The Final Solution In The Modern Era

How Myanmar Is Rewriting History
(part of The Darkness Visible series)

(Victims of Ethnic Cleansing)

For all of written history the Rohingya people have lived in the area now belonging to the Burmese government known as the Arakan state. Their ancestors lived here for centuries. Their fathers farmed these lands and fished the waters along the coast. And though Rohingya live on the other side of the Bangladeshi - Myanmar border nearly a million Rohingya have called Burma home for generations.

Throughout history however the history of the Rohingya has been somewhat rewritten to better suit the will of their conquerors. The modern Burmese dictatorship is no exception to this rule of historic precedent. And like most others who came before them, the Burmese seem far to willing to rewrite the books so as to wipe the Rohingya out of existence. 

The Rakhine Nationalities Development Party (RNDP) has long exploited the "facts" they claim are the real history of the Arakan state. In their version of history the Rakhine people (a developed term that now refers to all Buddhist people in Arakan regardless of ethnicity) had a rich and vibrant culture dating back to prehistory. At times the RNDP links such claims to actual historical kingdoms such as the Kingdom of Mrauk U, an odd adjustment of history since the Buddhist kings of this kingdom received Islamic titles. Yet even in doing this the RNDP usually alters the dates by only recognizing the kingdoms beginning as of 1531... when the kingdom split with Bengali Islamist.

Messing with history books is of less concern to those now living in concentration camps however. The most effective method of implementing and organizing the current genocide of the Rohingya by the RNDP was enacted in 1982 when the RNDP managed to get a law passed that stripped all Rohingya of citizenship. This was the first step in starting the ethnic cleansing of the Arakan. This was the push that the Buddhist needed to start the genocide. 

In 1935 the fascist were high on power as their Nazi ideology became the political theory of the German state. They had taken full control of Germany in 1933 and had pushed their leader onto the population of Germany. Hitler's antisemitic views were now to become the daily bread of an oppressed nation. His views were to be carried out across and occupied continent. But to start the ball rolling Hitler needed to alter the law of the land. Hitler needed the Nuremberg Laws. 

Among the litany of new demands and restrictions upon the Jews was the most striking of all, the Jewish people were forever to be banned their citizenship to the new German state. With this Hitler had effectively made the Jewish people, German people until that day, stateless. This widened the gap between the "Aryan" people of Germany and the Jewish people. It also opened up the Jewish people to a sudden and harsh reality of servitude to a state that now professed it's hatred of them. 

With the Rohingya stateless the RNDP was quick to exploit the new list of demands placed upon the Rohingya of the Arakan. The Junta had given the racially bias RNDP the opportunity to force the Rohingya into slave labor at beckon call. The Junta also turned a blind eye to the open rape of Rohingya women and children by the RNDP and the Myanmar military. Killing of a Rohingya person was suddenly possible with little to no consequences. And every since 1982 the RNDP and Buddhists extremist have taken full advantage of this political classification of the Rohingya within Burma. 

When democracy was supposedly on the horizon the RNDP decided to speed up its goal of creating an ethnically and religiously pure Arakan state. Exploiting the rape of one woman the extremist set out to cleanse the land of an entire ethnic group. Targeting Rohingya villages, the RNDP whipped up a virtual army of Rakhine mobs. Looting and torching of Rohingya homes became the summer carnival as the Arakan burned before the eyes of the onlooking outside world. 

(Night of Broken Glass)

On November 9th, 1938 the fascist in Germany and Austria grew tired of waiting for the hostilities to begin. That night the long knives took to the streets and the glass began to break. Kristallnacht had begun. In one night the once civilized people of "Greater Germany" killed nearly 100 Germanic Jews. A further 30,000 were arrested as the pogrom burned seemingly out of control. These 30,000 would be sent to concentration camps that had proved affective just months before in the murders of mentally disabled Germans (Buchenwald being one of the new death camps).

(Rohingya Home Burning Summer of 2012)

In what appeared to be the worse outbreak of ethnic violence in the Arakan in generations the RNDP hid the start of their "Final Solution". When the villages began to burn the world would not nor could not guess that the RNDP and other Buddhist extremists had answered their "Rohingya question". Yet looking back at it now we can see that the RNDP and their cohorts have in fact created the framework in which to work to create and finish their genocide of the Rohingya people. Looking back at it we can now clearly see that this is premeditated murder... this is ethnic cleansing at its finest... this is genocide. 

With the strategic destruction of given Rohingya villages the Rakhine forces were able to isolate larger villages in more remote parts of the Arakan. This allowed the military to create ghettos out of the still standing villages and in turn create ready built concentration camps. The hard work of finding land upon which to put their "refugee" prisoners was already done by the time the smoke had cleared. The next stage was already in motion by the time the world was ready to admit that the Rohingya were at the very least "in trouble" and facing "persecution". 

RNDP sponsored blockades raised up out of nowhere in a police state that has never left its dictatorship past. Food, medicine, and other humanitarian aid was now stopped before it could even start to reach the victims of the summer violence. The starvation of the Rohingya people started the moment the first villages were torched. This war of attrition had been launched the moment the RNDP began its propaganda campaign that summer.

We saw a similar event in 1994 in Rwanda when the Hutu militias staged spontaneous pogroms across Rwanda. Almost overnight the Hutus were able to set up roadblocks where they could butcher the Tutsi who dared to try to flee. It was at this point in the Rwandan Genocide that the UN could have intervened with either military force or the arming of Tutsi militias capable of breaking the blockades.

Similar roadblocks were raised in the Arakan by the Burmese military along with help from the RNDP and the Rakhine police forces. These roadblocks were upgraded to military checkpoints as barbwire was raised around the Rohingya refugee camps and outside the still standing Rohingya villages. The transition seemed almost effortless... too effortless... on the part of Myanmar's government.

(How Many More Need To Die?)

Today the Rohingya continue to face the final stages of ethnic cleansing on the long road to the RNDP's "final solution". Mass starvation is being used to kill off the Rohingya as the extremist wait for nature to claim the remaining Rohingya. In addition the Rakhine Buddhists are using human trafficking as a means to deport Rohingya to neighboring countries while making a profit of their "human cargo". This is further complimented by the tactics used in prior pogroms such as forced labor and arbitrary arrests of Rohingya men and boys. 

In recent days eight "boat people" (Rohingya) were arrested in Pyay township. Among the Rohingya were two of the ages 22 and 23 years old, the rest were below the ages of 16. In Parin, Arakan the military of Myanmar faked an attack so that they could arrest all male Rohingya in the village including a 15 year old boy. In Sandawli the Burmese police arrested 12 Rohingya after claiming that they had burned down their own homes and should thus face 10 years in jail. 

In each of these incidents the Rohingya face the possibility of being killed in police custody or being sold to human traffickers. What they are guaranteed by the RNDP sympathetic police is that they will be tortured for their supposed crimes against the state. Those who live may never see their families again since they will most likely be deported. This is insured by the fact that immigrations officers are often brought in to force the Rohingya to sign documents claiming they are illegal immigrants while the police point a pistol at their head. 

Death by starvation, deportation, or a slow death in captivity are all the Rohingya have left as the Rakhine extremist carry out their "final solution". We on the outside can rest assured that if the genocide of the Rohingya is not stopped the RNDP and their cronies will rewrite the history of the Arakan. This is not a simple war of annihilation, this is campaign to erase the Rohingya from the history books. This is a sickening attempt by an extreme element of society to completely dominate and destroy another. And in the end we will all be witnesses to it in one way or another.

The Burmese Gestapo

The Rakhine Nationalities Development Party
(part of The Darkness Visible series)

(RNDP Flag)

It has always made me uncomfortable comparing any group of modern murderers to the fascist Nazis of the 30's and 40's. Having ancestors who fled from the spread of Nazism into Yugoslavia I have a deep grudge towards those who encouraged genocide in Croatia. And all be it that my family that died at the hands of fascist most likely did so at the hands of the Ustase I still found it hard to compare the RNDP to the German Gestapo. Yet over the past few months the comparison continued to nag at my conscience. 

In the 1930's the Gestapo took off as a branch of the already established Nazi SS (Schutzstaffel). It's goals were clear from the very beginning. The Gestapo was meant to enforce the Nazi theology by enforcing its social code amongst the German people. This meant that the Gestapo had to act like sheepdogs by separating the "pure" German population from the "undesirables". It's main target was of course the Jewish population within Germany. 

The Rakhine Nationalities Development Party began officially on May 6th, 2010 as an extremist group with very clear ethnocentric goals. From the start the RNDP was meant to force the racial ideology of racially driven politicians who were forced out of the majority part the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) due to their extremist views. This meant that upon founding the RNDP had to begin acting like pit bulls in their relentless attacks upon any political opponents and all portions of the population they deemed to be "foreign" to the "pure" Rakhine nationalities. Their main target has been shown to be the Rohingya minority within the Arakan region. 

At first glance one could say that the RNDP was just another political party in Burma looking to advance their ethnic group's political ambitions. After all, there are currently nearly a half dozen parties dedicated to a given ethnic group or another within the Amyotha Hluttaw (House of Nationalities) and just as many in the Pyithu Hluttaw (House of Representatives). Yet it is hard to find a party within either of these houses of the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (Assembly of Union) that is so violently dedicated to the destruction of an entire ethnicity. And that is where the RNDP stands out amongst the many corrupt parties that make up Burma's government. 

In the Rakhine state the RNDP is the controlling party. It is in this area of Burma that the government is defined by the RNDP. It is here that the modern day Gestapo has the ability to begin enforcing their radical ideology upon the citizens of the Rakhine. 

Much like the original Gestapo, the RNDP does not need to be present in every village to achieve its goal of the complete destruction of the Rohingya people. With only 11 township offices the RNDP has been able to spread its propaganda across the Rakhine region by infiltrating the religion of its people. By making their goal of an ethnically pure Rakhine state and a religiously run state appealing to the monks of the Arakan region the RNDP was able to feed the flames of hate over the summer of 2012. In Nazi Germany the Gestapo achieved the same success by lifting community leaders in areas it controlled up through the ranks of the Nazi party. This method allowed the Gestapo to gain control of the religion, politics, and police of an occupied area with as little presence as possible. 

Once the religion, the backbone of Burmese society, was under control of the RNDP the fascist only had to feed the flames of hatred they had already sparked. Turning a little known murder in the Rakhine state into a propaganda campaign, the RNDP had the fuel they needed to turn the Arakan into an inferno. Now the RNDP could simply point the Rakhine people at their target and watch as the mobs acted as stormtroopers. 

When the killings began during the summer of 2012 the RNDP highlighted Rohingya neighborhoods that were meant to be torched to the ground and those meant to be left standing. In what now appears to be a systematic assault, the RNDP made certain to leave select villages standing so as to act as per-assembled concentration camps. Much like the Gestapo the RNDP is now active in the said camps and the villages acting as concentration camps. 

In October of 2012 the RNDP attempted to whip the Rakhine people into yet another outburst of ethnic violence. This attempt resulted in the deaths of a known 89 people. More importantly it led to the complete blockade of all aid that had started to flow towards the Arakan state since the summer riots. The RNDP had completed its aim of forming modern concentration camps by blocking the Rohingya from leaving and keeping the aid from arriving. 

Today the RNDP has begun performing the role the Gestapo played during the final years of the Nazi rule in Europe. Today the RNDP is attempting to perform ethnic cleansing throughout the Rakhine state. Through using the blockades and deportations the RNDP fulfills their aims of killing off and destroying the Burmese Rohingya population. 

During the fall of the Nazis the Gestapo joined in the effort to carryout the "final solution". By increasing the number of deportations and executions the SS and Gestapo were able to drastically decrease the populations of "undesirables" in Western Europe in the last few years of the war alone. The methods of dehumanization that they had formed early in the war only further degraded as the war continued to drag on. The Gestapo was not immune to the increase of barbarism as it too relaxed code of conduct and increased its activities throughout occupied Europe. 

In Burma the RNDP has begun to notice moves by other parties as threatening to their genocidal efforts. For this reason it appears that the RNDP has decided to increase its efforts to deport Rohingya whom they consider to be taking longer to die of starvation than time will allow. Young men and children are being led out to waiting boats where they are often forced out to sea. This tactic appears to be believed will work since the outside world now views the "waves of boat people" fleeing Burma as normal. On the other hand the RNDP bribes Rohingya families and girls to leave their villages, an act that is illegal for all Rohingya throughout Burma, so that they can be sent off into human trafficking rings. Other Rohingya who see the RNDP as helping them flee Burma are often turned over to Burmese police and military so as to be detained seemingly indefinitely. All of these methods are obviously intended to either drastically decrease the Rohingya population or more directly lead to the completion of the RNDP's genocidal goal of a complete Rohingya extermination. 

For me personally the realization that there is in fact a group of radical fascist active today was not hard at all. The realization that they were using the same tactics that led to the deaths of my ancestors was the hard part. Not because I think there is anything unique about how genocide plays out over time but rather because it was hard to imagine this happening in my time. It is never easy to believe that such an evil endeavor as this one is taking place. Often when faced with such atrocities it is easier to look away. And with the distance between us it is often the path most Americans take.

Once again Alder's Ledge would like to take the opportunity to offer you the reader to change that, to help end this. If you have been reading this blog very long at all you know by now what a screamer is (if not follow the links below). We here at Alder's Ledge would like to ask you to scream on behalf of all the Rohingya people. We ask that you never remain silent. That you lift your voice and join with us as we demand our government and world leaders end this senseless slaughter.

Do your part. Wake up, Stand up, and Scream.

http://aldersledge.blogspot.com/2013/01/till-our-eyes-bleed-and-our-throats-dry.html

http://aldersledge.blogspot.com/2012/08/screamers-wanted.html