Vox Pop: Buthidaung Muslims reject Muslim armed groups aiding regime

By Admin 06 Jul 2024

DMG Newsroom
6 July 2024, Sittwe

Members of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), the Rohingya Solidarity Organization (RSO) and the Arakan Rohingya Army (ARA) have been fighting alongside Myanmar's military regime against the Arakkha Army (AA) in the border towns of Buthidaung and Maungdaw.

Witnesses told DMG those groups have looted and torched homes during the hostilities. With the conflict in northern Arakan State ongoing, Muslim residents in Buthidaung Township recently shared their views on the conduct of the ARSA, RSO and ARA forces allied with the junta.

U Hla Shwe || Maung Hnama Village, Buthidaung Township

The leaders of those groups are unknown. And I don't think they are fighting for the cause of nationalism, otherwise they would not cooperate with the terrorist government.

Those who join hands with terrorists are terrorists themselves. ARSA came in 2017. The result was Muslims were forced to leave their homes. They [Muslim refugees] still can't return from Bangladesh.

The ARSA that is cooperating with the terrorist government is a terrorist itself. How can we, Muslim people, accept them? No one accepts an organisation that brings nobody any good. Neither the ARSA nor the RSO nor the Bamar government has done anything for our benefit. I am 42 now. Their repression only grows harsher year after year, and they are robbing us of more rights.

Daw Tin Tin Mya || Buthidaung Town

What they [ARSA, RSO, and ARA] are doing benefits no Muslim. They are only causing trouble. International organisations should take steps to punish them. Otherwise, they will keep causing trouble.

U Abdul Tarul || Buthidaung Town

We suffered a lot in 2017 due to ARSA. At that time, ARSA troops came purportedly to fight the Myanmar military with several troops taking positions in each village. Once they fired two or three shots in a village, large numbers of Myanmar military troops came and fired shots indiscriminately. They shot people dead and torched houses.

Many Muslims were forced to flee to Bangladesh in 2017 due to ARSA. Previously, Arakanese and Muslim people were like brothers. They ate at each other's houses. They were living in harmony. Then, the military and ARSA joined hands to stir up racial conflicts between Arakanese and Muslim people.

They have driven a wedge between Arakanese and Muslim people. Many of the Muslims are uneducated people. Educated Muslims go to live in Yangon if they have money and a national registration card. We have neither money nor a national registration card. So, we have to live here. We are suffering due to the military and ARSA.

Ko Hakimu Mustah || Buthidaung Town

State-building is something that must be done by educated people. ARSA members are not educated people. They speak Arabic. They understand neither Arakanese nor Burmese nor English. They know nothing about what is happening around the world. How can they do politics? They are only robbing. They only want money.

They said every house in No. 4 ward must give money. They threatened that they would go to each house and take the money if residents refused to pay. They summoned business owners and asked them to give up to 60 million kyats.

The Arakkha Army (AA) is also doing politics. However, it has never asked for money like that. It has only urged the people to help fund their state-building, but did not force them to give money. ARSA is not like that. ARSA threatens that residents must give the money or get killed. So, we have never accepted ARSA and we never will.