By AFP

September 26, 2016

Myanmar's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been forced to take a rest from her state duties after becoming unwell during a state trip abroad, her office said Monday.

The 71-year-old was diagnosed with gastritis after returning from a visit to Britain and the US, her first trip to her Western allies since taking office in March.

Pictures of her being pushed through Yangon airport in a wheelchair posted on social media sparked concern about the Nobel Laureate's health and quickly went viral.

"She feels weak as she did not have much time to rest during the trip," her office said in a statement.

"She has a stomach ache as she did not have time to have regular meals," it added, adding that she "just needs to rest for a while".

Suu Kyi's health has long been a topic of speculation in Myanmar, where she is deeply revered after decades leading the struggle against the former military junta.

Since her release in 2011 from long years under house arrest she has kept a notoriously frenetic schedule despite her advanced years and slight frame.

But occasional bouts of ill health stopped her campaigning in 2012 and forced her to cancel public appearances last year. Earlier this year she also had operations to remove cataracts from both eyes.

Suu Kyi holds several key cabinet positions including foreign minister, as well as leading the government in a specially created role of state counsellor.

Many of her government cabinet members are also fellow democracy veterans of advanced years, leading a country with an otherwise burgeoning youth population.

Her doctor, Tin Myo Win, said he was "very busy with the health of Aung San Suu Kyi" when briefly reached by AFP, but declined to give further details.

By Hein Ko Soe

Frontier Myanmar 

September 26, 2016 

YANGON — Officials in Rakhine State have sought to downplay fears of building demolitions in Maungdaw District, after a government audit reported that over 3,000 structures had been built without permission.

Comments made in Maungdaw town by state Border Affairs Minister Col. Htein Lin on Sept. 18 about the state’s audit of religious buildings had sparked rumours the government was planning to take imminent action to tear down mosques, madrassas and homes in Rakhine’s north.

State Development Minister U Min Aung told Frontier on Friday that his government had no current plans to demolish buildings, and said Htein Lin’s comments had been taken out of context.

“So many rumours of the numbers of illegal buildings are spreading in the state and across the country,” he said. “But it is true that more than 3,000 illegal buildings exist [in Maungdaw District].”

He added that any action would be determined by the judiciary if the government decided to submit 'illegal' building cases to the courts.

As with other state and regional jurisdictions across the country, the Rakhine State government is carrying out a survey on behalf of the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Culture of religious buildings constructed without ministry approval.

Rakhine authorities decided to carry out a parallel survey on other buildings constructed without planning approval in the district, which comprises the townships of Maungdaw and Buthidaung on the Bangladeshi border.

Min Aung claimed Friday that the same survey of all illegal buildings, rather than solely religious structures, would be carried out statewide.

Rohingya Muslims comprise the majority of the population in both townships. For decades, most Rohingya living in the district have had limited access to healthcare and education. Communal violence in 2012 resulted in increased travel restrictions and the denial of voting rights ahead of last year’s election. 

The survey of illegal buildings was denounced in a Friday statement by a coalition of European Rohingya organisations, who said that the government’s actions was an attempt to “destabilise the situation in the territory with intentions to frustrate any attempts to bring about peace and stability” in Rakhine State.

The buildings deemed illegal by the state government included 12 mosques and 35 madrasas, according to the statement.

The Religious Affairs Ministry has distanced itself from the state government’s actions, saying that Rakhine authorities were responsible for the illegal building survey.

“We are not managing audits of all illegal buildings in states and regions. Each state and regional government is managing it and we have already handed over all responsibility for that,” said U Aung San Win, a ministry director.

However, the Arakan National Party has voiced its support for demolishing illegal structures in Maungdaw and Buthidaung, with claims that the number of buildings without planning approval has grown rapidly in the last year.

U Tun Aung Thein, an ANP state lawmaker for Maungdaw, told Frontier on Friday he would raise an objection in the state assembly if the government refused to demolish illegal structures in the township.

On September 23, The Myanmar Times published the first of a two-part series about Raysuana, a young Rohingya woman who was discovered semi-conscious at a military compound in Sittwe township on August 18 and who died 12 hours later without being taken to a hospital or any kind of criminal inquiry having been launched. Today we look at what happened to her after she was found, and reveal why she did not receive the medical attention she so desperately needed. Read Part I here.

When Raysuana arrived at Thet Kya Pin Clinic at around 8am on August 18, the odds were already stacked against the young woman who had been found naked and injured in the bushes at a military compound earlier that morning.

The facility is a basic health centre for members of the Muslim Rohingya minority who are denied freedom of movement by state authorities and are usually required to go through a complicated referral process before they are allowed to go to the nearby state hospital.

It would be another hour until the state doctor would turn up for duty, and so the Thet Kya Pin village administrator U Hla Myint handed Raysuana over to the clinic’s medical assistants for care. She was placed on the bare metal slats of one of the clinic’s mattressless beds to await the doctor’s arrival.

Some clothes were hurriedly found and a woman at the clinic dressed Raysuana, noting as she did that there was blood around the young woman’s vagina.

“On the way to the clinic, I called to police and reported it and then I reported it to [a second] police station,” said U Hla Myint, who had been contacted earlier that morning by officers at the nearby military compound where Raysuana had been found and told to take her to the clinic.

“I arrived with her at the same time as the police got there,” said U Hla Myint.

But the police, who are under the authority of the military, did not open a criminal case.

U Hla Myint set off to the neighbouring camps and villages to find out if anyone knew of a missing woman. Raysuana’s mother had fled to Malaysia after riots broke out between ethnic Rakhine and Rohingya Muslims in 2012, leaving 140,000 displaced. Raysuana had been taken in by another family.

A victim of sexual assault, or psychiatric episode?

The “in-patients” section of Thet Kya Pin Clinic is, in reality, more outside than “in”. No wall separates the open-sided “ward” from the rest of the sparse health facility, and the male and female patients who lie on the few beds are entirely exposed to public view.

Such circumstances are far from ideal for any victim of gender-based violence.

But despite Raysuana having been found naked, other than a bra, and despite the fact that the woman who helped care for her when she arrived at the clinic reported possible injuries to her vagina, Raysuana was not treated as a potential victim of GBV.

Instead, sources have told The Myanmar Times that after the state doctor arrived she was classified as a psychiatric case.

This is understood to have played a significant role in why more effort was not made to ensure she received the necessary permission to be taken to the nearby state hospital for proper examination and treatment.

The allegation has been denied by the state health department, which told The Myanmar Times that because Raysuana was unable to speak, the doctor could not ascertain whether her condition was psychiatric in nature or not.

However, medical staff who attended the clinic later in the day are understood to have been told Raysuana’s was a psychiatric case and explained to their seniors later that they were not informed of the circumstances in which she was found.

The reason for the discrepancy in accounts is unknown. What is clear, however, is that due to inadequate medical assessments, a flawed and unclear set of referral protocols, and fear of reprisals, Raysuana was not treated as an emergency case nor as a possible victim of sexual violence.

The possibility that a confused, naked and injured young woman may have suffered a sexual assault and/or traumatic head injuries – with potentially life-threatening internal injuries – did not appear to be considered significant enough to either of the male doctors who treated Raysuana that day, nor to hospital authorities, to ensure she received an emergency referral.

“I believe if she’d been taken to hospital, she would have lived,” said one witness with a medical background who saw Raysuana at different moments from her arrival at the clinic until her death.

An act of kindness hides the truth

Dressing Raysuana was an act undertaken to restore her modesty. However, once she was clothed in a high-necked blouse and longyi, no further examination was undertaken to determine whether she was a victim of gender-based violence, or had internal injuries.

Indeed, such was the reluctance of the state doctor to examine her at all that he appears to have missed injuries even to less intimate parts of her anatomy.

The Myanmar Times spoke to three different medical workers involved in Raysuana’s treatment and each, separately, mentioned her most obvious injury was one to the back of her shoulder.

Yet according to the state medical department, no such injury was recorded in Raysuana’s medical notes. When The Myanmar Times asked Dr Thaung Hlaing, the state public health director, about this, he suggested the fact that she was clothed by the time the doctor saw her meant the wound was likely missed.

As for the possibility that Raysuana had been sexually assaulted, he appeared sceptical.

“For rape – I don’t agree,” said Dr Thaung Hlaing. “We can’t even see … could not see for medical reasons. Our doctor was also reluctant to handle her,” he said, referring to the fact that there was not a qualified female nurse or doctor present.

The state doctor did do a basic examination of Raysuana, checking her “extremities” and analysing her state of consciousness.

“Our doctor examined her [using] the Glasgow Coma State [assessment] and she was in the middle, borderline. He informed us and started the transfer [process to send her] to the city general hospital,” Dr Thaung Hlaing.

Protecting reputations, risking lives

But a second problem was coming to the fore. No one in the community had been found to identify Raysuana and there were no relatives to give any form of medical consent, so there was no one to travel with her to the hospital as an attendant.

According to international agencies based in Sittwe, in an emergency situation a patient can be transferred to the hospital from Rohingya camps or villages without an attendant.

Under “right to life” protocols and given the high possibility that Raysuana’s unconscious or semi-conscious state at the time she was found indicated the possibility of serious head trauma, she should have been sent straight to the hospital from the military compound rather than the clinic, an international expert in the state capital said.

But even following the doctor’s recommendation at the clinic, the local community and the medical authorities were reluctant to send Raysuana to hospital alone, and medical authorities denied her a transferral unless she had an attendant.

“Our department was ready to assist her to come, but unfortunately there was no one to come with her,” said Dr Thaung Hlaing. “I’m not making excuses; that’s just what happened.”

Among the many rumours that abound in ethnically and religiously divided Sittwe, one in particular strikes fear into the heart of the Rohingya community: There is a commonly held belief that Muslim patients who go to Sittwe Hospital are deliberately hurt or even murdered by the ethnic Rakhine staff who work there.

While reports of careless or insensitive treatment of Rohingya patients have on occasion been verified by witnesses, no evidence has emerged of deliberate harm, let alone murder.

Regardless of their veracity, the impact of these rumours has been significant. Not only were members of the Rohyinga community reluctant to send Raysuana to hospital unaccompanied, but also hospital authorities refused to take her amid fears they could be held responsible were she to die without a witness from her own ethnic background.

“The other [Rohingya] community still doesn’t have trust in our hospital. If we admitted her without an attendant and she died, we can’t explain why or what we did,” said Dr Thaung Hlaing.

He added, “They don’t dare accept her in case the media or the international community say something.”

Too frightened to get involved

As the village head U Hla Myint’s efforts to find anyone who knew the injured young woman continued to prove fruitless, he asked if anyone else from the community would be willing to accompany her to hospital, but no volunteer came forward.

“They were not her relatives and they were afraid the girl would die in hospital. They didn’t want to be involved,” he said.

With no one to accompany Raysuana, and the hospital refusing to take her alone, the doctor put her on a drip and admitted her to the clinic while the search for her family continued.

“We have the drip-line there and put these measures in front of people,” said Dr Thaung Hlaing.

He added that if Raysuana died at the clinic with witnesses there, it would cause fewer problems than were she to die alone in hospital with no one from her community to witness what had happened.

“My doctor was very reluctant even to touch her, [other than] for life-saving measures.”

As for ensuring she was treated for a possible sexual assault, “If we’re informed there’s been an assault we’ll check but otherwise we can’t. If it’s not a police case, we can’t and the police did not inform us,” he explained.

According to those working on gender-based violence issues, it does not legally require that a formal police case be opened for an incident to be treated as possible GBV. This is not something those involved in Raysuana’s case appeared to be aware of, or willing to put into practice.

“She was very unlucky. My doctor didn’t see any red [blood stain] on her longyi,” Dr Thaung Hlaing added, saying that without such clearly visible evidence, the doctor was unable to act.

A second chance for help missed

At around 2:30 that afternoon – by which time Raysuana had been lying in the open facility for around six-and-a-half hours having had only the most cursory of examinations – a doctor from the INGO Mercy Malaysia arrived to take over medical care at the clinic.

According to sources, Raysuana, having been admitted to the clinic as an in-patient, was not considered to be under his charge as the organisation was tasked solely with out-patient treatments and hospital referrals that afternoon.

The Mercy Malaysia doctor did, however, examine her “informally”.

“As soon as [the doctor] realised she was semi-conscious, he said she should be referred to hospital and called for an ambulance,” said one source present at the time.

The source said the doctor did not believe Raysuana was at imminent risk of death, but considered it important that she receive X-rays and other medical checks that could not be carried out at the clinic due to its lack of facilities.

“But the problem was [she] needed a security guard and a patient attendant, but they said she’s’ ‘unknown’ and there was no attendant so [the doctor] cannot refer her,” said the source.

According to the source, “[The doctor said he] didn’t know how serious Raysuana’s condition was, but because of the situation it did not look like an emergency. Her condition was stable.”

Asked why this second doctor had not followed up on the possibility that Raysuana had been a victim of gender-based violence, another source close to the case said the doctor had not been made fully aware of the circumstances in which the young woman had been found.

The source said that according to his understanding of events, Raysuana had gained some consciousness and at times had been able to get up and was acting erratically.

“[The Mercy Malaysia doctor] saw this woman pulling out her drip and wandering around incoherent and accepted the assessment of the state doctor who had admitted her – that she was a psychiatric case,” the source said.

It should be noted that no direct witnesses, including medical staff, spoken to during interviews in Rakhine State described such behaviour by Raysuana.

U Hla Myint, the village administrator, returned to the clinic at around 5pm.

“I said to the doctor, ‘No one wants to take care of her in hospital so what should we do?’ The doctor said, ‘Let her stay one night [at the clinic] and check on her condition.’”

By 6pm, the Mercy Malyasia doctor left the clinic for the night, leaving Raysuana in the care of Yasmin (not her real name), a Rohingya woman who had worked at Sittwe General Hospital before the inter-communal conflicts of 2012 and acted as a nurse at the clinic.

Around an hour later Raysuana died, having regained the ability to speak in the last minutes of her life when she called out for her mother.

“She was very unlucky,” said Dr Thaung Hlaing. “If she could have overcome the night, she could have come to the hospital.”

A final indignity

Early the following morning, U Hla Myint’s attempts to discover Raysuana’s identity finally had some success – although it was too late for the young woman.

He received a message that someone knew of a girl matching Raysuana’s description who had been living in Ohn Taw Shay and then later Let That Mar villages.

It emerged that as well as her “second mother” at Ohn Taw Shay, where Raysuana had stayed for three years after being displaced in the 2012 riots, as well as Su Ra Ka Tu, the mother of her friend in Let That Mar, with whom she had been living before her disappearance, she also had a cousin by marriage living on the outskirts of Thet Kya Pin.

But like others in the community, Raysuana’s relatives did not want to get involved either.

Idris, an elder from Let That Mar, takes up the story.

“We found out what had happened when the head of the village [U Hla Myint] came to us,” he said.

Her Let That Mar friends collected Raysuana’s body from the clinic and carried her to her relatives’ home.

“But they were not close relatives and they didn’t want to bury her. That’s why we had to take her back here,” Idris explained.

“There was no investigation, but we reported it to the police at the gate [the checkpoint for people entering the Rohingya villages].

“At first we waited for some investigation and then we asked the police and the head of the village how we should proceed. We were told it’s a normal inquiry for this case so we can bury her now.”

Standing by the patch of earth where she laid Raysuana’s body to rest last month, Su Ra Ka Tu recalls the day she buried the young woman she had hoped would become a sister-in-law to her daughter.

“I first saw her body in the morning after she died and by the time we got her here to the village it was about 11am. I buried her at 4pm.

“We couldn’t call her family before I buried her. At the time there was no phone connection to Malaysia.”

Raysuana was buried without an autopsy or even a doctor’s declaration as to cause of death. Demands by Amnesty International for an independent inquiry have so far gone unmet.

As for the state health authorities and international agencies involved in this case, so far no public announcement has been made as to what action will be taken to prevent such an incident from happening again.

By Yi Yawl Myint

The Myanmar Times

September 26, 2016
 

By Mahmood Hasan

The Daily Star

September 26, 2016

There seems to be a very thin light of hope that the lot of Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine state of Myanmar may change for the better. Guarded optimism was expressed by some after former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan was chosen to lead a commission which is supposed to find a lasting solution to the communal conflict in Rakhine state. 

On August 23, 2016, a government notice announced that the Advisory Commission on Rakhine State was established between the office of State Counsellor and Foreign Minister of Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi, and Kofi Annan Foundation. The commission will be chaired by Kofi Annan and will include three international and six national members, and will meet all relevant stakeholders and international experts with a view “to finding the best possible solution to prevailing problems”. It will have 12 months to “submit its findings and recommendations”. This is an unprecedented move, as Myanmar has never allowed foreigners in any government commission.

Annan visited Sittwe from September 5-7 to meet local leaders and see for himself the Thet Ke Pyin Squalid refugee camp, where 140,000 internally displaced Rohingyas are living in dire humanitarian conditions.

During the visit, Annan met with rowdy protests from angry Buddhists, waving “No outsiders”, “No to foreigners” placards. Along with Buddhist bigots, the Arakan National Party (ANP) and the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) were protesting the inclusion of three foreign members in the commission. They argue that the conflict in Rakhine is Myanmar's internal issue and no foreigner should be allowed to engage with it. The commission does not have any representation from the Rohingya community.

Addressing the press in Yangon on September 8, Annan sought to dispel concerns over the potential partiality of the commission, saying that his mandate is to take on board concerns of both the state's Buddhist and Muslim communities and not to police human rights. “We are here to help at the request of the government and we see this as a Myanmar Commission that we are participating in, bringing in some international dimensions and you will get an honest report from all of us”, said Annan. He also said both Burma and Bangladesh will need to collaborate to resolve the problem.

Rakhine is home to more than 1.1 million stateless Rohingya Muslims, whom Buddhists call “Kalar” and “Bengalis” - derogatory terms referring them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. Rohingyas, denied citizenship, face violent discrimination from the majority of Myanmar that have left them in a pathetic state.

In 2012, waves of deadly riots broke out between the two communities, which left more than 200 Rohingyas brutally killed. The conflict became an international issue when hundreds perished at sea as thousands tried to flee Myanmar by boats to neighbouring countries. Over 300,000 unregistered Rohingyas are sheltered in Bangladesh. The United Nations describes the Rohingyas as “the most persecuted minorities in the world”.

Interestingly, the Commission began its work in Yangon in early September between two important events. First, the Panglong Conference convened by Suu Kyi, which ended on September 4, 2016; and second, Suu Kyi's visit to Washington at the invitation of President Obama.

Though the Panglong Conference, which sought to make a peace deal with Myanmar's 18 ethnic groups and three insurgent armies, ended inconclusively, the Annan Commission is seen as a part of the reconciliation process initiated by Suu Kyi.

In Washington, Suu Kyi was virtually treated as Head of State. She was received by President Obama at the White House on September 14, 2016. To encourage further democratic reforms, President Obama lifted the trade sanctions imposed on Myanmar in 1989 and also restored GSP facilities for Myanmar exports to the US.

Since assuming the onerous role of chief of the NLD-led government, Suu Kyi has been trying to push for democratic reforms and consolidate her position as State Counsellor – euphemism for Prime Minister. Suu Kyi is keen to show to the generals the economic benefits of a democratic transition. She is also eager to show that democracy can unify the nation by bringing in different armed ethnic minorities, including the Rohingyas, through reconciliation. Indeed, Suu Kyi needs the support of the West, particularly Washington, in her efforts.

Suu Kyi was widely criticised for not condemning the riots of 2012. Her silence had actually encouraged the “Ma Ba Tha”(Protection of Race and Religion) movement led by xenophobic Buddhist monk Ashin Wirathu to instigate communal riots. She formed the Commission with international personalities not only to silence her critics but also to raise her administration's authority and credibility.

Addressing the 71st UN General Assembly in New York, Suu Kyi referred to the Rohingya issue saying, “By standing firm against the forces of prejudice and intolerance, we are reaffirming our faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person”. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina met Suu Kyi on September 19 on the sidelines of the UNGA, and welcomed the Kofi Annan Commission. If Kofi Annan needs help, surely Bangladesh will come forward.

Assuming that the Commission makes recommendations for the restoration of rights of the Rohingyas, it will be difficult for NLD not to implement them. On the other hand, given the widespread racial intolerance, it will test Suu Kyi's efforts towards restoring the rights of the Rohingyas, including citizenship. More importantly, whether the military generals will accept the Commission's proposals remains to be seen.

However, hopes have been raised when Suu Kyi said that there was “persistent opposition from some quarters” to the establishment of the Commission, but her government would persevere in its efforts to achieve peace in Rakhine. Let us hope that Aung San Suu Kyi will firmly handle Buddhist fanaticism and redress the plight of Rohingyas in Rakhine.

....................................................................

The writer is former Ambassador and Secretary.

By Roy Goh

The New Strait Times Online

September 24, 2016

Malaysia may be able to host them temporarily but Zahid said a more comprehensive plan was needed to resolve their problems and it needs the help from their home country - Myanmar, designated host country, Asean as well as the United Nations. 

Zahid said however he has full confidence in the UN High Commissioner of Refugees Filippo Grandi in dealing with the displaced Muslim minority community from Myanmar despite the many setbacks particularly in financial matters. 

Zahid and Grandi met on the sidelines in the on going 71st United Nations General Assembly on Thursday. 

“On out part together with Asean, an international conference is being mooted for all 10 member countries of the bloc to sit together and discuss to find a solution for the community,” he said. 

Zahid said the conference to be organised by the Institute of Public Security and a religious based party will also involve non governmental organisations that has dealt with the Rohingyas before. 

Among the issues to be discussed would be the reason why many designated countries were reluctant to accept them. 

“Some countries there are many of the refugees and that they were being selective, preferring only professionals, skilled or semi skilled workers. 

“This is where we can probably discuss how we could train them and improve their marketability in designated host countries,” he said. 

Zahid stressed Myanmar would also be invited so that their opinion could be included in the process of resolving the issue.

By Fiona Macgregor

Myanmar Times

September 24, 2016

On August 30, Amnesty International called for an independent inquiry into the death and possible sexual assault of a young Rohingya woman who was found at a military compound in the Rakhine State capital Sittwe. In a two-part series that highlights the plight of Rohingya women and the lack of medical support and justice for gender-based violence available to them, The Myanmar Times asks: Who was Raysuana and why did she die?

There's a patch of brown earth in the village of Let That Mar. It is surrounded by a bamboo fence and on top of the earth lays a sun-bleached palm branch. Under it lays the body of Raysuana, who was found naked and barely conscious at a military compound, and died after being denied access to hospital care under a system of institutionalised discrimination tantamount to ethnic apartheid.

“I need to tell you we tried to save her,” says Yasmin (not her real name), the clinic nurse who took care of Raysuana from the time she reached the clinic on the morning of August 18 until she died around 12 hours later.

“She couldn’t tell us what happened because she was not able to speak,” the nurse added, showing the public space where the young woman was treated at Thet Kya Pin Clinic.

The clinic is a small healthcare facility where people of the Rohingya Muslim minority living in IDP camps and villages outside the Rakhine State capital Sittwe can receive basic medical treatment under oppressive rules that deny them freedom of movement and many other rights, restricting their ability to receive proper hospital treatment.

“It was only with her final breathing that she could talk to us. She came round, then she called out for her mother. Maybe for a minute she was awake and she cried for her mother. ‘Ma’, she said. ‘Mother where are you?’ Then she died,” recalls Yasmin.

Like the other medical staff involved in Raysuana’s case, the nurse says the main reason the young woman was not sent to hospital was that nobody knew who she was so there was no one to go with her to the hospital as attendant, and she “could not be sent alone”.

That belief was critical to Raysuana’s story, but the case also highlights a whole series of failures in system and in practice that means Rohingya people – and particularly women – are having their lives put at risk.

The world will never know the exact details that led to Raysuana’s death. What we do know is that she was Rohingya – a member of the mainly stateless Muslim minority in Myanmar who are denied basic human rights under internationally condemned policies.

She had no close relatives in the area to support her or demand an inquiry into what would be a highly controversial case given potential army involvement. The Myanmar military have constitutionally enshrined impunity; and she was buried, with the approval of a local leader, without an autopsy or further investigation into possible sexual assault and cause of death having taken place.

It is not even clear how old she was. Those who knew her estimate her age to have been between 25 and 30.

Yet despite the disadvantages she faced in life, Raysuana was loved by those who knew her and considered a quiet, caring and notably intelligent young woman who was particularly thoughtful toward others and was fluent in three languages. She is missed.

A second mother and friend

“I am so sad. I loved her like she was my own daughter. I still cannot believe she has gone,” says So Ma Li Khatu, a homely woman who estimates her own age to be around 60.

She embraces a small naked child with one hand and uses the other to clutch at her heart behind the fabric of a tattered blouse as she recalls her lost “daughter”.

So Ma Li Khatu became Raysuana’s “second mother” in 2012, when the young woman appeared on her doorstep in Ohn Taw Shay village asking for food after communal violence broke out in Sittwe between ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and the Muslim community, forcing tens of thousands, mainly Rohingya, to flee their homes.

The riots were brutal and bloody. Entire villages were razed and innocent victims were butchered as they fled.

“Raysuana came asking for something to eat after she had to run away from Aung Mingalar,” says So Ma Li Khatu, referring to a Muslim quarter in the centre of Sittwe that has since been turned into a ghetto and cut off from the outside world by armed guards.

Ohn Taw Shay lies outside the main Rohingya IDP camps and villages where access to outsiders is restricted by the government. It is isolated by paddy fields and streams, and fortuitously escaped the violence that hit so many communities in 2012.

For three years, Raysuana found shelter, care and support there. But she missed her younger brother, who had left Rakhine State for Malaysia before the violence, and particularly her mother, who had fled to join him after the riots.

“I felt for her in my heart so I took her to live with me,” says So Ma Li Khatu. “She was a quiet girl; she helped me take care of my chickens and goats and lived with us. In the three years I knew her, she was always helpful and good but she always missed her family in Malaysia.”

“She didn’t care about getting married,” added one village leader. “She just wanted to be with her mother.”

As she went about her business tending the livestock and helping around the house, Raysuana was coming up with a plan to join her family in Malaysia. So began a series of events that meant Raysuana’s later disappearance would go unnoticed for days.

In late July, Raysuana went to stay with the family of a friend – a girl who was engaged to Raysuana’s brother in Malaysia – in Let That Mar village, which sits a short walk across the paddy fields on the outskirts of Thet Kya Pin village.

So Ma Li Khatu says she had not seen her foster daughter for almost three weeks and had no idea she was missing when news of the young woman’s death reached her.

An escape plan

The riots of 2012 occurred when long-running tensions erupted between ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and the Muslim minority who self-identify as Rohingya with a long history in Myanmar, but are considered illegal “Bengali” immigrants by most of the rest of the population.

The violence left around 200 people dead and about 140,000 – mainly Rohingya – displaced. Four years on, around 120,000 Muslims are still confined to IDP camps, where they – like other Rohingya – face a brutal policy of discrimination. There are severe restrictions on their movements, they are denied other basic rights and face numerous abuses.

The intolerable conditions have driven thousands to flee Rakhine and seek a new life in Muslim-majority Malaysia, with many taking dangerous sea routes to do so. Raysuana and her young friend in Let That Mar village hoped to join this escape, though there is no indication they had become involved with people traffickers before Raysuana’s death.

Although she was considerably younger at just 17, the girl of the family in Let That Mar village and Raysuana had become close in recent months.

“She cared for [my daughter] so much. Like a younger sister. They would go out together to chat or have something to eat and they would always bring food back to us,” says the girl’s mother Su Ra Ka Tu. “She was a good person. Very loving.”

As the friendship developed, Su Ra Ka Tu decided to arrange a marriage between her daughter and Raysuana’s younger brother. Together the two friends arranged a plan: Raysuana would travel to Malaysia and the young bride-to-be hoped to join at some point.

“She used to come here to stay with us sometimes for short visits, but this time she was just waiting for the money to arrive from her brother so she could travel to Malaysia,” explains one village elder who knew Raysuana.

He shows a photograph of her that someone had taken on a mobile phone. It is displayed with a gaudy floral frame round it.

“Her brother liked her to send pictures of herself to the family in Malaysia,” he explains.

But days went by and the money from Malaysia did not arrive. Villagers said that, around two weeks after arriving in Let That Mar, Raysuana set off for another village, which locals refer to as La Ma Shi, in hopes of finding laundry work and raising some money herself.

It was a decision that would lead to her death.

A dangerous journey

“I didn’t know she had gone missing. I just thought she was at La Ma Shi doing laundry,” says Su Ra Ka Tu, who puts Raysuana’s departure from her home five days before her death.

She says her daughter has lost her dearest friend.

No one The Myanmar Times spoke to at La Ma Shi village saw Raysuana arrive there. “Maybe she did come and nobody had any work for her so she moved on,” suggested one community leader there, adding that it was not unusual for people in the camps and villages to go door-to-door in search of work.

What happened next remains a mystery, but the fact she was found at the adjacent military compound suggests whatever befell her occurred not so far from La Ma Shi.

At a teashop on the edge of La Ma Shi, customers said they had heard about the incident. One man suggested Raysuana may have gone to the military compound to ask whether anyone there needed laundry services, but most discussing the case suggested that was unlikely as the base was generally avoided by local women.

What is almost certain is that she would have had to pass the local checkpoint on her way in and out of the village. These checkpoints, operated by police and military personnel as part of the restricted-movement system, are notorious as posts where Rohingya women face sexual harassment and abuse.

While there is no evidence that Raysuana suffered such a fate, residents were clear that if she’d had to pass the checkpoint alone, particularly in the evening, she would have been at risk.

“It is not safe,” the teashop customers agreed.

The possibility has been raised that Raysuana could have fallen victim to someone from her own community. However, the discovery of her body in a military area in the early morning – a site which has restricted access at all times, and from which Muslims are “banned” from entering in the evening, according to locals – means any Rohingya person who chose to abandon an injured Raysuana there was taking a serious chance.

La Ma Shi lies next to the military compound. Three different military organisations – the A Myauk Tat, the Sittwe Army and the Kh La Ra 20 – have bases there laid out in a rough triangular shape with a shared grounds in the middle, explains U Hla Myint, the administrator of Thet Kya Pin village.

He was the first in the Rohingya community to hear news that Raysuana had been found.

A grim discovery

“On the morning of August 18, I got a phone call from a man who was an intermediary,” recalls U Hla Myint.

“He said the commander of the A Myauk Tat military needed to talk to me about an emergency.”

The village administrator learned that a young Rohingya woman had been found nearly naked in the bushes outside one of the military offices at the compound.

U Hla Myint rejected the idea that personnel from the base should bring the injured woman to Thet Kya Pin, imagining the potential for serious trouble were word to get out to the Rohingya community. Instead, U Hla Myint volunteered to go and retrieve her, he says.

When he got to the compound, U Hla Myint spoke to various senior military staff. “They showed me the body of the victim in the bushes. She was only wearing a bra and nothing else. Someone had covered her with a blanket.”

Throughout interviews for this article, several witnesses referred to Raysuana’s “body” while she was still alive. Medical staff who examined her later have downplayed claims that she was unconscious, saying she was conscious but not lucid.

But witnesses who saw her initially described her as unconscious. If that is the case, it is a clear indication that she should have been treated as an emergency case and referred immediately to hospital. She was not.

“When I saw her, she was unconscious but breathing,” recalls U Hla Myint.

“The three-bar [military officer] asked me, ‘Do you know this girl,’ and I told him no, and that she wasn’t from our village,” says U Hla Myint.

“Then the sergeant said to me, ‘She is your ethnic people, that’s why you have to take her body.”

“I told them again that I did not know her, but they said they would not go to the police, and for a second time they said she belonged to my ethnic group and so I should take her.”

U Hla Myint took the young woman to the clinic at Thet Kya Pin. He says he was not aware of her specific injuries, but that it was clear she was in a serious condition.

He found some clothes for her and then, leaving her with medical staff at the clinic, set off to try to find her relatives, asking around local villages whether anyone knew of a missing woman.

When Raysuana arrived at the clinic at around 8am there was no doctor there. She was attended to instead by a medical assistant, and a woman who helped care for the injured girl and who said she had observed bleeding around Raysuana’s vagina.

It was only around 9am that the state doctor arrived. After what was later acknowledged to be only a cursory examination – due in part to concerns over a male doctor examining a female patient – it was decided that she was not an emergency case. She was admitted to the clinic as an in-patient instead of being sent to hospital.

Less than 12 hours later, she was dead.

Despite a second doctor from an INGO attending at the clinic later that day, Raysuana was still not admitted to hospital. Despite clear indications that she may have been a victim of gender-based violence, no protocol in response to that was followed. Despite police having been informed of the incident, no criminal inquiry was launched.

“I have no idea what the police are doing about it,” says U Hla Myint.

As for the lack of medical treatment, he responds, “We Rohingya people are not allowed to go to the hospitals ourselves. If there were no restrictions on movement, we would have taken her to the hospital in Sittwe, but at this moment in time we cannot.”

By David Brunnstrom 

Reuters

September 24, 2016

UNITED NATIONS -- The European Union praised Myanmar's progress on human rights under the leadership of Aung San Suu Kyi on Friday and said that it would not be introducing a resolution at the United Nations condemning the country's record for the first time in 15 years.

Addressing the Partnership Group on Myanmar at the United Nations General Assembly, EU Foreign Policy chief Federica Mogherini called Suu Kyi's progress from political prisoner to government "powerful testimony to the incredible change Myanmar is going through."

"The government has taken bold measures to improve human rights and re-invigorate the peace process. Political prisoners have been released," she said. 

Mogherini said steps had also "been taken against those who incite hatred" and a commission established under former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan to address violence between majority Buddhists and Muslim Rohingyas in Myanmar's state of Rakhine.

In recognition of the progress, for the first time in fifteen years, the European Union would not table a human rights resolution on Myanmar at the U.N. assembly, she said.

Addressing Suu Kyi, Mogherini said: "Fifteen years is the measure of the incredible distance Myanmar has walked, the measure of how much your country has changed."

Mogherini said the European Union understood the "complexity" of the situation in Rakhine and told Suu Kyi: "I know that you area working hard to find a sustainable solution for both communities."

Suu Kyi has been criticized for doing too little to address the plight of the Rohingya Muslims.

In her first address to the General Assembly as national leader on Wednesday, she defended her government's efforts to resolve the crisis there and asked for "understanding" and "the constructive contribution" of other countries.

She said the government would persevere in its efforts to achieve peace in Rakhine and stand firm "against the forces of prejudice and intolerance."

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, told the same session that Suu Kyi's commitment to stand firm against intolerance and her pledge in Washington last week that all those entitled to citizenship would be granted it were "powerful and important."

However, she and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said significant problems remained and both reiterated calls for the government to allow the establishment of an office of the U.N. High Commission for Human Rights with a full mandate.

Increased freedom of speech since the military stepped back from direct rule in Myanmar in 2011 has allowed for the unleashing of long-held anti-Muslim sentiment.

Around 125,000 Rohingya remain confined in temporary camps after waves of deadly violence in 2012 between Buddhists and Muslims, when more than 100 people were killed.

The Rohingya have been seen by much of the Buddhist population as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, even though many have lived in Myanmar for generations. Most were stripped of their ability to vote in last year's election, which brought Suu Kyi to power as de facto leader.

Joint Statement Date 

23rd September 2016

STOP PLANS TO DEMOLISH MOSQUES, MADRASAS AND ROHINGYA'S HOUSES 

We, the undersigned organizations, strongly condemned the Arakan (Rakhine) State government’s plans to demolish more than 3000 Rohingyas’ buildings, including 12 mosques and 35 madrasas, in the townships of Maungdaw and Buthidaung, under the pretext of illegal construction. 

The announcement of the demolition order on 18 September by Arakan State’s Security and Border Affairs Minister Col. Htein Lin at Maungdaw, which was reaffirmed by Maungdaw District General Administrator U Ye Htut, has caused consternation to the entire Rohingya community. This demolition project is part of their long-drawn-out annihilation and ethnic cleansing policy of the defenceless Rohingya people. 

It is a joint conspiracy of the Arakan State government and Rakhine Buddhist extremist leaders to destabilize the situation in the territory with intentions to frustrate any attempts to bring about peace and stability in Arakan and produce more internally displaced Rohingyas to be housed in apartheid-like concentration camps also in Maungdaw district. 

It is surprising that this sinister design was announced at a time when the State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, in her first address to the 71st U.N. General Assembly, was defending her government’s effort to resolve the crisis over treatment of the Rohingya or Muslim minority by pointing out to the establishment of an advisory commission for Arakan State chaired by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan at the same time assuring that everybody in Arakan would be safe and secure. 

Since Ne Win’s military rule in 1962, the basic rights and freedoms of the Rohingya have been severely restricted subjecting them to systematic ethnic, religious and political persecution that amount to crimes against humanity and slow genocide resulting in their deaths, massive destruction of their settlements and holy places of worship causing unprecedented refugee influxes into Bangladesh and other places as witnessed in 1988 and 1991-92. 

Since the establishment of NaSaKa border task force in 1992 in north Arakan no building can be built or extended without permission from the authorities. Even to repair and fence the housing, permission is necessary. Building mosques and madrassa has been long stopped whereas intermittent but planned destructions of Islamic edifices and holy places of worship have been regular phenomenon all over Arakan. The famous Sandhi Khan Mosque of historical importance built by Muslim army at Mintayabyin, Mrauk-U in 1433 A.D was also destroyed by Gen. Khin Nyunt in 1992. 

The deadly violence and genocidal onslaughts occurred and reoccurred from June 2012 in Arakan against the Rohingya minority have claimed many hundreds of Muslim lives, left over 160,000 of them homeless, forced thousands of them to take dangerous voyages by rackety boats towards Southeast Asian countries where a number of them were drowned or ended up in human- traffickers’ mass graves. 

In spite of all these happenings the Arakan State government has no conscience about its lying and cruelty against Rohingya on grounds of their ethnicity and religion. The alleged existence of any illegal buildings is unfounded and politically motivated since their construction could not have been possible without approval of the concerned authorities.

It is important that international community have to take effective collective action in time to protect the Muslim Rohingya people in Arakan, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations. Or otherwise this unprotected minority community will be wiped out. 

We, therefore, request the international community, United Nations, OIC, EU, ASEAN, US and UK to put pressure on NLD-led government:

(1) To stop forthwith the plans to demolish mosques, madrasas and Rohingyas’ buildings or structures in Arakan under the pretext of illegal construction.

(2) To ensure freedom of religion and worship, protection of religious sites, and to immediately restore all basic freedoms, including freedom of movement, marriage, education, healthcare and peaceful-living, and to lift all aid restrictions in Rakhine/Arakan State.

(3) To end all persecution and ghettoization and to immediately rehabilitate and reintegrate all IDPs in their original places and properties. 

Meanwhile, we urge upon the international community to support a UN Commission of Inquiry into the atrocity crimes against Rohingya and other Burmese people in order to publicly announce its findings and bring the perpetrators to justice.

Signatories;

1. Arakan Rohingya National Organisation

2. Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK

3. Bradford Rohingya Community in UK

4. Burmese Rohingya Community in Denmark

5. Rohingya Community in Germany

6. Rohingya Community in Switzerland

7. Rohingya Organisation Norway

8. Rohingya Community in Finland

9. Rohingya Community in Italy

10. Rohingya Community in Sweden

11. Rohingya Society Netherlands

For more information, please contact;

Tun Khin : Mobile +44 7888714866

Ko Ko Linn: Mobile +880 1726068414

Nay San Lwin: Mobile +49 69 26022349

By David Brunnstrom

Reuters

September 22, 2016

By Timothy McLaughlin

Reuters

September 21, 2016

CHICAGO -- The resettlement of refugees from Middle Eastern countries, particularly Syria, has been the center of a heated political debate after President Barack Obama last year pledged to resettle at least 10,000 refugees from the war-torn country in the United States. 

But refugees from Myanmar, whose leader Aung San Suu Kyi visited Washington last week, have quietly outpaced Syrian arrivals in recent years, even as Syria's civil war intensifies, with an increasing number coming from the marginalized Rohingya Muslim community, according to State Department figures.

From Oct. 1, 2015 to Sept. 15, 11,902 Myanmar nationals were resettled in the United States, according to figures from the Refugee Processing Center, operated by the State Department, compared to 11,598 arrivals from Syria over the same time period.

That was out of a total of nearly 79,600 refugees who arrived in the United States in that period. The largest group, numbering just over 15,000, were from the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo. Arrivals from Syria, where Islamic State and other radical groups are active, are subject to additional screening processes, according to the White House.

State Department figures show the number of Rohingya arrivals from Myanmar jumped from just over 650 in the 2014 fiscal year, to 2,573 last year. This year, 2,173 have arrived as of Sept. 15.

During a meeting with Suu Kyi in the Oval Office last Wednesday, Obama announced that the United States would remove sanctions originally imposed on the country in 1997, when it was ruled by a military junta that brutally suppressed pro-democracy movements and showed little regard for human rights. The decision raised alarm among rights groups, who are concerned about the plight of the stateless Rohingya among other ethnic minorities. 

The Rohingya have long been persecuted in Myanmar, where they are viewed largely as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh though many have lived in the country for generations. 

Increased freedom of speech since the military stepped back from direct rule in 2011 has allowed for the unleashing of long-held anti-Muslim sentiment.

Around 125,000 remain confined to temporary camps on Myanmar's Rakhine State following waves of deadly violence in 2012 between Buddhists and Muslims. Most were stripped of their ability to vote in last year’s election. 

Most Rohingya tend to come to the United States after spending years in Muslim-majority Malaysia and being granted refugee status by the United Nations.

Melineh Kano, Executive Director of RefugeeOne, a resettlement agency in Chicago, which is home to one of the largest populations of Rohingya in the United States, said Rohingyas made up more of the total number of refugees arriving from Myanmar to the city recently.

"The number has increased considerably over the past year, year and a half," she said.

Nasir Bin Zakaria, who founded the Rohingya Culture Center in Chicago, estimates that there are just over 1,000 Rohingya in the city. He fled Myanmar after being forced to work as a porter when he was 16-years-old, he said.

Obama has also called for Myanmar to end the persecution of Rohingya in order for it to succeed in its democratic transition, a key achievement of his foreign policy agenda.

Nasir Bin Zakaria said that the ability to move around freely and legally made life in Chicago far better than in Myanmar and Malaysia, but it is not without its own challenges for refugees. The city of 2.7 million is struggling with a surge of killings, with 509 murders this year, according to the Chicago Police Department. 

Newly arrived children from refugee families, unfamiliar to the United States, are an enticing target for gangs looking to recruit, said Kano of RefugeeOne.

"When we are selecting neighborhoods we have to be very careful about the crime rate and gang recruitment, because the majority of refugees come with kids," she said.

"You either join or you get beaten up."