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The Rohingya Psyops: Waging Covert War on Myanmar

by Gearóid Ó Colmáin, February 6, 2017

The United Nations has accused the Government of Myanmar of committing ‘genocide’ against the Rohingya Muslim minority in the country’s troubled Rakhine State. In recent weeks the crisis in Myanmar has escalated, with human rights groups and NGOs publishing copious denunciations of the alleged human rights abuses and mass murder committed by the Myanmar Armed Forces, (Tatmadaw). The Myanmar government claims that they are fighting a war on terrorism against forces which seek to destabilise the state, Islamist forces in particular. They also claim that the so-called ethnic minority commonly referred to as ‘Rohingya’ are really illegal East Bengali immigrants.
Despite thousands of serious allegations of rape, pillage and mass murder committed by these Bengali immigrants in Myanmar, human rights groups and the ‘international community’ have blamed all the violence on the Burmese authorities. Who are the Rohingya and why have they now become the focus of international attention? Why has the position of the Burmese authorities been ignored or dismissed? What geopolitical objectives could be behind an attempt to destabilise the country, as Burmese authorities have alleged?
Who are the ‘Rohingya’?
There is no ethnic group called ‘Rohingya’. The term ‘Rohingya’ is a word of Bengali etymology which means Arakan. A ‘Rohinga’ is simply an Arakan Muslim, a Muslim of Rakhine State, the Western province of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar. Dr. Jacques P. Leider, director of the French School for Asian Studies in Thailand, and an expert on Rakhine State history, puts the oft-quoted name into context:

“Rohingya is a name, not an ethnic category, that has been revived in modern days to identify Muslims in Rakhine as a separate social group. One may eventually compare it with the name of the Chinese Muslims in Myanmar who are called ‘Panthay’.”

In the 19th century, the British Raj brought in Bengalis to work for the predominantly Buddhist Rakhine State colony in Western Burma. The Muslim settlers were used in a similar way to the Presbyterian settlers in Ireland in the 17th century;  Protestant and Presbyterian settlers were settled in Ireland by the British imperial state in order to create a local loyalist force against the native Irish. The consequences of that plantation are still being felt today in the British-occupied section of the ancient Irish province of Ulster.
The British used Bengali settlers in Burma to administer the Rakhine State on behalf of British interests. Since that time,  they have been periodically committing massacres against the indigenous Buddhist population of Burma’s Rakhine State region. The Muslims causing all the trouble are backed by the Saudis, Pakistanis, Turks, Bangladeshis and by the British and Americans who want to ‘Kossovise’ mineral-rich Myanmar. I should like to stress ‘Muslims who are causing all the trouble’; for it is a minority of the Rakhine State’s Muslims who are attempting to wage Jihad on behalf of Western geopolitical interests and the ongoing Zionist global war on terrorism, euphemistically and erroneously referred to as the ‘clash of civilisations’.
Since independence, Myanmar’s Rakhine State’s Muslim population has become the majority and Buddhists have suffered persecution; temples are often attacked and burned. Rapes of local Buddhist women by Muslim men are regularly reported. Arakanese Buddhists live in fear. The Islamist violence against Buddhists in Rakhine State is often followed by brutal attacks on Muslims in areas of the country where they are a minority. An independent Rakhine State which, like Serbia’s Kosovo, would depend entirely on the United States for its security, would be an enormous geopolitical prize for the US and a major tool of incremental destablisation against China, where the US is currently waging covert jihad through Uigur terrorists – many of whom are training in Syria and Iraq. The World Uighur Congress is backed by Washington.
The Myanmar authorities are currently fighting a war of national liberation against two terrorist organisations called the Rohingya Liberation Organisation (RLO), and the Rohingya Solidarity Organisation (RSO). The RLO is supported by Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Turkey and ipso facto, NATO. Recent reports from Indian intelligence agencies have indicated that the Daesh are now recruiting Rohingya in India and sending them to Saudi Arabia for training.
The Rohingya terrorists are most likely receiving arms and training from Bangladeshi military intelligence under the supervision of Turkey and the US, while the Saudis are providing the radicalisation and the cash. The Rohingya refugee story is a gigantic psyops which is intended to manipulate the emotions of ignorant mass media consumers, who do not understand the history and complex geopolitical context of Myanmar and the Bay of Bengal.
With a population of 160 million, Bangladesh is one of the most densely populated countries in the world. The Bengali state is one of the world’s great sweatshops – providing slave labour for powerful Western corporations. But the state cannot provide enough employment for the country’s burgeoning youth. As a consequence, hundreds of thousands of Bengali youths take to the waters, heading mostly for Thailand and Malaysia. Exploited by a brutal mafia of traffickers who coordinate with Western intelligence agencies and NGOs, these economic migrants often end up on the shores of Rakhine State, where refugee camps are erected. They are then recruited by Al-Qaeda-linked terrorist groups for purposes of destabilising Rakhine State on behalf of Western interests. The Rohingya crisis is the most brutal and blatant example of what Kelly Greenhill calls ‘Weapons of mass migration’, whereby human beings are used by one state as geopolitical weapons against a target state.
In spite of extensive research carried out on the ground in Myanmar by independent researchers such as Rick Heizman – which extensively and exhaustively document ethnic cleansing by Rohingya Muslims against poor Buddhist peasants –  the human rights organisations which are shaping the international media narrative have simply relayed accusations of genocide made by the very organisations committing atrocities, namely the organised terrorist gangs of the Rohingya insurgency.
Although the public is led to believe that organisations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are independent, they are in fact closely linked to the British and American governments and function as para-statal agencies of imperial war propaganda.  Human rights organisations infiltrated by Western intelligence agents play a key role in creating the public consensus for US, NATO or UN military interventions in countries where a pretext is needed for a war of conquest, cynically disguised as a ‘humanitarian intervention’.
Bangladesh/Myanmar border tension
The alleged training being provided by the Bangladeshi military to Rohingya terrorists is one of the factors fueling conflict between Myanmar and Bangladesh, where border tensions have escalated recently.  In his book ‘The Politics of Refugees in South Asia- Identity, Resistance and Manipulation’, Narvine Murshid writes:

Does Bangladesh have any incentive to prevent an armed struggle in Myanmar? Recently, Myanmar-Bangladeshi relations have been contentious over gas exploration in the Bay of Bengal. According to Bangladesh, Myanmar infringed upon Bangladesh’s territorial waters around St. Martin’s Island, but following an investigation, the maritime tribunal declared that the area lay within Maynmar’s maritime boundary.”

The Politics of Refugees in South Asia 
In 2012, a Muslim mob attacked Buddhist labourers in Ramu, Bangladesh, destroying temples and many homes. Local politicians participated in the sectarian violence. Some tried to justify the hate crimes by claiming that the violence was due to the frustration felt by Rohingya who were unable to enter Rakhine State to ‘protect’ fellow Muslims from ‘Buddhist repression’ after the border was closed by the Bangladeshi military.There is sufficient reason to believe that the Rohingya terrorist groups are being armed and trained in Bangladesh. The above-mentioned author was told in Bangladesh ” It is an open secret that the Rohingya have access to small arms”. The Western powers are supporting Bangladesh in this endeavour, through the human rights war industry which consists of completely ignoring the ethnic cleansing by Muslims of Buddhists in Rakhine State and ignoring the fact that many of these so-called victims of Burmese state repression are Al-Qaeda-linked terrorists.
It is possible that the CIA and MI6 are also backing some Buddhist terrorist organisations in order to discredit the Myanmar state. Violence has escalated in Rakhine State since the assassination of  Muslim human rights lawyer U Ko Ni on the 29th of January by Buddhist terrorists. U Ko Ni was an advisor to Myanmar’s leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. The Burmese government said it was an attempt to ‘destabilise the state’.  Amnesty International told the New York Times that a proper independent investigation must be carried out into U Ko Ni’s assassination. The clear implication is that government forces may have been involved. It is much more likely, however, that forces attempting to undermine the government were behind the killing.
By deception they wage war
Many of the organisations and media outlets who are reporting truthfully on the Syrian war have been completely deceived by the sophisticated and well-funded ‘Rohingya’ crisis in Myanmar. Iran’s excellent news service Press TV have heretofore relayed disinformation and lies from Zionist organisations such as Human Rights Watch which blame the Myanmar state for the violence in the country. They have made no effort to objectively explain the geopolitical nature of the Rohingya crisis nor have the victims of Rohingya terrorism been given a voice.  The Islamic Republic of Iran has made major foreign policy errors in the past. In the 1990s Iran supported the Bosnian Mujahedeen, collaborating with the USA in the funneling of arms to terrorists who were massacring Serbian civilians on behalf of NATO interests.  Iran hoped to gain influence in Europe and had fallen for Western propaganda which demonised the Serbian government.
The Israelis played a key role in that deception by expressing support for the Serbs. Relations between the Serbs and Israel had been good. But disinformation agents such as journalist Robert Fisk made much of the Israeli support for Serbia in order to conjure up in the liberal leftist’s do-gooder imagination comparisons between the Israeli regime’s oppression of  Palestinians and Serbian repression of Bosnian and Kosovan terrorists.  In a 6th of January 2006, Independent newspaper column on former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Fisk wrote:

Largely forgotten amid Sharon’s hatred for “terrorism” was his outspoken criticism of NATO’s war against Serbia in 1999, when he was Israeli foreign minister. Eleven years earlier he had sympathised with the political objective of Slobodan Milosevic: to prevent the establishment of an Albanian state in Kosovo. This, he said, would lead to “Greater Albania” and provide a haven for – readers must here hold their breath – “Islamic terror”. In a Belgrade newspaper interview, Sharon said that “we stand together with you against the Islamic terror“.

Although a war criminal and butcher, Sharon sometimes expressed views that were out of sink with mainstream Zionism. As I pointed out in my series on Zionism’s war on Europe, Sharon may have been murdered due to his astonishing admission that Israel would have to end the illegal occupation of Palestinian lands. Robert Fisk is and always has been an agent of NATO disinformation and war propaganda.
In the above-cited article he wants the reader to believe that Sharon’s objection to the NATO bombing of Serbia was a bad thing, simply because Sharon thought the West’s support for Islamic Jihad would, in this case, threaten Israel’s security. The reality is that the war on Serbia was the beginning of a series of of brutal wars of aggression against independent nation states as part of an attempt to create an Israeli-dominated world order. But you will not read that in the frantic, liberal leftist imperialism of Fisk’s dishonest columns. In demonizing one side of a complex war, and providing justification for a bombing campaign that led to massive loss of innocent lives, in Bosnia, Libya, Syria, and beyond, Robert Fisk should be tried for complicity in war crimes and crimes against humanity. Fisk is a deft writer and most people therefore fail to see how he constantly distorts the truth.
NATO has never backed the Palestinians or offered to intervene when they were being carpet bombed by the Zionist regime. But it did back the terrorists and drug dealers of the Kosovo Liberation Army.  Iran made virtually no gains from its geopolitical adventure in Bosnia. The pro-US ‘independent’ Bosnian regime subsequently voted to maintain sanctions against them in the United Nations! Much of the demonisation of Serbs was carried out by Bernard Henri Levi, a fanatical Zionist and ‘New World Order’ agent of chaos. French Zionist Bernard Kouchner was another key player in the destruction of Yugoslavia.
Biased media reporting on Myanma
Now, the same lies and distortions are being published on Press TV comparing the Burmese government’s repression of the Rohingya terrorist insurgency to Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians. The writers in Press TV who are publishing this nonsense ought to reflect on the fact that Iran is facing a major war with the United States.  The same groups massacring Buddhist civilians in Myanmar have been bombing Mosques throughout Iran in recent years and will have no hesitation in cutting Iran’s Shia Muslims to pieces when Zionist ‘Babylon’ marches into  Persia!
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been unequivocal in his condemnation of Takfiri terrorism. But there is an important fifth column operating at the highest levels of the Islamic Republic of Iran on behalf of Zionism. If Ayatollah Ali Khamenei does not take steps to remove these people from positions of power and influence, the Islamic Republic of Iran could become the next Syria.
Buddhist militia are now emerging throughout Myanmar; they are warning citizens to arm and defend their race, religion and fatherland against the Bengali invasion. Religious and social tensions have been manipulated by the West in the past. In 2007, the CIA organised the ‘Safron Revolution’ –  a colour revolution which used Buddhist monks as a battering ram against the state in order to advance Western geostrategic interests in the country.
As stated earlier, there may be terrorists among the Buddhist population on the CIA payroll. The Buddhist monk Ashin Wirathu has been accused of inciting racial hatred and mass murder against the Muslim population. Time magazine published a picture of him on their front page with the caption: ‘ The face of Buddhist terror’.  I have seen many documentaries and media reports which simply dismiss his argument that he is defending his people from Islamist terrorism. Crimes alleged to have been committed by Buddhists against Muslims are reported as incontrovertibly confirmed,  while crimes allegedly carried out by Muslims against Buddhists are simply dismissed, without any investigation. The allegations against Wirathu may be true but I have yet to see anything one could consider an objective and impartial investigation.
A ‘violent criminal’ Wirathu does seem to be ‘by all accounts’ writes a  well-known alternative media commentator without independent corroboration of the accusations. The BBC published a report entitled ‘ Our World: Myanmar’s Extremist Monk’ where one was left in no doubt about who the good and bad guys are in Myanmar’s escalating civil war. In this BBC documentary, horrific murders committed by Buddhists against Muslims are extensively investigated. Family members are interviewed etc but no such respect is shown to the families of Buddhist victims. We are told that the authorities stopped the filming of the documentary and took the BBC team away for questioning in order to verify their accreditation. The implication is that the Myanmar government is trying to hide something. But it is clear that it is the BBC which is attempting to hide information. The BBC did not interview one single government official; their point of view is completely excluded.
We have no information on any Buddhist victims of Islamist aggression, in spite of the BBC’s admission that the photos Monk Wirathu showed them were gruesome and too horrific to show. We are simply told that Wirathu is not concerned about Muslim victims. Wirathu could say the same thing about the BBC’s lack of concern for Buddhists. We do see extensive evidence of Buddhist destruction of Mosques in Meiktila but nothing about the Islamist destruction of Buddhist temples throughout Rakhine State. We are told that the government does nothing to stop Buddhist violence a few minutes after we are told that Wirathu was imprisoned for 9 years by the government precisely for his alleged political crimes.
BBC reporter  Jonah Fisher shows the ‘evil monk’ footage of a Muslim man being beaten to death by Buddhist terrorists. The reporter asks him if his preaching is not contributing to this violence. After condemning the violence towards the Muslim, Wirathu replies:
“If the conflict had started because of my teachings in areas where I preach, then our side could have started it, but that is not what happened. They attacked us and we responded, that’s how I see it”. One faction of the Buddhist monks instrumentalised in the CIA’s ‘Saffron Revolution’ of 2007 want Wirathu’s nationalist 969 Movement to be crushed as it is an obstacle to ‘democratic reform’. Translated into geopolitical language, Wirathu’s nationalism is an obstacle to the West’s plan to Balkanise the country. The country’s former President Thein Sein was less supportive of regional autonomy for the Rakhine State than Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.  Thein Sein is a supporter of Wirathu.
Wirathu has proposed legislation that would make it illegal for Muslim men to marry Buddhist women. He managed to find two million signatures for the petition to be presented to parliament.  The legislation is ethno-relious and Western critics call it  racist but it is a perfectly rational proposal from a Buddhist nationalist point of view. Many Buddhist women are being converted to Islam and the Islamic population is rising rapidly. In fact, leaflets are circulating in the country offering money to anyone who can convert the daughters of powerful officials.The indigenous population feels under threat and are taking steps to preserve their culture and identity. Similar rules exist in many Islamic countries but no one talks about that. For example, in the Islamic Republic of Iran, Muslim men are permitted to marry non-Muslim women but the women must convert to Islam, thus ensuring the continuity of Islam as the state-religion.
We are told that Wirathu has a ‘hateful’ and ‘intolerant’ message. Wirathu does seem to hate the Islamisation of Myanmar and he is intolerant of the many crimes against humanity committed by Takfiri terrorists. He wants the Muslims to remain a minority and condemns acts of violence against them. He is hateful and intolerant indeed! A Press TV documentary entitled: ‘ The Racist Monk of Myanmar’ could have been produced by the BBC, CNN or Israel’s Channel 1! Wirathu is referred to as a ‘fascist’ and demonised from start to finish.
In recent years the United States has been redeploying forces to the South Pacific in what is increasingly looking like an emerging military confrontation with the People’s Republic of China.  Support Islamist and Lamaist terrorism are two important poles of Washington’s military strategy against China. One actor who has been on the CIA payroll for many years, namely, the Dalai Lama, has publicly condemned the Myanmar government for its ‘repression’ of the Rohingya Muslims.
The CIA have funded terrorist insurgencies in Tibet since the Chinese communists liberated the country in 1950, ending centuries of brutal slavery and serfdom. The Dalai Lama, who is hated by many genuine Buddhists, will no doubt rely on a strong supply of Takriri terrorists to keep the People’s Liberation Army busy in Xinyang while Lamaist terrorism is fomented in Tibet. The conditions are ripe for civil war. The ‘international community’, that is to say the United States clearly supports Bangladesh’s covert war on Myanmar as they want to block Chinese influence in the Bay of Bengal and use Rakhine State as a base of operations for the coming US-backed jihad in China’s Western province of Xinyang , as well as the destabilisation of Thailand,  Malaysia and Indonesia. Although the election of President Donald Trump portends the possibility of a US change of course, with the CIA in clear conflict with the US president on foreign policy, the likelihood is that it will be business as usual for the US military-industrial war machine.
In 1942, more than 50,000 Buddhists were massacred by ‘Rohingya’ Muslims in Maungdaw, Rakhine State. Massacres against Buddhist civilians have been occurring on a massive scale in recent years. The Rohingya modus operandi is to blame the victim. Rick Heizman is one of the few researchers who has documented the ongoing genocide of poor Buddhist peasants by Western-backed Rohingya terrorists. His work has been ignored by the two biggest global crime syndicates of human rights terrorism Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. Heizman’s work for the Arakan Human Rights and Development Organisation is thoroughly researched. The above-cited Dr Leider is one of the few experts who has approached the Rohingya problem scientifically. He has denounced the emotional and biased analysis of the international media and human rights groups. He told Burmese media that, “Journalists have to focus more on diversifying their sources of documentation.”
Gearóid Ó Colmáin is an Irish journalist and political analyst based in Paris. His work focuses on globalisation, geopolitics and class struggle.
Cover image thanks to Flickr user DYKT Mohigan, used under Creative Commons. No alterations were made to the image.

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mohandeer
mohandeer
Sep 20, 2017 6:22 PM

Another two links to the Myanmar soon to be apocalypse:
https://www.activistpost.com/2011/07/myanmar-fertile-ground-for-washington.html
http://nilebowie.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/myanmars-ethno-sectarian-clashes.html
It would seem that OffG is on the right track and Information Clearing House with Khalid is rather one track only – shame, ICH is usually a very good source of information but Khalid has gone to great pains to paint the problem as a one sided affair – which it certainly is not.
Kofi Annan was meeting Suu Kyi but I don’t know how the results of that will play out if the Military are just going to ignore the puppet government.

mohandeer
mohandeer
Sep 20, 2017 6:13 PM

An article by Moon Of Alabama caught my attention. I read it. It was ok. What really had me glued was the comments section, if you can muddle through the to and fro you get a very good idea of the complexities of the Burma problem.
Forgot to copy the http so all I have at the moment(until I retrieve it off the Yandex search engine)is the title – but that’ll get you to it.
The Rohingya Of Myanmar – Pawns In An Anglo-Chinese Proxy War Fought By Saudi Jihadists.
Excerpt: “Reuters noted in late 2016 that the Jihadist group is trained, led and financed through Pakistan and Saudi Arabia:
A group of Rohingya Muslims that attacked Myanmar border guards in October is headed by people with links to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, the International Crisis Group (ICG) said on Thursday, citing members of the group.

“Though not confirmed, there are indications [Ataullah] went to Pakistan and possibly elsewhere, and that he received practical training in modern guerrilla warfare,” the group said. It noted that Ata Ullah was one of 20 Rohingya from Saudi Arabia leading the group’s operations in Rakhine State.
Separately, a committee of 20 senior Rohingya emigres oversees the group, which has headquarters in Mecca, the ICG said.
The ARSA Jihadists claim to only attack government forces but civilian Arakanese Buddhists have also been ambushed and massacred. Buddhist hamlets were also burned down. ”
One of the posters in the comments section:
“Posted by: Anonymous | Sep 4, 2017 5:09:09 PM | 4
My two-part analysis on the “Rohingha” issue from summer 2015 is still as relevant as ever two years later:
“The plight of the Rohingyas elicits understandable concern from many, but the unfortunate aspect is that the US is manipulating the world’s short-term emotional response to the current migrant crisis in order to pursue its long-term geopolitical interests in South Asia.
The intended creation of a pro-American autonomous or independent Rohingyaland is akin to the same strategic pattern that it first spearheaded in “Kosovo”, except the US can now achieve its goals via the indirect Hybrid War lessons that it’s perfected in Syria.
The crusade for state creation is inherently tied to the destruction of the targeted host state, which in this case would see Rohingyaland (and perhaps many other ethnic nation-states) being baptized through a sea of fire in separating from Myanmar.
The US has concrete geopolitical reasons for why it supports the Rohingyas, chiefly concerning the establishment of its first intended base in mainland South Asia and its desire to cut off China’s non-Malacca pipeline routes through Myanmar.
Additionally, with a firm regional outpost in Rohingyaland (whether direct or via proxy), the US can obstruct the multipolar BCIM trade corridor and leverage influence in Bangladesh, Northeast India, the rest of Myanmar, and perhaps even further afield in Yunnan Province.
The coming months will be indicative of how far the US plans to go in supporting Rohingyaland, but by all current indications, it seems that this is a cause which Washington won’t give up on anytime soon.”
PART I:”
https://orientalreview.org/2015/06/09/american-plan-for-a-south-asian-kosovo-in-rohingyaland-i/

Arrby
Arrby
Sep 21, 2017 1:42 PM
Reply to  mohandeer

So why doesn’t China use its leverage with the US – which it possesses in spades; via US companies doing biz in China – to get it to back off its regime change crap in that region? Answer: China is ‘not’ independent.

rtj1211
rtj1211
Sep 20, 2017 11:38 AM

Is it not time for a replacement UN which excludes the USA?
It really is pathetic that US citizens are allowed to live abroad whilst their government agencies wage global jihad……

Peter
Peter
Sep 20, 2017 9:34 AM

I appreciate the OffG’s publishing alternative accounts of geopolitical events – that’s why I come here so regularly. In the Rohingya case, it’s quite possible, even likely, that what we’re hearing in the MSM isn’t the whole story. However, the article above is long on analogies and comparisons of uncertain pertinence and short on facts. I agree with Jerry Alatalo that it doesn’t actually enlighten you on what’s really going on in Myanmar and why. Some of the logic is just baffling, e.g.:
“… it is a minority of the Rakhine State’s Muslims who are attempting to wage Jihad on behalf of Western geopolitical interests and the ongoing Zionist global war on terrorism”.

ragheadthefiendlyterrorist
ragheadthefiendlyterrorist
Sep 20, 2017 8:55 AM

This post is an excellent example of why I have almost stopped reading this site. The Rohingyas are hardly the only ethnic group oppressed by the racist Buddhist-fascist Myanmarese narcomafia crony capitalist criminal regime. Ask the Kachin, Karen and Shan, for instance, what their experience has been under the Buddhist-fascist Myanmarese regime and why they took up arms in self defence.

kangal
kangal
Sep 20, 2017 4:14 AM

Some useful background
“Territorial Separatism and Global Politics, Chapter: Secessionist Aspects to the Buddhist-Muslim Conflict in Rakhine State, Myanmar, Publisher: Routledge, Editors: Damien Kingsbury, Costas Laoutides”
This paper explores the secessionist aspects to the Muslim-Buddhist conflict in Rakhine State, Myanmar. From one perspective, the secessionist struggle in Rakhine was largely won by the Burmese military in the 1950-60s, as the major, separate armed rebellions by both Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims was put down. Yet, despite being significantly weakened, armed groups have continued to form and remain today. More to the point, however, This paper argues that communal violence turned to separatism in the ferocity of WWII, and the suppression, rather than resolution, of group grievances and rival territorial claims under decades of military rule have perpetuated and accentuated a ‘double minority complex’ in which, seen from a national/international and social-psychological perspective, both the majority Rakhine and the minority ‘Rohingya’ feel as if they are threatened minorities struggling for their very survival. In a context where both groups feel under siege, some form of active renegotiation of identities and relationships is essential for peace—yet even commencing the conversation is highly provocative and problematic, particularly given the Rohingya lack of citizenship and lack of organised leadership.”
” These clashes have most of the hallmarks of sectarian or communal violence, and were largely characterised as such in the ensuing political analysis. International commentary, in particular, characterised this as communal violence between Rakhine Buddhists and ‘Rohingya’ Muslims, the latter depicted as a minority ethnic group oppressed by a local Buddhist majority (the Rakhine), who were presented as being closely aligned with the national Buddhist majority (the Burmans) and supported by the Burmese military. In the process of highlighting the human rights situation of the 800,000 or so Rohingya, therefore, an international discourse emerged which conflated the history of the military government’s human rights abuses with the actions of Rakhine against Rohingya. As a result, most international analysis has approached the conflict primarily in terms of the human rights and/or citizenship issues faced by the ‘Rohingya’. While these are major contributing factors, what is missed in most commentary is that this violence was a response to moves by the military government to grant citizenship to many ‘Rohingya’ in the lead up to the 2010 elections, in a move to gain support and thus weaken the electoral result of nationalist Rakhine Buddhist. For these reasons, this chapter suggests that nationalist, even secessionist, aspects must be included in the analysis of this conflict. This is a very complex scenario driven by highly contested historical narratives and competing territorial claims. This chapter, therefore, explores these nationalist and secessionist aspects from a long, historical perspective, examining contested versions of the history of the region and their competing historical separatist claims, as well as the role these narratives play in sustaining the contemporary conflict”
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281102667_Secessionist_Aspects_to_the_Buddhist-Muslim_Conflict_in_Rakhine_State_Myanmar

Jerry Alatalo
Jerry Alatalo
Sep 20, 2017 3:36 AM

The article leaves one left without a clear broad understanding of who are the “good guys”, who are the “bad guys”, and what is really at stake in Myanmar and Bangladesh for the Rohingya and Buddhist people. One analyst sees China wanting to establish a base of business/military operations in Bangladesh so as to bypass U.S. and India warships, as part of the Silk Road project. Without having researched this situation, perhaps someone could provide a short summary describing the reality of the situation. Thanks.

BigB
BigB
Sep 20, 2017 12:44 PM
Reply to  BigB

God knows what I did there. The link words are “this” and ….more up to date “analysis”… if anyone can fix my mess? Sorry…

Kevin Morris
Kevin Morris
Sep 19, 2017 10:45 PM

‘The CIA have funded terrorist insurgencies in Tibet since the Chinese communists liberated the country in 1950, ending centuries of brutal slavery and serfdom’.
The CIA did fund and train largely Khampa ‘Tibetan’ freedom fighters who were based in Mustang, Nepal, but ended its support after Nixon visited Mao, who made US-China rapprochment conditional upon cession of support. As for the rest, your comments regarding Chinese behaviour in Tibet, a country with its own distinctive language, culture, financial and legal system is a travesty. The Chinese have been accused by the International Commission of Jurists of having committed genocide against the Tibetan people, who with mass settlement on generous financial terms of Han colonialists are now a minority in their own country.

manfromatlan
manfromatlan
Sep 19, 2017 10:35 PM

Another reiteration of this one sided reporting has “150,000 Rohingya” living in Karachi. Sigh. I’m from Karachi and it’s actually Urdu language Biharis who left Bengal after the 1971 war on Independence to settle there. The “Rohingya” speak a variation of the Chittagong Bengali dialect which is where they came from originally. Anyhow, this article is long on supposition and beating around the bush about “Tafkiris” so go ahead and carry on.

manfromatlan
manfromatlan
Sep 19, 2017 9:59 PM

Funny how other sources say the 1942 Maungdaw Massacres were carried out by pro-Axis Buddhists once the British retreated from Burma, and thousands of Rakhine Muslims were massacred and forced to flee into areas of Bengal? Only after Lord Wavell armed them were they able to defend themselves and kill the pro-Japanese Buddhist governor. Even Wikipedia’s entry on the 1942 Arakan massacres admits the conflicting accounts, yet here is Gearóid Ó Colmáin writing a polemic based on one side of the story.
Here’s the other side, for balance: http://www.rohingya.org/portal/index.php/rohingya-library/26-rohingya-history/55-the-muslim-massacre-of-1942.html

Vaska
Vaska
Sep 19, 2017 10:05 PM
Reply to  manfromatlan

You do realize that your link is to a Bengali Muslim — “Rohingya” — propaganda site?

manfromatlan
manfromatlan
Sep 19, 2017 10:27 PM
Reply to  Vaska

You realize Burma wasn’t populated much to begin with, and the original inhabitants came from India? Rohingya is a misnomer, and “Bengali Muslim” is propaganda.

Vaska
Vaska
Sep 19, 2017 10:39 PM
Reply to  manfromatlan

On what basis do you claim that “Bengali Muslim” is a tendentious misnomer and therefore propaganda?
All of the scholarly literature on the people who’ve taken to calling themselves Rohingya in order to bolster their claim to a centuries-long presence in Rakhine agrees that there is no historical basis for that.

manfromatlan
manfromatlan
Sep 20, 2017 12:15 AM
Reply to  Vaska

You are using dismissive terminology to disappear an ethnic minority that has lived there for centuries, and quote sources that favour one side only.
Similar arguments were made to discriminate against Indians in Guyana and Fiji, but that is par for the course for Orientalist European apologists for the Myanmar regime.
The article uses dog whistle memes like “CIA sponsors the Dalai Lama”, and “Tafkiri terrorists” and you, use “Bengali Muslims” when the Rohingya are really Rakhine Muslims whose language is similar to Burmese than Bengali.
After WWII there was a power vacuum and the central Burmese government of pro-Japanese played the Rakhine Buddhists against the ‘Rohingya’ Muslims https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281102667_Secessionist_Aspects_to_the_Buddhist-Muslim_Conflict_in_Rakhine_State_Myanmar
The Arakanese people deserve better.

leruscino
leruscino
Sep 20, 2017 2:41 PM
Reply to  manfromatlan

Respect to your knowledge of the background & need for balance although I feel its a deflection from the kernel & raison d’être of the current distressing situation which is the absolute necessity of the US/UK West to foment frozen conflicts inside the “Heartland” ref MacKinder 2004 in an effort to delay the inevitable Transition of Empire – its all part of the Thucydidean Trap & a current very real hybrid war that is being waged right in front of our eyes if only we’d open them ref: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/09/united-states-china-war-thucydides-trap/406756/

manfromatlan
manfromatlan
Sep 21, 2017 5:40 AM
Reply to  leruscino

Thanks. I agree with the gist of what you’re saying but am saddened by the quality of analysis of a truly complex situation. So you have two competing narratives shouting out each other and no room for reasoned discourse. Too many arguments based on conjecture and conspiracy theory, sorry.

Passion
Passion
Nov 24, 2017 6:24 AM
Reply to  manfromatlan

I’m researching the origins of the Rohingya atm, the whole region even as i had to document that partition of India-Pakistan, then partition of Pakistan-Bangladesh, did the Mughals. I started my research believing the Rohingya, but after looking at the historical events in the region and again and again seeing the same outcome. I have changed my thinking. Muslims are causing this, it happens again and again since Mughal times even and is well documented in history books. Muslims start to scream that they want an islamic state after their forefathers invaded the land. And they do that by raping woman, slaughtering people in grewsome ways so that the original inhabitants get scared and flee the area, that then will be taken by the Muslims.
1942 is so clear, Muslims were on the side f the British, Buddhists on the side of the Japanese. Yet Muslims say that the V-force was a hindu force, utter non sense. The British gave their weapons to their friends, not to their enemies ! And then again as we see again and again in history books Muslims try to steel the land by setting up an Islamic State. Muslims never stopped colonizing, their still doing it but not by means of war, but by immigration. Check the history of the region and there is no other possible conclusion you can make. Everywhere in the indian continent we saw the exact same things even twice the Razakars in 2 different countries. Unbelievable how evil the lies are. And the craziest of all at every slaughter that happens the Muslims start a propaganda media offensive and they blame the other of doing everything that they do. Even the woman jumping in a well thing gets stolen from the Hindus. They have been doing that since Mughal times as they rather die then to get raped by Muslims. Unbelievalbe really the amount of deceit the Muslims spew. And it is widely known as well as Muslim historians teach a completely opposite history of what Hindu get taught.

falcemartello
falcemartello
Sep 20, 2017 3:32 AM
Reply to  manfromatlan

@manfromation.
I might add using Wikipedia as ur source well lets add that to another misinformation site.
As Gearoid so aptly points out the historical lines of”” by deception u may wage war””. The famous motto of Rothschilds secret service MOSSAD .
History would be wonderfiul thng if only it were true. Victors wrte History never the vanquished and as Gearoid has so abtly stated one has to do a thorough investigation and further more lets follow the money and dig deep into the rabbit hole. all roads lead to the ever menacing danger to humanity pax-americana /anglo-zionism

manfromatlan
manfromatlan
Sep 21, 2017 5:32 AM
Reply to  falcemartello

Kindly read my comment again. “Even Wikipedia’s entry on the 1942 Arakan massacres admits the conflicting accounts” is hardly ‘using it as ur source’, considering I listed other sources here which you ignored. Anyhow, attacking the source instead of the argument, while going on about Rothschilds and MOSSAD shows you aren’t a serious debater. Bye.

mohandeer
mohandeer
Sep 20, 2017 6:38 PM
Reply to  manfromatlan

The original claim of the 50,000 Buddhists massacred by Muslims was furnished by a serving British Colonial Officer(retired) so I really would believe his account rather than a pro Rohingya propaganda site. The account was kept in the British History Museum for a while, I don’t know if it’s still there but that account wasn’t the only military/diplomatic one that attested to the massacre as being Buddhists. I remember my history teacher reading it out to us over 45 years ago(it was lumped in with the British Raj section and the Malaya/Indonesian military/Imperialist campaigns). The problem with published memoirs is that they tend to get “disappeared” when their truths become inconvenient.

manfromatlan
manfromatlan
Sep 21, 2017 5:26 AM
Reply to  mohandeer

In other words, you have no source.

Stephen Sivonda
Stephen Sivonda
Sep 19, 2017 6:01 PM

Brent, I became suspicious of this issue since the media seems to be turning it into a feeding frenzy. Just yesterday I told Judy that the US dark state long term goal is to encircle China and Russia with countries whose leaders kow-tow to the US orders. That would be the presence of our troops and missile armaments. If you look at the pattern , they’ve got the Japanese to turn back their post WW2 non-aggressive stance…and will try to get the Philippines on board if they can deal with Duerte. In South Korea…the US had sent I think it was 2 THAAD missile system to bolster what weapons we already had there. That was agreed upon….but then without asking, we shipped several more units to set up. The South Koreans were not very happy. to the build up of that extent. Trump makes comments about the Iranian Nuke deal not being a “Good deal” and speaks caustically about their Govt. We know that really pleases the Zionists -Netenyahu Et- Al. I have to say that the inspections being done in Iran per the Agreement. have ALL been good. That is being mentioned on the news. But then again….back before the Iraq 2003 war, the chief inspector at that time said there were NO WMD’s in Iraq. BTW…how have you been since that operation? I need some good news please….

mohandeer
mohandeer
Sep 19, 2017 5:09 PM

Well done OffG. I ought to have known much of this from British colonisation of Burma but utterly failed to put things together. The all pervasive western propaganda had me fooled completely and I should have known better. A timely reminder of the past revisiting the future(even though it never really left).

mohandeer
mohandeer
Sep 19, 2017 5:02 PM

Reblogged this on Worldtruth.

rogerglewis
rogerglewis
Sep 19, 2017 4:15 PM

Reblogged this on MUSO MUSINGS ON FATHERHOOD THEORY AND STUFF and commented:
An Excellent Analysis.https://www.prio.org/utility/DownloadFile.ashx?id=1386&type=publicationfile The Gas and Silk Road connections are very redolent of Syrian Intrigues.
https://www.lightonconspiracies.com/rohingya-genocide/

rogerglewis
rogerglewis
Sep 19, 2017 4:14 PM

An Excellent Analysis.https://www.prio.org/utility/DownloadFile.ashx?id=1386&type=publicationfile The Gas and Silk Road connections are very redolent of Syrian Intrigues.
https://www.lightonconspiracies.com/rohingya-genocide/

Norman Pilon
Norman Pilon
Sep 19, 2017 4:08 PM

Reblogged this on Taking Sides.

Manda
Manda
Sep 19, 2017 2:56 PM

Thanks for hosting this article Offg.