Who Is Brave Enough To Love Union Of Burma? – OpEd
By Kanbawza Win
The news that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese Nobel laureate and a de facto head of State will be heading to The Hague, to face the ethnic cleansing/genocide of the Rohingyas charges, one wonders whether any Generals of the Myanmar army (Tatmadaw) who had taken the country from the rice bowl of Asia, to the Least Developed Status since 1962, under different pretext, have any guts for inspiration or imitation of this skinny vivacious lady and dared to stand by her side?
For the past seven decades a rough figure of more than ten millions have been killed and more have been displaced because of the xenophobic policies of the Tatmadaw in their endeavor of making one country, one religion and one culture, which is categorically opposite to the founding fathers of modern Burma led by the lady’s father way back in 1947 (Panglong Conference.) Now, she has come to claim her rightful place and dared to face the truth for her people and country, the power maniacs’ generals were nowhere to be seen. This serpentine breed of Generals after unsuccessfully endeavoring several ways to eliminate her for two decades have grudgingly shared power with the lion’s share of a veto power and 25% in all levels of general administration, are silent now. After ignoring the plethora of UN reports of forced evictions, razing homes, rape and summary executions, will not be enough to win the case nor sway international public opinion and the case will carry on for decades but will give time to get things right only if the marauding Tatmadaw become a professional one under the civilian rule.
In The Hague, if she loses, many of her domestic supporters will write it off as the usual United Nations bias, and praise her for defending the country in the face of a rigged system. Even though we know that the ICJ President Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf is a Muslim, with Muslim countries like Somalia, Morocco, Lebanon and Pakistan at its helm, coupled with the history of voting pattern reflecting the position of their country, as their aim is focusing more on addressing the accountability issue, rather than on peaceful conflict resolution of the humanitarian crisis.
In the meantime the Generals and the cronies will be very delighted to continue exploit the country’s natural and human resource as they reacted vehemently when Daw Suu attempted to change the current 2008 Nargis Constitution which the generals obtained with a fraudulent consensus and a manipulated constitution.
The intent of “Ethnic Cleansing” does not need any proof, not only because of the existing 700,000 refugees in Bangladesh but of also the internal refugees in enclosed areas with the security personals all around, not to mention the war in northern Burma. Paradoxically, or rather indirectly the world has encourage this trend when it acquiesce that dictatorships can change the name of the country without the consensus of the people from the Union of Burma to Myanmar.
It will be sad for the people of Burma to witness that the International Court judging the scape goat and not on the real culprit, who are only brave enough to kill the women and children of non-Myanmar ethnic nationalities or shooting directly into the hospital, may tantamount to what the Burmese proverb of “snaring a rabbit that is causing havoc in the garden, has instead caught a home cat”.
In other words if the Islamic imperialism were to be able to compel Burma to take back the Rohingyas, who not only refused to speak the lingua franca nor the native Arakanese local language but also categorically refused to salute the Union flag (being Muslim they bow only to Allah) who had once attempted to take the chunk of the motherland (consisting of the three townships in northern Arakan State) to join the then East Pakistan, one must also recollect that these Rohingyas from Bangladesh did not join the all Burma ethnic Organization (NDF) nor identify with the Burmese Muslims Organization who fought the Junta shoulder to shoulder with the other ethnic nationalities against the Tatmadaw dictatorship.
At the prospect of the Rohingya getting their citizenship rights or even territorial rights of their own in northern Arakan State, will be interpreted as infringing upon territorial integrity of the Burmese by the most sinister form of “Koran or the Sword” while the Christian world keeps looking on but the Generals will be laughing in their sleeves. It will be far better to concentrate on the conflict resolution and resettlement of refugees rather than the accountability.
