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Protest during Suu Kyi's Canada visit (Photo-KCC)

By Saw Lay Khu Wah
June 15, 2017

Anyone working for social justice in Burma should be disappointed by the mainstream media’s coverage of Aung San Suu Kyi’s visit to Canada last week. Given ongoing military abuses throughout Burma’s ethnic regions, it was frustrating to see headlines focusing again and again that Canada must press Aung San Suu Kyi regarding her government’s brutal treatment of Rohingya Muslim communities in Rakhine State, while ignoring the plight of other ethnic peoples in Burma.

Never once during the week was there any mention of the ongoing war in Kachin State that has displaced as many as a 100,000. On June 9, the day that Aung San Suu Kyi attended a Burmese community event at Toronto City Hall, was the sixth anniversary of the resumption of the Kachin war. However, the only Canadian media coverage of the event, an article in the Toronto Star, was silent on this issue. There was also no discussion of ongoing military occupation in ceasefire zones such as Karen State, where thousands of displaced villagers staged demonstrations last month.

In short, media coverage gave the Burmese military a free ride, while focusing all criticisms on Aung San Suu Kyi’s government’s treatment of the Rohingya.

The focus on Rohingya suffering is understandable, and we are certainly not arguing that this coverage should stop. To the contrary, it needs to be set in the context of historical and ongoing patterns of Burmese military abuses. Singularly focusing on the Rohingya does not do justice to the suffering of other non-Burman ethnic peoples in the country. It also creates the simplistic notion that if only the government would uphold human rights of Rohingya, Burma’s problems would be solved. However, Burmese military oppression is systemic in nature and permeates all of the military’s dealings with non-Burman ethnic communities.

Simplistic media portrayals of the situation in Burma are very troubling when we consider international development assistance to the central government. If international donors like Canada do not understand the complex situation in Burma, they risk subsidizing the Burmese government’s continuing efforts to oppress and control the ethnic peoples. Our Karen community in Canada is very concerned with recent funding announcements by the Canadian government totaling CAD $28.8 million. We are worried that this funding will be distributed through central Burmese government channels, marginalizing ethnic civil society that continues to be a much-needed lifeline for conflict-affected communities.

The following case illustrates the impact of ongoing media marginalization of our Karen community in Canada.
On June 9, our Karen community staged a demonstration in front of Toronto City Hall, while Aung San Suu Kyi attended an event with the Burmese community inside. Kachin and Rohingya communities staged concurrent protests. Our protest groups were gathered in the same area, all with strong messages condemning ongoing war, militarization, and human rights abuses in Burma. It was a perfect opportunity for Canadian news media to become more informed about the human rights situation in Burma. However, the resulting Toronto Star article only contained passing reference to the Rohingya protest, completely ignoring the Kachin and Karen demonstrations.

The Irrawaddy article covering our Karen demonstration made the opposite mistake, including reference to the Kachin protest nearby, but never mentioning the demonstration by our Rohingya brothers and sisters.

Media narratives that narrowly focus on single issues can be used to divides us and undermine our common struggle for justice. Following the demonstration, racist elements in the Burmese-Canadian community began attacking the Rohingya online. One of these attackers referenced incomplete coverage in both the Toronto Star and the Irrawaddy to bolster his attacks, taking to social media to claim that our Karen and Kachin protestors “keep a distance” from the Rohingya.

This is patently untrue. In fact, we collaborated with our Rohingya counterparts in organizing our joint events. Although there were times when our demonstrations diverged, we stood in solidarity together against the same oppressors – the Burmese military. We also agreed to work together more closely with our Rohingya brothers and sisters in the future, and to combat racist and Islamophobic attitudes that persist among some in the overseas Burmese community. There is no room for racism or discrimination in our movement.

The mainstream media’s singular focus on the Rohingya issue is unhelpful, as it overlooks ongoing suffering of other ethnic peoples under the same military oppression. There is a need for more informed media reporting on Burma issues to demonstrate that the plight of Rohingya and other ethnic nationalities in Burma are all part of the same root problem – denial of basic human rights and equal right to life for all ethnic peoples in Burma. This realization should build more unity in our resistance, for only in unity will we have the strength to prevail.

Saw Lay Khu Wah is an informed Karen Community member in Canada. He can be reached at sawsroecho@gmail.com.



April 29, 2015

Human Rights advocates, Fortify Rights urged the US State Department to “assign Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, and Bangladesh a tier-three ranking in its forthcoming Trafficking in Persons (TIP).

Fortify Rights in a statement to the media said the tier-three ranking would “encourage more robust and effective action to combat human trafficking,” by the three Southeast Asian countries.

Fortify Rights executive director Matthew Smith, used the US Trafficking Victims Protection Act to back up his organization’s claims that “in 2014, these countries failed to meet the minimum standards for the elimination of human trafficking.”

Mr Smith was speaking last week to a hearing before the US House of Representatives Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations where he presented a 15-page written testimony to the subcommittee.

Fortify Rights said its testimony was “based on hundreds of interviews conducted by Fortify Rights with witnesses and survivors of abuse and more than a dozen human traffickers.”

Fortify Rights said its testimony covered “abuses against Rohingya Muslims, who are fleeing state-sponsored violence in Myanmar, and ethnic Kachin and Shan individuals who have been displaced by ongoing armed conflict along the Myanmar-China border.”

Fortify Rights that as many as “650,000 Rohingya are displaced in Myanmar and Bangladesh and are at particular risk of being trafficked.”

Fortify Rights placed the blame for the humanitarian crisis on the Myanmar government.

“Myanmar is responsible for setting this regional crisis in motion through its ongoing campaign of persecution against the Rohingya,” said Matthew Smith. “Rohingya are being driven into the hands of human traffickers.”

Fortify Rights explained that “many Rohingya have fled to neighboring Bangladesh to escape violence, ongoing deprivations in aid, and policies of discrimination in Myanmar. However, the government of Bangladesh has deliberately denied Rohingya protection and aid, leading tens of thousands to take dangerous and risky boat journeys to Thailand or Malaysia.”

Fortify Rights allege that “trafficking brokers in Myanmar and Bangladesh often deceive Rohingya into believing that they will be transported to Malaysia, a major destination country for Rohingya. Instead, they are ferried to international waters and crammed into modern-day slave ships bound for Thailand.”

Fortify Rights claimed it had “documented killings, rape, torture, and deprivations of food and water during the journey at sea.”

Fortify Rights claim that when the trafficked people reach “Thai territory, “passengers” are transported to trafficking camps located in remote jungles and on islands where they face torture and other abuses until they can buy their freedom or are sold to the highest bidder. Rohingya women and girls have been sold into forced marriages and a potential lifetime of sexual and domestic servitude. Men have been sold to fishing boat captains as slave labor.”

Fortify Rights said Thailand had to do more to combat the trafficking of people into its territory, “Thailand prosecuted fewer human traffickers in 2014 than it did in 2013. Moreover, Thai authorities reported a mere five cases of human trafficking involving Rohingya in 2014.”

Fortify Rights claims that government officials in “Myanmar and Thailand have been complicit in a deadly trade in Rohingya asylum seekers that has generated up to $250 million dollars for transnational criminal syndicates since 2012.”

Mr Smith, Fortify Rights executive director, said that human trafficking was big business. “Traffickers are getting rich while asylum seekers pay with their lives, if the US government wants to see an end to this slave trade, it should hold these countries accountable to the established standards.”




April 12, 2014

A human rights advocacy group calls for investigation into Britain’s decision to give millions in aid money to assist the Burma government’s census as international criticism mounts over the census process.

Burma Campaign UK, a human rights advocacy group based in Britain, has called for an official inquiry into the “decision making process” that saw Britain’s government decide to give $16m in aid money for Burma’s census.

Burma Campaign UK questioned why Britain’s’ Department for International Development (DFID) was funding the census that is racist. “British aid is paying for a census which discriminates against the Rohingya.”

Mark Farmener, Director of Burma Campaign UK, claimed that the census trampled human rights. “This census has been disastrous, and led to children dying, and it’s all underpinned by international aid, including £10m from DFID,” he said.

Burma’s government is facing mounting criticism from international human rights groups for excluding the country’s ethnic Rohingya in the national census – instead labeling them as ‘Bengali’ thus implying they are foreigners – with even the United Nations agency tasked with carrying out the census expressing “deep concern” over the process.

In an April 1st statement, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) went as far as to point out that the census it was funding was a “departure from international census standards, human rights principles and agreed procedures.”

The UNPA said that Burma’s government had reneged on a previous understanding that ethnic groups could freely declare their ethnicity, including the Rohingya.

“It [the Burma government] explicitly agreed with the condition that each person would be able to declare what ethnicity they belong to, including those who wish to record their identity as of mixed ethnicity… Just before the start of the census, however, senior officials announced that people who wish to define their ethnicity as Rohingya will not be able to do so,” the UNFPA said.

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Myanmar, Tomás Ojea Quintana, warned that the deteriorating situation in Rakhine State could amount to “crimes against humanity.”

Mr. Quintana was also critical of the Burma government census. “It is not only in Rakhine State that people object to the ethnic categories included in the census,” he said. “It became clear during my discussions with communities in Kachin State that the Government has approached the census without sufficient or meaningful consultation with all affected communities.”

UNHCR estimates that there are 140,000 people now living in displacement camps who had fled inter-communal violence in Rakhine State, with perhaps a further 700,000 vulnerable people outside the camps.

Karen News
(Photo: Reuters)
June 12, 2013

Britain’s Foreign Office Minister says investigation into ethnic conflict in Burma is needed. 

Britain’s Foreign Office Minister Baroness Warsi noted in parliament that “independent investigative work” is required for “an informed assessment as to whether ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity have been committed” in Burma.

The statement came on Wednesday, 5 June, in which Baroness Warsi was speaking in a debate on Burma in the House of Lords.

The Minister stopped short of proposing a way to set up an independent international investigation, as called for by Human Rights Watch.

The remarks come as international concern grows over the treatment of Burma’s ethnic Rohingya. Ethnic tensions between segments of Burma’s Buddhist majority and the minority Muslim Rohingya have led to riots and displaced thousands, leading to a “humanitarian crisis” according to HRW.

In April HRW published a report, ‘All You Can Do Is Pray’, which provided evidence that ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity had been committed against the ethnic Rohingya of Burma. The report documented that up to 125,000 Rohingya have been displaced in Burma.

“If British government platitudes were an effective policy tool, we have had so many that Burma would be the freest society in the world by now”, said Mark Farmaner, Director of Burma Campaign UK, a human rights advocacy group based in the UK.

Mark Farmaner said that it was a meaningless gesture for Britain to ask Burma’s government to conduct an independent investigation.

“The British government know full well this will never happen. Almost every UN General Assembly Resolution on Burma for more than 20 years has made similar calls for investigations into abuses. The only way any investigation will happen is if an international investigation is set up.”

Britain, as well as other countries such as the Japan and the United States, continues to receive criticism from human rights groups over their decision to lift economic sanctions while Burma’s ability or willingness to uphold human rights continues to be patchy at best.

“The British government is moving at breakneck speed to embrace the government of Burma, despite the country still having one of the worst human rights records in the world.” Burma Campaign UK said in a statement released to the media.

Adding to the controversy is Britain’s decision to send another trade delegation to Burma led by Lord Green, following an earlier one in December, despite the fact that the UK has yet to lead a human rights mission to Burma.

Mark Farmaner, Director of Burma Campaign UK, hit out at the British government for its stance on Burma and said.



“In its rush to embrace President Thein Sein and seize business opportunities, the British government is prepared to look the other way and take no action to try to prevent ethnic cleansing and mass rape in Burma.”

    • Rohingya Exodus