A Muslim religious leader speaks to Muslims seeking shelter at a monastery in Lashio township on 31 May 2013. (Reuters)
By EMANUEL STOAKES
June 21, 2013
Over the past twelve months, brutal attacks on Burma’s Muslim
community have taken place across the country, spreading from Arakan state in
the west to, most recently, Shan state in the east.
Serious atrocities have occurred, including acts that allegedly
amount to crimes against humanity. Many of the worst offences are believed to
have perpetrated with the aid of state agencies; in other incidents, the police
stood by and did nothing to prevent loss of life.
Such extremely grave abuses have elicited widespread concern,
but in an alarming number of cases, perhaps even the majority, impunity for the
perpetrators has followed. By contrast, Muslims accused of crimes related to
the same incidents have felt the full force of the law quickly, excessively and
unmistakably.
These patterns are disturbingly instructive and hint at
institutional prejudices that have survived Burma’s recent reforms;
insufficient responses to Muslim persecution from the international community,
on the other hand, are far harder to explain.
Such moral laxity has helped to condemn the Burmese Islamic
community to ongoing suffering and vulnerability in the face of increasingly
militant Buddhist-chauvinist hostility. In lieu of adequate foreign or internal
pressure, it falls to journalists, rights campaigners and other interested
groups both within and outside of Burma to step up and confront this plague of
violence and bigotry. The best way that this can be done, in my view, is to
expose those most responsible for its recrudescence.
I say this with a conviction that there is some level of
organisation behind the recent attacks on the Muslim community, and that the
simplistic narrative that such acts are merely the product of relaxed state
authoritarianism is pernicious and unconvincing. In fact, I felt prompted to
write this op-ed precisely because of information that I have received from
reliable sources on the issue.
Their claims were made prior to an important piece featured in
the Straits Times recently by Nirmal Ghosh. Many will have read Mr Ghosh’s
article “Old Monsters Stirring Up Trouble”, in which he cites a military source
within Naypyidaw who points the finger at a notorious paramilitary group linked
to the former regime and a controversial ex-minister- namely, the Swan Arshin
and Aung Thaung respectively.
“There are appear to be common features to most of the major
anti-Muslim incidents”
Prior to reading Ghosh’s article, I was told by a separate
figure in Naypyidaw that Aung Thaung was central to the violence, and yet
another reliable source within the Sangha asserted that the infamous
anti-Muslim 969 movement had deep links to the Swan Arshin.
Another, very solid source with access to privileged government
information shared with me his awareness that Wirathu, the demagogic monk famously
associated with the 969 group, had been present in Lashio the day before the
attacks in the town began. It is a claim that seems plausible given that it was
reported he was spotted in Shan state in late May.
It is worth noting that Wirathu was also recognised to have been
preaching in Meikhtila not long before the atrocities that took place there
occurred, and was present in the city on the day of the attacks. Links between
Wirathu and Aung Thaung in themselves have been subjected to a great deal of
speculation, in particular the Abbot’s meeting with the former minister
immediately prior to the attacks in Arakan state in October.
According to my own interviews with eyewitnesses to the attacks
throughout the country, conducted both while I have been in Burma and from
abroad, there are appear to be common features to most of the major anti-Muslim
incidents.
Witnesses in Sittwe with whom I met were very clear that many of
the ‘attackers were strangers’; in Meikhtila, this was again a recurrent
message from sources I contacted; finally in Lashio the presence of outsiders
was confirmed by multiple sources.
Another witness to a separate act of violence, this time in
Rangoon, told me that he saw groups of young men attack a mosque near
Annawratha Road from their vehicles with projectiles in the middle of the
night. In his words it was ‘definitely an organised attack’, in keeping with many
other reported mosque assaults. The presence of men on motorbikes behaving
similarly was confirmed by another source who saw events take place in Oakkan.
I mention the above allegations without endorsing them, but
acknowledging that they certainly merit reporting- and further investigation.
Aung Thaung for his part has unsurprisingly denied the claims reported by the
Straits Times.
Regardless, urgent questions need to be asked: who are these
people that my sources- and many others- have seen in vehicles, throwing
projectiles and coming from out of town? Why was it consistently reported that
the outsiders in Lashio were heard singing Burmese nationalist songs, and being
of Burmese not Shan appearance? What was Wirathu doing so close to the action,
before and during several incidents?
Why are the perpetrators, and in the indeed the whole 969
operation not adequately subjected to the censure of the law; and why have
police and firefighters been to reluctant to intervene as Muslims are being
assaulted and their homes burnt, as has been so often reported?
It is up to responsible journalists to aggressively dig out the
answers to these questions and expose the agendas at work behind the terror
campaign being conducted against Muslims in Burma. In my opinion, not doing so
would be yet another gutless betrayal of the victims of these egregious crimes
by those with the power to do something to help.
Emanuel Stoakes is a freelance journalist based in the United
Kingdom and New Zealand
-The opinions and views expressed in this piece are the author’s
own and do not necessarily reflect DVB’s editorial policy.
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