 |
| Hla Hla May, a
Rohingya Muslim woman displaced by violence, holds her one year old
daughter Roshan at a former rubber factory that now serves as their
shelter, near Sittwe April 29, 2013. Credit: REUTERS/Damir Sagolj |
April 30, 2013
Jared Ferrie
MEIKHTILA, Myanmar -
In Myanmar's central heartlands, justice and security is elusive for
thousands of Muslims who lost their homes in a deadly rampage by
Buddhist mobs in March.
Many are detained in prison-like camps, unable to return to
neighborhoods and businesses razed in four days of violence in Meikhtila
that killed at least 43 people, most of them Muslims, displaced nearly
13,000, and touched off a wave of anti-Muslim unrest fuelled by radical
Buddhist monks.
"It's for their own security," said a police officer at a camp inside a
sports stadium on Meikhtila's outskirts. The camp holds more than 1,600
people guarded by police with orders not to let them leave, said the
officer, who declined to give his name.
A dawn-to-dusk curfew has been in force in Meikhtila since the
government declared martial law on March 22. Skeletal walls and piles of
rubble are all that remain of Muslim homes and businesses that once
covered several blocks at the heart of the town of 100,000 people in the
center of Myanmar.
Trials have begun, but so far only Muslims stand accused, raising fears
that courts will further aggravate religious tension by ignoring the
Buddhist ringleaders of the violence.
The unrest and the combustible sectarian relations behind it are one of
the biggest tests of Myanmar's reform-minded government, which took
power in March 2011 after almost half a century of hardline military
rule.
Myanmar is a predominantly Buddhist country, but about 5 percent of its
60 million people are Muslim. They face a growing campaign of
anti-Islamic sentiment led by radical Buddhist monks.
An independent commission released a report on Monday saying Myanmar
must urgently address the plight of Muslims displaced by sectarian
bloodshed in western Rakhine State. It came in response to violence last
June and October that killed at least 192 people and left 140,000
homeless, mostly stateless Rohingya Muslims in an area dominated by
ethnic Rakhine Buddhists.
The trial of seven Muslim men accused of murdering a monk, believed to
be the first killing in the March unrest in Meikhtila, is expected to
conclude this week. Those on trial say they are innocent.
The sound of hammers ring across the city as workers dismantle what is
left of the Muslim neighborhood, stone by stone. There are no signs of
Muslims on the streets.
More than 8,000 Muslims are being held in seven official camps that are
off-limits to journalists. Thousands more have crowded into unofficial
camps in villages near Meikhtila, where police also restrict their
movements and prevented them from speaking with Reuters.
Phil Robertson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Asia division,
said detaining internally displaced people (IDP) is a violation of their
rights.
"Locking people up in an IDP camp is not a substitute for providing
basic security and ensuring communal peace," he said. "Even if the
authorities' intent is good, they are clearly going about this the wrong
way."
Spokesmen for the president's office did not respond to requests for comment.
One of the office's spokesmen, Ye Htut, has previously stressed that the
monks involved in the Meikhtila violence make up only a fraction of the
500,000-strong monkhood. "All perpetrators of violence will be
prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law," said President Thein Sein
in a nationally televised speech on March 28.
Victims in relief camps "live freely and happily", reported the state-run New Light of Myanmar newspaper on April 5.
"STUDENTS ATTACKED"
The government has promised to help Muslims rebuild their homes, but
reconstruction has yet to begin. Building more than 1,500 houses burned
down or damaged would cost $7 million, it said.
Some Buddhist residents said returning Muslims were unwelcome.
"I can't accept living with them again, because they insulted Buddhism
and a monk's blood was spilled on the ground," said Than Htun, as he
waited outside a prison to see his son who was arrested for looting
money from a Muslim home during the rioting.
Such hostility could influence the outcome of the ongoing murder trial,
suggested Thein Than Oo, a lawyer for three of the seven Muslim accused,
who believed the judge is under pressure from Buddhists to deliver a
guilty verdict.
"He has to satisfy the people," he said.
He pointed to the case of the Muslim owner of a gold shop, his wife and
an employee who on April 11 received 14 years without parole for theft
and assault. The charges stemmed from an argument with a Buddhist
customer, which sparked the first bout of rioting earlier on the day the
monk was killed.
The court imposed harsh sentences due to the violence that erupted afterwards, said Thein Than Oo.
Most victims of the rioting were Muslim but no Buddhists have appeared
in court. The district judge said they would be tried after the current
trial ends.
Neither the judge nor the district police could say if any monks would
be charged. Monks led many of the mobs, according to dozens of witnesses
interviewed by Reuters.
New York-based Physicians for Human Rights called for an independent
investigation into a report of a massacre at an Islamic school on March
21. The group said 32 students and four teachers were missing.
One student, Soe Min Oo, 18, said he fled with other students and
teachers when the school was attacked, taking refuge with other Muslims
in a nearby compound.
Soe Min Oo said the mob tossed petrol bombs into the compound until
police arrived and offered to bring the nearly 200 Muslims to safety.
But the few dozen officers could only protect some of them, said Soe Min
Oo, pausing frequently to fight back tears.
He said the Buddhist mob hit them and threw stones as they left the
compound, and those who came out last were beaten to death. He saw three
friends killed.
"I've never faced anything like this situation before," said Soe Min Oo. "I feel very sad."
Soe Min Oo spoke to Reuters in a tiny Muslim village about half an hour
outside Meikhtila where he was staying with family. During the
interview, an official who wouldn't say who he worked for arrived on a
motorcycle and demanded names and contact numbers from journalists.
Mandalay chief minister Ye Myint denied a Reuters request to visit
official camps in his region, which includes Meikhtila. Immigration and
police officers banned access to an unofficial camp in Yindaw, a village
about a 45-minute drive from Meikhtila.
(Editing by Andrew R.C. Marshall and Robert Birsel)
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