March 16, 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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All levels of government administration are under authority of the military chief”

Constitutional lawyer Ko Ni explains how the General Administration Department grants the army control over all levels of the civil service.(Photo: Phyo Thiha Cho/Myanmar Now)

By Phyo Thiha Cho
February 1, 2016

YANGON -- As the National League for Democracy (NLD) prepares to take over from the army-backed government of President Thein Sein it faces the challenge of getting a handle on government institutions and possibly reforming them.

One such institution is the General Administration Department (GAD), which functions as the backbone of local administration throughout the country. The GAD falls under the Home Affairs Ministry, which is controlled by an army general in accordance with the Constitution. It pervades Myanmar’s civil service from the state and region level, down to the district, township, village and ward levels.

Created in 1972, the GAD grants Myanmar’s army chief direct, centralised control over government administration down to the lowest level. This mechanism raises questions over whether the NLD can wield effective control over government machinery. The GAD will also have to be reformed and civil service control decentralised to states and regions if ethnic minorities’ demands for a federal union are to be met.

Ko Ni, a Supreme Court lawyer who is a legal advisor to the NLD, spoke to Myanmar Now reporter Phyo Thiha Cho about the importance of bringing the GAD under civilian control and decentralising its powers.

Question: What needs to be done to address the decades-old problem of bad governance in Myanmar?

Answer: The former military leader Ne Win formulated a general administration system that is controlled by a single government agency (the GAD). All the 14 states and regions’ civil services are under the management of Ministry of Home Affairs. The same practice was kept up by the military government after the 1988 coup.

In accordance with the 2008 Constitution, there are 15 governments - the central government and the 14 state and region governments. It is a seemingly liberal administration system for respective states and regions without obvious controls of the central government.

But actually the whole country is administered by the General Administration Department and the Myanmar Police Force, which are under the Ministry of Home Affairs. Its minister is appointed by the military chief. So, all the levels of the administration system are under the authority of the military chief.

Q: There are elected officials in some of the local government units, such as on village level, working alongside the GAD, but it seems the GAD handles most of the governing and has the most authority. Is that correct? 

A: Yes, this is a highly centralised system of government. Actually, the state and region parliaments elect their government members and have their own chief ministers (appointed by the president). 

States and regions should be able to appoint their civil service staff, as well as police members. And then they would not have to depend on the central government and could control a lot of administration processes. Their respective ministries could find budget for their own government.

But as the central government is currently taking power on these processes (through the GAD), the (state and regions’) local ministries have no authority in their own areas.

Q: What should the new government do with regards to reforming the GAD if it wants to create a real federal union?

A: Most of the military members, the government and our NLD party now want to develop our country with a federal administration system. In doing so, the whole administration system must be changed. The control of General Administration Department on all the government procedures is contrary to the federal system and should be abolished.

Q: Some say at least parts of the 2008 Constitution meet the norms of a federal system. Is that right?

A: It cannot be said the 2008 Constitution has some norms of a federal system. It completely lacks federal practices. It is just a fake ‘federal constitution’ because it does not grant full authority of administration to state and regional governments. 

The Constitution said the local governments are responsible for supporting the central government’s efforts to ensure peace and rule of law. In fact, (in case of a federal union) the central government must not intervene in the administration of local governments at all. But the central government now has full authority over the whole country and the local government lacks real power.

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