Threat To Buddhism In Myanmar And The Arming Of Rohingyas – OpEd

By Shenali Waduge     
August 12, 2013   

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 judgment http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zO7VKhaB08A

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, the Buddhist monks in Maldives faced a similar fate when they gave their necks to be beheaded in a country that was once Buddhist, 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 annihilated 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

British Burma Census of 1872  (Akyab Town)

Group	Male	Female	Total
Hindu	1,884	28	1,911
Mohomendan	3,516	1502	5,018
Buddhist	5,892	5,627	11,519
Christian	216	109	325
Others	387	70	457
Grand Total	11,895	7,335	19,230

(Department of Revenue, Agriculture and Commerce 1875, 42)

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 victim 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 bdeing 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 Banglades h-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 excludes any 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/DI21Df06.html

Unanswered questions

The accusations are many just as the lies are many too.

• If Mynamr restricts “Rohingyas” from marrying and having children how is that “Rohingyas” population is annually increasing?

• If “Rohingyas” are tortured by the Rakhines how is it that the “Rohingya” population is more than the ethnic Rakhinese?

• If “Rohingyas” are a peaceful people who burnt down Rakhine houses, Buddhist temples and attempts to drive away ethnic Rakhinese from the area – over 30,000 Rakhine nationals are themselves homeless why are their plight never given international attention?

• If Myanmar discriminates on religion and denies freedom of religion how is it that there are hundreds of mosques built by Rohingyas in Rakhine area?

• If Rohingyas are poor and unable to eat how is it that the various Rohingya rebel movements have money to buy arms and ammunition?

• If Rohingyas claim to be indigenous Burmese isn’t it simple to carry a DNA test, as well as to research the language, the clothes used, the culture to determine their links to Bengali culture.

• If there are other Muslims living in other parts of Myanmar and they do not have issues with the Burmese people or its Government is it not strange that it is only the “Rohingyas” that are having trouble!

• If Myanmar is said to be discriminating minorities why is that the 1982 Citizenship Law classified 8 races and 130 ethnic minority groups though it continues to regard “Rohingyas” as stateless because Myanmar views them as Bengali migrants brought to Burma by the British colonials as farmers?

• If Bangladesh Government denies its own people (the “Rohingyas”) what is the logic that the Burmese should accept and grant them citizenship if they are illegally entering Myanmar every year?

When Britain knows very well that they are responsible for the “Rohingya” calamity when they are accepting immigrants to the UK should they not first consider accepting the “Rohingyas” to make up for their manipulative colonial policy?

If Myanmar does not wish to have the Rohingyas surely the Rohingyas would be ready to go anywhere they would be accepted even when their original birthplac e Bangladesh is also refusing them?

Given that Myanmar post-independence never regards the “Rohingyas” as citizens and if the “Rohingyas” had been facing “discriminations” and “oppressions” in the proportions that the mainstream media highlights why is it that these “atrocities” were never highlighted in the past decades in any of the “magnanimous” reports championed by international charities that are funded by western governments and lobbyists? Discrimination cannot emerge overnight!
Is the world’s powerful nations not using Rohingyas as a tool to interfere in Burma whilst getting their partners in crime the Wahhabis to unleash Muslim mi litants to train and arm the poor Rohingyas to start an armed rebellion that would ensure foreign presence on the ground when a scenario of human catastrophe is created by making people face a “refugee status”?

Would these globalists not end up arming and training segments of the Burmese Buddhists to retaliate because their only aim is to make money selling arms whilst their co-partners come for another kill by choosing to do an Iraq or Afghanistan in order to loot the nations resources and Burma is rich is resources and Burma is also a corridor to China?

How long will it take the masses to realize the truth – Muslims have been divided not be others but by their own people. Muslims are being killed in thousands not by others but by their own people – Is it Islam they practice or some other religion or cult and when Muslims accuse others or racism how would they describe their own people killing each other? Why are they blaming others when it is obvious that the deaths of Muslims by Muslims reveal a totally different story.
Something is not right. Clinton says America created the Al Qaeda but was it not the Al Qaeda that America accused for 9/11 by invading Afghanistan and Iraq, was it not these Al Qaeda linked terrorists with Wahhabi connections and funds that are behind every nation that has experienced a “terrorist” incident to warrant foreign intervention and occupation and when a documentary called “Homegrown Jihad: Terrorist Training Camps Around the U.S.” provides compelling evidence of how “Muslims of America” operates with impunity inside the U.S we need to wonder e xactly who is pulling the strings and what exactly is going on. People need to wake up and think far more than they are doing now because people are being taken for a good jolly ride.
How long are we going to accept the yarns being been thrown as bait to fool us?

If monk Wirathu is a Buddhist Terrorist for defending his nation – so be it. “You can be full of kindness and love, but you cannot sleep next to a mad dog.” – Wirathu

The one advantage that these Buddhist bashing elements both local and international has brought about is a Buddhist Awakening and for that we must thank them.

http://www.eurasiareview.com/12082013-threat-to-buddhism-in-myanmar-and-the-arming-of-rohingyas-oped/