By Carlos Sardina Galache

TIME

April 6, 2017

Maungdaw: On the morning of Oct. 10, Hussein Muhammad, an old Rohingya man who doesn’t know his age, was awoken at 6 a.m. by a noise outside his home. When he stepped outside, he saw that dozens of soldiers and members of Myanmar's Border Guard Police had his hut surrounded.

“They asked us if there was any ‘terrorist’ in our house," he says, speaking from his home in Myo Thu Gyi village near Maungdaw town, in Myanmar's western Rakhine state. "Then they dragged two of my grandsons. I tried to stop them and give them my family list to show them they were my grandsons, but they beat me up and threatened me with their weapons,” Muhammad recounts, breaking into tears.

His two grandsons, Ali Muhammed and Ali Ayaz, were 20 and 13 years old respectively. They were dragged to a small forest locally known as “betel garden” on the fringe of the village. There, Muhammad says, they were executed along with another man.

The raid on Myo Thu Gyi village followed a series of attacks on Oct. 9, in which a group of suspected Rohingya insurgents stormed three Border Guard posts in Rakhine state's Maungdaw and Rathedaung towns, killing nine policemen. In response to the attacks, the Myanmar military launched violent counteroperations in the north of the state, in which several villages were burnt to the ground, and up to 1,000 Rohingya people may have been killed. In the wake of the so-called clearance operation, more than 70,000 people fled to Bangladesh, bringing with them stories of extrajudicial killings, gang rape and children thrown into the flames of burning buildings.

Myo Thu Gyi was the first village attacked by the security forces. Until now, the area has been completely closed off to foreign journalists, but TIME was granted a permit to visit Maungdaw independently, the first since the violence began.

Ahmed Mahmood, a farmer in his late 20s from the same village as Hussein Muhammad, was hiding in a hut nearby and says he saw the executions. "Four members of the Border Guard Police made them sit down on the ground with their hands under their legs. One of the policemen executed them while the others were looking around. He kicked them first in their backs and then put a bullet in their heads, one by one. He shot the youngest one twice, once in his back and once in his head," Mahmood says.

According to several eyewitnesses interviewed by TIME in Myo Thu Gyi, seven villagers were killed on Oct. 10. Villagers say the military returned hours after the assault and took four bodies with them. Relatives and neighbors say they were able to hide three other corpses and gave them a proper Muslim burial the next day.

About 80% of the population in the area, along the border with Bangladesh, belong to the 1 million strong Rohingya Muslim community, an ethnic group that has suffered decades of persecution at the hands of the Myanmar government. Labeled as “Bengalis” by authorities, they are regarded as illegal interlopers from Bangladesh and denied citizenship. Most live in apartheid-like conditions with restrictions on education, healthcare and freedom of movement.

Laura Haigh, Myanmar researcher for Amnesty International, who investigated the incident and spoke with eyewitnesses, said the killings are part of a wider pattern. “What happened in Myo Thu Gyi is a clear example of how security forces targeted villagers at random, often without any evidence or known links to armed groups," she says, adding that the military and police would enter villages and open fire "shooting at people even as they fled."

"The lack of access to the area, and intimidation and threats against those who speak out means that we simply do not know how many were killed during this appalling offensive," says Haigh.

The speed at which the military moved in on the village — just one day after the attacks on the Border Guard posts — has experts doubting that proper investigations were carried out.

“It is impossible that the security forces could have enough time to have conducted a proper investigation to ascertain if there were insurgents hiding in that village,” says Chris Lewa, director of Arakan Project, a human-rights watchdog that has been documenting human-rights violations in Rakhine state for years. “And how a 13-year-old child could take part in the insurgency? Those were just random summary executions,” she adds.

“My grandsons had nothing to do with the insurgency, they were here in our house when the insurgents attacked the Border Guard Police. They just sell betel nut, work and try to study,” Muhammad says.

Five months after the attacks and subsequent raids, daily life in Maungdaw — a dusty city near the Naf River marking the border between Myanmar and Bangladesh — continues, though a curfew remains in place from 9 p.m. until 6 a.m. In an unusual display of openness, the security forces allowed TIME to accompany a police convoy patrolling the town.

As the three trucks wound their way through the streets, the contrast between the Rohingya and the Rakhine quarters was stark, at least during the first hour of the curfew. Though the majority of people living in Maungdaw are Rohingya Muslims, the town has a sizable Rakhine Buddhist community and the two ethnic groups mostly live in separate neighborhoods. The patrol passed houses with lights on; people sit watching TV or talk with neighbors in their courtyards. "This is a Rakhine quarter," said the police. But the Rohingya areas were eerily deserted: all windows closed, no lights were turned on, and no human presence visible.

Since the crackdown, about 600 people have been arrested on charges of terrorism, the government said. Security forces are still trying to find the leaders, though the police captain in charge of the patrol says he knows who they are. “We haven’t been able to find them so far, they must be hiding somewhere. We know their faces and their names," says Kyaw Aye Hlaing, adding: "For us all these 'Bengalis' look the same, so it’s difficult to recognize them."

In the darkness, 4 km away, lay Myo Thu Gyi. Kyaw Aye Hlaing says that the security forces launched the first assault on that particular village in October because the village "is full of extremists."

"It was a very troublesome village during the violence in 2012,” he says, referring to the successive waves of attacks between the Buddhist and Muslim communities that swept Rakhine state that year, resulting in up to 200 deaths and 140,000 internally displaced people, most of them Rohingya.

A few days after TIME visited the area, the U.N. Human Rights Council approved a resolution on March 24 to "dispatch urgently" an international fact-finding mission to probe alleged abuses by military and security forces, particularly against the Rohingya community. The Myanmar government, led by Aung San Suu Kyi, rejected the decision, alleging that the probe would only "inflame" the situation in Rakhine. Myanmar authorities have been accused of pursuing a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya, which on Wednesday Suu Kyi denied, saying it was "too strong an expression" to use.

For those whose lives have been shattered by the crackdown in Maungdaw, there is little hope for recourse.

"There is no protection for us," Muhammad says. "I know we will never get justice for this."

The names of all the Rohingya villagers interviewed for this report have been changed for security reasons.

By Coconuts Yangon

April 6, 2017

State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi’s responses to BBC special correspondent Fergal Keane in an interview released today have been described by Myanmar watchers as “regrettable” and “deeply disingenuous“. But for the Lady’s millions of admirers, it may be difficult to see how.

Here’s our recommendation: watch the interview again, and if you still feel satisfied with Aung San Suu Kyi’s performance, help yourself to a healthy dose of skepticism from BBC’s Myanmar-based reporter Jonah Fisher, who has painstakingly and super-helpfully fact-checked her statements. Check out his comments below.

A Rohingya refugee girl wipes her eyes as she cries in a Bangladesh refugee camp (Photo: Reuters)

ByAnuja Jaiswal

TNN

April 5, 2017

ALIGARH: Mohammad Bilal, 40, barely survived a harrowing journey by sea from Myanmarin 2012, when he escaped the alleged genocide of his people in Rakhine province. For the past five years, he has been living in Aligarh, which by now has 88 Rohingya families, comprising 320 people. Bilalrecently got married to Yasmeen, who fled Myanmar just 9 months ago.

Now they face the prospect of being deported back to a land where they are not welcome. "It was bloodshed happening there. Why else would we leave our homeland?" he told TOI.

Rohingyas are a minority ethnic group of Muslims, mainly from Rakhine province in northwestern Myanmar. Over the past few years, hundreds of thousands have fled genocide and ethnic cleansing in that country. Nearly 40,000 refugees are estimated to be living in India. The Centre has now decided to identify and deport those who have been living illegally here.

Bilal, who arrived in India in 2011 and works for an abattoir of the Mumbai-based Allana group, recounted his exodus from Myanmar. "We reached Bangladesh via the sea and then stopped at Kolkata, Varanasi, Saharanpur and Deoband before finally arriving here. In Deoband I was told I could get a job here," he said.

"Now I am not alone. My wife lives with me and she came to India with her mother, brother and a young nephew. I have now additional responsibilities and I am the only person who earns," Bilal said, adding that if deported, he wouldn't know what to do.

There are 88 Rohingya families in Aligarh, numbering 320 persons, according to official records. In 2015 there were 170 families, but demonetisation and the shutting down of several abattoirs in the recent past led to some of them leaving.

According to members of this community, almost every one of the Rohingya Muslims entered India at West Bengal. Armed with refugee cards issued by the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHRC), they claimed that they were eligible to live and work in India.

Many of the Rohingyas in Aligarh live in squalid localities like Bhojpura, Maqdoom Nagar and Haddi Godown.

Tayibba Khatoon, 50, has been living here with her son and daughter-in-law since 2012. She has three grandchildren who were born here and are "Indian citizens by birth". "How can the government separate us from them?" she asked, in tears.

Her 31-year-old son, Harris said, "We never seem to see good times. First I lost my job at a meat processing unit due to demonetisation, and became a scrap dealer. Now this. If we leave India, what do we do?"

Harris said with six mouths to feed on a monthly income of Rs 5,000 per month, it was already a hard life. "But we are still alive. Who knows whether we would live or be killed in Myanmar," he said.

More than 80% of the men work in abattoirs and earn between Rs 4,000 and Rs 7,000 per month. "We will be a people without a country if we are deported. The Myanmar government and the people will never take us back," said Bilal.

By TNN 

April 5, 2017

NEW DELHI: A narrow lane in Madanpur Khadar leads to a clearing of land with a sign that says 'Darul Hijrat', the home of migrants. A huddle of about 50 families of Rohingya exiles has found refuge here. On land granted by Zakat Foundation, an Islamic charitable organization, they have set up shaky homes of cardboard, plywood and tarpaulin. The lanes are thick with flies.

The Rohingyas, a Muslim minority group from Myanmar, face intense persecution from the Rakhine Buddhists, and a state that does not acknowledge them and restricts their rights and movement. Myanmar calls them 'Bengalis', suggesting that they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. They are rejected and despised by Bangladesh, often their first stop as they flee from their homes. "I remember the way this hostility mounted," says 32-year-old Mohammed Salimullah, who runs a shop in the camp. "My grandfather had citizenship in Arakan state, we had normal jobs, a presence in the military and police and politics. By my father's generation, we had nominal citizenship, but fewer rights. In my life I have only seen harassment and segregation," he says.

After mass violence in 2012, about 100,000 Rohingyas are estimated to have left Myanmar. You went as far as your money took you, they explain. Those with more money went to Saudi or Australia; some went to Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand. Some have been forced into bonded labour, or trafficked. Many are in jail for being unable to show paperwork.

Everyone has escaped their own horror. They speak of relatives killed, of land grabbed, fathers and brothers beaten and forced into captive labour. "The police would just grab any woman they wanted and rape her," says 24-year-old Shamseeda Begum. She cannot wait for her youngest sister, now 18, to join her in India. The journey is expensive and treacherous, she says. You make your way though mountains, where Buddhist gangs can attack, you cross over by boat, on foot, in desperation.

In India, Rohingya exiles have made their way to Hyderabad, Jammu, Mewat, parts of Uttar Pradesh and Delhi. Those at the Madanpur Khadar camp have long-stay visas and UNHCR cards with their names and photos, which they show me. They can make a bare living as labourers or ragpickers. The police does occasionally harass them but it doesn't feel personal. "This is as much freedom as we have ever known," says Salimullah. "In India, people are only vaguely aware of Burma. They think of the song 'mere piya gaye Rangoon' and think it is or was probably part of India," says 24-year old Mohammed Shakir.

Of course, there has been trouble. When they were in Vasant Kunj near the UNHCR office, asking for refuge, some people in saffron clothes threatened them with knives and told them go to Pakistan if they were Muslim, while the police stood by. "In Jammu, they are saying we threatened the Burmese military," says Shakir incredulously. Then again, college students have rallied to their defence, offered support.

In the camp, life has acquired some shape in the past five years. Many of the Rohingyas have picked up enough Hindi to get by. The 50-odd children here go to the nearby Gyandeep Vidya Mandir School and health check-ups are done by the non-profit Bosco, arranged for by UNHCR. The Zakat Foundation also chips in with aid.

This sense of peace is precarious. They are guarded in their reaction to news that the government plans to deport Rohingya refugees from Jammu.

"We will see," they say. They know they are seen as a security threat — when Aung San Suu Kyi met Modi and was asked about her stand on the Rohingyas, she said she was not on the side of terrorists and did not want their support, they claim. "All we want to do is make enough to eat and live," says Shakir. If the claims of humanity and national interest collide, what value should win, asks Syed Zafar Mahmood, president of Zakat Foundation.

In the camp, the Rohingya women and children still smear their faces with sandalwood paste, like they used to in Burma. "I miss Rangoon," says Shakir. "But they don't see us as human, they don't see our pain or our sorrow."

In 2014, he got caught by the police at the Bangladesh border, when he had gone to visit someone. His father had to borrow and cobble together 60,000 to get a lawyer to bring him back. Shakir once used to gather support for others through social media - now he's wary of drawing any attention to himself. "When they caught Somali refugees on a terror charge, we felt terrified. We might be accused of something next," he says.

By Carlos Sardina Galache

South East Asia Globe

April 4, 2017

At the heart of the Rohingya’s decades-long struggle in Myanmar lies a question of identity, along with a desire for citizenship and the basic rights that come with it. But even for those Muslims that can now call themselves Myanmar citizens, life remains a daily struggle

Mahla refuses to recall how her house was destroyed in October 2012. Just mentioning that episode brings tears to her eyes. Moreover, she suffers from a heart condition, and the doctor has advised her “not to think about bad things”. That month, a wave of sectarian violence between the Buddhist Rakhine and the Muslim Rohingya and Kaman communities swept through several townships in Rakhine State. The Muslims bore the brunt of the violence.

Ever since, this 52-year-old mother of five has lived in a ramshackle hut in the Taung Paw Camp, where 2,916 Muslims are confined near the outskirts of Myebon, a small, isolated town in which the Buddhist and Muslim communities had lived peacefully for generations.

Most Rohingya in Rakhine lack legal recognition by the Myanmar state, but Mahla is one of the very few who has attained citizenship in recent years. As part of a pilot programme launched in her township in September 2014, she was given a ‘pink card’, the document that signals she is a full citizen.

The Rohingya are almost universally reviled by the country’s Buddhist majority population and have been oppressed by the government since the late 1970s. The Rohingya ethnicity is not included in the list of 135 officially recognised “national races” adopted in the late 1980s. Instead, they are labelled as ‘Bengalis’, implying that they are trespassers from the territory that is now Bangladesh.

The controversial Citizenship Law passed in 1982 makes belonging to one of the “national races” the primary criterion of citizenship, but not the only one, and it was not its application that rendered stateless most of the Rohingya.

“Although the 1982 Citizenship Law was clearly regressive, it did not render any group of people stateless on paper,” explained Nick Cheesman, a fellow at the Australian National University and expert on rule of law in Myanmar. “Actually, it recognized as citizens those who were already recorded as such… regardless of how they were identified racially or religiously. But in the late 1980s and early 1990s when the government launched a process of re-registration, taking old ID cards to re-issue new ones, Muslims in Rakhine State were not issued with new cards even when they were legally entitled to them.

“The problem in contemporary Burma is that the notion of national races surpasses that of citizenship, both legally and ideologically. The 1982 Citizenship Law may recognise that members of non-national races who held citizenship previously would keep it, but it set as the gold standard for citizenship to be a member of one of the national races,” he added.

Mahla, meanwhile, was sitting in the ramshackle hut she shares with her husband and five children when she explained to Southeast Asia Globe how and why she got citizenship. “We call ourselves Rohingya, but the government doesn’t allow us to use our name. During the verification process [for the 2014 pilot programme], the authorities told us that we would have more opportunities if we accepted [being labelled] ‘Bengali’ and got citizenship,” she said.

The designation ‘Bengali’ was also applied to some Kaman, a Muslim group in Rakhine that does feature in the list of 135 “national races”. Maung Zaw, a 45-year-old father of three also confined in the Taung Paw Camp, showed us the pink card he was given three years ago. On the card he is listed as Bengali, but he also produced, with puzzlement, his family book stating that both of his parents were Kaman.

In another hut in Taung Paw Camp, Gulban’s wrinkles and shattered demeanour reveal a life of suffering and make her look much older than her 53 years. She does not speak Burmese, only the Bengali dialect of the Rohingya, but for years she had carefully looked after the documents that prove her family has lived in Rakhine for at least three generations – and was able to produce them when the pilot programme was launched. Now she is a Myanmar citizen, at least on paper.

“I heard the word Rohingya from my parents when I was a child, but it’s not accepted by the immigration department. They laughed at me and told me to go when I pronounced it once in their office. Bengali means we are from Bangladesh, and I am from Burma, but I’m willing to accept it if I can get citizenship and rights,” she explained.

“But nothing has changed for me since I got citizenship,” said Gulban, echoing a sentiment expressed by all the recently recognised citizens Southeast Asia Globe interviewed in the camp. Regardless of their status, they share the same restrictions on movement imposed on all Muslims in Rakhine, the same difficulties accessing education or healthcare, and the same sense of hopelessness.

Tin Shwe, the general administrator of Myebon township, was in charge of the pilot programme in 2014. “Virtually all Muslims applied for citizenship, and none of them used the word ‘Rohingya’. They don’t use that word here. We eventually gave full citizenship to 97 people and naturalised citizenship to 969 of them,” he said.

“We gave them citizenship according to the 1982 Citizenship Law, even though they are not naturally citizens,” he added. When asked what distinguished them from ‘natural citizens’, he replied: “They don’t belong to any of our indigenous races.”

“They can move whenever they want, they can go to Sittwe [the state capital], or from there to Yangon, but to go to Yangon they need to inform the immigration authorities,” he explained. However, several of the Muslim citizens interviewed by Southeast Asia Globe asserted that travel permits are difficult to get and necessitate exorbitant bribes to the police.

Gulban said that she did not wish to travel outside of Myebon: “I’m poor, and I wouldn’t have anywhere to go, but I don’t want to be confined in this camp.”

Mahla, however, was anxious for her children. “They can only receive primary and middle education here; I’m very worried about their future,” she explained. “They can’t get educated properly, and they will languish if they can’t get out of here.”

An ethnic Bamar from central Myanmar, Tin Shwe blamed the local Buddhist Rakhine population for the restrictions of movement imposed on Muslims. “When the programme was implemented it was met with strong protests from the indigenous community. I tried to explain the law to them, but it’s difficult for the government, because we found ourselves between both communities. Local people don’t allow [the Rohingya] to go to the hospital, so we send doctors to the camp – both government doctors and members of international NGOs,” he said.

The main mobiliser of the Rakhine community in Myebon is Khin Thein, the local chair of the Rakhine Women’s Network. “The Kalar [a derogatory term used in Myanmar for people of South Asian descent] don’t belong here. With the previous military government, they used to come from Bangladesh and bribe the local officials to get legal documents because they had a lot of money. That’s why we cannot accept most of them and we protested,” she explained at the jewellery shop she owns in downtown Myebon.

She claimed that people from Bangladesh are still trying to settle in Myanmar – despite the fact that conditions for Muslims in Rakhine worsened dramatically after 2012. When asked for evidence, her reply invoked a powerful force in fuelling inter-communal conflict in the state: “I don’t have concrete evidence, but I have heard rumours.”

Bananda Phyabawga, the 60-year-old abbot of Pyanabakeman, a local Buddhist monastery, expressed similar ideas about Islam. “If you look at history, countries like Indonesia and Afghanistan used to be Buddhist, but they became Muslim. They try to impose their religion on others, so we need to handle this threat,” he said in front of a hall full of novice monks and other youngsters listening intently to his words.

The abbot’s discourse echoed that of Myanmar’s extremist Buddhist organisations, such as MaBaTha or 969, that have emerged in recent years. However, Rakhine nationalists are at least as resentful of the domination by the largely ethnic Burman government as they are of the perceived Muslim invasion of their land.

“Our biggest enemy is the Myanmar government. I support the Arakan Army [an armed group which has been occasionally active in recent years in the state] and I want the Fatherland of Rakhine to be independent,” Khin Thein said.

But beyond the divergences between Rakhine nationalists such as Khin Thein and government officials such as Tin Shwe, all of them seem to agree that the Rohingya are not ‘natural citizens’ of Myanmar. And they all offered the same recipe to solve the inter-communal conflict plaguing Rakhine State: time.

“It is impossible to live together now, but it may be possible within five or ten years,” said Phyabawga. Beyond that, nobody seemed able to suggest any concrete strategy to restore the coexistence that was in place before 2012.

Back in Taung Paw camp, after five years of confinement in which even citizenship has not improved the lot of those fortunate enough to attain it, the passing of time only adds to the desperation. And the goals of its inmates seem to be far more modest than many in Myanmar believe. “I don’t know what human rights are,” said Gulban. “I just know I would like to have food at my table, freedom of movement, education for my children, access to healthcare and for my family to live without fear.”

The Nasaka and A Rohingya 

Ro Mayyu Ali

RB Poem

April 3, 2017

I was born to a bona fide 

By the genetic of Rohingya 

And it's Nasaka as a foetus 

In the womb of my country's dictatorship 

Known as one of the world's most brutal Juntas 

Perhaps, it's in 1991's Myanmar. 

In scorching heat of 1992, 

He with thousands of comrades 

In over hundreds of settlements 

With quite switch of Junta's past strategies 

Taken encounter into my heaven 

Not only to hack the branches 

But to eliminate the entire root 

"Look! A Bengali student! 

He'll pass matric and marry a wife who gives 10 million kyats. That's the only benefit of his educating in our Buddhist country!" 

Still echoing into my head 

What he told me in a check post 

While going to sit for my matric exam 

How could I forget each of his? 

He and me, not less than a pair 

Even he from royal Junta 

And I from prey of Rohingyas 

How much he's called me 'Bengali' 

In his tone of red-nose mood 

Never be the equal grand of 

My mom ever called me 'Dear' 

Moment of my frequent glimpse 

Into the hidden chapter of his reign 

A time of my heart feeling goes out 

Fear is my first feeling 

When I open my eyes in morning 

Just life in empty joy 

Sound sleep through the lonesome dark 

Because of chronic and traumatic 

Shame and guiltiness begin to surround 

Thought of ending life is common 

I might forget his feature 

Shall never I forget 

How he made me feel in my boyhood. 

What he led me suffering 

In full guile of rigor and rampage 

A high-court level of sobs and wails 

Identities were confiscated. 

Testimonies were degraded. 

Peak of denial in every step 

Tangible coercion for every breath 

In a very short length of stay, 

Everything in our life descended 

Into a whirlpool of wreckage 

And ornament of havoc, as well 

Ah! How allergic all of his were! 

Every single practice of his flares 

The dark pines of our mind dip deeper. 

Women are widowed and single. 

New-born are without certificates. 

Children are lack of welfare. 

Young people are broken. 

All lost hope and are traumatized. 

To a group, every string is well-cutted off. 

This is the way a group of people be expelled 

Not with a mass slaughter 

But with whimper after whimper 

Indeed, he's one of the most doleful 

Of genocidal operations against Rohingya 

So even the masterpiece of Bengalization to elite Rohingya 

He's the one 

Who herds affection towards the animosity 

He's the one 

Who turns other's dream to nightmare 

He's the one 

Who keeps people dead being alive 

At the end his decade, 

All ever has he well set up 

Bequeathing his innate legacy 

The victory he sought was won 

And farewell in laughter and flavour 

On 15 of June, 2013, 

He the cobra saw the bound of the halt 

And transformed to BGP 

And I'm made an incredible illegal immigrant. 

Verily, I'm made an immigrant Bengali. 

I'm seen as a Bengali. 

And now I'm a Bengali. 

A Myanmar's well-generated Bengali! 

The poet is an original Rohingya. He himself was the victim of Nasaka operation. Nasaka, the Burmese term called to Border Immigration Forces. In 1992, it's established by Myanmar's Junta administration to set up the genocidal strategies against Rohingya. After 2012-June violence, it officially came to a halt on 5 of March, 2013. And now it is seen as the Border Guard Police (BGP) in Northern Rakhine State.

By Antoni Slodkowski 

Reuters

March 31, 2017

YANGON -- The leader of a Rohingya Muslim insurgency against Myanmar's security forces said on Friday his group would keep fighting "even if a million die" unless the country's leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, took action to protect the religious minority.

Attacks on Myanmar border guard posts in October last year by a previously unknown insurgent group ignited the biggest crisis of Suu Kyi's year in power, with more than 75,000 Rohingya fleeing to Bangladesh in the ensuing army crackdown.

In his first independently conducted media interview, Ata Ullah, who has been identified by analysts and local people as the group's leader, denied links to foreign Islamists and said it was focussed on the rights of the Rohingya, who say they face persecution at the hands of Myanmar's Buddhist majority.

"If we don't get our rights, if 1 million, 1.5 million, all Rohingya need to die, we will die," he said, speaking via a video call from an undisclosed location. "We will take our rights. We will fight with the cruel military government."

A United Nations report issued last month said Myanmar's security forces have committed mass killings and gang rapes against Rohingya during their campaign against the insurgents, which may amount to crimes against humanity.

The military has denied the accusations, saying it was engaged in a legitimate counterinsurgency operation.

"No one will be above the law," said Suu Kyi's spokesman Zaw Htay, responding to questions from Reuters on Friday about the insurgent leader's comments. "If they attack us violently, we will respond the same way. Nowhere in the world would violent action be tolerated."

ETHNIC CLASHES

More than a million Rohingya live in northwestern Myanmar's Rakhine State, where they are denied citizenship, freedom of movement and access to services such as healthcare. Serious ethnic clashes between Rohingya and ethnic Rakhine Buddhists erupted in 2012 in which more than 100 people were killed and some 140,000 were displaced.

"In 2012, lots of things happened and they killed us, so we understood at that time, they would not give us our rights," said Ata Ullah.

A report by the International Crisis Group in December said the insurgent group, which at first called itself Harakah al-Yaqin, Arabic for "Faith Movement", was formed by Rohingya living in Saudi Arabia after the 2012 violence.

It identified Ata Ullah, who appeared in a series of videos claiming responsibility for the Oct. 9 attacks on security forces, as the group's leader.

Ata Ullah said decades of resentment at their treatment had prompted hundreds of young Rohingya men to join him after he returned to Rakhine following several years in Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia.

"We can't turn on the lights at night. We can't move from one place to another during the day too. Everywhere checkpoints. That is not the way human beings live," he said.

Rohingya refugees Reuters has spoken to in camps in Bangladesh have said that many initially sympathised with the insurgents, but that the violence their campaign has unleashed had cost them support. Some have described how suspected government informers were killed by fighters.

"WE SURVIVE BY SELLING COWS"

In the earlier videos, Ata Ullah had cited Koranic verse and called for "jihad".

Suu Kyi's spokesman, Zaw Htay, said he "urged the international community to see the group's background...they are linked with terrorist organizations from the Middle East".

But Ata Ullah denied the group, which issued a statement earlier this week saying it was changing its name to the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, had any connections with other militants or received outside support.

"We have no groups who help us from behind, whether from here or also abroad...We survive here by selling cows and buffalos," he said.

Myanmar's military said last month that what it called a clearance operation in northwestern Rakhine had ended, although the area remains closed to outside observers. 

Ata Ullah did not respond to several questions regarding the group's future strategy, its current location or how many fighters were left with him. Flanking him as a spoke to Reuters was another man brandishing a machine gun.

The Rohingya crisis has posed the biggest challenge to Nobel peace laureate Suu Kyi's government, which on Thursday marked its first year in power. Her defenders say there is little she can do, given the constitution gives her no control over the military.

"The people are in such trouble, the military is so cruel to many in the Rohingya community, so she should speak out, do something for these people as a Nobel prize winner," said Ata Ullah. "If she tries to do something for us, the military would do something to her government. That's why she will not protect us."

(Reporting by Antoni Slodkowski; Editing by Alex Richardson)