By Harun Yahya

Arab News

October 25, 2014

Despite the atrocities being committed against the Muslims of Arakan, better known as Rohingyas, the international community has so far done nothing to protect these people. The world appears to be sitting on the fence, as these people are being systematically persecuted.

This minority Muslim community in Myanmar — termed the most persecuted people living on the face of earth — has been turned into refugees in their own country. The Rohingyas are a people with no civil rights and from time to time subjected to indiscriminate violence. The world became slightly acquainted with these people following the violent attacks and acts of arson of 2012. 

Last month, the government of Myanmar submitted a plan to the United Nations appeared to be aimed at restoring peace, ensuring justice and creating communal harmony. Several countries welcomed and approved the plan thinking that Myanmar was ready to roll back its policy of discrimination against the Muslim minority.

So, what’s the plan? The Rohingya Muslims have been given two options. The first one is that they should obtain the citizenship of neighboring Bangladesh in the first phase. Then only they would be eligible for the citizenship of Myanmar provided they are in possession of various documents as required under the country’s 1982 citizenship law. In the event of refusal to accept this option, the Rohingyas will have only one option left i.e. to live in camps as detainees under horrendous condition and finally face expulsion from the country of their ancestors.

The first option appeared to have a silver lining making it possible for the Rohingya Muslims to obtain Myanmar nationality. However, that is not the case. The real purpose is to officially declare these Rohingyas migrants, who have already lost all their rights under the 1982 law.

We know that a great many Rohingyas who enjoy alien status in their own lands will be unable to provide the documentation concerning their histories required in order to assume Myanmar citizenship again. All documentation about these people’s pasts, together with everything else they owned, was destroyed in the horrifying uprisings that targeted the Rohingyas in 2012. Therefore, those who cannot provide those documents will be stuck as Bangladeshi citizens in their own country, with migrant status, in other words. The Myanmar government will soon send these people to camps on the pretext that they are “aliens,” or else will expel them from the country. These people will also not be recognized by Bangladesh because they were not born there. This law is not binding on Bangladesh.

Meanwhile, those who refuse to obtain Bangladeshi citizenship will be taken from towns and villages where they live and sent to refugee camps as detainees. Under the new plan, these people will be swiftly expelled from the country, and the Myanmar government may apply to the UN to send these people overseas as refugees. The problem is that the UN does not recognize these oppressed people as refugees. Under the plan, one million Rohingyas will face that terrible end.

Phil Robertson, deputy director for Asia at Human Rights Watch, says: “This plan is profoundly troubling because it would strip the Rohingya of their rights, systematically lock them down in closed camps in what amounts to arbitrary, indefinite detention.”

The world’s superpowers and member countries of ASEAN are known to have imposed no sanctions on the Myanmar government and to merely watch matters from afar because of the energy corridors that pass through Myanmar and out of concern that this might harm their commercial relations. It is true that crimes against humanity are being perpetrated across a wide area and in the most barbaric manner. Yet this silence concerning the Muslims of Rohingya, one of the subjects that the countries of the world could easily take measures over and resolve, is inexplicable. The possibility of the deceptive appearance of this proposal by the Myanmar government convincing some countries and the UN will make the situation even more horrifying.

There is a reason why violence, anger and war are spreading in this time when realpolitik has superseded humanity, when politics is perceived as oppression and when countries ally themselves around self-interest rather than love. The reason is that people and countries do not regard love as a solution. The people of a country have for years been living under persecution and facing genocide before the eyes of the world, and the world knows this, but still says nothing. This means the problem is one of conscience, not evidence.

The human drama going on in Myanmar for so long is no secret. Covering it up and seeing nothing wrong in permitting evil will just strengthen the troubles afflicting the world. Countries of the world must therefore prioritize justice and love, rather than self-interest, first in the name of mankind, and then in consideration of this horrifying scenario. The world must therefore extend a hand to the Rohingya Muslims who have been systematically persecuted for so long. It must not be deceived, but must find a solution for this wronged people. It is a fact that countries that hold meetings all over the world that sign oil and natural gas treaties and that buy arms from and sell missiles to one another are also strong enough to protect a handful of victimized people and to convince the Myanmar government on this issue. To that end, countries must turn away from calculations of realpolitik and show that their consciences have not atrophied. Let us see if they are ready to do that!

—

The writer has authored more than 300 books translated in 73 languages on politics, religion and science.

By Matthew Pennington

The Associated Press

October 24, 2014

WASHINGTON — An influential Washington think tank is criticizing Burma’s government for presiding over a “humanitarian catastrophe” in western Arakan State and doing little to track down perpetrators of Buddhist-on-Muslim violence around the country.

Those criticisms come in a very mixed assessment by the Center for Strategic and International Studies of the situation in Burma, three years after it began a historic transition to democracy from decades of oppressive and ruinous military rule.

The centrist think tank, which has the ear of the Obama administration, visited Burma in August and issued its report on Wednesday. President Barack Obama, who counts US support of the Southeast Asian nation’s reforms as a foreign policy success, will make his second visit to Burma in two years when it hosts a summit of regional leaders in November.

The report points to some hopeful signs in Burma, which is gearing up for elections in late 2015. It cites prospects for a nationwide cease-fire in long-running ethnic conflicts, improvements in a woeful health care system and economic reforms that have spurred rapid growth.

But the report also says power is deeply skewed in favor of the military, and that decision-making on key political reforms has stalled. It says that likely reflects a struggle between “reformists” allied to President Thein Sein — the former general who has overseen the shift to democracy — and establishment interests who fear losing privileges through more change.

“It is not yet clear that the military’s overwhelming dominance will diminish significantly as the current government approaches the end of its formal tenure in April 2016,” the think tank says.

The report says massive human suffering continues in Arakan, where 140,000 stateless Rohingya Muslims have been rounded up into barbed-wire-enclosed camps after sectarian violence erupted in mid-2012 with majority Buddhists. It said for months the Burmese government has “abdicated its leadership responsibilities” as worsening violence drove international humanitarian groups out.

The government’s action plan to address the situation in Arakan State — criticized by human rights groups as discriminatory — puts forward ideas for peaceful coexistence, citizenship and resettlement, but it remains to be seen if the government can defuse the crisis, the report says.

In the past three years, the United States has led the charge as Western nations have re-engaged with Burma and rolled back sanctions, and Wednesday’s report advocates continued American engagement despite congressional concerns over Burma’s “backsliding” on reforms.

The report calls for the US to double health aid to Burma, including in the fight against drug-resistant malaria, and to sustain limited US engagement with the military. It says however, those ties shouldn’t be expanded before it is clear the military hasn’t intervened in the elections.

By Ei Ei Toe Lwin

Myanmar Times

October 24, 2014

Political parties will have a little over two months to ensure they comply with new rules that ban them from accepting non-citizens as members, says Union Election Commission chairman U Tin Aye.

Parties have been told to inform the UEC of any changes to their central executive committee or membership list by January 16, he said, adding that parties found to be in breach of the law could be abolished.

“Only citizens can set up political parties. The [UEC] will give two months for you to check your members. If you have any changes, let us know again,” U Tin Aye said.

After receiving the member list, the commission will have it checked by the Immigration Department.

If the UEC receives a complaint that a party has accepted a non-citizen as a member it will conduct an investigation, U Tin Aye said.

“We already have a 15-member committee to investigate complaints. If a party is found to have non-citizens, we will warn them to remove that member as the first step. If they refuse we will definitely revoke their registration.”

Amendments to the Political Parties Registration Law were signed by President U Thein Sein on September 30, four days after they were approved by parliament.

Under the previous version of the law, all citizens and “temporary certificate holders” are allowed to start or join a political party. The amendment, however, enables only full citizens to be central executive committee members – of which a party must have 15 – and bars temporary citizens from holding party membership.

As The Myanmar Times has previously reported, the change will most affect the three parties formed by politicians who identify as Rohingya. Most hold temporary identification documents – known as white cards – rather than the Citizenship Scrutiny Cards issued to citizens.

The amendments were proposed by the Rakhine National Party. Leader U Aye Maung said last week the RNP wills “definitely be watching” whether other parties comply with the changes.

“We will probably send a complaint to the UEC if we have evidence” that another party has non-citizens as members, he said.

But he also questioned whether the UEC should be taking a more pro-active role in rooting out non-citizens from registered political parties. “The UEC has a duty to check each party's members. It doesn’t make sense that they will only take action when they receive a complaint,” he said.

A spokesperson for the National Development and Peace Party described the amendments as “unfair” but said it would do its best to comply. He said many of those who hold white cards would be eligible for citizenship if the government implemented the 1982 Citizenship Law correctly.

"We have no choice because we are minority,” said Mohammad Salim. “They should not decide whether some has the right to participate in politics based on citizenship alone. We [Muslims holding white cards] are eligible for citizenship according to the law.”

The RNP has submitted amendments to two additional elections laws, one of which will strip white card holders of the right to vote, including more than 1 million people in Rakhine State.

However, it remains unclear whether this law will gain majority support in parliament, particularly given concerns it could dramatically inflame tensions in Rakhine State.

In its latest report, Myanmar: The Politics of Rakhine State, released on October 22, the International Crisis Group warned that it “would be a highly controversial move, and in Rakhine State could be incendiary”.

“The Rohingya see their ability to vote as their last remaining connection to politics and means of influence. Without this, there will be no Rohingya representatives in the legislature, and no reason for any party to take account of their views, even peripherally. It would be hard for the Rohingya community to avoid the conclusion that politics had failed them,” it said.

But U Tin Aye said he expected the amendment to pass.

“It is up to the parliament to decide," U Tin Aye said last week. “I think they will change it soon.”

By Carey Lodge

Christian Today

October 24, 2014

Victims of human trafficking are being abducted by force and left to survive on boats anchored in international waters, a new report has found.

An investigation by Reuters found that while in the past most people boarded smuggling boats voluntarily, they are now being kidnapped or tricked even at the first stage of the chain.

Reporters interviewed Bangladeshi and Rohingya survivors, some of whom who had been taken to Thailand where human trafficking gangs run "brutal jungle camps" until relatives pay a ransom.

They told stories of being drugged, tied up and blindfolded before being put on small boats which carried them to larger ships at sea.

Forced to survive on scraps and contaminated seawater, hundreds of people live in these "floating prisons" for weeks. Those who die are thrown into the sea.

One victim, 20-year-old Afsar Miae from Bangladesh, was abducted by a gang who had offered what he thought was legitimate work. He ended up on a ship anchored in the Bay of Bengal, which later set sail for Thailand.

Prisoners "were forced to squat for much of their journey and sometimes had their hands and feet bound with rope or cloth," Reputers reports.

"The guards routinely beat them with sticks or whipped them with rubber fan belts. Food was a handful of rice a day, or nothing at all. What little drinking water they received was contaminated with sea water."

Miae and 80 other men were abandoned on a remote island before they had reached their destination, however. Officials suspect that their captors believed the trafficking chain to have been discovered.

"Their conditions were beyond what a human should have to go through," said Jadsada Thitimuta, an official in Phang Nga involved in the rescue mission. "Some were sick and many were like skeletons. They were eating leaves."

Thailand's Ministry of Social Development and Human Security says more than 130 suspected trafficking victims have been found in Phang Nga since October 11. Most are Bangladeshi, though some are Rohingya Muslim from western Myanmar.

The UNHCR has confirmed that "bigger fishing or cargo vessels" are carrying up to 700 passengers across the Bay of Bengal to Thailand, and October is said to mark the beginning of the busiest time for the trafficking industry as the sailing season sets in.

The Royal Thai Navy has admitted it is aware that people are being held captive on ships off its coast.

"The truth is they use fishing boats to transport people and the bottom of the boat becomes like a room to put the people [in], but it seems like a commercial fishing boat," said Royal Thai Navy spokesman Rear Admiral Kan Deeubol.

Officials working on the Banladeshi coast said it's no easier to stop the operation at their end. "At night they enter our waters, take the people and again cross the boundary. It is very difficult to identify those ships at sea," Lieutenant Commander M. Ashiqe Mahmud explained.

Thai offcials say that a crackdown on trafficking has forced traffickers to become "more sophisticated and cautious". However, human rights groups believe that trafficking has become increasingly lucrative, and high competition between smugglers has therefore led them to begin abducting.

Chris Lewa of the Arakan Project, a Rohingya advocacy group said that crime-ring organisers are "desperate" to cash in on the trade.

"There are always five to eight boats waiting in the Bay of Bengal. And the brokers are desperate to fill them," he said.

(Additional reporting by Reuters)

By World Bulletin

October 24, 2014

Record numbers of Muslim Rohingya flee western Myanmar after government launches crackdown.

Unprecedented numbers of Muslim Rohingya have been leaving Myanmar on boats for Thailand and Malaysia following a campaign of arrests, a leading NGO said Friday.

"In one week we have seen 8,000 Rohingya leaving northern Rakhine state -- the amount of people who left the region per month in 2013," Chris Lewa, head of the Arakan Project, told Anadolu Agency.

Last week’s flight is believed to be the largest since violence erupted between the Rohingya minority and Buddhists in western Myanmar two years ago.

"Myanmar police let the boats come to the estuary of the Naf river in daylight and have even stopped asking for money from the Rohingya before they embark," Lewa added, referring to the water frontier between Myanmar and Bangladesh. "It looks as if it is planned."

While the number of Rohingya escaping persecution in Myanmar increases every year as the rainy season comes to an end, there are other factors that explain the unusually large exodus this year, she said.

Citing a recent series of arrests of community and religious leaders by local authorities, Lewa claimed some had died under torture, which had "provoked a sort of panic."

The project believes the government may be using a recent al-Qaeda announcement of a new South Asian branch as a "pretext" for a crackdown on the Rohingya.

In the video, al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri heralded the development as "good news" for Muslims in Myanmar "where they would be rescued from injustice and oppression."

Since 2012, 200 people -- mostly Rohingya -- have been killed and 140,000 made homeless. Tens of thousands of Muslims have paid large amounts of money to smugglers to flee on cramped boats in the hope of finding work in Thailand, Malaysia or Australia.

In southern Thailand, some fall prey to human traffickers and corrupt local officials.

The latest influx to southern Thailand comes as a shocking video purportedly shows the brutality inflicted on Rohingya refugees in trafficking camps.

The footage, currently being examined by Thai immigration police, appears to show two men raping a Rohingya woman in a jungle camp in the country’s south.

"If the video is authenticated, it may be the first real evidence of the brutal treatment of captives in the secret camps run by human traffickers in the jungles of southern Thailand," the Phuketwan news website reported Thursday.

Lewa, who has interviewed hundreds of Rohingya in southern Thailand, was cautious about the clip but added: "We know that the people who cannot pay the sums asked by the traffickers are the object of violence."

In the past, survivors from traffickers’ camps have shared testimony that violence, rapes and killings were a way of extracting ransom payments from victims’ families.

The Myanmar government refuses to grant the Rohingya citizenship, claiming they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

By Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat

The National

October 23, 2014

In April, I wrote an article for The National on the worsening situation for Muslims in Myanmar. Their condition has not got any better. Instead, the government has adopted new legislation that is likely to have a further devastating impact on its Muslim minority.

Last month, the country’s foreign minister, Wunna Maung Lwin, told envoys at the UN General Assembly that a long-expected strategy for the Rohingya minority would soon be put into effect. According to Mr Lwin, the “action plan” had been devised to guarantee peace and security for everybody in the area. He called on the global community to take part in the implementation of this strategy to provide a “durable solution” in the region.

Not long after Mr Lwin’s address at the UN, mainstream media such as Reuters shed light on what the scheme might practically involve: a set of coercive strategies that endanger the situations of thousands of people, while at the same time recycling legislation that was not in line with international law and was condemned when it was first enacted in 2012.

The suppression of the Rohingya community has been going on for decades. Since 1982, these people have been denied citizenship rights and have been considered illegal immigrants in their own homeland. Consequently, hatred, torture and killings have become a horrific daily reality for them. Over the past two years, Buddhist mobs have reportedly killed hundreds of Rohingya Muslims. The United Nations reported that the atrocities had also displaced almost 29,000 people, and labelled the Rohingya as one of the world’s most persecuted minorities.

The situation has been exacerbated by the fact that the government has done nothing to stop the continuing atrocities and has, instead, unwittingly contributed to them. At the same time, many in the mainstream media have been silent. The world community knows very little, if anything at all, about the situation.

This new strategy shows that the government of Myanmar has no inclination to put an end to the continuing repression, and is pursuing more coercive initiatives that will probably contribute to further injustice against Rohingya minorities.

According to Emanuel Stoakes of The Diplomat, a draft of this new strategy contains only a slight difference from the old policy. Under the policy, the Muslims of Rohingya, who were retrospectively denied citizenship in legislation enacted by the military leadership 26 years ago, are given the opportunity to attain certain privileges if they are able to comply to a “citizenship verification exercise” in which these people must identify themselves as Bengalis – indicating that they came from Bangladesh.

Refusing to identify as Bengali, or being unable to provide the necessary documents to prove their existence in Myanmar for generations, would give them no option but to be incarcerated in camps. After that, the policy envisages that they be relocated abroad by the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC).

Given that many people have said they are prepared to reject the verification programme and many others would be unable to find their official family records, it is likely that a very large number of Rohingya will have no option but to be displaced to camps. In such a scenario, the likelihood of violence and destabilisation would rise significantly.

Under its rules, the UNHCR may not be able to resettle the Rohinyga because they do not meet the definition of a refugee as someone who has “fled persecution and conflict across international borders”. This would mean that those Rohingyas who are denied citizenship could be forced to stay in camps indefinitely.

The unspeakable suppression against the Rohingya minority in Myanmar must end soon. It is more than clear that these people are in dire need of genuine and serious efforts by both the Myanmar government and the international community to mitigate their worsening situation.

More voices must join those speaking out in support of their rights. Organisations such as Asean must break away from their silence and insist that there be no normalisation with Myanmar while these outrageous policies are adopted against innocent men, women and children in their own homeland.

Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat is a writer based in Qatar and the UK.

PRESS STATEMENT

Arakan Rohingya Union warmly welcomes the Report of the United Nations Special Rapporteur, Yanghee Lee, on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, including that in Arakan/Rakhine state. 

The report summarizes: The important transition and far-reaching reforms in Myanmar must be commended. Yet, possible signs of backtracking should be addressed so as not to undermine the progress achieved. The present report sets out the Special Rapporteur’s preliminary key areas of focus and recommendations aimed at contributing to Myanmar’s efforts towards respecting, protecting and promoting human rights and achieving democratization, national reconciliation and development.

Arakan Rohingya Union urgently appeals the Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the members of the global community of nations to demand the Government of Myanmar to abide by the international rule of law, permanently cease the hostility toward Rohingya ethnic minority, and immediately address the following recommendations made by the Special Rapporteur to Myanmar in the report (UNGA A/69/398; Section VI. 82):

(a) Immediately address the critical health situation in camps for internally displaced person and isolated locations, in particular for those comparatively underserved, namely, the Rohingya, including by increasing the authorities’ capacity to provide adequate health services;

(b) Provide adequate basic services, including in camps for internally displaced persons, and remove any restrictions against the Rohingya on freedom of movement and other rights so as to ensure access to livelihoods, food, water and sanitation, and education;

(c) Investigate and prosecute those responsible for human rights violations perpetrated against the Rohingya community;

(d) Respect the Rohingyas’ as well as other minorities’ right to self-identification in compliance with international human rights standards, including by refraining from directing international actors to adopt positions that run counter to such standards;

(e) Immediately release the international NGO staff members imprisoned in connection with the violence of June 2012;

(f) Address the long-standing social and economic development challenges in Rakhine State through a human-rights-based approach, ensuring the participation of affected communities, including through greater cooperation with the international community;

(g) Develop reconciliation measures as a necessary step to rebuild integrated communities for inclusion in the Rakhine State Action Plan.

By International Crisis Group
October 22, 2014

The highly volatile situation in Myanmar’s Rakhine State adds dangerously to the country’s political and religious tensions. Long-term, incremental solutions are critical for the future of Rakhine State and the country as a whole.

The International Crisis Group’s latest report, Myanmar: The Politics of Rakhine State, looks at how the legacy of colonial history, decades of authoritarian rule and state-society conflict have laid the foundation for today’s complex mix of intercommunal and inter-religious tensions. Rakhine State, whose majority ethnic Rakhine population perceive themselves to be – with some justification – victims of discrimination by the political centre, has experienced a violent surge of Buddhist nationalism against minority Muslim communities, themselves also victims of discrimination. The government has taken steps to respond: by restoring security, starting a pilot citizenship verification process and developing a comprehensive action plan. However, parts of this plan are highly problematic, and risk deepening segregation and fuelling tensions further, particularly in the lead-up to the 2015 elections.

The report’s major findings and recommendations are:

• Rakhine Buddhists have tended to be cast as violent extremists, which ignores the diversity of opinions that exists and the fact that they themselves are a long-oppressed minority. They are concerned that their culture is under threat and that they could soon become a minority in their state. These fears, whether well-founded or not, need to be acknowledged if solutions are to be developed. The desperate situation of Muslim communities including the Rohingya, who have been progressively marginalised, must also be frankly recognised and resolutely addressed.
• The government faces a difficult challenge: the demands and expectations of Rakhine and Rohingya communities will be very difficult to reconcile. Ways must be found to allay Rakhine fears, while ensuring the fundamental rights of Muslim communities are respected. To end the climate of impunity, the government must bring to justice those who organised and participated in violence.
• Clarifying the legal status of those without citizenship is important. But many Muslims will likely refuse to identify as “Bengali”, fearing this is a precursor to denial of citizenship. A negotiated solution should be pursued, or the citizenship process may stall. Coercion is likely to spark violence.
• The international community – especially UN agencies on the ground – have a critical role in supporting the humanitarian and protection needs of vulnerable communities, which are likely to persist for years. The government itself must do more in this regard.
• Unless Myanmar is successful in creating a new sense of national identity that embraces the country’s cultural, ethnic and religious diversity, peace and stability will remain elusive nationwide.

“Any policy approach to the problem must start from the recognition that there will be no easy fixes and that reconciliation will take a long time” says says Jonathan Prentice, Chief Policy Officer and Acting Asia Program Director. “Halting extremist violence requires starting a credible process now that can demonstrate to the Rakhine and Muslim communities that political avenues exist in which their legitimate aspirations might be realised”.

Myanmar: The Politics of Rakhine State

By The Irrawaddy

October 21, 2014

RANGOON — Burma’s first democratic elections in 25 years are scheduled to be held in the last week of October or in the first week of November, the Union Election Commission has announced.

Commission Chairman Tin Aye told the media about the dates for the general election at a press conference on Monday.

In recent weeks, there had been some concern about a delay of the general elections, after President Thein Sein appeared to suggest that elections and a democratic transition could only be implemented successfully if the government reaches a nationwide ceasefire accord with ethnic rebel groups, something that has proved elusive so far.

Tin Aye told journalists that the commission has no intention of postponing the elections, as the Constitution requires a new government to start five years after the current government took office in January 2011.

“To do so, we have to hold a general election. According to the Constitution, we have to start Parliament within 90 days after the elections. To make this happen, we have to hold the elections either in the last week of October or in early November,” he said. “So we can’t postpone it.”

The commission chairman did not provide an exact date for the elections. “After we hold free and fair elections, I will resign,” added Tin Aye, a former top general in the previous military regime and former member of the central committee of the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP).

He made the remarks during a workshop on cooperation and coordination between the commission and civil society organizations during the elections.

His comments on the scheduled election dates were also carried by state media on Tuesday, which reported that Tin Aye had called on the NGOs to be free from political bias when they observe the elections.

The Burma Army gave up direct rule over the country in 2011, installing the nominally civilian government of President Thein Sein. Elections were announced for 2015 and are supposed to be a free and fair poll in the presence of local and international election observers.

The last time Burma had democratic elections was in 1990 when Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy won a landslide victory, a result that was ignored by the army, which continued to hold on to power for decades.

By John Sifton

Human Rights Watch

October 21, 2014

A lot has changed here in Burma in the last three years. Large-scale political prisoner releases have occurred. There has been a lessening of censorship and surveillance. The government has permitted some movement toward democratic reforms—although much of that progress now appears to have stalled. 

Not all changes, however, have been positive. In the midst of Burma’s recent transformations, caustic and divisive anti-Muslim voices have been on the rise. In May and October 2012 in Burma’s western Arakan State, ethnic Arakanese Buddhists with the backing of local authorities carried out extensive attacks on vulnerable minority Rohingya Muslims and other Muslim populations in a campaign of “ethnic cleansing” that amounted to crimes against humanity. Hundreds of people were killed and ultimately more than 100,000 were displaced. The effects of that violence are still felt now. Today most Rohingya in Arakan State live in segregated neighborhoods and camps, unable to travel freely and left with inadequate food, water, sanitation, or access to livelihoods. Unsurprisingly, more than 100,000 Rohingya have fled Burma by boat to Malaysia or Bangladesh. Hundreds are believed to have died in perilous journeys in leaky open boats. 

Muslims in other parts of Burma also face persecution. Not all Muslims in Burma live in Arakan State, and most are not Rohingya. Rangoon and Mandalay, Burma’s two largest cities, have dozens of Shia and Sunni mosques, as throughout Burma, Hindu mosques, Protestant churches, and Catholic cathedrals sit side by side with Buddhist temples. This is why this new rise of Buddhist extremism is so worrying. 

Sadly, the government has done little to hold those responsible for the 2012 anti-Muslim violence. More recently, the government inflamed the situation by drafting an “Action Plan” that appears to formalize segregation through restrictive provisions imposed on Rohingya and denies most of them access to citizenship. Those who refuse to declare themselves as “Bengali” – or Bangladeshi national – in a citizenship assessment process, or fall short of the plan’s impossibly high standards for proving citizenship, face indefinite detention in closed camps. 

Meanwhile, at the national level, the government has encouraged the National Assembly to pass overbroad and discriminatory laws on interfaith marriage and religious conversion. 

In November, the government of Burma will host a large set of international leaders at the East Asia Summit and associated ASEAN summit, including US President Barack Obama, Indonesian President Joko Widodo, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. It is important that these world leaders press the Burmese President Thein Sein to address the anti-Muslim crisis in his country. President Jokowi is especially well-placed to do so because he has pledged to use his new presidency to lessen religious tensions in Indonesia. President Obama should use his influence on these issues as well. 

The Burmese government needs to commit to acting against groups such as Ma BaTha or the notorious 969 that have engaged in hate speech inciting violence, discrimination or other crimes. World leaders should make it crystal clear to President Thein Sein that any further signs of connivance between extremist groups and government officials will harm Burma’s efforts to garner more international support. That’s a message the government of Burma needs to hear loud and clear.

By Richard Potter

Diplomacy Post

October 20, 2014

In a move to sway the public into believing it has taken pragmatic steps to resolve one of the greatest human rights catastrophes in the country, Myanmar has confirmed before the UN General Assembly. ”An action plan is being finalized and will soon be launched,” Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin said in his address. “We are working for peace, stability, harmony and development of all people in Rakhine state,” he said. He spoke as an orator for reconciliation, but beneath the gentle slew of niceties and words reminiscent of progress is a call for a process of ethnic reclassification, resettlement, and indefinite detention of the country’s Muslim Rohingya minority, many of whom are already trapped in squalid camps throughout the country’s western Rakhine State. What is most alarming is the lack of response, outrage, and even possible silent approval by the international community.

The plan, which was first exposed to the international community by Reuters, proposes that in a measure to provide citizenship to the nearly one million Rohingyas living in Myanmar they must first renounce their ethnicity as Rohingya, and claim one instead as Bengali. To many observers this may seem as a simple matter of semantics but the implications are far deeper rooted. The Myanmar government has long considered and pushed a narrative that Rohingya are immigrants who entered the country illegally from neighboring Bengladesh, and in 1982 officially stripped the Rohingya of their citizenship and nearly all other rights. Forcing Rohingya to self describe themselves as Bengali is in actuality forcing them not only to deny their culture, history, ancestry, and identity, but also forcing them to take on a label of immigrants within their own homeland.

On top of denying their own ethnicity the plan then requires those who register as Bengali to then produce documentation that they fit the requirements of the 1982 Citizenship Law, which requires Burmese citizens to trace their ancestry back to 1823, the year before the British colonized the country. The problems here are numerous, but most outstanding remains that for hundreds of thousands of Rohingyas that if they ever possessed such documents they would have likely been lost, along with all of their other belongings during the riots of 2012 where violence that targeted Rohingya all across the state displaced countless Rohingya who fled for their lives and also had their homes and belongings burnt to the ground.

A third measure in Myanmar’s proposal states that Rohingya who do not register as Bengali, and for those who do but fail to meet the requirements for citizenship, will be placed in temporary camps until they can be relocated. In this instance relocated means deported to an undetermined location. Not only is this plan inhumane, it’s also wholly unrealistic where no country or international body will willingly agree to accept such a mass influx of refugees who were deported as part of an campaign of what is no less than ethnic cleansing. The real problem this creates is that the only outcome that can occur in this situation is an expansive encampment campaign, which will no doubt resemble the squalid camps already existing which are housing nearly 150,000 Rohingya who were displaced in 2012, further ensnaring the entire ethnic group to a life of open air prisons with little or no access to basic necessities or medical treatment, denial of basic human rights, and no sign of hope on the horizon.

For those few Rohingya who do register as Bengali and pass the citizenship verification process they will still find themselves segregated in Burmese society. A notably lacking element for reconciliation the plan is that it would take no measure to prevent the isolation of Rohingya within Rakhine State, and therein restrict their movement, communications, ability to engage in commerce, and seek medical attention. For those lucky few who can manage despite the system being leveled against them to obtain citizenship, it appears what they will actually receive will only be a hollow facade of it where there rights and safety lack guarantees. Phil Robertson, the Deputy Asia Director of Human Rights Watch, was quoted in a recent article on their website stating “The few that are found to be citizens in the assessment process will presumably have the rights to move and live where they wish – but as many commentators have noted, even if a Rohingya is able to achieve citizenship, that will not protect him if he strays into a Rakhine Buddhist area.” With memories of violence that targeted and displaced so many Rohingyas only two years ago this seems of utmost importance to address, yet it remains an elusive point of discussion.

The dangers of this plan are very plain for the world to see, and the moral obligation for the international community to stand against it is as clear as any case could be, but what is so especially alarming about this plan is that it seems as though the international community may sit back and let it happen without objection. The plan itself actually calls on the UNHRC to help resettle Rohingya from these proposed camps into undetermined countries. What is assumed is that the UNHCR will not accept to directly cooperate with relocation under these circumstances, but what is not clear is why when this plan has become open knowledge there has been little or no outcry from the international community against what many have suggested is an open campaign of forced displacement and ethnic cleansing.

If the international community does not condemn this plan and threaten actions against it as it now stands they will have allowed for a campaign that will almost undoubtedly result in the mass displacement to squalid locked down camps for countless lives and an inevitable aid and health crisis that will follow as it has already for the more than 100,000 Rohingya already living in these conditions. It is the international community alone that has the ability to pressure the Myanmar government to begin reversing the policies that for decades have been plaguing the Rohingya. For them not only allow them to continue, but also to worsen, is a mark on all our nations’ integrity, morality and credibility; It draws into question our sincerity and abilities as humanitarians wherever we may find ourselves in the world. What the international community fails to do for the Rohingya, so too will they have failed to do for the whole of humanity.

_______________________

Richard Potter 

Richard Potter is a Social Worker and writer from Pittsburgh, PA. His work has been featured in Vice, Mondoweis, Your Middle East, and Rohingya Blogger.

By Neville Spykerman

The Star Online

October 20, 2014

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia should use its regional and international influence to promote positive changes in Myanmar to stem the tide of people fleeing that country, a Bar Council official said.

Datuk M. Ramachelvam (pic), who co-chairs the council’s migrants, refugees and immigration affairs committee, said Malaysia could take the lead in this matter since it now sits in the UN Security Council and is due to take over the Asean chair next year.

“Malaysia is in a perfect position to push for a regional solution to the problem of refugees and asylum seekers,” he said during the launch here on Friday of reports on the stateless Rohingya community in Malaysia and Thailand.

The reports were compiled by the London-based Equal Rights Trust and the Institute for Human Rights and Peace Studies (IHRP) of Mahidol University, Bangkok.

The reports, the result of more than three years of in-depth research, analysis and field work by a multi-disciplinary international team, include direct testimony by the Rohingya people and interviews with key government officials dealing with the issues.

They range from Rohingya children being unable to access education because their births were not registered by the authorities to Rohingya women and children being detained and starved and men tortured and beaten while being trafficked.

Ramachelvam quoted a UN report that described the Rohingyas as the most persecuted ethnic community in the world.

He said it was in Malaysia’s interest for conditions in Myanmar to improve for their minorities, so that those who fled could return.

Ramachelvam said Malaysia hosted nearly 138,800 refugees of various ethnicities from Myanmar, including about 39,700 Rohingyas.

“The governments of Asean must hold the authorities in Myanmar accountable for the oppression, inhuman treatment and the denial of rights of the Rohingya,” Rama­chelvam said.

Equal Rights Trust executive director Dr Dimitrina Petrova said both Malaysia and Thailand should take leadership roles to ensure the human rights protection of the Rohingyas was prioritised and addressed.

She added that tackling the issue needed the combined efforts of the international community.

“The problem won’t go away. It is time for the governments to convene and start talking,” Dr Petrova said.

Present at the launch of the reports at the Raja Aziz Addruse Auditorium in the Straits Trading Building were Dr Sripapha Petcharmesree, from the IHRP, and Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, Malaysia’s representative to the Asean Inter-governmental Commission on Human Rights.

By Nirmal Ghosh

The Straits Times

By Rashvinjeet S. Bedi

The Star Online

October 19, 2014

KUALA LUMPUR: The Bar Council has urged the Government to extend legal aid to all refugees, asylum seekers and undocumented migrants.

Migrants, Refugees and Immigration Affairs Committee co-chairperson Datuk M. Ramachelvam said the National Legal Aid Foundation Scheme and legal aid bureau were only available to Malaysians.

He said that with representation, their legal problems could be heard in court instead of just being sentenced or deported.

"Legal representation should be considered a fundamental right for all persons.

“There shouldn't be discrimination based on the principal of being a citizen or otherwise," he said during the launch of reports entitled Equal Only in Name: Human Rights of Stateless Rohingya in Thailand and Malaysia.

The reports were launched by the London-based Equal Rights Trust and Institute for Human Rights and Peace Studies of Mahidol University, Bangkok.

Equal Rights Trust executive director Dr Dimitrina Petrova called on Malaysia and Thailand to recognise the Rohingya and provide them comprehensive protection under international human rights and humanitarian laws.

She said that the situation in Arakan was becoming more serious all the time.

"They are here to stay. The problem won't go away. It is time for the governments to convene and start talking.

"It is a regional issue. It is not feasible for a single country to deal with it. It requires a collective effort," she said.

The Rohingya are considered by the United Nations as one of the most persecuted minorities in the world.

They are considered to be stateless and are often subjected to arbitrary violence and forced labour by the Myanmar government.

They come mainly from the Arakan state in Myanmar that borders Bangladesh.

To escape persecution back home, they take long and arduous journeys by boat to other countries in the region.

As of August, there are 39,715 Rohingya refugees registered with the UNHCR in Malaysia.

The Malaysian Government does not legally recognise refugees although they are allowed to work in informal sectors.

By Yiswaree Palansamy

The Malay Mail Online

October 17, 2014

KUALA LUPUR ― Putrajaya’s unwillingness to commit to key global rights treaties is exacerbating the vulnerability of refugees and asylum seekers here, a London-based human rights foundation said today.

In its report launched today on stateless Rohingyas in Malaysia and Thailand, Equal Rights Trust pointed out that Malaysia has only ratified three core international human rights treaties, despite being an active member of regional human rights bodies.

The report states that while Malaysia has ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), it had rejected recommendations to remove its reservations to three other Conventions in March.

These include the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), the Convention Against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT) and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD).

“As a member state of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), Malaysia is a signatory state to the 2012 ASEAN Human Rights Declaration, a non-binding document which nonetheless is a reflection of the human rights consensus in the region.

“Malaysia is also an active member of regional human rights bodies such as the ASEAN Inter-governmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) and ASEAN Commission on the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Women and Children (ACWC). In 2015, Malaysia will assume the chair of ASEAN,” the report states, stressing that under these coinages, Malaysia therefore possesses a legal duty to protect the rights of refugees and stateless persons on its shores.

Equal Rights Trust said that report was compiled after over three years of in-depth research, analysis and field work by a multi-disciplinary international team, including interviews with key government officials to offer a renewed insight as to how the Rohingya issue is viewed and responded to by each state.

The report is a joint effort with the Institute of Human Rights and Peace Studies of Mahidol University (IHRP) in Thailand.

A similar report was also compiled on Thailand.

The report stated that Putrajaya, in the absence of a local refuges law framework, also often resorts to using the Immigration Act 1959 and 1963 to emphasise a system of border control and deterrence.

“Under the Immigration Act, all refugees, asylum seekers and stateless persons are classified as “illegal immigrants” and are therefore liable to arrest, prosecution, detention and financial penalties, and may also be subject to whipping and refoulement.”

The report stated that the punishments can also apply to all irregular migrants, regardless of whether they are children, pregnant women, the sick, or the elderly.

It also alleged that Putrajaya ignored the presence of refugees and asylum seekers in the country, and that the administration imposed a condition that it will be the onus of the international community, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) particularly to undertake responsibility in caring for the group.

“Refugees and asylum seekers, including the Rohingya, are also vulnerable to extortion by the police and immigration officers,” the report further read.

It said that reports of complicity by Malaysian immigration officers also continue, especially in facilitating trafficking.

“As a result of continued non-compliance with minimum standards in elimination of trafficking, Malaysia has again been downgraded to Tier 3 by the US State Department in its 2014 Trafficking in Persons Report.”

In June, the US State Department had downgraded Malaysia along with Thailand, Venezuela and The Gambia to Tier 3 - the lowest possible ranking - in its yearly Trafficking of Persons Report (TIP).

According to the State Department, countries on the lowest tier may be subject to certain sanctions, including the withholding or withdrawal of non-humanitarian, non-trade-related foreign assistance.

However, in a statement posted on the Foreign Ministry’s website on June 22, the federal government argued that the US State Department had relied on “unverified information, provided by dubious organisations” in evaluating Malaysia for the damning report.

“Malaysia believes that information that was used in the preparation of the Report was flawed, inaccurate and did not reflect measures and steps taken by the respective Malaysian authorities to counter the scourge of trafficking in persons in Malaysia, as a whole.

“We also believe that the source of the information used by the authorities in the United States of America were not credible,” read the statement.

The federal government stressed that Malaysia has a “long and distinguished record” of being a temporary home to migrants, including an estimated 35,000 Muslim minority Rohingyas who have fled sectarian violence in Burma.

Equal Rights Trust said that presently, Malaysia hosts one of the largest urban refugee populations in the world, with some 146,020 refugees and asylum seekers registered with the UNHCR as of June 30.

The majority (over 135,025) are from Myanmar, of which the two largest groups are ethnic Chins (51,450) and the Rohingya (37,850).

BANGKOK — The Rohingya minority community in Myanmar should rank as one of the most excluded, persecuted and vulnerable communities in the world. That is the conclusion of a pair of studies, prepared over a three-year-period, looking at the plight of the stateless group. 

The reports examining discrimination and inequality faced by the Rohingya paint a bleak picture. 

The London-based Equal Rights Trust, and Bangkok’s Institute for Human Rights and Peace Studies of Mahidol University, detailed through direct testimony and interviews with officials the layers of discrimination against the Rohingya, who are a Muslim ethnic group of uncertain origin. 

In Myanmar, which is also known as Burma, the Rohingya are stateless. Those who have left the country for Thailand and Malaysia lack legal status. 

Dimitrina Petrova, the executive director of Equal Rights Trust, said the reports merely confirmed what had been suspected all along. 

“We can confirm what we have actually suspected, but we are now quite confident in saying that the Rohingya people are perhaps among the most discriminated communities in the world,” said Petrova. 

One report examines the situation for the Rohingya in Thailand, who have entered the kingdom by both sea and land. Approximately 2,000 of them, who were detained since last year as “illegal immigrants,” are understood to have “escaped,” according to Thai officials. 

But Petrova told VOA that many were actually handed over to brokers for traffickers. 

“In Thailand, what is really striking is that there’s a very high degree of collusion of Thai authorities with smugglers’ networks,” said Petrova. 

Thailand is now run by a military junta, headed by appointed Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha. The former army chief carried out the kingdom’s latest coup on May 22. 

The report on the Rohingya in Thailand and a second one on their situation in Malaysia both call for the two countries to heed “customary international law” to help all refugees. 

The reports say Thailand has effectively pushed the problem on to Malaysia, the preferred destination for most of the Rohingya who have managed to leave Myanmar. 

An estimated 37,000 Rohingya are in Malaysia, with another 15,000 awaiting U.N. recognition as refugees. 

The government of Myanmar, a predominately Buddhist country, considers the mostly-Muslim Rohingya to be migrants from Bangladesh. 

Rights groups are concerned about Myanmar’s plan to require all Rohingya in Rakhine state to identify themselves as “Bengali” or face indefinite confinement in detention camps. 

Petrova called the plan totally unacceptable. 

“The price they have to pay in order to be provided with the prospect to integrate is to not be Rohingya, to not be who they are - to adopt an identity which Myanmar is trying very hard to impose on them, that is Bengali. And everything is wrong with that. It constitutes a coercive deprivation of one’s identity. Few things can be worse than that,” said Petrova. 

Known as the Rakhine State Action Plan, it has been widely condemned outside Myanmar. 

The U.N. Office for Humanitarian Action said the restriction of free movement for hundreds of thousands of people in Myanmar’s Rakhine state is severely compromising their basic right to food, health, education and livelihoods. 

Meanwhile, a new campaign was announced Friday to encourage young people in Southeast Asia to take a stand against human trafficking and exploitation in their communities. 

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is providing a $1.3 million grant to the U.N.-backed International Organization for Migration to bring about what they term “new behavior change” to fight the problem. USAID said the campaign “will leverage the power of media, technology and celebrities” to call attention to the crime of human trafficking and help put a stop to it.