalities in Latvia and Estonia, as well as the stateless Romani people living across Europe, especially in Italy and why they are reluctant to acknowledge them.
Assuming that the Myanmar people are misusing the freedom of expression and are full of hatred based on a few comments of the online users is a big joke for the 60 million who have been oppressed for many years.
National races never ever think of hatred
photo-Eleven Media Group
There might be some incitements, but most of them are not filled with hatred. The ethnic people are also not filled with malice.
These cases did not base on the malice of the Rakhine people. If such kind of hatred were to exist, cities with 90 Rakhine people and 10 Bengalis would be burnt into ashes. If you look at the fact that the violent riots did not happen in most areas full of Rakhine people, it is obvious that there were no genocides like the Rohingyas claimed to the foreign media. The Rakhine nationals only took some counter-attacks when they could not stand anymore.
Not only the Rakhine people, but also other ethnic nationalities are not in the condition to feel hatred for they cannot even protect their own races. For 50 years without fully realizing the union, the ethnic nationalities have to live without any protections. They have to leave their own lands. They have to migrate into the mainland and other countries.
The ratio of the people has changed over the years. This is not only happening in the Rakhine State. This can also be seen in Kachin State and Shan State (North). There is the risk of becoming the 23rd province (or 34th territory) of a neighboring country. In Shan State, there are some areas without full sovereignty of the nation. Please come and show compassion for the ethnic nationalities in Kachin State and Shan State (North).
They had to surrender their lands to others. Then they themselves had to live as refugees in foreign countries. Mon and Kayin ethics are the convincing evidences for this problem. While some Kayin refugees are residing in Thailand, some Kayin, Chin and Mon ethnics are migrating to other countries. Our national brethrens have no time to create hatred among each other as they are losing their homes. The problems of Kayin refugee can be witnessed at Maela refugee camps in Thailand. They cannot enjoy the rights of citizenship. Myanmar is just stepping into the path of development. Therefore, we should concentrate on bringing our nationals abroad back home, rather than accepting foreign refugees who are fighting with local ethnics. It does not mean negligence of humanitarianism. Those who sympathize with Rohingyas should accommodate them in their countries.
Therefore, we want to invite Thomas Fuller of the New York Times, who is pouring the venom of racial hatred on Myanmar and its people, to witness the lives of Myanmar ethnics and to visit Rakhine State, if possible. Facebook and Internet users are not making incitements to racial hatred, but are preventing from extinction of national ethnics. Those who cannot ignore the problem of helpless people are participating in the issue. In fact, Rakhine people are not in a situation to create hatred.
National races who remain faithful to the land for thousands of year could not demand the loss of their rights over 50 years. However, illegal migrants are bursting out and some foreign sources are beseeching on behalf of them for their unreasonable rights by exaggerating the recent issue. Well! I have no idea what to say more.
Source-Eleven Media Group
Ko Ko Gyi
Question: Can you share the experiences you gained during the recent trip to Rakhine state by 88 Generation Student Leaders?
Answer: Well when we visited the other parts of Myanmar, there is a sense of family reunion; usually in these occasions there is joy and hope. However in this trip to Rakhine , what we saw, what we experienced are not remotely similar to other trips. We felt heartbroken for the locals; moreover we noticed threats to our nation. The feelings are overwhelming for this trip.
Question: Can you elaborate more on these threats you just mentioned to our nation Mr. Ko Ko Gyi?
Question: Can you elaborate more on these threats you just mentioned to our nation Mr. Ko Ko Gyi?
Answer: While we visited the town of Sittwe, even in the town in broad daylight, the armed patrols have to guard the railway to prevent any potential sabotages, such kind of situation is totally unacceptable. And again when we visited the townships of Buthidaung and Maungdaw, in these townships, the native Rakhines are of minority and we saw a huge number of Bengali villages along the road. I talked to a Rakhine man who couldn’t control his tears while describing about the situation there, and seeing this really touched my heart. He explained that they cannot stand the threat that they would be forced to flee from their native land. Therefore, despite all the hardships they are facing, they are striving to stand firm in their land. Therefore, from my opinion, this(Rakhine) issue is not a trivial matter, and must be take into serious consideration.
Question: Mr. Ko Ko Gyi, so during your trip, did you meet the natives who practices Islam such as the Kamans?
Question: Mr. Ko Ko Gyi, so during your trip, did you meet the natives who practices Islam such as the Kamans?
Answer: I visited to Muslim refugees as well. At the village of Thet Kal Pyin, we had a chance to talk to the locals there. Well, I do not regard this as a religious conflict. Of cos it has been a long-standing problem; this isn’t a problem that exists only recently. For decades, the illegal immigrants have been flowing into Myanmar, moreover the corruption of the Myanmar officials made these matters worse. Another matter to note is the rate these Bengalis give birth, the rate of giving birth is massive and overtime the local Rakhines feel threaten by the sky-rocketed birthrate of these Bengalis. With these birthrates, it’s not only the Rakhines who feel threaten; when I visited the Bengali villages the living conditions are saddening as well. I told our belief to them that there should be equal citizen rights, however on the other hand, together with citizen right, there are responsibilities of the citizens, and importance of living in harmony with other citizens. Another issue is that whether a person is our nation’s citizen or not, from humanitarian view point, we are going to help those who are suffering, that’s one issue. However, on the other hand, in terms of granting citizenship to them, we would have to examine this matter with great care since this is a matter of national security.
Question: Just now in your answer, you talked about the sky-rocketed birthrates of these Bengalis. However, Rohingya organizations from overseas have been claiming that there are restrictions on childbirth for the Rohingyas in Rakhine state, so how would you like to respond to these claims?
Question: Just now in your answer, you talked about the sky-rocketed birthrates of these Bengalis. However, Rohingya organizations from overseas have been claiming that there are restrictions on childbirth for the Rohingyas in Rakhine state, so how would you like to respond to these claims?
Answer: There are a lot issues to take into consideration concerning with Rohingyas. I ask these native Muslims what race do they belong to, and they answered that they are Bengalis. So, what’s obvious is that these people themselves regard them as Bengalis. On the other hand, when I visited the townships of Buthidaung & Maungdaw, from what I learnt 97% of the population is the Bengalis. I visited to the border gate between Myanmar and Bangladesh, there are people visiting across border. So in the town of Sittwe, the person that I talked to himself is a guest-citizen of Myanmar. Therefore, if the officials were to make proper census about the citizens, I expect to see lots of illegal immigrants. And to do so, we would need lots of efforts to educate the locals and their cooperation.
Question: Recently, when President U Thein Sein met UNHCR he said since these Bengalis are illegal immigrants from neighboring country, Myanmar will not accept them but to operate refugee camps, and till (if any) other countries who are willing to take them would do so. So what’s your view on this stance?
Question: Recently, when President U Thein Sein met UNHCR he said since these Bengalis are illegal immigrants from neighboring country, Myanmar will not accept them but to operate refugee camps, and till (if any) other countries who are willing to take them would do so. So what’s your view on this stance?
Answer: In every nation, the laws of citizenship and issues related to national security are set in accordance with the individual needs and unique nature of each country; these requirements are hardly the same between two different countries. So that is the same for our nation as well, we would have to issue laws in accordance with the requirements of our nation.
Question: The UNHCR replied on President U Thein Sein’s proposal that this is an internal affair of Myanmar and the current situation does not comply with UNHCR’s regulations and thus cannot accept the president’s proposal. How would you like to say on this matter, Mr. Ko Ko Gyi?
Question: The UNHCR replied on President U Thein Sein’s proposal that this is an internal affair of Myanmar and the current situation does not comply with UNHCR’s regulations and thus cannot accept the president’s proposal. How would you like to say on this matter, Mr. Ko Ko Gyi?
Answer: In concerning with Myanmar, these officials from international organizations tend to conclude their decision based on the limited information that they have knowledge of. And when these limited things that they know are not relevant to the real situations happening in our nation, it could seriously hurt the local’s emotions and opinions on them. For instance, in the refugee camps that I visited, I saw signs which show that they do not welcome UN & INGOs. So, the officials from these organizations would need to take serious consideration on how do the locals view them.
TS-Thant Zin
photo-D-Nwe Oo
15 Jul 2012, Maungdaw _ As 3 suspicious motorboats approached beach near the village of Taung Ywar, the patrol unit of Maungdaw police force pursued them. When the police patrol unit failed to pursue them, the Myanmar’s navy came in and managed to arrest one of these three motorboats. Upon interrogating the crews of that motorboat, 8 Bangladesh citizens were arrested with M-16 guns. In the shootout upon pursuing, 3 Bangladeshi got injuries at heads and thus was sent to Sittwe General Hospital while the rest were sent to Sittwe jail at 4:30pm this evening.
This is 7 Day News journalist who just interviewed an officer from No (1) Sittwe Police Station.
This is 7 Day News journalist who just interviewed an officer from No (1) Sittwe Police Station.
Credit : 7 Days News Journal
President U Thein Sein shaking hands with UN High Commissioner for Refugees Mr. Antonio Guterres in Nay Pyi Taw on 11 July.
While meeting with UN High Commissioner for Refugees Mr. Antonio Guterres in Nay Pyi Taw on 11 July, President U Thein Sein said Myanmar will not allow illegal immigrant Rohingyas to live in the country.
The only solution to the problem is that Rohingyas are to be handed over to the UNHCR, which needs to provide them food and shelter in refugee camps or they will be sent to a third county if it accepts.
He added that according to history, the British colonialists took Bengalis into Myanmar before it regained independence in 1948 making them engage in farm work. At that time, some settled down in the country because of their good jobs.
According to the law, Myanmar only accepts the third generation born of parents who have come to live in the county before 1948. In Rakhine State, there are complicated problems such as descendents of Bengalis who came before 1948 and illegal immigrants in disguise of Rohingya, said the President.
He continued that the issue has even threatened State stability so he is taking it very seriously. Myanmar will take responsibility for its own national ethnics only and illegal immigrant Rohingyas will not be accepted, he added.
Like Myanmar, the Bangladeshi government dismissed calls from the UNHCR to accept Rohingyas fleeing to Bangladesh when violent incidents erupted in Rakhine State last month.
“It is certainly not in the best of our interests to allow in a further influx of refugees. We want to make sure that refugees don’t enter Bangladesh in large numbers again”, Bangladesh Foreign Minister Dipu Moni told reporters in Dhaka.
The Bangladeshi government immediately sent back more than 1,000 Rohingyas entering the country on 12 June to Myanmar in three boats. According to Bangladeshi media, like Myanmar, Bangladesh sees the acceptance of 200,000 to 300,000 Rohingyas within decades as a burden and regards Rohingya as a stateless race.
At the meeting, President U Thein Sein and UNHCR commissioner also discussed the issues of war victims in Kachin State and returning of displaced people to their places in Kayin State.
Bangladeshis who were saved from human traffickers
Yesterday morning, 48 Bangladeshis, together with 2 human traffickers were arrested by Bangladesh Special Counter-Drugs Forces while they were trying to immigrate illegally to Malaysia.
The special forces said that those Bangladeshis were arrested in 4 hotels at Kadamtali area while human traffickers were arranging to send them to Malaysia via motor boats.
Major Rakibul Ami said, “As we received news, our No. 7 Rapid Action Battalion Division raided the four hotels and caught those Bangladeshis.”
Among the arrested Bangladeshis are fabric weavers, farmers, shopkeepers and unemployed people from Siraganj, Naogaon, Pabna, Magura, Jhinaidah cities in Bangladesh according to authorities.
There were around 100 Bangladeshis hiding in the hotels and most of them escaped during the raid.
According to BBC (Bangladesh) programme, around 100 Bangladeshis were arrested and their plan was to enter into Yangon, Myanmar first before moving onto Malaysia.
A human trafficker called Suru Zaman said these practices of human trafficking to Malaysia using motor boats and fishing boats have been ongoing since 1996.
Many Bangladesh immigrants escaped through boats; when they reached Thailand or Malaysia, they immediately get asylum by saying that they were Rohingyas and they had ran away from violation of human rights by Myanmar government. UNHCR refugees organization also gave out refugees acknowledgement cards if those Bangladeshis said in that way.
Those arrested are Bangladeshis who would continue to travel after bestowing themselves as Rohingya.
Recently Myanmar also has caught many Bangladeshis around Gwa island, Gwa township while they were trying illegally immigrate into Malaysia through motor boats.
Similarly, around 82 Bangladeshis were arrested at Yay township in Mon state Myanmar while they were trying to immigrate to Malaysia and sentenced to 1 year in prison.
When this news was broadcast by various media, VOA(Burmese) Programme depicted it as Myanmar government sentencing 90 Bangladeshis according to Immigration Act while Mizzima stated that 82 Bangladeshis were sentenced to Prison.
Likewise, Kaung Wa news center also reported that 82 Bangladeshis were arrested for illegal immigration.
However, an exile media called Irrawaddy reported the very same news as “Rohingya Boat people Sentenced on Immigration Charges” and stated that those sentenced to prison were Rohingya. During that very news, project director from Arakan Project, Chris Lewa stated that it is unacceptable to have their own people sentenced on their own land.
Source;http://www.narinjara.com/burmese/?p=1178
Who are the Rohingyas? Burma gained independence from Great Britain in 1948 and this issue is a problem that Burma has had to grapple with since that time. The people who call themselves Rohingyas are the Muslims of Mayu Frontier area, present-day Buthidaung and Maungdaw Townships of Arakan (Rakhine) State, an isolated province in the western part of the country across Naaf River as boundary from Bangladesh. Arakan had been an independent kingdom before it was conquered by the Burmese in 1784.
Maungdaw-Butheetaung region of Arrakan.
Rohingya historians have written many treatises in which they claim for themselves an indigenous status that is traceable within Arakan State for more than a thousand years. Although it is not accepted as a fact in academia, a few volumes purporting to be history but mainly composed of fictitious stories, myths and legends have been published formerly in Burma and later in the United States, Japan and Bangladesh. These, in turn, have filtered into the international media through international organizations, including reports to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
In light of this, it is important to reexamine the ethnicity of the ‘Rohingyas’ and to trace their history back to the earliest presence of their ancestors in Arakan. And history tells us that we do not have to go back very far. In the early 1950s that a few Bengali Muslim intellectuals of the northwestern part of Arakan began to use the term “Rohingya” to call themselves. They were indeed the direct descendants of immigrants from the Chittagong District of East Bengal (present-day Bangladesh), who had migrated into Arakan after the province was ceded to British India under the terms of the Treaty of Yandabo, an event that concluded the First Anglo-Burmese War (1824-1826). Most of these migrants settled down in the Mayu Frontier Area, near what is now Burma’s border with modern Bangladesh. Actually, they were called “Chittagonians” in the British colonial records.
In light of this, it is important to reexamine the ethnicity of the ‘Rohingyas’ and to trace their history back to the earliest presence of their ancestors in Arakan. And history tells us that we do not have to go back very far. In the early 1950s that a few Bengali Muslim intellectuals of the northwestern part of Arakan began to use the term “Rohingya” to call themselves. They were indeed the direct descendants of immigrants from the Chittagong District of East Bengal (present-day Bangladesh), who had migrated into Arakan after the province was ceded to British India under the terms of the Treaty of Yandabo, an event that concluded the First Anglo-Burmese War (1824-1826). Most of these migrants settled down in the Mayu Frontier Area, near what is now Burma’s border with modern Bangladesh. Actually, they were called “Chittagonians” in the British colonial records.
The Muslims in the Arakan State can be divided into four different groups, namely the Chittagonian Bengalis in the Mayu Frontier; the descendents of the Muslim Community of Arakan in the Mrauk-U period (1430-1784), presently living in the Mrauk-U and Kyauktaw townships; the decendents of Muslim mercenaries in Ramree Island known to the Arakanese as Kaman; and the Muslims from the Myedu area of Central Burma, left behind by the Burmese invaders in Sandoway District after the conquest of Arakan in 1784.
Mass Migration in the Colonial Period (1826-1948)
As stated above, the term “Rohingya” came into use in the 1950s by the educated Bengali residents from the Mayu Frontier Area and cannot be found in any historical source in any language before then. The creators of that term might have been from the second or third generations of the Bengali immigrants from the Chittagong District in modern Bangladesh; however, this does not mean that there was no Muslim community in Arakan before the state was absorbed into British India.
When King Min Saw Mon, the founder of Mrauk-U Dynasty (1430-1784) regained the throne with the military assistance of the Sultan of Bengal, after twenty-four years of exile in Bengal, his Bengali retinues were allowed to settle down in the outskirts of Mrauk-U, where they built the well-known Santikan mosque.
These were the earliest Muslim settlers and their community in Arakan did not seem to be large in number. In the middle of the seventeenth century the Muslim community grew because of the assignment of Bengali slaves in variety of the workforces in the country. The Portuguese and Arakanese raids of Benga (Bengal) for captives and loot became a conventional practice of the kingdom since the early sixteenth century. The Moghal historian Shiahabuddin Talish noted that only the Portuguese pirates sold their captives and that the Arakanese employed all of their prisoners in agriculture and other kinds of services.
Furthermore there seem to have been a small group of Muslim gentry at the court. Some of them might have served the king as Bengali, Persian and Arabic scribes. Because the Mrauk-U kings, though of being Buddhist, adopted some Islamic fashions such as the maintaing of silver coins that bore their Muslim titles in Persian and occasionally appearing in Muslim costumes in the style of the Sultan of Bengal. Accordingly there were Muslim servants at the court helping the king perform these Islamic conventions.
Arthur Phayre, the first deputy commissioner of Arakan, after the British annexation, reported about the indigenous races of Akyab District and the Muslim descendents from the Arakanese days as:
The inhabitants are, In the Plains – 1. Ro-khoing-tha (Arakanese)-2. Ko-la (Indian) – 3. Dôm(Low Caste Hindu). In theHills – 1. Khyoung-tha – 2.Kumé or Kwémwé – 3. Khyang – 4. Doing–nuk, Mroong, and other tribes… While the Arakanese held these possessions in Bengal, they appear to have sent numbers of the inhabitants into Arakan as slaves, whence arose the present Ko-la population of the country.
During the four decades of Burmese rule (1784-1824), because of ruthless oppression, many Arakanese fled to British Bengal. According to a record of British East India Company, there were about thirty-five thousand Arakanese who had fled to Chittagong District in British India to seek protection in 1799.
The following report by Francis Buchanan provides a vivid picture of the atrocities committed by the Burmese invaders in Arakan:
In one day soon after the conquest of Arakan the Burmans put 40,000 men to Death: that wherever they found a pretty Woman, they took her after killing the husband; and the young Girls they took without any consideration of their parents, and thus deprived these poor people of the property, by which in Eastern India the aged most commonly support their infirmities. Puran seems to be terribly afraid, that the Government of Bengal will be forced to give up to the Burmans all the refugees from Arakan.
A considerable portion of Arakanese population was deported by Burmese conquerors to Central Burma. When the British occupied Arakan, the country was a scarcely populated area. Formerly high-yield paddy fields of the fertile Kaladan and Lemro River Valleys germinated nothing but wild plants for many years.
Thus, the British policy was to encourage the Bengali inhabitants from the adjacent areas to migrate into fertile valleys in Arakan as agriculturalists. As the British East India Company extended the administration of Bengal to Arakan, there was no international boundary between the two countries and no restriction was imposed on the emigration. A superintendent, later an assistant commissioner, directly responsible to the Commissioner of Bengal, was sent in 1828 for the administration of Arakan Division, which was divided into three districts respectively: Akyab, Kyaukpyu, and Sandoway with an assistant commissioner in each district.
Dead on the streets in 1943 Bengal Famine.
The migrations were mostly motivated by the search of professional opportunity. During the Burmese occupation there was a breakdown of the indigenous labor force both in size and structure. Arthur Phayre reported that in the 1830s the wages in Arakan compared with those of Bengal were very high. Therefore many hundreds, indeed thousands of coolies came from the Chittagong District by land and by sea, to seek labor and high wages.
R.B. Smart, the deputy assistant commissioner of Akyab, wrote about the ‘flood’ of immigrants from Chittagong District as follows: Since 1879, immigration has taken place on a much larger scale, and the descendants of the slaves are resident for the most part in the Kyauktaw and Myohaung (Mrauk-U) townships. Maungdaw Township has been overrun by Chittagonian immigrants. Buthidaung is not far behind and new arrivals will be found in almost every part of the district.
At first most of them came to Arakan as seasonal agricultural laborers and went home after the harvest was done. R. B. Smart estimated the number at about twenty-five thousand during the crop-reaping season alone. He added that about the same number came to assist in plowing operations, to work at the mills and in the carrying trades. A total of fifty thousand immigrants coming annually were probably not far from the mark.
Moreover, hunger for land was the prime motive for the migration of most of the Chittagonians. The British judicial records tell us of an increase in the first decade of the twentieth century in lawsuits of litigation for the possession of land. The Akyab District Magistrate reported in 1913 that in Buthidaung Subdivision, the Chittagonian immigrants stand to native Arakanese in the proportion of two to one, but six sevenths of the litigation for land in the court was initiated by the Chittagonians.
A starving man in 1943 Bengal Famine.
Another colonial record delivers about a striking account of the settlements of the Bengali immigrants from Chittagong District as: “Though we are in Arakan, we passed many villages occupied by Muslim settlers or descendents of the settlers, and many of them Chittagonians”.
The colonial administration of India regarded the Bengalis as amenable subjects while finding the indigenous Arakanese too defiant, rising in rebellion twice in 1830s. The British policy was also favorable for the settlement of Bengali agricultural communities in Arakan. A colonial record says:
Bengalis are a frugal race, who can pay without difficulty a tax that would press very heavily on the Arakanese….(They are) not addicted like the Arakanese to gambling, and opium smoking, and their competition is gradually ousting the Arakanese.
The flow of Chittagonian labor provided the main impetus to the economic development in Arakan within a few decades along with the opening of regular commercial shipping lines between Chittagong and Akyab. The arable land expanded to four and a half times between 1830 and 1852 and Akyab became one of the major rice exporting cities in the world.
Indeed, during a century of colonial rule, the Chittagonian immigrants became the numerically dominant ethnic group in the Mayu Frontier. The following census assessment shows the increase of population of the various ethnic/religious groups inhabiting Akyab District according to the census reports of 1871, 1901 and 1911. There was an increase of 155 percent in the population in the district. According to the reports, even in an interior township Kyauktaw, the Chittagonian population increased from 13,987 in 1891 to 19, 360 in 1911, or about seventy-seven percent in twenty years. At the same time the increase of the Arakanese population including the absorption of the hill tribes and the returning refugees from Bengal was only 22.03 percent.
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British Burma Census of 1872 (Akyab Town)
Group Male Female Total
Hindu 1,884 28 1,911
Mohomendan 3,516 1,502 5,018
Buddhist 5,892 5,627 11,519
Christian 216 109 325
Others 387 70 457
Grand Total 11,895 7,335 19,230
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The Assessment of the Census Reports for 1871, 1901, and 1911
Races 1871 1901 1911
Mahomedan 58,255 154,887 178,647
Burmese 4,632 35,751 92,185
Arakanese 171,612 230,649 209,432
Shan 334 80 59
Hill Tribes 38,577 35,489 34,020
Others 606 1,355 1,146
Total 276,671 481,666 529,943
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It should be noted that all the Chittagonians and all the Muslims are categorized as Mohamedan in the census reports. There was an increase of 206.67 percent in Mahomedan population in the Akyab District and it was clear that only a few numbers of the transient agricultural laborers went home after the plowing and harvesting seasons and most of them remained in Arakan, making their homes.
The heyday of the migration was in the second half of the nineteenth century after opening of the Suez Canal, for the British colonialists needed more labor to produce rice which was in growing demand in the international market. In the 1921 Census, many Muslims in Arakan were listed as Indians.
Communal Violence
During the colonial period the anti- Indian riots broke out in Burma because of the resentment against unhindered Indian settlements particularly in Arakan, Tenasserim and Lower Burma. But those riots that took place in Rangoon and other major cities in 1926 and 1938 never had had any effects on the peoples of Arakan. A peaceful coexistence was possible for the two different religious/ethnic groups in the Mayu Frontier till the beginning of the World War II.
At the beginning of colonial era the establishment of bureaucratic administration by the British repealed the traditional patron-client relationship in the Arakanese villages. The elected village headman had little influence on the elected village council. As John F. Cady wrote, the government policy of forbidding the village headman to take part in the activities related to the nationalist movements weakened the position of the headman as the leader of village community, and as well as his connection with the Buddhist monastery because most of the Buddhist monks were vigorously active in the movements.
On the other hand British administration to a certain extent gave the Muslim village communities religious and cultural autonomy. Maung Nyo, a kyunok (headman of the village tract) of Maungdaw Township recorded how the new comers from the Chittagong District set up their village communities in the frontier area. They occupied the villages deserted by the Arakanese during the Burmese rule and established purely Muslim village communities.
The village committee authorized by the Village Amendment Act of 1924 paved the way for the Imam (moulovi) and the trusteeship committee members of the village mosque to be elected to the village council. They were also allowed to act as the village magistrates and shariah was somewhat in effect in the Muslim villages.
At least the Islamic court of village had the jurisdiction over familial problems such as marriage, inheritance and divorce. There was no internal sense of unrighteousness and presence of nonbelievers in their community, and accordingly they believe no internecine struggle was for the time being necessary.
However, the ethnic violence between Arakanese Buddhists and those Muslim Chittagonians brought a great deal of bloodshed to Arakan during the World War II and after 1948, in the opening decade of independent Burma. Some people of the Mayu Frontier in their early seventies and eighties have still not forgotten the atrocities they suffered in 1942 and 1943 during the short period of anarchy between the British evacuation and the Japanese occupation of the area.
In this vacuum there was an outburst of the tension of ethnic and religious cleavage that had been simmering for a century. One of the underlying causes of the communal violence was the Zamindary System brought by the British from Bengal.
By this system the British administrators granted the Bengali landowners thousands of acres of arable land on ninety-year-leases. The Arakanese peasants who fled the Burmese rule and came home after British annexation were deprived of the land that they formerly owned through inheritance. Nor did the Bengali zamindars (landowners) want the Arakanese as tenants on their land. Thousands of Bengali peasants from Chittagong District were brought to cultivate the soil.
Most of the Bengali immigrants were influenced by the Farai- di movement in Bengal that propagated the ideology of the Wahhabis of Arabia, which advocated settling ikhwan or brethren in agricultural communities near to the places of water resources.
The peasants, according to the teaching, besides cultivating the land should be ready for waging a holy war upon the call by their lords. In the Maungdaw Township alone, there were, in the 1910s, fifteen Bengali Zamindars who brought thousands of Chittagonian tenants and established Agricultural Muslim communities, building mosques with Islamic schools affiliated to them.
However, all these villages occupied by the Bengalis continued to be called by Arakanese names in the British records.
For the convenience of Chittagonians seasonal laborers the Arakan Flotilla Company constructed a railway between Buthidaung and Maungdaw in 1914. Their plan was to connect Chittagong by railway with Buthidaung, from where the Arakan Flotilla steamers were ferrying to Akyab and other towns in central and southern Arakan.
In the period of the independence movement in Burma in 1920s and 1930s the Muslims from the Mayu Frontier were more concerned with the progress of Muslim League in India, although some prominent Burmese Muslims such as M.A. Rashid and U Razak played an important role in the leadership of the Burmese nationalist movement.
In 1931, the Simon Commission was appointed by the British Parliament to enquire the opinion of Burmese people for the constitutional reforms and on the matter of whether Burma should be separated from Indian Empire. The spokeman of the Muslim League advocated for fair share of government jobs, ten percent representation in all public bodies, and especially in Arakan the equal treatment for Muslims seeking agricultural and business loans.
In education, the Chittagonians were left behind the Arakanese throughout the colonial period. According to the census of 1901 only 4.5 percent of the Bengali Muslims were found to be literate while the percentage for the Arakanese was 25.5. Smart reported that it was due to the ignorance of the advantages of the education among the Chittagonian agriculturists. Especially Buthidaung and Maungdaw were reported to be most backward townships because the large Muslim population in that area mostly agriculturalists showed little interest in education.
In 1894 there were nine Urdur schools with 375 students in the whole district. The British provincial administration appointed a deputy inspector for Muslim schools and in 1902 the number of schools rose to seventy-two and the students increased to 1,474. Consequently, more Arakanese and Hindu Indians were involved in the ancillary services of the colonial administration.
Towards the middle of twentieth century a new educated and politically conscious younger generation had superseded the older, inactive ones. Before the beginning of the Second World War a political party, Jami-a-tul Ulema-e Islam was founded under the guidance of the Islamic scholars. Islam became the ideological basis of the party.
Regarding the beginning of the ethnic violence in Arakan, Moshe Yegar wrote that when the British administration was withdrawn to India in 1942 the Arakanese hoodlums began to attack the Muslim villages in southern Arakan and the Muslims fled to the north where they took vengeance on the Arakanese in Buthidaung and Maungdaw townships.
Old Buddhist man with throat cut-off by Muslims (2012).
However, an Arakanese record says: When the British administration collapsed by the Japanese occupation, the village headman of Rak-chaung village in Myebon Township and his two younger brothers were killed by the kula (Muslim) villagers. Although the headman was an Arakanese, some of the villagers were kulas. The two Arakanese young men, Thein Gyaw Aung and Kyaw Ya, organized a group and attacked the kula villages and some inhabitants were killed.
It is certain that hundreds of Muslim inhabitants of Southern Arakan fled northward, and that there were some cases of robbing the Indian refugees on the Padaung-Taungup pass over the Arakan Yoma mountain ranges after the retreat of the British from the Pegu Division and southern Arakan.
But the news of killing, robbery and rape was exaggerated when it reached Burma India border. The British left all these areas to the mercy of both Burmese and Arakanese dacoits. However, N.R. Chakravati, an Indian scholar, gives a brief account of the flights of Indian refugees from the war zone in the Irrawady valley across the Arakan Yoma.
Most of the estimated 900,000 Indians living in Burma attempted to walk over to India…100,000 died at the time… or were utterly helpless, began to move from place to place in search of safety and protection until they could reach India.
The estimated number of Chakravarti includes all the Indian refugees from the whole Burma proper excluding Arakan. The number of Chittagonian refugees put by Yegar was close to twentytwo thousand. However, the leaders of ANC (Arakan National Congress), formed in 1939 and that later becoming the Arakan branch of Anti-Fascist Organization (AFO) formed a de-facto government, before the Japanese troops and Burma Independence Army (BIA) reached there.
The ANC announced that anybody or any organization looting or killing the refugees would be brought before the justice and would be severely punished. Japanese air force attacked Akyab on 23 March 1942 and the British moved their administrative headquarter to India on March 30. The administration by martial law began in Akyab District on 13 April 1942 and with this racial tension burst to the surface, giving way to the public disorder.
British officers of Bengali V Force in Arrakan (1942).
For all the bloody communal violence experienced by the Arakanese Buddhists in the Western frontier, I feel strongly that it is reasonable to blame the British colonial administration for arming the Chittagonians in the Mayu Frontier as the Volunteer Force.
The V Force, as it is called by the British Army, was formed in 1942 soon after the Japanese operations threatened the British position in India. Its principal role was to undertake guerrilla
operations against Japanese, to collect information of the enemy’s movements and to act as interpreters. But the British Army Liaison Officer, Anthony Irwin wrote that the participation of the local V Forces in the skirmishes with the Japanese in Arakan was discredited by the British commanders.
The V Forces’ Bengali-Muslim volunteers, instead of fighting the Japanese, destroyed Buddhist monasteries and Pagodas and burnt down the houses in the Arakanese villages. They first killed U Kyaw Khine, the deputy commissioner of Akyab District, left behind by the British government to maintain law and order in the frontier area; they then massacred thousands of Arakanese civilians in the towns and villages.
V Force in the Arrakan jungle (1942).
A record of the Secretary of British governor of Burma in exile dated 4 February 1943 reads: I have been told harrowing tales of cruelty and suffering inflicted on the Arakanese villages in the Ratheedaung area. Most of the villages on the West bank of the Mayu River have been burnt and destroyed by the Chittagonian V forces…. The enemy never came to these villages. They had the misfortune of being in the way of our advancing patrols. Hundreds of villagers are said to be hiding in the hills… It will be the Arakanese who will be ousted from their ancestral land and if they cannot be won over in time, then there can be no hope of their salvation.
After the Japanese occupation of Akyab (Sittwe), Bo Yan Aung, the member of the Thirty Comrades and commander of a BIA column, set up the administrative body in Akyab District and attempted to cease the violence in the frontier area. Bo Yan Aung discussed the matter with both Arakanese and Muslim leaders. He sent his two lieutenants, Bo Yan Naung and Bo Myo Nyunt to Maungdaw to negotiate with the radical Muslim leaders. They tried to persuade the Muslims to join in anti-imperialist and nationalist movement. But both of them were killed in Maungdaw and Bo Yan Aung was called back to Rangoon by the BIA headquarters.
Bo Yan Aung (Front Left) and BIA officers (1942).
For most of the Chittagonians it was a religious issue that would necessarily lead to the creation of a Dah-rul-Islam, or at least to being united with their brethren in the west. It also aimed at the extirpation of the Arakanese or being forced them to migrate to the south where there were overwhelming majority of Arakanese Buddhists. The events during the war contributed the Chittagonians’ fervent sense of alienation from the heterogeneous community of the Arakan.
Anthony Irwin called the whole area a “No Man’s Land” during the three years of Japanese occupation. Irwin explained how the ethnic violence divided the Arakan State between Arakanese and Chittagonians: As the area then occupied by us was almost entirely Mussulman Country … (from) that we drew most of our “Scouts” and Agents. The Arakan before the war had been occupied over its entire lenghth by both Mussulman and Maugh (Arakanese). Then in 1941 the two sects set to and fought.
The result of this war was roughly that the Maugh took over the southern half of the country and the Mussulman the North. Whilst it lasted it was a pretty bloody affairs…My present gun boy a Mussulman who lived near to Buthidaung, claims to have killed two hundred Maughs (Arakanese).
In the words of the historian, Clive J. Christie, the “ethnic cleansing in British controlled areas, particularly around the town of Maungdaw,” was occurring till the arrival of Japanese troops to the eastern bank of Naaf River.
The British forces began to take offensive in the warfare against the Japanese in northern Arakan in December 1944. The Arakanese troops of AFO maintained law and order in the areas from which Japanese forces withdrew. Of course there were some prominent Arakanese guerrilla leaders who cooperated with the Japanese during the war.
British Battalion 65 occupied Akyab, the capital city of Arakan on 12 December 1944. As soon as Akyab was captured the British Army began arresting the Arakanese guerrilla leaders. U Ni, a leader of AFO in Akyab was accused of one hundred and fifty-two criminal offenses and sentenced to forty-two years in prison. Another leader, U Inga was condemned to death by hanging five times, as well as forty-two-year imprisonment. Consequently many guerrilla fighters escaped into hideouts in the forests.
On the contrary, Anthony Irwin praised the Chittagonian V Forces as follows: It is these minorities that have most helped us in throughout the three years of constant fighting and occupation and it is these minorities who are most likely to be forgotten in the rush of Government. They must not be. It is the duty of all of us, for whom they fought, to see this.
During the early post-war years both Arakanese and Bengali Muslims in the Mayu Frontier looked at each other with distrust. As the British Labor Government promised independence for Burma, some Muslims were haunted by the specter of their future living under the infidel rule in the place where the baneful Arakanese are also living.
In 1946 a delegation was sent by the Jami-atul Ulema-e Islam to Karachi to discuss with the leaders of the Muslim League the possibility of incorporation of Buthidaung, Maungdaw and Ratheedaung townships into Pakistan, but the British ignored their proposal to detach the frontier area to award it to Pakistan.
The failure of their attempts ended in an armed revolt, with some Muslims, declaring a holy war on the new republic. The rebels called themselves “Mujahid.” A guerrilla army of 2700 fighters was organized.
In fact the Arakanese were well on their way to rebellion. Under the leadership of two prominent and politically active Buddhist monks, U Pinnyathiha and U Seinda, a guerrilla force of four hundred to five hundred men was raised and assisted the Japanese in occupying the northern Arakan. U Pinnyathiha even announced that the Japanese government had agreed to his proposal for a separate Arakanese unit of Burma Independence Army.
Later his force was known as the Arakan Defense Force, under the command of Kra Hla Aung, the protégé of U Pinnyathiha. Later two monks became leaders of Arakan Branch of AFO (Anti-Fascist Organization), turning their guns on the Japanese. At the middle of 1944 they were supported by the British with certain amount of arms to fight the Japanese.
Brigadier Richard Gordon Prescott, Deputy Director of Civil Affairs reported to the governor: As result of arming certain members of AFO under the leadership of U Pinnyathiha and Kra Hla Aung, the AFO (in Arakan) are endeavoring to set up a parallel government to that of the British Administration and in fact repeating their modus operandi at the time of Japanese invasion of Arakan.
In the meantime the AFO changed its name to AFPFL (Anti-Fascist and People’s Freedom League) with U Aung San, the ultimate hero of the Burmese independence movement, as its leader. When the AFPFL accepted the proposal of the governor of Burma to join the Executive Council, U Pinnyathiha remained as the AFPFL leader in Arakan while U Seinda was actively preparing a revolt.
U Sein Da’s group was acting as a local government, controlling a number of villages in the Myebon township of Kyaukpyu District and Minbya township of Akyab District. The fact of the matter was that U Seinda was persuaded by the radical communists of Thakhin Soe’s faction of the Communist Party of Burma to choose the way to independence by violence.
When the Aung San-Attlee Agreement was signed, U Seinda denounced it publicly. An All Arakan Conference was held in Myebon on 1 April 1947 and about ten thousand people from all parties in Arakan attended. U Aung San was openly assailed to his face as an opportunist by some people attending the conference, using rebellious slogans.
U Seinda with the communists behind him moved forward to the rebellion. Actually, Thakhin Soe’s Red Flag Communists took advantage of the misunderstanding between U Seinda and AFPFL. It was in fact an ideological struggle in the AFPFL, the national united front of Burma that was under the leadership of the charismatic leader U Aung San.
On the other side some Arakanese intellectuals led by U Hla Tun Pru, a Barrister-at-Law, held a meeting in Rangoon and demanded the formation of “Arakanistan” for the Arakanese people.
All these movements of the Arakanese might have alarmed Muslims from the Mayu Frontier. In the wake of independence most of the educated Muslims felt an overwhelming sense of collective identity based on Islam as their religion and the cultural and ethnic difference of their community from the Burmese and Arakanese Buddhists.
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The ethnic conflict in the rural areas of the Mayu frontier revived soon after Burma celebrated independence on 4 January 1948. Rising in the guise of Jihad, many Muslim clerics (Moulovis) playing a leading role, in the countryside and remote areas gave way to banditary, arson and rapes.
Moshe Yeagar wrote that one of the major reasons of Mujahid rebellion was that the Muslims who fled Japanese occupation were not allowed to resettle in their villages. In fact, there were more than two hundred Arakanese villages in Buthidaung and Maungdaw townships before the war began. In the post-war years only sixty villages were favorable for the Arakanese resettlement. Out of these sixty, forty-four villages were raided by the Mujahids in the first couple of years of independence. Thousands of Arakanese villagers sought refuge in the towns and many of their villages were occupied by the Chittagonian Bengalis.
Armed Bengali Muslims training.
The Mujahid uprising began two years before the independence was declared. In March 1946 the Muslim Liberation Organization (MLO) was formed with Zaffar Kawal, a native of Chittagong District, as the leader. A conference was held in May 1948 in Garabyin Village north to Maungdaw and the name of the organization was changed to “Mujahid Party.”
Some Chittagonian Bengalis from nearby villages brought the weapons they had collected during the wartime to the mosques in Fakir Bazaar Village and Shahbi Bazaar Village. Jaffar Kawal became the commander in chief and his lieutenant was Abdul Husein, formerly a corporal from the Akyab District police force.
The Mujahid Party sent a letter written in Urdur and dated 9 June 1948 to the government of Union of Burma through the sub-divisional officer of Maungdaw Township. Their demands are as follows :
(1) The area between the west bank of Kaladan River and the east bank of Naaf River must be recognized as the National Home of the Muslims in Burma.
(2) The Muslims in Arakan must be accepted as the nationalities of Burma.
(3) The Mujahid Party must be granted a legal status as a political organization.
(4) The Urdur Language must be acknowledged as the national language of the Muslims in Arakan and be taught in the schools in the Muslim areas.
(5) The refugees from the Kyauktaw and Myohaung (Mrauk-U) Townships must be resettled in their villages at the expense of the state.
(6) The Muslims under detention by the Emergency Security Act must be unconditionally released.
(7) A general amnesty must be granted for the members of the Mujahid Party.
Muslim Enclave demanded by Mujahid.
Calling themselves “the Muslims of Arakan” and “the Urdur” as their national language indicated their inclination towards the sense of collective identity that the Muslims of Indian subcontinent showed before the partition of India into two independent states.
When the demands were ignored the Mujahids destroyed all the Arakanese villages in the northern part of Maungdaw Township. On 19 July 1948 they attacked Ngapruchaung and nearby Villages in Maungdaw Township and some villagers and Buddhist monks were kidnapped for ransoms.
On 15 and 16 June 1951 All Arakan Muslim Conference was held in Alethangyaw Village, and “The Charter of the Constitutional Demands of the Arakani Muslims” was published. It calls for “the balance of power between the Muslims and the Maghs (Arakanese), two major races of Arakan.”
The demand of the charter reads: North Arakan should be immediately formed a free Muslim State as equal constituent Member of the Union of Burma like the Shan State, the Karenni State, the Chin Hills, and the Kachin Zone with its own Militia, Police and Security Forces under the General Command of the Union.
Here it is again noticeable that in the charter these peoples are mentioned as the Muslims of Arakan. The word “Rohingya” was first pronounced by the Mr Abdul Gaffar, an MP from Buthidaung, in his article “The Sudeten Muslims,” published in the Guardian Daily on 20 August 1951.
However, the new democracy in the independent Burma induced some Muslim leaders to remain loyal to the state. The free and fair elections were held and four Muslims were elected to the legislature from Buthidaung and Maungdaw townships. Meanwhile the Mujahid insurgency threw the frontier area into turmoil for a decade.
During his campaign for the 1960 elections, Burmese Prime Minister U Nu who succeeded U Aung San after the independence hero was assassinated, promised the statehood for Arakanese and Mon peoples. When he came to the office after a landslide victory the plans for the formation of the Arakan and Mon states were affected. Naturally the Muslim members of parliament from Buthidaung and Maungdaw Townships denounced the plan and called for the establishment of a Rohingya State.
General Ne Win took power in a coup d’etat in 1962, and almost all the Rohingya movement went underground. The first step of Ne Win’s Burmese Way to Socialism was the nationalization of the private enterprises in 1964. The plan was clearly aimed at the transfer of private assets owned by the Indian and Chinese entrepreneurs into state ownership in the form of the public corporations.
Most of the Indian and Pakistani businesspeople, living in the major cities of Burma, left Burma. In the two years following the decision to nationalize the retail trade, some 100,000 Indians and some twelve thousand Pakistanis left Burma for their homeland. The flow of Indians returning to India as a result of these policies began in 1964.
But the Muslim agriculturists from Northern Arakan, most of them, holding the national registration cards issued by the Department of National Registration in the post-war decade, were not concerned with the event and remained in the frontier areas till the Citizenship Law of 1982 was enforced in 1987.
In 1973, Ne Win’s Revolutionary Council sought public opinion for drafting a new constitution. The Muslims from the Mayu Frontier submitted a proposal to the Constitution Commission for the creation of separate Muslim state or at least a division for them. Their proposal was again turned down. When elections were held under the 1974 Constitution the Bengali Muslims from the Mayu Frontier Area were denied the right to elect their representatives to the “Pyithu Hlut-taw” (People’s Congress).
After the end of the Independence War in Bangladesh some arms and ammunitions flowed into the hands of the young Muslim leaders from Mayu Frontier. On 15 July 1972 a congress of all Rohingya parties was held at the Bangladeshi border to call for the “Rohingya National Liberation”.
Burma’s successive military regimes persisted in the same policy of denying Burmese citizenship to most Bengalis, especially in the frontier area. They stubbornly grasped the 1982 Citizenship Law that allowed only the ethnic groups who had lived in Burma before the First Anglo-Burmese War began in 1824 as the citizens of the country. By this law those Muslims had been treated as aliens in the land they have inhabited for more than a century.
According to the 1983 census report all Muslims in Arakan constituted 24.3 percent and they all were categorized as Bangladeshi, while the Arakanese Buddhists formed 67.8 percent of the population of the Arakan (Rakhine) State.
In the abortive 1988 Democracy Uprising, those Muslims again became active, hoisting the Rohingya banner. Subsequently when the military junta allowed the registration of the political parties they asked for their parties to be recognized under the name “Rohingya.”
Taliban-trained Bengali-Muslim militants.
Their demand was turned down and some of them changed tactics and formed a party, the National Democratic Party for Human rights (NDPHR) that won in four constituencies in 1990 elections as eleven candidates of the Arakan League for Democracy (ALD) were elected to the legislature.
However, the Elections Commission abolished both the ALD and the NDPHR in 1991. Some of the party members went underground and into exile. Recently, the main objectives of the movement of some groups have been to gain the recognition of their ethnic entity in the Union of Burma and to obtain the equal status enjoyed by other ethnic groups. But some elements have adopted the radical idea of founding a separate Muslim state.
The following are the Rohingya organizations currently active on the Burma-Bangladesh border:
1. RSO (Rohingya Solidarity Organization)
2. ARIF (Arakan Rohingya Islamic Front)
3. RPF (Rohingya Patriotic Front)
4. RLO (Rohingya Liberation Organization)
5. IMA (Itihadul Mozahadin of Arakan)
Conclusion
After Burma gained independence, a concentration of nearly ninety percent of the area’s population, the distinguishing characteristics of their own culture and the Islamic faith formed an ethnic and religious minority group in the western fringe of the republic. For successive generations their ethnicity and Islam have been practically not distinguishable. At the beginning they adopted the policy of irredentism in favor of joining East Pakistan with the slogan, “Pakistan Jindabad,” (Victory to Pakistan).
This policy faded away when they could not gain support from the government of Pakistan. Later they began to call for the establishment of an autonomous region instead. Pakistan’s attitude toward the Muslims in Arakan was different from the Islamabad’s policy toward Kashmiris.
During the Independence War in Bangladesh most of the Muslims in Arakan supported West Pakistan. After Bangladesh gained independence Dhaka followed the policy of disowning those Chittagonians. Consequently they had to insist firmly on their identity as Rohingyas.
Their leaders began to complain that the term “Chittagonian Bengali” had arbitrarily been applied to them. But the majority of the ethnic group, being illiterate agriculturalists in the rural areas, still prefers their identity as Bengali Muslims.
Although they have showed the collective political interest for more than five decades since Burma gained independence, their political and cultural rights have not so far been recognized and guaranteed. On the contrary the demand for the recognition of their rights sounds a direct challenge to the right of autonomy and the myth of survival for the Arakanese majority in their homeland.
A symbiotic coexistence has so far been inconceivable because of the political climate of mistrust and fear between the two races and the policy of the military junta. The Muslims from the other parts of Arakan kept themselves aloof from the Rohingya cause as well. Thus the cause of Rohingyas finds a little support outside their own community, and their claims of an earlier historical tie to Burma are insupportable.
Burma Census of 1881 (Arakan Division)
Birth Place Male Female Total
Akyab Dist. 144,746 132,131 276,877
Bassein 721 518 1,239
Hanthawaddy 178 157 335
Henzada 230 232 471
Kyauk Pyu 79,487 79,180 158,667
Mergui 3 2 5
Moulmein town 24 23 47
North Arakan 7,138 6,853 13,991
Prome 805 628 1,433
Rangoon Town 112 75 187
Sandoway 27,410 27,363 54,773
Shway Gyin 1 4 5
Tavoy 17 1 18
Tharawaddy 4 9 13
Thayetmyo 704 599 1,303
Thone Gwa 6 5 11
Toungoo 9 3 12
Assam 8 8
Bengal 49,374 19,435 68,809
Bombay 5 3 8
Central 2 1 3
Diu 27 27
Goa 5 5
Madras 1,823 31 1,854
Nepal 49 10 59
N-W Provinces 246 14 260
Oudh 2 2
Punjab 63 6 69
Afganistan 4 4
Arabia 3 3
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Dr Aye Chan, a former Rangoon University lecturer, was arrested in May 1990 when two student leaders, who were being followed by military intelligence, came to his house to seek refuge. He was sentenced under to 15 years' imprisonment and spent 7 years in Insein and Tharawaddy prisons, mostly in solitary confinement. He fled Burma a year after his release and resettled in Japan where he is now a Professor at Kanda University.
