Rakhine party to denounce Al-Jazeera documentary

The Rakhine Nationalities Development Party will issue a statement protesting against a documentary about the Rakhine conflict aired by the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera Television, the party chairman said.

Al-Jazeera aired the documentary from December 8 to 12 in Arabic and from December 9 to 13 in English.

The party is reviewing the whole documentary that claimed there was genocide against the so-called “Rohingyas”, and the Myanmar government was secretly involved in the conflict. The party also supported the government’s objection to the use of the term “Rohingya” by the United Nations General Assembly, chairman Aye Maung said.

He said he was accused by some people of being involved in the Rakhine conflict. In the documentary, the video-maker termed his party as nationalist, instead of nationality party working for development of the entire Rakhine people. The party represents all ethnic groups living in Rakhine state, he added.

Al-Jazeera also inserted Aye Maung’s speech in the documentary although it had never interviewed him.

“As far as I can remember, I was once interviewed by Channel 7 based in London, not by Al-Jazeera, the party chairman insisted.

Some characters in the TV documentary were reportedly created while some others were said to be living in Rakhine state though they seemed to be from Bangladesh.

The documentary was filmed in Rakhine’s Maungdaw region, but it seemed to create the perception that the burned down houses were owned by Bengalis though there were actually Rakhine people’s.

“In an interview, a Bengali girl said that her cousin brother was set of fire while another woman recounted being raped despite the fact that she seemed to be very healthy. The documentary, however, showed in the last part that the woman had died consequentially,” Aye Maung said.

“They are all meaningless. All the events happened in Maungdaw. We can therefore conclude that the whole documentary was a made-up story, he commented.

The documentary featured a series of interviews, especially with Bengalis. In it, an accusation was levelled against the Myanmar government of carrying out genocide against Rohingyas, and the Rakhine party and its leader were branded as nationalist.

Before the documentary was released, the Foreign Affairs Ministry issued a statement on December 6 strongly opposing and rejecting Al-Jazeera’s attempt to exaggerate and fabricate the incidents in Rakhine State.

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