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Many Rohingya refugees fleeing Myanmar arrive in Bangladesh under cover of darkness on wooden boats on the beach at Shah Porir Dwip, Teknaf, near Cox’s Bazar. Photo: UNHCR/Roger Arnold

By UN News Centre
October 17, 2017

Senior United Nations officials are urging the international community to come together in support of a 23 October pledging conference to “send a strong message to Rohingya refugees and their generous hosts in Bangladesh that the world is there for them in their greatest time of need.”

Since late August, hundreds of thousands of Rohingya trying to escape discrimination and persecution in Myanmar’s Rakhine state have fled to neighbouring Bangladesh, sparking the world’s fastest-growing humanitarian emergency, according to the United Nations. 

“We call on the international community to intensify efforts to bring a peaceful solution to the plight of the Rohingya, to end the desperate exodus, to support host communities and ensure the conditions that will allow for refugees’ eventual voluntary return in safety and dignity,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in a joint statement Monday. 

“The origins and, thus, the solutions to this crisis lie in Myanmar,” added the UN High Commission for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, the UN aid chief, Mark Lowcock, the Director General, of IOM, William Lacy Swing. 

They underscored that Bangladesh has kept its borders open, offering safety and shelter to fleeing families. 

“We have been moved by the welcome and generosity shown by the local communities towards the refugees,” the senior officials stated, while noting their respective agencies have been working in overdrive with the Government of Bangladesh, local charities, volunteers and non-governmental organizations to provide assistance. Still much more is urgently needed. 

The refugees are fully dependent on humanitarian assistance for food, water, health and other essential needs as basic services are under severe strain and some sites lack access to potable water and sanitation facilities, raising health risks for both the refugees and the hosting communities. 

“The efforts must be scaled up and expanded to receive and protect refugees and ensure they are provided with basic shelter and acceptable living conditions. Every day more vulnerable people arrive with very little – if anything – and settle either in overcrowded existing camps or extremely congested makeshift sites,” the statement continued. 

It announced that the ministerial-level pledging conference, set to be held in Geneva on 23 October, organized by OCHA, IOM and UNHCR and co-hosted by the European Union and Kuwait, will provide Governments an opportunity to show their solidarity and share the burden and responsibility. 

“Their further generous support for the Joint Response Plan, which was recently launched by the UN and partners, is urgently needed to sustain and scale up the large humanitarian effort already under way. The plan requires $434 million to meet the life-saving needs of all Rohingya refugees and their host communities – together an estimated 1.2 million people – for the difficult months to come,” added the statement.


By Jacob Goldberg
October 17, 2017

A story published by The Irrawaddy spent less than a day online yesterday when it was discovered that what the story’s authors presented as current news actually took place over a year ago.

In the Myanmar-language story, titled “Weapons plundered from Bangladeshi refugee camp guards,” The Irrawaddy reformulated a report by AFP and published by the Daily Mail about armed attackers raiding a security post at a Rohingya refugee camp in southern Bangladesh.

The attackers killed one Bangladeshi guard before they made off with 11 rifles and 570 rounds of ammunition. Police told AFP that Rohingya refugees themselves were being considered as suspects in the attack.

“The miscreants could be hiding inside the camp,” a police inspector said.

The report fits neatly into the Myanmar government’s narrative about the refugee crisis. It raises suspicions about Rohingya refugees and their alleged links to militant groups, whose activities the Myanmar government uses to justify its continued displacement of the Rohingya from their homes.

Rarely does this narrative go unquestioned in Myanmar publications, but in this case, serious doubts were raised for one simple reason – the report was false. The attack was not carried out on October 13, 2017, as The Irrawaddy claimed, but on May 13, 2016.

The inaccuracy was caught by Rohingya activist Nay San Lwin, who called attention to it on Twitter. The story was removed from The Irrawaddy’s website less than an hour later.

When asked about the story, The Irrawaddy’s Myanmar-language editor Ye Ni said: “It was a mistake. The regional desk translated it as they thought it was in October 2017. When we realized that was an old story, we took it down.”

Whether it was an honest mistake or not, the false report fueled anti-Rohingya sentiments among The Irrawaddy’s readers. Before it was deleted, one Mandalay-based Facebook news page with over a million followers shared the story, inviting commenters to warn of the rising threat of “Bengali terrorists.”



It was also shared by former information minister Ye Htut, who has thousands of followers on Facebook and now works as a visiting senior fellow at Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore. (He eventually deleted the article from his timeline.)

The confluence in the messaging of The Irrawaddy and the military-affiliated former information minister would be surprising to those who recall that The Irrawaddy has its roots in Myanmar’s pro-democracy struggle and was once considered the most professional and trusted news source in the country.

However, in the weeks since the Myanmar army’s mass displacement of Rohingya Muslims from the country began, the independent outlet has quickly adopted the government’s script.

A few days after the ARSA attacks on August 25, the online publication introduced a policy of using the word “Rohingya” in its English-language reporting and “Bengali” – a term that implies they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh – in Burmese.

Several of the publication’s employees have resigned since the policy was introduced.

Nay San Lwin, the Rohingya activist, said he has written to The Irrawaddy’s chief editor Aung Zaw to correct this inconsistency.

“He never responded to me and keeps using ‘Bengali’ in the Burmese version and ‘Rohingya’ in English to please their funders…Some of the news they post in Burmese is complete propaganda,” he said.

In September, editor Aung Zaw told CNN that “Rohingya is not an ethnic minority that belongs to Burma.”


Yesterday’s fabrication, Nay San Lwin said, was “the worst in The Irrawaddy’s history,” but it was also the culmination of a process that has been changing the entire media landscape in Myanmar since 2012, when communal violence between Rohingya Muslims and Rakhine Buddhists ignited a Buddhist-nationalist fervor that has become a major force in the country’s politics.

He said: “All the [local media outlets] have changed since 2012. BBC Burmese, VOA, and RFA are biased. They have tried many times to use the term ‘Bengali,’ but as I keep complaining to them through media directors, they use ‘Rohingya’ sometimes and mostly refer [to us] as ‘Muslims.’”

A report published by the Myanmar Institute for Democracy last week found that The Irrawaddy’s coverage of the first two weeks of the Rakhine crisis “mainly relied on the news released by the Information Committee, the Sate Counsellor Office, the President Office, and the Chief of Defense Office.”



“The problem with all Burmese media is racism,” said Nay San Lwin. “If the Rohingya were Buddhist, I’m sure they wouldn’t take the military’s side.”

Complete destruction of Rohingya villages in close proximity to intact Rakhine village, Maungdaw township, recorded on 21 September 2017. © 2017 Human Rights Watch

By Human Rights Watch
October 17, 2017

288 Villages, Tens of Thousands of Structures Torched

New York – Newly released satellite images reveal that at least 288 villages were partially or totally destroyed by fire in northern Rakhine State in Burma since August 25, 2017, Human Rights Watch said today. The destruction encompassed tens of thousands of structures, primarily homes inhabited by ethnic Rohingya Muslims.

Ethnic Rohingya village completely destroyed adjacent to intact ethnic Rakhine village in Maungdaw Township, Burma. © 2017 Human Rights Watch

Analysis of the satellite imagery indicates both that the burnings focused on Rohingya villages and took place after Burmese officials claimed security force “clearance operations” had ceased, Human Rights Watch said. The imagery pinpoints multiple areas where destroyed Rohingya villages sat adjacent to intact ethnic Rakhine villages. It also shows that at least 66 villages were burned after September 5, when security force operations supposedly ended, according to a September 18 speech by State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi. The Burmese military responded to attacks on August 25 by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) with a campaign of ethnic cleansing, prompting more than 530,000 Rohingya to flee across the border to Bangladesh, according to the United Nations refugee agency.

“These latest satellite images show why over half a million Rohingya fled to Bangladesh in just four weeks,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director. “The Burmese military destroyed hundreds of Rohingya villages while committing killings, rapes, and other crimes against humanity that forced Rohingya to flee for their lives.”

Map of villages destroyed in Maungdaw, Buthidaung, and Rathedaung Townships. © 2017 Human Rights Watch

A total of 866 villages in Maungdaw, Rathedaung, and Buthidaung townships in Rakhine State were monitored and analyzed by Human Rights Watch. The most damage occurred in Maungdaw Township, accounting for approximately 90 percent of the areas where destruction happened between August 25 and September 25. Approximately 62 percent of all villages in the township were either partially or completely destroyed, and southern areas of the township were particularly hard hit, with approximately 90 percent of the villages devastated. In many places, satellite imagery showed multiple areas on fire, burning simultaneously over wide areas for extended periods.

Human Rights Watch found that the damage patterns are consistent with fire. Comparing recent imagery with those taken prior to the date of the attacks, analysis showed that most of the damaged villages were 90 to 100 percent destroyed. Many villages which had both Rohingya and Rakhine residing in segregated communities, such as Inn Din and Ywet Hnyo Taung, suffered heavy arson damage from arson attacks, with known Rohingya areas burned to the ground while known Rakhine areas were left intact.

Multiple villages on fire along the coast of Maungdaw Township, Burma on the morning of September 15, 2017. © 2017 Human Rights Watch

The Burmese government has repeatedly said that ARSA insurgents and local Rohingya communities were responsible for setting the fires that wiped out their villages, but has offered no evidence to support such claims. Human Rights Watch interviews in Bangladesh with more than 100 refugees who had fled the three townships gave no indication that any Rohingya villagers or militants were responsible for burning down their own villages.

The Burmese government and military has not impartially investigated and prosecuted alleged serious abuses committed against the Rohingya population. UN member countries and international bodies should press the Burmese government to grant access to the UN-mandated fact-finding mission to investigate these abuses. The UN Security Council should also urgently impose a global arms embargo on Burma, and place travel bans and asset freezes on those Burmese commanders responsible for grave abuses. Governments should impose a comprehensive arms embargo against Burma, including prohibiting military cooperation and financial transactions with military-owned enterprises.

“The shocking images of destruction in Burma and burgeoning refugee camps in Bangladesh are two sides of the same coin of human misery being inflicted on the Rohingya,” Robertson said. “Concerned governments need to urgently press for an end to abuses against the Rohingya and ensure that humanitarian aid reaches everyone in need.”

Rohingya refugees arrive to the Bangladeshi side of the Naf river after crossing the border from Myanmar, in Palang Khali, Bangladesh October 16, 2017. REUTERS/Jorge Silva

By Zeba Siddiqui, Wa Lone
October 16, 2017

COX‘S BAZAR/YANGON -- Hungry, destitute and scared, thousands of new Rohingya refugees crossed the border into Bangladesh from Myanmar early on Monday, Reuters witnesses said, fleeing hunger and attacks by Buddhist mobs that the United Nations has called ethnic cleansing.

Wading through waist-deep water with children strapped to their sides, the refugees told Reuters they had walked through bushes and forded monsoon-swollen streams for days. 

A seemingly never-ending flow entered Bangladesh near the village of Palongkhali. Many were injured, with the elderly carried on makeshift stretchers, while women balanced household items, such as pots, rice sacks and clothing, on their heads. 

"We couldn’t step out of the house for the last month because the military were looting people," said Mohammad Shoaib, 29, who wore a yellow vest and balanced jute bags of food and aluminum pots on a bamboo pole. ”They started firing on the village. So we escaped into another. 

“Day by day, things kept getting worse, so we started moving towards Bangladesh. Before we left, I went back near my village to see my house, and the entire village was burnt down,” Shoaib added. 

They joined about 536,000 Rohingya Muslims who have fled Myanmar since Aug. 25, when coordinated Rohingya insurgent attacks sparked a ferocious military response, with the fleeing people accusing security forces of arson, killings and rape. 

Myanmar rejects accusations of ethnic cleansing and has labeled the militants from the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army who launched the attacks as terrorists, who have killed civilians and burnt villages. 

The European Union said on Monday it would suspend invitations to Myanmar’s army commander-in-chief and other senior generals “in the light of the disproportionate use of force carried out by the security forces”. 

A statement issued after a meeting of EU foreign ministers also called for thorough investigation of “credible allegations of serious human rights violations and abuses”. 

ANOTHER BOAT SINKS 

Not everyone made it to Bangladesh alive on Monday. 

Several kilometers (miles) to the south of Palongkhali, a boat carrying scores of refugees sank at dawn, killing at least 12 and leaving 35 missing. There were 21 survivors, Bangladesh authorities said. 

“So far 12 bodies, including six children and four women, have been recovered,” said police official Moinuddin Khan. 

Bangladesh border guards told Reuters the boat sank because it was overloaded with refugees, who pay exorbitant fees to cross the Naf River, a natural border with Myanmar in the Cox’s Bazar region of Bangladesh.

The sinking came about a week after another boat capsized in the estuary on the river, which has become a graveyard for dozens of Muslim refugees. 

FOOD, AID RESTRICTED 

Refugees who survived the perilous journey said they were driven out by hunger because food markets in Myanmar’s western Rakhine State have been shut and aid deliveries restricted. They also reported attacks by the military and Rakhine Buddhist mobs. 

The influx will worsen the unprecedented humanitarian emergency unfolding in Cox’s Bazar, where aid workers are battling to provide refugees with food, clean water and shelter.

On Monday, the Red Cross opened a field hospital as big as two football fields, with 60 beds, three wards, an operating theater, a delivery suite with maternity ward and a psychosocial support unit. 

Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya had already been in Bangladesh after fleeing previous spasms of violence in Myanmar, where they have long been denied citizenship and faced curbs on their movements and access to basic services. 

Monday’s EU move to shun further contacts with Myanmar’s army top brass comes after officials told Reuters the European bloc and the United States were considering targeted sanctions against military leaders. 

The action announced by Brussels is largely symbolic, though the EU said it may consider further measures. 

Western governments, who have invested politically in Myanmar’s democratic transition, are wary of doing anything that would hurt the wider economy or destabilize already tense ties between civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the military. 

The powerful army chief, Min Aung Hlaing, told the United States ambassador in Myanmar last week that the exodus of Rohingya, whom he called non-native “Bengalis”, was exaggerated. 

But despite Myanmar’s denials and assurances that aid was on its way to the north of violence-torn Rakhine State, thousands more starving people were desperate to leave. 

“We fled from our home because we had nothing to eat in my village,” said Jarhni Ahlong, a 28-year-old Rohingya man from the southern region of Buthidaung, who had been stranded on the Myanmar side of the Naf for a week, waiting to cross. 

From the thousands gathered there awaiting an opportunity to escape, about 400 paid roughly $50 each to flee on nine or 10 boats on Monday morning, he added. 

“I think if we go to Bangladesh we can get food,” he said. 

Reporting by Zeba Siddiqui in Cox's Bazar and Wa Lone in Yangon; Additional reporting by Jorge Silva and Nurul Islam in Cox's Bazar and Gabriela Baczynska in Brussels; Writing by Antoni Slodkowski and Alex Richardson; Editing by Paul Tait and Clarence Fernandez

Noor Mehar, a Rohingya Muslim woman, who crossed over from Myanmar into Bangladesh, along with her daughter Rasheeda, grieves for her three daughters after their boat capsized near Shah Porir Dwip, Bangladesh, Monday, Oct. 16, 2017. An overcrowded boat carrying Rohingya Muslims fleeing Myanmar capsized Monday in the Bay of Bengal near a Bangladeshi fishing village, killing 12 people, including six children, police said.(AP Photo/Dar Yasin)

October 16, 2017

DHAKA, Bangladesh — An overcrowded boat carrying Rohingya Muslims fleeing Myanmar capsized Monday in the Bay of Bengal near a Bangladeshi fishing village, killing 12 people, including six children, police said.

Survivors of the capsizing told local officials that up to 65 people were on board and almost half of them were children, local police official Sheikh Ashrafuzzaman said. The capsizing occurred as the boat was approaching Shah Porir Dwip in Teknaf in Cox’s Bazar district bordering Myanmar’s Rakhine state.

He said villagers told police they recovered five bodies and at least 21 people survived.

Including Monday’s capsizing, boat accidents have killed at least 184 Rohingya trying to reach Bangladesh.

Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have fled Myanmar since Aug. 25, when the military launched a crackdown decried by the United Nations as “ethnic cleansing.” Myanmar’s military has said it launched clearance operations in response to terrorist attacks, but the U.N. and others have said Myanmar’s response was disproportionate. The refugees have described widespread and indiscriminate violence and arsons.

Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina says that her government will continue to support the Rohingya, but that Myanmar must take them back.

Visiting Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi had a meeting with Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali and other Bangladesh government officials in the state guesthouse Padma in Dhaka on October 15, 2017 (Dhaka Tribune)

By Syed Zainul Abedin
October 16, 2017

The visiting Malaysian deputy prime minister says they will seek support from the ASEAN countries to resolve the Rohingya crisis

Malaysia will build a field hospital in Teknaf to provide treatment to 300,000 Rohingya who have fled brutal persecution in Myanmar’s Rakhine State and taken refuge in Bangladesh.

Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, the Malaysian deputy prime minister who is currently visiting Dhaka, disclosed this while briefing the media after a meeting with Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali in the state guesthouse Padma on Sunday.

Hamidi said: “We will build up a hospital within two to three months for 300,000 Rohingya refugees who took shelter in Bangladesh.”

He added that Malaysia will also seek support from the ASEAN countries to resolve the ongoing Rohingya crisis.

State Minister for Foreign Affairs Shahriar Alam, Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Nurul Islam, and Malaysian Minister for Human Resources Dr Richard Riot Anak Jaem were also present at the meeting.

Mahmood Ali had briefed Hamidi about the difficulties faced by Bangladesh due to mass exodus of more than half a million Rohingya since late August.

He mentioned that Bangladesh was now hosting over 900,000 forcibly displaced Myanmar nationals. Of them, around 540,000 took shelter in Bangladesh after August 25, when the Myanmar security forces launched a crackdown in response to a militant attack on police outposts and an army base in Rakhine.

The foreign minister pointed out that the Myanmar army with the support of ethnic Rakhine armed vigilantes were carrying out an organised and systematic violence, arson and atrocities against the Rohingya civilians to depopulate the northern Rahine State and prevent their possible return.

Mahmood Ali also added that Bangladesh has given shelter to the Rohingya temporarily on humanitarian grounds and they will have to go back to their homes in Rakhine at the soonest.

He said the root of the problem was in Myanmar and the solution also lies there.

Referring to the discussion on the refugees’ return with Myanmar Union Minister at the State Counsellor’s Office U Kyaw Tint Swe during his recent Dhaka visit, Mahmood Ali mentioned that the major issues were yet to be addressed.

“The agreed principles and criteria of 1992 need to be revised to address the current challenge. The international community and UN agencies should be allowed to support the repatriation process,” said the foreign minister.

He appreciated Malaysia’s initiative in providing humanitarian assistance to the persecuted Rohingya refugees.

Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Zahid Hamidi applauded the Bangladesh government for sheltering the Rohingya and its efforts to provide them with humanitarian aid.

Hamidi mentioned that Malaysia was deeply concerned at the disturbing developments in Myanmar and took strong position on the Rohingya issue in the UN and other regional forums.

Malaysia also supported involvement of the international community and UN in the repatriation process, he said, adding that Malaysia and Bangladesh could be leading partners in resolving the problem.

Hamidi is scheduled to visit the Rohingya camps in Cox’s Bazar on Monday.

Bangladeshi expatriate workers issue

Employment of Bangladeshi workers in Malaysia had also featured prominently during Sunday’s meeting.

Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Nurul Islam thanked Malaysia for allowing irregular Bangladeshi workers to regularise themselves through the re-hiring programme.

Expressing gratitude for including Bangladesh as an official source country for recruiting foreign workforce, he also conveyed the government’s readiness to provide trained security guards to Malaysia.

In the meeting, both sides also discussed present status of implementation of the Government to Government Plus (G2G+) scheme for recruiting Bangladeshi workers and agreed to speed up the whole process.

Earlier, Malaysia had showed interest to recruit security guards from Bangladesh.

European Union flags flutter outside the EU Commission headquarters in Brussels, Belgium June 14, 2017. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir

The Council adopted the following conclusions on Myanmar/Burma:

"1. The humanitarian and human rights situation in Rakhine State is extremely serious. There are deeply worrying reports of continuing arson and violence against people and serious human rights violations, including indiscriminate firing of weapons, the presence of landmines and sexual and gender based violence. This is not acceptable and must end immediately. More than 500 000 people, mostly Rohingya, have fled their homes and sought refuge in Bangladesh, as a result of violence and fear. When so many people are displaced so quickly this strongly indicates a deliberate action to expel a minority. Therefore it is of utmost importance that refugees can return in safety and dignity. Access for humanitarian assistance and the media is severely restricted in Rakhine State. Needs can therefore not be fully assessed nor addressed.

2. The EU has called on all sides to bring an immediate end to all violence. It urges the Myanmar/Burma military to end its operations and to ensure the protection of all civilians without discrimination and to fully observe international human rights law. The EU also reiterates its call on the Myanmar/Burma government to take all measures to defuse tensions between communities; grant full, safe and unconditional humanitarian access without delay, including for UN, ICRC, and international NGOs; and establish a credible and practical process to enable the safe, voluntary, dignified, and sustainable return of all those who fled their homes to their places of origin. The EU has stepped up its humanitarian assistance for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh and stands ready to extend its activities in Rakhine State in favour of all people in need once access is granted.

3. The EU and its Member States reconfirm their strong engagement underlined in its Strategy on Myanmar (June 2016) to support the country's democratic transition, peace, national reconciliation and socio-economic development. In this context, the EU stands ready to support the government of Myanmar/Burma in order to ensure the swift and full implementation of the recommendations of the Advisory Commission on Rakhine State, including the crucial issue of citizenship for the stateless Rohingya population. The EU welcomes that the government has set-up an Inter-Ministerial Committee for the implementation of these recommendations.

4. The EU welcomes the State Counsellor's commitment to bringing all the perpetrators of human rights violations and other criminal acts to justice, in accordance with the rule of law to avoid all impunity, and her statement on 19 September that Myanmar/Burma does not fear international scrutiny. Credible allegations of serious human rights violations and abuses, including brutal attacks on children, must be thoroughly investigated. In this context the EU urges Myanmar/Burma to cooperate fully with the Human Rights Council's independent international Fact-Finding Mission and to allow it full, safe and unhindered access to the country without delay. The EU welcomes that the UN Human Rights Council recently extended the mandate of the Fact-Finding Mission.

5. Furthermore, the EU encourages Myanmar/Burma to enter into a dialogue with its neighbouring countries, in particular Bangladesh, on finding solutions to common concerns, notably the repatriation of refugees to their place of origin, in the spirit of good neighbourly relations. The EU appreciates the constructive role played by Bangladesh under difficult circumstances.

6. In the light of the disproportionate use of force carried out by the security forces, the EU and its Member States will suspend invitations to the Commander-in-chief of the Myanmar/Burma armed forces and other senior military officers and review all practical defence cooperation. The EU confirms the relevance of the current EU restrictive measures which consist of an embargo on arms and on equipment that can be used for internal repression. The Council may consider additional measures if the situation does not improve but also stands ready to respond accordingly to positive developments.

7. The humanitarian situation of populations affected by conflict in Kachin and Shan States, including 100.000 internally displaced people, is also of great concern. Humanitarian assistance has also been severely curtailed there and the EU calls on the government of Myanmar/Burma to restore humanitarian access to all communities affected in these areas.

8. The EU will continue to address these vital issues and all challenges linked to the process of democratic transition in the framework of its continuing engagement with the government of Myanmar/Burma and in all relevant international fora, notably the UN. The EU also intends to seize the opportunity of the forthcoming ASEM Foreign Ministerial Meeting (Nay Pyi Taw, 20/21 November 2017) to engage, in the margins thereof, in a constructive dialogue with the government and will also continue to liaise with all Asian partners in this regard. The EU also encourages its partners in ASEAN and the region to engage in this process."

Original here.



By Dr Maung Zarni
October 16, 2017

Visiting Fellow at Singapore's Institute of South East Asian Studies & Ex-Cabinet Member from Thein Sein Gov, spread fakes news about Rohingyas, possibly coordinating with Irrawaddy Burmese Editors. 

Ye Htut, ex-Colonel and a son of the late Myanmar Police Chief, is caught spreading Fake News, which typically frames Rohingyas as "terrorist" issue. 

Ye Htut's Burmese language caption reads: 

"In Bangladesh the (Muslim) fundamentalists and extremists held demonstrations demanding that Rohingyas be armed. 

Now the (Bangladesh) border guards unit at a refugee camp lost their weapons to the looters."

This is based on Irrawaddy Burmese Language News (see the two additional JPEG along with the first item by Ye Htut). 

Irrawaddy has emerged as a major platform for spreading genocidal racism and hatred against the Rohingyas. 

Its editors - Aung Zaw, Kyaw Zwa Moe, and Ye Ni - have been mis-charaterising, Rohingyas as an Islamic threat to Burma's "national security" based on dubious intelligence sources.

Irrawaddy's stance is influenced by both their anti-Rohingya racism and Bertil Linter's anti-Rohingya racist writings in Asia Times, blowing the security concerns out of proportions.

Just yesterday a Thai-American academic named Thitanan Pongsudhirak from Chula University in Bangkok peddles the same racist lie in Singapore's mouthpiece The Straits Times. 

See my scathing rebuttal to this academic whore's despicable racism, falsely accusing the wretched of my country as "terror" threat. 


Framing of Rohingyas as "Islamic terrorism" has been proven non-credible by Bangladeshi senior officials including the Foreign Secretary, former US Assistant Secretary of State for Asia and Pacific Affairs Eric Schwartz and most recently in Facetime Live by Human Rights Watch Myanmar researcher. 

Here is Eric Schwartz in his own words:

"... the idea that insurgency is the route of the problem in Rakhine State is nonsense.

This is not insurgency. There are parts of Burma where there are insurgent issues. This is not an insurgency-driven conflict. This is a pretext that the military has given us, by all evidence."

the idea that insurgency is the route of the problem in Rakhine State is nonsense.


--

Myanmar: The Invention of Rohingya Extremists

Joseph Allchin, The New York Review of Books, 2 October 2017


--

Bangladesh foreign secretary: No sign of radicalisation among the Rohingya, 8 October 2017 





RB News
October 15, 2017

Akyab (Sittwe) -- Having forced nearly half a million Rohingyas out of the country and massacred thousands, the Myanmar authorities are now forcing the remaining of them into accepting NV Cards, according to local sources.

On October 14 morning, officials from Myanmar fishing department accompanied by many policemen arrived at 'Thae Chaung' village and held a meeting with the locals. During the meeting, the officials coerced them to accept NV Card but only met with absolute opposition from the people.

One fisherman in Sittwe said "the government threatened to ban us from going out to sea for fishing if we don't accept NV Card. They are trying to coerce us by banning access to our livelihood. So, let us die of starvation but not accept NV Cards."

It has been learnt that the government officials have informed the immigration and the police at 'Thae Chaung' and 'Bay Dar' beach check-posts to block all Rohingya fishermen from fishing unless they accept NV Card. There are more than 600 fishing boats, belong to Rohingya people at 'Thae Chaung' and 'Bay Dar' beaches, that are unable to set off to the sea for fishing.

The NV Card or National Verification Card (NVC) is, in effect, issued to a foreigner while he/she is going through citizenship verification during his/her citizenship application in Myanmar. The Rohingyas, who are natives of Arakan state of Myanmar and its citizens by birth, categorically reject the NV Card.

Several groups of government officials have begun threatening the locals of 'Shwe Zar' village  (originally called Shujah Fara) in Maungdaw Township to accept NV Cards since October 11.

"The government officials came at north hamlet of 'Shwe Zar' village again today (i.e. on Oct 15) and threatened to burn down the village if the villagers didn't accept NV Cards. So, the villagers ran away in fear.

"So, the officials have begun forcing passers-by, rickshaw pullers and farmers or any Rohingya they encounter into accepting the NV Card", said one village man.

The Myanmar government has subjected the Rohingya to go through the process of NV Card that seems like Myanmar government is taking steps to give citizenships to Rohingyas when it is a step to downgrade the native status of Rohingya. The Rohingyas do not need to go through citizenship verification as they were natives of Myanmar and until 1982, they were an indegenous ethnic group of Myanmar.

[Reported by Saeed Arkani & Rights Seeker; Edited by M.S. Anwar]

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






By Dr Maung Zarni 
RB Opinion
October 15, 2017

Ethnicity and Race are INVENTIONS, MADE-UP, CONSTRUCTED with an identifiable political purpose.

But the country is moving in the different direction on this, that is, Hitler's blood-based, "real", notions of RACE.

In the most recent Irrawaddy "Debate" hosted by Ye Ni who advocates openly "surgical operations" against "Bengali", one Burmese anthropology professor from Mandalay raised the issue that there are no people called Rohingyas in Chittagong.

(In fact, it was Hitler who used the term "surgical operations" in his Mein Kampf or My Story.

There are no Chins in India North East (across from the Chin Hills of Burma. They are called Zo. That's identities shifting across geographic space.

Time/context wise, here is another example of fluidity of identity.

In the colonial period, the flag raised against the ruling British colonizers is: Burmese.

Coastal region Rakhine commercial, Lower Burma cultural elite Buddhists, Mon commercial, and Dry Zone-rooted cultural elite Buddhists forged a political identity called "Burmese", using the common oppression as a common bridge and Buddhism as an additional pillar of their newly forged umbrella identity.

General Council of Buddhist Association (GCBA) U Soe Thein was a Mon, but adopted the Burmese identity, as head of the majoritarian cultural - and later political movement from which the Peasant Uprisings sprang up under the local medicine man - Saya San. PM U Nu was a lower-Bama Mon. The late UN Sec. General U Thant, was a Lower Burma Kular-Bama mix, who adopted Bama Buddhist identity.

After independence, Rakhine and Mon shed that umbrella identity, and hoisted their primary identities as Rakhine and Mons and sought autonomy and equality in the post-independence period.

The most famous Rakhine leader, the Cambridge-trained ICS U Kyaw Min, my friend Prof. Ko Kyaw Tha Paw Oo's grandfather, was initially Burmese nationalist in the service of the British Colonial rule. He led the above-ground parliamentary push for autonomous Rakhine Statehood.

As a widespread phenomenon, Burmese of Chinese and Indian or Pakistani Muslim ancestry frontload their primary identities as "Muslim" or "Chinese" when the new social context is more accepting, liberal and tolerant, for instance, the United States or UK.

So my friends, Khin Khin of Chinese background in Burma would become Phillipa Tan, Win Ko would become Akbar Hamid, or Kyaw Zwa, Mohammad.

Even within a single political unit as Frontier Areas of Burma, Jing Hpaw (Kachin) would morph into Shan, a more powerful ethnic group.

After the waning of their dominance in the pre-colonial Burmese feudal entities, the Shan feudal elites, geographically closer to the Burmese Dry Zone centers of power, they would emulate Burmese power symbols, rituals, feudal customs and manners while those Shan feudal elites closer to Northern Siam or Thai kingdoms would be more culturally and politically tied to the Thai or Dai or Siamese.

Given the way the NLD and the military are leading the country, ideologically, it is conceivable that the Ministry of Education will use Mein Kampf as a prescribed text for Ethnicity and Race - 101. Go Myanmar Nazi, Go!

My dear friend Thitinan,

​Re: ​Myanmar's moves against Rohingya a get-out campaign, not genocide

​

I am grateful that you were my host at Chula. But you crossed the line with your ill-informed and immoral genocide denial. 

I know Asia is a Dark Continent whose rise is only matched by its decline of intellectual and political world.

Given the fact that your own country of Thailand - and mine, not to mention Hunsan's Cambodia - are heading back to the Dark Ages, I didn't expect Cambodian, Thai or Burmese Establishment intellectuals to take a stance against my country's Buddhist genocide against Rohingyas.

I have studied this issue for much of the past decades, and I am competent to comb through the Burmese original, know the military leaders intimately, can read the Burmese military in ways you know your country's Thai military.

The difference between you and I is this: that you know and stay within the parameters which your protector (s) in the Royal Thai Armed Forces allow you to operate and I know well what those Burmese army-acceptable boundaries are, and I refuse to allow considerations of State Power and the self-censorship you practice as a civil servant of the military-controlled Thai State education system.

We make our own individual choices based on our circumstances, lived values and personalities. I don't judge you on what you write about your own country's sordid affairs under the military rule today. 

But your op-ed in the Straits Times, the official mouthpiece of Singapore which has long supplied Burmese military arms and trained the Burmese intelligence, is really pathetic beyond words. 

I wish that you do not join the club of Genocide Deniers - in Europe the genocide denial is a criminal offence. I am glad you don't live and work in Europe, or you would find yourself in the accused dock.  

I can prove in any court of opinions, or law, the INTENT of the Burmese military is nothing less than GENOCIDAL. My own late great-uncle was deputy commander of the predominantly Rohingya Mayu Distric, when Rohingyas were officially granted full citizenship and full official recognition of their identity, presence and history in Burma. I also know two generations of military leaders who implemented - and who are still implementing - the military's policy of destruction of Rohingyas, from the identity and history to the physical and biological destruction of the group as such, in whole or in part. 

I didn't formally train myself as a genocide scholar, and the study of genocides is not a rocket science. With a LSE PhD and US Santa Barbara undergraduate training, you could have easily done the background research on the original conceptual literature on genocide as a widespread historical and contemporary political process. You could also have engaged with the credible, academic and human rights research literature on the substantive issue of Rohingyas persecution across the borders from Thailand - and how the Thai military and authorities, as well as Thai trafficking mafia networks have profited from the Burmese Buddhist genocide. 

I can't explain your failure to come to grips with the genocidal nature of my country's persecution of the Rohingya: you have an impeccable academic training as a scholar.

The only thing I can think of - forgive me if I am wrong - that will explain your refusal to acknowledge what is widely viewed by world's leading scholars of genocide as a textbook example of a genocide must be your anti-Muslim racism.

Your piece reeks your disdain for what you falsely argues as "faith-based separatists".

I know hundreds of Rohingyas inside my country, and in diaspora. I am sure many of them are sympathetic to those who risk their lives trying to resist the power that is determined to destroy them all. 

I know of NOT A SINGLE ROHINGYA who say they want a separate Muslim state out of N. Rakhine. Not even those Rohingya militants who resort to violence say they want a separate state. Even if they did who are you to make the judgement as to what they - living the lives as the world's most wretched Muslim people - should aspire to or not, while you are living in extreme comfort of your affluent Thai Buddhist home, in the wealthy suburb of Bangkok, commuting to your work in your BMW? 

This passage is jaw-dropping as you apparently attempted to mis-characterise angry, desperate Rohingyas who feel they and their communities are sitting ducks waiting for the next large wave of genocidal killings at the hands of the trigger-happy Burmese military, which has used or invented various pretexts - immigration check, Rohingyas' support for NLD and Suu Kyi in 1989-92, a local criminal case of petty murder of a Rakhine Buddhist woman, to the social transition (social because power/democratic transition has taken place only in name) and now ARSA attack. 

The military has openly opposed Kofi Annan's involvement from the inception of its Rakhine Commission: it attempted unsuccessfully to table the motion in the NLD-controlled parliament - 10 months before the Commission's report was due out; it had used it proxy monks and "civil society' groups to openly stage protests against Kofi Annan's involvement; it has successfully persuaded Rakhine state officials and Rakhine leaders to refuse to meet or cooperate with the Commission and its military leadership of Min Aung Hlaing told Kofi Annan face to face the military didn't accept the main thrust of his commission's report - even in the morning of the report's release.

And you blatantly chose to ignore all evidence that would weaken or demolish your argument that Rohingya militants - whom you were at pain to paint as Saudi- and Pakistan-linked Muslim separatists - were the one to blame for the recent "disproportionate and heavy-handed reaction" by the Burmese military.

Aside from the issue of your own closeted racism towards Muslims, your argument that the Rohingya militants provoked the military to nip the Annan report in the bud a complete while arguing that the military was using that as the pretext for its "get-out' (Rohingya) campaign would get F - (FAILURE) were I to grade it as an undergraduate essay.

You can't call an event which the Burmese military had jumped on as the "perfect pretext" as a trigger. It was the State that had been making operational preparations, for instance, air-lifting of hundreds of its most notorious special commando units, a few weeks before the Rohingya stormed border guard posts with machetes, spears and sticks - for the large scale genocidal killings and expulsion. 

Here is a sample of your tortured logic and anti-Muslim racist passage (all Rohingyas have relatives and friends in both Saudi Arabia and Pakistan - hundreds of thousands as those are the countries where they could at least live not as hunted fugitives but in relative safety. does that make all Rohingyas potential terrorists, in your eyes?)

"Coalescing in mid-2016 from Harakah al-Yaqin (or "Faith Movement"), and led by Ata Ullah, a Rohingya who was born in Pakistan but grew up in Saudi Arabia, Arsa deliberately provoked the Tatmadaw into overreacting in order to alienate Muslims and gain recruits to its separatist cause. Prior to its Aug 25 attacks, Arsa's first salvo took place in October last year under similar circumstances but on a smaller scale. This time, the confrontation may have reached a point of no return.

Arsa now has the full-blown insurgency it wants, with support from Pakistani and Middle Eastern sources and an ample pool of recruits from disaffected young Rohingya Muslims who have no prospect of a better life in northern Rakhine's hilly shacks and poverty-stricken towns."

This anti-Muslim pervades Thai Buddhist society, from your Royal family, with the late God-king known to be an anti-Muslim racist - down to the Chinese-dominated Bangkok's elites, just as it pervades my Buddhist society and that of another Theravada country, namely Sri Lanka.

As intellectuals and scholars, we are supposed to rise above our societal racist boundaries of thought and feelings, and NOT to succumb to the ingrained and inter-generationally reproduced new Fascism - called Islamophobia. 

I am pained to call you out on your ugly racism on the genocide of Rohingyas as you were my host at Chula when I was doing research on this issue and how the Thai state was mistreating the Rohingyas desperate to be smuggled into Malaysia. 

We have not been in touch, and I don't intend to engage with you on this issue. I just want to openly put it in writing, and publicly at that, that I find your cleverly concealed Islamophobia and sub-stanceless arrogance about what you think you know about my country's affairs intellectually and morally repugnant.

ZARNI

P.S. Here is the analysis of what counts as genocide, ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity by two people who know what they are talking about. I think you should shut your racist mouth, instead of weighing in on the side of my genocidal nation where my own former personal friends and colleagues, in the military and in the NLD, are leading this campaign of genocide. . 


Confronting genocide in Myanmar, Katherine Southwick, Asia and the Pacific Policy Forum, ​2 Dec 2016


Genocide in the Making, Foreign Policy, Sir Geoffrey Nice and Francis Wade, 13 Nov 2016​





October 15, 2017

TEHRAN – Iran plans to supply warm food to Rohingya Muslims living in displacement camps in Bangladesh.

The Iranian deputy health minister Mohammad Reza Ayyazi, heading a delegation, paid a visit to a refugee zone near Cox’s Bazar close to Myanmar border in Bangladesh on Friday.

“Now a group of sikhs from Punjab supplies some 5,000 dishes of warm food to the region on the daily basis,” he said, adding, Iran has the capacity and potential to provide the Rohingya refugees with much more meals.

Iranian benefactors can provide funds for supplying warm food and preparing cooking facilities in Bangladesh, he proposed.

“In this line, the expenses for consignment of relief through airway is decreased as well and Myanmar Muslims enjoy food with their favorite taste,” he said.

“During our visit to the refugee camps, we decided to organize Iranian aid for Rohingya Muslims,” Tasnim quoted him as saying.

The Iranian Red Crescent Society chief Ali Asghar Peyvandi and Iran’s Ambassador to Dhaka Abbas Vaezi accompanied Ayyazi during his visit.

The arrival of Rohingya Muslims from Buddhist-dominated Myanmar since August 25 has put an immense strain on camps in Bangladesh where there are growing fears of a disease epidemic. 

----- Bangladesh health minister hails Iranian aids

The Bangladeshi Minister for Health and Family Welfare Mohammed Nasim has expressed his thanks over the dispatching of aid consignments by Iranians for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.

Nasim net with the Iranian Red Crescent Society chief Ali Asghar Peyvandi in Dhaka on Thursday.

During the visit, Nasim said that the displaced people of Myanmar in Bangladesh need physical and mental supports.

Several volunteer physicians are offering free medical services to refugees in the region, he explained.

On Thursday, Iran sent its third humanitarian aid shipment for Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims to Bangladesh.

The 30 tons of relief supplies included humanitarian aid and food supplies.



By Wyston Lawrence
RB Petition
October 15, 2017

There is one petition has been going on Change.org to remove Ven. Wira Thu from Facebook. He has been known as Buddhist Bin Laden. Time magazine published his image on their cover with the title of The Face of Buddhist Terror. The petition can be reached at https://www.change.org/p/mark-zuckerberg-close-down-facebook-account-of-buddhist-bin-laden-ven-wira-thu.



In the petition they claimed that he has fanned the flames of religious chauvinism in Myanmar. Because of his propaganda, some innocent people have been killed in Burma. With the strong supports of anti-democratic groups including Burmese, he is going against democratic activists, including Suu Kyi in Burma. 

His purpose is to create religious and racial riots between majority Buddhist and Minority Muslim. He is using Facebook for his virus ideas between Burmese people. Facebook has policy to block any kinds of racism and religious bigots. This petition will send directly to Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg.

Wyston Lawrence is a Political Analyst and Human Rights Activist based in Australia. Follow on Twitter @LawrenceWynston

Kofi Annan, who led an advisory commission to the Myanmar government, said world powers must work with the country's military and civilian leaders to end the refugee crisis AFP/YE AUNG THU

By AFP
October 14, 2017

NEW YORK: Former UN chief Kofi Annan urged the Security Council on Friday to push for the return to Myanmar of hundreds of thousands of Muslim Rohyingas who have been driven out in an army campaign.

Annan, who led an advisory commission to the Myanmar government, said world powers must work with the country's military and civilian leaders to end the refugee crisis.

The Security Council is weighing action, possibly a resolution laying out demands, but diplomats have said China, a supporter of Myanmar's former ruling junta, and Russia are opposed to such a measure.

"I hope the resolution that comes out urges the government to really press ahead and create conditions that would allow the refugees to return with dignity and with a sense of security," Annan told reporters after a closed-door meeting with the council.

"They should not be returned to camps. They should help rebuild," he said.

More than 500,000 people, mostly Rohingyas, have since late August crossed into Bangladesh, fleeing military operations in Myanmar's Rakhine state that the United Nations has denounced as ethnic cleansing.

Myanmar authorities say they are rooting out Rohingya militants following attacks on police posts in late August.

The issue of the return of the Rohingyas is shaping up as a major hurdle.

A recent report by the UN human rights office accused Myanmar of seeking to permanently expel the Rohingya, by planting land mines at the border with Bangladesh.

"The international community is now beginning to put pressure on the military," Annan said, adding that "military-to-military talks" were aimed at pressing Myanmar to rein in its operations.

He called on the council to agree with Myanmar on a "roadmap" and warned that without action "we are going to have a long-term festering problem" in the region that "can be very serious, down the line."

In late August, Annan presented the final report of the advisory commission on Rakhine state that he chaired at the request of Myanmar's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

The report called for granting citizenship and other rights to the Rohingyas, who are stateless and have long faced discrimination in the Buddhist-majority nation.

The UN's top political affairs chief, Jeffrey Feltman, travelled to Myanmar on Friday for talks.


    • Rohingya Exodus