GENOCIDE IN MYANMAR

COUNTDOWN TO ANNIHILATION: GENOCIDE IN MYANMAR
In response to the international community’s alleged bias in reporting on the 2012 violence, the Arakan
Human Rights and Development Organisation (AHRDO) published its own inflammatory and racist
report (funded by the extremist anti-Muslim monk, Ashin Wirathu) which challenged both the legitimacy
of the international community and demonised the Rohingya. A representative from AHRDO explained
the motivation behind the report, the sense of injustice felt by the Rakhine community, and the way the
government manipulated that anger:
We did a lot of research during the conflict interviewed in different regions, different state
townships and we published this report... it took more than a year. But it is a reaction to the
international community, because at the time Al Jazeera and Human [Rights] Watch and many
other INGOs, they were all on the Bengali side and only one side is written. This report is the
only report from our communities - the only report…
What I want – we want – is both sides! A balance, you know… I'm a Buddhist, human rights
activist. I love all people so that's why our mood is like human rights for all… [But the INGOs]
write only for the Rohingya people…
INGOs, you know in the past, they have bad history because they only give support to the
Bengali Muslims…they only give support to the Bengali villages and they leave out Rakhine
villages, that's why you know in the past- since the 1990s for more than 20 years, we feel ‘oh
we are deflated and we are also poor!’ You know people in some areas are just hand to mouth,
both Rakhine community and Bengali community. So why are we neglected?
… The government is taking advantage you know. The Rakhine, they feel in the past neglected
and discriminated against, and the government is taking advantage. 91
The AHRDO office was allegedly attacked by nationalists in late 2014 for perceived political moderation.
Two of its staff were apparently forced to take refuge for a period in Yangon. 92
Rakhine nationalism
The Arakan National Party has become one of the strongest ethnically-based political parties in the
country. 93 In 2010 it won seven seats in the national government’s upper house and nine in the lower. 94
Today, the party is an amalgamation of the Rakhine Nationalities Development Party (RNDP) and Arakan
League for Democracy (ALD), which merged in January 2014. 95
91 Senior Member of a Rakhine civil society organisation based in Sittwe, 12 November 2014, Sittwe.
92 Interviews with Rakhine and INGO sources, January – March 2015.
93 Ye Mon, ‘SNLD to field 160 candidates’, Myanmar Times, 21 July 2015: http://www.mmtimes.com/index.php/
national-news/15587-snld-to-field-160-candidates.html. Accessed 11 October 2015.
94 Moe Myint, ‘Arakan National Party Eyes 63 Seats in General Election’, The Irrawaddy, 14 July 2015:
http://www.irrawaddy.org/burma/arakan-national-party-eyes-63-seats-in-general-election.html. Accessed 11 October 2015.
95 Interview with ANP members at ANP office in Sittwe, 22November 2014. The Arakan League for Democracy (ALD) was set
up in 1990 and won 11 of 26 seats in the 1990 election. The ALD boycotted the 1990 election, however, and those who did not
agree with this decision split off from the ALD and formed the RNDP. The RNDP and ALD re-merged in January 2014 to form
the ANP.
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