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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

Homeless Rohingya still backing Myanmar insurgency

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COX’S BAZAR: For 28-year-old Rohingya shopkeeper Mohammed Rashid, the evening phone call from organisers of the fledgling insurgent movement came as a surprise. “Be ready,” was the message.


A few hours later, after meeting in the darkness in an open field, he was one of 150 men who attacked a Myanmar Border Guard Police post armed with swords, homemade explosives and a few handguns.


At the end of a short battle, half a dozen men he had grown up with in his village were dead.


“We had no training, no weapons,” said Rashid, from the Buthidaung area of Myanmar’s Rakhine state, who had joined the group just two months earlier. Accounts from some of those, like Rashid, who took part in attacks by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) on dozens of police posts early on August 25 paint a picture of a rag-tag band of hopeless, angry villagers, who were promised AK-47 rifles but ended up fighting with sticks and knives.


Hundreds joined as recently as June, according to the accounts, and membership meant little more than a knife and messages from leaders on the popular mobile messaging app Whatsapp.


Reuters interviewed half a dozen fighters and members of the group now sheltering in Bangladesh, as well as dozens of others among the more than half a million Rohingya refugees who have fled across the border to escape a Myanmar army counteroffensive that the United Nations has branded ethnic cleansing.


ARSA, which emerged in 2016, says in press releases and video messages from its leader, Ata Ullah, that it is fighting for the rights of the Rohingya, a stateless minority that has long complained of persecution.


Myanmar says ARSA is a ruthless extremist movement that wants to form a separate republic in Rakhine.


Despite the massive suffering inflicted on their communities in the weeks since the August attacks, most of the fighters now stuck in dirt-poor camps said they were determined to continue their fight and some refugees voiced support for the insurgency.


Other refugees Reuters spoke to criticised the insurgents for bringing more misery upon them.


Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s spokesman, Zaw Htay, said ARSA had killed many who had cooperated with the authorities and so “people have felt threatened and terrorised” into supporting it.


He added that Myanmar’s intelligence showed that religious scholars were prominent in recruiting followers.


ARSA denies killing civilians, and did not respond to a request for comment this week.


Analysts say the violence could galvanise ARSA members and supporters huddled in the refugee camps and among those Rohingya still in Myanmar, as people feel they have even less to lose.


“A militancy like this finds fertile ground because of the desperation of the community,” said Richard Horsey, a Yangon-based analyst and former UN official. “They are willing to take suicidal steps because they don’t see any other choice.” — Reuters


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