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For the last 40 years, Rohingyas of Northern Arakan/Rakhine State of Myanmar (formerly Burma), have been subjected to what Amartya Sen called a "slow genocide." Since August 26, over 607,000 Rohingyas have sought refuge in Bangladesh after having fled Myanmar’s campaign of murder, arson and sexual violence, the latest of 5 waves of state-sponsored terror in the region. Today there are more Rohingyas outside of their birthplace than inside it. Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine is honored to host a panel discussion on the topic of the Rohingya crisis and its global context with Maung Zarni, a Buddhist native of Burma and genocide scholar and human rights activist, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, University Professor in the Humanities (Columbia) and luminary in the field of postcolonial and feminist studies.






August 10, 2017

Denied citizenship, forced from their homes, and subjected to cruelty; we investigate the plight of Myanmar's Rohingya.

Filmmakers: Salam Hindawi, Ali Kishk, Harri Grace

Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, has a population of around 51 million people. The Burman ethnic group constitutes around two-thirds of this figure and controls the military and the government. But there are also more than 135 ethnic groups in the country, each with their own culture.

Many of them have become internally displaced by government moves to exploit land, provoking long-standing friction. 

In fact, the conflict between Myanmar's ethnic minorities and the ruling Burmese majority represent one of the world's longest ongoing conflicts.

One group, the Muslim Rohingya, are not recognised as an ethnic nationality of Myanmar, so they suffer from arguably the worst discrimination and human rights abuses of all. The Rohingya population is somewhere between one and two million and they are living mainly in Rakhine State in the north of the country.

In this film, Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent Salam Hindawi goes to Myanmar to investigate the situation surrounding the Rohingya.

Myanmar has been tightly controlled for decades and Hindawi has enormous difficulties gaining access to certain areas of the country that the government simply doesn't want anyone from outside to see.

"I think the military and the government are blocking people from going into northern Maungdaw [a majority Rohingya town], because they have something really horrible to hide," says David Mathieson, a former director of Human Rights Watch in Myanmar and now an independent analyst and observer. 

"There are signs of this in satellite pictures and by the government's own admission and through credible reporting coming out of the area, saying there have been extensive human rights violations. They want to hide the extent of the abuses against the civilian population. It's a cover-up," he says.

In 2012, the capital of Rakhine state, Sittwe, saw a wave of violence in which hundreds of Rohingya were killed and tens of thousands forced to leave their homes and move to camps.

"Our houses were burned down by the Rakhine people," says Sander Win, a Rohingya refugee. "We stayed at a friend's house and were then sent here. I've been here for five or six years."

Muhammed Yasin, the so-called camp doctor, says: "Our lives are very difficult. All our houses have been destroyed. In cold weather, we sleep on the floor ... our children get diseases and die."

The government restricts their movement, ability to marry and access to education and healthcare. The refugees Hindawi met seemed to have been in the camp for years - and the children appeared to never have lived anywhere else.

At the heart of the Rohingya's problems lie Myanmar's citizenship laws which deny them full nationality and therefore rights. This mirrors the widespread official and public prejudice against them.

"As a Buddhist, I feel sorry for them," says Buddhist monk U Par Mount Kha. "But these Muslims living in Myanmar, we can't just look at their human rights. They're not qualified to be citizens under our citizenship law ... If we let them out, the terrorist attacks will increase in Myanmar. There are 57 Islamic countries in the world, so if the leaders of those countries would take these people into their countries, there will be no problems in our country at all. We should consider that idea."

This discrimination has created tension and in October 2016 at least nine police officers were killed and four injured in multiple assaults along Myanmar's border with Bangladesh. The attackers were identified only as "terrorists" but were believed to belong to an armed Muslim group.

There was an immediate violent backlash and the army began a siege on Maungdaw. There were reports of mass killings, torture, rape - and of tens of thousands of Rohingya sought refuge in neighbouring Bangladesh.

The government says these reports are exaggerated - but the UN has since reported a raft of human rights violations. It has even gone as far as suggesting that Myanmar's strategy may be to expel the Rohingya altogether. It announced a fact-finding mission to Myanmar but the government said in June that it would deny entry to officials taking part in the UN investigation.

Former Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi now holds the post of State Counsellor and is effectively the head of the Myanmar government. But since her days as an anti-government campaigner, she has been accused of ignoring the plight of the Rohingya in Rakhine state.

"[Aung San Suu Kyi] stays relatively silent about the abuses going on," says Mathieson. "She's really been absent when her voice as a leader needs to be heard."
By Al Jazeera
December 4, 2016

Malaysian prime minister urges foreign intervention to stop what he calls the genocide of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.



Pressure on government leaders in Myanmar is being ramped up - as Malaysia accused its neighbour of committing genocide against the Rohingya Muslim minority.

Government leaders in Buddhist majority Myanmar deny the ethnic cleansing of people they consider illegal immigrants – and "terrorists".

Rohingya gunmen are blamed for the killing of nine policemen in October. Since then, dozens of Rohingya have been killed and tens of thousands forced from their homes in a military crackdown.

Some soldiers are accused of gang rape, torture and destroying entire villages in Rakhine state.

The Myanmar government denies the allegations but has banned journalists from visiting Rohingya areas.

Why has there been little international action so far? And why hasn't Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi spoken out?

Presenter: Sami Zeidan

Guests:

Tun Khin - President of the Burmese Rohingya Organisation in the UK


Maung Zarni - Genocide Documentation Centre of Cambodia and human rights activist




November 11, 2016

In recent years, democratic reforms have swept through Myanmar, a country that for decades was ruled by a military junta. As the reforms took hold, however, things were growing progressively worse for the Rohingya, a heavily persecuted ethnic Muslim minority concentrated in the country's western state of Rakhine.

The 2012 gang rape and murder of a Buddhist woman by three Muslim men ignited violent riots in which hundreds were killed as Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya attacked each other. In the following months, tens of thousands of Rohingya were rounded up and forced to live in squalid camps; Human Rights Watch deemed the attacks crimes against humanity that amounted to ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya. Thousands of Rohingya have since attempted to leave the country, fueling the region's intricate and brutal human trafficking network.

VICE News traveled to Myanmar to investigate the violence and discrimination faced by the country's Muslim minority.





Dr Maung Zarni comments on Kofi Annan Commission and Myanmar Genocide of Rohingya, Al Jazeera English News Hour, 7 September 2016

By Bian Elkatib and Nikita Mandhani
Medill
March 7, 2016

The Rohingyas are a primarily Muslim ethnic minority group from Burma, a country in Southeast Asia that is also known as Myanmar.

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, media coverage of the Rohingya refugee crisis has been scarce.




The migration of Rohingyas from Myanmar and Bangladesh is “described as the biggest mass exodus since the Vietnam War” in the UNHCR’s study guide on the Rohingyas.

Their plight has captured the attention of President Barack Obama, the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

By Al Jazeera
February 2, 2016


Inside Story - Is Myanmar's transition to democracy tainted by the persecution of Rohingya Muslims?








Myanmar's first democratically-elected parliament in decades is being called historic. But it's also the first Parliament that does not include a single Muslim legislator. More than a million Muslim Rohingya, who do not have citizenship, were prevented from voting in November's election.They are among the most persecuted people on earth. Hundreds were killed during violence between Muslim and Buddhist communities in 2012. Muslim-owned businesses and homes were burned.Since then, 140,000 Rohingya have been forced into refugee camps. Tens of thousands more have fled from the country on overcrowded boats.So, what will Myanmar's new mainly civilian government mean for the Rohingya?Presenter: Jane Dutton Guests: Kyaw Zwa Moe - The Irrawaddy News Magazine in Naypyidaw. Adam Cooper - Myanmar Country Representative at the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue in Yangon.Tun Khin - President of Burmese Rohingya Organisation, UK.

Dr Zarni analyses Myanmar Leaders' talk BBC World TV, 6 Dec 2015, 11:10 GMT





A family stands outside their hut in one of the unregistered IDP camps, May 24, 2015 in Sittwe, Burma. Since 2012, the minority group of the Rohingya people are forced to live in IDP camps, in Rakhaing State in western Burma. (GETTY IMAGES/JONAS GRATZER)

November 3, 2015

A new film released by Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit has revealed Myanmar state documents showing the use of hate speech and the incitement of anti-Muslim riots and sentiments. These documents, along with eyewitness accounts and expert testimony, have led a clinic at Yale University Law School to say there is “strong evidence” the government of Myanmar is coordinating a genocide against the Rohingya people. The clinic is also calling on the UN Human Rights Council for an “urgent, comprehensive and independent investigation.” 



Discussed by:

Phil Rees @JPGREES
Al Jazeera Investigative Unit

Nay San Lwin @nslwin
Rohingya Blogger

Thomas MacManus @tmacmanus
International State Crime Initiative

2-Minutes Speech dedicated to Rohingya victims of Myanmar's Genocide















By Anealla Safdar, Phil Rees
October 26, 2015

Al Jazeera investigation reveals government triggered deadly communal violence for political gain.


Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit has uncovered what amounts to "strong evidence" of a genocide coordinated by the Myanmar government against the Rohingya people, according to an assessment by Yale University Law School.

The Lowenstein Clinic spent eight months assessing evidence from Myanmar, including documents and testimony provided by Al Jazeera and the advocacy group Fortify Rights.
"Given the scale of the atrocities and the way that politicians talk about the Rohingya, we think it's hard to avoid a conclusion that intent [to commit genocide] is present," concluded the clinic.

Exclusive evidence obtained by Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit and the advocacy group Fortify Rights reveals the government has been triggering communal violence for political gain by inciting anti-Muslim riots, using hate speech to stoke fear among the Myanmarese about Muslims, and offering money to hardline Buddhist groups who threw their support behind the leadership.

As the first fully contested general election in 25 years approaches on November 8, eyewitness and confidential documentary evidence obtained by Al Jazeera reveals that the ruling, military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) has attempted to marginalise Muslims and target the Rohingya.

Al Jazeera has made several requests for comment to the Myanmar President's office and government spokespeople but has not received any response.

Genocide Agenda

The investigation, presented in a new documentary, Genocide Agenda, consults legal and diplomatic experts on whether the government’s campaign amounts to systematic extermination.

The University of London’s Professor Penny Green, director of the International State Crime Initiative (ISCI)m said: "President Thein Sein (USDP) is prepared to use hate speech for the government's own ends, and that is to marginalise, segregate, diminish the Muslim population inside Burma.

"It's part of a genocidal process."

An independent report by the ISCI concluded that riots in 2012, which saw conflicts between ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims erupt, were pre-planned. The violence saw scores killed, and tens of thousands of people displaced after several thousand homes were burned.

Watch Al Jazeera's 'Genocide Agenda' investigation here


"It wasn’t communal violence," said Green. "It was planned violence. Express buses were organised” to bring Rakhine Buddhists from outlying areas to take part in the aggression.

"Refreshments, meals were provided," she said. "It had to be paid by somebody. All of this suggests that it was very carefully planned."

Former United Nations Rapporteur on Myanmar Tomás Ojea Quintana, meanwhile, called for President Thein Sein of the USDP and the ministers for home affairs and immigration to be investigated for genocide.

Stirring hatred

Genocide Agenda presents evidence that Myanmar government agents were involved in sparking anti-Muslim riots.

An official military document, a copy of which has been obtained by Al Jazeera, shows the use of hate speech, claiming the Myanmarese are in danger of being 'devoured' by Muslims. 

Al Jazeera is releasing the documents with translations alongside the documentary.

The investigation also reveals how the government uses hired thugs to stir hatred.

A former member of Myanmar’s feared Military Intelligence service described how she witnessed agent provocateurs from the army provoke problems with Muslims.

"The army controlled these events from behind the scenes. They were not directly involved," she said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "They paid money to people from outside."

Among other findings is a confidential document warning of 'nationwide communal riots' that was deliberately sent to local townships to incite anti-Muslim fears.

Further evidence from and sources within the Sangha, or monkhood, reveals that monks who challenged military rule in the 2007 Saffron Revolution were offered money to join anti-Muslim, pro-government groups.

While there has been evidence that Myanmar’s military rulers deliberately provoked communal unrest during the years of dictatorship, until now there has been no evidence that this continued after the transtion towards a partial democracy.

Matt Smith, founder of the advocacy group Fortify Rights, said that taken as a whole, the evidence indicates this trend is resurfacing. 

"In the case of the Rohingya, in the case of Rakhine State, that could amount to the crime of genocide," Smith said. "Several of the most powerful people in the country should reasonably be the subject of an international investigation into this situation of Rakhine State."

Disenfranchised Muslims

In the November general election, the USDP is running against numerous ethnic and other parties, but primarily against the National League for Democracy (NLD), led by Aung Sang Suu Kyi.

The vote is seen as a crucial next stage in steps towards full democracy.

Reform in Myanmar has been underway since 2010 when military rule was replaced by a military-backed civilian government.

But since the military junta stepped aside in 2011, hardline Buddhist groups have taken advantage of liberalisation to gain influence in the country's politics.

Muslim candidates have been largely excluded from the upcoming election, in what also appears to be an attempt to assuage hardliners. 

Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims were disenfranchised earlier this year when the government withdrew the temporary citizenship cards that allowed them to vote.

Monks in the audience at the Association for the Protection of Race and Religion’s two-year anniversary conference in Insein Township. (Photo: Steve Tickner / The Irrawaddy)

Muslim Prisoners deliberately excluded from Myanmar Preisdent Thein Sein's Amnesty

Date: August 1, 2015

Location: Insein Ma Ba Tha Central, Rangoon, Burma




Press Release of Oslo Conference: here

Myanmar's Genocide of Rohingya, Quintana, Penny Green and Zarni - Part 1 of 2


Quintana Penny Green Zarni Human Rights Conversation - Part 2 of 2


George Soros: Myanmar's Rohingya Persecution parallels Nazi genocide


Archbishop Desmond Tutu calls for an end to Myanmar's Slow Genocide of Rohingya


Jose Ramos-Horta calls for End of Myanmar's Persecution of Rohingya


The Plenary with Researchers on Myanmar's Genocide of Rohingya - Part 1 of 3


The Plenary with Researchers on Myanmar's Genocide of Rohingya - Part 2 of 3


The Plenary with Researchers on Myanmar's Genocide of Rohingya - Part 3 of 3


Daw Khin Hla, retired Rohingya teacher and refugee, appeals for end to Myanmar's genocide


Oslo Conference Opening Session Interfaith Prayers for peace and opening remarks


Best-Known Burmese Dissident Singer Mun Awng performs for the Rohingya


Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire: Message of Solidarity with Myanmar's Rohingya


Tun Dr Mahathir Mohammad on Myanmar's Crimes against Humanity against Rohingya


Q & A from Research Plenary on Myanmar's genocide and beginning of Policy Plenary, Oslo Conference




By Michael Murty
The Rakyat Post
June 11, 2015

KUALA LUMPUR -- The Rakyat Post met several Rohingya victims of the death camps in Perlis and Thailand who managed to secure their freedom from their captives.

The men, women and many children, were crammed into a small shophouse in Jalan Bukit Kemuning, Selayang, but were in good spirits.

One of the death camp victims, Aminah Khatu, 27, said she left Myanmar because of the ongoing fighting there.

“Before I left, they started burning down our homes. People kept saying ‘go to Malaysia, there people live happily’. This is why I got on the boat.

“I got on a small boat for a few days before being transferred to a ferry where we were left at sea for two months. Later on, we were transferred into a small boat to reach Thailand.

“I was in the Thailand jungles for a month.”

She said the conditions in the camp in the jungle were terrible and the ground they were placed on was always watery.

“My children felt sick and one of them passed away there after he fell ill.

“I called my husband who was in KL at that time and told him that one of our children had passed away so he must get us out of the camp quick.”

She said her husband told her that he did not have money to do so immediately.

“My husband told me he did not have enough money, but he later managed to gather RM5,000 by borrowing it from his friends.

“I passed the money to the agent and he took it, but he still refused to let us go. He cheated us and we remained in the camp for another 15 days.

“After that, my husband had to find another RM6,000 and paid that sum to them before they released us.”

She said her experience at the camp was horrible and they fed them very little.

“We had nothing there. They fed us a little rice and curry and a little jelly.

“When someone died, they just threw the body in the jungle. Those who were very sickly were also thrown into the jungle to die.”

She hoped that help will find them now that they are in Kuala Lumpur.

“I hope we can get some help because we have nothing at all and I can’t even feed my kids.”

Rohingya children in Malaysia looking for a better future. — TRP pic by Arif Kartono

Aminah reached Malaysia with only 4 children after losing one of her sons (7 years), who passed away at the camp in Thailand. She is now with her two daughters (6 and 2 years) and two sons (5 and 4 years).

Khleta Bahasir, 23, who was one of the victims that stayed at the death camps in Thailand and Malaysia, said she got out of Myanmar by boat. After three days, she was transferred to a ferry.

The journey on the ferry lasted a month and after that she was transferred to another small boat. After three days, she reached Thailand where she had to go on foot.

“After I reached Thailand, they made us get on another small ferry and was later given to the agents (traffickers) and brought to the jungle.

“I was in the jungle for three months and I was placed in a camp on a hill for 7 days. I do not know where I was and which part of Malaysia I was brought to later,” she said while her children sat with her.

She said when she was placed in the camps in Thailand, the “agent” beat her up and made her starve because they wanted money from her.

“These camps had basic facilities and they just buried those who died in holes near us.

“They asked me to ask my family back in my village for money. My husband was with me at that time, but later they separated us and now I do not know where he is.

“I pleaded with them and I told them I did not have money. They made me ask the people at my village for help.

“I eventually paid them RM7,500 for my freedom after the people at my village sent me the money.”

She hoped that they would get some pity from Malaysians and get some help.

“I do not have a place to stay and I need to feed my children. I do not have my husband with me any more as I do not know where he is or what happened to him after they separated us at this camp.”

Khleta is staying at the temporary shelter with her two children, a son (5 years) and daughter (1 year 6 months).


By Veronica Pedrosa 
May 17, 2015

Passengers aboard crowded ship say traffickers and captain abandoned them without food or water, and left them to die.



A boat filled with around 380 men, women and children from Western Myanmar and Bangladesh was found off the coast of Sathun Province, Thailand, last week. Those on board say the ship's traffickers and captain escaped, leaving them without food or water. 

From a neighbouring vessel, Al Jazeera spoke to some of the Rohingya migrants on board. 

Abul Bakaa, one of the passengers, says that people were starving and suffering from diarrhea and were dying because they did not have food to eat or clean water. 

"Yesterday one man jumped off the boat and drowned because he went crazy. At least ten people have jumped ship. One died while some of the others made it to nearby fishing boats," Bakaa shouted from the crowded vessel. 

Many aboard said they wanted to go to Malaysia where their family members were. 

Another migrant told Al Jazeera she boarded the boat because she had nowhere else to go. 

"I don’t have a home or anything left," she says. "The Rakhine killed my mother and my relatives. The people in the village said they were going to Malaysia, so I made the decision to follow them." 

Al Jazeera's Veronica Pedrosa reports.

May 13, 2015

Hundreds of refugees have been rescued off the coast of Indonesia and Malaysia as they were fleeing persecution.



Hundreds of Rohingya refugees were rescued at sea as they were fleeing persecution.

This minority group has been denied citizenship in Myanmar, where they were subject to a heavy crackdown. Many of them have been killed and thousands were forced to leave the country.

The refugees were rescued off the coast of Malaysia and Indonesia after captains and smugglers abandoned the ships, leaving passengers to their fate

But who is really behind the Rohingya's sufferings?

Presenter: Mike Hanna

Guests:

Phil Robertson, deputy director for Asia at Human Rights Watch.

Maung Zarni, Burmese scholar and human rights activist.

Charles Santiago, member of parliament in Malaysia and chair of the ASEAN parliamentarian for Human Rights.

By AJ Plus
Al Jazeera America
May 12, 2015

According to rights groups, the minority Muslim community is the target of an ongoing ethnic cleansing

The Rohingya are an ethnic minority that has lived in Myanmar for generations — and according to Human Rights Watch, they're victims of an ongoing ethnic cleansing.

Myanmar recently emerged from half a century of military dictatorship, but democracy hasn't come for all of its citizens. The Rohingya have been burned out of their homes, massacred, held in de facto open-air prisons and were recently excluded from the country's first census in 30 years.

Facing abuse and marginalization, many Rohingya have fled to neighboring Southeast Asian countries aboard crowded wooden boats navigated by smugglers. The journey by sea has proven dangerous, and at times deadly, for thousands.




May 10, 2015

The seeds of hatred planted in Burma (Myanmar) have fruited a full scale misery for Rohingya Muslims, making them, according to the UN, “the world's most persecuted minority.”

Mahi Ramakrishnan, a Malaysian with Rohingya origins, utilized her nine years of experience helping Rohingya Muslim refugees in Malaysia to produce this thirty-minute documentary. The documentary discusses some fundamental questions about the origin of the Rohingyas, nature of relations with other minorities in Burma, the nature of the ruling regime, the state policy towards minorities, the status of the Rohingyas in neighboring countries where they took refuge, among other questions.
Seminar in Sweden: The Rohingya Crisis in Myanmar – 2015 Elections and Beyond 
February 11, 2015
Civil Rights Defenders, Stockholm, Sweden




Dissecting Myanmar's reforms, peace negotiations and Rohingya genocide, Swedish Institute of International Affairs, 10 Feb 2015



What happened to the peace and democratization process in Burma?

Optimism was high when the military junta was replaced by a democratically elected government in 2011. The Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners were released, and sanctions by the EU and USA were lifted as a peace process was initiated to end more than 75 years of civil war. 

As the country is about to hold new elections in 2015, the picture is changing. Critical voices are being censured, the peace process has come to a halt and violence in the conflicts and against the Muslim minority Rohingya is increasing, forcing thousands to flee from their homes. 

What is happening in the country, and how will the situation develop in 2015? Will the elections be held at all? Will the ethnical violence continue, and what can the rest of the world do? 

On February 10, 2015 the Swedish Institute of International Affairs (UI), in collaboration with the Swedish Rohingya Association, arranged a seminar on the developments in Burma (Myanmar), and the situation in the country. 

Speakers here: 
Marte Nilsen, historian of religions and Senior Researcher at the Peace Research Institute of Oslo, PRIO. 
Maung Zarni, Visiting Senior Research Fellow with the University of Malaya Center for Democracy and Elections, Scientific Collaborator with Harvard University Global Equity Initiative, and Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics. 
Joakim Kreutz, Research Fellow at UI. 

The discussion was moderated by Mats Karlsson, Director at UI.



    • Rohingya Exodus