Dec. 29, 2012 8:22 AM EST
SIN THET MAW, Myanmar (AP) _ Stranded beside their decrepit
flotilla of wooden boats, on a muddy beach far from home, the Muslim refugees
tell story after terrifying story of their exodus from a once-peaceful town on
Myanmar's western coast.
They were attacked one quiet
evening, they say, by Buddhist mobs determined to expel them from the island
port of Kyaukphyu.
There were chaotic clashes and
gruesome killings, and a wave of arson strikes so intense that flames
eventually engulfed their entire neighborhood.
In the end, all they could do was
run.
So they piled into 70 or 80
fishing boats — some 4,000 souls in all — and fled into the sea. In those
final moments, many caught one last dizzying glimpse of the town they grew up
in — of a sky darkened by smoke billowing from a horizon of burning homes, of
beaches filled with seething Buddhist throngs who had spent the day pelting
their departing boats with slingshot-fired iron darts.
The Oct. 24 exodus was part of a
wave of violence that has shaken western Myanmar twice in the last six months.
But what began with a series of skirmishes that pitted ethnic Rakhine
Buddhists against Rohingya, a Muslim minority, appears to have evolved into
something far more disturbing: a region-wide effort by Buddhists to drive
Muslims out with such ferocious shows of hatred that they could never return.
Although many Rohingya have lived
here for generations, they are widely seen as illegal immigrants from
Bangladesh and most are denied citizenship. Similar mass expulsions have
happened twice before under the country's former army rulers. But the fact
that they are occurring again now, during Myanmar's much-praised transition to
democratic rule, is particularly troubling.
Both reformist President Thein
Sein and Aung San Suu Kyi, the opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize
laureate, have condemned the violence. Yet neither has defended the Rohingya,
even though Muslims account for roughly two-thirds of the 200 dead, 95 percent
of the 115,000 displaced and 90 percent of the homes destroyed so far,
according to government statistics.
Kyaukphyu was significant because
those expelled from there included another Muslim minority, the Kaman, whose
right to citizenship is recognized. That they too were targeted raises fears the
conflict is spreading to Myanmar's wider 4 percent Muslim minority.
For Myanmar, also called Burma,
the town symbolizes the country's hopes of scoring a piece of the Asian
economic surge. China is building a deep-water port and an oil pipeline
terminal there.
"We never thought this could
happen to us," said Kyaw Thein, a 48-year-old Kaman who fled Kyaukphyu
and is now a refugee in the island village of Sin Thet Maw.
"We don't feel safe anymore,
even here," he said. "Who says we won't be attacked again?"
___
The unrest in Rakhine state was
triggered by the rape and murder of a Buddhist woman in late May, allegedly by
three Rohingya men. But the crisis stems from something that goes back much
further: a dispute over when Muslims first settled here, and who among them
qualifies for citizenship.
Buddhists say the Muslims are
foreigners who came to seize land and spread the Islamic faith. Muslims say
they settled here long ago, legally, and suffer widespread discrimination. The
issue has been exacerbated by exploding population growth and what rights
groups say is open racism against the darker-skinned Rohingya, who have South
Asian roots.
The Kaman, numbering perhaps only
in the tens of thousands, are said to be descended from archers who once
guarded a Mughal king. The Rohingya number at least 800,000 by U.N. estimates,
and they have long been unwanted here.
In 1977, Myanmar's military
rulers, together with residents and local authorities, drove 200,000 Rohingya
into Bangladesh, where 12,000 starved to death and most of the rest were
forced back to Myanmar by the Bangladeshi government. A similar horror played
out in 1991, when Myanmar's army drove out 250,000 Rohingya.
After the June violence,
prominent Buddhist monks issued written warnings against doing business with
the Rohingya, or even speaking to them. Rohingya were kept away from schools,
markets, even hospitals. Security forces restricted their movement,
particularly around their refugee camps. International groups were threatened
for providing aid.
Then, in October, there were
demonstrations against plans by the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic
Conference to establish a liaison office in the state capital, Sittwe. One
such march, in Kyaukphyu, brought out thousands.
The rally spooked the Muslims who
are roughly 6,000 of the town's 25,000 people. Rumors spread of an imminent
new wave of arson attacks. Captains anchored their boats close to shore. One
Muslim woman, Yeak Thai Ma, said some local officials began telling Muslims,
"this place is no longer for you."
___
On Oct. 21, western Myanmar was
hit with its second major spasm of violence. Within days, it had spread to
nine of Rakhine state's 17 townships.
Unlike the June unrest, which had
displaced 24,000 Rakhine and 28,000 Rohingya in the first week — the vast
majority of the 35,000 refugees this time were Muslim, and 97 percent of
property losses were Rohingya, compared with 78 percent in June, according to
government statistics.
Human Rights Watch says
anti-Muslim assaults were organized by Rakhine groups, at times with support
from security forces and local government officials. The government denies the
charges.
There were indications the
violence was coordinated; on a single day, three major Muslim neighborhoods
came under attack.
One of them, the village of Yin
Thei in Mrauk-U township, was overrun Oct. 23 by thousands of Rakhine armed
with swords and spears. They slaughtered dozens of people who were buried in
mass graves, according to Human Rights Watch. Satellite images of the village
show almost nothing left but ashes.
The same day, farther south,
several hundred Rakhine descended on Pauktaw by boat and forced the entire
Rohingya population to flee, the rights group said. An AP team that traveled
there confirmed two seaside Muslim neighborhoods were charred along with a
mosque that was apparently finished off with sledgehammers.
That night, it was Kyaukphyu's
turn.
___
Hla Win, a 23-year-old mother of
two, was eating a dinner of fish curry and rice with her family when she heard
shouting outside. It was 7 p.m., and the attacks had begun on East Pikesake
district, where most of Kyaukphyu's Muslim fishing community lives.
Her husband, a 26-year-old
fisherman named Maung Lay, joined a group of men struggling to douse flames
leaping from a mosque with plastic buckets of water. Security forces posted
nearby ordered them to move back, and one opened fire, killing Maung Lay,
according to several witnesses.
Rare amateur video of that night,
seen by The Associated Press, shows Buddhist mobs armed with long sticks or
spears and hurling jars of burning gasoline toward homes swamped in bright
orange flames as men shout in the darkness: "Throw! Throw!" and
"Watch out!"
In another clip, attackers can be
seen flinging firebombs over a wall into more burning houses. They crouch
behind rectangular shields of corrugated iron sheeting which are being pelted
with rocks, presumably by Muslims defending themselves.
As the night wore on, the
adversaries wrapped bandannas around their foreheads — red for Buddhists,
white for Muslims.
It is not clear what effort, if
any, was made to stop the arson attacks. The video shows armed security forces
walking among large crowds of Buddhists as fires burn, doing nothing to halt
them.
In one scene, a policeman or
soldier orders a Muslim mob to back away as fires burn on one side of the
road, or else "we will shoot you." A young Muslim man surges forward
and fires a projectile from a slingshot. Gunshots ring out and the crowd
retreats.
A police chief in Kyaukphyu, who
declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the subject, said more
than 100 police deployed in those first few hours along with soldiers and
firefighters. But they came under attack by Muslims, making it impossible to
extinguish the blazes before the homes were destroyed.
When the violence tapered off
around 2 a.m., 69 homes had been wrecked, the police chief said.
That night, hundreds of Kaman and
Rohingya took refuge offshore, on Muslim-owned boats.
Few, if any, slept.
Shortly after dawn, it all began
again.
___
As the sun rose, Kyaw Thein, who
made his living painting homes and offices, tried to return to his own home to
gather clothes, blankets and any valuables he could carry.
But his house was already ablaze,
and he retreated back to the boat. On the beach, Rakhine mobs were gathering.
He began to run.
Seconds later, someone plunged a
machete into his upper right back. When he turned to see who, he was shocked:
it was a Buddhist fisherman he had considered a friend.
"We all asked the same
question," said Kyaw Thein, who is nursing a gaping wound. "How
could the people we know do this to us?'"
The police chief said the Rakhine
crowds swelled dramatically that morning as some 20,000 poured in from
neighboring villages.
Soon, the situation was out of
control.
As the fires spread, more and
more Muslims sought refuge on the boats. Some sailed away, but a low tide
stranded others for hours.
Witnesses interviewed by The
Associated Press said the two sides faced off along the beach, mostly at a
distance, shouting insults. One Muslim man said security forces posted on the
shore fired in the air to push back a Rakhine mob, but there were too many to
stop. Other mobs surged forward, and clashes ensued.
Tears streaming down her cheeks,
Hla Hla Yee, a 36-year-old Rohingya woman, said a Rakhine mob on the beach
hacked up her son. She watched from a boat as they held up his remains. Other
witnesses corroborated her account.
Investigations conducted by Human
Rights Watch found that local security forces killed ethnic Kaman Muslims
while soldiers stood by.
Atrocities were committed by
Muslims too. Matthew Smith, of Human Rights Watch, said they had attacked and
in some cases killed Rakhine civilians before fleeing. One Muslim man
confessed to holding a severed head aloft from one of the boats, Smith said.
By the time it was over, more
than 4,000 Muslims had fled on ships so packed there wasn't enough room to lie
down. Another 1,700 moved to a makeshift camp outside town.
Police say 867 homes were
destroyed — almost all of them Muslim.
The official casualty toll was
nine Muslims dead, and two Rakhine.
___
When the first refugees from
Kyaukphyu arrived in Sin Thet Maw, about 60 miles (100 kilometers) away, they
were met with two very different reactions. Rohingya villagers opened their
homes to them; the Rakhine ignored them.
The village, like many in Rakhine
state, had already been split along sectarian lines even before violence first
broke out in June. Its Buddhist inhabitants lived separated from the Rohingya
by a long, wide field that cuts a neat line between the two. The communities
traded used to trade, but all interaction ceased in June.
A Rakhine named Said Thar Tun
Maung, a local government administrator on the island, said 200 Buddhists,
mostly women and children, fled when the refugees arrived, fearing they would
be overwhelmed. He said he had not spoken to any of Muslims and did not care
about the ordeal that brought them here.
Within days, the refugee
population rose even more as another flotilla that had initially landed in the
state capital, Sittwe, joined them.
Many of the displaced fled
wearing only the clothes they wore. Now they sleep on a windy beach under
white U.N. tarps and tents held up by bamboo sticks. They live off their
savings, U.N. handouts of rice and beans, and shellfish they catch in the
shallows.
They have no schools to send
their children to, and say authorities don't let them fish. They worry about
maintaining the vital fleet of dilapidated fishing boats on which their future
depends; they have few tools to repair them.
The government has yet to help,
or even ask how it can.
Most of all, the refugees wonder
what they'll do next. Some talk of making new lives for themselves in Sin Thet
Maw. Others hope they can emigrate — a dim prospect since few countries will
take them.
One thing is sure, though.
"We can never go back to
Kyaukphyu," said Kyaw Thein. "After what happened ... it will never
be the same."
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