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Eruption of violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine state early this month not only threatens to derail the country’s democratic transition but also brought to light the plight of Rohingya Muslims. According to reports, Muslims account for about four percent of the total population of around 60 million in Myanmar, a resource-rich nation strategically positioned at Asia’s crossroads between India and China, Bangladesh and Thailand.
These Muslims were of Indian, Chinese and Bangladeshi descent entered Myanmar during British colonial rule which ended in 1948. The provenance of the Rohingya Muslims is as difficult to trace as that of many of Myanmar’s other ethnic groups.However, they appear to be a mixture of Arabs, Moors, Turks, Persians, Moguls and Pathans.
According to the United Nations Myanmar’s government counts more than 130 ethnicities in the country. The Rohingya Muslims are not on that list. They have been denied citizenship and are subjected to “forced labor, extortion, restriction on freedom of movement, the absence of residence rights, inequitable marriage regulations and land confiscation.
The United Nations described them as one of the most persecuted minorities in the world, and “virtually friendless” among other ethnic groups in Myanmar. They are usually landless as well as stateless, and scratch a living from low-paid casual labor. Four in five households in northern Rakhine State were in debt and many families borrow money just to buy food.
Muhammad Nurul Islam, a Rohingya Muslim scholar and a teacher in Saudi Arabia said” Myanmar government considers the Rohingya as foreigners and not one of the nation’s ethnic groups, while many citizens see them as illegal immigrants and view them with hostility. For the past 60 years they were not given their rights.
Political reforms which brought legendary democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi to parliament and the relaxation of media freedom did not bring any relief to the persecuted Muslims. Instead spelled disaster.
For example with the delicate transition to democracy and the relaxation of restriction on media numerous websites came into being. Most of these websites were known for hateful comments about Rohingya Muslims. The source of this hatred is complex but appears to turn on religion, language, colonial resentment, nationalism and skin color.
In online forums, Rohingya are referred to as dogs, thieves and terrorists .Some commentators urged the government to “eliminate them” and seem particularly enraged that Western countries and the United Nations are highlighting their plight.
The state-run New Light of Myanmar published a correction after referring to Muslims as “kalar,” a racial slur. “It would be so good if we can use this as an excuse to drive those Rohingyas from Myanmar,” one reader of Myanmar’s Weekly Eleven newspaper commented on the paper’s website. “Annihilate them,” writes another.
Thus communal tension has been simmering for decades between the two communities. However, the recent violence was triggered off following the rape and murder of a Buddhist woman for which Muslims were blamed without any evidence. However, a Buddhist mob dragged 10 Muslims from a bus and beat them to death. This triggered off the current spate of attacks which killed scores of Muslims, destroyed thousands of homes and driven around 40,000 to take shelter in monasteries and schools.
Abu Tahay of the National Democratic Party for Development which represents the country’s Muslim Rohingya community said that” ‘these innocent people have been killed like animals,”.
The issue of the Rohingya Muslims is so delicate that even Myanmar’s leading defender of human rights and democracy, Aung San Suu Kyi, has been evasive about the situation. Asked at a news conference in Geneva during her European tour this month whether the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar should be given citizenship, Aung San Suu Kyi said in Geneva stated that “We have to be very clear about what the laws of citizenship are and who are entitled to them,” .
“It is politically risky for her,” said Kyaw Min, a Rohingya leader and one-time Suu Kyi ally who spent more than seven years as a political prisoner.
U.S.-based Human Rights Watch called for diplomats and foreign journalists to be given access to the area and criticized President Thein Sein for handing power to security forces. It said troops had opened fire on Rohingyas in Rakhine State, also known by its former name Arakan. "Deadly violence is spiraling out of control under the government's watch," the group's deputy Asia director, Elaine Pearson, said in a statement.
“There is no communication system, no electricity and food. People fear death and hunger. Mobs are killing and looting the shops and Muslims are not allowed to go out, because of a curfew,” said Hafeezur Rahman.
The Rohingyas are overseen by the Border Administration Force, known as the Nasaka, which consists of officers from the police, military, customs and immigration.They control every aspect of Rohingya life.
“They have total power,” says Abu Tahay, the Rohingya politician. Documented human-rights abuses blamed on the Nasaka include rape, forced labor and extortion. Rohingya cannot travel or marry without the Nasaka’s permission, which is never secured without paying bribes, activists say.
“There are hundreds of restrictions and extortions,” says Rohingya leader Kyaw Min. “The Nasaka have a free hand because government policy is behind them. And that policy is to starve and impoverish the Rohingya.”
Most Rohingya Muslims wanted to leave Myanmar to end their agony. The question is where to go? Bangladesh completely prevents them entering the country. Amid the violence, Bangladeshi paramilitaries, police and coastguard pushed back 12 wooden boats carrying 300 Rohingyas, mostly women and children, and witnesses said three more with some 150 people on board were drifting in waters close to the border.
Every year up to 40 villagers head out to sea on Malaysia-bound boats. They each pay about US$250, a small fortune by local standards. But the extended Rohingya families who raise the sum regard it as an investment. Most of them depend upon remittances from Malaysia and Thailand.
Many are arrested before even leaving Myanmar waters. Others are intercepted by the Thai authorities, who last year were still towing Rohingya boats back out to sea, Human Rights Watch reported, “despite allegations that such practices led to hundreds of deaths in 2008 and 2009.”
Sayadul Amin, 16, set sail in March 2012 in a fishing boat crammed with 63 people, a third of them boys and girls. The weather turned bad, and Sayudul’s boat was pounded by waves.
“I felt dizzy and wanted to throw up,” he said. By day five, they ran out of water and his friend, also a teenager, died. They prayed over his body, he said, and then tossed it overboard.
The boat eventually ran aground somewhere on Myanmar’s Andaman coast, where local villagers summoned the authorities to arrest the boat people. The adults were jailed in the southern Myanmar town of Dawei, while immigration officials escorted Sayadul and the other minors back to Sittwe by bus. The journey took several days. “There were satellite dishes on all the houses,” he said with wonder.
Rohingya leaders have long called for the scrapping of the 1982 Citizenship Law, which was enacted by the former dictatorship and rendered stateless. “We are demanding full and equal citizenship,” says Kyaw Min, the Rohingya leader.
