More Ethnic Riots in Myanmar: Disturbances in Meikhtila

Severe riots have erupted again in central Myanmar at Meikhtila, a town in the Mandalay Division. Meikhtila, situated 540 km north of Yangon, has a population of approximately 100,000; of these, 30 per cent are Muslim and the rest Buddhist. Fierce rioting broke out in the town in the fourth week of March and continued for three days, leaving more than 30 persons dead, before the Myanmar government clamped down, declared a local emergency, and deployed the Army on March 22, 2013. The violence occurred despite a sizeable military presence at Meikhtila, by virtue of it being the location of the headquarters of the Myanmar Air Force’s Central Command and an Air Force Base.

The cause of the riot was apparently trivial: an argument resulting from hard bargaining at the time of a Buddhist couple’s purchase of gold ornaments from a Muslim vendor. Observers of the country’s socio-political scene hinted at brewing business rivalry between the local Muslims and Buddhist Burmans, in Meikhtila and in adjoining areas, as the root cause for the tension and violence, which was triggered by extremist and rowdy elements with local political patronage. A positive sign in this troubled environment was that some members of the local Buddhist clergy and young civil society activists, such as those from “Generation 88 Democracy Group”, as well as Win Htein, the Member of Parliament from Aung San Su Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD), tried to pacify the frenzied mobs. However, there was no formal statement advocating calm and reconciliation from Aung San Su Kyi and the NLD vis-à-vis these riots. Ultimately, it was only the government’s coercive action through the Myanmar Army (not the local police) which worked to control the violence and restore calm, albeit belatedly.

The situation in Myanmar, as it is evolving now, does not inspire confidence with regard to gradual ethnic reconciliation and restoration of democracy. The observations of Thomas Ojea Quintana, United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights situation in Myanmar, after his mid-February 2013 visit to that country, indicated that some positive steps have been taken by the Myanmar government. These include talks with the Kachins in February 2013, the government allowing access to a UN convoy to areas controlled by the Kachins, among others. However, Quintana also stressed on the major shortcomings: the security and rehabilitation of the Rohingyas as well as in matters connected with the Kachin state. Furthermore, Quintana’s report went on to observe that now is the time to address these shortcomings before they become further entrenched and destabilise the reform process.1 His report, inter alia, advised that the government must establish the truth about what happened in Rakhine state during the communal violence in June and October of 2012, and hold to account those responsible for human rights violations. Taking into account the continuing unsatisfactory human rights situation in Myanmar, the UNHRC, in its latest session, extended Quintana’s role for another year. Moreover, organisations like the Euro-Burma Office—an institution with acceptable credentials operating from Brussels to sensitise world opinion on the promotion of democracy in Burma—have warned of the prospects of a “Rwanda-type genocide” in Myanmar.

While the Myanmar government has been involved in a dialogue with some ethnic minorities, for example the talks with the 11 ethnic groups’ umbrella organisation the United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC )—the last significant meeting with which took place on February 20, 2013 at Chiangmai in Thailand—progress has been very slow. The dialogue has also been bereft of political commitment on the part of Thein Sein, leader of the Myanmar central government, on specific, time-bound political-structural reforms and future constitutional arrangements. Significantly, the dialogue also lacks the tacit or overt support of Aung San Su Kyi and the NLD. Another interesting feature of the prevailing situation is that there is no substantive indication from Myanmar government circles as well as from different parliamentary groups (which includes the NLD as well) that issues relating to the accommodation of different ethnic communities and religious minorities, including the Rohingyas, in the socio-economic and political spheres are proposed to be dealt with on priority before the next general elections are held. Against such a backdrop, incidents like that in Meikhtila are bound to occur.

The present ethnic-communal milieu in Myanmar is showing ominous portents, with anti-Muslim sentiments among the Burmans expanding to other areas after the Meikhtila riots. Violence has been reported from Yamethin town on the outskirts of the capital city, Naypyitaw, and Myanmar Army patrolling has been intensified in the newly-affected areas. The Thein Sein government can now be expected to act more vigorously and take some prophylactic measures to control the spread of politically inspired ethnic-cum-communal hatred on the part of the majority community. This must be viewed in the context of widespread international condemnation of the violence and a degree of monitoring resulting from the subsequent follow-up visits to the violence-racked areas by the UN Resident Coordinator on Human Rights and the Special Adviser to the UN Secretary General on Myanmar.
Peace and reconciliation in Myanmar in a substantive sense cannot be expected unless a process from within is initiated by all the major stakeholders, namely, the civil society activists, the Buddhist clergy, the youth, the Myanmar Army leadership, the NLD, and the existing front-rung leaders of the ethnic outfits including the armed ones. Aung San Su Kyi can still play a catalytic role in this process. At the same time, the involvement of external powers like China as well as the association of diverse international reconciliation groups with Myanmar’s internal reconciliation process will only complicate matters. Perceptive observers of the Myanmar scene, such as Bertil Lintner, have correctly opined that the Chinese intervention in Burma’s civil war casts doubt on the feasibility of foreign mediation efforts as does the proliferation of Western organisations, which have turned peace in Burma into a virtual industry and, for some, a lucrative business.2 Lintner’s observations may be viewed in the backdrop of China’s efforts to circumscribe the operations of the Kachin National Army in areas of Myanmar contiguous to Chinese territory, where China is investing heavily as well as assisting in mineral extraction in the Letpadaung Mountain Copper Mines (which, incidentally, is working to the detriment of the natural livelihood, based on agriculture, of the local Myanmar-Kachins) and a plethora of agencies set up by Western nations and Japan, with huge funds at their disposal to assist in the political reconciliation process in Myanmar.

During her last visit to the United States, Aung San Su Kyi opined that the 2012 riots against the Rohingyas erupted because of a lack of the rule of law. That was, to say the least, a superficial statement that laid the blame on the country’s military without indicating a way towards reconciliation in an all-encompassing sense, involving a political accommodation allowing for juxtaposed harmonious existence and development of all ethnic and religious groups within a unified state. Unless the leaders of varying political hue and institutional oligarchs, including the military and, above all, Su Kyi, show political wisdom, incidents such as those in Meikhtila, Yamethin, and state military action against the Karens and Kachins, with consequential misery to the civil folk in the far-flung north-western, northern and north-eastern areas of the country, will continue to recur.

Gautam Sen, ex-Additional CGDA, is presently serving as Adviser to a State Govt in North-East India.

Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the IDSA or of the Government of India.

• 1. UN News Centre News, March 11, 2013.
• 2. The Irrawady, March 23, 2013.