A very visceral xenophobia exists in Burma exists today. I don't think that many people, before the reforms began several years ago, really appreciated how politically potent it would become. It doesn't just apply to the Rohingya. There are other Muslims in the country. When we hear about anti-Muslim sentiment in Burma, I do not mean to suggest that it's solely limited to Arakan State in the west. There are Muslims who live all over Burma, not necessarily Rohingya—indeed, often not Rohingya—but Muslims of different ethnicities, including Burman who live in Rangoon, Mandalay, and even up in Kachin State. There are mosques in Kachin; I've been in them.
This overarching dynamic, not just about the Rohingya, came as a surprise to many people, even the Burmese people themselves. It is partly manufactured by radical nationalists. It is partly something that took on a life of its own, a cycle of anti-Muslim hatred. But there's no denying one thing: it was very powerful. Aung San Suu Kyi, at the end of the day, appears to have made a political calculation that it was so powerful that going against it might hurt her politically and hurt her overarching political plan.
I am a human rights advocate. This organization does human rights research. We are not political analysts. That's my answer essentially as a political analyst. On the human rights front, the most important thing that we try to think about is underlying causes. One of the causes of violence is when people are not afraid of there ever being any accountability. We do agree with Aung San Suu Kyi about one thing: she often says that this is a rule of law issue. Unfortunately, I think she means that as a dodge and an evasion, but actually substantively she's right; it is a rule of law issue. If people who went after Muslims and burned down mosques and attacked Muslim families were held accountable by the police, that would make it less likely that it would happen in the future. That's what we want the government to do going forward, to make sure there is accountability when these outbreaks of violence occur, and to quickly respond to them when they occur.