Benjamin Zawacki, Burma researcher for Amnesty (Exclusive Interview)
The president is continuing an official visit that was postponed in May because it clashed with Aung San Suu Kyi's first foreign trip since her release from house arrest.
The trip comes at a time when the Burmese security forces are being accused of human rights violations against the minority Rohingya community in the western state of Rakhine.
Amnesty International says the number of reported incidents are on the rise.
Presenter: Richard Ewart
Speaker: Benjamin Zawacki, Burma researcher for Amnesty
ZAWACKI: Well we've had eyes and ears on the ground there for some time. This has been true since 2005 when we produced a lengthy report on the systemic discrimination and persecution suffered by the Rohingya then. And for the past five or six years since then we've been able to increase our contacts, going all the way through a recent visit that we took to Myanmar in May of this year. We weren't able to visit Rakhine State itself, but we were able to sort of update and reconnect with a lot of our contacts there.
EWART: And the evidence that is coming out of the region as far as Amnesty is concerned is that there are more of these incidents happening?
ZAWACKI: Yes by incidents we mean human rights violations being perpetrated by state security forces. The communal violence that kicked off in June of this year has largely subsided, but admittedly did affect all communities, including the ethnic Rakhine Buddhist population. What we've seen since then and largely because of the soldiers, as opposed to despite their presence, is that violations against the Muslim population generally and the Rohingya population specifically, have been on the rise. And this has mostly taken the form of massive arrests whereby several hundred mostly men and boys from the Rohingya population have been detained, and in many cases ill-treated once in detention.
EWART: Now we're talking about a group of people who basically seem to have nowhere to go. They don't appear to be wanted in Burma, they're certainly not wanted over the border in Bangladesh, so what can be done to solve the problem, or more specifically what is the Burmese government doing to solve the problem?
ZAWACKI: Well the Burmese government is doing very little. As you may be aware about ten days ago President Thein Sein suggested that the only solution really was to place these people in refugee camps. Obviously that would be by definition outside of the country, and or to resettle them to a third country somewhere else. What needs to happen is that the citizenship law of 1962 needs to be significantly amended or repealed such that Rohingyas are deemed to be citizens of the country. Myanmar is a state party to the Convention on the Right of the Child, one of only two human rights treaties to which it's decided to become a party. And that really makes very clear that all children have the right to a nationality, and yet despite being a party to that treaty, it continues to deny Rohingya children the right to a nationality.
EWART: Now it's curious that my understanding is that the talks between President Thein Sein and Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra today may focus to some degree on the fate of Burmese migrants living in Thailand. There is concern for the Burmese government about how those migrants are being treated, they want to improve living conditions. So they seem to be more concerned about Burmese living outside the country than those living inside the country?
ZAWACKI: Well in their eyes the Rohingyas living inside the country are simply not Burmese. That's of course the crux of this problem, they're deemed to be non-citizens, they're thus stateless, and so in their opinion however wrong it is legally and otherwise, it would not be inconsistent with being concerned for people they deem to be citizens living in Thailand, as opposed to people they believe are essentially, if you look at the mainstream media in the country, terrorists and traitors and invaders as the Rohingyas are being described as.
EWART: Do you think that Prime Minister Shinawatra could bring any pressure to bear? Do you think she would be inclined to do that?
ZAWACKI: She certainly could, as you may recall in late 2008, early 2009, famously or rather notoriously some boats of Rohingyas were pushed back from Thai shores into the high seas, and that created some regional controversy. So clearly Thailand does have a role to play in what should be a regional solution to this. But you ask whether she's inclined to do so, my suspicion is probably not, but we would certainly urge her and pressure her to raise this issue, yes.
EWART: And what role do you think the United States could play in all this? I note that the newly appointed ambassador to Burma has said it's too soon to scrap all sanctions. So an import ban, that is about on obviously Burmese imports into America will continue. So I mean could there be something of a trade-off here, that America could say well look, we will continue to ease sanctions if you do something about this problem?
ZAWACKI: Well yes, I mean pressure in exchange for human rights concessions or an easing of pressure rather for human rights concessions has been an approach for many, many years. It's arguable how effective that approach has been, but clearly the United States in renewing its links to the country should very much raise the political temperature here and say look, you have a population that you have systemically persecuted and discriminated against for decades, and now in the past six weeks or so your security forces under the guise of a state of emergency there have been persecuting very overtly this same ethnic and religious minority, and that needs to stop.
EWART: It's plainly very important that the international community, certainly in your view at Amnesty International, should not be swept away on a tide of optimism about Burma? It's not all good there?
ZAWACKI: No I mean very much this story if you will, one of the difficulties in getting it traction is that it runs counter to the prevailing narrative on the country, which is one as you say of optimism. And while that narrative is quite correct in the political and economic centres in the country, in many ways this story vis-à-vis the Rohingya is just the most recent illustration of the fact that these reforms have not extended to the ethnic minority areas; not to Kayin State, not to Kachin State where an ongoing internal armed conflict is taking place, and now we're seeing in Rakhine State as well with the Rohingyas these reforms seemed to be for the political and economic centres, but not for the ethnic minorities.
