While Rick Heizman was busy all day with translations, a journalist friend arrived to give me a tour of Sittwe. An obvious feature in downtown Sittwe is a No-Go Zone guarded by security forces. There are several No-Go Zones in Sittwe since the 2012 Islamic insurgency, but the one in downtown Sittwe is different, because it is an urban partition of the city. Looking down the road into this guarded area, you see a street lined with houses and businesses full of activity, with Bengali men dressed in white garments and hats, while on the other side of the intersection, you will see the houses of Rakhines wearing traditional clothing. There is almost complete segregation here, much like in Kyauk Phyu.
The journalist took me by moped to another sector of Sittwe. We stopped at the end of a long dirt road marked by an open fence. The dirt road was lined by traditional bamboo houses on both sides up to the fence. Looking past the end of the road, there was a large, overgrown empty field, on the other side of which was another No-Go Zone. In the distance, you can see the structures for the dwellings in the Bengali village area, but we could not pass through the open fence into this field, because it was a restricted zone. The empty field used to be a Rakhine area adjacent to the Bengali village area, but in the 2012 insurgency here, 74 Rakhine houses were burned down by an organized mob of 200-300 Bengalis. Nobody was killed here, but one person was blinded by jingalies.
No Bengalis were arrested over this incident. Only two or three police came to help the Rakhine villagers in this part of Sittwe during the insurgency. We interviewed one older Rakhine lady in the lush garden of her bamboo house on the dirt road, who said that she fled for her life from the area to live in a monastery for five months at the time of insurgency. She left all of her belongings behind when she saw the houses burning in the now empty field. When she was able to return, her possessions in her house had been looted by Bengalis. The Rakhines living in the burned-out houses across the fence were relocated into IDP camps (Internally Displaced Persons), as the overgrown field now shows no trace of human activity. The dirt road passing through the fence was still visible through the field which connected the Rakhine and Bengali village areas. Now for the safety of the Rakhine people in this area, there has been segregation from the Bengalis here since the 2012 violence.
We stopped for lunch at a table among a cluster of traditional bamboo houses under a shady grove of coconut trees. Some women were cooking food over an open fire; they served us a meal of fresh tea salad and some homemade Arakanese beer, a natural non-alcoholic carbonated beverage made from fermented coconut water. Here the journalist explained to me that the situation was not always this way in Sittwe. Before the brutal murder of Ma Thida Htwe, he had many Bengali friends. However, after the murder of Ma Thida Htwe, everything changed, and his Bengali friends didn’t speak to him anymore, because they somehow blamed him for the events. Further, the journalist told me that during the 2012 insurgency, he was attacked by Bengalis who tried to kill him with jingalies, knives and swords. Living with the Bengalis became impossible after they tried to kill so many Rakhines in the massive insurgency, as all sacred bonds of human trust were broken.
After lunch, he continued the tour of Sittwe, driving along a paved road following the coastline to the perimeter of the Ba Sa Ra Bengali village. At one time, this scenic road was a major artery through Sittwe. Here, we stopped at a barricade over a small bridge that was the checkpoint for this No-Go Zone, guarded by security forces. Otherwise, the whole area, including the road, seemed deserted. From this vantage point, we could see the Ba Sa Ra village No-Go Zone more clearly, with newer looking, permanent dwellings. It was the end of the road, but the beginning of another story.
There was a field overgrown with shrubbery past the checkpoint on the other side of the coastal road which followed the sandy beach along the Bay of Bengal. This was the site of a new development project by the government started around February 2012. Graves were relocated from another area of Sittwe for this new cemetery. Months later, after the murder of Ma Thida Htwe on May 28, 2012, the Bengalis from the Ba Sa Ra village area here began destroying the graves in the new cemetery. The Bengalis of this village area would throw bricks and stones into the funeral procession at the cemetery, likely using slingshots to injure the grieving families as well. Also, the Bengalis would attack the funeral motorcades driving through the area which needed to pass through this area to access the cemetery, threatening, injuring and frightening the defenseless people while damaging the vehicles and interrupting the funerals. The government had to abandon the project a few months later, after about 30-40 burials in the new cemetery, because it was too close to the Bengali village. Now Bengalis live in the unfinished cemetery, as we saw from the new dwelling structures at the edge of the Ba Sa Ra village area No-Go Zone.
The journalist then drove to the site of the old cemetery closer to the central district by the golden Lawkananda Pagoda. This old cemetery had already been relocated and the land partitioned to a monastery when the Bengali violence began. Now the only remainder was a small empty field, more like a boulevard, with an older looking crematorium on the other side of the road. He explained that before the Ma Thida Htwe murder case, there were so many graves here, including an ancient sacred Bodhi tree that was removed for the unfinished government project. He lamented that since colonial times to 2012 they would bury their dead here, but now there is nowhere close for Rakhines to remember their dead with dignity.
On the return trip, the moped had a hole in the rear tire, so I walked back to the hotel along a busy street. By some fortune, I witnessed the processional motorcade for a large funeral on the way. There was a huge train of open-air vehicles, with over 200 people in motorized trishaws, mopeds and open air taxi cabs brimming with mourners. Leading the procession was a modified van, the hearse, with a clear casket in the rear for everybody to witness the body. The hearse had a giant horn-like loudspeaker mounted to the roof of the cab, giving Dhamma talk to everybody on street as the procession drove by.
Nobody is immune to the searing tropical heat, so the procession has open air taxis and open windows. Many women, including the elderly, in thin woven traditional clothes sitting in these crowded open air cabs, have their backs turned to the road, and would have no means of protection against a mob of attacking Bengalis violently throwing bricks inside the vehicle. They wouldn’t even know what hit them. The level of hatred from these Bengalis to toss bricks into these open air processions of defenseless people became suddenly much more unimaginable after seeing this funeral procession in Sittwe. Not even the dead are safe from their violent religious hatred against the Rakhine people, which was forewarning for the impending Islamic insurgency.
CRUSADER says
I think I am just glad I don’t know where this is!
CogitoErgoSum says
Just stay where you are. Some Muslims are working to bring it to you as soon as possible.
CRUSADER says
That’s why I keep moving around. 🙂
gravenimage says
We don’t want to abandon our lands to Muslims.
gravenimage says
Seven Days in Rakhine: Day Five — A Tour of No-Go Zones In Sittwe
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Chilling–thanks for this story.
nomoreignorantofIslam says
This is what will surely happen when a non-Muslim country is located near a Muslim neighbor country. Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) is located near Bangladesh which is a Muslim majority country. Thailand which has shared border with Malaysia has also the same problem with Muslim insurgency and jihad violence. There are indeed many illegal Chinese migrants from China into Myanmar in hundreds of thousands of them. But those Chinese migrants have no problem with host Myanmar people. Why? The answer is very simple and clear: They do not have any supremacist Islamic idea of conquest of non-Muslim lands. They only interested in living together peacefully with host people. Muslims are very different from other people. They are taught by their holy book to migrate into non-Muslim lands and transform those non-Muslim lands into Islamic lands by all means. Even USA is no longer immune from this threat. Now that there are quite sizable number of them here, they start demanding noisily and arrogantly in many ways as if they are the boss or privileged class. The most worrying thing for the future of USA is that now Islam has already established its initial toe-hold enclaves in Mexico, some poor countries in Latin America too. The plan of Islam to conquer the whole world is now in full swing. They are unitedly making all-out efforts to achieve this goal. The more we are ignorant of Islamic teachings and Muslim mindset, the sooner we are to fail in this struggle. Even now, international media, big name newspapers, and social media giant Facebook and Google are fast becoming the tool of Islamic censor silencing voice of objective genuine critical analysis of Islam and its tenets.
CRUSADER says
“This is what will surely happen when a non-Muslim country is located near a Muslim neighbor country.”
Such as with North Dakota next to Minnesota !
SemiDave says
So what we have here is an ‘on the spot’ observation of how the Rohingyas (Bengalis) in Myanmar (Burma) have interacted with the Bhuddist population there.
All we get in the west is how the Rohingyas are victims of Bhuddist violence but nothing really as to why there may have been violence directed at them.
Once again we read a first hand account that negates the muslim victim card that is played across the globe when these murderous invaders, colonists, imperialists are treated as the thugs that they truly are!
Isabella says
It is true. Look last night at Jeopardy Alex Trèves said: In what country the Rohingyas. have been persecuted? Alex Trèbec is another clueless.
na says
If you prepare video about this !!! that would be a nice idea. For example documentaries ,people may curious to know…
A day in the life of a Jihadi.
spend a day in No go zones
Jihadi bride proposals
Jihadi food and life style
Spend a day in Iran a toilet free world….enjoy natural toilet
What is inside of the turban.
how Terrorist printing their own currency based on terrorism.
Barter system based on sahada……
you will get youtube click more than 1 m
dsinc says
YouTube would ban it.