By Human Rights Watch

December 13, 2016

Witnesses and Satellite Imagery Reveal Pattern of Burnings

New York – Satellite imagery and interviews with refugees place responsibility for burnings of Rohingya villages in Burma’s Rakhine State squarely with the Burmese military, Human Rights Watch said today. Since October 9, 2016, at least 1,500 buildings have been destroyed, driving thousands of ethnic Rohingya from their homes.

Military and government officials should immediately allow humanitarian agencies, the media, and human rights monitors access to all of Rakhine State’s Maungdaw Township. The Burmese government has repeatedly denied using arson as a tactic, instead accusing militants of setting fire to Rohingya villages.

“The new findings refute the Burmese military and government’s claims that Rohingya militants were responsible for burning down their own villages,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The satellite imagery and eyewitness interviews clearly point the finger at the military for setting these buildings ablaze.”

The new satellite imagery analysis of villages in Maungdaw Township reveals four new elements. First, the total number of destroyed buildings identified by Human Rights Watch has climbed to 1,500 as of November 23. The full number is probably higher as tree cover may have concealed some destroyed buildings.

Second, the pattern of burnings over time suggest government responsibility for the destruction. The first three villages that were burned, between October 9 and 14, are all next to the main Taung Pyo district road, while the villages burned during the second and larger round between November 12 and 15 lie approximately 3 to 5 kilometers west of the road. This progression is consistent with military forces advancing westward rather than militants or local residents haphazardly setting fires.

Third, Human Rights Watch documented systematic building destruction in villages on three occasions after government forces reportedly came under attack in the area, suggesting a reprisal element to the arson. In some cases, the fires started hours after a reported attack and in other cases a day or two later. Following an attack on a joint military-border guard patrol in Pwint Hpyu Chaung on the morning of November 12, for example, more than 800 buildings in total were burned in that village and five others nearby over the next four days.

Fourth, the imagery reveals the presence of Burmese security forces in the Border Guard Post Number 1 that is located directly adjacent to Wa Peik village, which was almost entirely burned down in three waves over a one-month period. Militants attacked the post and two other security force facilities on the morning of October 9, killing nine government officers and sparking the last two months of violence.

The first fires in Wa Peik started in the early afternoon of October 9, hours after the attack on the border guard base. Human Rights Watch also identified the subsequent presence of multiple military transport vehicles and the periodic landing of military helicopters at the base.

“It’s difficult to believe that militants burned down over 300 buildings in Wa Peik over a one-month period while Burmese security forces stood there and watched,” Adams said. “Burmese government officials have been caught out by this satellite imagery, and it's time they recognize their continued denials lack credibility.”

Witness accounts from Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh further implicate the Burmese military in arson, Human Rights Watch said. Ten refugees, interviewed in person, described witnessing Burmese soldiers destroying buildings and setting them afire, including in the village tracts of Kyet Yoe Pyin, Dar Gyi Zar, and Yae Khat Chaung Gwa Son.

“Abdul,” 23, from Kyet Yoe Pyin village tract, said he fled on October 12 as the military advanced on his village, shooting at residents and setting the village on fire with a combination of gasoline and shoulder-fired rocket launchers. “I saw the army setting fire to the village and aiming and firing at people,” he said.

“Chomi,” 35, said he watched the military enter his village in Dar Gyi Zar village tract on November 13, and fire rocket launchers at residents’ homes, causing them to catch fire. He watched from a nearby field as the homes burned and then fled the area with his wife and three children, eventually making it to Bangladesh.

“Ahmet,” 45, said soldiers entered his village in the Yae Khat Chaung Gwa Son tract in mid-November and threw jars of gasoline on rooftops, setting them on fire one by one.

At a press conference on November 16, the Burmese government showed imagery of northern Rakhine State taken from a military helicopter to refute Human Rights Watch’s allegations of village destruction. But the government fundamentally downplayed the extent and severity of fire-related building destruction in the villages of Wa Peik, Kyet Yoe Pyin, Pyaung Pyit, and Dar Gyi Zr, while effectively validating Human Rights Watch’s findings and revealing major building destruction in the villages of Wa Peik and Dar Gyi Zar.

The government erroneously claimed that Human Rights Watch had reported the complete destruction of Dar Gyi Zar village. That village was not included in the initial Human Rights Watch report because the damages had not yet occurred. The government said that 30 buildings had been destroyed in Dar Gyi Zar but a subsequent satellite imagery analysis puts this number at more than 250.

The government also did not show helicopter imagery of burned buildings in villages near Dar Gyi Zar (including Thu U Lar, Kyee Kan Pyin, Yae Khat Chaung Gwa Son, Myaw Taung, Kyar Guang Taung, Pa Yin Taung, and Pwint Hpyu Chaung) that had been set on fire just before the military helicopter flight. Human Rights Watch subsequently reported the destruction in these villages. In addition, environmental satellite sensors detected multiple burning fires in the village of Yae Khat Chaung Gwa Son on the early afternoon of November 15. It is likely that smoke from those fires would have been visible from the helicopter as it flew over the area in the afternoon of the same day.

The ongoing military operations in Rakhine State since October 9 have had a major impact on the affected population. About 30,000 people have been displaced but the military and government have prevented humanitarian agencies from verifying the numbers or determining these persons’ needs. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) says about 21,000 people have fled to Bangladesh.

The government should immediately allow unfettered humanitarian access to all parts of northern Rakhine State, as the United Nations and others have urged, Human Rights Watch said. Governments with influence in Burma should press the military and government to urgently grant access.

On December 1, the government announced the creation of a committee to investigate the situation in Rakhine State and to report by January 31, 2017. However, the committee’s composition and mandate raise serious doubts that it will conduct a thorough and impartial investigation into alleged abuses, including extrajudicial killings and sexual violence, Human Rights Watch said. In October, the Rakhine State parliament also created a commission to examine the situation, but discriminatory comments against the Rohingya by some commission members have undermined its credibility and objectivity. The commission has thus far failed to seriously investigate alleged abuses by government forces.

The government should instead invite the United Nation to assist in an impartial investigation, Human Rights Watch said.

“Blocking access and an impartial examination of the situation will not help people who are now at grave risk,” Adams said. “Whatever occurred during military operations, the government has an obligation to allow humanitarian agencies access to the area to provide aid.”

December 13, 2016

The Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Dr. Yousef A. Al-Othaimeen, has instructed the OIC Permanent Missions in New York, Geneva and Brussels to convene emergency meetings of the Permanent Representatives of OIC Member States to address the crisis situation facing the Rohingya Muslim minority in Myanmar.

The Secretary General has repeatedly condemned the renewed repression and violation of human rights of the Rohingya minority in Myanmar and stated that the OIC Charter mandates the Organization to assist Muslim minorities and communities outside the Member States to preserve their dignity, culture and religious identity. The Organization had hoped with the recent restoration of democracy in Myanmar, oppression against Rohingya Muslims citizens would end and that they would be able to enjoy equal rights and freedoms. Regretfully this has not been the case. The Myanmar government must recognize that its position in the international community does not only come with opportunities but also with responsibilities.

The Secretary General also emphasized that the Myanmar Government as a member of the United Nations and the ASEAN, must adhere to the international standards and norms including the relevant conventions and declarations for the protection of human rights. The reports of deliberate targeting and indiscriminate killing and arrest of Rohingya civilians, destruction of homes and religious buildings and the widespread abuse of women by the military forces must be fully investigated by the international community as they are tantamount to crimes against humanity.

Original here.

By bdnews24.com

December 12, 2016

By Abdul Aziz

Dhaka Tribune

December 12, 2016

Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh -- Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) has sent back 105 Rohingyas who fled Myanmar in the face of ongoing crackdown in Rakhine state.

BGB personnel prevented the trespassing at two different points of Naf River and Palankhali Border early Monday.

Teknaf 2 BGB Commander Abujar Al-Zahid said: “We have pushed back at least 105 Rohingyas boarded in 11 boats.”

Hundreds of Rohingya Muslims tried to enter into Bangladesh illegally after Myanmar troops launched a crackdown in Rakhine state in response to attacks on three border posts on October 9 that killed nine police officers.

Bangladesh has beefed up security along its border with Myanmar to prevent influx of Rohingyas fleeing violence in Rakhine state that has killed at least 86 people and displaced 30,000 others.

Myanmar does not recognise the Rohingyas as its citizens and dubs them ‘Bangali’.

By Nikhil Kumar

TIME

December 12, 2016

Teknaf, Bangladesh:

Around 21,000 Rohingya have sought refuge in Bangladesh over the past two months, as Burmese forces launched what one U.N official says is “getting very close to what we would all agree are crimes against humanity.” TIME reports from the Bangladesh border, where the full horror is only just emerging

If the Naf River could talk, which horror story would it tell first?

The narrow waterway marks the border between Burma and Bangladesh. On its western bank is the Bangladeshi province of Chittagong. To the east, Burma’s Arakan state, also known as Rakhine, home to the Buddhist-majority country’s Rohingya people, a Muslim minority described over the years as stateless, friendless and forgotten.

But if the river could remember their stories, it might speak, for example, of the night in late November when Arafa, a 25-year-old Rohingya woman, entered its waters with her five children.

She used to have six. As she talks, sitting on the threshold of a hut in a makeshift refugee camp on the Bangladeshi side of the Naf, she is surrounded by her son and four young daughters. They are a lively bunch, noisy, restless, yet shy, hiding behind their mother’s back or running in and out of the hut, as she recounts what happened to her second son.

He was 8 years old. Sometime around Nov. 22, Arafa says her village was attacked by Burmese security forces. Viewed as illegal immigrants and denied citizenship rights by the Burmese state, the Rohingya have long faced intimidation, oppression and violence at the hands of both Buddhist extremists and the country’s security forces. The last major sectarian spasm was in 2012, when clashes between Arakanese Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims displaced some 125,000 people. Rights activists accused security forces of either standing aside as the violence spread, or actively participating in it.

This time, Arafa says, the army’s assault felt different. The security men seemed more determined, more driven, to punish the Rohingya. Their weapon of choice was fire.

Arafa says that the military torched her village. As the flames engulfed her home, she just about managed to escape with her six children. That was when the family was confronted by a Burmese soldier. He snatched the fleeing 8-year-old, separating him from his brother and sisters, and flung him into the blaze.

In the chaos, Arafa lost sight of her husband. But she could not turn back; she had to leave him behind, leave her son’s charred body behind, and mourn on the move.

“I had to save my other children. We had to escape [from Burma],” she tells TIME. “They burned everything.”

For two days, Arafa and her children hid in the forests that skirt the riverbank on the Burmese side, laying low to avoid detection by troops, before boarding a rickety boat that took them to safety across the Naf.

They are not alone. Arafa’s family are among the estimated 21,000 Rohingya who have sought refuge in Bangladesh over the past two months, as Burmese forces launched what testimony from refugees, satellite imagery compiled by rights groups and leaked photos and videos from inside Arakan indicate is a horrifyingly bloody crackdown against the million-strong Muslim minority.

The latest troubles began in early October, when police said three border guard posts were attacked by Islamist militants. Nine policemen were killed, with the government saying the attackers belonged to an extremist group called Aqa Mul Mujahidin. A statement from the Burmese President’s office linked them to the Rohingya Solidarity Organization, a militant group long thought to be defunct. The only proof for these claims was the government’s word.

What followed has been described by Burmese authorities as “clearance operations.” Amnesty International, the rights group, calls it “collective punishment”: a ferocious campaign of violent reprisals against an entire people. In addition to arson attacks on Rohingya villages, the military has been accused of raping Rohingya women and conducting extrajudicial killings of Muslims. Helicopter gunships have been used to fire on Rohingya villages.

Satellite imagery released by Human Rights Watch show that more than 800 buildings were destroyed in five different Rohingya villages between Nov. 10 and 18. An earlier set of high-resolution images showed the destruction of more than 400 homes in three villages between Oct. 22 and Nov. 10. The actual number of destroyed buildings could be higher, given the dense tree cover in the area, the rights group says.

Verifying the picture on the ground is impossible, as Burma has sealed off the affected areas. But the news that is coming out suggests that the situation is “getting very close to what we would all agree are crimes against humanity,” says Yanghee Lee, the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, as the country is officially known.

“I am getting reports from inside the country and from neighboring places too that things are not as they are being portrayed by the government. We are seeing a lot of very graphic and very disturbing photos and video clips,” she tells TIME. Although unable to independently verify the footage, she says: “We do hear about rape and sexual violence, and even bodies of little kids being uncovered.”

“We can’t verify the numbers of how many have been killed. Many have gone into hiding,” Lee adds, expressing her dissatisfaction with a government-supervised trip to some of the affected areas by a group of foreign diplomats and a U.N. official in early November.

“No one should be satisfied with the trip,” she says. “This was a guided tour. Even though there was a heavy security presence there, people started to come out and try to speak to this delegation. And of course, afterwards, we’ve also heard that there were reprisals. These people were hunted down.”

On Dec. 9, 14 diplomatic missions, including the embassies of the U.S. and France, called on Burma to give humanitarian agencies “full and unfettered access” to northern Arakan, “noting that tens of thousands of people who need humanitarian aid, including children with acute malnutrition, have been without it now for nearly two months.”

The official Burmese response to the allegations of rights abuses has been denial and, reflecting the low opinion many Burmese have of the Rohingya, callous dismissal. When asked by the BBC about claims of rape by the Burmese military, Aung Win, a local politician and chairman of a state investigation into the October border posts attack, couldn’t even keep a straight face. Giggling into the camera, he said soldiers would not rape Rohingya women because “they are very dirty … [They] have a very low standard of living and poor hygiene,” Aung Win said. “They are not attractive. So neither the local Buddhist men or the soldiers are interested in them.”

Meanwhile, the country’s top military man, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, blames the Rohingya for their woes. Referring to them as “Bengali,” a term which implies that they belong across the Naf in Bangladesh, a Dec. 6 post on his Facebook page said: “The Bengali problems in the northern Rakhine State occurred because of the Bengalis’ failure to abide by the existing laws of Myanmar.” And even as Burmese officials promise to investigate claims of rights abuses, the post seemed to pre-judge the outcome: “Myanmar security forces have never committed any human rights violations such as illegal killing, rape and arson attack.”

“It seems like the same old story [from the Burmese authorities], that these people torched their own houses,” says Lee, the U.N. rights investigator.

A Human Rights Watch researcher who recently visited the Bangladeshi side of the border, speaking on condition of anonymity so as not to risk losing access to the area, says testimony from recent Rohingya escapees is uniform on this question: “We haven’t spoken to anybody who has told us that the burnings have been done by anyone other than the military.”

Amid the unfolding crisis, one voice has been largely absent — Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, whose National League for Democracy party won a landslide victory in elections in November 2015.

The polls marked Burma’s transition from military dictatorship to its first civilian-led administration in more than half a century. A new military-drafted constitution prohibited Suu Kyi from becoming President, and the generals retained control over Burma’s security apparatus. But she is the nation’s de facto leader, occupying a Prime Minister–like position as Burma’s State Counselor.

Under dictatorship, Suu Kyi’s single-minded determination to challenge the military, the personal sacrifices she made and the years of political detention she endured to bring democracy to her country transformed her into an international human-rights icon. But as northern Arakan burns, she has been proffering bromides about the need for the outside world to be less critical. What’s needed, she says, is a better understanding of the region’s ethnic divisions.

“I would appreciate it so much if the international community would help us to maintain peace and stability and to make progress in building better relations between the two communities [there] instead of always drumming up calls for, well, for bigger fires of resentment, if you like,” she told Singapore’s state-owned Channel News Asia in a rare interview earlier this month. “I’m not saying there are no difficulties, but it helps if people recognize the difficulty and are more focused on resolving these difficulties rather than exaggerating them so that everything seems worse than it really is.”

“She is obviously very reluctant to criticize the military, because she fears that any sort of antagonism towards it could prompt it to assert itself more forcefully,” says Francis Wade, a sometime TIME contributor who has worked in the country, and the author of an upcoming book on anti-Muslim violence and the democratic transition there. “If the military felt that it was losing power to the civilian government, because that government is criticizing it and trying to reign it in, then it might try and reassert its supremacy.”

That dynamic — between a civilian government still consolidating its power and a military machine bent on preserving its influence — has tempered international criticism of Suu Kyi’s stance. “I think the international community is seeing [Burma] in relative terms,” says the U.N.’s Lee. “This is a civilian elected government, it’s been less than a year [since they came to power], let’s give them a little time and space. That’s been the narrative.”

But that view becomes less and less credible as time passes. “Suu Kyi may need more time to maneuver. But she only has five years [the term of the elected government], and already a year is going by,” says Lee.

Adds Wade: “You do have a very difficult relationship between the civilian government and the military, but at the moment, the civilian government is playing into the hands of the military.”

Suu Kyi’s stance is only the latest in a long series of disappointments for Burma’s Muslims. “She’s not doing anything to protect us,” says Yunus, a 30-year-old Rohingya refugee who fled to Bangladesh in November. “We thought there would be a change. But she is the same as everyone else.”

The consequences could be far reaching. “There has traditionally been very little broad support among the Rohingya for armed conflict,” says Wade. “Even when there were several insurgent groups operating there from the mid-1970s to the early to mid-1990s, there was still quite scant support for them, hence they died out quite quickly.” The Rohingya, he explains, have been wary of provoking the Burmese state: “It was recognized quite early on that any sort of armed movement would be collective suicide.”

But the worsening situation in northern Arakan raises troubling red flags, with Daniel Russel, the top U.S. diplomat for East Asia, issuing a stark warning about the potential fallout. “If mishandled, Rakhine state could be infected and infested by jihadism which already plagues neighboring Bangladesh and other countries,” he told the Associated Press on Dec. 3.

For the Rohingya, the crisis doesn’t end on the Burmese side. Yusuf, Arafa and their families managed to escape and reach land in Bangladesh by avoiding detection from both Burmese and Bangladeshi forces. But in the days since, Bangladesh has stepped up patrols along its border with Burma, putting an additional squeeze on the persecuted population. Many refugees have gone missing, after their boasts capsized in the river’s choppy waters.

It is not the first time that the Rohingya have sought shelter across the river. Over the decades, as they fled violence at home, as many as half a million undocumented Rohingya refugees have made their lives in Bangladesh. More than 30,000 registered refugees live in camps near the border. Now Bangladesh says: We can’t accommodate any more people.

“My country is a house. If all the people try to get inside my house, what will happen? I cannot allow all of them,” says Colonel M.M. Anisur Rahman, the deputy director general of Border Guard Bangladesh, the force charged with patrolling the border area.

Bangladesh’s policy, he says, is to push back fleeing refugees. “Of course we are concerned, and if they ask any help regarding food, water and other things, we will provide it. But we cannot provide shelter,” he insists. Those who have slipped in, avoiding detection, will be caught and sent back.”

To this, Du Du Mian, a Rohingya refugee who arrived in Bangladesh more than a decade ago, answers: “The world needs to realize that we have nowhere to go.” His people, he says, have no country. With Burmese soldiers trying to stop them from fleeing and Bangladeshi forces pushing them back, all they have is the Naf, and the Naf, so far, is silent.

— With reporting by A.K.M. Moinuddin / Teknaf and Feliz Solomon / Hong Kong

By Nikhil Kumar

TIME

December 12, 2016

"Things are not as they are being portrayed by the government"

Reports from Burma’s northern Arakan state, where violence against the country’s Rohingya Muslim minority has forced tens of thousands to flee for their lives, suggest the situation there is “getting very close to what we would all agree are crimes against humanity,” the U.N.’s top human-rights investigator for the country has said.

“I am getting reports from inside the country and from neighboring places too that things are not as they are being portrayed by the government. We are seeing a lot of very graphic and very disturbing photos and video clips,” Yanghee Lee, the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in the country, tells TIME.

Burma has imposed a lockdown on the affected areas, as it conducts what it calls “clearance operations” following an attack on three border guard posts in early October. Nine policemen were killed in the attack, which the Burmese authorities blamed on Islamist militants.

But fears have been growing for the million-strong Rohingya people who live in the area, amid allegations of rape, extrajudicial killings and the torching of Rohingya villages by the Burmese military, which denies the claims.

Seen as illegal immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh and denied citizenship rights, the Rohingya have long been marginalized in Burma. In 2012, some 125,000 people were displaced amid communal fighting between Arakanese Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims, with rights groups accusing security forces of either standing aside or actively participating in the violence.

As Arakan burns again, with around 21,000 people fleeing to Bangladesh in recent months, Lee called on the Burmese authorities to allow full humanitarian access to the northern section of the state that is also known as Rakhine. She also expressed her dissatisfaction with a government-supervised trip to some of the affected areas by a group of foreign diplomats and a U.N. official in early November. “No one should be satisfied with the trip,” she says. “This was a guided tour. Even though there was a heavy security presence there, people started to come out and try to speak to this delegation. And of course, afterwards, we’ve also heard that there were reprisals. These people were hunted down.”

On Dec. 9, 14 diplomatic missions, including the embassies of the U.S. and France, also called on Burma to give humanitarian agencies “full and unfettered access” to northern Arakan, “noting that tens of thousands of people who need humanitarian aid, including children with acute malnutrition, have been without it now for nearly two months.”

RB News

December 12, 2016

Taung Pyo Let Wel, Arakan – 8 Rohingya women and girls from Chaung Ka Lar hamlet in Zee Pin Chaung village tract, situated in Taung Pyo Let Wel sub-township, were gang raped by the military at gunpoint and some other women were sexually abused, whilst Myanmar’s investigation commission, led by Vice President Myint Swe, was visiting the area.

Today, on December 12th 2016 at 12 noon, a group of 55 soldiers entered Chaung Ka Lar hamlet. Fearing that they may be gang raped, as is frequently the case, 30 women and girls all gathered together at the house of Hafiz Akbal. 12 soldiers entered then entered his house and had 8 of the women and girls brought into a room at gunpoint, where they were gang raped, a local villager told RB News. The remaining women and girls, more than 20 of them, were also sexually abused. Their clothes, including underwear, were removed by the soldiers, who then abused them as much as they wanted.

Among the eight rape victims, four are married and four are single.

Three of the raped women are from the same family: a 40-year-old mother and two her two daughters age 18 and 21. The other three married women are ages 37, 33 and 25 years old. The two other single

young ladies are ages 22 and 17.

Not only did the soldiers rape the women and girls, but they also looted the properties and sexually abused women and girls at the houses of U Maung Myint, Fawzol and Shikandor. In addition, they also stole the earring of a 70 year old lady who is the wife of Sirazul Hoque.

Recently an investigation commission was formed which by the Myanmar government, led by Vice President ex-general Myint Swe. The commission is currently in Northern Maungdaw Township, having arrived there on December 11th, 2016. However, the military is carrying out atrocities against the Rohingyas in many villages, despite the presence of the commission, including the looting of properties and forcing the Rohingya villagers to leave their homes so that they cannot talk to the commission. According to locals, these crimes are taking place in the villages of Kyet Yoe Pyin, Yay Khae Chaung Khwa Sone, Dar Gyi Sar and U Shey Kya.

Nikkei Asian Review

December 12, 2016

By Abdul Aziz

Dhaka Tribune

December 11, 2016

Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) has sent back at least 130 Rohingyas who fled Myanmar in the face of ongoing crackdown in Rakhine state.

Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh -- BGB personnel prevented the trespassing at two different points of the Naf River around on Sunday morning.

“We conducted a drive at two different points of the river and pushed back at least 130 Rohingyas boarded in 13 boats,” said Teknaf 2 BGB Commander Lt Col Abujar Al Zahid.

Hundreds of Rohingya Muslims tried to cross into Bangladesh illegally after Myanmar troops launched a crackdown in Rakhine state in response to attacks on three border posts on October 9 that killed nine police officers.

Bangladesh has stepped up security along its border with Myanmar to prevent influx of Rohingyas fleeing violence in Rakhine state that has killed at least 86 people and displaced 30,000 others.

Myanmar and the military have denied accusations by Rohingyas and rights groups of raping women, torching houses and killing civilians during their operations.

Myanmar does not recognise the Rohingyas as its citizens and dubs them ‘Bangali’. Rohingyas, who managed to land in Bangladesh, have taken shelter at refugee camps and other places in Cox’s Bazar.

Bangladesh has so far pushed back thousands of Rohingyas.

The latest violence is the most serious since the 2012 communal clashes. Many have criticised Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi for her silence although her party is in power.

By Maher Sattar

Al Jazeera

December 11, 2016

Some hid in rice fields, others ate only leaves while making the long journey by foot across the border into Bangladesh.

Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh - Outside this town by the Bay of Bengal, we kept bumping into fresh arrivals when we visited the camps for Rohingya refugees fleeing a security crackdown in neighbouring Myanmar.

Many of them said they were from the village of Kearipara in Myanmar. From the sounds of it, that village has been utterly devastated.

All of them shared similar stories: watching family members get murdered, hiding without eating for days, and having their homes burned down.

Several told us about having to sell their valuables - rings, piercings, earrings, whatever they had on them - to facilitate a safe passage into Bangladesh.

The route, which was always difficult and deadly, has become even more problematic.

After thousands of Rohingya were found stranded and starving off the coast of southern Thailand in the middle of last year, widespread international coverage forced the hands of governments of the region to crack down on a network of human traffickers who were exploiting the desperate refugees for cash.

But those very traffickers were also paradoxically the Muslim Rohingya's only hope to make it out of predominantly Buddhist Myanmar and get on the circuitous trek that would take them through Bangladesh and Thailand into the relatively safe haven of Malaysia.

Now, just getting across the border to Bangladesh is a tough proposition for the Rohingya.

The refugees we met described hiding in rice fields for days. Some didn't eat. Others ate only leaves they found in the forests on the hills surrounding the border.

They advanced a few minutes at a time, taking care to stop and check every few hundred metres to make sure the Myanmar army or border guards weren't lying in wait - making a long journey by foot even longer.

Arriving in Bangladesh didn't mean the ordeal was over. If they were caught by the authorities, some would be allowed through by the border guards, others would be turned back.

Every few hundred metres there were checkpoints manned by armed patrols. Next to each of them would be one or two Rohingya families who'd been caught.

Would the soldiers show clemency? Or would they be returned to the heart of the violence they were fleeing? They sat by the side of the road, unsure of their fate.

Tens of thousands have managed to get into Bangladesh. Many of them are in the unofficial Rohingya refugee camps near the tourist town of Cox's Bazaar.

Their hosts are refugees themselves with little to offer in terms of food or shelter.

But the community was pulling together to do what they could, faced with the suffering of their fellow Rohingya.

The new arrivals were grateful for whatever support they could find, but seething with resentment at the lack of action by the international community.

Ethnic cleansing proof

As far as they are concerned, the world has decided that the Rohingya are expendable.

From the Bangladesh side of the border, the evidence of what the UN has called a campaign of ethnic cleansing in Myanmar seems strong.

Aung San Suu Kyi, in response, has said that blame shouldn't be cast until all the facts are known.

That's fair enough.

But one of the known facts is that the Myanmar government won't let journalists or independent observers enter the areas where large-scale violence is believed to be taking place.

Why keep journalists out if Myanmar authorities have nothing to hide?

Dr Habib Siddiqui

RB Article

December 11, 2016

A genocide is taking place against the Rohingyas of Myanmar. It has been an on-going ethnic cleansing national program in this Buddhist-majority country to erase Muslim presence soon after Burma emerged as an independent state. 

After General Ne Win took power in 1962 in a military coup, the status of Rohingya further deteriorated. His military junta adopted a policy of "Myanmarisation", which was an ultra-nationalist ideology based on the racial purity of the Myanma (or more properly Bama) ethnicity and its Buddhist faith. 

By 1977, the Rohingyas had witnessed at least 13 pogroms. Their condition turned worse in 1978 when the Naga Min or King Dragon Operation started on February 6 from the biggest Muslim village of Sakkipara in Akyab (now called Sittwe). The purpose of this operation was to scrutinize each individual within the state as either a citizen or alleged "illegal immigrant". It sent shock waves over the whole region within a short time. The news of mass arrest of Muslims, male and female, young and old, torture, rape and killing in Akyab panicked Muslims greatly in other towns of North Arakan (now called the Rakhine state). 

In March 1978 the operation reached Buthidaung and Maungdaw (close to the border with Bangladesh). Hundreds of Muslim men and women were thrown into the jail and many of them were tortured and killed. Muslim women were raped freely in the detention centers. Terrified by the utter ferocity and ruthlessness of the operation and total uncertainty of their life, property, honor and dignity, a large number Rohingya Muslims left their homes to cross the Burma-Bangladesh border. Within 3 months nearly a quarter million Rohingyas took shelter in makeshift camps erected by Bangladesh Government. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) recognized them as genuine refugees and started relief operations. Many of the refugees were later repatriated to Myanmar where they faced further torture, rape, jail and death.

To justify the on-going ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya, the Burma Citizenship Law (1982), co-authored by a wicked Rakhine academic Aye Kyaw, was passed during the Ne Win era. The Rohingyas were not listed as one of the country’s 135 “national races” entitled to Burmese citizenship, effectively making them a people without a state — even after living for generations in Arakan. They became the most persecuted people in our planet. 

“Stripped officially of their citizenship, the Rohingya found their lives in limbo: prohibited from the right to own land or property, barred from travelling outside their villages, repairing their decaying places of worship, receiving an education in any language or even marrying and having children without rarely granted government permission. The Rohingya have also been subjected to modern-day slavery, forced to work on infrastructure projects, such as constructing ‘model villages’ to house the Myanmar settlers intended to displace them, reminiscent of their treatment at the hands of the Burmese kings of history,” Professor Akbar Ahmed observes.

To further terrorize the already marginalized Rohingya people, the Pyi Thaya Operation (or Operation Clean and Beautiful Nation) was launched by the military in July 1991. This major pogrom lasting for nearly a year resulted in the exodus of some 268,000 Rohingyas to Bangladesh. The United Nations Refugee Agency referred to those operations as “ethnic cleansing campaigns led by the military junta itself.”

Dr. Michael W. Charney, a University of London scholar who specializes in South East Asian studies, wrote in his paper Buddhism in Arakan: Theory and Historiography of the Religious Basis of the Ethnonym that the “Rohingya […] are compelled to thrive under really testing conditions where even their personal lives are under strict state scrutiny. Whatever property they inherited from their ancestors have been forcefully taken away from them, and granted to the Buddhist majority under the banner of different national schemes that served to institutionalize and hence legitimize racist discrimination of Rohingya”.

Benjamin Zawacki, Senior Legal Advisor for Southeast Asia at the International Commission of Jurists, in his article Defining Myanmar’s “Rohingya Problem,” this is “a political, social, and economic system – manifested in law, policy, and practice – designed to discriminate against this ethnic and religious minority [which] makes such direct violence against the Rohingya far more possible and likely than it would be otherwise”.

In spite of murderous activities of the junta and their henchmen, the Rohingyas of Arakan refused to vanish from the Mogher Mulluk of Burma. So, the military junta come with a new program, no less sinister than the previous ones. 

NaSaKa (Nay-Sat Kut-kwey Ye), a border security/military force, was create in 1992 to terrorize the Rohingyas of Arakan on a daily basis. It was to be found only in North Arakan (Rakhine) state, where they became the main perpetrators of human rights abuse against the Rohingya. The day-to-day lives of the Rohingya took a dramatic turn for the worse. They faced severe restrictions on their movement and were subjected to forced labor and arbitrary land seizure and forced displacement, and endured excessive taxes and extortion. Since 1994, it has been illegal for married Rohingya to have more than two children. In the words of Pulitzer-winning journalist and photographer Greg Constantine “almost all aspects of their lives in North Rakhine are controlled or exploited by NaSaKa.”

The persecution and abuses of power by the NaSaKa, terrorizing the Rohingya, continued unabated for decades until it was disbanded with the advent of a so-called reform government that was led by Thein Sein, an ex-military general. He promised democracy and opened the doors of Myanmar for foreign investment. The gesture was reciprocated by the West by withdrawing its economic and military sanctions against the once-pariah government. During Thein Sein’s time, the old IDs and national cards were all seized from the Rohingya people who were also banned from participating in the general elections. What is worse, his regime empowered Buddhist terrorist monks who through popular religio-fascist organizations like the MaBaTha continued to spread hate crimes and prepare the groundwork for the latest genocidal crimes against all Muslims, esp. the Rohingyas of Arakan. The latter were falsely portrayed as ‘illegals’ from nearby Bangladesh who are’ threatening’ the Buddhist identity of the country through ‘high birth rates’. Deliberately omitted in such narratives was the mere fact that the percentage of Muslims have been declining since Burma won independence from Britain. 

Shwe Maung, a Rakhine politician, told The Economist that “[Rohingyas] are trying to Islamize us through their terrible birth rate.” Wirathu, the terrorist Buddhist monk, mentioned to Global Post “Muslims are like the African carp. They breed quickly and they are very violent. They eat their own kind.” Finally, President Thein Sein reiterated that, for the government, “the Rohingya were not citizens of Myanmar” and that he wished to “hand over the entire ethnic group to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in order to settle them in a different country.”

It was in this highly poisonous environment that the 2012 genocidal campaigns against the Rohingya was unleashed. Within weeks in June nearly a quarter million Muslims were internally displaced inside Myanmar in an orgy of Buddhist violence that was participated from top to bottom, enjoying full support from the government, politicians and the Buddhist monks. It was Rwanda all over again in this genocidal crime against the Muslims, esp. the Rohingyas, of Myanmar. 

And I am not alone when I state that the Rohingyas are victims of genocide. From the Human Rights Watch to the academic experts on genocide concur. Phil Robertson, Asia director for Humans Right Watch, wrote nearly four years ago that “the Burmese government engaged in a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya that continues today”. Professor William Schabas, former President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, went a step further and cautioned, “we’re moving into a zone where the [genocide] word can be used.” 

Whatever doubt, if any, against the use of the term ‘genocide’ have to be shelved after October 9 of this year (2016) when the Myanmar security forces attacked Rohingya villages, ethnically cleansing these. According to ARNO, more than 500 innocent Rohingya civilians were killed, many hundreds of women raped, about 3,500 houses were burned down, unknown number of people arrested and involuntarily disappeared, and at least 40,000 internally displaced, in addition to systematic destruction of rice, paddy and food products. About 10,000 people had also fled to Bangladesh. Regular humanitarian assistance has been disrupted for many weeks, putting at risk over 150,000 vulnerable people. Reports indicate a marked deterioration of the human rights situation in northern Rakhine State. And yet, Suu Kyi remains nonchalant by such gross violations of her security forces. Like a sly politician who is more interested in solidifying her hold to power, she seems approving of the war crimes of her murderous military who continues to use her as a pawn to carry out their religio-fascist Myanmarism. 

The Rohingya predicament underlines a paradox for Buddhism, which emphasizes compassion and kindness and yet, we see little evidence of this in its dealings with the Rohingya people.

Will our generation ever see the end of this monstrous crime? I simply don’t know the answer. And yet, like many other well-wishers of the persecuted peoples in our planet, I would like to see a quick end to this shameful event. The sooner the better!

Dr Habib Siddiqui

RB Article

December 11, 2016

On Saturday, December 10, 2016, the Guardian ran a story on two Rohingya women, Noor Ayesha and Sayeda Khatun. 

“Noor Ayesha held her last surviving daughter tight as their boat crossed into Bangladeshi waters. She left behind a firebombed home, a dead husband, seven slain children and the soldiers who raped her,” wrote the Guardian.

“A group of about 20 of them appeared in front of my house,” the 40-year-old Rohingya woman recalled of the morning in mid-October when her village was invaded by hundreds of Burmese government troops. “They ordered all of us to come out in the courtyard. They separated five of our children and forced them into one of our rooms and put on the latch from outside. Then they fired a 'gun-bomb' on that room and set it on fire. Five of my children were burnt to death by the soldiers. They killed my two daughters after raping them. They also killed my husband and raped me.”

Sayeda Khatun was more than five months pregnant, but said that did not deter the soldiers who arrived at her house in the village around noon on October 11. “They carried me at gunpoint to a large courtyard in the village where they had gathered around 30 other Rohingya women,” the 32-year-old said. “From among us the soldiers separated around 15 younger ‘good-looking’ women and took them away to an unknown place. I was in the group of about 15 older women who were raped in that courtyard by the soldiers. Fearing that they would shoot and kill us, all of us took off our clothing as the soldiers ordered.”

She considers herself lucky: she lost no family members and eventually found a way to escape to Cox’s Bazar (in southern tip of Bangladesh) with her husband, Oli Mohammad. But the violence has fractured their relationship, Mohammad believing the men who raped Khatun are also her baby’s fathers, “at least partly”.

Noor Hossain, a resident of a neighboring village, Ngasaku, told the Guardian by phone that the Burmese soldiers had arrived in Kyet Yoe Pyin on October 11 accompanied by Buddhist settlers known as Natala. 

More than half the Rohingya community’s 850 houses were razed over the next two days and soldiers killed at least 265 people, he claims. “At least 100 women were raped and 25 of them were killed during the attack in Karyiprang. At least 40 Rohingyas were burnt alive in the village. Apart from killing people with gunshots and burning them, the soldiers also slaughtered many with knife. They also took away about 150 Rohingya men who have not returned as yet,” Hossain said.

The accounts of Ayesha, Sayeda and Noor are three of several such eye-witness reports of extra-judicial crimes in Suu Kyi’s Myanmar government that is committing genocide and is using rape as a weapon of war against the Rohingyas of Arakan (Rakhine) state, bordering Bangladesh. As a result of the latest pogroms since October 9, at least another 30,000 Rohingyas are now internally displaced. [According to UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) data, as many as 500,000 Rohingya are already internally displaced.] Rohingya males - old and young - are shot on site, while women – young and old – are raped by the Myanmar military to terrorize the community. To finish the job, the military is burning homes and villages. 

Human Rights Watch has analyzed satellite imagery that shows more than 1,250 buildings in northern Rakhine state that have been destroyed, mostly by arson attacks. 

At a rally in Kuala Lumpur last weekend, Malaysia’s prime minister, Najib Razak, likened the persecution of Rohingyas in Myanmar to a genocide.

Penny Green, a professor of law at the University of London, led a 12-month investigation into the Burmese military’s campaign against the Rohingya and concluded that the military was “engaged in a genocidal process” against the minority group. “It’s important to understand genocide as a process which may evolve over many years, beginning with the stigmatization of the target community and moving into physical violence, forced isolation, systematic weakening and finally mass annihilation,” she said. 

“For four years now the Rohingya have suffered state-sponsored denial of access to healthcare, livelihood, food and civic life as well as debilitating restrictions on their freedom of movement. 

“And now, since 9 October this year, the Rohingya in northern Rakhine state are facing a terrifying new phase in the genocide: mass killings, rapes, village clearings and the razing of whole communities, committed with impunity by the Myanmar military and security forces,” she said.

Many Rohingyas are finding it very difficult to trust Myanmar government for their safety and security and, in utter despair, are trying to flee to Bangladesh where they face push-back from Bangladesh Navy and the Border Guard (BGB). [As I write this essay, another 166 Rohingyas have been pushed back by the BGB.] Hundreds of Rohingyas have also been detained on both sides in the last two months attempting to illegally travel across the Naf River, which separates Myanmar and Bangladesh. And yet, some 22,000 Rohingya refugees have managed to pour into Cox’s Bazar. Every week, thousands continue to make the journey in spite of such obstacles. 

Suu Kyi’s government is still in denial of such gruesome crimes of her military (Tatmadaw), and has not allowed international media and aid agencies to visit the northern Rakhine state to either verify the charges against the military or provide humanitarian aid to the Rohingyas. 

The Kofi Annan commission is proving to be jawless. The former UN Secretary General was recently permitted to visit the Rakhine (Arakan) state for the first time since the crisis erupted. He was greeted by Buddhist protesters holding signs reading "Ban the Kofi Annan commission". [Obviously, they are opposed to any investigation of the Buddhist crimes against the Rohingya minority.] Mr. Annan interviewed villagers in Kyet Yoe Pyin on December 3. He told a press conference in Yangon on Tuesday (December 6) that his committee was deeply concerned by reports of “human rights abuses” in the Rakhine state and urged Burmese security forces to act within the law. [Obviously, Mr. Annan needs a History 101 lesson on Tatmadaw that has perfected the art of committing war crimes under the pretext of securing law and order in this apartheid country.]

The Myanmar government does not want the international community to learn of its genocidal crimes, and, thus, those interviewed by Mr. Annan were later arrested by security forces. The move was meant to discourage Rohingya victims to speak out. Worse yet, Burmese soldiers resumed operations in Rohingya villages two days after Annan’s visit, and at least 50 women were raped and four killed in last week in the village of Kyauk Chaung in northern Arakan. 

As part of another very calculated ploy to deflect international backlash, Suu Kyi has recently formed a 13-member commission, which, not surprisingly, again, in this den of hatred and intolerance included no Muslim and is led by Vice President Myint Swe, a retired army general, formerly blacklisted by the United States. The commission is created with the sole purpose of parroting government propaganda. Phil Robertson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch in Asia, said the new commission "doesn't look like it's independent or impartial". 

According to the UNHCR data, since 2014 an estimated 94,000 asylum seekers have fled to neighboring countries by means of deadly sea journeys. The commonly preferred destination is Malaysia, which hosts approximately 142,000 people. Indonesia currently has approximately 1,000 Rohingya refugees, excluding unregistered asylum seekers, mainly based in Aceh. 

The Rohingyas need unpretentious international help, esp. from the ASEAN countries and Bangladesh. The push-back, a familiar tactic employed by Bangladesh government, simply cannot be an option. It is both criminal and morally repugnant, let alone being inexcusable for a country that had witnessed ten million of its own people become refugees in neighboring India during the liberation war of 1971. The push-back policy blemishes the spirit of liberation! 

The Bali Process, an international high-level forum on people smuggling, human trafficking and related transnational crimes, which aims to push for more practical arrangements including the implementation of burden-sharing and collective-responsibility principles, however, has proven to be a failure because of its non-binding nature and no consequences for non-adherence. Bangladesh, for instance, has failed to uphold its commitment made during the 2016 Bali Declaration.

It is clear that Bangladesh and ASEAN member states have miserably failed to sober Myanmar - their rogue neighbor. If the current crisis lingers without restoring Rohingya rights, all these countries should be prepared to receive more Rohingya refugees and provide protection and necessary humanitarian assistance to them. 

As noted by Shaffira Gayatri of the Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network (APRRN), there is no existing legal framework in ASEAN to deal with refugees and forced migration. [In the Southeast Asian region, only the Philippines, Cambodia and Timor Leste (East Timor) are signatories to the 1951 Refugee Convention.] ASEAN has preferred to focus on its economic functions, while turning a blind eye to more pressing political and human rights issue like the Rohingya crisis. This morally indefensible non-interference principle needs serious reevaluation. Ms. Gayatri opines that “ASEAN has to step up pressure on the Myanmar government to stop the persecution of and discrimination against the Rohingya people through persistent diplomacy. A stronger diplomacy is also needed to allow and ensure the admission of humanitarian aid agencies into the Rohingya area.” 

My personal opinion is that a pariah state like Myanmar cannot be sobered by carrots; i.e., its decades of criminal habits cannot be reformed by diplomacy, and surely not be rewarded with trades and investment. It needs sticks, biting sanctions and trials of its leadership in The Hague for its crimes against humanity. The decision to lift economic and other sanctions was simply premature and foolish. 

In recent weeks, protesters across South and South-east Asia have turned out for demonstrations against the genocidal violence, particularly in Indonesia, Bangladesh and Malaysia. They demanded their governments to stand up for the Rohingyas who are running away from state-sponsored extermination campaigns, acting in the name of race and religion. 

Sadly, the powerful western countries, busy with the rise of ultra-nationalist populist parties in their midst, seem least concerned with gross violations of human rights in apartheid Myanmar. They seem more interested in opening up business with the new regime, which has a Nobel Peace Prize winner as its de-facto leader, no matter how she had disgraced the award. Lost in that transaction is the fact that the situation of minorities like the Rohingya has simply worsened under her rule. 

Recently, a cross-party group of 70 British parliamentarians have urged the UK government to “intensify pressure” on the Myanmar government to allow full humanitarian access to Rohingya Muslims in the North Rakhine State of Myanmar. “Together with the international community, the UK government must intensify its pressure on the Myanmar government to allow full humanitarian access to the Rohingya,” the British parliamentarians, including co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group for Burma Rushan Ara Ali (MP), said in a letter to British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson. They called on the British government to do all in its power to help those fleeing the violence to find a safe passage home. “We condemn any reprisal attacks that have followed the recent incidents of violence on the Myanmar border and call for an immediate end to the targeted use of violence of an already persecuted religious minority,” the parliamentarians wrote.

We need serious initiatives all across the globe urging governments and the UN Security Council to intensify pressure on Suu Kyi to stop war crimes of her Tatmadaw. 

Truly, it is high time for the world community to demand a total halt to the on-going genocidal crimes of Suu Kyi’s government against the Rohingyas of Myanmar. Must the Rohingya people wander in the wilderness for two millennia and suffer repeated persecution, humiliation and genocide to qualify for our support for their existence? Do they need to be ‘children’ of a ‘higher’ God to qualify?