April 04, 2025

News @ RB

Announcement of New Website: Rohingya Today (RohingyaToday.Com) Dear Readers, From 1st January 2019 onward, the Rohingya News Portal 'Rohingya Blogger' will be renamed and upgraded as 'Rohingya Today'. Due to this transition to a new name, our website will be available at www.rohing...

Rohingya News @ Int'l Media

Maung Zarni, leader of the Free Rohingya Coalition, speaks at a news conference at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan in Tokyo on Thursday. | CHISATO TANAKA By Chisato Tanaka, Published by The Japan Times on October 25, 2018 A leader of a global network of activists for Rohingya Mu...

Myanmar News

By Sena Güler | Published by Anadolu Agency on December 1, 2018 Maung Zarni says he will boycott Beijing-sponsored events until the country reverses its 'troubling path' ANKARA -- A human rights activist and intellectual said he withdrew from a Beijing-sponsored forum in London to pro...

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Article @ RB

Oskar Butcher RB Article October 6, 2018 Every night in an unassuming shop space located in Mandalay’s 39thStreet, Lu Maw and Lu Zaw – the remaining members of the Burma’s most famous comedy trio, the Moustache Brothers – present their show: a curious combination of comedy, political sa...

Article @ Int'l Media

A demonstration over identity cards at a Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh in April, 2018. Image: NurPhoto/SIPA USA/PA Images. By Natalie Brinham | Published by Open Democracy on October 21, 2018 Wary of the past, Rohingya have frustrated the UN’s attempts to provide them with documenta...

Analysis @ RB

By M.S. Anwar | Opinion & Analysis The Burmese (Myanmar) quasi-civilian government unleashed a large-scale violence against the minority Rohingya in the western Myanmar state of Arakan in 2012. The violence, which some wrongly frame as ‘Communal’, was carried out by the Burmese armed forces...

Analysis @ Int'l Media

By Maung Zarni, Natalie Brinham | Published by Middle East Institute on November 20, 2018 “It is an ongoing genocide (in Myanmar),” said Mr. Marzuki Darusman, the head of the UN Human Rights Council-mandated Independent International Fact-Finding Mission at the official briefing at ...

Opinion @ RB

Rohingya refugees who fled from Myanmar wait to be let through by Bangladeshi border guards after crossing the border in Palang Khali, Bangladesh October 9, 2017. REUTERS/Damir Sagolj MS Anwar RB Opinion November 12, 2018 Some may differ. But I believe the government of Bangladesh is ...

Opinion @ Int'l Media

By Maung Zarni | Published by Anadolu Agency on December 15, 2018 US will not intercede, and Myanmar's neighbors see it through economic lens, so international coalition for Rohingya needed LONDON -- The U.S. House of Representatives Thursday overwhelmingly passed a resolution ca...

History @ RB

Aman Ullah  RB History August 25, 2016 The ethnic Rohingya is one of the many nationalities of the union of Burma. And they are one of the two major communities of Arakan; the other is Rakhine and Buddhist. The Muslims (Rohingyas) and Buddhists (Rakhines) peacefully co-existed in the A...

Rohingya History by Scholars

Dr. Maung Zarni's Remark: The best research on Rohingya history: British Orientalism which created the pseudo-scientific biological notion of "Taiyinthar" or "real natives" of #Myanmar caused that country's post-colonial cancer of official & popular genocidal Racism.  This co...

Report @ RB

(Photo: Soe Zeya Tun, Reuters) RB News  October 5, 2013  Thandwe, Arakan – Rakhinese mob in Thandwe started attacking Kaman Muslims on September 28, 2013. As a result, 5 Kaman Muslims were mercilessly killed and 1 was died in heart attack while escaping the attack. 781 Kaman Mus...

Report by Media/Org

Rohingya families arrive at a UNHCR transit centre near the village of Anjuman Para, Cox’s Bazar, south-east Bangladesh after spending four days stranded at the Myanmar border with some 6,800 refugees. (Photo: UNHCR/Roger Arnold) By UN News May 11, 2018 Late last year, as violent repressi...

Press Release

(Photo: Reuters) Joint Statement: Rohingya Groups Call on U.S. Government to Ensure International Accountability for Myanmar Military-Planned Genocide December 17, 2018  We, the undersigned Rohingya organizations worldwide, call for accountability for genocide and crimes against...

Rohingya Orgs Activities

RB News December 6, 2017 Tokyo, Japan -- Legislators from all parties, along with Human Rights Now, Human Rights Watch, and Save the Children, came together to host the emergency parliament in-house event “The Rohingya Human Rights Crisis and Japanese Diplomacy” on December 4th. The eve...

Petition

By Wyston Lawrence RB Petition October 15, 2017 There is one petition has been going on Change.org to remove Ven. Wira Thu from Facebook. He has been known as Buddhist Bin Laden. Time magazine published his image on their cover with the title of The Face of Buddhist Terror. The petitio...

Campaign

A human rights activist and genocide scholar from Burma Dr. Maung Zarni visits Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi Extermination Camp and calls on European governments - Britain, France, Sweden, Norway, Italy, Denmark, Hungary and Germany not to collaborate with the Evil - like they did with Hitler 75 ye...

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Editorial by Int'l Media

By Dhaka Tribune Editorial November 5, 2017 How can we answer to our conscience knowing full-well what the Myanmar military is doing to the innocent Rohingya minority -- not even sparing children or pregnant women? Despite the on-going humanitarian crisis involving Rohingya refugees ...

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Burma’s Government Opens The Door, but Only a Crack

Kyaw Zwa Moe

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In the three months since Burma’s Parliament swore in a quasi-civilian government on March 30, the country has seen a significant increase in visits from foreign policy makers, ministers and diplomats.

Since mid-May, at least nine senior officials and delegations have visited Burma, including US Senator John McCain, a fiery critic of the country’s ruling regime; US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Joseph Yun; a high-ranking EU delegation; acting UN Special Envoy Vijay Nambiar; and Russian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Alexey Borodavkin.

This doesn’t even include a number of visits by high-ranking officials from China, India and other neighboring countries that enjoy friendly relations with the capital city of Naypyidaw. Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd recently became the latest to travel to the country to meet with government leaders and democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi. Still others are expected to arrive in the coming weeks.

So what does this dramatic increase in diplomatic traffic mean? Is Burma finally opening up to the outside world in ways that we could hardly have imagined under the old regime? If so, we should certainly welcome this as a promising sign.

But before we read too much into Naypyidaw’s sudden enthusiasm for meeting and greeting, perhaps we should ask who isn’t on the invitation list. Not surprisingly, the new government has pointedly excluded at least one senior United Nations official: Tomas Ojea Quintana, the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights in Burma, who was turned down for a visa in late May.

Is it a coincidence that Quintana is also the person who last year initiated calls for the establishment of a UN Commission of Inquiry into the Burmese regime’s alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity? Not likely. This is a very serious issue for the new government, most of whose cabinet ministers were generals in the junta that ruled until earlier this year, so it should come as no surprise that Quintana remains persona non grata.

It is slightly more surprising, however, that Hollywood star Michelle Yeoh has also been denied entry into Burma. Yeoh, who arrived at Rangoon International Airport on June 22, was deported on the next available flight, despite having successfully entered the country last December to meet with Suu Kyi, who she portrays in an upcoming biopic.

Clearly, then, the era of blacklisting foreigners suspected of harboring sympathies for the wrong elements in Burmese society is not yet over. So it may be too soon to draw optimistic conclusions from Naypyidaw’s willingness to put out the welcome mat for select visitors.

That said, even John McCain, a longtime critic of Burma’s military rulers, noted that the mere fact that he was able to visit last month must signify something.

“It was the first time I had been allowed to return to the country in 15 years, which is one indication that this new civilian government could represent a change from the past,”he said at the conclusion of his trip, which included a meeting with Suu Kyi and other opposition leaders, as well as government officials.

Last month’s fact-finding trip by an EU delegation similarly yielded cautiously positive remarks on Burma’s direction.

“We see that something is happening in this country. We are trying to understand it a little better,” said the delegation’s mission chief, Robert Cooper, noting that President Thein Sein’s speech to Parliament, in which he talked about good governance, clean government and elimination of poverty, was encouraging.

He added, however, that even though the new regime is making the right noises, it needs to take it a step further and start addressing these issues in the real world, not just in the cavernous halls of Burma’s new legislature.

“We will be more encouraged if some of those ideas are implemented further. So far those are words and what we need to see is actions to follow,” he said.

Likewise, McCain said in a statement released after his visit: “I and other US leaders, including in Congress, will evaluate this new government’s commitment to real democratic change, and thus the willingness of the United States to make reciprocal changes, based on several tangible actions, as called for by the United Nations Human Rights Council in its Resolution on March 18, 2011.”

And this is where the matter still stands. Until there is a marked improvement in Burma’s internal situation, including the release of more than 2,000 political prisoners and moves toward reconciliation talks between the government and opposition and ethnic groups, Thein Sein’s words “and his show of openness toward foreign emissaries” will mean precious little.

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