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...

Video News

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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...

Event

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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 ...

Interview

Open Letter

RB Poem

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Aung San Suu Kyi put to the test


May 20, 2016

Washington, it seems, is not fooled by developments in Burma. It has just announced a further easing of sanctions, but has kept in place bans on around 100 companies and individuals who are linked to the armed forces. Targeting the country’s military, who ruled ruthlessly for half a century, sends the message that Burma’s new democracy is still seen as being under threat.

The White House has been putting a positive spin on the new removal of sanctions on 10 state-owned companies involved in banking, lumber and natural resources. This has been done at the request of Aung San Suu Kyi, who although she is barred from holding the presidency is effectively the country’s leader. But “The Lady”, as the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate is known affectionately by her supporters, has also been sent a message by Washington, which is that it considers the restoration of human rights in Burma to be still a work in progress. In particular, the Americans share the deep concerns of the Muslim world about the treatment of the Rohingya Muslims, persecuted and made stateless by the fallen military junta.

Suu Kyi made little reference to the fate of the Rohingya and the country’s other Muslims during her electoral campaign, even though a key plank of her New Democracy Party’s campaign was respect for democratic freedom. At the time, her aides briefed that the subject was too delicate to form a specific part of her platform, but that she would address the issue as soon as the election was won. Well, the election was won in November and six months later the Rohingya are still waiting for that promised action. 

Suu Kyi’s people are now arguing that the issue cannot be taken in isolation. Burma has been plagued by rebellions among other minorities and there is a wider campaign to bring years of violence to an end. Last year, draft peace deals were signed with 16 rebel groups. These have to be worked through and made permanent. This is, however, to ignore one glaring truth.

The Rohingya never rebelled against anyone. It was they who were attacked by their neighbors egged on by fanatical Buddhist monks. The police and army stood by and did nothing while Rohingya Muslims were assaulted, robbed, murdered and raped. In an act of supreme cynicism, the military rulers then forced the victims into concentration camps “for their own protection”.

This brutality set in train a flood of refugees seeking to escape from persecution. The authorities quietly encouraged this tide of despair while profiting from the supply of rickety boats to carry the refugees out to sea.

Suu Kyi has an immediate solution at hand. The Rohingya, who have lived in Burma for generations, have been denied Burmese nationality. This exclusion has underpinned their appalling treatment. While she is still at the peak of her powers and popularity, Suu Kyi should recognize the Rohingya as Burmese citizens and grant them equality under Burmese law. Buddhist bigots will not like it and the military will mutter, but there is surely no better time than now to make this crucially important move. If Suu Kyi fails to act, then Washington should lead the international community in threatening a return of sanctions. The peace credentials of the widely-admired Nobel Laureate are being put to the test.

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