A high-voltage narrative has been meticulously built around Rohingya Muslims across the globe projecting them as one of the most persecuted ethnic minorities in Myanmar. They are termed the ‘stateless’ people. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described them as “one of, if not the, most discriminated people in the world.”
A search on the Internet would flood your computer or mobile screen with links of hundreds of stories highlighting their plight. The global media outlets position them as the ‘hapless’ victims of a genocide allegedly perpetrated by the security forces in Myanmar. There are scores of books and research papers that reinforce this narrative.
But as they say the devil is in the details! This dramatic narrative showcases only one side of the story. It is time to take a look at the other side of the story too.
Intent to join Pakistan
25 August 2017 is a watershed moment in the story of Rohingya Muslims as events on this particular day forced the security forces in Myanmar to swing into action which is now blamed for forcing Rohingya Muslims to flee Myanmar and seek refuge in Bangladesh. One needs to understand the historical context of what happened on that fateful day.
Rohingya Muslims are primarily from Arakan province (now known as Rakhine State) of Myanmar and they have fomented several insurgencies in the past trying to balkanise the country in which they lived. That was bound to create suspicion against their loyalties. Thant Myint-U, one of the most respected historians of Myanmar lucidly explains (The Hidden History of Burma, pp232) this conundrum, “There have long been Muslim insurgencies in Arakan. The first was the so-called Mujahedeen, which seized control of northern Arakan during the transition from colonial rule in 1948, hoping to join the area to the new East Pakistan.”
When this annexation didn’t happen, a demand for separate Muslim homeland in Burma (Myanmar was known as Burma at that time) was raised. To counter this new Muslim insurgency, the Burmese army had to launch a counteroffensive named ‘Operation Monsoon’ in 1954. The Muslim insurgencies continued in 1970s and 1980s also, ‘including the Rohingya Solidarity Organisation, inspired in part by the rise of the Islamist groups around the world.’
Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA)
In 2012 communal violence broke out in Arakan between Rohingya Muslims and Buddhists following which ARSA, a Muslim militant group was set up to launch terror attacks in Burma by Rohingya Muslims. ARSA was set up by Ataullah Abu Ammar Jununi who was born in the 1960s in Karachi, Pakistan. His father was an immigrant Rohingya and mother was Pakistani. According to Thant Myint-U Jununi grew up in Saudi Arabia receiving Islamic madrassa education before going on to military training in Pakistan or Afghanistan.
‘In 2013, Ataullah began recruiting local men in the areas of Arakan closest to Bangladesh. They were not in short supply… The Burmese army’s intelligence capabilities in the area were extremely weak. Nevertheless, secrecy was of the utmost importance. Several suspected informants were killed. The group used WhatsApp, the encrypted messaging app. As many Rohingya are illiterate, sound files were used to communicate information.’
‘In the early morning of October 9 (2016), an ARSA led force of several hundred Rohingya men… attacked three police posts, hacking nine policemen to death and capturing sixty-two firearms and around 10,000 rounds of ammunition. Two days later the group posted a video on YouTube claiming responsibility.’ (Pp 232-233)
The Burmese army launched a counter-offensive operation but it met stiff resistance at certain places from ARSA. It was clear that ARSA was no more a rag tag organisation. It was a well-oiled war machine and its ranks were swelling, posing a grave threat to non-Muslims. The counter-offensive led by Burmese army led to around 70,000 Rohingya seeking refuge in Bangladesh by February 2017. By that time the UN had jumped on the bandwagon criticising Burmese government for the high handedness of its security forces against Rohingya Muslims.
This was the beginning of building a one-sided narrative as discussed above. ‘Over the spring and summer of 2017, at least 33 Rohingya civilians were killed by ARSA, mainly suspected police informers or village officials seen as government collaborators. In one village, a Rohingya man who denied to reporters (on a staged media visit) that army abuses had taken place was found beheaded the next day. The Government of India had recently passed on intelligence to the Burmese government alleging links between Rohingya militants and the Pakistani terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba. In July (2017), AlQaeda’s Bangaldesh offshoot Ansar-al-Islam urged Muslim youths of Bangladesh to join the fight.’ (pp235)
Massacre of 25 August 2017
A few hours after the midnight of 25 August 2017, ARSA launched a coordinated attack on 30 police posts as well as an army base in northern Arakan. According to Thant Myint-U, each assault involved hundreds of Rohingya men, a few armed with guns and explosives and the rest with machetes and homemade weapons. Ten policemen were killed, as well as a soldier and an immigration officer. The government said 77 attackers were killed and one was captured. ARSA tweeted: ‘This is a legitimate step for us to defend the world’s persecuted people and liberate the oppressed people from the hands of oppressors!’
***
Also Read
Explained: The row over accommodating Rohingyas in Delhi, all triggered by a tweet
Firstpost Podcast: Detention centres for Rohingya
Home Ministry says no direction to shift illegal Rohingyas to EWS flats, to be deported as per law
***
‘At around 8 am that morning, ARSA fighters entered a small Hindu village, rounded up all 69 men, women and children-people of Indian descent who were neither Rohingya nor Arkanese-killed most and abducted the rest. The forty-six Hindus of a neighbouring settlement were abducted as well. To this day their whereabouts are unknown. ARSA also attacked Arakanese Buddhist villages and the villages of the small Mro and Daingnet minority. Over WhatsApp, ARSA sent out the message: Burn down all Rakhine villages, one by one… Attack their village from all sides so that every corner of the village will start burning. Do not spare even a single village… set fire to all of them.’ (pp238)
The Burmese army reacted to this violence with a counter-offensive that led to mass exodus of Rohingya Muslims. This exodus hogged the headlines in international media and strong reactions against Burmese government from the West and the Islamic world. Ever since then the story of the mass exodus has been played out time and again and many of us tend to buy that but there is a deadpan silence on the massacres perpetrated by ARSA, an organisation of Rohingya Muslims and the violence unleashed by it against civilians as well as non-civilians.
When Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel laureate for peace, who was at helm of affairs in Burma in 2017 refused to buckle down under the pressure of a one-sided international narrative, the same Western world who was singing paeans in her praise when she was in opposition, turned against her, unleashing a vicious high decibel campaign. In September 2017, St. Hugh’s college at Oxford removed her much celebrated portrait. A few months later, she was stripped of the awards given to her by the cities of Dublin and Oxford in 2012. Severe international criticism of successive Burmese governments has continued since then in this context.
Anyone who doesn’t toe this one-sided narrative will be targeted by this nexus of global players who have been telling us only one side of the story. But there is another side of this story too and that needs to be told.
The writer, an author and columnist, has written several books. Views expressed are personal.
Read all the Latest News, Trending News, Cricket News, Bollywood News,
India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
0 Comments: