Rohingya Today | December 19, 2018

Cox's Bazaar — Bangladesh policemen beat up a teenage woman in Rohingya refugee camps in Cox's Bazaar and subsequently, obstructed justice being served to her.

Eighteen-year-old Salima Khatun was severely beaten up and injured by a sub-inspector of police and other five subordinates of his at 'Teng Hali' refugee camp 13 (block C, sub-block at C5) at around 11pm on December 12. The policemen broke into her hut in search of Jamil Ahmed (her father) who was absent, leading them to beat and abuse her instead.

As a result of that, her marriage fixed with a fellow refugee man in the camp also broke up as the relatives of the man engaged with her feared of repercussions by the Bangladesh authorities.

As such, the victim went to the Army Officer in charge of the security of the camps and lodged a complaint of the physical abuses. The army, subsequently, gave her a hearing date.

It has been reported that, as the abuser policeman came to know about the complaint, he sent Mujammil, the Head (Maazhi) of the camps who is also known as a sycophant to the police, to threaten and intimidate her. Then, she was taken to the police station and forced to sign on a paper/letter written in Bangala. The paper was not read out to her.

"On the day of Complaint Hearing by the Army Officer in charge, the policeman sent the letter to him (the Army Officer) through Mujammil, the Head (Maazhi) and sycophant. Only then, Salima Khatun, the victim, came to know that it was a letter of Settlement (Placation/Pacification) between her and the Policemen. Therefore, she returned to her camp crying, without getting justice," said Mohammed Karim (not real name), one of her fellow refugees in nearby camps.

She is now said to be severely suffering physically due to heavy injuries and psychologically due to her broken marriage.

About one million Rohingyas have fled Myanmar and been living in concentrated refugee camps in Bangladesh since the Myanmar military carried out Genocide in 2016 and 2017 respectively.

[Repored by Aadil Ahmed; Edited by M.S. Anwar]

Please email to: editor@rohingyablogger.com to send your report and feedback.

Joint Statement: Rohingya Groups Call on U.S. Government to Ensure International Accountability for Myanmar Military-Planned Genocide

December 17, 2018 

We, the undersigned Rohingya organizations worldwide, call for accountability for genocide and crimes against humanity in Myanmar and for the United States government to take urgent action. We urge the U.S. government to urgently act to hold Myanmar military official’s accountable for genocide. 

The U.S. government has referred to what happened to our people as "ethnic cleansing,” which is partially accurate; however, the U.S. should make a clear legal determination of the facts which amount to the crime of genocide. The Myanmar military and authorities made systematic preparations to commit mass atrocity crimes against our Rohingya community - with the intent to destroy us. 

United States House passed Resolution 1091 stating that atrocities against the Rohingya as crimes against humanity and genocide. The Resolution is calling for “all those responsible for these crimes against humanity and genocide should be tracked, sanctioned, arrested, prosecuted, and punished under applicable international criminal statutes and conventions.” 

On December 3, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum came to the conclusion that there is compelling evidence that the Myanmar military committed crimes against humanity and genocide against the Rohingya of Rakhine State, Myanmar. On the same day, the international law firm Public International Law and Policy Group (PILPG) hired by the United States State Department to investigate the august 25, 2017 military “clearance operations” on the Rohingya in Myanmar, said it found evidence of genocide based on interviews with over 1,000 Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. 

Many of the undersigned organizations have documented how Myanmar authorities are responsible for human rights violations in Rakhine State including killings, rape, destruction of property, and burning of villages. The Government of Myanmar denies Rohingya citizenship and denies the very existence of our ethnicity. 

On September 24, the U.S. Department of State released its report documenting mass human rights violations against our Rohingya people. The report shows that the campaign was "well-planned and coordinated." However, the report makes no determination that the violence amounts to genocide or crimes against humanity. 

We, the undersigned Rohingya organizations worldwide, are deeply concerned by international inaction, including from the U.S. government. We urge the U.S. government to make a clear genocide determination and to pursue other policies and responses. 

On September 18, the United Nations independent international Fact-Finding-Mission on the situation in Myanmar released its final report concluding that Myanmar’s top military generals should be prosecuted for genocide against Rohingya in Rakhine State as well as for crimes against humanity. 

In July, human rights group Fortify Rights published an extensive report exposing how the Myanmar authorities made “extensive and systematic preparations” for attacks against Rohingya civilians during the weeks and months before Rohingya militants attacked police on August 25, 2017. 

We, the undersigned Rohingya organizations call on the administration of President Trump and all people of conscience within the U.S. government to ensure the United Nations Security Council imposes an arms embargo on Myanmar and refers the situation in Myanmar to the International Criminal Court (ICC). The ICC should investigate and prosecute the military’s crimes against our Rohingya people as well as the Kachin, Shan, and others. 

Signatories:

1. Arakan Rohingya Development Association – Australia (ARDA)

2. Arakan Rohingya National Organisation (ARNO)

3. British Rohingya Community in UK

4. Burmese Rohingya Association in Queensland-Australia (BRAQA)

5. Burmese Rohingya Association Japan (BRAJ)

6. Burmese Rohingya Community Australia (BRCA)

7. Burmese Rohingya Community in Denmark

8. Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK (BROUK)

9. Canadian Burmese Rohingya Organisation

10. Canadian Rohingya Development Initiative

11. Myanmar Ethnic Rohingya Human Rights Organisation in Malaysia (MERHROM)

12. Rohingya Advocacy Network in Japan

13. Rohingya American Society

14. Rohingya Arakanese Refugee Committee

15. Rohingya Association of Canada

16. Rohingya Community in Finland

17. Rohingya Community in Germany

18. Rohingya Community in Sweden

19. Rohingya Community in Switzerland

20. Rohingya Organisation Norway

21. Rohingya Society Malaysia (RSM)

22. Rohingya Society Netherlands

23. Rohingya Women Development Network (RDWN)

For more information, please contact: 

Tun Khin (Mobile): +44 7888714866 

Nay San Lwin (Mobile): +49 176 62139138

By Maung Zarni | Published by Anadolu Agency on December 15, 2018

US will not intercede, and Myanmar's neighbors see it through economic lens, so international coalition for Rohingya needed

LONDON -- The U.S. House of Representatives Thursday overwhelmingly passed a resolution calling the crimes committed by Myanmar security forces against Rohingya Muslims a genocide. This was the right thing to do.

The U.S. lawmakers deserve to be applauded for trying to turn “Never again!” into a concrete U.S. governmental policy, following the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s declaration that Myanmar is indeed committing a genocide and crimes against humanity.

The House resolution states that “every government and multilateral body (in the world) should call such atrocities (against Rohingya people) by their rightful names of ‘crimes against humanity,’ ‘war crimes,’ and ‘genocide’.”

It contains a call that will resonate very well with many in the rank-and-file of the Armed Forces of Myanmar unhappy with the Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing: it adds the commander-in-chief to the list of military commanders deemed responsible for these crimes.

Despite the much-reported decline of U.S. power globally, the United States still retains unparalleled influence and reach, militarily, institutionally, economically, and ideologically, vis-à-vis Russia and China. Against this background, the unequivocal stance that U.S. lawmakers have taken against the Myanmar genocide has enormous potential to really end the unimaginable misery which 1.5 million Rohingya experience, both in refugee camps in Bangladesh and in their own places of origin within the western Myanmar state of Rakhine.

However, the calls for the UN Security Council to refer the matter to the International Criminal Court or an ad hoc International Criminal Tribunal on Myanmar, or even economic sanctions alone, will have no appreciable impact on either the Myanmar military, which has institutionalized the intentional destruction of Rohingya as a target population since the 1970s, nor on the majority of the Myanmar public, who have been brainwashed to believe UN or external allegations of atrocities as “fake news” concocted by the liberal West and a Muslim conspiracy financed and coordinated by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).

That is, unless the United States is prepared to take forward the idea of military intervention in Myanmar – like the U.S. Pacific Fleet launching surgical missile-strikes from the international waters of the Bay of Bengal on the military headquarters and residences of the senior military commanders in Naypyidaw. The uses of military actions on grounds of humanitarian intervention are not unprecedented. The NATO bombing of Slobodan Milosevic’s palace and the “accidental” strike on the Embassy of China in Belgrade spring to mind.

In fact, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad openly suggested “going in” to end the atrocities, in a public talk at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York a few months ago.

Unrealistic option

However, this may not be a realistic option for a number of reasons: U.S. President Donald Trump has demonstrated absolutely no concern about the news of Myanmar troops burning Rohingya infants and elderly people alive. In fact, Trump has not even once tweeted the word “Rohingya,” let alone drawn attention to the hellish conditions they are living in. Additionally, sandwiched between India and China, which are vying for influence in Myanmar through strategic, military, and economic collaboration, Myanmar may not be an ideal place for U.S. drone or missile strikes, lest such acts draw these two Asian rivals into the military action.

With respect to the impact of full and biting economic sanctions, in the unlikely event that the United States eventually imposes such severe sanctions, the four largest investors in Myanmar are China, Thailand, Singapore, and Hong Kong, followed by the U.K. The targeted pinch on the generals and the national economy will be significantly mitigated by these countries.

None of these governments are likely to follow the U.S.’ lead in the current circumstances. China considers Myanmar, a country in its backyard, an integral piece of its One Belt, One Road grand project whereby it is striving to recreate the New World Order with Beijing as its imperial center. Any talk of persuading China, or Russia, with deep military-to-military ties with Myanmar, to support any punitive measures within the existing global justice and governance mechanisms, including the UN Security Council, is nothing short of delusional.

The rest of Myanmar’s neighbors, including even India, base their Myanmar policies on commercial interests. India is no match for China, how desperately it may try, to curb China’s sway over the Myanmar military and civilian leaderships.

Desperate to find bilateral trade deals outside the EU amid Brexit, Britain is single-mindedly pursuing British commercial interests while serving as the “penholder” on Myanmar resolutions in multilateral bodies by virtue of the historical fact that it was the country’s former colonial master.

In a lengthy Dec. 12 interview with the local Mizzima News Group, British Ambassador Daniel Chugg pussyfooted around the genocide and stressed his ambassadorial goal. In Chugg’s own words, “we are the fifth-largest investor ever in Myanmar, our total stock of investment here is more than $4 billion, and our trade last year was about $500 million, which was up 20 per cent from the year before. So, it's growing but it's still relatively small in global terms and so I hope those figures will improve while I am here.”

No matter how powerful it may still remain, U.S. measures will come short of what is needed to end the genocide in Myanmar.

Steps to follow

Whether the Trump administration makes the legal determination – as the U.S. House Resolution urges – that Myanmar is in fact committing crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes not only against Rohingya but also against other ethnic and religious communities such as the Kachin, Shan, and Ta’ang, is less consequential than what it will concretely do if the determination is made.

The painful truth typically overlooked is that no genocide has ever been committed by the perpetrating state alone, from the Nazi genocide to Bosnia to Rwanda. There are always collaborating and “bystanding” states. The real first-step towards ending the genocide in Myanmar will have to be an international conference of states which have expressed their official concerns about the nature of grave crimes that Myanmar is committing.

There are 47 member states which voted on the UN Human Rights Council Resolution this fall calling for accountability for the Myanmar perpetrators of international state crimes. Although the U.S. is no longer a member of the council, considering the overwhelming concern about the genocide in Myanmar as evidenced in yesterday’s vote at the House of Representatives, the U.S. government is best placed to host such a conference in Washington.

The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, which has done extraordinary work in genocide monitoring and research on the situation for Rohingya, would be an ideal civil society partner to facilitate such a conference.

One primary conference objective should be to forge a coalition of governments that are prepared to pool their resources, strategic influences, and even military assets to put sufficient pressure on both the Myanmar military and Aung San Suu Kyi’s impotent leadership. Without sufficient pressure, Myanmar -- that is, the civilian government and the military -- will not accept the Rohingya as full and equal citizens, nor will they provide any guarantee for the safety of the survivor communities.

As a matter of fact, the Myanmar genocide resolution rightly states that “Myanmar’s civilian government, led by State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint, has not yet taken the necessary steps to address the violence directed against the Rohingya and has failed to create the necessary conditions for returns, including by actively impeding access to northern Rakhine for UNHCR, UNDP, humanitarian organizations, and journalists.” Having aligned the government with Beijing, Aung San Suu Kyi has shown absolutely no sign that she will relent.

Against this scenario, only such a counter-alliance of states broadly supported by civil society and human rights movements consisting of Rohingya survivors can put enough concrete pressure on the perpetrating regime and the genocidally racist society to allow Rohingya to live in peace on their own ancestral land of Northern Rakhine.

[Maung Zarni is co-author of the “The Slow-Burning Genocide of Myanmar’s Rohingya” (Pacific Rim Law and Policy Journal, 2014) and coordinator of the Free Rohingya Coalition.]