MYANMAR – The government in Myanmar is using food as a quiet weapon againstminority Rohingya Muslims in the country’s troubled west, new reportsreveal.
In an exclusive report released on Wednesday, the Associated Press citedRohingya Muslims who have survived a deadly state-sponsored campaign ofviolence, as recounting how food was used against them to drive them out ofthe western state of Rakhine, where they have lived for generations.
One Rohingya man, Abdul Goni, who has taken refuge in Bangladesh, said hehad been stopped by the Myanmarese military from walking to the forest tocollect firewood and sell it back when he was in Myanmar. He said his onlycow was later taken away by Buddhist neighbors and seven soldiers. Hisuncle was later killed and was “strung… up on a wire” because he hadtried to stop the theft of his buffaloes, he said.
Goni said other fellow Muslims were killed for trying to fish in a river.
An acute shortage of food ensued the restrictions.
“On bad days, they (Goni and his family) carved the flesh out of bananaplant stalks for food. On the worst days, his children ate nothing,”according to the AP report.
Goni said he then decided to take his family and flee.
“It was worse than a jail. People at least get food twice a day in jail…Wewere always surrounded, always under stress, always watched,” he said.
‘They want to erase us completely’
“Sometimes we stayed hungry for a day, two days, even five days,” MohammadIlyas, who is from Ah Nauk Pyin Village in Rakhine, told AP. “The Myanmargovernment doesn’t want a single Muslim to remain there. They want to eraseus completely.”
The 55-year-old added that Myanmar’s military and his Buddhist neighborshad taken control of Rohingya rice paddies and rice stockpiles.
While restrictions on the freedom of movement and access to food have longbeen in place, they have been tightened dramatically in recent weeks,according to the AP report.
In another case, AP recounted the story of a 60-year-old farmer, RashidAhmed, who had been stopped from harvesting his rice fields by theMyanmarese military and robbed of his six buffaloes by his Buddhistneighbors.
“It would have been better if they had just shot us instead of starving usout,” Ahmed said. “What they did was slower; it was crueler. They left usto imagine the worst, to wake up every day and think about what wouldhappen when there was no food at all.”
Amnesty International
Separately, Amnesty International also said on Wednesday that “ethniccleansing” continued against the persecuted minority group.
Rohingya refugees who talked to Amnesty offered similar accounts.
“We weren’t able to get food, that’s why we fled,” Dildar Begum, from avillage near the town of Buthidaung in Rakhine State, told Amnesty.
The minority Muslims in Myanmar have faced horrific violence by themilitary and Buddhist mobs since late 2016. Accounts of killing, raping,amputating, and lynching all happening against the Muslims have sparkedserious concern among most world countries and human rights organizations.
Amnesty said Myanmar, which has consistently denied the documented reportsof violence, is now resorting to the new “quieter” weapon of food againstthe Rohingya.
“Instead of terrorizing the population through killings, rapes, and thewidespread burning of Rohingya villages, security forces are today usingmainly quieter and more subtle measures to squeeze people out by makinglife so intolerable that they have little option other than to leave,”Amnesty said.
Rohingya Muslim refugees wait to receive food distributed by an aidagencies at the Thaingkhali refugee camp in Ukhia in Bangladesh, October21, 2017. (Photo by AFP)
The London-based organization said the food shortage had been caused inlarge part due to the violence perpetrated by Myanmar’s military forces,who are blocking Rohingyas from gaining access to their rice fields,markets and humanitarian aid.
“Deliberate actions by the Myanmar authorities… are in effect starvingout many Rohingya who have tried to remain in their villages,” the groupsaid.
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has also expressed alarm thatthat the lack of access to food and fuel is adding to hunger in Myanmar.
Backed by Myanmar’s government, the Myanmarese military and Buddhistextremists launched a heavy-handed crackdown against the Muslim minority inRakhine State in late 2016. That campaign intensified in August 2017.
The crackdown has forced nearly 700,000 Rohingya Muslims to fleeto neighboring Bangladesh, where they also face an inhospitable environment.
The government of Myanmar denies any atrocities have taken place, andinsists that Rohingya are “illegal immigrants.”