WAKE-UP CALL FOR INDIAN MUSLIMS.
NEW DELHI, 18 August 2005 — India’s law minister said yesterday it was up to the country’s 130 millionMuslims to decide whether they want to follow edicts or “fatwas” issued by Islamic family courts.The comments by Law Minister H.R. Bharadwaj came after a lawyer, Vishwa Lochan Madan, filed a petition demanding that the Supreme Court order the dissolution of all Islamic courts and ban new ones.While there are tribal courts in other parts of India,it was not clear if they were covered by the suit.Madan, a Supreme Court lawyer, is seeking a declaration that religious decrees or “fatwas” issued by the courts on personal matters have no legal sanction.He said Islamic courts pose a challenge to India’s judicial system set up under the secular constitution.But the Press Trust of India quoted Bharadwaj assaying, “If anything wrong was being done under (Muslim) law, the community should address it. They should decide whether they would be governed by fatwas or not.”The Supreme Court has asked all India’s states and three Muslim bodies for their views on Madan’s petition. The constitution of the majority Hindu nation of over one billion people treats all religions as equal but allows followers to practice separate laws on marriage, divorce and property.The new controversy was stirred by an edict issued byMuslim clerics and upheld by the All-India MuslimPersonal Law Board, that a 28-year-old woman allegedly raped by her father-in-law should marry him and divorce her husband.The case which came to light in June sparked a storm,with angry rights groups and Muslim women slamming the fatwa although the victim said she was resigned to her fate.The main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party and other critics have attacked the parallel Muslim judicial system as being sometimes more strict than in some Islamic nations. They want a uniform civil code.But Zafar-ul-Islam Khan, editor of Muslim Internetnews magazine Milligazette.com, said such Islamic family courts “are in place to see that such problems don’t go to the court which are overburdened.“These courts only have moral power. If two parties don’t accept its verdict, they can go to the police or the courts,” he said.
Friday, August 19, 2005
NELLIE MASSACRE - FEW REMEMBERS THE TRAGEDY
By S Ubaidur Rahman
Indian Muslims have a very short memory. It is barely twenty-one years when more than three thousand Muslims were slaughtered in Nellie, in Nagaon district of Assam in a single day but no one seems to remember the mass killings of the poor Assamese Muslims.Young Muslim men don't seem to have heard of the case at all and Muslim leaders behave as if they too are unaware of Nellie. No voice is heard and no debate takes place on what happened to the enquiry commission report submitted to the government. The issue is not raised at all. So justice is a far cry.In February 1983, 3,300 people were killed in a single day. As per official records, the six hour long attack on Nellie began at 10 am and left at least 1,800 persons dead. Records in the Jagiroad police station put the number of killed in the riots at Dungbari, Muladhari, Borpolah, Silbheti and Mati-parbat at 2,191. But the actual figures are said to be higher, 3,300 according to some estimates. Their only sin was that they voted for Indira Gandhi who had given them assurances, that they need not fear any retaliation. About 1,668 people were arrested in connection with the mass murder.Tewari Commission, constituted to probe the riot submitted its 600-page report to the Assam government in May 1984, the then Congress government, headed by Hiteswar Saikia, decided against making it public. The Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) government that came to power in December 1985 too kept it under wraps.But records at the Jagiroad police station say that while 688 cases had been filed in connection with the Nellie killings, the police submitted chargesheets only in 310. The remaining 378 cases were closed after a final report said there was no evidence. But these too were dropped later. B K Gohain, home commissioner, Assam said ''All the Nellie cases were dropped during Prafulla Kumar Mahanta's time. The chapter is closed.''Shekhar Gupta, the editor in chief of Indian Express who reported the massacre later recounts his thought while comparing it with the Gujarat riots. "In Nellie, earlier, more people died in a single day (3,300) than in any riot after Partition. But the police were not helping along the murderers. It happened in a distant, hidden patch of dry Brahmaputra bed in a dark corner of Assam, and while the police and the state government were guilty of ignoring early warnings they were not participating in the killings and loot. I reached Nellie when killings and hackings were still on and the wounded were crying, crawling, carrying their dismembered limbs, trying to push back entrails hanging out of stab holes in their children's bellies. There was just half a platoon of the CRPF there, led by a very honourable head constable called H. B. N. Appa who was crying bitterly that he did not have enough people or firepower to stop the killings. He was by no means egging the killers on. He must have still saved a few thousand lives. He resurfaced in my reporting life a year later, in Amritsar during Operation Bluestar, at the head of a CRPF patrol, his lonely heroism at Nellie having earned him the reward of the single pip of a sub-inspector which he flaunted at me and asked: "So what did you get for reaching there ahead of the others?" And then he talked about how many lives he could have saved if only he had a full platoon.One of my abiding memories of Nellie is the bitterly dejected, forlorn face of the then DIG of Nowgong district, under whose charge the village fell, the day after the massacre. "If only we were here a few hours earlier... if only we were here a few hours earlier," he kept on mumbling. That pain returns to his face even today when I sometimes cruelly pull his leg by reminding him I beat him and his police to the Nellie story. You can check with the gentleman if I am speaking the truth. He is P. C. Sharma, the current director of the CBI. Or you can check with his then boss, K. P. S. Gill, who had to answer so many difficult questions when Indira Gandhi flew in, ashen-faced, the following morning." Now nobody wants to talk of Nellie. When the victims of 1984 Sikh riots are being compensated, nobody talks of compensating the Nellie riot victims.The Nellie survivors too were compensated. But be prepared for a cruel joke. Adding insult to injury, every family in the half-a-dozen affected villages received a mere two bundles of tin sheets and Rs 2,000 in cash as part of the rehabilitation package announced by the then Congress government.Assam government still does not allow people to remember and condole to what happened in Nellie on that fateful day. For its own reasons, every party wants to forget Nellie.Last November Japanese scholar Makiko Kimura was stopped by the Assam government from giving a talk called ''Memories of a massacre: Competing narratives of the Nellie incident' The lecture had to be called off 30 minutes before it was scheduled to start after the State Home Commissioner and Secretary B. M. Mazumdar faxed a letter to the OKD Institute of Social Change, the institute that hosts CENISEAS, asking it not to hold the lecture 'without consultation with the state government'. By that time the hall was already full. Makiko Kimura, a Japanese scholar who had recently completed her doctoral dissertation on the issue at the Centre for the Study of Social Systems, JNU, was supposed to speak on three aspects of the Nellie massacre: The views of the victims, the attackers and the AASU movement leaders.
By S Ubaidur Rahman
Indian Muslims have a very short memory. It is barely twenty-one years when more than three thousand Muslims were slaughtered in Nellie, in Nagaon district of Assam in a single day but no one seems to remember the mass killings of the poor Assamese Muslims.Young Muslim men don't seem to have heard of the case at all and Muslim leaders behave as if they too are unaware of Nellie. No voice is heard and no debate takes place on what happened to the enquiry commission report submitted to the government. The issue is not raised at all. So justice is a far cry.In February 1983, 3,300 people were killed in a single day. As per official records, the six hour long attack on Nellie began at 10 am and left at least 1,800 persons dead. Records in the Jagiroad police station put the number of killed in the riots at Dungbari, Muladhari, Borpolah, Silbheti and Mati-parbat at 2,191. But the actual figures are said to be higher, 3,300 according to some estimates. Their only sin was that they voted for Indira Gandhi who had given them assurances, that they need not fear any retaliation. About 1,668 people were arrested in connection with the mass murder.Tewari Commission, constituted to probe the riot submitted its 600-page report to the Assam government in May 1984, the then Congress government, headed by Hiteswar Saikia, decided against making it public. The Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) government that came to power in December 1985 too kept it under wraps.But records at the Jagiroad police station say that while 688 cases had been filed in connection with the Nellie killings, the police submitted chargesheets only in 310. The remaining 378 cases were closed after a final report said there was no evidence. But these too were dropped later. B K Gohain, home commissioner, Assam said ''All the Nellie cases were dropped during Prafulla Kumar Mahanta's time. The chapter is closed.''Shekhar Gupta, the editor in chief of Indian Express who reported the massacre later recounts his thought while comparing it with the Gujarat riots. "In Nellie, earlier, more people died in a single day (3,300) than in any riot after Partition. But the police were not helping along the murderers. It happened in a distant, hidden patch of dry Brahmaputra bed in a dark corner of Assam, and while the police and the state government were guilty of ignoring early warnings they were not participating in the killings and loot. I reached Nellie when killings and hackings were still on and the wounded were crying, crawling, carrying their dismembered limbs, trying to push back entrails hanging out of stab holes in their children's bellies. There was just half a platoon of the CRPF there, led by a very honourable head constable called H. B. N. Appa who was crying bitterly that he did not have enough people or firepower to stop the killings. He was by no means egging the killers on. He must have still saved a few thousand lives. He resurfaced in my reporting life a year later, in Amritsar during Operation Bluestar, at the head of a CRPF patrol, his lonely heroism at Nellie having earned him the reward of the single pip of a sub-inspector which he flaunted at me and asked: "So what did you get for reaching there ahead of the others?" And then he talked about how many lives he could have saved if only he had a full platoon.One of my abiding memories of Nellie is the bitterly dejected, forlorn face of the then DIG of Nowgong district, under whose charge the village fell, the day after the massacre. "If only we were here a few hours earlier... if only we were here a few hours earlier," he kept on mumbling. That pain returns to his face even today when I sometimes cruelly pull his leg by reminding him I beat him and his police to the Nellie story. You can check with the gentleman if I am speaking the truth. He is P. C. Sharma, the current director of the CBI. Or you can check with his then boss, K. P. S. Gill, who had to answer so many difficult questions when Indira Gandhi flew in, ashen-faced, the following morning." Now nobody wants to talk of Nellie. When the victims of 1984 Sikh riots are being compensated, nobody talks of compensating the Nellie riot victims.The Nellie survivors too were compensated. But be prepared for a cruel joke. Adding insult to injury, every family in the half-a-dozen affected villages received a mere two bundles of tin sheets and Rs 2,000 in cash as part of the rehabilitation package announced by the then Congress government.Assam government still does not allow people to remember and condole to what happened in Nellie on that fateful day. For its own reasons, every party wants to forget Nellie.Last November Japanese scholar Makiko Kimura was stopped by the Assam government from giving a talk called ''Memories of a massacre: Competing narratives of the Nellie incident' The lecture had to be called off 30 minutes before it was scheduled to start after the State Home Commissioner and Secretary B. M. Mazumdar faxed a letter to the OKD Institute of Social Change, the institute that hosts CENISEAS, asking it not to hold the lecture 'without consultation with the state government'. By that time the hall was already full. Makiko Kimura, a Japanese scholar who had recently completed her doctoral dissertation on the issue at the Centre for the Study of Social Systems, JNU, was supposed to speak on three aspects of the Nellie massacre: The views of the victims, the attackers and the AASU movement leaders.
Association of Indian Muslims - Implement findings of Nanavati Commission
Washington DC : The Association of Indian Muslims of America (A.I.M.), an organization representing about 150,000 Indian Muslims in US, today appealed to the Government of India to implement the findings of the Nanavati Commission on the anti-Sikh riots in North India in 1984. About 4,000 Sikhs were killed in that riot.
AIM President Kaleem Kawaja urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to quickly prosecute all individuals and groups that the Nananavati Commission has implicated in the said anti-Sikh riot, regardless of their position in any political party or the government. Kawaja also thanked PM Singh for tendering an apology to the Sikh community on behalf of the Indian Government, on the occurrence of the said horrendous anti-Sikh riot.
In his statement Kawaja observed that in the last several decades many Commissions of Enquiry were set up by the Indian Government to investigate similarly horrendous anti-Muslim riots e.g. Mumbai, Meerut, Bhivandi, Bhagalpur, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Nellie (Assam), Jamshedpur etal. But the findings of none of these Commissions has ever been implemented, and none of the culprits have ever been prosecuted.
Kawaja lamented the fact that in all these years no Indian Prime Minister has ever expressed an apology to the minority Muslim community for the horrible string of riots in which tens of thousands of innocent Muslims have been killed.
Kawaja appealed to PM Singh to institute an official Indian Government judicial enquiry in the horrible Gujarat massacre of Muslims in 2002, and prosecute the culprits.
Sd/- Kaleem KawajaPresident
THE ASSOCIATION OF INDIAN MUSLIMS OF AMERICAPO Box 10654, Silver Spring, MD 20914 USA; Tel. ++1-410 730 5456; Email: kawaja@worldnet.att.net
Washington DC : The Association of Indian Muslims of America (A.I.M.), an organization representing about 150,000 Indian Muslims in US, today appealed to the Government of India to implement the findings of the Nanavati Commission on the anti-Sikh riots in North India in 1984. About 4,000 Sikhs were killed in that riot.
AIM President Kaleem Kawaja urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to quickly prosecute all individuals and groups that the Nananavati Commission has implicated in the said anti-Sikh riot, regardless of their position in any political party or the government. Kawaja also thanked PM Singh for tendering an apology to the Sikh community on behalf of the Indian Government, on the occurrence of the said horrendous anti-Sikh riot.
In his statement Kawaja observed that in the last several decades many Commissions of Enquiry were set up by the Indian Government to investigate similarly horrendous anti-Muslim riots e.g. Mumbai, Meerut, Bhivandi, Bhagalpur, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Nellie (Assam), Jamshedpur etal. But the findings of none of these Commissions has ever been implemented, and none of the culprits have ever been prosecuted.
Kawaja lamented the fact that in all these years no Indian Prime Minister has ever expressed an apology to the minority Muslim community for the horrible string of riots in which tens of thousands of innocent Muslims have been killed.
Kawaja appealed to PM Singh to institute an official Indian Government judicial enquiry in the horrible Gujarat massacre of Muslims in 2002, and prosecute the culprits.
Sd/- Kaleem KawajaPresident
THE ASSOCIATION OF INDIAN MUSLIMS OF AMERICAPO Box 10654, Silver Spring, MD 20914 USA; Tel. ++1-410 730 5456; Email: kawaja@worldnet.att.net
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
JEWS BEING EVACUATED FROM NEVE DEKALIM, THE LARGEST JEWISH SETTLEMENT IN THE GAZA STRIP
GAZA CITY, August 16, 2005– For Palestinians, Neve Dekalim, the largest Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip, conjures up images of cold-blood killings and destruction as it used to be a launch pad for deadly Israeli raids into the adjacent city of Khan Yunis.
Palestinians are impatient to see the settlement dismantled and settlers, who were mostly brought from East Europe and Russia, evacuated as part of the Israeli pullout from the strip."It has been such a nightmare for the residents of Khan Yunis," said Abu Namous as he watched Israeli forces pouring into Neve Dekalim, pushing back defiant settlers and cutting through an iron gate at the main entrance.
Scuffles erupted as settlers burned car tyres and piles of rubbish along the main street.
Thousands of Palestinians gathered in Khan Yunis to celebrate the uprooting and evacuation of the settlement and the end of Israel's 38-year occupation of the Gaza Strip.
"They destroyed our homes, we'll leave them to destroy theirs by their own hands," was seen scrawled on banners held aloft by jubilant Palestinians.
Israel plans to bulldoze all housing units inside the 21 settlements in the Gaza Strip before exiting the territory.With more than 108 Palestinians killed and up to 2500 homes demolished in Israeli offensives launched from Neve Dekalim, the settlement of death and destruction as called by the Palestinians is by no means a misnomer.A flashpoint of defiance against the dismantle of Jewish settlements under Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s disengagement plan, Neve Dekalim was constructed in 1982 on 600 donums of Palestinian land usurped by Israeli occupation troops.Over the years, the Israeli occupation army annexed more 2900 donums and housing units mushroomed to 700 occupied by up to 3000 settlers.Neve Dekalim has also been the headquarters of key settler administrative establishments – including the Regional Council for the Gaza Strip settlements.Eviction warnings to 9,000 settlers in all 21 settlements in the Gaza Strip and four of 120 in the West Bank went into effect at midnight on Sunday, August 14.
Settlers have until Wednesday, August 17, to go voluntarily or face expulsion by force.
Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said Tuesday Palestinians will not be allowed to enter the settlements until a month after evacuation.In the West Bank, two of the four settlements to be evacuated -- Ganim and Kadim -- became the first to be vacated. Most of the residents had already left before the eviction order.The Israeli army intends to wrap up the Gaza pullout in early October, when the last troops leave.Palestinians welcome Israel's withdrawal from land captured in the 1967 Middle East war.However, they fear Sharon devised the plan as a ruse to cement Israel's hold on most of the West Bank, where 230,000 settlers and 2.4 million Palestinians live.
GAZA CITY, August 16, 2005– For Palestinians, Neve Dekalim, the largest Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip, conjures up images of cold-blood killings and destruction as it used to be a launch pad for deadly Israeli raids into the adjacent city of Khan Yunis.
Palestinians are impatient to see the settlement dismantled and settlers, who were mostly brought from East Europe and Russia, evacuated as part of the Israeli pullout from the strip."It has been such a nightmare for the residents of Khan Yunis," said Abu Namous as he watched Israeli forces pouring into Neve Dekalim, pushing back defiant settlers and cutting through an iron gate at the main entrance.
Scuffles erupted as settlers burned car tyres and piles of rubbish along the main street.
Thousands of Palestinians gathered in Khan Yunis to celebrate the uprooting and evacuation of the settlement and the end of Israel's 38-year occupation of the Gaza Strip.
"They destroyed our homes, we'll leave them to destroy theirs by their own hands," was seen scrawled on banners held aloft by jubilant Palestinians.
Israel plans to bulldoze all housing units inside the 21 settlements in the Gaza Strip before exiting the territory.With more than 108 Palestinians killed and up to 2500 homes demolished in Israeli offensives launched from Neve Dekalim, the settlement of death and destruction as called by the Palestinians is by no means a misnomer.A flashpoint of defiance against the dismantle of Jewish settlements under Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s disengagement plan, Neve Dekalim was constructed in 1982 on 600 donums of Palestinian land usurped by Israeli occupation troops.Over the years, the Israeli occupation army annexed more 2900 donums and housing units mushroomed to 700 occupied by up to 3000 settlers.Neve Dekalim has also been the headquarters of key settler administrative establishments – including the Regional Council for the Gaza Strip settlements.Eviction warnings to 9,000 settlers in all 21 settlements in the Gaza Strip and four of 120 in the West Bank went into effect at midnight on Sunday, August 14.
Settlers have until Wednesday, August 17, to go voluntarily or face expulsion by force.
Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said Tuesday Palestinians will not be allowed to enter the settlements until a month after evacuation.In the West Bank, two of the four settlements to be evacuated -- Ganim and Kadim -- became the first to be vacated. Most of the residents had already left before the eviction order.The Israeli army intends to wrap up the Gaza pullout in early October, when the last troops leave.Palestinians welcome Israel's withdrawal from land captured in the 1967 Middle East war.However, they fear Sharon devised the plan as a ruse to cement Israel's hold on most of the West Bank, where 230,000 settlers and 2.4 million Palestinians live.
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
Rohningya: The Forgotten People
by Habib Siddiqui
(Monday August 15 2005)
"The Rohingyas need world body to wake up to the reality of their sufferings and pains. They need to mobilize world bodies, esp. the UN, to grant them the same privilege that has been granted to the people in south Sudan and East Timor. There is no other way to solve this problem now. Citizens around the globe simply cannot afford to remain silent spectators to this gruesome tragedy of our time. They must act and help to solve the problem."
An often-practiced devious way to grab someone’s land is to deny his right to that property. Nothing could be more horrific when a government itself gets into such a criminal practice. The most glaring example of such a crime can be seen in the practices of the regimes that have ruled Burma (now Myanmar) since its independence from Britain in 1948 (esp. since 1962 when Gen. Ne Win came to power). In our times, one can hardly find a regime that has been so atrocious, so inhuman and so barbarous in its denial of basic human rights to a people that trace their origin to the land for nearly a millennium.[1] The victims are the Rohingya Muslims living in the Arakan (now Rakhine) state. They have become the forgotten people of our time.
The ruling junta in Myanmar do not want to know and let others know that the Rohingyas have a long history, a language, a heritage, a culture and a tradition of their own that they had built up in the Arakan through their long history of existence there. Through their criminal propaganda - to garner support among the Buddhist majority - they have been feeding so much misinformation against the Rohingya that even Joseph Goebbles must be amazed in his grave! The level of disinformation has reached such an alarming level that if you were to talk with a Burmese Buddhist, he/she would say that the Rohingyas are foreigners in Arakan; they don’t belong to Burma; they belong to Bangladesh.[2] Such allegations are unfounded. Distinguished scholar Abdul Karim writes, "In fact the forefathers of Rohingyas had entered into Arakan from time immemorial.”[3]
Brief geography and history about the place and its people:
The word “Rohingya” comes from 'Rohang,' which was the original and ancient name of Arakan.[4] The Arakan State of Myanmar, bordering Bangladesh, is mostly inhabited by two ethnic communities - the Rakhine Buddhist and the Rohingya Muslims. The Rakhine Buddhists are close to the Burmese in religion and language. The Rohingya Muslims are ethnically and religiously related to the people from the region of Chittagong in south-eastern Bangladesh. The Rohingya Muslims number approximately 3.5 million.[5] Due to large-scale persecution through ethnic cleansing and genocidal action against them, about 1.5 million Rohingyas are forced to leave outside their ancestral homes since Burmese independence in 1948. This uprooted people now live in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Thailand and Malaysia.
Origin of the Rohingya:
The original inhabitants of Rohang were Hindus, Buddhists and animists. From the pre-Islamic days, the region was very familiar to the Arab seafarers. Many settled in the Arakan, and mixing with the local people, developed the present stock of people known as ethnic Rohingya. Some historians tell us that the first Muslims to settle the Arakan were Arabs under the leadership of Muhammad ibn Hanafiya in the late 7th century (C.E.). He married the queen Kaiyapuri, who had converted to Islam. Her people then embraced Islam en masse. The peaks where they lived are still known as Hanifa Tonki and Kaiyapui Tonki.[6]
The second major influx of early Muslims dates back to the 8th century (C.E.). The British Burma Gazetteer (1957) says, “About 788 AD Mahataing Sandya ascended the throne of Vesali, founded a new city (Vesali) on the site of old Ramawadi and died after a reign of twenty two years. In his reign several ships were wrecked on Rambree Island and the crews, said to have been Mohammedans, were sent to Arakan Proper and settled in villages. They were Moor Arab Muslims.”[7]
Later, other ethnic groups, namely - the Mughals, Turks, Persians, Central Asians, Pathans and Bengalis - also moved into the territory and mixed with these Rohingya people. The spread of Islam in the Arakan (and along the southern coastal areas of Bangladesh) mostly happened through the sea-borne Sufis and merchants. This fact is testified by the darghas (shrines), which are dotted at the long coast of the Arakan and Myanamar.[8] The Burmese historian U. Kyi writes, “The superior morality of those devout Muslims attracted large number of people towards Islam who embraced it en masse.”[9]
Hence, the Rohingya Muslims, whose settlements in Arakan date back to the 7th century C.E., are not an ethnic group, which developed from one tribal group affiliation or single racial stock, but are an ethnic group that developed from different stocks of people. The ethnic Rohingya is Muslim by religion with distinct culture and civilization of their own.
Origin of the Rakhine:
The other dominant group that lives in the Arakan is the Rakhine Buddhist. In the year 957 C.E., a Mongolian invasion swept over Vesali (Vaisali) - the capital city - and killed Sula Chandra, the last Hindu king of Chandra dynasty. They destroyed Vesali and placed on their throne Mongolian kings. Mohammed Ashraf Alam writes, “Within a few years the Hindus of Bengal were able to establish their Pala Dynasty. But the Hindus of Vesali were unable to restore their dynasty because of the invasion and migrations of Tibeto-Burman who were so great that their population overshadowed the Vesali Hindus. They cut Arakan away from Indians and mixing in sufficient number with the inhabitants of the eastern-side of the present Indo-Burma divide, created that Indo-Mongoloid stock now known as the Rakhine Arakanese. This emergence of a new race was not the work of a single invasion. But the date 957 AD may be said to mark the appearance of the Rakhine in Arakan, and the beginning of fresh period.”[10] They were a wild people much given to plunder, violence, cruelty, kidnapping, enslavement and sea piracy, and came to be known as the Maghs of the Arakan.[11] History researcher Alamgir Serajuddin writes, “Their cruelty, comparable only to that of bargi marauders of later days, was a byword in Bengal. Shihabuddin Talish thus described it: "They carried off the Hindus and Muslims, male and female, great and small, few and many that they could seize, pierced the palms of their hands, passed thin canes through the holes and threw them one above another under the deck of their ships.””[12]
After the Portuguese established their settlements in Chittagong, Sandwip and Arakan during the Mughal rule of India, the Rakhine Maghs entered into a scheme of plundering Mughal territory in Bengal by making an alliance with the Portuguese pirates.[13] So the Magh-Portuguese piracy was a menace to the peace of Bengal until 1666, when the Mughals, under the governorship of Shaista Khan (1664-1688) conquered Chittagong from the Arakanese control.[14] That year (1666) marked the decline of the Arakanese Empire. [The Arakanese (Rakhine) Maghs left Chittagong, never to reoccupy it, which became a part of Bengal (and now Bangladesh).[15]] However, plundering by the Magh-Portuguese pirates continued throughout the 18th century.
Historian G.E. Harvey writes, “Renell’s map of Bengal, published in 1794 AD marks the area south of Backergunge ‘deserted on account of the ravages of the Muggs (Arakanese)’…. The Arakan pirates, both Magh and feringhi, used to come by the water-route and plunder Bengal…. Mohammedans underwent such oppression, as they had not to suffer in Europe. As they continually practiced raids for a long time, Bengal daily became more and more desolate and less and less able to resist them. Not a house was left inhabited on their side of the rivers lying on their track from Chittagong to Dacca. The district of Bakla [Backergunge and part of Dacca], which formerly abounded in houses and cultivated fields and yield a large revenue as duty on betel-nuts, was swept so clean with their broom of plunder and abduction that none was left to tenant any house or kindle a light in that region. …… When Shayista Khan asked the feringhi deserters, what salary the Magh king had assigned to them, they replied, ‘Our salary was the Mughal Empire. We considered the whole of Bengal as our fief. We had not to bother revenue surveyors and ourselves about court clerks but levied our rent all the year round without difficulty. We have kept the papers of the division of the booty for the last forty years.’”[16]
Because of their centuries of savagery, the Maghs of Arakan earned such a bad name that they started calling themselves the Rakhines.[17]
The Rakhines practice Buddhism and their spoken language is pure Burmese with slight phonetic variation.
Muslim Influence in Arakan:
Arakan, sandwiched between Muslim-ruled India in the west and Buddhist-ruled Burma in the east, at different periods of history, had been an independent sovereign monarchy ruled by Hindus, Buddhists and Muslims. As the threat from the Burmese court of Ava grew, it turned westward for protection. After Bengal became Muslim in 1203 C.E., Islamic influence grew significantly in Arakan to the degree of establishing a Muslim vassal state there in 1430 C.E. In 1404, the Arakan king, dethroned by the Burmese, took asylum in Gaur (the capital of Bengal) and pleaded for help to regain the lost throne. Jalaluddin Muhammad Shah, the Sultan of Bengal, sent General Wali Khan at the head of 50,000 soldiers to conquer Arakan. Wali Khan drove the Burmese and took control of power over Arakan for himself, introduced Persian as the court language of Arakan and appointed Muslim judges (Qazis).[18] Jalaluddin then sent a second army under General Sandi Khan who overthrew Wali Khan and restored the exiled monarch (Mong Saw Mwan who took the title of Sulayman Shah) to the throne of Arakan in 1430.[19]
Mong Saw Mwan’s Muslim soldiers settled in Arakan and established the Sandi Khan mosque in Mrhaung. They eventually became the kingmakers during the Mrauk-U dynasty. The practice of adopting a Muslim name or title by the Arakanese kings continued until 1638. Bisveswar Bhattacharya sums up the position thus, “As the Mohammedan influence was predominant, the Arakanese kings, though Buddhist in religion, became somewhat Mohammedanized in their ideas…”[20]
In 1660, the Mughal Prince Shah Shuja fled to Arakan. This important event brought a new wave of Muslim immigrants to the kingdom of Arakan.[21]
Dr. Muhammad Enamul Haq and Abdul Karim Shahitya Bisharad in their work “Bengali Literature in the Court of Arakan 1600-1700” state that “[T]he Arakanese kings issued coins bearing the inscription of Muslim Kalema (the profession of faith in Islam) in Arabic script. The State emblem was also inscribed Arabic word Aqimuddin (establishment of God’s rule over the earth).” The Arakanese court’s adoption of many Muslim customs and terms were other noteworthy signs to the influence of Islam. Mosques began to dot the countryside and Islamic customs, manners and practices came to be established since this time.[22]
From 1685 to 1710, the political power of Arakan was completely in the hand of the Muslims. Muslim rule and/or influence in Arakan lasted altogether for approx. 350 years until it was invaded and occupied by Burmese king Boddaw Paya on 28 December 1784. The latter is responsible for destroying everything Islamic in Arakan and sowing the seed of distrust between the two communities – Rohingya and Rakhine.
Arakan in post-1784 era:
Arakan was neither a Burmese nor an Indian territory till 1784. It had managed to retain its independent (or semi-independent) status for most of its existence. In 1784 thousands of Arakanese, Rohingya and Buddhists alike, were killed, and their mosques, dargas and temples destroyed by the Burmese soldiers. During the 40-year Burmese tyrannical rule (1784-1824), nearly two-thirds or 200,000 Arakanese were forced to take refuge in Chittagong (Bengal).
The First Anglo-Burmese War (1824-26) ended on 24 February 1826 when Burma ratified the Treaty of Yandabo and ceded Arakan and Tenasserim to British India. At that time, nearly a third of the population of Arakan was Muslims. Burma was separated from British India on 1 April 1937 under the Government of India Act of 1935. Arakan was made a part of British Burma against the wishes of its people and thus finally Arakan became a province of independent Burma in 1948.[23]
For centuries, the Rohingya Muslims coexisted relatively peacefully with the Rakhine Buddhists.[24] However, this changed around the Second World War, when communal riots erupted between the two ethnic groups at the instigation of third parties, most notably the British Raj. The bitterness was fuelled by the pogrom of March 28, 1942 in which about 100,000 Rohingyas were massacred and about 80,000 had to flee their ancestral homes.[25] 294 Rohingya villages were totally destroyed.[26] Since then the relationship between the two communities deteriorated.
After Burma’s independence in 1948, Muslims carried out an unsuccessful armed rebellion demanding an autonomous state within the Union of Burma. This resulted in a backlash against the Muslims that led to their removal from civil posts, restrictions on their movement, and confiscation of their property.[27]
Under the military regime of General Ne Win, beginning in 1962, the Muslim residents of Arakan were labeled illegal immigrants who settled in Burma during British rule. The government at the center made efforts to drive them out of Burma, starting with the denial of citizenship. The 1974 Emergency Immigration Act took away Burmese nationality from the Rohingyas, making them foreigners in their own country.
As of 1999, there have been no less than 20 major operations of eviction campaigns against the Rohingyas carried out by the successive Governments of Burma. In pursuance of the 20-year Rohingya Extermination Plan, the Arakan State Council under direct supervision of State Council of Burma carried out a Rohingya drive operation code named Naga Min or King Dragon Operation. It was the largest, the most notorious and probably the best-documented operation of 1978. The operation started on 6th February 1978 from the biggest Muslim village of Sakkipara in Akyab, which sent shock waves over the whole region within a short time. News of mass arrest of Muslims, male and female, young and old, torture, rape and killing in Akyab frustrated Muslims in other towns of North Arakan. In March 1978 the operation reached at Buthidaung and Maungdaw. Hundreds of Muslim men and women were thrown into the jail and many of them were being tortured and killed. Muslim women were raped freely in the detention centers. Terrified by the ruthlessness of the operation and total uncertainty of their life, property, honor and dignity, a large number Rohingya Muslims left their homes to cross the Burma-Bangladesh border.[28] Within 3 months more than 3,00,000 Rohingyas took shelter in makeshift camps erected by Bangladesh Government. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) recognized them as genuine refugees and started relief operations.
On 18 July 1991 a more dreadful Rohingya drive extermination campaign code named “Pyi Thaya” was launched. This involved killing and raping of Rohingyas, and destroying their properties, plus places of worship. It forced Rohingyas again to seek shelter in Bangladesh. In recent years, while some Rohingyas have returned to Arakan as a result of Bangladesh-Myanmar bilateral agreement, still there are many who are afraid to return to their ancestral homes.
Due to the divide and rule policy of the Myanmar government, the relationship between the Rakhine and the Rohingya have become increasingly strained without any trust. The Rakhines, as a matter of fact, have become Rohingya’s worst enemies. With very few exceptions, the Rakhines want to cleanse the Arakan of the Rohingya.[29]
In Myanmar, the Rohingyas have been denied their citizenship, uprooted from their ancestral homes and forced to live as refugees and illegal immigrants in Bangladesh. Truly, their plight is worse than those suffered by the Native Americans in the USA and the Mayans in Latin America, and the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories.
Solution to the problem:
The Rohingya people need help to publicize their plight and their right to live as a free nation. The Buddhist military regimes that have ruled Myanmar are brutal, savage and tyrannical. They cannot be either a guarantor or a protector of human rights of minorities. They will use and have been using their barbarity against the minority Rohingyas to justify prolonging their illegitimate ruling in Buddhist-majority Myanmar. So, the plight of the Rohingyas, regrettably, is not a matter of concern for many otherwise good-natured Buddhists. Under the circumstances, the Rohingyas have no way to protect their basic human rights but to opt for freedom. Freedom is a God-given right of all humanity and can neither be denied nor snatched away from disadvantaged groups for either political expediency or diplomatic acrobatics.
The Rohingyas need world body to wake up to the reality of their sufferings and pains. They need to mobilize world bodies, esp. the UN, to grant them the same privilege that has been granted to the people in south Sudan and East Timor. There is no other way to solve this problem now. Citizens around the globe simply cannot afford to remain silent spectators to this gruesome tragedy of our time. They must act and help to solve the problem.
In the meantime, for easing the sufferings of the Rohingya Diaspora community my suggestions are that
The UNHCR must maintain its support for the material well being of Rohingya refugees in camps in Bangladesh.
The UNHCR must continue its direct involvement in refugee protection, ensuring the voluntary nature of refugee returns to Myanmar, and providing logistical support to repatriation as required.
The Government of Bangladesh must cease all pressure on Rohingya refugees to repatriate and consider the possibility of providing options for local integration, with the financial support of international donors.
Notes:
[1]. http://www.freerohingyacampaign.com/
[2]. See, e.g., http://www.bangladesh-web.com/view.php?hidDate=2005-08- 10&hidType=OPT&hidRecord=0000000000000000055839
[3]. The Rohingyas: A Short Account of their History and Culture, Arakan Historical Society (A.H.S), Bangladesh, June 2000. See also: Mohammed Ashraf Alam, Historical Background of Arakan, the SOUVENIR, Arakan Historical Society, Bangladesh, 1999; Moshe Yegar, The Muslims of Burma, A study of Minority groups, Wiesbaden, Otto Harrassowitz, 1972
[4]. In the medieval works of poets of Arakan and Chittagong, e.g., Alaol, Qazi Daulat, Mardan, Shamsher Ali, Ainuddin, Abdul Ghani and others – Arakan is frequently referred as Roshang, Roshango Des and Roshango Shar.
[5]. http://www.rohingya.org/summary.htm
[6]. Mohammed Ashraf Alam, A short historical background of the Arakan people: http://www.rohingyatimes.i-p.com/history/history_maa.html ; M.A. Taher Ba Tha, The Rohingyas and Kamans (in Burmese), Published by United Rohingya National League, Myitkyina (Burma), 1963, P.6 – 7; Maung Than Lwin, Rakhine Kala or Rohingya, The Mya Wadi Magazine, issue July 1960, PP.72-73; N.M Habibullah, Rohingya Jatir Itihas (History of the Rohingyas), Bangladesh Co-Operative Book Society Ltd., Dhaka, 1995, PP.32-33.
[7]. R.B. Smart, Burma Gazetteer – Akyab District, Vol. A, Rangoon, 1957, P.19.
[8]. British-Burma Gazetteers of 1879, page 16
[9]. The essential History of Burma by U Kyi, P.160
[10]. Op. Cit.
[11]. Note the similarity of the word Magh with Mog, Gog and Magog – the Mongolian tribes (also known in history as Scythians). Others contend that the name Magh originated from the Magadha dynasty that was Buddhist by faith.
[12]. Muslim Influence in Arakan and the Muslim Names of Arakanese kings: A Reassessment by Alamgir M. Serajuddin*(From Asiatic Soc. Bangladesh (Hum.), Vol. XXXI (I), June 1986.
[13]. G.E. Harvey, The History of Burma, London (1928), pp. 142-4.
[14]. During Sher Shah’s rule, Chittagong was under his rule. At a later time, it became a zone of contention between Mughal and Arakanese rulers.[15]. Bengal-Arakan Relations (1430-1666 A.D.) by Mohammed Ali Chowdhury, Kolkata, Firma KLM Pvt. Ltd., 2004.
[16]. Alam, op. cit.
[17]. Mohammad Ashraf Alam, op. cit.
[18]. Bangladesh District Gazetteers, P.63 (See: http://www.rohingya.org/not_settler.htm)
[19]. Journal of Burma Research Society (JBRS) No.2. P.493. Historians disagree on whether or not the Arakanese rulers themselves became Muslims. (See: Bengal-Arakan Relations (1430-1666 A.D.) by Mohammed Ali Chowdhury. Kolkata, Firma KLM Pvt. Ltd., 2004; and http://www.rohingyatimes.i-p.com/history/history_maa.html)
[20]. Serajuddin, op. cit.
[21]. The Arakanese Maghs treacherously killed Shuja and his family members in 1661. (G.E. Harvey, Outline of Burmese History, Longmans, London (1947), pp. 95-6)
[22]. Dr. Enamul Haq O Abdul Karim Shahitya Bisharad, Arakan Rajshabhay Bangla Shahitya, Calcutta, 1935, PP. 4-12.
[23]. D.G.E. Hall, A History of South-East Asia, Third Edition 1968, the Macmillan Press Ltd., London, U.K.; G.E Harvey, Outline Burmese History, Longman, Gree & Co., Ltd., London, 1947; Nurul Islam, The Rohingya Muslims of Arakan: Their Past and Present Political Problems, THE MUSLIM MINORITIES, Proceedings of the Six International Conference of World Assembly of Muslim Youths (WAMY), Vol. I, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 1986.
[24]. The SLORC Publication ' Thasana Yongwa Htoonkazepo’ p.65.
[25]. http://www.ibiblio.org/obl/docs3/BNI2005-03-08.htm
[26]. Sultan Mahmud, Muslims in Arakan, The Nation, Rangoon, April 12, 1959.
[27]. ibid.
[28]. Genocide in Burma against the Muslims of Arakan, Rohingya Patriotic Front (RPF), Arakan (Burma), April 11, 1978, PP.2 – 4; Dr. Mohammed Yunus, A History of Arakan Past and Present, 1994, PP.158 – 159.
[29]. Dr. Shwe Lu Maung, Dr. Aye Chan, U Mra Wa, Dr. Khin Maung ( NUPA), and Major Tun Kyaw Oo (president of the Amyothar Party) recognize the Rohingyas birth rights as well as genuine citizenship. Even Dr. Than Tun, rector of Mandalay University and former professor of history, Rangoon University makes strong recommendations on Rohingyas as ethnic group and bonafide citizen of Arakan. (Ref: http://www.ibiblio.org/obl/docs3/BNI2005-03-08.htm)
Source:
by courtesy & © 2005 Habib Siddiqui
(Monday August 15 2005)
"The Rohingyas need world body to wake up to the reality of their sufferings and pains. They need to mobilize world bodies, esp. the UN, to grant them the same privilege that has been granted to the people in south Sudan and East Timor. There is no other way to solve this problem now. Citizens around the globe simply cannot afford to remain silent spectators to this gruesome tragedy of our time. They must act and help to solve the problem."
An often-practiced devious way to grab someone’s land is to deny his right to that property. Nothing could be more horrific when a government itself gets into such a criminal practice. The most glaring example of such a crime can be seen in the practices of the regimes that have ruled Burma (now Myanmar) since its independence from Britain in 1948 (esp. since 1962 when Gen. Ne Win came to power). In our times, one can hardly find a regime that has been so atrocious, so inhuman and so barbarous in its denial of basic human rights to a people that trace their origin to the land for nearly a millennium.[1] The victims are the Rohingya Muslims living in the Arakan (now Rakhine) state. They have become the forgotten people of our time.
The ruling junta in Myanmar do not want to know and let others know that the Rohingyas have a long history, a language, a heritage, a culture and a tradition of their own that they had built up in the Arakan through their long history of existence there. Through their criminal propaganda - to garner support among the Buddhist majority - they have been feeding so much misinformation against the Rohingya that even Joseph Goebbles must be amazed in his grave! The level of disinformation has reached such an alarming level that if you were to talk with a Burmese Buddhist, he/she would say that the Rohingyas are foreigners in Arakan; they don’t belong to Burma; they belong to Bangladesh.[2] Such allegations are unfounded. Distinguished scholar Abdul Karim writes, "In fact the forefathers of Rohingyas had entered into Arakan from time immemorial.”[3]
Brief geography and history about the place and its people:
The word “Rohingya” comes from 'Rohang,' which was the original and ancient name of Arakan.[4] The Arakan State of Myanmar, bordering Bangladesh, is mostly inhabited by two ethnic communities - the Rakhine Buddhist and the Rohingya Muslims. The Rakhine Buddhists are close to the Burmese in religion and language. The Rohingya Muslims are ethnically and religiously related to the people from the region of Chittagong in south-eastern Bangladesh. The Rohingya Muslims number approximately 3.5 million.[5] Due to large-scale persecution through ethnic cleansing and genocidal action against them, about 1.5 million Rohingyas are forced to leave outside their ancestral homes since Burmese independence in 1948. This uprooted people now live in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Thailand and Malaysia.
Origin of the Rohingya:
The original inhabitants of Rohang were Hindus, Buddhists and animists. From the pre-Islamic days, the region was very familiar to the Arab seafarers. Many settled in the Arakan, and mixing with the local people, developed the present stock of people known as ethnic Rohingya. Some historians tell us that the first Muslims to settle the Arakan were Arabs under the leadership of Muhammad ibn Hanafiya in the late 7th century (C.E.). He married the queen Kaiyapuri, who had converted to Islam. Her people then embraced Islam en masse. The peaks where they lived are still known as Hanifa Tonki and Kaiyapui Tonki.[6]
The second major influx of early Muslims dates back to the 8th century (C.E.). The British Burma Gazetteer (1957) says, “About 788 AD Mahataing Sandya ascended the throne of Vesali, founded a new city (Vesali) on the site of old Ramawadi and died after a reign of twenty two years. In his reign several ships were wrecked on Rambree Island and the crews, said to have been Mohammedans, were sent to Arakan Proper and settled in villages. They were Moor Arab Muslims.”[7]
Later, other ethnic groups, namely - the Mughals, Turks, Persians, Central Asians, Pathans and Bengalis - also moved into the territory and mixed with these Rohingya people. The spread of Islam in the Arakan (and along the southern coastal areas of Bangladesh) mostly happened through the sea-borne Sufis and merchants. This fact is testified by the darghas (shrines), which are dotted at the long coast of the Arakan and Myanamar.[8] The Burmese historian U. Kyi writes, “The superior morality of those devout Muslims attracted large number of people towards Islam who embraced it en masse.”[9]
Hence, the Rohingya Muslims, whose settlements in Arakan date back to the 7th century C.E., are not an ethnic group, which developed from one tribal group affiliation or single racial stock, but are an ethnic group that developed from different stocks of people. The ethnic Rohingya is Muslim by religion with distinct culture and civilization of their own.
Origin of the Rakhine:
The other dominant group that lives in the Arakan is the Rakhine Buddhist. In the year 957 C.E., a Mongolian invasion swept over Vesali (Vaisali) - the capital city - and killed Sula Chandra, the last Hindu king of Chandra dynasty. They destroyed Vesali and placed on their throne Mongolian kings. Mohammed Ashraf Alam writes, “Within a few years the Hindus of Bengal were able to establish their Pala Dynasty. But the Hindus of Vesali were unable to restore their dynasty because of the invasion and migrations of Tibeto-Burman who were so great that their population overshadowed the Vesali Hindus. They cut Arakan away from Indians and mixing in sufficient number with the inhabitants of the eastern-side of the present Indo-Burma divide, created that Indo-Mongoloid stock now known as the Rakhine Arakanese. This emergence of a new race was not the work of a single invasion. But the date 957 AD may be said to mark the appearance of the Rakhine in Arakan, and the beginning of fresh period.”[10] They were a wild people much given to plunder, violence, cruelty, kidnapping, enslavement and sea piracy, and came to be known as the Maghs of the Arakan.[11] History researcher Alamgir Serajuddin writes, “Their cruelty, comparable only to that of bargi marauders of later days, was a byword in Bengal. Shihabuddin Talish thus described it: "They carried off the Hindus and Muslims, male and female, great and small, few and many that they could seize, pierced the palms of their hands, passed thin canes through the holes and threw them one above another under the deck of their ships.””[12]
After the Portuguese established their settlements in Chittagong, Sandwip and Arakan during the Mughal rule of India, the Rakhine Maghs entered into a scheme of plundering Mughal territory in Bengal by making an alliance with the Portuguese pirates.[13] So the Magh-Portuguese piracy was a menace to the peace of Bengal until 1666, when the Mughals, under the governorship of Shaista Khan (1664-1688) conquered Chittagong from the Arakanese control.[14] That year (1666) marked the decline of the Arakanese Empire. [The Arakanese (Rakhine) Maghs left Chittagong, never to reoccupy it, which became a part of Bengal (and now Bangladesh).[15]] However, plundering by the Magh-Portuguese pirates continued throughout the 18th century.
Historian G.E. Harvey writes, “Renell’s map of Bengal, published in 1794 AD marks the area south of Backergunge ‘deserted on account of the ravages of the Muggs (Arakanese)’…. The Arakan pirates, both Magh and feringhi, used to come by the water-route and plunder Bengal…. Mohammedans underwent such oppression, as they had not to suffer in Europe. As they continually practiced raids for a long time, Bengal daily became more and more desolate and less and less able to resist them. Not a house was left inhabited on their side of the rivers lying on their track from Chittagong to Dacca. The district of Bakla [Backergunge and part of Dacca], which formerly abounded in houses and cultivated fields and yield a large revenue as duty on betel-nuts, was swept so clean with their broom of plunder and abduction that none was left to tenant any house or kindle a light in that region. …… When Shayista Khan asked the feringhi deserters, what salary the Magh king had assigned to them, they replied, ‘Our salary was the Mughal Empire. We considered the whole of Bengal as our fief. We had not to bother revenue surveyors and ourselves about court clerks but levied our rent all the year round without difficulty. We have kept the papers of the division of the booty for the last forty years.’”[16]
Because of their centuries of savagery, the Maghs of Arakan earned such a bad name that they started calling themselves the Rakhines.[17]
The Rakhines practice Buddhism and their spoken language is pure Burmese with slight phonetic variation.
Muslim Influence in Arakan:
Arakan, sandwiched between Muslim-ruled India in the west and Buddhist-ruled Burma in the east, at different periods of history, had been an independent sovereign monarchy ruled by Hindus, Buddhists and Muslims. As the threat from the Burmese court of Ava grew, it turned westward for protection. After Bengal became Muslim in 1203 C.E., Islamic influence grew significantly in Arakan to the degree of establishing a Muslim vassal state there in 1430 C.E. In 1404, the Arakan king, dethroned by the Burmese, took asylum in Gaur (the capital of Bengal) and pleaded for help to regain the lost throne. Jalaluddin Muhammad Shah, the Sultan of Bengal, sent General Wali Khan at the head of 50,000 soldiers to conquer Arakan. Wali Khan drove the Burmese and took control of power over Arakan for himself, introduced Persian as the court language of Arakan and appointed Muslim judges (Qazis).[18] Jalaluddin then sent a second army under General Sandi Khan who overthrew Wali Khan and restored the exiled monarch (Mong Saw Mwan who took the title of Sulayman Shah) to the throne of Arakan in 1430.[19]
Mong Saw Mwan’s Muslim soldiers settled in Arakan and established the Sandi Khan mosque in Mrhaung. They eventually became the kingmakers during the Mrauk-U dynasty. The practice of adopting a Muslim name or title by the Arakanese kings continued until 1638. Bisveswar Bhattacharya sums up the position thus, “As the Mohammedan influence was predominant, the Arakanese kings, though Buddhist in religion, became somewhat Mohammedanized in their ideas…”[20]
In 1660, the Mughal Prince Shah Shuja fled to Arakan. This important event brought a new wave of Muslim immigrants to the kingdom of Arakan.[21]
Dr. Muhammad Enamul Haq and Abdul Karim Shahitya Bisharad in their work “Bengali Literature in the Court of Arakan 1600-1700” state that “[T]he Arakanese kings issued coins bearing the inscription of Muslim Kalema (the profession of faith in Islam) in Arabic script. The State emblem was also inscribed Arabic word Aqimuddin (establishment of God’s rule over the earth).” The Arakanese court’s adoption of many Muslim customs and terms were other noteworthy signs to the influence of Islam. Mosques began to dot the countryside and Islamic customs, manners and practices came to be established since this time.[22]
From 1685 to 1710, the political power of Arakan was completely in the hand of the Muslims. Muslim rule and/or influence in Arakan lasted altogether for approx. 350 years until it was invaded and occupied by Burmese king Boddaw Paya on 28 December 1784. The latter is responsible for destroying everything Islamic in Arakan and sowing the seed of distrust between the two communities – Rohingya and Rakhine.
Arakan in post-1784 era:
Arakan was neither a Burmese nor an Indian territory till 1784. It had managed to retain its independent (or semi-independent) status for most of its existence. In 1784 thousands of Arakanese, Rohingya and Buddhists alike, were killed, and their mosques, dargas and temples destroyed by the Burmese soldiers. During the 40-year Burmese tyrannical rule (1784-1824), nearly two-thirds or 200,000 Arakanese were forced to take refuge in Chittagong (Bengal).
The First Anglo-Burmese War (1824-26) ended on 24 February 1826 when Burma ratified the Treaty of Yandabo and ceded Arakan and Tenasserim to British India. At that time, nearly a third of the population of Arakan was Muslims. Burma was separated from British India on 1 April 1937 under the Government of India Act of 1935. Arakan was made a part of British Burma against the wishes of its people and thus finally Arakan became a province of independent Burma in 1948.[23]
For centuries, the Rohingya Muslims coexisted relatively peacefully with the Rakhine Buddhists.[24] However, this changed around the Second World War, when communal riots erupted between the two ethnic groups at the instigation of third parties, most notably the British Raj. The bitterness was fuelled by the pogrom of March 28, 1942 in which about 100,000 Rohingyas were massacred and about 80,000 had to flee their ancestral homes.[25] 294 Rohingya villages were totally destroyed.[26] Since then the relationship between the two communities deteriorated.
After Burma’s independence in 1948, Muslims carried out an unsuccessful armed rebellion demanding an autonomous state within the Union of Burma. This resulted in a backlash against the Muslims that led to their removal from civil posts, restrictions on their movement, and confiscation of their property.[27]
Under the military regime of General Ne Win, beginning in 1962, the Muslim residents of Arakan were labeled illegal immigrants who settled in Burma during British rule. The government at the center made efforts to drive them out of Burma, starting with the denial of citizenship. The 1974 Emergency Immigration Act took away Burmese nationality from the Rohingyas, making them foreigners in their own country.
As of 1999, there have been no less than 20 major operations of eviction campaigns against the Rohingyas carried out by the successive Governments of Burma. In pursuance of the 20-year Rohingya Extermination Plan, the Arakan State Council under direct supervision of State Council of Burma carried out a Rohingya drive operation code named Naga Min or King Dragon Operation. It was the largest, the most notorious and probably the best-documented operation of 1978. The operation started on 6th February 1978 from the biggest Muslim village of Sakkipara in Akyab, which sent shock waves over the whole region within a short time. News of mass arrest of Muslims, male and female, young and old, torture, rape and killing in Akyab frustrated Muslims in other towns of North Arakan. In March 1978 the operation reached at Buthidaung and Maungdaw. Hundreds of Muslim men and women were thrown into the jail and many of them were being tortured and killed. Muslim women were raped freely in the detention centers. Terrified by the ruthlessness of the operation and total uncertainty of their life, property, honor and dignity, a large number Rohingya Muslims left their homes to cross the Burma-Bangladesh border.[28] Within 3 months more than 3,00,000 Rohingyas took shelter in makeshift camps erected by Bangladesh Government. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) recognized them as genuine refugees and started relief operations.
On 18 July 1991 a more dreadful Rohingya drive extermination campaign code named “Pyi Thaya” was launched. This involved killing and raping of Rohingyas, and destroying their properties, plus places of worship. It forced Rohingyas again to seek shelter in Bangladesh. In recent years, while some Rohingyas have returned to Arakan as a result of Bangladesh-Myanmar bilateral agreement, still there are many who are afraid to return to their ancestral homes.
Due to the divide and rule policy of the Myanmar government, the relationship between the Rakhine and the Rohingya have become increasingly strained without any trust. The Rakhines, as a matter of fact, have become Rohingya’s worst enemies. With very few exceptions, the Rakhines want to cleanse the Arakan of the Rohingya.[29]
In Myanmar, the Rohingyas have been denied their citizenship, uprooted from their ancestral homes and forced to live as refugees and illegal immigrants in Bangladesh. Truly, their plight is worse than those suffered by the Native Americans in the USA and the Mayans in Latin America, and the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories.
Solution to the problem:
The Rohingya people need help to publicize their plight and their right to live as a free nation. The Buddhist military regimes that have ruled Myanmar are brutal, savage and tyrannical. They cannot be either a guarantor or a protector of human rights of minorities. They will use and have been using their barbarity against the minority Rohingyas to justify prolonging their illegitimate ruling in Buddhist-majority Myanmar. So, the plight of the Rohingyas, regrettably, is not a matter of concern for many otherwise good-natured Buddhists. Under the circumstances, the Rohingyas have no way to protect their basic human rights but to opt for freedom. Freedom is a God-given right of all humanity and can neither be denied nor snatched away from disadvantaged groups for either political expediency or diplomatic acrobatics.
The Rohingyas need world body to wake up to the reality of their sufferings and pains. They need to mobilize world bodies, esp. the UN, to grant them the same privilege that has been granted to the people in south Sudan and East Timor. There is no other way to solve this problem now. Citizens around the globe simply cannot afford to remain silent spectators to this gruesome tragedy of our time. They must act and help to solve the problem.
In the meantime, for easing the sufferings of the Rohingya Diaspora community my suggestions are that
The UNHCR must maintain its support for the material well being of Rohingya refugees in camps in Bangladesh.
The UNHCR must continue its direct involvement in refugee protection, ensuring the voluntary nature of refugee returns to Myanmar, and providing logistical support to repatriation as required.
The Government of Bangladesh must cease all pressure on Rohingya refugees to repatriate and consider the possibility of providing options for local integration, with the financial support of international donors.
Notes:
[1]. http://www.freerohingyacampaign.com/
[2]. See, e.g., http://www.bangladesh-web.com/view.php?hidDate=2005-08- 10&hidType=OPT&hidRecord=0000000000000000055839
[3]. The Rohingyas: A Short Account of their History and Culture, Arakan Historical Society (A.H.S), Bangladesh, June 2000. See also: Mohammed Ashraf Alam, Historical Background of Arakan, the SOUVENIR, Arakan Historical Society, Bangladesh, 1999; Moshe Yegar, The Muslims of Burma, A study of Minority groups, Wiesbaden, Otto Harrassowitz, 1972
[4]. In the medieval works of poets of Arakan and Chittagong, e.g., Alaol, Qazi Daulat, Mardan, Shamsher Ali, Ainuddin, Abdul Ghani and others – Arakan is frequently referred as Roshang, Roshango Des and Roshango Shar.
[5]. http://www.rohingya.org/summary.htm
[6]. Mohammed Ashraf Alam, A short historical background of the Arakan people: http://www.rohingyatimes.i-p.com/history/history_maa.html ; M.A. Taher Ba Tha, The Rohingyas and Kamans (in Burmese), Published by United Rohingya National League, Myitkyina (Burma), 1963, P.6 – 7; Maung Than Lwin, Rakhine Kala or Rohingya, The Mya Wadi Magazine, issue July 1960, PP.72-73; N.M Habibullah, Rohingya Jatir Itihas (History of the Rohingyas), Bangladesh Co-Operative Book Society Ltd., Dhaka, 1995, PP.32-33.
[7]. R.B. Smart, Burma Gazetteer – Akyab District, Vol. A, Rangoon, 1957, P.19.
[8]. British-Burma Gazetteers of 1879, page 16
[9]. The essential History of Burma by U Kyi, P.160
[10]. Op. Cit.
[11]. Note the similarity of the word Magh with Mog, Gog and Magog – the Mongolian tribes (also known in history as Scythians). Others contend that the name Magh originated from the Magadha dynasty that was Buddhist by faith.
[12]. Muslim Influence in Arakan and the Muslim Names of Arakanese kings: A Reassessment by Alamgir M. Serajuddin*(From Asiatic Soc. Bangladesh (Hum.), Vol. XXXI (I), June 1986.
[13]. G.E. Harvey, The History of Burma, London (1928), pp. 142-4.
[14]. During Sher Shah’s rule, Chittagong was under his rule. At a later time, it became a zone of contention between Mughal and Arakanese rulers.[15]. Bengal-Arakan Relations (1430-1666 A.D.) by Mohammed Ali Chowdhury, Kolkata, Firma KLM Pvt. Ltd., 2004.
[16]. Alam, op. cit.
[17]. Mohammad Ashraf Alam, op. cit.
[18]. Bangladesh District Gazetteers, P.63 (See: http://www.rohingya.org/not_settler.htm)
[19]. Journal of Burma Research Society (JBRS) No.2. P.493. Historians disagree on whether or not the Arakanese rulers themselves became Muslims. (See: Bengal-Arakan Relations (1430-1666 A.D.) by Mohammed Ali Chowdhury. Kolkata, Firma KLM Pvt. Ltd., 2004; and http://www.rohingyatimes.i-p.com/history/history_maa.html)
[20]. Serajuddin, op. cit.
[21]. The Arakanese Maghs treacherously killed Shuja and his family members in 1661. (G.E. Harvey, Outline of Burmese History, Longmans, London (1947), pp. 95-6)
[22]. Dr. Enamul Haq O Abdul Karim Shahitya Bisharad, Arakan Rajshabhay Bangla Shahitya, Calcutta, 1935, PP. 4-12.
[23]. D.G.E. Hall, A History of South-East Asia, Third Edition 1968, the Macmillan Press Ltd., London, U.K.; G.E Harvey, Outline Burmese History, Longman, Gree & Co., Ltd., London, 1947; Nurul Islam, The Rohingya Muslims of Arakan: Their Past and Present Political Problems, THE MUSLIM MINORITIES, Proceedings of the Six International Conference of World Assembly of Muslim Youths (WAMY), Vol. I, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 1986.
[24]. The SLORC Publication ' Thasana Yongwa Htoonkazepo’ p.65.
[25]. http://www.ibiblio.org/obl/docs3/BNI2005-03-08.htm
[26]. Sultan Mahmud, Muslims in Arakan, The Nation, Rangoon, April 12, 1959.
[27]. ibid.
[28]. Genocide in Burma against the Muslims of Arakan, Rohingya Patriotic Front (RPF), Arakan (Burma), April 11, 1978, PP.2 – 4; Dr. Mohammed Yunus, A History of Arakan Past and Present, 1994, PP.158 – 159.
[29]. Dr. Shwe Lu Maung, Dr. Aye Chan, U Mra Wa, Dr. Khin Maung ( NUPA), and Major Tun Kyaw Oo (president of the Amyothar Party) recognize the Rohingyas birth rights as well as genuine citizenship. Even Dr. Than Tun, rector of Mandalay University and former professor of history, Rangoon University makes strong recommendations on Rohingyas as ethnic group and bonafide citizen of Arakan. (Ref: http://www.ibiblio.org/obl/docs3/BNI2005-03-08.htm)
Source:
by courtesy & © 2005 Habib Siddiqui
Geo-political and Geo-strategic Designs of China and Russia in Central Asia: Implications for USA and rest of the region
by Mehmood-Ul-Hassan Khan
(Monday August 15 2005)
"Beijing, Moscow and Washington are once again using Central Asia, the setting for the "Great Game" between Tsarist Russia and Victorian England over 150 years ago, as their game board in a region rarely neglected by the world's great powers. In the contemporary version of the game, Washington approaches each state bilaterally, offering incentives to support the operations in Afghanistan while undermining the consensus put forth at the recent SCO meeting."
Central Asia is full of natural resources of oil and gas. It has become geo-political and geo-strategic flashpoint for the Russia, China and the least not the least US. All the countries need easy and smooth supply of oil and gas for their respective national economies. It is the lesson of international politics and power game that “Conflicting” geo-political and geo-strategic realties make “unending enmity into cemented friendship”. Russia and China do not like the increasing socio-economic and geo-strategic influence of US in the Central Asian countries. In the every corner of the world, people and countries alike are afraid of the unilateral “Superpower Phobia” of USA. From Bulgaria to Romania, Azerbaijan to, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan to Turkey, Georgia to, Algeria and Nigeria to Afghanistan and the last not the least Iraq the hectic military deployment and establishment of new bases of the US especially after the 9/11 has created colossal geo-political and geo-strategic changes around the globe. The most significant of these changes is the emergence of possible new geo-political and geo-strategic ties between China and Russia.
The U.S. policy of politically and militarily penetrating Central Asia has multiple interrelated geo-strategic purposes too, the main ones being:
To increase political influence and military presence in most of the Central Asia region so that to stop “Re-Establishment Of Russian Hegemony” over its ’Near Abroad”, and if possible to contribute toward Russia's long-term decline and ultimate disintegration.
To use its effective military presence in Central Asia to threaten “China's western Borders”, thereby to round out U.S. military encirclement of the “Asian Dragon” and thus to gradually decrease its political, economic, and military capabilities as a potential rival and economic threat to the United States in the future. Central Asia, being in the "Backyards" of both China and Russia, is militarily much more important to both the countries than it is to the U.S. Hence both Beijing and Moscow would be willing to take greater risks and, if need be, pay a higher price in military confrontation with the U.S. over issues in Central Asia. China and Russia have only grudgingly tolerated the US strategic presence in Central Asia. Both are clearly concerned that permanent “American Bases” in the region would be primarily designed to limit “Beijing’s and Moscow’s Own Influence” in Central Asia. The US base issue appears to be an increasingly sensitive topic for Russian leaders. Moscow accepted US bases in Central Asia only for the duration of the Afghan anti-terrorism operation, and for not unlimited time. The “Manas Base” being built in Kyrgyzstan base is 250 miles from the western Chinese border. With US bases to the east in Japan, to the south in South Korea, and Washington's military support for Taiwan, China may feel encircled.
To uproot the Taliban and other terrorists in the region. No doubt the region is also rich in energy resources, and the United States has recently supported a new oil pipeline from Baku, Azerbaijan, to Ceyhan, Turkey. The author of “The New Great Game: Blood and Oil in Central Asia” Lutz Klevema is of the opinion that the United States is really after the region’s oil. But others say the U.S. presence in Central Asia is aimed more at curbing the influence of Moscow in the region. “A fundamental objective” of the U.S. government is to prevent any neo-imperial revival.
To take steps in Central Asia and its environs aimed simultaneously at increasing the “Diversity Of Oil And Gas Supplies” for the U.S. and at minimizing China's influence in Central Asia, especially to limit its access to oil and gas from that region.
Right after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Washington enticed the Central Asia republics, through financial rewards, into agreeing to joint military exercises with U.S. troops and to block the possible geo-political and geo-strategic influences of China and Russia.
Great power and blame game started with the increasing military bases of US in most of Central Asian countries especially after the 9/11. But now both the countries realized the dangerous multidimensional implications of the US increasing military influence in the region. That was why Russia and China took a joint stance against the US dangerous interests in Central Asia region on the eve of the recent G8 summit. Both the countries again took combined stance against the persistent dirty power politics of uni-polarism. The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation [SCO], a grouping of China, Russia and four Central Asian republics, issued an unprecedented statement at a summit meeting on July 5 2005 in Kazakhstan calling on the United States to set a deadline for the removal of its military bases in Central Asia. Three days later, the lower house of the Russian parliament ratified a 15-year bilateral agreement between Russia and Kyrgyzstan to double the number of Russian troops at its airbase at Kant, east of Bishkek.
The SCO declaration demonstrates that Russia and China are taking tentative steps to challenge the US military presence in Central Asia. The hawks sitting in the current establishment of Mr. Bush the President of US in Washington and Pentagon took a swift steps to defuse the aims of joint statements of Russia and China and U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld traveled to the region to shore up support for maintaining its bilateral agreements with the key players of the region. Over the past several years, Washington’s presence in Central Asia has provoked growing nervousness among the regional countries. While the invasion of Afghanistan was camouflaged as a war to eradicate terrorism, the true aim was to realize long-held US strategic ambitions to deploy military forces for the first time into the Central Asian territories of the former Soviet Union and attempt to assert dominance over the resource-rich area. From the bases it now controls, the US is able to exert a continuous threat against countries in the region, including Russia, China and Iran.
But it is seemed that people and even rulers did not impress with the initiatives and promises made by the US Secretary of Defense. Meanwhile, the Uzbekistan's Foreign Ministry summarily notified the US Embassy in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, that US forces would be evicted from the Karshi-Khanabad (K2) air base; the only US military facility in the country. The eviction notice gives the US 180 days to move aircraft, personnel and military equipment from the base in southern Uzbekistan. The notice came days after US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld returned from a visit to Uzbekistan's neighbors Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. In Kyrgyzstan, observers claim that President Kurmanbek Bakiyev was forced to reconsider because of some attractive offer from overseas that he couldn't refuse.
Before the Shanghai Cooperation Organization [SCO] meeting, the leaders of both the countries met at the Kremlin on July 1 2005 to discuss their mutual goals and short and long terms geo-political and geo-strategic interests in Central Asia and the agenda of upcoming G8 summit. They thoroughly discussed the Washington's role in Central Asia. After the meeting there was a strong commitment for having greater cooperation, desire to solve their long-standing border disputes from the legal perspective, and laid the foundation for greater integration of their state-controlled oil companies and banking systems. The "Joint Statement” of the People's Republic of China and the Russian Federation Regarding the International Order of the 21st Century," signed by Chinese President Hu Jintao and Russian President Vladimir Putin on July 2, addresses U.S. hegemony in several less-than-oblique passages. China also has definite strategic interests in Central Asia. Beijing has financed a network of pipelines in Central Asia to Xinjiang province as an alternative source of oil supplies from the Middle East. US predominance in the region, or US-inspired political instability, could disrupt China’s plans, as well as potentially encourage ethnic unrest in Xinjiang a Muslim dominated area.
Since the establishment of their geo-strategic partnership, bilateral trade between Russia and China has risen dramatically and is expected to grow 20 percent from $21.2 billion in 2004. By 2010, the trade could reach $60-$80 billion. China is planning to increase its oil imports from Russia by 50 percent in 2005 to 70 million barrels. Chinese oil companies are investigating major investments in Russian energy companies. Over $6 billion in Chinese loans have already been provided to Rosneft, the main state-owned oil exporter to China. A central focus of China’s interest is Siberia. Nearly half of all the proven oil reserves of the former USSR are in the region, as are 70 percent of all Russia’s coal reserves. It is Russia’s largest producer of oil, the second largest for coal and a major centre of metal industries. Some 140 out of some 200 largest enterprises in Siberia are weapon manufacturers, whose main customer is China.
Alongside the economic linkage, China and Russia are strengthening their military ties. The two countries are preparing their first joint military excise, to be conducted in China, involving 80,000 troops. Russia intends to send warships, ground forces and long-range bombers. Although both sides have denied that the exercise is aimed at any country, there is little doubt that it is a response to the eruption of US aggression since 2001 and the growing uncertainties in world politics.
The joint statement emphasized non-interference in internal affairs, mutual respect for other nations' sovereignty, and stresses the role of "multi-polarity in dealing with conflicts. The text of joint statement again stressed, “the peoples of all countries should be free to decide their domestic affairs and emerging world affairs and conflicts should be decided through rigorous dialogue and consultation on a multilateral and collective basis. The use of military power to solve any regional and global conflict should be discouraged. Any country especially supper power should not divide countries into a leading camp and a subordinate camp (one of the characteristic of US foreign policy). It is further desired that the international community should establish an economic and trade regime that is comprehensive and widely accepted and that operates through the means of holding negotiations on an equal footing, discarding the practice of applying pressure and sanctions to coerce unilateral economic concessions, and bringing into play the roles of global and regional multilateral organizations and mechanisms.
China National Offshore Oil Company Ltd [CNOOC] fired back its successful bid for the purchase of California-based Unocal, putting an end to its 40-day merger bid for the US Company, which triggered an unexpected political storm in the US. But “Protectionist” measures already taken by US, EU against the textile products of China and recently Japan against US steel products show the other side of the WTO and globalization of international markets and philosophy of free trade. Both the countries wish to present an alternative marketplace for developing countries to sell their goods. China has been able to successfully use the widely expected expansion of its domestic market to sell that alternative source of revenue to countries annoyed by the I.M.F. or World Bank, from South America to Africa. Now it hopes to further cement such a relationship with the states of Central Asia.
In the joint statement, China and Russia sent a clear message to the other members of the SCO that US poses a potential threat to Central Asia's sovereignty and China and Russia can offer a similar economic and security package, only it will be designed to preserve the current status quo not to encourage market economies or democratic reforms. Most of the sates of Central Asia are now more than eager to coordinate with the regional power brokers i.e. China and Russia, keeping in view the increasing poured money of US in their domestic elections to get desired results, undue influence in their national decision making regarding the distribution channels of oil & gas and the last not the least occurrence of military bases. The six nations of the SCO China, Russia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan met in Astana, Kazakhstan on July 5 2005 discussed the changing political situation in Central Asia and adopted anti-terrorism resolution to control terrorism, separatism and extremism. India, Pakistan and Iran participated the meeting as observer.
The environment of the SCO meeting was most influenced by the reaction to Uzbekistan's violent suppression of the May rebellion in Andijan. Western criticism of Uzbek President Islam Karimov's tactics brought to the surface the fears that the clan-based governments of Central Asia might fall in a wave of "color" revolutions, similar to that of Ukraine's "orange" revolution. Russia and China provided blanket support for Karimov after the suppression, while Washington could only offer baseless criticism, fearing that intense criticism of Karimov would result in the loss of access to the Karshi-Khanabad air base, or K2, used to support U.S. operations in Afghanistan; nevertheless, the loss of this base now appears a likely scenario. After the joint statement of SCO Washington used every possible tactics to threaten the Central Asian countries. Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine’s governments promised to be loyal to US in the region. Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan shifted their support to China and Russia in order to protect their sovereignty from U.S. meddling.
Conclusion
Right from the beginning of human civilization, “Power” has had been playing vital role in the formation of a tribe, society or a country. The lust to gain more power has been the hallmark of modern political history too. Country needs to have power in order to counter the greater power “Dracula” and that merciless march/process goes on and on.
Conflicting geo-political supply &demand and geo-strategic compulsions use to force countries to search a “Safe Heaven” on earth. In the game of power politics principles have no meaning and matter of “Survival” dictates the songs of democracy, human rights, justice, global brotherhood, war on terror, hot pursuit of resources, and the last not the least international peace. It is also bitter reality that power does justify all the ill intentions and wrong doings of a power-holder. In the rapidly changing regional and global geo-political and geo-strategic scenarios especially in the Central Asian Region the risen “Economic Dragon Power” China, and the “Old Lion” Russia has initiated some meaningful geo-political and geo-strategic steps to counter the increasing military and influence and greater socio-economic participation of US.
Beijing, Moscow and Washington are once again using Central Asia, the setting for the "Great Game" between Tsarist Russia and Victorian England over 150 years ago, as their game board in a region rarely neglected by the world's great powers. In the contemporary version of the game, Washington approaches each state bilaterally, offering incentives to support the operations in Afghanistan while undermining the consensus put forth at the recent SCO meeting.
Source:
by courtesy & © 2005 Mehmood-Ul-Hassan Khan
(Monday August 15 2005)
"Beijing, Moscow and Washington are once again using Central Asia, the setting for the "Great Game" between Tsarist Russia and Victorian England over 150 years ago, as their game board in a region rarely neglected by the world's great powers. In the contemporary version of the game, Washington approaches each state bilaterally, offering incentives to support the operations in Afghanistan while undermining the consensus put forth at the recent SCO meeting."
Central Asia is full of natural resources of oil and gas. It has become geo-political and geo-strategic flashpoint for the Russia, China and the least not the least US. All the countries need easy and smooth supply of oil and gas for their respective national economies. It is the lesson of international politics and power game that “Conflicting” geo-political and geo-strategic realties make “unending enmity into cemented friendship”. Russia and China do not like the increasing socio-economic and geo-strategic influence of US in the Central Asian countries. In the every corner of the world, people and countries alike are afraid of the unilateral “Superpower Phobia” of USA. From Bulgaria to Romania, Azerbaijan to, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan to Turkey, Georgia to, Algeria and Nigeria to Afghanistan and the last not the least Iraq the hectic military deployment and establishment of new bases of the US especially after the 9/11 has created colossal geo-political and geo-strategic changes around the globe. The most significant of these changes is the emergence of possible new geo-political and geo-strategic ties between China and Russia.
The U.S. policy of politically and militarily penetrating Central Asia has multiple interrelated geo-strategic purposes too, the main ones being:
To increase political influence and military presence in most of the Central Asia region so that to stop “Re-Establishment Of Russian Hegemony” over its ’Near Abroad”, and if possible to contribute toward Russia's long-term decline and ultimate disintegration.
To use its effective military presence in Central Asia to threaten “China's western Borders”, thereby to round out U.S. military encirclement of the “Asian Dragon” and thus to gradually decrease its political, economic, and military capabilities as a potential rival and economic threat to the United States in the future. Central Asia, being in the "Backyards" of both China and Russia, is militarily much more important to both the countries than it is to the U.S. Hence both Beijing and Moscow would be willing to take greater risks and, if need be, pay a higher price in military confrontation with the U.S. over issues in Central Asia. China and Russia have only grudgingly tolerated the US strategic presence in Central Asia. Both are clearly concerned that permanent “American Bases” in the region would be primarily designed to limit “Beijing’s and Moscow’s Own Influence” in Central Asia. The US base issue appears to be an increasingly sensitive topic for Russian leaders. Moscow accepted US bases in Central Asia only for the duration of the Afghan anti-terrorism operation, and for not unlimited time. The “Manas Base” being built in Kyrgyzstan base is 250 miles from the western Chinese border. With US bases to the east in Japan, to the south in South Korea, and Washington's military support for Taiwan, China may feel encircled.
To uproot the Taliban and other terrorists in the region. No doubt the region is also rich in energy resources, and the United States has recently supported a new oil pipeline from Baku, Azerbaijan, to Ceyhan, Turkey. The author of “The New Great Game: Blood and Oil in Central Asia” Lutz Klevema is of the opinion that the United States is really after the region’s oil. But others say the U.S. presence in Central Asia is aimed more at curbing the influence of Moscow in the region. “A fundamental objective” of the U.S. government is to prevent any neo-imperial revival.
To take steps in Central Asia and its environs aimed simultaneously at increasing the “Diversity Of Oil And Gas Supplies” for the U.S. and at minimizing China's influence in Central Asia, especially to limit its access to oil and gas from that region.
Right after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Washington enticed the Central Asia republics, through financial rewards, into agreeing to joint military exercises with U.S. troops and to block the possible geo-political and geo-strategic influences of China and Russia.
Great power and blame game started with the increasing military bases of US in most of Central Asian countries especially after the 9/11. But now both the countries realized the dangerous multidimensional implications of the US increasing military influence in the region. That was why Russia and China took a joint stance against the US dangerous interests in Central Asia region on the eve of the recent G8 summit. Both the countries again took combined stance against the persistent dirty power politics of uni-polarism. The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation [SCO], a grouping of China, Russia and four Central Asian republics, issued an unprecedented statement at a summit meeting on July 5 2005 in Kazakhstan calling on the United States to set a deadline for the removal of its military bases in Central Asia. Three days later, the lower house of the Russian parliament ratified a 15-year bilateral agreement between Russia and Kyrgyzstan to double the number of Russian troops at its airbase at Kant, east of Bishkek.
The SCO declaration demonstrates that Russia and China are taking tentative steps to challenge the US military presence in Central Asia. The hawks sitting in the current establishment of Mr. Bush the President of US in Washington and Pentagon took a swift steps to defuse the aims of joint statements of Russia and China and U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld traveled to the region to shore up support for maintaining its bilateral agreements with the key players of the region. Over the past several years, Washington’s presence in Central Asia has provoked growing nervousness among the regional countries. While the invasion of Afghanistan was camouflaged as a war to eradicate terrorism, the true aim was to realize long-held US strategic ambitions to deploy military forces for the first time into the Central Asian territories of the former Soviet Union and attempt to assert dominance over the resource-rich area. From the bases it now controls, the US is able to exert a continuous threat against countries in the region, including Russia, China and Iran.
But it is seemed that people and even rulers did not impress with the initiatives and promises made by the US Secretary of Defense. Meanwhile, the Uzbekistan's Foreign Ministry summarily notified the US Embassy in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, that US forces would be evicted from the Karshi-Khanabad (K2) air base; the only US military facility in the country. The eviction notice gives the US 180 days to move aircraft, personnel and military equipment from the base in southern Uzbekistan. The notice came days after US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld returned from a visit to Uzbekistan's neighbors Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. In Kyrgyzstan, observers claim that President Kurmanbek Bakiyev was forced to reconsider because of some attractive offer from overseas that he couldn't refuse.
Before the Shanghai Cooperation Organization [SCO] meeting, the leaders of both the countries met at the Kremlin on July 1 2005 to discuss their mutual goals and short and long terms geo-political and geo-strategic interests in Central Asia and the agenda of upcoming G8 summit. They thoroughly discussed the Washington's role in Central Asia. After the meeting there was a strong commitment for having greater cooperation, desire to solve their long-standing border disputes from the legal perspective, and laid the foundation for greater integration of their state-controlled oil companies and banking systems. The "Joint Statement” of the People's Republic of China and the Russian Federation Regarding the International Order of the 21st Century," signed by Chinese President Hu Jintao and Russian President Vladimir Putin on July 2, addresses U.S. hegemony in several less-than-oblique passages. China also has definite strategic interests in Central Asia. Beijing has financed a network of pipelines in Central Asia to Xinjiang province as an alternative source of oil supplies from the Middle East. US predominance in the region, or US-inspired political instability, could disrupt China’s plans, as well as potentially encourage ethnic unrest in Xinjiang a Muslim dominated area.
Since the establishment of their geo-strategic partnership, bilateral trade between Russia and China has risen dramatically and is expected to grow 20 percent from $21.2 billion in 2004. By 2010, the trade could reach $60-$80 billion. China is planning to increase its oil imports from Russia by 50 percent in 2005 to 70 million barrels. Chinese oil companies are investigating major investments in Russian energy companies. Over $6 billion in Chinese loans have already been provided to Rosneft, the main state-owned oil exporter to China. A central focus of China’s interest is Siberia. Nearly half of all the proven oil reserves of the former USSR are in the region, as are 70 percent of all Russia’s coal reserves. It is Russia’s largest producer of oil, the second largest for coal and a major centre of metal industries. Some 140 out of some 200 largest enterprises in Siberia are weapon manufacturers, whose main customer is China.
Alongside the economic linkage, China and Russia are strengthening their military ties. The two countries are preparing their first joint military excise, to be conducted in China, involving 80,000 troops. Russia intends to send warships, ground forces and long-range bombers. Although both sides have denied that the exercise is aimed at any country, there is little doubt that it is a response to the eruption of US aggression since 2001 and the growing uncertainties in world politics.
The joint statement emphasized non-interference in internal affairs, mutual respect for other nations' sovereignty, and stresses the role of "multi-polarity in dealing with conflicts. The text of joint statement again stressed, “the peoples of all countries should be free to decide their domestic affairs and emerging world affairs and conflicts should be decided through rigorous dialogue and consultation on a multilateral and collective basis. The use of military power to solve any regional and global conflict should be discouraged. Any country especially supper power should not divide countries into a leading camp and a subordinate camp (one of the characteristic of US foreign policy). It is further desired that the international community should establish an economic and trade regime that is comprehensive and widely accepted and that operates through the means of holding negotiations on an equal footing, discarding the practice of applying pressure and sanctions to coerce unilateral economic concessions, and bringing into play the roles of global and regional multilateral organizations and mechanisms.
China National Offshore Oil Company Ltd [CNOOC] fired back its successful bid for the purchase of California-based Unocal, putting an end to its 40-day merger bid for the US Company, which triggered an unexpected political storm in the US. But “Protectionist” measures already taken by US, EU against the textile products of China and recently Japan against US steel products show the other side of the WTO and globalization of international markets and philosophy of free trade. Both the countries wish to present an alternative marketplace for developing countries to sell their goods. China has been able to successfully use the widely expected expansion of its domestic market to sell that alternative source of revenue to countries annoyed by the I.M.F. or World Bank, from South America to Africa. Now it hopes to further cement such a relationship with the states of Central Asia.
In the joint statement, China and Russia sent a clear message to the other members of the SCO that US poses a potential threat to Central Asia's sovereignty and China and Russia can offer a similar economic and security package, only it will be designed to preserve the current status quo not to encourage market economies or democratic reforms. Most of the sates of Central Asia are now more than eager to coordinate with the regional power brokers i.e. China and Russia, keeping in view the increasing poured money of US in their domestic elections to get desired results, undue influence in their national decision making regarding the distribution channels of oil & gas and the last not the least occurrence of military bases. The six nations of the SCO China, Russia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan met in Astana, Kazakhstan on July 5 2005 discussed the changing political situation in Central Asia and adopted anti-terrorism resolution to control terrorism, separatism and extremism. India, Pakistan and Iran participated the meeting as observer.
The environment of the SCO meeting was most influenced by the reaction to Uzbekistan's violent suppression of the May rebellion in Andijan. Western criticism of Uzbek President Islam Karimov's tactics brought to the surface the fears that the clan-based governments of Central Asia might fall in a wave of "color" revolutions, similar to that of Ukraine's "orange" revolution. Russia and China provided blanket support for Karimov after the suppression, while Washington could only offer baseless criticism, fearing that intense criticism of Karimov would result in the loss of access to the Karshi-Khanabad air base, or K2, used to support U.S. operations in Afghanistan; nevertheless, the loss of this base now appears a likely scenario. After the joint statement of SCO Washington used every possible tactics to threaten the Central Asian countries. Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine’s governments promised to be loyal to US in the region. Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan shifted their support to China and Russia in order to protect their sovereignty from U.S. meddling.
Conclusion
Right from the beginning of human civilization, “Power” has had been playing vital role in the formation of a tribe, society or a country. The lust to gain more power has been the hallmark of modern political history too. Country needs to have power in order to counter the greater power “Dracula” and that merciless march/process goes on and on.
Conflicting geo-political supply &demand and geo-strategic compulsions use to force countries to search a “Safe Heaven” on earth. In the game of power politics principles have no meaning and matter of “Survival” dictates the songs of democracy, human rights, justice, global brotherhood, war on terror, hot pursuit of resources, and the last not the least international peace. It is also bitter reality that power does justify all the ill intentions and wrong doings of a power-holder. In the rapidly changing regional and global geo-political and geo-strategic scenarios especially in the Central Asian Region the risen “Economic Dragon Power” China, and the “Old Lion” Russia has initiated some meaningful geo-political and geo-strategic steps to counter the increasing military and influence and greater socio-economic participation of US.
Beijing, Moscow and Washington are once again using Central Asia, the setting for the "Great Game" between Tsarist Russia and Victorian England over 150 years ago, as their game board in a region rarely neglected by the world's great powers. In the contemporary version of the game, Washington approaches each state bilaterally, offering incentives to support the operations in Afghanistan while undermining the consensus put forth at the recent SCO meeting.
Source:
by courtesy & © 2005 Mehmood-Ul-Hassan Khan
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)