WHY is Asean silent on the issue of Rohingya Muslims, who have been suffering for centuries under the Myanmar army junta? Recently, they were told to leave the country to a third world nation willing to receive them. This is cruelty towards their own people and it seems that the world is just watching the injustice done to them, without any assistance, support or solution.

In June 2012, over 2000 people were displaced in sectarian violence in Myanmar, in which most victims were Muslims. The government promised a full investigation. Representatives from different religions and minorities condemned the atrocities inflicted on the Rohingya Muslims which is a serious human rights violation that the United Nations should stop immediately. 

In June 2012, 11 innocent Muslims were killed by the Burmese Army and the Buddhist mobs after bringing them down from a bus. A vehement protest was carried out in the Muslim majority province of Arakan, but the protesters fell victims to the tyranny of the mob and the army. People were reported killed and millions of homes destroyed in fires as Rohingyas and Buddhist-ethnic Arakanese clashed in western Myanmar.

Myanmar has a Buddhist majority. The Muslim minority in Myanmar are mostly the Rohingyas and the descendants of Muslim immigrants from India (including what is now Bangladesh) and China, as well as descendants of earlier Arab and Persian settlers. Indian Muslim were brought to Burma by the British to aid them in clerical work and business. After independence, many Muslims remained in the country. 

Over the years, thousands of Rohingyas have fled to Thailand. According to reports, there are roughly 111,000 refugees housed in 9 camps along the Thai-Myanmar border. In February 2009, there was evidence of refugees being towed to sea and abandoned and other reports of brutality by the Thai military in which Thailand's then prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said that there were "some instances" in which Rohingyas were pushed out to sea.

Will the present generation see the light of day? They are part of mankind, why then are we responding apathetically towards them? Asean must respond immediately to solve their issues. Please be sympathetic and empathetic towards the Rohingyas.

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Aung San Suu Kyi’s plate seems to be full. She had fought for years for democracy against the military junta. Vindicated, she entered Burma’s parliament to build a coalition by representing her party, the National Democratic League (NLD), after winning a by-election. She tended to a steady stream of foreign dignitaries who visited Burma right after the military government granted her freedom. Then for the first time in years she set foot outside Burma to visit foreign countries and open paths for diplomatic relationships.

While all this was going on, there was trouble brewing at home – an ethnic clash between the Buddhists and the Rohingya Muslims.

On June 2nd, in the Western state of Rakhina ethnic Buddhists killed as many as ten Rohingya Muslims, in retaliation for the rape and murder of a Buddhist woman by three Muslim men. The events that followed saw scores of burnt houses, killings, and Rohingya Muslims fleeing into neighboring Bangladesh.

The ethnic divide between the Buddhists and the Rohingya Muslims is troubling. The Rohingyas, particularly, are caught in a political, economic, and social limbo between Bangladesh and Burma. There are about 26,000 Rohingya Muslims living in Bangladesh, 22,000 with legal refugee status. The future of the rest is unknown if and when Burma decides to grant legal refugees a resident status. For now, the 26,000 Rohingya Muslims continue to live in a squalid condition in Bangladesh.

For most part of her adult life Ms. Suu Kyi stood for human rights. Can she resolve the long-standing ethnic tension in Burma, which requires a unity and solidarity among the politicians, the religious leaders, and the military leaders?

A coalition of Thein Sein’s government and Ms. Suu Kyi’s party should try to engage with their Bangladeshi counterpart to discuss the future of the refugees and find a way to transform “reckless optimism” and “healthy skepticism” into achievable solutions to the ethnic crisis.

Engaging the Association of South Asian Nations (ASEAN) to handle this crisis could become a crucial part of Ms. Suu Kyi’s democratic campaign against human rights violations. So far, ASEAN’s policy of addressing the human rights issue remains as a “principle of non-interference in domestic affairs.” ASEAN nations have done little to address human rights violation of an estimated 1 million Rohingya Muslims.

Its charter on human rights issues remains tacit. In recognizing Burma’s ethnic strife, Ms. Suu Kyi has noted the need to repair this ongoing problem; however, she has also indicated that the ethnic problem “should not be allowed to get in the way of restoring democracy.”

The ethnic crisis in Burma deserves a concerted effort from Thein Sein’s government and Ms. Suu Kyi’s party as part of the democratic reform in Burma. Democratic reform in Burma requires a solution to the ethnic crisis that has engulfed the country for years. Her engagement with the political and religious leaders of the Buddhists of the Rakhina State and the Rohingya Muslims to work out a permanent solution to this decades-long crisis could be paramount. She could also urge the foreign leaders to cooperate with ASEAN through bi-lateral engagements. They will be unlikely to ignore her. 

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According to recent reports, Muslims in Myanmar are suffering a tragic plight. Reports shows several hundred of nearly one million Muslims have been killed since June 28 during clashes in the western region of Rakhine. 

The UN has described Myanmar Muslims as one of the most persecuted minorities in the world. 

They are deprived from basic rights including education and employment and are subject to forced labor, extortion and other coercive measures. The government of Myanmar refuses to recognize the Muslim minority. 

Human Right Watch Organization reported earlier in July that "Burmese security forces have been implicated in killings and other abuses since the sectarian violence in northern Arakan State began." 

This is while the United States and the European Union are largely silent about the human right violations and the massacres targeting Muslims is Myanmar. 

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi who is deeply admired by the United States' and the British government is criticized because of her silence on the plight of Muslims. 

The head of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) urged Myanmar's pro-democracy Aung San Suu Kyi to help end violence against the Muslim community in her country. 

This week's Islam and Life asks: What is happening to the Muslims of Myanmar and why?

Its Buddhist majority might see fit to rally behind Aung San Suu Kyi for greater democratic rights while it continues to persecute other groups.

anmar's pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi has extolled Buddhism for allowing her a sense of inner freedom during her 15 years of house arrest. She's also said that Buddhist precepts can guide her country's democratic transition, encouraging reconciliation with the military instead of anger and revenge.

But the more nationalistic face of this Buddhist tradition, brought into focus by recent violence directed against Rohingya Muslims in the western state of Rakhine, could yet derail democratic reforms in Myanmar (also known as Burma). 

In fact, Suu Kyi has a Buddhism problem, specifically the chauvinism and xenophobia of Burma's Theravada Buddhist culture, which encourages a sense of racial and religious superiority among majority ethnic Burmese Buddhists (60% of the population) at the expense of ethnic and religious minorities. The resulting tensions could leave the country politically fragmented and strengthen the military's hand just as it has been forced to loosen its grip. 

This is why Derek Mitchell, the first U.S. ambassador to Burma in 22 years, was right in August to call the fate of the ethnic nationalities the country's "defining challenge." It is also why this issue should be on the top of the agenda this week when Suu Kyi comes to Washington to receive the Congressional Gold Medal. So far, Suu Kyi's response to treatment of the stateless Rohingya Muslims in Burma has been disappointing. 

The anti-Rohingya violence, which took place in June, led to scores of deaths, the burning of settlements and a refugee exodus of 90,000 people into neighboring Bangladesh. There, more than 200,000 refugees from Burma still languish in makeshift camps from the last anti-Rohingya pogrom 20 years ago. According to the United Nations, the Rohingyas, who number about 800,000 worldwide, are one of the world's most persecuted minorities. 

They are subject to forced labor, extortion, police harassment, movement restrictions, land confiscation, a de facto one-child policy and limited access to jobs, education and healthcare. A 1982 Burmese law denies them citizenship, based on the presumption that they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, even though many have lived in Burma for generations. There's also their darker skin color, which makes them "ugly as ogres" by comparison to the "fair and soft" complexion of native Burmese, as a Burmese consul general stated in 2009. 

Burmese President Thein Sein has said that the solution to the Rohingya problem is to put them into internal U.N.-administered camps, or to expel them. This proposal already has enhanced his popularity as a defender of the Buddhist faith, with monks taking to the streets in support. 

But other minorities have been put-upon by Buddhist nationalism too, which views them as threats to "the land, the race and the religion." Many of these groups, such as the Karen, the Shan, the Mon and the Kachin, have been in a state of rebellion off and on against the central government since Burma gained independence in 1948. 

Buddhism played a key role in undermining the military's grip on power. Opposition of monks to the regime, which boiled over in 2007's Saffron Revolution, posed a significant challenge to the military's popular legitimacy by depicting it as an enemy of Buddha sasana, or righteous moral rule. To deflect that challenge, the government has played the race card, largely through propaganda stressing that Buddhism is the religion of "true Burmese" and that the health and purity of a uniquely Burmese form of Buddhism are at risk from "outside" contamination. 

Although this strategy wasn't successful enough to fend off assaults on the military's legitimacy, it was effective at feeding Buddhist chauvinism and insecurity. The result has been a rising tide of nationalism in which the Buddhist majority might rally behind Suu Kyi and her monastic allies for greater democratic rights, but still sees other groups in a subordinate and often racist light. 

As the violence against the Rohingyas played out, the newly liberated Internet lit up with racist invective. Using a pejorative for the darker-skinned Muslims, one commenter declared, "We should kill all the Kalars in Burma or banish them, otherwise Buddhism will cease to exist." A nationalist group set up a Facebook page entitled "Kalar Beheading Gang," which attracted 600 "likes" by mid-June. Meanwhile, monks in Rakhine state distributed pamphlets urging Buddhists not to associate with Rohingyas. 

In Europe in June to receive her belated Nobel Peace Prize as the crisis peaked, Suu Kyi seemed at a loss to respond. Asked whether the Rohingya should be treated as Burmese citizens, she answered, "I do not know," followed by an equivocating statement about citizenship laws and the need for border vigilance. Neither she nor her National League for Democracy party denounced the attacks or the racist vitriol that followed them. NLD spokesman Nyan Win simply said: "The Rohingya are not our citizens." 

This response left many Burma-watchers disheartened. But Maung Zarni, a Burmese research fellow at the London School of Economics, explained: "Politically, Aung San Suu Kyi has absolutely nothing to gain from opening her mouth on this. She is no longer a political dissident trying to stick to her principles. She's a politician, and her eyes are fixed on the prize, which is the 2015 majority Buddhist vote." 

Suu Kyi has since established minority rights as a priority, citing it in July in her first speech in Parliament, though without mentioning the Rohingya specifically. 

A failure to manage ethnic and religious tensions long held in check by military authoritarianism invites dark scenarios. In some assessments, Burma could fragment, a la Yugoslavia. The specter of "disorder," which the military has historically used to justify its heavy-handedness, could lead it to slow the pace of reform or even roll it back. In 1962, minority unrest, significantly provoked by the establishment of Buddhism as the state religion, set the stage for the coup that led to 50 years of military misrule and international isolation. 

Suu Kyi wrote in a 1985 academic monograph that in the Burmese "racial psyche," Buddhism "represents the perfected philosophy. It therefore follows that there [is] no need to either develop it further or to consider other philosophies." In her bid to forge a sense of national identity for all Burmese, that cultural obduracy is not working in Suu Kyi's favor. 

William McGowan is author of several books, including "Only Man Is Vile: The Tragedy of Sri Lanka.

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Maungdaw, Arakan State: U Maung Oo, the chief of Arakan state had met Rohingyas in Maungdaw to discuss recently happen riots in Arakan at Regional Development Association (RDA) office on September 13 at about 3:00pm, according to an elder from Maungdaw. 

“The meeting was organized by RDA and in the meeting, U Maung Oo and two Rohingyas MP- U Aung Zaw Win and U Shwe Maung were attended as special gust from Rangoon and other USDP members from Maungdaw –U Tun Hla Sein, U Soe Win, U Hls Myint and U Jangir. Thirty Rohingyas from maungdaw attended the meeting to discuss about recent situation and real fact and evident.” 

In the meeting, U Maung Oo accused Rohingya community are the first party who created the riots in Maungdaw but in Akyab, the Rakhine community are the first party, according to a Rohingya who attend the meeting. 

A Rohingya youth denied the statement of U Maung Oo. He mentioned that on June 8, the Rakhines and police forces started the problems – shouting and throwing stones - while Rohingyas are peacefully praying in the Mosque. Rohingyas complained concerned authority (police) but security force open fir to the Rohingyas where two Rohingya dead on the spot. The dead bodies were carried by the security force.the Rohingya stated in the meeting. 

“There are 1000 Rohingyas in the jail, living miserable condition and without basic rights which was denied by U Manug Oo as he had reported only 560 Rohingyas are in the Jail,” said the Rohingya youth. 

“Security force and Natala ( new settler) villagers burnt 300 Rohingyas home in Maungdaw south, looted 500 Rohingya houses where they had taken all valuables goods- gold and money – and police seized 300 Rohingyas’ motorbikes,Rakhines and security force looted 300 Rohingyas’ shops from Maungdaw and Maungdaw north ans last more than 200 Rohingyas females were raped.” 

Polic, Hluntin, Nasaka and arny are still harassing Rohingya community while the USDP high level officer visiting Maungdaw and discussing with Rohingya community season, said an elder from Maungdaw. 

In the present of U Maung Oo in Maungdaw, Natala villager with security force tried to loot a house of Rohingya from Nurullah para while the house owner ( a female) cried for help,the villagers rushed to the spot where the security open fired to the villagers ( Rohingyas). In this situation, the USDP officer didn’t do any help to Rohingya. Whenever the officer visted to Maungdaw, he made false promised to Rohingyas to get support from this oppress people .

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Rohingyas are problems everywhere they go. 

Rohingyas are not the problems but problems are in the minds of those people who do not think of Rohingyas equal to them because many of them have darker skin. The then consultant of Myanmar to Hong Kong, Ye Myint Aung (now Myanmar representative to United Nation) described them as “ugly as ogres.” And problems are with those people who do not think of them as Human Beings. Rohingyas have not created any problem in any country where they reside and are given a status. There will be problems for both governments and Rohingyas if they have to stay anywhere illegally without any status. 

They are illegal immigrants. Therefore, if the third countries want to take them, we (Burmese) will pay for fuel for trans-oceanic shipment. 

As explained above Rohingyas are no way illegal immigrants. Why should anyone else pay for fuel for the trans-oceanic shipment to carry them to third countries? Why should Rohingyas of Indian descends should leave their homes? How shameless can they be? How quickly can they forget that and Siddharta Gautama Buddha son of Siddhodana Gautama and original people in Arakan were Indians who practiced Hinduism, Buddhism and Animism. These Indians simply have converted into Islam. That doesn’t make them foreigners. 

Burmese Regime and some extremist Rakhines don't want to recognize the name "Rohingya" not because they want their real identity so as to give them "Nationality" but because once they become successful in branding them as Bengalis, it will become easier for them to drive them out of Arakan land. In fact, now, Burmese pseudo civilian government in cooperation with extremist Rakhines are carrying out genocide against them to root them out of Arakan. Ultimately, Junta's dream of making Arakan into purely Burmanized Bhuddhist region will come true. 

Junta wants neither the people called Rakhines nor the people called Rohingyas. Thus, Junta has been setting up modal villages by bringing Bamars from central Burma. Rakhines are well aware of that. Yet Rakhines want to cleanse Rohingyas because they have become a major barrier for them (Rakhines) in achieving their much awaited dream of having an independent Arakan. For that purpose, extremist Rakhines simultaneously want to fight Junta on one side and Rohingyas on another side. It is a very wrong tactic. History has proven that. Hitler lost in the war because he fought Soviet Union on one side and English and French on another side. 

In the past, Rohingya didn't feel to call them as Rohingya because the situation and the time had not forced them to call so. In the past, if a Rohingya was asked of what race he or she is, the answer would be Muslims. Till date, they identify themselves as Mussalman (an Indian term for Muslim). It doesn't mean that this people didn't exist before. So, if someone says there is no word as Rohingya in the history of Arakan, then there is no word as Rakhine either. 

There might be one more reason why Muslims in Arakan didn’t claim their name before and during British independence. It might be because they tried to offer an olive branch to fellow Rakhines to develop an integrated political culture, based on the common national aspiration of Arakaneseness, through rapprochement of with the spirit of “Rakhine-Rohingya Twin Brothers.” But Rakhine extremist leaders were not receptive to the proposal. Instead, they claimed that Rakhines and Buddhism are synonymous and Muslims or Rohingyas are outsiders. (Nurul-Islam, 2012) 

Mons were known as Talaings in history. Bama, majority people of Burma, is a Tibeto-Burman group descended from Kanran (ancestors of majority of Arakanese or Rakhines), Phyu and Thet (known as ancestors of many Chins). They were known as Mierma in the earliest Mon’s records. (Harvery, 1925, 2000)Now they are called both Myanmar and Bama. Zomis are known as Chins today and Wungpang or Jingpho are known as Kachins. Shans are known as Tais or vice versa. Even Rakhines call themselves with different names: Rakhine, Rakan, Rakkha, Rakkhita, Arakan (a name of a place) and Maghs as called by others. If all these people can change their names and call themselves with whatever they like, why can’t Muslim Arakanese call them with the name “Rohingya?”? Why don’t those bigotry historians apply the same logic to Rohingyas’ matter? Why double standard? Why so ignorant? 

All in all, Rohingyas who are of Indo-Aryan descendants (i.e. Indian origins) are hated and could be targeted by many extremist Rakhines, other extremist Burmese and by the tyrannical regime of Burma just because they look different from mainstream mongoloid people and practice a different religion. The Burmese regime that has the strong records of creating racial riots whenever they face crises in the country and divert people’s attention from the problems has done it again. The regime were facing so many problems such as the pressure to stop genocidal war against Kachin, Myitsone damn crisis, electricity crisis, water crisis, labors and farmers’ demonstrations on and on. Now, they started cleansing Rohingyas in the name of protecting sovereignty, religion and Rakhines. As expected, the brainwashed Burmese xenophobic society came in support of the regime. I wonder how they could forget their sufferings under the same regime ruled by same people. Ex-generals and whoever behind the current pseudo civilian government have not changed their mind and tinking ways to the least extent but their dresses. If it continues, there will never be democracy in Burma and the rule of the evils will last for next 300 years. 

Arakanland.com, 2012. Arakan, The Land of the Father. [Online] Available at: http://www.arakanland.com/custom.html [Accessed 12 August 2012]. 

Buchanan, F., 1799. A Comparative Vocabulary of Some of the Languages Spoken in the Burma Empire. SOAS Bulletin of Burma Research, Vol. 1, No., 1, Spring 2003, ISSN 1479-8484, Vol. 1(1), p.55. Available at: http://www.soas.ac.uk/sbbr/editions/file64276.pdf [Accessed 10 August 2012]. 

Harvery, G.E., 1925, 2000. History of Burma. Culcutta, New Dehli: Asian Educational Service. Available at: http://books.google.com.my/books?id=vmIVhKXwrFcC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. 

IndexMundi.com, 2012. Bangladesh GDP - per capita (PPP). [Online] Available at: http://www.indexmundi.com/bangladesh/gdp_per_capita_(ppp).html [Accessed 12 August 2012]. 

IndexMundi.com, 2012. Burma GDP - per capita (PPP). [Online] Available at: http://www.indexmundi.com/burma/gdp_per_capita_(ppp).html [Accessed 12 August 2012]. 

Nurul-Islam, 2012. Anti-Rohingya Campaigns, Violations of Human Rights. UK. 

San-Kyaw-Tun-(Mahawizza), 2010. Zaa Lok Kay Pho Lay. 1st ed. New York: America-Burma Institute (A.B.I). 

The-Ministry-of-Foreign-Affairs-Myanmar, 2012. About Myanmar : Religion. [Online] Available at: http://www.mofa.gov.mm/aboutmyanmar/religion.html [Accessed 12 August 2012]. 

Suu Kyi waits to deliver a speech during the last day of the 101st session of the International Labour Conference in Geneva (Reuters)

Democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi emphasised the need for “precise laws on citizenship” and “uncorrupted border vigilance” to address ongoing sectarian strife in Burma’s western Arakan state, at a press conference in Geneva on Thursday.

Speaking at the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) annual conference, she said that “fear of illegal immigration” lay at the heart of the violence between ethnic Arakanese and the stateless Rohingya minority, which has claimed at least twenty-four lives since Friday.

“Of course I am concerned and the most important lesson is the need for rule of law,” she said when asked by reporters. “We need precise laws on citizenship. I think a big problem comes from fear of illegal immigration, I think we need more responsible uncorrupted border vigilance.”

She added that those deemed worthy of citizenship, should get all the legal benefits that entails.

Ongoing ethnic strife in Burma’s western state has thrown a global spotlight on the discrimination faced by the Muslim minority the Rohingya – considered “illegal Bengali immigrants” by the government and denied citizenship, even though many of them have lived in Burma for generations.

Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) have come under growing pressure to outline their position on the Rohingya – seen as a hot-button political issue that risks alienating many of its supporters.

An outburst of anti-Rohingya sentiments have raged across social and mainstream media in recent weeks, while foreign and exile news outlets have faced accusations of “bias” for their coverage of the conflict.

One Facebook page called the “Kalar beheading gang”, which has over 500 ‘likes’, has an illustration of a grim reaper with an Islamic symbol on its robe on a blood-spattered background and explicit images purporting to be of victims of the unrest.

“Recent events in western Burmahave created a hurricane of hate in the online sphere,” Nicholas Farrelly, a research fellow at the Australian National University, told AFP.

Rohingya groups have urged Suu Kyi to speak out on their behalf, which analysts say places her in a “delicate” position. The ongoing violence is likely to overshadow her first trip to Europe since being incarcerated by the military junta in 1989.

In her address to the 101st ILO conference, she also renewed calls for responsible foreign investment in Burma, especially in the extractive industries.

“We accept that investments must bring profits, but we would like these profits to be shared between companies and our people,” said Suu Kyi speaking to a packed auditorium.

She urged foreign companies hoping to partner with the state-owned Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE) to demand better governance.

“MOGE lacks transparency and accountability at present,” she said. “The government must apply internationally recognised standards such as the International Monetary Fund’s guidelines on fiscal transparency. Other countries can help by urging their companies not to partner with MOGE without agreeing to such standards.”

She welcomed the ILO decision to lift punitive measures against Burma in recognition of the steps taken to tackle the use of forced labour. The former pariah state will receive increased technical assistance as they push ahead with their plan of action to eliminate forced labour by 2015.

The ILO’s decision is widely seen as an indicator for the further removal of sanctions against Burma. However, the move has been criticized as premature by some organisations, including the Arakan Project, which recently released a new report documenting systematic abuses carried out by the Burmese military towards the Rohingya minority group.

The group warned that there has been “little progress” since the Burmese government signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the ILO in March this year. While a reduction in the use of forced labour has been seen in certain townships of Northern Arakan state, it is has been coupled with a rise in arbitrary taxes and increased exploitation in other areas.

“It was a bit disappointing to see how quick and easy this decision has been taken, without really considering that forced labour is still very prevalent. I feel that it’s a bit too early,” Chris Lewa, Director of the Arakan Project toldDVB. “The need to monitor progress carefully will be important.”

The issue of forced labour inNorthern Arakanstate is inextricably linked to the legal status of the Rohingya, which leaves them vulnerable to exploitation and abuse, added Lewa.

Aung San Suu Kyi is set to travel to Norway next to collect her 1991 Nobel Peace Prize, before visiting her former home in the United Kingdom and then France.

With additional reporting from AFP.

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Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) welcomes yesterday’s European Parliament resolution on the persecution of Rohingya Muslims in Burma, which called on the Burmese government to amend its controversial 1982 citizenship law that effectively stripped the Rohingya of citizenship and allow humanitarian aid to Rakhine State “as a matter of urgency”.

The European Parliament warned that ongoing violence in Rakhine State between the majority Rakhine Buddhist and minority Rohingya Muslim populations, which has left over 70,000 people internally displaced, “may put at risk the transition to democracy in Burma/Myanmar.” The resolution urged the Burmese government to allow “UN agencies and humanitarian NGOs, as well as journalists and diplomats, unhindered access to all areas of Rakhine State, guarantee unrestricted access to humanitarian aid for all affected populations, and ensure that displaced Rohingya enjoy freedom of movement and are permitted to return to their place of residence once it is safe for them to do so.”

The resolution also called on the government to “amend the 1982 citizenship law so as to bring it into line with international human rights standards and its obligations under Article 7 of the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child, with a view to granting citizens’ rights to the Rohingya and other stateless minorities, as well as ensuring equal treatment for all Burmese citizens, thus ending discriminatory practices.”

In a separate development, a new report released yesterday by the Arakan Project documents that “the systemic and discriminatory practice of forced labour against the Rohingya has continued, or even intensified, across large areas of North Arakan/Rakhine State in Burma/Myanmar, since deadly communal violence broke out in June 2012.”

Meanwhile, in London this week, a delegation from the Chin Human Rights Organisation (CHRO), hosted by CSW, presented their new report, “Threats to Our Existence: Persecution of Ethnic Chin Christians in Burma”, at a meeting in the House of Commons organised by the All Party Parliamentary Group for Democracy in Burma. They also met with the Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow MP.

Reports have also emerged this week that Howitzer artillery shelling is being used on civilian villages surrounding the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) headquarters of Laiza. Peace talks between leaders of the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO) and the government have been suspended since July, during which time fighting between the KIA and Burmese army has escalated severely.

Benedict Rogers, CSW’s East Asia Team Leader, said, “During this week, the suffering of people in western and northern Burma has received long overdue and much needed attention, which we welcome. In the past year, Burma’s government has taken some very welcome steps towards democratization and openness, and those reforms should be recognized. However, until all the people of Burma can live in peace and without fear, we must continue to highlight the very grave human rights violations which are still taking place today, including violations of religious freedom. The Rakhine and Rohingya, as well as the Chin and Kachin people, along with the ethnic nationalities in eastern Burma, must be included in the reform process; a genuine nationwide dialogue must take place, and a political solution to decades of conflict and persecution must be agreed. As President Thein Sein and Aung San Suu Kyi prepare to visit the US, we urge them to work together to establish a nationwide ceasefire, to open a political dialogue with the ethnic nationalities, to repeal the 1982 Citizenship Law and introduce a new citizenship law that recognizes those born in Burma as citizens, and to promote religious freedom and human rights for all.”

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UNITED NATIONS – When Aung San Suu Kyi was last in New York she was single, sharing a small apartment in midtown Manhattan with an exiled Burmese singer and walking six minutes each day to a bureaucratic job she hated at the United Nations. 

That was in 1969. The 24-year-old daughter of the founding father of an independent Burma, still unsure what to do with her life, lived in relative anonymity for three years, until she left with no regrets to marry an Englishman, according to Peter Popham’s biography of her. 

Next week the Burmese democracy icon, now a 67-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner and member of parliament, will be back in New York for the first time in decades to attend meetings at her former employer. During a 17-day U.S. tour, she will be feted in Fort Wayne, on both coasts and awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, America’s highest civilian honor. 

Still, as she transitions from icon to practical politician, Suu Kyi’s silent treatment of the minority Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar has begun to blemish her reputation as a champion of human rights. No longer confined to house arrest, she now must gauge whether to compromise some principles in order to retain popular support. 

“She could have been Gandhi, but she sacrificed her moral authority,” said Robert Lieberman, a physics professor at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, who spent two years making an undercover documentary on Myanmar. “The Burmese are very prejudiced against the Rohingya, and she is running in 2015. Politics are a dirty business.”

While beloved by voters – her image is a fixture in Burmese shop windows and homes – the majority of the population reviles the stateless Rohingyas, who are deprived of citizenship in Myanmar. The next nationwide vote in 2015 will take place a quarter of a century after the military dictatorship refused to recognize the victory of Suu Kyi’s party in 1990 elections. 

At home and abroad, Suu Kyi remains a symbol of Myanmar’s stoic non-violent struggle against the five-decade rule of generals who kept her under house arrest for 15 years. As the former military junta allowed a political opening, she showed her willingness to engage by entering parliament after her party’s successful showing in April by-elections, running for a seat in parliament that came open between regular elections. 

For the first time this year, Suu Kyi has been able to travel freely overseas without fear of being banned from re- entry, dropping by Oslo to pick up her Nobel Peace Prize – 21 years after it was bestowed on her. 

She also visited Great Britain, where she had studied at Oxford University and lived in the 1980s with her husband Michael Aris, a Tibetan scholar. In 1999, when Aris was dying, she dared not visit him out of concern she wouldn’t be allowed to return home. 

Wherever Suu Kyi goes, she attracts throngs of supporters seeking a glimpse of their idol and media eager to quiz her. 

Questions on where she stands on the persecution of the Rohingya dogged her in a trip to Europe in June. Her decision to skirt the issue elicited rare criticism. 

“Aung San Suu Kyi has the moral authority to change the terms of debate in Myanmar about the Rohingya towards a rights-respecting, non-discriminatory path, and we certainly hope she will seize the unique opportunity of this U.S. trip to do so,” said Bangkok-based Phil Robertson, who oversees the work of Human Rights Watch in Asia. 

“We hope she can push the government of Myanmar to recognize that the Rohingya deserve citizenship,” he said in an email. 

When Thein Sein makes his first U.N. appearance as Myanmar’s president at the General Assembly on Sept. 27, he, too, will be grilled about the Rohingya. On the same day, 80 miles north of New York in New Haven, Conn., Suu Kyi will be addressing Yale University students. Their paths won’t cross at the U.N., with Suu Kyi leaving New York as the president arrives. 

It will be harder to duck the issue of the Rohingya at media-packed events during her extended stay in the United States which also will include a stop-off on the West Coast. On Sept. 29, she will meet members of the Burmese community – a mixture of economic migrants and political dissidents – in San Francisco. 

Nyunt Than, a 49-year-old software engineer who fled Myanmar in 1992 and settled in the Bay Area in 1996, says he hopes finally to meet his idol in person. As a young activist, he and his friends followed her around wherever she spoke. 

Nyunt Than, who went on to form the Burmese American Democratic Alliance in the U.S., says he wants to visit his homeland at the end of the year, but is concerned the authorities have yet to clear his name from a travel blacklist. 

“My father is still alive, he’s 85, but my mother passed away a few years ago,” Nyunt Than said in a telephone interview. “The sad thing is that even with my financial support my family still struggles.”

Born in a village about 70 miles east of Yangon, Nyunt Than is among the 100,000 people of Burmese descent living in the U.S. He’s able to send money home through unofficial channels, and bought an apartment in the capital for his parents so they could have access to better health care. 

Known to the Burmese as the “The Lady,” Suu Kyi’s grueling schedule may take a toll on her fragile constitution. She’s had fainting spells and bouts of exhaustion this year. 

“We are so happy to have her, but I feel sorry she is coming such a long way because of her health,” Nyunt Than said. 

Still, the Rohingya remain a delicate topic, even for Burmese who left their homeland long ago. When asked about Suu Kyi’s stance on the Rohingya, Nyunt Than stiffens. 

“The international media and some rights groups do not understand the circumstances and the background well enough and got it wrong in their reporting, views and the remarks,” he said. “There is an humanitarian situation and lack of rules of law in the Arakan State in Myanmar, and the current government, activists, and the communities are collectively addressing it.”

Politics aside, Myanmar’s economic potential is the point of focus for investors. Emerging from isolation as sanctions are loosened, Myanmar’s economy may grow as much as 8 percent a year over the next decade, according to the Asian Development Bank. 

Getting Suu Kyi to be more forthcoming may prove difficult. 

Lieberman, who interviewed Suu Kyi at length while filming “They Call it Myanmar,” describes her as quite guarded, even intimidating, on subjects she’s uncomfortable with, especially her private life. When he nudged her to be a little open, she snapped, “I can’t be someone I am not.”

“And no personal questions, by the way.”

Sources Here:

Sittwe (Mizzima) – A seven-person delegation led by Turkish Ambassador to Burma Murat Yavuz Ates visited Sittwe [Sittway] and met with officials of the Arakan [Rakhine] State government last week, while providing immediate aid to displaced persons in government camps. 

Tents set up for internally displaced people on the side of the road in Thet Kel Pyin camp, Rakhine state, Burma. Photo: OCHA.

The ambassador met with Arakan State Chief Minister Hla Maung Tin and also visited Mingan village, Kyaukphyu Township, and provided medicine and bags of rice to Arakanese refugees. The delegation also provided 2,228 bags of rice to refugees in Thakkaypyin village in Sittwe Township.

Recent weeks have seen a wave of international officials visiting Rakhine State to access the situation and to determine the refugees needs.

A delegation from the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), led by Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, visited the Bawduba Rohingya refugee camp in Sittwe, a Muslim Quarter [Aung Mingala], and the Arakanese refugee camp in Sutaungpyace Temple on Sept. 10.

On Sept. 8, a 11-person delegation led by the US Department of State Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Joe Yun, the US ambassador to Burma Derek Mitchell and UNHCR representative Hans ten Feld visited refugee camps in Maungdaw.

Officials said six houses and 122 temporary tents have been constructed for refugees in Mawyawaddy village in Maungdaw Township; 122 dwellings totaling 463 people were put up at a relief camp in the Alalthankyaw village; and 38 houses and 79 temporary tents had been built for refugees in Shweyinaye village, a state-run newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Seventy-six households totaling 266 people have been constructed in the “4-mile” camp and Parahita camp in Maungdaw, said reports.

Sources Here:

The United States on Thursday urged Bangladesh to keep its border open to Rohingya refugees fleeing Myanmar in the wake of June violence but advocated their safe repatriation as a long-term solution. 

A delegation of the U.S. State Department recently visited the troubled region in Myanmar where violence between Rakhaine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims in June left at least 80 people dead. The team later visited refugee camps of Rohingya in Bangladesh's southern Cox's Bazar district. 

U.S. officials said at a news conference in Dhaka that the situation in Myanmar was still grave for the Rohingya people. 

They urged both Myanmar and Bangladesh to work out a long-term solution while stressed the need for providing food and basic healthcare to stateless Rohingya. 

Dan W. Mozena praised Bangladesh for its years of support to the Rohingya people but urged the country to do more for tens of thousands of undocumented Rohingya in Bangladesh. 

Mozena, who did not visit Myanmar but went with the full delegation to the camps in Bangladesh, said the situation was "grim" among refugees outside the official camps who were deprived of basic needs. 

Some 28,000 Rohingya refugees live in two official camps in Cox's Bazar district, but tens of thousands of others languish outside without proper care or facilities. 

The government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina earlier this year asked three international organizations to stop providing services to undocumented Rohingya to discourage fresh refugees from Myanmar. The government says it needs to take precautions because it has intelligence reports that some Islamic militant groups have targeted the Rohingya refugees for recruitment. 

The U.S. officials were concerned about the situation of Rohingya people in Myanmar, said one of the delegation who visited there, Kelly Clements, deputy assistant secretary for Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration. 

Clements said displacement of Rohingya people was still rampant in the troubled region, where many homes were burned to the ground during the violence. But she praised Myanmar for allowing them "unprecedented access" to see the area. 

She said reconciliation and reintegration of the ethnic groups should top Myanmar's government agenda to resolve the crisis. 

She said both Bangladesh and Myanmar should ensure basic assistance to the people in trouble. 

The U.S. officials also pushed for continuous dialogue between Bangladesh and Myanmar. 

Myanmar considers the Rohingya to be illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and denies them citizenship. Bangladesh says Rohingya have been living in Myanmar for centuries and should be recognized there as citizens. 

In the 1990s, about 250,000 Rohingya Muslims fled to Bangladesh in the face of alleged persecution by the military junta. 

Later, Myanmar took back most of them, leaving some 28,000 in two camps run by the government and the United Nations. 

Bangladesh has been unsuccessfully negotiating with Myanmar for years to send them back and, in the meantime, tens of thousands of others have entered Bangladesh illegally in recent years.

Sources Here:

British MPs this week said the situation in Rakhine State in Burma is an issue of human rights, justice and desperate humanitarian need, and called for the British government to respond. 

Tun Khin of the Burmese Rohingya Organization UK. Photo: screenshotSpeakers said that reports indicated that some members of the Burmese security services have been directly engaged in violence towards the Rohingya, with allegations of mass killings, mass arrests and looting. 

Responding to the debate, Tun Khin, president of BROUK, said, “The Burmese Government must be held to account for how they are treating the Muslim people. Injustice is being done to the Rohingya people.”

“It has been three months since Rohingya have not been able to leave their homes in Kyauktaw, Min Bya, Puaktaw Pone Nar Kyun and Mrauk Oo,” he said in a statement issued by the Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK (BROUK). 

Many Rohingyas do not have any food and are afraid to leave their homes, he said.

“They have become refugees in their homes,” he said. “Urgent UN monitor teams must be allowed into the area and we need a UN Commission of Inquiry into who perpetrated crimes against humanity against Rohingyas.”

He called on the UK government to withdraw the invitation to President Thein Sein to visit the UK in order to bring home to him the seriousness of the current situation. 

He also asked the British Government “to ensure strong wording in the upcoming UN General Assembly Resolution on Burma, including reform of the 1982 Citizenship Law and the establishment of a UN Commission of Inquiry into what has taken place in Arakan State.”

Days after the violence started, security forces began targeting predominantly Muslim areas and arrested many Rohingya men and boys, who have not been heard of since, according to a BROUK statement.

MPs said the violence of the summer has brought Burma’s 1982 citizenship law into sharp focus, and noted calls for the Burmese government to repeal that law and to replace it with a new law based on human rights, which recognizes and respects the equal rights of all the Burmese people and is in accordance with international standards.

Jonathan Ashworth, MP, who opened the debate, said that historically, the Burmese government was, perhaps, more sympathetic towards citizenship rights in relation to the Rohingya. 

The first president of Burma said that the “Muslims of Arakan certainly belong to the indigenous races of Burma. If they do not belong to the indigenous races, we also cannot be taken as indigenous races,” he said.

MPs mentioned that if the Burmese government is serious about democratic reform, it should eliminate discriminatory laws, and also urged the Government of Bangladesh to treat the refugees with more compassion and to allow the United Nations and other groups greater access to provide humanitarian aid.

Sources Here:

Kyi May Kaung: Dissenting artist, award-winning writer of non-fiction, fiction, drama and poetry, doctorate in Political Economy.

Jacques P. Leider: Head, Chiang Mai Center of the École française d'Extrême-Orient (EFEO).

Josef Silverstein: Professor Emeritus, Department of Political Science, Rutgers University, and author, Burmese Politics: The Dilemma of National Unity.

Chris Lewa: Director, The Arakan Project, an NGO based in Asia.

Maung Zarni: Founder, Free Burma Coalition and Fellow, London School of Economics.


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Lindsay Murdoch, Bangkok

Burma's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi will be awarded Washington's highest honour next week amid criticism she has failed to speak up for almost one million persecuted Rohingya Muslims living in her country.

Ms Suu Kyi, 67, will receive the Congressional Gold Medal for enduring more than 20 years of personal denigration and 15 years of house arrest as she became the voice of Burma's downtrodden.

But human rights groups and some academics have expressed disappointment the mother of two who took a seat in Burma's military-dominated Parliament in July has dodged questions on the plight of the Rohingya, stateless people who are widely reviled by Burma's Buddhist majority.

One Scottish academic has even suggested she return her 1991 Nobel Peace Prize.

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Ms Suu Kyi is likely to be pressed on her views about the Rohingya during her first trip to the US since she was put under house arrest by Burma's generals in 1990.

But diplomats say she would face a backlash from Burmese Buddhists, including many of her own supporters, if she was to express support for the Rohingya.

Monks who had been long-time pro-democracy advocates took to the streets of Burma's second largest city Mandalay for three days last week to demand the Rohingya be deported.

Since bloody clashes erupted between Rohingya and Arakan Buddhists in Burma's western Arakan state in June - leaving an estimated 100,000 people displaced and at least 78 dead - Ms Suu Kyi has given only scripted answers about the bloodshed to journalists, referring to the need for a “rule of law”.

She has declined to say whether the Rohingya, who under a 1982 law are treated as non-citizens, should be granted citizenship.

The Rohingya, who speak a Bengali dialect and tend to have darker complexions than Burmese, are classified as immigrants from Bangladesh despite having lived in Burma for centuries.

They face restrictions on their movement, access to education and employment and are denied other basic rights.

Many would face possible starvation without the intervention of United Nations agencies.

Burma's President Thein Sein, a former general who has won praise for introducing democratic reforms in his country, said in July the “only solution” is for the Rohingya to leave Burma.

“We will send them away if any third country would accept them,” he said.

Burma's treatment of the Rohingya has prompted criticism from many Muslim groups and nations, including Malaysia and Indonesia.

A US delegation that returned on Monday from a two-day tour of areas of Arakan affected by the sectarian violence said it had “great concern” about the situation there.

“Broad swathes of both communities have been affected and the humanitarian situation remains of great concern,” said a statement from the US embassy in Rangoon.

Phil Robertson, who oversees the work of Human Rights Watch in Asia, said the international community rightly looks to Ms Suu Kyi as a beacon of light and moral authority in Burma.

“We encourage her to speak up and take a leadership role on the situation in Arakan,” he said.

About 300,000 Rohingya who have fled the Burma violence are living in Bangladesh, many of them in squalid camps where Bangladesh has restricted aid.

When the violence broke out in June, Bangladesh closed its border and pushed an unknown number of boats carrying men, women and children back out to sea, Human Rights Watch says. Their fate is unknown.

There are fears that when the monsoon season ends within weeks many Rohingya in Bangladesh will attempt dangerous voyages to Malaysia, where tens of thousands of them already there are waiting to be resettled in third countries like Australia.

Thailand has a policy to intercept boats carrying Rohingya at sea and provide them with fuel, water and food but not to allow them to land on its shores.

Thailand has previously towed Rohingya boats which have landed on its shores back out to sea, causing the deaths of hundreds of people.

Ms Suu Kyi leaves for the US on Sunday.

Source here 

September 13: Tibetan spiritual leader His Holiness the Dalai Lama called the reports of gross human rights violations n Burma “very unfortunate” and said he tried to contact pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the Burmese government over the issue.

Source here 

Like millions of my fellow Buddhist Burmese, I grew up as a proud racist. For much of my life growing up in the heartland of Burma, Mandalay, I mistook what I came to understand years later as racism to be the patriotism of Burmese Buddhists. Our leading and most powerful institutions, schools, media, Buddhist church and, most importantly, the military, have succeeded in turning the bulk of us into proud racists.

Around the world, supporters of democracy in Burma have been shocked to learn of the ‘ethnic cleansing’ of the Muslim Rohingyas in Western Burmaand the attendant popular racist venom that is being spat at these most vulnerable stateless people[1].

President Thein Sein has characterised the events as ‘communal violence’[2], a deliberately misleading term designed to conceal the State’s involvement in the massacres of the Rohingyas. The damning new Human Rights Report states emphatically:


“Burmese security forces committed killings, rape, and mass arrests against Rohingya Muslims after failing to protect both them and Arakan Buddhists during deadly sectarian violence in western Burmain June 2012. Government restrictions on humanitarian access to the Rohingya community have left many of the over 100,000 people displaced and in dire need of food, shelter, and medical care” [3].

For nationalists, the cliché “to be Burmese is to be Buddhist” is still a given, especially those in the ruling military clique. While having deep roots in our turbulent history, the current resurgence of Burmese racism, both official and popular, is, no doubt, a direct result of half-century of racist military rule.

Largely due to the country’s international isolation under military rule, Burmese society as a whole remains deeply illiberal and potently ethno-nationalistic, in spite of the ritual pronouncements of democracy and human rights by an elite class of dissidents. Even a quarter century after Aung San Suu Kyi called for the ‘revolution of the spirit’, nothing spiritually progressive has taken root in the popular Burmese psyche[4] – including among the country’s noble dissidents. Burmese human rights defenders who spent half of their lives in military jail houses, Buddhist monks and the Burmese Buddhist diaspora are all singing from the same song sheet on issues of race. On this issue, they all stand alongside the country’s Neanderthal generals and ex-generals.

One wonders what has resulted from the loud liberal rhetoric of human rights coming from noble dissidents when it comes to the persecuted Rohingyas? Where has the loving kindness of monks gone, who only five years ago flooded the streets of Rangoon and other urban centres of Burma chanting Loving Kindness for all sentient beings?

As a former racist who grew up thinking that any individual and any group deemed to pose a threat to national sovereignty and our Burmese “Buddhist” identity should be “gassed”, I feel a deep chill in my spine thinking about what my society is in effect evolving into.

First, President Thein Sein reportedly told the visiting head of the United Nations High Commission for the Refugees (UNHCR), Antonio Guterres, that his government is prepared to either expel the 800,000 Rohingyas en masse to any third country willing to take them, or segregate them in camps where entire Rohingya communities, on the basis of their ethnicity, religion and citizenship status, could be quarantined, clothed and fed by the United Nations.[5]

Second, despite the presence of many educated presidential advisers, the country’s reformist generals and ex-generals aren’t being called on, not even nudged, to rethink their anachronistic nationalism. Quite the opposite is happening. According to the New Yorker, Burmese presidential adviser and writer Thant Myint-U said:


“Abstract moral arguments weren’t going to cut much ice. And they were deeply cynical of Western rhetoric on human rights. The argument we made that got the most traction was: ‘We’re falling so far behind our neighbors economically— China and India—that, unless we change, politically as well as economically, it’s going to be disastrous’” [6].

This unholy alliance between liberally-educated presidential advisers and the Burmese junta is cemented by economic nationalism – not human rights, nor liberal humanitarianism.

Last but not least, key international players in Burmese politics, such as the country’s former ruler Britain and the United States, looked the other way for two full months while Burma’s state-sanctioned racial violence against the Rohingya was raging on. For instance, British Foreign Secretary William Hague waited until 13 August to speak out, whereas the ‘communal violence’ broke out in early June[7]. It took another 10 days for the United States Ambassador to follow suit. The West’s primary interest in the full scale re-engagement with the ‘reformist’ military is primarily for their own strategic and commercial interests vis-à-vis a fast rising China.

It is still the primary responsibility of the Burmese themselves to resolve Burma’s long-standing and emerging challenges including ethno-religious conflicts, be they the war against the Kachin in Northern Burma or the state-sponsored violence in Western Burma. There is an urgent need to explain, expose, disrupt and eventually end the toxic merging of Burma’s governmental and popular racism against the Muslim Rohingya.

Burma’s military strong men have demonstrated neither the political will nor intellectual vision or capacity needed to resolve our post-colonial problems. Instead, they have shown time and again their sinister resolve to continue exploiting society’s ethno-religious differences, be it against the Chinese – as in the case of state-induced anti-Chinese riots of 1967 – or Muslims in general, and the Rohingya Muslims in particular.

There are pockets of Burmese citizens, of all different faiths and ethnic backgrounds, who fully appreciate our cultural, religious and ethnic diversity to be our strength. Their voices, inside Burma and in the diaspora, calling for ethnic peace are currently being drowned out by the loud chorus of ethno-racial fanaticism which pervades Burmese and English-language social media such as Facebook, YouTube, Burmese chat rooms and, not surprisingly, the state media itself.

It is all the more important that conscientious Burmese in the diaspora and within the country work hard and together against the troubling ideological merger between popular racism with the military state’s closeted fascism. If racism and fascism are learned behaviours, we must create civic educational initiatives that will enable our less informed citizens sedated on a ground-swell of racism to unlearn their racism.

Racist majoritarian democracy is no longer a viable design for our democracy.


Maung Zarni is a veteran Founder of the Free Burma Coalition and Visiting Fellow (2011-13) at Civil Society and Human Security Research Unit, the London School of Economics and Political Science. He will be participating in an event on “Burma in Transition: Minorities, Human Rights and Democratic Process” on September 14 2012 at Colombia University.


[1] See New York Times “Ethnic Cleansing in Myanmar”, 12 July 2012

[2] Exclusive Interview with President Thein Sein, The Voice of America Burmese Service, 14 August 2012. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2L2-QRCs5s0&feature=relmfu

[3] “The Government could have stopped this”, 1 August 2012

[4] See Sanitsuda Ekachai, “This is racism, not Buddhism”, op-ed, The Bangkok Post, 5 September 2012 &

William McGowan, “Burma’s Buddhist Chauvinism”, op-ed, Wall Street Journal, 3 September 2012

[5] “UN refugee chief rejects call to resettle Rohingya”, Associated Press, 12 July 2012

[6] “Burmese Spring”, 6 August 2012

[7] See British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, “Foreign Secretary stresses need to end violence in Burma”, 13 August 2012 . And also see See Wall Street Journal, “U.S. Ambassador in Myanmar Speaks Out on Rohingya”, 24 August 2012.

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