By Mike Lillis 

The Hill

March 11, 2018

Some Democrats are wondering whether Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese human rights advocate and Nobel laureate, should be stripped of her Congressional Gold Medal, the nation's highest civilian honor.

Congress voted unanimously in 2008 to present Suu Kyi with the award. A decade later, lawmakers are questioning whether the honor should be revoked over Suu Kyi's reticent response to Myanmar's brutal campaign against the Rohingya, a minority Muslim group targeted by the country's military.

Suu Kyi, now Myanmar's democratically elected civilian leader, has faced intense international backlash over the violence, which the United Nations has deemed “acts of genocide.” Just this week the Smithsonian’s Holocaust Museum in Washington rescinded a prestigious award named after another Nobel Peace laureate, Elie Wiesel. 

“Whether it’s that she’s been complicit, or that she’s just been silent, what she hasn’t done is be vocal enough. So it’s been very, very disappointing, because I had great admiration for her,” said Rep. Ro Khanna, a liberal California Democrat who said he’s hearing concerns from a number of constituents with roots in the region. 

The Myanmar leader's silence in the face of the violence runs in stark contrast to the persona she built over the course of decades as a pro-democracy advocate and human rights champion who spent 15 years under house arrest at the hands of the nation’s repressive military junta.

It’s also led some lawmakers on Capitol Hill to weigh the merits of rescinding Suu Kyi’s Gold Medal award, presented just over five years ago, in an effort to compel her to voice an aggressive public rebuke of the military attacks against the Rohingya.

Khanna said he’s “open” to the notion of revoking Suu Kyi’s Congressional Gold Medal, suggesting the issue should be explored by a bipartisan caucus founded by the late Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.). 

“Maybe that’s something to explored to the Lantos Human Rights Commission, and to have a hearing on it, and to have a hearing on her role,” Khanna said.

Rep. Ami Bera (D-Calif.), a physician and member of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, said he’s also amenable to stripping Suu Kyi of the congressional award if she doesn’t take a stand.

“If that’s what it takes to get there,” Bera said. “As a Nobel Peace Prize winner, she should be speaking out much more against the atrocities that are taking place right now. I mean, she does have the bully pulpit."

“We’ve got to send her the message that she ought to be speaking out and trying to moderate the government and military response here.”

To be sure, there seems to be no concerted push in Congress to revoke Suu Kyi’s Gold Medal. And a number of lawmakers were quick to note the difficult political position she’s in, straddling efforts to manage a civilian government and steer the country toward a more robust democracy without sparking a revolt from the formidable military elite who still yield outsized authority over public policy — and who could potentially knock her from power.

“There’s great tension — that could easily break into something else — between the military and the civilian government she’s trying to shepherd, so this is a very delicate balance. None of that excuses silence. But it does put it in context,” said Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), who has visited the region. “It’s a very, very tenuous and delicate balance. And she’s at the heart of it.”

Still, the frustration in Suu Kyi’s diffident reaction to the Rohingya crisis, even among her most ardent congressional supporters, is mounting to a point of exasperation.

Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.), who sponsored the 2008 bill granting Suu Kyi the Gold Medal, said he’s “desperately sad” about the Rohingya’s plight, urging Suu Kyi to find her critical voice in the name of “moral clarity.” Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) — wondering aloud “what happened to our hero?” — said the Suu Kyi’s failure to confront the violence has eroded her revered reputation around the globe. 

“That can take power from you, too,” Eshoo warned.

And Connolly emphasized that even the tough political constraints on Suu Kyi have their limits in the face of systemic dislocation and mass killings. 

“You’ve got to call out genocide. If you’re a human rights activist, you can’t have carve-outs,” said Connolly. “There hasn’t been talk of revoking [the Gold Medal], but it would be very useful to remind her of how she got it.”

The comments are a far cry from the ones coming from lawmakers just a few years ago. In 2012, when Suu Kyi was officially awarded the Gold Medal in a moving ceremony beneath the Capitol Rotunda, congressional leaders from both parties turned out with words of glowing admiration. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), now the majority leader, praised her "hidden, luminous heroism.” House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi(Calif.) hailed the Nobel laureate’s “unwavering commitment to peace.” And Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who was imprisoned himself during the Vietnam War, lauded Suu Kyi’s "implacable resistance" during her lengthy house arrest.

“Aung San Suu Kyi didn't scare worth a damn,” he said at the time.

The Rohingya crisis has changed the tone of the debate and the views of her prestige. In October, as hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees were streaming into Bangladesh, Suu Kyi addressed the crisis by condemning the “unlawful violence,” but also downplaying her government’s culpability. Myanmar, she said, “does not fear international scrutiny.”

The global outcry was far-reaching, and a number of institutions around the globe have already penalized Suu Kyi’s reaction by rescinding humanitarian honors they’ve granted her in years past.

Irish lawmakers, for instance, pressured by the rock bank U2, voted in December to revoke Suu Kyi’s Freedom of the City of Dublin award. And this week, the Holocaust Museum followed suit, rescinding its Elie Wiesel Award.

While Congress may not be at the point of publicly rebuking her by revoking the congressional medal, a growing number of lawmakers appear sympathetic to the gesture.

“I’m not unmindful of the challenge for her, but you’ve got 700,000 or 800,000 Rohingya who are at enormous risk,” said Connolly. “And you cannot be silent given your profile internationally.”

By Stephanie Nebehay

Reuters

March 9, 2018

GENEVA - The top United Nations human rights official called on Friday for the U.N. General Assembly to refer alleged atrocities committed against the Muslim Rohingya minority in Myanmar to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for prosecution.

Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, also urged Myanmar’s government to allow monitors into northern Rakhine state to investigate what he called suspected “acts of genocide” against the Muslim minority. 

“We are saying there are strong suspicions that, yes, acts of genocide may have taken place. But only a court can confirm this,” Zeid told a news conference in Geneva. 

Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; editing by Tom Miles

By The Nation

March 8, 2018

The United Nations human rights body said acts of genocide may have taken place in Myanmar’s Rakhine state since August when the recent Rohingya crisis erupted, while asking the UN General Assembly to prepare to bring the case to court. 

“I am not surprised by reports that Rohingya villages, which were attacked in recent years, and the alleged mass graves of the victims, are being bulldozed,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said in a statement at the 37th session of Human Rights Council in Geneva on Wednesday.

“This appears to be a deliberate attempt by the authorities to destroy potential evidence of international crimes,” he said.

More than 700,000 people have fled from Rakhine state since an attack on Myanmar security outposts on August 25, prompting a brutal crackdown by the Tatmadaw, as Myanmar’s military is known.

While Myanmar authorities have said the situation is calm, the UN and Rohingya community have stated that violence is ongoing in Rakhine.

The township of Maungdaw has been essentially emptied of its Rohingya community and people continue to flee to Bangladesh because of systematic persecution and violence in other towns and villages, although at a lower intensity than previously, Zeid said.

“Victims have reported killings, rape, torture and abductions by the security forces and local militia, as well as apparently deliberate attempts to force the Rohingya to leave the area through starvation, with officials blocking their access to crops and food supplies,” he said.

“I have also received reports of the appropriation of land inhabited by Rohingya and their replacement by members of other ethnic groups.”

A recent announcement that seven soldiers and three police officers will be brought to justice for the alleged extra-judicial killing of 10 Rohingya men was “grossly insufficient”, he added.

The UN demanded the government in Nay Pyi Taw take steps towards accountability for violations, and must fully respect the rights of the Rohingya, including to citizenship.

“While awaiting the final report of the fact-finding mission, I again recommend that this council ask the General Assembly to establish a new independent and impartial mechanism to prepare and expedite criminal proceedings in courts against those responsible,” Zeid said.

The UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar Yanghee Lee said last month that Aung San Suu Kyi could be complicit in the systematic persecution of the Rohingya people, in violence that “bears the hallmarks of genocide”.

By Ashraf Khalil 

Associated Press

March 7, 2018

WASHINGTON — The United States Holocaust Museum is revoking a major human rights award given to Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, the country’s civilian leader, saying she has failed to respond adequately to the mass killings of Myanmar’s Muslim Rohingya minority.

The museum announced Wednesday that the Elie Wiesel Award given to Suu Kyi in 2012 would be rescinded. The move is just the latest in a series of blows to Suu Kyi’s international reputation, which has plummeted over the Rohingya massacres.

Suu Kyi was a Mandela-like figure in Myanmar who spent years under house arrest for opposing the country’s military dictatorship. She became an international rallying point and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. Her party won a landslide victory in 2015 and she assumed the newly created post of state counselor, although the military still retains significant political and economic power.

Hopes had been high for Suu Kyi to make the transition from revered opposition figure to reformist political leader, given her long campaign for democracy. 

Instead, human rights advocates consider her a disappointment, particularly in her response to the Rohingya killings.

The Holocaust Museum has embraced the plight of the Rohingya in recent years, and published a report in November that concluded there was “mounting evidence of genocide” committed by both the military and armed Buddhist extremists.

In a letter to Suu Kyi released Wednesday, the museum accused her government of obstructing United Nations investigators and promoting “hateful rhetoric” against the Rohingya community, even as it acknowledged she has little influence over the military.

The museum had hoped Suu Kyi “would have done something to condemn and stop the military’s brutal campaign and to express solidarity with the targeted Rohingya population,” the letter stated. “The severity of the atrocities in recent months demand that you use your moral authority to address this situation.”

Suu Kyi does not oversee her country’s military or its security operations that set off the exodus of Rohingya refugees, but three former fellow Nobel Peace laureates last month accused her and the army of committing genocide in northern Rakhine state. They said that as the country’s leader she cannot avoid responsibility. Her government has defended the military operation in the north and has embraced the prosecution of journalists along with other attempts to suppress and discredit the media.

Calls to Myanmar’s embassy for comment were not immediately returned.

By Stephanie Nebehay

Reuters

March 7, 2018

GENEVA -- The United Nations human rights chief said on Wednesday that he strongly suspected that “acts of genocide” may have taken place against Muslim Rohingyas in Myanmar’s northern Rakhine state since August.

Reports of bulldozing of alleged mass graves showed a “deliberate attempt by the authorities to destroy evidence of potential international crimes, including possible crimes against humanity,” Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein added in a speech to the U.N. Human Rights Council. 

Nearly 700,000 Rohingya have fled Rakhine into Bangladesh since insurgent attacks sparked a security crackdown in August, joining 200,000 refugees from a previous exodus. 

Zeid noted that his office said on Tuesday that it believes ethnic cleansing is still underway in Rakhine.

Rohingya are still fleeing because of “systematic” if lower-intensity persecution and violence there, he said. 

“Victims have reported killings, rape, torture and abductions by the security forces and local militia, as well as apparently deliberate attempts to force the Rohingya to leave the area through starvation, with officials blocking their access to crops and food supplies,” Zeid told the Geneva forum. 

“This Council is aware that my office has strong suspicions that acts of genocide may have taken place in Rakhine State since August,” he added. 

There was no immediate comment by the Myanmar government. In the Council, its delegation is allowed to respond on Thursday. 

His office had received reports of land inhabited by Rohingya being appropriated and members of other ethnic groups replacing them. 

“A recent announcement that seven soldiers and three police officers will be brought to justice for the alleged extra-judicial killing of ten Rohingya men is grossly insufficient,” he added. 

Myanmar’s government must take steps to provide real accountability for violations and respect the rights of Rohingya, including to citizenship, Zeid said. 

A fact-finding mission set up by the Council, headed by former Indonesian Attorney-General Marzuki Darusman, is due to report on its initial findings on Monday after interviewing victims and survivors in Bangladesh and other countries. 

Pending their final report, the U.N. General Assembly should establish a new independent mechanism to expedite criminal proceedings in courts against those responsible, Zeid said. 

Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; editing by Tom Miles, William Maclean

By The Daily Star

March 5, 2018

Cox's Bazar: After a three-day interval, Myanmar Army again took position along Tambruborder in Naikkhonchhari upazila of Bandarban district today, creating panic among the Rohingyas who have taken shelter on no man's land.

Confirming the incident, Lt Col Manjurul Hasan of Border Guard Bangladesh 34 Battalion said, "The situation along the Tambru border point is now calm and the BGB members, deployed in the border area, are on alert. There's nothing to be panicked and the BGB is ready to tackle any situation."

AKM Jahangir Aziz, chairman of Ghumdhum union, said members of Myanmar's Border Guard Police (BGP) were seen patrolling the area since Monday morning.

On Saturday, Myanmar removed its Army from the Tambru border following a flag meeting with BGB on Friday.

Myanmar Army took position with heavy troops and artillery along the Bangladesh-Myanmar border from Thursday morning.

A good number of Rohingyas gathered near the zero point of the border in the last one month where the members of BGP along with Myanmar Army were seen conducting various activities like installing barbed-wire fences and setting up advance technological surveillance equipment.

Bangladesh authorities say deployment of additional troops on border by Myanmar violates norms

By Mutasim Billah

Anadolu Agency

March 1, 2018

DHAKA, Bangladesh -- Bangladesh on Thursday summoned Myanmar's ambassador and handed him a protest note over deployment of additional forces at its border where thousands of Rohingya refugees are camped, local media reported.

Khurshed Alam, acting foreign secretary, summoned Ambassador U Lwin Oo at the Foreign Ministry on Thursday afternoon, local Daily Star reported.

He told the ambassador that such a move was not good for bilateral relations, the report added.

A top official of the Bangladesh Border Guard (BGB) said during a news conference in capital Dhaka that the deployment of additional troops violated border norms.

Brig. Gen. Mujibur Rahman, the deputy director for BGB, said they had asked Myanmar authorities the "reasons which prompted them to mobilize their troops," local news agency UNB reported.

More than 750,000 refugees, mostly children and women, have fled Myanmar and crossed into Bangladesh since August 25, 2017, when Myanmar forces launched a crackdown on the minority Muslim community, according to the Amnesty International.

Another 6,500 refugees are living in a buffer zone between the two countries, also dubbed as 'no man's land'.

At least 9,000 Rohingya were killed in Rakhine state from Aug. 25 to Sept. 24, according to Doctors Without Borders.

In a report published on December 12, 2017, the global humanitarian organization said the deaths of 71.7 percent or 6,700 Rohingya were caused by violence. They include 730 children below the age of five.

Myanmar and Bangladesh signed a repatriation deal for the refugees earlier this year, but authorities in Myanmar have refused to allow any international body including the UN to oversee the process.

By Robin Emmott

Reuters

February 22, 2018

BRUSSELS -- The European Union will start preparing sanctions against Myanmar generals over killings of Rohingya Muslims by formally calling on the bloc’s foreign policy chief next week to draw up a list of possible names, two diplomats said.

Any new travel bans and asset freezes would be the EU’s toughest measures yet to try to hold the military accountable for the abuses, likely joining U.S. and Canadian sanctions already in place. 

“Ministers will call on (Federica) Mogherini to propose restrictive measures on senior members of the Myanmar military for systematic human rights abuses, without delay,” one diplomat said on Thursday, referring to EU sanctions. 

Foreign ministers will also ask Mogherini and the EU’s foreign service, the EEAS, on Monday to look at ways to strengthen the bloc’s 1990s-era arms embargo on the Southeast Asian country that remains in place. 

In a statement expected to be released on Monday at a regular gathering of EU foreign ministers, the bloc is also expected to reiterate its call for the release of Reuters reporters detained on Dec. 12 over accusations that they violated Myanmar’s Official Secrets Act. 

The two had been working on a Reuters investigation into the killing of 10 Rohingya Muslim men who were buried in a mass grave in Rakhine state after being hacked to death or shot by ethnic Rakhine Buddhist neighbors and soldiers. 

No names of generals to be targeted for sanctions have been yet discussed, the diplomats said, but the United States said in December it was sanctioning Major General Maung Maung Soe, who is accused of a crackdown on the Rohingya minority in Rakhine. 

EU sanctions lists are often coordinated with Washington. 

The EU’s decision to consider sanctions reflects resistance to such measures in the U.N. Security Council, where veto-wielding powers Russia and China said this month they believe the situation in Rakhine was stable and under control. 

The United States, as well as United Nations, have described the military crackdown in Myanmar as “ethnic cleansing”. About 655,000 Rohingya have fled Rakhine for shelter over the border in Bangladesh, according to the United Nations. 

Reporting by Robin Emmott; editing by Robert-Jan Bartunek and Mark Heinrich

By AFP

February 16, 2018

Bangladesh Friday handed over a list of more than 8,000 Rohingya to Myanmar as it moves to kick-start their repatriation weeks after the process was halted due to lack of preparation.

Dhaka's home minister Asaduzzaman Khan formally gave the list to his Myanmar counterpart Lieutenant General Kyaw Swe after officials of the two nations held a meeting in the Bangladeshi capital.

"We've today handed over a list of 8,032 people from 1,673 families to them. The (Myanmar) delegation received it very cordially and told us they would start processing their repatriation," Khan told reporters.

Bangladesh reached a deal with Myanmar late last year to repatriate nearly 700,000 Rohingya who have fled across the border since August to escape a brutal military crackdown.

That was meant to start last month, but was delayed by a lack of preparation and protests by Rohingya refugees, most of whom say they do not wish to return without guarantees of safety.

Khan said more than one million Rohingya now live in squalid camps in Bangladesh's southeast and Dhaka hoped all of them would be repatriated to Myanmar.

"We discussed how would they repatriate these people. The Myanmar delegation was very cordial about it and said they will take them back gradually," he said.

Bangladesh's refugee commissioner Abul Kalam told AFP Dhaka had already started construction of a transit camp and would start building another next week to facilitate the return of the Rohingya.

This week Bangladesh's junior foreign minister said they had signed a deal to involve the United Nations in the process of returning Rohingya refugees to Myanmar.

He said the government was involving the UN refugee agency so that it could not be accused of sending anyone from the stateless Muslim minority back against their will.

He gave few details, but said refugees would be asked to fill out repatriation forms in the presence of UN officials.

But Rohingya refugees are still entering Bangladesh with claims of rights abuses by Buddhist mobs and the military in their native Rakhine state.

Home minister Khan acknowledged people were still crossing the border.

"The (Myanmar) delegation has admitted it and told us they will try their best to stop it as soon as possible," he said

Many Rohingya have lost their homes to arson attacks in their villages, where witnesses and rights groups say entire Rohingya settlements have been burned to the ground.

New arrivals have brought harrowing tales of rape, murder and torture.

The Rohingya also want guarantees of citizenship before returning to Myanmar, which views them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh even though many have been there for generations.

Khan said there was no specific timeframe to start the repatriation but he hoped it would start soon.

"No specific date came for repatriation but they showed sincerity and are taking preparations to take their nationals back," he said

He urged Myanmar to ensure the refugees' return was "sustainable", adding the Rohingya "may face difficulties in resettling back into their land".

The two sides also discussed the fate of some 6,000 Rohingya refugees who have been stranded in no man's land on the Bangladesh-Myanmar border since September.

"They said they have started processing repatriation of those refugees living on the (border's) zero line," Khan said, adding Myanmar has "requested" a joint meeting on their repatriation on February 20.

Last week a Myanmar government minister told refugees stranded on the border that they should take up a government offer to return, warning they will face "consequences" if they stay where they are.

A video circulated on social media apparently shows Myanmar's Deputy Minister for Home Affairs Aung Soe addressing a group of refugees through a barbed wire fence last Friday.

Radio Canada International

February 16, 2018

Rohingya refugees Mohamed Heron, 6, and his brother Mohamed Akter, 4, pose for a portrait to show burns on their bodies at Kutupalong refugee camp, near Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh, October 14, 2017. Boys’ uncle Mohamed Inus said burns resulted from Myanmar’s armed forces firing rockets at their village. Two of their siblings, one seven years old and the other a 10-month-old infant, died in the attack, according to the uncle. Their father was held by the military and has not been heard of since. (Jorge Silva/File/ REUTERS)