West Bank of the East: Burma’s Social Engineering Project by Francis Wade

Francis Wade has done a good job analyzing the real problems in Burma. However, he should have known that the May-June 2012 pogroms against Burmese and Rohingya Muslims were based on a false rumor that some Rohingya Muslims had raped a Rakhine woman. As subsequently found out by investigative reporters, however, there was no truth to that allegation. It was a planted story to exterminate the minority Muslims of Burma in what can be described as part of a very sinister genocidal plan. All the other pogroms that followed in the last three years and the half were part of that national project to not only kill and forcibly cause their exodus from Burma but also to disenfranchise them en masse. The recently concluded November election where they were barred from voting was the last of such criminal ploys to add to their plight.
For Burma to avoid being a failed state, it must embrace federalism, human rights and integrate its born Muslims and other ethnic minorities as full citizens. Otherwise, the previous methods tried by the USDP and its predecessors will only undo the false sense of imposed unity and nationhood -- fracturing the country along its many fault lines.