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Myanmar's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi smiles as she arrives for a parliament session in Naypyidaw April 3, 2015. REUTERS/Soe Zeya Tun

By Andrew R.C. Marshall and Simon Webb
April 4, 2015

NAYPYITAW - Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi said boycotting an upcoming historic election was an "option" if a military-drafted constitution that bars her from becoming president remains unchanged.

In an interview on Friday, the Nobel laureate told Reuters that her opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) party was "ready to govern" but that President Thein Sein was insincere about reform and might try to postpone the election.

She also said U.S. praise for Myanmar's semi-civilian government, which took power in 2011 after nearly 50 years of brutal military rule, had made it "complacent" about reform.

While scathing about what she called Thein Sein's "hardline regime", Suu Kyi emphasised the need to reconcile with the military which detained her for 15 years until her release from house arrest in 2010.

"We don't think that boycotting the election is the best choice," said Suu Kyi, when asked whether her party would run with the constitution unchanged. "But we're not ruling it out altogether. We are leaving our options open."

However, she stressed the importance of the November general election, describing it as "the real test of whether we are on the route to democracy or not."

The NLD won Myanmar's last real election in 1990 by a landslide, but the military nullified the result.

The party boycotted the 2010 poll, widely regarded as rigged, which installed Thein Sein, a former general and junta stalwart.

His government launched a series of political and economic reforms. Many people now feel the reform process has stalled, and the military - its immense power largely unchecked - again casts a shadow over the voting.

Suu Kyi said Thein Sein was "sincere" about reform during their first meeting in 2011. But now, he was not.

"Because if he had been sincere about reform, then we would be much further ahead than we are," she said, speaking in a meeting room in Myanmar's sprawling parliamentary complex in the capital Naypyitaw.

She expressed concern that Thein Sein might use peace talks with ethnic rebels as a pretext to delay the election.

MYANMAR'S HOPE

For Suu Kyi, who turns 70 in June, this is a pivotal year.

She and 42 other NLD members entered parliament after a 2012 by-election. Since then, say critics, Suu Kyi has lent her hard-won democratic credentials to a questionable government that has given little in return.

But many more in this large, poor and ethnically diverse nation still see Suu Kyi as Myanmar's best hope. Reforms have raised expectations among its 53 million population but left most people's lives unimproved.

The constitution, drafted by the former junta, reserves a quarter of parliamentary seats for military delegates, which effectively allows them to veto any constitutional change.

It also bars presidential candidates with a foreign spouse or child. Suu Kyi's late husband and two sons are British.

She said the presidency was still within her reach. "Why not?" she said. "Constitutions are not permanent."

But changing it, she admitted, depended upon a government she repeatedly described in the interview as a "regime" of hardliners.

"They are not interested in negotiations or in amending the constitution or taking seriously the will of the people...you could hardly say they are moderates."

Suu Kyi said she questioned U.S. praise of Myanmar's government in the hopes of encouraging further reforms.

"I would ask whether it actually encourages them to do more or it simply makes them more complacent," she said.

"The United States and the West in general are too optimistic and a bit of healthy scepticism would help everybody a great deal."

A U.S. official told Reuters in November, ahead of President Barack Obama's second visit to the country, that Washington had decided not to press for changes to Myanmar's constitution in a bid to maintain influence with its government.

But Suu Kyi said she did not feel abandoned by the United States and had "good friends" there.

MILITARY MANOEUVRES

One "absolute necessity" was mending relations with the military. "We can't have a country that is split between the military and the rest of the people," she said.

In 2012, Suu Kyi upset many supporters by saying she had a "soft spot" for the military. It was founded by her father Aung San, Myanmar's independence hero, whose portrait hung on the wall behind her.

Now, she rejects criticism that she had been outmanoeuvred by Myanmar's generals.

"We've always known that they would not give up their privileges easily," she said. "There's a time when we have to stand up for our principles and there's a time when one of the principles should be national reconciliation rather than digging up the past."

Suu Kyi also denied claims she had failed to speak up for the Rohingya Muslims, a mostly stateless people living in wretched conditions in western Myanmar after deadly clashes with majority Buddhists in 2012.

"When I talked about rule of law and the fact that we condemned all forms of violence, nobody was interested," she said. "This wasn't news."

‘I’ve always been a politician,’ Aung San Suu Kyi tells The Globe and Mail on April 3, 2015.
(Htoo Tay Zar for the Globe and Mail)

By Nathan Vanderklippe
April 4, 2015

NAYPYIDAW, Myanmar —  She is called the “Iron Orchid,” a moral celebrity who risked her life standing up to a terrifying military regime and who was honoured by the chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize committee as someone whose very existence “gives us confidence and faith in the power of good.”

But as Aung San Suu Kyi faces an election year that could hand her the leadership of a country she has long sought to change, she has maintained her unwillingness to condemn Myanmar’s human-rights abuses against Muslims – a politically safe stance at home – by playing down her role as the conscience of her nation.

“I’ve always been a politician. I’ve never said that I was a moral organization or anything like that,” she told The Globe and Mail in an interview Friday in the Myanmar capital.

Ms. Suu Kyi has face withering disapproval over her unwillingness to offering a strong repudiation of Myanmar’s treatment of the Rohingya, a Muslim group the country does not recognize as citizens and which the United Nations has called one of the most persecuted minorities on earth.

Disappointment, particularly in the international community, has been so great some have called for her Nobel prize to be rescinded, while others have accused her of trading her moral standing for calculated politics, since the Rohingya are widely disliked in a country that disparages them as illegal “Bengali” intruders.

About 140,000 Rohingya have been displaced and made to live in often horrific conditions in refugee camps. A far smaller number of Buddhists, who form the overwhelming majority in Myanmar, have also lost homes.

Ms. Suu Kyi has sought to occupy the middle ground. “The Muslims are a minority” in Rakhine state, where violence continues to plague relations between the two sets of people. “But the Buddhists feel they are a minority in the world, that there’s a huge Muslim world community which is against their Rakhine Buddhists. And it’s a perception – but in matters like that, perceptions are as effective as facts,” she said Friday, speaking in a meeting room of the Rule of Law and Tranquillity Committee, which she chairs, in the country’s sprawling parliamentary complex.

She said she doesn’t believe good will come out of condemning either side.

Ms. Suu Kyi, 69, faces a critical year, one of the most important in a life spent seeking democracy for her country, as she seeks to lead her National League for Democracy party to victory a second time. A first electoral triumph in 1990 was overturned by the country’s military; her party did not participate in the heavily flawed 2010 elections, but won 43 out of 45 seats in 2012 by-elections. Barring another military intervention, national elections in Myanmar expected in late October or early November represent the first chance she has to lead the country.

Under the country’s constitution, the newly elected legislators would choose the president. Ms. Suu Kyi, whose husband was British and whose children hold British passports, appears unlikely to get that post: The constitution, written by the military, bars it to anyone with a foreign spouse or children. The constitution also assigns 25 per cent of parliamentary seats to the military, which has used that position to block efforts at reform.

Ms. Suu Kyi suggested that a strong vote for her party would give the military little choice. “If the majority of the people are intent enough on bringing about change, change does come about,” she said. “I would like our military to look at the welfare of the country as a whole, and not just look at what they want, and what they think the situation should be.”

The military, she added, is not “impervious to public opinion. And people change. Institutions change.”

She refused, however, to say whether another person has been selected to serve as president if she is barred from that seat. “I’m not going to talk about what we are going to do if and when. These we leave until the when comes,” she said.

Still she offered a gloomy assessment of the state of reform in Myanmar, where the military-dominated leadership has shown worrying signs of stepping back on the freedoms it suddenly allowed in the past five years. In recent months, authorities used a state secrets law to imprison journalists, jailed a bar owner under outmoded blasphemy rules and moved violently against student protesters.

“I don’t think the reforms are all that strong to begin with, and I think this is beginning to become more obvious,” Ms. Suu Kyi said. “You can call it backsliding. I think it’s just not making progress.”

Ms. Suu Kyi, who was awarded Canadian citizenship in 2007, also voiced worry that President Thein Sein, a former general, would not allow elections to take place this year. “We have been concerned because the President said last year that the peace process should be given precedence over the elections. Does that mean if they think that the peace process justifies it, they can push off the elections?” she asked.

She said, too, that there is “genuine anxiety on the part of the people that the government and the military might not honour the results of the 2015 elections if the NLD wins.”

Partisan politics colour her concern, which is set against repeated assurances by Thein Sein’s government that it is committed to running a free and fair election this year.

The government is building up a long list of achievements, including a draft ceasefire agreement this week that could pave the way to ending more than six decades of civil war. Under Thein Sein, Myanmar has also experience some of the world’s fastest economic growth.

But Ms. Suu Kyi dismissed the accomplishments of her political rival, saying she isn’t happy with some parts of the ceasefire text, and she positioned herself and her party as the change Myanmar needs. “To begin with, we can always run on anti-corruption,” she said. “We are a very clean party. Poor, but clean. … That’s a first step toward good government.”

A draft of the religious conversion law published in Burma's state media (Photo: Irrawaddy)

By Olivia Enos
April 3, 2015

Burma’s President Thein Sein has proposed four pieces of legislation that threaten the very fiber of Burma’s already halting democratic reform process. If passed, the Protection of Race and Religion bills would violate religious liberty and institute potentially severe population control measures. The U.S. should maintain its opposition to them.

Religion Laws

The proposed religion bills address religious conversions, interreligious marriage, population control, and polygamy.[1] From the information available, of the four bills, the Religious Conversion Law and the Population Control Healthcare Law pose the greatest threat to individual liberties.

The Religious Conversion Law creates a Registration Board that would require individuals to undergo screening and certification of their religious conversion by the local government. After review, individuals can be denied the right to convert to their chosen religion. The review process and the mere fact that a personal religious decision has to be reported to the government is a major problem.

The Population Control Healthcare Law advocates population control measures including birth spacing—or the practice of leaving a 36-month interval between having additional children. The law calls for a survey to determine population density and its relationship to available resources in Burma. If it is determined that a specific region is deemed to have too large a population, the government would mobilize population control apparatus to that region until it is deemed of suitable population size.

Religious Liberty in Burma

The state of religious freedom in Burma is already bleak. Since 1999 and until today, Burma has been designated by the State Department as a “country of particular concern” (CPC) for engaging in “severe violations of religious freedom.”[2]

Burmese Muslim minority Rohingya face particularly acute persecution. Under Burmese law, Rohingya are not considered citizens of Burma, despite the fact that most Rohingya are born there. The Burmese government attempts to legitimize their claim by referencing a requirement in the 1982 Citizenship Law, which stipulates that ancestors live in Burma prior to the start of British colonial rule.[3]

Since Rohingya allegedly do not meet this requirement, many are rendered stateless, and therefore operate outside the protection of Burmese laws. Rohingya are denied the right to vote, are more susceptible to violence, and increasingly vulnerable to discrimination.

The majority of religious conflicts today in Burma are between Buddhists and Muslims. However, Christians, especially the Kachin minority, are also targeted.[4]

Religion Laws Would Exacerbate Religious Persecution

The passage of these religion laws, particularly the Religious Conversion Law and the Population Control Healthcare Law, would worsen Burma’s already abysmal track record on religious freedom.

Manipulative population control measures and restrictions on religious liberty have already failed in other countries in the region, including China. The Population Control Healthcare Law is remarkably similar to China’s “later, longer, fewer” policies that advocated later marriages, longer birth intervals, and fewer children.[5]

Chinese leadership bought into the Malthusian theory that population grows faster than available food resources. As a result, the Chinese government made the incorrect assumption that poverty under Mao Zedong was attributable to a large Chinese population, rather than to policies of agricultural collectivization and other Communist attempts at redistributing wealth.[6] This assumption was false.

Attempts at artificially reducing population in China had severe economic and humanitarian consequences.[7] Furthermore, China’s draconian population measures took family matters and incorrectly placed them in the hands of the government.

Now Burma seeks to do the same. Should Burma decide to implement population control, it will lead to foreseeable economic challenges. While Burma is attempting to legitimize population control by hearkening to faulty Malthusian logic, the most likely reason for the introduction of the Population Control Healthcare Law is to craftily disguise their intention to target Rohingya.

Religious persecution and population control have worked in tandem in Burma before. In 1994, Burma enacted a law limiting Burmese Rohingya to two children. While the two-child law has been inconsistently enforced, it was resurrected in 2013.[8] In 2013, the international community cautioned against the potential misuse of population control as a tool for persecution. The Population Control Healthcare Law would do just that.

With Burma’s record on religious freedom, legislation requiring Burmese to report religious conversion will only further exacerbate religious persecution. When reporting their religious conversion, Burmese would be required to provide extensive personal information, enabling the Burmese government to target not only the individual, but their extended and immediate family as well.

Personal religious decisions are not a matter for the government to meddle in, especially not when the Burmese government has such a poor track record of safeguarding religious liberty.

Recommendations

> The U.S. government should actively oppose the Race and Religion laws in Burma. The State Department and the U.S. Embassy in Burma should urge Burmese lawmakers to abandon the proposals and instead shore up Burma’s policies on religious liberty. The U.S. government should publicly emphasize that true democratic reform means guaranteeing religious freedom for all peoples in Burma.

> The U.S. should continue to list Burma as a “country of particular concern” in the State Department’s International Religious Freedom report. Last year’s International Religious Freedom report noted some minor improvements to religious freedom in Burma.[9] However, any signs of progress are more than offset by the ongoing religious conflict in Burma, the Burmese government’s introduction of the race and religion bills, and its continued persecution of religious minorities. The U.S. should maintain the arms embargo against Burma and refrain from exercising its waiver authority under the International Religious Freedom Act.[10] Until Burma has demonstrated long-term commitment to promoting religious freedom, it should remain a “country of particular concern.”

> The U.S. should encourage Burma to recognize Rohingya and other displaced minorities as citizens. Burma is home to large numbers of internally displaced and stateless individuals. Displaced persons are at an increased risk for persecution. If Burma seeks to improve its record on human rights and religious liberty, it should guarantee that minority populations enjoy the same legal protections as all other citizens of Burma. Burma should legalize the Rohingya, especially Rohingya that already qualify as citizens.[11]

Conclusion

If Burma wishes to be recognized for its democratic reforms and fully benefit from its reintegration back into the international community, the government must refrain from imposing new repression. The introduction of the four Protection of Race and Religion bills only confirms the international community’s suspicions that Burma is backsliding.

As the leader on international religious freedom, the U.S. should encourage Burma to respect the religious liberty of all its peoples.

—Olivia Enos is a Research Associate in the Asian Studies Center, of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy, at The Heritage Foundation.

[1] Open Doors UK, Burma/Myanmar, ”http://www.opendoorsuk.org/persecution/worldwatch/burma_myanmar.php (accessed March 23, 2015).

[2] Press release, “USCIRF Deeply Concerned by Draft ‘Religious Conversion Law’ in Burma,” U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, June 11, 2014, http://www.uscirf.gov/news-room/press-releases/uscirf-deeply-concerned-draft-religious-conversion-law-in-burma (accessed March 24, 2015), and U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, “Frequently Asked Questions: IRF Report and Countries of Particular Concern,” http://www.state.gov/j/drl/irf/c13003.htm(accessed March 24, 2015).

[3] U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, Burma: Religious Freedom and Related Human Rights Violations Are Hindering Broader Reforms, November 2014,http://www.uscirf.gov/sites/default/files/BurmaReport.ReligiousFreedomAndHumanRightsViolations.pdf (accessed March 24, 2015).

[4] Human Rights Watch, Untold Miseries: Wartime Abuses and Forced Displacement in Kachin State, March 2012, http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/burma0312ForUpload_1.pdf (accessed March 24, 2015).

[5] Laura Fitzpatrick, “A Brief History of China’s One-Child Policy,” Time, July 27, 2009,http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1912861,00.html (accessed March 24, 2015).

[6] Stéphane Courtois et al., The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999).

[7] Olivia Enos, “China’s Self-Created Demographic Disaster Is Coming,” The National Interest, September 25, 2014, http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/chinas-self-created-demographic-disaster-coming-11353 (accessed March 25, 2015).

[8] Olivia Enos, “Opposition to Burma’s ‘Two-Child Policy’ Mounting,” The Daily Signal, May 29, 2013, http://dailysignal.com/2013/05/29/opposition-to-burmas-two-child-policy-mounting/.

[9] U.S. Department of State “International Religious Freedom Report for 2013,” http://www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/irf/religiousfreedom/index.htm#wrapper (accessed March 24, 2015).

[10] Federal Register, “Secretary of State’s Determination Under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998,” Vol. 79, No. 185, pp. 57171–57172, http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2014-09-24/pdf/2014-22769.pdf (accessed March 30, 2015).

[11] Walter Lohman, “A Reverse Roadmap for Burma Sanctions,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 2749, December 12, 2012, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2012/12/a-reverse-road-map-for-burma-sanctions.

A silent protester holds up a placard during a speech by Myanmar's Minister of Information at the International Press Institute's World Congress on press freedom.

By Charles M. Sennott
April 3, 2015

YANGON, Myanmar -- In a grand ballroom at a fancy hotel here, some 300 journalists and media executives from around the world assembled last week for an International Press Institute (IPI) conference headlined "On the Path to a Free Media."

But protests by local journalists at the entrance to the hotel and placards held up during the three-day gathering underscored that there are still some treacherous turns -- and a few dangerous potholes -- along Myanmar's long road toward establishing greater press freedom.

Myanmar, like many of its neighbors in Southeast Asia, is witnessing serious setbacks for those who hold out hope that a culture of free expression might be emerging.

A leading Burmese magazine, Mizzima Weekly, featured a cover story last week titled "Media Under Threat" and chronicled 20 instances in which journalists have been jailed since 2013. Reporters covering student protests in March were detained for days for trying to document a brutal police crackdown.

In neighboring Bangladesh, reports emerged this week that another dissident, secular blogger was allegedly hacked to death with machetes by Islamic students. It was the second such murder in the last month in Bangladesh, and many bloggers are reportedly fleeing or shutting down their sites.

In Malaysia, three editors and two executives with a news website called The Malaysian Insider were arrested Monday in what critics called a direct assault on press freedom.

In Vietnam, Singapore, Cambodia and Laos, "the situation of freedom of expression has stagnated," according to the 2014 index published by Reporters Without Borders. The index stated that free speech in Myanmar is "being watched with great interest."

In a region writhing with change and challenges to authoritarian rule, it seems that old habits of intimidation and murder of journalists still cast a shadow over hopes for democratic reform.

In Yangon, at the IPI conference, a scene played out that seemed to drive home the complex mix of hope and despair around the country's struggle for a free press and a new democracy.

Just as Myanmar's Information Minister Ye Htut was commenting Saturday on how far Myanmar had come since a few years ago, when a military junta tightly controlled the media, a man wearing a facemask stood up and interrupted him.

The masked man silently held a protest placard as cameras flashed all around him. The placard read, "Stop beating, arresting and imprisoning journalists!" At another time in this country, this expression of dissent would have likely gotten him arrested. Instead, the anonymous man held up his sign in protest and then quietly slipped away and left the hotel.

And on Friday morning, as the three-day conference got underway, a small group of local journalists assembled in protest handing out stickers that read, "Stop Attacks on the Media!"

Ye Htut seemed eager to respond to the protests by stressing that reform "takes time."

And, he added, "I would like to assure you Myanmar's reform process is unstoppable, and is moving forward."

But many of the local journalists attending the conference seemed unconvinced. While they agreed much progress has been made, they were very quick to add that there is still a very long way to go.

Even if they wanted to believe that the country was reforming in important ways, they were expressing concern that recent crackdowns and the arrests of journalists covering student protests were signs that the old ways of the military junta could be returning in Myanmar, also known as Burma.

Outside the conference, in the cramped but buzzing newsroom of the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), worked Khin Maung Win, deputy editor of the Democratic Voice of Burma.

"When we came back to this country three years ago, we had high hope that things would change," said Win, who heads up the daily operation of the independent news organization which he operated in exile in Thailand for more than 20 years.

"But last year alone there were a lot of incidents. One freelance journalist was arrested in broad daylight and taken to a military facility and killed during interrogation. And no one has been held accountable for this killing," Win said.

"Last year, 10 journalists were imprisoned, and one of them was ours," he said. "And 17 journalists are now standing trial. On the one hand, they give us freedom, but this freedom is under threat."

He added, "We acknowledge that there is some real change. We can now speak against the government with some limits, but the gains we have made are now very much under threat."

David Kaye, the UN special rapporteur on freedom of expression, was in Myanmar for the IPI conference and pointed out that there has been "a remarkable depth of change." But he also added the progress "can be hard to see" when there are journalists jailed and threatened.

He urged the government to immediately release all journalists in detention, saying it would be a significant demonstration of Myanmar's commitment to free speech as the cornerstone that it will need to put down in order to build a new democracy.

A test looms this fall, when Myanmar will hold national elections in which the opposition party of longtime dissident and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi will participate, though she is still barred from running for president. Many international observers and local political analysts see the election as the first chance at a free and fair vote in Myanmar in nearly three decades.

Whether the government will permit a free press to confidently cover these elections and ask the hard questions could be a major factor in the result of the election. It could also impact international opinion on just how genuine Myanmar's steps toward democracy really are.

Soe Myint, executive editor of the Mizzima Media Group, who returned from exile in 2012 after 22 years working abroad as an opposition journalist, said the stakes are high.

"Myanmar is fast approaching a crucial test in our ongoing transition," Soe Myint told the IPI gathering. "Just how free and fair the election is deemed to be will greatly impact the social, political and investment climate in the country and significantly serve to stabilize or destabilize the reform process."

Charles M. Sennott, Executive Director of The GroundTruth Project, is a board member of the North American Committee of the International Press Institute. GroundTruth, in partnership with the New York-based Open Hands Initiative, led a reporting fellowship with 20 top, young journalist in Myanmar in 2012 and published a GlobalPost 'Special Report' titled "A Burmese Journey."



April 2, 2015

BEIJING -- Myanmar has accepted responsibility and apologized for bombs dropped on Chinese territory last month that killed five people, China's Foreign Ministry said on Thursday.

The incident happened during clashes between Myanmar government forces and a rebel group called the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA). Thousands of refugees have fled to China as fighting flared on the Myanmar side of the border in the past month or so.

The Chinese government was infuriated by the deaths in its southwestern province of Yunnan, and warned of a "decisive" response should there be any repetition.

Meeting with his Myanmar counterpart Wunna Maung Lwin, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said that a joint team formed to look into the bombing had clearly ascertained what had happened, China's Foreign Ministry said.

Wunna Maung Lwin accepted the results of the probe, which was that bombs from aMyanmar aircraft killed Chinese citizens, and extended his apologies and offered compensation, the ministry said in a statement.

"The Myanmar side will go after and punish in accordance with the law those responsible, and will also strengthen internal controls to avoid such an incident happening again," the ministry added.

It said Myanmar will work with China to ensure stability along their 2,000 km (1,250 mile) border, much of which is remote and hard to access.

The MNDAA, led by ethnic Chinese commander Peng Jiasheng, was formed from remnants of the Communist Party of Burma, a powerful China-backed guerrilla force that battled the Myanmar government until it splintered in 1989.

The group struck a truce with the government which lasted until 2009, when government troops took over their region in a conflict that pushed tens of thousands of refugees into China's Yunnan province.



Media Release from Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK
For Immediate Release 
Thursday 2nd April 2015

Rohingya Denied Right to Vote – New briefing on ‘White Card’ Withdrawal

Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK today publishes a new briefing paper the escalation of repression of the Rohingya by President Thein Sein by withdrawing their right to vote.

The briefing paper: ‘The Rohingya, the Citizenship Law, temporary registration, and implementation of the Rakhine State Action Plan’, is available at http://brouk.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Briefing-Paper-on-White-Card.pdf.

On February 11th 2015, President Thein Sein announced that all Temporary Registration Certificates, known as ‘White Cards’, would expire on 31st March 2015, and had to be returned to the authorities by 31st May.

At a stroke, this move has disenfranchised around a million people, mostly ethnic Rohingya, from the upcoming general election due in Burma in November 2015. It also prevents the Rohingya from taking part in a possible referendum on Burma’s constitution, which could take place this year.

The response from the international community to this further attack on the rights of the Rohingya was almost complete silence.

Having stripped the Rohingya of one of the few rights they did have, the ability to vote, President Thein Sein now intends to fully apply the 1982 Citizenship Law on the Rohingya. All Rohingya will now be processed under this law. But the provisions of this law mean that the vast majority, some experts predict well above ninety-percent, will not be able to meet the citizenship requirements of the discriminatory 1982 Citizenship Law. The intention of the Burmese government is then to place all these Rohingya into what amount to giant concentration camps, and then seek countries for them to be deported to.

The briefing paper also highlights the failure of the British government to take practical action to try to prevent further repression.

Although the British government has provided financial support for aid to internally displaced Rohingya, senior UN officials still describe the situation in the camps as the worst they have ever seen. Despite this, the British government is not supporting calls for higher level international pressure to persuade the Burmese government to allow unhindered international humanitarian access to the camps, such as UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon personally taking the lead in negotiating humanitarian access.

The British government is refusing to support calls for a United Nations Commission of Inquiry into human rights violations and government policies against the Rohingya. Instead it says it is calling on the Burmese government to conduct its own investigations, even though they are aware that the Burmese government will not do so.

“It appears that no matter how serious the human rights violations against the Rohingya are, and what new policies President Thein Sein brings in to repress the Rohingya and try to drive the Rohingya out of Burma, it has no impact at all on the British government’s policy of supporting the Burmese government,” said Tun Khin, President of Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK. 

For more information please contact Tun Khin on +44 (0) 7888714866.

By Nahela Nowshin
April 1, 2015

The Unwavering Persecution Of Rohingyas

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.




Internally displaced Rohingya women and children look from behind the fence of their temporary home at Thae Chaung IDP camp on the outskirts of Sittwe on Feb 15, 2015. Myanmar authorities have begun collecting temporary identification cards from displaced Rohingya Muslims in unrest-torn Rakhine state, an official said on Wednesday, April 1, a move that the UN has warned could strip them of all documentation. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

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

Sultan Ahmed, 16, shows reporters his white card at the Thae Chaung IDP camp in Sittwe township. (Photo by Will Baxter)

By Simon Lewis and John Zaw
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.”

Displaced Rohingyas walk through the Say Tha Mar Gyi IDP camp near Sittwe. (Photo by Will Baxter)

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.”

Rakhine women sit in front of a poster declaring that Rakhine residents of Sittwe township do not accept the Union Parliament's decision on the White Card issue. (Photo by Will Baxter)

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, whose husband, Kyaw Khin, was sentenced to five years in jail for charges including rioting on February 27, sits at her home in Thetkepyin village in Sittwe township. (Photo by Will Baxter)

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.”

(Photo: Free Malaysia Today)

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)

U Wirathu remains convinced that Islam will eventually take over Myanmar if Buddhists are complacent. -- ST PHOTO: NIRMAL GHOSH

By Nirmal Ghosh
March 30, 2015

Monk accused of fuelling anti-Muslim violence says he's defending his faith

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.

(Photo: Irrawaddy)

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.


    • Rohingya Exodus