Waiting On Papa: Varieties of Religious Experience, with Little Flower Lady and Ethnic Cleansing by Extreme Prejudice

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Panorama. Gowainghat, Sylhet.: photo by Asif Shihat, 28 November 2017

Panorama. Gowainghat, Sylhet.: photo by Asif Shihat, 28 November 2017

Panorama. Gowainghat, Sylhet.: photo by Asif Shihat, 28 November 2017

 

Smoke on the ... tribune: photo by Piotr Dziurman, 26 November 2017

Untitled [albino alligator, California Academy of Sciences]: photo by Naveen Jamal, 10 November 2009

Untitled [Dhaka]: photo by Muhammad Imam Hasan, 26 March 2017

Untitled [Dhaka]: photo by Muhammad Imam Hasan, 25 June 2017

Kolkata: photo by Muhammad Imam Hasan, 26 June 2017

Untitled [Dhaka]: photo by Muhammad Imam Hasan, 27 June 2017

Untitled [Varanasi]: photo by Muhammad Imam Hasan, 27 June 2017

Untitled [Dhaka]: photo by Muhammad Imam Hasan, 2 June 2017

Untitled [Dhaka]: photo by Muhammad Imam Hasan, 7 October 2017

See the beauty of everyday things. Chittagong, Bangladesh.: photo by Ferdousi Begum, 18 November 2017

DSC03217 [NYC]: photo by Kanrapee Chokpaiboon, 1 November 2016

Untitled. AfterParty.: photo by Gabi Ben avraham, 13 March 2017

Shimbashi, Tokyo, Sep 2014. Happy Halloween everyone, but don't drink too much.: photo by Shin Noguchi, sometime in 2014

Sleaze majesté: Aung San Suu Kyi applauds as she sits next to Pope Francis.: photo by Max Rossi/Reuters, 27 November 2017

YANGON, 27 November: Titular Bhud-Queen Onsong Soochy (aka Her Conniving Highness The Very Nice Little Flower Lady) smirked condescendingly for the cameras today as she demonstrated to a captive assembly of loyal thug-pod bodhisattonmypuppy devotees and royal guest Pope Francis the size and shape of the iron "shrinking mindfulness claptrap veneration box" into which, were he to be so unwise as to utter the word "Rohingya" at any time during his visit to her kingdom, even by accident while sneezing, his wee papal head would be placed for the traditional Happy/Sad Decapitation By Shrinking Ritual.

Today is 25 November, exactly 3 months since violence broke out in #Myanmar. Since then: 623,000 people fled to #Bangladesh and at least 275 villages fully/partially burned down in #Rakhine  State. The extreme level of human suffering is much harder to quantify. #RohingyaCrisis: image via Pierre in Myanmar @pierre peron, 25 November 2017

 

#Oxford City Council votes - unanimously - to remove Freedom of the City from Aung San Sun Kyi - councillors say with 'heavy hearts and regret' #Rohingya #Myanmar: image via Barnaby Phillips @BarnabyPhillips, 27 November 2017

Breaking: Little Faux Royal Flower Lady Discharged from Iconic Emblem Status at Oxon, Is Spit Out Of Many Disgusted Mouths

Oxford City Council has removed the Freedom of the City of Oxford from Aung San Suu Kyi. The cross-party motion was unanimously supported at a special council meeting moments ago.: image via Oxford City Council @OxfordCity, 27 November 2017

Oxford's world-renowned university removed portraits of Suu Kyi, a former student, from its walls in September: image via AFP News, 28 November 2017

Oxford strips Suu Kyi of city's freedom: AFP News, 28 November 2017

Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been stripped of the honorific freedom of Oxford, the British city where she studied and raised her children, over her "inaction" in the Rohingya crisis.

"When Aung San Suu Kyi was given the Freedom of the City in 1997 it was because she reflected Oxford's values ​​of tolerance and internationalism," the city council said in a statement issued late Monday.

"Today we have taken the unprecedented step of stripping her of the city's highest honour because of her inaction in the face of the oppression of the minority Rohingya population," added the release, which was published after a unanimous vote.

"Our reputation is tarnished by honouring those who turn a blind eye to violence."

Oxford's world-renowned university removed portraits of Suu Kyi, a former student, from its walls in September.

Suu Kyi's late husband Michael Aris was a lecturer in Asian history at the university, and the couple lived and raised their two sons in the city.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner has come under fire for failing to speak up in defence of the minority Muslim community.

The United Nations says more than 620,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh since August and now live in squalor in the world's largest refugee camp after a military crackdown in Myanmar that the UN and Washington have said clearly constitutes "ethnic cleansing".

Ethnic Kachin Catholic devotees gather along a road to see Pope Francis Monday, Nov. 27, 2017, in Yangon, Myanmar ahead of his arrival. Pope Francis begins a six-day visit to Myanmar and Bangladesh on Monday.: photo by Gemunu Amarasinghe/AP, 27 November 2017

Ethnic Kachin Catholic devotees gather along a road to see Pope Francis Monday, Nov. 27, 2017, in Yangon, Myanmar ahead of his arrival. Pope Francis begins a six-day visit to Myanmar and Bangladesh on Monday.: photo by Gemunu Amarasinghe/AP, 27 November 2017

 #Myanmar ethnic minorities in colorful attire waiting to welcome Pope Francis #Yangon: image via Gemunu Amarasinghe @Gemunua, 26 November 2017

 

Many of Myanmar's Catholics are travelling from other conflict-weary corners of Myanmar to join a huge, open-air mass led by the pope on Wednesday in the economic hub, Yangon: photo by AFP, 27 November 2017 

A perfect riposte to status-obsessed SE Asia. Pope Francis drives through Yangon on the 1st papal visit to Myanmar - in a Toyota, with the window wound down. Any Asian leaders care to follow his example?: image via Jonathan Head @pakhead, 26 November 2017

Pope Francis’s most sensitive meetings have been with Snr Gen Min Aung Hlaing and controversial top monk Sitagu Sayadaw. Will anything he says influence these uncompromising figures? Seems doubtful.: tweet via Jonathan Head @pakhead, 28 November 2017

Religion and Violence in Myanmar

Top #Buddhist monk #SitaguSayadaw meets #Pope Francis: image via Mizzima News @MissimaNews, 27 November 2017

Sitagu Sayadaw's Case for Mass Killing: Matthew J. Walton, Foreign Affairs, 6 November 2017

Since late August, more than 600,000 Rohingya have left Myanmar, fleeing a state-led campaign of violence against them. The Rohingya are a Muslim minority and predominantly live in Rakhine State, in Myanmar’s west. They have experienced persistent, institutionalized discrimination for years. (The members of the state’s Rakhine Buddhist majority believe that they, too, have been discriminated against, mostly by the central government.)

The most common explanation given for the persecution of the Rohingya revolves around their nationality. Government officials, media commentators, and religious leaders have claimed that the Rohingya are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. Ethnicity plays a role, as well. The government officially recognizes 135 indigenous ethnic groups, and Myanmar’s 2008 Constitution grants those groups certain rights. The Rohingya are not among them. More broadly, people in Myanmar insist that the Rohingya are not a real ethnic group because they worry about the unlikely possibility that the Rohingya will seek to secede, threatening the country's territorial sovereignty.

Sitagu's words could provide the final cover for Myanmar’s Buddhists to ignore international criticism and cloak themselves in the righteousness of holy war.

National identity in Myanmar has long been intertwined with Buddhist religious identity. But religion has had a particular effect in the case of the Rohingya. The so-called War on Terror—waged primarily against Muslims around the world—has made it easier for Myanmar’s elites to label the Rohingya as terrorists and for government officials to defend the violence against them as a legitimate response to extremism. The Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army's attacks on government targets in October 2016 and August 2017, meanwhile, have validated many citizens’ belief that Islam is inherently violent and poses an existential threat to Buddhism, Myanmar’s majority religion. It has also allowed political and religious elites to unfairly and inaccurately associate all Rohingya with terrorism. Thanks to anti-Muslim ideas spread through social media sites, the popular press, and the writings and sermons of influential laypeople and monks, Myanmar’s citizens have come to see the Rohingya as doubly unwanted—as both national and religious “others.” 

Sitagu Sayadaw is one such monk. Highly regarded for his philanthropic work, he is probably the most popular and well-known religious figure in Myanmar. Many in the country consider his interpretations of Buddhist teachings authoritative. He has a global profile, running meditation centers in several countries and making frequent international appearances.

After the first round of violence broke out between Buddhists and Muslims in Rakhine State in 2012, Sitagu sought to portray himself as a peace builder, participating in interfaith discussions as a patron of a nongovernmental organization called Religions for Peace–Myanmar. Commentators abroad lauded him as a force for reconciliation. Yet Sitagu’s usually moderate remarks in English stood in stark contrast to his Burmese-language sermons, in which he has tended to portray Islam as a religion of violence and Myanmar’s Muslims as foreigners in their own country.

That remains the case today. On October 30, Sitagu delivered a sermon to members of the military at a training school in Karen State. His remarks had a chilling purpose: to provide a religious justification for the mass killing of non-Buddhists.

IN BUDDHISM’S NAME

Sitagu’s sermon focused on the story of Dutthagamani, a Sinhalese Buddhist king whose victory over a Tamil ruler in the first century BCE, in what is now Sri Lanka, is recounted in a fifth-century text called the Mahavamsa. Sitagu framed his account with a call for unity between the military and the monkhood: the two, he said, “are inseparable.” This might seem an unusual comment from a monk who fled his country in 1988 after criticizing its then-military government. Today, however, Sitagu counts high-ranking military officials among his donors.

As Dutthagamani agonized over the bloodshed he had caused in battle, Sitagu told the soldiers, he was visited by eight arahants, or fully enlightened beings. They assured the king that there was no need to grieve. Of the many Tamils whom Dutthagamani’s forces had killed, the arahants said, only one had committed himself to the basic ethical code of Buddhism. Another had taken a lesser vow. And so only one and a half human beings had died: all the other Tamils who had been had killed were non-Buddhists, and their deaths could not generate bad karma.

Buddhists have sought to frame it as a defense of religion. In Sri Lanka, for instance, Sinhalese monks invoked the story during the government’s brutal, decades-long war against the Tamil Tigers, an insurgency made up of Christians and Hindus. “The destruction of human beings” in defense of Buddhism, the Sinhalese monk Walpola Rahula
wrote in 1972, "was not a very bad crime." 

 

#WANTED: #SitaguSayadaw for hate speech and encouraging #genocide against #Rohingya: image via Haikal Mansor @HaikalMansor, 5 November 2017

A DEEPER TRAGEDY

By denying the humanity of non-Buddhists, Sitagu also imperiled the humanity of the soldiers to whom he preached—and of all who have taken part in the violence against the Rohingya. Seeking to absolve soldiers of their guilt, he justified future abuses, encouraging a militarized mind set and cruelties that could shatter the prospects for broader peace and reconciliation.

Some might argue that Sitagu‘s sermon will have no meaningful effect. For years, after all, some monks in Myanmar have sought to dehumanize Muslims, comparing them to animals and undercutting whatever compassion lay Buddhists might otherwise offer them. But Sitagu is not just any monk. He is so influential and revered that his words could provide the final cover for Myanmar’s Buddhists to ignore international criticism and cloak themselves in the righteousness of holy war.

That is a frightening prospect not only for the Rohingya but also for Myanmar’s other minorities. Religious, political, and military leaders could eventually turn similar logic against groups such as the Kachin Independence Army, a group made up primarily of Christians—particularly if Myanmar’s conflict-ridden regions remain restive. In Karen State, where Sitagu delivered his sermon, ethnic and religious minorities have faced violence at the hands of the military for years.

Yet there is also a chance that Sitagu’s rhetoric will backfire, horrifying at least some in Myanmar and leading them to reject violence committed in Buddhism’s name. Most of the country’s civil-society and human-rights groups have stayed quiet over the last few weeks, but the Karen Women’s Organization, a community advocacy group, recently issued a brave statement denouncing the military’s actions against Rohingyas in Rakhine State, especially its involvement in sexual violence. In an encouraging sign, the Karen National Union, an armed group in a tenuous ceasefire with the military, followed up with a similar statement. This might create an opening for ethnic groups that have experienced brutality at the hands of the military to recognize some shared solidarity of suffering with the Rohingya and to reject religious justifications for violence.
 
These are hopeful signs, but their paucity reflects the distance that most people in Myanmar feel from the Rohingya’s suffering and their fear of speaking out against it. Ordinary citizens have mostly supported Sitagu’s remarks on social media. With popular opinion set so vehemently against the Rohingya, it is hard to know how many people agree with Sitagu and how many disagree and are afraid to say so, either because of his status as a revered monk or because they are scared of violent reprisals at a moment of high tension.
 
The government, for its part, has yet to comment on Sitagu’s sermon. Given Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s claim that she is committed to peacefully ending the conflict and the intense scrutiny the violence has attracted overseas, she should not let his sermon pass without a remark. As for the State Sangha Maha Nayaka Committee, the country’s highest Buddhist authority, it has done almost nothing to limit monks’ incitements to violence over the last five years, and it is unlikely to take action now. That is bad news, because monks are often the only people with the moral and cultural authority to challenge the words of their peers. Myanmar desperately needs Buddhists to speak out and pull their country from the brink of a deeper tragedy.

#WANTED: #SitaguSayadaw for hate speech and encouraging #genocide against #Rohingya: image via Haikal Mansor @HaikalMansor, 5 November 2017

 

Dressed up for the Pope: image via Jonathan Head @pakhead, 27 November 2017

Some great ethnic costumes among the Catholics who have travelled to Yangon to see the Pope: image via Jonathan Head @pakhead, 27 November 2017

Pope’s car is a humbleToyota, deep blue which represents peace, not something like black Mercedes with black windows. Welcome to #Myanmar: image via Hnin Yadana Zaw @hninyadanazaw, 27 November 2017

Pope Francis faces a tricky high wire act in Myanmar where his comments on the plight of Rohingya Muslims will be scrutinised by his hosts: photo by AFP, 27 November 2017

Myanmar has 'no religious discrimination', army chief tells pope: Catherine Marciano, Richard Sargent, AFP News, 27 November 2017

Pope Francis met Myanmar's powerful army chief on Monday at the start of a highly sensitive trip, with the military man saying he told the pontiff there was "no religious discrimination" in his country despite allegations of ethnic cleansing.

The 80-year-old pope, the first to travel to Myanmar, received Senior General Min Aung Hlaing for a 15-minute meeting at the archbishop's residence in Yangon, where the pontiff is staying during his visit.

At least 620,000 Rohingya have fled western Rakhine state to Bangladesh, describing rape, murder and arson at the hands of Min Aung Hlaing's army and ethnic Rakhine Buddhist mobs.

The UN and US have accused the military of "ethnic cleansing" in a campaign sparked by attacks by a militant Rohingya group on police border posts in late August.

The army chief told the pope that "Myanmar has no religious discrimination at all. Likewise our military too... performs for the peace and stability of the country", according to a Facebook post published by the general's office a few hours after the meeting.

There is also "no discrimination between ethnic groups in Myanmar", he added.

The Rohingya, who are denied citizenship, are not recognised as one of the Buddhist-majority country's formal ethnic groups.

After the meeting a Vatican spokesman said the religious leader and the army chief had discussed the "great responsiblilty of the country's authorities in this moment of transition".

Myanmar was ruled by a junta for five decades until a civilian government led by Aung San Suu Kyi came to power last year. The army retains sweeping powers over security and political heft through a parliamentary bloc of seats.

The army crackdown on the widely reviled Rohingya looms large over the pope's four-day trip to a country with a tiny Catholic minority.

Francis has called the Rohingya his "brothers and sisters" in repeated entreaties to ease their plight as the latest round of a festering crisis has unfolded.

Earlier on Monday he was welcomed at Yangon's airport in a colourful ceremony led by children from different minority groups in bright bejewelled clothes, who gave him flowers and received a papal embrace in return.

Nuns in white habits were among devotees waving flags as his motorcade swept past the golden Shwedagon Pagoda.

"I saw the pope... I was so pleased, I cried!" Christina Aye Aye Sein, 48, told AFP after the pope's convoy received a warm but modest welcome.

"His face looked very lovely and sweet... He is coming here for peace."

Myanmar's estimated 700,000 Catholics make up just over one percent of the country's 51 million people.

But around 200,000 Catholics are pouring into Myanmar's commercial capital Yangon before a huge open-air mass on Wednesday.

"People came from all corners of the country, even if we could only see him for a few seconds," Sister Genevieve Mu, an ethnic Karen nun, told AFP.

- Peace and prayers -

The pope's speeches in Mynamar will be scrutinised by Buddhist hardliners for any mention of the word "Rohingya", an incendiary term in a country where the Muslim group are labelled "Bengalis" -- alleged illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

On Tuesday Francis will meet Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, whose lustre has faded because of her failure to speak up publicly for the Rohingya.

He will hold two masses in Yangon.

Speaking shortly before he left Rome, the pontiff said: "I ask you to be with me in prayer so that, for these peoples, my presence is a sign of affinity and hope."

The army insists its Rakhine operation has been a proportionate response to Rohingya "terrorists" who raided police posts in late August, killing at least a dozen officers.

But rights groups have accused the military of using its operation as cover to drive out a minority it has oppressed for decades and forced out in great numbers in previous "clearance operations".

Days before the papal visit, Myanmar and Bangladesh inked a deal vowing to begin repatriating Rohingya refugees in two months.

But details of the agreement -- including the use of temporary shelters for returnees, many of whose homes have been burned to the ground -- raise questions for Rohingya fearful of returning without guarantees of basic rights.

Francis will travel on to Bangladesh on Thursday, where he will meet a group of Rohingya Muslims in the capital Dhaka.

In Kutupalong, the largest fresh encampment of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, 25-year-old Aziz Khan implored the pope to help his people.

"If he can help us, then I want to tell him that we want our country and our rights back," he told AFP.

 

More flag-waving and traditional dances to greet @Pontifex ahead of his arrival to give a speech at the conference center in Naypyitaw.: image via Poppy McPherson @poppymcp, 28 November 2017

More flag-waving and traditional dances to greet @Pontifex ahead of his arrival to give a speech at the conference center in Naypyitaw.: image via Poppy McPherson @poppymcp, 28 November 2017

 

A woman waits to receive humanitarian aid with her child, having arrived in the Rohingya refugee settlement only moments before: photo by Olivia Headon/UN Migration Agency (IOM), 28 November 201

 

 

A young Rohingya refugee receives medical treatment on arrival at Balukhali settlement.: photo by Olivia Headon/UN Migration Agency (IOM), 28 November 2017

Violence Drives Further 1,800 Rohingya Refugees To Cross to Bangladesh as Pope Appeals for Tolerance: International Organization for Migration / UN Migration Agency, 28 November 2017

Cox’s Bazar – In just three months an estimated 624,251 Rohingya refugees have crossed into Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, fleeing violence and oppression in Myanmar’s Northern Rakhine State. Of these, over 1,800 have arrived in the past seven days. This brings the total population of Rohingya seeking safety in the district to over 836,000. 

“Although the number of people arriving is far lower than the first few weeks of the crisis, hundreds of refugees continue to cross the border into Bangladesh from Myanmar daily,” said Andrew Lind, the UN Migration Agency (IOM)’s Emergency Coordinator in Cox’s Bazar. “People are still arriving in the settlements with horrifying accounts of physical and sexual abuse, harassment and murder. All of them fear for family members left behind in Myanmar,” he added.

A 30-year-old woman, who spoke to IOM on Monday (27/10), as she arrived in Balukhali settlement with her five children, said that she fled her village when it was burned to ground just seven days ago. She said that the people attacking the village were divided into two groups: one, which kidnapped people, and a second, which set villagers’ houses alight. “I saw them kidnap people with my own eyes, but I did not see where they took them,” she said.

After two days hiding in a nearby village, fearing further attacks in the area, she started to make her way to the border with her children. She told IOM that her husband had died several months earlier because they had no access to healthcare in Rakhine State.

For days, her two older sons carried the two youngest children, while their mother carried the fifth child and what little she had managed to salvage from their home. She told IOM that her four-year-old son now refuses to eat and keeps talking about how they are going to be attacked again. “There is no peace. We cannot sleep... If we are not safe, we will not go back,” she said.

Like the other refugees, the family arrived with almost nothing in a sprawling, congested settlement, where the humanitarian community’s response is still trying to catch up with the vast needs of a desperate population.

Water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) are of particular concern. The World Health Organization (WHO) found that over 60 per cent of water sources tested in the settlements were contaminated with E.coli. Much of the contamination is a result of shallow wells located less than 30 feet away from latrines. Full latrines, and lack of space to desludge them, are also contributing to the potentially life-threatening problem.

In the past week, IOM has drilled thirteen deep tube wells in Zone SS, a less congested area in Balukhali settlement, where people arriving over the last two weeks have settled. In total, IOM has now drilled 374 deep tube wells and installed 4,973 latrines (permanent and emergency) in the Cox’s Bazar settlements and in host communities.

Protection concerns in the settlements are also growing. With so many vulnerable and destitute people living in a small area, the settlements have become a target for opportunist human traffickers looking to exploit the refugees. IOM is seeking funding to help better protect the refugees and offer support to survivors of exploitation and human trafficking.

Meanwhile, Pope Francis, who is currently in Myanmar, has condemned politicians who propagate alarm over immigration and argued their fear-mongering engenders violence and racism.

Writing in a message titled Migrants and Refugees: Men and Women in Search of Peace which the Vatican sent to heads of state and government before his trip, the pontiff said, “Those who, for what may be political reasons, foment fear of migrants instead of building peace are sowing violence, racial discrimination and xenophobia, which are matters of great worry for all those concerned about the safety of every human being.”

After Myanmar, Pope Francis will travel to Bangladesh where he is expected to meet a small group of Rohingya refugees.

• A woman waits to receive humanitarian aid with her child, having arrived in the Rohingya refugee settlement only moments before. Photo: Olivia Headon/UN Migration Agency (IOM)

A Rohingya Muslim boy carries concrete cylindrical material used to build latrines in Jamtoli refugee camp on Monday, Nov. 27, 2017, in Bangladesh. Since late August, more than 620,000 Rohingya have fled Myanmar's Rakhine state into neighboring Bangladesh, where they are living in squalid refugee camps.: photo by Wong Maye-E/AP, 27 November 2017

A Rohingya Muslim boy carries concrete cylindrical material used to build latrines in Jamtoli refugee camp on Monday, Nov. 27, 2017, in Bangladesh. Since late August, more than 620,000 Rohingya have fled Myanmar's Rakhine state into neighboring Bangladesh, where they are living in squalid refugee camps.: photo by Wong Maye-E/AP, 27 November 2017

Rohingya Muslim refugees carrying sewer ring at Thankhali refugee camp Photo @uz_munir #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 19 November 2017

Rohingya Muslim men gather in an open field for an evening of sporting activities in Jamtoli refugee camp in Bangladesh on Monday, Nov. 27, 2017. Since late August, more than 620,000 Rohingya have fled Myanmar's Rakhine state into neighboring Bangladesh, where they are living in squalid refugee camps.: photo by Wong Maye-E/AP, 27 November 2017

 

Rohingya Muslim men gather in an open field for an evening of sporting activities in Jamtoli refugee camp in Bangladesh on Monday, Nov. 27, 2017. Since late August, more than 620,000 Rohingya have fled Myanmar's Rakhine state into neighboring Bangladesh, where they are living in squalid refugee camps.: photo by Wong Maye-E/AP, 27 November 2017

 

A Rohingya Muslim gets his hair cut in a makeshift barber shop that is lit with a candle and a torch light at Jamtoli refugee camp, Friday, Nov. 24, 2017, in Bangladesh.: photo by Wong Maye-E/AP, 24 November 2017

 

A Rohingya Muslim gets his hair cut in a makeshift barber shop that is lit with a candle and a torch light at Jamtoli refugee camp, Friday, Nov. 24, 2017, in Bangladesh.: photo by Wong Maye-E/AP, 24 November 2017
 

 Rohingya Muslim refugees queue at a food distribution centre in the Kutupalong refugee camp in Cox's Bazar Photo @edwardesjones #RohingyaCrisis: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 28 November 2017

Rohingya Muslim refugees walk through the Kutupalong refugee camp in Cox's Bazar Photo @edwardesjones #RohingyaCrisis: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 27 November 2017



Rohingya to stay in temporary shelters after Myanmar return Photo @edwardesjones #AFP #RohingyaCrisis: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 27 November 2017



Pope arrives in Myanmar on high-stakes visit Photo @TheLilyfish #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 27 November 2017

 

Pope Francis arriving in Naypyidaw, Myanmar’s capital, on Tuesday. In a speech, he gave carefully worded remarks that sought to depict religious differences as a source of enrichment.: photo by Vatican press office, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images, 28 November 2017

Pope Francis arriving in Naypyidaw, Myanmar’s capital, on Tuesday. In a speech, he gave carefully worded remarks that sought to depict religious differences as a source of enrichment.: photo by Vatican press office, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images, 28 November 2017

In Myanmar, Pope Francis Calls for Peace Without Saying ‘Rohingya': Jason Horowitz, The New York Times, 28 November 2017

NAYPYIDAW, Myanmar — Since his election in 2013, Pope Francis has constantly used his pulpit to champion the downtrodden and draw attention to the misery of the powerless and the persecuted.

He risked the fury of Turkey by describing the mass killings of Armenians in World War I as a genocide. He apologized for the silence of church leaders in the Rwandan genocide of 1994. And three months ago, he denounced “the persecution of our Rohingya brothers,” referring to the Muslim minority that has suffered a systematic campaign of murder, rape and arson by Myanmar’s military.

“I would like to express my full closeness to them,” he said at the Vatican at the time, “and let all of us ask the Lord to save them, and to raise up men and women of good will to help them, who shall give them their full rights.”

On Tuesday, Pope Francis had a singular opportunity to be an advocate for the Rohingya as he stood next to Myanmar’s de facto leader and in front of a hall full of military officials, prelates and diplomats in this ghostly fortress of a capital.

Pope Francis in a motorcade after his arrival in Naypyidaw. Humanitarian groups had hoped he would specifically denounce the Myanmar military’s campaign of violence against the Rohingya.: photo by  Ye Aung Thu/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images, 28 November 2017

Pope Francis in a motorcade after his arrival in Naypyidaw. Humanitarian groups had hoped he would specifically denounce the Myanmar military’s campaign of violence against the Rohingya.: photo by  Ye Aung Thu/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images, 28 November 2017 

But in a much anticipated speech, Francis studiously avoided using the name of Myanmar's persecuted Rohingya minority or directly addressing their situation, after church leaders advised him that doing so would only aggravate the situation and put the country’s tiny Catholic population at risk.

“The future of Myanmar must be peace, a peace based on respect for the dignity and rights of each member of society, respect for each ethnic group and its identity,” the pope said as he stood next to Myanmar’s civilian leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate whose own reputation has suffered for failing to speak out against the killings. Francis said that respect for rule of law and the democratic order “enables each individual and every group — none excluded — to offer its legitimate contribution to the common good.”

“Rohingya” is a highly polarized term in Myanmar, and the pope’s own advisers had warned him that using it during his visit could antagonize the military, embolden hard-line Buddhists and even make the situation worse for the Rohingya. What the pope said in private about their plight is not known.

But critics worried that Francis’ caution in public, while perhaps prudent, risked diminishing his reputation as the world’s megaphone against injustice.

“I’m disappointed,” said Lynn Kuok, a nonresident fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Center for East Asia Policy Studies, who had hoped the pope would acknowledge the Rohingya and their plight. Instead she called his speech “tepid” and added: “When even the leader of the Catholic Church doesn’t speak out, it really shows the desperate situation they are in.”

 

Preparations for the pope’s arrival at the Presidential Palace in Naypyidaw.: photo by Andrew Medichini/Associated Press, 28 November 2017 

 

Preparations for the pope’s arrival at the Presidential Palace in Naypyidaw.: photo by Andrew Medichini/Associated Press, 28 November 2017 

The decision whether to publicly utter the name Rohingya was perhaps the most difficult diplomatic balancing act of his pontificate, and it became a dominant narrative of the first papal visit to Myanmar.

It was a visit that even his supporters considered an unforced error as it potentially put him in a moral quandary not entirely unlike that of Pope Pius XII, whose reputation forever suffered for his calculation that speaking out against the genocide of Jews during World War II would risk the lives of Catholics.

Francis is still wildly popular, and he is expected to meet with Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh later in the week. But here the diplomatic demands of the local politics outweighed any temptation the pope may have risked to directly denounce the treatment of the Muslim minority.

The pope is a good guest. He is often loath to publicly criticize his hosts when traveling, and in visits to countries from the United States to Egypt he has chosen to issue broad reminders about principles of democracy and justice, rather than dwell on specific shortcomings. But many believed the situation, which the United States and the United Nations have called ethnic cleansing, cried out for condemnation.

More than 620,000 Rohingya have fled across the border to Bangladesh since August, when the military began a crackdown in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, in response to Rohingya militants’ attacks on security posts.

 

Pope Francis and Myanmar’s president, Htin Kyaw, at the Presidential Palace.: photo by Andrew Medichini/Associated Press, 28 November 2017 

 

Pope Francis and Myanmar’s president, Htin Kyaw, at the Presidential Palace.: photo by Andrew Medichini/Associated Press, 28 November 2017 

 

Myanmar has stripped the Rohingya of citizenship and does not consider them to be a distinct ethnic group. Instead, most of the majority-Buddhist population regards them as interlopers from Bangladesh.

Because of this, the term Rohingya is essentially taboo. Cardinal Charles Maung Bo and others in the church had urged the pope not to use it during his trip, for fear that any appearance of taking the side of the Muslim minority could provoke a violent backlash against Catholics in the country, who number about 700,000.

“I have come, above all, to pray with the nation’s small but fervent Catholic community,” Francis said on Tuesday. “To confirm them in their faith, and to encourage them in their efforts to contribute to the good of the nation.”

The Rohingya crisis has already done reputational damage to Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, who was stripped of her Freedom of Oxford award for failing to denounce the military’s crackdown.

Speaking immediately before Francis, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi acknowledged that “the situation in the Rakhine has most strongly captured the attention of the world.” She said that in the face of a breakdown of trust “between different communities in Rakhine,” she especially valued the support of friends who wished for the government’s success.

 

Myanmar’s civilian leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, right, has been criticized for failing to denounce the crackdown on the Rohingya. “It is the aim of our government to bring out the beauty of our diversity and to make it our strength,” she said Tuesday. Credit Vincenzo Pinto/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images, 28 November 2017  

Myanmar’s civilian leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, right, has been criticized for failing to denounce the crackdown on the Rohingya. “It is the aim of our government to bring out the beauty of our diversity and to make it our strength,” she said Tuesday. Credit Vincenzo Pinto/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images, 28 November 2017  

“It is the aim of our government to bring out the beauty of our diversity and to make it our strength, by protecting rights, fostering tolerance, ensuring security for all,” she said.

But Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, who won a landslide election in 2015, is also in an excruciatingly tight political spot. She has no authority over the military, which ruled the country outright for decades. Her defenders, including Cardinal Bo and others in the church, argue that she is powerless to stop the campaign against the Rohingya, and that for her to speak out against it would only weaken her, strengthen the military and jeopardize the country’s fragile democratic gains. She conferred privately with the pope before their public speeches.

But analysts here said the more important meeting for Francis came on Monday evening, when he met with Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, who has led the campaign against the Rohingya and essentially sidelined Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi. The crackdown is popular in Myanmar and has helped coalesce support behind the general, who is believed to have designs on the presidency.

In a Facebook post after Monday’s meeting, the general denied that religious prejudice existed in Myanmar. “His speech is always the same,” said Mariano Soe Naing, a spokesman for the Myanmar Catholic bishops conference.

For that very reason, many humanitarian groups had hoped Pope Francis would say something very different. Instead, he spoke broadly about religious differences as a source of enrichment, tolerance and nation-building.

  

Pope Francis and Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi on stage. The pope is often loath to publicly criticize his hosts when traveling.: photo by Max Rossi/Reuters, 28 November 2017

 

Pope Francis and Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi on stage. The pope is often loath to publicly criticize his hosts when traveling.: photo by Max Rossi/Reuters, 28 November 2017

 

“The religions can play a significant role in repairing the emotional, spiritual and psychological wounds of those who have suffered in the years of conflict,” he said. 

“Drawing on deeply held values, they can help to uproot the causes of conflict, build bridges of dialogue, seek justice and be a prophetic voice for all who suffer.”

Some diplomats thought it was for the best that the pope had not explicitly mentioned the Rohingya.

“The problem is that with the press, maybe some human rights organizations, the expectations are very high,” said Nikolay Listopadov, Russia’s ambassador to Myanmar, after exiting the International Convention Center, where the speeches took place. “They usually expect some miracles. But even the pope can’t just produce a miracle right now.”

The pope emphasized similar themes earlier Tuesday at the archbishop’s residence in Yangon, where he met for 40 minutes with Buddhist leaders, as well as Hindu, Jewish, Christian and Muslim representatives. He said that diversity was a source of strength and that uniformity eroded humanity.

But that view is anathema to many Buddhists in Myanmar. Many see the Rohingya, who have lived in Myanmar for generations, as unassimilated Muslim separatists whose propagation poses a threat to Buddhist, and nationalist, identity.

“We don’t like them. We’re angry,” said Naing Win, a 19-year-old novice monk who was walking around a pagoda complex in Yangon on Monday afternoon.

Nor does the view of Rohingya as, essentially, trespassers in Myanmar appear to be limited to hard-line Buddhists. Asked if any Rohingya had been present at the morning meeting in Yangon, Father Soe Naing, the spokesman for the Myanmar Catholic Bishops conference, explained that it was unlikely, as the Muslims who called themselves Rohingya were not allowed to move around the country.

The designation Rohingya, he added, was “a sudden creation” that reflected a separatist movement in Rakhine State: “For us they are called Bengalis.”

Palaces of the Pod Potentates, Myanmar: image via Joe Freeman @joefree215, 28 November 2017

Palaces of the Pod Potentates, Myanmar: image via Joe Freeman @joefree215, 28 November 2017



Catholics arriving in Yangon, Myanmar, on Saturday, ahead of a visit by Pope Francis.: photo by Ye Aung Thu/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images, 26 November 2017

Pope Francis’ Dilemma in Myanmar: Whether to Say ‘Rohingya’: Jason Horowitz, The New York Times, 26 November 2017

More than 600,000 Rohingya have fled to neighboring Bangladesh, which the pope will visit after Myanmar, where they live in sprawling refugee camps as they await a repatriation deal between the two countries.

The Rohingya are, in short, exactly the sort of persecuted and downtrodden people in the global periphery whose rights Francis has made it his pastoral mission to champion and whose plight he has used his papal platform to elevate.

The Myanmar trip would seem to present the pope an opportunity to reassert his status as the world’s moral compass by condemning the violence against the Rohingya. Many hope he will do just that.

But Cardinal Bo said that Francis had gotten the message. “He understands better now the situation,” Cardinal Bo said.

The situation, as it were, is a political, sectarian and religious minefield that some supporters of Francis worry poses a no-win scenario even for a political operator as deft as he is.

 

Roman Catholic nuns during a ceremony in the Irrawaddy region of Myanmar. About 700,000 Catholics live in the country, representing about 1 percent of the total population.: photo by Ye Aung Thu/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images, 26 November 2017

The pope “risks either compromising his moral authority or putting in danger the Christians of that country,” the Rev. Thomas J. Reese, a commissioner of the United States  Commission on International religious which listed Myanmar as one of the worst countries in that category, wrote this past week in a column for the Religion News Service. 

“I have great admiration for the pope and his abilities, but someone should have talked him out of making this trip,” he wrote.

Father Reese argued that the pope’s usual, and admirable, willingness to call out injustice could put the country’s Christian minority in grave danger. About 700,000 Roman Catholics live in Myanmar, representing little more than 1 percent of the total population. There are also Baptist Christians and Hindus, but the vast majority in the country, about 90 percent, follow Theravada Buddhism, and the campaign against the Rohingya is wildly popular.

On the other hand, Father Reese said of the pope: “If he is silent about the persecution of the Rohingya, he loses moral credibility.”

The Vatican spokesman, Greg Burke, said in a briefing this past week that Rohingya was “not a prohibited word,” adding that, while the pope takes the advice of Cardinal Bo seriously, “we’ll see together” whether the pope uses the word.

“Let’s just say it’s very interesting diplomatically,” he said.

Many Buddhists consider the Rohingya, who have lived in Myanmar for generations and were stripped of their citizenship in 1982, trespassers and terrorists. In October, Rohingya militants attacked and killed nine border officials, prompting a crackdown that has shocked rights activists the world over for its cruelty. If the pope appears to take sides with the Rohingya, he risks angering extremist monks who have warned the pope to steer clear.

“There is no Rohingya ethnic group in our country, but the pope believes they are originally from here. That’s false,” Ashin Wirathu, the leader of a hard-line Buddhist movement, Ma Ba Tha, told the News Times in August..

The reputational cost of silence on the persecution of the Rohingya is already being paid by Myanmar’s leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Once the darling of rights activists during her years under house arrest, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi was elected in in 2015 with the goal of putting Myanmar on the path to stable democracy and settling disputes with the country’s many armed ethnic groups.

But the military maintained control of the national security infrastructure, and Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi appears to have no power, and no voice, to stop the attacks on the Rohingya.

Cardinal Bo, an ally of Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s, has argued that she remains the country’s best hope for democracy and that the pope, who is scheduled to meet her on Tuesday in the capital, Naypyidaw, should show his support in the hopes of giving her more leverage to sway the military.

But, according to the Vatican, Cardinal Bo also suggested that Francis meet Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the commander of Myanmar’s powerful military and the architect of the so-called ethnic cleansing. The meeting on Thursday is intended to make sure the military leader does not feel forgotten, but it also presents the pope’s greatest opportunity to have an impact on the humanitarian situation.

Rohingya refugee at the Kutupalong camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, this month. More than 600,000 Rohingya have fled to neighboring Bangladesh, which the pope will also visit.: photo by Adam Dean for The New York Times, 26 November 2017

  

As in his meeting in April with President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt, the pope has proved reluctant to directly criticisze political leaders ion their own turf, instead making broader remarks.

“History does not forgive those who talk about equality but then discard those who are different,” he said while standing next to Mr. Sisi.

But when it comes to ethnic cleansing, the pope has been more outspoken. In 2015, for example, he infuriated Turkey by describimng the mass killings of Armenians in World War I as “genocide.”

In March, Francis apologized for the participation of priests and nuns and the silence of church leaders in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, in which 800,000 people were killed in 100 days. That silence was not without precedent.

Pope Pius XII will forever be a figure of controversy, and, for many Catholics, shame, for his calculation that speaking out against the genocide of Jews during World War II would risk the lives of Catholics.

In Myanmar, Francis will seek out meetings with the persecuted. On Tuesday, he is to meet with representatives of religious minorities, including Hindus, Christians and what Mr. Burke, the Vatican spokesman, called a “small group” of Rohingya refugees.

On Thursday, the pope will go to Bangladesh, a Muslim-majority nation where hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees have sought safety. Some are to meet with the pope that day in Dhaka, the capital.

But experts in the church are urging the pope to be careful what he calls them.

The Rev. Bernardo Cervellera, a member of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions and editor of AsiaNews, an organization based in Rome that closely follows the church in Asia, said the pope’s previous use of the word Rohingya made Christians in Myanmar “very very worried.”

Father Cervellera also said he thought that using the word could play into the hands of Muslim extremists, including Al Qaeda, who he said had started a holy war to save the Rohingya.

“The word is politicized and monopolized by an Islamic idea,” Father Cervellera said, adding that the military was carrying out ethnic cleansing of all the minorities in the region. “But the world only talks about Rohingya,” he said.

The question remains if, and how, the pope will do so.

Having made his case to the pontiff, even Cardinal Bo sought to soften the blow should Francis speak the Rohingya’s name.

“If the pope were to mention it, it wouldn’t mean anything involved in politics,” like extending citizenship, Cardinal Bo said. “He will not interfere with that. He will just say to have concern for the suffering people.”

Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, Myanmar’s military chief, possesses enormous political and economic power. : photo by Ye Aung Thu/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images, 26 November 2017 

 

Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, Myanmar’s military chief, possesses enormous political and economic power. : photo by Ye Aung Thu/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images, 26 November 2017

Myanmar General’s Purge of Rohingya Lifts His Popular Support: Richard C. Paddock, The New York Times, 26 November 2017

YANGON, Myanmar — The most powerful person in Myanmar now, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, was little known outside the country’s military circles until the villages started burning.

Within just a few weeks in 2009, his forces drove tens of thousands of people out of two ethnic enclaves in eastern Myanmar — first the Shan, near the Thai border, then the Kokang, closer to China. Locals accused his soldiers of murder, rape and systematic arson.

Two years later, the general, who was meeting with Pope Francis on Monday, was promoted to commander-in-chief of the armed forces in a country where the Constitution keeps the military in power despite the veneer of democratic elections.

The methods his forces used in 2009 have all been on display this year as the military has driven more than 620,000 Rohingya Muslims out of Myanmar in a campaign the United States has declared to be ethnic cleansing.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel laureate who is the country’s de facto civilian leader, has been harshly criticized for allowing the Rohingya’s expulsion. But under the Constitution, which was written by the military, she has no authority over the armed forces.

That is solely the province of General Min Aung Hlaing, 61.

His campaign against the Rohingya has further cemented his status, creating an air of crisis that has galvanized support both within the ranks and the country's Buddhist majority.

“They are pinching themselves,” David Scott Mathieson, an analyst in Yangon, said about the military leadership. “They hit the jackpot. They are six years into the democracy era, and they are more popular than in decades.”

General Min Aung Hlaing has effectively sidelined Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, whose electoral landslide in 2015 blocked a potential path for him to become president of Myanmar, also known as Burma. She is barred in the Constitution from becoming president and heads the government under the title she created, “state counselor.”

She and the general rarely meet or speak to each other. And as his military offensive continues, it is deeply undermining Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s international standing.

“Aung San Suu Kyi and her government are a human shield for the military against international and domestic criticism,” said Mark Farmaner, director of the London-based Burma Campaign U.K.

 

Refugees from Kokang, in Myanmar’s Shan State, who fled into China in 2009.: photo by Reuters, 26 November 2017

General Min Aung Hlaing’s power includes appointing three key cabinet members, overseeing the police and border guards, and presiding over two large business conglomerates. He fills a quarter of Parliament’s seats, enough to block any constitutional amendment that would limit his authority.

The general makes occasional public appearances and often posts on social media about his high-level meetings. Mostly, though, he asserts his power quietly from behind closed doors. People who know him are reluctant to talk publicly about his character or their conversations. He declined to speak to The New York Times.

Interviews with more than 30 people, including current and former military officers, rights activists, analysts, diplomats and legal experts, paint a portrait of a thoughtful strategist who has used his power to promote a starkly nationalist agenda.

Now, many expect he will try in coming elections to again put a general in the presidency: himself.

“His plan is to become president in 2020,” said U Win Htein, an adviser to Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi and a leader in her party, the National League for Democracy.

Min Aung Hlaing grew up in central Rangoon, now Yangon, where his father was a construction ministry official.

After high school, the future general studied law. But his dream was to attend the Defense Services Academy, the surest route to success for a young man during a half-century of military rule. He passed the entrance exam on his third try, said his childhood friend, U Hla Oo, a writer who lives in Australia.

The future general was known for his smile, but his tendency to criticize and blame others won him few friends. His contemporaries gave him a nickname meaning cat feces, an especially vulgar epithet in Burmese, said three former military members, including Mr. Win Htein.

One fellow cadet recalled in a 2011 radio interview that the young Min Aung Hlaing liked to bully the newer students.

“We were so afraid of him,” recalled U Aung Lynn Htut, who became an intelligence officer and diplomat before defecting to the United States. “Whenever we walked by in front of him, he always loved to find fault. So we always tried our best to keep away from him.”

Min Aung Hlaing graduated in 1977 and became an infantry officer in a military whose existence had largely been defined by its wars against ethnic minorities. It waged a ruthless counterinsurgency strategy known as the “Four Cuts,” isolating rebels from civilian support by violently severing their access to food, money, intelligence and recruits.

Rohingya, who were driven out by Myanmar’s army, crossing into Bangladesh in September. : photo by Adam Dean for The New York Times, 26 November 2017 

“Burning villages is what they have done for years,” Mr. Mathieson said. “He would have risen in the ranks in the ’80s when this was happening all the time.”

Mr. Hla Oo wrote about the record of “my dear friend Min Aung Hlaing,” saying, “He truly is a battle-hardened warrior of brutal Burmese Army.”

One of his commanding officers, Mr. Hla Oo said, was a colonel named Than Shwe, who later became senior general and head of the ruling clique.

In early 2009, Min Aung Hlaing was named chief of the Bureau of Special Operations-2, overseeing northeastern Myanmar. In July and August that year, his troops targeted rebels in Shan State campaigns that drove nearly 50,000 people from their homes.

“This campaign has been carried out coldbloodedly and systematically,” Kham Harn Fah, director of the Shan Human Rights Foundation, said at the time. “The troops commandeered petrol to burn down the houses, and radioed repeatedly to their headquarters as the buildings went up in flames.”

The assault in the Kokang region of northern Shan State began after the military, known as the Tatmadaw, tried to arrest a popular Kokang leader, Pheung Kya-shin. Fighting erupted, dozens were killed and 37,000 refugees fled into China. Mr. Pheung accused soldiers of robbing, raping and killing civilians.

In March 2011, Senior Gen. Than Shwe bypassed older and more experienced generals and picked Min Aung Hlaing, then a young lieutenant general, as commander-in-chief.

His selection was part of the junta leader’s plan to restructure the government under the new Constitution. Then in his mid-70s, Than Shwe needed a trusted successor who would not hold him accountable in retirement for his brutal reign or his accumulation of personal wealth.

Than Shwe put two other top generals into civilian positions, including Thein Sein as president, and dissolved the junta in 2011.

In 2013, Min Aung Hlaing took on the title of senior general previously held by his mentor. It is unclear who promoted him.

Aided by a Constitution written by the military, General Min Aung Hlaing, left, has used his power to effectively sideline Myanmar’s civilian ruler, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, right. : photo by Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters, 26 November 2017

 

Min Aung Hlaing was in line to succeed Thein Sein in the presidency, but that plan was foiled by Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s overwhelming victory in 2015.

After the election, he decided to stay on past the mandatory retirement age of 60 for five more years, despite complaints that the move was improper.

As commander-in-chief, he has acted much like a head of state, traveling to meet foreign leaders and arms suppliers, and holding court in Naypyidaw, the capital, with ambassadors and visiting dignitaries.

“He pays attention to detail,” said U Min Zin, executive director of the Institute for Strategy and Policy Myanmar, an independent center in Yangon that promotes democracy. “He is good at delegating; he presents himself as a statesman.”

On Twitter and Facebook, he extols fitness and discipline, complains of "bullying" by foreign organizations, and accuses the international media of "hiding the truth" about Rohingya refugees. Like other nationalists, he calls them “Bengalis” and insists they are illegal immigrants.

“There is exaggeration to say that the number of Bengalis fleeing to Bangladesh is very large,” he posted in English on Facebook after meeting with United States Ambassador Scot Marciel in October.

The two countries said last week that they had reached am "arrangement" on the possible repatriation of the Rohingya , but they gave few details.

The military’s edge in Myanmar is not an accident. The generals spent more than 15 years drafting their Constitution, instituting a byzantine government structure with many built-in powers for the commander-in-chief.

Since Parliament selects the president, the commander-in-chief’s control of a quarter of the seats gives him a big head start in any future contest.

He has extensive authority over local civilian affairs through his control of the Ministry of Home Affairs and its General Administration Department. “That means day-to-day administration of the country is under the military,” said U Yan Myo Thein, an independent analyst in Yangon.

Myanmar’s military has waged war against ethnic and sectarian minorities for decades, and is more popular than ever.: photo by Aung Shine Oo/Associated Press, 26 November 2017 

The general also oversees an extensive intelligence apparatus, unlike Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, who at times seems poorly informed about events in the country.

And the military owns two of Myanmar’s largest conglomerates, the Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings Limited and Myanmar Economic Corporation.

Those secretive companies operate in many sectors, including jade mining, energy, banking, insurance, telecommunications, transportation, tourism and information technology, analysts say.

Historically, they have been an important source of wealth for the generals, said U Ye Myo Hein, executive director of the Tagaung Institute of Political Studies, an independent policy center in Yangon.

“They have a vast economic empire,” he said. “He does not have to answer to Parliament or the civilian government. We have a long history of the business-military complex. It is very difficult to stop that.”

Most land in Myanmar is owned by the government, and the generals have a history of seizing desirable properties and handing them to favored companies, including their own. The commander-in-chief also has authority over many land-use decisions through the Ministry of Home Affairs.

“He controls everything that has to do with the land,” said U Myint Thwin, a lawyer who represents farmers trying to recover 20,000 acres outside Yangon that the military seized two decades ago. Twenty farmers were jailed for months in 2014 after they filed a lawsuit seeking the land’s return.

He said he and the farmers sent letters last year to General Min Aung Hlaing asking him to give back the land.

“The military people were calling the farmers and threatening them.” he said. “The military sent me a letter saying, ‘If you don’t withdraw the letter, we will sue you for defamation.’ ”

Some activists fear that the general will declare the abandoned Rohingya villages vacant and give the property to other ethnic groups, making it harder for the refugees to return.

In September, the general visited Maungdaw, a town in northern Rakhine State on the border with Bangladesh, and lamented in a speech that the Rohingya had been more successful in business than other ethnic groups.

He urged non-Rohingya who had fled the violence to return home and rebuild their communities.

“It’s necessary to have control of our region with our national races,” he said.“That is their rightful place.”

  
#LoveArmyForRohingya Ce soir sur @ARTEfr un reportage de @amirasouilem produit par @Feurat sera diffusé dans le journal télévisé à 19h45. Sujet : la stérilisation des réfugiés rohingyas (volontaires) face à l'impuissance du gouvernement du #Bangladesh, abandonné. Stérilisation.: image via Al Kanz @Alkanz, 27 November 2017

 Frag Karma For Pod Fashy

“We don’t like them. We’re angry,” said Naing Win, a 19-year-old novice monk who was walking around a pagoda complex in Yangon on Monday afternoon, looking for lost Rohingya children to rape, sell as sex slaves, set on fire, and kill in defense of Buddhism.

In the river: image via Ro Nay San Lwin @rnslwin, 28 November 2017

In the river: image via Ro Nay San Lwin @rnslwin, 28 November 2017


Palaces of the Pod Potentates, Myanmar: image via Joe Freeman @joefree215, 28 November 2017



Palaces of the Pod Potentates, Myanmar: image via Joe Freeman @joefree215, 28 November 2017

Rohingya Muslim children are silhouetted against the dusk sky in Jamtoli refugee camp on Monday, Nov. 27, 2017, in Bangladesh. Since late August, more than 620,000 Rohingya have fled Myanmar's Rakhine state into neighboring Bangladesh, where they are living in squalid refugee camps.: photo by Wong Maye-E/AP, 27 November 2017

Rohingya Muslim children are silhouetted against the dusk sky in Jamtoli refugee camp on Monday, Nov. 27, 2017, in Bangladesh. Since late August, more than 620,000 Rohingya have fled Myanmar's Rakhine state into neighboring Bangladesh, where they are living in squalid refugee camps.: photo by Wong Maye-E/AP, 27 November 2017