The eagerness with which international business is anxiously trying to cash in on the perceived huge opportunities in Burma is unacceptable in the light of the Burmese military-appointed government's continued murderous abuse of its minorities, not least its Rohingya Muslims. Details are still sketchy, but it is clear that there has been another round of savage official killings of Rohingya. The best evidence is that it was discovered that several Rohingya had been caught and killed when they were trying to flee over the border to Bangladesh. Protestors in the town of Maungdaw, who demanded an investigation into the claims, were met with the sort of police brutality that has now become standard. It is alleged that during that confrontation a Burmese policeman went missing. The authorities responded with the speed and venom of a cobra. Raids were mounted on the settlement of Maungdaw. At least eight Rohingya were killed, among them women and children and some 84 villagers arrested and beaten. There are also allegation that at least one young woman was raped. Once again, the police whose job ever since the first savage Buddhist attacks on their Muslim neighbors three years ago has been to protect the Rohingya have actually become primary agents in their persecution. Yet at almost the same time as these latest official murders among the Rohingya, Burma was being told what a bright little economic star it had become. It has been praised by the International Monetary Fund for its 7.5 percent growth this year which is expect to be higher again next year and confirm Burma's place as one of Southeast Asia's fastest-growing economies. After years of isolation as a violent and merciless military dictatorship that crushed all political dissent, not least that of Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, in a rebranding that ought to be a classic of Madison Avenue, the military apparently tiptoed back to their barracks and installed a quasi-civilian government in 2011. But rather than begin with the political reforms that would have led to the resolution of the position of the country's many minorities, including the Kachin and the Rohingya, the military-appointed government began to liberalize the economy. It set out alluring investment opportunities for foreign investors in Burma's rich and extensive natural resources. And depressingly, and indeed to the eternal shame of all those businessmen who are crowding into Burma's five-star hotels anxious to cut deals with the well-connected “civilian” fixers who seem to offer access to massive profits, it has been the money, and purely the money, that has fixated the international community. Burma's abysmal human rights record has not mattered a bit. Certainly it can be argued that all Burmese, maybe even to a tiny extent the economically-deprived Rohingya, will benefit from the inflow of foreign investment, technology and management know-how. But the foreign businessmen are actually making a big mistake, even in their own terms. They are choosing to ignore a rising country risk in Burma. The rising tide of Buddhist fundamentalist feeling, which no one in authority not even the iconic Aung San Suu Kyi seems prepared to address, coupled with the questionable credentials of a local business establishment that owes everything to the vicious old military junta surely make for some very high risk scores. A country that can brutalize its helpless minorities will one day have even less difficulty in brutalizing greedy foreign investors.
