Riding the waves of bad-faith maneuvers is counterproductive to community cohesion in Arakan: new leadership is required from its Muslim community

By Tun Oo and K Wantha, GAN

Longread: Opinions                                                                          June 11, 2024

Junta-trained Muslim militants (Photocredit)

Looking at the recent international coverage of the north-western parts of Arakan, one would think that a dramatic turn of events had occurred with the repeat of 2017 when the Myanmar Army (or Tatmadaw)—also known as the State Administration Council (SAC)—committed atrocities against Muslims. The plethora of news reports and statements had portrayed as though another purposeful and systematic atrocity akin to a wholesale genocide had been committed against the civilians. This is even despite the consistent and consequential examples of the Arakan Army and the United League of Arakan to cultivate and establish community cohesion in Arakan. This media storm occurred without any credible report of any accidental mistake of the AA, let alone any solid evidence of a wide-scale, orchestrated campaign. This current media campaign, at best, reflects ill-informed individuals of overenthusiasm. But it is also possible that a highly motivated international network uses deceptions to manipulate an emotional response from the global community. Whatever their motive would be, this shows these so-called current leaders of the Bengali-speaking Muslims with a bad faith attempt to derail the ULA/AA political agenda to create a peaceful and prosperous Arakan for all communities. At this historical juncture, we need new leadership among the Bengali Muslim community who will march with fellow Arakanese of other backgrounds to the new Arakan.

The opening of the international media blitz and the global shower of press releases was based on ill-informed started with a social media post on May 17, 2024 citing the intense fighting in Buthidaung between the AA and the combined troops of the SAC and their allies, Bengali Muslim terrorist organizations. As the AA conquered the whole town of Buthidaung on 18 May, we saw the start of a concerted international media campaign of a communal nature. The first accusation of house burning emerged within a few hours of the reported incident on the social media platform X. The information flow of the incident from this highly disconnected and remote area was very quick, as though there was prior knowledge of the event as it unfolded on the ground. This was followed by a string of accelerated accusations through media interviews and statements over the next few days. In the following week, there was a global vortex of press releasesfrom the United Nations and the Western Governments, along with a barrage of media coverage with little or no further confirmation of information on what was happening on the ground. More importantly, these media reports and statements disregarded or did not include the AA explanation of what had occurred.

Interestingly, this global media blitz promoted by international Bengali Muslim leaders was preceded by a series of destructions of properties and houses in Buthidaung Township, especially a few weeks before the AA capture (Data for Myanmar, social media post on 3 May 2024). These destructions were essentially targeted towards non-Muslim Communities, which accounted for more than 20 per cent of the local population. These atrocities were committed by the junta and the Muslim militia, who were said to be forcibly recruited. It was reported that the Burmese junta had forced the local Muslim communities to demonstrate against the AA and other non-Muslim communities. Some considered and cautioned these were directly from the SAC playbook to incite communalism as a tool of oppression, especially amid the imminent offensive from the AA.

However, the local reports from the region as well as from the refugee camps in Bangladesh, highlighted the active participation of some Muslim leaders rather than a passive community forced at the SAC gunpoint. The long-established Islamic terrorist groups who had fought fiercely against the Tatmadaw over its alleged genocide against the Muslim communities were now in alliance with the SAC troops. While some of the Muslim individuals inside Myanmar might have been forcefully recruited to resist the AA offensives, the border-based groups such as the Arakan Rohingya Army (ARA) and Rohingya Solidarity Organization (RSO) had been actively recruiting refugees from Bangladesh camps to join hands with the junta troops. They had been creating mayhems in Buthidaung and Maungdaw areas for months before the AA final offensive in late April. They harassed ordinary communities, especially non-Muslim people. They burned down the Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) building in mid-April. Yet the overseas-based leadership raised their voice against these armed groups and did nothing to promote community cohesion in these areas. Only when the Muslim terror groups—along with the junta troops—were forced out of the town and surrounding areas did the overseas-based activists start spreading these tales of supposed atrocities to the international media stage.

The AA/ULA vehemently denied these accusations. It pointed out that the SAC planes and the remnant combatants of their Islamic allies caused these fires. Instead of the AA driving the residents away, the instruction to the local community to evacuate to safety from the potential danger. Further from the truth of blocking the ‘escape’ route of the fleeing people to the next township, the AA ensured they would not run into the next battlefield as Maungdaw had become an active war zone.

The AA/ULA response contradicted the rush accusations of overseas-based Muslim advocates. Not only that, the AA accounts were consistent with how they had behaved across all territories and any communities living in these locations. Only a few weeks before 18 May, more than seven thousand Muslim residents from Buthidaung voluntarily fled to the AA-controlled areas to escape from the SAC’s indiscriminate attacks against civilian populations in every part of Myanmar. This was just one very recent example of the consistent approach of the AA/ULA that aimed to create tangible community cohesion on the ground. The AA/ULA’s usual approach contrasts with the SAC’s general approach, which disregards the lives and properties of any civilians, let alone that of the Muslim communities to which the SAC had previously committed genocidal crimes.

While Islamic terrorist groups committed heinous crimes on the ground against all communities—whether they are Muslim or not—by joining hands with the SAC, it was astounding that these so-called rights advocates piled on to spread one-sided narratives of communal hatred. It was also unfortunate then that the misinformation campaign of a few armed-chair advocates captured the international responses. It only demonstrated a failure of the international community with a tainted view of any Rakhine as not having the ability to envision an inclusive nation accepting any communities as equal and promoting the interests and well-being of all citizens.

Whether this was an intentional manipulation of a few leaders to create political discord between communities in northern Arakan and to build an opportunity to control the voice of the divided and frightened Muslim community for their personal gains, or this was their appetite for argumentative politics worked up by misunderstanding, their false accusations had dampened the rare positive accounts of communities coming together in the wake of the victories against the evil SAC troops. These few Muslim leaders may have been taken by the torrents of social media “likes” and “tweets”—suffering from the Kardashian-like popularity fever. Or they were swept up in the cackle of platitudes of the esteemed international institutes in a Thunbergish ovation. Whatever their motive may be, their bad-faith maneuver may have rolled back the recent progress in our national reconciliation. Their failure in leadership demands a new leadership among the Muslim community to take forward the genuine and inclusive nation-building responsibility in Arakan, to join hands with the AA/ULA to accept its cordial invitation. Ripping a song by Eminem, we say: “Will the real Rohingya leaders, please stand up!”