Description:
"Large scale violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine state directed at the Rohingya Muslim minority group can be traced to March 1997 where allegations of the rape
of a Buddhist woman by a Muslim man led to Buddhist monks instigating violence which led to the burning of entire Muslim neighborhoods in Mandalay. This
coincided with the Mahamuni Buddha incident where Muslims were accused of
stealing a large ruby from the sacred Buddhist site of pilgrimage (Schober 2007,
58). Alleged rapes of Buddhist women by Muslim men have led to major violence
in June 2012 which left hundreds dead in Sittwe Rakhine state as well as 2013 and
2014 in other areas of Myanmar (BBC 2014). Increasing tension between ethnic
groups and frequent outbreaks of violence led the military junta to create ‘safe’
villages for Rohingya Muslims. In effect this forced ethnic enclaving on the part of
the government led to camps where Rohingya were sealed off from other communities and could not engage in economic, social or other activities outside of their
patrolled villages. The latest round conflict erupted in late 2016 and continues at
present with massive destruction of over 400 Muslim villages in Rakhine state being burned due to military operations against this minority group (Human Rights
Watch 2017) and tens of thousands being displaced (Barry 2017). At present UN
Special Rapporteur Yanghee Lee is being denied access to Muslim villages in Rakhine state during her investigatory visit and is instead reportedly being allowed
access to government vetted and approved individuals (Al-Jazeera 2017). The paper seeks to analyze the context of violence against the Rohingya from Galtung’s
perspective of structural and cultural violence. In particular the author will detail
the internal and external plight of the Rohingya and identify mechanisms which
have failed to protect these people and finally provide some insight into drivers of
this conflict and some possible pathways to peace..."
Source/publisher:
Journal of Urban Culture Research via "Academia.edu" (USA)
Date of Publication:
2017-00-00
Date of entry:
2019-10-19
Grouping:
- Individual Documents
Category:
Countries:
Myanmar, Bangladesh
Administrative areas of Burma/Myanmar:
Rakhine State
Language:
English
Local URL:
Format:
pdf
Size:
905.36 KB (18 pages)
Resource Type:
text
Text quality:
- Good