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| Aung Sang Suu Kyi embodies the hope that you can lead and use the power to bring about positive change in the lives of the ones most vulnerable. (Photo: Stan Honda, AFP) |
Salil Tripathi
Live Mint
December 26, 2012
I was not the only one to think that the sight I was about to see in Yangon on 10 December, Human Rights Day, was so unreal that it bordered on the surreal. Aung Min, the minister in charge of peace negotiations with rebel armed groups from Myanmar’s ethnic minorities, said in public what most of us were thinking in private: a year ago if you told me I’d be standing beside Aung San Suu Kyiand talking about human rights at a public event, I would not have believed it, he said.
I was not the only one to think that the sight I was about to see in Yangon on 10 December, Human Rights Day, was so unreal that it bordered on the surreal. Aung Min, the minister in charge of peace negotiations with rebel armed groups from Myanmar’s ethnic minorities, said in public what most of us were thinking in private: a year ago if you told me I’d be standing beside Aung San Suu Kyiand talking about human rights at a public event, I would not have believed it, he said.
And yet, there he was, and soon after him, there she was, once the country’s most famous political prisoner and now the embodiment of hope for a peaceful and democratic future, speaking after him, stressing the importance of people’s right to speak, but also to listen, to communicate, to understand, and respect the dignity of each individual.
Those were simple words, but they had a profound implication on the way the country, once known as Burma, was governed. We were in the ballroom of a hotel on Inya Lake, Yangon’s largest, with its green ribbon-like shore along which stand hundreds of trees, at one end of which is a shining golden pagoda, and, at its other end, the house by the water in which Suu Kyi remained imprisoned for close to two decades.
A few years ago, in a bizarre incident, an American man called John Yettaw swam across the lake and entered her home, uninvited, telling her that her life was in danger. By that senseless act, he gave the government the excuse to extend her prison term, preventing her from being able to express her views on a new constitution and ensuring that her party, the National League of Democracy, would go unrepresented in the new parliament. The walls along her house had kept her away from her people; the lake in front of her house, which would have offered her the spot to contemplate and reflect, instead became the harbinger of trouble. It was as if she’d need to build a wall there, to keep people like Yettaw away, so that she could be free.
And then, in April, I am in Bahan township, in front of her office, seeing hundreds of supporters wearing red T-shirts with the golden peacock, swaying to the tune of Myanmar pop, celebrating the National League of Democracy sweeping the by-elections. I wasn’t the only one with tears in my eyes.
And now she is free—she can go to that hotel across the lake and speak about human rights. She can travel around the world, receiving prizes she could not accept in person earlier. Her eyes brighten when I mention to her that Romila Thapar remembers her; she asks about Vikram Seth and joins me in reciting his poem, All you who sleep tonight, in full. Now she can travel within the country, not in defiance of the generals, but to uphold national unity— as a parliamentarian, as the chair of a committee set up to establish the rule of law and tranquillity.
It has been a stressful year for Suu Kyi. Her measured responses to the Rohingya crisis, which has seen an upsurge in violence between Buddhists and Muslims in the Rakhine province bordering Bangladesh, has disheartened many of her supporters internationally. Her call to establish the rule of law, and unwillingness to get drawn into the question of the legal status of the Rohingyas, has made many of her liberal supporters realize that as a politician, her response would be different from what it would have been if she were a prisoner.
Politics is all about compromise, about settling for deals that may not be perfect, agreeing to positions that go against deeply held convictions. In reminding everyone that she is a politician and not an icon, Suu Kyi may have come down from a pedestal. But she didn’t choose to be a prisoner, and she didn’t choose to be an icon either. Both conditions were thrust upon her; the real challenge was always how she would use the power that had eluded her.
And Suu Kyi, through her persistence, her forbearance, and her unwavering commitment to non-violence, has shown that another way is possible. In a world where leaders shout at one another, bulldoze the homes of the vulnerable, imprison those whose thoughts they don’t like, massacre those who want a different kind of governance, arrogate to themselves powers that the rules forbid and then try to force change in the rules so that the power grab appears legal, or fail to act against spiralling corruption, the idea of someone like Suu Kyi, so close to power, is reassuring. It does not mean she will make a great leader, or even one with great power. But she embodies the hope that you can lead and use the power to bring about positive change in the lives of the ones most vulnerable.
As we drive away from the hotel, recalling her quiet voice, her mildly shaking head as she speaks, and the tiara of flowers encircling her hair, I feel oddly optimistic, and privileged, at being able to witness history.
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Chutima Sidasathian & Alan Morison
Phuket Wan
December 27, 2012
PHUKET: A total of 127 Rohingya have been arrested in southern Thailand and trucked back to the Thailand-Burma border.
Those held were in five minivans in a convoy bound for the Malaysian border crossing at Padang Besar in Songkhla province.
On December 24 a police-Army checkpoint in Satun province pulled over two of the vans, which each contained 22 men and boys.
The drivers of another three minivans fled after dropping off their passengers, who totalled 83.
The youngest of those arrested was a boy aged 10. Most of the captured Rohingya were teenagers or young men.
Hundreds are fleeing the Burmese state of Rakhine where thousands of homes have been torched since June in a simmering racial conflict between local residents and the Muslim Rohingya.
About 170 are reported to have been killed in the conflict, which has left thousands of Rohingya confined in displaced persons camps.
Many prefer to take their chances by paying people smugglers and fleeing by sea, with Malaysia as the target for most.
How the Rohingya arrested on December 24 got to Songkhla province in southern Thailand is not known. Part of their journey was probably made by sea.
Brokers on the Thai-Malaysia border are known to systematically transfer Rohingya south from camps hidden in plantations in Thailand with the connivance of officials in both countries.
The arrest of the 127 may have come because the officers at the checkpoint are not part of the system or rival brokers have perhaps fallen out.
The arrests were made by officers from Khuankalong police station in Satun, where Lieutenant Sompong Meechoo said local police were not part of any smuggling group.
''The Rohingya will be trucked straight back to Ranong,'' he said, referring to the Thai-Burma border port hundreds of kilometres to the north where the arrested men and boys could possibly have stopped off on their journey.
Because the arrested Rohingya are inevitably all men and boys, some reports speculate that they could be heading to join the insurgency in Thailand's south.
Thailand's Internal Security Operations Command has checked out these reports over several years but never found evidence to justify them.
Isoc tallies 2817 Rohingya arrested or ''helped on'' in Thailand in October and November.
Other experts in the deep south conflict say there has never been an instance where a single Rohingya has been killed or injured in incriminating circumstances in eight years of conflict.
Chris Lewa, director of the advocacy group Arakan Project, said: ''Rohingya only transit through Thailand on their way to Malaysia, helped on by Thai authorities.
''There has never been any evidence of Rohingya involvement in the deep South insurgency.
''Why should countries in the region repeatedly make these kinds of assumptions just because they are Muslims?''
The Rohingya are protective of their womenfolk, who seldom venture far from home. However, having a boy of 10 among the latest batch of arrests indicates some are becoming more desperate to flee Burma.
Hundreds of Rohingya are believed to be voyaging past the Andaman coast and the holiday island of Phuket this relatively tranquil October-April ''sailing season.''
Those apprehended on land north of Phuket are usually trucked quickly back to Ranong, often described as Burmese to reduce complications.
As stateless non-citizens, the Rohingya are not wanted back in Burma so they are usually delivered to people smugglers.
The smugglers demand extra payments and those who cannot meet the terms are usually put to work in fish factories or indentured to trawlers.
Earlier this month, Singapore refused to allow a Vietnamese cargo ship to dock with 40 Rohingya who survived a sinking in which 200 are thought to have drowned.
All of Burma's Asean neighbors continue to turn a blind eye to the tacit ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya now underway in Burma.
On 24 December 2012 the United Nations General Assembly expressed serious concern over violence between Rohingya Muslims and Buddhists in Burma (Myanmar) and called upon the Government to address reports of human rights abuses by the authorities.
The 193-nation General Assembly approved by consensus a non-binding resolution, which Burma said last month contained a “litany of sweeping allegations, accuracies of which have yet to be verified.”
The UN General Assembly unanimously adopted the resolution “expressing particular concern about the situation of the Rohingya minority in Rakhine state, urges the government to take action to bring about an improvement in their situation and to protect all their human rights, including their right to a nationality.”
The Burmese Government continues to refuse to recognize the Rohingya in breach of international law. The Government stated: “There has been no such ethnic group as Rohingya among the ethnic groups of Burma Despite this fact, the right to citizenship for any member or community has been and will never be denied if they are in line with the law of the land.”
By continuing to persecute the Rohingya community in Burma and by refusing to afford basic rights to the Rohingya community the Burmese Government has demonstrated a refusal to adhere to international norms.
BROUK President Tun Khin said: “We welcome the resolution that seeks to address the outbreak of violence on members of the Rohingya community in Burma and consider that this must be the first step in ensuring justice and accountability in Burma. But it has been more than 6 months thus far, there is no safety or security and the Rohingya continue to face the blocking of aid resulting in the spread of illness and disease. We urgently seek the deployment of UN Peacekeeping Forces and International Observers in Arakan to protect the Rohingya. Furthermore, we urge Member States of the United Nations Human Rights Council to place Burma on the agenda during the March session in Geneva with a view to adopting a resolution to establish an Independent Commission of Inquiry as a matter of priority.”
Despite international outcries the Burmese government is seeking to use the oppressive legislation in the form of The Burma Citizenship Law of 1982 on the homeless Rohingya people whilst most of their documentation was destroyed during a spate of violence in the region. This serves as further intention of the Government to deceive the international community.
BROUK calls upon the organs of the United Nations, following the adoption of the resolution, to bring an end to the campaign of ethnic cleansing on the ethnic Rohingyas and Kaman Muslim community in Arakan.
BROUK calls upon the Office of the High Commissioner to recognize that the ongoing persecution of members of the Rohingya community is part of a widespread or systematic attack on the civilian population as part of a State or Organizational Policy and therefore constitutes a crime against humanity as defined under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
For more information please contact Tun Khin +44 7888 714 866
BDNews24
December 26, 2012
Kolkata - Myanmar's democracy icon Aung Sang Suu Kyi has told a British minister that she is willing to facilitate the process of reconciliation between Buddhist Rakhines and Muslim Rohingyas in the troubled Rakhine state (former Arakans), the 'Guardian' reports.
The Guardian quotes Hugo Swire, a minister of state in the British Foreign office as saying that Suu Kyi, if invited by the Myanmar government, is willing to help.This after Swire met Suu Kyi briefly during his recent visit to Myanmar.
"Suu Kyi has been very clear about this-she is extremely busy. She can't do everything in this country," Swire told the 'Guardian'. "If she is formally invited to get involved, she has indicated to me that she would be very willing to do that."
Swire, who traveled to Myanmar leading a trade delegation, also visited several displaced persons camps in the Rakhine state, accompanied by the British ambassador Andrew Heyn. The 'Guardian' journalist Kate Hodal also joined them.
The 'Guardian' quotes Swire as saying that the 'conditions in the Rakhine state remains extremely worrying' and that unless urgent action is taken, 'the tragedy will continue to deepen for all concerned'.
The 'Guardian' says that until now, 'Aung Sang Suu Kyi' who is considered internationally as Burma's most unifying politicial figure and who has previously stressed the significance of ethnic rights - has been largely absent from debates on this issue (Rohingyas) and it is unclear why she has not played a greater role.
Life for the Rohingya
Since the ethnic fighting broke out in June, much of the Rohingya population have fled their homes, fearing more attacks.
The Sydney Morning Herald
December 25, 2012
They scavenge for grass and plants to eat and live in makeshift camps and town slums surrounded by barbed-wire checkpoints, refugee prisoners in their own country.
December 25, 2012
They scavenge for grass and plants to eat and live in makeshift camps and town slums surrounded by barbed-wire checkpoints, refugee prisoners in their own country.
Sitting among filth and garbage in a bamboo hut Ali Hassan, a 24-year-old former brick worker, pleads for the lives of his newborn twins.
''My babies are starving in front of my eyes. I cannot buy anything now I have no money,'' he says.
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| Dire … Haleema Ahmed, above, scavenges for plants among the weeds and grass to supplement her family's food intake. Photo: Steve Sandford
There is an abundance of fish in the sea and rivers of Burma's western Rakhine state, which borders Bangladesh.
There are also coconuts in the trees and rice in the fields.
But the United Nations's most senior humanitarian official, Valerie Amos, describes conditions in camps where more than 115,000 people displaced by ethnic violence are struggling to survive as ''dire''.
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| Displaced Rohingya children at the edge of Camp Coconut. Photo: Steve Sandford |
''I have seen many camps during my time but the conditions in these camps rank among the worst,'' she says.
The camp occupants are Rohingyas, members of a Muslim minority who are denied Burmese citizenship even though their families have lived in the country for centuries. The UN says they are among the world's most persecuted people.
Following an outbreak of ethnic violence in June and again in October and a subsequent clampdown by Burma's security forces, tens of thousands of Rohingya are prohibited by soldiers from leaving designated areas to work, forage for food or seek medical treatment.
Heartbreaking images emerging from Rakhine, also known as Arakan, point to ethnic cleansing of 800,000 Rohingya, who are seen by the Burmese government and many of the country's Buddhists as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.
Video taken for Fairfax Media in a slum Muslim area of the Rakhine capital, Sittwe, shows a mother of seven, Haleema Ahmed, scavenging for grass and plants to help feed her family, reviving memories of images of starving villagers eating grass in North Korea.
''The food that is being donated to us is not enough to eat. We have to help ourselves to find our own food,'' she says. ''I have to collect grass and plants to sell and eat to fill my empty stomach.''
Zaleena Hatwa, 33, a mother of two boys and three girls, is living in a one-room hut at ''Camp Coconut'', where beachside coconut trees mark a boundary the Rohingya may not cross. ''I fled my house only with the clothes I was wearing … they beat and killed many of us,'' she says.
Zaleena Hatwa says before the violence she had a house and money. ''Now I am forced to live like a crazy street person,'' she says.
There are few Rohingya leaders to speak up internationally for their people, who are referred to by the Burmese Buddhist majority as ''Bengalis'' or the pejorative term for foreigner, ''kalar''.
Abdul Hakim, a cleric at a small Muslim mosque in the Aung Min Glar district of Sittwe, called for the United Nations to intervene to save his people.
''The Rohingya have been living here for 800 years but now the Buddhist want to drive the Rohingya all out of Arakan … they don't want to live together with the Muslim,'' he said. ''We want equal rights and we want the rule of law. We want peace and justice. The UN has the power, if they want to do something, they can.''
Baroness Amos, who visited eight refugee camps recently, called on the Burmese government to promote reconciliation in Rakhine, where she said tensions ''between communities is running very high''.
Her remarks underscored concerns about Burma's stability as it emerges from 50 years of repressive military rule under the reformist government of the President, Thein Sein.
The government and Rakhine community groups have placed extreme restrictions on humanitarian agencies working in Rohingya camps and Muslim areas.
People seen to be working with the Rohingya are often threatened.
Aid workers report seeing starving babies and toddlers so weakened by hunger they sit limply in their parents' arms.
The UN estimates there are 2900 babies and toddlers with acute malnutrition in the camps who may already be beyond help.
Satellite imagery shows extensive destruction of homes and property in Muslim areas following a rapid escalation of violence since June that led to at least 170 deaths.
One 14-hectare coastal area shows almost 1000 razed buildings, houseboats and floating barges. Reports have emerged of mass graves, and human rights organisations cite executions, torture, rapes, beatings, mass arrests and burnings by security forces, mainly against Rohingya.
The violence erupted after reports circulated that on May 28 a Rakhine Buddhist woman had been raped and killed. Retaliation was swift after details were circulated in an incendiary pamphlet.
On June 3, a large group of Rakhine Buddhists stopped a bus and killed 10 Muslims on board. Violence between Rohingya and Rakhine then swept through Sittwe and surrounding areas.
Since October more than 4000 Rohingya have paid smugglers to get on typically leaking and unsafe boats to make the perilous voyage to Muslim-majority Malaysia, where their presence is mostly tolerated. Several hundred have drowned in at least four boat sinkings.
At least one boat a day now leaves the region, its passengers mostly Rohingya men and teenage boys seeking a new life. Many others have fled to Bangladesh, where 400,000 Rohingya are languishing in camps. Bangladesh also considers them illegal immigrants.
In Rakhine state, authorities have begun a process of verifying the nationality of all Muslims, but there are widespread calls for those deemed ''illegal'' to be deported. The goal of the survey is unclear.
A 1982 law enshrines the citizenship of Burma's officially-recognised ethnic groups but the Rohingya were excluded despite their claims to have met the criteria of having ancestors in the country before 1823, the date of the first Anglo-Burmese war. Rohingyas say they can trace their ancestry back to an eighth-century shipwreck on an Arakan island.
Observers say widespread hostility towards the Rohingya throughout Burma is likely to inhibit their naturalisation.
''We have no plan to accept as an ethnic group those who are stateless, or any new tribes who are not officially recognised, like the Rohingya,'' said Zaw Htay, a high-ranking government official.
The opposition leader and democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi has disappointed international supporters by failing to speak up strongly for the Rohingya, prompting speculation she has her eye on 2015 elections.
In a squalid camp near Sittwe, Rashid Ahmad, 63, tells how security forces watched as a Rakhine mob attacked Rohingya residents in his village.
''They started beating and killing people, so my family and my niece's family ran away from the village to the seashore to take a boat,'' Rashid Ahmad said.
''My niece had already got on a boat but a mob of Rakhine people pulled her off the boat with her two children.
''One was a boy and the other a girl. They killed the boy with a long knife and spears … my niece was raped and then killed by the Rakhine mob.''
Rashid Ahmad said his people had lived in Burma for a long time and have a proud history as Muslims ''but have never felt law and justice from the government''.
''We are helpless unless we get help from another country,'' he said.
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| Maung Than Soe (aka) Mohammed Khan |
RB News
December 25, 2012
(Translated into English by M.S. Anwar)
A Letter from a Bleeding Heart to RB News
I, Daw Kyaut Khin at my 41, daughter of U Hla Kyaw, a widow and mother of three children, was born and brought up at the quarter of MyoThuGyi in Sittwe (Akyab), a place where we have been living for generations. On 10th June 2012, when Rakhine terrorists were killing and annihilating Muslims in our quarter, I was struggling to escape the horrific scenes with my two children (my eldest son was away from home on his trip) to save our lives. Meanwhile, my second son, Maung Than Soe @ Mohammed Khan (Son of U Maung Oo Shwe), was arrested and abducted by the two Police officers, Win Tun Oo and Than Shwe, from Police Station No.1.
My Son was trying to escape from the hands of the two Police officers and run away as he was too frightened, he was hacked with sword by the waiting Rakhine (Buddhist) terrorists and consequently got severe injuries on his head and right arm. I could not help and do anything as Police dragged away my son with such injuries. As I was attempting to run for life with my four-year-old child with a broken and bleeding heart, we were beaten and hacked by the Rakhine terrorists. As a result, I had to get my head stitched nine times and my four-year-old daughter also got injuries on her hand.
As I was getting treatment in hospital for the severe injuries I was given, I got a chance to see my son, Maung Than Soe, from a distance, ailing from the critical injuries.
The lawmakers and authority of this country, feel it being in my shoes what and how I would be feeling going through such pains! I can’t explain!
On 19th December 2012, to make my heart bleed more, only the dead of my son, Maung Than Soe, was delivered to me from the above mentioned Police Station No.1. His dead body was full of injuries resulted from the tortures by the inhumane police.
My son was arrested 6-7 months ago and I was never given a chance to see him in the prison. I was never given a chance to provide him with foods and medicines. Which country on earth will have such lawmakers who arrest innocent people alive and return their mere dead bodies!!!
Feel it, how much pain we, weak and vulnerable people, are going through! My father is also a pure Rakhine and my mother is Kaman.
What fault have we done?
Is our fault that we are Muslims?
Concerning the arrest of my son, Police had never given me any notice or any other documents.
Is it that anybody here can be killed, hacked or chopped on mere reason that he/she is Muslim??
Daw Kyaut Khin
Sittwe
BDNews24
December 25, 2012
The UN General Assembly expressed serious concern on Monday over violence between Rohingya Muslims and Buddhists in Myanmar and called upon its government to address reports of human rights abuses by some authorities.
The 193-nation General Assembly approved by consensus a non-binding resolution, which Myanmar said last month contained a "litany of sweeping allegations, accuracies of which have yet to be verified."
Outbreaks of violence between ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and the Rohingyas have killed dozens and displaced thousands since June. Rights groups also have accused Myanmar security forces of killing, raping and arresting Rohingyas after the riots. Myanmar said it exercised "maximum restraint" to quell the violence.
The unanimously adopted UN resolution "expressing particular concern about the situation of the Rohingya minority in Rakhine state, urges the government to take action to bring about an improvement in their situation and to protect all their human rights, including their right to a nationality."
At least 800,000 Muslim Rohingyas live in Rakhine State along the western coast of Myanmar, also known as Burma. But Buddhist Rakhines and other Burmese view them as illegal immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh who deserve neither rights nor sympathy.
The resolution adopted on Monday is identical to one approved last month by the General Assembly's Third Committee, which focuses on human rights. After that vote, Myanmar's mission to the United Nations said that it accepted the resolution but objected to the Rohingyas being referred to as a minority.
"There has been no such ethnic group as Rohingya among the ethnic groups of Myanmar," a representative of Myanmar said at the time. "Despite this fact, the right to citizenship for any member or community has been and will never be denied if they are in line with the law of the land."
G. Surach
KLANG: In a move to equip the Rohinya community with the necessary knowledge and self-belief, non-governmental organization (NGO), Future Global Network Foundation (FGN) recently recently established the Rohingya Education Centre (REC), in Batu Belah, here.
The school which is the second in the country following a similar centre Permatang Pauh, Penang, was initiated by the United Nations High Commissioner Refugees (UNHCR) which funds the program, FGN as the project manager and daily operations is handled by NGO, Wadah Percerdasan Umat Malaysia (WADAH).
FGN chairman, Ahmad Azam Ab Rahman, said the centre which began operations on July 15, currently accommodates over 100 Rohingya students aged between five to 17 years from its community throughout the district.
"We came up with the initiative as we felt that the community as a whole had been going through this stigma of being inferior among other communities in Malaysia.
"Our aim is to instill confidence in their children through basic education, so that they will be able to survive and hold their heads up high when they are equipped to look for a living in the country," he said when met after the launching ceremony, here, today.
Ahmad said that the centre which currently has seven staff including a head master and six teachers, conduct five classes and teach subjects such as Bahasa Melayu, English, Mathematics, Science, Moral Education and Arts to its students.
"The centre operates from 8.30am to 1.30pm from Monday to Friday and after the session ends, the children then attend Islamic religious studies classes at nearby madrasahs.
"Most of the students especially the older ones at first do not even know how to read, write or count in the beginning, but now they are able to speak Bahasa Melayu and read English proficiently following classes" he said.
He said following the success of the first centre, he hoped that this current centre will enable the students one day if Myanmar accepts them as citizens to blend in easily with the society there without fear or prejudice.
He added that in the future, students who excel well in their studies will be sponsored to pursue their secondary education at private schools.
The United Nations has reported that the Rohingya community who hail from the Rakhine state of western Myanmar is one of the most persecuted minorities in the world.
Many Rohingya have fled to ghettos and refugee camps in neighbouring Bangladesh and the Thai- Myanmar border following ethnic unrest for the past 35 years.
There at least 24,000 Rohingyas refugees in Malaysia.
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| Protesters in Malaysia are asking the Myanmar government to end the violence in Western Myanmar and the atrocities committed against Rohingya people. (Photo - Mohd Fazrul Hasnor @ Demotix) |
Rebecca Henschke
Asia Calling
December 15, 2012
When 28-year-old Khairul Bashar took to sea for the first time, he left behind all that he had ever known. He is a Rohingya, born in Burma from the Maung Saw Township but he has never been given citizenship.
After suffering years of discrimination things go worse in June. The rape and murder of a Buddhist woman triggered a wave of violence against the Rohingya.
After seeing members of his community being killed Khairul fled to Malaysia.
Rebecca Henschke spoke with him in an apartment block in Kuala Lumpur where many Rohingya are now sheltering in.
“To save my own life I had to leave my own native land.”
Q. Can you tell me what happened? What happened to you and your family?
“With out saying anything they attacked.”
Q. What did they do?
“They killed.”
Q. You saw that with your own eyes?
“I saw 50 people with knifes come and attack and killed 5 members. Two are a little young and one is old over 60 years.”
Q. You saw these people being killed. Did you know the killers? Were they your neighbors?
“See. Everyday they are not far from our village. Their village is beside our village. We are from Kayin, Maung Saw Township. Continously they attack. So killing for two days and then they start arresting people who are educated and a little wealthy. After they are arrested we don’t where they go.”
Q. Educated wealthy Rohingya started to be arrested?
“Only our Rohingya not Rakine. They explain to us that they are concerned about that problem so we need to arrest you.”
Khairul has a degree in sociology. His family feared that he would be arrested next, so he left...
First to Bangladesh, where he has relatives living in refugee camps. He crossed the border by swimming across a river.
“We collected 75 members we gathered some money and we buy one boat which is suitable for 75 members. It’s an old boat not new. They had no driver. I drive. I have some experience about diesel engine.”
Q. Was it dangerous with the waves?
“So dangerous! After 19 days we are in Thailand.”
Q. How did you cross the border from Thailand into Malaysia illegal?
“There is forest. So we come through the forest. We walked 11 hours and then take a car.”
Q. Do you free safe now?
“What kind of safe! I am illegal here. I can not work. If I am arrest by the police what can I say to them? So i can not work.”
So we have climbed up the stairs of an apartment building not far from the centre of Kuala Lumpur.
If you look out from the apartment building you can see the Twin Towers. Here many of the Rohingya refugees are now living because this is where the community head lives.
We have just been told that someone arrived yesterday from the Rakhine state so we are going to met them....
Q. Are there many Rohingya families here?
“Around six or seven.”
We enter an empty two-bedroom apartment. Around eight people are sitting on the floor.
Khin Tun greets us. He arrived with his family of four yesterday by plane from Rangoon where he used to run an art gallery. He and his family have Burmese citizenship.
His wife’s family is from the Kyaukphyu township. In October the entire Muslim quarter—more than 300 houses belonging to the Rohingya community was burned to the ground in communal violence.
Khin’s family now lives in a refugee camp. But he described to me how they called him when their houses were on fire in October.
“All my family is there. Everyday they call crying...crying..”
“Hour by hour they call me what is happening now.”
Q. What did they say?
“I hear lots of sounds that I had never heard in my life. Some are crying. So are calling the God Allah, some say the water...lots of things. It was very noisey. I cry all the time. I am listening on the phone and I say Run!.. so they run. Especially the women and children are crying.”
“She fears that the same conflict that is happening in Rakhine will come to Yangoon. Now they are sending all the people to the camps. What is the meaning of the camps? Why do these people have to be refugees? These people have their own lives, they have their own homes and business they are human beings now they are in the camp. I think the next person will be me. Eventhough I live in Rangoon, they will come and pick me up.”
Q. Where you getting any phone call or messages to tell you that you would be taken to the camps?
“I have friends working in the government, they are my university friends they told me that I should leave before you have to go to the camps so that’s why I decided to leave.”
Q. Did you imagine that this kind of violence would happen against your people? Did you think it would get this bad?
“No I never thought. I never thought they would kill and try and wipe us all out. Then they say we are the immigrants...immigrant from 300-400 years! What do they want from us?”
Q. What do you want to do now? What are your plans for the future now that you have arrived in Malaysia?
“Right now I am on a passport for Malaysia but after two months it will expire and after that I will have to run illegally. Right now I am trying to get in contact with the UN and trying to get in contact with lots of people in the whole world because two years ago I was working in an American company in Afghanistan so I have lots of friends world wide...So I sent an email to them and they cry. We cannot live in Malaysia; this is their country not ours. We need to go home. No one can get your home back for you we need to get our home back!”
Khin Tun, a Rohingya Burmese who recently arrived in Malaysia with his family of four seeking asylum. He was speaking with Rebecca Henschke.
Correction: Maung Saw = Maung Daw (RB News)
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| A Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh near the border of Myanmar. (Photo Auniket @ Demotix (10/15/2012) |
Mong Palatino
Global Voices
December 23, 2012
After being adrift at sea for more than 30 hours, 40 Rohingya refugees were rescued by a Vietnamese ship, MV Nosco Victory, on December 5, 2012. A few days after, the ship reached Singapore but the government refused entry to the Rohingya survivors. Singapore netizens and human rights groups reacted strongly to the decision of authorities to send away the refugees.
Maruah reminds the government to treat distressed people humanely:
Government ministers have touched on values emerging as a major strand in the Our Singapore Conversation; what then is the value being espoused by the Singapore Government, when it implicitly advocates that the Rohingya should have been left at sea? How would we want ships to treat Singaporeans stranded at sea?
Singaporeans have clearly articulated a desire for Singapore to become a more humane and compassionate society. The way that we treat distressed people fleeing genocide seems a good place to start.
The Singapore Democratic Partythinks the right decision was to give temporary shelter to the Rohingya:
It was wrong to turn them away as they were in need of food and medical help. The right thing to do would be to afford them temporary shelter and to ensure their physical safety. The refugees can then be repatriated at a later time.
Singaporeans are a compassionate people and the Government representing us should not be cold and cruel, one that calculates everything in material terms.
Where Bears Roam Free accuses the government of being ‘heartless’:
For all the effort S'pore has made to gain first world status, this incident shames Singapore to the core. We have a heartless govt. Just 40 people and we can't shelter them temporarily? Forget about the argument “more will come”. That argument means that you are willing to allow 40 to die because you are not confident you can take more.
Limpeh debunks the government arguments for rejecting the Rohingya:
…when you are fleeing genocide or war, you just run and go wherever you can get to, it's not the same as economic migrants shopping around for a nice place to work. Even if it means simply allowing desperate refugees temporary shelter whilst waiting for transit to a third country willing to take refugees, that means simply offering them shelter for a few weeks or months - is that too much to ask?
There is a long and heated exchange of opinion on Facebook about the issue:
Eng Patrick my heart will weep with joy seeing their happiness knowing somebody cares. i feel singapore can house them for a period of time while they seek a permanent home elsewhere. sad to see them turned away.
Cedric Koh They are a persecuted minority in their homeland.If we don't help them, their entire race, their culture,their ways of life, will be extinct, and what we are doing equates to sending them to their own deaths.
D-jin Toh By not helping them we are not saying we are condoning anything. By not helping them, we are saying we will not help them, nothing more. There are millions of refugees worldwide, by not helping them, does that mean that for all these years we have condoned war, slavery, violence, genocide etc.?
One last thing, I am not against helping these people, but I am against letting them in. Give them some food and water, then sending them on their way to another country would be the better choice in my opinion.
Frankie Png There many countries which are huge with own resources cannot even accept them. We have no resources and land, how can we open our doors. Giving them food and medicines which is already a generosity for a small island with 8 million people. This is so hard to please, humanity or sustainability?
Desparatebeep is disappointed with the politicians who sent away the refugees:
Perhaps the politicians are seeing something that I don’t see here but who we show compassion to seem grossly wrong. When Westerners who have been screwed out of their homes decide to turn on the bankers who screwed them, we rush to show compassion to the bankers. When people flee being imminent slaughter, we decide that they’re not worthy of our compassion. Not sure where the logic in that comes from.
A Singapore twitter user is also saddened by the decision of the government:
@chotemiya3 If the reports of Singapore turning away the ship carrying Rohingya refugees are true, then i am truly ashamed to call myself a Singaporean.
Rohingya is an ethnic group which is struggling for recognition in Myanmar. But the government of Myanmar continues to refuse to grant citizenship rights to Rohingya residents. Local conflicts erupted this year involving Rakhine and Rohingya villagers in Western Myanmar. The government has denied that the Rohingyas are victims of genocide and religious persecution.
Fortunately, Malaysia agreed to give shelter to the 40 Rohingya refugees.
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| Rohingya Muslims, trying to cross the Naf river into Bangladesh to escape sectarian violence in Burma, look on from an intercepted boat in Teknaf on June 13, 2012. (Photo - AFP) |
Caryl Thompson
Global Policy
December 21, 2012
ASEAN Human Rights Declaration Provokes Controversy
Since its inception in 1967, the ten-member Southeast Asian alliance, ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) has focused on promoting regional co-operation, regional identity and trade links. For the most part, the human rights of its 600 million inhabitants have failed to attract the Association’s attention.
The ASEAN Declaration of Human Rights announced recently at the ASEAN leaders’ 21st summit held in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, would, therefore, ostensibly appear to be a positive new direction for the organisation. However, rather than welcoming this development, civil society and grassroots groups across the region and globally have united in criticising the document. The U.S. Department of State has announced that “we are deeply concerned that many of the ASEAN Declaration’s principles and articles could weaken and erode universal human rights and fundamental freedoms as contained in the UDHR [UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights]”.
That such opposing views have developed in a region that is increasingly regarded as pivotal in International Relations should be a cause for concern. By adopting a rigorous non-interventionist approach to human rights violations in other member states, are the nations of ASEAN simply recognizing the sovereignty of others or could they be unwittingly fostering conditions that may threaten their own security?
The mutual recognition of sovereignty adopted by ASEAN members is fundamental to its decision-making processes, encapsulated by “consultation and consensus ” and an enduring principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of member states. Thus while espousing the rhetoric of human rights, the Declaration firmly maintains that it is the responsibility of individual sovereign member states to establish and maintain freedom and rights for their national citizens, a principle to which several appear reluctant to commit.
As a result the Declaration has been denounced as “culturally relativist” with domestic laws superseding universal principles of freedoms and basic rights. While such external critiques may be dismissed by the members of ASEAN, they cannot ignore the more immediate internal consequences of their adopted position and the very real possibility that human rights violations in one member state will have potential repercussions for the security of others.
To Interfere or Not to Interfere: The Rohingya Question
One example of the unintended consequences of the communal silence that ASEAN has adopted on human rights violations by member states is demonstrated by the spill-over effects of the ethnic tensions that have erupted and the resultant state-sponsored repression in the Rakhine district of Western Myanmar.
The ethnic and religious tensions currently engulfing Rakhine state, a strip of land on Myanmar’s western coast are a legacy of British colonialism. Under British rule, thousands of Bengalis from the neighbouring region that today is Bangladesh were encouraged to migrate to the Rakhine area largely as indentured labour. This predominantly Muslim community who have lived in the area for generations and those that have followed them more recently, the Rohingya, are currently caught in a cycle of violence of lethal intensity with the indigenous, largely Buddhist majority.
While tensions have existed historically between the communities and violence has occurred previously, the government has been firm in resisting international demands for a peaceful resolution to the current situation and has deflected criticism by portraying the situation as a domestic issue.
The Myanmar government only recognizes as citizens those who were settled in the country prior to independence in 1948. Those unable to meet these stringent criteria are denied citizenship and are effectively stateless, condemned as illegal immigrants and denied basic human rights.
Following the rape and murder of a young Buddhist woman in the region in May 2012 , a humanitarian crisis has developed in which both Rohingya and Buddhist communities have acted with lethal mutual animosity. Inter-communal violence has led to the killing of hundreds; thousands of homes and many villages have been destroyed. The UN estimates that over 100,000 Rohingya have been forcibly displaced to camps and villages along the Bangladeshi border, where conditions have been described by the UN Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, Baroness Amos as “dire” .
So what has been ASEAN’s response to this humanitarian crisis in its own back yard given its recent Declaration of Human Rights?
Following the Phnom Penh summit, the ASEAN Chairman’s statement of November 18, 2012 offered support for the “humanitarian challenges” arising from the violence in Rakhine state but fell short of overt criticism of the Myanmar government. Indeed, in a joint statement following a subsequent meeting two days later with US President, Barack Obama, ASEAN leaders “welcomed positive steps being taken in Myanmar that could facilitate national reconciliation, and encouraged further progress towards a democratic and open political and economic system ”, thereby heaping praise on the Myanmar regime for its apparent move towards democratization whilst ignoring the systematic human rights abuses that continue within the state.
However, the impact of the situation in the Rakhine district has repercussions beyond Myanmar’s national borders and affects other ASEAN members.
Shooting Yourself in the Foot ASEAN–style
While, as noted above, many Rohingya have sought refuge in neighbouring Bangladesh, others have fled further afield for sanctuary in Malaysia, another ASEAN member also predominantly Muslim, which has become a preferred destination for those seeking a safe haven from the violence. The UNHCR in Malaysia estimates that there are approximately 25,000 Rohingya in Malaysia, but other estimates put the numbers much higher at around 90,000.
While Malaysian Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak, has expressed concern about the plight of the Rohingya community in Myanmar and called for the “violence committed against them to be stopped immediately” in a speech to the UMNO General Assembly on 29th November, 2012, his country faces the predicament of having to receive sudden large inflows of displaced Rohingya into the community.
Moreover, as Malaysia is not a signatory to the UN Convention for Refugees, the Rohingya in Malaysia are denied official access to temporary employment, medical and health services and education, thereby further undermining their human security. Furthermore, concerns have been expressed that the desperate conditions facing the Rohingya could lead to radicalization.
While criticism has been targeted at the recent ASEAN Declaration of Human Rights for apparently privileging domestic laws over universal principles, it could also be argued that the Declaration is myopic and self-defeating. While upholding the inviolability of state jurisdiction on human rights issues, it fails to recognize that the effects of human rights violations cannot necessarily be confined within national borders and may have ramifications that affect other members, as the current situation emanating in Myanmar all too sadly demonstrates. If the members of ASEAN are really dedicated to human rights for all the peoples of the region then a more critical stance may be called for.
Caryl Thompson is a researcher with the Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies at the University of Nottingham.
Bangkok Post
December 24, 2012
At least 3,000 Rohingya people are passing through Thailand to Malaysia each year, according to a security official.
The intelligence services officer, who asked not to be named, said that Rohingya, who are Muslims from Rakhine state in Myanmar, arrive in Thailand's Ranong province and then travel by boat to Satun province before continuing on to the Malaysian state of Kelantan.
This figure did not include those who move by land, he told the Bangkok Post.
Most of them work as day labourers, mainly at rubber and palm plantations across the region. Many Rohingya have also gone to the Middle East, especially Saudi Arabia. Some have been naturalised in their adopted countries.
The Rohingya are usually welcomed by Muslims in other countries because they are outgoing and have a strong work ethic.
However, he believed that many male Rohingya migrants were trained as foreign fighters and work as mercenaries. Some might even be involved with the armed insurgent groups active in the southernmost region of Thailand, he said.
Emirates News Agency
December 23, 2012
H.H. Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Foreign Minister, has received messages from foreign ministers Sergey Lavrov of Russia and Laurent Fabius of France, and Prof. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, Secretary-General of Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, and Baroness Catherine Ashton, High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, dealing with the tragic conditions of Rohingya, the Muslim minority in Myanmar.
Sheikh Abdullah got these notes in reply to messages he sent to the parties concerned in which he called on the international community to address the ordeal the Muslim minority was experiencing.
In their messages, the ministers thanked Sheikh Abdullah for his call to protect the Rohingya from human rights abuses, repression and ethnic cleansing they were undergoing at the hands of the Myanmar government security forces.
They stressed the need for the international community to take appropriate measures to put an end to massacres and acts that violate principles of basic human rights.
Fars News Agency
December 22, 2012
TEHRAN - An Iranian Parliamentary delegation will visit Myanmar next month to study the situation of the oppressed Muslim minority in the country, a senior legislator informed on Saturday.
"The preliminary agreements have been made for the visit of the Iranian parliamentary delegation to Myanmar," Vice-Chairman of the parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Mansour Haqiqatpour told FNA on Saturday.
He noted that officials of the Iranian Red Crescent Society (IRCS), Iranian foreign ministry, and the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) will be accompanying the delegation during the visit to Myanmar to study the situation of the Muslims in that country.
More than 22,000 people from mainly Muslim communities have been forced to flee their homes in Western Myanmar after a fresh wave of violence and arson that left dozens dead, the UN said in a report on October 29.
The whole neighborhoods were razed in Buddhists' attack on Muslims in Rakhine state a week earlier.
Some 75,000 people are already crammed into overcrowded camps following clashes in June.
The United Nations chief in Yangon, Ashok Nigam, said government estimates provided in late October said that 22,587 people had been displaced and 4,665 houses set ablaze in the latest bloodshed.
"These are people whose houses have been burnt, they are still in the same locality," he told AFP, indicating that thousands more who had fled in boats towards the state capital Sittwe may not be included in that estimate.
"It is mainly the Muslims who have been displaced," he said, adding that 21,700 of those made homeless were Muslims.
The latest attack against Muslims has killed more than 80 people, according to a government official, bringing the total death toll since June to above 170.
Human Rights Watch on Saturday released satellite images showing "extensive destruction of homes and other property in a predominantly Rohingya Muslim area" of Kyaukpyu.
Myanmar's 800,000 Rohingya are seen as illegal immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh by the government and many Burmese - who call them "Bengalis".
The United Nations considers Rohingya as one of the most persecuted minorities on the planet.
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Previously banned newspapers and magazines are now freely available in Myanmar's towns and cities.
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Aung Zaw
CNN
December 21, 2012
The new era of openness in Burma has spread hope and anxiety among the country's journalists at home and abroad.
This year, many exiled journalists have visited Burma -- which became known as Myanmar under the previous military junta -- while some publications and news organizations, previously based outside the once-reclusive state, have decided to open offices inside the country.
This week, our publication The Irrawaddy magazine will hit newsstands in the capital, Yangon, for the first time since it was founded by Burmese exiles two decades ago to provide an independent view of the situation in Burma under the authoritarian regime. Our staff, who secretly worked with us for many years inside the country at considerable risk to themselves, now report from our new offices there.
Does this mean the changes here are concrete and promising? I am cautiously optimistic. Therefore, our strategy now is to keep one foot in and one foot out -- we will maintain our headquarters in Thailand.
This is the first time we have received permission to print and distribute the magazine inside the country. It wasn't too long ago that it was unthinkable to carry and read such a publication freely in public, let alone distribute it.
In the past, we have sent our magazines to Burma using clandestine channels, while our website was blocked inside the country until recently.
Since I returned to Burma early this year for the first time in 24 years, I have met many opposition leaders and activists who spent several years in prisons or under house arrest, and they told me they somehow managed to get hold of copies of The Irrawaddy.
Win Tin, a leading member of opposition party the National League for Democracy (NLD), spent 19 years in prison. He told me in February that he sometimes received the magazine while he was under detention in the infamous Insein Prison in the capital -- a facility known for its inhumane conditions and torture of inmates.
Tin Oo, co-founder of the NLD and former commander in chief of the armed forces during the 1970s, spoke highly of The Irrawaddy. When I asked him how he knew of it, he replied: "When I was under house arrest, I received it through a diplomatic channel. I read it again and again, and when military intelligence service came to see me at my house I had to hide it.
"They could double the prison sentence if they saw the magazine," he added with a chuckle.
Burmese officials and several senior leaders whom I met and interviewed in Burma know the magazine -- I sensed mixed feelings as they have a deep-rooted fear as well as respect for the magazine and our website. I remembered General Khin Nyunt, a feared spy chief who ran a torture chamber and kept politicians and activists under lock and key, once publicly told a visiting delegation that they should not read The Irrawaddy.
Today, I see the media landscape is changing as reporters enjoy more freedom to cover and report stories that would have been subjected to censorship in the past. I hope these changes are real and irreversible.
Since coming to power, President Thein Sein has taken major steps to open up the country. In his early speeches he mentioned the importance of the fourth pillar in society and revealed that both he and his office follow media reports from both inside and outside the country.
In August, the Ministry of Information told editors of weekly journals that their outlets "no longer need to pass the censorship board." Tint Swe, the head of the country's Press Scrutiny and Registration Division (PSRD), added that the easing of restrictions was the result of a change of policy.
Journalists who faced pressure and imprisonment in Burma have cautiously welcomed the announcement that they will no longer be required to submit articles to the country's draconian censorship board. But they are very aware that "Big Brother" is still there to monitor and watch.
The move is not enough to restore media freedom. However, it is safe to say that the government has made a concession after previously shutting down local journals and facing pressure and street protests from journalists.
The government still continues to monitor news and bulletins, and the censorship board is still active and has not been abolished. Burma's 1962 Printers and Publishers Registration Act is still there -- the act was imposed shortly after former dictator General Ne Win seized power.
In fact, ever more weekly journals have been facing defamation lawsuits from government officials and businessmen.
It is still sensitive to write about corruption cases involving current and former officials, especially when looking at Burma's relations with North Korea and China.
The Ministry of Information still controls publishing licenses and any publication that harms the reputation of a government department can still be reprimanded under the Printers and Publishers Registration Act. Publishers can also face heavy sentences under Burma's Penal Code if they are found guilty of inciting the public to participate in unlawful activity. Meanwhile, state-owned newspapers still distribute the same propaganda, while a number of former generals in the previous regime own several leading weekly dailies. Their mission appears not about promoting independent journalism and rational debate in this fragile transition period but about making money.
Meanwhile, all publications are required to follow guidelines designed to protect the three national causes: non-disintegration of the country, non-disintegration of national solidarity and the perpetuation of sovereignty.
Journalists say that the notorious 2004 Electronics Act also remains in place, with many activists, journalists, bloggers and social media commentators behind bars for sending prohibited information, messages or photos through the Internet. Many face between seven and 15 years in jail and may also be liable for a fine.
In Burma, most journalists exercise heavy self-censorship, and this will continue.
During the wave of sectarian violence in Rahkine state recently, local media appeared wary about reporting on the ongoing violence against Muslim Rohingya populations. Sadly they take a racist and populist editorial stance against this oppressed population. In fact, the media seemed reluctant to criticize the government when police applied excessive force to crack down on peaceful demonstrators and monks during a recent protest at copper mine -- despite widespread condemnation from elsewhere, including Democracy activist and lawmaker Aung San Suu Kyi.
There is still a long way to go until Burmese reporters are able to freely write and publish sensitive stories, engage in proper investigative reporting and provide quality journalism in Burma. We've been waiting for this opportunity to enter Burma, but we know that there are limits. We're still testing the water.
Editor's note: Aung Zaw is founding editor of The Irrawaddy, an independent publication that for decades operated in exile in Thailand in defiance of Myanmar's ruling military junta. Previously a student activist, he was forced to flee the country in the wake of a massive pro-democracy uprising in the Burmese capital in 1988.
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