By Nyein Nyein & May Kha

The Irrawaddy

November 19, 2014

RANGOON — Twenty-two ethnic Kachin soldiers were killed and 15 others wounded when Burmese troops fired on a rebel base in Laiza on Wednesday, rebel officers confirmed.

La Nan, a spokesperson for the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), which is headquartered in Laiza, told The Irrawaddy by phone that “22 military academic trainees died and 15 were injured due to artillery shelling by the government [military base] at Hkarabum.”

All of the injured are currently being treated at Laiza General Hospital.

The soldiers were all under 30 years of age and were training for combat in a rebel base at Jawng Rung.

La Nan said that the fighting is still ongoing in some areas and described the Laiza encounter as an “ambush.”

“Government troops attacked with artillery. At 12:15pm, Light Infantry Battalion No. 390 attacked with 105mm [caliber ammunition]. At 12:36pm, Hkarabum Infantry No. 389 shot a 105mm into the military academy,” he said, adding that the academy is within close range of a camp for internally displaced persons (IDP).

A military official representing the northern command of the Burma Army in Myitkyina could not offer any confirmation or further details as of Wednesday afternoon.

“We need to find out what is going on on the ground. We can’t provide any detailed information at the moment,” the officer said on condition of anonymity.

At least two other offensives against KIA soldiers were reported this week in Kachin and Shan states.

KIA sources said that clashes beginning on Monday left one dead in northern Shan State, while fighting that erupted in Kachin State’s Hopin Township continues after causing one casualty.

Fighting has continued in northern Burma’s Kachin State since a government offensive led to the breakdown of a 17-year ceasefire in mid-2011. More than 100,000 people have been displaced by the conflict to date, many living in isolated and impoverished IDP camps.

The KIA is one of Burma’s only major ethnic armed groups that has not secured a bilateral ceasefire with the government as negotiators continue to push for a nationwide pact.

By MintPress News
November 19, 2014

Other pressing issues threaten to overtake the fight to return citizenship to the beleaguered Muslim minority.

A social media campaign to bring awareness to a heavily persecuted Muslim minority in Myanmar, also known as Burma, has borne some fruit: In his official visit to the country last week, President Obama took a cue from the hashtag #JustSayTheirName and did exactly that.

“Discrimination toward the Rohingya or any other religious minority does not express the kind of country, over the long term, that Burma wants to be,” Obama said at a Thursday news conference in Yangon, where he met with Myanmar opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

Human rights activists, for the most part, welcomed Obama’s show of support for the Rohingya. “It was quite a positive, strong statement,” said Mabrur Ahmed, co-director and founder of Restless Beings, a UK-based international nonprofit that aims to give voice to marginalized people. But a social media campaign is not enough, he said; much still needs to be done before the Rohingya and other religious minorities can regain their place as citizens in Burmese society.

Oppressed and extorted

The Rohingya have faced state-sanctioned discrimination since at least 1962, when dictator Ne Win introduced plans to revoke their rights and began dissolving their social and political organizations, according to the International Observatory on Statelessness. In 1974 the Rohingya were stripped of Burmese nationality, and by 1978, more than 200,000 Rohingya had fled to Banglasdesh. The Citizenship Law introduced in 1982 officially categorized the group as “non national” or “foreign residents.”

Today, the state views all 1.3 million Rohingya from the western state of Rakhine as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, leaving them out of the census, evicting them from their homes and confiscating their lands.

Earlier this year, in a new draft policy called the Rakhine Action Plan, the government proposed to assess the entire Rohingya population’s eligibility as citizens, resettle those who prove qualified and detain the rest. Human rights advocates have condemned the plan, calling it a gross denial of a people’s identity that amounts to ethnic cleansing.

“The plan demands that any Rohingya applying for citizenship must consent to be classified as a ‘Bengali’ in accordance with Myanmar’s official view of the group,” Emanuel Stoakes, a human rights researcher and journalist, wrote for GlobalPost. “It also states that those ‘without adequate documents’ will be placed in ‘temporary camps’ — a fate that may befall tens of thousands of families, if not more, who do not have government-produced paperwork despite their presence in the country for generations.”

The Rohingya have also been subject to violence from both the military and radical Buddhists. Sectarian riots that broke out in 2012 led to hundreds of casualties, most of them Muslim, and dozens of villages burned.

Since then, hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have been forced to move into crammed displacement campsthat lack even basic health services. Tens of thousands more have fled the country, some even bribingofficials to get on overcrowded boats that will take them to Thailand or Malaysia.

“Not only are the authorities making life so intolerable for Rohingya that they’re forced to flee, but they’re also profiting from the exodus,” Matthew Smith, executive director of Bangkok-based human rights group Fortify Rights, told The Guardian. “This is a regional crisis that’s worsening while Myanmar authorities are treating it like a perverse payday.”

Slow progress

Even as humanitarian groups fight for the Rohingya’s right to citizenship, a pressing health issue is arising in the displacement camps where hundreds of thousands of Muslims are living in deteriorating conditions. Al Jazeera reports that the Rohingya are not allowed to leave the camps without permission, and most of them are unemployed and rely on World Food Program rations.

Health care has been almost nonexistent in the displacement camps since February this year, when the government expelled the medical nonprofit Médicins San Frontiéres – the largest health services provider in Rakhine – (MSF) after volunteers with the charity said they had treated people that they believed were victims of sectarian violence. Weeks later, more than 700 aid workers also left the country after Buddhist gangs attacked their homes and offices, according to The Washington Post.

The result is a health crisis on top of the existing humanitarian one.

“We need [non-government organizations] back there,” said Ahmed, who through Restless Beings has worked to give voice to the Rohingya for almost a decade.

The final goal, however, is still recognition of the Rohingya as citizens, he said – and advocates can’t lose sight of that.

The viral campaign supporting the Rohingya’s cause and the resulting condemnation of the Myanmar government from the international community are proof of some progress. Though social media itself has few tangible effects on a humanitarian issue, Ahmed said, the awareness that a campaign such as #JustSayTheirName generates can result in political pressure in the right places – pressure that could eventually lead to real change.

“It doesn’t mean that tomorrow Obama will say, ‘I had a word with the Myanmar president and everyone’s going to live happily ever after,’” Ahmed said. “But just mentioning the word is a huge step forward.”

By Editorial 

Bangkok Post

November 18, 2014

US President Barack Obama had a frustrating second trip to Myanmar last week, at least for citizens of that country. Mr Obama tried to tread a middle path, always difficult in face-to-face diplomacy. When he praised the government’s policies, he disappointed many, including democratic icon Aung San Suu Kyi, who believe President Thein Sein is resisting further democratic reform. When he criticised stalled reforms, he irritated the government. 

The US leader’s “Oburma visit” (as one wag called it) was not the only case of mixed emotions about Myanmar in recent months. It was just the most recent — and prominent. This newspaper expressed similar sentiments before the Asean summit meetings held last week in Nay Pyi Taw. Launched with fanfare and well-deserved praise in 2010, the programme to turn Myanmar from a brutal military dictatorship into a democratic member of the world community progressed for two years. Then it essentially came to a halt.

There is no lack of examples. Friends of Myanmar were appalled last month when the military-dominated parliament voted to keep a xenophobic law that bars Ms Suu Kyi from high office because she has two children with foreign nationality.

Myanmar’s anti-drug campaign is non-existent; drug lords continue to churn out tonnes of illicit product, without any challenge. But nothing says “failed reform” like the policy of the Myanmar government toward its estimated 1.3 million Rohingya people, mostly in western Rakhine state.

Blame the 50 years of xenophobic, violent rule by the Myanmar army for the problem. From 1962 to 2010, the army formulated hateful, racist policies toward the Rohingya. They also oversaw all education, meaning that three generations of people were filled with the nasty claptrap that the Rohingya were “different” and therefore unwanted aliens, and troublemakers to boot. Myanmar officials today follow much the same line.

When President Obama referred to the Rohingya in a public speech last week calling on Myanmar to put human rights at the top of its reform list, there was instant derision and criticism. The chief minister of Rakhine state — the equivalent of a Thai provincial governor — said the very word Rohingya is offensive and without meaning if not outright illegal. The correct term for them, said Maj Gen Maung Maung Ohn, is “Bengali”.

That word connotes a citizen of next-door Bangladesh. It is the Myanmar government’s view that the Rohingya are foreign citizens residing illegally on Myanmar land. The fact they have been inside Myanmar borders for three, four or more generations means nothing. Mr Obama told President Thein Sein the world community is growing impatient with Myanmar’s mistreatment of the Rohingya. He suggested the Myanmar leader “do things quickly there” to alleviate the problem.

The Rohingya, meanwhile, suffer greatly under Nay Pyi Taw’s non-benevolent policies. There have been several large riots targeting the Rohingya, shamefully instigated and too often despicably led by Buddhist monks.

Like the Vietnamese government of the 1980s and the Cubans of the 1970s, President Thein Sein’s regime is happy to see Rohingya jump into rickety boats and leave for other shores. There is no intention or plan to halt this. There are few serious attempts to bring the attackers to justice. There are no plans to try and boost opportunities or living conditions for the Rohingya.

As one of a handful of countries directly impacted by the Rohingya boat people’s plight, Thailand should immediately act to follow up Mr Obama’s valid criticism. The attempt to marginalise, criminalise and ban the Rohingya is a violation of international law and human rights.

By Editorial

Saudi Gazette

November 18, 2014

For the United States, it seems that the penny is on the verge of dropping over Burma. President Barack Obama was alongside Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi as she condemned the new Burmese constitution that will stop her from running in the upcoming presidential election. Obama’s statement that Washington would continue to support Burma’s transition to democracy but “that there was still work to be done” came over as very lame.

It clearly is dawning on the US leader and his advisers that the red carpet rolled out for the country’s military-appointed president Thein Sein was a mistake. The relaxation of sanctions since 2010 and the green light given to international business to pile into Burma in search of lucrative contracts was clearly premature. It was based on the premise that the leadership of the country would quickly pass to Suu Kyi. But a clause in the new constitution disqualifies her because she was married to a foreigner. This comes on top of a marked slowdown in the reform process over the last two years.

But the Americans are looking at the wrong problem. It is not the political transition which is the real issue. It is the country’s continuing appalling human rights record which ought to be giving Obama serious pause for thought. Burmese Muslims are still subject to covert official persecution. The most outstanding case of religious and racist persecution is, of course, that of the Rohingya Muslims. Subject to vicious persecution by Buddhist bigots led by fanatical monks, the Rohingya Muslims have been massacred and driven from their homes. Tens of thousands have fled this ethnic cleansing while the police and military have looked on. Attempts to use the legal process — the fundamental cornerstone of any civilized society — have been frustrated by the sinister ruling that the Rohingya have no legal rights because they are not Burmese citizens. 

The reality, of course, is that the attempt by Burma’s shadowy generals and demented Buddhist extremists to write some two hundred thousand Rohingyans out of Burmese history is false and based on an entirely selective interpretation of Burma’s colonial past. 

The Thein Sein regime’s role in the attempted crushing of the luckless Rohingya extends to the creation of concentration camps, into which they have been herded “for their own protection”. It is clear that at some appropriate point, the government is going to attempt a mass expulsion of this minority. But to where? This oppressed community has for many generations known no other home than Burma, even though they have long been treated as “untouchables” by many in the majority Buddhist population.

What is so extraordinary is that Suu Kyi herself has failed to come out firmly and characterize the government’s reprehensible treatment of the Rohingya as a race hate crime. Even more incredible is Obama’s blindness to these atrocities, despite damning reports from the United Nations and a range of highly reputable NGOs.

Many who sympathize with the wretched state in which the Rohingya find themselves will deeply regret the opportunity Obama missed, as he stood alongside the inspirational Nobel Peace laureate. He could have laid down the law, there and then, and said that the US-led sanctions would be reimposed unless the Thein Sein regime not only removed the exclusion of Suu Kyi from running for the presidency, but also ended the exclusion and persecution of the Rohingyans. At the moment Burmese justice and democracy is built on sand.

Many of the NGOs operating in Myanmar's Rakhine state that Channel NewsAsia spoke to declined to be identified but they said that the situation is toxic.

By May Wong

Channel NewsAsia

November 18, 2014

YANGON: Emotions are once again running high in Myanmar's western Rakhine state. The Rakhine chief minister and town elders have summoned the foreign NGOs and essentially advised them against using the word 'Rohingya'.

This comes hot on the heels of Myanmar government's sharp response last week when UN chief Ban Ki-moon used the term 'Rohingya' to describe the stateless Muslim people living in Rakhine. The government insists the term 'Rohingya' does not exist and instead refers to the group as Bengalis and illegal immigrants.

Many of the NGOs operating in Rakhine that Channel NewsAsia spoke to declined to be identified but they said that the situation is toxic and that it is really unnecessary, given that they are there to do a job - to provide much-needed humanitarian assistance.

Pierre Peron, spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said: "What is important is that hundreds of thousands of people - very vulnerable people - in Rakhine state receive humanitarian assistance when they needed it. People need water, people need shelter, people need health, people need access to basic services. And that is really what is important. And we're going to continue to work to make sure that, that continues.

"The international community is working very closely with Myanmar authorities and at the same time, we're continuing our dialogue with community leaders and members of the community to ensure that we continue to communicate about what we do and why we do it, ensure full transparency on what humanitarian activities are happening."

Earlier this year Rakhine Buddhists attacked the foreign NGO offices, causing many to flee. The Buddhists accused the NGOs of favouring the Rohingyas. But now the NGOs have resumed their work and are operating at almost full capacity. Currently, they are not facing any threats to their safety.

"At the moment, there is no indication that the level of security has changed at all in Sittwe. We're not concerned and we have full confidence in the local authorities to ensure the safety and security of international humanitarian staff," said Peron.

Some foreign aid workers said temperatures are rising in Rakhine but they are hoping cool heads will prevail. Al-Haj Aye Lwin, chief convener and core member of the Religions for Peace Myanmar, said: "Those who are making noises are from the political arena, some radicals. Name doesn't matter. And they should not be that sensitive regarding that. That might be sending wrong signals to the donors and the would-be donors also.

"What we need to do is sit down decently, talk and share and exchange their views and try to patch up things through negotiations. For those at the grassroots level, we need to educate them so they won't be easily incited or instigated by those people who are trying to whip up their emotion."

Channel NewsAsia understands that some Rakhine Buddhists have planned a protest for Sunday (Nov 23) in Rakhine to demonstrate against UN chief Ban's comments on the Rohingyas. Many are hoping that once the locals air their grievances publicly, this matter will be put to rest.

RB News 

By Esther Htusan

Associated Press

November 17, 2014

SITTWE, Myanmar — The captain of the small fishing vessel has spent most of his life helping fellow Rohingya Muslims escape persecution and hatred in Myanmar, but now even he is worried about the panicked pace the exodus has taken in recent weeks.

"Everyone is going now," Puton Nya said. "I'm afraid that soon, no one will be left."

Bouts of vicious violence, together with discriminatory government policies, have sent an estimated 100,000 Rohingya fleeing Buddhist-majority Myanmar by boat in the last two years, according to the Arakan Project, which has been advocating on behalf of the minority Muslims for more than a decade. Director Chris Lewa said the pace is accelerating, with more than 15,000 people leaving since Oct. 15 — twice the number that fled during the same period last year.

Lewa believes heavy-handedness by soldiers and border guards in the northern tip of Rakhine state, where most of the estimated 1.3 million Rohingya live, has been "part of a campaign to create fear and to get them to leave."

She said in the last two months:

— At least four Rohingya men were tortured to death. Security forces broke one of the victim's legs and burned his penis, Lewa said, and the pummeled body of another victim was found in a river.

— Young men have been grabbed off the streets and brutally beaten by border guards and soldiers without any clear explanation. One photo snapped by a cellphone shows a man after he was allegedly smashed with the butt of a gun in the jaw, cheekbone and stomach.

— More than 140 people have been arrested in two dozen villages on what Lewa said appeared to be trumped-up charges, ranging from immigration violations to alleged links with Islamic militants.

National Minister of Information Ye Htut did not immediately respond to the allegations.

Denied citizenship by national law, Myanmar's Rohingya are effectively stateless, though historical records indicate some members of the ethnic group arrived in the country centuries ago. Many more arrived from neighboring Bangladesh in the 1900s when the country was under British rule. Almost all settled in Rakhine state, creating tensions with Buddhist residents who for generations considered it their duty to prevent an eastward Islamic spread into their nation and beyond.

Soon after Myanmar began transitioning from a half-century of dictatorship to democracy in 2011, newfound freedoms of expression fanned the flames of hatred. Violence by Buddhist mobs left up to 280 people dead — most of them members of the religious minority — and chased another 140,000 from their homes.

They now live under apartheid-like conditions in camps outside Sittwe or in restricted villages. They cannot leave without paying hefty bribes to police and face constant threats of violence from Buddhist Rakhine neighbors.

Often, their proximity to their old homes is "tantalizingly short," Hugo Slim of Oxford University said in a report for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Many are just a few hundred meters (yards) from the fields they used to till, the schools their children used to attend, and the communities that attacked them.

Rohingya statewide have limited access to schooling and health care. Doctors Without Borders, their key medical provider, was expelled from Rakhine eight months ago after the government accused it of bias. The government said in July that the Nobel prize-winning group could return, but has yet to make good on its promise. Rakhine state spokesman Win Myaing said the organization will be allowed to return "soon," but offered no clear timeline.

President Barack Obama, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and several other leaders visiting Myanmar last week for a series of summits called on the government to solve the crisis. Authorities have put forward a "Rakhine Action Plan," but that also has drawn criticism.

Under the plan, only those who can prove they lived in the country since 1948 can qualify for citizenship. It is impossible for most to fulfill the requirement, in part because few hold any documents. Those who don't comply would be classified as "Bengali," a term that implies they are illegal migrants and could subject them to internment camps and eventual deportation.

Now Rohingya are leaving the country in numbers rarely seen before, bound for Malaysia, Indonesia and other nations. Many pass through Myin Hlut village, where they hide in houses before wading into the midnight waters and clamoring into fishing boats.

Shabu Kuna, 23, watched Rohingya from every corner of northern Rakhine make that journey from the dark, tiny hut she shared with her ailing mother, her unemployed father, her younger sister, brothers and several nieces and nephews.

Finally she decided to join them.

"I can't stand living (under these conditions) anymore," she said before leaving in September. While aware of the risks — including being held for ransom in a jungle camp, sold into the sex trade, or beaten or killed — she says nothing could be worse than a future without hope.

The escalation of the exodus has left Puton Nya, the boat captain, gripped with sorrow and guilt — both by the numbers of Rohingya leaving and by the way many of them are treated at sea. The 59-year-old is among many captains who have ferried people from the rocky shore of Rakhine state to larger ships bobbing in the Bay of Bengal.

A neighbor of Puton Nya made the trip and later told him that the brokers — who like the vast majority in the smuggling racket are Rohingya — were raping women on the large cargo boats and brutally beating the men.

"I felt so disgusted," said the captain, whose once-dark hair is now streaked with gray, and his strong face is deeply lined by his many years on ships beneath the tropical sun.

He said he has stopped hauling people to the ships as the numbers started to swell several months ago, even though it was his sole means of income.

He understands why so many people are fleeing, and says he, his wife and son might one day follow. But with each departure, he says, those left behind become more vulnerable.

"I don't know how we are going to stand on our own," he said.

___

Associated Press writer Robin McDowell in Yangon contributed to this report.

By Richard Potter

VICE

November 17, 2014

In 2007 the world watched as masses gathered amid suddenly inflated fuel prices in Myanmar (formerly Burma) to protest against the ruling military dictatorship. The protestors were joined by thousands of Buddhist monks, and became known as the Saffron Revolution, in reference to the colour of their robes.

The peaceful gathering of holy men in a country that had largely isolated itself from the rest of the world began as something inspirational, giving hope for change in one of the world's dictatorships. Then the world watched in horror as the Junta moved in and violently cracked down on the protests, killing a still unknown number of people and injuring countless others. It was far from the first time this kind of force and violence was used by the Burmese Government to suppress dissent, but it was the first time the world was able to witness it unfold in real time.

Ashin Gambira led one of the most prominent organisations in the protests, the All Burma Monks' ​Alliance. After the crackdown began Gambira spent much of his time in hiding, publishing scathin​g letters against the Burmese Government in major western news publications. Before long he was arrested and eventually sentenced to 68 years in prison for his role in the protests. He was released early in 2012 following international pressure, only to be harassed, rearrested and released several more times before finally fleeing the country in 2013. During his imprisonment Gambira was tortured severely, sustained significant head injuries, and had his health deteriorate hugely.

The path that took Gambira to become a monk is an unusual one. As a child Gambira ran away from his family and was taken by the Burmese Army and forced to serve as a child soldier. His family found him while he was serving in the army and were able to enrol him into a local monastery to avoid arrest or redrafting. It was this decision that may have largely laid the course for Gambira to find himself 14 years later as a young man of 28 at the helm of one of the most important protests movements in the country, and against the Junta he had nearly lost his youth to.

The movement was in large part an organic uprising, but also one of meticulous planning underground. "Since 2004 we had been organising All Burma Monks Alliance," Gambira tells me. "For 20 years people weren't happy with prices going up. The fuel and commodity prices were very high and income was very low. The 88 Gene​ration and other organisations found it difficult to protest, and this became a problem, so all the monks came together to also protest," he says, referencing the movement named after the country's previous mass protest two decades prior.

For his role in organising the protests the Junta came down hard on Gambira, sentencing him to 68 years in prison. While monks are especially respected in Burmese society, Gambira's captors were especially cruel. "In prison they give three kinds of torture – Physical torture, psychological torture, and then medical torture where they gave injections," he says. "They tried to disturb my sleep constantly. They used to put sand in with my rice. But I received food from my family so I didn't have to eat that. They used loud noises to frighten me. And they beat me." As reported by Amnesty Int​ernational, Gambira was tied to a chair with a cloth over his head and then beaten over the head with wooden batons. In the same period he was left handcuffed to a chair for extended periods of time so long that the metal began to tear away at the flesh of his wrists. As a result Gambira had to relearn to use his hands as he did before he was in prison.​

The injections he describes seem equally sadistic, "The prison doctor would give me an injection and then I would start shaking. My body and my legs would shake, and then I started screaming. It went on like this for three hours. After those three hours the prison doctor came to my cell again and the guards held my legs and arms down, then the doctor injected me again. The shaking became less severe each time they did it." To this day Gambira says he does not know what the injection was they forced into his body.

Gambira was released early on the 13th of January 2012, as part of a mass pardon after international outcry and pressure seemed to force the junta's hand. He was then arrested and rereleased several more times before fleeing for Thailand in March of 2013.

Since leaving Myanmar the violence between Buddhists and Muslims seems to have left an impression on Gambira, and wary always of the Junta he believes they played a major role in the riots along with the rise of Buddhist Nationalism so often associated with them. "If there is no peace it is difficult to have a true democracy," he says. "This is how the generals keep control. They are not interested in political solutions. The government creates all of this behind the scenes. In Meiktila [​where the 2013 riots started] – it wasn't the locals who were fighting and rioting, but people from somewhere else."

In particular he blames Wirathu – known as the "​Bhuddist Bin Laden" in Myanmar he is often credited for inflaming tensions between Buddhists and Muslims by spreading hate speech and rumours against Muslims. "He gave a speech about the Kalar [a derogatory slur for Muslims and Rohingya] shortly before the violence started," says Gambira.

Gambira recalls two occasions where he had met Wirathu. "We met in the jail – Wirathu was also in prison in Mandalay. I was alone in the prison and he sent me a letter asking me about my condition. When I was released, I met him one more time and told him to not create discord between Muslims and Buddhists. It gives Buddhists bad reputation."

Wirathu's reaction, according to Gambira, was to admit to an unsettling relationship with government officials. "Before I met Wirathu, he met with Aung Thaung, a close advisor of General Than Shwe [The former dictator General of Myanmar still believed to be in power behind scenes]. When Wirathu met with me he said he wouldn't create these problems in the future, but then he said he can't ignore Aung Thaung. Wirathu was worried also that he would go to jail again if he disobeyed orders from Aung Thaung. That is the reason Wirathu does this [whips up ethnic tension]."

If Gambira's memory is accurate, this appears to be the "Bhuddist Bin Laden" admitting that he is under pressure from a government official to create disturbances between Bhuddists and Muslims. Speculation about the relationship between to two is widespread, particularly after Wirathu and Aung Thaung met in April 2012, shortly before the riots in Rakhine. But on contacting Wirathu about Gambira's claim, he flatly denied that the two had even met.

Last month the United States announced that they had issued sanctions against Aung Thaung. The US Treasury Office of Foreign Asset control issued a statement saying, "By intentionally undermining the positive political and economic transition in Burma, Aung Thaung is perpetuating violence, oppression, and corruption."

In regards to the on going violence in the country's western Rakhine State, where riots between Muslim Rohingya and Buddhists Rakhine resulted in an unknown number of dead and 140,000 displaced indefinitely into squalid camps, Gambira sees the same hand behind the violence. "Yes. It's about the generals' power," he says. "In Rakhine there is a lot of natural gas and they want to keep control of it. The issue that started the violence was very small, but they turned it into a war. They could have just arrested the men who raped the girl [Ma Thida Htwe, whose rape and murder supposedly by three Muslims was the starting point of the mass riots in 2012.]." While the authorities did in fact arrest men believed to be responsible for the murder of Ma Thida Htwe, they have also been widely accused of allowing, agitating, and in some cases participating in the violence against the Rohingya.

The violence between Buddhists and Muslims in the country shows no signs of relenting, with riots occurring again this p​ast summer in Mandalay. When asked if there was hope for reconciliation he answers with both commitment and awareness to the challenges. "Yes [there can be reconciliation], but there is a problem because people are uneducated they cannot think. People always listen to their leaders. We are trying to form an organisation to make reconciliation in Burma with the leaders from all religions to end the violence. There are groups, though, that work against this, like anti-Muslim groups, such as the Ma ​Ba Tha."

Gambira is the kind of rebel drawn by the heart, and the kind who has refused to be broken when beaten, nor to submit in duress. It's in large part for this reason, this unwavering resilience to seek justice for all of Myanmar, that the Junta feared him so much. According to Gambira, this is why the government continues to fear his return to Myanmar. "They are afraid; they know people still support me," he says. "The government in Burma is still waiting for me. Police patrols go past my home every 15 minutes. They wait at the tea houses I used to go to, to see if I will come back." Should Gambira manage to return, the people of Myanmar would be grateful for it.

Follow the author on Twitter ​@RichardSP86

Arakan Rohingya Union Welcomes the Recognition of Rohingya Ethnic Minority by the President of the United States and Secretary General of the United Nations

November 16, 2014

Arakan Rohingya Union warmly welcomes the recognition of the Rohingya ethnic minority by the President of the United States, Barack Obama, and the Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, and their unequivocal support for the rights of Rohingya people in Arakan state, Burma. 

Public statements of the President of the United States in Burma --

“Discrimination against a Rohingya or any other religious minority, I think, does not express the kind of country that Burma over the long term wants to be” at a news conference in Yangon. 

“Victims deserve justice, and the perpetrators of crimes and abuses must be held to account in a credible and transparent manner…much of the violence against the Rohingya and other Muslim communities in Rakhine State, but the government has a responsibility to work with the people to improve the humanitarian situation…All of us in our own lives have to be vigilant aside bias and prejudice. Burma, like all nations, will be stronger and more successful if it draws on the strength of all of its people. Its remarkable diversity should be seen as a strength, not a threat” to Irrawaddy Magazine. 

Public statements of the Secretary General of the United Nations in Burma -- 

“I expressed my concern about the Rohingya population who face discrimination and violence; I am urging that the human rights and dignity of people in Rakhine State should be respected” to Irrawaddy.

“…the United Nations uses that word (Rohingya) based on the rights of minorities” at Naypyitaw. 

Arakan Rohingya Union demands the Government of Burma to:

(a) Abide by the international law and respect the call from the global leadership on the Government of Burma to allow self-identification of Rohingya and reinstate their official ethnicity;

(b) Immediately reinstate their full citizenship; 

(c) Take strong measures against the Union and State Government officials conducting relentless

campaign against the identity of Rohingya ethnic minority that fuels violence, hate, and bigotry against Rohingya by the Government forces and Buddhist Rakhine mobs;

(d) Draft a new Arakan/Rakhine State Action Plan that allows the Rohingya ethnic minority to regain their citizenship and the basic rights and to scrap the proposed plan to send the Rohingya to detention camps if they decline the Government’s imposition of “Bengali”, “Illegal Bengali Immigrants”, “Kala” or any other derogatory term on them;

(e) Immediately lift all the bans on Rohingya and provide them freedom of worship, free to travel, right to marry, right to education and healthcare, right to property ownership, and other rights;

(f) Immediately cease the detention of innocent Rohingya on false and fabricated charges, release them unconditionally, and launch an investigation to the torture and death of the prisoners.

By Matt Hadro

Catholic News Agency

November 16, 2014

Washington D.C. -- The U.S. must make religious freedom a top priority with Burma if there is hope for the southeast Asian country to make progress as a rights-based democracy, said a leader in religious liberty.

“First and foremost, the United States should ensure that religious freedom and related human rights remain a high priority at all levels of engagement with the Burmese government. Consistency in these efforts is key,” Dr. Zuhdi Jasser of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom told CNA.

“It will be nearly impossible for Burma to proceed with a democratic form of government that respects and promotes rights if it does not also honor and respect genuine religious freedom,” he added.

President Obama visited the country on Nov. 12-13 as part of his tour of China, Burma, and Australia. He met with Burmese President Thein Sein, with members of parliament, and with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, a long-time advocate of democratic reforms.

Burma – also known as Myanmar – has been on the U.S. State Department’s list of “countries of particular concern” since 1999. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has long recommended that status for “systematic, egregious, ongoing violations” of religious liberty by the government and various sects there.

The worst persecutions have been against the Rohingya Muslims, who number over 1 million and occupy an area in the western part of Burma.

“Rohingya Muslims in Burma are perhaps the most persecuted religious and ethnic minority community in the world,” Jasser told CNA, “due to their displacement, disenfranchisement and general denial of basic human rights, including freedom of religion or belief.”

The 2014 USCIRF annual report noted that because they lack citizenship, the Rohingya Muslims have been denied movement to other countries and about 300,000 are forced to live in refugee camps where, among other dangers, human trafficking occurs. They face religious persecution, he added, being prevented from common prayer and preaching their faith.

Obama reportedly mentioned their plight in his meetings with the president and the opposition leader. He stated after his bi-lateral meeting with President Sein that “the democratic process in Myanmar is real” but added that “we recognize the process is incomplete.”

Muslims in general face persecution in Burma, but also certain ethnic Christian communities are targeted, Jasser noted.

“When visiting Burma in August, I heard firsthand from Rohingya Muslims as well as from almost every Burmese Muslim how much their denial of religious freedom and related human rights impacts their everyday lives,” Jasser said, emphasizing “intransigent national attitudes towards Muslims” by Buddhist leaders.

But Christians are also persecuted there, he added, like the “Chin and Kachin Christian communities who experience systemic interference and intolerance in their rights to practice their faith freely.”

All religious minorities are threatened by proposed legislation that would limit “religious conversions, marriages, and births,” Jasser continued.

The U.S. must prioritize religious freedom in future dealings with Burma, perhaps to the point of a binding agreement “under the International Religious Freedom Act,” and which “establishes clear commitments with defined measures of success,” he said.

“Critically, a binding agreement would clearly place the burden for action on the Burmese government to protect the rights of the entire populace,” he concluded.

By CBS News

November 15, 2014

YANGON, Myanmar -- Myanmar's minority Rohingya Muslims are among the most persecuted people on earth, and advocates of their cause were hoping President Obama would not only press the issue during his visit this week - they were hoping he would simply say their name.

Myanmar's government views the estimated 1.3 million Rohingya - living in dire, segregated conditions in western Rakhine state - not as citizens, but as illegal migrants from Bangladesh encroaching on scarce land. For that reason, they say the Rohingya ethnicity does not exist.

In a bid to draw attention to the issue, the U.S. advocacy group United to End Genocide launched a social media campaign titled #JustSayTheirName, and thousands of people have signed an online petition and tweeted photos of themselves holding placards with the slogan on social media.

During a private meeting with President Thein Sein on Thursday which focused largely on the Rohingya's plight and a need for constitutional reforms ahead of 2015 elections, Obama used the word "Rohingya" multiple times and did so purposefully, according to a senior U.S. official who spoke only on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to comment by name.

Notably, Obama chose to hold his news conference in Myanmar on Friday with Aung San Suu Kyi, the face of Myanmar's mixed evolution away from autocratic rule, instead of the night before with Thein Sein.

Obama mounted a warm show of support for Suu Kyi, voicing opposition to a constitutional rule that's keeping the pro-democracy icon off next year's ballot. While crediting Myanmar for progress in its transition to democracy, he offered a blunt assessment of the distressing shortcomings that have called that transition into question.

Left unaddressed by Obama during his two days in Myanmar was growing skepticism about whether Suu Kyi, his fellow Nobel Peace Prize laureate, is willing to fight as vigorously for human rights and tolerance as she is for democratic reforms. The U.S. has deep concerns about the abuse of the Rohingyas, but Suu Kyi has resisted calls to speak out on their behalf.

"If you ask how do we propose to resolve all these problems of violence between communities, between ethnic groups, we've got to start with rule of law," Suu Kyi said, speaking in general terms. "People who feel threatened are not going to sit down and sort out their problems."

Obama did use the term "Rohingya" and said discrimination against them wasn't consistent with the kind of country Myanmar wants to become. "Ultimately that is destabilizing to a democracy," he said.

Human rights groups say the Rohingya comprise one of the world's largest stateless groups. Over the past two years, their plight has deteriorated markedly, with 140,000 trapped in crowded, unsanitary camps and more than 100,000 more fleeing as refugees in flimsy boats. Hundreds have been killed in mob attacks, and an unknown number have died at sea.

Although many Rohingya arrived in Myanmar generations ago, the government and most residents of Rakhine state insist they are ethnic Bengalis from Bangladesh - which also denies them citizenship. In Myanmar, neither 'Rohingya' nor 'Bengali' are counted as one of the 135 officially recognized ethnic groups.

Since the start of this year, Myanmar's government has stepped up pressure on foreign officials not to use the word "Rohingya," and United Nations officials say they avoid the term in public to avoid stirring tensions between Muslims and the country's Buddhist majority.

On Thursday, however, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on Thein Sein to address citizenship concerns for the Rohingya community.

Ban's use of the word drew a harsh rebuke from Maung Maung Ohn, the chief minister of Rakhine state, who said in a statement that the term fosters distrust and furthers the "divide between the (ethnic) Rakhine and Bengali populations."

By World Bulletin

November 15, 2014

Relatives say thousands left Myanmar in boats in mid-Oct and fear that the boats have been pushed out to sea 

Thousands of Rohingya boat people who have left Myanmar in the past month have yet to reach their destinations, say relatives and an advocacy group for the persecuted minority, raising fears their boats have been prevented from reaching shore. 

About 12,000 Rohingya, a mostly stateless Muslim people, have left the western Myanmar state of Rakhine since Oct. 15, said Chris Lewa of the Arakan Project, which plots migration across the Bay of Bengal. 

Another 4,000 boat people, both Rohingya and Bangladeshis, left neighbouring Bangladesh during the same period, said Lewa. 

The boat people are headed for Malaysia, but most transit through Thailand, where smugglers and traffickers hold them at jungle camps near the Malaysian border until relatives pay ransoms to secure their release. 

About 460 boat people were found and detained by the Thai authorities in November, but thousands more have not made landfall or contacted relatives after what is usually a five-day voyage. 

"Where are they?" said Lewa. "We have become very concerned." 

The last time so many boat people went missing was in 2008, said Lewa. Hundreds of Rohingya, many of them starving and dehydrated, were later rescued from Indonesian and Indian waters, while others were feared lost at sea. 

Thailand's prime minister later said there were "some instances" in which Rohingya boats had been pushed out to sea to "let these people drift to other shores", but that they had adequate food and water. 

Tens of thousands of Rohingya Muslims were displaced in 2012 after deadly attacks by Buddhists in Myanmar's Rakhine State. Many Rohingya now live in squalid camps with little or no access to jobs, healthcare or education. 

Prejudice against the minority group is widespread in Myanmar, which says they have no right to citizenship, despite having lived in the area for generations. 

On Friday, U.S. President Barack Obama stepped up international criticism of such discrimination and called on Myanmar to grant them equal rights. 

RIGHT TO BLOCK 

Two senior Thai military officials told Reuters that measures were in place to deter boats from coming near the country's shores. 

Banpot Phunpian, spokesman for the Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC), said its army officers were trained to warn boats and their crews not to anchor near Thailand's coast and that Thailand had a right to block boats in seas it patrols. 

"If people are trying to come into our country illegally, do we have a right to block? If they are in the sea area that we patrol we can stop them from coming in," said Banpot. 

The boat people who left Myanmar in the past month might be "hiding on islands near Thailand", fearful that authorities are getting tough on illegal migrants, he said. 

Thailand's territorial sea extends up to 12 nautical miles from the coast, according to ISOC and the Royal Thai Navy. 

Navy spokesman Rear Admiral Kan Deeubol said he was unsure whether a "push back" policy was still in effect, but added that Thailand had a right to interdict illegal boats. 

"CRAZY WITH WORRY" 

Sajeda, 32, lives in Thae Chaung, a once-sleepy fishing village near the Rakhine capital Sittwe that has become a teeming camp for Rohingya displaced in 2012. 

She said goodbye to her 13-year-old son Mubarek on Oct. 18. He then boarded a fishing boat with 62 other Rohingya, among them woman with young children hoping to reunite with husbands in Malaysia. 

The boat set sail for a larger people-smuggling ship moored far offshore, waiting to sail across the Bay of Bengal. 

Sajeda, who uses only one name, has heard no news from Mubarek. "I'm going crazy with worry," she said. 

Concern about the fate of the boat people appears to have slowed but not halted the exodus from Myanmar. 

Reuters witnessed Rohingya gathering to board a boat at Ohn Taw Gyi village, not far from Thae Chaung, and learned that at least one other boat had departed in the previous two weeks.

By Maung Zarni

November 14, 2014

WASHINGTON - United States President Barack Obama will be in Myanmar this week for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit. Unlike his state visit in November 2012, Obama is said to be acutely aware that the upcoming stopover cannot be used as a platform to congratulate himself as "Myanmar as a success story" for his foreign policy. 

This is because Obama's Myanmar policy honeymoon has already turned into what New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof calls "a global nightmare". Uncharacteristically, opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has recently told the international media that the US government is "overly optimistic" about reforms in her country and challenges anyone to prove her wrong. 

On the home front, Obama's Democrats lost control of the Senate in mid-term elections held on November 4, underscoring Obama's lame duck position. Still, he may be tempted to continue to talk up his administration's supposed successful contributions to Myanmar's "opening" and justify his administration's plan to stay the course of unconditional, if unstrategic, engagement. 

Against this background, Obama and his advisors would do well to take a deep breath, go back to the policy drawing board, and confront the some of the crucial stumbling blocks in Myanmar's much ballyhooed "democratic transition". So far they have instead gone on the defensive about their failing engagement with Myanmar's clique of supposed "reformers", including President and ex-general Thein Sein. 

The emerging reality in Myanmar needs to be appreciated, however inconvenient or unpalatable for Washington: that the generals' top-down reforms are hardly about public welfare or advancement of human rights and civil liberties, but rather about the military and its leaders realigning their strategic interests, personal and institutional, with powerful external players, including the US, European Union and international financial institutions like the World Bank. 

In Obama's lingo, the generals' reforms may best be understood as a military strategy of "re-balancing", as opposed to democratizing Burmese politics and devolving the unitary power structure of the state to give the country's ethnic minorities a fair share of power. 

Not surprisingly, the reforms have spectacularly failed to live up to the media hype and international policy discussions, which were fueled in the first place by the military's psychological warfare program and its proxy "Myanmar Peace Center, as well as their friends and allies in Rangoon's foreign diplomatic circles, including the Norwegian, British and US embassies. 

Reforms, including the freeing of political prisoners, allowing jailed dissidents including Suu Kyi to sit in the military-controlled parliament, media liberalization, economic privatization and the pursuit of ceasefire negotiations with the country's ethnic armed resistance movements, have all been touted by Thein Sein's international supporters as "extraordinary" and "unthinkable only several years ago". Under closer scrutiny, however, they all are now clearly more form than substance. 

Both the quasi-civilian parliament and President Thein Sein's administration have opposed categorically any push for amending the anti-democratic constitution devised by and for the military leadership, witnessed in the 25% parliamentary seats automatically allotted to the Ministry of Defense and the clause that bars Suu Kyi and any able Burmese with foreign spouses or offspring from holding the country's highest office. 

The discourse that Myanmar is now home to one of Southeast Asia's freest media has been punctured by the stories of the army torturing to death Ko Par Gyi, the former-Aung San Suu Kyi-bodyguard-cum-freelance journalist and the jailing of three Burmese journalists who uncovered part of the military's secret weapons program, with alleged involvement of North Korean experts, using British colonial-era 1923 Official Secrets Act. 

Thein Sein's speeches are peppered with buzzwords such as "good governance", "inclusiveness" and "tolerance", but stand in sharp contrast with his government's ranking at the bottom of Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index. 

It was under his presidential watch that the military broke its 14-year-old written ceasefire agreement with the Kachin Independence Organization in June 2011, thus re-igniting conflict in the country's strategic and resource rich northern and eastern regions bordering on India and China. Nor has he done anything substantive or significant to curb the hate speech and violence directed against the country's estimated 4-5 million Muslims. 

Indeed, Myanmar's reforms are not simply backsliding. Rather, they hold little or no prospect for bringing about genuine and substantive changes, without which neither peace nor prosperity is conceivable. Not in a country with the world's longest political and ethnic strife and pervasive absolute poverty. 

Obama needs to understand that the intransigence of Thein Sein's government - not the economic or personal interests of the ethnic minority leaders and their armed resistance organizations - is damaging the prospects of a nationwide ceasefire on which political solutions and lasting inter-ethnic peace will have to be built. 

Bleak peace prospects Despite the millions of euros and dollars spent in "peace support initiatives" by the likes of Norway, Japan and the European Union, the prospects for peace, stability and development, especially in the border regions of Kachin, Shan, Karenni, Karen, Mon and Wa communities, remains bleak. The absence of any progress in the pursuit of peace by Thein Sein and his deputies is in spite of the United Nations and neighboring China's involvement in the ceasefire negotiations. 

How can there be a nationwide ceasefire, let alone lasting peace, when the most powerful stakeholder - the military's leadership - rejects both equality among the country's diverse ethnic and religious communities and the federalist political vision those groups maintain is the only viable and pragmatic way forward in a country with about two dozen armed ethnic movements? 

Whoever is in the driver's seat and whatever form the new politics and administration may assume, the military remains wedded to its deeply internalized corporate vision of a unitary state where the armed forces and the officer corps doggedly play the simultaneous roles of referee, coach, and player in national politics. 

Besides the military's unitary vision for the state, the ruling generals and top ex-generals possess deep commercial interests in conflict zones which will necessarily be diminished if the state's administrative and political power is devolved to ethnic groups. For instance, many ranking generals and ex-generals have ties to the hundreds of mining companies in the multi-billion dollar jade industry at Hpar-Khant in Kachin State. Ironically, these jade mining companies pay both the Kachin Independence Organization and army, filling both sides' war chests in the process. 

For their part, the ethnic minority armed groups have tired of government ceasefire negotiators who have proven to be unable or disempowered to honor past agreements. For instance, in September this year all sides reached an initial agreement on the federalist nature of a new national polity and amendments to the military's 2008 Constitution as the basis for a nationwide ceasefire deal to be signed by all armed groups, including the central government's Armed Forces. 

A month later, the government's military representatives walked into the negotiation rooms and informed the leaders of the ethnic armed groups that the September deal was off. They then presented new conditions for a national ceasefire, which included keeping the 2008 Constitution intact and subordinating the ethnic minority armed groups under the government's central command as "border guard forces". 

Washington needs to be clear-eyed about the fact that Myanmar's government is still committing widespread crimes against humanity and other mass atrocities, particularly against both Rohingya Muslims and other ethnic minorities such as the Shans and Kachins. 

Last week, Harvard Law School's International Human Rights Clinic released the findings of its three-year study of "war crimes" committed by three serving generals in eastern Myanmar, including a powerful minister in President Thein Sein's government. 

In the last two-and-a-half years, there has been an alarming and sustained rise in violence, death and destruction against Rohingyas in western Myanmar - so much so that the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, one of the foremost leading institutions dealing with cases of global mass atrocities, recently issued a clarion call to stop the unfolding genocide in Myanmar. 

At a Harvard University conference held last week on the worsening plight of the Rohingyas, Nobel Prize laureate Amartya Sen weighed in on the subject by framing Myanmar's persecution of over 1 million Rohingyas as a "slow genocide" unfolding over nearly 40 years, a far more sinister process of state-sponsored intentional destruction of a people than the Holocaust, Rwanda's genocide or the Khmer Rouge's mass atrocities in Cambodia. 

Notwithstanding legal and policy debates over the terminologies of the atrocities, including slow genocide, ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity, or just plain war crimes, it is unmistakable that large scale mass atrocities are being committed against various ethnic and religious minorities by both official government troops and non-state actors such as the country's ultra-racist monks and Nazi-inspired ethnic Rakhine extremists. 

In Washington, a typical American confidence about how to facilitate and support Myanmar's transition from an outright military dictatorship to a more benign entity has given way to policy confusion, uncertainty and defensiveness. As Obama's government ponders why and how the top-down reforms it previously strongly endorsed but now recognize have stalled, it would do well to review the four biggest challenges to engaging Thein Sein's essentially military-led government. 

Needless to say, there is no possibility of the US reversing its current unconditional engagement policy and support for the "reformist" clique in Naypyidaw, who are believed to regularly congregate in Thein Sein's office. 

However, if US policy is to advance its hidden and official policy objectives, including the severing of Myanmar's ties with North Korea, promotion of democracy, freedom and human rights, and economic liberalization, as well as counterbalancing China's influence and role in the country, Washington's engagement needs to be strategically re-calibrated during Obama's visit. 

Tough talking points

First, Obama should make it clear to Thein Sein that as chairman of Myanmar's National Defense and Security Council, the country's de facto ruling body, he must reign in and stop immediately the Armed Forces' continuing war crimes against the Shan and Kachin ethnic minorities. Any claims that Thein Sein, an ex-general and Prime Minister under the former ruling junta, does not control the military's Central Command should be diplomatically refuted as disingenuous. 

Second, the US should put a moratorium on any and all military-to-military engagements between the Pentagon and the Myanmar state security sector, including workshops and training programs in human rights and civil-military relations. 

The Pentagon, with its own atrocious record of human-rights violations in the name of the "global war on terror" is neither the most obvious choice for the task nor best equipped for the job. Leave that to some other credible organizations such as Asian Human Rights Commission, Harvard Law School's International Human Rights Clinic or the Global Minorities Alliance. 

Third, the Obama Administration, represented US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power, the Pulitzer Prize winning expert on genocides and the author of A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, should entertain the idea of punitive measures against Myanmar's genocidaires, including against top-ranking government officials as well as communal Rakhine leaders. 

If Washington is not prepared to push for UN Security Council authorization for the referral of Myanmar's genocidal military leaders and ex-leaders, including the "reformist" Thein Sein, it should at the least call for the revision of the racist 1982 Citizenship Act, which serves the legal justification for Rohingya persecution. 

It should also consider curbing its present ambassador in Rangoon, Derek Mitchell, who reliable sources say is pressuring Rohingya leaders and community elders to accept Thein Sein government's official erasure of the former's voluntary ethnic identity and adopt the government-imposed label "Bengali" - a term that effectively indicates that Rohingyas do not belong in Myanmar. 

In a move widely popular with the public, the US Treasury recently blacklisted ex-Brigadier Aung Thaung, chair of the Finance Committee for the military's ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party and a very powerful confidante of the now officially retired despot Senior General Than Shwe, on the grounds he has been directly involved in recent violent campaigns against Myanmar's Muslims. The Obama Administration should also propose and lead similar punitive moves using established global justice mechanisms such as the International Criminal Court or Responsibility to Protect (R2P). 

Fourth and finally, as a point of departure from its current policy of unwavering support for Thein Sein's government (and its "less-corrupt" super-ministers and "cleaner" cronies), Washington needs to realign its long-term strategic interests, both commercial and strategic, with those of the public, including farmers, laborers, ethnic and religious minorities and genuine - as opposed to proxy - opposition parties. 

The US's short-sighted preference for supporting elite-led quasi-transitional processes in the Middle East and former Soviet Union has already boomeranged. The sustained popularity of Vladimir Putin in Russia and the widespread and palpable hatred of the US on the Arab Street spring to mind. Washington should recognize that Myanmar's persecuted and oppressed ethnic and religious minorities - not only the Rohingyas but also the Kachin, Mon, Shan, Karen and others - would like to see a more decisively pro-democratic and pro-human rights US policy and practice in Myanmar. 

The country's various oppressed constituencies are intensely resentful of both meek, mild and ineffectual UN officials and China's narrow interests and slanted policies in favor of their common oppressor in Naypyidaw. They still hold out hope that the US's involvement and pressure on the country's current military leaders will eventually bring genuine democratic reforms and an end to decades of internal conflict. For that to happen, Obama must change his previous tact of unconditional engagement, beginning with a strong message to Naypyidaw that current trends and practices will be met with renewed punitive measures. 

Maung Zarni is a lecturer in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School and co-author with Alice Cowley of The Slow Burning Genocide of Myanmar's Rohingya in the Pacific Rim Law and Policy Journal (University of Washington Law School, Spring 2014).

This analysis article was originally published on Asia Times.