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By James Bennett
November 20, 2017

Amid mounting evidence Myanmar's military used mass rape in its apparent ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims, the ABC has met survivors of this trauma, who have detailed gang-rape and cruel violence by soldiers.

Now facing an indelible stigma, they are pleading for justice.

Warning, this report contains distressing details of sexual violence.

The dark niqab covering all but her eyes, 18-year-old Noor sits gingerly on the floor of a friend's hut. 

She has ventured across Bangladesh's Kutupalong refugee camp, away from family and community to share a story she has kept secret, even from doctors.

It began when Myanmar's military raided her village of Laungdun, at the height of its vicious response to Rohingya insurgent attacks in August.

"As the military started persecuting villagers, we [girls and women] fled and took shelter in a house," she said.

The soldiers discovered them. Then left. Then returned.

"They started searching our bodies and removed our clothes forcefully," Noor said. 

Noor and several others were singled out, tied up and taken away.

When she resisted, soldiers choked her, then subjected her to a violent gang rape so prolonged she fainted.

"About 10 to 15 army men raped me, and left me there and went away," she said.

"I had blood and urine all over my clothes."

Revived by several village women, she later walked to Bangladesh in excruciating pain.

Weeks on, she is still suffering internal bleeding.

But the stigma of her violation is so powerful she has kept the full details of her ordeal secret, even from doctors, fearing her husband will find out and reject her.

"My husband even threatened to leave me if I do not recover from bleeding soon," she said.

Noor sits on the floor of a friend's hut in Bangladesh's Kutupalong refugee camp.
(Photo: ABC News/James Bennett)

A pattern, village after village

Another 18-year-old, Shamshida, from a different village near Maungdaw, tells a chillingly similar story.

"The military came to the village; I, along with two other girls were taken to a school," she said.

A knife was placed on her throat.

"Three military persons took us to three separate rooms. Then they raped us," Shamshida said.

Unmarried, she fears the shame of her violation is indelible, and will render her unwanted, forever.

"I don't know what will happen. Won't it be a problem? Won't people talk about it?" she said.

Other Rohingya women have been forced to confront more immediate consequences — pregnancies following rape.

Abortion is illegal in Bangladesh, but doctors can approve it in extreme circumstances. 

Several aid workers, who asked to remain anonymous, have confirmed to the ABC a number of terminations have been carried out.

They said there is an urgent need for many more female counsellors to cope with an expected wave of traumatised victims.

"That is exactly why this [rape] is such an effective way to attack someone," Human Rights Watch researcher Skye Wheeler said.

"Not only do you cause them injuries and fear, but you leave them in a state of deep sadness, injured."

Unmarried, Shamshida fears the violation will render her unwanted.
(Photo: ABC News/James Bennett)

'I want justice for me'

Ms Wheeler interviewed over 52 Rohingya women from 19 separate villages.

Twenty-nine had been raped, all but one gang-raped.

Ms Wheeler's report adds to mounting evidence mass rape is a key component of the military's persecution of the Rohingya, which the UN has branded "textbook" ethnic cleansing.

"This was one of the ways ethnic cleansing was being carried out," she said, adding that often lasting traumatic memories make it hard for women to feel safe in places they have been assaulted, thus making repatriation harder.

Pramila Patten, the UN's special rapporteur on sexual violence in conflict, said last week "sexual violence is being commanded, orchestrated and perpetrated by the Armed Forces of Myanmar".

Ms Patten vowed to raise the matter with the International Criminal Court.

But Myanmar is not a signatory to the court's treaty, so any investigation would need the unanimous support of the UN Security Council, considered unlikely.

Myanmar continues to deny any atrocities took place.

Although global condemnation has recently grown louder, the international community has been hesitant to reimpose sanctions or an arms embargo, fearing major supplier and investor China would back Myanmar, thus strengthening its influence and undoing years of western efforts to encourage democracy.

But that is impossible to explain to Shamshida.

"I want justice for me. I want the world community to punish them," she said.

UNCHR psychologist Mahmuda counsels refugees who has suffered traumatic ordeals. (UNCHR: Roger Arnold)

By James Bennett
November 11, 2017

In the refugee camps of Bangladesh, a small handful of psychologists are attempting the near impossible — trying to counsel hundreds of thousands of traumatised Rohingya refugees. 

Many of their patients have seen or suffered unspeakable acts of cruelty at the hands of Myanmar's military.

Bangladeshi psychologist Mahmuda, who goes by the one name, begins to list horrifying — but sadly familiar examples — when asked what trauma her patients have suffered.

"The slaughtering of husbands, missing children," she begins.

But then, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) worker starts to tell a tale of loss so painful, it is hard to listen.

"She saw her husband slaughtered by the army," Mahmuda begins.

Some Rohingya children have seen both their parents slaughtered. (UNHCR: Roger Arnold)

This woman, who Mahmuda estimates is in her early twenties, heavily pregnant and carrying a one-year-old baby, fled alone.

Then her contractions began.

"It was a really, really horrible situation," Mahmuda continued.

As the woman endures labour, entirely, utterly alone, she loses track of her one-year-old.

"She lost her baby," Mahmuda said, her voice wavering.

"She had no relatives, there was no one who could take care.

"And also, she gave birth."

Having lost one child and given birth to another, this distraught new mother walks, for days, alone with her newborn to the safety of Bangladesh.

There, fresh tragedy.

"After long walking, almost eight or 10 days, finally the baby didn't survive," Mahmuda concludes.

Asked what she says to someone enduring such grief, she sighs.

"What I have said to her is now you are safe, secure and you are alive," she said.

Children draw harrowing pictures of memories

Alongside mothers who have lost children, her patients also include children with no parents.

"A few of the children, they don't have any parents, any relatives," she said.

"They have been experiencing — they have seen in front of them — father and mother both slaughtered or burned.

"We have provided some basic support, not in depth counselling."

A child in Rohingya holds up a haunting picture she drew of her memories. (UNHCR: Roger Arnold)

One of the things Mahmuda has asked these traumatised children to do is draw their memories.

The images are confronting — helicopters, shooting down from above, burning villages, and people fleeing in boats.

She says schooling, and more safe spaces for children in the teeming camps are desperately needed.

To provide some basic play therapy, and to become then normalised, in their daily life.

None of this has happened because, faced with now over 600,000 fresh refugees since August, aid agencies are still struggling to feed and house them.

A quarter of young children are malnourished and the disease threat hangs like an ominous cloud.

The Red Cross, UNHCR, Care, Oxfam and Save the Children are launching fresh appeals for funding, amid fears the world is moving on from this still unfolding human suffering.

Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar at a Bangladesh refugee camp. (AP: AM Ahad)

By Liam Cochrane
April 27, 2017

A top official in Myanmar has compared an attack last year by Muslim militants that killed nine police officers and sparked a brutal army crackdown to America's experience on September 11.

But a leading researcher in Buddhist-majority Myanmar says the army's heavy-handed response to the new insurgent threat has only increased the risk of radicalisation amongst one of the world's most persecuted minorities.

In October a Saudi-backed militant group of Rohingya Muslims — called Harakah al-Yaqin or Faith Movement — launched its first ever attack on the Myanmar-Bangladesh border, killing police and stealing weapons.

The resulting "clearance operation" by the military has led to accusations of extrajudicial killings, systematic rape and widespread arson, in what the UN has called possible "crimes against humanity" and Malaysia called "genocide". 

But Myanmar's Minister for Information has rejected the criticisms.

"This is like 9/11 in America, we were targeted and attacked in a huge way," Pe Myint said. 

"But the media is neglecting this and are only emphasising and reporting the counter-attacks, and by looking at the humanitarian point of view," he said in an interview this week.

The Reuters news agency released mobile phone footage on Tuesday showing the aftermath of the army crackdown — dead bodies in a field, moaning survivors and the charred human remains inside a burned house.

Heavy-handed tactics may backfire, analyst says

Rohingyas who have fled to Bangladesh have told horrific stories of soldiers killing children while gang raping their mothers and locking people inside houses that are then torched. 

About 70,000 Rohingyas fled to makeshift camps after the violence, just the most recent flair up in a long history of persecution.

Rohingya Muslims are denied citizenship in Myanmar, which considers them illegal migrants from Bangladesh, and most live in poverty under a form of state-sanctioned apartheid. 

"Clearly Myanmar and its security forces have an obligation to ensure security and stability and to respond to such an attack, however, this is not a license to indiscriminately attack a civilian population," Richard Horsey, an independent political analyst based in Yangon who has worked for the UN and the International Crisis Group, said.

He said the army's tactics may backfire. 

"From the perspective of counter-insurgency and counter-radicalisation, the response of the security forces has been very unhelpful," said Mr Horsey. 

"It's likely to make the situation worse, to increase the risks of radicalisation, and to increase the distrust between the Muslim community in that area and the Government."

Aung San Suu Kyi criticised for response

Just before the October attack, the Government led by Aung San Suu Kyi invited a special commission headed by former UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon to provide recommendations about the ethnic tensions. 

The Commission produced an interim report last month but it's work has largely been overshadowed by the militant attack and resulting crackdown. 

Many have criticised Ms Suu Kyi for not speaking out to defend the Rohingyas, while others have noted that she has no control over the still-powerful military and risks alienating her core Buddhist supporters. 

"This is a situation that's been festering for many decades ... an almost intractable problem that's been inherited by this Government, it's not the creation of this Government," Mr Horsey said.

"It will take a huge amount of effort and political investment to successfully implement those recommendations, some of which will not be easy at all."

Myanmar military commander-in-chief Min Aung Hlaing looks towards Aung San Suu Kyi during talks in April.(Reuters: Soe Zeya Tun)

By ABC/AFP
November 30, 2015

The most powerful figures in Myanmar's transition following its historic elections are to meet this week in separate talks that could set the course for the incoming government dominated by Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy.

In a post on the presidential office Facebook page, Myanmar president Thein Sein confirmed he had extended an invitation to meet Ms Suu Kyi on Wednesday morning at the president's house in Naypyidaw.

"The president will meet with Daw Suu on December 2nd," presidential spokesperson Zaw Htay said, without elaborating.

Win Htein, a senior member of the National League for Democracy (NLD), confirmed the talks with the president.

The chief of Myanmar's defence forces, Min Aung Hliang, has also confirmed he has agreed to meet the head of the victorious NLD later that day, according to ABC Radio Australia's Burmese service.

Ms Suu Kyi has sought to take a conciliatory approach following the elections, dampening victory celebrations and requesting talks with the president and the army chief in the weeks following the NLD's overwhelming win in the November 8 poll.

She met with parliamentary speaker Shwe Mann, whose eagerness to work with Ms Suu Kyi made him enemies among the military elite leading into the election, on November 19.

Shwe Mann had at one point been tipped as a potential compromise candidate for president, but he was recently ousted from the leadership of the army-backed incumbent Union Solidarity and Development Party.

He continues to wield influence as speaker of the combined national parliament and could still emerge as a bridge between the NLD and the military.

Thein Sein, whose quasi-civilian government has opened the nation to the world since taking power in 2011, has said the elections were the result of his sweeping reforms and vowed a smooth transition of power.

The army, which retains a quarter of parliamentary seats and other political and economic privileges, has also pledged to support the transition.

Under Myanmar's complex political system, the incumbent army-backed parliament will remain in power until at least January while a new president is unlikely to be sworn in until March.

Concerns remain over Myanmar's transition in a country where the military still holds enormous political and economic sway, as well as its long history of quashing democratic aspirations.

A previous election landslide by the NLD in 1990 was simply ignored by the then-ruling junta, which held onto power for a further two decades before ceding to the quasi-civilian regime in 2011.

Ms Suu Kyi is still banned under the army-drafted constitution from becoming president because she married and had children with a foreigner.

The UNHCR says there are more than 150,000 asylum seekers or refugees in Malaysia waiting to be permanently resettled in another country. (Photo: ABC)

By Iskhandar Razak
June 30, 2015

Thousands of asylum seekers and refugees who have survived the life-threatening journey from Myanmar are finding themselves trapped in a new cycle of poverty and ignorance in Malaysia.

In Kuala Lumpur the only way some can make money is by picking up trash that can be recycled or sold.

"We earn about 30 to 35 Ringgit [$1] per pay. It is not enough for our family," said Muhammad Hassan, a Rohingya man who arrived by boat just a few months ago.

Asylum seekers are not allowed to work or go to public school in the South-East Asian nation.

Many refugees and asylum seekers are forced to work in the "informal sector" or "grey market".

In Kuala Lumpur that means groups of Rohingya men scour the streets collecting cans, plastic bottles and other trash.

But $1 per day does not go very far when you need to buy food, clothes and pay for rent.

Muhammad Hassan, a Rohingya asylum seeker from Myanmar, said life in Malaysia was "very difficult".

"We are very unhealthy, and uneducated and poor people," he said.

"If we cannot work here, as refugees, how can we survive?"

The families of the men working together collecting garbage also live together to reduce costs.

At least three families live in a two-bedroom flat the ABC visited, and the family may be forced to stay in these cramped conditions for years.

Refugees say they are persecuted by Buddhist majority

The UNHCR said there were more than 150,000 asylum seekers or refugees in Malaysia waiting to be permanently resettled in another country.

"Our community would like to go to Myanmar again, because this is not our home country," Mr Hassan said.

"If not possible, we would prefer to go to a third country, like Australia, America or Canada."

Most of the refugees and asylum seekers waiting in Malaysia are from Myanmar and are mainly either Rohingya Muslims or Christian Chin.

Both say they are persecuted by the Buddhist majority.

They say that includes violent attacks, restrictions on movement, what work they can do and what kind of education they can get.

Children forced to go to secret schools

In Malaysia, refugees and asylum seekers also cannot go to public school, but some children go to hidden unofficial schools.

One such school in Kuala Lumpur has 46 students, aged between three and 15, according to head teacher Zachunghain.

"We have a poor education there, so they come here to try because their future will be better."

The school is funded through donations and staffed by volunteers, like Australian Mara Whittaker.

"They, [the Chin] live in extreme poverty here and not looked after," Ms Whittaker said.

She said there are about 13,000 school-aged Chin refugees in Malaysia.

"40 per cent of them of them have no formal education," Ms Whittaker said.

"I hope for a great education for them so they can make simple choices in life, like who they can be."

Ms Whittaker said that even when teachers are not available some students come to school to keep studying in the hopes that when they are re-settled somewhere else they can continue their education.

But there are very few teenagers at the school because eventually they need to find what little work they can to help feed and clothe themselves and their family.

"I have one student who left last year, she was 12, to stay home and look after a baby," Ms Whittaker said.

"And my heart breaks for her because I feel that there is no hope for her."

Young Rohingyan man 'Buraq' shows where the bodies of his friends are buried in a mass grave site near the border crossing into Malaysia from Thailand

By Mark Davis and Peter Cronau
June 23, 2015

As Thai and Malaysian authorities continue their hunt for hidden graves of refugees in a remote border jungle, the biggest gravesite of all may have been discovered hidden in plain sight.

Just 800 metres from the front door of the police centre in the Thai border town Padang Besar, and a five-minute stroll from the Thai immigration office, lie dozens of concealed graves of Rohingya refugees who have fled abject persecution in their homeland Myanmar.

More than 100 secret graves might lie in the small cemetery, and overlooking the site just metres away is the house of the smuggler believed to have put them there.

A survivor of one of the refugee jungle camps who had been press-ganged into helping the traffickers took Four Corners to the graves.

Known as Buraq, for his safety, he pointed out the graves of Rohingya friends who had died or been killed in the camps.

He said the trafficker brought the bodies off the mountain jungles and buried them in the town graveyard to avoid evidence of the dead being found at his jungle camps.

Whenever there was a load of two or three corpses, Buraq would be driven through the streets of Padang Besar at midnight towards the little-used cemetery.

No matter the threat to his life, Buraq is determined to directly accuse those he blames for the deaths of his friends and fellow Rohingyas — if there is a legal system that will listen.

Buraq describes how one friend died.

"Alom had his throat cut," Buraq said, gesturing a slash across his throat, then pointing to a nearby house.

"Slaughtered by that smuggler there."

Pedang Besar is the official crossing point between Thailand and Malaysia.

It was the heart of the traffickers' operations.

The town mayor and his deputy have recently been arrested for their involvement in the trade and a senior Thai general has been arrested on trafficking-related charges.

The scale of the trafficking network is coming to light courtesy of the detailed investigative reports by human rights researcher Matt Smith of Fortify Rights.

"None of these camps could've operated without the full awareness of the Thai authorities and also the Malaysian authorities," Mr Smith said.

"Villagers know what's happening.

"The Thai authorities know what's happening."

Muslim Rohingya people shelter in Myanmar's Rakhine state, May 17, 2015. (Photo: AFP/Soe Than Win)

By Trevor Wilson
May 22, 2015

Efforts to find a regional solution to the Rohingya refugee crisis will fail unless members of the international community such as Australia lend their full support, writes Trevor Wilson.

Seeking a regional solution for the problem of unauthorised arrivals by Rohingya in South-East Asia is a sensible approach for what has become a truly regional problem.

But a "regional solution" is not necessarily an easy goal to achieve; and it is probably not an easy matter for Australia to participate in finding an effective "solution".

The Rohingya are in reality a stateless people: they are not allowed to be citizens (as "Rohingya") in Myanmar, where most of them currently live, or in Bangladesh, where their ancestors came from. They are the subject of gross discrimination in Myanmar - where they were long segregated from the main population, where they were the object of severe restrictions by successive governments (restrictions which were not applied to other residents of Myanmar), and where they were forced to live in appalling conditions.

The United Nations does not use the word persecution in relation to the Rohingya, and says they are not necessarily the object of genocide or ethnic cleansing in Myanmar, although their human rights are certainly not being respected. There were even three Rohingya elected to the current Myanmar parliament, but they are not able to identify themselves as "Rohingya".

Australian governments have supported regional solutions for unauthorised people movements in South-East Asia in various ways over the years. They have contributed to efforts by relevant international agencies (such as the UNHCR and the International Organisation for Migration) to process and resettle such people via orderly resettlement arrangements.

In recent years, Australian governments have also funded capacity building programs to counter people trafficking in several South-East Asian countries, including Myanmar. But these programs may not have been designed for the current Rohingya situation.

Meanwhile, Australian governments have over many years provided substantial humanitarian assistance to Rohingya living in Northern Rakhine State in Myanmar, as well as some living in Bangladesh. This assistance was delivered through UN agencies and international NGOS working inside Myanmar and Bangladesh.

Australia has also for a several years accepted limited numbers of Rohingya as asylum seekers. There are a few hundred Rohingya in Australia, who are working, studying and living normally in the Australian community. Why couldn't Australia take some more?

However, it may take more than this to find a "solution" for the current Rohingya problem. For example, the Myanmar government may not want to change its internal policies on Rohingya, at least until there is a domestic consensus, which at the moment does not exist. But the Myanmar government must stop forcing Rohingya to make dangerous and life-threatening boat trips from Myanmar, confronting all regional governments with awkward political decisions.

Myanmar's fellow ASEAN members - Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia - may not want a solution which means they accept more Rohingya than they have already, without firm prospects of their resettlement. ASEAN itself does not have the mechanisms or the experience to coordinate a program for the Rohingya influx, but ASEAN could possibly play a useful facilitating role.

A regional solution will need relevant international agencies such as the UNHCR or IOM to coordinate responses. Members of the international community such as Australia must lend their full support to such efforts, which will otherwise fail.

Expectations of Australia making a generous and humanitarian contribution are gathering pace quickly. Relocating these Rohingya to Nauru or Manus Island detention centres, even temporarily, would not necessarily be seen as an appropriate "humanitarian" response.

Trevor Wilson is a former Australian ambassador to Myanmar (2000-2003). He is a visiting fellow at ANU's College of Asia and the Pacific.

Thousands of displaced Rohingya Muslims live in refugee camps in Myanmar's Rakhine state.
AFP: Ye Aung Thu

By Clara Tran
May 21, 2015

The plight of Myanmar's Rohingya refugees is desperately bleak as they are rendered stateless in their homeland and detained in transit nations, a rights group says.

The Rohingya are a Muslim ethnic minority group living in Myanmar's western Rakhine State, bordering Bangladesh on the Bay of Bengal.

Myanmar, also known as Burma, views its population of around 1.1 million Rohingya as illegal Bangledeshi immigrants and denies them citizenship.

They face a slew of restrictions that have led the United Nations to consider them one of the world's most persecuted people.

Two waves of violence in 2012 between Rohingyas and majority Buddhists in Rakhine State sparked religious unrest across the country, leaving more than 200 people dead and around 140,000 homeless.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) said government policy and widespread discrimination have left the Rohingya stateless in their own land.

"The Burmese authorities, particularly the military, have a clear policy to push them out from Burma using persecution in almost every form possible," Sunai Phasuk, HRW's senior Thailand researcher, told the ABC.

"The modern Burmese state is built upon the concept of Buddhist Burmese supremacy; this concept has been used by the military as a pretext for their rule ... and on the other hand to create a bogeyman or demonise the Rohingya as bogeymen for the country's ills such as poverty, lack of social services.

"Everything is being blamed on the Rohingya.

"[The Rohingya] are not allowed to register their marriage, they are not allowed to have education and, worst of all, the Burmese authorities have encouraged communal violence against the Rohingya Muslims."

Mr Phasuk said the survivors of communal unrest are forced to live in "ghetto-like facilities" and are unable to return to their homes that were seized by their Buddhist neighbours.

"HRW research in 2013 concluded that the atrocities committed against Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine state is a crime against humanity and bordering on ethnic cleansing," he said.

"This is a very serious situation and it explains why the Rohingya cannot live in their homeland and have to take a ferry, a dangerous risk, at the hands of human traffickers and embark on this maritime exodus heading for a better life, a new life in another country."

Since 2012, thousands of Rohingya have fled Myanmar on boats to southern Thailand and beyond in the hope of reaching mainly Muslim Malaysia.

Mr Phasuk said after they leave Myanmar, the Rohingya fall into the hands of human traffickers who demand a "steep price simply to get on board".

"They pay around $US5,000, then undergo a dangerous sea journey," he said.

"After they arrive in the waters of Thailand or Malaysia, the traffickers will coordinate with authorities in those countries and there is another round of extortion for the Rohingya to be transferred from their boat and come ashore.

"Before they cross the border there is another extortion and for those who fail to pay they could be beaten to death, raped or left to die by starvation.

"This is the fate of the Rohingya."

Rohingya facing 'indefinite detention' in Thailand

Rohingya migrants were on a boat drift in Thai waters off the southern island of Koh Lipe in the Andaman on May 14, 2015. (AFP: Christophe Archambault)

Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand had recently sparked growing international outrage by driving off boats overloaded with starving Rohingya as well as Bangladeshis.

On Wednesday, Malaysia and Indonesia announced they would no longer turn away migrants, offering to take in asylum seekers provided they can be resettled or repatriated within a year.

A Thai foreign ministry statement said officials also agreed to not "push back migrants stranded in Thai waters".

The UN's refugee agency, the UNHCR, believes at least 2,000 migrants may be stranded on boats off the Myanmar-Bangladesh coasts, held in horrific conditions for weeks by traffickers who are demanding that passengers pay to be released.

But Mr Phasuk said the future for Rohingya asylum seekers remains uncertain once they finally reach Thailand.

"The Thai authorities see the Rohingya as illegal immigrants, detaining them indefinitely in cramped cells in the immigration detention centre," he said.

"They will not allow them to have access to the UNHCR screening process so there is no chance for them to be recognised as refugees.

"If the Rohingya are arrested by Thai authorities they face indefinite detention, they have nowhere to go, nowhere to be sent to."

For a country that values its commitment to human rights as does Australia, the silence in the face of Rohingya suffering is a humiliating moment. AFP: Christophe Archambault

By Mathew Davies
May 18, 2015

Australia's "stop the boats" policy has helped to unravel global norms around refugees, which is now contributing to Rohingya refugees being bounced around the oceans of South-East Asia, writes Mathew Davies.

In 2003 Bill Clinton, in a speech at Yale University, suggested that American foreign policy should try "to create a world with rules and partnerships and habits of behaviour that we would like to live in when we're no longer the military, political and economic superpower in the world".

It is a long way from the carefully tended quads of New Haven to the leaky boats full of Rohingya refugees fleeing persecution in Myanmar, currently being bounced around South-East Asia as Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia refuse them entry into their territorial waters. Yet the same concerns that shaped Clinton's speech back then should today shape Australia's approach to the question of refugees.

What Clinton meant was that America, a superpower that could see its own decline, faced a choice. It could revel in the Indian summer of its power, violating the laws and norms that it had helped create because it was powerful enough, for now, to do so. Or it could make harder but more longsighted decisions, foregoing short term success for the more important goal of helping to bed down an order where its values would be best preserved when it was no longer in a position to materially force their realisation.

Australia too faces this choice - and the Rohingya illustrate the human cost of this decision.

The Government's policy of "turning back the boats" has been one of its few political success stories - first in opposition when it bludgeoned the Gillard government with it, and then in power when it militarised the issue, authorised the tow-back of incoming boats and crafted elaborate offshore processing systems. The victims have remained largely faceless, stripped of their identity in the press and safely kept away from the cameras.

But in crafting this policy Australia weakened both the international refugee regime as a set of rules and norms that should shape how states deal with such refugee flows and helped along a regional trend that has questioned the international regime as never before.

To be clear, Australia has in no way caused the Rohingya crisis nor has its policy alone been the impetus for South-East Asian states' current policy. The current crisis could not have been predicted when the Australian Government's policy to "stop the boats" was being designed and implemented.

However, Australia's actions have helped contribute to a general questioning of international norms on the question of refugees arriving by sea and a weakening of received practice - that states would accept these refugees as they arrived. It is not that Australia's actions in this area are unprecedented in the region - Thailand in particular has a reputation as a bad citizen. Likewise, Malaysia has long cracked down on what it labels illegal migrants.
But Australia's actions are the largest, most organised and most publicly trumpeted and have changed the scale of the critique against the refugee regime. And both the Abbott and previous Rudd/Gillard governments have participated in this.

The dangers of weakening international norms when politically expedient to do so has long been understood. We can choose to break the fragile web of laws and norms that shape our world when it is politically expedient to do so, especially when we are powerful. But even then, we cannot control the consequences of that transgression in terms of the precedent we set and the lessons others learn from our actions.

The consequences of Australia's actions in the past are coming home to roost today, and it is some of Asia's most vulnerable people who are suffering as a result.

It is impossible for Australia to criticise those who do what we have with such a fanfare of self-congratulation. Prime Minister Tony Abbott has defended the rights of Southeast Asian nations to prevent the boats making landfall despite the human cost of this policy potentially being the lives of thousands on the ocean right now. This is in stark contrast to US Secretary of State John Kerry's call for regional states to accept these refugees to avoid a humanitarian disaster.

For a country that values its commitment to human rights as does Australia, our position in the face of Rohingya suffering is a humiliating moment; a realisation of what happens when our policies and our professed beliefs no longer march in step. We are left advising Europeans to tow boats back to the civil and political turmoil of Libya or ignoring the lives of the Rohingya in favour of a "tough on people-smuggling" rhetoric that we are now trapped in regardless of the human cost.

The price of living in a world of rules and norms widely shared is that you do not get to pick and choose which of those rules apply to you and which only apply to others. For a superpower like the US, facing its own mortality, these decisions were global in nature - questions of military adventurism, respect for sovereignty and pluralism, relations with the non-Western world.

For Australia they are no less fundamental; do we want to craft a regional order where our values have wider resonance because we follow them even when politically costly? Or do we want to jettison all notions of common governance in the name of self-interested politics?

The short-term electoral benefits of stopping the boats have been clearly illustrated - now we move into a different phase, the consequences of those decisions so willingly adopted.

Sadly it is not us who bear the costs of those decisions. As almost always happens, it is those most vulnerable, most persecuted and most needy who experience the consequences of our arrogance.

This article was originally written for New Mandala.

Dr Mathew Davies is a fellow and senior lecturer researching international relations, ASEAN and human rights at the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, The Australian National University.

Australian-born baby Ferouz and his mother Latifar.

October 16, 2014

An asylum seeker family has vowed to fight a Federal Circuit Court ruling that their Australian-born son is an unauthorised maritime arrival.

A Federal Circuit Court judge ruled on Wednesday that Ferouz Myuddin, now 11 months old, was not entitled to apply for a protection visa after being born prematurely in Brisbane’s Mater Hospital in November 2013.

His mother had been transferred from the detention centre on Nauru amid concerns about her pregnancy.

The court agreed with the Government’s position that a visa could not be granted because the baby was an unauthorised boat arrival.

Ferouz and his family now live in detention in Darwin, but were originally from Myanmar.

Lawyers for the family said they would lodge an urgent appeal today and take the case all the way to the High Court if necessary.

Ruling affects the fate of 100 other babies

Murray Watt from Maurice Blackburn Lawyers said the family were extremely distressed when he advised them of the decision.

He said an urgent appeal would be lodged on behalf of Ferouz and 100 other babies facing a similar fate.

"I think any honest reading of the situation now is that boats coming to Australia have effectively stopped and we now have an opportunity to think as a country about what the fair way to deal with people who are already here is," Mr Watt told ABC News 24.

"This boy was born in the same hospital as me and the same hospital as my two children and yet he is now subject to being taken to Nauru.

"What this means is that people who are born on the Australian mainland to parents who have come here by boat are deemed themselves to have come here by boat.

"It means the Federal Government can remove all of these 100 babies and take them to Nauru to conditions the UN has labelled as inhumane.

"Currently we have an undertaking from the Federal Government they won't remove Ferouz and other babies without giving notice."

Mr Watt, a former state Labor MP, said he hoped the Government did not push ahead with the removal of any of the 100 affected babies while an appeal was pending.

"I think that would be a disgraceful thing to do," he said.

"Having said that, I don't exactly think this Government's record when it comes to the treatment of refugees is particularly good so I don't really put anything past them."

He said there had been numerous other instances where asylum seekers have been taken away "literally in the middle of the night".

"But there's nothing to cover length of time before appeal, so we will be asking the Federal Government to give an undertaking they won't be removed until an appeal is heard.

"We will be asking the [Immigration] Department that this family will not be removed until this appeal is heard because we believe they should have the opportunity to challenge that decision."

The Greens also urged the Government to wait until the legal process was finished before sending the baby offshore.

Mr Watt said if the court challenge failed the case would require political intervention.

'Mothers hope their babies won't go to Nauru'

Pamela Curr from the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre said she had met with some mothers who would be affected by the decision.

"The mothers were looking at me and saying they hoped they would not be sent back to Nauru," she said.

"That is their most fervent hope, that their babies won't go to Nauru."

She also urged the Federal Government not to transfer the children or their parents.

"These are brave couples, here they are with their children, the only hope they've got.

"It's heartbreaking what they're going to face."

Immigration Minister Scott Morrison released a statement saying it has always been the intention of successive governments that children born to illegal maritime arrivals had the same status as their parents.

He referred to law amendments before Parliament, saying they reinforced the outcome in this case.

The rebel Kachin Independence Army has accused Myanmar's military of thwarting the peace process.


April 15, 2014

Ethnic Shan and Kachin minorities in Myanmar are fleeing their homes as the military pushes ahead with an onslaught against rebel groups.

Rebels say they're frustrated as negotiations continue with the government on a countrywide ceasefire.

Kachin Independence Army colonel James Lum Dau has told Radio Australia's Asia Pacific program the Myanmar army is thwarting the peace process.

"We never go down to fight the Burmese army," he said. "The Burmese army comes up to our villages and refugee camps and come and fight."

In 2011, eight ethnic minorities formed the United Nationalities Federal Council in preparation for negotiations with the government.

But as talks continue, human rights groups say the Myanmar military has intensified its fighting in Shan and Kachin states in the past fortnight.

The recent fighting has seen villagers fleeing to China for asylum, but mostly to no avail.

Colonel Lum Dau says two months ago when the Chinese Red Cross provided 5,000 boxes of basic essentials to Kachin families, Myanmar complained to Beijing.

He says the Myanmar government's approach is to "let them die so that the Kachin will automatically surrender".

Colonel Lum Dau says all the talk about reform and development in Myanmar is merely to appease foreign powers.

"The day the Burmese military is sincere or honest and they keep their promise, that day Burma will get peace."

Alan Morison and Chutima Sidasathian
By Jo Jarvis
January 7, 2014

Thai police are seeking to prosecute the Reuters news agency for defaming the Thai navy in a story published by an Australian journalist in Phuket.

Police were asked to prosecute Australian journalist Alan Morison and one of his colleagues last month over a piece on the navy's treatment of the stateless Rohingya people.

The story, which was published in the online newspaper Phuketwan last July, contained excerpts from a Reuters report.

Morison, who edits Phuketwan, was told in December Thai police were preparing a defamation case against him.

At the time, there was no clear indication that Reuters was also being targeted.

Morison says he is not sure why the article was so contentious.

"It may be because Phuketwan lives and works on Phuket, almost alongside the Royal Thai Navy, and it's possibly the first place the Royal Thai Navy goes to read about Rohingya," he told PM.

He received a police number for the Reuters case on Monday, making it clear the Thai police were pursing the news agency.

"For the military to tackle the media anywhere in a democracy is pretty awesome," Morison told PM.

"But in a democracy like Thailand, where democracy is the subject of protests in the street at present, it's really out of kilter with what's happening elsewhere."
Human rights activists hit out at press 'intimidation'

Bangkok-based human rights activist Chris Lewa says Thai authorities are clamping down on the media.

"I believe the impact is far larger than this particular issue," he said.

"It's an attempt at silencing media and intimidating people in general and the whole issue of freedom of media, of expression for media, is at stake in Thailand."

But Morrison says the crackdown is not working.

"The Royal Thai Navy, by using these onerous laws, have actually activated greater interest among the Thai media than ever in the Rohingya issue," he said.

Reuters reporter Jason Szep, who wrote the article now being looked into by Thai police, would not comment on the matter.

Stephanie March (R) with Zakir and his daughter Yasmin in Bangladesh (Photo: ABC News)

By Stephanie March
December 14, 2013

The first time I met Yasmin was on the side of a road near a refugee camp in Bangladesh. Wearing a black chador, a robe which covered her from head to toe, she and her father, Zakir, bundled into my car and we drove to my hotel.

As new arrivals from Myanmar they were too scared to be seen talking to a western journalist at the camp.

In the hotel room Yasmin showed me her few possessions - her work papers, and two photographs of her family. Among her nine brothers and sisters, I struggled to find her in the grainy picture.

The photo was of the kind taken annually by the Myanmar Government to keep track of the number of people in each Rohingya family. Yasmin's family are standing behind a blackboard which has written on it her father’s name, her village and the number of people in her family.

I couldn’t identify Yasmin in the photo so I asked her to show me where she was. She pointed to a girl wearing a light yellow blouse, and with her long dark hair tied back in a pony tail.

I realized it wasn’t just the quality of the photo that made her hard to identify – the girl before me looked like a completely different person. I asked her why in the photo she was not wearing more modest Muslim dress.

“They wouldn’t let me”, was her answer, ‘they’ being the authorities in Myanmar.

Yasmin fled Myanmar because some of her former UNHCR co-workers had been assaulted and raped by the army.

Worried she too would be targeted, Zakir sold the family home for much less than it was worth to finance a journey into limbo – Bangladesh doesn’t grant Rohingya refugee status and Myanmar won’t take them back, leaving them stateless, without a home, or an identity.

I’ve since been told that a few weeks after our meeting, Zakir managed to get his wife and nine other children across the treacherous Myanmar border into Bangladesh, and then into India.

I understand they are now living in Jharkhand state, but that is where the story ends.

The Indian phone number Zakir gave me is no longer working, and it’s not easy to find someone in a country of 1.2 billion who, officially, doesn’t exist.

Rohingya struggle in Bangladesh refugee camps

Latifa, an asylum seeker from Myanmar, in Brisbane earlier this month after giving birth.

November 23, 2013

A refugee family with a sick newborn baby has won a temporary order blocking their deportation to Nauru, in what is seen as a test case for the Federal Government.

The family from Myanmar was transferred from Nauru to Brisbane last month, when the mother - a Rohingyan woman named Latifa - encountered complications with her pregnancy.

The baby was delivered by caesarean two-weeks ago and has suffered respiratory problems and feeding difficulties.


The couple has two other children, aged four and seven.

Queensland lawyer Murray Watt is representing the family pro bono in a Federal Court in Brisbane.

He says it is a test case on whether the Government can send asylum seekers offshore without considering the impacts on their health.

"Our view is that Nauru is no place for newborn children or this mother who has just given birth," he said.

"When a government is making a decision that affects you, you should have a right to be heard.

"This baby and his family have been threatened to be taken to Nauru without getting that chance - we don't think that is fair."

The matter will be heard again in court on Tuesday.

"[The family] are understandably terrified that they could be taken to Nauru at any time," Mr Watt said.

"That family should have the opportunity to put forward evidence about what the impact on their health will be if they are taken to Nauru.

"We will be going back in to seek a more permanent order from the court preventing the Government from removing this family."

The Immigration Minister has previously indicated any decision to transfer would be based on obtaining medical clearance. 

'If we go back they may die'

Earlier, the mother said she was sent to Australia on her own and asked the doctors to recommend that her husband and two other children also be moved with her.

The woman says that three days later her husband and children, who are seven and four, arrived in Australia.

Now that she has given birth she is asking the Immigration Department not to send her and her family back to Nauru.

"We don't think the kids will survive if they're returned to Nauru," she said through a translator.

"Even the seven-year-old and four-year-old, they were always crying and they don't eat the food and they found it very difficult.

"Now with the newborn baby if we go back there it's possible they will die."

The woman fears that her children will die if they are sent back to the Nauru detention facility. (Photo: AAP)

By Felicity Ogilvie
ABC News
November 9, 2013

An asylum seeker who was flown from Nauru to give birth in Australia says she is afraid that her baby and young children will die if the family is sent back to the island.

The Rohingya woman from Myanmar says she gave birth via caesarean section in a hospital in Brisbane on Wednesday.

The woman says that while she was pregnant she was detained in a tent for two weeks on Nauru.

She says they were served pre-prepared meals that were sometimes only half-cooked, and she says it was hot inside the tents.

"It was too hot. I cannot explain. Even day or night I could not fall asleep because of the heat," the woman said through a translator.

The Rohingya woman, who says she has diabetes, says she was flown to Australia because she was pregnant.

The woman says she was flown to Australia about 20 days ago. A local on Nauru says she left on October 17.

She says while on Nauru she was told she was having twins, but in Australia she had scans showing she was having one baby.

The woman was flown to Australia where she says she had scans and found out she was having one baby, not twins.

On October 18 at his weekly media briefing the Immigration Minister Scott Morrison answered questions about pregnant women on Nauru.

"This suggestion that there is a pregnant woman with twins on Nauru is simply not true. It's actually not true," he said.

"There is not a pregnant woman with twins on Nauru.

"I strongly suggest that media should more thoroughly interrogate the sorts of claims that are being represented to you."

'If we go back they may die'

She says that she was sent to Australia on her own and asked the doctors to recommend that her husband and two other children also be moved with her.

The woman says that three days later her husband and children, who are seven and four, arrived in Australia.

Now that she has given birth she is asking Immigration for the family not to be sent back to Nauru.

"We don't think the kids will survive if they're returned to Nauru. Even the seven-year-old and four-year-old, they were always crying and they don't eat the food and they found it very difficult," she said through the translator.

"Now with the newborn baby if we go back there it's possible they will die."

She says immigration has told her that if it is appropriate to send her to Nauru she will be sent there again.

Woman was told she would be having twins

While she was pregnant and detained on Nauru she says that she had scans and was told that she was having twins.

"They said the same thing in Indonesia and then in Nauru. They said she would give birth to twins: a boy and a girl," the translator said.

The UNHCR visited Nauru last month and met the woman who told them she was having twins.

Her husband says believes the scan that was done on Nauru was an ultrasound and he says it was done by a doctor.

"It was a not a hospital like in Australia. It was a temporary clinic or something like that," the woman's husband said through a translator

The woman says she was taken for a scan within hours of arriving in Australia and found out that she was having one baby - not twins.

"They were taken to the Australian hospital here, then they started scanning and then they found it out was only one baby," the woman's translator said.

Morrison won't rule out transfer back

In his weekly briefing on asylum seeker issues today, Immigration Minister Scott Morrison refused to rule out transferring the woman back to Nauru, saying she would receive the care she needed there.

"All appropriate care is provided for people who are located in the offshore processing facilities," he said, adding, "If and when she is in a good state to return to Nauru or Manus Island, then that is what will occur."

Asked is he felt conditions on Nauru were appropriate for pregnant women, he said: "There are facilities available to support people in that situation."

He described Nauru as "a family facility", and "designed to be able to take people that aren't able to be taken at Manus Island."

Human Rights official criticises detention of vulnerable people

The president of the Australian Human Rights Commission Gillian Triggs says vulnerable people are facing inhumane situations in offshore detention centres.

"We're concerned about the particular harsh environments for more vulnerable people," Professor Triggs said.

"It's a difficult environment for anybody but to be sending youths and women, particularly pregnant women and very young children, to that environment must be be very harsh and is something we're very troubled by."

Professor Triggs says people should be dealt with individually not on the basis of blanket rules.

The Immigration Minister Scott Morrison's office is yet to comment.


    • Rohingya Exodus