Thursday, May 10, 2018

What Is Burma's Next Move In Relation To The Rohingyas?


Before I talk about Burma’s next move, let me share two interesting facts:
  1. Human brains are wired with use-it-or-lose-it quality. We remember or remain concern about a fact as long as it is used, read, exposed or presented to us.

  2. Typically newspapers push the front-page headline to the back-pages in span of 10-14 days, according to our own research at D+. It doesn't matter how big or significant the event is, after about 2 weeks, it is almost certain that the news is no longer on the front page or probably vanished all together.
Combine the above two facts and you get a perfect recipe for people who hope their past irresponsible and unlawful actions will be forgotten by the wider communities.

And Burma is currently hoping for that combination dearly for their past actions against the Rohingyas.


One of many Rohingya camps in Bangladesh



Burma is trying to achieve that by maintaining “Military Silence”.  Military Silence is a technique to control your reactions to issues and events that involves you for the purpose of getting your way. In the war zone military will often use this technique to give the false impression of silence and then to ambush. 

This works because others’ reactions to your actions will let you decide your best next move. By maintaining military silence, you gain clarity in your planning and precision in execution. That leaves you with the control to win the battle.

As part of that, the Noble Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi remained silent while supporting the Burmese Army in their atrocities against the Rohingyas. 

As next step, Burma cannot effort any new widespread violence. Thus, as our sources on the ground confirmed, the Burmese security forces have increased patrolling of the volatile areas and chosen intimidation as a technique to keep the Rohingyas away. We also have acquired information which suggests Burmese Army continued to lay land mines across the border with Bangladesh. 

The other option available to Burma is diplomatic efforts to convince the international communities to believe their side of the story. Though it sounds like hard-sell, Burma already managed limited supports from some influential Asian economies. These large economies intend to provide supports purely for business purposes, completely ignoring the humane factors involving the Rohingyas. 

As part of Burma’s recent diplomatic effort, top level Burmese diplomates are pressing hard on their accelerators with various western countries around the world. So far it seems like they were not overly successful but they do not mind that. Because they do not expect all these western countries to be in their side, instead they want the western countries and others concern about the Rohingyas to go silent. 

Most importantly Burma is now in a very good position to use this mess as a bargaining chip. They are already, directly or indirectly, shouting out for financial incentives from everyone in return for taking back limited number of Rohingyas.

Burma will continue its diplomatic efforts hoping this issue will fade away and will have a natural death soon. Burma will try some tricks like they did by taking one Rohingya family back, out of a million Rohingyas who fled the violence, from their own border area and publicizing that heavily. Despite our best efforts we could not find any trace of that Rohingya family in Burma. 

Thus, it is up to us – you, me and others – either to go silent and forget about the Rohingyas or to keep up the pressure on Burma. As announced before, through our non-violent initiative named World's Largest Hunger Strike we intend keep up the pressure.  Join us in the World's largest Hunger Strike to create awareness against the ethnic cleansing of Rohingya people of Burma. For details on how to participate in the hunger strike visit us at http://jubaerarif.blogspot.com.au/2018/04/lets-make-it-worlds-largest-hunger.html #Rohingya