MYANMAR OPPRESSION WELL-HIDDEN
Ethnic cleansing. Concentration camps. Military road blocks.
Not topics you Google when planning a winter getaway.
In January, my husband and I joined the small wave of tourists flowing into Myanmar as it emerges from its decades-long banishment as a pariah state. Our Lonely Planet guidebook was six years out of date, so we bolstered our research with Wikitravel and TripAdvisor.
As we planned our trip to the little-travelled Rakhine State, there was barely a whisper on the common travel sites about persecution against the minority Rohingya Muslims.
The information is out there, of course. But in our search for information about historic sites, beaches and good hotel rooms, we had not consulted Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International.
Until we arrived, Myanmar’s shame had, to us, remained largely a secret.
Myanmar has long had a bent for repression. When I first visited in 1986, Burma, as it was then called, was ruled by a military dictatorship with an abysmal human rights record for its treatment of minorities, particularly the various hill tribes living far from the capital. Aung San Suu Kyi, the daughter of a national independence hero and unofficial opposition leader, was in exile, her views on democracy unpalatable to generals intent on absolute control.
The country was largely cut off from foreign trade and suspicious of foreign visitors. Independent travel was restricted to one-week visits.
Tourists were allowed access to only three cities: Yangon (then called Rangoon), Bagan (then Pagan) and Mandalay.
Foreign travel was similarly closed to locals. The few available hotels were filthy and rundown.
Still, it was fascinating to be in a country that had for decades been closed to international commerce. Tattered, 10-year-old magazines were sold on the street by vendors wearing traditional long his and chewing betel nut. There were almost no cars or trucks, and the buses, jammed with passengers, had been patched and re-patched.
There was incredible beauty too: the golden glow of Shwedagon Pagoda at night, farmers herding teams of white water buffaloes trailed by snowy egrets, the generous smiles of a seemingly gentle Buddhist people. All this stuck with me and made me want to return.
Fast forward 30 years, to late December 2015. On landing in Yangon, we were greeted by signs of the country’s new openness, in the form of notices in the airport encouraging locals to “warmly welcome” and assist all foreign visitors. After parliamentary elections in 2012, Western countries lifted sanctions against Myanmar and foreign investors poured in to take advantage of a friendly government, new Asian market and cheap labour force.
Cranes now tower above the steel skeleton of a new airport terminal under construction, and the taxi stands are lined with airconditioned (if somewhat humble) Toyotas.
Tourism is booming. Near the old city centre, people from a mélange of religious and ethnic groups seemed to coexist quite happily. We stayed near the Muslim quarter where men wore white caps and women black hijabs adorned with sequins.
Our destination in Rakhine state was Mrauk U, an archeological marvel where a staggering number of temples was erected during a 300-year building boom which began in the late 15th century.
Getting there was not easy; first a flight to the capital of Sittwe and then a seven-hour ride up the river on a ferry that didn’t run every day.
We chose Mrauk U to escape the high-tourist zones and see how much or little of the country had changed once you leave the wellworn tracks.
We found modern-day Sittwe reminiscent of Yangon in the 1980s. There are buses and some small flatbed trucks, powered by tractor motors in front. But there are few cars and marginally better-off locals still travel in tri-shaws pedalled by drivers in long-his and flip- flops. Our outdated Lonely Planet described Sittwe as “a source of pride for its mix of locals — Rakhine Buddhists, formerly known as Arakanese, Muslims and Indian Hindus.”
We had been sightseeing for half a day when it hit me. There wasn’t a Muslim in sight.
We’d heard about some isolated persecution of Muslims in Rakhine state and further north in Mandalay. A British traveller later confirmed our fears.
Muslims had been ethnically cleansed from Sittwe. They were forced from their homes following riots in 2012, leaving some neighbourhoods empty, and herded into concentration camps on the outskirts of town.
Witnesses report that the Muslims live in near starvation in shabby bamboo huts. They are not allowed to vote or leave the camps without permission. Military checkpoints ensure foreigners remain blind to the misery.
We carried on as tourists with knowledge of the camps gnawing at our conscience.
Locals were exceptionally kind to us at every turn. When we asked our hotel staff about renting bikes, the energetic young porter ran to the homes of friends to dig up two well-worn single-speeds we could use.
Later we remarked how incongruous it was that people could be so kind to total strangers and so cruel to their own neighbours.
Flying out of Sittwe we met an internationally renowned scholar who specializes in social and religious issues in Southeast Asia. He had connections with Rohingya sympathizers in Rakhine State and had been spirited into the camps the day before. He confirmed the Rohingya’s dismal living conditions in the camps.
He was generous with his analysis of the conflict, but asked that I not name him as he was planning another trip to complete research for a book and feared publicity would hinder his chances of a return visa.
He said Myanmar, which defines itself as a Buddhist nation and is dominated by the Bamar ethnic group, has a low tolerance for all its minority populations. The Rohingya are seen as unwanted colonizers from Bangladesh, even though many have lived in Myanmar for centuries.
Many local Arakanese Buddhists harbour nationalist ambitions that put them at odds with the Bamar majority in the central part of the country, despite their shared religion.
Tensions in Sittwe exploded in 2012 over reports a group of three Muslim men had raped a local Arakanese woman, the professor said.
The situation was further inflamed by radical monks who whipped up the underlying racism into full-fledged persecution, not only in Rakhine but also elsewhere in the country.
One internationally known Mandalay monk, Ashin Wirathu, has made it his life’s work to foster hatred against Myanmar’s Muslims. In the post-911 environment, his sermons, playing upon Buddhist fears and prejudices, have been particularly influential.
Will Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, newly elected to a parliamentary majority, help the Rohingya? The signs are not good.
Publicly, Suu Kyi has so far remained noncommittal. Her party’s hold on power is so tenuous she will be sure to tread cautiously, my scholar friend said.
None of this bodes well for the Rohingya. The only sliver of hope is a greater willingness to allow aid workers into the camps with supplies. But that is far from a solution.
Myanmar visa applications must be accompanied by a letter confirming the applicant’s occupation. As a journalist, I knew members of my craft have traditionally been denied entry. However, the Myanmar embassy in Ottawa issued me a visa for this trip after extracting my signed promise not to write anything. When I asked my editor to sign the letter confirming my employment and told him about the caveat, he asked, “Why would you want to go to a place like that?”
I thought about the question then, and I’ve thought about it a lot more after encountering evidence of ethnic cleansing in Rakhine.
I have always been drawn to travel in countries where the lifestyle, religion, culture and food is entirely different from my own. I have gone to any number of countries knowing that press freedom and human rights takes a back seat to other economic and political concerns.
I justified travel to these places, in part, as an educational experience for myself and an opportunity for an exchange of ideas. Through knowledge comes understanding.
There is no doubt our discovery of the camps shifted the tenor of the vacation. We spent hours discussing the Rohingya. And the liberal guilt that nags at rich Westerners holidaying in a poor country was magnified by the knowledge that 10 kilometres away people were locked in concentration camps.
Did I learn something on this trip? Yes. And it was a nasty truth.
We felt helpless at our inability to assist the Rohingya and could think of nothing we could do, except spread the word when we got back.
As a journalist, I had no ethical choice but to break my promise not to write.