Myanmar’s western state of Arakan (Rakhine) is again burning. In Mrauk-U, the former capital of the independent kingdom of Arakan, hundreds of young Rakhine Buddhist men were on the march: packed on the backs of pickups, on motorcycles, on trishaws, tuk-tuks and bicycles, but mostly on foot.

They carried spears, swords, cleavers, bamboo staves, slingshots, crossbows and the occasional petrol bomb. Their target: the unarmed Rohingya Muslims. As the Economist (dated Nov. 3, 2012) of the UK noted, one Buddhist terrorist tugged at an imaginary beard and made a grisly throat-cutting gesture.

Sadly, Mrauk-U is not the only town where Rohingya Muslims are facing a genocidal campaign at the hands of Rakhine terrorists. From the reports collected inside Myanmar, there is little doubt that the Rakhine Buddhist terrorists, aided by local and central government politicians, police and security forces, are carrying out a pre-meditated genocidal campaign to exterminate and drive out every Rohingya of Burma (Myanmar). So atrocious and criminal this campaign is even the president of Myanmar, who had previously tried to hide such targeted violence, had to admit on Friday, October 26 (as reported in the pro-government newspaper the New Light of Myanmar) that eight mosques (Muslim houses of worship) and 2,000 of Rohingya homes were torched to completely destroy these. His spokesman told the BBC this weekend that "there have been incidents of whole villages and parts of the towns being burnt down in Rakhine state." The actual facts and figures, however, are much worse!

It is feared that in the last week of October at least 5,000 Rohingya homes were burned to ashes. Satellite imagery shows the utter destruction of a Muslim quarter of the coastal town of Kyaukphyu, from where oil-and-gas pipelines are to cross Myanmar to China. In this latest genocidal campaign, the Muslim villages and localities in townships are cordoned off and fire bombed. Anyone trying to escape from their burned homes is shot dead by the Rakhine Buddhist terrorists and their patrons within the government. Racist Rakhine politicians and monks are creating an environment of racial/religious hatred and intolerance which justifies all types of violence against the unarmed Rohingya population. Many Rohingyas have, therefore, tried to escape to the forest or the open seas, only to be hunted down there, too. Last week, dozens died when their boats sank in the Bay of Bengal. Others are forced to sneak out to Bangladesh.

Denied entry, many have ended up in squalid camps in Sittwe (Akyab) to join others who have been confined there since early June. Dozens of Rohingya girls were also kidnapped by the Rakhine terrorists to use rape and kidnap as weapons of war to terrorize the Rohingya populace.

It is an all out extermination campaign against the Rohingyas of Myanmar. In a statement dated Thursday, October 25, Ashok Nigam, a United Nations official in Myanmar, said, "The UN is alarmed by reports of displacements and destruction.” He said that access to all affected people is critical and appealed for immediate and unconditional access to all communities in accordance with humanitarian principles.

As I have pointed out earlier in my speeches and writings, the Myanmar government wants to hide its heinous crimes against the Rohingya people and, thus, have not allowed access of the international media, NGOs, aid groups and even the UN to the troubled region to investigate, monitor and assess the scale of the violence. Since the elimination of the Rohingya people one way or another is the declared state objective, no aid has reached from the Myanmar government agencies to the Muslim victims. And what is worse, even the relief materials sent from the OIC and the Islamic Relief have not reached the intended Rohingya victims. Less than 10% of such aids have trickled down to the victims. The Myanmar government, thanks to the state-managed protests and demonstrations in October by racist Buddhists that included monks, has also barred the OIC and Muslim relief agencies from opening offices inside the Rakhine state to help the Rohingya victims.

Not a single Buddhist terrorist has been punished for the gruesome murder of Muslims, not then and not now. All what we heard from the Thein Sein government was that it had identified the instigators behind the violence and pledged to bring them to justice. But as we have witnessed earlier with the June 3 lynching death of 10 Burmese Muslims, such promises have not translated into justice, let alone created an atmosphere that protects the lives and properties of the affected Rohingya minority.

It is obvious that the Thein Sein government is playing the cat-and-mouse game with the world community with false promises made to divert attention away when the satellite pictures are too obvious and difficult to hide such crimes, and once the outside pressure is low to encourage and participate in this heinous crime. As such the pogroms that started in June 3 with nearly a hundred thousand internally displaced Rohingyas have only worsened with extra tens of thousands that are now without any shelter. The once thriving Muslim localities now look like bombed-out territories. No Rohingya has been allowed back in to rebuild those properties. They have been caged in camps that look like the Nazi concentration camps from which they can’t venture out to fetch their livelihood without risking being shot by the Rakhine Buddhist security forces. They have been placed there to slowly die.

Terrorizing the unarmed Rohingya population has become a Rakhine national passion. The Border Security Force (NASAKA) continues to remind the Roingya people that Arakan is a Rakhine place where there is no place for the Roingya Muslims and that they must leave or will be killed. Newer territories are added to the list of ethnically cleansed ones to terrorize Rohingya Muslims and exterminate them. The Section 144, which prohibits an assembly of more than five people in an area, is only applied against the Rohingya. They cannot go out to protect their homes, shops, mosques, schools and villages from being looted and set on fire by the Rakhine terrorists who are not stopped from committing such crimes by the security forces.

In most cases, these criminal Rakhines are aided by the government. There have been cases, e.g., as in Kyauk Pyu Township, in which instead of dousing the fire with water, the Buddhist firemen sprayed gasoline into the fire to complete the destruction! "The firemen threw petrol on the flames, as if it was water! The authorities are one-sided. We can never trust them," said a local teacher to Pete Pattisson, a journalist working for the Independent (UK). Last Wednesday, the entire Muslim community in Kyauk Pyu decided to flee in their fishing boats, joining thousands of others trying to escape from being killed or burned alive. Former Muslim residents of Pauk Taw told the Independent that a government ferryboat had rammed their fishing boats at sea, resulting in drowning deaths of dozens. Those who had fled and made it ashore have been prevented by government authorities from landing on the coast.

Satellite images of Kyauk Pyu and its coastal surroundings, released by the Human Rights Watch at the weekend, show the extent of the devastation. Where once there were houseboats and floating barges moored along a harbor town packed with houses, now there is charred desolation, with 811 homes and other structures destroyed.

All the victims in recent months have also been Muslims and yet the Thein Sein government tries to portray the violence in the Rakhine state as an interracial or communal riot.

What is going on inside the Rakhine state is simply a purposeful policy designed by the Myanmar government in which the members of the majority Rakhine ethnic group, which is Buddhist by faith, are willing executioners to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of the Rohingya ethnic community, which are Muslims, from the geographic areas of Arakan and Myanmar. The United Nations define such activities as ethnic cleansing. No hog-washing by the murderous regime and its supporters at home and abroad will succeed to hide such monumental crimes.

The ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya people is a text book case. It has become a national project that is led by the Myanmar state at the central level and the Rakhine state at the local level, supported by a good percentage of the Buddhist nation and its dominant Burman and Rakhine ethnic groups, and which employs large institutional and material resources. The local Rakhine politicians and terrorists, the Buddhist monks and mobs, and the entire state apparatus from the local to the central government level are enthusiastic partners in this project towards final solution of the Rohingya problem.

It was no accident, therefore, to witness demonstrations of monks, esp. those organized by Young Monks Association, supporting Thein Sein’s plan to expel the Rohingyas from Myanmar. The largest such demonstration was led by Wirathu, considered a venerable teacher by many Buddhists. He is a criminal who was imprisoned in 2003 for inciting violence against the Muslims. It is no accident that Suu Kyi spoke with forked tongues and that her NLD party has actually been supporting the national project towards elimination of the Rohingya people. Many of the so-called ‘democracy’ leaders have proven to be no better than fascists and are actually worse than the KKK members.

The worst criminals in this extermination campaign are, however, the fellow Rakine Buddhists, whose ancestors settled in Arakan beginning in the 11th century, i.e., centuries after the darker complexioned Indo-Bengali ancestors of the Rohingya people had already settled in this coastal territory once ruled by the Hindu Chandra dynasty, which had closer ties with Bengal (today’s Bangladesh).

With that intrusion, albeit a violent one, of the Tibeto-Burman people, the forefathers of today’s Rakhine race, who professed Buddhism, the original inhabitant Hindus and Muslims gradually became minority religious groups. However, in 1430 when two contingents of Muslim Army from Bengal, comprising of more than 50,000 soldiers, restored the fleeing Arakanese king Narameikhla (Maung Saw Mawn) to the throne of Arakan, and a great many of them were asked to protect the regime against any future Burmese invasion, the new settlements of the Muslim garrison around the new capital city of Mrohang (Mrauk-U) greatly added to the size of the minority Muslim community.

The Arakanese rulers of Mrauk-U dynasty adopted superior Islamic culture from nearby Muslim Bengal/India, and issued coins with Islamic inscriptions. They patronized Bengali literature. They also adopted Muslim names, a practice that was to continue for generations well into the 16th century. Muslims played major roles in administration, courts and defense of this multi-ethnic kingdom that maintained its independence for centuries until its annexation by the Burmese king Bodawpaya in 1784.

Bodawpaya was a Buddhist religious fanatic who tried to demolish everything Islamic. He introduced racism and bigotry into this multi-religious region. He destroyed mosques that once dotted the shorelines of Arakan and patronized building Buddhist monasteries and pagodas. He massacred tens of thousands of Muslims, and took another 20,000 as prisoners during his annexation of Arakan. During his tyrannical rule, some 200,000 Arakanese also fled to Bengal (today’s Bangladesh), which by then was under the British rule. After 40-years of Burmese rule (1784-1824), Arakan was occupied by the English East India Company who ruled the territory until Burma won its independence on January 4, 1948.

During the Second World War, taking advantage of the Japanese occupation of Burma, the Buddhist forces which had allied themselves with the Fascist Japanese Imperial Army against the British Raj, targeted the Indian and Muslim population and their homes and businesses. Even the Rohingya Muslims who lived in the western territories did not escape the extermination campaign. Nearly a hundred thousand of them were killed in that joint campaign. They were pushed out of the southern parts of the Arakan state; and many managed to survive by living in northern territories, closer to the Bengal, where they were a solid majority. Another 80,000 settled permanently in Bengal to save their lives. Two hundred and ninety four Muslim villages were totally destroyed.

Even after Burma achieved its independence, sadly, the mass elimination and targeted violence against the Rohingya and other Muslims continued. To the best of my knowledge, at least two dozen campaigns have been directed against them to ethnically cleanse them.

These are:

01. Military Operation (5th Burma Regiment) - November 1948

02. Burma Territorial Force (BTF) - Operation 1949-50

03. Military Operation (2nd Emergency Chin regiment) - March 1951-52

04. Mayu Operation - October 1952-53

05. Mone-thone Operation - October 1954

06. Combined Immigration and Army Operation - January 1955

07. Union Military Police (UMP) Operation - 1955-58

08. Captain Htin Kyaw Operation - 1959

09. Shwe Kyi Operation - October 1966

10. Kyi Gan Operation - October-December 1966

11. Ngazinka Operation - 1967-69

12. Myat Mon Operation - February 1969-71

13. Major Aung Than Operation - 1973

14. Sabe Operation February - 1974-78

15. Naga-Min (King Dragon) Operation - February 1978-79 (resulting in exodus of some 300,000 Rohingyas to Bangladesh; 40,000 died)

16. Shwe Hintha Operation - August 1978-80

17. Galone Operation - 1979

18. 1984 Pogrom in Taunggok

19. Anti-Muslim riots - Taunggyi (western Burma), Pyay and many other parts of Burma including Rangoon - 1987-88

20. Pyi Thaya Operation – July 1991-92 (resulting in exodus of some 268,000 Rohingyas to Bangladesh)

21. Na-Sa-Ka Operation – since 1992

22. Race riot against Muslims – March 1997 (Mandalay)

23. Anti-Muslim riot in Sittwe – February 2001

24. Anti-Muslim full-scale riot in Central Burma – May 2001

25. Anti-Muslim violence throughout central Burma (especially in the cities of Pyay/Prome, Bago/Pegu) after 9/11 – October 2001

26. Joint extermination campaign – June 3, 2012 – to date.

Every attempt has been made by the Myanmar government since the days of General Ne Win to ethnically cleanse the Rohingya people and deny them human rights. They were declared stateless, thus licensing every crime directed against them; not a single Article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was honored. Here below is a shortlist of such crimes against the Rohingya people:

• Denial of Citizenship

• Restriction of Movement or Travel

• Restriction on Education

• Restriction on Ability to work

• Forced Labor

• Land Confiscation

• Forced Eviction

*Destruction of homes, offices, schools, mosques, etc.

• Religious persecution

• Ethnic discrimination

• Restrictions on Marriage of Rohingyas

• Prevention of reproduction and forced abortion

• Arbitrary Taxation and Extortion

• Registration of births and deaths in families and even of cattle, and the associated extortion

• Arbitrary arrest, torture and extra-judicial killing

• Abuse of Rohingya Women and Elders

• Rape as a weapon of war

• Depopulation of Rohingya community

• Confiscation of residency/citizenship cards

• Internally displaced persons or undocumented refugees and statelessness

• Destruction or alteration of historical Muslim sites and shrines to erase its symbolism or Islamic identity.

To be continued….

First one body appeared, floating in the waters of the Bay of Bengal, then another, and another, until those on board the little fishing boat that had gone to their rescue began to lose count.

Those bobbing lifeless among the waves had set out the night before, so desperate to escape the growing sectarian violence in Burma that they were prepared to risk boarding the dangerously overcrowded boat.

At least 130 had clambered aboard, but the boat foundered – whether it capsized because of the weight of bodies or because it struck rocks remains unclear.

The sinking last week was the worst reported incident resulting from the outbreak of violence between Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims in western Burma. The death toll is continuing to rise amid reports of a deepening humanitarian crisis.

"The situation is dire. The UN is doing its best, but it is trying to find more funding to help them," said Chris Lewa, director of the Arakan Project, an NGO working with the Rohingya.

With at least 32,000 people displaced by the latest violence – and at least 107,000 since trouble broke out in June – thousands have sought safety in refugee camps around the Burmese town of Sittwe. Those camps are at crisis point, according to Refugees International, which estimates that nearly a quarter of children were malnourished.

"Conditions in these camps are as bad, if not worse, than ones in eastern Congo or Sudan," said Melanie Teff, a researcher with the charity who visited Sittwe in September. "Child malnutrition rates are startlingly high. There's an urgent need for clean water and food. If further aid does not come through, there will be some unnecessary deaths."

In Baw Du Pha relief camp, where several thousand Rohingya refugees from Sittwe are surviving on rations and are severely short of medical care, Laila, 20, a mother of four, said: "I cannot give my baby rice when she needs it. We are suffering. When my daughter gets sick we have no money for medicine."

Compounding the need for essentials such as rice, water and oil, aid workers said refugees were facing a mounting psychological toll, with children bearing the brunt. "They lost their houses in the fires. Children cannot be left alone like before. So they're depressed," said Moe Thadar, a local Red Cross worker.

The death toll and fear of further violence have prompted many of the Rohingya to look for sanctuary in neighbouring Muslim countries. Many have concluded that the only realistic escape route is by sea. Thousands are reported to have been waiting for the end of the rainy season to put to sea. Those that have tried to get away have found that those countries are unwilling to accept them. Lewa said at least two boats had been turned back by Bangladesh last week and had returned to Sittwe.

"On Wednesday, we heard that about 7,000 people had arrived in Sittwe from Kyaukpyu [on the coast to the south] and Pauktaw [inland and to the east]. There were still about 900 of them sitting on the beach in Sittwe, while others had moved to camps or villages."

The UN has urged the Burmese government to tackle the causes of the conflict, prompting authorities to order people to turn in their weapons to police. It also urged Burma's neighbours to not to close their borders, but the appeal brought no immediate change of heart.

Some of those who have fled, such as the victims of last week's sinking, headed for Malaysia, where people-smugglers will take them for a fee. Others are looking closer to home – to Bangladesh and Thailand – but neither country wants them. Bangladesh is already home to around 300,000 Rohingya and is concerned about rising numbers. It has said that it will turn away boats, although people near Cox's Bazar, close to where last week's accident happened, said that some had made land and gone into hiding. Thailand does not want them and has been accused of forcing refugee boats back out to sea when they have tried to land. The latest assessment from the Burmese government – which regards the Rohingya as illegal immigrants – said 89 people had been killed in clashes between 21 and 30 October, with another 136 injured and 32,231 made homeless. At least 5,000 houses had been burned down. Activists say the true figures are likely to be higher.

"The villages have been burned down and some people have fled. A few have remained in the area, but others have tried to flee to the camps in Sittwe," said Lewa. "In some villages quite a lot of people have been killed, but we are still trying to find out how they died. Some died in the fires and some were attacked by Rakhine [Buddhists]. We also heard that the army shot at some of the Rakhine people. We heard about 170 people killed in one village alone."

Teff said the outlook for peace was grim. "There is a total lack of hope for the Rohingya. They have been rejected by many countries," she said. "The only way out is for the international community to act on the current situation."

Sources : guardian(uk)

Source : The week UK

M.S. Anwar
RB Article
November 3, 2012

When you look deeply into the violence against Rohingya and Kaman people in Arakan, you will find that Rakhine extremists are giving full collaboration to the Burmese regime in the killing and cleansing of these people. Rather, Rakhine extremists led by their self-centered and terrorist leaders and skinned-head fascists in saffron are rushing to kill more Rohingyas and Kamans and destroy their properties beyond and breaking the government’s instructions. That’s something that Burmese regime doesn’t want to take place because they fear that their crimes against humanity will be exposed. Above all, why is Burmese regime instigating such violence against one of the most persecuted people on the planet? Why are Rakhine extremists rushing to root out Rohingyas and Kamans sooner rather than later? The answer might be simple to those who have ample knowledge on Socio-Political nature of Burma and History of Arakan.

Burmese regime has instigated the violence to divert the attention of the people from the political problems it was facing and gain political advantage. According to many Burmese political analysts such as Dr. Maung Zarni and Prof. Kan Bawza Win, it is a deliberate attempt of the regime to militarize Arakan so that they can give protections to the foreign investments especially of China and India and forthcoming investments of US. But for Rakhine extremists, they see this initiation of the violence as the perfect opportunity to make their long-awaited dream come true. Their dream has always been “having a separate and independent Arakan.” Therefore, it is not surprising that Rakhine extremists are rushing and breaking the guidance of the regime to wipe out Rohingyas and Kamans (who are Muslims) that have become stumbling blocks to the achieving of their dream.

For this very sole purpose, Rakhine extremists and separatists have been smuggling lethal weapons through various means into Arakan for months now. According to leaked information out of a reliable source, there is a rich Rakhine man called U KYAUK TAUNG in Taung Gote, who is known as a Wood trader to many. Reports have it that he has very close-relationship with the president, U Thein Sein, too. But what many don’t know and might be the most shocking thing is he exports DRUGS and other NARCOTICS putting into the Wood-Blocks by Boats to Bangladesh and in return, he imports all the dangerous weapons necessary to fight for and separate Arakan. His trading partner (i.e. the buyer of DRUGS and NACORTICS and seller of the WEAPONS) is a famous Bangladesh MP in Cox’s Bazaar District. He is known as MP BAWDEE.

Therefore, there are no inspections of the boats of U KYAUK TAUNG docking at the Cox’s Bazaar Sea-Port although every boat docking at the port are checked up by Bangladesh authority. From there, the mentioned MP supplies the DRUGS and NARCOTICS to other various Narcotics and Drugs Lords to sell in the country and export to other parts of the world especially Western Countries. Therefore, it is a responsibility of those anti-narcotics agencies of western countries as well as of the whole world to fight against these narcotics lords to save their citizens.

President U Thein Sein might be well aware of U Kyauk Taung Drug Export Business taking his close-relationship with him into consideration. But he might not know that he is importing the dangerous weapons to separate Arakan, which is against the state-policy of the regime. By cooperating with the regime in killing Rohingyas and Kamans, Rakhine Drugs Lords cum terrorists are not working in favor of but against the state policy and rather implementing their own policy. Burmese government and their intelligence are perhaps aware of the policy of Rakhine terrorists. After all, they are finding out many illegal weapons in the hands of Rakhine terrorists and subsequently seizing them out of their hands.

Recently, in Kyauk Taw Township, the authority has seized more than 400 AK-47 from the hands of the Rakhine terrorists. But state-newspaper said they were about more than 70 guns. Therefore, the government ordered the people of Arakan to hand over all the weapons to the authority. However, the-state government is composed of Rakhines and that will not only try not to hand over the weapons that their people have but also try to manipulate and to buck up all of their blames to Rohingyas and Kamans unless the central government carries out the initiative effectively.

As I were saying, the regime led by U Thein Sein and invisibly controlled by the former head of the dictatorial government, Than Shwe has also released the former general and chief of the military intelligence, Khin Nyunt, who has the vast knowledge and experience on Arakan and how to plot certain things to create violence. Reportedly, he visited Arakan state and directed Rakhine extremists on how to begin the violence. Now, he has been closely working with a skinned-head fascist terrorist in saffron, Wirathu and conspiring to create unrest all over the country so that the regime can crawl back to the previous military dictatorship. This time, the government will claim that they have to coup the power because of the unrest in the country and people’s demand as in the case of OIC matter. China, US and other capitalist countries will keep silent because for them, doing business in Burma is above anything and precedes everything.

To the Peace-Loving Burmese Community, Rohingyas are not the enemies of the state but rather happily want to cooperate in the country’s development. They are made scapegoats on account of their different race and religion by the government and Rakhine separatists for their respective interests. In a country where the government itself has the tendency of terrorism and the links with terrorist rings, everyone will tend to behave like terrorists. If this situation in Arakan continues and general Burmese fall in the traps of these terrorists rings, not only Rakhine drug lords cum terrorists will have chances to separate Arakan but also the brutal regime will be ruling the country for next 300 years or forever. Therefore, it is the high time for all general Burmese to differentiate and understand who are working in favor of the country and who are against.

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

SITTWE - Crammed into squalid camps, thousands of people who fled communal violence in Myanmar face a deepening humanitarian crisis with critical shortages of food, water and medicine, aid workers say. More than 100,000 people have been displaced since June in two major spasms of violence in western Rakhine State, where renewed clashes last month between Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims uprooted about 30,000 people. Dozens were killed on both sides and thousands of homes were torched. Even in the camps near the state capital Sittwe housing ethnic Rakhine Buddhists - who have freedom of movement and are able to work if they can find employment - people are going hungry.

“We don’t have enough to eat,” said Phyu Ma Thein, 33. “The abbot gave us a bowl of rice but we have no pots, no plates. We have nothing. We’re just trying to survive.”

The situation is likely to deteriorate, the UN Refugee Agency warned this week, as a new influx of refugees pushes the camps “beyond capacity in terms of space, shelter and basic supplies such as food and water”.

“Food prices in the area have doubled and there are not enough doctors to treat the sick and wounded,” it added. Most of the displaced are Rohingya, described by the UN as among the world’s most persecuted minorities. Seen by the government and many Burmese as illegal immigrants from neighbouring Bangladesh, Myanmar’s 800,000 stateless Rohingya have long faced severe discrimination, according to rights groups.

Their displacement camps are at crisis point, according to Refugees International (RI) which estimates that even before last month’s flare-up nearly a quarter of children in the squalid facilities were malnourished.

“Conditions in these camps are as bad if not worse than ones in Eastern Congo or Sudan,” Melanie Teff, a researcher with the charity who visited Sittwe in September, told AFP from London. “Child malnutrition rates are startlingly high. There’s an urgent need for clean water and food. If further aid does not come through there will be some unnecessary deaths,” she said.

With tens of thousands of Rohingya in outlying villages struggling to make a living since security collapsed after June’s unrest, Teff fears official camps could be overwhelmed by a new wave of refugees over the coming months. Myanmar, which is opening up after decades of secretive junta rule, has said it has to accept aid from Muslim countries or face an international backlash. That concession by President Thein Sein last month came despite a series of angry protests by Myanmar Buddhists against efforts by a world Islamic body to help Muslims affected by the violence in Rakhine.

But the flow of aid is still sluggish to the tinderbox province.

In Baw Du Pha relief camp, where several thousand Rohingya refugees from Sittwe live cheek-by-jowl, surviving on rations and severly short of medical care, a mother-of-four told AFP Friday of her family’s desperation. “I cannot give my baby rice when she needs it. We are suffering,” said Laila, 20. “When my daughter gets sick we have no money for medicine.” Compounding the immediate need for essentials such as rice, water and oil, aid workers say refugees are facing a mounting psychological toll with terrified children bearing the brunt. “They lost their houses in the fires. Children cannot be left alone like before. So they’re depressed,” said Moe Thadar, a local Red Cross worker. With tensions still at boiling point despite beefed-up security, the relief effort is in jeopardy and the outlook for peace is grim unless the two communities can somehow reconcile, according to Teff. “As it stands there is a total lack of hope for the Rohingya. They have been rejected by many countries. They have suffered all around,” she said. “The only way out is for the international community to act on the current situation.” The UNHCR said the recent bloodshed spurred several thousand Rohingya to take to rickety boats this week in the hope of finding shelter at camps on the coast near the outskirts of Sittwe or escaping the country altogether.

But tragedy awaits even in flight, as around 130 people went missing after one boat sank off the coast near Bangladesh’s border with Myanmar while carrying Rohingya refugees heading for Malaysia.

Dozens of other boats were repelled by nervous Myanmar security forces near Sittwe, leaving them with no choice but to dock on the barren shoreline, according to an AFP reporter who visited the scene this week. “Humans need shelter, a place to sleep and eat,” said Myint Oo, a displaced Muslim who has lost his house and fishing business. “If you cannot eat and sleep, it’s worse than dying.”

Source :AFP

No place like home

The Rohingyas need the help of the Burmese government, Aung San Suu Kyi and the outside world

THE political transformation in Myanmar this past year or more has so far seemed one of history’s more remarkable revolutions. It has seemed, indeed, to be a revolution without losers. The army, which brutalised the country for half a century, remains influential and unpunished. Political prisoners have been freed by the hundreds. The opposition and its heroine, Aung San Suu Kyi, have successfully entered mainstream politics. What had seemed a purely ornamental parliament is showing it has a function (see article). Foreign countries that shunned the dictatorship, hemming it in with sanctions, can exploit Myanmar’s untapped market and treasure-house of natural resources.

One group, however, has lost, and lost terribly. Around 1m members of the mostly Muslim Rohingya minority remain in Myanmar’s impoverished western state of Rakhine. They are survivors of relentless rounds of persecution that have created a diaspora around the world that is perhaps twice as big. As The Economist went to press, more than 100 boat people, mostly Rohingyas, were missing in the Bay of Bengal. They were fleeing hideous peril at home in Myanmar. Members of the ethnic-Rakhine majority, who are mostly Buddhist, have seen the greater liberties the country now enjoys as the freedom to resume persecution. Members of both ethnic groups are guilty of abuses in the violence that flared in June and again in October (see Banyan). But its main contours are clear: a vicious and bloody campaign of ethnic cleansing by the Rakhines that is intended to drive Rohingyas out. Rakhine politicians say frankly that the only alternative to mass deportation is a Burmese form of apartheid, in which more Rohingyas are corralled into squalid, semi-permanent internal-refugee camps. Most Rohingyas have lived in Myanmar for generations—at least since British colonial days. But Rakhines and other Burmese citizens see them all as fairly recent illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

In this section

Dozens have died, thousands of homes have been destroyed and tens of thousands of people have been displaced. This must stop, not just because it is a cruel injustice but also because it threatens reforms and even the future of Myanmar itself. The violence offers an excuse to those hardliners who have always equated democracy with anarchy, fearing that, without the army’s firm hand, Myanmar’s borderlands, all inhabited by disgruntled ethnic minorities, would descend into bloodletting.

In fact, for once, the army really does need to be firmer—but in stopping violence, detaining perpetrators, and helping Rohingyas survive the unofficial commercial boycott that is leaving many hungry and thirsty. Parliament and the government, for their part, need to revise the Citizenship Act of 1982, which has been used as the tool to render most Rohingyas stateless. Rohingyas with a good claim to citizenship should have it. And their claims should be examined generously: it is not easy to prove your lineage when everything you have has been reduced to ashes.

Responsibility to protect

Citizenship is not enough, however. Leaders need to speak out in the Rohingyas’ defence. The one person in Myanmar with genuine moral authority, Miss Suu Kyi, has confined herself to calling for respect for the rule of law. When the law is unjust and unfairly applied—as it long was against her—that is a betrayal of the high moral principles she has always espoused.

Elsewhere, Bangladesh must accommodate fleeing Rohingyas. The West has tended to regard the Rohingyas’ plight as a peripheral problem that should not deflect it from lifting sanctions and engaging with the new Myanmar. Yet it should make clear that ethnic cleansing on this scale is central to its concerns. The test of a fledgling democracy is not just how it cares for the majority, but how it protects its minorities.

We are again bombarded by photographs and news of renewed violence in Myanmar's Arakan region (officially Rakhine state). Meanwhile, at the UN in New York, the delegates listened to the report of UN Human Rights Special Rapporteur for Myanmar Mr. Quintana. While recognizing the democratization efforts in the country, he underlined that it was vital for the Myanmar government and all concerned to prevent further violence, to defuse tensions between the Rakhine Buddhist and Rohingya Muslim communities, and to address the underlying causes of inter-communal unrest.

Like Mr. Quintana, many continue to be concerned with the lack of an articulated policy by the government for integration and long-term reconciliation between the two communities. However, at the moment, preventing further violence, saving lives, and providing emergency humanitarian relief is the priority.

During the past days, Rohingya villages in the Rakhine state came under coordinated attacks by the so-called Rakhine vigilantes. Satellite images of totally destroyed Rohingya villages did not leave any doubt about what had really happened. Rohingya sources reported that from October 21 to 26, over 30 Rohingya villages and 5,086 houses in Kyauk Phyu, Kyauk Taw, Minbyar, Rambray, Pauktaw, and Myauk-U townships in Southern Rakhine state were torched.

Observers reported that the security forces were overwhelmed and could not control the Rakhine Buddhist groups. There are again allegations of assistance by some elements in the local police to the Rakhine mobs. Rohingya leaders give credit to the Union government and the army's timely interventions. Resolve of the security forces must have protected Rohingya villagers from potentially much wider massacres and further attacks. Since the May-June riots, the army was resolved not to allow any more violence, even at the expense of restricting movement and separation of Rohingya communities. However, the situation was not sustainable without a real reconciliation, and under the incitement of extremists, violence recurred.

The Rohingya diaspora cries for an international rescue operation for the escaping Rohingyas stranded on precarious floating boats at sea. They estimated a total of 9,000 Rohingyas were at sea, in the forests, and on open ground without food or basic necessities. There were already around 70,000 registered Rohingya IDPs in the camps before the recent violence. Wounded and sick Rohingyas are afraid to go to hospitals.

Rohingya community leaders suspect that an ethnic cleansing campaign was conceived on September 27 at the Rakhine National Congress which took place in Rathedaung where reportedly the formation of a 6,000 strong Rakhine youth force was agreed upon. They point out that extreme local political forces in alliance with local monks are behind the recent attacks. They insist that well organized and coordinated anti-Rohingya protests by the youth, women, and monks and poisonous social media campaigns were signs of a malign intent that was instigated and orchestrated by the racist and ultra nationalist local Rakhine political forces.

While Rakhine nationalists irrationally blame the Rohingya population for conspiring against the interests of the Rakhine majority by having a higher birth rate and for being outsiders or descendents of outsiders, Rohingya leaders lament that they might have underestimated at the time when news came out of the Rakhine National Convention that so-called Rakhine forces would be coordinating attacks to drive Rohingyas out of their villages towards the North and border areas with Bangladesh.

Rohingyas are not among the 135 officially recognized ethnic groups of Myanmar and lost their citizenship rights due to an undemocratic 1982 Citizenship Law. They still vest their hopes on the Central government and Burmese army in providing protection to them and establishing law and order. They are worried that local Rakhine officials reportedly lodged complaints about the army units who shot at the rioting Rakhine mobs. They are dismayed by the removal of the army units and commanders who protected Rohingyas, after the complaints from local Rakhine politicians.

It seems that this time the army's resolute action and President Sein's warning to the trouble-making, local, nationalistic forces have given a ray of hope to Rohingyas though addressing their fundamental rights is still a political taboo for both the government and opposition politicians.

Indeed, it is encouraging that on Thursday, President Sein's office warned that manipulators behind the recent violence would be exposed and legal action taken against them. Diplomats reported that the President also reached out to the Rakhine elders to seek their assistance to calm down the youth.

The Government is apparently under the siege of the extreme forces. Some explain the recent agitation as an attempt by the extreme Rakhine forces to prevent or derail the issuance of the Internal Investigation Commission's report or manipulate its findings.

The mandate of the Commission includes identifying the root causes of the inter-communal unrest, though there is not one single Rohingya among the 27 members of the Commission but there are some Rakhine extremist politicians. Rakhine extremists who look determined to cease the movement towards a "final solution," apparently are worried that the report could give legitimacy to President Sein to address the citizenship problem of Rohingyas.

When I visited Sittwe in early September heading an OIC observer team to Myanmar, it was obvious to me that the inter-communal conflict was not primarily a religious one but caused by deep rooted inter-ethnic resentment. I was particularly appalled by two things. Firstly, Rakhine locals whom I talked to all hated the UN and the NGOs. When I asked the question why, the answer was "I don't know, this is what we are told". Secondly, the high level of resentment and hatred expressed by the Buddhist monks against the Rohingya ethnic minority was also quite intriguing. However in a meeting with the Rakhine elders and businessmen pragmatism prevailed. I heard appeals for development and creation of employment opportunities. One Buddhist businessman requested assistance for provision of desperately needed rice crop machines. President Sein's recent statement that Myamnar would need assistance also from the Muslim countries was also a positive development.

Communities suffer most when extremists manipulate the populations by creating imaginary internal and external enemies. We should all encourage the democratization process in Myanmar and support the government's efforts to tackle the challenge posed by extreme Rakhine nationalists. However, we should not withhold asking the question whether Myanmar can build democracy without addressing the fundamental rights of the Rohingyas. It is time that Rohinhyas are given a prospect for their future as loyal and equal citizens of Myanmar and hatred against them should not be allowed to simmer.

Ufuk Gokcen  Ambassador and Permanent Representative of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to the United Nations. 

By Nay San Lwin
RB Analysis
November 3, 2012

Burmese government records of Rohingya In his article, “A friend’s appeal to Burma”, published on 19 June 2012, Benedict Rogers noted that the first President of Burma, Sao Shwe Thaike, a Shan, said that “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”. “The people living in Buthidaung and Maungdaw Townships are Rohingya, ethnic of Burma” said Burma’s first prime minister U Nu in a pubic speech on 25 September 1954 at 8 pm. “The Rohingya has the equal status of nationality with Kachin, Kayah, Karen, Mon, Rakhine and Shan” said the prime minister and minister for defense U Ba Swe at public gatherings in Buthidaung and Maungdaw Townships on 3 and 4 November 1959. “The people living in Mayu Frontier is ethnic Rohingya” included in the announcement of Frontiers Administration office under Prime Minister Office on 20 November 1961. Mayu Frontier is composed of Buthidaung, Maungdaw and Rathedaung Townships.

Broadcasting from radio program in the Rohingya language was relayed three times a week from the indigenous language programme of the official Burma Broadcasting Service in Rangoon, from 15 May 1961 to 30 October 1965. Myanma Encyclopedia Vol.9, page 89-90, published in 1964, concludes that population of 500,000 living in Mayu Frontier of Northern Arakan State 75% is Rohingya. “The majority people live in Buthidaung, Maungdaw and Rathedaung Townships are ethnic Rohingya and the minorities are Rakhine, Daingnet, Mro and Khami” wrote in Tatmataw Khit Yay journal Vol.12, No.6 printed on 18 July 1961 and Vol. 12, No.9 printed on 8 August 1961.

In his speech on 8 July 1961, the Army Deputy Commander-in-Chief Brigadier General Aung Gyi said, “The people living in Mayu Frontier are Rohingya. Pakistan (now Bangladesh) is located in west of Mayu Frontier and Muslims are living there. The people living in west are called Pakistani and the people living here are called Rohingya. This is not the only border that has same people on both sides, border with China, India and Thailand also have the same phenomenon. For example: Lisu, Ei-Kaw, La-Wa live in Kachin State and same people live in China. Also Shan people can be found in China as Tai. The ethnics Mon, Karen and Malay are also living in Thailand. In India-Burma border Chin, Li-Shaw and Naga are living. These people are living in Burma as ethnics and living in India as well”.

The Rangoon University Rohingya Students Association was one of the many ethnic student associations that functioned from 1959 to 1961 under the registration numbers 113/99 December 1959 and 7/60 September 1960 respectively. In High School Geography textbook, printed in 1978, where scattered living regions of national races of Burma is shown on page 86, Northern Arakan is marked as ‘Rohingya region’.

Rohingya elites/MPs before and after independence of Burma

After the separation of Burma from India in 1935, the “Di-Archy” system was replaced by a ruling system called “91 Taa-na” (Departments administration). In that system there were 132 seats in the governing body and a total of 132 members were elected from various communal backgrounds. In this election, Mr. Ghani Markan, a Rohingya MP from Buthidaung and Maungdaw constituency, was elected. Point to be noted here that Mr. Ghani Markan was from the Community of “Burmese national” category and they (Rohingya) represented the Burmese national and not the Indian or any other group.

The General Election for Constituent Assembly in 1947 was organized just before the independence, mainly by the participation of General Aung San. This time, Buthidaung and Maungdaw had two separate constituencies. U Abdul Ghaffar for Buthidaung and U Sultan Ahmed for Maungdaw were elected.

U Abul Bashar for Buthidaung, U Sultan Ahmed and Daw Aye Nyunt for Maungdaw and U Abdul Ghaffar for Upper house were elected in 1951 election. U Ezhar Miah and U Abul Bashar for Buthidaung, U Sultan Ahmed and U Abul Khair for Maungdaw, U Sultan Mahmood for Buthidaung North and U Abdul Ghaffar for Upper house were elected in 1956. U Sultan Mahmood and U Abul Bashar for Buthidaung, U Rashid and U Abul Khair for Maungdaw and U Abdu Suban for Upper house were elected in 1961. By then the Rohingya community were involved more actively in politics. For the first time, one of the Rohingya elected member became a cabinet minister of Prime Minister U Nu’s government. He was U Sultan Mahmood, and in charge for the ministry of Education and Health. U Abdul Ghaffar and U Abul Bashar, elected members of Buthidaung became the Parliamentary Secretaries.

Even in the era of U Ne Win, the Rohingya exercised voting and representing rights in the Pyithu Hluttaw (National Assembly) Election and in the election of different levels of Pyithu (National) Council. Likewise, many Rohingya dignitaries were endorsed in the Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP) and some of them held higher positions as well. U Abul Hussein and Dr. Abdur Rahim were elected in 1974 from Buthidaung and Maungdaw.

Rohingya have been subjected to the discriminatory measure initiated in 1978 by the then BSPP and local authority of Rakhine community. They started to take the initiative to deprive the fundamental rights of Rohingya community and since then the Rohingya were marginalized from the Pyithu Hluttaw Election. U Tun Aung Kyaw aka Abdul Hai, was the only Rohingya representative elected in 1978 election from Maungdaw, but none from Buthidaung. The Rohingya were excluded from participating in the Pyithu Hluttaw elections in 1982 and 1986. However, some Rohingya were seen at lower levels of Pyithu Council of the BSPP.

In 1990 multi party general election, Rohingya exercised the voting and representing rights again. U Kyaw Min, U Tin Maung, U Chit Lwin and U Fazal Ahmed from National Democratic Party for Human Rights (NDPH) were elected from Buthidaung and Maungdaw constituencies. Later U Kyaw Min became a member of Committee Representing People’s Parliament (CRPP).

Making Rohingya stateless

Rohingya people used to have National Registration Cards (NRC) like everyone else in the country. Upon introduction of discriminatory policies on Rohingya by Ne Win in 1970s, the NRCs were taken away by various measures. Numerous check-points were set up to block Rohingya’s travel and to confiscate their IDs. Nagamin (the Dragon) operation in 1977-78 was skillfully crafted to drive out all Rohingya from Burma. It produced about 250,000 refugees that fled to neighboring Bangladesh. However, most of the fleeing refugees were returned to their original dwelling places, so the plan was not quite successful for the Burmese regime. Although systematic discriminatory policies were in place and IDs and other government issued documents were seized by the government, Rohingya remained as citizens of Burma until 1982. The Citizenship Act promulgated in 1982 is the official document that striped off the citizenship of Rohingya.

Numerous forms of discriminations followed by the enactment of 1982 Citizenship Law and lives of Rohingya had become incomprehensible. Again, another operation was carried out in 1991 by the successive military regime and it produced about 300,000 refugees, but this time about 200,000 remained in Bangladesh, of which, 28,000 are recognized refugees by the UNHCR and the rest are scattered around the country and are not recognized as refugees.

In the meantime, the regime uses different methods to eliminate (force out) the Rohingya population for the region: confiscation of farmland, establishing Buddhist settlement on Rohingya’s land, force labor, restriction on movement, restriction on marriage, harassment, desecration of religious places, arbitrary taxation, extrajudicial killings, rapes, and the list goes on.

The new National Scrutiny Card was introduced in 1989 and Rohingya were not entitled to receive them as they have become non-citizen under the 1982 Citizenship Act. However, the authorities issued Temporary Scrutiny Card to all and promised twice in 2008 constitution referendum and 2010 election that National Scrutiny Card will soon be issued to all the Rohingyas. But the promises made to Rohingya were never honored.

In a recent parliament session, when some MPs raised the issue of Rohingya, the immigration minister U Khin Yee said that “there is no Rohingya in Burma”. The same was echoed by the director general of the population department at a later date. Although many Rohingya were members of National League for Democracy (NLD) in Buthidaung and Maungdaw Townships during 1990 election, now the vice chairman U Tin Oo and other high ranking officials of NLD are openly saying that there is no race called ‘Rohingya’ in Burma, which is an utter disregard for historical facts, human rights and democratic principle. NLD’s discriminatory policy on Rohingya is no less than that of the military regime.

There is no justice for Rohingya in Burma as racism is deeply rooted in Burmese society. Rohingyas are made scapegoats to justify their evil doings by both ultra-nationalist racists and the regime to divert public attention. As history cannot be deleted or altered, the truth needs to be revealed and justice needs to be established. It is the human rights defenders that need to work hard to establish justice and defend the rights of the unjustly persecuted.

Nay San Lwin is an activist and blogger. He can be reached via Twitter @nslwin 

Burma Campaign UK today called on the British government to work for UN mandated international observers to be stationed in Rakhine (Arakan) State, Burma, following almost five months of violence, arrests, and restrictions on humanitarian assistance to Burma’s ethnic Rohingya minority.

Burma Campaign UK has written to British Foreign Secretary William Hague asking him to make the placement of UN mandated international observers the main British policy objective in response to what have become systematic attacks against the Rohingya.

The letter argues that the softly-softly approach taken by the British government and the rest of the international community has completely failed to persuade President Thein Sein of Burma to halt the attacks, allow unrestricted humanitarian access, and take steps to tackle the root causes of the crisis. Even when President Thein Sein requested international assistance in expelling all Rohingya from Burma, a policy that amounts to ethnic cleansing, the British government and others failed to publicly criticise Thein Sein. The lack of a robust international response has clearly been taken as a green light by Thein Sein for allowing attacks to continue.

The letter states: “Based on experience, it was our firm view that a robust initial response was needed in order to persuade the government of Burma that it needed to take firm and swift action to end the violence and prevent further violence … Burma Campaign UK continues to believe that the government of Burma will only take steps to halt the violence, allow unrestricted humanitarian access, and start to tackle the root causes of the violence, when it is placed under significant pressure to do so, and faces a credible threat to its interests if it fails act. This was a hard learned lesson for the British government in the past, and should not be forgotten now.

Firm and effective action at the start of the crisis in June could have helped prevent most of what has taken place in the months following the start of the crisis. Now that the crisis has been allowed to escalate, much more robust and high level intervention is required.”

“The British government seems to have forgotten the lessons it learnt over many years of dealing with the dictatorship in Burma, which is that softly-softly diplomacy does not work,” said Anna Roberts, Executive Director of Burma Campaign UK. “The British government used to take the lead defending human rights in Burma, there is concern that now it takes the lead in promoting trade. These allegations can most firmly be proved wrong by the British government once again taking the lead, this time on ensuring UN mandated international observers are placed on the ground in Rakhine State.”

Download a Word version of this letter here 

William Hague MP, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs

Foreign & Commonwealth Office

King Charles Street

London

SW1A 2AH 

Dear Foreign Secretary 

I am writing regarding the growing crisis in Rakhine State, Burma, and to ask that the British government work to ensure that UN mandated international observers are placed on the ground in Rakhine State. 

It is now almost five months since violence began in Rakhine State, Burma. The violence can no longer be described as simply communal. It has become systematic violence targeting the Rohingya ethnic minority. Hundreds of Rohingya have reportedly been killed, and more than one hundred thousand displaced. What is happening in practice amounts to areas being ethnically cleansed of Rohingya people. 

These attacks are taking place with a mixture of tacit and overt support from the military-backed government in Burma. 

The British government failed to take the lead in mobilising a robust international response when violence began. A robust initial response was needed in order to persuade the government of Burma that it needed to take firm and swift action to end the violence and prevent further violence. Instead the government adopted a policy of soft private diplomacy. With attacks increasing and aid restrictions still in place, it is clear this approach has failed, and a much more robust approach must be adopted. 

The government of Burma is clearly unwilling to stop the violence and take action against those inciting violence. International observers would be able to collect accurate information about what is taking place and their presence may help prevent violence. 

The British government used to take the lead defending human rights in Burma, but there is concern that now it only takes the lead in promoting trade. I urge you to demonstrate that Britain puts human rights before trade interests in Burma, and supports international observers in Rakhine State, a measure that could help save lives. 

Yours sincerely

For further information or to arrange interviews please contact Kiri Kankhwende, Press Officer at Christian Solidarity Worldwide on +44 (0)20 8329 0045 / +44 (0) 78 2332 9663, email kiri@csw.org.uk or visitwww.csw.org.uk.

Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) is a Christian organisation working f

or religious freedom through advocacy and human rights, in the pursuit of justice.
Notes to Editors:

1. United Nations General Assembly Resolution 63/308, adopted on 14 September 2009, agreed to continue in consideration of the responsibility to protect, recalling paragraphs 138 and 139 of the 2005 World Summit Outcome, which stated that: “Each individual State has the responsibility to protect its populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity” and that “The international community, through the United Nations, also has the responsibility to use appropriate diplomatic, humanitarian and other peaceful means...to help to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.”

Source here

From : Kyauk Nimaw 

Received : 31.10.2012 at 4:35 pm [Amsterdam time] 

Kyaw Kyaw reported the followings on phone conversation: 

RB News Desk

We, the undersigned Rohingya organisations worldwide are calling for a global day of action in support of human rights for the Rohingya people of Burma. 

 Rohingyas run away from a fire that was set to a part of Sittwe on 10 June 2012. (Reuters)

Use of language can be very important. This is something the government of Burma knows very well. There are disturbing parallels between the way current violence in Arakan state is being described, and how past atrocities committed by the Burmese government were recounted at the time.

In 2003, the dictatorship in Burma tried to assassinate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. They bussed in hundreds of thugs to ambush her convoy as she travelled outside of a town called Depayin. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s car managed to escape, but up to one hundred of her supporters were beaten to death, in what became known as the Depayin Massacre. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was arrested a few miles down the road from the ambush, and kept in detention until a week after the rigged elections in November 2010.

These facts are not disputed now, but this isn’t what the media reported at the time. The media first used the information provided to them by the dictatorship. Media reports referred to ‘scuffles’, ‘clashes’ and a ‘melee’. AFP described it as: “a violent clash between her supporters and a pro-junta group which left four dead”.

It wasn’t a clash – it was an ambush and attempted assassination. There were not four killed, there were more than seventy people murdered.

While reading reports of what is happening in Arakan state now, I’m reminded of how the Depayin Massacre was covered.

The violence in Arakan state is still being described as communal and as clashes between two sides. Maybe this description could have been used for a small number of incidents in early June, but that time has long since passed. What is happening now are coordinated attacks against the Rohingya ethnic minority. Rohingya villages are being systematically surrounded, and the people in them attacked and driven away or killed. When one side attacks another, it is not a clash.

While my organisation, the Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK, has received reports from the ground that hundreds of Rohingya have been killed in attacks, the government insists that less than a handful have been killed.

In another similarity to the Depayin Massacre, the government is not using its own troops and security services to carry out these attacks. In reference to the Depayin incident, government officials talked about how the National League for Democracy and Aung San Suu Kyi had angered local people by coming to the area and stirring up trouble. Today in Arakan state, they use similar language about the ‘people’s desire’. Officials talk about how ‘Bengali’ foreigners have come and stirred up local anger – they distance themselves from responsibility.

Just as with the Depayin Massacre, things don’t happen in Burma if the government doesn’t want them to. They cannot credibly claim to be an innocent party stuck between two sides. For a start, even if they were not responsible for the violence, they could easily stop it. They have one of the biggest military forces and most feared police and security services in Southeast Asia. The fact is: they allow the violence to continue because it suits their agenda.

I would go further and also argue that, as with Depayin, they are also playing a key role in instigating the attacks. Security services and the Burmese military are not only not stopping the attacks, they are taking part in them. Thein Sein’s government forces are rounding up Rohingya community leaders and holding them in detention centres.

It is the government which is creating a new Apartheid in Burma, placing displaced Rohingya in camps on a narrow strip of land along the coast. State officials are also responsible for preventing aid from being freely delivered to Rohingya camps and communities. It is also President Thein Sein who asked for international assistance in expelling all the Rohingya from Burma.

The most common proposal has been for the Rohingya to be rounded up into camps until they can be deported. This is what is now happening right under the noses of the international community. Thein Sein is not stupid though – he isn’t sending his own soldiers to attack and round up Rohingya. He incites and allows civilians to do it and so avoids taking the blame for what is taking place, even though it is his own policy.

It is very hard for journalists to verify what is actually happening in Arakan state now. The truth about what is happening in western Burma will come out eventually, but by then it will be too late for the hundreds killed and hundreds of thousands displaced and living in camps. For now though, at least we can stop describing what is taking place as ‘clashes’.

-Tun Khin is President of the Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK

Sources Here:

GENEVA (31 October 2012) – Three United Nations experts on Myanmar, minority issues and internally displaced persons today expressed their deep concern over continuing inter-communal violence in Rakhine State, Myanmar, that has led to loss of life, destruction of homes and mass displacement, and called on the Government to urgently address the underlying causes of the tension and conflict between the Buddhists and Muslim communities in the region.

“If the country is to be successful in the process of democratic transition, it must be bold in addressing the human rights challenges that exist,” said the Special Rapporteur on Myanmar, Tomás Ojea Quintana. “In the case of Rakhine State, this involves addressing the long-standing endemic discrimination against the Rohingya community that exists within sections of local and national Government as well as society at large.”

Mr. Ojea Quintana stressed that “the situation in the Rakhine State illustrates the importance of Myanmar placing human rights at the heart of its ongoing reform process.”

“The Government has an obligation to protect all of those affected by recent violence, including the Muslim Rohingya community which is particularly vulnerable, to guarantee their safety and respond urgently to their needs, including shelter, food and medical care,” said the UN Independent Expert on minority issues, Rita Izsák. “It must act rapidly to ensure that this situation does not deteriorate leading to further loss of life and displacement of communities.”

Ms. Izsák described the Rohingya community as a “highly marginalized minority who have historically proved vulnerable to human rights violations in Myanmar and the region.” Armed groups have reportedly perpetrated the violence with impunity and attacked the Rohingya as well as some Rakhine Buddhists who had dealings with the Rohingya or other Muslims.

The UN experts welcomed Government acknowledgment of the violence and its assertions that it would take action against its instigators. However, the Special Rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons, Chaloka Beyani, said that “the Government must take urgent steps to halt further displacement and destruction of homes.”

“All displaced groups, including the Rohingya community, must be assisted to return and rebuild their homes with assurances of their human rights and security in the short, medium and long-term,” Mr. Beyani said. “All humanitarian agencies must have full access to the affected populations.”

The human rights experts underscored that this situation must not become an opportunity to permanently remove an unwelcome community, and expressed their deep concern about the assertion of the Government and others that the Rohingya are illegal immigrants and stateless persons.

“The Rohingya constitute a minority that must be protected according to international minority rights standards,” Ms. Izsák said responding to the question of the legal status of the Rohingya in Myanmar. “The Government must take steps to review relevant laws and procedures to provide equal access by the Rohingya community to citizenship and promote dialogue and reconciliation between communities.”

An estimated 28,000 people have been displaced by recent violence in Rakhine State and some 4,600 homes burnt according to UN, media and NGO reports which indicate that many of the victims are Rohingya. The total number reported displaced is now over 100,000 since clashes broke out between ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and Muslim Rohingya in June.

ENDS

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