The Rohingya Of Myanmar -
Pawns In An Anglo-Chinese Proxy War Fought By
Saudi Jihadists
By
Moon Of Alabama
September 05, 2017 "Information
Clearing House"
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Media attention is
directed to some minor ethnic violence in
Myanmar, the former Burma. The story in the
"western" press is of Muslim Rohingya unfairly
vilified, chased out and killed by Buddhist
mobs and the army in the state of Rakhine near
the border to Bangladesh. The "liberal human
interventionists"
like Human
Rights Watch are united with Islamists
like Turkey's
President Erdogan in loudly lamenting the plight
of the Rohingya.
That
curious alliance also occurred during the wars
on Libya and Syria. It is by now a warning sign.
Could there be more behind this than some local
conflict in Myanmar? Is someone stocking a fire?
Indeed.
While the ethnic conflict in Rankine state is
very old, it has over the last years morphed
into an Jihadist guerilla war financed and led
from Saudi Arabia. The area is of geo-strategic
interest:
Rakhine plays an important part in [the
Chinese One Belt One Road Initiative] OBOR,
as it is an exit to Indian Ocean and the
location of planned billion-dollar Chinese
projects—a planned economic zone on Ramree
Island, and the Kyaukphyu deep-sea port,
which has oil and natural gas pipelines
linked with Yunnan Province’s Kunming.
Pipelines from the western coast of Myanmar
eastwards to China allow hydrocarbon imports
from the Persian Gulf to China while avoiding
the bottleneck of the Strait of Malacca and
disputed parts of the South China Sea.
It is
in "Western interest" to hinder China's projects
in Myanmar. Inciting Jihad in Rakhine could help
to achieve that. There is historic precedence
for such a proxy war in Burma. During World War
II British imperial forces incited the Rohingya
Muslim in Rakhine to fight Burmese nationalist
Buddhists allied with Japanese imperialists.
bigger
The
Rohingya immigrated to the northern parts of
Arakan, today's Rakhine state of Myanmar, since
the 16th century. A large wave came under
British imperial occupation some hundred years
ago. Illegal immigration from Bangladesh
continued over the last decades. In total about
1.1 million of Muslim Rohingya live in Myanmar.
The birthrate of the Rohingya is said to be
higher than that of the local Arakanese
Buddhists. These feel under pressure in their
own land.
While
these populations are mixed in some towns there
are many hamlets that belong 100% to either one.
There is generally little integration of
Rohingya within Myanmar. Most are officially not
accepted as citizens. Over the centuries and the
last decades there have been several violent
episodes between the immigrants and the local
people. The last Muslim-Buddhist conflict raged
in 2012.
Since then a clearly Islamist insurgency was
build up in the area.
It acts under the name Arakan Rohingya Salvation
Army (ARSA) and is led by Ataullah abu Ammar
Junjuni, a Jihadist from Pakistan. (ARSA earlier
operated under the name Harakah al-Yakin, or
Faith Movement.) Ataullah was born into the
large Rohingya community of Karachi, Pakistan.
He grew up and was educated in Saudi Arabia. He
received military training in Pakistan and
worked as Wahhabi Imam in Saudi Arabia before he
came to Myanmar. He has since brainwashed, hired
and trained a local guerrilla army of some 1,000
Takfiris.
According to a 2015
report in the
Pakistani newspaper Dawn there are more than
500,000 Rohingya in Karachi. They came from
Bangladesh during the 1970s and 1980s on the
behest on General Ziaul Haq’s military regime
and the CIA to fight the Soviets and the
government of Afghanistan:
Rohingya community [in Karachi] is more
inclined towards religion and they send
their children to madressahs. It is a major
reason that many religious parties,
especially the Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat, the
JI and the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl, have
their organisational set-up in Burmese
neighborhoods.
...
“A number of Rohingya members living in
Arakan Abad have lost their relatives in
recent attacks by Buddhist mobs in June 2012
in Myanmar,” said Mohammad Fazil, a local JI
activist.
Rohingyas in Karachi regularly collect
donations, Zakat and hides of sacrificial
animals and send these to Myanmar and
Bangladesh to support the displaced
families.
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.
Bugghist hamlets were also burned down.
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The
government of Myanmar alleges that Ataullah and
his group want to declare an independent Islamic
State. In October 2016 his group started to
attack police and other government forces in the
area. On August 25 this year his group attacked
30 police stations and military outposts and
killed some 12 policemen. The army and police
responded, as is usual in this conflict, by
burning down Rohingya townships suspected of
hiding guerilla forces.
To
escape the growing violence many local Arakanese
Buddhist flee their towns towards the capitol of
Rankine. Local Rohingya Muslim flee across the
border to Bangladesh. Only the later refugees
seem to get international attention.
The
Myanmar army has ruled the country for decades.
Under economic pressure it nominally opened up
to the "west" and instituted "democracy". The
darling of the "west" in Myanmar is Daw Aung San
Suu Kyi. Her party won the elections and she has
a dominant role in the government. But Aung San
Suu Kyi is foremost a nationalist and the real
power is still held by the generals.
While Aung San Suu Kyi was propped up as
democratic icon she has little personal merit
except being the daughter of
Thakin Aung San,
a famous leader of the Burma Independence Army
(BIA) and the "father of the nation". In the
1940s Thakin Aung San was
recruited by the Imperial Japanese Army
to wage a guerrilla war against the colonial
British army and the British supply line to
anti-Japanese forces in China:
The
young Aung San learned to wear Japanese
traditional clothing, speak the language,
and even took a Japanese name. In historian
Thant Myint-U’s “The River of Lost
Footsteps,” he describes him as “apparently
getting swept away in all the fascist
euphoria surrounding him,” but notes that
his commitment remained to independence for
Myanmar.
The
ethnic strife in Rakhine also played a role in
the British-Japanese conflict over Burma:
In
April 1942, Japanese troops advanced into
Rakhine State and reached Maungdaw Township,
near the border with what was then British
India, and is now Bangladesh. As the British
retreated to India, Rakhine became a front
line.
Local Arakanese Buddhists collaborated with
the BIA and Japanese forces but the British
recruited area Muslims to counter the
Japanese.
“Both armies, British and Japanese,
exploited the frictions and animosity in the
local population to further their own
military aims,” wrote scholar Moshe Yegar
When
the British won against the Japanese Thakin Aung
San change sides and negotiated the end of
British imperial rule over Burma. He was
assassinated in 1947 with the help of British
officers. Since then Burma, later renamed to
Myanmar, was ruled by ever competing factions of
the military.
Thakin Aung San's daughter Aung San Suu Kyi
received a British education and was build up
for a role in Myanmar. In the 1980s and 90s she
quarreled with the military government. She was
given a Nobel Peace Price and was promoted as
progressive defender of human rights by the
"western" literati. But she, and the National
League for Democracy (NLD). she leads, were
always
the opposite -
ultra-right fascists in Buddhist Saffron robes.
The hypocrites are now disappointed that she
does not speak out in favor of the Rohingya. But
doing so would put her on the opposite side her
father had famously fought for. It would also
put her in opposition to most of the people in
Myanmar who have little sympathy for the
Rohingya and their Jihadi fight.
Moreover - the Chinese OBOR projects are a huge
bon for Myanmar and will help with its economic
development. The Saudis and Pakistani send
guerilla commanders and money to incite the
Rohingya to Jihad in Myanmar. This is a
historic repeat of the CIA operation against
Soviet influence in Afghanistan. But unlike in
Afghanistan the people of Myanmar are not Muslim
they will surely fight against, not join, any
Jihad in their country. The Rohingya are now
pawns in the great game and will suffer from it.
This
article was first published by
Moon Of Alabama
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