Before Kadyrov, Erdogan stood up for the Rohingya people
What was heard on the Internet about Kadyrov, the Sunday standing outside the embassy of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar in Moscow and the mass rally in Grozny in defense of Muslims persecuted in a distant country unexpectedly forced Russians to pay attention to a problem little known to the general public.
In fact, the historical confrontation in predominantly Buddhist Myanmar with a persecuted Muslim minority has long been a source of concern throughout the world, both at the government level and in the human rights community.
What is Myanmar? At one time, this country in Southeast Asia was known as Burma. But local residents do not like this name, considering it foreign. Therefore, after 1989, the country was renamed Myanmar (translated as “fast”, “strong”).
Since the country's independence in 1948, Burma has been in a civil war involving the Burmese authorities, communist guerrillas, and separatist rebels. And if we add to this explosive “cocktail” the drug traffickers of the “Golden Triangle”, which in addition to Myanmar also included Thailand and Laos, then it becomes obvious that the situation on Burmese soil did not symbolize peace and quiet.
From 1962 until 2011, the country was ruled by the military, and the head of the opposition Democratic League that won in 1989, future Nobel Peace Prize laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, was placed under house arrest for a long time. The country found itself in quite noticeable isolation from the outside world, including due to Western sanctions. But in recent years there have been noticeable changes in Myanmar and elections have been held. And last year, Aung San Suu Kyi became foreign minister and state councilor (de facto prime minister).
In a country with a population of 60 million people, there are more than a hundred nationalities: Burmese, Shans, Karens, Arakanese, Chinese, Indians, Mons, Kachins, etc. The vast majority of believers are Buddhists, there are Christians, Muslims, and animists.
“Myanmar, as a multinational country, is experiencing the burden of problems of this kind,” comments Viktor Sumsky, director of the ASEAN Center at MGIMO. – The new government of the country is making attempts to resolve conflict situations, but in fact it turns out that it is the Rohingya problem that has come to the fore...
So who are the Rohingyas? This is an ethnic group living compactly in the Myanmar state of Rakhine (Arakan). Rohingya profess Islam. Their number in Myanmar is estimated to range from 800,000 to 1.1 million. It is believed that most of them moved to Burma during British colonial rule.
Myanmar authorities call the Rohingya illegal immigrants from Bangladesh - and on this basis denies them citizenship. The law prohibited them from having more than two children. The authorities tried to resettle them in Bangladesh, but no one was really expecting them there either. It is no coincidence that the UN calls them one of the most persecuted minorities in the world. Many Rohingya are fleeing to Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand. But a number of countries in Southeast Asia - including Muslim ones - refuse to accept these refugees, and ships with migrants are turned back to sea.
During the Second World War, when Burma was occupied by Japan, in 1942 the so-called. "Arakan massacre" between Rohingya Muslims who received weapons from the British and local Buddhists who supported the Japanese. Tens of thousands of people died, many people became refugees. Of course, these events did not add confidence to relations between communities.
From time to time, serious tensions flared up in areas where Rohingya live compactly, often leading to bloodshed. While Buddhist Burmese are carrying out pogroms against Muslims in Rakhine, Tibetan Buddhist leader the Dalai Lama called on Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi to support the Rohingya. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon also spoke out in defense of Burmese Muslims. The West, both the European Union and the United States, were not silent on this issue (although, of course, the problem of the Muslim minority did not play the first role in the sanctions imposed against Myanmar at the time). On the other hand, the problem of Muslims in Burma in past decades was actively used by various theorists of “global jihad” - from Abdullah Azzam to his student Osama bin Laden. So it cannot be ruled out that this region could become a new point of conflict, where supporters of the most radical jihadist groups will be drawn - as happened, say, in the Philippines.
The situation became particularly tense after dozens of people attacked three Myanmar border posts last October, killing nine border guards. After this, troops were sent into Rakhine State. More than 20 thousand people fled to Bangladesh. In February 2017, a UN report was published based on surveys of refugees: it provides shocking facts of extrajudicial killings of the Rohingya by local nationalists, as well as security forces, gang rapes, etc.
In recent days alone, about 90 thousand Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh. This happened after rebels from the Arakan Rohingya Solidarity Army attacked dozens of police posts and an army base in Rakhine on August 25. Subsequent clashes and a military counter-offensive claimed at least 400 lives. Authorities accuse militants of burning houses and killing civilians, while human rights activists blame the army for the same. And even before Ramzan Kadyrov, Turkish President Erdogan spoke out in defense of Burmese Muslims last week, calling what was happening a genocide about which “everyone is silent”...
After a spontaneous rally of Muslims at the Myanmar Embassy in Moscow in defense of fellow believers, a rally was also held in Grozny - about a million people took part in it.
Myanmar has Rakhine State, which is inhabited by an ethnic and religious minority called the Rohingya people, or Rohingya. Its representatives are mainly adherents of Islam, while the majority of the country's population professes Buddhism. Moreover, even in Rakhine, a region densely populated by Rohingya, Buddhists predominate.
Myanmar authorities consider the Rohingya to be illegal immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh (so residents of Rakhine may not hope for citizenship), and, after the 1942 massacre when Muslims killed tens of thousands of Buddhists, almost as occupiers. The modern history of confrontation between the Rohingya and the Burmese authorities goes back decades.
In the summer of 2017, Rohingya militants carried out a series of attacks on Myanmar police and border posts. In response, the authorities organized a punitive expedition, which led to a new round of violence in the region.
I found in the Kazakh online magazine “Vlast”, the director of the fund named after. Friedrich Ebert in Myanmar. In it, he talks in detail about the situation in the country and the roots of the humanitarian crisis. I shortened it a little and left only the essence.
"On August 25, there was a sharp escalation of the situation in the north of the Burmese state of Rakhine. Masses of Rohingya refugees are leaving their villages and camps and trying to cross the border into Bangladesh. According to today's estimates, their number could reach 90,000, there is information about dozens of people who drowned in the border river Naf.
The reason for the mass exodus of the Rohingya was a massive punitive operation by the Burmese army; according to the latest official figures, which may be extremely underestimated, about 400 people have already died in the clashes. Burmese military forces have launched a clean-up operation in northern Rakhine after armed extremists attacked police and Burmese government border posts.
Myanmar- a former British colony on the Indochinese Peninsula. Most of its inhabitants are Bamar Buddhists, but the country is very heterogeneous, with 135 ethnic groups officially recognized by the government. Since gaining independence in 1948, the country has been mired in a series of internal conflicts, many of which continue to this day, with the Burmese Civil War believed to be the longest in modern world history.
In recent years, the Myanmar government has managed to sign truce agreements with 15 armed ethnic groups, while about eight remain in open confrontation.
Rakaine State is a narrow strip of land along the Bay of Bengal, its northern end touching Bangladesh. Rakaine, like the rest of Myanmar, is far from homogeneous; at least 15 ethnic groups of different religions, Buddhists, Muslims, and Christians live in it. Closer to the north, near the border with Muslim neighbor Bangladesh, Muslims make up the majority of the population.
Rakain, like many other areas of the country that do not belong to the “true Burma” (Burma Proper), is a zone of protracted political and military struggle for independence or even independence. At the same time, it is the most complex of all Burmese conflicts because the Rohingya are the only ones not recognized by the government as part of Myanmar's multifaceted and complex people.
Rohingya- a Muslim ethnic group that numbers about a million people in Myanmar. Burmese Buddhists often refuse to call them by this name and prefer to use the term "Bengalis", indicating the historical roots of the group. Burmese nationalists claim that "Rohingya" is a fictitious concept, but in fact refers to Muslim settlers from British India who were moved en masse to Burma in the 19th century.
Relations between Rohingya Muslims and Bamar Buddhists have historically been very complex. During World War II, the Rohingya fought on the side of the British forces, while the Rakain Buddhists sided with the Japanese army. The leader of the nation and founder of modern, independent Burma, General Aung San (by the way, the father of Aung San Suu Kyi, the current co-ruler of Myanmar) promised the Rohingya his status and equal rights. After the war and before the military coup in 1962, many Rohingya served in high positions in the Burmese government.
After the military junta came to power, a phase of systematic oppression and discrimination began. The Rohingya are still denied Burmese citizenship, cannot enter government service, are subject to the Pale of Settlement, and are not accepted into government educational institutions. Even today, in the most educated and advanced circles of the Burmese elite, everyday racism towards the Rohingya is not bad manners. Ethnic clashes and pogroms broke out periodically, followed by harsh purges - this happened, for example, in 1978, 1991, 2012. Since 2012, Bangladesh has accumulated almost half a million Rohingya refugees. Bangladesh is unable to provide them with long-term prospects and many of them tried to flee to Australia, hundreds dying along the way. The UN considers the Rohingya to be the world's largest group of stateless people.
On August 25, early in the morning, fighters of the so-called Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army or ARSA, formerly known as Harakah al-Yaqin or Faith Movement) launched a coordinated attack on a number of Burmese border and police posts. The group first made its presence known in October last year, killing several Burmese border guards and police along the border with Bangladesh and apparently seizing the weapons and ammunition used last week.
The ARSA group is led by Ata Ullah, a militant originally from Karachi. The Myanmar government says he was trained in Taliban camps in Pakistan and has support among powerful Saudi Arabian circles.
Commander-in-Chief Myanmar Armed Forces, Min Aung Hlaing, is leading the clearing operation in the border area. In his own words, the army is “finishing the unfinished work of World War II.” This formulation extremely clearly shows the logic of the actions of the armed forces and military elite of Myanmar. According to the country's de facto ruler, the army will do everything to prevent a repeat of 1942, when Rohingya brigades tried to "wrest Rakain from the body of Burma."
In an official briefing for diplomats and the foreign press, representatives of the Burmese security forces said that the overarching goal of ARSA is the creation of an “Islamic state” in the territory between Bangladesh and Myanmar. The army is ready to take “necessary measures” to prevent the return of Malaysian, Maldivian, Indonesian ISIS fighters from the Middle East to the region and therefore intends to completely clear northern Rakhine of “terrorist” elements.
The outbreak of violence by Rohingya extremists was the perfect excuse for the Burmese army to move to the “final stage of resolution” of the issue. Satellite images show that entire villages are being burned, and they are being burned systematically, since it is the rainy season and it is difficult to imagine the spontaneous spread of fire. Burmese authorities say extremists are setting villages on fire for propaganda purposes.
But in fact, there are victims on the part of the Buddhist inhabitants of Rakain. About 12,000 Buddhist residents of the state were evacuated deep into the central territories, and there are reports of attacks on Buddhist monasteries where Buddhist refugees from the conflict zone were staying. The already fragile world of recent years is rapidly disintegrating.
Total:
– Armed extremism among the Rohingya is real. The existence of an organization such as ARSA, capable of coordinating insurgent operations, producing propaganda, and possibly maintaining contacts with groups abroad, is undeniable.
– Systematic oppression of the Rohingya is real. After decades of discrimination and persecution, they are forced to exist in an extremely marginalized situation. And this is always an ideal incubator for extremism, Islamic or any other.
– We still know very little. There is no access to the conflict zone for international observers or journalists. Everything we read in the media is based on interviews with Rohingyas who managed to cross the border into Bangladesh. A press tour organized by authorities two days ago to Maungdaw, the town in Rakhine where it all began, did not provide any reliable information.
– This is a very old and very complex conflict., it has deep roots in colonial history. There is every reason to fear that the Burmese army will seize the chance to provoke a mass exodus of Rohingya from Rakhine.
– Transformations of Myanmar– this is the most complex and complex transition process of our time. Perhaps, only the level of complexity of the someday upcoming North Korean transit can be compared with it.
New Myanmar is only a year and a half old. The military regime is being transformed into a democratic system. The conflict-crisis economy is being transformed into a peaceful one. Isolation is transformed into openness, self-sufficiency and scarcity are replaced by consumer capitalism of the masses. Society is moving away from closed barracks mobilization and moving on to peaceful life. A weak state is transformed into a functional bureaucracy.
All at the same time. All at once. Against this background, the alliance between Aung San Suu Kyi and the military elite is not surprising. No matter how bitter it may be, for them the Rohingya issue was absolutely not a priority until August 25th. And now we can only guess how radically they are ready to solve it."
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Last Sunday, Muslim rallies against discrimination against the Islamic population of Myanmar were held in Moscow and other cities around the world. In August, members of the armed group Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army attacked several dozen military targets. In response, Myanmar authorities launched an extensive anti-terrorist operation, during which dozens of Muslims were killed and which the international community calls genocide of the country's Islamic population. What are the reasons and why this conflict cannot be called religious - in the material of “Futurist”.
What's happening in Myanmar?
The Republic of the Union of Myanmar - this is how the country began to be called recently, having got rid of the military dictatorship that had been in power since 1962. It consists of seven provinces inhabited by Buddhist Burmese and seven national states that have never recognized a central government. There are more than one hundred ethnic groups in Myanmar. The diverse ethnic, religious, and criminal groups inhabiting these regions have been waging civil wars for decades—against the capital and against each other.
The conflict between Rohingya Muslims and Buddhists has been going on for decades. The Rohingya are a Muslim ethnic minority in Myanmar. They make up approximately 1 million of Myanmar's more than 52 million people and live in Arakan State, which borders Bangladesh. The Myanmar government denies them citizenship, calling them illegal Bengali immigrants, while the Rohingya claim to be indigenous to Arakan.
One of the bloodiest clashes occurred in 2012. The reason was the death of a 26-year-old Buddhist woman. Then dozens of people died, and tens of thousands of Muslims were forced to leave the country. The international community made no attempt to resolve the conflict.
Another escalation of the conflict occurred on October 9, 2016, when about 200 unidentified militants attacked three Myanmar border posts. And in August 2017, fighters from the local armed group Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army attacked 30 army installations and police stations and killed 15 people. They declared this an act of revenge for the persecution of their compatriots.
The international community calls the retaliatory anti-terrorist operation a genocide of Muslims in the state of Arakan - not only the Rohingya, but also representatives of other ethnic groups. Hundreds of people have been arrested on suspicion of terrorism. According to Myanmar authorities, as of September 1, 400 “rebels” and 17 civilians had been killed. Fleeing refugee camp residents told Reuters the army and Buddhist volunteers were torching Muslim villages, forcing them to flee to Bangladesh. On the morning of September 1, Bangladeshi border guards found on the river bank the bodies of 15 refugees who drowned during the crossing, 11 of them were children. According to the UN, more than 120,000 refugees have crossed into Bangladesh over the past two weeks, creating a migration crisis.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov demanded that the UN intervene and stop the violence. In Moscow, near the Myanmar embassy, Muslims staged a spontaneous rally against genocide.
Why don't Buddhists like the Rohingya?
There are several theories about the origin of the Burmese Rohingya. Some scientists believe that the Rohingya migrated to Myanmar (then called Burma) from Bengal primarily during the period of British rule. The British annexed the aspiring state of Arakan in 1826 and facilitated the migration of Bengalis there as labor. Some of the Rohingya came to Burma after the country declared independence in 1948, as well as after the liberation war in Bangladesh in 1971. Traditionally, this people has a high birth rate, so the Muslim population has grown rapidly. The second theory (followed by the Rohingya themselves) suggests that the Rohingya are descendants of the Arabs who colonized the Indian Ocean coast in the Middle Ages and also lived in the state.
The first serious clash between the Rohingya and Arakanese Buddhists was the Rakhine massacre in 1942. During World War II, Burma, then still a British dependency, was captured by Japan. The Rohingya Muslims remained on the side of the British, while the Buddhists supported the Japanese, who promised independence for the country. The Buddhist troops were led by General Aung San, the father of Aung San Suu Kyi, the current leader of Myanmar's Democratic Party. According to various estimates, tens of thousands of representatives of both sides were killed, but there is still no objective figure. After the Rakhine massacre, separatist sentiments in the region worsened.
The military dictatorship that ruled Burma for half a century relied heavily on a blend of Burmese nationalism and Theravada Buddhism to consolidate its power. Ethnic and religious minorities such as the Rohingya and Chinese were discriminated against. General Nain's government passed the Burmese Citizenship Law in 1982, which declared the Rohingya illegal. With the end of military rule and the rise to power of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi's allies at the end of 2015, the Rohingya were expected to receive Myanmar citizenship. However, authorities continue to deny the Rohingya political and civil rights.
How does discrimination manifest itself?
The Rohingya are considered "one of the most persecuted minorities in the world." They cannot move freely throughout Myanmar, receive higher education, or have more than two children. The Rohingya are subjected to forced labor and their arable land is taken away from them. A February 2017 UN report said locals, the army and police beat, killed and raped Rohingya.
To escape violence, Rohingya are trafficked illegally to Malaysia, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Thailand. In turn, these countries do not want to accept refugees - which is why they are subject to international pressure and condemnation. At the beginning of 2015, according to the UN, about 24 thousand Rohingya tried to leave Myanmar on smugglers' boats. The remains of more than 160 refugees have been discovered in abandoned camps in southern Thailand as smugglers held Rohingya hostage, beating them and demanding ransom for their lives. As Thai authorities tightened controls across the border, smugglers began throwing people into “boat camps” where they died of hunger and thirst.
The refugee problem has not yet been resolved. In particular, the government of Bangladesh in February 2017 announced a plan to resettle all Rohingya refugees on the Tengar Char island, which was formed 10 years ago in the Bay of Bengal - it is prone to floods and there is a complete lack of infrastructure. This caused outrage among human rights organizations.
Aren't Buddhists against violence?
“The world media talks exclusively about Muslims who suffered and says nothing about Buddhists,” says orientalist Pyotr Kozma, who lives in Myanmar. “Such one-sided coverage of the conflict has given Myanmar Buddhists a feeling of being under siege, and this is a direct path to radicalism.”
It is traditionally believed that Buddhism is one of the most peaceful religions. But despite the fact that Buddhists and Muslims are involved in this conflict, it is incorrect to view it as inter-religious. We are talking about the status of a certain ethnic group. Experts say that Buddhists have coexisted with Myanmar's Muslims for centuries: Hindus, Chinese, Malabari, Burmese and Bengalis. The Rohingya, being refugees according to one version of their origin, fall out of this “conglomerate of nationalities.”
For Russia, the confrontation in Myanmar between government troops and Rohingya Muslims unexpectedly turned from a foreign policy issue into a domestic one. After mass rallies of Russian Muslims and harsh statements on this topic by the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, it became obvious that powerful influence groups will demand that the country’s authorities take decisive steps to condemn the Myanmar authorities. However, it is extremely difficult for the Kremlin to take such an unambiguous position. First, Russia’s steps towards Myanmar are traditionally coordinated with China, a key ally and sponsor of this country. Secondly, Moscow itself hopes to develop military-technical and economic cooperation with Myanmar, a state rich in natural resources that is part of ASEAN.
Kadyrov against the devils
A rally of one million people in Grozny, at which the head of Chechnya spoke, became another confirmation that the conflict in Myanmar threatens to become a domestic political problem for Russia. Ramzan Kadyrov made an unusually harsh statement. “If Russia supports those shaitans who are committing crimes today (in Myanmar.- “Kommersant”), “I am against Russia’s position,” he said in a live broadcast on Instagram.
Protesters in Grozny demanded that Russian President Vladimir Putin “use all his authority to stop the genocide of Muslims in Myanmar.” The leaders of the United States and European countries also suffered, who “silently watch as Buddhist rulers kill citizens of their country just because they profess Islam.” The heads of spiritual departments of neighboring regions - Ingushetia, North Ossetia, Karachay-Cherkessia and the Stavropol Territory - supported the Chechen leader at the rally.
“The Council of Muftis of Russia supports the action held in Grozny in defense of the long-suffering Rohingya people,” said Mufti Rushan Abbyasov, Deputy Chairman of the Council of Muftis of Russia, head of the RIM staff, to Kommersant. “It expresses the opinion of Muslims of the North Caucasus and all of Russia.” At the same time, some participants in the rally that took place the day before at the Myanmar Embassy in Moscow on Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street spoke out much more radically.
Slogans were heard in the crowd: “Buddhists are terrorists,” “Let’s start with Kalmykia,” and one of the speakers swore by Allah that he would start jihad if his demands were not met.
The demonstrators’ demands were quite specific - to achieve official condemnation by the Russian authorities of the Myanmar government’s policy towards Rohingya Muslims.
Moscow, however, did not criticize the actions of Naypyitaw (the capital of Myanmar). Press Secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov only stated that the leaders of Russia and Egypt Vladimir Putin and Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, following the results of negotiations between them, expressed concern about the events in Myanmar and called on the country's authorities to “take control of the situation as soon as possible.” The Kremlin has so far refrained from assessing Ramzan Kadyrov’s statements. According to Dmitry Peskov, Muslims perceive the events in Myanmar “very emotionally”: “I have not yet familiarized myself with them (the statements.- “Kommersant”) personally; I would like to get acquainted first, and then somehow give an assessment.” The calls for “jihad” by the participants in the rally at the Myanmar Embassy in Moscow, according to Dmitry Peskov, “are a question for law enforcement agencies.”
In the evening, Ramzan Kadyrov, again in his Telegram channel, responded to Vladimir Putin’s statement made after a meeting with his Egyptian colleague.
The leader of Chechnya thanked the Russian president, who, according to him, “condemned violence against Muslims and called on the Myanmar authorities to take control of the situation.”
The head of scientific research at the Institute for the Dialogue of Civilizations, Alexei Malashenko, believes that it is “very difficult” to separate the political component from the emotional component in Ramzan Kadyrov’s statements. The presidential administration and the Foreign Ministry need to evaluate his words, the expert believes, but “they are now in a difficult situation, because Kadyrov overplayed his hand somewhat.” “It seems to me that this situation will be put on hold. But if there is no way to explain to him that he has gone too far, then things will get worse,” the expert warns.
Political scientist Rostislav Turovsky believes that Mr. Kadyrov’s position is “largely emotional” and urged not to look for “any Chechen separatism” in it. “Kadyrov, as a politician, really tries to act as a defender of representatives of the Muslim community, but this is rather an attempt to indicate his attitude to the problem,” Mr. Turovsky told Kommersant.
In turn, senior researcher at RANEPA, researcher of the North Caucasus Denis Sokolov believes that Ramzan Kadyrov is becoming the leader not only of Chechens, but of all Russian Muslims, including “his recent enemies.”
“Many Salafis positively evaluate his activities when he protects Muslims in Russia, supports them abroad, pulls children out of Syria and Iraq, establishes an Islamic order in Chechnya, giving them greater importance than the Russian Constitution,” he explained to Kommersant.
According to Mr. Sokolov, Ramzan Kadyrov “actually has his own Ministry of Foreign Affairs, his own army, his own politics and ideology.” At the same time, the head of Chechnya, according to the expert, “uses various ways to remind the federal government of himself so that it does not forget about the republic when distributing budget funds.” “There is no one to shout out Kadyrov, to make a remark that his position, including on foreign policy issues, does not always coincide with the position of the Russian government, even against the backdrop of Vladimir Putin’s visit to China: this is the situation, you have the Uighurs, and we have here is Ramzan Kadyrov,” adds Denis Sokolov.
Moscow's dilemma
Nevertheless, despite the pressure from the protesters and the prominent role of Ramzan Kadyrov in Russian domestic politics, Moscow is obliged to take into account foreign policy aspects. First, Russia’s steps towards Myanmar are traditionally coordinated with China, a key ally and sponsor of this country. Secondly, Moscow itself hopes to develop cooperation with Naypyitaw in the military-technical and trade-economic spheres. Myanmar, one of the poorest countries in the region and one of the most corrupt states in the world, has enormous natural resources (gas, oil, timber, precious stones). Moscow clearly does not want to jeopardize connections with it and the prospect of future contracts by taking an unambiguous position in the interfaith conflict shaking the country.
In addition, the confrontation itself in the state of Rakhine (Arakan) in western Myanmar is much more complicated and contradictory than the protesters in Grozny and Moscow are trying to imagine.
Black and white logic is hardly applicable to this conflict, where Buddhists are to blame for committing genocide and repressing the peaceful Muslim minority. As Kommersant already wrote (see issue dated September 1), the confrontation escalated after militants of the Arakan Rohingya Solidarity Army movement attacked 30 police strongholds and army units. 11 security forces were killed, and there were civilian casualties. And in response, the military launched an offensive in areas densely populated by Rohingya, burning villages and often killing Muslim civilians.
More than 400 people died in a week. About 87 thousand, mostly Rohingya, according to the latest UN data, were forced to flee Myanmar to neighboring Bangladesh. At the same time, in refugee camps in this country, the situation is close to a humanitarian catastrophe: people lack food, clothing, and medicine, and are often forced to sleep in the open air at the height of the rainy season.
In the countries of the Islamic world, the emphasis when covering the situation is precisely on these points. At the same time, other nuances are usually omitted. The conflict is viewed solely on the principle of “friend or foe”: war crimes by the Myanmar regime against innocent Muslim victims. Collections of atrocities by “Buddhist terrorists” are being distributed on social networks, which include terrible footage not only from Myanmar, but also from other hot spots that have nothing to do with Buddhists or the Rohingya.
As a result of massive propaganda and emotional appeals from the public, the authorities of several key Islamic states (Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh) took an extremely tough position, demanding that the Myanmar government stop its “criminal policies.” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called the events in Rakhine state “genocide of Muslims.” And in the Indonesian capital Jakarta, the Myanmar embassy was attacked - a Molotov cocktail was thrown into the building.
As for Moscow, the statements of the Russian Foreign Ministry were much more balanced, although their tone changed over time. Thus, in its statement on August 25, the ministry “strongly” condemned the “armed incursion” by Rohingya militants aimed at undermining “the efforts of the Myanmar authorities and the international community to stabilize the situation in the Rakhine National Region.” Moscow then expressed “support for the efforts of the Myanmar government undertaken to normalize the situation.”
In the statement of the Russian Foreign Ministry on September 3, the emphasis was placed differently. The document says that Moscow is concerned about “reports of ongoing clashes that have led to casualties among both civilians and government security forces, and a sharp deterioration in the humanitarian situation in this region of the country.” The Foreign Ministry assigned responsibility for establishing dialogue in order to normalize the situation to “all parties involved.” At the same time, Kommersant’s source on Smolenskaya Square did not agree with the assumption that the Russian authorities changed their foreign policy position due to protests within the country; according to him, the second statement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was issued “several hours before the street protests and before the well-known statements of regional politicians."
Chairman of the SVOP, director of scientific work at the Valdai Club Fyodor Lukyanov calls the reaction of Russian Muslims to the events in Myanmar “the first example of how the ideas and sympathies of a part of Russian society diverge not even from priorities, but from the principles of the state’s foreign policy.” According to him, Myanmar “was not a priority area of Russian diplomacy,” but Moscow “traditionally opposed pressure on Naypyitaw (where until recently a military junta ruled), guided by the classical understanding of sovereignty and the inadmissibility of interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states.” This position, according to Mr. Lukyanov, “contrasted with the Western approach, according to which human rights and compliance with humanitarian norms are more important than formal sovereignty.”
“Given the growing role and influence of the Muslim community in Russian politics, the authorities are unlikely to be able to ignore such sentiments. Moreover, their spokesman was such an authoritative Muslim politician as Ramzan Kadyrov. His role in the foreign policy field has been noticeable for a long time, but until now the leader of Chechnya has acted in the mainstream of the state,” continues Fyodor Lukyanov. “Perhaps, this is the first time such a clear discrepancy has arisen - all the more significant since it puts Russia in a difficult position in relations with China, the main patron of Myanmar."
The expert recalls that a potentially similar divergence emerged on the Syrian issue, when Moscow “found itself on the side of the Shiite branch of Islam, opposing itself to the Sunni majority.” “However, in the Syrian case there was an obvious element of geopolitical rivalry and anti-Americanism was ‘saved’,” explains Kommersant’s interlocutor. “The situation with Myanmar is more complicated.”
Elena Chernenko, Maxim Yusin, Alexandra Djordjevich, Pavel Korobov, Andrey Krasnov, Olga Lukyanova
