In this Feb. 19, 2013 photo, a Myanmar policeman, left, photographs an APTN cameraman as he conducts an interview in Shan state for a story on the country's thriving drug trade. Two years after Myanmar's new government promised its people a more open way of life, one relic of the old Myanmar remains - a vast internal intelligence apparatus that spies on journalists, activists and anybody else deemed a potential threat to state security. (AP Photo/Jocelyn Gecker)

Todd Pitman

Associated Press

July 30, 2013

Two years since Myanmar’s new government promised its people a more open way of life, the plainclothes state intelligence officers still come to ask where former student activist Mya Aye is and when he'll return.

Politicians, journalists, writers, diplomats, too, find themselves being watched. Men on motorcycles tail closely. The occasional phone call. The same, familiar faces at crowded street cafes.

‘‘It’s not as bad as it used to be,’’ said Mya Aye, who devotes much of his time today campaigning for citizens’ rights, ‘‘but it’s really annoying. They act like we’re criminals, harassing us, our families. It’s disrespectful and intimidating. It shouldn’t be this way anymore.’’

Mya Aye was one of the student leaders of a failed uprising in 1988 against the repressive military junta that ruled for nearly five decades and employed a colossal network of intelligence agents to crack down on dissent.

In years past, he and thousands of other dissidents were hauled off to jail, instilling widespread fear in the hearts of a downtrodden population to ensure that nobody spoke out.

The level of oppression has eased markedly since President Thein Sein, a former army general, took office in 2011 after an opposition-boycotted election. But while many political prisoners have been released, newspapers are no longer censored and freedom of speech has largely become a reality, the government has not ceased spying on its own people.

‘‘Old habits die hard,’’ said lawmaker Win Htein of the opposition National League for Democracy party, who spent nearly 20 years in prison during the military rule. He spoke to The Associated Press by telephone in a conversation he feared was being tapped by police.

Every day, six to eight officers from various security departments can be seen at a tea shop across the street from the opposition party headquarters, jotting down who comes and goes and snapping the occasional picture.

It is unknown how many intelligence agents are active nationwide, but at least two major information gathering services are still operating: the Office of Military Affairs Security and the notorious Special Branch police, which reports to the Ministry of Home Affairs.

A well-connected middle-ranking officer, speaking on condition he not be named because he didn’t have authorization to talk to the media, said there are no top-down orders these days to follow a particular individual. Young, often-inexperienced agents instead are told to keep tabs on new faces or unusual movement in their ‘‘patch,’’ and then inform their bosses.

And so they do, often in crude or comic fashion, with little or no effort to be discreet.

When Associated Press journalists went to the city of Meikhtila to inspect a neighborhood destroyed by sectarian violence earlier this year, the watchers were everywhere, two men trailing close behind on motorcycles.

Yet more waited outside the hotel in Mandalay as the reporting team tried to find ways to lose them — finally entering a crowded temple and then slipping out the back — so they could interview massacre survivors so worried of being harassed by authorities that they would not even speak in their own homes.

Presidential spokesman Ye Htut insisted those days are over: ‘‘Special Branch is no longer monitoring on journalists.’’ Asked to comment further, he said the story is ‘‘based on false assumptions,’’ so he could not.

Human Rights Watch says intelligence gathering services tortured prisoners and detainees during military rule by using sleep deprivation or kicking and beating some of them until they lost consciousness. During another failed uprising, the 2007 monk-led Saffron Revolution, Special Branch officers videotaped and photographed protests, and then used the images to identify and detain thousands of people.

There are still reports of arrest, detention and sometimes torture, said David Mathieson, an expert on Myanmar for New York-based Human Rights Watch, but the number of incidents has fallen sharply, in part because activist groups and media report them when they happen.

State intelligence is still tracking targets out of ‘‘habit and continued paranoia,’’ he said. ‘‘The secret police are often the last people to embrace a transition, especially when so many of their past victims and opponents, such as former political prisoners and activists, are a central component of the transition and reform process.’’

‘‘The challenges for them now are that there are far more people to monitor, Burmese and foreigners, and a much less certain mission and confused political program,’’ he said. ‘‘Before 2011, the police, courts and military could use the rule of law to intimidate their opponents, cow journalists and throw critics in prison. They don’t have a green-light to do this anymore, so they have to be careful.’’

Myanmar is also referred to as Burma.

Land rights activist Win Cho has his own way of dealing with the problem: He informs on himself.

‘‘I just tell them everything I'm going to do,’’ he said. He often travels outside the city of Yangon to advocate for farmers who are fighting against land grabs by the rich and powerful. ‘‘If we’re having a protest, I call the Special Branch and tell them where, when and how. Then they don’t bother following me. They know everything already.’’

Local police also employ their own intelligence agents. One who followed the AP journalists in Meikhtila acknowledged following Win Htein in the same city in recent months, though he declined to say why. The opposition lawmaker had been critical of the failure of police and authorities to rein in sectarian violence there.

When an AP team visited a Muslim neighborhood in the western city of Sittwe, half a dozen police carrying assault rifles followed every step of the way, writing down everything they heard in notebooks. Police officers also appeared during interviews at camps for those displaced by sectarian violence — and sometimes afterward, asking whom the journalists had spoken to and what they asked.

Earlier this year, an obligatory three-man escort from the police anti-drug division, the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control, tagged along when an AP team traveled with the U.N. drug agency through the rugged mountains of eastern Shan state.

They said they were there for the journalists’ safety in a region where an ethnic insurgency has thrived for decades. But they also filmed the journalists extensively during interviews with villagers. Every night, the police faxed a multipage handwritten report to their headquarters in the capital, Naypyitaw.

Asked why, the chief minder, police Maj. Zaw Min Oo, said: ‘‘We like to keep a record of what you do, whom you talk to, what you eat ... you are our guests.’’

___

Associated Press writers Aye Aye Win and Yadana Htun in Yangon, Myanmar, Jocelyn Gecker in Bangkok and Tim Sullivan in New Delhi contributed to this report.

Rhiannon Elston

SBS Australia

July 30, 2013

Bogor in West Java is a safe haven for a Rohingya refuge and his young family. But with no opportunity for work it's a temporary solution with no re-settlement option yet in sight. 

The mountainous region of Bogor, West Java, is a safe haven for 33-year-old Kim* and his young family. But it’s also a temporary home, a place where the Rohingya man cannot work or study, where his children can’t go to school and where they’ll never be citizens.

Since fleeing political and religious persecution in Myanmar in 2011, Kim has been counting the days until his family can start their life anew.

Eight months after arriving in Indonesia they received UNHCR certification, the proof of their plight as “genuine” refugees. That was more than a year ago. The family now faces an indefinite wait to be resettled in a third country. 

“Any country” says Kim. “We not only select Australia, any resettlement country.”

UNHCR spokesman Ben Farrell says for the vast majority of asylum seekers based in Indonesia, local integration is not an option.

"There is some support available through [International Organization for Migration] IOM, but in the end we consider that refugees in Indonesia are in need of a durable solution,” he says. 

So far, no word has come from any country. Kim says he is starting to wonder whether to follow the path of others he has met in Indonesia, and attempt the journey to Australia by boat. He doesn’t think it would be hard to arrange.

“There is some Indonesian people,” he says. “If we need that way, we pay them, they are carrying us from Indonesia to Australia.” 

For the moment, he is prepared to wait for official resettlement. 

“If the UNHCR will resettle us, we don’t want to try by boat. If the Australian government accepts us legally, we don’t want to try by boat,” he says, but adds: “How long I have to wait? Here I am waiting for a bright future for my family and my young children. 

“After two years we are waiting, but they didn’t respond to us.” 

Since arriving in Indonesia, Kim’s wife has had another child, now no longer a baby. In photographs, the children squint at the camera with indifferent faces. They are tiny, well-dressed, with sharp haircuts.

The family receives aid from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), which includes food, a place to live and some basic amenities. They live in relative safety. When asked why he would risk his children’s lives to leave, Kim becomes audibly distressed. 

"We have no freedom, no future, no [citizenship], no life," he says. 

“If we stay in Indonesia, also we don’t have a future. So we are ready to die at sea.”

Getting on a boat is not an alien concept to Kim. The family have already done it twice before, once to leave Myanmar for Thailand, and then again from Malaysia to Indonesia. They also know of others who are planning a sea journey to Australia. 

“I know many people in here they are going by boat, or they will go,” he says. 

News of Australia’s recent change to asylum seeker policy was quick to reach refugee communities awaiting resettlement in Bogor. Kim says the prospect of being resettled in Papua New Guinea is not a deterrent to him or his family. 

“Yes, I heard about that,” he says. “But also if Australian government sends us to any island, any country, we are ready to go, because we don’t have any other way."

HOW DOES REFUGEE RESETTLEMENT WORK?

Once an asylum seeker becomes a UNHCR-certified refugee, the agency will look for what it calls a “durable” or long-term solution for that person. That could mean being returned to their home country or being integrated into their current nation of residence, but if neither of those options are possible, they may be resettled in a third country.

UNHCR spokesman Ben Farrell says in the case of resettlement, the refugee agency will submit people to countries for potential residencies. 

"The way it works is we will look for a spot for a person within the quotas of each country,” he says. “It's completely the receiving state's decision whether or not to accept those people."

For refugees in Indonesia, the receiving state is almost always Australia.

Around 605 refugees have been accepted from Indonesia in the last 12 months, according to records from the Department of Immigration, or an increase of around 400 on the previous year. Less than a hundred have been resettled to other countries in 2012 and 2013 combined, the majority to New Zealand.

That still leaves large numbers in Indonesia either waiting to be processed or awaiting resettlement.

There were 1,819 refugees and 6,126 known asylum seekers living in Indonesia in January this year, UNHCR data shows. Some 4,800 of those asylum seekers were still awaiting their “first instance” interview for refugee certification at the time the data was published.

The UN agency notes the “long wait” asylum seekers face to have their refugee status determined, and for resettlement, “may result in more persons of concern opting to take the perilous journey by boats to another destination in the region and beyond, such as Australia.”

The same report also said it expected long waits for processing would continue.

To highlight where this delay in processing comes from, the UNHCR once again points to the numbers.

The amount of people seeking asylum in Indonesia has rapidly increased in recent years. In 2008, the agency registered 385 asylum seekers. In 2009 the figure was 3,220 and by last year it had jumped again to 7,218.

For Kim, the processing delay means his life is on pause.

"We are waiting and watching only," he says. "Many times, we asked UNHCR but they didn't respond to us [with an outcome].

"So we are very sad, very sad. Waiting and waiting only."

Polimic

July 29, 2013

RB News 

July 29, 2013

Sittwe, Arakan - In Aung Mingalar quarter in Sittwe, the capital of Arakan state. Rohingya residents are facing a food crisis. This has been ongoing over the past two weeks as the commandant of the no. 12 police battalion banned food shopping.

After the violence broke out in Sittwe in June of last year, Rohingyas have been prohibited to leave Aung Mingalar. The movement restriction that was imposed, saw a selected few that were allowed to leave the blocked village twice a week to shop for food. Normally, security forces escort the Rohingyas from Aung Mingalar to the market nearby The-Chaung. 

Now the commandant of the police battalion says that they can no longer escort the Rohingya. He says that they are unable to protect them against the attacks of the Youth Monks Union in Sittwe. According to residents, it has been two weeks since they have been able to buy food.

“The security forces escort us twice a week. We had to go Sunday and Wednesday. We had to leave at 4 am and needed to return at 6 am. As we can’t go to the main market in Sittwe, some of the shop keepers come down to nearby The-Chaung. So we can buy the stuffs there. Now it has been two weeks we can’t go any more as the authority banned us going for shopping. We are facing serious crisis for the foods.” a Rohingya resident of Aung Mingalar told RB News.

“We needed to pay from 120,000 Kyat to 150,000 Kyat per week to the commandant of police battalion and other ordinary police. We needed pay all the staff just to escort us.” he continued.

Another a Rohingya said “The president said he will tack action whoever creating the problem in the country. But now this Youth Monks Union of Sittwe is barring us from shopping the food stuffs and the police are unable to control them. So whatever told by the president is just talking. We will be in big trouble by starving if this continues.”

By Dr. Maung Zarni
July 29, 2013

More substantial links between Chinese interests, Rakhine neo-Nazis, Wirathu, the Home Office, Uncle Tom and hate crimes

Ex-Ambassador U Hla Maung is connected with Myanmar Peace Center, if not officially, but through close personal ties. I know this for a fact. 

He has been worked on, very clearly. Myanmar Peace Center is headed by ex-military Aung Min. 

A Chinese in ethnic background, Aung Min blatantly denied that there was anything that could be considered 'hate speech' 'hate crimes' towards the Muslums in Burma.

The denial was made by him in their meeting (Union Minister and US-trained ex-admiral Soe Thein was with him) with select Muslim leaders not long ago, according to the Muslim leader from Mandalay and Wirathu's 'friend' who attended the meeting and attempted to confront Aung Min right on the spot.

Thein Sein's main handler in the disguise of Union Minister in the President Office, ex-admiral Soe Thein jumped in and corrected Aung Min saying, 'we do have a problem of that nature'. But that was window dressing because there was nothing else. (A weak, mild-mannered and robotic president is paired with a slick, US-trained ex-naval officer by Than Shwe himself to serve as the brain and the spine for the puppet President)

The fact is the Ministry of Home and Religious Affairs has been disseminating through its own publications of anti-Muslim tracts many of which were authored by the regime's propaganda officials with monks' pen names. 

In some books the 3 Objectives of the State (Doe Tar Wun Gyi Thone Bar _ were explicitly linked to the promotion of "Buddhism" at the costs of other religious communities, specially the Muslims. The stories the Ministry of Home and Religious Affairs published fall under the category of anti-Muslim 'hate speech'. 

In Wirathu's speeches, he would use some of the stories from the religious affairs publications, which are popular with the fellow monks. 

The official and popular narrative is always the Burmese woman victims of abuse, rape, and torture, preferably nieces of monks - Hpone Gyee Tuu Ma Mya (HGTMM). The informed Burmese joke about this narrative 'always HGTMM. 

Each time there was a popular outrage against the regime or the Chinese interests, this narrative in the form of rumors would be in circulation.

Some concrete incidents and contexts:

1) the famous Mahamuni Image, with a few tons of gold leaf on it, was partially buglarized; the monks in the governing body were outraged, and looking at some military elements as potential thieves. all of a sudden the HGTMM rape rumor spread like wildfire. the rapist, alleged, was of course ' a Muslim man'! Kyaw Yin Hlaing, then Hong Kong-based Burmese academic and now President Thein Sein's adviser, openly wrote that this was the work of the military intelligence. (Curious, why the Presidential adviser is not saying a single word about the prospective, actual or historical direct involvement of the State in spreading hate speech as a strategic tool to divert public attention from any real issue of substance and public importance to the most vulnerable community in Burma. What got in his mouth which no longer spoke truth??).

2) lest we forgot the popular resentment, and yes, hatred of Chinese commercial interests and China, was at its highest around the campaign to stop Myit-hsone Dam project, particularly in places like Mandalay - before Thein Sein announced its 'suspension' of the dam during his presidency. 

Prior to that there were small scale incidents indicating the local hatred of Chinese was going to boil over, and it was just a matter of time before that happened.

At a local gem market in Mandalay there were sparks between the Burmese locals and the Chinese gem traders. The authorities nipped the potential hate mass violence in the bud. For Naypyidaw simply can't afford to risk the anger of Beijing by letting the anti-Chinese bloodbath in Mandalay and other Chinese interests-controlled localities in the countries such as Lashio or Taunggyi or Myitkyina.

3) the ultra-nationalist Rakhines, who are also scattered and established in places like Mandalay, Moulmein (969 has a lot of Rakhine monks), Rangoon, etc., were beginning to ask for greater devolution of political power to the Rakhine and for the greater revenue sharing between the Rakhine admin and the central Naypyidaw (as Rakhine Coastline was about to become one of the most lucrative and strategic corridors - which will house the twin "Rohingya Genocide Pipeline or China-Myanmar Gas and Oil Pipeline), deep sea port, Special Econ Zone, etc. 

4) Suu Kyi's domestic popularity as evidenced in the NLD's by-election landslide sweep and her international influence as evidenced in her 'victory laps' in Europe and later USA drove chill down the spine of the old regime which manages the new regime staffed with handpicked elements from the former from behind the scenes as they were aware of the 2015 election contest

So, here is the regime's strategy to kill at least 5 birds with one stone: let the Rakhine to be the local instrument of the Rohingya genocide -- the mass violent phase of it as the State has long adopted the ehnocidal and genocidal policy towards the Rohinga already since Feb 1978 - and then unleash the long-Home Office incubated 969 via Wirathu, Rakhine monks, etc. against the Burmese Muslims as a whole community

Its gains:

1). internationally, the Lady is no longer this powerful icon whose words will be taken biblically;

2). ultra-nationalist Rakhine could find themselves dependent on the State's impunity to do their ethnic cleansings of the Rohingya - and all Muslims (that is to say, the Rakhine could no longer be making noises about their rights and wants vis-a-vis the Burmese controlled Naypyidaw);

3) the Burmese public came to be consumed by their popular prejudices against the Muslims and words like human rights, communal solidarity, democracy are rejected even by Islamophobic activists from the 1988 uprisings, considered, rather frighteningly to me personally, the second line leadership of the civil society (this 8888 group shows neither intellect nor heart);

4) the whole reform process got automatically held back as the popular discourse shifted from democracy and reforms to who can legally sleep and produce babies across religious and ethnic lines;

5) the regime benefits massively from the desperate West, including the UN agencies, which want to increase their 'footprint' and bureaucratic interests, which is determined NOT to frame the unfolding Rohingya genocide a genocide in order to avoid massive embarrassment about their genocidal business and strategic partners (UN is not innocent and neither is ASEAN or EU or powerful national governments) - a double impunity is in play: the regime offers anyone who serves as major instruments of genocide and mass violence against the Muslim - for instance, Aye Maung of RNDP and his neo-Fascist Rakhine colleagues, Wirathu and 969 monks while the international community offers the regime international impunity;

6) the regime also gets 'intellectual' cover from its certifiable apologists such as the International Crisis Group and Indonesian leaders who keep framing the pogroms and the State-adopted Rohingya genocide as 'communal violence which is not uncommon in democratizing countries' - forgetting that ethnic cleansing is an exception, not a norm or an inevitable feature of all democratic processes - guys like Michael Mann from UCLA would write books with misleadingly stupid title "Ethnic Cleansing: the Dark Side of Democracy" ignoring the fact that it was authoritarian and colonial regimes - USA, Australia, Burma, former Yugoslavia, Stalinist USSR, Mao's China, KMT's Taiwan, Suharto's Indonesia, etc., irrespective of the regime type that have engaged in genocide, colonial and post-colonial; 

7) while the world is busy worry about the Rohingya which they will not do anything to stop it the regime also fought and won on the Kachin war front, another strategically located community which need to be brought on its collective knees.

Maung Zarni is a Burmese activist blogger (www.maungzarni.com) and visiting fellow of Civil Society and Human Security Research at the London School of Economics. He can be reached via Twitter @drzarni. 

National News Bureau of Thailand

July 28, 2013

Bangkok - Social Development and Human Security Minister Paveena Hongsakul has paid a visit to Rohingya asylum seekers who are now detained in Phang Nga Province. 

Minister Paveena visited 261 Rohingyas to follow up on their problems and well-being, as the Phang Nga’s Immigration Office where the asylum seekers have been held is facing an overcrowding problem. The other problem the minister acknowledged was the communication barrier, given the Thai officials and the Rohingyas do not speak the same language and thus have to communicate with the help of an interpreter. 

According to the Minister, she is keen on eradicating human trafficking and is going to discuss the issue with all related agencies, including the National Security Council (NSC) and the Minister of Foreign Affairs to find a solution to the problem. Miss Paveena added that the Thai government has to take good care of the Rohingyas while they are still in Thailand. As for deportation, the minister said the matter will have to be well thought through.

Additional report of Minister Paveena visits Rohingyas in Phang Nag here.

Nurdin Hasan

Jakarta Globe

July 28, 2013

New Straits Times

July 28, 2013

WHENEVER Hari Raya approaches, Ustaz Hafiz Hashim Qassim, a Myanmar Muslim, feels for the orphans and unfortunate children seeking refuge at Madrasah Anak-anak Yatim dan Tahfiz Quran Hashimiah where he is the headmaster. He worries if he is not able to buy them new clothes or shoes for Hari Raya.

Children at the home comprise children of Myanmar refugees and Indonesian immigrants. Some are orphans while others are from poor families. There are about 160 kids at the home. As foreigners, they don’t receive much help. 

“This home is not popular. We are not familiar with the Internet and don’t have brochures to spread the word. It has always been difficult for us. But no matter what, I will make sure each kid gets to enjoy new clothes and shoes for Hari Raya,” says the Ustaz.

“I know these kids, and like other kids I’m sure they want to feel brand new for Hari Raya. They want new clothes and fancy shades when they go around visiting homes for Hari Raya. I and the other teachers will find ways to make that a reality,” says Mohd Hafiz.

“Some of the kids whose parents are still around may get their Raya items from them. But the rest are really poor. So these are the kids I’m bringing out for Hari Raya shopping,” he explains.

Starting next week, he will be taking the kids, five at a time, to shop. “This is the best time for them,” Mohd Hafiz adds.

To make some extra cash for Hari Raya, the kids and teachers cook bubur lambuk and sell it during Ramadan.

Mohd Hafiz does not subscribe to begging to make some money.

Curious, I wander around the home. Located at one of the shop lots in Selayang Baru, the home is adjacent to Selayang Wet Market. There is no sign of a television or beds. I see children lying down on the floor. Fasting might have made them a little tired. But they get up once they notice I’m walking by.

“You see kakak (sister), the kids here may not grow up to be doctors or engineers. But we teach them to open their eyes, ears and hearts to their surroundings. If they grow up to be a kind person and diligent to God, that is good enough,” says Mohd Hafiz who is fluent in Bahasa Malaysia. He has lived in Malaysia for 18 years.

To get in touch with the shelter, call Mohd Hafiz, at 019-262 1671.

Arakan Rohingya Union Director General Prof. Dr. Wakar Uddin at Iftar Reception by US Secretary of State John Kerry; Receives Reassurance from the Secretary in Support of the Rohingya Cause 

RB News

July 27, 2013

Washington, D.C. - US Secretary of State John Kerry hosted an Iftar dinner reception to a number of renowned Muslim leaders, US Congressmen, and several diplomats at the State Department on July 24, 2013. Prof. Dr. Wakar Uddin, the Director General of Arakan Rohingya Union, was among the guests invited to the dinner reception at the Benjamin Franklin Room in the Harry Truman State Building. 

Secretary Kerry congratulated the Muslims on the occasion of Holy month of Ramadan and delivered a speech starting with “Assalamu Alaikum; Ramadan Kareem”. The main theme of Secretary Kerry’s speech was the strength of diversity of religion and culture in the United States as well as in many parts of the world, and how Muslim community in the United States contributed to this country. Additionally, Secretary Kerry stressed the significance of inter-faith relationship among the three Abrahamic faiths (Christianity, Islam, and Judaism), and also with the other major faiths of the world. 

After the reception, Secretary Kerry spoke with some of the guests. Dr. Wakar Uddin had an opportunity to discuss Rohingya issues with Secretary Kerry. “I was overwhelmed with joy and surprise when Secretary asked me straight about the Arakan Rohingya Union (ARU) and the Burmese Rohingya Association of North America (BRANA)” Dr. Uddin told the RB News.

“Secretary knew BRANA very well during past several years when he was the Chair of Senate Foreign Relations Committee, but now he seems to be quite familiar with ARU also”. Dr. Uddin added. “I am truly surprised at how much in depth Secretary Kerry is aware of our work on Rohingya issues at the international level” Dr. Uddin stated. He also briefed the Secretary the recent ARU Congress meeting at OIC Headquarters in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, including the adoption of the Charter, expansion of the membership to over 60 organizations globally, the election of new officers of ARU, and the strategic work plan”. 

Secretary Kerry congratulated the ARU members and the Rohingya people worldwide on institutionalization of ARU, and encouraged Rohingya people to sustain the efforts for their cause. Secretary Kerry also acknowledged the importance of democratic transformation in Myanmar, and the potential of the fledgling democracy in Myanmar for bringing peace and prosperity along with the rights of the ethnic minorities with peaceful co-existence. 

The Secretary reassured Dr. Uddin of the United States Government’s commitment to help find a durable solution for the Rohingya people in Myanmar. Dr. Uddin expressed his deepest gratitude to the Secretary Kerry and the Government of United States for their support for the rights of Rohingya and their efforts to bring peace and communal harmony in Arakan state.

Additionally, Dr. Uddin had the opportunity to discuss the Rohingya issues with a number of US Congressmen, diplomats, and dignitaries, including Congressman André Carson (D-IN), Congressman Keith Ellison (DFL-MN), U.S. Special Envoy to OIC Rashad Hussain, OIC Ambassador to the United Nations Ufuk Gokcen, and Aljazeera America’s Ali Velshi (formerly with CNN). All of the dignitaries expressed their unequivocal supports for Rohingya, and offered Dr. Uddin their assistance in ARU’s quest for the rights of Rohingya ethnic minority in Myanmar.

RB News 

July 27, 2013

Maungdaw, Arakan - In Aley Than Kyaw Village, in the Maungdaw Township, the village administrator is Maung Thet Naing. In the past, Naing has extorted money from Rohingya by collaborating with Nasaka and making baseless accusations. Now, Naing is asking money from villagers to renovate his office.

According to the villagers, Maung Thet Naing is extorting millions every month. He does this in many ways. He takes like a "legal robber", from shop keepers, boat owners and fisheries enterprise owners.

Recently, a paddy field owner Sayed Ullah son of Mogul Ahmed, a fabric shop keeper Ali Johar son of Farooque, a fisheries enterprise owner Mohammed Shafi son of Amir Gulal, and a machinery shop keeper Jaber son of Fawzal had to pay 100,000 Kyat each to Maung Thet Naing. 

125 boat owners had to pay 25,000 Kyat each. Another 40 fishing boats had to pay 100,000 Kyat each. In total, about 220 shop keepers paid 10,000 to 15,000 Kyat each. 

Maung Thet Naing is a Rakhine, native of Sittwe. The previous notorious village administrator Zaw Htoo is his brother-in-law. He is son-in-law of Tin Maung, the village administrator of U-Daung, who recently extorted 26.1 Million Kyat from the Rohingya villagers.

It is reported that he had paid 10 Million Kyat to the Maungdaw Township administrator for getting the position of village administrator.

“We need to pay more than half of our monthly income to village administrator as extortion. We would be tortured, inhumanely beaten and would be arrested if we don’t fulfill. At the end we cannot avoid that extortion. So we want the Union government and the parliament knows our daily plight.” a villager told RB News.

U Kyaw Min

RB Article

July 27, 2013

So purported high birth rate and infiltration of Bengalis into Myanmar's Rakhine State are popular topics among the Rohingyas's adversaries. These are not correct assessment, but illusion. There, in Myanmar side, police, military, paramilitary (Hlun Htinn), immigration and NaSaKa (border immigration special task force) are heavily stationed. NaSaKa forces have tight grasp on the population (Rohingya) of north Arakan. They have been on patrolling duty in every village day and night for the last twenty years. Again there are six monthly checking of family members and house hold animals. Legal and administrative actions are taken for any discrepancy on records. Guests cannot stay for the night without reporting to the local authority. Further there are double fences of barbed wire along the whole border. In this situation, how can a Bengali enter into Myanmar? For a native Rohingya who for some unavoidable reasons crossed the border into Bangladesh the chance to come back is nil. Once he comes back he is subjected to extortion and long term jail. It is quite unthinkable for a foreigner to come into Arakan illegally. This accuse of illegal immigration is sheer a pretext to suppress this Rohingya people.

Finally immigration Minister U Khin Yi explained during the second session of first parliament that people from Myanmar would go to Bangladesh to earn a living. He pointed out another fact there are 7000, Black list babies in Maung Daw Township alone. Who are these babies? Their fathers are out of the country at the time of their birth and then they remained unregistered. Their fathers cannot come back to their own home where they can face long term jail and extortion. In such a harsh situation how foreigners can can illegally enter into Rakhine?

It is a wonder some Myanmar popular politicians compare Bangla-Myanmar border with Mexico–American border. Let us first consider the point that Arakan is the poorest state in one of the poorest countries in the world. Bangladesh GDP is higher than Myanmar. Here no job opportunity for fresh Bengalis. Rakhine state economy is in the hand of Rakhine people. Do they welcome the illegal immigrants? Again amidst the heavy security installation how can the Bangla-Myanmar border be a porous border as some democracy icons try to say?

Real fact is there is no immigration but emigration. To come in is very difficult but to go out is highly encouraged under depopulation policy. Thus more than one million Rohingyas are living as Diaspora in foreign countries. This people are similar to none in the world. They preserved their own identity everywhere. They are a distinct community where ever they live. Experts of anthropology and sociology can easily distinguish them as a peculiar community. Alleging them to be Bengali is a bias branding, out of sheer whim and envy.

People want to put Rohingya at the mercy of Rakhine. They keep more concern to Rakhine's feeling and aspiration which is to kick out all Rohingyas out of Rakhine. Is it a correct concept? Government has an obligation to protect its citizens disregard of race and religion. Government should not encourage one race to suppress another. Polarizing and disparaging the Rohingyas are obvious. Media have been casting doubt on their ethnicity regularly – in some cases – explicitly calling for "ethnic cleansing". Apartheid like campaign is ongoing. Two child policy on Rohingya is very heartening to the adversaries. One is highly condemned when his or her comment on this is not infavour of this forced two child policy.

What happening in Rakhine state is not a communal riot. Just one sided looting, arsoning, killing and burning down. A privileged community enjoying the favour of central government is determined to kick out all Rohingyas from Arakan, and is crying aloud for it. Their plan to drive out all Rohingyas from downtown areas is successful as the Rohingyas are put in camps in the extreme edge of the towns. Any understanding or reconciliation with this chauvinistic group is unprobable without fair and active involvement of the central government. This group’s slogan is “no buying, no selling, no social contact and no friendship with Rohingya”. One of their Pyithu Hluttaw member, U Maung Nyo from Sittwe constituency on 22nd February 2013 motioned a question in parliament where he branded the Rohingyas as foreign illegal Bengalis who are a danger for national ethnic Rakhine. But British records said Sittwe was exclusively a Muslim enclave when British first occupied it. Such hate based discriminatory rhetoric in parliament is very contagious; it can breed hatred and unfair consequences. To some of our own nationals, we should not call "dangerous element from foreign country. i.e. a Taing Tabatha – Lumyo Cha Bengali" whatever the leveling and branding, this Bengalis are there, for many many centuries according to authentic historical records.

We are talking of rule of law. But how can it be achieved? There should be some practical steps based on fair treatment of all citizens. We should stop race based, class based, polarity based rhetoric either in parliament or outside. Then we can establish harmonious stable society. So called Bengalis in Rakhine are not immigrants but – historic native settlers. Unless we can recognize it, there cannot be stability. Those with superiority conscience will try to assault on those who are labeled as foreigners. State policy on social, economic, political sphere should be pragmatically based on equality of all citizens. So called Bengali demography in Rakhine state in the west have some differences with the demography of border people in the east which we must understand. We cannot judge the two with the same prism. Arakan and Bengal had been under the same rules for many many centuries. So there had been some socio-political connectivity between the two. There are millions of Rakhine or Rakhine affiliated peoples in Bengal whereas the same is true in case of Bengalis in Arakan. Historically millions of Bengali affiliated peoples have settled in Rakhine state whose presence was highly welcomed by Rakhine kings. This group of people whom we called today Rohingya was the protectors of Rakhine Kingdom. 

Recently our president and the immigration minister said their scrutiny proved that there were no illegally entered Bengalis. So what is the credibility of presently ongoing checking or inquiry in north Arakan in the name of finding out illegal entrants. Why everyone is required to give finger prints and photographs? Is everyone in north Arakan foreigner? People are forced, beaten and rounded up for their finger prints on computer scan. All these things made people worrisome and harassed. Sporadic arrest and torturing have been on continuation since last year.

In British and parliamentary periods all citizens so called indigenous or otherwise were equal. Their ID cards were the same. Citizens were not classified as ethnic and non-ethnic. There were no polarization and apartheid like discrimination. So we never heard of communal instability and violence in post independence period. 

When marginalization, dehumanization, classification, discrimination and polarization, and Jim Crow laws and directions were introduced at a time, gradually instability grew up. Finally we saw the ethnic cleansing like violence and terrorism in Arakan which the world practically witnessed last year. HRW report early this year is a clear witness of this horrendous ethnic cleaning.

Local media have aired false propaganda and spread bias racist news which have worsen the situation. Rakhine people are so encouraged and emboldened that they cry for deportation and segregation of Rohingya. Government has to exercise every unjust and unfair policy to please the Rakhine. It is one year now, more than one hundred thousand displaced persons are not yet rehabilitated only because it is presumably the main cause of the violence to deprive this Rohingyas of their properties specially in the down towns.

In case of Rakhine brutality and terrified attack on Rohingya, the security apparatus remained silent, in some cases they were accomplices, but when Rohingya resisted forced evacuation from their original homesteads the security forces shot at the villagers on 4th June in Yinthae village, Mrauk-U. Four women died on the spot and many were injured. Here we can imagine the partiality and double standard of actions from the side of the security forces. Rohingyas are being subjected to extortion, arbitrary arrest and imprisonment under various false cases.

Myanmar formerly was Burma. It is their right to choose whatever name they like. Is it just that Rohingyas are denied that right of choice? Why are they forced to give fingerprints on computer scan, to use it for multiple purposes, including making them Bengali? Democracy icons should not stay silent on this Rohingya crisis. They should high light what is fair and true from historical and legal perspective. Their comment should not be biased. On the other side silence means agreeing to what is happening in the conflict area of Arakan.

The truth is Aung San-Atlee agreement on 27 January 1947 had clear provisions for Rohingya’s full citizenship. Myanmar constitution of 1947 section 11 and 1948 citizenship law section 4 (a,b) had fully guaranteed full citizenship to Rohingyas, which was honored by post independence parliamentary government. This 1948 citizenship law also affirmed full citizenship can never be revoked. Here the root cause of Rohingya crisis is the 1982 new citizenship law which is arbitrary and retrospective to strip of Rohingya's citizenship. This new law is said to be a good one even by some opposition groups. This reflects in Myanmar, democracy means dictatorship of majority. Minority life is not secure. How can a law under dictatorship, deliberately enacted to suppress an intended community be a fair one in a democratic society we have been struggling to establish.

Some try to compare Rohingya with Myanmar workers in Thailand. In Arakan, Rohingyas are not fresh job seekers from Bangladesh. They are there from the beginning of history, records of which are authentic and ample. 

To mention a few; a report on British census of 1872 says;

Again James Baxter head of the 1941 inquiry commission on Indian immigration writes:

The First British administrator of Arakan Charles Paton took a population census in 1826. There the Muslim population was one third of the total. Today the Muslim (or) Rohingya population is one third of total population too. Hence the notion that Rohingya population is terribly increasing due to illegal immigrants, does not seem logical and practical. Present Rohingyas are Myanmar (Rakhine) indigenous. Here the view that indigenous Rakhine people deserve more privileges than the Bengalis, who are not indigenous, is a negative one. These view holders say indigenous right is more important than Human Rights. Is it democracy? 

Francis Buchanan a British diplomat in 1790s in Ava, in his article, "Comparative vocabularies of some of the languages spoken in the Burma Empire" write:

From above original and authentic records we can see Muslims or Rohingyas in Arakan are not illegal immigrants from Bangladesh as it is intensely highlighted in Myanmar media, but are there for many centuries. Their root can be traced from time immemorial. Rohingya is an antiquity in Arakan. Since Rohingya issue become stalemate, third party should decide it. To clear Rohingya's ethnicity an independent inquiry commission is an urgent need of time.

Inquiries after inquiry, checking after checking of population have been carried out since Burmese independence. The sole objective of this was to expel out the non Myanmar non Buddhist population. In course of time hundreds of thousands of Muslims had been driven into Pakistan then. The last inquiry was Dragon operation in 1978 which drove away nearly three hundred thousand Rohingyas (or) Muslims, Most of whom were later repatriated and rehabilitated in their original places. All this discriminatory state mechanism to harass the Rohingya did not bring any good result. Rohingyas are still there, though highly marginalized and impoverished.

So my request here to all concerned is to abandon the discriminatory racial policy. Untold injustice done on this vulnerable community will take volumes to narrate. Jim Crow laws and instructions have been introduced since some decades ago. Consequently, Rohingya became literally lifeless and miserably vulnerable. Enough is enough. We expected justice in ongoing democracy transformation period. But we find adverse of what we expected. Let us reverse our mindset and have a better harmonious, prosperous society based on justice and equality. I hope all economic, social, political restrictions presently imposed on Rohingya would be withdrawn so as they have an access to normal livelihood. Disgust, hatred and discrimination based on religion is not a democratize norm. In Myanmar, Buddhist Rohingya-Bruwa (a.k.a) Myanmargyi- is enjoying full indigenous rights despite their similarity with Muslim Rohingya in complexions, language and culture. It in because they are Buddhist.

Lastly I implore international community to consider the refugee issue more seriously where as to raise the question why are this people abandoning their native land? What wrong is happening there? Let us seriously engage in dialogue to restore this people their right. Let there be peace, stability, rule of law and security for this people in their own province of Rakhine state. The critical question is from which quarter this dialogue will start? Who will initiate it first? Rohingyas are waiting to see this initiative.

RB Special Report

July 27, 2013

Maungdaw, Arakan – Tin Maung, a Rakhine from Na-Ta-La village and administrator of U-Daung village tract, Southern Maungdaw Township, Arakan State, was not elected by the people of U-Daung village tract, but rather he was appointed as village administrator by District and Township authorities before the violence broke out in Arakan last summer after reportedly bribing them 5 million Kyat. Tin Maung has been reported as having abused the Rohingya villagers in various ways in collaboration with Nasaka forces. He was terminated by the State General Administration in August 2012 after numerous complaints were submitted against him, but he has yet to be removed from the position by the District and Township administration and continues as village administrator.

More than 500 acres of Rohingya paddy fields were confiscated when the Na-Ta-La village was built. Rohingya Blogger has evidence that Tin Maung extorted more than 20 Million Kyat from the Rohingya villagers. Many of these villagers believe Tin Maung was appointed by the authorities just to persecute the Rohingyas.

Please read the detail in PDF format via Scribd here:

Special Report: 26.1 Millions Kyat extorted by U-Daung village administrator Tin Maung in Maungdaw

Frontline Defenders

July 26, 2013

On 31 July 2013, human rights defender and community leader Mr Kyaw Hla Aung will appear at the district court in Sittwe to hear charges against him. 

Kyaw Hla Aung works to promote and defend the rights of minority Rohingyas in Arakan state. The human rights defender is a respected community leader having served as a Sittwe district civil court clerk and a former staff member of Médecins Sans Frontiers. 

On 15 July, Kyaw Hla Aung was arrested by police at his home in Thet Kae Pyin in Sittwe and has since then been arbitrarily detained without charge at Police Station 1 in Sittwe. The human rights defender is currently being held for questioning and does not have access to his family members or his lawyer. 

The arrest was reportedly related to a “population verification exercise”, conducted on 26 April, in which the local government of Arakan state began to assess the population of Muslim internally displaced persons (IDPs) and others currently living in Sittwe to provide more accurate population data for short and long term development plans. 

It was reported that for the verification exercise the Rohingya population would have to be recorded as Bengali which angered many members in the community. During a protest by the Rohingya community, one police officer abused a member of the Rohingya community and was subsequently beaten up by a crowd. 

When the police officer fled to a house to escape, a crowd gathered outside and allegedly planned to burn it down. When Kyaw Hla Aung heard about this he phoned, from his home, the community leaders in the IDP camps to request that they prevent violence. 

It is believed that this incident on 26 April 2013 has been used as a pretext to falsely accuse Kyaw Hla Aung of supporting a movement aiming to create a Rohingya state. 

From April until June 2013, Kywa Hla Aung was forced to go into hiding since police officials were roaming around the area where he was living. The human rights defender is known to be a strong advocate for the rights of the minority Rohingya population and had regularly meet with members of the diplomatic corps and international NGOs to brief them about the human rights situation facing the Rohingya population. 

Front Line Defenders believes that the arrest and detention of Kyaw Hla Aung is directly related to his work in the defence of human rights, in particularly in support of Rohingya's rights. Front Line Defenders is concerned with the continuing harassment against the human rights defender, including a previous incidence of arbitrary arrest lasting from 11 June until 16 August 2012.

Aye Nai

Democratic Voice of Burma

July 26, 2013

The defence attorney providing legal counsel to a group of Rohingya in Arakan state’s Sittwe claims the general-secretary of the Rakine Nationalities Development Party (RNDP) has threatened him for representing members from the Muslim minority.

Hla Myo Myint, who is representing seven Rohingya facing multiple charges including rioting and disturbing government officials after they refused to register as “Bengalis” at a displacement camp near the state capital, said the RNDP’s Khine Pyi Soe and a group of men first approached him when he was leaving the Sittwe courthouse on 12 July.

According to the lawyer, the posse allegedly surrounded him as he was leaving the court and proceeded to follow him to his hotel after he fled the scene in a UN vehicle. 

At the hotel, the group then threatened Hla Myo Myint and tried to get the hotel staff to kick him out of the establishment. 

“We were surrounded by the RNDP’s Khine Pyi Soe and his company and had to leave the [courthouse] in the UN OHCHR (Office for the High Commissioner of Human Rights) regional representative’s car,” said Hla Myo Myint. 

“I went back to the Sittwe Hotel and in about half an hour, a group of seven men including Khin Pyi Soe showed up and took photos of me. They threatened me and said to stop following the case and also pressured the hotel staff to kick me out.” 

While Hla Myo Myint said he has no plans to press charges against the RNDP, the lawyer has filed a formal request to Burma’s supreme court on 18 July asking to relocate the trial to Rangoon. 

The RNDP general- secretary Khine Pyi Soe rejected the allegations and claimed that the military affairs security and police’s special intelligence department personnel were present at the scene.

From Windsor Muslim Community

For Immediate Release

Prime Minister Stephen Harper Should Press President Thein Sein to Stop Rohingya and Burmese Muslims Ethnic and Religious Cleansing

After decades of persecution, state sponsored deadly violence against the Rohingya and Kaman Muslims was carried out in Arakan in June and October 2012 that resulted in the killing of many thousands people, massive rape and large scale destruction of villages, homes and properties and displacement of about 150,000 Muslims. In addition the evidences of mass grave have been uncovered by creditable human rights groups. 

Although more than one year has passed from June 2012, still there is no improvement in the human rights situation of Rohingya people and violence spread to affect all Muslims of Burma. There is no change of attitude of the Burmese government and Rakhine Buddhists towards them. No action has yet been taken against the perpetrators. On the contrary, silence extermination of Rohingyas has been increasingly carried out forcing them to live in squalid living conditions in overcrowded displacement camps in segregation or apartheid like situation without basic freedom, adequate food, medical care, shelter, and sanitation, freedom of movement and access to education and opportunity to work. 

Crimes against humanity against the Muslims of Burma continue unabated. National or international humanitarian agencies have been blockaded and aid workers are restricted to reach the Rohingya camps and villages. People are dying of Malnutrition, starvation, infectious diseases. On top of that a discriminatory decree limiting Rohingya families to two children each has been imposed. 

Unfortunately powerful countries are giving little attention to the ‘humanitarian disaster’, ‘crimes against humanity’ and genocidal onslaughts being perpetrated against the Rohingyas and other Muslims or ethnic peoples in Burma. 

We urge the Canadian Government to put pressure on the Burmese to secure the followings:

1. To stop forthwith all human rights violations against the Rohingya and other Muslims in Burma. 
2. To ensure religious freedom, and reopen all mosques and schools in Arakan. 
3. To agree for an international investigation into the abuses against the Rohingya minority. 
4. To allow full, free and unimpeded humanitarian access to all those affected and needy regardless of registered or unregistered IDP camps.
5. To repeal or amend 1982 Citizenship Law to conform it to international human rights law standards ensuring full citizenship to Rohingyas.
6. To repudiate the discriminatory decree limiting Rohingya families to two children each. 

With respect to refugees and aid, we ask our Canadian Government to put pressure on neighbouring countries to accept refugees and treat them with dignity and to lead relief efforts in refugee camps.

For more information, please contact: 

Dr. Abdelkader Tayebi 

Cell: 519-999-1595 

E:mail: aktayebi@yahoo.com

Andrew Day

RB News

July 26, 2013

Cox’s Bazaar: On Sunday, July 21, 2013, Nur Kabir sat on a chair outside of a pity (small) shop. Kabir, 25, son of Nasir Ahamed, was talking business with the shop keeper in block P of the Nayapara Refugee camp, in the Cox's Bazaar district of Bangladesh. 

Four police officers approached the shop as Kabir and the shop keeper were speaking. One officer demanded that Kabir got up from the chair. In conversation, the young refugee student failed to immediately comply with their demand. According to witnesses, the four police officers approached the boy and began to "beat him mercilessly" with sticks. Kabir was then sent to the CIC (camp in charge) office. The CIC told his parents to admit him to the hospital. He was admitted for chest injuries. After a four day hospital stay, he was released. 

Once returning, the CIC conducted their investigation. The police stated that the boy had threatened to assault them and that their actions were in self defense. This is contrary to all other witness accounts. The CIC, taking the word of the police, proceeded to scold Kabir. He asked him why he would threaten the police, as they are government employees and that his actions could lead to his arrest. 

The Nayapara Refugee camp, holds about 10000 Rohingyas, is one camp in the area that are officially recognized by the UN. Most of the population is the result of Rohingya fleeing from Myanmar in the mid 1990's. Residents of the camp say that the students and the educated are treated particularly poorly. They are made to keep wide berths from any international delegates who visit. They say that "the government does not want the world to know about the terrible conditions that they are living in." 

There has been precedent of arrests made to refugee students for simply carrying cell phones. When speaking with residents about the beating of young Kabir, this was the general response. "Today it was him that was beaten. Tomorrow it will be me. This is not our country, so they hate us." This is an example if the hardship within one of the refugee camps that are officially recognized by the UNHCR. Their situation however, appears good in contrast to the 95 thousand plus in the "Unofficial" Kutupalong refugee camp. There, Rohingya face constant food and medical aid shortages. There are estimated to be over 100000 secretly living within the woods and the villages, struggling to survive.

Bill O'Toole

Muslims living in camps for displaced people near the Rakhine capital Sittwe say police have been conducting regular nighttime raids to confiscate laptops and smartphones.

The move appears to be designed to isolate IDPs and stop them communicating with foreign individuals and groups. Sittwe’s Rohingya Muslims, who are referred to in Myanmar as Bengalis, are largely restricted to the camps and a few sections of the city and the internet is their only means of connecting with the outside world.

A Rakhine State government spokesman has denied the allegations, calling them fabricated.

But one IDP from a camp near Thatkepyin village, who asked not to be named, said police have been arriving several times a week since early June to search camps for laptops and other internet-enabled devices.

He said the visits usually involve harsh interrogation, with police even sometimes beating people in the camp for information. During the visits, the police regularly accuse people of using the internet to spread “wrong information”.

“The are trying to stop us from communicating with foreigners,” said the man, who was a university student before the violence broke out.

He said he uses the internet to keep in touch with his brother in Europe and communicate with sympathetic groups in Malaysia. 

“Rohingya people want to share their suffering with the world and share information,” the man said.

U Aung Win, a Rohingya activist in hiding in the Sittwe area, estimated that more than 80 people found with computers or smart phones have been arrested on “false charges” in Sittwe in the past month. Other sources based in the area made similar estimates. 

“I also use a laptop secretly, everybody uses a laptop secretly ... in every IDP camp it's the same thing,” he said.

Many of the IDP camps in Rakhine State lack basic amenities, such as running water and electricity, and residents are forced to be resourceful to recharge their electronic devices. Sources in the camps say that several groups have worked together to buy 15-watt solar panels, at K15,000 a unit, that can be used to charge their devices. 

U Win Myaing, a spokesperson for the Rakhine State government, denied that the raids were taking place and said he had never heard reports of police harassing IDPs. He said that U Aung Win and the other IDPs were being paid to spread disinformation.

He said the websites that post their information are “biased” against the Rakhine ethnic group. “No one ever talks about all the good things [the state government] does for the Muslim people,” he said.