Reply To The Demands to the Government from the People’s Gathering held on 25th and 26th of September in Yathetdaung, Arakan
1. To build strong fence both along the sea and land of the western border of Myanmar as there are illegal inflow of foreigners.
Reply:
Border fence: waste of time and money. Before fencing the border the communal harmony between the two communities must be defined and established. If the fence is meant for protection of National security and sovereignty without building mutual trust and unity, then it is ridiculous. National security cannot be safe guard only by the fence. As it is known to everybody that today’s world is only a single click. The actual fence to protect the national sovereignty is the unity of the people living in the region. As long as unity among the races and the equal rights to the communities are not assured the fence will not effective. For example, during the election campaign of 2010 and during the recent violence of Rakhine state, many arms and other weaponries were reported to smuggle in Maungdaw by the Rakhines. If the depressed community enjoy the freedom and equal rights, and the feared community is made to understand free of fear and hatred, be sure that the border is secured. According to the ongoing situation the fence is mainly aimed at the persecutions of Rohingyas.
Illegal inflow of Foreigners: illogical totally. The people of Bangladesh are enjoying the super freedom in the worst case than people of Myanmar. So how would it be logical to say that there will be illegal inflow of foreigners? From a logical point of view, who will come to the land of dire human rights violations, on may reason? Only the sons of the soil will come to the mother land challenging so many difficulties. According to the report of the NaSaKa and other border security forces who specially have been deployed since many years for the systematic control Rohingya community, there are no illegal inflows. It is Rakhine community who on their assumption repeatedly and shamelessly uttering that the Rohingyas are illegal immigrants. The President on the 17 minutes interview with VOA on 14th of August 2012 officially testified that there are almost no illegal immigrants in that area. Likewise Union immigration minister U Khin Yee has also same view on that issue. The 88 generation leader U Ko Ko Gyi also later expressed that they have also same view as President. In spite of all these, why the Rakhine community is claiming that there are illegal inflows? Should not they be referred to as ignorant and dump? To put simply, when Rohingya return to their ancestral land, they are branded as illegal immigrants, and when Mogh enter Myanmar they are branded as legal citizens.
2. To render full support in setting up economic zone in the Rakhine state with the lead of Rakhine people in order to refill the shrunk population.
Reply:
This would be a good initiative. From strategic points of view, Rakhine states have many reserves of natural resources like oil and gases including strategic location like Sittwe and Kyawkphyu harbors, and Saing Tin water fall on which the successive government did not pay importance due to various perceptions. But it seems illogical to me to set up economic zone to refill the shrunk population. It will bring no significance results as long as equal rights and security are assured. The reasons of the shrunk population is due to grievous human right violation to the Rohingyas and freedom of movement and everything (as compared to Rohingya) assured by the Government to the Mogh( Rakhine). Many Rohingyas left their ancestral land due to the persecutions while other hand Rakhine have moved to Burma proper in search of green pastures. Approximately 1.2 million Rohingya have been living in abroad.
3. To enjoy proportionate share of the natural resources of Rakhine state according to the international standard.
Reply:
In the letter dated 17th of August 2012 to the Hlutdaw by the President, under the section “The Situation of Rakhine People” the number (3) clause stated that Rakhine are accusing Government of only taking away the resources of Arakan without giving due share to the Rakhine people. Later this letter was announced as not-president-opinioned letter from the President Office and postponed reading it in the Hluttdaw on the protest of RNDP MPs. The protest was on the account that the points and clauses in it are against the RNDP and Rakhine People. That is Rakhine people are not accusing the Government of as was in the letter. The above statement again testifies that they do are accusing of Government regarding natural resources. In the letter it is said that Rakhines are accusing of the Government. When RNDP protest, President Office clarified that it is not their opinion. From these points one may conclude the status and the role played by the President Office.
4. To prescribed an effective law for controlling the birth rate of Bengali people.
Reply:
Remarkably, Rohingyas have been suffering from all kinds of human rights violation in all atmospheres of everyday life. Only for Rohingya, special border security forces (NaSaKa) on the cost national budget have been deployed. Local orders on the perception of contemporary situation are in huge practices by the NaSaKa. Marriages and birth have been in tight scrutiny and control. You still want more effective law to control birth rate? What could be more effective than checking the womb of every Rohingya pregnant women in the name of law? If you do not believe ask any officer of NaSaKa who are in various commands in Mayu area. What this is called if not Human right violations? The problem is the Rakhine community does believe neither Rohingya nor Government.
5. To put restrictions on the immoveable properties of non-citizens.
Reply:
From the interview of President and Union Immigration Minister with foreign news agencies, it is cleared that there are no foreigners in Rakhine Sate.
6. To form and deploy People's Militia with modern weapons in all villages of Rakhine.
Reply:
Instead of proposing this, why your thoughts not loiter around the solution for peaceful co-existence like before. How many of the countries in the world have that sort of security for the majority people? Even for the minority people the security is assured by the Government forces. This shows that the level of trust the Rakhine Community has in the Government. To speak practically, all new NaTaLa villages have camp of security forces which have been deployed since at the very beginning of the settlement of the villages.
7. To materialize exact practice on 1982 citizenship law.
Reply:
This 1982 citizen law is out of international standard. For Myanmar going for Democracy it is shameful in the international exposure to have this law got implemented. Because there are various concrete documents claiming that the Rohingyas are one of indigenous races of Myanmar. Even before the 1982 citizenships law, the Rohingyas by and according to the successive Governments and law they already are citizens of Myanmar.
8. To closely monitor the activities of UN and iNGOs in the region.
Reply:
I do not understand whether they ( so called Rakhine Scholars) pretend not to know or actually not know that in UNHR there is always undercover government appointed intelligent person employed as UNHCR employee who are directly appointed from Yangon. I personally know such person and witnessed their spying in the various occasions of UNHCR’s visit to the Muslim villages. To the worse extend, during the military intelligent (MI) era, the Government has informer in every school who monitor the movement of other staffs and students.
9. To reveal the roots of Islamist inside Burma and take action accordingly.
Reply:
This demand is baseless. As the Muslims are under severe Human rights violations since 1962 there is no such possibility. In the country where there is no religious freedom for Muslims, where there is no permission to build, rebuild, renovate and repair the religious structures, where every mosques and their care takers are closely watched, how come it would be possible? From the historical evidences, Muslims are living peacefully in Myanmar since time immemorial. More specifically, in the name of Islamist, many have been tortured and killed by MI and NaSaKa by false accusations.
10. To regain the lands of those who fled due to 1942 Muslim-Buddhist riots and after-1948 Mujahid’s movement and establish the villages for the generation of those on these lands. The resettlement should be on the equal proportion of Muslims and Buddhist.
Reply:
In the 1942 riots, both communities suffered. In the northern Rakhine, Rakhines suffered more and in the southern Rakhine, Rohingyas suffered more.Rakhine in northern parts fled to the southern and Muslim in southern part fled to the northern. According to historians, dense Muslims population in the northern Rakhine state is the result of that. Years later after the riots, many Rakhine came and sold out their immoveable properties to the local Muslims. If you are claiming such lands of those Rakhines, will you be magnanimous enough to give back the lands of those Muslims who fled during the riots from the southern part of Rakhine? Please don’t be double standard? Equal proportion of Muslim and Buddhists resettlement: what will you do with equal proportion resettlement? The number will do nothing in this digital age.
11. To remove the Bengali villages along the main communication streams in the Rakhine state and also to remove the surrounding Muslim villages of Sittwe University for peaceful schooling of the students.
Reply:
This demand is due to the fear rooted in the mindset of Rakhine people. If we analyze the factual history, not a single occasion where the Muslim community around the Sittwe University made any disturbance to the students, cannot be pointed out. Rather there were many occasions that the Mosque near Sittwe University was attempted to destroy many times from the authority and Muslims students were harassed everyday in the transport vehicles. It is Rakhine students who repeatedly have tried to create problem nearby area.
12. To promptly implement the Saing Tin Water Fall to generate hydro electric power for local people.
Reply:
It is a long cherished hope of both Rakhine and Rohingya people. The successive government did not pay any solid attention due to the existence of Muslims in the region.
13. To assure security of all the government services employee along the border area.
Reply:
This is a kind of creating turmoil for a nonexistence phenomenon. There is no such record that any government employee is attacked or harassed while on their duty. There are so many examples in Maungdaw that non Muslims government employees are given brotherly treatment by the Muslim families. For example in Alaythankyaw there are two families; one retired MI 18 personal and the other school teachers, are living together in the Muslim compounds as family members.
14. To prescribe the curriculum of Madrasa from the concern authority and watch closely whether the same is in action.
Reply:
Rohingya Muslims will be very happy to have got such implementations as long as curriculum is not against the religious prescription and is controlled by the Islamic affairs of the state.
15.To execute the words that the president have urged the UNHCR officer on 11-07-20012 regarding Rohingyas. The Rakhine communities whole heartedly support these words and demand to implement the same.
Reply:
That statement of the President has worsened the condition more unsolvable. On the other hand, Rakhine community in particular and other communities in general have gained more courage to remain on their stances. Being the head of the state he should even not uttered such single word which has erupted a great criticism around the globe. Later these words of President are nullified on the interview with VOA on the 14th of August 2012. When you study carefully these demands, you can contradictory in itself. In demand no.(10) it demanded for the proportionate settlement of Muslim and Buddhist and here it said to completely deport the Rohingyas to the third country.
16.To return the all kinds of lands, lakes, creeks confiscated by the concerned military, department and organization.
Reply:
In this regard, Rohingya suffered and suffering worse than Rakhine community. Everybody in Mayu Area knew that all Muslim’s shrimp breeding projects have been confiscated by the Military since many years and put auction for yearly basis. Such projects can be seen along Alaythankyaw beach area and Kayindan sea side area.
17. To stop auction system of creeks, streams, seas which are the main sources of family earning for the common people.
Reply:
This system actually has worsened the daily earning for the Rohingya ordinary people. In Maungdaw and Buthidaung every sellable items they carried must have to give tolls to NaSaKa and Hluntein camp based along the roads.
18. To quickly implement the rail road, motor road between villages and townships.
Reply:
This infrastructural development is a must for building modern developed nation.
People’s Gathering held on 25th and 26th of September in Yathetdaung, Rakhine
Totally GO AGAINST the following Points:
1.The co-existence of Rakhine-Bengali as it has become impossible to live together the two communities because of
(1) the situation and circumstances of the cause of the violence,
(2)the irregularity of Bengali’s inner mind set,(3) the Bengali’s unfaithfulness to the Government and disrespecting of Burmese Culture.
Refutation:
If you don’t want to live together what will you do? But remember that the President’s words can never be implemented in this age of 21st century. So what is the option? You can remain on your stance on the cost of your reputation of wild and hostile behaviors towards not only a community but also humanity. If you can afford your community write such hostile history of your own by ignoring human value then remaining on your current stance of not living together is an option. But care should be taken that you are trying to build a dead kingdom on which every world will refrain from doing any engagement.
How come one can accuse Rohingya of unfaithful to Government despite many-years-many-qualified-personnel’s dedicated services in the Government? It is not a mouth say but evidences from the history. What is meant by disrespect of Burmese culture? If you study carefully what Rohingyas have in practice as their dress is as same as Burmese people except in some religious cases? It is Rakhine community that cannot perceive the Rohingya with positive and constructive vision.
2.The OIC’s interference in the internal matters of Myanmar and we also strongly denounced the any office set up of OIC in any place of Arakan.
Refutation:
OIC’s interference has no political interest. This is a kind of Humanitarian engagement for both communities. At the same time one should realize that the value of universal brotherhood not only within Islam but also beyond Islam. Due to lack of self confidence or having too much confidence in them, Rakhine communities have no confidence on others.
3.The implementation of Lay Mro Hyro-electric generation project as it may make damages to the environments and soci-economic condition of Rakhine people.
4.The use of non-existence race Rohingya in the local and international media.
Refutation:
This is made on the due to ignorance of the truth. There are numerous documents and records that there were Rohingyas in Myanmar since time immemorial. The earliest record the 18th century. Rohingya historical evidences are flooding around the web. The latest record that the name Rohingya appeared is in the official family list of Rohingya around 1990s.
5.The Bengalis MPs who are attending on different Hluttdaws by the possession of National identification Card (Citizenship Cards) in illegal means.
Refutation:
This has been cleared by the Union Immigration Minister in the recent interview with RFA. The Rakhine community is accusing the border immigrations officers of issuing the NIC cards to the Rohingyas. This view is also cleared by the minister on the same occasion. But the Rakhine extremists are giving no heed to the clarification.
6.The copying and use of religious, cultural signs and marks which are noble to Rakhine community by the Bengali.
Refutation:
Arakan is the name of the land where Rohingya have been living for many years. If they use Arakan to represent their ancestry, it is not copying and using of others cultural and religious values. Actually this sort of demands deserves no reply and discussion.
RECOMMENDATIONS to the Government from the People’s Gathering held on 25th and 26th of September in Yathetdaung, Rakhine State
1. Urged all the political parties in the Rakhine State(RNDP,ALP,ALD,USDP and NUP) to whole heartedly support the demands, denouncement and advices put forward to the State from the Rakhine People Gathering,Yathetdaung.
2. Urged all the Rakhine representing parties to come to the unity in spite of diversification and disunity for the sake of Rakhine’s benefits.
3. Urged to build strong network between the organizations inside and outside of Rakhine for the future development of Rakhine State.
RB News Desk
SITTWE, Myanmar // There are no Muslim faithful in most of this crumbling town's main mosques anymore, no Muslim students at its university.
They're gone from the market, missing from the port, too terrified to walk on just about any street in the centre of the town.
Three-and-a-half months after some of the bloodiest clashes in a generation between Myanmar's ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and stateless Muslims known as Rohingya left the western town of Sittwe in flames, nobody is quite sure when, or even if, the Rohingya will be allowed to resume the lives they once lived here.
The conflict has fundamentally altered the demographic landscape of this coastal state capital, giving way to a disturbing policy of government-backed segregation that contrasts starkly with the democratic reforms Myanmar's leadership has promised the world since half a century of military rule ended last year.
While the Rakhine can move freely, some 75,000 Rohingya have effectively been confined to a series of rural displaced camps outside Sittwe and a single central district they dare not leave for fear of being attacked.
For the town's Muslim population, it is a life of exclusion that is separate, and anything but equal.
"We're living like prisoners here," said Thant Sin, a Rohingya shopkeeper who has been holed up since June in the last Rohingya-dominated quarter of central Sittwe that wasn't burnt down.
Too afraid to leave, the 47-year-old cannot work anyway. The blue wooden doors of his shuttered pharmaceutical stall sit abandoned inside the town's main market - an area only Rakhine are now allowed to enter.
The crisis in western Myanmar goes back decades and is rooted in a highly controversial dispute over where the region's Muslim inhabitants are really from. Although many Rohingya have lived in Myanmar for generations, they are widely denigrated here as foreigners - intruders who came from neighbouring Bangladesh to steal scarce land.
The United Nations estimates their number at 800,000. But the government does not count them as one of the country's 135 ethnic groups, and so, like Bangladesh, denies them citizenship. Human-rights groups say racism also plays a role. Many Rohingya, who speak a distinct Bengali dialect and resemble Muslim Bangladeshis, have darker skin and are heavily discriminated against.
In late May, tensions boiled over after the rape and murder of a Rakhine woman, allegedly by three Rohingya, in a town south of Sittwe. By mid-June, skirmishes between rival mobs carrying swords, spears and iron rods erupted across the region. Conservative estimates put the death toll at about 100 across the state, with 5,000 homes burnt along with dozens of mosques and monasteries.
Sittwe suffered more damage than most, and today blackened tracts of rubble-strewn land filled with knotted tree stumps are scattered everywhere. The largest, called Narzi, was home to 10,000 Muslims.
The Human Rights Watch agency accused security forces of colluding with Rakhine mobs at the height of the mayhem, opening fire on Rohingya even as they struggled to douse the flames of their burning homes.
Speaking to a delegation of visiting US diplomats earlier this month, Lt Gen Thein Htay, the border affairs minister, described Sittwe's new status quo. Drawing his finger across a town map, he said there are now "lines that cannot be crossed" by either side, or else "there will be aggression ... there will be disputes".
He added: "It's not what we want, but this is the reality we face."
While police and soldiers are protecting mosques and guarding Rohingya in camps, there is much they cannot control. One group of 300 local Buddhist leaders, for example, issued pamphlets urging the Rakhine not to do business with the Rohingya or even talk to them. It is the only way, they say, to avert violence.
Sources Here:
A group of Peace loving people from Burma Task Force (USA) and Free Rohingya Campaign (FRC) had gathered to show solidarity with persecuted Rohingya minority of Burma. They chose this location to draw attention of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Democracy activists, and their supporters to remember Rohingya Muslim while celebrating their freedom. The same people, the same hatred, the same policy who put DASSK and activists behind bar are masterminding the conflict and taking advantage of emotional reaction of general public for their political gain.
The protesters convey the message to the media that the same military Junta and their apparatus are masterminding the ethnic cleansing in Arakan Burma.
They also urge Daw
Aung San Suu Kyi to speak up for racial and religious harmony more
actively without thinking of political consequences. One of the
organizers has pointed out that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi denied that
Rohingya people are persecuted in replying question of Harvard
University Student by simply saying both communities has committed
crime. But Daw Aung San Suu Kyi failed to tell the world that Rohingya
are stateless and rule of law, Judiciary system, police and security
enforcement are siding with Rakhine Buddhist and making situation more
complicated day by day. There will never be peace in Arakan if people
try to deny the basic fundamental right of citizenship of Rohingya in
Arakan Burma. Demonstrators were interviewed by at least 7 media such as
KTVU. Channel news Asia, mercurynews, cvs sanfransiscisco, abc7. They
also got attention of Sanfrancisco mayer Edwin M. Lee who was brief
about Rohingya issue before this event.
RB News Desk
 |
| Rohingya Camp inside Arakan, Burma |
SITTWE, Myanmar — There are no Muslim faithful in most of this
crumbling town's main mosques anymore, no Muslim students at its
university.
They're gone from the market, missing from the port, too terrified to walk on just about any street downtown.
Three-and-a-half months after some of the bloodiest clashes in a generation between Myanmar's ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and stateless Muslims known as Rohingya left the western town of Sittwe in flames, nobody is quite sure when – or even if – the Rohingya will be allowed to resume the lives they once lived here.
The conflict has fundamentally altered the demographic landscape of this coastal state capital, giving way to a disturbing policy of government-backed segregation that contrasts starkly with the democratic reforms Myanmar's leadership has promised the world since half a century of military rule ended last year.
While the Rakhine can move freely, some 75,000 Rohingya have effectively been confined to a series of rural displaced camps outside Sittwe and a single downtown district they dare not leave for fear of being attacked.
For the town's Muslim population, it's a life of exclusion that's separate, and anything but equal.
"We're living like prisoners here," said Thant Sin, a Rohingya shopkeeper who has been holed up since June in the last Rohingya-dominated quarter of central Sittwe that wasn't burned down.
Too afraid to leave, the 47-year-old cannot work anyway. The blue wooden doors of his shuttered pharmaceutical stall sit abandoned inside the city's main market – a place only Rakhine are now allowed to enter.
The crisis in western Myanmar goes back decades and is rooted in a highly controversial dispute over where the region's Muslim inhabitants are really from. Although many Rohingya have lived in Myanmar for generations, they are widely denigrated here as foreigners – intruders who came from neighboring Bangladesh to steal scarce land.
The U.N. estimates their number at 800,000. But the government does not count them as one of the country's 135 ethnic groups, and so – like Bangladesh – denies them citizenship. Human rights groups say racism also plays a role: Many Rohingya, who speak a distinct Bengali dialect and resemble Muslim Bangladeshis, have darker skin and are heavily discriminated against.
In late May, tensions boiled over after the rape and murder of a Rakhine woman, allegedly by three Rohingya, in a town south of Sittwe. By mid-June, skirmishes between rival mobs carrying swords, spears and iron rods erupted across the region. Conservative estimates put the death toll at around 100 statewide, with 5,000 homes burned along with dozens of mosques and monasteries.
Sittwe suffered more damage than most, and today blackened tracts of rubble-strewn land filled with knotted tree stumps are scattered everywhere. The largest, called Narzi, was home to 10,000 Muslims.
Human Rights Watch accused security forces of colluding with Rakhine mobs at the height of the mayhem, opening fire on Rohingya even as they struggled to douse the flames of their burning homes.
Speaking to a delegation of visiting American diplomats earlier this month, Border Affairs Minister Lt. Gen. Thein Htay described Sittwe's new status quo. Drawing his finger across a city map, he said there are now "lines that cannot be crossed" by either side, or else "there will be aggression ... there will be disputes."
"It's not what we want," he added with a polite smile. "But this is the reality we face."
While police and soldiers are protecting mosques and guarding Rohingya in camps, there is much they cannot control. One group of 300 local Buddhist leaders, for example, issued pamphlets urging the Rakhine not to do business with the Rohingya or even talk to them. It is the only way, they say, to avert violence.
Inside Sittwe's once mixed municipal hospital, a separate ward has been established to serve Muslim patients only; on a recent day, it was filled with just four patients whose families said they could only get there with police escorts.
At the town's university, only Rakhine now attend. And at the main market, plastic identity cards are needed to enter: pink for shopkeepers, yellow for customers, none for Rohingya.
The crisis has posed one of the most serious challenges yet to Thein Sein's nascent government, which declared a state of emergency and warned the unrest could threaten the country's nascent transition toward democracy if it spread.
Although the clashes have been contained and an independent commission has been appointed to study the conflict and recommend solutions, the government has shown little political will to go further.
The Rohingya are a deeply unpopular cause in Myanmar, where even opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and former political prisoners imprisoned by the army have failed to speak out on their behalf. In July, Thein Sein himself suggested the Rohingya should be sent to any other country willing to take them.
"In that context, we're seeing them segregated into squalid camps, fleeing the country, and in some cases being rounded up and imprisoned," said Matthew Smith, a researcher for Human Rights Watch who authored a recent report for the New York-based group on the latest unrest.
In places like Sittwe, "there is a risk of permanent segregation," Smith said. "None of this bodes well for the prospects of a multi-ethnic democracy."
In the meantime, the government's own statistics indicate the crisis is worsening – at least for the Rohingya.
While the total number of displaced Rakhine statewide has declined from about 24,000 at the start of the crisis to 5,600 today, the number of displaced Rohingya has risen from 52,000 to 70,000, mostly in camps just outside Sittwe.
The government has blamed the rise on Rohingya it says didn't lose homes but who are eager to gain access to aid handouts. Insecurity is also likely a factor, though. Amnesty International has accused authorities of detaining hundreds of Rohingya in a post-conflict crackdown aimed almost exclusively at Muslims. And in August, 3,500 people were displaced after new clashes saw nearly 600 homes burned in the town of Kyauktaw, according to the U.N.
Elsewhere in Rakhine state, the army has resumed forced labor against Muslims, ordering villagers to cultivate the military's paddy fields, act as porters and rebuild destroyed homes, according to a report by the Arakan Project, an activist group.
In Sittwe, mutual fear and distrust runs so high that 7,000 Rohingya crammed inside a dilapidated quarter called Aung Mingalar have not set foot outside it since June. It's the last Muslim-inhabited block downtown, a tiny place that takes about five minutes to cross by foot.
Thant Sin, the Rohingya shopkeeper who lives in Aung Mingalar, said that the government delivers supplies of rice, but that getting almost everything else requires exorbitant bribes and connections. There is just one mosque. There are no clinics, medical care or schools, and Thant Sin is worried his savings will run out in weeks.
The married father of five has been unable to open his market stall since authorities ordered it shut three months ago. One told him, "This for the Rakhine now," he recalled.
"All we want to do is go back to work," he said. "The government is doing nothing to help us get our lives back."
All four roads into Aung Mingalar are guarded by police, and outside, past the roadblocks of barbed wire and wood that divide the district from the rest of town, Rakhine walk freely – sometimes yelling racial slurs or hurling stones from slingshots.
Across the street, a 57-year-old Rakhine, Aye Myint, leaned back in a rusted metal chair and peered at a group of bearded Muslim men in Aung Mingalar.
"I feel nothing for those people now," he said. "After what happened ... they cannot be trusted anymore. To tell the truth, we want them out of here."
Hla Thain, the attorney general of Rakhine state, denied there was any official policy of forced segregation, saying security forces are deployed to protect both sides, not keep them apart. But he acknowledged that there were not enough police or soldiers to make the two communities feel safe, and that huge obstacles to reconciliation remain.
"We want them to live together, that is our goal, but we can't force people to change," he said. "Anger is still running high. Neither side can forget that they lost family members, their homes."
For now, he said, the government is studying every possibility to make life "normal" again. For example: having Rakhine students attend university in the morning, while Rohingya go each afternoon.
Thein Htay, the border minister, was more blunt.
"We may have to build another market center, another trading center, another port" for the Rohingya, he said, because it will be "very difficult otherwise."
They're gone from the market, missing from the port, too terrified to walk on just about any street downtown.
Three-and-a-half months after some of the bloodiest clashes in a generation between Myanmar's ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and stateless Muslims known as Rohingya left the western town of Sittwe in flames, nobody is quite sure when – or even if – the Rohingya will be allowed to resume the lives they once lived here.
The conflict has fundamentally altered the demographic landscape of this coastal state capital, giving way to a disturbing policy of government-backed segregation that contrasts starkly with the democratic reforms Myanmar's leadership has promised the world since half a century of military rule ended last year.
While the Rakhine can move freely, some 75,000 Rohingya have effectively been confined to a series of rural displaced camps outside Sittwe and a single downtown district they dare not leave for fear of being attacked.
For the town's Muslim population, it's a life of exclusion that's separate, and anything but equal.
"We're living like prisoners here," said Thant Sin, a Rohingya shopkeeper who has been holed up since June in the last Rohingya-dominated quarter of central Sittwe that wasn't burned down.
Too afraid to leave, the 47-year-old cannot work anyway. The blue wooden doors of his shuttered pharmaceutical stall sit abandoned inside the city's main market – a place only Rakhine are now allowed to enter.
The crisis in western Myanmar goes back decades and is rooted in a highly controversial dispute over where the region's Muslim inhabitants are really from. Although many Rohingya have lived in Myanmar for generations, they are widely denigrated here as foreigners – intruders who came from neighboring Bangladesh to steal scarce land.
The U.N. estimates their number at 800,000. But the government does not count them as one of the country's 135 ethnic groups, and so – like Bangladesh – denies them citizenship. Human rights groups say racism also plays a role: Many Rohingya, who speak a distinct Bengali dialect and resemble Muslim Bangladeshis, have darker skin and are heavily discriminated against.
In late May, tensions boiled over after the rape and murder of a Rakhine woman, allegedly by three Rohingya, in a town south of Sittwe. By mid-June, skirmishes between rival mobs carrying swords, spears and iron rods erupted across the region. Conservative estimates put the death toll at around 100 statewide, with 5,000 homes burned along with dozens of mosques and monasteries.
Sittwe suffered more damage than most, and today blackened tracts of rubble-strewn land filled with knotted tree stumps are scattered everywhere. The largest, called Narzi, was home to 10,000 Muslims.
Human Rights Watch accused security forces of colluding with Rakhine mobs at the height of the mayhem, opening fire on Rohingya even as they struggled to douse the flames of their burning homes.
Speaking to a delegation of visiting American diplomats earlier this month, Border Affairs Minister Lt. Gen. Thein Htay described Sittwe's new status quo. Drawing his finger across a city map, he said there are now "lines that cannot be crossed" by either side, or else "there will be aggression ... there will be disputes."
"It's not what we want," he added with a polite smile. "But this is the reality we face."
While police and soldiers are protecting mosques and guarding Rohingya in camps, there is much they cannot control. One group of 300 local Buddhist leaders, for example, issued pamphlets urging the Rakhine not to do business with the Rohingya or even talk to them. It is the only way, they say, to avert violence.
Inside Sittwe's once mixed municipal hospital, a separate ward has been established to serve Muslim patients only; on a recent day, it was filled with just four patients whose families said they could only get there with police escorts.
At the town's university, only Rakhine now attend. And at the main market, plastic identity cards are needed to enter: pink for shopkeepers, yellow for customers, none for Rohingya.
The crisis has posed one of the most serious challenges yet to Thein Sein's nascent government, which declared a state of emergency and warned the unrest could threaten the country's nascent transition toward democracy if it spread.
Although the clashes have been contained and an independent commission has been appointed to study the conflict and recommend solutions, the government has shown little political will to go further.
The Rohingya are a deeply unpopular cause in Myanmar, where even opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and former political prisoners imprisoned by the army have failed to speak out on their behalf. In July, Thein Sein himself suggested the Rohingya should be sent to any other country willing to take them.
"In that context, we're seeing them segregated into squalid camps, fleeing the country, and in some cases being rounded up and imprisoned," said Matthew Smith, a researcher for Human Rights Watch who authored a recent report for the New York-based group on the latest unrest.
In places like Sittwe, "there is a risk of permanent segregation," Smith said. "None of this bodes well for the prospects of a multi-ethnic democracy."
In the meantime, the government's own statistics indicate the crisis is worsening – at least for the Rohingya.
While the total number of displaced Rakhine statewide has declined from about 24,000 at the start of the crisis to 5,600 today, the number of displaced Rohingya has risen from 52,000 to 70,000, mostly in camps just outside Sittwe.
The government has blamed the rise on Rohingya it says didn't lose homes but who are eager to gain access to aid handouts. Insecurity is also likely a factor, though. Amnesty International has accused authorities of detaining hundreds of Rohingya in a post-conflict crackdown aimed almost exclusively at Muslims. And in August, 3,500 people were displaced after new clashes saw nearly 600 homes burned in the town of Kyauktaw, according to the U.N.
Elsewhere in Rakhine state, the army has resumed forced labor against Muslims, ordering villagers to cultivate the military's paddy fields, act as porters and rebuild destroyed homes, according to a report by the Arakan Project, an activist group.
In Sittwe, mutual fear and distrust runs so high that 7,000 Rohingya crammed inside a dilapidated quarter called Aung Mingalar have not set foot outside it since June. It's the last Muslim-inhabited block downtown, a tiny place that takes about five minutes to cross by foot.
Thant Sin, the Rohingya shopkeeper who lives in Aung Mingalar, said that the government delivers supplies of rice, but that getting almost everything else requires exorbitant bribes and connections. There is just one mosque. There are no clinics, medical care or schools, and Thant Sin is worried his savings will run out in weeks.
The married father of five has been unable to open his market stall since authorities ordered it shut three months ago. One told him, "This for the Rakhine now," he recalled.
"All we want to do is go back to work," he said. "The government is doing nothing to help us get our lives back."
All four roads into Aung Mingalar are guarded by police, and outside, past the roadblocks of barbed wire and wood that divide the district from the rest of town, Rakhine walk freely – sometimes yelling racial slurs or hurling stones from slingshots.
Across the street, a 57-year-old Rakhine, Aye Myint, leaned back in a rusted metal chair and peered at a group of bearded Muslim men in Aung Mingalar.
"I feel nothing for those people now," he said. "After what happened ... they cannot be trusted anymore. To tell the truth, we want them out of here."
Hla Thain, the attorney general of Rakhine state, denied there was any official policy of forced segregation, saying security forces are deployed to protect both sides, not keep them apart. But he acknowledged that there were not enough police or soldiers to make the two communities feel safe, and that huge obstacles to reconciliation remain.
"We want them to live together, that is our goal, but we can't force people to change," he said. "Anger is still running high. Neither side can forget that they lost family members, their homes."
For now, he said, the government is studying every possibility to make life "normal" again. For example: having Rakhine students attend university in the morning, while Rohingya go each afternoon.
Thein Htay, the border minister, was more blunt.
"We may have to build another market center, another trading center, another port" for the Rohingya, he said, because it will be "very difficult otherwise."
Source here
A demonstration was held at Veterans Park in Milwaukee City on September 22, 2012 and it was organized by the Burma Task Force-USA in coordination with its members,Burmese Rohingya American Friendship Association (BRAFA), and Islamic Society of Milwaukee (ISM). This demonstration was actually, organized to show strong support, solidarity and also to advocate the suffering cause of Burmese Rohingya ethnic minority in Arakan State in line with 100 cities nationwide rally in USA.
About 250 people were participated in the demonstration from above-mentioned political, human rights and social welfare parties including American individuals to send strong messages to the Burmese quasi civilian government led by President Thein Sein, and extremist Rakhine political leaders to stop immediately the atrocities, genocide and ethnic cleansing against the Burmese Rohingya ethnic minority people in Arakan-Burma.
Kyaw Soe Aung @ Shaukhat MSK Jilani, Acting President of Burmese Rohingya American Friendship Association (BRAFA) addressed in the gathering and also Bro. Salah Sarsor (ISM Shura Member) gave a short speech and he encouraged to all participants to take part in the future event .
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Speech in the Rally on 09-22-2012
Today, we, the members of the National Democratic Party for Human Rights, Burmese Rohingya American Friendship Association (BRAFA), ISM members, American friends and supporters have gathered here under the banner of BURMA TASK FORCE-USA in line with the program of 100 cities nationwide rally for the downtrodden and suffering Muslims of Arakan and it is an honor of our most respectable guest, the Nobel Peace Prize winner and icon of democracy in Burma who has been awarded Congressional Gold Medal and Global Citizenship Award in USA.
The rally is being organized not for showing disrespect to DASSK. We come here to show respect and honor to DASSK who is our honorable guest in America for whom we tried our best to release her from 15 years of house arrest. We appreciate and proud of her peaceful democratic struggle, extraordinary courage and bravery in challenging Burmese military regime and her patience and endurance as well as her steadfastness in the struggle of establishing democracy in Burma during the course of 1988 student led democratic uprising and 1990 election period.
We stood firmly behind her in the past and still today we are with her non-violent struggle for the establishment of people’s representative democratic government in Burma. Burma is a diverse country with multi-ethnic community people.
In fact, we, the Rohingya people have been accepted by DASSK when she gracefully accepted the party NDPHR and our honorable national political leader U Kyaw Minn (aka) Shamsul Anwarul Hoque in the rank of Committee Representing the People’s Parliament (CRPP).
DASSK is the last hope for the Rohingyas who can solve the problems by advocating the Rohingya cause under the Charter of Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).
We are very grateful that DASSK has already spoken out about the Rohingya Muslims during her interview with RFA. However, we would like to appeal DASSK to stand for justice, to speak out and raise Rohingya issue within the reach of her capacity in the future with more strong voice in Myanmar Parliament and in the world media for the dignified survival of the Rohingyas in their native homeland-Arakan.
Now, I want to tell you a little bit of Rohingya Muslim’s identity and their rightful claims of indigenous and citizenship rights. According to reliable and authentic historical documents, Islam reached to in old Arakan in 788 A.D. while Muslims merchants and Missionary teams used to travel to China and Indochina peninsula. The king of old Arakan of Chandra dynasty rule resettled many Muslims and after that, many Muslims entered in groups and individual way that were settle down also in Arakan.
The most historical evidence was the year 1430 when Muslim army (our Forefathers) under the command of General Sindikhan and General Walikhan with a combined force of 60, 000 army restored the king of Arakan Naramikhla (Sulaiman Shah) to dethrone of Mrauk Oo dynasty. We, the Rohingyas are the decedents of that brave heroic Muslim army who are native people of present Arakan. So, we have every right to claim our ethnicity and citizenship status in Burma.
Today, the claims of Rakhine extremists, racist historians, ruling RNDP leaders and even, President Thein Sein who say the Rohingyas are Bangali, foreigners or illegal immigrants from Bangladesh who entered in Burma during the British colonial rule or Bangladesh liberation war is completely false and fabricated.
The current President Thein Sein led Burmese quasi civilian government and ruling Rakhine political party leaders have forgotten about Rohingyas’ existence and its democratic history in Burma. During the previous democratic U Nu government from 1948-1962, Rohingyas were recognized as one of the indigenous races in Burma with members in Parliament and Cabinet having a program as an indigenous people in the official Burma Broadcasting Services (BBS) and participation in official “Union Day” celebration of Burma’s racial groups in Burmese Capital city (Rangoon) every year.
In addition, according to 1947 Constitution, 1947 Burmese Residence and Registration Act, 1948 Burmese citizenship law, and 1974 Burmese Constitution, Rohingyas are Burmese citizens and no anyone can deny these historical and constitutional facts.
In Burma, the condition of the Muslim Rohingyas started to get worse when the military dictator General Ne Win seized the state power from the civilian democratic Government in March 1962 and installed an autocratic rule under the name of “Burmese Way to Socialism” with his idiosyncratic policies. Since then, Muslims especially, the ethnic minority Rohingyas have been subjected to campaigns of terror, genocide, mass arrest, rape, torture, extra-judicial killings, burning villages and houses, destroying Mosques and worship places, demolishing Muslims’ ancient monuments and historical shrines, restriction on marriages and travel movement and other massive human rights violations at the hands of successive Burmese Military Government and its supported Buddhist Rakhine racists.
The current genocide and ethnic cleansing of Muslims in Arakan in the month of Jun has made many destructions and loss and more than 100.000 thousands of Muslims in Arakan became shelter less. 150 Mosque and Islamic Institutions plus historical monuments, were destroyed and burned down by the Rakhine Buddhist people aided by the Burmese security forces. Thousands of Muslims were missing and many Muslims properties, shops and lands were forcefully confiscated by the State government. So, Thein Sein led Burmese government is fully responsible for the loss and destructions of all those.
The present situation in Arakan State is very much complex and Muslims are now in constant fear like hostages in Arakan. President Thein Sein led Burmese government is claiming that the situation in Arakan is under control, calm, and restore to normalcy after visiting OIC delegation, US officials from the Department of State and President Thein Sein’s appointed Enquiry of Investigation Commission as well as some Muslim country’s delegation such as Turkey, Indonesia, and Malaysia and also giving limited opportunity of access to some humanitarian organizations and journalists. It seems the world people and international communities believe that the situation of Arakan is very much improved and normalcy has been restored.
In reality, the situation is worst and the Muslims are suffering and victimized more than before. The people are still there not able to go outside and to buy day to day needed foods and other household items and the people who are in the concentration camps are getting a little bit relief foods, but, those who are living in their homes in Sittwe Downtown area are facing starvation due to foods shortage because they are not able to go outside to buy foods. The President Thein Sein government imposed an Emergency order 144 in the Muslims living townships of Arakan State. This Emergency Order 144 only applied to the Muslims. That is why, Muslims cannot move anywhere for whatever reason. Buddhist Rakhine people are free to go anywhere and also to do regular business. Burmese security forces are Rakhine Buddhists and therefore, they help, support and cooperate to their fellow Rakhine people in various ways to kill and attack the Muslims.
According to reliable news information recently, Rakhine Party leaders and majority Rakhine Buddhist people have reached an informal consensus that Rohingyas uprooted by the violence and now living in makeshift camps outside the Sittwe Town will not be allowed to return to their original places for any reason. And also there is a report received from inside Arakan that extremist Rakhine leaders and Buddhist monks are collecting and restoring lethal weapons in the Monasteries to kill the Rohingyas in their next plan of attack.
All in all, I want to say that the situation of Rohingya people in Arakan State is very bad and miserable. Muslims are helpless, defenseless; shelter less and no place to go. The Burmese government made them prisoners in their own country. So, the President Thein Sein led Burmese quasi civilian government is ultimately responsible for these tragedies on the Rohingya people.
I, therefore, on behalf of the National Democratic Party for Human Rights (exile) and Burmese Rohingya American Friendship Association (BRAFA) call upon the Burmese government the following demands :-
1- Restore Rohingyas citizenship rights on the basis of 1947 Burma Constitution by repealing 1982 inhuman and unjust citizenship law,
2- International independent Commission of enquiry and monitoring teams must be allowed to access the affected areas and the crises of the genocide victims in Arakan,
3- Re-establish all the affected and victimized people in their original places with appropriate compensation from the government for rebuilding houses, Islamic schools, Mosques, Shops and business centers etc.,
4- Allow international relief organizations and local relief teams to provide foods and other commodities to the affected and internal refugees in concentration camps and other scattered area,
5- Return all the shops, properties, and business stores owned by the Muslim Rohingyas forcibly taken away by the Rakhine State government to the rightful owners,
6- Stop immediately ongoing mass arrest, silent killings, rape, torture in jail, looting properties, burning houses and demolishing Muslim worship places etc.,
And, we also request the US government administration and United Nations to implement the following demands:-
1- Put strong pressure and signals on the Burmese government to stop immediately the atrocities, ethnic cleansing and genocide against the Muslim Rohingyas in Arakan,
2- Deploy UN peace-keeping forces in Arakan in order to protect the Muslims from further genocide, ethnic cleansing and all other atrocities and human rights violations against the Muslim Rohingyas,
3- Investigate thoroughly the humanitarian crisis of Arakan and take appropriate action to the Burmese security forces together with ruling Rakhine Buddhist RNDP leaders and members who committed burning, killing, looting, torturing and crimes against the Rohingyas in Arakan and brought those masterminds and culprits to the International Court of Justice (ICC) to face action.
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| U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon |
UNITED NATIONS | Sat Sep 29, 2012
(Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged the world's largest Islamic body on Saturday to "treat carefully" the issue of the stateless Muslim Rohingyas in Myanmar because it could affect the reform process underway in the country, also known as Burma.
Over the past year, Myanmar has introduced the most sweeping reforms in the former British colony since a 1962 military coup. A semi-civilian government, stacked with former generals, has allowed elections, eased rules on protests and freed dissidents.
But an outbreak of violence in June between ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and the Rohingyas killed 80 people and displaced thousands. At least 800,000 Rohingyas are not recognized as one of the country's many ethnic and religious groups.
Rights groups accused Myanmar security forces of killing, raping and arresting Rohingyas after the riots. Myanmar has said it exercised "maximum restraint" in quelling the riots.
Ban discussed the issue in separate meeting with Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, secretary-general of the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), and Myanmar President Thein Sein on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly of world leaders.
During his meeting with Ihsanoglu, Ban "indicated the importance of the situation in Rakhine being treated carefully because of the potential wider implications of the Rakhine issue on the overall reform process in Myanmar," his spokesman said.
An OIC committee set up to deal with the Rohingya issue met for the first time in New York this week and called for them to be given rights as citizens in Myanmar. Ihsanoglu said he wanted to visit Myanmar when the government was ready to "to remedy the fundamental rights issues of the Rohingya Muslims."
Myanmar's president is in a tight spot. Concessions towards the Rohingyas could prove unpopular among the general public, but perceived ill-treatment risks angering Western countries that have eased sanctions in response to human rights reforms.
Thein Sein said in June the government was only responsible for third-generation Rohingyas whose families had arrived before independence in 1948 and that it was impossible to accept those who had "illegally entered" Myanmar.
Ban and Thein Sein "discussed the recent outbreak of violence in Rakhine state and the immediate and long-term perspectives to promote inter-communal harmony and address the root causes of the tension there, including developmental efforts," Ban's spokesman said in a statement.
"The President confirmed the country would address the long-term ramifications of this question," the spokesman said.
Last week Aung Min, a minister in President Thein Sein's office and the government's top negotiator in peace talks with at least 10 ethnic minority rebel groups, said the government had set up an independent commission of inquiry to investigate the violence between the Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingyas.
The commission would look at how further violence could be prevented, which includes examining the status of the ethnic minorities, he said. It is due to report on due November 16.
(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Sandra Maler)
Source here
The Rohingya are a stateless people described by the UN as one of the world's most persecuted minorities.
They are reviled in Myanmar, the country many Rohingya call home, and unwelcome in neighbouring Bangladesh, where tens of thousands live in refugee camps.
And now they could be facing their worst crisis yet.
Violent ethnic clashes in Myanmar's Rakhine state have led to calls for their expulsion from the country. Boatloads of Rohingya refugees have been denied entry into Bangladesh. Those already there live on the fringes of society, undocumented and at risk of exploitation.
In late May, news broke of the brutal rape and murder of a Buddhist woman in Myanmar's Rakhine state. It was, by all accounts, a horrific crime.
What made it worse for some was that the alleged perpetrators were men from the Muslim Rohingya minority.
Five days later a crowd attacked a bus and killed nine Muslims in what appeared to be a retaliatory attack. The clashes erupted suddenly, and ferociously.
Rakhine state has since become the scene of more violence. Entire villages have been burnt down and people driven from their homes. Both sides accuse each other of atrocities and the Myanmar government has declared a state of emergency in the region.
Tens of thousands of Rohingya people now live in refugee camps, with their movements being restricted.In Myanmar they are not recognised as citizens and their access to opportunities are severely curtailed.
In the aftermath of the Rakhine riots, human rights observers fear they might become the target of more discrimination.
Myanmar does not want them. But neither does neighbouring Bangladesh, the country with the second-largest concentration of the Rohingya.
So where do the Rohingya really belong? 101 East looks at who should take responsibility
for the community.
Source here
Breaking News ,29-9-2012, Min Bya.
Three Rohingya boys of Thayet Aout (Nuwar Para) Village, Nargara Tract, Min Bya Township were seriously injured by the shooting of Rakhine terrorists in this morning. The boys were shot while they were watching their cattle in the pasture between paddy field and forest nearby the village. Their names are;
1. Noor Alam son of U Siddique, 18-years
2. Sayed Alam son of U Siddique, 16-years
3. Ali Johar son of shabbier Ahmed, 14-years
The terrorist group, including some Myanmargyi (Baruwa), total 15-members captured the boys systematically and shot them in cool blood. Villagers have informed to police and military to see the casualty and to help for admission to hospital, but they haven’t arrived till, 10:00 PM.
The boys are in the very serious condition and their every body has already pinned with at least five arrows.
RB News Desk
September 29, 2012
Aung San Suu Kyi has now visited America. She has been treated by politicians and the media as nothing less than a saint. She is being revered if not deified.
The reason for this exaltation is her role as a human rights champion for Burma. She is considered to be wholly responsible, and is receiving all the credit, for what is perceived to be a dramatic improvement in human rights in the country, and the now viewed as inevitable achievement of real freedom and democracy.
We can imagine President Obama's private words: "Well done Aung San Suu Kyi! You are a hero for the ages and your nation's savior. Thank you also very, very much for changing your mind on economic sanctions, so our companies can now race into Burma to profiteer from its new Gold Rush, alongside China, Thailand, Japan, Singapore and Europe."
Views from Burma though on Suu Kyi's role, particularly on human rights, are not so unanimous. In Burma, people pay close attention to what she says and does, and to what is really happening on the ground.
There are a number of problems here:
The Burma Army has been committing crimes against humanity against the country's ethnic minorities. The crimes have been underway for decades, and are exceedingly well documented. In a recent iteration, since June last year the Army has been attacking the Kachin people. It has actually been suffering huge casualties from the Kachin resistance, and has retaliated viciously against Kachin villagers. There are now some 70,000 Kachin refugees, who have fled scorched earth Army campaigns that have reduced their villages to rubble, and where all Kachin are at risk of execution, and all women of being raped.
One of the latest atrocities: Four male villagers were arrested, and then forced to have sex with each other for the entertainment of regime soldiers. The soldiers then burned the villagers' genitals using candles.
The Kachin crisis in turn is but a drop in the bucket. Hundreds of thousands - maybe a million or more - ethnic villagers have been driven from their homes to become internally displaced persons, or refugees in neighboring countries. For the refugees alone, this includes huge populations of Karen, Karenni, Shan and Mon in Thailand; Kachin in China; Chin in Malaysia; and Rohingya in Bangladesh.
There is no question about what is behind this. The answer is Burma's military dictatorship, which is run by generals from the country's largest ethnic group, the Burmans, and who are racist and who have been persecuting the ethnic minorities.
Aung San Suu Kyi is Burman, and while no one in the pro-democracy movement has been willing to accuse her overtly of being a racist, she has consistently backed the generals.
She has said that she has a "soft spot" for them. She also said that "resolving conflict is not about condemnation, it is about finding out the root, the cause of the conflict."
Kachin people took great affront at this. To repeat, there is no question at all that it is the regime that is the cause of the conflict. In protest of her position, Kachin invitees boycotted the ceremony in Washington where she was given the Congressional Gold Medal.
Another controversy occurred during her visit to Queens College in New York. At this forum, she was asked why she wouldn't speak out against the Burma Army's brutal war against the Kachin. She aggressively responded that if there were human rights violations, she would of course condemn them. She then refused to do just that, leaving everyone to conclude that as far as she is concerned there are no regime human rights violations against the Kachin, or Burma's other ethnic groups for that matter.
Discussion of this incident has erupted on the Internet, and she is now openly being called a racist.
Further, this past June, a new ethnic crisis developed, this time in Western Burma. Following a series of criminal actions, and which are still the subject of dispute, interethnic clashes broke out between the Rakhine and Rohingya peoples. Analysis of the crisis revealed that it was both motivated and orchestrated by regime organs, and that it led to the full scale ethnic cleansing of many Rohingya townships. (There are as many as 100,000 new Rohingya IDPs and refugees.) When pressed on the issue, Suu Kyi also refused to describe it as a human rights concern. (Of note, she refuses to even use the words Kachin or Rohingya in her English language comments.) She effectively threw her support behind President Thein Sein, and other senior leaders in her National League for Democracy, who have argued that the only real "solution" to the "Rohingya problem" is to intern them all in camps or deport them to any country that is willing to take them.
On her behalf, her supporters argue that Suu Kyi is not willing to blame the regime - for anything - so as not to antagonize the generals. What she doesn't appear to understand is that by not confronting them, she is definitely irritating the ethnic groups.
(Some people also believe that it is unfair to criticize her, while she works her magic. The problem with this is that Burma is not a dry, academic issue. Regime soldiers and police are committing murder. Democracy demands uncensored communications, and this is paramount when lives are at stake.)
Suu Kyi appears to believe that the only way to accomplish change is to flatter and cajole. The fallacy of her approach however is that it is dependent on "hope." She is not calling for any pressure at all. The problem here is that there are two power centers in Burma, the Army and Thein Sein. It is absolutely certain that the Army has power, the power of the gun. It is not clear if Thein Sein has any real power at all - many people believe he is Senior General Than Shwe's puppet, and that the scenario in Burma now is but carefully orchestrated political theatre. Hope as a means to influence the Army is absurd. It won't - it cannot - work. Indeed, this writer believes that the only reason there has been any change in Burma is the generals' reaction to the large losses they have suffered at the hands of the ethnic forces. Suu Kyi deserves no credit at all for the "reform" that is underway.
(The top unspoken story in the country now is the number of Burma Army soldiers who have been killed in the regime's civil war against the ethnic groups - at least 4-5,000 and perhaps 10,000 or more in the last two years, and with a similar number of wounded. The generals are covering up their losses, by letting the bodies rot on the battlefield and through rapid cremations.)
The ethnic groups despise the regime, and they are extremely suspicious of Burmans in general. Suu Kyi was the only Burman leader who had any of their trust. This trust is eroding, and being being replaced with hostility. Suu Kyi is also 67. She doesn't have many years left where she will be able to play a hands on role, and in any case under the Constitution, which she swore to uphold, she cannot run for President. Even more, if she loses her reputation with the ethnic groups, she will not even be able to serve as an elder statesperson, as personified by such people as the Dalai Lama and Nelson Mandela.
Suu Kyi is trying to play politics, and she is making a fatal mistake. The Burma military regime is a gang of serial killers. By not condemning them, she is empowering them. It is not too much of a stretch to say that she has become their accomplice. Because of her position, her reluctance to demand - among other things - that the regime end its war against the Kachin - more ethnic people will die. I am not the first person to say it: She has blood on her hands.
Moreover, she may succeed in splitting Burma such that ethnic reconciliation becomes impossible.
Nations in the West have learned a number of hard lessons from history, which lessons Suu Kyi does not recognize. The United States has been damaged by its own record of slavery and racism. Europe stood by when the Germans committed the worst case of genocide ever. What we learned from these unspeakable tragedies is that in the face of crimes against humanity, you cannot be silent. You cannot sacrifice your principles, and become a politician.
(It is beyond words that Germany, perpetrator of the Jewish genocide, is the leader of the European corporate assault on Burma. Berlin is so greedy for Burma lucre that it is not even willing to wait until the crimes are stopped.)
Suu Kyi, by not condemning the Burma Army's human rights abuses, is sabotaging the country. She has shown that she does not understand, and is not even an advocate for, human rights, and freedom, and democracy. She is underserving of both the Congressional Gold Medal and the Nobel Peace Prize. It is difficult to see how Burma is going to recover from her "leadership."
source here
Myanmar democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi tours the Nobel Peace center in Oslo on June 16, 2012. Suu Kyi on June 16 pledged to keep up her struggle for democracy as she finally delivered her Nobel Peace Prize speech, 21 years after winning the award while under house arrest. (AFP/AFP/Getty Images)Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi has been an international symbol of courage. So why isn't she speaking out for the nation's most persecuted minority?
One by one, the members of a large group of students approached a microphone to tell Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi that she had been an inspiration to them. “I’m very proud to say you have been our hope,” said a Pakistani student. “It is a great honor for me to hear my personal hero speak,” said another.
The forum at Harvard’s Kennedy School Thursday evening was little shy of a lovefest for the elegant and charismatic opposition leader from Myanmar (also known as Burma) who has charmed her way across the United States during a 17-day tour. Until someone mentioned the “R” word.
Thanking Suu Kyi for “being our inspiration,” a student from Thailand said: “You have been quite reluctant to speak up against the human rights violations in Rakhine State against the Rohingya … Can you explain why you have been so reluctant?”
The mood in the room suddenly shifted. Suu Kyi’s tone and expression changed. With an edge in her voice, she answered: “You must not forget that there have been human rights violations on both sides of the communal divide. It’s not a matter of condemning one community or the other. I condemn all human rights violations.”
The Rohingya are a group of about 800,000 Muslim ethnic Bengalis who live in western Myanmar’s Rakhine State, which borders Bangladesh. The government has denied them the most basic rights, including citizenship, for decades. They need permission to marry, travel and work. Last June, violence in Rakhine State left hundreds of Rohingyas dead, thousands of properties destroyed and about 100,000 people displaced, according to activists.
The United Nations calls the Rohingya one of the world’s most persecuted groups.
Given Suu Kyi’s reputation as an international symbol of courage, determination and respect for human rights, one would be forgiven for assuming that she would leap at the chance to defend a group of people so badly persecuted in her own homeland. But she didn't.
Her stance on the Rohingyas oscillates between silence and a cautious, neutral statement that “both sides,” meaning both Muslims and Buddhists in Rakhine, have faced persecution.
The plight of the Rohingyas has been so bad for so long that most political analysts and longtime Myanmar watchers assume that Suu Kyi, the champion of human rights, recognizes their struggle and just can’t be vocal about it. Now she's a politician, the thinking goes, her hands are tied.
Myanmar will hold general elections in 2015, and Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy party hope to win enough seats in parliament to amend the country’s constitution. The NLD will need the support of the Myanmar people, who largely hold great antipathy toward the dark-skinned, poor Rohingyas they often call terrorists and infiltrators.
“Politically Aung San Suu Kyi has absolutely nothing to gain from opening her mouth on [the Rohingyas],” Burmese commentator Maung Zarni told Daily Beast columnist Peter Popham. “She is no longer a political dissident. She’s a politician, and her eyes are fixed on the prize, which is the 2015 majority Buddhist vote.”
The executive director of Amnesty International USA, which has documented abuses against the Rohingya and also hosted Suu Kyi during her US visit, said there is an “expectation of leadership” from Suu Kyi on the issue but gave a slightly more forgiving response to the Nobel laureate’s current stance.
“I don’t know that she has landed on a fully considered, long-term approach to the issue,” Suzanne Nossel said in an interview. “I think her comments reflect a measure of tentativeness. A sense that she is analyzing and trying to be very careful.”
“Clearly the issue is hotly politicized in Burma, and she is newly launched on the political scene and is trying to navigate carefully,” Nossel said.
Becoming a larger voice in Myanmar’s parliament is a laudable goal, and changing the constitution, which was passed during the junta-era by a sham vote, is crucial if the country wants true, lasting reform.
But Suu Kyi’s stance on the Rohingyas raises many questions.
Is her reluctance — or perhaps more accurately, refusal — to come out in support of the ethnic group worth the goal of taking a majority in Parliament?
Or is her sacrifice of principles a slap in the face to those who worked for her release from house arrest and election?
Can Suu Kyi continue to stand as a symbol of courage and humanity’s highest ideals, on par with Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela, if she remains silent on such an important issue?
And finally, what is the point of Suu Kyi being released from house arrest, elected to parliament, adorned with accolades and awards and viewed as a global inspiration, if not to stand up for those who need her most?
Back at the Kennedy School, the student who mentioned the “R” word quickly retreated from the microphone and the Lady moved on to the next question.
But something in the air was lost.
Sources Here:
Faroque Shah
RB Article
September 29, 2012
Myanmar (formerly Burma) is a South East Asian country with a population of 60 millions. It has many ethnicities, races and religions – Buddhism, Islam, Christianity and Animism. Today the country is known more for its ultra-racist policy towards Muslim Rohingya, Christian Chin and Karen minorities than anything else. It attained independence from the Great Britain on January 4, 1948. Its two neighbors then India and Pakistan attained their independence from Britain on August 15 and 14, 1947, respectively. Both those countries are nuclear power states with nuclear powers.
Burma, on the other hand, since its independence has been engaged in long war with its minorities, such as Shan, Kachin, Karen, Mon, Chin and others, simply because its new leaders in the aftermath of assassination of General Aung San did not fulfill the promises made regarding the minorities rights at the Panglong Conference. Although, the Muslims minority Rohingya was left out in this historic conference, their interest was served by U Abdu Razzak, a teacher of General Aung San, who attended it. Aung San promised him that in the independent Burma, Muslims would have the same rights as Burmese Buddhists.
Today the western state of Arakan (Rakhine) is part of Myanmar. But it was a separate independent country lived by two peoples – Rakhine Moghs and Muslims Rohingya - up till 1784. In 1404, nearly 600 years back, the Burmese King Minnyay Kyawzwa invaded Arakan. The Arakanese King Narameikh Hla (Mogh) fled Myohaung (Mrohaung), the capital city and escaped to Gauda (Gaur), the capital of Muslim Bengal in India. The Muslim ruler Sultan Giazuddin Azam Shah gave him shelter as an adopted son for 23 years. There he was trained in the Indian armies. Later the Muslim Sultan sends a force of 40,000 soldiers under the leadership of General Sindi Khan to restore his throne. They were able to dethrone the Burmese king. Upon ascension to the throne of Arakan, Narameikh Hla assumed the title of Min Suleman Shah.
In 1784, when the kingdom was again annexed by the Burmese King Bowdaw Paya, under his directives all the old Muslims monuments and mosques (including the historic Sindi Khan Mosque) were destroyed. Even Rakhine's big statue of Maha Myatmuni was taken away to Mandalay, Amrapura by Arakanese slaves. Afraid of their lives, most Arakanese – Muslim Rohingyas and Magh Rakhines fled to Bengal or today’s Bangladesh (then part of British India) to escape persecutions from the new Burmese king. Even the Arakanese king Sanda Thadita, a Muslim, escaped Arakan with his forces and Ministers, to Bengal. This was a natural reaction to save their lives, as we can witness in our time with fleeing refugees from places like war-torn Iraq, Afganistan and Syria.
Unfortunately, today the Burmese regime say that Muslims of Arakan have infiltrated from Bangladesh and that they are not citizens of Myanmar and thus, should be put either in camps and sent to the third countries. The UNHCR’s chief responded that his agency won’t take the Rohingyas as refugees as they are citizens of Myanmar. Similarly, the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said that the Rohingyas are internally displaced people in their own country.
The 1982 Citizenship Law of Burma, formulated by military dictator Ne Win, denies Muslim Rohingyas their citizenship rights, and deliberately violates several International Human Rights Laws. In his statement in the Parliament in July 2012, U Shwe Maung alias Abdu Razzak, a Muslim elected member of Parliament, declared that Muslims have historical back ground of 1000 years in Burma and if the present Bangladesh government could recognize the Moghs as citizens of Bangladesh who are settled in their country why the Myanmar government should deny the same right to Muslims of this country. He said, “I am astonished to hear often that the Bangalis have entered Arakan yesterday or after independence (1948) and in the British period (post-1826).” “If you study the history of Arakan and its people, you will find history of Rohingya in Arakan. At least, you have to recognize us as citizens of Myanmar,” he said.
The recent violence that spread like wild fires in all parts of Arakan, including Sittwe, once again underscored the true picture of systemic racist policy of the Burmese regime where it uses Buddhist Moghs as instruments to kill and drive out the Rohingya Muslims from its own land. Rohingyas are subjected to systematic human rights violations, forced deportation, mass shooting and gang rape of Muslims women, and arbitrary arrest by the racist Burmese and Rakhine Buddhist Moghs. Under the pretext of preserving peace and security, the racist government used NASAKA and Lon Htain (Border Security and riot police forces consisting of all Moghs) where Muslim Rohingyas are locked inside houses like cattle and the Rakhine Moghs are allowed to move freely wherever they want. By so doing, they make a mockery of the curfew and show that such restrictive laws are not for Rakhine but for Rohingya only.
Rohingyas are restricted from moving from village to village and marriages are banned under strict laws. In a RNDP (Rakhine National Democratic Party) statement, forwarded to Napyaytaw, it says, "these kalas’ (referring to the Rohingyas) childbirth is not only dangerous to Arakan state it is also dangerous for the entire country, Myanmar.”
It is simply awful to see their hatred and bigotry against the Rohinya people and Islam. They burned most of the big and small Mosques in Sittwe. In the Muslim majority areas of Maungdaw and Buthidaung, they closed all mosques. At other places they destroyed many mosques. The authorities never prevent the culprits from doing such destructions of Muslim houses of worship. Wherever securities forces enter a village they first arrest young boys for no reasons and attempt to loot their homes and businesses, and shoot and assault women folks. Many of our women lost their lives in defense of their modesty. Many innocent young boys are reported to have died in prisons due to atrocities and tortures that they had suffered.
Since 1962 some 19 joint operations were conducted to drive out the Rohingya Muslims, as a result of which nearly 1.5 million Rohingya were forced to leave the country. In 1942, during Japanese occupation, the joint Burmese and Rakhine forces massacred more than a hundred thousand Rohingyas in Kyaktaw, Myohoung, Kyataw, Rambraye and Paktaw where 350 villages were burned down.
In this latest violence in Sittwe many Muslims were burned to death. It is therefore hilarious to hear President Thein Sein declaring lately that there was no case of racial violence, nor any religious and racial discrimination against the Rohingya, and that it was simply sectarian violence. He also does not want any international agency or human rights organizations to inquire and interfere in Myanmar’s internal problems.
If these be the case, who will save these oppressed Rohingyas from this racist Budhist Moghs and Burmese culprits? As I write, there are fresh reports of attacks on Muslims in Kyauk Phyu, Kyaktaw and Rambree. Recently, President Thein Sein admitted that monks and Rakhine politicians were kindling hatred of Rohingyas. And reports are coming that Rakhine Buddhists are hoarding lethal weapons and long swords in the monasteries. They are also blocking the access of aid packages from the international relief organizations to reach the starving Rohingyas. Their slogan is “Rohingya NO", “Arakan is for Rakhine and not for Rohingya” and “drive or kill the Kala (Rohingya)”.
Myanmar is a member of the ASEAN group. Is it too much to ask the ASEAN leaders to stop this massacre? How about the OIC? Can their leaders find some magic power to save the oppressed Rohinagyas? If not, who will save these Rohingyas from Buddhist extermination?
Faroque Shah M. Yusoof is graduated on the History of Burma and from Rangoon University.
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