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Migrants including Myanmar's Rohingya Muslims sit on the deck of their boat as they wait to be rescued by Acehnese fishermen on the sea. Pic: AP

By Francis Wade
Asian Correspondent
November 5, 2016

EVER since the 9 October attacks on police outposts in Burma’s Rakhine State led to the deployment of security forces to the region, numerous reports have emerged of rapes, arson attacks and extra-judicial killings of Rohingya. Those responsible for the initial attack, which left nine policemen dead, appear to have been Rohingya. Whether they came from Rakhine State or from Bangladesh, or both, is unclear.

But the response by security forces has been to place the entire area on lockdown as troops sweep through Rohingya villages searching for the militants. The government in Naypyidaw has roundly dismissed reports of abuses. “All are well convinced that the accusations of international media of violations of human rights of local residents during Maungtaw area clearance operations were intentionally fabricated in collusion with terrorist groups,” said a statement from the Ministry of Information. Aung San Suu Kyi — currently in Japan, despite the worst crisis faced by her six-month old administration — said on 3 November that security forces were abiding by the “rule of law”.

Independent journalists have been barred from traveling to the area of Northern Rakhine State where the security operations are underway. Instead, the Ministry of Information organized for a team of officials, accompanied by handpicked journalists working for state media outlets, to visit and provide reports to those media outlets that have been refused entry. This team would, it was noted in advance, “refute accusations on the alleged racial and religious persecution by the Tatmadaw”, the Myanmar army. It seemed the allegations of army brutality were being denied before any investigation had taken place.

Because the area is a black spot for independent media, the claims of abuses have been difficult to verify. They have however been numerous, and they chime with well-documented historic evidence of the military’s treatment of Rohingya, and ethnic minorities more generally. But the same denialism that surfaced after the 2012 violence in Rakhine State has again been on display. Human Rights Watch released satellite imagery showing Rohingya villages that had been razed following police and army deployment in early October. The Ministry of Information claims that Rohingya had burned their own homes for propaganda purposes.

All 33 Rohingya that were acknowledged to have been killed by security forces since operations began after 9 October were participants in the attack, the government said. Perhaps that was true — the information blackout means we cannot say either way. But we also know that punishment of Rohingya is always done collectively, and not on an individual basis. There is a penalty for being Rohingya, and it is manifested in a range of control measures — tight restrictions on movement, access to healthcare, and more — that is both acute, and unique only to them.

That had been a classic containment policy of the junta. Yet the mindset that feeds it — that an entire group is a single guilty party, with all individuals within it folded into one — appears now to inform the new civilian government’s approach to the crisis. The spokesperson for the President’s Office, Zaw Htay, stated on 27 October, nearly three weeks after the lockdown began, that the government was initially blocking aid to displaced Rohingya in order to flush them out of their hiding places and force them to return to their villages. There, the military would be able to investigate whether they participated in the attack. The government thus appears to have already determined that all Rohingya are suspects.

A Rohingya girl who was displaced following 2012 sectarian violence carries a baby at Nga Chaung Refugee Camp in Pauktaw, Rakhine state, Burma. Pic: AP.

While these reports may shock observers, there’s nothing really new in them. The abuses faced by the Rohingya at the hands of security forces, and indeed civilians, is decades old. What is rather more recent, and astonishing, is the way the military has been able to profit so effectively from this all. After Fiona MacGregor, a journalist with the Myanmar Times, published a report on allegations that security forces had raped Rohingya women, Presidential Spokesperson Zaw Htay attacked her on Facebook, calling the allegations false and irresponsible and deserving of legal action.

What came next was a flood of comments from Burmese calling for a case to be brought against her and her newspaper. Others who commented that the government should allow independent journalists in to assess the credibility of the accusations were rounded upon and accused of slandering the military. Several days later, after a phone call to the Myanmar Times from the Ministry of Information, MacGregor was fired.

Reports of mass rape by military in #Rakhine as access still denied. Impunity for GBV in #Myanmar continues https://t.co/kCJVUMGZW8

— FiMacGregor (@FiMacGregor) October 27, 2016

Fiona has been subjected to a hate campaign orchestrated by Aung San Suu Kyi's spokesman on social media.

— Jonah Fisher (@JonahFisherBBC) November 3, 2016

There have been two major knock-on effects from the violence of 2012. The first, to which most international attention is directed, has been a dramatic worsening of conditions for Rohingya. Even those not confined to camps face an even more far-reaching spectrum of restrictions than before that have made them de facto prisoners inside their own villages and towns. But the second effect has been less noticeable. The violence has dramatically shaken up what had once seemed a clear and rational constellation of solidarities among the populace.

Prior to the transition, few would have seen any cause to rally behind the military, so universal was the loathing directed at it. But the Rohingya have been so successfully cast as a national threat that many in Myanmar are now speaking out in support of troops as they sweep through villages in the west. Journalists who report on military abuses, as they had done in the years prior to the transition — and who in return were lauded on the ground in Burma for illuminating its dark practices — are now pilloried as traitorous.

The about-face has been both rapid and astonishing in its implications. Any criticism of the military’s operations in Rakhine State is now seen as an attack on the nation, for the military is now the virtuous defender of the nation against the hostile Muslim presence there. The former junta over and again circulated propaganda to that effect, but it had always fallen on the deaf ears of a rightly cynical Burmese public. That seems to be changing, and this time largely at the behest of the public—the military itself has had to do very little in the way of PR.

A year ago MacGregor wrote a piece, published in the Myanmar Times, in which she spotlighted a telling clause in the ceasefire agreements being discussed between the Myanmar military and armed ethnic groups. The clause said that both parties to the conflict would “Avoid any form of sexual attack on women, including sexual molestation, sexual assault or violence, rape and sex slavery”. In including the clause, the military had effectively acknowledged its own long and sordid history of sexual violence against ethnic minority women. The piece went out without a whimper from either the management or the Ministry of Information. But the violence in Rakhine State is evidently its own unique beast, and it has dramatically changed how journalists are being forced to approach a military that the broad public in Burma had, not so long ago, always known to be beneath praise.

By Joe Freeman and Annie Gowen 

The Washington Post

November 4, 2016

SITTWE, Burma — A security crackdown following militant attacks has exacerbated the humanitarian situation in predominantly Muslim region of Burma and focused international attention on the new government of Aung San Suu Kyi.

Burmese troops launched a wide-ranging manhunt in a troubled area of northern Rakhine state populated largely by Rohingya Muslims, leaving scorched homes and displaced residents in their wake. 

The manhunt followed an Oct. 9 attack on police posts that left nine policemen dead. Another police officer was killed in what may have been a second militant attack Thursday evening, according to state media. The government has accused members of the Rohingya community of being behind the original attack. 

Renata Lok-Dessallien, the United Nations resident coordinator in Burma, told the media at a Friday press conference that if the report of the latest attack was accurate, she was “deeply concerned.”

Lok-Dessallien was among a team of United Nations officials and diplomats who visited the affected area this week, and said authorities had assured the U.N. that aid would resume after being effectively cut off for weeks. But how soon is not clear.

U.S. Ambassador Scot Marciel has called for a “thorough investigation” into alleged abuse and restoration of humanitarian access, the State Department said.

An estimated 15 members of security forces, or 10 police and 5 soldiers, have died and more than 30 Muslim residents have been reported killed in the security crackdown.

Human Rights Watch has reported that satellite data shows villages that have been burned, and Reuters and the Myanmar Times have chronicled the alleged rape of Muslim women by soldiers. The Myanmar Times reporter was fired following her report, outraging the journalist community.

“Any allegation of rape or sexual violence is a profound concern to us,” Lok-Dessallien said.

Residents interview this week and last in Rakhine state described a landscape of fear in which members of the Rohingya community have allegedly been barred from going to mosques or work.

“We can’t go anywhere as we’re not allowed to,” Min Hlaing, a Muslim businessman in a restricted area near Maungdaw, said this week by telephone.

He said food prices had risen as a result of roadblocks and claimed that four community leaders had not been seen in days after being picked up by security forces.

The crisis marks the first major test of Suu Kyi’s new democratically elected administration, which took over March 31 after decades of military rule. Analysts say she must find a way to work with Burma’s powerful military, which still controls the country’s security forces.

Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has been accused of not doing enough to address the Rohingya crisis despite her lifelong commitment to Burmese freedom.

In an interview with The Washington Post in New Delhi on Oct. 18, Suu Kyi said border security posts must be strengthened, rule of law followed and a development plan created for the area.

“So many things have to be done simultaneously. It’s not an easy job,” she said. “But we are, of course, determined to contain the situation and to make sure that we restore peace and harmony as soon as possible.”

Suu Kyi’s government has said the men who attacked police posts on Oct. 9 were from a little-known group with foreign backing. In YouTube videos, the group has called itself the Movement of Faith, and has demanded rights to be returned to their community.

There are about 1 million Rohingya Muslims in Burma who are essentially stateless, and many in the Buddhist-majority country consider them illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. More than 120,000 Rohingya remain confined to dirty camps in the area after violent clashes with their Buddhist neighbors in 2012. 

Rohingyas said they did not believe that there was a militant group operating in the state.

“This is a rumor. This is not true. This is the deliberate assassination from the government,” said Mohamed Amin, 21, a Rohingya who lives in the heavily guarded Muslim neighborhood in Sittwe.

More than 16,000 people from both faiths have been displaced by the search that followed the Oct. 9 assault on police posts, and 100,000 are without their regular food assistance, according to Pierre Peron, of the U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Health services have been suspended, and weeks have passed without access to mobile health clinics and emergency referrals.

“You have a very vulnerable population that is even more vulnerable now,” Peron said this week.

Asked when full access to aid would be restored, state government spokesman Tin Maung Shwe said late last week that the matter was “an internal affair, not an international affair.”

Residents in the crowded camps said that in the days after the attacks, doctors who normally visit a few times a week didn’t show, although some visits have resumed.

Suu Kyi blamed the health care deficit on the security situation.

“It’s even difficult for us to provide enough security to give them the health care that they need,” Suu Kyi said. “It is another big problem. Because doctors and nurses who go to [displaced persons] camps are not treated well by the communities when they go back.”

She added, “The whole thing is a rigmarole.”

At a community health clinic in the Muslim neighborhood in Sittwe last week, there were no doctors, just a weary-looking pharmacist and several patients waiting in a dimly lit room.

“We are doing as much as we can,” said Maung Htun, 54, the pharmacist. “But now we are only capable of healing small things.”

He said that after the attacks, the doctors and emergency workers who would normally visit the area didn’t come.

In addition to the delegation that visited this week, a special commission led by former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan has been set up to address the plight of the Rohingya.

Suu Kyi said that the government must create a resettlement program. A controversial citizenship-verification process that has been criticized by rights groups has been stymied because, Suu Kyi said, many Rohingya refused to participate.

“We can’t fix a time frame because it depends on how much everybody is prepared to cooperate,” she said. “We started off this movement for citizenship verification in order that we might move forward, but then, if there is no cooperation, it has been very difficult for us.”

On the ground, the latest flare-up has frayed hope and diminished an already low level of confidence in Suu Kyi’s government.

Maung Aye Shwe, 18, a volunteer teacher in one of the camps, said nothing had changed since Suu Kyi’s historic election a year ago. 

“There is no improvement within this year. We are having just oppression. No changes or improvement,” he said.

There are fears that more violence could occur, after a police commander now in charge of operations in Rakhine said he would create a volunteer force to help security.

“We just want a gun to defend our homeland,” said one displaced Buddhist woman in Sittwe, who did not give her name.

She had joined others fleeing the attacks and was shetering in a makeshift camp in a football stadium last week.

Maung Kyaw Win, 42, said he once worked as a goldsmith in his village and he doesn’t know when he and his family will be able to return home. But he does know that relations with his Muslim neighbors will not be the same.

“No one will trust each other until the end of the universe.”

Gowen reported from New Delhi. Aung Naing Soe contributed from Sittwe.

By Sean Gleeson 

Frontier

November 4, 2016

A foreign journalist at the Myanmar Times was dismissed after the Ministry of Information complained about her coverage of alleged human rights abuses in Rakhine State. 

* Sacking followed public condemnation from President’s Office

* Staff ordered to withhold reporting on military, Rakhine State

* Information Ministry set to publish guidelines on Rakhine reporting

YANGON — The newsroom of the Myanmar Times is in uproar over the summary dismissal of a foreign journalist, which followed a public condemnation of her reporting by the President’s Office and a complaint from the Ministry of Information.

Ms Fiona MacGregor, until Monday the English daily’s special investigations editor and a member of the paper’s staff since 2013, was sacked after an October 27 article reporting on the alleged rape of dozens of women by security forces in Shey Kya, a village in Rakhine State's Maungdaw Township.

MacGregor’s article was denounced in a Facebook post by President’s Office spokesman U Zaw Htay, who complained that the journalist had sourced official quotes on the Rakhine security crackdown from another publication instead of contacting his office.

MacGregor told Frontier she had attempted to contact Zaw Htay for comment prior to publication, but could not reach him.

Frontier has learned that the Ministry of Information contacted management of the Myanmar Times on October 28 to voice their displeasure with MacGregor’s coverage. Three days later, MacGregor was dismissed.

Since Monday, numerous staff members at the English daily said they have been told by management not to report on Rakhine State, military actions in the state or the state’s Rohingya community until the establishment of new reporting guidelines on these subjects.

The restrictions remained in effect as of Friday, and sources at the Myanmar Times have told Frontier that the paper withheld coverage of this week’s government-supervised diplomatic delegation to Maungdaw.

With the ministry set to publish guidelines on reporting events in strife-hit Rakhine State, media advocates and members of Yangon’s tight-knit journalist community have expressed fears that MacGregor’s sacking would foreshadow a renewed attack on press freedoms.

‘Their ability to do their jobs has been curtailed’

As of Friday, staff at the Myanmar Times had still not received official confirmation of MacGregor’s dismissal from management.

Numerous employees of the Myanmar Times spoke of their dismay at the decision when contacted by Frontier. One editor resigned without notice on Tuesday, while other staff members were considering their responses. An editorial staff member of the paper’s English edition, who asked not to be identified, told Frontier that expatriate staff were “very angry” at management’s actions.

“Meanwhile, in the absence of clear ‘guidelines’ about what can be published, many of our local reporters are nervous that they might be unfairly and unceremoniously terminated like Fiona was,” the staff member said. “Their ability to do their jobs has been curtailed as a result.”

“Our newspaper outlasted Than Shwe’s regime. It’s frustrating that it’s now being dragged down by internal censorship,” they added.

According to an account of Monday’s meeting, attended by editor-in-chief Mr Bill Tegjeu and chief operating officer U Aung Saw Min, MacGregor was terminated under clauses of the Myanmar Times Employee Handbook relating to compliance with editorial instructions and upholding the paper’s reputation.

Asked how she had violated these clauses, MacGregor was told: “We don’t have to explain that. We have more important things to do.”

(Disclosure: Several staff members of Frontier were previously employees of the Myanmar Times. None had a role in the commissioning or production of this article.)

Ministry intervention

Neither Tegjeu nor Aung Saw Min responded to requests for comment on Monday’s meeting, the imposition of reporting restrictions on Rakhine State or discussions with the government about the paper’s reporting.

According to the account given to Frontier, Tegjeu said at the meeting he was “not at liberty to discuss the matter” when asked by MacGregor if officials had complained directly to Myanmar Times management.

Speaking to Frontier on Thursday, Zaw Htay of the President’s Office said he had not directly contacted the Myanmar Times in regard to the paper’s Rakhine coverage.

He said he had instead directed the Ministry of Information to address the issue with the Media Council, the independent body established by the 2014 Media Law to adjudicate press complaints.

U Thiha Saw, the president of the MPC, said he was contacted by an officer of the Information Ministry to discuss “controversial” coverage of events in Rakhine State, but added the council had not received a complaint and the phone call did not specifically discuss the Myanmar Times.

“It was not an official complaint to the MPC — we have an official complaint centre,” he told Frontier on Thursday. “If they contacted the centre, we would check if it was within our mandate under the law, but we have not received an official complaint letter yet.”

However, Frontier has learned that the Information Ministry also made a direct call to Myanmar Times management on October 28 to discuss the paper’s Rakhine coverage.

“The Myanmar Times wrote fake information about Rakhine State, it is not true information,” U Myint Kyaw, a senior ministry spokesman, told Frontier on Thursday. “So MoI called Myanmar Times about that news.”

Frontier was unable to confirm the exact nature of the conversation between the ministry and Myanmar Times management.

Myint Kyaw added that the ministry was planning to release a press release clarifying its policies on the coverage of events in Rakhine in the near future.

Press freedom concerns

MacGregor, an experienced reporter who has written extensively on conflict and its effects on women in Shan State, Rakhine State and elsewhere in the country, said she was concerned that the public attack on her October 27 column would portend a clampdown on reporting.

“It is extremely important that a precedent is not set that allows the presidential spokesperson to use social media or any other means to personally attack journalists for reporting on these matters, or for the government to be allowed to consider this an effective way to silence the media,” she wrote in a widely circulated email on Thursday evening.

“It is difficult enough for local journalists in this country to report on Rakhine without the threat of this kind of intimidation coming from the President's Office.”

Foreign reporters and observers have been barred from Maungdaw District in the aftermath of the October 9 attacks on Border Guard Police stations, which claimed the lives of nine security officers.

At a Friday meeting in Yangon, several ambassadors invited to tour Maungdaw by the government repeated their calls for an “independent and credible investigation” into allegations of human rights abuses in the wake of a crackdown by security forces.

The group also told reporters they had been informed humanitarian access would be resumed this week under supervision.

Mr Shawn Crispin, the senior Southeast Asia representative for the Committee to Protect Journalists, said the government should go further and facilitate greater access to journalists investigating claims of human rights abuses, rather than making “veiled threats” against them.

“The best way to prove or disprove allegations of military rights abuses is to allow independent media to probe the accusations,” he said. “If the government truly has nothing to hide, then surely there is no need to restrict media access to areas in northern Rakhine State.”

The government has steadfastly denied reports of human rights abuses against Maungdaw’s Muslim community, maintaining that security forces have conducted themselves lawfully and in a manner proportionate to the October 9 attacks. 

In his Facebook post denouncing MacGregor’s October 27 report, Zaw Htay said the government had instructed security forces to “be careful, act according to the law and not violate human rights” while conducting its operations in Maungdaw.

“If someone violates that policy, there are responsibilities in every ranks. We would not accept any kind of violation and not following our orders and directives.”

In a Reuters report published the day after MacGregor’s article appeared, two local journalists who managed to travel to Shey Kya appeared to substantiate the claims that some of the village’s female residents had been sexually assaulted by security forces on October 19.

But Zaw Htay said the allegations were ridiculous.

“There's no logical way of committing rape in the middle of a big village of 800 homes, where insurgents are hiding,” he told Reuters.

History of sensitivity

Reporting on Rakhine State, home to most of Myanmar’s estimated 1.1 million stateless Muslim population, has been highly fraught since an outbreak of communal violence in 2012 left around 200 dead.

Many members of this community self-identify as Rohingya, a designation the government rejects.

About 140,000 people were displaced by the violence — largely Rohingya, along with some members of state’s majority Rakhine population and other Muslim minority groups — and remain in IDP camps.

Despite the formal end of Myanmar’s decades-old pre-publication censorship regime in 2012, numerous journalists have privately reported that articles have been withheld by editors, for fear of a backlash from the government or the wider public.

“It seems some editors and management at independent local media quickly lose their nerve when it comes to reporting on communal conflict in Rakhine,” one foreign reporter, no longer based in Myanmar, told Frontier.

“For fear of upsetting authorities, especially the military, or falling out of favour with what they think are dominant opinions among the Burmese public, stories on alleged abuses against Rohingya Muslims are sometimes dropped or toned down.”

Articles published on Rakhine State are frequently subjected to a torrent of abuse on social media, by individuals who believe the state’s Rohingya Muslim population are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh making false claims to Myanmar citizenship.

Adding to the difficulty of reporting on the subject, misinformation is routinely spread over social media during times of communal conflict in Rakhine State.

During last year’s migrant crisis, in which the dismantling of regional trafficking networks saw thousands of Rohingya and Bangladeshi migrants stranded at sea, a number of images purporting to show the concurrent massacre of Muslims in Rakhine State were circulated on Facebook. The images were taken from incidents in other countries or from the 2012 violence.

A Myanmar reporter, who requested anonymity for fear of jeopardising his employment, said it had become more difficult to report on Rakhine in the wake of an alleged massacre at Maungdaw’s Duu Chee Yar Tan village in early 2014.

Reports that dozens of people had been killed were denied by the government, and subsequent investigations directed by the government could not find any evidence to substantiate the allegations.

The journalist, who was among a group of local reporters invited on a strictly supervised tour of Maungdaw the week after the October 9 attacks, also said he had been prevented from reporting a quote which appeared to substantiate a claim that security forces had set fire to villages last month.

“The editor cut a sentence about a border guard officer telling our photographer how he had burned down houses,” the Myanmar reporter told Frontier. “The editor said we could not trust the quote and took it out. I did not feel happy about it, but let it be.”

The government has maintained that security forces did not set fire to any homes in Maungdaw, instead saying that villagers had set fire to their own homes.

In his October 28 Facebook post, Zaw Htay appeared to suggest there was a “network” intent on damaging the government’s reputation by spreading false information about the human rights situation.

He made specific reference to Ms Chris Lewa, the head of the Bangkok-based Arakan Project, who was quoted in both MacGregor’s October 27 article and the subsequent Reuters article as corroborating the rape claims in Shey Kya village.

Lewa had previously reported on the Duu Chee Yar Tan allegations, later disputing the claims of a massacre after an on-the-ground investigation.

Speaking to Frontier on Thursday night, Lewa stood by her statements on the Shey Kya incident, citing the Reuters report on the allegations and an analysis by Human Rights Watch of satellite imagery showing homes in Maungdaw had been burned down. 

Mr David Scott Mathieson, a senior researcher for the Asia division of Human Rights Watch, said the Shey Kya allegations could be resolved by opening Maungdaw up to media.

“The government should be permitting unfettered access for the media to Maungdaw which would transform allegations into verification or refutation,” he said. “Senior government officials have adopted an approach of sneering denial instead of commitment to investigating breaches of the rule of law.”

Additional reporting by Hein Ko Soe. Top photo: Friday's edition of the Myanmar Times. (Steve Tickner / Frontier)

By Radio Free Asia

November 4, 2016

A United Nations envoy to Myanmar called on the government on Thursday to launch an independent investigation of alleged human rights abuses in the northwestern township of Maungdaw that followed last month’s deadly border guard attacks and other violent clashes.

Security forces that swept the area in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state after the initial attacks on Oct. 9 have been accused of arbitrary arrests, extrajudicial killings, arson, and rape as they forcibly searched villages where Rohingya Muslims live. They also cut off access to aid workers and journalists.

“Because of the allegations of abuses during the security operations that many of you are aware of, we have also discussed and stressed the importance of an independent, credible investigation,” Renata Lok-Dessallien, the U.N.’s resident and humanitarian coordinator and the United Nations Development Programme’s resident representative in Myanmar, said during a press conference in Rakhine’s capital Sittwe.

“We have urged that the government pull together an independent, credible investigation team quickly and send the team into the area to address these allegations,” she said.

Lok-Dessallien and several foreign ambassadors to Myanmar conducted a two-day visit to Maungdaw to survey the situation on the ground and talk to residents and security forces.

On Wednesday, they visited one of the three border guard stations that assailants had raided along with Rohingya villages in Maungdaw and Rathedaung townships where the outpost attacks occurred.

They also met with members of the Rakhine state parliament to exchange views on the situation and discuss assistance for Muslim refugees, she said.

The mission repeated its condemnation of the Oct. 9 attacks and expressed its condolences for the loss of life, she said. Close to 40 soldiers and attackers have been killed in the raids and subsequent violence, and up to 15,000 people from Rohingya and ethnic Rakhine communities have been forced to flee their homes.

The members of the mission visited villages from which residents had fled three weeks ago and where some rapes allegedly had occurred, but did not speak to any victims, Lok-Dessallien said.

“Or mission was not [able] to look into these issues, and it would have been irresponsible of us to even try,” she said, adding that trauma specialists would have to be brought in to talk to those who have said they were raped by security forces.

Residents return

Some residents began to return to two of the villages when they saw the mission there, she said.

“We could see that having been out three weeks, there were clear humanitarian needs,” Lok-Dessallien said.

The mission has urged the government to provide humanitarian support to the returning residents and allow the resumption of international humanitarian aid to the affected areas, which security forces have suspended since Oct. 9, she said.

The Myanmar government has agreed to allow aid deliveries the area and let international observers monitor whether food and other necessities are reaching residents, she said

The mission also called on the government to handle the situation according to the rule of law.

“We have urged that and appreciate the fact that the government has stated that the response will be according to the rule of law and that international principles will be followed in this response,” Lok-Dessallien said.

State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s de facto leader, said on Oct. 12 that the country will deal with the situation fairly and according to legal principles.

She repeated this again on Thursday during an official visit to Japan, adding that the “problem in Rakhine state is extremely delicate and care is needed in responding,” Reuters reported.

“We all know that underneath this incident are many items of concern and it’s now more important than ever for the government to promote lasting solutions to the interlocking challenges that face Rakhine state at this moment,” Lok-Dessallien said. “So, we’ve urged that these root causes and underlying issues be addressed as soon as possible.”

The violence is the worst to hit Rakhine since 2012 when communal violence between ethnic Rakhine people and the Rohingya left more than 200 dead and tens of thousands homeless.

The Rohingya, who bore the brunt of the attacks, were later forced to live in refugee camps in Rakhine, where about 120,000 currently remain, while thousands of others have fled persecution in the Buddhist-dominated country on rickety boats to other Southeast Asian countries in recent years.

The Myanmar government considers the Rohingya to be illegal immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh and denies them basic rights, freedom of movement, and access to social services and education.

Reported by Min Thein Aung for RFA’s Myanmar Service. Translated by Kyaw Aung. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

RB News 

November 4, 2016

Maungdaw, Arakan – Myanmar authorities have continued abuses against Rohingya people in Maungdaw even with a recent visit by a delegation led by the UN resident coordinator and senior diplomats in the township. 

On Thursday, November 3rd, 2016 at around 11AM the Myanmar military raided the homes of Jinnah Khan and Siraz Uddin in Nga Ku Ra village tract. The two men were killed recently while they were in police custody during the second week of October. Reportedly the military looted all valuables from Jinnah Khan’s house. The houses were raided again in the evening. Two elderly men were arrested during raids on the houses in the morning, but were released shortly after. 

Later in the afternoon at around 2pm on Thursday Hamid, a hamlet administration member from the West hamlet of Kyee Kan Pyin village, Abdul Hashim, a school teacher, another village administrator and five members of the administration of Nwa Yone Taung village tract were brought to Wa Baik hamlet by the Myanmar military and Border Guard Police (BGP). The Military and BGP then said they recovered four guns buried in the ground. They forced the Rohingya who they detained to sign testimony while being video recorded that they were witnesses to the discovery. 

“If they had found the guns and showed them to the Rohingya that would be acceptable, but this time they dug a hole when all the Rohingya were brought to them. They [BGP and Military] knew where the guns were buried. It is a made up drama and the Rohingya had to sign as witnesses to it because they were forced to do so,” a villager told RB News. 

Later in the evening at 5PM some BGP from region six shot two Rohingya villagers without provocation in Phot Khali hamlet in Zin Paing Nyar village tract. The men were reportedly walking at the time and were shot without reason. The men were identified as sixty year old Amir Ullah, son of Mamed Sharif, who was wounded in his leg, and 40 year old Zakir Ahmed, son of Mohammed Amin, who was shot in the stomach. Zakir is reported as in critical condition. At the same time three villagers were arrested by the same BGP officers in the same hamlet. 

At around 6pm there was an exchange of gunfire continuously from the BGP outpost in Nurullah hamlet in Baggona (Tet Oo Chaung) village tract. State media and some private media immediately blamed the incident on Rohingya militants. Upon deeper investigation RB News uncovered that the gunfire was the result of a dispute between members of the BGP. State media reported that one member of the BGP was killed and another was wounded. 

The dispute in question occurred around 4PM at the outpost. The BGP’s in charge could not control a dispute among the BGP and the Police Major from Ma Gyi Chaung outpost came to settle the matter. 15 minutes after the Police Major left shots were fired continuously within the BGP outpost. According to a report by state media, six militants arrived by motorcycle and shot th BGP with small guns and left a home-made bomb and four pistol bags. 

“I saw it with my own eyes. I saw the outpost when I heard the gunshots. I didn’t see any motorcycles or any men outside of the outpost. I believe the were shooting from inside the outpost. I observed for a long time and I didn’t see anyone come in or go out of the outpost. What the media is saying doesn’t make sense,” an eyewitness told RB News. 

A human rights watchdog group in Maungdaw said, “The state media claimed that the police were shot with small guns. The police have big guns. Why couldn’t they kill any of the men who attacked them? They said they found a bomb and some pistol bags. If they have they should examine for evidence like fingerprints and show the results.” 

The BGP are notoriously heavy drinkers and have been witnessed drunk every day at around sunset. This has often resulted in fighting and quarreling among themselves. A few months ago a similar incident occurred where the BGP in Thin Baw Kwae outpost in southern Maungdaw exchanged fire between themselves with one police officer reportedly killed.

At 6:15PM two houses in Wa Baik torched by the military. One was owned by Hussein, the biggest house in the village.

Additional reporting by MYARF and Rohingya Eye.

By Wa Lone and Simon Lewis 

Reuters

November 3, 2016

SITTWE, MYANMAR -- Myanmar police will begin arming and training non-Muslim residents in the troubled north of Rakhine State, where officials say militants from the Rohingya Muslim group pose a growing security threat, police and civilian officials said.

Human rights monitors and a leader of the mostly stateless Rohingya told Reuters the move risked sharpening intercommunal tensions in a region that has just seen its bloodiest month since 2012, when hundreds of people were killed in clashes between Muslims and ethnic Rakhine Buddhists.

Soldiers have poured into the Maungdaw area along Myanmar's frontier with Bangladesh, responding to coordinated attacks on three border posts on Oct. 9 in which nine police officers were killed. 

Security forces have locked down the area - shutting out aid workers and independent observers - and conducted sweeps of villages in Maungdaw, where the vast majority are Rohingyas. Official reports say five soldiers and 33 alleged insurgents have been killed.

Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi has urged security forces to exercise restraint and act lawfully, but residents say civilians have been killed, raped and arbitrarily detained and houses razed to the ground. The government has denied abuses by troops.

Ethnic Rakhine political leaders have urged the government to arm local Buddhists against what they say is rising militancy among the Rohingya.

Rakhine State police chief Colonel Sein Lwin told Reuters his force had started recruiting new "regional police" from among the ethnic Rakhine and other non-Muslim ethnic minorities living in Maungdaw.

Candidates who did not meet the educational attainment standards, or criteria such as minimum height, required for recruitment by the regular police would be accepted for the scheme, he said.

"But they have to be the residents," said Sein Lwin. "They will have to serve at their own places."

Police Captain Lin Lin Oo said initially 100 recruits aged between 18 and 35 would undergo an accelerated 16-week training program, beginning in the state capital Sittwe on Nov. 7.

"They will be given weapons and other equipment, like police," said Lin Lin Oo, an aide to the commander of the border police in Maungdaw, who will oversee the auxiliary force.

Police and civilian officials said the auxiliary police recruits would not form a new "people's militia", like those that fight ethnic insurgencies elsewhere in Myanmar.

Such militias - which are often accused of abuses against civilians - raise their own funds and are overseen by the army. The new recruits in Rakhine will be paid and come under the control of the border police.

"CITIZENS ONLY"

Min Aung, a minister in the Rakhine State parliament and a member of Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy, said the recruits would help protect residents from the militants, estimated to be 400-strong, responsible for the Oct. 9 attacks. 

The government has said the militants, who stole weapons and ammunition in the raids, have links to Islamists overseas.

Only citizens would be eligible to sign up for the police training, Min Aung said, ruling out the 1.1 million Rohingyas living in Rakhine State, who are denied citizenship in Myanmar. 

"The minority ethnic people need to protect themselves from hostile neighbors," said Min Aung, referring to non-Muslim ethnicities who are in the minority in the region. "That's why the government supports them as regional police, as well as with employment."

Suu Kyi's government has invited diplomats and the senior United Nations representative in the country on a visit to Rakhine from Wednesday to try to assuage concerns over aid access and rights violations.

But international experts working to rebuild relations in Rakhine, and human rights groups, say arming and training local non-Muslims could make the situation on the ground worse.

"It's sad and telling that the authorities regard this move as part of a security solution," said Matthew Smith, founder of Fortify Rights, a campaign group. 

Arming local Buddhists who may regard all Rohingyas a threat to their safety was "a recipe for atrocity crimes", Smith said. "It can only inflame the situation and will likely lead to unnecessary violence."

Kyaw Win, an ethnic Rakhine resident of Kyein Chaung village, in Maungdaw, told Reuters by phone on Wednesday that he was interested in signing up for the training, but said he doubted the plan would allay his community's security fears.

"It is not possible to live together with Muslims because they are invading and seizing our own land day by day," he said.

A Rohingya community leader in Maungdaw, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said he was concerned Muslims might come under attack form the newly armed recruits.

"If they have guns in their hands, we won't be able to work together as before," he said.

By AFP 

November 3, 2016

YANGON — Foreign diplomats visited flash point areas of Myanmar’s strife-torn Rakhine state on Wednesday, authorities said, as pressure mounts on the government to address accusations of rights abuses in a region home to the Muslim Rohingya minority.


The military has heavily restricted access to the state’s northwestern strip, which abuts Bangladesh, since surprise raids on border posts left nine police dead on Oct. 9.


The hunt for the culprits, who the government says are radicalized Rohingya Muslims, has seen more than 30 people killed, dozens arrested and 15,000 flee their homes in fear.


The government has denied allegations that security forces have raped villagers, looted towns and torched homes belonging to the Rohingya and is keen to show that its operations to flush out the attackers were proportionate.


The ambassadors of China, the United States and United Kingdom were among diplomats and UN officials who arrived in the area on Wednesday morning, Myanmar’s Ministry of Information said on its website.


They were joined by a high-level Myanmar government delegation “to study villages in Maungdaw district… from Nov. 2nd to 3rd” the ministry added.


The surge in violence, in a state that has seen repeated rounds of religious unrest since 2012, has renewed international pressure on Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi to tackle the conflict and probe allegations of army abuse.


Those reports are difficult to verify with the army barring journalists from some areas of the remote region.


The violence has also raised a question mark over the extent of her leverage over an army that dominated the country for decades until her pro-democracy party was swept to power by elections a year ago.


A local policeman, requesting anonymity, said the ambassadors began the day by “checking the area around Wapaik village near Kyikanpyin BGP commanding office,” referring to the Border Guard Police post hit by the attack on Oct. 9.


Later a hundreds-strong group of Rohingya met their convoy as it toured the area.


“We told them we were kicked out from our village. We hope they can do something for us,” Aung Thura, a Rohingya man who fled his village as it was engulfed in violence, said.


Most of the one-million strong Rohingya are denied citizenship in Myanmar and tens of thousands have been trapped in grim displacement camps ever since religious violence tore through Rakhine in 2012.


The status of the Muslim minority has become a touchstone for Buddhist nationalists in Myanmar.


Many insist the group hails from Bangladesh and are in Myanmar illegally, despite their long roots in the country.


The issue routinely billows out on social media where local and foreign journalists are often accused of one-sidedness and distortion.


A team of state-run news agencies were also dispatched to northern Rakhine on Wednesday, according to the government mouthpiece the Global New Light of Myanmar.


Their mission was to “clarify” the situation and “refute accusations on the alleged racial and religious persecution” by the army, the report added.

(Photo: Soe Zeya Tun / Reuters)

Associated Press

November 3, 2016

RB News 

November 2, 2016

Maungdaw, Arakan – A delegation led by the UN resident director and senior diplomats visited areas in Northern Maungdaw where extrajudicial killing, gang rape, arson, looting and torture had been committed by the Myanmar military and Border Guard Police following militant attacks on three BGP in the same area on October 9th. The delegation arrived in Maungdaw from Sittwe at the BGP headquarters by helicopter today at 9:30 AM.

While the delegation was on their way to Maungdaw from Sittwe by the helicopter, two Rohingya women in Kyaik Chaung hamlet of Laung Don village tract were raped by soldiers. 

The delegation left the BGP headquarters at around 11:30 AM and went to East Hamlet of Kyee Kan Pyin, where they met about 300 Rohingya villagers, including some from Wa Baik who had fled from their village after the military burnt down their houses. The meeting with the delegation and the villagers lasted for nearly an hour and a half. In the meeting rape victims, villagers who were forcibly displaced, arson victims and family members of men detained arbitrarily in sweeping arrests expressed their concerns regarding the current situation. The villages had been barred from meeting with the delegation by the military and BGP but they were determined to convey their suffering to the delegation however they could. The villagers managed to hand over letters and memory cards to the delegation which contained their stories and information on how brutally they had been treated. 

At 2:30 PM the delegation left by helicopter for Kyein Chaung BGP regional outpost and they continued in eight vechicles to Pyaung Pyaik hamlet of Nga Sar Kyu village tract. Once there they met with about 200 Rohingya villagers. According to the villagers, some rape victims were able to report their cases against security forces to the delegation.

“A translator who speaks some Rohingya with a Rakhine accent is with the delegation. He was translating something and a victim was also speaking. As we found the translator was translating false information we had to help the victim translating,” a villager told RB News. 

“They arrived at about 3PM. We gave them information we collected in English. They took them and put them in their bags. They stayed for 15 minute and left for Kyein Chaung,” the villager added. The delegation flew over Nga Ku Ra and Kyet Yoe Pyin villages. 

“The Police were taking photos while we were talking with the delegation. We told this to the delegation, that we are worried that later the police will come and blame us for anything and will arrest us,” the villager said. 

According to some Burmese media, the delegation had planned to visit Zin Pyaing Nyar, Kwel Ta Pyin, Laik Aain, Kyet Yoe Pyin, Du Dan, Nga Ku Ra, etc, but as of today they have not visited those villages. Villagers fear that they were prevented from doing so by the Government who may claim they are unable for security reasons. 

In Kyein Chaung, authorities only allowed those close to them to meet with the delegation. A Rohingya man who spoke with the delegation is a former village chairman Idris who is well known in the village and has been referred to as the authorities puppet. There is concerned he is being used intentionally to spread false information to the delegation.

The delegation did not visit U Shey Kya village, where mass gang rape was committed by the Myanmar military. They also did not visit Kyet Yoe Pyin, where many people were killed and almost an entire village was burnt down by the military. In hiding their worst crimes from the delegation, the Government shows an absolute lack of transparency and honesty, and reflects poorly on Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and her party.

After the delegation left Kyee Kan Pyin in the afternoon more than 300 villagers from West Hamlet were detained for more than 3 hours. They were released, but the BGP is searching intensely for 4 Rohingyas who spoke to the delegation. 

State media has reported that the delegation did not find any fault or crimes committed by security forces as have been reported by foreign media. This is not what Rohingya on the ground and information obtained by RB News has found, so far regarding the findings of the delegation.

A Human Rights Watchdog group observing the delegation’s trip said that the Myanmar Government must admit to the crimes and violations that have been committed in Northern Maungdaw.

Additional reporting by MYARF.

By Simon Lewis and Wa Lone 

Reuters

November 2, 2016

SITTWE, MYANMAR -- A group of parliamentarians from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on Wednesday urged Myanmar to probe reports of human rights abuses in troubled Rakhine state, as top diplomats based in the country set off to visit the area.

Troops have poured into northern Rakhine since militants believed to be Rohingya Muslims launched coordinated attacks on border posts on Oct. 9, killing nine police. The government says five soldiers and at least 33 alleged attackers have been killed in the military operation.

The territory has been cut off to aid workers and observers for more than three weeks. Residents and human rights advocates have said abuses by government forces have included summary executions, rape and setting fire to homes.

The government of Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi has denied any abuses have been committed.

The Rohingya, most of whom live in apartheid-like conditions, are seen by many Myanmar Buddhists as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. Some 125,000 remain displaced and face severe travel restrictions in squalid camps since fighting erupted in Rakhine between Buddhists and Muslims in 2012. 

ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR) has urged the Myanmar government to conduct a "thorough and impartial investigation into reports of abuses by security forces" against civilians in Rakhine.

It also called on the military to allow aid workers and journalists access to affected areas in order to provide humanitarian assistance and document developments.

"The reports coming out of Myanmar's Rakhine State are alarming and demand a credible investigation...All authorities must take urgent action to prevent further violations and fulfill their responsibility to protect the rights of all civilians," said APHR Chairperson Charles Santiago, a member of the Malaysian parliament.

"We remain deeply concerned, however, that as a result of the lack of government oversight of security forces, effective systems are not in place to protect civilians or support their chance of seeing justice served."

The military operation has sharpened the tension between Suu Kyi's six-month-old civilian administration and the army, which ruled the country for decades and retains key powers, including control of ministries responsible for security.

Suu Kyi, on a visit to Japan, was meeting the Myanmar diaspora on Wednesday and was set to meet Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in the afternoon.

The ambassadors of the United States, China, Britain and the European Union left the Rakhine capital, Sittwe, on Wednesday for the northern part of the state under military lockdown.

They were led by Nyi Pu, the Suu Kyi-appointed chief minister of Rakhine State. The list of participants reviewed by Reuters also included the top U.N. representative in Myanmar, Renata Lok-Dessallien, as well as envoys from several other countries, including India, Turkey and Indonesia.

The officials will visit the Maungdaw area, although the government has not provided a detailed itinerary.

The officials have privately expressed scepticism that the high-level diplomatic mission will tackle the concerns raised by the international community or gain thorough access and will be able to investigate abuses independently.

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) urged for aid agencies to be granted access to the 10,000 to 15,000 people thought to have been displaced by the latest violence in Rakhine State.

"Essential, life-saving humanitarian activities have been suspended for more than three weeks now, and they need to be resumed as soon as possible," said UNOCHA official Pierre Peron.

In a sign that the mission was carefully managed by the authorities, state media have been invited to film the visiting diplomats, but no international reporters were informed of the trip or allowed to join.

Rohingya sources from the area have echoed the concerns about independent access to witnesses, but said the diplomats were likely to visit villages where residents have told Reuters of rapes, destruction of homes and killings of civilians.

Since last night, Novemeber 1st, 2016, the authorities have entered the villages of Kyet Yoe Pyin village tract, Nga Sar Kyu village tract and its hamlet Pyaung Pyaik and U Shey Kya village tract, where they reportedly pressured Rohingya villagers not to meet with the diplomats and UN delegation. The area they are visiting is the location of a brutal crackdown by the army that begin after three border guard posts were overrun by militants on October 9th. 

Moreover, about 100 security forces and military came to Pyaung Pyaik hamlet and forced villagers to flee from the village. All the villagers are now taking refuge in Sabai Gone and Dudan villages. Some of them had passed their night in a field where the weather was very cold. Now no one is left in Pyaung Pyaik hamlet except for the soldiers and Border Guard Police. 

Security is very tight at Wa Baik hamlet. 

A human rights watchdog group in Maungdaw said they were cocerned that no one is left in Pyaung Pyaik at the moment. They stated they thought the authorities might put some Hindu people into the houses and village to pretend as if they are Rohingya villagers to meet the delegation. The villagers from Pyaung Pyaik suffered seriously and were treated brutally by the Myanmar authorities, and wish to explain what happened to the delegation. 

Since the attacks on October 9th more than 100 Rohingyas have been killed, including a 2 hour old baby and elderly people. Many Rohingya women have stated that they were gang raped by soldiers, including a ten year old girl, during the Myanmar army’s clearance operation. More than 1000 houses and 200 shops have been burnt down, and an estimated 10,000 people are now homeless and in need of urgent humanitarian assistance.