No Excuse for Violence: Obama Tells Burma

[Hammer-fist]

Kachins and the junta are to sign a cease-fire deal.

Burma's government and ethnic Kachin rebels have reached a deal that could pave the way for an end to their conflict.

BBC News - The Burmese government reaches deal with Kachin rebels

 

[Hammer-fist]

KIO chairman calls for a federal union

Wednesday, 06 February 2013 15:13 Nay Myo

Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) Chairman Zaung Khara said that his people “hope for and expect” the establishment of a federal union in Myanmar.


His speech was read out on February 5 in New Delhi at a thanksgiving ceremony to mark the 53rd anniversary of Kachin Revolution Day.

“The right to self-determination and a federal union is impossible under the 2008 Constitution, therefore the political dialogue sought by the country’s ethnic nationalities must be conducted outside the boundaries of this Constitution,” the KIO chairman said.

Speaking to Mizzima on the sidelines of the three-hour prayer meeting, one of the organizers, Ja New, said that the Kachin people would do everything they could to achieve genuine peace and transform the country into a federal union.

“The ethnic Kachin people will exist forever in this revolutionary movement,” she said. “They will continue their march toward a federal union, which is something that is desired and expected by all ethnic peoples.”

A mass was held at the church and photos of Kachin war refugees were exhibited. The congregation then prayed for the souls of the fallen, for the victims of the war, and for the Kachin soldiers at the frontlines.

“We are happy to see peace talks between the KIO and the Burmese government,” said Ja New. “And we will be glad of a ceasefire in Kachin State. After that, the door for political dialogue is open. We see hope for peace in our state after hearing that there will be another round of peace talks in February.”

This ceremony was attended by members of the ethnic Chin community. A Kachin Christian choir played a violin symphony in honor of the occasion.

Other Kachin Revolution Day ceremonies were held in various places in Myanmar and abroad, including events at the KIO headquarters in Laiza and a ceremony in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

The KIO and its armed wing, the Kachin Independence Army were formed on February 5, 1961.

KIO chairman calls for a federal union

 

[kalu_miah]

I have to give credit where its due. This a good thread by Hammer. Thanks for standing up for people who are fighting for justice and basic human rights and bringing their news to people of this forum.

 

[Hammer-fist]

Nearly 1,000 Muslim Rohingyas incarcerated in Arakan state


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Comments (0)By HANNA HINDSTROM
Published: 11 February 2013

Muslims who escaped sectarian violence in Arakan state gather on beach near a refugee camp outside of the state capital Sittwe on 30 October 2012. (Reuters)

Nearly 1,000 Muslim Rohingyas, including women and children as young as ten, remain incarcerated in northern Arakan state – accused of inciting sectarian clashes last year – where campaigners say they are subject to “pervasive” abuses and at least 68 people are believed to have died in custody.

New data obtained by DVB shows that torture and violence, including the sexual exploitation of minors, is widespread throughout prisons in northern Arakan state, where at least 966 Rohingyas have been detained since November last year. At least 10 women and 72 children, aged between 10 and 15 years old, are understood to be among the prisoners.

An estimated 1,600 Rohingyas were initially arrested in northern Arakan state after two bouts of sectarian clashes with local Buddhists, although many were later released after paying bribes “as high as 20 million kyats (USD$23,350)” to local officials, Chris Lewa from the Arakan Project told DVB. Some of the prisoners were initially held together with Buddhists, where they faced regular beatings – often with the support of authorities.

“Every day a group of 10 to 15 new prisoners were taken out of their ward and beaten by jail police and Rakhine [Arakanese] prisoners,” said a 70-year-old former inmate in Buthidaung jail, who was initially sentenced to five years, but later released. “Elderly Muslim prisoners, including me, were ordered to put the dead bodies into sacks and leave them at the jail gate. The dead bodies were taken away at night.”

Sixty-two deaths were recorded in Buthidaung jail alone, where prisoners also reported being forced to shower naked in public and routinely subjected to torture and sexual humiliation.

“Many [new inmates] had no clothes and it was clear that many had been badly tortured before their arrival in Buthidaung jail,” another former inmate said. “Some had broken bones; others knife injuries – some with cuts on their head and some on other parts of their body.“

The figures seen by DVB roughly correspond with government statistics released in December, which suggested that 849 Bengalis – the term officially used for the stateless Rohingya – were among the 1,121 people detained for their role in last year’s violence, which displaced over 125,000 people. Some 233 Arakanese were also in detention at the time, although many have since been released.

Aye Maung, who was recently released from Sittwe jail along with nine other Buddhists accused of burning down a Muslim village, told DVB that 85 percent of the remaining 200 prisoners were Rohingya. He added that Arakanese inmates were treated as they would have been back in the “junta times” unless they “complained” about their conditions. But he insisted that Buddhists and Muslims were kept separately and “there were no problems” between the communities.

“Speaking to Rakhine in Sittwe, civil society groups have put a lot of pressure on the authorities to release them,” said Lewa. “They even said it was unjust that they had been arrested, that it was the Rohingya that set fire to their own houses. It seems to confirm that the Rakhine can get out a lot easier than the Rohingya.”

Roughly 800,000 Muslim Rohingya live in northwestern Burma, where they are viewed as illegal Bengali immigrants and denied basic rights, including citizenship. The state government was accused of siding with the Buddhist Arakanese in last year’s clashes.

“Many [new inmates] had no clothes and it was clear that many had been badly tortured before their arrival”
Many of the detained Arakanese have been charged with lesser offences, including breaching the curfew imposed by the president in June, which usually carries sentences of less than six months. But most of the Rohingya have been targeted with draconian sections of Burma’s penal code, which carry sentences of up to 13 years.

A number of prominent Muslim leaders have also been detained in what campaigners describe as an “arbitrary” campaign to silence those with connections to the international community or media.

Kyaw Hla Aung, a lawyer and former worker for Médecins Sans Frontières, was one of several aid workers arrested in June after being accused of having links to Al-Qaeda. He was released in August only after sustained pressure from the aid group and the international community.

“I am the only lawyer among the Rohingya people so they are worried that I can communicate with others and I have the political knowledge so they are afraid of me,” he told DVB during a recent field visit to Sittwe.

Similarly, Dr Tun Aung, a retired doctor and Islamic community leader, was sentenced to 11 years in jail in November after “sending news abroad” and allegedly failing to notify the authorities about potential violence. He was convicted at a closed trial – and many of his witnesses reported being blocked from travelling to court to testify in his defence.

His family says they have not been allowed to visit or even speak to him over the phone since his arrest in June. His daughter, Thiri, told DVB that the entire family is “very worried about his health” and fear that the 65-year-old has been tortured.

“This is by far one of the worst examples, where freedom of all forms – professional freedom, freedom of expression and the rights of a person who is charged with a crime – have been violated by the state authorities in Burma,” said Bijo Francis from the Asian Human Rights Commission.

The International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) has recently resumed prison visits in the former pariah state, which is eventually expected to include Arakan state, but a spokesperson admitted that they will “not question the reasons for arrests” and none of their findings will be made publicly available.

Lewa further warned that a number of inmates in northern Arakan state had been threatened not to speak to the ICRC or risk being killed.

President Thein Sein’s government has been credited for introducing dramatic democratic reforms in Burma, including freeing political prisoners and easing media restrictions. On Thursday, state media announced the formation of a commission to investigate how many political prisoners remain in Burma, but rights groups have raised questions over its independence and scope. The government declined to comment.

-Min Lwin contributed additional reporting.

http://www.dvb.no/uncategorized/nearly-1000-muslim-rohingyas-incarcerated-in-arakan-state/26305

 

[eastwatch]

A criticizing post like this is not trolling or derailing the topic

Im rejuvinating the thread topic which is lost in the stars when the only objective was the moon

Apart from what you imagine with your NASHWAR-fed brain, Bangladesh is not as insignifact as your favourite Burma. BD's GDP is more than three times that of Burma. We soon will beat your country, say, within the next five years. So, Mr. Icepig do not come and brag in this section. Go and talk to your favourite Indian sub-forum. They are there to slap you on the face, verbally though.

 

[Hammer-fist]

Religious persecution, rape still evident in Kachin State


Friday, 15 February 2013 18:38 Mizzima News

A UNHCR-supported camp in northern Myanmar for people displaced by conflict in Kachin state. Photo: UNHCR/A. Kirchhof

Sixty-six Christian churches have been burnt down in Kachin state since the conflict erupted in June 2011, according to the Kachin Women’s Association of Thailand (KWAT), a figure that is backed by Myitkyina-based Kachin Baptist Convention.

Speaking at a seminar at Chiang Mai University on Friday, Julia Marip of KWAT said that the burning of churches by Myanmar government forces amounts to religious persecution.

Also on Friday, a group of Roman Catholic bishops in Kachin State called for peace.

According to website CatholicCulture, spokesman Bishop Francis Daw Tang of Myitkyina said, “As a church, we walk with our displaced people, watch their lives being destroyed by war, their families fragmented by the depressing life in the displaced camps.”

He accused government forces were waging “unequal warfare” on Christian holy days.

Kwat’s Marip said there are now 100,000 people displaced by the conflict in Kachin State, 60,000 of whom are sheltered at the Sino-Myanmar border or other areas under Kachin rebel control, and 40,000 in areas under government control.

Marip said her organization had continuing evidence of systematic rape by Myanmar troops against Kachin and other ethnic women. She said KWAT had recorded 30 incidents where 64 women or girls had been sexually assaulted in Kachin State since the conflict began.

“But there could be many more cases that we have not been able to document,” she said, explaining that NGOs were unable to make contact with many rural areas and villages under government control.

“Half of those women raped were killed afterward,” she said.

Religious persecution, rape still evident in Kachin State

 

[Hammer-fist]

Norway slammed for silence on ‘stateless’ Rohingya

Comments (0)By HANNA HINDSTROM
Published: 1 March 2013

President Thein Sein (R) meets with Norway's Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg in Oslo on 26 February 2013. (Reuters)
The Norwegian government has been criticised for failing to pressure the Burmese government on the statelessness of the Rohingya minority during a landmark visit by President Thein Sein to the Scandinavian country this week.

Activists say they are disappointed that the government failed to press Thein Sein on citizenship rights for the Muslim minority in western Burma, who are considered one the world’s most persecuted peoples by the UN.

“Norway has performed a shocking u-turn from being one of the countries which did the most to support Burma’s democracy movement to one which now won’t even speak up for the most vulnerable and desperate people in Burma,” Mark Farmaner from Burma Campaign UK told DVB.

It follows news that both the Norwegian prime minister and foreign minister have explicitly declared the issue of Rohingya citizenship to be an internal Burmese affair.

“We brought up this issue [the conflict in Arakan], of course. It is a serious situation. We ask that all people who live in Burma are treated with respect according to the human rights,” Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg told Aftenposten.

“But there are disagreements regarding citizenship. In that regard we have encouraged dialogue, but we will not demand that Burma’s government give citizenship to the Rohingyas.”

The Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide insisted that a nation is “not obligated to give citizenship to everybody who is living there.”

“This is not something we are going to demand. Some critical voices talk as if all nations would have received people from neighbouring nations and made them citizens. We think this is a conflict that can be resolved through economic development and local reconciliation processes.”

More than 125,000 people have been displaced in western Burma after two bouts of vicious ethno-religious clashes between Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims last year. The Rohingya are considered illegal Bengali immigrants by the government and are denied basic civic rights, including access to health and education.

Oddny Gumaer from Partners Relief and Development told DVB that she was “shocked” by Eide’s comments, which seem to back the quasi-civilian regime’s claim that Rohingyas are not legitimate citizens, even though many have lived in the country for generations. The right to citizenship is also enshrined in international law.

“I cannot believe that a man with his influence would say what he did,” said Gumaer. “I am considering writing him a letter asking him if he really believes the government’s line about the Rohingya being illegal immigrants. It is wrong and ugly.”

Farmaner agreed that his comments “cross the line into defending the Burmese government’s violation of international law and its treaty obligations.”

“To imply the Rohingya are from neighbouring countries will only encourage extremists to commit more acts of violence against them. The Norwegian government’s approach to Burma now appears to be completely without principle.”

The Norwegian government has played a leading role in bringing the former pariah state back into the global economic fold, including funding a controversial peace initiative in Burma’s volatile border regions, which critics say could destabilise the ethnic reconciliation process.

In an exclusive interview with DVB this week, Thein Sein thanked Oslo for its continued economic support in lifting sanctions and waiving up to US$3 billion in debts owed to the global financial group – known as the Paris Club. Norway was the first western country to shed economic sanctions against the regime.

“Most significantly, when we talked with Paris Club members regarding the debt we owed them for decades – at first they were reluctant on the percentage they can provide and the percentage they will wave off,” Thein Sein told DVB.

“But then Norway, taking the lead, waved off 50 percent of the debts and also 50 percent more from the additional debt and other countries followed suit,” referring to another US$3 billion later dropped by the Japanese government.

Gumaer described the two governments’ public declarations to “strengthen economic ties” as “telling”. Burmese state media also welcomed future investment by Norway in the country’s “energy, information and technology sectors”.

“It seems to me that our leaders are mostly busy making sure that we get lucrative business deals in the country now that we (Norway) have given them so much money and aid,” Gumaer told DVB.

But a spokesperson for the Norwegian government insisted that there should be “no unclarity” on their message. “Long-term stability in Myanmar [Burma] will depend on continued political reforms, respect for human rights and a more equitable distribution of income and wealth.”

Norway slammed for silence on