ASIA PACIFIC
Dhaka bans NGOs from helping Rohingya
Three foreign aid groups barred from helping refugees fleeing violence in Myanmar, saying their work encourages influx.
Bangladesh has ordered three international charities to stop providing aid to Rohingya refugees crossing the border from Myanmar where they have fled persecution and violence.
Local administrator Joynul Bari said on Thursday that France's Doctors without Borders (MSF), Action Against Hunger (ACF) and Britain's Muslim Aid UK have been told to suspend their services in the Cox's Bazaar district bordering Myanmar.
"The charities have been providing aid to tens of thousands of undocumented Rohingya refugees illegally. We asked them to stop all their projects in Cox's Bazaar following directive from the NGO Affairs Bureau," Bari told the AFP news agency.
Bari said the charities "were encouraging an influx of Rohingya refugees" from across the border in Myanmar's Rakhine state in the wake of recent sectarian violence that left at least 80 people killed.
The charities have provided healthcare, training, emergency food and drinking water to the refugees living in Cox's Bazaar since the early 1990s.
MSF runs a clinic near one of the Rohingya camp which provides services to 100,000 people.
Fleeing violence
Speaking a Bengali dialect similar to one in southeast Bangladesh, the Rohingyas are Muslims seen as illegal immigrants by the Buddhist-majority Myanmar government and many Burmese.
They are viewed by the United Nations as one of the world's most persecuted minorities.
Obaidur Rahman, country head of Muslim Aid UK in Bangladesh, confirmed to AFP that his group had stopped its Rohingya project following the order.
The government says some 300,000 Rohingya Muslims are living in the country, the vast majority in Cox's Bazaar, after fleeing persecution in Myanmar. About 30,000 are registered refugees who live in two camps run by the United Nations.
In recent weeks, Bangladesh has turned away boats carrying hundreds of Rohingya fleeing the violence in Myanmar despite pressure from the United States and rights groups to grant them refuge.
Myanmar security forces opened fire on Rohingya Muslims, committed rape and stood by as rival mobs attacked each other during the recent wave of sectarian violence, New York-based Human Rights Watch said Wednesday.
The authorities failed to protect both Muslims and Buddhists and then "unleashed a campaign of violence and mass roundups against the Rohingya", the group said in a report.
Source: Agencies
Report blasts Myanmar treatment of Rohingya
Rights group says military conducted vicious crackdown on stateless Muslim group in aftermath of sectarian violence.
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http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia-pacific/2012/08/20128154245751775.html
Myanmar security forces have killed, raped or carried out mass arrests of Rohingya Muslims after deadly sectarian riots in the northeast in June, a rights group has said, adding the authorities had done little to prevent the initial unrest.
Aid workers were blocked and in some cases arrested in a government crackdown on the largest group of stateless people in Southeast Asia, New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a report on Wednesday.
The report comes after a week of arson and machete attack by both ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingyas in Rakhine state.
Based on 57 interviews with Rakhines and Rohingyas, the report seeks to shed light on a conflict that exposed deep-rooted communal animosity and put the spotlight on promises by the civilian government in office since 2011 to protect human rights after decades of brutal army rule.
"Burmese security forces failed to protect the Arakan [Rakhine] and Rohingya from each other and then unleashed a campaign of violence and mass round-ups against the Rohingya," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch.
"The government claims it is committed to ending ethnic strife and abuse, but recent events in Arakan State demonstrate that state-sponsored persecution and discrimination persist."
In veiled criticism of the United States and European Union, which praised the government for its handling of the unrest, Adams said the international community had been "blinded by a romantic narrative of sweeping change" in Myanmar.
Foreign minister Wunna Maung Lwin said on Monday the authorities had exercised "maximum restraint" in restoring law and order and that the rioting was not fuelled by religious persecution.
He rejected what he said were attempts to "politicise and internationalise the situation as a religious issue", adding that the government was eager to promote "racial harmony among different nationalities".
The official spokesperson for Rakhine state also rejected the group's criticism of the government's response to the violence. Win Myaing told the AP news agency that allegations that government forces stood and watched as violence wracked the area were "absolutely untrue".
"Security conditions obviously improved day by day when government forces were deployed to control the situation," Win Myaing said.
Forced resettlement
The country formerly called Burma has a diverse ethnic and religious make-up, but the Rohingya Muslims are not included by the government.
There are at least 800,000 Rohingyas in the country but they are not recognised as one of its ethnic groups.
Neighbouring Bangladesh does not accept them and pushed boatloads back out to sea when they tried to flee the unrest.
Myanmar President Thein Sein said in June the government was only responsible for third-generation Rohingyas whose families had arrived before independence in 1948 and that it was impossible to accept those who had "illegally entered" Myanmar.
He recommended that the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR take care of them in camps or "resettle them" in third countries.
UNHCR chief Antonio Guterres replied it could only resettle refugees that fled from one country to another.
'Virulent hatred'
The riots followed two brutal incidents in Rakhine state: the May 28 rape and murder of a Rakhine woman by three Rohingya males, who were sentenced to death, and the June 3 lynching in response of 10 non-Rohingya Muslims travelling on a bus.
Human Rights Watch said police and troops did not intervene to stop the mobs from beating the Muslims to death. During the riots that followed, it said some Rohingyas who tried to flee or put out fires at their homes were shot at by paramilitaries.
It called for the government to end abuses, grant full humanitarian access and invite in international monitors. Access to the area remains restricted.
Michael Vatikiotis, the Asian director for the Center for Humanitarian Dialogue, said that while the primary factor in the recent violence is "the virulent hatred of the Rohingya people by the Rakhinese", this is by no means an isolated issue.
"Violence between the two communities is something that has happened in the past. This is compounding an already serious issue that affects not only Myanmar and Bangladesh, but the region as a whole."
Vatikiotis adds that claims of the state of emergency in the country being used as a cover for various abuses are "very easy to make," but says judgment should be reserved until access into the area is once again granted.
"It is very difficult to make an objective assessment because of the lack of access to the region."
Thein Sein is in a tight spot. Concessions toward the Rohingyas could prove unpopular among the general public, but perceived ill-treatment risks angering Western countries that have eased sanctions in response to human rights reforms.
Minister of border affairs Thein Htay says 858 people have been detained for involvement in the violence, including five UNHCR staff and a UN World Food Programme employee. It was unclear how many of the total were Rohingya or ethnic Rakhine.
The foreign ministry has said 77 people died and 109 were injured during the violence, and nearly 5,000 homes burnt down.
Source: Al Jazeera And Agencies
Impending humanitarian crisis in western Myanmar
Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims are threatened by an increase in sectarian violence.
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/07/2012716145945989365.html
More than 300 Rohingya Muslims who fled sectarian violence were turned back by officials in Bangladesh [AFP]
by
William Lloyd George
William Lloyd George is a freelance journalist.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Will the people of Myanmar soon have their own derivative for the Nazi term Judenrein? For those who do not know what Judenrein means, it literally translates to "free of Jews", and was the term used by the Nazi administration when they had removed entire Jewish communities from Germany in the lead up to the Holocaust.
As so many Myanma shamelessly support the government and local authorities' ongoing ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya people from Western Myanmar, it might not be too long until we see "human rights defenders", and "political activists" running around the streets of Myanmar shouting: Rohingya-Kin-Zone ["Rohingya-clean area"]) or Bangali-ma-shi ["No Bangladeshis"].
It took one horrific reaction to one abhorrent incident to ignite a riot and expose the true depth of racism and xenophobia
Will the people of Myanmar soon have their own derivative for the Nazi term
Judenrein? For those who do not know what
Judenrein means, it literally translates to "free of Jews", and was the term used by the Nazi administration when they had removed entire Jewish communities from Germany in the lead up to the Holocaust.
As so many Myanma shamelessly support the government and local authorities' ongoing ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya people from Western Myanmar, it might not be too long until we see "human rights defenders", and "political activists" running around the streets of Myanmar shouting:
Rohingya-Kin-Zone ["Rohingya-clean area"]) or
Bangali-ma-shi ["No Bangladeshis"].
It took one horrific reaction to one abhorrent incident to ignite a riot and expose the true depth of racism and xenophobia in Myanmar society. After three Rohingya men raped a young Rhakine Buddhist woman, ten Muslim pilgrims (not Rohingya) were dragged off a bus and violently beaten to death - seemingly in retaliation.
Five days later, hundreds of Rohingya men gathered outside a mosque after prayers. What happened next is unclear. Some say the Rohingya planned an attack on Rhakine communities in retaliation for the killing of the Muslim pilgrims; others say an argument started with Rhakine people after a minor traffic accident outside the mosque. Whatever the cause, hundreds of Rohingya ended up running through dozens of Rhakine villages,
burning houses down, looting and badly beating Rhakine people, some to death.
"As could be expected, the Rohingya communities blame the Rhakine, and the Rhakine blame the Rohingya. Both sides are trying to paint a picture that they were just innocent bystanders, slaughtered by the other side."
The blame game
As could be expected, the Rohingya communities blame the Rhakine, and the Rhakine blame the Rohingya. Both sides are trying to paint a picture that they were just innocent bystanders, slaughtered by the other side. Sitting through an interview with activists from either community is approaching excruciating, with neither unable to rationally blame their own community, and subsequently unable to provide logical solutions to prevent the violence taking place again.
It is clear both sides are guilty of atrocities. What is also clear, however, is that within a riot - based on myths, and decades of inter-communal friction - hides a renewed push to continue the military's ethnic cleansing campaign of the late 1970s.
Soon after the riots began, a state of emergency was ordered, and an all-day curfew put in place. However, sources within human rights groups soon to publish an official report on the matter say the curfew only applied to the Rohingya, who were forced to stay in their homes, while Rhakine groups, hell-bent on retaliation, made the most of the chaos to drive Rohingya communities out of the region, teaming up with local authorities with similar aspirations. It is alleged that the combined Rhakine-extremists-local-authority-forces burned down Rohingya villages, beat men to death, looted homes, and raped women.
While the military has been praised for stepping in and quelling the violence in some districts, the local authorities, police and Rhakine vigilantes - apparently eager to rid the area of Rohingya communities - have allowed the situation to develop, with
national security forces reportedly carrying out what appears to be, in my opinion, a form of state-sponsored ethnic cleansing.
It is believed that hundreds, if not thousands, of Rohingya men have been arrested, many feared dead. Countless more have been reported missing and have not been seen since the conflict erupted.
Behind the violence
With the backing of the state political party, the Rhakine Democratic National Party (RNDP), Nasaka - the border guard force - and police appear to be conducting an unprecedented campaign of harassment, torture, and oppression on the Rohingya people.
For days, reports have been circulating of family lists - Rohingya families' only proof of state registration - being confiscated, with influential and educated Rohingya families reportedly beaten and forced out of the country, while holes are being made in the border fence to give the Rohingya a quick exit from the oppression.
While arrests have been made of Rhakine people, it appears the Rohingya are being overwhelmingly punished for the riots, through massacres, torture and indiscriminate arrests. And while it is difficult to confirm information during such a blackout, and hard to believe the new "reformist" government could be behind such a serious atrocities, President Thein Sein's
press release last week certainly made the reports more believable.
For some, it has also roused suspicions that senior figures in the military allowed, and at the worst, supported the violence, in order to regain national support and take focus away from the conflict with the Kachin, as well as distracting from serious poverty issues across the country.
"It is impossible for Burma to accept people who are not ethnic to the country and who have entered illegally."
- Myanmar's Presidential Office
After a long silence, Myanmar's Presidential Office
recent anouncement surprised and shocked people around the world.
"It is impossible for Burma to accept people who are not ethnic to the country and who have entered illegally," the statement read, going on to offer the Rohingya people to the UN. They suggested the Rohingya should be put in camps for a year, at which time they could be taken to a third country.
The UN, quite rightly, were
quick to reject Thein Sein's kind offer, explaining that communities cannot be repatriated from their own country. While the UN may have, for now, endorsed the Rohingya presence in Myanmar, the government's intentions were made very clear to the world. It was the most transparent, clear cut message that the Myanmar government is now hell-bent on ridding Myanmar of the Rohingya people by any means possible.
An end to isolation is needed
International attention is desperately needed to find out what is really happening in Rhakine state. If the government cannot get "legitimate" assistance from the UN to push out the Rohingya communities, then impartial observers need to be deployed to the region immediately, to prevent the government and Rhakine extremist groups forcing Rohingya people out of their homes, off their land, and into life-threatening camps.
Since the riots began, the authorities ordered all international NGOs to pull their staff out of the region. Dozens of local NGO staff have been arrested, and hundreds remain out of contact. While no one knows why NGO staff are being detained, it is widely believed it is for distributing information during the riots. Probably charged using the same draconian laws that have been used to prevent activists from informing the international community of the regime's human rights abuses and oppression in previous decades.
The north of Rhakine state, where it is estimated more than 700,000 Rohingya live, has effectively been turned into a complete blind spot. Speaking with NGO coordinators over the past week, there are some eerie reminders of conversations with the same people during
Cyclone Nargis. After the cyclone hit, affected communities could not be contacted. NGOs were initially heavily restricted, as were local aid workers. Within weeks the official death toll leaped from a few dozen to more than 134,000 people. Those who spread information to the international community were arrested. And now, once again, NGOs are unable to access the most critical regions, stoking fears throughout Myanmar's NGO community. The world may wake up one day to find that yet another preventable humanitarian crisis has taken place.
"The heavy rains are likely to increase the spread of water-borne disease and it is believed that diarrhoea and malaria are already increasing rapidly. With high food prices, no work, and restrictions on leaving villages and IDP camps, there is a great risk that many could starve to death."
Rhakine state is one of the largest operations in the world for NGOs. Extremely poor, it already suffers from high disease rate and malnutrition. Now that NGOs are unable to work, many are concerned that starvation and disease could ravage the Rohingya communities in coming weeks. The heavy rains are likely to increase the spread of water-borne disease and it is believed that diarrhoea and malaria are already increasing rapidly. With high food prices, no work, and restrictions on leaving villages and IDP camps, there is a great risk that many could starve to death. If the government continues to prevent NGOs from getting in, and information getting out, it would be reasonable to assume that this is part of a state policy to drive the Rohingya people into a humanitarian crisis.
Public acceptance
There is one very disturbing difference between the humanitarian crisis which unfolded after Cyclone Nargis and now. While all the people of Myanmar - including political activists, ethnic leaders, migrant workers and civil servants - made efforts to curtail the suffering of those affected by Nargis, this time, people, some ignorantly, are condoning the dispossession of the Rohingya.
While the nation lambasted the government for its slow response to Nargis, and the subsequent unnecessary loss of life, people from all spectra of Myanmar society are fully behind the government's desire to drive the Rohingya out, completely regardless of whether thousands of innocent people could lose their right to a family, to a home, and to a life, in the coming weeks.
How ironic. For years these "human rights defenders" and "political activists" have fought against the state military, tirelessly risking their lives to expose injustice and human rights abuses. The moment the country starts to reform, they completely forget about the atrocities the military has committed, and come out with statements condoning decades of oppression and harassment of the Rohingya people.
Prominent student leader, Ko Ko Gyi,
said: "The Rohingya people are not an ethnic group of Burma and they are invading our country and sovereignty." These are not the words of a human rights champion; they are words which could have been muttered from the former regime leader, Than Shwe, who put Gyi in prison for nearly two decades for his political beliefs.
Inside Story: What is behing Myanmar's ethnic unrest?
Suu Kyi's role
It was
General Aung San, the father of democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, who said that all those in the country at the time of independence could consider themselves citizens. During Myanmar's first democratic period, under U Nu, there were four Rohingya MPs, and Rohingya was a recognised ethnicity. It was not until the first military dictatorship, under Ne Win, that the Rohingya were denied Myanmar citizenship. Those in the democracy movement, who now say the Rohingya should leave Myanmar, are going against Aung San, U Nu, and siding with the military dictatorship they have been struggling against for years.
Ironically, days after receiving a Nobel peace prize, Suu Kyi
told reporters she "did not know" if Rohingya were "Burmese". What a disgrace. Suu Kyi is, by not speaking out, also condoning the very military oppression she has spent years fighting against, and in three words completely turning a blind eye to the human rights abuses she would be a fool to not know will subsequently be committed.
Perhaps instead, some leader, some democracy champion, supposedly such as herself, would stand up and say: "Rohingya people have been in Myanmar for, at the very least, 60 years. Whether they are an ethnic group or not, it doesn't matter, we must protect their human rights; racism and xenophobia are wrong and are constructs and rationale of the military dictatorship propaganda designed to divide and rule Myanmar's people. We must make sure riots never take place in Myanmar again, through understanding and reconciliation between all communities."
The main source of concern for the countless people of Myanmar who believe the Rohingya should be taken to a third country stems from a very few, tiny radical Rohingya armed groups which have emerged, and disappeared, over the years.
Despite the concerns, there was never a threatening armed revolt, and their influence was minimal. To make 99.9 per cent of the Rohingya population suffer, for a few individuals, or groups, is wrong. Most Rohingya hope for nothing more than to live in peace in a land they have known all their lives. The other notion is that the Rohingya are invaders - there is an idea that hundreds of Bangladeshi are flocking into Arakan state every day. In reality, this is completely nonsensical. Arakan state is horrendously poor, which is why countless Rohingya have fled Myanmar since Ne Win took power, and following several state offensives to drive the Rohingya out of Myanmar.
Myanmar's Rohingya forced back to sea
There is a thin line between ethnic cleansing and genocide. Hitler carried out ethnic cleansing on Jewish communities for years before he attempted genocide. With the whole country, including the democracy movement, seemingly behind the government's plans to expel the Rohingya, urgent intervention is needed to save the Rohginya from a humanitarian crisis, and the potential for a violent campaign by the state, alongside Rhakine extremists backed by local authorities.
The two communities should not be separated as the government plans; instead there is an urgent need to bring the communities back together, and return the region to normality. Conflict resolution programmes and development is needed as soon as possible. The longer the two communities are apart, the more radicalisation - of both groups - will fester, and whether the government allows it to take place, supports it, or just turns a blind eye, a return to some form of violence will be almost inevitable.
Now is not the time to argue about century-old history, or the origin of the word "Rohingya", nor is it the time to discuss when the Rohingya arrived in Arakan state. The nation's people should accept the Rohingya are not going to just be shipped off to another country. Instead of inciting counter productive anti-Rohingya campaigns, Myanmar's democracy activists, human rights defenders, and vibrant civil society, should immediately address the impending humanitarian crisis and potential devastation of the Rohingya people.
There is no doubt that some Rohingya are guilty of terrorising Rhakine people during the recent riots, but this does not mean that hundreds of thousands of Rohingya, including countless women and children, deserve to starve to death, or be driven off a land they call home.
William Lloyd George is a freelance correspondent focusing on under-reported stories around the globe.
Follow him on Twitter: @W_LloydGeorge
Source: Al Jazeera
Report denounces Myanmar attacks on Rohingya
Amnesty denounces security forces and local Buddhists for state-sponsored attacks on Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine state.
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Human Rights group Amnesty International has accused security forces and ethnic Rakhine Buddhists of carrying out fresh, targeted attacks against Rohingya, the Muslim minority group in Myanmar.
Violence in the last six weeks has been "primarily one-sided, with Muslims generally and Rohingya specifically the targets and victims,'' Benjamin Zawacki, a Bangkok-based researcher for Amnesty, said on Friday.
"Some of this is by the security forces' own hands, some by Rakhine Buddhists with the security forces turning a blind eye in some cases,'' he said.
The violence, which reached its bloodiest point in June, constituted some of the country's deadliest sectarian bloodshed in years and raised international concerns about the Rohingya's fate inside Myanmar.
http://www.aljazeera.com/video/asia/2012/07/201272020355091312.html
Following a series of isolated killings starting in late May that left victims on both sides, bloody skirmishes quickly spread across much of Myanmar's coastal Rakhine state.
The government declared a state of emergency on June 10, deploying troops to quell the unrest and protect both mosques and monasteries.
The worst of the violence subsided two weeks later, and authorities said at least 78 people were killed and thousands of homes were burned down or destroyed, with damages roughly split evenly between Buddhists and Muslims.
Refugee problem
Thein Sein, Myanmar's president, said earlier this month that the solution to ethnic enmity in Rakhine state was to either send the Rohingya to a third country or have the United Nations refugee agency look after them.
UNHCR chief Antonio Guterres said, however, that it was not his agency's job to resettle the Rohingya.
One month after sectarian violence swept across northwestern Myanmar, Rohingya refugees are now fleeing to Bangladesh by the boatload, in a bid to escape the violence.
Despite their plight, Bangladesh is stepping up its efforts to stop refugees from crossing over.
Amnesty called on Myanmar to accept the Rohingya as citizens, something the government has staunchly opposed because it does not consider them an ethnic group native to Myanmar.
"Under international human rights law and standards, no one may be left or rendered stateless,'' Amnesty's Zawacki said.
"For too long Myanmar's human rights record has been marred by the continued denial of citizenship for Rohingya and a host of discriminatory practices against them.''
Source: Al Jazeera And Agencies
Rohingya and the forces of Genocide
http://www.thestateless.com/2016/11/21/rohingya-and-the-forces-of-genocide/
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By Haroon Yousuf, France, The Stateless Rohingya
A victim of military persecution house-arrest for almost 15 years after winning a landslide election in 1990, Aung San Suu Kyi succeeded the election in second round in 2015 controlling both houses of parliaments and states' parliaments. She has called for "Rule of Law" to promote liberty and bring justice and development of the country before the election, however when ...
See more
Rohingya and the forces of Genocide
By Haroon Yousuf, France Rohingya are an indigenous people of Kingdom of Arakan. After the Burmese occupation from 1784 to 1826, British had ruled Burma with the merge of independent Arakan from 18…
THESTATELESS.COM
Tuhin Malik
11 hrs ·
