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Supporters of Burma (Myanmar) nationalist groups, including Buddhist monks, clap in support of preserving a constitutional clause barring Aung San Suu Kyi, the popular leader of the country's new ruling party, from becoming head of state, in Yangon, Burma, Sunday, Feb. 28, 2016. Pic: AP

June 7, 2016

BURMA’s top Buddhist authority has vowed to monitor the activities of the hard-line Ma Ba Tha group.

State Sangha Maha Nayaka Committee general secretary U Sandi Marbhivamsa said the Ma Ba Tha should comply with the set of guidelines prepared by the committee.

“Some of Ma Ba Tha’s ideas are aligned partially with those of Mahana [the Sangha, or monk community] because they are under our guidance. But some Ma Ba Tha members are intense on religion and race and go against the committee’s stance,” he was quoted as saying in the Myanmar Times.

The prominent monk said although no action had been taken against any Ma Ba Tha members due to weak implementation of regulations, authorities can take action against them.

The announcement by the Sangha was made several hours after Ma Ba Tha leaders sent support letters to protesters staging a demonstration against the use of the term “Rohingya” to describe the stateless Muslims from Rakhine state.

Nationalist protesters in Mawlamyine in Mon State had gathered on Strand Road bearing anti-Rohingyan posters.

Protest leader Ko Than Zaw said: “We are protesting to show the new government that we are against the use of the term ‘Rohingya’ instead of ‘Bengali’”.

An estimated 1,000 people attended the nationalist protest on Friday, which Ko said was not organised by any particular group or party.

During a third anniversary gathering today, the Ma Ba Tha monks vowed to continue protecting race and religion under the new government.

They also want to maintain the fight against citizenship for those who self-identify as Muslim Rohingya.

Organisation chair U Tilawka Bhivamsa told a crowd of 1,000 monks and followers that they must focus on uniting 135 recognised ethnic groups of Burma.

“Whatever the party and whoever the president is running the government, Ma Ba Tha shall protect nationalism for future generations,” he said.

At the event, U Tilawka also raised the Rohingya issue: “I heard now the Myanmar government has stopped building the border fence in Rakhine State due to a lack of funding under the current budget. We must support its completion if the current government can’t implement the needs of the country’s security.”

Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, Commander in Chief of the Burmese military, shakes hands with National League for Democracy (NLD) leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Pic: AP.

By Asian Correspondent
May 16, 2016

A MILITARY chief in Burma (Myanmar) has denied the existence of the term “Rohingya” and said the country refuses to accept the term during a press conference on Friday.

During the press conference, Burmese newspaper The Union Daily asked Commander-in-Chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing about unrest in the Rakhine State, as well as remarks made by the U.S. envoy about the Rohingya.

According to Eleven Myanmar, Min stated that there were no Rohingyas in Burma, only “Bengalis”, meaning people from Bangladesh who were sent to the Rakhine State after it was colonized by the British following the First Anglo-Burmese War of 1824.

Min was quoted saying: “They are large in number and have been called ‘Bengalis’. They were called Rohingyas under former prime minister U Nu to win their votes. It was illegal. The term Rohingya does not exist and we will not accept it.”

The commander-in-chief, who was formerly the regional commander of the state, emphasized the need for “unity” among Burma’s many ethnic groups, and said there could be no solution if conflict was not reduced.

When asked about the likelihood of a new Panglong conference, he said the army was ready to cooperate, adding: “We have to be united. It has to be a conference to show unity with good intentions and no attempt to gain political advantages.”

The Panglong conference refers to a historic conference that led to the Panglong Agreement, which was reached between the government of Aung San and the Shan, Kachin, and Chin peoples on 12 February 1947.

The agreement accepted “full autonomy in internal administration for the Frontier Areas” in principle and envisioned a federal union. It is celebrated as Union Day each year.

According to Min, the military will “not make problems if the ethnic armed groups stay in the places assigned to them”.

He added that the government “needs the army to protect it” and that the army would “fight anyone” if people’s lives or the government were put in danger.

Min also addressed the army’s position in Burma’s developing democracy, after five decades under military rule, saying the army is following the “guidance” of the government.

He said: “Although I am the military chief, the president is head of state. I am under the command of the president. I am not doing anything without his approval.

“The military is not in opposition and only pointed out the fact that Aung San Suu Kyi’s state counsellor role did not fit the rules and regulations … We will support Parliament if it is good for the country.”

A cartoon by The Irrawaddy depicting a dark-skinned individual labelled 'boat people' cutting a queue of Burmese people. Image via Twitter
May 12, 2016

A CARTOON published by Burmese magazine The Irrawaddy has been slammed by critics as “disgusting”, “xenophobic” and “dangerous”.

The offending cartoon features a dark-skinned individual with a sign saying “BOAT PEOPLE” hanging on his back cutting in front of a queue of Burmese ethnic minority groups.

Many believe the individual climbing into the queue purportedly depicts an undocumented Rohingya Muslim. The minority Muslim group is a subject of contention in Burma (Myanmar), with many accusing the government of systematically persecuting them.

Rohingya activist Wai Wai Nu has reportedly weighed in on the conversation, calling the cartoon “dangerous” and “insulting”.

According to Coconuts Yangon, Nu said in an interview today: “It’s like boat people are coming into the place of the ethnic people. It’s a bad image and the depiction is wrong. Because boat people are just going out of the country, they are not coming in. It’s insulting and dangerous because it is giving the wrong message to people.”




She called for the government to regulate cartoons which “discriminate against Muslims” in order to avoid conflicts.

Nu also called into question The Irrawaddy’s editorial judgement in publishing the cartoon, a sentiment echoed by several critics on Twitter.

Some say The Irrawaddy’s cartoon, which is strikingly similar to some published by French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, accurately portrays how many Burmese locals feel about the Rohingya.

Charlie Hebdo – whose Paris office was attacked in 2015 by Islamist gunmen, killing 12 people – has published cartoons in the past that have been labelled “Islamophobic” in nature.

Among them is a cartoon depicting dead Syrian toddler Alan Kurdi as a woman-groping adult, with the caption: “What would little Aylan have grown up to be? A groper in Germany.”

The cartoon was a response to a series sexual attacks conducted against women on New Year’s Eve last year in Cologne, Germany.

The cartoonist who created the image for The Irrawaddy, Maung Maung Fountain, declined to comment on the issue.

All posts of the cartoon appear to have been removed from The Irrawaddy’s social media and website.

Burma's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Pic: AP.

April 23, 2016

THE de facto leader of Burma (Myanmar), Aung San Suu Kyi has told foreign diplomats that it doesn’t matter whether they use Myanmar, or its old name, Burma.

In a speech to the foreign diplomatic corps on Friday, Suu Kyi told the diplomats that they could use whichever of the two to refer to the country, as its constitution does not mandate either name.

In addition to the foreign minister post, Suu Kyi currently holds the specially-created position of state counselor, which was a means of circumventing the constitutional clause that bans her from being the country’s president.

In 1989, Burma’s junta government changed the country’s name from “the Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma” to “the Union of Myanmar”.

Those in favor of democracy rebelled against the name-change, deciding to continue using Burma, much to the military government’s annoyance.

Even activists and supporters abroad – including Western media and governments – also stuck to the old name.

Additional reporting by Associated Press

Khin Maung Thein is the only Muslim candidate in Mandalay allowed to take part in Burma's upcoming elections. Image via Reuters.

By Jo Lane
November 5, 2015

KHIN Maung Thein is the sole Muslim candidate in Mandalay, a thriving Buddhist religious centre in northern Burma (Myanmar) and a place of much religious tension between Buddhists and Muslims. Despite this, Thein’s party, the United National Congress (UNC), has been able to do what so many other parties have chosen not to do – field a Muslim candidate.

Not even Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) has done that, afraid of backlash from Buddhist clerics and other powerful voices that speak out against Muslims. The ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) has no Muslim candidates either, and the election commission has rejected about 100 applications, many of whom are Muslim.

An article by Radio Free Asia noted last month that 17 out of 18 candidates for the Islamic Democracy and Human Rights Party (DHRP) in Rakhine state and Yangon had all been rejected, many on the basis that their parents were not citizens when they were born, or for other discrepancies. As a result the DHRP party may have to disband according to electoral laws.

Despite the UNC’s success in fielding him as a candidate, 71-year-old Khin Maung Thein knows his boundaries. He campaigns only in mosques and not on the streets.

“I can’t show up openly and hold campaign rallies,” he said. He also has no offices and instead campaigns from the family home, a family printing business.

Thein is Pathi, a Muslim group with Persian blood that have been centuries in Burma and he is keen to “restore our ethnic pride” in the elections. The UNC party was established in 2012, at the time the only party in the country to represent the nation’s Muslims. While they are unable to include the word Pathi in their name they hope to follow in the political footsteps of Myanmar-Muslim martyr U Razak, assassinated alongside Suu Kyi’s father General Aung San in July 1947. They also participated in the 1990 election.

Hardline Burmese monk Wirathu. Pic: AP.

However candidates like Thein are cautious because Mandalay in particular is also home to the Committee to Protect Race and Religion, known locally as Ma Ba Tha, and its most outspoken monk U Wirathu.

While 90 percent of the nation’s 56 million people are Buddhist and only four percent are Muslim (matched by the number of Christians) Monk U Wirathu said Muslims are the greatest threat to his faith. He told CNN:

“Their law requires Buddhist women who marry into their religion must convert (to Islam). They take many wives and they have many children. And when their population grows they threaten us. And they are violent.”

Ma Ba Tha has actively campaigned against the NLD, which they believe will hurt the country’s culture, race and religion and is promoting the support of candidates who will protect the Buddhist religion.

Another UNC candidate that will contest the upcoming elections is Sann Tin Kyaw, a 49-year-old from Yangon, whose father fought for Burmese independence in the 1940s, just as Suu Kyi’s father did. Like his more famous countrywoman, Sann Tin Kyaw was imprisoned repeatedly for his pro-democracy protests.

He told Asia Nikkei he wanted voters to remember Muslims fought against colonialism too.

While politically active since he was 14 he kept a low profile until he decided it was time Muslims in his township in eastern Yangon, Mingalar Taung Nyunt, may want a fellow Muslim to look out for their interests. His district is roughly half Muslim and he will run for a seat in the lower house of parliament against the sitting NLD member.

While they may be able to contest the upcoming elections, Thein and Kyaw have a lot of work to do to improve the position of Burmese Muslims. Recent laws passed in July restrict interfaith marriage and Buddhist women must seek the permission of authorities to marry men of other faiths, or risk imprisonment.

Rohingya Muslims and other minorities and migrants are unable to vote and many have been rendered stateless. Muslims that want to vote have been told to list their race as Indian or Pakistani to get an identity card.

Supporters of Burma's opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) party attend a rally in Mandalay earlier this week. Pic: AP.

October 31, 2015

EVEN before the November 8 election comes around in Burma, also known as Myanmar, lawmakers have begun to question just how free and fair it will be with odds stacked in the government’s favour and large numbers of people unable to vote.

While there’s no doubt the polls will be the freest elections the nation has had for 25 years, serious questions and problems remain.

The primary one is that about 760,000 people, including Muslim Rohingyas, ethnic Chinese and Indians will not be allowed to vote. Since the 2010 and 2012 elections the temporary registration cards of the Muslim minority, refugees and migrant workers have expired that allowed them to vote. Holders of new identity cards are no longer allowed to vote.

The U.N. has described the Rohingya Muslims as “one of the world’s most persecuted peoples”. About 140,000 live in displacement camps in western Arakan state and lack adequate food, shelter and medicine.

Yanghee Lee, the special rapporteur on human rights in Burma, said the elections had to be inclusive and the country needed to review the disqualification of candidates that included Muslims.

Lee told the Associated Press, “The credibility of the elections will be judged by the environment in which they are conducted and the extent to which all sectors of Myanmar society have been allowed to freely participate in the political process.”

She also said “the disenfranchisement of certain communities and groups, particularly on discriminatory grounds, does not meet that test.”

The removal of voting rights and their inability to register as candidates has led to further disenfranchisement amongst the Rohingya people. Matthew Smith of Fortify Rights NGO said many were planning to take to the seas again. In the past thousands have attempted to leave Burma by boat.

Thousands or Rohingya migrants were abandoned at sea earlier this year. Pic: AP.

U.S. lawmakers have also complained there is “nothing fair” about the military’s 25 percent quota of parliamentary seats and wondered how much it could truly demonstrate of the intention of the Myanmar people.

Rep. Matt Salmon, R-Ariz., told the Associated Press the move away from military rule was “a systematically manipulated democratic transition.”

“If the odds are intentionally in the ruling party’s favor, but they have a clean election, how should the U.S. respond?” he asked and advised restraint in expanding U.S.-Burma ties.

More than 90 parties will contest the vote, including opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, athough she is still not allowed to run for president.

Legislator Suu Kyi is barred as she was married to a foreigner and both her sons are UK citizens.

Additional reporting from Associated Press.

Newly arrived migrants gather at Kuala Langsa Port in Langsa, Aceh province, Indonesia earlier this year. Pic: AP.

September 11, 2015

BURMA’S Muslim minority, the Rohingya, have long been victims of systematic persecution by the military government. Their plight has become increasingly desperate over the past year as government policies, human traffickers and natural disasters have exacerbated their vulnerability. National elections are scheduled for early November, but without a voice at this important juncture, there are fears that conditions for the most persecuted refugees on Earthwill begin rapidly deteriorating.

A 2014 report by Fortify Rights, ‘Policies of Persecution: Ending Abusive State Policies Against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar’, details the systematic oppression under which the Rohingya persevere. They suffer from restricted access to basic public services such as education and health care and, in the absence of basic freedoms, their movements, marriage rights and childbearing rights are all suppressed. Recently their plight has been raised by Pope Francis who stated the continued persecution of the Rohingya constituted war against these people.

In Burma, also known as Myanmar, it’s not only government policies that have targeted the Rohingya, rising nationalist sentiment continues to play a significant role in their persecution. Among those encouraging hatred towards the Muslim community are ultra-nationalist groups. Ashin Wirathu, a Buddhist monk and prominent member of nationalist groups the Association for the Protection of Race and Religion (Ma Ba Tha) and Movement 969, has become infamous for his outspoken anti-Muslim rhetoric in which he refers to Muslims as the enemy. He recently lashed out at the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights, Yanghee Lee, calling her a “whore” for highlighting the unjust treatment of the Rohingya. In the run up to the national elections the Association for the Protection of Race and Religion has become an increasingly powerful organization influencing the policies of both the ruling party and the opposition party.

It is against this backdrop that tens of thousands of Rohingya have fled Burma, only to fall prey to human traffickers in many cases. The situation reached crisis point in May this year after authorities in Thailand began cracking down on human trafficking and slavery. A new report from UNHCR has collated the experiences of refugees who were abandoned at sea in May. Their stories tell of terrifying ordeals – violence, drownings, starvation and attempts by Southeast Asian nations to redirect the destitute refugee towards neighboring territories.

Thousands or Rohingya migrants were abandoned at sea earlier this year. Pic: AP.

At the end of July natural disaster struck communities in Rakhine State as Cyclone Komen sent Burma into a state of emergency. Cyclone Komen, the worst natural disaster to hit Burma since 2008, caused over 100 deaths, destroyed homes, submerged villages, damaged essential infrastructure and displaced more than a million people. The townships of Maungdaw, Minbya, Mrauk-U, Kyauktaw, Buthidaung, Ann and the Rohingya IDP camps where among the worst affected areas.

Muslim communities living a borderline existence in Rakhine were particularly vulnerable and unprepared to cope with the floods. According to UNICEF over 140,000 Rohingya children were affected by the heavy rains and flooding. The work of charities and NGOs trying to assist the flood victims was hindered by government policies. As Tun Khin, president of Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK, explained: “This crisis has been made worse by existing restrictions on aid to Rohingya IDPs.”

Even in the face of this natural disaster the Rohyinga continued to experience persecution with government officials accused of abandoning them, as state aid was only made available at Buddhist shelter areas. The ‘Burma Times’ reported that Rohingya children, had been refused treatment by local hospitals and there were further reports that Rohingya families were turned out of emergency shelters in Kyauktaw.

The worst of the flooding has passed but Muslims in Rakhine are still living in dire conditions. Jason Bray, a documentary filmmaker who joined the relief effort in Rakhine explained the desperation in the region. “Rakhine State was without doubt one of the poorest places I’ve ever been too. In other countries like Philippines, Ethiopia, India there are slum dwellings, red light districts and poor villages scattered amongst middle class and even richer areas. But here it was just impoverished everywhere! The floods just made things worse,” he said.

Motorcyclists make their way through a flooded road in Sittwe, capital of Rakhine state in western Burma in June. Pic: AP.

The legal status of the Rohingya has been gradually eroded away and these communities have now lost their right to vote. The Rohingya and other Muslims previously had temporary identification papers known as “white cards” which had enabled them to vote in earlier elections. These white cards have now been discontinued, denying the Rohingya citizenship and the right to vote. It is estimated that 500,000 Rohingya Muslims have been removed from voter registration lists prepared for the national elections this November.

But even with right to vote, ethnic Rohingya communities would be unlikely to find any candidate to champion their cause. Few Muslims trust the quasi-civilian leadership of the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) and the main opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), has failed to field any Muslim candidates. The lack of Muslim representatives is believed to be a result of pressure from Buddhist nationalist organisation Ma Ba Tha and fears that ultra-nationalists could attack political parties for being unpatriotic if they were to field Muslim candidates.

Shwe Maung, a former lawmaker and member of the USDP, had intended to run as an independent in the upcoming election. But he has since been struck off the candidacy listafter the Union Election Commission determined his father had not been a citizen at the time of his birth. His attempts to appeal the decision at a court in Rakhine state have been rejected.

In response, Charles Santiago from the ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights accused the government of blocking Muslim candidates to appease nationalist groups such as Ma Ba Tha.

No one was expecting Burma to leap from military dictatorship to fully fledged democracy overnight, but any hopes of making genuine progress towards democracy require national elections open to all ethnic and religious groups. The growing influence of ultra-nationalists who claim to have been instrumental in excluding Muslims from the upcoming elections is a serious cause for concern. If local political parties who share the ultra-nationalists’ ideologies gain power in Rakhine state, there is genuine reason to fear that a mass atrocity will soon take place in Burma.

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About the author:
Daniel Maxwell is a writer and educator who has been living and working in Southeast Asia since the late 1990s. An English literature graduate from the University of London, Daniel previously worked with the publishing company EMAP before relocating to Asia. Found elsewhere: Maxwell’s Notes

A group of Moken families rest in the shade of trees on an island in in the Mergui Archipelago, Burma. Pic: AP.

By Casey Hynes
June 26, 2015

The persecuted Rohingya Muslims of Burma’s Rakhine state have drawn international attention recently, rightly inspiring demands for an end to the discrimination and violence that drives thousands of Rohingya to risk their lives seeking refuge via dangerous sea voyages. Human rights groups have taken both Burma (Myanmar) and Thailand to task on the treatment of Rohingya, who are often refused refuge and exploited by smugglers and human traffickers. Last year, Phuketwan reported that Thai officials were involved in asmuggling operation that trafficked Rohingya refugees. Two Reuters journalists won a Pulitzer prize for reporting on those charges.

But now Human Rights Watch wants to draw attention to another outrage occurring off Burma’s shores, one the Burmese and Thai governments criminally exacerbate. HRW this week released a new report, “Stateless at Sea: The Moken of Burma and Thailand,” addressing human rights violations against this sea-faring community.

The Moken are considered one of the 135 ethnic races of Burma, but are a stateless people. These nomadic “sea gypsies” come from the Mergui Archipelago, and make their living off the sea. Roughly 3,000 Moken still call the archipelago near Burma’s southern coast home, while about 800 live in Thailand, according to HRW. However, those in Thailand struggle to access education and affordable health care, and are threatened by discriminatory laws that could push them out of their homes.

“In Thailand, the Moken’s ability to pursue their traditional livelihoods is limited by marine conservation regulations, such as the ban on gathering sea products for trade and chopping trees to build or repair boats,” the organization said in a press release. “Thai middlemen exploit Moken vulnerability in order to persuade them to undertake illegal and dangerous work, such as dynamite fishing. On land the Moken also face forced displacement, since they own no title to the traditional shore areas where they live for part of the year.”

HRW called on the Thai government to grant all legitimate asylum claims and to create better avenues for Moken to file complaints and abuses. Dynamite fishing operations exploit the Mokens’ free diving skills, sending them “under water with air running through thin plastic tubes hooked up to a diesel-run compressor so they can stay longer on the seabed to harvest their catch.”

Many of the divers die or suffer severe physical trauma from ascending too quickly from the dives, while others are killed and maimed using homemade bombs on the job. Of course, they have no recourse and receive little to no compensation after these accidents.

Most Moken cannot get an official state ID in Thailand because they don’t qualify for citizenship, and their stateless status makes it difficult for them to take advantage of state welfare programs, according to the report.

“Because most Moken children are born in villages with the assistance of local midwives or on boats, many do not have an official birth certificate,” it said. “And most cannot meet the residency requirement because their nomadic lifestyle results in their spending long periods of time outside of the country.”

HRW also noted that those Moken who have chosen to settle permanently in Phuket rather than live nomadically often must fight eviction from local businessmen.

HRW accuses the Burmese navy and other Burmese and Thai state authorities of “extortion, bribery, arbitrary arrest, and confiscation of property.” Moken people quoted in the report describe being shot at by Navy soldiers and extorted for what little they had. The threat of military violence prevents some Moken from being able to fish and gather food and goods to trade.

One man said,

They point their guns at us so we just jump into the water. If we show them that we have money then sometimes they stop bothering us and don’t take anything else. If we decide to stay on an island, or fish around it, then we have to pay the island head—and these are also Burmese soldiers.

HRW called on Burma to register the births of all Moken children, providing them with a pathway toward basic care and stability, to ensure equal rights for all Moken, comparable to those given to Burmese citizens. The first recommendation, of course, was to end the abuses being committed by state officials. As for Thailand, HRW insists on an end to threats of forced relocation, access to social welfare programs, and protection of labor rights.

An activist displays a poster of the portrait of Burma’s opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi during a protest demanding an end to the violence against ethnic Rohingyas in Rakhine State, outside the Embassy of Myanmar in Jakarta, Indonesia Friday. Pic: AP.

By Michele Penna
June 1, 2015

As many had expected, the ‘Special Meeting on Irregular Migration in the Indian Ocean’ held in Thailand last week ended with a soft whimper rather than a loud bang. The participants gathered in Bangkok agreed to keep the talks going, but the meeting failed to address one of the crisis’ key issues: why people are leaving their homes behind to embark on such perilous sea voyages?

Many are economic migrants from Bangladesh, looking for a brighter future in neighboring countries or beyond. Others are Rohingyas, a beleaguered Muslim minority often fleeing Burma’s western State of Rakhine.

The Rohingya have had an extremely hard time for decades, but their position took a turn for the worse at the beginning of 2012, when clashes between the Buddhist majority and the Rohingya minority erupted in Rakhine.

Later that year sectarian violence flared again, leaving dozens of people dead and “widespread property destruction”, according to Human Rights Watch. Last year, the UNHCR wrote that about 140,000 Rohingyas are living in camps where they have little or no access to basic services, including healthcare and education. It is these people who boarded – or, in some cases, were forced to jump on – the smugglers’ boats and were then abandoned to their fate by traffickers once Thai authorities cracked down on their bases.

Many believe that no lasting solution to the current crisis can be found unless the reasons why people are leaving Bangladesh and Burma, also known as Myanmar, are addressed. On Friday, Volker Turk, UNHCR’s Assistant High Commissioner for Protection, did not beat round the bush. “There is no solution without addressing root causes [..] Among other things, this requires full assumption of responsibility by Myanmar towards all people on its territory. Granting of citizenship is the ultimate goal,” he stated, adding that the UN welcomes “some initial steps taken in this regard.”

Mr. Turk also argued that, in the meantime, a legal status for all habitual residents recognizing that Burma is their own country is urgently required.

In spite of mounting pressure from foreign governments and NGOs to overhaul its approach, the government in Naypyidaw is holding its ground: authorities rebuked critics and reportedly pressured their partners not to use the term Rohingya at Friday’s gathering. The word did not appear in the summit’s final statement.

According to Dr. Maung Zarni, the Burmese organizer of the Oslo Conference to End Myanmar’s Systematic Persecution of the Rohingya, the authorities’ confidence stems in part from the awareness that no serious consequences are in store regardless of the approach they choose to follow.

“The government knows that there is no serious political will on the part of the international community, especially USA, UK, Norway, Japan, EU,… the external players deeply engaged with Myanmar, to seriously stop Myanmar’s un-acknowledged genocide,” he told Asian Correspondent in an email interview.

Even Aung San Suu Kyi, the democracy icon and leader of the National League for Democracy (NLD), has been cautious about this topic and has avoided taking sides. A political analyst was quoted by the ‘Washington Post’ last year as saying that Suu Kyi told him she was silent because speaking up would only lead to more blood being spilled, but many smell political interests behind the opposition’s silence. With elections scheduled to take place in November, this is no time to antagonize the country’s Buddhist majority.

“To an extent the elections do play a role, especially for Aung San Suu Kyi, who is trying to get Buddhist votes,” said Chris Lewa of the Arakan Project, an NGO which works closely with local communities.

Interestingly, protesters who spoke to Asian Correspondent at last week’s nationalist march in Yangon contended that some supporters of the NLD had joined the rally, implying that resistance against change exists inside her own party too.

Electoral calculations alone, however, do not fully explain why authorities and much of the society loathe the Rohingya, for this problem existed long before elections were even thought to be possible.

According to Dr. Zarni, the discrimination against this particular group dates back to the 1970s, when the government led by General Ne Win began persecuting them as part of a nation-wide anti-insurgency campaign which targeted, among others, also independentist forces in Rakhine. The goal was to pit one minority against another in order to maintain control of the area.

“The key to understanding the policy is the central government’s divide-and-rule general strategy towards the mosaic of ethnic and religious groups in Myanmar,” he said.

In the years that followed, the military junta came to see the Rohingya as a threat to national security, a view that is still popular to this day.

“The current policy is merely a continuation of successive military regimes’ policies towards the Rohingya,” Dr. Zarni wrote. “Myanmar’s systematic persecution of the Rohingya has become an inter-generational policy pursued by successive military leaderships in the central government. The rationale – they are a threat to national security – has been institutionalized. So, regardless of what type of government emerges Myanmar is most likely to keep this policy in place.”

This is why even the upcoming elections do not inspire much optimism.

“I cannot guess what will be the elections’ result, but I do not think they will create a big change because all these parties are trying to use popular sentiments,” explained Ms. Lewa.

Burma’s opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Pic: AP.

May 29, 2015

A number of Nobel Peace Prize winners called for an end to the persecution of Burma’s Rohingya Muslims Thursday, but there has still been no word from Burmese Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi despite mounting international pressure.

Past winners of the prize, including South Africa’s Desmond Tutu, Shirin Ibadi from Iran and former East Timor President Jose Ramos-Horta, appealed for international aid for Rohingya in Burma’s Rakhine state, describing the persecution as “nothing less than genocide”.

Philanthropist George Soros, who escaped Nazi-occupied Hungary, said that there were “alarming” parallels between the plight of the Rohingya and the Nazi genocide.

Not among them, however, was Burmese opposition leader and democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi.

Suu Kyi became an international hero during her years of house arrest for speaking out against the generals who long ruled Burma. She entered politics after her release and has been largely silent about her country’s persecution of the Rohingya.

This week fellow Nobel Peace Prize laureate the Dalai Lama urged her to end her silence and help protect the Rohingya.

In recent weeks, thousands of Rohingya have fled persecution and landed on the shores of Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, often abandoned by human traffickers or freed after their families paid ransoms.

The Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists, told The Australian newspaper that he has discussed the issue with Suu Kyi twice.

She “told me she found some difficulties, that things were not simple but very complicated,” he was quoted as saying. “But in spite of that I feel she can do something.”

Burma (Myanmar) is holding elections later this year, but it is unlikely that Suu Kyi will be allowed to run for president.

Hardline Buddhists marched in Yangon, Burma this week as efforts continued to rescue thousands of Rohingya migrants trapped on rickety boats in the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea. Many carried placards blaming the United Nations for the problem and denying the existence of Rohingya Muslims in Burma.

Malaysian authorities were exhuming 140 graves this week believed to contain the bodies of Rohingya migrants held for ransom by traffickers.

Thailand was to host a regional meeting Friday to help address the crisis.

Additional reporting from Associated Press

Migrants wait to be be rescued by Acehnese fishermen on their boat on the sea off East Aceh, Indonesia, Wednesday. Pic: AP.

By Carlton Tan
Asian Correspondent
May 24, 2015

The Rohingya are homeless, stateless victims; and ASEAN is responsible. There’s nothing confusing about that, Professor.

The sophistry of politicians in the face of the Rohingya crisis is astounding. It mainly consists of reality-denial, blame-shifting and creative word play. Now, one Singapore academic has joined in the fray with a supposedly insightful commentary that is really a tragic failure in discursive analysis and a veiled attempt to justify half-hearted responses to the crisis.

Farish A. Noor, an associate professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Nanyang Technological University, authored the rather misleading titled opinion piece, “Give dignity back to the Rohingya”. It was published in the Straits Times yesterday.

In it, Farish disingenuously calls for honesty while simultaneously denying the severity and scale of the Rohingya problem. He does this repeatedly to establish two arguments: First, that over-emphasising the victimhood of the Rohingya reduces them to the status of perpetual victims. Second, that primary responsibility lies with the right-wing ethno-nationalists and sectarian groups in Burma, not ASEAN.

Well-intentioned as he may be, Fariah relies on faulty logic and false assumptions that in effect encourage the dehumanisation of the Rohingya and the denial of ASEAN’s responsibility.

Are the Rohingya homeless?

Examining the ways in which people describe the Rohingya, Farish writes:

To describe the Rohingya as “homeless” obfuscates the fact that they have a home, or rather had a home, and that they have been forced to leave as a result of a domestic political crisis that likewise involves actors and agents who are local.

It is both contradictory and plainly false. And if there is anything that is confusing, it is statements like these.

Farish says two things that cannot both be true at the same time. He says the Rohingya both have a home and don’t have a home. But either they don’t, in which case they are homeless, or they do, in which case they are not homeless. They can’t both be homeless and have a home at the same time.

Or perhaps we should read it as an equivocation, not a contradiction. In the first instance, he may be saying they “have a home” in the sense that they belong to a state. In the second instance, he may be saying they “had a home” in the sense that they used to live in a house somewhere in the Rakhine State in Burma but now can no longer live there.

But this doesn’t help. His statement is either contradictory or meaningless because of its equivocation. And even if we were somehow to accept it, it is still plainly false. The Rohingya are not recognised as citizens by the Burmese government and are not granted the rights and protections that all other Burmese have. How then can we say they do “have a home” in the sense that they belong to a state?

So the Rohingya are indeed homeless and we are right to insist on it. To do so is not to obfuscate the issue, as Farish charges; it is simply to say things as they are. Many of the Rohingya are homeless. They are not recognised by the state and they have been displaced from their homes.

But even if we somehow accept the meaningfulness of asserting this paradox, it still doesn’t support Farish’s conclusion. He says that calling the Rohingya homeless will “perpetuate the notion that the Rohingya are a stateless community with no homeland of their own, and thus deny them their history, culture and identity as well.”

This is nonsense. The Rohingya are a stateless community with no homeland of their own—the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) designates them as a stateless people. They ought to be recognised by the Burmese government and they ought to have a homeland, but they aren’t and they don’t. This isn’t the perpetuation of false information; it is insistence on the truth. Only Farish is confused here because he conflates is with ought.

To say the Rohingya are homeless is not to “deny them their history, culture and identity” either. On the contrary, it is to insist on it. By conferring on them the status of refugees, we recognise that they are a defined social group that is being persecuted on the basis of some innate characteristic of that grouping. This forces us to recognise the uniqueness of their history, culture and identity, not deny it.

Humanising or over-victimising?

Journalists have done an admirable job in capturing the vulnerability and suffering of the Rohingya in pictures and video. The effect of this has been an outpouring of expressions of sympathy and it has galvanised people all around world and the region into pressuring their governments to do something about this crisis.

Rather than recognise this as a good thing, Farish cautions against it. He says:

But we should also be wary of over-emphasising the victimhood of the Rohingya, or casting them permanently in the role of the unfortunate and vulnerable, for such discourses of victimhood – when overplayed – can also hobble the Other and reduce others to the status of the perpetual victim.

To humanise them, Farish is saying, we must occasionally describe them as something other than victims. We should point to their “strength and their enduring will to survive at all costs”, and we should “recognise them for what they are: human beings with a cultural identity and history, endowed with dignity and who deserve a modicum of respect rather than condescension.”

Farish is not wrong about recognising their courage; the problem is that he mistakes concern for condescension, attention for stereotyping.

First, to be concerned about the Rohingya’s plight is to think of them as equals, worthy of the same protection as any other human being, not as inferiors. No truly condescending person would take a genuine interest in the fate of others, much less act to help those he deems inferior.

Second, to pay close attention to the Rohingya’s plight is to recognise how difficult it is for them to escape their situation, it is not to stereotype them as automatons. The Rohingya are indeed perpetual victims with nowhere to run to—not Burma, Bangladesh or ASEAN. Focusing on their tragic plight forces us to recognise them as persons like ourselves and prevents us from seeing them as just another statistic.

For many of them, their time in a vessel has indeed been such a traumatic experience that we may say it will define much of their identity and their existence. They are victims and there is nothing wrong with emphasising it. Doing so does not detract from their humanity, it adds to our recognition of it.

Farish seems to suggest that we celebrate their courage in the midst of a tragedy. But what is there to celebrate? Their “strength and enduring will to survive at all costs” is desperation, not the triumph of the human spirit.

Is it a disaster?

Farish writes:

What is happening now in South-east Asia and the Mediterranean is not a natural disaster though, but rather the result of political will and contestation that necessarily involve human agency, and thus entails the element of moral-political responsibility as well.
To describe the phenomenon of boat people… as a “disaster” suggests an inevitability to the situation that begs the question: Surely, thousands of people would not rush out to sea, braving hazardous conditions that imperil their lives, for the sheer sake of it?”

Farish thus claims that the Rohingya crisis isn’t a disaster because it isn’t a natural disaster. Or in other words, it shouldn’t be described as a “disaster” because it is “the outcome of a political crisis that has been brewing for years now”, not an earthquake or tsunami.

This is a rather odd claim to make. A man-made disaster is a disaster nonetheless, and commentators typically have in mind the scale and severity of the crisis when they use the word “disaster”, not its causes or its inevitability.

So why does Farish make this contorted claim? I think he does so to subtly explain why the principle of non-interference is important. He draws a parallel to the crisis in Libya and calls it is the “outcome of political intervention gone wrong”. But the problem here is not that ASEAN has intervened and created the crisis; it is that it has done nothing. It boggles my mind how anyone might see the Rohingya crisis as proof that ASEAN’s principle of non-interference works.

The Rohingya crisis is an ongoing disaster. It is ASEAN’s disaster.

Is it ASEAN’s problem?

Farish criticises the “tendency to label this as an ‘Asean problem’” because it misleadingly suggests that “all of South-east Asia was implicated in the humanitarian crisis that led to this situation.” He says the right-wing ethno-nationalists and sectarian groups in Burma are the ones who are “primarily responsible” while other countries in ASEAN have merely been “slow in their response to the flight of the Rohingya”. None of them is directly responsible, he claims.

It is not at all clear what Farish prefers, but surely the alternative is not to see this as a “Burma problem”. The Rohingya asylum seekers on rickety boats are not in Burma’s waters, they are in the waters of ASEAN member states like Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. Whose responsibility is it to save them from drowning or dying of starvation if not theirs?

There is no way Southeast Asia can avoid being implicated in this crisis—they already are by virtue of geography. Unless ASEAN decides to wash its hands of the matter, it is very much an ASEAN problem.

There is also no meaningful distinction to be drawn between direct or primary responsibility and indirect or secondary responsibility in this context. ASEAN may not have held the whip but they certainly put it in Burma’s hands; or at the very least, they knew about it and did nothing. ASEAN may not have started the racism but they have certainly done virtually nothing to stop it.

Crying “he pushed me first” may work for six-year-olds but not on the world stage. It is very much ASEAN’s problem; there’s no point in denying our culpability. We may quibble about the extent of ASEAN’s responsibility, or the manner of it, but we cannot deny that ASEAN isresponsible for this crisis.

This doesn’t mean we ignore Burma’s central role in causing this crisis. On the contrary, it means developing the political will to cooperate with it in implementing long term solutions.

Dignity and indignity

I do not fault Farish’s sincerity, merely his muddle-headedness. He is right to be concerned about the Rohingya’s dignity. However, he is wrong to think that the dignity of recognising individual autonomy is more important than the indignity of death, starvation and malnutrition.

Rather than try to affirm their inherent dignity with tortured logic, we should simply recognise it by acknowledging that they are indeed homeless victims who need ASEAN’s help.

(Photo: AP)

By Casey Hynes
February 16, 2015

After a brief window of hope earlier last week, Rohingya in Burma’s Rakhine State were once again shut out of the political system after protesters demanded they be barred from participating in an upcoming referendum. The Rohingya are among the most persecuted people in Burma, and are frequently the targets of anti-Muslim sentiment and violence. Despite the fact that many Rohingya were born in Burma and that their families have lived in the country for generations, the government refuses to recognize them as citizens, insisting that they are refugees from Bangladesh and must therefore identify as Bengali.

Things were looking ever-so-slightly up for the persecuted minority last week, when the government said it would issue Rohingya white cards, documents that would allow them to vote. However, the government backtracked on that after Buddhist nationalist protesters demanded that they reverse course.

Anti-Rohingya sentiment has simmered and occasionally reached a boiling point in Rakhine State since 2012. The situation for Rohingya is dire, as many are forced to flee the country or live in crowded, sparse camps. The lack of recognition of their citizenship is a huge barrier to them defending their rights. Buddhist-Muslim violence has also spread to other parts of the country, but tensions are particularly concentrated in Rakhine state.

“Many Rakhine feel that if Rohingya are legally recognized, then they’ll encroach on Rakhine culture, land, and resources,” said Matthew Smith, co-founder and executive director of the organization Fortify Rights. “It’s a genuine fear.”

As noted in the Washington Post, Burma has made rapid, significant progress in recent years, welcoming foreign investment and paving the way for groundbreaking innovations in the country. But it is still a nation rife with human rights violations, and the Rohingya continue to suffer regularly, particularly due to what Smith describes as a “base discrimination against Muslims” that “permeates everything in Rakhine State.”

Reuters described the dark situation faced by Rohingya in a June 2014 piece that addressed a nationalist campaign to constrict the amount of humanitarian aid provided to the community of one million, including 140,000 displaced people.

Smith criticized the government’s lack of action on protection for the Rohingya.

“Thein Sein is playing politics in all the wrong ways,” he said. “The sign of a great leader is a willingness to take principled positions on unpopular issues, and we’re just not seeing that from [Burma’s] political elite. That’s because some actually believe the nonsense they preach on this issue, while others demonstrate political cowardice.”

Human rights groups and advocates have condemned the treatment of the Rohingya, and Human Rights Watch described the appalling situation as an ethnic cleansing campaign. Nonetheless, they have so far been left behind when it comes to official policy and the government often seems on the side of nationalists who resent and oppose the Rohingyas’ place in Burma. Indeed, Smith said, “the government has been fanning anti-Rohingya flames for years and continues to do so. It’s irresponsible.” The situation in Rakhine is far from stable, with locals nervous about the potential for violent flare-ups.

“Local Rakhine in Sittwe have told us they’re nervous there will be more violence, and the protests are a worrying sign,” Smith said. “If anything, the protests are representative of the simmering anger and unchecked misunderstandings in the state.”

Smith said that the Rohingya crisis has already given pause to some foreign investors and is a concern for some in the diplomatic community. But a sustained campaign of documenting violence and abuses against the Rohingya, and consistent, widespread pressure for their recognition is the only way to ensure these criminal behaviors will stop.

It’s up to the government to take a firm stand in favor of the Rohingya and “combat deep-seeded discriminatory and hateful attitudes,” but it’s also up to the international community to hold the government accountable, Smith said. U.S. President Barack Obama urged the Burmese government to act on behalf of the Rohingya, but little has improved since that visit. Even iconic leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been reluctant to explicitly take up their cause.

“There’s a well-founded fear that the Rohingya will be sacrificed by the international community on the altar of political reform, and we’re already seeing that from some corners,” Smith said. “There’s not nearly enough outrage in the international community about what’s happening in Rakhine state, and there’s a trend of compromise on Rohingya rights in the name of pragmatism. That’s truly detrimental to long term stability in the region.”

(Photo: AP)

By Kyle Lawrence Mullin
October 7, 2014

While The World Bank Group (WBG) has aided swaths of struggling economies across the globe, activists in Burma say such assistance for the beleaguered South East Asian nation should come with strict conditions.

“The World Bank has an important role to play in advancing access to education, health, and electricity in Burma [also known as Myanmar],” wrote Jessica Evans, senior international financial institutions researcher at activist NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW), in a press release issued this morning, before adding: “But for The WBG to really advance development, it needs to have its eyes wide open to Burma’s ongoing rights problems and actively work to address them.”

Chief among those issues is the government’s controversial new Rakhine State Action Plan. Critics say the plan will push Burma’s Rohingya Muslims to adopt a new ethnicity and falsely admit to being illegal immigrants (despite having resided within the nation’s borders for centuries). In the press release, Evans added that it is crucial for these human rights issues to be addressed by WBG president Jim Kim during his slated meeting with Burmese finance officials at the annual International Monetary Fund summit on October 10-12 in in Washington, DC.

But Evans is concerned that the WBG (who did not respond to interview requests for this story) will fail to make such stipulations, and instead find Burma’s development with no strings attached. In a later interview with Asian Correspondent, she pointed to a recent HRW case study on the organization’s work in Ethiopia as a troubling example. The case study found, among other troubling revelations, that World Bank funding intended for development of the African nation’s rural infrastructure was misappropriated for its infamous “villagization” practices, in which over a million marginalized minorities were forcibly, and violently, relocated.

Evans added that, as the largest and most famous development bank in the world, the WBG’s initial steps will set a hefty precedence in Burma.

“The World Bank has an opportunity to set a tone that takes fully into account the many challenges facing Burma and actively work to address them, rather than drawing invisible lines around issues that it considers too thorny,” Evans told Asian Correspondent, adding: “In doing this, it will also influence other donors.”

But even if such stipulations come to pass, the Burmese government (which did not respond to interview requests) may prove more than reluctant to embrace them. In an earlier interview, Phil Robertson (deputy director of HRW’s Asia division) told us that the aforementioned Rakhine State Action Plan “… continues the blatantly discriminatory policies against the Rohingya that we sadly come to expect from the Burma government.”

For human rights activists like Robertson, that unsettling trend can be traced back to 2012 when mobs of Burma’s Buddhist majority torched thousands of Rohingya homes and killed dozens of the minority Muslims with machetes. From there, over 100,000 displaced Rohingya were housed in new dwellings that activist groups liken to internment camps. The recently unveiled state action plan will relocate the Rohingya to a new, undisclosed location. The plan will offer them citizenship, but only if they admit to being of the “Bengali” ethnicity, implying that they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, which may leave them subject to confinement in detention centers.

Those measures seem reasonable to much of Rakhine state’s Buddhists population, according to Matthew Smith, executive director of another prominent activist NGO, Fortify Rights.

“The state and national-level authorities regard the Rohingya as invaders from Bangladesh, and the average Rakhine Buddhist is fearful that any recognition of Rohingya ethnicity would embolden Muslims to gain more economic and political power,” Smith said in an interview with Asian Correspondent, before adding that sentiment is also driven by far deeper, and more ruthless motives. “If you can deny a population their citizenship, burn them out of their villages, and drive them from the country, it’s much easier to confiscate their property and relative wealth, and that’s exactly what we’re seeing. These proposed policies are further to a well documented campaign of ethnic cleansing.”

Robertson said that Rakhine’s circumstances have not always been so dire, adding that it’s state capital Sittwe was almost evenly divided between Rohingya and Buddhists a mere two years ago, before the surge in ethnic unrest.

“Under this plan, that will never happen again,” he said. “The idea of reconciliation has been thrown aside in this plan, and replaced with so-called ‘peaceful co-existence’ – which will mean permanent segregation of the two communities, with the separation enforced by the might of the Burma Army and police, who have a long record of human rights abuses.”

The government has deemed the current and future camps to be a necessary safe zone for the Rohingya who fell prey to the 2012 attacks. Smith concedes this point is true, but only to an extent: “It’s sadly accurate that Rohingya would be attacked if they walked through downtown Sittwe tomorrow. But if the authorities were genuinely concerned about protection they’d facilitate lifesaving humanitarian aid and stop fueling the flames of anti-Rohingya sentiment. The authorities have given displaced Rohingya two options: try to survive in squalid ill-equipped camps or flee the country by sea.”

Smith added that a June 2014 Fortify Rights investigation (that included confiscated classified documents and interviews with hundreds of fleeing Rohingya) revealed a systemic exodus of the Muslim minority by sea. The report highlighted how that journey is fraught with dangers and how the Burmese government is perpetuating the participants’ departure (the report can be viewed here).

Evans said the WBG will have a unique opportunity to address those issues at its Oct. 10 meeting with Burmese officials. She added: “The World Bank Group should also make a firm commitment to ensure that human rights will be respected in all of its investments, both in the public and private sectors, thereby setting an example of rights-respecting development for donors and companies alike.”

Smith said a successful honoring of Burma’s human rights would include amending its dated 1982 citizenship law, granting the Rohingya equal access to full citizenship, providing them basic protection from future attacks, and allowing the displaced to return home.

“None of that is happening now,” he said, adding that another shortcoming has not only proven to be an injustice for the Rohingya, but also those who have been vilified in depictions of the Muslim minority’s struggle.

“There should also be accountability for abuses by the state against Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims,” he said. “The absence of accountability only lays the groundwork for future abuses. Both communities have suffered human rights violations in one way or another.”

Smith added that the WBG has “downplayed the situation in Rakhine State, and it’s unclear whose interests they serve by doing so… Very little is known about what the bank is planning to do in Rakhine State. The international community should not only avoid complicity… but should actively work against the ethnic and religious discrimination and entrenched segregation we’re seeing. The bank has some decisions to make, and we hope they take the right course.”


    • Rohingya Exodus