Activists liken Myanmar violence to Ku Klux Klan

May 11, 2013

Bangkok Post

Activists have likened Myanmar's worsening sectarian violence to the Ku Klux Klan racist movement in the US during the 1960s.

If the violence is not halted soon, it will divide the country ahead of general elections in 2015, they told a recent forum in Bangkok.

Smile Education and Development Foundation representative Myo Win said the recent explosion of Buddhist rage against Muslim Rohingya in his country was tearing his nation apart.

The violence has resulted in hundreds of casualties and thousands being forced from their homes.

Speaking at the forum at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand, Myo Win, a Muslim, said he feared what began as a systematic cleansing of the ethnic group in Rakhine state was evolving into a nationwide Ku Klux Klan-style hate movement.

He has been monitoring the Buddhist extremist movement - namely the 969 group - that propelled the violence in Rakhine state in October last year.

"It is splitting the nation and it is overwhelming us. It will surely have a direct impact on the upcoming election," the Yangon-based activist said.

Maung Zarni, a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics' Civil Society and Human Security Research Unit, dubbed the situation in his native land as "ethnocide" by Buddhists against the Rohingya.

The Rakhine situation and the viral streams of intellectuals and media spurring hatred against the Rohingya was the result of collaboration between the Myanmar Sangha and Buddhist societies and the government, Mr Zarni claimed.

International Network of Engaged Buddhists founder Sulak Sivaraksa said Myanmar's Buddhist monks - which formerly led the "Saffron Revolution", named after the dark red colour of their robes, against the former military regime - are encouraging the violence because they feel threatened.

Human Rights Watch released a report last month, accusing Myanmar government officials, monks and nationalists of "ethnic cleansing" and "crimes against humanity". The UN has also described the Rohingya as one of the most persecuted minorities in the world.

Mr Zarni said the Rohingya had been the target of several generations of discrimination by people trying to label them illegal immigrants, a view enshrined in the 1982 Citizenship Act which declared them "foreign residents".

He said Rohingya had been recognised by earlier regimes, pointing to a broadcast by the state-run Burmese Broadcasting Service in 1966 which translated a 10-minute news programme into different ethnic languages including Rohingya.

He said the first prime minister of independent Burma, U Nu, and his top brass also recognised Rohingya as one of the country's many ethnic groups in the 1960s.

Today, however, the Rakhine Nationalities Development Party's firebrand leader Aye Maung accuses the minority group of being descendants of the Mujahideen, stoking anti-Muslim sentiment.

Mr Zarni pointed part of the blame at the Rohingya Inquiry Commission's recent 186-page report which was supportive of the violence. The panel was set up by Myanmar President Thein Sein.

Mr Zarni said the commission sought to endorse anti-Muslim racism without highlighting problems caused by the surge in virulent Islamophobia.

Thein Sein has not done enough to try and control the situation, Mr Zarni said.

Myo Win from the Muslims Association Network based in Yangon said the government would have to go much further than Thein Sein simply condemning the escalation in violence.