If that is BD true intention, I support Myanmar's government policy of pacifying the region through the rule of law, and the respect off historical fact. I'm Bhuddhist and support for Bhuddhist state of Myanmar. I'm not for ethnic cleansing of government over minority. Myanmese government should solve the problem Bhuddhist way avoiding mass killing or massive push through the sea. Historical distortion is not acceptable. If Rohingya is truly the words describing the same group of people inherent from 300 + yrs ago, this is not historical distortion. If it was just invented within 100 yrs to justify something, that is the historical distortion and is dishonesty. I say this in general. There must be more study before further judgement, i think.
I came across a rare article translated from Burmese into English the other day. The author is a racist but he was an officer in the immigration ministry until quite recently so he provides first hand accounts of the situation on the ground. The takeaway is that Bangladeshis were crossing in even until recently. They claim to have been in Arakan for centuries but most don't even speak Burmese. No one is calling for mass killing. The latest unrests were kicked off because a gang of muslims gang raped an Arakanese girl. This sparked off the tensions that have been simmering for decades. The Rohingya burnt and slashed as many people as the Arakanese did but they were overwhelmed and why we have the situation we have now.
Anyway, I don't agree with the racist tone but I do respect that this guy knows the situation very well:
I was first sent to Maungdaw in July 1999. As a Yakhine man and a brand new officer I was sent back to Arakan as my first official posting even though I was basically from Rangoon. For the young officers of all other government departments except the Immigration and the Customs, being sent to a border state like Arakan was sort of a punishment but I was still very young and thus really excited to go there.
I could have bribed our senior officers to avoid that borderline duty but I refused to. So I ended up taking that long trip from Rangoon to Maungdaw through Sittwe and Buutheedaung in that 1999 July.
To get to Maungdaw from Sittwe the State capital of Arakan State one had to go to Buutheedaung first by a river-ferry. Our boat left Sittwe at 8 in the morning and sailed through the Yathetaung Township and arrived at Buutheedaung around 5 in the evening same day. The boat followed the May-yu River and we saw the construction of unfinished Yarmaung Bridge on the way.
Once our boat reached Buutheedaung at 5 in the evening all the port-porters coming onto the boat were the Bangalis or
Khawtaw Kalars as we called them. Even back at the Sittwe Port these Khawtaws basically controlled the porter or
Kulee trades. There were some Arakan or
Yakhine porters but just insignificant numbers compared to the Khawtaws.
We were met by local Yakhine officials at the port and we started in their Government vehicle on the 16 mile long mountain road from Buutheedaung to Maungdaw. That meandering mountain road crossing the entire width of high May-yu Ranges was at more than 2,000 feet above sea level and it was raining and windy. Also it was really wet and very cold for us in the back of the vehicle. But the whole ranges and the scenery by the road was eyes-pleasing green.
One amazing thing in addition to the meandering road and its bailey-bridges on the British-built road was two mountain tunnels. The first one on our way towards Maungdaw was more than 1,600 feet long and just simply called Big-Maungdaw Tunnel.
The tunnel floor was basically covered with water seeping out of the tunnel’s rock-walls and as there were no lights inside the tunnel all the cars were to use their headlights to travel through the pitch-black tunnel.
Shortly after the Big Tunnel we had to go through a shorter tunnel simply called Small-Maungdaw Tunnel. After that the road’s sealed surface was really good and we hit the Three-Miles Gate at the entrance of Maungdaw Town in no time.
The Three-miles Gate was controlled by The Border-Region-Immigration-Control-Office (Na-Sa-Ka) and every traveler had to get off the vehicle and his or her identity (National Registration Card) checked and also his or her luggage inspected as if one is crossing the borderline into Bangladesh.
(Translator’s Notes: Na-Sa-Ka was an inter-departmental task force under the Home & Religious Affairs Ministry. It includes personnel from the General Administration Department, Immigration department, Customs Department, Police, Military Intelligence Services, and the Army.)
But our vehicle could drive through the gate as we were government officials and our car was a departmental vehicle with its distinctive logos displayed clearly on both sides. After the gate the road had a branch to Kyee-gan-byin where the Arakan Headquarters of Na-Sa-Ka was. But we drove straight to the west and reached the Maungdaw Town. I spent my first night at Maungdaw with the Duty-Officer of our Department at his government quarters.
Back then the Chairman of the Maungdaw District Council was Lt. Colonel Tin Hla Oo and the Head of Maungdaw Township Council was Captain Hla Po, both were from the MIS. My direct boss was Deputy Director Aung Kyi from the General Administration Department.
(Translator’s Notes: During the SPDC era from 1998 to 2011 every region of Burma, from the villages and wards to the states and divisions, was administered by respective military-appointed councils. And the chairmen of all those councils were appointed military officers and the council secretaries were the heads of the respective General Administration Department offices.)
After meeting other officials next day I had to go to Na-Sa-Ka HQ at Kyi-gan-byin and introduce myself to Colonel Thet Htut the Head of Arakan Na-Sa-Ka as administratively all the government officers in the border regions are under the respective Na-Sa-Ka offices.
Na-Sa-Ka basically was a MIS based interdepartmental border security organization with offices on every border region of Burma.
I then went into Maungdaw Town and its market together with my immediate senior officer. There I hardly saw Burmese or Yakhine faces but all Bengali faces as if I was in the neighboring Bangladesh.
(Translator’s Notes: Burma-Bangladesh border is too porous to stop the massive illegal entries effectively, and the Bengali population in Maungdaw District enormously huge, the only meaningful way to contain Muslim Bengali expansion into Proper Burma was to basically prevent them Bengalis from leaving the Maungdaw District. And the Three-miles Gate on the Buutheedaung-Maungdaw Road was the main barrier in stopping the relentless Bengali tide.)
Once I became well familiar with the territory and started knowing the native Arakans or Yakhines they enlightened me on why and how there were so many Bengalis in their Maungdaw, originally a Yakhine majority town just a few years before.
Regular meeting with other township and district officials and widely reading various historical records of Maungdaw region also gave me a good understanding of that alarming demographic change from Yakhine majority to Bengali majority within a few years.
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Most of the streets in Maungdaw were occupied by the Bengali households. Just a handful of streets around the town market were in the hands of Yakhine families. The Boat-Seik Street by the waterfront was once a Yakhine-majority road but when I arrived it was totally occupied by the Bengalis. Even the main road heading to the Maungdaw Wharf was in the Bengalis’ hands.
Out of all twenty odd wards in Maungdaw Town only Wards 1 and 3 and 4 and Shwezar Village were in the native Yakhine hands. Both Ward-2 and most of Bomhu Village were already in the Bengali hands. And even the Ward-1 by then was already half-swallowed by the Bengalis and becoming a Bengali ward quickly.
Soon after my arrival in Maungdaw I had to supervise the repairing of a bridge near Kyi-gan-byin Na-sa-ka HQ and I got a chance to wander round the countryside. Only one village called Aung-ze-ya Model Village was a Yakhine village, but all other villages were Bengali villages.
Just to get a meal I had to use Bengali language so that I could pay 800 kyats for a cooked chicken from a Bengali household in the nearby village. All the sidecar (pedaled-rickshaw) drivers in both Maungdaw and Butheedaung were Bengalis and they knew not a single Burmese or Yakhine word. It was really difficult for us Burmese to live there in our own country as we couldn’t use Burmese there at all.
What I could easily conclude was since almost all Bengalis there couldn’t speak either Burmese or Yakhine they must not be the natives of our Burma. And they all conspicuously look exactly like the Bengalis in Bangladesh across the border.
My conclusion was that our Maungdaw District has been completely taken over by these illegal Bengalis from Bangladesh.
And back then in Maungdaw in 1999 I began to ponder why and how?
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The obvious answer always is these Bengali Muslims have been breeding like rabbits not just back in Bangladesh but also here in our Burma too.
(Translator’s Note: Just look carefully at the following comparative population densities - population per square mile in 2010.
Whole Bangladesh (Muslims) 1,217
Maungdaw Township (Muslims) 870
Taungbyo Township (Muslim/Buddhists) 700
Whole Yakine State (Buddhists) 233
Whole Burma (Buddhists) 191
Like water people must naturally flow down from the higher level of population density to the lower level of population density. Not just natural migrant flow, the Muslim reproduction also is much much higher than the Buddhists for the obvious religious reason.)
While average Yakhine Buddhist couple is having only two children, nearly every Bengali Muslim man has taken four wives (many are young Yakhine Buddhist girls) illegally and produced as many as thirty kids as their Imams or Ayatollahs have decreed. Once the Bengali boys hit 16 or 17 they are sent back to their motherland Bangladesh to get their Bangladeshi passports and then go work in Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries.
The average Maungdaw Bengali man with at least 10 sons working in Middle-East is a very rich man in a small poor town like Maungdaw and he basically can buy anything including the favors from the local government officials as he is basically receiving at least one million kyats remittance a month from his sons.
That is a very big money not just in Maungdaw but also in the rest of Burma. Shouting about Burmese repression? These Bengalis have had some local officials in their pockets by establishing profitable businesses with them. They were even trying hard to keep most town officials in their pockets.
Out of over 340 villages in Maungdaw District only 40 Yakhine villages were left in the year 2000 as only about ten percent of the total 400,000 population were native Yakhines while the rest were illegal Bengalis.
While there were only 30 Buddhist monasteries left in the Maungdaw District in the year 2000 the Bengalis had already built more than 300 mosques and still growing at least one a month.
And these Bengalis have openly practiced their version of strict Sharia Law illegally. On the streets the Bengali men physically and verbally harassed any Bemgali woman or even Bengali-looking woman without a headscarf (either Hijab or Burqa), and violently stoned their houses at night to drive them out of their Islamic fundamentalist wards and villages.
And they didn’t let their young daughters go to the government schools against the compulsory education law of Burma.
Towards the south of Maungdaw, just beyond the Ah-le-than-gyaw village, there used to be many Yakhine villages, but not anymore now as most villages were Bengalis. Maybe one could find one or two who could speak either Burmese or Yakhine in one Bengali village, but the rest were all Bengali speakers.
(Translator’s Notes: During 1942 British sudden-withdrawal from Burma that Ah-le-than-gyaw Yakhine village of over 200 households was totally wiped out by the British-supported V-Force of Bengalis. That massacre started the notorious 1942 Bengali-Yakhine riots during which over 30,000 native Yakhines were slaughtered by the British-armed Bengalis, and all Yakhine farmlands and villages in Maungdaw area had since been taken over by the illegal Bengalis.)
It was amazingly unbelievable that a native group of human became absolutely extinct by being violently swallowed up by a totally different group of human within a few years. When it comes to serious confrontation the innately violent Muslims always win over naturally-gentle Buddhists. The recent history of Afghanistan is the proof of that.
(Translator’s Notes: In 1985 Ahmed Shah the Chairman of RLO - Rohingya Liberation Organization – freely distributed many copies of his recorded cassette tape urging the Bengalis in the Maungdaw District to drive all non-Muslims out of the District. He was basically calling for the genocide of Yakhines and every other non-Muslims of Maungdaw District.
His RLO also distributed in Bangladesh thousands and thousands of leaflets with the photos of pretty Yakhine girls to entice the Muslim Bengalis in Bangladesh to come into Burma. The leaflets surfaced widely in Chitagong and the neighboring districts of Bangladesh basically called starving Bengalis to come into Burma as there were plenty of food and pretty Yakhine girls on this side of the border.
All RLO leaflets and Ahmed Shah’s tapes had asked only one thing from the prospective illegal Bengalis. That was for every Muslim Bengali Man to marry four Yakhine Buddhist women and convert them into Islam to propagate their fanatic-fundamentalist version of Islam in Burma.)
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During British Colonial era before the Independence many Bengalis were allowed into Burma without any border control, and also because of their rabbit-like breeding, their population finally exceeded the native Yakhines.
And to make the matter worse our own Prime Minister U Nu, an expert in exploiting the religion and the race issues to extreme for his political advantage, had brought the Rohingya issue to life very first time during the 1960 general elections.
U Nu had offered the Bengali Muslims the ethnic rights as Rohingyas if they voted for him in the general elections since without Muslim votes his party would be wiped out in the Arakan State by the opposition Yakhine parties.
(Translator’s Notes: When he won the 1960 elections in Arakan State simply by massive Muslim votes U Nu even forced our reluctant Voice-of-Burma to broadcast a regular so-called Rohigya Program in Bengali. He also established the Maungdaw Special-Border-District by giving away three townships of Butheedaung and Maungdaw and Yathetaung to his Bengalis. And he also gave all the Bengalis including thousands and thousands of illegal Bengalis in that district Burmese Identity Cards.
Even though Ne Win’s nationalist Army terminated all U Nu’s bastardly acts immediately after the 1962 coup Burma still ended up with thousands and thousands of illegal Bengalis with official ID cards illegally issued by U Nu and now these so-called Rohingyas loudly demanding their birth-rights are mainly the descendants of those U Nu’s dodgy Bengalis who slaughtered the native Yakhines and took their lands and homes in 1942.)
When I was in Maungdaw we were to be very careful whenever we travelled through the Bengali villages during nightimes as these Bengalis would kill any Burmese or Yakhine wandered into their village even in the bright daylight.
(Translator’s Notes: On 13 May 1988, the anniversary of 1942 Bengali V-Force massacre of 30,000 native Yakhines, RLO-led 50,000 Bengalis from Maungdaw Town and the surrounding villages tried to take over Maungdaw violently. They managed to destroy the Buddhist Monastery at Ward-4 and then tried to burn down all the Yakhine wards and kill all the Yakhines in Maungdaw.
But their genocidal plan was timely thwarted by the local police force and the Police-Security-Battalion - Lone-Htain-Tat-Yin – stationed on the Maungdaw-Buutheedaung Road. Since then Burmese Army units have been permanently stationed in the Maungdaw district to prevent another genocidal attack by the Bengali Muslims.)
Back in late 1990s and early 2000s our Na-Sa-Ka with the help of army units stationed in Maungdaw District had managed to contain the Bengalis by the borderline, but there had been many violations of border integrity because of corruption in our ranks and various other reasons.
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Just recently I went back to Maungdaw and the Bengali population expansion was so out of control I needed a Bengali interpreter to shop even at the Town’s market. There are no more Yakhine villages in the vicinity of Maungdaw and for me as a native Yakhine it is completely unthinkable to recognize them Bengalis as an indigenous ethnic group of our Burma.
It could be like in that legendary fable of the Camel and the Arab in a stormy desert. Just by letting the nostrils of camel inside the tent we could eventually lose the whole Arakan State like the poor Arab who was completely pushed out of his tent by the cunningly ambitious Camel.
Thanks to General Ne Win and his brutal army we Burmese are now all over the world. But we would not intentionally multiply like rabbits in our host countries and then unfairly demand for fake indigenous land rights. So we should not just stand and watch these Bengali bastards doing that unjust act in our homeland by demanding Maungdaw and Butheedaung and Yathetaung as their own so-called Rohingya State.
I strongly believed it is the birth-duty of every Burmese national to defend our land, religion, and race.
If we give in to them now just because of their respectable cloaks of human rights and democracy the problems wouldn’t end there as there would be more and more troubles brewing for the future as long as these Bengalis keep on breeding like rabbits and forcefully converting our women into their tyrannical and barbarous religion.
This is the struggle for the survival of Burma and thus for us Burmese and Yakhines a fight worth dying!
