By AFP

March 30, 2016

Washington - US President Barack Obama on Wednesday hailed the swearing-in of Myanmar's new president Htin Kyaw, a close aide to Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, as an "extraordinary moment" as the country emerges from military rule.

Obama said he looked forward to working with Htin Kyaw, but cautioned that Myanmar was facing "significant challenges going forward," including on economic development and working to securing personal freedoms for all.

"Htin Kyaw's inauguration represents a historic milestone in the country’s transition to a democratically elected, civilian-led government," Obama said in a statement.

"This extraordinary moment in Burma's history is a testament to its people, institutions, and leaders who have worked together to ensure a peaceful transfer of power, and it speaks to the significance of the reforms the country has undertaken since 2011," he said.

"The United States looks forward to being a friend and partner of the new government and the people of Burma as they make progress toward building a more inclusive, peaceful, and prosperous future."

By Coconuts Jakarta

March 30, 2016

Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi is a figure well admired in Indonesia, as she is to the rest of the world. Or at least she was, as a single controversial quote recently attributed to Suu Kyi has led numerous Indonesians to express outrage at the Nobel Peace Prize winner online:

“No one told me that I was to be interviewed by a Muslim.”

The statement was supposedly made by Suu Kyi after her interview with the BBC’s Mishal Husain, herself a Muslim, in 2013. Suu Kyi supposedly said it off air after Husain asked her to condemn anti-Muslims in Myanmar and the persecution of the country’s Rohingya Muslims.

It’s certainly an uncharacteristic thing for Suu Kyi to say, and it’s all the more jarring given her status as a Nobel Peace Prize winner.

Several human rights activists in Indonesia created a petition on Change.org in reaction to the quote, arguing that, “It might be one racially-insensitive sentence, but that was one sentence too many, and the meaning is too much for those who love peace.”

The petition, which was created yesterday, is urging the Nobel Committee to rescind Suu Kyi’s Nobel Peace Prize. The petitioners also added that Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy, over which she presides, has also failed to take an official position on the human rights abuses experienced by hundreds of thousands of Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims.

At the time of writing, more than 26,000 people have signed the petition.

But did Suu Kyi actually say the controversial sentence above?

Our sister site Coconuts Yangon argued that the quote, which first appeared in British journalist Peter Popham’s new book, ‘The Lady and the Generals: Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma’s Struggle for Freedom’, was poorly sourced, with even the author admitting that it was taken from gossip.

Addition: As we noted before, the quote, which first appeared in British journalist Peter Popham’s new book, ‘The Lady and the Generals: Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma’s Struggle for Freedom’, was poorly sourced, with the author describing it as gossip.

However, he later backed it up, saying it was taken from a "reliable source". He also said the issue was more complicated than the quote revealed.

By Moe Myint

The Irrawaddy

March 30, 2016

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

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

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

If these rallies continue happening, what will you do? 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Would you give some examples of that? 

They will concern Arakan State development.

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

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

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

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

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

At the moment, that still exists.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Human Rights Watch

March 30, 2016

Lifting of State of Emergency Should End Restrictions on Rohingya

New York ­– The Burmese government’s lifting of the state of emergency in Arakan State should promptly be followed by the end of abusive restrictions on ethnic Rohingya and other Muslims.

On March 29, 2016, the day before Burma’s transfer of power to a new government, outgoing President Thein Sein ordered the lifting of the state of emergency imposed on Arakan State in 2012 during communal violence between Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims. State media reported that the order was issued after the state government found that there was no longer a threat to people and property.

“President Thein Sein’s last minute repeal of Arakan State’s state of emergency puts the new government on firm footing to ensure basic freedoms for the long persecuted Rohingya minority,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director. “It’s now up to the new government to work with local officials and security forces to ensure that ending the emergency translates into real improved respect for the rights of all the state’s people.”

Nyi Pu, the newly appointed chief minister of Arakan State from the National League for Democracy (NLD) party, and incoming national President Htin Kyaw should strengthen efforts to ensure that all communities receive equal protection without discrimination. Curbs on basic freedoms maintained by security forces and military-controlled ministries should be immediately removed.

The government’s effective denial of Burmese citizenship to 1.2 million Rohingya under the discriminatory 1982 Citizenship Law has facilitated human rights violations, including restrictions on their right to freedom of movement, discriminatory limitations on access to education, arbitrary detention and taxation, forced labor, and confiscation of property. For example, Rohingya must apply for permission to travel within and between townships, which has had a devastating effect on their access to health care and ability to earn a living. Rohingya in Maungdaw and Buthidaung townships must also contend with a raft of regulations requiring them to seek permission to marry and register births.

Since the communal violence in 2012, which Human Rights Watch research found constituted ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity, over 130,000 Rohingya Muslims remain displaced. Local officials and security forces restrict aid agencies’ access to camps for internally displaced Rohingya in Sittwe and to Rohingya communities in northern Arakan State. Swiftly repealing discriminatory local measures would immeasurably improve the living standards of stateless Rohingya and other Muslim minorities.

On February 8, 2016, officials in northern Arakan State extended for two months a curfew that bans gatherings of more than five people in public places, including mosques. It is not clear if this local order is covered under the state of emergency, but state officials should make it a priority to lift all curfews.

“The state of emergency was only one element of a repressive apparatus that effectively segregated the Rohingya population and denied them basic services,” Robertson said. “Removing these draconian measures is needed to reach a long-term resolution of the Rohingya crisis, which affects everyone in Arakan State.”

The state and national governments and the Burmese military should end arbitrary arrests under the Unlawful Associations Act, used to detain civilians suspected of assisting or supporting the insurgent Arakan Army. Over the last year, fighting between the military and the Arakan Army, a Buddhist Arakanese insurgent force, has escalated in northern Arakan and southern Chin States. The authorities have arbitrarily arrested and charged scores of civilians under the act.

The increased fighting in Arakan State has been accompanied by reports of human rights abuses by state and non-state forces against civilians, including forced labor and the use of indiscriminate antipersonnel landmines near civilian settlements. Thousands of civilians have been temporarily displaced by the fighting and excessive security restrictions have in some cases hampered access by aid agencies.

“The Burmese army should cease its abuses against the Arakanese Buddhist population caught up in the slowly building armed conflict there,” Robertson said. “Continued harassment and abuse by the security forces will shatter efforts to rebuild trust and respect for rights following the 2012 communal violence.”

By Reuters

March 30, 2016

Yangon -- Myanmar President Thein Sein, in a surprise move hours before leaving office, lifted a state of emergency in the restive western state of Rakhine, imposed after clashes between Buddhists and minority Rohingya Muslims in 2012.

Thein Sein announced the move in state media on Tuesday, a day before a president from Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) will be sworn in at an official handover, after the NLD won the Nov. 8 election by a landslide.

While there have been no major clashes in Rakhine in the last two years, most of Myanmar's 1.1 million Rohingya Muslims remain stateless and live in apartheid-like conditions. They are denied citizenship and have long complained of state-sanctioned discrimination.

"It is found from the report by the Rakhine state government that the situation in Rakhine state can no longer pose dangers to the lives and property of the people," said the ordinance signed by Thein Sein.

Myanmar has denied discriminating against the group. It does not recognize the Rohingya as an ethnic minority and instead classifies them as Bengalis. Most Rohingya reject the term and many families have lived in Rakhine for generations.

Rohingya were denied participation - both as voters and as candidates - in the November vote. Before the elections, religious tensions were high, with the NLD deciding not to field a single Muslim candidate on its lists of more than 1,100 hopefuls.

The Rohingya are widely disliked in Myanmar, where they are seen as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh - including by some in Suu Kyi's party. She risks hemorrhaging support by taking up their cause.

Tensions are rising between the NLD and the Rakhine-based Arakan National Party (ANP), one of Myanmar's most vocal ethnic parties. ANP lawmakers walked out of the regional parliament on Monday wearing black stickers on their jackets, because the NLD denied them the position of the chief minister of the state.

Still, lack of fighting means that some 25,000 Rohingya Muslims have left camps for displaced people and returned to the communities, the United Nations said last week, with the number of people in camps down to around 120,000 from 145,000.

(Reporting by Antoni Slodkowski and Aung Hla Tun; Editing by Nick Macfie)

By Thomson Reuters Foundation

March 30, 2016

BANGKOK - One in five children aged 10 to 17 in Myanmar go to work instead of school, according to figures from a census report on employment published on Monday.

The Occupation and Industry report - part of Myanmar's 2014 census - shows about 1.7 million children between 10 and 17 years of age are working.

"Today, one in five children aged 10-17 are missing out on the education that can help them get good jobs and have employment security when they grow up," Janet E. Jackson, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) representative for Myanmar, said in a statement.

Many parts of rural Myanmar are mired in poverty and one million people are estimated to be in need of humanitarian aid due to natural disasters and internal conflict which have driven hundreds of thousands from their homes, according to the United Nations. 

The 2014 nationwide census - Myanmar's first in 30 years - was criticised for excluding the country's Muslim Rohingya minorities, who suffer state-sanctioned discrimination.

Most of 1.1 million Rohingya are stateless and live in apartheid-like conditions in the western state of Rakhine.

The main results of the census were released in May 2015, and showed Myanmar's population stood at 51.4 million - a figure that includes an estimate of the Rohingya population based on pre-census mapping in Rakhine state, according to UNFPA.

The employment data highlighted a gender gap in the labour market, with about half of women aged 15 to 64 working or looking for a job, compared to 85 percent of men.

The report indicated more than half (52 percent) of Myanmar's population is working in the agriculture, forestry or fishing sectors.

These findings can be used to improve agricultural productivity to boost economic growth and farmers' earnings, said UNFPA, which assisted the government in carrying out the census.

The report also showed one in five elderly people aged 65 or older still work, mostly in the physically demanding agriculture, forestry and fishing sectors.

"The data suggest that economic realities oblige many people to continue heavy manual labour into old age to survive. This underlines the need for adequate social services and policies that serve the aged," Jackson said.

Data from other sources show deep poverty in the country.

Only a third of Myanmar's households have electric light, the infant mortality rate is 62 per 100,000 live births, and life expectancy stands at 66.8 years compared to neighbouring Thailand's 74 years, according to the World Bank.

Aman Ullah 

RB Opinion

March 28, 2016

"The war ? I cannot find it to be so bad! The death of one man: this is a catastrophe. Hundreds of thousands of deaths: that is a statistic!" [Tucholsky's diplomat]

Rohingya and other Muslims have faced torture, neglect, and repression in Burma for many years. A large number of Rohingyas are believed to have been killed and tens of thousands displaced in attacks by extremists who call themselves Buddhists.

Burmese government refuses to recognize Rohingya Muslims as citizens and labels them as “illegal” immigrants. About 1.3 million ethnic Rohingya Muslims in the western state of Rakhine are deprived of citizenship rights due to the policy of discrimination that has denied them the right of citizenship and made them vulnerable to acts of violence and persecution, expulsion, and displacement. 

The plight of the Rohingya was once again flung onto the world stage last year when a number of boats filled with passengers fleeing persecution were thwarted from docking at a number of different shores across the region. This journey is by no means uncommon: hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have made this journey over the last few decades, despite it being one of the most deadly irregular migration routes in the world.

The violence that originally targeted Rohingya Muslims in western Burma has spread to other parts of the country, where Muslims who have been granted citizenship are being attacked, according to reports. The Government of Burma has been accused of failing to protect the Muslim minority.

These policies of discrimination are far from being an exaggeration. In 2012 for example, Lieutenant-General Ko Ko, the then Burmese Home Minister, told in the parliament that the authorities were, “tightening the regulations [against Rohingya] in order to handle travelling, birth, death, immigration, migration, marriage, construction of new religious buildings, repairing and land ownership and right to construct building [sic] of Bengalis [Rohingya] under the law.”

This complete dehumanization of the Rohingya has become commonplace throughout Burma and the region, and has infiltrated political and religious discourse. Important government officials have referred to them as ‘viruses’ and ‘foreign entities’ and many important Buddhist leaders have fuelled this kind of sentiment using social media and anti-Muslim rallies.

The abuses perpetrated against the Rohingya population have been flagged by a number of organizations including the UN, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch and the results are chilling.

Accusations of rape, torture, forced removals; forced labour, child labour, detention and killings are widespread and have been well-documented. Further, there have been major restrictions placed upon Rohingya reproductive rights, the ability to move freely and access to basic social services. Brad Adams, executive director of Human Rights Watch’s Asia Division has called the Rohingya the ‘world’s most forgotten, abused people’, and the UN has called them ‘one of the most persecuted minorities in the world’.

According to Prof. Schabas, one of the foremost experts on international criminal law, “We’re moving into a zone where the word can be used (in the case of the Rohingya). When you see measures preventing births, trying to deny the identity of the people, hoping to see that they really are eventually, that they no longer exist, denying their history, denying the legitimacy of the right to live where they live, these are all warning signs that mean that it’s not frivolous to envisage the use of the term genocide.”

International journalists, genocide scholars, human rights researchers and humanitarian aid workers have all acknowledged Burmese persecution of these Muslim minority people. In the last several years, a growing international consensus is emerging as to the nature of the crime: Human Rights Watch has described the persecution of the Rohingya as ‘ethnic cleansing’ while several major empirical studies published by the University of Washington Law School, Yale University Law Clinic, Queen Mary University of London International State Crime Initiative and Al Jazeera English Investigative Unit have accused Burmese military government of commissioning the crime of genocide and other crimes against humanity.

Virtually, every iconic leader in the world – from His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Pope Francis to Desmond Tutu and George Soros to the youngest Nobel Peace laureate Malala Yusufzai has called for the end of Rohingya persecution and restoration of their full citizenship rights.

Even U Nyan Win, a spokesperson of Daw Suu once said that, ‘Rohingyas are entitled to “human rights”’. In his proper words, Nyan Win said that “If they [the Rohingyas] are not accepted (as citizens), they cannot just be sent onto rivers. Can't be pushed out to sea. They are humans. I just see them as humans who are entitled to human rights”.

However, it did not come out of the mouth of Daw Suu. On being asked about the attacks on Rohingya Muslims Suu Kyi claimed that it was "not ethnic cleansing" and said: "Muslims have been targeted but also Buddhists have been subject to violence. There's fear on both sides."

In the days when Stalin was Commissar of Munitions, a meeting was held of the highest ranking Commissars, and the principal matter for discussion was the famine then prevalent in the Ukraine. One official arose and made a speech about this tragedy — the tragedy of having millions of people dying of hunger. He began to enumerate death figures … Stalin interrupted him to say: “If only one man dies of hunger, that is a tragedy. If millions die, that’s only statistics.”

In a shocking turn of events, a new book on Suu Kyi (The Lady and The Generals: Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma's Struggle For Freedom by Peter Popham) reveals how the head of the National League for Democracy (NLD), which won a landslide in the recently concluded general elections in Burma, had made a grossly offensive statement about being interviewed by BBC presenter Mishal Husain.

An off-the-record comment by Sui Kyi, just after she was pressed by Husain to make her stance clear on the thorny issue of Burma's Rohingya Muslims, a minority oppressed by the country's majority Buddhists, went like this: "No one told me I was going to be interviewed by a Muslim!"

When Husain asked if the now 70-year-old Suu Kyi condemned the anti-Muslim persecutions and massacres, the Lady became defensive and said: "I think there are many, many Buddhists who have also left the country for various reasons. This is a result of our sufferings under a dictatorial regime."

By Dr Azeem Ibrahim

Al Arabiya

March 28, 2016

Just as Aung San Suu Kyi gets ready to take over the reins of power in Myanmar after a long and dramatic three decades of fighting for democracy in her country, a new biography reveals she has made rather off-colour remarks about an interview in 2013. It would seem that Ms Suu Kyi does not like being interviewed by Muslims. Even if they work for the BBC who have consistently covered her political career in a positive light.

The interview with Mishal Husain did get rather more pointed than the treatment Ms Suu Kyi expects from Western media, but it was by no means hostile. It was a simple question about the ethnic violence targeted at the Muslim Rohingya community in the country which peaked in 2012 and 2013 and which led to hundreds of thousands being displaced into internal refugee camps in Myanmar or in refugee camps in Bangladesh, Thailand, Indonesia or Malaysia.

And since then the problems have only gotten worse. The same systematic attacks on the Rohingya minority are behind the South East Asian migration crisis last year, a humanitarian disaster that we expect will be repeated this year when the spring brings calmer waters to the Bay of Bengal to enable refugees to take to the seas again.

The problem with Aung San Suu Kyi, as one of the more famous recipients of the Nobel Prize for Peace, is that she is the country’s best hope for democracy and for bringing Myanmar back into global society. But if anyone hopes that she will also heal this deep rift in her society, an inter-religious and inter-ethnic conflict that is on the edge of tipping over into full blown genocide (according to United to End Genocide), there is little reason to get your hopes up.

Anti-Muslim?

In the current media coverage of this incident, reporters have gone to great lengths to show that Ms Suu Kyi is not as anti-Muslim as she sounds. They cite the fact that her first boyfriend in at Oxford in England was from Pakistan and that one of her political mentors from Myanmar was Muslim. And perhaps she is not anti-Muslim. With someone in her position it is rather difficult to say, because she has had to play her cards close to her chest for so long while under the repressive regime of the military junta.

But it is the case that in her youth she was very much against Muslims being in Burma according to the research I undertook during my forthcoming book on the Rohingya. It is also the case that she has systematically denied that Muslims have been deliberately targeted and kept making apologetics for the “climate of fear” Buddhists in Myanmar feel from “Islam”, even though the Buddhists make up 80 percent of the country, while Muslims make up a mere 4 percent.

In the volatile politics of inter-community violence in Myanmar, every voice for peace counts. In Myanmar, no voice counts as much as that of Suu Kyi, “the Lady” of the nation. Yet her voice is not heard in defense of this, one of the most vulnerable groups in the world at the moment. If this has been some kind of political play she felt she had to make to get into power, this week she will run out of excuses.

As she takes over direct or indirect control of the civilian government, she will have the power to address this crisis in her country. We will have to wait and see. But there is plenty of evidence to show that “the Lady” is not quite the Nobel Laureate we want her to be. So I don’t recommend any of you hold your breath.

______________________

Azeem Ibrahim is an RAI Fellow at Mansfield College, University of Oxford and 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 AFP-JIJI

March 28, 2016

ANKARA – The Turkish coast guard on Sunday stopped five boats carrying dozens of illegal migrants, mostly from Myanmar, who were trying to reach the Greek island of Lesbos, local media reported.

A coast guard vessel spotted the boats about 4 miles off the shore of Dikili town in Izmir province as they tried to reach Lesbos, the private Dogan news agency reported.

The coast guard stopped the boats and took the migrants back to shore, where they were handed over to the police.

Most of them were from Myanmar.

“There is a planned massacre against Muslims in the country we live,” one of the migrants told Dogan, saying the combination of danger and poverty had forced them to leave.

His remarks suggested they were members of Myanmar’s Rohingya, a persecuted Muslim minority that has been targeted by violent attacks and state-sanctioned discrimination in the Buddhist-majority state, earning them a reputation as one of the world’s most persecuted peoples.

The numbers of people reaching Greece from Turkey have declined since an EU-Turkey deal went into effect on March 20 under which all migrants landing on the Greek islands fare sent back.

Before the deal, the numbers arriving each day had numbered in the thousands. On March 22, 1,662 people arrived, but this fell to 600 on Tuesday and 260 on Wednesday.

Dr. Habib Siddiqui

RB Opinion

March 27, 2016

The NLD party declared last week that Aung San Suu Kyi will be foreign minister in Myanmar's first civilian government for decades. The constitution, drafted and approved by the powerful military, had blocked her from becoming the presidency. Nonetheless, she vowed to rule above the man picked as president, Htin Kyaw, in the government which comes to power next week in the former army-ruled nation. 

Myanmar’s president-elect on Tuesday proposed an 18-member. The NLD only named 15 ministers for 18 posts chosen by the civilian government. Suu Kyi will head up foreign affairs, energy, and education. The foreign ministry role gives her international clout and a seat at the influential military-dominated security council. Parliament is expected to vote later in the week to confirm the posts. [Note: Under Myanmar's complex political rules, the cabinet role means she will have to forgo her seat in parliament, although her party insisted she would maintain her chairmanship of the NLD.]

Myanmar (formerly Burma) is plagued with lots of problems, including decades-long guerrilla wars in ethnic territories. Her education and health care system is crumbling. Her economy and politics are on shaky grounds. Her novice government also faces the continued might of an army that for years viewed Suu Kyi and her party with deep suspicion. The military still holds strong political sway under a charter that reserves a quarter of parliament seats for unelected soldiers and grants the army chief direct control over three key ministries; home affairs, border affairs and defense. It also ensured that one of Htin Kyaw’s two vice presidents is a former general, Myint Swe, a close ally of former junta leader Than Shwe. Myint Swe remains on a U.S. Treasury Department blacklist that bars American companies from doing business with several tycoons and senior military figures connected with the former junta.

One of the serious problems, however, is the eliminationist project, practiced and promoted by the previous military regimes, as part of a fascist national project to purify Myanmar (formerly Burma) of the presence of non-Buddhists, the minorities, esp. the Rohingyas of the Arakan (Rakhine) state. The latest genocidal campaigns launched against the Muslims since 2012 have led to the internal displacement of nearly a quarter million people, and the risky sea voyages taken up by many that have led to the death and enslavement of hundreds. Muslim homes and businesses have been attacked, ruined or burned down to ashes in ethnic cleansing drives. Nearly 140,000 Rohingya and other Muslims in the Rakhine state continue to live in the IDP camps that are no better than concentration camps. The condition there is simply miserable and despicable and needs to be improved as soon as possible. The new government must ensure the safe return of the encamped victims to their rebuilt homes or places of former residence. More importantly, it must take up the task of stopping the disenfranchisement and continuing suffering and persecution of the Rohingya and other minorities that were born in the country by integrating them as full citizens with equal rights. 

Is NLD and Suu Kyi serious about bringing a desired change for all? Will she show leadership in the moment of crisis or choose to follow opportunistic policies that only exacerbate the existing problems taking the country on an irreversible course of disunity and ultimate fraction? 

Regrettably, Suu Kyi has been criminally silent on the genocidal campaign launched by her fellow Buddhist community against the persecuted Rohingya, which deservingly has drawn serious criticism from many quarters, esp. those who earlier had adored her as a human rights icon.

Many observers know Suu Kyi of spending many years, nearly 20 years, in the UK before returning home. Little known facts are that her first serious boyfriend was a Pakistani Muslim whom she befriended at Oxford who later went on to become a top diplomat for Pakistan and that one of the key people who persuaded her to get involved in Burma’s democracy uprising was Maung Thaw Ka, a Muslim journalist and author who subsequently died in jail. [Peter Popham: The Lady and the Peacock] It is difficult to imagine her in politics today without the influence of those Muslims. 

One would have thought that the influence of her mentor Maung Thaw Ka would have made her a complete or at least a better human being who won't see the world from the foggy lenses of intolerance, racism and bigotry that have underscored what is wrong with Burma and its toxic Myanmarism! But our expectations about her leadership in the time of crisis were proven wrong. 

When she should have visited the killing fields of Arakan (Rakhine) state, she chose not to see. When she should have heard the cries and agonies of the suffering victims of ethnic cleansing, she chose not to hear. When she should have spoken out, she chose to remain silent. When she should have condemned the heinous crimes of her fellow Buddhists (who have soiled the image of Buddhism) unequivocally she appeared to condone such criminal acts with a forked tongue. Hers was a betrayal of trust and what could have been decent and good! It was a far cry from her self-adulating ‘fear from freedom’!

Some admirers have suggested that if she spoke up for the much persecuted Rohingya, it would make it easy for her enemies (esp. within the military and fascist Buddhist monks of the Ma Ba Tha) to repeat the argument that she is not a full Burmese Buddhist – and if the Burmese masses fell for it, that could erode her standing and her chances of coming to power; so she has been sitting uncomfortably on the fence for the past five years. I find such arguments politically opportunistic and morally indefensible. After all, great leaders don’t follow the crowd but let the crowd follow them. They are not a searcher for consensus but are a molder of consensus.

They don’t let the popular mob culture define their leadership role either. 

Suu Kyi's hypocritical attitude, sadly, towards the painful sufferings of the Rohingya people has been simply inexcusable, and revealed something that was both ugly and evil. It set her apart from the noble predecessors like (late) Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu of South Africa, and many of the genuine luminaries that had won the much coveted Noble Prize for peace. 

Myanmar remains locked in its shameful past of racial and religious chauvinism and hatred. Not only were prejudices exploited to divide this nation along racial and religious lines and justify the rule by the powerful military for more than half a century, they were used as a glue to promote and cement or gel the racial and religious superiority of the Bama over every other race. As a result, instead of Abraham Lincoln’s ‘government of the people, by the people, and for the people’ what we have in Myanmar is ‘government of the Bama people, by the Bama people and for the Bama people’. All the non-Bama peoples are there to serve the interest of the majority Bama people, who happen to follow Theravada Buddhism. Suu Kyi comes from that very stock. As Dr. Shwe Lu Maung puts it she is leader born of the chaos. 

Many Burmese Buddhists are extremely prejudiced against non-Buddhists, esp. Muslims. But is Aung San Suu Kyi also guilty of such a flaw? 

In his book: Is Suu Kyi a Racist, Dr. Shwe Lu Maung (Shah Nawaz Khan) - now living in the USA and originally from Burma and author of some major volumes of work dealing with his native country - tries to answer the question objectively. It should be a must-read book for anyone interested about the future of Myanmar under Suu Kyi’s leadership. 

After a torrid interview with BBC's veteran journalist Mishal Husain for the Today programme, Suu Kyi was reportedly heard to say angrily, “No-one told me I was going to be interviewed by a Muslim.” It is said that if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, looks like a duck, it must be a duck. Suu Kyi’s remarks speak volumes and reveal something that is, sadly, very unpleasant and unbecoming about a lady who was once considered a democracy icon. Truly, I find her bigotry-ridden remarks about one of the most unbiased and objective interviewers of our time simply disgusting and inexcusable. 

I was one of those former admirers who wanted to believe that Suu Kyi is a progressive human being who has been able to rise above the evil curses of racism and bigotry that have poisoned her country since its birth. But she disheartened me and billions of people around the globe through her bigotry, and an overt one in that, which is also very unnerving and unfortunate for a country that has many races, ethnicities and religions. 

Racism and bigotry are serious diseases, and according to Dr. Shwe Lu Maung, more like a variety of Freudian narcissism, which needs cure. For Myanmar to survive as a nation, she must discard her culture of prejudice and intolerance that has, sadly, defined her character in the post-independence era. 

Will Suu Kyi now become a true leader for a fractured country that needs a unifier and not a divider? 

I can’t predict the answer yet but can only pray and hope that she evolves into becoming a unifier, much like her legendary father Aung San was before his untimely death. The sooner the better for not only Myanmar but for the entire region!

RB News

March 26, 2016

Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh - Nur Boshor, A Rohingya Refugee, was stabbed and robbed just outside of the UNHCR registered camp where he lives. Boshor, 44 years old, operates a small shop in the market within Nayapara refugee camp. On 10:30am on Saturday, March 26, 2016, he had left his home in a shed in Block I of the camp, which is situated near the Teknaf roadside. He had plans of traveling a few kilometres west into the Teknaf market place to buy items for his shop, as well as clothing for his daughters upcoming wedding. 

Boshor had not been on the main road long and was attempting to hail a CNG tuk tuk (mini taxi) when he was attacked by a man local to the area surrounding the camp. First, the man demanded that he handed over the money and tried to force the money out of his pockets. As Boshor refused at struggled against losing his money the man punched him in the back. Boshor continued to refuse to hand over the money, the man slashed him on the head with a blade and with that blow, managed to get the money from Boshor before leaving. 

Bleeding, Boshor reentered the camp where some refugees took him to the main entrance where the camp medical facilities are situated. Unfortunately the clinics were closed to observe Bangladesh Independence Day Holiday. He will get no treatment for his wounds unless he exits the camp and pays to a local clinic and again risking his safety. The UNHCR card that he possesses offers him no protection outside of the camp and there are no laws in Bangladesh to offer him rights or safety. He allegedly had been carrying 18'000 Bangladeshi Taka (about $230 usd) when he was assaulted and robbed. There will be no justice for the money lost either, as registered refugees are technically restricted from carrying money. 

Fairly recently UNHCR had posted a hotline within the two registered camps and encouraged refugees to call in case of incidences such as fire or physical or sexual assault. That hotline implemented after a rash of entrances by Bangladesh border guards who allegedly assaulted refugees and destroyed shops as well as confiscated any contraband Myanmar made products. Boshor, having been just outside of the camp, will not be able to get any protection from UNHCR as along with the money restriction, there is technically a restriction that the refugees cannot leave the confines of the camp unless given permission by the Camp In Charge office. Although these rules are loosely enforced, refugees become very vulnerable once outside of the UNHCR's jurisdiction.

By Radio Free Asia

March 25, 2016

Myanmar’s parliament unanimously approved on Thursday president-elect Htin Kyaw’s list of nominees for members of his cabinet, including Aung San Suu Kyi who could run four ministries, ensuring that her voice will dominate the country’s major policy decisions.

The list includes the names of 18 people—a mix of career bureaucrats, lawmakers and military officers—who would take office in 21 leadership positions when the National League for Democracy (NLD) party formally takes power on April 1. The NLD, however, has not made it clear which post will go to which designated minister.

NLD chairwoman Aung San Suu Kyi, who is prohibited from becoming president by a constitutional clause barring anyone with foreign relatives from assuming the nation’s top office, has been put forward to lead the foreign affairs, education, electric power and energy, and President’s Office ministries, according to local media reports. The NLD has not confirmed the reports.

“I am announcing now the appointment of these nominees as Union ministers because there are no motions to reject them,” said Mahn Win Khaing Than, speaker of the upper house. He also announced a list of nominees for the Constitutional Tribunal, a nine-member panel of legal experts who serve five-year terms. The list will be approved on March 28 as long as no rejections are submitted, he said.

Kyaw Win, an NLD lawmaker who is an adviser to the party’s economics committee, was approved for a ministry even after news broke on Wednesday that he holds a doctorate degree from a fake online university created by a Pakistani group that was exposed as a fraud in 2015. He has been earmarked for the highly important finance and planning ministry, according to local media.

However, Nyo Nyo Thin, a former member of parliament, pointed out that lawmakers must submit their biographies with accurate and true facts or be subject to punishment under the law.

“It is very important with regard to the appointment of a finance minister because this is very important for the country,” he said. “We want a finance minister who is honest and reliable. [Lawmakers] should reconsider whether the candidates are suitable for these posts even though they may have made honest mistakes in their bios.”

Zaw That Htwe, a former political prisoner, editor and journalist, said the appointment of ministers with questionable backgrounds could hurt the NLD’s credibility.

“Although the nominees as union ministers are approved, the NLD would have difficulties gaining the people’s trust because of questions surrounding the ministers’ honesty and attitudes,” he said. “If they did something wrong, the media and people would attack them based on this, so it could also harm the NLD government’s dignity.”

Changes in store

Some of the ministerial nominees have plans for major changes in store to move the country towards further development and democracy after more than five decades of military rule.

Win Myat Aye, an upper house lawmaker who would likely take over as Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement Minister, said: “We must be free of corruption and operate with great capability.”

Journalist Pe Myint, who has been nominated to lead the information ministry, told RFA that the NLD-led government will reform the media by changing the content of government-run newspapers and radio stations.

“As we [journalists] are the ones who want media freedom very much and who have been working for media freedom, our attitude has not changed,” he said. “I will work so that journalists do not get arrested and that the ones already in jail on charges can be released.”

His words came on the same day that rights group Amnesty International issued a report calling on the new government to immediately release all political detainees when it takes office on April 1, a reminder of the pressure the NLD government is under to make speedy progress with democratic change.

The report, based on interviews with journalists, lawyers, rights activists, prisoners of conscience, students and labor organizers, documents how authorities in Myanmar have conducted a widespread crackdown on their opponents to silence dissent in the past two years.

“This could be the start of a new dawn for human rights in Myanmar, but the task facing Aung San Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy is huge – they have to ensure that their actions are not controlled by the repressive laws they will inherit,” said Champa Patel, Amnesty International’s South East Asia director, in a news release.

“Despite their landslide election win, Myanmar’s flawed constitution will also ensure that the military still wields considerable power,” she said referring to the NLD’s sweeping victory in general elections last November.

Regional ministries

The NLD, which reduced the overall number of national ministries to 21 from 36 to rein in the country’s bloated bureaucracy, also is considering minimizing the size of regional governments, said party spokesman Zaw Myint Maung.

“We believe that we can reduce the number of regional ministers if the [reduced number of] Union ministers can work effectively,” he told RFA. “It’s certain that we will have fewer ministers now that we have fewer ministries than we did before.”

In a related development, Aung San Suu Kyi met with 22 lawmakers from the Arakan National Party (ANP) on Thursday in the capital Naypyidaw to confirm that the new chief minister in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state will be an NLD member, said Win Htein, a member of the NLD’s central executive committee.

President-elect Htin Kyaw, who has the authority to nominate chief ministers and their cabinet members, has put forward Nyi Pu, an NLD lawmaker who represents Rakhine’s Gwa township, as the state’s chief minister

“We said that Nyi Pu of the NLD will become the chief minister of Rakhine State in accordance with the constitution,” Win Htein told RFA. “We also clearly told them that there will be not only NLD members, but also people from the ANP and other academics in the Rakhine state government.”

Members of the ANP, the state’s strongest local ethnic political party, and their supporters have demanded for months that they be allowed to choose their chief minister from within their own political ranks.

The ANP, which represents the interests of the predominantly Buddhist, ethnic Rakhine majority living in the state and in the Yangon region, threatened in January to oppose the NLD if it did not get its way.

About 500 people marched though the state capital Sittwe on Wednesday, calling for the right to select their chief minister .

Aung San Suu Kyi agreed that three ANP leaders should hold meetings next week with three NLD representatives to discuss the formation of Rakhine’s government, said ANP lawmaker Khin Saw Wai.

“We will have a result that people want,” he said.

Aung San Suu Kyi and the Rakhine leaders with whom she met also agreed on how they will work together to foster development in the impoverished state and resolve its religious, social and business challenges, Win Htein said.

Reported by Win Naung Toe, Win Ko Ko Latt, Tin Aung Khine, Thinn Thiri, Set Paing Toe and Wai Mar Tun. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

By Moe Myint

The Irrawaddy

March 25, 2016

RANGOON – National League for Democracy (NLD) chairperson Aung San Suu Kyi urged Arakan National Party (ANP) lawmakers to collaborate with her NLD-led cabinet in Arakan State on Thursday, while also reportedly taking the opportunity to hold a discussion on the economic sector and relations with the region’s Rohingya minority.

Lower House ANP MP Pe Than told The Irrawaddy that NLD spokesman Win Htein invited 22 ANP lawmakers to Naypyidaw for an initial meeting with Suu Kyi at the capital’s municipal guest house on Thursday evening.

The ANP has selected three representatives, including Pe Than, to engage in a further dialogue with Suu Kyi. One of the most divisive issues between the two parties has been the appointment of the Arakan State Chief Minister. The ANP wants a party member in the role, while the NLD—as the national winner of the election—can select one of their own people for each state minister post, according to the country’s 2008 Constitution.

Yet Suu Kyi has said that the NLD pick for the Arakan State Chief Minister remains NLD central executive committee member, Nyi Pu. Pe Than said the appointment will be discussed further in the talks.

In January, the ANP stated that unless they were granted the chief minister position in their state, they would work in opposition to the NLD. Suu Kyi reportedly told the Arakanese legislators that in an NLD-led government they would be offered some positions, as would some outside “technocrats.”

The ANP has demanded that the NLD meet with the Arakanese party’s authorities to discuss the issue further, including Dr. Aye Maung, Aye Tha Aung and Tun Aung Kyaw. The goal is to hold a political dialogue, but according to ANP MP Ba Shein, such an undertaking is likely to fail; Aye Tha Aung, known to be close with Suu Kyi, was unexpectedly dismissed from the delegation and replaced by Tha Tun Hla, another party insider.

“Suu Kyi is considering building trust between ANP and NLD,” said ANP Lower House MP Khin Saw Wai. “[The meeting] went well enough,” she added, pointing out that both sides engaged in a “very transparent debate and shared feelings from their own hearts.”

Khin Saw Wai told The Irrawaddy that Suu Kyi had expressed concern that protests in Arakan State’s capital of Sittwe on Wednesday—against an NLD-appointed chief minister—could interfere with the process of state building and democratization. More protests are planned in Maungdaw Township on Sunday.

Tensions run high for many reasons in Arakan State, which has witnessed much conflict in recent years, particularly between the Buddhist Arakanese majority and the Muslim Rohingya minority, who are often dismissed as ‘Bengali’ by both locals and the government. The Rohingya are denied citizenship by both the Burmese government and the Arakanese state authorities, which has attracted the attention and concern of the international community.

The ANP and NLD reportedly talked about the region’s history of ethno-religious conflict during the meeting. While additional details are not known at this time, Suu Kyi told the ANP’s MPs that they would search for a solution together and, in full collaboration, march toward a better situation for the country, according to another ANP representative, Ba Shein.

They also discussed the controversial Kyaukphyu Special Economic Zone, a Chinese investment project located in Kyaukphyu Township, which has been criticized for its potential to displace locals and cause damage to the surrounding environment.

Khin Saw Wai said that Suu Kyi has promised to meet with ANP authorities again within a matter of weeks. The NLD will reportedly put forward some candidates for the talks, but a location has not yet been decided.

The Irrawaddy contacted NLD spokesmen Win Htein and Zaw Myint Maung by phone on Friday morning, but they could not be reached for comment.

By Laignee Barron

Myanmar Times

March 25, 2016

The United Nations agreed yesterday to extend the role of a human rights monitor for Myanmar for another year and called on the new government to strengthen rule of law and ensure better protections for minority groups.

The special rapporteur’s mandate, which was reviewed at the 31st Human Rights Council last week, was particularly contentious this year as she will be reporting on the National League for Democracy-backed government, which will take office on April 1.

Special rapporteurs are independent experts appointed to investigate, monitor and report on human rights abuses. The outgoing government has argued vociferously that there is no need for such oversight and lobbied hard for the position to be abolished.

Some rights groups feared that in the wake of last November’s peaceful parliamentary election which the NLD won in a landslide, the special rapporteur for Myanmar would be given a downgraded role restricted to providing technical assistance.

Despite a speech delivered by the current special rapporteur for Myanmar Yanghee Lee which identified a slew of pressing and extant rights abuses in the country, Australia pressed the council to drop Myanmar from the list of countries of concern with serious rights issues.

Yesterday, Ms Lee’s current mandate was extended and the council urged that she “work with the government of Myanmar to identify benchmarks for progress”.

In her latest report delivered to the council, Ms Lee provided eight recommendations for the new government to adopt within the first 100 days of assuming power on April 1. Several of the recommendations concerned improving conditions for Muslim Rohingya in Rakhine State including access to basic rights like health care, education and freedom of movement. She also urged that the Rakhine and Rohingya communities be reintegrated to avoid fuelling further communal tensions in the restive state.

“How can we expect communities to recreate bonds if they continue to be segregated?” Ms Lee asked the council.

The special rapporteur’s criticism of human rights abuses in Rakhine has elicited ire and personal attacks from nationalists groups. Outspoken monk U Wirathu labelled the academic a “whore” due to the international attention she drew to the situation.

By BBC 

March 23, 2016

The man proposed as Myanmar's new finance and planning minister has a fake degree in finance, it has emerged.

Kyaw Win admitted buying the bogus PhD from a fictitious online university - Brooklyn Park in the US - which sold fake qualifications from Pakistan.

He was caught when the National League for Democracy party, which is forming the new government, made his CV public.

It remains to be seen if Kyaw Win remains on the list of cabinet ministers to take office next week. 

A party spokesman told the BBC that the fake degree did not matter.

Confronted by the Myanmar Times newspaper, Kyaw Win admitted the degree was fake.

"I am not going to call myself 'Dr' any more, as I know now that it is a fake university. The PhD on my CV is not a real qualification," he told the newspaper.

A BBC check found the title still on his LinkedIn page, reports the BBC's Jonah Fisher.

Kyaw Win wrote a number of articles on economics and finance using his fake title.

Our correspondent says if the former civil servant is confirmed as minister, he will be responsible for a huge budget and his honesty and accuracy will be vital to the smooth running of Aung San Suu Kyi's new government in Myanmar, also called Burma.

Brooklyn Park University was among some 370 academic websites exposed as bogus last year by the New York Times which traced tens of millions of dollars in estimated revenue from fake degrees back to Pakistan.

Reuters

March 23, 2016