Burma Govt Accused of Participating in Genocide

[Zomi for Federalization and Democratization of Bur]

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The ever-lying U Ye Htut, deputy minister of information, and the so-
called spokesperson of the President's Office, denied the complicity
of the BBBFMTR USDP government in the Rakhaing violence and the Kachin
civil war. Ye Htut is like Comical Ali, the information minister under
Saddam Hussein. The USDP is a party not founded in the interest of the
people, but to oppress and destroy the people.
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Burma Govt Accused of Participating in Genocide

By LARRY JAGAN / THE IRRAWADDY| Friday, May 10, 2013 |

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Photo:
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Panelists pictured at the FCCT in Bangkok on Thursday. (Photo: Lance
Woodward)
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The Burmese government is conducting a concerted campaign of genocide
against its Muslim minorities and Buddhist monks and the state are
collaborating in violent attacks on Burma’s Muslims, the academic and
activist Maung Zarni said during a discussion on the recent violence
against Muslims in Burma at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of
Thailand in Bangkok on Thursday.

“It’s nothing short of genocide,” he said. “Genocide is a process that
unfolds; it’s a virus that spreads quickly into a contagion that
cannot be stopped. What has happened in Burma in the last two years is
evil, vile and depraved,” he said.

The genocide in Burma is now on the scale of Pol Pot’s Cambodia, he
added. “And it won’t stop until all the country’s Muslims and
Rohingyas are eliminated.”

These are challenging times, Burmese Muslim leader Myo Win said. He
runs an education NGO called Smile in Rangoon, and came from Burma
especially to attend the seminar to provide first-hand testimony of
the situation facing Muslims in Burma.

“It’s not a communal or sectarian conflict, it’s a one-sided, targeted
and often deadly attack against Muslims, under the purview of state
authorities,” he said. “Community leaders are spreading hostility and
hate against Muslims, through the distribution of pamphlets and
propaganda …verbal abuse, harassment and violence,” he explained.

Inside Burma there is a state of fear among the country’s Muslims, he
said. The violence against the Rohingyas in Arakan last year and then
the attacks on Muslims in central Burma have left most Muslim
communities feeling vulnerable and scared.

But according to eye-witnesses inside Burma, the Muslim community has
begun to fight back. Barricades have been set up near the Muslim
quarters in Rangoon and citizen patrols are being conducted.

The Thai Buddhist social activist Sulak Sivarksa was much more
measured in his comments, but drew a stark comparison between the role
of monks involved in the 2007 Saffron Revolution and those in the
Buddhist nationalist 969 movement. The monks in the 2007 uprising were
willing to lose their lives for the good of society, he said, but the
969 monks are spreading hate.

The monks behind the 969 movement say they are reminding Buddhists of
their core values and draw comparisons with Afghanistan, Bangladesh,
Indonesia and Malaysia, which they say were originally Buddhist
countries that were overrun by Islamists.

“Fear is the source of many problems in any society,” said Sulak. And
with Burma’s transition to democracy, and the increase in freedom that
has accompanied it, traditional prejudices and unruliness have
inevitably risen to the fore, he added.

The teachings of Buddha are very clear, he said: You can never harm
anyone, but first you cannot harm yourself. A Buddhist must overcome
fear, must learn to love, even the oppressors, and never stoop to
violence. “Buddhism and nationalism are incompatible,” he said.
“Nationalism is an extension of selfishness…not to be tolerated or
condoned.”

Buddhists must have compassion; they cannot be quiet and sit on the
fence, they cannot turn a blind eye, said Sulak. But this is exactly
what is happening in Burma today, stressed Myo Win.

“The state’s silence and inaction has been deplorable,” he said. They
are responsible for the safety and security of the Muslims, but
instead they seem to be complicit in the pogroms, he added.

Those involved in violence have not been arrested, and their campaign
against Muslims has been allowed to continue unhindered. They are
puppets of a bigger master, he suggested.

During the panel discussion, reference was made to President Thein
Sein’s televised speech to the nation, in which he insisted that the
government would take preventative measures and increase security and
that all Muslims would be protected and allowed to worship freely.

But Zarni simply dismissed the president’s pledges as worthless.
“Thein Sein is a world-class liar,” he stormed.

He was also critical of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who he
accused of “thunderous silence.”



http://www.irrawaddy.org/archives/34247
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