SITTWE, Myanmar (AP) — Gunshots rang out and residents fled blazing
homes in western Myanmar on Tuesday as security forces struggled to
contain deadly ethnic and religious violence that has killed at least a
dozen people and forced thousands to flee.
The conflict pitting
ethnic Rakhine Buddhists against stateless Rohingya Muslims in coastal
Rakhine state marks some of the worst sectarian unrest recorded in
Myanmar in years. President Thein Sein has declared an emergency and
warned that the spiraling violence could threaten the democratic reforms
tentatively taking shape in Myanmar after half a century of military
rule.
On Tuesday in the regional capital, Sittwe, police fired
live rounds into the air to disperse Rohingyas who could be seen burning
homes in one neighborhood. Hordes of people ran to escape the chaos.
"Smoke
is billowing from many directions and we are scared," said Ma Thein, an
ethnic Rakhine resident in Sittwe, where dark smoke from numerous fires
covered the skyline into the late afternoon. "The government should
send in more security forces to protect both communities."
Truckloads
of security forces have been deployed in Sittwe for days, and much of
the port city was reported calm, including its main road. But homes were
burning in three or four districts that have yet to be pacified.
In
one, police fired skyward to separate hundreds-strong mobs wielding
sticks and stones; in another, soldiers helped move 1,000 Muslims by
trucks to safer areas.
Ma Thein said that some people were running
short of food and water, with banks, schools and markets closed. Some
small shops opened early Tuesday to sell fish and vegetables early in
the morning to residents who braved the tense streets.
Bangladesh
has turned back about 500 Rohingyas trying to escape by boat. Mohammad
Jainul Bari, a Bangladeshi government administrator in a district
bordering Myanmar, said the Rohingyas had crammed into 11 wooden vessels
over the past three days. Bari gave no reason for turning them back,
but said authorities had orders not to allow them into the country.
The
unrest, which began Friday, was triggered by the rape and murder last
month of a Buddhist girl, allegedly by three Muslims, and the June 3
lynching of 10 Muslims in apparent retaliation. There are long-standing
tensions between the two groups.
Myanmar's government regards the
Rohingyas as illegal migrants from Bangladesh and has rendered them
stateless by denying them citizenship. Although some are recent
settlers, many have lived in Myanmar for generations and rights groups
say they suffer severe discrimination.
The United Nations' refugee
agency estimates 800,000 Rohingya live in Myanmar's mountainous Rakhine
state. Thousands attempt to flee every year to Bangladesh, Malaysia and
elsewhere, trying to escape a life of abuse.
The conflict poses
one the biggest tests yet for Myanmar's new government and how it
handles the unrest will draw close scrutiny from Western powers, which
have praised Thein Sein's administration and rewarded it by easing years
of harsh economic sanctions.
Human Rights Watch called on the
government to "take all necessary steps" to protect at-risk communities
and questioned the descision to call a state of emergency, which allows
the military to take over administrative functions in the area.
"Given
the Burmese army's brutal record of abuses ... putting the military in
charge of law enforcement could make matters worse," said Elaine
Pearson, the New York-based group's deputy Asia director. Myanmar's
former name of Burma is preferred by many activists.
On Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton urged a halt to the violence and a transparent investigation.
State
run newspapers reported that 4,100 people who lost homes had taken
refuge in Buddhist monasteries, schools and in a police headquarters the
towns of Maungdaw and Buthidaung, both in Rakhine state.
Thousands
more were reportedly displaced in Sittwe itself, according to a Rakhine
political party. The Rakhine Nationalities Development Party is one of
the major parties associated with the country's ethnic minorities, and
holds several dozen seats in the the 664-member parliament.
State media has reported eight dead in Maungdaw, and an AP journalist saw the corpses of four people killed in Sittwe.
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