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Mass killings of all sorts of groups in Myanmar (Burma).
[ATimes] This most recent spasm of violence between state security forces and members of the ethnic Rakhine Buddhist community further complicates the state’s delicate ethnic dynamics and threatens to destabilize a wider geography beyond the border state’s northern reaches.The events of January 16 and two high-profile arrests of ethnic Rakhine leaders have brought the ethnic group’s grievances to a violent fore, raising the specter of even greater conflict between security forces and the Arakan Army, a Rakhine insurgent group. In Rakhine as elsewhere, the perceived failure of the central government to devolve power and pave the way for a genuine and inclusive federal system looms large. So, too, does the lack of flow-on benefits to the people from the central state’s exploitation of the nation’s abundant natural resources. Much of Rakhine state’s population lives in poverty, ranking second in economic hardship to only neighboring Chin State. The Rakhine also feel that only abuses committed against the Rohingya are given airtime by the international community and Western media. The recent mass killings of Hindus, as well as members of the Mro and Daignet ethnic minorities, have gone largely underreported. The government continues to impede and deny media access to Rakhine and has blocked an independent United Nations-mandated fact-finding mission. These tensions, including between Buddhist Rakhine and Muslim Rohingya communities, have long boiled in Rakhine. But with the state’s northern region hemorrhaging Rohingya refugees and talk now turning to their repatriation, ethnic Rakhine grievances have pivoted back towards the central government again. On January 16, a crowd gathered in an annual ceremony marking the demise of an ethnic Rakhine kingdom by invading Burmese forces over two centuries ago. The gathering had not been given official permission, according to authorities quoted in news reports. Earlier that afternoon, a prominent Rakhine activist and writer named Wai Hun Aung was arrested over comments he made during an address in Rathedaung the day prior in which he urged Rakhine people to support the Arakan Army in its revolt against ethnic Bamar supremacy. On December 18, former Arakan National Party (ANP) leader Aye Maung was arrested in Sittwe for making similar comments in support of the Arakan Army. He said Rakhine people were treated like “slaves” by the ethnic Bamar majority and that people were being organized in an armed struggle for freedom. Both have been charged under the 1908 Unlawful Association act, colonial-era legislation frequently used to suppress dissent. The crowd that amassed in Mrauk U on January 16 was not insignificant: state media reported the crowd swelled to as many as 10,000 people; other more conservative estimates, including a Reuters report, put the figure at around half that number.  Posted by: 3dc 2018-01-20 |
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