US embassy cable - 03RANGOON258

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 RANGOON 000258 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 2/26/13 
TAGS: PGOV, PHUM, PINS, PREF, KISL, BM, UNHCR, Human Rights, Ethnics 
SUBJECT: MUSLIM REPRESSION AND RESENTMENT NEAR BURMA'S 
BORDER WITH BANGLADESH 
 
 
Classified By: COM CARMEN MARTINEZ. REASON: 1.5 (D) 
 
1.  (C)  Summary:  The Burmese regime's repression of the 
mostly Muslim population of northern Rakhine State, located 
along the border with Bangladesh, is breeding resentment and 
poverty.  DCM visited the area in mid-February as part of a 
trip to the region organized by UNHCR for diplomats.  UNHCR's 
protective services are limiting the oppression and its 
coordination of NGO and other UN agency projects is providing 
the only development effort in the region.  The security 
forces in northern Rakhine State, reportedly numbering 8,000, 
are an extractive presence, largely self-financing and/or 
self-enriching.  Incidents of forced labor have fallen due to 
the completion of a UN-supported gravel road that has reduced 
the security forces' need for forced porterage to isolated 
outposts.  End Summary 
 
2. (SBU) POOR, CROWDED, AND ISOLATED:  The three townships 
(akin to counties in the U.S.) nearest the Bangladesh border 
in Rakhine State have a population of 800,000, the vast 
majority of whom are Bengali-speaking Muslims.  About a 
quarter of a million people in this area have returned to 
Burma after fleeing as refugees to Bangladesh in the 1990s. 
By almost any socio-economic measure this is Burma's poorest 
and most crowded rural region--the UN reports 61% of children 
are malnourished and 35% are severely stunted.  The area 
consists of mountainous peninsulas flanked by tidal estuaries 
that are too brackish for irrigation.  The 18 feet of rain 
per year falls in 5 months, meaning there are two seasons: 
dust and mud.  There is no motorable road connection with 
Bangladesh--the only official entry point from Bangladesh is 
the estuary port of Maungdaw. 
 
3.  (C) NO RECENT INSURGENT ACTIVITY:  According to 
residents, NGO and UN expatriates, and UN and NGO local staff 
members intimately familiar with the region, there has been 
no serious insurgent activity in northern Rakhine State for 
several years (notwithstanding insurgent press releases). 
One source claimed the last major incident was in 1994.  A 
French NGO worker related an incident from 2001 in which four 
members of the security forces were murdered at night in 
their camp.  He believed it had something to do with forced 
prostitution or trafficking in women and was probably not 
insurgent related.  After the murders, her continued, the 
security forces rounded up the inhabitants of a nearby 
village and penned them in a field for two days with no food 
or water.  Two toddlers, who were left at the village, 
reportedly died.  Other sources said that occasional slit 
throats or stabbings are sometimes vaguely attributed to "the 
RSO" (the Rohingya Solidarity Organization, commonly used to 
refer to any Muslim insurgents), but are likely the result of 
local resentments and outraged husbands or fathers.  "RSO" 
members (i.e., militant Muslim refugees) total about 200 
individuals, according to one informed local estimate. 
 
3.  (C) RAPACIOUS SECURITY FORCES:  UN sources report that 
there are some 8,000 security force personnel occupying about 
80 sites in the three townships.  Most are members of the 
hybrid Burmese border patrol known as NaSaKa (the Burmese 
acronym for Border Immigration HQ).  Nearly every bridge, 
tunnel, intersection, hamlet, and government building is 
"guarded" by a detachment of armed men.  We met with the 
notorious NaSaKa commander Aung Ngwe who is such an egregious 
abuser of human rights, even by Burmese military standards, 
that he was previously ordered back to Rangoon for a sharp 
reprimand.  However, he is back commanding the border region, 
with his actions unchanged, according to locals. 
 
4  (C) SECURITY FORCES SELF-FINANCING, SELF-ENRICHING:  UN 
and NGO staffers say the security forces extract revenue and 
labor from the local population at every opportunity, in 
part, they contend, because the SPDC has made the conscious 
decision to make security operations there self-financing. 
This approach has the added "benefit" of dampening the pull 
factor from even more-crowded nearby areas of Bangladesh, 
they add.  For example, Aung Ngwe has licensed nearly every 
conceivable economic activity to a crony, friend, or partner. 
 Poor woodcutters must sell their daily cuttings to the 
monopoly licensee for 8 kyat a bundle; Aung Ngwe's buddy 
turns around and sells it for 20 kyat.  We drove through a 
large GOB cashew plantation.  Aung Ngwe personally pockets 
the proceeds from the cashew nuts, we were told, but allows 
the villagers who pick the crop to keep some of the cashew 
fruit.  Every checkpoint extracts a 50 kyat fee or a pack of 
cigarettes from the cargo bicycles that move rice and 
provisions through the township.  Aung Ngwe even sold the 
right to charge tolls on a bridge connecting the port of 
Maungdaw to the center of town--the tollbooth has since been 
removed after UN complaints.  Muslims routinely must bribe 
officials to travel within or between the three townships. 
 
5.  (C)  HUMAN RIGHTS:  The UNHCR documents reports of 
incidents of forced labor and forced contributions in the 
area.  The number of incidents has fallen in 2002, the UNHCR 
explains, not because of a change in GOB policy or action, 
but because of the completion of a road financed by a WFP 
food-for-work project and the Japanese NGO BAJ.  This road 
allows NaSaKa easier motorized access to hitherto isolated 
outposts close to the Bangladesh border and has reduced the 
need for porterage services of the locals. 
 
--  At one village the Australian DCM was slipped a note by a 
person requesting protection/support from GOB oppression.  A 
UNHCR staffer said, "Bad news.  MI minders saw the note being 
passed, so now we'll have to visit this village two or three 
times a week for the next couple of months to make sure that 
everybody here is ok." 
 
-- DCM spoke with one landless Muslim man who, amid tears, 
explained that his daughter was in jail and he had no money 
to pay for transport to the township capital, bribe the 
soldiers at the numerous checkpoints along the way, or to 
bribe the judge.  His daughter had accused the GOB-appointed 
village headman of sexual assault, as had another young woman 
in the village.  When NaSaka commander Aung Ngwe heard of the 
accusation against the village headman (his friend), he 
ordered the two women arrested.  The village headman is also 
in jail, but has access to resources to sway the outcome of 
proceedings, our contacts explained. 
 
6.  (C) RETURNEES AND UNHCR:  About 25 refugees per week are 
returning from Bangladesh--all by boat through the river port 
of Maungdaw.  UNHCR estimates approximately 5,000 will be 
willing and able to return by time of the closure of the 
UNHCR repatriation program at the end of June.  This means 
that weekly returnee rates will need to increase at least 
ten-fold to meet this deadline.  Once out of the repatriation 
business, UNHCR staffers admitted that they will be 
hard-pressed to justify the continuation of their programs in 
the border area, which in reality are a mix of UNDP-type 
development activities and normal ICRC protective services. 
 
7. (SBU) WHAT'S IN A NAME?:  When returning refugees are 
processed at Maungdaw UNHCR helps them fill out the 
immigration and customs forms.  Returnees are asked to 
declare their ethnicity, nationality, and religion.  The 
standard and approved method by which UNHCR helps fill out 
the cards yields the following:  Ethnicity - Bengali; 
Nationality - Myanmar; Religion - Muslim.  While the 
returnees are not considered citizens of Myanmar, they are 
apparently considered nationals. 
 
--  DCM did not once hear the word "Rohingya" used by anyone 
to describe Muslim Bengali-speakers.  Rather, "Muslim" is 
used.  One Muslim local staffer explained he had once written 
Rohingya on a form, but was told by the local authorities not 
to use it. 
 
--  "RSO" is commonly used to describe any Muslim insurgents, 
frequently accompanied by a vague wave in the direction of 
the Bangladeshi border. 
 
--  Buddhist Rakhine-speakers are usually called Rakhines. 
 
--  Arakan, another term for the state, people, and language, 
was used in private conversation by pro-democracy individuals 
in the ancient Arakan capital of Mrauk-Oo and elsewhere. 
Aung San Suu Kyi and her allies in the Arakan League for 
Democracy also use "Arakan." 
 
--  Almost everybody used Yangon and Myanmar vice Rangoon and 
Burma, but quite a few people used Burmese (vice Myanmar) 
when referring to the language and "Myanmar people" when 
referring to the Burmese nationality.  Several Arakanese 
voiced lingering resentment at the destruction of the capital 
city of Mrauk-Oo by Burmese invaders in 1754. 
 
-- Nobody used the older term "Akyab" for the city of Sittwe, 
the capital of Rakhine State. 
 
8.  (C) THE STATUS OF ISLAM:  The practice of Islam is not 
restricted, commander Aung Ngwe assured us.  Indeed, we saw 
many Muslims worshipping throughout the area.  One catch is 
that the authorities prohibit the construction or repair of 
mosques.  As a result, most mosques are in severe disrepair. 
In Maungdaw, the largest city in the (almost completely 
Muslim) township of 431,000 people, the central mosque has no 
roof.  On a Muslim holiday we witnessed thousands of 
worshippers crowded into what in effect was an courtyard 
enclosed by a brick wall painted green--and this in a city 
that gets 18 feet of rain per year. 
 
 
9.  (C) INDIAN PLANS IN THE AREA:  During the many hours we 
spent traveling on the broad rivers of northern Rakhine, the 
Indian ambassador detailed an approved GOI-GOB plan to 
connect NE India to the Bay of Bengal via a road-river link 
utilizing the Kaladan River.  India and Burma would dredge 
and, where needed, widen, the Kaladan River to enable cargo 
ships to ply most of the distance between Sittwe and the 
Indian border.  The northern-most link would entail about 40 
miles of blacktopped road.  A cargo terminal would be built 
at Sittwe and at the navigable northern end of the Kaladan 
River, he reported.  This route will cut by three-quarters 
the transport time for goods between NE India and Calcutta, 
he claimed.  Survey and planning has commenced, he added, 
with the project to be concluded "in about six years." 
 
10.  (C) COMMENT:  The GOB policies in northern Rakhine are a 
wonderful example of how not to win friends and influence 
people.  The seething resentment is almost palpable and is, 
in fact, visible.  As we traveled by boat up the rivers and 
estuaries from central to northern Rakhine State, the UNHCR 
staff suggested that we note the reaction of people along the 
riverbanks to our presence.  Sure enough, during the first 
part of the voyage people called out, smiled, and waved as we 
sped past.  Further on, folks wouldn't even return a wave, 
and often stepped back into the brush as we approached.  The 
change occurred about the same place Buddhist temples stopped 
appearing in villages.  The Muslim-majority townships felt 
like an area suffering from an oppressive occupier, with 
Islam the prime uniting and potentially mobilizing force. 
End Comment. 
Martinez