Global Movement of Moderates chairman Tan Sri Razali Ismail has called on the Myanmar government to consider giving citizenship to the Rohingya community. Razali, who was formerly the United Nations’ special envoy to Myanmar, talks to the New Straits Times on the role of Malaysia and the international community in forming solutions to the plight of the Rohingya.

Q :. You took part in the recent Perdana Global Peace Foundation Conference on the Plight of the Rohingyas, in which they came up with 16 resolutions to be handed to various parties including to the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak), the Myanmar government, and the United Nations. What is the progress on the resolutions?

A : I’m not an executive council member of the PGPF so I can’t speak on the progress of the resolutions. But they should be preparing the submissions right now, firstly to give to the government of Malaysia, because I do think it’s clear that many Malaysians do feel very strongly about the fate of the Rohingyas.
To me, however, it is not enough to simply send the letter to Najib. The impact would be more worthwhile if you can actually get him to meet and discuss the issues. Otherwise, it would just get lost among every other letters sent to his office.
If that’s not possible, then the letter should at least be sent to Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Anifah Aman. But as I said earlier, they should try very hard to get the PM in person for at least half an hour, so that a few proposals for solutions can be put on the table to see whether they’re feasible.

Q : What can Najib do on an international level to help move this effort forward?

A :Najib will not want to ruffle or upset Myanmar by making unrealistic, impractical demands. We have such a good relationship with Myanmar, built over many decades. We do not want to be part of a group that constantly pressures them over something that is not easy for them to resolve.
In the context of Asean, we want the democratisation process to take hold irreversibly, so we don’t want anything that might slow that process down. We want all of Myanmar to benefit from development, from economic growth and new infrastructure.
That said, the situation in Myanmar affects many countries in Southeast Asia and Asean countries do have a responsibility towards those who have escaped Myanmar as refugees, including the Rohingyas.
Asean leaders should recognise that the situation in Myanmar is complicated and will take a very long time to resolve.
Here in Malaysia, we have some 30,000 Rohingya refugees. There is a lot of support for the community but it can be improved. I think we should begin to treat them better. Their children need to be given the right to go to school, they should be given the right to find temporary work, to be given access to medical and health services, and the right not to be harassed by enforcement authorities.
These are people who are very close friends of us, who have connection as fellow Muslims. Many here support the Rohingyas. But support by words alone is not enough. If you want to help the Rohingya, help them here.

Q : What is the situation in Myanmar right now? Are their leaders receptive to the idea of granting citizenship to the Rohingyas?

A :The key problem right now isn’t the leaders, but getting the people of Myanmar themselves to accept the Rohingya as one of them.
It’s not easy for the Myanmar leadership, including (human rights activist) Aung San Suu Kyi, to think of specific solutions because, if you asked the other ethnic groups there, unfortunately, you would find that many of them do not believe the Rohingya are Myanmar citizens.
In some ways, it is similar to Malaysia’s experience during independence. When Malaysia decided to accept the Chinese and Indian immigrants as citizens, we accepted everyone - to the extent that the new citizens made up 20 per cent of the population. So it does not matter if the Rohingyas are not indigenous to the country - they should be recognised as belonging to Myanmar.
But even if the Myanmar president Thein Sein wants to do something now, it will be a very unpopular move. Plus, it would have to be carried out in the context of the other ethnic groups and larger issues such as economic development. The Myanmar government has their own priorities to consider.

Q : The Myanmar government has agreed to set up a commission of inquiry to look at the causes behind the violent clashes between Rohingya community and ethnic Rakhine Buddists last June. Will this help?

A : The commission of inquiry is focusing only on the events that led to the clashes so I don’t think it will change anything. It is just delaying time.
That said, I cannot imagine that the Myanmar government will never give citizenship to the Rohingya. I’m sure it is possible to make the people in Myanmar understand in time, that some process to give the Rohingya citizenship must be attempted in the name of human rights and democracy.

Q : What role does the international community have to play? At the recent UN general assembly, UN secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon said that Myanmar should tread carefully in resolving this issue.

A : Yes, it’s becoming more difficult for Thein Sein to keep quiet every time this subject comes up now. I think the UN should continue badgering and cajoling the Myanmar government to take the right steps.
That said, I would counsel that the process should be carried out exclusively by the Myanmar government. Right now, they are looking towards the West and Asean for help (in their development process). But there’s a tendency for some countries, in the West especially, to go too far to the point of being intrusive.
As much as other countries are involved, the Myanmar may look to the UN for technical expertise if it’s really necessary. Ootherwise, it’s a process that require a very difficult political decision, that is best carried out by Myanmar on their own.

Q :. At the PGPF conference, former prime minister Tun Mahathir Mohamad brought up the idea that the United States should put pressure on the Myanmar government to recognise the Rohingyas. Some of the panelists also advocated a process where other countries can call on Myanmar to set a certain level of democratic reform in exchange for foreign investment. Do you agree?

A : Myanmar, at the moment, has all the potentials to develop rapidly. So it’s important for them to make the right decisions on questions like what kind of infrastructure do they need? What kind of schools? How do they achieve a proper balance in terms of their ethnic make-up?
Many countries are knocking on Myanmar’s door - China, especially, is a large presence. They have many options in terms of attracting foreign investment. They can choose what kind of assistance they need.
So I think that rather than impose conditions, especially unrealistic conditions, on them to meet, it’s more important to guide Myanmar into making the right decisions for them to develop.

Q : What do you think of calls from certain quarters to set up a separate state for the Rohingya?

A : Personally, I do not think such calls help. That will only scare the Myanmar government further from any attempt at a real resolution.
I’m very partial towards Myanmar but they need to accept the hard truth that the Rohingya have been there for such a long time that they deserve to be recognized as citizens.
Even while I was there, I was always aware of the people that had suffered from the military, and the Rohingya were among them. These groups became what the UN termed as internally displaced persons (IDPs), and it was an issue that I was always aware about. Back then, we could never get concrete answers but now, mass displacement of people within the country is something that cannot be allowed to continue.
It is very crucial for this issue to be solved sooner rather than later because people exploit situations like this for money. The longer this issue remains unresolved, the more possibilities there are for people to do terrible things, such as human trafficking.

Sources Here:

  

A Rohingya girl carries her books through a fish market on her way to the school at a slum in Sittwe on 19 May 2012. (Reuters)
Arakanese women who were planning to rally in Sittwe to highlight ‘threats to their security’ were prevented from demonstrating by police after the slogans they submitted for review contained incendiary language targeting the area’s Rohingya minority.

The demonstration was originally planned for 30 September and was being organised by members of the National League for Democracy (NLD) and Rakhine [Arakan] Nationalities Development Party (RNDP).

However, the rally leaders were not given the necessary permission to demonstrate after submitting their slogans to authorities for review in line with the Peaceful Assembly and Procession Law.

“We’ve agreed to change the slogans: one calling on the OIC [Organisation of Islamic Cooperation] not to ‘meddle’ to ‘OIC-NO’ and a second one that [described Rohingyas as] ‘eating the leather that they sleep on’ to ‘Please help assist the Bengalis to resettle in a third-country,’” said organiser Nyo Aye.

The latter is a Burmese phrase referring to the perceived behaviour of a dog.

The local police commander Nay Myo said he would be in contact with the group in two weeks after reviewing the changes to the slogans.

Organisers of the demonstration submitted eight slogans for review including, ‘Respect the 1982 Citizen Law’, ‘No illegal immigrants’, ‘Rohingyas never existed in Burma’, ‘For the splendour and safety of Burmese women’ and ‘All Burmese people unite!’

According to organisers, the rally was expected to gather about 200 women, including NLD and RNDP members from Sittwe.

Nyo Aye said the rally aimed to support Arakanese women who were traumatised by June’s rioting, which pitted Buddhist Arakanese against Muslim Rohingyas, leaving dozens dead and more than 60,000 people displaced, according to government figures.

RNDP affiliates have a history of targeting the Rohingya group, which is denied citizenship under Burma’s controversial 1982 Citizenship Law. In July, security forces briefly detained two RNDP members in Arakan state’s Mrauk-U township for urging Arakanese rice mill owners not to sell their goods to Rohingyas. 

Sources Here:

The meeting will be organised by the Jeddah-based Organisation of Islamic Co-operation (OIC ) and Qatar Charity with about 30 regional and international organisations attending the event.

The event follows the first consultative meeting held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, earlier last month.

Ambassador Atta al-Mannan Bakhait, the Assistant Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs at OIC said in a press release issued here yesterday that the Doha meeting is the first of its kind in the Arab region since such organisations have not met under one umbrealla to discuss the gravely deteriorating situation in Myanmar.

For his part, Qatar Charity’s executive chairman Yusuf Ahmed al-Kuwari highlighted in a press statement yesterday the importance of co-ordination among those organisations interested in the issue of Rohingya Muslims and the need to take practical steps in this respect.

The co-ordinated joint action between all the concerned organisations working in the rescue operation in Myanmar, whether Islamic or international, would further boost the support needed for the Rohingya Muslims urgently, said al-Kuwari in his statement.

The OIC and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) provided recommendations related to the situation in Myanmar after they held a meeting in Kuala Lumpur.

The meeting asked the international community to support and mobilise efforts in Myanmar in accordance with humanitarian principles like impartiality, neutrality, and independence.

It called for the creation of a special fund for reconstruction and rehabilitation in the region of Arakan under the auspices of the OIC, and an international media campaign, including social media, to share information about the protracted violence in Myanmar and humanitarian consequences for the minority groups in the country.

It called for the setting up of a private group of leading international advocate for peace, sustainable solutions to the unrest in Myanmar and humanitarian consequences for minorities in the country.

It noted that some 69,000 people in Myanmar (also known as Burma) have been displaced by recent clashes in Rakhine State in Western Burma, according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). About 46% of the displaced people are children.

More than 5,000 buildings were destroyed. The conditions are dire: Fires have been burning for weeks and a state of emergency has been declared.

According to government reports, the majority of those fleeing are Muslims. The UN reports that some 800,000 Muslims of Rohingya ethnicity live in Myanmar in the northern Rakhine State.

They are regarded as some of the most persecuted people in the world, and face regular food shortages. As clashes continue in their home area, their desperate situation has turned even more horrid.

Some who have fled the recent violence have crossed over into neighbouring Bangladesh. But as the violence continues and more refugees attempt to escape, many are being turned away and any existing refugee camps are being capped.

Sources Here:

Arakan News ,Min Bya, 3-10-2012 ,Three Rohingya boys whose names and details have been mentioned in Rohingya Blogger News on 29-9-2012. The boys were shot by eleven Rakhine and four Baruwa extremists on 29-9-2012 in Min Bya while they are watching their cattle in the pasture nearby the village, Thayet Aouk (Nuwar Para).

One suspected Baruwa culprit was arrested by polices on 30-9-2012, but dozens of R.N.D.P members and Rakhine extremists attacked to release the culprit. Finally extremists obtained success as their desire.

In the first day, Rohingya villagers informed to police and military to see the casualty and to assist for admission to hospital. Securities arrived on 30-9-2012 and allowed to carry Min Bya hospital. But hundreds of R.N.D.P members and Rakhines obstructed and refused for the treatment in the hospital. In that occasion one of the monks advised to Rakhines that the injured Muslims must get proper treatment but Rakhines denied and replied to monk that we are obeying your guidance which you ordered us. Then they were forcefully turned the injured boys to nearby village, Tharmale.

There, military surgeon treated briefly and urged to go Akyab hospital by motor boat. Relatives arranged one boat which owner is a Muslim. Rakhines crowded and tried to kill the boat owner. Then securities urged again to arrange a motor car to go Akyab escorting securities. Thus they arranged a car and started trip to Akyab on 2-10-2012, but Rakhine extremists blocked them while they were crossing Mrauk-U Township and then forcefully turned them to Min Bya.

For these extreme and insecure conditions, the injured Rohingya boys became helpless and hopeless in their village and counting seconds and minutes to die. Who will do to stop these kinds of atrocities which have been happening in everyday in every where of Rakhine State?


Nyi Nyi Aung
Rohingya Activist, RB News Desk

The Perdana Global Peace Foundation (PGPF), is deeply concerned with reports of what is described as a “human catastrophe of indescribable proportion” in relation to the aggression on the Rohingya, felt the urgent need to hold this conference to address the issue and propose solutions to it.

The PGPF, very much like other civil society movements and humanitarian bodies, is deeply troubled with the recent developments in Rakhine and current reports from international agencies indicate that the crisis is showing no signs of dissipating, but instead intensifying.

We strongly condemn these continuing acts of violence, rapes, beatings, burning of dwellings, killings and other inhumane acts perpetrated on the Rohingya. Since the United Nations itself has recognized the Rohingyas as being one of the most persecuted minorities in the world today, we cannot sit on the sidelines and allow these acts which are tantamount to ethnic cleansing be allowed to persist without undertaking efforts to oppose and put a stop to them.

Adhering to the spirit and understanding of peace between member countries must be maintained vis-a-vis the ASEAN Charter; PGPF has organised this International Conference : “Plight of the Rohingya : Solutions?” at the Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia today for an insight on the crisis. Y. Bhg. Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, the fourth Prime Minister of Malaysia and President of PGPF, delivered the Keynote Speech.

A new crisis is emerging in Arakan State, Burma, where up to 700,000 Rohingya are trapped in their homes and villages, unable to go out and buy food or farm because of ongoing attacks and threats against them. BROUK is already receiving reports of babies are dying from malnutrition.

While international attention has focused on up to 100,000 Rohingya in camps for internally displaced people, who are now receiving regular aid, hundreds of thousands more Rohingya in areas not visited by aid workers and international observers are starving in their own homes.

It has been almost 4 months the violence erupted in Arakan State, Burma, and since then local Rohingya people describe being under effective siege by government forces and local Rakhine communities. Constant human rights abuses committed against Rohingya make it unsafe for them to leave their homes to get food.

BROUK has received the following information from the ground about abuses committed in the past week, which give an indication of the type of abuses forcing people to stay at home:

1. Two Rohingya were killed in Sittwe while they went to buy food from Central Market. 

2. No Rohingyas can go to school, hospitals, or markets most of the towns of Arakan State. Several people who tried to go out were beaten and killed.

3. Many Rohingyas were arrested in Maungdaw Township. Those who were arrested have disappeared.

4. Around 3000 Rakhine armed with weapons, together with Rakhine Monks, gathered and surrounded Rohingya areas for hours in an attempt to recreate violence against the Rohingyas in Sittwe. They demanded all Rohingyas to come out of their houses or they would kill each and every Rohingya in the area.

5. 3 Rohingya boys were shot by government authorities while they were watching their cattle in the pasture between paddy field and forest nearby the village in Pauktaw Township.

6. In Pauktaw Township many babies have died because of malnutrition. Adults are also reported to be starving.

7. Rohingya face a boycott in many areas with local Rakhine shopkeepers refusing to sell them food.

8. Prison and security forces in Buthidaung jail are cutting off or burning the penises of Rohingyas, forcing them to have homosexual sex with one another, cutting off or pulling out their finger nails, severely beating them, keeping them naked all the time, keeping them without food and water for days. When they are given foods once in many days, it is on the ground with their hands tied at their backs. Authorities in the jail force them through immense torture to confess that they are animals and that’s why they have to eat like animals.

9. The bound and dead body of a Rohingya man was found in Sanpya village of Sittwe.

10. More than 10 Rohingyas were robbed and beaten, receiving serious injuries, by police and security forces while they tried to travel from Alay Than Kyaw village to another village in Maungdaw.

11. Those with bullet injuries and disease are in acute mental and physical pain without any medical care and treatment.

BROUK President Tun Khin said: “President Thein Sein has already publicly stated that he wants to ethnically cleanse all Rohingya out of Burma, even asking for international help to do so. He is already implementing this policy, using starvation instead of bullets to kill Rohingya men, women and children.”

“Hilary Clinton, David Cameron, Ban Ki-moon and others are praising Thein Sein at the same time as he is killing our people. They should be insisting to end the starvation siege against Rohingya, and allows in international aid all effected areas in Arakan. They should also be working at the UN General Assembly for a UN Commission of Inquiry into what is taking place.”

Date: 03/10/2012
For more information contact Tun Khin on +44 (0)7888714866. 

Road, Walthamstow, London E17 8AA
 Tel: +44 2082 571 143, E-mail: brorg.london@gmail.com , web : www.bro-uk.org

If you were going to compile a list of this year’s international ‘feel-good’ news stories (and I realise it is a bit early be doing that sort of thing), you might well be tempted to put the on-going reform process in Burma at – or near to the top.



The Burmese president, Thein Sein, was compared with Mikhail Gorbachev on his recent visit to the US. While the leader of the opposition, Aung San Suu Kyi – also travelling in America – has been greeted with well-meaning mobs of well-wishers and an avalanche of praise in the newspapers.

However, if you caught some our coverage from north-west Burma over the last few months, you will know that this is not just the regular ‘military-junta gradually hands over power to the people’ story. Burma is more complicated than that – not least because of a series of deeply entrenched ethnic and religious conflicts.

We saw it for ourselves, on two separate trips to Rakhine State, where the ethnic Buddhist majority and a sizable Muslim minority called the Rohingya are struggling to co-exist. After an allegation of rape in May, rival gangs burnt homes and settled scores. Sixty thousand Rohingya were burnt out of their homes and were later moved into a series of rough and ready rural camps by the authorities.

These ‘internal refugees’ are now receiving enough aid and assistance to keep themselves alive. However, the same cannot be said for Rohingya who retained their homes – and there are close to a million of them in Burma. In the name of internal security and stability, the local government has forbidden them from leaving their villages – but without the ability to travel, villagers cannot work and earn money.

As a result, they are struggling to feed themselves and their children. We went to one Rohingya village called Barzah, located on the outskirts of the region’s largest city, Sittwe. We were welcomed by a man called Maung Hla Sein and he told us that they were hungry – ‘they’ the 6,000 people who were living there.

It wasn’t something he really needed to say because we could see it for ourselves – tired, baggy eyed children wandering listlessly around a scruffy, water-logged site. Some had protruding bellies – their skin stretched tightly over bony frames.

We met a man called Farlie, who said he lost his job at a mosque when it was burnt down in the violence. His two daughters, Lalabu and Zaybarnisar were sick and starving. It was clear to me that without immediate assistance they would die. Yet Farlie could not take his daughters to the hospital in Sittwe because he and his daughters are Rohingya and they are not allowed to leave the village.

Maung Hla Sein said the local government had brought the villagers rice on five occasions over the last month – the equivalent of 10 cups of rice per person over the entire 30 day period he said – and clearly, it was not anywhere near enough. Yet these food shortages were, in my view, totally preventable. Barzah is located several hundred metres from Sittwe’s main air terminal. If the government wanted, it could simply dismantle the barbed-wire fence separating the village from the airfield and drive the aid right in.

While international aid agencies, including the UN, are providing regular food shipments to the refugee camps around Sittwe, they have very little knowledge of conditions in Rohingya villages – because the local government will not let their representatives in.

The softly spoken head of the UN in Burma, Ramesh Shrestha was uncharacteristically blunt when I asked him if he knew what was going on in these communities: “No, no,” he said. “It is a problem yes, because unless we have a clear picture of the whole situation you can’t devise a solution. We can’t propose a solution because we don’t know what is going on.”

Instead, aid workers and journalists who want information about these communities must rely on a combination of official pronouncements and rumour. We heard one troubling rumour about a Rohingya village located within a larger town called Chauk Taw. We’d been told that it had been rung with barbed wire and guarded by troops. Yet it lies within a restricted zone near the Bangladeshi border – a difficult place for foreign journalists to operate – so we sent a local contact to go for us.

You can see the pictures we obtained from Chauk Taw in my video report above. Villagers also gave us a carefully prepared 11 page document. It is entitled “Expressing the wishes and grievances of Rohingya from Chauk Taw Township.” Within the document, there is a list of those people killed and injured since the since the initial outbreak of violence in early June. Another passage describes restrictions on citizenship, marriage, travel and education that Rohingya have long faced in Burma.

The following passage was written about the current crisis:

“Since June, 6, 2012, we Rohingya cannot go to the main market. We also can’t trade in our shops in the market and we can’t work outside of market. The students can’t go to the school. We do not have access to medical care if needed. The farmers cannot grow rice in their files on time for harvest. We can’t also go from one village to the other. Because of the above restrictions and suppression, we are facing famine.”

“We are facing famine…”, which brings me back to that odd and saintly couple: Burma’s President Thein Sein and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Yes, they are steering their nation towards a more prosperous and democratic future. Yet on the subject of the Rohingya, they have failed to lead.

When asked about the issue in the US, Aung San Suu Kyi said” “You must not forget that there have been human rights violations on both sides of the communal divide. It’s not a matter of condemning one community or the other. I condemn all human rights violations.”

Her careful comments are designed to neutral – but they are not. The two sides in this conflict are not ‘equal’ – and the behaviour of both communities is not ‘morally equivalent’. Regardless of where you stand on the ‘citizenship question’ for Rohingya in Burma, there are severely malnourished children in Barzah who are not eating because their parents can’t leave the village. A few miles up the beach however, local Buddhists drink beer and play guitars.

The analysts and commentators remind us that Aung San Suu Kyi is no longer a political dissident – but a politician with an eye on the presidency in 2015. But what is the point of showering her with awards and accolades if she no longer stands up for the downtrodden and oppressed – why hold her up as an icon if she now longer meets the standards she herself has set?

Sources Here:

By Ruxandra Guidi


Ko Ko Naing is a 26 year-old from the Rohingya Muslim minority in Burma who was granted US asylum in 2003.

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Three hours before the scheduled start of Suu Kyi’s visit, Burmese Americans started lining up inside the LA Convention Center - the same place in which many of them became naturalized US citizens over the years.

"We are waiting for this day," said Zin Mar Htun. She stood at the front of the line wearing an embroidered turquoise dress and orchids in her hair. She and her family arrived as political refugees in the mid-1990s. Her father was involved in Burma’s pro-democracy movement, and they haven’t been able to return since they left.

“I know America is great, but we still need to go back and help our country, because our country is very underdeveloped," said Htun. "Mainly I want to help with education so I do want to go back. If they open up, then it will be better—right now, we’re still scared to go back in case something goes wrong.”

For many younger Burmese-Americans like Htun, who's in her late 20s, Suu Kyi’s visit to this country suggests the promise of a truly democratic Burma, and an opportunity to return someday.

After almost two decades of house arrest and her election to her country’s parliament this spring, Suu Kyi enjoys an international status similar to that of South Africa’s Nelson Mandela shortly after his release from prison. During her US visit, she’s made a point to reach out to the Burmese diaspora – the better to improve US-Burma relations and trigger economic development back home.

Some critics maintain that she has made too many political compromises with Burma’s current government; it includes many of the military leaders who kept her under house arrest. But Lal Thanga, a dentist by trade and one of the organizers of Suu Kyi’s visit here, said those criticisms aren’t completely fair.

“Some people might criticize and say she can’t speak up anymore," Thanga said. "But, to me, this is part of the democratic process. She has to deal with a lot of things that we don’t know; we don’t know the hardships she’s going through. If we don’t support her, what can she do? So we have to keep on supporting her.”

About 100,000 people of Burmese descent live in the United States. The biggest concentration – close to 5,000 – are in the Los Angeles area. Some of these refugees and immigrants belong to ethnic minorities that have been persecuted since the 1970s. Groups including the Rohingya, Keren, and Kachin do not qualify for Burmese citizenship under current law.

“Ms. Suu Kyi should focus on the human rights first, then we can talk about cooperating with Mr.Thein Sein, Burma’s current president," said Ko Ko Naing, a 26 year old from the Rohingya Muslim minority who obtained political asylum in this country nine years ago, sitting at a cafe near the LA Convention Center.

Naing peacefully opposes Suu Kyi’s visit, he said, because he wants people to know that not all is well in Burma. The West, he added, earnestly supports Suu Kyi’s party, the National League of Democracy, and seems eager for a democratic transition as it overlooks the needs of the wider Burmese population.

“She’s ignoring all the ethnic minorities," he said. "She’s only focusing on the political prisoners that have been fighting with the NLD members. She’s ignoring the core issues of all the ethnic minorities, their education needs, their basic food needs, their shelter needs.”

When Suu Kyi showed up exactly on time for her presentation, a couple of thousand cheering Burmese welcomed her waving the red flags of her political party. She fielded questions from the audience in Burmese, except for one in English: ‘What would you do if you became president?’ That’s too speculative, she responded, adding, ‘why don’t you ask the president what he will do, now that he’s president?’

Source here 

Restless Beings have been working with the stateless Rohingya community of Burma, since May 2010 to voice their struggles and work together towards a future free from oppression and marginalisation.



Through unfortunate circumstances, it was through the eruption of violence in Arakan in May 2012 that instigated a spotlight to be shone on the Rohingya struggles. Restless Beings, after receiving disturbing and unimaginable on the ground reports, believed atrocities akin to genocide, ethnic cleansing and xenophobia were occurring, yet we were criticised for using such terms. However, as more reports of international organisations are published, their results show exactly this kind of violence and now; more people worldwide are beginning to see the true ugliness revealed.

The Restless Beings Remember Rohingya report demonstrates the process of how as an organisation, we have worked to voice the Rohingyas in ways which may be unconventional, but played a part to the universal call for help of the Rohingyas. In the space of three months we sought to increase international awareness of the Rohingya, encouraging both individuals and world leaders to recognise and take action for Rohingya human rights, all the while seeking to ensure that the Rohingya had the media coverage they deserve, but which thus far had failed to receive.

A minority can understand more easily what other minorities had to encounter in their respective countries. Differences between individuals, communities and countries are more diverse than similarities. If we are fighting  due to this differences, the world never will be a peaceful place to live in. We must adjust ourselves with environment. We must understand each other. To live a midst diversity with patience and understanding is the essence of democracy.

Alas! There are some extreme groups who can not tolerate diversity. The strength of these dark forces have been gathering momentum. Due to their instigation undesired riot took place in Rakhine state and hundreds of thousands of people became internally displaced. This people have to go through a hard life. They are suffering unfold miseries. A lot of people lost their life. Those who are not displaced also confined in their own residential areas. They can not move and work for their livelihood. Their lives became worse than the refugees. In the near future they may face mass starvation. There still it sporadic killing and looting in every town. People life is highly insecure and terrorized. Official explanation is “It will take time for security and stability”. This is the most heart breaking.

There have been a series of demonstration, disturbances and violence in the last a few decades. Government seemed to have firmly controlled all these disharmony things. But in case of present Rakhine state ethnic violence, every thing remain insecure and instable. We implore law enforcing departments to take thing seriously and fairly to bring security and rule of law among the public. Public promptly need a normal life.

Despite the seriousness of the situation in Rakhine state we sorrowfully hear the news across the border that some Rakhine houses and monasteries were burnt down by Bangali mob in Cox’s Bazar district. Cause of this violence, according R.F.A is insulting Muslim religion and desecrating their holy book by a Cox’s Bazar based Rakhine face book.

What so ever we understand it as an act of an individual or a group. It was not done by the whole Rakhine community there in Bangladesh. Government can take action against the one who committed the crime. It is not fair to give collective punishment for the crime of an individual. It is not civilized thing for the strong to suppress the weak. It is uncivil for majority to take advantage over the minority. In Bangladesh the security organs and law enforcing departments will be mostly in the hands of Muslims. Without their backing or accomplices it is hard to believe this unscrupulous element could dare to this destruction.

We fully condemned this sort of communal violence. We must be restrained. We can realize the feeling the Rakhine minority in Bangladesh as we suffer as a minority in Rakhine. We regard prejudices against minority as a crime against humanity.

We are worried that already tense communal atmosphere in Arakan will turn worse due to this aggressive lawless burning of houses in Bangladesh. But to our relief, we came to learn there is no connection between the violence in Rakhine and  the one in Bangladesh.

So we would like to urge Bangladesh Government to take prompt action and to control the situation. We hope Bangladesh will fulfill its obligation to protect its all citizens disrespect  of race and religion. The victims should be given full compensation. We request Bangladesh authority to reconstruct all those which are destroyed with state funds.

My last request is to both Rakhine and Rohingya communities to exercise restraint, to be cool minded. We must be for sighted and rational. Destructing is easier than constructing. Let us reduce tension. Let us create normal life again. Greed, envy and anger are vice where as love, sympathy and compassion are virtues. Virtue leads us to peace and prosperity.

U Kyaw Min 

M.P (elect) 1990 election, Buthidaung. 

Former C.R.P.P member. 

317, Kyaikkasan Road, Tarmwe, Yangon.

The president of Myanmar under international pressure has, in his UN speech, promised to curb the human rights abuses against the Rohingya Muslims. 

The UN describes the Rohingya population as among the world's most persecuted people. The tension, violence and discrimination vents from the ethnic majority Rakhine Buddhists that view them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh although they have been native to Myanmar for centuries. 

Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Peace prize winner, has conspicuously remained silent on their plight, which has drawn international criticism. Tens of thousands of Rohingyas live in appalling conditions that has been forced upon them. 

Press TV has interviewed Mr. Raza Kazim of the Islamic Human Rights Commission in London about the repression and abuse of the Rohingyas and the lack of international response the issue has attracted. 

What follows is an approximate transcript of the interview. 

Press TV: Let's look at it in general, why do you think that it is continuing although there has been pressure especially from the Muslim nations and communities. In some cases it almost seems as if the government there in Myanmar is not really paying a whole lot of attention to it? 

Kazim: That's right… and the problem has been that people are turning a blind eye to what's actually going on - the powers that be, the focus, the media and so on has been very much different in terms of the way that people are looking at this. 

And I think one of the problems has been the way that Aung San Suu Kyi was made into a darling of the West, paraded around Western capitals and seen as if all the problems in Myanmar have gone away because she has been freed because her own narrative on the Rohingya Muslims was in itself quite worrying in terms of some of the parallels that you see with nationalist movements, which are not particularly taking into account the rights of minorities.

And when you have a leader, a so-called democratic leader, whose attitude is more nationalistic than actually recognizing that there are people, all people that need to have rights, then that becomes a problem. 

What’s happened as a result of that, people in the West are thinking this is something - the problem there, is in the process of going away, when in fact it's been exacerbated and become a lot worse because of her attitude. 

Press TV: What do you think, you're representing Islamic Human Rights Commission in London - What do you think needs to be done in order to put the pressure on the government there in order to get results for these Muslims? 

Kazim: I think we need to look at how and what influence of China in particular who has had a relationship in the past… what kind of pressure can be brought to bear from that side. 

I think there is also pressure that needs to be brought to bear on the idea of continuing to make sure that the boycott and sanctions against the Myanmar government continue - it's something that needs to be continued in that kind of narrative. 

Press TV: What about the amount of media attention or the lack thereof, especially in the corporate media - What do you see behind this, especially in the West, there is a very short term memory that if it is not repeated constantly it's almost as if it no longer exists - What is the reason behind that? 

Kazim: It's about an agenda… partly to do with resources; it's about making sure that the resources that the Western governments will have access to as a result of recognizing the government as it currently exists - giving favorable treatment in terms of having access to those resources. And that's one the most fundamental problems - that's an agenda of the government. 

And unfortunately media organizations are following the lines of the Western governments rather than actually critiquing it and analyzing the reasons for the stances that governments have taken. 

You know, when we talk having about a media that will question and see what the issues are for the stances that governments have taken, we don’t see that independence actually being carried out in terms of what is a responsibility of the media in the different Western countries. 

That problem is quite embedded within the culture of the media and it's something that if they're not going to be on message with, then they are going to be brought to book. And it's something that is continuing and that is what you see as a result of this - a lack of independent scrutiny of the actions of the Western government's with regards to this particular case.

Sources Here:

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told Burma’s President Thein Sein this weekend the ethnic unrest in Rakhine State could threaten the country’s recent progress in democratic reforms and also spill across international borders.

Burmese President Thein Sein with Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon at his residence in New York. Photo: President's office

Ban made his comment during a meeting with Thein Sein and the head the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.

He told Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, who heads the 57-nation group, that the Rakhine troubles have potential wider implications of the issue on Burma's reform process and on other countries, particularly Bangladesh which is home to tens of thousands of Rohingya refugees.

An OIC committee set up to deal with the Rohingya issue met for the first time in New York this week and called for Rohingyas to be given rights as citizens in Burma, Reuters news agency reported. Ihsanoglu said he wanted to visit Burma when the government was ready to “to remedy the fundamental rights issues of the Rohingya Muslims.”

Fighting between Rakhine natives and Rohingya Muslims in the state erupted in June, claiming close to 90 people killed and thousands of buildings and homes burned.

At the United Nations General Assembly this week, leaders of Muslim countries called for action to deal with the unrest.

Thein Sein promised Ban that his government would tackle the problem.

Thein Sein was named to head the government in March of last year and began a process of reforming the country after decades of military rule. He told the Voice of America on Saturday that the news media will play an important role in the democratization of Burma.

“We have to thank media because they are telling the stories of the country which public should know about. By publishing or broadcasting by media, [the] public would understand the situation, and I'm thankful for that,” he said.

An estimated 800,000 Rohingyas in Burma do not have the status of an official ethnic minority, and many ordinary Burmese people say they are illegal immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh.

Since the unrest began, a series of Islamic delegations have toured the region and expressed concern about the plight of the Rohingyas while calling for international aid.

Sources Here:

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, a longtime admirer of Burmese murderous regime and their political strategy of how to sustain the power and remain in power, unsurprisingly deployed a political strategy recently same to her Burmese counterparts’ (i.e. scapegoating the minorities). Before going further, it is very important to mention that she has always been hostile to one of the world’s most persecuted people, Rohingyas. And she is infamous for blocking the border for the escaping Rohingya victims and pushing them back to the sea.

A pre-planned and organized attack was carried out against Buddhist minority in Ramu, Cox’s Bazaar district, Bangladesh on Saturday night. The attack set ablaze or destroyed more than a dozen temples and monasteries and at least 50 homes. Besides, property was looted, including statues of the Buddha. According to Bangladesh media, the attack was in apparent retaliation for a picture of a burned Quran holy text tagged on the Facebook account of a Bangladeshi Buddhist called Uttam Barua by a Facebook ID “Insult Allah.” 

Unsurprisingly, Home Minister Mohiuddin Khan Alamgir told reporters in Dhaka that "Rohingyas and political opponents of the government were also involved in the attacks." But how far is it true and believable? When you go inside and think deeply of Bangladesh political patterns, you will not be surprised but rather shocked. The whole attack was engineered by special Indian Intelligence Unit of Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) in coordination with Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI) under an operation named “Operation Tango.” 

Sheikh Hasina had known the whole game plot in advance to the violence. She had been briefed by the intelligence that the violence would help her to get the sympathy of Bangladesh minorities and hence they would become her vote bank in the election next year. She was also briefed that she could not take advantage over Rohingya issue politically because BNP is also of the same stand with her party over the issue. Therefore, it is the most proper time to carry out the attacks in the name of retaliation to the defaming Quran on Facebook as her opposition parties are protesting over anti-Islam movie and hence differing stands from her party. 

The attacks will not stop here. There will be many more attacks against the minorities coming and organized media to run a continuous news propaganda naming the violence as an effort to Islamize the hill area and the opposition parties specifically BNP is behind the communal attack.[1] Ridiculously, Sheikh Hasina who is attending UN General Assembly in US ordered the government to tighten the security and to protect the minority. She seems to be a perfect student of Burmese tyrannical and cunning regime. 

Many more similarities can be found besides these. But the differences are the political context and the level of freedom between Burma and Bangladesh. While in Burma, the main opposition has no power and stands over the violence in the violence against Rohingyas especially its leader DASSK, in Bangladesh, the main opposition party BNP has its own great political power and can speak up. While in Burma, Arakan is locked region where International national media and independent observers can’t get free access to, it is quite opposite in Bangladesh as it is a democratic country. 

Unfortunately, Rohingyas, a voiceless and defenseless people, has become a football who is getting kicked from net to net in the political match of Bangladesh and Burma. They are again unfairly and without any evidence dragged into the affairs of the violence by the Bangladesh government. It is known to the world that Bangladesh has pushed back the escaping Rohingya victims of Arakan violence. Those who managed to sneak into Bangladesh have no legal status to move around. In such situation, one should wonder how they would dare attack those minority people who have legal status in Bangladesh, which might exaggerate the violence against them in Arakan. Bangladesh government should stop playing insane and rather play good human beings. 

While the ruling governments in both Burma and Bangladesh playing filthy political games, minorities in the countries are paying high cost. Therefore, any kind of victimization or scapegoating of and violence against minorities whether politically or economically, no matter who or where they are, must be condemned and be brought to the end. 

M.S. Anwar is an activist studying Bachelor of Arts in Business Studies at Westminster International College, Malaysia.

On September 30 2012 There were about 50-60 people mainly from Burma Task force USA, Free Rohingya Campaign (FRC ) , Myanmar Muslim Civil Rights Movement (MMCRM) and Representatives from Ethnic Kachin people had assembled around 3:30 pm and walked up and down few blocks on Hollywood blvd chanting slogans, carrying slogan posters/placards and the large (10x3) 'Burma Task Force' banner.

The group of activists gathered on march back and forward with signs and banner showing to end oppression and restore Rohingya rights . Tourists and passerby stopped and took pictures also drivers and passenger that pass through Hollywood blvd beside roads turned and look at the rally. The rally ended at 530 pm where everyone was given an opportunity to made a short speech about the issue and prayed to end the oppression for the Rohingya Muslims

It was a good opportunity to distribute information leaflets and interact with tourists and passing foot traffic that showed interest, the road traffic honks showing their support "Said Ko Ko Naing from Free Rohingya Campaign (FRC) who is one of the organizer for the Rally.

Another rally is planned coordinated with Southern California Shura council on Tuesday Oct 2 at LA convention center where Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is speaking between 1:30 pm to 3:30 pm.