The silenced genocide

It's our fault, the media’s fault. We are experts at making huge deals of a sand grain while failing to realize about the huge mountain in front of us. While everyone -including us- is looking to Pyongyang, silence prevails in other parts of Asia such as Burma.

In Korea there has not been yet a single shot, a single death, nor more refugees or displaced in fifty years. Nevertheless, hundreds of foreign correspondents have traveled to the area to tell that absolutely nothing has happened. In the meantime, the Rohingya suffer a very real conflict that gets silenced.

Burma's case is especially flagrant. There are currently several active conflicts against various ethnic minorities in the country. The Karen, Shan, Kachin and Rohingya are just four of the groups that are currently fighting the government in Yangon.

The Karen are an ethnic group divided between Thailand and Burma. Since 1976 they have been fighting for their own state or, more recently, at least greater self-government. Relationships are clearly better than a few years ago and last week both sides sat down to negotiate. That doesn’t mean they are in good terms.

The Shan’s situation is slightly better. They have some degree of autonomy and its own army, but they are subject to the central government. However, both the Shan and the neighboring Kachin have been abused by the majority Bamar that governs Burma. Unlike with the Karen, tension with these two groups has increased in recent weeks.

But the most significant case is that of the Rohingya. Not only they are different ethnically, as the rest of the other groups, but also on the religious level. The Rohingya, mostly Muslims, have suffered all sorts of attacks against their properties and their people for years by the country's Buddhist majority.

In 2012 these attacks increased exponentially. And they do not respect anything or anyone. In early April, a school with 70 children burned down in what appears to be an unprovoked attack. Thirteen of the children died in the fire.

The seriousness of the issue has led some to declare that what is occurring in Burma is nothing less than ethnic cleansing. However, little or no response has been made by the international community.

It is particularly striking that the Nobel Peace Prize Aung San Suu Kyi has not said anything about it. If we take into consideration how the international media are usually always listening to everything she says, her silence is the more disturbing. The once ardent defender of human rights in Burma seems to prefer silence and turn a blind eye in the case of the conflict with the Rohingya.

The Burmese central government has called the Buddhist New Year celebrations to demand national unity. But in the current situation that is more of an utopia than reality. The main concern for Yangon is to prevent the ethnic conflicts to endanger the much needed flow of foreign investment.

What will happen to the country’s ethnic minorities is secondary. Problems endemic to the region, such as amputees by landmines, forced labor with refugees and sex tourism are already threatening the Shan, Karen, Kachin and Rohingya. And no one seems to care about it.