“Rohingya Resistance”: The Media Is “Bigging It Up” without Analysis or Insights
ASIA--PACIFIC, 3 Apr 2017
Maung Zarni – TRANSCEND Media Service
 Ata Ullah, who has been identified by analysts and local people as the leader of Rohingya Muslim insurgency Arakan Rohingya Salvation, is seen on a laptop screen during a Skype interview with Reuters in Yangon Myanmar, in this still image taken from video taken March 31, 2017. via REUTERS TV |
31 Mar 2017 – For the mass media is now bigging up Rohingya Resistance, but it isn’t telling you anything I consider intelligent, analytical, researched or factual.
1) Did #Myanmar army want the attacks on its border posts on 9 October?
Now that the dust has settled, I will answer this in resounding YES.
Hundreds of poorly armed #Rohingya men were allowed by the central command to attack 3 hard-military targets, thru 24/7 checkpoints.
(Conversely, in Meikhtila in March 2013, the Central Command allowed the town’s Muslims to be slaughtered – over 500, according to the local researchers who were also eye-witnesses to the slaughter – by issuing absolutely NO ORDER to do anything while the slaughter raged on the whole night).
FACT: straight from the horse’s mouth:
“We can’t turn on the lights at night. We can’t move from one place to another during the day too. Everywhere checkpoints. That is not the way human beings live.”
— Ata Ullah, Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army
SOURCE: Exclusive – Rohingya rebel leader challenges Myanmar’s Suu Kyi, vows to fight on, Mar 31, 2017 | 6:30pm BST
http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-exclusive-uk-myanmar-rohingya-intervi-idUKKBN1722GX
2) Ata Ullah was correct in stating the impossibility of moving from Point A to Point B.
Here is the report on the system of checkpoints by Physicians for Human Rights:
“As part of the report, PHR’s investigators documented and mapped a network of 86 security checkpoints scattered across northern Rakhine State, where Rohingyas are routinely forced to pay bribes or face jail time and other types of brutality at the hands of security forces. Many Rohingyas told PHR that they often avoided seeking advanced medical care because of their fear of passing through checkpoints and suffering the consequent abuse and humiliation.
In addition to the system of checkpoints, PHR gathered evidence of raids and a pervasive surveillance system in Rohingya-populated areas, as well as instances of forced labor and arbitrary detention and fines. These include onerous fees that Rohingyas must pay to leave their villages, register fishing nets, fix their homes – even slaughter their own animals.”
3) Given the aforementioned background, it is utterly inconceivable that Ata and his several hundred men reportedly “carrying sticks, spears and a few homemade guns” from their rendezvous to 3 strategically located border guard posts and were able to launch their ambushes – WITHOUT HAVING BEEN NOTICED BY THE EXTENSIVE SURVEILLANCE NETWORKS of Rohingya informers, Rakhine local security units and civil administration, military and other interagency intelligence network put in place by Myanmar Ministry of Defence.
4) Why would the Burmese military allow the attacks to take place – if indeed they were well-aware of Ata and his “Rohingya Salvation” activities?
One word: PRETEXT
Pretext for accelerated persecution and destruction of Rohingya communities.
#Myanmar’s balace-sheet: 9 police officers dead
vs:
- locked down entire webs of villages which effectively blocked vital humanitarian assistance including food provision to literally thousands of Rohingya families
- destroyed food systems
- torched 1,000+ homes (or more)
- executed 1,000 Rohingya men
- rounded up and kept in captivity un-known – but estimated hundred
- cleansed Northern Rakhine state of 75,000 Rohingya (into Bangladesh)
- rendered 10,000-20,000 Rohingya permanently homeless, property-less, farm-less
5) Why would Myanmar Central Command allow 9 police men manned 3 border guard posts to be killed – if it knew that several hundred Rohingya men – armed with farm tools (sticks, spears, swords and a few homemade weapons) were on their way to slit the police’s throats?
Why would the generals NOT sacrifice their men?
After all, these generals have sacrificed hundreds – if not thousands – of Infantry troops mowed down and blown up on land mines in the battles against the Kachin Independence Army in Northern Burma in the last 6 years?
Besides, in the hierarchy of prestige, power and life’s worth police are at the very bottom. The generals may view their house pets more valuable and worth than the life of a police.
In the war against Kachins, the most prestigious Defence Services Academy graduates get slaughtered routinely by the Kachin Independence Army and its allies.
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Dr. Maung Zarni is a Burmese activist blogger, Associate Fellow at the University of Malaya, a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment, founder and director of the Free Burma Coalition (1995-2004), a visiting fellow (2011-13) at the Civil Society and Human Security Research Unit, London School of Economics, and a nonresident scholar with the Sleuk Rith Institute in Cambodia. His forthcoming book on Burma will be published by Yale University Press. He was educated in the US where he lived and worked for 17 years.
Go to Original – maungzarni.net
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