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Trudeau holds "very direct" talk with Myanmar's Suu Kyi about state-led violence

By Andy Blatchford
November 10, 2017

DANANG, Vietnam — Justin Trudeau used a face-to-face meeting Friday with Myanmar's leader Aung San Suu Kyi to lay out some of the evidence he has seen on the state-led violence that has shaken her country and set off a huge refugee crisis.

The prime minister met with Suu Kyi for 45 minutes on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation leaders' summit in Danang, Vietnam.

It was Trudeau's first meeting with Suu Kyi, an honorary Canadian citizen, since a crackdown by Myanmar's security forces began in late August. The alleged attacks have forced more than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims into exile in neighbouring Bangladesh.

The crisis has damaged the once-celebrated global image of Suu Kyi, who is a Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

Bob Rae, Canada's special envoy for the Rohingya crisis, joined Trudeau at the meeting. The former Liberal MP said Trudeau was "very direct" with Suu Kyi and the two leaders didn't immediately agree with each other.

"I think it's fair to say we feel that more needs to be done and more could be done," Rae, who briefed Trudeau on Friday on his recent visit to the region, told reporters in Danang.

"There are serious issues that we have to deal with and obviously this is a major, not only humanitarian crisis, but also a political crisis."

Suu Kyi has faced widespread international criticism for not speaking out against allegations that include arson, rape and shootings by Myanmar soldiers and Buddhist mobs.

The United Nations and Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland, who also attended Friday's meeting, have said the violence against the Rohingya amounts to ethnic cleansing.

"It's a pleasure to meet again with state counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi — an opportunity to talk about a number of issues, including the refugee situation and how Canada can continue to help in a situation that, obviously, a lot of people back home are concerned about," Trudeau said after shaking hands with Suu Kyi as they began their meeting.

Rae said Canada has committed to remain engaged with Myanmar and to provide help in any way it can to see the refugees safely repatriated back to their homes, and away from the terrible conditions of an overcrowded camp.

He acknowledged it won't be easy.

Rae said Suu Kyi admitted during Friday's meeting that there has been fear and a history of oppression, which have to be dealt with. 

She also expressed a strong willingness, he said, to engage with Bangladesh to allow for the return of refugees to Myanmar and to rebuild based on a plan laid out by former UN secretary general Kofi Annan.

"But for us the key question is: it's not what you say, it's what you do. And that, I think, is where we're going to have to continue to push hard to make sure that there's implementation of basic steps that need to happen," Rae said.

Suu Kyi, he added, faces a difficult task because she wields limited control in a country that has been ruled by a military junta for decades. She is the de facto head of Myanmar's civilian government.

Suu Kyi also faces a potential domestic backlash if she speaks on behalf of the Rohingya, who have been the target of anti-Muslim rhetoric.

Canadian officials, who have spoken on the condition of anonymity, have said Ottawa has been reluctant to overtly blame Suu Kyi for the violence in her country because it believes Myanmar's military is using it to undermine her reputation.

Still, several fellow peace prize winners have publicly condemned the former political prisoner for what they see as her apparent indifference to the plight of the Rohingya.

Trudeau spoke with her in September and also wrote her a letter to outline what she and the government of Myanmar must do to "protect innocent lives" and act according to the expectations of Canada and the world.

The Liberal government has come under pressure to strip Suu Kyi of her honorary Canadian citizenship.

In 2007, Suu Kyi became the first woman — and one of only five people — to be granted honorary Canadian citizenship. John Baird, Canada's then-foreign affairs minister, travelled to Myanmar in 2012 where he personally conferred honorary citizenship on Suu Kyi.

— with files from Associated Press

ANTALYA, TURKEY - NOVEMBER 9: The head of the Red Crescent in Bangladesh Mohammad Habibe Millat speaks to press during the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) General Assembly meetings in Antalya, Turkey on November 9, 2017. The head of the Red Crescent in Bangladesh has described the Rohingya refugee crisis as the “biggest man-made disaster in the world”. (Murat Kula - Anadolu Agency)

By Seyit Ahmet Aytac
November 9, 2017

Head of Red Crescent in Bangladesh says world needs to present united front to resolve refugee issue

ANTALYA, Turkey -- The head of the Red Crescent in Bangladesh has described the Rohingya refugee crisis as the “biggest man-made disaster in the world”.

Mohammad Habibe Millat said his country was doing all it could to assist more than 611,000 Rohingya Muslims who have crossed the border from Myanmar since Aug. 25 but that this was “not the permanent solution”.

Speaking at a summit of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) General Assembly in Antalya, southern Turkey, he said: “From Aug. 25, more than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims, most of them women and children, crossed the border from Myanmar to Bangladesh.

“This is a biggest manmade disaster in the world. We as government of Bangladesh and Red Crescent Society try to do our best and open our border for them for humanitarian reasons.

“We will do everything to help Rohingya muslims as much as we can, but this is not the permanent solution.”

He said the approaching winter raised fears about the welfare of the refugees housed in makeshift camps along the border.

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

Speaking in September, the Bangladeshi Foreign Minister Abul Hasan Mahmood Ali said around 3,000 Rohingya had been killed in the crackdown.

Turkey has been at the forefront of providing aid to Rohingya refugees and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has raised the issue at the UN.

Millat, who is also a Bangladeshi lawmaker, praised First Lady Emine Erdogan for her visit to the camps in September.

- Permanent solution

“I want to thank her as the first high-level person to visit the camps. One of the refugee women told in front of the first lady that they’ve been tortured.

“They are lucky to survive and cross the border. Turkey and its institutions work hard to solve this crisis. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Turkey’s efforts make things little easier, but still we have longway to go.”

He praised the efforts of the IFRC in providing humanitarian aid to the refugees.

“We will continue to support and help the Rohingya Muslims as much as we can but we are low-middle income country. The international community should remember that.

“We thank the government and the people of Turkey for their very kind gesture and we appreciate it.”

Millat called for the world to “speak with the same voice and put pressure on the Myanmar government, that is probably the permanent solution.”

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.

The UN documented mass gang rapes, killings -- including of infants and young children -- brutal beatings and disappearances committed by security personnel.

In a report earlier this year, UN investigators said such violations may have constituted crimes against humanity.

The IFRC General Assembly concludes on Saturday.

Rohingya refugees sit on a makeshift boat as they wait permission from Border Guard Bangladesh to continue after crossing the Bangladesh-Myanmar border, at Shah Porir Dwip near Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh November 9, 2017. REUTERS/Navesh Chitrakar

By Tommy Wilkes, Simon Cameron-Moore
November 9, 2017

COX'S BAZAR/YANGON -- Blessed by calmer seas, several hundred more Rohingya Muslims on Thursday joined a multitude of refugees in Bangladesh, as calls grew for upcoming regional summits to exert more pressure on Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi to stem the crisis.

A Myanmar military operation has driven out more than 600,000 Rohingya since late August and the latest refugees to find sanctuary in predominantly Muslim Bangladesh say many thousands more are still trying to leave. 

Ariful Islam, of Bangladesh’s Border Guard, said about 200 people arrived on Thursday morning on the stretch of coast he commands at Teknaf, at the southern tip of Cox’s Bazar district.

More than 200 Rohingya have drowned in the strong currents and high surf trying to reach Bangladesh from Buddhist-majority Myanmar over the past two months. 

But the sea was fairly flat on Thursday morning as Abdus Sabir came ashore at Shamlapur along with a large group of Rohingya after a six-hour boat journey to complete an escape begun weeks ago. 

“We fled because the military is still burning our houses,” Abdus, who had abandoned his home in the Rathedaung region of Myanmar’s Rakhine State, told Reuters. 

Nearby, Husain Shorif, from the Buthidaung region, said he had rowed for four hours to help bring across 56 people on a raft cobbled together from bamboo and plastic jerrycans. 

“Some boatmen were asking for huge money we didn’t have. So we made our own boat and came,” Shorif said, adding that thousands more Rohingya were still stranded at Pa Nyaung Pin Gyi at the mouth of the Naf river. 

Reuters was unable to verify that claim as Myanmar’s military has restricted access to northern parts of Rakhine, where it launched a clearance operation it says was aimed at Rohingya militants behind attacks on 30 security posts on Aug. 25. UN officials described the operation as “ethnic cleansing”, an accusation Myanmar has denied.

The storm of opprobrium over the humanitarian crisis will expose Myanmar to more diplomatic pressure, at least from leaders of Muslim-majority countries and the United States, during three summits hosted by Vietnam and the Philippines. 

Suu Kyi, the de facto leader of Myanmar’s less than two-year-old civilian administration, left on Thursday to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Vietnam’s central seaside resort of Danang. 

Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for standing up to the generals who had ruled the country for nearly half a century, Suu Kyi now has to share power with them, under a constitution drawn up in 2008 when junta was still in control, and has little control over what they do. 

After Friday’s APEC gathering, Suu Kyi will meet leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) grouping in Manila on Sunday, followed by an East Asia Summit in Angeles, just north of the Philippine capital. 

Mass exodus: tmsnrt.rs/2xTAOon

A desperate escape: tmsnrt.rs/2A1ATUP

OUTCRY 

Setting up a regional trade block, and concerns over North Korea’s ambitions to become a nuclear-armed state are priorities, but New York-based Human Rights Watch beseeched the Asian leaders to ensure stronger action by Myanmar to end the crisis. 

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will meet Suu Kyi on Nov. 15 for talks on the Rohingya crisis, and they are expected to hold a joint news conference.

“World leaders shouldn’t return home from these summits without agreeing to targeted sanctions to pressure Burma to end its abuses and allow in independent observers and aid groups,” Brad Adams, Asia director of Human Rights Watch, said in a statement that referred to Myanmar by its old name. 

Desperate for help to cope with the massive influx of people, Bangladesh is lobbying furiously for pressure to be put on Myanmar. 

“We want international communities to continue building pressure on Myanmar. Otherwise, they won’t resolve the crisis,” a foreign ministry official in Dhaka told Reuters, adding that ministers from Germany, China, Japan and Sweden were expected to visit both countries later this month. 

HRW’s Adams said leaders meeting Asia should discuss how to investigate alleged rights abuses and atrocities in Rakhine, and refer them to the International Criminal Court in the Hague. 

The rights group also urged the Security Council to impose an arms embargo, economic sanctions and travel bans targeting Myanmar military officials. 

Some U.S. senators are pressing for the United States to impose its own sanctions, also targeting the military. 

The Security Council this week opted for a strongly worded statement scolding Myanmar, as diplomats said China and Russia would have vetoed any resolution. 

China has publicly supported the Myanmar government’s efforts to “maintain stability” in Rakhine. The stance taken by China and other Southeast Asian governments fighting insurgencies by Muslim militants should spare Myanmar from any harsh spotlight in the summits’ final communiques. 

“On the Rohingya, the leaders will agree that there is no quick fix to the long-standing inter-communal problem with deep historical roots that needs to be carefully managed,” an ASEAN diplomat told Reuters, adding that the group aimed to deliver $500,000 of relief supplies to Myanmar. 

A trail of destruction: tmsnrt.rs/2fDBxTc

Additional reporting by Navesh Chitrakar and Mohammad Ponir Hossain in COX'S BAZAR, Ruma Paul in DHAKA and Thu Thu Aung in YANGON; Editing by Clarence Fernandez

(Photo: AFP)

Min Khant
RB Opinion
November 9, 2017

On 7 November 2017, Ministry of the Office of the State Counsellor issued a press statement, stating: “The issuance of the Presidential Statement of UNSC, on 5.11.2017, ignores the fact that the issues facing Myanmar and Bangladesh today can only be resolved bilaterally, in an amicable manner, between two neighboring states. Furthermore, the Presidential Statement could potentially and seriously harm the bilaterally negotiations between the two countries which have been proceeding smoothly and expeditiously”. 

The truth is that Prime Minister of Bangladesh has declared the world: “The ROHINGYAS refugee problems lie with in Myanmar government alone and Bangladesh has nothing to do or involve in the matter, but Bangladesh prime minister insists the time and again Rohingyas refugees’ influx into the territory of Bangladesh because of the inhumane oppressions and atrocities of Myanmar regime be stopped for the sake of both countries, Myanmar and Bangladesh in the long run”. 

While the state of Bangladesh wants to avoid the unnecessary arguments with Myanmar frequently for the sake of her country and to protect the mass exodus of Rohingyas refugees from Myanmar, It has, of course, proposed some essential & possible recommendations to the government of Myanmar to grant THEM such as: citizenship, safety, peace, dignity, and guaranteed security and stability through safeguarding them by the government of Myanmar not to be repeating mass flow of people into her land, Bangladesh.

Bangladesh being a tiny and populous country, it has to ask the world communities to help provide the necessary assistances to the refugees who have been reaching to her country and it has been undeniable.

Bangladesh has been sheltering and feeding to the Rohingyas refugees of Myanmar with the cooperation of world communities and in that case, the world involvements, proposals, and commitments to solve the Rohingyas issue become the world communities’ concerns now. 

Bangladesh, realizing the past Myanmar governments’ insincerity, irresponsibility, and carelessness to fulfill the agreements, which were stricken previously between them due to Rohingyas refugees repatriation and resettlement, right now, Bangladesh seems it has decided to bring the Rohingyas issues to the world powerful table to be decided and be witness by the world governing body, UNSC for durable solution. 

What are the world communities’ false and that of the Bangladesh in this concerning issue? Why does Myanmar show its fury in this regard?

Myanmar government’s irritated announcement against the UNSC presidential statement has shown its innate nature and double-cross not to abide the direction of the UNSC meeting result. Myanmar regime’s intention to reach an agreement between the two countries during Bangladesh foreign Minister’s visit to Myanmar (from 16 to 18 November 2017) may be a cheating time-pass game that will possibly frustrate world communities, Bangladesh and entire Rohingyas rather than coming out a fruitful agreement for the final settlement as per saying of Myanmar.

Seemingly, Myanmar has tripartite powerful executive bodies - the democratically elected government led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, who is responsible to claim world assistance to rebuild the country; Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, who holds all the power of the state to destabilize the entire indigenous localities with brutal wars in the name of sovereignty and the last body is SANGA, the Buddhist Monks Association, which has been responsible to tear down Muslim and Christian communities in the country and all the relevant ministers from the Ministries have been surrendering in a manner of “ADDRESS LOYALTY” to MONKS whatever the ministry offices have done, are executing and will be going to do in future due to state affairs. IT seems SANGA association is above all and it opposes Rohingyas repatriation by the name of Rohingya IDENTITY.

In particular, The RNDP party chairperson U AYE MAUNG, mentally deranged and tongue-lashing animal surgeon has been very outlandish to annihilate Rohingya communities from Rakhine state with the cooperation of most of the political parties’ affiliations in the country since the commencement of U Thein Sein’s Presidency up to now. 

Right now, Myanmar government has no sense to handle the Rohingyas issue because government itself and all destructive forces against Rohingyas do not interest to pay attention to the world instruction whilst all the internal forces have a belief in CHINA and RUSSIA that they would do against to the orders of the world which are not binding resolution from the world bodies. 

Therefore, deplorably, the last UNSC’ presidential statement is nothing as an effective instrument to help solve Rohingyas issue in an urgent manner but the statement is a great INCENTIVE for the government, Rakhine militiamen, Rakhine army AA, Rakhine authorities and Myanmar military forces to be able more and more destructions of the Rohingya people lives and livelihoods to those who are still remaining in their localities within a 30-day interval, which UNSC’s presidential statement has awarded the UN Secretary General to collect information from the regime of Myanmar whether it has discharged the orders of the UNSC presidential statement or not . Presumably, in the end of a 30-day, UNSG will surely collect more hostile information from the ground committed by all forces of Myanmar who oppose the Rohingyas rights and existence. 

Without delay, to help solve Rohingyas issue within country and for the earlier repatriation of Rohingyas from Bangladesh to their localities in dignity, safety, and guaranteed secured guardianship, the world communities and UNSC are more needed to keep aside the differences among them to adopt the unanimous binding resolution. 

Do save the innocent Rohingyas people lives in time and “Human dignity and lives are above all” than any lucrative interests and geo-political strategic importance.

A Rohingya refugee boy holding a chicken walks towards his temporary shelter after returning from the market in Balukhali refugee camp near Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh November 8, 2017. REUTERS/Navesh Chitrakar

By Simon Cameron-Moore
November 8, 2017

YANGON -- Myanmar warned on Wednesday that a scolding delivered by the U.N. Security Council could “seriously harm” its talks with Bangladesh over returning home more than 600,000 people who fled to escape a Myanmar military crackdown.

In a statement on Monday, the Security Council had urged Myanmar to “ensure no further excessive use of military force” and expressed “grave concern over reports of human rights violations and abuses in Rakhine State”. 

Responding, Myanmar’s de facto leader Aung Sang Suu Kyi, whose less than two-year-old civilian administration shares power with the military, said the issues facing Myanmar and Bangladesh could only be resolved bilaterally, a point she says was ignored in the Security Council statement. 

“Furthermore, the (Security Council) Presidential Statement could potentially and seriously harm the bilateral negotiations between the two countries which have been proceeding smoothly and expeditiously,” Suu Kyi’s office said in a statement. 

In contrast, Bangladesh issued a statement saying Foreign Minister Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali “appreciated the recent statement of the U.N. Security Council” during a meeting with a new resident coordinator of the United Nations in Bangladesh. 

The Myanmar statement said Ali had been invited to Myanmar on Nov. 16 and Nov. 17, but Bangladeshi officials told Reuters that the earliest the talks were likely to take place was during the minister’s visit for a regional meeting in the Myanmar capital of Naypyidaw on Nov. 20 and Nov. 21. 

The two sides have to agree a process for repatriation of Rohingya, with Bangladesh reluctant to fall back on the drill used for the return of Rohingya refugees to Myanmar in the 1990s, as it wants a more lasting solution. 

A senior Bangladesh foreign ministry official said the United Nations should be involved in the process this time. 

“For years, we tried to resolve this issue bilaterally with Myanmar, but it was in vain,” the official told Reuters. “This problem is not going to be resolved anytime soon. The UN’s involvement in the process is a must.” 

A sour note was struck over the talks last week, as Bangladesh officials voiced outrage over Suu Kyi’s spokesman casting suspicion that Bangladesh might drag its feet over the repatriation process in order to first secure hundreds of millions of dollars in international aid money. 

Speaking at a conference for Commonwealth countries’ parliamentarians in Dhaka on Sunday, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina called for more international pressure on Myanmar. 

“I would request all of you to discuss Rohingya issue with utmost priority and exert pressure on the Myanmar government to stop the persecution of its citizens and take them back at the earliest,” she said.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is due to visit Myanmar on Nov. 15, with moves afoot in Washington to table a bill calling for sanctions on Myanmar that specifically target the military and related business interests. 

In a nod to China, the Myanmar statement said it appreciated the stand taken by some members of the Security Council who upheld the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of sovereign countries. 

To appease council veto powers Russia and China, Britain and France dropped a push for the Security Council to adopt a resolution on the situation and the 15-member body instead unanimously agreed on a formal statement. 

MORE BOATS REACH BANGLADESH

The United Nations has denounced the violence during the past 10 weeks as a classic example of ethnic cleansing to drive the Rohingya Muslims out of Buddhist majority Myanmar. 

Rejecting that accusation, the military says its counter-insurgency clearance operation was provoked by Rohingya militants’ synchronized attacks on 30 security posts in the northern part of Rakhine State on Aug. 25. 

Rohingya refugees say the military torched their villages, but the military say the arsonists were Rohingya militants. The refugees’ have given harrowing accounts of rape and murder. Myanmar says those accusations will have to be investigated. 

Meantime, the exodus from Rakhine continues. Several thousand Rohingya reached Bangladesh last week, many wading through shallows on the Naf river on the boundary between the two countries, and some making a short, but perilous sea crossing in small boats. 

On Wednesday, 52 Rohingya came ashore in Bangladesh on a raft lashed together from bamboo and plastic jerrycans, having been unable to find a boat to take them, Shariful Islam, a Bangladesh border guard official, told Reuters. 

On Tuesday, border guards told Reuters of at least two other boats with 68 Rohingya reaching Cox’s Bazar, where they would join the multitude sheltering in refugee camps. 

Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who defied the junta that ruled Myanmar for decades, has been pilloried abroad for not speaking out more forcefully to rein in the military. 

Last week she visited Rakhine for the first time since the crisis erupted, meeting community leaders and seeing the efforts to deliver aid and return the region to some semblance of normality. 

She has spoken of plans for repatriation centers at which refugees will have to prove they once lived in Rakhine, before being allowed to return. But having been classed as stateless by former junta rulers, Rohingya could struggle to pass the test. 

Additional reporting by Shoon Naing in YANGON, Serajul Qadir and Ruma Paul in DHAKA, Ponir Hossain in COX'S BAZAR; Editing by Clarence Fernandez

Staff from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees interview Rohingyas at a UNHCR transit center in Bangladesh. Photo: UNHCR/Roger Arnold

November 8, 2017

The innovative data collection technology employed by the United Nations refugee agency for the first stage of Rohingya family counting in Bangladesh has revealed a worrying statistic: one-third of the refugee population is vulnerable. 

“In an innovative and revealing family counting exercise, UNHCR [the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees] teams found that one-third of the families are vulnerable,” Duniya Aslam Khan, UNHCR spokesperson told reporters at the regular press briefing in Geneva. 

Ms. Khan said that “14 per cent are single mothers holding their families together with little support in harsh camp conditions. Others are struggling with serious health problems or disabilities.” 

There is also a high proportion of elderly people at risk, unaccompanied and separated children – some of them taking care of younger siblings. Children and women have made up more than half of the total population. 

The individual biometric registration exercise, conducted by UNHCR and Bangladesh’s Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commission (RRRC), took place in the Kutupalong camp, makeshift and extension areas and Balukhali makeshift areas and is now extending to further south. 

More than 100 UNHCR-hired enumerators have so far gathered data on 120,284 families comprising 517,643 refugees. 

This emergency registration was made successful thanks to the new data collecting technology. 

The geo-tagged data collection device was designed to use GPS even without network coverage, making data consolidation and analysis more efficient. 

The barcoded RRRC Family Counting Card has also given a shape to Rohingya refugees living in Bangladesh in terms of demography and location. 

“Because the refugees are still on the move and site zoning is still in progress, the enumerators visit their shelters individually, meaning that refugees do not have to queue to be counted,” Ms. Khan explained.



November 7, 2017

Commonwealth Parliamentary Association or CPA has adopted a statement calling for urgent action from the international community to resolve the humanitarian crisis facing the Rohingyas of Myanmar. 

The CPA adopted the statement at its 63rd General Assembly in Bangladesh capital Dhaka on the closing day on Tuesday.

The parliamentarians of the Commonwealth countries "unequivocally condemn the atrocities committed against Rohingyas in Myanmar which amounts to genocide", according to the statement.

"Myanmar must take back its people immediately and create condition to sustainable re-settlement of the Rohingya population in safety and dignity," it said.

Around 550 MPs, including 56 speakers of national and regional parliaments of over 50 countries, joined the CPA conference this year.

The CPA also said Myanmar should recognise the Rohingyas as citizens in light of the recommendations by the Kofi Annan Commission formed by the country's government.

The association urged the international community to keep up pressure on Myanmar to take back the Rohingyas.

The parliamentarians asked the association's secretary general to raise the issue again in the next assembly if the situation in Myanmar continues until then.

The CPA assembly has been held when over 600,000 Rohingyas have joined around 400,000 refugees in Bangladesh in the face of a brutal army operation in Myanmar's Rakhine state following insurgents' attack on security forces on Aug 25.

Myanmar has been defiant to calls by global bodies like the UN and its Security Council, and countries including the US and UK to stop the army operation dubbed a classic example of ethnic cleansing.

Bangladesh, which is struggling to handle the huge number of refugees with the help of global agencies, sent a delegation led by Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal last month to discuss the process of Rohingya repatriation but no progress is visible yet.

On the closing day on Tuesday, CPA Secretary-General Akbar Khan placed the statement before the full house for consideration.

Its Chairperson Bangladesh Speaker Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury opened a discussion on the statement.

Malaysia's representative hailed the statement saying he hoped the international community would pay heed to the call.

Barbados representative, however, questioned the jurisdiction of adopting the statement in the forum.

Bangladesh delegation chief Deputy Speaker Fazle Rabbi Miah welcomed the statement.

"There was no scope of a resolution here. I thank everyone for adopting the statement," he said,

Another participant then drew Chaudhury's attention and said there was no need for discussion as the statement was already adopted. 

The chairperson then asked for all the participants' opinion and they adopted it in a voice vote.

Chaudhury then thanked all and announced the end of the Dhaka assembly.

Mohammed Shoaib, 7, who was shot on his chest before crossing the border from Burma in August, shows his injury outside a medical center after seeing a doctor at Kutupalong refugee camp near Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, on Nov. 5, (Adnan Abidi/Reuters)

By Omar Waraich
November 7, 2017

COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh — They may be out of harm’s way, for now, but their ordeal continues. Over the past two months, more than 600,000 Rohingya refugees have crossed the border from Burma, also known as Myanmar, to seek shelter in Bangladesh. Not since the Rwandan genocide has a humanitarian crisis unfolded so fast and on such a scale. If one counts the hundreds of thousands who were already based here, driven out by earlier waves of violence in Rakhine state, there are now more than a million Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.

At first, the new arrivals were welcomed. Across Bangladesh, there is an outpouring of sympathy for the persecuted minority who have been driven from their homes by a harrowing campaign of torture, rape, killings, arson and other human rights violations. The Bangladeshi government, which had long been ambivalent towards the Rohingya, embraced them. On a visit to the camps last month, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina declared that if Bangladesh could feed 160 million people, it could feed hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees. Across the Cox’s Bazar district, she is shown consoling refugee children on placards that hail her as the “Mother of Humanity.”

Now, the mood is slowly giving way to anxiety. Bangladeshis are keenly aware that the humanitarian crisis has enhanced their prestige abroad, but there are worries about how their poor, densely populated country will cope. With an eye on next year’s elections, which are clouded by fears about how the religious right might exploit the crisis, ministers routinely grumble about the insupportable burden they are forced to carry. There is no sign that the refugees will be able to return to their homes anytime soon, and there is no plan to provide for their long-term needs.

As far as Burma’s generals see it, they have successfully executed a plan to finally rid themselves of the Rohingya. Stripped of their citizenship, denied recognition as an ethnic group, the Rohingya have long been subject to an entrenched system of discrimination. The heart-rending testimonies of the past two months bear a chilling consistency with reports from the late 1970s, when 200,000 Rohingya were also driven out of their villages amid a frenzy of violence.

Back then, many Bangladeshis found it easy to sympathize with the plight of the Rohingya. The memories of 1971, when the Pakistan army carried out large-scale human rights violations and drove millions of refugees into India, were still fresh. But that didn’t stop the government from trying to force them back. “We are not going to make the refugees so comfortable that they won’t go back to Burma,” a minister said at the time. Within the space of six months, 10,000 refugees had died in the camps of hunger.

The desire to see the refugees return to Burma appears to dominate the current Bangladeshi government’s thinking. It has refused to grant the Rohingya refugee status, leaving them without any legal status on either side of the border. That decision may seem trivial, but it’s of fateful significance, since it prevents international humanitarian aid agencies from mobilizing the kind of support needed. Also against the wishes of the humanitarian community, the government is constructing what may become the world’s largest refugee camp.

The Kutupalong refugee camp, assigned to Rohingya refugees who fled here during the early 1990s, has now been extended in every direction. Scattered across 3,000 acres of previously forested land, it will become home to more than a million people. Plans are underway to coax earlier arrivals of Rohingya refugees out of the makeshift dwellings and onto the rambling hills where they have been assigned shelter. There is no direct access by road; supplies have to be delivered by foot.

The weather is oppressive. The searing heat is only interrupted by monsoon rain or severe gusts of wind. The thought of the camp’s fate during the coming cyclone season fills the humanitarian community with dread, as do other looming hazards. A fire in a tent, or the outbreak of disease, will sweep across the camp with a fury that will be difficult to tame. Doctors Without Borders has described health conditions in the camp as a “time bomb.” The government is still toying with the reckless idea of moving the Rohingya refugees offshore, to a pair of uninhabited and uninhabitable silt islands that have barely emerged into view. Meanwhile, criminal gangs, human traffickers, armed groups and others who sense opportunity in misery are a constant menace.

Every refugee I spoke to said they wanted to go home — but not before “shanti,” or peace, returns. It will not be enough for the violence to stop. The cruel, entrenched system of discrimination and segregation that made them so vulnerable in the first place has to be dismantled. The Rohingya cannot be left living in fear of a fresh wave of violence that will drive them across the border yet again, condemned to their tragic status as a perpetually unwanted people.

For that to happen, Burma’s military must be held accountable and Bangladesh’s government must be helped with its burden. This is not a crisis that will disappear any time soon, and unless there is a determined global response over the long-term, it could become worse still. The plight of the Rohingya is a test — a moment that demands the international community demonstrate that the words “never again” still carry some meaning.

Omar Waraich is deputy South Asia director at Amnesty International



Min Khant
RB Opinion
November 7, 2017

The UNSC’s heartily and energetic effort in regard Rohingya issue, “the matter of life and death”, in the meeting hall was feel frustrated after the Republic of China’s indication to use its veto power for objection to the proposed resolution of the world BODY. 

The Republic of China’s deliberate objection to the world united proposal to have a fine UNSC resolution to go ahead to save tens of thousands of Rohingyas’ live has been a steadfast ally of Myanmar de facto leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and S.G Min Aung Hlaing. Those leaders and majority of Myanmar people want to cleanse the entire Rohingya population from their ancestral land and the Rohingyas carnage since 9 October 2016 to date have been seen and recognizable by all the people of the world.

The Republic of China has been a main GAME player in the matter of political and economic bubble of Myanmar since 1990, advocating Myanmar in international forums from taking actions by the world communities due to its crimes against humanities on all ethnic indigenous of Myanmar and nowadays CHINA has rudely shown its rebellious manner to the world accord regarding Rohingyas concern. 

Right now, as known everyone, to solve Rohingya dilemma is completely up to the United Nations Security Council alone other than pushing or directing to regional organizations such as the Association of South East Asian Nation (ASEAN), South Asian Association of Regional Countries (SAARC), Organization of Islamic Corporation (OIC) or else, because of the fact that all those continuous efforts have been fagged out by Myanmar government and the Rohingyas issue ultimately becomes as the international central problem.

Knowing in mind that, as long as the world most unsettled and complicated affairs have been discussed and reached to the unanimous agreement as final for the permanent settlement by the UNSC, nowadays Rohingyas case is similar to those of the world matters which might have been in the world history. 

CHINA’s standpoints to the Rohingya problem in the forum of UNSC , which has been merely the issue of humanitarian nightmare, has arrogantly though been attached to its economic and geo-political strategy of RAKHINE state to save and protect from any foreign powers, want the EXCUSES to step in Rakhine, MYANMAR. 

Because of the CHINA’s constant solid-stand for whatsoever Myanmar regime comes to the power since 1990 to date, the world community has failed again and again in the UNSC meetings to adopt the necessary resolutions which could have been benefiting not only the fair democratic reform and flourishing of economy in the country, and the concerted actions of the world would have saved the golden Myanmar from being swallowed, exploited, sucked, and spoiled by CHINA, the natural and Human resources of Myanmar.

Whenever the problems arise in local and Myanmar regime, military leaders are being overwrought with their killing innocent people, and burning the villages, its leaders would quickly run and approach to the Chinese leaders to save and protect from the crimes, which they have committed against the ordinary people. China has been ever ready for such THE opportunities in Myanmar and it would protect, save, and prop up for the crimes that Myanmar authorities have committed to the fellow citizens in return for CLANDESTINE compensation, it is sure, no doubt. 

Now situation of Myanmar is “to commit the multiple crimes against its people and the state of CHINA is to protect the criminals again and again in the world forum in response big reward “Strategic-ECONOMY”.

The Republic of China is the most populous nation in the world and more than one-fourth total of the world people are belong to the state of CHINA. China is a lovely country and that is why it bears one and half billion populations in it, they do lovely with one another, and promoting economic beings faster than ever before, people guess China will replace the USA, which is the world no. 1 economy, within couple of years. Things have been cheerful that CHINA becomes THE might in economy and hope leading to the world in the field of humanities. 

The Republic of China knows that the Rohingyas are the most persecuted people in the world and the consecutive governments have been committing human rights violations against Rohingyas to be driving out, segregating in their localities and at last to be annihilating them right through brutal operations after operations, which have been clearly seen via the mobile-phone shots alone by the runners during their trekking to Bangladesh, with the exclusion of world journalists and photographers. If all media of the word, journalists, and photographers were allowed to the localities, then the conscience people would have imagined how much extent of the dreadful, terrible, horrendous, and nasty scenarios would come out to the sight of the world communities.

Then, why doesn’t the Republic of China concentrate its humanitarian’s attitude to focus to the long standing suffering of Rohingyas people as in line principle of world community to have a final settlement for their peaceful, secured and dignified living in their ancestral land? 

WHY is that?

In reality, the Republic of China should behave a norm of world standard through its practical cooperation with the world community to show its understanding and compassion to the persecuted Rohingyas people rather than shielding and sheltering the oppressive and suppressive Myanmar brutal regime.

While the entire Rohingyas people, ‘the matter of life and death’ is depend on the table of UNSC, the Republic of China has to choose the right direction more willingly than promoting oppositions to the world communities who want to save Rohingyas lives and continue to live in their land with dignity, peace, harmony and security.

Rohingya refugees near the Naf River, which separates Myanmar and Bangladesh. Villages in Myanmar burned in the background. (Photo: Adam Dean for The New York Times)

By AFP
November 6, 2017

United Nations -- The UN Security Council today dropped plans to adopt a resolution demanding an end to the violence in Myanmar in the face of strong opposition from China and instead opted for a statement, diplomats said.

The statement calls for an end to the violence, full access for humanitarian aid workers to Myanmar's Rakhine state and for the return of hundreds of thousands of Muslim Rohingya who have fled to Bangladesh.

It does not threaten sanctions against Myanmar's military.

Britain and France circulated a draft resolution last month, but diplomats said veto power China, a supporter of Myanmar's former ruling junta, had argued that a resolution was not the appropriate response to the crisis.

Following negotiations, China agreed to the formal statement to be adopted later today, which includes almost all of the demands of the proposed resolution but does not carry the same weight.

"The important thing is the content," British Deputy UN Ambassador Jonathan Allen told reporters. "Gaining a very strong, unanimous statement I think was the real prize here."

Since late August, more than 600,000 Rohingya have been driven from their homes by an army campaign in Rakhine state that the United Nations has denounced as ethnic cleansing.

Myanmar authorities say the military operation is aimed at rooting out Rohingya militants who staged attacks on police posts.

The council statement was agreed as UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is to travel to Manila this week to join leaders of the Southeast Asian (ASEAN) bloc for a summit.

The Rohingya refugee crisis is expected to be a top issue of discussion at the summit, to be attended by US President Donald Trump, who will dispatch US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to Myanmar later this month.

The Rohingya have faced decades of discrimination in Buddhist-majority Myanmar and have been denied citizenship since 1982, which has effectively rendered them stateless.

More than two months after the crisis erupted, rights groups have accused the Security Council of dragging its feet and are calling for tougher measures, such as an arms embargo and targeted sanctions against those responsible for the attacks against the Rohingya.

On Friday, Human Rights Watch urged the council to ask the International Criminal Court to open war crimes investigations in Myanmar, describing the torching of villages, killing, rape and looting as crimes against humanity.

By Azeem Ibrahim
November 6, 2017

The Rohingya situation has been evolving. And now, it seems, we can no longer avoid the conclusion we have all been dreading. This is now a genocide, and we, in the international community, must recognize it as such.

The first world leader to confront this reality has been France’s Emmanuel Macron one week ago: he condemned “this genocide which is unfolding, this ethnic cleansing”, before calling the UN to act in accordance to their obligations in such humanitarian disasters.

President Macron’s intervention shows the kind of moral courage we need our leaders to have in this world of escalating humanitarian disasters, from the still ongoing calamity in Syria, the Yemen famine, or the tragically under-reported violence across the Sahel.

Still, “genocide” is not a word that can or should be thrown around loosely. And not even the President of France can carry such a verdict on his own. But serious analyses by some of the world’s leading legal scholars and increasingly leaning towards the conclusion that the Rohingya are the victims of genocide.

Allard K. Lowenstein of the International Human Rights Clinic at Yale Law School, for example, has found strong evidence of genocide against the Rohingya in Myanmar in his legal analysis of the human rights situation in Rakhine state as long ago as Autumn 2015. That was when there were still over 1 million Rohingya still living in Rakhine state.

Tragically prescient

Subsequent analyses, for example by the International Stata Crime Initiative group at Queen Mary University of London in 2016, have had largely the same findings. And these analyses of the human rights situation then has proved tragically prescient. After last month’s dramatic exodus of Rohingya out of Myanmar, there are now probably fewer than 600,000 left in the country of their birth.

Article II of UN’s 1948 Genocide Convention describes genocide as any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: Killing members of the group; Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Though the Rohingya situation meets most of the above criteria for being described as a genocide under international law for a number of years now, the label has been resisted until now because we think of genocide as one huge act of frenzied violence, like we have seen in Rwanda. But Rwanda has been the exception, rather than the norm.

The Nazi genocide during WW2, for example, began slowly and had few distinctive flashes to indicate delineate where one degree of crime against humanity ended and where another began. All in all, that genocide developed and unfolded over a period of more than 10 years.

The Rohingya situation has been going on for decades, but it has certainly been in genocide territory since at least the outbursts of communal violence in 2012. Those clashes, and the ones in the subsequent years have driven 200,000 - 300,000 Rohingya out of Myanmar.

But somehow, at that rate of attrition, and against the backdrop of Myanmar’s supposed move toward democracy with the election of Aung San Suu Kyi to power in late 2015, world leaders have allowed themselves to hope that the situation could still be turned around.

Reality of an exodus

Now, the reality of an exodus of more than 609,000 people, amounting to approximately 50 percent of the total Rohingya population in Myanmar, in the space of just one month, the incontrovertible evidence of large scale burning of villages by the Myanmar military, the reports of widespread extra-judicial killings against fleeing civilians by the country’s federal security forces, have made it much more difficult to avoid the conclusion that this is nothing short of genocide.

The tragedy is that the international community will compound the situation. Despite President Macron’s call for an adequate response, the UN Security Council will decline to respond to the situation with the seriousness it deserves. If a situation is defined by the Council as a “genocide”, then the UN becomes legally bound to intervene, with peace-keeping missions and so on.

That is why Western countries will be reluctant to make the necessary commitments, and China, who is building one branch of its New Silk Road infrastructure right through Rakhine state to access the port of Sittwe, will outright veto any such proposal.

Just like we did in Rwanda, just like we did in the Balkans, we are once again seeing a genocide happen before our very eyes. And all we will do about it, once again, is to bury our heads in the sand and plead ignorance when our children will ask us why we let this happen.
_______________________

Dr Azeem Ibrahim is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Global Policy and author of “The Rohingyas: Inside Myanmar’s Hidden Genocide” (Hurst & Oxford University Press).

Rohingya refugee receive bananas from a Bangladeshi volunteer after crossing from Myanmar into Bangladesh. More than 600,000 Rohingya have arrived in Bangladesh since a military crackdown in Myanmar in August triggered an exodus


By Peter Oborne
November 6, 2017
  • Peter Osborne visited the Bangladesh/Myanmar border to witness the tragedy 
  • Over 600,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled for their lives over past 10 weeks
  • He says 'nothing he has ever seen compares to systematic killing' under Suu Kyi

Genocide is a word which should be always be used with care. Random atrocities, however horrible, certainly do not constitute genocide.

Genocide is carefully planned.

According to the United Nations, genocide comprises 'acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group'.

That is why the savage and deliberate massacre of more than one million Cambodians by the dictator Pol Pot in the Seventies was genocide. 

The methodical killing of 7,000 Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica in 1995 was genocide. 

So was the horrific slaughter of several thousands of Yazidis in Iraq by Islamic State three years ago.

And, of course, the term applies to the Holocaust, when the Nazis eliminated six million Jews during World War II. 

Today, on the bloodstained border between Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) and Bangladesh, the world is witnessing genocide again.

Shamefully, it is being presided over by Aung San Suu Kyi, the Oxford-educated leader of Myanmar who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 in recognition of her lifelong battle for freedom. Even more disturbing, world leaders are doing nothing to stop it.

Myanmar is a former British colony which got independence in 1948 and is the world's 40th largest nation, sharing borders with India, China, Bangladesh, Thailand and Laos.

In 1962, the country fell under the control of a brutal military dictatorship. It was toppled thanks to the huge courage of Suu Kyi, who led Myanmar to free elections two years ago.

During the past few days, I have spoken to numerous survivors of the savage — and brutally calculated — onslaught unleashed by Myanmar's largely Buddhist army on its minority Muslim population.

More than 600,000 Muslims from the country's Rohingya ethnic minority have fled for their lives across the border to Bangladesh in the past ten weeks.

Every day, thousands more arrive and each has a heartrending story to tell. These traumatised refugees describe how the Myanmar army burnt their homes. 

They recount stories of an orgy of killing and rape and of mass graves. In a hideous twist, they also relate how their military persecutors were egged on by Buddhist monks, betraying their principles of not harming any living thing by savagely trying to wipe out their religious rivals.

Though the oppression of the Rohingya has gone on for two decades, the latest outburst of mass killing was sparked on August 25, when a terrorist group claiming to represent the Rohingya struck at Myanmar security posts.

A Rohingya refugee child is pictured carrying another as they cross from Myanmar into Bangladesh

True, these attacks took place, but were easily repulsed. They certainly do not justify attacking hundreds of thousands of defenceless Rohingya villagers over recent weeks.

As a journalist, I've reported from Darfur, where thousands of men, women and children were slaughtered in Western Sudan in 2003 in the civil war as rebels accused the government of oppressing black Africans in favour of Arabs. 

I've witnessed the reign of terror of death squads in Iraq and, in 2010, I visited a Nigerian village where bodies lay rotting in wells or buried in shallow graves — a result of the terrifying religious hatred between Christians and Muslims.

But none of these compared with the widespread or systematic killing that is happening in Myanmar.

Shamefully, the genocide is being presided over by Aung San Suu Kyi (pictured), the Oxford-educated leader of Myanmar who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, writes Peter Oborne

It is no exaggeration to say that this is one of the most heinous crimes of the 21st century.

Critics say that the evidence appears overwhelming, that the Myanmar government is intent on the annihilation of the minority population of Rohingya Muslims.

They say this is part of a policy of ethnic cleansing which has also meant that the minority has been denied citizenship and was mostly forced to live in ghetto-like camps.

When Suu Kyi came to power in 2015 — having spent years behind bars and under house arrest for her defiance of the military regime — her country's Rohingya population was estimated at just over one million.

Today, there are probably 300,000 left — the rest are dead or have fled across the border, a perilous journey over mountains and through forests. 

They are frequently forced to hide in ditches, water-tanks and paddy fields. If found, they are killed.

Survivors simply cannot understand why the world will not intervene and come to their rescue.

'Please help us,' one old man asked as the rain poured down on his temporary home. 'Please tell our story to the world.' 

On my arrival at the Balukhali refugee camp a few miles from the Myanmar border, I was braced for horrific accounts. Yet what I heard was infinitely worse.

Survivors spoke of an atrocity at Tula Toli, a Rohingya village in western Myanmar. 

Early in the morning on August 30, around 150 government soldiers and 100 Buddhist civilians appeared on foot in the north of the village.

Using rocket-launchers, the troops began setting houses on fire. Terrified villagers fled the flames. 

Rohingya refugees line up to receive humanitarian aid in the Balukhali refugee camp near Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh

As they ran, soldiers began shooting with what witnesses say were semi-automatic rifles.

Tula Toli lies between jungle and a gushing river. As villagers attempted to run for the jungle, a line of Buddhist civilians from non-Muslim villages holding long swords blocked their path. 

The only place to go was the riverbank. Soon, the entire village had gathered on a large sandbank on the river's edge. That was the signal for the real killing and savagery.

Abdullah, a village mullah, estimates fatalities at around 1,500 people, including his wife and five of his six children (one married daughter escaped unharmed as she was living in another village). 

He and around 15 other what he calls 'stronger people' swam the river and hid in a cemetery. From there, 40 yards away, they watched the horrific scene unfold.

Abdullah says he witnessed soldiers separate the Rohingya into three groups: men, young women (including girls as young as five) and old women or, as Abdullah chillingly described them 'those who are not so beautiful'.

Some villagers lay down to try to prevent themselves being forced into groups. It was no use.

The soldiers opened fire. 'All the young men were shot at once,' recalls Abdullah. 'It took less than ten minutes.'

When the firing was over, the soldiers walked over to the pile of bodies to check for survivors. If they saw signs of life, they hacked them to death with a machete.

After a five-minute pause, in which they did not reload, the soldiers opened fire on the old women.

Every day, thousands more Rohingya refugees arrive and each has a heartrending story to tell, writes Peter Oborne

'They put blankets on the piles of dead bodies, then they poured on petrol and just lit a fire on the piles of the bodies,' Abdullah recalls. 'And while there was a big flame, they throw the small children — while still alive — onto the fire.'

Abdullah says he saw the commander of the military sitting silently observing his troops as they went about their butchery.

This suggested that the soldiers were acting under prior orders.

But what happened next, according to Abdullah, was even worse.

The soldiers took the defenceless young women — a total of about 100 — to the edge of the forest.

Then they dragged them in groups of five or six back to the village, forcing them into the houses not yet burnt.

Abdullah was too far away to spot his family, but he knew that his wife and daughters were in these groups.

There followed a period of three hours' silence.

Rohingya refugees wait at a temporary shelter after crossing the border from Myanmar to Bangladesh this week

Abdullah describes seeing the womenfolk put inside houses as a stream of soldiers went in and out. 

He could not see what was happening inside, but it takes no imagination to guess. Rape. 

At the end of the three hours, Abdullah says the houses were set on fire, with the young women inside.

He could hear them screaming. Just seven were able to run to safety, although they had been badly beaten and burnt.

Abdullah never saw his wife or daughters again.

The soldiers went down to the river and dug a large hole into which, with the help of non- Muslim villagers, they dumped the bodies. 

Only a few very young children were still alive. Witnesses say that some, too, were then burnt alive, others thrown into the river.

At 4.30pm, Abdullah set off on the three-day walk across the border to Bangladesh where, ten days later, he met up with his married daughter.

I was unable to establish the truth of Abdullah's account by travelling to Tula Toli myself. 

Rohingya refugees cross the Naf River at the Bangladesh-Myanmar border in Palong Khali, Bangladesh 

This is because the Myanmar army won't allow foreign observers into areas where, euphemistically, they say 'clearances' are taking place.

However, other survivors, as well as independent international observers, have confirmed the basic facts of his terrible story.

Abdullah's testimony fits the wider pattern of atrocities which have taken place in Rohingya areas in the past ten weeks.

Other refugees told me how tens or hundreds have been killed in their villages during the state-sponsored terror.

Mohammed, a betel leaf seller, says soldiers attacked his village of Dar Gyi Zar and he witnessed 'more than 100 dead bodies'.

From his hiding place in the forest, he then saw soldiers gather up corpses and burn them. They then put the remains in bags and threw them into the river.

Again and again, I heard the same stories about the epidemic of killing and rape of the Rohingya.

The truth is something dark and terrible is taking place in Myanmar — and, disgracefully, world leaders are turning a blind eye.

Matthew Smith, of the human rights group Fortify Rights, which has warned of an impending genocide for years, told me: 'The death-toll is horrific. It is much larger than anybody has estimated.'

He pointed out the Myanmar government had not allowed in outsiders to make a record of casualties: 'There's normally a reason for that. That's not a good sign.' 

Chillingly, Mr Smith says: 'We may not have seen the worst of it. There is a distinct possibility we shall see more mass killing in the coming weeks.'

That is why the world must respond now. Britain — which ruled the country for more than 120 years from 1824 — has urged the UN Security Council to discuss reports of mass civilian deaths. Otherwise, London's response has been utterly pathetic.

The Left-wing British Establishment which has lionised Aung San Suu Kyi for years is also complicit with her silence. 

However, her supporters point out — correctly — that the army is largely outside her control, and the true responsibility lies with Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, the commander-in-chief of Burma's armed forces.

Yet Suu Kyi must shoulder huge blame and is guilty of falsely claiming the 'clearances' ceased on September 5. She has also asserted that the brutal military response has been justified by attacks on Myanmar security command posts by Rohingya terrorists in August.

One reason for the feeble international response may be a fear of offending China, Myanmar's regional protector.

At the very least, targeted sanctions must be placed on the military chiefs. The UN must as an imperative send a fact-finding mission to Myanmar to establish the truth of what is happening.

Above all, Aung San Suu Kyi must be persuaded to speak out against the killings — and if she refuses, she should be stripped of her Nobel Peace Prize.

There is still enough time to stop Myanmar's remaining 300,000 Rohingya from meeting the same fate as the doomed villagers of Tula Toli.

Victims' names have been changed to protect identities.


    • Rohingya Exodus