RB News

March 14, 2014

Geneva, Switzerland -- International film festival and forum on human rights held in Geneva, Switzerland. BROUK President Tun Khin was one of the speakers of debate among UN Special Rapporteur Mr. Tomas Ojea Quintana, The Arakan Project Director Ms. Chris Lewa and Mr. Matthew Walton, Aung San Suu Kyi Senior Research Fellow in Modern Burmese Studies in University of Oxford. The debate was moderated by the co-founder of Rue89 Pierre Haski. 

In June 2012, Rahkine State, Myanmar, erupted in communal violence. Violence by Buddhists against Rohingya Muslims left 250 dead. The world had its eyes opened regarding the decades of controversy and persecution against Rohingya, who are regarded by Myanmar’s Buddhists as illegal immigrants. This Muslim population has been deprived of its basic rights. Approximately 800,000 Rohingyas are today confined to northwestern Myanmar. Often considered stateless even if they are born in the country, they are subject to multiple restrictions on marriage, work and freedom of movement. Hundreds of thousands of them are also victims of forced displacement. 

More seriously, influential fundamentalist Buddhist monks target Muslims in speeches. The Myanmar population is generally hostile - even Nobel laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi (1991) has been accused of indifference to their suffering. Beyond the human tragedy, the Rohingya question must be seen in the context of the current transition in Myanmar: democratization, following the establishment of civilian rule in 2011, power struggles, nation building and the need to transcend ethnic diversity. More broadly, the hostility against Rohingyas echoes a fear of Islam throughout the region. Beyond this complexity, it is important to denounce the intolerable abuses perpetrated in the face of international silence regarding this Muslim minority. 

Quintana mentioned that while in Burma there are some reforms, but the Rohingya situation is going the totally opposite direction. He mentioned that "The pattern of widespread and systematic human rights violations in Rakhine State may constitute crimes against humanity as defined under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court." 

BROUK President Tun Khin said that “It is a great honour to speak at the film festival in a big crowd where more than 300 people attended including government policy makers, academics. It is also very encouraging many people in Geneva are supporting our cause. Rohingya situation was even highlighted in Geneva Newspaper”. He spoke about the current plight, updates on the situation and the international community’s failure to act. He also pinpointed at the debate that international intervention is the only way to save the Rohingyasm and that the soft approach by the International community to President Thein Sein is encouraging the killing of more Rohingyas. It is also important EU members of states and others to support international independent investigation what happened to Rohingyas in Arakan State since June 2012 and October. 

Chris Lewa talked about her recent trip to Arakan and particularly highlighted that humanitarian aid and healthcare is urgently needed in IDP camps. She addressed the international community to take this as an urgent matter, and to press Myanmar to stop expelling MSF from Arakan. She showed the pictures with PowerPoint to the audience. 

Matthew Walton spoke about Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and said she is in dilemma in regard to to speaking about the violence. He stated that Buddhism is peace and lack of justice accountability comes from President Thein Sein’s Government.

By Joshua Carroll 

Anadolu Agency

March 14, 2014

New survey says rampant Buddhist nationalism risks alienating minority religions in Myanmar

SITTWE, Myanmar -- Rampant Buddhist nationalism in Myanmar risks alienating minority religions in the country, according to the authors of a new survey.

The majority of the 2,000 people polled by the Myanmar Egress think-tank "equate citizenship with religion" and believe that for a person to be Burmese they must be Buddhist.

The report, Citizenship in Myanmar: Contemporary Debates and Challenges in Light of the Reform Process, is based on polling across the country's various ethnic regions.

It includes responses from Rohingya Muslims, a persecuted minority who are denied citizenship by Myanmar's government.

According to scholars, the link being established by Burmese between religion and citizenship was a consequence of British colonization in the 19th century.

“British and American brought Christianity among some ethnic minorities in the 19th century and Muslims started to come also under the British,” Gwen Robinson, a Myanmar expert at the Institute of Security and International Studies at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University told the Anadolu Agency on Friday.

“It reinforced the notion of Burmanness, which is a fairly modern concept. Before the British, there was a stronger sense of unity.”

At the end of March. Myanmar is set to hold its first census for over 30 years, after which accurate data on the number of people adhering to each religion will be available.

There are fears the new figures could inflame religious tensions by revealing that there are more Muslims in Myanmar than previously thought.

The last census, conducted under a brutal military dictatorship in 1983, is regarded as unreliable by some groups. It puts the number of Muslims at 4 percent of the population.

But the International Crisis Group says the figure is likely to be closer to 10 percent, while the Burmese Muslim Association believes it is between 8 and 12 percent.

The Myanmar Egress report recommends that citizenship and religion be kept separate under law. 

The country's constitution cites the "special position of Buddhism as the faith professed by the great majority of the citizens of the Union/”

“Technically, Myanmar is a 100 percent secular state, but there are deeply ingrained attitudes. When he travels, President Thein Sein always visit Buddhists places but I doubt very much he would attend the inauguration of a mosque," Robinson told AA.

A recent campaign to introduce laws that severely restrict interfaith marriage has been backed by a petition signed by 1.3 million people.

The proposed legislation is cheerleaded by a far-right Buddhist nationalist movement called 969.

The group has achieved global notoriety since a reformist government came to power in 2011 and relaxed restrictions on freedom of expression.

Its most famous leader, a monk named Wirathu, is adored by many of Myanmar's Buddhists but condemned internationally for allegedly fomenting violence with his anti-Muslim hate speeches.

He has stoked Buddhist fears that Muslims "breed quickly" and are bent on overrunning the country.

The advocacy group Burma Campaign U.K. has called for the census to be postponed, citing the potential for more anti-Muslim violence as a key reason.

Since ethnic violence erupted in Myanmar in 2012, hundreds of people have been killed and tens of thousands displaced, mostly Muslims.

The Myanmar Egress survey, conducted between February 2012 and June 2013, focused on middle and lower middle-class people on the grounds that they would be "able to articulate their views" on the reform process.

*Anadolu Agency Correspondent Arnaud Dubus contributed to this story from Thailand.

By Matthew Smith

The Wall Street Journal

March 14, 2014

Burma has enjoyed a remarkable several years of economic and political opening, but it is now also suffering a far darker development—serious ethnic violence. Coordinated arson attacks and periodic massacres in the remote Rakhine State have flattened entire villages and left hundreds of Rohingya men, women and children dead since June 2012. More than 140,000 are relegated to miserable displacement camps and tens of thousands have fled by sea.

Western governments have spent the past two years trying to reconcile a brimming optimism about political reforms with harsh realities on the ground. Can the central government in Naypyidaw really be blamed for unrest in far-flung Rakhine State? The latest developments suggest the answer is yes and paint a dark picture of state-sponsored persecution.

My organization, Fortify Rights, recently published leaked government documents revealing abusive "population control" measures against Rohingya Muslims. This and other evidence demonstrates that state and central government authorities are responsible for denying Rohingya fundamental human rights by limiting their freedom of movement, marriage and childbirth, among other aspects of daily life, in northern Rakhine State. 

These findings support an already sizable body of evidence implicating Burmese government officials. A 2005 order from local Rakhine State authorities, for example, requires Rohingya "who have permission to marry" to "limit the number of children, in order to control the birth rate so that there is enough food and shelter." This order is imposed as a strict two-child limit that also prohibits Rohingya from having children out of wedlock. As a result, fearful Rohingya women have fled the country and undergone illegal abortions that have resulted in severe injury and even death.

The government's implementation is as bad as its policies. An undated confidential enforcement guideline on "Population-Control Record Keeping," which was circulated as recently as 2008, urges authorities to force Rohingya women to breastfeed infants in their presence "if there is suspicion of someone being substituted" in the family registries.

Rohingya couples in northern Rakhine State cannot live together unless they are married, nor can they marry without permission, which can be difficult to obtain. 

For decades, as a matter of state policy, menacing security forces in northern Rakhine State have restricted freedom of movement between village tracts, townships and beyond. This limits the Rohingya ability to work, access health care and enjoy other basic rights. If Rohingya attempt to violate such policies, they risk years in prison, fines or both.

These abuses are supported and implemented by the highest levels of Burmese officialdom—by the same reformers that Western governments and investors are lauding as the hope for a better Burma. The minister of home affairs in July 2012 told parliament that authorities were tightening regulations against Rohingya "in order to handle travelling, birth, death, immigration, migration, marriage, construction of new religious buildings, repairing and land ownership and right to construct building[s]." 

Other military and civilian officials are on record discussing restrictions against Rohingya as recently as last year. State-level policies (dating from 1993 to 2008) are signed by various officials and copied to departments that fall under state and central government jurisdictions. All of the policies remain in force today.

Meantime the government refuses to respond credibly to these revelations. Recently it expelled Doctors Without Borders (known by its French acronym, MSF) from Rakhine State. The Nobel Prize-winning organization provides life-saving health aid to tens of thousands of people in Rakhine, and the neediest recipients are Rohingya Muslims. The government claims that MSF wasn't transparent in its work. It also faults the organization for hiring "Bengalis"—a pejorative reference to Rohingya that implies that they are foreigners from Bangladesh. 

The expulsion of MSF can only be interpreted as the latest act of state persecution against the embattled Rohingya. For some it will be a death sentence, and it has removed hundreds of humanitarian eyes from remote corners of Rakhine State—a truly frightening notion.

At the root of this tragedy is Rohingya statelessness. Of the more than 1.33 million Rohingya in Burma, all but 40,000 are stateless because of the country's 1982 Citizenship Law, which provides full citizenship only to certain groups that can demonstrate that they lived in Burma before the beginning of British colonial rule in 1823. All levels of government routinely refer to Rohingya as "illegal" intruders from Bangladesh, even though they have lived in Burma for hundreds of years. 

If the international community and the government of Burma want to stabilize Rakhine State and prevent future outbursts of ethno-religious violence, they must end abusive state practices against Rohingya. The government of Burma should provide unfettered humanitarian access in Rakhine State, and foreign governments should press for an independent investigation into human rights abuses there.

These abuses pose an existential threat both to the Rohingya and to the delicate democratic transition now underway in Burma. 

Mr. Smith is executive director of Fortify Rights and author of the organization's report "Policies of Persecution: Ending Abusive State Policies Against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar." He is on Twitter @matthewfsmith.

By Radio Free Asia

March 14, 2014

Muslim Rohingyas will not be included as an ethnic group in Myanmar’s first census exercise in more than 30 years because the government does not recognize them as belonging to a national ethnicity, an official said Thursday, dispelling online reports that the group would be acknowledged in the survey.

But they can still identify themselves in the census—there is a box for “other” with space for anyone living in Myanmar to write any group or name they wish to be identified as, said Myint Kyaing, director general of the Department of Population under the Ministry of Immigration and Population.

His statement came as lawmakers in western Rakhine state, where Rohingyas are reeling from deadly sectarian violence believed perpetrated by ethnic Rakhine Buddhists, endorsed a proposal to shut down unregistered nongovernmental organizations in the volatile state.

Many NGOs, including international medical aid group Doctors Without Borders (MSF) which was expelled from Rakhine state recently, have been trying to help the Rohingyas, who the government considers illegal immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh, although many have lived in the country for generations. The U.N. says they are among the world's most persecuted minorities.

Myint Kyaing said he wanted to make clear that Rohingyas would not be included as an ethnic group in the census to be carried out between March 30 and April 10 to allay concerns by ethnic Rakhines over social media reports indicating that Rohingyas would be officially recognized in the survey list.

“This is not the government’s list—it is from the Muslim group’s [proposed] list,” he told RFA’s Myanmar Service.

“We don’t have any code number [on the census] for the Rohingya ethnicity in our country.”

When asked what code number 914 represented on the census, which reports had said was designated for the Rohingyas, Myint Kyaing said it denotes an “other” category of ethnicities not recognized by the government.

“We have code number 914 for ‘others’—people who are not included in the [official] 135 ethnic groups of Myanmar. It is used for all others,” he said.

The U.S. $75 million census project, jointly run by the Myanmar government and the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA), will mobilize around 100,000 schoolteachers to count every person in the country for the purpose of national planning and development.

Myint Kyaing said that despite the involvement of the U.N., the government would not be pressured to include them on the survey.

“We will only have UNFPA’s technical help,” he said. “We won’t let them be involved in the policy behind the census.”

International groups have criticized Myanmar’s 1982 Citizenship Law, which omits Rohingyas from the list of 135 recognized ethnic minorities, as discriminating against the group and effectively barring them from citizenship.

Rohingya activists have argued that many of the 800,000 Rohingyas living in Myanmar should be eligible under Article 6 of the law, which states that anyone who is “already a citizen on the date this law comes into force is a citizen.”

Information campaign

Myint Kyaing said that the government was working to prevent protests by ethnic Rakhines over the social media reports.

Ethnic violence in Rakhine state has killed more than 200 people since 2012 and left tens of thousands displaced.

“If people want to change their ethnic listing or if they were put into an incorrect ethnic group, we will hold a conference with historian and academics to make corrections after the census,” Myint Kyaing said.

He acknowledged that there could be “some difficulties” in carrying out the census in areas of northern Myanmar’s remote Kachin state, where ethnic rebels fighting for an independent state have refused to enter into a ceasefire with the government.

“There may be some difficulties in areas that we can’t reach because of location and limited transportation, but we assume that, overall, the nationwide census will be successful,” he said. 

He said the census had already been conducted in Kachin state’s Putao district at the foot of the Myanmar Himalayas ahead of the March 30 due date because of difficulty of access. In March, snow melt can cause a trip to the mountainous region to become even more treacherous.

Daung Kha, a spokesperson for the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) told RFA that while his group had not officially objected to the census being taken in Kachin state, many members of the ethnic group “don’t agree with the government’s policy” behind the project.

He said that ongoing military issues, including internally displaced persons (IDP), would add to the logistical problems census takers would face.

Last month, the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG) said that the census should focus only on key demographic questions to avoid deepening ethnic and religious divides ahead of crucial elections next year.

It called on Myanmar to postpone questions “which are needlessly antagonistic and divisive,” such as those concerning ethnicity, religion and citizenship status, for “a more appropriate moment.”

Proposal approved

Also on Thursday, the Rakhine state legislature voted to shut down unregistered NGOs operating in the region following a proposal last week from Rakhine Nationalities Development Party (RNDP) MP Aung Win, who said that the groups had been “causing bigger problems” between Muslims and Buddhists and giving Myanmar “a bad image.”

Speaking at Thursday’s session after the measure passed a vote, chairman of the Rakhine State Parliament Htein Lin said that the work of NGOs and international NGOs (INGOs) in the region must be regulated.

“The government allows any organization to register,” he said.

“If an organization doesn’t register, it is operating illegally. Every organization must respect and follow laws of the country.”

Some 68 international and domestic NGOs have applied to work in Rakhine since deadly violence broke out in 2012 between ethnic Rakhines and Rohingyas, leaving the region mired in a humanitarian crisis, but only 15 international and four domestic groups have been approved.

Many NGOs operate in Rakhine without formal registration, and therefore illegally, either because they chose to bypass the red tape required to obtain permission or because officials have looked the other way while the groups provide much-needed services to the region.

A report by the Myanma Freedom Daily quoted Rakhine state government press committee secretary Win Myaing as saying that NGOS that had signed agreements with the authorities would also be subject to removal from the region.

“Some NGOs and INGOs operate beyond the boundaries agreed in the MoU. In fact, they need to stick to the MoUs and should not overstep the boundaries. Therefore, we need to see what exactly they are doing,” Win Myaing said.

The Myanmar government on Feb. 27 ordered Paris-based Doctors Without Borders’ (MSF) to halt all its operations in the country, accusing it of giving “preferential treatment” to Rohingyas, among other reasons. 

Following criticism from foreign governments and rights groups, the ban on MSF was confined only to Rakhine state, where it has provided primary health care to people in camps displaced by violence and in the region’s isolated villages.

Prior to the suspension, MSF said, it had carried out a variety of activities in nine townships across Rakhine state, “treating anyone who was unable to access the medical care they required.”

In addition to primary care, the group provided referrals for patients that required emergency secondary hospital care, and family planning and care for pregnant women and newborn babies.

Reported by Khin Khin Ei and Min Thein Aung for RFA’s Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

By Thin Lei Win

Thomson Reuters Foundation

March 14, 2014

The slight, soft-spoken woman onstage called on the media and the rest of the country to let go of narrow-minded nationalism.

“This is a time to fight for democratisation. We have to respect each and every ethnic (group) as a human being,” beseeched Mon Mon Myat, whose meek bearing veils her ferocity as a powerful freelance journalist and documentary filmmaker.

It was refreshing to hear these words in a public forum in Myanmar because - let’s face it - such sentiments have been sorely lacking.

Since religious conflict erupted June 2012, killing at least 240 people and displacing more than 140,000, mostly Muslims, Myanmar has been engulfed in hate speech.

Vitriolic and inflammatory comments targeting Muslims, who make up a small fraction of the country, have become worryingly common on blogs, web forums and Facebook pages. Internet access is low - some estimates say only 0.2 percent of the population is online - but young people, as well as a large Burmese diaspora worldwide, are increasingly using social media to share news and opinions.

Besieged by a fear that Muslims will take over Myanmar, Buddhist nationalists as well as some monks have urged people to boycott Muslim-owned businesses and successfully lobbied the government to draft controversial laws, including one that will restrict Buddhist women from marrying Muslim men. No similar restrictions are being planned for Buddhist men.

“The two strongest institutions in our country - the military and monk organisations - are driven by men, and promote nationalism and religion. That influences our media coverage,” Mon Mon Myat said on Tuesday at the second day of an international media conference organised by Hawaii-based East-West Center.

“I found that in the local media coverage, there are few voices on Muslims’ view. I think some owners worry their circulation may decrease if they are seen as sympathetic to the Muslims.” 

RESCUED FROM HATE-FUELLED CONFLICT

Three years after a quasi-civilian government took office in Myanmar and introduced democratic reforms that have won near-universal praise, the issue of violence against Muslims is casting a long shadow on the country’s future. 

Mon Mon Myat, who wrote an investigative report in 2013 on how social media posts and websites were stirring up hatred, said her analysis of two bouts of conflicts in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state and in central Meikhtila showed there are four steps to the process.

“The first step is that whatever happened, whether it was a rape or a quarrel, it is put on social media and (hatred is) stirred up through it,” she said.

Then the print media pique nationalism, influenced by nationalist editors, businessmen and religious leaders. When it becomes an ethno-religious conflict, the military steps in for the sake of people’s security, she said.

“This scenario creates the military as an essential institution for the country’s stability,” she added.

“First it is an ethnic conflict, later it becomes a religious issue and now even the president has handed over (the drafting of controversial laws) to the government so the president is showing he’s taking the side of the Buddhists,” she later told Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“It’s not good for our nation because (nationalism) is a tool politicians use to control the people and to sustain their power.”

As the 2015 elections draw near, she fears nationalism will be used even more to create conflict between different ethnic groups and religions. 

“The most important thing for the media is they shouldn’t be used (by) the government, opposition or religious groups. They have to be independent and neutral,” she said.

“We’re far beyond the colonial period. We have to wake up from that very narrow-minded nationalist view. Everyone has equal rights and equal dignity and are equal human beings.”

RB News 

March 13, 2014

Maungdaw, Arakan – The fire on March 10, 2014 in the Maungdaw Township of Arakan State was suspected to be an arson attack. Some suspicious items have been found by villagers which contains chemical powder.

An eyewitness claimed that Rohingya villagers in Sin Thay Pyin hamlet of Longdon village tract saw a very small plane controlled by remote device was flying over the roofs of their homes on March 8, 2014. Some villagers tried to pull it down with a long bamboo but didn’t succeed.

On March 11, 2014 the villagers in Kyat Yoe Pyin village tract found three balloons flying over their village. They found them nearby an old school in the west hamlet, bazaar and Lu Thay Fara hamlet. They managed to pull them down. The Village Administrator Rafique informed the police. The police came and took photos. They asked the villagers to keep them inside the office of the Village Administration. 

Similarly, a plane shaped balloon was flying over a paddy field in Ywat Nyo Taung village on March 12, 2014 at 4 pm. Villagers pulled it down. Another ballon, a fish shaped one, was pull down by villagers in Du Dan village. Moreover, villagers pulled down another 5 fish and bird shaped balloons in Longdon village, Ah Htet Pyu Ma village and Nga Sar Kyu village. 

“We do not these see kinds of balloons in our region. We never see them. This is first time we saw them here. We know that these are toys but we found chemical powder inside the balloon, the one we found in Du Dan. I can confirm that the powders were chemical powders. For the right term we will need to examine in the laboratory but it is impossible for us to send somewhere. What I can assure is there are some chemical powders which can blast the fire under the sun. The fire the other day was very strong and it wasn’t like a normal arson attack. Normally the houses pillar remained in normal arson attack but this time all houses pillars were completely burnt down in to ashes. Now we need international experts to come and investigate to know the reality. We are very worried now that they will attack us more soon.” a Rohingya youth who has good knowledge in chemistry told RB News. 

A villager told RB News: “Now they are torching complete villages to make us refugees within our region. Their plan is to send us into deepest trouble. So we will run out from here by boat. This is what one of their policies among Rohingya ethnic cleansing in Arakan state.”

Additional reporting by MYARF and Sindi Khan.

(Photos: The balloons which have chemical powder inside that were pulled down by villagers)

By Assed Baig

Anadolu Agency

March 13, 2014

The Rohingya of Myanmar are one of the most persecuted minorities in the world according to the United Nations. They have suffered pogroms at the hands of extremist Rakhine Buddhists and now as many as 100,000 are left to languish in camps that have turned into ghettos.

Myanmar’s Rohingya are mainly located in the Western state of Rakhine. There, violence against the minority in 2012 resulted in hundreds of deaths and, according to Human Rights Watch, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity were perpetrated against them – with the help of state forces.

The story of the Rohingya Muslim minority in Myanmar does not start with the outbreak of violence in 2012. Discrimination and marginalization against them dates back to post-British rule, with one of the most significant points being the 1982 citizenship law, introduced by the military junta, which stripped theRohingya of their citizenship and made them stateless.

The state commonly labels the Rohingya 'Bengalis’, claiming they are recently arrived illegal immigrants from Bangladesh – despite a centuries-long Rohingyapresence in Myanmar. This has been further complicated by the historical placement of boundaries, with the historical kingdom of Rakhine stretching into present-day Bangladesh.

Across the border in Bangladesh, where more than 200,000 have fled, they have been met with hostility and resentment by the government. Rohingya fleeing to Bangladesh dates back to the 1990s and the majority are living in unregistered camps or Bangladeshi villages, where there is no legal protection from arrest or abuse and little to no humanitarian assistance. Not wanted by Myanmar or Bangladesh the Rohingya live as a stateless people invisible to the world. 

Extremist Buddhist monks from the "969 Movement" have targeted Muslim minorities in Myanmar, including the Rohingya, telling their followers not to do business with Muslims, not to marry them, not to engage with them and even likening them to animals. One of the most prominent monks, Wirathu, has been likened to neo-Nazis for allegedly using hate speech against Muslims and warning of a Muslim takeover of the country.

- Health

Sittwe hospital is off-limits for the Rohingya. If the case is serious enough, they can be admitted by the International Committee for the Red Cross but are not able to freely enter by themselves.

They are also afraid that ethnic Rakhine doctors will not treat them properly; there are frequent stories ofRohingya dying at Sittwe hospital allegedly because of poor treatment at the hands of Rakhine staff. The claims cannot be substantiated but increase suspicions. Women who need to give birth are refusing to go to Sittwe hospital, even when NGO staff secure their access.

Some doctors visit the camps, where most Rohingyaare forced to live, but stay only for a short while, unable to treat everyone in the queues of people that go on and on. Like all goods, medicine has to be brought into Rohingya areas from the Rakhine side of town. There are makeshift pharmacies selling everything from painkillers to anti-biotics but, as with everything else, medicine is more expensive in the camps than in central Sittwe. 

At the end of February, Medicines Sans Frontiers (MSF) was told by the Myanmar regime to leave the country. The move came after MSF reported that they had treated 22 Rohingya that had been injured and traumatized after January’s massacre in Maungdaw. The government denied anyone had been killed. MSF were also accused by the government of hiring “Bengalis”. A few days later they were allowed to resume their activities – but only outside Rakhine state.

- Memories

Everyone remembers the violence. They share stories of what happened, how their homes were destroyed, how their family members were killed in front of them and how they fled. Muhammed Hussein tells AA of the time that they were forced out, told to leave by police only to see their homes being burnt by Buddhist extremists.

“The police had first told us to stay in our homes but then told us to leave. They told us that we could come back later after everything had settled down, but as soon as we left the village our houses were set on fire,” he says.

“Everything was fine with our Buddhist neighbors until some men from the Rakhine authorities visited. I do not know what they said to them but our Rakhine neighbors turned on us. We left the old and sick behind in the village believing that we would be back shortly,” he said.

The people gathered around him to listen to the story fell silent; all in the camp from the same village know the story. “A woman in our village with a two-day-old baby. The Rakhine killed her, and they did not spare the baby,” he said.

Hussein says the police did not even let them take their rickshaw bikes: “If they had let us then we could have brought her and the baby with us,” he says regretfully. Others around him share the sense of guilt for leaving people behind, and for believing the authorities that they would be allowed to return.

“When we tried to go back and help, the police fired on us,” claims Hussein.

One man has memories of a time before the 1982 citizenship law, when Rohingya were considered citizens of the state. “My great grandfather and grandfather were recognized as Rohingya. They had passports. My father had an identity card that stated he was a Rohingya. Why am I called a Bengali?” protests 77-year-old Abdul Rahman.

He produces a green identity card, from when he was just 21-years-old, and reminisces of a time when he could live in his family home in Sittwe, rather than a camp.

“Are we not humans? Do we not have a right to exist?” he asks. His grandson shows his white identity card; a temporary one that states he is Bengali, not Rohingya.

In every camp the stories are of pain and suffering. Qadir told AA’s reporter: “We are just living, we are like the living dead. We live without a life, just to survive each day.”

One of AA’s contacts has not stepped out of her house in nine months. It’s a self-imposed restriction in a way but comes from her fear of what would happen if the police decide to arrest her for speaking to foreigners.

She has been targeted because she is known amongst the Rohingya for providing education, distributing food and medicine, listening to people’s grievances and being amongst the few who are educated and capable of communicating in English about the Rohingya’s problems to the outside world.

“The international community just offers us words. Nothing in real terms. I do not expect anything from them anymore,” she says. “We have lost hope,” she adds with a tone of sadness. 

While all this takes place in Myanmar, one of its most prominent political figures remains silent. Nobel peace laureate Aung Sun Suu Kyi chooses not to condemn the violence against the Rohingya, who she does not consider part of her support base. In 2013 in an interview with the BBC she said that violence against the Rohingya was not “ethnic cleansing”, despite reports by various human rights organizations.

It is not only the Noble peace laureate that remains silent on the plight of the Rohingya, the international community is doing very little to help the Rohingya on a meaningful level.

By Maung Zarni

March 13, 2014

“What can we do, brother? There are too many. We can’t kill them all.”

He said it matter-of-factly—a former brigadier and diplomat from my native country, Myanmar, about Rohingya Muslims.

We were in the spacious ambassadorial office at Myanmar Embassy in an ASEAN country when this “brotherly” conversation took place. I am familiar with Myanmar's racist nationalist narrative. I have also worked with the country’s military intelligence services in pushing for the gradual re-engagement between the West and our country, then an international pariah. Apparently, knowledge of my background made the soldier feel so at ease that he could make such a hateful call in a friendly conversation on official premises in total candor: Islamophobia normalized in the highest ranks of the bureaucracy and military in Myanmar.

He wanted to make sure I understood he had special knowledge of the situation, stressing that he was stationed for years in Rakhine state, the state that borders Bangladesh and is the Rohingya ancestral homeland. The diplomat then went on to tell me that Bangladeshi even use folk songs to encourage people to migrate to Myanmar, mythically envisioned as the land of plenty, and cross the river that divides the two countries’ porous borders. He recited one particular stanza:

“There, Buddhist women are beautiful.
Staple rice is plentiful. Land is fertile.
Opportunities are ample. Resources are abundant.
Go ye go to Myanmar.”

His point is that these “Bengali,” a racist local reference to the Rohingya, are “invaders” in our predominantly Buddhist country, whose virus-like spread must be repelled by any means necessary. It’s incredibly important to realize that this conversation is in no way an extreme example in Myanmar. It’s not even that shocking that a relatively better-educated graduate of the country’s elite military academy would express such genocidal views. This is where generations of young—and largely Buddhist Burmese—men between the ages of 16 and 21 are conditioned to view themselves as Myanmar’s future ruling elites. Even more troubling is this: my friend’s view is widely held among virtually all Myanmar people from all walks of life—common men on the street, socially influential Buddhist monks, Christian minorities, former dissident leaders (most notably Aung San Suu Kyi), the mainstream intelligentsia, the ruling generals in uniform and ex-generals in silk skirts.

Myanmar’s prevailing popular psyche has been molded by decades of fear of Islam manufactured by the state. Even Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi chillingly spoke about “the global rise of Muslim power” in a BBC interview.

As a group, the Rohingyas’ ancestral home straddles strategically important western Myanmar, neighboring Bangladesh, and the Bay of Bengal, which opens into the Indian Ocean. The Rohingyas’ demographic and ethnic history is not different from the histories of peoples around the world, like Croatians, Serbs or Macedonians, whose ancestral lands have been erased from the political maps of the big powers. Even within Myanmar itself, the ancestral roots of other “borderland” ethnic peoples (such as the Kachin, the Chin and the Karen) are transnational and predate the post-World War II emergence of new modern nation-states.

But uniquely, the Rohingya have been subjected to a government-organized, systematic campaign of mass killing, terror, torture, attempts to prevent births, forced labor, severe restrictions on physical movement, large-scale internal displacement of an estimated 140,000 people, sexual violence, arbitrary arrest, summary execution, land-grabbing and community destruction. Three decades of such policies have produced appalling life conditions for the Rohingya. The doctor-patient ratio is 1:80,000 (the national average is about 1:400), the infant mortality rate is three times the country’s average, and 90 percent of Rohingya are deliberately left illiterate in a country with one of the highest adult literacy rates in all of Asia. Consequently, there have been an unknown number of deaths and large scale exoduses over land and sea to Bangladesh, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Australia and Canada.

The first Myanmar government-organized campaign against the Rohingya was launched as early as 1978, in the guise of an illegal immigration crack-down. Consequently, an estimated 200,000 Rohingya were forced to relocate to newly independent Bangladesh, where they have been equally unwelcome. Even then the Far Eastern Economic Review termed the plight of the Rohingya “Burma’s Apartheid.” Nearly four decades on, during his visit to Rangoon, South Africa’s Desmond Tutu, a veteran anti-apartheid campaigner in his homeland, used the same word, apartheid, to characterize the Rohingya oppression.

It isn’t even as if the Rohingya were never recognized by the central government as a distinct people. Within a decade of independence from Britain in 1948, the government of the Union of Burma officially recognized the group as “Rohingya,” the group’s collective self-referential historical identity. They were granted full citizenship rights and allowed to take part in numerous acts of citizenship, such as serving in parliament. They were able to broadcast three times a week in their own mother tongue, Rohingya, on Myanmar’s then sole national broadcasting service (Burma Broadcasting Service or BBS) and held positions in the country’s security forces and other ministries. Rohingya were permitted to form their own communal, professional and student associations bearing the name “Rohingya,” and above all, granted a special administrative region for the two large pockets in western Burma made up of 70 percent Rohingya Muslims.

The evidence of Myanmar engaging in a systematic persecution of the Rohingya as a distinct ethnic people supports charges of crimes of genocide against the group. So far, the world’s human rights organizations such as the Human Rights Watch, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Irish Centre for Human Rights have fallen short of calling the 35-years of Myanmar’s genocidal persecution of the Muslim Rohingya a genocide. They have stuck wth “crimes against humanity” and “ethnic cleansing” as their preferred charges against Myanmar government.

This spring, the University of Washington Law School’s academic publication, the Pacific Rim Law & Policy Journal, however, is scheduled to publish a three-year study of Myanmar’s atrocities against the group. The article, which I co-authored with a colleague from the London-based Equal Rights Trust’s Statelessness and Nationality Project, is entitled “The Slow-Burning Genocide of Myanmar’s Rohingya.” Our research has persuaded the journal’s editors and anonymous peer-reviewers that since 1978, successive Myanmar governments and local Buddhists have been committing four out of five acts of genocide spelled out in the United Nations' Genocide Convention of 1948. Our study finds Myanmar to be guilty of the first four acts, such as “killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group”.

Still, misleadingly, international media and foreign governments have characterized the Rohingya persecution as simply “sectarian” or “communal.” Not only does this ignore the instrumental role Myanmar’s successive governments have played in the death and destruction of the Rohingya, but it also overlooks the fact that the Rohingya have no rights or means by which to defend themselves.

The 1.33 million Rohingya Muslims may be “too many to kill,” but that has not stopped the state security forces or the local ultra-nationalist Rakhine from carrying out waves of pogroms against the Rohingya. The state's racist draconian policies make life so unbearable that the Rohingya would rather risk their lives on voyages across the high seas than wait like sitting ducks to be slaughtered in their ghettos or “open-air prisons,” as the BBC put it.

In my view, despite growing evidence, the international community has avoided calling this “genocide” because none of the permanent five members of the U.N. Security Council have the appetite to forego their commercial and strategic interests in Myanmar to address the slow-burning Rohingya genocide. There’s the domestic political factor for those states, too: no world’s leader would want his or her photo taken shaking the blood-stained hands of the Burmese generals and ex-generals with an unfolding genocide in their backyard. Indeed Myanmar’s genocidal military leaders have re-fashioned themselves ‘Free Market reformists’, opening up the resource-rich country for commercial engagement. On the persecution of the Rohingya, the outside world has taken at face value Myanmar’s narrative of the Rohingya persecution as simply ‘communal’ or ‘sectarian’ conflicts between them and the local Buddhist Rakhines who make up 2/3 of the local population of Rakhine state. Human Rights Watch proved prophetic when the authors of its 2009 report “Perilous Plight: Burma’s Rohingya Take to the Sea” wrote: “Because they [the Rohingya] have no constituency in the West and come from a strategic backwater, no one wants them [and no one is prepared to help end their decades of persecution] even though the world is well aware of their predicament.”

Maung Zarni is a Burmese scholar in exile. He is an expert on the political affairs of Myanmar, and currently Visiting Fellow at London School of Economics. In this article he writes about the oppression of the minority people Rohingya, whom the Burmese government classifies as “immigrants” and thus not eligible for citizenship. 

This article was firstly published by The Dissident Blog.

By San Yamin Aung

The Irrawaddy

March 12, 2014

RANGOON — The Burmese government on Tuesday released its final report on the alleged killings of dozens of Rohingya Muslims in Duu Chee Yar Tan village in northern Arakan State in January and it again strongly denied that any such violence took place.

Much of the English-language 20 page summary of the report also focused on expressing the government’s displeasure with the UN and Médicins Sans Frontières (MSF) Holland, which have made statements indicating that violence did occur in the Rohingya village.

Kyaw Yin Hlaing, secretary of the commission and an adviser to President Thein Sein, and Tha Hla Shwe of the Myanmar Red Cross Society and chairperson of the commission, told reporters during a press conference in Rangoon that they had found no evidence of killings of Muslim civilians.

“There were allegations of deaths, but we don’t see evidence of deaths,” said Tha Hla Shwe. “Where are the bodies, where were the dead bodies buried, what happened to the bodies? Nobody could tell us.”

Kyaw Yin Hlaing said a conflict may have broken out between local residents and security forces following the disappearance of police sergeant Aung Kyaw Thein, who is now presumed to be dead, and added that the commission saw damaged homes during its visit. However, he said they did not find evidence that security forces had caused all the damage.

In late January, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said she received “credible information” indicating that police and an Arakanese Buddhist mob killed about 40 civilians during a raid on Du Chee Yar Tan, a Rohingya village in Maungdaw Township, Arakan State, during a Jan. 13 operation to find a police sergeant who had gone missing in the village.

UN human rights rapporteur Tomás Ojea Quintana said on Feb. 20 that Arakan authorities had informed him that “100 policemen with live ammunition” had carried out the operation. He said he received “allegations of the brutal killing of men, women and children, sexual violence against women, and the looting and burning of properties” during the operation.

However, the government has vehemently denied such claims and several investigations have backed up the government’s position. The final report by the Investigation Commission for the Duu Chee Yar Tan Incident released Tuesday was no different.

The investigation commission was established on Feb. 6 and conducted its field assessment from Feb. 15-21, with a mandate that focused on finding the “root cause” of the death of the policeman, according to state-run media. It was also tasked with investigating the cause of a fire in west Duu Chee Yar Tan following the alleged killings, and to suggest measures for preventing further sectarian conflict.

The report recommended that the government begins citizenship assessment of residents in northern Arakan State in accordance with the 1982 Citizenship Law. It urged the government to build up trust between Muslim and Buddhist communities, while also suggesting that authorities “enhance security measures and border control” in the region.

Most Rohingya are denied citizenship by the 1982 law and the government refers to them as “Bengalis” to suggest that they are illegal immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh, although many have lived in the country for generations. International human rights groups say the Muslim minority in northern Arakan State suffers from a wide range of rights violations at the hands of the Burmese government and its security forces.

The report also recommends that the government keeps a tight control on the Arakan State operations of international NGOs such as MSF and UN organizations, and it uses strong-worded language to condemn the organizations over their statements regarding the Duu Chee Yar Tan incident.

“It is unfortunate that … [the incident] has become an issue that the international community views as a matter for discussion with the Government of Myanmar. The UN contributed in no small way to the conflation of this issue, by issuing reports without verifying the facts,” the report said.

“Instead of working together with the Myanmar Government to resolve misunderstandings and problems, the UN has focused on trying to prove the veracity of its report, thereby wasting its time,” the commission wrote.

“The actions of INGOs and the UN to date have been to enhance their reputation among their donors at the expense of inflating tensions in the host country,” the commission claimed. It went on to recommend that “rules and operational procedures be set for such entities and that […] firm and effective action should be taken against those organizations that break the rules.”

Late last month, the government decided to suspend the operations of MSF Holland in Arakan State, where the medical charity provided vital health care services to tens of thousands of Rohingyas who are barred from accessing government clinics.

The report also took aim at media organizations that published the statements made by the UN, MSF and human rights organizations researching the situation of the Rohingyas.

Without going into details the commission recommended that “strong measures be taken to counter the false allegations made by media. This includes timely sharing of information with the public and establishing channels and mechanisms to counter the false allegations.”

Additional reporting by Paul Vrieze.

By Daniel Sullivan

United to End Genocide

March 12, 2014

I’ve just spent the last three weeks in Burma, traveling around the country from the biggest cities benefiting from reforms in the last few years to the sites of greatest devastation since a wave of anti-Muslim violence broke out in 2012.

Burma has seen impressive reforms, but at the same time there is a growing sense of tension, one that most people I spoke with agree will increase as the 2015 elections approach and incentives to stoke popular fears for political purposes increase. The last two years have been defining ones for Burma, the next two are likely to be even more critical.

I am left with many impressions from this trip, but three main developments that unfolded during my visit are critical danger signs that the Burmese government and the international community must urgently address.

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) Kicked out of Rakhine State

On February 27th, just days after I had visited camps holding tens of thousands of Rohingya Muslims displaced by violence, the Government of Burma announced it was kicking the Nobel Prize Winning aid group Doctors Without Borders (MSF) out of the country. This was no small development as many of the most repressed and hardest to reach people in need of medical care depend on MSF.

Tens of thousands rely on MSF delivered medicines for HIV/AIDs from week to week or day to day. United to End Genocide put out a statement condemning the decision and our organization’s President Tom Andrews returned to the camps to gather and share the stories of the real life consequences of the decision.

The government says it can fill in the gap left by MSF but that is a tall task. Attention must remain on what develops next or the consequences could be devastating.

Evidence of State Policy of Repression

On our way out to Burma we met with the group Fortify Rights and got a sneak peak at a damning report released during our first days in the country. The report, based on several leaked officials documents, provided proof that Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine state, already described by the United Nations as one of the most persecuted people in the world, were facing concerted policies of repression.

It is not clear if these policies officially go up to the highest levels, but what is clear is that there is little denouncement of the repression from the top. One small example, is the response of President Thein Sein following reports of the dangerous speech and campaign of hatred led by extremist nationalist monk Wirathu, choosing not to speak out against such speech, but rather to tacitly condone it by describing Wirathu as a son of Buddha. Such dynamics are complex but can be generally understood as having a lot to do with playing to popular fears for the sake of power and influence.

Census

The expected rise in tensions ahead of the 2015 elections, a concern shared with me by nearly everyone I spoke with, are being previewed in current talks around the upcoming census. At the end of March, the first census in over 30 years will be carried out. Many observers and ethnic groups in Burma have criticized the census as blind to current tensions and risking setting off new violence. One expert went so far as to say that if there is violence following the census, the international community will have blood on its hands.

One aspect of the controversy is that the census is likely to show a sharp rise in the Muslim population, partially due to real growth, but accentuated by an underplayed number in the last census. The danger is that this will play right into overblown fears currently being utilized by extremist monks of a Muslim invasion of Buddhist Burmese culture, described aptly by one Burmese expert as a “siege mentality”. Much can be and has been said about the census, but the bottom line is that it is just a preview of the tensions and risk of unintended triggers of violence as the election draws nearer.

Looking Forward

Amid these warning signs, there were also signs of a growing, if still much overshadowed domestic efforts at interfaith reconciliation and peace. The government of Burma is also sensitive and in some cases even receptive, to international pressure or advice. Finding a way to leverage that combination of domestic civil society and international attention will be key in ensuring the troubling dynamics at work do not lead to more violence.

Fire at Dar Paing, Sittwe on March 8, 2014

By Radio Australia
March 12, 2014

Thousands of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar still lack health care two weeks after the government ordered the international medical charity MSF to leave Rakhine State.

Reports are now emerging of deaths in the camps housing those displaced by the long-running sectarian violence in the state. 

MSF's operations were suspended late last month when it was accused of prioritising the treatment of the Rohingya community over local Buddhists.

The organisation has since been allowed to resume its work in Myanmar, but not in Rakhine State.

Former US Congressman Tom Andrews has been in the country for a month.

He leads the Washington-based NGO, United to End Genocide, and he's been visiting the camps where displaced Rohingya are struggling to survive.

Correspondent: Karon Snowdon

Speakers: Tom Andrews, former US Congressman and president of the NGO, United to End Genocide 

ANDREWS: The United Nations has described them as the most persecuted people on earth and they are in a very, very desperate situation. Many tens-of-thousands are in, what are called internally displaced persons camps referred to by the people as concentration camps..?

SNOWDON: You visited those camps. Describe the conditions there?

ANDREWS: The people who live there are totally isolated, they have no ability to leave the camps, we're talking over 90-thousand people in a relatively small area. The only way they can get out is if they're heading for boats and I was told that the security will not let them through the gate to go into any kind of a town, but they would turn their back when they hit boats to try to escape. So we're talking last year alone over 30-thousand people escaped on boats. We don't how many survived. We know most of them ended up as victims of human trafficking, but it gives you an idea of the level of desperation.

Some people told me that the international community was their only hope and if we choose not to do anything about they're situation, they said please drop a bomb on us and end it all. I heard that from several people as I toured the camps over a four day period.

SNOWDON: So apart from the lack of health services, what are the general conditions like is there adequate food, water, sanitation, are people getting sick, are people dying?

ANDREWS: Ah, people are getting sick and people are dying. I learnt just last night that the first people to die from the lack of healthcare from this decision to cut off all healthcare to these people have in fact perished, and so the death toll has begun. It's going to mount up by the hour, by the day. I met several people who had conditions that desperately needed medical care, some they were about to run out of they're medication, severe pulmonary conditions, some had AIDS. A man had a very serious gangrene leg, malaria. I mean tens-of-thousands of people have been treated for malaria. These are very serious conditions that require ongoing medical care and in some cases emergency care that simply is not there. People are running out of their medications and they don't know what to do. So what's happening is that they are beginning to die and they're going to continue to die in significant numbers unless this decision is reversed and healthcare is restored.

SNOWDON: On the information you were given recently, were you given numbers, can you be specific if deaths are occurring, do you know how many?

ANDREWS: Ah, I was not given numbers, I was just told and I was again I had been at these camps, I visited many, many people over the course of a four day period and the word is is that some of these people, not a specific number, but in fact some of these people are beginning to die.

SNOWDON: You hope to pressure the Myanmar government to reopen the health clinics at least. What sort of pressure can you hope to bring with any hope of succeeding?

ANDREWS: It's very important for those of us who live abroad in the international community to be paying attention to what has been going on in the shadows. Not only do we have this health crisis, but tensions are mounting here, there's no question about it. I was here last June, I've returned this month and there's a discernible increase in the level of tension, the circulation of hate speech, the intolerance, the bigotry, and I'm afraid that we are one incident away from a major flashpoint and configuration of violence, unless and until this very unfortunate and vicious momentum is turned around. 

I mean the key to that again is the attention being paid by the international community. We need eyes on the ground here, we need a vigorous response from governments around the world, we simply need to have a full court press as it were by the international community to impress upon the government of this country that taking care of the people who are now dying because of a lack of healthcare, but even more importantly, protecting the lives of tens-of-thousands, if not hundreds-of-thousands of vulnerable people is imperative if the progress is going to continue to integrate this country into the international community.

SNOWDON: But it's going to take, as you say, government pressure isn't it, international government pressure. Because I would suggest there has already been quite a lot of light shone on this issue internationally, the plight of the Rohingyas, the government doesn't seem really to be taking much notice?

ANDREWS: No, that's exactly right. There has to be an increase in the level of pressure on governments. I mean one of the unfortunate narratives here is that well, things are much better than they were years ago. Right it's not happening overnight, the progress we'd like to see, but we must have patience. And in fact, just the opposite is occurring, particularly with respect to the plight of the Rohingya, things are going in the wrong direction, things are getting worse and a level of danger here is getting much, much worse, rather than better.

SNOWDON: Is there any local support for the your groups actions in Myanmar?

ANDREWS: You know, I'll tell you there's a lot, people tell me this is very good, but they also tell me that they are very, very nervous about speaking out. There is a high level of intimidation. I know I've been followed by intelligence agents here in the country, there's a great degree of fear.

By AFP

March 12, 2014

Geneva -- Myanmar's transition to democracy remains "fragile" with ethnic minorities still suffering widespread abuse and the military maintaining its influence in most institutions, a UN expert said Wednesday.

"The rule of law cannot yet be said to exist in Myanmar," Tomas Ojea Quintana, the UN's special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the country, said in a statement.

"For the time being, the military retains a prevailing role in the life and institutions, (which) in general remain unaccountable," he said of the situation three years after Myanmar emerged from military rule.

If authorities did not tackle "impunity and systematic discrimination in Rakhine State", it could jeopardise the entire reform process, Ojea Quintana warned.

Rakhine remains tense after several outbreaks of inter-communal violence between Buddhist and Muslim communities since 2012 that have killed scores and displaced 140,000 people, mainly from the Rohingya Muslim minority.

Ojea Quintana, whose report wraps up six years of monitoring the country in the midst of sweeping political reforms, said widespread violations of Rohingya rights could constitute "crimes against humanity".

Myanmar's 800,000 Rohingya -- who are stateless, and considered by the UN to be one of the world's most persecuted minorities -- face restrictions that hamper their ability to travel, work, access health and education and even to marry.

Ojea Quintana said it was essential that Myanmar authorities work with the UN Human Rights Council to establish a "credible" probe into events in January in the village of Du Chee Yar Tan, "including allegations of the brutal killing of men, women and children, sexual violence against women, and the looting and burning of properties." 

The attacks with the alleged involvement of police have been denied by Myanmar. 

While welcoming the dramatic political reforms that have taken place in Myanmar since the country emerged from decades of harsh military rule in 2011, Ojea Quintana also stressed the need to focus on past wrongs.

"Addressing the past will... become increasingly important," said the UN rapporteur, whose mandate expires in May.

"A critical step will be to secure ceasefire and political agreements with ethnic minority groups, so that Myanmar can finally transform itself into a peaceful multi-ethnic and multi-religious society," he said, urging the country's leaders to "set a clear timeframe for prompt progress towards political talks."

The current nominally civilian government has reached tentative peace deals with most rebel groups, but a nationwide ceasefire has so far proved elusive.