Amid fears of communal violence, Myanmar’s Muslims struggle to rebuild

As violence between Buddhists and Muslims in Myanmar threatens to reignite, those who lost their homes in previous communal rioting speak of their fears.

Reconstruction was not approved until December 2013 and residents face many bureaucratic obstacles to rebuild. Lazar Simeonov for The National

MEIKHTILA, MYANMAR // Mohammad Yusud’s eyes cloud with sadness as he recalls when the Muslim population of his central Myanmar town were driven from their homes amid three days of violent chaos.

It was March 2013 and following a fight at a gold shop in the town of Meikhtila, a Buddhist monk was gruesomely murdered, igniting three days of violent riots. As the town burned, the attacks spread even to the commercial capital Yangon, more than 500km away, and to the northern city of Lashio.

In Meikhtila, 1,594 homes were destroyed and 10,000 people were displaced. Forty-three people died.

Locals disputed the official figures and said more than 100 died.

Among those that fled, Mr Yusud, a 60-year-old Muslim, now sees his community as subject to state persecution and fears for its future.

“The people who did this were from outside, they came and burned my home,” he said. “Our life was good, our community had homes and businesses, but now it’s very difficult. Muslim people here are afraid and worried something may happen again.”

Muslims are estimated to make up about four per cent of Myanmar’s predominantly conservative Buddhist population. In 2011, following decades of military dictatorship, the government began implementing limited political reforms. Yet, even as investors scrambled to secure contracts in the emerging country, the military continues to perpetrate brutal campaigns against ethnic minorities and the government persists in denying citizenship and human rights to its Rohingya population, a Muslim ethnic minority living in country’s western Rakhine state.

Muslims in Meikhtila, who come from various ethnic backgrounds, also continue to suffer, with more than 5,500 people still homeless after the violence and living in five makeshift camps.

On the outskirts of Meikhtila, Mr Yusud shares a small living quarters with his wife and grandson in one of the camps.

About 1,000 displaced people are crammed into partitioned bamboo structures within the compound of an Arabic-language school. Basic needs are provided for by the UN and NGOs, but uncertainty and the prospect of another monsoon season spent in the camp weighs on those inside.

“Our children aren’t getting educated,” Mr Yusud said, shaking his head. “The rain is coming soon and we will have many problems. What the government is doing here, it makes me very sad. This is only a policy to the Myanmar Muslims. I don’t like what’s happening. We need unity. We are one country.”

Despite monsoon conditions, work is under way to construct 273 residential units for the displaced in the town’s Chan Aye Thar Yar neighbourhood.

Scores of construction workers labour to the sound of cement mixers and hammers. The simple brick buildings, which will also house displaced Buddhists, represent the possibility of a new beginning for Meikhtila’s Muslims, but the project is impeded by a lack of funding.

Mufti Ali, who leads Friday prayers at Yangon’s MM Ranat Mosque, is one of the private fundraisers spearheading the reconstruction.

As worshippers leave the mosque, volunteers collect donations for the reconstruction. But the donations are limited in a country where the permcapita GD is $1,700 (Dh6,200) per annum.

Approximately $4 million more is needed to complete the work, according to Mufti Ali.

“We had many delays getting permission to rebuild and there has been no money available so we have raised all of the funds ourselves,” he said. “We are building houses for the Buddhists who became refugees also, but we don’t have enough money.”

Along with exorbitantly priced rebuilding permits, former residents are also required to show documents of tenure to local authorities, though in many cases these have been destroyed in the violence.

Those able to prove previous land ownership receive houses and those who cannot are offered flats in apartment buildings built and paid for by the Muslim community.

“Our community has been generous, one local businessman donated all the roofing material, but it is not enough,” Mufti Ali said. “At the moment, Muslims all over Myanmar are living frightened by the situation. We are always concerned about what’s happening now and what’s going to happen next.”

As reconstruction slows in Meikhtila, the walls of the town’s last functioning mosque, adjacent to the houses being built, still bears smoke stains from the violence.

“They drove a government bulldozer through the courtyard wall and people began smashing holes in the walls and trying to make fires,” said Khinan, a local community leader involved in the reconstruction, who declined to give his full name.

“The people living around here came to chase them away. Their homes were destroyed but they saved the mosque.”

He shows photographs of the area in the days following the violence – scorched patches of earth topped with twisted metal where bamboo houses had stood.

Many among Myanmar’s Muslims believe the violence is politically motivated.

In the 2012 elections, the popular pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy Party won 43 of the 45 available seats. To counter Ms Suu Kyi in the upcoming 2015 elections, there are suspicions that religious hatred is being incited against Muslims in a bid to rally the Buddhist majority to the side of her opponents, the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party.

“There is a widespread view that the government decided they had to find a way to counter Aung San Suu Kyi’s popularity or undermine her if they were to stand any chance in 2015,” Benedict Rogers, a researcher at Christian Solidarity Worldwide and author of several books on the country, told The National.

While there are complaints Ms Suu Kyi and the democracy movement has failed to counter the campaign fuelling hatred towards Muslims, Khinan remains hopefulthat the situation will improve.

“I was part of the 88 Generation [whose campaign against the military government brought Ms Suu Kyi to prominence],” he said, unbuttoning his shirt to reveal an undershirt featuring the revered leader and her National League for Democracy party’s symbols.

“We need change. Aung San Suu Kyi would be good for the Muslim people in Myanmar.”