By Paul Vrieze

Frontier Myanmar
June 4, 2016

U Kyaw Hla Aung, a renowned Rohingya leader, worked for decades as a clerk at Rakhine State Court, later becoming a lawyer. In the 1980s, he was debarred and imprisoned due to the military governments’ repressive policies towards the Muslim minority. He has now been jailed four times as a political prisoner; including two stints following the 2012 inter-communal violence.

In an April interview at his home in Thet Kel Pyin Village, next to the sprawling internally displaced persons camps in Sittwe, Kyaw Hla Aung spoke to Frontier about life for the Rohingya before they became stateless under the 1982 Citizenship Law, the groups’ hopes under the National League for Democracy government and recent developments in Rakhine State.

Do you think the NLD government will improve the situation for the Rohingya?

The future is not so good because Aung San Suu Kyi is not giving any green light to us. She is always denying and dodging journalists’ questions about the Rohingya people. She is afraid of her own community and also the Rakhine community. When the NLD won we were very happy, she said she would restore law and order, but now we don't know. She is very overburdened with so many challenges.

Also, when we were cancelled from the voting lists in 2015, she didn't say anything to journalists about this. In the 1990 elections [which the army annulled], we were among the elected parliament members. She knows many elected Rohingya, but now she didn't mention anything about them.

How does the community feel about the government revoking the white cards, the last official ID for Rohingya, and with it voting rights?

We had been voting since independence in 1948, up to the 2010 elections. Now they are denying all our votes. It’s a great loss for us, but we have no strength and we can’t even go to downtown Sittwe to complain to the government to tell them about our suffering. Because of this I’m telling it to you as a journalist.

Since 1960, I was a state court stenographer for 22 years and then I became a lawyer. But after my conviction I lost my lawyer’s license and also my pension. Now, I cannot even vote.

What do you think of the NLD decision in May to reportedly resume the controversial citizenship verification process? 

No one here will accept this process because on the survey form there are all sorts of questions that imply we are foreigners. It’s Form 65 for foreigners and has questions such as: which country did you come from, how many years have you been here, and how did you enter the country?

People are very sad now because the NLD did nothing for us yet and they have had no contact with us. And how can any party help us? No party can help because they cannot even get our vote, we have no voting rights.

You said you saw many Bangladeshis in Sittwe Prison, were they caught immigrating illegally to northern Rakhine?

They were arrested while they were fishing in Myanmar waters. This idea that many Bangladeshis are coming is not true, this is propaganda. No [Rohingya] who is from here can even travel from one township to another, so how could they come here? And why would they come here? This is a troubled place! If I could gather all my people and take them to live in another place, even an island, I would take them there!

I read you still have some of your original 1950s citizenship documents?

I have National Registration Cards that were issued in 1959 and 1963. My wife has them, and my parents had them too. My father was a government administrator working in the state court as a head clerk for 40 years. We lived in downtown Sittwe for 60 years, but now we have had to abandon our land and our mosque, and live here.

Since 30 years ago the government didn't issue any registration to our people. Now, they are alleging we are all here as illegal immigrants. (Kyaw Hla Aung searches in his home and returns with yellow, faded IDs of his family, his lawyer’s degree, old photos and official letters.)

They burned my house during the conflict on June 11, 2012, to destroy my law books, my files and my papers. But two days earlier, I could pass on my important papers to a Burmese lady living nearby, she passed it on to my son in Yangon, otherwise these would have been destroyed.

Can you comment on the argument over the term Rohingya and whether they are from here?

In 1948 so many East-Pakistanis [now Bangladesh] and Indians were living here, shopkeepers and so on. [The authorities] didn't call us Pakistani or Indian or Bengali—at that time they called us Rakhine or Arakan Muslims, or Rohingya. After 1962, all foreigners were driven back to their old countries, India, Pakistan and so on, and their properties were nationalised.

But we lived here as citizens and had our jobs. I applied in 1960 for a job with the state court, my father was also working there. At that time, so many government officials and policemen were Rohingya. But after General Ne Win ruled, bit by bit no more Rohingya were accepted into state jobs and only Buddhists were given their jobs.

Since 1982 the government did not issue any documentation to us, there were even no more birth certificates for Rohingya babies. So this allegation that Rohingya people are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh is not true.

Now, these people are suffering, they get no education, no healthcare, they need to get travel permits and then pay lots of bribes. Before we could stand for election, we had registration cards, with these we could get jobs and travel anywhere, now we cannot.

Are there any activities that you are currently involved with?

We set up an Education Committee in 2012 [and] I was its chairman. But the government destroyed it, so there is no proper education here in the camps and villages. Now in 2016, with the new government, we are trying to set it up again … We want to give education to children, otherwise illiteracy will be high.

This is more important than healthcare. If people cannot go to the hospital maybe 500 or 1,000 can die in a year, but after five years of no education the whole community will die … Only (INGO) Save the Children constructed schools village by village, but there are no teachers. There are some efforts to provide some teachers for schools in the IDP camps, but there are none in rural areas. So people there cannot send their children to school and travel to other schools [with teachers] is very difficult, especially in rainy season.

Title photo: Kyaw Hla Aung shows his original, laminated 1963 National Registration Card. (Paul Vrieze / Frontier)

Newsmakers: Myanmar’s Divided People “Rohingya”

In the panel discussion on The Newsmakers, Mr Tun Khin President “Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK” & Penny Green Director “International State Crime Initiative” Highlighted that how GENOCIDE ON ROHINGYA is going on in this 21st century and international community is ignoring this ROHINGYA GENOCIDE.

Mr Tun Khin said We Rohingya need to wait for two to three years to get permission to get marry, after passing all level of exams we cannot go to the higher education university. Our lands were confiscated by military this is what we face for many decades in Burma, even until today the worst situation we are facing in 21st century.

What international legal experts especially what Penny Green director International State Crime Initiative mentioned that we are facing Genocide today, we are in the worst situation in 21st century where international community is ignoring this Rohingya genocide issue.

Penny Green said we visited the camps area where at least around a hundred and forty thousand Muslims Rohingya are now interned effectively, we visited villages which are effectively prison villages because the rohingya there cannot live, and what we found was a fairly a very desperate situation in fact we found. The question that we went out with was true to explore whether or not the persecution which we knew the rohingya to be suffering was in fact genocide! And what we found was in fact genocide!!

For our purposes genocide is a process and it seems very clear to us that the Rohingya are facing the fourth stage in the genocidal of process, the stage before “mass annihilation”

Burmese Racism: Interview by Gesellschaft für bedrohte Völker (GfbV)

In-depth self-reflective Interview with the Society for the Threatened Peoples recorded on the sidelines of the Human Rights Council, Geneva, 14 March 2016 

Gesellschaft für bedrohte Völker (GfbV)

Vom Rassisten zum Menschenrechtler: Im Interview spricht der burmesische Aktivist Maung Zarni über seinen persönlichen Wandel und sein Engagement für die muslimischen Rohingya.

Maung Zarni is a Burmese scholar and human rights activist based in the UK. In this interview he talks about his work on behalf of the Rohingya and his own change: from having racist attitudes towards the Rohingya towards the awareness that they are his fellow countrymen, deserving of the same rights everyone else.

By Moe Myint

The Irrawaddy

March 30, 2016

After his appointment to the role of Arakan State Chief Minister by the National League for Democracy (NLD), party member and Lower House MP Nyi Pu spoke to The Irrawaddy’s Moe Myint on Tuesday about the local opposition to his selection for the post, the state level cabinet and terminology regarding the state’s Muslim minority. 

Locals have been protesting against you and the NLD. What do you think about this?

I have heard there are several protests. All those matters are concerning the development of Arakan State and maybe they are expressing their personal wishes. I have nothing special to say about that [to protestors]. I would like to say that people should do what benefits their state.

If these rallies continue happening, what will you do? 

I can’t say precisely what is going to happen next, it’s really difficult to say. As I said, if we have difficulties, we have to solve them together.

Many Arakanese have strong ideas regarding partisanship. What challenges could you face as the chief minister of Arakan State? 

There may be some difficulties in Arakan State, but no matter whether we call them challenges or difficulties, we will try our best and collaborate with others to solve the problems—people who can help us. I will cooperate with them, but I haven’t specified who that might be.

The NLD government has decreased the number of Union ministries and ministers. What will the state-level cabinet look like? Will the number of state level ministers also decrease? 

It is possible. I don’t know exactly right now. It is uncomfortable to say because it hasn’t officially been announced yet. I have selected some people. The central authorities [of the NLD] are choosing.

NLD chairwoman Aung San Suu Kyi met with the 14 appointed Union ministers in Naypyidaw last week and they reportedly discussed their conceptual plan for the first 100 days in power. Do you have a strategy for your first 100 days as chief minister? 

We had a plan, but later, when we start to serve our duties, I will discuss and negotiate these matters with the state level ministers who are involved in the cabinet. We have many things to do. After the discussion, we will decide which matters should be targeted as the first priorities.

Would you give some examples of that? 

They will concern Arakan State development.

After Arakan State’s riots in 2012, many people became displaced and were forced to seek shelter in refugee, or IDP, camps within the region. Community tensions have not eased yet and security has been heightened in several quarters and villages. How will you proceed—will you maintain these camps in the same manner as the previous administration?

I can’t say exactly at this time and haven’t discussed this.

Many locals refer to the people in these camps as ‘Bengali’ and allege that they migrated from Bangladesh, but many in the international community know them as ‘Rohingya.’ As you are an ethnic Arakanese minister, how do you regard them—which term will you use?

Before us, the previous government already specified which to use the word for them and Suu Kyi has considered it too, recently. That is all I can say.

So, you are going to follow the previous government’s usage?

At the moment, that still exists.

When the Arakan State state speaker read your name as the chief minister appointee to the regional legislature, all of the Arakan National Party (ANP) MPs walked out on Monday. Can you comment on that? 

I realize they had [their own] feelings about how to develop their state and they showed their dissatisfaction. That’s all.

On the ground, are there any bad relationships between NLD and ANP MPs? 

Not bad, but we have some difficulties—they vary but they are difficult to unveil.

Suu Kyi meet with Naypyidaw-based ANP MPs and asked about collaboration. You are the one who has to talk everyday with Sittwe-based ANP MPs. Have you asked also them for collaboration on the ground?

Collaboration is the designated policy of our party and I will do as much as I can, based on the party’s policies.

According to state media, the state of emergency that had been placed on Arakan State in June 2012 following communal riots was lifted on Monday, on the second to last day of the outgoing administration’s term. It also coincided with the protests mentioned earlier. What do you think about the government’s decision to do this? Was it intentional or coincidental?

When it is retracted, people are independent and they can protest freely. People also protested due to the military regime. In a democratic country, it is [their right to do this]. I have no feeling about this.

By Voice of America
March 23, 2016

Myanmar democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's name is among those on a list to serve in the National League for Democracy (NLD) government's Cabinet. It gives her a formal role in the new administration following November's electoral landslide victory. It is uncertain what post, or posts, she will be named to.

The Nobel laureate, and NLD leader, who has indicated she plans to rule above president-elect Htin Kyaw (tihn jaw), is barred by the constitution from serving as president because her late husband was, and her two childen are each, a foreigner. Myanmar activist and member of the Cambodia-based Sleuk Rith Institute Maung Zarni told VOA's Victor Beattie he welcomes the announcement, but cautions the military remains very much in charge of the direction of the country:

And, Maung Zarni says it is not in the military's interest in seeing the NLD push through reform to liberalize the political system. He points to the multiple coups instigated by the military in neighboring Thailand as an example of how prominent he expects the army to remain in Myanmar.

By RJ VOGT 

Myanmar Times

March 21, 2016

Richard Cockett, a historian and journalist who’s been travelling Myanmar to promote his new book Blood, Dreams and Gold: The Changing Face of Burma, sat down with The Myanmar Times’ RJ Vogt to discuss his years of research and travel in Myanmar.

The book, which is touted as an overview of contemporary Myanmar, is based on hundreds of interviews Cockett conducted around the country during his work covering Southeast Asia for The Economist. He recently gave talks to the Yangon School of Political Science, the British Council and other groups based on his studies of Myanmar.

What kind of people have you been speaking to at these events?

What I wanted to do is communicate to Burmese people. At the British Council we had hundreds of people there, I reckon over 200. They were kind of swamped. And also at the Yangon School of Political Science. But the other events have been mostly foreigners. So it’s been a mix.

How did the book come together?

For The Economist, I was coming here many times a year: four, five, six times a year, and often for many weeks. So I got to see a lot of people.

Are there some interviews that stick out in your memory?

I had some long interviews with some of the older, senior leaders of the NLD. Win Tin, probably about a year before he died. He gave me an interview for several hours – U Tin Oo as well. They were fascinating, set-piece ones. But I was also travelling around the country, so there were long interviews with survivors of the Kachin Forces during the Second World War who were attached to the American Special Forces.

You first started visiting and interviewing people here in 2010, when the country was still under a military regime. How do you see the effects of opening up – things such as mobile technology – in modern Myanmar?

Mobile telephony has been hugely improved, but again – only in the Bamar heartland. If you go up into Kachin State or Chin State, the internet barely works. It has very slow speed, people can hardly use it and mobile reception is still very bad. I’m sure that will improve, spreading the masts [telephone lines] … that’s very impressive. But they were deprived of all that by the military regimes. They’ve got a long way to catch up. When people say Burma is now super-connected … there’s some big caveats there: Parts of central Burma, particularly in the cities, now have greater access. But the rest of the country doesn’t.

Which raises the question of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD party and the new proxy president, U Htin Kyaw – what are they going to do first in this new age of change? Where’s the priority?

It’s extremely obscure. Nobody really knows, which I think is mainly because they themselves don’t really know. The key word here [in Myanmar] is patience. The people here have been patient for 60 years and they eventually got peaceful change, so they’re not in any hurry to move it on. The NLD knows they still have huge forces opposed to them. It’s a balancing act now between democratically elected parliament and the military, which still has control over several key ministries. The room to manoeuvre is there, the space is there, but they’re very hemmed in. Do you confront this now? Or do you play a long game and wait for people to come over to you? I don’t think they know yet.

Many Western nations have clamoured for action on the ongoing Rohingya crisis. Based on your research, what do you think Daw Aung San Suu Kyi will do about the Rohingya – who are officially referred to as Bengalis – in Rakhine State?

Well the Rohingya issue is very big in the West. But the Rohingya issue is symptomatic of a wider issue in the whole of Burma. It’s: how do you treat the existing diversity of the country? Whether the Burman authorities like it or not, this is a very diverse country with lots of different ethnic groups in it. And the treatment meted out to the Rohingya in the past three to four years is very little different to the treatment that was handed to the Karen, the Kachin, the Shan, the Chin, et cetera since the early 1960s. And they are citizens! They are … citizens, but this “paper” definition of citizenship has done them no good at all. They have been subjected to exactly the same persecution, and some of them have called it genocide too. It’s part of a wider problem in Burma – indeed; it is the essential problem of Myanmar today. As Aung San Suu Kyi takes over, she says her priority is the peace process. Well, how you reconcile the Burmans with the ethnic minorities of this country is the central issue of the peace process. And that’s got to include the Rohingya.

And yet, in your book, you note that Yangon is “unequalled in its atmosphere of religious tolerance”. How can a country so rife with ethnic and religious conflict have such a peacefully cosmopolitan population centre?

This is the crux of what can save the new Myanmar. The most vivid example for me is … the synagogue on 26th Street. I spent a couple of pages on this: When I first went in there I met the caretaker of the synagogue. And the caretaker is a Sunni Muslim. So I asked him, if he had a problem as a Muslim, being a caretaker for the Jewish synagogue. And he, he didn’t understand the question. He didn’t understand why I would ask that.

But why? What about Yangon makes that kind of peaceful coexistence possible?

It works here because originally they all came here with the same aim: to make money, to trade. And that’s what bound them together. It’s the same plural society that remains in Mawlamyine. J.S. Furnivall, when he used the term “plural society”, he used it as a criticism. He was against the forces of globalisation. He saw these immigrants destroying Burman national life. Which, to a degree, they did. But amongst themselves, they were remarkably tolerant because they were all working toward the same end. And I would argue that it’s even better now, after 60 years, because they’ve all intermarried. They look after each other because it’s in their interest to do so, and the reason they haven’t been driven apart is because they’ve been isolated from the rest of the world. So I would actually invert it – I think downtown Yangon is a model of what a real plural society should be. It’s one of the very, very rare places in the world where all these different ethnic groups really do look after and mutually support each other.

By Al Jazeera

March 11, 2016

After her party won a landslide victory in parliamentary elections last year, Nobel peace prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi was well-placed to lead Myanmar.

But her two sons are British, and under the country's military-drafted constitution, that prevents her from becoming president.

Having failed to convince the army to let her run anyway, she has named Htin Kyaw, a man from her inner circle, as presidential nominee.

It's widely seen as a way for Suu Kyi to rule Myanmar indirectly.

On this Inside Story, we look at the deal that's been done to allow Suu Kyi to stay at the pinnacle of Myanmar's politics.

And ask, will she have to compromise with the military?

Presenter: Mike Hanna

Guests:

Sam Zarifi - Regional director, Asia and the Pacific at the International Commission of Jurists.

Kyaw Zwa Moe - Editor at The Irrawaddy Magazine (English edition) 

Maung Zarni - Burmese scholar and dissident based in the UK

By Mélinda Trochu

Equal Times

February 18, 2016

By Nyan Lynn Aung

Myanmar Times

February 9, 2016

The Myanmar Times’ Nyan Lynn Aung interviews U Nyi Pu, National League for Democracy’s chair for Rakhine State and a Pyithu Hluttaw representative from Gwa township constituency 2, also rumoured to be in line for the state chief minister’s post.

The National League for Democracy did not win a large number of votes in Rakhine State and most seats went to the third-largest party in the country, the Arakan National Party (ANP). How do you think the two parties will be able to negotiate?

Since the beginning, before and after the election, we have said that we would cooperate and negotiate with ethnic parties. But some people wrongly interpreted what we said and accused the NLD of not offering negotiations and deceiving people. In fact, the NLD always opens the door [to negotiations]. They [other parties] have to show their willingness to engage [and tell us] which type of negotiation they want or what kind of topic they want to discuss.

Do you think the appointment of the state chief minister will be a problem in Rakhine State?

In my opinion, there is no significant problem. There are laws and by-laws for this. When the NLD heads the central government, the state government structure and minister appointment process will go as usual.

Former chief minister U Maung Maung Ohn had the backing of the military while dealing with problems, and was even able to travel by helicopter in the state. Who do you think will be more effective dealing with problems – a military-backed minister or a civilian-backed minister?

I believe that the people prefer the civilian government they elected over a government backed by the military.

What are the main challenges in Rakhine State for human rights and nationalism? How should these issues be balanced?

From my point of view, the first point is stability. The second point is the leadership of the government and the development of the region. For stability, there are many questions. Instability occurred in the state previously for various reasons. Who did it and why did they do it? Did they do it for political reasons, or for their own interest? Is it real nationalism? It is too early to answer these questions at the moment.

But if an inclusive government, elected by our people, leads the government, the situation will change. There will be no repetition. People don’t want to see loss and suffering. I think they are now working for development. So, creating stability is a possibility now, more than before.

Another important issue in Rakhine State is security, because the west coastal line is long and security is still weak. What is your plan for this when you are in the parliament?

There are a host of important issues in the region. Rakhine State is pretty unusual compared to other areas. Besides, the state’s economic development is extremely low. There are many things we have to work on to improve the situation.

We have to set the first priority and then a second in order to settle these problems. Some cases we will have to settle carefully, others more evidently. We will have to do it so that we can see change as quickly as possible. Other things, we will have to think twice to change them.

Security, regional development and the economic sector will be the main sectors to work on.

Do you have any further comments?

As everybody knows, significant changes can be seen in our country. There will be opportunities for us due to the changes we have seen. We all need to appreciate the situation and see the positive consequences of these changes. If not, anything we strived for will be ruined and the precious changes will not have any value.

Translation by Zar Zar Soe and Thiri Min Htun

By Phyo Thiha Cho

Myanmar Now 

February 1, 2016

YANGON -- As the National League for Democracy (NLD) prepares to take over from the army-backed government of President Thein Sein it faces the challenge of getting a handle on government institutions and possibly reforming them.

One such institution is the General Administration Department (GAD), which functions as the backbone of local administration throughout the country. The GAD falls under the Home Affairs Ministry, which is controlled by an army general in accordance with the Constitution. It pervades Myanmar’s civil service from the state and region level, down to the district, township, village and ward levels.

Created in 1972, the GAD grants Myanmar’s army chief direct, centralised control over government administration down to the lowest level. This mechanism raises questions over whether the NLD can wield effective control over government machinery. The GAD will also have to be reformed and civil service control decentralised to states and regions if ethnic minorities’ demands for a federal union are to be met.

Ko Ni, a Supreme Court lawyer who is a legal advisor to the NLD, spoke to Myanmar Now reporter Phyo Thiha Cho about the importance of bringing the GAD under civilian control and decentralising its powers.

Question: What needs to be done to address the decades-old problem of bad governance in Myanmar?

Answer: The former military leader Ne Win formulated a general administration system that is controlled by a single government agency (the GAD). All the 14 states and regions’ civil services are under the management of Ministry of Home Affairs. The same practice was kept up by the military government after the 1988 coup.

In accordance with the 2008 Constitution, there are 15 governments - the central government and the 14 state and region governments. It is a seemingly liberal administration system for respective states and regions without obvious controls of the central government.

But actually the whole country is administered by the General Administration Department and the Myanmar Police Force, which are under the Ministry of Home Affairs. Its minister is appointed by the military chief. So, all the levels of the administration system are under the authority of the military chief.

Q: There are elected officials in some of the local government units, such as on village level, working alongside the GAD, but it seems the GAD handles most of the governing and has the most authority. Is that correct? 

A: Yes, this is a highly centralised system of government. Actually, the state and region parliaments elect their government members and have their own chief ministers (appointed by the president). 

States and regions should be able to appoint their civil service staff, as well as police members. And then they would not have to depend on the central government and could control a lot of administration processes. Their respective ministries could find budget for their own government.

But as the central government is currently taking power on these processes (through the GAD), the (state and regions’) local ministries have no authority in their own areas.

Q: What should the new government do with regards to reforming the GAD if it wants to create a real federal union?

A: Most of the military members, the government and our NLD party now want to develop our country with a federal administration system. In doing so, the whole administration system must be changed. The control of General Administration Department on all the government procedures is contrary to the federal system and should be abolished.

Q: Some say at least parts of the 2008 Constitution meet the norms of a federal system. Is that right?

A: It cannot be said the 2008 Constitution has some norms of a federal system. It completely lacks federal practices. It is just a fake ‘federal constitution’ because it does not grant full authority of administration to state and regional governments. 

The Constitution said the local governments are responsible for supporting the central government’s efforts to ensure peace and rule of law. In fact, (in case of a federal union) the central government must not intervene in the administration of local governments at all. But the central government now has full authority over the whole country and the local government lacks real power.