By UNHCR

December 5, 2014

GENEVA – A new UNHCR report released on Friday has found that more people are risking their lives on smugglers' boats in South-East Asia despite the prospect of violence en route.

The refugee agency estimates that 54,000 people have undertaken irregular maritime journeys in the region so far this year, based on reports by local sources, media and survivors. This includes some 53,000 people leaving from the Bay of Bengal towards Thailand and Malaysia, and hundreds of others moving further south in the Indian Ocean.

The outflow from the Bay of Bengal tends to peak in October, when calmer waters follow the end of the rainy season. Departures this October surged more than in previous years. Some 21,000 Rohingya and Bangladeshis have set sail since then, a 37-per cent increase over the same period last year. About 10 per cent are believed to be women. Roughly a third of arrivals interviewed by UNHCR in Thailand and Malaysia were minors under 18 years of age. Children as young as eight years old are known to have made the journey alone.

In total some 120,000 people are believed to have embarked on these voyages in the Bay of Bengal since the start of 2012. With payments ranging from US$1,600 to US$2,400 demanded for each passenger, smugglers plying this route are believed to have generated nearly US$250 million in revenue in the last three years. While the majority of people paid smugglers for the journey, there were isolated accounts of people who said they were forced onto boats, sometimes at gunpoint, in Myanmar and Bangladesh.

Conditions on the smugglers' boats were dire. Survivors consistently described overcrowded conditions and daily rations of one sparse meal and one to two cups of water. People who asked for more or tried to use the toilet out of turn were beaten or kicked down ladders by the armed crew on the deck above. An estimated 540 people have reportedly died this year at sea from such beatings, starvation or dehydration, and their bodies thrown overboard.

In Thailand, survivors told UNHCR staff that they were ferried from the big boats on smaller boats to the mainland. There they were held in smugglers' camps and made to call relatives to pay for their release. When payment was not immediate, they were beaten or subjected to other acts of torture.

Since last year, hundreds of people are alleged to have died in the camps from illness, starvation, dehydration and killings by smugglers when they tried to escape or could not pay.

According to survivor accounts, raids by law enforcement agencies in Thailand since the beginning of the year seem to have led to a marked reduction in the number and size of smugglers' camps in the country. Some of the survivors UNHCR interviewed had gone through the camps more than once. They were rescued in government raids, placed in immigration detention, then opted for deportation or escaped and re-entered the smuggling cycle to escape the prospect of indefinite detention.

Rohingya and Bangladeshis who arrived in Thailand in recent months have been systematically screened by government teams to assess the potential for human trafficking. If found to be victims of trafficking, they are transferred to shelters to facilitate their rehabilitation and investigations of suspected smugglers. UNHCR hopes that this screening can be expanded to an assessment of all international protection needs.

Most arrivals in Malaysia crossed by land from Thailand and were kept in holding houses in northern Malaysia, usually for a few days. UNHCR staff met a teenage girl who married a Rohingya man after he paid for her and her brother's release from a holding house.

As a result of the abuse and deprivations they suffered on smugglers' boats and camps, this year nearly 200 people approached UNHCR in Malaysia with beri beri disease, a form of Vitamin B1 deficiency that left them unable to walk.

Several boats arrived directly in Malaysia from the Bay of Bengal this year. Nearly 300 people who arrived on three boats were arrested. UNHCR has been able to access people from the first two boats and is seeking access to the third group. Yet others arrived by boat undetected and are living in the community.

Two-way boat traffic continued between Indonesia and Malaysia, with some Rohingya moving to Indonesia after spending some time in Malaysia. More than 100 Rohingya were registered with UNHCR in Indonesia this year.

UNHCR staff spoke to some Rohingya who tried to sail onward to Australia but returned due to bad weather, engine failure or interception by Australian authorities.

This year to date, there were 10 known interceptions of boats carrying 441 people hoping to reach Australia. Seven boats with 205 people were returned to Indonesia. All but one of 79 passengers on two boats were returned to Sri Lanka. Separately 157 people on a boat from India were transferred from the Australian mainland to an offshore processing centre in Nauru, where they remain detained.

Of the more than 6,500 people of concern to UNHCR who travelled by sea and were put in detention in the region, more than 4,600 were held in Australia or the offshore processing centres in Nauru and Papua New Guinea.

By Kyaw Phyo Tha

The Irrawaddy

December 4, 2014

RANGOON — The lack of a response by President Thein Sein and Burma Army chief Min Aung Hlaing following a recent Parliament-endorsed proposal to hold six-party talks with key political players in Burma indicates that the issue of constitutional reform could hit political deadlock, according to political analysts and opposition lawmakers.

They said it signals that the Thein Sein administration and the powerful Burma Army appear unified in their opposition to reforming the controversial and undemocratic charter, a position they warn that could ultimately lead to public unrest.

“It’s questionable whether they really want to make amendments to the Constitution,” said Min Thu, a lawmaker with the National League for Democracy (NLD). “If they cared about the people, these kinds of talks would happen.”

Ko Ni, a leading member of Burma Lawyers’ Network, said Parliament appeared to be at odds with the government and the army on the issue of constitutional reform.

“Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and Parliament foresee the deadlock so they proposed the [six-party] talks to overcome it. But the president and the commander-in-chief want to stick to what the Constitution says,” he said. “It seems that they want to govern the country with 2008 Constitution forever, if possible.”

He said, “The army should be under the government control and we want an army that has nothing to do with politics,” adding that a lack constitutional reform “might lead to a general strike, and we don’t want to see that.”

On Nov. 25, Myint Tun of the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) put forth a proposal urging the president, the army chief, the speakers of the Upper and Lower Houses, Suu Kyi and a representative of the ethnic parties to convene soonest to discuss charter reform.

The proposal was passed in a joint session of both Houses of Parliament, and the bloc of military lawmakers did not object.

In the days that followed, however, it became clear that the government and military were reluctant to follow through with the proposal. Minister of Information Ye Htut told Radio Free Asia that a six-party meeting would be “impractical.” The army chief reportedly told members of the Karen National Union during a meeting that he would not accept six-party talks, as he would like to include more stakeholders.

Just days before President Obama’s visit on Nov. 13, a meeting was called with 14 stakeholders, including Suu Kyi, Thein Sein, the army chief and parliament speakers, but it was a purely symbolic meeting without substantive discussions.

Suu Kyi has been calling for charter reform for several years now. The Constitution is widely viewed as undemocratic and reviled by most of public as a mechanism for the army to retain power after decades of direct rule.

It contains clauses that grant the army significant political powers, such as control over a quarter of Parliament, an arrangement that give the military effective veto power over charter reform. Article 59(f) blocks anyone with foreign children or spouse from the presidency, a clause that would prevent Suu Kyi assuming the position following a NLD victory in next year’s general elections.

The USDP and its chairman and Parliament Speaker Shwe Mann, who has announced he plans to run for the presidency in 2015, have appeared willing to discuss some constitutional reforms.

Myint Tun, the USDP lawmaker who put forth the proposal, said, now is the time for all key players to come together and deal with the charter reform. “They seemed surprised that the Parliament approved my proposal,” he said of the president and the army chief’s reaction.

“The Parliament passed it, I think, as it’s timely,” Aung Cho Oo, a USDP lawmaker, said of the six-party talks proposal. He added that many lawmakers were discussing the issue of reform among themselves.

It is unclear what charter reforms the USDP has in mind. In October, USDP and military lawmakers voted down a NLD proposal suggesting that Article 436 be amended. The article states that changes to key parts of charter can only take place when more than 75 percent of Parliament votes in favor, a clause that gives the military bloc effective veto power over reforms.

Asked what charter reforms the USDP wants to see, Aung Cho Oo said, “Everyone in Parliament wants to change the Constitution, [but] which clauses they want to change differs.”

Regardless of the USDP’s intentions, the current situation raises questions about the relations between the NLD, the USDP, the speakers of the Houses of Parliament and the Thein Sein government and the army. The latter two institutions seem intent on clinging to their entrenched powers and reluctant to move reform discussions forward.

Yan Myo Thein, an independent political commentator, warned that the government and army are steering the country towards a political impasse and growing public anger over the lack of charter reforms.

“If they don’t come up with a proposal, both international and local community would regard the government and army as having no interest at all in national reconciliation, constitutional amendments and the peace process,” he said.

“If they keep rejecting, it would be bad for the country. Changes in the country would stall and probably lead to a political deadlock—and tensions between the army and the people will mount,” Yan Myo Thein said.

RB News 

December 4, 2014 

Maungdaw, Arakan – Eight Rohingyas from Kyauk Hlay Ghar village of Northern Maungdaw Township in Arakan State were sentenced to two years for refusing to participate in census conducted by Border Guard Police (BGP). 

On August 1st, 2014 the Border Guard Police conducted a census in the name to register Rohingya as illegal Bengali immigrants at Kyauk Hlay Ghar village in Northern Maungdaw Township. As the census referred to Rohingya as illegal Bengali immigrants the Rohingya villagers refused to participate. Although the whole village refused, nine Rohingyas were targeted and arrested. One of them was released on that day and eight were tried and sentenced to two years prison with hard labor. 

The court decision was made on December 2, 2014 at Maungdaw Township court, according to locals. They were tried under Burma panel code 353 which is assaulting a public servant during the time they are on duty. The arrestees didn’t convince anyone in the village to refuse participation in the census nor organized any event to deny the unofficial census conducted by BGP. They simply stayed at home not willing to participate if the term ‘Rohingya’ is forbidden. The authorities targeted against them for the term “Rohingya” and they were punished unjustly. 

During the hearing at the court, the families were not allowed to attend and the arrestees were not allowed to hire a lawyer. 

The eight innocent Rohingyas who were imprisonment for two years with hard labour are: 

(1) Zahir Ahmed s/o Abdu Subhan (Age 50) 

(2) Noor Alam s/o Sayedul Rawn (Age 42) 

(3) Mahmed Noor s/o Noor Alam (Age 25) 

(4) Idris s/o Zahir Ahmed (Age 18) 

(5) Mawzid s/o Mamed Alam (Age 17) 

(6) Zafar s/o Noor Alam (Age 25) 

(7) Hafiz Shawbu Alam s/o Mohammed Iqbal (Age 28) 

(8) Ameen s/o Ahmed Kabir (Age 18)

By RFA

December 4, 2014

Myanmar’s President Thein Sein approved a controversial religion and family planning draft law on Wednesday and submitted it to parliament amid renewed criticism from rights advocates who say it discriminates against Muslims and women in the conservative, predominantly Buddhist country.

Lawmakers will debate the legislation, which imposes restrictions on interfaith marriages, religious conversions and family size, in the next parliamentary session, according to reports.

It is part of a series of four laws on marriage, religion, polygamy and family planning proposed by a Buddhist organization called the Association for the Protection of Race and Religion, which is connected to a nationalist Buddhist monk group.

The law, in part, would require Myanmar citizens who want to change their religion to seek various bureaucratic permissions, although penalties for violators are not stated, according to a report by Agence France-Presse.

It also set out rules governing marriages between Buddhist women and men of other faiths, requiring couples to apply to local authorities, who then would display a public notice of the engagements, reports said.

Couples can marry only if there are no objections, but if they violate the law, they could face two years of imprisonment.

“We assume that this draft law was released because the government wants to discriminate against a particular nationality and religion,” Khun Jar from the Kachin Peace Network, a Yangon-based humanitarian organization that assists civilians displaced by conflict in northern Myanmar, told RFA.

“This law is one that the government should reject if it wants people to live in peace as many ethnicities and religions live together in this country. It is a shame for all Myanmar citizens that this kind of issue is being discussed by parliament.”

Calls for laws aimed at protecting race and religion in Myanmar have gained momentum since violence broke out between Buddhists and Muslims in the Buddhist-majority nation in 2012 following decades under tightly controlled military rule.

The violence has left more than 200 people dead and about 140,000 displaced, mostly Muslims.

Although the draft law published does not mention any specific religion, it has prompted speculation that it could be aimed at preventing Muslims from trying to coerce Buddhist women into abandoning their faith for marriage or otherwise.

Targets certain regions

Ko Ni, a legal advisor for the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) party, told RFA that the bill was discriminatory.

“This kind of law should be for the entire country, but it is [targeting] certain regions of the country,” he said, implying that the policy was designed for ethnic Muslim Rohingya families who live in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state and are banned from having more than two children.

“According to this draft law, people from some regions can have as many children as they want, but it’s controlled for people from other regions.”

Representatives from civil society groups also said the bill discriminated against women.

“In this draft law, women in Myanmar can’t get divorced because of the rules on sharing property,” said Khun Jar. “But they can be abused by men if they want to divorce the women. I think this law doesn’t protect women, and it’s like women are being asked to enter into a marriage trap.”

Aung Myo Min, executive director of rights group Equality Myanmar, said of the legislation, “Controlling births should be a family decision, but this is like human beings be regarded as machines.”

A November 2014 report by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom condemned the four race and religion bills, arguing that, if enacted, they would discriminate against non-Buddhists—especially Muslims—when it comes to religious conversions, marriages and births.

In May, New York-based Human Rights Watch urged Myanmar to ditch the proposed religion law, saying it would encourage further repression and violence against Muslims and other religious minorities.

But not everyone believes the legislation is totally negative.

“Generally, it is a good law, but it is important to know if it is needed in this country,” said Tha Nyan, general secretary of the Interfaith Friendship Organization. “People convert to other religions for many reasons, but it should be based upon belief, and in this law we saw wording to prevent conversions for other reasons.”

However, he said, if such a law unfairly favored men over women in such matters, it would constitute a violation of human rights.

Reported by Myo Zaw Ko and Khin Khin Ei for RFA’s Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

By AFP

December 3, 2014

YANGON: Myanmar’s president has approved a set of controversial draft religious laws inspired by radical Buddhist monks and sent them to parliament, officials said Wednesday, prompting rights groups to voice alarm over the divisive nature of the proposals.

The draft legislation — including curbs on interfaith marriage, religious conversion and birth rates — will be debated by MPs and voted on in the coming parliamentary session, according to president’s office director Zaw Htay.

“The president had to draft the bills, but it is (parliament’s) responsibility to enact them,” he told AFP.

Rising Buddhist chauvinism — and the government’s apparent willingness to acquiesce to it — has sparked fears that religion could becoming increasingly politicised as the former junta-run nation heads towards crunch 2015 elections.

The drafts were initially proposed by a group of nationalist monks known as “Mabatha”, or the Committee for the Protection of Nationality and Religion, who have been accused of fanning intolerance in Buddhist-majority Myanmar after several outbreaks of violence against minority Muslims.

Opponents of the bills say they are discriminatory.

“These bills claim to be to protect women, but they are drafted against women’s will,” Ma Khin Lay, founder of rights organisation Triangle Women’s Group Support, told AFP. “It is discrimination and control.”

The campaigner, who along with other women’s rights activists has faced threats for her opposition to the bills, said requirements for a host of official permissions would create further opportunities for misuse of power in a state system riddled with corruption.

A draft of the marriage bill was published in Myanmar language state media on Wednesday, laying out a web of rules governing marriage between Buddhist women and men of other faiths.

Couples would have to apply to local authorities — and the woman’s parents if she is under 20 — and a notice would be displayed publicly announcing the engagement. Only if there were no objections could the nuptials take place.

The penalty for non-compliance would be two years in prison.

The religious conversion draft, published earlier this year, would also require anyone wanting to change religion to seek a slew of bureaucratic permissions.

That bill “has no place in the 21st century”, according to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, which warned that together the proposals risk stoking violence and discrimination.

A Mabatha leaflet claimed the ills of inter-faith marriage range from rape, murder and forced conversion to “not saluting the Myanmar national flag”.

By Paul Vrieze 

The Irrawaddy

December 3, 2014

By Aye Nai

Democratic Voice of Burma

December 3, 2014

By Naing Kun Een

Voice of America

December 3, 2014

SANGKLABURI, THAILAND — Twelve of Myanmar's ethnic rebel groups have announced the establishment of a Federal Army, a move likely to anger the national government.

The new force, called the Federal Union Army (FUA), will be under the supervision of the United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC), an umbrella group that has been trying to negotiate a nationwide cease-fire between ethnic minorities and the national military.

Major Khun Okkar, co-secretary of the UNFC, tells VOA the new force will be vital in national peace efforts.

“FUA is the military force of UNFC and will follow the political trend of UNFC. Therefore, in accordance with UNFC policy, FUA must support the peace process and efforts to get the nationwide cease-fire agreement. It must also monitor the ground situation getting after the nationwide cease-fire agreement," said Okkar.

But it is not clear if the new force will help or hinder the prospects for peace. The government has not yet reacted to the announcement, but officials have previously expressed strong opposition to the formation of the Federal Army.

In an exclusive interview with VOA last week, Army Chief General Min Aung Hlaing said Myanmar, like any other country, can only have one national military force. However, he did not say how the government or the army would react to the formation of the FUA.

"There are differences in defining federalism in the constitution written by UNFC and [Myanmar's] constitution. They form FUA according to their definition. In fact, we already have Tatmadaw [Union of Myanmar Army] like all nation states have their own national army. But there is not two or three national armies in any nation. Not in the United States, not in neighboring India, China, Thailand nor in Bangladesh," said Hlaing.

The new force has the support of most of the ethnic minority groups in Myanmar, also known as Burma. Among the country's major ethnic rebel groups, only the Wa have refused to participate in the FUA.

This report was produced in collaboration with the VOA Burmese service.

By Matthew Pennington

Associated Press

December 3, 2014

By The Irrawaddy

December 2, 2014

RANGOON — A controversial legislative package commonly known as the “protection of race and religion laws” has been submitted to Burma’s legislature and will be up for debate during the next parliamentary session in January 2015.

President’s Office Director Zaw Htay, also known as Hmuu Zaw, wrote on social media on Monday that the four bills—which include new regulations on religious conversion, interfaith marriage, population control and monogamy—were tabled late last week and drafts are now viewable on the Ministry of Information website.

The bills, first proposed by the Association for the Protection of Race and Religion (known in Burmese as Ma Ba Tha), have been controversial from the outset, fielding criticism from women’s rights advocates and several of Burma’s ethnic and religious minorities.

Critics argue that enacting the bills would create unnecessary obstacles to religious freedom, and that the laws would undermine women’s ability to make independent choices about their faith, partner and family.

A proposed Marriage Bill would require Buddhist women to seek permission from local authorities before marrying a man of another faith, while the Religious Conversion Bill creates new legal criteria for changing faiths. The conversion policy has received particular scorn from some of Burma’s minority faiths, including Christians and Muslims, who have historically been subject to religious persecution by the former military regime.

But the legislation has also drawn supporters, most recently in late October, when Buddhist monk U Wirathu helped to organize a demonstration of thousands who marched through the streets of Mandalay demanding that the bills be swiftly implemented. U Wirathu is a key backer of the legislation and a central figure in the Ma Ba Tha. He is also associated with a Buddhist nationalist movement in Burma that is widely perceived anti-Muslim.

Buddhist-majority Burma has grappled with ethnic and religious tension for decades, but in recent years the issue has become a fixture of political discourse as inter-communal violence between Buddhists and Muslims broke out in several parts of the country. Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced and more than 200 have died in a rash of riots beginning in mid-2012 that has overwhelmingly uprooted Muslim communities.

The Ma Ba Tha came to prominence after the conflict, premised on preserving Burma’s dominant Buddhist identity. The legislation was first proposed in mid-2013.

According to Zaw Htay’s statement, the Religious Conversion Bill and the Population Bill were submitted to Parliament by the Union Government on Nov. 24th, while the Interfaith Marriage Bill and the Monogamy Bill were submitted by the Union Attorney General on Nov. 26th.

While new legislation is typically published in state media for public review before parliamentary debate, only one of the proposed laws, the Religious Conversion Bill, has been published in state newspapers. The remaining three were published on the Ministry of Information website in Burmese language on Dec. 1, 2014.

This article was updated on Dec. 4 to clarify that the current version of a proposed Marriage Bill does not require non-Buddhist men to convert to Buddhism before marrying a Buddhist. The provision was part of an earlier version of the bill, proposed by the Ma Ba Tha, which has since been revised.

Thousands of Myanmar's displaced Rohingya Muslims, who are camping across several states in India, are grappling with a dire situation there, Press TV reports. 

We have crossed borders to “reach India to save our lives. Thank God, we have life. But, we are facing acute shortage of food, medicine and clothing,” a Rohingya Muslim told Press TV at a camp on the outskirts of New Delhi. 

“We don’t even have toilet, which is most disgraceful,” he added.

The United Nations says the Rohingya Muslims of Myanmar are one of the most persecuted minorities in the world. The Muslims have been displaced by violence, which has forced them to flee to neighboring countries.

“We belong to nowhere. Our children are not at schools,” another refugee said, adding, “If someone gets sick, hospitals are not willing to admit.”

Myanmar denies citizenship to most of the 1.3 million Rohingyas, placing restrictions on their movement, marriages and economic opportunities.

Thailand and Malaysia have come under fire by human rights groups for mistreating the Rohingya refugees.

The UN recently approved a resolution calling on the government in Myanmar to grant full citizenship to the persecuted Muslim minority, piling up pressure on the country to cancel a controversial identity plan.

Thousands of Muslims from Rohingya minority group have been forced to leave Myanmar after being persecuted by the government of the country. 

Myanmar denies citizenship to most of the 1.3 million Rohingyas, placing restrictions on their movement, marriages, and economic opportunities. According to the United Nations, Rohingya Muslims are one of the most persecuted minorities in the world.

Meanwhile, many of these Muslims, who have to leave their country, either go missing during their mass exodus in the perilous seas or face mistreatment of destination countries such as Thailand or Malaysia in case of reaching these countries.

In this edition of The Debate, Press TV has conducted an interview with Ibrahim Moussawi, political commentator from Beirut, and Lawrence J. Korb, foreign policy and national security analyst from Washington, to see what kind of fate is awaiting these stateless people.

By Zin Linn

Asian Tribune

December 1, 2014

The people of Burma have been wishing for a peaceful and flourishing country since the 1948 independence achievement. But unfortunately, the nation’s independence hero General Aung San was assassinated a year ahead of independence. As a result, civil wars throughout the country occurred in the midst of the self-government offered by the British colonial rule.

In fact, General Aung San and the leaders of Chin, Kachin and Shan ethnic groups had guaranteed a genuine federal union of Burma by signing the Panglong Agreement on 12 February, 1947. The historic agreement accepted the representatives of ethnic states to administer their own affairs in areas of economy, judiciary, education, and customs and so on.

However, ten years after independence, Burma was fallen into the hands of military dictators and became a least developed country (LDC) in line with the United Nations’ indicators of the lowest socioeconomic development and the lowest Human Development Index ratings of all countries in the world. In 1988, instability over economic mismanagement and political oppression by the military-backed socialist government led to widespread pro-democracy uprising all over the country known as the 8888 Uprising.

Security forces shot down thousands of protesters, and General Saw Maung launched a coup under the name of the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC). In 1989, SLORC declared martial law after widespread protests. SLORC changed the country's official name from the "Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma" to the "Union of Myanmar" in 1989.

In May 1990, the junta held free elections for the first time since 1962 and Aung San Suu Kyi’s the National League for Democracy (NLD) won 392 out of a total 489 seats or above 80 percent of the seats. However, the military junta refused to transfer of power and continued to rule the country as SLORC until 1997, and then ruled as the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) before its dissolution in March 2011.

Burma’s existing junta-made Constitution, approved in a May 2008 referendum, is conflict-ridden since it was set by way of one-sided endorsed principles. It says the military commander-in-chief can take sovereign power if the country is in a risky situation.

Ethnic-based political parties in Burma (Myanmar) and ethnic rebel groups negotiating nationwide ceasefire agreements with the government after decades of military conflict have called for amendments that allow self-determination for ethnic citizens.

People do not forget that the new charter itself emerged in the course of a charade referendum (May 2008) mockingly held after a week of the Nargis cyclone that caused more than 138,000 deaths and left millions homeless. The bill was ratified by the parliament in January 2011. The biggest flaw in the constitution is the privileged 25 percent of the seats in the parliament are set aside for soldiers who are basically appointed to the legislative body by the commander-in-chief. Unless this is amended, it is difficult to see true democratic reform in the country.

An ethnic outcry said that a nationwide ceasefire agreement without adequate guarantees of political dialogue and monitoring mechanisms is unacceptable. There is a constant demand from the country’s ethnic groups to enjoy equal political, social and economic rights. The Constitution must guarantee the rights of self-determination and of equal representation for every ethnic group in the Parliament.

Recently on 18 November, Lower house Speaker Shwe Mann said the country’s constitution cannot be amended ahead of 2015 elections. It means a clause in the charter barring opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi from becoming president may not review until 2015 general election is over. But, House Speaker’s announcement was challenge by Aung San Suu Kyi’s party saying he had no power to make such judgment. Shwe Mann is also head of the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) and who declared to contest for the presidency in 2015 polls.

Coincidently, the United States has pressed for more changes in Burma, where political and economic reforms initiated two years ago seem to have stalled. In addition, during his second Burma-trip in mid-November, Obama has told President Thein Sein that the next 2015 election needs to be fair, inclusive and transparent.

But, Burma’s political scenario in last quarter of 2014 seems more complicated than ever because there will be do-or-die struggles between the ‘pro-2008 Constitution faction’ and ‘anti-2008 Constitution parties’ that is basically connected with the presidential selection in 2015. In addition, there are many more challengers for the presidency office; with rumours putting sitting President U Thein Sein, Lower House Speaker U Thura Shwe Mann, and the military chief Sen. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing as the front-runners.

In such a tough time, government army’s artillery shell killed 23 cadets at a training centre on the outer reaches of Laiza, the Kachin Independence Army capital on China –Burma border on 19 November 2014. It was the deadliest hit since a ceasefire agreement in 2011, General Gun Maw, the KIA's second-in-command said. Gun Maw said government's artillery attacks were warning of pressure towards the KIA to sign a ceasefire agreement without promise of political talks and to put off the elections.

Speaking while on a trip to Australia in last year November, Burmese opposition leader and democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi told an audience at the Sydney Opera House that the country had still not “successfully taken the path to reform” because the military-written 2008 constitution bars the country from becoming a democracy.

Burma’s main opposition NLD party led by Aung San Suu Kyi has called, during recent nationwide campaign, for public support for her party’s proposal to ratify constitutional reform particularly for Article 436. Aung San Suu Kyi has called again and again that Article 436 barred to amend every article of the 2008 Constitution. It says every amendment proposal must be approved by 75 percent of representatives in both houses of parliament. As the military holds 25 percent of all seats, it effectively holds veto power over the Constitution, she says.

Aung San Suu Kyi has affirmed her readiness to run for president if the Constitution is amended to allow her to do so. Suu Kyi said it is her duty as leader of her National League for Democracy to be willing to take the executive office if that is what the people want. She said a clause in the constitution effectively barring her from the job is one of several clauses her party seeks to change.

Burma’s seemingly civilian government headed by President Thein Sein has declared itself as a reformist administration since it took power in March 2011. Finally, it has to meet head-on major challenge in order to show its true mind-set concerning constitutional revision which has been calling by various oppositions.

By Andrew R.C. Marshall

Reuters

December 1, 2014

Maungdaw, Myanmar -- The fence stretches as far as the eye can see, its concrete pillars carrying coils of barbed wire across the mountains and marshes of western Myanmar. 

Beyond the fence, on the far bank of the Naf River, is a ragged horizon of mangroves: Bangladesh. There, say Myanmar officials, lurks the armed militant group the fence was partly designed to keep out.

The Rohingya Solidarity Organisation (RSO) takes its name from the mostly stateless Muslim minority living in Myanmar's troubled Rakhine State. Myanmar officials blame it for recent attacks here and believe it could foment more violence.

Most experts believe the RSO barely exists, with some saying it's being used to further oppress the Rohingya, who often live under apartheid-like conditions with little or no access to schools, jobs or healthcare.

Tens of thousands of Rohingya have fled the region by boat since 2012, after violent clashes with ethnic Rakhine Buddhists killed hundreds and displaced 140,000 people, mostly Rohingya.

The RSO is "essentially defunct as an armed organisation", said the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank, in an October report.

The RSO was set up in the early 1980s in the wake of a large-scale operation by the Myanmar military that drove about 200,000 Rohingya over the border into mainly Muslim Bangladesh.

Until the 1990s, a small number of militants trained at remote RSO bases in Bangladesh opposite Myanmar's Maungdaw district. 

Myanmar officials blame the RSO for a series of deadly incursions in northern Rakhine State, including an attack on May 17 that killed four members of Myanmar's Border Guard Police.

Also jangling official nerves are threats against Myanmar by much more formidable militant groups.

In July, Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi told followers to "take revenge" against Myanmar and other countries where Muslims were abused. 

Then, in September, Al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahri announced the formation of an Indian branch that would "raise the flag of jihad" across the subcontinent, including Myanmar.

Within weeks, Myanmar's deputy home affairs minister, Brigadier General Kyaw Zan Myint, told parliament an extra 39 billion kyat ($38 million) was needed for Rakhine security, most of it earmarked to extend the fence.

If approved, this would constitute a doubling of the state's security budget of nearly 38 billion kyat.

VILLAGE CELLS

The military began building the fence in 1995 and it is now 77 km (48 miles) long, said Kyi San, the head of Maungdaw Township. Its more remote stretches are routinely damaged by wild elephants or corroded by salt water.

For Buddhist officials like Kyi San, the RSO poses an existential threat. 

Statewide, Rakhine Buddhists outnumber Rohingya Muslims by two to one. But only six percent of Maungdaw's 510,000 people are Rakhine or non-Muslim, Kyi San told Reuters during a rare visit to Maungdaw by a foreign reporter.

Kyi San feared RSO agents could radicalize this large Muslim community. "They take recruits back to Bangladesh for training," he said. "They have cells in all the villages."

The perceived threat extends beyond Rakhine State.

A roadside wanted poster near the capital Naypyitaw, in central Myanmar, features four RSO suspects, one of them an "explosives specialist".

The poster didn't say what they were wanted for, and Myanmar's Special Branch, when contacted by Reuters, declined to elaborate for reasons of "national security".

MILITANT "MYTH"

The Crisis Group report challenged the notion that the Rohingya were "ripe for radicalization". The Rohingya see Western governments, not the global jihadi movement, as key supporters, and most of their religious leaders don't preach violence, it said.

"Rohingya militancy is a myth," said Bertil Lintner, a journalist and author who has covered Myanmar for 30 years. The RSO once had a small camp in the Bangladeshi region of Ukhia, which borders Maungdaw district, but never had a presence in Myanmar, he told Reuters.

Many of those who trained at Ukhia were not Rohingya but youths from other Bangladeshi militant outfits, he said. The RSO faded as the Bangladesh government cracked down on Islamist groups. "Today, it hardly exists," he said.

Even though the RSO posed no real military threat, it provided a pretext to "squeeze and oppress Rohingya communities", said Matthew Smith of Fortify Rights, a Bangkok-based rights group. 

"The authorities are conducting violent spot checks and accusing villagers of involvement with RSO, dragging men off and forcing others to flee," said Smith. "This has increased in recent months."

Maungdaw chief Kyi San denied the authorities were oppressing Muslims. "We have a duty to protect the weaker Rakhine community," he said.

(Additional reporting by Min Zayar Oo and Jared Ferrie in Yangon; Editing by Dean Yates)

By Julia Zappei

AFP

November 30, 2014

Bibijan Rahimullah stepped aboard a small boat in Myanmar in October for what she was told would be a week-long journey to Malaysia to escape violence and discrimination afflicting her Rohingya ethnic group.

Instead, she and her three young children endured a harrowing, month-long odyssey by sea and land, packed "like sardines" on a series of vessels and watched several fellow migrants die or be beaten to death, their bodies tossed into the sea like garbage.

Ms Bibijan Rahimullah and her three young children endured a harrowing, month-long odyssey by sea and land to Malaysia. -- PHOTO: AFP

"I didn't expect the tragedy we faced on the way to come here. If I had known, I would never have come. I would rather die in my home," said Bibijan, 27, during an interview in Malaysia's capital Kuala Lumpur.

Muslim Rohingya -- labelled by the United Nations as one of the world's most persecuted minorities -- have for years braved the dangerous passage down the Andaman Sea and Thai coast to Malaysia.

They flee discrimination and repression in predominantly Buddhist Myanmar, where authorities view the roughly 1.3 million Rohingya as foreigners, denying most of them citizenship and placing restrictions on their movement, marriages and economic opportunities.

But the flow has accelerated into a growing exodus two years after deadly clashes erupted between Buddhists and Rohingya in Myanmar's Rakhine state, activists said.

Chris Lewa of Rohingya rights group Arakan Project, which monitors departures, said an estimated 19,000 have fled since early October.

The exodus comes partly as conditions deteriorate in squalid Rakhine camps where roughly 140,000 people, mostly Rohingya, live after being displaced by the violence.

- Bodies tossed overboard -

Increasing numbers of women and children are risking a journey previously taken mostly by men, activist said.

Bibijan, her five-year-old son and daughters aged two and three, left their home in northwestern Rakhine to join her husband, who fled to Malaysia two years earlier.

She paid people-smugglers $2,500, some of it borrowed.

A small boat packed with dozens of people took them down a river to a ship anchored at sea, where they waited several days in cramped conditions as hundreds were brought aboard, leaving space only to sit.

"It was very crowded. People became like fish, like sardines," said Bibijan.

Wracked by sea-sickness, she would pass out between bouts of vomiting.

Women were fed twice daily, a meagre meal of rice and three dried chillies, and some water. Men ate once, or not at all.

"(The men) became very weak. When they asked for more food, they were beaten with rifle butts and iron rods," Bibijan said, her big, fearful black eyes peering out under a black Muslim headscarf as her children clung to her.

About a dozen people died at sea, some beaten to death by smugglers, others succumbing to hunger, dehydration or illness, said Bibijan, who saw corpses thrown overboard.

Activists said larger ships were being used to accommodate growing numbers, and accuse authorities in Myanmar, Malaysia and Thailand of looking the other way or profiting from the illegal people-smuggling.

Once, Myanmar authorities boarded, shining torch lights into the faces of Bibijan's terrified family. They let the boat proceed.

Rohingya activists allege a coordinated campaign to chase the group from Myanmar.

"They want to drive all the Rohingya out of the country," said Saifullah Muhammad, a Rohingya activist in Kuala Lumpur, adding that Rohingya smugglers were aggressively soliciting new passengers in a drive for profit.

The United Nations in November passed a resolution urging Myanmar to allow equal access to citizenship for Rohingya.

But President Thein Sein last week dismissed the allegations that Rohingya were fleeing abuses as "media exaggeration".

Near the Thai coast, Bibijan's cohort was shifted to another vessel and forced to wait at sea for a number of days as still more human cargo was brought in, including Rohingya and migrants from impoverished Bangladesh.

After nearly a month at sea, they finally set foot in Thailand, walking through jungle for several hours to a makeshift camp where discipline was enforced with beatings.

"They didn't do anything to us. But we heard women are being harassed. I myself saw (women being taken away). They use women like slaves. At night they are taken one by one (and abused). We were scared," Bibijan said.

- 'Scared in our hearts' -

After another move, the exhausted family finally piled into a van in early November to be driven to Kuala Lumpur.

Rights groups have criticised Thailand for pushing Rohingya back out to sea, holding them in overcrowded facilities or complicity in the smuggling.

Thailand said last year it was investigating allegations that some Thai army officials were involved.

Dimitrina Petrova of London-based group Equal Rights Trust, which recently launched two reports on Rohingya, called the situation for fleeing Rohingya "inhumane".

"Both Malaysia and Thailand have failed in their international obligation to provide protection to Rohingya. Even young able-bodied men sometimes don't survive the journey," she said.

Some are promised jobs in Malaysia but get cheated by the traffickers and end up in forced labour or prostitution in Thailand unless they can buy their way out, which Human Rights Watch called a "horrifying new twist" to the "systematic abuses of Rohingya boat people".

More than 40,000 Rohingya refugees, registered with the UN, are in Malaysia. Rohingya activists say there are roughly equal numbers of un-registered Rohingya.

Muslim-majority Malaysia has no laws to protect refugees though it accepts them temporarily. Those who are un-registered face arrest and languish in detention unless granted coveted UN refugee status.

More are expected due to conditions in Myanmar.

Doctors Without Borders, which provided healthcare to hundreds of thousands across Rakhine, was expelled early this year by Myanmar's government. It is awaiting permission to return.

The World Food Programme, which provides almost all food for the camps, warned last month funding woes could force it to reduce rations.

Bibijan's family now struggles to eke out a living in Malaysia, with her pharmacist husband cutting grass and performing other odd jobs for about 50 ringgit ($15) a day.

They live in fear of arrest, but are relieved to have escaped.

"In Malaysia we are safe. In Myanmar we are always scared in our hearts," Bibijan said.

By Dr Maung Zarni

November 29, 2014

There was inter-ethnic solidarity for the Rohingya/Muslims of Arakan dating back to 17 May 1978, the year of the first state-sponsored campaign of terror and destruction against the Rohingyas.

"We, the Representatives of the peoples of Kachin, Karen, Palaung, Lahu, Shan and Wa, in deep sorrow, hereby express our heart-felt sympathy to the defenceless Muslims who fled to escape the compound racial and religious persecution by the Rangoon Government armed forces."

Read on the solidarity statement from 1978 in the attached full text (in 2 JPEG files).

Note the Ngagamin Operation (or King Dragon Operation) launched under the then Home Minister Brigadier Sein Lwin, known as the Butcher of Rangoon in 8.8.88 reached Sittwe in Feb 1978 - in fact on 11 Feb 1978, ironically one day before the Union Day, to celebrate Burma's ethnic diversity in unity!)

By the end of June 1978, over 200,000 - some say a quarter million - Rohingyas and other Muslims fled the country across the border into Bangladesh.

The Bangladeshi Government then led by General Zia Raman opened the border and let the Muslim refugees in to his country to escape the immediate violence, death and rape by the Burmese and Rakhine combined forces (local law enforcement in Rakhine state were made up primarily of Rakhine while senior commanders and administrators were Bama from Rangoon, starting with Home Minister Brigadier Sein Win in Rangoon and Western Command commander based in Sittwe).

Subsequently, Ne Win's Foreign Minister Tin Ohn was invited to Bangladesh capital where Bangladeshi senior officials veiled a threat of arming Rohingya refugees - number over 200,000 - if Burma did not take back their own nationals - Muslims from Arakan.

Bangladeshi general and PM Zia also traveled to Indonesia, Malaysia and other Muslim countries to rally support for the persecuted muslims in Arakan. 

Finally, Ne Win backed down and agreed to take the Musim refugees back from Bangladesh. 

By July and August UNHCR got involved in repatriating Rohingyas back to Arakan.

In the next 2-3 years, Ne Win and his anti-Muslim/anti-Rohingya deputies including Rakhine academics such as San Thar Aung (physics professor and director general of higher education) and Aye Kyaw (Australian-trained historian of nationalist movements in Burma) connived a legal strategy - and the result was the drafting of the 1982 Citizenship Act.

By Oct 1982, the draft was completed and Ne Win's legal adviser and clerk Dr Maung Maung (British and Dutch-trained lawyer and legal scholar who had a stint at Yale Law School) oversaw the whole legal campaign to strip the Rohingyas of nationality by a stroke of a legal pen. (Hitler and his legal advisers also enacted laws stripping the Jews of Germany of nationality and paving the way for the eventual physical destruction of the Jews as a national/ethnic/religious community in Germany and throughout Nazi-occupied Europe).

Like the Germans under Nazi rule who were told that the Jews were a threat to German nation, the Burmese public has been told a similar genocidal lie about the Rohingyas. (Myanmar Peace Center's Dr Min Zaw Oo is also playing the role of a Nazi-ish adviser, writing a series of delusional essays in Burmese framing the Rohingya issue in the larger equally delusional discourse of 'the War on Terror' - published in THE VOICE - portraying the helpless, half-starved Rohingya as an Islamic threat to "Buddhist" Burma!)

In 1978, the estimated population of the Rohingyas was 1.3 million.

In 2014, Khin Yi, Immigration Minister, former military intelligence and ex-police chief put the Rohingya population at 1.3 million.

Meanwhile the country's overall population is estimated to have grown from 26 millions in 1978 to about 50 million in 2014. 

Meanwhile the Burmese regime is telling the public that there is a Rohingya population explosion posing a serious demographic threat to the country, parading around in the Burmese official media some Rohingya family - perhaps rare exceptions - with 4 wives and 30 children (not exact number). 

(Khin Yin, Kyaw Yin Hlaing and Ban Ki-Moon's Special Envoy Vijay Nambia were lobbying the UN and governments around the world to drop the Rohingya's self-identity - Rohingya - and telling every official they meet 'Rohingya is a toxic name that will inflame popular opinion among ultra-nationalist "Buddhist" Rakhines, thereby making it difficult to resolve the 'sectarian conflict' - a verifiable distortion of the fact that it is the military - and successive military regimes since Ne Win - that initiated the campaign to destroy the Rohingya, both symbolically via the erasure of the name, the identity and history - and literally as a cohesive ethnic, religious and national group). 

This Zero Growth in population is the DIRECT result of a genocidal policy of Burma maintained since 1978. 

Ex-General Khin Nyunt also confirmed that there was NO IN-FLOW Muslims from "Bengali', only the fleeing of Arakan's Muslims across the borders into Bangladesh. He did so in his 'top secret' lecture, to a cadre of officiating Burmese brigadier generals at the then National Defense College, (Khin Nyunt was the founder of the notorious Na-Sa-Ka, Burmese equivalent of SS as far as the Rohingyas in Arakan). 

It is incredibly pathetic that the entire regime of Nwa Thein Sein - in fact all successive regimes of Bama generals - have been feeding the Burmese public this racist poison for the past nearly 40 years.

All genocidal atrocities are typically preceded by constructing a target community or people as 'viruses' 'threats' 'pests' 'illegals' etc. As Amartya Sen - who lived through violent racial and religion-justified killings in South Asia - Lahore - observed perceptively any otherwise good and peaceful people can be turned to a genocidal lot by carefully crafted state-manufactured propaganda. 

Every year the Burmese military regimes since Ne Win's era brought hundreds of Burmese senior and junior teachers to Civil Servant Training School at Hpaung Gyi where high ranking military officers, including Khin Nyunt, would come and spread lies, fear and hatred of the Rohingyas among the country's educators - teachers and other civil service members.

Tragically for those of us the 'good and informed Burmese', our country is populated by the good Buddhist public who have been thoroughly duped and brainwashed into behaving like the German Nazis in the Third Reich. 

The result of nearly 40 years of Burmese military's genocidal propaganda is that our country in 2014 is overwhelmingly genocidal and racist towards the Rohingyas. Hatred is never defeated by historical facts. Germans in the Allied- occupied Germany post-Hitler denied any knowledge of atrocities committed against 6 million Jews and another 4-5 millions Poles, 'gypsies', Russians, German communists, the disabled German, Jehovah Witnesses, etc. The American troops forced these defeated ordinary Germans to go and see - and remove by their hands - piles of hundreds of corpses in numerous concentration camps. Even then some Germans, both men and women, were seen laughing and giggling - before they entered these camps as if they were heading to a community picnic! Only when they saw first hand rotten corpses, gas chambers, charred bodies, etc. were they forced to accept that their nation was GENOCIDAL. 

No two genocides or cases of mass atrocities are exactly alike. 

But denial on the part of the perpetrators and perpetrating nations is an integral to all genocides. I was 15 feet behind (through the glass wall in the International Tribunal Chamber) Brother Number Two of Khmer Rouge - a Thammasat University (Bangkok)-trained law student and education minister - claiming his innocence and 'I was not aware of the atrocities' - during his closing statement. 

The Burmese public is of course going to deny that they are genocidally racist. Many a good people who know better keep to themselves against the overwhelmingly genocidal Burmese public sentiment towards the Rohingya. 

Back in 1978, other minorities such as Wa, Lahu, Kachin, Karen, Shan, Palaung, etc. dared express their solidarity and empathy for the persecuted Muslim minorities of Arakan.

Now in 2014, even the Kachin Independence Organization's spokesperson ex-Colonel James L. based in BKK denied any knowledge of Rohingya and denied showing any sympathy for the Rohingya. 

That IS the direct effect of Nazi-like anti-Rohingya propaganda by the Psychological Warfare Department of Ministry of Defense in Burma. 

The thought of Burma's good "Buddhists" turning Nazis really gives me chills down my spine. I hope it does for you too.