By Paul Frieze

IRIN

September 9, 2016 

In a sign of its commitment to ending the ethnic wars that have bedeviled Myanmar for six decades, the country’s first civilian-led government in half a century held a four-day peace conference last week, to much fanfare.

“Ethnic peoples in areas of our country where there is not yet peace are awaiting expectantly for the outcome of this conference,” said Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Peace Prize winner and de facto head of Myanmar's new government, with the special role of State Counsellor.

“Many, of all ages, have had to flee their homes to avoid conflict, and it has been long since their hopes have dimmed,” she told conference participants in the capital, Naypyitaw. “We must not forget their plight.”

Refugees and other victims of the long-running conflicts might be forgiven for thinking they have indeed been forgotten, and advocates told IRIN they don’t expect much to change in the wake of the conference, despite all the high-flying rhetoric.

Some 100,000 refugees have languished in camps in Thailand since the 1990s, while about 113,000 civilians in northern Myanmar have been displaced by conflict since 2011. In the western state of Rakhine, 120,000 people – almost all ethnic Rohingya Muslims – are still living in displacement camps four years after being driven from their communities.

Reverend Hkalam Samson of the Kachin Baptist Convention, which assists internally displaced people, mainly in Kachin state, said peace talks often gave people more reason to be scared than hopeful.

“Every time there is a meeting like this, there is more fighting in the Kachin area, so the IDPs are also worried about that,” he said. “For the IDPs, the conference wasn't meaningful.”

‘Losing their futures’ 

The conference held little meaning too for IDPs in western Rakhine state as it did not touch on their ethnic and sectarian conflict, which exploded in two bouts of violence that drove them from their homes in 2012 and is still simmering.

The UN’s emergency aid coordination agency, OCHA, said in a report this week that “urgently needed shelter upgrades” are being done in camps in Rakhine state. The longhouses were built as temporary shelter and many “are now at the end of their lifespan” after four years of being battered by monsoon rains and a cyclone last year, the report said.

The vast majority of the victims of the 2012 violence were minority Rohingya who were burned out of their homes by mobs of ethnic Rakhine Buddhists. But there are still some displaced ethnic Rakhines living in camps too. 

The government’s inability to resolve the displacement crisis has much to do with the hostility of Rakhine nationalists toward the Rohingya. They consider Rohingya to be interlopers from Bangladesh despite the fact that some of them have ancestors who lived in the area centuries ago. Other Rohingya families have been there for generations, having migrated around the region both before and after the British drew an arbitrary border across it when they conquered part of what was then known as Burma in 1824.

Decades of discriminatory policies by Myanmar’s former military rulers, who took power in a 1962 coup, gradually stripped the Rohingya of citizenship. It’s an issue that the current administration and the previous semi-civilian, reformist government that took over from the junta in 2011 have struggled to resolve. Aung San Suu Kyi’s administration recently appointed former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan to head a commission that will spend a year examining the situation before submitting recommendations. Some ethnic Rakhines protested Annan when he visited the state capital this week.

Abu Tahay, who founded a banned Rohingya political organisation called the Union National Development Party, welcomed the creation of the commission, though he noted that its three Muslim representatives were not Rohingya but hailed from communities in central Myanmar instead.

He said the government has failed in its obligation to help displaced Rohingya return home, while even those who remain in their villages are subject to stringent movement restrictions and of lack access to healthcare, employment, and education.

“People are losing their futures,” he said.

Ongoing fighting

Resolving displacement in northern Myanmar will prove equally difficult – especially as fighting is ongoing between the military and three ethnic armed groups: the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, and the Arakan Army.

Myanmar’s military refused to let representatives from those groups attend last week’s meeting in the capital. The meeting was dubbed the “21st Century Panglong Conference”, invoking the 1947 Panglong Agreement between major ethnic organisations and Aung San, the independence hero and father of Aung San Suu Kyi who was assassinated shortly thereafter. Some took the military’s hardline stance as a sign that it was not genuinely interested in talking peace.

“The international community and central government say an inclusive peace process is beginning in Myanmar, but there is still fighting every day in Ta’ang areas,” said Mai Lyruk, an activist with the Ta’ang Student and Youth Union.

“I get no special hope from the 21st Century Panglong Conference, because it’s a very small step for peace negotiations and doesn't include all ethnic armed organisations,” he said by phone from Shan State, where most ethnic Ta’ang live.

Another peace conference is scheduled in six months. If the second half of the year is anything like the last, the number of IDPs in camps can be expected to swell as fighting in the north continues. 

Some 12,000 ethnic Ta’ang and Shan villagers fled their homes in Shan state in the first half of 2016, while 240 civilians were newly displaced in Kachin state during the same period, the OCHA report said.

(TOP PHOTO: Myanmar State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi sits in the front row at a peace conference that began 31 August 2016 in Naypyitaw. UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon is on the far left, and President Htin Kyaw sits to her right. CREDIT: Paul Frieze)

By Ronan Lee

New Mandala

September 9, 2016

Myanmar’s appointment of a Kofi Annan-chaired commission to look at Rakhine state is a positive step for the country’s Rohingya Muslims, but cannot be allowed lead to another year of waiting for action. Steps should be taken immediately to ensure the Rohingya’s human rights are guaranteed, Ronan Lee writes.

This week former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan will do what around 1.1 million Rohingya Muslims cannot – travel freely around Myanmar’s Rakhine state.

Punitive travel restrictions have been forced on this Muslim minority for decades meaning generations of Rohingya have needed costly official permits to travel, even to adjacent villages. This impacts every aspect of daily life. The Rohingya are also subject to restrictions on their ability to marry, have children and own property.

Long-term mistreatment of the Rohingya was compounded when communal violence engulfed Rakhine state during 2012. This violence left 192 people dead and 140,000 displaced. The vast majority (120,000) have not been able to rebuild or return to their homes, victims of a government strategy designed to prevent future violence by keeping Buddhist and Muslim communities separated.

The Muslim population suffered most in 2012 and, accounting for the overwhelming majority of the displaced, have been forced to endure the bulk of the government’s ‘solution’. My fieldwork confirms travel restrictions in particular are having a devastating impact on the Rohingya’s ability to access healthcare, education and livelihood opportunities.

Unsurprisingly, Myanmar’s treatment of the Rohingya has led to criticism and calls for action from human rights advocates, the UNand US President Obama. Myanmar’s neighbours are also losing patience because of the large number of desperate Rohingya boat refugees arriving on their shores, as many as 25,000 during the 2015 sailing season alone. In 2015 the International State Crime Initiative ominously concluded that genocide is taking place, warning of the danger of “annihilation of the country’s Rohingya population”.

Let’s be clear – the Rohingya are forced to endure deplorable human rights abuses and this needs to be immediately addressed.

At the core of the Rohingya’s lack of rights is a dispute about the legitimacy of their claim to citizenship. The Rohingya claim a centuries-long connection to Rakhine but this history is disputed by many in Myanmar including the government, which considers them to be Colonial-era migrants who are therefore not entitled to citizenship rights as an indigenous ethnic group. Myanmar’s government has treated the Rohingya as resident aliens and objects to using the name “Rohingya”, instead calling them “Bengali”, a name seen as indicating their recent migration.

Matters are further complicated because the interests of the ethnic “Rakhine” – Buddhists who make up the state’s majority – are often presented by their political elites as opposed to those of the Rohingya Muslims. This means even small steps towards safeguarding the Rohingya’s human rights can be cause for protest from ‘nationalists’ claiming to represent Rakhine/Buddhist interests.

Rakhine state is one the poorest places on the planet. The UN estimates its poverty rate is 78 per cent, around twice the national rate with average annual household income of just US $500. Only 37.8 per cent of people have access to improved drinking water, 31.8 per cent access to improved sanitation and just one in eight (12.8 per cent) have electricity for lighting.

Myanmar’s new government, dominated by State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, has been under domestic pressure to address Rakhine state’s economic woes and under international pressure to address the Rohingya issue. Suu Kyi built her international reputation as an advocate for democracy and human rights but surprised many with her attitude towards the Rohingya. Her party, the National League for Democracy even sought to placate Buddhist nationalists by fielding no Muslims among its 1090 nationwide candidates despite Muslims accounting for 4 per cent of the country’s population. The current national parliament is Myanmar’s first since independence without a single Muslim lawmaker.

Myanmar’s mistreatment of the Rohingya has been the cause of significant international reputational damage to the country. However, Suu Kyi is showing herself to be a wily politician – two weeks prior to her scheduled meeting with President Obama in Washington, when the Rohingya’s situation will undoubtedly be on the agenda – she avoided embarrassment by announcing a high-profile commission to examine the situation in Rakhine state.

The advisory commission of nine is made up of six Myanmar members representing the government, ethnic Rakhine Buddhist and Myanmar Muslim communities plus three international members including Annan as chair. Unsurprisingly, nationalists objected to the inclusion of any foreigners and immediately criticised the commission including debating it in parliament. The commission is tasked with considering humanitarian and developmental issues, access to services and basic rights and the security of people living in Rakhine state. Fieldwork carried out in northern Rakhine state with Anthony Ware during 2015 indicates that Annan and his commission members are likely to find surprising reserves of goodwill among both the ethnic Rakhine and Rohingya communities. These two groups want to live peacefully and were better off economically before their communities were separated.

But the Annan commission is not scheduled to make its recommendations until the second half of 2017, with any implementation to follow after that. For many Rohingya who today struggle to access basic healthcare services, this will simply be too long to wait.

The commission’s appointment is undoubtedly a positive move that can bring Rakhine state closer to a long-term peace while safeguarding everyone’s rights. The timing of its appointment indicates the value of continued international pressure on Myanmar to live up to its human rights obligations.

The challenge for the international community is not to lose sight of the urgent need to address the Rohingya’s human rights situation. Travel restrictions that prevent Rohingya accessing medical care and education can and should be removed today. The Kofi Annan Foundation works “Towards a fairer, more peaceful world”. This is a worthy goal but one Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims need to see realised sooner rather than later.

Ronan Lee is researching the impact of Myanmar’s political and economic liberalisation on the Muslim Rohingya. He is a PhD candidate at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation at Deakin University.

This article is a collaboration between New Mandala and Policy Forum — Asia and the Pacific’s leading platform for policy analysis and debate.

By Aung Kyaw Min 

Myanmar Times

September 9, 2016

Undeterred by the defeat of a parliamentary motion on the matter this week, Buddhist nationalists suspicious of the involvement of international personalities in what they insist is a local Rakhine problem have announced plans to mount a demonstration on September 11 in Yangon.

One nationalist compared the involvement of the international members of the Rakhine State Advisory Commission to “a blind elephant going into the forest”.

State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi set up the commission, whose three foreign members include its chair, the former UN secretary general Kofi Annan. Mr Annan’s arrival in the Rakhine State capital of Sittwe on September 6 was met by about 300 protesters, some of whom were reportedly brought in from surrounding villages by groups promising payment.

More than 120,000 people remain displaced in Rakhine after communal violence in 2012 between Rakhine Buddhists and the Muslim minority who self-identify as Rohingya but are referred to as illegal “Bengali” immigrants by the majority in Myanmar.

Opposition to the involvement of foreigners in the Rakhine question has also been voiced by the Committee for the Protection of Race and Religion, better known as Ma Ba Tha. A leading member of the group, U Tawpaka, said on September 6, “Sitagu Sayadaw has said the problem in Rakhine is like a quarrel between husband and wife, and we agree,” he said, referring to the prominent Buddhist cleric and Ma Ba Tha vice chair.

“We should have been consulted on whether or not it was appropriate to involve the international community in our local affairs.”

However, Ma Ba Tha spokesperson U Tay Za Ni Ya said his organisation would not seek to pressure the government and had no plans to release a statement on the commission.

He added, “We are following the situation closely. We believe the situation in Rakhine should be considered by people who are experts on the history of Rakhine and Bengal. Otherwise, it would be like a blind elephant going into the forest.”

In Yangon, local nationalists said they planned to mount a protest against the Rakhine State Advisory Commission on September 11 at the Tarmwe Bo Sein Mann grounds. They have not yet secured permission.

“We filed an application requesting permission for about 1000 people to protest,” said nationalist lawyer and protest organiser U Aye Paing.

By Esha Sarai

Voice of America

September 9, 2016

By AFP

September 9, 2016

Four years after fleeing religious riots that emptied her Muslim Rohingya neighborhood in Myanmar's Rakhine State, Myee Shay yearns for the trappings of a normal life: a job, a school for her children and the chance to buy her own food. 

But the 35-year-old, like tens of thousands of others displaced by the violence, remains stuck in a displacement camp, unable to return home in a region ruptured by the conflict between Muslims and a majority-Buddhist population. 

"We eat when we get our quota," Myee Shay says, referring to monthly rations of food, mostly rice, that families receive from aid groups in the camps.

"If we do not get it, we cannot eat," the mother-of-four adds.

She spoke while preparing plant stalks collected from the outskirts of the Thet Kae Pyin camp — an attempt to enrich the meager meals and break the tedium of days spent waiting for change that never seems to come.

Flooded during the monsoon and dust-choked in the hot season, the camps are clustered on the outskirts of the state capital Sittwe.

They mostly hold Rohingya, a stateless group that became the target of riots after long-running discrimination against Muslims boiled over in 2012 — although several thousand ethnic Rakhine Buddhists also lost their homes in the violence.

That bloodshed left more than 100 people dead and saw thousands of homes torched by mobs. 

Anti-Muslim sentiment still runs high in the impoverished region, fanned by hardline Buddhist nationalists who revile the Rohingya and are viscerally opposed to any move to grant them citizenship.

They insist Rohingya are intruders from neighboring Bangladesh, even though many can trace their ancestry in Myanmar back generations. 

Today the state is effectively segregated on religious grounds, with no major moves to see the displaced return home. 

International rights groups have urged Myanmar's democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi to grant the Rohingya citizenship. (Aung San Suu Kyi won last November's elections, but is forbidden by Myanmar's constitution from serving as president. She serves as the country's foreign minister, and in the newly created position of "state counselor.")

But the Nobel Laureate has shied away from coming to their defense, wary of the dangers of a Buddhist backlash.

She recently appointed former UN chief Kofi Annan to advise the government on how to heal the state's caustic divides.

This week he met with local leaders and visited internally displaced people from both communities in Rakhine, where he was jeered by angry Buddhist protesters on his arrival.

"We are here to advise, not to impose," Annan told reporters in Yangon after returning from the two-day visit, stressing his commitment to remain "rigorously impartial".

The trip was the first of many his team will make to Rakhine before submitting a report to the government within one year, he added.

Stuck in limbo

"Security is everywhere, we cannot go anywhere," says Shwe Sin, Myee Shay's mother, of a web of government restrictions that heap misery on daily life. 

Their family of 14 lives in a cramped hut made of thatched bamboo and plastic scraps. 

The family can not leave the camp to work and they are almost entirely dependent on humanitarian aid.

"Without freedom of movement, farmers can't go to their fields, fishermen can't go to the sea, traders can't go to the market," says Pierre Peron, a UN spokesperson in Myanmar.

Most of the barracks-style shelters in the camps were only built to last three years and now, battered by annual deluges of rain, need to be rebuilt.

Healthcare and education are at best patchy inside the camps, with aid groups desperately plugging the yawning gaps in a system that sees frequent outbreaks of sickness.

While aid groups say the ultimate goal is for displaced people to go home, the immediate priority must be to ensure "minimum living standards are met," Peron adds.

Myee Shay laments the grinding reality of her family's life, one that means her children go without medical care when they are sick.

"I have no money... My husband doesn't work as we have no job here," she says. "What can we do?"

By Moe Myint
The Irrawaddy
September 8, 2016

RANGOON – Tha Hla Shwe, a member of the Kofi Annan-led Arakan State Advisory Commission, told The Irrawaddy that during their two-day trip to Sittwe, the commission heard perspectives on trust building from the Buddhist Arakanese and Muslim communities in the state capital.

The trip—the commission’s first, lasting from Sept. 6-7—focused on improving the relationship between the two groups as the first step in addressing the wounds of the state’s 2012 riots.

Dr. Tha Hla Shwe said that the commission met with Muslim religious leaders, influential Buddhist monks, civil society organizations, internally displaced persons (IDPs), parliamentarians, and the administrative body of Arakan—also known as Rakhine—State.

“We just listened to their opinions and assumptions,” said Tha Hla Shwe. “We asked them what we could do for them. They also unveiled their own perspectives on how to solve the problem on the ground.”

Internally displaced populations’ concerns centered largely on their lack of freedom of movement and difficulties in obtaining permits to travel to hospitals for medical treatment. When asked about points raised by IDPs, Tha Hla Shwe said: “Nothing special there. Everything they told us is the same as in previous conversations.’’

Aung Mingalar resident Zaw Zaw, who identifies as Rohingya, said that the Kofi Annan-led team visited his quarter on Wednesday and had a conversation with him for about half an hour beside a Muslim prayer hall.

The term Rohingya, the name with which many Muslims in the region ethnically identify, is rejected by many Arakanese Buddhists and members of the Burmese public, who describe the group as “Bengali,” implying they are interlopers from neighboring Bangladesh.

According to Zaw Zaw, Annan introduced himself and the reason for his visit. Zaw Zaw said he emphasized three urgent needs to the former UN chief: access to medical travel permits, access to education for his children, and citizenship documents for IDPs; the Rohingya are not recognized as one of Burma’s 135 ethnic groups, contributing to widespread statelessness in a country where citizenship is defined along ethnic lines.

Together with Annan, eight advisors from the commission and a team of government officials including Arakan State Chief Minister U Nyi Pu, later visited IDP camps. There was no surveillance by military special branch officials or police unlike on previous visits from dignitaries in the last four years, said Zaw Zaw.

“We talked openly and he told us they will be here [in Sittwe] and he urged us to contact them in case of an emergency,” Zaw Zaw said.

The speaker of the Arakan State parliament, U San Kyaw Hla confirmed that he and Annan met at the government office on Tuesday. He asked Annan for a fair and acceptable assessment and Annan pledged to deliver an impartial report to State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

Narinjara, a local weekly journal, reported that the Arakan State parliament speaker openly voiced his dissatisfaction with the formation of the commission.

However, he declined to verify or provide further information of the discussion. “I don’t want to talk much more. It’s not good to say here,” said U San Kyaw Hla over the phone to The Irrawaddy.

The delegation returned to Rangoon Wednesday evening. About 100 people protested against the commission at their departure from Sittwe airport, said Tha Hla Shwe. Hundreds of local residents and Buddhist monks also rallied on Tuesday at Sittwe airport against the arrival of the advisory commission.

On Tuesday an urgent proposal put forward by Arakanese National Party (ANP) lawmaker Aung Kyaw San—calling for international members of the Arakan State Advisory Commission to be replaced with local academics—failed to earn parliamentary approval.

A memorandum of understanding between the State Counselor’s Office and the Kofi Annan Foundation regarding the commission will be signed. It is currently being processed by the Union Attorney General’s Office, according to representatives from the National League for Democracy (NLD) at the debate session regarding the proposal on Tuesday.

The President’s Office spokesman Zaw Htay disclosed to the media on Tuesday that the State Counselor’s Office would be allocating its own funds toward the Arakan State Advisory Commission project but did not mention the size of the budget.

By Associated Press
September 8, 2016

SITTWE, Myanmar – Members of Myanmar's Muslim Rohingya minority have expressed hope that an independent panel led by former U.N. chief Kofi Annan will help end the discrimination and violence they face at the hands of the country's Buddhist majority.

Annan is a member of a commission set up last month by State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi's government to help find solutions to a communal conflict in the western state of Rakhine that that has seen widespread abuses and violence by Buddhists against Rohingya.

Rohingya residents, including community leaders who met Wednesday with Annan, said they have faith in the nine-member advisory commission headed by the former U.N. chief. Members of the Rakhine community, however, protested Annan's arrival Tuesday, saying they oppose foreign meddling.

By Moe Myint

The Irrawaddy

September 8, 2016

RANGOON — An urgent proposal put forward by Arakanese National Party (ANP) lawmaker Aung Kyaw San—calling for international members of the Arakan State Advisory Commission to be replaced with local academics—failed to earn parliamentary approval on Tuesday.

All military appointees to the legislature and the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) MPs, as well as many of the ethnic political parties’ representatives—totalling 148 parliamentarians—voted in support of the ANP’s proposal, but 250 lawmakers from the ruling National League for Democracy (NLD) objected to it. One MP abstained from the vote.

The nine-member Arakan State Advisory Commission—whose formation was announced on Aug. 24—aims to explore the roots of Buddhist-Muslim tension in Arakan State, and to make recommendations toward “lasting solutions” to conflict. Since the outbreak of anti-Muslim violence in 2012, leading to the displacement of 140,000, the region has received international attention.

Formed by State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the commission has three representatives from the international community, including chair and former UN chief Kofi Annan, two government representatives, two Buddhist Arakanese members, and two Muslim members.

In the Lower House debate over the ANP proposal moving to expel Kofi Annan and two former UN advisors, 34 lawmakers participated in the discussion. Four army appointees, four ANP MPs, and five Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) lawmakers spoke in support of the proposal, but the debate session was dominated by the objection of 21 legislators from the NLD.

ANP parliamentarian Pe Than said in the debate session that the State Counselor’s Office was under international pressure to select non-Burmese experts to serve on the Arakan State Advisory Commission alongside local appointees.

ANP concerns about the commission’s work and findings centered on a fear of a future mass repatriation of self-identifying Rohingya refugees back to Burma. Pe Than referred to the group as “Bengalis,” a suggestion that the individuals in question are not from Arakan State—which they claim as their homeland—but are migrants originally from Bangladesh.

“[Burma] could be faced with many consequences in the coming future,” Pe Than said, adding that the commission could not be trusted to deliver a “fair” assessment for Arakan—also known as Rakhine—State. He alleged that the international delegates, who he referred to as “so-called human rights activists,” would judge the situation in the region from a “one-sided perspective.”

NLD legislators responded by calling the comments “inappropriate” and “emotional” and threatening to the dignity of the Parliament. The lawmakers reminded the legislature of Mr. Annan’s record as a Nobel Peace Prize recipient, and referred to the other international representatives as “respected” individuals in the global community.

When Pe Than argued that the government was allowing foreign interference in internal Arakan State affairs, NLD MPs said that the conflict in Arakan State had grown from being a domestic issue to one of international importance.

The commission to review the controversial Myitsone dam at the confluence of the Irrawaddy River in Kachin State had only local experts, Pe Than pointed out—not international representatives.

“What is the main reason?” he asked.

NLD lawmaker Pyone Kaythi Naing said she “empathized with the ethnic Arakanese,” a reference to Arakanese Buddhists, and traced communal tension with the region’s Muslim community to British colonialism—during which, she said, migrants from South Asia came to fill labor needs in Burma and settled there.

However, the Rohingya community maintain that their roots in Arakan State date back to the ancient kingdom of Arakan, which predates colonialism and the borders drawn thereafter.

She said that previous governments in Burma had exacerbated what she saw as the problem, and that, with the formation of the advisory commission, the current civilian-led government had provided a fresh platform to search for a “neutral path” for both Buddhist and Muslim communities.

Pyone Kaythi Naing described the population in question simply as “the laborers” and their descendants, and avoided using either “Rohingya” or “Bengali.”

NLD MP Myint Wai speculated that if the new government had formed the commission solely with local experts, the international community would accuse them of bias, and reminded Parliament of the “negative image” Arakanese society had earned abroad.

“This is not the right time to oppose the commission. This is the right time to prove our good image to them,” he said.

USDP MP Tin Aye questioned Mr. Annan’s qualifications, presenting what are considered professional failures during his tenure as a UN peacekeeping envoy in the early 1990s—to prevent the genocide of the ethnic Tutsis in Rwanda, and the massacre of Bosnian Muslims in the town of Srebrenica.

Yet Tin Aye also criticized Annan’s later call for international interventions in cases of systematic human rights violations, such as those carried out in Rwanda and Bosnia. Classified under the “responsibility to protect,” the statute provides justification for the international community to intervene when a domestic government is “unable or unwilling” to prevent mass killings, ethnic cleansing and genocide.

“What if he demands that the UN act on the responsibility to protect?” he said. If the commission were to recommend an intervention based on the “responsibility to protect” in Arakan State, Tin Aye argued, it would be a threat to Burma’s sovereignty.

“Even Indra can’t solve the problem if they oppose the ethnic Arakanese,” said USDP lawmaker Sai Tun Thein, referencing a powerful Hindu god also worshipped as a deity in Buddhism.

Kofi Annan led eight members of the advisory commission to the Arakan State capital of Sittwe on Tuesday to conduct meetings with local civil society organizations. His arrival was met by hundreds of protesters calling for the international community to stay out of local affairs.

By Liza Yosephine

Only 99 Rohingya refugee seekers remain in East Aceh’s refugee camp out of the 409 that arrived on shore last year, an official has confirmed.

"We have received reports that the immigrants flee by deceiving the guards on ground. There are some who leave at night by crossing the river behind the refugee camp," Aceh legislative councilor Iskandar Usman Al-Farlaky said on Tuesday as quoted by kompas.com

Iskandar visited the refugee camp in Bayeun, in the district of Rantau Selamat. He suspected that the refugee seekers had run away to Malaysia. He expressed his worry they may fall victim to human trafficking.

Iskandar called on the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and International Organization Migration (IOM) to decide the final destination country for the Rohingya refugee seekers.

"There needs to be certainty," he said, adding that he did not meet any representatives of the UNHCR or IOM during his visit to the camp. He stressed the urgency to ensure a third country for the refugee seekers.

Indonesia has not ratified the 1951 Refugee Convention. But the country has voluntary resettled and repatriated boat people from Myanmar and other countries. Indonesia is considered a transit country for refugees en route to destination countries such as Australia.

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

By AFP

September 6, 2016

VIENTIANE: Myanmar's newly installed civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi will meet President Barack Obama in the United States next week, a senior White House official said on Tuesday (Sep 6).

Plans for a visit had been announced in July but no date had been given.

"She'll be visiting Washington and meeting with the president on Sep 15," deputy US national security adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters in Laos, where Obama is on a two day visit.

During a speech earlier in the day, Obama said he looked forward to welcoming Suu Kyi "as we stand with the people of Myanmar in their journey towards pluralism and peace".

The invitation reinforces Suu Kyi's primacy on the international stage as the real head of a government which she is technically barred from leading.

Despite winning a landslide in last November's elections, which ended decades of military rule, the Nobel laureate is banned by a military-era constitution from becoming president.

Instead she has taken the role of foreign minister and created a new position for herself as state counsellor. She has also appointed a longtime friend and ally, Htin Kyaw, to be a proxy president.

Obama and Suu Kyi first met in 2012 shortly after the veteran dissident was released from house arrest, where she had spent much of the last two decades under military rule. He also met Suu Kyi during a visit to Myanmar in 2014, when he criticised the ban on her assuming the presidency.

Myanmar's peaceful transition from military to civilian rule has been hailed in a world where such transitions seem rare. But the military remains enormously influential.

Officers are still guaranteed a quarter of legislative seats, giving them a veto on constitutional change, while the military retains control of the crucial home, border and defence ministries.

It also controls huge business conglomerates, with some key army-linked figures still under US sanctions. There have been suggestions Washington may lift some of those sanctions during Suu Kyi's visit, something which rights groups have balked at.

"US sanctions are focused on the Burmese generals and their cronies in order to encourage democratic reforms," said John Sifton, from Human Rights Watch. "They shouldn't be fully lifted until the democratic transition is irreversible."

Rhodes said Washington was determined to improve Myanmar's prospects by helping it trade with the world. "Some of that involves sanctions relief and we've taken steps to relax sanctions and to authorise greater activity and it's something we continue to look at," he said.

By Simon Lewis and Wa Lone 

Reuters
September 6, 2016

SITTWE, MYANMAR -- Hundreds in Myanmar rallied on Tuesday against an advisory commission led by former U.N. chief Kofi Annan to find solutions to the conflict between the country's Buddhists and minority Rohingya Muslims, which has cast a pall over democratic reforms.

The plight of the Rohingya has raised questions about Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi's commitment to human rights and represents a politically sensitive issue for her National League for Democracy, which won a landslide election victory last year.

Local residents and Buddhist monks joined the protest overseen by dozens of police, despite rain in the northwestern Rakhine State, challenging what they perceived as "foreigners' biased intervention" from the nine-member panel.

Jeers and chants denouncing the panel intensified upon the arrival of Annan's plane. The crowd soon followed the convoy into town, where Annan delivered a speech and met with members of both the Rohingya and Buddhist Rakhine communities during his two-day visit to Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine state.

"We are here to help provide ideas and advice," Annan told local officials and leaders from the Buddhist Rakhine community over the sound of demonstrators outside a government building.

"We are also aware of resistance, fears and doubts that have prevailed again and again," he said.

Myanmar's lower house of parliament was on Tuesday discussing whether foreigners should be excluded from the commission, but the chances of such an outcome are low.

"I don't want to see foreigners involved in this commission. I want to see a commission involving people of the Rakhine nationality," Kyaw Zin Wai, a 52-year-old carpenter told Reuters, adding that the two ethnic Rakhine commission members were not "representative" of people in the state.

The commission, made up of six Myanmar citizens and three foreigners, is on a initial two-day visit to meet local communities. It will visit camps for stateless Muslims on Wednesday, where people live in cramped and poorly maintained huts. It hopes to present its findings in the next few months.

More than 100 people were killed and some neighborhoods were razed to the ground as local ethnic Rakhine Buddhists clashed with Rohingya Muslims across the state in 2012.

Some 125,000 people are still displaced, the vast majority of them Rohingya, who are prevented from moving freely, have their access to basic services restricted and are mostly denied citizenship in Myanmar. Many have fled by sea in rickety boats.

Suu Kyi, who is barred from the presidency by the junta-drafted constitution but leads the country as state counselor and foreign minister, formed the commission last month to find solutions to the issue.

She plans to visit the United States this month, where she is thought to be seeking further sanctions relief for her country but is likely to face questions over her efforts to improve conditions for the Rohingya.

The protest was called by some leaders in the state's powerful Arakan National Party (ANP), which has criticized the commission, insisting that foreigners cannot understand the history of the area.

"This country has its own sovereignty, so we will not accept foreign interference in local affairs," said Aung Than Wai, secretary of ANP's executive committee.

Annan told fellow commissioners and Suu Kyi at the panel's first meeting in Yangon on Monday that he planned to approach the region's long-running conflict with "rigorous impartiality" and would listen to all sides of the conflict.

"Dialogue will be the order of the day," Annan said.

By Moe Myint
The Irrawaddy

September 6, 2016

RANGOON – Burma’s State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi said that she believes the Arakan State Advisory Commission—chaired by former UN general secretary Kofi Annan—will bring credible advice in confronting tension in Arakan State.

On Monday, the State Counselor and the nine-member commission conducted their initial meeting at National Reconciliation and Peace Centre (NRPC) in Rangoon. Media were allowed access to the opening speeches of the session.

“All members of the commission will help us to find a way forward,” she said. “We believe that you will give us fair and valuable advice. I believe that it will be based on goodwill to all our people as well as people all over the world. And based on your advice, we will try the best for our country.”

The problems in Arakan State, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi explained, not only have relevance for Burma but also the global community. Since anti-Muslim violence broke out in the region in 2012, more than 140,000 people have been displaced in the state and tensions have grown between the Buddhist Arakanese and the Muslim Rohingya.

Communal violence is not a recent phenomenon, she continued, adding that the problem has been growing for “many years” and a historical investigation would contribute to better understanding of the conflict.

She also refuted assertions from political parties, such as the Arakan National Party and the Union Solidarity and Development Party, that the formation of the commission—which includes three international members—would interfere with Burma’s sovereignty on “internal affairs.”

“No one can interfere with our sovereignty—sovereignty is owned by all people, not only by the government,” Daw Aung San Suu Kyi said. “Our problem has been on the international stage for many years and we want to find out why. We want to find out why our problem has become of great importance to humans all over the world. We must try to evaluate the situation.”

The commission’s purpose, she stated, is to investigate the root causes of conflict in Arakan State and to develop a reconciliation process between the two religious communities in the region.

Kofi Annan delivered a short statement to the press at the event in which he said that the advisory commission would act rigorously to find ways to address the situation in Arakan State, and work closely with the people of the region, including engaging with community and religious leaders, local administration and members of the State Counselor’s Office.

Although the challenges facing Arakan State are “complex and deep-rooted,” Mr. Annan said he remains “confident that we can assist the people of Rakhine to chart a common path for a peaceful and prosperous future.”

During the conference, both sides avoided using the term “Rohingya,” the name with which many Muslims in the region ethnically identify; it is rejected by many Arakanese Buddhists and members of the Burmese public, who describe the group as “Bengali,” implying they are interlopers from neighboring Bangladesh. The “Rohingya” are not listed among Burma’s 135 officially recognized ethnic groups, contributing to widespread statelessness among the population.

The commission itself does not have any Rohingya members—it includes two Muslim representatives, two Arakanese Buddhists and two government representatives, in addition to the three members of the international community.

On Tuesday, Mr. Annan will travel to Arakan State, reportedly to introduce himself to locals as the chair of the advisory commission and spend two days in the region. Around 300 Arakanese Buddhist nationalists have already received permission from the local authorities to hold a peaceful protest at the airport in the state capital of Sittwe, according to police official Aye Khin Maung.

“Locals will protest for two days at the airport, [corresponding with] the arrival and departure times of Mr. Annan,” he said.

By Kofi Annan Foundation

September 5, 2016

Yangon: In the presence of the State Counselor of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi, and the Commission’s chair and chair of the Kofi Annan Foundation, Kofi Annan, the Advisory Commission on Rakhine State holds its inaugural session in Yangon today.

On Tuesday 6 September, the Commission will travel to Sittwe, Rakhine State, to meet with the authorities and representatives of various communities. The Commission’s chair will meet the President of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, Htin Kyaw and the Commander-in-Chief, Min Aung Hlaing in Naypyidaw on the morning of Thursday 8 September. 

“We hope that the Commission will help us heal wounds,” Aung San Suu Kyi said. “We want this to be a country that ensures rights for all its people. We look to the Commission to point a way forward. Let me add that there should be no concerns surrounding Myanmar’s sovereignty which firmly remains in the hands of the people.” 

“We look forward to listening and engaging with a wide range of interlocutors in Rakhine state as well as at the national level in order to develop proposals that take full account of the concerns and hopes of the people of the State,” Kofi Annan said. 

The Advisory Commission will submit and discuss its findings and recommendations to the Government of Myanmar through the State Counselor and thereafter publish its report, in the second half of 2017. 

About the commission: 

The Advisory Commission’s mandate is to provide recommendations to the Government of Myanmar on measures for finding lasting solutions to the complex and delicate issues in the Rakhine State, in accordance with established international standards. 

The Commission’s members are: 

• Kofi Annan (Chair), Chair of the Kofi Annan Foundation, Secretary General of the United Nations (1997 – 2006), Nobel Peace Laureate (2001) 

• U Win Mra, Chair of the Myanmar National Human Rights Commission 

• Dr Thar Hla Shwe, President of the Myanmar Red Cross Society 

• Ghassan Salamé, Lebanese Minister of Culture (2000-2003), UN Special Advisor to Secretary General (2003-2006) 

• Laetitia van den Assum, Special Advisor to the UNAIDS (2005-2006), the Netherlands’ Ambassador to the United Kingdom (2012-2015) 

• U Aye Lwin, Core Member and Founder of Religions for Peace, Myanmar 

• Dr Mya Thida, President of Obstetrical and Gynecological Society of Myanmar Medical Association, Member of the Myanmar Academy of Medical Science 

• U Khin Maung Lay, Member of the Myanmar National Human Rights Commission 

• Daw Saw Khin Tint, Chairperson (Rakhine Literature and Culture Association, Yangon) and Vice-Chairperson (Rakhine Women Association) 

The Commission will establish a small secretariat in Yangon. More information will be available shortly with the launch of the Commission’s website.

By AFP

September 5, 2016

YANGON: Buddhist hardliners threatened today to stage protests against a visit by former UN chief Kofi Annan to Myanmar's strife-torn Rakhine state, where tens of thousands of stateless Rohingya Muslims languish in displacement camps. 

Aung San Suu Kyi has asked Annan to head an advisory commission to recommend how her government can narrow bitter sectarian divides in the western state.

Rakhine has suffered deadly anti-Muslim violence since 2012 and the Rohingya question remains incendiary in Buddhist-majority Myanmar.

Their plight has also seen Suu Kyi's reputation as a rights defender tarnished.

Myanmar nationalists insist the million-strong group are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and refuse to use the word "Rohingya", instead labelling them "Bengalis".

Annan, who is due to arrive in the state capital Sittwe on Tuesday, told reporters he intends to be impartial in his peace and reconciliation bid.

But Rakhine activists object to the visit.

"Rakhine affairs are local affairs. We acknowledge Kofi Annan and his reputation but we do not accept his interference in our affairs," Aung Htay, one of the leaders of the protest group, said.

"We will protest tomorrow at Sittwe airport. We respect Kofi Annan personally but we do not think he knows Rakhine history."

The envoy is expected to visit Rohingya camps and meet Rakhine community groups and officials.

But the region's largest political group, the Arakan National Party, has already ruled out meeting the former UN secretary-general.

The Rohingya are denied citizenship in Myanmar and face severe restrictions on their movements across Rakhine, as well as curbs in access to health care and other basic services.

More than 100,000 of the Muslim group live in squalid displacement camps. 

Their treatment is seen as a black spot on Myanmar's democratic progress since Suu Kyi's elected government took power in April.

Suu Kyi, Myanmar's de facto leader, said Monday Annan's nine-member commission could help "heal the wounds" of sectarian conflict.

"We cannot ignore problems.... ignoring problems will simply allow them to get worse and worse," she told reporters.

But for the first few months of her tenure in office Suu Kyi tried to avoid inflaming Buddhist nationalist sentiment.

In June she ordered officials to refer to the group only as "Muslims of Rakhine State".

But even that order sparked mass protests in Rakhine, with local Buddhists demanding the government call them "Bengalis".

Rakhine protesters have previously targeted international aid agencies in the state as well as the UN over their perceived support for the Rohingya.

By Nehginpao Kipgen

The Diplomat
September 5, 2016

A new advisory commission, led by Annan, will seek a lasting solution to tensions in Rakhine state.

In an attempt to find a sustainable solution to the complicated issues between Muslims and Buddhists in Rakhine state, former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan is visiting Myanmar this week.

Annan is head of the nine member State Advisory Commission formed by the Myanmar government on August 24. Annan, who was the UN secretary general from 1997-2001, shared the Nobel Peace Prize with the United Nations in 2001.

The other international members of the commission are Ghassan Salamé, a scholar from Lebanon and former advisor to Kofi Annan, and Laetitia van den Assum, a diplomat from the Netherlands and a former advisor to the United Nations Program on HIV and AIDS. The other six members are Myanmar nationals, with two Rakhine Buddhist members, two Muslim members, and two government representatives.

The Commission has been tasked with finding conflict-prevention measures, ensuring humanitarian assistance, rights and reconciliation, establishing basic infrastructure, and promoting long-term development plans in the restive state. And the commission has been given a year to conduct research and submit a report on its findings.

The formation of the commission was necessitated by a number of factors, but most importantly due to the protracted and lingering tensions between the Buddhists and Muslims (mostly Rohingyas) in the wake of the 2012 violence in Rakhine state that killed more than 100 people and has resulted in some 125,000 Rohingya Muslims living in designated camps where their movements are restricted.

Importance of Timing

The timing of Annan’s visit is important for the Myanmar government as it happens at a time when the attention of the international community, including the media, is relatively focused on the Southeast Asian nation.

First, Annan’s visit comes right after the highly vaunted 21st century Panglong conference where the Myanmar government is seeking to secure peace and reconciliation with the country’s ethnic minorities. Several dignitaries, including Ban Ki-moon, the incumbent UN secretary general and successor of Annan himself, attended the conference.

Second, the commission’s first visit also comes days before Suu Kyi’s planned visit to the United States, where she will meet President Barack Obama and also address the 71st session of the UN General Assembly.

By making some progress in the peace process with the country’s ethnic armed groups, as well as by taking certain initiatives with regard to the Rohingya issue, Suu Kyi would have a strong case to present during her meeting with Obama and also while addressing the UN General Assembly. Suu Kyi is expected to make efforts to convince the international community about her NLD government’s positive initiatives and urge patience and continued support for its success.

Challenges Ahead

Despite some positive developments, there are certain challenges. The first is domestic opposition to the commission’s composition. Since its formation on August 24, two political parties — the Arakan National Party and the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) — have called for its cancellation or the removal of the international members on the grounds that they could not be expected to understand the local context or that their involvement would amount to interference in Myanmar’s internal affairs.

Whether these political parties will gradually accept and recognize the role of the commission or continue with their opposition remains to be seen. The acceptance or non-acceptance of the commission may also depend on how its work progresses and the strategy it pursues.

The issue of identity or nomenclature will perhaps be the greatest challenge of the commission. Although the Muslims in Rakhine call themselves Rohingya, the Buddhists in Rakhine and many across Myanmar call them illegal Bengali immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh.

In an attempt to pacify both sides, the NLD government uses neither of the two sensitive terms — Rohingya and Bengali — and instead refers to them as the Muslims of Rakhine. The previous USDP government used the term Bengali, and at one point President Thein Sein suggested that they should be resettled to a third country under the initiative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, a proposal which was rejected outright by the UN.

During his recent visit to Myanmar, Ban Ki-moon chose to use the controversial term “Rohingya” in his speech. While the Muslims in Rakhine want to be identified as “Rohingya,” given the strong opposition from the ultra or nationalist Buddhists to the term’s usage, it is still unclear as to what name the commission would use to address these people or when submitting its report to the Myanmar government.

Another major challenge will be the question of citizenship for the Rohingyas. As of now, the NLD government’s position on the issue is not much different from its predecessor. The government wants to address this sensitive question in accordance with the 1982 citizenship law, which would have made many of the Rohingyas ineligible for Myanmar citizenship.

According to the 1982 citizenship law, there are three categories of citizenship: citizen, associate citizen, and naturalized citizen. Citizens are descendants of residents who lived in Burma prior to 1823 or were born to parents who were both citizens. Associate citizens are those who acquired citizenship through the 1948 Union Citizenship Act. Naturalized citizens are people who lived in Burma before January 4, 1948 and applied for citizenship after 1982.

Because of the continued allegation of the Muslims in Rakhine being illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, whether the advisory commission would talk to the Dhaka government in the course of its mission remains to be seen. A compounding complicated issue is that Bangladesh, which already hosts about 300,000 Rohingyas, has rejected the Rohingyas as its citizens.

New Thinking

The NLD government’s appointment of the commission is not the first of its kind. In February 2014, President Thein Sein appointed a 10-member commission to probe the death of a policeman, which had sparked what was described as revenge killings of at least 40 Rohingya Muslims by Buddhist mobs in western Rakhine state.

Prior to the appointment of the commission, Myanmar Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin also announced a separate inquiry by three government-appointed groups into the circumstances that led to the violence in Rakhine state. The Central Committee for Rakhine State Peace, Stability, and Development Implementation; the Myanmar National Human Rights Commission; and the Rakhine Conflict Investigation Commission conducted separate investigations into the killings.

Neither the commission nor the separate investigations brought a lasting solution to the simmering tensions between the Muslims and Buddhists in Rakhine state. Among others, the initiatives partly failed because the government had lacked substantive plans to address the core issues of identity and citizenship of the Rohingyas.

In light of these failures of the commission and investigations led by people of Myanmar and the continued pressure from the international community, the participation of foreign experts may help bring some new thinking and fresh ideas, which may pave the way for a possible solution to the protracted problem.

In any case, the task of Kofi Annan-led commission is to conduct research and give its recommendation to the Myanmar government. The commission has no power to enforce those recommendations. Since there are Myanmar nationals as well as foreign nationals in the commission, it may engender a neutral idea that could be mutually acceptable.

However, regardless of the appointment of the commission and its anticipated recommendation, reconciliation will have a chance to succeed when Rohingyas and Rakhines are willing to compromise on their differences by respecting each other’s identity and culture. More importantly, the Myanmar government and the general public must be ready to embrace the Rohingyas if any genuine reconciliation is to be achieved.

Dr. Nehginpao Kipgen is Assistant Professor and Executive Director of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Jindal School of International Affairs, O.P. Jindal Global University. His writings (books and articles) have been widely published in over 30 countries in five continents: Asia, Africa, Australia, Europe, and North America.