"Myanmar’s widely hailed transition from military dictatorship to a Chinese model of great commercial opening and calibrated political liberalization— “discipline flourishing democracy,” as the generals call it—has had one unintended consequence for the country’s military-controlled government: ugly things have been exposed.4 Suddenly, the dark secrets of this predominantly Buddhist nation of 51 million people with diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds have been laid bare. Te world now has access to hitherto-closed-of sites of religious and ethnic persecution via international media such as CNN, BBC, wire news agencies, and so on. First, the world witnessed the eruption of two large bouts of violence in 2012 between Rohingya Muslims and Buddhist Rakhine communities in the western coastal region of the country.5 Within a year, there were incidents of organized violence against Muslims in about one dozen towns and neighborhoods across the country.6 Burmese social media sites were littered with various hues of genocidal comments, articles, analyses, and updates, and remain so to date. Many openly call for the slaughter of all Muslims (or Kular, in Burmese), while others are more specifc about the type of Muslims that should be killed: the phrase “kill all illegal Bengalis,” a popular racist reference to Rohingyas, indicates that they belong in former East Bengal (Bangladesh) and not in Buddhist Myanmar.7 Led by Buddhist monks, protests sprang up in the Rakhine state and in other major urban centers such as Mandalay and Yangon; they called on the quasi-civilian, military-backed government of ex-General Tein Sein to crack down on Muslims and expel all Bengalis to any country, Muslim or Western liberal, that would take them. In fact, in President Tein Sein’s meeting with António Guterres—the then visiting head of the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR)—in Naypyidaw in August 2012, Tein Sein stated that “the only solution” to the troubles in Rakhine was either to send unwanted Rohingyas to countries that may be prepared to accept them as refugees or to contain them in UNHCR-administered camps.8 Burmese media outlets, including those run by former Burmese political exiles, echoed the ofcial and popular view that Rohingyas were illegal Bengali migrants with no organic ties to the country..."