The Nation
9 Jan 2018
With efforts underway to end the crisis in Rakhine, further violence cannot be justified.
An attack last week by the militant Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) on a Myanmar military vehicle has hazardously complicated an already dire situation in western Rakhine state. This comes just as a process tentatively begins to end the conflict between the government and the Muslim minority Rohingya and ostensibly to repatriate more than half a million residents it drove across the border.
ARSA did not hesitate to claim responsibility for the attack on Friday, in which five soldiers were injured, one of them left in serious condition. In a Twitter post on Sunday, the group – whose attacks on military and police posts last August ignited the current wave of violence – said it had ambushed the army vehicle in retaliation for atrocities committed against the Rohingya community. ARSA said the army “continues to commit heinous crimes”, besieging villages, starving the populace and blocking medical care.
Myanmar’s mistreatment of the Rohingya is well documented, beginning with its refusal to recognize them as citizens despite long residency and culminating in the sustained use of force apparently intended to drive them from the country forever. Rohingya frustration is understandable, even a yen for vengeance, but for them to resort to force in turn only makes a horrific problem worse.
It was ARSA’s attacks on security outposts last summer that gave the military the excuse to wreak havoc in Rakhine. The “clearance operation” launched to find the militant “terrorists” became a slaughter as soldiers and anti-Rohingya vigilantes swept through villages with murder in mind. As more than 650,000 residents of south Rakhine fled their homes into neighboring Bangladesh, the United Nations termed the bloodbath “ethnic cleansing”. ARSA has obviously resolved to continue fighting back.
What little we know about ARSA amounts to their being poorly equipped and, as yet, not directly affiliated with any outside Muslim jihadist organisation. But an International Crisis Group warned in December of grave political and security risks in potential cross-border attacks by ARSA – and of possible transnational terrorism. It said the militants could begin recruiting from the Rohingya refugee camps.
Late last year also saw efforts begin to address the Rohingya predicament at its roots. The governments of Myanmar and Bangladesh agreed to terms for the repatriation of thousands of refugees by late this month and Dhaka has listed 100,000 names for the first segment to return home.
As if that process weren’t tenuous and complicated enough, it has now emerged that members of a small Hindu community also driven from Rakhine by the violence wish to return as well, but fear that ARSA will attack them if they do. In one troubling account, masked men identified by the military as ARSA fighters stormed their village, hacked dozens of people to death and dumped the bodies into freshly dug pits. ARSA denies the accusation and insists it never targets civilians, but there is no independent verification either way.ss
Meanwhile an uphill task faces Surakiart Sathirathai, an esteemed former foreign minister of Thailand chosen to chair a committee on resolving the woes of Rakhine. His panel is charged with implementing recommendations made by an earlier committee led by Kofi Annan, the former UN secretary-general. Annan offered wise and fair advice, and Surakiart is quite familiar with the situation there, which bodes well for the success of the venture.
Now all that’s needed is for the combatants to have faith and hold their fire.
(Accessible at: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/opinion/30335757)
