Special Report: Thai authorities implicated in Rohingya Muslim smuggling network

Narunisa, a 25-year-old Rohingya woman, is reunited with her children after returning to a shelter for Rohingya women and children in Phang Nga June 18, 2013.
REUTERS/Damir Sagolj

 July 17, 2013 
Jason Szep and Stuart Grudgings

Reuters(Reuters) - The beatings were accompanied by threats: If his family didn't produce the money, Myanmar refugee Abdul Sabur would be sold into slavery on a fishing boat, his captors shouted, lashing him with bamboo sticks.
It had been more than two months since Sabur and his wife set sail from Myanmar with 118 other Rohingya Muslims to escape violence and persecution. Twelve died on the disastrous voyage. The survivors were imprisoned in India and then handed over to people smugglers in southern Thailand.
As the smugglers beat Sabur in their jungle hide-out, they kept a phone line open so that his relatives could hear his screams and speed up payment of $1,800 to secure his release.
"Every time there was a delay or problem with the payment they would hurt us again," said Sabur, a tall fisherman from Myanmar's western Rakhine state.
He was part of the swelling flood of Rohingya who have fled Myanmar by sea this past year, in one of the biggest movements of boat people since the Vietnam War ended.
Their fast-growing exodus is a sign of Muslim desperation in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, also known as Burma. Ethnic and religious tensions simmered during 49 years of military rule. But under the reformist government that took power in March 2011, Myanmar has endured its worst communal bloodshed in generations.
A Reuters investigation, based on interviews with people smugglers and more than two dozen survivors of boat voyages, reveals how some Thai naval security forces work systematically with smugglers to profit from the surge in fleeing Rohingya. The lucrative smuggling network transports the Rohingya mainly into neighboring Malaysia, a Muslim-majority country they view as a haven from persecution.
Once in the smugglers' hands, Rohingya men are often beaten until they come up with the money for their passage. Those who can't pay are handed over to traffickers, who sometimes sell the men as indentured servants on farms or into slavery on Thai fishing boats. There, they become part of the country's $8 billion seafood-export business, which supplies consumers in the United States, Japan and Europe.
Some Rohingya women are sold as brides, Reuters found. Other Rohingya languish in overcrowded Thai and Malaysian immigration detention centers.
Reuters reconstructed one deadly journey by 120 Rohingya, tracing their dealings with smugglers through interviews with the passengers and their families. They included Sabur and his 46-year-old mother-in-law Sabmeraz; Rahim, a 22-year-old rice farmer, and his friend Abdul Hamid, 27; and Abdul Rahim, 27, a shopkeeper.
While the death toll on their boat was unusually high, the accounts of mistreatment by authorities and smugglers were similar to those of survivors from other boats interviewed by Reuters.
The Rohingya exodus, and the state measures that fuel it, undermine Myanmar's carefully crafted image of ethnic reconciliation and stability that helped persuade the United States and Europe to suspend most sanctions.
At least 800 people, mostly Rohingya, have died at sea after their boats broke down or capsized in the past year, says the Arakan Project, an advocacy group that has studied Rohingya migration since 2006. The escalating death toll prompted the United Nations this year to call that part of the Indian Ocean one of world's "deadliest stretches of water."
EXTENDED FAMILIES
For more than a decade, Rohingya men have set sail in search of work in neighboring countries. A one-way voyage typically costs about 200,000 kyat, or $205, a small fortune by local standards. The extended Rohingya families who raise the sum regard it as an investment; many survive off money sent from relatives overseas.
The number boarding boats from Myanmar and neighboring Bangladesh reached 34,626 people from June 2012 to May of this year - more than four times the previous year, says the Arakan Project. Almost all are Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar. Unprecedented numbers of women and children are making these dangerous voyages.
A sophisticated smuggling industry is developing around them, drawing in other refugees across South Asia. Ramshackle fishing boats are being replaced by cargo ships crewed by smugglers and teeming with passengers. In June alone, six such ships disgorged hundreds of Rohingya and other refugees on remote Thai islands controlled by smugglers, the Arakan Project said.
Sabur and the others who sailed on the doomed 35-foot fishing boat came from Rakhine, a rugged coastal state where Rohingya claim a centuries-old lineage. The government calls them illegal "Bengali" migrants from Bangladesh who arrived during British rule in the 19th century. Most of the 1.1 million Rohingya of Rakhine state are denied citizenship and refused passports.
Machete-wielding Rakhine Buddhists destroyed Sabur's village last October, forcing him to abandon his home south of Sittwe, capital of Rakhine state. Last year's communal unrest in Rakhine made 140,000 homeless, most of them Rohingya. Myanmar's government says 192 people died; Rohingya activists put the toll as high as 748.
Before the violence, the Rohingya were the poorest people in the second-poorest state of Southeast Asia's poorest country. Today, despite Myanmar's historic reforms, they are worse off.
Tens of thousands live in squalid, disease-ridden displacement camps on the outskirts of Sittwe. Armed checkpoints prevent them from returning to the paddy fields and markets on which their livelihoods depend. Rohingya families in some areas have been banned from having more than two children.
Sabur's 33-member extended family spent several months wandering between camps before the family patriarch, an Islamic teacher in Malaysia named Arif Ali, helped them buy a fishing boat. They planned to sail straight to Malaysia to avoid Thailand's notorious smugglers.
Dozens of other paying passengers signed up for the voyage, along with an inexperienced captain who steered them to disaster.
"DYING, ONE BY ONE"
The small fishing boat set off from Myengu Island near Sittwe on February 15. The first two days went smoothly. Passengers huddled in groups, eating rice, dried fish and potatoes cooked in small pots over firewood. Space was so tight no one could stretch their legs while sleeping, said Rahim, the rice farmer, who like many Rohingya Muslims goes by one name.
Rahim's last few months had been horrific. A Rakhine mob killed his older brother in October and burned his family's rice farm to the ground. He spent two months in jail and was never told why. "The charge seemed to be that I was a young man," he said. Rakhine state authorities have acknowledged arresting Rohingya men deemed a threat to security.
High seas and gusting winds nearly swamped the boat on the third day. The captain seemed to panic, survivors said. Fearing the ship would capsize, he dumped five bags of rice and two water tanks overboard — half their supplies.
It steadied, but it was soon clear they had another problem - the captain admitted he was lost. By February 24, after more than a week at sea, supplies of water, food and fuel were gone.
"People started dying, one by one," said Sabmeraz, the grandmother.
The Islamic janaza funeral prayer was whispered over the washed and shrouded corpses of four women and two children who died first. Among them: Sabmeraz's daughter and two young grandchildren.
"We thought we would all die," Sabmeraz recalled.
Many gulped sea water, making them even weaker. Some drank their own urine. The sick relieved themselves where they lay. Floorboards became slick with vomit and feces. Some people appeared wild-eyed before losing consciousness "like they had gone mad," said Abdul Hamid.
On the morning of the 12th day, the shopkeeper Abdul Rahim wrapped his two-year-old daughter, Mozia, in cloth, performed funeral rites and slipped her tiny body into the sea. The next morning he did the same for his wife, Muju.
His father, Furkan, had warned Abdul Rahim not to take the two children - Mozia and her five-year-old sister, Morja. The family had been better off than most Rohingya. They owned a popular hardware store in Sittwe district. After it was reduced to rubble in the June violence, they moved into a camp.
On the night Abdul Rahim was leaving, Furkan recalls pleading with him on the jetty: "If you want to go, you can go. But leave our grandchildren with us."
Abdul Rahim refused. "I've lost everything, my house, my job," he recalls replying. "What else can I do?"
On February 28, hours after Abdul Rahim's wife died, the refugees spotted a Singapore-owned tugboat, the Star Jakarta. It was pulling an empty Indian-owned barge, the Ganpati, en route to Mumbai from Myanmar. The refugee men shouted but the slow-moving barge didn't stop.
But as the Ganpati moved by, a dozen Rohingya men jumped into the sea with a rope. They swam to the barge, fixed the rope and towed their boat close behind so people could board. By evening, 108 of them were on the barge.
Mohammed Salim, a soccer-loving grocery clerk, and a young woman, both in their 20s, were too weak to move. Close to death, they were cut adrift; the boat took on water and submerged in the rough seas.
"He was our hope," said Salim's father, Mohammad Kassim, 71, who emptied his savings to pay the 500,000 kyat ($515) cost of the journey.
Of the 12 who died on the boat, 11 were women and children.
MISTAKEN FOR PIRATES
What happened next shows how the problems of reform-era Myanmar are rapidly becoming Asia's.
The tugboat captain mistook the Rohingya for pirates and radioed for help, said Bhavna Dayal, a spokeswoman for Punj Lloyd Group, the Indian company that owns the barge. Within hours, an Indian Coast Guard ship arrived. Officers fired into the air and ordered the Rohingya to the floor.
Rahim, the rice farmer, said he and five others were beaten with a rubber baton. With the help of some Hindi picked up from Bollywood films, they explained they were fleeing the strife in Rakhine state. After that, everyone received food, water and first aid, he said.
Another Indian Coast Guard ship, the Aruna Asaf Ali, arrived. It took the women and children to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, an Indian archipelago a short voyage to the south, before returning for the men.
In Diglipur, the largest town in North Andaman Island, immigration authorities separated the men from women and children, putting them all in cells. Guards beat them at will, Rahim said, and rummaged through their belongings for money. He lost 60,000 kyat ($62) and hid his remaining 60,000 kyat in a crack in a wall.
Rupinder Singh, the police superintendent in Diglipur, denied anyone was beaten or robbed.
After about a month, the Rohingya were moved to a bigger detention center near the state capital Port Blair. They joined about 300 other Muslims, mostly Rohingya from Myanmar, who had been rescued at sea. The men went on a one-day hunger strike, demanding to be sent to Malaysia.
The protest seemed to work. Indian authorities brought all 420 of them into international waters and transferred them to a double-decker ferry, said the Rohingya passengers.
"They told us this ship would take us straight to Malaysia," said Sabur.
It was run, however, by Thailand-based smugglers, he said.
Commander P.V.S. Satish, speaking for the Indian Navy and the Indian Coast Guard, said there was "absolutely no truth" to the allegation that the Navy handed the Rohingya to smugglers.
After four days at sea, the Rohingya approached Thailand's southern Satun province around April 18. They were split into smaller boats. Some were taken to small islands, others to the mainland. The smugglers explained they needed to recoup the 10 million kyat ($10,300) they had paid for renting the ferry.
ECONOMICS OF TRAFFICKING
Thailand portrays itself as an accidental destination for Malaysia-bound Rohingya: They wash ashore and then flee or get detained.
In truth, Thailand is a smuggler's paradise, and the stateless Rohingya are big business. Smugglers seek them out, aware their relatives will pay to move them on. This can blur the lines between smuggling and trafficking.
Smuggling, done with the consent of those involved, differs from trafficking, the business of trapping people by force or deception into labor or prostitution. The distinction is critical.
An annual U.S. State Department report, monitoring global efforts to combat modern slavery, has for the last four years kept Thailand on a so-called Tier 2 Watch List, a notch above the worst offenders, such as North Korea. A drop to Tier 3 can trigger sanctions, including the blocking of World Bank aid.
A veteran smuggler in Thailand described the economics of the trade in a rare interview. Each adult Rohingya is valued at up to $2,000, yielding smugglers a net profit of 10,000 baht ($320) after bribes and other costs, the smuggler said. In addition to the Royal Thai Navy, the seas are patrolled by the Thai Marine Police and by local militias under the control of military commanders.
"Ten years ago, the money went directly to the brokers. Now it goes to all these officials as well," said the smuggler, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
A broker in Myanmar typically sends a passenger list with a departure date to a counterpart in Thailand, the smuggler said. Thai navy or militia commanders are then notified to intercept boats and sometimes guide them to pre-arranged spots, said the smuggler.
The Thai naval forces usually earn about 2,000 baht ($65) per Rohingya for spotting a boat or turning a blind eye, said the smuggler, who works in the southern Thai region of Phang Nga and deals directly with the navy and police.
Police receive 5,000 baht ($160) per Rohingya, or about 500,000 baht ($16,100) for a boat of 100, the smuggler said.
Another smuggler, himself a Rohingya based in Kuala Lumpur, said Thai naval forces help guide boatloads to arranged spots. He said his group maintains close phone contact with local commanders. He estimated his group has smuggled up to 4,000 people into Malaysia in the past six months.
Relatives in Malaysia must make an initial deposit of 3,000 ringgit ($950) into Malaysian bank accounts, he said, followed by a second payment for the same amount once the refugees reach the country.
Naval ships do not always work with the smugglers. Some follow Thailand's official "help on" policy, whereby Rohingya boats are supplied with fuel and provisions on condition they sail onward.
The Thai navy and police denied any involvement in Rohingya smuggling. Manasvi Srisodapol, a Thai Foreign Ministry spokesman, said that there has been no evidence of the navy trafficking or abusing Rohingya for several years.
CAGES AND THREATS
Anti-trafficking campaigners have produced mounting evidence of the widespread use of slave labor from countries such as Myanmar on Thai fishing boats, which face an acute labor shortage.
Fishing companies buy Rohingya men for between 10,000 baht ($320) and 20,000 baht ($640), depending on age and strength, said the smuggler in Phang Nga. He recounted sales of Rohingya in the past year to Indonesian and Singapore fishing firms.
This has made the industry a major source of U.S. concern over Thailand's record on human trafficking. About 8 percent of Thai seafood exports go to supermarkets and restaurants in the United States, the second biggest export market after Japan.
The Thai government has said it is serious about tackling human trafficking, though no government minister has publicly acknowledged that slavery exists in the fishing industry.
Sabur, his wife Monzurah and more than a dozen Rohingya thought slavery might be their fate. The smugglers held them on the Thai island for five weeks. The captors said they would be sold to fisheries, pig farms or plantations if money didn't arrive soon.
"We were too scared to sleep at night," said Monzurah, 19 years old.
Arif Ali, the family patriarch in Kuala Lumpur, managed to raise about $21,000 to secure the release of 19 of his relatives, including his sister Sabmeraz, Sabur, and Monzurah. They were taken on foot across the border into Malaysia in May. But 10 of the family, all men, remained imprisoned on the island as he struggled to raise more funds.
As Ali was interviewed in early June, his cellphone rang and he had a brief, heated conversation. "They call every day," he said. "They say if we call the police they will kill them."
Some women without money are sold as brides for 50,000 baht ($1,600) each, typically to Rohingya men in Malaysia, the Thai smuggler said. Refugees who are caught and detained by Thai authorities also face the risk of abuse.
At a detention center in Phang Nga in southern Thailand, 269 Rohingya men and boys lived in cage-like cells that stank of sweat and urine when a Reuters journalist visited recently. Most had been there six months. Some used crutches because their muscles had atrophied.
"Every day we ask when we can leave this place, but we have no idea if that will ever happen," said Faizal Haq, 14.
They are among about 2,000 Rohingya held in 24 immigration detention centers across Thailand, according to the Thai government.
"To be honest, we really don't know what to do with them," said one immigration official who declined to be named. Myanmar has rejected a Thai request to repatriate them.
Dozens of Rohingya have escaped detention centers. The Thai smuggler said some immigration officials will free Rohingya for a price. Thailand's Foreign Ministry denied immigration officials take payments from smugglers.
PROMISED LAND
When Rahim, Abdul Hamid and the other Rohingya finally arrived in Thailand, smugglers met them in Satun province, which borders Malaysia.
They were herded into pickup trucks and driven to a farm, where they say they saw the smugglers negotiate with Thai police and immigration officials. The smugglers told them to contact relatives in Malaysia who could pay the roughly 6,000 ringgit ($1,800).
"If you run away, the police and immigration will bring you back to us. We paid them to do that," the most senior smuggler told them, the two men recalled.
After 22 days at the farm, Rahim and Hamid escaped. It was near midnight when they darted across a field, cleared a barbed-wire fence and ran into the jungle. They wandered for a day, hungry and lost, before meeting a Burmese man who found them work on a fruit farm in Padang Besar near the Thai-Malaysia border. They still work there today, hoping to save enough money to leave Thailand.
If the smugglers get paid, they usually take the Rohingya across southern Thailand in pickup trucks, 16 at a time, with just enough space to breathe, the smuggler in Thailand said. They are hidden under containers of fish, shrimp or other food, and sent through police checkpoints at 1,000 baht ($32) apiece, the smuggler said. Once close to Malaysia, the final crossing of the border is usually made by foot.
Abdul Rahim, the shopkeeper who lost his wife and toddler, arranged a quick payment to the smugglers from relatives in Kuala Lumpur. He was soon on a boat to Malaysia with his surviving daughter and his sister-in-law, Ruksana. They were dropped off around April 20 at a remote spot in Malaysia's northern Penang island.
For Abdul Rahim and many other Rohingya, Malaysia was the promised land. For most, that hope fades quickly.
At best, they can register with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees and receive a card that gives them minimal legal protection and a chance for a low-paid job such as construction. While Malaysia has won praise for accepting Rohingya refugees, it has not signed the U.N. Refugee Convention that would oblige it to give them fuller rights.
Those picked up by Malaysian authorities face weeks or months in packed detention camps, where several witnesses said beatings and insufficient food were common. The Malaysian government did not comment on conditions in the camps.
The UNHCR has registered 28,000 Rohingya asylum seekers out of nearly 95,000 Myanmar refugees in Malaysia, many of whom have been in the country for years. An estimated 49,000 unregistered asylum seekers can wait months or years for a coveted UNHCR card. The card gives asylum seekers discounted treatment at public hospitals, is recognized by many employers, and gives protection against repatriation.
The vast majority, like Sabur, Abdul Rahim and their families, don't obtain these minimal protections. They evade detention in the camps but live in fear of arrest.
By early July, Sabur had found temporary work in an iron foundry on Kuala Lumpur's outskirts earning about $10 a day. He will likely have to save for years to pay back the money that secured his release.
Abdul Rahim's family now lives in a small, windowless room in a city suburb. His late wife's sister, Ruksana, coughed up blood during one interview, but is afraid to seek medical help without documentation.
By early July, Abdul Rahim had married Ruksana. He was picking up occasional odd jobs through friends but was struggling to pay the $80 a month rent on their shabby room. Despite that, and the loss of his first wife and daughter, he still believes he made the right decision to flee Myanmar.
"I don't regret coming," he said, "but I regret what happened. I think about my wife and daughter all day."

(Stuart Grudgings reported from Kuala Lumpur. Additional reporting by Amy Sawitta Lefevre in Bangkok and Sruthi Gottipati in New Delhi. Editing by Bill Tarrant and Michael Williams)

Rohingya struggle in Bangladesh refugee camps

 Jul 17, 2013
ABC Australia,
Stephanie March

Bangladesh capital Dhaka has cracked down on migration from neighbouring Myanmar, closing its border, refusing to support asylum seekers and turning back boats.

Surakatun and her family have been eating boiled leaves and rice for the past three days.
It's a normal lunch at the unofficial refugee camp in Kutupalong - once the pots are empty, that's it.
"My husband is old now so if I don't go out and beg we go hungry," she said.
Like everyone in the camp, Surakatun is a Rohingya who has fled violence in Myanmar - she would rather endure this harsh existence than go back there.
"If you see your daughter being dragged in front of you and being violated sexually would you bear that? Would you allow that to happen?" she said.
In June and October last year, violence broke out between Buddhists and the Muslim minority Rohingya in Myanmar's Rakhine state.
According to the United Nations, the fighting displaced 140,000 people.
Myanmar President Thein Sein rejects that the violence in Rakhine state was fuelled by religion or ethnicity - he says his government is trying to help the communities there coexist in harmony.
The Rohingya have lived in Myanmar for 200 years, but Thein Sein's government does not recognise them as citizens.
They are regarded as Bangladeshi immigrants, but authorities in Dhaka do not recognise them either.
Jing Song, UNHCR Bangladesh spokeswoman, says Rohingya are denied the basic rights afforded to citizens.

We are repeatedly urging the government to open the border to people who are coming to seek safe haven - we all know what is happening in Rakhine state.

Jing Song, UNHCR Bangladesh spokeswoman

"When you are living in the country, the rights are given by the country, by your government," she said.
"Where you are stateless it means you don't have access to the basic rights like the rights to employment, the rights to education, the rights to medical care - you have lots of restrictions."
Thirty thousand Rohingya get aid agency assistance in official refugee camps.
However, the government refuses to recognise the remaining 200,000 who fend for themselves in one of the many "unofficial" camps.
To discourage the Rohingya from coming, last year the Bangladeshi government banned aid agencies in the camp and started turning away boats
"We are repeatedly urging the government to open border to people who are coming to seek safe haven - we all know what is happening in the Rakhine state," Jing Song said.
"There could be economic reasons but also the fundamental reason is lack of access to basic rights so it is an international standard to open the border, not to push back people."
People inside the camp don't get any official support when it comes to food, health, or shelter and they desperately need it.
Houses are covered with garbage bags, so when the monsoon rains come they flood very easily.
There are only a handful of toilets to service a population of 50,000 people.
Despite the government crackdown, Rohingya keep coming - newly arrived refugees Zakir, and his 20-year-old daughter Yasmin live in the camp.
Before fleeing Myanmar four months ago, Yasmin was working as a language teacher for the UNHCR when violence broke out.
"The UNHCR people were being targeted and blacklisted and already many of them had been arrested," Zakir said.
"The authorities have gone to the homes of the UNHCR workers to look for them, so I was afraid my daughter would get arrested because she worked for UNHCR."
As one of the poorest nations on earth, Bangladesh can barely look after its existing population, let alone others from neighbouring countries.
Each day last year, 23,000 people were forced to flee their homes, twice as many compared with a decade ago.

No matter how difficult it is at the border, people will still cross because they are desperate.

Nilima Sakar, environmental refugee

Adil Kham, a human rights advocate, says legislation cannot stop the movement of people.
"Human history is the history of migration - people migrate and the laws can't stop that," he said.
Like Bangladesh, India has reason to be worried about a potential influx of asylum seekers - it's already home to one third of the world's poor.
To counter this, India is building a fence along the border and hopes to eventually have the entire 4,000 km frontier walled off.
People still find ways to get across, bribing border guards or sneaking across in the dark.
The fence has also created a new problem - over the past decade, killings have been widespread on the borderline.
"This is the bloodiest border I think in this world context," Adil Khan said.
"It is more bloody than Palestine-Israel border and I think it is more bloody than the Mexico-USA border, so it is the bloodiest border and we can call it the killing fields."
In the past, the Bangladesh government has criticised India for its decision to try to fence off the entire border.
Now, Bangladesh has decided to build a fence too, but this one will be along the border it shares with Myanmar.
"Fencing the people, it's like putting people in a kind of prison," Adil Khan said.
"This is not a solution, the solution is how you can have a more friendly relationship with the people."
Rohingya asylum seeker Zakir is now trying to bring his wife and the nine children he left behind in Myanmar to Bangladesh.
"I am afraid. I am really concerned, they are all young children," Zakir said.
"Our house is on the west side of the hills so they have to walk across those hills to come to Bangladesh, it takes at least four hours to cross."
He isn't sure if the Bangladesh government will have built its fence by the time he has enough money to get them across.
But in his eyes, no physical barrier changes the resolve of someone so desperate.
"No matter how difficult it is at the border, people will still cross because they are desperate," Zakir said.

"No matter how difficult the route is, they have to save their lives."

AP Impact: Massacre of Muslims in Myanmar ignored

ADVANCE FOR USE SUNDAY, JULY 7 AND THEREAFTER - In this May 25, 2013 photo, debris is scattered among the ruins of the Himayathul Islamic Boarding School in the Mingalar Zayone neighborhood of Meikhtila, Myanmar. What happened there on March 21, 2013, is the story of one of Myanmar's single darkest days since its post-junta leaders promised the dawn of a new, democratic era two years ago _ a day on which 36 Muslims, most of them teenagers, were slaughtered before the eyes of police and local officials who did almost nothing to stop it. Photo: Gemunu Amarasinghe         

July 6, 2013
AP
Todd Pitman

MEIKHTILA, Myanmar (AP) — Their bones are scattered in blackened patches of earth across a hillside overlooking the wrecked Islamic boarding school they once called home.

Smashed fragments of skulls rest atop the dirt. A shattered jaw cradles half a set of teeth. And among the remains lie the sharpened bamboo staves attackers used to beat dozens of people to the ground before drowning their still-twitching bodies in gasoline and burning them alive.

The mobs that March morning were Buddhists enraged by the killing of a monk. The victims were Muslims who had nothing to do with it — students and teachers from a prestigious Islamic school in central Myanmar who were so close to being saved.

In the last hours of their lives, police had been dispatched to rescue them from a burning compound surrounded by swarms of angry men. And when they emerged cowering, hands atop their heads, they only had to make it to four police trucks waiting on the road above.

It wasn't far to go — just one hill.

What happened on the way is the story of one of Myanmar's darkest days since this Southeast Asian country's post-junta leaders promised the dawn of a new, democratic era two years ago — a day on which 36 Muslims, most teenagers, were slaughtered before the eyes of police and local officials who did almost nothing to stop it.

And what has happened since shows just how hollow the promise of change has been for a neglected religious minority that has received neither protection nor justice.

The president of this predominantly Buddhist nation never came to Meikhtila to mourn the dead or comfort the living. Police investigators never roped this place off or collected the evidence of carnage left behind on these slopes. And despite video clips online that show mobs clubbing students to death and cheering as flames leap from corpses, not a single suspect has been convicted.

International rights groups say the lack of justice fuels impunity among Buddhist mobs and paves the way for more violence. It also reflects the reality that despite Myanmar's bid to reform, power remains concentrated in the hands of an ethnic Burman, Buddhist elite that dominates all branches of government.

"If the rule of law exists at all in Myanmar, it is something only Buddhists can enjoy," says Thida, whose husband was slain in Meikhtila. Like other survivors, she asked not to be identified by her full name for fear of retribution. "We know there is no such thing as justice for Muslims."

___

The Associated Press pieced together the story of the March 21 massacre from the accounts of 10 witnesses, including seven survivors who only agreed to meet outside their homes for security reasons. The AP cross-checked their testimony against video clips taken by private citizens, many with the date and time embedded; public media footage; dozens of photos; a site inspection, and information from local officials.

The day before the massacre began like every other at the Mingalar Zayone Islamic Boarding School — with a call to prayer echoing through the darkness before dawn.

It was Wednesday, March 20, and 120 drowsy students blinked their eyes, rising from a sea of mats spread across the floors of a vast two-story dormitory.

Set behind the walls of a modest compound in a Muslim neighborhood of Meikhtila, the all-male madrassa attracted students from across the region whose parents hoped they would one day become Islamic scholars or clerics.

The school had a soccer pitch, a mosque and 10 teachers. It also had a reputation for discipline and insularity — the headmaster, a strict yet kind man with a wispy beard, only allowed students outside once a week. Muslims made up about a third of Meikhtila's 100,000 inhabitants, compared with just 5 percent of Myanmar's population, and they lived peacefully with Buddhists.

SPECIAL REPORT-Myanmar gives official blessing to anti-Muslim monks

Jun 27, 2013
Reuters

 Andrew R.C. Marshall


YANGON, June 27 (Reuters) - The Buddhist extremist movement in Myanmar, known as 969, portrays itself as a grassroots creed.
Its chief proponent, a monk named Wirathu, was once jailed by the former military junta for anti-Muslim violence and once called himself the "Burmese bin Laden."
But a Reuters examination traces 969's origins to an official in the dictatorship that once ran Myanmar, and which is the direct predecessor of today's reformist government. The 969 movement now enjoys support from senior government officials, establishment monks and even some members of the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD), the political party of Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
Wirathu urges Buddhists to boycott Muslim shops and shun interfaith marriages. He calls mosques "enemy bases."
Among his admirers: Myanmar's minister of religious affairs.
"Wirathu's sermons are about promoting love and understanding between religions," Sann Sint, minister of religious affairs, told Reuters in his first interview with the international media. "It is impossible he is inciting religious violence."
Sann Sint, a former lieutenant general in Myanmar's army, also sees nothing wrong with the boycott of Muslim businesses being led by the 969 monks. "We are now practicing market economics," he said. "Nobody can stop that. It is up to the consumers."
President Thein Sein is signaling a benign view of 969, too. His office declined to comment for this story. But in response to growing controversy over the movement, it issued a statement Sunday, saying 969 "is just a symbol of peace" and Wirathu is "a son of Lord Buddha."
Wirathu and other monks have been closely linked to the sectarian violence spreading across Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. Anti-Muslim unrest simmered under the junta that ran the country for nearly half a century. But the worst fighting has occurred since the quasi-civilian government took power in March 2011.
Two outbursts in Rakhine State last year killed at least 192 people and left 140,000 homeless, mostly stateless Rohingya Muslims. A Reuters investigation found that organized attacks on Muslims last October were led by Rakhine nationalists incited by Buddhist monks and sometimes abetted by local security forces.
In March this year, at least 44 people died and 13,000 were displaced - again, mostly Muslims - during riots in Meikhtila, a city in central Myanmar. Reuters documented in April that the killings happened after monks led Buddhist mobs on a rampage. In May, Buddhists mobs burned and terrorized Muslim neighborhoods in the northern city of Lashio. Reports of unrest have since spread nationwide.
The numbers 969, innocuous in themselves, refer to attributes of the Buddha, his teachings and the monkhood. But 969 monks have been providing the moral justification for a wave of anti-Muslim bloodshed that could scuttle Myanmar's nascent reform program. Another prominent 969 monk, Wimala Biwuntha, likens Muslims to a tiger who enters an ill-defended house to snatch away its occupants.
"Without discipline, we'll lose our religion and our race," he said in a recent sermon. "We might even lose our country."
Officially, Myanmar has no state religion, but its rulers have long put Buddhism first. Muslims make up an estimated 4 percent of the populace. Buddhism is followed by 90 percent of the country's 60 million people and is promoted by a special department within the ministry of religion created during the junta.



EASY SCAPEGOATS
Monks play a complex part in Burmese politics. They took a central role in pro-democracy "Saffron Revolution" uprisings against military rule in 2007. The generals - who included current President Thein Sein and most senior members of his government - suppressed them. Now, Thein Sein's ambitious program of reforms has ushered in new freedoms of speech and assembly, liberating the country's roughly 500,000 monks. They can travel at will to spread Buddhist teachings, including 969 doctrine.
In Burma's nascent democracy, the monks have emerged as a political force in the run-up to a general election scheduled for 2015. Their new potency has given rise to a conspiracy theory here: The 969 movement is controlled by disgruntled hardliners from the previous junta, who are fomenting unrest to derail the reforms and foil an election landslide by Suu Kyi's NLD.
No evidence has emerged to support this belief. But some in the government say there is possibly truth to it.
"Some people are very eager to reform, some people don't want to reform," Soe Thein, one of President Thein Sein's two closest advisors, told Reuters. "So, regarding the sectarian violence, some people may be that side - the anti-reform side."
Even if 969 isn't controlled by powerful hardliners, it has broad support, both in high places and at the grass roots, where it is a genuine and growing movement.
Officials offer tacit backing, said Wimala, the 969 monk. "By letting us give speeches to protect our religion and race, I assume they are supporting us," he said.
The Yangon representative of the Burmese Muslim Association agreed. "The anti-Muslim movement is growing and the government isn't stopping it," said Myo Win, a Muslim teacher. Myo Win likened 969 to the Ku Klux Klan.
The religion minister, Sann Sint, said the movement doesn't have official state backing. But he defended Wirathu and other monks espousing the creed.
"I don't think they are preaching to make problems," he said.
Local authorities, too, have lent the movement some backing.
Its logo - now one of Myanmar's most recognizable - bears the Burmese numerals 969, a chakra wheel and four Asiatic lions representing the ancient Buddhist emperor Ashoka. Stickers with the logo are handed out free at speeches. They adorn shops, homes, taxis and souvenir stalls at the nation's most revered Buddhist pagoda, the Shwedagon. They are a common sight in areas plagued by unrest.
Some authorities treat the symbol with reverence. A court in Bago, a region near Yangon hit by anti-Muslim violence this year, jailed a Muslim man for two years in April after he removed a 969 sticker from a betel-nut shop. He was sentenced under a section of Burma's colonial-era Penal Code, which outlaws "deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings".
QUASI-OFFICIAL ORIGINS
The 969 movement's ties to the state date back to the creed's origins. Wimala, Wirathu and other 969 preachers credit its creation to the late Kyaw Lwin, an ex-monk, government official and prolific writer, now largely forgotten outside religious circles.
Myanmar's former dictators handpicked Kyaw Lwin to promote Buddhism after the brutal suppression of the 1988 democracy uprising. Thousands were killed or injured after soldiers opened fire on unarmed protesters, including monks. Later, to signal their disgust, monks refused to accept alms from military families for three months, a potent gesture in devoutly Buddhist Myanmar.
Afterwards, the military set about co-opting Buddhism in an effort to tame rebellious monks and repair its image. Monks were registered and their movements restricted. State-run media ran almost daily reports of generals overseeing temple renovations or donating alms to abbots.
In 1991, the junta created a Department for the Promotion and Propagation of the Sasana (DPPS), a unit within the Religion Ministry, and appointed Kyaw Lwin as its head. Sasana means "religion" in Pali, the liturgical language of Theravada Buddhism; in Burma, the word is synonymous with Buddhism itself.
The following year, the DPPS published "How To Live As A Good Buddhist," a distillation of Kyaw Lwin's writings. It was republished in 2000 as "The Best Buddhist," its cover bearing an early version of the 969 logo.
Kyaw Lwin stepped down in 1992. The current head is Khine Aung, a former military officer.
Kyaw Lwin's widow and son still live in his modest home in central Yangon. Its living room walls are lined with shelves of Kyaw Lwin's books and framed photos of him as a monk and meditation master.
Another photo shows Kyaw Lwin sharing a joke with Lieutenant General Khin Nyunt, then chief of military intelligence and one of Myanmar's most feared men. Kyaw Lwin enjoyed close relations with other junta leaders, said his son, Aung Lwin Tun, 38, a car importer. He was personally instructed to write "The Best Buddhist" by the late Saw Maung, then Myanmar's senior-most general. He met "often" to discuss religion with ex-dictator Than Shwe, who retired in March 2011 and has been out of the public eye since then.
"The Best Buddhist" is out of print, but Aung Lwin Tun plans to republish it. "Many people are asking for it now," he said. He supports today's 969 movement, including its anti-Muslim boycott. "It's like building a fence to protect our religion," he said.
Also supporting 969 is Kyaw Lwin's widow, 65, whose name was withheld at the family's request. She claimed that Buddhists who marry Muslims are forced at their weddings to tread on an image of Buddha, and that the ritual slaughter of animals by Shi'ite Muslims makes it easier for them to kill humans.
Among the monks Kyaw Lwin met during his time as DPPS chief was Wiseitta Biwuntha, who hailed from the town of Kyaukse, near the northern cultural capital of Mandalay. Better known as Wirathu, he is today one of the 969's most incendiary leaders.
Wirathu and Kyaw Lwin stayed in touch after their 1992 meeting, said Aung Lwin Tun, who believed his father would admire Wirathu's teachings. "He is doing what other people won't - protecting and promoting the religion."
Kyaw Lwin died in 2001, aged 70. That same year, Wirathu began preaching about 969, and the U.S. State Department reported "a sharp increase in anti-Muslim violence" in Myanmar. Anti-Muslim sentiment was stoked in March 2001 by the Taliban's destruction of Buddhist statues in Bamiyan, Afghanistan, and in September by al Qaeda's attacks in the United States.
Two years later, Wirathu was arrested and sentenced to 25 years in jail for distributing anti-Muslim pamphlets that incited communal riots in his hometown. At least 10 Muslims were killed by a Buddhist mob, according to a State Department report. The 969 movement had spilled its first blood.
969 VERSUS 786
Wirathu was freed in 2011 during an amnesty for political prisoners. While the self-styled "Burmese bin Laden" has become the militant face of 969, the movement derives evangelical energy from monks in Mon, a coastal state where people pride themselves on being Myanmar's first Buddhists. Since last year's violence they have organized a network across the nation. They led a boycott last year of a Muslim-owned bus company in Moulmein, Mon's capital. Extending that boycott nationwide has become a central 969 goal.
Muslims held many senior government positions after Myanmar gained independence from Britain in 1948. That changed in 1962, when the military seized power and stymied the hiring and promoting of Muslim officials. The military drew on popular prejudices that Muslims dominated business and used their profits to build mosques, buy Buddhist wives and spread Islamic teachings.
All this justified the current boycott of Muslim businesses, said Zarni Win Tun, a 31-year-old lawyer and 969 devotee, who said Muslims had long shunned Buddhist businesses. "We didn't start the boycott - they did," she said. "We're just using their methods."
By that she means the number 786, which Muslims of South Asian origin often display on their homes and businesses. It is a numerical representation of the Islamic blessing, "In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate and Merciful". But Buddhists in Myanmar - a country obsessed by numerology - claim the sum of the three numbers signifies a Muslim plan for world domination in the 21st century.
It is possible to understand why some Buddhists might believe this. Religious and dietary customs prohibit Muslims from frequenting Buddhist restaurants, for example. Muslims also dominate some small- and medium-sized business sectors. The names of Muslim-owned construction companies - Naing Group, Motherland, Fatherland - are winning extra prominence now that Yangon is experiencing a reform-era building boom.
However, the biggest construction firms - those involved in multi-billion-dollar infrastructure projects - are run by tycoons linked to members of the former dictatorship. They are Buddhists.
Buddhist clients have canceled contracts with Muslim-owned construction companies in northern Yangon, fearing attacks by 969 followers on the finished buildings, said Shwe Muang, a Muslim MP with the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party. "I worry that if this starts in one township it will infect others," he said.
"OUR LIVES ARE NOT SAFE"
For Zarni Win Tun, the 969 devotee, shunning Muslims is a means of ensuring sectarian peace. She points to the Meikhtila violence, which was sparked by an argument between Buddhist customers and a Muslim gold-shop owner. "If they'd bought from their own people, the problem wouldn't have happened," she said.
Her conviction that segregation is the solution to sectarian strife is echoed in national policy. A total of at least 153,000 Muslims have been displaced in the past year after the violence in Rakhine and in central Myanmar. Most are concentrated in camps guarded by the security forces with little hope of returning to their old lives.
A few prominent monks have publicly criticized the 969 movement, and some Facebook users have launched a campaign to boycott taxis displaying its stickers. Some Yangon street stalls have started selling 969 CDs more discreetly since the Meikhtila bloodbath. The backlash has otherwise been muted.
Wimala, the Mon monk, shrugged off criticism from fellow monks. "They shouldn't try to stop us from doing good things," he said.
In mid-June, he and Wirathu attended a hundreds-strong monastic convention near Yangon, where Wirathu presented a proposal to restrict Buddhist women from marrying Muslim men.
In another sign 969 is going mainstream, Wirathu's bid was supported by Dhammapiya, a U.S.-educated professor at the International Theravada Buddhist Missionary University in Yangon, a respected institution with links to other Buddhist universities in Asia.
Dhammapiya described 969 as a peaceful movement that is helping Myanmar through a potentially turbulent transition. "The 969 issue for us is no issue," Dhammapiya told Reuters. "Buddhists always long to live in peace and harmony."
NO MOSQUES HERE
The only mass movement to rival 969 is the National League for Democracy. Their relationship is both antagonistic and complementary.
In a speech posted on YouTube in late March, Wirathu said the party and Suu Kyi's inner circle were dominated by Muslims. "If you look at NLD offices in any town, you will see bearded people," he said. Followers of Wimala told Reuters they had removed photos of Suu Kyi - a devout Buddhist - from their homes to protest her apparent reluctance to speak up for Buddhists affected by last year's violence in Rakhine. Suu Kyi's reticence on sectarian violence has also angered Muslims.
The Burmese Muslim Association has accused NLD members of handing out 969 materials in Yangon.
Party spokesman Nyan Win said "some NLD members" were involved in the movement. "But the NLD cannot interfere with the freedoms or rights of members," he said. "They all have the right to do what they want in terms of social affairs."
Min Thet Lin, 36, a taxi driver, is exercising that right. The front and back windows of his car are plastered with 969 stickers. He is also an NLD leader in Thaketa, a working-class Yangon township known for anti-Muslim sentiment.
In February, Buddhist residents of Thaketa descended upon an Islamic school in Min Thet Lin's neighborhood which they claimed was being secretly converted into a mosque. Riot police were deployed while the structure was demolished.
A month later, Wimala and two other Mon monks visited Thaketa to give Buddhists what a promotional leaflet called "dhamma medicine" - that is, three days of 969 sermons. "Don't give up the fight," urged the leaflet.
Today, the property is sealed off and guarded by police. "People don't want a mosque here," said Min Thet Lin.

As he spoke, 969's pop anthem, "Song to Whip Up Religious Blood," rang over the rooftops. A nearby monastic school was playing the song for enrolling pupils. (Additional reporting by Min Zayar Oo.; Editing by Bill Tarrant and Michael Williams)

Read this story in a PDF link.reuters.com/beg29t
* Anti-Muslim riots mark emergence of extreme Buddhism
* Movement has seized on a doctrine called 969
* They preach anti-Muslim sermons, call for Muslim boycotts
* Ministry of religion originally fostered 969 doctrine
* Religion minister supports 969's most incendiary preacher

969 - Special Report by Reuters

Situation remains bleak one year on for 140,000 people displaced in Rakhine state by inter-communal violence

Report from UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Myanmar

Reliefweb

(Yangon, 17 June 2013) One year on from inter-communal clashes in Rakhine State, 140,000 people remain displaced, with little hope of their lives returning to normal.

Outbreaks of inter-communal violence in Rakhine State in June and October 2012 caused the death of 167 people, destroyed over 10,000 buildings and led to a loss of livelihoods and infrastructure across the state. The onset of violence triggered a multi-sector humanitarian response, with food, health, sanitation, shelter and other lifesaving relief to people in need.

Humanitarian assistance has improved the temporary situation of the communities displaced. Food is distributed on a monthly basis to those in need, with nearly 2,200 metric tonnes provided in May alone. Some 3,000 latrines are now functioning. Temporary shelter for over 71,000 people has been built. However, there are still significant gaps that need to be filled, including additional funding for camp management and coordination activities. These gaps will be updated when the Rakhine Response Plan is released in late July.

Restrictions of access and freedom of movement have severely affected employment, and health and education rights. For example, about 20,000 primary school-aged displaced children have lost an entire school year, with no access to formal education. Everyone needs to have the right to move freely and access basic services.

Several thousand people have been displaced since the clashes, have lost their jobs, and access to land and markets. As a result they have migrated to the displacement camps to get assistance. Humanitarian assistance is a short-term solution and the UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Myanmar, Ashok Nigam, urges the Government of Myanmar and the international community to remain focused on addressing longer term issues; “Humanitarian assistance is a temporary measure to respond to immediate needs. Sustainable solutions must be found to restore a lasting peace and harmony between the people of Rakhine State. Reconciliation between communities is the larger priority. The root causes of the tensions that exist between the people must be addressed. Inter-communal tensions fuel fear and resentment. Left unresolved, they will drive communities further apart. The international community stands ready to support the Government in its efforts to foster peace and harmony in Rakhine State.”

Trust-building between communities and the authorities also needs to be rebuilt so that peace and inter-communal harmony can be achieved. Left unaddressed, mistrust will likely deepen fear. “The citizenship status of the 800,000 Muslims in Rakhine State must also to be addressed,” Mr. Nigam cautioned. “The consequences of statelessness for Muslims in Rakhine State continue to have a direct effect on fundamental human rights, and the social and economic development of Myanmar.”

SPECIAL REPORT: A Buddhist Minister’s Experience of the Myanmar Muslims Genocide Awareness Convention 2013

June 18, 2013
Pathoes.com
Rev. Danny Fisher

Two weekends ago, I had the pleasure of attending the Myanmar Muslims Genocide Awareness Convention in Culver City, CA. I went because I felt it was important to put my presence where my mouth was: as I’ve indicated here at this blog, the situation in Burma has been incredibly distressing to me, and rather than simply talk about it, I want to be more involved in helping in any small way that I can to get it resolved.

I’ve certainly tried to be involved, at least from my desk. My friend Joshua Eaton and I collaborated last year on an open letter from Buddhist teachers and scholars and others on Islamophobia that you can read at buddhistletteronislamophobia.wordpress.com. (Joshua authored the letter — though a few of us offered little tweaks and edits — and I put together the website and helped him get the word out and generate signatures.) Not long after I also added my name to “A Joint Buddhist-Muslim Statement on Inter–Communal Violence in Burma”, authored by my friend Bill Aiken at SGI-USA. In addition, I took the time to write a substantial post about Engaged Buddhist icon Aung San Suu Kyi’s silence and lack of action on this matter back in November, and you can read that post here.

Satellite imagery by Human Rights Watch that shows “widespread destruction of Rohingya homes, property.”

As I explained in that post, for the uninitiated: the Rohingyas are the 800,000 or so Muslims who live in the western part of Burma. They have lived in the area of the Rakhine state for centuries, with much immigration and flight between Burma and Bangladesh — the result of ever-changing political fortunes and conquest. British colonialists encouraged their immigration from Bangladesh in the nineteenth century to boost their agricultural yield in the region. By 1939, the population of Rohingya Muslims (and tensions with local Rakhine Buddhists) had risen to such a degree that a commission of inquiry decided to close the border. Once World War II began, the British left the region, and terrible violence erupted between the two groups. Thousands died. More bloodshed ensued when the Japanese arrived: the Rohingyas were supporters of the Allies — some of them even served as spies for the British — who had promised to support them in their goal of a separate Muslim state. Tens of thousands are believed to have fled to Bangladesh at this point. Following the coup of 1962, more were forced to seek refuge in Bangladesh and Pakistan due to the junta’s targeted attacks on the Rohingya community. In 1982, General Ne Win tightened a nationality law in the country and effectively (and illegally) rendered the Rohingyas a stateless people.

Today, the United Nations consider the Rohingyas “one of the most persecuted minorities in the world.” Right now there is considerable unrest and devastating violence — dozens are dead, whole villages have been razed, and well over 100,000 have been displaced — in the Rakhine state as a result of what the Agence France-Presse identified as “the rape and murder of a Rakhine women and the revenge mob killing of 10 Muslims.” By last fall, Human Rights Watch had issued a report noting that “recent events in Arakan State demonstrate… state-sponsored persecution and discrimination [of the Rohingyas],” including murder, rape, and mass arrest. Reuters released a shocking special investigative report not long after which led with what was essentially a confirmation of HRW’s report: “The wave of attacks was organized, central-government military sources told Reuters. They were led by Rakhine nationalists tied to a powerful political party in the state, incited by Buddhist monks, and, some witnesses said, abetted at times by local security forces.”

International news agencies and the Buddhist media have since been following the situation closely, and have reported on those in the Burmese sangha who are encouraging violence, as well as those trying to do something to help. It was all this news and information that brought me to the Myanmar Muslims Genocide Convention on June 9th.

Attended by easily 250-300 people or more — the crowd grew steadily throughout — the audience at the convention was made of largely persons of South Asian heritage, quite a few of them readily identifiable as Muslim from their hijab, kufi, and other distinctive dress. Things got off to a very strong start with some simple, important points of clarification from host Devin Hennessy. In the context of the event, a “Myanmar Muslim,” he stated, was “any Muslim living in the borders of the country, regardless of ethnicity.” This is an important point considering that, even though the Rohingya Muslims of the Rakhine state are dominating news coverage right now, there are more than one-hundred ethnic groups in Burma, and many of them have Muslims in their ranks. Hennessy also laid the groundwork for later discussion about proper terminology in this situation by stating that it had “escalated to a genocidal level,” and that the word “genocide” was being used specifically because what is happening is “within the criteria” for its use.

Culver City Mayor Jeffrey Cooper

These introductory remarks were followed by a dua from a young boy in attendance, and a statement from Culver City Mayor Jeffrey Cooper. As the mayor took to the stage, I braced myself for the usual, rote politician’s speech at these sorts of things, only to be very pleasantly surprised: he spoke movingly as both “a Jew and the husband of a Burmese Muslim woman” about how much the cause and the event “hit home” for him. The powerful launch of the event wrapped with the singing of two national anthems: the United States and Burma’s.

Before speakers and others rose to speak, the Burmese American Muslims Association presented a video of their own making (with quite a lot of clips from this Al Jazeera English report) to set the stage for anyone unfamiliar with the situation in Burma. Two things in particular struck me in the video presentation, though neither were surprises exactly — just shocking to see explicitly: first, this clip from the BBC, which shows an attack on Muslim-owned gold shop, with police doing nothing and Buddhist monks joining in the violence. Second, the explication of how precisely what’s happening in Burma now fits with scholar and Genocide Watch president Dr. Gregory H. Stanton’s “8 Stages of Genocide” was arresting.

This segued nicely into Dr. Stanton himself, who presented prepared remarks for the conference via video. He noted that the plight of the Rohingya has been on Genocide Watch’s radar for at least two years, and offered useful perspective on what it means to be a Rohingya right now: no ID cards (needed for education and travel), placement in displaced persons camps and forced labor for many, no government employment, limits on marriage/childbirth, coercive situations, and a host of other indignities. Dr. Stanton also highlighted the unique threats to Rohingya refugees and “boat people” fleeing Burma.

In addition, he noted that the attacks on Muslims in Burma had reached the level of genocidal massacre, saying that “the world must speak out.” He chastised Aung San Suu Kyi, calling her much-discussed silence as a Nobel Peace Prize laureate “unacceptable.” Dr. Stanton also outlined other things that he felt must happen now: (i) Burma’s parliament must pass legislation to make the Rohingya citizens with full rights; (ii) displaced persons camps must be dissolved with UN and ASEAN assistance; (iii) authorities must cease all rights violations; and (iv) Bangladesh must stop turning away and pushing back refugees. This was the first of many times that the issue of Rohingya citizenship would come up in the proceedings.

The second instance came with the next speaker, who also spoke via video: Wai Hnin Pwint Thon, campaign officer for Burma Campaign UK. She began by lamenting that the international community still hadn’t “gotten the balance right” in terms of praise for Burma’s reforms and concrn/penalty over human rights violations. She pointed out that sanctions on Burma had been lifted despite stated benchmarks not being met; by her count, at least eight international laws and treaties are currently being violated by the Burmese government. As many others have pointed out, she reminded the audience that the Rohingya’s exclusion from citizenship in particular represents a clear violation of Article XV of the UN Declaration of Human Rights. “Casual racism and intolerance exist and must be acknowledged and confronted,” she said. “The Burmese have to decide what it means to be Burmese.”

Rev. John Iwohara. Photo by the author

At this point, after quite a bit of information had been presented, the organizers wisely changed up the pace and brought Rev. John Iwohara of the Venice Hongwanji Buddhist Temple to the stage. “It is difficult to receive a human form,” he preached, explaining the Buddhist way of helping others, or, at the very least, “acting less inhumanely.” “The pain and loss of losing a loved one is the same for everyone; you don’t feel more or less if you’re a Buddhist or a Muslim or a Christian or a…” he continued. He invoked the Dhammapada‘s fifth verse and King Ashoka’s experience at the Kalinga War as resources for Buddhists thinking about their approach to this situation. “Let us take this opportunity to exchange anger for love, and violence for beauty. May every life help us find beauty and joy.”

The Buddhist representation at the conference continued in a way with Gordon Welty from the U.S. Campaign for Burma, who named Soka Gakkai International president Daisaku Ikeda as “his mentor” during his remarks. A board member of the organization, he offered a helpful blow-by-blow of how things in Burma have escalated to the point of genocide. Like his predecessors, Welty stated that the removal of the 1982 citizenship law was the “first step” in fixing the problem. He also said authorities must “unambiguously” devote themselves to ending mob violence.

Omar Jubran, executive member of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)-LA 

A rousing speech by Omar Jubran, executive member of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)-LA, was followed by a presentation of photographs by Matt Rains. Rains has done striking, groundbreaking work photographing Muslims in Burma, and jolted the audience as much with his words as his images. He claimed to have seen “boxes of DVDs from the national government” delivered to monasteries and video halls, which were then used to stir up anti-Muslim sentiment. “This has all been devised by the government,” he said flatly.

Naama Haviv, a genocide expert with Jewish World Watch, spoke next about genocide in general. She joked about being the only speaker who didn’t know anything about Burma, but added that genocide happens in places where leaders are “habituated” to it. The 1994 genocide in Rwanda, she reminded us, was actually the second (arguably third) such event in that country’s history. With such a violent past in the form of the military junta’s reign, she felt Burma was definitely a place that we should continue to watch closely.

Naama Haviv, a genocide expert with Jewish World Watch 

Statements of support from House Committee on Foreign Affairs Chairman Ed Royce and Los Angeles Police Department Deputy Chief Michael Downing were read by Hennessy before the mighty Dr. Maung Zarni rose to speak. Buddhist magazine readers will undoubtedly recognize Dr. Zarni, whose name has been coming up a lot lately: his piece “Buddhist Nationalism in Burma” was a feature in one of the most recent issues of Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, and Alex Caring-Lobel interviewed him not long ago for Trike’s Awake in the World blog. A Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics, Dr. Zarni received applause when he began his remarks by saying, “I offer my apologies as a Burmese — and a Buddhist at that.” Saying he felt compelled to “speak truth at any cost,” he castigated his fellow Burmese for “sleepwalking into a genocidal space,” adding that “the Buddha himself was not a Burmese, so he would be treated as such an outsider [under current laws and conditions].” Joining the chorus of voices decrying the 1982 citizenship law, he noted that “this problem has come to the Rohingya,” and not the other way around.

Dr. Zarni was followed by Dr. Wakkar Uddin (Director General of the All Rohingya Union), Dr. Nora E. Rowley (a humanitarian doctor who works with refugees in Burma), and Htay Lwin Oo (Myanmar Muslims Civil Rights Movement). Dr. Rowley’s comments in particular made an impression. She referred to the country’s leadership as the “Burman supremacist regime,” took the international media to task for “lazily or complicitly” framing the situation as “Rakhine versus Rohingya,” and pointed out what Human Rights Watch has observed about the national police force in the country.

A panel discussion and Q&A with Haviv, Dr. Zarni, Dr. Rowley, Dr. Uddin, and Lwin Oo followed. Among the questions addressed was, “Why haven’t a majority of Buddhists — who are supposedly against violence — come out to strongly denounce the racist ’969 Movement’? Are they silently supporting them?” Dr. Zarni spoke about the false, fear-based narrative of 969, and how it ”criminalizes” Islam, and produces a largely complicit Burmese Buddhist population in the country. He then went “on the record” to say that the 969 Movement enjoys “the full backing of the Burmese state.” He continued, “In this [current] scenario, the 969 Movement is going to thrive and help destroy the Muslim communities. Therefore, I think it is important for the Buddhist community to wake up to the danger of 969, which is self-destructing the Burmese society.”

Dr. Maung Zarni. Photo by the author 

While the question, and Dr. Zarni’s response, were helpful, the question that was more important to me personally was, “What can Buddhists, particularly Buddhists outside of Burma, do to help?” So I set out to ask a few of the conference organizers and participants this question.

“Burmese Buddhist is different from other forms of Buddhism,” one of the conference’s spokesmen, Yousef Iqbal, told me. “So they don’t actually look at other Buddhists as ones who can inspire them. Unless you can find a Burmese Buddhist, in Burma’s Theravada Buddhist tradition, to say, ‘Killing people is wrong and you should not do it,’ I’m not sure how much it will do.” While he acknowledged the important contributions of Buddhists from other traditions, like Rev. Iwohara, he was clear about what was needed: “More participation from the Theravada, the Burmese Theravada Buddhists. They should be involved, especially those who have spiritual authority.”

Iqbal’s co-spokesman, Yusman Madha, was more optimistic about the wider Buddhist community. “It would definitely be helpful — definitely,” he said in response to my question of whether or not a more pronounced, ecumenical Buddhist response to the situation would be useful. “The teachings of their faith are being flouted by these thugs, and they should now speak up. There are Buddhist monks in Burma speaking up, but they are in the minority.”

Dr. Wakar Uddin

Dr. Uddin agreed, and told me, “American Buddhist organization can do a lot to influence the [anti-Muslim] monks in Burma. We really believe that American Buddhist leaders can have a tremendous influence on this situation, and teach the heretical Buddhists in Burma that this is not the right path. We would like to open up more of a dialogue with the American Buddhist community, in fact. We’ve spoken to some monks here in America, and they’ve been receptive. The vast majority of Burmese Buddhists in America have a totally different vision [then their fellows within Burma]. We can work together — the Rohingya in diaspora and the American Buddhist community.”

As we talked, Dr. Uddin added, “We look forward to making these connections with American Buddhists, but we don’t have the means and know-how. We don’t know who to approach, or how to approach them. We’ve asked ISNA, the Islamic Society of North America, to help us open up a dialogue. We need to get connected to Buddhist leaders and discuss this and develop strategies.”

Before the conference, but even more so after, I was determined to help. After talking with Dr. Uddin about approach, I’d like to say, for whatever it’s worth, that I’m happy to help in any way I can to make these connections and get this conversation started. If you’re the leader of a Myanmar Muslim group and you’d like assistance making connections, please leave a comment. And if you’re a Buddhist leader, please feel free to leave a comment alerting us to anything you might be willing to do or offer.

Dr. Uddin offers a good starting point for us as concerned Buddhists in America: just get Buddhist American leaders to the table with Rohingya in diaspora to talk. At the very least, let’s all of us, as Buddhists in America, make sure this happens.

At one point during the conference, it was observed that the event bore the year 2013 in its title, implying that the Myanmar Muslim community is digging in for what portends to be a long struggle. If we as Buddhists in America truly aspire to love all beings the way a mother loves her only child, we need to get to that table with Rohingya leaders and see to it that this doesn’t become a yearly event.