Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal: Buddhist Burma’s gruesome purge of Muslims

Friday, September 8, 2017

Buddhist Burma’s gruesome purge of Muslims

Patrick Winn (The World, pri.org, Sept. 8, 2017; Editors, Wisdom Quarterly

Rohingya Muslim refugees walk through water after crossing from Burma by boat through the Naf River in Teknaf, Muslim Bangladesh, on 9-7-17 (Mohammad Ponir Hossain/Reuters).

This story is a part of Seeking Security Human stories from a world in conflict (PRI)

Burma’s gruesome purge of Rohingya Muslims appears unstoppable

Theravada Buddhist Burma was once great.

It is Asia’s most vicious ethnic cleansing campaign, a purge that has driven Rohingya Muslims screaming from their Buddhist Burma (Myanmar) homeland into the marshlands of Islamic Bangladesh.

Now it is accelerating. Burma’s army, seemingly determined to rid the nation of this ethnic minority, has created a Rohingya refugee population in Bangladesh that has topped half a million -- larger than the population of the Bahamas or Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

The army’s method for driving them away? Torching villages, state-sanctioned RAPE offensives, and murdering children.

A group of Nobel Peace Prize laureates has warned this campaign has “all the hallmarks of recent past tragedies: Rwanda, Darfur, Bosnia, Kosovo.”

After a lull for much of 2017, the purge has re-commenced. As many as 270,000 Rohingya have poured out of Burma (now called Myanmar by the dictatorship that rules behind the scenes) in the last two weeks alone, according to the United Nations refugee agency.

What triggered this mass exodus?

When Burma became a dictatorship and draconian police state, its ancient monastic institutions continued. Two novices venerate large statue (notjustnut/flickr.com).

In recent years, a dysfunctional Rohingya rebel group known as the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army has formed. They have staged sporadic attacks on police outposts.

Here is a statement the group issued this week, labeling Burma's government a "terrorist organization."

STATEMENT: #ARSA declares “#Burmese Military Regime” as a “Terrorist Org” causing terror and destruction to ethnic #Rohingya population. pic.twitter.com/dQerzIbfZO — ARSA_The Army (@ARSA_Official) September 3, 2017

The group has a Twitter account but far too few guns to take on Burma’s massive military, which wields rocket-propelled grenades and attack choppers. All evidence suggests new rebel recruits are handed clubs or blades in lieu of rifles.

The rebels' most recent strike, in the last week of August, killed a dozen men from Burma’s security forces. The army has responded with overwhelming force: razing whole villages, ostensibly to flush out militants.

#HRW's satellite imagery fr #Burma "level of devastation in #Rakhine State may be far worse than originally thought" https://t.co/nC6SYQxVK5 pic.twitter.com/OxhOAMKN3z — Phil Robertson (@Reaproy) September 2, 2017

The group are called “terrorists” by the government, but they have largely focused their violence on hard targets, namely, police and troops.

They've abandoned their original name, Harakah al-Yaqin, in favor of the current non-Arabic title -- apparently to ward off accusations that it would attract global jihadists such as Pakistani Taliban or ISIS, both of which have expressed sympathy for their cause.

Local man in Teknaf, Bangladesh, carries elderly Rohingya refugee woman unable to walk after crossing the border from Burma, on Sept. 1, 2017 (Mohammad Ponir Hossain/Reuters).

What awaits the refugees when they reach Bangladesh?

Burma does not care about its Buddhists.

Extremely bleak [refugee] camps, battered by heavy monsoon rains, await Rohingya escaping brutality in Burma. New arrivals are directed to mucky fields where they must build their own shelter out of mud, branches, and plastic trash.

Bangladesh is already one of the world’s most crowded nations. Just imagine half of America’s population crammed into Illinois. It is not equipped to care for a massive influx of sick, traumatized people.

You're welcome to visit the longest beach in the world [in Bangladesh] -- unless you're a refugee

Its government has tried to dissuade incoming Rohingya refugees by keeping its camps in a deprived state. One of the larger camps, Kutupalong, is a maze of clay huts, inhabited by naked children and malnourished adults. United Nations officials say this shelter site and others are at a “breaking point.”

So Bangladesh’s officials are now reviving a proposal to ship out all the Rohingya to a tiny island in the Bay of Bengal. This would be an extreme solution. The island is barren, roadless, and submerged during high tide.

Why isn’t Aung San Suu Kyi speaking out?

Well, she is -- but she’s not saying what her fans abroad [which includes her many Wisdom Quarterly fans] have hoped she’d say.

Aung San Suu Kyi -- the state councilor of Burma whose party won elections in 2015 after years of Western backing -- is not merely indifferent to the Rohingya plight. She oversees a propaganda machine that works to silence their pleas for help.

Her offices have told UN diplomats that Rohingya are burning down their own homes to make the government look bad. During a wave of well-documented army rapes against the ethnic group, they’ve accused Rohingya women of crying “fake rape.” Her team has even claimed that foreign aid workers are secretly supporting the “terrorists.”

Earlier this year, I asked close colleague of Aung San Suu Kyi whether he thought she privately sympathized w #Rohingya. "No," he said. https://t.co/uVtPCJIbyi — Poppy McPherson (@poppymcp) September 4, 2017

Suu Kyi: I'm kept in the dark!

Leading Western outlets -- like The New York Times and The Washington Post -- seem dismayed by the once-beloved democracy idol’s silence. But she isn’t silent. She’s repeatedly denied that ethnic cleansing is taking place while her staff works to discredit Rohingya grievances.

There's no reason to think Suu Kyi would suddenly reverse course and defend the Rohingya’s right to a homeland in Burma. Besides, she lacks the power to halt the military.

Forget or ignore US statements that Burma has “overcome decades of military rule to achieve a democratic state.” Burma is actually a hybrid military-civilian state in which the military has total control over the police and troops and veto power over the elected parliament.

So whom should foreign governments focus on instead?

Beyond Rangoon: Truth has a [US] witness

They should focus on Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing rather than Parliamentarian Suu Kyi. He is the commander in chief of the military -- an abusive institution that has Burma burning at both ends.

This is the person who could put a stop to what UN officials have called a “process of genocide.” It is this person -- not Aung San Suu Kyi -- who could meaningfully root out the soldiers guilty of raping Rohingya teens and women as a military tactic.

But nothing suggests he will reverse course, either. Instead, platoons under his control appear to be planting land mines along the border to prevent refugees from ever returning home [but some are being killed and injured by those mines simply trying to leave]. More

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