By Syed Tashfin Chowdhury and Chris Stewart
The ethnic conflict that ravaged much of Rakhine State in western Myanmar last month was an opportunity for more than settling old and new scores between Muslim Rohingya and Buddhist Rakhines and co-religionist new arrivals from elsewhere in the country.
Those involved were also clearing land in a densely populated area that is set to be among the country's prime bits of real estate as energy-related projects start transforming the impoverished state.
More than 100 people (some reports indicate many times that number) were killed last month, untold others were wounded, and an estimated 28,000 fled or were driven from their homes in clashes between the stateless Rohingya and Buddhist citizens in a recurrence of violence last June. They are the latest incidents involving evicted ethnic groups around the country weeks before US President Obama visits Myanmar later this month.
"The government has taken the opportunity to create more violence allowing a destabilized and vulnerable state which they can then take the natural resources from. This is believed to be the main reason to why so many villages [in Rakhine State] were razed to the ground," the representative of one non-government organization (NGO) told Asia Times Online, citing the source as a Rakhine resident. The NGO cannot be named for safety reasons.
Identifying specific land-grabbing in the midst of mass upheaval and historic xenophobia such as the state witnessed in October is no easy task, but as Michael Brown, in his book The International Dimension of Internal Conflict points out, "since internal, elite level forces are usually the catalysts of internal conflict, those interested in conflict prevention should direct their attention accordingly".
Prime target
Destruction of the Rohingya settlement in Kyaukphyu, the main town on Ramree Island, south of the state capital Sittwe, provides the most telling evidence of land-grabbing, with more than 14 hectares of property burnt to the ground. (For satellite image of the destruction, see here).
Ramree Island is to be the center of a multi-billion dollar special economic zone (SEZ) based around a deep-sea port and the terminus of gas and oil pipelines being built west and northwards to Myanmar's border with China. The SEZ development hems in but does not directly impact the small but historic Kyaukphyu, built on a spur of land at the island's northern tip and the only significant town on Ramree. The Rohingya area, with sea-frontage on two of its three sides, is now clear for private development by whoever can claim title. (Rohingya settlements within the industrialized zone were attacked in the same period. [1])
The latest violence appears to have started on Sunday, October 21, when at least 11 Muslims were killed after "extremist" Buddhists set fire to their houses in two areas of Sittwe (which is also to benefit from the US$500 million Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport River Project, being built to link India's eastern ports to Sittwe and from there by river and road to India's isolated northeast). [2]
Days earlier, on October 15, a newly established government body had held its first meeting in Yangon, the country's former capital, its purpose to oversee construction of a multi-billion dollar refinery, industrial and petrochemical complex that will transform the wholly undeveloped Rakhine State, in coastal western Myanmar.
On Monday, October 22, media reported that the new body, the Kyaukphyu Special Economic Zone management committee, had decided to offer an "open tender" for investments in the development of the planned industrial complex, to be built on Ramree Island some 200 kilometers south of Sittwe. [3]
Within hours of the reports, what had started as a local massacre in Sittwe the day before had become open violence and destruction in areas central to the development project and related infrastructure as well as more remote parts of the impoverished state. (For a map sketching the outbreaks of reported violence October 21-24, see Google Map Rakhine troubles.)
The SEZ tender announcement decisively moves forward a development project agreed between Chinese vice president Xi Jinping and the Myanmar government in December 2009 and proposed by CITIC Group, one of China's largest industrial conglomerates. The project divides Ramree Island into several zones specifically designated for services, refining, industrial processing, and ship-repair work. Foreign involvement in this and other projects in the country was made easier by the passing late last week of a much-delayed foreign investment law. (For publicity video of the project, see here.)
All power to China
The SEZ is based around the southern terminus of Chinese-funded U$2.5 billion energy pipelines being built to take oil and offshore gas west and north to China's border with Myanmar's Kachin State (also now in a state of war amid numerous reports of forced evictions and land grabbing).
A shortage of usable land in the state creates a central problem for any development beyond Ramree Island. The Arakan Yoma and other mountain ranges dominate the region, leaving only a sliver of land between them and sea, much of it little more than slightly elevated mud flats liable to inundation by tidal surges. What is left must accommodate SEZ associated infrastructure such as roads, a rail link, and low-priced housing for workers. (For an illustration of the numerous projects planned in the region and elsewhere in Myanmar, see here.)
Muslim Rohingya, considered a stateless people by the Myanmar government and allowed no rights, though they are known to have been in the region for hundreds of years, are an easy target to dispossess. Local Buddhists, here and elsewhere, are also being forced off their land for project developments but can claim a degree of compensation.
On the day the SEZ tender decision was made public, violence spread north to Muslim homes around Minbya town, which sits on the first bit of real land rising from vast tidal mud flats between it and Sittwe, 25 kilometers to the southeast. [4] Two hundred Rohingya were killed in one village (Nagara Pauktaw), one report claims.
An attack the following day was also made on Myebon town, AFP reported. The town sits on a spit of land close to the area's only main road, about 30km east of Sittwe, and overlooks a broad anchorage that leads directly across the convoluted coastline to Kyaukphyu and the site of its proposed deep-sea port, about 50km south.
Numerous villages near Mrauk-U, an ancient capital on the road running northeast from Minbya and due to be strategically important once again in the "new" industrializing state, were also hit.
The town, a former capital for the region, is on the only road linking Sittwe to the rest of Myanmar. Mrauk-U is also to be one of the few stations on a rail link being built from Sittwe to the central plains. Railroad construction has already destroyed part of the 6th century palace grounds, while its famed ancient temple complexes and low hills limit development to the town's northwest.
The destroyed local villages - both Rohingya and Buddhist - were for the most part a few kilometers east and south of Mrauk-U on flat land between it and the Laymro river, where it emerges into a now valuable widening valley from the steep-banked Arakan Yoma. A dam is to be built upstream from this area.
Similar, though less compelling evidence points to land-grabs, rather than ethnic concerns, as being behind expulsion of Muslim villagers from near Pauktaw, a ferry ride from Sittwe and end point of a road from Mrauk-U through Minbya.
Similarly, attacks were reported in Thandwe township, to the south. This region is famed for the pristine Ngapali beach, considered a favorite destination by the jet set who can also take advantage of an 18-hole golf course, possible the only one in the state. The area will inevitably develop as a favored getaway for well-healed management as the SEZ gets underway further north, as will nearby Thandwe town, which at present has little to offer visitors.
Racial tensions were already high in the area - the town's population is reportedly evenly split between Muslims and Buddhists - following the murder of 10 Muslim pilgrims nearby in June.
Ancient hatreds, new profits
It is such tensions between quite different religious and ethnic groups that make it difficult to identify pure profiteering land-grabbing from spontaneous outbursts of conflict and population expulsions.
In The International Dimension of Internal Conflict, Brown cautions that "Many policy makers and journalists believe that the causes of internal conflicts are simple and straightforward. The driving forces behind these violent conflicts, it is said, are the 'ancient hatreds'."
He writes that, "[E]ven if a country's overall economic picture is improving, growing inequities can aggravate intra-state tensions. …. many scholars have pointed to economic development and modernization as taproots of instability and internal conflict."
Rakhine State has yet to experience such growth (its biggest employers at present are arguably the army and foreign aid organizations) and even its tourist industry barely registers. So the world can expect more outbreaks as SEZ activity and money floods in.
However, Brown cautions that such considerations are weak "when it comes to identifying the catalytic factors - triggers or proximate causes - of internal conflict".
Or as American academic James Rule has written, "we know a lot of things that are true about civil violence, but we do not know when they are going to be true." That is, when violence will break out. In this regard, Brown points his finger at the important, but too-often obscured and overlooked role of the wealthy and influential "in triggering internal strife".
"The literature [on the subject] is strong in its examination of .. forces that operate at a mass level… weak in its understanding of the roles played by elites and leaders in instigating violence. … The result is 'no fault' histories that leave out the pernicious effects of influential individuals - an important set of factors in the overall equation."In Rakhine State, the elite are the army, the local government, religious leaders - and increasingly in the future business families who got rich in Myanmar while it was under military control and are set to get even wealthier as the country develops its infrastructure, industry, and natural resources.
Elsewhere in Myanmar, these families, many until recently under travel and other financial sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union, are already associated with land-grabbing on a vast scale. Among numerous document examples, the army-linked Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings Ltd is the target of protest in central Sagaing division over "massive" land confiscation for a copper mine development
In northern Kachin State, the army is accused of widespread abuses and forced evictions in relation to, among other projects, the gas and oil pipelines running from Rakhine State and jade mining.
In eastern Tanintharyi Division, bordering Thailand, the Paung Ku non-government organization estimates that more than 100,000
people are being displaced for the Dawei Special Economic Zone. Companies named as developing the zone included Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings, and two companies controlled by once-sanctioned businessmen considered to be among the country's wealthiest - Max Myanmar (led by Zaw Zaw) and Htoo Trading, owned by U Tay Za. (Max Myanmar Company in September was reported to be quitting the Dawei project. [5])
The Paung Ku NGO report quoted a local land-broker in Dawei as estimating that
"Local prices of farmland have multiplied up to fifteen times the pre-SEZ price … In one case, a Max Myanmar director acquired 300 acres [121 hectares] … in hopes of making a windfall profit by re-selling to ITD [ItalThai Development, the lead foreign company for the project]".In Rakhine State, Max Myanmar is implementing the above-mentioned Kaladan River Project with Indian firm Essar. Tay Za is reported to be helping to expand an airport in Thandwe.
The report continues: "Reports on the ground suggest that business-elites with strong ties to the military-backed government are easily securing hundreds of acres for eventual re-sale and to develop smaller industries (e.g. coal mines, gas refineries, etc), while foreigners are keen to cash-in on a potential boom in the hotel and hospitality industry." [6]
Other members of the business elite interested in Rakhine State's new developments include Tun Myint Naing, aka Steven Law, who with his father, Lo Hsing Han, runs Asia World Group, the country's largest conglomerate. Asia World announced in 2007 that it would be building a deep sea port at Kyaukphyu.
It is not known yet whether Obama will have the opportunity to meet these and other leading local businessmen when he visits Myanmar during a November 17-20 trip to Southeast Asia, the first visit to the country by a US president, as confirmed on Thursday.
Shwe Taung Development Co, led by chairman Aik Htun and his son, Aung Zaw Naing, recently released from US sanctions, is reported to be building two hydropower projects on the Laymro river upstream from Mrauk-U town along with China Datang Overseas Investment Co Ltd. [7]
Shwe Taung's involvement in the area will likely extend well beyond dam work. A division of the company last month became the sole distributor in the country for Scania trucks, which will doubtless find plenty of SEZ and other work in the area - if and when present land-holders can be persuaded to give up space for parking, warehousing and maintenance services.
Buddhists also feel the squeeze
Buddhist farmers are also being forced off their land with little or no compensation (which in some cases is then squeezed back out from them by local officials demanding a 25% cut) - but they can take their complaints to the local authorities. [8]
A report last month by international NGO Displacement Solutions warns that
Myanmar faces an unprecedented scale of structural landlessness in rural areas, increasing displacement threats to farmers as a result of growing investment interest by both national and international firms, expanding speculation in land and real estate, and grossly inadequate housing conditions facing significant sections of both the urban and rural population. Legal and other protections afforded by the current legal framework, the new Farmland Law and other newly enacted legislation are wholly inadequate ...On September 18, a month before the latest outbreak of violence in Rakhine State, a land commission started touring the area to investigate complaints, including some in Kyaukphyu. Local people say the army is the main organization behind seizure of farmlands, claiming high-ranking officers "misused the army explicitly for this purpose and personal profit". A senior army officer is reported to lead the local investigating commission. [10]
Recent legislation enacted by Burma’s government, including the Farmland Law, has meant that farmers and the urban poor are probably even more vulnerable to possible loss of land and displacement and dispossession than they had been under the previous regime. [9]
Several other factors certainly feed inter-religions tensions. The central government has long had a policy of trying to limit the Rohingya population by forced removal and curbs on marriages and births. (For a comprehensive account of the Rohingya in Rakhine State, see Nowhere to go for the Rohingya, Phil Radford, Asia Times Online, November 9, 2012.)
Buddhists from elsewhere in Myanmar are encouraged to settle in the area bordering Muslim Bangladesh in the northwest of the state, where the population is estimated to be as much as 90% Rohingya. Recent violence occurred in Maungdaw, opposite Bangladesh, and Buthidaung, further east, where hydropower projects are also planned.
Muslim farmers in the northwest regularly claim that family members are attacked by the newcomers - or Natala - and their cattle or fodder stolen. "The army and the Natala villagers looted our property, committed robbery and killing villagers occasionally. But they are not given punishment by the concerned higher authority," one said after an attack last month, a week before the widespread outbreak of violence across the state. [11)
Local Buddhists also complain of the high birth rate of Rohingya and want tighter controls to prevent more arriving. Whether there is immigration from Bangladesh, which hosts thousands of Rohingya refugees, is contested by some NGOs in the area. US intelligence may believe otherwise. Kamran Bokhari, Mideast and South Asia director for Stratfor, described by Barron's as "the shadow CIA" for its revolving door with the intelligence community, referred in an October 27 interview to the Rohingya as "sort of shuttling between two nation states both of whom do not want them, at least not in large numbers". [12]
Indigenous Buddhists, or Arakanese, at a September 29 public meeting listed their complaints. [13] They include an objection to putting Buddhist and Muslim people together "due to their bitter experiences from recent violence in Arakan" and a demand for tighter controls "of the birth rate of the Muslim Bangali community living in Arakan. An estimated 800,000 stateless Rohingya live in Rakhine, and perhaps around 200,000 who may acquired some rights, out of a state population of possibly 3.8 million. [14]
The deep-rooted and well-documented xenophobia of the Myanmar government, not to mention local antipathies, may prove counterproductive as the Ramree Island complex takes shape. Rakhine State, with an ill-educated population, will provide few of the thousands of skilled workers required, but numerous unskilled and semi-skilled laborers will be needed (and housed and fed) if the SEZ is to get off the ground.
It may be some time before the ultimate beneficiaries of last month's clearances become apparent, while some of those who fled their homes are reported to be returning. The new buildings that go up on the ashes of the old will tell a more complete story.
Meanwhile, the reputation for outstanding courage earned by Buddhist monks and other Burmese during the 2007 "Saffron protests" against the then military government is being dragged through blood spilled, and the core beliefs of their religion mocked, as they attack Rohingya to the profit of local mercenary interests.
Nippon Koei Company is to be the lead company in laying the groundwork for assessing tenders in the Kyaukphyu SEZ. Self-described as Japan's No.1 engineering consultants, it is charged with "designating project area, assessing the cost of electricity through gas turbines, laying down master plan and promulgation of Kyaukphyu SEZ Law".
Notes:
1. See "Kyauktaw, Yathedaung, Kyaukpyu, Pauktaw of Rakhine State shaken by violence", New Light of Myanmar, October 27, 2012.
2. Myanmar Buddhists set Muslim villages on fire, kill 11 Muslims in Rakhine , PressTV, October 22, 2012.
3. Xinhua, October 22, citing Myanmar language Weekly Elevens News. For English translation, see Open tender invitation for SEZ, October 23, 2012.
4. See Buddhists clash with Muslims in Burma, Associated Press, October 25, 2012.
5. Local companies to replace Max Myanmar in Dawei Special Economic Zone, ElevenMyanmar.com, September 14, 2012.
6. Land Grabbing in Dawei (Myanmar Burma): a (Inter)National Human Rights Concern, September 2012, and Relocation of Dawei area villagrs moving ahead for dam project, Shwe Gas Movement (Mizzima article), August 7, 2012.
7. See Arakan Rivers . and Wikipedia.
8. See Lawsuit against officials accused of taking farmers compensation resubmitted, Shwe Gas Movement (Narinjara, Independent Arakenese News Agency article), August 22, 2012; and People of Maday Island Not Fully Compensated for Confiscated Land, Arakan Human Rights and Development Organization, Arakan Human Rights Developme\ent Organisation, May 15, 2012.
9. Myanmar at the HLP Crossroads: Proposals for Building an Improved Housing, Land and Property Rights Framework that Protects the People and Supports Sustainable Economic Development,
10. Arakan land commisson begin investigation into confiscation land, Shwe Gas Movement (Narinjara article), September 24, 2012.
11. Rohingya beaten up by army and Natala village, Kaladan Press Network, October 15, 2012.
12. Press TV, October 27, 2012.
13. Arakan Public Meeting Successfully concludes in Rathidaung, September 29, 2012.
14. See Marginalization of the Rohyingya in Rakhine State, Burma Concern, January 2011. Regarding restrictions on marriage, the report states: "Regulations were further tightened in December 2005, requiring three guardian signatories, the bridegroom and guardians to be cleanly shaven, certificates of clean health, recommendation letters from a religious organization and from the village chairman, the couple to commit to having no more than three children and not to seek a divorce in the future, the submission of family lists, and a declaration of the dowry".
Syed Tashfin Chowdhury is the Editor of Xtra, the weekend magazine of New Age, in Bangladesh. Chris Stewart is Asia Times Online Business Editor.
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