Page 1 of
2 Rohingya
miss boat on development By Syed Tashfin Chowdhury and
Chris Stewart
The ethnic conflict that
ravaged much of Rakhine State in western Myanmar
last month was an opportunity for more than
settling old and new scores between Muslim
Rohingya and Buddhist Rakhines and co-religionist
new arrivals from elsewhere in the country.
Those involved were also clearing land in
a densely populated area that is set to be among
the country's prime bits of real estate as
energy-related projects start transforming the
impoverished state.
More than 100 people
(some reports indicate many times that number)
were killed last month, untold others were
wounded, and an estimated 28,000 fled or were
driven from their homes in clashes between the
stateless Rohingya and Buddhist citizens in a
recurrence of violence last June. They are the latest incidents involving evicted ethnic groups
around the country weeks
before US President Obama visits Myanmar later
this month.
"The government has taken the
opportunity to create more violence allowing a
destabilized and vulnerable state which they can
then take the natural resources from. This is
believed to be the main reason to why so many
villages [in Rakhine State] were razed to the
ground," the representative of one non-government
organization (NGO) told Asia Times Online, citing
the source as a Rakhine resident. The NGO cannot
be named for safety reasons.
Identifying
specific land-grabbing in the midst of mass
upheaval and historic xenophobia such as the state
witnessed in October is no easy task, but as
Michael Brown, in his book The International
Dimension of Internal Conflict points out,
"since internal, elite level forces are usually
the catalysts of internal conflict, those
interested in conflict prevention should direct
their attention accordingly".
Prime
target Destruction of the Rohingya
settlement in Kyaukphyu, the main town on Ramree
Island, south of the state capital Sittwe,
provides the most telling evidence of
land-grabbing, with more than 14 hectares of
property burnt to the ground. (For satellite image
of the destruction, see here).
Ramree Island is to be the center of a
multi-billion dollar special economic zone (SEZ)
based around a deep-sea port and the terminus of
gas and oil pipelines being built west and
northwards to Myanmar's border with China. The SEZ
development hems in but does not directly impact
the small but historic Kyaukphyu, built on a spur
of land at the island's northern tip and the only
significant town on Ramree. The Rohingya area,
with sea-frontage on two of its three sides, is
now clear for private development by whoever can
claim title. (Rohingya settlements within the
industrialized zone were attacked in the same
period. [1])
The latest violence appears
to have started on Sunday, October 21, when at
least 11 Muslims were killed after "extremist"
Buddhists set fire to their houses in two areas of
Sittwe (which is also to benefit from the US$500
million Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport
River Project, being built to link India's eastern
ports to Sittwe and from there by river and road
to India's isolated northeast). [2]
Days
earlier, on October 15, a newly established
government body had held its first meeting in
Yangon, the country's former capital, its purpose
to oversee construction of a multi-billion dollar
refinery, industrial and petrochemical complex
that will transform the wholly undeveloped Rakhine
State, in coastal western Myanmar.
On
Monday, October 22, media reported that the new
body, the Kyaukphyu Special Economic Zone
management committee, had decided to offer an
"open tender" for investments in the development
of the planned industrial complex, to be built on
Ramree Island some 200 kilometers south of Sittwe.
[3]
Within hours of the reports, what had
started as a local massacre in Sittwe the day
before had become open violence and destruction in
areas central to the development project and
related infrastructure as well as more remote
parts of the impoverished state. (For a map
sketching the outbreaks of reported violence
October 21-24, see Google Map Rakhine troubles.)
The
SEZ tender announcement decisively moves forward a
development project agreed between Chinese vice
president Xi Jinping and the Myanmar government in
December 2009 and proposed by CITIC Group, one of
China's largest industrial conglomerates. The
project divides Ramree Island into several zones
specifically designated for services, refining,
industrial processing, and ship-repair work.
Foreign involvement in this and other projects in
the country was made easier by the passing late
last week of a much-delayed foreign investment
law. (For publicity video of the project, see here.)
All power to China The SEZ is
based around the southern terminus of
Chinese-funded U$2.5 billion energy pipelines
being built to take oil and offshore gas west and
north to China's border with Myanmar's Kachin
State (also now in a state of war amid numerous
reports of forced evictions and land grabbing).
A shortage of usable land in the state
creates a central problem for any development
beyond Ramree Island. The Arakan Yoma and other
mountain ranges dominate the region, leaving only
a sliver of land between them and sea, much of it
little more than slightly elevated mud flats
liable to inundation by tidal surges. What is left
must accommodate SEZ associated infrastructure
such as roads, a rail link, and low-priced housing
for workers. (For an illustration of the numerous
projects planned in the region and elsewhere in
Myanmar, see here.)
Muslim Rohingya, considered a stateless
people by the Myanmar government and allowed no
rights, though they are known to have been in the
region for hundreds of years, are an easy target
to dispossess. Local Buddhists, here and
elsewhere, are also being forced off their land
for project developments but can claim a degree of
compensation.
On the day the SEZ tender
decision was made public, violence spread north to
Muslim homes around Minbya town, which sits on the
first bit of real land rising from vast tidal mud
flats between it and Sittwe, 25 kilometers to the
southeast. [4] Two hundred Rohingya were killed in
one village (Nagara Pauktaw), one report claims.
An attack the following day was also made
on Myebon town, AFP reported. The town sits on a
spit of land close to the area's only main road,
about 30km east of Sittwe, and overlooks a broad
anchorage that leads directly across the
convoluted coastline to Kyaukphyu and the site of
its proposed deep-sea port, about 50km south.
Numerous villages near Mrauk-U, an ancient
capital on the road running northeast from Minbya
and due to be strategically important once again
in the "new" industrializing state, were also hit.
The town, a former capital for the region,
is on the only road linking Sittwe to the rest of
Myanmar. Mrauk-U is also to be one of the few
stations on a rail link being built from Sittwe to
the central plains. Railroad construction has
already destroyed part of the 6th century palace
grounds, while its famed ancient temple complexes
and low hills limit development to the town's
northwest.
The destroyed local villages -
both Rohingya and Buddhist - were for the most
part a few kilometers east and south of Mrauk-U on
flat land between it and the Laymro river, where it
emerges into a now valuable widening valley from
the steep-banked Arakan Yoma. A dam is to be built
upstream from this area.
Similar, though
less compelling evidence points to land-grabs,
rather than ethnic concerns, as being behind
expulsion of Muslim villagers from near Pauktaw, a
ferry ride from Sittwe and end point of a road
from Mrauk-U through Minbya.
Similarly,
attacks were reported in Thandwe township, to the
south. This region is famed for the pristine
Ngapali beach, considered a favorite destination
by the jet set who can also take advantage of an
18-hole golf course, possible the only one in the
state. The area will inevitably develop as a
favored getaway for well-healed management as the
SEZ gets underway further north, as will nearby
Thandwe town, which at present has little to offer
visitors.
Racial tensions were already
high in the area - the town's population is
reportedly evenly split between Muslims and
Buddhists - following the murder of 10 Muslim
pilgrims nearby in June.
Ancient
hatreds, new profits It is such tensions
between quite different religious and ethnic
groups that make it difficult to identify pure
profiteering land-grabbing from spontaneous
outbursts of conflict and population expulsions.
In The International Dimension of
Internal Conflict, Brown cautions that "Many
policy makers and journalists believe that the
causes of internal conflicts are simple and
straightforward. The driving forces behind these
violent conflicts, it is said, are the 'ancient
hatreds'."
He writes that, "[E]ven if a
country's overall economic picture is improving,
growing inequities can aggravate intra-state
tensions. …. many scholars have pointed to
economic development and modernization as taproots
of instability and internal conflict."
Rakhine State has yet to experience such
growth (its biggest employers at present are
arguably the army and foreign aid organizations)
and even its tourist industry barely registers. So
the world can expect more outbreaks as SEZ
activity and money floods in.
However,
Brown cautions that such considerations are weak
"when it comes to identifying the catalytic
factors - triggers or proximate causes - of
internal conflict".
Or as American
academic James Rule has written, "we know a lot of
things that are true about civil violence, but we
do not know when they are going to be true." That
is, when violence will break out. In this regard,
Brown points his finger at the important, but
too-often obscured and overlooked role of the
wealthy and influential "in triggering internal
strife".
"The literature [on the subject] is
strong in its examination of .. forces that
operate at a mass level… weak in its
understanding of the roles played by elites and
leaders in instigating violence. … The result is
'no fault' histories that leave out the
pernicious effects of influential individuals -
an important set of factors in the overall
equation."
In Rakhine State, the elite
are the army, the local government, religious
leaders - and increasingly in the future business
families who got rich in Myanmar while it was
under military control and are set to get even
wealthier as the country develops its
infrastructure, industry, and natural resources.
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road,
Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
