By Ainur Rohmah

Anadolu Agency

May 31, 2015

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- Since Indonesia agreed to house Muslim Rohingya refugees stranded off its shores -- albeit temporarily -- locals, countries and donor organizations have been offering financial help.

The Muslim community in the north Sumatran province where most of the Rohingya are based in temporary shelters has mobilized donations of food, water and moral support -- all desperately needed after the ordeal the boat people have been through at sea -- but it has still not been enough.

This week, Aceh Governor Zaini Abdullah asked the federal government to immediately distribute funding as the province lacked a special budget to tackle the migrants’ needs.

"I do not remember how much, but we have spent a lot," Metro TV quoted Abdullah as saying during a visit to the presidential palace in Jakarta.

On Saturday, non-profit humanitarian aid organization AusRelief handed over donations to some of the 1,039 Rohingya housed in Aceh.

"We sought and were granted government and military police approval -- to enter and distribute aid to the Langsa Rohingya refugee camp," the organization said on its Facebook page.

"We organized and delivered aid parcels to every person in the camp. Best of all, we came away with an agreement with the North Aceh Government to assist and support the Rohingya refugees for two years."

On May 21, Malaysia and Indonesia's foreign ministers announced after talks that they would shelter thousands of the migrants currently stranded on boats on the Andaman Sea -- but only if the international community agrees to then resettle them after one year.

Since the talks, Turkey has announced that it will donate $1 million to support aid activities, and the United States, the Philippines and the tiny African nation of Gambia have offered to resettle some of the Rohingya.

On Thursday, New Zealand Prime Minister John Key said that it could also take in some of the migrants under its resettlement program, but Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has said "nope", insisting that people seeking a new life need to “come through the front door, not through the back".

AusRelief Director Fuad Bahrum called on Abbott to accept asylum seekers Saturday, underling that Australians themselves are mostly migrants.

"Only the Government has no feelings to help them [Rohingya]," he said, claiming that 95 percent of Australians had shown their support.

"Therefore Australia citizens have voluntarily set aside their fortunes to help their brothers and sisters who are in need of help."

Indonesian Foreign Ministry spokesman Arrmanatha Nasir told Anadolu Agency that Qatari government had committed to help with financial support during a visit by Minister of Foreign Affairs Retno Marsudi to Doha on Thursday.

"The Emir of Qatar has provided aid commitments amounting to $50 million for the construction of shelters in Indonesia," he said

He added that Marsudi was also encouraging members of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to resolve the "irregular migrant" problem, especially as it relates to Muslim Rohingya.

Earlier on Saturday, the United States embassy in Jakarta conveyed its readiness to give assistance financially to the countries that intercept Rohingya, including Indonesia through the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and International Organization for Migration.

By Patrick Winn

Global Post 

May 31, 2015

BANGKOK, Thailand — The horrors of the transatlantic slave trade are not resigned to history. They've been revived on creaky boats plying the Bay of Bengal.

In 2015, there is a trade in human cargo that evokes the barbaric middle passage to America in the 1700s. The chattel isn't African captives but men and women called Rohingya, a Muslim ethnicity fleeing apartheid in Myanmar.

The Rohingya's desperation makes them easy prey for traffickers who promise passage to Malaysia, a Muslim-majority nation, for only $100. Instead, they're crammed onto boats for a voyage to secret prisons in Thailand.

The trip can take weeks. Roasting under a tropical sun, the seafaring captives are often permitted only a handful of rice each morning. They may get a few swigs of water every other day. Those who starve to death are simply tossed into the surf.

For those who survive, more agony awaits. The Rohingya are smuggled onto Thailand's beaches and forced into hidden jungle prison camps. Then the torture begins — daily beatings (and, for many women, rape) until relatives cough up more than $2,000 to spare their lives.

These death camps, and the boats that supply them, are perhaps the most dreadful places in all of Southeast Asia.

"We were beaten morning and night," says Hanif, 23, a scrawny Rohingya man who was stuck in a camp just nine months ago. He is now living illegally in Bangkok's outskirts.

"They'd beat us to convince our families to pay the ransom," Hanif says. "They'd also beat us randomly just to keep us weak so we couldn't escape."

Hanif is one of half a dozen death camp survivors interviewed byGlobalPost in Thailand. Their accounts are universally gruesome. All endured beatings, starvation, and disease in the hidden prisons. All witnessed deaths at sea as well as in camps, where bodies are dumped into mass graves.

"Women in the camps have it especially bad," says Salima, 30, who wasted away in a camp for months with her two children. "Maybe the guards spared me because I have kids. But younger girls were often handpicked and led into the jungle. They would return in pain asking, ‘Why? Why did I come to this terrible place only to lose my dignity?'"

Sir Anwar

In the camps, the captive Rohingya sleep in mud, under plastic tarps, inside wooden cages. Their food supply is a trickle of soggy rice. Every twitch, every plea for food, can be grounds for overseers to lash captives with bamboo rods.

The violence is used to impose maximum fear. Traffickers want their captives to be genuinely terrified when they press mobile phones to their faces and force them to call their relatives. The overseers will initially request ransoms as high as $4,500 but often settle for about $2,000. These are incredible sums for families who are already struggling under state-sanctioned apartheid back home.

The indignities don't stop there. According to Hanif and other former captives, they were groomed to treat the kingpin of the trafficking syndicate that enslaved them as a revered figure. The man's name, they say, was Anwar.

"We were forced to call him 'Sir Anwar,'" Hanif says. "We had to stand up straight and salute him. We were taught to show him honor."

As relatives back home in Myanmar scramble to raise cash — usually by selling off farmlands and resorting to loan sharks — the prisoners waste away. Their limbs become skinny as twigs. Purplish welts begin to cover their bodies.

"My children's bodies started to shrink," says Salima, whose kids were around 4 and 6 years old when she was imprisoned just one year ago. "At one point, the guards asked if I was ready to throw my kids away."

The lives of Salima and her two children were spared for $2,200. But others succumb to torture and the elements before their families can fulfill traffickers' demands. Just like on the boats, corpses accumulate in the camps, and bodies pile up in mass graves.

Overdue crackdown

Almost every detail emerging from Thailand's death camps is shocking. But equally shocking is the fact that Thai authorities have known about the camps for years.

"There are actually camps still operational here in Thailand," says Matthew Smith, founder of Fortify Rights, a nonprofit watchdog group that has specialized in documenting the plight of Rohingya Muslims. "We've even documented camps that held upwards of 2,000 people with captives moving in and out on a daily basis."

"Authorities have known about these camps for a long time," says Smith, who recently testified about the Rohingya trafficking crisis to the U.S. Congress. "The problem isn't a lack of knowledge. The problem is a lack of political will to stop this."

Thailand — like most countries — treats the Rohingya as an unwanted nuisance. That is unlikely to change: The military government's official policy upon spotting Rohingya at sea is to offer food and fuel so they can make it to Malaysia.

Unofficially, some Thai authorities have received kickbacks from traffickers for allowing camps to proliferate. As far back as two years ago, the military acknowledged soldiers' direct involvement in Rohingya trafficking but claimed — as top brass often do — that the corrupt officers only amounted to a few "bad apples."

Only now are authorities exposing these death camps with vigor.

"For years, we've warned the government so they can crack down. And they've been silent," says Maung Kyaw Nu, chairman of the Burmese Rohingya Association in Thailand. "Why does the government only take action now? After we've lost so many lives? They could have done this years ago and prevented so much tragedy!"

Ongoing raids have turned up nearly 80 Rohingya prison camps along with dozens of corpses in mass graves. A purge of Thai officialdom connected to the trade has resulted in more than 60 arrest warrants so far. Panicked traffickers, fearful of getting arrested, have abandoned incoming boats and left an estimated 8,000 people adrift at sea. Boats packed with hundreds of Rohingya (as well as Bangladeshis) have already drifted onto the shores of Malaysia and Indonesia.

Police have also locked up at least one alleged trafficking kingpin. His name is Anwar. Former captives speaking to GlobalPost were shown his photo, which was taken in police custody. They say he's the same Anwar who operated their jungle camps.

"That's him," says Sabir, a 24-year-old who was living in the camps less than a year ago. "He's a blood sucker."

Mass exodus

By now, the ruthless nature of Rohingya trafficking syndicates is known to all — including Rohingya living on their native lands in Myanmar.

But their attempts to escape via the Bay of Bengal will likely continue. All of the Rohingya interviewed by GlobalPost were aware that the sea journey might kill them. Their decision to accept this risk is a testament to their bleak lives in Myanmar.

"We already live so close to death back home," Salima says. "We're mistreated by police. We're unable to feed ourselves. Women get, you know, dishonored. We think, ‘Well, I might as well risk dying at sea.'"

In Myanmar, Rohingya have endured oppression for decades. Even Rohingya with long family histories in Myanmar are written off as Muslim invaders from neighboring Bangladesh. Their ability to marry, work, and travel is restricted by authorities. More than 150,000 have been violently routed into refugee camps where food and medicine is scarce and death is routine.

Even those living outside these squalid camps are frequently preyed upon by soldiers and police. "We're always forced to work for police, as porters, for zero pay," says Hassam, 38, who was smuggled into Thailand within the last 12 months. "How can I feed my kids if I'm always working like a slave for someone else?"

The Rohingya mass exodus into the Bay of Bengal may be the largest refugee migration in Southeast Asia since the Vietnam War. And yet, according to Smith, the true number of Rohingya who've fled is "significantly higher than current estimates."

Fortify Rights believes that a commonly cited United Nations figure of 130,000 Rohingya fleeing by sea since 2012 is far too low and doesn't cover waves of departures from some of the most persecuted towns and cities in Myanmar. According to Smith, the number could be as high as 250,000.

As this nightmare has played out, the Rohingya crisis has gone from obscurity to a cause célèbre in the West. Last year, it also prodded the United States to plunge Thailand into its lowest human-trafficking ranking — a black mark shared by North Korea and Zimbabwe.

Pressure from the White House is at least partly responsible for Thailand's ongoing raids on death camps and arrests of complicit officials, Smith says. "Thailand is realizing it needs to clean up its act," he says. "But we've seen this in the past. A few arrests are made and there's a failure to convict. Authorities should realize that the international community is watching and expects more."

As for the fate of traffickers captured by authorities, the Rohingya interviewed by GlobalPost have a suggestion.

"Put them to death," says Salima, as her fellow Rohingya nod along. "Then take all the money they made and give it to us."

*Editor's note: The names of the former captives of illegal prison camps featured in this story have been changed to protect them from retaliation from human trafficking syndicates.

By Joshua Carroll

The Daily Beast

May 31, 2015

Western clichés about peace-loving saffron-robed monks fall by the wayside amid protest marches on the mean streets of the Burmese commercial capital.

RANGOON — Anti-Muslim protestors supported by Buddhist monks gathered in Burma’s main city of Rangoon this week to denounce the United Nations for “bullying” their country into accepting desperate migrants who have been stranded at sea in abandoned boats.

People waving multi-colored Buddhist flags led a column of several hundred marchers as they chanted slogans against the Rohingya minority who, with their distinct language and darker skin, are considered outsiders and denied citizenship in Burma, also known as Myanmar.

It was the latest in a series of Buddhist hate rallies in the country, a phenomenon that has become common here but has yet to penetrate the psyches of many westerners who associate saffron-robed monks with peace and compassion.

“Yes, we have compassion for all people in our Buddhism, but we have to protect ourselves against our enemies,” said Thuta Nanda, a monk, as people gathered with placards and t-shirts bearing slogans urging the international community to “Stop blaming Myanmar” for the boat crisis.

“In Buddhism, we want to help others,” added protester Htet Htet Soe Oo, “but Muslims are different, their religion teaches that they should kill us.”

If any group of people could benefit from the compassion that many associate with the teachings of the Buddha, it is Burma’s Rohingya Muslims. The group of roughly one million is almost completely friendless, widely despised inside predominantly Buddhist Burma and unwanted by neighboring countries.

Thousands of people from the group, along with others from Bangladesh, were left to fend for themselves at sea with limited food and water after Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia began pushing away boats approaching their shores earlier this month.

The countries have since responded to an international outcry and said they will accept up to 7,000 migrants temporarily. But Amnesty International said last week that this “falls short of full compliance with these states’ international legal obligations, which include the establishment and maintenance of search and rescue services.”

On Friday, leaders met in Thailand for a regional summit to discuss the boat crisis. But, as many expected, little was achieved at the meeting as Burma complained of "finger pointing." 

The protestors in Rangoon were from a coalition of groups with suggestive names: the National Defense Council, Buddhist Youth, Nationalist Blood, Future Light and the Patriotic Youth Network were all in attendance. They rejected claims that people on board stranded boats were from their country, contradicting reports by aid agencies that Rohingya from Burma make up a large proportion of those involved in the crisis. “There is no such thing in Myanmar as Rohingya!” they chanted.

Nationalists deny that the Rohingya are even a real ethnicity, and prefer to call them “Bengalis” as a way of stressing the belief that the group don’t belong in Burma and are interlopers from Bangladesh. Rohingyas, supported by human rights advocates, say their families have lived in Burma for generations. As far as many Buddhists are concerned though, the minority is part of an influx of Muslims that has become a national threat.

“If we accept them in our country we can expect more and more problems,” said Win Tun, a 50-year-old trader who watched the marchers pass. “We have enough complaints between Buddhists and Muslims.”

During sporadic outbreaks of violence across the country since 2012, including against Muslims who are not Rohingya, Buddhist mobs with sticks and machetes have slaughtered men, women and children and burned down entire villages.

The violence has been accompanied by a rise in online hate speech. “Fuck U Islam,” one user posted recently beneath an anti-Rohingya cartoon depicting boat people on the Mingalapar Facebook page. “Kill them,” wrote another.

The United Nations estimates that at least 130,000 Rohingya have fled persecution in the country since the 2012 attacks began. Despite that, Burma’s government maintains that the country is not responsible for the exodus of Rohingyas by sea, and has instead blamed criminal traffickers.

“The U.N. lies all the time,” San Di Thwin Mar Oo declared shortly before jumping on a chair to address a crowd with a megaphone at the rally. “They have to stop.”

Last week Burma’s navy brought 208 people to shore before the government declared that 200 were from Bangladesh and announced plans to repatriate them.

For government propagandists, it was an opportunity to show the world that Burma was not the source of the crisis. But a report by Reuters revealed on Wednesday that 100 Rohingyas were removed from the boat before the navy arrived.

Meanwhile nationalists have seized on the rescue, small in comparison to the numbers that have landed elsewhere, as evidence that their country is doing more than its fair share to help. “Myanmar is the kindest country in the world,” said San Di Thwin Mar Oo.

For the Rohingya, that couldn't be farther from the truth; even apparently liberal monks are reluctant to defend them.

Ashin Assiriya, who was a key organizer in a pro-democracy uprising against Burma’s former military junta in 2007, is one of the few monks in Burma who dares to speak out against his fellow clergymen who belong to 969, a radical anti-Muslim group. But defending the Rohingya, specifically, is far more controversial than defending Burma’s other Muslims. “I cannot talk about the citizenship of the Rohingya,” he told The Daily Beast. “That’s a problem for the immigration department.”

By Tuncay Kayaoglu

Anadolu Agency

May 31, 2015

Two Rohingya men studying in Istanbul tell Anadolu Agency of fleeing Myanmar and their hopes for the future

ISTANBUL – While the thoughts of the world remain on those suffering on crammed boats in Southeast Asia, for two Istanbul-based students the story is particularly close to home.

Both men have fled the repression and violence of Myanmar’s Rakhine State, both have utilized the country’s smuggling channels to cross the River Naf into Bangladesh, and both are thankful to Turkey for helping them acquire the passports which have enabled their escape.

Saeed Johar and Ahmed Burhan are Rohingya Muslims, determined — like the many thousands of others who have fled Myanmar in fear of the violence that some human rights groups consider to be state-sponsored — to one day return to the region and help those fleeing repression.

Johar, 24, told Anadolu Agency this week that he was just a child when his parents decided to leave the hardship of the western state of Rakhine.

The computer engineering student says that he and his six brothers and sisters crossed the River Naf that spans the Myanmar and Bangladesh border on a raft in the middle of a night illuminated by a full moon.

The crossing was pre-arranged, he says, the smugglers paying off Bangladeshi soldiers at checkpoints.

“’We did not see you entering into our country,'” he says they said. “Basically, they turned a blind eye.”

Burhan — who fled his homeland 20 years ago — says the smugglers demand $200 for each person to cross the border, paying the Bangladeshi guards to let them in.

But problems ensue if they bring too many people.

“Sometimes there is a heated exchange, or gunshots between the smuggler and a local police guard on the Bangladeshi side,” the 28-year-old, who is doing a PHD in economics, told Anadolu Agency.

After two years at a refugee camp in the Bangladesh coastal district of Cox’s Bazar with thousands of other refugees from Rakhine, Johar says his family were able to mimic the locals’ way of life and learn Bengali.

“We moved to Chittagong [Bangladesh’s second city],” he says, and from there to a nearby town, all the while concealing our Rohingya origins.

After around three more years trying to blend in with Bangladeshi society, the two men said they were finally granted passports and able to enter Turkey.

For this they will always be thankful.

“Turkish authorities and aid organizations showed great effort to convince Bangladeshi officials to provide them with passports,” Burhan says.

Although neither men took the long crowded journey over the Andaman Sea into Thailand and beyond that many of those stuck at sea today have endured, they know friends and family who did.

The boat route is far riskier and much more expensive, Burhan says.

Each person pays around $1,200 to join the trip, he adds, and it can take at least 15 days to reach land “if the refugees are lucky.”

“There is one captain. If he took the wrong direction, they would reach the open sea and end up in the depths of the Indian Ocean,” he says, adding that “some had lost their lives.”

Outside of the assistance that the two say they have been granted from Turkey, Burhan claims that Myanmar’s neighbors are also sympathetic to Rohingya suffering.

He highlights the role of Malaysia, saying that if the boat people make it that far the government does not prevent Rohingya moving into cities, where their chances of finding a job increase.

Gradually the two men’s thoughts return to home, with neither of them holding much hope for the future.

Both agree that the government has made it clear that it would be glad to see the back of its Muslims, although Burhan believes some salvation exists in the form of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

“If she would be elected, Myanmar would have democracy,” Burhan says.

Suu Kyi, however, is currently barred by the country’s constitution from becoming president.

While the future for the boat people remains bleak, for those stuck in the no man’s land between Myanmar and its neighbor hope may be at hand.

“Many people remain on the border between Bangladesh and Myanmar, and I am going to help them,” says Burhan, as Johar nods his head in agreement.

By Timothy Mclaughlin and Soe Zeya Tun

Reuters

May 31, 2015

By Bernama

May 31, 2015

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak said today the Rohingya migrant issue should be resolved at the Asean level with assistance from third countries and international bodies.

He said it was important for all countries in the Asean context to find a solution together.

Third countries should play their role by helping resolve the problem as well as offer humanitarian aid, he said in his blog.

The prime minister said he hoped that international bodies such as the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the United Nations would play their respective roles to resolve what he described as a serious problem.

"Recently, we were shocked by the discovery of graves of alleged victims of human traffickers along the Perlis-Thailand border, evidently indicating that they were tortured and subjected to extreme cruelty.

"Furthermore, we were also saddled with an influx of Rohingya migrants. The effects of the humanitarian tragedy were felt by Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia.

"With regard to national sovereignty, we cannot allow outsiders to easily penetrate our borders," he said.

Nevertheless, Najib said he had ordered a rescue operation in the country's waters based on humanitarian grounds and sympathy, after finding out that the Rohingya migrants and their children were in a state of hunger, thirst and fatigue.

By The Nation

May 31, 2015

The US on Friday said it has commitment to support an effort of regional governments to tackle the migration problem in the Indian Ocean. It would provide financial and material assistance, said US Assistant Secretary of State Ann Richard.

The US also prepares to support a UNHCR-led resettlement solution to help the regional governments to tackle the issue.

Richard, an Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration represented the US in a special meeting on on Irregular Migration in the Indian Ocean held in Bangkok today.

According to Richard, the US remained the largest donor to the international organizations for migration and the UNHCR with already US$109,000,000 worth of material assistance to help the Myanmar migrants, including the Rohingyas over the past two years.

The United States also prepares to support a UNHCR-led resettlement solution to help the regional governments to tackle the issue as well as to provide humanitarian assistance, including flying surveillance flights over the region to search for stranded Rohingyas in regional waters with a cooperation from the Malaysian government although an approval from the Thai government hasn’t been fully sought yet.

After the meeting, she will fly to Malaysia and Indonesia to seek a review of the situation with both governments.

By Iqbal Hossain

Desert News

May 31, 2015

By Associated Press

May 31, 2015

Desmond Tutu and José Ramos-Horta among laureates who have criticised the situation of Rohingya in Burma as ‘nothing less than genocide’

Burma rejected as unbalanced comments made by several Nobel peace prize winners calling for an end to the persecution of Rohingya Muslims. 

The Nobel laureates including South Africa’s Desmond Tutu, Iranian human rights activist Shirin Ebadi and former Timor-Leste President José Ramos-Horta made the appeal following two conferences in the Norwegian capital last week. They called the situation of Rohingya in Burma “nothing less than genocide”. 

Burma’s foreign ministry said in a statement published in Sunday’s newspapers that such comments turned a blind eye to Burma’s efforts on rebuilding trust between Buddhists and Muslims in western Rakhine state as well as “granting citizenship through national verification process to those Bengalis living in Burma for many years”. 

Burma does not recognise the Rohingya as an ethnic community and refers to the more than one million members in Rakhine state as Bengalis – immigrants from neighbouring Bangladesh. They have been denied citizenship and basic rights. More than 100,000 are confined to internal camps. 

In recent weeks, the plight of Rohingya has turned into a regional crisis when thousands landed on the shores of Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, with others still believed stranded at sea. 

The foreign ministry said Burma categorically rejects the “unbalanced and negative comments”. 

Others who criticised Burma’s policies in Oslo included philanthropist George Soros, who escaped Nazi-occupied Hungary and said that there were “alarming” parallels between the plight of the Rohingya and the Nazi genocide.

Meet Myanmar's 24 genocidaires and get them to The Hague

For the crimes against humanity, including a genocide, haul the following genocidaires to The Hague.

1) Retired Senior General Than Shwe (Officer Training School In-take ?)

2) Retired Vice-Senior General Maung Aye (Defense Services Academy or DSA, In-Take 11)

3) Ex-General Khin Nyunt (Officer Training School, In-Take 29), the founder of the now disbanded Nasaka (or Myanmar's equivalent of SS - for the Rohingyas) and former Chief of Directorate of Defense Services Intelligence (DDSI)

4) Ex-General Shwe Mann (DSA-11), Speaker of the Parliament and Chair of the ruling party USDP (Defense Services Academy or DSA- In-Take-1)

5) Ex-General and Myanmar President Thein Sein (DSA In-Take 9)

6) Lt-General Ko Ko (Home Minister), already accused of war crimes by Harvard Law School International Human Rights Clinic

7) Ex-Major Zaw Htay, President's Office Director (DSA In-Take 36)

8) Union Minister Ex-Admiral Soe Thein (DSA In-take ?) (whose navy units have been involving in pushing out the Rohingya out of Burma's territorial waters; he inked the business deals with Norway's Telenor)

9) Information Minister Ex-Colonel Ye Htut (DSA In-Take ?)

10) Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin (DSA In-Take?)

11) Deputy Foreign Minister Thant Kyaw (DSA In-Take?)

12) Ex-Major General Maung Maung Ohn (DSA In-Take 22), Rakhine Chief Minister 

13) Aye Maung, Member of the Parliament from Ramree and Chairman of the Rakhine party who calls for "Israel-style destruction of Rohingya on Rakhine soil)

14) Wirathu - 969 "Monk"

15) Dr Kyaw Yin Hlaing (PhD Cornell), of Norway-funded "Myanmar Institute for Diversity and Myanmar Peace Center), advocate and author of Rakhine Action Plan (Myanmar's equivalent of "Final Solution")

16) Nay Myo Wai, Chair of Diversity Party (who openly calls for the mass killings of Rohingya in this week's mass rally in Rangoon)

17) Police Brigadier General Tin Ko Ko, Chief of Border Guard Police based in Maungdaw Township, Rakhine State)

18) Ko Ko Gyi (88 Generation and Open Society NGO)

19) Aung Thaung, Ex-Colonel, Chairman of the Finance Committee, MP of the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party

20) Lt-General Thein Htay, former Minister of Border Affairs and Than Shwe's arms procurement officer

21) Khin Yi, Ex-Brigadier General, Ex-Police Chief, Directorate of Defence Services Intelligence, and Minister of Immigration

22) Ex- Lt. Gen Win Myint (Ex-Western Command Commander and Ex- Secretary 3 of Military regime - State Peace and Development Council)

By Louis Charbonneau

Reuters

May 29, 2015

UNITED NATIONS - The United Nations Security Council on Thursday held its first closed-door briefing on the human rights situation in Myanmar, focusing on the dire situation of the country's Rohingya Muslim minority, council diplomats said.

U.N. human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein briefed the council via video link in a meeting that U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power welcomed on her Twitter feed as a "historic first" for the 15-nation body.

"Zeid gave a powerful briefing on the dire situation and 'institutional discrimination' faced by the Rohingya in Myanmar," a council diplomat present at the meeting told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

"They are often violently abused by smugglers, hundreds recently dying at sea," the diplomat said, summarizing Zeid's remarks about the country formerly called Burma. "This demands a comprehensive response. Must look at root causes."

Another diplomat confirmed the readout, adding that no immediate council action was expected.

Council members responded to Zeid by calling for the problem to be tackled at its root causes and welcoming a crisis meeting in Bangkok aimed at addressing Southeast Asia's migrant crisis.

According to participants, that meeting of 17 countries from across the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and elsewhere in Asia is unlikely to produce a binding agreement or plan of action to save thousands of people believed stranded at sea.

A delegate from Russia said the Security Council was not the appropriate forum for discussing human rights, suggesting it should be handled by the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva, a diplomat said.

China, Myanmar's traditional ally, said it was an internal matter for the country's authorities but expressed concern about the situation.

More than 3,000 migrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh have landed in Indonesia and Malaysia in recent weeks since Thailand launched a crackdown on human trafficking gangs earlier this month. About 2,600 are believed to be still adrift on abandoned boats, relief agencies have said.

Many of those who have made it to shore are members of Myanmar's 1.1 million-member Rohingya Muslim minority who live in apartheid-like conditions in Myanmar's Rakhine state.

Recently Zeid said the Rohingyas' situation was "one of the principal motivators of these desperate maritime movements."

The Myanmar government regards most Rohingyas as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. They enjoy few rights and have suffered violence at the hands of members of the Buddhist majority over the past few years.

By Malcomlm J. Foster & Jocelyn Gecker

Associated Press

May 29, 2015

BANGKOK — Thailand hosted a meeting of 17 countries Friday to address an alarming rise in the number of boat people in Southeast Asian waters.

The talks were delicate because Myanmar — the country thousands of ethnic Rohingya Muslims have fled amid state-sanctioned discrimination and violence — bristles at any suggestion that it's largely to blame for the crisis. Delegates faced a tricky balancing act of coming up with steps to tackle a complex issue while making sure Myanmar didn't boycott the talks.

Here's a look at what the meeting achieved, failed to achieve, and what the likely next steps are.

WHAT DID THEY ACCOMPLISH?

— Countries in the region talked. It was the first time in years, if ever, that they have openly discussed the Rohingya crisis — a highly sensitive topic for Myanmar, which has blocked the topic from regional discussion on numerous occasions. "The first result is that it took place at all, with a very comprehensive representation of all the countries — including Myanmar," said International Organization of Migration Director-General William Lacy Swing.

— Donors pledged money. The United States announced $3 million in funds in response to an appeal by the IOM for $26 million. The money will help pay for temporary shelter, food and other urgent needs for thousands of migrants. Australia also pledged $4.6 million for humanitarian assistance in Myanmar's Rakhine state, where an estimated 1 million Rohingya live in dire conditions.

— The U.S. can fly. After a week of delays, Thailand agreed to allow the U.S. military to operate flights out of Thailand to search for migrants believed to be still stuck on boats, after more than 3,000 came ashore this month in Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand. It is unclear why Thailand waited so long to accept the offer. So far, U.S. Navy flights have been operating out of Subang, Malaysia, but could not fly over Thai airspace. The U.S. State Department says it expects the flights to start in the next few days.

WHAT THEY DIDN'T DO:

— Solve the crisis. "With the situation being what it is, if you expect one meeting to resolve it, you're expecting a miracle," Top Thai Foreign Ministry official Norachit Sinhaseni said at a closing news briefing.

— Enforce a binding agreement. The 17 countries came up with 17 "proposals and recommendations" including ambitious steps to improve life in the places people are fleeing. They included "promoting full respect for human rights and adequate access of people to basic rights and services, such as housing, education and health care." Did Myanmar agree to this overhaul? Norachit's reply: "That is the aspiration."

— Discuss the big issues. The Rohingya Muslims risk their lives to flee Buddhist-majority Myanmar because they are persecuted at home. They are denied basic rights including citizenship, are targeted by extremist Buddhist mobs, and are victims of state-sanctioned discrimination. These issues were not discussed, Norachit said. Asked if the fundamental question of citizenship for Rohingya came up, he had a one-word answer: "No."

— State the R-Word. The term "Rohingya" doesn't appear in their joint statement and, according to Norachit, was barely uttered during the meeting. This was in deference to Myanmar's distaste for the word. Myanmar had threatened to boycott the talks if the word appeared on the formal invitation. It does not recognize Rohingya as an ethnic group, insisting on calling them "Bengalis," arguing they are really Bangladeshis. Bangladesh also does not recognize them as citizens.

WHAT'S NEXT:

— More talks. The meeting was hailed as a good first step, and the countries agreed to hold more talks. Members of the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations agreed to bring the issue to the group's ministerial meeting on transnational crime. But no date was set for the next round.

By Catholic News Service

May 29, 2015

YANGON, MYANMAR -- Cardinal Charles Bo has asked the government of Myanmar to squelch hate speech and do more to help Rohingya refugees, many of whom have fled the country and are trapped at sea as countries refuse them entry.

"An immense tragedy is taking place on the seas of Southeast Asia. A new wave of boat people is adrift in the seas, forced to flee poverty and conflicts in Burma and Bangladesh," the Yangon cardinal said in a statement in late May.

"Men, women, and children are being exploited by unscrupulous traffickers. They are crammed into squalid barges and often die at sea. A new wound is being opened. Let mercy and compassion flow like a river in the land of Buddha," he said.

Referring to recent protests by hard-line Buddhists and hostility shown by the government of the predominantly Buddhist country, the cardinal added: "We strongly urge the government not to allow speeches that promote hatred to subvert the glorious Burmese tradition of compassion. The people of Burma have a moral obligation to protect and promote the dignity of all human beings. A community cannot be demonized, and their basic rights such as identity, citizenship, and the right to exist as a community cannot be denied."

"Compassion and mercy are the two eyes of this nation, which allow a vision of peace and dignity. Let mercy and compassion flow like a river in our country," he said.

Thousands of Myanmar's Rohingya Muslims have been fleeing persecution at home, and some of their boats are being turned away by neighboring countries. Authorities in Thailand have found them locked in jungle camps, part of a human trafficking scam. The Associated Press has said that an untold number of refugees have died of starvation, sickness and abuse.

Pope Francis spoke about the refugees after praying the Regina Coeli May 24 at the Vatican.

"With deep concern I continue to follow the situation of numerous refugees in the Gulf of Bengal and the Andaman Sea," the pope said. "I appreciate the efforts of some countries willing to welcome these people, who are facing serious suffering and danger. I encourage the international community to give them humanitarian assistance."

In an interview with an Argentine journalist, Pope Francis spoke of situations that make him "weep inside."

"Like the other day when I saw what is happening to the Rohingya people" from Myanmar, who have piled on to boats seeking asylum, he said. "When they get close to shore, they are given something to eat, some water, then pushed back out to sea."

About 1.3 million Rohingya have been living in Myanmar's western Rakhine state, near the border with Bangladesh. Myanmar does not recognize them as an ethnic group or as citizens, but AP reports that Rohingya identify themselves as an indigenous Burmese ethnic group descended from Arab merchants who settled in South Asia from the eighth century onward.

Rohingya have limited access to education and medical care, cannot move around or practice their religion freely. AP reports that, in the last three years, attacks on Rohingya have left 280 people dead and forced 140,000 others into crowded camps, where they live under abysmal, apartheid-like conditions, with little or no opportunities for work.

In December, the U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution urging Myanmar to provide full citizenship to the Rohingya and to allow them to move freely throughout the country.

By Asian Correspondent

May 29, 2015

A number of Nobel Peace Prize winners called for an end to the persecution of Burma’s Rohingya Muslims Thursday, but there has still been no word from Burmese Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi despite mounting international pressure.

Past winners of the prize, including South Africa’s Desmond Tutu, Shirin Ibadi from Iran and former East Timor President Jose Ramos-Horta, appealed for international aid for Rohingya in Burma’s Rakhine state, describing the persecution as “nothing less than genocide”.

Philanthropist George Soros, who escaped Nazi-occupied Hungary, said that there were “alarming” parallels between the plight of the Rohingya and the Nazi genocide.

Not among them, however, was Burmese opposition leader and democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi.

Suu Kyi became an international hero during her years of house arrest for speaking out against the generals who long ruled Burma. She entered politics after her release and has been largely silent about her country’s persecution of the Rohingya.

This week fellow Nobel Peace Prize laureate the Dalai Lama urged her to end her silence and help protect the Rohingya.

In recent weeks, thousands of Rohingya have fled persecution and landed on the shores of Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, often abandoned by human traffickers or freed after their families paid ransoms.

The Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists, told The Australian newspaper that he has discussed the issue with Suu Kyi twice.

She “told me she found some difficulties, that things were not simple but very complicated,” he was quoted as saying. “But in spite of that I feel she can do something.”

Burma (Myanmar) is holding elections later this year, but it is unlikely that Suu Kyi will be allowed to run for president.

Hardline Buddhists marched in Yangon, Burma this week as efforts continued to rescue thousands of Rohingya migrants trapped on rickety boats in the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea. Many carried placards blaming the United Nations for the problem and denying the existence of Rohingya Muslims in Burma.

Malaysian authorities were exhuming 140 graves this week believed to contain the bodies of Rohingya migrants held for ransom by traffickers.

Thailand was to host a regional meeting Friday to help address the crisis.

Additional reporting from Associated Press

By Peter Popham

The Independent

May 29, 2015

At a delicate political moment like this, with elections close, there is no political capital to be gained from offering another view

The facts of the matter could hardly be clearer. Many thousands of people have fled Burma to seek a better life elsewhere and are now becalmed in mid-ocean, at serious risk of dying a slow and dreadful death from dehydration and starvation. Yet this country, whose the most profitable way of earning hard currency during the socialist years was from foreigners coming to study the wisdom of the Buddha, cannot bear to look these facts in the face.

Some, maybe half, of the boat people are Bangladeshis; Burma seizes on this fact to claim that they are all from Bangladesh, to which country they should speedily return. Half the boat people, on the other hand, call themselves Rohingya, and have lived in Burma for a long time. Yet Burma goes to extravagant lengths to pretend that this population does not exist: it excluded them from the recent census, refuses them citizenship, is in the process of withdrawing their temporary ID cards, and locks many of them into squalid camps far from the gaze of other Burmese.

This week Burma agreed to attend a one-day international summit on the issue, held yesterday in Bangkok, on condition that there would be “no finger-pointing”. Yet where else is the finger to be pointed? It’s as if Syria’s President Assad were to be so eccentric as to claim the Mediterranean’s boat people had nothing to do with him and his little local difficulties. It would be laughable if it were not tragic.

And it’s not just the Burmese government, former generals with a long record of denying the bleeding obvious, who are guilty. Aung San Suu Kyi, the woman whom the world long saw as the heroic face of resistance to Burmese army tyranny, can also find no words for this unfolding humanitarian disaster. Her friends and fellow Nobel laureates Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama have given up making excuses for her.

Last week her party, the National League for Democracy, teetered on the edge of saying something decent about the problem. Its spokesman, U Nyan Win, told me that citizenship should be given to those who have been resident for generations. Yet he quickly hedged, saying this was only his private opinion. And Ms Suu Kyi has refused to go even that far.

At the Bangkok conference, the UN’s Assistant High Commissioner for Refugees, Volker Türk, made the same point, declaring that “granting [Burmese] citizenship is the ultimate goal”. The Burmese government’s representative, Htin Linn, shot back that Mr Türk “should be more informed” and said he doubted whether “the spirit of co-operation is prevailing in the room”. The meeting failed to break the deadlock and broke up with no consensus on how to deal with the hundreds of boat people floating around the region, except to keep talking.The proximate cause of Burma’s coalition of the hard-hearted is that the general election is only five months away. For many years, monks have fed the 85 per cent of Burmese who are Buddhists with the narrative that Buddhism has entered a period of long decline. Islam – demographically prolific thanks to polygamy, and eager to convert by the sword or otherwise – would rejoice in burying Buddhism in Burma, as it buried it before in India and elsewhere. Islam, the story continues, is world-class at portraying itself as innocent victim when it is anything but. And the West falls for it every time.

At a delicate political moment like this, with elections close, there is no political capital to be gained from offering another view. That makes Ms Suu Kyi appear a calculating politician like any other. Or perhaps she sincerely believes the story of Buddhist victimhood.

In fact, the roots of the tragedy are historical. For centuries Burma’s western borders were fluid. Under British rule, the country was for a long time part of the Indian Empire. Until 1937 people could move freely from India into Burma, and many Muslims moved into Arakan state. Like Hindus and Chinese, they became part of Burma’s dense ethnic tapestry.

But after independence, Arakanese Buddhists feared that the Muslims’ faster rate of reproduction, plus illegal immigration, would turn Buddhists into a minority in the state. The legalisation of political parties in 2010 opened a Pandora’s box, leading to the pogroms of 2012. An academic who has studied the situation at first hand told me that the attacks on Muslims occurred precisely in those constituencies where Arakan’s nationalist party feared being outnumbered by the Muslims.

Democracy can be a dirty business in the developing world. It was electoral calculation that encouraged the Hindu nationalists of Gujarat in western India to massacre local Muslims in 2002 – under the gaze of Narendra Modi, who was then the state governor – and it was electoral calculation that precipitated something very similar in Arakan. After all, it didn’t do Mr Modi any harm: he is now India’s Prime Minister.

But surely Ms Suu Kyi is above such machinations. After all, her famous vision for Burma was entitled “Freedom from Fear” – yet it is blind fear that drives Burma’s Buddhists to turn a cold eye on their benighted, drifting brethren. They seem to believe, with the media full of jihadi atrocities in the Middle East, that giving the Rohingya even a chink of legitimacy would throw open the door to terrorism. The truth is precisely the opposite: by refusing to behave with common compassion they are likely to induce fanatics to come to the country, to take revenge. And while they may hope to preserve Buddhism from harm, in practice their lack of compassion tramples it underfoot.