By FRANCIS WADE

ျမန္မာ့ဒီမုိကေရစီ ေခါင္းေဆာင္ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ႏွင့္ မေလးရွား ၀န္ႀကီးခ်ဳပ္ေဟာင္း မဟာသီယာ မုိဟာမက္တုိ႔ ယေန႔ညေန ၄ နာရီမွစတင္၍တနာရီ နီးပါးခန္႔ ရန္ကုန္ၿမိဳ႕ကုန္သည္ႀကီးမ်ား ဟုိတယ္တြင္ ေတြ႔ဆုံေၾကာင္း အမ်ိဳးသားဒီမုိကေရစီ အဖြဲ႔ခ်ဳပ္ (NLD) အသုိင္းအ၀န္းက ေျပာသည္။

မည္သည့္ အေၾကာင္းအရာမ်ား ေဆြးေႏြးသည္ကုိမူ ထုတ္ေဖာ္ ေျပာဆုိျခင္း မရွိေပ။

Dear Arakan Readers:

At first when I began reading Aye Chan, I thought he was a scholar but as I went into details I found out that he has problems dealing "with multiple sides of issues" as is normally the case with xenophobes. You would notice here Aye Chan comments to Dr. Siddiqui and says:

"Main theme is 'Whether these Muslims who call themselves Rohingya are the immigrants from Chittagong District or not.'

I have proved 'They are.' Don't avoid the main topic, Siddiqui, the liar." Aye Chan also identifies himself as "A Challenger for life on this topic." It seems that Aye Chan is more of a Rakhine crusader on this topic than an academician. Unfortunately, the Rakhine extremists use him as a true "academician."

A detailed review of Aye Chan's claims that "Muslims who call themselves Rohingya are the immigrants from Chittagong District" is done in the following article "

"Aye Chan's Enclave with Influx Viruses Revisited."

and the same is also available as chapter 3 in my book "Burma's Missing Dots" 2010. After reading the review, readers will certainly find Aye Chan that he is not intellectually honest and essentially an anti- Rohingya xenophob. Due to his beliefs, his claims were selectively chosen to prove that Rohingyas are originally from Chittagong.

Aye Chan's Enclave with Influx Viruses Revisited."

Read here

Origin of the Tribes of Chittagong Hill Tracts

Read here

Read here

“The armed forces have not being created for the purpose of persecuting people, nor for the purpose of exercising power with weapons. The army is the servant of the country. The country is never the servant of the army.” (General Aung San)

Burma is a land of bountiful resources and abundant natural beauty, but the country’s real beauty resides in its multiethnic composition. To a tourist, Burma, with its smiling government officials and monks passing by in their yellow robes and its silent minorities occupied in their daily chores, gives the appearance of innocence and calm—the perfect Burma the military wish to portray. Situated in South East Asia between China, India, Bangladesh and Thailand, Burma has a sample of ethnic groups from each of its sister countries within its borders, the legacy of a series of conquests, first by its medieval kings and later by the British. More precisely, Burma has approximately 135 ethnic groups each with a distinct, ethnic identity. These groups have been kept under tight control by the military dictatorship for the past half-century. As Sui Khar notes: “Each of the ethnic groups taken individually might seem small, but together, …[they] constitute 40 percent of the population and occupy 60 percent of the land.” (1) Given this multiethnic makeup, Burma could have been the Switzerland of South East Asia if it had followed multiculturalism as its official policy. Unfortunately, after close to half a century of military rule, Burma, in spite of its resources and its beauty, is bleeding.

Historians approach Burma from two perspectives –that of its history of dictatorial rule, from the tyrannical medieval kings to its contemporary military rulers, to that of the people with their all-too-brief experience of democracy. (2) Scholars find in the latter a gentle, humorous but racially and culturally diverse people aspiring toward a multicultural society and in the former, a xenophobic military whose collaborators create “fear” and use “force” to rule the nation. Interestingly, their decades-long experience of army rule has accustomed the people to looking for enemies. It has inculcated a medieval tribal mentality. Depending on who is asking, there is no limit to the number of enemies to be found within the 135 ethnic groups. This number does not include certain ethnic groups who could be considered the most dangerous enemies of all. Not surprisingly, some surveys conducted in Burma by members of certain ethnic groups found considered the Burmans as their enemy, while other surveys found the minority Muslims, who form only 4% of the population as the number 1 enemy, and the list goes on. (3) The military, in its attempts to mobilize the population against the “danger within” have caused over a million refugees to flee across the border into neighboring countries.

Since the military leadership’s identification of the “real” enemy, ultranationalist activities have been constantly on the rise. Stateless people continue to look for shelter and genocidal activities continue unabated. The international community is deluded about Burma’s progress toward democracy. As a result of years of suppression, the ethnic minorities are too timid even to confess that they follow the “three monkeys rule,” (See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.) This has become one of their only means of survival. Revolutionary students protest in vain.

The flip side of Burma’s story is that it has also produced great leaders who have worked toward building the nation by creating alliances among groups. These include Aung San, U Razzak, U Thant, Aung San and Suu Ki, to name only a few.

Burma’s history is a long story of misfortune. Perhaps the greatest of these was the assassination of Aung San. During World War II, Aung San, along with Ne Win, returned to Burma from Japan, where they had been receiving military training to fight the British. Realizing the ethnic diversity of Burma, Aung San worked with the country’s leaders to promote a western model of a federal state. This culminated on February 12, 1947 with the signing of the Panglong Agreement. A very short time later, he and his entire team were assassinated. This unfortunate event took place just six months before the independence of Burma. Partly as a result of these tragic circumstances, Burma's fledgling democracy also suffered a premature death. From then on, under Ne Win, Burma began a history that can be summed up as a “lost half-century” spent in “poverty, paranoia and fear of the outside world.” (4) With the death of Aung San, Burma reverted to its melancholy medieval destiny. The catastrophic events of 1942, 1948, 1962, 1988, and 2007 have come and gone and yet the people’s suffering continues. Over the years, affairs have deteriorated so badly that in today’s Burma even trivial acts such as gossiping after a meal to break the tedium can land people in serious problems with the administration.(5)

The Western media primarily ascribe Burma’s problems to its prolonged military dictatorship; while substantially true, this interpretation is incomplete. There are missing dots in this type of explanation. Burma’s ultra-nationalist celebrities, for example fan the flames of division by emphasizing the aspects of the status quo that benefit them personally. They wonder aloud why anyone should change the military government when it has already made so many changes and kept Burma united. During the period of military rule, Burma was renamed “Myanmar,” Rangoon became “Yangon,” and many other towns and districts such as Akyab, (a Persian derived Rohingya word) was given the Rakhine Buddhist name “Sittwe.” All the new names were derived from Burman-related semi-mythical place names from earlier centuries. True, Burma has also changed in other directions. The aging military dictators are being replaced by a younger generation of military dictators. The ruling junta is made mainly of Burmans and Rakhines, a subgroup of the Burmese. The Burmese army increased from a mere few thousand in Aung San’s time to a force of 500,000 for a country of only 50 million people. Rakhine soldiers, both adult and boys, comprise 30% of the army out of a population of only 3 million. A 500,000-man army is needed to fight the ethnic minorities, the supposed enemy within. The military’s rule by force has kept Burma relatively unchanged. Amazingly, the regime has established its own human rights committees; the membership list of these committees, however, reads like a “Who's Who” of human rights violators in the country. (6)

The most lucrative job for the average Burman or Rakhine is that of a career soldier, as it offers the opportunity of supplementing one’s salary with the proceeds of black-marketing, bribery and taxing the movement of goods and humans. After over half a century of such widespread practice, the military now controls big business, the service sector and the bureaucracy. In line with this tradition, it preaches what it calls a “disciplined democracy,” a species of Fascism, whose propaganda is almost always directed against ethnic minorities. It propagates the myth that in the absence of the military rule, foreigners and ethnic groups will take over Burma, causing the country to disintegrate. Burma pursues its “war” against “the enemy” with imported military helicopters and fighter planes. The armed forces are on constant alert in the battle against ethnic groups and their allies, the democracy movement.

Through its use of xenophobia as an ideology, the military intentionally creates communal violence. In order to be effective, it even uses deception. A witness to the Pegu mosque attack of 1997 related that one attacker, supposedly a monk, “…did not put his robes on properly, and they later became loose and fell down. Onlookers nearby noticed he was wearing the army-issued underpants which are usually worn by soldiers. The group leader of the monks was seen holding some kind of mobile communication equipment.” (7) While members of minority groups reported that monks helped them to save their property, there was unfortunately no one to catch these frauds in saffron robes. The military’s prize captive is the celebrated Aung San Sui Ki, who in spite of being elected in 1988, saw the election result nullified and the repression continue. Even in the face of such outrage, the international community, beyond expressing muted formal disapproval and implementing ineffective sanctions, has made no headway towards improving the situation. Why?

Most contemporary works on Burma blame the military for the present state of affairs in the country. I consider this type of interpretation to be ridiculously incomplete. A far more fruitful line of inquiry is to ask questions about the circumstances and conditions that keep the army in power. Burma’s problems are even deeper than they appear. What needs to be understood is what validates the power base of the Burman and the Rakhine state population from which the army is mostly recruited. The leaders of Burma’s never-ending quest for democracy, who are themselves members of the ethnic majority, are shackled by their practice of favoritism and by the fact that they fail to expose collaborators in their midst.

The smiling anti-Rohingya drs. of Rohingya genocide are Dr. Aye Kyaw and Dr. Aye Chan. Both intellectuals were originally from the state of Arakan. The former is the self confessed military’s collaborator who enjoys his US citizenship but helped in the drafting of the 1982 xenophobic Burmese Citizenship Act thar declared Burma’s Rohingyas as the noncitizens of Burma. Dr. Aye Chan is a former student of Aye Kyaw also a US citizen, now teaches in Japan is the coauthor of the anti- Rohingya book, Influx Viruses, which dehumanizes Rohingyas as if viruses needing extermination from Burma. Admittedly, from 1948 to 1962, Burma had democratic government. The question needs to be asked: What actually went wrong to cause the military to come to power? There are also several other related questions; in a future democratic Burma, what will the status of the minorities be? How citizenship will be determined? Is this going to be defined in a way that guarantees both the individual and the collective rights of the ethnic communities or will the Suu Ki experiment be a temporary triumph for the Burman majority and lead to a repetition of the tragedy of military rule? If democracy returns to Burma, can Suu Ki thrive if the conditions for the military’s success in remaining in power are not removed? Can the country avoid the vacillation between civilian and military rule that has characterized the history of Pakistan?

In this regard, it is not that there are no Burmese leaders with strength and foresight. Emphasizing the ethnic dimension of the problem, Harn Yawnghwe states, “The military came to power because of its disagreement over a constitutional matter. The talks will have to deal with constitutional matters. When this happens, the process needs to be expanded to include all stakeholders, especially the ethnic nationalities.”(8) Burma is a country beset with ethnic problems, and more work has to be done to understand this side of the real Burma.

One continues to wonder: unlike in Eastern Europe after the cold war and Indonesia, Iran, Nepal, where popular protest led to profound changes in the way the countries are governed, why in Burma, with so many of its citizens earnestly yearning for democracy, has the army continued to rule a population of 50,000,000 million for so long? Surely, there must be other important factors present. Again what are the circumstances and conditions that keep the army in power? Are there networks of rank and file civilian members who collaborate with the army? There are reports that in parallel with the democracy movement demonstrations, vast numbers of Burmese people also gather in cities and townships to show their continued support for the military. Even more disturbing is the phenomenon of imposters, who infiltrate, not only the rank and file, but also the leadership of the democracy movement. On record is a monk originally from Arakan who supported the military’s genocide in that province, who is now a leading democracy movement leader in New York. This charlatan even managed to get an “Asia leadership award.” (9)

In Burma, everybody loves the slogan word “democracy.” Almost everybody except Than Shaw, who can’t hide from his real identity, claims to be either a democracy movement leader or the supporter of the democracy movement. The word democracy is so popular in Burma that Than Shaw even calls his version “disciplined democracy.”

Under the circumstances, as the waiting game for democracy continues, the military keeps its elite club functioning by dispensing privileges. “A … military-led middle class with a corrupt, authoritarian mindset, as its benefactors or protectors, has developed over the past 45 years under military dictatorship. It operates at a level of skewed superior profits, which are distributed among a small group of beneficiaries along the corrupt military chain and do not therefore put purchasing power to a wider public, which could have an impact on the economy. Corrupt superior profits have a marginal effect on the economy of the country, as they are hoarded by the givers and recipients alike as insurance, when one is removed from the corrupt chain.”(10) In the same fashion, democracy movement leaders also reserve their exclusive “pure ethnic” club membership for themselves and maintain a distance from racially and religiously different Burmese ethnic minorities. Some of the movement’s members even accept the military’s definition of who is a native (“taingyintha” in Burmese translated as “native of a country) and who is a “foreigner.” There have been complaints that many high ranking democracy movement leaders even espouse the military’s anti-ethnic Rohingya agenda. No doubt, the situation within the democracy movement leadership is complicated by the presence of ex-military infiltrators, xenophobic intellectuals and leaders in high positions who surreptitiously prevent individuals from deprived minorities from gaining access to the leadership. This is the ugly face of ethnic discrimination in Burma.

These are the circumstances under which military rule through xenophobia is carried out in Burma, and the world’s longest civil war continues. Refugees continue to cross international borders exacerbating an already grave humanitarian crisis. Here, contrary to what Aung San, the founding father of Burma decreed, the army is no longer the servant of the country. The country has become the servant of the army. While Burma’s ethnic leaders discuss these important issues in the world’s foreign capitals in order to determine exactly who is the real enemy, the military leadership is merely buying time because it already knows who the enemy is. As a Burmese proverb popular among government supporters recommends, when faced with a deadly snake and an ethnic at the same time, don’t kill the snake first. (11) From our vantage point, we see several very important “dots” still remain to be joined before the real enemies of Burma are fully revealed.

The multiethnic Burma give the impression of being like a Russian motyoshka doll: inside each layer of ethnic groups is another, which has another inside it and so on. In reality, however, Burma is a far more complex society than this surface would suggest. In consideration of the above, this book will primarily deal with problems of democratic development in western Burma. As a Sociological worh, it will deal with classical Buddhism which is opposed to the anti-ethnic malevolence in Burma such as prejudice, racism, and in particular it will locate the ideological roots of anti-Rohingya Burman-Rakhine chauvinism, and the solemn issue of stateless people from Arakan of Burma.

Endnotes:

(1) Quoted in SAJAI JOSE, 'Democracy can only be a transition in Myanmar' Fri, 30 Nov 2007 09:23:35 -0800 http://www.tehelka. com/story_ main36.asp? filename= Ws081207Burma. asp# TEHELKA - Friday, 30 November 2007 TEHELKA “Shan-EUgroup” Shan-EUgroup@yahoogroups.com

(2) Joshua Eliot and Jane Bickersteth, Myanmar (Burma), (England: Footprint handbooks Ltd., 1997), p.7.

(3) A survey was done by Arakan Information Website which gave the readers choice between Muslim Rohingyas or the Burmans as the enemy. Reading the survey felt like I was reading a medieval text.

(4) Robert Horn, “Orbituary: The Puppet Master of Burma, Ne Win made his nation what it is today: poor, paranoid and oppressed,” Time Asia, http://www.time.com/time/asia/covers/1101021216/newin.html

(5) The corrupt Nasaka, Burma’s border security force takes money from people on any excuse. In this case, a group of people gossiping in a house to get rid of boredom after having food in Tin May village in Arakan State were being penalized for the act, the excuse that they were gossiping against the military government. Kaladan Press: Nasaka extorts money for gossiping Tue 7 Nov 2006 Filed under: News, Inside Burma http://www.burmanet.org/news/2006/11/07/kaladan-press-nasaka-extorts-money-for-gossiping/

(6)Aliran Kesedaran Negara, Oral Intervention at the 

By Sai Wansai

With Thein Sein government seen as almost bending over backwards to pave way for Aung San Suu Kyi led National League for Democracy (NLD) party re-registration by changing the party registration law, which would enable it to be engaged in parliament by-elections later this year and also lend legitimacy to the regime, it must be hard pressed to come up with a clear-cut decision on whether to join or refuse to participate in Naypyidaw’s political set up. 

It is said that the amendments still need to be signed into law by Thein Sein. 

For now, Suu Kyi is still able to evade or duck the question of re-registration by saying that the amendments have not been in place yet and that the party meeting could only tackle the issue once the amended law is promulgated While rejection could roll back Suu Kyi’s freedom, visibility and resumed harassment of the NLD, if Naypyidaw choose to curtail or withdraw the privilege granted so far, going along to re-register the party would mean abandoning the 2009, Shwegondaing Declaration and democratic norms. 

If so, Suu Kyi is confronted with a dilemma and a scenario of “escaping between the horns”; to live up to the moral obligation and Panglong Agreement would have to be worked out, if she is to survive the recent delicate, political pressure heaping down on her. 

The revision of recent party registration law, which dropped the barring of anyone convicted of a crime from joining a party and a re-wording for political parties to "respect and obey" the 2008 constitution instead of "preserve and protect”, is a progress in itself but hardly enough to satisfy the broad spectrum of stakeholders involved in Burma’s political arena. 

To be able to push for a genuine reform, the 2008 Constitution, which is in effect a military supremacy one, would have to be amended. 

Some major flaws of the Constitution are as follows:- 

The self-appointed, political leadership role of the military. 

The right to appoint 25% of active military representatives in Pyidaungsu Hluttaw, the Region Hluttaws and the State Hluttaws by the Commander-in-Chief of the Defence Services as Hluttaw representatives. 

The National Defense and Security Council” (NDSC), which is a “Permanent Military Institution”, could exercise executive power by way of the State President and also by itself. 

The ceiling of more than 75% approval votes to amend the constitution, by representatives of the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw, followed by a nation-wide referendum only with the votes of more than half of those who are eligible to vote. 

Without serious discussion and amendment of these major flaws, one could not hope to push for a substantial and genuine, democratic reform process. At least, Aung San Suu Kyi and NLD would need to have an assurance that the time frame attached, step by step, fading out of military representatives within the parliament would have to be worked out, before agreeing to re-register the party and eventual political participation within the framework of the existing political system. 

Naypyidaw, rightly or wrongly, believes that its longing for more international legitimacy and lifting of sanctions could be achieved through Aung San Suu Kyi and NLD political participation. 

From the point of non-Burman ethnic nationalities, the amendment of the following points is crucial to end the ethnic conflict and possible political participation in nation-building process. 

The peace talk’s overtures with the Karen National Union (KNU), Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) and Shan State Army South (SSA-S) have also been made by the Thein Sein government. 

By Maung Zarni

Credit : Dr.Zarni

တခ်ိန္တုန္းကေတာ့ (လြတ္လပ္ေရးမတုိင္ခင္နဲ႔ လြတ္လပ္ေရးရၿပီးစက)အထူးသျဖင့္ အိမ္နားနီးခ်င္း ႏိုင္ငံေတြက ျမန္မာကုိအထင္ႀကီးေလးစားတယ္။ လီကြမ္ယု လုိပုဂိဳလ္မ်ိဳး ငယ္တုန္းက ျမန္မာကုိ အားက်ခဲ့ဖူးတယ္လုိ႔ဆုိ တယ္။ ထုိင္းလူမ်ိဳးေတာ္ေတာ္မ်ားမ်ားကလည္း ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံကုိ အထင္ႀကီး အားက်ခဲ့တယ္ ဆုိတာၾကားဖူးခဲ့ ပါတယ္။ တုိင္းျပည္ကလည္းခ်မ္းသာ၊ ပညာေရးကလည္း အဆင့္ျမွင့္၊ လူေတြကလည္း ေလာကနီတိတရားကုိ အေလးထားလုိက္နာတာၾကတာေၾကာင့္ ကုိယ္က်င့္သိကၡာေတြ ေကာင္းၾကတယ္၊ ရုိးသားၾကတယ္၊ ေဖၚေရြတတ္ ၾကတယ္၊ သီးခံခြင့္လႊတ္တတ္ၾကတယ္၊ စိတ္ထားေရးရာ မွာျမင့္ျမတ္တယ္။ ထုိထုိေသာ အခ်က္မ်ားေၾကာင့္ သိ သိသမွ်ေသာ ရပ္ေဝးရပ္နီးႏိုင္ငံ ကလူေတြအားက် အထင္ႀကီးၾကတာအဆန္းေတာ့မဟုတ္ပါဘူး။

အခုအခ်ိန္မွာေတာ့ ကံမေကာင္းအေၾကာင္းမလွလုိ႔ တုိင္းျပည္ကအာဏာရွင္လက္ေအာက္က်ေရာက္ၿပီး ျပည္သူ ေတြဆင္းရဲတြင္းနက္ခဲ့ရတယ္။ တုိင္းျပည္ပတ္ပတ္လည္မွာ ဒုကၡသည္စခန္းေတြနဲ႔ တန္းစီေနခဲ့ ရတယ္။ တုိင္း ျပည္ဆင္းရဲတာကတပုိင္း ထားပါေတာ့၊ အူမမေတာင့္လုိ႔ သီလမေစာင့္ႏိုင္တာ ဆုိတာ ႀကီးကလည္းအက်င့္ တ ရပ္လုိျဖစ္လာၿပီး ၾကာေတာ့စိတ္ဓါတ္ေရးရာ က်န္းမာေရးကလည္းယုိယြင္း၊ အေတြးအေခၚေရးရာ ဖြံ႔ၿဖိဳးမွဳအား ကလည္းက်ဆင္း၊ ေကာင္းေသာအတုကုိယူႏိုင္ တဲ့အျမင္အားကလည္း နည္းသထက္နည္းျဖစ္ခဲ့ရပါတယ္။ ငါးခုံးမတစ္ေကာင္ေၾကာင့္ တေလွလုံးပုတ္တယ္ ဆုိရင္ေတာ့ ၾကားေကာင္းပါေသးရဲ႕။ အခုဟာက အေကာင္ ႀကီးႀကီး တေလွလုံးနီးပါးပုတ္ကုန္ ၿပီလုိ႔ဆုိရမလုိပါ။ ဆုိေတာ့ သိသိသမွ်ေသာ ရပ္ေဝးရပ္နီးႏိုင္ငံ ကလူအေတာ္ မ်ားမ်ားက ျမန္မာဆုိ ႏွေခါင္းရွဳံ႕ အထင္ေသးလာတယ္၊ ဒါဟာလည္း အဆန္းေတာ့မဟုတ္ပါဘူး။

အိမ္တြင္းမွာ စည္းကမ္းမဲ့တာက နည္းနည္းခံသာေသးတယ္၊ အျပင္မွာ ဖုိးသင္းေမ်ာက္လုပ္ျပတာက သူ တကာ အထင္ေသးစရာျဖစ္သလုိ ရွက္စရာလည္းေကာင္းလွပါတယ္။ မႏွစ္တုုံးက ရုရွားမွာ တကၠသုိလ္ဘြဲ႔လြန္ သင္ တန္း(အဆင့္ျမွင့္ပညာေရးသင္တန္း) တက္ေနၾကတဲ့ျမန္မာေက်ာင္းသားေတြ အေဆာင္စည္းကမ္းမလုိက္နာလုိ႔ ပုိးမႊားနဲ႔ ေရာဂါဘယ အႏၱရာယ္ပါစုိးရိမ္လာရတဲ့အတြက္ အေဆာင္ကထြက္ေပးၾကရမယ္၊ မထြက္ေပးရင္ တရား စြဲမယ္ဆုိတဲ႔ အေၾကာင္း ျမန္မာသံရုံးကုိသက္ဆုိင္ရာတကၠသုိလ္က အေၾကာင္းၾကားခဲ့ရတယ္လုိ႔ဆုိတယ္။

The very title is disgusting where U Khin Maung Saw accuses the ethnic Rohingyas of illegal Bangladeshis and their refugees of ‘not genuine but illegal immigrants’. On top of that he makes cry wolf about islamization of Burma with 55 million population by a small neglected and underprivileged Rohingya community. His work is packed with false propagandas, make-believe stories, fantasized history and inflammatory writings that transmit the odor of ‘systematic racism’ and ‘Muslim Phobia’. It is an effort for Rakhinization, Buddhistization and de-Muslimization of Arakan through extermination of the Muslim Rohingya population using the oppressive state apparatus of the military regimes that emerged from 1962 in various shapes and manifestations, the last being the current civilianized military government of U Thein Sein. .

Even if the Rohingyas were not native to what we call Burma today, our birthplace, the inhuman and inhumane treatment of nearly 1 million Rohingya in a semi-concentration camp should be UNACCEPTABLE to any nationals from Burma, who think they have human decency and believe in the responsibility to other human beings simply out of common humanity. 

Remember "Chin" as we know it today didn't exist as such until the early 1900, and the Chin as a people, a collective, is the direct result of colonial missionaries. Within 50 years since they emerged as a people whose new core and collective identity evolves around Christianity, the Chin were recognzied as a signatory of the foundaing document of modern Burma. I am glad some Chin people are speaking out. 

It looks like not only do we have a government in power that is deeply racist, sexist and Neanderthal but many of our own fellow Bama and Rakhins drink from the same neo-fascist, racist ideological well. Adolf Hitler would certainly have a fair hearing in most parts of Burma, it seems.

Mein Kempf, Nazism's required reading written by Hitler, is known to be popular with certain dissident circles along Thai-Burmese borders.

Let's just be honest.

Who is a Bama? What is this sick notion of "purity" of blood? 

Credit: Dr.Zarni

 Villagers in Chin State are still facing forced labour and arbitrary extortion committed by Burma Army soldiers on patrol and local government authorities, sources from the Chin Human Rights Organization (CHRO) said. 

Captain Zarni Htun and four soldiers from Light Infantry Battalion No. 274 ordered four villagers from Bukphir, Tedim Township to carry an electric generator and their military rucksacks up to Darkhai village in Tonzang Township for about 12 hours in mid October. 

One of the villagers, who eye-witnessed the situation, told CHRO that the four Chin locals, aged between 20 and 30, did not receive any payment for their labor for the two days that they were forced to work.

In May this year, the International Labour Organization (ILO) made a visit to Hakha, Chin State, and conducted an awareness-raising on the issue of forced labour with the local authorities involving more than 160 officials from across the state. 

Around mid last month, Chin locals from villages sharing the road connecting Falam Town of Chin State and Vaphai, Mizoram State of India were forcibly asked to work on road maintenance and to repair bridges in preparation for an inspection visit by the Minister for Transport of Chin government. 

CHRO's sources revealed early last month that Burma Army soldiers based in Bukphir village, Tedim Township shot a pig belonging to a local farmer for their military ration. 

The soldiers were reported telling the Chin owner they took one-third of the meat for the cost of their bullet, adding: "They had mistaken the pig for a wild boar in the jungle."

Since July this year, soldiers from Light Infantry Battalion No. 304 on duty at the gate of Matupi Town, Matupi Township have been collecting 2,000 kyats from local travellers who do not bring their identity card with them on demand. 

One local Christian pastor, whose details are kept anonymous, was also forced to pay the demanded fees on 31 August 2011, according to a source from CHRO. 

Almost 92 percent of people surveyed in Chin State had been subjected to at least one incident of forced labour in the year before February/March 2010, according to a January 2011 report 'Life Under the Junta: Evidence of Crimes Against Humanity in Burma’s Chin State' by the Physicians for Human Rights.

Credit : Van Biak Thang

Abid Bahar, PhD

( Part of the essay is adapted from Abid Bahar's book "Burma's Missing Dots," 2010) 

Burma is a medium-sized country; rich in mineral resources and agriculture, and the majority of its people are followers of the Buddhist faith. With such material and spiritual assets, it should be a peaceful and prosperous nation, but the reality is different. Burma has become a despotic country with a world-wide reputation for human rights violations and producing refugees. It is now clear that from the time of Burman King Anawrahta’s accession to power, through the advent of military rule in the 1960s until the present day, Burmese rulers have treated ethnic and racial minorities as subject peoples or even aliens. This is the most important idiosyncrasy in Burma’s history; even at the present time, it is causing massive refugee movements to neighboring countries. Seen in this light, Burma’s problem is not primarily a democratic predicament but an ethnic one. In this work, I hope to provide the missing dots to the derisory understanding of Burma presented in the popular media. 

Burma became independent in 1948, but it squandered its opportunity to become a truly modern nation. It has become clear from this research that in the last couple of centuries, Burma has developed two distinctive models of rule: the military’s model of rule by force and the democratic model of leadership with citizens’ participation. The tradition of the Kings is indigenous to Burma. In the new jungle capital, Nayapyidaw (City of Kings), it is not the statue of Aung San or U Nu that tower over the city, but those of the three kings who sought to keep Burma together through their genocidal rule. 

The Burman model of ruling by force while still claiming to be good Buddhists began in the time of the Pagan King, Anwardhta (1044 -77). Anwardhta was a usurper who deposed and banished his elder brother, and then took over power in mainland Burma and began occupying the territories in the South, North and East. Anwardhta also made Burma a Buddhist Theraveda kingdom. The King founded Buddhism as the state religion and appointed himself defender of the faith. He also proclaimed himself ruler of the newly-annexed territories, two-thirds of which today are inhabited by minorities. He made Buddhism a political ideology. This model of brutal oppression of minorities was so diligently practiced by Burmese rulers that, referring to the tradition of another Burmese king of the late 18 century and its effect on 19th century politics, Harvey says “The reasoning on which Bodawpaya acted was not peculiar to himself. It was the regular policy of most Burmese kings...It was not unlike the policy of European countries in former times, but they outgrew it.”(1) The traditional belief among ethnic Burmans - that they are the citizens of Burma and the minorities are only the strangers in their land - is a direct result of the model established by the Burmese kings. This type of chauvinistic mentality forms the basis of xenophobia in Burma, and persists even among some representatives of the so-called modern democratic leadership movement. Meanwhile, the suffering of the minorities continues. 

Despite strong commitment to the traditional kings’model, there was one point in its history that Burma experienced a marked shift toward the model of democracy. Burma’s British colonial history was brief –

from 1824-1948— and during this time, Burma did not manage to evolve a system comparable to that in western democracies. Burma’s move toward democracy received its greatest setback when Aung San, the leader of the liberation movement, who wanted to terminate the traditional Burman understanding of minority peoples as subject peoples, was assassinated along with his entire team, by ultranationalists. This occurred only six months before the country’s independence. Thus, without Aung San, Burma missed its first great opportunity to become a modern nation. 

Chris Lawa comments: “Arakan is no less than a microcosm of Burma with its ethnic conflicts and religious antagonisms, and is by far the most tense and explosive region of the country.” (2) The Western media concentrates mostly on Burma’s eastern border ­with Thailand based on information gained from NGOs. This book focuses on the Western frontier where human rights violations based on racial discrimination are rife. What is even more serious is that there have been systematic efforts to exterminate Burmese-born Rohingya citizens. Based on the military’s interpretation of history, Rohingyas are not Burmese citizens because they are not considered indigenous people of modern Burma, where an ethnic group is called "taingyintha" which translates as "native of a country." As a result, Rohingyas are denied their birthright. The International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) states: "Every child has the right to acquire a nationality."(3) In its attempts to scare away the Rohingyas, the military conducts intimidating night raids against the villagers, ostensibly to verify their citizenship. Marriages have been banned, forced labour has been imposed, and destruction of villages and rape has been used as a weapon of war against minorities, particularly the Rohingyas. These are some of the medieval practices that the military has utilized without any remorse. 

Although the rulers of Burma are mostly responsible for the genocide, their numerous collaborators are equally answerable for their crimes. The Convention on Genocide spells this out unequivocally in Article IV: “Persons committing genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in Article III shall be punished, whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals.”(4) And in the post-Nuremberg world, genocide is no longer the internal business of individual national governments, but of the entire international community. 

The defiant junta attempts to excuse itself by claiming that Rohingyas entered Burma after 1824, the year the British occupied Arakan. According to this interpretation, only the ancestors of people who settled prior to 1823 are the indigenous people of Burma and those who arrived later are not citizens. To the military rulers, it is up to the present so-called noncitizens such as the Rohingyas to prove the residence status of their ancestors. This is unfortunate for the Rohingyas, since all their ancestors born before 1824 are long dead. The other criterion to justify citizenship, that they should speak good Burmese, is also not helpful to Rohingyas since most inhabit the border regions where Burmese is rarely spoken. This situation is not peculiar to Rohingyas, Burma is a vast country of peasants and fisherman of multi ethnic and racial backgrounds. Like the Rohingyas, not all of its people situated in fringe areas speak Burmese. To qualify for citizenship, one also needs to be educated. Rohingyas, however, are mostly peasants, and even worse, no schooling is now allowed for Rohingyas. They are poor and mostly uneducated; which alone disqualifies them from Burmese citizenship. Another criterion for gaining citizenship is to be of good character and of sound mind. It is scarcely surprising that underprivileged Rohingya, who are largely stateless and unemployed, will have difficulty satisfying this criterion in the eyes of the Burmese elite. To remove the traces of Rohingya existence in Arakan, Burma’s Arakan state has even been renamed the Rakine state. All these gradual tightening measures finally led to the new 1982 Constitutional Act that declared Rohingyas to be stateless people.

Rohingyas have distinct racial features that set them apart from Burmese and Rakhines, and discrimination against them is simply racist. The military’s policy in dealing with Rohingyas is termed by scholars and human rights groups as “genocide through intimidation.” (5) The military government’s policy has been assimilation, also known as “Burmanization” for minorities that are racially and religiously similar to the Burmans, and extermination for groups like the Rohingyas. As a result of the intimidation policy, close to a million Rohingyas are stateless today. (6)

The Rohingya/Rakhine/Burman Triangle 

What is more difficult for the Rohingyas is that they are caught in a triangle between the Burmese military and the Rakhine population of Arakan. The Rakhine population in general sees Rohingyas as a threat to their exclusive claim to Arakan, and therefore supports the military’s extermination policy. Likewise, since 1962, the Burmese military has oppressed the Rohingyas in an attempt to gain the support of the local Rakhine population. Surprisingly, in this scenario, self-styled pro-democracy writers such as Aye Chan, Aye Kyaw or the monk Ashin Nayaka, spread xenophobia at home in Arakan but preach democracy abroad. In spite of such flagrant contradictions, they continue to be counted among the heroes of Burma’s high-flying democracy movement. Not surprisingly, on the question of the military’s grave human rights violations against stateless Rohingya people, the democracy movement leaders have no clear plan. For the military, the human rights issue is a purely domestic question. However, the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews during World War II has made this interpretation of sovereignty untenable. As a result of the prosecution of Nazi leaders as war criminals, the newly defined legal category of “crimes against humanity,” and the creation of the United Nations, human rights practices within states came to be defined as “legitimate sources of international concern.” ((7) 

Rohingya Genocide Rohingyas who don’t want to leave Burma are being used as forced labor to build highways or to carry loads for the military. Under the circumstances, Rohingyas leave Arakan for other countries in the region. Historically speaking, what triggered the Rohingyas' statelessness is not that Rohingyas are foreigners in Burma. In fact, Rohingyas have a history in Burma dating back to the 8th century. Their status was even recognized by Burma’s democratically elected U Nu government in 1954. (8) 

Arakan, situated between South Asia and South East Asia, is both an extension of Burma and of Bengal and the Rakhines and the Rohingyas are the expressions of this historic reality. But in the Burman-Rakhine general definition, Rohingyas are categorized as noncitizens, even “influx Viruses” according to a phrase coined by Rakhine intellectuals. So instead of recognizing the historic fact of chronic Burmese invasion and occupation of Arakan, resulting in the rise of the many non-Bengali settlements in Chittagong, Rohingyas are now being labelled by Rakhine intelligentia as foreigners who deserve to be exterminated. 

Leafing through the pages of the infamous xenophobic book: Influx Viruses written by Arakani intellectuals, one of Voltaire’s sayings naturally comes to mind: “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” These writings provide the Arakani hoodlums with pseudo-intellectual justification for their genocidal acts in Arakan. The Military leaders are even more convinced by these writings. In reply to a question about the Rohingyas’ citizenship in Burma, the Burmese Ambassador to Bangladesh, Thane Myint, lately said, chuckling: “Many people are claiming they lived in Rakhine [Arakan] state a long, long time ago. Some of them are, or have been, living in Myanmar [Burma]. Some of them may not be [from Burma].”(9) What is frustrating to human rights groups is that to avoid controversy neither the military nor the democracy movement leaders will say no outright to the Rohingya’s claims of Burmese citizenship in one-on-one encounters. But they will do nothing about it. Indeed, this is a typical manifestation of Burmese “democracy,” which in reality is a blatant case of xenophobia in action. 

Buddha visited Burma

Burmese people are so devoted to Buddhism as a national identity that most people believe that Buddha actually visited Burma; an Arakanese would say he only got as far as Arakan. In the present hopeless situation, if Buddha actually visited Burma, he would doubtless have a great impact and might succeed in bringing about some radical changes. Unfortunately, Buddha never visited Burma, not even Arakan. Burmese Buddhists, unfortunately, have not yet learned to be compassionate toward minorities. In this book we have seen Buddhist monks led by the military government vandalizing Mosques in Mandalay. Here, Christian and Chinese minorities occasionally become targets of ultra-nationalist forces, some of which were led by the monks themselves. Due to the nationalist strain in Burmese Buddhism, Burma’s Buddhist monks have a history of involvement in ethnic violence. (10) Buddha would be mortified at such behaviour. 

It seems Buddhism in Burma is inextricably interwoven with the political ideology of domination by the Burman majority. Thus, it is evident that both the military and the democracy movement leaders use religion to their own advantage. This is also true because unlike classical Tibetan Buddhism, Burma’s Theraveda Buddhism has a history of involvement in secular affairs. It is interesting to note that Burmese nationalism first began with the formation of the Young Men’s Buddhist Association. 

Under the present circumstances in Burma, both the democratic leadership and the military remain hugely uncommitted to minority rights. What is needed by the democracy movement leaders is to be open to sincere debate, defending human rights, and uniting the many ethnic minorities. It seems that the leadership needed to bring about democratic change in Burma is practically nonexistent. There are several reasons why this is so; one is Aung San Suu Ki is in jail and is unable to lead the nation. In addition, the peaceful demonstrations staged by Buddhists have tended to achieve no practical results. All that has happened in this very confused “Burmese way to democracy,” or what the Burmese military calls its “way to disciplined democracy. 

Ideally, Buddhism should help to promote human rights and the dignity of human beings. Indeed, according to Buddhism, “each human being has unique value, which should be protected and cultivated.”This emphasis on the uniqueness and intrinsic importance of individuals is, in turn, directly compatible with, and conducive to, a universalistic concept of human rights that seeks to guarantee the security and integrity of every human being.”(11) It appears that long years of military rule created authoritarian institutions and a deeply ingrained tradition of intolerance toward minorities. In such a context, the leaders of the opposition democratic movement could not develop an effective, parallel model to challenge the military. Demonstrating the recent growing confidence of the army, a poem, entitled “Armed Forces Day resolve” states “With secure Road Map, March we in unity” and “Skyful of lies and slanders, Low-breds overseas, And foreign-relied traitors.” (12) 

Conclusion 

In contemporary Burma, people tend to look for enemies. They normally pick on Muslims as easy targets and public enemy number one. But in our search for the greatest public menace in Burma, we found that the Swindlers were the most dangerous enemy of the Burmese people. These are the civilian collaborators of the military and are the hidden enemy of the democracy movement. What is the nature of this collaboration? The swindler fights only with the mask of the devil. He sees democracy as only applicable to his own group and provides justifications for the military to commit genocide. What is needed in Burma is not so much a democracy movement as human rights education because a full understanding of human rights entails both rights and obligations. While Burman-Rakhines are entitled to have human rights, they should also respect the human rights of others. 

Finally, what are the conditions that keep the military in power in Burma? This study shows that it is the military leaders’ deep commitment to keeping “true Burma” together by force and driving “extrinsic” elements out. The democracy movement leaders” model of Burman democracy, which should be a model of multi-culturalism, is less committed to protecting minority rights than the military is to eradicating them. Thus, before the democracy movement can truly progress in Burma, these are the central contradictions that need to be understood and resolved. 

Suffice it to say, the history of Burma is the history of its ethnic groups’ struggle against the Burman majority’s attempt to keep them a subject people. From our vantage point, Burma's missing dots are not to be found in the differences between the military regime and the democracy movement, but in the deeply rooted question of ethnic intolerance that lies at the heart of self-identity of all Burmese, authoritarian and “democratic” alike. When the radically ethnic nature of this dilemma is properly brought to light, only then will we be able to connect the dots and discern the emerging face of genocide that has underlain Burmese internal policy for so long. 

Democracy is about citizenship and the military’s exclusionist model of defining the indigenousness of ethnic groups negates the notion of citizenship. Burma was born with deep structural problems. Ever since its independence, the military has continued to apply its medieval method of nation-building by the eradication of its ethnic members and their heritage.

The democracy movement leadership in provinces like Arakan and elsewhere is very weak. Similar manifestations of xenophobia aimed at exterminating the Christian minorities persist in Kachine and Karanni states. In Arakan state, no measures have yet been taken even to condemn the racist anti-Rohingya stances of so-called democracy movement leaders such as Ashin Nayaka, Aye Kyaw and their organization, the ANC. In consequence, the genocide continues. 

As the years slip by, Burma faces a growing demand for change. The findings of the present research suggest that to fight a winning war, the democracy movement as a whole should undergo dramatic internal changes in outlook. In a country with a large ethnic population such as Burma, nationalism ought to seek a compromise with pluralism. It should not look for enemies. What is needed is to replace some of the spurious leaders who in the name of spirituality preach xenophobia, ethnocentrism and ultranationalism. 

Contrary to the above, true revolutionaries are not shy people. They know the difference between democracy-lovers and the reactionaries. As a matter of duty and also to discourage the reactionaries and their pretensions, true democrats should bring these people to public attention. Thus, what Burmese revolutionaries need is to look for not the enemies in ethnic groups but friends. In fact, unlike the military’s xenophobic approach of finding friends only in the Burman and Rakhine ethnic groups, in order to live in the present, true democrats should find friends in all the people of Burma otherwise Burma continues to live in the past. 

______________ 

Endnotes 

(1) Harvey, G.E. Harvey, History of Burma: From the Earliest Times to 10 March 1824 The Beginning of the English Conquest, (London: Frank Cass and Co. Ltd), 1967, 153)" 

(2) Chris Lewa, Conflict, discrimination and humanitarian challenges in Northern Arakan State” Forum Asia, Bangkok, livered at the EU – Burma Day 2003 Conference, Brussels, 8 October 2003

(3) The international covonant of civil and political rights (ICCPR) Article 24 (A) 

(4) Ibid 

(5) BBC Videohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kIP-tU89QA&feature=related

(6) The figure was disclosed to me by Chris Lewa in Geneva. Lewa works closely with the Rohingyas in Chittagong and in the Arakan province, estimates that about 200,000 undocumented Rohingya refugees now live in Bangladesh and another 500,000 Rohingyas now live in all over the world. 

(6) Chris Lewa, Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA)Bangkok, Thailand, pyright @ 2003, rum Asia, biblio.org/obl/docs/KICKEDTOBURMA-Final-3.htm

(7) Prime Minister of Burma, U Nu and his democractic government recognized the Rohingyas as an indigenous ethnic community of Burma. On 25th Sept. 1954 at 8:00 p. m., the Prime minister, in his radio speech to the nation declared Rohingya as an indigenous ethnic community of Burma.

(8) James Smith, quoted in “What is Genocide?” http://efchr.mcgill.ca/WhatIsGenocide_en.php?menu=2

(9) Clive Parker, “The Rohingya Riddle, June, 2006. http://www.rohingya.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=34&Itemid=32

(10)Photos of Pegu riot shows monks even entered inside Mosques to carry out destruction. 

(11), Reeta Chowdhari Tremblay, James Kelly, Michael Lipson and Jean F. Mayer (2008) Human Rights: Origins, Concepts, and Critiques. Toronto; Thomson-Nelson Publishers, P.11, 93

(12) Junta reaffirms noble history of military

http://www.mizzimab urmese.com/ content/view/ 838/1/