The Myanmar Protests are Forgetting the Rohingya Muslims | Opinion Ashfaq Zaman
, humanitarian and entrepreneur On 4/20/21 at 2:00 PM EDT
The Rohingya, who have been the victims of what many have called genocide at the hands of Myanmar s military, are being forgotten in the pro-democracy protests sweeping the country. We should not seek to simply turn the clock back to January 31, before the military coup. We must turn the clock back to early 2015, before the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya began.
In the rivalry between the generals on the one hand and civilian National League for Democracy (NLD) Party leaders like Aung San Suu Kyi on the other, both sides seem comfortable with the crimes committed against the Rohingya Muslim minority.
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Myanmar has descended into chaos since a junta seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi on February 1. Armed forces and police have fired on demonstrators, who appear undeterred by curfews and a nationwide state of emergency, but the military have also entered shops and houses to attack people. The country is on the brink of collapse and civil war.
More than 500 have been killed, with children among the victims. Thousands of people have been detained, including leaders of the former civilian government. Air strikes have been launched against ethnic minorities and the UNâs special envoy to Myanmar has warned of a possible âmulti-dimensional catastrophe in the heart of Asiaâ.
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YANGON (Bloomberg): Buddhist monasteries are usually known as places of solace and meditation. But one in Myanmar’s biggest city became the site of an ugly brawl in the aftermath of the Feb 1 military coup.
Monks were among a group that used slingshots to injure anti-coup protesters who went to Yangon’s Bingalar Monastery on Feb. 18 in pursuit of men dressed in robes who had earlier beaten up a demonstrator. The mob also used large sticks to smash cars blocking traffic nearby.
The monks and their supporters couldn’t control their temper, ” said Kaythara, the abbot of the nationalist Buddhist group Wirawintha, who knows the attackers but wasn’t present at the melee. He defended the military, known as the Tatmadaw, repeating its theory that now now-detained civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s party stole the November election through mass voter fraud.
The February coup in Myanmar should serve as a wake-up call when it comes to Sri Lanka.
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February 27, 2021
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As armored vehicles rolled through Myanmar’s capital early February, thousands of miles away, in another Asian state led by fervent Buddhist nationalists and under increasing militarization, a different army accused of genocide also marched troops through the streets. Sri Lanka’s former defense secretary turned president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, was overseeing an oversized military parade on the occasion of the country’s 73rd Independence Day, on February 4, through the island’s capital, in an ostentatious celebration that reflected his own brand of militarized ethno-religious rule.