Return to Rakhine: ‘Genocide never happened in this country’
|Rakhine State, Myanmar (CNN)As our convoy of white jeeps rattles along the dirt roads through a vast landscape of fertile farmland, it’s hard to see any physical evidence of the 392 villages that were burned down in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, other than the odd patch of blackened, decaying trees.
The rainy season has helped to replace much of the scorched earth with lush green fields, and rampant bulldozing and building work throughout the state has largely erased all memories of the Rohingya Muslims that lived here until they were forced to flee a little over a year ago.
CNN joined a government-led tour of the highly restricted area in late September, part of an attempt by authorities to convince the media — and the rest of the world — that accusations of genocide are false.