Brendan Brady

The Daily Beast

June 27, 2013

Muslims from an obscure ethnic group in western Burma have become targets of vicious Buddhist mob attacks. Brendan Brady reports from Rakhine state on the increasing violence.

As mobs wielding torches and machetes rampaged through his neighborhood, Abdul had a strangely candid encounter with one assailant. Recognizing the man as his long-time neighbor – the same man who had once showed great affection towards Abdul’s children – Abdul yelled to his would-be executioner: "‘Why are you doing this?’ He told me, ‘Sorry, I’m fighting for my people.’” Abdul, whose full name is withheld to protect his identity, is a Muslim from the Rohingya ethnic group and his attacker, a Buddhist. Abdul kept him and other members of the mob at bay by throwing his valuables out of his window onto the street. As they were distracted collecting the cash and jewelry, another group of Buddhists from his street approached his house from the rear. They, too, were armed but they had come to escort Abdul and his family out of the besieged neighborhood. “They saved our lives.”

The conflict in western Burma’s Rakhine State erupted last June, when reports spread that a Buddhist woman was raped and murdered by three Rohingya men. Shortly after, a mob of Buddhists exacted retribution by pulling over a bus carrying Muslims and beating ten passengers to death. The incidents ignited sectarian violence throughout the state. Nearly 200 were killed and many more injured, and some 10,000 homes were destroyed. The vast majority of the estimated 140,000 displaced were Rohingyas, and a year after their violent upheaval they continue to languish in squalid temporary encampments. 

In recent months, the violence spread to include attacks on Muslim communities in other parts of the country. In March, provoked by a small dispute in a Muslim-owned gold shop, a Buddhist mob tore through a town in central Burma, killing over 40 people, burning mosques and Muslim homes, and displacing thousands. In May, 1,200 Muslims in the country’s northeast fled from their homes when throngs of armed Buddhists mobilized after unconfirmed reports that a Muslim man killed a Buddhist woman in the area. 

The turmoil carries worrying implications for national reconciliation and the sustainability of democratic reforms in Burma, also known as Myanmar, which is in the first stages of transitioning from military to civilian rule. Since independence, in 1948, Burma’s government has been in alternately hot and cold conflicts with myriad ethnic minority groups in the country’s border regions. The xenophobic generals who seized power by coup in 1962 justified their iron-fisted rule as necessary to hold together a fractured country. The junta stepped down in 2011 and Burma’s new semi-civilian government has carried out surprisingly comprehensive reforms: loosening controls on political association, civil society and the press, as well as releasing hundreds of political prisoners. But fresh sectarian violence serves as fodder to the army’s insistence on remaining a backstop to the fragile civilian government and maintaining ultimate authority. It also raises questions about how far democratic reforms will extend to minorities. 

Regarded in many quarters as the most persecuted ethnic group in Asia, the Rohingya live in the borderlands between Burma and Bangladesh but are officially a stateless people. There are around a million Rohingyas in Burma today. Their exact roots are debated but many likely settled in Burma in the 19th century, having migrated from modern-day Bangladesh into the newly-acquired lands of the British empire. Today, the Rohingya, along with a few other maligned minorities, are excluded from the 135 ethnic groups Burma’s government recognizes as citizens. Many Burmese say the Rohingya should “go back” to Bangladesh, whose government also disavows the Rohingya. Among other consequences of apartheid policies against them, the Rohingya need special permission to travel and marry and face severe discrimination in access to employment, education and medical care.

Last year’s violence unveiled particularly chilling dimensions of racial and religious hatred towards the Rohingya. When the wife of Mohamed Salam was found dead floating in a river, her body carried a sinister message. She was abducted along with two of her children in June, and Salam was later told by sympathetic Buddhists how they had died. According to them, her captors said her breasts gave milk to Muslim babies and her womb gave birth to future generations of Muslims. Her breasts were then hacked off and her genitalia mutilated with sharpened bamboo. Her teenage son was tethered to a motorbike and dragged across a rocky road. Salam would not elaborate on how his daughter met her end. Today, he cares for his remaining 5-year-old boy in a camp for displaced people outside of Sittwe, the state capital, and the prospect of receiving justice is even more illusory than his chances of returning to his home and job. 

Human Rights Watch alleges last year’s bloodshed amounted to ethnic cleansing. In a detailed report released in April, the international rights monitor said state security forces did more to facilitate than to prevent abuses against Rohingyas, and sometimes even directly participated in atrocities. The group profiled one particularly brutal episode, last October, in which 70 Rohingyas, including 28 children, were left easy prey for a Buddhist mob to butcher after local riot police disarmed the Rohingyas of rudimentary weapons they carried to defend themselves. The report said local Buddhist politicians and monks publicly demonized the Rohingya – describing them as a threat to Burmese society and encouraging their removal from the state – “in full view” of authorities, “who raised no concerns”. Burmese rights groups have criticized Human Rights Watch’s assessment as one-sided, and instead described the violence as “communal”. 

Such labels aside, what may be most foreboding are the dim prospects for a normalization (in relative terms) of life for Rohingyas in Burma. Time has not softened the vitriol many Buddhists in Rakhine State feel towards the group. “We cannot go back to living together,” says Hla Moe Thu, a 58-year-old Buddhist woman living in a camp for displaced people on the outskirts of Sittwe. “They should go to Bangladesh, where they came from, or they should be killed,” she adds, as her grandchild sits beside her. According to Ashin Ariya, the head monk of Shwezedi Monastery in Sittwe, Rohingyas have wicked designs: to rape Buddhist women, colonize Buddhist land, and convert non-Muslims to Islam. “The Muslims like to kill people and rape women, and they want to take over the whole area and make everyone Muslim,” he says matter-of-factly. 

Paradoxically, democratic reforms have fed the jingoistic chorus. Over the past year, Burma’s new government has dialed back the heavy press and Internet censorship of the previous military regime, allowing journalists greater independence and web users nearly limitless access to sites. But freedom of speech has unleashed pent-up prejudices. Online forums contain rafts of posts referring to the Rohingya in expletive-filled terms, and Burmese newspapers have shown the Rohingya no quarter. Eleven, one of Burma’s largest-circulation newspapers, has focused its coverage of Rakhine State on slamming the Rohingya. Ho Than Hlaing, their correspondent in Sittwe, says the “Bengalis” living in relief camps are quarrelsome freeloaders who receive better care than displaced Buddhists – in fact, conditions in camps for the much smaller number of displaced Buddhists are markedly better than those in Rohingya camps, some of which are blocked by authorities from receiving international aid.

The rhetoric has carried over into daily life. A recently launched campaign urges Burmese to only patronize shops that display “969” signs– a code referring to Buddhist teaching – in their storefronts. The group of zealous monks spearheading the movement allege it is intended to promote Buddhist pride, but its true aim seems to be to marginalize Muslims. 

Aung Naing Oo, a member of the Myanmar Peace Center, a governmental group that advises on ethnic disputes, likens the dangerous nationalism in Burma today to the escalation of ethnic tensions in former Yugoslavia after the fall of the Soviet Union: no longer fettered by the strictures of a military state, people are freer to act on long-suppressed prejudices. But even within this scheme, animosity towards the Rohingyas is singularly severe. Indeed, they are viewed both as carpet-bagging intruders and low-caste detritus. “Indians” – including various peoples from the subcontinent and those with South Asian features – are resented in Burma because many arrived following the British takeover and soon emerged as a dominant group in urban commerce. Rohingyas are viewed with particular suspicion and scorn for their religion and distinctly dark skin. And, to top it off, they are seen to epitomize the existential threat posed by neighboring Bangladesh, whose large and poor population Burmese feel is perpetually on the cusp of spilling over en masse into Burma. 

The turmoil in Rakhine State is further complicated by hostilities between the local Buddhist population, from the Arakanese ethnic group, and the Burman majority and central government they dominate. The Arakanese were the ancestors of a small kingdom that used to control what is modern-day Rakhine State and, like many ethnic groups in Burma, they desire autonomy. Beyond ethnic pride, the Arakanese resent that Rakhine is Burma’s second-poorest state despite its natural riches – the area’s timber, oil, gas and precious metals have for decades been pillaged by the military and their cronies. “Our people want a real federal state with self-determination and our share of profits from natural resources,” says Than Thun, a community leader in Sittwe. But Arakanese autonomists like Than Thun have, for the time being, found common cause with the central government in directing their ire towards the Rohingya, who are easy scapegoats. 

Few figures inside Burma have spoken out against the anti-Rohingya sloganeering. Most conspicuous has been the near silence of the country’s iconic human rights and democracy icon, Aung San Suu Kyi. After 15 years under house arrest, Suu Kyi is now a parliamentarian and has political calculations to consider. Observers believe she sees support for the Rohingya as going treacherously against the tide of popular opinion. The new president, Thein Sein, has said he will crackdown on “political opportunists and religious extremists”, but his intentions and ability to control eruptions of violence remain unclear. Thein Sein is a former high-ranking general who has surprised many in and outside the country with his moderation but that may not extend to his feelings towards the Rohingya. And observers note the upper-echelons of his government remain stocked with former military figures who delight in the potential for sectarian violence to steer power back towards the army. 

In the meantime, Rohingyas in and outside the camps are in greater numbers turning to the sea to escape their dire prospects. Chris Lewa, head of the Arakan Project, an NGO that tracks rights abuses in Rakhine State, estimates that nearly 28,000 Rohingya attempted to flee through the Bay of Bengal during the recent dry season, three times the normal rate. The journey is perilous: hundreds die every year from starvation, dehydration and drowning aboard barges that are ill-equipped for ocean travel and steered by mercenary crews. 

In Boomay – a Rohingya quarter just outside of Sittwe that is hemmed in by a series of army checkpoints – a group of men in a shanty teashop are watching an ancient television tuned to a news channel with footage of Rohingyas on barges intercepted by the Bangladeshi navy. The program shows Rohingyas kneeling under tarps on the deck of a boat as waves come crashing against the bow. The teashop’s owner pays little attention to scenes of horror – she has already determined her daughter will attempt a similar voyage to join her husband in Malaysia, where he is working illegally but earning steady wages. “If we could stay here in peace and have some freedom, then it would be better to stay here and not take this risk,” says the daughter, who is in her early twenties and plans to take her five-year-old child along. “But we don’t know if that will ever be the case.”

Andrew R.C. Marshall

Reuters

June 27, 2013

YANGON - The Buddhist extremist movement in Myanmar, known as 969, portrays itself as a grassroots creed.

Its chief proponent, a monk named Wirathu, was once jailed by the former military junta for anti-Muslim violence and once called himself the "Burmese bin Laden."

But a Reuters examination traces 969's origins to an official in the dictatorship that once ran Myanmar, and which is the direct predecessor of today's reformist government. The 969 movement now enjoys support from senior government officials, establishment monks and even some members of the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD), the political party of Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

Wirathu urges Buddhists to boycott Muslim shops and shun interfaith marriages. He calls mosques "enemy bases."

Among his admirers: Myanmar's minister of religious affairs.

"Wirathu's sermons are about promoting love and understanding between religions," Sann Sint, minister of religious affairs, told Reuters in his first interview with the international media. "It is impossible he is inciting religious violence."

Sann Sint, a former lieutenant general in Myanmar's army, also sees nothing wrong with the boycott of Muslim businesses being led by the 969 monks. "We are now practicing market economics," he said. "Nobody can stop that. It is up to the consumers."

President Thein Sein is signaling a benign view of 969, too. His office declined to comment for this story. But in response to growing controversy over the movement, it issued a statement Sunday, saying 969 "is just a symbol of peace" and Wirathu is "a son of Lord Buddha."

Wirathu and other monks have been closely linked to the sectarian violence spreading across Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. Anti-Muslim unrest simmered under the junta that ran the country for nearly half a century. But the worst fighting has occurred since the quasi-civilian government took power in March 2011.

Two outbursts in Rakhine State last year killed at least 192 people and left 140,000 homeless, mostly stateless Rohingya Muslims. A Reuters investigation found that organized attacks on Muslims last October were led by Rakhine nationalists incited by Buddhist monks and sometimes abetted by local security forces.

In March this year, at least 44 people died and 13,000 were displaced - again, mostly Muslims - during riots in Meikhtila, a city in central Myanmar. Reuters documented in April that the killings happened after monks led Buddhist mobs on a rampage. In May, Buddhists mobs burned and terrorized Muslim neighborhoods in the northern city of Lashio. Reports of unrest have since spread nationwide.

The numbers 969, innocuous in themselves, refer to attributes of the Buddha, his teachings and the monkhood. But 969 monks have been providing the moral justification for a wave of anti-Muslim bloodshed that could scuttle Myanmar's nascent reform program. Another prominent 969 monk, Wimala Biwuntha, likens Muslims to a tiger who enters an ill-defended house to snatch away its occupants.

"Without discipline, we'll lose our religion and our race," he said in a recent sermon. "We might even lose our country."

Officially, Myanmar has no state religion, but its rulers have long put Buddhism first. Muslims make up an estimated 4 percent of the populace. Buddhism is followed by 90 percent of the country's 60 million people and is promoted by a special department within the ministry of religion created during the junta.

EASY SCAPEGOATS

Monks play a complex part in Burmese politics. They took a central role in pro-democracy "Saffron Revolution" uprisings against military rule in 2007. The generals - who included current President Thein Sein and most senior members of his government - suppressed them. Now, Thein Sein's ambitious program of reforms has ushered in new freedoms of speech and assembly, liberating the country's roughly 500,000 monks. They can travel at will to spread Buddhist teachings, including 969 doctrine.

In Burma's nascent democracy, the monks have emerged as a political force in the run-up to a general election scheduled for 2015. Their new potency has given rise to a conspiracy theory here: The 969 movement is controlled by disgruntled hardliners from the previous junta, who are fomenting unrest to derail the reforms and foil an election landslide by Suu Kyi's NLD.

No evidence has emerged to support this belief. But some in the government say there is possibly truth to it.

"Some people are very eager to reform, some people don't want to reform," Soe Thein, one of President Thein Sein's two closest advisors, told Reuters. "So, regarding the sectarian violence, some people may be that side - the anti-reform side."

Even if 969 isn't controlled by powerful hardliners, it has broad support, both in high places and at the grass roots, where it is a genuine and growing movement.

Officials offer tacit backing, said Wimala, the 969 monk. "By letting us give speeches to protect our religion and race, I assume they are supporting us," he said.

The Yangon representative of the Burmese Muslim Association agreed. "The anti-Muslim movement is growing and the government isn't stopping it," said Myo Win, a Muslim teacher. Myo Win likened 969 to the Ku Klux Klan.

The religion minister, Sann Sint, said the movement doesn't have official state backing. But he defended Wirathu and other monks espousing the creed.

"I don't think they are preaching to make problems," he said.

Local authorities, too, have lent the movement some backing.

Its logo - now one of Myanmar's most recognizable - bears the Burmese numerals 969, a chakra wheel and four Asiatic lions representing the ancient Buddhist emperor Ashoka. Stickers with the logo are handed out free at speeches. They adorn shops, homes, taxis and souvenir stalls at the nation's most revered Buddhist pagoda, the Shwedagon. They are a common sight in areas plagued by unrest.

Some authorities treat the symbol with reverence. A court in Bago, a region near Yangon hit by anti-Muslim violence this year, jailed a Muslim man for two years in April after he removed a 969 sticker from a betel-nut shop. He was sentenced under a section of Burma's colonial-era Penal Code, which outlaws "deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings".

QUASI-OFFICIAL ORIGINS

The 969 movement's ties to the state date back to the creed's origins. Wimala, Wirathu and other 969 preachers credit its creation to the late Kyaw Lwin, an ex-monk, government official and prolific writer, now largely forgotten outside religious circles.

Myanmar's former dictators handpicked Kyaw Lwin to promote Buddhism after the brutal suppression of the 1988 democracy uprising. Thousands were killed or injured after soldiers opened fire on unarmed protesters, including monks. Later, to signal their disgust, monks refused to accept alms from military families for three months, a potent gesture in devoutly Buddhist Myanmar.

Afterwards, the military set about co-opting Buddhism in an effort to tame rebellious monks and repair its image. Monks were registered and their movements restricted. State-run media ran almost daily reports of generals overseeing temple renovations or donating alms to abbots.

In 1991, the junta created a Department for the Promotion and Propagation of the Sasana (DPPS), a unit within the Religion Ministry, and appointed Kyaw Lwin as its head. Sasana means "religion" in Pali, the liturgical language of Theravada Buddhism; in Burma, the word is synonymous with Buddhism itself.

The following year, the DPPS published "How To Live As A Good Buddhist," a distillation of Kyaw Lwin's writings. It was republished in 2000 as "The Best Buddhist," its cover bearing an early version of the 969 logo.

Kyaw Lwin stepped down in 1992. The current head is Khine Aung, a former military officer.

Kyaw Lwin's widow and son still live in his modest home in central Yangon. Its living room walls are lined with shelves of Kyaw Lwin's books and framed photos of him as a monk and meditation master.

Another photo shows Kyaw Lwin sharing a joke with Lieutenant General Khin Nyunt, then chief of military intelligence and one of Myanmar's most feared men. Kyaw Lwin enjoyed close relations with other junta leaders, said his son, Aung Lwin Tun, 38, a car importer. He was personally instructed to write "The Best Buddhist" by the late Saw Maung, then Myanmar's senior-most general. He met "often" to discuss religion with ex-dictator Than Shwe, who retired in March 2011 and has been out of the public eye since then.

"The Best Buddhist" is out of print, but Aung Lwin Tun plans to republish it. "Many people are asking for it now," he said. He supports today's 969 movement, including its anti-Muslim boycott. "It's like building a fence to protect our religion," he said.

Also supporting 969 is Kyaw Lwin's widow, 65, whose name was withheld at the family's request. She claimed that Buddhists who marry Muslims are forced at their weddings to tread on an image of Buddha, and that the ritual slaughter of animals by Shi'ite Muslims makes it easier for them to kill humans.

Among the monks Kyaw Lwin met during his time as DPPS chief was Wiseitta Biwuntha, who hailed from the town of Kyaukse, near the northern cultural capital of Mandalay. Better known as Wirathu, he is today one of the 969's most incendiary leaders.

Wirathu and Kyaw Lwin stayed in touch after their 1992 meeting, said Aung Lwin Tun, who believed his father would admire Wirathu's teachings. "He is doing what other people won't - protecting and promoting the religion."

Kyaw Lwin died in 2001, aged 70. That same year, Wirathu began preaching about 969, and the U.S. State Department reported "a sharp increase in anti-Muslim violence" in Myanmar. Anti-Muslim sentiment was stoked in March 2001 by the Taliban's destruction of Buddhist statues in Bamiyan, Afghanistan, and in September by al Qaeda's attacks in the United States.

Two years later, Wirathu was arrested and sentenced to 25 years in jail for distributing anti-Muslim pamphlets that incited communal riots in his hometown. At least 10 Muslims were killed by a Buddhist mob, according to a State Department report. The 969 movement had spilled its first blood.

969 VERSUS 786

Wirathu was freed in 2011 during an amnesty for political prisoners. While the self-styled "Burmese bin Laden" has become the militant face of 969, the movement derives evangelical energy from monks in Mon, a coastal state where people pride themselves on being Myanmar's first Buddhists. Since last year's violence they have organized a network across the nation. They led a boycott last year of a Muslim-owned bus company in Moulmein, Mon's capital. Extending that boycott nationwide has become a central 969 goal.

Muslims held many senior government positions after Myanmar gained independence from Britain in 1948. That changed in 1962, when the military seized power and stymied the hiring and promoting of Muslim officials. The military drew on popular prejudices that Muslims dominated business and used their profits to build mosques, buy Buddhist wives and spread Islamic teachings.

All this justified the current boycott of Muslim businesses, said Zarni Win Tun, a 31-year-old lawyer and 969 devotee, who said Muslims had long shunned Buddhist businesses. "We didn't start the boycott - they did," she said. "We're just using their methods."

By that she means the number 786, which Muslims of South Asian origin often display on their homes and businesses. It is a numerical representation of the Islamic blessing, "In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate and Merciful". But Buddhists in Myanmar - a country obsessed by numerology - claim the sum of the three numbers signifies a Muslim plan for world domination in the 21st century.

It is possible to understand why some Buddhists might believe this. Religious and dietary customs prohibit Muslims from frequenting Buddhist restaurants, for example. Muslims also dominate some small- and medium-sized business sectors. The names of Muslim-owned construction companies - Naing Group, Motherland, Fatherland - are winning extra prominence now that Yangon is experiencing a reform-era building boom.

However, the biggest construction firms - those involved in multi-billion-dollar infrastructure projects - are run by tycoons linked to members of the former dictatorship. They are Buddhists.

Buddhist clients have canceled contracts with Muslim-owned construction companies in northern Yangon, fearing attacks by 969 followers on the finished buildings, said Shwe Muang, a Muslim MP with the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party. "I worry that if this starts in one township it will infect others," he said.

"OUR LIVES ARE NOT SAFE"

For Zarni Win Tun, the 969 devotee, shunning Muslims is a means of ensuring sectarian peace. She points to the Meikhtila violence, which was sparked by an argument between Buddhist customers and a Muslim gold-shop owner. "If they'd bought from their own people, the problem wouldn't have happened," she said.

Her conviction that segregation is the solution to sectarian strife is echoed in national policy. A total of at least 153,000 Muslims have been displaced in the past year after the violence in Rakhine and in central Myanmar. Most are concentrated in camps guarded by the security forces with little hope of returning to their old lives.

A few prominent monks have publicly criticized the 969 movement, and some Facebook users have launched a campaign to boycott taxis displaying its stickers. Some Yangon street stalls have started selling 969 CDs more discreetly since the Meikhtila bloodbath. The backlash has otherwise been muted.

Wimala, the Mon monk, shrugged off criticism from fellow monks. "They shouldn't try to stop us from doing good things," he said.

In mid-June, he and Wirathu attended a hundreds-strong monastic convention near Yangon, where Wirathu presented a proposal to restrict Buddhist women from marrying Muslim men.

In another sign 969 is going mainstream, Wirathu's bid was supported by Dhammapiya, a U.S.-educated professor at the International Theravada Buddhist Missionary University in Yangon, a respected institution with links to other Buddhist universities in Asia.

Dhammapiya described 969 as a peaceful movement that is helping Myanmar through a potentially turbulent transition. "The 969 issue for us is no issue," Dhammapiya told Reuters. "Buddhists always long to live in peace and harmony."

NO MOSQUES HERE

The only mass movement to rival 969 is the National League for Democracy. Their relationship is both antagonistic and complementary.

In a speech posted on YouTube in late March, Wirathu said the party and Suu Kyi's inner circle were dominated by Muslims. "If you look at NLD offices in any town, you will see bearded people," he said. Followers of Wimala told Reuters they had removed photos of Suu Kyi - a devout Buddhist - from their homes to protest her apparent reluctance to speak up for Buddhists affected by last year's violence in Rakhine. Suu Kyi's reticence on sectarian violence has also angered Muslims.

The Burmese Muslim Association has accused NLD members of handing out 969 materials in Yangon.

Party spokesman Nyan Win said "some NLD members" were involved in the movement. "But the NLD cannot interfere with the freedoms or rights of members," he said. "They all have the right to do what they want in terms of social affairs."

Min Thet Lin, 36, a taxi driver, is exercising that right. The front and back windows of his car are plastered with 969 stickers. He is also an NLD leader in Thaketa, a working-class Yangon township known for anti-Muslim sentiment.

In February, Buddhist residents of Thaketa descended upon an Islamic school in Min Thet Lin's neighborhood which they claimed was being secretly converted into a mosque. Riot police were deployed while the structure was demolished.

A month later, Wimala and two other Mon monks visited Thaketa to give Buddhists what a promotional leaflet called "dhamma medicine" - that is, three days of 969 sermons. "Don't give up the fight," urged the leaflet.

Today, the property is sealed off and guarded by police. "People don't want a mosque here," said Min Thet Lin.

As he spoke, 969's pop anthem, "Song to Whip Up Religious Blood," rang over the rooftops. A nearby monastic school was playing the song for enrolling pupils. 

(Additional reporting by Min Zayar Oo.; Editing by Bill Tarrant and Michael Williams)

---

Read this story in PDF --

* Anti-Muslim riots mark emergence of extreme Buddhism
* Movement has seized on a doctrine called 969
* They preach anti-Muslim sermons, call for Muslim boycotts
* Ministry of religion originally fostered 969 doctrine
* Religion minister supports 969's most incendiary preacher

969 - Special Report by Reuters

A.G. Noorani

Frontline

June 26, 2013

Aung San Suu Kyi’s silence on the Rohingyas problem is guided by realpolitik in her race for presidency. In that she has no moralistic pretensions. 

ON a recent visit to New Delhi, Myanmar’s heroic fighter for freedom, Aung San Suu Kyi, politely but sharply criticised India for its indifference to her plight, personally, as she fought heroically for the restoration of democracy and to the violations of human rights in her country for 15 long years.

Within a short time thereafter, Muslim Rohingyas in Rakhine state in the west of her country were subjected, once again, to atrocities by Buddhists and security forces. Last year alone, at least 192 people were killed and 1,40,000 rendered homeless. An estimated 8,00,000 Rohingyas live in Rakhine state. Daw Suu, as she is affectionately called, was heavily criticised for not speaking up for their rights. Many of them remain in camps which they are not allowed to leave.

She would do well to note that none in New Delhi lost any sleep over those outrages either. New Delhi has a thick skin and a conscience as sensitive as a stone. This is par for the course. It is, however, the Nobel Peace Prize winner’s silence that is intriguing. It is so completely at variance with her reproach to India for not espousing the cause of freedom in her country.

On June 6, she spoke at a conference organised by the World Economic Forum’s East Asia Summit at Naypyidaw, Myanmar’s capital. It was chaired by Nik Gowing of the BBC. What Suu Kyi said on the occasion should cause no surprise. It should, indeed, be welcomed. It explains her silence on the Rohingyas. She threw her hat in the ring for the contest for the presidency, a decision warmly to be welcomed. “I want to run for the President and I’m quite frank about it. If I pretended that I didn’t want to be President, I wouldn’t be honest.”

All she could permit herself to say on the Rohingyas on this occasion was that she was for “the rule of law”, that is, she is for virtue and against sin. To be fair, on May 27, Suu Kyi sharply criticised the district government’s policy to limit Rohingya families to two children. “This is against human rights.”

The presidential candidate faces a hard road ahead. The military still controls 25 per cent of the seats in Parliament. Major constitutional amendments required to enable her to contest need at least 76 per cent support. It has then to be followed by a referendum where again at least 50 per cent of the voters would have to support the moves. Nationals with a foreign spouse or children are barred from holding the top job. Later in the evening Suu Kyi told reporters, “I am told it’s the most difficult Constitution to amend… 25 per cent [MPs] are unelected military appointments. What we need is that all the civilian seats are filled and we have an agreement on the amendments. Then, we need at least one brave soldier who must support it. It’s very difficult, but not impossible.”

That depends entirely on her success in forging an understanding with the military rulers which facilitates a smooth transition to a democratic government. Her success hinges on a national consensus. The 67-year-old leader, who entered politics late in life and of sheer necessity, impelled by her deep commitment to freedom, has revealed remarkable maturity and political sophistication. She criticised, but never condemned the military leaders. Aware of the state of public opinion on the Rohingyas problem, she preferred circumspection to public censure. The stakes are enormous and she simply cannot afford to make any mistakes on the way.

In this Suu Kyi provides a glaring contrast to our hypocritical leaders. Jawaharlal Nehru practised realpolitik but covered it with moralistic pretensions. The backlash that followed in the 1990s was triggered by bogus “realists”, led by men ignorant of the very nature of foreign policy and an intelligent informed understanding of the role of morality in the conduct of foreign policy. It was led by an ambitious and none-too-informed Foreign Secretary J.N. Dixit, supported by a columnist who shifted his loyalties to a Foreign Minister as ambitious as Dixit, Jaswant Singh. The Bharatiya Janata Party acquired one more stick with which to demolish Nehru’s legacies to which its revivalism and ideology of hate were totally opposed.

Debasement of discourse on foreign affairs was reflected before and after the understanding which defused the Sino-Indian crisis on the Line of Actual Control (LoAC). Some top leaders proclaimed loudly that India had conceded nothing. What impression will China get of India’s readiness to settle the boundary dispute itself? Any settlement will necessarily be based on a compromise.

Nehru assured the Joint Session of the U.S. Congress on October 13, 1949, “Where freedom is menaced or justice threatened, or where aggression takes place, we cannot and shall not be neutral.” Nehru denounced the military coup in Pakistan in 1958 but was circumspect on the overthrow of his friend U Nu in Burma. Indira Gandhi claimed, on July 23, 1983, “I have raised my voice” regarding civil liberties and the rights of minorities in India and elsewhere. She had always spoken up. Her government’s statement in Parliament on August 25, 1983, expressed “uneasiness and distress [at] the recent happenings in Pakistan and the sufferings of people who have been demanding restoration of democracy in the country. As a nation we are committed to democracy.”

The crescendo was reached the next day when she spoke to her party MPs about the imprisonment of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, “the torture of begum Nusrat Bhutto”, and asserted “we have always condemned inhuman treatment meted out to people irrespective of whether such acts take place in our own nation or outside”.

She also declared, “We have to oppose injustice everywhere. We want that there should be democracy everywhere. And, by supporting the cause of democracy and opposing injustice, India is not doing anything improper or bad.”

But when the International League of Human Rights accused the Government of India, in a letter to the United Nations Secretary-General, of violation of human rights during the Emergency, India’s Permanent Mission at the U.N. was instructed to retort, on June 7, 1976, that “the protection of fundamental human rights is the concern of each sovereign state and is a matter which is essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of member-states of the United Nations”.

The reply bitterly complained that “this sort of gratuitous interference in India’s internal affairs is certainly not calculated to serve the best interests of the people of India, but rather to encourage the subversive elements to try once again to destroy the framework of constitutional democracy that the Government of India has been sustaining in a country with a formidable diversity of problems of scaring magnitude”.

India’s stand on Hungary (1956), Czechoslovakia (1968) and Afghanistan (1980), to cite a few, did not earn plaudits from the world. A more guarded approach has been adopted of late; not untinged by cynicism, though.

De Gaulle 

Daw Suu is not the first one to face the dilemmas which she does. Nor will she be the last. It is inherent in the human condition and the nature of the global order. The classic case is that of Charles de Gaulle, so well described by Jonathan Fenby in his superb work The General: Charles de Gaulle and the France he Saved (Simon & Schuster).

On June 4, 1958, as Prime Minister, de Gaulle flew to Algiers, his Carevelle airliner accompanied by fighters flying in a Cross of Lorraine pattern. As he stepped from the plane, the waiting spectators cheered and wept with excitement. De Gaulle continued imperturbably on his way. Then the Prime Minister, in plain uniform without medals, raised his arms in his familiar V gesture and shouted, “Je vous ai compris!” The first three words were covered by the noise of the crowd but the fourth sounded loud and clear (I have understood you).

“The words were meaningless in themselves; there was no indication of what de Gaulle had ‘understood’. But the crowd interpreted them to mean that he was on its side; he had understood their cause and would back their struggle to retain control of Algeria. For them, he was truly their saviour on a white horse, and the rebellion of 13 May (1958) had succeeded, symbolised by the Public Safety Committee filing out on to the balcony when de Gaulle finished speaking to sing ‘La Marseillaise’ with him and those below. His words may also have saved his life; a fifty-year-old antiques dealer and former Petainist had positioned himself in a building opposite the balcony from which the General spoke, armed with a rifle with which he intended to kill the Prime Minister. But when he heard ‘I have understood you’, he took his finger off the trigger….

“The gulf between the cold, rational man of the north and the emotional settlers was evident from the start, even if his four key words submerged everything else. When the rebel Public Safety Committee asked to be recognised, he replied that he was in charge of Algerian affairs, and told Salan, as Delegate General to re-establish regular government authority (just as he had done with the Resistance in 1944). There was also a reminder of the FLN’s [National Liberation Front] ability to strike when its men attacked the police station in the city of Bone on 6 June.” On July 3, 1962, France recognised the new independent state of Algeria. Only a de Gaulle can accomplish such feats.

Lincoln and Stevenson 

Hans Morganthau aptly described the difference between Abraham Lincoln and Adlai Stevenson. Both had a sensitive soul; both were avid for power. “Abraham Lincoln revealed his greatness only after he had reached the highest office. He made his way to that office as a politician competing with other politicians, seeking power in the manner of politicians, always tough and sometimes ruthless and devious. Lincoln made no bones about wanting power, and the people gave it to him. It was only after he had reached it that he also achieved an awareness of, and detachment from, it; and it is here that we found the key to his greatness.

“Stevenson showed his awareness of and detachment from power from the very outset. No doubt, he wanted power. When it eluded him in 1952, he said that he envied one man, the Governor of Illinois. When, as Ambassador to the United Nations and nominal member of the Cabinet, he had the trappings of power without its substance, he complained about the ‘disadvantage in being anywhere other than the seat of power’. He never forgave himself for his indecision in 1960. He wanted power, but he wanted it only with intellectual and moral reservations openly revealed. He wanted power, but not with that ‘canine appetite’, with that single-minded animal ferocity, which carried his competitions in the Democratic Party to success….

“What Lincoln and Stevenson have in common is a high degree of freedom from illusion, to which politicians—like all men—are prey, about themselves, about their actions, and about the world. What took the place of these illusions was a lucid awareness, both intellectual and moral, of the nature of the political act, of their involvement in it, and of the consequences of that involvement for themselves and for the world. That awareness gave them the intellectual distinction and moral sensitivity that set them apart from the common run of politicians. It gave their actions the appearance of indecisiveness and the reality of moral force. It accounts for their personal qualities of eloquence, wit, and sadness.

“Lincoln and Stevenson knew both the moral risks and the practical hazards inseparable from the political act. They knew that to act politically was to take a jump into the dark. Innocent people would suffer, and the outcome was uncertain. Moral absolution could not be bought with good intentions, nor could success be vouchsafed through ingenuity. The actor on the political stage takes his fate into his hands. Try as he may, he cannot escape the risks and hazards of his acts. If he is of the run of the mill, he will consult the flight of the birds, the constellation of the stars, or their modern equivalent, the public opinion polls, and receive the illusion of certainty that the facts of experience refuse him. If he is great in the manner of Lincoln and Stevenson, he cannot help but face the risks and hazards of his acts, to weigh them against the risks and hazards of alternative acts, to shudder at what he must do—and do it as though those risks and hazards did not exist. He acts in awareness of, and in spite of, these risks and hazards…. They are the qualities of souls that have been formed by their awareness of what the political act implies and by the burden of having to act nevertheless.”

Practical pitfalls 

In this they differed from men of power like Bismarck and Churchill who were immune to sadness and innocent of moral awareness. Lincoln and Stevenson knew that, when all is said and done, they were still faced, without remedy or escape, with the moral ambiguities and practical pitfalls of the political act. Knowing what they knew about themselves, their actions, and the world, they could not but be sad. “Their sadness denotes the resigned acceptance of the moral and intellectual imperfections of the political world and of their precarious place within it.”

The leader’s vision and times transcend the experience of his people. If he goes too far, he is overthrown; if he follows them he stagnates and betrays his calling. He has to prepare public opinion, while quietly negotiating a settlement. He must be a teacher as well as operator. That is leadership.

Morgenthau’s resolution of the dilemma is bold. “Not only must democratic foreign policy make concessions to public opinion, but it must also present its foreign policy in terms acceptable to public opinion. That is to say, it must make it appear as though it responds to the emotional preferences of public opinion to a greater extent than it actually does. It must cover those of its rational elements that are least likely to find favour with public opinion with a veil of emotional pronouncements which are intended to conceal its true nature from the public eye. It is for the objective observer to distinguish between public pronouncements on foreign policy that reveal and those that conceal the true nature of the foreign policy actually pursued, by correlating pronouncement with action.”

It was, however, left to a theologian and philosopher the Rev. Reinhold Niebuhr to point out that there are no easy solutions. The dilemma is an integral part of the human condition.

“Politics will, to the end of history, be an area where conscience and power meet, where the ethical and coercive factors of human life will interpenetrate and work out their tentative and uneasy compromises.”

This is a far, far cry from the notion of our “realists” about realpolitik. It does not expel morality but applies a realistic morality in an imperfect work.

One must wish Aung San Suu Kyi, a brave and noble fighter for freedom, all success. The dilemmas she has faced until now are nothing compared to the ones that will confront her when she becomes President and is called upon to fulfil her promises and live up to the expectations her heroism has aroused.

Ibrahim Shah

RB Article

June 26, 2013

Among the several Burmese invasions of Arakan, there were three major attacks recorded. The first attack on Arakan was carried out by Anawrahta in 1044 CE followed by the attacks by Min Khaung Yaza in 1406 CE and Bodaw Maung Wai in 1784 CE respectively.

Bodaw, immediately after his invasion, vandalized historic—temples, shrines, mosques, monuments, and libraries. Muslim custodians of the royal palace were massacred as well. Eventually, he took away the famous Buddhist statue, Mahamuni.

Since then, racial and religious hatred against Rohingyas have been being seeded in the hearts of its majority Buddhists by the different Burmese regimes in her history for strategic and political purposes. Subsequently, institutionalized discrimination and systematic oppression against Rohingya have been being implemented. 

In 1942, some Rakhine extremists of Burman origin led by Thakin leaders massacred more than 100,000 Rohingyas, dreadfully eradicated 307 Rohingya quarters in Arakan and forced more 80,000 Rohingyas to flee to Chittagong.

Furthermore, after Ne Win had staged a coup d’état in 1962, he, consistently, imposed double standard and illegal laws and carried out brutal operations targeting only Rohingyas. Of them, the most notorious King Dragon Operation (NagaMin) was carried out in 1978. Due to mass arrests of young and old alike, tortures, rapes and killings in detention centers, more than 300,000 Rohingya had, again, to flee to Bangladesh.

For perpetual ruthless attempts of Burmese authorities to exterminate Rohingya community, they enacted a discriminatory Act called 1982 citizenship law against Rohingyas to strip them off both their ethnic identity and their national identity. Consequently, it undocumented them from their ethnic status and the bigots and extremists in Burma started accusing Rohingyas to be illegal immigrants brought into Burma by the British colonialists.

To Rohingyas’ misfortune, Rohingyas had not been spared from the brutalities of Burmese tyrannical rulers even until 1990. During another terrible operation, Operation Pyi Thaya, in 1991-199, some 300,000 Rohingyas were forced to flee desperately. Those who didn’t flee have been facing oppressions, encountering tortures, gangbang in detention centers and their homes and religious buildings have been being vandalized. Their lands are being confiscated; there have been confinements on their marriage, education, movement, livelihoods, and medical treatments and so on.

The whole Rohingya community would have been exterminated had it been not sometimes due to miscarriage of perpetuation of Rohingya ethnic cleansing by Burmese Hitlerite Regime. The pseudo civilian government led by President Thein Sein, some Ultra-nationalist political figures, Extremist Buddhist monks, Rakhine terrorists chaired by Vet Aye Maung of Rakhine Nationalities Development Party (RNDP), some 88 generation leaders conspired to strip off Rohingya rights, to trigger the violence by intentionally killing ten Muslim pilgrims through a mob attack in Taungup Township in June 2012 and to exterminate Rohingyas in a vast momentum.

The attacks against Muslims spread countrywide and Muslims nowadays face several varieties of atrocities—slaughters, vandalization of Mosques and homes, threats to flee to uncertain destinations, arbitrary arrests, tortures to death in detention centers, abduction of under-aged girls and women, assaults against Rohingya women in every check-point, starvations, confinements in concentration camps, and are subjected to – forced labor , arbitrary land seizure, forced displacement, forced Bengalization and forced birth control, and endure excessive taxes and extortions and so on.

“Eventually, more than 140,000 Rohingyas have become IDPs (internally displaced people) and are kept in concentrated camps inhumanely. The UN Rapporteur Quintana reported during his sixth visit to Burma that the camps of those Rohingya IDPs are more like prisons.”

What a classic mockery it is! Although all of the dictatorial officials assured and asserted that the perpetrators of the violence will be charged for their respective crimes, yet the perpetrators are rather hastily moving against the Muslims everywhere. Therefore, the government assurance for justice is nothing but an attempt to distract international concern in order to mask the perpetrators from international scrutiny. Hence, hereby, I would like to quote Burma under Thein Sein Hitlerite regime as—Burma preaches peace and practices discrimination.

Later, due to the caustic condemnations of International bodies, the genocidal Burmese regime portrayed the ethnocide of Rohingyas as Buddhist Nationalism so as to mask the crimes against humanity committed by the state-sponsored Buddhist vigilantes. (E.g. they considerably prefer using the term ‘national security’ rather than ‘human rights’.) With full involvement of the Government, a 969 Neo-Nazi Buddhist nationalist movement led by pseudo monk Wirathu who was once imprisoned in 2003 for his role in stirring religious clashes in Mandalay has been formed. Then, they are carrying out violence against Muslims in a vast momentum mostly in Muslim quarters. 

“Article 51 of the UN charter states —the inherent right of collective or individual self-defense if an armed attack occurs—. Despite being well-evident and open Genocide against Rohingyas and other Burmese Muslims, UN is still shockingly silent and inactive. Without the interventions of UN in Darfur and East Timor conflicts, it would be impossible for them to achieve freedom. Therefore, UN must help unarmed Rohingyas who have long been persecuted by Burmese regime.”

Here are some quotations about peace, which may give light into your hearts.

If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner— Nelson Mandela. 

It isn’t enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn’t enough to believe in it. One must work at it— Eleanor Roosevelt. 

Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or everything. If you are a man take it— Malcolm X.

Accordingly, without the oppressed Rohingyas’ own physical and psychological movements, to dream of liberty is just like to dream to erect a sand wall with sand bricks.

Associated Press

June 25, 2013

Myanmar's government has banned this week's issue of Time magazine because of a cover story about a Buddhist monk accused of fueling recent religious violence in the country.

State television announced Tuesday that the decision was made "in order to prevent the recurrence of racial and religious riots."

The magazine's cover carries a photo of a Buddhist monk, Wirathu, with the words "The Face of Buddhist Terror." Wirathu is a leader of a radical movement of monks that preaches that the country's small Muslim minority threatens racial purity and national security. He has called for restrictions on marriages between Buddhists and Muslims, and for boycotts of Muslim-owned businesses.

Nearly 250 people have died and tens of thousands, mostly Muslims, have fled their homes in religious violence in the past year. Buddhist mobs have marched through villages burning houses and mosques and brandishing machetes and clubs.

A special committee led by the home minister to deal with the recent violence said the Time article could damage government efforts to build trust among people of different religions, state television said.

The article quotes Wirathu as saying, "Now is the time to rise up, to make your blood boil." Nevertheless, Witharu insists he's a man of peace.

The article has drawn anger from Buddhists. On Sunday, the President's Office issued a statement denouncing the story and saying it damages the image of Buddhism.

The recent violence has threatened to undermine political and economic reforms undertaken by President Thein Sein, who came to power in 2011 after almost five decades of repressive military rule.

New freedoms of speech under Thein Sein have made it easier to disseminate radical views, while exposing deep-seeded racism felt by much of the population toward Muslims and other minorities.

The Rohingya, a stateless minority of Myanmar, have endured decades of abuse, persecution and discrimination. One year ago, on 3 June 2012, the massacre of ten Muslims travelling in Rakhine State, following the killing and reported rape of a Buddhist woman, marked the beginning of a series of violent attacks against the Rohingya and other Muslim communities. The violence of June and October 2012 resulted in countless deaths, destruction to property, large scale internal displacement and segregation within Rakhin state of Myanmar. Consequently, thousands of Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh, Thailand, Malaysia and beyond.

One year after the violence began, the root causes and on-going humanitarian and human rights concerns remain largely unaddressed. Although both the Rakhine and Rohingya communities committed violence in June, the Rohingya were disproportionately victimized, including by security forces. Furthermore, discriminatory laws and practices against the Rohingya by the Burmese authorities, underpinned by their lack of citizenship, and their mistreatment in third countries remain matters of concern. 

Despite heavy restrictions and difficulties in accessing the affected and displaced communities, and threats against, and intimidation and arbitrary arrests of humanitarian aid workers and human rights defenders, civil society actors have monitored and documented the situation, provided humanitarian aid to victims of violence, published statements and reports, briefed the international community and repeatedly raised growing concern over the deteriorating situation in Rakhine State and for Muslim communities throughout Myanmar. Some of the key concerns raised by civil society actors over the past year relate to: 

• Incitement to violence and government hate speech – The violence against the Rohingya was instigated and has been sustained by relentless anti-Rohingya speech and campaigning by government officials and local leaders that often amounted to incitement. Government officials and local leaders have repeatedly characterized the Rohingya as illegal immigrants, branded non-Muslims who trade with or assist Rohingya as “traitors”, and encouraged campaigns against aid workers assisting displaced Rohingya, which has created an environment in which acute violence against this vulnerable group is seen as acceptable and even desirable. 

• Violence and impunity – Satellite images of entire townships destroyed, photographs of houses on fire, video footage of attacks and dead bodies and testimonies of security personnel opening fire on villages and committing sexual assaults against Rohingya women collectively stand as growing evidence of the scale of the violence. In contrast, the lack of any convictions of state officials or ethnic Rakhine perpetrators and the disproportionate arrest and prosecution of Rohingya is reflective of the impunity with which acts of violence have been committed and bias within the criminal justice system. It is also evident that this impunity has contributed to an escalation in anti-Muslim violence throughout the country. 

• The involvement of government officials and security forces – The involvement of state actors in incitement, carrying out attacks, extortion, arbitrarily arresting, detaining and torturing Rohingya, restricting their movement and hampering the delivery of humanitarian aid with impunity has been well documented. In this context, the publication of an inquiry report which primarily recommends the strengthening of state security presence in affected areas is a matter of real concern. 

• Displacement and humanitarian needs – The displaced population in Rakhine State is estimated at over 140,000, the overwhelming majority of whom are Rohingya. The lack of adequate shelter, food and clean water, medicine, education, latrines and sanitation, and livelihoods for the affected populations, the acute difficulties faced by aid organizations in reaching those most in need - particularly unregistered persons in makeshift sites - alleged corrupt practices of siphoning off humanitarian supplies, and the lack of adequate shelter arrangements for the monsoon season are all issues of grave concern which have a direct impact on the well-being and chances of survival of those displaced. 

• Statelessness and identity – The arbitrary deprivation of nationality of the Rohingya under the 1982 Citizenship Act is considered to be a major contributing factor of the present human rights and humanitarian crisis. Additionally, the denial of their ethnic identity and reports of Rohingya being forced to register themselves as ‘Bengali’ have immediate and long-term consequences for Rohingya communities. 

• Segregation and property rights – The authorities have imposed a policy of segregation, with Rohingya being restricted in separate areas, largely away from economic and commercial centres. Aung Mingalar, the last remaining Muslim neighbourhood in Sittwe, is under threat and effectively cut off from the city around it. The likelihood of this segregation arrangement becoming a long-term reality is high, particularly if the authorities do not meet their obligations to ensure the safety of at-risk populations and to work towards peaceful co-existence, reintegration and safe voluntary return in the short-term. In addition to the obvious human rights concerns over such restrictions, questions remain unanswered over the property rights of the displaced Rohingya who may not be allowed to access the lands they fled. 

• Discriminatory restrictions on family life – The discrimination endured by Rohingya over many decades is well documented. Restrictions on marriage, punishment of unauthorized marriages and the non-registration of children born of such marriages are among the most distressing practices which continue to-date. In this context, the recent reaffirmation by the Rakhine state government of the two-child policy for Rohingya families and the statement in support of the policy by Minister of Immigration and Population, Khin Yi, is a particularly serious concern. 

• Freedom of movement - Rohingya movement has been severely restricted for decades in northern Rakhine State. Since the violence, freedom of movement has been further restricted and Rohingya in central Rakhine State have been trapped in settlements and camps and forced into dependency on humanitarian aid. 

• Crimes against humanity – Under international law, crimes against humanity are crimes committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack on a civilian population, as a matter of state or organizational policy. The crimes against humanity of forced deportation, forced population transfer and persecution have been well documented in Rakhine State since June 2012, and many such abuses have been committed for decades prior, against the Rohingya population. 

In addition to the situation in Rakhine State, over the past year, the Rohingya who fled persecution in Myanmar, have continued to face a lack of protection, as well as hardship and exclusion upon new shores. In June 2012, Bangladesh in contravention of the principle of non-refoulement pushed Rohingya asylum seekers back into the sea. Immigration authorities in Bangladesh, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and other countries have responded to subsequent refugee exoduses by detaining those who require protection. 

The international legal obligations of all countries concerned require them to protect all persons subject to their jurisdictions, regardless of whether they are citizens, stateless persons, asylum seekers or refugees. In its treatment of the Rohingya, Myanmar has violated the right to life, the right to be free from torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, the right to liberty and freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention, the right to nationality, the right to food and shelter including the fundamental right to be free from hunger and the right to the highest attainable standard of health. Myanmar must also answer allegations of crimes against humanity being perpetrated by state actors against the Rohingya. Refugee recipient countries including Bangladesh, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and Sri Lanka have also acted in violation of the right to seek and to enjoy asylum and the right to liberty and freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention, and in certain instances, the right not to be subjected to refoulement. 

The undersigned civil society organizations express deep concern with regard to the human rights and humanitarian abuses that continue to disproportionately affect the Rohingya, jointly speak out on behalf of all victims of violence and abuse, displacement and denial of humanitarian aid in Rakhine State – be they Rohingya, Rakhine or of other ethnic or religious identity; and one year after the violence began, emphatically state that all violence, discrimination and abuse must end now. 

To the government of Myanmar, we urge that immediate steps are taken to: 

Facilitate unimpeded humanitarian access to all those affected by conflict regardless of registration status, and take effective action against those who intimidate humanitarian agencies.

Produce a plan for reconciliation, end movement restrictions, and ensure safe voluntary returns.

Provide protection to all people living in Rakhine State, end impunity, prosecute all perpetrators of violence and other abuses through a fair judicial system, arrange for immediate release of those who have been arbitrarily detained and provide adequate redress to all victims of violence and injustice.

Invite the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to establish an office.

Review the 1982 Citizenship Act and other discriminatory laws and practices to ensure that all persons have equal rights and equal access to citizenship and are not discriminated against on grounds of ethnicity. 

To the governments of refugee recipient countries, we urge that immediate steps are taken to: 

Protect all refugees and asylum seekers from Myanmar – and take into account the acute and specific protection needs of stateless Rohingya.

Desist from arbitrarily detaining Rohingya refugees and asylum seekers and attempting to return them to Myanmar in violation of the principle of non-refoulement. 

To international community, we urge that immediate steps are taken to: 

Insist on protection of minority rights, including the right to nationality, as a pre-requisite to full relations.

Press the government of Myanmar to present its plans for promoting reconciliation, ending the movement restrictions, and enabling safe voluntary returns in Rakhine State.

- Press the government of Myanmar to act on the recommendations above, including ending impunity and achieving greater accountability and justice. 

List of Endorsing Organizations 

1. Africa and Middle East Refugee Assistance (Egypt)

2. ALTSEAN - Burma

3. Arab Council Supporting Fair Trials and Human Rights

4. Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network

5. Association INFO BIRMANIE

6. Association pour la Lutte contre la Pauvreté et le sous Développement (Mauritania)

7. Association Suisse-Birmanie (Switzerland)

8. Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Human Rights and Genocide Clinic (USA)

9. Black Pink Triangle Izmir (Turkey)

10. Burma Campaign Australia

11. Burma Campaign UK

12. Burma Partnership

13. Burmese Rohingya Association of Japan

14. Burmese Rohingya Association of North America

15. Burmese Rohingya Association of Thailand

16. Burmese Rohingya Community in Australia

17. Burmese Rohingya Community in Denmark

18. Burmese Rohingya Organization UK

19. Center for Informative and Legal Aid – Zvornik (Bosnia and Herzegovina)

20. Christian Solidarity Worldwide

21. Civic Bangladesh

22. Detention Action (UK)

23. Fahamu Refugee Programme

24. Federation of Women Lawyers (Kenya)

25. Fortify Rights International

26. Forum for Women, Law and Development (Nepal)

27. Foundation for Rural Development (Pakistan)

28. Free Burma Campaign (South Africa)

29. Freedom House

30. Frontiers Ruwad Association (Lebanon)

31. Gonggam Human Rights Law Foundation (Republic of Korea)

32. Health Equity Initiatives (Malaysia)

33. Human Rights Education Institute of Burma (Thailand)

34. Human Rights Organization of Nepal

35. Human Rights Watch

36. Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust

37. Initiative for Development and Empowerment Axis (Pakistan)

38. Institute for Asian Democracy

39. International Detention Coalition

40. International Observatory on Statelessness

41. Japan Association for Refugees

42. Jesuit Refugee Service

43. Journalists for Human Rights (Sudan)

44. Lawyers for Human Rights (South Africa)

45. Lawyers for Liberty (Malaysia)

46. Lawyers Group for Burmese Asylum Seekers in Japan

47. Loyola College Chennai, Department of Social Work (India)

48. Minority Rights Group International

49. Odhikar (Bangladesh)

50. Organization for Defending Victims of Violence (Islamic Republic of Iran)

51. Partners Relief & Development (Norway)

52. Physicians for Human Rights (USA)

53. Praxis (Serbia)

54. Project Maje (USA)

55. Protect the Rohingya (South Africa)

56. Refugee Council of Australia

57. Refugees International

58. Restless Beings (UK)

59. Rohingya Association in Canada

60. Rohingya Community in Norway

61. Rohingya Society of Malaysia

62. Society for Threatened Peoples (Germany)

63. Society for Threatened Peoples (Switzerland)

64. Solidarity for Asian Peoples’ Advocacy Working Group on ASEAN

65. South East Asian Committee for Advocacy

66. Stateless Network (Japan)

67. Swedish Burma Committee

68. Taiwan Association for Human Rights

69. Tenaganita (Malaysia)

70. Thai Committee for Refugees Foundation (Thailand)

71. The Arakan Project

72. The Cordoba Foundation

73. The Equal Rights Trust

74. The European Rohingya Council

75. U.S. Campaign for Burma

76. Yayasan Lembaga Bantuan Hukum (Indonesia)

This statement published here.

Kuwait News Agency

June 25, 2013

BRUSSELS -- British Member of the European Parliament Sajjad Karim Tuesday called on EU to take a stronger stance against Myanmar violence inflicted towards Rohingya Muslims.

In a written question sent to the EU high representative Catherine Ashton ahead of a debate on human rights in the European Parliament next week, Karim asked about steps by the European Commission and the EU foreign service to end this oppression, and what action is being taken to provide assistance to such persecuted populations across Burma/Myanmar.

The persecution of the Muslim minority in Myanmar shows no sign of abating with tens of thousands Rohingya fleeing to neighbouring Bangladesh and Thailand, while 140,000 are currently living in makeshift shelters in the Rakhine state, noted Karim in a statement.

He said Ashton was quick to respond to his written question, but failed to include any concrete measures of action.

"As stated in the April 2013 Council conclusions, the EU will use all means and mechanisms at its disposal to support Myanmar's political, economic and social transition - thus aiming to meet the goal quoted by the Honourable Member," said Ashton in her reply.

Karim, the first British Muslim to be elected to the European Parliament, warned that the plight of the Rohingya community casts a dark shadow in EU-Myanmar relations.

"The EU needs to lead on this issue and take stronger stances against the Myanmar government who on one hand, allow this state sponsored violence to take place, whilst on the other are seeking to make their country fully democratic," he said.

"The EU has so far provided 5.5 million euros to the displaced people and is working to distribute aid to the region, however more pressure needs to be exerted politically on the President of Myanmar," added Karim.

Simon Roughneen

The Irrawaddy

June 25, 2013

RANGOON — Burma’s opposition leader and 1991 Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has come under fire in recent months for her apparent reluctance to condemn attacks on Muslims carried out by rioting Buddhists in various towns across the country.

The latest mini-furor kicked off last week with the publication by the Nobel Women’s Initiative (NWI) of a letter, signed by 12 Nobel Peace Prize winners, which called for an “immediate end to the violence against Muslims and other ethnic minorities in Burma.”

Among the international who’s who of peace promoters who put their names to the exhortation were Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former Timorese President Jose Ramos-Horta, microfinance mogul Mohamed Yunus and Iranian political exile Shirin Ebadi.

Absent from the list, however, was Burma’s own democracy icon and Nobel winner Suu Kyi, an omission that was quickly picked up on by high-profile human rights advocates and Burma watchers.

“Aung San Suu Kyi can’t get herself to join 12 Nobel Peace Laureates’ call for end to #Burma violence against Muslims,” tweeted Human Rights Watch Executive Director Kenneth Roth.

Asked by The Irrawaddy if Suu Kyi had been asked to sign or if she had snubbed the NWI, it turns out that as an elected parliamentarian, Suu Kyi is not part of the NWI.

“As per the by-laws of the organization, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, as a member of Parliament, is not a member of the Nobel Women’s Initiative,” said Rachel Vincent, the NWI media and communications director.

“As you will see from the list of signatories, we do sometimes go beyond the women laureates to extend an invitation to male laureates to sign on to statements. You will also note that none of these male laureates are sitting politicians, though some, like Oscar Arias, were in the past,” Vincent added.

Suu Kyi has previously said that she does not know if all the Rohingya, an oppressed Muslim minority living mostly in Burma’s west, are entitled to Burmese citizenship, sparking anger and disappointment among her erstwhile supporters outside of Burma.

In recent weeks, however, the opposition leader has been somewhat more forthright, criticizing a proposal to limit Rohingya women to two children as discriminatory, while opposing another suggestion, made by Buddhist monks, that Buddhist Burmese women should face restrictions in marrying Muslim men.

The NWI has in the past supported Suu Kyi and other politically active Burmese women. In 2010, the NWI helped kick-start the now-moribund campaign to look at the possibility of setting up a war crimes or crimes against humanity tribunal on Burma, arguing that long-standing and widely documented cases of sexual violence carried out by Burmese soldiers against ethnic minority women warranted further investigation.