‘The generals and Suu Kyi sing from the same Buddhist nationalist hymn book’

[Zabaniyah]

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

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

Maung Zarni is an academic, activist, commentator and expert on Myanmar. He is currently a London-based scholar with the Documentation Centre of Cambodia at the Sleuk Rith Institute.

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

What is happening in northern Rakhine state?
Using the pretext of fighting terrorism, Myanmar Tatmadaw (the armed forces) are engaged in the largest wave of systematic killings and destruction of the Rohingya population. They are using air force, navy and army units, as well as police and urban riot control special units in these attacks, which have resulted in 370,000 Rohingya fleeing their villages.

What is the official line from the Myanmar government?
The Aung San Suu Kyi-led civilian government in partnership with the armed forces are selling this large scale scorched earth operation as national defence in the face of a Rohingya “terrorist” attack which killed 12 police officers and soldiers. This narrative is false: Myanmar is not fighting terrorism, it is speeding up what its commander-in-chief, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, reportedly told the armed forces was the pursuit of “the unfinished business” of World War II (1942).

Are there any historical comparisons to the Rohingya insurgency?
The Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army’s attacks against Burmese border guard posts in Oct 2016 and Aug 2017 more closely resemble the Nazi victims’ uprising at Auschwitz in Oct 1944 than a properly organised and armed “insurgency.” In October 1944, the Jewish inmates killed four SS officers in one barrack at a concentration camp and the SS responded by killing about 500 Jewish and Polish prisoners. Similar large scale terror campaigns were launched by the Burmese military in 1978 and 1991-92, expelling upwards of 260,000 people in each wave.

Why is the Rohingya community being targeted?
The Burmese military took an anti-Muslim turn when Ne Win came to power in a coup in 1962. The generals have purged the entire armed forces of all Muslim officers in the last 50 years, painted the Rohingya as having cross-border cultural, linguistic and historical ties to the populous Muslim nation of the then East Pakistan, and framed this as a threat to national security as early as the mid-1960s.

There are other binational communities along the Sino-Burmese, Indo-Burmese, Thai-Burmese borders – such as Kachin, Chin, Shan, Karen, Kokant, Mon – as well as Buddhist Rakhine (with ties to Chittagong). But none of these communities are Muslims. So despite the historical Rohingya presence in Rakhine or Arakan dating back to pre-British colonial days, the military hatched an institutionalised policy of cleansing Western Burma (Myanmar) of Rohingyas. Myanmar is engaged in the destruction of the Rohingya using national laws tailored to exclude, disenfranchise and strip them of any basic rights. There are other Muslims throughout Burma (Myanmar) but only the Rohingya have their own geographic pocket.

Can the persecution of the Rohingyas be called a genocide?
Yes, absolutely. Myanmar can be proven to be engaged in the fully fledged crime of genocide, in terms of both the Genocide Convention of 1948. Of the five acts of genocide stated in the Geneva Convention, Myanmar is guilty of every crime except the last, which concerns the transfer of victim children to a different group to change the character of the population. Myanmar does not even bother doing that: the troops and the Rakhine burn and kill infants and children, according to eyewitness survivors. As Professor Amartya Sen put it – this is “institutionalised killing” by the state of Myanmar. He based that assertion on the three-year research work done by me and my researcher colleague in London, called “The Slow Burning Genocide of Myanmar’s Rohingya.”

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

But other communal tensions are no longer stoked by the Burmese military. But it has systematically made sure that Rakhine and Rohingya do not seek or achieve communal reconciliation like the rest. One major reason is Rakhine nationalists still maintain the dream of restoring their sovereignty. The military has pitted the Rohingya and Rakhine Buddhists, who have long shared Arakan as their common birthplace, in order to maintain its colonial domination over Rakhine.

Yes, there are communal aspects to Rakhine and the Rohingya conflict. But it is the Burmese central armed forces which is the primary player in keeping this conflict alive.

Does the minority and majority issue play a role in this situation?
The non-Rohingya minorities have been brainwashed through a systematic campaign of misinformation to think about the Rohingya as “illegal Bengali migrants,” although many Rohingyas have been in western Burma since decades before British colonial rule. These minorities and the Bama majority are brainwashed to think that only they are the true indigenous peoples of Burma, despite the fact that they too migrated to Burma during pre-colonial times in various waves of migration from Southern China, Tibet, and the Indian subcontinent. So this thinking fuels deep racism towards Rohingyas and, to a lesser extent, towards Chinese and Christians. But China is too powerful for the military to try to stoke anti-Chinese racism. So, the military diverts public discontent and frustration over hardships of life under failed military leaders towards the Rohingya – making them a scapegoat.

How is geopolitics playing a role in this?
Rakhine is rich in natural resources, especially in the predominantly Rohingya north of the state. It has off-shore natural gas, fertile agricultural land, untapped titanium, rare earth materials, aluminum, natural deep sea harbours for deep sea port, and land for a tax-free Special Economic Zone. Just last week Myanmar announced that today’s killing fields of North Rakhine will be turned into a vast Special Economic Zone near the Bangladeshi borders.

Also, the coastline is strategic for China, which wants to have an alternative to the narrow Straits of Mallaca near Singapore for fear of future conflicts with the US and her allies. Rakhine is that alternative. Because it is important to China, it becomes important to players with anti-Chinese strategic visions, namely the US, India, Japan and South Korea, who are all allies and friends.

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

Both the generals and Aung San Suu Kyi sing from the same Buddhist nationalist hymn book and their vision of Burma does not have much space for Muslims – and no space for Rohingyas. Her stance is nothing less than 100% genocidal. The generals view Western Burma (Myanmar) as an originally Muslim-free region and part of the kingdom of Burma – despite all evidence to the contrary that Rakhine was a rich, cosmopolitan, multi-ethnic and multi-faith kingdom.

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

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

Ultimately, Burma (Myanmar) is going to become a site of major conflicts and terrorism.
http://www.dhakatribune.com/world/s...-suu-kyi-sing-buddhist-nationalist-hymn-book/

 

[24 Hours]

D
How is geopolitics playing a role in this?
Rakhine is rich in natural resources, especially in the predominantly Rohingya north of the state. It has off-shore natural gas, fertile agricultural land, untapped titanium, rare earth materials, aluminum, natural deep sea harbours for deep sea port, and land for a tax-free Special Economic Zone. Just last week Myanmar announced that today’s killing fields of North Rakhine will be turned into a vast Special Economic Zone near the Bangladeshi borders.

Also, the coastline is strategic for China, which wants to have an alternative to the narrow Straits of Mallaca near Singapore for fear of future conflicts with the US and her allies. Rakhine is that alternative. Because it is important to China, it becomes important to players with anti-Chinese strategic visions, namely the US, India, Japan and South Korea, who are all allies and friends.

Given the communal conflict between Rohingya and Rakhine, I thought one way to ease tensions would be to separate the area based on ethnic lines. But, it looks like that won't happen either. It seems this ethnic cleansing will continue to occur until at least 1 million of them are removed from Rakhine state.

 

[waz]

Aung san suu kyi is an anti-Muslim bigot, as evident when she cried like a banshee at being interviewed by Mishal Hussian from the BBC. Yes Suu Kyi the BBC who have been your biggest supporters are now conspiring against you.

But look can she really be blamed? She is the daughter of "war hero" Aung san who got in bed with the Japanese after they had raped and slaughtered most of Asia and then attacked the British Indian army. Oh then after his pals were getting their heads taken off (literally) he then saved the day by kissing the behinds of the British Indian army. Under his command many Muslims and Christians were slaughtered i.e. as collaborators for the British.

The rotten fruit doesn't fall from the foul tree in her case.

 

[Banglar Bir]

Tribune Editorial: An ignoble performance
Tribune Editorial
Published at 08:54 AM September 21, 2017
Last updated at 09:07 AM September 21, 2017
The entire speech was nothing more than an extended apologia for the ethnic cleansing that the Myanmar army has been carrying out over the last four weeks

 

[livingdead]

Aung san suu kyi is an anti-Muslim bigot, as evident when she cried like a banshee at being interviewed by Mishal Hussian from the BBC. Yes Suu Kyi the BBC who have been your biggest supporters are now conspiring against you.

But look can she really be blamed? She is the daughter of "war hero" Aung san who got in bed with the Japanese after they had raped and slaughtered most of Asia and then attacked the British Indian army. Oh then after his pals were getting their heads taken off (literally) he then saved the day by kissing the behinds of the British Indian army. Under his command many Muslims and Christians were slaughtered i.e. as collaborators for the British.

The rotten fruit doesn't fall from the foul tree in her case.

lets not get carried away.. her fight for democracy is to be admired... for which she made personal sacrifice. however she has lost all the goodwill she had in the west over rohingya issue... but she is a politician, and in her calculation, she enjoys overwhelming support of burmese on this issue.
what I am saying is, she is a hero and a villian at the same time.

 

[Banglar Bir]

Suu Kyi: New promises but no commitments
Afsan Chowdhury, September 20, 2017

AASK’s speech could be the best delivered under the circumstances but it’s also full of misleading hopes and commitments never kept. The speech will buy time for the Myanmar military but may not do much at all to solving the many decades long Rohingya problem.

As reported in the South Asian Monitor (SAM), her people and the military don’t differ on the issue concerned and perhaps not even on the way it should be handled. The Rohingya problem has all but reached a final solution stage with many if not most of them out of Myanmar. None of these people ever lived permanently in Bangladesh but Myanmar has imposed an identity on them to suit itself. It will make people of Myanmar and its military feel better.

The reality of her ‘solution’ lies in her promise to take back only “verified” refugees. Since none are citizenship holders of Myanmar, it is not clear under which category will they be returned. But by declaring verification as the key, the decision which lies with Myanmar, it’s basically condemning all of them into a life of permanent refugee status in Bangladesh. This eviction plan which began its operation in 1997 and peaked now has been largely successful.
A participatory ethnic cleansing
Larry Jagan wrote in SAM “But the Lady is between a rock and a hard place, according to diplomats and analysts based in Yangon. “She does not have complete freedom to move, when it comes to the situation in Rakhine,” a diplomat told SAM on condition of anonymity. It is the army commander who is calling the shots.”

It’s true she has limited power but that is precisely the point as far as actions promised in her speech are concerned. The military has no reason to give up power which also translates into economic benefits for them. The army has played its cards brilliantly lulling the world particularly Bangladesh into believing in a ‘peaceful settlement’ since they first began eviction began in 1997 and the peak was reached in 2017.

Larry also writes in the same article “Inside Rakhine State, the local Buddhist population is even more hostile. Conflict between them and the Rohingya — who they refer to as Bengalis — goes back many decades. This discrimination dates back to before Independence. In fact, much of the looting and burning of Rohingya homes, is actually carried out by Rakhine villagers, who accompany the police and military on their “clearance operations”.

This expresses the general sentiment of the Myanmar people and the army’s plan to involve the civilians making everyone a party to ethnic cleansing.

Suu Kyi herself played along those ethno-religious lines to remove the “Muslim lover” tag which is a kiss of death in Myanmar politics. She doesn’t have in practical terms any commitment to the minorities as it’s politically unnecessary, hence there can be no protection of minorities considered outsiders in Myanmar.

Her speech yesterday was calculated to buy time through some damage control after the evidence of ethnic cleansing has become known globally. She knows her apologists will continue to support her and the military will slow down a bit before making the next move. And using both ethno-religious and economic causes to evict people is always very popular.
The Indo-China axis is firmly behind Myanmar
Myanmar’s other strength comes from what SAM’s author P.K. Balachandran captions his article on the topic with, “Unhelpful neighbors thrust entire responsibility for Rohingyas on Bangladesh”

Both India and China have ‘let Bangladesh down’ but for justifiable reasons. The returns on future investment in Myanmar are higher than Bangladesh. Both regional powers feel that the Rohingya issue is not a big deal for them and Bangladesh has no political and any other option but to host them.

China is too deep into Myanmar to change steed or counsel moderation to them now. It also knows that as the major supplier of arms to the Bangladesh army and provider of mega credit with no other big friends, Bangladesh has little choice. Plus, Bangladesh has been trying to play China against India as well with some success and China knows its worth to Bangladesh.

That move has of course hugely irritated India who thought Indo-BD relationship was a settled matter particularly under the present party in power, the Awami League. So, siding with Myanmar makes sense to India as plan B if China tries to encircle or Bangladesh tries to use the existing transit facilities as a bargaining chip. And BJP does feel edgy about so many Muslims, always potential terrorists everywhere including to the world hence the support to oust Rohingyas from India.

Myanmar army knows all these equations well and acted patiently. Suu Kyi’s speech will buy them time and also give excuses, particularly to Indo-China to justify their position on the matter and make tepid calls for ‘peace’. China will sit quietly and count the millions while the US will ponder if anything can be done without too much risk. Given the focus quickly shifting to the ‘terrorists’, the stage two of the game is set. That means disadvantage to Bangladesh.

However, the refugee crisis has become very serious in Bangladesh and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is increasingly seen and presented as the ‘savior’. It is great for her image no matter that the Government of Bangladesh made no contingency plan and no pressure points were developed to deal with Myanmar effectively. But the situation is casting Sheikh Hasina in a positive light and that may well have positive implications in case of an election due in Bangladesh in late 2018.
http://southasianmonitor.com/2017/09/20/suu-kyi-new-promises-no-commitments/

 

[Banglar Bir]

12:00 AM, September 22, 2017 / LAST MODIFIED: 04:48 AM, September 22, 2017
Rohingyas missing in his call

Min Aung Hlaing. Reuters, Sittwe
Myanmar's army chief yesterday called for people internally displaced by violence in Rakhine State to go home and rebuild communities, but he made no mention of 4,22,000 Rohingyas who fled to Bangladesh to escape his force's operations.

Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, in a major speech on his plans for Rakhine State on his first visit there since the latest strife erupted, claimed the military had handled the situation as best as it could after a wave of coordinated attacks by Rohingya insurgents on August 25.

The United Nations has said the military response to the insurgent attacks is ethnic cleansing aimed at pushing the Rohingya community out of Buddhist-majority Myanmar.

Myanmar denies that, saying its forces are waging a legitimate campaign against Muslim terrorists who have been attacking and torching villages of Buddhists and other non-Muslims, some 30,000 of whom were internally displaced.

Min Aung Hlaing did not mention the accusation of ethnic cleansing in his speech to business people, officials and some of the displaced, in Sittwe, the state capital.

"Regarding the rehabilitation of villages of our national races, for the national races who fled their homes, first of all they must go back to their places," he said.

"National races" is a Myanmar term referring to members of officially recognised indigenous ethnic groups who make up the diverse nation.

The Rohingya are not recognised as a "national race", and are instead seen as illegal immigrants and denied citizenship.

Animosity between Buddhists in Rakhine State and the Rohingya goes back generations, but has seethed in recent years, fuelled in part by a surge of Buddhist nationalism since nearly five decades of strict military rule came to an end.

"The important thing is to have our people in the region. It's necessary to have control of our region with our national races," Min Aung Hlaing said.

"We can't do anything if there are no people from our national races ... that is their rightful place."

Min Aung Hlaing did not refer to the return of Muslims to their villages in the north of the state, almost half of which have been abandoned and torched.

The crisis has drawn international condemnation and calls from the United Nations and US President Donald Trump for the military to stop the violence and support diplomatic efforts for a long-term solution for the Rohingya.

Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi, in her first address to the nation on the crisis on Tuesday, said Myanmar was ready to start a verification process to take back refugees, under a 1993 arrangement with Bangladesh.

"Refugees from this country will be accepted without any problem," she said.
http://www.thedailystar.net/frontpage/mayanmar-refugee-crisis-rohingyas-missing-his-call-1465807

 

[Banglar Bir]

Mad monks: The greatest threat to Myanmar's fledgeling democracy

Aurangzeb Qureshi
Mad monks: The greatest threat to Myanmar's fledgeling democracy
Rohingya Muslims are fleeing Myanmar in their hundreds of thousands while their villages burn [Anadolu]
Date of publication: 15 September, 2017
Burma, Myanmar, Rohingya, ethnic cleansing,Tasnim, a 13-year-old Rohingya Muslim, was home with her father when a group of men broke into the family dwelling.

She was raped by 15 men as her father was forced to watch. He begged them to stop but was beaten until he died of his injuries.

Months later, Tasnim realised she became pregnant, and now lives in a refugee camp where she cares for her child and sick mother.

Stories like these aren't new. According to Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein, the UN’s top human rights official, the situation in Myanmar is a "textbook example of ethnic cleansing". In past few weeks, at least a thousand Rohingya have been killed and close to 350,000 have fled to Bangladesh as the latest military campaign against the Muslim minority group intensifies.

Some 400,000 Rohingya who had already fled their homes to live in squalid refugee camps along the Bangladesh-Myanmar border.

The Patriotic Association of Myanmar - simply referred to as Ma Ba Tha - acts as the catalyst behind the violence. Its spiritual leader and founder, the saffron-robed, baby-faced Ashwin Wirathu looks like someone who preaches peace, compassion and tolerance. Yet the charismatic 49-year-old is quick to quash such perceptions with his fiery rhetoric describing Muslims as "mad dogs", "cannibals" and "trouble-makers".

"You can't underestimate a snake just because there's only one," he said. "It's dangerous whatever it is. Muslims are just like that."

A recent report by the Belgium-based International Crisis Group issued a dire warning on the current political situation in Myanmar - continued hate speech combined with nationalistic rhetoric could deteriorate a delicate political situation even further. The report recommends that the ruling government address the underlying economic and social factors that contribute to widespread support for the Ma Ba Tha.

The movement may well have a virulent nationalist, anti-Muslim element, but it also serves as a provider of welfare and social support, and thus fills a huge gap

"When the [military] junta receded and with democracy around, more voices could be heard again and people were freed from jail again - and Wirathu, who's very prominent and high-ranking, was able to voice things again," says Dr Michael Jerryson, associate professor of religious studies at Youngstown State University.

"Ma Ba Tha is a very organised, erudite group of monks and others that draw upon a sizeable amount of the population that feels the same way."

But not all its supporters in Myanmar find common ground with the Ma Ba Tha's anti-Muslim views. Its vast network of support also comes from those that see the organization as a provider of welfare, social services and education. Others see the Ma Ba Tha simply as a means to keep Buddhist traditions alive in a country governed by a secular party.

"The movement may well have a virulent nationalist, anti-Muslim element, but it also serves as a provider of welfare and social support, and thus fills a huge gap," says Francis Wade, journalist and author of Myanmar's Enemy Within: Buddhist Violence And The Making Of A Muslim Other.

"There would be also be a large cross-section of its support base that may not hold these deep prejudices towards Islam, but is anxious about the health of Buddhism in a modernising country."

Myanmar's de facto leader, the Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi knows this all too well. Her refusal to run Muslim candidates in the last election was an early indication of how she would abdicate to the monks in efforts to gain power.

She's prevented aid in the form of distributing food. She's accused aid workers of helping 'terrorists'. She's not allowing people to use the word 'Rohingya'

After her landslide election victory in 2016, she kept in place the discriminatory Race and Religion Protection Laws passed by the last military government - laws that aim to constrain religious conversion, regulate child birth and restrict Buddhist women from marrying non-Buddhist men. Most recently, her refusal to condemn the violence and tepid acknowledgement of it has exposed her own complicity and revealed the power of Myanmar's religious class.

Although her approach may have been justifiable in the past, Jerryson believes she has gone too far. "She's done some actions that are more direct and hard to defend than previously," he says. "She's prevented aid in the form of distributing food. She's accused aid workers of helping 'terrorists'. She's not allowing people to use the word 'Rohingya'... there's things under her purview I think we have to hold her accountable for."

Wade agrees: "The difficulty in controlling Ma Ba Tha is that monks have always held a position of reverence in Myanmar society and so it's very difficult to criticise them - doing so carries both material and otherworldly consequences, hence they function with little recrimination.

"There should be more substantial action from the government in tackling hate speech in general, and this would hopefully begin to affect how freely these ultra-nationalist groups can agitate against Muslims."

At the same time, the military dimension cannot be ignored. It was only a decade ago, a conflict between the military and the monks dubbed "the Saffron revolution", led to the imprisonment of Myanmar's clergy, including Wirathu.

Ten years later, an unlikely partnership between the clergy and military has emerged - while the Ma Ba Tha whips up the populace into an existential frenzy, the military is able to execute its atrocities with religious cover.

Jamila Hanan, a UK-based human rights activist, says that there is a mutual interest at play.

"Buddhist extremism is used as a weapon by the Myanma military to carry out its political and economic agendas," she says. "By whipping up the racial hatred between ethnicities they are able to follow a divide and conquer strategy, whereby the Rakhine people in that strategically important area of Myanmar will side with the military as their protectors from the Rohingya people - who they have been taught to fear and hate."
Aurangzeb Qureshi is a freelance journalist and writer. He has written for numerous publications including Al-Jazeera English, Huffington Post Canada, Middle East Eye, CBC and Pakistan Daily Times.
His writing focuses primarily on civil rights, minority rights and the impact of energy on foreign affairs.
https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/i...atest-threat-to-myanmars-fledgeling-democracy

 

[Homo Sapiens]

lets not get carried away.. her fight for democracy is to be admired... for which she made personal sacrifice. however she has lost all the goodwill she had in the west over rohingya issue... but she is a politician, and in her calculation, she enjoys overwhelming support of burmese on this issue.
what I am saying is, she is a hero and a villian at the same time.

If she lost the moral courage or don't have to begin with, then how she is different than other politician whom we despise for being sell out to their narrow political gain? She even don't have the courage of uttering a single word in defence of Rohingya and shamelessly justifying junta's every action.Worst of all, she even decided not to spell the word 'Rohingya' those Rohingyas who were friends of her father Aung San and were part of her father's govt. How can any person be such a hypocrite and dishonest? I would not even call her a normal decent human being let alone any moral leader in any sense.

 

[Banglar Bir]

Erdogan accuses Myanmar of ‘Buddhist terror’ against Rohingya

By AFP September 26, 2017
ISTANBUL: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accused the security forces in Myanmar of waging a “Buddhist terror” against the Rohingya Muslim minority in the country, hundreds of thousands of whom have fled to Bangladesh.

Erdogan, who has repeatedly highlighted the plight of the Rohingya, again accused the Yangon government of carrying out a “genocide” against the people in Rakhine state.
In a speech in Istanbul, Erdogan lamented the failure of the international community to lay sanctions against the Myanmar government over its campaign.

“There is a very clear genocide over there,” Erdogan said.

Erdogan, who has held talks by phone with Myanmar’s key leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung Sang Suu Kyi, added: “Buddhists always get represented as envoys of goodwill. At the moment, there is a clear Buddhist terror in Myanmar... I don’t know how you can gloss over this with yoga, schmoga. This is a fact here. And all humanity needs to know this.”

Erdogan takes a sharp interest in the fate of Muslim communities across the world and notably sees himself as a champion of the Palestinian cause.

Returning for a key personal theme, he lambasted the international community for being quick to denounce “Islamic terror” but not “Christian terror,” “Jewish terror” or “Buddhist terror.”
Erdogan’s remarks came as UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said Bangladesh must not force Rohingya Muslims who have fled Myanmar to move to camps on a desolate island.
Authorities have stepped up moves to house the Rohingya on the island in the Bay of Bengal since a new surge which now totals 436,000 refugees started arriving on Aug. 25.

Grandi said Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had mentioned the relocation plan when they met in July. There were already 300,000 Rohingya in camps near the border at Cox’s Bazar before the latest influx started.
But he insisted that any move from the camps to Bhashan Char island — also known as Thengar Char — “has to be voluntary on the part of the refugees.”

“We cannot force people to go to the place. So the option for the medium term, let’s say — I don’t want to talk about long-term — has to be also something that is acceptable to the people that go there,” he said.
“Otherwise it won’t work. Otherwise people won’t go.”

The UN has praised Bangladesh for taking in the Rohingya, who fled a military crackdown in Myanmar. It has appealed for international help for the authorities.

“It is good to think ahead. These people (Rohingya) may not be able to go back very quickly and especially now the population has now doubled,” Grandi told a Dhaka press briefing.
The UNHCR chief said his agency was ready to help the island plan with a “technical study of the options.
“That’s all that we are ready to give. We are not giving it yet because I have not seen any concrete options on any paper.”

The small island in the estuary of the Meghna river is a one-hour boat ride from Sandwip, the nearest inhabited island, and two hours from Hatiya, one of Bangladesh’s largest islands.
The government has tasked the navy with making it ready for the Rohingya. Two helipads and a small road have been built.

The authorities first proposed settling the Rohingya there in 2015, as the refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar became overstretched.

But the plan was apparently shelved last year amid reports that the silty island, which only emerged from the sea in 2006, was often unhabitable due to regular tidal flooding.
In recent weeks, Bangladesh has appealed for international support to move the Rohingya to the island as the impoverished nation struggles to cope with the influx

More than 436,000 refugees have crossed the border from Myanmar’s Rakhine state since August 25 when a military crackdown was launched following attacks by Rohingya militants.

There is not enough food, water or medicine to go around. Roads around the camps are littered with human excrement, fueling UN fears that serious disease could quickly break out.
http://www.rohingyablogger.com/2017/09/erdogan-accuses-myanmar-of-buddhist.html

 

[Banglar Bir]

Lady and her generals
Subir Bhaumik, October 14, 2017

“Aung San Suu Kyi and her generals” ran a headline in The New York Times, as if she controlled them. The fact is she does not but has to take all the blame for what they do.

Two months after the Rakhine imbroglio boiled into a major regional crisis after the Aug24-25 jihadi attacks on 30 police station and one military base, the Lady has been fighting a silent battle to control her generals, at whose orders troops of the Tatmadaw went berserk in Rakhine, torching Rohingya villages, killing civilians, raping women and even throwing children in fire.

Against the wishes of the all-powerful Tatmadaw (Burmese army), she instituted the 9-member commission headed by former UN secretary general Kofi Annan, six of whom were foreigners and only three Burmese. Again, against the wishes of the men in uniform who have ruled Myanmar since 1962, Suu Kyi accepted Annan commission’s recommendations and promised to set up an inter-ministerial committee on August 24 to implement those.

But when the ARSA fighters attacked 30 police stations and the military base in northern Rakhine within hours of Kofi Annan meeting Suu Kyi and President Htin Kyaw, the game slipped out of Suu Kyi’s hands.

Authoritative sources in Myanmar government say the generals, three of them hoiding the crucial portfolios of defence, home and border affairs in her cabinet, put their foot down and told the Lady (as they refer to her) to let them handle a national security situation.

For a while, the Lady lost her script, weighed down by not only the generals but an inflamed public opinion manipulated skilfully by Buddhist hardline nationalists.

Here lies the paradox — the Lady could have told the generals the attacks happened because they failed, because their intelligence network in Rakhine came a cropper — or else how could a relatively poorly trained jihadi group like the ARSA pulled off coordinated attacks on 30 police stations and a military base killing 12-13 security men!

Such an operation would have been planned for months, not weeks and would have involved considerable mobilisation of fighters and armed villagers specially between 22-24th August.

So, if that is missed, one can safely surmise the Burmese military as well as civilian intelligence totally failed.

But if one were to understand the dynamics of Burmese government and the way the army and the NLD is involved in a tussle for control, they would stay away from taking un-nuanced positions like making demands for stripping Suu Kyi of her Nobel Prize.

But though the furious global criticism may have somewhat dented Suu Kyi’s global image, it has helped her in her desperate bid to control the army.

Top government sources say a recent high-level meeting in Naypyidaw found the civilian ministers of NLD and the generals in charge of the three crucial ministries taking on each other over possible implications of the global criticism.

Some ministers raised the scare of fresh sanctions, others spoke of possible cutdown in development aid and a few raised the issue of the impact of the Rakhine crisis on the ceasefire process that involves negotiations with much stronger rebel groups but has been cold storaged after late August.

Suu Kyi has been able, through her loyal NLD ministers, get it across to the army that they have to exercise restraint in counter-insurgency operations and the government has to start the process of taking back Rohingyas, even if it began as trickle.

That, she reasoned, would deflect some criticism from the global community including the UN and the West which once treated Suu Kyi as a darling and a pro-democracy icon but have been scathing in their criticism belatedly.

A top secretary told this writer that Suu Kyi was somewhat rattled when Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina returned home and alleged that Myanmar has been trying to provoke a war.

Avoiding a conflict with Bangladesh is important for Suu Kyi because a war would mean playing into the army’s hand.

The longer the crisis lingers in Rakhine and surely if there is a military confrontation with Bangladesh, the better the chance for the army to create grounds for a regional emergency that is prelude to a quasi-military rule that NLD pro-democracy hardliners feel may provide opportunity for a return to power for the Tatmadaw by the backdoor.

A top NLD leader, on condition of anonymity, made it clear that Suu Kyi and her party, though mindful of the threat of a regional jihad, were keen to use negotiations and peaceful means to end the crisis before it spun out of control.

He said the military has been told of the dangers of sanctions and the adverse economic impact of the Rakhine crisis that may drive up unemployment and create unrest across the country.

The corridors of power in Naypyidaw is abuzz with the silent wrestling for influence between Myanmar’s ruling party and its embattled leader on the one hand and the still-powerful military on the other.

During a forum on Myanmar’s democratic transition in August, military participants made it clear the army was reconciled to working under a civilian government.

That may be true, but the tussle for supremacy is a fact of life — something that most observers in the West and elsewhere are missing out on.
http://southasianmonitor.com/2017/10/14/lady-and-her-generals/

 

[Banglar Bir]

Senior Myanmar Buddhist monk boasts “we destroyed Muslim homes and mosques”
5 Pillars
15th October 2017

Video of one of Myanmar’s most senior monks boasting that “we destroyed Muslim homes and their mosques, and built Buddhist homes in their place”.

http://5pillarsuk.com/2017/10/15/se...boasts-we-destroyed-muslim-homes-and-mosques/

 

[Banglar Bir]

Rohingya Muslim crisis: What people in Burma are saying about it
Despite widespread international condemnation, the country's leaders appear to maintain support in their home country
Loulla-Mae Eleftheriou-Smith
Tuesday 10 October 2017 10:51 BST
The Independent Online
No one in Burma is talking about the Rohingya Muslim crisis
Burma’s treatment of Rohingya Muslims has lead to widespread condemnation from the international community, with the United Nations (UN) calling their treatment “textbook ethnic cleansing”.

But although over 500,000 have fled violence in the south east Asian nation's Rakhine state to seek refuge in Bangladesh in recent months, inside the country, the government led by Nobel Peace Prizewinner, Aung San Suu Kyi, appears to maintain widespread support.

In its largest city Yangon, the term Rohingya is reportedly not used and they are instead called “Bengali Muslims,” a term which is also used by local media.

Bangladesh vows to support one million Rohingya Muslims fleeing Burma
While the Rohingya have lived as one of the ethnic minorities in the country for generations but are not recognised as Burmese citizens in the Buddhist majority country.

“The problem is the political motive behind the term [Rohingya],” U Aung Hla Tun, vice chairman of the Myanmar Press Council, told the BBC. “I used to have a number of Bengali friends when I was young. They never claimed they were Rohingya. They first coined the term decades ago.
“They do not belong to the ethnic minorities [of this country].
This is a fact.”

Another university student told the broadcaster that the international community is getting the “wrong” information about the situation in Rakhine state. They claimed that “the violence is an act of terrorism”.

Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees are now living in camps in Bangladesh.
They started to flee after an attack carried out by Rohingya insurgents in August on police posts and security personnel in Rakhine state saw the military retaliate with violence that left thousands of homes burned to the ground and hundreds dead.

The UN’s human rights chief, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, has said Burma’s actions against the Rohingya people “seems a textbook example of ethnic cleansing”.

Ms Suu Kyi’s first public address on the Rohingya crisis last month saw hundreds of supporters gather in Yangon to hear the speech which saw her claim that more than half of Rohingya villages had not been affected by the violence. She also invited diplomats to visit the areas and see “why they are not at each other’s throats in these particular areas”.

Rights group Amnesty International subsequently accused Ms Suu Kyi and her government of “burying their heads in the sand” and of telling “uthruths” following the leader’s response to the crisis.
But she was nonetheless widely supported by those in the crowd.

One woman in the crowd called May Nyi Oo, who wore stickers depicting Ms Suu Kyi’s image on her cheeks, told The Guardian that “worldwide, a lot of fake news and rumours are spreading”.
She also referred to the Rohingya as illegal immigrants who “are not our people”.
READ MORE
UN blasts 'unacceptable' Burma for blocking Rohingya Muslim access
145,000 Rohingya Muslim children are facing malnutrition as refugees
UN 'scrapped report that predicted Rohingya Muslim crisis'
Suu Kyi to be stripped of Freedom of Oxford over Rohingya crisis
Many people in Burma have appeared reluctant to talk about the Rohingya crisis, but continue to support Ms Suu Kyi’s decisions about the issue.

Thet Mhoo Ko Ko, who works in his family’s business, told Al Jazeera last month that he believes Ms Suu Kyi needs more time “and then she will be able to make things much better”.
“The Rakhine [situation] is a problem and it is very worrying,” he added.

A survey carried out in September by the Myanmar Survey Research company also found that 75 per cent of people believed the country is heading in the right direction, Al Jazeera reported.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...state-buddhists-mayanmar-latest-a7992256.html

 

[Banglar Bir]

REWIND......
Inside Story - Is Myanmar's transition to democracy tainted by the persecution of Rohingya Muslims?
Al Jazeera English
Published on Feb 1, 2016
Myanmar's first democratically-elected parliament in decades is being called historic. But it's also the first Parliament that does not include a single Muslim legislator.

 

[Banglar Bir]

Buddhists protest to urge Myanmar not to repatriate Rohingya

In this image made from video, protesters march in Sittwe, Myanmar, on Sunday, Oct. 22, 2017. Hundreds of hard-line Buddhists protested Sunday to urge Myanmar’s government not to repatriate the nearly 600,000 minority Rohingya Muslims who have fled to Bangladesh since late August to escape violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine State. (Associated Press)
By Associated Press
October 22, 2017
SITTWE, Myanmar — Hundreds of hard-line Buddhists protested Sunday to urge Myanmar’s government not to repatriate the nearly 600,000 minority Rohingya Muslims who have fled to Bangladesh since late August to escape violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine state.

The protest took place in Sittwe, the state capital, where many Rohingya lived before an outbreak of inter-communal violence in 2012 forced them to flee their homes.

Aung Htay, a protest organizer, said any citizens would be welcome in the state. “But if these people don’t have the right to be citizens ... the government’s plan for a conflict-free zone will never be implemented,” he said.

Myanmar doesn’t recognize Rohingya as an ethnic group, instead insisting they are Bengali migrants from Bangladesh living illegally in the country. Rohingya are excluded from the official 135 ethnic groups in the country and denied citizenship.

More than 580,000 Rohingya from northern Rakhine have fled to Bangladesh since Aug. 25, when Myanmar security forces began a scorched-earth campaign against Rohingya villages. Myanmar’s government has said it was responding to attacks by Muslim insurgents, but the United Nations and others have said the response was disproportionate.

Myanmar de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s government said earlier this month that it was willing to take back Rohingya refugees who fled to southeastern Bangladesh. The government has agreed to form a joint working group to start the repatriation process.

On Sunday, protesters, including some Buddhist monks, demanded that the government not take back the refugees.

“The organizers of the protest applied to get permission for a thousand people to participate in the protest, but only a few hundred showed up,” said Soe Tint Swe, a local official.
Meanwhile, thousands of people gathered Sunday in Myanmar’s capital, Naypyidaw, to show support for Suu Kyi and the government’s handling of the Rohingya crisis.

Colorful crowds of people, some wearing T-shirts with Suu Kyi’s photo and some holding photo frames of Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy party flag, took part in the rally.

The global image of Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace laureate, has been damaged by the violence in Rakhine, which has sparked Asia’s largest refugee crisis in decades.
http://www.rohingyablogger.com/2017/10/buddhists-protest-to-urge-myanmar-not.html