Associated Press, Todd Pitman, Sep. 30, 2012
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In this photo taken on Sept. 8, 2012, Muslims gather during a visit by a delegation
of American diplomats including U.S. Ambassador to Myanmar Derek Mitchell,
unseen, at a refugee camp in Sittwe, Rakhine State, western Myanmar. Three-and-a-half
months after some of the bloodiest clashes in a generation between Myanmar’s
ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and stateless Muslims known as Rohingya left the western
town of Sittwe in flames, nobody is quite sure when -or even if- the Rohingya will
be allowed to resume the lives they once lived here. (AP Photo/Khin Maung Win) |
SITTWE,
Myanmar (AP) — There are no Muslim faithful in most of this crumbling town's
main mosques anymore, no Muslim students at its university.
They're
gone from the market, missing from the port, too terrified to walk on just
about any street downtown.
Three-and-a-half
months after some of the bloodiest clashes in a generation between Myanmar's
ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and stateless Muslims known as Rohingya left the
western town of Sittwe in flames, nobody is quite sure when — or even if — the
Rohingya will be allowed to resume the lives they once lived here.
The
conflict has fundamentally altered the demographic landscape of this coastal
state capital, giving way to a disturbing policy of government-backed
segregation that contrasts starkly with the democratic reforms Myanmar's
leadership has promised the world since half a century of military rule ended
last year.
While the
Rakhine can move freely, some 75,000 Rohingya have effectively been confined to
a series of rural displaced camps outside Sittwe and a single downtown district
they dare not leave for fear of being attacked.
For the
town's Muslim population, it's a life of exclusion that's separate, and
anything but equal.
"We're
living like prisoners here," said Thant Sin, a Rohingya shopkeeper who has
been holed up since June in the last Rohingya-dominated quarter of central
Sittwe that wasn't burned down.
Too afraid
to leave, the 47-year-old cannot work anyway. The blue wooden doors of his
shuttered pharmaceutical stall sit abandoned inside the city's main market — a
place only Rakhine are now allowed to enter.
The crisis
in western Myanmar goes back decades and is rooted in a highly controversial
dispute over where the region's Muslim inhabitants are really from. Although
many Rohingya have lived in Myanmar for generations, they are widely denigrated
here as foreigners — intruders who came from neighboring Bangladesh to steal
scarce land.
The U.N.
estimates their number at 800,000. But the government does not count them as
one of the country's 135 ethnic groups, and so — like Bangladesh — denies them
citizenship. Human rights groups say racism also plays a role: Many Rohingya,
who speak a distinct Bengali dialect and resemble Muslim Bangladeshis, have
darker skin and are heavily discriminated against.
In late
May, tensions boiled over after the rape and murder of a Rakhine woman,
allegedly by three Rohingya, in a town south of Sittwe. By mid-June, skirmishes
between rival mobs carrying swords, spears and iron rods erupted across the
region. Conservative estimates put the death toll at around 100 statewide, with
5,000 homes burned along with dozens of mosques and monasteries.
Sittwe
suffered more damage than most, and today blackened tracts of rubble-strewn
land filled with knotted tree stumps are scattered everywhere. The largest,
called Narzi, was home to 10,000 Muslims.
Human
Rights Watch accused security forces of colluding with Rakhine mobs at the
height of the mayhem, opening fire on Rohingya even as they struggled to douse
the flames of their burning homes.
Speaking to
a delegation of visiting American diplomats earlier this month, Border Affairs
Minister Lt. Gen. Thein Htay described Sittwe's new status quo. Drawing his
finger across a city map, he said there are now "lines that cannot be
crossed" by either side, or else "there will be aggression ... there
will be disputes."
"It's
not what we want," he added with a polite smile. "But this is the
reality we face."
While
police and soldiers are protecting mosques and guarding Rohingya in camps,
there is much they cannot control. One group of 300 local Buddhist leaders, for
example, issued pamphlets urging the Rakhine not to do business with the
Rohingya or even talk to them. It is the only way, they say, to avert violence.
Inside
Sittwe's once mixed municipal hospital, a separate ward has been established to
serve Muslim patients only; on a recent day, it was filled with just four
patients whose families said they could only get there with police escorts.
At the
town's university, only Rakhine now attend. And at the main market, plastic
identity cards are needed to enter: pink for shopkeepers, yellow for customers,
none for Rohingya.
The crisis
has posed one of the most serious challenges yet to Thein Sein's nascent
government, which declared a state of emergency and warned the unrest could
threaten the country's nascent transition toward democracy if it spread.
Although
the clashes have been contained and an independent commission has been
appointed to study the conflict and recommend solutions, the government has
shown little political will to go further.
The Rohingya
are a deeply unpopular cause in Myanmar, where even opposition leader Aung San
Suu Kyi and former political prisoners imprisoned by the army have failed to
speak out on their behalf. In July, Thein Sein himself suggested the Rohingya
should be sent to any other country willing to take them.
"In
that context, we're seeing them segregated into squalid camps, fleeing the
country, and in some cases being rounded up and imprisoned," said Matthew
Smith, a researcher for Human Rights Watch who authored a recent report for the
New York-based group on the latest unrest.
In places
like Sittwe, "there is a risk of permanent segregation," Smith said.
"None of this bodes well for the prospects of a multi-ethnic
democracy."
In the
meantime, the government's own statistics indicate the crisis is worsening — at
least for the Rohingya.
While the
total number of displaced Rakhine statewide has declined from about 24,000 at
the start of the crisis to 5,600 today, the number of displaced Rohingya has
risen from 52,000 to 70,000, mostly in camps just outside Sittwe.
The
government has blamed the rise on Rohingya it says didn't lose homes but who
are eager to gain access to aid handouts. Insecurity is also likely a factor,
though. Amnesty International has accused authorities of detaining hundreds of
Rohingya in a post-conflict crackdown aimed almost exclusively at Muslims. And
in August, 3,500 people were displaced after new clashes saw nearly 600 homes
burned in the town of Kyauktaw, according to the U.N.
Elsewhere
in Rakhine state, the army has resumed forced labor against Muslims, ordering
villagers to cultivate the military's paddy fields, act as porters and rebuild
destroyed homes, according to a report by the Arakan Project, an activist
group.
In Sittwe,
mutual fear and distrust runs so high that 7,000 Rohingya crammed inside a
dilapidated quarter called Aung Mingalar have not set foot outside it since
June. It's the last Muslim-inhabited block downtown, a tiny place that takes
about five minutes to cross by foot.
Thant Sin,
the Rohingya shopkeeper who lives in Aung Mingalar, said that the government
delivers supplies of rice, but that getting almost everything else requires
exorbitant bribes and connections. There is just one mosque. There are no clinics,
medical care or schools, and Thant Sin is worried his savings will run out in
weeks.
The married
father of five has been unable to open his market stall since authorities
ordered it shut three months ago. One told him, "This for the Rakhine
now," he recalled.
"All
we want to do is go back to work," he said. "The government is doing
nothing to help us get our lives back."
All four
roads into Aung Mingalar are guarded by police, and outside, past the
roadblocks of barbed wire and wood that divide the district from the rest of
town, Rakhine walk freely — sometimes yelling racial slurs or hurling stones
from slingshots.
Across the
street, a 57-year-old Rakhine, Aye Myint, leaned back in a rusted metal chair
and peered at a group of bearded Muslim men in Aung Mingalar.
"I
feel nothing for those people now," he said. "After what happened ...
they cannot be trusted anymore. To tell the truth, we want them out of
here."
Hla Thain,
the attorney general of Rakhine state, denied there was any official policy of
forced segregation, saying security forces are deployed to protect both sides,
not keep them apart. But he acknowledged that there were not enough police or
soldiers to make the two communities feel safe, and that huge obstacles to
reconciliation remain.
"We
want them to live together, that is our goal, but we can't force people to
change," he said. "Anger is still running high. Neither side can
forget that they lost family members, their homes."
For now, he
said, the government is studying every possibility to make life
"normal" again. For example: having Rakhine students attend
university in the morning, while Rohingya go each afternoon.
Thein Htay,
the border minister, was more blunt.
"We
may have to build another market center, another trading center, another
port" for the Rohingya, he said, because it will be "very difficult
otherwise."
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