To outside observers, the carnage inflicted on the Rohingya minority - a
five-month spasm of violence and de fact ethnic cleansing ostensibly stemming
from the rape of a Buddhist woman by three Rohingya men - in Rakhine Province
is indefensible and inexplicable.
What is even less understandable
to Westerners is the virtually universal closing of ranks among local and
national governments, pro and anti-government Buddhist monks, junta apologists
and pro-democracy activists, President Thein Sein and Aung San Suu Kyi, all
uniting to deny the apparently undeniable fact that an old fashioned pogrom is
taking place against Rohingya minority and other Muslims.
Friends of Myanmar are puzzled
and dismayed that the progressives they have championed have joined forces with
the country's most reactionary forces to deny the overwhelming evidence that
Rohingya - a dark-skinned Muslim ethnic minority with cultural and linguistic
ties to neighboring Bangladesh - are being driven out of their homes by a
campaign of intimidation, arson, and violence in 2012 that builds upon years of
marginalization and demonization.
Seventy-five thousand Rohingya
IDPs (Internally Displaced Persons) have been herded into camps on the outskirts
of the state capital, Sittwe, and other towns.
In a sign of how bad things are,
thousands of Rohingya are trying to flee to Bangladesh, even though they are
not welcome there and their only possible refuge if they aren't turned back are
two squalid UN-run camps surrounded by a ring of miserable unsanctioned huts.
Exasperated by Myanmar denialism,
Human Rights Watch published a satellite photo showing most of the Muslim
quarter of a sizable town, Kyak Pyu, burned to the ground. [1]
(As is usual in these matters,
nomenclature follows political inclination. The official government identifiers
are Myanmar and Rakhine State. People disinclined to legitimize the regime's
terms use Burma/Arakan).
The local Rakhine government and
its dominant political party, the Rakhine Nationalities Development Party, or
RNDP, have been at the forefront of the anti-Rohingya campaign, according to
Rohingya advocate Nay San Lwin.
Writing in Turkey's Today Zaman,
he asserted:
The tragic cruelty and the
carnage of Rohingyas that occurred in Sittwe, the capital of Arakan (now known
as Rakhine) state, is assumed to have been caused by Dr Aye Maung, member of
parliament and chairman of the Rakhine Nationalities Development Party (RNDP)
because in his interview with Venus News Journal on June 14, 2012, he said,
"The Rakhine state should be established in the way Israel was initially
established." That's the dream of the Rakhine people. They want to drive
out Rohingya Muslims from the Rakhine (Arakan) state, their current leader Dr
Aye Maung asserted in that interview.
In the last week of last month, a
RNDP statement indicated, "Bengalis must be segregated and settled in
separate, temporary places so that the Rakhines and Bengalis are not able to
mix together in villages and towns in Rakhine state." "Repatriating
non-citizen Bengalis to a third country in a short period of time must be
discussed with the United Nations and the international community," the
statement added. The RNDP also issued a statement early this year against a job
announcement by CARE International in Myanmar, an NGO working in Arakan state,
for using the term "Rohingya." [2]
Local Arakanese monks have been
pitching in as well, according to Democratic Voice of Burma:
A group of Arakanese monks have
called for Rohingya "sympathizers" to be targeted and exposed as
"national traitors" while tensions again flare between Buddhists and
Muslims in Burma's westernmost state.
In a document seen by DVB, the
All-Arakanese Monks' Solidarity Conference have urged locals to distribute
images of anyone alleged to be supporting the stateless minority group to all
townships in the region, potentially opening them up to violent attacks by
nationalist extremists. …
Many Arakanese monks have
repeatedly called on local Buddhists to sever all relations with the Rohingya
community, including trade and the provision of humanitarian aid. [3]
Another ugly message was
delivered courtesy of some Rakhine Buddhist university students:
Hundreds of Buddhist university
students in Sittwe in Rakhine State rallied on Wednesday against Rohingya
Muslims as communal tension was at a heightened pitch in western Burma,
according to news service reports.
More than 800 students joined a
rally to call for an end to "studying with terrorist Bengalis" and
for the removal of Muslim villages on the road to the university. [4]
In addition, the RNDP embarked on
an active political and public relations campaign to reframe the pogrom as
"sectarian clashes" in order to present its supporters - the rioters
- as the injured party, especially if foreign diplomats show up to commiserate
over the plight of the Rohingya.
In June, the Secretary General of
the RNDP complained:
Q : We have knowledge that UN
Secretary General's Special Advisor on Myanmar Mr. Vijay Nambiar visited the
town of Sittwe through Buthidaung and Maungdaw Townships of Rakhine state and
head back straight to Yangon. However, during his trip, he did not meet the
representatives of ethnic Rakhine. What's your say on this?
A: I would so much like to talk
about this issue. … We feel highly upset about Mr. Nambiar's failure to meet
[Rakhine ethnic representatives] despite coming to Rakhine state. That makes us
wonder about the stance of UN. There was no press conference either. And that
is purely a totally unpleasant situation.
Therefore it makes us wonder the
true motives of Mr. Nambia, is he being bias against those of ethnic Rakhine?
So, by looking at this event, it's obvious that there are people who are
pulling the strings from behind; otherwise, there is no reason for such a high
ranking diplomat like him to dare not to call for a press conference. For an
organization like UN, which is the de-facto representative of world's
democratic societies, such a big failure is a heinous diplomatic mistake. [5]
When the Organization for Islamic
Cooperation proposed setting up a humanitarian liaison office in the state
capital of Sittwe, local "offended Buddhist" women marched through
the streets of the state capital, wearing mass produced T-shirts and
brandishing mass-produced banners. [6]
That's bad enough. But there was
more. The national government of Thein Sein endorsed the position of the
Rakhine State government and declared that the best deal for the Rohingya would
be to herd them into UN camps for their own safety and then deport them to
whatever third country would take them.
At the national level, the
anti-Rohingya wave was not limited to the callous, knuckle-dragging
authoritarians associated with the Myanmar military junta (now the pro-Western
reformist regime in Nyapyidaw).
Buddhist monks and democracy
activists piled on, excoriating the international community for daring to care
about the Rohingya.
The leadership of the 8888
student democracy movement, while vigorously and commendably deploring the
violence against the Rohingya, adamantly declared its disdain for the
persecuted group:
Rohingya is not one of the ethnic
groups of Myanmar at all. We see that the riot happening currently in
Buthedaung and Maungdaw of Arakan State is because of the illegal immigrants
from Bangladesh called "Rohingya" and mischievous provocation of some
international communities. Therefore, such interfering efforts by some powerful
nations on this issue (Rohingya issue), without fully understanding the ethnic
groups and other situations of Burma, will be viewed as offending the
sovereignty of our nation. Genetically, culturally and linguistically Rohingya
is not absolutely related to any ethnicity in Myanmar … Taking advantage of our
kindness and deference, if the powerful countries forced us to take
responsibility for this issue, we will never accept it. Concerning with the
sovereignty, if we are forced to yield by any country, we, the army and
democratic force will deal the issue together as a national issue. [7]
From the Western liberal
perspective, the worst was the studied disdain of Aung San Suu Kyi- whose
official title in the Western press appears to be "democracy icon and
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi- for the plight of the Rohingya.
When pressed on the issue at
Harvard University, she went Ice Queen, according to Global Post:
The forum at Harvard's Kennedy
School Thursday evening was little shy of a lovefest …Until someone mentioned
the "R" word.
Thanking Suu Kyi for "being
our inspiration," a student from Thailand said: "You have been quite
reluctant to speak up against the human-rights violations in Rakhine State
against the Rohingya … Can you explain why you have been so reluctant?"
The mood in the room suddenly
shifted. Suu Kyi's tone and expression changed. With an edge in her voice, she
answered: "You must not forget that there have been human-rights
violations on both sides of the communal divide. It's not a matter of
condemning one community or the other. I condemn all human rights
violations." [8]
A few observations here.
First, the central government is
definitely along for the anti-Rohingya ride. It (together with Aung San Suu
Kyi) has adopted the morally neutral "sectarian clashes" narrative,
with the implication that the Rohingya are equally at fault for any violence, a
framing that official Chinese agencies - the PRC, of course, is a key political
backer for the current regime - have carefully reproduced in their coverage.
[9]
In July, the local Arakanese news
agency carried a report on a delegation of movie stars - again, wearing the
mass-produced T-shirts that seem to be an integral part of political expression
in these matters - on a charitable mission to comfort refugees created by the
crisis … the ethnic Rakhines displaced by the crisis, not the Rohingya.
As the report makes clear, the
group, organized by the chairman of the Myanmar Motion Picture Association,
concentrated its efforts on Buddhist refugees sheltering at religious
establishments in the capital of Sittwe:
"I was very glad and broke
into tears when I saw the stars I love coming to offer their aid to us,"
said a female refugee who is sheltering in the camp of Ray Kyaw Thu Monastery
in Sittwe.
The celebrity team reportedly
visited the camps of Ray Kyaw Thu Monastery, Sinkuland Ward, Rwa Gree Mrauk
Primary School, Padone Ma Aung Myay Monastery, Buddhawmaw Monastery, Su Taung
Pyi Monastery, Mingan Middle School, and Mingan Chapel in Sittwe, and have made
their respective donations to the refugees taking shelter in those camps. [10]
Anti-Rohingya bigotry has been a
mainstay of the dictatorship for decades. Famously, the regime denied
citizenship for the Rohingya in 1982, stigmatizing them as non-Burmese, and
laying much of the foundation for their current misery. The junta has been
accused of knowingly inciting anti-Rohingya violence if and when government
misbehavior might expose it to the anger of the monks.
However, morally bankrupt divide
and rule tactics by the military junta are not the full story.
The regime draws on a
considerable and easily tapped reservoir of anti-Rohingya feeling in Burmese
society, feeling that has perhaps been exacerbated by the overtly racialist
Greater Burma propaganda of the government but is to a certain extent inherent
in the religious and social worldview of many politically-engaged Burmese.
Myanmar is, of course,
predominantly Buddhist. 94% Buddhist, if recent estimates are accurate.
Myanmar is Theravada Buddhist, as
are Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand. Theravada Buddhism is a
doctrinally conservative Buddhism very close to the original practice laid out
by Gautama Buddha. It is predicated upon a Buddhist domination of a secular
polity under the rule of a king who acts as defender and promoter of the faith.
Back in the day, the main
priority of the Theravada Buddhist state was to establish the social and
financial infrastructure that would enable Buddhist monks to achieve
enlightenment.
Theravada Buddhism was devastated
by the arrival of Western imperialism in Asia, especially by the incorporation
of South Asian states into colonial regimes and the extinction or sidelining of
the Buddhist kings. Sri Lanka and Burma got rolled into British India; Laos and
Cambodia became part of the French system. Even Thailand, which retained its
nominal independence, was forced to confront the challenge to its legitimacy
and authority posed by Western power and Christian proselytizing.
Theravada Buddhism, like other
traditional religions of Asia, upped its game in response to the imperial
challenge. Theorists developed a vision of Theravada Buddhism as a mechanism
for national renewal- and national resistance against British rule. The
movement started in Sri Lanka as the Young Men's Buddhist Association - the
YMBA. The name, though it sounds quaint, was both a direct challenge to the
YMCA, an important agent of Christian penetration among Sri Lanka's youth and
professional classes - and an adoption (and implicit endorsement) of its
methods.
There are interesting parallels
between the Theravada renaissance and the 19th century movements to redefine
Indian Islam- which was also experiencing severe stress as national integration
threatened to redefine Indian Muslims as a national minority, instead of the
holder of various local majorities. The remorseless transformation of Indian
society led, on the political level, to the eventual partition of the British
Raj into India and East and West Pakistan.
On the religious level, it led to
the development of a more militant, politically-engaged brand of Indian Islam
through the rise of the Deoband school. The Deoband madrassah prepared Indian
Muslims for an existential struggle against the forces of Westernization and
Hindu dominance by emphasizing Islamic renewal, resistance, doctrinal rigor,
and intolerance for the accommodating and syncretist brand of Sufi Islamic
observance practiced in many areas of the Indian subcontinent.
In the 20th century, the Deoband
school also inspired a conservative Islamic backlash against foreign
penetration into Muslim central Asia; we know these arch-conservatives
(actually Islamic neo-fundamentalists) as the Taliban.
"Myanmar's Buddhist
Taliban" is an unwelcome framing, and certainly unfair when contrasting
the intensity of violence practiced or condoned by the two groups.
However, it should be noted that
religiously-supported Buddhist chauvinism was a key element in the estrangement
between Sri Lanka's dominant Buddhist population and its Tamil minority. The
political conflict climaxed in a virtual war of annihilation successfully
carried out by the Sri Lankan government (with significant Chinese military and
financial support) against the Tamil Tigers. Sri Lankan "Buddhist
fundamentalism" - a quest for national renaissance through a rededication
to Buddhist practice and goals- has inspired Burma as well.
Burmese Buddhism, traditionally
locked into a solipsistic quest for personal enlightenment, has been repurposed
as a political and social movement, drawing justification from the exalted
(healing society as an exercise in compassion) and pragmatic (poor societies
lack the ability to give suitable alms to Buddhist monks, thereby endangering
the Buddhist project).
This led to the emergence of a
class of politically active monks with immense social prestige, whose leaders
the Myanmar dictatorship has desperately and largely unsuccessfully labored to
co-opt. It also encouraged the emergence of a uniquely Myanmar Buddhist bigot,
for whom the continued presence of the Rohingya is an affront to the Buddhist
purity and cultural unity of the nation.
The existence of an ineffectual
Rohingya liberation movement among exiles in Bangladesh adds fuel to the fire.
The most conspicuous Buddhist
voice in the national (as opposed to Rakhine State) protests against the OIC
initiative is a monk, U Wirathu, with a history of imprisonment (providing him
with activist credibility) and anti-Muslim agitation. In September, he led a
5,000-person march in Yongyon supporting President Thein Sein's proposal to
either hand over the Rohingya to the UN Human Rights Commissioner or deport
them to any third country that would have them.
On the occasion of the Muslim
festival of Eid al-Adha, Wirathu posted a video which, according to the
translation by a hostile party, accused the Rohingya (or, in his formulation,
"the Bengalis") of acting as a front for Islamic infiltration and
destabilization of Burma, starting with an "invasive jihad war"
against Rakhine with the objective of establishing an Islamic state.
Wirathu also accused the Rohingya
Solidarity Organization of "drugging children in order to get them to
fight" and "disguising themselves as ladies". Perhaps this
reflects Wirathu's goofball worldview; more likely it is an attempt to explain
away the child and female casualties of the pogrom.
He concluded by declaring that it
is imperative to protect the Rakhine State in order to protect the Myanmar
motherland. [11]
Al-Jazeera's Wayne Thay
speculated that Wirathu has assumed the role of pro-government provocateur on
the Rohingya issue. [12]
Perhaps the monk's outlook was
remolded by the 10 years he spent in prison and his crude propaganda is
orchestrated by his minders in the security apparatus.
Certainly, the "protect the
Rakhine" meme - a perverse inversion of the actual anti-Rohingya pogrom -
is a framing with which the central government, religious establishment, and
democratic movement all feel comfortable.
International NGOs calling for
relief and protection of the Rohingya have, to their distress, been targeted
with astounding vitriol by the very activists they championed for decades of
pro-democracy struggle. (It also appears that the NGOs, having comfortably
occupied the role of democracy's respected agents inside Burma, are also
ill-equipped to deal with the chauvinistic, anti-imperialist spirit that is at
the core of Buddhist fundamentalist dissent and which has been liberated by the
recent political reforms)
Mark Farmaner of Burma Campaign
UK wrote of his dismay and bewilderment at the attacks his organization has
endured for trying to call attention to the Rohingya situation:
Another reason we are attacked
over Rohingya issues is that we have a Muslim staff member. From the moment Wai
Hnin Pwint Thon joined Burma Campaign UK, messages started to be left on our
Facebook Page by people from Burma, attacking her because she is a Muslim. …
Lies posted and spread about Wai
Hnin Pwint Thon include that she is secretly Rohingya (she isn't), she has been
accused of working with Rohingya Solidarity Organization (she doesn't), of
wanting to create a Caliphate in Burma (she doesn't), of taking money from
Rohingya (she hasn't), and even that she has had several children with
different Rohingya men (she hasn't). She has faced not just lies but abuse,
much of it sexual in nature. …
Around a year ago, I tried to
engage Dr Aye Chan in a conversation on why he and his followers spent much
more time criticizing Rohingya than they did the dictatorship. Aye Chan was
incapable of having the discussion without repeatedly making personal attacks.
The email conversation was forwarded to various email groups, and my in-box was
flooded with abusive emails. When I asked Aye Chan to ask his supporters not to
use personal abuse and threats, and to condemn those who do, he repeatedly
refused to do so. When leaders not only fail to condemn abusive and personal
attacks, but even make personal attacks themselves, their followers will copy
their behaviour. [13]
Dr Aye Chan is a very well-known
figure in the Myankar democracy movement, and also an Arakanese. Previously
imprisoned by the junta as a dissident, he is now welcome because his
scholarship and advocacy provide a veneer of legitimacy to anti-Rohingya sentiment.
In September, he attended a conference on "National Identity and
Citizenship in 21st Century Myanmar" in Yangon and was pointedly greeted
at the airport by an Arakanese delegation. According to the Arakanese news
agency:
Arakanese were said to have held
placards and banners that included one which read "Dr Aye Chan, Save the
Land of Arakan" while welcoming him at the airport. [14]
News coverage approvingly noted
his book on the Rohingya, Virus Influx.
The evidence is overwhelming that
anti-Rohingya sentiment permeates the warp and weft of Burmese society and
dominates both government and anti-government institutions at local and
national levels.
Aung San Suu Kyi is obviously
uncomfortable pushing back against this bigotry, perhaps because of shared
religious values (she abandoned the clear eyed multi-ethnic socialist politics
of her late father for an airy brand of Buddhism during her incarceration) and
because the support of Buddhist monks significantly leverages her political
power and reach inside Burma.
But the savage pogroms of this
year beg the question Why Now?, a question that Rohingya diaspora spokesman Dr
Waqar Uddin himself could only answer with sputtered confusion on an Al Jazeera
interview show, despite the determined effort by the anchor to elicit a
coherent response. [15]
And why has Aung San Suu Kyi
imperiled her international reputation - a key weapon in the arsenal of Burmese
democracy - by refusing to tap her admittedly shallow reserves of pro-Rohingya
compassion?
The answer may be found in by
understanding the dynamics behind pogroms- the carnivals of violence against
despised minorities that, in Western literature, are most closely associated
with the persecution of Jews in Europe.
A detailed analysis of the
anti-Jewish pogroms in Odessa in 1905 concluded it did not ignite
"spontaneously". It was orchestrated- and its excesses were condoned
or encouraged in a time of significant political flux and heightened anxiety a
society preconditioned towards violence against Jews. In 1905 Odessa, the
political disorder attending reforms promulgated by Tsar Nicholas was blamed on
Jewish agitation, and a pogrom incited among the impoverished and
enthusiastically anti-Semitic populace in order to advance a particular
political agenda.
Robert Weinberg's analysis
[Robert Weinberg, "The Pogrom of 1905 in Odessa: A Case Study" in
Pogroms: Anti-Jewish Violence in Modern Russian History, John D Klier and
Shlomo Lambroza, eds. (Cambridge,1992): 248-89] can, with little imagination,
be applied to the pogrom against the Rohingya in Burma and the accusations of
"jihadi invasion" (with the observation that the ostensible
"threat" posed by the beleaguered Rohingya is more in line with the
manufactured hysterics of 1930s Germany than the acute crisis of the Tsarist
order in 1905):
How then are we to explain the
outbreak of the pogrom? ... Okhrana [secret police] chief Bobrov, for example,
concluded that Jews were responsible for provoking pogromist attacks because
they were spearheading a revolutionary attack on the autocracy in an effort to
establish their "own tsardom.". …
… According to the testimony of L
D Teplitskii, an ensign in the army, as early as 15 and 16 October policemen
were proposing to use force against Jews … As one policeman told Teplitskii,
"Jews want freedom - well, we'll kill two or three thousand. Then they'll
know what freedom is." … In working-class neighborhoods policemen and
pogromist agitators went from door to door, spreading rumors that Jews were
slaughtering Russian families and urging Russian residents to repel the Jews
with force. … An army captain informed Kuzminskii that a policeman had told him
that his superiors had given their permission for three days of violence
because Jews had destroyed the Tsar's portrait in the city council.
Certainly this is a period of
significant political flux in Myanmar. Eager to shed the Chinese incubus and
attract Western interest and investment, the Myanmar regime has opted for
reconciliation with pro-democracy forces, a pro-Western tilt, and elections for
parliament in 2015.
It is widely expected that Aung
San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy will do quite well and the USDP,
the junta's political front, will have its work cut out for it if it hopes to
gain even a third of the contested seats- which, when combined with the 25% of
seats reserved for the military, would still give it the upper hand in the
parliament.
It has been suggested that Aung
San Suu Kyi's unwillingness to stand up for the Rohingya reflects a calculation
that her standing among the bigoted Burmese electorate will suffer if she
sympathizes with the despised minority.
However, her immense reserves of
political capital inside Myanmar argue that she could retain her standing and
reputation despite a statement on behalf of the Rohingya. Her dogged refusal to
yield on the issue - even as her international reputation takes a hit -
suggests that narrower, more tactical political considerations may be driving
her response.
In a development that has
considerable bearing on the Rohingya issue, democratic reforms have given rise
to a plethora of local-chauvinist party in the ethnic borderlands of Burma. The
non-Rohingya people of Rakhine State (who prefer to call themselves Arakanese)
are a distinct, Buddhist ethnic minority of Burma, with a contentious history
of demands for autonomy, federalism, or even independence from Yangyon. The
party of Arakan chauvinism, the RNDP did very well in both the local elections
and the general election for seats in the national parliament reserved for
Arakanese both from the state and from the Arakanese diaspora in Mandalay. The
Rakhine parliament is the only state parliament controlled by a party other
than the USDP.
On the occasion of the 2012
election, the RNDP allied with the NLD. A party official described the USDP's
hamfisted idea of outreach: sending over the general who was previously in
charge of looting the province to canvas Rakhine on behalf of the USDP.
Q: Some local villagers are
saying they will lodge a complaint against Maung Oo for the sale of cooperative
society-owned land while he was serving as a regional commander in Rakhine
State. Do you know anything about this?
A: Yes, we know about it. This
case happened in Kyaukpyu Township in Gonechein village. He looted this land
while he was a regional commander here and his soldiers guarded the land. We
heard that the local villagers tried to prosecute him. The people are aware and
enlightened now. A regional commander can no longer do whatever he wants.
Q: The USDP party suffered a huge
loss in Rakhine State.
A: By their sending a man like
Maung Oo here, our Rakhine party profited. Now the USDP has a hard time getting
support here. Our Rakhine people are happy because of their mistake because it
made our party more popular. Even if we do don't do anything, the Rakhine
people will not support our rival party. [16]
Judging by news reports, the USDP
is trying to make up for lost ground, and also find a countermeasure to deal
with a likely landslide by the NLD in the majority-Burmese heartland by
reaching beyond the Irrawaddy core to the various non-Burmese but Buddhist
ethnic groups that control Burma's impoverished but resource-rich borderlands.
Since the Chairman of the RNDP,
Ayu Maung appears to have made the solution of Rakhine's Rohingya problem his
first priority, perhaps the USDP calculates that, by giving a tacit green
light, moral support, and propaganda and diplomatic cover from the central
government to the RNDP-sponsored pogrom of the Rohingya, the foundation is
being laid for a strategic alliance that will counter the NLD post-2015.
However, even if the RNDP and the
USDP bond over a shared commitment to human rights violations, this is not a
marriage made in political heaven- not without a little financial midwifing,
anyway.
An inevitable by-product of political
reform is overturning the previous policy of crude exploitation and malign
neglect which characterized the junta's dealings with the border minority
areas. The forestry, gemstone, and energy treasures of the borderlands were
extensively if inefficiently looted by the officers of the junta, primarily to
China's benefit.
Now, it is time for the USDP to
woo these ripped-off minorities. Beyond the atavistic gratification of the
occasional pogrom, the key issue at stake is resource sharing or what might be
called "resource provincialism."
The message was sent out, to the
English-speaking world, at least, via Radio Free Asia:
Senior minister Soe Thein said
President Thein Sein's government was all for providing greater autonomy to
ethnic states, where armed conflicts had raged for years, particularly under
the previous military junta rule.
"It is our dream, the
president's and ours, to transfer the power to [the ethnic nationalities] to
govern their regions," he told RFA's Burmese service on Monday.
"Parliament needs to amend
some of the revenue sharing [laws], for instance, to increase [the ethnic
states'] portion in revenue sharing, as stated in the appendix to the
constitution, for their development," said Soe Thein, who is on a US
visit.
Ethnic groups have long been
excluded from Burma's politics during decades of brutal military rule which
came to an end in March 2011 when Thein Sein's nominally civilian government
took over.
Parliament is at present
considering a proposal to change rules in the appendix to the country's 2008
military-written constitution to allocate a percentage of revenue from natural
resources to each of the country's states and divisions.
The proposal was made by a head
of the ethnic Rakhine Nationalities Development Party. [17]
Note the reference to the RNDP.
The RNDP, through a member of the
Upper House of the national Parliament, has suggested a "suitable rate or
25%" be reserved for the originating state. 25% is a huge step up from
zero and, in the state of Rahkine, has the potential to pour billions of
dollars per year into the state's coffers. [18]
That is because of the Shwe gas
field, off Rahkine's coast, is already a major supplier to Thailand. A Shwe
concession developed by the PRC's China National Petroleum Company is the
cornerstone of one of China's most highly touted energy security initiatives -
the pipelines to China. When completed, probably in 2013, twinned natural gas
and crude oil pipelines (the gas pipeline carrying Shwe gas, the oil pipeline
to carry Middle Eastern petroleum) will cross Rahkine Province, the Shan state,
and into China's Yunnan Province, to drive the economic development of China's
southwest and, ostensibly, remove the threat of interdiction of Chinese oil
shipments in the Straits of Malacca.
China has already committed to
pay US$150 million in transit fees to the central government; but the big money
would come from a Burmese/Rakhinese share in gas revenues. Current total
revenues from exports to Thailand are north of $4 billion dollars, though where
this money goes and how it is spent is apparently an awkward subject for the
Burmese government. Back of the envelope, Rakhine State might be looking at
revenues of $1-$2 billion per annum if it can get a sweet revenue sharing deal.
That's a nice income for Rakhine, whose total population is around 4 million
people (3 million if the Rohingya aren't counted) - half of whom live below the
poverty line.
The Minister also frankly
discussed the political dimension:
Soe Thein, who is a minister in
Thein Sein's office, said that ethnic-based parties should not be ignored in
the national agenda.
"There are not only two main
parties, the USDP and the NLD; we have multiple parties, including ethnic
parties and others," he noted,
Key ethnic players in the
resource game are Arakan State, the Chin, and the Mon.
Of course, teak, gemstones, and
opium are interesting business opportunities; but the low-lying fruit (for
which Western oil companies are panting) is easily-accessible offshore energy
resources in Rakhine.
If the USDP could orchestrate it,
a generous revenue-sharing arrangement with the Arakanese (and the Mon, Kachin,
and Chin) would relieve the USDP (and China) of their isolation in parliament
and buck the generally pro-Western political, diplomatic, and economic trend
inside Myanmar. Certainly, Aung San Suu Kyi's parliamentary strategy does not
involve her getting boxed in by a majority composed of USDP remnants, military
officers, and obstreperous ethnic MPs.
So it is tempting to speculate
that her marked unwillingness to criticize the Rohingya pogroms reflects her
understanding that criticism of the human rights failings of Rakhine State
would endanger her alliance with the Rakhine bloc in parliament - a bloc,
moreover, that will wield disproportionate clout if and when it gets access to
revenue sharing from the offshore oil and gas fields.
On the oil and gas issue, in
August Aung San Suu Kyi made the rather gnomic observation that Western oil
companies should avoid cooperating with Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE),
the government oil and gas company. MOGE is notorious for parking royalty
payments in overseas accounts instead of repatriating them back into Burma and
acting as an unaccountable piggy bank for the military. (Aung San Suu Kyi's
concerns are persuasively summarized in a report by Arakan Oil Watch). [19]
Nevertheless, the warning was not
particularly appreciated by the foreign oil companies, who see MOGE as the only
local player with the ability to get things done in country. In an interesting
illustration of what happens when democracy and Western business interests
collide, the Obama administration carefully finessed her concerns when it
lifted sanctions so that US oil companies could charge toward the Burmese
trough (subject to some special MOGE-related reporting requirements that appear
rather pro-forma).
Perhaps her remark was meant to
encourage Rakhine State to agitate for its own oil company, thereby starving
MOGE and the army of fresh cash, and, to China's dismay, also depriving the
USDP of the economic and political leverage in Rakhine created by alliance
between MOGE and foreign bidders. [20]
It is safe to say that China's
biggest priority in Myanmar, now that the Myitsone Dam took a bullet, is to
make sure the gasfield and pipelines projects go smoothly, and it is looking to
the USDP and greedy if not particularly friendly elements in Rakhine to protect
it from a toxic combination of principled, Sinophobic, and opportunistic
outrage.
CNPC is rushing ahead to complete
the pipeline so that its existence will form "facts on the ground,",
not a cancellable project. The pipeline is projected to be completed in 2013,
probably before the World Bank has chosen the colors for the binders in its
latest lavish exercise in Burmese capacity-building.
CNPC is also engaged in belated
outreach to win the hearts and minds of the people impacted by the pipelines
or, at least, shower money and attention on the ethnic politicians who hold the
fate of the pipelines in their hands, thereby also communicating the PRC's
political priorities and expectations to the USDP and the central government.
As is apparently obligatory in
these cases, CNPC set up a website highlighting its "Caring for Energy,
Caring for You" mutually beneficial development agenda, including
contributions to local well-being such as a $10 million donation to hook up
Rakhine State to the national power grid. [21]
Expect more of the same
spontaneous generosity as Burmese democracy heats up and Sinophobia - with its
threats to China's energy interests - moves closer to central stage.
In any case, in Burma the road to
democracy (and marginalization of China's interest) is steep and winding. The
sad case of the Rohingya indicates it may not be completely honorable, either.
Notes:
1. Burma: New Violence in Arakan
State, Human Rights Watch, Oct 27, 2012.
2. Masterminds behind the
Rohingya ethnic cleansing in Burma, Today's Zaman, Aug 3, 2012.
3. Monk group calls on locals to
target 'Rohingya sympathisers', Democratic Voice of Burma, Oct 23, 2012.
4. Students call for removal of
Rohingya villages, Mizzima, Oct 25, 2012.
5. U Hla Saw, the General Secretary
of Rakhine Nationalities Development Party comment on UN Secretary General's
Special Advisor on Myanmar, Myanmar Breaking News, Jun 17, 2012.
6. Rakhine Women, Monks Protest
OIC, The Irrawaddy, Oct 10, 2012.
7. Student Leaders Spoke on
Bengali Rohingya and the Current Riots in Burma, Democracy for Burma, Jun 12,
2012.
8. Aung San Suu Kyi misses an
opportunity on Rohingyas, Global Post, Sep 29, 2012.
9. Myanmar hunts for manipulators
behind Rakhine riot, Global Times, Nov 1, 2012.
10. Burmese Celebs Traveling to
Sittwe and Making Donations Boost Refugee Morale, Narinjara, Jul 12, 2012.
11. Anti-Muslim Monk Wirathu's
Talk on Arakan Conflict, You Tube, Oct 30, 2012.
12. Winners and losers in Myanmar
violence, Al Jazeera, Nov 5, 2012.
13. Supporting Rohingya human
rights draws ugly attacks, Mizzima, Jul 13, 2012.
14. Arakanese Welcome Well Known
Historian Dr. Aye Chan at Yangon Airport , Narinjara, Sep 19, 2012.
15. The Stream - The plight of
the Rohingya, You Tube, Aug 5, 2012.
16. Interview with RNDP-General
Secretary, Ethnic Nationalities council, Jul 27, 2011. 17. Burma Moves to Share
Revenue, Radio Free Asia, Oct 2, 2012.
18. MPs Say States Should Get Cut
of Resource Revenues, Irrawadday, Aug 10, 2012.
19. Burma's Resource Curse,
Laohamutuk.
20. Energy tender delayed:
minister, Myanmar Times, Sep 10-16, 2012.
21. Caring for communities along
the Myanmar-China Oil & Gas pipeline, CNPC.
Peter Lee
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