(Compilation of translated articles from various Burmese and
Bengali blogs last week.)
Rioting Bengali-Muslims confronting Burmese police at Bawduphat Bengali-refugee-camp near Sittwe. |
Tomas Ojea Quintana the United Nations Special
Rapporteur on the human rights situations in Burma is now in troubled-Arakan
since August 11. He is hated by the native-Buddhist Yakhines for his
extremely-biased stance against Buddhists but loved by the illegal
Bengali-Muslims originally from Bangladesh for his favouritism towards them.
Since last year Muslim-Buddhist riots
in the Arakan most of them Bengali-Muslims (so-called Rohingyas) have been
herded into various refugee camps by the Burmese security forces and they were
ready to ignite another set of riots again to show the world their plights
through their man Tomas Quintana.
The result was another set of violent
incidents between Bengali-Muslims and the security police forces widely known
as Lone-htains the militarized police battalions established to maintain the
law and order in Burma’s trouble spots like the Arakan.
A Bengali Corpse Drifting Into the Mhansi Creek
The troubles started when a rotten
Benglai corpse drifted into the Mhansi Creek near the Ohndawgyi Bengali Camp near
Sittwe City on August 9. According to the local Buddhists the Bengali corpse
appeared to be in the water for a considerable time and he was possibly a
drowned victim from a Bangladeshi boat sunk recently in the nearby waters.
But the Bengali-Muslims from nearby
Ohndawgyi Camp were spreading the malicious rumours that the corpse was of Roshi
(34) one of their two Muslim men arrested and killed by the Lone-htains on
August 8 while they were fishing in the creek.
So when the policemen from nearby
sentry-post came to the site and fished the corpse out to take it to the
hospital for forensic examination and identity check the Bengali-Muslims
gathered at the creek bank tried to stop them policemen. They wanted to take
the corpse inside their camp to bury it immediately. The police refused their
demand and the violence suddenly broke out on the creek banks.
A Bengali named Larlan suddenly
attacked and injured Deputy-police-inspector Htay Win as the large Bengali
crowd surged forward. Policemen had no other choice but to shoot back as their
lives were seriously threatened. By then the Bengali crowd was more than 500
and police were only a few men armed only with bolt-action rifles.
Six Bengali-Muslims including Larlan (16
and son of Sultana Sout), Mahmad Roffi (25 and son of Mahmad Zorcorlia), and
Karmar (28 and son of Mahmad Ryuku) were wounded at the riot site.
As the police contingent withdrew to
safety the 1,000 strong Bengali-Muslim mob looted their outpost of all the valuables
and weapons and foodstuff and later burned down three abandoned-police-buildings
there.
They then dug many a large holes and
bobby-trapped the main and only road between Ohndawgyi and Bawduphat refugee camps
so that the police reinforcements from Bawduphat couldn’t reach the police now
trapped by Bengali-Muslim mobs at Ohndawgyi.
Dead Jormal Hussein. |
At present two Police battalions are at the site and the trapped policemen had been already rescued. Two of the Bengali-Muslims wounded in August-9 shootings died at the Sittwe General Hospital. One was Jormal Hussein (50) with a chest wound. He died on August 11 and immediately buried at the Ohndawgyi Muslim Cemetery.
Troubles at Bawduphat Bengali-Muslim Camp
The shootings at Ohndawgyi provoked the
Bengali-Muslims at Bawduphat Bengali Camp and about 500 strong Bengali mob
gathered there to protest on August 10. The UNHCR office manager Mr. Oliver and
two of his foreigner staffers and two Bengali interpreters tried to listen to
their grievances to quell the crowd.
At about nine in the morning Yakhin Stet
Government’s Minister for Security Colonel Htai Lin, State Police Chief Nay
Myo, Sittwe Regional-Operation-Command G1 Colonel, and both Sittwe District and
Township Administrators arrived at Bawduphat Bengali-Muslim refugee camp.
The UNHCR officials relayed to them the
particular demand from the Bengali-Muslims to replace the police battalions at
their camps with Army battalions as Bengalis had more confidence in the
soldiers than the Lone-Htain police.
The government people there told them it
was impossible to satisfy their demand as UN’s Quintana himself was calling for
the replacement of soldiers by the police as maintaining law and order was the
job of police.
UNHCR people went back to the Bengalis
and explained to them the government position but Bengali-Muslims didn’t accept
and still refusing to disperse. Frustrated the UNHCR people went back to Sittwe
at about 5 in the late afternoon.
A Dead Bengali-Muslim from Bawduphat camp. |
Meanwhile about 500 more Bengali-Muslim
men came up from the Ohndawgyi camp and the gathering mob grew to more than
1,000 Bengali-Muslims at Bawduphat Camp. They refused to disperse and finally
attacked the security police with sticks, swords, bricks, and metal slingshots
known as Gingalee.
Finally the security police fired at
them and wounded at least 7 Bengali-Muslims. The mob then withdrew back about
100 yards from the line of security police and watched the situation without dispersing.
More reinforcement of police arrived
and finally at about 7 in the night the crowd dispersed and situations at the
Bawduphat camp were back to normal. The seven wounded were later sent to nearby
Dabine Hospital managed by the MSF volunteer doctors but one Bengali-Muslim died
at the hospital.
UN's Tomas Quintan welcomed by the protests at Sittwe. |
Tomas Quintana arrived in Burma on
August 11 for ten days trip till August 21. This is widely-hated Quintan’s
seventh trip to Burma amidst the Burmese government’s demand to replace him
with a more suitable person. But UN’s Ban Ki-Moon likes him a lot for some
reason and rejected Burma’s demand to replace him with a neutral person.
Quintana’s last human rights report on
Burma to UNGA was protested by both government and people of Burma as it was blatantly
pro-Bengali Muslims and anti-native Buddhists of Burma.
Especially his demand to repel Burma’s
1982 Citizenship law and give a million of illegal Bengali-Muslims at the
border immediate Burmese citizenship was universally condemned by both the
government and the people of Burma. Burmese consider his demand a blatant intrusion
into Burma’s domestic affairs and disrespect to Burma’s sovereignty.
During this trip of Quintana many
Yakhine-Buddhists lined-up and protested along his route and arrival points in
Arakan by carrying the posters displaying “Quintana,
Get Out!” and shouting “Bengali
Instigator, Go Away!” and "Qunitan, we don't need your biased suggestions!"
UN's Tomas Quintana meeting his Bengali-Muslims at Aung-min-gala mosque in Sittwe. |
Removed Quintana: Demanded 24 Burmese Political Parites
Burma's 1982 Citizenship Act and UN's Tomas Quintana