A/HRC/39/CRP.2
tent, until eventually the merchant is forced out. The parable implies that, if a few
“Kalar” are let into the country, they will slowly take over and will force the original
inhabitants out. In a post from the official Facebook page of the Office of the
Tatmadaw Commander-in-Chief, Senior-General Min Aung Hlaing, this parable was
explained in detail in connection with the issue of the Rohingya in Rakhine State. The
post is one of a series of excerpts from the event “Talk on Rakhine Issue and Security
Outlook”, organized by the Myawaddy Media Group on 8 September 2017, and livestreamed on the Myawaddy Media and the Facebook pages of the Office of the
Commander-in-Chief. After describing the merchant and camel parable, the
moderator stated that “Islam is a disease spreading globally” and that “Muslims were
attempting to islamise the whole world”. Prior to its deletion by Facebook in August
2018, the post had almost 10,000 reactions, over 6,000 shares and 146 comments. 2901
• Khoe Win Bengali (“Bengali that sneaked in”): in the Myanmar language, the term
suggests that the Rohingya have illegally entered the country by stealth and that there
is a plan to launch an invasion. For example, a post published on 26 August 2017 used
the term numerous times interchangeably with the word “terrorists” to refer to ARSA
and the Rohingya population together. Titled “a just war has started”, the post wrote:
“Even the UN that supports the Bengali... the US and British embassies... and the
international community all condemned the actions of the Khoe Win Bengali
terrorists. So, in this just war, to avenge the deaths of the ethnic people who got
beheaded, and the policemen who got hacked into pieces, we are asking the Tatmadaw
to turn these terrorists into powder and not leave any piece of them behind.” The post,
which included no examples in relation to the alleged killing of “ethnic people” and
policemen, had 20,000 reactions, over 11,000 shares and 4,100 comments by July
2018.2902
• Kalasoe (“Bad Kalar”): the term precedes the emergence of ARSA and implies that
Rohingya are violent. It has been prominently used after the 2012 violence in Rakhine
State. For example, in June 2014, an excerpt of an article from the journal Myanmar
Express was posted on an online blog. The excerpt featured an interview with a former
military officer, Khin Nyunt, on the question of Rohingya. 2903 Khin Nyunt stated:
“There is no Rohingya, because Rohingya are insurgents. There is RSO. We call them
Kalasoe. Kalasoe insurgents are the RSO group, short for Rohingya Solidarity
Organization. Rohingya is the name of insurgents”. 2904
1313. Expressions using these derogatory terms are found frequently and in very large
numbers, both offline and online. They are often accompanied by cartoons, memes or graphic
content, amplifying the impact of the message. Below are two examples of widely shared
cartoons. The first one is by Harn Lay, a famous Myanmar cartoonist.
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On file with the Mission.
On file with the Mission.
From 1997 to 2003 Khin Nyunt, then a General, was First Secretary (de facto Prime Minister) of the
State Peace and Development Council, the military junta, and then he was formally Prime Minister
from 2003 to 2004, when he was purged by the junta,
http://theimageofpeople.blogspot.com/2014/06/rso.html.
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