A Trip to Rakhine State

Rohingya Muslims in Sittwe

As a Myanmar Muslim from the outside of Rakhine State, it is too dangerous to travel to Rakhine State without permission by authorities and it is impossible to go there. Vice versa, it is too difficult for a Muslim from Rakhine State to come to Yangon or outside of Rakhine State. It was an isolated place since long times ago. Not only isolated but also not a peaceful place. It is also the 2^nd least develop state in Myanmar even it has a lot of natural resources and exit to the sea.

During November 2014, I had a chance to travel to Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine State. I was working as a fixer for a foreign journalist. Travelling to Rakhine state is a challenge for me as well an opportunity to know what is happening really. The beautiful city, Sittwe welcomed me with worries. The hotel we reserved didn’t accept me as soon as after the receptionist saw my ID card because my religion was expressed in my ID. Luckily, we found out another hotel on the strand road but the manager told me to pretend as a foreigner and he asked me the higher price. The city, strand road, beach and foods are enjoyable but you can also see the view of the empty and destroyed mosques and houses in the city.

Strand road of Sittwe

Since after the conflicts in 2012 June, all of the local Muslims were displaced by force. So, there are no Muslims in the city else myself and two foreign aid workers. The IDP camps of Sittwe are just outside of the city and 20 minutes drives by car from the hotel. Just before Sittwe University, we met a police check point and they gave a permission to go to IDP camps easily because our driver already gave them $10 pocket money and copies of our passports. If we request the permission from Ministry of Home Affairs officially, it would take at least 3 days.

9 IDP camps were situated in 7 miles square area and 150,000 people are living in that area. 20% of them were local residents and 80% were IDPs, all of the IDPs can’t pass the check point without permission. They would get permission from the police to pass the checkpoint only if they have to take special healthcare service from Sittwe General Hospital. One of the IDP said “We can’t get special treatments in the camps. We need to go to the hospital in the city when we have serious illness or someone wants to give a birth. We need to buy police for our security. It costs $20 per police to hospital.” Seriously, they need to give $20 to a police for their security when they were having health services in hospital. 

IDP Children

I didn’t expect to see good trades in these IDP camps when I was in Yangon. You can even see two gold shops there and if you wish you can repair your big flat TVs. New telecommunication companies, Telenor and Ooredoo can reach till these IDP camps, so almost everyone from there has mobile phones. They can also get the most updated brands. They export lobsters to China and they send fishes they catch and dry fishes to Yangon by flight or car. They have a lot of businesses like agribusiness, cloth shops, fertilizer shops, fishery equipment shops, mobile wholesale and repair shops, etc.

Rohingyas come back from Fishing

 An old Rohingya Muslim who is also the chairman of one of the camps, he said “This area developed just after conflicts”. It doesn’t mean that all the IDPs were living in a place like Miami. Actually, all the businesses were run by 5% of the original residents not by IDPs.

A small market in camp area

On the other hand, over 80% of IDPs were facing lack of healthcare service and nutrition and most of them have no job opportunities. There are a lot of INGOs who support nutrition, shelters and health care services but it is not enough yet. A foreign aid worker said “We need to create job opportunities for them, they eager to work. An INGO is preparing to give training for making clothes, they will support over 100 sewing machines to IDPs. But it is not enough yet.” Most of them sold the cereal packs for nutrition which were supported by WFP. We saw some wool wear and safety nets in the market which were supported by INGOs.

Gift of EU

When I talked to my colleagues about this, they curious to know how these IDPs are making their businesses and who is working for these IDPs because IDPs even can’t pass the police checkpoint. Actually, Rakhine Buddhists from Sittwe normally come to IDP camps for their business purposes. These two communities still have trust between each other because Rohingya IDPs gave their goods or money to Rakhine Buddhists who can easily come to Rohingya IDP camps easily and safely.

The point is that they still have trust in terms of business. What can civil organizations or NGOs do with this trust between two communities? The chairman of the camp told me “We were friends, we made parties together, we went weddings together. And we still wanted to do this.” Some of the activists from Yangon analyzed that government isolated Rohingya community from Sittwe with special purposes, it could be one of the preparations for 2015 election and military could seize the power easily because of such kind of unrests in Rakhine state.

A Rohingya Kid learning Burmese language

 A volunteer from Shan state who is helping Rohingya children in Bu May village, he said “they are still part of the country, they tend to learn Burmese language but no one could support the salary for teachers yet.” There are a few volunteer teachers from the camps who teach English and Burmese to Rohingya students, but not enough yet. Besides nationalist ideologies, Rakhine Buddhists people have sympathy and humanity. They were influence by ultranationalist ideologies for political purposes.

An influential monk from Sittwe said “I don’t want my country to be like Indonesia which was Islamized in their colonial period around 1900.” This quote made my friends laugh. Actually this monk is really nice to the visitors but he didn’t know the real history of Indonesia and he is worrying just because of propagandas. So, if someone can delete these propagandas from the mind of Rakhine Buddhists, the future of the Rakhine state will be bright. It may be easy or difficult, but God will send someone to create peace as it deserves.