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Watch here: the 26 May Oslo Conference Webcast LIVE 


The Oslo Conference on Myanmar's Genocide of Rohingyas


The Norwegian Nobel Institute and Voksenaasen, Oslo, Norway

0900 - 1730 hrs Norway time (UTC +2 hr)

26 May 2015 (Tuesday)


SOME TIME CONVERSIONS

13:00 hr in DHAKA, Bangladesh

13:30 hr YANGON, Myanmar or Burma

14:00 hr BANGKOK & JAKARTA

15:00 hr KUALA LUMPUR

16:00 hr TOKYO & SEOUL

Oslo Conference Hashtags: #MyanmarRohingya and #Rohingya


For more info: OsloConference@yahoo.com

For the press contact: Dr Maung Zarni, +44 771 047 3322

The Oslo Conference to End Myanmar’s Systematic Persecution of Rohingyas


The Program for 26 May 2015
The Norwegian Nobel Institute and the Voksenaasen
Oslo, Norway








Rohingya migrant Untas Begum, right, drinks a water while her brother Mohammad Aesop look on at a temporary shelter in Kuala Cangkoi, Aceh Province, Indonesia. (Source: AP)

By Kuala Cangkoi
May 25, 2015

So far, nearly 3,100 Rohingya and Bangladeshis have landed in three Southeast Asian countries, according to the International Organization for Migration.

It was just the two of them, brother and sister, out on the open ocean with hundreds of other desperate migrants, mostly Rohingya Muslims fleeing their homes in Myanmar. For nearly three months, the siblings comforted each other when rolling waves thrashed their boat, when their empty bellies ached and when they were beaten for trying to stand up to stretch their legs. 

As the oldest, Mohammad Aesop – just 10 years old – knew it was his job to keep his 8-year-old sister safe. But with the Thai crew wielding guns and threatening to throw troublemakers overboard, he felt helpless.

Theirs was the first boat to wash ashore in Indonesia two weeks ago, followed by a number of other wooden trawlers crammed with hungry, dehydrated people. Many were abandoned at sea by their captains following a regional crackdown on human trafficking networks.

So far, nearly 3,100 Rohingya and Bangladeshis have landed in three Southeast Asian countries, according to the International Organization for Migration. More than half of them wound up in Indonesia, where nearly 170 children who traveled alone – some after being tricked or kidnapped – wait to learn what will happen next.

Labeled one of the world’s most persecuted minorities, the Rohingya have been fleeing predominantly Buddhist Myanmar for decades.

But it was only after the country started moving from dictatorship to democracy in 2011 that the numbers really spiraled, with newfound freedoms of expression lifting the lid off deep-rooted hatred felt by many toward the ethnic Muslims. Hundreds were killed, and thousands more were placed in internment camps where they cannot work and medical care is scarce.

In recent months, however, flight from the area has been triggered less by fear than by desperation and greed.

Rohingya brokers, eager to fill boats with human cargo that fetch $100 each, roam villages and displacement camps touting stories of jobs waiting overseas.

Bored, frustrated and naive, youngsters are the easiest to trick. Once on board the ships, they are also the most vulnerable.

At the Indonesian seaside camp in Aceh province’s Kuala Cangkoi where Mohammad and his sister now stay, nearly a third of the migrants are children. Some of the smallest Rohingya suck on lollipops and munch on potato chips passed out by local residents and students who come to snap photos of the group. Other exhausted little ones, who went three days without food on the boat, lie face down asleep on the cool white tile of a pavilion where fish is normally hawked.

“The vulnerability of these children can never be overstated,” said Steve Hamilton, deputy chief of mission at the International Organization for Migration in Indonesia, adding that the government has said special care will be provided to ensure the safety of unaccompanied minors. “The hardships they have endured at such young ages are heartbreaking.”

Mohammad and his sister, Untas Begum, lost their mother three years ago, when sectarian violence in Myanmar’s troubled state of Rakhine reached its peak. She was killed by a machete during an attack at a market in the state capital, Sittwe. Her children were taken in by a relative, who struggled to care for them with little money for food.

Their father has been living in Muslim-majority Malaysia, one of the few places where Rohingya can find menial jobs and a semblance of acceptance. He decided it was time for his children to join him, and paid a broker in March to put them on a boat in the Bay of Bengal.

The siblings were forced to sit with their knees bent so that another person could be seated in between their legs – like human dominos stacked together as closely as possible to ensure the biggest payoff from ransoms of around $2,000 per person demanded from the migrants’ families after they left Myanmar’s territorial waters.

To sleep, they simply leaned back into the chest of the person behind them. When their legs shook and ached from being locked in one position for so long, they were beaten for moving or trying to stand.

The heat on the boat was oppressive, and the stench of sweat and soured vomit was nauseating. They were given only a few spoonfuls of rice gruel twice a day. Fever, diarrhea and dehydration were common among the children and adults, but no medicine was provided. Untas said she once shivered while burning hot and freezing at the same time.

“We were given a little food and water, and we were on the sea for a long time,” she said, sipping water casually through a straw, a precious commodity that such a short time ago was rationed to keep her alive during the journey. “We didn’t have our mom or dad on the boat, so we were scared.”

Fear and desperation have driven smugglers to flee their vessels following recent arrests and the discovery of dozens of mass graves in Thailand and Malaysia where migrants were held in the jungle before the floating camps were set up offshore. Mohammad said one night a smaller boat approached, and as the captain and crew left, they pointed guns at the people on the larger vessel and told them that anyone who tried to follow would be killed.

“He shot twice into the air. Everyone started screaming and crying,” Mohammad said, adding that he threw his sister across his lap to try to shield her with his tiny body. “I thought they would kill all of us.'”

Numerous children in Myanmar who managed to escape their boats, along with those who made it to shore in Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia, said they ended up at sea after brokers in Rakhine told them that if they left immediately without telling their parents, they could earn big money in Thailand and Malaysia and send it home to their impoverished families. People continued to be loaded even after the crisis began unfolding earlier this month, with abandoned boats being pushed back to sea like pinballs by the region’s navies. 

Others, like Atau Rahman, 12, of Sittwe, reported being outright kidnapped. He said he and nine other boys were grabbed by a “weird man” and shoved onto a boat where they simply disappeared. They were held for weeks offshore until the boat was finally crammed full of enough bodies to leave. 

“I don’t know what happened,” he said at a camp in the Acehnese town of Langsa, where the most recent vessel landed last week. “We were put on the boat and tied up, and gags were put in our mouths so we couldn’t talk.” 

In a tent just behind him, a little girl with diarrhea lay listless on a plastic tarp with an IV drip strapped to her arm. Skinny women sat nearby on the ground nursing fussy babies, while some children with every rib showing ran naked through the grounds. Indonesian medical workers scurried to conduct basic health screenings and provide vaccinations – likely the first medical care many Rohingya kids have ever received. Meanwhile, a 3-year-old girl died from tetanus after arriving at the local hospital last week, and a few other kids were receiving treatment there. 

“This human tragedy was too cruel for the children to bear. I’m so sad to see their blank gaze when they describe their emotional wounds,” said Rudi Purnomo, from the Indonesian nonprofit group Act for Humanity. “The condition of these children in the refugee shelters makes me hug my own kids tighter than usual and feel grateful.” 

Denied citizenship, the 1.3 million Rohingya living in Myanmar are effectively stateless, wanted not at home nor by any other country. 

Governments fear that by letting in even a few poor, uneducated migrants, they will open the floodgates for many. In recent days, Indonesia and Malaysia relented, saying they would provide temporary shelter to 7,000 people – the number who have already landed combined with those believed still stranded at sea. 

But they did so only on condition that the international community would resettle them in third countries within a year. So far, the US and the tiny African nation of Gambia are the only countries to raise their hands. 

Hussein Ahmed, a 12-year-old Rohingya boy, has stopped trying to imagine a future for himself. He left a camp in Sittwe by himself when a broker convinced his mother he could earn money abroad to support the family since his father was killed three years ago in the violence. After months at sea, he now feels his people may be the most unwanted on earth. 

“I was born in Myanmar, but they don’t want me. I tried to go to Thailand or Malaysia, but I can’t go anywhere because they don’t want me,” he said at the Langsa camp. “I was a kid back home, but now I have to be a man. I am in a different country alone. It’s up to God – whatever will happen next.”

Rohingya migrants have their breakfast at a temporary shelter in Bayeun, Aceh province, Indonesia. -AP

May 25, 2015

During the upcoming Council of Foreign Ministers meeting in Kuwait the issue will be top of the agenda through the OIC Contact Group on Rohingya Muslims of Myanmar.

Jeddah - The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) is mobilising its resources to address the political and humanitarian aspects of the ongoing crisis facing the boat people in the Andaman Sea and Straits of Malacca who are adrift on the high seas, as part of its long standing campaign in support of the persecuted Muslim minority in Myanmar.

During the upcoming Council of Foreign Ministers meeting in Kuwait this Wednesday, the issue will be top of the agenda through the OIC Contact Group on Rohingya Muslims of Myanmar, where a joint plan of action will be discussed for adoption.

Following the human tragedy closely, the OIC Secretary-General, Iyad Ameen Madani, has reached out to some foreign ministers of member states in the region to review possible methods of assistance. He instructed the OIC offices in Geneva and New York to actively coordinate with the relevant international agencies and organisations to contribute to humanitarian efforts regardless of the background or status of the victim. The OIC Special Envoy for Myanmar, Tan Sri Datuk Syed Hamid Albar, has been fully active on the ground as well working with local NGOs and contacting officials.

The OIC has also communicated with its network of humanitarian NGOs to create a comprehensive action plan to address the current crisis. In addition, it is also preparing to launch a media awareness and fund raising campaign throughout member states.

A statement from the OIC said that it has maintained a firm position that the primary cause of the current crisis is the dire situation facing the Rohingya of Myanmar. Since 2012, the deteriorating conditions in Myanmar’s Rakhine State for the Rohingya Muslims has caused as many as 100,000 to flee on unseaworthy boats due to oppression, fear of abuse and killings.

“This has often put them and other migrants in the hands of vicious human traffickers. To comprehensively address this untenable situation, the international community must press the Myanmar government to stop violating the basic human rights of the Rohingya and recognise them as fully-fledged citizens of Myanmar, and allow all refugees to return to their homes,” the OIC statement continued.

The OIC said that it is determined to continue working with the international community, not only to reach a lasting and durable settlement of the humanitarian crisis of the Rohingya, but also their status and inalienable rights of dignity, religious freedom, full citizenship and equal opportunity.



May 25, 2015

Malaysia welcomes Turkey's efforts to help the Rohingya refugees, said Minister in the Prime Minister's Department, Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim.

He said more nations should emulate Turkey and that the move by the Turkish government had helped lighten the burden on Malaysia and other nations to resolve the refugee problem and help Muslims who are suppressed.

Shahidan said this after the closing ceremony of the 2015 National Muslim Brotherhood Convention in Kangar today. The event was closed by Raja Perlis Tuanku Syed Sirajuddin Jamalullail.

Shahidan added that border patrols must be tightened to ensure no refugees enter in Malaysia.

In Malacca, Dunia Melayu Dunia Islam president Tan Sri Mohd Ali Rustam said Myanmar had a responsibility to resolve the plight of its Rohingya community.

"The Myanmar government must take proactive steps to address this issue as the plight of its Rohingya community has drawn worldwide attention."

He also called on world bodies like the UNHCR and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation to do their part in addressing the issue of boat people in the Andaman Sea.




By Ishmael Lim
May 25, 2015

Caught between two nations, unwelcome in both and with nowhere to call their home

The Rohingya are tragic victims of their own dark history. Their plight began many decades ago. They had no part in the policy decisions that got them to where they are today, yet poor innocents will be made to pay through hardship and suffering if no deal is reached to address the issue of their citizenship rights. 

Their status has worsened since the ethnic riots of 2012, when Buddhist Rakhine mobs razed Rohingya Muslim villages while security forces watched. Over 200 have been killed and 140,000 have become homeless due to this episode of inter-ethnic violence. The victims were mostly Rohingyas. The homeless have since been sheltering in camps for internally displaced persons.

Officials from the Rakhine Nationalities Development Party backed by chauvinist Buddhist monks, have taken to inflaming the racial and religious divide by encouraging segregation, the boycott of Muslim businesses, and describing the Rohingyas living among them as a threat to the state.

Those who now risk the lives of their children and their own on the open seas in rickety boats dice with death on the sliver of a chance that another nation will take them in.

Malaysia cannot handle this refugee problem alone. Doing the moral and proper thing does not have to mean having them settle here. But shelter, food and medical care should be given until they can be relocated.

Even in our minimalist role, we must be wary of those who may be inclined to aggression. Not all of the boat people are as docile and helpless. The Bangladeshis and Rohingyas were fighting each other over the dwindling supplies of food and water. Deaths from axe and knife injuries and stories of people and corpses being pushed overboard have been related by survivors.

The roots of the present day Rohingyas is disputed, as academia does not support that they are native to the region as they bear great similarities in appearance and language to the Bengalis of Chittagong.

The Rohingyas reject the official view that they are descendants of immigrants from British Bengal who were encouraged to settle and farm the North Western region of Arakan state when Burma was part of the British Empire.

Although Muslims were living in Arakan before the British conquest, most of those settlements were in central Arakan and not in the North Western region of Mayu, where most modern-day Rohingyas live. The Kamein are also Muslims from Arakan but in contrast, they are accepted as native and have citizenship.

Arakan is the present day Rakhine state of Myanmar. This seemingly technical labelling is a constant source of pain and anguish for generations of Rohingya as it bars them from being free in the land of their birth.

The Bamar are the ethnic majority in Burma, but were helpless to stop the tide of immigration from the Indian sub-continent after the British conquest. The Bamar hated them and the Indians that followed them. They took Burmese lands and altered the demography by their sheer numbers.

Here is the toxic seed that poisoned the generations that followed.

After the Second World War, Rohingyas got busy with a separatist movement to carve out the Mayu region from Arakan state in the hope of forming a union with East Pakistan. The term “Rohingya” only gained wider usage after Burma’s independence as a means to establish native claims to the Mayu region when it became clear there would be no merger with East Pakistan.

Bangladesh’s war for liberation from Pakistan in 1971 caused hundreds of thousands to flee in the transition of East Pakistan into Bangladesh: they overstayed their welcome and became a nuisance for Rakhine state. General Ne Win’s military solution was predictable. Ne Win told the UN that he was kicking out illegal Bangladeshis who overstayed. Again, hundreds of thousands marched across the border the way they came, but with the Rohingyas mingling among them.

Bangladesh complained to the UN that Burma was sweeping their human rubbish into the new Bangladesh republic. UN sanctions were threatened and Ne Win took back 200,000 people.

Bangladesh quickly amended its citizenship law, declaring all “Rohingyas” non-nationals. In the same year, Burma declared the “Bengalis” as foreigners. The Rohingyas became stateless overnight, treated as alien immigrants: the official view is that Rohingyas were Bengalis living illegally in Burma. Both Bangladesh and Burma tried their best to seal off the borders. The Rohingyas were trapped and landless. They became outcast, reviled and even feared.

It is clear that mistrust and hatred has not abated even if the violence has.

Leaders who paint themselves as communal champions continue to sow discord. Communal relations are made toxic so that all hope of reconciliation is shattered.

The Rohingya, whether technically indigenous or not, have lost prospect of any future in the land where they were born and raised. Thus, the ground has been laid for a mass exodus, or in other words an “ethnic cleansing”.

Anusit Kunakorn

By Shamim Ashraf
May 25, 2015

Thai security chief finds it difficult to talk with Myanmar

Thailand, despite being at the core of the current boatpeople crisis, finds it difficult to discuss the issue with Myanmar which does not recognise Rohingyas as its citizens, said Thailand's security chief.

“We have talked with Bangladesh about Bangladeshi migrants but cannot raise the issue of Rohingya with Myanmar."

Secretary General Anusit Kunakorn of the National Security Council in an interview with The Nation newspaper said the Rohingya issue was complicated because of this.

He touched different aspects of the crisis that have been dogging the region in the recent years.

The UN and the international community must share the burden of countries in Southeast Asia to help end the boatpeople crisis, rather than shifting blame on any particular country, he said.

Thailand is home to about 120,000 asylum-seekers from Myanmar. They have lived in camps along the border with Myanmar since the mid-80's.

Tens of thousands of asylum seekers have settled in third countries over the past decade, while Bangkok is engaging Nay Pyi Taw for a programme to repatriate those still in the border camps.

But the job is not easy, Anusit said.

Thailand is only a transit country and "what we can do is provide food, water and other basic needs on a humanitarian basis for them," said Anusit.

According to a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimate, over 25,000 migrants have taken boat journeys from Bangladesh and Myanmar to other Southeast Asian countries in recent times.

Malaysia and Indonesia announced last week they would give them shelter for one year before trying to repatriate them.

The UNHCR called on countries in the region to help save 3,500 migrants believed to be still at sea. It is estimated that up to 2,000 people are still stranded on boats in the Bay of Bengal, and another 1,500 farther to the south in the Andaman Sea, the UN said on Saturday.

Thailand's military government has only said it would provide humanitarian assistance to the Rohingya and Bangladeshi migrants.

Thailand hopes to get a pathway to solve the problem when representatives of 17 countries and three international organisations gather in Bangkok on Friday.

“We will know how to handle this particular issue after the May 29 meeting, when the countries say how they will help,” the security chief said.

Thailand has faced the problem of Rohingya migrants for a long time but the issue became a grave concern in early 2009 when the Navy towed their boats out to high seas. The issue flared again on May 1 after the remains of Rohingyas were found in a mass grave in Songkhla province near the southern border, an area criss-crossed with human-trafficking routes.

It is understood that the Thai government will not open any shelters for them, as it fears that the Rohingya issue will be like other cases in the past, with asylum seekers remaining in the country for years.

“Thailand is limited in its means as the country already hosts a significant number of refugees,” Anusit said. “The crisis has occurred in the Bay of Bengal and requires international cooperation to address this issue."

Thai Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha has given a strict timeline of one month to deal with the issue.

The Rohingya Education Centre in Batu Belah, Klang, where 260 children receive basic education from a group of volunteers. – The Malaysian Insider pic, May 24, 2015.

By Diyana Ibrahim
May 24, 2015

At a nondescript shoplot in Batu Belah, Klang, children of the most prosecuted people on earth are getting a shot at a life free of the violence, fear and hunger that had become routine for their parents.

On the outside, the premises looks like it houses an ordinary Muslim school, but the children who go there are all Rohingya refugees, a community that is being forcibly thrown out of their homes and murdered in Rakhine, Myanmar.

The 260 children who attend the Rohingya Education Centre in Batu Belah, Klang, are given a formal education and are taught Bahasa Malaysia, English, Mathematics and Science in the morning. Like their local peers, these children also go for religious classes in the evening.

The youngest at the school is six years old while the oldest 16, but instead of grouping them based on their age, the children are taught according to their ability, Rosma Tazila, one of the centre’s full time teachers, said.

The centre has 11 full time teachers including herself, all of whom have dedicated their lives to helping the refugee children get a formal education and a leg up in life.

The school is being run by Muslim groups Wadah Pencerdasan Umat (Wadah), Persatuan Jaringan Islam Global Masa Depan (FGN) and the Muslim Youth Movement (Abim).

The groups work closely with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and have so far opened three centres. The first was in Taman Arowana, Permatang Pauh, Penang in July 2010.

The Klang centre was started in 2012 and has seven classrooms.

The UN and world human rights groups consider the Rohingya the most vulnerable and persecuted community in the world.

There are about 30,000 Rohingya refugees registered with the UNHCR, 8,000 of them are children.

Although the centre lacks many of the comforts of normal schools, Rosma said her kids were passionate about learning.

Some of the centre’s students have even scored high enough grades to qualify them for vocational colleges.

FGN education project director Nur Azalina Abdul Aziz said although refugee children were not allowed to take public school exams such as the UPSR and PT3, they can still sit for the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM).

This year, she said, three Rohingya children who had sat for the SPM managed to score high marks and secure scholarships from the Al-Bukhary Foundation to further their studies at Universiti Malaya and Lim Kok Wing University.

Others students have received funding from the Selangor Islamic Council (Mais) to pursue courses in automotive maintenance.

“In the past, we struggled to get their parents to send these kids to school as they would rather their children worked.

“We only had 80 kids but now we are teaching 260 children. Their parents can see the positive changes in their kids. As they are more disciplined and they can read and write,” said Nur Azalina.

Besides the RECs, there is also another school for Rohingyas in Pahang which is being funded by the Al-Bukhary Foundation.

Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar, who were rescued by the Myanmar navy alongside Bangladesh refugees, are interviewed by immigration officers at a Muslim religious school used as a temporary refugee camp, at the Aletankyaw village in the Maungdaw township, in Rakhine state May 24, 2015
REUTERS/SOE ZEYA TUN

By Soe Zeya Tun & Antoni Slodkowski
May 24, 2015

May 24 At least eight Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar were among some 200 migrants rescued from a trafficking boat by the Myanmar navy on Thursday, according to interviews conducted by Reuters, contradicting official accounts that all onboard were from Bangladesh.

Myanmar portrayed the rescue operation as a proof that thousands of 'boat people' were not persecuted Rohingya from Myanmar, denying it discriminates against the minority and resisting pressure to help solve the problem.

Southeast Asia is grappling with a humanitarian crisis involving thousands of people trafficked from Myanmar and Bangladesh into Malaysia and Indonesia. After a crackdown disrupted smuggling routes, many are now trapped at sea on what the United Nations has described as 'floating coffins'.

"This clearly show 'Boat People are not from Myanmar', strong evidence," Zaw Htay, a senior official of the office of the president said in a Facebook post announcing the rescue of the boat on Friday.

But on a visit to a remote village in northwest Myanmar, where more than 200 rescued men were being fed and taken care of at an Islamic school, Reuters interviewed a group of Rohingya Muslims from the village of Kyauk Taw in Rakhine state.

"We had no jobs and nothing to lose. So we boarded the boat," said Marmot Rarbi, 23. He said the traffickers let the eight Rohingya men on the boat for free, but later demanded 6,500 Malaysian ringgit for smuggling them to Malaysia.

Rarbi said he was on the boat for more than three months.

Thousands of Rohingya have boarded trafficking ships.

Most of Myanmar's 1.1 million Rohingya, an ethnic minority living in western Myanmar, are stateless and live in apartheid-like conditions. Almost 140,000 were displaced in deadly clashes with Buddhists in the state of Rakhine in 2012.

UN SAYS MYANMAR MUST END ROHINGYA DISCRIMINATION

On a visit to the Islamic school, Vijay Nambiar, special adviser on Myanmar to the U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, thanked the government for the rescue and called on the Rakhine Buddhist majority to include the Muslims in nation-building.

"The Muslim community must feel that it can work for this country and the Rakhine community should let the Muslim community work together for the future of this state," said Nambiar in a meeting with community leaders.

Nambiar told Reuters that Myanmar deserved credit for the rescue operation, but added that in addition to abject poverty, it was discrimination in Myanmar that pushed the Rohingya into the hands of traffickers.

"Part of the cause for the migration is also the treatment of the Muslim community in Rakhine...and institutional discrimination against the Rohingya are things that we have to work on," said Nambiar, pledging full U.N. support to help solve the issue.

Myanmar has said it would continue its rescue efforts.

"Our navy and airforce are out there in search of the boats.

We will ensure that our actions will rescue people regardless of their country, religion or ethnic background. We are there to help human kind," said Win Myint, Deputy Minister of Immigration and Population.

Southeast Asian nations will discuss the 'boat people' crisis at an emergency conference in Thai capital Bangkok next week.

(Additional reporting by Tim McLaughlin; Editing by Michael Perry)

Migrants wait to be be rescued by Acehnese fishermen on their boat on the sea off East Aceh, Indonesia, Wednesday. Pic: AP.

By Carlton Tan
Asian Correspondent
May 24, 2015

The Rohingya are homeless, stateless victims; and ASEAN is responsible. There’s nothing confusing about that, Professor.

The sophistry of politicians in the face of the Rohingya crisis is astounding. It mainly consists of reality-denial, blame-shifting and creative word play. Now, one Singapore academic has joined in the fray with a supposedly insightful commentary that is really a tragic failure in discursive analysis and a veiled attempt to justify half-hearted responses to the crisis.

Farish A. Noor, an associate professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Nanyang Technological University, authored the rather misleading titled opinion piece, “Give dignity back to the Rohingya”. It was published in the Straits Times yesterday.

In it, Farish disingenuously calls for honesty while simultaneously denying the severity and scale of the Rohingya problem. He does this repeatedly to establish two arguments: First, that over-emphasising the victimhood of the Rohingya reduces them to the status of perpetual victims. Second, that primary responsibility lies with the right-wing ethno-nationalists and sectarian groups in Burma, not ASEAN.

Well-intentioned as he may be, Fariah relies on faulty logic and false assumptions that in effect encourage the dehumanisation of the Rohingya and the denial of ASEAN’s responsibility.

Are the Rohingya homeless?

Examining the ways in which people describe the Rohingya, Farish writes:

To describe the Rohingya as “homeless” obfuscates the fact that they have a home, or rather had a home, and that they have been forced to leave as a result of a domestic political crisis that likewise involves actors and agents who are local.

It is both contradictory and plainly false. And if there is anything that is confusing, it is statements like these.

Farish says two things that cannot both be true at the same time. He says the Rohingya both have a home and don’t have a home. But either they don’t, in which case they are homeless, or they do, in which case they are not homeless. They can’t both be homeless and have a home at the same time.

Or perhaps we should read it as an equivocation, not a contradiction. In the first instance, he may be saying they “have a home” in the sense that they belong to a state. In the second instance, he may be saying they “had a home” in the sense that they used to live in a house somewhere in the Rakhine State in Burma but now can no longer live there.

But this doesn’t help. His statement is either contradictory or meaningless because of its equivocation. And even if we were somehow to accept it, it is still plainly false. The Rohingya are not recognised as citizens by the Burmese government and are not granted the rights and protections that all other Burmese have. How then can we say they do “have a home” in the sense that they belong to a state?

So the Rohingya are indeed homeless and we are right to insist on it. To do so is not to obfuscate the issue, as Farish charges; it is simply to say things as they are. Many of the Rohingya are homeless. They are not recognised by the state and they have been displaced from their homes.

But even if we somehow accept the meaningfulness of asserting this paradox, it still doesn’t support Farish’s conclusion. He says that calling the Rohingya homeless will “perpetuate the notion that the Rohingya are a stateless community with no homeland of their own, and thus deny them their history, culture and identity as well.”

This is nonsense. The Rohingya are a stateless community with no homeland of their own—the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) designates them as a stateless people. They ought to be recognised by the Burmese government and they ought to have a homeland, but they aren’t and they don’t. This isn’t the perpetuation of false information; it is insistence on the truth. Only Farish is confused here because he conflates is with ought.

To say the Rohingya are homeless is not to “deny them their history, culture and identity” either. On the contrary, it is to insist on it. By conferring on them the status of refugees, we recognise that they are a defined social group that is being persecuted on the basis of some innate characteristic of that grouping. This forces us to recognise the uniqueness of their history, culture and identity, not deny it.

Humanising or over-victimising?

Journalists have done an admirable job in capturing the vulnerability and suffering of the Rohingya in pictures and video. The effect of this has been an outpouring of expressions of sympathy and it has galvanised people all around world and the region into pressuring their governments to do something about this crisis.

Rather than recognise this as a good thing, Farish cautions against it. He says:

But we should also be wary of over-emphasising the victimhood of the Rohingya, or casting them permanently in the role of the unfortunate and vulnerable, for such discourses of victimhood – when overplayed – can also hobble the Other and reduce others to the status of the perpetual victim.

To humanise them, Farish is saying, we must occasionally describe them as something other than victims. We should point to their “strength and their enduring will to survive at all costs”, and we should “recognise them for what they are: human beings with a cultural identity and history, endowed with dignity and who deserve a modicum of respect rather than condescension.”

Farish is not wrong about recognising their courage; the problem is that he mistakes concern for condescension, attention for stereotyping.

First, to be concerned about the Rohingya’s plight is to think of them as equals, worthy of the same protection as any other human being, not as inferiors. No truly condescending person would take a genuine interest in the fate of others, much less act to help those he deems inferior.

Second, to pay close attention to the Rohingya’s plight is to recognise how difficult it is for them to escape their situation, it is not to stereotype them as automatons. The Rohingya are indeed perpetual victims with nowhere to run to—not Burma, Bangladesh or ASEAN. Focusing on their tragic plight forces us to recognise them as persons like ourselves and prevents us from seeing them as just another statistic.

For many of them, their time in a vessel has indeed been such a traumatic experience that we may say it will define much of their identity and their existence. They are victims and there is nothing wrong with emphasising it. Doing so does not detract from their humanity, it adds to our recognition of it.

Farish seems to suggest that we celebrate their courage in the midst of a tragedy. But what is there to celebrate? Their “strength and enduring will to survive at all costs” is desperation, not the triumph of the human spirit.

Is it a disaster?

Farish writes:

What is happening now in South-east Asia and the Mediterranean is not a natural disaster though, but rather the result of political will and contestation that necessarily involve human agency, and thus entails the element of moral-political responsibility as well.
To describe the phenomenon of boat people… as a “disaster” suggests an inevitability to the situation that begs the question: Surely, thousands of people would not rush out to sea, braving hazardous conditions that imperil their lives, for the sheer sake of it?”

Farish thus claims that the Rohingya crisis isn’t a disaster because it isn’t a natural disaster. Or in other words, it shouldn’t be described as a “disaster” because it is “the outcome of a political crisis that has been brewing for years now”, not an earthquake or tsunami.

This is a rather odd claim to make. A man-made disaster is a disaster nonetheless, and commentators typically have in mind the scale and severity of the crisis when they use the word “disaster”, not its causes or its inevitability.

So why does Farish make this contorted claim? I think he does so to subtly explain why the principle of non-interference is important. He draws a parallel to the crisis in Libya and calls it is the “outcome of political intervention gone wrong”. But the problem here is not that ASEAN has intervened and created the crisis; it is that it has done nothing. It boggles my mind how anyone might see the Rohingya crisis as proof that ASEAN’s principle of non-interference works.

The Rohingya crisis is an ongoing disaster. It is ASEAN’s disaster.

Is it ASEAN’s problem?

Farish criticises the “tendency to label this as an ‘Asean problem’” because it misleadingly suggests that “all of South-east Asia was implicated in the humanitarian crisis that led to this situation.” He says the right-wing ethno-nationalists and sectarian groups in Burma are the ones who are “primarily responsible” while other countries in ASEAN have merely been “slow in their response to the flight of the Rohingya”. None of them is directly responsible, he claims.

It is not at all clear what Farish prefers, but surely the alternative is not to see this as a “Burma problem”. The Rohingya asylum seekers on rickety boats are not in Burma’s waters, they are in the waters of ASEAN member states like Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. Whose responsibility is it to save them from drowning or dying of starvation if not theirs?

There is no way Southeast Asia can avoid being implicated in this crisis—they already are by virtue of geography. Unless ASEAN decides to wash its hands of the matter, it is very much an ASEAN problem.

There is also no meaningful distinction to be drawn between direct or primary responsibility and indirect or secondary responsibility in this context. ASEAN may not have held the whip but they certainly put it in Burma’s hands; or at the very least, they knew about it and did nothing. ASEAN may not have started the racism but they have certainly done virtually nothing to stop it.

Crying “he pushed me first” may work for six-year-olds but not on the world stage. It is very much ASEAN’s problem; there’s no point in denying our culpability. We may quibble about the extent of ASEAN’s responsibility, or the manner of it, but we cannot deny that ASEAN isresponsible for this crisis.

This doesn’t mean we ignore Burma’s central role in causing this crisis. On the contrary, it means developing the political will to cooperate with it in implementing long term solutions.

Dignity and indignity

I do not fault Farish’s sincerity, merely his muddle-headedness. He is right to be concerned about the Rohingya’s dignity. However, he is wrong to think that the dignity of recognising individual autonomy is more important than the indignity of death, starvation and malnutrition.

Rather than try to affirm their inherent dignity with tortured logic, we should simply recognise it by acknowledging that they are indeed homeless victims who need ASEAN’s help.

(Photo: Reuters)

By Wassana Nanuam
May 24, 2015


American forces told to leave Phuket

The Royal Thai Armed Forces rejected an American request to use Phuket as a maritime patrol base to assist Rohingya migrants, a military source said yesterday.

The US asked to keep its maritime surveillance aircraft in Phuket after the anti-submarine warfare training exercise “Guardian Sea” ended on Wednesday, the source said.

The US said it wanted to conduct maritime patrols from Phuket as part of an operation to provide humanitarian assistance to Rohingya migrants.

But both the RTAF and the Royal Thai Air Force declined the request and asked the US to remove its aircraft and soldiers from Thailand by Friday.

The source said US officials in Thailand for the five-day training exercise were upset because they asked if they could keep the aircraft in Phuket several times.

The rejection reflects Thai irritation over US pressure to resolve human trafficking problems here, the source said.

The RTAF was also concerned the US would interfere or do something that might disadvantage Thailand's handling of the Rohingya matter, the source added.

Police investigating Rohingya trafficking said no new arrest warrants were issued yesterday. A total of 77 suspects are still wanted and 46 have been taken into custody. Most of the suspects are politicians and leaders in Satun province, said a local source.

Pawin Pongsirin, deputy chief of Provincial Police Region 8, said the Office of the Attorney-General has sent a number of public prosecutors to work with police on the Rohingya case.

This is because the case is complicated and witnesses in countries including Bangladesh, Myanmar and Malaysia may be asked to speak to Thai investigators, Pol Maj Gen Pawin said.

Deputy national police chief Ake Angsananont has instructed officers to intensify pressure on suspects to come out of hiding or face arrest, the source said.

According to former foreign minister Kasit Piromya, the experience of handling boats of Vietnam refugees fleeing their country two decades ago should be used to deal with the current wave of Rohingya migration.

Thailand, Asean, the international community and the UN should also cooperate with the migrants' countries of origin, such as Myanmar and Bangladesh, he said.

He called on Interpol and international intelligence agencies to step in to help investigate human traffickers targeting the Rohingya.

Mr Kasit urged countries around the world to set up funds dedicated to caring for displaced Rohingya, improving living conditions for Rohingya people in Myanmar's Rakhine state, and building temporary shelters for Rohingya in Thailand.

Asean should also explore ways of convincing Myanmar to recognise the Rohingya as its citizens, he said.

Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi [EPA]

By Mehdi Hasan
May 24, 2015

Aung San Suu Kyi was a moral icon, a human rights champion - so why has she been silent about the Rohingya Muslims?

"In awarding the Nobel Peace Prize ... to Aung San Suu Kyi," the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced in 1991, it wished "to honour this woman for her unflagging efforts and to show its support for the many people throughout the world who are striving to attain democracy, human rights and ethnic conciliation by peaceful means".

Suu Kyi, the Committee added, was "an important symbol in the struggle against oppression". 

Fast forward 24 years, and the Rohingya Muslims of Myanmar might disagree with the dewy-eyed assessment of the five-member Nobel Committee. And with Gordon Brown, too, who called Suu Kyi "the world's most renowned and courageous prisoner of conscience". Not to mention Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who has said that the people of Myanmar "desperately need the kind of moral and principled leadership that Aung San Suu Kyi would provide". 

In recent years, the Rohingya Muslims - "the world's most persecuted minority", according to the United Nations - have struggled to attract attention to their plight.

Until, that is, a few weeks ago, when thousands of Rohingya refugees began arriving in Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia, while thousands more believed to be still stranded on rickety boats off the coasts of these three countries, with dwindling supplies of food and clean water. 

'So hungry, so skinny' 

"Fisherman Muchtar Ali broke down in tears when he set eyes on the overcrowded boat carrying desperate, starving Rohingya off the coast of Indonesia," noted a report by AFP on May 20. 

"I was speechless," Ali told AFP. "Looking at these people, me and my friends cried because they looked so hungry, so skinny." 

These Rohingya "boat people", however, are a symptom of a much bigger problem. As Kate Schuetze, Amnesty International's Asia Pacific Researcher, has observed: "The thousands of lives at risk should be the immediate priority, but the root causes of this crisis must also be addressed. The fact that thousands of Rohingya prefer a dangerous boat journey they may not survive to staying in Myanmar speaks volumes about the conditions they face there." 

Those oppressive conditions range from a denial of citizenship to Myanmar's 1.3 million Rohingya Muslims to severe restrictions on their movement, employment and access to education and healthcare, as well as a discriminatory law imposing a "two child" limit on Rohingya families in their home state of Rakhine.

Hundreds of thousands have been driven from their homes; their towns and villages razed to the ground by rampaging mobs. In 2014, the government even banned the use of the word "Rohingya", insisting the Muslim minority, who have lived in that country for generations, be registered in the census as "Bengali". 

Inexcusable silence 

So, where does Suu Kyi fit into all this? Well, for a start, her silence is inexcusable. Her refusal to condemn, or even fully acknowledge, the state-sponsored repression of her fellow countrymen and women, not to mention the violence meted out to them by Buddhist extremists inspired by the monk Ashin Wirathu (aka "The Burmese Bin Laden"), makes her part of the problem, not the solution. 

"In a genocide, silence is complicity, and so it is with Aung San Suu Kyi," observed Penny Green, a law professor at the University of London and director of the State Crime Initiative, in a recent op-ed for The Independent. Imbued with "enormous moral and political capital", Green argued, Myanmar's opposition leader could have challenged "the vile racism and Islamophobia which characterises Burmese political and social discourse". 

She didn't. Instead, she spent the past few years courting the Buddhist majority of Myanmar, whose votes she needs in order to be elected president in 2016 - if, that is, the military will allow her to be elected president, or even permit her to stand - by playing down the violence perpetrated against the Muslim minority, and trying to suggest a false equivalence between persecutors and victims of persecution. 

In a BBC interview in 2013, for example, Suu Kyi shamefully blamed the violence on "both sides", telling interviewer Mishal Husain that "Muslims have been targeted but Buddhists have also been subjected to violence".

Yet in Myanmar, it isn't Buddhists who have been confined to fetid camps, where they are "slowly succumbing to starvation, despair and disease". It isn't Buddhists who have been the victims of what Human Rights Watch calls "ethnic cleansing" and what the UN's special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Myanmar has said "could amount to crimes against humanity". It isn't Buddhists who are crowding onto boats, to try and flee the country, and being assaulted with hammers and knives as they do so. It isn't Buddhists, to put it bluntly, who are facing genocide. 

Risk of 'genocide' 

Is this mere hyperbole? If only. Listen to the verdict of investigators from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum's Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide. 

"We left Burma," they wrote in a report published earlier this month, "deeply concerned that so many preconditions for genocide are already in place." 

The investigators, who visited Rohingya internment camps and interviewed the survivors of violent attacks, concluded: "Genocide will remain a serious risk for the Rohingya if the government of Burma does not immediately address the laws and policies that oppress the entire community." 

Yet, despite the boats and the bodies, the reports and the revelations, Suu Kyi is still mute. She hasn't raised a finger to help the Rohingya, as they literally run for their lives. Shouldn't we expect more from a Nobel Peace Prize laureate? 

Maybe not. The words "Henry" and "Kissinger" come to mind. Plus, the Nobel Prize Committee has a pretty awkward history of prematurely handing out peace prizes. Remember Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat's joint prize in 1994? Ask the children of Gaza how that worked out. Remember Barack Obama's in 2009? Ask the civilian victims of drone strikes in Pakistan how that worked out. 

Rabin, Arafat, Obama … ultimately, of course, they're all politicians. Suu Kyi was supposed to be something else, something more; a moral icon, a human rights champion, a latter-day Gandhi. 

Sad truth 

Why weren't we listening when the opposition leader and former political prisoner told CNN in 2013 that she had "been a politician all along", that her ambition was to become president of her country?

The sad truth is that when it comes to "The Lady", it is well past time to take off the rose-tinted glasses. To see Suu Kyi for what she is: A former prisoner of conscience, yes, but now a cynical politician who is willing to put votes ahead of principles; party political advancement ahead of innocent Rohingya lives. 

"Ultimately our aim should be to create a world free from the displaced, the homeless and the hopeless," Suu Kyi grandly declaimed in June 2012, as she finally accepted her Nobel Peace Prize, in person, 21 years after she won it while under house arrest, "a world of which each and every corner is a true sanctuary where the inhabitants will have the freedom and the capacity to live in peace".

Forget the world. She should try starting at home, with the Rohingya of Rakhine. And if she won't, or can't, then maybe she should consider handing back the prize she waited more than two decades to collect. 

Mehdi Hasan is a presenter for Al Jazeera English.

Somirahatun and her baby

May 24, 2015

Somirahatun was spared from an unimaginable disaster. The migrant from Myanmar nearly lost her baby.

The mother was separated from her child when she and hundreds of other people landed in Kuala Langsa, East Aceh, after months drifting in the open sea.

Police and local residents stepped in to help Somirahatun and she was eventually reunited with her child. The mother and son were among 677 other people from Myanmar and Bangladesh - the third batch of undocumented migrants arriving in Aceh in the past few weeks.

"My mother was killed in the conflict in our village, so there's no need for us to stay in Myanmar in a state of fear," said Somirahatun.

She is a Rohingya person and is a citizen of Myanmar. She decided to flee her village due to the unfavorable security situation.

Somirahatun eventually decided to depart with other Myanmar citizens to seek refuge. Their main destination was Malaysia, to meet relatives who had arrived there earlier.

"I must meet my husband in Malaysia. I will do anything to be able to get there," said Somirahatun, as she hugged her baby son Muhammad Mahin.

During the voyage, the migrants had to struggle to survive due to the challenging conditions and limited supplies of food and water.

They sailed on a medium-sized wooden boat filled to the brim. The passengers were from Myanmar and Bangladesh, and nearly half of them were women and children.

The migrants were gathered together in the vessel from smaller boats from various regions. They were assembled by the boat owner and agent who told them they would be taken to Malaysia and would work on a plantation.

During the voyage, meals and water were strictly rationed. It was not rare that the agents and boat owner would hit those who asked for more food, Somirahatun said.

"Some also died of hunger and thirst and their bodies were thrown overboard by the boat owner," said Somirahatun.

Things turned worse when the boat owner and agents abruptly abandoned the boat and left the passengers drifting at sea. The owners and agents were picked up by a speed boat and they fled, taking all the communication equipment with them.

The tide took the vessel to Thai waters, but they were not saved by the local security personnel. Instead, they were ordered to remain on board.

"They held us in the boat with limited food and water supplies from the Thai authorities," said Somirahatun.

After almost 20 days held on the boats, Thai authorities released them by tugging their boats to international waters and setting them adrift once again.

The journey was perilous, but Somirahatun claimed she had no other choice.

"I'd rather die fighting than die of doing nothing in Myanmar," said Somirahatun.

Another Myanmar refugee Khunsum Katum, 25, also made the same choice as Somirahatun. She even brought along her three children, Imam Husein, 13, Setera Begum, 9, and Nurul Amin, 6. They sailed together to Malaysia to meet their husband and father who had earlier arrived there.

But unexpectedly her daughter Setera got lost when they were rescued by Acehnese fishermen. Setera was separated from her mother as she was placed in a different fishing boat.

"I'm very worried about my daughter's current whereabouts. I don't know where she is now," said Khunsum, who nevertheless was convinced her daughter was still safe.

Uncertain conditions in Myanmar have forced them to seek asylum by any means necessary, such as crossing the sea without the certainty of arriving at a destination safely.

Around 1,800 Rohingya and Bangladeshi migrants have landed in Aceh in recent weeks, abandoned by human traffickers after their boat journeys to Malaysia were disrupted by a Thai crackdown on long-established routes.

The migrants were saved by fishermen in Lhoksukon, North Aceh, and in Kuala Langsa and Kuala Geulumpang in East Aceh.

Migrants have also arrived in Malaysia and Thailand after being dumped by smugglers. Thousands more are still believed to be stranded at sea with little food and water.

Migrants from Bangladesh, rescued by the Myanmar navy, sit inside buildings at a temporary refugee camp in the village of Alethankyaw in the Maungdaw township of northern Rakhine state, Myanmar, on May 23, 2015. -- PHOTO: EPA

By Pearl Lee
May 24, 2015

SINGAPORE - Foreign Affairs Minister K Shanmugam on Saturday called on Asean to play a more active role in dealing with the problem, adding that the East Asia Summit (EAS) is a good platform to do so.

This comes after Malaysia and Indonesia offered, on Wednesday, to provide temporary shelter to the migrants. The two countries had, along with Thailand, called on the international community to contribute the necessary support needed to address the Rohingya issue.

Mr Shanmugam said Singapore has offered US$200,000 (S$267,000) to relief efforts. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) said the initial sum, given through Asean, will support the region's efforts in helping the refugees. Singapore may offer more help if there are specific requests, the ministry added.

Mr Shanmugam said the Rohingya issue had to be tackled on two levels.

"One, the people already in the boat, how do we help them."

But the more fundamental issue, he said, is to deal with the conditions in Myanmar and the criminal organisations involved in trafficking.

"That is an even more serious problem because potentially you can have thousands of people being subjected to this," said Mr Shanmugam. "If we don't deal with that, and just deal with trying to help people already in the boats and try and get them into shelter, there will be an endless stream (of migrants) and none of us will be able to cope with that."

He was speaking to reporters at Changi Airport, before leaving to New Zealand, as the country marks the 50th anniversary of establishing diplomatic relations with Singapore. Mr Shanmugam will be accompanied by MFA officers, and will meet New Zealand's Minister of Foreign Affairs Murray McCully, Minister of Justice, Courts, Broadcasting and Communications Amy Adams, and Leader of the Labour Party Andrew Little while he is there.

(Photo: AP)

By Radio New Zealand
May 24, 2015

Burmese scholar and dissident Dr. Maung Zarni calls on New Zealand to condemn what he says is a campaign of genocide against the Rohingya people.




    • Rohingya Exodus