See also earlier post:- More than 1,000 migrant workers from Burma arrested in Malaysia
More than 1,000 Burmese migrants - but alas, what should have been a major human rights concern was almost not reported in mainstream and/or alternative media in Malaysia. Who committed the crime is also still uncertain - but certainly there is no justification for a major crackdown on Burmese migrants...
BURMA
Burmese Migrant Community in Malaysia Simmers after Attacks
Burmese shops and businesses are pictured near Chinatown in Kuala Lumpur. (Photo: Simon Roughneen / The Irrawaddy)
KUALA LUMPUR — Differing accounts are emerging from Burmese migrants
and refugees in Malaysia about recent deadly violence here that has
claimed several lives and pitted Burmese groups in Malaysia against each
other.
The deaths, which prompted the arrest of hundreds of Burmese
nationals by Malaysian police, are being described as spillover from
recent Buddhist-Muslim clashes in Burma.
“We don’t know who did these attacks,” says San Win, chairman of the
Malaysia Myanmar Free Funeral Service, a Kuala Lumpur-based group that
assists Burmese migrants. Flicking through gory photos of roughly
stitched victims of the violence, he adds, “but we think it could be the
Rohingya people.”
The president of the Myanmar Ethnic Rohingya Human Rights
Organization Malaysia (MERHOM), Zafar Ahmad Abdul Ghani, disputes this
speculation.
“This is not correct,” he says, citing previous attacks by Buddhists
on Muslims in Burma, which he says did not prompt sectarian reprisals in
Malaysia. “We have to respect Malaysian law and if any Rohingya breaks
the law, we don’t support it,” Abdul Ghani adds.
Tun Tun, a Burmese Muslim who has long worked to assist Burmese
workers living in Malaysia, says that two Muslims were killed in the
recent clashes. Tun Tun, who is head of the Burma Campaign Malaysia,
says that seven people have been killed—a number at odds with Malaysian
police accounts of the recent attacks, which suggest that four have
died, all thought to be ethnic Burman Buddhists.
The attacks have raised concerns that the deaths were the result of
reprisal attacks by Burmese Muslims living in Malaysia, retaliating
after dozens of Muslims were killed in violence over recent months in
various outbreaks of religious violence across Burma.
“It started here after Lashio,” says San Win, referring to Buddhist
riots and looting that took place in Lashio, the biggest town in eastern
Burma’s Shan State. Those clashes started after a May 28 attack,
reportedly perpetrated by a Muslim man on a Buddhist woman, and left
around 1,400 Muslims homeless.
“But we always try to maintain friendship here [in Malaysia] with Muslims,” San Win adds.
Similarly, Tun Tun says that though relations between Burma’s Muslims
and Buddhists in Malaysia have typically been cordial, there has been a
marked deterioration in recent months.
Citing what he perceives to be Burmese media bias and exaggerated
claims on social networking websites, Tun Tun says discord between
Burma’s Muslim and Buddhist migrants is overhyped.
“Some of the 969 movement supporters brought the anti-Muslim campaign
to here five months ago, [since] then both side are not trusting each
other,” he says, referring to a push by Burmese monk Wirathu and other
Buddhist nationalists to boycott Muslim businesses and, some say, incite
violence against Muslims in Burma.
Commercial Repercussions
The recent attacks have stalled commerce for Burmese in Malaysia’s
biggest city. Next to Kuala Lumpur’s Chinatown, Bangladeshi, Filipino,
and Indonesian migrants run shops and restaurants on side streets, a
hectic din of sales pitches, frying snacks and belching traffic.
Along the nearby Burmese strip, demarcated by signs reading “Kampung
[Malay for village] Myanmar,” business has been down in recent days,
according to Thu Ya, who runs a Burmese restaurant just around the
corner from central Kuala Lumpur’s main bus station.
“A lot of people are staying home, not as much for the violence, but
because of the arrests,” he says, speaking while waitresses in Burmese
dress ferried drinks and Burmese snacks to the smattering of lunchtime
patrons on the premises. One of Thu Ya’s staff remains in detention
after being caught up in the Malaysian police dragnet cast after the
recent attacks, which mostly took place in Selayang, about seven miles
from downtown Kuala Lumpur.
In the Shan Taung Dan restaurant across the same street, a recent
arrival from Mandalay, Burma’s second city, says that though concerned
by the recent murders and arrests, Burmese migrants around Kuala Lumpur
are trying to revert to “our normal life here.”
The man, who asked that his name be withheld, says he landed in
Malaysia just two months ago. “I need to make money,” he says. “Yes,
reform is good in Myanmar, but is [happening] slowly. So you cannot yet
find a good job at home,” he laments.
Between 400,000 and 500,000 Burmese migrants are thought to be living
in Southeast Asia’s third-biggest economy, drawn by the prospect of
low-paying, heavy-lifting jobs in construction and on plantations.
According to the United Nations, there are almost 100,000 Burmese
refugees in Malaysia.
The Mandalay native says that many people are more concerned about
being arrested by Malaysian police than anything else. “Many people
don’t have documents. That is why they stay home these days,” he says.
Malaysian press accounts report that the country’s Immigration
Department is investigating how 307 detained Burmese came to possess
fake refugee papers.
Burma’s other ethnic and religious minorities in Malaysia are wary,
fearing members of their communities might be dragged into what is now a
simmering sectarian feud. Israel Lal Hmun Siam, a Christian ethnic Chin
living in Kuala Lumpur, says “people are worried they might be attacked
mistakenly.”
Siam, who works for the Chin Refugee Committee, a support group for
the estimated 40,000 Chin Burmese in Malaysia, believes that the recent
Kuala Lumpur violence is a spillover from Burma.
“If they solve the conflict in Myanmar, then no problem here,” he claims.
That seems far off, however, with MERHOM’s Abdul Ghani interrupting
an interview to take what he said was a call from Burma’s Arakan State.
“There was more cutting today, 10 people,” he says, referring to what he
says was an attack by Arakanese on Rohingya near Kyauktaw Township.
A Burmese government delegation is currently in Malaysia to assess
the situation among Burmese migrants after the recent violence, with
Malaysian authorities on Thursday warning Burmese migrants not to
restart the recent clashes.
But San Win says he thinks the Burmese government is more concerned
with maintaining good relations with its fellow Asean nation than with
assisting the Burmese in Malaysia. “They just stay quiet when I tell
them the problems here,” he says.
“For now, people are still afraid here.” - The Irrawaddy, 13/6/2013, Burmese Migrant Community in Malaysia Simmers after Attacks
No comments:
Post a Comment