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May 30, 2013

 

Attacks on Muslims in Myanmar

                      

Terrifying anti-Muslim violence surged this week in Myanmar, exposing deep ethnic and religious tensions that are undermining efforts to stabilize the country and move forward with political and economic reforms. Myanmar’s democratic aspirations can never be fully realized if Muslims, who make up about 5 percent of the population, continue to be attacked and marginalized by Buddhists, the majority of the population. At least 44 people have died since March in sectarian mob violence.

News reports from the northern city of Lashio, near the border with China, told how Buddhist mobs, reacting to a quarrel between a Buddhist woman selling gasoline and her Muslim customer, on Tuesday and Wednesday set fire to a mosque, a Muslim school and shops. A government official said one Muslim man was killed and four Buddhists were wounded in the violence.

The clashes suggested that radical strains of Buddhism may be spreading. Many old hatreds have been unleashed in the last year as Myanmar struggles to make its transition from a half-century of authoritarian rule to democracy. The Kachin ethnic group has been fighting the government in the north. Meanwhile, the Muslim Rohingya people have been denied citizenship and are severely mistreated in the western state of Rakhine, where the local government recently restricted Rohingya family size to two children. Across Myanmar, hundreds of thousands of people, mostly Muslims, have been displaced.

All too often, police and security officials have been accused of failing to prevent attacks on minorities or being complicit in them. On Thursday, Reuters reported that hundreds of Muslim families in Lashio had sought shelter in a heavily guarded Buddhist monastery after mobs terrorized the city. Authorities moved quickly to stem the violence by deploying troops, banning unlawful assembly and setting up roadblocks. But experts agree that security forces need better training and equipment to carry out their role in a fragile democracy.

It will not be easy for President Thein Sein to achieve the multiethnic, multireligious vision for Myanmar that he outlined in a speech earlier this month, but that must be the goal. He has to make clear that extremism will not be tolerated and that those responsible for the violence, including security officials who refuse to protect minorities, will be brought to justice. He will need strong support from Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate and leading opposition politician, who has not always spoken out on minority issues.

The United States and other countries supporting Myanmar’s transition, as well as international companies eager to do business there, must impress on Mr. Sein and his government that Myanmar’s promise could evaporate if they cannot control the deadly sectarianism gaining strength there.