By Rena Pederson

Huffington Post

March 9, 2015

When he visited Washington, D.C. two years ago, Burma's new president was being hailed as an "Asian Gorbachev." America's capital rolled out the podiums and cocktail receptions because it appeared a "Burma Spring" was underway -- or at least a winter thaw.

Thein Sein was lauded for opening the economy and freeing political prisoners such as Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi. The hope was that a new normal was at hand in the long-suffering country that military rulers had renamed Myanmar.

But has the former general turned out to be the reformer everyone hoped?

Not yet -- and this is the last year of his five-year term.

It should have been a clue when Thein Sein insisted, "I would like to say thatGorbachev and I are not alike, I tell you that."

Thein Sein's record is inconsistent at best:

• He allowed a human rights movie festival in Rangoon -- but Rohingya Muslims were herded into detention camps.

• He criticized corruption -- but contracts still go to cronies of generals and ministers.

• He said all political prisoners would be released by the end of 2013 -- but more have been arrested.

• He finally allowed the Red Cross access to prisons -- but humanitarian aid for thousands trapped in conflict zones has been blocked.

• He promised to allow the U.N. Human Rights Commission to open an office -- but hasn't.

• He spoke out against religious hatred -- then supported the ultra-nationalist monkWirathu, who has inflamed prejudice against Muslims.

The opaque President remains something of a paradox. His spindly, bespectacled appearance has contributed to the impression that he is a mild-mannered apparatchik, still beholden to the shadows of the old regime. Even Secretary of State Hillary Clinton noted in her memoir that the stoop-shouldered leader "looked more than an accountant than a general." 

Observers tend to say Thein Sein is "less corrupt" than other generals and was "less ruthless" as a commander. Some say he is an intelligent man in a difficult position, trying to keep control while making incremental change. Others think his primary goal all along has been to get economic sanctions removed in order to draw needed investment, not to engineer wider political reforms to please the West.

In that regard, he has been wildly successful: More than 500 businesses are taking a chance on what used to be a blacklisted backwater. They have invested more than $50 billion since the military started liberalizing the economy in 2011. Coca-Cola, MasterCard, Ford and Hilton have rushed into the untapped market of more than 50 million. Even Kentucky Fried Chicken is looking for locations.

Still, it's not a good sign that a steady stream of reporters and editors have been imprisoned or attacked. One was beaten to a bloody, unrecognizable mass and shot to death. It's not a good sign that land is still being confiscated. Or that fighting continues in ethnic regions while peace talks stretch on. Students protesting the lack of academic freedom have been attacked on the streets by police and thugs.

In retrospect, Thein Sein's early embrace of Aung San Suu Kyi after her release from house arrest now appears to have been a feint to appease western interests. The President then repeatedly snubbed the democracy leader's requests for six-party talks about constitutional reform. Instead he convened a 48-party media event with barely time for participants to introduce themselves.

After he met privately this week with Suu Kyi -- the first time in a year -- local commentators assumed it was merely to give the government "breathing room" from criticism before elections in November.

When I asked popular comedian and activist Zarganar last fall why he thinks Thein Sein has not been able to effect more change, he thought carefully before answering, "I think he is afraid of his old bosses."

It's true, Thein Sein spent 45-years as a dutiful officer; he has a military mindset and military ties. The office of President is also weak by design. Notably, the Commander in Chief of the armed forces does not report to the President and gets to appoint three of the most influential cabinet ministers (Defense, Home Affairs and Border Affairs). A National Defense and Security Council, composed largely of military stalwarts, is the ultimate authority and can re-impose martial law. There was understandable concern recently when Thein Sein handed over executive and judicial power to the military in the troubled Kokang region on the border with China.

Thein Sein, who will be 70 in April and has a pacemaker, has said he won't seek another term. But in the time he has left, he could rectify issues that have taken the bloom off the Burma Spring -- by supporting human rights and press freedom, rooting out more corruption, increasing academic freedom, curtailing executive manipulation of the judiciary and supporting more than "gentle" constitutional reform.

Thein Sein is considered the mastermind behind current peace talks -- he initiated them and has nudged them as far as they have come. The military is derailing them, but Thein Sein might regain status by getting them back on track.

The United States could help by pressing him harder to uphold the promises he made two years ago in exchange for economic favors - before more time and an election slide by.

Rena Pederson is author of "The Burma Spring: Aung San Suu Kyi and the New Struggle for the Soul of Burma."

By Christopher Atamian

Huffington Post

January 8, 2015

It has been nearly one hundred years since April 24, 1915 -- the infamous day when Armenian intellectuals of the Ottoman Empire were rounded up in the dead of night and sent to be executed in inland concentration camps in Ayash and Chankari. This event followed on nearly two decades of ethnic cleansing and pogroms against Armenians that included the murder of some 300,000 Armenians by Sultan Abdul Hamid in 1896 and 30,000 killed during the Adana Massacre in 1909.

The 1896 Erzerum Massacres of Armenians

In the ensuing decade, the entire Armenian Plateau and the rest of the Ottoman Empire was ethnically cleansed of 1.5 Million Armenians as well as 1.5 million Assyrian and Pontic Greeks--nearly the entire empire's Christian population. Christians were rounded up and locked inside churches that were set on fire and burned alive or thrown into caves with sulfur thrown on top of them and cremated in primitive gas chambers. The Turks, aided and abetted by their ally the German Kaiser seized Christian properties and bank accounts, raped and enslaved women and children and forced thousands to convert to Islam under pain of death. The vast majority of the Armenian population was deported to concentration camps in Syria--a thousand-mile trek through the desert that few survived. Those that did often ended up dying of disease and malnutrition. The local Arab population recalls seeing the Armenian survivors straggle in emaciated and famished like wild animals, emerging from the desert sands like some frightening army of living dead. Many fell to their knees and broke down, invoking the name of all-powerful Allah to ask what could possibly have befallen these poor refugees.

One hundred years of official Turkish state denial have left Armenians alone and bitter, but all over the world, this Christian people known as the "Jews of the Caucasus" have rebuilt communities and prospered as they have in Soviet and now independent Armenia. The reasons behind the Armenian Genocide include a surreal mix of ethnic and financial jealousy--the Armenian Amira class for example ran everything from the state mint to the bread factories and most of the empire's industry, while the Greeks and Levantines were the most successful diplomats and merchants as well.

Taking advantage of Christian missionary zeal in the Empire, Armenians were also its most educated element. The Turks, who had lost the entire Western part of their empire during the Serbian and Greek Wars of Independence reacted to the cloak of opportunity presented by WWI when the West had other concerns, to launch a veritable full-scale jihad against the infidel dhimmi or non-Muslim minorities.

A century later we know that unfortunately genocide is not a Turkish specialty, though they carried theirs out with a sometime grotesque zeal, releasing prisoners and the insane from jails so that the Armenians and other Christians would be massacred with particular viciousness. The Holocaust of the Jews in World War Two, the killing fields of Cambodia, the Bosnian cleansing by Serbs only twenty five years ago and most recently the Rwandan Genocide when brother tribes of Hutu set upon their Tutsi brothers, hacking people to death by the thousands with primitive machetes, lead us to the unfortunate conclusion that the genocidal instinct is deeply ingrained in human DNA. As the theorist Marc Nichanian has pointed out elsewhere, what was the Trojan War if not an example of early ethnic cleansing as the Greeks laid waste to Troy's entire population, also of Hellenic ethnicity?

Today, Nicholas Kristof and other leading journalists bring us news of another frightening instance of ethnic cleansing -- this time of the Muslim Rohingya minority in Myanmar. Reacting against the supposed fear of Muslim fundamentalism and population rates in Myanmar, the Rohingya have been rounded up and put in primitive camps without access to any medical treatment and insufficient food. They are often tortured. Women are dying in childbirth. To me, perhaps the most shocking aspect of this genocide-in-progress is that it is being carried out by Buddhists, led by the particularly controversial monk Wirathu, who heads the "969 Movement" and is quoted in a New York Times Op Doc as saying that the Muslim Rohingya minority "reproduce like fish (rabbits) and should all be killed."

As someone who practices Buddhist meditation and who has always admired Buddhism for its emphasis on peace and non-violence, these stomach-turning events are particularly sickening. Where is the West during all this? Where is President Obama? Even more reprehensible is the silence of Nobel Laureate and famed dissident Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar, who was jailed for years by that country's military junta and that of the country's current president Thein Sein who denies that the Rohingya are being persecuted. To date, the Rohingya have not yet been exterminated, but they will if we do not speak up. So please when you read these words, write your senators and representatives. Write Samantha Power at the U.N. and anyone else in your community who wields political and/or religious authority and tell them: STOP THE GENCOIDE OF THE ROHINGYA people. Speak up now or forever hold your peace. And rest assured, if you do not, one day you or your descendants or those of someone you may unfortunately find themselves in a similar situation -- as history does indeed have the unfortunate habit or repeating itself.

Nicholas Kristof's Op Doc on the Rohingya and 21st Century Concentration Camps:

For more Information on Twentieth Century Genocides, please consult Samantha Power's contemporary classic A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocideand Raymond Kevorkian's brilliant The Armenian Genocide: a Complete History

By Tom Andrews

Huffington Post

December 22, 2014

After his second arrest, Rafique Ahmad worried that the next time the police came for him at his home in Nyaung Chaung Village in Rakhine State Burma, he would be sent to prison. His crime? Talking too much.

Rafique worked with development NGOs serving the desperate Rohingya community in Rakhine State here in Burma. He later worked with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees helping the UN agency link to the community. When his village was wracked with violence last year, he knew that he would be targeted by police so he slipped from his village and made his way to Malaysia where he would try to find the means to bring his wife and four children.

The military dominated government of Burma does not want you to know about Rafique and the horror that is life as a Rohingya in Burma. That is precisely why he is so dangerous - he talks. And, it is precisely why I am here in Southeast Asia - to listen. I write this from Burma having arrived from Malaysia where I travelled to meet Rohingya families who barely escaped from their villages in Burma's western Rakhine State.

Rafique's Journey

I met Rafique and his family in Kuala Lumpur a few days ago. His wife and three of his children had arrived in Malaysia the day before after an arduous journey that included fifty days on a boat carrying 500 other desperate refugees and an another several days in a Thai jungle camp where they were held by their traffickers. His wife described the hell that they went through to get there. The boat was overcrowded and filthy. There was little food and water.

The traffickers set off with a week's worth of food and water for a fifty day journey. There were one hundred women and fifty other children on board. They clung to the hope that they would survive the journey and their great sense of relief at being free of the hell that was life in Rakhine.

The good news is that Rafique was, incredibly, able to raise the $4,000 he needed to buy the release of his wife and three of his children from the traffickers and get them to Malaysia from the Thai jungle camp where they were being held.

The bad news is that he was unable to raise what he needed to buy the release of his eldest son, 17 year old Faruk. Faruk remains captive in the Thai camp while his father works desperately to raise the $2,000 additional dollars he needs for his son's freedom.

Rafique and his family are part of an extraordinary and escalating boat exodus of equally desperate Rohingya from Rakhine State in Burma. More than 100,000 escaped on boats in the last year. I was told that the rate has jumped 50% from the year before and that there is every indication that the number of Rohingya who are willing to risk it all rather than remain in Burma will continue to spike upward.

Rafiique explained that the Rohingya refugees are held in the Thai jungle camps until they are paid the equivalent of $2,000 dollars - an unthinkable amount of money for almost every one of their families. If their families fail to deliver the cash for their release, they are sold to other traffickers. Some end up on fishing boats. Some on rubber plantations. Others are sold into the sex trade.

Burma's Third Rail: The Rohingya

There is little to no pressure within Burma to stop this horror. I was told that standing up for the Rohingya was a bad move for a politician or political party to make - including Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi - who remains largely silent.

"Think of it as a third rail in Burmese politics", I was told by a political operative, "touch it and you die - there is no constituency here for the Rohingya. Only trouble for those who stand up or speak out on their behalf."

So there is no restraint on those who would prefer every one of the 1.3 million Rohingya to be driven into the sea. No restraint on the government who leveled a death sentence for untold numbers of Rohingya earlier this year when it announced that the only source of health care for most Rohingya, Doctors Without Borders, would no longer be allowed to treat them.

And there is more bad news: As Burma's 2015 elections draw closer, political leaders and parties are seeking to advance even tougher and more repressive measures into law.

In January, Burma's parliament will take up legislation that would restrict religious conversions, limit the number of children people can have in certain regions, and require Buddhist women to seek government permission to marry a non-Buddhist man.

Seeking Hope

Rafique - and every other Rohingya I have met with - were thrilled when President Obama raised the plight of the Rohingya during his visit this fall. "We are desperate", I was told, "and without friends." "You don't know how much your support means to all of us." For many, it provided what has long been missing for the Rohingya here - hope.

It is easy to think of this massive exodus from Burma, if we do at all, in abstract terms. But, I will forever think about Rafique and his family - including his son who remains locked in a Thai based camp. And, why it is so important for us to redouble our efforts to help stop the living hell that they face not because of anything that they have done, but because of their ethnicity, the color of their skin and the God who they pray to.

Tom Andrews is president of United to End Genocide.

By Stanley Weiss

Huffington Post

November 13, 2014

Given the five decades it spent as one of the most repressive countries in recent history, it's hard to imagine that Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, was once considered an empire. But 190 years ago this past March, after the Burmese Empire conquered two large Bengali territories across its western border and undertook a series of raids into British-held lands, the British Empire had had enough. British India launched a counter-insurgency that would drag on for two years and take thousands of lives. With some of the heaviest fighting concentrated in Islamic border communities, thousands of Muslims were forced to flee, eventually settling along frontier areas in India and Myanmar.

The Muslim families driven into Burma as a result of Burmese aggression -- known as Rohingya Muslims -- never left, despite being persecuted ever since. A grisly modern chapter began in 2012, when the alleged rape and murder of a young Buddhist woman in western Rakhine State led to mob violence that took the lives of hundreds of Rohingya over the next two years and saw 135,000 Rohingya held in squalid camps for their own "safety." Seemingly oblivious to global concerns sparked by the persecution of this Muslim ethnic minority, the Myanmar government last week announced a repulsive new policy: All Rohingya must prove that their families have lived in Myanmar for at least six decades. For those we cannot, the penalty is either a refugee camp or deportation. For those we can, the prize is second-class citizenship, but with a catch: They must first renounce the term "Rohingya" and agree to be classified as a "Bengali." It's little wonder that more than 100,000 Rohingya have reportedly escaped Myanmar the past two years.

Coming on the eve of President Barack Obama's trip to Myanmar this week for the East Asia Summit, the new policy set off a round of stories about how the country was backsliding on democracy and human rights just two years after it held parliamentary elections and began to open itself up to the world. But when it comes to the way that the ethnic Burman majority treats the 135 different ethnic minorities that make up roughly 40 percent of Myanmar's population, "backsliding" is not the right word -- because that would presume that progress has been made in the first place. In Myanmar today, the new war is the same as the old.

In reality, the brutal civil war that has raged since 1948 between many of Myanmar's ethnic groups and the ethnic Burman military -- a war that has left 600,000 dead and a million homeless -- continues to rage deep in the jungle where most journalists don't travel. One journalist who did was freelance reporter Aung Kyaw Naing. While covering the fighting between the army and ethnic Karen rebels along Myanmar's southeastern border a few months ago, Naing was captured and murdered by the Burmese military, which accused him of acting as an "insurgent communications officer" for the Karen rebels. He was left to rot in the jungle.

Naing's death received global attention. But receiving far less attention in recent years were the 7,800 acres seized from ethnic minorities to build a Chinese-financed copper mine. Or the 15-year-old ethnic Kachin girl who was reportedly gang-raped by government troops. Or the one ethnic killed, five wounded, and 1,000 ethnic Shan villagers forced to flee their homes this past June after the Burman army, according to one report, left "temples, vehicles, houses and other properties destroyed... and farmers' crops set on fire."

Just this week, Harvard Law School's International Human Rights Clinic released the results of a four-year investigation that found that "the Myanmar military committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in 2005-2006" and that those responsible "continue to serve at the highest levels of the country's government." In areas presumed to have ethnic minorities hostile to the Burman majority, one former soldier recalled being told to "do whatever you want" -- which included "mortar attacks on villages, the destruction of civilian property, 'shoot-on-sight' incidents, and the placing of land mines in locations that indicate a clear intent to cause civilian casualties."

The findings echo the conclusions of similar study by the Karen Human Rights Group, which found thousands of incidents of "abuse, destruction of property, pollution, theft, and confiscation of land" in southern Myanmar from 2011 to 2012 -- six years after the focus period of the Harvard report.

The continuing atrocity isn't just what the military is doing outside the law, but what the government is doing within the law. The Rohingya are a good example of the institutional dehumanization of ethnic minorities at work in Myanmar today. But the discrimination isn't limited to the Rohingya: The largely Christian inhabitants of Chin State, for instance, can't build their own churches or attend college within Myanmar.

There is a reason why ethnic minorities were excluded from the referendum that produced the 2008 constitution -- a constitution that gives few if any of the rights of citizenship to minorities, while mandating central government control over all ethnic lands. In a country where the most lucrative trade routes and natural resources -- from rubber to jade and timber -- rest along the border areas where ethnic minorities live, the constitution itself is designed to keep ethnic minorities indefinitely subservient. Since the very military that benefits most from the illegal sale of natural resources also has a constitutionally-mandated 25 percent of parliamentary seats -- and since it requires greater than 75 percent approval to change the constitution -- the system locks in place a vicious cycle in which the same army that has tormented ethnic minorities for more than half a century are also their judge and jury.

It is, by any definition, a slow-motion ethnic apartheid in the making -- one that Western nations, eager to tap into a market of more than 50 million potential consumers, tacitly endorse every day they remain silent.

This week, as President Obama participates for a second time in his tenure in meetings in Myanmar, the U.S. and its Western allies should use every bit of leverage in their power -- working through its allies in the Association for Southeast Asian Nations, for which Myanmar is the current chair -- to focus on three necessary changes.

First, Western leaders should insist that the Myanmar constitution be changed to represent all citizens of Myanmar, and not just the 60 percent who are ethnically Burman. Western leaders should make clear that any future Western aid, development and business investment -- as well as any future trade agreements between the U.S., the EU and ASEAN -- will rest in part on equal rights for all ethnic tribes. The last thing Western businesses want is to be perceived as supporting a new apartheid for the 21st century.

Second, the West should insist that Myanmar recognize land rights, including the ancestral land of ethnic minorities. For Western investors who have are already shying away from investing in large swaths of Myanmar for fear of having their investments and property stolen out from under them, it will help ensure that Myanmar is a place worth investing their time and resources -- both of which are crucial to Myanmar's future growth.

Third, the West should accelerate its military-to-military ties with Myanmar -- including both ethnic Burman and ethnic minority leaders. For decades, Western sanctions meant that China and Russia were the only role models for Myanmar's military leaders. With the Obama Administration already committed to rebuilding ties, fast-tracking their exposure to Western ideals and democratic leadership can only help move Myanmar's military in the right direction.

In the end, the country is called Myanmar, not Burma. Every single time we in the West insist on calling it Burma, as many publications and governments still do, it simply reinforces the notion that the only people who count in that southeastern Asian nation are the six in 10 who are ethnic Burmans. It's long past time for the world to also stand up for the four in 10 who are not.

Stanley A. Weiss, a global mining executive and founder of Washington-based Business Executives for National Security, has been widely published on domestic and international issues for three decades. Tim Heinemann is a retired Special Forces officer and a mobile training team leader at the U.S. Department of Defense for counterterrorism professional development of U.S. allies around the world.

By Tom Andrews

Huffington Post

November 13, 2014

When President Obama steps off Air Force One in Burma today, he will have an opportunity to do something effective about the escalation of human suffering since his visit two years ago. 

He can start by speaking up for the 1.3 million members of the Rohingya ethnic community who are under siege verging on genocide by the military dominated government. Denied citizenship, all members of this Muslim minority are forced to live in apartheid conditions where they are unable to work, travel, marry or have children without permission. 

Having lost their homes and villages to violence, 140,000 have been forced into what can only be described as concentration camps. Untold numbers have died because of the government expulsion of their principle source of health care, Doctors Without Borders. 

Now the government is denying their very existence, prohibiting the use of their name in public discourse, and pressuring foreign officials not to utter the word, as the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Burma has noted with alarm. 

President Obama must recognize that, however well intended, his administration miscalculated when it lifted most sources of economic and diplomatic pressure on the regime two years ago. It was precisely this type of pressure that led to reforms that the administration and Congress celebrated two years ago, including the release of Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest and her election to the Parliament. 

The reforms have stalled, however, and conditions for ethnic minorities like the Rohingya have gotten alarmingly worse. In one of the largest boat exoduses in Asia since the Vietnam War, over 100,000 Rohingya, Asia's new "boat people," have attempted to escape in rickety boats. Most of those who survived the perilous journey became victims of human traffickers in Malaysia or Thailand. 

The Early Warning Project at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum places Burma at the very top of the list of countries most likely to see state-sponsored mass killings. 

The UN Special Adviser for the Prevention of Genocide has expressed deep concern for targeting of the Rohingya and warned of a "considerable risk of further violence." Hardly surprising given Burmese President Thein Sein's statement, two years ago, that the "only solution" for the Rohingya was deportation or camps. Quite surprising, however, was the U.S. announcement, hours later, lifting investment sanctions.

The slowing or reversal of reforms since President Obama's last visit to Burma is striking. The constitution still bans Aung San Suu Kyi from running for President. Political prisoners continue to be arrested. Attacks on civilians, rapes, and other severe human rights abuses continue to be reported against ethnic minorities in Kachin, Shan, and other states. Attacks on the press are on the increase, as highlighted by the recent killing of a prominent journalist while in military detention. 

Last week Aung San Suu Kyi noted: "We do think there have been times when the United States government has been overly optimistic about the reform process." Of 11 reform commitments Thein Sein made to President Obama, only one has been fully met.

The Rohingya Muslim minority continues to suffer mightily. Earlier this year, Thein Sein expelled Doctors Without Borders, their primary source of health care. Last month, he declared, "[T]here are no Rohingya among the races [in Burma]" and stipulated that their only path to citizenship required that they renounce their identity and call themselves "Bengalis,' thereby accepting status as illegal aliens. 

Too often foreign officials comply with this effort to "disappear" the Rohingya. When Secretary of State John Kerry visited Burma in August he did not utter their name, at least in public. President Obama reportedly mentioned the Rohingya in a call with the Burmese President on October 31, but whether he will use that word while in the country remains to be seen. 

In addition to saying the forbidden word, President Obama should address the root causes of the crisis by urging the Burmese government to reform its outdated laws that base citizenship on ethnic identity. He should hold more Burmese officials accountable by increasing the targeted sanctions list. He should also push the Burmese government to open a UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, perhaps the easiest of the remaining 10 commitments that President Thein Sein made to him.

President Obama is up against a formidable challenge and is understandably reluctant to give up what he hoped would be a great foreign policy success. But while responding to the promise of Burmese reforms is understandable and appropriate, turning a blind eye to the warning signs of genocide against the Rohingya would be indefensible.

'Rohingya' is not just a name, it is 1.3 million people and a culture at risk of being erased. Join those urging President Obama to http://JustSayTheirName.org.

Tom Andrews is President of United to End Genocide. 

By Jack Healey

Huffington Post

October 5, 2014

The news out of Hong Kong for the past few days has had many of us watching the reports and videos that are coming out of the Occupy Central movement with admiration and anxiety. We have seen this before, with students and citizens standing up to demand access to the political process they were promised and which they deserve, taking places in nonviolent protest to draw a line for Beijing to not cross. There are no tanks yet, in spite of six armored personnel carriers having entered Hong Kong and heading toward Central from Shenzhen not long after protests began. But nobody can shake the memory of the Tiananmen Square Massacre and be worried about the fate of those participating in what has been dubbed the Umbrella Revolution. We support the desires and rights of those protesting and hope for the best. But we also remember the massacre that predated the one in Beijing, when Yangon streets ran deep with blood as the Burmese regime murdered thousands of its citizens in a day of fury that steeled subsequent citizens to wait to try for more access to their rights.

In 2010 elections were held for a new nominally civilian national government to be seated in the newly constructed capital of Naypyidaw. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was released from house arrest finally (though her National League for Democracy, or NLD, boycotted the election). Censorship was relaxed tremendously. Foreign journalists, scholars, and researchers were admitted on visas and removed from lists proscribing their entry. Political prisoners began to be released and there was great hope. Smaller by-elections were held in April 2012 and were swept by the NLD and other opposition groups almost completely. Aung San Suu Kyi, held in house arrest for the majority of previous quarter century, became a member of parliament and the world watched with joy as the nation finally seemed to be making strides toward freedom and real respect for human rights.

Everything changed with a new explosion of violence against the Rohingya, who were already perhaps the most oppressed people in the world. In early June of 2012, a group of Rakhine Buddhists sought revenge after the alleged rape and murder of a Rakhine Buddhist woman by Muslim men a few days before on May 28. They stopped a bus of Muslim laborers and murdered all 10c of them, thinking them Rohingya and responsible (they were neither). In the convulsions of riots that followed between the two communities over a hundred people died, over 2,000 were injured, and fourteen thousand were displaced. The vast majority of violence saw mobs of Rakhine Buddhists energetically targeting the Rohingya and the vast majority of death, injury, and displacement were suffered by the Rohingya. Lackluster or simply indifferent security force protections left the Rohingya communities (and later other Muslim communities throughout the country) open to repeated attacks and aggressions by Buddhists who claimed to be "defending" Burmese Buddhism against a plot of fundamentalist Islamists to overthrow the Dhamma and the replace Suttas with the Koran. Subsequently there were protests by robed monks calling for violence against Muslims, attempts to prevent even aid and medical shipments from reaching the camps (too primitive and lacking basic precautions to be official refugee camps) where most Rohingya had been corraled for what seemed to be detention without end. Even in the largest city (and, until recently with the construction of Naypyidaw out of thin air, capital) Yangon, people of South Asian descent from foreign aid workers to members of the Indo-Burmese Hindu community, have said that they are newly afraid at times if they fear they might be identified as (mistakenly or not) as Muslim. Longtime expats and native-born Burmans have said that they find the climate comparable to Berlin before the rise of the Nazis.

In the background of all this, sat the sermons of a Theravada monk called Wirathu (who does not deserve and will not receive the honorific normally preceding a robedbhikku) who sold recordings of sermons urging listeners to "defend" Buddhism and to push out the "Bengalis" (which is the name they falsely use on the Rohingya, along with the slur "kalar" and other terms intended to mislead or slur their targets). The thing is that the Rohingya aren't Bengali. They are Burmese. They were present in Rakhine State as far back as the eighth century and, while some came during the British Colonial Era from what is now Bangladesh (the Rohingya language is related to Chittagonian, but is not the same) but most were already there. Indeed, before 1982 the Rohingya were officially Burmese too, along with the other ethnic groups evaluated and approved or denied citizenship and identity status by the central government, always under disproportionate control by the Bamar or Burman ethnic group, the largest in the country. In 1982, under the wizard dictator Ne Win, the Rohingya were stripped of their citizenship and were subject to rigorous restrictions controlling their right to marry, travel, work, or reproduce, rules that were placed on no other group in the nation.

The (formerly military) real powers in the government seemed to be less interested than they'd claimed in moving forward. And after decades of playing from the British divide-and-rule book of governance, the message of Rohingya difference (coupled with the surge in Islamophobia after 9/11 in the United States was watched around the globe) sunk in as plausible with many other groups in Burmese society and the Rohingya found themselves with few voices to speak up for them. Even Aung San Suu Kyi herself gave a noncommittal statement saying only that citizenship should be decided according to legal means and that everything that happened in Burma should always be legal. So much for using one's liberty to protect others, it seemed. The frenzy for a new market has meant business doesn't much care about the human rights situation and the desire for another ally as a counterweight to China's influence in the region has meant that foreign policy cares less about abuses on the ground.

The voice for the Rohingya fell largely to the international community to advocate for their basic human rights and to encourage the provision of citizenship. It has been incomplete at best and largely a failure. The highest source of moral authority and advice for daily living hasn't, at least in the eyes of the peoples of Burma, been politicians for a long time. The political world may need obedience and is likely to be feared, but the voice of moral authority for average people is that which is spoken by the monks and nuns of Burma (and monks more than nuns). So we return to the dangerous attention paid to deceitful Wirathu and his ilk. Being the central and loudest firebrand advocating extreme measures to be taken against the Rohingya to "defend" Buddhism and to expel them from the country by force if necessary, further outbursts of violence have seen monk-led blockades of medicine/food and have involved monks associated with the burning of a school with children inside of it with "good Buddhist defenders" from the village outside ready to hack down escapees energetically. All this comes from a monk who has called himself a "Burmese bin Laden," though somewhat surprisingly after his transparently false claims of a real danger coming from Rohingya Islamists when there is none.

Wirathu is associated with the 969 Movement in Burma, an organization that promotes a Burman Buddhist-centered supremacy and the total avoidance of any and all businesses or interactions with Muslims as a minimal goal. Affiliating to a previously unknown degree with similarly hateful monks in Sri Lanka (who have been advocates for heavy-handed tactics at least and horrific human rights violations often) from the Bodu Bala Sena, a group of Sinhalese-supremacists who discriminate against all Others in that country. Tamils felt the bulk of their wrath as the Sri Lankan military conducted a campaign of total warfare to wipe out the Tamil Tigers and shut down their armed insurgency, but active discrimination continues against them and no credible investigations, much less reparations, have been made. There have been attacks against Christian churches and Mosques as well. Now, these two mad monks have signed a formal agreement to share resources to "protect" Buddhism and to specifically target others and to be prepared to use whatever means necessary to avoid the takeover of Buddhism by Islam (or, presumably, Christianity or Judaism). It would be comical, except for the trail of dead that these monks' followers leave behind. A formal alliance to "defend global Buddhism" between these these traitors of both Buddhism and human rights can only be read with concern and not support, for it can only be read as an attempt to retrench for further attempts to create violence.

What can be done? What can you do right now?

Speak out for the Rohingya. They need affirmation and policy changes that will hold Burma accountable for rendering a million people stateless and without recourse to any life of security or safety. The Rohingya have been left in a situation desperate enough that their kids knowingly set out to sea in incredibly insufficient boats prone to sink in the open water or they volunteer to be smuggled by human traffickers into Thailand to work years of unpaid slave labor on fishing boats to repay their smugglers. They need your voice. Demand that 969 monks in Burma and Bodu Bala Sena monks in Sri Lanka take off their monastic robes. From within the body of monastic discipline and traditions that govern the robed monks in Theravada Buddhism, Wirathu and his ilk have already forfeited the monkhood for themselves and have slandered the very thing (Burmese Buddhism) they falsely claim to defend when calling for more violence against Muslims in general and the Rohingya in particular. The prohibition against monks either committing or inciting murder is severe enough that it is one of only four conditions that mandate a departure from the monkhood. In fact, it is said that any bhikku guilty of such an infraction of monastic discipline is not a monk anymore the moment the offense occurs. Neither 969 nor Bodu Bala Sena followers are allowed to wear a robe, according to the patimokkha itself. These so-called monks, and all who advocate violence as a solution, can be considered to be neither monks nor Buddhist.

In Burma, the movement to create violence against the Rohingya is an attempt to influence the elections in 2015. The bulk of the current government is leftover legacy from the military regime and those with the most to lose with a real democratic transition. Attempting to draw Daw Aung San Suu Kyi into having to issue more direct support statements for the Rohingya, the dubious Thein Sein and his allies are trying to tap into pre-existing prejudice by the Burman/Bamar majority against non-Buddhist/non-Burman Burmese (particularly against the Rohingya) to turn the tide against the NLD. They are also attempting to draw attention away from the failure to address real and extreme deficits in basic infrastructure, education, healthcare, or other fundamentals of governmental responsibility. It can not be emphasized enough that this tactics are an affront to basic human rights and to any hope of continuing a real transition towards democracy or the protection of human rights.

Oppose violence on the basis of religion and ethnicity and support the NLD and Aung San Suu Kyi in the 2015 elections in November or December of next year. All of these things can be passed on to all appropriate channels ranging from your friends, social media, your religious community as part of supporting religious freedom for all, and to your Representatives and Senators in the United States who can be asked to do so.

Contact your Representatives and Senators right now (click here for details on how) and ask them directly to speak out for religious freedoms and protections of all ethnic nationalities in Burma, especially the Rohingya. Ask them to work to support the NLD through the elections of 2015, and to support the subsequent government and all of its members to continue to speak up for the basic human rights for all peoples. Ask them too to push hard for the government in Sri Lanka to be held accountable for its violations of the human rights of the Tamil, Muslim, and Christian communities there with an independent inquiry by the United Nations and for neither Burma nor Sri Lanka to be allowed to sweep these concerns under the rug as they would like.

Buddhism is practiced by the vast majority of Burma's people, and likely always will be. But Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, Jainism, Sikhism, and many traditional religions have been present as a substantial part of Burma's history as well. Burma is not a nation of only Burman/Bamar people and diversity is the rule as much as it is and should be in the United States and other freedom-loving democracies. All peoples are entitled to religious freedom, and the freedoms associated throughout the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Politicians in Burma don't get much respect for the work they might do in government. But as this newly installed and ostensibly civilian government settles in, everyone, from Daw Aung San Suu Kyi to Thein Sein and the entirety of Parliament should be speaking up for the Rohingya and all of the peoples of Burma. Conflicts are returning or never stopped against the Chin, Kachin, Karen, and Shan and not just the Rohingya. Human rights are for all, and Burma's freedoms have been long fought for both inside the country and internationally that sought to increase freedoms and not to merely switch roles in a game of oppression. Let us move forward for human rights for all and to realizing the dream of the UDHR.

By Mark Farmaner

Huffington Post

August 15, 2014

Four years after its reform process began, Burma still has one of the worst human rights records in the world. In fact, human rights violations which break international law have actually increased, with evidence of war crimes, crimes against humanity,ethnic cleansing and even precursors of genocide all happening under President Thein Sein's rule.

These violations don't fit easily into the 'transition to democracy' narrative which the British government is trying to present about Burma.

So when Foreign office Minister Hugo Swire MP is confronted with the inconsistency of claims of reform, and ongoing human rights violations on the ground, he faces a problem. The solution British diplomats, and diplomats in the USA and the rest of Europe seem to have agreed upon, is to dismiss these abuses as 'bumps in the road'. 'No transition is going to be easy', they say. 'Of course there will be occasional setbacks', they say. 'Just being cynical isn't going to change anything', they say. 'The overall direction of travel is good', they say.

This last phrase is perhaps the most telling. What they are effectively saying is that as long as government-led reforms continue, they won't allow what is happening to the Rohingya to influence their policy of building closer relations with the Burmese government. Think about how the Burmese government will interpret this messaging. It is literally handing them a get out of jail free card to do what they like regarding the Rohingya. And as we have seen since 2012, they are playing that card at every opportunity.

Even before the reform process began the international community was united in the opinion that the situation of the Rohingya was unacceptable. They were stateless, and suffered the most severe repression of any ethnic group in Burma.

Since reforms began the situation of the Rohingya has deteriorated significantly. They have been subjected to two large-scale violent attacks. Human Rights Watch has gathered evidence of human rights violations which could constitute crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing. They also found evidence of state involvement in these violations. The UN Special Rapporteur on Burma has said that government policies on the Rohingya may constitute crimes against humanity. United to End Genocide has stated that precursors of genocide against the Rohingya now exist in Burma.

These violations of international law cannot simply be dismissed as 'bumps in the road'. Ethnic cleansing isn't just a 'bump', as Hugo Swire MP calls it. The forced displacement of 140,000 Rohingya isn't just a 'bump'. Restrictions on humanitarian aid to displaced Rohingya, resulting in immense suffering and death, are not just a 'bump'.

President Thein Sein has been more vocal against the Rohingya than any Burmese ruler in a generation. He has backed those calling for all Rohingya to be expelled from Burma, asking the UN to help find third countries for Rohingya to be settled in. He has publicly defended U Wirathu, one of the leading voices against the Rohingya and Muslims generally. He has flat out rejected reforming the 1982 Citizenship Law, which is incompatible with international law and violates Burma's UN treaty obligations.

There is undoubtedly a downward spiral for the Rohingya in Burma. Already this year we have seen aid agencies in Rakhine State expelled or forced to flee attacks. Official and unofficial restrictions on humanitarian assistance have increased. Hundreds of Rohingya prisoners who did not receive fair trials after being jailed following attacks in 2012 remain in jail. President Thein Sein went back on his promise to allow Rohingya to self-identify as Rohingya in the recent census, which was funded by the British government.

This continuing downward spiral has not prompted Hugo Swire to rethink Burma policy. The focus on promoting trade remains his priority. Unconditional training of the Burmese Army will continue.

In its defence the British government claims that it does raise these issues with the Burmese government, which is true. But President Thein Sein and his ministers are excellent tacticians. They have been outmanoeuvring the international community for decades. They are fully aware of where the British government's priorities lie, and it isn't to stop violations of international law against the Rohingya. They know the same applies to the rest of the EU, the USA, and Australia. None are willing to change their policy of partnership with the Burmese government for the sake of this Muslim minority.

So the Burmese government will continue its policy of repression against the Rohingya, trying to make the situation for them so unbearable that they leave the country. Human rights violations will continue. The growing Apartheid will become entrenched. Thousands more Rohingya will drown trying to flee Burma. More Rohingya children will die because of restrictions on humanitarian aid. But for Hugo Swire those dead children and are merely inevitable bumps in the road, the overall direction of travel is good, British companies are winning electricity contracts with the Burmese government, and there is no need for a rethink on policy.

Mark Farmaner is Director of Burma Campaign of UK.

By Tun Khin

Huffington Post

August 8, 2014

US Secretary of State John Kerry arrives in Burma tomorrow. Just days before his visit, more than 100 security forces came to an internally displaced person (IDP) camp for Rohingya in Thandawlee village in Sittwe, the capital of Arakan State in western Burma. They killed one Rohingya, seriously injured two others, and arrested more than 15 people. At the same time, Rohingyas in Buthidaung and Maungdaw, in northern Arakan State, were arrested, threatened and harassed while the government attempted to collect population data. These attacks are all too common, as impunity reigns for violence against Rohingya. As a President of Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK http://brouk.org.uk/, I call on Secretary Kerry to prioritise the situation of the Rohingya during his trip and press for accountability for these crimes.

It has been more than two years since an increase in brutal violence againstRohingya and the situation has not improved. In fact, it is getting much worse. In March of this year, hundreds of aid workers were evacuated after facing attacks from nationalist mobs. The expulsion had devastating consequences; for example, more than 150 Rohingyas and 20 pregnant women died in the two weeks after Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières, or MSF) http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/2/28/doctors-without-borderskickedoutofwesternmyanmar.html were expelled from Arakan State in March. Many children have died from malnutrition. Although MSF has now been invited back into Arakan State, there are still serious restrictions on aid and movement for the thousands of Rohingya IDPs.

To date, there has been no progress on the resettlement of displaced Rohingya. The children in IDP camps are simply dying from insufficient health care and other essential services. President Obama http://www.dvb.no/analysis/what-obama-didn%E2%80%99t-say/25003 has mentioned that Rohingya should be treated with the same dignity as all other people, but still there was little progress that translated into necessary aid for those in need.

The government of Burma uses six main methods to oppress our Rohingya community: discriminatory laws, incitement of hatred, political disenfranchisement, restricting humanitarian access, stopping economic activity, and using both state and non-state physical violence against Rohingya individuals.

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights in Burma http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=47517#.U-SzdqOtqZG has stated that the widespread and systematic human rights violations in Arakan State may constitute crimes against humanity. The US government should be supporting an international investigation into human rights abuses in Arakan State given the ongoing violence and the urgent needs of Rohingya community members.

If the US government wants to see clear progress on the Rohingya issue in Burma, Secretary Kerry should set clear and measurable timelines and benchmarks for progress, including restoring Rohingya citizenship and lifting restrictions on aid, movement, marriage and education for Rohingya.

In June a senior UN official referred to the humanitarian situation in western Burma's Arakan State as "appalling" upon concluding a four-day visit to the country.Kyung-wha Kang http://www.dvb.no/news/un-official-appalled-by-situation-in-arakan-burma-myanmar/41607, the UN assistant secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, told reporters that she witnessed "a level of human suffering in IDP [internally displaced persons] camps that I have personally never seen before."

US Secretary of State John Kerry should support an independent international investigation http://burmacampaign.org.uk/european-union-must-support-international-investigation-into-human-rights-abuses-against-rohingya/149/ into human rights abuses in Arakan. Rohingyas around the world have been calling for an international investigation since June 2012. We faced a massacre in October 2012 and again January 2014 http://brouk.org.uk/?p=85. Anti-Muslim propaganda and hate-speech have increased attacks against Muslims in Burma.

President Thein Sein's http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/refdaily?pass=463ef21123&date=2012-07-13&cat=Asia/Pacific previous request to deport all Rohingya from the country has been described as tantamount to ethnic cleansing, and has sent a signal to others in government that they can act with impunity when it comes to violence against Rohingya. An independent international investigation http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/04/22/burma-end-ethnic-cleansing-rohingya-muslims would help end the sense of impunity, establish the truth and make recommendations for action to prevent further violence.

Secretary Kerry should seize the opportunity to change the Burmese government's response to violence against Rohingya. He must put pressure on President Thein Sein to forcefully denounce hate speech against Rohingya, promote appropriate accountability for violence and crimes against Rohingya, allow humanitarian access to all parts of Arakan State, repeal the 1982 Citizenship Law that renders Rohingya stateless, and end the segregation between communities in Arakan State.

A new form of apartheid is being created to segregate us from other people of Burma. Rohingya have been put into camps or isolated villages where life will be so terrible that people will be forced to leave the country, even at great risk to their safety. I call on Secretary Kerry to do everything in his power to stem the tide of oppression and help protect the rights of our Rohingya people.

Tun Khin is President of Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK, which is playing a crucial role to provide a vital voice to policy makers around the world for the Rohingya people.

By Amjad Saleem

Huffington Post

August 5, 2014

As international community focus centres on the events unfolding in Gaza, in Myanmar, the silent genocide of the Rohingyas is still continuing as it has been for decades previously. Like the Palestinians, the Rohingya are not only stateless or lack citizenship rights, they are officially in the eyes of the Government of Myanmar, identity less. Like the Palestinians with Israel and Zionism, the Rohingya are also dealing with a racist and xenophobic system & culture that links ethnicity to religion, a purist form that ironically saw an emergence in the early 20th century with Nazism.

The entire Myanmar nation is complicit, from the president down to the grassroots, in terms of how the Rohingyas are perceived, accepted and treated. The situation is so bleak that calls for the extermination of the race of the Rohingyas are not uncommon. This intolerance is not just reserved for the Rohingya community, but observers will testify that it exists towards Muslims (and even Christians) i.e. anyone non Buddhist. These anti minority sentiments especially against the Muslims are not as some claim an 'unfortunate social consequence of transition from authoritarianism to democracy'. They are part of a decade long persecution of the community in the country often led by the authorities who have manufactured, endorsed, committed and allowed to be committed such violence. Myanmar's military in particular have played a large part in manufacturing this Burman-Buddhist nationalist ideology and institutionalizing a culture of fear and distrust of minorities. In recent times, the Military have taken a back step largely due to Myanmar's chairmanship of ASEAN as well as planned elections of 2015 as reasons why there has been a restrained effort by the government whilst indirectly proxies have been allowed to perpetuate the violence and keep alive this xenophobic nationalistic rhetoric.

It is this fear of "the other" within Myanmar's society especially when it comes to the issue of the Rohingyas that are the "elephant in the room" for the international community much more adept at black-and-white depictions of Myanmar's history as a struggle between military and "democratic" civilian forces. So far the international community have failed to put pressure on the Government or indeed its famous opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi (who has famously remained reticent on this issue). It is also an issue that donors have been reluctant to chastise the government on. If anything, the international community has gone out of its way to avoid unnecessary criticism for the fear that it could jeopardise not only the transition of the country to democracy but more importantly the economic benefits that such a transition could bring.

This can only be the reason to explain the meekness behind certain actions of the international community this year itself. Take for example, the recent apology issued by UNICEF for using the term Rohingya in an official document, something that they tried to deny. Or the violence in March of this year that saw the destruction of millions of dollars of assets of the UN and other INGOs, which caused the agencies to withdraw for a few months from humanitarian operations in the affected areas of the Rakhine State. Despite such wanton destruction, unlike in other country there was hardly an international outcry.

The recent census which took place at the beginning of the year supported largely by the international community against the advice of activists and observers is yet another example of a confused position. Despite the government's undertakings to allow a self-identification of the Rohingya as well as an agreement on allowing Rohingya enumerators to conduct the census, both of these promises were broken. People were not allowed to self -identify while in some cases, officials had to be bribed in order for people to be allowed to participate in the census. The recent violence in Myanmar's second biggest city Mandalay against the Muslim community has sparked fears of a demographic redistribution in the preemption of a census not showing the desired ethnic distribution by the extreme elements of Myanmar.

This reluctance by the International Community to engage on the issue in the hope that democracy will wash away the problems is ideologically problematic. It doesn't fully comprehend the history of community relations; minority existence and ethnic tensions of the country. There are deep seated problems which cannot be solved merely through elections and a legal system. It needs a deeper engagement between faiths and a deeper social understanding of the concept of citizenship. This needs time and patience. It needs to undo the power of the military (and their vision of nationalism) and the influence that they have even within some of Myanmar's Buddhist monasteries.

Building trust and better relationships between ethnic groups from the grassroots level should be a priority for the Myanmar government supported by the International Community. A democratic system is not just about elections, but about citizenship and understanding basic notions of political rights. Much more effort and investment needs to be undertaken to ensure that these mechanisms and institutions are set right at the grassroots level before imposing a top-down electoral process. More must be done to hold the government accountable for the role it has played in supporting organizations and movements responsible for inciting hatred and violence. Its institutions need to understand the basis of the rule of law and ensuring safety and security for all.

Otherwise, there is a great danger of repeat violence prior to next year's elections. Myanmar and its people need to fundamentally understand the roles, rights and responsibilities of citizens in a multicultural, democratic country. This takes time, effort and investment and cannot and will not be solved by prematurely pushing for a census or elections. Programs at all levels of society need to be quickly developed to teach people how they can be part of a democratic process.

If Myanmar is to truly join the global community, the floor must be open to debate the issues of the Rohingya and other ethnicities. Approaching the problem both sensitively and directly, unlike even powerful figures in the pro-democracy movement, has to be part of the international community's much-needed road map for this country. If the foundations of democratic understanding at the grassroots level are not built, the 2015 elections will be a superficial showpiece and Myanmar runs the risk of retreating back into its shell.

By Imam Khalid Latif

Huffington Post

July 5, 2014

I work as a University Chaplain for New York University and Executive Director of its Islamic Center. Throughout the month of Ramadan, we host iftar dinners for people to break their fasts every week night that are open to the community. We usually get between 200 and 300 people on average. A couple of hours before iftar time, a team of volunteers helps ensure that everything runs smoothly from start to finish. They pour water into cups, cut fresh fruits and vegetables, pass out dates, serve food to all the guests, and at times even forgo meals for themselves so that people will have more to eat. They are an amazing group that I am so grateful for.

One of our regular volunteers this year is a woman named Rahmat. She started coming to the IC this year and early on had asked if her mother could help volunteer as well. Her mother doesn't speak English and Rahmat was concerned this might be problem, but we assured her it would be fine.

The other day prior to iftar, I was told that Rahmat wanted to speak with me and she gave me the unfortunate news that her father had passed away unexpectedly. His name was Mohammed Amin and she wanted to know if I could say a special prayer for him and ask the community to pray for him as well. She said she was trying so hard to bring him to live with her and first wanted to bring her mother given the situation there. I inquired, "Where?" She replied through tears, "Burma."

The Rohingya, Ethnic Burmese Muslims, are one of the most persecuted minority groups in the world today. Riots and mob violence carried out by the Buddhist majority have been a regular occurrence, homes and stores looted and destroyed, lives lost, and much suffering sustained. Rahmat discussed some of what she had seen and her only family and friends experienced in Burma. She brought up the Qur'an and how many Muslim communities around the world will bring a haafiz, someone who has memorized the Qur'an in its entirety, to lead them in prayer each night in hopes of completing a reading of the entire scripture before the month's end. She said in her local community, there were 14 people who had memorized the Qur'an and 12 of them had been burned alive. The pain and persecution in her voice was overshadowed only by a hopelessness of being forgotten. Her people's conflict is not really paid attention to on a global stage, despite the severity and longevity of it.

I wonder at times why we are more prone to being informed of certain conflicts rather than all conflicts. On a governmental level, the common conclusion would be that intervention only takes place where our own interests are served. I would agree with that and pray that the world gives birth to leaders whose primary concern is the welfare of people rather than simply those of the elite. But my wonder here is more so around an absence of voices and understanding of people in general. Aside from the fact that most of us probably don't know where Burma is on a map, how come it doesn't find a place in our hearts? The question is not meant to inculcate guilt, but reflection. Do we just not know or is that we don't care to know?

Nicholas Kristof gives a look into what he calls "21st Century Concentration Camps" in a video op-ed for the NY Times in which he shows the harsh conditions Muslims in Burma are forced to live in by the government. "These people are completely shut off from the entire world." When he visits a state spokesman to speak about what he has seen, he is told, "The first thing I want to say is when you are in our state, don't use the word Rohingya. There is no such thing as the Rohingya Ethnicity in our country."

There are actually more than 800,000 Rohingya in his country and of them, close to 149,000 have become internally displaced in their home country since 2012. For those who have never experienced "internal-displacement" it's important to really understand was it means. IDP populations are essentially evicted from their homes by force in mass number. Cities within their own country will not welcome them in and they are forced to live in unsettled lands on their own. I have personally visited internally displaced populations in Sri Lanka made up of Muslims that were evicted from their homes on two separate occasions by the Tamil Tigers while they were in power. These people, similar to the Rohingya, are without infrastructure of any kind. They have little to no food, virtually no medicine that resulted in children dying of illnesses that could easily be cured with simple vaccinations, no sewage systems, no places for real education, and much more.

Rahmat's request of me was to pray for her father, Mohammed Amin, and for her people, the Rohingya. Whatever walk of life you come from, please do keep them in your thoughts and prayers. For those who are fasting, encourage your community leaders, imams, khateebs and others to pray for the Rohingya with the community at large, especially in the blessed nights of Ramadan, and try to contribute to them whatever you are able to.

Imam Khalid Latif is blogging his reflections during the month of Ramadan for the fourth year in a row, featured daily on HuffPost Religion. For a complete record of his previous posts, visit his author page, and to follow along with the rest of his reflections, sign up for an author email alert above, visit his Facebook page or follow him on Twitter.

By Andrea Gittleman

Huffington Post

June 23, 2014

In some areas of remote Rakhine State in western Burma (officially the Union of Myanmar), mothers struggle to find medicine for their sick children, people avoid visiting clinics for fear of violence, and entire communities face serious illness and even death from preventable diseases. This black hole of medical care - created specifically to punish members of the minority Rohingya ethnic group - threatens millions of people in Rakhine State.

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof captured the severity of the denial of health care and its devastating effects on Rohingya families in his recent series of articles and videos. He chronicled the despair of a pregnant woman in need of assistance during a complicated delivery, the hopelessness of a man left maimed after a violent attack by a mob, and the complacent - and even gleeful - response of their Buddhist neighbors. Kristof rightly points out that the heart of this humanitarian disaster is deeply engrained hatred against Rohingya and other Muslims. Kristof interviewed one young Buddhist boy who remarked that if he saw a Muslim boy his own age, he'd kill him.

Nothing about the hatred, discrimination, or violence against the Rohingya is accidental. While limited resources and poor infrastructure are real problems in Burma, the lack of accessible health care in Rakhine State is not just a result of poor government management. The outright denial of essential services for Rohingya is state policy. It is an immoral and - under international law - illegal extension of the codified discrimination that Rohingya communities face in nearly every aspect of their lives.

Rohingya in Burma are rendered stateless by their non-inclusion in the country's 1982 citizenship law that lists accepted national ethnicities. In addition to the discrimination and inability to access services that accompanies statelessness, the Rohingya also face strict restrictions on movement, marriage, and family choice. These discriminatory policies are officially sanctioned, as revealed in documents obtained by Fortify Rights earlier this year.

A recent government decision that has particularly affected the Rohingya community was the deliberate suspension of health care for those in need. In late February 2014, the Burmese authorities issued an order suspending the operation of Médécins sans Frontières (MSF) across the entire country after the group reportedly provided care to Rohingya with injuries allegedly sustained during a violent attack. A few days later, the order was reversed for almost all areas of the country except for Rakhine State, where most of the Rohingya population lives. The suspension order remains in place in Rakhine, where the tens of thousands of people who relied solely on MSF's services now have no access to health care at all. To this day, MSF is unable to conduct its life-saving work in the state, and the Burmese government has publicly given little indication that it will change its course.

In an expression of serious concern for the public health ramifications of MSF's expulsion, 35 experts from the medical and public health fields called on the Government of Burma to reverse the suspension of MSF in Rakhine State, arguing that such a denial of basic health care would have devastating consequences. Those suffering from HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis have been left without access to treatment, which could result in increased deaths and even more intractable, treatment-resistant diseases.

The Burmese government has offered to fill the gap left by the expulsion of MSF, but they are unlikely to be able or willing to do so. The local health ministry does not have the capacity to reach all those served by MSF, and stories abound of violence against the Rohingya within government health centers. Many Rohingya generally avoid accessing health care through government channels out of fear of attack.

If the Government of Burma wanted to stem the humanitarian disaster, they would - at a minimum - reverse the order suspending the operation of MSF. If the government wanted to address the root cause of the crisis, it would revise the citizenship law that has rendered the Rohingya stateless, revoke discriminatory orders that restrict the daily life of Rohingya people, and hold perpetrators of violence against Rohingya accountable for their actions.

In her latest book, former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton lauded improvements in Burma as a hallmark of her successes at the helm of U.S. foreign policy, but any reforms are woefully insufficient if codified discrimination, deliberate denial of health care, and perpetual violence continue. Any country mired in ethnic violence, where perpetrators enjoy impunity, cannot be called a success story.