By Venus Upadhayaya 

Epoch Times

March 8, 2014

Eight years ago Deelara traveled by train from Burma to Bangladesh, then she took a bus from the border of Bengal to India’s northern-most state of Jammu and Kashmir.

“We couldn’t stay there as they did cruel things to our young boys … We had no food,” Deelara, 15, said.

She is one of many of the Rohingya ethnic minority who had to flee Burma. Rohingyas are religiously and linguistically related to the Chittagong ethnic group in Bangladesh and are called Bengalis in Burma.

But living in India is not easy for her either.

“In Myanmar (Burma), the Rohingya are told ‘Bengali, go back to your country!’ and in Bangladesh, they are told: ‘Burmese, go back to your country!’” said Chris Lewa of the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development.

“Their plight can be summed up with the three questions that Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh often asked themselves: ‘Who am I? Where should I go? What should I do?’”

In a statement to the Working Group of Minorities of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, Lewa describes Rohingyas lack of rights.

“The government has identified ‘135 national races’ and the Rohingya do not feature among them. Their present legal status amounts, in international law, to de facto statelessness,’” Lewa said.

Such a policy according to Lewa has encouraged intercommunal tensions and has led to two massive exoduses of 250,000 Rohingyas from Burma into Bangladesh in 1978 and in 1991–1992.

Of those 250,000 only 20,000 are registered, and they are living in appalling conditions in refugee camps in Bangladesh and around 200,000 are surviving illegally in the country. Thousands of these refugees from Burma have been illegally transported to India, Malaysia, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia.

Organizations working with Rohingyas said it’s important to introduce constitutional reforms to end the exodus and persecution of Rohingyas.

Andrea Gittleman, senior legislative counsel for Physicians for Human Rights, an organization that has been documenting human rights violations against ethnic and religious minorities in Burma for the past 10 years said, “The Burmese government should back such reforms with credible efforts to dispel hate speech. At a minimum, Burmese leaders should publicly and unequivocally condemn all acts of violence against ethnic or religious minorities.”

The nonprofit organization, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) reports 140,000 Rohingyas have been displaced from Burma since June 2012 in various spikes of violence.

“We want to go back but they will kill us. They burn our mosques and don’t even allow us to say namaz (Muslim prayer),” Deelara said.

Escape from the country is also marred with perils. On Nov. 2, 2013, a boat carrying 70 Rohingyas from Burma to Bangladesh sank off the Burmese coast according to a PHR report.

“Dozens remain missing, while the very few survivors were returned to the same camps they had risked their lives to flee,” the report states.

Appalling Conditions in India and Bangladesh

Deelara lives with seven other families on a small piece of vacant land in the Narwal area of Jammu. Their homes are structures made of wooden planks, dirty old cloth, and tarpaulin sheets. There are two plastic chairs in a corner and a huge gunny bag of rags is lying in another corner. Just outside on the road a Rohingya Muslim woman, wearing a dirty shawl on her head, is washing clothes by a broken water pipe.

According to Suchita Mehta, a public information officer of UNHRC, the U.N. refugee agency, there are 4,000 Rohingya refugees and 2,000 Rohingya asylum seekers in India. “They are living in various locations across India, including Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Jammu, Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh,” Mehta said.

About 3,700 Rohingya refugees and asylum seekers in Jammu registered with UNHRC are probably living in much better conditions than others living in Bangladesh and Burma. According to Relief International, the Rohingyas living in official refugee camps in Bangladesh have no permission to work or leave the camp.

Deelara said, “We have at least been offered chairs to sit here. But in Burma and Bangladesh they don’t even offer us that.”

Deelara was married in India three years ago, a right for which she could have faced many restrictions in Burma. However that also meant she was married when she was only 12. Her husband works 358 miles away in Delhi as a construction worker and visits her once in a month.

“The Rohingya find themselves in a foreign urban environment with limited education, they often work as daily wage laborers, the low pay of which may not cover their basic needs,” Mehta said.

Rohingya women and girls are especially vulnerable to exploitation and abuse.

“We earn by rag picking. Some days we earn 50 or 100 ($1.60) rupees, sometimes it’s only 20,” said Naseema, Deelara’s neighbor.

Outside the settlement on the footpath, an old Rohingya woman stretches her hand out asking for money, while the young Deelara stands and looks away.

Living in India, Deelara is not aware of the changing political situation in Burma. She’s not even aware that Aung San Suu Kyi is no longer under house arrest and thinks that if allowed to “work” Suu Kyi will bring all Rohingyas back to Burma. But that would require building strong democratic institutions, which is a long-term process.

Investigate Navy Trafficking of Rohingya, Not Phuketwan Reporters

By Human Rights Watch

March 7, 2014

New York – Thai authorities should not bring criminal defamation and computer crimes charges against two journalists who reported on abuses by the Thai navy against ethnic Rohingya migrants, Human Rights Watch said today. Alan Morison and Chutima Sidasathian of the Phuketwan online newspaper were told to report to the Phuket provincial public prosecution office on March 10, 2014, where they might be formally charged.

The Thai navy, which filed the case, should cease its efforts to silence the journalists and instead permit civilian authorities to conduct a thorough and impartial investigation into alleged trafficking and other serious mistreatment of Rohingya “boat people” by navy personnel.

“The Thai navy’s heavy handed response to news reports of mistreatment of migrants shows a startling disregard for rights abuses,” said Brad Adams, Asia director. “Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra should order prosecutors to end the case against the Phuketwan journalists and instead investigate serious abuses against Rohingya boat people.”

Possible charges include criminal defamation and violation of the Computer Crimes Act. The navy has cited a paragraph in Phuketwan on July 17, 2013, citing an investigative report by Reuters alleging some navy officials “work systematically with smugglers to profit from the surge in fleeing Rohingya,” and that they earn about 2,000 baht (US$62) per Rohingya “for spotting a boat or turning a blind eye.”

If convicted for criminal defamation, Morison and Sidasathian could be imprisoned for up to two years. Under the Computer Crimes Act, each faces a maximum of five years in prison and a fine of 100,000 baht ($3,100). Journalists from the Reuters news agency could face similar charges connected to the original article cited in the Phuketwan article, but they currently do not face charges.

Morison told the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand on March 5, 2014, that the prosecutor informed him that if he and Sidasathian were charged on March 10 they would likely be brought to court later that day to be arraigned. Morison and Sidasathian have publicly stated they that will serve a period of pretrial detention, rather than immediately post bail, to protest what they consider unjust legal actions.

Human Rights Watch, and an increasing number of international legal experts, believe that criminal defamation laws should be abolished because criminal penalties are always disproportionate punishments for reputational harm and infringe on free expression. Criminal defamation laws are open to easy abuse, and frequently result in harsh consequences, including imprisonment. As the repeal of criminal defamation laws in an increasing number of countries shows, such laws are not necessary for the purpose of protecting reputations since civil defamation remedies are sufficient.

The Johannesburg Principles on National Security, Freedom of Expression and Access to Information, an influential set of principles issued in 1996 by international legal experts, state that “No one may be punished for criticizing or insulting … public officials, … unless the criticism or insult was intended and likely to incite imminent violence.”

“Prosecutors should be investigating the poor treatment of Rohingya boat people instead of targeting journalists,” Adams said. “Prime Minister Yingluck and her government should not allow the navy to play ‘shoot the messenger’ and curtail media reporting on government abuses.”

By Lawi Weng

The Irrawaddy 

March 7, 2014

RANGOON — Burma President Thein Sein has ordered a new commission and the country’s highest court to draft a proposed so-called “protection of race and religion” law, which could include a controversial measure to restrict interfaith marriage, according to lawmakers.

A petition signed by about 1.3 million people has called for the president to pass into law a version of a bill drafted by lawyers on behalf of leading monks in the nationalist 969 movement.

If enacted without amendment, the bill—which is thought to be targeted at Muslims in Burma—would require Buddhist women to get permission from their parents and local government officials before marrying a man from another faith. It also includes restrictions on converting to another religion, a limit to the number of children people can have, and measures to stop polygamy—which is already strictly illegal in Burma.

Late last month Thein Sein, without formally expressing support for the bill, forwarded it to Parliament for discussion, but Speaker Shwe Mann immediately sent it back, insisting that it was the executive branch’s responsibility to draft laws, then pass them to Parliament to debate.

On Friday, Shwe Mann announced in Parliament that he had received a new letter regarding the bill, according to Pe Than, a lawmaker from the Rakhine Nationalities Development Party.

“He [Thein Sein] informed Parliament that his government will form a commission to draft a [protection of race and religion] law,” he said.

However, in a move that baffled lawmakers, Thein Sein has reported decided that sections of the law covering certain issues would be drafted by the Union Supreme Court.

“His commission will take two issues: that one man is only able to have one wife and converting to another religion. The other two issues— interfaith marriage and restricting population—he will let the Union [Supreme] Court draft,” Pe Than said.

He said the move to have a branch of the judiciary draft a law was unprecedented, and that he did not understand why the president has chosen to do so.

Pe Than said that the law would address the fear among many Burmese Buddhists that the country’s dominant religion is under threat from Muslims. Tension between Buddhists and Muslims has run high since inter-communal violence broke out in Rakhine State in mid-2012, and later spread around the country.

“For me, I will not block this law as we all need to protect our race,” he said. “But one thing about protection of race is that while we need to protect our fence, we should not disturb other people’s fence.”

Mi Myint Than, lawmaker from the Mon Regional Democracy Party, confirmed the president’s decision.

“Usually, most draft laws come from the government administration. But on this issue, the president just sent it to the Parliament [originally],” she said, adding that it was more appropriate for a government ministry to draft the law.

“It’s a little strange. I can’t understand why,” she added.

Presidential spokesman Ye Htut last week commented on the earlier forwarding of the proposal to Parliament. On the sidelines of a meeting in Naypyidaw on March 1, Ye Htut told The Irrawaddy that the president’s wish in doing so was for Parliament to consider the issue, since so many people had expressed support for it, and not to make any political gain.

“According to our Constitution, no one from any political party can take political advantage from a religious issue,” he said.

By Jonah Fisher

BBC News

March 6, 2014

Getting into Aung Mingalar as a journalist is relatively simple. We visited a couple of government offices, had a letter written for us and then after having our documents forensically examined, were allowed in.

For the Buddhists who dominate the Rakhine capital, Sittwe, it is even easier. Their buses, rickshaws and motorbikes just get waved through by the police. Many even use the main road as a short cut just to reach another part of town.

For the residents of Aung Mingalar, however, things are very different. 

The 4,000 Muslim Rohingya who live inside are effectively prisoners - restricted first by the police checkpoints and then by the Rakhine Buddhist community that surrounds them on all sides and constantly looks on. 

"The police will not allow us out, because if they do, they know we will be beaten by the Rakhine [Buddhists]," a young Rohingya man said.

Three years ago the Muslim and Buddhist communities in Sittwe lived fairly amicably side by side. Then in 2012 there were several outbreaks of sectarian violence and most of Sittwe's Muslims fled into camps to the north-west of the town. 

Both communities were affected, but the vast majority of those killed and displaced were Rohingya. Stateless and unwanted by either Myanmar (also known as Burma) or Bangladesh, it is thought that about 800,000 of them live in Rakhine state, their movements and rights heavily restricted.

When violence swept through Sittwe, the people of Aung Mingalar were among the few Muslims who decided to stay in their homes. Their neighbourhood quickly turned into a Rohingya ghetto, wrapped in barbed wire and over-run by security. 

Cut off from the outside world, it is now a miserable open-air prison. Despite its central location, there are no regular aid deliveries here and just getting money to buy food is a struggle for many. 

Prior to the violence, Maung Ni was a successful tailor working mainly for Buddhist customers. Now he sits in a shack with a leaky roof, sewing on a machine that a friend has kindly lent him. 

"I've sold everything I can," he said. "My bicycle, my rickshaw - I just don't know what to do next." 

Healthcare 'backbone' 

Twice a week, the people of Aung Mingalar club together to make a shopping trip. On Wednesdays and Sundays, six Rohingya pay 20,000 kyat ($20, £12) each in return for a security escort from the police. 

There is a big market just round the corner, but such is the local animosity that they must leave Sittwe and go to the camps for displaced Rohingya to buy more supplies. 

There is also a hospital, Sittwe General, just a few blocks away. But for now the residents of Aung Mingalar have no access to doctors or healthcare.

The medical aid agency Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF) used to visit regularly and, if necessary, would arrange an escort to one of the 10 beds in the hospital designated for Rohingya patients. 

That has now stopped after a well-organised campaign by Buddhist groups led to the government suspending MSF across Rakhine state. It has left a big hole in the international aid effort. 

"MSF has been the backbone of the entire international health response in Rakhine. They have been providing healthcare to over half a million people," said Mark Cutts, head of the United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs Myanmar office. 

Few of the aid agencies operating in Rakhine will speak openly about their work. 

MSF's "crimes" in the eyes of their critics are two-fold. Firstly, by stressing that they assist people on the basis of needs rather than over simple even-handedness, many Buddhists believe the charity has favoured the Muslims over them. 

Secondly, in what may have been the final straw, MSF released information corroborating reports that Rohingya communities had been under attack. 

In January the government vehemently denied that there had been violence near the border town of Maungdaw, only for MSF to contradict them by saying their clinic had treated 22 people fleeing the area. 

"If MSF were just doing their job - they wouldn't have to leave," said Than Thun, one of the organisers of the anti-MSF demonstrations. 

"But MSF kept getting the wrong information about these Bengalis, or Rohingya, and giving it to the international community. They have inflamed the conflict here."

During the day we spent in Aung Mingalar, we saw a sick baby girl, her ailing mother and several elderly people badly in need of medicine. For now there is no one to see them or offer treatment. 

The Burmese government say they will send medics from outside Rakhine state to fill the gap left by MSF's suspension. But after years as one the world's most poorly-funded healthcare systems, it is not equipped to move quickly, and the doctors may still not be accepted in Muslim communities. 

Thoughts are now turning as to whether the suspension might in fact be temporary and once emotions have cooled, MSF could be quietly allowed back. 

It is far from certain that the Buddhists will allow it to happen. 

Segregation has brought a degree of stability, but the deep scars from recent violence remain raw and show little sign of healing.

By Stuart Grudgings

Reuters

March 6, 2014

Human traffickers have kept hundreds of Rohingya Muslims captive in houses in northern Malaysia, beating them, depriving them of food, and demanding a ransom from their families, according to detailed accounts by the victims.

The accounts given to Reuters suggest that trafficking gangs are shifting their operations into Malaysia as Thai authorities crack down on jungle camps near the border that have become a prison for the Muslim asylum seekers fleeing persecution in Myanmar.

Police in the northern Malaysian states of Penang and Kedah have conducted several raids on the houses in recent months, including an operation in February that discovered four Rohingya men bound together with metal chains in an apartment.

But Reuters' interviews reveal a trafficking network on a far bigger scale than authorities have acknowledged so far, with brokers herding groups of hundreds of Rohingya at night over the border and holding them captive in the Southeast Asian country.

The abuse in Malaysia is the latest oppression against the Rohingya. They are mostly stateless Muslims from western Myanmar, where clashes with majority Buddhists since the middle of 2012 have killed hundreds and forced about 140,000 into squalid camps.

Many of the tens of thousands of Rohingya fleeing Myanmar by boat have fallen into the hands of human traffickers at sea who then hold them hostage in remote Thai camps near the border with Malaysia until relatives pay thousands of dollars to release them, according to a Reuters investigation published on Dec 5.

Some were beaten and killed, others held in cages where they suffered malnutrition. The Reuters investigation found Thai authorities were sometimes working with the traffickers in an effort to push the Rohingyas out of Thailand because immigration detention camps were getting overwhelmed with asylum-seekers.

In January, Thai police said they rescued hundreds of Rohingya Muslims from a remote camp in southern Thailand, a raid they said was prompted by the Reuters investigation, and had launched a manhunt for the "kingpins" who routinely smuggle humans through southern Thailand to Malaysia with impunity.

The intensified trafficking of Rohingyas into Muslim-majority Malaysia threatens to undermine its anti-human-trafficking record, which is at imminent risk of being downgraded by the United States to a par with North Korea.

It also highlights the porous state of Malaysia's 500 km (310 mile)-long northern border, with thousands of Rohingya entering unhindered at a time when the government has taken a tough public stance against illegal immigration.

For the desperate Rohingya, Malaysia is the promised land, where at least 30,000 already live. The country does not give them full refugee rights, but has allowed them to stay and register with the United Nations. Thousands have picked up work at the bottom rungs of the informal economy.

"NOW WE DON'T HAVE LAND"

Mohamed Einous, a 19-year-old Rohingya from Buthidaung township, felt relief sweep over him as he scrambled over a border wall in a group of 270 refugees in mid-February, about a month after he left Myanmar. The crossing took place at night using two ladders supplied by his captors.

"I believed I could make money here," Einous told Reuters.

His hope of freedom was short-lived. Handed to a new gang of brokers on the Malaysia side of the border, the Rohingya were packed into vans and driven to a house with blacked-out windows the traffickers said was in the border town of Padang Besar.

Once there, the brokers beat Einous with long wooden sticks and threatened to kill him if he did not secure a payment of $2,000 from his parents in Myanmar. Distraught at Einous' cries over the telephone, his parents sold their family home for $1,600 and borrowed the rest from relatives, Einous said.

"There are no words to express how sorry I feel," Einous told Reuters on February 21, just hours after the brokers dumped him near a market in the town of Bukit Mertajam in Penang, ending his eight-day nightmare in the house.

"Now we don't have land. My parents have nowhere to live."

Einous said the brokers in Thailand had told him he could pay a much smaller amount ("whatever I wanted") to be released once in Malaysia. He said the refugees only received rice once a day in the house and were packed so tightly into two rooms that they couldn't lie down.

Abdul Hamid, a 23-year-old motorbike mechanic from Sittwe, in Myanmar's Rakhine state, recalled similar conditions at the compound where he was imprisoned for a week with more than 200 others in Penang.

About 16 guards kept watch over them in two shifts. The traffickers' boss, a man in his 30s known as "Razak" who wore a suit and steel-rimmed spectacles, regularly kicked, beat and threatened the cowering prisoners, Hamid said.

"They said we don't have money to give you food. You need to get money if you want to be free," Hamid told Reuters in Kuala Lumpur following his release in mid-February.

Malaysia, a labour-short country with an estimated two million undocumented workers that offers higher wages than its neighbours, has long struggled with a reputation as a haven for human trafficking. Like Thailand, Malaysia is at risk of being downgraded in the U.S. State Department's annual Trafficking in Persons report from the Tier Two watchlist to the lowest rank of Tier Three.

The scale of the problem appears to have surged in recent months.

"It is definitely increasing," said Chris Lewa, coordinator of Rohingya advocacy group Arakan Project, who regularly interviews those who make the journey. "In more and more stories I have heard recently they (Rohingya) have been detained in Malaysia."

Several of the 10 witnesses cited the brokers as telling them they had bribed Malaysian immigration officials to turn a blind eye when they crossed the border. Reuters found no direct evidence of corruption by Malaysian officials. Five immigration officials were arrested in 2009 for working with a smuggling syndicate to traffic Rohingya into the country.

"We didn't see any officials on the Malaysia side," said Korimullah, a 17-year-old from Maungdaw township, who spent more than three months in Thai camps and was then held by traffickers in a house in the northern Malaysian city of Alor Star. "The brokers said they had already given money to them."

Officials from Malaysia's immigration department, the prime minister's office, and police in Penang and Kedah states did not respond to requests for comment.

BORDER CHAOS

The surge of Rohingya trafficking activity in Malaysia followed a series of raids to harass human smugglers and drive them from illegal camps dotted across remote areas of southern Thailand. In two raids in January, Thai police rescued and detained more than 600 Rohingya and Bangladeshis.

Abdul Hamid and several other witnesses described chaotic scenes on the Thai side of the border in recent weeks as their captors moved them from camp to camp and hurried them over the border before they had time to secure payments from their relatives.

"The guards said the police would come and drop a bomb on the camp and that we had to move into Malaysia," Hamid said.

Increasingly overcrowded and deadly conditions in the makeshift jungle camps in Thailand could be another reason for the shift of operations into Malaysia.

"We couldn't get enough food or water. People were dying with terrible pains in their body," said Eisoup, a 20-year-old from Sittwe, who estimates that 45 people died in 15 days at his camp in January.

Many of those involved in Rohingya trafficking are Rohingya themselves, according to Reuters' interviews and the Arakan Project's Lewa.

Mohamed Aslom's arms bear cuts and burn marks from where he says cigarettes were stubbed out on him by Rohingya brokers during seven days he spent in captivity in a locked, dark room in Penang with about 20 other victims.

The 21-year-old former shopkeeper said he was then sold to another group of brokers who drove him and three others across Malaysia to the east coast town of Kuantan, where the torture continued for four days in a three-storey house.

Finally, he saw a chance to escape. When one of his captors went to the toilet, he said he rushed the remaining one and bolted into the street.

"It feels worse when those from Rakhine (state) hurt us - they are our own people," said Aslom, speaking in Kuala Lumpur days after his brother picked him up from Kuantan.

(Reporting By Stuart Grudgings: Editing by Bill Tarrant)

By Lawi Weng

The Irrawaddy

March 5, 2014

RANGOON — Arakanese members of Parliament said they have complained to the Minister of Immigration and Population Khin Ye over the fact that the upcoming nationwide census will allow stateless Rohingya to register their ethnic identity as they wish, in accordance with international standards.

Four MPs of the Rakhine National Development Party (RNDP) told The Irrawaddy that they met with Khin Ye on Tuesday to express their anger over the classification option offered to the Muslim population in northern Arakan State.

“We told him at the meeting that there will be a problem when using the Rohingya name in the census list,” said MP Pe Than. “But he told us that according to international standards for a census, his government does not have the right to change it. If he did, there will be a problem with the international community.”

The census will start at the end of March and requires respondents to select their ethnicity and religion. They can choose an ethnicity from a classification list of 135 minorities drawn up in the 1982 Citizenship Law by the then-military government.

The law omitted the Rohingya from the list and set them apart as a group without citizenship called “Bengalis,” to suggest most are illegal immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh. Rohingya Muslims claim nonetheless that they have lived in northern Arakan State for generations.

The UN Population Fund (UNFPA), which is assisting the Burmese government with the census, has said that respondents who do not identify with one of the 135 ethnicities can describe themselves as “other” and orally report their desired ethnic affiliations to the enumerator. These responses would later be sub-coded during data processing. This option would allow Rohingya to register their ethnic identity as they wish.

RNDP MPs said they were puzzled by the international standards for collecting census data as these seemed to contradict the government position that there is no Rohingya group in Burma.

“The government is officially saying there are no Rohingya, so how can there be a name of Rohingya on the census list?” Pe Than said, adding that the minister replied that census classification and official government policy “are two different issues—this problem will be solved later.”

Pe Than said Arakanese nationalist leaders threatened to hold protests against the census operations if the classification of Rohingya is allowed, adding, “We don’t have a problem with the [census classification] name Bengali.

[But] our party and our people will not be satisfied with this and for us, this will be a historic mistake for our country.”

Burma’s first nationwide census is due to get underway soon, but has caused controversy among different ethnic groups as many feel that the ethnic classifications drawn up by the government and the UNFPA are inaccurate.

International observers, such as the International Crisis Group, have warned that the inclusion of questions on sensitive issues of ethnicity and religion risk inflaming ethnic armed conflict and lingering tensions between Buddhists and Muslims, in particular in Arakan State.

Government data from 2010 put Arakan State’s population at about 3.34 million people, of which the Muslim population accounts for 29 percent.

In recent years, the Burmese government has made several attempts to survey the Muslim population in Arakan State, but Muslims have refused to cooperate because the option to identify as Rohingya was not offered.

Muslims in Arakan State and international human rights advocates have repeatedly requested that Burma recognize the Rohingya, but the government has continued to adhere to the 1982 Citizenship Law.

Many local Arakanese Buddhists worry that government recognition of the Rohingya population would precede an eventual shift in demographics in Arakan State, and with that a loss of political power and cultural identity.

There is also a deep rooted fear that the 150-million strong Muslim population of neighboring Bangladesh is eager to settle in the sparsely populated state.

During two outbreaks of inter-communal violence in 2012, nearly 200 people were killed and about 140,000 displaced, most of them Muslims. Most of the displaced continue to reside in squalid, crowded camps.

In the aftermath of the 2012 violence, President Thein Sein said Burma would not accept Rohingya as citizens and has asked the United Nations to help to resettle them in any other country willing to take them in.

In recent months, nationalist Arakanese have held recurrent protests against the presence of Médicins Sans Frontières Holland, who they accused of favoring the Rohingya. Last week, the government suspended work of the medical aid group in the state, ending its vital support for both Rohingya and Arakanese in need.

About half a million undocumented Rohingya refugees are residing in Bangladesh putting serious pressure on the country. 

By Sheikh Shahariar Zaman 

Dhaka Tribune

March 5, 2014

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has discussed the Rohingya issue with Myanmar President Thein Sein and Speaker Thura Shwe Mann.

She also discussed social development and achievements by Bangladesh with Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi on the sidelines of the Bimstec summit held in Naypyitaw.

“The prime minister discussed how Bangladesh and Myanmar can resolve the Rohingya issue bilaterally,” Foreign Secretary Md Shahidul Haque told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.

About half a million undocumented Rohingya refugees are residing in Bangladesh putting serious pressure on the country.

Another foreign ministry official said the leadership of the countries agreed to resolve the Rohingya problem after holding mutual discussions.

He said the Myanmar opposition leader Suu Kyi wanted to know about the social experiments and their results in Bangladesh.

“She also expressed interest in the banking sector as Myanmar lacks the proper financial infrastructure,” he added.

The prime minister went to Naypyitaw Monday morning on a special flight with an entourage of 50 officials to attend the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) summit to be held today.

Hasina will meet her Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh today on the sidelines of the summit. This will be the first meeting between the two prime ministers after the Awami League came back to power through an election on January 5.

Teesta agreement, ratification of Land Boundary Agreement (LBA) and other important bilateral issues would be discussed in the meeting, said another foreign official.

The interim Teesta deal could not be inked because of the strong protests by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee while the LBA ratification process was delayed due to determined resistance by different stakeholders including India’s BJP.

Hasina will also have meetings with the presidents and prime ministers of Nepal, Bhutan and Sri Lanka, he said.

Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand are the member countries of Bimstec and Myanmar is the current chair.

Bimstec was formed in Bangkok in 1997 and had its first summit in in that city in 2004 and the second one in New Delhi in 2008.

It has 14 sectors based on issues, and Bangladesh is the lead country for trade, investment and climate change.

At the summit, the countries were likely to sign a deal to set up the Bimstec Secretariat in Dhaka and also a weather and climate centre in New Delhi, said another diplomat.

An agreement on a cultural industries commission, to be set up in Thimpu, was also in the pipeline, he said.

The government has already allocated a building in Gulshan as an interim headquarters for the secretariat. The completed renovation of the building is expected in three or four months.

Sri Lankan Diplomat Sumith Nakandala will be the first secretary general of Bimstec. He will visit Dhaka after the completion of the headquarters.

Meanwhile, a press release of the Foreign Ministry said Bimstec’s permanent Secretariat in Dhaka would start functioning from May.

State Minister for Foreign Affairs Md Shahriar Alam affirmed that the secretariat would start functioning in May 2014 following the signing of the memorandum of association that will bring it into existence.

International humanitarian groups operating in Myanmar are considering how they can provide assistance to those in Rakhine state, after Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), or Doctors without Borders, was ordered to stop its operations there.

By May Wong

Channel News Asia

March 4, 2014

YANGON: International humanitarian groups operating in Myanmar are considering how they can provide assistance to those in Rakhine state, after Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), or Doctors without Borders, was ordered to stop its operations there.

Authorities said MSF's suspension was because its contract in the state had expired and that the group is renegotiating the agreement with the government.

There are close to 70 foreign NGOs in Myanmar that provide aid to people across different parts of the country.

Groups like MSF have had decades of experience working in Myanmar, but that work has to stop in Rakhine for now.

The Myanmar government said the NGO has violated the confines of their agreement.

But some believe it is because MSF had claimed they treated victims of sectarian violence in Rakhine recently -- a claim the authorities reject.

The suspension has had a chilling effect on other NGOs.

Christopher Herink, national director of World Vision Myanmar, said: "It's fair to say that we are mindful. We do want to understand what the basis of the decision was between the government and MSF.

“We're not privy to all the direct bilateral conversations but it's a matter of concern and we're mindful of our own actions and as I said, continue to calibrate our actions on an ongoing basis. We also don't want our activities suspended. I think that's pretty self-evident.

“In the same way that MSF is providing essential services on a short term basis, World Vision is as well. World Vision is also providing long term development assistance. So we do want to understand what the basis of this decision is… and continue to bolster the confidence of the government that we're here really to serve the people of Myanmar."

MSF has warned that tens of thousands of people in Rakhine are facing a humanitarian medical crisis with its pull-out from that conflict zone.

World Vision, with their work in providing clean water and healthcare, is among the many groups in the NGO community looking to see how it can plug the gap.

Mr Herink said: "In terms of this situation… -- a major provider of humanitarian assistance has been asked to stop their operations and so as a community, we look at what needs are not being met as a result of that situation, be it in terms of water, or sanitation or education, primary healthcare. And what we try to do is to try and understand where those gaps are and where we can, as a humanitarian community, go and meet and fill those gaps.

“There is regular coordination that's taking place – (there are) daily meetings between the NGOs but also the UN and the government as well. So together, we have a collective commitment and I would say as well, it's very important that we understand that we operate with a principle, with a value of impartiality."

Mr Herink believes it is important for NGOs to use this opportunity to build on the trust established with the Myanmar government and to emphasise their key objective of helping the Myanmar people.

But other NGOs may not be as comfortable with their position in Myanmar, after the MSF incident.

Many international NGOs that Channel NewsAsia spoke to have refused to comment, saying the issue is too sensitive and their headquarters have instructed them not to do so.

However, some of them said that it is clear the Myanmar government has gotten their point of non-interference across very effectively.

The incident has also reminded them that their actions may sometimes inevitably be seen as political.

They are monitoring the situation very closely and are exercising more caution when performing their humanitarian work. 

By Patrick Winn

Global Post

March 5, 2014

BANGKOK — Decades of dictatorship in Myanmar produced a deep catalogue of casualties: slain dissidents, land mine victims and economic ruin, to name a few.

A lesser-known casualty of Myanmar’s totalitarian rule? Facts.

For instance: Maybe Myanmar has the population of South Korea. Maybe its population rivals that of France. Both estimates of Myanmar’s population — ranging from 48 to 65 million — are commonly cited.

The truth?

No one knows for sure.

The troubled Southeast Asian nation formerly titled Burma hasn’t held a census since Michael Jackson released “Billie Jean” on vinyl.

In late March, Myanmar will launch its first census in more than three decades.

The project is designed to collect basic facts inside a nation shrouded in mystery. It’s being touted as a vital unifying, nation-building exercise. “Let us build a new Myanmar together,” reads a pamphlet promoting the census, which the government is undertaking with United Nations backing.

But Myanmar’s Muslims and outside human rights groups are sounding an unconventional warning. They contend that data on religion will reveal a potentially dangerous truth: Myanmar’s Muslims are much more plentiful than the old military regime ever admitted.

Given waves of anti-Muslim violence and a pervasive suspicion of Muslim groups in Myanmar — even from politicians celebrated in the West — there is a real concern that revealing the truth could fuel dangerous fanaticism.

Buddhist supremacists

Myanmar is several years into a historic undertaking: transforming from a reclusive and abusive backwater to a freer and more open nation. In 2011, the long-reviled military ceded power to a parliament under its sway.

The new establishment — largely composed of former generals, albeit with a minority of leaders unaffiliated with the army — promises to rebuild their broken nation. There is much to rebuild. Across Myanmar, illiteracy is rife, meat is a luxury and electricity is scarce. 

The census — indicating which areas most desperately need schools, wells, power lines and more — is touted as essential in drafting a blueprint for national rehabilitation.

But it will also probe two of Myanmar’s touchiest subjects, race and faith, and send census takers to remote places at odds or even at war with the central government.

Myanmar’s Muslim population is typically cited as 4 percent of its people, a figure declared by the last census in 1983. That tally was conducted under the iron rule of the dictator Ne Win, architect of the authoritarian ideology that gave Myanmar its infamy. Then and today, the dominant Buddhist faith is enshrined in law and society as superior to all others.

According to the International Crisis Group, the old regime likely cooked the books. Without naming sources, the watchdog group states “strong indications” that the real figure was 10 percent, but a “a political decision was taken to publish a more acceptable figure of 4 percent.” The Burmese Muslim Association, relying on intel from thousands of mosques, says the true figure is likely somewhere between 8 and 12 percent.

The International Crisis Group warns that authentic numbers could be “mistakenly interpreted as providing evidence for a three-fold increase in the Muslim population ... a potentially dangerous call to arms for extremist movements.”

Proving that more than 1-in-10 inhabitants of Myanmar are Muslim would indeed play into the delusions of hyper-nationalist Buddhist vigilantes, who are personified by a movement known as 969. Its leading voice, a monk named Wirathu, told GlobalPost last year that “Muslims are like the African carp. They breed quickly and they are very violent and they eat their own kind.”

In recent years, many Buddhists have grown obsessed with fears of Muslim takeover. Conspiracy theories are rampant. Wirathu propagates bizarre rumors that oil-rich Arabian Gulf states finance secret Islamic plots to overrun and outbreed Buddhists.

As these beliefs spread, anti-Muslim riots have grown disturbingly common, leading to hundreds of deaths and forcing tens of thousands into squalid resettlement camps.

Given the intensity of Myanmar’s anti-Islamic fervor, the census should omit all questions about religion, argues Myo Win, a senior member of the Burmese Muslim Association. The International Crisis Group has proposed the same. Another rights group, Burma Campaign UK, declares the census “not worth dying for” and urges its postponement.

“I’m Muslim today,” Myo Win said. “Well, tomorrow, I can be Buddhist. Then the next day, I can decide to be a free thinker. Why do you need to call me Islamic on some list?”

Most Muslims, he said, will not appreciate agents of the state entering their homes and prying into their religious beliefs. The census contains 41 questions. As in the United States, refusing to answer is illegal.

“I think religion is a spiritual issue,” Myo Win said. “We don’t need to mention it to strangers. They shouldn’t list our race and religion. That’s not democratic. It’s discrimination.”

It also risks bloodshed, he said.

Anti-Muslim mobs have shown they need little provocation to attack. Riots have been sparked by serious allegations — including accusations that Muslim men raped Buddhist women — as well as perceived slights.

One 2013 riot broke out when a Muslim woman was accused of merely bumping into a novice monk (monks are supposed to avoid touching the opposite sex) in a market. Another outbreak of violence, in a city called Meikhtila, began with a petty quarrel in a Muslim-owned gold shop. Three days later, 40 were dead and the town’s Muslim quarter was smoldering.

Myo Win believes violence is almost inevitable if census figures point to a Muslim population of more than 10 percent — a figure high enough for extremists to use in suggesting Muslims are breeding Buddhists into extinction.

In Myanmar, tribal identity can determine your friends and enemies, your fortune and your future. In attempting to sort out this ethnic smorgasbord — long obscured by censorship, disinformation and warfare — the census has spawned two conflicting narratives.

One sees the nation’s wounds healed by the truth. The other sees the nation paying for the truth with the lives of innocents.

Probing the unknown

Myanmar is spectacularly complex. Roughly the size of Texas, its hilly terrain has proven a perfect incubator for human diversity.

Language, faith and custom can vary from one valley to the next. In one division, grandmothers may play the nose flute and worship Jesus; in the next, life may revolve around golden-spired Buddhist pagodas. There are seven major ethnic groups — which Myanmar kids are taught to recite like the ABCs — and more than 100 smaller groups.

Myanmar’s diversity also helps explain its instability. As in many nations, its mountain dwellers are fiercely independent. Myanmar’s hard-to-reach borderlands are controlled by gun-toting militias drawn along ethnic lines. For decades, more than a dozen guerrilla factions have managed to fend off outright domination by the central government — but never-ending conflicts have left these so-called “black zones” isolated and poor.

The government has ambitiously vowed to dispatch nearly 150,000 census takers into every village, even militia-run zones with a centuries-deep distrust of the government. If successful, they will emerge with critical data on some of Asia’s most ignored enclaves.

Officials seem to acknowledge the climate of mistrust. A widely distributed census explainer asks citizens to “kindly note that this information will only be used for statistical purposes and not to retaliate against anybody.” To prod villagers into opening up, the government will deploy local teachers to accompany census officials.

Beyond the dire warnings from Muslims, complaints have arisen from other ethnic groups, some of them armed.

Some tribes resent being erroneously lumped in with larger ethnicities. Others, who keep low profiles to ensure survival, aren’t eager to answer 41 questions for unknown officials. The Muslim Rohingya, among the world’s most persecuted minorities, will be forced to write in their ethnic affiliation, which is not listed as an option on census forms.

Still, the government and the UN have not relented to demands to postpone the census or cut questions on religion.

Janet Jackson, the top United Nations Population Fund official in Myanmar, told GlobalPost that hard data will likely heal rather than harm ethnic relationships.

“Providing accurate data, including on current religious practice, can help to end speculation and rumors,” Jackson said. “This information can help efforts to promote inclusiveness and reconciliation which underpin the reform effort.”

Myanmar is still shaking off its police state era, which asphyxiated free speech and encouraged villagers to snitch on dissident neighbors. Just a few years ago, mere whispers of dissent were punished by torture (sometimes with electric shocks) or years in prison.

Myanmar’s population, Buddhist and otherwise, remains understandably paranoid of the government. Roving census takers will likely encounter heavy suspicion, said Derek Tonkin, a former British ambassador to Thailand and Vietnam and the chairman of Network Myanmar, an England-based group devoted to rehabilitating the country.

“It’s not going to be easy,” Tonkin said. “You can imagine them going into a house and spending the whole morning trying to get replies. All while the family wonders, ‘Who is this girl? Why should we answer her questions? What’s it all going to mean?’”

“It’s going to be imperfect,” he said. “But so what?”

Unlike previous census endeavors, Tonkin said, this one will be very hard to falsify. “We might as well face the truth,” he said. “I can’t see anything gained by delaying it.”

Despite objecting to the official effort to collect religious affiliations, Myo Win is eager to know the truth. His Burmese Muslim Association is preparing an independent tally of Myanmar’s Muslims via its vast network of mosques.

He suspects the results — which they may or may not release — will point to a Muslim population of up to 12 percent. If the old census is doctored, as alleged, that would falsely suggest a tripling of Myanmar’s Muslims. Even the US State Department, in a report on religious freedom, has proclaimed that the old census “almost certainly underestimated the non-Buddhist proportion of the population.”

But while this is accepted among many of Myanmar’s Muslims and certain foreign watchdog groups, these allegations are hardly mainstream in Myanmar.

“We live under a hidden apartheid policy,” Myo Win said. “We don’t trust people who want to know who’s Muslim and where we live. So many of us are afraid to even say we’re Muslim for our own security.”

By BROUK

March 5, 2014

“International intervention is only way to save Rohingya’s lives before too late. How many more massacres will have to happen before the UN, USA and UK are forced to face up the fact that they will have to act? British government must support International independent investigation what happened to Rohingyas since June 2012 to today” raised Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK President Tun Khin as Panel discussion of Burma Day of Prayer in London organised by Christian Solidarity Worldwide on 1st March 2014. 

Every year CSW host Burma day of Prayer in London. CSW East Asia Officer Ben Rogers host the panel and Steve Gumaer, co-founder of Partners Relief & Development (PRAD), David Burrowes MP for Enfield, Southgate, Tun Khin, President of Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK, Zoya Phan, Campaigns Manager at Burma Campaign UK and Hkanhpa Tu Sadan, General Secretary of the Kachin National Council were attended.More than 100 audience attended at the event including many ethnic groups from Burma. 

Before the Panel Oddny Gumaer, co-founder of Partners Relief & Development (PRAD) briefed the update situation of Rohingyas of Arakan where she spent long time. 

David Burrowes MP, have mentioned that Rohingya issue and Kachin will raise at the parliament this week and MSF expulsion from Rakhine state will take as an urgency to push President Thein Sein government by British government. Furthermore MP highlighted he will continuously raise questions in Parliament Rahingya and Kachin minority issue.

Zoya Phan took some questions about Karen ethnic cease fire issues, political prisoner issues and repressive laws remaining in Burma.

BROUK President took questions on anti-Rohingya and anti-Muslim violence issue, Rohingya prisoners issue and British government foreign policy issue. Tun Khin mentioned British Government must do as an urgent matter on Rohingya issue where Rohingyas situation getting worse day by day.

Hkanhpa took Questions from audience about Kachin people’s situation how President Thein Sein government tricking to the international community about Kachin ethnic issue where Kachin are facing attacks from Burmese Army.

By IRIN

March 4, 2013

Authorities in Myanmar’s western Rakhine State say they are ready to take over the health programmes Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)-Holland has been implementing in the conflict-hit state for the past 20 years, after the government ordered their closure. 

“We can take over in one week,” Aye Nyein, director of Rakhine’s health department, told IRIN on 3 March from Sittwe, the Rakhine state capital. 

His comments follow a written order by the Burmese government on 27 February for the medical charity to cease all operations in the country in an apparent response to a growing public perception that aid from the NGO in Rakhine State was being unevenly distributed, with greater assistance being provided to displaced Muslim Rohingyas over the ethnic Rakhine population. 

State department heads met over the weekend to draft a strategy and timeframe for taking control of the medical charity’s programmes, he said, noting that an accelerated transfer was necessary to help reduce community anger against international NGOs working in the area. 

“The people want them out as soon as possible and are very pleased with the news [of MSF’s expulsion],” Aye Nyein said, referring to the government order for MSF-Holland to cease all operations in the country. 

The order was partially reversed the next day, after talks between MSF and the national government. MSF is now allowed to continue its work in Kachin and Shan states, as well as in the Yangon Region. 

The suspension highlights an increasingly difficult working environment for humanitarian staff in Rakhine State, where hundreds of people were killed and more than 140,000, mostly Muslim Rohingyas were displaced following two deadly bouts of sectarian violence between ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and the minority Rohingya population in 2012. 

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), community aversion to international organizations in Rakhine and anti-aid worker sentiment rose in the second half of 2013, affecting the ability of international agencies to provide assistance to both Rakhine and Muslim communities. In some cases, humanitarian assistance had to be temporarily suspended. 

The situation is particularly difficult in Sittwe, Kyauktaw and Myebon townships, with incidents also reported in Minbya, Mrauk-U and Maungdaw, including harassment and intimidation of aid workers, as well as the blocking of aid to camps. 

MSF-Holland and other international NGOs have been accused of favouring the Rohingyas, who are de jure stateless under Burmese law and are referred to locally as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. 

“Local Rakhine communities have explained that the negative view of the role and work of UN and INGOs [international NGOs] is primarily based on a perception that aid is unevenly distributed, with greater assistance being provided to Muslim IDPs and communities,” says OCHA’s latest humanitarian bulletin. Aid workers have been struggling to address this perception. 

If MSF’s expulsion is not reversed, other international NGOs could also be expelled from the state, aid workers in Sittwe warn. “What we are all wondering is who is next?” an international aid worker in Sittwe said. 

In February, OCHA launched a public information campaign in Sittwe to improve understanding of humanitarian response and development projects across the state. 

“This was part of an effort to be more transparent about our work by increasing outreach to the public, local community leaders, and civil society groups to promote dialogue and improve the understanding of the humanitarian response and development projects across the state,” said Pierre Péron, the OCHA spokesman in Yangon. “Humanitarian workers are fully committed to assisting vulnerable people in need wherever they are found, regardless of their ethnicity, nationality, religion, gender or class.” 

However, according to Aye Nyein, anger with MSF remains so intense that all of its staff in Rakhine would need to be replaced. “Once MSF is gone the protests will die down,” he insisted. "We don't want anything left from MSF. No staff, no medicine, no cars, no boats," he said. 

Health impact

Meanwhile, in a statement over the weekend, MSF said it was encouraged that the government was allowing it to resume its operations outside Rakhine, but remained “extremely concerned about the fate of tens of thousands of vulnerable people in Rakhine State who currently face a humanitarian medical crisis”. 

With over 500 staff across the state, MSF is the widest reaching NGO with the most impact working on health in Rakhine; its programmes assist the most vulnerable and hard-to-reach communities with primary healthcare services, reproductive health, malaria, HIV and tuberculosis treatment, and emergency referral services. In 2013, MSF staff carried out over 400,000 primary healthcare consultations and over 2,900 emergency referrals in eight townships in Rakhine State. 

Thousands of malaria patients are also treated across the state every year by MSF teams. Since 2004, MSF has treated over 1.24 million malaria patients in Rakhine State. 

However, Aye Nyein insists there would be no disruption in services during the transfer of MSF’s programmes to the Department of Health. 

According to Myanmar’s Ministry of Health, the state, one of the most remote, poorest, and most densely populated, has only 450 doctors for a population of 3.3 million.

By Danny Gold

Vice News

March 4, 2014

Amid an international uproar, the government of Myanmar has partially reversed its decision to expel Médecins Sans Frontières — the medical humanitarian NGO also known as Doctors Without Borders.

MSF-Holland, which oversees the organization's work in Myanmar, received a written order from the government on Thursday telling it to halt all of its activities. The order forced the closing of medical clinics throughout the country that were operated by MSF, affecting some 30,000 HIV/AIDS patients and more than 3,000 tuberculosis patients.

Ye Htut, a spokesman for President Thein Sein, told the local Irrawaddy news service that the government decided to expel MSF-Holland because it had violated a “memorandum of understanding” with the government. He accused them of using more foreign staff than permitted, failing to stay impartial, and disobeying the government by creating a medical care clinic for newborns.

On Saturday, MSF announced that Myanmar's government has allowed it to resume operations at clinics in the Yangon region as well as in the embattled states of Shan and Kachin, where ethnic insurgencies have waged a bitter struggle for autonomy. Operations are still on hold in Rakhine state, however, where tensions run high between ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and a persecuted minority of Rohingya Muslims. Because of the government's neglect of the Rohingya, MSF is their primary healthcare provider.

“While we are encouraged by this and will resume these activities for now, MSF remains extremely concerned about the fate of tens of thousands of vulnerable people in Rakhine state who currently face a humanitarian medical crisis,” the organization said in a statement.

The Rohingya number some 800,000 within Rakhine state, but are regarded as a stateless and undocumented ethnic minority in Myanmar. (In his remarks to the press, Ye Htut accused MSF of showing special favor to the “Bengalis,” a derogatory reference to the Rohingya that implies that they are illegal immigrants who don’t belong.) They have suffered discrimination and violent attacks over the past two years that have seen hundreds killed and over 140,000 displaced, many to squalid refugee camps. Myanmar authorities have been accused of human rights abuses in their targeting of the Rohingya.

A recent report by Fortify Rights, a human rights organization, uses leaked internal documents to highlight the government's complicity in the persecution of the Rohingya, and accuses it of crimes against humanity.

Mark Farmaner, the director of Burma Campaign UK, told VICE News that the move was calculated and typical of how the Myanmar government gets away with continued rights abuses. “It’s something they’ve done over and over again: they will take two steps back, in this case banning MSF from operating all over the country, and then take one step forward,” he said. “Then you see the international community saying this is a positive step, and we still end up taking one step back.”

Farmaner, like many critics of the government, sees the closing of the Rakhine operations as direct retaliation for MSF reporting that it treated victims of a massacre this past January in Du Chee Yar Tan village — the UN believes that at least 48 Rohingya were killed over the course of two attacks there. The government denies the massacre took place.

“That’s the thing that has antagonized the government of Burma,” said Farmaner. He added that the closing is meant to deny access to those who would report on human rights abuses in Rakhine state, which is incredibly worrying. Farmaner criticized the international community, primarily the United Kingdom, for not speaking out.

MSF finds itself in a difficult position as it resumes its work in the country. NGO and human rights groups have faced incredible pressure from the authorities, and many have had their access restricted. The Myanmar government has criticized the international community and rejected what it maintains is a one-sided defense of the Rohingya. A government official named Hmuu Zaw has expressed his displeasure on Twitter for what he regards as the international community’s unwelcome interference:

Who are you? Problems makers or solvers. Conflicts between 2 communities may danger our country. It's your country? Yes? or no?
— Hmuu Zaw (@HmuuZaw) March 3, 2014