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Northern Rahkine has been under strict military lockdown since October [AFP]

January 15, 2017

UN special rapporteur Yanghee Lee looking into country's human rights record, including alleged abuses against Rohingya.

UN special rapporteur on human rights Yanghee Lee has been denied access to some areas in Myanmar's northern Rakhine State, with the government citing "security concerns" for its decision. 

Al Jazeera also learned on Sunday that Lee was only allowed to speak to individuals who were pre-approved by the government while she visited Muslim Rohingya villages in the area.

"These are things that will certainly hamper her investigation," Al Jazeera's Florence Looi, reporting from Sittwe, said. "Lack of access will make her job more difficult."

As part of her 12-day visit to Myanmar, Lee is spending three days in Rakhine - home to around 1.2 million stateless Rohingya, a Muslim minority that has suffered decades of poverty and repression, and been denied basic rights such as citizenship and freedom of movement.

Lee also visited the border guard posts, attacked in October, as well as a prison.

Northern Rakhine has been under strict military lockdown since October 9, when a gang killed nine border police officials near the border with Bangladesh, leading to a clampdown that has left anywhere between 84 and 400 Rohingya dead.

According to the UN, at least 65,000 Rohingya have reportedly fled across the border to Bangladesh to escape violence allegedly committed by the military, including the burning of homes, rape and murder of civilians. 

The Myanmar government and military have denied all the allegations. 

On Friday, Lee met Muslim community leaders during her visit to a Rohingya neighbourhood in Sittwe.

Lee also visited border guard posts, the attacks on which in early October triggered clearance operations by the military. 

But a powerful ethnic party rejected a request for a meeting with Lee on Friday evening. 

"We are not meeting her because we don't believe she and her organisation [the UN] have a will to resolve the issues fairly," Ba Swe, joint secretary of the Arakan National Party, told Anadolu Agency on Saturday.

UN special rapporteur on Myanmar Yanghee Lee (C) departs from Sittwe to visit areas of northern Rakhine State on Saturday [AFP]
"The issues will never be solved as long as they accept these Bengalis as members of this country’s ethnic groups,” Ba Swe said, using a term that suggests Rohingya are illegal immigrants from neighbouring Bangladesh.


International pressure

The crisis in Myanmar has put Aung San Suu Kyi's administration under international pressure, with rights watchdog Human Rights Watch criticising the government of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate for failing to hold the country's military accountable for the crackdown on Rohingya.

Lee continues her travels through the conflict zone on Sunday before returning to Yangon later in the week.

Al Jazeera's Looi also said the UN envoy will also look into reports that the flow of aid to Rohingya has been "severely curtailed" since the military operation began three months ago. 

"The UN said they are concerned about the rising rate of malnutrition among the Rohingya in this area, because this is an area, where food security is already in doubt," Looi said, adding that as many as 150,000 people are dependent on aid.

Across the border in Bangladesh, Al Jazeera's Maher Sattar, who is reporting from Cox's Bazar, said Rohingya refugees have also corroborated reports of abuse.

"We've come across people, who have been shot. We've come across children. Every single person here, they are quite unanimous in their stories of villages being burned and relatives being killed."

A law passed in Myanmar in 1982 denies Rohingya - many of whom have lived in Myanmar for generations - citizenship, making them stateless.

The law denies Rohingya rights to Myanmar nationality, removes their freedom of movement, access to education and services, and allows arbitrary confiscation of property.

Rohingya have fled Myanmar in droves for decades, with a new wave of migrations occurring since mid-2012 after communal violence broke out.

Because of their lack of citizenship, they are also considered as refugees in Bangladesh, and many of them are confined in refugee camps for decades.

Rohingya women reveal the horrors -- reprisals, rape and burning people and houses.

January 13, 2017

Bangladesh mounts pressure on Myanmar to take back their nationals

Keeping themselves confined to a tiny room with no light inside, two young Rakhine Muslim women were struggling to get rid of the trauma and forget the brutality they had gone through.

They remained speechless for minutes seeing the presence of a newsman at Kutupalong refugee camp in Ukhia. Later, they revealed the horrors -- reprisals, rape and burning people and houses.

"We're asked to get undressed and look up at the sun...we were left naked and with no food and water before being gang-raped (by Myanmar forces)," Hosne Ara (not her real name), a 25-year-old Myanmar national, told UNB narrating the horrible torture perpetrated on her and her relatives.

Hosne Ara, hailing from Kyari Parang village from Myanmar side, said her husband Sona Miah and her son Ibrahim got confined to their house when Myanmar forces put their house on fire.

"I was caught by several soldiers. The soldiers had previously gathered women of the village and took all of them to nearby paddy fields where they were all raped one after another," she recalled avoiding the eye contact.

Nur Sufia, another 20-year-old woman, sitting beside Hosne Ara, was also sharing a similar sad story.

"On December 10, soldiers came to my house and burned it down. I managed to escape with my two kids -- Mohammed Selim, 4, and 18-month-old Noor Kayes," Sufia told UNB.

She said four soldiers caught her and raped her before shooting the kids in their heads. "My husband and two brothers were burned in the fire."

Though a commission probing violence in Myanmar's Rakhine State denied security forces had abused Rohingya, anyone can see totally a different picture while talking to the new arrivals from Myanmar here in Bangladesh.

Around 65,000 people fled Myanmar and entered Bangladesh since October 9 last and the influx is still on, according to officials at the Foreign Ministry.

Nur Mohammad, who arrived in Bangladesh 20 years back from Myanmar, told UNB that people are still crossing the border secretly and taking shelter in Bangladesh.

"Those who arrived here are unwilling to go back to Myanmar fearing further attacks. The international community needs to put genuine pressure on Myanmar so that peace and stability are restored in Rakhine State," he said.

It is very difficult to digest the stories being unfolded from the victims who took shelter in Bangladesh side, Nur added.

Arafat Ara, another victim, said the Na'f River has lot of stories to tell. "Through this river, I have been able to arrive here. Journeys of many people to Bangladesh for shelter ended halfway," said the 25-year-old Rakhine Muslim woman who took a boat journey through the Na'f river with her five children.

Describing tortures on Rohingya people by Myanmar forces, Dudu Miah, a community leader in Leda unregistered refugee camp, told UNB that the United Nations needs to deploy peacekeepers there to restore peace.

"We had full support for Aung San Suu Kyi in the past. Now she is not talking about Muslims. We've no hope right now," he said adding that Rohingya people will get back to their homeland if their rights are protected.

Bangladesh has already clearly conveyed Myanmar side to take back all Myanmar nationals -- documented, undocumented and new arrivals - as soon as possible.

Bangladesh has also proposed a coordinated and holistic approach to stop marginalisation of Rakhine Muslims, restore peace and stability in Rakhine State ensuring their livelihoods so that Myanmar nationals living in Bangladesh feel encouraged to return home.

As part of mounting international pressure on Myanmar, the member states of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) will come together in Kuala Lumpur on January 19 to discuss possible remedies to the situation of the Rohingya Muslim minority in Myanmar.

This is going to be an 'extraordinary' meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers where Bangladesh will place its position on overall situation apart from the latest developments on the Rohingya issue.

Myanmar's special envoy and Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Kyaw Tin who arrived here on Tuesday evening, discussed bilateral issues with special focus on Rohingya crisis during his meetings with Bangladesh.

Sharing the outcomes of the meetings, Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali on Thursday said Bangladesh is 'quite evidently' heading towards the next step to have a permanent solution to Rohingya issue. "Surely, they'll have to take back their (Myanmar) nationals (documented, undocumented and new arrivals)."

Bangladesh has also proposed forming a proper body to verify the citizenship of Myanmar nationals and Rakhine Muslims who took shelter here.

Both Bangladesh and Myanmar agreed to quickly sign two under-discussion MoUs on security dialogue and cooperation; and border liaison office to boost security cooperation between the two countries.

Bangladesh thinks Chittagong and Cox's Bazar are extremely important and tourism development activities and stability are being hampered there due to recent arrivals from Myanmar and over 3 lakh undocumented Myanmar nationals.

Bangladesh also placed a demand for bringing back normalcy in Rakhine State so that Myanmar nationals staying in Bangladesh can go back to their home safely and with dignitary.

Members of Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) stand guard on the bank of Naf River near the Bangladesh-Myanmar border to preventRohingya refugees from illegal border crossing, in Teknaf near Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, November 22, 2016. REUTERS/Mohammad Ponir Hossain

By Simon Lewis and Serajul Quadir 
January 13, 2017

YANGON/DHAKA -- Myanmar has agreed to begin talks with Bangladesh over an estimated 65,000 Rohingya Muslims who have fled Myanmar's northwestern Rakhine State since attacks on border posts three months ago, a senior Myanmar official said on Thursday.

Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi dispatched a special envoy to Dhaka this week in a thaw in the troubled relations between the neighbors, who each see the stateless Rohingya as the other's problem.

Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina told Suu Kyi's Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Kyaw Tin on Wednesday that Myanmar must accept back all "Myanmar nationals" in Bangladesh, the Bangladeshi premier's spokesman said.

Aye Aye Soe, director general of Myanmar's foreign affairs ministry, said the two countries would start discussions on an "identification and verification process". 

"If they find they are from Myanmar, they will be repatriated at the appropriate time," she said, adding there was "no timeline" for the talks.

The agreement marks a rare bright spot in the two countries' bilateral relations, which are complicated by as many as 500,000 Rohingyas living in Bangladesh after fleeing decades of persecution in Myanmar.

The United Nations says about 65,000 more people have fled the Muslim-majority northern part of Rakhine to Bangladesh since attacks that killed nine Myanmar border police on Oct. 9, sparking a heavy-handed security response.

Residents and refugees say Myanmar troops and police have carried out beatings, sexual assaults and extrajudicial killings, arbitrarily arrested villagers and set fire to homes. Myanmar has denied almost all the allegations.

The crisis has raised concerns from diplomats and human rights advocates that Myanmar's military remains unaccountable, despite a Suu Kyi-led civilian government taking power more than nine months ago.

DENIED CITIZENSHIP

A quick resolution seems unlikely as many in Buddhist-majority Myanmar see the Rohingya - whom they call "Bengalis" - as interlopers not deserving of citizenship, despite some tracing their lineage inside Myanmar's borders back centuries.

Officials in Bangladesh, where the Rohingya are also not accepted, refer to "Muslim nationals of Myanmar".

"If they are Myanmar nationals they will be repatriated here," said Myanmar's Aye Aye Soe.

Asked what the term "Myanmar nationals" referred to, she said: "It could be citizens or it could be people from Myanmar side."

Aye Aye Soe restated Myanmar's position after a previous verification process that only 2,415 of those living in Bangladesh from past exoduses were from Myanmar.

The new talks will focus on those who have arrived in Bangladesh since the recent bout of violence, she added.

Bangladesh Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali said that, with the Myanmar delegation's visit, the repatriation process was "heading towards the next step, quite evidently." 

While keeping relations with Myanmar "friendly," Bangladesh's government wants the Rohingya out of its border area so tourism can develop there, he told reporters on Thursday.

"We want to see them leave Bangladesh quickly," Mahmood Ali added.

(Editing by Dominic Evans)

Myanmar Government makes baseless, slanderous allegations against Ro Nay San Lwin and the Rohingya Blogger News: Rohingya Blogger’s Statement

London, UK
January 13, 2017

Rohingya Blogger News group is deeply disturbed by Myanmar government’s slanderous and baseless allegations against its coverage of the crimes of the Myanmar security forces against the Rohingya people in the last few weeks.

We are a group of honest citizen journalists based in the Rohingya diaspora, as well as on the ground inside the predominantly Rohingya region of Northern Arakan in western Myanmar (Burma).

Myanmar State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi’s Information Committee and the Commander in Chief’s Office are both officially behind this deplorable official propaganda designed to destroy our credibility with international news agencies, which consult with and rely upon our local expertise for in-depth knowledge of the decades-long genocidal crimes committed by Myanmar governments against the Rohingya community.

Myanmar government falsely accused us of “fabricating” incidents that we claimed took place in Gawduthara village tract in southern Maungdaw Township, Rakhine State, on the 7th and 8th of January, 2017. This attack on the integrity of the Rohingya Blogger first appeared on the Facebook page run by Myanmar military’s Commander-In-Chief’s Office.

We fully stand by our reporting about Myanmar troops committing sexual violence against 13 Rohingya women and girls that took place at Gawduthara. As a matter of fact, besides speaking to the rape victims and/or eye witnesses, Rohingya Blogger News Group has verified the initial accounts of rape, robbery, arrest and torture of Rohingya villagers by Myanmar troops.

We stand by the fact that Myanmar troops from a army battalion based in Mawrawaddy village and the Border Guard Police (BGP) from Magyi Chaung Village camp gang-raped 13 Rohingya women and girls in the late evening of 7 January, 2017. The same troops detained and severely tortured 7 Rohingya villagers, all men, on 8 January.

On the morning of 8 January a group of BGP troops led by Police Major Kyaw Thu Yee arrived and took records of of the incidents in detail and reported the matter to his superiors. Subsequently, the BGP troops subjected 30 women and seven men to various types of sexual violence, severe beatings, and other physical and mental tortures. In the late afternoon, the commander of the Battalion based in Mawrawaddy took the men who were tortured and provided them with medical treatment.

Again, on 10 January Myanmar troops brought the four Rohingya villagers who were already tortured to the local BGP camp where the latter were forced to sign confessions. Subsequently, the troop commander gave each signer 50,000 Kyat (US$45 approximately) and ordered them not to speak of the “incidents" of sexual violence, robbery and torture that they witnessed or experienced first-hand.

The Rohingya Blogger has collected evidence of these incidents, which remain in our News Group’s possession.

Following the slanderous attacks on Rohingya Blogger by the Office of Myanmar Commander-In-Chief, the State Counsellor’s Information Committee released the same information without mentioning us directly by name. The Info Committee instead described us as an “Internet propaganda page” which it said had posted fabricated news. Burmese media and State media then published the same information in Burmese and English language on-line publications, as well as hard copies.

Among the international journalists, we are one of the most trusted sources of Rohingya news, updates and raw stories for more than 10 years. Rohingya Blogger has received awards from nine organizations based in the United States in 2015. We have cooperated with every major media outlet in the world, from CNN and BBC to Al Jazeera and New York Times, in order to inform the world of Myanmar’s persecution of the Rohingya people – which is now increasingly and commonly described as “ethnic cleansing”, “crimes against humanity”, or even “genocide”.

We categorically reject and denounce the baseless accusations against us made jointly by the Aung San Suu Kyi’s Government and the military leaders of Myanmar.

Additionally, we denounce the false or fake news made by Myanmar’s State Counsellor’s Office where Aung San Suu Kyi’s Information Committee distorted a video clip from Al Jazeera news (ref: #AJNewsGrid November 21, 2016) as if Al Jazeera English was warning the world of “Fake News” spread by Rohingya Blogger. Al Jazeera uses raw stories about Myanmar’s atrocities against Rohingya because its editors and producers have worked with us and known us to be fully credible and truthful as the on-the-ground source of news about the Rohingyas.

The Myanmar Government’s mouthpiece, The Global New Light of Myanmar, posted an article stating that one of our bloggers and citizen journalists, namely Ro Nay San Lwin, was sending out fake news. Contrary to the malicious distortion by the Global New Light of Myanmar, the video news clip in question actually referred to Internet users posting wrongly attributed photos that claimed to be of Rakhine State. In fact, the AJE news story which Myanmar government mouthpiece referred to showed Ro Nay San Lwin’s tweets as the ones containing and transmitting verified photos about the unfolding situation in Northern Rakhine State. For the Aung San Suu Kyi government to be running this apparently distorted story in its official media outlet is a sign of desperation among Myanmar’s senior leaders, including Aung San Suu Kyi. However powerful and influential, Myanmar leaders may be, they are losing their propaganda war internationally - clearly designed to cover up and deny atrocity crimes of genocidal proportions.

Our major goal is to stop the heinous crimes against the Rohingya people who only wish to live in peace and harmony with their Rakhine brothers and sisters in their shared ancestral land. We will continue our efforts to report on the daily plight of the Rohingya people as we have been doing for the past decade.

To Myanmar State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, we have a message for you. We had loved you once and we called you our friend and even ‘Mother’. We ask now that you find in the Rohingya the same humanity you find in yourself. We ask that you give the Rohingya the same compassion the world gave you. Finally, we ask that you “use your liberty to promote ours”.

The Myanmar government’s allegation against RB can be read here. 

The Myanmar government’s fabricated news about Al Jazeera’s video clip can be read here.

The video clip of Al Jazeera can be watched here.


Rohingya Blogger Team

For more information, please contact: Ro Nay San Lwin + 49 69 26022349

The following organizations and individual have endorsed this statement.

1. International State Crime Initiative (ISCI)
2. Burma Campaign UK
3. Burma Task Force USA
4. Global Minorities Alliance (GMA)
5. Centre for Human Rights Research & Advocacy (CENTHRA), Malaysia
6. Burma Human Rights Network (BHRN)
7. Burmese Muslim Association
8. Protect The Rohingya (South Africa)
9. Civil Rights Movement
10. International Campaign for the Rohingya
11. Al Kanz (France)
12. Arakan Rohingya National Organisation
13. Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK
14. Burmese Rohingya Community in Denmark
15. Rohingya Community in Germany
16. Rohingya Community in Switzerland
17. Rohingya Organisation Norway
18. Rohingya Community in Finland
19. Rohingya Community in Italy
20. Rohingya Community in Sweden
21. Rohingya Society in Netherlands
22. Burmese Rohingya Association in Japan
23. Rohingya American Society
24. Burmese Rohingya Association in Thailand
25. Rohingya Advocacy Network in Japan
26. Burmese American Muslim Association (BAMA)
27. Rohingya Society in Malaysia (RSM)
28. Burmese Rohingya Association in Queensland-Australia (BRAQA)
29. Burmese Rohingya Community Australia
30. British Rohingya Community UK
31. Rohingya Culture Center Chicago
32. Rohingya Association Canada
33. Rohingya Peace Network of Thailand
34. Dr. Maung Zarni
35. Dr. Azeem Ibrahim
36. Jamila Hanan
37. Jennifer Sawicz
38. Andrew Day
39. Ahsan Khan
40. Janice Ahmed
41. BarakaCity
42. Dr. Habib Siddiqui
43. Paul Mooney
44. Matthew Smith

Please send email to info@rohingyablogger.com if you would like to endorse this statement.



January 12, 2017

URGENT ACTION

TORTURE FEARS FOR HUNDREDS ROHINGYA DETAINED

Hundreds of Rohingya have been detained as part of the ongoing security operation in northern Rakhine State, Myanmar. To date, no official information about where the individuals are being held or what they are accused of has been made public. All are at risk of torture and other ill-treatment and of being subjected to unfair trials.

Myanmar authorities have, according to a governmental Investigation Commission, arrested and “taken legal action” against 485 people since 9 October 2016. Among them are village leaders, business owners, religious leaders and Arabic teachers as well as ordinary villagers. In some instances, men failed to return after being summoned to security force headquarters, while others were arrested by state security forces during village sweeps to find suspected assailants and stolen weapons. Relatives have told Amnesty International they do not know where their loved ones are being detained, what they have been charged with or whether they have access to any lawyer. The absence of any information about these detainees for several months raises concerns that they could be victims of enforced disappearance.

Testimonies collected by Amnesty International reveal that some arrests have been accompanied or followed by torture and other ill-treatment. In October, two young Rohingya men from northern Maungdaw Township were beaten by state security forces for 30 minutes before being taken away. In November, soldiers and police officers beat a man from Kyet Yoe Pyin village with rods to get him to disclose the location of suspected militants. A video posted online in December also showed police beat a Rohingya boy during a security sweep. According to state media six people have died in custody since 9 October, including Kalim Ullah, a 58-year-old former UN worker, who died three days after being arrested in Ridar village on 14 October.

Those who speak out about human rights violations in Rakhine State also risk arbitrary arrest and other reprisals.

Please write immediately in English, Burmese or your own language urging the Myanmar authorities to:

- Immediately disclose the fate and whereabouts of all individuals detained during these security operations and ensure that they are treated humanely, allowed effective, prompt and regular access to their family, lawyers of their own choosing and adequate medical care;

- Immediately release all detainees unless they are promptly charged with an internationally recognizable offence. In such cases, ensure all trials meet international standards of fairness, without recourse to the death penalty, and all detainees are transferred to recognized places of detention;

- Undertake independent, impartial and effective investigations into deaths in custody and allegations of torture or other ill-treatment by the security forces. Those suspected to be responsible – including those with command responsibility – should be brought to justice in trials which meet international standards of fairness, without recourse to the death penalty.

PLEASE SEND APPEALS BEFORE 23 FEBRUARY 2017 TO:

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi
State Counsellor
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Office No. 9
Nay Pyi Taw
Republic of the Union of Myanmar
Fax: + 95 (0) 67412396
Salutation: Your Excellency

Lt. Gen. Kyaw Swe
Minister of Home Affairs
Office No. 10, Nay Pyi Taw
Republic of the Union of Myanmar
Fax: +95 67 412 439
Salutation: Dear Minister

And copies to:

Chairman, Myanmar National Human Rights Commission 
U Win Mra 
27 Pyay Road, Hlaing Township, Yangon Republic of the Union of Myanmar
Fax: + 95 1 659 668

Also send copies to diplomatic representatives accredited to your country.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

On 9 October 2016 several hundred men, believed to be part of a militant group comprised primarily of individuals from the Rohingya ethnic group, attacked border police outposts in Myanmar’s northern Rakhine State, killing six border police and seizing weapons and ammunition. Security forces responded by launching a major security operation, conducting “clearance operations” and sealing the area, effectively barring humanitarian organizations, media and independent human rights monitors from entering. 

Since then, Amnesty International has documented a litany of human rights violations against the Rohingya community in northern Rakhine State committed by the security forces – in particular the military. These include unlawful killings and random firing on civilians, arbitrary arrests, torture and other ill-treatment, rape and other crimes of sexual violence, mass destruction of Rohingya buildings, looting of property, and arbitrary confiscation of important identity documents. For further information see Amnesty International report: “We are at breaking point” - Rohingya: Persecuted in Myanmar, neglected in Bangladesh (Index: ASA 16/5362/2016), available at: https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/asa16/5362/2016/en/

International law and standards prohibit the arbitrary deprivation of liberty and contain a number of safeguards ensuring detainees’ rights to due process and to freedom from torture and other ill-treatment. Among them are: the right to notify family or another third person; the right to legal counsel; the right to medical assistance; the right to be brought promptly before a judge and to challenge the lawfulness of detention; the right to silence and not to incriminate oneself. Denial of the right to communicate with the outside world – that is, holding a person in incommunicado detention – clearly breaches these standards. The UN General Assembly has repeatedly stated that “prolonged incommunicado detention or detention in secret places can facilitate the perpetration of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and can in itself constitute a form of such treatment.” 

On 1 December 2016, President U Htin Kyaw announced the establishment of the Investigation Commission to probe the attacks on 9 October, and 12 and 13 November 2016, and alleged human rights abuses. The Commission is scheduled to report to the President by 31 January 2017; however, given that its membership includes high ranking former and current military and government personnel, Amnesty International does not consider the Commission capable of carrying out an independent, credible investigation.

The Rohingya are a Muslim ethnic minority who live mainly in Rakhine State which borders Bangladesh. They have faced decades of persecution at the hands of the Myanmar authorities, however their situation has significantly deteriorated since waves of violence between ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and Muslims (mainly Rohingya) swept through Rakhine State in 2012 leading to scores of deaths, mass displacement and the destruction of property. Rohingya’s right to freedom of movement is severely restricted, which impacts their ability to access education and healthcare, to practice their religion and access livelihood opportunities.

Name: Kalim Ullah, Rohingyas detained during security operations
Gender m/f: both

(Photo: Anadolu Agency via Getty Images) 

By Michael G. Karnavas
International Criminal Law Blog
January 12, 2017

As a responsible Government, you don’t just go around hollering ‘genocide.’ You say that acts of genocide may have occurred and they need to be investigated.

David Rawson, United States Ambassador to Rwanda 1

The Rohingya in Myanmar have by all accounts – save for those of the Myanmar government and military – been on the receiving end since at least 2012 of consistent, widespread, presumably organized, and arguably sanctioned acts of violence amounting to crimes against humanity. Take your pick of alleged crimes: persecution, rape, murder, forcible transfer, deportation, extermination, arbitrary detention and imprisonment, and arguably, apartheid. The full treatment.

Ethnic cleansing with tinges of genocidal acts seems to be the obvious goal, or more ominously put, the desired solution: to expel and, if necessary, eradicate the Rohingya Muslims from the Rakhine state of Myanmar. Meanwhile, the international community and those most expected to speak loudly and repeatedly contently wait, naively or apathetically, for the criminal acts against the Rohingya to dissipate, for their plight to be resolved. Wishful thinking based in part on willful blindness.

Current events show that the Myanmar government and military not only lack the political and moral will to act responsibly, but that they are also comfortable with accepting the commission of purported “acts of genocide” against the Rohingya. Appallingly, the storm of intolerance and indifference that has already stripped the Rohingya of their human dignity, the enjoyment of their inalienable rights, their property, their places of worship, their freedom, and, in far too unacceptable numbers, their lives, is brewing and picking up steam. Time is against the Rohingya. Time to face the ugly and inconvenient facts.

Before I discuss the ongoing events, a few words about the Rohingya in Myanmar.

Northern Rakhine state (the name commonly given to the townships of Maungdaw and Buthidaung) is located in the west of Myanmar, bordering Bangladesh. It is populated mainly by the Rohingya, but also by other ethnic minorities such as the Rakhine Buddhist. The Rohingya have faced decades of repression and discrimination. The Myanmar government does not recognize them as one of the ethnic groups of the country. Instead, the Rohingya are regarded as mere refugees from Bangladesh.2  The 1982 Citizenship Law effectively denies the Rohingya the possibility of acquiring Myanmar nationality.3 Being stateless, they lack legal protection by the government, which results in severe restrictions on their movement, impacting their ability to access healthcare, education, and livelihood opportunities.4

In 2012, religious and ethnic tensions between the Rohingya Muslims and the Rakhine Buddhists escalated into widespread rioting. Since then, ongoing conflicts have forced the Rohingya to flee, though they are often rejected (equally unwanted) by neighboring Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand.5

The situation in northern Rakhine state has deteriorated significantly since 9 October 2016 when unknown assailants attacked three police outposts in northern Rakhine state, killing nine Border Guard police officers and seizing weapons and ammunition. The authorities responded by initiating a major security operation, conducting sweeps of the area to find the perpetrators.6

The United Nations (“UN”) Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimates that since early November 2016 almost 27,000 people have fled across the border from northern Rakhine state into Bangladesh.7 Government officials in Myanmar have repeatedly denied reports of human rights violations by security forces. Conversely, journalists and NGOs describe the actions of the state forces in the region as ethnic cleansing and genocide, and have reported murders, mass rape and beatings, burning villages, and other human rights violations amounting to crimes against humanity.8

Shockingly, our Buddhist brothers and sisters in Burma have lost the virtue of Buddhism. 9

Most recently, a video surfaced showing officers beating members of the Muslim Rohingya during a security operation. This appears to have gotten the attention of the international community. The selfie-style video showed the brutality of officers kicking and beating civilians and the impunity they feel. And as the saying goes, the evidence never lies. Finally, the government had to confront what it has known and neglected, if not outright encouraged. The government’s past failures to acknowledge, condemn, and act against this cycle of violence has nurtured a culture of impunity.

In the recent Interim Report of the Investigation Commission on Maungtaw, the Investigation Commission established by the government to investigate the attacks on 9 October 2016 dismissed the allegations of genocide: “[T]he increasing population of Mawlawi, mosques and religious edifices are proof that there were no cases of genocide and religious persecution in the region.”10

Characterizing crimes as genocide is often over the top, hyperbolic. Whenever there are large-scale atrocities, the knee-jerk reaction is to claim that genocide is occurring. And then there is the reverse action by some governments: best not to come out and claim that genocide is occurring – even when rather obvious – for fear that action (boots on the ground) may need to be taken to halt it. We saw this in the case of Rwanda. Better to punt and claim that only “acts of genocide” are taking place, a policy articulated by the Bill Clinton administration.11 Message to those who were perishing or about to: help will be on its way if the situation intensifies to genocide. Comforting. Years later Clinton would get teary-eyed as he admitted his failure to act in the face of overwhelming evidence of what was happening in Rwanda.12

What are acts of genocide? It is like saying that a woman is a little pregnant. It may make for clever diplomatic speak, but it is just a vacuous phrase. Look beyond the phrase. Where a group (Rohingya Muslims) is being targeted as such, and the intent – as deduced from the actions taken – is at a minimum to maim, permanently expel from Myanmar, and kill them, because of who they are as members of that group (Rohingya Muslims), are there not sufficient hallmarks of genocide (or at the very least traces of extermination) present to merit immediate condemnation and action at the national and international level?13

The Lady speaketh not

What of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate and State Counsellor, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi?14 Silence.

Should not the residents of Myanmar, the Rohingya, and the international community, expect more than her purposeful silence, her occasional drab demur, or her belated request for an international commission? As the de facto head of state,15 and having promoted herself as the doyenne of human rights activists in Myanmar,16 one would think that she would be front and center in condemning these cruel, inhumane, and, yes, genocidal acts.

Is Aung San Suu Kyi’s position so tenuous that she would suffer politically were she to speak out against this systematic violence against the Rohingya? Is she afraid of any backlash from the military, the police, and those who support, incite, and carry out the physical acts of violence? Is she just being pragmatic – as any politician of her position should be?

Aung San Suu Kyi’s deafening silence and lame rationalizations give aid and comfort to the perpetrators. Some argue that she needs a bit more time and space. Take, for instance, former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s most recent statement. Selected to the Advisory Commission on Rakhine State, he made the following remarks: “I think there are tensions, there has been fighting, but I wouldn’t put it the way some have done…. [The international community should give Aung San Suu Kyi’s government] a bit of time, space and patience.”17 Tensions? Is Annan serious?

How much more time and how much more space does Aung San Suu Kyi need? If she can use the bully pulpit to garner votes for her party to win the elections, she can certainly use the bully pulpit to condemn these ongoing acts of crimes against humanity and genocide against the Rohingya.

But is it really a matter of having more time and space, or is it about clinging to and coveting more power? Aung San Suu Kyi may wish to recall and reflect upon her own thoughts on power and the fear of losing it – which seems to be the case with The Lady.

It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it. 18

Footnotes:

1. As quoted in Douglas Jehl, Officials Told to Avoid Calling Rwanda Killings ‘Genocide’, NEW YORK TIMES, 10 June 1994.

2. For more on the 2012 Rakhine state riots and the 2015 Rohingya refugee crisis, see Report Documents ‘Rohingya Persecution’, Al Jazeera, 23 April 2013; Human Rights Watch Report, “All You Can Do is Pray”: Crimes against Humanity and Ethnic Cleansing of Rohingya Muslims in Burma’s Arkan State, 2013; Jared Genser, Democracy on a Leash, US News, 12 November 2015; Rohingya Boat People: Myanmar’s Shame, The Economist, 23 May 2015.

3. Burma Citizenship Law, 15 October 1982, Chapter 2, para. 3: “Nationals such as the Kachin, Kayah, Karen, Chin, Burman, Mon, Rakhine or Shan and ethnic groups as have settled in any of the territories included within the State as their permanent home from a period anterior to 1185 B.E., 1823 A.D. are Burma citizens.” Even for those Rohingya whose families settled in the region before 1823, the onerous burden of proof has made it nearly impossible to provide evidence of their lineage or history of residence, making them ineligible for any class of citizenship. For more on this law, see Human Rights Watch, Discrimination in Arakan, available at https://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/burma/burm005-02.htm.

4. Rohingya Boat People: Myanmar’s Shame, The Economist, 23 May 2015; Report Documents ‘Rohingya Persecution’, Al Jazeera, 23 April 2013.


6. President’s Office website, Brief description of the violent attacks commenced on 9th October in Maungdaw district, Rakhine State, 17 December 2016; Interim Report of the Investigation Commission in Maungtaw, 3 January 2017. See also Mike Ives, Myanmar Holds Officers After Video Purports to Show Police Beating Rohingya, The New York Times, 3 January 2017; Myanmar says ‘No Evidence’ of Rohingya Genocide, BBC News, 3 January 2017.

7. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA Update – Humanitarian Situation in the Northern Part of Rakhine State, Myanmar, 13 December 2016, available here.


9. Kyaw Win, the Executive Director of the Burma Human Rights Network, as quoted by Mike Ives, Myanmar Holds Officers After Video Purports to Show Police Beating Rohingya, New York Times, 3 January 2017.

10. The Interim Report of the Investigation Commission on Maungtaw, 3 January 2017, published in the Global New Light of Myanmar, Vol. 3 (263), 4 January 2017, p. 2, para. 10.

11. See Douglas Jehl, Officials Told to Avoid Calling Rwanda Killings ‘Genocide’, New York Times, 10 June 1994; Rory Corroll, US Chose to Ignore Rwandan Genocide: Classified Papers show Clinton was aware of ‘Final Solution’ to Eliminate Tutsis, The Guardian, 31 March 2004, noting that “the State Department and the National Security Council have drafted guidance instructing spokesmen to say merely that ‘acts of genocide may have occurred.’”

12. See Bill Clinton: we could have saved 300,000 lives in Rwanda, CNBC, 13 March 2013, where Clinton is quoted saying that “If we’d gone in sooner, I believe we could have saved at least a third of the lives that were lost…it had an enduring impact on me.” See also Dana Hughes, Bill Clinton Regrets Rwanda Now (Not So Much In 1994), ABC News, 28 February 2014.

13. Article II of Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide provides: “In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.” Statutes of the international courts and tribunals incorporate Article II of the Genocide Convention. See Article 4 of the Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Article 2 of the Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, Article 4 of the Law on the Establishment of the Extraordinary Chambers, and Article 6 of the Rome Statute of International Criminal Court.

14. Daw, literally meaning “aunt”, is not part of her name but is a honorific for any older and revered woman, akin to “Madame” or “Lady”.

15. The post of State Counsellor of Myanmar was specially created for Aung San Suu Kyi because under the Myanmar Constitution, she could not become the President as her late husband and two children are of British nationality. For more, see Euan McKirdy, New Government Role Created for Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi, CNN, 7 April 2016.

16. Aung San Suu Kyi spent much time between 1989 and 2010 under house arrest because of her efforts to bring democracy to then military-ruled Myanmar, which her an international symbol of peaceful resistance in the face of oppression. For more, see Profile: Aung San Suu Kyi, BBC News, 5 December 2016.

17. Kofi Annan Downplays Claims of Myanmar Genocide, BBC News, 6 December 2016.

18. Aung San Suu Kyi, Freedom from Fear (Penguin Books 1991).




In this Dec. 2, 2016, photo, Rohingya from Burma move through an alley at an unregistered refugee camp in Teknaf, a southern coastal district 183 miles south of Dhaka, Bangladesh. (AP)


By Joe Freeman
January 12, 2017

Myanmar's Rohingya Muslims have been described as the most friendless people in the world. But for the past four years they had one powerful friend — and he lived in the White House.

President Obama, who gave a teary farewell to the nation on Tuesday in Chicago, spoke up often for the persecuted Muslim minority. His vocal support followed Hillary Clinton’s historic visit to the Southeast Asian country in 2011, the first by a secretary of state in 50 years, and his own trip a year later, the first by a sitting U.S. president.

The government in this Buddhist-majority nation does not recognize the very term “Rohingya,” and it sees them as newcomers from Bangladesh rather than natives.

But during that first appearance in 2012, Obama used the word “Rohingya”while delivering a speech at Rangoon University, saying members of the minority group “hold within themselves the same dignity as you do, and I do.”

He used the word again during a visit in 2014, and in 2015 he hosted prominent Rohingya activist Wai Wai Nu at the White House for dinner. Many believe he helped raised the international profile of the Rohingya cause.

Europe-based activist Nay San Lwin, who communicates with a network of activists on the ground in Burma, wrote in an email that “Obama's speeches are historic for Rohingya. He highlighted about the dignity of our people while the Burmese do not consider us human beings.”

Since 2012, more than 120,000 Rohingya Muslims have lived in camps for internally displaced people in the state of Rakhine after religiously motivated violence there killed hundreds of people.

The community's plight got worse after a group of Rohingya militants attacked police outposts in the north of the state last year, killing nine people and setting off a military crackdown that Amnesty International said could amount to crimes against humanity. The government has denied allegations its soldiers committed rape and arson, but there is mounting evidence to the contrary.

With Obama departing, the Rohingya fear losing an influential ally in Washington, and are concerned by President-elect Donald Trump’s anti-Muslim remarks. Hard-liners in Burma celebrated Trump's election victory, and the country seems to be a blank spot on the president-elect's agenda.

Unlike other countries in the neighborhood, such as Indonesia, Malaysia and India, Trump appears to have few strong ties or business interests in Burma. He has also not taken much of a public stance on the country's concerns.

Andrew Selth, a Burma expert who teaches at Griffith University in Australia and Australian National University, wrote in a recent column that one of Trump’s only nods to the country was a tweet expressing his “thoughts and prayers” to victims of an earthquake in Burma back in August.

“That gesture aside, he has shown no interest in the country, nor demonstrated any knowledge of its complex problems,” Selth wrote.

He added there could be “greater distance between the White House and the Rohingya cause” if links between the attacks against police in October and outside extremist support are better established.

Optimists point to the fact that there has been bipartisan support for Burma as it emerges from five decades of military rule. But support for the new government of Aung San Suu Kyi, the democratic activist-turned-politician who led her party of dissidents to election victory in 2015, and support for the Rohingya, who feel abandoned by her, is far from the same thing.

Obama illustrated this tension himself when he lifted the remaining U.S. sanctions on Burma last year to bolster Suu Kyi's new government, which officially came to power in April 2016. The move dismayed activists who saw sanctions as crucial leverage against the military's actions in places like Rakhine and other conflict zones.

Nay San Lwin said that even though activists in Rakhine “all think Trump won't speak for Rohingya like Obama,” he will wait and see.

In any case, he added, the Rohingya need more than words now.

Rohingya. flickr/photographer AK Rockerfeller. Some rights reserved.


By Ashraful Azad
January 11, 2017

How the international community is failing to protect the Rohingya people.
At this moment, a genocide is happening in Myanmar of which most of the world is unaware. On 9 October 2016, three border posts were attacked in Western Myanmar by an unknown armed group, killing nine policemen. Following the attack, Myanmar government forces have been conducting a coordinated attack on the civilian population which includes mass killing, rape, torture and the burning of houses and crop fields. Because security forces have locked down the whole area, it is difficult to verify the reports of violence. Utilising independent sources, Voice of America has reported that the death toll could be 150 to 300 so far. Based on satellite imagery, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has observed that 1,250 houses or buildings have been destroyed as of 18 November.

As a result of the military crackdown, thousands of people have been forced to leave their homes; many are attempting to enter neighbouring Bangladesh by crossing the Naaf river. However, the Bangladeshi government has refused to accept more Rohingya, stating that the highly-populated country is already hosting half a million Rohingya who have fled the previous violence.

The attacks on the Rohingya people in Myanmar are not a new phenomenon. The Rohingya have had an uneasy relationship with the state since Myanmar's independence in 1948. The Rohingya are an ethno-linguistic-religious minority group in Myanmar. They are followers of Sunni Islam in the Buddhist-majority state. The northern Rakhine State (formerly Arakan) where most Rohingya people live is in the middle of South East Asia and South Asia. The Myanmar government argues that the Rohingya people have migrated from neighbouring Bangladesh and so denies them citizenship rights. However, the Rohingya people can trace their origin in the Rakhine State back for hundreds of years. Rakhine State was once an independent Arakan kingdom comprising north-western Myanmar and south-eastern Bangladesh before being taken over by Burma in 1784.

Within an independent Burma/Myanmar, the Rohingya people have faced widespread persecution in 1978, 1991-92, and 2012. This is in addition to continued discrimination and the denial of basic rights including freedom of movement, the right to livelihood, education, childbirth (the Rohingya are restricted to two children per family), and many aspects of everyday life. As a result, many of the Rohingya have left home and undertaken dangerous journeys in search of safe shelters. There are a significant number of Rohingya people in Bangladesh, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, India, Thailand, and Indonesia. Some have reached as far as Australia by boat though many died on the journey there. Still, there are 1.1 million Rohingya people left in Myanmar and the government wants to drive them out. A recent study by the Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic at Yale Law School demonstrates that the actions and inactions of the government satisfy the criteria for genocide as defined by the 1948 Convention on the Punishment and Prevention of the Crime of Genocide. 

Another study by Human Rights Watch in 2013 found strong evidence of crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya committed by the Burmese authority, local Arakanese people, and Buddhist mobs. The report notes an incident on 23 October 2013 where at least 70 Rohingya were killed in a massacre in Yan Thei village in Mrauk-U Township by Arakanese mobs; state security forces indirectly helped in the massacre rather than protecting people. The death toll included 28 children who were hacked to death, including 13 under the age of 5.

A research article published in the Pacific Rim Law & Policy Journal in 2014 also concluded that there is a slow burning genocide in the Rakhine State. Of the five acts of genocide mentioned in the 1948 Convention on Genocide, four have been committed against the Rohingya in Myanmar since 1978. The article concludes that: “the ruling Burmese, both the Buddhist society and the Buddhist state, have committed the first four acts, including intentional killing, harm to body and mind of the victims as a group, inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, and preventing births.” Researchers from the International State Crime Initiative (ISCI) at Queen Mary University of London School of Law, after months of field work in the Rakhine State last year, also concluded that “Myanmar state’s policies are genocidal.”

It’s clear that there’s an ongoing genocide against the Rohingya people in Myanmar. The state has not only failed in their duty to protect but also occasionally participated in the atrocities. However, that has not stopped powerful states and large corporations boosting business ties with Myanmar. The Myanmar state counsellor and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi has clearly failed to stop the mass destruction of people and take any action against the military forces.

The international community has done little to stop the suffering of the Rohingyas. They have criticised Myanmar for human rights violations and asked for an independent investigation. However, it’s naïve to ask authorities to investigate the very crimes they support or even perpetrate themselves. Once the Rohingya people took arms to solve their problems. However, the post-9/11 'war on terror' has made armed Muslims guerrilla-terrorists in the eyes of global media and western states. In consequence, there is currently no strong movement among the Rohingya people. Myanmar’s neighbours and regional powers, such as China and India, are busy securing the country’s untapped market. 

The UN and human rights organisations focus on the humanitarian aspect of the problem: urging the Bangladeshi government to provide shelter to the fleeing Rohingyas. However, these organisations often lack the strong voice needed to deal with the violence in Rakhine state. Myanmar will not heed calls for human rights if such calls aren't backed by credible hard power. The regional and global players are not sincere enough to engage with Myanmar strongly. Perhaps the only remaining solution lies in the hands of the people, who can put pressure on their governments to take immediate and serious action.

Bangladesh's Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, pictured in 2016, calls for a resolution to the Rohingya refugee crisis (AFP Photo/Jewel SAMAD)


By AFP
January 11, 2017

Bangladesh's Prime Minister on Wednesday asked Myanmar to take back tens of thousands of Rohingya refugees who have fled a military crackdown in the Buddhist majority nation's Rakhine state, an official said.

According to the UN, at least 65,000 people belonging to the Muslim minority have fled to Bangladesh from Myanmar -- a third of them over the past week -- since a military operation was launched in October following attacks on police posts.

The figure marks a sharp escalation in the numbers of Rohingya fleeing a military campaign which rights groups say has been marred by abuses so severe they could amount to crimes against humanity.

The sudden influx has put enormous strain on impoverished Bangladesh, with Dhaka under pressure to open its border to the refugees. But it has instead reinforced its border posts and deployed coastguard ships to prevent fresh arrivals.

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina called for a resolution to the crisis during a meeting with Myanmar's deputy minister for foreign affairs Kyaw Tin in Dhaka.

"She said Myanmar should take back the Rohingya who migrated to Bangladesh," Hasina's spokesman Ihsanul Karim said.

Last month the Bangladesh foreign ministry summoned Myanmar's ambassador to express "deep concern at the continued influx" and called for the repatriation of some 300,000 Rohingya who have been living in the Muslim-majority nation for years -- most of them illegally.

The most recent arrivals have brought harrowing accounts of rape, murder and arson at the hands of Myanmar's army or police.

Their stories have raised global alarm and galvanised protests against Myanmar's de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been accused of not doing enough to help the Rohingya.

Myanmar's government has said the claims of abuse are fabricated and launched a special commission to investigate the allegations.

Last week the commission presented its interim report, denying accusations of "genocide and religious persecution" and saying there was insufficient evidence that troops had been committing rape.

The government refuses to recognise the Rohingya as one of the country's ethnic minorities, instead describing them as Bengalis -- or illegal immigrants from neighbouring Bangladesh -- even though many have lived in Myanmar for generations.

Ethnic Rohingya Muslim refugees offering prayers at a gathering in Kuala Lumpur last month on the plight of Rohingya Muslims fleeing a military crackdown in Myanmar's Rakhine state.PHOTO: AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

By Charissa Yong
January 10, 2017

Singapore continues to encourage all parties, including the Myanmar government and the international community, to work together to foster a long term-solution to the Rohingya refugee crisis, Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan said yesterday.

This is so that the affected communities can rebuild their lives, he added.

Dr Balakrishnan was responding to parliamentary questions from Mr Louis Ng (Nee Soon GRC) and Mr Muhamad Faisal Abdul Manap (Aljunied GRC) about Singapore's response to the plight of Rohingya Muslims fleeing a military crackdown in Myanmar's Rakhine state.

The operation was launched after attacks on police posts in October last year.

Singapore's position is that every government must ensure the safety and protection of all its people regardless of race or religion, said Dr Balakrishnan.

At the same time, it is also the right and responsibility of every state to secure its borders and maintain internal security, the minister added. He noted that issues of race, language and religion are sensitive and complex everywhere, including in Singapore.

And in the Rakhine state, inter-communal relations have deep historical roots and are highly complicated, he said.

"These issues are not going to be resolved easily or quickly in the short term. Patience, restraint and time will be required to build trust among the different communities, to foster racial harmony, and to restore peace and stability for the long term," he added.

Last month, Singaporeans raised more than $350,000 for humanitarian support to affected communities in the Rakhine state, as well as those affected by the earthquake in Aceh.

"The funds for the Rakhine state will be channelled through Myanmar-based organisations to assist all affected communities, regardless of ethnicity or religion," said Dr Balakrishnan.

But he stressed the need for a political solution. "Having any area in South-east Asia where there is an unresolved festering conflict, especially one that involves race, language or religion, poses an immediate and urgent threat (not just) to the country, but also to South-east Asia as a whole," he said.

Dr Balakrishnan also updated MPs on the Asean foreign ministers' informal meeting he attended in Myanmar on Dec 19 last year, during which Myanmar's State Counsellor and Foreign Minister Aung San Suu Kyi briefed her counterparts on the Rakhine situation.

He said the meeting was open, frank and constructive, and was timely and useful in helping Asean to better understand Myanmar's efforts in addressing the sensitive and complex situation.

The discussions focused on making sure that humanitarian aid would reach the communities in need, said Dr Balakrishnan.

He added that after the meeting, the Myanmar government indicated it would grant the necessary humanitarian access and continue to keep Asean informed of developments in the Rakhine state.



By Haikal Mansor
RB Analysis
January 10, 2017

The 1988 Rohingya Extermination Plan was first proposed by Col. Thar Kyaw who was an ethnic Rakhine and the first chairman of National Unity Party (NUP), a proxy party of Burmese military and former Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP) formed to compete against National League for Democracy NLD during the 1990 general election.

The plan was adopted by the Burmese junta’s State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) in 1988 and continued under State Peace and Development Council (SPDC). 

The successive military regime has carried out the 11-point extermination blueprint against Rohingya Muslim minority.

1. The Muslims (Rohingya) are not to be provided with citizenship cards by identifying them as insurgents

2. To reduce the population growth of the Rohingyas by gradual imposition of restrictions on their marriages and by application of all possible methods of oppression and suppression against them

3. To strive for the increase in Buddhist population to be more than the number of Muslim people by way of establishing Natala villages in Arakan (Rakhine State) with Buddhist settlers from different townships and from out of the country

4. To allow them temporary moment from village to village and township to township only with Form 4, and to totally ban them travelling to Sittwe, the Capital of Arakan State

5. To forbid higher studies (university education) to the Rohingyas

6. No Muslim is to be appointed in government services

7. To forbid them from ownership of lands, shops and buildings. Any such properties under their existing ownership must be confiscated for distribution among the Buddhists. All their economic activities must be stopped.

8. To ban construction, renovation, repair and roofing of the mosques, Islamic religious schools and dwelling houses of the Rohingyas 

9. To try secretly to convert the Muslims into Buddhism

10. Whenever there is a case between Rakhine and Muslim the court shall give verdict in favour of Rakhine when the case is between Muslim themselves, the court shall favour the rich against the poor Muslim so that the latter leaves the country with frustration

11. Mass killing of the Muslim is to be avoided in order not to invite the attention of the Muslim countries.

Since its inception, the blueprint is a driving force for the military regime, Thein Sein’s quasi-civilian government and even Aung San Suu Kyi led NLD government in persecution of Rohingya.

The ongoing “clearance operations” in northern Maungdaw is an example of deep-rooted decades-long extermination campaign against the marginalized Rohingya. 

The blueprint still remains one of many institutionalized policies largely instrumented against the entire community.





    • Rohingya Exodus