Internally displaced persons in the gymnasium that has become their home in the "district playground" IDP camp.
Last month, UN human rights worker Tomas Quintana
was set upon by a mob
as he tried to visit a camp for internally displaced Muslims in the
central Burmese city of Meiktila. “My car was descended upon by a crowd
of around 200 people, who proceeded to punch and kick the windows and
doors of the car while shouting abuse,”
Quintana said in a statement.
Yet Burma's government seemed relatively untroubled. Ye Hut, a presidential spokesman,
told members of the media
that Quintana had simply misinterpreted the situation.
Apparently, the
mob wasn't a mob at all, but a welcoming party of peaceful protesters
who were trying to give him a letter. A few days earlier, through no
small amount of bureaucratic wrangling, the photographer Andrew
Stanbridge and I were able to visit the camp Quintana had been headed
towards, as well as a few others nearby. I guess we weren't as welcome
there as the big UN hotshots, because we weren't greeted by hundreds of
people battering our car while trying to pass notes through the window.
The internally displaced persons (IDP) camp in question has housed 1,600 Muslims since they lost their homes during
Buddhist riots in Meiktila earlier this year.
The violent anti-Muslim demonstrations started after an argument in a
gold shop between a Muslim owner and a Buddhist customer spilled out
into the street. Things escalated quickly: Muslims allegedly pulled a
monk from his motorbike and set him on fire, before Buddhists retaliated
by burning down Muslim businesses and homes, and hacking and burning
Muslims to death as police stood by, either unwilling or unable to help.
Estimates put the number of those displaced anywhere between
10,000 and
18,000, with
at least 43 killed.
According to officials in Meiktila, there are currently 4,000 people
split between four IDP camps – three Muslim and one Buddhist.
A man sits among the wreckage of one of the Muslim neighbourhoods in Meiktila that was destroyed by rioting Buddhists.
Confrontations between Buddhists and Muslims have been causing chaos in
Burma – the Southeast Asian country formally known as Myanmar – since
2012, when the country began its so-called transition to democracy and
freedom after an uprising against the military-led government in the
Saffron revolution.
Violence in Rakhine state – an area on Burma's western coast –
started in mid-2012
between local Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims, an ethnic minority that
many Burmese Buddhists refuse to accept as citizens. However, while
there's a long history of tension between Buddhists and Muslims in
Rakhine, the situation is different in a place like Meiktila. Here, the
lineage and citizenship of Muslims is not in dispute, and there's no
real history of conflict, short of a few previous minor incidents. Many
Muslims from the area claim to have lived in harmony with Buddhists,
never expecting any outbreaks of brutality.
Aung Thein, a lawyer and Muslim community leader, confirmed those
claims when we met with him in one of the only Meiktila mosques that
wasn't destroyed during the riots. Thein, as well as a number of Muslims
who didn't wish to be identified, told us that prior to the attacks
Muslims and Buddhists had maintained good relations, doing business,
eating and sitting at tea shops together. He blamed the prolific spread
of hate speech for inflaming the hostility. Much of this anti-Islam
vitriol has been perpetuated by the extremist monk Ashin Wirathu and his
followers in 969, a recently formed Buddhist nationalist group.
Wirathu sitting at his desk at the headquarters of the 969 movement, in the Masoeyein monastery in Mandalay, Burma.
When I went to visit Wirathu at his monastery, he told me that Muslims
had been initiating the sectarian clashes. His people, the rioters, were
merely defending themselves. “Most of the Muslim people are aggressive
[…] they are the reason for this racial conflict," he told me. "When
Buddhist Burmese people feel it’s unbearable, they counterattack them
and [take] the law into their own hands, like vigilantes."
Despite this and his frequent sermons about the scourge of Muslims
infiltrating Burma, Wirathu claimed that he was now trying to avoid any
more disorder: "I’m trying to encourage all the people to live in
harmony and peace with people of different faiths. I’m starting to lay
out the plans of how to live in peace and harmony with the local
people."
Thein rubbished Wirathu's statements, telling us that following sermons
by the 969 leader, pamphlets and DVDs featuring virulent anti-Muslim
rhetoric were distributed all across Meiktila. "After the Rakhine
violence, I found the hate speeches were spreading here and the local
authorities did nothing to stop it."
He went on to explain how local police now refuse to let Muslims gather
in groups – "The authorities are always pressuring us that it could
happen again if we don’t listen to their orders" – and that, while a lot
of the hatred and anger had died down, he still didn’t feel safe. He
also said that the authorities were making excuses to not allow the
Muslim IDPs back to their homes.
The tension in the city remains, and it’s clear that many Muslims are
still on edge. Many of those who haven't been displaced may be living
alongside Buddhist neighbours who killed their friends or family
members, Thein told us. "There are some people walking around [who were
involved in the riots]. A woman had her husband killed. She knows who
did it and she told the government, but they haven't done anything."
A Physicians for Human Rights report on the persecution of Muslims in Burma was
released at the end of last month.
The report noted that there are still elements in place that could lead
to "potential catastrophic violence in the future, including potential
crimes against humanity and/or genocide".
A Muslim IDP, who withheld his name for safety reasons.
The report also stated that there was a culture of impunity in place,
and that many of those who had been responsible for the conflict had not
been brought to justice, including police who facilitated some of the
aggression. "Police in some cases were involved in direct attacks…in
other cases, the police stood by and watched and did nothing to stop
it," it reads.
When the report was released at the Bangkok Foreign Correspondents
Club, its author Bill Davis said that though the clashes had stopped for
now, the structure of violence that allowed them to happen was still in
place. "It’s creating a culture of hatred and a culture that it’s kind
of OK for this to go on," he said.
The latest figures show that
87 people have been arrested, and that only 38 of that number are Buddhists.
"Most of the people really involved in the planning are still free," a
Muslim IDP told us. "It’s just the followers [who have been arrested],
not the leaders."
While many hold Wirathu and his followers responsible for instigating
the Buddhist rampage, theories abound as to what’s really behind it.
Many see it as something manipulated by certain elements of the
government who wish to push the country back towards the military and
away from democracy. Others think that it’s a simple land grab to push
the Muslims off Meiktila's prime real estate and open up the area for
development.
In both cases, the word "cronies" is often thrown around, referring to
members and friends of the old military junta who either want to
maintain their grip on power or use it to get rich now that the country
is opening up for business. "These cronies and the government want to
move the country backward, and they create this Meiktila violence very
systematically," said a trader who also spoke with us at the mosque.
One of the Muslim neighbourhoods in Meiktila that was destroyed by rioting Buddhists.
Punya Wontha, a monk who was also one of the leaders of the Saffron
revolution, agreed that the cronies were behind the violence. But he saw
the disorder as being motivated more by financial greed than an attempt
by the displaced military junta to win back political power. "The
problem here is about land ownership and corruption," he said, before
pointing out another example of how Muslims are being persecuted in the
country. Apparently it's now common for government officials to refuse
to give Muslims their land back because they lack the correct
"documentation". In many cases, the documentation never existed – and
the land they're refusing to return could make a lot of members of
Burma's former government very rich if they were to develop it.
"There are orders that they’re not allowed to go home," said Bill Davis
about the issue. "These guys said they have to provide documents to
prove that they actually own this land, which – first of all – nobody in
Burma has, because that hasn’t been the system. And second, their
houses have been destroyed, so even if they did have documents, they
probably don’t have them any more."
He admitted that he could not confirm this theory and said there was no
conclusive proof, but did add, "A lot of the land is along the main
road, which is very valuable for business and trading. Especially with
the economy taking off, people want that land." Davis also mentioned
that there have been similar situations of the government seizing land
through nefarious means in other Burmese areas, like Kachin state and
Karen state.
After we'd spoken to Thein and the men at the mosque, we wandered
around to view some of the destruction caused by the riots. Parts of the
city looked like they had been hit by an airstrike – Aleppo with less
snipers and slightly more rubble. Scavengers dug up pieces to be
salvaged and, in one burned down neighbourhood, goat herders and their
flocks wandered through what used to be someone’s living room, grazing
over shattered tea plates.
Goats grazing in one of the Muslim neighbourhoods destroyed by rioting Buddhists.
Sometime shortly after we had lunch, our fixer pointed out a comically
obvious secret police officer who had tailed us as we drove to interview
some of the IDPs at a location far from downtown. When we pulled up
outside a house to meet the IDPs, our fixer invited the policeman into
the house where we would be conducting interviews. I offered him a deal:
If he could defeat Andrew in an arm wrestle (using both hands), he
could stay. But if Andrew won, he would have to leave. After ten or so
minutes of awkward loitering, he eventually left.
Though he seemed bumbling, inept and didn't pose any threat to two
Western journalists, the same couldn't be said for his status around our
interview subjects and fixer. Despite the “
Burmese spring”
and President Thein Sein’s constant assurance that he will free
political prisoners, Muslims and human rights activists all over Burma
told us they feared the consequences of being seen speaking to Western
journalists by secret police and informers.
In July, an elderly Rohingya activist who frequently spoke out against the government
was jailed on trumped up charges, despite the fact he is in poor health and cannot access proper medical attention. Another activist
was arrested a few weeks later after sharing photos on Facebook of a police crackdown in the IDP camps in Rakhine state.
The secret police officer who followed us to an IDP camp.
The men we met who were living in the IDP camps all told a similar tale
of their experiences since the violence began. They had lived in peace
with the Buddhists for a long time, but had noticed tensions slowly
rising. One, a retired police captain who had his house burned down,
said, "I don’t know why this [happened] – our community did nothing
wrong." Another said that Buddhists in his quarter were very familiar
with him and that he had cooked for them before.
All of them blamed Wirathu for the attacks and said that the military
and government were complicit. "In former times, we had peace, but the
hate speeches spread systematically, and – slowly, slowly – they got
into people," said one of the men.
Those we spoke to said there was no longer trust between the
communities, and told us that the government needed to "make a policy"
to ensure their safety. For now, though, their main concern is getting
out of the IDP camps.
The gymnasium in the "district playground" IDP camp.
The first camp we visited is called "the district playground" – an
abandoned sports complex, with 600 of the 900 IDPs living in a small
gym.
They’d been living like that for five months, since March the 21st.
There was no privacy, no dividers between the plots of gym floor.
Instead, there were just carpets or mats laid down, with a person’s
possessions and bags of clothes serving as a perimeter to their home.
The floor was so crowded that two people couldn’t fit side by side if
they wanted to walk down the pathways. One man said that he stayed on
his piece of carpet with seven relatives.
No one seemed sure what their future held or what their best option
was. "We have to go back to our houses. We don’t feel free here," one
man said. Another chimed in that if he could go back tomorrow, he would.
Others said they didn’t feel safe out in the streets. "We have no
future," said a woman whose house had been burned down. "We don’t want
to go back."
Unlike our experience in IDP camps in other parts of Burma, in
Meiktila, we were followed everywhere by an entourage of police – some
uniformed, some not. It was hard to get a question in before a police
officer or official inserted himself into the conversation, and once
that happened, there was no point in continuing.
Outside the gym, other IDPs had set up bamboo shelters. Some cooked,
some had little shops selling snacks and vegetables. There was a
football field, and some had decided to use the concrete stands as
shelter.
Police officers outside an IDP camp.
After leaving the district playground, we stopped at a Buddhist IDP
camp closer to town. Conditions there weren’t much better. People were
crammed into dark, dingy shelters, though there was less presence from
authorities.
At the other camp that Quintana had intended to visit, IDPs live in a
water supply plant. Some mingled outside, chopping firewood, while
others played chin lone, a sport similar to volleyball, only you use
your feet to kick a rattan ball. Bamboo shelters and single-storey
administrative buildings were divided up into approximately ten by
ten-foot spaces for each family. Conditions seemed better in this camp,
if not extremely cramped, even though our fixer had told us that it was
viewed as the worst place to find yourself housed in.
At this camp, our entourage picked up even more police officers and
nameless intelligence officials. They joked among themselves, nipping at
our heels as we walked around trying to find space to conduct
interviews, our efforts mostly in vein. The stifling heat, cramped
quarters and fetid conditions – paired with the uncomfortable feeling of
leading a veritable security brigade around the camp – left me feeling
nauseous. We left after a brief walk through, exchanging pleasant
farewells with our escorts outside the police-manned gate.
The security entourage that followed us around the water supply IDP camp.
The IDP camps remain open with no clear date in sight for when the
residents will be allowed to return to their homes, or what’s left of
them. There doesn’t appear to be a plan in place for reconciliation
among communities, or even a policy geared towards mitigating a chance
of further violence.
Speaking of the mob attack in Meiktila,
Quintana said,
"The fear that I felt during this incident, being left totally
unprotected by the nearby police, gave me an insight into the fear
residents would have felt when being chased down by violent mobs during
the violence last March, as police allegedly stood by as angry mobs
beat, stabbed and burned to death some 43 people."
When authorities are either unable or unwilling to protect a UN envoy,
it doesn’t bode well for the future of Muslims in Meiktila.
Follow Danny on Twitter: @DGisSERIOUS
See more of Andrew's work on his website.
Danny Gold's reporting was made possible by a grant from the International Centre For Journalists.
More stories from Myanmar:
Is the Burmese Military Keeping Rohingya Women As Sex Slaves?
Anonymous Taught Twitter About the Rohingya Genocide
I Spoke to the Woman Who Started the Rohingya Hashtag
Is Burma's Government Directly Involved in Ethnic Cleansing
