Irreconcilable Hostilities
"Because Myanmar has refused access to human rights investigators, the current situation cannot yet be fully assessed, but the situation seems a textbook example of ethnic cleansing."
Zeif Ra'ad Al Hussein, UN high commissioner for human rights
"When we were about to have our meal, the kalars [Muslims] entered our village and started burning our houses. They were holding machetes and spears and started shouting, 'We will shower with the Hindus' blood'."
"So we ran away from our houses. If there are Muslims, the problems will never end, but if kalars are not here anymore, it will be more peaceful."
Hazuli, minority Hindu Burmese citizen
"They burned their own houses and ran away."
"We didn't see who actually burned them because we had to take care of the security for our outpost. ... But when the houses were burned, Bengalis were the only ones in the village."
Aung Kyaw Moe, Buddhist villager
"[It was the Rohingya themselves setting their homes ablaze. I even tried to stop them."
"I told them not to do that, but it seemed like they wanted to."
Abbott of Buddhist monastery, Zawtika, Rakhine state
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| In this image made from video, fires occur in Gawdu Zara village, northern Rakhine state, Myanmar, Thursday, Sept. 7, 2017. Journalists saw new fires burning Thursday in the village that had been abandoned by Rohingya Muslims, and where pages from the Quran were seen ripped and left on the ground. (AP Photo) |
In the village where the monastery abbot informed reporters that the Rohingya themselves destroyed their homes in fiery blazes, a man by the name of Maung Maung Htwe showed he photographs he had captured on his mobile phone. In the photos, clearly identifiable as individuals several people are seen torching houses. As it happened, the photos were clear enough for the journalists to recognize Hindus they had seen being sheltered in a school nearby, displaced Hindus claiming their homes had been torched by Muslims.
The government of Myanmar has been informing the world that it has been the Rohingya that have been responsible for burning their villages in norther Rakhine. They also attacked majority Buddhists and minority Hindus in a spree of unaccountable violence. Unaccountable since the government has no idea why people who are traditionally held in contempt, persecuted, and their generations unrecognized with citizenship, should react against the violence visited on them.
Nothing new about Rohingya villagers being tormented by the military, their homes burned to the ground, however.
Accusing Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi of overseeing "textbook ethnic cleansing" has not moved her one iota. Even the Dalai Lama saw fit to voice his concerns by criticizing Buddhist attacks on the Rohingya Muslims of Myanmar. Who are derogatorily called Bengalis by the military and by their neighbours, to distinguish them from all others and remind themselves that they originated in Bangladesh.
Expressing the intention to protect their ethnic minority, Rohingya insurgents had started this latest outbreak on August 25, attacking military posts and killing Burmese, leading to a violent crackdown to cleanse the area of terrorists, all-inclusive of all Rohingya civilians, the stateless people whom no one wants, not the Burmese, not the Bangladeshis. The minority Hindus have been given state protection denied the Rohingya.
Clearly, all three groups, Buddhist, Hindu and Muslim have no intention of living in harmony amongst themselves.
The woman shown in the photographs setting fire to the thatched roof of houses in the Rohingya village emptied of its residents was captured in the act of doing what they claimed the Rohingya were responsible for. She it was who described the plight of the Hindus who were attacked by Muslims and she was only returning the compliment, this mother of six who resents so heartily the presence of Muslims among Hindus.
These violent confrontations, the victimhood and the hatred, the slanders and the attacks do not represent a sudden change of relationships between former neighbours. What they demonstrate is the history of disparate tribal, ethnic and religious groups with their intolerance and resentment toward one another and their willingness to use violence to express their determination to rid themselves of people they have no use for.
This is a universal human dilemma of inhumanity toward others unlike oneself.
Labels: Buddhists, Conflict, Hindus, Muslims, Myanmar, Rohingya
posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, September 13, 2017
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