United States and the West are used on killing Muslims in Burma (Myanmar) | Htay Lwin Oo

“The Rohingya hold themselves- within themselves the same dignity as you do, and I do. There’s no excuse for violence against innocent people”  The President of the United States, Barack H. Obama speech on Rohingya issue at Rangoon University. However US based broadcasting services such as VOA (Voice of America) and RFA (Radio Free Asia) censored the president’s historic speech in the Burmese language broadcasting session. Why did they censored? Where is the media ethic?

Since 1962, when General Ne Win coup Burma with his military forces and grab the power of the nation; the brutal dictator Ne Win was strongly back by the communist China. Therefore, people of Burma have felt China has swallowed their country. Whenever there were upraising against the regime, Burmese army brutally cracked down and China was always backing by the side of Burma at UN. After many years passed by the situation is fell in to chocking level that the people of Burma expecting United States and Western countries to help them escape of their impoverished suppressive lives. In the conscious and unconscious mind of Burmese people hoping that the US is the savior and the impression of United States is humongous also.

The economic embargo implied on Burma by US and Western countries, the collapsed of the Burmese economy to the ground and the regime could not stand loyal to the China’s policy to stay inward and supply only to china with raw materials and county’s natural resources. Therefore, they started shifting to gain US and The West favor to open the trading opportunities. For that reason, the regime has transformed themselves form military clothed person to civilian and also transformed command control centers to parliament. Once the transformation was completed, the extended their hands and praise to The West with cruel intention for their survival purposes as if they are listening the people voice and wishes that people of Burma desire to defeat China’s economic and political influence with the power of The United States.

Soon after President Thein Sein opened up the county and create relationship with US and The West , Buddhist Extremists, The underground Monks’ Gang, Nationalists and the hardliners within the government of Thein Sein and the regional governments started strategic planning for the Muslims population of Burma to be extinct to build the greatest Buddhist Nation. This plan is the dream of Burmen’s great pioneer Master Hmine ( Tha Khin Ko Daw Hmine) . Ko Daw Hmine was the founding father and famous influential leader of Doh Ba Ma Asi-A-Yone (We, Burmese Association ). General Aung San, the independent leader of Burma was one of the member at the beginning of the movement of the organization. Therefore, the network of the Buddhist extremists and nationalists started Anti-Muslims propaganda to gain trust of US and the West showing that Muslims are the common enemy to them as well without knowing that west does not have this policy. In order to promote the Nationalistic and Buddhist Dominated agenda, they proposed the local news agency to create more news on US Ambassador to Burma is about to convert to Buddhism. This is to confuse the people of Burma mostly targeting to the uneducated population. That way, people will impress Buddhism more and monk will gain trust of the people.

Secondly, Buddhist extremists and nationalists created the story as they traditionally did as Muslims men raping a Buddhist woman knowing that this kind of story is sensitive to all society. This provocation can lead to huge violence against Muslims all around Burma and people may have justifiable reasons to kills Muslims and driven out from their homes. They have believed mistakenly that doing so will result in US favor and trust towards Burma. Therefore, the extremists implemented the plan by burning Muslims houses and making the Muslims displaced from their lands and hundreds of innocent Muslims were killed.

When the international community demanded to stop the violence and declare that harming innocent people regardless of religion, color of their skin and where they came from is a crime against humanity, they calmed down showing that things are getting to a normality however , the continuation of anti-Muslims propaganda to drive out the Muslims from Burma is still going underway.

The famous monks, A Lo Daw Pyei, Shwe Nya War and Wira Thu publicly organize their fellow Buddhists to attack against Muslims. Pro Democracy Monk Shwe Nya War ( currently in Canada ) claimed in his YouTube post on October 28, 2012 that his superior monk A Lo Daw Pyei was in meeting with the senior US official in Burma and explained what they are doing and US official listened carefully and kind of agreed upon their actions . The Monk has misinterpreted the officials respectful attitude on religious leader. However, this misinterpretation have become political tools for extremists to create second round of violence happened in Rakhine State as it was under US endorsement. By looking at this process, pictures taken or videos of the extremist leaders meeting with senior foreign officials are being abused as a tools for violence.

On the other hand, they have organized the media wings such as local and foreign based Burmese media employees to promote their agenda by creating the same voice. That is to say, all media must voice that Muslims in Burma are invaders from Bangladesh and not to use the term “ Rohingya” for the Muslims people who are originally form Rakhine State of Burma. Due to the limited access to the unrestricted , fair and ethical media, Burmese people usually listen and depend on the foreign based media stations such as VOA, RFA, BBC-Burmese and DVB (Democratic Voice of Burma) to learn what the US and The West said about Burma. Telephone, Internet access, Social media such as FaceBook, Myspace and Linkedin other social network are not commonly used nationwide. In addition , most of them grown up under very poor level of education for generations and rural life style media access is over word of mouth.

Since the beginning of the violence until now, Burmese session of the foreign based broadcasting services such as RFA-Burmese, VOA- Burmese, BBC- burmese and DVB locate in US and Western countries firmly stand on the side of Buddhist Extremists and Nationalist. The Burmese language services bias on reporting that Muslims of Burma are invaders, illegal- immigrants and infidels from Bangladesh. In addition, Burmese broadcasting services all around the world reported Muslims torched their own houses and killing Bhuddists and run away to from the land they lived for many years .In reality on the ground is totally opposite. Buddhists extremists burn down the whole compound of Muslim houses and villages, killing Muslims and forcing the Muslims to flee from the villages.

Now it comes to the level that, the foreign based Burmese media VOA, RFA running under support of US and DVB , BBC running under western governments fund started censoring the speech of the President of the United States at Rangoon University in their Burmese translation of the speech. Even though, the western media corporation hired contracted Burmese employees to work in the US and EU countries to promote democracy and human rights in Burma, however, these media wings of the extremists intruded into the pro-democracy foreign media corporation and abused media tools to prevent poor Burmese population to go near the truth. It is an insult to the nations funding them.

Htay Lwin Oo

Leading Activist

Myanmar Muslim Civil Rights Movement (USA)