April 2014
Vol 14, No.04
THE MH 370 TRAGEDY As we write this introduction to our series of statements on MH 370 in the early hours of the 10th of April 2014, the search is still going on for the wreckage and the black box of that ill- fated aircraft. This is the biggest search and recovery operation in aviation history involving no less than 26 nations. In the last six days there have been underwater signals from the search area in the Southern part of the Indian Ocean consistent with those from a black box that may indicate that the operations team is on the right track. If the black box is discovered and if data are extracted from it, the truth about how the flight ended up in the most remote and inhospitable part of the Indian Ocean may be revealed. There has been a lot of speculation about MH 370 since its disappearance on the 8th of March 2014. JUST has studiously refrained from taking a position on any these “theories.” JUST however hopes that the whole truth about MH 370 will be known to the people in due course. We re-produce below the statements made by JUST President, Dr. Chandra Muzaffar, on the MH 370 Tragedy. Turn to next page
STATEMENTS .MH 370: MULTI-ETHNIC BONDING .MH 370: RED HERRINGS .MH 370: CONDOLENCES .MH 370: RESPECTING ONE’S FRIENDS
ARTICLES .THE RED LINE AND THE RAT LINE (PART 1)
BY Seymour M. Hersh............P 5
.THE FIRE THIS TIME: A LOOK AT THE RELIGIOUS VIOLENCE IN BURMA BY HOZAN ALAN SENAUKE..................P 7 . OUR WAY OF LIFE/DEATH .”NEVER FORGET”: FOR RACHEL CORRIE
BY MICKEY Z...........................P 11 BY GARY CORSERY.....................P 12
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MULTI-ETHNIC BONDING The MH 370 tragedy has brought Malaysians of all ethnic backgrounds together in sadness — and in anxiety. Though the feelings generated by tragedies of this kind are often ephemeral, they have an impact upon the soul of the nation. MH 370 is part of our collective consciousness today. It will be etched forever on our collective memory. The 38 Malaysian passengers on board MH 370 come from different religious and cultural communities. The rest of the passengers are of different nationalities, a majority of whom are from China. The 12 member Malaysian crew of MH 370 is also truly multiethnic.
Malaysia’s varied religious groups are offering prayers for the safety of the passengers and crew of the ill-fated flight. It is commendable that former Malaysian Prime Minister, Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, joined Buddhists at a special prayer session at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport. In the larger ASEAN context, in spite of an ongoing squabble over competing maritime claims in the South China Sea, China, Vietnam, and the Philippines have joined Malaysia in the search and rescue operation. Singapore, Thailand and Indonesia which are not part of that tiff are also rendering a lot of assistance. From outside the region, the United States and Australia are providing valuable help. Indeed,
experts from all over the world are working together with the able and competent Malaysian search and rescue operation team to solve the perplexing mystery of the missing aircraft. It is noteworthy that a number of air-safety analysts and media commentators from abroad have acknowledged that Malaysian Airlines (MAS), widely regarded as a five star airline, has an outstanding air-safety record. When nations pool their resources together in a common humanitarian effort directed towards people of different faiths and cultures, it becomes an act of great spiritual significance.
10 March 2014.
MH 370: RED HERRINGS? While Malaysians and people in other countries continue to pray for the well-being of the passengers and crew of MH370, many of us also hope that the whole truth about the missing aircraft will be known as soon as possible. This is imperative in view of the numerous ‘theories’ that are floating around about what has really happened to the plane. Of course, to establish the truth, the aircraft’s black box would be a
critical factor. We should all be patient and wait for the box to be discovered. In the meantime, we should be concerned about the way in which theories about the disappearance of MH370 are appearing in sections of the foreign media and are being disseminated. They raise some disturbing questions. Are these theories the inevitable consequence of a tragic situation about which one knows so little?
If we are ignorant about what has occurred, we are even more ignorant about the motives behind this mind-boggling incident. Is it also possible that some of these theories are being spun as part of a massive disinformation exercise? Is false ‘evidence’ deliberately being churned out by some quarters in order to deceive us, to divert our attention, to stop us from pursuing the real leads? Are we being duped by red continued next page
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herrings all over the ocean? In other words, are we witnessing some sort of cover-up, a coverup that has larger geopolitical implications, a cover-up that goes beyond our shores?
For the sake of the crew and the passengers of MH370, for the sake of their families, for the sake of decent human beings everywhere, let us hope and pray
that all of us will have the courage and the integrity to embrace the truth, when the time comes. 23 March 2014.
MH 370: CONDOLENCES FROM JUST
The International Movement for a Just World (JUST) is deeply saddened and grieved by the news that all the passengers and crew members of MH 370 may have perished in the air tragedy that occurred on 8 March 2014. Our heartfelt condolences to the kith and kin of the 239 passengers and crew.
Our sorrow is all the greater since one of the stewards on that ill-fated flight, Mr. Junaidi Kassim, is an uncle of JUST’s Senior Executive, Al-Malik Abdullah.
and agony of their terrible loss.
We pray that God will grant solace, strength and fortitude to the families and loved ones of the deceased as they bear the pain
25March 2014.
Al- Fatihah.
MH 370: RESPECTING ONE’S FRIENDS There is an irony in this. On the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Malaysia, SinoMalaysian ties are at their lowest ebb. In the wake of the MH 370 tragedy, relatives of some of the Chinese passengers on that illfated flight, a segment of the Chinese media and a section of the public have chosen to vent their anger against Malaysia. Malaysian leaders and MAS
officials have been labelled ‘liars’ and ‘murderers’; Malaysian celebrities with a following in China have been verbally abused; a demonstration has been held outside the Malaysian Embassy in Beijing; and there have been calls to boycott Malaysian products. At the same time, there are Chinese citizens who have come out in defence of Malaysia. The anger and frustration among relatives of some of the passengers is understandable to
a point. 153 of the 227 passengers were Chinese nationals. For some of them the loss of a son or daughter means the end of the family line, given the one-child policy of the last few decades. Besides, Malaysian authorities in the initial days also exacerbated the angst and agony of the relatives through some contradictory statements about the lost airliner. They have also not been able to explain satisfactorily why an “unidentified object” captured continued next page
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on Malaysian military radar in the early hours of the 8th of March — later confirmed as the missing aircraft — did not evoke a prompt response from the Malaysian air force. This is an issue which Chinese relatives have repeatedly raised at MAS briefings in Beijing. Nonetheless, our shortcomings do not warrant the sort of harsh and aggressive reaction we have been witnessing from some overly emotional and irrational Chinese in the last three weeks. Everything considered, Malaysian authorities have — after some early fumbles — managed the flow of information with as much transparency as possible in an extraordinary situation characterised by an incredible dearth of evidence. They have also offered care and counselling services, financial assistance, hotel accommodation in Malaysian cities and Beijing, and free flights to aggrieved family members, as part of the humanitarian support that typifies Malaysian hospitality. How Malaysia has been responding to Chinese nationals and others affected by the MH 370 tragedy has to be viewed in the larger context of Malaysia’s bilateral ties with China. Malaysia was not only the first noncommunist state in Southeast Asia to recognise China in 1974, it has also consistently refused to be drawn into any military or security arrangement that would directly or indirectly impact adversely upon China. On the question of both the Straits of Melaka and
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the South China Sea — strategic routes in China’s geopolitical map — Malaysia has adopted positions which are more benign to China’s interests than the approach taken by almost all its other neighbours. There is no denying that over the last 40 years Malaysia has emerged as
one of China’s most trusted friends. This is why a lot of Malaysians are deeply disappointed with the hostility and antagonism shown by some sectors of Chinese society towards us in the wake of the MH 370 tragedy. This deplorable attitude has to be understood against the backdrop of China’s conflicts with a number of its neighbours in recent times. Even when there is a certain degree of historical justification for aspects of the Chinese position in some of its conflicts with Japan, Vietnam, and the Philippines, there is a tendency on the part of the Chinese to display such selfrighteous indignation that it often borders on jingoism. This is true even in the case of its conflict with the Philippines — a conflict which is not as historically rooted nor as multi-dimensional as China’s conflict with Japan —
S T A T E M E N T where the uncompromising stance of the Chinese on the Spratly Islands has limited the options available to the Philippines. Indeed, on issues of territorial sovereignty pertaining to the South China Sea as a whole, it is partly because of China’s unyielding approach that those who dispute its claims have not been able to arrive at some settlement with their giant neighbour to the north. The Chinese approach to its neighbours raises some disturbing questions about bilateral and multilateral relations. As China wields more economic and political clout, is it also becoming less accommodative of the interests of its neighbours? Is its assertiveness a manifestation of a psychology that privileges its own interests even to the extent of marginalising the well-being of others? Is this some sort of ‘Middle Kingdom Complex’ that is inherently incapable of according the same degree of rights and respect to the other as it demands for itself? As someone who for many years has defended the peaceful rise of China as a global power as a positive development that will lead to the emergence of a more equitable multipolar international order, I feel that it is imperative that China demonstrates greater sensitivity towards its neighbours. It should never be seen as a nation with a narrow, blinkered view of its own interests with little empathy for the honour and dignity of other people, especially those who are its true and tested friends. The MH 370 tragedy has brought this issue to the fore. 31 March 2014.
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ARTICLES THE RED LINE
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By Seymour M. Hersh We publish below an article by Seymour M. Hersh on Obama, Erdogan and the Syrian rebels.The second and third parts of this article will appear in subsequent issues of the JUST Commentary. -editor
In 2011 Barack Obama led an allied military intervention in Libya without consulting the US Congress. Last August, after the sarin attack on the Damascus suburb of Ghouta, he was ready to launch an allied air strike, this time to punish the Syrian government for allegedly crossing the ‘red line’ he had set in 2012 on the use of chemical weapons. ÿ Then with less than two days to go before the planned strike, he announced that he would seek congressional approval for the intervention. The strike was postponed as Congress prepared for hearings, and subsequently cancelled when Obama accepted Assad’s offer to relinquish his chemical arsenal in a deal brokered by Russia. Why did Obama delay and then relent on Syria when he was not shy about rushing into Libya? The answer lies in a clash between those in the administration who were committed to enforcing the red line, and military leaders who thought that going to war was both unjustified and potentially disastrous.
Pentagon; the joint chiefs were already preparing to warn Obama that his plans for a far-reaching bomb and missile attack on Syria’s infrastructure could lead to a wider war in the Middle East. As a consequence the American officers delivered a last-minute caution to the president, which, in their view, eventually led to his cancelling the attack.
Obama’s change of mind had its origins at Porton Down, the defence laboratory in Wiltshire. British intelligence had obtained a sample of the sarin used in the 21 August attack and analysis demonstrated that the gas used didn’t match the batches known to exist in the Syrian army’s chemical weapons arsenal. The message that the case against Syria wouldn’t hold up was quickly relayed to the US joint chiefs of staff. The British report heightened doubts inside the
The joint chiefs also knew that the Obama administration’s public claims that only the Syrian army had access to sarin were wrong. The American and British intelligence communities had been aware since the spring of 2013 that some rebel units in Syria were developing chemical weapons. On 20 June analysts for the US Defense Intelligence Agency issued a highly classified five-page ‘talking points’ briefing for the DIA’s deputy director, David Shedd, which
For months there had been acute concern among senior military leaders and the intelligence community about the role in the war of Syria’s neighbours, especially Turkey. Prime Minister Recep Erdogan was known to be supporting the al-Nusra Front, a jihadist faction among the rebel opposition, as well as other Islamist rebel groups. ‘We knew there were some in the Turkish government,’ a former senior US intelligence official, who has access to current intelligence, told me, ‘who believed they could get Assad’s nuts in a vice by dabbling with a sarin attack inside Syria – and forcing Obama to make good on his red line threat.’
stated that al-Nusra maintained a sarin production cell: its programme, the paper said, was ‘the most advanced sarin plot since al-Qaida’s pre-9/11 effort’. (According to a Defense Department consultant, US intelligence has long known that al-Qaida experimented with chemical weapons, and has a video of one of its gas experiments with dogs.) The DIA paper went on: ‘Previous IC [intelligence community] focus had been almost entirely on Syrian CW [chemical weapons] stockpiles; now we see ANF attempting to make its own CW … AlNusrah Front’s relative freedom of operation within Syria leads us to assess the group’s CW aspirations will be difficult to disrupt in the future.’ The paper drew on classified intelligence from numerous agencies: ‘Turkey and Saudibased chemical facilitators,’ it said, ‘were attempting to obtain sarin precursors in bulk, tens of kilograms, likely for the anticipated large scale production effort in Syria.’ (Asked about the DIA paper, a spokesperson for the director of national intelligence said: ‘No such paper was ever requested or produced by intelligence community analysts.’) Last May, more than ten members of the al-Nusra Front were arrested in southern Turkey with what local police told the press were two kilograms of sarin. In a 130-page indictment the group was accused of attempting to purchase fuses, piping for the construction of mortars, and chemical precursors for sarin. Five continued next page
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of those arrested were freed after a brief detention. The others, including the ringleader, Haytham Qassab, for whom the prosecutor requested a prison sentence of 25 years, were released pending trial. In the meantime the Turkish press has been rife with speculation that the Erdoðan administration has been covering up the extent of its involvement with the rebels. In a news conference last summer, Aydin Sezgin, Turkey’s ambassador to Moscow, dismissed the arrests and claimed to reporters that the recovered ‘sarin’ was merely ‘anti-freeze’. The DIA paper took the arrests as evidence that al-Nusra was expanding its access to chemical weapons. It said Qassab had ‘self-identified’ as a member of al-Nusra, and that he was directly connected to Abd-al-Ghani, the ‘ANF emir for military manufacturing’. Qassab and his associate Khalid Ousta worked with Halit Unalkaya, an employee of a Turkish firm called Zirve Export, who provided ‘price quotes for bulk quantities of sarin precursors’. Abd-al-Ghani’s plan was for two associates to ‘perfect a process for making sarin, then go to Syria to train others to begin large scale production at an unidentified lab in Syria’. The DIA paper said that one of his operatives had purchased a precursor on the ‘Baghdad chemical market’, which ‘has supported at least seven CW efforts since 2004’. A series of chemical weapon attacks in March and April 2013 was investigated over the next few months by a special UN mission to Syria. A person with close knowledge of the UN’s activity in Syria told me that there was evidence linking the Syrian opposition to the first gas attack, on 19 March in Khan Al-Assal, a village near Aleppo. In its final report in December, the mission said that at least 19 civilians and one Syrian soldier were among the fatalities, along with scores
of injured. It had no mandate to assign responsibility for the attack, but the person with knowledge of the UN’s activities said: ‘Investigators interviewed the people who were there, including the doctors who treated the victims. It was clear that the rebels used the gas. It did not come out in public because no one wanted to know.’ In the months before the attacks began, a former senior Defense Department official told me, the DIA was circulating a daily classified report known as SYRUP on all intelligence related to the Syrian conflict, including material on chemical weapons. But in the spring, distribution of the part of the report concerning chemical weapons was severely curtailed on the orders of Denis McDonough, the White House chief of staff. ‘Something was in there that triggered a shit fit by McDonough,’ the former Defense Department official said. ‘One day it was a huge deal, and then, after the March and April sarin attacks’ – he snapped his fingers – ‘it’s no longer there.’ The decision to restrict distribution was made as the joint chiefs ordered intensive contingency planning for a possible ground invasion of Syria whose primary objective would be the elimination of chemical weapons. The former intelligence official said that many in the US national security establishment had long been troubled by the president’s red line: ‘The joint chiefs asked the White House, “What does red line mean? How does that translate into military orders? Troops on the ground? Massive strike? Limited strike?” They tasked military intelligence to study how we could carry out the threat. They learned nothing more about the president’s reasoning.’ In the aftermath of the 21 August attack Obama ordered the Pentagon to draw up targets for bombing. Early in the process,
the former intelligence official said, ‘the White House rejected 35 target sets provided by the joint chiefs of staff as being insufficiently “painful” to the Assad regime.’ The original targets included only military sites and nothing by way of civilian infrastructure. Under White House pressure, the US attack plan evolved into ‘a monster strike’: two wings of B-52 bombers were shifted to airbases close to Syria, and navy submarines and ships equipped with Tomahawk missiles were deployed. ‘Every day the target list was getting longer,’ the former intelligence official told me. ‘The Pentagon planners said we can’t use only Tomahawks to strike at Syria’s missile sites because their warheads are buried too far below ground, so the two B-52 air wings with two-thousand pound bombs were assigned to the mission. Then we’ll need standby search-and-rescue teams to recover downed pilots and drones for target selection. It became huge.’ The new target list was meant to ‘completely eradicate any military capabilities Assad had’, the former intelligence official said. The core targets included electric power grids, oil and gas depots, all known logistic and weapons depots, all known command and control facilities, and all known military and intelligence buildings. Britain and France were both to play a part. On 29 August, the day Parliament voted against Cameron’s bid to join the intervention, theGuardian reported that he had already ordered six RAF Typhoon fighter jets to be deployed to Cyprus, and had volunteered a submarine capable of launching Tomahawk missiles. The French air force – a crucial player in the 2011 strikes on Libya – was deeply committed, according to an account in Le Nouvel Observateur; François Hollande had ordered several Rafale fighter-bombers to join the American assault. Their targets were reported to continued next page
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By the last days of August the president had given the Joint Chiefs a fixed deadline for the launch. ‘H hour was to begin no later than Monday morning [2 September], a massive assault to neutralise Assad,’ the former intelligence official said. So it was a surprise to many when during a speech in the White House Rose Garden on 31 August Obama said that the attack would be put on hold, and he would turn to Congress and put it to a vote. At this stage, Obama’s premise – that only the Syrian army was capable of deploying sarin – was unravelling. Within a few days of the 21 August attack, the former intelligence official told me, Russian military intelligence operatives had recovered samples of the chemical agent from Ghouta. They analysed it and passed it on to British military intelligence; this was the material sent to Porton Down. (A spokesperson for Porton Down said: ‘Many of the samples analysed in the
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UK tested positive for the nerve agent sarin.’ MI6 said that it doesn’t comment on intelligence matters.)
be in western Syria.
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The former intelligence official said the Russian who delivered the sample to the UK was ‘a good source – someone with access, knowledge and a record of being trustworthy’. After the first reported uses of chemical weapons in Syria last year, American and allied intelligence agencies ‘made an effort to find the answer as to what if anything, was used – and its source’, the former intelligence official said. ‘We use data exchanged as part of the Chemical Weapons Convention. The DIA’s baseline consisted of knowing the composition of each batch of Sovietmanufactured chemical weapons. But we didn’t know which batches the Assad government currently had in its arsenal. Within days of the Damascus incident we asked a source in the Syrian government to give us a list of the batches the government currently had. This is why we could confirm the
A R T I C L E S difference so quickly.’ The process hadn’t worked as smoothly in the spring, the former intelligence official said, because the studies done by Western intelligence ‘were inconclusive as to the type of gas it was. The word “sarin” didn’t come up. There was a great deal of discussion about this, but since no one could conclude what gas it was, you could not say that Assad had crossed the president’s red line.’ By 21 August, the former intelligence official went on, ‘the Syrian opposition clearly had learned from this and announced that “sarin” from the Syrian army had been used, before any analysis could be made, and the press and White House jumped at it. Since it now was sarin, “It had to be Assad.” 4April 2014 End of Part 1 Seymour M. Hersh is an American investigative journalist and author based in Washington, D.C.
TIME: A LOOK AT THE RELIGIOUS VIOLENCE
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By Hozan Alan Senauke Buddhadharma recently asked Hozan Alan Senauke, Soto Zen priest and longtime peace activist, to offer some insight on the current conflict between Buddhist and Muslim ethnic groups in Burma. Below is his response — an excellent explanation not only of the conflict itself but of how we, as Western Buddhists, might try to make a difference. Hatred is never appeased by hatred in this world; by non-hatred only is hatred appeased. This is an unending truth. — Dhammapada, 5
On February 27, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) was ordered to close all its longestablished clinics in Myanmar/Burma. They were accused of giving preferential treatment to Muslim Rohingya people. This was in response to statements by MSF about what they saw as ongoing and systematic attacks on Rohingyas in vulnerable communities of Burma’s western Rakhine state. According to UN documents, the latest of these attacks — in Du Chee Yar Tan village this January — left forty-eight Rohingya dead, mostly women and children, at the hands of Buddhist-based rioters and state security
forces. MSF, with numerous clinics in the area, publicly reported that they had treated at least twenty-two victims. The government of Myanmar has denied claims of these abuses, asserting that the UN’s and MSF’s facts and figures were “totally wrong.” After negotiations, the government stepped back a little, allowing MSF to continue its HIV/AIDS work and other activities in Kachin and Shan states, as well as in the Yangon region. Rakhine state remains offlimits to MSF, despite the pressing needs
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of thousands from all religions and ethnicities who depend on their clinics. Before going much further, I should say that nothing I write can convey the complexity of issues or the passion and fear that fire both sides. From my distant vantage point in the United States, I know that I can’t see the whole picture, which includes colonial history and geopolitics, along with regional and ethnic tensions within modern Myanmar. Seven years ago, the junta’s harsh economic measures brought a daring movement into the streets of Burma’s towns and cities. That movement came to be called the “Saffron Revolution.” Many thousands of Burmese joined the tide of protest, led by monks and nuns who stood up to the armed troops of an entrenched military dictatorship. The vision of a river of robed monastics and stark images of courageous confrontations of activists and soldiers are still clear in my mind. It was inspiring to see Buddhist monks and nuns take the lead and bear great risk for the sake of their nation. Inspiring as it was, the Saffron Revolution was crushed by the junta’s armed forces in the late days of September 2007. Monasteries were emptied, with police cordons set up at their gates. Thousands of monks, nuns, and supporters were thrown into prisons or disappeared. An unknown number were killed. According to some reports, crematoriums on the outskirts of Yangon were operating night and day. When I visited Yangon with a small witness delegation in December of that year, we saw for ourselves the silent streets, empty monasteries, and the look of fear on people’s faces. The Buddhist-led Saffron Revolution opened the world’s eyes to the plight of Burma. Images of brutality, violence, and murder — smuggled out at great risk — raised the stakes between the junta and citizenry. The whole nation — citizens and junta alike — was shamed by these images. That shame
deepened the following year when Cyclone Nargis tore across southern Burma, leaving more than 150,000 dead and large areas of population and agricultural devastated. The junta’s sluggish response and resistance to outside humanitarian relief drove the death toll higher. Once again, Burma was shamed before itself and the world. In the spring of 2011, after fifty years of direct oppression, a flawed but nonetheless significant election seemed to set the course for a period of liberalization. Many of us were heartened by this change and by the return of Nobel-laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi to active political life. In time, almost all
of the thousands of known political prisoners, many of them monks and nuns, were released, rededicating themselves to the building of a free society. These changes, tentative as they seemed, were hopeful signs, acknowledged by the wide community of nations and by international nongovernmental organizations ready to help with resources and training. On my visits to Burma I could feel a burden of fear lifting and the sense that a future was possible. Although there was still active fighting between government troops and rebel forces in Shan and Kachin states, it was possible to imagine an end to internal violence after so many years. But in May 2012, the rape and murder of a woman in Rakhine state, which borders Bangladesh, touched off violence between groups of ethnically Buddhist Rakhine people and local communities of Muslim Rohingyas. Hundreds were killed, dozens of villages were
A R T I C L E S looted and burned, and many Rohingyas fled to hastily constructed camps. The population of these camps is now approaching 200,000, out of an estimated population of 750,000 Muslims in Rakhine state. Over the last two years, voices and acts of intolerance in Burma have been regularly in the news, as have the government’s denials of discrimination or responsibility. Burma’s minister of religious affairs, Sann Sint, a lieutenant general in the former junta, justified a boycott of Muslim businesses led by monks: “We are now practicing market economics,” he said. “Nobody can stop that. It is up to the consumers.” In May 2013, authorities in Rakhine state announced a policy imposing a two-child limit on Muslim Rohingya families in two western townships, reinforcing the perception of ethnic cleansing in Burma. This alarming policy is the only known legal restriction of its kind today against a specific religious group. According to the June 14, 2013 edition of The Irrawaddy, “About 200 senior Buddhist monks convening in Rangoon on Thursday have begun drafting a religious law that would put restrictions on marriages between Buddhist women and Muslim men.” In July the international edition of Time magazine added fuel to the fire with a cover photo of the fundamentalist Burmese monk Wirathu, calling him “The Face of Buddhist Terror.” President Thein Sein’s office released a statement about Wirathu and his fundamentalist 969 movement, saying 969 “is just a symbol of peace” and Wirathu is “a son of Lord Buddha.” Anti-Islamic violence has spread to other areas of the country. March 2013 riots in Meikitla, in central Burma south of Mandalay, left forty-four people dead and thousands of homes consumed by flames. Later, two days of violence between Buddhists and Muslims in Lashio — the largest town
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continued from page 8 in Burma’s Shan state, near the Chinese border — left a mosque, an orphanage, and many shops destroyed by Buddhistidentified mobs roaming the streets on motorcycles. Undoubtedly, there has been violence on both sides. But in each of these instances, the preponderance of organized reaction seems to be Buddhist-identified, often with leadership from monks, and with minimal response from the government and the Burmese army only after damage has been done. Local people describe the military as standing by and watching as the destruction unfolds. This conflict has tangled roots, going back decades to the British colonial occupation and years before. But the current tensions also speak to contention over scarce agricultural land and economic resources that manifests as communal hostility. Rakhine state, an independent kingdom for several thousand years, was only absorbed into greater Burma at the end of the 18th century, then ceded to the British only forty years later. Under the military dictatorship, Rakhine state was exploited by the generals for its rich natural resources and labor. In the north, it was pressed by an everexpanding “Bengali” population of Muslimmajority Bangladesh. It is no surprise that Rakhine fear “Bengalis” and are suspicious of outsiders. One wonders, too, whether we are seeing garden-variety religio- or ethno-centrism, a disease of group identity and privilege that is sadly endemic among humans? Is there also a perverse political motivation in which the former military junta is “allowing” the violence so they can intervene and reassert their position as the preservers of social order in Burma? Rohingyas have lived in Burma in Rakhine state for generations, and very likely for several hundred years, although the facts are hotly contested. The former military regime’s 1982 law excluded them from among the nation’s 135 recognized ethnicities, denying the Rohingyas citizenship and basic rights on the basis that
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they were in fact “Bengali,” having infiltrated Burma from the eastern region of the Indian Empire. Yet present-day neighbor Bangladesh denies citizenship to Rohingyas living within its own borders. In the background, of course, is a fear rooted in the historical sweep of Islam across Buddhist and Hindu India and on, across large portions of Southeast Asia. The Rakhine state region, with natural gas reserves and a long shoreline on the Indian Ocean, is also at play in geopolitical tensions between China and India, each with its eye on Burma’s wealth and strategic location. It is not surprising that the United Nations views the Rohingyas as “one of the world’s most persecuted minorities.” Myanmar/Burma is still in a delicate transition to democracy after fifty years of military dictatorship. The 2008 constitution reserves one quarter of the seats in both legislative bodies to delegates from the tatmadaw/military. It is hard to imagine Burma going back to its dark ages, yet within recent memory we can recall the dissolution of Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia into oppositional ethnic and religious enclaves when Soviet-style dictatorship ended. One hopes against hope for better in Burma. We look to the government of Burma, including President Thien Sein and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, to play an active and nonviolent role in resolving conflicts between Buddhists, Muslims, and all ethnic groups. Central to this resolution is a guarantee of citizenship as well as human and religious rights to all Burma’s diverse inhabitants. So far their response has been evasive. At a press conference with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in early March of this year, Jim Brooke, editor of the Cambodia Daily, asked her to address the plight of Burma’s Rohingya People. Suu Kyi’s response was indirect, to say the least. She said: In any society, when there are tensions between different communities, you have to first of all ensure security. People who are insecure will not be ready to sit down to talk to one another to sort out their problems. So if you ask me what the
A R T I C L E S solution is to the problem in the Rakhine, I would say simply ‘I don’t know what the
solution is completely, but one essential part of it is the establishment of the rule of law.’ It seems to me that when the house is burning down, it’s not the time to discuss the fire department’s management policy. At the same time, one can understand Daw Suu’s vulnerable political position as parliamentary elections approach in 2015. Fundamentalist Buddhists have already begun to form alliances with the former junta generals to block Aung San Suu Kyi’s eligibility to stand for the Myanmar’s presidency. The views of many “progressive” Buddhists are defensive and locked down with regard to Muslims. This can also be seen as an artifact of a military dictatorship that dismantled an excellent education system in a successful effort to replace knowledge with fear, mistrust, and superstition. Afriend recently returned from Myanmar, where she was evaluating a residential program in peacebuilding for Buddhist activists, reports that even voices of moderation, reflection, and dialogue are now being effectively silenced. A monk in Sittwe, capital of Myanmar’s Rakhine State, told my friend: Rakhine [people] do not like the talk of foreigners on human rights, and their suggestions to accept Muslims. The Rakhine have too much fear and lack trust…. They fear Muslims will take over their land, and feel betrayed by foreigners who come to help Muslims and not them. continued next page
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I don’t assume that the concerns of Rakhine Buddhists have no factual basis. Violence by individual Muslims is also part of the picture. But it might be that the fears and acts of Buddhists — effectively, the demonization of Rohingyas and of Muslims throughout Burma — are creating the very conditions they fear most, with an increasing internationalization of an organized and potentially violent Islamic pushback. Burma seems headed into a maelstrom of intercommunal conflict. And this may very well fit the purposes of still-powerful generals and politicians whose vision is to create a strong nationalist entity with a Burmese Buddhist identity. Ethnic confrontation in Burma challenges many of our cherished ideas of a “peaceful” Buddhism and religious fellowship. We know that the Buddha’s teaching and example are profoundly nonviolent, but for those of us inside and outside Burma who may have idealized a Buddhist-based nonviolent movement for democracy and human rights there, violence in Rakhine State and elsewhere is a discouraging reality. And this is not confined to Burma. A decade of conflict between Buddhists and Muslims in southern Thailand has left more than 6,000 dead and 10,000 injured. In Sri Lanka, after the murderous suppression of a Hindu Tamil minority in the north by Singhalese Buddhist nationalist military, tensions between Buddhists and Muslims have taken center stage. In the modern era, we see again and again that where a national state and religious identity merge, nothing wholesome will emerge.
I know there are countless open-minded citizens, monks, and nuns in Burma who desire peace and harmony among all religions and ethnicities. May they have the courage to speak out. And may they remember that what happens in the name of Buddhism affects how people around the world view this precious path that we strive to follow. Shakyamuni Buddha lived in a place and age of great diversity and change. He never taught fear. He never advocated violence. He did not hesitate to speak out for what was right and just. I would hope that Buddhists of today, whether they are in Burma or the West, would hold themselves to the same high standard. May all beings live in safety and happiness. Hozan Alan Senauke Clear View Project March 2014
Postscript: What Can I Do? Many Buddhists and concerned people in the West want to know what we can do to be of help in this painful situation. Over the last two years I have organized and taken part in letter-writing campaigns to Myanmar’s government, the United Nations, and the U. State Department by citizens and Buddhist teachers from Asia and the West. So far, to no avail. By long habit, the government of Myanmar is relatively heedless of outside criticism, and they know that money from developed nations will continue to flow in their direction so long as Burma has resources to sell. Nonetheless, we have to try. Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield just returned from Burma, and he suggests the following: Write or contact your congresspeople and the State Department, pressing the US not to support major aid, business deals, and especially military collaboration with Burma unless the Burmese government stands up
for human rights for all groups. Western Buddhist can write to Myanmar’s Ministry of Religious Affairs www.mora.gov.mm/ expressing your concerns. I would also urge you to stay informed and be watchful. Online publications like www.irrawaddy.org/, as well as conventional sources like the New York Times and the BBC, do a good job following this issue. I am encouraged by discussions that took place at last November’s conference of the International Network of Engaged Buddhists (www.inebnetwork.org/) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Throughout the conference, Burmese Buddhists and Muslims held a daily dialogue behind closed doors, where they could begin to map out both differences and possible solutions. Growing from these discussions, a commission of inquiry has been organized by a recently formed International Forum on Buddhist-Muslim Relations. This factfinding commission plans to meet and collaborate with local civil-society bodies inside Myanmar. It will have three primary objectives: 1. to bring forth the facts of BuddhistMuslim conflict in Myanmar; 2. to ascertain the causes of this conflict; 3. to develop resources and proposals for the establishment of inter-religious peace and harmony in Myanmar. People of Burma and of the whole Southeast Asian region will need to solve these problems by their own agency. I believe they can do this, and they will need us to bear witness and lend support. In time we will be able to offer help. As the situation evolves, I will do my best to keep you informed in these pages and on the Clear View Project website and blog (www.clearviewproject.org).— A.S. 18 March, 2014 Hozan Alan Senauke is vice-abbot of Berkeley Zen Center in California. Source: clearviewproject.org
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OUR WAY OF LIFE/ DEATH By Mickey Z. When Barack Obama was first inaugurated in January 2009, he clearly and firmly announced to the planet: “We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense.”
mining. Our way of life means New Hampshire license plates read: “Live
I’d say this is one promise the Pope of Hope has kept. Wake-up Call: Our way of life is a way of death. “Our way of life” is based on violence, expansion, consumption, domination, and predatory capitalism. Our way of life means 1 in 31 American adults is in prison, on parole, or on probation, yet we live in Land of the Free™. It means the U.S. military — the planet’s worst polluter and recipient of more than 50 percent of U.S. tax dollars — can launch predator drones at civilians, but somehow we dwell in the Home of the Brave™. Our way of life means homelessness. It means sweatshops. It means “illegal” is a noun and “union” is an insult. It means 150-200 animal and plant species go extinct… every single day. Wake-up Call: Our way of life is a way of death. Our way of life means there aren’t any cod in Cape Cod, and soon no ice at the North Pole. It means strip malls; it means strip
free or die.” It also means New Hampshire license plates are manufactured by prisoners. Our way of life means Mumia abuJamal and Leonard Peltier and Chelsea Manning remain in prison, while war criminals like Madeleine Albright and Dick Cheney walk free. Speaking of war criminals, our way of life also means President Obama can take time out from waging two wars to accept a Nobel Peace Prize. Our way of life teaches us what to accept as “normal” and, as a result, normal means every 46 seconds, a woman is raped in America. It means depleted uranium and landmines. Normal means gay bashing and racial profiling; veal crates and vivisection; clear cutting and ocean trawling. Wake-up Call: Our way of life is a way of death. Normal will have you taking off your shoes at the airport, getting shot at by trigger-happy cops, but never having to walk more than two blocks to find the nearest Starbuck’s. (Did I say walk? I meant drive, of course.
Walking… how Third World of me.) Every square mile of ocean hosts 46,000 pieces of floating plastic? Women earn 77 cents for every dollar a man is paid? The global animal byproducts industry murders 1 trillion animal per year for “food,” consumes and destroys one-third of the planet’s and surface, and is the top source of human-created greenhouse gases? All normal. All part of our vaunted way of life — the same way of life that has removed 80 percent of the world’s forests and 90 percent of the large fish in the ocean and will not stop until they’re all gone. Wake-up Call: Our way of life is a way of death. Make no mistake about it, our beloved way of life was built on a nearly exterminated indigenous population, an African slave trade, and all those killed in places like Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Southeast Asia, Central America, Middle East, etc. etc. It was created on stolen land, using stolen oil. Our way of life is built on terror and it is maintained by terror — the terror of cops, prisons, military, and the psychological terror of propaganda. The first step to end terrorism remains this simple: Stop practicing it yourself. The precarious state of things on Planet Earth is not some preordained theology or an unstoppable force of
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nature. We’re in this mess thanks to human decisions. If different decisions had been made in the past, different outcomes would’ve likely occurred. If different decisions are made and different actions are taken — starting right now — perhaps different
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outcomes can still transpire. I say we find out… #shifthappens
on Activism here.
Note: To continue conversations like this, come see Mickey Z. in person on March 15 at Bluestockings Bookstore in NYC. Order Occupy this Book: Mickey Z.
Mickey Z. is the author of 11 books, most recently the novel Darker Shade of Green.
15 March, 2014
Source:World News Trust
“NEVER FORGET”:FOR RACHEL CORRIERELIGION By Gary Corseri (Note: American peace activist Rachel Corrie was crushed to death on March 16, 2003, while trying to stop an Israeli Defense Force (IDF) armored bulldozer from demolishing Palestinian homes in the occupied Gaza Strip.) Barely a woman, twenty three years old— Soft, vulnerable…. Surely, the Monster Will stop in its tracks!
In place, this love of home and place, And the Other, Of the faces, the voices, the laughter... Olive groves and sun-scented skin; The love she’d found for dispossessed: Children, fathers, mothers—also of her, Belonging to her, because Everyone suffering was One.
She steels her will, Thinks of the tank in Tiananmen Square— One little man stopping a tank!
It was hard to explain... but the Monster Truck was coming now— remorseless Caterpillar, Sci-fi bulldozer to scoop her up!
Surely, They will perceive her love-resolve: To d i e i n a g r e a t c a u s e i s t o mortar— Not martyr—the Cause!
It would stop in its tracks! Because a man drove it! A man who would see her, In her orange jacket Like a bumble bee!
And part of the one who drove the Monster C l o s e r n o w, w i t h d r o n i n g , cacophonous, Tank-like clanking, And the sun burning its panes like eyes. Surely It must stop, if she steels her will, is resolute, Peers in his eyes... surely... then... understand... He will—the suffering… the children… why she stood In its way— Barely a woman, bones against The iron tread, encircling, Winding, crushing, crackling, Bursting in sunburst light, In the dying light, For the sake of all. 15 March, 2014
She must not die! Cannot break her parents’ hearts— Back home! (She sees them now!) If only they knew How she had grown! They would understand… This other love that held her now
He would see she had to Do it—stand there in its way (Though its iron mouth gaped, Though its hard lips snarled.) To s a v e t h e i r h o u s e s , o l i v e groves... to save Herself! And these other selves— part of her
Gary Corseri has published his work at hundreds of websites and periodicals worldwide, including Countercurrents, Common Dreams, Counterpunch, Village Voice and The New York Times. Source: Countercurrents.org
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