Myanmar’s war on Muslims
ON A cool night last November, a euphoric crowd surged around the headquarters of Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) in Yangon. Supporters danced and waved flags as result after result was announced from a digital billboard. It was a landslide. Amid the cheers, a man named Than Htay told me he how he had waited decades to vote freely.
For the first time in more than half a century of a brutal junta, civilians would be in charge of the country. But a year after the vote, it’s not clear just who is in charge in Myanmar – and Myanmar’s military, once despised, is riding a new wave of support.
The reason? An enemy propped up for decades by the army has made a resurgence in the public imagination, if not in reality. The military is restoring its political power by returning to its war footing against Rohingya Muslims, a persecuted minority who for years have been loathed as “illegal immigrants” from Bangladesh, despite their presence in Myanmar dating back centuries.
It was dictatorial General Ne Win who, after seizing power in a coup in 1962, pushed through the 1974 Emergency Immigration Act and 1982 Citizenship Law that stripped Rohingya of their citizenship. In Burma: A Nation at the Crossroads, Benedict Rogers quotes a former government minister as saying the junta chief “had an ‘unwritten policy’ to get rid of Muslims, Christians, Karens and other ethnic peoples, in that order’”.
Government prejudice has been mixed with demagogic hatred, with the Rohingya portrayed as foreigners and, more recently, vehicles for the spread of jihad. In the era of Islamic State, existing suspicions have become bound up with a global narrative of Islamist extremism. Nationalist Buddhist monks like Ashin Wirathu have framed Islam as an existential threat, stoking fears that Muslims are both outbreeding the Buddhist majority and connecting to international terrorist groups.
The Myanmar military now claims to be facing an organised rebel insurgency among the Rohingya, chiefly in the western province of Rakhine, which borders Bangladesh. It’s true that the far-flung state has been home to various insurgencies, both Buddhist and Muslim. In the past year, the Arakan Army rebels, comprised of Rakhine Buddhists, has fought several skirmishes with the military.
In the early hours of October 9, scores of assailants armed with swords and pistols attacked three border posts in Maungdaw township, northern Rakhine, which borders Bangladesh. Nine police officers were killed and five sol- Rohingya. Jingoistic articles have dominated state media and Myanmar-language Facebook. “Insurgents arrested!” (Bedraggled-looking men in a police lineup.) “Guns seized!” (Decades-old hunting rifles).
For the military, the attack came at a convenient moment, as other long-standing conflicts – with the Kachin rebels along the Chinese border, and with the Ta’ang Liberation Army in Shan state – are flaring up again. When 30 soldiers were killed this May in fighting with the Arakan Army, another minority – but not The junta apparatus is everywhere, from the hotel whiteboards that list the names of every guest and their room numbers, to the secret police and informers. Checkpoints stand outside derelict mosques, guards watching for long-gone congregants. They’re no longer needed, as most of the Muslim population were driven out of their homes following clashes with Buddhists in 2012, to the internment camps on the outskirts of the city where they have been confined ever since.
As the military’s popularity has surged following the attacks, the civilian government’s muted response has left it looking ineffectual. Shortly after the attacks, de facto government leader Suu Kyi flew to India. Last week, she was in Japan. She has not visited Rakhine and neither has her president, Htin Kyaw. According to Reuters, the Ministry of Information submitted a list of questions about the army’s response that went unanswered.
“There are really two governments in Myanmar: the civil government and the military government,” said Widney Brown, director of programs at Physicians for Human Rights.
The military retains control of vital institutions including the ministries of defence, home affairs, the police and immigration. “Thus, there is a very strong military presence along the land borders, including with Bangladesh,” Brown said. “This control coupled with concerns about insurgencies means that the military government, not the civilian government, is really in control in northern Rakhine state.”
The months leading up to the Maungdaw attacks had brought rare, civilian-led progress in the search for peace. In the face of staunch opposition from the military, the government paved the way for an independent Rakhine commission, headed by former UN chief Kofi Annan, to conduct investigations and file an advisory report.
Now that enterprise looks distinctly shaky. “The naming of Annan to head up a state advisory commission is an attempt to shed light on abuses and set the stage for some reconciliation,” said Brown. “However, the ability of the commission to have an impact was already limited, as it is merely advisory and the recent violence in northern Rakhine state may have cost the commission any opportunity to have an impact.”
More disturbing than the suggestion that the civilian government is powerless against the military is the idea that they tacitly approve. Nobody really knows what Suu Kyi thinks of the Rohingya, although she has often been criticised for her failure to act. There is also evidence that other senior NLD officials are deeply hostile.
Since the attacks, state media, run by the civilian-led Ministry of Information, has carried opinion pieces condemning “fabricated” allegations of rights abuses by the military and accused journalists of being “hand in glove” with terrorists.
Zaw Htay, a spokesman for the government, singled out a journalist at the English-language newspaper the Myanmar Times for her reporting on alleged military rapes. “We support and advise government to take legal action against [the Times] and those who are responsible for fabricating false news,” read one of the many comments. The reporter was fired, reportedly following calls to the paper by Zaw Htay, a former soldier who served in the former military-backed administration but was kept on by Suu Kyi.
A few days ago, Zaw Htay confidently said the government and army were “collaborating” on the crisis. “And [they have] also the same policy on it.”