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By Priscilla Clapp
USIP
March 9, 2015

Burma’s Union Election Commission (UEC) appears to be preparing for a much more transparent and inclusive parliamentary election in 2015 than we saw in 2010. Its work with civil society, political parties and international organizations already stands in stark contrast to its management of the 2010 balloting. The test of its performance, of course, will be whether the contestants in the election believe the outcome has not been unduly manipulated.

Photo Credit: Htoo Tay Zar, Wikipedia

The legacy of 2010

The 2010 elections, which produced the current government, were far from "free and fair." The military junta was still in place, dictating the terms of the elections to the election commission. Military leaders were determined to produce an electoral outcome that delivered the vast majority of parliamentary seats to the government party, the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP). They knew this could not be accomplished in a fair and transparent election, particularly with competition from the opposition National League for Democracy, which had won the vast majority of seats in the 1990 elections.

Therefore, they produced election rules that effectively eliminated the NLD from the elections and forced all government employees, military personnel and many other groups to vote early under the watchful gaze of election officials and USDP members. In many cases, the officials marked the ballots for the voters. When the votes were being counted in constituencies where the USDP candidate was losing, they brought in boxes of "early" ballots to throw the vote to the USDP. Election monitors were not given full access to the voting and counting procedures, and the only international observers were from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

It was no surprise that the USDP, despite being unpopular, won more than 80 percent of the elected parliamentary seats. This plurality, along with the 25 percent of the parliamentary seats occupied by appointed military officers, assured that military and ex-military leaders would control the proceedings of the new parliament.

The promise of 2015

The 2015 elections, planned for late October or early November but not yet scheduled, promise to differ fundamentally from 2010 in several ways. First and foremost, there is no longer a military junta to dictate the terms of the election. Primary responsibility for the elections is now in the hands of the UEC, and not the generals, and the UEC has pledged to run "free and fair" elections to the extent possible.

Because the new government holds itself to be “democratic,” the UEC, in turn, must now respond to the concerns of a wide range of interest groups: the three branches of government, the political parties, civil society and the international community. This will require a degree of consultation and transparency that has been absent from previous elections during the past 50 years.

Second, the NLD, along with a large number of smaller parties, will be competing nationwide against the USDP in a relatively open political atmosphere. These political players are all keeping close watch on the activities of the UEC and so far finding it possible to negotiate when they disagree with new rules. The UEC has, for example, allowed political parties and other participants to comment on proposed election rules and procedures before finalizing them, in contrast to 2010, when the UEC – under pressure from the USDP and the generals – produced arbitrary election rules.

Third, it appears that early voting will be limited and carefully monitored, although detailed rules have not yet been made public.

Finally, the 2015 elections promise to be open to full monitoring by local political and civil society organizations and widely observed by international groups. Under these conditions, it will be very difficult for the government to repeat the voting irregularities of 2010.

Monitoring plans

The UEC has, for example, been developing a working partnership with civil society organizations (CSOs) to monitor the 2015 elections. In December, the UEC provided them a draft code of conduct for election monitoring, asking for comments. In mid-February, the UEC met with over 60 local civil society and international organizations, accepting most of their suggestions and promising to produce a final draft within two weeks. This has resulted in changes to about two-thirds of the original draft code of conduct, with an entire chapter on “Prohibitions” being removed.

“The UEC agreed to most of the points that CSOs demanded changes on, and it is amazing that they agreed,” said a project manager of the Election Education & Observation Partners (EEOP) – a consortium of civil society organizations.

The UEC also has been developing new voter lists to produce a centralized voter roster that will allow members of the public to file appeals if they believe someone has been wrongfully included or excluded. The People’s Alliance for Credible Elections (PACE), which follows the work of the UEC, said that because of criticism of the voter lists in the 2010 balloting and the 2012 parliamentary by-elections, the UEC has now arranged to computerize the data for all eligible voters nationwide at a central location in Naypyitaw.

Voter lists are being compiled in three stages, with preliminary results released sequentially in January, March and May, and the final voter list to be announced three months before the elections. PACE is satisfied so far that the UEC is being responsive to public concerns, but they will reserve final judgment until they are certain of full transparency by the UEC. 

The greatest challenge to the UEC's impartiality will come from its relationship with the government USDP, which dominated and thus corrupted the conduct of the 2010 elections. The USDP already has many advantages built into the election system, inherited from its former existence as a mass mobilization organization for the previous military government. These advantages include many financial and material resources throughout the country, which are likely to be challenged by competing political parties both in the parliament and with the UEC. Such challenges would not have been possible in 2010.

Nonetheless, while the UEC seems determined to produce an inclusive and fair process, it remains to be seen whether it can overcome the pressures from the old guard. A coalition of the U.S., the European Union and five European nations released a statement last week affirming their support for free and fair polls, according to The Irrawaddy newspaper. The signatories all agree that “holding credible elections this year is an absolutely vital step in the reform process,” according to Andrew Patrick, Britain’s ambassador to Burma.

Priscilla Clapp is a former charge d’affaires and chief of the U.S. mission in Burma who now works with the U.S. Institute of Peace on Burma projects.

President Thein Sein Visits President Obama May 20, 2013 (White House photo)

By Rena Pederson
March 9, 2015

When he visited Washington, D.C. two years ago, Burma's new president was being hailed as an "Asian Gorbachev." America's capital rolled out the podiums and cocktail receptions because it appeared a "Burma Spring" was underway -- or at least a winter thaw.

Thein Sein was lauded for opening the economy and freeing political prisoners such as Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi. The hope was that a new normal was at hand in the long-suffering country that military rulers had renamed Myanmar.

But has the former general turned out to be the reformer everyone hoped?

Not yet -- and this is the last year of his five-year term.

It should have been a clue when Thein Sein insisted, "I would like to say thatGorbachev and I are not alike, I tell you that."

Thein Sein's record is inconsistent at best:

• He allowed a human rights movie festival in Rangoon -- but Rohingya Muslims were herded into detention camps.

• He criticized corruption -- but contracts still go to cronies of generals and ministers.

• He said all political prisoners would be released by the end of 2013 -- but more have been arrested.

• He finally allowed the Red Cross access to prisons -- but humanitarian aid for thousands trapped in conflict zones has been blocked.

• He promised to allow the U.N. Human Rights Commission to open an office -- but hasn't.

• He spoke out against religious hatred -- then supported the ultra-nationalist monkWirathu, who has inflamed prejudice against Muslims.

The opaque President remains something of a paradox. His spindly, bespectacled appearance has contributed to the impression that he is a mild-mannered apparatchik, still beholden to the shadows of the old regime. Even Secretary of State Hillary Clinton noted in her memoir that the stoop-shouldered leader "looked more than an accountant than a general." 

Observers tend to say Thein Sein is "less corrupt" than other generals and was "less ruthless" as a commander. Some say he is an intelligent man in a difficult position, trying to keep control while making incremental change. Others think his primary goal all along has been to get economic sanctions removed in order to draw needed investment, not to engineer wider political reforms to please the West.

In that regard, he has been wildly successful: More than 500 businesses are taking a chance on what used to be a blacklisted backwater. They have invested more than $50 billion since the military started liberalizing the economy in 2011. Coca-Cola, MasterCard, Ford and Hilton have rushed into the untapped market of more than 50 million. Even Kentucky Fried Chicken is looking for locations.

Still, it's not a good sign that a steady stream of reporters and editors have been imprisoned or attacked. One was beaten to a bloody, unrecognizable mass and shot to death. It's not a good sign that land is still being confiscated. Or that fighting continues in ethnic regions while peace talks stretch on. Students protesting the lack of academic freedom have been attacked on the streets by police and thugs.

In retrospect, Thein Sein's early embrace of Aung San Suu Kyi after her release from house arrest now appears to have been a feint to appease western interests. The President then repeatedly snubbed the democracy leader's requests for six-party talks about constitutional reform. Instead he convened a 48-party media event with barely time for participants to introduce themselves.

After he met privately this week with Suu Kyi -- the first time in a year -- local commentators assumed it was merely to give the government "breathing room" from criticism before elections in November.

When I asked popular comedian and activist Zarganar last fall why he thinks Thein Sein has not been able to effect more change, he thought carefully before answering, "I think he is afraid of his old bosses."

It's true, Thein Sein spent 45-years as a dutiful officer; he has a military mindset and military ties. The office of President is also weak by design. Notably, the Commander in Chief of the armed forces does not report to the President and gets to appoint three of the most influential cabinet ministers (Defense, Home Affairs and Border Affairs). A National Defense and Security Council, composed largely of military stalwarts, is the ultimate authority and can re-impose martial law. There was understandable concern recently when Thein Sein handed over executive and judicial power to the military in the troubled Kokang region on the border with China.

Thein Sein, who will be 70 in April and has a pacemaker, has said he won't seek another term. But in the time he has left, he could rectify issues that have taken the bloom off the Burma Spring -- by supporting human rights and press freedom, rooting out more corruption, increasing academic freedom, curtailing executive manipulation of the judiciary and supporting more than "gentle" constitutional reform.

Thein Sein is considered the mastermind behind current peace talks -- he initiated them and has nudged them as far as they have come. The military is derailing them, but Thein Sein might regain status by getting them back on track.

The United States could help by pressing him harder to uphold the promises he made two years ago in exchange for economic favors - before more time and an election slide by.

Rena Pederson is author of "The Burma Spring: Aung San Suu Kyi and the New Struggle for the Soul of Burma."

An ethnic Rakhine worker pulls a cart near a market place in Sittwe, Rakhine state, Feb. 27, 2014. (Photo: AFP)

March 9, 2015

Western Myanmar’s Rakhine state will repatriate more than 100,000 ethnic Rakhine Buddhists from the country’s Kachin state, where fighting between rebels and government troops have threatened their livelihoods, officials said Monday.

Phyu Thar Che, vice-chairman of the Rakhine Literature and Cultural Association, said the Rakhine state government had pledged to assist in repatriating around half of the more than 200,000 Rakhines living in northern Myanmar’s resource-rich Kachin state.

“During our discussion, Rakhine state chief minister [Major General Maung Maung Ohn] agreed to arrange shelters for them and provide them with job opportunities in the region,” he told RFA’s Myanmar Service.

Last year, the Rakhine Literature and Cultural Association repatriated around 500 Rakhines from Kachin state, where they typically labor in jade and gold mines and work as loggers, Phyu Thar Che said, though some of them returned to the north because of a lack of jobs in Rakhine state.

However, rising tensions between the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and Myanmar’s military over the past year have made it increasingly difficult for residents of Kachin state to find stable work in safe conditions, prompting the group to call for help from officials in relocating ethnic Rakhines.

Rakhine state government spokesperson Hla Thein confirmed that chief minister Maung Maung Ohn, who was appointed in June last year after former minister Hla Maung Tin resigned amid communal violence in the troubled region, had pledged to assist in the repatriation scheme.

“Some social organizations want to bring them back to Rakhine state—they discussed it with the chief minister and he agreed to do it,” he said, adding that the government would welcome the ethnic Rakhines back to the region.

“They are facing difficulties in Kachin state because of the fighting and they have no hope for bettering their lives. Their lives are also at risk, as they could be made soldiers in ethnic armed groups.”

Hla Thein said the Rakhine state government is planning to build an industrial zone in Ponnagyun township and can provide jobs for the returning Rakhines at the site, as well as through other development programs.

“If they want to come back and work here, it would be great for Rakhine state. We have some plans in Rakhine state, such as development through agriculture,” he said.

Building another Rakhine village in the region would also benefit the Rakhine ethnic group as a whole, he said, noting that “we have fewer Rakhine villages in some parts of Rakhine state.”

Rohingyas in Rakhine

Last month, in its annual report on the state of the world’s human rights, Amnesty International said the situation of the Rakhine state-based ethnic Muslim Rohingyas “deteriorated” in 2014, with ongoing discrimination in law and practice, and authorities failing to hold perpetrators of anti-Muslim violence to account.

An estimated 139,000 people—mostly Rohingya—remained displaced in the region after violence erupted between Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingyas in 2012, Amnesty said, adding that the situation had worsened when some aid organizations were expelled from the country after they were attacked by Rakhine people for allegedly giving preferential treatment to Muslims.

Rohingyas also remained deprived of nationality under Myanmar’s 1982 Citizenship Act, leaving them open to restrictions on freedom of movement that affected their livelihoods, the report said.

The government in October introduced a new Rakhine State Action Plan which, if implemented, would further entrench discrimination and segregation of the Rohingyas, it said, adding that the announcement appeared to trigger a new wave of people fleeing the country in boats to join the 87,000 who have already done so since the violence started in 2012.

Reported by Min Thein Aung and Khet Mar for RFA’s Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.



March 9, 2015

DHAKA: Bangladeshi customs deported 136 Rohingya migrants, including women and children, who had illegally crossed from neighboring Myanmar.

A local commander from the paramilitary Customs Bangladesh (BGB) unit, Colonel Mohammad Khalekuzzaman, said the migrants were from Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslim community, a mostly stateless minority living in often grim conditions.

According to Khalekuzzaman, at least 300 Rohingya crossed from Myanmar into Bangladesh and were making their way by road to the Kutupalong refugee camp near the town of Cox’s Bazar when they were stopped at a BGB checkpoint set up after a tip-off.

“A group of Rohingya, along with local residents, opened fire and threw stones at us,” said Khalekuzzaman, adding that BGB guards fired warning shots in response. One guard received a gunshot wound and was taken to a hospital in Cox’ Bazar.

Some of the migrants fled and were assumed to have taken shelter with local residents, Khalekuzzaman said, while the 136 who were captured were sent back to Myanmar.

Thousands of Rohingya have fled Buddhist-majority Myanmar since religious violence there in 2012, some of them falling into the hands of human traffickers who routinely hold them in remote camps in Thailand and demand ransom for their release.

Cox’s Bazar lies close to the Myanmar border, some 400 km (250 miles) southeast of the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka.

A man identified as an ethnic Bengali holds up his temporary identity “white card.” (Photo: JPaing / The Irrawaddy)

By Lawi Weng
March 9, 2015

RANGOON — Stateless Rohingya Muslims in Arakan State were dealt the latest blow to their prospects for obtaining recognition as one of Burma’s ethnic minorities when the government announced last month that their temporary identity cards would be rescinded.

The revocation has prompted discussion on topics ranging from national sovereignty to human rights, but the decision’s impact may most immediately be felt in a general election later this year and could presage the rise of ethnic Arakanese voices in the regional government.

The President’s Office on Feb. 11 said the so-called “white cards” granting temporary identity papers would expire on March 31, and gave holders of the IDs until May 31 to turn them over to the government.

The announcement leaves the roughly 1.5 million white card holders with a choice: Give back their IDs with little assurance of receiving an alternative identity document, or defy the government order.

For decades subject to a variety of discriminatory policies, many Rohingya are expected to do the latter, fearing that a total lack of identification will give the government cause to push them into Bangladesh. This western neighbor is where popular opinion says they belong despite many Rohingya tracing generations of lineage in Burma.

Of the country’s white card holders, the Rohingya Muslim population constitutes the largest group.

Aung Win, a Rohingya rights activist based in the Arakan State capital Sittwe, said the government’s failure to articulate of viable future for the group is fueling apprehension.

“It will not work out, their plan, because our people find that there is no transparency from the government. We have questions about what type of card they will give in lieu after we give back our cards. Are they only going to give a small white piece of paper again, which has no value?

“Many of our people are saying they will not give it back. It is hard to think about what will happen next. We heard that they will implement a system based on Burma’s 1982 Citizenship Law. This will make it even more difficult [to obtain a replacement for the revoked white cards],” he said, adding that many Rohingya lacked sufficient proof of their origins in Burma to meet government standards on qualifying for citizenship.

This is likely to be particularly difficult for some 140,000 Rohingya currently living in displacement camps in Arakan State, who were forced to flee their homes, many of which were burned to the ground, in violence between Buddhists and Muslims in 2012.

Burma’s 1982 Citizenship Law designates three categories of citizens: full citizens; associate citizens; and naturalized citizens. Color-coded Citizenship Scrutiny Cards are issued according to citizenship status—pink, blue and green, respectively.

A national verification pilot project was first implemented at camps for displaced persons in Myebon, Arakan State, with 209 people receiving citizenship in the initial screening. The project drew the ire of many Arakanese community leaders, however, and the plan was suspended indefinitely in October.

The fate of the pilot project has led to a logical question: Why would any larger scale effort to screen applicants for citizenship meet any other end than that of the Myebon pilot? The support—or lack thereof—of ethnic Arakanese Buddhists has proven a powerful predictor of policy direction in the state.

A Political Game?

That Arakanese influence could increase, too, as a result of the white card revocation.

The government set a precedent in 2010, when it allowed white card holders to vote in the general election that year. As a result, Arakanese politicians were unable to win regional parliamentary seats in some state townships such as Buthidaung and Maungdaw, where the majority of the population is Muslim and tends to view Arakanese parties antagonistically.

The Constitution’s Article 391(a) grants suffrage to the three types of citizens recognized in the Citizenship Law, but makes no specific reference to holders of temporary identity cards.

Burma’s Constitutional Tribunal weighed in on the matter last month, finding white card holder suffrage unconstitutional less than a week after the President’s Office announced the cards’ revocation.

Arakanese critics have long accused the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) of issuing the white cards to win votes, and the constitutional ruling came after a group of Arakanese parliamentarians asked the court to rule on the matter.

Pe Than, a lawmaker from the Arakan National Party (ANP), said the rescinding of temporary identity cards would mean an end to “white card politics.”

“First of all, we have found that by giving white card holders the vote, this relates to politics. But they [the government] found that a lot of people in the country are against their policy and even the high court pointed out that this violates the Constitution, so they can no longer play their white card politics.”

With white card holders removed from the voting rolls, Arakanese political parties have high hopes for the outcome of this year’s election, which they expect will see their members take a number of seats in both state and Union legislatures.

The ethnic Bamar-dominated central government is wary of minority influence in state parliaments, where constituencies are heavily populated by ethnic minority voters.

The Arakan State parliament consists of 34 elected members and 12 military-appointed representatives. Arakanese lawmakers hope to win a net six seats in 2015, which would give them a majority of the parliament’s 46 representatives.

Arakanese politicians won 18 seats during the 2010 election. The USDP won 13 seats, and two smaller parties—the National Unity Party and the Asho Chin National Party—both won one seat. But the Burma Army’s 13 representatives have allowed a united USDP-military front to control the legislature.

“They would not have power in parliament, even by working all together, if we win six more representatives in this election. We will have the influence and power in parliament this time,” said Pe Than, pointing to the ability of an Arakanese-majority legislature to dictate the legislature’s agenda and block presidential appointments to the powerful chief minister post as two ways in which the ethnic group would wield the influence that it seeks.




RB News
March 8, 2015

Maungdaw, Arakan – A Rohingya man was shot by a Rakhine group in the forest nearby Duchiradan village in Maungdaw Township of Arakan State this morning. 

Today, in the early morning, a Rohingya man named Faizullah s/o Omar Miah (Aged 45) and his 12-year-old son from Duchiradan village in Southern Maungdaw Township left from the village to gather firewood. They went into the forest in the east of the village. At about 10 am, while the father and son were gathering firewood in different places, suddenly four Rakhines from Kin Chaung village arrived and took his son. The Rakhine tried to kill the boy with a sword, but as the boy shouted the father came and tried to rescue his son from being killed by Rakhines. 

While the father tried to rescue his son, he was shot and wounded in the chest. After the shooting the Rakhine group fled the area.

The father and son came back to the village and informed the incident to village in-charge Sultan. The village in-charge took the victim to the Border Guard Police office based in Gawduthara village and the incident was filed to Police Major Nyein Chan Aye. No report of arrests of the Rakhine group has been heard of.

Rohingya Eye contributed in reporting.



Action demanded against UN Advisor Dr. Jacques Lieder

We undersigned Rohingya organizations strongly condemns Dr. Jacques Lieder, advisor to the UN resident coordinator in Burma Ms. Rentala Lok-Dessallien, for asking innocent Rohingya villagers intricate and irrelevant questions about history and ethnic origin in the Community Service Centre (CSC) of Alethan Kyaw village of Maungdaw township on 23 February 2015. 

Dr. Lieder’s questions were not constructive and helpful to the oppressed and persecuted indigenous Rohingya minority of Arakan. Apparently it was an attempt to establish his distorted writings on the subject of Rohingya ethnicity. 

Dr. Lieder asked the people why former Prime Minister U Nu’s Health and Education Minister Mr. Sultan Mahmud called the Muslims of Arakan as ”Arakanese Muslims”. This is an irresponsible question which he should not ask the simple villagers as a UN official. As a historian, of course he knows that the name ‘Arakan’ was given by British colonialists and as such the Muslims living in Arakan were called ‘Arakanese Muslims’ after the place name of Arakan. We are concerned that such questions are being asked with ulterior motives. 

The Rohingya have an indisputably long history living in Arakan as an ethnic group who emerged from peoples of different ethnical backgrounds over a period of centuries. They have been living in a well-defined geographical territory in North Arakan and they have a distinct language, culture and civilization of their own. Yet, they are constantly denied recognition of this basic identity and, instead, they have been targets of crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing and persecution by successive military governments, extremist Rakhine Buddhists and other vested interest groups. The persistent denial of their identity together with unending targeting amounts to a policy of extermination. Most recently, their rights to vote and to stand for elected office – which they exercised in all elections held in the country before and after the independence of Burma until the last general election of 2010 – have been taken away, making them in effect illegal in their own homeland. Remarkably, Dr. Lieder, as a UN officer responsible for Arakan affairs, reportedly did not even mention a word of concern over this serious issue or the deteriorating situation. 

It is unethical and dangerous that Dr. Lieder posed sensitive questions asking innocent villagers about Rohingya armed group leaders and, at the same time, enquired which organizations they support from among the existing Rohingya organizations inside and outside the country. It appears that he is echoing the false allegations from hostile Rakhines, with troublemaker Dr. Aye Maung and extremist Buddhists led by ultranationalist Buddhist monks that the Rohingya do not exist in Burma, that they are Bengalis, and that their so-called armed groups are carrying on violent activities against the native Buddhist communities. 

Therefore, we demand that Dr. Lieder stops making such intellectual harassment of the innocent Rohingya villagers, and placing them at risk. We also urge the UN Secretary General and UN Resident Coordinator to take action against Dr. Jacques Lieder for his unrelated, controversial activities and to replace him with an unbiased officer who will work carefully and professionally in the interests of reconciliation, human rights, peace and development. 

Signatories to this joint Statement; 
  • Arakan Rohingya National Organisation 
  • Burmese Rohingya Community in Denmark 
  • Burmese Rohingya Community in Netherlands 
  • Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK 
  • Bradford Rohingya Community in UK 
  • Rohingya Community in Germany 
  • Rohingya Community in Switzerland 
  • Rohingya Organisation Norway 
  • Rohingya Community in Sweden 
  • Rohingya Community in Finland 

For more information please contact;

Nurul Islam + 44 7947854652
Nay San Lwin +49 1796535213



March 6, 2015

Dhaka: Bangladeshi border guards clashed with a group of illegal migrants who had crossed from neighboring Myanmar on Friday, before deporting 136 of them, including women and children.

A local commander from the paramilitary Border Guards Bangladesh (BGB) unit, Colonel Mohammad Khalekuzzaman, said the migrants were from Myanmar's Rohingya Muslim community, a mostly stateless minority living in often grim conditions.

According to Khalekuzzaman, at least 300 Rohingya crossed from Myanmar into Bangladesh and were making their way by road to the Kutupalong refugee camp near the town of Cox's Bazar when they were stopped at a BGB checkpoint set up after a tip-off.

"A group of Rohingya, along with local residents, opened fire and threw stones at us," said Khalekuzzaman, adding that BGB guards fired warning shots in response. One guard received a gunshot wound and was taken to a hospital in Cox' Bazar.

Some of the migrants fled and were assumed to have taken shelter with local residents, Khalekuzzaman said, while the 136 who were captured were sent back to Myanmar.

Thousands of Rohingya have fled Buddhist-majority Myanmar since religious violence there in 2012, some of them falling into the hands of human traffickers who routinely hold them in remote camps in Thailand and demand ransom for their release.

Cox's Bazar lies close to the Myanmar border, some 400 km (250 miles) southeast of the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka.

(Reporting by Serajul Quadir and Mohammad Nurul Islam from; Cox's Bazar; Editing byMike Collett-White)



March 6, 2015

As Burma is emerging from fifty years of military dictatorship, its citizens are thronging to social media, particularly Facebook, and anti-Muslim extremists are too. Facebook is addressing the problem ofBuddhist anti-Muslim activists promoting violence on Facebook with a new set of features.

When Facebook users flag content they “don’t like,” a box pops up asking “Why don’t you want to see this?” The user can select options like “it’s annoying” or “it promotes violence.” In Burma, Facebook now also includes the options “it’s a rumor or has false information,” and “it disturbs social harmony.” According to readwrite.com, the second option was chosen specifically for its resonance with Buddhist precepts.

“We wouldn’t normally use this language in the U.S.,” Said Kelly Winters, whose title is “Product Manager for Compassion.” Facebook employs language that resonates with the local market, which, in Burma’s case, is largely Buddhist-influenced.

In addition to these new options, Facebook has simplified the process of reporting harmful content, added emphasis on confidentiality, shut down fake news and government pages, and clarified how users can identify rumors.

Facebook has also introduced a special sticker set for Burmese users. The stickers, which can be posted in response to content, include positive messages in Burmese, like “speak peace” and “think before you share.” Within one week of its release last month, it became the most popular sticker pack in Burma.

Facebook reports that the new features are having an impact. More users are reporting harmful content, in particular selecting the “disturbs social harmony” option.

Rohingya refugees at the Shamlapur informal camp in June last year (Photo by Rock Ronald Rozario)

By Stephan Uttom
March 6, 2015

A month after eviction, thousands who were uprooted to make way for tourism are yet to receive aid

More than a month after being evicted from their makeshift camps, tens of thousands of Rohingya Muslims in Cox’s Bazar district in southeastern Bangladesh are struggling to make ends meet as promised aid has yet to materialize and housing is nonexistent.

The majority of the 35,000 unregistered refugees, who were forced out of their squalid homes in Shamlapur fishing village on February 4, have been living rough. A lucky few have taken shelter in nearby schools, while some have moved into their relatives’ homes at other informal settlements in the Cox’s Bazar area.

Khaleda Akter, 34, a mother of three, has found shelter at a local school.

“Fifteen men and women including their children are living here, because we have nowhere to go. Most men rely on day labor and fishing for a living and some women work as housemaids like me,” she said.

Khaleda is the lone breadwinner for the family. Her husband drowned while trying to travel to Malaysia illegally for work.

The refugees had lived in the area since the 1990s, occupying dilapidated houses and relying on fishing for their livelihood. All had fled sectarian violence in their native Rakhine state, in Myanmar, just across the border.

Officials said the eviction was part of a policy to reclaim the area from illegal encroachers along Marine Drive Road, which runs through the country’s most popular tourist destination.

The government will offer aid to the evicted people soon, said Shah Mozahiduddin, chief government officer at Teknaf sub-district in Cox’s Bazar.

“Among the evicted people, there are some Bengalis as well. Once we get the order from the higher authorities, all will receive aid,” he said.

Though Rohingyas have lived in Myanmar for generations, the government considers them illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and has resisted offering them citizenship. Those who have fled across the border to escape persecution are equally unwelcome in Bangladesh.

Since 1978, hundreds of thousands have fled, many to Cox’s Bazar district where around 30,000 Rohingyas reside in two official camps, relying on government and NGO aid for survival. As many as 300,000 reside in unofficial makeshift camps, where they face strict restrictions on movements and are frequently exploited for cheap labor.

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in November said the government was planning to relocate Rohingya refugees to a “better place” from their camps in Cox’s Bazar district. Details as to where that “better place” is have yet to be released.

“We have had several meetings over the relocation of registered refugees. No concrete decision has been taken yet and there is no specific deadline for it,” said Farid Ahmed Bhuiyan, Refugee Relief and Rehabilitation Commissioner of the Disaster Management and Relief Ministry.

A woman washes a statue of Buddha at the Uppatasanti Pagoda in Naypyidaw. (Photo: DVB)

By Sonya Carassik Ratty
March 5, 2015

The four bills forming the “Race Protection” package are a distraction from Burma’s real political and economic challenges, and should never have reached parliament, says Amnesty International and the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ).

In a joint statement released on Tuesday, the groups say that that the bills risk an increase in violence in the country “at a time of a disturbing rise in ethnic and religious tensions, as well as ongoing systematic discrimination against women,” and would contravene Burma’s responsibilities under international law.

The four bills – namely the Religious Conversion Bill, Monogamy Bill, Population Control Healthcare Bill, and Buddhist Women’s Marriage Bill – were drawn up on President Thein Sein’s urging, after 100,000 signatures were made to a petition organised by the conservative Buddhist monkhood group Ma-Ba-Tha last year.

Speaking to DVB on Tuesday, Sam Zarifi, ICJ regional director for Asia and the Pacific, said of the proposals: “They are absolutely distracting from what parliament should be looking at, especially in an election year, and from what the political debate in the country should be about.”

To many observers, the Race Protection package is an attempt to exert control over the Muslim community in Burma. A focal point of religious tensions, Arakan State has seen severe bouts of violence between the Muslim Rohingya population and Rakhine Buddhists, which has displaced more than 100,000 people in recent years, according to data from Human Rights Watch.

In response to a question about defusing the tensions in Arakan State (also called Rakhine State), Zarifi said that what is needed is to ensure that people: “who have violated the law by engaging in attacks and assaults on other people are brought up on charges, and are properly investigated and then given the proper jail sentences. That is absolutely not happening.”

But many in Buddhist-majority Burma claim that the laws are necessary to prevent further racial and religious violence in the country. Last year, as the Speaker of the Union Parliament Shwe Mann recommended the drafting of the bills, monk Ashin Parmouhka told DVB: “If you want to see peace and an end to religious and racial conflict in Burma, these laws must be adopted. If you want more conflicts and unrest in the country, then don’t adopt the laws.”

Last month, the upper house passed the Population Control Healthcare Bill, which limits child births to one baby per mother every three years, with more than 100 supporting votes, 10 objections and four abstentions. It is now due to be discussed in the lower house, or pyithu hluttaw.

Speaking at the time, MP Hla Swe, said: “I believe that a population which is too high can be no good in terms of health. It is dangerous when there is no balance between resources and birth rate, and therefore childbirth should be limited to one per three years.”

Tuesday’s Amnesty International/ICJ statement said that, along with the Monogamy Bill, this piece of legislation on reproductive rights needs serious revision before it should even be considered.

“The incendiary rhetoric of the past few years – talking about overbreeding and a population time bomb – have been used to justify attacks, particularly on the Muslim Rohingya population,” said Zarifi.

“It is crucial for any bill that addresses these issues to clarify that it’s not intended to be used, and will not be used, in a discriminatory fashion,” he added.

In January, 180 women’s groups, networks and civil society organisations voiced their oppositionto the proposed package in a signed statement which they delivered to parliament. Khin San Htwe of the Burmese Women’s Union (BWU) said that they “are concerned with the bills as they serve to directly or indirectly control and limit the rights of women.”

However, when talking to DVB on Tuesday, Ashin Parmoukha asserted that women would in fact benefit from the laws. “We demanded that parliament approves the Race Protection laws to bring about equal rights for the Burmese women who are married off to men from other religions, who are coerced to convert into that religion through physical violence and abuse.”

He is unwavering in his support for the legislation. “Our race and religion will be protected and so our country will stand firm.”

Zarifi disagrees, arguing that the proposals are not in the national interest, and in reality distract from the “huge number of very significant human rights and political and economic issues right now … that haven’t been addressed for decades.” He went on to cite issues of budgetary distribution, environmental degradation and poverty reduction as being more deserving of political attention.

All people suffer under such poor governance, he says, using Arakan State as an example. “It’s a very wealthy state, but all of the people there – regardless of their religion and ethnicity – haven’t benefitted sufficiently from the natural wealth. In fact, in many cases they have suffered from the central government’s development projects. These are the real issues in Rakhine State alone that need to be addressed,” he said.

Image Credit: European Commission DG ECHO

By Oren Samet
March 4, 2015

The prospects for the country’s beleaguered Rohingya appear bleak.

When Myanmar’s Parliament voted on February 2 to approve a bill governing regulations for a planned referendum on constitutional amendments, it unleashed a firestorm. Included in the bill was a provision explicitly allowing holders of temporary ID cards – also known as “white cards” – to vote in the referendum.

White cards are primarily held by Rohingya, a Muslim minority group in western Myanmar’s Rakhine State. Despite Rohingya’s decades-old presence in the area, many in Myanmar, particularly Rakhine Buddhists, consider them to be illegal immigrants. The military regime provided white cards in the 1990s as temporary documentation pending a citizenship verification process that never materialized. This left Rohingya and other minorities that hold the cards in a precarious legal limbo.

White card holders were allowed to vote in past elections, including the 2008 constitutional referendum and the 2010 parliamentary elections – both widely seen as fraudulent. But following inter-communal violence that rocked Rakhine State in 2012 and continues to simmer, the question of white card holder suffrage has emerged as a hot-button political issue.

Opponents contend that it amounts to granting the vote to foreigners. As a result, the Rakhine National Party (RNP) vowed to fight the decision and challenged the constitutionality of the law in court – a challenge that was endorsed by Myanmar’s Constitutional Tribunal on February 16. Angry Rakhine Buddhists, led by nationalist monks, protested in Yangon and townships across Rakhine State.

President Thein Sein ultimately caved to the pressure. Only a day after signing the controversial bill into law, on February 11 he issued an executive order that all white cards will expire on March 31, effectively overriding the granting of suffrage to their holders.

The episode highlights the explosive politics surrounding Rohingya in 2015 and the confusing arrangement of political forces aligned on either side.

While many human rights advocates have accused President Thein Sein and his government of stoking anti-Rohingya sentiment, his moves seem increasingly confused and easily influenced by populist public pressure. His flip-flopping on the suffrage question demonstrates his inability to navigate competing demands from domestic voices vilifying all Rohingya and international actors calling on the government crack down on hate speech and respect Rohingya rights.

Meanwhile, veteran democracy campaigners are split. Some have stood up for Rohingya rights. But several lawmakers from Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) signed on to the RNP’s legal challenge against the bill, and an NLD MP initially proposed removing the clause granting suffrage to white card holders back in November.

Suu Kyi herself has been reluctant to speak out forcefully in support of Rohingya rights. Appearing to support Rohingya citizenship could be political suicide in a country where anti-Muslim sentiment is rising rapidly, and some of her closest advisers, who wield substantial influence over her decision-making, are Rakhine Buddhists.

Then there are the electoral implications. Many see the referendum rules as a preview of regulations for the general election planned for late 2015. Several Myanmar politicians voiced concern that the granting of suffrage to white card holders represents a vote-buying scheme by the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP). Majority-Rohingya townships in Rakhine State voted strongly for the party in 2010. If Rohingya are not allowed to vote in future elections, it could undermine the USDP’s prospects in Rakhine State and benefit the otherwise-dominant RNP (hence that party’s particularly strong stance on the issue).

The debate distracts, however, from a far more pressing concern at stake: the need to amend the deeply antidemocratic 2008 constitution. With heavy media focus on white card suffrage, critical questions about other parts of the recently passed referendum bill have been overlooked.

Few – even among veteran politicians – seem to know the referendum’s precise intended outcome. Parliament Speaker Shwe Mann has insisted that no amendments will be fully approved prior to the 2015 general election. But if the referendum, which is tentatively scheduled for May, is intended as an official up-or-down vote on specific constitutional changes passed by Parliament, that assertion seems misguided, since the vote would constitute the final stage of the amendment process. Alternatively, the referendum could simply be a general gauge of popular opinion on constitutional change. In that case, it would be essentially meaningless – just another stalling tactic of the military and political establishment.

Moreover, the military remains vehemently opposed to changing key articles that would loosen its control over Myanmar’s political system. Regardless of any public referendum, without some movement on that front, real constitutional reform will not be possible.

In the end, all that the referendum bill and the associated frantic politicking achieved was to strip Rohingya and other vulnerable minorities of the only documents they had. As conditions in Rakhine State worsen and anti-Muslim sentiment grows nationwide, prospects for resolving the Rohingya question look bleak. A durable solution to the problem likely must involve citizenship for Rohingya. But that will be an even more difficult task to accomplish – one that the current government (and likely future governments as well) will be loath to attempt.

Oren Samet is an independent journalist and researcher based in Bangkok, Thailand.


Rakhine State is the home to most of Myanmar's white card holders. A trishaw drives along the main road during the curfew time following communal violence in Sittwe, Rakhine State, Myanmar, June 17, 2012. Photo: Lynn Bo Bo/EPA

By Kay Zue
March 1, 2015

Temporary ID card or white card holders in Rakhine State say they will hand over their white cards to the relevant authorities only if they get a similar ID card to take the place of the white cards.

Township authorities in Sittway, Kyaukphyu, Maungdaw, Buthidaung, Thandwe, Ann, Yathedaung townships in Rakhine State have been announcing that white card holders must hand over their cards.

White Card holder U Aung Win, speaking on February 27, said: “White Card holders have held discussions and decided to hand over our cards only if we get alternative ID cards in place of the white cards. The officials who receive our white cards must be immigration officials.”

U Khin Soe, the official in charge of the Rakhine State Immigration and Population Department, said that they don’t have any plan up until now to take punitive action against white card holders who do not hand over their cards to the authorities in March.

“Discussions have been made in Nay Pyi Taw to issue some kind of ID card to the people who hand over their white cards. I still don’t know what will happen,” he said.

There are more than 700,000 white card holders in Rakhine State and authorities have urged them to hand over the cards.

In the Rakhine State, the citizenship verification process has been carried out based on the 1982 Citizenship Law. More than 400 people are reported to have been screened in accordance with the citizenship verification process.

The government has announced that it has been carrying out citizenship scrutiny of white card holders, saying all white cards will expire on March 31, and therefore white card holders must hand over their cards between March 31 and May 31.

(c) Greg Constantine

By FIDH
March 1, 2015

Last year, Burma experienced a backsliding of its human rights situation. As the country enters an election year, the situation on the ground has deteriorated. Attacks on civilians in Kachin and Shan States, sexual violence committed by security forces during armed conflict, the existence of political prisoners, the harassment of human rights defenders, activists, and media professionals, extrajudicial killings, land confiscation, and the targeting of religious and ethnic minorities – in particular of Rohingya – are serious human rights challenges that remain unaddressed. In addition, no progress has been made with regard to key legislative and institutional reforms, in particular constitutional reform and election laws. In the run-up to the 69th session of the UN General Assembly in 2014, FIDH and its member organization Altsean-Burma published a briefer outlining these key human rights issues. 

Since 2011, the narrative of Burma’s reforms has been floating around international arenas. This has resulted in a decrease in international pressure on the Burmese government, which was reflected in weaker condemnatory language of UN resolutions related to Burma. The Burmese government has taken advantage of this new international dynamic and has sought the discontinuation of international monitoring mechanisms, such as the mandate of UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the country.

Recent resolutions on Burma adopted by the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) have been unique insofar as they have been adopted by consensus despite the country being placed under the Council’s agenda item 4, dedicated to the most serious situations of human rights violations. At the HRC’s 25th session in March 2014, the Burmese government made it clear that it regarded the resolution adopted then as paving the way for the consideration of Burma under the HRC’s agenda item 10 (on technical assistance and capacity-building), thereby softening international scrutiny of the country.

However, over the last year, in addition to the backsliding of the human rights situation, the Burmese government has not only largely ignored UN recommendations but also stalled on negotiations with the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) regarding the opening of an OHCHR country office.

Against this backdrop, FIDH calls on the HRC to extend the mandate of the Special Rapporteur for a period of at least one year by adopting a resolution under the HRC’s agenda item 4. By adopting such a resolution, the Council will show its relevance and continue to exert the necessary pressure on the Burmese government to carry out meaningful reform.

At HRC28, FIDH, in collaboration with Forum-Asia and Human Rights Watch, will organize a side event on the human rights situation in Burma. Panelists will include Altsean-Burma’s Coordinator and FIDH Secretary-General Debbie Stothard, and Women Peace Network Arakan’s Director Wai Wai Nu, a young Rohingya activist who spent seven years in jail as a political prisoner. The panelists will also participate in a round of meetings with diplomatic missions.

FIDH, alongside Human Rights Watch, the National Endowment for Democracy, and the Blue Earth Alliance, will also support an exhibition by the award-winning photographer Greg Constantine (Plaine de Plainpalais, Geneva, 4-29 March 2015). “Exiled to Nowhere” will highlight the plight of Burma’s Rohingya, whose situation has been documented by Greg Constantine as part of his work on stateless people.




Army Chief Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing at a parade in Naypyidaw marking Armed Forces Day in March 2014. (Photo: JPaing / The Irrawaddy)


By Jared Ferrie 
March 1, 2015

RANGOON — Fighting between the Burma army and ethnic Chinese rebels has handed the long-feared military a public relations coup, with an explosion of praise on social media and even former political prisoners expressing grudging support.

Fighting erupted on Feb. 9 in the Kokang region of northeast Burma, on the border with China, between government forces and ethnic Chinese rebels called the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA).

Various ethnic minority rebel groups have battled the government in Burma since its independence in 1948.

During its 49-year rule, the military became notorious for abuses in ethnic minority areas in the hills and for crushing calls for democracy in towns and cities.

A semi-civilian reformist government came to power in 2011 but the military retains an effective veto over politics. Rights groups have documented abuses including rape and torture in areas where the military is fighting insurgents.

But since the latest clashes began, suspicion of the army has given way to approval, especially on social media platforms such as Facebook where many people have changed profile pictures to symbols of the military, or Tatmadaw as it is known.

The clashes over the Kokang region have stirred traditional suspicion of Burma’s giant neighbor to the north.

“This is the duty of the Tatmadaw—everybody says this in our country. I also agree on this,” Zagana, a comedian and actor who was locked up for dissent during military rule, told Reuters.

Dozens of government soldiers have been killed in the fighting and Zagana visited some wounded ones and posted photographs on his Facebook page.

But he said he was not pro-military and called for the army to negotiate an end to the fighting.

The MNDAA was formerly part of the Communist Party of Burma, a powerful Chinese-backed guerrilla force that battled the Burma government before splintering in 1989.

The rebels are seen as having instigated the fighting with Chinese backing, though China has rejected that claim.

The military has responded to its approval with more openness. State-run media carries daily updates and reporters have been invited to rare briefings.

“In the case of Kokang, the Tatmadaw is seen as playing its role as the guardian of the union and Myanmar’s national sovereignty,” said Yun Sun, an analyst with the Washington-based Stimson Center.

“This role is not entirely clear in other conflicts,” she said, referring to clashes in other parts of the country with ethnic minority forces, where the military is often perceived to be fighting for its own interests.

Buddhist monks and other people take part in a protest to demand the revocation of the right of holders of temporary identification cards, known as white cards, to vote, in Yangon on February 11, 2015. (Soe Zeya Tun/Courtesy: Reuters)


By Joshua Kurlantzick
March 1, 2015

This week, Amnesty International released its assessment of Myanmar’s 2014 human rights record. Although Myanmar’s bumpy road to reform had been well-documented, the report is even more negative than I had expected. Program toward improvement in political and civil rights in Myanmar “stalled” and went into reverse in 2014, Amnesty reported in the Myanmar chapter of its annual global assessment of freedom. According to the report, discrimination against Muslims, particularly in western Myanmar’s Rakhine State, worsened last year, the government prevented humanitarian aid from reaching refugees in areas where the army is still battling ethnic insurgencies, and Naypyidaw maintained what Amnesty called “severe restrictions” on freedom of assembly. These were just a few of the lowlights for Myanmar in 2014.

In the first two months of 2015, which are not covered in the Amnesty 2014 report, human rights have apparently deteriorated further in Myanmar. The country is still more open, in terms of both political and civil rights, than it was during the decades of military junta rule, but already this year Myanmar has witnessed serious outbreaks of conflict in the northeast. There have been numerous reports of rights violations by both ethnic Kokang insurgents and by the military in the northeast conflict during the past two months. Aid workers trying to evacuate displaced people in the northeast have had their convoys, which were flying the symbol of the Red Cross, fired upon.

There are also, unfortunately, few signs that the core problems revealed by Amnesty’s report will be addressed by President Thein Sein’s government—or by whatever government is formed after elections to be held later this year. As I noted earlier this week, the Myanmar military still operates without sufficient civilian control, fostering a culture of impunity for officers and generals that only abets rights abuses. The ethnic insurgencies in the north and northeast still fester due to a lack of trust-building between Naypyidaw and many of the ethnic militias. The ongoing insurgencies continue to cause refugee flows and facilitate rights abuses by both sides.

Meanwhile, no prominent Myanmar political leaders, including National League for Democracy (NLD) leaders, are willing to take a public stance clearly denouncing the anti-Muslim hate-mongering propagated by Buddhist Burman nationalist groups. This hate-mongering has helped create an environment in which attacks on Muslims in western Myanmar go ignored by most Burmese or are even applauded in public discourse. The hateful environment further suggests to the nationalist paramilitary groups which have emerged in recent years that attacking Muslims has no consequences. In addition, although the media environment and the environment for public expression is far freer than it was under military rule, Myanmar’s leaders still seem unwilling to create the foundations of a truly free press, allowing for journalists to be routinely harassed by authorities and jailed for their reporting.

Will the elections later this year resolve these ongoing challenges? A peaceful change in government would be a milestone for Myanmar, but just having a new, elected leadership will not do much to address these entrenched problems. In fact, although I wholly support Myanmar’s election process, an NLD government might frankly have a tougher time establishing civilian control of the armed forces, as well as reaching a permanent peace with the myriad armed insurgencies.

(Photo: STR/AFP/Getty Images)

By Hanna Hindstrom
February 27, 2015

Both government and opposition see bashing the besieged Rohingya minority as a sure-fire path to electoral success.

The Burmese government recently came under fire for back-pedaling on a pledge to grant the country’s beleaguered Rohingya minority the right to vote. On Feb. 12, the government announced the imminent suspension of all temporary ID cards held by over half a million Rohingya Muslims in western Burma, dashing hopes that they might be allowed to vote in Burma’s first general election in over 50 years, scheduled for the end of this year.

The proposal to grant the Rohingya voting rights — aggressively promoted by Burma’s ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) and passed by parliament on Feb. 2 — had been seen as a flicker of hope for the stateless Muslim minority squeezed into apartheid-like conditions near the Bangladeshi border. But President Thein Sein quickly bowed to a growing Buddhist protest movement and withdrew his support. A spokesperson for the U.S. government criticized his decision as “counter to reconciliation in Rakhine [state],” where outbursts of religious violence between Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims have claimed dozens of lives since 2012. The sad reality is that the proposal was never more than a cynical political ploy to harness votes for the military-aligned USDP ahead of the highly anticipated elections. The government’s rapid U-turn only exposes its two-faced policy toward the Rohingya.

Indeed, the military and its proxy parties have simultaneously suppressed and courted the Rohingya vote since 2008, when the military welcomed their support to help rig a referendum approving a controversial new constitution. In the flawed 2010 election, many stateless Rohingya were offered the prospect of citizenship in exchange for casting their ballots for the USDP, which subsequently grasped power in three Muslim-majority constituencies in northern Rakhine State. Once in office, President Thein Sein’s government quickly reneged on these commitments.

There are currently six ethnic Rohingya legislators representing the USDP in northern Rakhine: three at the state and three at the national level. These politicians, who took up their posts promising to secure greater rights and freedoms for their people, have proven troublesome for the ruling party. Shwe Maung, a Rohingya member of the national parliament, has drawn considerable ire for his unapologetic activism on behalf of his constituency. Last year a presidential spokesman accused him of “defamation” for implicating local police officers in an alleged massacre of Rohingya in the western town of Maungdaw.

Nonetheless, in 2010 the Rohingya vote was essential to the USDP, with nearly half of its legislators in Rakhine elected by the minority (while several more seats were obtained through electoral fraud). The USDP’s overtures to the Rohingya also provoked hostility from the Buddhist-majority ethnic Rakhine — another minority group long persecuted by the military junta — who mostly view the Rohingya as “illegal immigrants” from neighboring Bangladesh, and see the government’s courting of their vote as a betrayal of their state for political profit. Buoyed by hostility toward the Burman-dominated military, a nationalist Rakhine party (now known as the Rakhine National Party or RNP), won a majority of seats in the national and regional parliaments. The RNP and other Rakhine nationalist parties have since spearheaded efforts to marginalize and disenfranchise the Rohingya, whose plight became more acute in 2012, when religious violence forced some 140,000 of them into cramped, disease-infested camps. With its new influence in parliament, the RNP has successfully pushed through a law banning undocumented Rohingya from forming political parties.

As in 2010, the RNP now poses a significant electoral threat to the USDP in Rakhine State, where the ruling party is likely to lose most of its remaining seats in the 2015 poll without the Rohingya vote. This is why the USDP once again turned — briefly — to the Rohingya in an effort to attract voters in the region this year. This is not without a small tinge of irony, considering the government’s oppression of the minority, who Thein Sein has repeatedly threatened to deport from Burma.

Unfortunately, a tide of Buddhist nationalism has now made it more politically profitable to vilify the Rohingya than to woo them for their votes. Since the 2012 violence, the unpopular minority has become a rallying tool for both ethnic Rakhine and Burman political parties — boosted by a nationwide crusade to “defend” Buddhism against Islam. The government has never recognized the term “Rohingya” and has been accused of complicity in a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the minority. President Thein Sein has even publicly defended the country’s most venomous hate preacher,Ashin Wirathu, who has likened Muslims to “mad dogs.”

Wirathu’s powerful Buddhist nationalist group, known locally as the “Ma Ba Tha,” has collaborated with the government to draft a set of “race and religious protection” laws designed to restrict the rights of Muslims. In turn, Wirathu has backed Thein Sein and warned against amending the constitution to allow opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi a chance at the presidency. This cozy relationship exposes the political value of exploiting, rather than soothing, anti-Muslim sentiments in the run-up to the elections. In this context, it should come as no surprise that the USDP leadership quickly abandoned its flirtations with the Rohingya vote.

The military, which has a long history of pitting the country’s myriad ethnic and religious groups against each other, has even less incentive to support the reviled minority. Since 2012, ethnic Rakhine have welcomed thousands of Burmese troops into the restive state to maintain security. The military’s role has been amplified by persistent rumors — often repeated by the government — that Rohingya separatists are now active along the Bangladeshi border. The threat of instability and violence may thus serve as an alternate strategy to boost the army’s popularity in Rakhine and defend its grip over Burmese politics.

Shwe Maung, one of the Rohingya lawmakers from Rakhine, concedes that the USDP leadership “may have another plan” in place for winning support in Rakhine. He says he feels “betrayed” by the government, and will not stand in the 2015 election unless temporary ID or “white card” holders are allowed to vote. This looks increasingly unlikely, as white cards will be invalidated from March 31, rendering their owners unable to vote under Burmese election law. As some 95 percent of Shwe Maung’s constituency are Muslim Rohingya, the disenfranchisement of its population could be devastating — not least if Rakhine nationalists secured his seat.

The Burmese government continues to push ahead with its controversial nationality verification process, which will require Rohingya Muslims to label themselves as “Bengali” in order to obtain citizenship. The few Rohingya who have accepted this designation have seen no significant changes to their standard of living, remaining confined to peripheral slums or displacement camps with limited access to education and healthcare. All Rohingya “white card” holders will now be obligated to undergo this process after their documents expire next month. Those who refuse risk deportation.

The idea of using the Rohingya as pawns rather than allies seems to have permeated the opposition party as well. Democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), also fought against the bid to enfranchise the Rohingya, with one of the party’s lawmakers dismissing the proposal as “inconsistent” with other legislation. It is not the first time the Nobel laureate has drawn criticism for her silence on the oppression of the Rohingya or Burma’s escalating anti-Muslim sentiments. In December, the NLD fired one of its leaders for making a public speech criticizing the proliferation of Buddhist extremism. He is now facing a three-year jail sentence for “insulting” religion. Suu Kyi has never spoken in his support.

Her silence has been widely interpreted as a Machiavellian gambit designed to avoid controversy ahead of the 2015 election that, assuming it is free and fair, her party is expected to win by a landslide. The upsurge in religious hostility — which has claimed hundreds of mostly Muslim lives across the country since 2012 — is seen by some as a manufactured attempt to fracture her popular support base. Either way, Suu Kyi – like her uniformed opponents — seems to have prioritized political cunning over human rights.

As Burma’s historic elections draw nearer, it is becoming increasingly clear that the Rohingya have little to gain from the country’s political transition, which ended five decades of military rule in 2011. Neither the ruling party nor the opposition has ever been genuinely interested in promoting their rights. On Wednesday, a UN human rights chief warned Burmese politicians against fanning the “flames of prejudice” to win votes in the upcoming poll. Unfortunately, it would appear that the besieged minority carries far greater political currency as scapegoats than as full-fledged participants in Burma’s fragile democracy.


    • Rohingya Exodus