By The Daily Star

September 15, 2017

British High Commissioner in Dhaka Alison Blake today said there is now a global understanding that the decades-old crisis in Myanmar’s Rakhine State’s cannot be allowed to continue and the UK is active to find a lasting solution to the Rohingya situation.

“And this understanding is not just to stop violence, it’s to come to a lasting solutions,” she said, referring to the statements of her government and the UN Security Council where UK along with the Sweden tabled the issue.

The Security Council at a meeting on September 13 agreed on the importance of a long term solutions to the situation in Rakhine and called for implementation of the recommendations of the Advisory Commission of Rakhine State, chaired by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.

Blake said there is no “magic wand” to solve the decades-old crisis overnight. “But there is a global understanding that this cannot be allowed to continue.”

Talking to a select group of journalists, including The Daily Star at her residence today, the British envoy said that Bangladesh has set an example for the world with its response to the Rohingya crisis.

About the current situation, she said the UK was not just active on the humanitarian ground, but as the member of Security Council and friend of Bangladesh, they have been clear to say that people responsible for violence which is the armed forces and security forces must stop it.

“This is a crisis Bangladesh dealing with. But it’s not made in Bangladesh,” she said, adding since the crisis is created in Rakhine, so Myanmar government must take the lead to resolve it.

Alison Blake also said her government has already announced £30 million to meet the humanitarian needs of vulnerable Rohingyas following the August 25 military crackdowns that forced more than 400,000 Myanmar nationals to flee Rakhine State and take shelter in Bangladesh.

Head of DFID Bangladesh Jane Edmondson who was also present with the High Commissioner said there is a “huge coordination” challenges to manage all the resources coming for the humanitarian need.

“We are working with the partners on how to improve this and manage that,” she said, adding that they are also preparing for the “worst-case” scenario.

The UK government, earlier, called for violence to stop after hundreds of thousands of people fled their homes.

Bangladeshi leader seeks global help as Rohingya Muslims continue to flee Myanmar, overwhelming Bangladesh.

By Al Jazeera

September 16, 2017

More than 400,000 Rohingya have fled Myanmar into Bangladesh, the United Nations says as Bangladeshi leader heads to the US to seek global help coping with the crisis.

Bangladesh has been overwhelmed by Rohingya Muslims since violence erupted in Buddhist-dominated Myanmar's Rakhine state on August 25.

On Saturday, the UN said that the total number of people to have entered Bangladesh having fled the unrest had now reached 409,000, a leap of 18,000 in a day.

Conditions are worsening in the border town of Cox's Bazar where the influx has added to pressures on Rohingya camps already overwhelmed with 300,000 people from earlier waves of refugees.

The UN said two children and a woman were killed in a "rampage" when a private group handed clothes near a camp on Friday.

Sheikh Hasina, the prime minister of Bangladesh, departed for New York City on Saturday to plead for international help and demand more pressure on Myanmar during talks at the UN General Assembly on Thursday.

"She will seek immediate cessation of violence in Rakhine state in Myanmar and ask the UN secretary-general to send a fact-finding mission to Rakhine," Nazrul Islam, a spokesman for the prime minister, told AFP news agency.

"She will also call the international community and the UN to put pressure on Myanmar for the repatriation of all the Rohingya refugees to their homeland in Myanmar," he said.

Chris Lom, spokesperson for the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), told Al Jazeera the aid agencies working in the country were struggling to cope with the demand.

"Nobody expected this number of people. Of course, if 100,000 would have come, they could have been accommodated, but by the time they stop, it may be 500,000 and may be more. It's huge," he said.

Lom said aid agencies were working "as fast as they can" but had so far been able to assist less than a quarter of the refugees. 

'Ethnic cleansing'

Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali said: "We will continue international pressure on the Myanmar government to immediately end its ongoing ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya."

The foreign ministry on Friday summoned the Myanmar charge d'affaires for the third time in Dhaka to protest at alleged violations of its airspace by Myanmar drones and helicopter.

The ministry warned that the three violations between September 10 and 14 could lead to "unwarranted consequences". Myanmar did not immediately comment.

The Bangladesh government earlier protested to the embassy over the planting of landmines near their border, which have killed several Rohingya, and the treatment of the refugees.

Arakan Rohingya National Organisation (ARNO)

Joint Press release: 16th September 2017

ICC declines to protect Stateless Rohingya from Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity

We the undersigned organisations would like to stress that, with the initiative of the Arakan Rohingya National Organisation (ARNO), the Rohingya Intellectual Community Association of Australia filed through their Counsel, a communication with the International Criminal Court (“the ICC”) in December 2015 and filed a follow up communication in August 2017, with the support of the Rohingya Community Worldwide. 

Counsel representing our organizations submitted that the ICC should exercise jurisdiction on the grounds that the Rohingya are a stateless minority and no legal recourse exists for them in Myanmar as a result of their statelessness. The ICC finally responded in August 2017 that it does not have jurisdiction on the mass atrocity crimes committed against the Rohingyas. The Rohingya continue to have no access to justice and therefore do not have any redress in Myanmar if they are persecuted. 

Acts of mass atrocity and genocide against the defenseless Rohingya and other minority civilians can never be a purely internal matter of Myanmar. These acts have been ongoing for over thirty-nine years. The UN and international community have a ‘responsibility to protect’ and should intervene to save thousands of lives and protect human security. 

We, therefore, appeal to the UN Security Council, international community, OIC, ASEAN and Myanmar’s neighbours to intervene immediately in the matter to protect helpless Rohingya people and similarly situated minorities in the region from Myanmar’s state sponsored genocide and crimes against humanity. In addition, we thank and plead to the international community to continue providing humanitarian assistance both in Arakan and in Bangladesh on humanitarian grounds. 

The Following organizations are the signatories of this press release.

• Arakan Rohingya National Organisation, 
• Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK, 
• Bradford Rohingya Community UK, 
• Burmese Rohingys Community Denmark,
• Burmese Rohingya Community Australia, 
• Burmese Rohingya Community Japan, 
• Canadian Burmese Rohingya Organisation, 
• Rohingya Advocacy Network Japan, 
• Rohingya Arakanese Refugee Committee,
• Rohingya Blogger,
• Rohingya Community Germany, 
• Rohingya Community Switzerland, 
• Rohingya Community Finland, 
• Rohingya community Italy, 
• Rohingya community Sweden, 
• Rohingya Organisation Norway, 
• Rohingya Society Netherlands, 
• Rohingya Society Malaysia, 
• The European Rohingya Council

For more details, please contact:

Dr. Hla Myint: +61-423381904

Ronnie: +44-7783118354

Email: info@rohingya.org

CNN

Dar Yasin/AP

Zakir Hossain Chowdhury/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

By William Gallo
Voice of America
September 15, 2017

The violence that has caused nearly 380,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee western Myanmar is prompting the United States to reconsider its relationship with the country's military-dominated government. The humanitarian crisis is also affecting Washington's close relationship with Myanmar's longtime democracy icon, Aung San Suu Kyi, as VOA's Bill Gallo reports.

Who are the ARSA, what do they want, why did they form and are they linked to any armed groups?

By Faisal Edroos

Al Jazeera

September 15, 2017

More than 300,000 Rohingya have been forced to flee their ancestral homeland in Myanmar's western region of Rakhine amid a campaign of murder, torture, arson and mass rape by Myanmar security forces and allied Buddhist mobs.

The latest mass exodus, which began on August 25, comes after a small group of Rohingya men attacked around 30 police and army posts in Rakhine State, killing 12 officers, according to the government.

Residents and witnesses have told Al Jazeera that the army retaliated with disproportionate force, burning down scores of Rohingya homes and villages as they tried to hunt down the attackers.

The Myanmar army has put the death toll at around 400, saying most of those killed were rebels. Residents, however, say it is more than 1,000 people. 

The group that carried out the attacks has insisted it is acting in the best interests of the Rohingya - but who are they and what do they want?

Who are the ARSA? 

The Arakan Rohingya Solidarity Army (ARSA), formerly known as Harakatul Yakeen, first emerged in October 2016 when it attacked three police outposts in the Maungdaw and Rathedaung townships, killing nine police officers.

Despite facing decades of oppression, the predominantly Muslim Rohingya had largely refrained from violence.

Rohingya living in Maungdaw township told Al Jazeera that the men, numbering only a few dozen, stormed the outposts with sticks and knives, and after killing the officers, they fled with light weaponry.

In an 18-minute video statement released last October, Ataullah Abu Amar Jununi, the group's leader, defended the assault, blaming the Myanmar army for inciting the violence.

"For over 75 years there have been various crimes and atrocities committed against the Rohingya ... that's why we carried out the October 9, 2016, attack - to send a message that if the violence is not stopped, we have the right to defend ourselves," he said.

Maung Zarni, an adviser to the European Center for the Study of Extremism, told Al Jazeera that the group's actions were borne out of "systematic abuses of genocidal proportions" by the Myanmar military.

"This is not a terrorist group aimed at striking at the heart of Myanmar society as the government claims it is," Zarni said.

"They're a group of hopeless men who decided to form some kind of self-defence group and protect their people who are living in conditions akin to a Nazi concentration camp," he added.

"ARSA's actions resemble Jewish inmates at Auschwitz who rose up against the Nazis in October 1944."

What do they want?

ARSA says it is fighting on behalf of more than a million Rohingya, who have been denied the most basic rights, including citizenship.

"Our legitimate self-defence is a necessary struggle justified by the needs of human survival," Jununi said in a video uploaded to social media on August 15, 2017.

"ARSA has been in Arakan for three years and has not brought any harm or destruction to the life and properties of the Rakhine people and Rohingya."

The Myanmar authorities, however, paint a different picture, saying they are Muslim "terrorists" who want to impose Islamic rule.

Anagha Neelakantan, the Asia Programme Director at the International Crisis Group, told Al Jazeera that there was no clear ideology underpinning the group's actions.

"From what we understand the group is fighting to protect the Rohingya and not anything else," she said.

It's unclear how many fighters the group currently has, Neelakantan explained, adding that there was "no evidence that ARSA has any links to local or international Jihadist groups, or that their aims are aligned".

Why did they form?

For decades, the Rohingya have faced entrenched discrimination and other human rights violations by the country's military governments.

In 1948, when the British left Myanmar, the military who succeeded them launched a campaign to create some sense of nationhood.

Despite them having deep historical and ancestral roots within the pre-colonial borders of Myanmar, the military would embark on several campaigns to ethnically cleanse the nation of the Rohingya.

Since 2012, incidents of religious intolerance and incitement have increased across the country, with the Rohingya and other Muslims frequently attacked and portrayed as a "threat to race and religion".

Are they linked to al-Qaeda or ISIL?

Aziz Khan, a Rohingya living in Maungdaw township, told Al Jazeera that the military and civilian government were "scare-mongering" and there was "no evidence to suggest the group had any ties to any prescribed terrorist groups".

"The media has latched onto the government's statement that these men are 'terrorists,' this is a lie, [Aung San] Suu Kyi [Myanmar's de facto leader] is lying, so are the army, there is no al-Qaeda in Rakhine."

"These men are not well equipped. All they have are sticks, swords and guns they seized from military outposts. No bombs."

In a statement released on September 14, ARSA said it had "no links with al-Qaeda, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), Lashkar-e-Taiba or any other transnational terrorist group".

"While the group may be receiving funds from the Rohingya diaspora in Saudi Arabia," Zarni said, "the group is not calling for an Islamic state nor are they separatists, rather it's a call for peace and ethnic equality."

Europe-based Rohingya advocacy group says Myanmar wants to wipe them out and take their land

By Sorwar Alam and Ayse Humeyra Atilgan

Anadolu Agency

September 15, 2017

ANKARA -- A Europe-based Rohingya group said Friday that Aung San Suu Kyi, state counsellor for Myanmar and Nobel Laureate, is supporting the "genocide" of Rohingya Muslims in her country.

Hla Kyaw, head of the European Rohingya Council, told Anadolu Agency in Ankara that Suu Kyi sits and watches, as “the army continues to burn houses and villages” in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state.

Kyaw said the de-facto leader is "not only complicit [in] the genocide, she is [also] a partner in genocide." 

Suu Kyi has been under international pressure for being silent in the face of the latest atrocities in Rakhine state which, according to the UN, has forced around 400,000 people to flee to Bangladesh.

On Friday, UNICEF spokeswoman Marixie Mercado said 36,000 Rohingya babies below one year old and 92,000 children below the age of five had arrived in Bangladesh. 

The refugees are fleeing a fresh security operation in which security forces and Buddhist mobs have killed men, women and children, looted homes and torched Rohingya villages.

According to Bangladesh's government, around 3,000 Rohingya have been killed in the crackdown.

The Rohingya, described by the UN as the world's most persecuted people, have faced heightened fears of attack since dozens were killed in communal violence in 2012.

Kyaw said that the Rohingya community had supported Suu Kyi when she was put under house arrest by the military junta of Myanmar, during a greater part of the period between 1989 and 2010 -- something that made her an international symbol of peace and resistance. 

'They want to wipe us out'

“We protested in European cities for her release, because we hoped to breathe freely under her leadership, as she is daughter of General Aung San, the father of Myanmar’s independence.”

The Rohingya leader alleged that the state wanted to wipe them out from Rakhine.

“They have planned to put us in concentration camp. Their ultimate goal is to wipe us out, and then take our property and land.”

He said that the government and army had known everything about Arakan Rohingya Salavation Army (ARSA), a militant group, but chose not to take action against it.

“They needed them as an excuse for the mass killings in Rakhine, in the name of national security and fighting terrorism. They also wanted to mobilize public opinion against the Rohingya community.”

He said the Myanmar government had strong support from India and China, two countries which have commercial interests in the region.

“China has an oil and gas pipeline project, while India has a deep-sea project in the region,” he said.

'More than 4,000 deaths'

Kyaw rejected the official death toll of 400 given by Myanmar in the violence since Aug. 25.

“Some 4,500 to 5,000 people have died in the violence. This figure may increase, because many people die while crossing the Naf River. Many parents leave their children behind when they flee.”

He said it was easier for people in the Maungdaw township to escape to Bangladesh, as it is near the border.

In other areas like Buthidaung, the military blocks them from all side. People walk 10 to 15 days in the mountainous terrain to reach the border. Some reach the river at the border, only to figure out they do not have $30 to $60 needed to make the journey on a boat. Others have to cross an area planted with mines by the military.

He urged the international community, including the UN and EU, to put pressure on the Myanmar government to stop this genocide.

“They need to take a common action to stop this international crisis.”

Houses were on fire in Gawdu Zara village, northern Rakhine state, Myanmar, on Thursday. Journalists saw new fires burning in the Myanmar village that had been abandoned by Rohingya Muslims, and where pages from Islamic texts were seen ripped and left on the ground. (Associated Press)

By Al Jazeera

September 15, 2017

UN urges Myanmar's military and its leader to stop the 'catastrophic' violence in Rakhine state.

Global pressure is mounting on Myanmar's army and the country's leader Aung San Suu Kyi to end the killing and displacement of the Rohingya.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called the killings "catastrophic" and "completely unacceptable". 

He says the Myanmar military should suspend its operation in the western Rakhine state and allow the Rohingya to return to their villages.

At least 400,000 people have fled to Bangladesh since the violence escalated late last month.

As more Rohingya flee to Bangladesh, what will it take to stop this violence?

Presenter: Jane Dutton

Guests:

Phil Robertson - deputy Asia director, Human Rights Watch

Maung Zarni - visiting fellow on Myanmar at the London School of Economics and founder of the Free Burma Coalition

Abdul Rasheed - founder and chairman of the Rohingya Foundation Community

The Canadian Jewish News

September 4, 2017

In March, London-based Burmese Buddhist and human rights activist Maung Zarni stood on the train tracks outside of Auschwitz and asked his companion to press record on his video camera.

“Hello, my name is Zarni,” he began, “and I am a human rights campaigner from Burma. I am making this personal appeal to European citizens. You have made the pledge ‘never again’ since 1945, when the Holocaust ended. My country, which calls itself ‘Buddhist,’ is now committing a slow genocide. The UNHCR has called it ‘very likely crimes against humanity.’ We are committing a genocide, a slow genocide against over one million Rohingya Muslim people in my country.”

Zarni then asked people to tell their elected representatives to take action to pressure Myanmar to stop the genocidal violence he claimed was unfolding, and “to make ‘never again’ a real pledge, not just an empty slogan.”

The urgency of Zarni’s call has only become clearer in the light of recent events. On Aug. 25, a stream of Rohingya refugees began arriving in Bangladesh. Since then, almost 300,000 Rohingya, the majority women and children, have fled. They are running from their homes in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, escaping a surge of violence against their communities that began after attacks were launched on dozens of state security stations by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) on Aug. 25, which killed 12 people. Government sources claim to have killed hundreds of insurgents in reprisal. Other sources claim that villagers have been massacred and there are reports of widespread arson, rape and violence perpetrated by government soldiers.

“We have received multiple reports and satellite imagery of security forces and local militia burning Rohingya villages and consistent accounts of extrajudicial killings, including shooting fleeing civilians,” wrote UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR) Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein in a Sept. 11 report. “I am further appalled by reports that the Myanmar authorities have now begun to lay landmines along the border with Bangladesh, and to learn of official statements that refugees who have fled the violence will only be allowed back if they can provide ‘proof of nationality.’ Given that successive Myanmar governments have since 1962 progressively stripped the Rohingya population of their political and civil rights, including citizenship rights – as acknowledged by Aung San Suu Kyi’s own appointed Rakhine Advisory Commission – this measure resembles a cynical ploy to forcibly transfer large numbers of people without possibility of return … the situation seems a textbook example of ethnic cleansing.”

Rakhine is home to an estimated 1.1-million Rohingya, a stateless community that has suffered from more than 40 years of persecution since they surrendered to the forces of the Union of Burma, in return for a promise of “freedom from religious and ethnic discrimination,” which never materialized due to the brutal Burmese military junta that seized control of the country months later, according to the Middle East Institute. In 2012, deadly riots between them and the Buddhist majority forced more than 100,000 Rohingya from their homes and into squalid displacement camps, where they have remained since.

Despite their documented presence in Myanmar since the 18th century, modern Myanmar denies the Rohingya citizenship, Zarni told The CJN. “And they are regarded by most Burmese as descended from itinerant Bengali labourers who never went home.”

According to the human rights group Fortify Rights, Rohingya are subject to discriminatory restrictions on marriage, family size and movement. Their religious buildings have been destroyed and Myanmar has repeatedly restricted humanitarian assistance and media access to the area.

Rights groups in the region have become increasingly critical of Myanmar State Councillor Aung San Suu Kyi, whose National League for Democracy party swept to power in 2015, offering hope that the country would embrace democracy and human rights after decades of brutal military rule. Suu Kyi has characterized the government’s response to the August attacks, which the UNHCR characterized as “clearly disproportionate and without regard for basic principles of international law,” as legitimate security operations against terrorists. Suu Kyi also accused aid workers of colluding with the “terrorists,” leading to a mass exodus of humanitarian organizations that were providing food and medicine to the already impoverished and under-served Rohingya.

According to Zarni, there have been troubling signs about Suu Kyi’s position on the Rohingya for some time. “Suu Kyi has attempted to officially erase the Rohingya from Burma,” he said. “After she was elected, she asked UN officials not use the term ‘Rohingya,’ which she said was ‘not factual, but emotive.’ This denial of Rohingya history and identity in Burma is reminiscent of the Nuremberg laws. The Jews were told, ‘You are no longer German citizens.’ We have a similar scenario here. Genocide is not simply bombing and gassing and starving people. For the perpetrators, the victims never existed as who they say they are.”

The Canadian government has also criticized Suu Kyi.

“The violence is still ongoing, so obviously there’s a failure on part of the military, on part of the government,” Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs Omar Alghabra told the Globe and Mail on Sept. 6. “I don’t think we heard the end of this yet about what our role is going to be. As I said, we are still assessing the situation and we’re looking for ways for Canada to be constructive. We are in discussion as well with our embassy over there, with our officials on the ground.”

Zarni says his interest in the Holocaust goes back to his university days, when one of his professors, German-American historian Robert H. Kaehl, introduced him to the horrors of the Nazi regime. At that time, Zarni’s interest was focused on Burma’s suffering under military rule and he eventually became the head of the Free Burma Coalition, which was dedicated to overthrowing the junta and promoting democratic rule in Myanmar.

In recent years, Zarni has turned his attention to preventing his own people – Burmese Buddhists – from committing genocide against the Rohingya. It is that quest that brought him to the haunted railroad tracks outside of Auschwitz, which he calls “the dark temple of genocide.”

“In Myanmar, we have taken up a Nazi frame of mind,” said Zarni, “where an entire ethnicity is viewed as ‘pests,’ or ‘leeches,’ who must be expelled.”

‘IN MYANMAR, WE HAVE TAKEN UP A NAZI FRAME OF MIND.’

Although Zarni and others have been calling this a “genocide” for years, many others have been reluctant to do so. According to international legal scholar and activist Katherine Southwick, “Tepid policies toward Myanmar and the Rohingya betray a deep-seated reluctance to label these crimes as genocide, for fear of subverting the narrative so many in the world have waited for – an enlightened democratic transition. The notion of genocide in Myanmar risks turning the country back into an international pariah, rather than an international darling.”

Zarni has also made video appeals to his own people in Burma, as well as writing and speaking internationally on the issue. He says he is happy to now be talking to the Jewish community about what is happening in Myanmar.

“If anyone would understand what is happening to the Rohingya, it would be you, the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, the survivors and their families,” Zarni told The CJN.

By Syed Zainul Abedin Eiffel

Dhaka Tribunal

September 14, 2017

Myanmar's army has great political, economic and strategic interests in keeping the ethnic conflict alive in Rakhine and carrying out the purge of Rohingyas from their homeland

Dr Maung Zarni, a Burmese man exiled from Myanmar, is an academic, activist, commentator and expert on his country’s politics. Currently he is a London-based scholar with the Documentation Centre of Cambodia, at the Sleuk Rith Institute.

In an exclusive interview with Dhaka Tribune’s Syed Zainul Abedin, Maung says Myanmar’s army has great political, economic and strategic interests in keeping the ethnic conflict alive in Rakhine and carrying out the purge of Rohingyas from their homeland.

“My own late great-uncle was deputy chief of Rohingya district and deputy commander of all Armed Forces in Rakhine Division in 1961. That was at the time when the Burmese military embraced Rohingyas as an ethnic group in Burma (Myanmar) as full citizens. They were fighting the Rakhine secessionists at the time,” he says.

Can you tell us what is happening in Arakan and the Northern Rakhine state?

Using the pretext of fighting terrorism, Myanmar Tatmadaw (the armed forces) are engaged in the largest wave of systematic killings and destruction of a large segment of Rohingya population in an area that spans over 100 kilometres. They are using air force, navy and army units, as well as police and urban riot control special units in these attacks which have resulted in 370,000 Rohingya fleeing their villages.

Meanwhile, the Aung San Suu Kyi-led civilian government in partnership with the Armed Forces are selling this large scale scorched earth operation as national defence in the face of Rohingya “terrorist” attack which killed 12 police officers and soldiers. This official narrative is patently false: Myanmar is not fighting terrorism, it is speeding up what its Commander in Chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing reportedly told the rank and file members of the Tatmadaw as pursuing “the unfinished business” of the World War II (1942) during which local Rakhines and Rohingya Muslims fought one another.

Rohingya villages and towns can be described accurately as “vast open prisons” and the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army’s attacks against Burmese border guard posts in Oct 2016 and Aug 2017, resemble the Nazi victims’ uprising at Auschwitz in Oct 1944, more than a properly organised and properly armed “insurgency”. In October 1944, the Jewish inmates killed 4 SS officers in one barrack at the concentration camp called Birkenau and the SS responded by killing about 500 Jewish and Polish prisoners and blowing up the entire barrack. Similar waves of large scale terror campaign by the Burmese military were launched in February – June 1978 and 1991-92, expelling upwards of 260,000 in each wave.

Why is the Rohingya community being targeted by the Myanmar government?

The Burmese military took an anti-Muslim turn when Ne Win came to power in a coup in 1962. The generals have purged the entire armed forces of all Muslim officers in the last 50 years, painted the Rohingyas as having cross-border cultural, linguistic and historical ties to the populous Muslim nation of the then East Pakistan, and framed this as a threat to national security, as early as the mid-1960s. There are other bi-national communities along the Sino-Burmese, Indo-Burmese, Thai-Burmese borders such as Kachin, Chin, Shan, Karen, Kokant, Mon etc, as well as Buddhist Rakhine (with ties to Chittagong). But none of these communities are Muslims, only the Rohingyas are. So despite the Rohingyas’ historical presence in Rakhine or Arakan dating back to pre-British colonial days, the military hatched an institutionalised policy of cleansing Western Burma (Myanmar) of Rohingyas, the largest Muslim pocket in the country, numbering over 1 million. Myanmar is engaged in the destruction of the Rohingya using national laws tailored to exclude, disenfranchise and strip them of any basic rights, using the armed forces and police, educational and cultural institutions to demonise and de-humanise them, and physically debilitate them through denial of proper food, access to food systems (such as farms, rivers, creeks), control of their birth rate through marriage restrictions, denial of access to preventive and emergency medicine as well as restriction of freedom of movement. There are other Muslims throughout Burma (Myanmar) but only the Rohingyas have their own geographic pocket – North Arakan – which was officially recognised in the 1950s and early 1960s as the predominantly official Rohingya district.

Would you call the persecution being carried out by Myanmar Army on Rohingyas genocide?

Yes, absolutely. As Professor Amartya Sen put it – this is “institutionalised killing” by the state of Myanmar. He based that on the three-year research work done by me and my researcher colleague in London “The Slow Burning Genocide of Myanmar’s Rohingya”. Myanmar can be proven to be engaged in the fully fledged crime of genocide, in terms of both the Genocide Convention of 1948 and as defined more broadly sociologically by the original framer of genocide the late Polish Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin. Out of the five acts of genocide in the legal Geneva Convention, Myanmar is guilty of four, except for the last crime which is transferring victim children to a different group to change the character of the population singled out for extermination. Myanmar does not even bother transferring children alive for adoption: the troops and the Rakhine burn and kill infants and children, according to eyewitness survivors.

Could you please speak about the communal divide in Myanmar?

Burma (Myanmar) is a multi-ethnic country of about one or two dozen distinct ethnic communities. The official list of 135 national races, from which Rohingyas are excluded, is really a fiction. But in this multi-ethnic web of people with different faiths, there have been many divisions, prejudices and ethno-racism. The military employs the international, colonial ‘divide and rule’ principle that the British used. So in Arakan or Rakhine state, Rohingya Muslims and Rakhine Buddhists have been divided and there has been mutual distrust and hostilities since WWII. But that is not unique to Rakhine. Many other divisions and past armed conflicts between the majority Buddhist Bama and Karens with 20% Christian population, or Bama and predominantly Buddhist Shan, or Bama and predominantly Christian Kachins and Chins are to be found. Virtually every non-Bama minority group attempted to seek independence from the Bama-controlled Union of Burma since independence – at various points in history. Rohingyas and the Rakhine had their own armed secessionist movements as well.

But other communal tensions and past histories of bloodbath are no longer stoked by the Burmese military. But it has systematically made sure that Rakhine and Rohingya do not seek or achieve communal reconciliation like the rest. One major reason is Rakhine nationalists still maintain the dream of restoring their sovereignty which they lost to the colonising Bama from the central Burma in 1785. The military has pitted the Rohingya and Rakhine Buddhists, who have long shared Arakan as their common birthplace, in order to maintain its colonial domination over Rakhine and focus on extracting valuable resources and control the strategic coast line.

Yes, there are communal aspects to Rakhine and Rohingya conflict. But it is the Burmese central Armed Forces which is the primary player keeping this conflict alive and calibrating it to its strategic goals of the control of Rakhine state economically, strategically, politically and militarily.

Does the minority and majority issue play a role in this situation?

For the non-Rohingya minorities, they have been brainwashed through a systematic campaign of misinformation about the Rohingya to think of the latter as “illegal Bengali migrants”, although many Rohingyas have been in western Burma decades before the British colonial rule, which began in 1824 – and others have put their root down in Rakhine after the British arrived and started the industrial rice economy in the fertile soil of western Burma. These minorities and the Bama majority are brainwashed to think that only they are the true indigenous peoples of Burma, despite the fact that they too migrated to Burma during pre-colonial times in various waves of migration from Southern China, Tibet, Indian subcontinent, etc. So this thinking that “we are hosts and indigenous and Rohingyas, Muslims, Christians etc are guests who live in our country at our pleasure” fuels deep racism towards Rohingyas and to a lesser extent, Chinese and Christians. But China is too powerful for the military to try to stoke anti-Chinese racism. So, the military diverts public discontent and frustration over hardships of life under failed military leaders towards the Rohingya – making them a scapegoat.

How is geopolitics playing a role in this?

The Rakhine state, especially North Rakhine of predominantly Rohingya population, is rich in natural resources – off-shore natural gas, fertile agricultural land, untapped titanium, rare earth materials, aluminum, natural deep sea harbours for deep sea port, and land for tax-free Special Economic Zone. The coast line is strategic for China, which wants to have an alternative to the narrow Straits of Mallaca near Singapore, for fear of future conflicts with US and US allies. Rakhine is that alternative. Because it is important to China, it becomes important to players with anti-Chinese strategic visions namely, US, India, Japan, South Korea – all allies and friends.

Just last week Myanmar announced that today’s killing fields of North Rakhine will be turned into a vast Special Economic Zone near the Bangladeshi borders.

How would you explain the situation in light of the emergent democracy in Myanmar and Aung San Suu Kyi’s stance on the military crackdown?

Aung San Suu Kyi is a well-documented and widely reported anti-Muslim racist and a Buddhist nationalist. She is utterly misinformed about the Rohingya situation – their identity, history, politics in Burma (Myanmar) – by her ex-military senior colleagues and Rakhine supporters. The army has cleansed its ranks of any Muslims, and she has cleansed the NLD party of all Muslims.

Both the generals and Aung San Suu Kyi sing from the same Buddhist nationalist hymn book and their vision of Burma (Myanmar) does not have much space for Muslims – and no space for Rohingyas. Her stance is nothing less than 100% genocidal if you take Lemkin’s original conception of a genocide as “destruction of the group starting with the erasure or denial of the group’s identity”. The generals view Western Burma (Myanmar) as originally Muslim-free region and part of kingdom of Burma – despite all evidence to the contrary that Rakhine was a rich, cosmopolitan, multi-ethnic and multi-faith kingdom. So out of this historical misconception and revisionist history, the generals want to make Rakhine a Muslim-free region.

What does Myanmar stand to gain from all this – in terms of economy and politics – in the future?

The army is regaining popularity even among Buddhist monks who were historical threats to the army’s rule as evident in the Saffron Revolt of 2007. The army is making the traditionally hostile Rakhine nationalists who are anti-Burmese and pro-independence dependent on the army for their safety now. And it has derailed Suu Kyi’s majoritarian democratic transition. Economically, the army has the lion’s share of all commercial and development projects in Rakhine.

But the major losers are the peoples of Burma (Myanmar) at large. The society is now moving into the terrorism-obsessed mental space. The public will continue to be reliant on the army and the army’s whims because it is afraid of “jihad”. The military and Suu Kyi are unable to find a Big Tent vision for every ethnic group in Burma (Myanmar). They will continue to work together in the wrong policy framework of preempting “terrorism” from Muslims at large inside Burma (Myanmar) and the Rohingyas. That will become self-fulfilling as their anti-Muslim racist policies and the genocidal violence against Rohingyas has stoked deep rage within 1.7 billion Muslims around the world.

Ultimately, Burma (Myanmar) is going to become a site of major conflicts and terrorism.

By Reuters

September 13, 2017

YANGON – Myanmar’s national leader Aung San Suu Kyi, facing outrage over violence that has forced about 400,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee to Bangladesh, will not attend the upcoming United Nations General Assembly because of the crisis, her office said on Wednesday (Sept 13).

The exodus of refugees, sparked by the security forces’fierce response to a series of Rohingya militant attacks, is the most pressing problem Suu Kyi has faced since becoming leader last year.

Critics have called for her to be stripped of her Nobel peace prize for failing to do more to halt the strife which the United Nations rights agency said was a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing”.

Aid agencies will have to step up operations “massively” in response to the refugee flow into Bangladesh, a senior UN official said, adding that the US$77 million (S$103.5 million) the United Nations had appealed for last week would not be enough.

But a Bangladeshi border force officer said the number of people crossing into his area had fallen sharply, apparently because everyone had left districts most affected by the violence.

Suu Kyi, in her first address to the UN General Assembly as leader in September last year, defended her government’s efforts to resolve the crisis over the treatment of the Muslim minority.

This year, her office said she would not be attending because of the security threats posed by the insurgents and her efforts to restore stability. 

“She is trying to control the security situation, to have internal peace and stability, and to prevent the spread of communal conflict,” Zaw Htay, the spokesman for Suu Kyi’s office, told Reuters.

International pressure has been growing on Buddhist-majority Myanmar to end the violence in the western state of Rakhine that began on Aug 25 when Rohingya militants attacked about 30 police posts and an army camp.

The raids triggered a sweeping military counter-offensive against the insurgents, described by the government as terrorists. 

Refugees and rights groups say the security operation is aimed at pushing Rohingya out of Myanmar. They claim the attacks on Rohingya villages in the north of Rakhine State are caused by the security forces and ethnic Rakhine Buddhists, who have torched many Muslim villages.

Authorities have denied that the security forces, or Buddhist civilians, have been setting the fires, and have blamed the insurgents. Nearly 30,000 Buddhist villagers have also been displaced, they say.

The Trump administration has called for protection of civilians, and Bangladesh says all the refugees will have to go home and has called for safe zones in Myanmar.

But China, which competes with the US for influence in Asia, said on Tuesday it backed Myanmar’s efforts to safeguard “development and stability”.

The UN Security Council is to meet on Wednesday behind closed doors for the second time since the crisis erupted. British UN Ambassador Matthew Rycroft said he hoped there would be a public statement agreed by the council.

However, rights groups denounced the council for not holding a public meeting. Diplomats have said China and Russia would likely object to such a move.

PUBLIC SUPPORT 

Myanmar’s military, which ruled for almost 50 years until it began a transition to democracy in 2011, retains significant political powers and is in full control of security. Suu Kyi has no say over those matters. 

Nevertheless, critics say Suu Kyi could speak out against the violence and demand respect for the rule of law.

Anti-Rohingya sentiment, however, is common in Myanmar, where Buddhist nationalism has surged since the end of military rule.

Suu Kyi, who the military blocked from becoming president and who says Myanmar is at the beginning of the road to democracy, could risk being denounced as unpatriotic if she were seen to be criticising a military operation that enjoys widespread support.

A mob in central Myanmar threw stones at Muslim shops on Sunday but there have been no serious outbreaks of communal violence elsewhere.

The government has warned of bomb attacks in cities and those concerns are likely to be compounded by an Al-Qaeda call to arms in support of the Rohingya.

“The savage treatment meted out to our Muslim brothers ... shall not pass without punishment,” Al-Qaeda said in a statement, according to the SITE monitoring group.

Bangladesh was already home to about 400,000 Rohingya who fled earlier conflict and many of the new refugees are hungry and sick, without shelter or clean water. 

“We will all have to ramp up our response massively, from food to shelter,” George William Okoth-Obbo, assistant high commissioner for operations at the UN refugee agency, told Reuters during a visit to the Kutupalong camp in Bangladesh.

He declined to say how many people he thought might come but Bangladeshi officer Lieutenant Colonel Ariful Islam said numbers were falling off sharply in his area. “The people who arrived in the early days after the atrocities, now they’ve come out,” Islam told Reuters.

RB News

September 13, 2017

Maungdaw -- A boat carrying ethnic Rohingya people fleeing violence in Myanmar capsized on Monday (Sept 13) night after a gang of pirates attempted to rob them in the Naff river, killing at least 6 people, according to reliable sources.

And with dozens still missing, it is feared that the death toll could rise up to at least 39 that include men, women and children.

The boat was carrying over 50 displaced Rohingya people escaping from brutal massacres, systematic arsons, tortures and rapes being carried out by the Myanmar armed forces (the military and the BGP) and the Rakhine Buddhist extremists in Northern Arakan since August 25.

Six dead bodies were found agrounded on the Naff river bank in Bangladesh, according to local fishermen.

11 people survived from the horrific incident, who told us what had happened. Of the survivors, three are men, 2 teenagers and one woman. All are from Buthidaung Township.

Since August 25, we have been witnessing widespread arson attacks on Rohingya villages, burning down villages one by one, horrific massacres and summary executions of countless (Rohingya) civilians, rapes against women, massive displacements, unimaginable stream of refugee exodus into Bangladesh and unimaginable horrors of atrocity crimes.

Almost two third of ethnic Rohingya people in Northern Arakan have been displaced and villages depoulated by the Myanmar armed forces under pretext of responding to attacks on some police posts and military bases by Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) on early August 25 morning.

The UN Human Rights Commissioner Zeid Ra'ad al Hussein has called the violence against Rohingya 'a textbook example of ethnic cleansing.'
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Below are some figures of Rohingya civilians killed/executed, displaced and forced to flee to Bangladesh and the numbers of villages affected, damaged, partially burnt or entirely burnt down.

1. Number killed, excecuted, or burnt or shot death: Over 3,500

2. Remained Internally displaced with no shelter and food in Northern Arakan: Over 200,000

3. Numbers fled to Bangladesh: more than 300 000

4. Numbers of people arbitrarily detained: Over 2,000

7. Villages (hamlets) damaged; burnt partially or wholly in 3 townships (Maungdaw, Buthidaung and Rathedaung): Over 170

[Note: All figures give above are approximations based on our reports and trends of violence. We'll come up with figures as exactly as possible once the situation calms down.]

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[Reported by Rohingya Eye, Edited by M.S. Anwar]

Please email to: editor@rohingyablogger.com to send your reports and feedback.

By Al-Emrun Garjon and Tofayel Ahmed | 

Associated Press

September 12, 2017

UKHIYA, Bangladesh — The Bangladeshi prime minister demanded Tuesday that Myanmar allow the return of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims who fled recent violence in the Buddhist-majority nation — a crisis she said left her speechless.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said Bangladesh would offer the refugees temporary shelter and aid, but that Myanmar should soon “take their nationals back.”

“We will not tolerate injustice,” she said at a rally at the Kutupalong refugee camp, near the border town of Ukhiya in Cox’s Bazar district.

On Monday night, she lambasted Myanmar for “atrocities” that she said had reached a level beyond description, telling lawmakers she had “no words to condemn Myanmar.”

At least 370,000 Rohingya have flooded into Bangladesh since Aug. 25, when Rohingya insurgents attacked police posts, prompting Myanmar’s military to retaliate with what it called “clearance operations” to root out the rebels.

The crisis has drawn sharp criticism from around the world. On Tuesday, Iran’s supreme leader called the killing of Muslims a political disaster for Myanmar. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also called Myanmar’s leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, a “brutal woman,” and urged other Muslim countries to “increase political, economic and commercial pressures” on the country to stop the violence.

The U.N. human rights chief said Myanmar’s ethnic Rohingya minority was facing what “seems a textbook example of ethnic cleansing.” U.N. rights investigators have been barred from entering the country.

“The Myanmar government should stop pretending that the Rohingya are setting fire to their own homes and laying waste to their own villages,” Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein said Monday in Geneva, calling it a “complete denial of reality.”

Meanwhile, a Rohingya villager in Myanmar said security forces had arrived Monday in the village of Pa Din village, firing guns, setting new fires to homes and driving hundreds of Rohingya to flee.

“People were scared and running out of the village,” the villager said, speaking on condition of anonymity out of fear for his safety.

Myanmar police disputed that, saying the houses were burned by terrorists they called Bengalis. That term is used derisively by many in Myanmar to describe the Rohingya, who they say migrated illegally from neighboring Bangladesh, though many Rohingya families have lived in Myanmar for generations.

Myanmar’s military said that Rohingya villagers helped them arrest six suspected Rohingya insurgents armed with swords and slingshots on Monday. The military commander in chief’s office said Tuesday on its Facebook page that the six alleged insurgents were detained as they entered Ka Nyin Tan village in Maungdaw township.

In Bangladesh, Kutupalong and another pre-existing Rohingya camp were already beyond capacity. Bangladesh has said it would provide 2,000 acres (810 hectares) for a new camp in Cox’s Bazar district to help shelter newly arrived Rohingya. The government was also fingerprinting and registering new arrivals.

Some new arrivals were staying in schools, or huddling in makeshift settlements with no toilets along roadsides and in open fields. Basic resources were scarce, including food, clean water and medical aid.

Aid agencies have been overwhelmed by the influx of Rohingya, many of whom are arriving hungry and traumatized after walking for days through jungles or being packed into rickety wooden boats in search of safety in Bangladesh.

Many tell similar stories — of Myanmar soldiers firing indiscriminately on their villages, burning their homes and warning them to leave or die. Some say they were attacked by Buddhist mobs.

In the last two weeks, the government hospital in Cox’s Bazar has been overwhelmed by Rohingya patients, with 80 arriving with gunshot wounds as well as bad infections.

At least three Rohingya have been wounded in land mine blasts, and dozens have drowned when boats capsized during sea crossings.

Myanmar’s authorities said more than a week ago that some 400 people — mostly Rohingya insurgents — had died in clashes with troops, but it has offered no updated death toll since.

Rohingya have faced decades of discrimination and persecution in Myanmar and are denied citizenship despite centuries-olds roots in the Rakhine region.

Before Aug. 25, Bangladesh had already been housing some 500,000 Rohingya who arrived after bloody anti-Muslim rioting in 2012 or amid earlier persecution drives in Myanmar.

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Associated Press writer Julhas Alam in Dhaka, Bangladesh, contributed to this report.