GIANLUCA MEZZOFIORE
Wed, Jan 29,2014
Burmese police set fire
to at least 70 Rohingya homes in the village of Du Char Yar Tan, where at least
48 Muslims were said to have beenkilled by a Buddhist mob amid renewed sectarian violence, it
has been claimed.
Fire in Du Char Yar Tan Ministry of
Information/Myanmar
Two eyewitnesses said
that police burnt down the houses overnight. The village has been semi-deserted
after the mob violence a week ago. Two hundred villagers were allowed to return
in the area in the remote Maungdaw township in Rakhine state.
"We
are calling for an international investigation. Without protection, more
Rohingya will die," Tun Khin, human rights activist and president of
the Burmese Rohingya Organisation in the UK, told IBTimes
UK.
The
Ministry of Information confirmed the incident on Facebook but blamed
Muslim villagers who "burned their own homes".
The
Burmese government has rejected international calls for a UN investigation into
the recent massacre. Officials from the minister of foreign affairs denied that any Rohingya were killed but claimed
that a policeman had been reported missing after he was attacked by Muslim
villagers.
"We already have
our own independent investigation commission, we don't need an international
investigation," said deputy information minister Ye Htut, in response to
US ambassador Derek Mitchell's call for international officials to be allowed
in.
If verified, recent
killings in the remote Maungdaw township in Rakhine State would be the
deadliest incident since October 2012 and would bring the total death toll from
religious conflict to 277 or more since 2012.
According
to UN chiefs and human rights organisations, at least 48 people, many of them
women and children, have been massacred in
violence perpetrated by state security officials and local Rakhine residents.
'Like the Bosnian genocide'
The Myanmar government
has flatly denied the killings, describing reports of a massacre as
"misinformation" and accusing foreign media of distortion. Official
government reports claimed that local police were threatened by an armed Muslim
mob, but that there were no civilian casualities.
"An
international investigation is the only way to establish the facts," Tun
Khin told IBTimes
UK. "The situation in Myanmar's Rakhine state is similar
to what happened in Bosnia during the 1992-95 war."
Violence
against Myanmar's Muslims has intensified over the past two years, incited in
part by extremist monks and
the virulently anti-Muslim '969'campaign, who espouse hate and urge Buddhists to boycott Muslim
businesses.
Khin said that 1,000
members of the 969 Buddhist movement moved to Rakhine state from other parts of
the country to allegedly start a hate campaign against Muslims.
Some
people have been threatened by extremists and told "you have to leave,
otherwise your fate is going to be like your other Muslim people", a
Rohingya activist told IBTimes
UK.
Others living as a
minority in Buddhist areas have simply fled out of fear.
IBTimes UK's source described
families moving from various towns across the country, with many now hiding
from authorities and living illegally in Muslim areas of Yangon, afraid that
they will be locked up or returned to their home towns.
Local Buddhists are also
being threatened for associating with Muslims. The political activist described
extremist monks as "like the mafia", exerting powerful influence over
local communities.
"They say 'if
you do business with the kalar [racist slur for Muslims] we will brand you as a
traitor to the nation, to the religion and to the community'."Source: International Business Times UK
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