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| AP |
December 29, 2012
Associated Press
Todd Pitman
SIN THET MAW - Stranded beside their decrepit flotilla of wooden boats,
on a muddy beach far from home, the Muslim refugees tell story after
terrifying story of their exodus from a once-peaceful town on Myanmar's
western coast.
They were attacked one quiet evening, they say, by Buddhist mobs determined to expel them from the island port of Kyaukphyu.
There were chaotic clashes and gruesome killings, and a wave of arson
strikes so intense that flames eventually engulfed their entire
neighborhood.
In the end, all they could do was run.
So they piled into 70 or 80 fishing boats some 4,000 souls in all and
fled into the sea. In those final moments, many caught one last dizzying
glimpse of the town they grew up in of a sky darkened by smoke
billowing from a horizon of burning homes, of beaches filled with
seething Buddhist throngs who had spent the day pelting their departing
boats with slingshot-fired iron darts.
The Oct. 24 exodus was part of a wave of violence that has shaken
western Myanmar twice in the last six months. But what began with a
series of skirmishes that pitted ethnic Rakhine Buddhists against
Rohingya, a Muslim minority, appears to have evolved into something far
more disturbing: a region-wide effort by Buddhists to drive Muslims out
with such ferocious shows of hatred that they could never return.
Although many Rohingya have lived here for generations, they are widely
seen as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and most are denied
citizenship. Similar mass expulsions have happened twice before under
the country's former army rulers. But the fact that they are occurring
again now, during Myanmar's much-praised transition to democratic rule,
is particularly troubling.
Both reformist President Thein Sein and Aung San Suu Kyi, the opposition
leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, have condemned the violence. Yet
neither has defended the Rohingya, even though Muslims account for
roughly two-thirds of the 200 dead, 95 percent of the 115,000 displaced
and 90 percent of the homes destroyed so far, according to government
statistics.
Kyaukphyu was significant because those expelled from there included
another Muslim minority, the Kaman, whose right to citizenship is
recognized. That they too were targeted raises fears the conflict is
spreading to Myanmar's wider 4 percent Muslim minority.
For Myanmar, also called Burma, the town symbolizes the country's hopes
of scoring a piece of the Asian economic surge. China is building a
deep-water port and an oil pipeline terminal there.
"We never thought this could happen to us," said Kyaw Thein, a
48-year-old Kaman who fled Kyaukphyu and is now a refugee in the island
village of Sin Thet Maw.
"We don't feel safe anymore, even here," he said. "Who says we won't be attacked again?"
___
The unrest in Rakhine state was triggered by the rape and murder of a
Buddhist woman in late May, allegedly by three Rohingya men. But the
crisis stems from something that goes back much further: a dispute over
when Muslims first settled here, and who among them qualifies for
citizenship.
Buddhists say the Muslims are foreigners who came to seize land and
spread the Islamic faith. Muslims say they settled here long ago,
legally, and suffer widespread discrimination. The issue has been
exacerbated by exploding population growth and what rights groups say is
open racism against the darker-skinned Rohingya, who have South Asian
roots.
The Kaman, numbering perhaps only in the tens of thousands, are said to
be descended from archers who once guarded a Mughal king. The Rohingya
number at least 800,000 by U.N. estimates, and they have long been
unwanted here.
In 1977, Myanmar's military rulers, together with residents and local
authorities, drove 200,000 Rohingya into Bangladesh, where 12,000
starved to death and most of the rest were forced back to Myanmar by the
Bangladeshi government. A similar horror played out in 1991, when
Myanmar's army drove out 250,000 Rohingya.
After the June violence, prominent Buddhist monks issued written
warnings against doing business with the Rohingya, or even speaking to
them. Rohingya were kept away from schools, markets, even hospitals.
Security forces restricted their movement, particularly around their
refugee camps. International groups were threatened for providing aid.
Then, in October, there were demonstrations against plans by the
57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference to establish a liaison
office in the state capital, Sittwe. One such march, in Kyaukphyu,
brought out thousands.
The rally spooked the Muslims who are roughly 6,000 of the town's 25,000
people. Rumors spread of an imminent new wave of arson attacks.
Captains anchored their boats close to shore. One Muslim woman, Yeak
Thai Ma, said some local officials began telling Muslims, "this place is
no longer for you."
___
On Oct. 21, western Myanmar was hit with its second major spasm of
violence. Within days, it had spread to nine of Rakhine state's 17
townships.
Unlike the June unrest, which had displaced 24,000 Rakhine and 28,000
Rohingya in the first week the vast majority of the 35,000 refugees this
time were Muslim, and 97 percent of property losses were Rohingya,
compared with 78 percent in June, according to government statistics.
Human Rights Watch says anti-Muslim assaults were organized by Rakhine
groups, at times with support from security forces and local government
officials. The government denies the charges.
There were indications the violence was coordinated; on a single day, three major Muslim neighborhoods came under attack.
One of them, the village of Yin Thei in Mrauk-U township, was overrun
Oct. 23 by thousands of Rakhine armed with swords and spears. They
slaughtered dozens of people who were buried in mass graves, according
to Human Rights Watch. Satellite images of the village show almost
nothing left but ashes.
The same day, farther south, several hundred Rakhine descended on
Pauktaw by boat and forced the entire Rohingya population to flee, the
rights group said. An AP team that traveled there confirmed two seaside
Muslim neighborhoods were charred along with a mosque that was
apparently finished off with sledgehammers.
That night, it was Kyaukphyu's turn.
___
Hla Win, a 23-year-old mother of two, was eating a dinner of fish curry
and rice with her family when she heard shouting outside. It was 7 p.m.,
and the attacks had begun on East Pikesake district, where most of
Kyaukphyu's Muslim fishing community lives.
Her husband, a 26-year-old fisherman named Maung Lay, joined a group of
men struggling to douse flames leaping from a mosque with plastic
buckets of water. Security forces posted nearby ordered them to move
back, and one opened fire, killing Maung Lay, according to several
witnesses.
Rare amateur video of that night, seen by The Associated Press, shows
Buddhist mobs armed with long sticks or spears and hurling jars of
burning gasoline toward homes swamped in bright orange flames as men
shout in the darkness: "Throw! Throw!" and "Watch out!"
In another clip, attackers can be seen flinging firebombs over a wall
into more burning houses. They crouch behind rectangular shields of
corrugated iron sheeting which are being pelted with rocks, presumably
by Muslims defending themselves.
As the night wore on, the adversaries wrapped bandannas around their foreheads red for Buddhists, white for Muslims.
It is not clear what effort, if any, was made to stop the arson attacks.
The video shows armed security forces walking among large crowds of
Buddhists as fires burn, doing nothing to halt them.
In one scene, a policeman or soldier orders a Muslim mob to back away as
fires burn on one side of the road, or else "we will shoot you." A
young Muslim man surges forward and fires a projectile from a slingshot.
Gunshots ring out and the crowd retreats.
A police chief in Kyaukphyu, who declined to be identified because of
the sensitivity of the subject, said more than 100 police deployed in
those first few hours along with soldiers and firefighters. But they
came under attack by Muslims, making it impossible to extinguish the
blazes before the homes were destroyed.
When the violence tapered off around 2 a.m., 69 homes had been wrecked, the police chief said.
That night, hundreds of Kaman and Rohingya took refuge offshore, on Muslim-owned boats.
Few, if any, slept.
Shortly after dawn, it all began again.
___
As the sun rose, Kyaw Thein, who made his living painting homes and
offices, tried to return to his own home to gather clothes, blankets and
any valuables he could carry.
But his house was already ablaze, and he retreated back to the boat. On the beach, Rakhine mobs were gathering.
He began to run.
Seconds later, someone plunged a machete into his upper right back. When
he turned to see who, he was shocked: it was a Buddhist fisherman he
had considered a friend.
"We all asked the same question," said Kyaw Thein, who is nursing a
gaping wound. "How could the people we know do this to us?'"
The police chief said the Rakhine crowds swelled dramatically that morning as some 20,000 poured in from neighboring villages.
Soon, the situation was out of control.
As the fires spread, more and more Muslims sought refuge on the boats.
Some sailed away, but a low tide stranded others for hours.
Witnesses interviewed by The Associated Press said the two sides faced
off along the beach, mostly at a distance, shouting insults. One Muslim
man said security forces posted on the shore fired in the air to push
back a Rakhine mob, but there were too many to stop. Other mobs surged
forward, and clashes ensued.
Tears streaming down her cheeks, Hla Hla Yee, a 36-year-old Rohingya
woman, said a Rakhine mob on the beach hacked up her son. She watched
from a boat as they held up his remains. Other witnesses corroborated
her account.
Investigations conducted by Human Rights Watch found that local security
forces killed ethnic Kaman Muslims while soldiers stood by.
Atrocities were committed by Muslims too. Matthew Smith, of Human Rights
Watch, said they had attacked and in some cases killed Rakhine
civilians before fleeing. One Muslim man confessed to holding a severed
head aloft from one of the boats, Smith said.
By the time it was over, more than 4,000 Muslims had fled on ships so
packed there wasn't enough room to lie down. Another 1,700 moved to a
makeshift camp outside town.
Police say 867 homes were destroyed almost all of them Muslim.
The official casualty toll was nine Muslims dead, and two Rakhine.
___
When the first refugees from Kyaukphyu arrived in Sin Thet Maw, about 60
miles (100 kilometers) away, they were met with two very different
reactions. Rohingya villagers opened their homes to them; the Rakhine
ignored them.
The village, like many in Rakhine state, had already been split along
sectarian lines even before violence first broke out in June. Its
Buddhist inhabitants lived separated from the Rohingya by a long, wide
field that cuts a neat line between the two. The communities traded used
to trade, but all interaction ceased in June.
A Rakhine named Said Thar Tun Maung, a local government administrator on
the island, said 200 Buddhists, mostly women and children, fled when
the refugees arrived, fearing they would be overwhelmed. He said he had
not spoken to any of Muslims and did not care about the ordeal that
brought them here.
Within days, the refugee population rose even more as another flotilla
that had initially landed in the state capital, Sittwe, joined them.
Many of the displaced fled wearing only the clothes they wore. Now they
sleep on a windy beach under white U.N. tarps and tents held up by
bamboo sticks. They live off their savings, U.N. handouts of rice and
beans, and shellfish they catch in the shallows.
They have no schools to send their children to, and say authorities
don't let them fish. They worry about maintaining the vital fleet of
dilapidated fishing boats on which their future depends; they have few
tools to repair them.
The government has yet to help, or even ask how it can.
Most of all, the refugees wonder what they'll do next. Some talk of
making new lives for themselves in Sin Thet Maw. Others hope they can
emigrate a dim prospect since few countries will take them.
One thing is sure, though.
"We can never go back to Kyaukphyu," said Kyaw Thein. "After what happened ... it will never be the same."
___
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