A World Food Programme decision to cut food aid to some IDP camps in Rakhine has been condemned by other UN agencies, NGOs and rights advocates.​

By Emanuel Stoakes

Frontier

September 12, 2016 

THE WORLD Food Programme has cut food aid to internally displaced persons in Rakhine State, the United Nations agency has confirmed to Frontier, while multiple NGO sources say it is considering further reductions in support to some communities.

The cuts have been criticised by members of the state’s Muslim community, while UN agencies and International NGOs have privately expressed concerns about the moves in documents seen by Frontier.

About 120,000 people, most of whom identify as Rohingya, remain in IDP camps since long-simmering communal tensions erupted into violence in 2012. They are dependent on aid for their survival.

The cuts, which were reported by sources in the Muslim community and subsequently confirmed by WFP in an email to Frontier, will affect 22,000 people in what is known as “zone one” – an area that covers Kyauktaw, Minbya and Mrauk-U Townships – who are no longer regarded as IDPs.

The reduction in aid appears to be part of a “phase-out“ plan outlined by the agency in a document circulated among humanitarian aid groups earlier this year.

The proposed plan, seen by Frontier, envisages a move to “scale down WFP relief assistance and to support the transition to recovery in [parts of] Rakhine State … from March to December 2016”.

A makeshift food stall at an IDP camp in Sittwe. (Maro Verli / Frontier)

The document says the downsizing effort involves cuts in assistance to large numbers of recipients in zone one. WFP confirmed by email that parts of the plan had been implemented, saying that 22,000 IDPs in zone one had been “returned to their original villages or nearby areas” because of a state government rehousing program and as a result would no longer receive food rations.

However, the agency said half of the group had been identified as being vulnerable and in need of continued assistance and would receive rations until the harvest season at the end of the year. “All pregnant and breastfeeding women and children under five continue to receive nutritional support,” WFP told Frontier.

Humanitarian principles

The phase-out strategy and the cuts it proposes have generated controversy within the humanitarian community in Myanmar. When the WFP document was circulated among NGOs in June, many criticised the move and questioned if the UN agency was acting according to humanitarian principles which stipulate that need alone, and not factors such as IDP status, should determine access to food aid.

The cuts in zone one were also criticised by a NGO source with knowledge of the situation in an email to Frontier.

“I have not seen a comprehensive analysis or research that would support the idea that the beneficiaries in zone one have the coping mechanisms, livelihoods [or] market access in place to manage a transition away from food assistance/reductions of rations,” the source, who is close to events, wrote.

The concerns were echoed in a paper, seen by Frontier, which was endorsed by the United Nations Children’s Fund and three NGOs operating in Rakhine: Action Contre La Faim, Save the Children and Myanmar Health Assistance Association.

The paper recommended changes to the WFP’s phase-out strategy and warned that ending food rations could have serious long-term consequences for the communities in zone one, most of which have little immediate means of achieving self-sufficiency.

It noted that there “seem to be few alternative coping mechanisms available to the affected populations as restrictions of movement still apply … therefore reduction/end of food-distributions for previous IDPs … could have a significantly negative impact on the overall nutritional status of the population”. 

Echoing the concerns of colleagues, another NGO source asked: “How does shelter affect your food insecurity?”

In an email to Frontier, WFP said that as a humanitarian organisation it provided assistance based on need, but did not elaborate. WFP did not respond to questions from Frontier about the critical feedback it received from NGOs.

NGO criticisms

Further criticisms were detailed in a report co-authored by the Danish Refugee Council and the International Rescue Committee with input from other humanitarian groups that was reportedly discussed by a working group of NGOs active in Rakhine.

The report, also seen by Frontier, requests that WFP delay its planned cuts by six months until it can produce research to justify its decision, including a food security and vulnerability assessment.

Sources in Rakhine said WFP had conducted some consultations with affected communities as well as other assessments, but they fell short of the measures requested in the report.

Asked if it had carried out food and security assessments, WFP said it had conducted focus group discussions in the affected communities, adding that “at village assembly meetings, village members selected the most vulnerable households based on the outlined and agreed selection criteria”.

NGO sources told Frontier that such moves were welcome but did not go far enough. They raised particular concern about the focus group meetings, describing them as inadequate.

They added that their understanding from Muslims who attended these meetings and other consultations was that IDPs had identified vulnerable households which they believed should be protected from ration cuts, but the WFP had pushed for a lower number of households, for reasons that were not clear.

“In some cases, there were [IDP] requests for a number of households to be protected [from food ration cuts] which were effectively denied, with WFP saying that they had to choose a lower number; I have no idea what was the thinking behind this and it is concerning, frankly,” an NGO source told Frontier.

Other concerns were raised in an email dated June 22 and authored by a senior UN official that was sent to Ms Janet Jackson, the acting resident coordinator of the UN Development Program at the time.

The email, seen by Frontier, outlined concerns held by three key UN agencies – UNICEF, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, and the United High Commissioner for Refugees – at the WFP’s proposal to end food support in zone one, and asked for the cuts to be postponed while further vulnerability assessments were conducted.

The email said the author’s UN colleagues were “worried about the decision by WFP to end food aid in parts of zone one on June 30 and an apparent lack of consultation with affected beneficiaries”. It added that the decision, “as understood here in Sittwe, could potentially have negative impacts on some of the most vulnerable groups in Rakhine State should the proposed strategy go ahead”.

NGO sources with knowledge of the situation say the postponement lasted one month.

Future cuts likely

The food aid cuts in zone one are likely to be followed by further reductions as a result of a “beneficiary review exercise” also outlined in the WFP’s phase-out strategy. The plan states that the review would be undertaken by WFP partner organisations via a "house-to-house survey", in which households would "be asked to provide the household name, number of family members by age group, shelter number and village of origin" of residents.

The document further says that those “whose names are not included in the new list but continue to stay in the camp, will be provided with a gradual phase-out package up to end-December 2016".

WFP did not directly answer questions about the exercise when asked by Frontier, but NGOs said it was likely to go ahead.

“They are planning to reconstitute the list; this doesn’t necessarily mean cuts, but it’s likely they will push for it,” an NGO source said, adding that the NGO community regarded any prospective cuts as being unjustified for humanitarian reasons.

“In Sittwe, they are planning to do a list reconstitution; they’re presenting the idea next month,” another NGO source said.

“WFP are under the impression that lots of people have left the Sittwe camps. The methodology for reconstitution has not yet been shared,” another source told Frontier.

The phase-out document indicates that the list review is part of a process intended to halt aid to IDPs regarded as manipulating the system. "The original beneficiary list was based on the names of households initially provided by the government [General] Administration Department,” the WFP strategy document said, adding that “[d]epartures from the camps were not reported and in some cases, were substituted with non-IDP names as a ploy of getting into the food list”.

These sentiments echo statements made by WFP’s partnerships officer Mr Arsen Sahakyan to Frontier in July. At that time he described unregistered persons as “economic IDPs” who had lost their jobs and “sold all their possessions and moved to camps in pursuit of humanitarian assistance”.

Rights advocates have criticised the plans to reduce beneficiary lists.

“Ration cuts would be justified if alternative sources of food were fully accessible, but that’s not the case,” said Mr Matthew Smith, the executive director of NGO Fortify Rights.

“On the issue of status, ie IDP or not, this has been a problem for years. We've seen entire displaced communities denied food aid because the authorities determined they weren't genuinely displaced, which was nonsense,” Smith said, adding, “The UN response should be based on need, not on an arbitrary status.”

Mr Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director for Human Rights Watch, was more outspoken, describing the food aid cuts as “unconscionable”.

“Adequate food aid is one of the few things keeping these Rohingya alive, since they still cannot move out of the camps to earn a livelihood, so it's unconscionable that WFP is making these drastic cuts,” he said.

Chris Lewa of The Arakan Project, an NGO that monitors events in Rakhine state, expressed concerns about the effect the cuts would have on women in particular. Lewa told Frontier that while conducting research for a report on the difficulties faced by Muslim women in Rakhine State. “[I] heard again and again that the single biggest issue was access to food; [the women I spoke to] felt that even the rations they had then were not enough,” she said. “These cuts are only going to make this worse.”

The beneficiary list review outlined in the “phase-out” strategy also came in for strong criticism in the joint response document authored by the Danish Refugee Council and the International Rescue Committee. It raised concern that assumptions about lists being inflated by the inclusion of non-IDPs may hide a more complicated situation.

Responding to the comment in the strategy about unreported camp departures, the document said this perception failed to “address the fact that IDPs have moved to other camps for different reasons (security, discrimination, lack of assistance, etc) and they are not on food lists and they should [be] included.” The document added that the strategy “cannot solely address something that the organisation considers as a ‘plot to get into the food list’ and not consider, for example, the inclusion of children born during displacement”.

But funding could also be a factor. In its operational report for August, WFP revealed that it was facing a significant shortfall. “WFP urgently requires US$11 million to avoid the food pipeline break in the coming months and to meet immediate food assistance needs through 2016,” the report said.

Sources in the Muslim community in Rakhine State told Frontier that they were worried about the impact of cuts in zone one and prospective aid list reductions in Sittwe.

“They are trying to cut in Sittwe indirectly ... they are providing food checking each one in the list. If someone is missed in the list, they already cut him from the list,” said a Muslim leader named Muhammad, who identifies as Rohingya, a term the previous government refused to recognise. (The current government now prefers “Muslim community in Rakhine State”, describing the terms Rohingya and Bengali as “emotive” and politically charged.)

Muhammad said it had been rumoured that the beneficiary list review may involve the use of new methods of identification to avoid fraudulent claims. “I heard that each family on the list will be [identified by] pictures,” he said.

Asked how he thought the possible cuts would impact his community, Muhammad's assessment was bleak. "I don't think they will … survive without aid. Lots of children may [suffer from] malnutrition," he said.

WFP told Frontier it is continuing to monitor the situation and plans to provide some additional support for former IDPs. “In addition to the targeted assistance to the most vulnerable and the nutrition support, WFP is planning projects to create community assets that contribute to food security while providing short-term employment opportunities,” it said in an email.

“In collaboration with partners, WFP will continue to monitor the food security situation of those who have returned or relocated to ensure that the needs of vulnerable households are met,” the UN agency added.

Emanuel Stoakes is an investigative journalist and producer who divides his time between Southeast Asia and New Zealand. He has produced two major documentary features on the plight of Myanmar's Rohingya minority and written on a variety of subjects for several outlets, including The Guardian, Foreign Policy, Al Jazeera English and Frontier Myanmar.

Tired of an outpouring of nationalist sentiment in their backyard, Bahan township residents shot back at protesters demonstrating against the Rakhine State Advisory Commission yesterday. Parkgoers at the Bo Sein Hman sports grounds heckled the gathered crowd, and in at least one instance observed by The Myanmar Times, a woman yelled obscenities at the demonstrators. A separate alleged incident led to a scuffle and the punching of a photographer covering the event.

Several hundred nationalists had assembled on the field yesterday to protest a perceived foreign intrusion into national affairs with the appointment of former UN chief Kofi Annan to head a commission for Rakhine State.

The monks and laypersons gathered around a makeshift stage where readings took place. Protesters held up signboards saying, “Kofi Annan’s decision, no need” and “No permission to make our internal conflict external”.

As one of the presenters spoke out against Mr Annan, a woman in the park began yelling, and cursing, back. Protest organisers and around 20 police quickly intervened. However, police refused to kick the woman out of the park as the protesters requested.

In another incident witnessed by The Myanmar Times, photojournalist Ko Myat Kyaw Thu from the Myanmar Pressphoto Agency was trying to take a picture of another woman speaking out against the demonstrators when he was hit in the face. In the chaos it was unclear who the assailant was.

“They asked, ‘Why did you take that photo?’ and then they hit me,” Ko Myat Kyaw Thu said. “I don’t know who hit me because it was a mess of people. I only know that someone hit me.”

Following the scuffle, demonstrators told the assembled media to leave the field.

Before the demonstration turned hostile, U Zaw Win, a protest organiser, told The Myanmar Times that the event had been called mainly to protest Mr Annan chairing the new commission. He said the head of such a sensitive team should be someone from Myanmar who understands the complexity of the issue, as well as the history.

“We are totally against former UN secretary general Kofi Annan leading the commission. It is a big concern because what he says will have huge influence over the international community,” said U Zaw Win. “Since he is a Nobel Peace Prize winner and also the former head of the UN if he says that the ‘Rohingya are really Myanmar people existing here as refugees’ the international community will accept that.”

However, U Zaw Win added that he would not have concerns about the commission if Mr Annan pledged not to push the recognition of Muslim Rohingya as an official ethnic group.

“If he stands on the side of Myanmar nationality, and doesn’t break up the unity of Myanmar as a country that is majority Buddhist and also doesn’t create a new ethnicity with the name ‘Rohingya’, we will support him,” he said.

The government-backed commission, which consists of six Myanmar nationals and three foreign citizens, last week conducted a two-day field visit to Rakhine State, touring both Muslim and Buddhist IDP camps.

Over 120,000 people, mainly Muslims, remain displaced in Rakhine after communal violence broke out in 2012 between Rakhine Buddhists and the Muslim minority who self-identify as Rohingya but who are referred to as illegal “Bengali” immigrants by the majority in Myanmar. The camps remain a subject of major concern to rights groups due to the dire humanitarian conditions faced by residents.

However, Mr Annan emphasised during his visit that the advisory body is taking on a consultative – not decision-making – role, and will be engaging the concerns of all sides, including Rakhine Buddhist nationalists.

At yesterday’s protest, lawyer U Aye Paing, who self-identified as a “national activist”, told The Myanmar Times that event was held with the permission of township authorities, and was meant to foster ideas for a petition to be sent to parliament.

Last week, parliament shot down a proposal to remove international figures from the commission, which was created at the behest of State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

By Kyaw Ye Lynn

Anadolu Agency

September 10, 2016

New bill designed to clamp down on production, spread of hate speech could see anti-Islam nationalist groups banned

YANGON, Myanmar -- A new bill designed to clamp down on the production and spread of hate speech is to be submitted to Myanmar's parliament in coming months, officials said Saturday.

The law -- which could see anti-Muslim nationalist groups such as the Buddhist monk-led Committee to Protect Race and Religion (Ma Ba Tha) banned -- has been drafted by the ministry of religious affairs and culture in an effort to curb ethnic and religious tensions.

On Saturday, Aung San Win, the director general at the ministry's information department, told Anadolu Agency by phone that six different religious groups had helped out with the draft, and it had already been reviewed by the attorney general’s office.

He said that the bill -- which would see anyone producing or spreading hate speech spend three years in jail -- would be submitted soon, "but the exact date is yet to be decided”.

“I am sure that it will be [submitted] this year,” he added.

Ko Ni, the legal advisor for Aung San Suu Kyi's ruling National League for Democracy (NLD), said that the law was urgently needed.

Religious intolerance has been on the rise in the country since communal violence broke out between Muslims and Buddhists in western Rakhine State in 2012, in which 100 people died and more than 140,000 were displaced, most of them Muslims.

“We need a law to take straightforward action on hate speech and discrimination,” Ko Ni told Anadolu Agency on Saturday, underlining that authorities were presently having to use articles in the penal code that forbid religious defamation as the country had no specific law.

“Such ways are not effective, and also complicated,” he stated.

Anti-Muslim tirades by the nationalist Ma Ba Tha have been blamed for a surge in sectarian hatred across the country, which occasionally has turned into religious violence.

In July, Religious Affairs and Culture Minister Thura Aung Ko warned Ma Ba Tha’s firebrand monk Wirathu – renowned for anti-Muslim hate speech -- that the party may have no future after he referred to State Counselor Suu Kyi as a "dictator".

“Ma Ba Tha's future may be uncertain if they continue spreading hate speech to create conflicts between religions, and among races," he said.

By Lawi Weng

The Irrawaddy

September 10, 2016

As the chairman of the new nine-member Arakan State Advisory Commission, Kofi Annan might have had a powerful message after visiting displaced people’s camps in Sittwe, where he met many individuals who, after five years, have yet to return to their homes in the region.

But, upon his return to Rangoon, he did not speak about what he saw there, reminding members of the press and the public that the commission would not be investigating human rights abuses, and instead promised to write an “impartial report” on the situation.

Since riots broke out in 2012 between the majority Buddhist Arakanese and the minority Muslim Rohingya, the two groups have lived separated in the region’s cities, with the Arakanese laying claim to the more developed urban areas, and the Rohingya relegated to the outskirts.

Reportedly, during his two-day trip, Annan could not meet with local Arakanese community leaders, who are upset by his reaching out to figures from within the self-identifying Rohingya community—a group which most Arakanese Buddhists, and the Burmese public, recognize as “Bengali,” implying that they are migrants from Bangladesh.

Annan visted Thae Chaung IDP camp on Wednesday—which houses some of the estimated 140,000 people displaced by the violence of 2012—and also visited the Rohingya community of Aung Mingalar ward in the state capital.

He may at some point speak about the conditions he witnessed at the camps. But, if and when Annan reveals what he has seen on the ground, he risks the condemnation of Buddhist Arakanese, who will accuse him of taking the side of the Rohingya. They will likely say that he does not understand the history of the region’s conflict and communities.

Hundreds of locals protested the former UN chief’s arrival and departure from Sittwe, stating that they resented international interference in what they consider to be an internal problem.

The fact that the same local Buddhist Arakanese have never agreed to return displaced Muslims to their homes is one reason why the conflict remains unsolved. The international community criticized the current government for an insufficient response to the conflict and for allowing the displaced to continue languishing in camps. On this issue, they are being designated the same negative image earned by the previous military-backed government for their handling of the situation.

In response to the criticism, State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi formed the new commission in search of a solution. It was a smart move—her government could potentially receive practical advice about what needs to be done to address the problems in Arakan State.

But she is not immune to backlash in the region: the Arakanese public largely turned against Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and her ruling party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), during the 2015 election—choosing the Arakan National Party (ANP) for the majority of seats in their state legislature instead of the NLD, which otherwise won nationally by a landslide.

Even if the widely popular State Counselor herself were in Kofi Annan’s position and visited the region—speaking openly about what she saw—it is likely that she would receive the same criticism he is facing.

Some ANP lawmakers have accused the State Counselor of violating Burma’s sovereignty by inviting international players to examine what they maintain is an internal issue. But in fact, by inviting Kofi Annan to take part in the Arakan State Advisory Commission, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is not compromising the country’s integrity—she is demonstrating how she believes that now is the time is to act in solving this conflict.

By Paul Frieze

IRIN

September 9, 2016 

In a sign of its commitment to ending the ethnic wars that have bedeviled Myanmar for six decades, the country’s first civilian-led government in half a century held a four-day peace conference last week, to much fanfare.

“Ethnic peoples in areas of our country where there is not yet peace are awaiting expectantly for the outcome of this conference,” said Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Peace Prize winner and de facto head of Myanmar's new government, with the special role of State Counsellor.

“Many, of all ages, have had to flee their homes to avoid conflict, and it has been long since their hopes have dimmed,” she told conference participants in the capital, Naypyitaw. “We must not forget their plight.”

Refugees and other victims of the long-running conflicts might be forgiven for thinking they have indeed been forgotten, and advocates told IRIN they don’t expect much to change in the wake of the conference, despite all the high-flying rhetoric.

Some 100,000 refugees have languished in camps in Thailand since the 1990s, while about 113,000 civilians in northern Myanmar have been displaced by conflict since 2011. In the western state of Rakhine, 120,000 people – almost all ethnic Rohingya Muslims – are still living in displacement camps four years after being driven from their communities.

Reverend Hkalam Samson of the Kachin Baptist Convention, which assists internally displaced people, mainly in Kachin state, said peace talks often gave people more reason to be scared than hopeful.

“Every time there is a meeting like this, there is more fighting in the Kachin area, so the IDPs are also worried about that,” he said. “For the IDPs, the conference wasn't meaningful.”

‘Losing their futures’ 

The conference held little meaning too for IDPs in western Rakhine state as it did not touch on their ethnic and sectarian conflict, which exploded in two bouts of violence that drove them from their homes in 2012 and is still simmering.

The UN’s emergency aid coordination agency, OCHA, said in a report this week that “urgently needed shelter upgrades” are being done in camps in Rakhine state. The longhouses were built as temporary shelter and many “are now at the end of their lifespan” after four years of being battered by monsoon rains and a cyclone last year, the report said.

The vast majority of the victims of the 2012 violence were minority Rohingya who were burned out of their homes by mobs of ethnic Rakhine Buddhists. But there are still some displaced ethnic Rakhines living in camps too. 

The government’s inability to resolve the displacement crisis has much to do with the hostility of Rakhine nationalists toward the Rohingya. They consider Rohingya to be interlopers from Bangladesh despite the fact that some of them have ancestors who lived in the area centuries ago. Other Rohingya families have been there for generations, having migrated around the region both before and after the British drew an arbitrary border across it when they conquered part of what was then known as Burma in 1824.

Decades of discriminatory policies by Myanmar’s former military rulers, who took power in a 1962 coup, gradually stripped the Rohingya of citizenship. It’s an issue that the current administration and the previous semi-civilian, reformist government that took over from the junta in 2011 have struggled to resolve. Aung San Suu Kyi’s administration recently appointed former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan to head a commission that will spend a year examining the situation before submitting recommendations. Some ethnic Rakhines protested Annan when he visited the state capital this week.

Abu Tahay, who founded a banned Rohingya political organisation called the Union National Development Party, welcomed the creation of the commission, though he noted that its three Muslim representatives were not Rohingya but hailed from communities in central Myanmar instead.

He said the government has failed in its obligation to help displaced Rohingya return home, while even those who remain in their villages are subject to stringent movement restrictions and of lack access to healthcare, employment, and education.

“People are losing their futures,” he said.

Ongoing fighting

Resolving displacement in northern Myanmar will prove equally difficult – especially as fighting is ongoing between the military and three ethnic armed groups: the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, and the Arakan Army.

Myanmar’s military refused to let representatives from those groups attend last week’s meeting in the capital. The meeting was dubbed the “21st Century Panglong Conference”, invoking the 1947 Panglong Agreement between major ethnic organisations and Aung San, the independence hero and father of Aung San Suu Kyi who was assassinated shortly thereafter. Some took the military’s hardline stance as a sign that it was not genuinely interested in talking peace.

“The international community and central government say an inclusive peace process is beginning in Myanmar, but there is still fighting every day in Ta’ang areas,” said Mai Lyruk, an activist with the Ta’ang Student and Youth Union.

“I get no special hope from the 21st Century Panglong Conference, because it’s a very small step for peace negotiations and doesn't include all ethnic armed organisations,” he said by phone from Shan State, where most ethnic Ta’ang live.

Another peace conference is scheduled in six months. If the second half of the year is anything like the last, the number of IDPs in camps can be expected to swell as fighting in the north continues. 

Some 12,000 ethnic Ta’ang and Shan villagers fled their homes in Shan state in the first half of 2016, while 240 civilians were newly displaced in Kachin state during the same period, the OCHA report said.

(TOP PHOTO: Myanmar State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi sits in the front row at a peace conference that began 31 August 2016 in Naypyitaw. UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon is on the far left, and President Htin Kyaw sits to her right. CREDIT: Paul Frieze)

By Ronan Lee

New Mandala

September 9, 2016

Myanmar’s appointment of a Kofi Annan-chaired commission to look at Rakhine state is a positive step for the country’s Rohingya Muslims, but cannot be allowed lead to another year of waiting for action. Steps should be taken immediately to ensure the Rohingya’s human rights are guaranteed, Ronan Lee writes.

This week former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan will do what around 1.1 million Rohingya Muslims cannot – travel freely around Myanmar’s Rakhine state.

Punitive travel restrictions have been forced on this Muslim minority for decades meaning generations of Rohingya have needed costly official permits to travel, even to adjacent villages. This impacts every aspect of daily life. The Rohingya are also subject to restrictions on their ability to marry, have children and own property.

Long-term mistreatment of the Rohingya was compounded when communal violence engulfed Rakhine state during 2012. This violence left 192 people dead and 140,000 displaced. The vast majority (120,000) have not been able to rebuild or return to their homes, victims of a government strategy designed to prevent future violence by keeping Buddhist and Muslim communities separated.

The Muslim population suffered most in 2012 and, accounting for the overwhelming majority of the displaced, have been forced to endure the bulk of the government’s ‘solution’. My fieldwork confirms travel restrictions in particular are having a devastating impact on the Rohingya’s ability to access healthcare, education and livelihood opportunities.

Unsurprisingly, Myanmar’s treatment of the Rohingya has led to criticism and calls for action from human rights advocates, the UNand US President Obama. Myanmar’s neighbours are also losing patience because of the large number of desperate Rohingya boat refugees arriving on their shores, as many as 25,000 during the 2015 sailing season alone. In 2015 the International State Crime Initiative ominously concluded that genocide is taking place, warning of the danger of “annihilation of the country’s Rohingya population”.

Let’s be clear – the Rohingya are forced to endure deplorable human rights abuses and this needs to be immediately addressed.

At the core of the Rohingya’s lack of rights is a dispute about the legitimacy of their claim to citizenship. The Rohingya claim a centuries-long connection to Rakhine but this history is disputed by many in Myanmar including the government, which considers them to be Colonial-era migrants who are therefore not entitled to citizenship rights as an indigenous ethnic group. Myanmar’s government has treated the Rohingya as resident aliens and objects to using the name “Rohingya”, instead calling them “Bengali”, a name seen as indicating their recent migration.

Matters are further complicated because the interests of the ethnic “Rakhine” – Buddhists who make up the state’s majority – are often presented by their political elites as opposed to those of the Rohingya Muslims. This means even small steps towards safeguarding the Rohingya’s human rights can be cause for protest from ‘nationalists’ claiming to represent Rakhine/Buddhist interests.

Rakhine state is one the poorest places on the planet. The UN estimates its poverty rate is 78 per cent, around twice the national rate with average annual household income of just US $500. Only 37.8 per cent of people have access to improved drinking water, 31.8 per cent access to improved sanitation and just one in eight (12.8 per cent) have electricity for lighting.

Myanmar’s new government, dominated by State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, has been under domestic pressure to address Rakhine state’s economic woes and under international pressure to address the Rohingya issue. Suu Kyi built her international reputation as an advocate for democracy and human rights but surprised many with her attitude towards the Rohingya. Her party, the National League for Democracy even sought to placate Buddhist nationalists by fielding no Muslims among its 1090 nationwide candidates despite Muslims accounting for 4 per cent of the country’s population. The current national parliament is Myanmar’s first since independence without a single Muslim lawmaker.

Myanmar’s mistreatment of the Rohingya has been the cause of significant international reputational damage to the country. However, Suu Kyi is showing herself to be a wily politician – two weeks prior to her scheduled meeting with President Obama in Washington, when the Rohingya’s situation will undoubtedly be on the agenda – she avoided embarrassment by announcing a high-profile commission to examine the situation in Rakhine state.

The advisory commission of nine is made up of six Myanmar members representing the government, ethnic Rakhine Buddhist and Myanmar Muslim communities plus three international members including Annan as chair. Unsurprisingly, nationalists objected to the inclusion of any foreigners and immediately criticised the commission including debating it in parliament. The commission is tasked with considering humanitarian and developmental issues, access to services and basic rights and the security of people living in Rakhine state. Fieldwork carried out in northern Rakhine state with Anthony Ware during 2015 indicates that Annan and his commission members are likely to find surprising reserves of goodwill among both the ethnic Rakhine and Rohingya communities. These two groups want to live peacefully and were better off economically before their communities were separated.

But the Annan commission is not scheduled to make its recommendations until the second half of 2017, with any implementation to follow after that. For many Rohingya who today struggle to access basic healthcare services, this will simply be too long to wait.

The commission’s appointment is undoubtedly a positive move that can bring Rakhine state closer to a long-term peace while safeguarding everyone’s rights. The timing of its appointment indicates the value of continued international pressure on Myanmar to live up to its human rights obligations.

The challenge for the international community is not to lose sight of the urgent need to address the Rohingya’s human rights situation. Travel restrictions that prevent Rohingya accessing medical care and education can and should be removed today. The Kofi Annan Foundation works “Towards a fairer, more peaceful world”. This is a worthy goal but one Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims need to see realised sooner rather than later.

Ronan Lee is researching the impact of Myanmar’s political and economic liberalisation on the Muslim Rohingya. He is a PhD candidate at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation at Deakin University.

This article is a collaboration between New Mandala and Policy Forum — Asia and the Pacific’s leading platform for policy analysis and debate.

By Aung Kyaw Min 

Myanmar Times

September 9, 2016

Undeterred by the defeat of a parliamentary motion on the matter this week, Buddhist nationalists suspicious of the involvement of international personalities in what they insist is a local Rakhine problem have announced plans to mount a demonstration on September 11 in Yangon.

One nationalist compared the involvement of the international members of the Rakhine State Advisory Commission to “a blind elephant going into the forest”.

State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi set up the commission, whose three foreign members include its chair, the former UN secretary general Kofi Annan. Mr Annan’s arrival in the Rakhine State capital of Sittwe on September 6 was met by about 300 protesters, some of whom were reportedly brought in from surrounding villages by groups promising payment.

More than 120,000 people remain displaced in Rakhine after communal violence in 2012 between Rakhine Buddhists and the Muslim minority who self-identify as Rohingya but are referred to as illegal “Bengali” immigrants by the majority in Myanmar.

Opposition to the involvement of foreigners in the Rakhine question has also been voiced by the Committee for the Protection of Race and Religion, better known as Ma Ba Tha. A leading member of the group, U Tawpaka, said on September 6, “Sitagu Sayadaw has said the problem in Rakhine is like a quarrel between husband and wife, and we agree,” he said, referring to the prominent Buddhist cleric and Ma Ba Tha vice chair.

“We should have been consulted on whether or not it was appropriate to involve the international community in our local affairs.”

However, Ma Ba Tha spokesperson U Tay Za Ni Ya said his organisation would not seek to pressure the government and had no plans to release a statement on the commission.

He added, “We are following the situation closely. We believe the situation in Rakhine should be considered by people who are experts on the history of Rakhine and Bengal. Otherwise, it would be like a blind elephant going into the forest.”

In Yangon, local nationalists said they planned to mount a protest against the Rakhine State Advisory Commission on September 11 at the Tarmwe Bo Sein Mann grounds. They have not yet secured permission.

“We filed an application requesting permission for about 1000 people to protest,” said nationalist lawyer and protest organiser U Aye Paing.

By Esha Sarai

Voice of America

September 9, 2016

By AFP

September 9, 2016

Four years after fleeing religious riots that emptied her Muslim Rohingya neighborhood in Myanmar's Rakhine State, Myee Shay yearns for the trappings of a normal life: a job, a school for her children and the chance to buy her own food. 

But the 35-year-old, like tens of thousands of others displaced by the violence, remains stuck in a displacement camp, unable to return home in a region ruptured by the conflict between Muslims and a majority-Buddhist population. 

"We eat when we get our quota," Myee Shay says, referring to monthly rations of food, mostly rice, that families receive from aid groups in the camps.

"If we do not get it, we cannot eat," the mother-of-four adds.

She spoke while preparing plant stalks collected from the outskirts of the Thet Kae Pyin camp — an attempt to enrich the meager meals and break the tedium of days spent waiting for change that never seems to come.

Flooded during the monsoon and dust-choked in the hot season, the camps are clustered on the outskirts of the state capital Sittwe.

They mostly hold Rohingya, a stateless group that became the target of riots after long-running discrimination against Muslims boiled over in 2012 — although several thousand ethnic Rakhine Buddhists also lost their homes in the violence.

That bloodshed left more than 100 people dead and saw thousands of homes torched by mobs. 

Anti-Muslim sentiment still runs high in the impoverished region, fanned by hardline Buddhist nationalists who revile the Rohingya and are viscerally opposed to any move to grant them citizenship.

They insist Rohingya are intruders from neighboring Bangladesh, even though many can trace their ancestry in Myanmar back generations. 

Today the state is effectively segregated on religious grounds, with no major moves to see the displaced return home. 

International rights groups have urged Myanmar's democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi to grant the Rohingya citizenship. (Aung San Suu Kyi won last November's elections, but is forbidden by Myanmar's constitution from serving as president. She serves as the country's foreign minister, and in the newly created position of "state counselor.")

But the Nobel Laureate has shied away from coming to their defense, wary of the dangers of a Buddhist backlash.

She recently appointed former UN chief Kofi Annan to advise the government on how to heal the state's caustic divides.

This week he met with local leaders and visited internally displaced people from both communities in Rakhine, where he was jeered by angry Buddhist protesters on his arrival.

"We are here to advise, not to impose," Annan told reporters in Yangon after returning from the two-day visit, stressing his commitment to remain "rigorously impartial".

The trip was the first of many his team will make to Rakhine before submitting a report to the government within one year, he added.

Stuck in limbo

"Security is everywhere, we cannot go anywhere," says Shwe Sin, Myee Shay's mother, of a web of government restrictions that heap misery on daily life. 

Their family of 14 lives in a cramped hut made of thatched bamboo and plastic scraps. 

The family can not leave the camp to work and they are almost entirely dependent on humanitarian aid.

"Without freedom of movement, farmers can't go to their fields, fishermen can't go to the sea, traders can't go to the market," says Pierre Peron, a UN spokesperson in Myanmar.

Most of the barracks-style shelters in the camps were only built to last three years and now, battered by annual deluges of rain, need to be rebuilt.

Healthcare and education are at best patchy inside the camps, with aid groups desperately plugging the yawning gaps in a system that sees frequent outbreaks of sickness.

While aid groups say the ultimate goal is for displaced people to go home, the immediate priority must be to ensure "minimum living standards are met," Peron adds.

Myee Shay laments the grinding reality of her family's life, one that means her children go without medical care when they are sick.

"I have no money... My husband doesn't work as we have no job here," she says. "What can we do?"

By Moe Myint
The Irrawaddy
September 8, 2016

RANGOON – Tha Hla Shwe, a member of the Kofi Annan-led Arakan State Advisory Commission, told The Irrawaddy that during their two-day trip to Sittwe, the commission heard perspectives on trust building from the Buddhist Arakanese and Muslim communities in the state capital.

The trip—the commission’s first, lasting from Sept. 6-7—focused on improving the relationship between the two groups as the first step in addressing the wounds of the state’s 2012 riots.

Dr. Tha Hla Shwe said that the commission met with Muslim religious leaders, influential Buddhist monks, civil society organizations, internally displaced persons (IDPs), parliamentarians, and the administrative body of Arakan—also known as Rakhine—State.

“We just listened to their opinions and assumptions,” said Tha Hla Shwe. “We asked them what we could do for them. They also unveiled their own perspectives on how to solve the problem on the ground.”

Internally displaced populations’ concerns centered largely on their lack of freedom of movement and difficulties in obtaining permits to travel to hospitals for medical treatment. When asked about points raised by IDPs, Tha Hla Shwe said: “Nothing special there. Everything they told us is the same as in previous conversations.’’

Aung Mingalar resident Zaw Zaw, who identifies as Rohingya, said that the Kofi Annan-led team visited his quarter on Wednesday and had a conversation with him for about half an hour beside a Muslim prayer hall.

The term Rohingya, the name with which many Muslims in the region ethnically identify, is rejected by many Arakanese Buddhists and members of the Burmese public, who describe the group as “Bengali,” implying they are interlopers from neighboring Bangladesh.

According to Zaw Zaw, Annan introduced himself and the reason for his visit. Zaw Zaw said he emphasized three urgent needs to the former UN chief: access to medical travel permits, access to education for his children, and citizenship documents for IDPs; the Rohingya are not recognized as one of Burma’s 135 ethnic groups, contributing to widespread statelessness in a country where citizenship is defined along ethnic lines.

Together with Annan, eight advisors from the commission and a team of government officials including Arakan State Chief Minister U Nyi Pu, later visited IDP camps. There was no surveillance by military special branch officials or police unlike on previous visits from dignitaries in the last four years, said Zaw Zaw.

“We talked openly and he told us they will be here [in Sittwe] and he urged us to contact them in case of an emergency,” Zaw Zaw said.

The speaker of the Arakan State parliament, U San Kyaw Hla confirmed that he and Annan met at the government office on Tuesday. He asked Annan for a fair and acceptable assessment and Annan pledged to deliver an impartial report to State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

Narinjara, a local weekly journal, reported that the Arakan State parliament speaker openly voiced his dissatisfaction with the formation of the commission.

However, he declined to verify or provide further information of the discussion. “I don’t want to talk much more. It’s not good to say here,” said U San Kyaw Hla over the phone to The Irrawaddy.

The delegation returned to Rangoon Wednesday evening. About 100 people protested against the commission at their departure from Sittwe airport, said Tha Hla Shwe. Hundreds of local residents and Buddhist monks also rallied on Tuesday at Sittwe airport against the arrival of the advisory commission.

On Tuesday an urgent proposal put forward by Arakanese National Party (ANP) lawmaker Aung Kyaw San—calling for international members of the Arakan State Advisory Commission to be replaced with local academics—failed to earn parliamentary approval.

A memorandum of understanding between the State Counselor’s Office and the Kofi Annan Foundation regarding the commission will be signed. It is currently being processed by the Union Attorney General’s Office, according to representatives from the National League for Democracy (NLD) at the debate session regarding the proposal on Tuesday.

The President’s Office spokesman Zaw Htay disclosed to the media on Tuesday that the State Counselor’s Office would be allocating its own funds toward the Arakan State Advisory Commission project but did not mention the size of the budget.

By Associated Press
September 8, 2016

SITTWE, Myanmar – Members of Myanmar's Muslim Rohingya minority have expressed hope that an independent panel led by former U.N. chief Kofi Annan will help end the discrimination and violence they face at the hands of the country's Buddhist majority.

Annan is a member of a commission set up last month by State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi's government to help find solutions to a communal conflict in the western state of Rakhine that that has seen widespread abuses and violence by Buddhists against Rohingya.

Rohingya residents, including community leaders who met Wednesday with Annan, said they have faith in the nine-member advisory commission headed by the former U.N. chief. Members of the Rakhine community, however, protested Annan's arrival Tuesday, saying they oppose foreign meddling.

By Moe Myint

The Irrawaddy

September 8, 2016

RANGOON — An urgent proposal put forward by Arakanese National Party (ANP) lawmaker Aung Kyaw San—calling for international members of the Arakan State Advisory Commission to be replaced with local academics—failed to earn parliamentary approval on Tuesday.

All military appointees to the legislature and the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) MPs, as well as many of the ethnic political parties’ representatives—totalling 148 parliamentarians—voted in support of the ANP’s proposal, but 250 lawmakers from the ruling National League for Democracy (NLD) objected to it. One MP abstained from the vote.

The nine-member Arakan State Advisory Commission—whose formation was announced on Aug. 24—aims to explore the roots of Buddhist-Muslim tension in Arakan State, and to make recommendations toward “lasting solutions” to conflict. Since the outbreak of anti-Muslim violence in 2012, leading to the displacement of 140,000, the region has received international attention.

Formed by State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the commission has three representatives from the international community, including chair and former UN chief Kofi Annan, two government representatives, two Buddhist Arakanese members, and two Muslim members.

In the Lower House debate over the ANP proposal moving to expel Kofi Annan and two former UN advisors, 34 lawmakers participated in the discussion. Four army appointees, four ANP MPs, and five Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) lawmakers spoke in support of the proposal, but the debate session was dominated by the objection of 21 legislators from the NLD.

ANP parliamentarian Pe Than said in the debate session that the State Counselor’s Office was under international pressure to select non-Burmese experts to serve on the Arakan State Advisory Commission alongside local appointees.

ANP concerns about the commission’s work and findings centered on a fear of a future mass repatriation of self-identifying Rohingya refugees back to Burma. Pe Than referred to the group as “Bengalis,” a suggestion that the individuals in question are not from Arakan State—which they claim as their homeland—but are migrants originally from Bangladesh.

“[Burma] could be faced with many consequences in the coming future,” Pe Than said, adding that the commission could not be trusted to deliver a “fair” assessment for Arakan—also known as Rakhine—State. He alleged that the international delegates, who he referred to as “so-called human rights activists,” would judge the situation in the region from a “one-sided perspective.”

NLD legislators responded by calling the comments “inappropriate” and “emotional” and threatening to the dignity of the Parliament. The lawmakers reminded the legislature of Mr. Annan’s record as a Nobel Peace Prize recipient, and referred to the other international representatives as “respected” individuals in the global community.

When Pe Than argued that the government was allowing foreign interference in internal Arakan State affairs, NLD MPs said that the conflict in Arakan State had grown from being a domestic issue to one of international importance.

The commission to review the controversial Myitsone dam at the confluence of the Irrawaddy River in Kachin State had only local experts, Pe Than pointed out—not international representatives.

“What is the main reason?” he asked.

NLD lawmaker Pyone Kaythi Naing said she “empathized with the ethnic Arakanese,” a reference to Arakanese Buddhists, and traced communal tension with the region’s Muslim community to British colonialism—during which, she said, migrants from South Asia came to fill labor needs in Burma and settled there.

However, the Rohingya community maintain that their roots in Arakan State date back to the ancient kingdom of Arakan, which predates colonialism and the borders drawn thereafter.

She said that previous governments in Burma had exacerbated what she saw as the problem, and that, with the formation of the advisory commission, the current civilian-led government had provided a fresh platform to search for a “neutral path” for both Buddhist and Muslim communities.

Pyone Kaythi Naing described the population in question simply as “the laborers” and their descendants, and avoided using either “Rohingya” or “Bengali.”

NLD MP Myint Wai speculated that if the new government had formed the commission solely with local experts, the international community would accuse them of bias, and reminded Parliament of the “negative image” Arakanese society had earned abroad.

“This is not the right time to oppose the commission. This is the right time to prove our good image to them,” he said.

USDP MP Tin Aye questioned Mr. Annan’s qualifications, presenting what are considered professional failures during his tenure as a UN peacekeeping envoy in the early 1990s—to prevent the genocide of the ethnic Tutsis in Rwanda, and the massacre of Bosnian Muslims in the town of Srebrenica.

Yet Tin Aye also criticized Annan’s later call for international interventions in cases of systematic human rights violations, such as those carried out in Rwanda and Bosnia. Classified under the “responsibility to protect,” the statute provides justification for the international community to intervene when a domestic government is “unable or unwilling” to prevent mass killings, ethnic cleansing and genocide.

“What if he demands that the UN act on the responsibility to protect?” he said. If the commission were to recommend an intervention based on the “responsibility to protect” in Arakan State, Tin Aye argued, it would be a threat to Burma’s sovereignty.

“Even Indra can’t solve the problem if they oppose the ethnic Arakanese,” said USDP lawmaker Sai Tun Thein, referencing a powerful Hindu god also worshipped as a deity in Buddhism.

Kofi Annan led eight members of the advisory commission to the Arakan State capital of Sittwe on Tuesday to conduct meetings with local civil society organizations. His arrival was met by hundreds of protesters calling for the international community to stay out of local affairs.