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Myanmar's Slow Burning Genocide of Rohingyas 

19 Jan 2018 

5-7 pm

School of Oriental and African Studies at University of London



Refugees who have fled in their hundreds of thousands to Bangladesh have given consistent accounts of massacres, rape and torture by Myanmar security forces flanked by ethnic Rakhine mobs (Photo: Sam Jahan/AFP)

By Sam Jahan
January 11, 2018

BALUKHALI (BANGLADESH) -- Rohingya Muslims who fled a village where Myanmar has admitted its forces helped massacre 10 people said Thursday the victims were all civilians, not fighters as asserted by the army.

The Myanmar army chief's office confirmed Wednesday that security forces took part in killing "Bengali terrorists" on September 2 in the village of Inn Din in Rakhine state, using a pejorative term for Rohingya.

It was the first time Myanmar had admitted abuses during an army-led crackdown on Rohingya militants from late August that sparked a mass exodus of the Muslim minority.

But displaced Rohingya inside Bangladesh have angrily denied the army's account, with survivors who fled Inn Din insisting those killed were not militants but civilians murdered in cold blood.

Inn Din villager Wal Marjan, 30, said they were attacked by Buddhist mobs flanked by soldiers, who later "selected 10 to 15 men to attend a meeting".

They were never seen again, said Marjan, who was later told by another man that her husband and the others were slaughtered.

"He said his body was thrown into a mass grave with the other men," Marjan told AFP at a refugee camp in southeast Bangladesh, adding her husband had no connections with Rohingya rebels.

In its account of the massacre the army chief's office said security forces captured 10 Rohingya militants before killing them as violence engulfed the village and its surrounding area.

The post on Facebook also gave the first confirmation of a mass Rohingya grave inside Rakhine state.

But Inn Din villager Hossain Ahammad said the slain men were "fishermen, farmers, lumberjacks and clerics".

"They were not part of any movement. They are simply victims of the Burmese army's wrath," he told AFP.

Refugees who have fled in their hundreds of thousands to Bangladesh have given consistent accounts of massacres, rape and torture by Myanmar security forces flanked by ethnic Rakhine mobs.

Those allegations, which have been cross-checked by media and rights groups, have seen Myanmar accused of ethnic cleansing by the US and UN and prompted questions over whether the crackdown may have amounted to genocide.

Until Wednesday, Myanmar army has vigorously denied any abuses, instead locking down access to Rakhine state and accusing critics -- including the UN -- of pro-Rohingya bias and spreading "fake news".

The army chief's office said "action" would be taken against villagers and security members involved in the violence at Inn Din.

Last month Doctors Without Borders said at least 6,700 Rohingya were killed in the first month of the army crackdown on rebels in Rakhine -- the highest estimated death toll yet of violence that erupted on August 25.



The Bang of Immorality 

By Ro Mayyu Ali
RB Poem
January 11, 2018

Quite ablazer than the flame
Sharper than a chisel
A blow of outbreaking mortality
Beyond the rise of immorality

Immorality roams in human mind
Smashes out our conscience
And defeats the virtues ultimately
The last nerve of love then, roars up

Cynicism comes by, ruffling the souls
Insanity upon kinship and friendship
The sign out of mercy and kindness
Hence, immeasurable wretchedness loads in life

In the middle of the bang
The plight of hunger and thirst for new generation
A hive of ignominy for women nature
So the eclipse of human future

The voyage of inaptitude strides up
No eyes can see the truth
Mouth can't speak of injustice
Hands can't save innocent lives



January 11, 2018

Amnesty International has reiterated a call for an independent investigation into rights abuses in Myanmar's Rakhine state after the country's army admitted its soldiers were involved in the murder of 10 Rohingya.

The remains of the victims were found in December in a mass grave outside Inn Din, a village in the Maungdaw township. 

In a Facebook post on Wednesday, Min Aung Hlaing, the military's commander in chief, said soldiers and villagers had confessed to killing 10 suspected Rohingya fighters on September 2. 

James Gomez, Amnesty's regional director for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, called the admission a positive development, but said it was "only the tip of the iceberg". 

It "warrants serious independent investigation into what other atrocities were committed amid the ethnic cleansing campaign that has forced out more than 655,000 Rohingya from Rakhine State since last August," he said on Thursday. 

The army's unprecedented acknowledgement came after months of denial of any wrongdoing towards the persecuted Rohingya minority.

Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have fled Myanmar since August, when the army launched a bloody crackdown in response to attacks on border posts by the armed group, Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army. 

Refugees who crossed the border reported mass killings, gang rapes and arson, prompting the UN and rights groups to accuse Myanmar's army of possible crimes against humanity.

'Beyond comprehension'

Inn Din, the site of the mass grave, was one of the hundreds of villages that was engulfed by violence during the August crackdown.

The military, in its account of the killings, said "200 Bengali terrorists" armed with sticks and swords attacked soldiers in the area on September 1. Myanmar officials refer to the Rohingya as Bengalis, a pejorative term used to imply they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. 

Ten of the assailants were captured, but "it was found that there were no conditions to transfer the 10 Bengali terrorists to the police station and so it was decided to kill them", the military said, and vowed to take action against those involved in the killing. 

Amnesty's Gomez condemned the military account as an "appalling" attempt to "justify extrajudicial executions". 

"Such behaviour shows a contempt for human life which is simply beyond comprehension."

Ro Nay San Lwin, a Rohingya activist, said he did not believe the army's account of the incident. 

"The army is saying the ten are connected to the insurgency group. But this is false," he told Al Jazeera.

"I have spoken to many eye witnesses. The villagers were arrested from Inn Din beach on August 31, 2017. They were on the run because the Inn Dinn village was under siege by the Myanmar government," he said.


Lwin attributed the military's rare admission to the arrest of two Reuters journalists in December. 

The pair - Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo - were taken into custody after being invited to dine with police officers on the outskirts of Myanmar's largest city, Yangon. 

"There are many mass graves. But they [army] have released this one because the Reuters journalists got the evidence," Lwin told Al Jazeera.

In this March 17, 2017, image made from video, Rosmaida Bibi, center foreground, suffering from severe malnutrition, sits on a pile of bamboo trees with other children at the Dar Paing camp, north of Sittwe, Rakhine state, Myanmar.

By Lisa Schlein
January 10, 2018

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND — The U.N. children’s fund (UNICEF) reports tens of thousands of Rohingya children are living under appalling, prison-like conditions, with little or no access to basic services in Myanmar’s Rakhine State.

More than 655,000 Rohingya have fled to Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, since the end of August to escape violence and persecution in Myanmar’s northern Rakhine State. About half of those are children.

UNICEF senior advisor Marixie Mercado recently returned from a month-long visit to Myanmar. She said it was difficult to get a true picture of the children remaining there because of lack of access.

But she was able to obtain, what she calls a deeply troubling view of the precarious existence of children living in central Rakhine State. Mercado said more than 60,000 Rohingya children remain there, almost forgotten and trapped in 23 camps where they were driven by violence in 2012. She described conditions of two camps she visited.

“The two camps are below sea level. There is almost no tree cover. The first thing that you notice when you reach the camps is the stomach-churning stench. Parts of the camps are literally cesspools. The shelters teeter on stilts above garbage and excrement. In one camp, the pond where people draw water from is separated by a low mud wall from the sewage,” said Mercado.

Mercado said children walk barefoot through the muck and invariably some of them die from accidents and disease. She said it is extremely difficult for Rohingya to leave their camps for medical treatment. So, people are turning to traditional healers, untrained physicians or self-medication.

She said basic living conditions and access to lifesaving services urgently need to be improved. She said children are also suffering from an inability to get a decent education. She said learning takes place in poorly equipped temporary classrooms, with determined volunteer teachers who have little formal training.

Photo released by the Myanmar armed forces (tatmadaw on Wednesday reportedly shows investigating army officers at the site of the mass grave where 10 Rohingya were murdered.

January 10, 2017

YANGON -- Myanmar’s military said on Wednesday its soldiers had murdered 10 captured Muslim “terrorists” during insurgent attacks at the beginning of September, after local Buddhist villagers had forced the captured men into a grave they had dug. 

“Villagers and members of the security forces have confessed that they committed murder,” the military said in a statement. 

It was a rare admission of wrongdoing by the Myanmar military during its operations in the western state of Rakhine.

The army launched a sweeping counteroffensive in the north of the state in response to Rohingya militant attacks on Aug. 25, triggering an exodus of more than 650,000 Rohingya Muslim villagers. 

The United Nations has condemned the army’s campaign as ethnic cleansing. Myanmar denies that, saying its forces were carrying out legitimate counterinsurgency operations. 

The military announced on Dec. 18 that a mass grave containing 10 bodies had been found at the coastal village of Inn Din, about 50 km (30 miles) north of the state capital Sittwe. The army appointed a senior officer to investigate. 

The military said on Wednesday its investigation had found that members of the security forces had killed the 10 and that action would be taken against them. 

Security forces had been conducting a “clearance operation” in the area on Sept. 1 when “200 Bengali terrorists attacked using sticks and swords”, the military said in a statement posted on the Facebook page of its commander-in-chief, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing. 

The military refers to members of the Rohingya Muslim minority as “Bengalis”, a term the Rohingya reject as implying they are illegal migrants from Bangladesh. 

Ten of the attackers were captured after the security forces drove the rest off by firing into the air, according to the statement on Facebook, which the military often uses to make announcements. 

The captives should have been handed over to the police, in line with procedures, but the militants were attacking “continuously” and had destroyed two military vehicles with explosives, it said. 

“It was found that there were no conditions to transfer the 10 Bengali terrorists to the police station and so it was decided to kill them,” the military said, referring to the findings of the investigating team. 

Angry ethnic Rakhine Buddhist villagers, who had lost relatives in militant attacks, wanted to kill the captives, and stabbed them after forcing them into a grave on the outskirts of the village. Then members of the security forces shot them dead, the military said. 

“Action will be taken against the villagers ... and the security force members who violated the rules of engagement according to the law,” the statement said. 

Action would also be taken against those who had failed to report the incident to their seniors, and those responsible for supervising the operation, it added. 

The military investigation was led by Lieutenant General Aye Win. The same officer had been in charge of a wider probe into the conduct of troops in the conflict that concluded in a report in November that no atrocities had taken place. 

Reporting by Shoon Naing and Thu Thu Aung; Writing by Robert Birsel; Editing by Alex Richardson

(Photo: Kevin Frayer/Getty)

By Geoff Curfman
January 9, 2018

Over the past four months, Myanmar’s armed forces, officially known as the Tatmadaw, have driven over 600,000 Rohingya Muslims into Bangladesh, killing thousands of civilians in the process and prompting the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to label the army’s actions “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing” and possibly genocide. One might expect this situation to fall squarely within the ambit of the International Criminal Court (ICC), but the case remains conspicuously absent from the Court’s docket.

The reason the ICC Prosecutor has not opened an investigation is simple: Myanmar is not a party to the Rome Statute, significantly limiting the Court’s jurisdiction over crimes within Myanmar’s territory. The UN Security Council can refer situations to the ICC concerning non-states parties, but China would undoubtedly veto any such resolution. Nor is it likely that Myanmar will accept jurisdiction unilaterally. The only remaining jurisdictional basis requires identifying conduct either on the territory, or perpetrated by a national, of a state party.

But the conflict does involve actions by a non-state party – Myanmar – that have carried over onto the territory of a state party to the Rome Statute: Bangladesh. This cross-border activity could provide the basis for territorial jurisdiction, which the ICC lacks over conflicts that take place entirely within countries that are not members of the Court. Asserting this form of territorial jurisdiction would be consistent with the meaning of the Rome Statute and would advance the Court’s purpose of preventing impunity for grave international crimes.

Factual Background

Within three weeks after the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army’s (ARSA) Aug. 25 attack on Myanmar army and police outposts, satellite imagery indicated at least 200 Rohingya villages in Rakhine State had been burned. Around the same time, reports emerged of Myanmar armed forces raiding Rohingya villages and “murder[ing] scores of people.” Before the ARSA attacks, approximately 300,000 Rohingya lived in refugee camps just over the border from Rakhine State in Bangladesh. Since then, over 600,000 more Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh, totaling over half the Rohingya population believed to have been living in Myanmar.

A UN investigation into these events produced “[c]redible information . . . that the Myanmar security forces purposely destroyed the property of the Rohingyas, scorched their dwellings and entire villages in northern Rakhine State, not only to drive the population out in droves but also to prevent . . . [them] from returning to their homes.” The same report found that the Tatmadaw used megaphones during some attacks “to announce: ‘go to Bangladesh. If you do not leave, we will torch your houses and kill you.’”

Substantive Grounds for Prosecution

These reports provide evidence that the Tatmadaw violated Article 7(1)(d) of the Rome Statute, which prohibits “[d]eportation or forcible transfer of the population” as a crime against humanity. Under the ICC Elements of Crimes (“Elements”), to violate Article 7(1)(d) the perpetrator must (1) unlawfully deport to “another State” by expulsion or coercion (2) persons lawfully present in the area from which they were driven (3) as part of a systematic attack against the civilian population (4) the nature of which the perpetrator was aware. Burning villages, shooting and raping civilians, and explicitly demanding that the population leave Myanmar, followed by the prompt exodus of half the Rohingya population, provides substantial evidence of forceful expulsion “as part of a widespread or systematic attack” orchestrated by Myanmar’s armed forces. Although Myanmar claims the Rohingya’s presence is unlawful, the “reality,” as Human Rights Watch explains, “is that the Rohingya have had a well established presence in the country since the twelfth century.”

Deportation need not involve physically transporting individuals across a border. The Article 7(1)(d) Elements make clear that “[t]he term ‘forcibly’ . . . may include threat of force or coercion, such as that caused by fear of violence.” Likewise, the ICC Trial Chamber in Prosecutor v. Ruto held that, in order to establish deportation or forcible transfer, “the Prosecutor has to prove that one or more acts that the perpetrator performed . . . produced the effect to deport or forcibly transfer.” The Tatmadaw’s actions thus provide a textbook example of the indirect form of deportation that Article 7(1)(d) criminalizes.

Furthermore, although it is not necessary for a state party’s domestic law to abolish activities prohibited under the Rome Statute in order for the ICC to prosecute those crimes, it is worth noting that Bangladesh explicitly criminalizes deportation as a crime against humanity under the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act (ICTA). Bangladesh enacted the ICTA in response to the 1971 War of Independence, when Pakistani forces drove millions of Bangladeshis into India, reinforcing the ICC’s authority to prosecute such crimes taking place in Bangladesh today.

Jurisdiction

Unless the UN Security Council refers a situation to the Prosecutor, Article 12(2) of the Rome Statute provides that the Court may exercise jurisdiction in two situations: 1) “the State on the territory of which the conduct in question occurred” is party to the Statute, or, “if the crime was committed on board a vessel or aircraft, the State of registration of that vessel or aircraft;” or 2) “the state of which the person accused of the crime is a national.” Since the UN Security Council has not referred the Myanmar situation to the ICC and no state party national appears to be complicit, territoriality is the Court’s only viable source of jurisdiction. However, the Statute leaves unanswered whether the “territory” on which “the conduct in question occurred” covers the territory of multiple states in which the crimes occur, some of which may not be state parties. No ICC case has addressed this issue either. Thus, there is an open question of whether the Court could assert territorial jurisdiction over unlawful deportation from Myanmar into Bangladesh.

One approach would be to treat an element of deportation as crossing a state border. Deportation is an inherently cross-border action that is dependent on – and is not complete until the deportees enter – another state. Thus, in the parlance of the Rome Statute, one could argue that deportation is “conduct” that necessarily occurs on the territory of both the deporting and receiving states. From this perspective, when Myanmar deports Rohingya civilians to Bangladesh, the conduct occurs in both of those states.

A possible challenge to this interpretation is that “conduct in question” should be defined more narrowly to include only the underlying actions taken to effectuate a crime, not necessarily the results of those actions. Since the Myanmar armed forces did not cross into Bangladesh themselves in effectuating the deportation, arguably the crime did not occur on Bangladeshi territory.

This raises a second possible source of territorial jurisdiction: the state where the direct effects of the crime take place, even if no elements of the crime occur in that state. Traditional principles of international criminal law divide territoriality into two concepts: subjective territoriality refers to the location where the underlying actions of a crime occur, whereas objective territoriality refers to the location where a crime has effects. Based on these principles, even if an element of deportation does not cross a state border, the ICC could assert objective territorial jurisdiction over the situation in Myanmar given that the main effects of the crime have occurred in a state party.

Asserting objective territorial jurisdiction would undoubtedly be controversial given that the ICC has not done so before and the Rome Statute does not specify whether “conduct in question” includes the effects of a crime. To be credible, such an assertion would need to be firmly grounded in the sources of law Article 21 instructs consulting in cases of statutory ambiguity: the text of the Statute; the ICC Elements; “applicable treaties and the principles and rules of international law;” and, “failing that, general principles of law” derived from national legal systems, including the laws of “States that would normally exercise jurisdiction over the crime.”

In terms of the Statute’s text, one could argue that “conduct” ought to be limited to the physical actions underlying a broader crime. Article 30, for example, distinguishes between conduct and consequences in addressing mens rea requirements. Likewise, Article 20(1) prohibits trying a person based on “conduct which formed the basis of crimes” for which he was previously convicted, indicating that “crimes” may have a broader meaning than “conduct.” But there are other reasons why each of these articles would distinguish between conduct, on the one hand, and consequences or crimes, on the other: in Article 30, to clarify that the perpetrator must intend the consequences as well as the underlying actions; and in Article 20(1) because the same actions and consequences can form the basis of different crimes.

Evidently, as Michail Vagias argues in his book, the word “conduct” can mean different things in different contexts within the Rome Statute. In the jurisdictional clause, Article 12(2)(a), the “conduct in question” over which the Court has jurisdiction refers to a crime, which includes both underlying actions and effects. Article 12(2)(a) gives the ICC jurisdiction over the relevant crimes if they are committed in “the State on the territory of which the conduct in question occurred or, if the crime was committed on board a vessel or aircraft, the State of registration of that vessel or aircraft.” The wording of this clause suggests that “conduct in question” and “crime” are synonymous. Affording different meanings to these terms would create the strange result of permitting objective territorial jurisdiction over sea-and air-based crimes, but not over those carried out on land.

If the Statute does not fully resolve whether “conduct” encompasses the effects of a crime, the principles and rules of international law are clearer. In the Lotus case, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found that Turkey could assert jurisdiction over the criminal actions that led a French ship to collide with a Turkish ship because the effects of the crime occurred on Turkish territory, even though the underlying actions occurred on French territory. Furthermore, states view territorial jurisdiction as encompassing both subjective and objective territoriality as a matter of customary international law (CIL). For example, Restatement (Third) of U.S. Foreign Relations Law Section 402, which the United States views as reflecting CIL, provides that a state has jurisdiction over external conduct that has effects within the state’s territory.

The general principles of law derived from national legal systems, including the “laws of states that would normally exercise jurisdiction over the crime,” support this view as well. China (Art. 6), Britain, France (Art. 113-2) (France requires that one of the “constituent elements” is committed on French territory), Germany, and the United States – to name just a few countries – all assert jurisdiction over both the underlying conduct and effects of crimes that occur on their territory. While Myanmar (Art. 179) leaves open to judicial interpretation whether courts can assert jurisdiction over crimes that originate abroad, its internal districts may assert jurisdiction if the crime produces effects in their territory. And although the Bangladeshi Penal Code (Art. 2) covers crimes committed “within Bangladesh” without specifically including or excluding objective territorial jurisdiction, other Bangladeshi laws do incorporate this form of jurisdiction. The Bangladesh Competition Act (Art. 3(m), 19), for example, extends jurisdiction over anti-competitive practices originating abroad that have effects in Bangladesh. Thus, there is no reason to doubt that Bangladesh accepts the general principle of objective territorial jurisdiction.

To be sure, there are grounds for caution in applying objective territoriality under Article 12(2)(a). The ICC operates based on the consent of sovereign states, and treating the Court’s territorial jurisdiction as encompassing non-state parties in certain situations pushes the boundaries of that principle. However, the object and purpose of the Statute is “to put an end to impunity for the perpetrators of [grave international] crimes,” which counsels in favor of asserting jurisdiction where non-state parties take advantage of their status to commit international crimes the effects of which occur in state parties.

Furthermore, the potential abuse of objective territoriality can be contained. Restatement (Third) Section 403 requires that the exercise of objective territorial jurisdiction be reasonable, which means the activity has a “substantial, direct, and foreseeable effect on the territory.” Such a standard would limit the extent to which the Court could assert territorial jurisdiction based on second-order effects of crimes originating on the territory of a non-state party.

Conclusions

These principles of territoriality provide a basis for asserting jurisdiction over the Myanmar armed forces’ violations of Article 7(1)(d). The recent UN report provides evidence that the country’s armed forces are systematically attempting to permanently displace the Rohingya into a state party to the Rome Statute. These actions comfortably satisfy the Restatement’s reasonableness test: nearly 650,000 displaced civilians is surely substantial; the Rohingya’s proximity to the Bangladeshi border when they lived in Myanmar makes their flight to Bangladesh a “direct” result of Tatmadaw clearance operations in that area; and Myanmar’s past experience with Rohingya fleeing to Bangladesh due to the regime’s repression makes the result “foreseeable.”

The crisis in Myanmar also satisfies the Statute’s other jurisdictional requirements. Article 17(1)(d)’s gravity requirement is likely satisfied given that over half of the Rohingya population in Myanmar – nearly 650,000 civilians – were displaced. Although the Court would not have jurisdiction over the violent acts both the Tatmadaw and ARSA committed in Myanmar, the sheer scale of the Rohingya’s deportation in proportion to Myanmar’s broader conflict is arguably sufficient to constitute a “situation,” as required under Article 13. And with respect to complementarity under Article 17(1)(a), there is no indication any other state is investigating these crimes – Bangladesh’s “Citizens’ Commission” would not qualify since it is not led by the state.

Prosecuting crimes against humanity presents immense challenges far beyond meeting jurisdictional requirements, including evidence collection, identifying the correct perpetrators, and summoning the suspects for a hearing. These challenges are only amplified in states not party to the Rome Statute. Nonetheless, as a legal matter, lack of jurisdiction remains a central reason behind the ICC’s failure to formally investigate international crimes in Myanmar. Asserting objective territorial jurisdiction offers a way around that challenge and could help deprive human rights violators of a safe-haven, which they have used to injure nearly a million innocent civilians.

62 years old Nur Hatun gestures at a refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh on December 19, 2017. Nur Hatun says their house was burned down, she fled along with other women into the forest and hid there for three days. After days of walking she reached Bangladesh. She states that she lost her entire family and has nowhere to go. Many of the women lost their husbands before fleeing or while fleeing to Bangladesh. The camps in Bangladesh host thousands of Rohingya refugees who fled a military crackdown in Myanmar. Approximately 650,000 Rohingyas have crossed from Myanmar into Bangladesh since Aug. 25, according to UN figures. (Fırat Yurdakul - Anadolu Agency)

By Safvan Allahverdi
January 9, 2018

'Rohingya refugees are not ready to go back to Myanmar' under current, flawed deal, say Rohingya advocates

WASHINGTON -- Targeted and partial sanctions will not stop Myanmar’s campaign of oppressing Rohingya Muslims, the head of a prominent U.S.-based organization advocating for Rohingya Muslims argued Monday.

Speaking at a Washington press conference, Imam Abdul Malik Mujahid, chairman of Burma Task Force USA, said Myanmar’s military would not end its constant attacks on Rohingya Muslims unless the U.S. and the UN impose full sanctions against Myanmar. 

"Our request from America, the Senate, and the Congress is that they should pass a bill which requires full sanctions on Burma [another name for Myanmar], and they should use each and every means available," he said. 

"Myanmar is not going to listen unless full economic sanctions are applied."

Over 656,000 Rohingya refugees, mostly children and women, have fled Bangladesh since Aug. 25, when Myanmar's forces launched a crackdown on the minority Muslim community, according to the UN.

The refugees, described by the UN as the world's most persecuted people, are fleeing a military operation in which security forces and Buddhist mobs have killed men, women and children, looted homes and torched Rohingya villages.

According to Doctors Without Borders, at least 9,000 Rohingya were killed in Rakhine state from Aug. 25 to Sept. 24.

In a report published on Dec. 12, the global humanitarian organization said that the deaths of 71.7 percent or 6,700 Rohingya were caused by violence. They include 730 children below the age of 5.

The UN has documented mass gang rapes, killings -- including of infants and young children -- brutal beatings, and disappearances committed by security personnel. In a report, UN investigators said such violations may have constituted crimes against humanity.

Mentioning how Myanmar’s current State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi was also imprisoned for decades by its military, Mujahid said the military had to accept Suu Kyi as partial leader due to the U.S. sanctions. 

This happened "because Myanmar's military-controlled economy felt the pain, which was caused by those sanctions," he stated, adding that food and medication should be the only things exempted from the sanctions. 

New deal short on citizenship and ethnic rights

Shaukhat Ali, director of Rohingya American Society (RAS), also speaking at the press conference, strongly criticized last November’s agreement between Bangladesh and Myanmar on sending the Rohingya refugees back to Myanmar, saying that it fails to properly address basic civil right issues, such as citizenship and ethnic rights.

"The only thing that is mentioned in the agreement is ‘Myanmar resident.’ This means temporary resident, and that they [the Rohingya] are not part of Myanmar. They do not belong to Myanmar. [Under the agreement] they are just visitors," said Ali. 

"Myanmar’s government is purposely accepting these people back to avoid international pressure."

He stressed that the Rohingya refugees are not ready to go back to Myanmar unless their security is fully provided, their citizenship is restored, and they are allowed to live on their land without suffering any abuse. 

"Unless these conditions are met, this is a game, throwing people out and accepting [them back],” he added. 

“They throw out hundreds of thousands of Rohingya people but they accept far fewer than that [back]. So each time more people are being thrown out and a smaller number is accepted back. 

"That is how they wipe these people away."

In late November 2017, Myanmar and Bangladesh signed an agreement for the return of the Rohingya Muslims who crossed the border since late August.

Educating US lawmakers

"What we are trying to do here in Washington, is really to help better educate all the lawmakers in the U.S. Congress and Senate about what is going on in Rakhine state," Adam Marro, director of outreach at Burma Task Force, told Anadolu Agency. 

Describing the group's work as "very successful," Marro said there has been a lot of interest about the situation of Rohingya Muslims particularly at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. 

"They are very keen to help support us and we will continue to have those meetings especially for sanctions against Myanmar," Marro added. 

"We want to make sure that we can get sanctions that are actually going to be felt and cause pain in Myanmar."

The Burma Task Force NGO was launched in 2013 by a number of prominent American Muslim groups.

Its stated objective is to stop perceived ethnic cleansing in Myanmar and educate Americans about the atrocities faced by Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine state.

Members of the OIC Independent Permanent Human Rights Commission interact with the Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. — Courtesy photo

By Saudi Gazette
January 8, 2018

DHAKA — The OIC Independent Permanent Human Rights Commission (IPHRC) expressed its dismay over the plight of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, who continue to suffer severe and institutionalized human rights violations on a mass scale. Persecuted based on their race, religion and origin, the Rohingya minority of Myanmar represents one of the worst examples of victims of ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity, it added. These comments were made at the end of a three-day fact-finding visit to Cox’s Bazar (Bangladesh), by the OIC-IPHRC, which was undertaken in compliance with the mandate given to it by the OIC Council of Foreign Ministers (CFM) to regularly monitor and report on the human rights situation of the Rohingya Muslim minority in Myanmar.

In the absence of any positive response from the Myanmar authorities on repeated IPHRC requests to undertake a fact-finding visit to Rakhine State to freely and objectively ascertain the human rights situation on the ground, the IPHRC undertook a visit to Cox Bazar to meet with the Rohingya refugees and other stakeholders to get first-hand information on the human rights situation faced by the Rohingya in Myanmar. IPHRC delegation included Dr. Rashid Al Balushi (chairperson) and members Med Kaggwa, Dr. Raihanah Abdullah, Amb. Abdul Wahab, Mahmoud Afifi and Adama Nana, besides officials from the OIC General and IPHRC Secretariats.

During the visit, IPHRC delegation had the opportunity to meet and discuss in detail with the Rohingya refugees the sorry state of human rights situation faced by them in Myanmar. The horrifying tales of human rights violations narrated by the Rohingya refugees, included systematic and systemic discrimination in denying all sorts of their civil, political, economic and social rights in addition to widespread and indiscriminate violence resulting in torture, rape and extrajudicial killings that did not even spare women, children and elderly. Eye witnesses also counted details of dreadful events, which started in August last year, when in the garb of pursuing the attackers of two security posts, hundreds of Rohingya villages were torched and thousands of innocent civilians were tortured and brutalized by military gunfire, using helicopters and rocket propelled grenades, including those who were fleeing, that resulted in hundreds of extrajudicial killings and forced hundreds of thousands to flee their homeland to save their lives. Officials from relevant UN human rights and humanitarian agencies, representatives of international human rights organizations and local government / civil society actors met by the IPHRC delegation also confirmed receiving similar accounts from a wide range of victims who had fled their homes in Myanmar to save their lives.

IPHRC delegation squarely condemned the egregious human rights violations committed against the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar and declared it a deplorable racist behavior, where a minority is abjectly discriminated on the basis of its race, religion and origin in all spheres of life including their socio-economic and political rights. Based on the testimonies received from a wide range of Rohingya victims, the Commission affirmed that the situation carries the hallmark of an organized campaign of ethnic cleansing, which is a crime against humanity under international law and must be stopped by all means. — SG

The Commission reminded the Myanmar authorities that no amount of dragging its feet would help them get away with the denial of fundamental rights of its Rohingya population. It, accordingly, called upon the Government of Myanmar to: a) take firm steps to immediately end the violence against Rohingya and bring the perpetrators of violence to justice; b) revise and replace all discriminatory policies and practices against its Rohingya population; c) ensure a sustainable and voluntary return of Rohingya refugees in safety, security, dignity and with ensured livelihood; d) ensure free and unfettered access to humanitarian aid agencies e) accept UN and OIC fact finding missions for independent investigations into all alleged violations of international human rights law; f) implement the recommendations of the Kofi Annan Advisory Commission; g) address the disinformation campaigns against Rohingya and foster reconciliation among affected communities through dialogue and greater integration; and h) take concrete steps to address root causes of deprivation and discrimination of the Rohingya, including the issues of citizenship and long-standing challenges to social and economic development through a human rights-based approach.

The Commission also called upon the international community in general and OIC Member States in particular to do all they can to urge Myanmar to fulfill its international human rights obligations towards its Rohingya minority in a concrete and time bound manner. It also urged them to extend all out humanitarian assistance to the Rohingya population both internally displaced in Myanmar and those living in refugee camps in neighbouring countries. On its part, the Commission vowed to continue to closely follow the human rights situation of Rohingya Muslims and would do all it can to mitigate their sufferings in cooperation with the regional and international stakeholders.

IPHRC delegation extended its sincere appreciation to the Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh for the unfettered access and full logistical support provided to undertake its mandated task with objectivity and neutrality. A detailed report of the findings of IPHRC delegation visit with concrete recommendations will be presented to the 45th session of the OIC CFM for its consideration.

Doctor Cross is pictured at the Kutupalong medical facility in Bangladesh, where he worked to help the minority fleeing persecution in Myanmar

By Sebastian Murphy-Bates 
January 8, 2018

Doctor gave up his comfortable life as a GP to help the Rohingya refugees after vowing to change his life when his beloved wife died
  • Ian Cross joined Médecins Sans Frontières as a tribute to wife who died in 2012
  • The 64-year-old has been helping thousands of refugees at camp in Bangladesh
  • He says as many as 20,000 arrived in one day as they fled Myanmar persecution
  • But he has also told of his 'absolute joy' at treating patients on the front line 
A 64-year-old doctor has told how he left his comfortable life to go to the front line of the Rohingya refugee crisis.

Father-of-three Ian Cross arrived in Kutupalong, Bangladesh, to find more than 620,000 had arrived after fleeing persecution in Myanmar.

It was a far cry from his 25-year career as a GP in Leicester, which took a decisive turn when his wife died and he joined Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) in 2012 as a 'tribute' to her.

He watched the Rohingya crisis unfold this year having already completed 'missions' in Swaziland and Delhi fighting HIV and TB, but wrote on the Mirror Online it didn't stop him being heartbroken at seeing four people die on his first day in Bangladesh.

'Even though I’d never worked in a crisis zone before, I made up my mind right away to go,' he said. 

'I knew I’d be in for a shock. Long days, and months without a day off were common in emergency zones, as medics pull together to save as many lives as possible.'

He found more than 620,000 refugees squashed into a 3,000-acre park that had been transformed into a makeshift camp and was struggling with a relentless flow of newly arriving Rohingyas, with as many as 20,000 arriving in just one day. 

'The injuries we were seeing were atrocious – a lot of gunshot wounds, people who’d been hit with gun butts, stepped on landmines, or who had fallen while fleeing from soldiers attacking their villages,' he said. 

The patient that most stuck in his memory was a five-year-old girl who fled from soldiers attacking her village.

As her father ran with her held close to his chest, she clung tightly to his neck. But when a soldier fired at them, the bullet smashed through her arm and hit her father;s neck. 

He died instantly and fell on top of his daughter, who was forced to wriggle free from beneath his corpse and flee to the Bangladeshi border. 

Doctor Cross says bones in her wounded arm were fused together at the camp, where she also received tendon transplants. 

Thanks to Médecins Sans Frontières, she will be able to use her hand again once she has recovered from her injuries. 

A father to three daughters, Doctor Cross said the hardest part of the Rohingya mission is seeing children born with conditions easily corrected in the UK. 

'It’s hard not to feel upset when you see a little girl who’ll be blind for life because of cataracts that could have been corrected,' he said. 

He also recalled treating a boy aged about 12 who had a club foot, which prevented him from running away from soldiers who stormed his village.

Once they'd easily caught up with him, they shot him in his disabled foot rather than killing him, which Doctor Cross said was intended to spread terror to other Rohingya people. 

At the camp, 43 Médecins Sans Frontières medics work alongside Bangladeshi doctors.

Despite Doctor Cross joking 'I don't want to die' when he first joined the group in 2012, he says he's found 'absolute joy' and camaraderie at the frontline of this dangerous crisis.

He recalled witnessing the relief on a young girl's face as the agony brought on by tetanus spasms left her and she relaxed into her tearful father's arms. 

In just 12 days at the camp, 300,000 youngsters were vaccinated against measles and medics are splitting their time to also dig wells for the refugees. 

Doctor Cross has since returned from the crisis for a break and says he'd struggle to go back to being a full-time GP after his time at the frontline. 

He admits finding it difficult to adjust and says he even sees the faces of Rohingya refugees in his dreams as he awaits his next mission.

At Shabrang Harbor in Teknaf, at the Bangladesh border, newly arrived refugees just off boats from Myanmar, carry all that they have as they wait to register as refugees in country. Photo by: Mahmud Rahman for CRS / Caritas Bangladesh / CC BY-ND

By Kelli Rogers
January 8, 2018

BANGKOK — The agreed upon date of January 22 for the repatriation of Rohingya refugees is fast approaching — but if action to move forward does begin as originally dictated, it’s unlikely that aid agencies in Cox’s Bazar will be prepared to assist.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which Bangladesh and Myanmar officials agreed will be involved in repatriation implementation “as needed at the appropriate time,” according to the document text, has heard no updates of current plans, nor received an invitation to a future meeting or negotiation.

In late November, Myanmar and Bangladesh signed an initial deal for the voluntary repatriation of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims, and specified that the process begin rapidly within two months. At the same time, the officials agreed to establish a 30-member joint working group, headed by their foreign secretaries, in order to develop verification, transport and logistical arrangement, and reception procedures. 

It’s unclear what progress the working group has made, although the first meeting is scheduled to be held no later than January 15, according to reporting from Bangladesh’s The Daily Star.

UNHCR was not party to the original agreement, but Vivian Tan, UNHCR regional press officer, told Devex: “We hope to play a constructive role in implementing the modalities of the arrangement in line with international standards.” 

“This has yet to happen and we do not have details of what both governments are planning. We have been seeking clarification and in the meantime have noted news reports quoting officials of both countries,” she added.

The news reports are two Daily Star articles, one detailing the formation of the joint working group and the other citing confusion about a recent announcement made by Myanmar’s Minister for Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement Win Myat Aye, who claimed that repatriation would start on January 22 with a group of Hindu refugees. Bangladesh officials said that was not the case and they had not decided on any joint meetings.

The ongoing confusion and lack of communication doesn’t bode well for a repatriation process that already has human rights groups raising the alarm. It remains to be seen whether certain conditions — that the returns be voluntary and safe, that the Rohingya play a role in the planning and management of the process, and that Myanmar provide the presently stateless returnees full citizenship — will be honored. The Myanmar government severely restricted the minority’s access to basic services and denied citizenship prior to the brutal military crackdown that sent thousands of Rohingya fleeing cross the border to Bangladesh in August. Security forces and government-backed groups razed tens of thousands of homes, limiting the options of a safe return for many.

As it stands, the repatriation arrangement fails to identify those who fled Myanmar for Bangladesh either as Rohingya or as refugees, noted Human Rights Watch in a letter to the two governments. The text of the arrangement requires such significant amendments, the letter states, that it should be suspended until those changes are made. 

The International Organization for Migration, which leads the Inter Sector Coordination Group and site management in Cox’s Bazar, has also “had absolutely no official involvement with this at all,” IOM Communications Officer Fiona MacGregor told Devex. “So we’re not in a position to plan anything around it.”

In the meantime, aid groups continue to respond to the overwhelming needs faced by more than 800,000 refugees in Bangladesh’s district of Cox’s Bazar. Some 50 percent of the general population of Rohingya is malnourished and anemic, according to the latest IOM situation report, and health actors are battling an outbreak of the contagious bacterial infection diphtheria.

IOM is currently pulling together data for a new plan to replace the current six-month U.N.-coordinated joint response plan — which called for $434 million, stands 50 percent funded, and runs through February.

Rohingya refugees queue for food at the Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh in October last year

By AFP
January 8, 2018

A Bangladesh court on Monday upheld a government ruling banning marriage between its citizens and refugees from Myanmar's persecuted Rohingya minority, who have fled ethnic violence in the neighbouring country.

The High Court in Dhaka dismissed a legal challenge from a father whose son married a Rohingya teenager in a Muslim ceremony in September despite laws forbidding such unions.

Marriages with Rohingya were banned in 2014 to try to prevent hundreds of thousands of refugees living in Bangladesh from seeking a back door to citizenship.

Babul Hossain, whose 26-year-old son ran away with his new wife after they married, questioned the legality of the ruling that threatens a seven-year jail term for any Bangladeshi who weds a Rohingya refugee.

But the court rejected his plea and ordered he pay 100,000 taka ($1,200) in legal costs.

"The court rejected the petition and has upheld the administrative order, which bans marriage between Bangladeshi citizens and Rohingya people," deputy attorney general Motaher Hossain Saju told AFP.

Hossain's request that the court protect his son from arrest was also rejected, Saju added.

About 655,000 Rohingya have escaped to Bangladesh since August after the Myanmar army began a campaign of rape and murder in Rakhine state.

They joined the more than 200,000 refugees already living in Bangladesh who had fled previous violence in Rakhine.

Aid groups have reported cases of Bangladeshis offering young women marriage as a way of escaping the overcrowded refugee camps along Bangladesh's southeastern border.

Hossain could not be contacted after the ruling.

But in a previous statement, he defended his son's marriage to the 18-year-old Rohingya woman and denied it was driven by a quest for citizenship.

"If Bangladeshis can marry Christians and people of other religions, what´s wrong in my son´s marriage to a Rohingya?" Hossain told AFP.

"He married a Muslim who took shelter in Bangladesh."

Talk & Discussion with Dr Maung Zarni. The discussion will be moderated by Sabina Alkire, Director of Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), University of Oxford.

28 January 2018
5:30 pm

Richard Benson Hall
276 Cowley Rd
East Oxford 




January 7, 2018

French government’s Special Envoy Pascal Lamy says that Paris’s position on the Rohingya refugee crisis has ‘clearly’ been expressed by President Emmanuel Macron who has termed the attacks on Myanmar’s minority in Rakhine State as “genocide”.

“France’s position is absolutely clear cut,” he said, adding that Paris is also active at all international level to put political pressure on Myanmar to stop the atrocities in the Rakhine State.

Lamy, two times former Director General of the World Trade Organisation or WTO, was speaking before the press at the French embassy in Dhaka on Sunday to seek Bangladesh’s support for the France’s candidature in the World Expo-2025.

Two close friends of Bangladesh, Japan and Russia, and another country Azerbaijan are also competing for the Expo which will be held just five years before the ending of the global agenda SDGs-2030.

Lamy, while briefing “comparative advantages” if Paris is voted for the Expo, said there are political and diplomatic aspects apart from economic benefits if Paris can host the Expo.

He said Bangladesh and France have excellent bilateral relations now and both countries are working closely at the international level.

The decades-old Rohingya crisis has taken an appalling turn since August 25 when Burmese military began crackdown in the Rakhine State following insurgents’ attacks on the police outposts.

Over 1 million Rohingyas are now living in Bangladesh. Both countries have signed a deal to start the repatriation process though Rohingyas are still coming to Cox’s Bazar where they took shelter from Rakhine State.

“We clearly said what we believe is that this is a terrible genocide and this should be ceased,” Lamy said, referring to the president of France.

World Expos, known officially as International Registered Exhibitions, are organised every five years. They can last up to six months, and international participants can build their own pavilions on the Expo site.

The most recent World Expo was held in the city of Milan, Italy, in 2015, under the theme “Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life”.

The next World Expo will take place in Dubai (UAE) between 20 October 2020 and 10 April 2021 under the theme “Connecting Minds, Creating the Future”.

The themes of World Expos are designed to raise awareness of and find responses to universal challenges of our time.

France’s theme is ‘knowledge to share, planet to care’ through which Lamy earlier told bdnews24.com in an interview that Paris wants “to discuss how more efficiently we can address the climate change challenges through science and technology”.

“This is very much in line with medium and long-term strategies of Bangladesh which is also coping with environmental challenges,” he had said.

At the press briefing on Sunday, he said participation in Paris would be cost-effective for every country.

They are expecting to draw 40 million visitors which is much more than other countries bidding for the Expo.

“We offer larger visibility for a lower price,” he said.

He said the concept of global village is also a low cost concept and after the expo those will be used as university campus.

It will be located at Paris-Saclay, a research-intensive and business cluster currently under construction south of Paris.

He said the pavilion Bangladesh for the expo, can later be turned into a residence of Bangladesh students who will study in the university.

France has also selected a Bangladeshi student as one of the 100 global young ambassadors who will campaign for Paris throughout the period.

Md Monibur Rahman, a student of BBA, during the press briefing urged Bangladesh government to support France’s candidature.

“This will also benefit Bangladeshi students studying in Europe,” he said.

“Bangladesh is highly vulnerable to natural disasters and climate change, as a Bangladeshi I want Bangladesh to participate in the event and to vote for France so that France can host the Expo.

"Thus Bangladesh can discover how together we can protect our country from climate change,” he said.

Rohingya refugees after crossing the Myanmar-Bangladesh border in Palong Khali, Bangladesh, November 1, 2017 (Photo: Reuters)

By AFP
January 7, 2018

A small community of Hindus who lived alongside the Rohingya in Myanmar's Rakhine state and were caught up in the turmoil say they do want to return

Hindu farmer Surodhon Pal has packed his bags, eager to return to Myanmar after fleeing for Bangladesh during a wave of violence last year, but he is in a tiny minority – most of the refugees are terrified of going home.

Bangladesh wants the more than 655,000 refugees who have flooded into the country since late August to start returning to Myanmar by the end of this month under a controversial agreement between the two nations.

The vast majority are Rohingya Muslims who have faced decades of persecution in Myanmar, which sees them as illegal immigrants, even though many have lived there for generations.

They say they would rather stay in the squalid camps in Bangladesh than return to the scene of violence the US and the United Nations have said amounts to ethnic cleansing.

But a small community of Hindus who lived alongside the Rohingya in Myanmar’s Rakhine state and were caught up in the turmoil say they do want to return.

“We want security and we want food. If the authorities can give us those assurances we’ll happily go back,” Pal, 55, told AFP.

“The Bangladeshi government and the UN looked after us well, but now we have prepared our bags and are ready to return to our country.”

Last month Dhaka sent a list of 100,000 refugees to Myanmar authorities for repatriation after the two governments signed an agreement in November for the process to begin on January 23.

But rights groups and the United Nations say no one should be repatriated against their will and so far only around 500 Hindu refugees have expressed willingness to go.

Massacre by masked men

Modhuram Pal, a 35-year-old community leader, said some 50 Hindus had already returned to Rakhine where they were welcomed by Myanmar security forces.

Hindus who fled the area have told AFP that masked men stormed into their community and hacked victims to death with machetes before dumping them into freshly-dug pits.

Myanmar’s military alleges the Arakan Rohingya Solidarity Army (ARSA) carried out the massacre on August 25, the same day the rebel group staged deadly raids on police posts that sparked a military backlash. At least 45 bodies have been found in mass graves.

The ARSA has denied the allegations, saying it does not target civilians.

But Pal and his fellow Hindu refugees say they will only go back if they are rehoused away from their former villages in Rakhine.

Monubala, a Hindu woman who like many of the refugees goes by one name, told AFP masked men dressed in black had attacked her village near Kha Maung Seik, where the massacre occurred.

“I left my home, including my chickens, ducks, goats and all property, and came to Bangladesh to save my life,” she said.

Doctors without Borders estimates that thousands were killed in the violence that hit Rakhine in late August.

Consistent accounts by Rohingya refugees of security forces and ethnic Rakhine Buddhist mobs driving them out of their homes with bullets, rape and arson have shocked the globe.

Although the influx has slowed, hundreds of Rohingya are still crossing into Bangladesh, now home to around a million refugees.

Rights groups say the crackdown was the culmination of years of persecution and discrimination against the Muslim group in mainly Buddhist Myanmar, where they are effectively stateless and denigrated as outsiders.

‘Communal divide and rule’

It remains unclear why the Hindus were targeted, but they appear to have been caught in the middle of a conflict between the military and Rohingya militants. Some reports say each side viewed the Hindus as collaborators with the other.

Myanmar state media said last month that the Hindus would be first to be accepted back – a stance that expert Shahab Enam Khan called a “classic case of communal divide and rule.”

“The issue of religion as a tool for repression is visibly clear now, the global community should be aware,” Khan, professor of International Relations at Jahangirnagar University in Dhaka, told AFP.

Tensions between the two communities have persisted in Bangladesh, where the Hindus live away from the main refugee camps.

Pal, the community leader, said two Hindu refugees in Bangladesh had been killed by Rohingya in a dispute over the sale of cattle they had brought over the border.

Local police chief Abul Khaer confirmed that a complaint had been lodged, and the body of one of the alleged victims found.

“We were tortured because of the war between Myanmar government and the [Rohingya] rebels,” Shshu Pal Shil, 25, told AFP in his makeshift shelter.

“That’s why we were forced to come to Bangladesh. If the Myanmar government wants to take us back now, we’ll be happy to go back.”


    • Rohingya Exodus