Myanmar MPs pass $15mn for Rakhine border fence amid crackdown on Rohingya

Myanmar’s legislators have passed a military budget of nearly $15 million to erect a fence along its border with Bangladesh in Rakhine State, which has been used by the country’s minority Rohingya Muslims to flee the military’s state-sponsored ethnic cleansing campaign underway in the area.

Legislator Myo Zaw Aung confirmed on Friday that the bill was introduced to the parliament by the Home Affairs Ministry, the Defense Ministry and the Border Affairs Ministry, all of which are controlled by the country’s infamous military — widely blamed for the brutal crackdown on Myanmar’s minority Muslim population in Rakhine.

The military crackdown, which intensified last August, has forced nearly 700,000 of them to Bangladesh since August.

The development came after the country’s Deputy Home Affairs Minister Gen. Aung Soe testified on Thursday, the same day the budget was passed, that the construction of fences covering 202 kilometers of the 293-kilometer border has already been completed.

The fence project has reportedly raised fears that the persecuted Rohingya will no longer be able to seek refuge in neighboring Bangladesh and would likely face more violence, indefinite suffering and death.

The ethnic minority has faced widespread prejudice since they are regarded by the majority Buddhist nation as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh despite being long-time settlers.

Most Rohingya Muslims remain stateless and commonly subjected to prevalent social and official discrimination.

Myanmar bulldozes at least 55 Rohingya villages: Groups

New satellite imagery shows that the government of Myanmar is bulldozing Rohingya Muslim villages in the west of the country to destroy evidence of violence committed by the military, rights groups say.

The military had reportedly received $5 million in late October 2017 from private Buddhist donors to fund the border fence.

Myanmar’s military forces stand accused of not just of torching Muslim villages, but of carrying out massacres, rapes and widespread looting.

While UN-sponsored negotiations are underway to have the Rohingya return to Myanmar, there are extreme worries that their safety and well-being are in no way guaranteed as many do not even have homes to return to since their villages were burned down by military forces and Buddhist mobs.

The Rohingya repatriation talks come while Myanmar’s ethnic cleaning campaign shows no sign of abating, with new satellite imagery released by the Associated Press showing that the government is bulldozing already-burned-out Rohingya Muslim villages in the west of the country in an attempt to destroy evidence of violence committed by the military.