Buddhists in Myanmar's Rakhine state hit back at Rohingya help
Long oppressed under the junta, residents say world has unfairly sided with Rohingya Muslims amid recent sectarian tensions
Disgruntled by international support for Muslim Rohingya in unrest-hit western Myanmar, ethnic Rakhine Buddhists are demanding recognition of their own plight and venting a rage that veers into racism.
More than 150 people have died in communal clashes in western Rakhine State since June and thousands of homes have been torched, leaving some 75,000 people displaced, in a convulsion of violence that has torn apart neighbourhoods.
Human Rights Watch yesterday released satellite images showing "extensive destruction of homes and other property in a predominantly Rohingya Muslim area" of Kyaukpyu - where a major pipeline to transport Myanmese gas to China begins.
The images show a stark contrast between the coastal area as seen in March this year, packed with hundreds of dwellings and fringed with boats, and in the aftermath of the latest violence, where virtually all structures appear to have been wiped from the landscape.
But many Rakhine, whose state is one of Myanmar's poorest, say it is they who have been wronged, first by grinding years under the iron-fisted junta rule and now by rising numbers of Rohingya on their land.
"We have no right to speak, we are marginalised in the international arena," said Oo Hla Saw, general secretary of the Rakhine Nationalities Development Party.