The Sail

An Historian Looks at Rohingya

7/10/09, Irrawaddy news,

Dr. Aye Kyaw has written books on education and culture in Burma. He was born in Lwe Chaung village in Taungok Township in Arakan State. He has a BA in history and religion, an MA in Asian history and a BA in law from Rangoon University. He earned a Ph.D in Southeast Asia History at Monash University in Australia. 

Dr. Aye Kyaw taught at universities in Burma, Thailand and the US. Now retired, he lives in New York city.           

While visiting Bangkok, he was interviewed by Ba Saw Tin on his views on Arakan history, politics in Burma and the debate over Rohingya history and their troubled relationship with the Burmese military government.

Question: Describe Arakan politics before Burma’s independence? 

Answer:  Arakan leaders always joined in Burma’s struggle for independence. They participated at the forefront in the struggle against British colonial rule and the Japanese invasion. If someone asks why they participated, it was because the Arakan wanted to rule themselves. The prominent Arakan leaders during British rule were Monk U Seinda, monk U Pyinnya Thiha, U Nyo Tun, U Aung Zan Wai, U Kyaw Min, U Ba Saw and others. These leaders were prominent figures in the Arakan resistance movement and Arakan politics. Monk U Ottama was one of the first leaders in Burmese politics.

If you look at the situation of the Arakan under British rule, there were two groups. One group worked with the British, and one group joined in the independence struggle led by Gen. Aung San.

U Nyo Tun was a famous student leader in the 1936 student strike, and he was quite well-known in both the Arakan and Burmese community. While Burmese acknowledge March 27 as marking the beginning of the resistance movement against Japan, the Arakan had already started their resistance against Japan earlier, around Feb. 12 or 13.
 
Q. What happened to the Arakan after the independence struggle?

A. The main reason they fought was to get their own state and self rule. Unfortunately, when Burma won independence, nothing came of it. They asked Prime Minister U Nu to grant them a state, but U Nu evaded the issue.

Q. How did politics development during the following years?

A. During U Nu’s Anti Fascist Peoples’ Freedom League (AFPFL) rule, there were two powerful political parties in Arakan State: The AFPFL and the Arakan Unity Party (AUP). U Kyaw Min led the AUP. U Aung Zan Wai and Taung Koke U Kyaw Tin led the AFPFL in the Arakan region.

Then the AFPFL split into two factions: the “stable” AFPFL and the “clean” AFPFL. The clean AFPFL faction leader, prime minister U Nu, set up Mayu District in Arakan State. He registered Bengali as citizens through national registration and allowed them to vote. During the Colonial era, the Bengali started coming into Arakan to work. They mostly worked in the agricultural sector, and then returned when the work was done. One of the prominent leaders among Bengali was Sultan Mahmud. The AFPFL was weak in a sense. When U Nu allowed Bengalis to enter Mayu District that was the beginning of today’s Rohingya problem. 

Q. Do you know when the use of the term “Rohingya” began?

A. I think it appeared during the 1960s. Because even the Bengali leader, Sultan Mahmud, when he became a member of parliament, I don’t think he used the word “Rohingya.” In earlier Burmese history and in Arakan history, I haven’t seen the word Rohinhya. Even after independence, there was no such word. 

Q. What does “Rohingya” mean? 

A. When Sayagyi U Tha Tun was in good health, we visited whenever he was in Rangoon. We had conversations on several themes: literature, history and other social matters. Once, he explained to me the meaning of Rohingya. The word derived from an Arakan word, Lwintja.

Lwintja in Arakan means leaves falling from trees and blowing around without any purpose.

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CSW visit to the Bangladesh-Burma border  26/08/2008,

source from www.csw.org.uk

Executive Summary

people at the brink of extermination.?

The military regime in Burma, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), continues to perpetrate gross violations of human rights, amounting to crimes against humanity, against all its citizens and particularly the ethnic nationalities.

Among the most persecuted and oppressed people groups in Burma are the Rohingya, a Muslim people residing primarily in northern Arakan State, western Burma, along the border with Bangladesh. In the words of one representative of the Arakan Rohingya National Organisation (ARNO), 揥e are a people at the brink of extermination?

In addition to the widespread use of forced labour, rape and torture which all the ethnic nationalities in Burma suffer, including the Rohingya, they are denied full citizenship rights. The Rohingya are denied National Registration Cards (NRCs) or Citizenship Scrutiny Cards (CSCs), which are issued to all other Burmese citizens, and instead they are given Temporary Registration Cards (TRCs). The SPDC has imposed severe restrictions on freedom of movement, access to education, marriage and freedom of religion, specifically on the Rohingya. Mosques and religious institutions have been destroyed and permission to renovate, repair, rebuild or extend mosques is usually denied. Furthermore, Rohingyas are specifically targeted for extortion.

Thousands of Rohingyas have fled across the border to Bangladesh, where they find some security but little future. Only 27,258 refugees have been officially recognised by the UNHCR and live in two refugee camps. Thousands more live in dire conditions in temporary unregistered camps and settlements. Access to education and health care is extremely limited, and living conditions are very poor, especially in the rainy season.

The Rakhine people, the majority ethnic group in Arakan State, also face severe human rights violations including rape and forced labour. Furthermore, the SPDC pursues a deliberate divide-and-rule policy to stir up ethnic hostilities between the Rakhine and the Rohingya.

From 27-31 August 2008, CSW made its first fact-finding visit to the Bangladesh-Burma border. CSW interviewed Rohingya refugees, Rohingya and Rakhine political groups, and Buddhist monks who participated in the Saffron Revolution in September 2007 and fled to Bangladesh. CSW also visited two camps for unregistered Rohingya refugees. In addition, CSW interviewed recent defectors from the SPDC’s Na Sa Ka?(border security force), who confirmed many of the reports of human rights abuses targeted at the Rohingyas.

CSW calls on the international community, and particularly the United Nations Security Council, to take immediate and urgent specific action in response to the continuing deterioration of human rights in Burma and the dire and desperate humanitarian crisis unfolding in the country. CSW also urges the international community and the Government of Bangladesh to take steps to improve access to education, health care and livelihood for the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.

Click here to download full report (202kB)

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Testimony by Chris Lewa Coordinator, The Arakan Project To the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom

December 3, 2007, 

source from ( http://www.uscirf. gov/events/ hearings/ 2007/december/ 120307_saffron6_ lewa.html )

Mr. Chair, Honorable Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen,  

I would like to thank you for inviting me before this commission. Having worked with ethnic people from Burma and, more specifically with the Rohingya minority for the last 7 years, I am honored to offer a testimony today.

Arakan State of Burma is by far the most tense and explosive region of the country. The refugee outflows to Bangladesh in 1978 and again in 1991/92, each of about 250,000 Rohingya, did not result from counter-insurgency strategies as it is the case along the Thai-Burma border, but is the direct outcome of policies of discrimination, oppression and exclusion against the Rohingya population.

The Rohingya Muslims are a minority group estimated at about 800,000 in the northern part of Arakan State adjacent to Bangladesh. They are ethnically and religiously related to the Chittagonians of southern Bangladesh. They have been rendered stateless, officially on the basis of their ethnicity. The 1982 Citizenship Law deprived them of legal status because they do not feature among the 135 national races which had settled in Burma prior to 1823, the start of the British colonisation of Arakan. There is no doubt that their religious identity plays a preponderant factor in the discrimination they are subject to. In 1998, in response to UNHCR, the then Secretary-1 wrote, “these people are not originally from Myanmar” [...] “they are racially, ethnically, culturally different from the other national races in our country. Their language as well as religion is also different”.

Communal tensions are prevalent between Muslim and Buddhist communities in Arakan and such violence has been exacerbated by the divide-and-rule tactics of the military regime, denying all rights to the Muslim population while posing as protectors of the Buddhist community. However, during the recent protests in Sittwe. Muslims did join the monks’ processions.

As non-citizens, the Rohingya do not have freedom of movement. They need permission to go from one village to another and they are prohibited from traveling beyond the 3 townships of North Arakan. These restrictions seriously limit their access to employment, markets as well as health care and education facilities. Chronic malnutrition peaks at 60% and illiteracy rate at 80%. They are also barred from the civil service. They need to obtain permission to marry and their lands are confiscated to establish model villages for resettling of poor Buddhist families from other parts of Burma. The Rohingya are compelled to live in a state of poverty and deliberate underdevelopment, facing oppression and discrimination and without any legal status. Therefore they have only their Muslim faith to turn to for spiritual support and violations of their religious freedoms have been particularly resented.

More specifically, their rights to practice their religion have been abused in the following ways:

1. Forcible closure of mosques and madrasahs

In July and August 2006, the Burmese authorities ordered the closure of a large number of mosques and madrasahs throughout North Arakan. The reasons stated were either that these mosques had been built or renovated without official permission or that the mosque committee could not provide evidence of the origin of their funds. In North Buthidaung, 8 mosques were issued notice to close down in mid-2006 and, at the end of 2006, another 17 mosques, madrasahs and maktabs were ordered to be destroyed. The first 8 mosques were demolished by local Muslim villagers on the order of the NaSaKa (border security forces) and when the villagers refused to do so for fear of God, the NaSaKa destroyed them themselves. One of these 8 mosques was later reconstructed with original building materials after the mosque committee had launched a petition campaign and paid a large bribe to the authorities. The 17 other religious establishments were finally saved from destruction, expect for a big mosque in Goat Pi. To date, two of them, one in Krin Tha Mar and one in Ba Da Gar still remained closed. The NaSaKa locked them and arrested two members of the mosque committee in each village.

In Rathedaung Township and South Maungdaw, the authorities also locked several mosques and madrasahs, at least three in February and March 2007 (in Du Chee Yar Tan, Thinn Baw Kway and Gaw Dhu Thar Ya). Although these were small mosques used for Namaj (the 5 daily prayers) and their closure did not affect the Friday congregation for Jumma prayer, children had to stop their Koranic education.

Some mosques and madrassahs previously ordered for closure or destruction have now been re-opened but only after large bribes were paid to the authorities.

2. Prohibition to erect new mosques and to repair existing ones

The Rohingya are not allowed to build new mosques or madrasahs nor to extend or repair existing religious buildings. As a result, many mosques are left in a state of dilapidation.

In Buthidaung, no mosque received permission for repair work this year, not even to replace a damaged beam. In Maungdaw, some mosques received verbal permission for maintenance against the payment of a high bribe but, as soon as the officer who gave this verbal permission was transferred, rehabilitation had to be stopped.

Since February 2007, the NaSaKa as well as Immigration and the Religious Affairs Department have started a survey of all mosques and madrasahs in villages of North Arakan. The mosque committee had to pay 50,000 Kyat each (US$50) to cover the costs of the survey. The surveyors listed the size of each building, construction materials used, the number of ablution pools, etc. and took photographs of the religious buildings. Then they hung a board at each mosque with all these details so that any subsequent verification could immediately identify any modification and renovation to the building.

During the survey exercise, the NaSaKa extorted large sums of money. [For example, the mosque committee of Du Chee Yar Tan had to pay 5 million Kyat (US$5,000) in March for repairing a wall, the committee of one of the madrassahs in Maung Hna Ma also paid 5 million Kyat for replacing several wooden posts eaten by vermin.]

3. Detention for repairing religious buildings without permission

According to our latest findings, in Buthidaung North, at least 10 people, including 2 religious clerics, and in Maungdaw South 4 people are currently jailed for renovating a mosque or a madrasah without official permission. They have been charged under the 1950 Emergency Provisions Act, Section 5 (j), for “affecting the morality or conduct of the public or a group of people in a way that would undermine the security of the Union or the restoration of law and order” and sentenced for 1 to 2 years. [Most political prisoners in Burma are charged under the same law which has also been used against Rohingya people who have overstayed their travel permit.]

4. Disturbance during religious celebrations

Although demonstrations and protests did not spread to North Arakan, the Burmese authorities recently implemented new restrictive measures against any religious congregation, including Muslims who now face difficulties to assemble for the Jumma prayer on Fridays.

During Qurbani Eid celebrations, Rohingya must obtain permission to slaughter sacrificial cows and to delete the animal from their cattle list, which they have to pay for either in cash or in meat. Moreover, Muslims are compelled to hand over the skin of the sacrificial cow to the NaSaKa when religious traditions principles dictate it should only be donated to orphans and the very poor.

5. Forced labour

As opposed to the rest of Burma, in Northern Arakan State, non-Muslims are usually exempt from this duty. Muslims are forced to build pagodas and Buddhist monasteries, in particular for the construction of ‘model villages’.

6. Marriage permission

Rohingya couples need to obtain a permission to marry and, if they marry unofficially (a religious wedding is not considered as an official marriage), they are at risk of being arrested and jailed. These measures are only imposed on Rohingya Muslims and only in North Arakan. Muslim men, with the exception of religious leaders, must shave their beard to be allowed to marry and couples need to sign a declaration they won’t have more than 2 children. These are two new regulations imposed since October 2005.

Recommendations

The resentment spread by these policies combined with sheer poverty are conducive to radicalisation. They have also lead to the continuous movements of Rohingya out of Burma to Bangladesh as well as through Bangladesh by boat to Thailand and Malaysia, thus becoming a regional problem. Therefore, U.S. policy makers should consider the unique situation of the Rohingya in formulating U.S. policy to promote human rights.

International humanitarian agencies are providing essential assistance and emergency relief in North Arakan. Direct aid delivery is necessary to alleviate the impact of such policies but agencies such as the World Food Program do not have enough funding to feed up to 50% of the extremely vulnerable families. The U.S. government should provide more financial support for humanitarian action inside Burma, particularly for the UNHCR and the WFP.

The U.S. has generously resettled a large number of Burmese refugees from Thailand and Malaysia. Unfortunately, the Rohingya have been excluded from the U.S. resettlement programs so far. Resettling Rohingya refugees from Bangladesh and Malaysia should be considered as a durable humanitarian solution promoted by the U.S.