YANGON — Enumerators fanned out across Myanmar yesterday to conduct a census that has been widely criticised for stoking religious and ethnic tensions, after the government denied members of a long-persecuted Muslim minority the right to identify themselves as Rohingya.
And administrators in some parts of the country — including rebel controlled areas in Kachin and Wa states — said they were barring census-takers because they worry it will be used for political purposes.
Myanmar only recently emerged from half a century of military rule and self-imposed isolation. No one knows how many people live in the predominantly Buddhist nation. The most accepted estimate, around 60 million, is based on extrapolations from the last count in 1983, that experts have said was hugely flawed, leaving out many religious and ethnic minorities.
More than 100,000 enumerators — most of them school teachers wearing white blouses, green traditional lounge and khaki waistcoats — started going door-to-door at 7am yesterday. They hope to reach 12 million households by the time they finish their job on April 10.
Their long and complicated survey — a collaboration between the government and the United Nations Population Fund — seeks information well beyond the number of people living in each home, however, from literacy and employment levels, to disabilities, access to clean water, and fertility and mortality rates.
It also includes sensitive, and highly controversial, questions about race and ethnicity that human rights groups have repeatedly warned are especially inappropriate at this delicate juncture in the country's transition to democracy. They are especially worried about Rohingya Muslims in the western state of Rakhine, who have been the targets of Buddhist mob attack in the last two years that have left up to 280 people dead and sent another 240,000 fleeing their homes nationwide.
Tens of thousands are living in crowded camps, where they have little or no access to jobs, education or medical care.
The government considers members of the religious minority to be illegal immigrants from neighbouring Bangladesh, though many arrived generations ago, and refers to them only as "Bengalis". Though numbering around 1.3 million, they are denied citizenship by national law.
Worried the census would legitimise their status, Buddhists in the state have protested, at times threatening to boycott it. With tensions soaring, they have in recent days attacked the homes and offices of foreign aid workers who have been helping Muslims, forcing the evacuation of staff.
On Saturday, Mr Ye Htut, the presidential spokesman, announced that Rohingya would not be allowed to identify themselves as such on the ballot.
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