Burma: Buddhist mobs burn down Muslim homes and shops

[icy]

Fresh sectarian violence broke out in north-western Burma late on Saturday when Buddhist mobs burned down dozens of homes and shops following rumours that a young woman had been sexually assaulted by a Muslim man. There were no reports of injuries.

Myanmar's radical monk Wirathu, whose anti-Muslim rhetoric has placed him at the centre of rising religious violence, said on his Facebook page that hundreds of people took part in the riot on the outskirts of Kantbalu.

A crowd surrounded the police station demanding that the suspect be handed over, said a police officer from the area, who asked not to be named because he did not have authority to speak to the media.

When police refused, they started setting buildings on fire, he said.

About 35 houses and 12 shops, most belonging to Muslims, were destroyed before calm was restored, he said.

Predominantly Buddhist Burma has been grappling with sectarian violence since the country's military rulers handed over power to a nominally civilian government in 2011.

More than 250 people have been killed, most of them Muslims, and 140,000 others forced to flee their homes.

The unrest began last year in the western state of Rakhine, where Buddhists accuse Rohingya Muslims of illegally entering the country and encroaching on their land. The violence, on a smaller scale but still deadly, spread earlier this year to other parts of the country.

[icy]

 Oct 2: The Myanmar government has vowed to cooperate fully with five faiths in the country to prevent recurrence of racial and religious conflicts, media reports said Wednesday.

In his message to the Conference of Leaders of Five Faiths in Yangon, President U Thein Sein said instability harms and delays the state reform and tarnishes the image of the nation internationally, Xinhua reported.

Citing the fundamental teachings of all faiths, he said the problem should be settled with truth, loving kindness and tolerance, calling for avoiding extremes.

He maintained that the constitution of Myanmar fully guarantees freedom of religion as the fundamental right of citizens, warning not to misuse the noble idea of the freedom of religion as a springboard for any kind of extremism and fuelling hatred.

The president expressed the belief that only an all-inclusive democracy can guarantee long-term progress and peace and stability of a country like Myanmar which is formed with numerous indigenous people of different races, religions and culture.

“This diversity must be a united force for our own interest,” he said.

There are mainly five faiths in Myanmar, namely Buddhism (89.2 percent), Christianity (5.0 percent), Islam (3.8 percent), Hinduism (0.5 percent), and Spiritualism (1.2 percent).

[icy]

The Worldwide Sangha Responds to Buddhist Violence in Burma Against Muslims.

The worldwide sangha is pleading with Burmese monks and layity alike to end the violence against Muslims, and other ethnic minority groups in their beautiful country. The Dalai Lama recently addressed the troubling situation thusly:

"Buddha always teaches us about forgiveness, tolerance, compassion. If from one corner of your mind, some emotion makes you want to hit, or want to kill, then please remember Buddha's faith. We are followers of Buddha." -ABC News (link).

He went on to say that there is, "Too much emphasis on 'we' and 'they'" in the world." -The Huffington Post (link).

The Dalai Lama's words echo those of other international Buddhist leaders who recently penned a joint-letter condemning the violence and calling for calm. The Buddhist magazine, Tricycle, published their remarks and I will quote some of it, but I urge you to read the entire letter at the Tricycle Blog (link):
Buddhist teaching is based on the precepts of refraining from killing and causing harm. Buddhist teaching is based on compassion and mutual care. Buddhist teaching offers respect to all, regardless of class, caste, race or creed. We are with you for courageously standing up for these Buddhist principles even when others would demonize or harm Muslims or other ethnic groups. It is only through mutual respect, harmony and tolerance that Myanmar can become a modern great nation benefiting all her people and a shining example to the world.
JAMES: One of the reasons that I am so passionate about the trouble in Burma is because I believe the foundation of Buddhism is non-violence. If they can not even refrain from violence and harm toward innocent people then I can't help but wonder, why they are Buddhists at all?

~i bow to the buddha within all beings~

[icy]

Are invisible forces orchestrating Myanmar's anti-Muslim violence?
The military has much to lose from democratic reforms and may be using the bloodshed as a way to reassert control.

Myanmar's president made his first trip to the violence-hit town of Thandwe last week, days after a 94-year-old Muslim woman was slain by Buddhists in a nearby village. Spurred on by an unrelated argument between a Muslim political leader and a Buddhist taxi driver two days prior, a mob approached her home in a nearby village on October 1. Her daughter managed to escape, but returned to find a charred house and a mother with cuts to her neck, head and stomach.

The state-run New Light of Myanmar later quoted President Thein Sein as saying that he had suspicions about the nature of the Thandwe attacks, where close to 100 houses were razed. "Ethnic Rakhine [Buddhists] and ethnic Kaman [Muslims] have been living here in peaceful co-existence for many years,” he said. "External motives instigated violence and conflicts. According to the evidence in hand, rioters who set fire to the villages are outsiders.”

For someone who has demonstrated such ineptness at confronting head-on the anti-Muslim violence over the past 16 months, the statement is surprising. In it, he finally appears to acknowledge that organised networks of Buddhist extremists are operating in Myanmar.

It's something that observers have long suspected: the method and style of attacks in Rakhine state, Mandalay region, Shan state and beyond, have been eerily similar, with small trigger events causing mobs to form quickly and descend on towns en masse, weapons already prepared. In most cases, police have stood by and watched, and often locals at the scene have claimed the mobs are formed of "outsiders". A photograph taken near Thandwe this week shows a truckload of armed men sporting red bandanas,which appears at odds with the idea that these groups are just rabbles of aggrieved local civilians.

The role of Buddhist monks in advocating violence against Muslims has also taken many by surprise, although monks were also involved in attacks on mosques during anti-Muslim violence in 1997.

Not a new phenomenon

If there is an organised element to this, then it raises the question of who, and why. There's no clear answer, but powerful forces in Myanmar, particularly the military, would benefit from this unrest. On several occasions in the past few decades, violent clashes directed at an ethnic minority group have coincided with political sensitivities in the country: the 1967 anti-Chinese riots, when the military orchestrated attacks on Chinese-owned properties, in part to distract from General Ne Win's damaging mismanagement of the economy; and in 1988, when attacks on Muslims broke out in Taunggyi and Prome as anti-regime protests swept the country. Many at the time believed the military had sought to inflame ethnic tensions in order to split what could have otherwise been a cohesive anti-regime front.

Can this theory be applied to Myanmar today? Thein Sein's democratic reforms will have unnerved the military, which receives more than one-fifth of the total state budget. With moves towards democratic rule, questions are asked of the colossal resources channeled to the armed forces, and whether its position as the patriarch of Myanmar society is still relevant. This week, the military-backed ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party warned that the country would be in "serious danger and face consequences beyond expectation” if the constitution was overhauled. One of the main reasons the opposition has for revising the junta-drafted 2008 constitution would be to dilute the power of the military.

Societal unrest, whether it be communal tensions or ongoing conflict with ethnic armies, provides a prime opportunity for any military to reassert its waning influence. Already this has worked to surprising effect in a country where ethnic and political divides run deep. Rakhine, who have long resisted military encroachment on their state, now ask for their protection against what they see as an Islamic tide sweeping the state. Prominent members of the pro-democracy movement have said they would join forces with the army to fight off "foreign invaders”, namely the Muslim Rohingya minority. The role of Buddhist monks in advocating violence against Muslims has also taken many by surprise, although monks were also involved in attacks on mosques during anti-Muslim violence in 1997.

Rohingya, an existential threat?

There's no smoking gun in all this, but the evolution of the conflict that began in Sittwe last June between the people of Rakhine and Rohingya suggests something beyond a localised tussle for ethnic or religious dominance. Importantly, the latest attacks in Thandwe were directed at Kaman Muslims, while the vast majority of the violence to hit Rakhine state since June last year has targeted the Rohingya, who are distinct from the Kaman. While the Kaman had until then lived peacefully in the state, the Rohingya were long seen by Rakhine as illegal Bengali immigrants, and their presence there considered an existential threat to the Buddhist population. Campaigns of violence against the Rohingya were therefore justified in the eyes of many Rakhine as a means of defending the land and preserving Buddhism.

That narrative shifted somewhat when violence broke out in Meiktila in central Myanmar in March this year. Meiktila has a Muslim population, but they are not Rohingya, as is the case in Lashio in Shan state, Oakkan in Yangon division and Hpakant in Kachin state, where subsequent deadly attacks on Muslims took place. Rather than an issue confined to one ethnic minority in western Myanmar, it has escalated to a campaign against Muslims in general.

As Myanmar academic Maung Zarni noted in a recent email, not every bout of inter-ethnic violence is state orchestrated. Genuine local grievances can and do result in fits of rage. But, says Zarni, there is a history of manufactured ethno-religious mobilisation "aimed at destablising the order in Burma since the British time”, something that independence hero General Aung San had warned of following the departure of the colonial power.

Can this anti-Muslim ideology really have spread across such vast geographical divides without the aid of an entity like the military, the only entity that can operate on a nationwide scale?

Various analysts have tried to rationalise the evolution of this latest anti-Muslim conflict by likening it to a Yugoslavia-style scenario, where ethnic tensions that were bottled for decades burst to the surface following a shift in the style of rule. This has likely played a role in Myanmar, given attempts by successive rulers since independence to undermine the legitimacy of Muslims as "real" countrymen. Fueled on by the rise of social media, the propaganda and provocation can spread like wildfire, so that Meiktila is now not so distant from Sittwe.

But there is something highly suspicious in the commonalities of attacks across the country. On Saturday, a mob gathered outside a police station in Kyaunggon, near Yangon, and demanded they hand over a Muslim man suspected of an attempting to rape a Buddhist girl a month ago. When the police refused, they torched five Muslim homes. A similar situation triggered the Thandwe riots, with police refusing to hand over the Kaman Muslim leader who was arrested in the wake of the argument.

Same tactics used by the junta?

It's a pattern that has played out across the country, across disparate ethnic states such as the Shan, Kachin and Rakhine. In Kachin state, anti-Muslim violenceis a new phenomenon. Yet the only common thread that unites these ethnic groups' nationalism is a resistance to Burman, and not Muslim, designs on their states.There are few other obvious synapses that bridge these vast ideological and geographical divides, and across which this anti-Muslim sentiment could pass with such speed. How then has this violent reaction to the presence of Muslims? The anti-Chinese riots of the 1960s and 1970s followed major influxes of Chinese into Myanmar, and were in part a reaction to local fears that jobs were going to immigrants. This pretext for the violence cannot be applied in the same way to Muslims.

It is not beyond reason to suspect that an entity that is able to operate on a nationwide scale (of which there are few in Myanmar) may have a hand in current events. Only two hold this position – the military, and the Sangha, the religious council that administers Buddhist institutions and which, given the historic importance of Buddhism to societal cohesion in Myanmar, has its own vested interests in stemming the growth of the country’s Muslim population. So rather than being particular to Thandwe, Thein Sein was echoing something that victims of anti-Muslim violence elsewhere have said, essentially that there is a seemingly invisible force orchestrating the early stages of these attacks.

Who, exactly, it isn't clear. The popular anti-Muslim 969 movement has been traced back to the religious affairs minister under the former junta, but the wider 969 sentiment is alive and well in government today: even Thein Sein, considered a comparative moderate, has publicly called for the removal of the Rohingya, and considers the 969 doctrine, despite its intrinsic links with the violence, to be a "symbol of peace". Last week, Shwe Mann, the powerful speaker of the Lower House, said: "I appreciate the attempts of the Rakhine people to protect Myanmar," which feeds the narrative that Bengalis are trying to take over the country's westernmost state, and must be repelled.

Consequently, it's not too giant a leap to suggest the government could at least be accommodating whatever forces are mobilising mobs to torch Muslim neighbourhoods. If that's the case, however, why would Thein Sein himself hint at this? Again, there's no clear-cut answer, but what's been a surprise to many observers is the disunity in government, with even the military-appointed MPs not always voting as one bloc. Thein Sein appears to want the country to move forward, but others in his cabinet evidently want to retain the control they had under military rule.

Some of the tactics seen in the anti-Muslim violence are similar to those used by the junta, with the "outsider" mobs reminiscent of the plain-clothed civilian militias like Swan Arr Shin, which were used so effectively by the generals to stir up violence and confuse allegiances during peaceful protests. Factor in the numerous reports of police inaction, and even instructions not to intervene until well into the second day of violence in Meiktila, and the picture grows murkier.

Rather than being a case of either/or, what may have occurred is a synthesis between two major interests – those of an embattled military-political elite with willing collaborators in the Sangha and in Rakhine political parties, and those of a civilian population indoctrinated to consider Muslims as lesser or non-citizens.

One feeds the other, and together work in perfect harmony: military or political leaders looking for a pretext to reassert control in a rapidly evolving country would see the undercurrent of anti-Muslim attitudes in Myanmar society as a classic divide and rule opportunity - help manufacture a threat, and jump in to save the day. It serves as both a PR coup in the face of domestic criticism of the security state in Myanmar, and helps split and weaken society - again a boon for the military. This tactic certainly has historical precedence in Myanmar, and may well have been reinvigorated by a military that today has much to lose from democratic reform.

The Buddhist Rakhine consider Muslim Rohingya to be Bengalis and have directed most of the sectarian bloodshed at them, writes Francis Wade [EPA].
Francis Wade is a Thailand-based freelance journalist and analyst covering Myanmar and Southeast Asia.

[icy]

Recent Muslim-Buddhist Clashes

The Burmese security forces have detained 78 people in connection with the recent spate of Muslim-Buddhist clashes in Arakan’s Sandoway township, state media announced on Monday.
It follows news that the death toll from the violence, which erupted after an argument between a Buddhist trishaw driver and a Muslim shop owner on 29 September, has risen to seven.

The bodies of two Buddhist men were reportedly discovered at a local cemetery near Sandoway on Friday.
According to a report by the BBC, the two men were among a group of five Buddhists and a Christian pastor travelling by taxi through Thabyuchaing village when they unwittingly ran into an angry mob wielding knives and sticks. Four escaped, while the two others went missing.

The lives of four Muslim men and a 94-year-old woman had already been claimed in the unrest.
Authorities have detained several suspects, many with links to local nationalist groups and political parties, for their alleged role in the unrest. The chairman of the local Rakhine Nationalities Development Party was taken into custody immediately after the violence, while at least a dozen members of the Organisation for the Protection of Race and Religion have since been held for questioning.

The government confirmed on Monday that a total of 112 houses, three mosques and one petrol warehouse were burned to the ground in the riots, making nearly 500 people homeless. The report again sought to pin blame on instigators within “some organisations” intent on causing unrest.

The report echoes closely the words of President Thein Sein who recently blamed “outsiders” for orchestrating the violence to coincide with his first visit to Arakan state, which has been wracked by communal violence since last year.

The Burmese government has come under fire for a perceived failure to prevent the spread of religious violence, which has increasingly targeted the country’s Muslim minority.

But Monday’s report, published in the state-run New Light of Myanmar, insisted that anyone found guilty of “manipulating, committing and abetting” the violence would be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

[Matibhadra]

Most likely theses riots in Myanmar are incited by Western and Saudi Arabic Wahhabite sponsored terrorists, just like in Syria (and a long list of other countries), in order to destabilize the Government and justify Western military intervention.
The cover is sectarian or interfaith clashes, but the next step is American drones bombing the innocent (including the Muslim, as in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia etc.), in order to bring “democracy” and “prosperity” to the country (which they disrespectfully call by the colonial name of “Burman).
And of course the Dalai Lama, as a good professional Western puppet, immediately jumps in and plays his role in the farce, with his hypocritical discourse on religious tolerance. Plus Aung San Su Kyi, the widow of the colonialist spy Michael Aris.
This has hardly anything to do with interfaith clashes as Western hysteria-inducing propaganda wants us to believe, but just with the Western interventionist obsession ultimately aimed at establishing the “global government” of the paranoid dreams of the Western geopolitical mentor, the unequalled war criminal Henry Kissinger (http://www.dailysquib.co.uk/index.php?news=3089).

[Rihanna]

This is definitely a very disturbing piece of news, especially when the media makes a headline of it. Buddhists are predominantly peace loving people and I have not heard of any wars or unrest ignited by Buddhists. The first thing that came to my mind is that perhaps there is more to it than what we know and situation is realy getting out of hand hence they have to do something drastic to put an end to it.

These Muslims are from the Rohingya minority that is a stateless people that have denied citizenship by Burma. They are Bengali but they are also not recognized as citizens of Bangladesh . They are descendants of people who brought in by the British to work in agriculture. Another of the mess the British left behind. There has been unrest in Rakhine state in Western Burma against them by Burmese Buddhists who simply want them gone.

[Matibhadra]

It is well known that the Islamic trend prevailing among the Rohingya is the extremist-terrorist Wahhabite sect, promoted by bloodthirsty tyrannic regimes such as Saudi Arabia, with the money of the oil they extract in partnership with US and UK.

This ultra-intolerant Wahhabite sect is itself known as a monster long since fed by British and Zionist strategists, to ensure control over the region and its oil. They are essentially friendly to US, UK, and Israel (irrespectively of the lack of official diplomatic relations with the latter).

The idea is ultimately to bring the chaos to Myanmar (which some frustrated ex-colonialists insist on disrespectfully calling “Burma”), in order to justify a Western military intervention, and subsequent destruction, fragmentation and full submission of the country. About the same they just did, do, or try to do, with Lybia, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen.

This strategy is confessed with all the letters by the US longtime supreme geostrategist and psycopath Henry Kissinger, himself a US and Israeli citizen (http://www.dailysquib.co.uk/index.php?news=3089).

And what has Tibet to do with this? Absolutely everything. In case, not of course through Wahhabite terrorism, but through collaborationist Tibetans themselves, always ready to foment chaos in Tibet, nostalgic as they are of the Dalai Lama's intolerant feudal authocratic slavery, so reminiscent in many respects of the Wahhabite “monarchies”.

[icy]

No place for Islam? Buddhist nationalism in Myanmar
The continued violence against the broader Muslim community stains any democratic reforms in a country, writes author Harrison Akins.

Harrison Akins is the Ibn Khaldun Chair Research Fellow at American University's School of International Service and assisted Professor Akbar Ahmed on his study, The Thistle and the Drone: How America's War on Terror Became a Global War on Tribal Islam.



In Rakhine State in western Myanmar, during President Thein Sein's visit to the region earlier this month, a mob of hundreds of Buddhists descended on a Muslim village - more than 70 homes were burnt to the ground and a 94-year-old Muslim woman lay dead from stab wounds. This attack is just the latest in a series of clashes between the Buddhist and Muslim populations around the country.

Despite the democratic and economic reforms in Myanmar over the past year and a thaw in this once isolated authoritarian state's relations with the West, the growing violence against the Muslim population is a tragic reminder that Myanmar is still far from fully relinquishing the problems stemming from decades of military rule. For many Muslims, particularly the Rohingya people of Rakhine State, the hopeful talk of democracy and freedom as the dark shadows of the junta recede, is but empty rhetoric as the oppression and prejudice of the past half-century at the hands of the Burmese- and Buddhist-dominated military government continues unabated.

History of persecution

While many minority groups in Myanmar suffered at the hands of the government, the Rohingya, numbering roughly 2 million, face the denial of their identity and a threat to their mere existence. The BBC has referred to the stateless Rohingya as "one of the world's most persecuted minority groups”.

The Rohingya, the historical inhabitants of what was then Arakan State (which was renamed Rakhine State in 1989 at the same time Burma was renamed Myanmar), remained a part of Myanmar after independence from British rule in 1948, despite early discussions of joining the bordering East Pakistan. After the military junta under General Ne Win rose to power in 1962, the government started a process of establishing a nationalist identity based on the dominant ethnicity and religion - Burmese and Buddhist. This was a shift from the more inclusive vision of Myanmar's Founding Father, Aung San, who included representatives from minority ethnic and religious communities on the short-lived Executive Committee of his interim government, before he was assassinated in 1947.

The Muslim Rohingya, as both non-Burmese and non-Buddhist, were labeled foreigners and incorrectly called "illegal Bengali immigrants” who came to Myanmar under British rule. Beginning in the 1970s, the Burmese military embarked on campaigns to ethnically cleanse the nation of the Rohingya.

The Rohingya were subjected to widespread rape, arbitrary arrests, destruction of mosques and villages, and seizure of their lands. Rubble from mosques was often used to pave roads between military bases in the region.

The first of these, Operation Naga Min or King Dragon, was initiated in 1978 for the purpose of identifying "illegal immigrants” in the country and expelling them. The symbol of the King Dragon is an important aspect of Buddhist mythology. Naga, a mythological dragon, is originally an Indian motif and figures prominently in the legends of the Buddha. A Nagayon, or "sheltered by dragon", temple in Myanmar is closely tied with the idea of the dragon as protector. The temples carry a carving of this dragon, resembling a hooded cobra, protecting a Buddha image with its hood. Identification became the first step in this large scale ethnic cleansing operation of the military "protecting” the sanctity of Buddhism from the "foreigners” who posed a "threat”.

During this operation, the Rohingya were subjected to widespread rape, arbitrary arrests, destruction of mosques and villages, and seizure of their lands. Rubble from mosques was often used to pave roads between military bases in the region. A mass exodus of nearly a quarter-of-a-million Rohingya refugees fled across the Naaf River for neighbouring Bangladesh in a period of only three months. Many of these refugees were repatriated to Myanmar the following year.

In 1991, a second military operation, Operation Pyi Thaya or Operation Clean and Beautiful Nation, was launched for the same purpose of expelling the Rohingya population. Two-hundred-thousand Rohingya refugees fled again into Bangladesh. Nearly 300,000 refugees remain there today in makeshift refugee camps, many without food or medical assistance, with only 28,000 in officially recognised United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNCHR) camps. Bangladesh has rejected any proposal for local integration of the Rohingya, citing that the Rohingya are "environmental and economic burdens, social hazards in the village, and breeders of Islamic militancy.”

Bangladesh has impeded or rejected efforts to improve the camps and offer humanitarian aid as they fear this will serve as an incentive for refugees to remain in the country and for further Rohingya to cross the border from Myanmar. In 2011, they  rejected a $33m aid package from the United Nations to be used for the Rohingya refugees.

They are treated with equal contempt by other countries in the region. There have been many media reports of the Rohingya "boat people”, fleeing by sea, being shot at by the Thai navy, being captured and sold by Thai officials to human traffickers, or being held indefinitely in immigration centres in Australia and resorting to suicide rather than continuing to face a hopeless situation.

Genocidal actions?

Within Myanmar, the Rohingya have consistently been denied their identity. Under the 1982 Citizenship Law, they were officially stripped of their citizenship which was reserved for the 135 officially recognised ethnic groups. As non-citizens, the Rohingya were required to have government permission to travel outside their villages, repair their mosques, get married, or even have children, all arrestable offenses if done without a permit. Government permission, however, is procured through bribes which few can afford.

Since 1994, a local policy was implemented for those Rohingya who do gain permission to marry to limit them to only two children, a policy which was given full government support in May 2013. If a woman becomes illegally pregnant, she is forced to either flee the country as a refugee or get a back-alley abortion under extremely unsanitary conditions. Many who choose to have an abortion die due to their inability to receive proper medical care as a result of the travel restrictions.

Many Rohingya have also been forced to labour on various construction projects as modern-day slaves, including building "model villages” intended to house the Burmese settlers encouraged to come to the region to displace the Rohingya. There have been reports of  forced prostitution of Rohingya women by the local Burmese security forces.

It is well to remember Article 2 of the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide which states: "Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, as such: Killing members of the group; Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.”

Myanmar needs to take a firm stand on the side of human rights, pluralism, and security for all of its citizens, promote the rule of law, and, at a more basic level, recognise the existence and the suffering of the Rohingya. Only then can a democratic Myanmar be recognised as legitimate in the eyes of the international community and its own people.

It was this tumultuous history which fed the June 2012 violence against the Rohingya at the hands of the neighbouring Buddhist Rakhine. While the official death toll was 192, Rohingya human rights groups claim that there were over 1,000 killed. Mobs of Rakhine burned entire villages to the ground with over 125,000 Rohingya forcibly displaced without any aid or assistance. A Human Rights Watch report called the incident state-supported "ethnic cleansing”, writing that the government security forces "assisted the killings by disarming the Rohingya of their sticks and other rudimentary weapons they carried to defend themselves”. Many media reports referred to this violence as "sectarian” implying that each party played an equal role in the violence.

President Thein Sein reiterated the following month that, in the eyes of the government, the Rohingya were not citizens of Myanmar and that he wished to hand over the entire ethnic group to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in order to settle them in a different country. Buddhist monks in Mandalay held protests against the Rohingya in which they supported the proposal of the President.

969 movement

In the past year, while the government has opened up to reform and relations with the West, there has been an expansion of the violence against other Muslim communities. The March riots in Meiktila in central Myanmar which burnt more than 1300 homes in Muslim neighbourhoods and killed 43 people were instigated by Buddhist monks who were part of the 969 movement. The movement, whose spiritual leader is a Buddhist monk named U Wirathu, encourages local people to boycott trade with Muslims and shop only at Buddhist-owned stores which display the number 969, a number which symbolises Buddha's teachings and Buddhist practices. They view Muslims as a threat to the nation. A demonstration in support of U Wirathu saw Buddhist monks carrying banners which read, "Not The Terrorist, But The Protector of Race, Language and The Religion.” The latest violence, in September, has implicated the Kaman Muslims in the Rakhine State, who are recognised as one of the official ethnic groups of Myanmar and granted full citizenship.

Aung San Suu Kyi, the heroine of democracy and human rights, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, and daughter of Aung San, has condemned the recent violence against the Muslim community but has remained curiously silent on the suffering of the Rohingya. During a November 2012 BBC interview, when questioned about the Rohingya, Suu Kyi answered, "I am urging tolerance but I do not think one should use one's moral leadership, if you want to call it that, to promote a particular cause without really looking at the sources of the problems." She continues to refer to the Rohingya as "Bengalis”. This is in contrast to remarks by US President Barack Obama at Yangon University during his official visit to Myanmar last November, where he acknowledged the "dignity" and suffering of the "innocent" Rohingya people, a position few inside of Myanmar have been willing to take.

The continued plight of the Rohingya, both in Myanmar and as refugees abroad, as well as the continued violence against the broader Muslim community stains any democratic reforms in a country which has known little but violence and civil war for the past half-century. The situation is desperate as the violence is only getting worse and expanding to new groups.

Myanmar needs to take a firm stand on the side of human rights, pluralism, and security for all of its citizens, promote the rule of law, and, at a more basic level, recognise the existence and the suffering of the Rohingya. Only then can a democratic Myanmar be recognised as legitimate in the eyes of the international community and its own people.

[Matibhadra]

Since the Rakhine Rohingya Muslims are mainly of the extremist-terrorist Saudi-Arabia financed Wahhabite trend, supported also by US, UK and Israel, it is natural that they are depicted as “victims” by Western war propaganda outlets (also known as “free press”), and by Western puppets such as the Dalai Lama and Aung San Suu Kyi.

This is not different from the Saudi Arabian sponsored and Western suppported takfiri terrorists and mass murderers acting in Syria, romantically described as “democratic opposition”, “freedom fighters” or the such by Western war propaganda.

In Syria and in Myanmar the idea is the same, to promote the chaos to justify Western or NATO intervention, and the subsequent destruction, fragmentation, and full submission of the country, strictly following the sinister script laid out by the senior master genocide, the psycopath Henry Kissinger (http://www.dailysquib.co.uk/index.php?news=3089)

And since Myanmar is not far from Tibet (actually they share a not so short border), the Dalai Lama is seeing a golden opportunity to spread the chaos to Tibet as well, and is thus supporting the Rohingya Wahhabite tafkiris.

[icy]

Cause and effect is a vicious cycle.  Can you imagine what will happen to these warlords masterminding war games to gain control of another country because of greed while causing so much deception, schism, violence and suffering among the innocents civilians.  I shudder at the thought of the backlashes they would have to experience in their next life.  I suppose ignorance is bliss.  Om Mani Padme Hum.... may they be blessed to meet with Dharma.

[hope rainbow]

Forgiveness is our only weapon.
Forgiveness is the only potent weapon.
Forgiveness is the only way forward.
Forgiveness is the killer of vengeance, resentment, anger and war.

One cannot develop forgiveness and anger at the same time.
Forgiveness is like the water that extinguished the fire of anger.

True forgiveness is perennial.

[yontenjamyang]

This type of act is not for religious reasons. It is out of discriminations  between self and others. In this case, the word "Buddhist" is just an adjectives that describe the mob and so is the word "muslim" that describe the homes and shops of the victim. Human are so degenerate that we us religion as a discrimination between ourselves and others which is a paradox as any religion preach, love and compassion for others.

It is obvious that the motivations are jealousy, fear, pride, hatred, attachment/aversion and plain ignorance. It is really sad that this acts condemns the religion in the mindset of others.

[Matibhadra]

This type of act is not for religious reasons.

“This type of act” is not for any reason, religious or otherwise, simply because the supposed act of this type did not exist. It is just what war propaganda wants people to imagine and believe in, in order to justify the intended invasion, destruction, fragmentation and economic exploitation of Myanmar together with its rich resources and Buddhist tradition by Western barbarians.

The imagined “act of this type” is simply non-existent. Just like the “weapons of mass destruction” of Saddam Hussein. Just like the “chemical attacks” by the Syrian government. Just like the sanctity of Malala or of the Dalai Lama. Just war propaganda for the gullible.

Funny that when Tibetan Buddhist mobs did burn down Chinese homes and shops in Lhasa around the 10th March 2008, killing more than 100 Chinese innocent people, the same press which is now attacking Myanmarese monks said that they were acting legitimately, and the Dalai Lama explicitly and publicly refused to tell them to stop.

[Matibhadra]

It is really sad that this acts condemns the religion in the mindset of others.

These acts do not condemn anything, because they did not exist. But the imagination of the non-existent acts do condemn Buddhism in the mind of the gullible, which is precisely the intention (among others) of the Western barbarian war propaganda.