Radio Australia

April 30, 2013

Plans to control the birth rate of Muslim Rohingyas in Myanmar has been described as "chilling".

A Myanmar Government Commission report has recommended a family planning program be implemented to curb the growth of the country's Muslim Rohingyas.

The region has been plagued by ethnic clashes between the Buddhist majority and Muslim minority.

Fighting over the past year has left hundreds dead and tens-of -thousands homeless.

The Commission found that the high birth rate of Rohingya has been a factor in the tensions.

It also recommends sending more troops into troubled regions to quell the violence.

But Human Rights Watch says the recommendations are disturbing and will only increase tensions.

Phil Robertson says Government troops are guilty of stoking the flames of racial hatred in the fledgling democracy.

"Human Rights Watch released a report last week documenting that security forces had been involved in ethnic cleansing against humanity and crimes against humanity, against the Rohingya in Arakan State."

And he believes the idea of population control has insidious undertones.

"When you talk about one ethnic group trying to limit the population growth og another ethnic group. Even though it's voluntary, nevertheless, it is very chilling."

Rohingya leaders also say they weren't consulted by the Government Commission and their views aren't represented in the report.

The Commission report also recommends that Muslim Rohingya be segregated from Buddhists but it acknowledges that is not a permanent solution to the problem.

There are reportedly 800,000 Muslim Rohingyas in Myanmar but the Government regards them as illegal immigrants.

Jared Ferrie

Reuters

April 30, 2013

MEIKHTILA, Myanmar - In Myanmar's central heartlands, justice and security is elusive for thousands of Muslims who lost their homes in a deadly rampage by Buddhist mobs in March. 

Many are detained in prison-like camps, unable to return to neighborhoods and businesses razed in four days of violence in Meikhtila that killed at least 43 people, most of them Muslims, displaced nearly 13,000, and touched off a wave of anti-Muslim unrest fuelled by radical Buddhist monks.

"It's for their own security," said a police officer at a camp inside a sports stadium on Meikhtila's outskirts. The camp holds more than 1,600 people guarded by police with orders not to let them leave, said the officer, who declined to give his name.

A dawn-to-dusk curfew has been in force in Meikhtila since the government declared martial law on March 22. Skeletal walls and piles of rubble are all that remain of Muslim homes and businesses that once covered several blocks at the heart of the town of 100,000 people in the center of Myanmar.

Trials have begun, but so far only Muslims stand accused, raising fears that courts will further aggravate religious tension by ignoring the Buddhist ringleaders of the violence.

The unrest and the combustible sectarian relations behind it are one of the biggest tests of Myanmar's reform-minded government, which took power in March 2011 after almost half a century of hardline military rule.

Myanmar is a predominantly Buddhist country, but about 5 percent of its 60 million people are Muslim. They face a growing campaign of anti-Islamic sentiment led by radical Buddhist monks.

An independent commission released a report on Monday saying Myanmar must urgently address the plight of Muslims displaced by sectarian bloodshed in western Rakhine State. It came in response to violence last June and October that killed at least 192 people and left 140,000 homeless, mostly stateless Rohingya Muslims in an area dominated by ethnic Rakhine Buddhists.

The trial of seven Muslim men accused of murdering a monk, believed to be the first killing in the March unrest in Meikhtila, is expected to conclude this week. Those on trial say they are innocent.

The sound of hammers ring across the city as workers dismantle what is left of the Muslim neighborhood, stone by stone. There are no signs of Muslims on the streets.

More than 8,000 Muslims are being held in seven official camps that are off-limits to journalists. Thousands more have crowded into unofficial camps in villages near Meikhtila, where police also restrict their movements and prevented them from speaking with Reuters.

Phil Robertson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Asia division, said detaining internally displaced people (IDP) is a violation of their rights.

"Locking people up in an IDP camp is not a substitute for providing basic security and ensuring communal peace," he said. "Even if the authorities' intent is good, they are clearly going about this the wrong way."

Spokesmen for the president's office did not respond to requests for comment.

One of the office's spokesmen, Ye Htut, has previously stressed that the monks involved in the Meikhtila violence make up only a fraction of the 500,000-strong monkhood. "All perpetrators of violence will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law," said President Thein Sein in a nationally televised speech on March 28.

Victims in relief camps "live freely and happily", reported the state-run New Light of Myanmar newspaper on April 5.

"STUDENTS ATTACKED"

The government has promised to help Muslims rebuild their homes, but reconstruction has yet to begin. Building more than 1,500 houses burned down or damaged would cost $7 million, it said.

Some Buddhist residents said returning Muslims were unwelcome.

"I can't accept living with them again, because they insulted Buddhism and a monk's blood was spilled on the ground," said Than Htun, as he waited outside a prison to see his son who was arrested for looting money from a Muslim home during the rioting.

Such hostility could influence the outcome of the ongoing murder trial, suggested Thein Than Oo, a lawyer for three of the seven Muslim accused, who believed the judge is under pressure from Buddhists to deliver a guilty verdict.

"He has to satisfy the people," he said.

He pointed to the case of the Muslim owner of a gold shop, his wife and an employee who on April 11 received 14 years without parole for theft and assault. The charges stemmed from an argument with a Buddhist customer, which sparked the first bout of rioting earlier on the day the monk was killed.

The court imposed harsh sentences due to the violence that erupted afterwards, said Thein Than Oo.

Most victims of the rioting were Muslim but no Buddhists have appeared in court. The district judge said they would be tried after the current trial ends.

Neither the judge nor the district police could say if any monks would be charged. Monks led many of the mobs, according to dozens of witnesses interviewed by Reuters.

New York-based Physicians for Human Rights called for an independent investigation into a report of a massacre at an Islamic school on March 21. The group said 32 students and four teachers were missing.

One student, Soe Min Oo, 18, said he fled with other students and teachers when the school was attacked, taking refuge with other Muslims in a nearby compound.

Soe Min Oo said the mob tossed petrol bombs into the compound until police arrived and offered to bring the nearly 200 Muslims to safety. But the few dozen officers could only protect some of them, said Soe Min Oo, pausing frequently to fight back tears.

He said the Buddhist mob hit them and threw stones as they left the compound, and those who came out last were beaten to death. He saw three friends killed.

"I've never faced anything like this situation before," said Soe Min Oo. "I feel very sad."

Soe Min Oo spoke to Reuters in a tiny Muslim village about half an hour outside Meikhtila where he was staying with family. During the interview, an official who wouldn't say who he worked for arrived on a motorcycle and demanded names and contact numbers from journalists.

Mandalay chief minister Ye Myint denied a Reuters request to visit official camps in his region, which includes Meikhtila. Immigration and police officers banned access to an unofficial camp in Yindaw, a village about a 45-minute drive from Meikhtila.

(Editing by Andrew R.C. Marshall and Robert Birsel)

Associated Press

April 30, 2013

Shwe Maung, a Rohingya member of parliament from Rakhine state, objected to the commission’s terminology, saying that the word “Bengali” fails to reflect reality and people’s sense of their own identity. 

“The report is unfair,” he said. “The usage and recommendations are similar to what Rakhine ethnic people have been demanding.”

Immigration officials have begun registering people in the state, as a first step on the road to citizenship. But the debate over terminology is hampering the process, which is already complicated by a lack of access to documents and a history of corruption.

On Friday, authorities registering people in a Muslim refugee camp as Bengali were blocked by a crowd demanding to be recognized as Rohingya. Police fired, injuring at least one person, a 15-year-old boy, according to Shwe Maung.

Rakhine state spokesman Win Myaing said the injury was an accident and that two people from the camp have been arrested for throwing stones at police.

The issue of citizenship is crucial. Kyaw Yin Hlaing, the commission’s secretary, said the government plans to eventually return Muslims deemed to be citizens to their original homes, if possible, but has yet to decide what to do with non-citizens.

Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch, said the report “fails to address the need for accountability for ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity that happened in last June and October.”

Doubling the number of security forces “without first ensuring implementation of reforms to end those forces’ impunity is a potential disaster,” he added.

Robertson said family planning initiatives could be problematic if they are not implemented carefully.

“It’s quite chilling to start talking about limiting births of one particular group,” he said. “Will coercive measures get taken on the ground even if the union government says people can take this voluntarily?”

Last week, Human Rights Watch issued the most comprehensive and detailed account yet of what happened in Rakhine state last year. The report accused authorities — including Buddhist monks, local politicians and government officials, and state security forces — of fomenting an organized campaign of “ethnic cleansing” against the Rohingya.

___

Associated Press writers Aye Aye Win in Yangon and Todd Pitman in Bangkok contributed to this report.

Simon Roughneen

The Irrawaddy

April 29, 2013

RANGOON — Rohingya leaders have reacted angrily to the findings of the official investigation into a wave of brutal violence that hit Arakan State in 2012, slamming the report findings as selective and slanted. 

Speaking after members of a commission formed last year to investigate the violence presented a summary of their report today in Rangoon, Myo Thant, a Rohingya representative of the Democracy and Human Rights Party, told The Irrawaddy that the report did not present a completely accurate picture of the Arakan situation. 

“This report has some good suggestions, but in ways it is biased and incomplete,” he said. 

Commission members, including former political prisoners Ko Ko Gyi and Maung Thura, better known as Zarganar, launched the summary of the commission’s findings today at the Myanmar Peace Center. 

The commission recommended that the Burmese government increase security in the troubled western region and said that resettlement of more than 100,000 displaced people should be held off until reconciliation measures are implemented. 

“It will take time for reconciliation to work, as the conflict is still fresh,” said commission member Aung Naing Oo of the Myanmar Peace Center, a government-backed think-tank, who added that it was more important in the short term to address humanitarian needs in the region. 

The report summary said that “it is extremely urgent to provide the Bengali IDPs with access to safe and secure temporary shelters prior to the monsoon season.” 

The commission proposed that the Burmese government set up a “truth-finding committee” to look into the deeper causes of the 2012 violence, which began as rioting between Arakanese Buddhists and local Muslims, but, say human rights groups, later took on the hallmarks of a pogrom against Muslims, focusing on the Rohingya, a stateless minority of around 800,000 people. 

“We welcome those suggestions,” said Myo Thant, speaking after the report launch. 

However, the 28-page report summary released today did not use the term “Rohingya,” in keeping with the Burmese government’s view that the Rohingya are immigrants from Bangladesh, which shares a border with Burma’s Arakan State. 

“How can they say we are all immigrants?” asked Myo Thant. “Arakan is like hell, why would any Bangladeshi want to migrate to there. It makes no sense.” 

Commission member Yin Yin Nwe, an economic advisor to Burma’s President Thein Sein, said that the report stuck with the terminology outlined by the government. “We use the term ‘Bengali’ as this is the official term as part of the citizenship laws,” she said. 

As expected, the commission did not recommend any amendment to Burma’s widely criticized 1982 citizenship law, which denies the Rohingya Burmese citizenship. 

Phil Robertson, the deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Asia division, said that “the commission missed a critical point when it failed to include reform of the 1982 Citizenship Act to strip out discriminatory provisions and ensure that the law complies with international human rights standards.” 

The report summary—published in advance of the full 200-page report, which is scheduled for release next week—said the Burmese government “should address the citizenship claims of the Bengalis in a transparent and accountable manner.” 

Asked by The Irrawaddy how these citizenship disputes could be resolved under the terms of the 1982 law, commission member Ko Ko Gyi said that “the problem is not with the law as it stands, it is with the implementation. If we practiced the law exactly, then we would not have seen the violence in Rakhine (Arakan) State last year.” 

Mohamed Salim, spokesperson for the National Development and Peace Party, said that this refusal to acknowledge the Rohingya by name smacked of discrimination. He also took issue with suggestions that “family planning education” be provided to the “Bengali population,” which the commission said could offset Arakanese fears of Rohingya population growth. 

“We are Rohingya, not Bengali, and that is the main point that is wrong with this report,” he said. “I am angry because of that.”

Executive Summary of the Final Report of The Inquiry Commission on the Sectarian Violence in Rakhine State

Summary of Recommendations in the Report of the Rakhine Investigation Commission to the Government of Myanm...

The Hindu

April 29, 2013

Myanmar’s 1982 citizenship law that made a Muslim ethnic minority stateless does not need to be amended, but should be applied fairly, a commission set up to assess last year’s sectarian violence in the Rakhine State said Monday.

Fighting that broke out between Buddhist and Rohingya communities in the state killed at least 192 and left about 1,25,000 homeless.

The government-appointed commission called for improved law enforcement, protection of human rights and a ban on “hate language” and “extremist teachings.” It stopped short of recommending an amendment to the law that many claim is at the heart of the problem.

“International organizations are trying to criticize the 1982 citizenship law regarding the Bengalis but the law is very suitable for us,” commission member Yin Yin Nwe said.

“But the enforcement of the law is not clear because of the corruption of the local immigration officials,” he added.

The law classified eight races and more than 130 ethnic minority groups which could qualify as Myanmar nationals, but excluded the Rohingyas from the list.

The latter insist they are a separate ethnic minority whose ancestors have lived in the country for generations. The government views the Rohingya as Bengali migrants who were brought to the western state by the British colonialists as farmers.

The commission pointedly referred to the Rohingyas as Bengalis.

“It was not because of government pressure,” commission member Kyaw Yin Hlaing said . “Our intention is to bring about reconciliation and if we use Rohingya, we can’t achieve that goal because of the high emotions of the people, not only in the Rakhine but also in the other parts of the country.” Myanmar is a predominantly Buddhist country, in which Muslims are a small minority.

Much of the violence against the Rohingyas, along with attacks last month against Muslims in central Myanmar, was allegedly orchestrated by militant Buddhist groups.

“The government needs to ban the use of hate language against any religion,” the commission’s report said. “In particular, it needs to ban extremist teachings and activities.”

Associated Press

April 29, 2013

YANGON, Myanmar — A Myanmar government commission investigating sectarian violence in the country’s west last year has issued proposals to ease tensions — including doubling the number of security forces in the volatile region and introducing family planning programs to stem population growth among minority Muslims.

An executive summary of the report, obtained by The Associated Press on Monday, said concerns by Buddhists over the rising population of Muslims they see as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh have “undermined peaceful coexistence” between the two communities. It said family planning education should be voluntary, but “would go some way to mitigating” toward ameliorating the crisis.

Two outbreaks of unrest between ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims left nearly 200 people dead and forced more than 125,000, mostly Muslims, from their homes. The violence appeared to have begun spontaneously in June, but by October it had morphed into anti-Muslim pogroms across western Rakhine state, human rights groups say.

The segregation of Buddhists and Muslims has since become a de facto reality across the state, and the report said that was a temporary solution but one that must be enforced for now. It also called for a crackdown on hate speech and stepped-up aid for the displaced ahead of monsoon rains expected in May.

“While keeping the two communities apart is not a long-term solution, it must be enforced at least until the overt emotions subside,” the report said.

President Thein Sein appointed a 27-member panel last year to investigate the causes of the conflict and recommend measures to prevent further violence. Its findings had been delayed several times.

The report did not use the word Rohingya, instead conforming to the government practice of calling the Rohingya “Bengalis,” a reference to their South Asian roots.

Predominantly Buddhist Myanmar does not include Rohingya as one of 135 recognized ethnicities.

The panel’s report also called on the government to determine the citizenship status of all those living in Rakhine state. Most Rohingya are effectively stateless despite the fact that some have lived in Myanmar for generations.

Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch, said the report “fails to address the need for accountability for ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity that happened in last June and October.”

“By failing to hold responsible the individuals who committed these grievous crimes, the government will miss deterring precisely those extremists who are prepared to use more violence in the future to achieve their aims,” Robertson said.

He also said that doubling the number of security forces “without first ensuring implementation of reforms to end those forces’ impunity is a potential disaster.”

Last week, Human Rights Watch issued the most comprehensive and detailed account yet of what happened in Rakhine state last year. The group’s report accused authorities — including Buddhist monks, local politicians and government officials, and state security forces — of fomenting an organized campaign of “ethnic cleansing” against the Rohingya.

___

Associated Press writer Todd Pitman contributed to this report from Bangkok.

 ARAKAN ROHINGYA NATIONAL ORGANISATION
ARAKAN, BURMA

Press Release

STOP ROHINGYA ETHNOCIDE

We condemn the police shooting, on 26 April 2013, of a group of Rohingya children for their peaceful protest chanting “Rohingya, Rohingya” when hostile operational team consisting of immigration, military, NaSaKa, police and village administrators came to Thet Kay Byin village near Ba Du Pha Rohingya displacement camp in Arakan’s capital Sittwe (Akyab), to perform the current operation forcing the Rohingya to register as “Bengali” for the census. A 15 year old boy namely Mohammad Ali S/o Kabir Ahmed of Thet Kay Bin was injured in the shooting and is now taking treatment in a private clinic.

We, therefore, demand the Burmese government:

1. To register the Rohingya people as “Rohingya” in the census in accordance with their genuine and legitimate aspiration;

2. To stop all plan to deprive the Rohingya people of their integrity as distinct people, or of their cultural values or ethnic identity;

3. To stop any action which has the aim or effect of dispossessing the Rohingya people of their lands, properties or resources; and stop forcible transfer of their population and creating domineering situation aims at expelling them from their ancestral homeland;

4. To fulfil its obligation as a state party, and to ensue the rights of the Rohingya children in accordance with the provisions of the UN Convention on the Rights of Child (CRC) ;

5. To release all those Rohingyas who have been arrested under false charges, and to investigate the police shooting of Rohingya children for their peaceful protest and bring the perpetrators to justice.


For more information, please contact:


Nurul Islam: + 44-7947854652
Aman Ullah: + 8801558486910
Email: info@rohingya.org
www.rohingya.org

AP

April 28, 2013

Wrapped in a saffron robe, Buddhist monk Wirathu insists he is a man of peace.

Never mind his nine years in prison for inciting deadly violence against Muslims. Never mind the gruesome photos outside his office of Buddhists allegedly massacred by Muslims.

Never mind that in the new Myanmar, the man dubbed the “Burmese bin Laden” has emerged as the spiritual leader of a pro-Buddhist fringe movement accused of fueling a bloody campaign of sectarian violence.

Wirathu insists the world has misunderstood him.

“If they knew my true ideas, they would call me saviour,” he says.

Wirathu has become the figurehead of a virulent strain of religious nationalism being spread by some of the most venerated members of Burmese society: Buddhist monks. Their core message is that Buddhists must unite against a growing Muslim threat.

While these monks are a minority, some argue they provide an ideological justification for the religious violence that has ripped through Myanmar over the last year, threatening to destabilise the country’s still-fragile democracy and raising the spectre of a return to military rule. Their rhetoric also reinforces a vision of a divided society as Myanmar tries to integrate its many ethnic and religious minorities after decades of internal conflict.

The spread of this new radicalism has been helped by the very reforms it threatens to derail. A quasi-civilian government came to power in 2011 after five decades of brutal military rule. New freedoms of speech and assembly soon followed, which have made it easier to disseminate radical views. Wirathu himself was unleashed in early 2012 as part of a widely-praised amnesty for political and other prisoners.

A short man, with a quick smile and evident charisma, Wirathu is the public face of a fast-spreading but still small campaign called “969.” Each digit enumerates virtues of the Lord Buddha, his teachings and the community of monks. The campaign urges Buddhists to shop only at Buddhist stores and avoid marrying, hiring or selling their homes or land to Muslims. Stickers and signs bearing the 969 emblem have been popping up on shops, taxis, and buses, marking them as Buddhist. Local 969 groups have been starting religious education classes for children.

The movement, says Wirathu, has one aim: “To protect race and religion.”

To suggest that Wirathu is the main force behind anti-Muslim propaganda is to overstate his influence and underestimate how dispersed the ideas he espouses are.

Countless grassroots movements, some branded as 969 and others not, propagate the ideas of Buddhist supremacy through sloppily photocopied handbills, unmarked bootleg DVDs, videos that have gone viral on mobile phones, and for the few with Internet access, social networking sites like Facebook.

By cloaking itself in piety, the 969 campaign and others like it have managed to tap into widespread anti-Muslim feeling and temper critics wary of being seen as anti-Buddhist.

Wirathu and others insist 969 is merely a peaceful movement to strengthen Buddhism and that it is being wrongly blamed for inciting religious violence that rolled through central Myanmar in March.

Mobs, including monks, led a 10-day streak of anti-Muslim riots that left over 40 dead as police stood idly by. Irrespective of its role in the latest violence, the movement has successfully opened an economic front in the religious war brewing in Myanmar.

One Muslim shopkeeper in northern Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city, says his sales have fallen by two-thirds since a video of Wirathu preaching began circulating a month and a half ago.

Buddhists, he says, stopped coming to his shop. If business doesn’t pick up, he’s considering becoming a taxi driver.

“969 is very dangerous,” says the man, who spoke on condition of anonymity fearing retribution.

“They want to hurt Muslim businesses. When our business goes down, the Burmese will be rich.” Followers say 969 is a response to 786, a number long used by Muslims in Myanmar to mark halal restaurants and shops.

Some erroneously read into 786 — a number whose digits add up to 21 — a secret plan for Muslim world domination in the 21st century.

The number is actually derived from a short prayer invoking the name of God. The Arabic letters in the phrase have numeric values that add up to 786, explains Maung Maung, a Muslim tea shop owner in Mandalay, Myanmar’s spiritual capital and Wirathu’s base.

Maung Maung, who helped form an interfaith group after Buddhist-Muslim violence in western Myanmar last year, says he has no problem with Buddhists using 969 to mark their shops but is troubled by the minority of religious leaders, including Wirathu, who use the symbol to campaign against Muslims.

“Some people are trying to use it in the wrong way for their own ends,” he says. “They don’t represent the monks’ community or the community at large.” In western Yangon, 969 and 786 signs hang side by side above chunks of goat meat gathering flies at Kyimyindaing market. A woman nearby holds an orange peel to her nose to block the smell of pig ribs ripening in the April heat.

Aye Aye Khine, 41, sits beneath two 969 placards at her meat shop. She made the signs herself, copying them from the cover of a 969 DVD a friend gave her. “Before I didn’t think about whether people were Buddhist or Muslim,” she says. “After listening, I learned how to keep the Buddhist faith.” Business is up 50% since she posted the signs a month ago, she says.

Much of the Buddhist-dominated market has been won over to 969, thanks to a few enterprising shopkeepers who decided to start their own chapter.

All men, they met in tea shops and came up with a manifesto, which they photocopied and passed around the neighbourhood.

They printed T-shirts with the 969 logo and the words “Spread Good Deeds,” and say they have recruited 50 members and raised 150 000 kyat ($170) in donations since launching on March 27. They hope to link up with other chapters.

“We intend to unite together,” says Wai Phyo, one of the founders, who spent ten years as a monk before opening a rickety DVD stand at Kyimyindaing market. “If something happens, we are ready to organise.”

“It’s not to fight,” he adds. “It’s to protect.” 

Outside Wirathu’s office at the New Ma Soe Yein monastery hangs a large poster of him gazing heavenward next to a dove with an olive branch in its beak. Dozens of faithful mill nearby, buying DVDs of his sermons and ogling the photos of dead Buddhists — some with skulls split like coconuts or faces burned beyond recognition. The thriving monastery houses 2,855 monks, a school, a library and a medical clinic.

The son of a tractor driver, Wirathu does not have the mind of a philosopher. The family moved frequently when he was young, disrupting his schooling. When he became a monk at 17, he had only completed eighth grade. Today, at 44, he prefers the concrete to abstraction. He habitually makes lists, of reasons, goals and real or imagined atrocities committed by Muslims against Buddhists. He gestures gently with his small hands as he talks about the violence. His enumerations of rapes, lynching and hateful slurs sound a familiar schoolyard complaint: They started it.

He says he began to weld an anti-Muslim ideology to the number 969 in 2001. He lectured about the need to unite against the threat of a rich Muslim minority bent on marrying and converting Buddhist women, buying up land with foreign funding and flooding the population with Muslim babies.

Only around 4% of Myanmar is Muslim, according to official statistics. Muslims here are seen as relatively prosperous, which has fuelled economic jealousies — though Buddhist businessmen with ties to the old regime and military-linked companies dominate the economy. Still, Wirathu maintains that Muslim domination is a pressing threat.

“It’s a very dangerous situation because in some cases the whole village becomes Muslim,” he says. He likens Muslims to African catfish, an invasive species.

“The African catfish have a very great population and they eat each other and destroy nature. These catfish are not allowed into the country to breed.”

969 began to coalesce as a political movement after Buddhist-Muslim riots in western Rakhine state last June and October. More than 200 were killed, 70% of them Muslim. Over 125,000 remain homeless.

About 50 monks in the southern city of Moulmein began meeting late last year, according to Wirathu and one of the monks involved. They branded the ideas of 969 with a logo: the iconic lion statue of India’s Buddhist emperor, Ashoka the Great, set against a prayer wheel and the colorful stripes of the Buddhist prayer flag.

Wirathu says 969 supporters have popped up in almost every town, but the movement is strongest in Yangon, Mandalay, Moulmein and Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine state. “It’s because of me the ideas spread,” he says.

Around four months after the campaign was born, masked men dressed as monks rampaged through the central town of Meikhtila with swords, burning mosques and Muslim shops. Muslims also killed Buddhists. The attacks left charred bodies in the streets and around 12,000 people, mostly Muslim, without homes. The government declared a state of emergency as the violence spread to 14 more townships. Over 40 people died.

The chaos reinforced the power of the army, which was called in to restore peace, and fueled widespread speculation that the instability was orchestrated by hardline interests seeking to derail reform and strengthen the hand of the military.

“We also condemn these acts,” Wirathu says. “969 doesn’t accept terrorism.” Human rights groups, however, have documented a pattern to the anti-Muslim pogroms of the past year: Words precede the bloodshed.

Human Rights Watch says that before the October violence in Rakhine, monks distributed anti-Muslim pamphlets with rhetoric similar to 969’s and political parties advocated ethnic cleansing.

The Burma Campaign U.K. found anti-Muslim leaflets, without the 969 logo, that were circulated in Meikhtila before the attacks. The riots radiated from Meikhtila to Bago region, where Buddhists marked their homes and shops with 969 so they would not be harmed, said Tun Kyi, a Muslim activist from Yangon who visited two townships there. “Even in their homes they have to write 969 with chalk,” he said.

“The 969 campaign is more than a boycott. It’s clearly becoming a rationale for violence,” says Jim Della-Giacoma, South East Asia Project Director for the International Crisis Group. “It’s creating an existential threat to Buddhism and the country that’s not there and then blaming Muslims for it. Then what we see is this violence.” On March 28, eight days after the violence in Meikhtila erupted, Myanmar’s president Thein Sein issued a warning to “political opportunists and religious extremists” who have “tried to plant hatred among people of different faiths.” Police arrested dozens of people in conjunction with the March riots, but so far only three — all Muslims — have been convicted.

Plainclothes police also seized one of Wirathu’s followers, a 969 supporter named Ye Min Oo. His family members and lawyer say police accuse him of inciting violence against Muslims and supporting extremist monks, including Wirathu. Ye Min Oo denies wrongdoing.

“The government is assaulting Buddhism,” Ye Min Oo shouted, his cuffed hands high above his head, as police pushed him through a crowd outside a Yangon courthouse recently.

Wirathu says he now fears arrest as well.

To critics, the government’s response, which comes after allegations from human rights groups that security forces failed to halt and, in some cases, abetted atrocities against Muslims, is too little too late.

Moderate voices say Wirathu’s vision of an “us” and a “them” is not sustainable. Pannasiha, a monk who goes by one name and teaches at a prestigious Buddhist academy in Yangon, says Myanmar cannot thrive as a collection of separate communities living side by side. He opposes the 969 ideology, though he does not see Wirathu as anti-Muslim.

“We can’t live separately,” he says. “Maybe for a few days or months, but we have many years.”

U Ne Oo

April 28, 2013

From the latest Human Rights Watch report, it is shocking to find that there are still Rohingya refugees who are from initial 1991 influx, have still been residing at these two refugee camps, i.e. Nayapara and Kutupalong. I have written a note about these two camps in 1997 (http://www.netipr.org/uneoo/rohingyas_resolving_residual_cases). As record stands, in 1997 there were 21,000 Rohingya residents where Burmese IMPD (Immigration and Man Power Department) give clearance to '7500' as of belonging to Burma.

This situation and statistics remain depressingly un-moved as in 2007, the UNHCR reported as ".....Negotiations are currently underway for possible tripartite meetings between the GoB, the Government of Myanmar (GoM) and UNHCR on the issue of voluntary repatriation. ...... At present, Myanmar has only agreed to repatriate 8000 refugees who they cleared for return in 1997 of which only 5000 remain in the camps. The other ‘cleared’ refugees are deemed to have returned or moved onwards." Also reported is a total of 26,317 registered refugees whom 5,000 were children. Check out the report titled "May 2007, Balgladesh: Analysis of gaps in protection of Rohingya refugees" by the UNHCR. The UNHCR since then has been taking a third country resettlement as an option, the report stated.

Unfortunately, as of 2013 the UNHCR is still unable to close these two camps -- which means extremely slow pace of resettlement for these camp residents. Who are the people the Burmese IMPD did not give clearance? Are there anybody who had been to these camps? Please share us some insights.

Statistically, there was an estimate of 250,000 Rohingyas from 1991/92 refugee influx, of which more than 220,000 were being accepted as former residents of Arakan by Burmese IMPD. The Burmese IMPD clearly do not want the remaining (26,000+) who currently are in that two camps. Unless these residual cases were resolved by the third country resettlement, we possibly won't be able to talk about a meaningful solution for Rohingyas. Perhaps, when we've got more media reports and statistics about these remaining cases, we can probably advocate for a regional initiatives to find solution for these residents.

The Sunday Leader

April 28, 2013

The Sri Lankan government has been urged to press the Burmese government to put an immediate stop to the abuses against the Rohingya Muslims in Arakan State.

Human Rights Watch said that the Sri Lankan authorities have witnessed the results of the crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing that are being perpetrated in Arakan state, since the navy had in February rescued Rohingya Muslims on boats that were pushed back out to sea by Thailand.

Human Rights Watch said in a new report released last week that the Burmese authorities and members of Arakanese groups have committed crimes against humanity in a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Rohingya Muslims in Arakan State since June 2012.

The 153-page report, ‘All You Can Do is Pray: Crimes Against Humanity and Ethnic Cleansing of Rohingya Muslims in Burma’s Arakan State,’ describes the role of the Burmese government and local authorities in the forcible displacement of more than 125,000 Rohingya and other Muslims and the ongoing humanitarian crisis.

In February this year 32 Myanmar nationals were rescued by the Sri Lanka navy while stranded at sea. They had later revealed that nearly 100 others were also with them and had gone missing. The navy rescued the 32 people when their damaged wooden vessel had begun to sink in the high seas.

“The Sri Lankan authorities have witnessed the results of the crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing that are being perpetrated in Arakan state, since they have rescued Rohingya on boats that were pushed back out to sea by Thailand. Sri Lanka should press the Burmese government to put an immediate stop to the abuses against the Rohingya and hold the perpetrators accountable.” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

UN News Centre

April 26, 2013

The United Nations Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) has made available $5 million in additional funding to provide life-saving assistance to some 69,000 people displaced by the violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine state.

This is the third allocation of funds from CERF for urgent humanitarian operations in Rakhine state following inter-communal violence that erupted there in June and October 2012, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

The violence led to large-scale internal displacement and a marked increase in people fleeing by boat from the region, OCHA Myanmar said in a news release. “The violence caused not only displacement, but also a loss of life, livelihoods and property.”

Currently, the UN estimates there are more than 140,000 people displaced throughout the state.

“Thanks to CERF’s immediate funding, humanitarian agencies are able to respond in a decisive manner to provide urgent life-saving aid such as emergency shelter, improved sanitation, water facilities, and healthcare. However, additional funding is still needed to meet all the needs,” said the UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Myanmar, Ashok Nigam.

The latest allocation brings the total CERF disbursement for the humanitarian situation in Rakhine to more than $15 million since June 2012. The $5 million will go towards the activities of four UN agencies and their humanitarian partners so they can carry out activities in health, shelter, water and sanitation. It is especially timely, as UN agencies prepare to step up operations ahead of the monsoon rains in June.

Since its launch in 2006, CERF has provided $76 million in response to disasters and underfunded emergencies in Myanmar, with Rakhine state receiving $37 million.

CERF enables the fast delivery of life-saving assistance to people affected by natural disasters and other crises worldwide. It is funded by voluntary contributions from Member States, non-governmental organizations, regional governments, the private sector and individual donors.

RB News 

April 27, 2013 

Sittway (Akyab), Arakan - Yesterday (i.e. on 26th April 2013), starting at 9AM, a forced attempt to Bengali-ze Rohingyas, under the banner of so-called census on Rohingya population in the camps of displaced Rohingyas in Sittwe, took place led by a joint group of immigration, Police, NaSaKa (Border Security Force), Lone Htain (Security Force), Military, State Administration and the representatives from Rakhine National Development Party (RNDP). 

In the end, refugees from the respective camps, in their inability to take the forced Bengali-zation anymore, protested that they were not Bengalis but Rohingyas only. 

Meanwhile, one of the joint groups left the Rohingya quarter of Bumay upon the denials of theirs (Rohingyas) to participate in any such process of Benga-lization of Rohingyas. 

Then, upon the arrival of another group to the camps of displaced Rohingyas in Thay-Chaung (Than-Paing-Nya) with the same purpose, women and children in the camps refused to participate in such fraudulent process. The group, too, left without carrying out their process. 

A similar incidence took place in the village of Da’-Paing as well. 

Starting around 10AM, a group came to the camp of Bawdupha. Children and Women in the camp demonstrated for about two hours that they could not participate in the process that would give them a wrong identity forever. 

It led to a quarrel between the local and displaced Rohingyas (in the Bawdupha camp and the village of Thet Kay Pyin) and the inquiry group. Police and NaSaKa shot 20 times in the air and then, at the crowd. A 15-year-old teenager named Mohammed Ali S/o Kabir Ahmed got severely injured as he was hit by a bullet. Although his injury is severe, he is finding hard to take medication. 

The inquiry personnel entered a Rohingya house nearby the school of Thet Kay Pyin and called up its family for investigation. Upon questioning the race of a Rohingya teenager in the family, he replied “Rohingya.” One of the officers forced him to say “Bengali” through the interpreter; he (the teenager) refused to follow. And then, the officer slapped the teenage boy screaming “do you know where I am from? I am from Taunggup Township.” Therefore, other Rohingyas were unable to take the insults and offence at the boy and started to throw stones at the inquiry group. A military person, on his run, broke his nose and chin as he stumbled on the road and other few members also got some minor injuries because of the stones thrown at them” said a Rohingya from Sittwe. 

“They don’t want to give us time or space to breathe. They carry out an operation after an operation against us: sometimes by central government, sometimes by Police or NaSaka or some other time by the state government. Their ultimate plan is to drive all of us out” he added. 

After an hour, Security Forces, Military and other concerned authority came to Thet Kay Pyin camp and others where the quarrel took place accused the elders of the villages and camps that the quarrel happened because of their incitements. Then, they arrested Daw Salema Khatun D/o U Siraaz (42) from the village of Thet Kay Pyin and Mohammed Hashim S/o Mohammed Hussain (15) from Dun-Pyin (South) just because the immigration officers demonstrated at them that they knew how the quarrel took place. 

Besides, at 4:45PM, the State Government arrested 2 Rohingya elders, U Kyaw Myint and U Ba Tha. The reason for their arrest has not been known yet. While they have still been detained, many other people are also being arbitrarily arrested. Therefore, Rohingyas in the region are extremely worried. 

“Today morning police came. They searched for 3 persons. They arrested U Kyaw Khin, Chairman of Thet Kay Pyin village and U San Linn, an officer from Fire Brigade Department. Yet, they are looking for U Yusuf who is working at Postal Office.” a villager from Thet Kay Pyin told to RB News. 

Since last week, the officers from the Arakan State Government in Sittwe have been visiting Rohingya areas by cars and announcing (through amplifiers) that there would be a 50-day census (from 26.4.2013 to 15.6.2013) carried out on the population of Bengalis (in their term). They have also distributed leaflets. 

Rohingya elders mentioned in the weekly meeting at the Camp Management Office last week that the whole Rohingya community rejects the term “Bengali Representative” used in the leaflets. 

(Translated into English by Maung Aurther)

These past few weeks have been somewhat hectic for the government of Myanmar. First, there was the prestigious peace award given to President Thein Sein by the International Crises Group, recognizing his work toward a peace that can be achieved.

Then came the lifting of all sanctions by the European Union, except for its arms embargo. Afterward the government released 100 prisoners, 56 of whom were said to be political internees. More than 800 political prisoners have been freed in amnesties between May 2011 and last November.

But later the mood among the country's political leaders wasn't so festive, nor among Western countries.

A 153-page report from the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) entitled “All You Can Do is Pray: Crimes against Humanity in the Ethnic Cleansing of Rohingya Muslims in Burma's Arakan State” quickly re-established a sense of reality about Myanmar.

HRW accuses the Myanmar government and other local authorities of taking part in the displacement of more than 125,000 minority Rohingya and other Muslims.

“Burmese officials, community leaders, and Buddhist monks organised and encouraged ethnic Arakanese, backed by state security forces, to conduct coordinated attacks on Muslim neighborhoods and villages in October 2012 to terrorize and forcibly relocate the population. The tens of thousands of displaced have been denied access to humanitarian aid and been unable to return home,” the report said.

Critics also slammed the Myanmar government for not doing enough in the recent anti-Muslim disturbances in other parts of the country.

As expected, Myanmar dismissed the report and other allegations.

It wasn't that long ago that many in the international community were using terms such as “war crimes,” “crimes against humanity” and “ethnic cleansing” to describe the atrocities committed by the then-military government of Myanmar.

There were reports accusing government soldiers of using rape as a military weapon to demoralize ethnic people such as the Shan and Karen. Countries including the U.S. threw their weight behind some of these reports. Myanmar, in short, was the big bad wolf, a pariah among nations.

And then came the political reform, and with it a breath of fresh air. The international community rushed in along with foreign investors looking to establish a presence in this resource-rich country sandwiched between China and India.

From the geo-political point of view, one can't deny the strategic appeal of Myanmar. But the world hasn't fully decided whether it's willing to let bygones be bygones. Have we forgotten about the alleged atrocities from the reams of reports over the past decades?

Certainly the rape victims and the displaced villagers — thousands of whom are stranded in makeshift camps on the Thai side of the border — have not forgotten.

What is just as appalling is the fact that the country's leaders continue to cynically deny that their troops committed any of these atrocities.

Perhaps it is too early to abandon the carrot-and-stick approach when it comes to Myanmar. Western countries that claim to be champions of human rights and democracy seem all too eager to extend all sorts of incentives to the government.

While we can't deny that much progress has been made over the last couple of years in terms of political and economic reform, the world must think carefully about completely closing the book on alleged atrocities over the past five decades.

If so, can we also apply this logic and treatment to the drug lords, some of whom, like the Wa leaders, have been indicted in Thai and U.S. courts for heroin trafficking?

The Nation

April 27, 2013

This week, Human Rights Watch (HRW) published a report that highlights gross rights abuses and possible ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya people in western Myanmar.

Partners Relief & Development (PRAD) confirms that HRW's claims are in line with what its staff has seen and heard in Arakan State. More than 120,000 people are still in desperate need of emergency relief. The humanitarian situation is close to a catastrophe. People lack everything from food and medicine to tarps and blankets.

I have interviewed more than 30 people who in some way have been victims of violence in Arakan over the last year. They testify to horrific acts of violence where not even children were spared. They confirm that both police and army officials participated in the violence. They speak of unlawful arrests, torture and rape. These are people who are living in hopeless despair.

One woman I talked to cried uncontrollably as she told us of the massacre of her 29 relatives, among them her seven children and 18 grandchildren.

PRAD wants to support HRW in demanding an immediate change in Arakan. The Myanmar government must immediately investigate the acts of violence, and the offenders must be brought to justice. The Rohingya people must be given back the citizenship they lost in 1982. Humanitarian-aid organisations must get free access to the areas in greatest need. 

PRAD also wants to encourage the international community to take this situation seriously and reconsider if financial investment in the Myanmar is justifiable as long as the government is not able to put and end to the serious rights abuses against the Rohingya people.

Oddny Gumaer

PRAD advocacy officer

Maung Zarni

Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB)

April 26, 2013

Dear International Crisis Group President Louise Arbour, 

I am writing to bring your attention to the rather disturbing recent developments in Burma. 

Within 24 hours of your organisation’s “In Pursuit of Peace” dinner in New York, Burma’s Minister of Immigration and former Chief of Police Khin Yi, who was part of the delegation accepting the award on behalf of President Thein Sein, reportedly reiterated the Thein Sein Administration’s neo-fascist stance on the highly controversial 1982 Citizenship Act. 

In response to a question posed by Khaing Aung Gyaw, a Rakhine nationalist, during his public meeting with Burmese exiles in New York City this week, Khin Yi emphatically stated that Burma’s citizenship law is “solely based on blood” and no foreigners or “foreign blood” officially resided in Burma before the first Anglo-Burmese war in 1824. 

Khin Yi was emphatic when he said Thein Sein’s government will never alter “a single word, sentence or paragraph of this blood-based citizenship law” as it was written by lawmakers who allegedly had Burma’s “national security” and “national interest” in mind. The notions of ‘racial purity’ and ‘blood’ as a basis for citizenship belong to 1930s Nazi Germany and we know where these ideas led to – a series of pogroms. 

Against this historical backdrop, the ICG’s peace award recipient, President Thein Sein, should be held accountable for the views and words articulated by one of the key members of his cabinet.Indeed, both the timing of Khin Yi’s public remarks and the defence of the blood-based foundation of Burma’s 1982 Citizenship Act raise serious issues as to where the ICG stands concerning the policies of the Burmese leadership. 

If the ICG’s award is about honouring President Thein Sein’s “visionary leadership to effect profound social, economic and political changes” that will “bring us closer to a world free of conflict” then the organisation’s empirical understanding of both Thein Sein’s vision and the ugly realities experienced by the Burmese people, including the Rohingya, can only be characterised as delusional. This is to say, the ICG’s understanding of the country as reflected in its Burma analyses and the laudatory citation of Thein Sein’s vision seem to be devoid of verifiable and factual truths. 

On the question of the estimated 800,000 Rohingya, whose ethnic identity was officially recognised by the first independent Burmese government under PM U Nu in the 1950s, the ICG’s man of peace was reportedly in favour of both establishing an apartheid state in Western Burma and expelling the entire lot en masse. He reportedly offered these two policy options to the visiting head of the UNHCR, Antonio Guterres, last year. 

On the same day your organisation was hosting a black-tie dinner in honour of Burma’s president, New York-based Human Rights Watch released an empirically grounded report about the ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims in June and October last year. 

State security apparatuses – from local police, inter-agency border patrols, the army and the navy – helped target Rohingya Muslims during the two bouts of violence, according to the report. As President Thein Sein presides over the country’s most powerful coordinating body, the National Security and Defense Council, the buck stops at his desk. 

How could the ICG reconcile its official commendatory words about Thein Sein’s “efforts to bring us closer to a world free of conflict” when the Muslim Rohingya, Christian Kachins, who have been victims of a military onslaught for nearly two years in northern Burma, and the Buddhist Burmese farming communities in the resource-rich central Dry Zone are being subject to severe repression by Burmese state security organisations? 

Do you really believe these conflicts are “a paradox of transitions that greater freedom does allow these local conflicts to resurface”, as the ICG’s Southeast Asia project director Jim Della-Giacoma said during an interview with the Associated Press on March 25 this year, just three days after an organised campaign of violence targeting Muslims erupted in Meikhtila and 15 other towns and locations across Burma? 

If the ICG’s relevant experts on Burma and international conflicts take even a cursory glance at the existing scholarship on the subject of ethnic cleansing they would realise societal transitions are not necessarily accompanied with ethnic cleansing or mass atrocities. There are myriad factors that account for ethnic cleansing in societies under both democratic and undemocratic regimes. One alternative explanation is that the pogroms are a result of sinister political calculations created by the transitional government. 

Curiously, your Burma experts have dismissed this distinct possibility with ample corroborating evidence. Perhaps, they were trying to save the ICG from international humiliation? In contrast, HRW’s report sheds light on the state’s direct and indirect involvement in ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity in western Burma last year. As Burma’s head of state, shouldn’t your peace award recipient be held accountable for the mass atrocities committed under his watch? 

In fact, the ICG’s explanation that the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya and atrocities against the Burmese Muslims are, unfortunately, the price Burma is paying for greater freedoms is as fantastical and credible as the immigration policies of the Thein Sein regime. 

If you and your organisation’s strategic goal in analytically glossing over the dark side of Burma’s realities, as evidenced in just about every single ICG Burma report, is to provide the generals and ex-generals with ‘positive reinforcement’, do you think your strategy is prodding President Thein Sein’s government and its military in the right direction? 

Judging by the fact that one of the Burmese guests of honour, Immigration Minister Khin Yi, was emphatically espousing Thein Sein government’s ‘solely blood-based’ line on Burmese citizenship in New York within 24 hours of his attendance at your “In Pursuit of Peace” gala dinner, the ICG’s strategy doesn’t seem to be positively affecting the character of Thein Sein’s government. 

I hope to hear from you at your convenience. 

Sincerely,

Zarni 

Visiting Fellow 

Civil Society and Human Security Research Unit 

London School of Economics 

www.maungzarni.com