An armed insurgency in Myanmar heralds changing tide for Rohingya
THE insurgent group announced its existence with a predawn attack on three Myanmar border guard posts. Hundreds of Rohingya militants, armed mainly with knives and slingshots, killed nine police officers and seized weapons.
It was about time, Naing Lin, 28, said of the October attack near his village, Kyee Kan Pyin.
“The government is torturing us,” he said by phone this week.
“The aim of the group is to protect our rights. That’s all. They are doing what they should do.”
The beginning of an armed resistance is just one of several developments that are shifting the landscape for the Rohingya, Myanmar’s persecuted Muslim minority, with potentially far-reaching consequences.
The group that attacked the border posts, Harakah al-Yaqin, is believed to have several hundred recruits, substantial popular support and ties to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, according to a report by the International Crisis Group.
Separately, there has been a surge of international humanitarian and political support for the Rohingya cause, mainly from Muslim countries that have cast the Rohingya as the Palestinians of Southeast Asia.
The combination threatens to internationalise and escalate a longsimmering conflict. The Myanmar government has responded to the attacks with a sweeping counterinsurgency campaign that witnesses and human rights groups say has included the killing of hundreds of civilians, the burning of villages and the systematic rape of women and girls.
In addition, some analysts fear that turning the Rohingya into a transnational Muslim cause could draw foreign jihadists of varying stripes to Myanmar, adding terrorism to an already combustible mix and giving the Myanmar military a convenient excuse for a draconian response.
But after decades of persecution, to which the rest of the world responded with a shrug, some Rohingya say an armed response is overdue.
“They are doing good things,” Naing Lin said of the insurgents. “They are protecting our rights. If it’s needed, I might join them.”
The attack on the border posts in Rakhine state was a “game changer”, according to the International Crisis Group’s report.
Harakah al-Yaqin, Arabic for “Faith Movement”, is directed by about 20 Rohingya émigrés in Saudi Arabia and led on the field by another 20 or so Rohingya with international training and experience in guerrilla warfare, the report said. It is well connected in Pakistan and Bangladesh and appears to be attracting financial backing from the Rohingya diaspora in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East, the report said.
The militia enjoys growing support from many Rohingya in Myanmar who see it as the only alternative to government repression, the International Crisis Group said. The organisation warned a continued heavyhanded approach by the military would backfire, attracting stronger backing from the Rohingya.
There have already been signs of interest by the Islamic State, or ISIS. In November, Indonesian authorities arrested three men who claimed allegiance to the Islamic State and were accused of planning to bomb prominent sites across Jakarta, including the Myanmar Embassy.
This month, Malaysian authorities detained a man who the government said was an IS follower heading to Myanmar to carry out attacks.
“All this clearly demonstrates IS slowly and steadily making inroads to influence the Rohingya issue,” said Rohan Gunaratna, a professor at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. “You can even say it’s an attempt to hijack the Rohingya agenda.”
The Myanmar government has denied allegations of rights abuses, and it says it is responding to the situation according to the rule of law.
The government has barred journalists and aid workers from entering the conflict area, in northern Rakhine state just over the Naf River from Bangladesh, and accusations that the military is carrying out a campaign of murder, rape and arson have not been independently verified.
But the reports and images of violence there have fuelled the concern of other countries in the region, especially Bangladesh and Malaysia.
Yesterday, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, a coalition of 56 countries, was holding an emergency session in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where it was expected to call for an immediate halt to military operations in Rakhine state, an independent investigation into accusations of human rights abuses, and humanitarian aid to the affected areas.
At the same time, countries in the region are wary of escalating violence in their backyards.
Bangladesh, struggling to contain the spread of Islamist extremist networks within its own borders, is concerned about the rise of an insurgency next door and the prospect of Rohingya militants using Bangladesh as a base to carry out attacks in Myanmar.
Refugees fleeing the crackdown in Myanmar have been “pouring over the border” into makeshift settlements, said Shafqat Munir, a research fellow at the Bangladesh Institute of Peace and Security Studies. “If there is a risk of potentially radicalised people coming in, that presents quite a challenge.”
Still, in contrast to previous crises, there has been little effort to stem the flow by sending refugees back to Myanmar. About 65,000 Rohingya are believed to have arrived in Bangladesh since October, joining about a half-million already living in the refugee camps near Cox’s Bazar.
Islamist organisations, including the powerful Hefazat-e-Islam, organised large rallies in Dhaka, the Bangladeshi capital, in November and December, urging the government to give the Rohingya shelter.
Madrasa students have journeyed to the refugee camps from far-flung cities to help build temporary shel- ters. Others travel halfway across the country from Dhaka and beyond to hand small gifts of cash to the oncereviled Rohingya.
Bangladeshi television is broadcasting sympathetic news coverage of Rohingya suffering in Myanmar, and images purported to be of atrocities carried out by the Myanmar military are circulating on social media.
Mohammad Imam Hussein, whose mosque near the Myanmar border provides aid to hundreds of refugees, said the videos have brought the conflict home for Bangladeshis.
“They’re seeing with their own eyes what is happening to them,” he said. “Earlier, there was no interaction between us, and I didn’t have the same feeling. But now I have seen it with my own eyes. I have seen people being killed.”
That Malaysia is taking a leading role in promoting the Rohingya is not entirely unexpected, given that it is the largest officially Muslim nation in Southeast Asia and that it has taken in tens of thousands of Rohingya refugees. But a rally led by Prime Minister Najib Razak in Kuala Lumpur in December to protest Myanmar’s mil- itary crackdown was extraordinary in a region where leaders largely mind their own business.
Najib called the military campaign “genocide” and called out Myanmar’s de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel laureate, for not doing enough. “Does she really have a Nobel Peace Prize?” he asked.
While his motives may have been less than pure – critics said he was trying to distract attention from allegations thawt he stole $1 billion in government funds and to rally voters in Malaysia’s Muslim heartland ahead of coming elections – his voice has been strong.
Malaysia, along with Saudi Arabia, is also home to Rohingya Vision, a satellite broadcaster and advocacy group that has helped circulate videos and news from Rakhine state.
Muhammad Noor, its Saudi-born managing director, says the station has 30 paid citizen journalists in Myanmar and is financed by Rohingya donors from across Southeast Asia and the Middle East. He says the station reaches at least 150,000 viewers with its app, social media channels and websites.
“We’re trying to tell the story to the world that the amount of persecution is in a very extreme level,” he said.
Another Malaysian group, the Malaysian Consultative Council for Islamic Organisation, is trying to organise an aid flotilla along the lines of the ill-fated one that tried to break an Israeli blockade of Gaza in 2010. The group, hoping to draw attention to the Rohingyas’ plight, says it will set sail early next month.
Whether the confluence of international attention and militarisation ratchets up the pressure on Myanmar is hard to fathom. Despite her dual roles as state counselor and foreign minister, Suu Kyi has little authority over the military under the powersharing detailed in Myanmar’s military-imposed Constitution.
But she has so far resisted international pressure to use her position to criticise the violence, speak out for the Rohingya or even call for an independent investigation.
Chris Lewa, director of the Arakan Project, a Rohingya rights organisation, says that increased international attention may attract extremists but could also pressure the government to seek a long-term solution.
“Without pressure,” she said, “nothing will happen.”
All this clearly demonstrates IS slowly and steadily making inroads to influence the Rohingya issue