Myanmar Netizens to BBC: Apologize Now

Some Myanmar netizens are asking BBC to apologize for publishing an ‘inaccurate’ map of Myanmar's ethnic groups. They claim that BBC reporter Anna Jones used an inaccurate map in an article she wrote on November 5, 2010 titled “Bleak outlook for Burma's Ethnic Groups.”

According to them, the map showed that Rakhine (Arakan) State is represented by Rohingya who are identified as a minority group in Myanmar even though the state is inhabited by Rakhine People (Arakanese). Furthermore, they said the map wrongfully depicted the Shan State to be represented not only by “Shan” ethnics but also by “Wa”; and that the Ayeyarwaddy Division and Kayah are represented by Karen and so on which are not in conformity with Myanmar's official ethnic and state definitions.

Myanmar netizens flooded a BBC Burmese Facebook page with comments asking the media network to issue an official apology letter to Myanmar citizens for saying that Rohingya is one of the ethnic groups in Myanmar.

Thein Tun Zan wrote about the relationship between Rakhine People and Rohingyas and requested an apology letter from BBC on behalf of all Myanmar citizens.

The presence of Muslim Bengali immigrants in Arakan State in Myanmar (Burma) is similar to the presence of Christian English people in Hong kong, Macau, South Africa and etc.

It is no different to having Muslim immigrants from Arab world in the Great Britain itself. The presence of Muslim Arabs does not make Britain an Arabic Country or the state of Arab Muslim.

As such, Arakan State is by no mean a state of immigrant Bengali Muslims. Calling them Rohinjas or whatsoever does not make them an indigenous ethnic Arakanese people who has founded Arakan Kingdoms and lived for thousands of years.

Dear BBC, the wrongful presentation and bias representation of ethnic profile in Anna Jones article is a serious mistake and oversight that BBC has done to damage the genuine Arakanese people.

Therefore, I and all those who “like” and support on this wall post, demand you, “BBC”, to immediately correct the Article of Anna Jones and issue an apology for your mistake.

Another netizen, Khaing Minn Nyo posted his comments on the Facebook page

Dear BBC Burmese News, and its Editor Group, your broadcasting center should do something for wrong information about the article of Anna Jones. If your News really wants to change Burma to Democracy, you are not ought to broadcast the wrong information. Good Luck BBC. I am waiting for your response.

Nyan Myint Aung also expressed his disappointment [my].

I don't know their aim. But it's absolutely wrong. I'm totally against it.

Aye Maung, a Rakhine ethnic who studied in University of Aberdeen, Scotland affirms the rights of the Rohingyas although he is worried about the demand of the group to create a new state. Meanwhile, Naing Zaw compared the Rohingyas in Myanmar and the Burmese in Thailand.

There are 4-6 million Burmese who are currently residing in Thailand… That's like 10% of total population of Thailand…. Do BBC dare to flag up Myanmar people on Thailand map so that we can ask for citizenship or recognized ethnicity??? Most of them are denied even the basic human rights and exploited on all accounts, thanks to ajar door policy on immigration…. If your purpose of presenting information is truly genuine to the interest of the people of Myanmar, try to gain insights and report and speak out these terrible and inhumane exploitations on behalf of “Genuine” Myanmar people.

After hundreds of complaints were posted on the BBC Burmese Facebook Page, BBC first removed the map from both articles without announcing anything officially. Then, they put it back after modifying the map by putting Rakhine (Arakanese) together with Rohingya representing Rakhine (Arakan) State. The article in the website was updated with this note

UPDATE 28 October 2011: The map in this article was temporarily removed on 27 October 2011 to make some changes. It has now been replaced with an updated version which includes a section on the Rakhine people.

Some netizens sent a formal complaint to BBC though this has not yet been listed in the “Responses to Complaints”. The BBC Burmese posted on their Facebook page a reply from BBC News Online.

Thank you for your comments. The map was not intended as an exhaustive look at every ethnic group in Burma. Rather it was intended to flag up minority peoples in Burma's border regions who are prominent because they are engaged in either disputes or conflict with the Burmese government. The line linking the Rohingya to Arakan state was not intended to imply ownership of the state or to marginalise the Rakhine people, but simply to show readers the state in which the Rohingya live. The text linked to the image of the Rohingya makes it clear that they are not granted Burmese citizenship. We have now adjusted the line on our map to give a clearer picture of where the Rohingya are to be found. We have also added a section featuring the Rakhine people. On the second page, we have amended our text to make a distinction between minority groups and recognised ethnic groups. Thank you for reading the BBC News website.

About 70 people responded it within an hour and most of them mentioned that BBC still need to apologise for the wrong facts and inaccurate visualisation about Myanmar's ethnic groups. Chan Myae Khine commented that

Though it was not intended to imply ownership of Rakhine (Arakan) State, the readers with less knowledge will surely think Rohingyas were one of important ethnic groups of Myanmar. Plus, if they honestly wish to point out the minority groups of people, they MUST put Le Su, Inn Thar, Myo, Thet and many more 100+ ethnics on the map.

Using such a wrong visualisation is just persuading readers to believe the wrong situation and history of Myanmar. Therefore, BBC and the journalist and whoever sketched this map MUST apologise to all Myanmar citizens!!!

65 comments

  • MarkmBha

    PLEASE PEOPLE!
    THIS ARTICLE IS ONE YEAR OLD; YOU ARE JUST STARTING TO COMPLAIN NOW?

  • Kyaw Naing

    Dear BBC

    Many people like John Simpson, Tim Sebastian, etc from BBC used to be my mentors.
    I was surprised and shocked to see such a blunder occur at BBC, a reputable organisation.

    I can’t understand why BBC let this false and prefabricated information posted.
    I do think the reporter and BBC should apologise to Myanmar people for their mistake.

    Kyaw Naing
    Yangon

  • Ta Tun Oo

    Anna Jone use the wrong photo in the map of Burma is deeply insulting to the people of Burma and wider Burmese communities in the world. Most of Arakanese are angry Anna Jones unethical conduct and try to twist Arakan history. This issue may result in conflict between Rakhine and illegal Bengali migrant in Arakan state. BBC and Anna Jone would be responsible for creating conflict in Arakan State.. i want that BBC officially apologize to Burmese communities…

    i can’t believe myself BBC makes such kinds of mistake…. that would be involve money to do…..

  • Khaing Zaw Zaw

    British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is became Bad Broadcasting Corporation in the world! You have played many years on us but now “No More”. I really wonder to the BBC staff Anna Jones how he becomes a journalist in BBC without having knowledge about Geo-Politics. I also wonder for BBC editor. I really want to ask BBC that ” Do you really have a access how to learn fact-finding, report-writing, Geo-politics and how many ethnicity of Burma before you issued about Burma. it is really self-defeat for BBC. It is really shame for BBC and it is also destroyed BBC reputation after 84 years later because of writing chaos about Burma ethnics. Bad Broadcasting Corporation( BBC), Please come to me to learn about Arakan State of Burma. I really encourage you to ” APOLOGY LEGALLY ” now front your web-page with Bold Letter before demonstration. Do you know what is the consequent going to be if you do not ” LEGALLY APOLOGY”?

  • Ko Ko Linn

    I denied what all the people asking BBC to have an apology. The Rakhine who claim themselves as owners of the region were the final settlers in Arakan. Even Rakhine or Arakan is not their identity.

    • BBC, apologize

      @ko ko lin, why you guys are so afraid that BBC will apologize to us. We are not asking Bengali to apologize to us as we have clearly known Bengali (Rohingya) are not our ethnics. I know, Bengalis (claimed yourself Rohingya) are so much afraid that BBC will issue correct statement officially as Bengalis lied together with BBC. Anyway can you please keep quite on this incident??? Thank you.

  • thandar

    we want yr responsibility n yr apology.

  • kyaw win

    We can see the the level of racism in Burma. How the Rohingya people have been attacked by both Rakhine (Mogh) and some Burmese people only because they are in different religion and skin color.

    They want to threat anyone who speaks out the truth. These people have forgotten the history and geography of burma where Rohingya is mentioned.

  • Rakhine Thar

    Get lost BBC…

  • Ko Ko

    I was shocked to learn about the article or commentary about Rohingya being an ethnic group from Myanmar or Burma . I know for a proven fact and authencity that we only have Rakhine State and the Rakhine nationalities , one of the Ethnic nationalities of the Union of Myanmar.The Rohingya are the people from Bangladesh who illegally cross into Rakhine Stae across the Naaf River from Bangladesh. That was why the two governments , Myanmar and Bangladesh had official meetings to solve the problem of Rohingyas as they are called illegally crossing into Rakhine State.I strongly agree with those who have made comments about this false misinformation . It should be corrected so as not to be misleading .

  • Sometimes, we can just use common sense. Will there be thousands of 2 thousands years pagodas in Arakan if Bingali ruled Arakan? Arakaneses never discriminated Bengalis. They ruled 18 regions of Bingala and lands of Arakan equally and let them choose their own religion. So, if Rohingya were to be existed as Arakanese, yes, they were under one of Bingalar regions under Arakan.

     There were muslims who stayed in Arakan as early as 14th century and they lived peacefully among Arakaneses. And they never cheated the history and claim as their own land. History is all about archeology, accountability and evidences. Rohingya history is full of tall tales and is cross-ref from many of unreliable sources and biased assumptions from history books. British records and Myanmar histoey books might have biased informations too. But none of them expressed the existent of muslim “Rohingya” people. The history is filled with 2 thousands years of flourished pagodas of Arakan kingdoms which ruled over lands of Arakan and today Bangladesh. A simple DNA test, linguistic test and archeology test would uncover the origin of Rohingya.

     It’s not about human right or discrimination as some west media exaggerated. History is all about archeology, accountability and evidences. If Rohingyas were to be native ethnic long time ago as they claimed to be, I must say that they are most self- isolated and ignorant ethnic of Myanmar not like other Muslim ethnics in Myanmar.

    So-called Rohingyas are full fledged refugees recognized by UN and they even get better supports than native poor Arakanese people. And the fact that they are denied citizenship are also wrong. Even so they were migrated, it’s been 3 generations. The Rohingya history books were mastermindedly written during last few decades and campaigned worldwide. There were infamous massacres by migrated Bengalis to native Arakanese people in northern Arakan in 1942 and 1988 to completely replace the native Arkanese villages. The records of mass Bengali replacement to Arakan villages by British and Burmese govs can still be accessed. The people  involved in those incidents are still alive and history is still fresh.  If still in doubt, think about infamous “direct action day” in east Pakistan. Now the story is up-side-down in international as Arakanese and Burma junta are the ones who bully Rohingyas.

    Native Arakanese people are dimmed in international news in favor of selling Rohingya for political gain. In fact, the basic human rights and development of Arakanese people are no better than Bengali migrants under junta rules.  So-called Rohingyas are full fledged refugees recognized by UN and they even get better supports than native poor Arakanese people. And the fact that they are denied citizens are also wrong. Even so they were migrated, it’s been 3 generations for some Bengali families and some were accepted as Myanmar citizens according to their applications. Many of today muslims in Myanmar are decedents of them. We don’t expect our government to accept horde of migrated people as citizens generously, right?

    We don’t want to dwell on past either. After all, Burmese people migrated from Tibet from east while Arakanese migrated from the west earlier. All of us were migrated from somewhere else. But after thousands years of history, cultures and law, we need to inherit and protect them. Thailand and Malaysia would act the same to Myanmar refugees denying that they are not native ethnic if they were to claim Thailand and Malaysia ad their own lands. I don’t see it as racism or discrimination but just a common nationalism. BBC needs to respect it. I understand BBC is a media giant and it may not care our few hundred tiny native Arakanese voices. Still, I dare say reputation of BBC drops minus among Myanmar people unless they apologize for their misinformation.

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