By Nahela Nowshin

The Daily Star

April 1, 2015

THAI authorities detained 76 migrants including six suspected Rohingyas in Thailand's southern Nakhon Si Thammarat province on Monday. The group is said to have been heading to Malaysia in search of work. In January, a group of 98 suspected Rohingyas were also found in pickup trucks in southern Thailand.

In a controversial move, Myanmar's government revoked temporary voting rights of people holding identification cards seeking citizenship after President Thein Sein declared on February 11 that said ID cards will expire on March 31, 2015. Presidential office director Maj. Zaw Htay said that the government's decision "automatically annuls the right" of temporary residents holding "white papers" to vote in the upcoming constitutional referendum. White card holders are now required to hand over their cards by May 31. The white papers were introduced in 2010 by the former military junta to allow non-citizens such as the Rohingya and other minorities to vote in a general election. 

The Rohingya, one of the most persecuted minorities in the world, are internationally recognised as de jure stateless. The ethnic Muslim minority is denied citizenship under the country's military-drafted 1982 Citizenship Law. Sectarian violence and statelessness have resulted in structural impediments to progress for the Rohingya because of a lack of access to basic necessities, and restrictions on their freedom of movement and religion stemming from long-standing discrimination and repression of the minority. 

Conflicting narratives

Moshe Yegar, heralded as an authority on the history of Muslims in Myanmar and author of "The Muslims in Burma", traces the origins of the Muslims of Arakan (now known as Rakhine) back to the ninth century when Muslim seamen first reached lower Burma and Arakan. According to Yegar, events such as the Mogul invasion, Burmese invasion and WWII which saw large-scale transnational movements of Muslim populations, played an important role in shaping the demography and politics of future Arakan. Today, the Arakanese Muslims call themselves Rohingya. 

The other narrative, mainly driven by Buddhist nationalism, within Myanmar is that modern day Rohingyas are descendants of colonial-era (1820s) immigrants from Bangladesh. This dominant narrative has been challenged by many sympathetic to the Rohingya cause. One of the claims that refute this narrative is Francis Buchanan's (a surgeon with the British East India Company) firsthand account of travelling to Myanmar in 1799 and meeting with native Muslims who called themselves "Rooinga," indicating the presence of self-identified Rohingyas years before British rule. 

Politicisation of identity, race, religion

For years, people of Arakan were known as Rakhines until some started being referred to as the Rohingya because of linguistic differences. Soon, the politicisation and dichotomy of the two identities ("Rakhines" for the Arakanese Buddhists and "Rohingyas" for the Arakanese Muslims), the foundations of which were laid in the colonial-era, led to the continued subjugation and statelessness of Rohingyas. 

Changes in the demographic composition in the 1960s and 70s in Arakan due to large numbers of Buddhists migrating eastward provided the Myanmar government with the opportunity to use divisive tactics of race and religion to consolidate support. The government blamed the demographic transition of the declining number of Buddhists on illegal migrations from neighbouring Bangladesh. To make matters worse, in 1976, an alleged coup involving both Arakanese Buddhists and Muslims failed to come to fruition. Fearing the increased likelihood of an armed rebellion by Rohingyas residing in villages, the government forced the migration of more than 150,000 Rohingyas into Bangladesh by mid-1978. 

The democratic movement that united the Arakanese proved to be a threat to the military regime following the end of Ne Win's rule in 1988. The age-old tactic of race and religion came in handy once again as the regime successfully drove a wedge between the relations of Buddhists and Muslims. The military, backed by China, cultivated an artificial racial situation in order to maintain a larger population of racially Mongoloid Buddhists in hopes of consolidating power with its "populist policies." 

Stateless to refugee

The antagonism of the local populations in the border regions towards Rohingyas can be attributed to multiple reasons including the criminalisation of the ethnic group by the police on both sides of the border. The transition of their status from that of stateless to refugee has had severe consequences, and fuelled the militarisation of pro-Rohingya political fronts making the situation even more volatile.

Whether or not the Myanmarese government is exploiting the conflict-ridden region to attract developmental funds and foreign investment by driving Rohingyas out of their homes and forcing them into physical labour has come into question. For Rohingyas, multinational companies' investments in the region and the resulting economic relationship between the Myanmar government and the international community means their plight being "doubly marginalised" - nationally and internationally. 

Ignored for too long

The prevailing debates about the Rohingyas' origins seem to serve as a convenient pretext that does nothing but detract from the current, much larger issues arising from their continued persecution. The failure of Myanmar's government to recognise them as citizens has prolonged their stateless status and deteriorated their condition. The 1982 Citizenship Law makes it nearly impossible for the Rohingya to ever attain citizenship; this draconian law represents one of many forms of institutional oppression and systematic denial of the minority's universal and inalienable rights. 

The Rohingyas' abuse, humiliation and state-sanctioned paralysis have become normalised. Even the use of the word "Rohingya" in Myanmar is controversial as it invokes deep fear among Buddhists that the minority may seize their homeland. The deplorable humanitarian conditions and undocumented status of Rohingyas in Bangladesh, Malaysia and Thailand among other places have been reduced to mere headlines; pro-active approaches and viable solutions for this humanitarian crisis are severely lacking. Despite there being an agreement among six South Asian countries on a "regional solution," visible leadership is yet to be seen. 

The Rohingyas, although portrayed as highly disempowered (and they are on many levels), must be recognised for their resilience and strength in the face of such cruel adversity. As refugees, their skills of adaptation and determination to survive are remarkable. While the international community ignores their worsening plight, the Rohingyas continue to fight to prove their existence everyday.

The writer is a journalist.

By AFP

April 1, 2015

YANGON -- Myanmar authorities have begun collecting temporary identification cards from displaced Rohingya Muslims in unrest-torn Rakhine state, an official said on Wednesday, a move that the UN has warned could strip them of all documentation.

Officials, backed by security forces, visited almost a dozen camps for people displaced by violence between Buddhists and Muslims in the western state.

They asked people there to hand back the so-called "white cards", following a shock presidential declaration in February that they would expire on March 31.

"Immigration officers said yesterday that the situation was OK. They collected (the cards) from 11 camps, with security personnel," Rakhine government communications officer Hla Thein told AFP, adding that he did not know how many cards had been collected.

Many fear that handing cards back to the government will leave them in an even more precarious state

By Simon Lewis and John Zaw

UCA News

April 1, 2015

Holding up a small white card — the only form of identification he has ever possessed — Sultan Ahmed is steadfast. 

“I will not hand this card over to the authorities,” says the wiry 16-year-old Muslim Rohingya, interviewed by ucanews.com last week at Thae Chaung camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Sittwe township, Rakhine state.

Sultan Ahmed’s is one of as many as 900,000 white-colored Temporary Registration Cards held by people living in Myanmar. Such IDs, however, are all about to become meaningless. Bypresidential decree, the cards will expire today, after which time holders of the so-called White Cards must hand them over to authorities. 

“I’m going to hold onto it, even if it is not valid,” says Sultan Ahmed. “I’m afraid that if the government takes this from me, they might do something to harm me later.”

In June 2012, when the shanties of Sittwe’s Muslim neighborhoods went up in flames and violence between Rohingya Muslims and Rakhine Buddhist raged, Sultan Ahmed was fortunate to be away from his home, visiting friends in another village. 

“My parents lost their documents in the fire. I only have it because it was in my pocket,” he said. “I still hope that I will be able to use it again in the future.”

White Cards and the claims to citizenship they represent are a highly charged political issue in a country in the throes of a faltering transition from centralized military rule toward something like a federal democracy. 

The ethnic Rakhine community rejects the existence of the Muslim group calling themselves Rohingya. Members of the Buddhist ethnic group — itself subjected to oppressive rule by the ethnic Bamar who dominate Myanmar’s ruling elite — insist that the majority of Muslims living in Rakhine state are recent illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. The Myanmar government does not recognize Rohingya as one of its national races, blocking most of them from citizenship although many claim to trace their roots in the country back generations.

After Myanmar’s Union Parliament decided on February 2 to grant White-Card holders the right to vote in a constitutional referendum, protests from Rakhine people, monks and other Buddhists began immediately.

The order promising the cards’ expiration came within days. President Thein Sein's February 11 statement said the cards must be handed over within two months of March 31 in a process he promised would be “fair and transparent.” But some fear that if officials attempt to seize the documents, they will risk sparking further unrest.

A Town Divided

In the past, White Cards enabled Rohingya to move freely between villages, access some education and health services, and offered a crumb of hope that they may one day gain citizenship.

But the more than one million Rohingya in Rakhine state do not now have much opportunity to use identification. In most of the state, segregation is enforced by security forces who restrict their movements, and Sittwe, the state capital, remains a town divided on ethnic and religious lines. 

More than 100,000 Rohingya IDPs, as well as Rohingya host communities, are confined to a cluster of small villages and 20 official camps sitting precariously between strictly maintained police checkpoints and the Bay of Bengal, on which tens of thousands have attempted a perilous escape by boat toward southern Thailand and Malaysia.

Although most Muslims in Sittwe are thought to hold White Cards, the majority reject the idea of handing them over to officials. On visits to camps by ucanews.com reporters, dozens of people denied that they had managed to bring the their cards when they fled their homes in 2012.

“Some people here have White Cards but they won’t tell you they have them,” said U Ba Kyaw, a camp committee member in the sprawling Ohn Daw Gyi camp. The camp is home to about 12,000 people living in four adjacent settlements of 15-meter-long huts. Each “longhouse” provides cramped quarters to 10 families, most of which count at least five members.

“People here are scared they might have to hand their White Cards over to the government and they will be left with no papers,” U Ba Kyaw said, pointing out that the president’s announcement did not specify whether replacement documents would be distributed. “If the officials come, they will say that they don’t have their cards.”

In the ethnic Rakhine neighborhoods of Sittwe, where smashed-up mosques are guarded by police, residents have raised the Buddhist flag outside their homes to signal opposition to voting rights for White-Card holders. Crude posters declare: “We don’t accept the Union Parliament’s decision on the White Card issue.”

The president’s intervention suggests that they will get their way, but local leaders insist that they want to make sure that the Muslim community, known as “Bengalis” and suggesting they belong in Bangladesh, is denied suffrage in any referendum, as well as in a national election expected in November. 

“After the remarks of President Thein Sein, it is a relief for us, but we are still waiting,” said former teacher U Than Tun, a leading member of the Rakhine community, adding that other legislation and electoral rules should be amended to exclude White-Card holders from politics. “The poster campaign is the first step. If the government allows them to vote, we will boycott the national election.”

White Cards were initially issued beginning in 1993 as a temporary measure pending a process to verify residents’ claims to citizenship against criteria set out in Myanmar’s 1982 Citizenship Law. They are also held by people of Chinese or Indian descent elsewhere in the country, but the majority of White-Card holders are thought to be Rohingya Muslims.

Many have been holding the cards for more than two decades, but the ire of Rakhine people was stirred by the Union Solidarity and Development Party when the military-backed party handed out an unknown number of new White Cards in the run-up to an election in 2010. The party won the poll nationwide, in the absence of the main opposition, and took most of the seats representing Rakhine state.

Than Tun, who also sits on a state-level committee that scrutinizes aid projects in Rakhine state, said Muslims bear responsibility for the conflict in Rakhine state, citing alleged incidents of rape and attacks on Buddhists in the Muslim-majority northern part of the state, which sparked the tit-for-tat attacks that have led to claims of ethnic cleansing.

Most members of the Muslim community were not entitled to citizenship under the law, he said. “They are not citizens. These people are lucky to be allowed to stay in these camps,” he said. “No other country will accept this Bengali community. Why should we?”

‘A Clear Message’

While Rakhine leaders keep up the pressure, authorities in Sittwe appear to have taken steps to prevent the Rohingya from organizing themselves.

In Thetkepyin, a village that lies among the camps but predates the violence, residents have repeatedly asserted that they wish to identify as Rohingya, despite government efforts to deny them that option. 

In April 2013 officials visited the village to conduct a population registration exercise. According to resident Ibrahim Khalil, 53, the officials ran into trouble at the first house they tried, when they asked a teenage boy to confirm his ethnicity as Bengali.

“He said, ‘No, I’m Rohingya,’” Ibrahim Khalil recounted. “School was coming out at that time, and the students started chanting: ‘We are Rohingya! We are Rohingya!’ Soon, others joined in and there was a big protest.”

Ibrahim Khalil said that while some people threw stones at army personnel, Rohingya elder Kyaw Myint attempted to protect the officials.

However, Kyaw Myint, community leaders Ba Thar and Hla Myint, as well as Ibrahim Khalil’s brother, Kyaw Khin, 45, were soon detained and faced charges of “rioting,” “causing voluntary grievous hurt to a public servant in the discharge of his duty” and “banditry”.

After their conviction, they each served months-long jail sentences before being released during 2014. However, after legal appeals by the state, they were rearrested this month and three of them had their prison sentences extended to eight years. Kyaw Khin, who is the official administrator of Thetkepyin, got five more years.

Ibrahim Khalil insisted that neither his brother nor the other community leaders were violent toward the officials during the 2013 incident. Amnesty International this week said the four were prisoners of conscience and called for their unconditional release.

“These are the leaders of this community,” Ibrahim Khalil told ucanews.com. “When there are no leaders in the village, there is confusion over what to do about the White Cards.”

In a statement highlighting the case, international campaigners Fortify Rights said the charges were “trumped-up”.

“The authorities are sending a clear message to Rohingya that any form of resistance will be met with reprisals,” Matthew Smith, executive director of Fortify Rights, said in the statement. “This is a thinly veiled attempt to undermine the community’s social and political structures. It’s a textbook example of persecution.”

Rahana, 41, the wife of the detained Kyaw Khin, pleaded that her husband had been taken away from her for no good reason. Her husband is an honest man, she told ucanews.com, pointing out he had been selected as a community leader by local residents.

“He’s not a troublemaker,” Rahana said. “He’s a simple man, he doesn't want to be involved in any trouble. We have five children and my husband has now been taken away twice. This is very painful.”

By Reuters

March 30, 2015

Thai authorities said on Monday they had found a group of 76 migrants from neighboring Myanmar, including six suspected Rohingya, in a sign that one of Asia's busiest smuggling routes is still thriving despite Bangkok's vow to stamp out trafficking.

It follows the discovery in January of a group of 98 suspected Rohingya trafficking victims, including dozens of children, who were found in pickup trucks in southern Thailand.

Tens of thousands of Rohingya have fled Myanmar since 2012, when violent clashes with ethnic Rakhine Buddhists killed hundreds. Many head to Malaysia but often end up in smuggling camps in southern Thailand where they are held captive until relatives pay the ransom to traffickers to release them.

The latest group were stopped at Tong Sung district in Thailand's southern Nakhon Si Thammarat province. They were heading to Malaysia in search of work, Police Colonel Anuchon Chamat, deputy commander of Nakhon Si Thammarat Provincial Police, told Reuters.

"They were sitting with Thai passengers and upon inspection by authorities were found to have no travel documents," said Anuchon, adding that police have yet to determine whether traffickers were among the group.

"It seems they wanted to go to Malaysia for work and had boarded the train at different locations along the route. It is difficult to say whether traffickers are among them."

Thailand is ranked one of the world's centers of human trafficking. It was downgraded to the lowest "Tier 3" status last June on the U.S. State Department's annual Trafficking in Persons Report for not fully complying with minimum standards for its elimination.

Last week, Thailand's parliament voted overwhelmingly to introduce harsher punishments for human traffickers, including life imprisonment and the death penalty in cases where their victims had died.

Thailand's military government said in January it was "confident" it had met the minimum standards to improve its ranking in this year's U.S. State Department ranking.

But a government report aimed at lifting Thailand from the list of the world's worst offenders showed it had identified fewer victims of human trafficking last year than in 2013 and convicted fewer perpetrators.

Anuchon said the 76 migrants were being questioned by immigration police and would likely be charged with illegal entry.

(Reporting by Amy Sawitta Lefevre; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)

By Nirmal Ghosh

The Straits Times

March 30, 2015

EIGHT years and three months in a Myanmar jail did nothing to soften, let alone change, U Wirathu, the notorious monk who has become the face of right-wing Buddhist nationalism in the country.

While he has a quick and infectious grin, his expression becomes serious and his eyes blaze when he speaks of serious matters - like how Muslims are a threat to Buddhism and his role is to protect the faith.

And he speaks with utter conviction, impervious to any challenge to his logic.

Ordained as a novice at the age of 13, the short cherubic-faced monk, now 47, got involved in the Buddhist right-wing movement called 969 in 2001.

Two years later, he was jailed for 25 years for his inflammatory sermons instigating anti-Muslim violence.

But along with several other political prisoners, he was released in 2010 - and took to the Internet and social media to amplify his convictions.

Today, U (U means Mr in Burmese) Wirathu has more than 2,000 monks at his monastery in Mandalay, Myanmar's second- largest city.

Last week, he met The Straits Times in a nondescript house on the outskirts of Yangon that belongs to one of his supporters.

Sitting at a round table with a handful of people, in the simple living room lined with heavy wooden furniture and a giant refrigerator, he said with a quick grin: "You can ask whatever you want, just as long as you report things as they are."

You have quite a reputation, I told him.

Time magazine put his face on its cover in 2013, calling him "The Face of Buddhist Terror" and sparking angry protests against the magazine from his followers.

When reminded of that, he laughed as he fiddled with his Samsung Galaxy SII, putting it on record mode.

To one side, a light on a video camera on a tripod glowed red as it recorded the interview.

A photographer hovered about, taking pictures of us. A second mobile phone rang every five minutes, but he ignored it.

"I'm proud of my reputation," he said through a translator.

"The problem is, internationally, they make me look bad, like a terrorist or a racist.

"But I am not a bad person who hates another race. My intention is to protect the Buddhist religion."

He had just returned from a visit to Rakhine state, Myanmar's impoverished western-most corner abutting Bangladesh, the scene of Muslim-Buddhist conflict that has seen scores killed and tens of thousands of minority Muslims driven from their homes in attacks in 2012 by Rakhine Buddhists.

He often travels to deliver sermons around the country, warning about what he considers an existential threat to Buddhists from Islam.

Critics and analysts accuse him of laying the groundwork for anti-Muslim violence, which in 2012 and 2013 erupted in several places across Myanmar. Some other prominent monks disapprove of him. 

Though a majority in northern Rakhine state, Muslims are a small minority of possibly up to 8 per cent in overwhelmingly Buddhist Myanmar.

There has been occasional anti-Muslim violence, but there is also a history of peaceful coexistence. 

But U Wirathu remains convinced that Islam will eventually take over the country if Buddhists are complacent. He backs controversial new Bills that restrict interfaith marriage.

U Wirathu does not rant; he speaks in a firm and measured tone. The media sees things with one eye closed, he insisted.

"You say a small percentage of Myanmar is Muslim," he shot at me.

"Go to the police stations anywhere in Myanmar; it is mostly the Muslims who rape women. When a Muslim marries a Buddhist woman, she is made to stamp on an image of the Buddha.

"When I know about this, I say it because it is the truth. Some people get the wrong message, they think I am creating the violence. But I am just telling the truth."

But he added: "I want to punish only those who are guilty, not other Muslims."

Pulling out a DVD player, he inserts a disk that shows mobile phone footage of a Rohingya Muslim mob stoning and setting fire to houses in Maungdaw in Rakhine state in 2012.

Hindus and Christians - Myanmar's other minorities - did not create problems, he said. "But Muslims only think about how to insult other religions."

The anti-Muslim riots he is accused of fuelling have usually followed a similar pattern. They start with a seemingly petty quarrel, or an accusation of rape - in at least one case proven false, but only after the deadly aftermath - directed against Muslims.

The news spreads like wildfire on social media.

Seemingly organised mobs of Buddhists then descend on Muslim communities, razing whole neighbourhoods and slaughtering entire Muslim families, including children.

This has drawn outrage from radical Islamic groups overseas, and raised fears among analysts of intensifying violence.

There are also allegations that the monk is backed by shadowy, powerful old-style hardliners opposed to liberal democracy and using nationalism as a weapon.

While he rejects any allegation of links with Myanmar politicians, he has established international links. Late last year, he travelled to Sri Lanka to speak at a conference organised by the island nation's Sinhala Buddhist right-wing group, the Bodu Bala Sena.

In January, the headline-grabbing monk went a step further.

He called the United Nations' special rapporteur on human rights for Myanmar, Ms Yanghee Lee, a "whore" after she spoke out for the rights of the minority Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine state, eliciting a strong complaint from the UN.

Local Buddhist Rakhines, and much of the Myanmar public including the government itself, insist the Rohingya are illegal Bengali immigrants from Bangladesh. 

The term Rohingya itself is a politically loaded red flag to Buddhist nationalists.

Nevertheless, wasn't it impolite for him, a Buddhist monk - or anyone for that matter - to call Ms Yanghee Lee a "whore", I asked.

"She is an agent working for the Bengalis," he said.

"She is trying to get the 1982 citizenship law amended so all the Bengalis can become citizens.

"She is a diplomat for the UN. She should not be lobbying for the Muslims, for the Bengalis.

"Next time, I'll throw a shoe at her," he said.

By Saudi Gazette Editorial

March 30, 2015

Some recent announcements by the Myanmar government should reassure all those who want to see democracy restored in this Southeast Asian country. Parliamentary elections planned for November this year promise to be much more transparent and inclusive than the one held in 2010. President Thein Sein has approved a law allowing a referendum on changes to the constitution. This has given hopes to supporters of Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of the National League for Democracy (NLD), that a ban on her from the presidency may eventually be lifted.

If Suu Kyi, the most popular politician in Myanmar and a Nobel laureate, is barred from running for president because her late husband and two sons are foreign citizens, the tragedy of Myanmar's Rohingya Muslims is that they are not citizens of a country where their ancestors have been living since the seventh century.

They can't participate in the election because they are noncitizens or the so-called white-card holders. Rohingyas can't vote in the constitutional referendum or the general election because of a presidential ruling in February stripping them of suffrage. Worse still, their white cards will expire tomorrow forcing them to face a future which is as bleak as one can imagine.

NLD has already expelled more than 20,000 temporary identification card holders from the party’s membership. The other registered political parties (nearly 70) may follow suit to comply with a legislative mandate barring noncitizens from democratic process.

From tomorrow onward, white card holders, who also include an unknown number of ethnic Chinese, Kokang and Wa minorities, may also find it difficult to travel around the country due to a lack of identity document.

There are an estimated 800,000 to 1.1 million Rohingyas. Of some eight million Muslims in Myanmar, about one in six is Rohingya. A people who live mostly in Rakhine state in western Myanmar, Rohingyas were forced to take white cards because a 1982 law disqualified them from any citizenship claims they might have had.

To make matters worse, the Myanmar government even does not want anyone to utter the term Rohingya because they are all “Bengalis”, a term used to legitimize denial of citizenship and rights to the group, though early Muslim settlements in Rakhine date from the seventh century. The term Rohingya was absent from last year's landmark census. 

Myanmar officials even chastised UN Secretary General Ban KI-moon and US President Barack Obama for using the term Rohingya when they visited Myanmar last year to attend the ASEAN Summit held in Naypyidaw.

They visited Myanmar immediately after the country had gone through one of its periodic spasms of ethnic violence that in the past two and a half years have killed hundreds of Rohingyas. As many as 140,000 of them were forced to displacement camps.

Since then, their condition has only worsened as Yanghee Lee, UN special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar points out in her latest report, says she saw "no improvement" for displaced Rohingyas since her previous visit in July 2014.

Such is the hatred of the majority Buddhists toward the Rohingyas that during her latest visit in January this year, Lee was publicly denounced as a "whore" and "bitch" by a prominent monk.

The fact is Rohinglyas are the victims not merely of official policies but of ethnic and religious tensions created by some radical monks. This is what makes them despair of political reforms in Myanmar. In general, democracy works to the advantage of minorities, giving the most disadvantaged people a voice in the decision-making process. But Rohingyas know that democracy can also be used to raise suspicions and create fears about minorities in the minds of the majority. While the government intensifies its campaign of hate, who would risk votes of the majority by supporting a despised minority?

This places an additional responsibility on the international community who have released a statement affirming their support for free and fair polls in Myanmar. Of course, they should keep a watch on the conduct of elections so the government machinery is not used to intimidate its opponents or help those who would side with them. They must take steps to prevent the electoral politics in Myanmar degenerating into a race to decide who can say the most bigoted things about a helpless minority. More important, they must ensure that the options before Rohingyas are not “to stay and die or to leave by boat," as Lee's report to the UN Human Rights Council put it starkly.

By Dr. Habib Siddiqui

RB Article

March 29, 2015

In a country that has been infested with the blight of unfathomable racism ad bigotry for decades, rumors are enough to trigger communal riots. And if the press, priests, public servants and people’s representatives are all working in cahoots as a party to a very sinister program – which I have been calling a ‘national eliminationist project’ – one does not have to be Einstein to understand the impact of such false rumors. And that is what happened to Mandalay in central Myanmar (formerly Burma) in July of last year when we witnessed anti-Muslim violence there. It was all part of a highly orchestrated criminal program with deep support at every level of the local and central government. 

On July 3, 2014, U Soe Min, a Muslim man, was walking to morning prayers (Fajr) at a nearby mosque when a man with a machete struck him dead with a deep blow to his skull. The 51-year-old Mandalay resident, who ran a bicycle shop, was one of two innocent victims that day of communal violence sparked by reports – later proven to be false – that a Buddhist woman had been raped by two Muslim brothers.

Since May of 2012 starting with the gruesome lynching to death of ten Tablighi Muslims by a Rakhine mob, we have witnessed how the Buddhist mob and criminals have often been empowered by such false rumors to terrorize and exterminate Muslims, which sadly have been led by Buddhist monks and security forces. 

The May (2012) ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya Muslims started under a similar pretext: a Rakhine woman - Ma Thida Htwe - was raped and murdered by 3 Rohingya (the so-called Bengali) Muslims. The dead body was found, rather conveniently, in a Rakhine village – not too far from a Rohingya locality. Interestingly, the lead accused - named Htet Htet - was not a 'Bengali' – and not even a Muslim. He was a married Buddhist Bama who in his childhood was adopted by a Rohingya Muslim family. As we have seen in many such incidents under police and NASAKA custody, Htet Htet was found dead in his prison cell. The police announced that he had killed himself. 

Dr. Maung Zarni, a Burmese human rights activist, says that “the rape narrative of the Rakhine woman - the late Ma Thida Htwe - raped by 'Bengali men' was patently false, but spread by President Thein Sein's men the likes of Major Zaw Htay (Hmu Zaw), Colonel Ye Htut (now deputy information minister) as a trigger event to set the fire of genocidal hatred towards the Muslims. Ma Thida Htwe was NOT raped but was simply murdered - the doctor who examined her body told Ko Zaganar [a popular comedian], in no uncertain terms, that there was absolutely no evidence of rape on Ma Thida Htwe's dead body. The doctor was forced to sign the medical report which claims falsely she was raped. The rape story was spread by government agents on the social media and was used as a launching pad to start waves of mass killings against the Rohingya and the Muslims across Burma or Myanmar.”

“Within a month of his death - when [Maung Thura] Zaganar attempted to meet Htet Htet's wife,” writes Dr. Zarni in his blog, “she was found dead in a village well. How convenient!” It is believed amongst the independent analysts that NASAKA security forces killed Ma Thida Htwe and possibly Htet Htet’s wife. 

For years I have been saying that if one is serious about finding the origin of race/ ethnic/ religious riots and pogroms inside military-controlled Myanmar that inquiry should start with the government itself. As subsequent inquiries have revealed I was not wrong: most of the anti-Muslim pogroms and genocidal activities inside Burma (or Myanmar) owe their origin to the government – central and local. These crimes are sometimes scripted and often times sanctioned by the government. True that we sometimes see the faces of angry Buddhist mob taking the lead in such heinous crimes, but these low-lives are often used as pawns in this chess game of ethnic cleansing of the targeted victims. And no one can deny the powerful influence of the Sangha in agitating and mobilizing Buddhists. The terrorist Buddhist monks have been employed by the regime to polarize public opinion against Muslims and aid in its sinister plan. 

It is no accident that after his release from prison in 2010, Wirathu – the head abbot of the Masoyein monastery in Mandalay - with a large following has now become the face of Buddhist terrorism. His 969 (fascist) Movement provides the foot soldiers for Nazi-like blitzkrieg against unarmed Muslims. He led a rally of monks in Mandalay in September, 2012 to promote President Thein Sein's controversial plan to expel Rohingyas to a third country. A month later more violence was directed against Muslims in the Rakhine state resulting in displacement of some 140,000 Rohingyas. His fascist movement has been behind all the subsequent pogroms directed against Muslims (and not just limited to Rohingyas) all across Myanmar. His disciples have also been behind all state-managed protest rallies against the NGOs, UN and OIC reps, including the Doctors Without Borders, worsening the humanitarian crisis affecting the Muslims of Myanmar.

With the vast support Wirathu and other racist and bigoted Buddhist monks enjoy within the broader Buddhist community, they have been able to rally hateful Buddhists to attack and kill Muslims and burn their properties with impunity. Police and other security forces, if they did not participate in such heinous crimes themselves would often time stand unperturbed, as if nothing had gone wrong, or that they have no business to stop such horrendous crimes of fellow savage Buddhists. 

According to multiple corroborated eyewitnesses, the Mandalay riots of July 2014 were carried out over two straight nights by a small group of Buddhist terrorists on motorcycles carrying clubs and swords who rampaged through Muslim neighborhoods destroying homes, businesses and mosques. This took place in plain view of fully armed riot police, who followed the rioters and watched the mayhem unfold without taking action. As hinted above, Mandalay – the second largest Myanmar city – is home of the terrorist monk Wirathu. The local Panthay (Chinese) Muslims were forced to hide or keep a very low profile. 

Justice Trust - an international human rights organization that partners with lawyers and activists in Myanmar to strengthen local communities fighting for justice – investigated the matter. It found ‘hidden hands’ (read: government hand) in the attack. In its released report, “Hidden Hands Behind Communal Violence in Myanmar: Case Study of the Mandalay Riots,” it documented the use of organized gangs of armed men to commit anti-Muslim riots under the guise of spontaneous mob violence.

The NGO held a press conference in Bangkok on March 23, 2015 to release the report.

“This report shows what most Burmese have known for a long time – that religious hatred between Buddhists and Muslims is being stoked by hidden hands and manipulated as a pretext for maintaining their grip on power,” said U Thein Than Oo, a Mandalay lawyer who serves on Justice Trust’s steering committee. “We have seen this script many times before – the deployment of plainclothes forces [Swah Ah Shin] rather than uniformed soldiers to commit national-scale political violence, and the scapegoating of minorities to divert public attention away from the country’s real needs.”

Drawing on six months of research by a team of local and international lawyers, the report analyzes the riots that shook Mandalay in July 2014 and places these riots in the context of previous waves of communal conflict carried out under past military regimes.

The Mandalay riots closely followed every element of this pattern, starting with a false charge of rape spread on Facebook. But unlike in previous riots, where large mobs developed and the violence spun out of control, local people in Mandalay refused to participate despite the best efforts of outside agitators. In fact, local monks, activists and journalists arrived and tried to contain the situation. Without the protective cover of a sympathetic crowd, the outside agitators were exposed, the stage-managed nature of their violence was made visible to the public, and the overall damage was limited.

“The Mandalay riots were designed to appear as a spontaneous outbreak of mob violence, but in fact were perpetuated by an organised gang of armed men brought in from outside Mandalay to enact a pre-determined script written and stage-managed by hidden hands for political ends,” the report says.

The report states that: “The case of Mandalay therefore provides the clearest evidence yet of a deliberate political strategy to foment anti-Muslim violence, as well as the best example of countering this strategy through a local early warning system to mobilize an immediate on-the-ground response.”

The report says they follow a similar pattern of events, including rape allegations, speaking tours by Wirathu and visits by gangs of fomenting outsiders. “Lots of people recognise that the 969 movement has a history of inciting riots … and once Wirathu posted the [rape] allegation to Facebook, the local civil groups alerted others to the coming storm,” said Roger Normand, executive director of Justice Trust.

Mandalay is far from the only orchestrated incident inside Myanmar, which has a long history of military regimes employing the “dual threat of external intervention and internal disintegration” to ensure control, according to the report. Notable examples of such diversions include General Ne Win’s anti-Chinese riots in the 1960s to distract from a countrywide rice shortage, and Buddhist-Muslim tensions after democratic mass uprising in 1988. 

Anti-Muslim pogroms in Myanmar are not new. They have surfaced periodically in recent decades. The fascist elements within the Buddhist country have exploited their deep-seated racism and bigotry against ethnic minorities and non-Buddhists to glue the fractured Buddhist majority. Their propaganda encourages a blind racist nationalism and an unparallel bigotry, full of references to ‘protecting the race and religion’, meaning that if the national race Burmans (Bama) do not oppress other nationalities then they will themselves be oppressed and if the Buddhist majority likewise does not expel the non-Buddhists (esp. the Muslims) then they will become a minority, ‘national reconsolidation’, meaning forced assimilation, and preventing ‘disintegration of the Union’, meaning that if the Army (Tadmadaw) falls then some kind of ethnic chaos would ensue. In this new Myanmarism, ethno-religio-fascist Buddhism (coined first by self-exiled researcher Dr. Shwe Lu Maung), monks have become the regime’s pit bulls that are aided from center to the local level politicians. Even Suu Kyi is a silent partner.

As noted by Human Rights Watch in its report “All You Can Do Is Pray”, immediately after the first wave of anti-Muslim genocidal activities in Arakan in June 2012, local Rakhine Buddhist monks circulated pamphlets calling for the isolation of Muslims. For instance, on June 29, monks in Sittwe (formerly Akyab) distributed an incendiary pamphlet telling all Arakanese Buddhists that they “Must not do business with Bengalis [Rohingya],” and “Must not associate with Bengalis [Rohingya].” It implored the Rakhine people to follow the demands to socially and economically isolate the Rohingya to prevent the “extinction of the Arakanese.” 

On July 5, 2012 monks representing the Sangha in Rathedaung Township, 30 kilometers north of Sittwe, held a meeting and subsequently issued a 12-point statement. The preamble unabashedly presents a plan for the ethnic cleansing of Rohingya: ‘Arakan Ethnic Cleansing Program’. It called for the establishment of a “rule to control the birth rate of the Muslim Bengali community living in Arakan”; it advocated forced relocation by demanding the government “remove some Bengali villages located near Sittwe University and beside traffic communication roads throughout Arakan State”; and it expresses opposition to any reintegration plans that would “put Buddhist and Muslim people together.” Furthermore, the statement called for a “peoples’ militia in all ethnic villages along the border and [for the government] to supply sophisticated arms to the people’s militia.” The statement called for strict adherence to the 1982 Citizenship Law, which effectively prevents Rohingya from obtaining Burmese citizenship. The Rathedaung statement was sent to President Thein Sein, leaders in parliament, and the presidential commission established to investigate the situation in Arakan State.

The statement also called on the Rakhine Buddhists in Rathedaung Township to avoid employing Rohingya in a range of jobs, including day laborers, carpenters, masons, and in farming. It also said that the Rohingya should not to be employed in government offices or by NGOs operating in the township, and that all NGOs providing aid to the Rohingya in the township must withdraw. On July 9, 2012 the monks' association in Mrauk-U (once the capital of Arakan) released a similar statement: “No Arakanese [Rakhine Buddhist] should sell any goods to Bengalis, hire Bengalis as workers, provide any food to Bengalis and have any dealings with them ...”

The ruling RNDP in the Rakhine state also played an instrumental role in stoking fear and encouraging isolation of and violence against the Rohingya. One of the racist provocateurs by the name of Aye Chan depicts Rohingya as ‘Influx Virus’ which needs extinction. Members of the Buddhist sangha and the RNDP have also called for changes to the demographic makeup of Arakan State and Burma, such as the expulsion of all Rohingya from the country, in interviews with the international media. The monk Sandarthiri likewise told BBC that Rohingya have no right to stay in Burma: “Around the world there are many Muslim countries. They should go there. The Muslim countries will take care of them. They should go to countries with the same religion.”

The RNDP leaders issued orders to the Rakhine people to deny food entering the Rohingya part of the villages. “If any food comes, take it, crush it, and destroy it” was a notice on the corner of the road in front of the food market with orders saying no one could allow any food to reach the Rohingya village. On that paper it said that any Buddhist taking money from the Rohingya for rice or other things would be killed.

The HRW report directly implicated "political and religious leaders in Arakan State" in the planning, organization, and incitement of attacks against the Rohingya and other Muslims in October of 2012. 

Buddhist monks were again in the headlines in June 2013 when it was reported that participants at a monastic conference were preparing a draft law that would put severe restrictions on inter-faith marriage and penalize Muslim men who married Buddhist women without converting. 

The fact-finding reports from multiple NGOs have confirmed what we suspected for a number of years about who these ‘hidden hands’ are that are responsible for genocidal crimes against Muslims and other vulnerable minorities inside Myanmar. It is high time for the world community, esp. the UNSC, to try these fascists in the ICC for their crimes against humanity for surely the strongest antidote to genocide is justice. And nothing will sober the culprits of Myanmarism except such punitive measures.

By Mizzima

March 28, 2015

The government has criticised a European Union resolution adopted by the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva on March 27, saying it amounts to an infringement of Myanmar’s sovereignty and interference in its affairs.

“The resolution does not adequately and objectively reflect and apprise of the efforts and achievements in promoting and protecting of human rights of the people of Myanmar,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a news release issued in Nay Pyi Taw.

“In addition to this drawback, some facts amount to infringing on the sovereignty and interfering in the internal affairs of Myanmar,” the ministry said in the release, published in the state-controlled Global New Light of Myanmar on March 28.

It said the resolution had criticised and prejudged the holding and the outcome of the general election due later this year and had ignored efforts to ensure the vote is free, fair and transparent.

The resolution was also criticised for containing “a terminology which is not accepted by the nation and its entire people”, though the news release did not make clear if it was referring to the use of the term “Rohingya”.

It also said references in the resolution to Myanmar’s cooperation with United Nations agencies and the international humanitarian community were “misleading”.

“At this critical juncture, only constructive contributions and advices (sic) should be made for further progress towards reaching the goal of the whole [reform] process rather than focusing on and criticising some incidents,” the news release said.

Myanmar would maintain its efforts to promote and protect the human rights of its people, the foreign ministry said.

“In so doing, cooperation with friendly nations and the international organisations which support Myanmar with constructive views will be continued,” it said.

By Radio Free Asia

March 28, 2015

An armed ethnic group battling government troops in Myanmar’s Shan state has denied reports it is recruiting Chinese nationals to serve as mercenaries in its fight to reclaim territory in the country’s remote Kokang border region.

Tun Myat Lin, spokesman for the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) under aging leader Peng Jiasheng, refuted claims by an RFA source earlier this week that the group had been offering a sign-up package to former soldiers demobilized from China's People's Liberation Army (PLA).

“Our Kokang Army MNDAA does not use mercenaries [obtained] from hiring Chinese people,” he said in a statement written in English.

“The Chinese government also would not allow this,” he said, adding that the high cost of recruiting meant that “we cannot afford to hire Chinese people as mercenaries.”

In an accompanying statement, written in Chinese, Tun Myat Lin said the MNDAA had “never recruited people from outside of Myanmar to join our army.”

“We have stressed time and again in our official blog that we do not accept volunteers from China, so why would we use money to hire ‘mercenaries’?"

Tun Myat Lin asserted that government-aligned Kokang region chairman Bai Suocheng—the former deputy commander of the MNDAA—was spreading rumors to undermine support for Peng faction across the border in southwestern China’s Yunnan province.

“Bai Suocheng and other human scum, in order to serve the interests and the plots of the Myanmar military, has fabricated false evidence, and used all kinds of tricks to deceive Chinese friends who sympathize with us, then lured them to areas controlled by Myanmar government troops to be interrogated while under detention,” he said.

“Then photos and recordings [of the interrogations] are used as evidence that China is providing mercenaries to our troops.”

Tun Myat Lin also bristled at the term “rebel group” used by some in the media to describe the MNDAA under Peng, instead referring to it as “an armed militia” carrying out a fight “for the right to survive and the dignity of our [Kokang] people.”

Claim of recruitment drive

On Tuesday, military recruiter Lu Wei told RFA’s Mandarin Service that Chinese mercenaries were being offered 30,000 yuan (U.S. $4,830) to sign up for periods of at least a month with the MNDAA and allied military groups.

Lu, who is based in Yunnan’s Nansan township, said the recruitment drive didn't seem to be working, as not many Chinese were taking up the offer to risk their lives in the conflict.

However, other sources cited strong sympathy for the Kokang cause among China’s military and armed police forces. The people of Kokang are ethnic Han Chinese and speak a dialect of Chinese similar to that spoken across the border in Yunnan province.

The MNDAA on Feb. 9 launched a bid to retake the rugged and mountainous Kokang region, which it had controlled until 2009, beginning in the Kokang regional capital Laukkai.

Tens of thousands of displaced civilians in Kokang and across the Chinese border face worsening conditions and uncertainty over whether cease-fire talks will take place, sources have said.

The MNDAA was formerly part of a China-backed guerrilla force called the Communist Party of Burma (CPB), and became the first of about a dozen factions to sign a bilateral cease-fire agreement with the government after the group broke apart in 1989.

However, the agreement faltered in 2009 when armed groups came under pressure to transform into a paramilitary Border Guard Force under the control of Myanmar’s military—a move the MNDAA resisted.

Bai, who was put in charge of the Kokang army after Peng was deposed following the 2009 Kokang fighting, left the region shortly after Peng's offensive began in February.

Since driving MNDAA forces back from Laukkai, sources say Bai’s son has run plainclothes security operations in the city and maintained police patrols on its streets.

Reported by RFA’s Myanmar and Mandarin Services. Translated by Jennifer Chou and Paul Eckert. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

Myanmar Times

March 28, 2015

A girl holds an infant in an unofficial camp for displaced Muslims on the outskirts of the Rakhine State capital Sittwe in January. (Yu Yu/The Myanmar Times)

RB News

March 27, 2015

According to the mandate given by the "First European Rohingya Conference" held in Denmark last December, a delegation of 3 Rohingya representatives travelled to Brussels to lobby the European Commission, European Parliament and other related institutions. The delegation was comprised of Tun Khin, President of Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK, Sazaat Ahammed from Netherlands, and Sayed Hussein, Chairman of Rohingya Organisation Norway. 

On the first day of the event the delegation briefed the Swedish permanent representative to EU, Netherlands permanent representative to the EU, and the US mission delegation.

On the second day the European Rohingya delegates briefed Top Officials from South East Asia European External Action Service, Officials from Foreign Affairs External Policies European Parliament, Sub Committee on Human Rights and Director General from External Policies, Jean Lambert Member of European Parliament.

During the third day the delegation met MEP (Member of the European Parliament) Afzal Khan MEP David Martin, Director General from European Commission Humanitarian aid Office (ECHO).

The European Rohingya delegation strongly emphasized updates of the situation of the Rohingya people of Arakan. The delegates specifically highlighted in particular the revoking of white cards (resident IDs) and lost rights of the Rohingya. They urged the European Union to put pressure on the Burmese government to stop its plan to subject the Rohingya to the so-called national verification process which requires them to identify themselves as Bengalis. They also stressed the need to allow them continue their right of integration by granting them full citizenship with their ethnic identity as ‘Rohingya’. 

The delegation pinpointed that the humanitarian crisis in Rakhine State and impoverishment of the Rohingya is part of a long-term policy of repression of the ethnic Rohingya which has been stepped up since the reform process began in 2011. As a result of Burmese government policies, actions and inaction, almost one million ethnic Rohingya are in dire need of humanitarian assistance. 160,000 of these are living in squalid camps in Rakhine State. The delegation stressed that as the EU is a major aid donor to also provide more aid to Rohingya IDPS and urged the European Union to support Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to personally take the lead in negotiating international humanitarian access. A similar effort in 2008 after Cyclone Nargis succeeded in increasing humanitarian access.

The delegation brought to the attention of the European Parliament members how the commission established by the Burmese government of Burma failed to address issues of accountability and justice. It is clear that the government of Burma is not willing to conduct a genuine investigation into the cause of the violence, to establish who was responsible for inciting and organizing the violence, and to hold those who organized and took part in the attacks to account. An independent international investigation will not only help establish the truth, but also help prevent further attacks by ensuring for the first time that those responsible will fear being held accountable. Recommendations can also be made to prevent further violence.

Moreover the delegation suggested that those inciting hatred and violence are well known in Burma, but no action has been taken against them. President Thein Sein has supported those individuals who are also inciting violence. The Delegation Urged the EU to put strong pressure to stop hate speech against Rohingyas and other minorities of Burma. The Delegation also spoke of how Rohingya community and political leaders, are subject to arbitrary arrest, detention, and harassment in Myanmar. Prisoners of conscience in Myanmar remain at risk of torture and other forms of ill-treatment. The delegation urged the EU to put pressure on President Thein Sein and the Burmese government immediately and unconditionally to release a group of five Rohingya prisoners of conscience being held in Sittwe prison.

The Delegation stressed that Rohingya people are leaving Arakan in hundreds every day by taking extremely dangerous sea-journeys to escape persecution by Burmese authorities. Currently 10% of population have been driven out by the government of Burma and the crisis should stop by EU pressure immediately. Rohingyas are facing a slow burning genocide and international presence is immediately needed to protect the Rohingyas of Arakan, The delegation also urged European countries to resettle those Rohingyas refugees to their countries.​