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The land of Rakhaing is unique in many respects because of its geography, homogeneous ethnicity, Buddhist tradition and intense nationalism; nevertheless over the past several decades a demographic transformation has taken place with the dramatic increase of the immigrant Muslim population. Embedded in the memory of the conquered territories of Bengal and the boundary the Bengalis dared not cross the growing populace of the illegal transplant Muslims deepens resentment in the indigenous Buddhist Rakhaings who feel bitterly that their land is being encroached. Considering the phenomenon of the centuries-old bulwark against the Islamic incursion the Rakhaings fear that their way of life is increasingly threatened as the Islamic infiltration has grown tremendously. The demographic Islamization of the Rakhaing land is hardly of the sort not to be concerned at the seriousness of entailments it inflicts. The Muslim population whose language of daily discourse is Bengla, has already expanded beyond the Rakhaing region and its is only a matter of time before the nation realizes the grave danger engendered by the social and cultural changes.

As cancerous as it may become the Islamization affects not just Rakhaing alone but the whole demographic landscape of Burma is changing at micro level. The Muslims are impulsed to creep into Burma for more than one reason. They are not merely in search of a better life but are inspired by the Muslim persuasion. The swelling population of Muslims did not drop out from the sky. Being adjacent to Bangladesh, formerly East Pakistan, Burma is vulnerable to illegal immigration from across the border. Bangladesh supported a population of over 127 millions who were jam-packed in an area just about one-fifth of the size of Burma, which sustained some 47 million people. The population density in Bangladesh was 2,295 per square mile compared to 181 in Burma1. By rule of thumb the overgrown population of Bangladesh which has been plagued with the problem of chronic food shortages and devastated by seasonal cyclones found havens in the sparsely populated Burma. Worsened by the decline of jute as major world commodity the vast majority of the Bangladeshis live below the minimum subsistence level.

In pamphlets as well as by means of lyric the young Muslim males were induced by the Bengali chapter of the Jamatt-I-Ullah (the worldwide community of Muslims) to emigrate into Burma, the land of abundant food and pretty damsels; marry the native maidens; convert the offsprings into Muslims; translate the Koran (the sacred text of Islam) into Burmese; spread Islam in the community; seek public and government offices; secure the strategic positions in the military; and ultimately overthrow the government. The cynical conspiracy abroad was complemented with an equally sneering plan within the country that in Rangoon and other cities the Muslim youth were offered monetary incentives to venture into winning the hand of daughters of the Burmese officials, especially the military generals; the higher the status the larger the awards. The idea behind it was to stretch the boundary of acceptance of Islam through conversion in consequence of conjugality and more importantly to influence the elite in power through their loved ones. Significantly more and more Muslims have moved into the previously exclusive Buddhist communities. Buying up the real estates in the traditionally predominant Buddhist neighbourhoods has become a scenario throughout the country. They established small communities and kept aloof inside the compounds which were enclosed by high fences where possible, strictly guarding their women from public view. Seeing through racial prisms or not the establishment of the micro Muslim colonies are no other than the surgical implant of the Islamic cells into the body of the Buddhist society.

The Bengali immigrants found it easy to slip into Burma because the border was poorly guarded. Open to the Bay of Bengal the boundary between Bangladesh and Burma runs along the medium line of the deep river channel of the Naff and through the wooded area of the upper reaches to the north. In the fringes on both sides of the frontier are filled with Muslims of the same extraction who speak the same language and are common to the same culture. Closely bounded to each other by the same creed they interacted back and forth across the border. Once inside the Burmese territory the new comers were willfully harboured by the Bengalis who arrived earlier. The more immigrants arrive, the larger the Muslim community grows and the better the chance of achieving the Islamic goal. The annual population growth in Burma was 2.3 per cent, however according to the statistics the increase in Maungdaw and Buthidaung townships which interface Bangladesh was abnormal. At any given period of ten years since 1950s the growth rate has been multiplied in magic numbers compared to other townships in three districts of Rakhaing2 let alone the rest of Burma, not explicable in terms of mathematics or contrary to reasoning in the fact that most of the surplus Muslims were the grown-ups and males. Amazingly enough, if they were the products of the natural birth as they claimed they must have been born instant young adults and of course multiples. Believe it or not they seemed to have the cutting edge technology over the West in the field of genetics engineering because it has just come across recently a breakthrough in the feasibility of producing designer babies but not the instant grown-ups yet. The influx of the Bengalis took foothold in Maungdaw and Buthidaung area before they penetrated into the interior. From there in the northwest they fanned out in all directions and to every corner of Burma. Having settled in the lowland and acclimatized the newly found life they made their way up in the record murder to the remote frontier regions, the Kachin state in the north and Shan state in the northeast along the border with China which has about 40 million Muslims, a sizable number of them live in Yunnan province which is contiguous to Burma. They streamed down to the Karen state on the Thai-Burma border in the northeast whence they made clandestine contacts with the Muslim separatists of Thailand. Entering into wedlock with the native girls they worked hard to convert the local population into the faith of Islam. Strategically they came close to completing the encirclement of Burma.

The Islamic movement is global and its inspiration is to dominate the world. A partial outline of the stimulus emerged when two bonds were circulated in early 1950s in then East Pakistan which crystallized the deeply seated ambition for conquest of Burma as well as mainland Southeast Asia which the Muslims had failed to conquer in the previous centuries. Each bond depicted blueprint of a projected territory extending eastwards beyond the Pakistani border. One territory included Burma as part of extended Pakistan and the other overlapping the former covered an area consisting of Thailand and Indochina. Denominated for one Pakistani rupee each the bonds would be worth in millions an redemption when the territories in question were conquered in two stages. The tremor of excitement led the Muslims on both sides of the border to hoard the bonds in huge quantities. In the far-fetched scheme of meteoric expansion of Islam which stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific, swinging in a vast sine wave from the coast of northwest Africa to the heart of Asia, round the corridor of Southeast Asia, the only nations which stand in the way are Hindu India, Buddhist state of Burma and Thailand as well as the Philippines which is Christian. Attempts have been made to bridge the gaps. The Indian subcontinent was conquered and ruled by the Muslims until the British took over it. First, it was invaded by the Arabs in the eighth century who established a Muslim foothold in the west followed by the invasion of the Turkish Muslims who took control of the north in the twelfth century. The Muslim conquest and rapid gains of territories continued in the thirteenth and the fourteen centuries. The Moguls ruled India from 1526 to 1857. The Muslim conquest of India wrought major political and social upheavals, culminating in the partition of British India into two dominions. At the time when independence of India was being debated in the British parliament, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the leader of the Muslim League in his platform for a separate state for the Muslims in India defined in 1940 that the Muslims were a nation and that they must have their homelands, their territory and their state. The inflammatory rhetoric had far-reaching influence on the yellow Muslims beyond its frontier. A thrill of hope ran through them who mused for a separate territory within the host country. Thailand has had a difficult time dealing with the Muslim separatists in the southern part bordering Muslim Malaysia. The Philippines has been battling the Moro Muslim secessionists in southern Mindanao whose Christian majority rejected a Libyan mediated agreement on autonomy for the Muslims.

No single case is more apparent of the Islamic fervour than the Muslim separatist movement in Burma which has been active in the Rakhaing land. The movement which has increased steadily over the last fifty years is neither a recent nor an isolated development but is linked with the Islamic politics and integral part of the conspiracy concocted internationally. The Muslim League of Burma began agitating for acquisition of the Rakhaing land when the leaders of the Muslim League of India sought to establish a separate Muslim state made up of northwestern India and eastern Bengal which later came West and East Pakistan respectively. The objective of the Muslim leadership in the region as envisaged in the Lahore Resolution was to incorporate the scattered territories where the Muslims were the majority and welded them together into a single Muslim State. To begin with they were motivated to create a Muslim enclave encompassing the area of Maungdaw and Buthidaung townships where the bulk of the Muslim immigrants concentrated. Having accomplished the initial phase the next step was to absorb the larger half of Rakhaing which would eventually be integrated into the whole of Muslim nation. In line with the strategy a major undertaking to change the demographic and political geography of the target area came at the wake of the Japanese invasion of Burma in 1942. The Muslims took advantage of the traditional situation following the collapse of the British administration which sparked up nationwide communal riots between the Buddhists and the Muslims. In the remote corners of Rakhaing the Muslims ferociously decreased the Buddhist population in Maungdaw and Buthidaung townships. The Rakhaings who did not have the numbers to match the Muslims ran for their life but most of them did not make it. The heavily outnumbered Rakhaings were ruthlessly and wholesomely butchered in the most barbarous manner at their homes, in the ancestral lands as they fled and in the woods where they sought refuge from the vicious Muslim marauders. They slew, vandalized and raped. They burned the houses and the Buddhist monasteries after having them relieved of the contents. Many thousands regardless of gender or age perished in the massacre. The hardest hit being the rural agrarian communities who lived in the outlying villages. The nursing babies who were left to starve to death suckled from the sexually assaulted and lifeless mothers. Maimed infants wailed for the slaughtered parents. Bloated corpses floated in the river and its tributaries; the decomposed remains littered everywhere. Armies of vultures hovered above the mutilated, rotten bodies; the air was heavy with toxic fume; black smoke billowed from places far and wide. The properties belonged to the Rakhaings were plundered and the Buddhist shrines and pagodas were demolished. All 125 villages in Maungdaw township were wipe out. The stretch of land was denuded and turned into extraordinary empty. The extent and intensity of destruction was awful. The enormity was outrageous. Only a few thousands who resided inside the town periphery and the nearby villages narrowly escaped from the carnage.

Maungdaw which happened to be the western most administrative outpost was also the last stop where the civic servant corps of the retreating British government made their sojourn in their flight to India. While some were indifferent to the plight of the besieged Rakhaing U Aung Tha Kyaw, a judge of note and Captain Taylor of the British Army made possible for the helpless Rakhaings to get ferried across the Naff river into the safety of a small town named Taknaf on the opposite shore; so close yet so far away from the war and its horrible impact. Tapping on his sources of contact in the British administration in India U Maung Tha Kyaw successfully persuaded Captain Taylor to come over to Maungdaw from the other side of the river and to take charge of the government treasury which was being evacuated to India. His presence along with his detachment lent recourse to the destiny of the Rakhaings. Without the judgement and resourceful initiative of the two unforgettable characters the few Rakhaings who had been blockaded by the Muslims would have met the same fate of the unfortunate thousands. The survivors of the Muslim bloodbath still feel a warm glow of gratitude to the two noblemen. The Muslims were assisted by the Rajput and the Pathan deserters of the British Army but they were no match for the small contingent of the well disciplined Karen and Gurkha infantry men who accompanied Captain Taylor. Most of the Buthidaung residents who embarked a ship in desperate attempt to save their lives instead went down with the sinking vessel which capsized under weight. On the eve of the disaster the Muslims assassinated U Kyaw Khaing, a Deputy Commissioner who was on a mission to defuse the communal conflict.

With the elimination of all the Rakhaings from the two townships the area Muslims and those across the border who were hungry for land poured into the Rakhaing villages and occupied their lands. During the Japanese occupation the Muslims who did not have the least faith in the Japanese theme of Asian nationalism "Greater Asia Co-prosperity Sphere" made a feint of believing it and finagled favor from the Japanese whom they hated like hell as much as they loathed the Rakhaings. The Muslims who had been mobilized and affiliated to the Jamaat-I-Ullah were generated into a political power base under the banner of Burma Muslim Congress, rooted in the Bengali heritage and the Islamic faith. The Muslim activities grew much greater in breadth and depth after the Second World War than before the war. The most dramatic development was the military arm of the Muslim Congress called the Mujtahids, trained and equipped by Pakistan. No sooner had Burma attained independence in January 1948 than the military operation vigorously. The offensive was mainly directed against the Rakhaings who had escaped the Muslim butchery of 1942 and were repatriated in early 1946 to their native land from the refugee camp at Dinajpur in East Bengal. A few Buddhist Rakhaings were settled at some of the original villages only to he driven away by the militant Mujtahids who did not want the Rakhaings reestablish themselves in their own places or have the desire to return the stolen lands to the legitimate owners. They wantonly attacked and overran the police at rural outposts and uprooted the few Rakhaings from their villages. Occasionally they won control over large sections of Maungdaw and Buthidaung townships. The communications and dupply lines were served. Once again the Muslims laid seize to the town with the Rakhaings inside, at times for months before the Burmese Army came to their rescue. The Rakhaings, the government employees and the ordinary citizens alike who indulged in tending the official duties as well as private business outside the town's perimeter most often lost their lives in the hands of the Muslims; U Tun Oo, a Sub-Divisional Officer was one of the victims. Some were shot at pointblank in mass execution; some decapitated, some hacked to death, and some still to be accounted for. Some were facially disfigured with ears and nose having been cut off in order to sow fear in Rakhaing populace. Some unfortunate Buddhist monks were gagged and bound before being thrown into deep pits in the ground for lingering death whose dehydrated bodies turned into skeletons and as yellowish as the colour of the robe they put on. Murder, torture, rape, looting and arson were the order of the day.

While the Mujtahids were charged with carrying out atrocities, the leader of the Muslim Congress simultaneously wore a mask of political respectability and entered the Burmese politics which was dominated by the Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League and insinuated themselves into the latter's favor with a view to securing parliamentary seats and important positions in the government of the ruling party whose leadership had no conception or did not care about the ulterior motive to create an autonomous Muslim state carved out of the Rakhaing land. Using their political clout at the time when Burma was permeated by insurrections the Muslim Congress made a demand for a free Muslim state with its own defense and administration forming part of Rakhaing. The proposed concept of a condominium was much of the replication of Pakistan which was created out of Hindu dominated India. In June 1951 an open letter was published detailing the Constitutional demands adopted at the Muslim Conference which was held at Alethangyaw, Maungdaw township. The salient points are summarized as follows:

To establish immediately a free Muslim state with the status of a condominium for the Muslim minority in northern Rakhaing, separated from the Buddhist Rakhaing majority in the south with its own defence force, police and security units;

To extend rights so as to share on a fifty-fifty basis in representation and the management the defence of Rakhaing as well as in the administration of Seittwe, the metropolis and the port city of Rakhaing, which would be divided into the Muslim and Rakhaing zones with the priority being given to the Muslim co-administrators of higher rank over the alternate Rakhaing counterparts in the rotation of term of office;

To accord the Muslim state the same status as extended to the Chin, the Kachin, the Shan and the Karen states, with the right of proportionate representation on the Constituent Assembly and Upper Chamber of Legislature;

To appoint a Muslim representative from northern Rakhaing as the Muslim Affairs Minister in the government of the Union of Burma;

To provide complete freedom and equality in the fields of religion, culture, communal education and economy;

To protect the Muslim properties and business, and to compensate in case of destruction;

To promote the welfare of the Muslim community;

To establish quasi courts each to be presided over by a grand mufti (a judge who interprets Islamic laws) with the power to decide cases concerning the social and personal life of the Muslims according to the laws and principles of the Holy Sharia;

To accord right to form a Statutory Muslim Council (Majlis Islamia) with the approval of the Muslim Conference for the management of the religious, social, educational and cultural affairs and the administration of the Muslim institutions in order to promote the welfare of the Muslims in Burma according to the Islamic Laws;

To establish with the financial aid of the government of the Union of Burma Islamic schools and colleges whose medium of teaching being Arabic (the canonical tongue of Islam);

To facilitate teaching of Urdu, Arabic and Diniyat (Islamic religious instructions) in all the public schools throughout Burma where the Muslim students represent a considerable number;

To further extend and develop the Urdu schools;

To accord complete freedom to the Muslims to found and run their own educational, religious and cultural institutions;

To maintain Urdu as the medium of instruction for the Muslims in the primary and the secondary schools;

To refrain from imposing other languages on the Muslims against their will or to the detriment of the Muslim culture and integrity.

The Buddhists who constitute 90 per cent of the total population of Burma felt in their daily life the heavy hand of the political influence exerted by the Muslims. The tiny Muslim community of 4 per cent was no more than a frail weed, yet their imposition of Islamic system on the non-Muslim citizens, including 4 per cent Christians was more than a bitter pill the general populace could swallow. Highly motivated by faith the Muslims were well organized and enjoyed an impact disproportionate to their numbers. How well and successful was evident by the numerical and prestigious appointments in the cabinet of Premier U Nu. Ignorant of the motive that their alliance was subject to the race loyalty and the religious passion the Muslims were drawn into the inner circle of the party leadership and awarded them two prominent posts in the government which translates a net gain of one seat over any group of the native minorities who were sidelined with only a minor position each. Of the two cabinet appointees one was in charge of the Ministry of Interior and the other at the helm of the Ministry of Industries. It remains anybody's guess in what manner and to what extent their judgement was tainted with the racial bias and their decision impaired by the religious prejudice in executing their official duties with regard to the questions of illegal Muslim immigrants and the commercial interests of the Muslims who along with other non-indigenous industrialists and merchants controlled the nation's economy. In keeping with the Islamic custom not only that the cabinet Ministers remained their Muslim names but the Minister of Interior in his official visit to the Bengali infested Maungdaw portrayed himself the characteristic image of a typical Muslim. Dressed in a white suit with a red Turkish hat fitted tightly he exchanged greetings with the fellow Muslims in the Islamic tradition. Along the way from the jetty where he landed to the Mosque where he gave audience to his folks, groups of Bengalis chanted slogans in their native language welcoming him in their midst, who gathered around the dome-shaped arches built across the road which were fashioned in the Islamic architecture. Some mullahs surrounded by the enthusiastic followers murmured the Koranic verses from beneath the banners inscribed in the Arabic scripts. No persons other than the Muslims had the privilege to get involved in the visit or were given a chance to meet, see or hear him who was supposed to represent the Burmese government and the Burmese people. The Muslims congregated in the Mosque compound where the infidels were not allowed. The non-Muslim citizens had no means of knowing what the speech was all about for the simple season that it was in Urdu. What sentiment he fostered in the public address or what spirit he infused into the fellow Muslims in the private meetings was beyond imagination.

The Muslim racism and their sectarian perspective of life was more pronounced in the late forties through the early sixties. All aspects of the society were Islamized in Maungdaw and Buthidaung townships. Unlike the rest of Burma the area schools were closed on Fridays (Muslim Sabbath day) and Saturdays instead of Saturdays and Sundays. Only the Muslim religious days were observed as holidays. The students who professed other faiths had to make their own choice either to commemorate their respective religious events or miss the classes altogether. The regular school programmes and hours were rescheduled to accommodate the Ramadam fasting during which period the Rakhaings were subjected to abuses, verbal as well as physical if they happened to smoke much less to eat in the public places and facilities in the day light hours. The Buddhist Rakhaings whom the Muslims regard inferior to them in fidelity were not served in the Muslim restaurants. In the market place the Rakhaings watched the Muslim vendors wait on their own kind before them if they were not refused to be attended upon. A Muslim felt indignant at his shadow being accidentally walked across by a Rakhaing. Anxious to hide their identity the Muslims raised objection being referred to as "Kula", the local name for the Bengalis or "Kawtaw", the native slang term for the Chittagonians, in the day-to-day as well as official communications while they stuck to the Bengali heritage of their former homeland. On occasions when the Burmese national anthem was played the Muslims in the audience retorted with the boastful territorial call "Pakistan Zindabad", Allah Mujtahid" (Pakistan will be victorious under the guidance of Allah) which was a clear demonstration of their loyalty to the Muslim nation. They refused to take oath of allegiance to the Burmese government and declined to salute the Burmese national flag in the name of religion. To the Muslims that part of the Rakhaing land was a de facto extension of the Muslim nation. It was hard to believe that it was all happening in the Burmese territory.

The spectre of Islamization was reinforced by the violent acts of the Muslim militants who resorted to terrorism. The Mujtahids who ambushed the Burmese military patrols rather than engaged in combat were hard to locate as they submerged into the mass of Muslim society who provided them with food, shelter and intelligence about the government troop movements. Their loyalty was guaranteed. It was like looking for the invisible enemy in the darkness of the night. Since the theme of the Mujtahids emphasized the Islamic concept, in a sense, all Muslims were the Mujtahids. It was a war without the frontline. Pressed hard by the Burmese military the Mujtahids who fought carrying the Pakistani flag adopted a low profile and retreated to bases on the other side of the border. While buying time for the opportuned movement they made occasional forays into the Burmese territory. At the emergence of contemporary Islamic fundamentalism in the 1970s the Muslim secessionist movement was revitalized under the assumed name "Rohingya". By 1990s Muslim terrorists began bombing of the government offices and facilities at Maungdaw. The bombs might not be as power as those exploded at the New York World Trade Center but technically sophisticated enough to reaffirm the external involvement. Formidable capability of precision weapons and meticulously executed detonation as well as declaration of holy war by the Muslim extremists against Burma testified only too well the extent of implication in the intrigue indulged by the Muslim nations which shared the Islamic goal and were willing to fight for the achievement of it. Long before the United States announced and bombed Libya in 1986 for its linkage with the worldwide Muslim fundamentalist movement the complicity of the radical Islamic nations was vividly described in the Calcutta Journal "FRONTIER" of August 30,1980:

The Rohingya movement drew attention when in April 1978 Burma launched Operation Naga Min to put the Rohingyas into Bangladesh after that country through its military attaché in Rangoon along with Libyan assistance sought to foment a full-scale rebellion and perhaps ultimate annexation by Bangladesh of Arakan (Rakhaing) areas in Burma. It seems that at the last movement General Zia reverted to a neutral stand signaling the collapse of a Bangladeshi adventure. In fact, the Rohingyas have received low level support from across the border ever since 1948 when they expressed the desire to join their Muslim brothers as part of Pakistan.

The collusion aimed at eliciting a full-blown insurrection against the sovereign nation of Burma is an act of war against the Burmese people in violation of the rules of non-interference. It is not to be condoned. As destructive and deplorable as it had been the Muslim movement in Burma had a negative effect on the national security. No self-esteemed government would tolerate such an act of deliberate subversion and intervention in its internal affairs in disgrace to the national sovereignty and territorial integrity. The Muslim movement was catapulted into an international issue by the whim of the Islamic politics. The lavish publicity apparatus, bank-rolled by the oil rich Islamic nations, served the mean weapon to dramatize the Muslim separatist cause which became one of the most publicized events involving a Muslim movement in a non-Muslim nation. No matter to what extent the information disseminated was distorted or the issue raised was manipulated, the focus of the international community was spotlighted only on the rights of the illegal immigrants in the host country whose ethnicity they did not belong, whose language they could not speak, whose custom they did not understand and whose religion they did not tolerate. Consumed by the malicious sentiment towards Burma the general public overlooked the rights of the aboriginal inhabitants whose land is being taken over by the alien Muslims who insidiously beguiled their crusade against Buddhism and those who embrace it under the pretext of persecution of the Muslims and in provocation of the human rights abuse. The fundamental question of the illegal immigration of the Bengali Muslims and the international conspiracy to grab away part of the Burmese territory had never been at issue; it was lost in a whirl of falsified publicity which successfully rallied significant popular support for the Muslim separatist movement. Obviously a favourable tendency towards the oil producing Muslim States, thus to a certain degree towards Islam and the religio-political movement has become a discernible development in the foreign policy of some industrialized nations as the result of their dependency on the Middle East oil, and their unbalanced unbalanced judgement not only undermined the rights of the host country but it amounted to encouraging a strategy as ambitious as occupying a non-Muslim state by the Muslim immigrants and the radical Muslim conspirators abroad.

It appeared as if the Rakhaings in Maungdaw and Buthidaung area were fighting for their existence in a climate of crisis. One can not imagine for a movement what it is like to be one of them who lived in constant fear of being overrun. Just what they feared almost happened on the night of May 13,1988. A sea of about 50,000 Muslims converged upon Maungdaw from all sides around the town coming on foot. The crowd swelled along the way by throngs of supporters. The huge gathering seemed to have shaken the ground. They stopped short of the outskirts of the town. The rally started at about 8 p.m. with the imprecation which was a true declaration of their intent. At the top of the voices they shouted death threats to the Rakhaings inside who could scarcely forbear from hearing the curse which dragged on seemingly interminable. The battle cry was in unison; "Death to the Rakhaings", "Your land will be our own", "Allah willing, the Muslims will prevail." As the night wore on the deep resonant voices continued to echo in the darkness. Fortunately help came from unexpected quarters, mother nature. The dawn closed in upon the dreadful night and the wild concourse dispersed at about 3 a.m. the next day, who disappeared in the twilight not to be seen anywhere in the morning or heard any time soon, leaving behind no traces of individual identifications. It was psychological warfare. The area of Maungdaw and Buthidaung looks like a Muslim sphere overwhelmed by the presence of lots and lots of them who set about to create conditions in every description they could which would make the Rakhaings difficult, if not possible, to live a normal life. The tactics of harassment and attrition were aimed at scaring away the Rakhaings, and therefore winning demographic control of the area. A whole population of Buddhist Rakhaings in two townships in question who used to enjoy predominance in all aspects of life has gone from a status majority to a clear minority in a matter of decades. Nonetheless the feeling of being the beleaguered minority has created an unprecedented consciousness of the ethnicity and patriotism among the area Rakhaings who are determined more than ever not to be intimidated by the numbers or the fervent Islamic convulsion. They have lived there since the ancient time and will continue their lives as the devout Buddhists at all costs. They will never be hunted out from the area. After all they are the indigens of the land, the native land of the Buddhist Rakhaings inherited from their forefathers.

1-Time Almanac, 1999

2-Seittwe district: Seittwe, Kyauktaw, Mrohaung, Mumbra, Pauktaw, Phonnagyuan, Rathidaung, Buthidaung, and Maungdaw.

Kyaukpru district: Kyaukpru, Ramree, Mraybon, Manaung and Ann.

Sandoway district: Sandoway, Taunggoke and Gwa.