The military’s Burmese democracy and the process of Bengalicing the Myanmarese indigenous Rohingya

Abid Bahar

People are dying in the Rohingya concentration camps in Arakan. Medical supplies are not allowed to reach these people, NASAKA harasses them regularly in camps and ask them to sign and acknowledge as Bengalis.

Rohingyas wants to be called as the Rohingya but the government forces them to accept the name Bengali. Rohingyas know it very well that it is to get rid of them because they are racially and religiously different from the Buddhist Rakhines.
Rohingyas are a people who once had their houses, business, family, land and a pair of cows to cultivate their land. They even had their citizenship until 1982. These people were born of parents whose ancestors had lived in Arakan before Burma occupied Arkan in 1784.
Beginning from 1962 the notorious Burmese General Ne Win with the Rakhine ultra-nationalists began the campaign of exterminating the Rohingyas from Arakan. The oppression continued but in June and October 2012 finding Suu Kyi on their side the Rakhine war criminals and the monks jointly led a genocidal campaign through burning Rohingya houses and killing Rohinga people and the army in the name of protecting them escorting the survivors to concentration camps. Now people are dying in the concentration camps.
We are asking the military backed government to stop Bengalicizing the Rohingya,
To allow medical aid to the Burmese Rohingya
To resettle the Rohingyas back to their lost homes.
To return the Rohingyas their citizenship rights.
We know that there is no made in Burma, Burmese democracy by the junta. Human rights is the foundation of every democracy which should be uniformly restored including the Rohingya. For Suu Kyi who is playing with Safron fire should know that she is bringing religion in politics.
Additionally, she shouldn't misrepresent Noble Prize glorifying the Burman chauvinism. Such as award should be respected for providing an international moral leadership. That includes her leadership in Burma as well. Lately, Suu Kyi's Buddhist love in Burmese fanatic monks appear to encourage Buddhist extremism and Burmese racism.

No law and order in Maungdaw

Maungdaw, Arakan State: Police officer from Maungdaw police station entered to a public compound without holding search warrant on December 2, morning, according to a relative of victim.

“U Tin Hla, the police officer entered the compound of Rafique - a teashop owner - without search warrant and arrested Rafique and his son.”
The police officer filed a case which was complained by two Rakhine women –municipal cleaner- for throwing pebble to them from the teashop, but no one was hit by pebble, said an elder from Maungdaw.
“The teashop was situated near the clock tower junction and it is only Rohingya teashop at the junction and the police officer is from Rathedaung native.”
In the evening, the father and son were released after taking 300,000 kyat.
“We are not involved throwing pebble and it was not hit to them, the Rakhine women made false allegation to harass to us.”
Similarly, Khin Zaw -Township judge – and his son Than zaw who drive a car hit a bicycle owned by a Rohingya near clock tower at about 4:00pm, said the owner of bicycle.
“I had parked my bicycle beside the road and the judge’s car also parked, but after a while the car hit my bicycle without any fault from my side. The police who are duty at the junction, left the place after accident. Where is the law and order for Rohingya in Maungdaw. A judge can do whatever he want, no one take action for crime.”

Nasaka resumes extortion money in Maungdaw

Maungdaw, Arakan State:  Burma’s border security force, or Nasaka resumed extortion money from Rohingya villages in Maungdaw Township since November last week, a trader from the locality who denied to be named. 
Money extortion from Rohingya villagers by Nasaka personnel after checking family lists was nearly stopped after broken out violence between Rohingya and Rakhine Communities in June this year.

“Since last week of November 2012, the Nasaka personnel of Nasaka camp No. 14 of Nasaka area No.6 of Maungdaw north went to the villages under its at every night and checked the family lists of the villagers.”

“Many villagers went into hiding when the Nasaka entered the villages because of fear of arrest and torture. So, the Nasaka asked the rest of the family members to pay money for who are absent from the lists or from homes.”

The Nasaka collected Kyat 100,000 to 400,000 if the villager is rich and Kyat 20,000 to 50,000 if the villager is poor per each.  The situation of Arakan is very bad for Rohingya community, villagers have no jobs, no business, at this moment,   Rohingya people are not able to pay the money. However, at last, villagers paid the money after selling their ornaments, cattle and even selling their lands as fear of tortures. They have no alternative way to choose, said a local Business man preferring not to be named.

If the Nasaka does not get money, the arrestee will be detained in their camp along with torture.  There is no one to come forwards to rescue the Rohingya. Nasaka is daily observing the functions of the villagers by making blocks in Maungdaw Township. There are eight Nasaka areas in Maungdaw Townships and one Nasaka area is controlled by one Major along with is forces-, said an ex- Nasaka aide on condition of anonymity.

There is no one house is left without taking money by Nasaka In Maungaw and Buthidaung Townships. So, Rohinhya means culprits in front of government authorities.

“How many days, we will stay alive in Arakan State, in such way,” said a village elder from Maungdaw Township.

Expert warns of Rohingya genocide

“Warning signs” are in place for a genocide of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, an Al Jazeera investigation has been told by a leading expert in the field.

According to Professor William Schabas, until recently President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, the findings of an Al Jazeera documentary reveal that “we’re moving into a zone where the word can be used”.

In June, Myanmar state media reported 78 deaths during sectarian violence between Buddhist Rakhine and Muslim Rohingya communities. The Al Jazeera team discovered that official statements provided only a small part of what took place.

Instead, Rohingya testify suffering systematic torture, ethnic cleansing and execution-style killings. The program found evidence of at least two mass graves and the deliberate murder of minors, some of whom were burnt alive. The program includes eyewitness accounts of the extra-judicial killings of more than 200 people during five days in June.

The Hidden Genocide also provides compelling evidence that the killings were at times carried out with the support and participation of the Myanmar military, state security forces and local government officials.

Amongst the findings are:

• The location of a mass grave of 35 people, 25 of them children. Most had been shot as they fled by soldiers from Myanmar’s national army as well as paramilitaries from a border security force, known as NaSaKa.
• An eyewitness watched as around 100 bodies were dumped from a truck and buried in marshland by security services.
• Accounts describe security forces travelling through Rohingya districts throwing bottles of gasoline onto houses and setting them alight.
• One man described how up to 40 religious scholars were brought to the yard of a mosque and summarily executed. They were accused of being ‘troublemakers’.
• A 12-year old girl watched as 5 of her cousins - all younger than her - were picked up by security forces and thrown into large fires.
• There is evidence of torture and arbitrary arrest. One man who was severely beaten saw six corpses in the local police station.
• Rape was systematically used by Rakhine State security services. Al Jazeera spoke to one woman who was raped (according to medical records) by more than 20 men from the NaSaKa, Luntin (paramilitary police) and regular police. She has since died of her injuries.

The Hidden Genocide discovers a secret memorandum written in 1988 by Rakhine nationalists. It sets out policies aimed at restricting the ability of the Rohingya to travel freely, to prevent their access to tertiary education and for controlling their birth rate. There are today obstacles to prevent marriage within the ethnic group, including the requirement of a large payment to allow a legal marriage or be threatened with five years’ imprisonment.

The election in 2010 of the Rakhine Nationalities Development Party (RNDP) has placed in the state government a leadership that denies the existence of the Rohingya as an ethnic group. The party leader, Dr Aye Maung, has repeatedly said that the people who call themselves Rohingya should be deported from the land of their birth to third countries.

Dr Aye Chan, a Rakhine historian based in Japan has returned for the first time to Myanmar since 1988 and is at the forefront of a body of quasi-academic material that denies the existence of the Rohingya race, claiming they are ‘a fabricated people’.

According to Prof. Schabas, one of the foremost experts on international criminal law, “We’re moving into a zone where the word can be used (in the case of the Rohingya). When you see measures preventing births, trying to deny the identity of the people, hoping to see that they really are eventually, that they no longer exist, denying their history, denying the legitimacy of the right to live where they live, these are all warning signs that mean that it’s not frivolous to envisage the use of the term genocide.”