7 August 2012

Rohingya people gather at a local mosque before Friday prayers in a village north of the town of Sittwe on 18 May 2012.


Mo Farah is a British athletics hero. Last Saturday, he stood holding the Union Jack flag, while the British national anthem was sung and he received a gold medal for Great Britain after winning the 10,000 metres race in the Olympic Games. As he ran, Mo was cheered on by British crowds, and when he won, the crowds went wild with patriotic pride and delight.

Mo, a Muslim, was born in Somalia, and did not come to Britain until he was eight years old, when his family fled his war-torn country. The Somali community are among the poorest, most marginalised ethnic groups in Britain, and are often associated in the media with violence, crime and terrorism.

No one in Britain would describe Mo as indigenous Anglo-Saxon. Yet no one today would deny that he is British.

Similarly, many of our Olympics team are Afro-Caribbean. We have one Cuban-born athlete. Jessica Ennis, face of the 2012 Olympics and winner of the 800 metre race, is of mixed ethnicity. As The Times newspaper wrote in an editorial yesterday, “the face that Britain is showing the world is tolerant, diverse and at ease.” Britain has not always been so – we have our own history of racial intolerance in the not-too-distant past – but we have learned, by and large, to value our multi-cultural society, while at the same time celebrating, as the Olympics opening ceremony showed, our own distinct history and heritage.

If we can salute as a British legend an athlete from a 250,000-strong Somali immigrant community on the greatest ever night in British athletics history, why is Burma so unwilling to recognise as citizens 800,000 Rohingyas who have lived there for generations?

The levels of violence over the past two months in Arakan state have been horrifying. Perhaps even more shocking have been the attitudes expressed by people who should know better. The levels of irrationality have been staggering. I have received several abusive messages, simply because I have spoken out for human rights and against intolerance. In one message, I was asked why I “hate” Burmese people, a question stemming from the fact that I had said the Rohingyas should be treated as human beings, even though I have spoken up clearly for Rakhine victims of violence too.

To be absolutely clear, it is because I love Burma and all Burmese people that I am speaking out so strongly – not in favour or against any one particular community, but against this spiralling atmosphere of hatred and violence.

In addition to the sheer humanitarian and human rights catastrophe unfolding, the anti-Rohingya pogroms have sparked, predictably, calls for jihad from Islamist extremists from Indonesia, Pakistan and across the Muslim world. There is a high risk that the Rohingyas themselves could be radicalised, if they feel they have nowhere else to turn. More worryingly, the Rohingya plight could be hijacked by radical Islamists and used as a cause celebre and a recruiting instrument. The Rohingyas could become the new Bosnia, Kashmir or Palestine.

Indeed, there are signs that it is already happening.

The last thing Burma needs is jihadis causing devastation, on top of all its existing challenges. I have seen radical Islamism up-close, in Pakistan, Indonesia, the Maldives and on the streets of London. I have friends who have been assassinated by radical Islamists. For that reason, I plead with my Burmese friends to pull back from the brink, for their failure to do so will bring further misery for Burma for years to come.
“Yet for Burma to become truly democratic, it must not only recognise but celebrate its diversity”

The west’s silence is not helping. It may be that the UK, the European Union and the United States are expressing concern about this crisis behind the scenes. But the perception in the Muslim world is that the west is turning a blind eye. All the running has been made, worryingly, by the likes of Iran and the Taliban, as well as by more secular Muslim states such as Turkey and Indonesia, and the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation (OIC). This is dangerous, as it plays into the narrative of the Islamists, that when Muslims are persecuted the rest of the world looks away.

It is not too late to act. The UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Burma, Tomas Ojea Quintana, released a report last week following his visit, in which he called for an independent, international investigation into the crisis in Arakan state. This is crucial. The levels of misinformation are staggering. Photographs and videos circulating on the Internet which have clearly been doctored, claims and counter-claims of violence perpetrated by Rakhines against Rohingyas and by Rohingyas against Rakhines, are widespread.

Just yesterday, news emerged of the destruction of four Rohingya villages in Kyauktaw Township, reports of several deaths, claims from Rohingya sources that they were attacked by Rakhines with poisoned arrows and that in at least one case, a Rohingya was brutally mutilated and decapitated: all with the security forces looking on or supporting. No doubt counter-claims will come from Rakhine sources soon, if they have not already.

Without an independent, international inquiry and international monitors on the ground, it will be impossible to establish the truth and, as Mr Quintana has said, hold the perpetrators accountable. There is no doubt that both communities have suffered, and perpetrators of violence on both sides must be brought to justice.

Human Rights Watch published a report calling for unhindered access to all parts of Arakan state for international humanitarian aid agencies and human rights monitors, an end to the violence and the mass arrests of Rohingyas by security forces, and a sustained effort to promote inter-racial and inter-religious tolerance and reconciliation. Humanitarian aid is urgently needed to help the 90,000-plus people internally displaced as a result of the conflict – and it must be properly monitored to ensure that aid reaches people on the basis of need, regardless of race or religion.

Longer-term, there is a need to have a sober, considered discussion about the 1982 Citizenship Act. There is a common misperception in Burma that citizenship equals ethnic nationality which equals specific territory with a demand for autonomy. That is a painful misunderstanding. The Rohingyas are not demanding their own land, and if the term ‘ethnic nationality’ is too controversial for today it could be put aside. The history of the Rohingyas and when they came to inhabit northern Arakan is a subject that should inspire historical exploration, not incite racial violence.

What should not be up for negotiation is that people who have been born in a country should be recognised as citizens of that country. The Rohingyas’ statelessness, where their citizenship in Burma has been stripped from them and they are not accepted by Bangladesh when they seek refuge, is unsustainable and intolerable.

Some people claim the issue is about illegal immigration. For most Rohingyas, that is not so, as the history books show. Even Thein Sein acknowledged that the Rohingyas have been in Burma since before independence, although he then declared a policy of ethnic cleansing by inviting the UN to resettle the entire Rohingya population to third countries. But even if, hypothetically, some are illegal immigrants who have entered Burma in recent years, the solution is not mass pogroms bordering on genocide.

The answer is to establish a functioning immigration system that can determine who was born in Burma, who is an illegal immigrant, and then to process people accordingly. And in that process, even illegal immigrants must be treated as human beings with basic human rights. Either they should be welcomed and integrated, or returned to their country of origin in a way that respects human dignity, due process and the rule of law.

Burma has come a long way in the past year, since Aung San Suu Kyi’s historic meeting with President Thein Sein. Several steps which would have seemed inconceivable a year ago have now become a reality. The National League for Democracy (NLD) is in Parliament, Daw Suu has travelled abroad, 88 Generation leaders have been freed from jail and preliminary ceasefires with most of the ethnic nationalities have been negotiated. There is still a very long way to go, and the next steps must include the release of all remaining prisoners of conscience, an end to war in Kachin state and a genuine peace process with all the ethnic nationalities, but Thein Sein has started down a path few predicted he would take, and that deserves some recognition.

Yet for Burma to become truly democratic, it must not only recognise but celebrate its diversity. When Rohingyas represent Burma on the world stage, alongside Burmans, Karens, Kachins, Chins, Shans, Mons, Karenni, Rakhine and other minorities, carrying the Burmese flag, singing the Burmese anthem, cheered on by Burmese crowds the way British people roared support for Mo Farah, then we can say Burma is a free and peaceful nation at ease with itself.

Source : DVB News

(သတင္းေဝဖန္ခ်က္)

ၿပီးခဲ့သည့္ ႏွစ္ပါတ္ ကာလအတြင္း ရခိုင္ျပည္နယ္မွ အၾကမ္းဖက္မႈမ်ားသည္ လူအခ်ဳိ႕အတြက္ စိတ္ပ်က္ ရႈတ္ေထြးဖြယ္ျဖစ္ေစၿပီး လူအမ်ားစုအတြက္ ကြဲျပားျငင္းခံုဖြယ္ ျဖစ္ေစသလို လူတဦးခ်င္းစီ အတြက္မူ ေသြးပ်က္ထိတ္လန္႔မႈႏွင့္ေဒါသျဖစ္ေစခဲ့ရသည္။ အေပၚယံတြင္ တည္ၿငိမ္သကဲ့သို႔ ထင္ရေသာ မ်က္ႏွာျပင္ေအာက္တြင္ ႏွစ္ေပါင္းမ်ားစြာ တိမ္ျမဳပ္ဆူပြက္ေနခဲ့သည့္ လူမ်ဳိးေရး၊ ဘာသာေရး တင္းမာမႈမ်ားက ေပါက္ကြဲေပၚထြက္လာၿပီး အ႐ုပ္ဆိုး အက်ည္း တန္လွသည့္ အျပန္အလွန္ ဖ်က္ဆီးမႈ သံသရာတြင္းသို႔ က်ခဲ့ရသည္။ လက္စားေခ်မႈမ်ား ျဖစ္ေပၚလာခဲ့ရသည္။ ဤအေျခအေနမ်ားက ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံ၏ ဒီမိုကေရစီ ႏွင့္ ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းေရးခရီးစဥ္ကိုပင္ လမ္းလြဲသြားေစရန္ ၿခိမ္းေျခာက္ေနေပေတာ့သည္။

အၾကမ္းဖက္မႈမ်ား၊ လူမ်ဳိးေရးအရ ေစာ္ကားမႈမ်ား၊ တမင္တကာ လြဲမွားအဓိပၸါယ္ ဖြင့္ဆိုမႈမ်ား၊ လုပ္ၾကံဖန္တီးထား သည့္ ပံုမ်ား၊ သတင္းအမွား ေပးမႈမ်ား၊ ဘက္လိုက္သည့္ သတင္းေဖာ္ျပမႈမ်ားက ရက္စက္ၾကမ္းၾကဳတ္သည့္ အလွည့္အေျပာင္းကို ထပ္ေလာင္းဆင့္ပိုးလာခဲ့ၿပီး ေသြးစြန္းရသည့္ ဝမ္းနည္းေၾကကြဲဖြယ္ အျဖစ္အပ်က္မ်ားေပၚေပါက္လာေစခဲ့သည္။

အခ်ဳိ႕ေသာသူမ်ားက မိမိကို ဘက္လိုက္သည္ဟု ေျပာေကာင္း ေျပာၾကပါလိမ့္မည္။ ဤသို႔ စြပ္စြဲခ်က္အတြက္လည္း မိမိက ျပန္၍ ေလွ်ာက္လွဲလိုပါသည္။ သို႔ေသာ္လည္း မိမိ ဘက္လိုက္သည္ဆိုသည္မွာ လူအုပ္စုတခုကို သာေစ၊ တစုကို နာေစဟူ၍ ဘက္လိုက္ျခင္း မဟုတ္ပါ။ လူမ်ဳိးတစုကို သာေစ၊ တခုကို နာေစ၊ ဘာသာကိုးကြယ္ ယံုၾကည္မႈတခုကို သာေစ၊ တခုကို နာေစ ဟူ၍ ဘက္လိုက္ျခင္း မဟုတ္ပါ။ ႏိုင္ငံေရးပါတီတခုကို သာေစ၊ တခုကို နာေစဟူ၍ ရည္ရြယ္ခ်က္လည္း မရွိခဲ့ပါ။ ၎တို႔အစား မိမိ ဘက္လိုက္သည္ ဆိုသည္မွာ ဘာသာေရး လြတ္လပ္ခြင့္အပါအဝင္ လူ႔အခြင့္အေရးမ်ား၏ တကမၻာလံုးက လက္ခံၾကသည့္ တန္ဖိုးမ်ားဘက္က လိုက္ျခင္း ျဖစ္ပါသည္။


မိမိက အျပန္အလွန္ ေလးစားမႈ၊ တန္းတူအခြင့္အေရး၊ ဘာသာ-လူမ်ဳိးအုပ္စုမ်ားအၾကား ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းေရးႏွင့္ သဟဇာတျဖစ္ေစေရးဘက္က ဘက္လိုက္ျခင္းသာ ျဖစ္ပါသည္။ မိမိက မည္သည့္လူမ်ဳိး၊ မည္သည့္ ဘာသာကိုးကြယ္ယံုၾကည္ သည္ ျဖစ္ေစ၊ လူသားတဦးခ်င္းစီ၏ ဂုဏ္သိကၡာအတြက္ ဘက္လိုက္ျခင္း ျဖစ္ပါသည္။ မိမိက သည္းညည္းခံစိတ္ မထားတတ္မႈ၊ မုန္းတီးမႈ၊ လူမ်ဳိးစြဲဝါဒႏွင့္ အစြန္းေရာက္ဝါဒကို ဆန္႔က်င္၍ ဘက္လိုက္ျခင္း ျဖစ္ပါသည္။

ရခိုင္ျပည္နယ္ရွိ ဝမ္းနည္းဖြယ္ အျဖစ္အပ်က္မ်ားေၾကာင့္ ရခိုင္ႏွင့္ ႐ိုဟင္ဂ်ာ လူမႈအဖြဲ႔အစည္းမ်ားမွ သာမန္ျပည္သူမ်ား ထိခိုက္နစ္နာခဲ့ၾကရပါသည္။ အိမ္မ်ား မီးေလာင္ပ်က္စီးခဲ့ရၿပီး၊ ဗလီမ်ားလည္း ဖ်က္ဆီးခံခဲ့ၾကရသည္။ အမ်ဳိးသမီးမ်ား မုဒိန္းျပဳက်င့္ခံခဲ့ၾကရၿပီး၊ လူသတ္မႈမ်ားလည္း ရွိခဲ့ၾကသည္။ မည္သည့္ရည္ရြယ္ခ်က္ျဖင့္ ဤသို႔ ေဆာင္ရြက္ျပဳမူခဲ့ၾကပါ သနည္း။ ၎ အၾကမ္းဖက္မႈမ်ားေၾကာင့္ လူေပါင္း ၃ဝ,ဝဝဝ အထိ အိုးအိမ္စြန္႔ပစ္ ထြက္ေျပးခဲ့ၾကရသည္ဟု ဆိုၾက

ေသာ္လည္း အေရအတြက္ အတိအက်ကိုမူ အတည္မျပဳႏိုင္ခဲ့ပါ။ အေၾကာင္းမွာ ကုလသမဂၢက ၎၏ဝန္ထမ္းမ်ားကိုျပန္လည္ ႐ုတ္သိမ္းခဲ့ၿပီး သီးျခားလြတ္လပ္သည့္ ေစာင့္ၾကည့္သူမ်ားကိုလည္း ဤေဒသတြင္းသို႔ ဝင္ေရာက္ခြင့္ မျပဳခဲ့ေသာေၾကာင့္ ျဖစ္ပါသည္။ျမန္မာအစိုးရအေနျဖင့္ ပထမဦးဆံုး ေဆာင္ရြက္သင့္သည့္ကိစၥမွာ ယခုအေျခအေနကို အကဲျဖတ္ႏိုင္ရန္ ႏိုင္ငံတကာေလ့လာ ေစာင့္ၾကည့္သူမ်ား ဝင္ခြင့္ျပဳေရးပင္ ျဖစ္သည္။

မိမိက ယခုစာကို ေရးျခင္းမွာ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံႏွင့္ ျမန္မာျပည္သူမ်ား၏ မိတ္ေဆြတဦးအေနျဖင့္ ေရးသားျခင္း ျဖစ္ပါသည္။ မိမိက ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံ လြတ္ေျမာက္ေရး၊ ဒီမိုကေရစီႏွင့္ လူ႔အခြင့္အေရး ကိစၥမ်ားအတြက္ ၿပီးခဲ့သည့္ ၁၅ ႏွစ္တာ ကာလ တြင္ လႈပ္ရွားလုပ္ေဆာင္ခဲ့ၿပီး ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံတြင္းႏွင့္ နယ္စပ္ေဒသမ်ားသို႔ အၾကိမ္ ၄ဝ ေက်ာ္ ခရီးလွည့္လည္ခဲ့ဖူးပါသည္။ ျမန္မာ့ ဒီမိုကေရစီအေရး တက္ႂကြလႈပ္ရွားသူမ်ား၊ ႏုိင္ငံေရး အက်ဥ္းသားေဟာင္းမ်ားႏွင့္ ပူးတြဲေဆာင္ရြက္ခဲ့သလို ကရင္၊ ကရင္နီ၊ ရွမ္း၊ မြန္၊ ကခ်င္၊ ခ်င္း၊ ရခိုင္၊ ႐ိုဟင္ဂ်ာ ျပည္သူမ်ားႏွင့္လည္း ပူးတြဲလုပ္ကိုင္ခဲ့ဖူးပါသည္။ အင္ဒိုနီးရွား၊ ပါကစၥတန္၊ ေမာလ္ဒိုက္..စသည့္ အစြန္းေရာက္ အစၥလာမ္ဝါဒီမ်ား ေခါင္းေထာင္ထလာသည့္ အျခားေသာ ႏုိင္ငံမ်ားတြင္ ဘာသာေရးအရ သည္းညည္းမခံလိုစိတ္ တိုးတက္ျဖစ္ေပၚလာေနသည့္ အေျခအေနကို အေတြ႔အၾကံဳ မ်ားစြာ ရွိခဲ့သူတဦးအေနျဖင့္ ယခုစာကို ေရးသားျခင္းလည္း ျဖစ္ပါသည္။

ဤ ေနာက္ခံအေၾကာင္းအခ်က္မ်ားေၾကာင့္ ျမန္မာအစိုးရႏွင့္ ျပည္သူမ်ားကို အၾကမ္းဖက္မႈမ်ား ရပ္တန္႔႐ုံမွ်သာမက ၿပီးခဲ့သည့္ ရက္သတၱပါတ္မ်ားက ဘာသာေရးအရ သည္းညည္းမခံႏိုင္မႈ၊ လူမ်ဳိးေရး မုန္းတီးမႈမ်ား ေရွ႕တန္းေရာက္လာသည့္ ရပ္တည္ခ်က္မ်ားကို ေျပာင္းလဲၾကပါရန္ ေမတၱာရပ္ခံ ပါသည္။ ျမန္မာျပည္သူမ်ား အေနျဖင့္လည္း ျမန္မာႏွင့္ ဗုဒၶဘာသာယဥ္ေက်းမႈမ်ားရွိ ေကာင္းျမတ္မွန္ကန္သည့္ တန္ဖိုးမ်ားႏွင့္ ေနထိုင္ၾကပါရန္၊ မိမိတို႔ ေတာင္းဆို တိုက္ပြဲ ဝင္လာခဲ့ၾကသည့္ လြတ္လပ္ခြင့္ ႏွင့္ လူ႔အခြင့္အေရး တန္ဖိုးမ်ားအတိုင္း ဆက္လက္ရပ္တည္ၾကပါရန္ ေမတၱာရပ္ခံ လိုပါသည္။ ဤသို႔ ေမတၱာရပ္ခံရသည္မွာ အေၾကာင္းအခ်က္မ်ားစြာ ရွိပါသည္။

ပထမအခ်က္မွာ လူသားဆန္မႈႏွင့္ လူ႔အခြင့္အေရး အေျခခံေပၚမွ လူသားတို႔၏ အသိဉာဏ္ရွိမႈကို ေမတၱာရပ္ခံေတာင္းဆိုျခင္း ျဖစ္ပါသည္။ တကမၻာလံုးလက္ခံသည့္ လူ႔အခြင့္အေရးေၾကညာစာတမ္း ဆိုသည္မွာ အတိအက် အားျဖင့္ လူသားအားလံုးအတြက္ ရည္ရြယ္ျခင္း ျဖစ္ပါသည္။ ၿပီးခဲ့သည့္ စေနေန႔က ႏိုဘယ္ဆုခ်ီးျမႇင့္ပြဲ မိန္႔ခြန္းတြင္ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ ေျပာၾကားခဲ့သကဲ့သို႔ လူ႔အခြင့္အေရးမ်ားသည္ “အားလံုးအနက္ အထြန္းေတာက္ဆံုးအရာ”ျဖစ္ပါသည္။ ျမန္မာ စစ္အစိုးရက ျပည္သူမ်ားကို ကာလၾကာရွည္ ဖိႏွိပ္ျပဳမူခဲ့သလို မည္သူတဦးကိုမွ် ႏွိမ္ခ် သိကၡာ မက်ေစသင့္၊ ကန္႔သတ္ထားျခင္း၊ ဖိႏွိပ္ ခ်ဳိးႏွိမ္ျခင္း မျပဳသင့္ပါ။ ၎ကိစၥတြင္ ႐ိုဟင္ဂ်ာ ျပည္သူမ်ားလည္း အပါအဝင္ျဖစ္ပါသည္။

ဒုတိယအခ်က္မွာ ဘာသာေရးအေျခခံျဖင့္ ေမတၱာရပ္ခံျခင္း ျဖစ္ပါသည္။ ဗုဒၶဘာသာႏွင့္ ပတ္သက္၍ မိမိ၏ အေျခခံ နားလည္ သေဘာေပါက္မႈအရ ‘ေမတၱာ’ကို ေရွ႔ထားၾကပါသည္။ ၎သည္ မိမိ ယံုၾကည္ကိုးကြယ္သည့္ ခရစ္ယာန္ ဘာသာ၏ အေျခခံမူလည္း ျဖစ္ပါသည္။ “သင္၏ အိမ္နီးခ်င္းကို သင့္ကိုယ္တိုင္ကဲ့သို႔ ခ်စ္ေလာ့” ဟု သြန္သင္ထားပါ သည္။ ခရစ္ယာန္ အယူတြင္၊ “မိမိ၏ ရန္သူကိုပင္ ခ်စ္ရန္” သင္ၾကားထားပါသည္။ အိမ္နီးခ်င္းျဖစ္ေစ၊ ‘ရန္သူ’ျဖစ္ေစ၊ ရခိုင္ျဖစ္ေစ၊ ႐ိုဟင္ဂ်ာ ျဖစ္ေစ၊ ဗုဒၶဘာသာျဖစ္ေစ၊ ခရစ္ယာန္၊ မူစလင္၊ နတ္ကိုးကြယ္သူ ျဖစ္ေစ၊ ေမတၱာကို ေရွ႕တန္း မထားသင့္ပါသေလာ။ အားလံုးကို မခ်စ္သင့္ပါသေလာ.. ဟု ေစာေၾကာ ေမးျမန္းလိုပါသည္။

အ႐ိုးရွင္းဆံုးေသာ လူသားဝါဒ၊ အေျခခံလူ႔အခြင့္အေရး၊ ဘာသာေရး အႏွစ္သာရမ်ားေၾကာင့္ ေမတၱာထားရန္၊ သည္းခံ စိတ္ထားရန္၊ ေလးစားၾကပါရန္၊ ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းရန္ႏွင့္ တန္းတူအခြင့္အေရးကို ထိန္းသိမ္းကာကြယ္ေပးရန္ တိုက္တြန္းမႈ မျပဳႏိုင္ေစသည့္တိုင္၊ ေနာက္ဆံုး မိမိတို႔၏ အက်ဳိးစီးပြား အေျခခံအေပၚ စဥ္းစားေဆာင္ရြက္ၾကပါရန္ ေမတၱာရပ္ခံ လိုပါသည္။

မိမိေဖာ္ျပ ေျပာဆိုခဲ့သမွ်အေပၚ လူအခ်ဳိ႕က စိတ္မကြက္ေစသည့္တိုင္ေအာင္ မိမိ ဆက္လက္ ေဖာ္ျပလိုသည့္ အခ်က္ မ်ားအေပၚ လူအခ်ဳိ႔က စိတ္ကြက္ေဒါသ ျဖစ္ႏိုင္ပါေသးသည္။ မည္သို႔ျဖစ္ေစ ဆိုေရးရွိက ဆိုရပါလိမ့္မည္။ မိမိ ၾကံဳေတြ႔ ခဲ့ရသမွ်တြင္ ႐ိုဟင္ဂ်ာမ်ားသည္ အစြန္႔ပယ္၊ အခြဲျခား အခံရဆံုး၊ အဖိႏွိပ္အခံရဆံုးသူမ်ား ျဖစ္ၾကပါသည္။ မိမိအေနျဖင့္ ဘဂၤလားေဒ့ရွ္-ျမန္မာ နယ္စပ္ ႐ိုဟင္ဂ်ာ ဒုကၡသည္မ်ားထံ သြားေရာက္ခဲ့ဖူးၿပီး သူတို႔၏ မ်က္လံုးမ်ားထဲတြင္ စိတ္ပ်က္ အားငယ္မႈမ်ားကို ျမင္ေတြ႔ခဲ့ရပါသည္။ ႐ိုဟင္ဂ်ာဒုကၡသည္မ်ားကို ၎ေဒသျပင္ပတြင္ ေတြ႔ျမင္ခဲ့ရဖူးပါသည္။ ထိုသူတို႔ ၏ ႏွလံုးအိမ္ထဲတြင္ စိတ္ဓာတ္က်ဆင္းေနမႈကို ျမင္ခဲ့ၾကရပါသည္။ မိမိသိရွိသမွ် ႐ိုဟင္ဂ်ာမ်ားမွာ ဧည့္ဝတ္အေက် ႁပြန္ဆံုး၊ ၾကင္နာသည့္၊ ယဥ္ေက်းသိမ္ေမြ႔သည့္၊ ရည္မြန္သည့္၊ သည္းညည္းခံတတ္သည့္၊ ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းေရးျမတ္ႏိုးသည့္ လူသားမ်ား ျဖစ္ၾကပါသည္။ အျခားသူမ်ားက သူတို႔၏ လူသားဂုဏ္သိကၡာကို ျငင္းပယ္ၾကသည့္တိုင္ လူသားဆန္သည့္ ရည္မြန္မႈကို ဆုပ္ကိုင္ႏိုင္ၾကသူမ်ား ျဖစ္ပါသည္။

(Commentary) – The violence in Arakan State over the past two weeks has caused disillusion for some, division among many, and shock and anguish for everyone. Racial and religious tensions that have simmered just beneath the surface for years have exploded into an ugly cycle of destruction and revenge which threatens to derail Burma’s journey towards democracy and peace.




Benedict Rogers Photo: facebookCrude, racist abuse, deliberate misrepresentations, doctored images, misinformation and biased reporting have added a cruel twist to an already bloody tragedy.

Some people may call me biased, and to that charge I plead guilty. But I am biased not in favour of one community over another, in favour of one race or religion over another, in favour of one particular political party over another. Instead, I am biased in favour of the universal values of human rights, including religious freedom.

I am biased in favour of mutual respect, equal rights, peace and harmony between religions and races. I am biased in favour of the dignity of each and every human being, whatever their ethnicity or religion. I am biased against intolerance, hatred, racism and extremism.

The tragedy in Arakan State is that ordinary people from both Rakhine and Rohingya communities have suffered. Homes burned, mosques desecrated, women raped, people killed – and for what purpose? It has been claimed that as many as 30,000 people are displaced as a result of the violence, although this figure is not verified because the UN has vacated its staff and independent monitors have not had access to the area. One of the first things the government of Burma should do is allow international monitors in to assess the situation.

I am writing this as a friend of Burma and all of Burma’s people. I have worked for the cause of freedom, democracy and human rights in Burma for the past 15 years, and travelled more than 40 times inside the country and to all its borders. I have worked with Burmese democracy activists and former political prisoners, and with Karen, Karenni, Shan, Mon, Kachin, Chin, Rakhine and Rohingya people. I also write as someone with extensive experience of other countries where religious intolerance is growing, often from extremist Islamism: Indonesia, Pakistan and The Maldives, in particular.

And so with that background, I appeal to the government and people of Burma not only to stop the violence, but to change the attitudes of religious intolerance and racial hatred which have come to the fore in the past few weeks. I appeal to the people of Burma to be true to everything that is good and noble in Burmese and Buddhist culture, and to live up to the values of freedom and human rights for which they have been struggling. I make this appeal on several grounds.

First, I appeal to human conscience on the grounds of humanity and human rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is exactly that: universal, for everyone. As Aung San Suu Kyi said in her Nobel Peace Prize Lecture last Saturday, human rights are “the birthright of all”. No human being should be degraded, restricted or abused in the way the people of Burma have been by the military regime for so long – and that includes the Rohingya people.

Second, I appeal on religious grounds. From my basic understanding of Buddhism, I know that there is a principle called “metta” – “loving kindness.” It is similar to the principle in my own faith, Christianity, of “love your neighbour as yourself.” In Christianity, we are also taught to “love your enemies.” Neighbour or ‘enemy,’ Rakhine or Rohingya, Buddhist, Christian, Muslim or Animist, shouldn’t we apply “metta,” “love,” to all?

Last, if simple humanity, basic human rights and core religious teachings cannot persuade people to exercise love, tolerance, respect and peace, to safeguard equal rights for all, then I appeal on grounds of self-interest.

If what I have said so far has not upset some, what I am about to say will upset others, but I must say it anyway. The Rohingya people are among the most marginalised and persecuted people I have ever come across. I have visited Rohingya refugees on the Bangladesh-Burma border, and seen the despair in their eyes. I have met Rohingya refugees outside the region, and seen the depression in their hearts. The Rohingyas I know are among the most hospitable, kind, gentle, decent, tolerant, peace-loving human beings I have met. They have clung on to human decency, even when others have tried to deny them human dignity.

But I also know there is a danger ahead if they continue to be marginalized and persecuted not only by the regime, but by society as well, and it is this: the danger of radicalization.

The charge of ‘terrorist’ is already thrown at the Rohingyas, without any foundation or substance and fuelled by bigotry. But it could be a self-fulfilling prophecy. If the Rohingyas are persecuted by the regime, marginalised by the democracy movement, discriminated against and attacked by society and ignored by the international community, if radical Islamist organizations tap into the seething despair among the Rohingya people, and the Rohingyas feel they have nowhere else to turn, then it is possible that more Rohingyas could be radicalized. Having seen radical Islamism in action in Pakistan, Indonesia, The Maldives and on the streets of London, to name just a few places, I fear for Burma if it is added to its woes. I am not talking about bombs and hijackings. I am talking about the ideology of political Islam, Islamism, as distinct from the religion of Islam followed by the vast majority of Muslims who adhere to the peaceful teachings of their faith.


Marginalization, despair, statelessness could be a breeding ground for radicalization. As Aung San Suu Kyi said in Oslo, “War is not the only arena where peace is done to death. Wherever suffering is ignored, there will be the seeds of conflict, for suffering degrades and embitters and enrages.”

Don’t misunderstand me. What I have said must not be used to justify attacks on the Rohingyas. Indeed, quite the opposite. To avoid provoking Islamism, the Rakhine, the Burmans and the whole people of Burma should work with moderate-minded Rohingyas whose only desire is to be given the same rights as others, to be treated with respect and dignity, to live in peace. One Rohingya several years ago described his vision beautifully to me when he described Burma as a garden, in which various different flowers grow – and the Rohingyas are one of those flowers.

There are two myths about the Rohingyas that need to be dispelled. The first is the idea that ethnicity or race is tied to land or state. The Rohingyas are not seeking their own territory, or at least not the ones I know. They just want to be recognized as citizens of Burma. Even if they were demanding their own state, there is no reason to grant them that, as long as they are treated with dignity and equal rights.

The second is the idea that they are Bengali illegal immigrants. To this charge I have several responses.

First, the historical record is clear that the Rohingyas have lived in northern Arakan for generations. Scholars can debate the precise record with civility and evidence, but however many years it is, no one can doubt that they have been there for generations. The first President of Burma, Sao Shwe Thaike, a Shan, said that the “Muslims of Arakan certainly belong to the indigenous races of Burma. If they do not belong to the indigenous races, we also cannot be taken as indigenous races.” Burma’s first Prime Minister U Nu, who used the disputed term ‘Rohingya,’ authorized the Burmese Broadcasting Service to broadcast in the Rohingya language, and Rohingyas sat in Parliament. It was only when Ne Win took power, driven largely by his own racist and anti-Muslim prejudice, that they were stripped of their citizenship and plunged into decades of abuse.

If they were illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, why do so many of them speak Burmese fluently and have Burmese names? If they were immigrants from Bangladesh, why does Bangladesh refuse them refuge when they flee Burma? If they were immigrants from Bangladesh, why do they wish to stay in Burma and make it their homeland, when all they receive is abuse? Illegal immigrants usually flee poverty and oppression to places of relative prosperity and freedom – why then would people flee Bangladesh for Burma?

Some Burmese have told me that it is a porous border and some who claim to be ‘Rohingya’ may be illegal Bengali immigrants. If that is so, then Burma needs to establish a proper system for identifying people. Those who were born in Burma must be treated as citizens. Those who are found, credibly, to be migrants should be processed appropriately and either given citizenship or returned to their country of origin, in the same way any country handles illegal immigration. What must not happen, in any circumstance, is the kind of inhumane, degrading abuse to which these people are subjected. Even illegal immigrants have human rights.

Martin Luther King expressed it well when he said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” The Rohingya people, stateless, denied access to education, facing restrictions on movement, marriage and religion, have been facing a grave injustice for years. The Rakhine people, like others in Burma, have been suffering injustice too. And both communities, indulging in a depraved cycle of violence and destruction, will destroy each other and derail democracy for Burma if the current crisis continues.

So it is time for everyone, in Burma and in the international community, who cares about universal human rights, human dignity and peace, to stand up and put an end to the violence, and begin the long hard road to reconstruction and reconciliation.

Today there is a need for emergency humanitarian aid for all the victims of the violence, who have lost homes and are without food or drinking water.

Tomorrow, there will be a need for support for inter-faith and inter-ethnic dialogue and reconciliation. A starting point would be for us all to reflect on Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s words in her Nobel Lecture: “Ultimately our aim should be to create a world free from the displaced, the homeless and the hopeless, a world of which each and every corner is a true sanctuary where the inhabitants will have the freedom and the capacity to live in peace. Every thought, every word, and every action that adds to the positive and the wholesome is a contribution to peace. Each and every one of us is capable of making such a contribution. Let us join hands to try to create a peaceful world where we can sleep in security and wake in happiness.”
Let that be the way forward, for Burman, Rakhine, Rohingya, for government official and political prisoner, for Burmese citizen and foreign friends of Burma alike.

Benedict Rogers’ new book, “Burma: A Nation at the Crossroads,” is published this month by Rider.

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Benedict Rogers is a human rights activist with Christian Solidarity Worldwide, Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission and a former parliamentary candidate in the City of Durham. He is the author of a new book, Burma: A Nation at the Crossroads, to be published in July by Random House. He has visited Burma and its borders more than 40 times, and taken senior politicians, including Andrew Mitchell and John Bercow, on fact-finding visits to the borders.

For years, I used to say that I had hope for freedom in Burma, but such hope flew in the face of the facts. My hope was based on a belief that the courage of the Burmese people would be rewarded in the end, and that history shows that dictators do not last forever. It was, however, a vague hope which I had to hold onto to ensure that my advocacy efforts were not in vain. Aung San Suu Kyi was under house arrest for most of the past two decades, over two thousand dissidents were in jail, and the country’s military was carrying out crimes against humanity. A visit by a British prime minister was inconceivable.

Today, Burma may be beginning to change. A year ago, I was deported from the country, because the authorities disliked a book I had written about the previous dictator, Senior General Than Shwe. As they threw me out, a military intelligence officer told me assuredly there was “no change, no change”. Just a few months later, the new president, Thein Sein, stunned the world by meeting the woman the regime had refused to talk to but failed to defeat: the democracy leader and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi.
Since that meeting last August, he has taken significant and very welcome steps forward, releasing many political prisoners, including very high profile dissidents, initiating ceasefire talks with some of the country’s ethnic groups, and making it possible for Suu Kyi and her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), to participate in by-elections for the country’s new Parliament. Suu Kyi won her seat in a landslide, and the party won 43 of the 45 seats contested. Ten months after I was deported, I was able to go back to Rangoon.

All this has made David Cameron’s visit later this week not only possible, but desirable. We should now be seeking ways to encourage Thein Sein to continue on this reformist path, and one way to do so is to bring him and other reformers within the regime in from the cold. However, just as it is important to recognise, welcome and applaud the steps taken so far, it is equally important to keep on reminding Thein Sein that there is much more he needs to do.

The Prime Minister must be clear with Thein Sein: so far, what we have seen amounts primarily to a change in atmosphere rather than a change in system. We must not underestimate the significance of the reforms, but nor must we think that the job is done. Reform must of course begin with a change in atmosphere, a widening of political space, a relaxation in mood, but those steps must be the first in a process of change.

The next steps must include the release of all remaining political prisoners, access to prisons and all parts of the country for international human rights monitors, unrestricted access to all areas for international humanitarian aid organisations, and substantial legislative, institutional and constitutional reform. Unjust laws which could put dissidents back in jail tomorrow if the authorities so wished must be amended or repealed; an independent judiciary established; the rule of law developed.

And while the NLD’s victory in the by-elections is significant in what it says about the desires of ordinary Burmese voters, it does not by itself signal lasting reform. The NLD will hold only 6.4 per cent of the parliamentary seats, in a legislature dominated by the military and pro-military parties. In 2010, Burma’s first elections in twenty years were heavily rigged to ensure that the military’s party, the Union Solidarity Development Party (USDP), had a large majority.

Just to be sure of guaranteeing power, in addition to rigging and harassment, the military reserved 25% of the seats for themselves even before the poll. So Aung San Suu Kyi and her MPs will have a lot of work to do to build an informal coalition with other pro-democracy parties, ethnic parties and reform-minded members of the USDP, if there is to be a chance for real change. And the real test will be Burma's next general election, in 2015.

In addition to legislative, institutional and constitutional reform, the major challenge to be addressed is the plight of Burma’s ethnic nationalities, who make up 40 per cent of the population and inhabit sixty per cent of the land. For 65 years, successive Burmese governments, and particularly the military regimes which have ruled the country since Ne Win seized power in a coup in 1962, have been fighting the ethnic groups and their simple demand for equal rights and a degree of autonomy. The Karen were the first to be attacked, but by the mid-1960s almost all the ethnic groups were facing brutal military offensives by the regime.

Both Britain and Aung San Suu Kyi have an important role to play in helping Burma secure a lasting nationwide peace. Britain has an historic responsibility, because many of the ethnic nationalities, especially the Karen and Kachin, fought bravely alongside the Allies against the Japanese in the Second World War. Britain promised them autonomy, but failed to deliver, leaving them at the mercy of Burman nationalists after independence.

Suu Kyi, similarly, has a legacy to fulfil, since it was her father, Aung San, who presided over the Panglong Agreement which established equal rights and autonomy for the ethnic nationalities. Aung San, who led the country’s independence movement against British colonial rule, was assassinated before independence, and the Panglong Agreement was discarded. Decades of war and suffering ensued.

Last weekend, leaders of the Karen National Union (KNU), one of the largest ethnic resistance groups, held an historic meeting with President Thein Sein in Naypyidaw, and also held talks with Suu Kyi. The regime has held ceasefire talks with other ethnic nationalities, and established some ceasefire agreements. These steps are very welcome, but they do not in themselves guarantee peace. Ceasefires – an end to active fighting – are not enough, because without a political solution there can be no durable peace.

The Government, the ethnic nationalities and the democracy movement must hold talks, and a political system which grants the ethnic people equal rights and a degree of autonomy must be established through dialogue. Burma's regime must embrace the "F" word they have resisted for so long: federalism. Contrary to their view, federalism is the system which would keep the country together, rather than splitting it apart.

Of particular concern currently is the situation in Kachin State, northern Burma. I visited the Kachin on the China-Burma border in January, and heard some of the worst stories of human rights violations I have ever heard, in twelve years of working on Burma. I heard many stories of killings of civilians. I met a woman who, just two months previously, while pregnant, hid for two days under a bed, without food or water, to escape the Burma Army. She heard bullets fly over her, and a Burma Army officer tell his troops: “If you see a Kachin, just kill them”.

I met a pastor who had been arrested and severely beaten and tortured non-stop for six hours. I met a woman whose husband had been decapitated before being shot. I met a 12 year-old boy who had seen his mother shot dead. All these incidents had occurred within the final few months of 2011 and even in January, and I have heard accounts of similar atrocities occurring since my visit. I hope the Prime Minister will raise the situation in Kachin State with Thein Sein and others, and make it clear to them that these horrific attacks must stop and the war in Kachin State must end, if Burma’s reform process is to be taken seriously.


So there is much on Cameron’s "to do" list on Friday, and a careful balance to strike. To fail to ignore the progress already made could undermine Thein Sein and the reformers and stall the process. But to ignore the continuing human rights violations and the need for substantial institutional and constitutional changes, to embrace the situation today as the end of the road, and to lift all pressure on the regime to change could equally undermine chances of real democracy in Burma.

So far, the Government has got it about right, and William Hague’s pledge of gradual lifting of sanctions, in proportionate response to changes on the ground, rather than removing all sanctions in one go, is the right one. When I was in Rangoon in January, everyone I met – activists who have supported sanctions and those who have been critical – emphasised that to lift all pressure in one go, before change is secured, would be disastrous. We must maintain our leverage and ensure that sanctions are lifted step by step.

As the first western leader to visit Burma in decades, the Prime Minister has a unique opportunity to make good our failed promises of the past, support the reformers and the democrats, and help encourage real change that will bring the freedom and peace for which all the people of Burma have struggled, at great cost, for so long.

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