Fighting in Burma’s Western state of Rakhine has left thousands of houses burnt down and an estimated 64 dead according to the Burmese government.

The victims were mostly Muslim Rohingya and satellite pictures released by Human Rights Watch show entire districts razed to the ground.

This recent rise in violence is but the latest in a long running civil war that has been ongoing since the country gained its independence from British rule in 1948. Shortly following Burma’s independence, the Burmese government, which mainly consists of Bamar people who make up two thirds of the population of Burma, created the Burmese constitution denying ethnic minorities constitutional rights or participation in government.

There are a total of 135 ethnic minorities officially recognized by the Burmese government as well as several unrecognized groups, the most notable of these being the Rohingya.

The exclusion of ethnic minorities from government is one the main reasons behind the civil war in Burma with many groups, such as the Shan and Chin people, having formed militias to fight for autonomy in their home areas as well as power in the decision-making process of the whole country.

The fighting has not solely been over ethnic minorities struggling to gain the power and rights they believe they deserve. The civil war is also being fought because, according to Burma Campaign UK the ”Burman dominated governments see their own race, culture and religion as the best and have been trying to impose it on others”.

This is particularly true of the Muslim Rohingya who mostly live in Rakhine state, which has been the center of violence last week and also last June. Called “one of the most persecuted minorities in the world” by the UN the Rohingya are officially stateless and not recognized as citizens in the Burmese Constitution. Despite the fact that they have resided in the country for centuries, the Rohingya are viewed by many Burmese as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. Thein Sein, the current president of Burma, has called the Rohingya a threat to national security and stated his willingness to hand 800,000 Rohingya over to the United Nations refugee agency to be settled in another country.

With the president of Burma publicly expressing such views, it adds credibility to remarks made by Tun Khin of the Burmese Rohingya organization in the UK, who claimed on channel 4 news that last weeks events were “proper planned by Rakhine National Democratic party”  and that the state incited the local Muslim population to attack the Rohingya. This is confirmed by Burma Campaign UK who say ”what has happened in recent months is clearly mainly instigated and implemented by Rakhine and Burman nationalists with a mixture of overt and tacit backing from the government.” The government also recognized that the violence was not spontaneous, saying in a press release  ”… there are persons and organizations who are conducting manipulation in the incidents in Rakhine State behind the scene”. However they could not be contacted for comment on the matter.

As well as inciting and backing violence against the Rohingya, the government could be guilty of failing to properly protect the Rohingya. This is certainly the view of Human Rights Watch who said,”In Arakan State, the Burmese government inadequately responded to the sectarian violence between the ethnic Arakan and Rohingya populations. When it finally did take action, state security forces targeted the minority Rohingya for killings, mass arrests and looting, causing massive displacement.”

These attacks by either the government or local population on the Rohingya people come shortly after the government made steps towards democracy with several small reforms. First was the release of human rights activist Aung San Suu Kyi in 2010 after 15 years under house arrest. There was then the first elections after 49 years of military rule, even if the elections were widely regarded as being rigged. While these actions were a move in the right direction, these reforms have only distracted the international community from what is happening to the Rohingya.

Right now, the Rohingya are the only ones the government are targeting. But what happens when Thein Sein has successfully got rid of the Rohingya, will it stop there? The international community must wake up and realize that it is not just the Middle East that is in the midst of civil war. We cannot continue to pick and choose which countries we help, and which we ignore. The Libyans and Syrians are not the only ones being persecuted by their leaders, the world needs to hear what is happening to the Rohingya and other minorities in Burma and act to protect them.

Image Courtesy : Government of Thailand [CC-BY-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

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On Friday, June 8 2012 violence broke out in Western Myanmar (also known as Burma) leading to days of ethnic and religious violence including knife attacks and rioting. According to Reuters and MSNBC as of Monday 21 have died, another 21 have been wounded, and 1,662 houses have been burned to the ground. At least 4,100 people have lost their homes and are taking up refuge in schools and Buddhist monasteries.

The Western state of Rakhine is home to the majority religion group the Rakhine Buddhists and the minority group, Rohingya Muslims. The tension has been building for years as the Buddhists and the Muslims have different ethnic, religious, and cultural ties. The former military government has also persecuted the Rohingya Muslims for many years.

According to the UN the Rakhine state – this distraught region of Myanmar – is one of the most discriminating areas in the world. Tomas Ojea Quintana, the UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Myanmar, claimed, “the underlying tensions that stem from discrimination against ethnic and religious minorities pose a threat to Myanmar’s democratic transition and stability.”

President Thein Sein has also admitted, “what is currently happening in the Rakhine state is about putting grievances, hatred, and desire for revenge at the forefront, based on racial and religious grounds, and that’s why anarchic actions are becoming widespread.”

The recent violence began after three Muslims were arrested in relation to the rape and murder of a Buddhist woman. A few days later, on June 3, a mob attacked a bus and lynched ten Muslims who were unrelated to the case. The Buddhists are also worried about the Rohingyas taking the jobs in the area where employment is scarce.

The rioting originally broke out in the city of Maungdaw on June 8, but quickly spread to the neighboring towns and cities including the state capital city of Sittwe.

During the violence on June 11, the United Nations pulled out 44 of 150 members of its staff in the western region of Myanmar. Ashok Nigam, the UN’s resident and human coordinator in Yangon – Myanmar’s largest city – stated that the relocation was a precaution for the safety of its staff.

Mohammad Sadek of Malaysia’s Rohingya Arakanese Refugee Committee stated, “We are trying to call on the international community, especially the UN, to send peacekeeping forces to mediate. Thousands of Rohingya are displaced, the wounded can’t get medication, it’s a crisis.”

President Thein Sein declared a state of emergency in the coastal region of the Rakhine state Sunday, June 10. Police were forced to fire shots into the air on Tuesday June 12 in order to disperse a rioting Rohingya group that was burning houses in Sittwe. As of the following day, there were soldiers patrolling the streets of Sittwe preventing individuals from carrying weapons and setting fire to houses.

Soldiers are also helping groups of Rohingya Muslims escape from Sittwe to Thae Chaung village since many individuals’ houses have burned down. The presence of soldiers in Sittwe seems to be calming the violence and residents since, according to Reuters’ reporters, more people are leaving their homes.

The 800,000 Rohingya Muslims living in Myanmar claim to be from the Rakhine region but they have been persecuted by the Myanmar government for years and are still not recognized as citizens, according to the United Nations. Instead the Myanmar government claims the Rohingya Muslims are from Bangladesh and are illegal immigrants; however, the Bangladesh government will not accept them as citizens either. During the 1990s around 250,000 Rohingyas fled to Bangladesh to escape the persecution of the Myanmar government. The Bangladesh government eventually stopped letting the Rohingyas into the country in 1992.

Recently three boats carrying about one thousand Rohingya Muslims tried to enter Bangladesh to flee the current violence but were turned away. Around thirty Rohingyas actually managed to enter Bangladesh ten of whom were injured in the rioting violence in Myanmar and are being treated.

In the past year or so Myanmar has been working to end decades of military rule and economic isolation; however these riots and other recent conflicts have somewhat stalled its efforts. There have been several protests over recent months due to power cuts and workers have also blocked access to twelve mines in Mandalay Division because of bad labor conditions and job cuts.

The military junta in Myanmar ruled the country for decades and heavily supported  the ethnic majority of Burmans over the minority groups in the country. According to Jan Zalewski, a South Asia analyst with IHD Global Insight based in London, “the rest, the non-Burmans, were pretty much persecuted.” Zalewski also suggests a reason for the recent protests and violence during these government reforms. “As you reform and open up the media, people have an opportunity to vent their anger over everything that’s sitting quite deep. So you increase the polarization between groups.”

President Sein was elected with the backing of the military but he has worked to get rid of many of the former, oppressive policies and has worked toward the pro-democracy movement advocated by Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and former political prisoner Auug San Suu Kyi. Myanmar’s government over the past year has released political prisoners, held free elections, and signed peace deals with rebel minority groups; several Western governments that have previously left Myanmar in economic isolation have relaxed economic sanctions with these changes.

Some have been worried that the government will use this outbreak of violence as an excuse to tighten control again. However the European Union announced that it was ‘satisfied’ with the response by the Myanmar government, possibly implying that they believe the government has not overstepped its bounds during this crisis.

The United States Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton also made a statement saying, “We urge the people of Burma to work together toward a peaceful, prosperous and democratic country that respects the rights of all its diverse people.”

Although the violence seems to be calming, the International Crisis Group, a non-governmental research organization, warns, “How the government handles this case will be a major test of the police and courts in a country that has just begun to emerge from an authoritarian past. It will also test the government’s will and capacity to reverse a longstanding policy of discrimination toward the Muslim Rohingya.”

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In an interview with the BBC, Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma’s democracy campaigner and Nobel peace laureate, said she believes Burma will hold democratic elections “in my life time”. She is the most prominent Burmese opposition politician and general secretary of the National League for Democracy.

Suu Kyi has been revered as a symbol for the democratization of Burma, an icon for the removal of injustice, and has been fighting for political reforms for more than 20 years. In an exclusive interview with the BBC, she said she is hopeful about democratic elections in Burma but was unsure when would take place.

Recently, Aung San Suu Kyi formally registered her National League for Democracy (NLD) as a political party and last week government approved NLD as political party and to run in the upcoming by-elections.

The year 2011 was significant to the people of Burma as a year of reforms and transformation in the economic and political as well as administrative sphere. One of the most magnanimous and unparalleled action taken towards democracy and freedom by the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) has been the release of Suu Kyi from house arrest. In November 2010, the first polls in a period of 20 years were held, replacing military rule with a military-backed nominally civilian government.

To Associated Press, Aung San Suu Kyi said that she is cautiously optimistic about the progress to be made. She cautioned that democratic reforms started by the nominally civilian government are unstoppable. Nevertheless, she clearly reminded the West not to get carried away with these reforms, as Burma’s military still hold considerable power to derail democratic efforts.

Burma’s civilian government has initiated a series of reforms, including the establishment of a national human rights commission, deployment of new labor laws, initiating dialogue with the pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, and relaxation of press censorship and regulation of currency practices.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague recently visited Burma, a British first since 1955. Mr. Hague said to the BBC that the momentum for change in Burma is “real.” Mr. Hague further said, “This is a very exciting time because there is a chance that what she and her colleagues have hoped and longed for so long will actually take place in this country.”

Democracy has been hailed as a constructive and instrumental source of economic and political freedom around the world. Its effect on the economy, however, should not be the main focus, rather, democracy plays a key role in human life and freedoms. With hope unshaken and a determination in fight for democracy, Burma may have a real chance at removing itself from the shackles of military rule.

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The Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi spoke of unity as she visited Bago, north of Rangoon, in what was her first political trip since the end of her house arrest nine months ago.

Ms Suu Kyi was met by cheering crowds while her cortege drove through the countryside. Financial Times could report that she visited a temple and opened a library funded by her outlawed National League for Democracy party (NLD).

“I know what the people want and I am trying my best to fulfill the wished of the people,” she said during the library inauguration. “However, I don’t want to give false hope.”

The last time Ms Suu Kyi, 66, went on a similar trip, her convoy was attacked by a mob which was widely considered to be affiliated with the old military government. The incident left up to 70 NLD supporters dead and resulted in the opposition leader’s seven-year-long house arrest. The regime initially argued that the detention was for her own protection.

The Burmese had warned about similar consequences today and security agents were present to monitor the convoy. However, BBC reported that recent talks between the de facto opposition leader and a government minister revealed interest from both sides to move closer for a more stable and democratic Burma.

The signs of relaxation on behalf of the government were apparent as Ms Suu Kyi managed to reach the library safely and delivered a speech to about 600 people who had turned up in hopes of seeing the living legend.

“We can develop this country only when we all work together,” she said. “Unity is a strength, unity is needed everywhere and it is needed especially in our country.” She also vowed to continue her work “as much as I can,” wrote the BBC.

Last years elections were boycotted by Aung San Suu Kyi’s party on grounds that it was riddled with intimidation and vote-rigging. Critics of the current government say that little has changed since November because the civilian administration is led by retired military figures — and thus a proxy for the former junta, according to Financial Times.

Ms Suu Kyi was released in November shortly after the elections, after seven years of house arrest. Two thousand political prisoners have yet to be granted their freedom.

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Michelle Yeoh, 48 a Malaysian actress who is known for performing her own stunts has been thrown out of Burma, due to her role as a pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi in an upcoming film. The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) nominated actress was deported on the day of her arrival at Rangoon Airport because she was “blacklisted” according to Skynews.com.

The actress has starred in many movies some of which being The Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Babylon A.D, Memoirs of a Geisha, The Mummy:Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, True Legend and Kung Fu Panda 2. The former Miss Malaysia, rose to fame when she starred in the James Bond movie Tomorrow Never Dies in the year 1997 with Pierce Brosnan.

The government has “routinely rejected visa requests of journalists and perceived critics for years. The film, which is named “The Lady” by Luc Besson, is due to come out later in the year. Yeoh describes how she hopes “her portrayal of the Nobel Peace Prize winner would raise awareness about her story.”

Aung San Suu Kyi, 66 who had been detained right before the elections under house arrest for almost 15 yrs, was released last year in November 2010. According to Skynews.com her release was “just days after an election that her party boycotted and in which she was barred from being a candidate.” The nation’s vote was the first in almost 20 yrs, “the junta appeared to hand power to a civilian government” in the month of March.

In December, Michelle Yeoh who had visited Burma to spend time with Aung San Suu Kyi for the film shot the movie in Thailand, England, France and her own Burma. The movie according to michelleyeoh.info, describes the life of Aung San Suu Kyi, a Burmese democracy icon who had been detained unjustly “by the government of Burma” and was “under house arrest for 15 out of the past 21 yrs.”

The film shows a touching love story of the “world’s most prominent prisoners of conscience, Aung San Suu Kyi, and the last ten years of her marriage to the academic Dr. Michael Aris who remained in Oxford <raising> both their children in her absence.” The movie describes how she was given a choice of choosing between her family which included her children and a sick husband who was diagnosed with terminal cancer and her country which if she left would never take her back.  Co-starring with Michelle Yeoh is David Thewlis who plays the character of Dr. Micheal Aris.

cinemafestival / Shutterstock.com

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