By C.R. Abrar

The Daily Star

October 5, 2014

QUITE predictably, the 2014 national census of Myanmar has come back to haunt the ethnic Rohingyas. Media reports inform that the Myanmarese government has devised a new plan under which members of the Rohingya community would be given the thorny choice: accept ethnic reclassification and the prospect of citizenship or be detained. Under the new arrangement the community members would be required to identify themselves as 'Bengalis' (and not as 'Rohingyas') or face detention. Plans are underway to “construct temporary camps in required numbers for those who refuse to be registered and those without adequate documents.”

The new decree is being proposed at a time when most of Myanmar's 1.3 million Rohingya population, particularly those in western Arakan, has been living in what has been described as “apartheid-like” condition. In 2012, the community experienced serious clashes with the Rakhine Buddhists that led to death of 280 people and displacement of 140,000. It is only in early September this year that the two-year old curfew was lifted.

In most likelihood the plan has been mooted to offset international pressure “to promote peaceful co-existence and prevent sectarian tension and conflict” and to address the situation of statelessness through a citizenship verification programme and promote economic development. But these lofty goals do not appear to have takers in the Rohingya community nor among the rights activists. They feel that it could place thousands of Rohingyas, including those living in long-settled villages, at risk of “indefinite detention.”

Although the bait of citizenship has been tagged with the offer of reclassification as Bengalis, the Rakhine state officials are already on record clarifying that restriction on many of their freedoms, including that on movement, would persist. There is widespread apprehension that registration “as Bengali” would make them vulnerable should the Myamarese authorities decide to send them to Bangladesh as being illegal immigrants.

During the last census most of the community members refused to register as “Bengalis” as the term was synonymous with illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. International agencies such as the UNFPA and bilateral donors provided support in conducting the 2014 census. Despite prior warnings from various quarters that incorporation of ethnic and religious issues in the exercise was likely to exacerbate existing communal tensions, the agencies went ahead with the census as they were convinced of the need for such information.

The census based the counting of population on 135 officially recognised ethnic groups that has been deemed by critics as “outdated and inaccurate.” The Rohingya community, dubbed by the United Nations as one of the most persecuted minorities of the world, was not included in the list. The government promised the international sponsors that everyone would be allowed to self-identify their ethnicity. But only a day before the census, not surprisingly, the Myanmarese government prohibited respondents from identifying themselves as Rohingyas. Those who did were excluded from the count.

The situation warranted the UN to issue a statement. The statement noted that “in its agreement with the United Nations … the (Myanmarese) government made a commitment to conduct the exercise in accordance with international census standards and human rights principles… It explicitly agreed with the condition that each person would be able to declare what ethnicity they belong to. …Those not identifying with one of the listed ethnic categories would be able to declare their ethnicity and have their response recorded by enumerators.” In a rare move, the UN agency expressed its concern about the government reneging on its pledge, saying it could heighten tensions in Arakan state and undermine the credibility of the data collected.

The Myanmarese government's latest plan needs to be viewed in the situation now prevailing in Arakan. The Rakhine Social Network (RSN), a coalition of Rakhine activist organisations and the newly formed Arakan National Party (ANP), are currently engaged in a virulent anti-Rohingya campaign. Implicit in their agenda is “to isolate the Rohingya population and drive them out from what the Rakhines regard as their homeland.” Even moderate Rakhine leaders endorse the “apartheid-like conditions” that the Rohingyas have been subjected to and the “continuation of abuses” that, according to Arakan watchers, “amount to crimes against humanity.” While independent monitors and UN officials have raised alarm about the treatment meted out to the Rohingyas, the Myanmarese and the Rakhine state governments claim that the displaced Rohingyas live more comfortable lives in the camps than before the violence. 

The Rakhine chauvinist leaders are on record that they favour giving citizenship rights to about 200,000 Rohingyas (less than 20% of the current Rohingya population in Arakan) and forcibly removing the rest to the proposed “detention camps” where they would be held in perpetuity pending settlement in third countries. The goal of such an exercise is to check the “demographic invasion” of the Rohingyas in Arakan, they reason.

In a situation where the state has abdicated its responsibility to protect the ethnic Rohingyas it is the international NGOs (INGO) such as the Medecins Sans Frontieres-Holland (MSF-H) who are playing a critical role in providing basic services to the members of the community in Arakan. These INGOs have also been targeted by the Rakhine organisations. Since last year the aid workers began receiving anonymous death threats and landlords began turning away humanitarian agencies. In February 2013, the MSF-H office was closed down in view of mass protests for being biased against the Rakhines. In reality, the organisation was penalised for treating those who were wounded during the communal riots in January, an event that the government denied ever occurred.

In March that year another organisation Malteser International's office premises and UN warehouses in the state capital Sittwe were attacked and ransacked over a rumour that a Buddhist flag was desecrated. The situation forced aid workers to evacuate the region. It resulted in denial of access to crucial health care services to more than half a million Rohingyas in camps and villages in the vicinity. 

In March 2014 a new body, the Emergency Coordination Centre (ECC), was created to oversee the work of the foreign aid agencies. Members of the RSN dominate the committee. The Rakhine leaders who agitated against the foreign aid agencies in the aftermath of the March 2012 violence have now been given the responsibility to monitor the work of INGOs so that they did not favour the Rohingyas. The level of Rakhine contempt against the aid agencies is reflected in the following statement by Than Tun, a state ECC member and RSN patron: “Speaking as a Rakhine, if I were to put bluntly, if all UN agencies and international NGOs were to leave Rakhine, it would go half way to resolving the conflict in Rakhine state” (Reuters: June 18, 2014). According to UNHCR, 86,000 Rohingyas have fled Burma since 2012 to escape persecution.

Thus, one may conclude that while western countries and corporations are competing with China and each other in carving out their own niches in the vast reservoir of Myanmarese resources and when Myanmar is being embraced in the comity of nations for its incremental advances in restoration of democracy, the Myanmarese state has remained on course to cleanse the Rohingyas from Arakan. This move of the Myanmarese authorities is not only an abdication of their responsibility to protect, but constitutes crime against humanity. History will not absolve the perpetrators and the abettors of this heinous crime. 

The writer teaches International Relations and co-ordinates the Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit (RMMRU) at the University of Dhaka.

By Louis Charbonneau

Reuters

October 5, 2014

UNITED NATIONS — UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s latest report on Burma raises serious concerns about ethnic and religious tensions that have led to violence against Rohingya Muslims, though he praises the government’s attempts to press ahead with democratic reforms.

The situation is especially worrying in Arakan State, Ban said, where deep rifts between the Buddhist and Muslim communities have widened and the conditions at camps for internally displaced persons have deteriorated.

“The deep-seated inter-ethnic and inter-religious tensions that have re-emerged around the country have given rise to further violence, loss of life, displacement of populations and destruction of property,” the UN chief said in his annual report to the General Assembly’s Third Committee.

The Third Committee, which focuses on human rights, will be discussing Ban’s report on Burma in the weeks ahead. It is also expected to adopt a resolution about its concerns—an annual ritual to which Iran, North Korea and Syria are also subjected.

“The situation in Rakhine [Arakan] State continues to cause widespread concern and alarm both domestically and internationally,” Ban said.

Most of Burma’s 1.1 million Rohingya Muslims are stateless and live in Apartheid-like conditions in Arakan State on the western coast of the predominantly Buddhist country. Almost 140,000 Rohingya remain displaced after deadly clashes with ethnic Arakanese Buddhists in 2012.

Condemnations from Burma’s leaders have not improved the situation, Ban said.

“While the government of Myanmar has repeatedly made strong statements of actions to be taken against perpetrators of violence, these have not been conveyed with sufficient firmness to the local level,” the report said.

He also praised the administration of President Thein Sein for the progress it has made on democratization, national reconciliation and economic development over the past three years.

Ban suggested he was concerned about the 2015 general election, in which Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who spent nearly two decades under house arrest for her efforts to promote democracy, is barred from running for president.

“Addressing the legitimate concerns of various political parties about the restrictions and conditionalities imposed by the [Union] Election Commission will be important,” the report said.

Next year’s parliamentary elections will be the first since Thein Sein embarked on landmark reforms in 2011, dismantling the control of the military, which had ruled since seizing power in a 1962 coup.

The annual scrutiny to which Burma is subjected at the Third Committee and at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva has long annoyed Burma’s leaders. They have insisted they be dropped from the bodies’ agendas, a demand Burma’s foreign minister reiterated last week in his address to the UN General Assembly.

“All major concerns related to human rights have been addressed to a larger extent in the new Myanmar,” Wunna Maung Lwin said. “Therefore we are now fully convinced that Myanmar should no longer remain on the agendas of the Human Rights Council and the Third Committee of the General Assembly.”

Western diplomats say their governments and delegations from over 50 Muslim countries agree that Burma should remain under UN scrutiny for the foreseeable future.

By Yen Snaing

The Irrawaddy

October 5, 2014

RANGOON — President Thein Sein this week signed into law an amendment to Burma’s Political Parties Registration Law, removing the right of temporary citizenship cardholders to form political parties or serve as their members.

The change to the law appears targeted at the country’s Rohingya Muslim minority, many of whom hold the so-called “white cards” that grant them status as temporary citizens.

Previously, the law allowed any “citizen, associate citizen, naturalized citizen or temporary certificate holder” to form and join political parties, but the amended legislation restricts that right only to individuals holding full citizenship status.

Hla Maung Cho, deputy director of the Union Election Commission (UEC), said the electoral body would draw up a by-law to accompany the amended legislation, including a determination on how long parties would have to comply with the new restriction.

Political parties will be responsible for vetting their memberships, with the UEC serving as an oversight body to ensure compliance. Asked how many party cadres might be affected by the change to the law, Hla Maung Cho said the UEC did not have an estimate, but had begun the process of scrutinizing party lists.

If a party is competing at the national level, it can be disbanded by the UEC if it fails to achieve a membership of 1,000 people within 90 days of registering as a political party, and a minimum membership of 500 people is required within the same period if it is a regional party.

Khin Maung Myint of the National Democrat Party for Development, one of at least three registered political parties that looks likely to be affected by the amended law, said his party was not worried about coming up short of the membership requirement.

“We will evaluate this. It’s quite early to say whether this is targeting only an ethnic group or a religion,” said Khin Maung Myint, joint general secretary of the party, who identifies himself as Rohingya and holds a so-called “Citizenship Scrutiny Card” conferring full citizenship.

The amendment will reduce the rights of the Rohingya minority in Arakan State, many of whom only hold such cards. There are three parties that claim to speak for Rohingya constituencies: the Union Nationals Development Party (UNDP), the National Democratic Party for Development (NDPD) and the Democracy and Human Rights Party (DHRP).

Burma’s former military government issued white cards to many of the Rohingya population in northern Arakan State’s Maungdaw and Buthidaung townships. The cards were issued to the Muslim group so that they could vote in support of a constitutional referendum in 2008, as well as for the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) in the national elections in 2010. Despite this, the government maintains that the approximately one million-strong minority are not Burmese citizens and officially refers to them as “Bengalis,” suggesting they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

Recent reports in local media quoted a parliamentary committee as saying that there are some 850,000 white cardholders in Burma.

The law’s change could also pose a problem for political dissidents who lack citizenship cards because they lived abroad for decades under the former military regime and have since returned to Burma as the country has undergone democratic reforms.

Aye Maung, chairman of the Arakan National Party, welcomed the restrictive amendment, saying that allowing non-citizens to participate in party politics was “concerned with sovereignty.”

The amendment to the law comes as human rights groups condemn a plan that would effectively require Rohingya Muslims in Arakan State to identify as Bengali or risk detention.

About 140,000 Rohingya in Arakan State already live in temporary camps after anti-Muslim violence displaced them from their homes in 2012.

“The long-awaited Rakhine [Arakan] State Action Plan both expands and solidifies the discriminatory and abusive Burmese government policies that underpin the decades-long persecution of the Rohingya,” Phil Robertson, Human Rights Watch’s deputy Asia director, said in a statement on Friday. “It is nothing less than a blueprint for permanent segregation and statelessness that appears designed to strip the Rohingya of hope and force them to flee the country.”

By Jack Healey

Huffington Post

October 5, 2014

The news out of Hong Kong for the past few days has had many of us watching the reports and videos that are coming out of the Occupy Central movement with admiration and anxiety. We have seen this before, with students and citizens standing up to demand access to the political process they were promised and which they deserve, taking places in nonviolent protest to draw a line for Beijing to not cross. There are no tanks yet, in spite of six armored personnel carriers having entered Hong Kong and heading toward Central from Shenzhen not long after protests began. But nobody can shake the memory of the Tiananmen Square Massacre and be worried about the fate of those participating in what has been dubbed the Umbrella Revolution. We support the desires and rights of those protesting and hope for the best. But we also remember the massacre that predated the one in Beijing, when Yangon streets ran deep with blood as the Burmese regime murdered thousands of its citizens in a day of fury that steeled subsequent citizens to wait to try for more access to their rights.

In 2010 elections were held for a new nominally civilian national government to be seated in the newly constructed capital of Naypyidaw. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was released from house arrest finally (though her National League for Democracy, or NLD, boycotted the election). Censorship was relaxed tremendously. Foreign journalists, scholars, and researchers were admitted on visas and removed from lists proscribing their entry. Political prisoners began to be released and there was great hope. Smaller by-elections were held in April 2012 and were swept by the NLD and other opposition groups almost completely. Aung San Suu Kyi, held in house arrest for the majority of previous quarter century, became a member of parliament and the world watched with joy as the nation finally seemed to be making strides toward freedom and real respect for human rights.

Everything changed with a new explosion of violence against the Rohingya, who were already perhaps the most oppressed people in the world. In early June of 2012, a group of Rakhine Buddhists sought revenge after the alleged rape and murder of a Rakhine Buddhist woman by Muslim men a few days before on May 28. They stopped a bus of Muslim laborers and murdered all 10c of them, thinking them Rohingya and responsible (they were neither). In the convulsions of riots that followed between the two communities over a hundred people died, over 2,000 were injured, and fourteen thousand were displaced. The vast majority of violence saw mobs of Rakhine Buddhists energetically targeting the Rohingya and the vast majority of death, injury, and displacement were suffered by the Rohingya. Lackluster or simply indifferent security force protections left the Rohingya communities (and later other Muslim communities throughout the country) open to repeated attacks and aggressions by Buddhists who claimed to be "defending" Burmese Buddhism against a plot of fundamentalist Islamists to overthrow the Dhamma and the replace Suttas with the Koran. Subsequently there were protests by robed monks calling for violence against Muslims, attempts to prevent even aid and medical shipments from reaching the camps (too primitive and lacking basic precautions to be official refugee camps) where most Rohingya had been corraled for what seemed to be detention without end. Even in the largest city (and, until recently with the construction of Naypyidaw out of thin air, capital) Yangon, people of South Asian descent from foreign aid workers to members of the Indo-Burmese Hindu community, have said that they are newly afraid at times if they fear they might be identified as (mistakenly or not) as Muslim. Longtime expats and native-born Burmans have said that they find the climate comparable to Berlin before the rise of the Nazis.

In the background of all this, sat the sermons of a Theravada monk called Wirathu (who does not deserve and will not receive the honorific normally preceding a robedbhikku) who sold recordings of sermons urging listeners to "defend" Buddhism and to push out the "Bengalis" (which is the name they falsely use on the Rohingya, along with the slur "kalar" and other terms intended to mislead or slur their targets). The thing is that the Rohingya aren't Bengali. They are Burmese. They were present in Rakhine State as far back as the eighth century and, while some came during the British Colonial Era from what is now Bangladesh (the Rohingya language is related to Chittagonian, but is not the same) but most were already there. Indeed, before 1982 the Rohingya were officially Burmese too, along with the other ethnic groups evaluated and approved or denied citizenship and identity status by the central government, always under disproportionate control by the Bamar or Burman ethnic group, the largest in the country. In 1982, under the wizard dictator Ne Win, the Rohingya were stripped of their citizenship and were subject to rigorous restrictions controlling their right to marry, travel, work, or reproduce, rules that were placed on no other group in the nation.

The (formerly military) real powers in the government seemed to be less interested than they'd claimed in moving forward. And after decades of playing from the British divide-and-rule book of governance, the message of Rohingya difference (coupled with the surge in Islamophobia after 9/11 in the United States was watched around the globe) sunk in as plausible with many other groups in Burmese society and the Rohingya found themselves with few voices to speak up for them. Even Aung San Suu Kyi herself gave a noncommittal statement saying only that citizenship should be decided according to legal means and that everything that happened in Burma should always be legal. So much for using one's liberty to protect others, it seemed. The frenzy for a new market has meant business doesn't much care about the human rights situation and the desire for another ally as a counterweight to China's influence in the region has meant that foreign policy cares less about abuses on the ground.

The voice for the Rohingya fell largely to the international community to advocate for their basic human rights and to encourage the provision of citizenship. It has been incomplete at best and largely a failure. The highest source of moral authority and advice for daily living hasn't, at least in the eyes of the peoples of Burma, been politicians for a long time. The political world may need obedience and is likely to be feared, but the voice of moral authority for average people is that which is spoken by the monks and nuns of Burma (and monks more than nuns). So we return to the dangerous attention paid to deceitful Wirathu and his ilk. Being the central and loudest firebrand advocating extreme measures to be taken against the Rohingya to "defend" Buddhism and to expel them from the country by force if necessary, further outbursts of violence have seen monk-led blockades of medicine/food and have involved monks associated with the burning of a school with children inside of it with "good Buddhist defenders" from the village outside ready to hack down escapees energetically. All this comes from a monk who has called himself a "Burmese bin Laden," though somewhat surprisingly after his transparently false claims of a real danger coming from Rohingya Islamists when there is none.

Wirathu is associated with the 969 Movement in Burma, an organization that promotes a Burman Buddhist-centered supremacy and the total avoidance of any and all businesses or interactions with Muslims as a minimal goal. Affiliating to a previously unknown degree with similarly hateful monks in Sri Lanka (who have been advocates for heavy-handed tactics at least and horrific human rights violations often) from the Bodu Bala Sena, a group of Sinhalese-supremacists who discriminate against all Others in that country. Tamils felt the bulk of their wrath as the Sri Lankan military conducted a campaign of total warfare to wipe out the Tamil Tigers and shut down their armed insurgency, but active discrimination continues against them and no credible investigations, much less reparations, have been made. There have been attacks against Christian churches and Mosques as well. Now, these two mad monks have signed a formal agreement to share resources to "protect" Buddhism and to specifically target others and to be prepared to use whatever means necessary to avoid the takeover of Buddhism by Islam (or, presumably, Christianity or Judaism). It would be comical, except for the trail of dead that these monks' followers leave behind. A formal alliance to "defend global Buddhism" between these these traitors of both Buddhism and human rights can only be read with concern and not support, for it can only be read as an attempt to retrench for further attempts to create violence.

What can be done? What can you do right now?

Speak out for the Rohingya. They need affirmation and policy changes that will hold Burma accountable for rendering a million people stateless and without recourse to any life of security or safety. The Rohingya have been left in a situation desperate enough that their kids knowingly set out to sea in incredibly insufficient boats prone to sink in the open water or they volunteer to be smuggled by human traffickers into Thailand to work years of unpaid slave labor on fishing boats to repay their smugglers. They need your voice. Demand that 969 monks in Burma and Bodu Bala Sena monks in Sri Lanka take off their monastic robes. From within the body of monastic discipline and traditions that govern the robed monks in Theravada Buddhism, Wirathu and his ilk have already forfeited the monkhood for themselves and have slandered the very thing (Burmese Buddhism) they falsely claim to defend when calling for more violence against Muslims in general and the Rohingya in particular. The prohibition against monks either committing or inciting murder is severe enough that it is one of only four conditions that mandate a departure from the monkhood. In fact, it is said that any bhikku guilty of such an infraction of monastic discipline is not a monk anymore the moment the offense occurs. Neither 969 nor Bodu Bala Sena followers are allowed to wear a robe, according to the patimokkha itself. These so-called monks, and all who advocate violence as a solution, can be considered to be neither monks nor Buddhist.

In Burma, the movement to create violence against the Rohingya is an attempt to influence the elections in 2015. The bulk of the current government is leftover legacy from the military regime and those with the most to lose with a real democratic transition. Attempting to draw Daw Aung San Suu Kyi into having to issue more direct support statements for the Rohingya, the dubious Thein Sein and his allies are trying to tap into pre-existing prejudice by the Burman/Bamar majority against non-Buddhist/non-Burman Burmese (particularly against the Rohingya) to turn the tide against the NLD. They are also attempting to draw attention away from the failure to address real and extreme deficits in basic infrastructure, education, healthcare, or other fundamentals of governmental responsibility. It can not be emphasized enough that this tactics are an affront to basic human rights and to any hope of continuing a real transition towards democracy or the protection of human rights.

Oppose violence on the basis of religion and ethnicity and support the NLD and Aung San Suu Kyi in the 2015 elections in November or December of next year. All of these things can be passed on to all appropriate channels ranging from your friends, social media, your religious community as part of supporting religious freedom for all, and to your Representatives and Senators in the United States who can be asked to do so.

Contact your Representatives and Senators right now (click here for details on how) and ask them directly to speak out for religious freedoms and protections of all ethnic nationalities in Burma, especially the Rohingya. Ask them to work to support the NLD through the elections of 2015, and to support the subsequent government and all of its members to continue to speak up for the basic human rights for all peoples. Ask them too to push hard for the government in Sri Lanka to be held accountable for its violations of the human rights of the Tamil, Muslim, and Christian communities there with an independent inquiry by the United Nations and for neither Burma nor Sri Lanka to be allowed to sweep these concerns under the rug as they would like.

Buddhism is practiced by the vast majority of Burma's people, and likely always will be. But Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, Jainism, Sikhism, and many traditional religions have been present as a substantial part of Burma's history as well. Burma is not a nation of only Burman/Bamar people and diversity is the rule as much as it is and should be in the United States and other freedom-loving democracies. All peoples are entitled to religious freedom, and the freedoms associated throughout the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Politicians in Burma don't get much respect for the work they might do in government. But as this newly installed and ostensibly civilian government settles in, everyone, from Daw Aung San Suu Kyi to Thein Sein and the entirety of Parliament should be speaking up for the Rohingya and all of the peoples of Burma. Conflicts are returning or never stopped against the Chin, Kachin, Karen, and Shan and not just the Rohingya. Human rights are for all, and Burma's freedoms have been long fought for both inside the country and internationally that sought to increase freedoms and not to merely switch roles in a game of oppression. Let us move forward for human rights for all and to realizing the dream of the UDHR.

By Human Rights Watch

October 5, 2014

Forced Resettlement, Discriminatory Citizenship Creates Dangers

New York – A draft government plan would entrench discriminatory policies that deprive Rohingya Muslims in Burma of citizenship and lead to the forced resettlement of over 130,000 displaced Rohingya into closed camps, Human Rights Watch said today. Burma’s international donors, the United Nations, and other influential actors should press the government to substantively revise or rescind its “Rakhine State Action Plan.”

The plan follows the April 2013 recommendations of the Rakhine Investigative Commission, established by President Thein Sein after widespread killings and violence against Rohingya in 2012 in the state. The plan, a copy of which was obtained by Human Rights Watch, does not recognize the term Rohingya, referring throughout to “Bengalis,” an inaccurate and derogatory term commonly used by Burmese officials and nationalist Buddhists. Muslims are only mentioned in the plan with reference to religious schools.

“The long-awaited Rakhine State Action Plan both expands and solidifies the discriminatory and abusive Burmese government policies that underpin the decades-long persecution of the Rohingya,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director. “It is nothing less than a blueprint for permanent segregation and statelessness that appears designed to strip the Rohingya of hope and force them to flee the country.”

The plan is supposed to serve as the general blueprint for development and post-conflict reconstruction in the state. The draft is in six sections with detailed bullet points: Security, Stability, and Rule of Law; Rehabilitation and Reconstruction; Permanent Resettlement; Citizenship Assessment of Bengalis; Socio-Economic Development; and Peaceful Coexistence. The section on “Permanent Resettlement” sets out steps for the relocation and encampment of 133,023 Rohingya people from existing internally displaced persons camps around the state capital, Sittwe, and other townships to as yet unspecified sites in the state.

The plan does not discuss the possibility that Rohingya displaced by the violence of 2012 will be permitted to return to their original homes and dispels hopes that Rohingya would be permitted to reintegrate into areas also inhabited by the local Buddhist population.

The plan has scheduled the resettlement of the entire displaced Rohingya population for April and May 2015, just ahead of Burma’s annual monsoon season. In preparation, residences, schools, community facilities, and necessary road, electrical, and water and sanitation infrastructure would be constructed by next April.

Since sectarian violence erupted in June 2012 and again in October 2012, an estimated 140,000 mostly Rohingya displaced people have been living in camps around Arakan State, where they are wholly dependent on international humanitarian assistance. Another 40,000 Rohingya live in isolated non-camp communities receiving little outside assistance. The government has failed to arrest or prosecute those responsible for the violence against the Rohingya, particularly the coordinated “ethnic cleansing” of Rohingya communities in October 2012 that Human Rights Watch found rose to the level of crimes against humanity.

Rohingya, who have effectively been denied Burmese citizenship, were excluded from the March-April 2014 nationwide census and face tight restrictions on freedom of movement, employment, livelihoods, access to health care, and freedom of religion. Conditions in the displaced person camps are desperate and have evolved into long-term internment in which Rohingya are not permitted outside of camp zones. The permanent resettlement zones envisioned in the draft plan will deepen the isolation and marginalization of the Rohingya in violation of their freedom of movement and other rights.

“The Burmese government’s plan proposes segregation measures that have been advocated by extremists,” Robertson said. “Moving the Rohingya further from urban areas to isolated rural camps will violate their basic rights, make them dependent on outside assistance, and formalize the land grab of Rohingya property.”

Part IV of the draft plan outlines steps for citizenship assessment of the Rohingya, using as its guide the discriminatory 1982 Citizenship Law, which has been used to deny Rohingya citizenship for decades. The plan includes a nationality verification process that started in August and is supposed to register all “Bengalis” by March. The recorded population will then be divided into three categories: “those previously recorded [or] registered; those not recorded previously but willing to go through the assessment process according to Myanmar [Burma] existing laws; and those who reject definition in the existing laws.” Any Rohingya refusing the pejorative label “Bengali” would be placed in the third category and denied the right to be considered for citizenship.

For people in the first two categories, the determination of eligibility for citizenship will take place between January 2015 and October 2016. For any Rohingya failing to meet the criteria for citizenship, the authorities will “construct temporary camps in required numbers for those who refuse to be registered and those without adequate documents” and sequester them in closed camps in what amounts to arbitrary, indefinite detention with the possibility of deportation.

Burmese authorities conducted a pilot phase of the verification process in Myebon. Out of the 1,094 Muslims who took part, 209 were found eligible for citizenship, including: ethnic Kaman Muslims – listed as an ethnic group under the 1982 Citizenship Law; those who self-identified as Bengali; and an unspecified number who were accepted as Rohingya. The total number of Rohingya in Arakan State has been estimated at over one million according to the estimate of uncounted persons in the 2014 March-April Nationwide Census, and most are concentrated in Buthidaung and Maungdaw townships along the border with Bangladesh. Although not directly included in the draft plan, Buthidaung and Maungdaw townships will be directly affected by provisions calling for strengthened border security and operations to stem illegal immigration.

“International donors and concerned governments should not delude themselves that this plan will lead to the Rohingya’s integration with citizenship into Arakan State,” Robertson said. “Those concerned about human rights in Burma should stand firm and demand changes to the citizenship law to protect the fundamental rights and freedoms of the Rohingya.”

All international donors should reject the plan in its current form. Donors should urge the Burmese government to develop a citizenship plan based on the principle of non-discrimination, and that upholds the right of displaced people to return voluntarily, in safety and with dignity, to their homes or places of habitual residence, or to resettle voluntarily in another part of the country.

In an address on September 29 to the United Nations General Assembly, the Burmese foreign minister, Wunna Maung Lwin, stated that the plan was “being finalized and will soon be launched” and called on the UN to provide assistance. Several UN agencies work in Rakhine (also known as Arakan) State. They have slowly been increasing their activities since they were suspended following attacks against aid workers in March ahead of Burma’s controversial nationwide census, which discriminated against the Rohingya population.

“It is shocking that a government that claims to be reform-minded has proposed bigoted policies,” said Robertson. “It would be even more shocking if UN agencies and others play along instead of denouncing a plan that would entrench ethnic cleansing and put in place permanent segregation. International donors should reject this plan with one voice and insist the government come up with solutions that protect the rights of some of the world’s most persecuted people.”

October 5, 2014

RB News

October 5, 2014

The Burmese Rohingya Organization United Kingdom (BROUK) Briefed US Senate, State Department and US Assistant Secretary of the Deteriorating Situation of Rohingya in advance of President Obama Visit to Burma

BROUK President Tun Khin made high level meetings with US Officials in Washington DC and New York. 

In Washington DC, BROUK President, Tun Khin, spoke to the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee , US Department of State, National Endowment for Democracy and many NGOs from DC. President Tun Khin raised the humanitarian crisis issue after the international NGO, MSF was kicked out from Arakan, the Burmese government forcefully pushing the acceptance of Rohingya to identify as Bangali and second class citizen , Restrictions on Education, Marriage, Movement, the Rohingya refugees situation in Bangledesh, Thailand, India, Malaysia and Indonesia, Hate Speech against Rohingyas and other Muslims of Burma.

During the Senate meeting which many senator’s staff attended BROUK urged to set up timelines and benchmarks to see improvement on Rohingya issue before US government would move ahead with other ties with the Burmese Government. In meeting with the US State Department BROUK urged them to stress the importance of using the proper ethnic name of Rohingya during President Obama's visit to Burma and also to meet Rohingya leaders in Burma.

The US International Religious Freedom Group, US State Department and many NGOs attended during the BROUK briefing at National Endowment for Democracy. Mr Tun Khin mentioned that there was no progress from international community on Rohingya’s situation since 2012 June. Tun Khin stressed that the US government must use the word Rohingya publicly and President Obama has to put effective pressure to restore full citizenship of with Rohingya identity.

BROUK President Tun Khin delivered an updated account of the situation of Rohingya at State department Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affiairs, Bureau of Democracy Human Rights and Labor, Bureau of International Organizations and Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations. Mr Tun Khin particularly urged the need to resettle Rohingya refugees to the United State from Bangladesh, India, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand with the Bureau of Population,refugees and Migration. 

In New York at the United Nations BROUK briefed the European Union Representative to UN and other missions and urged the UN representatives to include Rohingya issue on UN general Assembly Resolutions on Burma. Mr Tun Khin also mentioned That the EU policy towards Burma has been encouraged the Burmese government to continues cleanse Rohingya community without consequence. Tun Khin stressed that the EU should consider whether President Thein Sein’s government is violating international Law where 1.3 million Rohingyas are facing denial of basic rights and citizenship rights.

President Tun Khin also met with US Assistant Secretary Tom Malinowski in New York and urged the need to lift restrictions on movement, marriage and education before President Obama visit to Burma. BROUK addressed current implementation of the 1982 citizenship law will make Rohingyas illegal immigrants and will lose their lost rights forever. US government has to see that President Thein Sein government is violating international law in the case of Rohingya. President Obama have to see the country where he is visiting in the western 1.3 Million people are facing denial of aids and basic fundamentals rights pushing people to the camps. 

Mr Tun Khin also raised to lead international investigation by the US government which can gather the evidence and facts of what happen to Rohingyas since June 2012 and the following October, that they can bring those responsible to Justice and that they can stop further attacks against Rohingyas. Moreover, Mr Tun Khin urged the Assistant Secretary to meet Rohingya leaders during President Obama visit to Burma.

Physician Human Rights group hosted an event “ Update situation of Rohingyas and International Community response” at PHR head office in New York. Many NGOs attended and discussed the difficulty and lack of medical aid access in Arakab and other US government response. 

BROUK President Tun Khin gave also interviews to Radio Free Asia and Associate Press during his visit to United State of America. The interviews link can find below links:

https://soundcloud.com/rohingyablogger/brouk-rfa

http://www.rohingyablogger.com/2014/10/myanmar-says-sectarian-violence.html

Dr. Habib Siddiqui
RB Article

October 5, 2014

The Rohingya people of Myanmar (formerly Burma) who mostly live in the western part - the Rakhine (formerly Arakan) state, bordering Bangladesh, are undoubtedly the most persecuted people on earth. Denied citizenship in the Buddhist majority country, the Rohingyas have simply become the most unwanted people in our planet. The nearby Bangladesh does not want the persecuted Rohingyas to settle there either. In desperate attempts to save their lives, many Rohingyas have become now the ‘boat people’ of our time!

Who would have thought that in our time, some 68 years after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was adopted by the world community to guide its behaviors and actions we would see so much of intolerance and persecution of peoples based on their race or ethnicity? 

There are 30 Articles of the UDHR, starting with “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights…” The second one reads: “Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status…” 

When it comes to the Rohingya, sadly, not a single one of these rights is honored by the Myanmar government. These unfortunate people are denied their right to citizenship while the 15th Article clearly states: “(1) Everyone has the right to a nationality. (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.”

As the UN General Assembly convened last week, it is worth reminding ourselves that the preamble of the United Nations says, “WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, ….”

And yet, the Myanmar government, being a member of the United Nations, denies such fundamental rights to the Rohingya people. It draws justification from the Burma Citizenship Law (1982), which was adopted during military dictator Ne Win’s time. Under the section 3 of this law it is mentioned that “Nationals such as the Kachin, Kayah, Karen, Chin, Burman, Mon, Rakhine or Shan and ethnic groups as have settled in any of the territories included within the State as their permanent home from a period anterior to 1185 B.E., 1823 A.D. are Burma citizens”. 

As can be seen the name ‘Rohingya’ was deliberately not mentioned in the list in spite of the fact that before the advent of the Tibeto-Burman races in Arakan, the Indo-Bengali ancestors (the first settlers) of today’s Rohingya people had already settled in the territory and that they have had maintained an unbroken continuity of their existence since time immemorial. In so doing, Aye Kyaw (a neo-Nazi fascist, Rakhine academic) who had drafted the Citizenship Law for the military dictator Ne Win was killing two birds with one stone – permanently erasing the identity and sealing the fate of millions of Rohingyas by not only denying them citizenship in Burma but also from exercising democratic rights in Arakan where they comprised nearly half (or more correctly, 47.75%) of the population, second only to the Buddhist Rakhines. This was a devious ploy by any definition. 

The same evil genius - Aye Kyaw - was also a key figure in the formulation of racial, apartheid policy of the ANC (Arakan National Congress). Its draft constitution for the Arakan state reads: “The citizenship of the Republic of Arakan shall be determined and regulated by law. The citizen of Arakan shall be known as Arakanese. Buddhism shall be the state religion. Only the Arakan legal entities and citizens of Arakan nationality shall have the right to own land.” Since the Rohingyas are classified as Arakan Bengalis they will be subjected to a second class citizenship with no right to run for office or own land. 

As can be seen, the ANC policy is an apartheid policy of exclusion, discrimination and marginalization of the Rohingya, who are derogatorily called the Kula (Kala) much like how the Afro-Americans were once called in the USA as the Black Niggers. 

Interestingly, under the section 4, the 1982 Citizenship Law says: “Every national and every person born of parents, both of whom are nationals are citizens by birth.”

In the section 6, it says: “A person who is already a citizen on the date this Law comes into force is a citizen. Action, however, shall be taken under section 18 for infringement of the provision of that section.”

It is worth pointing out that the Rohingyas were accepted as citizens of Burma, and had elected members of the parliament from their own community. During the Parliamentary period (1948-1962) and the first years of Ne Win’s dictatorship, there were not only many Rohingya organizations, both in Arakan and Rangoon, but the government recognized Rohingya as a Burmese ethnic group, and its language program was also transmitted through the national radio station in Rangoon. As such, to them sections 4 and 6 were only a confirmation of such rights. 

But soon the controversial law was exploited by the military regime and its racist and fascist supporters within the larger Buddhist community, esp. the Rakhines, to treat the Rohingyas as non-natives to Burma, opening the door for all types of discrimination against them. A chain of pogroms followed laying down the stepping stones for their genocide.

With the change of the old guards in Myanmar in recent years, we had high hopes that the apartheid Citizenship Law would be revoked. But we were wrong. 

The former military general Thein Sein is the poster-boy of so-called reform inside the country. With him as the head of the state, there is a quasi-civil-military government in place that runs the fractured country. Myanmar had its election – albeit a limited one – in which many politicians with grass root support within the masses managed to win the limited seats available in the parliament. The new regime has also released many political prisoners (mostly Buddhists) who were once rotting in many of Myanmar’s notorious dungeons. In reaction to such positive image-building initiatives, the western world has reciprocated by lifting its political and economic sanctions against the once hated military dictatorship, which has ruled the country for almost its entire life since earning independence from Britain in January 4 of 1948. 

There was much expectation – probably too unrealistic and too premature – that the Thein Sein government was serious about ‘real’ reform and that the Rohingyas will be integrated as citizens at par with other ethnic/national groups inside Myanmar. What we have witnessed instead is worsening of their situations. They are now victims of a highly organized genocidal campaign in which even Buddhists like Aung San Suu Kyi – touted one-time as the democracy icon – are sadly, either silent or willing partners in this gross violation of human rights. Since May of 2012, an estimated 150,000 Rohingyas are internally displaced in the Rakhine state. Tens of thousands of Muslims living in other parts of Myanmar have also seen organized mob violence, lynching, and wholesale destruction of their homes, schools, mosques and businesses, which have resulted in some 250,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) all across Myanmar. 

What is worse, the international NGOs, esp. from the Muslim countries, were barred from helping out the Muslim victims. In the face of reported protests from the Rakhine Buddhist community, the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) could not even open an office to carry out its much needed humanitarian relief work in the troubled region. 

This year (2014), the Myanmar authorities have cracked down even harder, making the situation worse. First, the government expelled Doctors Without Borders (MSF), which had been providing health care for the Rohingya. Then orchestrated mobs attacked the offices of humanitarian organizations, forcing them out. While some kinds of aid are resuming, but not the health care! As noted by award-winning journalist Nicholas Kristof, expected mothers and their children are dying for lack of doctors. They need doctors desperately to save their lives, but the Myanmar government has confined them to quasi-concentration camps outside towns, and it blocks aid workers from entering to provide medical help. They are on their own in Myanmar, where democratic progress is being swamped by crimes against humanity toward the Rohingya. 

Many of the Muslim IDPs now live in squalid camps with no provisions and are counting their days hopelessly to be relocated to their burned homes. And yet, such a provision seems unlikely. In recent months, Rakhine Buddhists have organized demonstrations protesting any resettlement of the Rohingya and other Muslims. Bottom line – they want the Rohingya and other Muslims out of Myanmar, if not totally annihilated. 

Many international observers and some experts, including human rights activists, were surprised by such outbreaks of ethnic cleansing drives last year against the Muslims, in general, and the Rohingya people, in particular, let alone the level of Buddhist intolerance against non-Buddhists everywhere inside Myanmar. However, such sad episodes were no surprise to many keen readers and researchers of the Myanmar’s problematic history. 

We all knew that simply a transition to democracy would not and could not solve the Rohingya problem. Instead of a much-needed dialogue for reconciliation and confidence-building between ethnic/national and religious groups, what we recognized was appalling Buddhist chauvinism - outright rejection of the ‘other’ people from such processes by the so-called ‘democracy’ leaders within the Burmese and Rakhine Diaspora. As if, their so-called struggle for democracy against the hated military regime was a purely Buddhist one, the Rohingya Muslims were unwelcome in those dialogues between ethnic/national groups.

The level of Buddhist intolerance, hatred and xenophobia has simply no parallel in our time! The chauvinist Buddhists are in denial of the very existence of the Rohingya people, in spite of the fact that the latter’s root in Arakan is older than that of the Rakhines by several centuries. While the vast majority of the late comers to the contested territory were Buddhists, the Rohingyas, much like the people living next door – on the other side of the Naaf River – in today’s Bangladesh had embraced Islam voluntarily. Their conversion had also much to do with the history of the entire region, esp. in the post-13th century when the Sultans and the great Mughal Emperors ruled vast territories of the South Asia from the foothills of the Himalayas to the shores of the Indian Ocean. 

As a matter of fact, the history of Arakan, sandwiched then between Muslim-dominated India and Buddhist-dominated Burma, would have been much different had it not been for the crucial decision made by the Muslim Sultan of Bengal who reinstalled the fleeing Buddhist king Narameikhtla to the throne of Arakan in 1430 with a massive Muslim force of nearly 60,000 soldiers – sent in two campaigns. Interestingly, the Muslim General Wali Khan – leading a force of 25,000 soldiers, who was instructed to put the fleeing monarch to the throne of Arakan –claimed it for himself. He was subsequently uprooted in a new campaign - again at the directive of the Sultan of Muslim Bengal, by General Sandi Khan who led a force of 35,000 soldiers. What would be Arakan’s history today if the Muslim Sultan of Bengal had let General Wali Khan rule the country as his client? 

The so-called democracy leaders in the opposition had very little, if any, in common with values and ideals of democracy but more with hard-core fascism. Their behavior showed that they were closet fascists and were no democrats. Thus, all the efforts of the Rohingya and other non-Buddhist minority groups to reach out to the Buddhist-dominated opposition leadership simply failed. It was an ominous warning for the coming days!

So, in 2012 when the region witnessed a series of highly orchestrated ethnic cleansing drives against the Rohingya and other Muslim groups not just within the Rakhine state but all across Myanmar, like some keen observers of the political developments I was not too surprised. Nor was I surprised with the poisonous role played by leaders of the so-called democracy movement. They showed their real fascist color. But the level of ferocity, savagery and inhumanity simply shocked me. It showed that the Theravada Buddhists of Myanmar, like their co-religionists in Sri Lanka and Cambodia, have unmistakably become one of the most racists and bigots in our world. With the evolving incendiary role of Buddhist monks like Wirathu - the abbot of historically influential Mandalay Ma-soe-yein monastery and his 969 Fascist Movement, which sanctifies eliminationist policies against the Muslims, surely, the teachings of Gautama Buddha have miserably failed to enlighten them and/or put a lid on their all too obvious savagery and monstrosity. 

Myanmar is still locked in its mythical, savage past and has not learned the basics of nation-building. It uses fear-tactics and hatred towards a common enemy – the Rohingyas and Muslim minorities - to glue its fractured Buddhist majority. And the sad reality is – its formula is working, thanks to Wirathu, Thein Sein, Suu Kyi and other provocateurs and executioners! 

On June 20, 2013 twelve Nobel Peace Laureates called upon the Myanmar government for ending violence against Muslims in Burma. They also called for an international independent investigation of the anti-Muslim violence. Yet, the Myanmar regime continues to ignore international plea for integration of the Rohingya and other minorities. It proclaims – “There are no people called Rohingya in Myanmar.” This narrative is absurd, as well as racist. A document as far back as 1799 refers to the Rohingya population in Arakan, and an 1826 report estimates that 30 percent of the population of this region was Muslim. 

As I have noted elsewhere, today’s Rohingya are a hybrid group of people, much like the Muslim communities living in many non-Arab countries around the globe, esp. South Asia. To say that their origin is a British-era or a Bangladeshi phenomenon is simply disingenuous.

In recent months, Myanmar has conducted a controversial census in which nearly a million Rohingyas were unaccounted. They were denied their basic rights to identify themselves as Rohingya. It was a gross violation according to scores of international law. 

The Rohingya identity is no more “artificial” or “invented” than any other, including the Rakhine identity. The national politics around the Rohingya people of Arakan who are dumped as the ‘Bengali illegal Muslim immigrants’ is not mere bigotry but a viable toxic fruit of Myanmar ultra-nationalism? Bhumi Rakkhita Putra Principle. It is a deliberate act of provocative target-marking in line with YMBA's (Young Men Buddhist Association) amyo-batha-tharthana (race-language-religion) and is the foundation of the Burma Citizenship Act 1982. It is strong, powerful, and ultra-toxic. This apartheid law allows a Rakhine Buddhist like Aye Maung – an MP and chairman of the RNDP (a religio-racist Rakhine political party) whose parents only emigrated to Arakan state in 1953-54 from Bangladesh (erstwhile East Pakistan) – to be automatically recognized as a Burmese citizen while denying the same privilege to millions of Rohingya and other Muslims whose ancestors had lived in the territory for centuries. 

Myanmar espouses neo-Nazi Fascism, i.e., Myanmarism – the noxious cocktail of Buddhism, ultra-nationalism, racism and bigotry. It is a farcical ideology, which starts on the false premise that the different groups that make up its complex ethnic/religious mosaic today were always under the authority of a single government before the arrival of the British. It is a dangerous ideology since it promotes the agenda towards genocide of the Rohingya and other non-Buddhist religious minorities. It is a medieval ideology of hatred and intolerance because it defines citizenship based on ethnicity or race, which has no place in the 21st century. 

The Citizenship Law of 1982 violates several fundamental principles of international customary law standards, offends the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and leaves Rohingyas exposed to no legal protection of their rights. The 1982 Law promotes discrimination against Rohingya by arbitrarily depriving them of their Burmese (Myanmar) citizenship. The deprivation of one’s nationality is not only a serious violation of human rights but also constitutes an international crime.

This apartheid law is a blueprint for elimination or ethnic cleansing. It has galvanized into genocidal campaign against the vulnerable Rohingya people who have lost everything in their ancestral land and has created outflows of refugees, which overburden other countries posing threats to peace and security within the region. Of the Rohingya Diaspora an estimated 1.5 million now live in Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, UAE, Thailand, Malaysia, India, Indonesia, USA, UK, Republic of Ireland, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Japan, and other places where they could find a shelter. Such a forced exodus of Rohingyas is simply unacceptable in our time. 

If Myanmar’s leaders are serious about bringing their nation state from savage past to modernity, from darkness to enlightenment and avoiding becoming a failed state, they must abandon their toxic ideology of Myanmarism and revoke the apartheid Citizenship Law. They must learn from experiences of others to avoid disintegration. They must also learn that like everyone else the Rohingyas have the right to self-identify themselves. And it would be travesty of law and justice to deny such rights of self-identity. 

Finally, it would be the greatest tragedy of our generation should we allow the perpetrators of genocide and ethnic cleansing to whitewash their crimes against humanity. The UNSC must demand an impartial inquiry and redress the Rohingya crisis. The Rohingya people need protection as the most persecuted people on earth. Should the Thein Sein government fail to bring about the desired change, starting with either repealing or amending the 1982 Citizenship Law, the UNSC must consider creating a ‘save haven’ inside Arakan in the northern Mayu Frontier Territories to protect the lives of the Rohingya people so that they could live safely, securely with honor and dignity as rest of us. The sooner the better!