By Zarni Mann & May Sitt Paing
The Irrawaddy
July 1, 2016

MANDALAY — A Muslim prayer hall in Lone Khin village of Hpakant Township, Kachin State was burned down by a mob on Friday afternoon.

Nearly 30 Muslim families in the village have fled since the outbreak of the riot.

According to residents of the village, the Muslim community had received an ultimatum from local Buddhist nationalists to demolish by Thursday what they claimed was an illegal extension to the Muslim prayer hall.

However, residents have claimed that the disputed structure was in fact an abandoned storeroom that had been used by the Ministry of Construction while building a bridge connecting the village some months ago.

After local Muslims dismantled the structure, the Buddhist nationalists then demanded that they demolish the actual prayer hall, claiming it had been constructed illegally.

“The Muslim community refused to demolish their prayer hall. Their religious leader said they would only do so if the government declared it illegal,” one of the local residents told the Irrawaddy. “That’s why the mob came to burn it.”

“When three fire engines came to put out the fire, they were obstructed by the mob,” he said.

He added that the mob was mostly made up of outsiders, numbering several hundred.

The police and army have now blocked the bridge on the road to Lone Khin village from Hpakant town.

A duty officer at the Mohnyin District police station confirmed the incident but refused to give detailed information because “the case is now under investigation.”

“We have no idea who was behind the incident. At the moment, state and district-level security forces are on the scene,” the officer said.

The incident comes after anti-Muslim rioting far away from Hpakant in Pegu Division’s Thuye Thamain village in Waw Township on June 23, which resulted in the destruction of a mosque, a Muslim cemetery, and a house and storeroom belonging to a Muslim family. Authorities chose not to take action against any of the perpetrators there.

By Elliott Prasse-Freeman
Foreign Policy
June 28, 2016

In Aung San Suu Kyi’s “democratic” Burma, the people are a silent partner.

RANGOON – In the November 2015 election, Burma’s long-standing opposition, the National League for Democracy (NLD), swept into office, promising change and new freedoms for the masses after a half-century of military rule. That the party is led by Aung San Suu Kyi, a widely revered Nobel Prize winner and long-time dissident, only added to expectations of dramatic change.

So far, though, things don’t appear to be turning out that way. Upon taking power, the NLD promptly proposed legislation that would reinstall some of the junta’s draconian restrictions on peaceful protest. And while many political prisoners have been released, the new government continues to pursue charges against some of the country’s most dedicated activists — such as Harn Win Aung, who has led resistance to a notorious copper mine built on land grabbed from displaced farmers. The NLD even censored a film at a human rights festival for portraying the military in a critical light.

The party has given no explanation for its actions. Indeed, on several crucial issues it has explicitly chosen to avoid taking a stand. One of the promises party activists made during the fall election campaign was to establish a legal definition of what constitutes a “political prisoner.” Yet recently, when a lawmaker from one of the ethnic minority parties raised the issue in parliament, the NLD declined to address it. Over the last two months, while the party has ruled, peace activists, workers, and right-wing nationalists alike have been charged with breaking protest laws. The democratically elected government appears singularly reluctant to dismantle the junta’s machinery of repression. Is it really possible that a political party comprised of and endorsed by hundreds, even thousands, of former political prisoners will become Burma’s new oppressor?

Aung San Suu Kyi’s defenders will likely object to such a characterization. They will point out that the NLD’s supermajority is not robust enough to mitigate the military’s constitutionally reserved bloc of 25 percent of the parliamentary seats. This pro-military contingent prevents the elected government from changing a constitution under which the armed forces retain control of key ministries responsible for defense and internal affairs (including the police). Some have argued that — at least for now — Burma is still the same militarized state it has been for a half-century. It’s not that the NLD wants to keep the military’s restrictions, say the new government’s supporters, it’s just that it hasn’t quite been able to force the changes through yet.

Perhaps. And yet Suu Kyi’s party has made no convincing case that it desires a more progressive approach. Suu Kyi’s party has made no convincing case that it desires a more progressive approach. It has blithely dismissed the concerns of human rights watchdogs Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, who say that the protest law lags behind international standards. Moreover, the NLD has already shown that it can find ways to bypass seemingly intractable limitations when it wants to. When the military barred Aung San Suu Kyi from the presidency, her party simply created a new position for her above the presidency. Her party must deal with the reality of the military’s continued political power, but it appears to have the ability to advance a legislative agenda that could begin to alter Burma’s entrenched authoritarianism. Yet it is choosing not to.

The NLD’s inaction appears in a less benign light when one considers how the party is systematically ignoring the non-governmental sector. When I recently interviewed more than two dozen activists — from large national civil society organizations to grassroots campaigners — all lamented Aung San Suu Kyi’s unwillingness to include them in developing plans to address the country’s problems. Many of those I spoke with reported that she conveyed disdain for their work, raised doubts about their ethics, and questioned their relevance in the new “democratic” Burma. This seems a particularly disturbing irony in light of the important role the country’s civil society played in challenging the military regime.

Having noted the NLD’s hostility, some activists have begun to limit their activity. Many described a mid-May meeting of national organizations in which participants decided to delay a planned forum, concerned that it would raise the NLD’s ire. Members of ethnic organizations have described their tokenistic inclusion in the country’s peace process as “elitist, top-down… unlike the previously ‘joint’ inclusive design” of the military-linked government (as an ethnic activist commented by email). Grassroots activists, too, have found the new environment repressive: “To speak honestly, [the NLD] hates activists… If we distribute pamphlets about land grabs, labor abuses, and so on, we will become the target of the NLD,” Ko Saleiq, a Rangoon-based activist, told me. When I inquired whether this could mean prison time, he scoffed. “We are former political prisoners, we’re not afraid of prison.” He stressed that activists like him want to support the country’s first democratic regime in decades, not become its adversaries. Yet the NLD has rebuffed them at every turn. 

In truth, Burma’s version of democracy seems to mean a reduction in the country’s degree of authoritarianism, not a qualitative change to its political system. In many aspects, the NLD seems to be more interested in making cosmetic changes than in addressing the country’s fundamental problems. For instance, Aung San Suu Kyi’s first action as head of the new government was not to address land grabs or labor abuses but to lead a massive anti-litter campaign — a symbolic gesture that is meant to evoke order through cleanliness. Another noteworthy campaign is the recently-proposed ban of the betel nut, a mildly addictive carcinogenic substance the chewing of which produces the distinctive red spit stains that decorate the country’s corners and corridors. While the unilateral ban threatens the livelihoods of thousands of poor people, the NLD appears care more about the aesthetics of betel than such social dislocations. 

The party has also announced an ambitious and potentially disastrous plan to relocate urban squatters. A union organizer working in an industrial zone lamented this approach, pointing out that aesthetic concerns have trumped pro-poor policy. “Rather than address high costs of living, they simply think it is shameful for a good city to have squatters,” he said. “There is no land anyway because it was all sold off to the cronies. We don’t know if [the NLD] dares to have a face-off with the cronies or the military.” Rather than tackling these structural political and economic issues, the NLD prefers to try to sweep them under the rug. 

The party does have its democratic trappings — after all, it was elected overwhelmingly in a fair election. But its version of democracy has more than an edge of the old, authoritarian Burma. Its disdain for non-governmental activists, its obsession with the appearance rather than the substance of good governance, and its continued harassment of dissidents all suggest that the party views the people’s role in democracy as being limited to voting for those who will then make the decisions.

Once they have voted, Burma’s citizens are denied any further active role. 

A critical question is how this version of democracy will be received by the country’s long-marginalized masses. Under a formal authoritarian system, crushing dissent helps quiet the population through fear. In a new, more ‘democratic’ context, the same repressive tactics may spur furious opposition. The more the NLD represses citizens, while ignoring real problems, the more it may inspire real resistance – especially if the resentment for the party felt by some activists today solidifies into open antagonism. “It is we, the activists, who changed the country, not the NLD. We feel betrayed,” a Mandalay land and labor activist told me. 

For now, the NLD’s mandate and popular support remain strong. Farmers and workers across the country around told me that they trust this “people’s government” to resolve their problems. But those problems are not being resolved. Instead they are being displaced by the NLD’s politics of tidiness and citizen silence. As a result, the calm is unlikely to last forever. “We trust that the new government will not ignore our losses and our suffering. But if they do, we will fight back to the end,” farmers in Mattaya told me. 

For generations, Burmese expected to be regarded with contempt by their military rulers. Facing much the same treatment at the hands of the long-adored NLD is jarring. The party needs to start listening — or it runs the risk of alienating the very people who helped bring it to power. 

In the photo, a labor demonstrator is arrested by police in Tetkone township on May 18, during a protest march to central Naypyidaw. 

Photo credit: AUNG HTET/AFP/Getty Images 

YANGON -- An anti-Muslim Buddhist nationalist group in Myanmar is rapidly extending its influence, growing into a political force that could pose a serious challenge to the leadership of Aung San Suu Kyi.

The group, known as Ma Ba Tha, holds rallies that attract huge crowds, a sign that its message strongly appeals to many people in the country.

Ma Ba Tha is winning popular support by playing on people's fears about a sharp increase in the Muslim population. The group's growing clout may soon force Suu Kyi, who leads the government as state counselor, to start tackling touchy religious issues she has been carefully eschewing so far.

Show of strength

At 6:00 a.m. on June 4, a dense throng of monks in orange and maroon robes were gathering at a monastery in Yangon's Insein township. In the precincts of the monastery, dotted with golden pagodas, rows of luxury foreign automobiles with special yellow license plates for religious leaders were parked. These vehicles are a conspicuous indicator of the wealth of senior Buddhist monks in the country.

Inside a main hall, sparkling chandeliers lit up an image of Buddha decorated with jewels.

More than 1,000 monks had come to the monastery to attend a ceremony to celebrate the third anniversary of Ma Ba Tha, or the Committee for the Protection of Nationality and Religion.

"Our aim is to defend national unity and culture," said the chair of the organization, Tiloka Biwuntha, whose name is Tilawka Bhivamsa. He is also known as Insein Ywama Sayadaw.

"Women in Myanmar suffer persecution by members of another religion day after day," the head priest said in an ominous tone. "Muslim 'sham citizens' are trying to become true citizens by deceiving the country."

As the leader ratcheted up his anti-Muslim rhetoric, the sound of voices in prayer coming from the audience also got louder, echoing strongly within the hall.

Ma Ba Tha, launched in June 2013, now has 250 branches across Myanmar and 5 million supporters, according to a public relations official. The group's rally was held in Yangon's Thuwana National Stadium and drew a full-capacity crowd. The core tenet of the group is the rejection of Muslim immigrants, whose population is surging.

A divide grows

Buddhism arrived in Myanmar by the 11th century and has thrived in the Southeast Asian nation. Devotees of Theravada Buddhism account for about 90% of the population. Myanmar's constitution gives Buddhism the status of "special religion" representing the country, and it is at the heart of nationalism among the people of Myanmar.

Muslims, who originally migrated from India and other neighboring countries to Myanmar's western state of Rakhine and Yangon, the largest city, form a minority group.

Starting in the 1990s, the military government suppressed Islam and other minority religions to win the support of Buddhist organizations. This has further enhanced Buddhism's status as an effective national religion.

But the process of democratization, which started in 2011 and led to the opening of the country's border, has triggered a massive influx of Muslims, including illegal immigrants, from Bangladesh and other countries. Observers predict that the results of a national census to be announced in August will show Muslims now constitute 10% of the country's population.

In the state of Rakhine, the principal flash point of religious conflict in the country, Muslims represent an estimated 30-40% of its population of 2 million. Many of them describe themselves as Rohingya Muslims, who are believed to have migrated to Myanmar during the period of the British rule of Burma.

As they have started demanding citizenship, tension has grown between the Muslims and the majority Buddhists.

Rising tensions

The 2012 murder of a Buddhist woman triggered a wave of violence between Buddhists and Muslims in Rakhine resulting in over 200 deaths.

The administration of then-President Thein Sein responded to the riots by segregating Rohingya Muslims in suburban refugee camps under the pretext of maintaining law and order. Several thousands of Rohingya fled the wretched living conditions at the camps and sailed on small boats to Malaysia and Indonesia as refugees. This has provoked international criticism against Myanmar.

The riots further fueled anti-Muslim sentiment among Myanmar's Buddhist majority, which has been behind the rapid expansion of Ma Ba Tha's influence.

On June 5, the group adopted a statement demanding that the government build a wall along Myanmar's border with Bangladesh and impose strict immigration control to prevent the illegal entry of Muslims into the country.

Ma Ba Tha is not a small-scale movement supported only by conservative monks. During the June 4 event, a throng of ordinary citizens gathered in front of a huge screen installed outdoors for public viewing.

One of the citizens watching the event, a 38-year-old female teacher, said she was telling her children not to associate with and never get married to a Muslim. There is no room for Rohingya in the country, she said, adding that Ma Ba Tha is the only organization that can prevent the influence of Islam from spreading in Myanmar.

A 45-year-old carpenter echoed her sentiment, saying, "I hate Muslims, who justify killings in the name of god. I want schools to enhance Buddhist education."

Many of the citizens who attended the event were intellectuals, including lawyers and doctors, which suggests broad public support for the group.

Enter the political realm

Ma Ba Tha started as a cultural movement for protecting Buddhist communities, but the movement has quickly taken on a strong political hue.

The group's political campaigns have been led by Ashin Wirathu, a radical monk from Mandalay known for his incendiary anti-Muslim speeches. Since the era of military rule, Ashin Wirathu has been championing anti-Islam measures, such as boycotting stores run by Muslims. He once was imprisoned for extremist activities.

But the monk is gaining political clout with the government.

In September 2015, a new law to protect Buddhists came into force. The law restricts marriages between Buddhists and people of other faiths and has a provision for criminal punishment against violations. Ashin Wirathu's group developed the draft bill and lobbied the Then Sein government to enact the law.

In the general election in the autumn of 2015, Ashin Wirathu campaigned for Thein Sein, who enacted the law, and criticized Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy for being lackluster in protecting Buddhism.

The NLD, which came to power by winning a landslide victory in the election, views Ma Ba Tha and Ashin Wirathu as potential political threats to its government as the group is gaining popularity with its increasingly radical messages.

During the June 4 event, about 500 copies of Wirathu's book on his Buddhist views were sold within hours.

Suu Kyi has been sidestepping the issue of Rohingya since even before the election, although she has now made some moves to win over the group. A senior Suu Kyi aide recently met with Ashin Wirathu and told him the NLD places much importance on Buddhism.

The new government appointed Thura Aung Ko, a former general who has repeatedly made anti-Muslim remarks, as minister for religious affairs and culture, in a bid to placate conservative Buddhists.

By compromising with radical anti-Muslim Buddhists, however, Suu Kyi risks alienating the U.S., which is urging the government to protect the rights of Rohingya. International human rights groups are also becoming increasingly more critical of Suu Kyi's failure to take effective action to intervene in the religious conflict between Buddhists and Muslims in her country.

Nikkei staff writer Thurein Hla Htway contributed to this report.

By Joshua Kurlantzick
Washington Monthly
June 29, 2016

The Rohingya may well be the most persecuted people on the planet, and nobody, including the United States, is lifting a finger to help.

Of all the ethnic, racial, and religious minorities in the world, wrote the Economist last year, the Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic group, may well be the most persecuted people on the planet. Today nearly two million Rohingya live in western Myanmar and in Bangladesh. Inside Myanmar they have no formal status, and they face the constant threat of violence from paramilitary groups egged on by nationalist Buddhist monks while security forces look the other way. Since 2012, when the latest wave of anti-Rohingya violence broke out, attackers have burned entire Rohingya neighborhoods, butchering the populace with knives, sticks, and machetes. They beat Rohingya children to death with rifle butts and, quite possibly, their bare hands. Since then, half the population of Myanmar’s Rohingya has been displaced. Some have tried to escape to other Southeast Asian nations on rickety boats often operated by human traffickers. If the migrants do not die of dehydration or heatstroke, they are frequently picked up by pirates or the Thai navy—which may not be much better than getting nabbed by pirates. Exhaustive reporting by Reuters seems to suggest that Thailand’s navy is closely involved in shuttling Rohingya refugees into slave labor in Thailand’s seafood, fishing, and other industries. Rohingya women who do not have enough to pay traffickers are forced into marriages or prostitution. 

Even if the Rohingya make it out of Myanmar, past the pirates, modern-day slavers, and Thai navy ships, there are few places for them to go. In nearby nations like Malaysia or Indonesia there is some sympathy for their co-religionists, but they are not willing to give the Rohingya permanent refuge. The Rohingya living in Malaysia operate in the shadows, working in the informal economy, unable to send their children to public schools, with no prospects of resettlement anywhere else.

No prominent nation outside of Southeast Asia is willing to do much for the minority group either. The Rohingya have no close ethnic or linguistic ties with a regional or global power: the Uighurs, a persecuted Muslim minority in western China, for instance, have ethnic and linguistic ties to Turkey. Bangladesh, from which some Rohingya originally migrated, is itself desperately poor and not interested in having the Rohingya settle there. Indeed, Bangladeshi security forces have often forcibly repatriated Rohingya, or kept them in squalid camps along the Bangladesh-Myanmar border. No Western nations have opened their doors for the Rohingya the way they have, for instance, for the Tibetans who make it out of China.

For those Rohingya living in Myanmar the future is horrifically grim. They are packed into camps that are little more than internment centers, with residents given minimal food and shelter. Aid organizations face significant hurdles operating in Rakhine State, where most Rohingya live. Myanmar has expelled aid groups from parts of the state, and journalists have been repeatedly turned back from traveling there. (Reporting on an alleged massacre in western Myanmar in 2014, two New York Times reporters were detained.)

Abuses against the Rohingya have received some attention from the international media, but Myanmar’s western region is remote, making it harder for the best-financed media organizations to report on many abuses against the ethnic group. In part because Myanmar media is dominated by Buddhist, ethnic Burmese editors and writers, the Rohingya issue is routinely ignored or minimized as a minor problem.

Many Rohingya have lived in Myanmar for generations, having migrated there during the British Raj. In his new book, The Rohingyas: Inside Myanmar’s Hidden Genocide—one of the few accessible primers on this battered group—the Oxford and U.S. Army’s Strategic Studies Institute fellow Azeem Ibrahim tells of how the Rohingya have never had an easy time in Myanmar. Beginning in 1962, when a junta seized power, up until the transition to civilian rule in the early 2010s, the Burmese government effectively stripped most Rohingya of their rights. In 1982, the military government removed the Rohingya from the list of 135 officially recognized ethnic groups in Myanmar. The Buddhist Rakhine people generally held a deep distrust of the Rohingya as interlopers, a distrust heightened during World War II, when many Rohingya fought with the British and many Rakhine fought alongside Japan.

Rakhine nationalists had always chafed at the junta’s rule (the Rakhines once had their own, powerful kingdom separate from the ethnic Burmans), but in 1978, according to Human Rights Watch, many Rakhines made common cause with the Myanmar army. They forced roughly 200,000 Rohingya to flee, mostly into camps in Bangladesh. Again, in 1991, units of the Myanmar army attacked the Rohingya, driving some 250,000 out of their homes, with many fleeing into Bangladesh once more. 

Then, in the early 2010s, the junta gave way to civilian rule, for myriad reasons (see “How Big a Success Is the Democratic Revolution in Burma?,” March/April/May 2016). From the beginning of the transition, it was clear that if the army loosened its grip, violent, nationalist groups would step into the political vacuum. Myanmar’s primary democratic party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), would do little to stop these forces. From interviewing many NLD members, I found that the party and its leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, were primarily concerned with building up their own power, reducing the role of the military, and winning over Buddhist voters in the first free national elections in twenty-five years. 

In the weeks before last November’s election, Suu Kyi herself told reporters not to “overexaggerate” the threat facing the Rohingya, and other prominent longtime democrats openly inveighed against the Rohingya, using racist taunts. When the highly anticipated national elections were finally held, there were no Rohingya—indeed, no Muslim candidates from any ethnic group—on the NLD slate. 

Ibrahim offers one of the fullest descriptions available of the current Rohingya crisis, retelling the narrative of the emerging genocide with force (if not always the clearest prose). He may not be arguing that the Rohingya are the most persecuted people on earth, but his research substantiates recent claims (including a detailed report by Yale Law School’s clinic on international human rights) that the Rohingya are targets of genocide. 

A genocide, according to the internationally accepted definition, is a campaign of violence conducted against one defined group, with the intention of eradicating them in whole or in part. Ibrahim shows that, starting in 2011 and 2012, the Rohingya in western Myanmar were not simply attacked by gangs or roving bands of thugs infuriated by reports (many untrue) of Rohingya raping Buddhist women or of fistfights between Rohingya and Buddhist Rakhine shopkeepers. Instead, the Rohingya faced what appears to be an organized campaign to target their homes, property, and lives. There may have been an additional incentive; as Myanmar began to open up to foreign investment in the 1990s, it became clear that Rakhine State was quite rich in minerals. 

The exact genesis of the violence in western Myanmar in 2012 remains unclear. It may have started with Rohingya men raping and murdering a Rakhine girl, and then Rakhine Buddhist vigilantes murdering Rohingya bus travelers. Local police and army units stood around while the vigilantes pulled people off the bus and killed them, according to accounts of the attack by survivors. 

After the rape and then the unrest in four townships in western Myanmar, Rakhine politicians and monks spent months vilifying the Rohingya and calling for violence against the minority group. In October 2012, four months after the bus incident, violence erupted throughout Rakhine State, with a clear pattern of attacks. Groups of Buddhists were armed with swords, machetes, guns, Molotov cocktails, and even earth-moving equipment to raze Rohingyas’ homes and businesses; they had stockpiled weapons for months. The attacks appeared strikingly similar across Rakhine State, clearly designed to change the ethnic composition of the region. 

Some of the attackers had clear links to paramilitary organizations that had been affiliated with the former junta. The anti-Muslim violence spread to other parts of the country: Muslims of all ethnic groups were bombed, beaten, and shot in Yangon and Mandalay, the two biggest cities. 

Ibrahim’s reporting also corroborates the work of numerous human rights groups who have worked in western Myanmar. The transitional civilian government, led by the former general Thein Sein, did little to stop the burning, looting, and killing. The government did not bother to acknowledge the possibility that the attacks on Rohingya, preceded by open calls for ethnic cleansing, were part of a coordinated wave of violence. President Thein Sein’s office merely said that the violence was “riots [that had broken out] unexpectedly,” and then later declared that the only way to resolve unrest in Rakhine State was to deport all the “illegal” Rohingya living there—basically, most of the Rohingya population. 

The most damning reports on the pogroms came from a Human Rights Watch report: 

In the deadliest incident, on October 23, 2012, at least 70 Rohingya were killed in a massacre in Yan Thai village in Mrauk-U Township. Despite advance warning of the attack, only a small number of riot police, local police, and army soldiers were on duty to provide security. Instead of preventing the attack . . . or escorting the villagers to safety, they assisted the killings by disarming the Rohingya of their sticks and other rudimentary weapons they carried to defend themselves. 

As Rohingya fled their homes, the military and police maintained cordons around the camps in western Myanmar that were created, and quickly turned the camps into “open-air prisons,” in the words of Human Rights Watch. The security forces also created an armed ring around a de facto ghetto into which Rohingya were pushed. Once Rohingya men and women had fled into these ghettos, their land was often seized. The government sometimes refused to allow UN representatives to visit trapped Rohingya, and security forces routinely confiscate food and other aid provided by international groups for Rohingya in camps. 

In some ways, Myanmar’s increasing economic and political openness actually has made the situation worse for the Rohingya. Not only the United States but also most leading democracies, including regional powers like Japan and Australia, have opted for close relations with a freer Myanmar. As I discussed in an essay in the Washington Monthly earlier this year, the Obama administration has cited rapprochement with Myanmar as one of its greatest foreign policy successes, and now touts U.S.-Myanmar relations as a model for rapprochement with Cuba. 

The rich democracies, now invested diplomatically and economically in a Myanmar success story, are unwilling to spend too much time seriously investigating crimes being committed in Myanmar’s isolated west. They said little when, eight months before last November’s election, Thein Sein and the interim government essentially stripped the franchise from any Rohingya who still had voting rights. (The UN’s special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar has repeatedly raised the issue of Rohingya disenfranchisement, but gotten nowhere.) 

To be fair, some rights advocates in Congress have tried to raise the profile of abuses against Rohingya, holding hearings on the plight of the ethnic minority. When Obama himself visited Myanmar in 2014, he called on the country to face “the danger of continued [inter-communal] violence” but did not slow down rapprochement. The Obama administration has not come so far in boosting diplomatic and economic engagement with Myanmar’s government to do more than rhetorically tut-tut at it, even as many of Myanmar’s leaders continue to insist that all Rohingya are in the country illegally. 

Many leading democracies, including Japan, have larger stakes in Myanmar than the United States and are even less likely to take up the Rohingyas’ cause. Japan’s government, for instance, sees Myanmar as a strategic bulwark against China’s rising power in Asia. The region’s main multinational organization, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, operates by consensus, and has a weak, small secretariat in Jakarta that is ill-prepared to handle crises. Bangladesh continues to struggle with its own population challenges and chaotic politics. 

Other foreign countries that, at a different time in history, might have helped the Rohingya will also do nothing. Wealthy Persian Gulf states, whose leaders see themselves as custodians of the rights of Muslims worldwide, are preoccupied with the conflicts in Syria, Yemen, and Iraq. India, which at times in its history has positioned itself as a champion of rights in Asia, is enjoying warm relations with Bangladesh, and is unlikely to take any steps that would alienate the Bangladeshi government. 

The NLD’s sweeping victory in the November 2015 elections, hailed around the world—and by many in Myanmar—as a major gain for democracy, will not help the Rohingya either. Not only before the elections but also after the vote, Suu Kyi and other NLD leaders have shown as little interest in the situation of the Rohingya as Thein Sein’s government did. (Suu Kyi has expressed a deep desire to promote peace with Myanmar’s ethnic minorities, but she has focused on relations with the ethnic groups that have their own armed insurgencies.) What’s worse, in last year’s November elections, the provincial party known for its anti-Muslim rhetoric won control of Rakhine State’s legislature. 

The NLD’s victory further reduces the possibility that foreign governments will pressure Myanmar’s leaders, and the new president selected by the NLD, the Suu Kyi loyalist Htin Kyaw, has demonstrated total fealty to the democracy icon but evinced little interest in the conflict in Myanmar’s west. 

Most chillingly, the new government of Myanmar has asked that the United States “not call the Rohingya people by that name because it does not recognize them as citizens,” said Suu Kyi’s spokesman, U Kyaw Zay Ya, reported the New York Times. He hastened to add that “Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi had not ordered the Americans to stop using the word or threatened consequences if they did.” 

Even if foreign countries, and Myanmar’s own leaders, suddenly decided to protect the Rohingya, it might be too late. The ethnic composition of western Myanmar has already been radically changed, many Rohingya families have been destroyed, and many Rohingya are too scared and economically devastated to ever return to their home villages. Next spring, when the dry season comes in Southeast Asia again, large numbers of Rohingya probably will head to ports in western Myanmar and try their luck again with makeshift boats, pirates, and the prospect of being enslaved in Thailand. As Time magazine reported in an extensive study of western Myanmar last fall, the Rohingya face the “point where complete extermination is a possibility. . . . [T]he final stages of genocide.” 

Joshua Kurlantzick is a senior fellow for Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Media Release From Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK

For Immediate Release Tuesday 28th June 2016

BROUK urges UN Human Rights Council to investigate crimes against humanity against Rohingya

As the United Nations Human Rights Council prepares to discuss the findings contained in a report by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on : ‘Rohingya Muslims and other minorities in Myanmar’, released on 20th June 2016, Tun Khin, President of the Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK spoke at a side panel co-hosted by The International Peace Bureau, the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Develpoment (FORUM-ASIA) among others.

Tun Khin provided a briefing on the latest human rights and political situation of the Rohingyas in Burma during the first three months of NLD-led Government. Chris Lewa Director of Arakan Project, presented an overview of the humanitarian conditions in the IDP camps, where Rohingyas have been confined and segregated for the past four years. She said, “Access to health care is a huge problem. Due to restriction of movements, emergency patients have to be referred with police escort to a special ward in Sittwe Hospital where medical care is very poor; overcrowded shelters are on the verge of collapsing; and 120,000 displaced Rohingyas are dependent on humanitarian aid denied access to means of livelihood”. The event was attended by representatives of dozens of missions to the UN, including from the USA, EU and OIC.

“The United Nations concluded that human rights violations against the Rohingya could be crimes against humanity, and must now set up an investigation into these crimes” said Tun Khin President of Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK. “If the UN fails to investigate violations against the Rohingya it would be equivalent to a police force saying a murder has been committed, but we are not going to investigate it.”

Tun Khin stated that the new national verification card (NVC) which the new NLD led government has tried to impose on Rohingya without consultation will not be accepted. “It’s not just the Rohingya, no ethnic group in Burma would accept being given these cards” he said.. “The cards are not a step in the right direction. They are an attempt by the government to be seen to be doing something while avoiding addressing difficult issues.

BROUK also stated that when members of the international community stop using the word Rohingya, it is not a neutral step to facilitate a calmer situation. Instead it gives encouragement to racists and nationalists and makes the situation worse. “We are Rohingya and we want the international community to call us Rohingya. We strongly object to the new term Muslims in Rakhine State which the NLD led government is trying to impose on us, denying our identity, which is a key part of the denial of our rights.

Tun Khin stated that delaying difficult and controversial decisions only prolongs the problem and the suffering. As the continued campaigns against the Rohingya, and renewed anti-Muslim violence have demonstrated, the NLD led government does not have time or space to delay action. Action and strong leadership is needed now to stop hatred, violence and discrimination escalating.

Tun Khin expressed disappointment that despite the United Nations issuing a report stating that human rights violations suffered by our people could amount to crimes against humanity, no country has publicly called for action to end these crimes. 

We urge UN Human Rights Council to take note of the recommendations in the High Commissioner’s Report and call on the NLD led government to implement the following key steps immediately;

First: Action on hate speech. Those inciting hatred and violence against Rohingya, Muslims and other ethnic and religious minorities have continued to do so with impunity under the NLD led government.

Second: The immediate lifting off all restrictions on freedom of movement and on humanitarian access to Rohingya, Rakhine and other communities in Rakhine State. These restrictions, which have been continued by the NLD led government, are costing lives. There can be no excuse for keeping them in place.

Third: Bringing the 1982 citizenship law into line with international law and Burma’s UN treaty obligations. This law lies at the root of many of the human rights violations and discrimination suffered by the Rohingya. It is inherently unfair and discriminatory.

Chris Lewa also urged the Human Rights Council to follow up on the recommendations listed in the High Commissioner’s report and to include them in the March 2017 Human Rights Council resolution on Burma.

For more information please contact Tun Khin +44 7888714866.

The UN report is available here http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=20137&LangID=E

By Moe Myint
The Irrawaddy
June 27, 2016

RANGOON — Around 300 Arakanese nationalists, monks and civil society organizations in Sittwe, Arakan State, convened a meeting on Sunday in a monastery leading to a decision to launch a “poster campaign for every Arakanese House” throughout the state.

The campaign intends to air their dissatisfaction with the government’s use of the term “the Muslim community in Arakan State” to refer to the Rohingya minority.

Arakan National Party (ANP) Secretary Htun Aung Kyaw confirmed the meeting agenda, which, he said, focused on four things: sending a letter to the union government calling on it to refer to the Rohingya as “Bengali,” a widely-used term implies that they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh; using “the Arakan Race” to refer to themselves instead of “Buddhists from Arakan State;” creating a poster campaign throughout the entire state, as well as organizing a massive protest.

Than Htun, a nationalist who is actively involved in anti-Rohingya campaigns, said the group gathered because they were upset with the government’s new terminology, which was used by Burma’s representative at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland.

Than Htun urged the current government to use the previous government’s term “Bengali,” and said they were preparing to write a letter to State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi and other lawmakers that will be sent within one week.

Of the poster campaign discussed at the meeting, he said, “I couldn’t say exactly when that will start. Maybe this week.”

According to another participant, the main outcome of the meeting was to write, “We don’t accept ‘Muslims from Arakan State’” on posters and put them up in front of every Buddhist house in Sittwe, the Arakan State capital. He told The Irrawaddy that a recently formed committee held a meeting on Monday and has decided to hold protests in several townships in Arakan State.

The Rohingya are a Muslim minority in Arakan State, many of whom have been forced out of their homes due to violence and have been living in camps for internally displaced persons since 2012.

By OIC

June 27, 2016

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has distributed more than 550 bags of rice (50kg each) through the NGO HUMANiTi Malaysia during the month of Ramadan. 

“More than 1100 families living in Sittwe, Rakhine State, Myanmar, received aid,” said Dr. Syed Hamid Albar, President of HUMANiTi Malaysia and OIC Special Envoy for Myanmar. 

Syed Hamid said the OIC is determined to help IDPs and refugees living in the camps to get basic access to livelihood as well as to try to set up office in Myanmar to provide humanitarian assistance which will be of benefit to all refugees, regardless of ethnic background. 

“Efforts are being intensified to ensure refugees welfare are being taken care of especially during The Holy Month of Ramadan,” said a representative from HUMANiTi Malaysia. Four volunteers from HUMANiTi were involved in distributing the aid in various locations in Sittwe. 

This aid effort is a part of the initiative launched by the OIC Secretary General Mr Iyad Ameen Madani to ensure basic needs and services, including medical attention and education areprovided to Rohingya IDP’s. Earlier this month the Secretary General organized through HUMANiTi, a Ramdan iftar and aid distribution event for refugees in Malaysia.

Press release

NLD government must restore the human rights for Rohingya population 

(London, 27th June 2016) - Burma Human Rights Network (BHRN) welcomes the new report published on 20th June 2016 by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) of the United Nations pointing out the gross human rights violations committed against the Rohingya, Kachin and Shan peoples of Myanmar. BHRN fully agrees with the conclusion that these violations could be regarded as crimes against humanity in a court of law.

We are concerned that the new government led by the State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi is not giving any sign of working to remedy that situation, particularly regarding the situation in Rakhine State and the plight of the Rohingya minority.

On 17th June 2016, the Burmese envoy to the United Nations in Geneva suggested that the international community should use “Muslim from Rakhine State” instead of the term “Rohingya”. The new NLD government has been engaging in a diplomatic campaign to persuade foreign governments and the international community to avoid using the word “Rohingya” on the basis that the word is inflammatory.

While it is highly debatable that the roots of the conflict in Rakhine State lie in a mere semantic controversy, there is little doubt that the attempts to erase the word “Rohingya” constitute in themselves a denial of the right of self-identification. BHRN believes that the attempts to banish the term “Rohingya” from public discourse amount to a denial of collective identity and, as such, constitute a breach of fundamental human rights norms. 

We believe that the term “Muslim from Rakhine state” is inadequate because Islam is a religion, not an ethnic group, and because it ignores the identity of the people of Kaman ethnicity who have been living in the state for centuries. Kaman communities have shared much of the plight of Rohingya people since 2012, and we believe that an all-encompassing term like “Muslims from Rakhine State” is as potentially harmful to their identity as it is for the Rohingya.

Moreover, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi claimed during the visit of the US Secretary of State, Mr John Kerry, that she wished to avoid “emotive” terms unacceptable to opposing parties: while Rakhine Buddhists object to the term “Rohingya”, Rohingya people themselves can’t accept the term preferred by the former, “Bengali”, implying that they are foreigners from Bangladesh.

We believe that the argument put forth by Aung San Suu Kyi establishes a false equivalence between both positions, and that the right of the Rohingya people to self-identification overrides any possible “offence” which it may cause to others who, in any case, are not labelled under such term. But the reasoning also smacks to disingenuousness considering that the NLD government is not putting any effort in preventing extremists and hardliners from using the term Bengali.

We also call the NLD government to lift all restrictions on domestic and international aid in Rakhine state. The NLD government should prioritise the improvement of the dire living conditions of the people interned in IDP camps since 2012. The lack of adequate healthcare, appropriate food supplies and potable water in those camps is nothing less than a protracted humanitarian crisis.

The citizenship verification process launched recently by the NLD government is also a matter of concern. It is deeply problematic because it is based on the 1982 citizenship law. According to the UN, the 1982 Citizenship Law produced nearly 1.1 million stateless people in Burma, which is the largest stateless population living in a single country in the world. The law arbitrarily predicates citizenship on indigeneity, labelling as “national ethnic groups” those who had settled in Burma before 1824. Combined with a twisted reading of history, which denies the presence of Rohingya people in Rakhine before that date.

The draconian Citizenship Law should not have any place in a truly democratic country. We urge the democratically elected NLD government to draft a new citizenship law based on international standards and human rights norms. If the NLD government wishes to live up to the values it claims to hold, we urge it to take meaningful measures to restore the human rights that the military regime took violently from the Rohingya people, and to promote peaceful coexistence between the different communities that make up the rich ethnic tapestry in Rakhine state and Burma at large.

Burma Human Rights Network (BHRN) 

Further information please contact:

Kyaw Win, Executive Director, +44 (0) 740 345 2378

kyawwin78@gmail.com

www.bhrn.org.uk

Date: 27th June 2016

Joint Press Release 

EU Must Call Rohingya People “Rohingya”

As organisations representing Rohingya people in 9countries, we express our deep concern and disappointment at the decision by the European Union not to use our name when referring to us. 

The denial of our ethnic identity is an integral part of the discrimination that we face. By failing to use our name, the European Union is not taking a neutral position. It is siding with racists and nationalists rather than with the oppressed and vulnerable.

In the past five years, racists, nationalists and the government administration under former President Thein Sein have deliberately and tactically significantly escalated controversy over the use of the name Rohingya as part of their campaign against us. By refusing to use our own name when talking about us, the EU is handing a victory to racists and nationalists. This will only encourage them to step up their campaigns against us. 

The European Union is also going against our rights as defined under international law. As the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar has repeatedly stated:

“The right of minorities to self-identify on the basis of their national, ethnic, religious and linguistic characteristics is related to the obligation of States to ensure non-discrimination against individuals and groups — a central principle of international human rights law.”The EU is now violating that central principle.

Addressing all the problems in Rakhine State and is complex and will take time, but practical action can be taken now to start this process, and the EU should be encouraging the NLD led government to implement them:

First: Action on hate speech. Those inciting hatred and violence against Rohingya, Muslims and other ethnic and religious minorities have continued to do so with impunity under the NLD led government. 

Second: The immediate lifting off all restrictions on humanitarian aid to Rohingya, Rakhine and other communities in Rakhine State. These restrictions, which have been continued by the NLD led government, are costing lives. There can be no excuse for keeping them in place.

Third: Bringing the 1982 citizenship law into line with international law and Burma’s UN treaty obligations. This law lies at the root of many of the human rights violations and discrimination suffered by the Rohingya. It is inherently unfair and discriminatory. 

Delaying difficult and controversial decisions only prolongs the problem and the suffering. As the continued campaigns against the Rohingya, and renewed anti-Muslim violence have demonstrated, the NLD led government does not have time or space to delay action. Action and strong leadership is needed now to stop hatred, violence and discrimination escalating. 

It is extremely concerning that the EU should announce that it will effectively side with those denying our ethnic identity on the same week that the United Nations issued a report stating that human rights violations suffered by our people could amount to crimes against humanity. The EU has not issued any statement of concern about this conclusion or taken any practical action in response.

The European Union should support an independent United Nations international investigation to assess the totality of the human rights situation in Rakhine State.

Signatories; 

1. Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK 
2. Bradford Rohingya Community in UK 
3. Burmese Rohingya Community in Denmark 
4. Rohingya Community in Germany 
5. Rohingya Community in Switzerland 
6. Rohingya Organisation Norway 
7. Rohingya Community in Finland 
8. Rohingya Community in Italy 
9. Rohingya Community in Sweden 
10. Rohingya Society Netherlands 

For more information please contact;

Tun Khin +44 7888714866

Nay San Lwin +49 69 26022349

By Wa Lone

The Myanmar Times
June 25, 2016

Amid the government’s efforts to arrange peace talks, and anongoing controversy over terminology for religious minorities in Rakhine State, Commander-in-Chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing said the Tatmadaw would help shoulder the burden of protecting Myanmar’s predominantly Buddhist character.

In a speech to recruits at the military’s Officer Training School in Bahtoo, Shan State, on June 21, Snr Gen Min Aung Hlaing noted Myanmar’s majority Buddhist demographics, pledging to safeguard that religious heritage for future generations.

The comments, reported in the military-owned Myawady newspaper, come as the government grapples with the sensitive topic of how to refer to the Muslim community that self-identifies as Rohingya, as well as prepares to undertake peace negotiations with a handful of ethnic armed groups that identify as Christian.

The senior general insisted that the military’s pro-Buddhist stance did not constitute religious extremism.

Political analysts and rights groups, however, have questioned the timing of the remarks.

U Than Soe Naing, a political analyst, speculated that the Tatmadaw leader chose his words as a calculated attempt to distinguish the powerful institution that he heads from the new civilian government led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

“I believe that the Tatmadaw putting forward this opinion will tend to lead to a bad outcome,” he told The Myanmar Times, pointing to the peace process that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is attempting to jumpstart. Herself a Buddhist, the state counsellor has emphasised inclusivity as one of her government’s peace priorities.

Some of the ethnic armed groups involved in the negotiations are majority-Christian, while the Tatmadaw leadership and rank-and-file largely reflect the country’s overall Buddhist majority, which estimates put at 85 to 90 percent.

Ethnic minorities have long accused the military of harbouring bias against them, in part the product of decades of Tatmadaw offensives and human rights abuses in areas inhabited largely by Christians.

Pado Saw Kwel Htoo Win, secretary of the Karen National Union, said the notion that Myanmar is a “Buddhist country” – advocated strongly by its first post-independence prime minister, U Nu – was one reason anti-government insurgencies proliferated over the years.

“We already have experiences of suffering long-term civil war because of a lack of equal rights between the majority and minorities,” he said.

He added that future political dialogue should focus not on enshrining Buddhism’s pre-eminence, but instead on guaranteeing equal rights for all within a federal state.

He said a discussion would need to be had about whether the commander-in-chief was speaking of a Tatmadaw policy that would be put down on paper or was merely expressing his personal opinion.

For Muslims, the statement’s implications are different but related. There are no ethnic armed groups in Myanmar that identify as Islamic, but communal violence between Muslims and Buddhists has flared in recent years, most notably in Rakhine State in 2012.

There, where more than 100,000 people self-identifying as Rohingya were displaced by the unrest, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has formed a committee tasked with improving the situation for all the state’s residents. Terminology has arisen as a flashpoint in recent weeks, however, with Buddhist nationalists insisting that Muslims in Rakhine State be called “Bengali,” while the international community advocates the right to self-identify.

The new government has sought to chart a middle course on the matter, opting to describe the group as “the Muslim community from Rakhine State”. Much of the tension in Rakhine State stems from fears among its Rakhine Buddhists that their identity is under threat from Islam.

U Thopaka, a member of the Committee for the Protection of Race and Religion, better known as Ma Ba Tha, told The Myanmar Times that Snr Gen Min Aung Hlaing had his full support, adding that such safeguarding should be the duty of “everyone”, including the government.

“You have to know how to maintain and protect your race and religion as a Buddhist,” he said.

U Aung Myo Min, director of Equality Myanmar, said the Tatmadaw has a responsibility to protect every citizen, regardless of race or religion.

“I think the Tamadaw shouldn’t voice such kind of opinion, which increases hate and distrust among the people,” he said.

U Yan Myo Thein, another political analyst, said given the Tatmadaw’s critical role in the peace process, its leader should adopt a more broad-minded approach.

“The military leaders need to accept that the only way they can overcome the deadlock of the country’s peace process is to be all-inclusive,” he said.

Critics might also find irony in Snr Gen Min Aung Hlaing’s additional pledge that the military, in addition to Buddhism, would help protect the nation’s natural resources. Many accuse previous military and quasi-civilian governments of selling off much of Myanmar’s resource endowment for personal enrichment.

By Thomson Reuters Foundation
June 25, 2016

RANGOON — The European Union said on Wednesday that Burma needed “space” to deal with human rights abuses in its restive northwest, adding it would respect the call by country leader Aung San Suu Kyi to avoid the term “Rohingya” to describe persecuted Muslims there.

The statement exposes a rift in the West’s approach to the sensitive issue, standing in contrast with the United States, which said it would continue to use the term, citing respect for the right of communities to choose what they should be called.

Members of the group of 1.1 million, who identify as Rohingya, are seen by many Burmese Buddhists as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. The term is divisive.

Tensions around the Muslim minority are rising. This week, Suu Kyi told the United Nations Human Rights investigator visiting the country that the government would not use the term because it was inflammatory.

Some 120,000 Rohingya remain displaced in squalid camps since fighting erupted in Arakan State between Buddhists and Muslims in 2012. Thousands have fled persecution and poverty. The U.N. said on Monday that the abuses, which include executions and torture, together may amount to crimes against humanity.

“We understand that the term ‘Rohingya’ is emotionally charged in [Burma] and we have heard the call of the government to avoid creating tension by using polarizing terminology,” Roland Kobia, the EU ambassador to Burma, told reporters.

“So we ought to give political space to initiatives to gradually find a solution to this protracted issue,” he said.

Suu Kyi’s administration last week tabled a new term for the Rohingya—“Muslim community in [Arakan] State”—but the description has quickly run into opposition.

The Arakan National Party (ANP), formed by hardline Arakanese Buddhists who enjoy a considerable following in the state, said the government was biased and rejected the new term.

“We consider that using the new term […] is tantamount to meaning that they are natives of [Arakan State] by ignoring the original place of these Bengali people,” the party said in a statement.

The previous military-linked government referred to the group as “Bengalis,” implying they were illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, though many have lived in Burma for generations.

Wai Wai Nu, a Rohingya activist from Women Peace Network Arakan, said the government should protect, listen and consult with ethnic minorities. She wanted to ask it: “Why are you denying us our identity […] and not taking a feasible, constructive and inclusive step to move forward?”

“The government should address the targeted persecution and discrimination against minorities and ensure protection of their rights by respecting their ethnicity, identity and name,” she said.

Yanghee Lee, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Burma, is touring the country on her first visit since Suu Kyi took power.

Wirathu, the leader of radical nationalist Buddhist monks, threatened to beat her with a “wooden flip flop” if she “wasn’t smart enough.” He warned Lee against acting as a “political broker,” being “one-sided on the part of the trouble-makers” and “selling the country to others.”

Last year, he called her a “whore” after Lee criticized laws seen as discriminating against non-Buddhists and women.

Suu Kyi, who starts her visit to Thailand on Thursday, has formed a committee to “bring peace and development” to the state in May, but its plans are not clear.

By Lawi Weng

The Irrawaddy
June 25, 2016

If we see each other as humans and show mutual respect, then it is easy to solve problems. But when one side looks at the other as if they are sub-human, it is almost impossible to come up with a solution. This is what is happening in Arakan State, where the UN has accused Burma of human rights violations.

The Rohingya are Muslims and are also perceived as having darker skin than the local ethnic Arakanese Buddhists, who believe that the Rohingya are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. They call them “Bengali,” despite their own wish to be identified as “Rohingya.” This has left the government and the UN powerless to bring the two communities together.

Their ancestors may have come from Bangladesh a long time ago, but most of the Rohingya were born in the region, and some—although by no means a majority—even have ID cards. They want to return to their homes after staying more than four years in internally displaced persons (IDP) camps, but that is still impossible.

If we see them as human beings, we should give them citizenship, and let them return to their homes with dignity. Then, not only would this problem be addressed, it would improve the image of our country and that of the government.

Zaw Htay, deputy spokesman for the President’s Office, admitted that the previous government violated the human rights of the Rohingya who are living in IDP camps, but because the new government is undergoing reforms, he asked that the UN and the international community be less rigid when addressing this issue.

Suu Kyi revealed her new stance when she said her government would only use the term “Muslim community in Arakan State,” and avoid both “Rohingya” or “Bengali” when referring to the group. This was intended to improve the image of the government, and could be seen as an attempt to address the conflict within the community. But both Arakanese and Rohingya have voiced their anger over this new term, showing how difficult it is to deal with the issue.

Over the last few years, nearly every time conflict broke out on the ground, I went to Arakan State. My last trip was in 2014. While I was in Ohn Daw Gyi IDP camp, a middle-aged man brought me inside a small hut because he wanted me to help his father, who was in such poor health that he could not walk and had to lie on the ground. The old man thought I was a doctor, and he wanted me to give him an examination to see what was wrong. I told him I was a journalist, not a doctor.

This experience showed me how bad the healthcare situation is in the camps.

I could not sleep well whenever I returned home from the camps in the region, and I sometimes felt that I did not want to go back there. They are all human beings. Why do they have to live in such poverty as if they are sub-human? If everyone could see them as humans, we could solve this problem.

Suu Kyi may understand this; she may provide some human rights protection for the Rohingya. But her new stance did not get support from the Arakanese people. And many on the Rohingya side do not like the new term her government has introduced either.

In the meantime, the UN Special Rapporteur for human rights Yanghee Lee visited Sittwe, the capital of Arakan State, on Wednesday. The Rohingya have high expectations whenever she visits because they view her as a person who will stand up for their human rights; in this regard, the Rohingya trust her more than Suu Kyi.

Burma has experienced political reform, and we finally have a civilian-led government. But the military still has influence and power, so the situation is not yet ideal. The Rohingya should have a little more faith in Suu Kyi and see that she, like Yanghee Lee, is someone who could help them.

Lawi Weng is a senior reporter for The Irrawaddy.

Mourn of Myanmar to his Men 

Which tribe ever you belong, 

You, all are in the same heart 

Paying the same blood 

And the same sweat 

Thus, no quite uniqueness 

Between each of you have 

You are the one who makes me worthy. 

You are the one who makes me insolent. 

Oh! My people, 

Do not assail each other. 

Do not make me embarrassed! 

Do not make me degraded! 

Which complexion ever your skin has, 

You, all are in the same garden 

Having the same soil And the same water 

Thus, no quite feebleness 

Between each of you have 

You are the one who makes me glorious. 

You are the one who makes me impudent. 

Oh! My people, 

Do not bully each other. 

Do not make me embarrassed! 

Do not make me degraded! 

Which royalty ever you possess, 

You, all are under the same sky 

Having the same air And the same shadow 

Thus, no quite divergence 

Between each of you have 

You are the one who makes me arrogant. 

You are the one who makes me impertinent. 

Oh! My people, 

Do not boast each other. 

Do not make me embarrassed! 

Do not make me degraded! 

Which stake ever you hold, 

You, all are one for another. 

Breed your love to each other. 

Empty your hatred for another. 

Let’s keep united each other! 

Let’s make peaceful together! 

Let’s turn to development forever! 

You are the one who makes me luminous. 

You are the one who makes me malign. 

Oh! My people, 

Do not relegate each other. 

Do not make me embarrassed! 

Do not make me degraded!