The Anniversary of the Rohingya Massacre
By Alyssa Veltre
International News Editor
Charred earth. Overgrown foliage. Tula Toli, two years after genocidal violence, has been reclaimed by the surrounding nature. As Burma attempts to cover up the humanitarian crisis, former residents of Inn Din and Tula Toli reflect on the crimes committed against them in Bangladesh, forgotten.
Myanmar has recently refused to allow international investigations of the violence in the country, according to Jonathan Head, the Southeast Asia correspondent for BBC News. Refugees in Bangladesh have resisted repatriation efforts, and the Bangladeshi government faced protestors earlier this month.
On Monday, the regional telecom regulator ordered network operators to cease cell coverage near the border, isolating fringe Rohingya and leaving them in the dark.
In September 2018, Buddhist villagers and Myanmar soldiers killed ten men in the Rakhine state, shortly after Reuters reported there would be a shallow mass grave for the Rohingya men. “One grave for ten people,” said Soe Chay, 55, a retired soldier from Inn Din’s Rakhine Buddhist community. “When they were being buried, some were making noises.”
The coastal village killings are not new. In a string of violent episodes in western Myanmar, nearly 700,000 Rohingya Muslims have been forced to flee to Bangladesh since August 2017. The group accuses the army of crimes against humanity, citing ethnic cleansing as the reason for the progressive extermination in a majority Buddhist nation of 53 million, according to Reuters.
Since then, however, General Min Aung Hlaing and other military leaders documented as perpetrators of the violence had gone unpunished by jailing and intimidating reporters until 2018, according to the New York Times. Just this past May, Myanmar freed the soldiers jailed for the violence.
The journalists who exposed the massacre were given longer sentences than the seven soldiers convicted over the Inn Din executions, but they were awarded presidential amnesty after serving 16 months, according to BBC.
If forced to return to Myanmar now, the tormented Rohingya would be considered sub-citizens and therefore legally be allowed to be persecuted. In commemoration of their suffering, some Rohingya will protest for the right to full citizenship, but military and political leaders show no signs up budging.
Contact Alyssa at alyssa.veltre@student.shu.edu