Myanmar's crackdown on the Rohingya is misguided

NO one should be surprised that there is yet another outbreak of mayhem in Myanmar's Rakhine state. As at last week, more than 60,000 refugees had arrived at the border with Bangladesh.

This adds to the 400,000 Rohingya refugees already in that neighbouring nation, including the 87,000 who arrived late last year. There are also more than 50,000 Rohingya refugees in Malaysia who are registered with the United Nations; some estimates put the unofficial figure at more than 200,000. There are several thousands more in Indonesia and in southern Thailand. In the face of this humanitarian crisis, the Myanmar military has given its usual story: Armed men, reportedly from the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, launched a pre-dawn raid on police outposts - thus the crackdown. When confronted with satellite evidence of widespread fires in at least 10 areas in the Rakhine region, the Myanmar authorities claim that the fires were in fact the work of "extremist terrorists".

Last October, the Myanmar military conducted what it termed "clearance operations" in several villages following an attack by Rohingya fighters on border guard posts. In February this year, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, based on its interviews with people who fled Myanmar after that October attack on the border post, documented mass gang-rapes, killings, including of babies and young children, brutal beatings, disappearances and other serious human rights violations by the country's security forces. Witnesses also described the destruction of food and food sources, including padi fields, and the confiscation of livestock. The report cited consistent testimony indicating hundreds of Rohingya houses, schools, markets, shops, madrassas and mosques were burnt by the army, police and, sometimes, civilian mobs. It noted that people were killed even while fleeing for safety.