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Nearly half of Sittwe’s population used to be Muslim, but almost all have been pushed to rural areas and those remaining live in a quarter of town off limits to journalists and even aid agencies
Smack in the centre of Sittwe town, red and white wood-and-razor-wire barricades stood on both sides of the road. Three policemen jumped up from their seats as soon as we approached the area. You can’t go in, they told us. The place is dangerous and it’s for your own safety, they said.
When we responded that we knew self-defense, they resorted to the age-old excuse in Myanmar for why things are the way they are. It was “an order from above, from the elders”.
About 300 metres beyond that point is the only Muslim neighbourhood left in Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine state in western Myanmar. The city used to be home to about 73,000 Muslims - nearly half of Sittwe’s population - before two bouts of violence last year forced many out of their homes.
Fewer than 5,000 are left today, and all are inside Aung Mingalar, a place where nobody is allowed out or in, except for a market truck that comes twice a week, a few Buddhist Rakhines who want to take a shortcut, and Muslim residents who can afford to pay security forces between $20 and $30 to visit relatives in camps.
We know there are people beyond the barricades, yet we cannot see, hear or talk to them. They are out of sight and worlds away from what's happening in the town, and that’s how the Buddhist Rakhine community in Sittwe likes it, never mind that the once bustling port town is a ghost of its former self and many businesses have suffered as a result.
“There’s no going back to living with them now,” a local driver said, like many other Rakhines we met.
“There are 8 to 9 million Bengalis, and they are trying to take over our state,” he said, echoing a fear-mongering misconception about the stateless Muslim Rohingya.
This man, like the Myanmar government and much of the public, does not recognise the Rohingya as citizens, and refers to them Bengali to signify they are illegal immigrants from neighbouring Bangladesh.
In reality, there are an estimated 800,000 Rohingya in the whole of Myanmar and about 430,000 who fled Myanmar and are living in refugee camps in neighbouring Bangladesh.
PERMANENT SEGREGATION?
Last year’s violence left at least 192 dead and 140,000 displaced, the vast majority of them Rohingya.
Some 90,000, including many Muslims who had lived in Sittwe town for generations, are now in squalid camps outside town, next to nearby Muslim villages and behind more roadblocks.
They are not allowed to return to the town, their movements are restricted, and they live in flimsy, makeshift shelters that have raised concerns over how they’ll survive the impact of an incoming cyclone.
The eastern part of the township, as well as Sittwe town, is now exclusively occupied by Buddhist Rakhines, except for the blocked-off Aung Mingalar neighbourhood. A Reuters special report published on Wednesday detailed the apartheid conditions and policies against the minority Muslims, who make up about 5 percent of the country’s 60 million people.
Most of the Muslims we met expressed their desire to return to their burnt-out homes, but the Rakhines said they won’t allow them back, and the Rakhine's acceptance is a condition the Rakhine state government says is necessary to prevent further bloodshed.
The neighbourhoods where the Muslims used to live in Sittwe are now bare. Eleven months have passed since violence first occurred, and without the signs that say ‘do not enter, this land was razed by fire’, it would be easy to assume the places have just been abandoned and have fallen into disrepair.
On May 7, Myanmar’s President Thein Sein gave a speech promising to ensure the basic rights of Muslims and Rakhines.
It is unclear how that could be achieved when one group vehemently denies the rights of the other, and when the government-appointed commission to investigate the violence recommends that segregation of the two communities "be enforced at least until the overt emotions subside".
That may take a while.
Officials and locals are still staunchly anti-Rohingya. They call everyone in Aung Mingalar liars, and question whether the Rohingya are even human. When they talk about the destruction of Rohingya homes, businesses and mosques, they say, "The majority taught them a lesson”, and yet accuse the Rohingya of burning their own homes.
They then complain of what they see as one-sided reports from the media and rights groups.
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