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Joint Statement
September 25, 2018

Rohingya Communities reject Arakan Rohingya Union and its head Dr. Wakar Uddin

We are deeply dismayed by the openly anti-International Criminal Court (ICC) view expressed by Dr. Wakar Uddin, the Director-General of the Arakan Rohingya Union (ARU), in his Burmese language interview with the Voice of America, on 23 September.

In his words, “the ICC is not the solution to solve the Rohingya crisis. The Rohingya people and refugees have no intention to bring Sr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing and other military leaders to ICC for perpetrating genocide and crimes against humanity as detailed in the recent UN Fact-finding report.”

These words add insult to our community’s collective injury.

Our fellow Rohingyas who survived Myanmar’s genocidal killings, mass rape and communal destruction at the hands of Myanmar security troops and armed Rakhine militia groups last year have consistently and overwhelming expressed their desire for justice and accountability at every opportunity.

We find it unconscionable that Wakar Uddin publicly opposed the strident calls for holding to account Myanmar perpetrators of “gravest crimes” in international criminal and humanitarian laws not only against our Rohingya people, but also against other ethnic communities in Kachin and Shan states.

To our community’s palpable outrage, Wakar Uddin has instead echoed the perpetrators’ offer of “domestic inquiry”, while such national inquiry commissions have been used to exonerate Myanmar killers, rapists, arsonists and baby-murderers.

In addition, international actors including UN human rights officials and Independent Fact-Finding Mission members, western government and OIC officials, political leaders, international jurists and journalists have dismissed Myanmar’s domestic accountability mechanisms as having “zero credibility”.

On 24 September, Bangladesh’s Prime Minister the Honorable Sheikh Hasina reportedly presented (international) accountability and safety – including a ‘safe zone’, if necessary – for the Rohingya people as part of her three point-proposal at the ‘High-level Event on the Global Compact on Refugees: A Model for Greater Solidarity and Cooperation’ sponsored by the UNHCR at the UN Headquarters in New York.

We are gravely concerned that the Rohingya leader holding the position of the Director-General of the organization, which is treated by the OIC as the representative body of our Rohingya people, has undermined, opposed and invalidated our collective, express wish for international accountability.

We therefore state that Wakar Uddin’s view in no way reflect the need and wish of Rohingya victims and survivors of Myanmar’s systematic persecution. For us the genocide did not begin with mass killings and mass-rape on 25 August 2017: our community has for decades been subjected to 4 out of 5 acts of genocide with the verifiable genocidal intent, as clearly stated by the UN Independent Fact-Finding Mission on 18 September 2018.

This is not the first time the leader of the Arakan Rohingya Union has undermined the collective wish and stance of our community. Be that as it may, we hereby call on the international bodies, including the OIC, with genuine concerns for the plight of Rohingya people, not to accept Wakar Uddin’s un-representative views on justice, accountability and repatriation.

At the moment, we Rohingya people lack a broad-based representative organization worldwide which can legitimately speak for our community: our community rests on the 3 pillars, namely the genocide survivors in Bangladesh, those who are trapped inside IDP camps, ghettos and “open prisons” inside our homeland of Western Myanmar, and, last but not least, those of us in the diaspora.

We are striving towards the establishment of a democratic process and organization through which Rohingya people’s needs, views and wishes may be deliberated upon.

Meanwhile, we will not – and we do not - accept Wakar Uddin as our representative voice. He does not speak for our Rohingya people.

Signatories:

1. Arakan National Congress (ANC) Party, KSA

2. Arakan Rohingya Development Association – Australia (ARDA)

3. Arakan Rohingya National Organisation (ARNO)

4. British Rohingya Community in UK

5. Arakan Rohingya Youth Association (ARYA) – Bangladesh

6. Burmese Muslims Welfare Association (Pakistan)

7. Burmese Rohingya Association in Queensland-Australia (BRAQA)

8. Burmese Rohingya Association Japan (BRAJ)

9. Burmese Rohingya Community Australia (BRCA)

10. Burmese Rohingya Community in Denmark

11. Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK (BROUK)

12. Burmese Rohingya Community of Wisconsin (BRCW)

13. Canadian Burmese Rohingya Organisation

14. Canadian Rohingya Development Initiative

15. Los Angeles Rohingya Society

16. Myanmar Ethnic Rohingya Human Rights Organisation in Malaysia (MERHROM)

17. Rohingya Advocacy Network in Japan

18. Rohingya American Society

19. Rohingya Action Ireland

20. Rohingya Arakanese Refugee Committee

21. Rohingya Association of Canada

22. Rohingya Community in Finland

23. Rohingya Community in Germany

24. Rohingya Community in Norway (RCN)

25. Rohingya Community in Sweden

26. Rohingya Community in Switzerland

27. Rohingya Culture Center of Chicago (RCC)

28. Rohingya Organisation Norway

29. Rohingya Society Malaysia (RSM)

30. Rohingya Society Netherlands

31. Rohingya Women Development Network (RDWN)

32. Swedish Rohingya Association (SRA)

For more information, please contact: 

Tun Khin (Mobile): +44 78 887 14866 
Nay San Lwin (Mobile): +49 176 6213 9138 
Zaw Min Htut (Mobile): +81 80 3083 5327





A Myanmar soldier guards an area at the Sittwe airport as British foreign minister Jeremy Hunt arrives in Sittwe, Rakhine state, on September 20, 2018. (Ye Aung Thu / AFP/Getty Images)

By Irwin Cotler and Brandon Silver | Published by MACLEANS on September 21, 2018

In the wake of a UN report detailing atrocities against the Rohingya by Myanmar’s authorities, here are the ways Canada can step up in their defence

Irwin Cotler is a former minister of justice and attorney general of Canada, professor emeritus of international law at McGill University, and the founding chair of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights. Brandon Silver is the centre’s director of policy and projects.

What we solemnly swore would occur “never again,” has happened yet again. And on Wednesday, Canada formally recognized the nature of it: Genocide, in Myanmar.

The UN fact-finding mission on Myanmar just released its full 440-page report which documents, in great and graphic detail, the genocide of the Rohingya people. It bears witness to brutalities too terrible to be believed, but not too terrible to have happened.

Testimony from those who escaped describe gruesome scenes that shock the conscience and shake the soul. Babies being burned alive in bonfires, children chopped to pieces with swords, the elderly battered and beheaded, women and girls gang-raped—all state-sanctioned and under military command.

What is so unspeakable is not only the horror of the genocide itself, but that this genocide was preventable. No one can say that we did not know; we knew, but we did not act.

Indeed, for close to three decades the UN has been describing and denouncing—though not engaging in any meaningful measures around—the persecution of the Rohingya muslims. As the situation reached a tipping point six years ago, Canadian parliamentarians sought to sound the alarm, holding public hearings, publishing a comprehensive report, participating in press conferences, and petitioning for urgent action.

And what was the response? Silence. An appalling indifference and inaction in the face of such horror and human suffering.

We are now in the midst of an ongoing genocide, and the urgent need for action persists. Taking such action is not only a right, but a requirement.

Indeed, as we mark the historic 70th anniversary year of the UN Convention on Genocide—to which Myanmar and Canada are both signatories—we must recall its legal obligations. In its first article, the Genocide Convention states that “the Contracting Parties confirm that genocide is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish.”

Likewise, the Responsibility to Protect Doctrine (R2P)—adopted unanimously in the UN 2005 World Summit Outcome Document—mandates international action to “protect a state’s population from genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing.”

While members of the international community did not fulfill their obligations in either regard—leaving innocents to be murdered and maimed, tortured and tormented—it is not too late for the thousands of Rohingya remaining in northern Rakhine State and the other minorities in Kachin and Shan States who are now similarly being targeted with impunity.

Canada is well-placed to help spearhead international action. It has already exercised leadership with the appointment of Bob Rae as special envoy and his important recommendations in that regard, while Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland has visited the Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh and has raised the Rohingya crisis at every opportunity, including at the G7, Asean, Commonwealth, OIC, and the UN Human Rights Council. Importantly, Canada has implemented a comprehensive strategy that includes humanitarian aid and targeted sanctions.

Yet there is still more to be done.

In 2007, Canada instituted hard-hitting sanctions on Myanmar, which contributed at the time to the military junta’s move toward greater openness and democratic reform. That led to the repeal of most of these sanctions in 2012. In light of a backsliding in every one of these measures—and in particular the perpetration of genocide itself—Canada should reintroduce these sanctions, and encourage its allies to do the same.

Any easing of sanctions would need to be tied to clear steps and measurable progress regarding the situation of Rohingya in northern Rakhine and creating the conditions for a safe, dignified, and secure return for those forced into Bangladesh, including an end to violence, the restoration of full citizenship, and the halting of the National Verification Card Process, as well as restoration of property and reparations for damages. In short: there must be a guarantee of a protected return to a protected homeland.

As well, we reiterate our call—and that of the Rohingya community and Canadian civil society—to revoke Canada’s highest honour that was bestowed upon Myanmar’s State Counsellor, Aung San Suu Kyi.

Myanmar’s civilian government has aided and abetted the military’s genocide, with Suu Kyi participating in the hateful incitement against Rohingya, and providing protective cover and support for the continued commission of crimes. She’s denied the atrocities, restricted access to international monitors and investigators, weaponized the denial of humanitarian aid and, when two Reuters journalists who were reporting on the killings of Rohingya were unjustly imprisoned last week, she defended it as being part of a proper process.

That process was a sham. Her actions bring shame.

Aung San Suu Kyi’s honorary Canadian citizenship is a standing affront to the raison d’etre of conferring this privilege, and an embarrassment to the pantheon of heroes that comprise it. In contrast to actual citizenship—which has attendant rights and privileges—this was solely an honorific bestowed by a motion in Parliament, and so parliamentarians should be allowed to vote their conscience on a motion to revoke it.

Canada must also work to deter the Myanmar authorities and send clear signals that they cannot act with impunity, and will be held accountable for their crimes. While it is encouraging that the International Criminal Court (ICC) has just announced a preliminary examination into the situation—a process that many Canadians and Canadian institutions had significantly contributed to, and one that Canada should support through financial and investigative resources—it is ultimately highly limited in its jurisdiction, focusing primarily on the forced deportations of Rohingya to Bangladesh.

Accordingly, Canada may wish to mobilize its allies in pushing for a referral of the situation by the UN Security Council to the ICC; a veto from China is not a given, and such a resolution would be a worthwhile endeavour nonetheless. If it’s successful, it would give the ICC broader jurisdiction over the genocide and crimes against humanity that have been perpetrated by individuals in Myanmar. However, with the Court’s woefully inadequate resources—further spread thin over the examination, investigation, or prosecution of a number of different alleged crimes around the world—such a mandate may not prove practical given the urgency of deterrence and accountability around the ongoing crimes.

A more compelling alternative, as put forth by the UN fact-finding mission, would be the establishment of an ad-hoc international tribunal—as was done in the cases of the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda—that would exclusively and expeditiously undertake the task of investigating and prosecuting the perpetrators of the Rohingya genocide.

Regardless of the individual accountability mechanism, Canada should act on its earlier commitment in response to Rae’s recommendation to spearhead a resolution at the UN General Assembly or Human Rights Council that would establish an international, impartial, and independent mechanism that immediately begins compiling evidence toward the investigation and prosecution of those individuals responsible, signalling to perpetrators in Myanmar that they are being watched, and that they will face punishment for their actions.

However, the most important chance for change from the status quo—of imperilled victims, and impunity for oppressors—is contained in the UN Convention on Genocide. Specifically, it allows for Canada to refer the case of Myanmar’s responsibility for the genocide of the Rohingya to the International Court of Justice. Given that the genocide was prepared and perpetrated by Myanmar as a matter of state principle and policy, state responsibility under the Convention—as distinct from the accountability of individuals offered by other mechanisms—is a most apparent and appropriate path.

Some in the international community may respond that such bold measures will get in the way of effective engagement with Myanmar’s authorities. But if inaction—or ineffective action—is the cost of engagement, then the consequence of that engagement is tantamount to appeasement. In the face of genocide, appeasement should never be an option.

We look to the Canadian government to further intensify and internationalize its commendable leadership, and that its response to the UN Report be commensurate with the gravity of the crimes.

As the members of the UN mission put it: “The international community has failed. Let us now resolve not to fail the people of Myanmar again.”

RB News
September 20, 2018

 Buthidaung — The Myanmar government is planning to house forcibly displaced Rohingya villagers of 'Gudar Pyin' in internment-camps-like houses, villagers say.

 'Gudar Pyin' or 'Gudam Fara' as called locally is a Rohingya village in Buthidaung Township that came under brutal attacks of the Myanmar armed forces and the Rakhine extremists in late August 2017. They massacred hundreds of the Rohingya villagers and burned down about 200 homes forcibly displacing them and making them homeless. 

 While many families from the village have fled to Bangladesh for lives, others have remained in the country by seeking refuge in neighboring villages. Nine months after the violence, in late May 2018, of the families seeking refuge in the neighboring villages, some about 77 (76, according to the Government) households/families returned to their burnt home grounds at 'Ywa Gyi' hamlet and 'South' hamlet of 'Gudar Pyin' and pitched tents for them to live in.

A week after that, a joint team of officials from different administrative departments and armed forces arrived at the village and prevented the villagers from erecting the (self-made) shelters. A villager recounted how the Myanmar authorities threatened them "you can't pitch tents here without permission. If you do so, you will be punished severely."

 On Tuesday (Sept 18) afternoon, a tasked team of ten government officials from Buthidaung Township General Administration Department, Land Records Department and the Department of Municipality arrived at 'Gudar Pyin' village and allotted a small area of land to build small barrack-style houses for the 77 forcibly displaced families under 'a Governmet Program' at the northern most part of the village.

 "What we are seeing is they have just allotted a 40ft×30ft lot to bulid a housing camp on for each of the 76 families. And they will be fenced with barbed wire. That's more like internment camps" said an elderly villager. 

 The total area of land allotted by the Governmentt on Tuesday (Sept 18)  is a ground area of just16 burnt houses. Now, the Government is said to be planning to squeeze 76 households with small internment-camps-like housing into that small area of land. The camps will be guarded, controlled and confined by the Myanmar Security Forces.

 "The lot that the government is alloting is just for 76 families out of 200 families whose houses were burnt down last year. They haven't talked anything about over remaning 100 households who have also lost their homes. If we are forced to live in these internment camps like housing permanently, then we don't think we have any other ways left but to flee from the country." said a villager in a worrisome tone.
He added "first, they have burnt down our homes, made us homeless and displaced. Now, they are acting as if they are helping us by building houses for us. And they are treating us as though we have committed crimes for our homes were burnt down. For we have lost our homes in arson attacks which they carried out, they are building tiny houses for us on a tiny peice of land and coaxing and pushing us into the permanent internment camps.

 "Then, they will confiscate our large home grounds, gardens and farmlands. Displaced people confined in internment camps get no freedom in life. If they give them food, they will eat. If not, they will starve. No self-sufficiency or right to do anything."

 [Reported by MYARF; Edited by M.S. Anwar]
Please email to: editor@rohingyablogger.com to send your reports and feedback.



By Dr. Maung Zarni
September 20, 2018

NGOs destroy civil society, said a top sociologist at Columbia.

He is absolutely correct.

If Rohingyas do NOT hang together they will be hang separately.

I see the disaster or humanitarian colonialism being repeated in Rohingya situation. There is an immediate need to forge and expand intra-Rohingya solidarity and collaboration.

I define INGOs as neo-COLONIAL, that do not identify with Rohingya resistance to repatriation under duress, or have organic ties to Rohingya's struggles (meaning groups that impose their agendas & priorities).

Mine is not an original insight, but drawn from David Korten's: the only western or external NGO that is NOT colonial is the type that is connected with and support the oppressed's resistance and movements.

If I were a Rohingya refugee, or a member of the diaspora, I would work with any NGO that comes in with $, has political connections, and a voice.

However, I would NOT have any expectation or illusions that humanitarian INGOs (and politicians) will have pure moral desire or political will to respect, listen to or appreciate Rohingyas' wishes
and needs.

Generally, or typically, INGO-recipient relations will necessarily be INSTRUMENTALIST. That is, they come because it's their job, income generator, career, or professional or personal interests. There are of course NGO individuals who care, genuinely. But in the INGO politics it is organizational interests and logic that in the final instance drive what these entities officially say and do. Human rights INGOs are not immune from this cancer.

Rohingyas deal with them because there are no better choices - accept their money, medicine, work as fixers, field "researchers", informants or informers, whatever the case, etc.

That's the reality: the crucial thing is to know this instrumentalist nature - they use the refugees and refugees use them - of these interactions.

The last thing Rohingyas need is be swayed by these INGOs and their slanted, trendy advocacy campaigns - that never ask for what Rohingya really need, that is, protected homeland where they can live in peace and safety as normal human community, like everyone else.

To be able to maintain a healthier power equation between the INGOs and the refugees - nearly 1 million now - Rohingya refugees and the diaspora must forge ties that go beyond little family circles , or that cling to petty little organizations where they are "Chairmen" or "Chairwomen" "President" or whatever.

So far I have not seen Rohingya elites in diaspora building this absolutely necessary intra-Rohingya solidarity, respect and organizational collaboration.

The absence of this broad-based solidarity amongst the victims, both the diaspora and in sub-human camps, is deeply troubling, both from moral and strategic perspectives.

If Rohingyas do NOT hang together they will be hang separately.

I have seen this NGOs as disease in the context of the armed Karen revolution. The result is ugly: capable potential revolutionaries are snatched out of the movement and into program manager positions, from where they sing the NGO tunes.

With absolutely nothing - beyond the presence of 1 million bodies in the sub-human camps in Bangladesh - Rohingyas are far more vulnerable to this politics and exploitation by the NGOs and politicians than the Karens have ever been.








Media Release From Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK
3rd September 2018

Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK: Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo Must Be Freed

Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK strongly condemns the sentencing of Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo.

They were sentenced to seven years in jail today after being convicted of breaking the Official Secrets Act. Evidence that came out during the trial showed that they were framed by the police. The police force in Burma is under the control of the military.

“These journalists were simply doing their jobs, exposing massacres of Rohingya villagers which the United Nations has now concluded constitutes genocide,” said Tun Khin, President of Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK. “We admire the bravery of these journalists, working to uncover massacres of Rohingya villages.”

Since its founding Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK has campaigned for freedom of expression and for the release of all political prisoners in Burma. It saddens us that this is still necessary under a government controlled by the National League for Democracy.

“The international community now needs to apply real pressure to the government of Burma to free these journalists and all political prisoners,” said Tun Khin. “Political, technical and financial support should only go to the government once it starts to respect human rights, including media freedom.”

For more information, please contact Tun Khin +44 7888714866.

Maung Zarni, a coordinator at the Free Rohingya Coalition ( Ahmet Gürhan Kartal - Anadolu Ajansı )

By Ahmet Gurhan Kartal
August 29, 2018

Buddhist activist Maung Zarni denounces atrocities targeting Rohingya in his country

LONDON -- The atrocities targeting Myanmar’s Rohingya minority are similar to those committed by Nazi Germany, according to a prominent Buddhist human rights activist.

Speaking to Anadolu Agency in Kent, the UK, Maung Zarni, a coordinator at the Free Rohingya Coalition, said the international community should act against his country of origin.

Zarni’s remarks come after the UN released a report earlier this week documenting mass gang rapes, killings -- including of infants and young children -- brutal beatings and disappearances committed by Myanmar state forces. In its report, UN investigators said such violations may have constituted crimes against humanity.

“We have a situation wherein a UN member state run by a Nobel Peace Prize winner, Aung San Suu Kyi, and her partners in power, Burmese military generals…is found by the [most] credible and highest body of human rights authorities in the world to be like Nazi Germany,” Zarni said.

“Genocide is what the Nazis did. Genocide is what happened in Rwanda, in Cambodia, or to the Bosnian Muslims.”

Zarni underlined that when a case is determined to be “genocidal”, the responsibility for dealing with it lies with all UN member states.

“The highest political and moral obligation rests with the [UN] Security Council,” he added.

He said setting up an international criminal court as was done for Rwanda or Bosnia would not be enough; the Rohingya minority needs “a protected region where they can live safely and as normal, decent human beings”.

The UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar has called on Myanmar’s top military officials, including army commander-in-chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, to be tried at the International Criminal Court for genocide committed against Rohingya Muslims.

“My expectation, in an ideal world…[is that] the UN Security Council will authorize some form of intervention so that the atrocities can be stopped and the Rohingya can be given their land back and allowed to live in dignity and in safety,” Zarni said.

- Sanctions

Zarni said there are now more Rohingya living outside Myanmar than those who are left in the country following decades of violence but especially after a full-scale attack was launched against them in August last year.

Underlining that the international community should impose sanctions on Myanmar’s government and army, Zarni pointed out that the exclusion policy against the Rohingya must end.

Rohingya Muslims “are being purged,” and the ultimate goal in introducing sanctions against Myanmar should be “to fundamentally change the Burmese state’s policies and change the structures [which] have been mobilized by the Burmese military and public opinion makers to repress and persecute and essentially annihilate this population,” Zarni added.

The ultimate goal of multiple sanctions should be providing Rohingya “international protection” and creating “an autonomous region where the Burmese military would not be allowed to continue the atrocities,” he said. 

- Solution

Zarni said Myanmar has four major pillars: the military, the Buddhist order, political parties, and the public.

“All four of these major institutions…have categorically rejected the Rohingya. We are telling them they don’t belong to Burma, we don’t want them in Burma.”

Zarni said the solution to the problem does not lie in the country but has to be formulated internationally and within the UN institutions.

- Call for Turkey's assistance

Zarni added that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the Turkish government “have been extremely vocal and supportive of the Rohingya people”.

“This is the time for Turkey to show serious moral and political leadership,” he said.

Pointing out that the UN Security Council is in a “coma” and “paralyzed” as it cannot resolve the problems, Zarni emphasized that Turkey can really help in Myanmar’s case by “leading to form a coalition of Muslim and non-Muslim governments that accept that this is genocide and [say] we must not be bystanders to genocide”.

He said there are more than 500,000 Rohingya trapped in Myanmar and they can be driven out any time, adding it is the time to act and to form a coalition.

“My appeal is not to the Burmese people. My appeal is to the Islamic world as well as non-Islamic communities to help the Rohingya.

“Because this is not just about Muslim people. They are human beings. But we, Burmese, in my country treat them like [they are] less than animals.”

On Aug. 25, 2017, Myanmar launched a major military crackdown on the Muslim ethnic minority, killing almost 24,000 civilians and forcing 750,000 others, including women and children, to flee to Bangladesh, according to the Ontario International Development Agency.

The Rohingya, described by the UN as the world's most persecuted people, have faced heightened fears of attack since dozens were killed in communal violence in 2012.





Buddhist Nationalism in Burma
Institutionalized racism against the Rohingya Muslims led Burma to genocide

By Maung Zarni
SPRING 2013

Rohingya are categorically darker-skinned people—sometimes called by the slur “Bengali kalar.” Indeed, the lighter-skinned Buddhists of Burma are not alone in their fear of dark-skinned people and belief that the paler the skin, the more desirable, respectable, and protected one is.

--

The Slow-Burning Genocide of Myanmar’s Rohingya

By Zarni, Maung; Cowley, Alice

Since 2012, the Rohingya have been subject to renewed waves of hate campaigns and accompanying violence, killings and ostracization that aim both to destroy the Rohingya and to permanently remove them from their ancestral homes in Rakhine State. Findings from the authors’ three-year research on the plight of the Rohingya lead us to conclude that Rohingya have been subject to a process of slow-burning genocide over the past thirty-five years. The destruction of the Rohingya is carried out both by civilian populations backed by the state and perpetrated directly by state actors and state institutions. Both the State in Burma and the local community have committed four out of five acts of genocide as spelled out by the 1948 Convention on the Punishment and Prevention of the Crime of Genocide. Despite growing evidence of genocide, the international community has so far avoided calling this large scale human suffering genocide because no powerful member states of the UN Security Council have any appetite to forego their commercial and strategic interests in Burma to address the slow-burning Rohingya genocide.

--

THE SYSTEMATIC REPRESSION OF THE ROHINGYA MINORITY CONTINUES

By Maung Zarni 
March 14, 2017

The 1.33 million Rohingya Muslims may be “too many to kill,” but that has not stopped the state security forces or the local ultra-nationalist Rakhine from carrying out waves of pogroms against the Rohingya. The state's racist draconian policies make life so unbearable that the Rohingya would rather risk their lives on voyages across the high seas than wait like sitting ducks to be slaughtered in their ghettos or “open-air prisons,” as the BBC put it. 

--

An Evolution of Rohingya Persecution in Myanmar: From Strategic Embrace to Genocide

By Alice Cowley and Maung Zarni 
April 20, 2017

“Send us as many birth control pills as you can. They (Myanmar troops) are gang-raping our women. They are arresting and killing all our men. There is nothing else you can do. Just pray to Allah and to wish us speedy deaths! This is just simply unbearable,” said a Rohingya woman talking from her mobile phone from Myanmar’s predominantly Rohingya region of Northern Rakhine State bordering Bangladesh.

--

Waves of Genocidal Terror against Rohingyas by Myanmar and the Resultant Exodus Since 1978

By Maung Zarni and Natalie Brinham
November 14, 2017

International lawyers, U.N. officials and world leaders may and do debate as to whether Myanmar’s mass atrocities constitute the crime of all crimes, a genocide. But over one million Rohingya refugees, displaced in Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Malaysia, India and other countries and the smaller number that are being trapped inside Northern Rakhine State between the unwelcoming world and the hateful Burmese society do not have the luxury of deciding what to call the crimes they have been subjected to for nearly 40 years. 

--

Maung Zarni -- Myanmar's Slow-Burning Genocide of the Rohingya People


Munir UZ Zaman/AFP/Getty Images


Joint Statement 
August 28, 2018

UN Investigators Confirm ‘Myanmar Genocide of Rohingya’, UNSC must support ICC referral and Urgent International Protection for the Rohingya 


We, the undersigned Rohingya Organisations worldwide welcome the report released yesterday (27 August 2017) by the UN Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar (FFM) calling on the international community to take action against Myanmar for its genocide against the Rohingya people.

The FFM, consisting of three human rights experts, which was established by the UN Human Rights Council in 2017, called on Myanmar’s top military generals, including Commander-in-Chief Senior-General Min Aung Hlaing, to be investigated and prosecuted for genocide in the north of Rakhine State, as well as for crimes against humanity and war crimes in Rakhine, Kachin and Shan States. It also points out that the civilian authorities, including State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi are implicit in the genocide against Rohingya for contributing to the commission of atrocity crimes through their acts and omissions. 

The report states that the gross human rights violations and abuses committed against Rohingya population for decades “undoubtedly amount to the grave crimes under international law” that establish the genocidal intent. They include the crimes against humanity of murder, imprisonment; enforced disappearance; torture; rape, sexual slavery and other forms of sexual violence; persecution and enslavement, extermination and deportation. 

The Mission reminds that the justice has remained elusive for the victims in Myanmar for decades, and “the impetus for accountability must come from the international community.” But, the international actors are standing idly by the side-lines, failing to act, while genocide is unfolding in Myanmar. How much more evidence the UN and the international community need to act? According to the “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crimes of Genocide”, they are under obligation to “prevent and punish” Rohingya genocide right now. 

The report released by the FFM yesterday is a summary version of the full report, which is expected to be presented at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva in September 2018.

The FFM’s calls add to a global chorus of voices urging members of the UNSC to refer the situation to the ICC. Since Myanmar is not a party to the Rome Statute, only the UNSC can trigger a comprehensive investigation by the ICC. Justice is crucial to ensuring that the authorities in Myanmar do not feel emboldened to repeat the same crimes again.

Members of the UNSC must act now and immediately refer the situation in Myanmar to the ICC and future of the Rohingya as a people depend on it. In this regard, we are anxiously looking forward to seeing a comprehensive resolution at the UNSC meeting today.

Meanwhile, we urge upon the international community to provide international protection to approximately half a million Rohingya population trapped inside Rakhine State, and to empower Genocide survivors taking refuge in Bangladesh. 

Signatories

1. Arakan Rohingya Development Association – Australia (ARDA)
2. Arakan Rohingya National Organisation (ARNO)
3. British Rohingya Community in UK
4. Burmese Rohingya Association in Queensland-Australia (BRAQA)
5. Burmese Rohingya Association Japan (BRAJ)
6. Burmese Rohingya Community Australia (BRCA)
7. Burmese Rohingya Community in Denmark
8. Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK (BROUK)
9. Canadian Burmese Rohingya Organisation
10. Canadian Rohingya Development Initiative
11. European Rohingya Council (ERC)
12. Myanmar Ethnic Rohingya Human Rights Organisation in Malaysia (MERHROM)
13. Rohingya Advocacy Network in Japan
14. Rohingya American Society
15. Rohingya Arakanese Refugee Committee
16. Rohingya Association of Canada
17. Rohingya Community in Finland
18. Rohingya Community in Germany
19. Rohingya Community in Norway (RCN)
20. Rohingya Community in Sweden
21. Rohingya Community in Switzerland
22. Rohingya Community Ireland (RCI)
23. Rohingya Organisation Norway
24. Rohingya Society Malaysia (RSM)
25. Rohingya Society Netherlands
26. Swedish Rohingya Association (SRA)

For more information, please contact: 

Tun Khin (Mobile): +44 78 887 14866 
Nay San Lwin (Mobile): +49 69 260 22349 
Ko Ko Linn (Mobile): +880 172 606 8413



By Abdul Aziz
August 28, 2018

The UN likened the Aug 25 crackdown in the Rakhine state to genocide

The Rohingyas have announced to observe August 25 as the "genocide day," a year after a Myanmar military crackdown forced more than 700,000 members of the ethnic minority to flee the Rakhine state.

The announcement came from protest rallies by the Rohingyas at Ukhiya and Teknaf on Saturday.

A group calling itself the "Free Rohingya Coalition" has been campaigning to highlight the last several days of the barbarity and atrocity of the August 25, 2017 attack on the minority.

In the declaration letter, the Rohingyas said Myanmar since had been continuing oppression of the predominantly Muslim community after cancelling their citizenship in the ‘80s. Nobel laureates Amratya Sen and Desmond Tutu have called last year’s crackdown on the minority genocide.

“We (the Rohingyas) are joining voices with them and declaring it as genocide,” the declaration said.

Despite having lived for generations in Myanmar, Naypyidaw does not recognize the Rohingyas as citizens and dubs them ‘Bangalis’ to imply that they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

State-sponsored discrimination against the minority stretches back decades. The latest crackdown in the Rakhine state has been likened to genocide by the UN.

KutupalongBottoli Rohingya camp leader Mohammad Idris said the Myanmar military killed their people, raped the women and girls and burned their homes to ground, forcing them to flee. “August 25 was the beginning of a dark chapter. We will observe it as the ‘genocide day’ every year,” he said.

Ukhiya’sBalukhali Rohingya camp leader Ayub Majhi said, they plan to observe the ‘genocide day’ even after going back home. “We want to live in our homeland with dignity,” he added.

Kutupalong camp’s management committee general secretary Nur Mohammad said the declaration of all the Rohingya people.

“The Myanmar military has been attacking and oppressing the Rohingya people in the Rakhine state using various excuses. It has killed thousands of people since August 25. So, we will observe the day as ‘genocide day’,” he said.



A Year in Hunger of Justice 

By Ro Mayyu Ali
RB Poem
August 25, 2018

“I wanted to end up my life 
Clawing grave with fingers myself 
Soon I had the soul inside 
And found myself waking”
Heartbeat of fallen body on ground 
Whilst she’s left raped and mutilated 

Slaughtering men in enclosed escort 
Burning a home of family alive in locked up 
Throwing kids into born fire in mother’s eyes 
Raping daughters in front of parents 
No longer scenes of Hollywood’s movies 
With, the horses voyage in finding justice 

The fastest exodus emerging ever 
And making the largest settlement 
Tears in gland dried up
Fatigued hands by beating up forehead and chest 
No hunger satiated yet 
How long human solidarity stands as ‘just a lie’?



    • Rohingya Exodus