Page 123 - The Rough Guide to Myanmar (Burma)

Sittwe The DelTa anD wesTern MyanMar 121
air-dried fish tied by their tails. Further north along the road, a second building
provides a home for local rice dealers, with huge piles of sacks laid out.
Unfortunately, the construction of the new port (not open to the public) means the
sea views that once gave a lovely backdrop to parts of Strand Road are now no more,
and the road has lost some of its former appeal.

Main Road
2
Heading a block inland from the market brings you out on Main Road close to the
old colonial clocktower – a chintzy, falling-to-bits Victorian relic set on top of a
large pylon.
A short walk south, just past the Cultural Museum (see p.122), is the town’s main
mosque, now a fitting symbol of Sittwe’s oppressed Muslim minority, its entrance
blocked off with barbed-wire-festooned crash barriers and guarded by gun-toting

ROHINGYA REPRESSION IN RAKHINE
One of the world’s most persecuted minorities (according to the UN), the Rohingya Muslims
of Myanmar are currently facing a titanic battle not just for basic political rights, but for their
very survival. Around 800,000 Rohingya live in Rakhine State, with a further million spread
across Bangladesh, Pakistan, thailand and Saudi Arabia. Most Burmese regard them, bizarrely,
as illegal immigrants (even though they have been in the country since at least colonial times,
possibly much longer), and insist they should all be sent back to Bangladesh, which doesn’t
want them – and in which the vast majority of Rohingya have never set foot. they are also
stateless, having been stripped of their citizenship in 1982. Despite their large numbers, the
Rohingya ethnicity was not even recognized in the national census of 2014.
tensions between the Burmese and Rohingya have simmered for decades – particularly
since the withdrawal of the British – and the government has routinely discriminated against
the Rohingya. As well as being stripped of citizenship, the Rohingya have also been forbidden
from travelling even locally without permission, or from having more than two children.
Forced labour, extortion, arbitrary taxation, land seizures and chronic food shortages have also
been common facts of life.
in 2012, things got even worse with the outbreak of major riots throughout Rakhine State,
following the rape and murder of a Buddhist woman and the retaliatory killing of ten. Dozens,
perhaps hundreds, of Rohingya were killed, and thousands were displaced. today, more than
100,000 continue to languish in camps in Myanmar, along with many thousands more
similarly detained in Bangladesh, and in areas around the Myanmar–thai border. efforts by
international organizations to ease the plight of those living in the camps have been strongly
resisted – the Buddhist clergy have been particularly noisy in condemning organizations
working with them.
in 2015, thousands of Rohingya in Myanmar and Bangladesh attempted to escape increasing
violence and persecution by heading in (often unseaworthy) boats to various Southeast Asian
countries. However, hundreds died and thousands had to be rescued at sea. in October 2016,
Myanmar border police camps were attacked by unknown assailants and nine police were left
dead. the military responded with an extreme crackdown, which by early 2017 had driven
thousands more Rohingya into refugee camps on the Myanmar–Bangladesh border. UN and
Amnesty international reports (all denied by the Myanmar government) speak of numerous
cases of police and military-committed extrajudicial killings, rapes and the burning of villages.
Myanmar’s desire to ethnically cleanse itself of the Rohingya appears to permeate all levels of
society. Members of the National League for Democracy, while loudly protesting their own
lack of political freedom, have been equally dismissive of the Rohingya’s plight, and even Aung
San Suu Kyi – the one figure in Myanmar with the moral authority to possibly shift entrenched
attitudes – has, by and large, remained silent. in an interview with the BBC in April 2017, she
asserted: “i don’t think there is ethnic cleansing going on; i think ethnic cleansing is too strong
an expression to use for what is happening”.

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