It is not Muslim genocide

A crime against humanity

They are slaughtering humanity, not just human beings, in Burma. Though the international media is blaming only Buddhist extremists for the Rohingya genocide in Burma, fact is that they are not alone in this dirty game; the army of Burma, the government of Burma, the neighbouring countries like India and Bangladesh, and most astonishingly Israel; all are hand in glove in this genocide. The Independent has recently published a report that Israel is also providing support to the forces involved in this Rohingya genocide. The report says, ‘Israel is under fire from human rights groups for the continued sale of weaponry to the Burmese junta after intensified violence against the country’s Rohingya Muslim minority. More than 100 tanks, as well as boats and light weapons, have been sold to the Burmese government by Israeli arms companies. One company, TAR Ideal Concepts, has also trained Burmese Special Forces in northern Rakhine state where much of the violence is taking place.’

Burma is a home to more than 100 ethnic groups and it borders India, Bangladesh, China, Laos and Thailand. Yangon, formerly Rangoon, is country’s largest city. Burma is a land of sky-kissing mountains, lush green hills, lakes and parks and above all of historical pagodas. Shwedagon Pagoda is the most sacred Buddhist pagoda in Burma, as it is believed to contain relics of the four previous Buddhas of the present kalpa. Some historians say that this pagoda was constructed more than 2,600 years ago. Burma would have been one of the most prosperous and the most peaceful countries of the world if ethnic and religious clashes had not damaged the social, economic and political face of the country.

It is painful and shocking to see the followers of Buddhism slaughtering the innocent children and burning their parents alive. The followers of Buddhism don’t have a history of violence and bloodshed. They are usually considered the most harmless and most peaceful people on earth. A true follower of Buddhism has to obey a moral code very strictly. A book, Introduction to Buddhism, says, ‘This code consists of five basic instructions: not to take the life of anything living, not to take anything not freely given, to abstain from sexual misconduct and sensual overindulgence, to refrain from untrue speech, and to avoid intoxication, that is, losing mindfulness.’ But unfortunately today, the followers of Buddhism in Burma are doing everything in violation of these five basic ‘commandments.’ They are slaughtering the infants, butchering the young boys, raping young girls and even women of old age and burning the people alive; and their only victims are the Rohingya and no one else. The sacred land of peace and love for humanity has turned into a ‘slaughter house’.

As far as the Rohingya conflict is concerned, all Rohingya are not Muslims. A minority of them belongs to the Hindu community also. There has been an intentional effort of the Burmese media to portray all Rohingya as Muslims, just to deprive them of a general international support. The Rohingya maintain they are long-standing residents of western Myanmar and that their community includes both a mixture of pre-colonial and colonial settlers. But the government of Burma says they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. The government does not recognise the term “Rohingya” and it prefers to refer to the community as Bengalis. In short the government of Myanmar is slaughtering the Rohingya people because they are Bengalis. So the crux of the matter is that the followers of Buddhism are butchering the settlers from Bangladesh because they think that Rohingyas are a burden on their country.

On the other hand it was the responsibility of the Bangladesh government to take care of these Bengalis and provide them food, shelter and other basic requirements of life but Bangladesh did the otherwise. Bangladesh’s foreign minister, Dipu Moni, said talking to media that her already poor and densely populated country is facing many crises with the Rohingya refugees. She said, “In no situation we can take any extra load of Rohingya refugees which could worsen our problems here.” Thousands of Rohingyas had fled to Bangladesh from Burma in 1978 after a widespread ethnic conflict.

Mr Narendra Modi recently paid a visit to Myanmar. It was hoped that he would make some effort for settlement of the Rohingya issue but it seems he has no sympathy with the wretched Rohingya. Instead of helping them out and instead of doing something to save them from the cruel clutches of the army of Burma and the Buddhist monks, he referred to the Rohingya as extremists. In his joint press statement with Suu Kyi after the talks, Mr Modi said India understands the problems being faced by Burma. He said India shares Burma’s concerns over “extremist violence” in the Rakhine state, especially the loss of innocent lives of the people and the military personnel. Mr Modi uttered not even a single word of sympathy for the Rohingya people. If this remains the general behaviour of world-leaders, we would find not even a single person belonging to the Rohingya community as they all would be slaughtered.

It is the responsibility of the international peace-forces to safe-guard the basic human rights of the Rohingya community. Moreover, if the Rohingyas really belong to the Muslim community, they would be certainly waiting for some action from 41 Muslim countries’ military alliance. But I think this alliance is not in a position of taking any action because of the unwilling behaviour of its members. This collected unwilling approach of all Muslim alliances is the basic reason of all those problems which the Muslims are facing today.