The next Angkor Wat? Securing world heritage
status for historic Mrauk U could bring much-needed prosperity to troubled
Rakhine state
By Julian Hattem in Mrauk U
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Mrauk
U, now a backwater, was a vital trading port until the 18th century and the
capital
of a powerful kingdom, one of Asia’s richest cities.
Photograph:
Getty Images
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Up to the 18th century, it was a vital
trading port for rice, ivory, elephants, tree sap and deer hide, cotton,
slaves, horses, spices and textiles from India, Persia and Arabia.
In the centuries since, it crumbled into a
backwater town in Myanmar’s troubled Rakhine state. But the city where
Christians, Muslims and Buddhists once lived in harmony can still be glimpsed
in its hundreds of ruined temples, fortifications and storehouses – mostly ignored
for more than 100 years.
Now archaeologists are racing to survey and
protect those sites, hoping to secure a spot for Mrauk U on Unesco’s world
heritage list, following in the footsteps of Cambodia’s Angkor Wat and the
pyramids of Egypt.
Backed by the former UN secretary general
Kofi Annan – who said Mrauk U is “arguably the greatest physical manifestation
of Rakhine’s rich history and culture” – an international commission released
an interim report this year urging Myanmar to nominate the city for world
heritage status and since then enthusiasm has grown exponentially. The process
will take some years but, along the way, the government is hoping to transform
Mrauk U from a forgotten ghost town into a global tourist attraction that draws
hundreds of thousands each of visitors a year.
And just maybe, as Annan stated, the efforts
will help to solve a brutal ethnic conflict that has divided Rakhine state
between nationalist Buddhists and the Rohingya, a group of ethnic Muslims stuck
in a refugee limbo in the state. Rights groups claim the Rohingya are the
target of an ethnic cleansing campaign that has lasted for years. In recent
months, Burmese soldiers have been accused of raping and killing civilians
indiscriminately.
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“If such a status was granted, this could
eventually serve to boost tourism to Rakhine, and thus help strengthen the
state’s economy,” the commission said.
A team led by U Nyein Lwin, director of the
National Museum at Mrauk U, is trying to turn that into a reality. But the
undertaking is enormously complex. “We need a lot of help,” he said. “Time is
very short.”
He and his team need to do rigorous analysis
of Mrauk U’s current population and forecast its growth, so that future
developments such as new irrigation lines do not interfere with the ruins.
Financial assistance has been pledged by Italy, Australia and China, but more
outside support is needed, he says.
Local people hope that Mrauk U will become
internationally renowned, drawing in much-needed cash to one of the poorest
states in Myanmar.
A stronger economy, in turn, may tamp down
the simmering tensions some Buddhists feel towards the Rohingya, and remind
them of a cosmopolitan history where Buddhists, Muslims and Christians lived in
peace.
“What’s important for the international
community to know is that Mrauk U is immensely important to the Rakhine from a
cultural and historic point of view,” said Christopher Carter, the UN’s senior
adviser for Rakhine state. “Kofi Annan’s recommendation of Mrauk U as a candidate
for world heritage status was greeted very warmly by even the hardest-line
nationalists.”
From the 15th to 18th centuries, Mrauk U was
called “the golden city” by European travellers from the Netherlands and
Portugal. Samurai from Japan stood as guards for the king. Many of the larger
temples from that golden age remain intact. The Shitthaung temple is said to
hold 80,000 stone statues of the Buddha. The nearby Koe Thaung temple is even
larger, with 90,000 Buddha images carved into three stories of stone.
U Nyein Lwin and his team are in the midst of
creating a registry of all of the ruins that remain in Mrauk U. When finished,
they may chart as many as 3,000. But the town is a long way from seeing
tourists wandering its streets.
A grand mosque of the 15th century, known as
the Santikan mosque, once stood to the north-east of town, in an area now
dominated by rice paddies, but many local people have never heard of it and all
that remains above ground is a small hill, scattered with stones that may once
have been bricks, interspersed with cow dung in the hot sun.
To reach the complex, a traveller needs to
take an hour-long flight from Yangon, Myanmar’s economic and cultural capital
750km away, and then spend several hours snaking up the Kaladan river. Only
about 4,000 foreign tourists a year make the journey. The temples at Bagan
attract 70 times as many. The temples of Angkor Wat, in Cambodia, receive more
than two million visitors annually. An airport being built outside Mrauk U will
make it more accessible. But it could take years to complete.
Tourism was on the rise in 2010 and 2011,
tour guides say. But it dropped off in 2012, when ethnic violence rocked the
region. Some aspects of Mrauk U’s history remain captive to modern-day ethnic
conflict.
Julian Hattem’s reporting was supported by
the International Reporting Project
