By The Straits Times

July 8, 2017

Not surprisingly, Myanmar has said it will refuse entry to members of a United Nations panel investigating the alleged killings, rape and mistreatment of Rohingya Muslims by its national army. Naypyitaw had rejected the fact-finding mission when it was announced in March. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the nation's de facto leader who goes by the designation of State Counsellor, had no hesitation in making her stand clear even as she travelled in May to the headquarters of the European Union - a grouping that had lent her some of the staunchest support she received during her long years of struggle. That the UN resolution was brought by the EU adds a twist of irony to the situation.

The issue of the Rohingya, who are an ethnic Muslim minority group predominantly settled in the Rakhine state, has been festering for four decades. Although their presence in what is now Myanmar has been recorded for at least four centuries, they face rejection by the dominant Buddhist community, which sees the Rohingya as illegal settlers whose numbers surged under British colonial rule from Calcutta, seat of the British Raj. Refused citizenship papers, and subject to extreme harassment, thousands of Rohingya have turned refugees, heading towards Muslim-majority nations in Asean such as Malaysia and Indonesia, but chiefly into adjoining Bangladesh. Last year, after Myanmar troops conducted a security operation against Rohingya extremists who killed nine soldiers, an estimated 75,000 fled into Bangladesh. As much as a humanitarian crisis, the issue is a full-blown political one.

While she is de facto leader, few doubt the massive constraints Ms Suu Kyi operates under. A suspicious military will not yield the national security and border issues portfolios, and the Constitution is tailor-made to circumscribe her politically. Thus, she lacks the freedom to do the right thing, as the world expects of this Nobel Peace Prize winner. Myanmar's generals also feel little international pressure on this score because China and India, giant neighbours that are both jockeying for influence, have conveniently looked the other way, just as they did in Sri Lanka when the military's worst excesses surfaced during the closing stages of the ethnic conflict in that country. Given US President Donald Trump's barely concealed suspicions of Muslims, the Rohingya cannot expect help from that quarter either.

Sadly, Ms Suu Kyi's fans, and they number millions still, are veering round to the view that her own Burman instincts may not be too different from the military's hard line when it comes to the Rohingya. That would be a tragedy for those who looked to her to be the moral voice of the early 21st century, just as Mahatma Gandhi was in the early 20th century, and Martin Luther King Jr and Nelson Mandela in its latter part.

By David Baulk

Al Jazeera

June 30, 2017

Impunity for military abuses in Myanmar must come to an end.

Last month, Myanmar's de-facto leader and former human-rights icon Aung San Suu Kyi convened a conference to try to end the many wars that have wracked the country for more than half a century. Leaders of the military and ethnic armed groups, politicians, and civil society activists descended on Myanmar's capital Naypyidaw with the stated aim of achieving what Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) party promised when it came to power in April 2016 - "national reconciliation". But an end to Myanmar's decades-long conflicts remains as distant as ever.

As the commander-in-chief of the Myanmar military spoke at last month's conference of his "burning desire" to bring peace to the country, video footage of Myanmar army soldiers torturing ethnic men dressed in civilian clothes emerged. The clip shows soldiers beating, kicking and threatening with death several bound men. As the commanding officer repeatedly bludgeons one man, he says, "I'm going to break all your teeth and cut out your tongue."

This is the kind of brutality the Myanmar military continues to use against ethnic communities, and it is nothing new - in December, footage surfaced online showing state security forces in Rakhine State beating ethnic Rohingya men in a similar fashion. Yet Aung San Suu Kyi's government has announced they will block a United Nations fact-finding mission aimed at holding those responsible to account. If Myanmar's leaders are serious about ending civil war and the culture of impunity in the country, they should do everything in their power to cooperate with the UN mission.

On March 24, the UN Human Rights Council passed a landmark resolution mandating a fact-finding mission to Myanmar to "establish the facts and circumstances of the alleged recent human rights violations by military and security forces … with a view to ensuring full accountability for perpetrators and justice for victims."

Rather than welcome it, last week Aung San Suu Kyi told a press conference with Sweden's Prime Minister Stefan Lofven that the fact-finding mission was not "in keeping with the needs of the region in which we are trying to establish harmony and understanding". She had previously announced that the government of Myanmar "disassociated" itself from the resolution because it is "not in keeping with what is actually happening on the ground".

Aung San Suu Kyi's thinly veiled defence of Myanmar's security forces is the latest example of her failure to promote and protect human rights and a feeble justification for precluding the fact-finding mission. Her resistance is particularly problematic given that her unparalleled standing in the country could swing public opinion to push for justice and accountability.

However, her heretofore failure to cooperate should not obscure the real reason for the government's apparent opposition to the fact-finding mission. Behind the scenes, Myanmar's military leaders are doing everything they can to frustrate Aung San Suu Kyi's administration and keep international eyes away from their crimes, particularly in the country's north and the west.

The failure of the government to acknowledge and properly investigate recent atrocities by the Myanmar army against Rohingya Muslim civilians in Rakhine State prompted the UN to establish the mission. However, its mandate is broad and is not limited to investigating human rights violations in Rakhine State. This is a good thing for Myanmar - and there is no better time than now for the fact-finding mission to do its work.

Fighting in northern Myanmar has only escalated under Aung San Suu Kyi's administration. An estimated 100,000 people have fled fighting in the north since the conflict between the Myanmar military and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) resumed in June 2011. Local civil society and my colleagues and I at Fortify Rights have documented extrajudicial killings, rape, torture, forced labour, and other indiscriminate attacks by the Myanmar army in the course of the conflict. Life-saving aid to the displaced has been severely restricted. Thousands of people do not have adequate food, healthcare or shelter.

In Rakhine State, the Myanmar military conducted "clearance operations" in several villages following an October attack by Rohingya fighters on border guard posts. Since December, Fortify Rights documented cases of Myanmar security forces raping Rohingya women and girls, slitting men's throats, and burning people alive - in some cases killing children and infants. Our findings are consistent with those of a UN report published in February, which concluded that Myanmar's security forces were committing crimes against humanity in Rakhine State.

Aung San Suu Kyi and her civilian government are in a delicate spot. Under the 2008 constitution, the military can declare a state of emergency and suspend the elected government. However, there is little likelihood of this happening and such a dark prospect would still not justify wholesale denials of atrocity crimes and active obstruction of justice. Moreover, domestic support for the UN mission is growing: Scores of organisations throughout the country have pressured the government to fully cooperate with the fact-finding Mission.

The footage of the Myanmar army's brutality surfaced as peace conference delegates parted ways and returned home to their respective areas of conflict. A conference billed as a step towards "national reconciliation" instead served to remind us of the biggest obstacle that stands in its way - impunity for the Myanmar army's crimes. Allowing the UN fact-finding mission unfettered access to investigate human rights violations by military and security forces would help bring that impunity to an end, prevent further violations, and earn much-needed trust from Myanmar's long-suffering minorities.

David Baulk is a Myanmar Human Rights Specialist with Fortify Rights. He is the author of a forthcoming report on avoidable deprivations in aid to war-affected communities in Myanmar. Follow him on Twitter @davidbaulk

By Dr. Azeem Ibrahim

Al-Arabiya

June 18, 2017

The UN office in Myanmar is in disarray as the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator, Renata Lok-Desallien, is due to leave the post prematurely. The office she presided over has been described as ‘glaringly disfunctional’ in internal UN documents, and the Coordinator’s strong emphasis on development programs and on having a good relationship with the Burmese government at the expense of human rights issues in the country has drawn sharp criticism from international observers. 

This emphasis on ‘business’ over humanitarian concerns has been a stain on the UN’s reputation, but it is too early to say whether the incoming coordinator would address this problem, or whether the UN more widely is content to watch on as the Burmese military continues its methodical campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya Muslim minority in the north-west of the country, or as it continues to crack down on other border minority groups.

Other aspects of the UN’s involvement with the Burmese government are also quietly acquiescent to the developments in the country, despite strong protests from other Humanitarian agencies within the UN itself, such as officials from the UN refugee agency. An ongoing UN investigation led by Kofi Annan was supposed to mark a turning point in the UN’s approach to the Myanmar, but the investigation’s remit has been very strictly confined to just poverty reduction, and does not have any authority to comment on the humanitarian situation.

Indeed, Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the Burmese civilian government, has asserted that she would only accept recommendations from the UN in that narrow area, and that any UN probe into human rights abuses would be blocked on the grounds that it would “increase tensions” in the country.

The UN’s approach to this situation has been too patient. The idea was that the new, democratically elected government in the country, led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi needed to be given time to turn around the humanitarian situation in the country, and that the boat should not be rocked while they get their bearings after so many decades of military rule. 

The hope was that under such a government the humanitarian situation would no doubt get better, even if it took some time for them to turn the direction of the country around. 

Siding with the perpetrators 

Unfortunately, the assumption that a democratically elected government under Aung San Suu Kyi would be keenly interested in the humanitarian issues the country is facing turned out to be baseless. 

Suu Kyi has been in power for over 14 months at this point and throughout that period she has systematically sided with the perpetrators of the human rights abuses against the Rohingya whenever the question has been raised by the international community or by the international press. 

She has reiterated and defended the ultra-nationalists’ absurd claims that the Rohingya are Bengali immigrants and that they do not exist as an indigenous ethnic group.

She has casually dismissed concerns that the country’s military is pursuing a policy of ethnic cleansing against the group, despite the glaring facts that the entire Rohingya population have been rendered stateless, half of them have already been pushed abroad, and perhaps as many as a quarter of those who remain in the country are held in internally displaced people’s camps and not allowed to leave.

And she has obstructed even the most timid attempt by international agencies to censure the agencies of the state who are carrying out the latest crackdown on the group. 

It should be clear by now that Suu Kyi is not on the same page as the rest of us on the humanitarian issues in her country. ‘Giving her space’ will not enable her to take charge of the situation and push for positive change.

It will simply allow her to give cover to the army to continue its crackdown on the Rohingya. Our patience will not be rewarded. And the price for our patience has already been and will continue to be paid with Rohingya blood.

This is a price we can no longer afford. Neither the UN, nor the rest of us in the international community can allow things to continue down their current trajectory. It is time to ramp up the pressure on the Burmese government, with proper humanitarian investigations, with the threat of UN peacekeeping missions on the ground if it comes to it, everything – lest we allow this to become a full blown genocide.

______________________

Azeem Ibrahim is Senior Fellow at the Centre for Global Policy and Adj Research Professor at the Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College. He completed his PhD from the University of Cambridge and served as an International Security Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and a World Fellow at Yale. Over the years he has met and advised numerous world leaders on policy development and was ranked as a Top 100 Global Thinker by the European Social Think Tank in 2010 and a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. He tweets @AzeemIbrahim.

By Human Rights Watch

June 15, 2017

The challenges the government of Myanmar faces in ensuring that the human rights of everyone in the country are respected and protected means overcoming a long history of oppressive military rule. Yet the authorities continue to arrest and prosecute those who criticize the government and the military under the now-infamous section 66(d) of the Telecommunications Act. The army and to a lesser extent ethnic armed groups still commit abuses during the fighting in Shan and Kachin States. And nearly 100,000 people remain in displaced persons camps spread across both states where the government restricts access to humanitarian aid.

In Rakhine State, nearly 120,000 primarily Rohingya Muslims remain trapped in abysmal conditions in camps in violation of their human rights. Rohingya in the northern part of the state endured widespread brutality from security forces after militant attacks on police outposts in October. Over 90,000 were displaced by the violence of whom over 70,000 fled to Bangladesh. Human Rights Watch and others documented numerous abuses that the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights concluded likely amounted to crimes against humanity.

Local officials’ capitulation to mob demands to shutter two Muslim schools in Yangon is the latest government failure to protect Myanmar’s religious minorities. Muslim communities that have had to resort to praying in the streets during the holy month of Ramadan face arrest and prosecution by local authorities.

In March, this Council took a strong stand against the violations in Rakhine State and elsewhere in Myanmar by adopting a resolution that established an international fact-finding mission into human rights violations by military and security forces and other abuses in the country.

We welcome the recent appointment of the fact-finding mission members, but the Burmese government has shown no willingness to cooperate. If they refuse to grant access to the mission, they will join the ranks of Burundi, Syria, and North Korea, all of which have rejected similar international investigations.

This fact-finding mission represents a crucial opportunity to address the systemic challenges that stand between the Myanmar of today and an open democratic society that so many have long sought to achieve. This opportunity should not be squandered. We urge Myanmar not to isolate itself by refusing access to the mission, and would ask the Special Rapporteur what Council members and observers can do to ensure the mission is granted unfettered access to all areas of concern and allowed to carry out its work freely.

By The Daily Vox

June 13, 2017

Myanmar is home to an estimated 1.1 million Rohingya, a persecuted Muslim minority. Numerous sources both inside and outside the country have reported horrific human rights violations. Shabnam Mayet explores the enduring discrimination against the marginalised group. 

The Rohingya crisis is a humanitarian disaster created over decades by the institutionalisation of a slow-burning genocide against an ethnic minority.

Made to endure the brutality and oppression of the military junta, more than 200 000 Rohingya fled across Myanmar’s border to Bangladesh in the late 1970s. In 1982 the military junta revoked their citizenship and no longer recognised them as one of the 135 “national races”.

Since 2012, the brutality against the Muslim minority has been one exacerbated by Myanmar’s unwillingness to punish the right-wing Buddhist nationalists who propagate hatred against them, address its apartheid policies, and keep its security forces in check. The persecution has forced tens of thousands of Rohingya to flee the country in recent years, with many seeking safety in Thailand, Bangladesh and Malaysia.

They have been denied the right to self-identify, freedom of movement, access to education and healthcare. The Rohingya have been subjected to land confiscations, forced sterilisation, extortion, torture, human trafficking and collective punishment, and they even require government permission to marry.

Popular media and right-wing politics use Islamophobia to condition us into believing extremism and terrorism are the sole domain of Muslims, preferably those holding weapons against the skyline of a bombed city or desert dunes. This perception allows a democratic government led by a Nobel Peace Laureate to turn a blind eye to both state terror and violent extremist Buddhism.

Despite Myanmar’s first democratic election in 2015 being won by the National League for Democracy led by Aung San Suu Kyi, right-wing nationalist Buddhist groups have successfully rioted and looted in Rohingya communities while the police and military have idly watched on. They have lobbied for discriminatory legislation to be passed and even for the word Rohingya not to be used, once again proving that a transitional government is an acceptable justification for ignoring atrocities against minorities.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nation’s (ASEAN) non-intervention policy has resulted in mass graves of Rohingya being found in human trafficking camps along the Thai-Malaysian border.

Since October last year, the military has undertaken a violent crackdown on Rohingya villages in Rakhine State. Security forces went on the rampage slaughtering children, arresting and torturing men, forcing entire communities to relocate, blocking humanitarian aid, burning homes and raping Rohingya women. Almost 2 000 Rohingya structures were burnt and 75 000 refugees fled to Bangladesh while thousands remain displaced internally.

A journalist who interviewed Rohingya rape victims after the military crackdown was told by a 15-year-old-girl that she was only raped by one soldier because she was not as beautiful as the girls who were gang raped. However the state maintains eyewitness accounts, including the testimonies of mass rapes, are fabricated.

The government has characterised the actions of its security forces as anti-terrorism related. Predictably, when the word terrorism is bandied about, tangible evidence is irrelevant and extreme force against a civilian population becomes an acceptable response.

Myanmar has elected to ignore the UN Special Rapporteur’s recommendations, deny access to international observers including foreign journalists and has even rejected the call for a United Nations fact-finding mission investigating the violence.

Western countries have been quick to lift sanctions and invest in the untapped market since it threw off the shackles of military dictatorship, proving once again that profits are more important than people.

Many claim the condition of the Rohingya is far worse than the apartheid experienced by both Palestinians and South Africans. Drawing these parallels underplays how disenfranchised the Rohingya are. As a country with a past steeped in discrimination and oppression, we have a responsibility to ensure others do not suffer the same fate.

Mumia Abu-Jamal, former Black Panther and journalist, once said that the greatest form of sanity anyone can exercise is to resist that force that is trying to repress, oppress, and fight down the human spirit. It is with this in mind that I appeal to everyone to join Protect the Rohingya‘s event this Tuesday, by wearing black in solidarity with the Rohingya, and to call for an end to the Rohingya genocide.

Tweet your photos and messages of solidarity to @ProtectRohingya using the hashtag #Black4Rohingya.

Advocate Shabnam Mayet is the co-founder of Protect the Rohingya.

By Aitor Sanchez Lacomba

Thomson Reuters Foundation

June 11, 2017

Boost in immediate assistance and longer-term strategic aid is more urgent than ever

In June 2012, widespread rioting and clashes between Rakhine Buddhists and Muslims that captured global headlines left scores dead and displaced nearly 150,000 in Myanmar’s restive Rakhine state, one of the nation’s poorest.

Five years on, as we mark this grim anniversary, nearly 100,000 people remain in IDP camps on the outskirts of Sittwe, Rakhine’s capital. Nearly all of those displaced were stateless Muslims who self-identify as Rohingya, a group whose rights and freedoms have been successively stripped away since the early 1980s. Their very existence as an ethnic category is refuted by the Myanmar authorities, who regularly assert that they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. To date, tenable and dignified solutions for these thousands of displaced people remain a distant prospect – only further exacerbating the wider underdevelopment across Rakhine State and persistent humanitarian challenges that endanger the quest for an inclusive and peaceful democracy in Myanmar, and the conclusion of the world’s longest-running civil war.

In the aftermath of the violence that swept across Rakhine five years ago, internally-displaced Rohingya were housed in temporary structures in Sittwe’s camps with as many as ten families under the same roof. Unsurprisingly, the vast majority of these families continue to endure the same conditions – as well as longstanding and heavy restrictions on their freedom of movement. What’s more, a recent IRC analysis has revealed that the poor shelter conditions – which fall below international humanitarian standards – have and continue to increase the risk of domestic and sexual violence, child marriage, and the outbreak and likelihood of death from preventable diseases communicated where space and hygiene are constrained. The IRC’s assessment found specifically that the caseload for these diseases – like tuberculosis – is nearly ten times higher within Rakhine’s camps than outside. Far from respecting the dignity, safety and health of Rakhine’s internally-displaced persons, these humanitarian conditions only further weaken prospects of peace between the government and its constituents.

In response to the ongoing crisis in Rakhine, the Kofi Annan-led Advisory Commission on Rakhine State proposed a series of measures to the Government of Myanmar towards the closure of the camps, including longer-term measures to support reintegration of Rakhine’s IDPs. While the IRC is in agreement with the report’s recommendation to close the camps, it is important to note that such a strategy should not detract from immediate efforts to improve these otherwise debilitating, and undignified, conditions, with any ongoing and future initiatives based on community needs and non-discriminatory in their approach.

Indeed, a boost in immediate assistance and longer-term strategic aid – as well as its full and unimpeded delivery – by the international community in key areas such as food security, disaster risk reduction and urgent support to public services is more urgent than ever in Myanmar to meet both growing and long-standing humanitarian need and to boost economic development in restive states. Development aid and private sector investment is also welcome and much needed, however it is essential that initiatives are conflict-sensitive to avoid exacerbating existing tensions.

As Myanmar’s multiple, decades-old ethnic conflicts – including in Northern Shan and Kachin States - continue to drag on despite renewed efforts to achieve peace, over half a million people across the country are in dire humanitarian need and almost a quarter of a million remain displaced. Across Rakhine and other states, the IRC has been responding to ongoing needs of Myanmar’s most vulnerable people to help them survive, recover and gain control of their future reaching over 185,000 people during 2016 alone.

The ability of INGOs like the IRC to meet urgent need and help shepherd much-needed development is imperiled by consistent and worsening lack of resources. The United Nations’ appeal remains critically underfunded - reaching barely over a third of the overall ask - an all the more worrying state of affairs as the United States, heralded with bringing democracy to Myanmar and the world’s largest humanitarian donor, proposes drastic cuts to foreign assistance. 

Five years on, Rakhine remains the ultimate test case for Myanmar. Meeting urgent humanitarian need and taking concrete, and dignified, steps towards resolving protracted displacement - themselves indispensable towards fulfilling the rights of all the country’s constituents, regardless of ethnicity, religion or gender - are pivotal to the success and stability of one of Asia’s newest democracies, and a beacon of hope for the region.

Aitor Sanchez Lacomba is Country Director of the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in Myanmar

By Phil Roberson

TheNewsLens

June 5, 2017

Why you need to know

The international community won’t accept inaction or excuses from the Aung San Suu Kyi-led government this time.

Ward-level officials' threats to charge and prosecute Muslims who organized and participated in a public prayer session on May 31 in Thaketa township are further evidence of the Myanmar government's failure to protect religious freedoms.

Since that day, local police and ward officials in Yangon have been consistently harassing and threatening members of the Muslim community with criminal charges and fines because they dared assemble in the street to hold prayers during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. These actions by local officials are an outrage that should be urgently overruled by senior leaders in General Administration Department, or failing that, the Minister of Home Affairs.

If the Ministry refuses to act within days to cease these threats of charges, then as de facto head of government, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi should step in to protect freedom of conscience and religion. 

Human Rights Watch also calls for immediate action to revoke the government's discriminatory laws and regulations on the practice of religion that are frequently applied to minority religious communities.

Obscure, discriminatory regulations used to prevent the construction or repair of religious structures, such as mosques and Christian churches, should be rescinded immediately. Mosques and madrassahs that have been forcibly shuttered should be immediately re-opened, and religious believers should not be threatened or criminally charged simply for exercising their fundamental right to observe and practice their religion. 

The right to freedom of conscience, religion, and prayer is a universal human right. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD-led government should realize the world is watching how they handle this extremely worrisome situation, and will not accept excuses or inaction. 

Erosion of religious freedom

During the British colonial period and early years after independence in 1948, Muslims held high positions in Burma’s government and civil society. They were in the forefront of the fight for independence from the British. After independence, Muslims continued to play a prominent role in the country’s business, industrial, and cultural activities. Many were public servants, soldiers, and officers. After General Ne Win seized power in 1962, he initiated the systematic expulsion of Muslims from the government and army. No written directive bars Muslims from entry or promotion in the government, but that has long been the practice. In 2001, Human Rights Watch documented anti-Muslim violence in various parts of the country that left dozens of mosques and madrasas destroyed.

According to government census data collected in 2014, Muslims make up just over 2 percent of the population of Burma, which is about 90 percent Buddhist. However, that figure does not include more than one million Muslims who are Rohingya, a largely stateless ethnic group living primarily in Rakhine State.

Christians make up just over 6 percent of the country’s population.

Burma is obligated under international human rights law to protect the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, including the right to express religious belief in worship, observance, practice, and teaching. Protection of this right must be done in a nondiscriminatory way. The right is subject to limitations for the protection of public safety, order, health, or morals, or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others.

By Levon Sevunts

Radio Canada International

June 4, 2017

When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau greets Myanmar’s de facto leader and honorary Canadian Aung Sun Suu Kyi next week, he needs to pressure her to protect the Rohingya Muslim minority, which is facing genocide and crimes against humanity in the northwest of the country, says a Canadian genocide expert.

Kyle Matthews, executive director of the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies (MIGS) at Concordia University and a Fellow at the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute, says Suu Kyi’s five-day visit to Canada is a unique moment for Trudeau press the Nobel Peace Prize winner to do more to protect the stateless minority.

“It’s a very opportune time for the Canadian government to host her but realize that there are some severe human rights violations going on and Canada should not be quiet about it but should actually pressure here when she’s here,” said Matthews.

Seeking Canada’s advice on federalism and constitution

The Prime Minister’s Office announced Friday that Suu Kyi, whose official title is State Counsellor of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, will visit Canada from June 5 to 9, 2017.

Suu Kyi is travelling to Canada to consult Trudeau on constitutional reforms. Her visit to Canada follows fresh round of peace talks in the capital Naypyidaw aimed at ending a conflict in Myanmar’s troubled frontier regions, where various ethnic groups have been waging war against the state for almost seven decades.

Trudeau will meet Suu Kyi on June 7 to “discuss federalism and democratic reforms in Myanmar, as well as regional peace and security and the importance of promoting democracy, good governance and human rights,” according to the Prime Minister’s Office.

Stateless minority

The Rohingya, who number about one million, have lived in Myanmar, also known as Burma, for generations.

However, many in Myanmar’s predominantly Buddhist population view them as foreign intruders from neighbouring Bangladesh.

The persecution of Rohingya has been going on for a long time, Matthews said. Attacks against the Rohingya in Rakhine State along the border with Bangladesh came into the forefront in the last four-five years before Suu Kyi took power, he said.

“In the past couple of years we have seen different Buddhist monks actually become very open and loud in using their pulpits to spread hate and ask for the masses in Myanmar to attack the Rohingya,” Matthews said. “We’ve had civilians taking up weapons and arms to attack Rohingya and we’ve had almost sectarian strife between the Rohingya and the Buddhist population.”

Muslim mobs have also attacked Buddhist temples and villages in Rakhine and in neighbouring Bangladesh.

The most recent spate of fighting began in October last year, when nine Buddhist Burmese border guards were attacked and killed.

Security forces responded with a major security operation, conducting “clearance operations” and sealing the area, effectively barring humanitarian organizations, media and independent human rights monitors from entering, according to a report by Amnesty International.

Dozens of Rohingya villages have been burned to the ground, women have been raped and civilians murdered by the army, Human Rights Watch reported in late 2016. At least 10,000 Rohingya have fled across the Bangladeshi border to escape the violence.

Targeted human rights abuses

The government has placed thousands of Rohingyas in internment camps, in places where they can’t interact with anyone else and don’t have the freedom to travel, he said.

“There have been deportations, there have been mass killings,” Matthews said. “What has happened with Rohingya is a series of targeted human rights abuses against one particular group with the aim or partially destroying the group or trying to make them leave the territory.”

That’s the very definition of genocide, Matthews said.

However, the Burmese government has denied allegations of genocide and ethnic cleansing, rejecting any evidence to the contrary as “propaganda” and “fabricated news and rumours.”

Lost opportunities

When Suu Kyi took power after the 2015 elections, many in the international community and human rights organizations saw her as a beacon of light, someone who has fought against oppression and for justice, and fought for democracy, Matthews said.

However, many have been very dismayed that that she hasn’t made any strong public statements about what’s happening to the Rohingya and doesn’t seem to have done anything to help their plight, Matthews said.

“So it [persecution of the Rohingya] didn’t start on her watch, but she is now in charge and, having won a Nobel Peace Prize, it’s a little perplexing that she has not been more outspoken or done more to protect the Rohingya,” Matthews said. “I don’t know of any other Nobel Peace Prize winners who have gone on to govern a state committing genocide against a minority.”

With files from AFP

By Dr. Azeem Ibrahim

Al Arabiya

May 29, 2017

Though the humanitarian crisis in Syria still dominates international attention there are many other crises around the world. Among the worst, is that in Mynamar, about which I have written at length.

Despite now having a democratically elected civilian government led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi after decades of military rule, and despite the country’s ongoing efforts to re-join the international community as a fully-fledged member, many aspects of the government remain in the hands of the independent military, including domestic security.

Following a series of attacks on border outposts last October, the Rohingya minority has been fingered as responsible, and has suffered brutal collective reprisals by the military and other branches of Myanmar’s security apparatus, both at the federal and at the local state level. These have included wanton rape of women and children, as well as extrajudicial killings of men, women, children and even infants, which have led to a new wave of refugees fleeing the country.

It has been enough to make some UN experts and observers infer that the end-goal of the the ongoing brutality might be to finally ‘expel’ all the Rohingya from Myanmar. After all, the decades of persecution at the hands of the succession of military governments had already pushed over half of the Rohingya people out of the country, while successive waves of communal violence since 2012 have left more than 120,000 stuck in internally displaced people’s camps, a substantial percentage of the country’s remaining 7-800,000 Rohingya.

Nevertheless, the Brumese Army’s internal investigation into its own conduct in the local Rakhine state since last autumn has found ‘no wrongdoing except in two minor incidents’. Nor is there much hope that the civilian government might put any pressure on the military over these findings, if history is anything to go by. So far, Aung San Suu Kyi and her government have shown a studied reluctance to step on the military’s toes, and she has specifically rejected the concerns raised by the UN regarding ethnic cleansing.

Accountability

Indeed, Daw Suu Kyi has already opposed the UN’s rights council decision to investigate the allegations of abuses independently. But in the wake of the shambolic findings produced by the Army’s internal investigation, it seems clear that we can no longer leave this issue to Myanmar’s authorities.

The fundamental issue here, as is often the case in politics, is one of accountability. It is no surprise that the Army is not going to hold itself accountable for the reported abuses. 

It would therefore have been the right and proper place for the Burmese government of the country to hold them accountable for them.

Yet this government is showing itself unwilling. Indeed, given the peculiar constitutional arrangements the country has in place for its managed transition to democracy, the civilian government may be unable to impose any censure on the armed forces. If that is the case, much of the ‘progress’ towards democratisation would be revealed as illusory, since ultimate sovereign power still resides with the Army’s strength of arms rather than the state’s civilian institutions.

But the human rights abuses against the Rohingya will not stop until the individuals and institutions which are perpetrating them are held to account. And the only party showing itself willing to do so, with proper judiciousness and due diligence, is the United Nations Human Rights Council.

It is therefore imperative that the international community empowers the Council to pursue its own independent investigation, and back international criminal proceedings against any individuals violating international humanitarian law in international courts if the Burmese courts refuse to prosecute appropriately.

If we do not, the Burmese Army may yet complete its programme of ‘ethnic cleansing’. And the rest of us in the international community will be left picking up the human and financial costs of dealing with yet another wave of refugees, and yet another hotspot of instability in the world.

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Azeem Ibrahim is Senior Fellow at the Centre for Global Policy and Adj Research Professor at the Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College. He completed his PhD from the University of Cambridge and served as an International Security Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and a World Fellow at Yale. Over the years he has met and advised numerous world leaders on policy development and was ranked as a Top 100 Global Thinker by the European Social Think Tank in 2010 and a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. He tweets @AzeemIbrahim.

By Dr. Ali Al-Ghamdi

Saudi Gazette

May 11, 2017

When Aung San Suu Kyi was finally able to collect her Nobel Peace Prize in 2012, the committee’s chairman described how her “firmness of principle” in the struggle for human rights and democracy had made her “a moral leader for the whole world”. Since taking power in Myanmar, the former political prisoner’s moral credibility has been vastly diminished if not demolished by her failure to even acknowledge the brutal persecution of the Rohingya minority in Rakhine state. A dozen fellow Nobel Peace Laureates have lamented her inaction faced with “a human tragedy amounting to ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity”.

On Tuesday, the increasing gulf between her and her long-time international supporters was exposed again when she appeared alongside the European Union’s foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini. The EU rightly backs the United Nations Human Rights Council’s decision to dispatch a fact-finding mission over allegations of murder, rape and torture by military and security forces. She insisted the decision was “not in keeping with what is really happening on the ground” and would make matters worse.

The above-stated remarks were part of an editorial in the British newspaper The Guardian, which did not accept the deceptive logic used by Suu Kyi, the de facto ruler of Myanmar (formerly Burma), with regard to the Rohingya Muslim minority who live in northwestern Rakhine state. At a time when the Rohingya Muslims have been subjected to all kinds of persecution and atrocities at the hands of Buddhist extremists, Suu Kyi is trying to portray all of these crimes as a conflict between two communities who are equal in terms of their potential and power.

The world wants to believe her words but the reality is totally different, and as such even her supporters no longer trust what she says. They see that her words resemble the proverb: “You can fool some of the people some of the time but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.” She was able to fool many people and even international human rights organizations, which had once mistakenly believed that she was an advocate of human rights. Suu Kyi was also able to fool the Nobel Peace Prize Committee so that the committee chose her for the most prestigious global recognition for promoting peace.

The entire world stood by her against the military junta that was in power in Myanmar and the mounting global pressure forced the military rulers to lift the house arrest that had been in force for about six years. This was instrumental in increasing her popularity as the leader of the National League for Democracy, which stormed into power with a landslide victory in elections held last year.

Since her release from house arrest, Suu Kyi has done nothing and has not said anything about the ethnic cleansing and genocide being perpetrated against Rohingya Muslims, who are considered by the United Nations to be the most persecuted minority in the world. Some people excused her before the elections saying that she feared a backlash from majority Buddhist voters while others blamed her for sacrificing her ideals and human rights credentials for the sake of winning cheap political gains. Those who criticized her included her fellow Nobel Peace Prize Laureates. The Dalai Lama, the Buddhist spiritual leader in Tibet, was in the forefront of the critics. He spoke to her two times before she came to power urging her not to remain silent about the gross human rights violations being committed against the Rohingya Muslims.

Suu Kyi’s ulterior designs against the Rohingya and other Muslims in Myanmar came to the fore at the time of the preparations for elections. Not a single Muslim was included in the list of her party’s candidates for the elections. Even Muslim members of previous parliaments were denied tickets.

At a time when all international human rights organizations, including the United Nations Human Rights Council and all prominent global human rights figures agree that what is being practiced against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar is ethnic cleansing, Suu Kyi denies that there is any ethnic cleansing in her country, contradicting the findings of UN investigators. She said: “I think ethnic cleansing is too strong an expression to use for what is happening. It is not a matter of ethnic cleansing; it is a matter of people on different sides of the divide, and this divide we are trying to close as best as possible and not to widen it further.”

Through these statements, she makes desperate attempts to equate the victim with the executioner – a bizarre comparison of those, who have been subjected to killing, rape, torching of homes and places of worship with the Buddhist extremists who are the perpetrators of these crimes and atrocities with the clandestine understanding and blessing of government agencies and security forces.

When the UN Human Rights Council decided to send a fact-finding mission to Myanmar, Suu Kyi rejected this under the pretext that it would further worsen the situation. She also stated that her government is investigating the abuses in Rakhine state. In fact, any investigation her government may carry out in line with its unfair laws, such as the Race and Religion Protection Laws and the law to deprive Rohingya Muslims of citizenship, will not be helpful in alleviating the suffering of these hapless people. She justifies her claims by appointing a panel, headed by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, to propose concrete measures to end tensions and improve the welfare of all people in Rakhine. However, Suu Kyi failed to implement the recommendations on the grounds that she cannot implement all of the recommendations at once.

Dr. Ali Al-Ghamdi is a former Saudi diplomat who specializes in Southeast Asian affairs. He can be reached at algham@hotmail.com