GENOCIDE IN MYANMAR

COUNTDOWN TO ANNIHILATION: GENOCIDE IN MYANMAR
• The Bengali are dominant globally and they are assisted by Burmese intelligence, soldiers and
local police… the Bengali business people, they want to get some business incentives, business
opportunities, so they pay money, a lot of money, so the authorities just accept. And they don't
have a system, or any plan for the border fence or for the control of the migration. So a lot of
people come in and settle down in the Buthidaung and Maungdaw areas. 59
• There are too many illegal immigrants coming across the border… According to some
statistics, Maungdaw is 98% Muslim and only 2% Rakhine. Buthidaung is 95% Muslim and
only 5% Rakhine. Immigration data from the government is not reliable… I got information
from my close friends that are in government that there are meetings in Thailand between
Islamic groups who even talked about the date Myanmar will become Muslim… Documents
show that they have a plan to make Myanmar an Islamic state... The person who told me this
is a Rakhine man in government. He’s a member of the state government. 60
• Illegal immigrants are extremist Muslims. 61 The main intention of the Muslims is to invade our
land, Muslim people want the Arakan land to become a Muslim land… I have no idea how to
solve the conflict but I don’t want to live with Muslim people. Malaysia and Afghanistan used to
be Buddhist lands, same with Indonesia, but now they’ve become Muslim. 62
• They [Bengalis] have a plan that Mayu district becomes an autonomous region, you know,
a separate country or separate region. For example they have a plan, for Mayu district of
Arakan state and the Chittagong hill tract from Bangladesh. They have a plan for an independent
Islamic state, Akistan! 63
A local civil society leader claimed that a lack of law enforcement and corrupt Bamar officials in the Mayu
district area has contributed to increased tensions between communities:
Many rape cases and other social violations, they are all crimes that have happened. So when
Rakhine people have to go to the township town, to buy food or something, then they have to
cross through the Bengali villages. The Bengali youth want to see the Buddhist girls and you
know, shout abuse or sometimes physically abuse them. It has happened! For many, many
years. 64
Given the almost complete segregation of the Rakhine and Rohingya communities in Sittwe and Mrauk
U, the Rakhine there are now exposed only to the unadulterated anti-Muslim propaganda of the State,
Buddhist leaders and Rakhine nationalists. Where once the lived experience of shared community
resources, friendships, working partnerships and multicultural education all combined to counter stigmatisation,
those positive social controls no longer exist. The Rakhine encountered by ISCI voiced virulent
racism in their own media and in interviews, stereotyping Muslims as rude, dishonest, ‘like animals’ and
having links to terrorism. One nationalist journal contained the following passage:
59 Senior Member of a Rakhine civil society organisation based in Sittwe, interviewed on 12 November 2014 in Sittwe.
60 Secretary of a Rakhine civil society organisation, interview conducted in Sittwe on 24 November 2014.
61 ECC leader, elder Than Tun, interviewed in Sittwe on 22 November 2014.
62 Rakhine woman, 40 years old, interviewed in a Rakhine village, Sittwe, on 4 December 2015.
63 Senior member of a Rakhine civil society organisation based in Sittwe, 12 November 2014, Sittwe.
64 Ibid.
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