The Burmese Labyrinth The Burmese Labyrinth A History of the Rohingya Tragedy Carlos Sardiña Galache First published by Verso 2020 © Carlos Sardiña Galache 2020 All rights reserved The moral rights of the author have been asserted The maps on pages vi and vii are reproduced with permission from New Left Review, where they first appeared in Mary Callahan’s “Myanmar’s Perpetual Junta.” 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 Verso UK: 6 Meard Street, London W1F 0EG US: 20 Jay Street, Suite 1010, Brooklyn, NY 11201 versobooks.com Verso is the imprint of New Left Books ISBN-13: 978-1-78873-321-2 ISBN-13: 978-1-78873-320-5 (LIBRARY) ISBN-13: 978-1-78873-322-9 (UK EBK) ISBN-13: 978-1-78873-323-6 (US EBK) British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress Typeset in Minion Pro by Hewer Text UK Ltd, Edinburgh Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY Contents Maps Note on Burmese Terms Introduction: Trapped in the Burmese Labyrinth Part I ‘Discipline-Flourishing Democracy’ 1. The Transition 2. The War in the ‘Green Hell’ 3. Days of Fury in Arakan 4. ‘We Will Build a Fence With Our Bones if Necessary’ 5. The Counted and the Excluded 6. The Burmese Cage Part II History and Its Traces 7. The Worlds of Precolonial ‘Burma’ 8. Burma Under the British 9. The Emergence of Nationalisms 10. World War II and the Road to Independence 11. An Embattled Democracy 12. The Burmese Way to Socialism 13. A Long ‘Caretaker Government’ Part III A Diarchic Government 14. The Election 15. ‘The Lady’ in Power 16. ‘An Unfinished Job’ 17. After the Ethnic Cleansing Conclusion: The Failure of Burmese Nationalism Acknowledgments Notes Index Note on Burmese Terms In 1989, the military junta ruling Burma changed the official name of the country, and those of several regions and cities, returning them to their old names in the literary Burmese language. By the Adaptation of Expressions Law, both ‘Burma’ and ‘Burmese’ were changed to ‘Myanmar’. The change only affected languages other than Burmese, as ‘Myanmar’ had been the official name of the country in the language of the Burman majority. One of the explanations was that ‘Burma’ had been imposed by the British colonial power. But that was not entirely true, since ‘Burma’ is just a transliteration of the less formal word for the country in Burmese, and not a new name imposed by the colonial overlord – as is the case, for example, of ‘the Philippines’, a completely new name coined by the Spaniards in honour of the conquering King Philip II. In reality, ‘Burma’ and ‘Myanmar’ mean exactly the same, and asking speakers of other languages to use one instead of the other is the equivalent of asking non-German-speakers to use ‘Deutschland’ instead of ‘Germany’. The United Nations and some governments accepted the change, but many other countries and the international media continued to call the country ‘Burma’. There was a time when choosing one term or the other had political connotations, as Aung San Suu Kyi had opposed the change. But ‘Myanmar’ has become internationally accepted since the transition in 2012. Throughout this book, I will use the name ‘Burma’, except when quoting other writers or public documents where ‘Myanmar’ is used. This is both a matter of personal preference and a function of the fact that, for most of the long period covered in the book, the country was known as Burma. The name of the state of ‘Arakan’ was changed to ‘Rakhine’ in 1983, probably to please Rakhine nationalists. Throughout this book, I use ‘Arakan’ to refer to the state, and ‘Rakhine’ to refer to the majority ethnic group in Arakan, as I understand Arakan, the place, to have more inclusive connotations. The majority group in the country is called ‘Bamar’ or ‘Burman’. I have opted for ‘Burman’ because it is consistent with the use of Burma rather than Myanmar. ‘Burmese’ refers to any citizen of the country, regardless of ethnicity. But the Burmese language is that spoken by the Burman majority. In colonial times, it was the other way round: ‘Burmese’ was used for the ethnic group ‘Burman’. I have noted this when necessary. It is also worth pointing out that many members of the ethnic minorities use ‘Burmese’ when referring to the ‘Burmans’. This shows the extent of confusion about national identity and the failure to create a multi-ethnic Burmese nationalism. In some press reports and books that adopt the ‘Myanmar’ terminology, some names are different to those used in this book. I show here the equivalent variants of the most important names for states and cities used throughout the book (others, such Kachin, are the same in both terminologies): Burma (country)/Burmese (citizens of, Myanmar language) Burman (ethnic group) Bamar Rangoon (city) Yangon Arakan (state)/Arakanese (ethnic group) Rakhine Irrawaddy (river and division) Ayeyarwady Karen (both state and ethnic group) Kayin Karenni (both state and ethnic group) Kayah Moulmein (city) Mawlamyine Tenasserim (division) Tanintharyi Members of ethnic groups like the Burman, Mon or Rakhine, do not have surnames, so their names are repeated in full every time they are mentioned – with the exception of Aung San Suu Kyi, who is often called simply ‘Suu Kyi’. Other ethnic groups like the Kachin or Chin names do often include family or clan names, and sometimes individuals may be referred to only by their surnames. The Burmese often use honorifics determined by the relative age or social status of the person addressing them. For instance, to refer to a mature woman, or one holding a senior position, the speaker would add ‘Daw’ (as in ‘Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’, used often in Burmese media). For senior men, either by age or position, ‘U’ is commonly added (as in ‘U Nu’). Further examples of these honorifics include the following: Daw for mature women and/or women occupying senior positions (roughly equivalent to ‘aunt’ or ‘Ms’) Ma for young women or women of roughly the same age as the speaker (roughly equivalent to ‘sister’ or ‘Ms’) U for mature men and/or men occupying senior positions (roughly equivalent to ‘uncle’ or ‘Mr’) Ko for young men or men of roughly similar age to the speaker (roughly equivalent to ‘brother’) Maung for younger men, often part of the name Saya for teachers or older men with special status Ashin for monks Sayadaw for senior monks Bo for military commanders Bogyoke for military generals Thakin ‘master’, used by the nationalists in the 1930s and 1940s to indicate that they were the masters of their own country I have not used these honorifics except in cases when they are so closely associated with the name of the person that they are rarely omitted (as in the case of the first prime minister of independent Burma, U Nu), or when quoting others using them. Introduction: Trapped in the Burmese Labyrinth How can we understand the violence and turmoil in Burma during most of the last decade, particularly the brutal ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya, a Muslim minority living in the west of the country? This has been a period of profound political and social changes in the country. Since 2011, the military junta that had ruled for decades has dissolved itself, the army loosened its tight grip on power, and initiated a carefully managed transition to a pseudo-democratic system. As a consequence, while maintaining considerable control over the state apparatus, the military allowed a degree of opening that resulted in new freedoms that the Burmese had not enjoyed for decades. I visited the country for the first time in late 2010, only a few months before the change of regime, and travelled there often as a journalist in subsequent years to cover the transformations brought by the transition. It was an exciting time to work on the country, and I was able to visit areas hitherto out of limits and interview people who had been virtually silent, or silenced, for decades. At times, reporting on such changes gave one a heady feeling of discovery, but this excitement was often tempered by the cold realities of a nation that continued to be in turmoil: war, murderous intercommunal conflict, and deep-seated hatreds being expressed openly, which were ultimately acted upon in the most brutal manner. This was most starkly seen in 2012, when sectarian violence erupted in the impoverished state of Arakan, in the west of the country. The conflict was between the Rohingya community and the state’s majority, the Buddhist Rakhine. Dozens, possibly hundreds, were killed as mobs from one community fell upon the other. Entire neighbourhoods were razed to the ground; tens of thousands lost their houses, seeking refuge in camps for internally displaced persons. The Rohingya, who had been severely oppressed by the military for decades, bore the brunt of the violence, and it soon emerged that the security forces had often sided with the Rakhine mobs attacking them. The Rohingya were clearly the main victims, but that was not how they were seen by many in Burma. There is a widespread perception in the country that the Rohingya constitute a foreign threat to be contained at all costs. In the years following 2012, anti-Rohingya sentiment increased throughout the country, and the government dramatically ramped up the policies of exclusion and apartheid they had imposed for decades.