Monks back protest against aid for boat people
BUDDHIST hardliners backed by monks protested in Myanmar’s troubled Rakhine state yesterday against help being offered to desperate migrants found adrift on boats in the Bay of Bengal.
Rakhine, one of Myanmar’s poorest states, is a tinderbox of tension between its Buddhist majority and a persecuted Rohingya Muslim minority, many of whom live in displacement camps after deadly unrest erupted there in 2012.
Tens of thousands of Rohingya have fled Rakhine in recent years, joined increasingly by economic migrants from neighbouring Bangladesh, mainly headed for Malaysia and Indonesia.
The exodus was largely ignored until a crackdown on the peoplesmuggling trade in Thailand last month caused chaos as gangmasters abandoned their human cargos on land and sea.
Some 4 500 Rohingya and Bangladeshi migrants have since washed ashore in the region while the UN estimates about 2 000 others are still trapped at sea.
Myanmar’s navy rescued more than 900 migrants who were brought to Rakhine.
Some 150 have since been repa- triated to Bangladesh. But the rest are in border camps while Bangladesh and Myanmar decide their original nationality.
The rescues have infuriated Buddhist hardliners who want the Rohingya -- one of the world’s most persecuted minorities – expelled from Myanmar altogether and say those stranded in the Bay of Bengal should not be helped.
About 500 people, backed by dozens of monks, gathered yesterday in the state capital Sittwe chanting slogans. Similar demonstrations took place in 10 townships across the state.
“We are protesting against Bengalis that were sent to Rakhine State,” Aung Htay, a protest leader in Sittwe, said.
Most Myanmar nationals, including the government, use the term Bengali to describe Rohingya, many of whom have lived in the region for generations. Most of the country’s estimated 1.3 million Rohingya are refused citizenship.
Anti-Muslim sentiment has been on the rise across Myanmar in recent years with radical monks accused of stoking religious tensions with fiery warnings that Buddhism is under threat from Islam. – AFP