Economic reforms continue apace in Myanmar, as officials in Nay Pyi Daw prepare to move into the regional spotlight later this year and take over the chair of Asean. But Myanmar’s government is finding it increasingly difficult to keep the attention on the reforms — and not the violence targeting Muslims that continues to occur throughout the country.
Concerns continue to mount from regional and international observers, following an Aug 24 riot in the northwestern village of Htat Gone in Sagaing Division that left Muslim houses and shops burnt to the ground. That same week, the United Nations’ visiting special rapporteur for human rights in Myanmar, Tomas Quintana, said his convoy was harassed by a mob of angry Buddhists in central Myanmar — leading the government to dispute his version of events.
The issue will increasingly come to a head in the coming months as the Asean prize approaches, and as Myanmar’s government — which maintains that it is doing what it can to prevent violence and deal with the tensions — watches for efforts by Muslim-majority nations to censure Myanmar at the UN General Assembly.
Violence targeting Muslims — usually sparked by allegations of an assault on a monk or a Buddhist woman by a Muslim — has spread east from Rakhine since last year and reached into many corners of the country. Buddhists have been killed as well in the riots, but the brunt of the violence has fallen on Muslims.
While hardly universal, prejudice against the country’s 4% Muslim minority is common, a complicated brew of colonial-era economic resentment and fear of the spread of Islam.
The “969” movement encourages Buddhists to patronise only Buddhist-owned shops, and spearheaded by U Wirathu, an effort to get Myanmar’s parliament to pass legislation restricting Buddhist-Muslim marriages is gathering steam, drawing the endorsement of top monks affiliated with the government just last week.
While the government has not officially endorsed the idea, some observers believe the ruling party could find a marriage law to be good politics as national elections approach in 2015 — in effect, a way of casting the party as the protector of Buddhism.
The tensions also have the potential to set back Myanmar’s economic reforms, which have just begun to take hold. Business sources in Yangon say that investors don’t seem particularly worried just yet. But the government’s decision to award a lucrative telecom licence to Ooredoo, a company based in Qatar, a predominantly Muslim country, drew immediate criticism in some quarters. As well, the violence in Rakhine state may affect the decisions of oil and gas companies looking to drill in off Myanmar’s western coast.
Many suspect that elements affiliated with the military are encouraging the violence, to help justify a continued role for the military in the government. And the government’s often-slow response to the violence has drawn domestic and international criticism.
The anti-Muslim rhetoric being spread “is not the essential teachings of Buddha”, Thai Buddhist scholar and activist Sulak Sivaraksa said in a recent event in Yangon. He added that Myanmar monks need “to be the voice of reason” and that the Myanmar government cannot “sit still”.
The Asean Parliamentarians for Human Rights released a statement last week which said in part: “Myanmar is on the precipice of widespread inter-communal conflict and the authorities must immediately implement a comprehensive strategy that protects victims, holds perpetrators of violence accountable for their actions and also deals with the underlying tensions that are fuelling conflicts between Buddhist and Muslim communities.”
That all creates an increasingly awkward position for the United States and the European countries that have embraced Myanmar’s reforms, yet face pressure from human rights groups and other critics to keep the heat on Nay Pyi Daw, particularly given the slow pace at which Myanmar’s criminal justice system has dealt with suspected Buddhist perpetrators.
“We are deeply troubled by reports of recent violence in Sagaing, which resulted in the burning of Muslim shops and houses, and by previous outbreaks of violence,” an official with the US Embassy in Yangon said.
“This incident highlights the continued importance of efforts by government authorities and community, religious, political and civil society leaders to restore calm, foster dialogue, and increase tolerance in a manner that respects human rights and due process of law.”
While the UN has regularly passed resolutions criticising Myanmar’s human rights situation — effectively placing it in the same camp as Iran and North Korea — some Western countries are increasingly inclined to stop singling out the Southeast Asian country.
But Muslim-majority countries such as Saudi Arabia have put pressure on the UN to be more critical of Myanmar’s treatment of the displaced Muslim Rohingya in Rakhine state — and broader anti-Muslim sentiment.
Abdallah Yahya A. al-Mouallimi, Saudi Arabia’s permanent representative to the UN, said in a July press conference that Myanmar’s “honeymoon with the world” is “being built on the bodies of Muslim victims throughout the country”.
Myanmar officials are concerned that countries belonging to the Organisation for Islamic Cooperation may attempt to win passage of a resolution specifically targeting Myanmar’s treatment of Muslims.
Still, even though many Muslim-majority countries criticise Myanmar for the Rohingya issue, they have also been reluctant to accept Rohingya refugees.
The US Commission on International Religious Freedom, meanwhile, released a report on Myanmar in late August — following a visit by its deputy director for policy and research Scott Flipsein in May — including recommendations from Myanmar’s religions and ethnic minorities that he spoke with.
Among the recommendations: amending or repealing the 1982 citizenship law; establishing an independent inquiry into the Rohingya and their claims to citizenship; and creating programmes to “counter anti-Muslim sentiment in the Burmese population, specifically focusing on undermining fears of religious extremism and high Muslim birthrates, which drive popular support for a Muslim exclusion campaign”.