Rohingya Genocide and the passive involvement of Burmese Authoritarian Left

 
 
The Rohingya Genocide was a well-known event, even for people who don't know anything about Burma. Burma was solely known to activist circles for its struggle for democracy and Aung San Suu Kyi prior to the case of Rohingya Genocide. Later, and not in a positive way, the Rohingya Genocide brought Burma back to prominence. Everyone knows that the Myanmar Military Army is responsible for the Rohingya Genocide, and Aung San Suu Kyi stood up for them before the International Court of Justice.
 
 
Red-Brown Alliance
 
According to certain readings, Aung San Suu Kyi was forced to defend the country because the ICJ sued the entire country rather than just the Myanmar Military Army. In any scenario, she might claim that the state had nothing to do with it and that the Myanmar Military Army was responsible. The primary underreported aspect of the entire Rohingya Genocide was the Burmese Authoritarian Left's passive participation. The racist and xenophobic monk known as Venerable Wirathu, who Time magazine dubbed "The Face of Buddhist Terror," was once engaged in far-left organisations. Following his release from prison in 2012, he was observed delivering pro-NLD and anti-military speeches at local NLD party branches. Than Soe Naing, the head of the Kayan New Land Party, invited Venerable Wirathu to speak and impart information on nationalism, democracy, federalism, and self-determinism in 2012. It's crucial to remember that, up until 2015, federalism was the military junta's kiss of death. The military junta supported Burma's one-state solution.
 
The far-left and other opposition groups supported self-determination and federalism. Therefore, the military saw federalism as a threat to their unitary union, or one state solution. The one state solution, or unitary union, has long been supported by the Communist Party of Burma. Understanding the background and ideological evolution of the political party that invited Venerable Wirathu to give the lecture is crucial in this situation. Since 1979, the Communist Party of Burma has had a strong relationship with the Kayan New Land Party (KNLP). It even embraced the Maoist "people's war" approach that the CPB has been using since 1979. KNLP, the Karenni National People's Liberation Front, and the Shan State National Liberation Organisation formed the central regional command in 1983 under the direction of CPB. This arrangement lasted until internal insurrection among CPB's Wa and Kokang members forced the group underground.
 
 
Additionally, in 2007, Kyaw Ko Ko, a far-left student union leader, revived the All Burma Federation of Student Union, the long-standing pro-CPB student organisation. Following the Rakhine-Rohingya riots in 2012 and the success of the 969 movement led by Venerable Wirathu, the All Burma Federation of Student Union (ABFSU) invited Venerable Wirathu and other monks to host an event in 2014 to honour the student union leaders who were killed by the military in 1988.
(Note: The primary image in the article is the event photo, which is attached.)
 
Kyaw Ko Ko became the chairman of the newly reestablished All Burma Federation of Student Union. There were twelve people on the organising committee at the time. Ye Min Oo, who later gained notoriety as Wira Ye Min Oo due to his close relationship with the racist monk Venerable Wirathu, was one of the senior members and the secretary of the student committee. Although Ye Min Oo worked closely with left-wing figures like Kyaw Ko Ko, he nevertheless identified as an Arakanese nationalist. In 2013, Ye Min Oo was arrested for with the two charges, one of them for anti-Muslim riots. Later, the leaders of 969 movements (mostly monks) launched a nation-wide campaign called "Free Ye Min Oo". The campaign was led by "U Pammokha", one of the future leader of Patriotic Association of Myanmar (MaBaTha), the far-right ultranationalist monk led pro-military and anti-NLD association.
 
Arakan Army and its genocide Denial Campist Left
 
International humanist groups have once again reported on the war crimes committed on the Rohingya people in 2024 by the Arakan Army and the Myanmar military regime. The entire movement against the military junta was influenced by the Arakan Army and its linked brotherhood, which is regarded as the strongest ethnic armed group. The Myanmar military junta was successfully challenged by their operation 1027. That does not, however, grant them permission to carry out war crimes or genocide.
 
Approximately 100 non-governmental civil society organisations released statements and demanded an investigation of the Arakan Army in light of the numerous reports from international humanist groups of the war crimes the Arakan Army had committed against the Rohingya people. These include the General Strike Committee (GSC) and other left-leaning organisations like the Alliance of Students' Unions Yangon. However, in response to the ongoing Arakan Army Rohingya massacre, Kyaw Ko Ko, a prominent student leader from the 2007 generation and the founder of the "Social Democratic Party," adopted a pro-AA stance. The Alliance of Students' Unions Yangon, the General Strike Committee (GSC), and a number of far-left or left-leaning organisations withdrew their statements. All of these individuals and organisations cited the lack of evidence to support their plea for a "formal investigation into Arakan Army for genocide or massacre level war crimes committed against Rohingya people" as their reason for withdrawing their statement. Many Rohingya activists and refugees, however, have been documenting the situation with photographs, videos, and audio recordings. Among far-left or left-leaning left-wing organisations, the Anti-Junta Mass Movement (AJMM) was one of the few that didn't take back its stance.
 
 
Selective solidarity of the elite left and Student Unions
 
Kyaw Ko Ko can be seen being confronted by Arafat Jamil, a left-wing Rohingya activist, for his silence over the ongoing Arakan Army genocide against the Rohingya on his official Facebook page. In a succinct translation, Kyaw Ko Ko responded, "The Arakan Army is more left-wing than the majority of the so-called left-wingers in Burma, despite being an ethno-nationalist right-wing organisation." Kyaw Ko Ko insisted that he knww AA is left-wing due to his interaction with them. "From the perspective of the local native indigenous population, 'Rohingya' is a political movement to separate a part of Arakan, our fatherland, by destroying the integrity of our ancestral history," the United League of Arakan (Arakan Army) declared publicly through "The New Humanitarian." There was nothing new about the whole story of Arakanese Buddhists being the indigenous native population and "Rohingya people," the political movement label for "Bengali settlers living in Arakan." U Thein Sein, the former president of Myanmar's quasi-military government and the former general of the country's armed army, made a similar statement. "There are no Rohingya among the races in Burma," he stated, and I quote "These are no Rohingya among the races in Burma. We only have Bengalis who were brought for farming during British rules”.
 
The "Bamar People's Liberation Army," a satellite force supported and fostered by the Arakan Army, uses the traditional right-wing ethno-nationalist portrayal of the Bamar ethnicity. Despite presenting itself as a progressive revolutionary army, the BPLA did not speak out against the Arakan Army's war crimes against the Rohingya community. Despite being active on social media, the founder of BPLA, "Maung Saung Kha," a former member of the NLD who claimed to be a left-wing human right activist, refused to comment on the war crimes committed by Arakan Army against the Rohingyas. He kept his silence when the Rohingya suffered war crimes by Arakan Army. The majority of BPLA members and their supporters have backed the "Don't call me Kalar" initiative, which opposes the use of the discriminatory term Kalar. They do not, however, alert the ULA/AA to their silence on genocide or their discriminatory comments about "Rohingya" people as post-colonial settlers. The Arakan Army and the Myanmar military have consistently conflated Bengalis with Rohingyas. They are, in fact, a distinct ethnic group with a distinctive language and culture.
 
In the Chittagong Hill Tracts, numerous genocides are taking place. The Arakan Army and the Myanmar military junta are perpetrating war crimes against the Rohingya and Bengalis. On the other side, the Bangladesh Army has been targeting Chakma people and other Buddhist ethnic minorities for nearly a century with war crimes. The plight of the Rohingya people has drawn attention from throughout the globe. It's important that the world should wake up and stand in solidarity with the Chakma people and other Buddhist ethnic minorities inside the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh state. 
 
 
Conclusion
 
Some left-leaning student activists, such as Kyaw Ko Ko, are making every effort to downplay the Arakan Army's genocide against the Rohingya. They took advantage of the genocide against the Rohingyas perpetrated by the military dictatorship in Myanmar. It appears that they view the Rohingya as nothing more than political targets that they may take advantage of. They refused to support the Rohingya in spite of the atrocities carried out by their ally, the Arakan Army.
In Myanmar, left-wing selective solidarity for interest-based politics is not unusual. Furthermore, it is not a novel practice in Burma for so-called authoritarian far-left and far-right elements to combine for political ends.
 
Disclaimer
 
To improve its professionalism, the text was completely rewritten and edited in December 2024. To view the earlier or original version of the article, please utilise the web archive. The content is identical to the context.