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Outsourcing Myanmar Military’s Lethal Propaganda

29 Sep 2017

Myanmar Government makes baseless, slanderous allegations against Ro Nay San Lwin and the Rohingya Blogger News: Rohingya Blogger’s Statement

13 Jan 2017

The Speech of George Soros at The Oslo Conference to End Myanmar’s Systematic Persecution of Rohingyas

26 May 2015

Daw Khin Hla: “No Country for Rohingyas: A Refugee’s Appeal to End Myanmar’s Slow Genocide”

26 May 2015

Rohingya Ethnic Cleansing and anti-Muslim Pogroms are good for Myanmar: Rationales and Gains

29 Jul 2013

Latest Highlight

  • Announcement of New Website: Rohingya Today (RohingyaToday.Com)31 Dec 2018 | 0 comments
  • Rohingya Refugee Killed in Fighting between Bangladesh Army and Chakma Rebels26 Dec 2018 | 0 comments
  • Bangladesh Police Beat up Refugee Woman and Obstruct Her from Justice 19 Dec 2018 | 0 comments
  • Joint Statement: Rohingya Groups Call on U.S. Government to Ensure International Accountability for Myanmar Military-Planned Genocide16 Dec 2018 | 0 comments
  • US genocide resolution welcome, but Rohingya need more15 Dec 2018 | 0 comments
  • Documentary

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News @ RB

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Rohingya News @ Int'l Media

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Myanmar News

Academic withdraws from China-backed event for Uyghurs

03 Dec 2018 0 comments

By Sena Güler | Published by Anadolu Agency on December 1, 2018 Maung Zarni says he will boycott Beijing-sponsored events until the country reverses its 'troubling path' ANKARA -- A human rights activist and intellectual said he withdrew from a Beijing-sponsored forum in London to pro...

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  • Durbin Blasts Removal of Myanmar Sanctions From Defense Bill

    Aung San Suu Kyi, State Counsellor of Myanmar, has been a guest at the Capitol, including in Sept. 2016. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call file photo) By Niels Lesniewski | Published by Roll Call on July 31, 2018 Signs point to McConnell not allowing language targeting country also known as...

  • Zeid calls for ICC probe into Myanmar Rohingya crisis

    UN Photo/Jean-Marc Ferre High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein. Published by UN News on July 4, 2018 Myanmar should “have some shame” after attempting to convince the world that it is willing to take back hundreds of thousands of refugees who fled an “ethnic cleansing c...

  • UN rights expert ‘strongly recommends’ probe by International Criminal Court into ‘decades of crimes’ in Myanmar

    UN Photo/Jean-Marc Ferre Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Myanmar Yanghee Lee. Published by UN News on June 27, 2018 The United Nations rights expert on Myanmar is “strongly” recommending that the International Criminal Court (ICC) investigate and prosecute those allege...

  • Canada sanctions top Myanmar military over Rohingya abuses

    Myanmar's military has forced some 700,000 Rohingya Muslims out of Rakhine state and across the border to Bangladesh since August 2017 By AFP June 25, 2018 Canada on Monday announced sanctions in coordination with the European Union against seven senior Myanmar officials over the Rohingy...

  • EU sanctions Myanmar generals over Rohingya; Myanmar says two are fired

    A Rohingya refugee is seen in Balukhali refugee camp at dawn near Cox's Bazaar, Bangladesh, March 28, 2018. REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne By Robin Emmott, Antoni Slodkowski Reuters June 25, 2018 LUXEMBOURG/YANGON -- The European Union imposed sanctions on seven senior military officials from ...

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Video News

Experts’ Roundtable on the Myanmar/Bangladesh Crisis held at the University of Ottawa

18 Apr 2018 0 comments

...

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  • Justice for the Rohingyas: The World Must Act (A Panel Discussion)

    For the last 40 years, Rohingyas of Northern Arakan/Rakhine State of Myanmar (formerly Burma), have been subjected to what Amartya Sen called a "slow genocide." Since August 26, over 607,000 Rohingyas have sought refuge in Bangladesh after having fled Myanmar’s campaign of murder, arson and...

  • The Rohingya: Silent Abuse

    By Al Jazeera August 10, 2017 Denied citizenship, forced from their homes, and subjected to cruelty; we investigate the plight of Myanmar's Rohingya. Filmmakers: Salam Hindawi, Ali Kishk, Harri Grace Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, has a population of around 51 million people. T...

  • Is the world ignoring the plight of the Rohingya?

    By Al Jazeera December 4, 2016 Malaysian prime minister urges foreign intervention to stop what he calls the genocide of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. Pressure on government leaders in Myanmar is being ramped up - as Malaysia accused its neighbour of committing genocide aga...

  • Left For Dead: Myanmar’s Muslim Minority (Full Length)

    By VICE News November 11, 2016 In recent years, democratic reforms have swept through Myanmar, a country that for decades was ruled by a military junta. As the reforms took hold, however, things were growing progressively worse for the Rohingya, a heavily persecuted ethnic Muslim minor...

  • Dr Maung Zarni comments on Kofi Annan Commission and Myanmar Genocide of Rohingya

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

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Article @ RB

Comedy and Tragedy in Burma: Grappling with Aung San Suu Kyi’s broken legacy and the Myanmar genocide

06 Oct 2018 0 comments

Oskar Butcher RB Article October 6, 2018 Every night in an unassuming shop space located in Mandalay’s 39thStreet, Lu Maw and Lu Zaw – the remaining members of the Burma’s most famous comedy trio, the Moustache Brothers – present their show: a curious combination of comedy, political sa...

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  • In memory of U Maung Kyaw Nu

    Richard Potter and U Maung Kyaw Nu Richard Potter RB Article July 20, 2018 Early in the morning on May 31st U Maung Kyaw Nu passed away. Maung was known by most as a political activist and president of the Burmese Rohingya Association of Thailand. He was a political prisoner in Burma ...

  • Ba Kyaw: The Leading Military Gunman of Maung Nu Massacre

    A survivor from Monu Fara (Photo: Ro Mayyu Ali) Ro Mayyu Ali RB Article February 2, 2018 Curtly, shabby, and always redly in eyes but very tactful to pick up the collections for extortion purposes. Grabbing any Rohingya's motor-bike, a soul-ruffling terrifying entry into the village ble...

  • U Ko Ni: A man of mountains of knowledge on constitutional reforms

    Haikal Mansor RB Article January 29, 2018 Widely considered as the architect of “State-counsellor” position created for Aung San Suu Kyi after Myanmar’s Constitution barred her the presidency. Born in Katha, Sagaing Division on February 11, 1953, Abdul Gani, better known as U Ko Ni ...

  • National Verification Card (NVC): A Hidden Trap for Myanmar’s Rohingya

    Mohammed Ayub (TU), UAE RB Article October 22, 2017 Myanmar Military was never sincere in handling ethnics’ affairs, especially, in Rohingyas’ whose permanent home is northern Arakan. Throughout the history, military uses the Muslims population of the country for political diversion an...

  • The Laukathara and its influence on Myanmarism

    (Photo: EPA) Habib Siddiqui RB Article September 17, 2017 Myanmar, formerly Burma, is a resource rich country in south-east Asia, bordering Bangladesh, India, China, Laos and Thailand. The old men of the military that ran the country for more than half a century have been displaced by a...

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Article @ Int'l Media

“Genocide cards”: Rohingya refugees on why they risked their lives to refuse ID cards

22 Oct 2018 0 comments

A demonstration over identity cards at a Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh in April, 2018. Image: NurPhoto/SIPA USA/PA Images. By Natalie Brinham | Published by Open Democracy on October 21, 2018 Wary of the past, Rohingya have frustrated the UN’s attempts to provide them with documenta...

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  • Select published works on Myanmar GENOCIDE since 2013 by ZARNI, Natalie Brinham and Amartya Sen

    Buddhist Nationalism in Burma Institutionalized racism against the Rohingya Muslims led Burma to genocide By Maung Zarni SPRING 2013 Rohingya are categorically darker-skinned people—sometimes called by the slur “Bengali kalar.” Indeed, the lighter-skinned Buddhists of Burma...

  • When Facebook becomes 'the beast': Myanmar activists say social media aids genocide

    By Euan McKirdy CNN April 7, 2018 As tens of millions of Americans come to grips with revelations that data from Facebook may have been used to sway the 2016 presidential election, on the other side of the world, rights groups say hatemongers have taken advantage of the social network to wid...

  • To former British Ambassador Derek Tonkin, anti-apartheid was useless, Khmer Rouge officials were "delightful", anti-genocide scholars are "fakes"

    You've gotta love former British Ambassador Derek Tonkin! Genocidal Khmer Rouge chaps were "delightful".  Berlin Conference organisers are "Fakes". Apartheid was 'very complex', anti-apartheid activism was useless. Former British Ambassador Derek Tonkin has shown no conscience, c...

  • Dr Jacques Leider, strategic adviser to Myanmar Military, and Derek Tonkin (who supported S. Africa's apartheid and Khmer Rouge) are favorite experts for Myanmar Racists

    The Rt. Hon. Theresa May, MP Prime Minister Government of the United Kingdom 10 Downing Street, London SW1A 2AA E-mail: mayt@parliament.uk Berlin, 30th January 2018 Your Excellency I am Khin Maung Saw, a retired lecturer in the Department of Burma Studies, Institute of Southea...

  • Ex-British Ambassador Derek Tonkin spent his retirement years denying Myanmar genocide while still in government, he was involved in helping the deposed Khmer Rouge

    Ambassador U Kyaw Myo Htut talks to Chairman of Network Myanmar and former UK Ambassador to Vietnam, Thailand and Laos Mr Derek Tonkin (Photo: Embassy Magazine) 51 page window into a racist colonial mind of Derek Tonkin - https://www.chu.cam.ac.uk/media/uploads/files/Tonkin.pdf From: Dem...

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Analysis @ RB

Myanmar’s Investigation Commissions: Tactic to Conceal Rohingya Genocide

20 Feb 2018 0 comments

By M.S. Anwar | Opinion & Analysis The Burmese (Myanmar) quasi-civilian government unleashed a large-scale violence against the minority Rohingya in the western Myanmar state of Arakan in 2012. The violence, which some wrongly frame as ‘Communal’, was carried out by the Burmese armed forces...

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  • Review and Analysis of Suu Kyi’s Speech

    Wynston Lawrence RB Analysis October 12, 2017 Suu has spoken on Myanmar National TV channel on 12 October 2017. She would like to tell her fellows Burmese people how her government is going to confront challenges of Rohingya Crisis. This crisis has gained world attentions with terrible comme...

  • Outsourcing Myanmar Military’s Lethal Propaganda

    Ne Myo Win  RB Analysis and Opinion  September 29, 2017 Let me not detail much about the harrowing accounts of horrors that the Rohingya people in Myanmar have been going through since August 25, 2017. The world leaders such as Emmanuel Macron, Recep Erdogan and Najib Razak have ca...

  • Hitler/Nazi Symbols are popular in Myanmar and now Mein Kampf is made accessible in Burmese

    By Dr Maung Zarni RB Analaysis September 25, 2017 Rakhine human rights activists have been found to be reading Mein Kampf when they were exiled along Thai-Burmese border towns such as Mae Sot.  Nazi symbols are often used publicly - with such public approval by those who want to extermin...

  • Rohingya and the Right to Self-Identify

    Rohingya and the Right to Self-Identify by Dr Maung Zarni at Permanent People's Tribunal on Myanmar on March 7, 2017 ...

  • Understanding Myanmar Military and Its Strategic Paradigm - Dr. Maung Zarni

    Understanding Myanmar Military and Its Strategic Paradigm - Dr. Maung Zarni ...

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Analysis @ Int'l Media

Ensuring the Safety of Rohingyas as a National Minority Inside Myanmar: Who? How?

20 Nov 2018 0 comments

By Maung Zarni, Natalie Brinham | Published by Middle East Institute on November 20, 2018 “It is an ongoing genocide (in Myanmar),” said Mr. Marzuki Darusman, the head of the UN Human Rights Council-mandated Independent International Fact-Finding Mission at the official briefing at ...

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  • Did Amnesty fall into Myanmar Genocidal Regime's Trap designed to exonerate itself?

    By TRT Newsmaker May 28, 2018 Despite its big name, Amnesty under fire for its latest report on Rohingyas: shoddy research, flimsy evidence on which questionable findings are presented as 'facts". ...

  • ICC Jurisdiction and the Rohingya Crisis in Myanmar

    (Photo: Kevin Frayer/Getty) By Geoff Curfman Just Security January 9, 2018 Over the past four months, Myanmar’s armed forces, officially known as the Tatmadaw, have driven over 600,000 Rohingya Muslims into Bangladesh, killing thousands of civilians in the process and prompting the ...

  • 5 reasons the U.N. Security Council should care about the Burmese military’s sexual assaults on the Rohingya

    Rohingya women cry while watching a graphic video of the Tula Toli massacre in their home in Thaingkhali Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh in December. (Allison Joyce for The Washington Post) By Jamille Bigio and Rachel Vogelstein The Washington Post January 4, 2018 Burma’s ethnic cle...

  • AP Analysis: No sign Rohingya will be allowed to return home

    In this Sept. 14, 2017, file photo, Rohingya Muslim man Naseer Ud Din holds his infant son Abdul Masood, who drowned when the boat they were traveling in capsized just before reaching the shore, as his wife Hanida Begum cries upon reaching the Bay of Bengal shore in Shah Porir Dwip, Bangladesh. ...

  • Analysis: Face-to-face with Rohingya, pope ditches diplomacy

    Pope Francis interacts with a Rohingya Muslim refugee at an interfaith peace meeting in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Friday, Dec. 1, 2017. Pope Francis ordained 16 priests during a Mass in Bangladesh on Friday, the start of a busy day that will bring him face-to-face with Rohingya Muslim refugees from M...

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Opinion @ RB

Premature Rohingya Repatriation: Harmful for both Bangladesh and Rohingya

12 Nov 2018 0 comments

Rohingya refugees who fled from Myanmar wait to be let through by Bangladeshi border guards after crossing the border in Palang Khali, Bangladesh October 9, 2017. REUTERS/Damir Sagolj MS Anwar RB Opinion November 12, 2018 Some may differ. But I believe the government of Bangladesh is ...

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  • Humanitarian Colonialisms in the Rohingya Genocide

    By Dr. Maung Zarni September 20, 2018 NGOs destroy civil society, said a top sociologist at Columbia. He is absolutely correct. If Rohingyas do NOT hang together they will be hang separately. I see the disaster or humanitarian colonialism being repeated in Rohingya situation. T...

  • Putting Lives in Danger

    [This is a longer version of the article with the same title published on Dhaka Tribune on June 19.] Irresponsible reports do nothing to help the cause of human rights © MAHMUD HOSSAIN OPU By MS Anwar | June 22, 2018 An Amnesty report that points fingers at ARSA could do more...

  • Cologne Conference demands accountability of the Myanmar Government

    By Habib Siddiqui RB Opinion May 9, 2018 The Rohingyas are victims of a ‘slow-burning genocide’ that is perpetrated as a national project in Buddhist Myanmar (formerly Burma). Some 700,000 Rohingyas have been forced out of their ancestral homes in western Rakhine (formerly Arakan) stat...

  • What will Protected Homeland for Rohingya look like?

    By Dr Maung Zarni April 29, 2018 Northern Rakhine State, which is ancestral home of Rohingya need to be declared and turned into Homeland for Rohingya protected by international armed forces. Arakan National Party (Rakhine racist party) openly opposes Rohingya presence South of Maung...

  • Myanmar’s Investigation Commissions: Tactic to Conceal Rohingya Genocide

    By M.S. Anwar | Opinion & Analysis The Burmese (Myanmar) quasi-civilian government unleashed a large-scale violence against the minority Rohingya in the western Myanmar state of Arakan in 2012. The violence, which some wrongly frame as ‘Communal’, was carried out by the Burmese armed forces...

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Opinion @ Int'l Media

US genocide resolution welcome, but Rohingya need more

15 Dec 2018 0 comments

By Maung Zarni | Published by Anadolu Agency on December 15, 2018 US will not intercede, and Myanmar's neighbors see it through economic lens, so international coalition for Rohingya needed LONDON -- The U.S. House of Representatives Thursday overwhelmingly passed a resolution ca...

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  • Don’t let Aung San Suu Kyi off the hook for her role in the Myanmar genocide

    Aung San Suu Kyi in 2013. Photo by Shawn Landersz on Flickr. By Khin Mai Aung | Published by Lion's Roar on December 6, 2018 Last week, a prominent Buddhist teacher defended Aung San Suu Kyi, the Buddhist Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Myanmar civilian leader, against criticism that she i...

  • The solutions to the Rohingya crisis: Voices from the Field

    By Nasir Uddin | Published by South Asia Journal on November 17, 2018 The world witnessed a massive refugee situation in the borderland of Bangladesh and Myanmar in 2017, where an extreme form of brutality perpetrated by the Myanmar security forces forced hundreds of thousands Rohingya p...

  • Five concrete measures can end Rohingya genocide

    By Dr. Maung Zarni Anadolu Agency October 5, 2018 - The writer is coordinator for strategic affairs at the Free Rohingya Coalition and adviser to the European Center for the Study of Extremism, Cambridge, UK Five steps can be taken towards achieving justice, repatriation and the re...

  • Canada has recognized the Rohingya genocide. Now what should come next?

    A Myanmar soldier guards an area at the Sittwe airport as British foreign minister Jeremy Hunt arrives in Sittwe, Rakhine state, on September 20, 2018. (Ye Aung Thu / AFP/Getty Images) By Irwin Cotler and Brandon Silver | Published by MACLEANS on September 21, 2018 In the wake of a UN rep...

  • India must stand by the Rohingya in their hour of need

    By Tapan Bose | Published by CounterCurrents.Org on August 1, 2018 Rohingya refugees are back in the news again. On Tuesday (July 30) Mr. Rijiju, the Minister of State for Home said some of the Rohingya living in India do not have the status of “refugee” but are “illegal migrants” who wo...

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History @ RB

The Traditional Demand of the Muslim Rohingya of North Arakan

25 Aug 2016 0 comments

Aman Ullah  RB History August 25, 2016 The ethnic Rohingya is one of the many nationalities of the union of Burma. And they are one of the two major communities of Arakan; the other is Rakhine and Buddhist. The Muslims (Rohingyas) and Buddhists (Rakhines) peacefully co-existed in the A...

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  • Pamela Gutman 1944–2015 and The History of early Arakan

    Aman Ullah RB History June 13, 2016 [Dr Pamela Gutman was the first Australian to complete a doctorate in Asian Art, specializing in Burma. Her scholarship did much to contribute to Australian-Burmese government relations from the 1970s onwards, painting a picture of the art and cultural lif...

  • The Etymology of Magh

    Aman Ullah RB History April 26, 2016 Mohan Ghosh wrote in his book ‘Magh Raiders of Bengal’ that, “In 8th century under the Hindu revivalist leader, Sankaracharijya, Buddhists in India were persecuted in large-scale. In Magadah, old Bihar of India, Buddhists were so ruthlessly oppressed by c...

  • Maurice Collis and Mrauk-U (1430 - 1785 AD)

    Aman Ullah RB History April 19, 2016 [Maurice Stewart Collis (1889 –1973) was an administrator in Burma (Myanmar) when it was part of the British Empire, and afterwards a writer on Southeast Asia, China and other historical subjects. MS Collis was born in 1889, the son of an Irish solicitor,...

  • Arakan in Post 1000 AD

    Aman Ullah RB History April 17, 2016 Before 10th century, Arakan was inhabited by Hindus. At that time Arakan was the gate of Hindu India to contact with the countries of the east. Morris Collis writes in his book "Burma under the iron heels of British" that the Hindu ruled Arakan from firs...

  • Arakan Before 1000 AD

    Aman Ullah RB History April 10, 2016 The earliest name of Arakan was ‘Kala Mukha’ (Land of the) Black Faces writes Noel Francis Singer in his book ‘Vaishali and the Indianization of Arakan’. It was inhabited by these dark brown-colored Indians who had much in common with the people (today’s...

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Nightmare island where traffickers imprison Burma's Rohingya

John Sparks
Channel 4 News
August 8, 2013

Beaten, imprisoned and sold into slavery - Channel 4 News reveals the fate of Burma's Muslim Rohingya refugees, who flee conflict only to end up in the clutches of brutal human traffickers.


It seems like a lot of people in Thailand are frightened of Tarutao Island, writes Channel 4 News Asia Correspondent John Sparks. 

When we asked locals whether they would take us there by boat, they were quick to say no – and that seemed very odd indeed. 

It was strange, because Tarutao Island is an absolutely spectacular Thai national park. 

Situated 30km from the mainland in the sparkly blue waters of the Andaman Sea, the mountains of Tarutao dominate the surrounding area. It is cloaked in a rich layer of jungle and its beaches are white and hotel-free. It’s the sort of isolated spot that many people dream of spending time on. 

Except Tarutao Island is also the stuff of nightmares. It took us weeks to find out why people were so frightened, but in the end it made perfect sense. 

Local people and senior police officers, speaking off the record, told us the southern section of this beautiful island is gangster territory – the hood of human traffickers, who run a number of secret prisons from the jungle floor. 

It is here that desperate migrants from neighbouring Burma are incarcerated, beaten and extorted – and risk being sold as slave labour to fishing fleets. 

Rohingya exodus 

Our story begins 2000 kilometres to the north however, a few miles off the shore of another island called St Martin’s. It straddles the border between Burma and Bangladesh and it is here that ocean-going ships anchor while awaiting their desperate human cargo. 

The passengers are largely Rohingya – a Muslim minority now fleeing a vicious ethnic conflict in north-west Burma. Their situation is dire – civil rights group Human Rights Watch says they are victims of ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. 

In fact, tens of thousands of Rohingya are now participating in a general exodus – an evacuation that is facilitated according to UN experts and NGO workers, by a sophisticated network of brokers, smugglers and human traffickers. 

The numbers involved in this exodus are staggering – according to NGO Arakan Project, more than 35,000 have attempted to flee Burma in the last 12 months. 

It constitutes the biggest movement of people by boat since the Vietnam War according to Phil Robertson of Human Rights Watch, who warns it may be just the beginning: “In the face of severe deprivation in Burma, the Rohingya have lost hope of staying in their homeland and it is not surprising that they are fleeing in droves. This is going to be a multi-year boat people crisis, and Burma's neighbouring governments are not ready for it." 

Brokers and agents promise Rohingya passage to Malaysia – a country where they are generally permitted to stay. The would-be passengers are then gathered in secret locations near the Burmese or Bangladesh coast and hand over the equivalent of £200 for their journey. 

When the ocean-going ships are ready, the brokers ferry them out in smaller boats, in a long-winded process that can take 3 or 4 days. Each passenger must wear a coloured wrist band, designating "ownership" by a particular group of traffickers.


Held in cages

The conditions on board these ships are brutal. The Channel 4 News team filmed several vessels used by human traffickers and we recorded interviews with those who travelled inside them.

You can see more in our exclusive report, but we were told that women and children are held in cages just below main deck - while the men squeeze into false decks like large wooden shelves, built into the hull.

One of our interviewees, a nineteen year old called Mohammad, spent 11 days in one of these vessels.

He told us: "We were kept on one of three or four floors in the hold – like wooden shelves. We had to squeeze in next to each other. We couldn’t move and we weren’t allowed to stand up."

Mohammad says he was one of 650 passengers on the boat – although Channel 4 News understands that some vessels set sail with well over 1,000 people on board. The situation inside was described by our interviewees as "intolerable".

It was so bad, said Mohammed, that one man decided to take his own life: "This old man crawled by me and said he felt terrible. I think he was depressed. He'd said he was going to the toilet but he jumped off the ship. They didn't go back to look for him."

Our interviewees then outlined another unpleasant surprise. They thought they were being taken to Malaysia, but the ships didn't sail that far.
Secret jungle prisons

Instead, the vessels stopped and disgorged their passengers in remote locations on the Thai coast. They were about to become prisoners in a number of secret jails - and there was only one way to earn their release - their relatives were required to pay a ransom of around £1,500.

The business model is crude and effective. After several days, the captives are told to call their loved ones in Malaysia or Thailand with mobile phones provided by the traffickers.

If friends and relatives are unwilling - or unable to pay, Rohingya are beaten – often with their relatives listening on the line. Rafeeq told us about his experience in floods of tears: "They lined us up and gave us the phone and told us to call them. They demand the money and beat us up. They beat us continually until they get the cash."

Mohammad said he witnessed beatings every single day he was held prisoner: "They hit people in a way that doesn’t make them bleed but injures them inside instead. After that, they give them pain killers to make them feel better because if a prisoner dies, the brokers can't get the money out of them."

Mohammed told us that prisoners who can't pay the ransom are sold as slave labour to Thai fishing boats. "The brokers also warn you about it," he said. "If your relatives don't have money, we'll sell you. That's what they say."

Both Mohammad and Rafeeq say there were held captive for weeks on Tarutao Island – but there was something that did not seem to make sense to us.

Tarutao is also a popular national park in Thailand, with rangers stationed on the island and a major shipping channel running past its western coastline – and that begged an important question. Could a criminal network moving hundreds, or possibly thousands, of Rohingya through the island really operate without the knowledge of the local authorities?

After several weeks, we found people who were willing to talk about what goes on there. The most revealing interview perhaps was with a man called Bo.

Police 'paid off'

He told us he was a member of a trafficking operation with personal responsibility for "security at Tarutao" - and he told me his group had paid off 10 police and military units in the last four months.

"It is like, when we give money to this group, the next group comes along, and it goes on and on. It never ends," he said, with evident frustration. Bo told me one way to avoid paying bribes was to move the Rohingya into different locations every ten days or so: "If the authorities can’t find them, they can’t ask."

I took this description of working practices at Tarutao Island to Somkuan Khampeera, the Police Major-General of regional Satun provincial police. He denied his officers take bribes. "I am strict – myself. That sort of thing doesn’t happen here."

However, he was frank when I asked whether he knew about the use of Taruato and other islands as hotbeds for trafficking. "I know, but we don’t have the resources we need to keep an eye on them all the time. The provincial police don’t have a boat for example."

There was one more person we wanted to speak to – the director of Tarutao National Park, Chaichana Wichaidit. Several days earlier, I had had the chance to question several park rangers about the underground prisons.

"Surely," I said, "you know what is going on". Their response surprised us. For the first time in the park’s history, one ranger told me, the southern half of the island had been made out-of-bounds both to the public and park staff. The director of the national park had even closed down two ranger stations located on the southern shore I was told.

Yet, in a long and at times tense conversation, Mr Wichaidit denied that any restrictions had been placed on the public or staff in terms of where they could visit.

"I don’t know where you get the information from," he told me. If park rangers had been prevented from entering the southern section of the park, then outside influences were to blame.

"Maybe people from outside came and threatened them. If you go there, you might see those people and this behaviour."
Police raid

Well, it turned out the authorities did take a trip to Tarutao. As we conducted our investigation, marine police officers launched a raid on one of Tarutao’s southern bays and they uncovered several jungle prisons – with tents, topped in black plastic and a guard tower at a major entrance.

These camps were occupied by hundreds of Rohingya – with some Bangladeshis and a small number of Pakistanis as well. They told us they had been there for weeks and complained of being treated "like dogs".

Some told me they had been promised a ship to Australia - but that seems a fanciful prospect. A more likely scenario, said one senior officer, was the extortion of their relatives in order to secure their release from the island.

In the end, 176 people were plucked from the forest and they now find themselves ensconced in Thai detention centres. No country is prepared to take them - at least officially – so it seems they will languish there for months - or even years.

More Rohingya will follow however. The great exodus is well underway and there is money to be made from their misery.

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      Threatwiki

      Threatwiki

      Myanmar Guilty of Genocide: Gregory H. Stanton

      The Hidden Genocide

      Destruction of Myanmar's Rohingya

      Amartya Sen: Burma's "slow genocide" of Rohingyas

      Amartya Sen: Burma's "slow genocide" of Rohingyas
      Watch Professor Amartya Sen speak on what he calls Burma's 'slow genocide' of Rohingya, Harvard, 4 Nov 2014

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