Burma - the Arakan such a sad place

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BBC News - Burma satellite images show destruction in Rakhine state

This is Rahkine State, on the seaboard of Burma - previously called the Arakan. It is the latest atrocity following mass murders\riots earlier in the year in the State capital Akyab which led to the death of the several to hundred of the native Bengali Muslim population - Akyab a place, well know to anyone who followed the WW2 Burma campaign. All three Arakan campaigns were launched with the objective of capturing Akyab from the Japanese - as it was the only major airfield in the Arakan and essential for re-supply of the British Army in Central Burma.

Briefly this violently troubled land has known no peace in a thousand years.

Starting with the eruption of a Mongoloid people, the Burmans, (now the majority of the population into the area() in 1000AD, the native Nagas, Kashins, Shans and Karens were displaced - almost all of whom have continued a low level guerrilla campaign against the ruling Burmese ever since independence.

Nowhere was this communal violence worse than in the Arakan where the ruling Arakanese monarchy was defeated by the Burmese King and the native Bengali Muslim population were driven into British India in the early 1800s causing mass panic and many deaths. War broke out in 1815 and the British proved to be very inept in jungle warfare leading to the a misleading impression with the Burmese tha tthey could be defeated. Further attacks by the Burmese led to second war in 1824 where the Burmese came off second best and ceded the Arakan (which for the British protected India and put an end to piracy). In the third Burmese War, not realising that they were up against the super power of the age, the Burmese King tried to regain the Arakan and was totally defeated. Burma was incorporated in the Empire under control from India.

The British applying the principle of divide and rule favored the minorities, particularly the Karen. Burma was badly ruled, had little wealth to offer the British. The majority Burmans were never reconciled and remained very anti. When the Japanese arrived they were welcomed with open arms and Aung Suu Kyi, who led the native Burmese Army, allied them to the Japanese (his daughter is the present the Aung San Suu Kyi - Nobel winner and recent released after almost 20 year in house detention). Disenchanted with the Japanese, Aung Suu changed side before the end of the War.

In the Arakan, the arrival of the Japanese led to a massacre of the Bengali Muslims. It is estimated that in Burma (including Central Burma) 40,000 Burmese of Bengali origin were massacred in WW2.

Sadly, 70 years later we are seeing yet another massacre of the majority, Arakanese Bengali Muslims.