Andrea Vance

Fairfax NZ News
July 7, 2013

Tehran Times

July 7, 2013

TEHRAN – Myanmar has welcomed Iran’s proposal to hold a dialogue between Muslim and Buddhist religious scholars in order to help ease sectarian strife in the south Asian country. 

Visiting Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi put forth the proposal during a meeting with Myanmar’s Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin on Friday. 

Araqchi expressed grave concern over the ongoing clashes between Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims and the appalling situation of displaced Muslims, urging Myanmar’s officials to take effective measure to help resolve the conflicts. 

The senior Iranian diplomat also said that Tehran was ready to help Myanmar’s government settle the crisis and send humanitarian aid to the affected people. 

Sectarian clashes between Buddhists and Muslims have erupted on several occasions. 

Muslims make up about 5 percent of the nation’s roughly 60 million people and are denied citizenship by Myanmar government. 

The violence first flared in western Rakhine state last year, when hundreds of people died in clashes between Buddhists and Muslims that drove about 140,000 others, mostly Muslims, from their homes. Most are still living in refugee camps, according to AP.

In a recent violence which occurred in May, a Buddhist mob set fire to a Muslim school and orphanage, which was so badly charred that only two walls remained. Police and other witnesses confirmed the school burning.

The most serious attacks took place in Rakhine state in the west in June and October last year, when Buddhists fought against Rohingya Muslims, who are denied citizenship by Myanmar and seen by many in the country as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. At least 192 people were killed.

RB News

July 06, 2013

Maung Daw, Arakan- On 2nd July 2013, about 2:30 pm, SB-2 (Special Branch 2) arbitrarily arrested an under-aged Rohingya in the village of Haisshu Rata (Alay-Than-Kyaw), Southern Maung Daw.

“At 2:30PM on 2nd July 2013, Hafiz Sana Ullah S/o Zafar Alam, a 15-year-old minor, was arrested on his way to the market of Alay-Than-Kyaw with the false accusation of involving in the last-year-violence. He was very badly beaten in the lock-up. Eventually, he was found not guilty.

Yet, SB2 extorted Kyat 25000 from the parents of the victim. So, his parents got him released from the hands of cruel and inhumane authority. Many Rohingyas, today, are facing similar atrocities” reported Ya Tin, a Rohingya youth in Maung Daw.

Luke Hunt

As Myanmar continues its reform process, the politics is throwing-up a bevy of contrasts – some welcomed and others not. One tour company is offering free beer while the government has banned the recent issue of TIME Magazine, featuring a cover of a Buddhist monk blamed for the recent carnage against Muslims in the country’s north.

The July 1 edition of Time carried the cover photo of Burmese monk Ashin Wirathu, a known fundamentalist and head of the 969 group, which has deployed the age-old technique of mixing rabid nationalistic and religious sentiment to stir up hatred against minorities.

He would like to see a ban on the marriage of people from different faiths and remains unapologetic for the waves of anti-Muslim violence that has to date claimed more than 200 lives in the country and forced another 150,000 people from their homes.

In a recent interview with the Global Post he even added: “Muslims are like the African carp. They breed quickly and they are very violent and they eat their own kind. Even though they are minorities here, we are suffering under the burden they bring us … because the Burmese people and the Buddhists are devoured every day, the national religion needs to be protected.”

Burmese President Thein Sein seemed sympathetic and is on the record as saying Wirathu is “a son of Lord Buddha” and his 969 movement is “just a symbol of peace”.

“The cover story of the magazine, depicting a few individuals who are acting contrary to most of Myanmar, is creating misconceptions about Buddhism, a religion practiced by the majority of Myanmar’s population,” the President’s office said in a statement.

This comes after proposals to impose a breeding limit on Muslims with a two-child policy.

Oddly, it was among those temples which Wirathu insists are in need of his protection from non-Buddhist influences that one tour company is offering free beer if it rains for more than 10 minutes. The gimmick is for Bagan, Mandalay and Inle Lake only and is part of a broader strategy to convince tourists to visit during the rainy season. Soft drinks are also available.

Edwin Briels, General Manager of Khiri Myanmar, the company behind the free beer offer, added: "Hotel prices are favorable, the scenery is green, the sightseeing, culture and markets are all vibrant during the summer … it's a great time to come."

Reconciling the great divides within Burmese society – whether it’s the Buddhists and Muslims or warring minorities like the Kachin or Shan – could take some time yet. But helping business to deal with these stark realities could take a bit longer.

Luke Hunt can be followed on Twitter at @lukeanthonyhunt.

Todd Pitman
Associated Press

July 5, 2013

MEIKHTILA, Myanmar — Their bones are scattered in blackened patches of earth across a hillside overlooking the wrecked Islamic boarding school they once called home.

Among the smashed fragments of skull and jaw lie the sharpened bamboo staves attackers used to beat dozens of people to the ground before drowning their still-twitching bodies in gasoline and burning them alive.

The mobs that March morning were Buddhists enraged by the killing of a monk. The victims were Muslims who had nothing to do with it — students and teachers from a prestigious Islamic school in central Myanmar who came so close to being saved. In the last hours of their lives, they only had to make it a few hundred steps to four police trucks waiting on a hill above.

What happened on the way is the story of one of Myanmar's darkest days since this Southeast Asian country's post-junta leaders promised the dawn of a new, democratic era two years ago — a day on which 36 Muslims, most of them teenagers, were slaughtered before the eyes of police and local officials who did almost nothing to stop it.

And what has happened since shows just how hollow the promise of change has been for a neglected religious minority that has received neither protection nor justice.

The president of this predominantly Buddhist nation never came to Meikhtila to mourn the dead. Police never roped this place off to collect evidence of the carnage left behind on these slopes. And despite video clips that show mobs clubbing students to death and cheering, not a single suspect has been convicted so far.

International rights groups say the lack of justice fuels impunity among Buddhist mobs and paves the way for more violence. It also reflects the reality that despite Myanmar's bid to reform, power remains concentrated in the hands of an ethnic Burman, Buddhist elite that dominates all branches of government.

"If the rule of law exists at all in Myanmar, it is something only Buddhists can enjoy," says Thida, whose husband was slain in Meikhtila. Like other survivors, she asked to be identified by one name only for fear of retribution. "We know there is no such thing as justice for Muslims."

___

The Associated Press pieced together the story of the March 21 massacre from the accounts of 10 witnesses, including seven survivors who only agreed to meet outside their homes for security reasons. The AP cross-checked their testimony against video clips taken by private citizens, many with the date and time embedded; public media footage; dozens of photos; a site inspection, and information from local officials.

The day before the massacre began like every other at the Mingalar Zayone Islamic Boarding School in Meikhtila — with a call to prayer echoing through the darkness before dawn.

It was Wednesday, March 20, and 120 drowsy students blinked their eyes, rising from a sea of mats spread across a vast dormitory.

When classes began, student gossip quickly turned to an argument in town between a Muslim gold merchant and a Buddhist client, which had prompted a crowd of hundreds to overrun the shop and set it ablaze.

That afternoon, several Muslim men yanked a monk off a motorcycle and burned him to death. Buddhist mobs in turn torched 12 out of 13 of the city's mosques and businesses owned by Muslims, who made up about a third of Meikhtila's 100,000 inhabitants.

Classes at the school were canceled. Students rushed to the dormitory's second floor and gazed out of the windows in shock at the black and gray columns of smoke.

As the sun slunk in a hazy sky, a Buddhist government administrator came to the all-male madrassa and took the headmaster aside.

"You need to get your students out of here," he warned. "The mobs are coming — tonight."

At sunset prayers, the headmaster told everyone to collect their valuables and their money, remove their head caps and Islamic dress and prepare to leave. He never explained why. He didn't have to.

"If they try to destroy this place, we'll do our best to stop them," he said. "But whatever happens, we will not let you die."

___

After dark, they crept deep into a swampy square of tall grass called the Wat Hlan Taw. Most of the 150 refugees were students and teachers, but two dozen women and children were among them.

They sat down in the mud. Nobody said a word.

Soon they heard a cacophony of voices, first at the gate of their madrassa and then inside. The mobs kicked in doors, smashed windows and set the place on fire.

In the darkness of the Wat Hlan Taw, a teacher named Shafee with a stomach ailment reached for his wife's palm and squeezed it hard.

"If they find us," he whispered nervously, "you know I won't be able to run."

"Don't worry," his wife, Thida, replied, cradling their 3-year-old son in her arms. "We'll be together, every step."

At 4 a.m., Buddhist prayer gongs rang out, and the mobs began shining flashlights into the Wat Hlan Taw, screaming, "Come out, Kalars!" — a derogatory word for Muslims.

By the time students fled to a neighboring compound owned by a wealthy Muslim businessman, the mobs were not far behind.

Thida heard a boy screaming somewhere behind her. He had waited just a few seconds too long to run.

___

When the sun rose, students peered over the compound's thin bamboo fence and realized they were trapped.

Men clutching machetes and sticks were girding for a fight outside. Hundreds more were gathering on a road running across a huge embankment that shadowed the neighborhood's western edge.

Some students made frantic calls for help. Some chanted and prayed. Others scoured the property for wooden boards and rocks to defend themselves.

When opposition lawmaker Win Htein arrived around 7:30 a.m., he saw dozens of helmeted riot police equipped with rifles and gray shields. They had formed lines to keep the Buddhist hordes away from the Muslims.

Over the next 45 minutes, though, he watched in horror as mobs chased five more students out of the bush, one by one, and bludgeoned them to death. Stone-faced police officers stood idle just steps away.

"They must be wiped out!" one woman shouted, urging the killers on.

When Win Thein tried to convince them to spare the Muslims, the mobs threatened him. An officer advised him to leave.

Shortly after, a monk and four policemen offered to escort the trapped Muslims on foot to police vehicles on top of the embankment.

"We'll protect you," one officer said. "But the students must stop chanting. They must put down their weapons" — their sticks and stones.

As the teachers debated what to do, they realized their time had run out. The crowds were flinging long bamboo staves wrapped with burning fabric over the fence like giant matchsticks, and the compound was on fire.

___

The group emerged slowly with their hands behind their heads, like prisoners of war.

Almost immediately, they were stoned. The mobs screamed around them.

What followed was a gantlet from hell, an obstacle course that came with its own set of macabre rules: Do not run, or they will chase you. Do not fall, or you may never get back up. Do not stop, or you may die.

Police fired several rounds into the air, but the crowds attacked anyway, clubbing a student across the forehead with a hoe and knocking a teacher to the ground. One officer, struck in the face by a rock, apparently by accident, shot a Buddhist man in the leg.

As they moved inside the Buddhist neighborhood, police ordered the Muslims to squat down.

Crowds taunted and slapped them. Several women forced them to bow their heads and press their hands together in prayer like Buddhists.

The monks said the police should round up the women and children and let them go first. When Thida refused to let go of her husband, a Buddhist man shoved a palm in his face and forced them apart.

Eventually, police began escorting about 10 women and their children up the hill toward the trucks. But even as they ascended, other Buddhists hacked a 17-year-old student to death on the edge of the Wat Hlan Taw, striking him 24 times. One of the attackers was a monk.

"Look! Look!" one Buddhist bystander shouted from the top of the embankment. "The police are heading down there, but they aren't doing anything."

___

The last time Thida saw her husband, he was struggling to climb the hill to where she waited anxiously beside police, anxiously.

His face was pale. And voices were screaming out: "Kill the Kalar! Don't leave any of them behind!"

Somewhere below, crowds were chasing several students who had tried to run. They beat two of them, along with a teacher, to the ground with daggers and sticks. Police stood on both sides of the hill watching, unmoved.

When a frantic monk waved a multicolored Buddhist flag, screaming for the killing to stop, the crowds backed away briefly.

But police left the wounded behind on the hill, abandoning them to their fate.

A video clip shows a man viciously beating a group of seven bloodied Muslim men as they lay crumpled on the ground beneath a grove of rain trees. One of them is Shafee.

"Oh, you want to fight back?" a voice says, laughing.

Another grainy video filmed shortly after shows flames leaping from 12 charred corpses in the same spot as crowds cheer.

Smelling burning flesh, Thida hugged the leg of a police officer standing beside her.

"Hey brother," she asked, "please. Please. What is happening to us?"

"Shut up, woman," the officer replied. "Don't you know you can die here, too?"

Amid the mayhem, several dozen police reinforcements arrived to take the remaining Muslims to the hilltop and load them onto the trucks. The survivors were driven to a police station where they were offered water, and by at least one officer, an apology.

___

The police present that day were the only ones with rifles and guns, which would have been no match for the crude weapons carried by the mobs. But while they rescued around 120 Muslims, they did not stop the massacre of 32 students and four teachers, according to the headmaster, who cross-checked their deaths with families and witnesses.

Two of the videos the AP obtained, shot by unidentified witnesses touring the area after the killings, show at least 28 dead bodies, the fists and arms of the blackened corpses reaching into the air.

Win Htein, the lawmaker, said either the "police didn't get any order from above (to shoot), or they got the order from above not to do anything."

The head of state security in the region, Col. Aung Kyaw Moe, insisted he gave authorization to fire, but police held back because doing so could have "made the situation even worse."

He said even though 200 police were deployed to the area, the crowds outnumbered them. Muslims died because "some of them tried to run," he said.

"They scattered and our forces could not follow every one of them," he said. "They had to take care of the rest of the people they were guarding. ... that's why there were casualties."

Authorities say they did not hand the bodies back to the relatives of the dead because they were too badly burned to be identified. But families of those slain say they were never even asked, and never given the chance to bury their loved ones according to Islamic rites.

No Muslim families have dared visit the cemetery or return to the massacre site.

___

The first people prosecuted for the violence in Meikhtila were not the Buddhist mobs. The first were Muslims.

On April 11, a court sentenced the gold shop owner and two employees to 14-year jail terms for theft and causing grievous bodily harm.

On May 21, the same court sentenced seven Muslims to terms ranging from two years to life for their roles in the killing of the monk on March 20, the day the unrest began.

Meikhtila state prosecutor Nyan Myint said 14 Buddhists have been charged and are on trial for the Mingalar Zayone killings, some for murder, but none has yet been convicted.

Justice "is a matter of time," he said. "The courts are proceeding with the trials and have no prejudice or bias against any group."

Aung Kyaw Moe, the security chief, said all those arrested were residents of Meikhtila, but he gave no other details.

No police have been reprimanded.

___

The school's headmaster dreams of gathering his surviving students together again and rebuilding his school elsewhere.

He will not say where, or when. He is too afraid.

He wonders what they will do if sectarian violence erupts again.

"Where is safe in this Myanmar?" he says.

On March 21, he urged his students not to fight back.

"Next time, we will defend ourselves," he says quietly, "because we know that nobody else will."

AFP

July 5, 2013

A group of Rohingya asylum-seekers from Myanmar prayed peacefully alongside Indonesians at a mosque in Sumatra, a sign of the solidarity they have found in the world's most populous Muslim-majority nation after fleeing sectarian bloodshed.

The members of the persecuted Muslim minority were still shaken after a gruelling, 25-day journey at sea -- but were grateful to find themselves in a country where they felt at least a little at home, despite there being no chance of a normal life for them there.

"Indonesia, Muslim country, good," said Muhammad Yunus, 25, in halting English, after praying at the immigration detention centre in the town of Lhokseumawe.

But while the population at large is accepting of the increasing number of Rohingya washing up in Indonesia, authorities have not extended the same warm welcome.

Although president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has publicly expressed backing for the stateless minority, Rohingya who make it to Indonesia can end up living in legal limbo for years.

Buddhist-majority Myanmar views its population of roughly 800,000 Rohingya as illegal Bangladeshi immigrants, and as sectarian violence has escalated in the past year they have fled in increasing numbers.

As other countries in Asia struggle to deal with them, the flow of Rohingya arrivals in Indonesia is increasing.

After several incidents where Thailand was accused of pushing them back out to sea, 2,000 Rohingya landed earlier this year and have been detained in refugee camps. Bangkok has said it is unable to accept more, while Malaysia says it is reaching capacity.

Most Rohingya do not initially view Indonesia as their final destination and hope to use it as a stopping point en route to Australia, where more than 220 have arrived on asylum seeker boats over the past year.

Once in Indonesia, many Rohingya are held in prison-like detention centres for long periods while their cases are processed.

Those granted refugee status by the United Nations are considered the lucky ones but enjoy few rights as Indonesia has not signed a key UN convention on refugees. It will not accept them as permanent citizens and they cannot work or study as they wait to be resettled.

At a refugee housing complex in Medan, on Sumatra, Rohana Fetikileh looks haunted as she contemplates the turmoil that has rocked the state of Rakhine, from where she fled in 2010.

Rakhine was the site of two outbreaks of deadly sectarian unrest between Rohingya and Buddhists in Myanmar last year. Since then, several further episodes of communal unrest across Myanmar have tempered international optimism about the country's dramatic political reforms as it emerges from decades of military rule.

"If Indonesia accepted us, then we'd stay," Fetikileh told AFP, clutching her 11-month-old son in her arms as other refugee children played nearby.

"As long as we can work and there is a future for our kids," added the 28-year-old mother of four.

Those given "Refugee" status are given some help from the UN: basic housing, schooling for their children and a 1.25 million rupiah ($128) monthly allowance per person.

But most refugees spend their days cooped up in basic community housing, with little to do.

"We can't do anything here," said Zahid Husein, 26, who has been been waiting for resettlement more than 11 years, having passed through Cambodia, Thailand and Malaysia.

"We can't study, if we want to go shopping we can't...without being detained again," he said.

With only 1.0 per cent of refugees globally ever resettled, according to UN data, prospects for Rohingya are bleak. Australia had said it aimed to take around 600 refugees who are in Indonesia in the 12 months to June as part of the expansion of its humanitarian refugee programme, but that number does not include those who had come from Myanmar.

Many make it to Australia by boarding rickety, wooden boats in Indonesia.

Critics argue that Indonesia has failed to change its policies despite supportive rhetoric and the increasingly desperate state that the Rohingya are arriving in.

Authorities have publicly backed the Rohingya on many occasions -- Jakarta pledged $1 million to help those displaced in violence in Rakhine last year and president Yudhoyono raised the issue on a recent visit to Myanmar.

There have also been growing signs of public anger about the Rohingya's plight.

In April, a plot to bomb the Myanmar embassy in Jakarta was uncovered, and the same day Islamic hardliners marched on the mission urging "jihad in Myanmar" to avenge Muslim deaths.

So far this year, the United Nations has registered 360 arrivals of Rohingya in Indonesia, up from just 30 for the whole of 2010.

While developing countries rarely settle refugees, Jakarta Legal Aid director Febi Yonesta said Indonesia should consider doing so anyway, especially in the case of stateless Rohingya.

"We have the space, the economy is booming, why not?" he said.

Indonesia has long promised to sign the UN convention, but missed its own deadline in 2009 and observers believe there is little chance it will make a new deadline of 2014.

However, Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said the failure to sign the convention was simply down to a "backlog of priorities".

"We have welcomed the Rohingya -- we are not in the practise of pushing them back," he told AFP.

But warm words may not be enough to help a minority denied citizenship in Myanmar and desperately searching for a home.

At the Lhokseumawe centre, Mohammad Zuhar bin Sayed Alam explained how he fled Sittwe, in Rakhine, after Buddhists sealed off his mosque and he became too scared to walk down the street.

The 30-year-old broke down in tears as he showed two tiny photos of the sister and wife he had been forced to leave behind.

Arab News

July 5, 2013

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) will hold on July 7 and 8 the Arakan Rohingya Union Conference at its headquarters in Jeddah.

The charter of the Arakan Rohingya Union (ARU) will be submitted to the members for discussion in preparation for its adoption.

The agenda of the conference will also include introduction of the current and new members of the union, which was established by the OIC in May 2011 to unite the Rohingya refugees around the world.

Waqarudin, director general of the first session of the union, will present his report on ARU’s achievements. The conference will look into the strategy and action plan of the union in the next session, in addition to electing officials and the formation of the Supreme Council, the committees and advisory board.

In a letter sent through his special envoy, OIC Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu told Myanmar President Thein Sein that the organization, on behalf of the 57 heads of the member states, is ready to assist in reaching a long-term solution to problems of Muslims in Myanmar.

Special envoy Talal Daous, director of minorities department at the OIC, accompanied by Hassan Abdin, delivered the letter last week.

In the letter, the secretary-general said the OIC is ready to assist in any way to reach a long-term solution for the existing and emerging problems of all Muslims in Myanmar, who deserve nothing less than the basic rights accorded to any citizen of Myanmar, including access to urgent humanitarian assistance.

The special envoy delivered the letter to Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin and during the meeting discussions focused on the importance of the secretary-general’s visit to Myanmar and the Contact Group on Myanmar.

“We believe that a long-term solution to the problems of the Rohingya Muslims can only be found through the restoration of their legal status and the recognition of their birth right, including citizenship,” said Ihsanoglu.

He said the targeting of Muslims in central Myanmar during the last week of March and last week of April has been a particularly worrying development for the reason that unlike the Rohingya Muslims, the recent events involved Muslims who are integrated in the Myanmarese society with full citizenship rights in areas outside the Rakhine region.

“We are concerned that what was once considered as a case of inter-communal violence confined to one part of Myanmar now has the danger of spreading throughout the country,” Ihsanoglu said.

The OIC chief said that with the cooperation of the authorities in Myanmar, OIC member states would be willing to establish a collaborative mechanism with Myanmar to provide economic and humanitarian assistance to all those in need, confidence building between communities, interfaith dialogue and technical expertise to assist Myanmar in its democratic transition and integration into the international community.

Fars News Agency

July 4, 2013

TEHRAN - Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Asia and Pacific Affairs Seyed Abbas Araqchi in a meeting with his Myanmarese counterpart Zin Yaw discussed the latest situation of the Muslims in the Southeast Asian country.

During the meeting in Naypyidaw on Wednesday, Araqchi said that the Islamic Republic is prepared to dispatch humanitarian aid consignments to Myanmar in order to help with the relief of the Rohingya Muslims.

He also voiced the deep concern of the Iranian authorities, scholars and nation over the ongoing sectarian clashes between Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims, urging the Myanmar government to adopt effective measures to properly resolve the issue.

Araqchi further noted that Iran is ready to send aid shipments to Myanmar, and help to improve the miserable living conditions of Rohingyas.

In June, the United Nations refugee agency said over 140,000 people remain displaced in Myanmar a year after extremist Buddhists started daily attacks on the country's Muslim community in Rakhine state.

According to the UN body, some 75,000 people were displaced by the first wave of riots in Northern Rakhine state last June and another 36,000 were uprooted in the second wave in October.

"Many others who were not directly affected by the violence have lost their livelihoods as a result of restricted movements due to the security situation. Some have been forced to leave their homes in search of assistance," UNHCR spokesman Adrian Edwards said at the time.

The agency called for measures to stem the flow of people out of Rakhine and to promote the "safe and sustainable voluntary return" of the displaced.

UNHCR also called on the governments in the region to keep their doors open to people in need of international protection.

The UN body underlined the necessity to urgently register all internally displaced persons in order to improve aid delivery and better respond to the needs of the most vulnerable ones.

Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar account for about five percent of the country's population of nearly 60 million. They have been persecuted and faced torture, neglect, and repression since the country's independence in 1948.

Hundreds of Rohingyas are believed to have been killed and thousands displaced in recent attacks by extremists who call themselves Buddhists.

The extremists frequently attack Rohingyas and have set fire to their homes in several villages in Rakhine.

Myanmar army forces allegedly provided the fanatics containers of petrol for torching the houses of Muslim villagers, who were then forced to flee.

Myanmar's government has been repeatedly criticized for failing to protect the Muslim minority.

Press TV

July 4, 2013

Iran deputy foreign minister says the Islamic Republic is prepared to dispatch humanitarian aid consignments to Myanmar in order to help with the relief of the Rohingya Muslims in the Southeast Asian country.

In a meeting with Myanmar Deputy Foreign Minister Zin Yaw in Naypyidaw on Wednesday, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Asia and Pacific Affairs Seyyed Abbas Araqchi elaborated on Tehran’s principled policies towards the developments in the Muslim World. 

He also voiced the deep concern of the Iranian authorities, scholars and nation over the ongoing sectarian clashes between Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims, urging the Myanmar government to adopt effective measures to properly resolve the issue. 

Araqchi further noted that Iran is ready to send aid shipments to Myanmar, and help to improve the miserable living conditions of Rohingyas. 

Thousands of Rohingyas are deprived of citizenship rights due to the policy of discrimination that has denied them the right of citizenship and made them vulnerable to acts of violence and persecution, expulsion, and displacement. 

The Myanmar government has so far refused to extricate the stateless Rohingyas in Rakhine state from their citizenship limbo, despite international pressure to give them a legal status.

The extremists frequently attack Rohingyas and have set fire to their homes in several villages in Rakhine. Myanmar Army forces have allegedly provided the fanatics with containers of petrol for torching the houses of Muslim villagers, who are then forced to flee. 

Hundreds of Rohingyas are believed to have been killed and thousands displaced in attacks by extremists, who call themselves Buddhists. 

Rohingyas are said to be Muslim descendants of Persian, Turkish, Bengali, and Pathan origin, who migrated to Myanmar as early as the 8th century. 

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have issued separate statements, calling on Myanmar to take action to protect the Rohingya Muslim population against extremists.

RB ANDROID APPLICATION LAUNCHED…

Now, RB News Can Be Read On Smartphone With Android OS.

RB News

July 4, 2013 

Here is a good news for RB News Readers on Smart Phones with Android OS. RB Android Application has been launched. The application can easily be downloaded from Google Play and installed on your smart phone to read RB News and Articles.

On any phone with an Android Operating System (OS) Version 2.2 and above, simply type “RB News” and search on Google Play or go to the following link to download the application.

http://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.app.news.rb or 

http://bit.ly/14utaJp

The size of the application is just 875 KB (approximately 0.9MB). News will automatically be updated once the application gets connected to internet. Hence, news can be read offline as well.

In RB News Android Application, news can be read in two languages: English and Burmese. Those who do not have Myanmar Font installed on their phones need not install it again as it is already in the application.

In case of any difficulties or inconveniences regarding the application, please do not hesitate to write to editor@rohingyablogger.com.

What is RB News?

RB News (www.rohingyablogger.com) has been founded with a view to creating awareness of the grave human rights violations and discriminations that Muslim Rohingyas and Myanmar Muslims have been facing for decades in Myanmar.

RB News is an independent media. Therefore, it is neither a corporate media nor under the influence of any organization. It has been being contributed and run by its team members on voluntary basis.

Fars News Agency

July 3, 2013

TEHRAN - A senior Iranian legislator expressed serious concern over Buddhists' attacks on Myanmarese Muslims, and took the Naypyidaw government responsible for the massacre of the minority in the country with the green light from the United States.

“The attacks against Muslims in Myanmar is carried out with a green light from the United States, and the government has not yet responded to growing criticism about its inability to protect ethnic groups and minorities,” member of the Iranian Parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Ebrahim Aqamohammadi said on Tuesday. 

“The Myanmar’s government has shown that it will never recognize the Muslims and it continues to view them as immigrants,” he added.

“Such racist policies will certainly undermine Myanmar’s efforts at the international stage to give democratic picture of the country,” the Iranian lawmaker pointed out.

In June, the United Nations refugee agency said over 140,000 people remain displaced in Myanmar a year after extremist Buddhists started daily attacks on the country's Muslim community in Rakhine state.

According to the UN body, some 75,000 people were displaced by the first wave of riots in Northern Rakhine state last June and another 36,000 were uprooted in the second wave in October.

"Many others who were not directly affected by the violence have lost their livelihoods as a result of restricted movements due to the security situation. Some have been forced to leave their homes in search of assistance," UNHCR spokesman Adrian Edwards said at the time.

The agency called for measures to stem the flow of people out of Rakhine and to promote the "safe and sustainable voluntary return" of the displaced.

UNHCR also called on the governments in the region to keep their doors open to people in need of international protection.

The UN body underlined the necessity to urgently register all internally displaced persons in order to improve aid delivery and better respond to the needs of the most vulnerable ones.

Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar account for about five percent of the country's population of nearly 60 million. They have been persecuted and faced torture, neglect, and repression since the country's independence in 1948.

Hundreds of Rohingyas are believed to have been killed and thousands displaced in recent attacks by extremists who call themselves Buddhists.

The extremists frequently attack Rohingyas and have set fire to their homes in several villages in Rakhine.

Myanmar army forces allegedly provided the fanatics containers of petrol for torching the houses of Muslim villagers, who were then forced to flee.

Myanmar's government has been repeatedly criticized for failing to protect the Muslim minority.

IRIN News

July 3, 2013

Temporary shelters (bamboo-framed longhouses) for thousands of IDPs (Photo: Contributor/IRIN)

IDP camp in Sittwe (Photo: Contributor/IRIN)

Bangkok Post

July 3, 2013

Around 2,000 Rohingya are trapped in limbo in two dozen government-approved shelters around Thailand, often without recourse to the legal system despite abuses during their flight from Myanmar.

Officials indicate that the Muslims who fled their homes, often because of persecution, now have little hope for the immediate future as they languish in government custody.

Earlier this year, Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra promised the international community to care for the Rohingya for six months, while the United Nations and other groups tried to come up with a solution for the shattered emigrants from the Myanmar-Bangladesh border area.

That deadline runs out on July 26, but there is no more hope for the Rohingya today than there was last January, during a wave of flights into Thailand.

The decision to shelter the Rohingya made life tough from the start, and it has not got much better. One serious drawback, for example, is the necessity to use already overcrowded immigration detention facilities. This has split families, as men and women are housed separately at the facilities.

International aid agencies have got involved, and supply food and basic essential items. They include the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the International Organisation of Migration (IOM), Muslim communities, and National Human Rights Commission.

These and other groups have visited, interviewed and recorded details of the Rohingya, but aside from giving them some aid items are powerless to provide hope. In addition, the groups say the Rohingya remain vulnerable and prone to trafficking gangsters. Officials say those at greatest risk are in shelters operated by the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security.

At the 24 official holding centres for the immigrants (see chart below), there are wildly different standards, for reasons that range from a simple lack of interpreters at the local level to pressure or intimidation from human trafficking rings that answer to influential local figures.

The Rohingya themselves often are to blame for problems. Officials say many lack education. Quarrels often occur, especially among those who want to leave the official camp to try to contact their loved ones in other locations. Many have tried to sneak out of the shelters to try to travel to Malaysia.

Aid workers said human trafficking and rape cases in Phang Nga province illustrated the vulnerability of the Rohingya. Officials in charge of the immigrants were dispirited and tired, especially by the communications problem, and uncertainty about how long the boat people would be staying.

"They are not criminals after all, so how can we keep 24-hour surveillance on them?" asked a shelter official in southern Thailand rhetorically.

Immigration officials share the problem. "We are seeking approval to build a fence so that at least they can roam around exercising or play football within this open-air compound while waiting for the government comes up with a concrete plan on where else to house them,” said one official at a Songkhla immigration centre.

Villagers in Nakhon Si Thammarat's Cha-uad district have protested against planned improvements of the facilities used to house the Rohingya - former Border Police Patrol housing.

The government was reportedly searching for remote areas of Songkhla or Prachuap Khiri Khan province to erect a type of refugee centre. Some Muslim countries have pledged to donate for a one-stop detention facility for the Rohingya, diplomatic sources said.

According to a survey carried out by the UNHCR, at least 60 Rohingya people were Bangladeshi citizens. The UN group was trying to coordinate efforts to repatriate them.

UNHCR spokesperson Vivian Tan said her agency had interviewed all of the approximately 2,000 Rohingya men, women and children in the shelters and immigration detention centres.

"Many say they left because of the inter-communal violence (between Buddhists and Muslims) in Myanmar's Rakhine state last year," she said. "Some of the women and children had planned to join their menfolk in Malaysia."

Because the situation in Rakhine remains unsettled, the UNHCR has appealed to Thai authorities to extend the six-month temporary protection promise, and to relocate the Rohingya to a site in Thailand that is less crowded and allows for family reunification.

However, immigration officials with long experience with the Rohingya said that while half of the Rohingya detainees were legitimately fleeing persecution, at least half were economic refugees hoping to get jobs and send money back home, and had no desire to be sent to third countries.

Press TV

July 3, 2013

These families are a few of the estimated 1500 Muslims who have fled to Malaysia from the violence in Myanmar over the past few months.

The Rohingya ethnic group has taken the brunt of the attacks by members of that country’s Buddhist majority. 

There are already tens of thousands of Rohingya refugees in Malaysia. And the recent influx is causing a huge strain on the community’s limited resources. 

And with violence still sporadically breaking out in Myanmar, there is no reason to think the flow of refugees to Malaysia will stop anytime soon. 

Malaysia has seen another spillover effect. Recent violent clashes between Buddhists and Muslims from Myanmar left several people dead, prompting the Malaysian government to round up and detain at least a thousand people. 

And in a break with the non-interference policy practiced by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations or ASEAN, Malaysia has urged Myanmar to take stronger action to prevent the persecution of Muslims. 

But given its history, analysts say it seems unlikely that ASEAN will go beyond mere words to ease the suffering of the Rohingya people.

Asian Pacific Post

July 2, 2013

The Canadian International Development Aid Agency (CIDA) has pledged a total of US$ 4.2 million in humanitarian aid to causes in Myanmar.

At a recent All Burma Ethnic Cultural Event, Oxfam Canada, UNICEF and several other charities were allocated funds from the package towards their respective humanitarian efforts in the Southeast Asian country.

“Despite some recent positive political developments in Burma [Myanmar], the humanitarian situation in many border areas of the country remains very difficult,” said Canadian Minister of State Tim Uppal in a statement following the event.

“Canada’s support will help to ensure that life-saving humanitarian assistance including food, water, shelter and protection is provided to the most vulnerable people affected by the conflict,” he said.

The aid packages will go towards food, education, training, sanitation and basic supplies for IDPs across Rakhine, Kachin and Myanmar’s southernmost states.

“I would like to convey my heartfelt appreciation to the Government of Canada for Canada’s commitment in providing crucial humanitarian assistance to the most vulnerable people in Burma’s ethnic regions,” said Zaw Kyaw, spokesperson for the Burma Ethnic Network-Canada.

Tens of thousands of Burmese people are living in crisis due to violence and conflict, which has resulted in large-scale displacements and worsening humanitarian conditions. 

Between 75,000—100,000 Burmese—mostly women and children—have been displaced due to conflict and are living in makeshift camps in Kachin and Shan States, or in neighbouring China. In addition, in June and October 2012, violent communal clashes in Rakhine state resulted in the displacement of more than 100,000 people.

“Canada is helping ensure that Burmese people affected by crisis receive the emergency life-saving support they need,” said Uppal. 

“Canada’s support will help to improve health, living conditions, and protection for those living in conflict-affected areas of the country.”

Canada provides humanitarian assistance to the most vulnerable people facing natural disasters and conflict. The Economic Action Plan 2013 affirms Canada’s commitment to providing humanitarian assistance. The new Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development will maintain the mandate of poverty alleviation and help achieve greater efficiency, accountability and focus to continue to improve the lives of people in need around the world.

The largest ethnic group is the Burman people, distantly related to the Tibetans and Chinese. Burman dominance over Karen, Shan, Rakhine, Mon, Rohingya, Chin, Kachin and other minorities has been the source of considerable ethnic tension and has fuelled intermittent protests and separatist rebellions.

Military offensives against insurgents have uprooted many thousands of civilians. Ceasefire deals signed in late 2011 and early 2012 with rebels of the Karen and Shan ethnic groups suggested a new determination to end the long-running conflicts, as did Chinese-brokered talks with Kachin rebels in February 2013.

Simmering violence between Buddhists and the Muslim Rohingya erupted in 2013, the official response to which raised questions at home and abroad about the political establishment’s commitment to equality before the law.

A largely rural, densely-forested country, Burma is the world’s largest exporter of teak and a principal source of jade, pearls, rubies and sapphires. It has highly fertile soil and important offshore oil and gas deposits. Little of this wealth reaches the mass of the population.

The economy is one of the least developed in the world, and is suffering the effects of decades of stagnation, mismanagement, and isolation. Key industries have long been controlled by the military, and corruption is rife. The military has also been accused of large-scale trafficking in heroin, of which Burma is a major exporter.

The EU, United States and Canada imposed economic sanctions on Burma, and among major economies only China, India and South Korea have invested in the country.

Burma’s wealth of Buddhist temples has boosted the increasingly important tourism industry, which is the most obvious area for any future foreign investment.