“Communal clashes and anti-Muslim attacks by Buddhist mobs have torn apart communities across Myanmar over the past three years.”
“It began in the western Rakhine state in 2012, before spreading to Meiktila in the country’s “golden” heartland, and from there through Oakkan into Lashio – a town not far from the border with China. Kanbalu, Thandwe and Mandalay were all affected as well. Conservative estimates suggest that hundreds died.”
Tomas Ojea Quintana, former United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights, “told Al Jazeera that the events formed a “clear pattern”, indicating that many were organised.”
“Who was behind it? His interviewees were too frightened to say, but testimonial and documentary evidence gathered by Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit appears to provide an answer.”
“While not conclusive, it points in one clear direction: towards arms of the state that appear to have deliberately stoked tensions between Buddhists and Muslims, in part by outsourcing anti-Muslim violence and provoking a proxy war between two peoples.”
The “allegations, while unverified, fit within a body of further evidence that suggests state organisations may have sanctioned anti-Rohingya violence.”
Read more/see video: A ‘proxy war’ between Myanmar’s Buddhists and Muslims
2021-week20
