Sunday 15 September 2013

Threat to Buddhism in Myanmar and the arming of Rohingyas


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http://www.dailynews.lk/?q=features/threat-buddhism-myanmar-and-arming-rohingyas

Threat to Buddhism in Myanmar and the arming of Rohingyas

Shenali D Waduge
When Hannah Beech writes "When Buddhists go bad" not only is it heralded world over but Time Magazine puts as its July cover Burmese monk Wirathu and christens the front cover "Face of Buddhist Terror".
But we can't call that racism or hate speech. Yet, when Hindus or Buddhists reacts they are automatically accused of violating freedom of expression and indulging in hate speech.
When the world media is owned by the West most of which belong to religious entities it is not difficult to ascertain the drift in attack and it is always the West's version that the entire world has to accept. All the West has to do is to wave its wand and it can demonize nations and their people if it suits them and their agendas. Myanmar is no different.
Myanmar is an Asian Buddhist nation under Western imperial focus. That focus means a string of underground movements aimed at creating situations that would facilitate the need for foreign "interference" or intervention. Templates are all the same "resolutions" become the "solution".
The Buddhist monk Wirathu has become media's target because of his nationalism. His speeches are written off as racist deterring people from even bothering to listen to what he says. It is media's way of denigrating the message before it is read or listened to. But, is monk Wirathu being racist when he says that in the township of Myot Hila, the Buddhist monks have been forbidden to perform Buddhist ritual ceremony on Martyrs Day – the day Gen. Aung San (father of Aung San Su Ki) was assassinated because the Muslims (Burmese call them Kalar) are not allowing them to?
Is monk Wirathu being racist when he says that the transport company called Yar Zar Min in Mon State owned by a Muslim who is the transport association president had abolished Ka Htein – an annual Buddhist charity saying it was "nonsense"?
Is it wrong for monk Wirathu to premeditate that the culture of Ka Htein would vanish if the trend of "nonsense" was to continue wherein everyone had to respect and tolerate Muslim cultures and religion but they did not reciprocate the same of others?
Why is it that media has conveniently left out that monk Wirathu started the 969 movement ONLY AFTER the Muslims in Burma started a 786 movement asking Muslims to only patronize Muslim shops. Was the 969 movement not a reaction to the action and why was the action not admonished?
Why do the media hide from the global public that Burma, a Buddhist nation is only protecting their race, culture and their religion?
Incidentally, the word "Rakhaine" means "one who maintains his own race" descendents of Attila the Hun and Ghenghis Khan the Mongol!
Why not listen to monk Wirathu and make one's own judgement http://www.youtube.com/watch?
It has been easy to continuously silence Buddhists by making them feel that they should not be aggressive in protecting their religion or culture.
Often the argument thrown at Buddhists is that they should be compassionate and calm bordering on pacifism and tolerance. Well this was what the Buddhists monks of Nalanda did and they were all killed and the world's oldest university was burnt to cinders, and the Buddhist monks in Maldives faced a similar fate when they gave their necks to be beheaded in a country that was once Buddhist, and in Bangladesh too we see similar situations.
Is the world expecting Buddhists in Myanmar, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Thailand and the remaining Buddhist nations of the world to silently watch and face what happened to Buddhists and Buddhism in the countries that have totally being rid of Buddhism and Buddhists?
Monk Wirathu does not believe or accept this logic and other nations are beginning to wake up to realities too and are beginning to strategize their options.
Who are the "Rohingyas"
Those being referred to as "Rohingyas" live in Buthidaung and Maungdaw Townships of Rakhin (Arakan State) across Naaf River which borders Bangladesh.
Reference to "Rohingya" by name was only after Burma gained independence from Britain in 1948. Prior to that the name "Rohingya" does not appear in any Burmese history or even census. If it was a separate ethnic group as being claimed the name should feature somewhere.
This also explains why people living in Sittwe, Buthidaung and Maungdaw areas of Arakan (Rakhine) have not heard the name Rohingya though it is infamously used internationally.
The name itself is derived from the Bengal noun for Arakan which is Roshanga. The "Rohingyas" do not speak any of the dialects spoken in Burma but they do speak Bengali, they dress like Bengali and they look like Bengalis and they prepare food like Bengalis – not Burmese. Is this why Burmese continue to claim that the people who call themselves "Rohingyas" originated from Bangladesh?
The Rohingyas are said to now number 800,000.
The British retreated after Japanese occupation of Burma after arming these Bengali Muslims who used the gifted arms to wipe out entire Arakan villages.
Historian Aye Chan gives details of how the Rohingyas destroyed Arakanese villages (20,000 Arakanese including Deputy Commissioner U Oo Kyaw Khaing) instead of the Japanese.
We can but wonder whether the usage of the name was created by Britain because the "Rohingyas" belonged to the Chittagong District of East Bengal (present Bangladesh) and the British promised them a Muslim Nation Area. "Rohingyas" approached Jinnah of Pakistan and requested that he incorporate North Arakan with East Pakistan before India created Bangladesh in 1971. The CIA and MI6 were involved in the exodus of Rohingyas in 1978 and 1991 to Bangladesh to create an international crisis and it is the realization of this promise that the whole fanfare of "Buddhist terrorism" is all about.
If we stick to facts virtually all Muslims of Rakhin area trace their origins to Bengali immigration during British colonial rule and this is sufficiently documented from 1870s to mid 20th century. It was a British colonial policy to engulf nations with illegal immigrants to be used at a later date to ignite friction. The cunning has paid off. Burma gained independence from Britain in 1948.
The myths
(See table)
It has served a global purpose to promote "Rohingyas" as an "ethnic" group for it becomes sufficient to raise calls for a self-governing Muslim region given that the "Rohingyas" could easily be manipulated as they have been through numerous movements now set up:
1. Rohingya Solidarity Organization (RSO)
2. Arakan Rohingya Islamic Front (ARIF)
3. Rohingya Patriotic Front (RPF)
4. Rohingya Liberation Organization (RLO)
5. Itihadul Mozahadin of Arakan (IMA)
Arming and training Rohingyas
If a Muslim Nation Area was what the British promised well on course to that reality is when supposedly victimised and innocent Rohingyas are being armed and trained. Rohingyas themselves have admitted to being trained by Muslim insurgents.
In 2002 Asia Times reported that Rohingyas were being trained by Jamaat-e-Islami in Bangladesh and Pakistan, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hizb-e-Islami in Afghanistan, Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM) in Jammu and Kashmir, and Angkatan Belia Islam sa-Malaysia (ABIM) - the Islamic Youth Organization of Malaysia.
Afghan instructors have been seen in some of the RSO camps along the Bangladesh-Burma border, while nearly 100 RSO rebels were reported to have undergone training in the Afghan province of Khost with Hizb-e-Islami Mujahideen.
According to intelligence sources, Rohingya recruits were paid 30,000 Bangladeshi taka (US$ 525) on joining and then 10,000 taka per month. The families of recruits killed in action were offered 100,000 taka.
This clearly demonstrates that Rohingyas are very much part of an international terrorist network and cannot plead the innocence that is being promoted on the grounds that they are being discriminated.
A sovereign state has every right to secure its boundaries from any individual or groups attempting to create dissent and given that the Rohingyas are having a host of militant and terrorist connections and backing it would be good for those pointing fingers to provide reasons for these incursions first.
What is clear is that ever since 1940s the Rohingyas have been using arms and ammunition and are not the innocent victims that are being projected globally. If Rohingyas claim that they were not armed by the British then they need to explain where they were if they were not in Rakhin areas when the British retreated because the British armed the Muslims against the Rakhine Buddhists in 1942 this again will raise and confirm that the "Rohingya" name is a being floated to create a story for a bigger agenda.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia 
- See more at: http://www.dailynews.lk/?q=features/threat-buddhism-myanmar-and-arming-rohingyas#sthash.cntsLEXn.dpuf





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