By Christian Caryl

Foreign Policy

July 28, 2015

By Maung Zarni

Democratic Voice of Burma

July 26, 2015

Last week on BBC, Myanmar’s Commander-in-Chief Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing said confidently that he “expects a free and fair election” sponsored by his military scheduled for November this year, and will honour the electoral results. The BBC hailed not only the general’s pro-democracy pledge, labelling this year’s polls “historic”, but also the very fact that the country’s most powerful soldier – generals in Myanmar are traditionally media-shy – sat down with the BBC for an interview.

Sitting across from a row of microphones in the BBC’s London studio, the World Service Newsday’s presenter Clare McDonnell asked me what I thought of the general’s promise and his unprecedented interview to the BBC. My answer: the generals are getting PR-wise.

Alas, the once media-shy Burmese soldiers have come of age: they have grown media-savvy and supremely confident in dealing with the outside world.

Over the last four years, since US-led Western powers embraced Myanmar’s quasi-civilian government of ex-general and current president Thein Sein, Burmese generals have acted incredibly relaxed about talking to the international media, whether to the regime-friendly outlets such as Singapore’s Channel News Asia or the Voice of American Burmese Service, or more professional programs like BBC’s Hard Talk.

After all, the Burmese generals have forcibly pushed through their amendment-proof constitution of 2008, which effectively elevates the military, both as an institution, and the generals, as a class, above the law. It shields the most powerful institution from any popular pressure, accords the military a veto on any policy and institutional measures, and, most importantly, legalises any future military coup deemed necessary by the commander-in-chief.

In addition, today’s Burmese generals and ex-generals have been ably assisted on public relations matters by a small but highly educated group of Burmese advisers, as well as international friends including the regime-friendly diplomats, politicians, academics and policy lobbyists. As a consequence, the generals have learned to parrot pro-democracy liberal spins while pursuing the same old illiberal agenda dictated by the typical anti-democratic mindset instilled through military academies and decades of working in the country’s militaristic, authoritarian political culture.

Upon closer look, in spite of being touted as “historic” in Western media, world’s capitals and investors’ circles, Myanmar’s upcoming elections lack any democratic substance.

One only needs a cursory glance at how political power is divided – or not divided – among the country’s stakeholders: non-Myanmar or non-Burman ethnic communities such as the Kachin, the Karen, the Shan, the Mon, the Rakhine [Arakanese], the Karenni, the Chin, etc. who make up roughly 30-40 percent of the total population of 51 million; and the pro-democracy Myanmar civilian communities.

As a matter of fact, Myanmar’s power set-up in 2015 resembles far more closely that of India under British colonial rule in 1918 than any political system that can be characterised as even remotely “democratic”. In his book The Future of Burma (1937), F. Burton Leach, the then chief secretary to the (colonial) Government of Burma and the political secretary to the Burma Chamber of Commerce in Rangoon, wrote: “When Mr Montague and Lord Chelmsford set about to prepare their scheme of reform in 1918, the two outstanding features of the system of Government in India which had survived all previous changes, were …. first, the marked centralisation of power in the hands of the [British colonial] Government of India, and the small amount of power, either legislative, administrative or financial, possessed by the Provincial Governments, and secondly the complete independence of the [colonial] Executive from any control by the Legislature, either in the Central or in the Provincial Governments”.

Anchored in their constitution adopted in 2008, Myanmar’s military leaders introduced a new political system – “Discipline-flourishing Democracy” – after the military’s political proxy – the Union Solidarity and Democratic Party (USDP) – won over 80 percent of the popular votes in a country where the military and the generals are most widely reviled. This new system devised by and for the military contains the two anti-democratic features which were the pillars of British colonial rule in India almost 100 years ago.

While ignoring the blatant disenfranchisement of nearly one million Rohingya in western Burma and possible disenfranchisement of Kachins, Karen, Shan and Rakhine in active war zones in the upcoming elections, Western governments have made an issue out of Aung San Suu Kyi, the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize winner and the most popular Burmese politician, being constitutionally barred from holding the highest office in the land on grounds of her two children – and late husband – being foreigners.

However, structurally speaking, the two most important issues that expose the most anti-democratic pillars of Myanmar’s “democratic system” hark back to the British colonial era political system that was deemed necessary to reform even as early as 1918: the concentration of political and administrative power in the central government vis-à-vis the non-ethnic Myanmar “peripheries”, for lack of a better term, and the constitutionally guaranteed absence of democratic accountability for those in the Executive branch, made up almost exclusively of Myanmar generals and ex-generals.

Just last week, the military bloc-voted against a motion designed to devolve the central/national government’s existing power to appoint chief ministers of states and divisions to local legislatures, dealing a blow to any hope for an evolution of the military-controlled Parliament over time.

Furthermore, only Myanmar’s commander-in-chief is endowed with the power to appoint crucial cabinet posts such as defense; home affairs; foreign affairs; border affairs; as well as endorse or reject any presidential and vice-presidential nominees from the elected political parties; assign military officers to man the 25 percent of parliamentary seats in all national and state/provincial legislatures; and organise a military take-over against any sitting parliamentary government.

The fact that any constitutional amendment requires more than 75 percent of the approving votes gives the commander-in-chief veto power over virtually all aspects of Myanmar’s political system. The 25 percent of military representatives are organised as a brigade within the parliament. Unfailingly, the military representatives vote as a bloc, whatever the issue, as ordered from the Office of the Commander-in-Chief.

Aside from the categorically anti-democratic constitutional arrangements of political and administrative power, there is also a profoundly disturbing issue, namely the military’s capture of what academics call the State, that is, the governmental/administrative ethos, culture and practices, institutions, and personnel. During the past 53 years – of which 49 were direct military rule and four are quasi-civilian – the Burmese generals have staffed virtually all strategic administrative positions at both state and national/central government levels with military personnel: literally thousands upon thousands of bureaucrats are either in-service military officers or military veterans.

Some token civilian administrative heads and advisors notwithstanding, all important decisions are taken by the officer-cum-civilianised-bureaucrats. The buck stops at the military’s desk. The futility of ceasefire negotiations in the face of the Burmese military’s push for the surrender of the ethnic armed resistance organisations is a case in point.

To ensure there is no split in culture, ethos and loyalty in the country’s vast security sector, the military has infused its loyal officers into police and intelligence services. Further, the military has organised a vast nationwide circle of veterans whose loyalty and support can be counted upon in terms of popular mobilisation for the military’s strategic ends. This is in addition to the military’s ultimate control of the ruling USDP.

With these kind of British colonial-style safeguards for the ruling military’s vested interests, both political and economic, there is little wonder that the commander-in-chief had no problem making the promise of respecting the outcome of the November elections.

Economically, since the early 1950s when the country’s civil war with multiple fronts increased the central role of the military in Burma’s national politics, the generals have built up an economic base for the military as an institution. To date, virtually all important sectors of Burma’s national economy – including an informal economy – is tied to the military’s interests, and is under either the direct or indirect influence of the Ministry of Defence.

The military’s conglomerates, and their associates – known as cronies – run vast economic enterprises and mega-development projects. Not only are the Burmese generals and their base – the military – above the law and beyond accountability, but their conglomerates not only oppose any external audit but also laugh at any foreign ideas such as “corporate social responsibility”.

To be sure, transition from 50 years of military rule to a representative system of government is going to take years and monumental efforts – even in cases where the military leaders are aware of their own failures at nation-building and as policy makers.

In the case of the Burmese military leadership and the military, this transition from dictatorship to democracy is made incomparably harder. For the military has internalised the self-serving justification that without its strong hand – that is, concentration of power and control in the military and its loyalists – the multi-ethnic country is going to disintegrate.

No number of election cycles nor amount of election monitoring will make a dent in the military’s structures of power. Seen in this light, Burma’s upcoming elections will change nothing in terms of power and control.

Maung Zarni is a dissident scholar and activist with 27 years’ involvement in international activism, pushing for democratic change in his native Burma.

By Emanuel Stoakes

The Diplomat

July 26, 2015

The UN World Food Programme has confirmed it will be cutting food rations for internally displaced persons.

The World Food Programme (WFP) is set to cut rations to vulnerable communities in conflict-hit states across Myanmar, the organization has revealed.

The news was confirmed last week in an email from WFP in response to questions from this writer. The email said, pending a “final agreement with the Government of Myanmar, starting from August 2015, reduction of food rations will take place for all IDPs [internally displaced persons] in Kachin, northern Shan and Rakhine States.” The respondent added that essential provisions for nursing mothers and young children will be protected, however.

The move will have the harshest impact in the country’s Rakhine and Kachin states where an aggregate total of several hundred thousand displaced people rely on aid for survival. In westerly Rakhine state, more than 800,000 ethnic Rohingya are rendered stateless and deprived of basic human rights as a result of government policy, resulting in minimal access to healthcare, education, and the means to make a living. Around 140,000 are confined to squalid IDP camps as a result of two bouts of violence which broke out in 2012, which saw whole neighborhoods razed and hundreds killed; those immured in the camps are entirely reliant on external support in order to meet their basic needs.

In Kachin state, located in the far north of the country, an estimated 100,000 people have been made homelessby fighting between ethnic Kachin rebels and Myanmar’s national army, known as the “Tatmadaw,” since a ceasefire broke down in 2011. Northern Shan state also hosts Kachin IDPs, in addition to ethnic Shan, Kokang, Chinese, and Lisu populations displaced by fighting between the government and assorted rebel groups.

Access to humanitarian aid has long been restricted by national troops in parts of Kachin state, allegedly for tactical purposes. Reports emerged in recent days of villages in Kachin having been deprived of food for more than a week due to restrictions effectively imposed by the army and local government; it has been credibly reported that these blockages were precipitated by Tatmadaw airstrikes.

Rationale

The representative of WFP, a United Nations body created to provide food assistance to needy populations across the world, also wrote that while funding shortfalls – a long-standing problem – had played a part in the move, the decision to make cuts was “predominantly motivated by the changing humanitarian situation as a result of improved household food security situation among IDPs.”

However, this rationale appears to be contradicted by an internal government document obtained by The Diplomat. The paper, which was authored by an agency of the Rakhine state government, solely attributes the upcoming cuts in Rakhine state to a “shortage of funding” suffered by WFP. It also records that a meeting took place between Rakhine officials and the aid group in which the percentage of cuts was mutually agreed following “negotiation.”

According to the document, the outcome of this meeting between state officials and WFP was that rice will be reduced by 10 percent, while rations for other basic foodstuffs – beans and cooking oil – will be cut by a fifth.

Further indications of the government’s hand in the aid reductions were revealed by WFP in its correspondence with this writer. The cuts were, according to WFP’s email, linked to “an IDP prioritization exercise” which the Myanmar government had initiated, involving “reclassification of populations, return of IDPs to their places of origin or relocation/resettlement to nearby areas with greater access to livelihoods in Rakhine.”

“Following these developments and based on the latest assessment findings,” the email continues, “WFP, in close coordination with the Government, has reviewed its strategy to provide a more appropriate response to the changing humanitarian situation” – including the cuts to food aid.

The organization’s claims of an improvement in the humanitarian conditions in Rakhine and Kachin states have been fiercely disputed by rights groups and other NGOs approached by The Diplomat for comment; they also appear to be contradicted by an assessment produced by the British government earlier this month.

According to Matthew Smith of Bangkok-based rights group Fortify Rights: “The notion that the situation of displaced communities has improved is simply untrue. It’s not based in reality. Humanitarian space throughout the country has been consistently shrinking.”

“In Kachin State, IDPs in dozens of camps are facing shortages in everything from food and shelter to education materials for children. The Myanmar Army is still attacking so there are still situations of new displacement unfolding. Local humanitarian organizations have been scrambling to fill impossible gaps,” he continued.

Gum Sha Aung, program coordinator of Metta Development Foundation, an NGO that works with displaced people in Kachin state, likewise described declining humanitarian conditions in the area. “Humanitarian support to the IDPs is still far from humanitarian minimum standards. Meeting their basic needs like food and shelter is still a constant struggle,” she said.

A governmental assessment released this month appeared to report similarly unimproved conditions in Rakhine state. The “in-year update” on Myanmar produced by Britain’s Foreign Office observed that the “first six months of 2015 saw no improvement – and in parts a decline – in the humanitarian situation for much of the Rohingya community in Rakhine state.”

This view was echoed by international rights groups that monitor the plight of the Rohingya community in Rakhine state. Phil Robertson of Human Rights Watch told The Diplomat “waving an international agency magic wand and unilaterally pronouncing the Rohingya humanitarian situation as better just as budget cuts sink in is simply too convenient and flies in the face of continuous reports about the worsening plight of displaced Rohingya.”

“Rather than cutting assistance, WFP should be demanding the government cease its policies to denigrate and discriminate against the Rohingya, and demand Naypyidaw step up with significant increases in resources to help, “ he added.

Food Shortages and Malnutrition

Rohingya sources in the largest IDP camp in Rakhine state located just outside Sittwe, the state capital, have also refuted claims that an improvement in humanitarian conditions in their area. One resident, who did not want to be named for his own security, said that he had been informed in advance about the cuts and admitted that he was worried about upcoming food reductions, as people were barely getting by on what rations they were already being granted and were also trading their food for other goods they needed, such as fuel.

“At the moment what people have is very tight,” he said. “People cannot use all [the food] they are given… they have to sell some to buy fuel, vegetables and fish, so I worry that people won’t get sufficient food after the cut.”

“Jack” Sadak, a Rohingya man also living in an IDP camp near Sittwe, told The Diplomat that food shortages and malnutrition were still commonplace, adding that what was needed was more food from international agencies, not less, but that the most needy in the camp had long been denied greater food assistance due to the actions of state authorities.

“If anyone wants to get food from WFP first they have to apply for [it through the] state government; if they accept it they can provide food,” he said. However, residents in several sites have had their requests turned down repeatedly, he claimed.

While the plight of those in “unregistered camps” has been well-documented, allegations of such forms of avoidable deprivation have received little independent verification. However, previously unpublished research by Fortify Rights made available to The Diplomat appears to support Sadak’s claim. The material includes interviews with residents in unregistered parts of the IDP cluster near Sittwe who told the rights group they had “applied for food rations to the government approximately 100 times.”

“We wrote letters to apply, and we gave them to WFP workers staff. They [WFP workers] are Rakhine. When we send a letter, they reject us every time, saying we are ineligible for rations. WFP reports this to us directly. We don’t know why [we are denied rations],” they added.

The report also notes that “aid agencies are aware of these communities and that they are not receiving aid. The UN has not registered new IDPs since December 2012,” leaving some communities with little to no direct access to food aid whatsoever for nearly three years.

It is feared that the impact of WFP’s ration cuts on top of such critical shortages may well drive more residents of the camps to try to flee Myanmar, only to end up in the hands of human traffickers in order to flee Myanmar.

In May, a “boat crisis” involving thousands of Rohingya refugees and Bangladeshis migrants abandoned in trafficking vessels in the Andaman Sea drew the attention of the world’s media, prompting sharp criticism of Myanmar’s treatment of the minority. It is estimated that 100,000 Rohingya have fled the country for neighboring states since 2012, creating an acute refugee crisis in the surrounding region.

“In Rakhine State, decreasing rations ahead of election season could be dangerous. It’s also concerning that food rations would decrease a few months before the start of the annual sailing season,” Fortify Right’s Matthew Smith commented.

“For the last two years, nearly every Rohingya refugee we’ve interviewed has said they fled the country due to a lack of adequate food. It’s difficult to imagine how less food now is warranted in any way,” he added.

Emanuel Stoakes is a freelance journalist and researcher in the field of human rights and conflict. He has produced work for Al Jazeera, The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, The Independent, The New Statesman, Viceand Souciant magazine, among others.

The Sydney Morning Herald

July 24, 2015

Prime Minister Tony Abbott controversially replied "nope, nope, nope" when asked in May if Australia would do more to help alleviate the Rohingya crisis. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

By Joshua Carroll

Anadolu Agency

July 24, 2015

State media says migrants returned after nationalities verified by both countries

YANGON, Myanmar -- Myanmar’s immigration authorities have sent 155 people to neighboring Bangladesh after they were found adrift in boats in late May, state media reported Thursday, amid a regional crisis that has seen thousands abandoned at sea by people smugglers.

The migrants were returned following a strict process to verify their nationalities, according to officials from both countries.

“The handing over ceremony took place at friendship bridge between Myanmar and Bangladesh,” the state-backed Global New Light of Myanmar reported.

The group were handed to Bangladesh’s Border Guard Battalion by a team led by the district immigration officer for Maungdaw, a district in western Rakhine state, the report added.

Bangladesh says the group were among 528 rescued from Myanmar waters.

Thousands of others, mostly Rohingya Muslims fleeing persecution and Bangladeshis escaping extreme poverty, were left adrift in May.

The crisis began when Thai authorities launched a crackdown against people-smuggling camps, which scared traffickers into abandoning their human cargo at sea.

Myanmar has been blamed as the main source of the crisis because of its treatment of the Rohingya, a group of roughly 1 million who have fled from the country’s north-western shores in their tens of thousands since being targeted in sectarian violence in 2012.

The Myanmar government has denied responsibility, and instead blamed the traffickers. It has also been accused of seeking to deflect blame to Bangladesh by exaggerating the proportion of migrants in the crisis who come from that country.

Myanmar does not officially recognise the Rohingya ethnicity, and refers to members of the group as “Bengalis” in order to imply they are interlopers from Bangladesh.

Ultranationalist Buddhists have protested in Myanmar’s main city of Yangon against their government harboring people from the boats.

Bangladeshi authorities will continue verifying the rest of the people found on the boats on May 21 and 29, the New Light report added.

By bdnews24.com

July 24, 2015

Bangladesh Ambassador to the US Mohammad Ziauddin has briefed Republican congressman Dana Rohrabacher on domestic political situation and Rohingya refugee issue.

The embassy said the Congressman wanted to know about Rohingya refugee influx and other major issues of vital interests during the meeting at the Capitol Hill on Wednesday.

Rohrabacher served as a senior speechwriter and Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan for seven years. 

He is also known as a forceful spokesman for human rights and democracy.

The Muslim minority Rohingya people have taken shelter in Cox’s Bazar district fleeing sectarian violence in Myanmar.

The ambassador cited Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s bilateral visit to Myanmar in 2011, and said Bangladesh was “always proactive with Myanmar for repatriation of Rohingya refugees and stop further influx”.

“But unfortunately the resolution of the problem is still awaited,” he was quoted by the embassy as telling Rohrabacher.

The ambassador said “the systematic push-on of the Rohingya Muslims also contributed to the illegal trespass through the Bay of Bengal”.

The California congressman acknowledged Bangladesh’s support to Rohingya refugees.

By Richard Potter

The Diplomat

July 22, 2015

How the Arakan Army is emerging as a major player in Myanmar’s civil war.

In the very early morning of March 29 the Myanmar Army was caught off-guard when it was assaulted and overrun in two separate locations: Kyauk Taw, in northern Rakhine State, and Paletwa, slightly north of Kyauk Taw in neighboring Chin State. In Kyauk Taw, two soldiers were killed, and two were taken prisoner, according to the Arakan Information Network, as quoted by The Irrawaddy. In Paletwa, a captain was killed, a private was injured, and two soldiers were taken prisoner according to the Chin Human Rights Organization. In both instances the assailants appeared to escape without serious casualties. As surprising as the assault was, more surprising was the group behind it: a relatively obscure militia called the Arakan Army, using the former name of Rakhine State. This group had previously only been known for operating in the country’s northern Kachin and Shan States, mostly in a supportive position of the much better known Kachin Independence Army. In a single carefully coordinated attack, though, the Arakan Army has gone from obscurity to prominence.

The commander of the Arakan Army, Brigadier General Tun Myat Naing is younger than his contemporaries of the other ethnic armed groups in the country, but is shrewd, passionate, and well spoken. Regarding his militia being outnumbered and outgunned in Rakhine State, he told The Diplomat, “Revolution is to resist a more powerful enemy, a better equipped army – this is how we have to manage to fight for our freedom, to liberate oppressed people.” Utilizing a smaller army requires flexibility. “Guerrilla tactics are good for saving your manpower and firepower and direct contact when you are sure you will win. It just depends.” The quick appearances of Tun Myat Naing’s men and their equally quick disappearances after fighting underscores their versatility. Their raids on the Myanmar Army so far have involved overrunning positions, seizing weapons and equipment, and disappearing back into the jungle, leaving the Myanmar military scrambling to respond.

Reprisals

The Tatmadaw, as Myanmar’s Armed Forces are known, has conducted raids and arrested a number of Rakhine citizens it says are suspected of being associated with the Arakan Army. At least 31 have been formally charged, but Tun Myat Naing says far more have suffered as a result, “Many villagers were taken into the sun, and they kept them there the whole day. Their food was taken by the army. People were treated badly, beaten and tied up, hanging under trees. A village was completely burnt down by some Burmese soldiers, we heard from the villagers. They told the villagers they had to follow the orders to burn down the villages.” Reports from independent sources have corroborated accounts of collective punishment against Rakhine villagers in and around Kyauk Taw, where 450 people have been displaced by continued clashes, most notably a blockade of food or aid. Brigadier General Tun Myat Naing said that transportation routes into the city had been blocked off, and that coupled with flooding from heavy rains, which washed away most everything they owned, has left many families in complete desolation. According to the general these people have been denied status as internally displaced persons (IDPs) by the local and central government, and none of the many aid agencies or government agencies in the state have taken steps to help what he estimates to be more than 5,000 people affected by the conflict and blockade of Kyauk Taw and the dozens of smaller villages nearby.

The fighting between Myanmar’s military and the Arakan Army has also had severe repercussions in Paletwa, in bordering Chin State, where both sides were accused in a recent report of committing severe human rights abuses. According to the Chin Human Rights Organization (CHRO) the Tatmadaw forcibly recruited two child soldiers from the township, as well as one adult about a month before the fighting began. The CHRO reports that on the evening of March 28, a force of 40 Arakan Army soldiers approached a Myanmar Army outpost outside of Paletwa, where eight soldiers were stationed. During the night and early into the following morning the CHRO says a total of 16 ethnic Chin villagers were detained by the Arakan Army, two escaped and alerted the villagers of the Arakan Army’s movement, which in turn alerted the Tatmadaw. Another villager named Ling Min was out hunting at this time, and has disappeared. The CHRO believes he was detained and was forced to work as a porter or guide, or that he was killed by the Arakan Army. The CHRO’s Rachel Fleming told The Diplomat, “We don’t know exactly what happened in (the case of) Ling Min, which is why there must be an independent, impartial investigation to determine what happened to him. Circumstantial evidence points to the Arakan Army, as they detained eight other villagers at the same spot, and ordered the villagers to perform forced labor. Also, the Burma Army soldiers were positioned in the village for the duration of the fighting, in sight of the villagers, so they do not believe that the Burma Army is responsible.”

Fleming described the fighting itself: “During the clashes, a Burma Army private was wounded, and escaped into the forest. A Burma Army captain was killed. Two other Burma Army soldiers were detained by the Arakan Army and the remaining four fled back to their headquarters in Paletwa.” The Arakan Army had effective control over the village, overwhelming the small force stationed there. It was at this point, according to the CHRO, that the Arakan Army forced villagers to dig a grave and bury the dead captain. Afterward they say 10 villagers were forced to carry what the Arakan Army had seized from the Myanmar Army to the Bangladesh border, at which point they were released.

Tun Myat Naing denies these allegations, “They accused us of taking porters, taking the villagers as guides, but these are false accusations. We have to respond to these accusations.”

Land Mines

As a result of the fighting much of the village was destroyed, and both sides have been accused by the CHRO of laying land mines around the village. More than 350 people have been displaced and are in need of humanitarian aid. The CHRO reports that efforts have been made by the Tatmadaw to pressure the displaced villagers to return home against their will at a time it continues to be unsafe there. Tun Myat Naing places the blame for this on the Tatmadaw. “We do not station [fighters] in their (Chin) villages. We try to avoid confrontations near villages as much as possible.” His assertions are supported by reports from CHRO that clashes continue in the area, but outside the villages. The general also noted similar tactics used by the Tatmadaw in Rakhine State, “They deployed two divisions in the northern part of Arakan State, and after our confrontation a week ago they sent troops to the far north, closer to the border, with more land mines, which is very dangerous for the villagers, and for their livestock.”

According to the CHRO, the child soldiers were released by the Tatmadaw after significant legal and political pressure was placed on the government, but the adult villager forcibly recruited is believed to still be in custody, presumably in military training. According to a press release by the Arakan Army, two of the soldiers they kept prisoner were released to the Bangladesh Red Cross, and are expected to be transferred by the Bangladesh Border Guard back to Myanmar.

The Diplomat contacted the spokesperson for Myanmar President Thein Sein, as well as the Ministry of Information, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Ministry of Home Affairs. All declined to comment regarding these events and accusations, originally referring inquiries to each other before finally deferring to the Ministry of Defense, which was unavailable for comment.

Around the time of the clashes in Rakhine State, heavy fighting broke out in the country’s semi-autonomous Kokang Region on the Chinese border, and clashes intensified between the Tatmadaw and the Kachin Independence Army. It is not unreasonable to infer that these events were coordinated, and Brigadier General Tun Myat Naing implies as much. “It could be coincidence. When people view the whole structure they think we try to synchronize, and of course we have to synchronize to defeat or hurt the enemy.” His official reluctance to disclose what seems to be an obvious and calculated effort by Ethnic Armed Groups comes with some light laughter, but he did convey the genuine need of such coordination by ethnic forces. “We need to have even more timely synchronized actions. If all the Burmese ethnic forces move that way, I am sure the central government will be pressured to negotiate and they will think they will come to the table faster. They will become more flexible if they have military pressure from all directions at the same time.” In this way the aspirations of the Arakan Army are also the aspirations of the oppressed and marginalized in each of the ethnic regions of the country, and an attempt to unify what is largely divided and fractured. Under a government often thought to control through divide and conquer the means of reversal become apparent.

The Arakan Army says at least ten clashes have taken place since fighting initially began, but the pace has slowed with the onset of the monsoon season. The strategy for them now, General Tun Myat Naing says, is to observe movements of the Tatmadaw, and plan their next moves accordingly. Meanwhile, there is a separate front for the Arakan Army, the political one. While the Arakan Army previously made it a point to avoid politics, this is changing as it grows. “Eventually we decided to start a political wing of our own, because we have our fundamental principle and political agenda. The military objective is to support our political ambitions. We have to have the right to self determination, and to form a genuine federal union where Arakan people can determine their own destiny with their own decisions. We need to fight for that. We will make our national movement to achieve this objective.”

Lonely Fight

The fight, both political and military, seems to be a lonely one for the Arakan Army. While it has many allies in the north of the country, it operates alone in its home state. Local political groups are legally banned from associating with it, and Rakhine State’s other armed group, the Arakan Liberation Army, has not responded to the Arakan Army’s attempts to reach out, according to Tun Myat Naing, likely because of the Arakan Liberation Party’s ceasefire with the central government, and its role in the ongoing ceasefire negotiations between several of the country’s armed groups and the Myanmar government.

Speaking on the ceasefire talks, Tun Myat Naing is skeptical. “Of course we want to solve the problem through dialogue, but we can see the attitude of the central government – they are not that sincere. So this could be a waste of time, scrambling over the table while already two years have passed by and nothing fruitful or beneficial or concrete has come out yet. The ceasefire is like a divide tactic.”

Regarding the well publicized riots and continued tensions between Rakhine State’s ethnic Rakhine majority and Stateless Rohingya minority, which have resulted in over 140,000 people displaced from their homes and nearly 200 recorded deaths, Tun Myat Naing suspects much of the conflict is a distraction. “We should not make blind accusations to political (actors) without evidence, but if we look beyond these clashes we can see who benefits from this problem. It is obvious. When we had that clash, the Arakanese people lost a lot, the Bengali [a controversial term for the Rohingya, implying they are foreign) people lost their homes and everything. We both hurt. But someone – they achieved their plan. They realized their plan with no one to thwart it. This is one [piece of] evidence. Another that you could see is when the people were fighting each other, if [the authorities] wanted to stop it they could have earlier. They didn’t have to be watching from the distance. So it could be a guiding hand to manipulate the fight of the local people who don’t benefit.” For now, there is deep resentment between the Rakhine and Rohingya communities, and in other ethnic regions in the country political and armed groups have often been manipulated against each other, weakening their military capabilities, and often causing them to lose control of their natural resources.

The coming year will be one of great potential for Myanmar, and one of inevitable change for better or worse. With elections officially scheduled for November 8, challenges to the current constitution, student activists increasingly challenging the status quo, and a resurgence of conflict in several of the ethnic regions, the country is undoubtedly on the cusp of something big. Brigadier General Tun Myat Naing emphasizes the role he hopes the Arakan Army and the other ethnic armed groups might play, “May 2015 to May 2016 is a big period. Now it is July. This time spent, this one year, will bring back a sort of change in this country, we pray. I wish to change this for the better.”

Richard Potter is a writer and social worker from Pittsburgh. His has previously written for Vice, The Mantle, Your Middle East News, and other publications, covering the Middle East and Myanmar.

A migrant who arrived by boat, part of a group of Rohingya and Bangladeshis, receives medical assistance at an aid station in Kuala Langsa in Indonesia's Aceh Province May 15, 2015. George Soros recently said the plight of the Rohingyas has "alarming" parallels to the Nazi genocide. Roni Bintang/Reuters

By George Soros

Newsweek

Published on May 31, 2015

I have been a supporter of Burma's democracy movement since 1993. For most of that time, the prospect of change seemed remote, and I felt increasingly discouraged.

Then, in 2010, quite suddenly, or so it seemed, the ruling military junta decided to abandon absolute authoritarian rule. The world was stunned. 

My engagement in Burma during those dark days taught me an important lesson. Sometimes it's necessary to support a lost cause for a long time just to keep the flame alive. That way, when the situation changes, groundwork for progress has already been laid.

As of today, I find myself again growing discouraged. Making the transition from military rule to a more open society is not easy, and in many ways the government of Burma has made real progress in its reform efforts. 

I fear that many of these reforms are not sustainable, because they have not yet been institutionalized. It's also true that political and economic power remains mostly concentrated in the hands of a privileged few who monopolize the revenue from Burma's abandoned natural resources. 

The most immediate threat to Burma's transition is the rising anti-Muslim sentiment and officially condoned abuse of the Rohingya people. That has occurred under the watch of the current rulers in Naypyidaw. 

From private conversations with progressive Burmese officials, I know that some in power genuinely want to see a Burma where all are treated equally, but these officials also fear the potential of extremist violence from the small but powerful group of religious radicals. These extremists have created a tinderbox that could blow up the entire reform process.

The government must confront these extremists and their financial supporters. In January, when I visited Burma for the fourth time in as many years, I made a short visit to Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine State, in order to see for myself the situation on the ground. I met with state and local leaders and both Rakhine and Rohingya populations, and also talked to internally displaced persons and those mostly Rohingya living in a section of Sittwe called Aung Mingalar, a part of the city that can only be called a ghetto. 

In Aung Mingalar, I heard the echoes of my childhood. You see, in 1944, as a Jew in Budapest, I too was a Rohingya. Much like the Jewish ghettos set up by Nazis around Eastern Europe during World War II, Aung Mingalar has become the involuntary home to thousands of families who once had access to health care, education and employment. 

Now, they are forced to remain segregated in a state of abject deprivation. 

The parallels to the Nazi genocide are alarming. Fortunately, we have not reached a stage of mass killing. 

I feel very strongly that we must speak out before it is too late, individually and collectively. The Burmese government's insistence that they are keeping the Rohingya in the ghetto for their own protection simply is not credible. 

Government authorities have tried to reassure me. They say things are under control and not as bad as reported by outsiders, who they claim don't understand the local culture or the long and complicated history of Rakhine State. 

I understand that half a century of living in isolation under repression can make a population vulnerable to intermediation and exploitation in all sorts of ways, but I also know that most of the people of Burma are fair-minded and would like their country to be a place where all can live in freedom. 

2015 is a crucial year for Burma; a tipping point, in the words of Yanghee Lee, U.S. Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar. With the prospect of democratic changes to the 2008 constitution and the holding of free and fair elections, meaningful reform could take hold. 

As a longtime friend and supporter of Burma, I hope for a positive outcome for all the people of the country. But where I once felt a great sense of optimism, I am now filled with trepidation for the future. 

I hope those in power will immediately take the steps necessary to counter extremism and allow open society to take root. In the lead-up to the elections, it's crucial that official acts should be taken to counter the pervasive hate and anti-Rohingya propaganda on social media and the racist public campaigns of the 969 movement. 

The promise of Burma as a flourishing and vibrant open society is still within reach. It's up to Burma's leaders and people whether this promise is fulfilled. 

George Soros is the founder of the Open Society Foundations and chairman of Soros Fund Management LLC. This was his contribution to last week’s Oslo Conference on Rohingyas.

This was originally published here.

By Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Newsweek

Published on May 29, 2015

The credit that is due to the government of Myanmar for reforms undertaken over the past couple of years does not blind us to the ongoing disavowal and repression of its ethnic minorities, the Rohingya population in particular. 

A country that is not at peace with itself, that fails to acknowledge and protect the dignity and worth of all its people, is not a free country. Freedom is indivisible. All must be invited. All, a part. 

The Rohingya people were not consulted when the British drew the Burmese border on the map. With those strokes of a pen, they became a borderland people; people whose ancestral land traverses political boundaries.

Burma's post-colonial government, elected in 1948, officially recognized the Rohingya as an indigenous community, as did its first military government that ruled from 1962 to 1974. 

Manipulation by the military of ethnic minorities in the west of the country dates back to the late 1950s. At first, the military sought to co-opt the Muslim Rohingya to quell the Buddhist Rakhine after Rakhine separatists had been crushed. The military turned only Rohingya. 

In 1978, the Far Eastern Economic Review described the Rohingya as the victims of Burmese apartheid. A few years later, a citizenship law left the Rohingya off the list of indigenous people, describing them as Muslim immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh. 

In the context of rising anti-Muslim sentiment in Myanmar, many Buddhists, particularly in Rakhine state, regard the Rohingya as illegal immigrants. More than 100,000 Rohingya are trapped in internment camps. They may not leave “for their own protection.” They hold only temporary identity cards. In February, they lost all voting rights. 

The government of Myanmar has sought to absolve itself of responsibility for the conflict between the Rakhine and the Rohingya, projecting it as sectarian or communal violence. 

I would be more inclined to heed the warnings of eminent scholars and researchers including Amartya Sen, the Nobel laureate in economics, who say this is a deliberately false narrative to camouflage the slow genocide being committed against the Rohingya people. There's evidence, they say, that anti-Rohingya sentiment has been carefully cultivated by the government itself. 

Human beings may look and behave differently to one another, but ultimately none of us can claim any kind of supremacy. We are all the same. There are no natural differences between Buddhists and Muslims. It is possible to transplant a Christian heart into a Hindu chest and for a citizen of Israel to donate a kidney to a Palestinian. 

We're born to love—without prejudice, without distrust. Members of one family, the human family—made for each other and for goodness. All of us! 

We are taught to discriminate, to dislike and to hate. 

As lovers of peace and believers in the right of all members of the family to dignity and security, we have particular responsibilities to the Rohingya. 2015 is a big year for Myanmar, with both a referendum on its constitution and a general election on its calendar. 

Even as we seek to encourage the country to build on the reforms it has started, we have a responsibility to ensure that the plight of the Rohingya is not lost. We have a responsibility to hold to account those of our governments and corporations that seek to profit from new relationships with Myanmar to ensure their relationships are established on a sound ethical basis. 

We have a responsibility to persuade our international and regional aid and grant making institutions, including the European Union, to adopt a common position making funding the development of Myanmar conditional on the restoration of citizenship, nationality and basic human rights to the Rohingya. 

Desmond Tutu is the Nobel Peace Prize-winning former Archbishop of Cape Town. This was his contribution to last week’s Oslo Conference on Rohingyas.

This was originally published here. 

By EUDO CITIZENSHIP expert Luicy Pedroza

Over the past weeks, the plight of Rohingya refugees has caught the eye of the international media (see, for instance, news reports in the New York Times and Guardian). They are emigrants from Myanmar (Burma) who were adrift for weeks in the seas of South-East Asia after having fled from appalling living conditions in their native Myanmar, only to be firmly rebuffed by neighbouring countries who refused to admit them on their shores.

The Rohingya are a Muslim minority in predominantly Theravada-Buddhist Myanmar, who are treated as illegal migrants even though they have lived in Myanmar for generations. They are called “Bengalis” by authorities, as their own self-definition, Rohingya, is not recognised officially as either a minority group or “race”, of which there is otherwise a clear number defined by the regime. Needless to say, the nationality law of Myanmar does not allow for their inclusion in the polity, and there seems to be no desire to change this. In 2013 the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Myanmar recommended an amendment of the Citizenship Act, but the ultimate response of the government was that “we see no reason whatsoever to review or amend this Act.”(1) Yet, an amendment of the current Myanmar Citizenship Law could improve the status of the Rohingya, who currently reside in the Rakhine (Arakan) state without citizenship. 

Violence erupted in the Rakhine state in June 2012: around 100 died and 80,000 people were displaced. In October the same year, a second wave of riots elevated the number of displaced people to 140,000. Many Rohingyas are stateless and thus are restricted in several basic aspects of life, from their right to move within the country to the right to work, with many living in camps, in extremely precarious conditions. Prejudice and discrimination against the Rohingya are so widespread that not even local human rights defenders can be trusted to raise the issue of their exclusion. 

Until recently the Rohingyas – as other stateless minority populations, such as the Burma-born ethnic Chinese and Indian - at least had ID cards (“white cards”) that allowed them to vote in two occasions. Allegedly, the ruling party, Union Solidarity and Development Party, chaired by the current President Thein Sein, coerced or bought Rohingya votes to secure a majority in parliament in the 2010 elections. Other reports have suggested that the Rohingyas were successively given and deprived of their ID cards at their own will. In these circumstances, the fact that few support the extension of voting rights to the Rohingyas and other noncitizen minorities in Myanmar comes as no surprise. The President’s position has been particularly ambivalent, as he personally advocated their enfranchisement for a referendum on a constitutional amendment, only to declare the white cards invalid when protests erupted in several parts of the country to prevent their participation in any kind of upcoming election. Alarmingly, the protesters were not rallying behind opposition parties to demand clean, transparent elections, but rather behind Buddhist monks with nationalistic and openly racist slogans demanding their expulsion from Myanmar. By now, the Rohingyas have been disenfranchised by the Burmese Parliament, President, and Constitutional Court, successively.

The disenfranchisement of the Rohingya and other ethnic minorities has proceeded in three steps. First, the white cards were declared invalid after March 31. Subsequently, white card holders were deleted from the electoral registries and finally, the white cards were confiscated. This means that the Rohingya, already a stateless group, have been deprived of their only identification documents. In Myanmar, the absence of an identity card precludes access to health, restricts freedom of movement within the country, as well as access to school, university and jobs. Allegedly, several thousand white card holders were given a receipt in order to be issued a “green card” later, if they are found to be legal residents, or to be eligible for naturalisation. However, the latter option is unlikely, given how restrictive the nationality law is and how difficult providing the required documents will eventually be: Applicants would have to provide proof that their family has resided in Myanmar for over three generations if they want to obtain Myanmar citizenship and have an identity card. In a way, the disenfranchisement of the Rohingya began 25 years ago: in 1990 all identity cards were changed in Myanmar in order to include mention of ethnicity and religion. Ever since, the Rohingya minority has been denied the use of the term to identify themselves. Still, they have never been more vulnerable than today, as they are deprived of their most basic rights, including the right to an identification document and to reside in Myanmar. 

(1) See Di Gaetano, 2013. How to protect the rights of the stateless Rohingya people in Myanmar?, MA Thesis, Institute of Law, Politics and Development, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, p. 6.

This article was originally published here.

By OnIslam & News Agencies

July 21, 2015