Myanmar Issue (Important Articles & Editorials)

[Roshan wadhwani]

Atrocities against Rohingyas

March 25, 2013 16



The Buddhist regime in Myanmar is continuing with its atrocities against the Muslim population in the western state of Rakhine where majority of Rohingyas (Muslims) live. As Buddhist-Muslim riots erupted there, troops began patrolling the streets and emergency was clamped. Riots have claimed 45 lives. Around 50 military trucks are deployed in Meiktila, where homes and mosques were torched by armed mobs in three days of communal rioting.

For the past three years, Rohingyas are being subjected to murder and torture. A large number has since been forced to take refuge in Bangladesh while some had escaped to the adjoining Chinese province. And a few thousands have arrived in Karachi. The central leader of the Rohingya Solidarity Organization of Myanmar, Muhammad Imran Saeed, during a visit to Karachi recently, narrated the brutalities being perpetrated on the Muslims by the non-Muslim majority of Buddhists. He said that it was an attempt by the Myanmar government to “eliminate the Rohingya race” and according to him, 135 mosques had been pulverized. It is shocking to note that Islamic organizations as well as the UN are watching the situation as silent spectators. They need to wake up and help the beleaguered Rohingyas.

http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-ne...inst-rohingyas

[Roshan wadhwani]

Can Myanmar resolve the Kachin conflict?

Muhammad Omar Iftikhar

Myanmar is continuing its efforts to resolve the Kachin conflict. The state of Kachin, situated in the country’s north, is fighting against the Myanmar government since 1948. The fighting erupted during the Burmese Civil War when the natives of the Kachin state, which consists of ethnic and minority groups, demanded the government for basic rights. The government of Myanmar got a major blow when many of the Burmese nationals defected to the Kachin Independence Army during the Civil War of the 1960s.

The Kachin rebels have been carrying out illegal trade of narcotics and smuggling of goods. The state of Kachin also produces jade minerals, which has high worth in the international market where the rebels trade these minerals to make their ends meet. However, in 1994 the Myanmar army blocked the routes that the Kachin rebels used for the purpose of trade. As tension mounted on both sides, the Myanmar army and the Kachin rebels signed a ceasefire agreement in 1994. Even with a ceasefire in effect, the Myanmar army could not enter Kachin, as the rebels remained the sovereign force in the state.

In June 2011, seventeen years after the two sides agreed upon the ceasefire, the Myanmar army, in an unprecedented move, broke the agreement and attacked the rebels. The Myanmar army’s objective was to capture the areas near and around the state of Kachin, where China made lucrative investments in electricity projects.

Fearing that the Myanmar-Kachin conflict will destabilize the region, President Thein Sein ordered for a ceasefire in January 2013. However, President Sein’s orders had little impact as the fighting in the front line states continued. It will take weeks or months before the Myanmar army can leave Kachin because the rebels have spread landmines across the jungle terrain of the northern state. The Kachin conflict displaced more than 30,000 people since the dispute began. Recently, the United Nations also raised its opinion and sent its first mission to the conflict zone to assess the situation, analyze the damage and take action to resolve the issue.

The Myanmar-Kachin conflict can possibly put a dent on Myanmar-China relations as Kachin borders with China’s Yunnan Province. Myanmar and Chinese governments fear that the Kachin conflict may dribble into Chinese borders that could place Myanmar-China relations in peril. Since December 2012, four bombs from Myanmar fell near the Chinese border, raising security concerns for China. In addition, refugees from Kachin may enter into China, which may lead to human right issues. As a proactive measure, China has established military checkpoints in areas near the Yunnan-Kachin border.

China is serving as a mediator to bring Myanmar and Kachin to the resolution table. China can take an aggressive stance but it will avoid any such situation and will opt for a diplomatic solution because directly attacking the rebels will be an emotional assault on China itself, as the Yunnan Province is the ancestral home of the Kachin rebels. Earlier in February, Myanmar’s government and Kachin rebels held talks in Ruili, China. Both parties discussed important issues such as holding bilateral talks in the future, strengthening communication and easing tensions between the government and the rebels.
If China is concerned over the Kachin conflict, then India will also analyze the conflict since the Kachin state borders at the west with the Indian state of Assam. The only reason why China intervened into the conflict was to avoid US from prying into the issue.

If the US intervenes into the Kachin conflict, it will get an opportunity to maintain a physical presence in Myanmar, which is not acceptable to China. Moreover, the US might dictate China over its oil and gas pipelines that run alongside the Myanmar-China borders which will become operational in May 2013. China is in a position to resolve the Kachin conflict however; it should do so by providing mediatory support. The Kachin conflict will remain a burning issue until Myanmar does not pursue a strategy to wipe out all rebel intent from Kachin. Myanmar would need continuous support from China if it wishes to see Kachin a conflict-free zone.

(The writer is a Karachi-based journalist who regularly writes on regional issues with focus on South Asia)

http://www.thefrontierpost.com/category/40/

[Roshan wadhwani]

Plight of Muslims

The slaughter of Muslims in Myanmar had barely evoked a response from Pakistan that reports came in of the slaughter of Muslims in Sri Lanka by Buddhists of the majority Sinhalese ethnicity. Though Myanmar is supposed to be tolerant, the slaughter of Rohingyas has meant that Buddhists have learnt to be violent, just like all other politically organised religions. This has demonstrated the link between the violence shown in Sri Lanka and that in Burma, even though they are not apparently related. It has also been shown that it is not just Christianity, Judaism or Hinduism have followers offering Muslims violence, but even a religion supposedly as nonviolent as Buddhism too. Pakistani President Asif Zardari has written to Myanmarese President U Thein Senn calling for better security to stop the killing of the Rohingyas, whose slaughter has a long history, and which recurred recently in the Yangon area. Pakistan was forced to take this step after the international organizations which should have acted, have maintained silence. Foremost would be the UN and the OIC. The OIC had set up a Contact Group after the massacres last year, but the UN had not taken even this action.

Even though other problems involving Muslims have not been solved, it seems that new ones are emerging, and joining them, refusing to be solved. The international community has failed to solve the Kashmir and Palestinian problems, even though both were brought to the notice of the UN back in 1948. These occupations of Muslim lands contrast with the way that East Timor and South Sudan were created. In both cases, new Christian states were created, and Muslim states lost territory.

One of the lessons driven home has been how ineffectual international organizations are, even those set up by Muslim states. Pakistan, if it could achieve any believable certainty in its own, could lead the charge in standing up for Muslims. Without a demonstration of the ability to defend Muslims, Muslim states will have to depend on the states in which they live to protect them. As events have shown, neither Myanmar nor Sri Lanka are particularly good at this task. It should not be ignored that the security forces of both countries have majorities of the Buddhist co-religionists of those committing the slaughter. The Muslim countries must be wary of the fate of Muslim minorities in other countries, not just because this might agitate their own peoples, but because they must protect their own minorities from such barbarous atrocities.

http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-ne...ons/editorials

[Roshan wadhwani]

Stop Killing the Burmese Muslims!

Muhammad Talha

Burma has a population 75 million with the Muslim population being just 0.7 million. The Burmese Muslims have been under this affliction after 1962 when the Army usurped the power in Burma. It all started on 3rd June 2012 when 11 innocent Muslims were killed by the Burmese Army and the Buddhist mobs after bringing them down from a bus. A vehement protest was carried out in the Muslim majority province of Arakan, but the Protestants fell victims to the tyranny of the mobs and the army.

Trying to elude capture and an imminent killing; Burmese Muslims thronged to the Bangladeshi border, but all they met was dismay. The Government of Bangladesh refused to offer them asylum.

Over 500 Muslim villages have been incinerated hither-to. Thousands have been exterminated. The persecution of the Burmese Muslims at the hands of the Buddhist mobs is at its full swing. Yet all the human rights organizations have maintained a criminal silence up till now. Has the Muslim world become so callous that they remain undeterred by such genocide?

This is not a new thing or an unprecedented massacre. Muslims have been a subject to such hostility even before. If we go through the
annals of history we come to the very tenable conclusion that Muslims were always on the suffering side. Islam is a religion of peace and
harmony. It doesn’t allow its followers to lay-waste any other tenet. This leaves behind a big question mark. Why are the followers
of such a peaceful religion being oppressed from time to time?

The fear stricken faces of the poor Burmese Muslims really cuts one apart. The glimpse of their bruised bodies is a heart rending
spectacle. Where is the UN now? Why isn’t the International media highlighting this issue? Why are the competitive authorities of the
Muslim world procrastinating?

Stop killing the Burmese Muslims. JI did a meritorious job by staging rallies against this brutality. The government of Pakistan should
raise a voice in favor of the poor Burmese Muslims at the international forum. The whole Muslim world should join hands to get
the poor Burmese out of their distress and misery.

In lieu of launching into a tirade against the killings, something should be done on the ground. If we don’t help out our brothers there then we are equally responsible for their bloodshed. We won’t be able to satisfy our conscience, and the abrasive cries of the Burmese Muslims will keep on pinching us throughout our lives.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/

[Roshan wadhwani]

Apathy to the Carnage of Muslims in Myanmar

Muhammad Faheem

The world is silent, the UN is silent, the OIC is mum and the Muslim Capitals speak out nothing, demonstrating full apathy on the carnage of Muslim minority going on in the Bhuddist majority country of Myanmar, previously called as Burma. Historically the Muslim majority province Arakan of that country was a Muslim kingship which was forcefully annexed to Burma after attacking it in 1784.

The naked atrocities and the unimaginable crimes meted out to the Muslims of the country are second to none over the globe at the moment. Even the children, the women and the old age people are not spared and are killed brutally by the ones called to be followers of a faith (Bhudism) which obligates on its followers not to kill even an injurious insect, leave alone a human being.

The police and the armed forces of the country are silent spectators of this dreadful arson and bloody carnage of thousands of hapless minority Muslims. The province of Arakan is the centre of this bloody game where the unmatched crimes of blood bathing is going on before the very eyes of the military rulers.

It seems that there is no government writ there and every one is free in killing and even burning alive the Muslims who are at the mercy of the killers.

The Muslims are not allowed to get education there and even they cannot marry at their own free will but with going through a very trying procedure of enquiry by the government agencies. The life, honor and property of the Muslims are at stake and they find themselves forced to adopt Bhuddist names in order to conceal their identity as Muslims.

What has happened to the so-called media channels which never hesitate to make resounding hue and cry if some thing happens to a non-Muslim anywhere in the world. Why do they remain mum on the cruelties going on against the Burmese Muslims? The Muslims rulers and heads of the states including Pakistan are silent and even the Islamic movements in various Muslim countries, with few exceptions, have not made serious protests before their rulers to divert their attention to the criminalities done against their brethren in Myanmar. Why the big turbaned Mullahs so deeply entrenched in the election campaign, striving for alliances with their secular counterparts, do not find a few moments to speak on the issue of the Muslims, bleeding in Myanmar? Well the media and the human right activists ever pay their attention to utter a few words about the bloodiest criminalities going on in that country at the hands of the Bhuddists whose spiritual grand-grand father, the Great Mahatama Bhudda could not tolerate even the scene of a dying dog and left for ‘BanBas’ in the grooves and the jungle. Why the Bhuddist majority are committing these atrocities in clear defiance and violation of the teachings of the Mahatama is not understandable.

The only reason is that there is no Muslim Power in shape of Khilafat on the earth to response to the cries of the Muslims in Myanmar and elsewhere in the world as it had happened in Deebal (Karachi) on the cry of a single Muslim woman maltreated at the hands of some criminals. History does not forget the coming over of Muhammad Bin Qasim, a young General of 17 in response to the call of that poor lady.

http://www.thefrontierpost.com/category/40/