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Myanmar General Discussion (non military)

Cox's Bazar Rohingya camps will be shifted to a better location: PM


Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at a meeting with the officials of the disaster management and relief ministry on Thursday said the camps would be shifted to a 'better location', according to her press secretary AKM Shamim Chowdhury.

Rohingya refugees would be shifted to a bigger area as they now live in a very inhumane condition in slums, Chowdhury further quoted her as saying.

The prime minister said the area to be vacated near the beach in Cox’s Bazar would be used for developing tourism.

According to official statistics, there are 34,000 Rohingya refugees living in Bangladesh, but unofficial figures suggest it to be somewhere between 200,000 and 300,000.

Cox's Bazar Rohingya camps will be shifted to a better location: PM -
bdnews24.com



Seems like BD going to rehabilitate them which I strongly support.
 
Time to say enough and divide Arakan between Muslim and Others.

Finally you make your point. You want a Bengali Muslim breakaway state in Arakan that would eventually join into Bangladesh. Well, that will never happen.

Cox's Bazar Rohingya camps will be shifted to a better location: PM


Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at a meeting with the officials of the disaster management and relief ministry on Thursday said the camps would be shifted to a 'better location', according to her press secretary AKM Shamim Chowdhury.

Rohingya refugees would be shifted to a bigger area as they now live in a very inhumane condition in slums, Chowdhury further quoted her as saying.

The prime minister said the area to be vacated near the beach in Cox’s Bazar would be used for developing tourism.

According to official statistics, there are 34,000 Rohingya refugees living in Bangladesh, but unofficial figures suggest it to be somewhere between 200,000 and 300,000.

Cox's Bazar Rohingya camps will be shifted to a better location: PM -
bdnews24.com



Seems like BD going to rehabilitate them which I strongly support.

I support this too. May they live well in Bangladesh.
 
Finally you make your point. You want a Bengali Muslim breakaway state in Arakan that would eventually join into Bangladesh. Well, that will never happen.

Bringing all the muslim to muslim country is never a target. They should remain in Burma and convert the rest.
 
Report accuses Myanmar generals of war crimes

Military activities carried out by Myanmar's powerful minister of home affairs when the country was under army dictatorship could constitute war crimes, a new study has said.

Human rights researchers at Harvard Law School said in the report released on Friday that there was evidence that Home Affairs Minister Ko Ko and two other generals were responsible for the executions, torture and enslavement of civilians by troops during a large-scale offensive against ethnic rebels of the Karen state between 2005 and 2008.

The researchers from the law school's International Human Rights Clinic said that they had details of 66 prosecutable crimes against humanity.

Ko Ko is now in command of internal security, overseeing the police force. His two colleagues at the time, Brigadier General Khin Zaw Oo and Brigadier General Maung Maung Aye, have also been promoted to positions of greater responsibility.

Charges against the three men include "the war crimes of attacking civilians, displacing civilians, destroying or seizing the enemy's property, pillage, murder, execution without due process, torture, and outrages upon personal dignity, and the crimes against humanity of forcible transfer of a population, murder, enslavement, torture, and other inhumane acts,'' the report stated.

Matthew Bugher, the Global Justice Fellow at Harvard Law School and principle researcher with the Human Rights Clinic, told Al Jazeera that with the report they were not calling for the prosecution or the referral of Ko Ko, who was head of the army's Southern Command during that offensive, and his two high-ranking colleagues to the International Criminal Court.

"Our agenda is more to start a conversation about these issues," Bugher said via Skype from Myanmar's capital Yangon. "We think that human rights issues have not been considered enough in discussions about transition and reform in Myanmar."

Bugher said that he presented the report to the government and the country's defence ministry and that while there were fundamental differences with the government on how allegations should be addressed, defence officials did not agree on the facts.

Government response

The government responded by saying much of what happens during times of conflict is unavoidable and this is a time to look forward, not back.
"We are going through a democratic transition," Nay Zin Latt, one of the president's political advisers and an ex-army officer told the AP news agency. "Everyone should be encouraging the reform process rather than putting further obstacles along the way."

Bugher said that the Myanmar's reforms, especially the expansion of media freedom, was indeed remarkable. But he added that with President Barack Obama and other world leaders heading to Myanmar for the ASEAN summit next week, he hoped that they would "push for accountability of human rights abuses".

"We urge international leaders not to be swayed by the government's rhetoric that you cannot discuss the military in these conversations," Bugher told Al Jazeera. "We believe you must discuss those things."

The researchers also mentioned in the report that they spent three years collecting information about the government's counterinsurgency efforts in Myanmar's Karen state along the country's eastern border with Thailand.

The Harvard findings come at an especially sensitive time, as a civilian government - which is still dominated by the military - that took power in 2011 grapples with a transition to full democracy after nearly five decades of military rule.

Report accuses Myanmar generals of war crimes - Asia-Pacific - Al Jazeera English
 
The myths of reform in ‘Myanmar’
President Obama next week heads to Naypyidaw, the capital of Myanmar — where one of the world’s most oppressive regimes has been turned around by his persistence and wise policies.

The above is “true” in the sense that you can soon take your child to Macy’s to meet the real, live Santa.

For starters, the place is sliding backward, reverting to its bad old tricks — something Obama is likely to ignore.

Then, too, the name “Myanmar” is an invention of the military junta that ruled the nation openly for decades, and still does beneath a thin veneer of democracy.

By rejecting the old name, Burma, the junta appealed (with too much success) for legitimacy in the eyes of the world’s politically correct, anti-colonialist elite.

And the junta built Naypyidaw deep in the jungle in order to move the seat of government away from the people. Its well-built road are clean and sparkling — because very few cars ever ride them.

Why visit this monument to oppression? Well, consider Obama’s foreign-policy address at West Point back in May: “Only a few years ago, Myanmar was an intractable dictatorship and hostile to the United States,” he said.

But now, thank to its people’s courage and “American leadership,” Obama added, “we have seen political reforms opening a once-closed society; a movement by Burmese leadership away from partnership with North Korea in favor of engagement with America and our allies.”

Whatever the name, Burma is a far from indispensable nation. By picking it as a highlight of his foreign-policy record, Obama was effectively conceding that his other “successeses” look pretty dismal.

Then, too, that US-led global pressure — the reason the junta felt obliged to enact the reforms Obama so proudly hails as his own success — started under Obama’s predecessor. (Thanks, in large degree, to First Lady Laura Bush, who pushed the appalling oppression there to a high spot on her husband’s foreign agenda).

More crucially: Like George W. Bush’s “mission accomplished” moment, Obama was too quick to declare Burma a success.

Two years ago, the president grandly commended the “reformed” country and became the first sitting US president to visit.

And he pushed to rapidly remove many of the international sanctions on the junta’s leaders — the sanctions that had forced them to discard their fatigues for suits and ties.

Presto: With sanctions gone, the ex-generals reverted back to form. President Thein Sein, an ex-general, is now busy making sure his much-hailed reforms never materialize.

The war on minorities, in Kachin and other states, is intensifying. This week,authorities exhumed the body of Par Gyi, a freelance reporter killed while in army custody, sending chills down the spines of independent journalists.

And Myanmar’s, er, reformers are hard at work securing their hold on power by maintaining the ban on Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi’s participation in next year’s presidential race.

After Suu Kyi won a landslide victory in the 1990 presidential election, the junta put her under house arrest, turning her into the worldwide-recognized symbol of their oppression.

They didn’t release her until 20 years later, under heavy international pressure, while also easing some restrictions on political opponents and starting to open their closed society to the world.

Finally open for business, the beautiful country quickly became a new tourist destination. Even its most ardent critics were getting used to calling it Myanmar, though the name symbolizes their brutal rule. (It was never approved by the Burmese people.)

Burma this year even presides over Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the economic bloc that had once shunned it. (ASEAN’s summit is the official reason for Obama’s visit next week.)

But it isn’t really allied with America, as Obama said. Its strongest ties are with China.

And, rather than adopting our values, the regime is becoming a Beijing clone — not just barring Suu Kyi from running, but assuring that no serious opponent can threaten them in the coming elections.

By all accounts, Obama (who’ll also visit China next week) isn’t planning to anger Beijing by pressuring its Burmese allies too hard. He’ll make the obligatory visit to Suu Kyi in Rangoon.

But he’ll be hands-off when dealing with Burma’s true powers.

After removing almost all sanctions, prematurely praising reforms and declaring the junta-in-civilian-drag an ally, he has very little leverage left. So why bother? Better let “Myanmar” be, and praise its progress.

After all, it’s a sign of Obama’s foreign-policy success, no?

The myths of reform in ‘Myanmar’ | New York Post
 
Obama’s Myanmar Objectives | The Diplomat
Obama’s Myanmar Objectives

The U.S. president will visit Myanmar next week. Here’s what to expect.

By Steve Hirsch
November 07, 2014

The U.S. government is hoping that President Barack Obama’s November 12-14 Myanmar trip will yield clear statements from that country’s government on the Rakhine crisis and other key issues, a senior administration official told The Diplomat this week.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity as Obama prepares to visit Myanmar on a three-country Asia swing. The trip comes before 2015 elections in Myanmar, and as some are questioning the authenticity of reform there and whether Washington is being tough enough on the Naypyitaw government.

Key issues for many Myanmar observers include continuing sectarian violence in Rakhine state, constitutional reform, conduct of the elections – including whether opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi will be allowed to run – and the potential for a ceasefire with ethnic groups battling the government.

The main purpose of Obama’s trip, the official said, is for Obama to attend the East Asia Summit in Naypyitaw, where he will also attend the U.S.-ASEAN summit. However, while there he will also meet with Myanmar President Thein Sein, and will meet with Suu Kyi in Yangon November 14.

The administration, the official said, sees the trip as an opportunity to “check in on the reform process, which I think we can all agree has slowed as things have gotten more difficult and we get closer to the 2015 elections.”

The official said the administration hopes “to come out of this trip with sort of a clear statement of where the Burmese government stands” on a number of important issues.

The administration would hope for “clear commitments to take actions on the Rakhine state, for example.”

It would also like to see “a clear statement by the government that their intention is to reform the constitution, to move closer to democracy, that it is their intention to finalize a genuine sort of national ceasefire in the short term and that their intention is to ensure that the preparations and the conduct of the 2015 election are done in a free and fair manner.”

The official said that the theme for much of the trip would be that while the administration recognizes that Myanmar has “taken some initial steps that were very positive, really put it on a different trajectory … there are still a lot of really hard challenges to be overcome, a lot of really hard choices that still need to get made” and how the United States can help make sure the country “stays on the path toward democratization.”

She said Obama’s tone would be a mixture of pressuring and laudatory.

“There are some areas where they’ve continued to make progress,” she said, “specifically on some of the labor reforms, things of that nature, but then on the other areas, they have some very difficult things that they need to do and that they have not yet stepped up to.”

On Rakhine, for example, she said Naypyitaw has not addressed “the sort of root causes of the instability and the tension, namely the status of the Rohingya and other Muslim minorities.”

The government also has not moved seriously to resettle displaced people or to foster reconciliation, she said, while there are still more than 100,000 in internal refugee camps.

In addition, she said, constitutional reform is “still very much an active process” and the administration wants “to be as encouraging as we can to make real democratic reforms to the constitution.”

Issues on the table include removing language that gives the military a veto over constitutional amendments and language barring Suu Kyi from running for president next year, and how ethnic groups will fit into Myanmar’s government.

The administration has told the government in Naypyitaw that if it wants next year’s elections to be judged as a credible step toward true democracy, there are things it must do, “and that means devolving power away from the military and to a civilian elected government,” the official said.

It also means that the election “not only has to be free and fair on the day of elections, but the process has to be fair, the playing field has to be level, you have to make sure that the regulations allow all parties to have access to the media to campaign freely, that kind of thing, that’s the kind of messages they’re hearing,” she said.

“If you want, on the day after the election, for the international community to say … this 2015 election has really moved the ball forward and Burma is on the track to a genuine democratic transition, you can’t get there without addressing these issues,” she said.

She also said she thinks it is “understood” that a further improvement in relations with the United States depends on these sorts of actions. An additional lifting of sanctions, for example, “I think, will absolutely be tied to additional reform measures, and we’ve always made that clear.”

There may be other assistance, but “big grand gestures” such as lifting sanctions without further reforms is not likely, she said.

Asked whether Obama is likely to push for a statement from Myanmar authorities that Suu Kyi will be allowed to run, the official said she expects Obama’s focus not to be on “telling them specifically what they should do with their constitution.”

Rather, she said, the focus will be on “talking in sort of broad principles, that we want to see constitutional reform that moves power away from the military towards civilian control, that ensures that all of the people of Burma, including the ethnic nationalities, can participate fully in the country’s political processes.”

She said the administration would likely judge the value of reform steps in part on the basis of those sorts of principles “and part of it will be taking our cues from the people of Burma and whether or not they consider the 2015 election and the constitutional reforms to have taken them forward.”

Obama’s meeting with Suu Kyi, she said, is an opportunity for him to get Suu Kyi’s perspective on reforms and to share with her his strategy and thinking about next steps after he’s met with Thein Sein.

It will also, she said, give Obama a chance to hear how negotiations are going in Parliament and what her priorities are beyond big political questions.

“She’s also working very hard on a lot of the rule of law issues that we’re supporting with our assistance and it’s an opportunity for us to get a sense from her, sort of what are the things that we could doing that would be most impactful,” the official said.

The trip is not likely to yield major announcements, she said.

Two years after Obama’s first trip to the country, she said, “we’re checking in as reforms are getting a lot harder and slowing down because of that and wanting to make sure that we’re re-emphasizing that there are some key areas that really need to be addressed if this is going to be a successful transition.”

Steve Hirsch is a Washington, D.C.-based journalist who has reported extensively on Western policies toward Myanmar.
 
Bringing all the muslim to muslim country is never a target. They should remain in Burma and convert the rest.
If that is BD true intention, I support Myanmar's government policy of pacifying the region through the rule of law, and the respect off historical fact. I'm Bhuddhist and support for Bhuddhist state of Myanmar. I'm not for ethnic cleansing of government over minority. Myanmese government should solve the problem Bhuddhist way avoiding mass killing or massive push through the sea. Historical distortion is not acceptable. If Rohingya is truly the words describing the same group of people inherent from 300 + yrs ago, this is not historical distortion. If it was just invented within 100 yrs to justify something, that is the historical distortion and is dishonesty. I say this in general. There must be more study before further judgement, i think.
 
If that is BD true intention, I support Myanmar's government policy of pacifying the region through the rule of law, and the respect off historical fact. I'm Bhuddhist and support for Bhuddhist state of Myanmar. I'm not for ethnic cleansing of government over minority. Myanmese government should solve the problem Bhuddhist way avoiding mass killing or massive push through the sea. Historical distortion is not acceptable. If Rohingya is truly the words describing the same group of people inherent from 300 + yrs ago, this is not historical distortion. If it was just invented within 100 yrs to justify something, that is the historical distortion and is dishonesty. I say this in general. There must be more study before further judgement, i think.

1) Rule of Law -> Which rule of law? Myanmar monkey rule or the international rule of law subscribed by United Nations?

2) 100/300 Years - If somebody say I am something for the last 100 years rather than 300 years, how that make anybody wrong?Its the persons own prerogative to identify his own race or ethnicity not the other. It is your ill intention not Rohingyas.

3) Existence of Burma -> Burma came into existence in 1948 mandated that everybody within its territory became its citizen. It is only 1962 when citizenship of the Rohingya was stripped. So responsibility goes back to the wrongdoer and which is Burmese government. Citizenship was stripped in a wholesale basis and it has to be restored in a wholesale basis as well. Nobody will go to prove anything to Burmese as they did not ask for the proof in 1962 in the first place.

4) Burmese diaspora -> More than 10% of the Burmese accepted the citizenship of the foreign land that excludes Burmese native race which remains within the territory of Bangladesh and India in 1948. When Burmese can happily enjoy the goodwill of other nation but when comes to their own turn they just turn retard.
 
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AP Exclusive: Myanmar Profits off Rohingya Exodus
Helping them on their way: Myanmar's own security forces, who are profiting off the mass departure of one of the world's most persecuted minorities by extracting payments from those fleeing. A report to be released Friday by the Bangkok-based advocacy group Fortify Rights, and reporting by The Associated Press, indicate the practice is far more widespread and organized than previously thought, with Myanmar naval boats going so far as to escort asylum seekers out to larger human trafficking ships waiting at sea that are operated by transnational criminal networks.

"Myanmar authorities are not only making life so intolerable for Rohingya that they have to flee, they're also complicit in the process — they're taking payments and profiting off their exodus," said Matthew Smith, director of Fortify Rights.

Rakhine state spokesman Win Myaing dismissed the allegations as "rumors," saying he has not "heard of anything happening like that." He said any naval boats approaching such vessels were likely aiming to help fishermen in need.

More than 100,000 Rohingya have fled Myanmar's western shores by boat since Buddhist-Muslim violence erupted in Rakhine state two years ago, according to estimates provided by experts tracking their movements.

Chris Lewa, director of the advocacy group Arakan Project, said increasing desperation is behind a huge surge since Oct. 15, with an average of 900 people per day piling into cargo ships parked offshore. In Rakhine state, an aggressive campaign by authorities over the last few months to register family members and officially categorize them as "Bengalis" — implying they are illegal migrants from neighboring Bangladesh — has aggravated their situation.

The deepening crisis comes ahead of a visit by President Barack Obama to Myanmar next week for a regional summit, his second in two years. Obama, who has repeatedly pointed to democratic changes in Myanmar as a foreign policy bright spot, called President Thein Sein recently by telephone to express concerns about a reform process analysts say has been backsliding for months.

Myanmar, a predominantly Buddhist nation of 50 million that is still struggling to emerge from half a century of military rule, is home to an estimated 1.3 million Rohingya, and most are considered stateless. Though many of their families arrived from Bangladesh generations ago, almost all are denied citizenship by Myanmar as well as Bangladesh. In the last two and a half years, attacks by Buddhist mobs have left hundreds dead and 140,000 trapped in camps where they live without access to adequate health care, education or jobs.

Smith said authorities in Myanmar have been profiting off the Rohingya for decades, and extracting money from those departing was only one way. If Rohingya residents attempt to travel to neighboring villages without permission from local authorities, they risk being arrested and forced to pay bribes for their freedom, he said. The restrictions are so intense that even those who repair their own houses — which often crumble during the rainy season — can be fined if they do so without permission.

AP Exclusive: Myanmar Profits off Rohingya Exodus - ABC News
 
U.S. commission urges Obama to meet persecuted Rohingya in Myanmar

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(Reuters) - A U.S. government agency called on President Barack Obama on Thursday to meet with Rohingya Muslims and other minorities when he visits Myanmar this month and to press the government to act to prevent "serious and alarming violence" against them.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom also said the United States should continue to use sanctions against officials and individuals in Myanmar responsible for religious persecution and consider a binding agreement with the government linking the lifting of sanctions to rights reform.

"The political reform process in Burma is at great risk of deteriorating if religious freedom and the right to equal treatment under the law are not honored and protected," the commission said in a report after its first visit to predominately Buddhist Myanmar, also known as Burma.

"USCIRF is concerned that recent openings have coincided with serious and alarming violence against religious and ethnic minorities."

The report from the commission, an independent, bipartisan agency funded by the U.S. government, said attacks against Muslims, particularly stateless Rohingya Muslims, as well as Christians, had continued with impunity and the government appeared "unable or unwilling to address the abuses."

The commission called the situation faced by Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine state "appalling" and said its four-member team was "struck by the bigotry and chauvinism exhibited by important religious figures within the Buddhist community."

The report highlighted proposed legislation to restrict religious conversions and marriages between people of different faiths and said this had "no place in the 21st century."

It urged Obama to meet Rohingya and other Muslims, Christians and activists when he visits Myanmar next week to attend regional summits.

The U.S. government, it said, should show solidarity by using the term "Rohingya," despite objections by government officials, and said U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry had disappointed Rohingyas by failing to do so on a visit in August.

"The United States and the international community need to ensure that religious freedom and related human rights remain a high priority in their engagement with the Burmese government while also assisting those in Burma subject to religious-based abuses," the report said.

The report said the abuses underlined the appropriateness of the continued designation of Myanmar as a "country of particular concern" by the State Department under the U.S. Religious Freedom Act and a U.S. arms embargo linked to this.

It said the U.S. should consider a binding framework linking an end to this designation to progress on religious freedom and other human rights issues.

Myanmar launched widespread economic and political reforms in 2011, convincing the West to suspend most sanctions on the country. However, Washington maintains a blacklist and imposed sanctions on a prominent lawmaker and businessman on Friday for undermining reforms.

Obama urged the protection of minorities in an Oct. 30 call to Myanmar President Thein Sein. He stressed the importance of addressing the humanitarian situation in Rakhine state and measures to support Rohingya rights.


U.S. commission urges Obama to meet persecuted Rohingya in Myanmar| Reuters
 
@somsak @alaungphaya Bangladesh is a overpopulated country with entire plain of river delta, they aren't going to take any people into Bangladesh from Burma. During Partition of India, they were eying entire North-East and West Bengal for eastern wing of Pakistan to populate those land with Bengali Muslims. But such dreams was thwarted particularly by the local Assamese Congress leader Gopinath Bordoloi and Bengal was partitioned between India and Pakistan and Jinnah came up with 'moth eaten Pakistan' comment. ;)

Although Bangladesh was given Chittagong Hill tract which has 97% Chakma Buddhist majority as a buffer for Chittagong port(now they had been reduced to minority. One more fact, Hindus formed around 27% of Bangladesh's population in 1951, they are now mere 8-9% of the population, they were even wiped out from the Hindu majority Khulna district. The main culprit is the enemy property act they have in Bangladesh.
 
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