Opened on December 08, 2010 | Contact Petition Author
Mr. Christopher Smith,

Mr. John A. Boehner

Speaker of the House – Designate

1011 Longworth HOB

Washington, DC 20515-3508

Dated December 1, 2010

Dear Honorable House Speaker,



We are aware that on September 29, 2010 Mr. Christopher Smith, Congressman from New Jersey, have introduced and submitted a resolution H.RES.1710 to the House of Representatives at 111th Congress 2nd. Session calling on Burma’s military regime to immediately recognize the “ROHINGYA people” as full and equal citizens of Burma. The resolution also called for an end to the regime’s campaign of religious and ethnic persecution amounting to crimes against humanity throughout Burma.

Upon through study of this resolution, we regretfully found that Mr. Smith has presented false statements without having detailed knowledge of the truth. His misrepresentations are very detrimental to the people in Arakan (Rakhing) State, especially to the people living in the areas of Butheedaung and Maungdaw. We are very concerned with three points of the resolution:



1. the term “Rohingya”;
2. Rohingyas have been living in Northern Arakan (Rakhaing) state for centuries;
3. approximately one million Rohingya out of a total three million population fled Burma.

Point 1: The term “ROHINGYA” is synonym of alien Chittagonian separatists of jahadist Mujahidin known as Mujahadeen. It belongs to neither any ethnic groups nor religious category.

Point 2: This political movement started in the 1960’s, not centuries ago

Point 3: According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), there were 156,630 (not one million) who fled in 1978 during the Nagamin Operations.

We, the Arakanese(Reakhings) people that belong to one of the ethnic groups of Burma, do not deny the Burmese military regime’s campaign of religious and ethnic persecution or ethnic cleansing. But we do not agree and categorically object to the proposal for recognizing the “ROHINGYA people” as full and equal citizens of Burma because neither “ROHINGYA people” nor ROHINGYA ethnic grouping in the Union of Burma exist. The term “ROHINGYA” is never known to history nor it is ever recorded in the official documents as designation of Muslim circle in Rakhaing, ostensibly cross-bred by Arab castaways. It is only a belied term employed by the alien Muslim separatists, with the object of advancing a legal claim to ethnic grouping of the Union of Burma.

The Imperialist British, who ruled the Indian Empire, named them Chittagonians after the Chittagong District of East Bengal, where from they originated. Our Burmese history shows that the main indigenous ethnic groups of the Union of Burma are Bama, Rakhaing, Shan, Mon, Karen, Chin, Kachin and Kayah. If you will study the Burmese history you will find Bengali Muslims who settle down in Butheedaung and Maungdaw in various groups. During the last part of 1850, a large number of Bengali Muslims came to Butheedaung through Maungdaw. The local Rakhaings had to watch their movements by turn for security of their lives and properties. When the authority of the East India Company also constructed a railroad from Maungdaw to Buthidaung, the Chittagonian Bengali were engaged as labourers during 1916 to 1918. Hence they began to settle there permanently.

While the communal riots took place between Muslims and Rakhaings in 1942, Rakhaings suffered much and Buddhist temples, Buddha statutes and pagodas were burnt down. Most of the villagers of northern and southern sides of Maungdaw and Buthidaung were killed, women raped, and their properties looted. The Rakhaings from the areas of Maungdaw and Buthidaung left their belongings and ran away to nearby safety places. The houses and lands were snatched and occupied by the Muslims in their absence. Their villages were converted into Muslim villages and Buddhist temples were turned into mosques and madrashes. At that time, there were no Rakhaings people living in Maungdaw and Buthidaung because of riots, and these areas became vacuum places. Taking this opportunity, nearly 100 percent of Bengali Muslims flooded and settled down in these areas. The new generation of Bengali Muslims living in these areas wanted to be named as “ROHINGYA”. These look like recent Afghanistan Taliban, radical Muslims (jihadists) or terrorists. The term “ROHINGYA” was coined by Islamic extremists during 1950 to Islamize during turmoil after independence. Since the colonial time, there were many attempts by radical Islamists to secede Burma especially in the western part which had been flooded with illegal immigration of Muslims. There were numerous incidents in which native Buddhist Rakhaings villages and people were destroyed.

During 1980 and 1990, “ROHINGYA” organizations became powerful with the aids from the Arab Islamists and the Bengali Islamists’ man-power. At the same time, Burma had been facing great difficulty and it was the right moment for the Rohingya invaders to jihad Burma and destroy its existing cultures especially the Buddhism in Rakhaing (Arakan). It is obvious that thousands of Bengali Muslims (they called themselves ROHINGYA people) from Burma went to Afghanistan and fought along with the Talibans against US with the intention of getting help from them to make Northern Arakan (Rakhaing) an Islamic State. Arakan Rohingya Nationalist Organization (ARNO) and Rohingya Solidarity Organization (RSO) were among the groups who were trained in Afghanistan camps and were/are active in Northern Rakhaing and Bangladesh.

In light of these revelations, and on strength of the supporting documents enclosed herewith, we respectfully request you to immediately reject Mr. Christopher Smith’s resolution H.RES.1710.IH presented to the House of Representatives at 111th Congress 2nd Session in respect of the “ROHINGYA” people.

Your kind and sympathetic consideration of our request and presentation is highly appreciated.



Yours truly,


http://www.petitionbuzz.com/petitions/stoprohingyainvasion

Dr. Aye Kyaw has written books on education and culture in Burma. He was born in Lwe Chaung village in Taungok Township in Arakan State. He has a BA in history and religion, an MA in Asian history and a BA in law from Rangoon University. He earned a Ph.D in Southeast Asia History at Monash University in Australia.

Dr. Aye Kyaw taught at universities in Burma, Thailand and the US. Now retired, he lives in New York city.

While visiting Bangkok, he was interviewed by Ba Saw Tin on his views on Arakan history, politics in Burma and the debate over Rohingya history and their troubled relationship with the Burmese military government.


Question: Describe Arakan politics before Burma's independence?

Answer: Arakan leaders always joined in Burma's struggle for independence. They participated at the forefront in the struggle against British colonial rule and the Japanese invasion. If someone asks why they participated, it was because the Arakan wanted to rule themselves. The prominent Arakan leaders during British rule were Monk U Seinda, monk U Pyinnya Thiha, U Nyo Tun, U Aung Zan Wai, U Kyaw Min, U Ba Saw and others. These leaders were prominent figures in the Arakan resistance movement and Arakan politics. Monk U Ottama was one of the first leaders in Burmese politics.

If you look at the situation of the Arakan under British rule, there were two groups. One group worked with the British, and one group joined in the independence struggle led by Gen. Aung San.

U Nyo Tun was a famous student leader in the 1936 student strike, and he was quite well-known in both the Arakan and Burmese community. While Burmese acknowledge March 27 as marking the beginning of the resistance movement against Japan, the Arakan had already started their resistance against Japan earlier, around Feb. 12 or 13.

Q. What happened to the Arakan after the independence struggle?

A. The main reason they fought was to get their own state and self rule. Unfortunately, when Burma won independence, nothing came of it. They asked Prime Minister U Nu to grant them a state, but U Nu evaded the issue.

Q. How did politics development during the following years?

A. During U Nu's Anti Fascist Peoples' Freedom League (AFPFL) rule, there were two powerful political parties in Arakan State: The AFPFL and the Arakan Unity Party (AUP). U Kyaw Min led the AUP. U Aung Zan Wai and Taung Koke U Kyaw Tin led the AFPFL in the Arakan region.

Then the AFPFL split into two factions: the "stable" AFPFL and the “clean” AFPFL. The clean AFPFL faction leader, prime minister U Nu, set up Mayu District in Arakan State. He registered Bengali as citizens through national registration and allowed them to vote. During the Colonial era, the Bengali started coming into Arakan to work. They mostly worked in the agricultural sector, and then returned when the work was done. One of the prominent leaders among Bengali was Sultan Mahmud. The AFPFL was weak in a sense. When U Nu allowed Bengalis to enter Mayu District that was the beginning of today’s Rohingya problem.

Q. Do you know when the use of the term "Rohingya" began?

A. I think it appeared during the 1960s. Because even the Bengali leader, Sultan Mahmud, when he became a member of parliament, I don’t think he used the word "Rohingya." In earlier Burmese history and in Arakan history, I haven’t seen the word Rohinhya. Even after independence, there was no such word.

Q. What does "Rohingya” mean?

A. When Sayagyi U Tha Tun was in good health, we visited whenever he was in Rangoon. We had conversations on several themes: literature, history and other social matters. Once, he explained to me the meaning of Rohingya. The word derived from an Arakan word, Lwintja.

Lwintja in Arakan means leaves falling from trees and blowing around without any purpose.
The word basically means anything or anyone wandering around without a cause. I analyzed the word in the linguistic sense, and I once wrote an academic article in the Pyinnya Padesa journal, published by Rangoon University.

Q. Nowadays, many Arakans see the Rohingya as a threat. Why?

A. The underlying reason was the emergence of the Mujahids, who started an armed insurrection in Arakan State to try to acquire their own land. Originally, they were Bengali from Bangladesh. In earlier days, they came to work in Arakan and returned to their homes when the work was done. Then they faced difficulties living in Bangladesh because it was so crowded. Afterward, the Mujahids attempted to set up a Muslim State in Buthee Taung, Maung Daw and Yathei Taung townships of Mayu District, where U Nu had granted them the right to live. When the Mujahids began to prosper, the Arakans didn't accept the idea. The Arakans see them as a danger, threatening their land, national identity and religion, and that is why the Arakans are so allergic to the word, Rohingya.

Q. What is the background situation of Rohinja's emergence?

A. That is a good question. The Rohingya issue is just a problem on the surface. The underlying problem is the idea of "Islamization" and the expansion of Islam. The Rohingya movement is funded by countries in North Africa and the Middle East. These countries have donated large amount of money and weapons. In Southeast Asia, organizations in Malaysia support them. They support the expansion of Islam. They operate as “Burmese nationals” and “Arakan citizens” by using the name of Rohingya. Actually, Rohinja are not a race, and they are not Burmese citizens.

Q. The Rohingya are not acknowledged by the military junta as an ethnic nationality in Burma. But the Rohingya are seeking a position on the Ethnic Nationalities Council (in exile). The Arakan representatives oppose them. How do you define an ethnic nationality?

A. In 1978, while under the Burma Socialist Programme Party rule, me, Dr. Maung Maung (the late President), and U San Thar Aung discussed a law on ethnic nationality. Dr. Maung Maung was an academic on law, I am an historian and U San Thar Aung was director general of the higher education department at that time. We discussed the matter in a room in the State Council office.

I said that for recognizing an ethnic nationality in Burma, there was a census record during the Bodaw Phaya reign, made in the 18th century. It listed all nationalities living in Burma, and it mentioned Arakans, Karens and Mons (Talaings) in the survey. The document can be taken as a base, I suggested.

Dr. Maung Maung said that survey was too early. Then I suggested the year of 1824, a turning point in Burmese history when the British annexed lower Burma. Dr. Maung Maung agreed on that date, and we drafted a law that people living in Burma during 1824 were recognized as ethnic nationalities. We found no such word as Rohingya in that survey.

http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=16946

A few weeks ago, it was announced on a broadcast of BBC Burmese program that a Burmese national of the Rohingya ethnic group had been granted political asylum in Japan. We should be pleased with this sign of the Japanese government’s humanitarian attitude towards people who could face various kinds of dangers in their homeland, including death, regardless of their race, religion or nationality. However what concerns me in this case, as a native historian of Burma, is the ethnicity of the so-called Rohingyas. Who are the Rohingyas? This issue has been a problem for Burma since it gained independence from Great Britain.

The person who was granted asylum in Japan is Mr. Zaw Min Htut, the author of a book titled “The Union of Burma and Ethnic Rohingyas,” published in Japan in 2001. The book deals with the history of the so-called Rohingya people of Arakan State, presently called Rakhine State, in the Union of Myanmar. An article of mine was given special reference in his book. However, I am not happy with the way it was referred to. Zaw Min Htut has clearly abused the academic platform for political purposes, producing a false picture of the Arakenese history. The bizarre phenomenom created by Zaw Min Htut and his precursors is the literary wing of the political scheme that aims at changing the northwestern part of Arakan(Rakhine) State of Union of Myanmar, the original homeland of Arakanese (Rakhine) people into the Rohingya State.

In this article, I want to discuss whether the Rohingyas are an indigenous ethnic group of Burma or not. Being a scholar, I want to handle this matter without any prejudice or misconception. In this regard, I can confidently say that there has never been such an ethnic group throughout the history of Burma. The people called Rohingyas by Zaw Min Htut and his mentors are direct descendents of immigrants from the Chittagong District of East Bengal (present day Bangladesh). The British colonial officials called them Chittagonians in their administrative records. They migrated into Arakan after the province was ceded to British India under the terms of Treaty of Yandabo concluded at the end of the First Anglo-Burmese War in 1826. Most of them settled down in the Buthidaung and Maungdaw Districts of Arakan State, the frontier areas near Burma’s border with Bangladesh. This, of course does not mean that they do not deserve the equal rights that the other ethnic groups of Burma should enjoy regardless of whether or not democracy is restored in the country.

Probably Zaw Min Htut is an activist of younger generation. However, the movement of his precursors brought great bloodsheds to Arakan in the wartime and the opening decade of independent Burma. Some Arakanese people of that region in their early seventies and eighties have still not forgotten the atrocities they suffered in 1942 during the short period of anarchy between the British evacuation and the Japanese occupation of the area. For all these public disorders experienced by both of the Arakanese Buddhists in the western frontier and the Muslims in the Arakan proper (Mrauk-U and Kyauktaw townships), I certainly feel much reasonable to blame British Governor Sir Dorman Smith’s colonial administration for arming those Chittagonians in frontier area as the volunteer forces to deter the Japanese incursions and create a buffer between the Japanese occupied Burma and British India. An intelligence report said that the volunteers, instead of fighting the Japanese, destroying the Buddhist monasteries and pagodas, massacred thousands of innocent Arakanese civilians. It also expressed the grave concern among the authoritiesof British administration in exile about the holocaust of Arakanese community in the western fringe of Burma by those Chittagonians [British Library:IOR : B/8/9].

The Arakanese folk in rural areas again became the victims of the rebellion which those intrusive settlers launched against the Union of Burma in the 1950s.These innocent Arakanese people faced killing, kidnapping, arson, plunder and rape for a decade after the independence. We should recall what the great archeologist Emile Forchhammer, seeing the persistent flights of the immigrants from the adjacent areas of the British India, predicted:” This land of strange prophesies, Arakan, the Palestine of the Farther East.” [Forchhammer: 1892: 1]

If Zaw Min Htut calls his work a history, he seems to be a poorly trained historian. He not only lacks knowledge of research methodology but also knowledge of the background history of Southeast Asia. He does not seem to have learned about the Indianization of Southeast Asia nor that there were some dynasties in Southeast Asia, who assumed Indian titles, for instance the Varman dynasty in Cambodia, the Vikrama and Varman dynasties in the Irrawaddy Valley of Pre-Pagan Burma, and the Chandra dynasty in Arakan in the first millennium of Christian era. He is completely ignorant of folk migrations that have taken place in the Southeast Asia since the pre-historic times. The forerunners of the Tibeto-Burman races arrived in the Irrawaddy Valley around the beginning of the Christian era and some of them entered the Arakan coastal strip. The presence of Tibeto-Burman races, such as the Chakma in the Chittagong Hill Tract of modern Bangladesh and the Tripuris (known as Mrun to the Arakanese) in Tripura State

in modern India, is a proof of the waves of ethnic migration from central Burma to the Arakan coast and then to the northeastern parts of the Indian subcontinent.

Furthermore Zaw Min Htut does not know how epigraphy and paleography affords conclusive evidence that northern Arakan owes its Buddhist and somewhat Hindu traditions to India. At the same time, there is strong presumption that southern Arakan had cultural contacts with the states of Irrawaddy Valley or perhaps even farther eastward to Dvaravati [Paul Wheatly: 1983:184]. The Pyu inscriptions found in Sandoway District and the silver coins of Chandra dynasty found everywhere in Arakan State demonstrate the close cultural and ethnic relationships of the inhabitants of Arakan in Dynnyawaddy and Wethali periods (c. AD 400-1000) with their cousins in the contemporary Irrawaddy Valley. There are four Sanskrit stone inscriptions datable to the AD fourth to tenth centuries found in Arakan, and all of them tell about the Buddhist rituals and ceremonies performed by the people of nobility and gentry. The elite groups of the old Arakan, like those of other Indianized kingdoms of mainland and island Southeast Asia used Sanskrit as court language.

Zaw Min Htut’s book attempts to prove that the so-called Rohingyas are the descendents of Arab castaways from shipwrecks on the Arakan coast in the ninth century and that they had been inhabitants in Arakan at least two centuries before the Arakanese people of Tibeto-Burman family reached Arakan. This illogical spectulation is based on an account of the Arakanese chronicle, written by Sara Nga Mei in 1826 [Nga Mei: 1826:so-ob 5-8; so-re 1-5]. Following the chronicle, R.B.Smart, the Deputy Commissioner of Akyab District, wrote that in the ninth century several ships were wrecked on Ramree Island and the Muslim crews placed in the villages in Arakan [R.B.Smart:1957:86]. Other chronicles also tell the story of some shipwrecks; however none of them say that the crews were Arabs or Muslim. The word for Arab and Persian in archaic Burmese and Arakanese is Pathi. The chroniclers do not say that there were any Pathis (Arabs or Persians) sent to Wethali, the capital city of Arakan, or that they were allowed to build mosques for their community. All these sentences, plus the word “Arab castaways,” and the statement that those Arabs were allowed to settle down in Wethli were intentionally added by Zaw Min Hut and his precursor, Ba Tha, one of the Rohingya storytellers [Ba Tha : 1964].

In the field of research methodology, he does not seem to grasp the importance of primary sources of information in historical research. Although he does give reference to some works of the authorities on Burmese history, his way of quoting from scholarly writings shows an explicit insincerity. In his bibliography, either the date of publication or the title of the article or the name of the publisher is not given for some works. Furthermore, his style of writing is logically weak, for while he confidently asserts that the language spoken by the Rohigya people is similar to the Bengali and Sanskrit, linguistically of the Indo-Aryan languages family, he cannot bring forward any linguistic affinities of their language with the Semitic languages that Arabic belongs to.

Altogether eight paragraphs from one of my articles were excerpted in his book with a forwarding statement that he was citing an original text of mine [Aye Chan: 1975:56-7]. However, when I carefully examined them, I found that he dropped some sentences of mine and substituted them with his own, using them to draw a conclusion that the people whom he called Rohingyas had been the earlier settlers of the Mayu Frontier area in the northwest Arakan, namely present day Buthidaung and Maungdaw Districts. My research presented in that article had nothing to do with the migration of the Bengali people from Chittagong District of modern Bangladesh into Arakan. The intent of my article was to examine the fall of Wethali dynasty in the last decades of the tenth century.

If Zaw Min Htut asks me about the people of Old Arakan in the Dynnyawaddy and Wethali Periods (c.A.D.400-1000), I will answer with certainty that they were of Mongoloid stock, not very distant cousins of the Pyus of Irrawaddy Valley. Every student of Burmese history knows that the Anandachandra Inscription in Sanskrit is the only source of Arakanese chronology before the Lemro period (AD1018-1406) and also that the information and list of the kings of the Dynnyawaddy and Wethali dynasties given by the chronicles contain much legend and are not reliable for historical research. This is because the tradition of writing chronicles began in the early eighteenth century, and most of the works of Arakanese chroniclers were brought to the Burmese capital, Amarapura after the Burmese conquest of the country in 1784. The numismatic evidences have proved the reigns of some kings of the Chandra dynasty as mentioned by the inscription in the later half of the AD first millennium. The sculptural scrutiny of leading archeologists and art historians has proved that the earliest inhabitants of Arakan were of Mogoloid stock [Pamela Gutman: 2001:5]. The other sources we can rely for the study of early Arakanese history are the Buddhist pagodas, the Buddha images, and the variety of artifacts thus far unearthed. Unfortunately no archaeological evidence to prove the presence of the Muslim community in Arakan prior to the beginning of the fifteenth century has been found yet.

However, I do not mean there was no Muslim community in Arakan before the state was absorbed into British India. Some Bengali retinues of King Saw Mun (r.1430-1433) who regained the throne with the military aid from Sultanate of Bengal were allowed to settled down in the suburban area of Mrauk-U, the new royal capital. They were the earliest Muslim settlers who do not seem to count many. There had been a minor Muslim presence mostly made up of Muslim mercenaries, itinerant merchants from Persia and Golkonda and some Bengali captives of the Arakanese and Portuguese pirates sold into slavery. The descendants of those people can be found in the vicinity of Royal capital Mrauk-U and Kyauktaw Township. [R.B. Smart: 1957: 87] Professing the Islamic faith, they have lived in Arakan since the early seventeenth century, where their way of life pertains to their lands of origin. Speaking Arkanese dialect, they never claim themselves being Rohingyas. They want to be called themselves Arakanese Muslims.

It is obvious that the term “Rohingya” was created in 1950s by the educated Chittagonian descendants from Mayu Frontier area (present day Buthidaung and Maungdaw Districts) and that it cannot be found in any historical source materials in any language till then. The creators of that term might be of the second or third generations of the Bengali immigrants from the Chittagong District in modern Bangladesh. R.B. Smart wrote:

“Since 1879, immigration has taken place on a much larger scale and the descendants of the slaves are resident, for the most part in the Kyauktaw and Myohaung [Mrauk-U] townships. Maungdaw township has been overrun by Chittagonian immigrants. Buthidaung is not far behind and new arrivals will be found in almost every part of the district [R.B. Smart: 1957: 87].

It is not a painstaking work to write a well documented piece of research on the migration of those Chittagonians into Arakan State in the nineteenth century. Plenty of primary source materials are available at the Oriental and India Office Collection at British Library in London, Department of National Archives in Rangoon, and the Rangoon University Central Library. It will be my pleasure to help with some source materials from my own collection if Zaw Min Htut and his colleagues want to rewrite the history of their people with the objective reality. If they stubbornly refuse to accept the truth I am ready for a debate in the publicity.

.........................
Title: Who Are the Rohingyas
Author: Dr. Aye Chan
About Author: Dr. Aye Chan
Date: 12/28/2008
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