Rohingya Ethnic Cleansing - Updates & Discussions

[Banglar Bir]

Rohingya crisis: Saudi Arabia stays silent on growing humanitarian disaster despite oil interests and historic ties
Burma's Muslims fled persecution in 1960s and found sanctuary under protection of King Faisal. This time, the Gulf superpower has been far less forthcoming with offers of aid
Aya Batrawy
The Independent Online

A Saudi oil pipeline under construction near the Burmese border with China. Riyadh has oil and gas networks passing through Rakhine state, where Burma's persecuted Rohingya live, but has done little to help Eugene Hoshiko/AP

When Rohingya Muslims fled persecution and slaughter in Burma in past decades, tens of thousands found refuge in Saudi Arabia, home to Islam's holiest sites. This time around, Muslim leaders from the Persian Gulf to Pakistan have offered little more than condemnation and urgently needed humanitarian aid.

The lack of a stronger response by Muslim-majority countries partly comes down to their lucrative business interests in South East Asia, experts say. Much of the Middle East is also buckling under its own refugee crisis sparked by years of upheaval in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Afghanistan.

More than 500,000 people — roughly half the Rohingya Muslim population in Burma — have fled to neighbouring Bangladesh over the past year, mostly in the last month. The United Nations human rights chief has described Burma's military crackdown and allied Buddhist mob attacks as “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing.”

READ MORE
Red Cross truck carrying Rohingya aid in fatal crash after mob clashes
Saudi Arabia is already home to around a quarter-million Burmese people who took refuge in the kingdom under the late King Faisal in the 1960s. The kingdom pledged $15 million in aid to the Rohingya this week.

As the world's biggest oil exporter, Saudi Arabia competes with Russia to be China's top crude supplier. Expanding its footprint there requires Burma's help.

A recently opened pipeline running through Burma, also known as Burma, carries oil from Arab countries and the Caucuses to China's landlocked Yunnan Province. The 771-kilometre (479-mile) pipeline starts at the Bay of Bengal in western Burma's Rakhine state, from where most of the Rohingya have been forced out.

In 2011, a subsidiary of state oil giant Saudi Aramco and PetroChina, an arm of China's state-owned CNPC, signed a deal to supply China's southwestern Yunnan Province with up to 200,000 barrels per day of crude oil, just under half of the pipeline's capacity.

Saudi Aramco did not immediately respond to a request for comment on shipments through the pipeline.

“One could argue that Saudi Arabia is less likely to be outspoken on this (Rohingya) issue because it actually relies on the Burmese government to protect the physical security of the pipeline,” said Bo Kong, a senior associate at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies who has written about China's global petroleum policy.

The pipeline became operational in April following years of delays. It allows tankers to bypass the Strait of Malacca, cutting typical voyages by about seven days. A natural gas pipeline from Burma's Shwe gas field runs alongside it.

Daniel Wagner, founder of consulting firm Country Risk Solutions, said Saudi Arabia is moving ahead with its economic and political agenda in Burma and Southeast Asia, yet can still “claim to have stood the moral high-ground” by previously taking in refugees and providing financial aid.

“The important point is that natural gas and oil flows through Rakhine state,” he said.

Muslim-majority countries have been increasingly promising aid as the number of refugees swells in Bangladesh.

Azerbaijan, which also appears to be exporting crude to China through the pipeline, has ordered 100 tonnes of humanitarian aid to be dispatched.

Turkey, which like Iran jostles with Saudi Arabia to be the Islamic world's centre of influence, has mobilised millions of meals for refugees in Bangladesh and vowed to maintain a refugee camp there. It has also provided clothing, part of more than 150 tonnes of humanitarian aid supplied overall.

Iran, Saudi Arabia's regional rival, has sent at least 40 tonnes of aid. Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei recently took a swipe at other Muslim countries with business interests in Burma, urging them to ramp up pressure on the government there.

“There are tens of Muslim countries and governments, some of whom have financial and economic transactions with them,” he said. “If we sit somewhere and engage in condemnations, what is the use of this?”

Images of burnt Muslim villages in Burma and of traumatised and often barefoot Rohingya women, children and elderly crossing into Bangladesh sparked protests in several Muslim countries.
READ MORE
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India trying to deport 40,000 Rohingya Muslim 'terrorists'
A large rally was held to denounce the crisis in Indonesia, which is working to boost bilateral trade with Burma to $1 billion a year.

In Pakistan's largest city of Karachi, tens of thousands protested. Lawmaker Farhatullah Babar of the Pakistan People's Party has pushed his government to suspend or at least slow the implementation of defence agreements worth hundreds of millions of dollars with Myanmar.

He told the Associated Press that an official responded to his request by saying Pakistan is pressing Burma through diplomatic channels to stop the violence.

“Pakistan should not be seen as strengthening a regime that is using weapons against its own people,” Babar said. He declined to elaborate on the details of the defence agreements.

A report by IHS Jane's in February said Burma two years ago bought 16 JF-17 Thunder aircraft, co-developed by Pakistan and China. The defence weekly said Burma is now in advanced negotiations with Pakistan for licensed production of the fighter jet's advanced third-generation variant.

The 57-nation Organisation of Islamic Cooperation held an emergency session on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York this week to discuss the crisis.

The organisation, headquartered in Saudi Arabia, issued a lengthy statement earlier this month expressing “grave concern” over the exodus of Rohingya. But unless its member states take tougher action on their own, there is little the OIC can do to pressure Burma's government.

Jason von Meding, a specialist in disaster response at the University of Newcastle in Australia, said religious differences are not the only reason Rohingya are being forced out.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...on-rakhine-oil-bangladesh-china-a7958716.html

Monk-led mob attacks Rohingya refugees in Sri Lanka
Agence France-Presse
Published at 07:36 PM September 26, 2017

Myanmar has been accused of ethnically cleansing Rohingya minorityREUTERS
Sri Lanka's extremist Buddhist monks have close links with their ultra-nationalist counterparts in Myanmar
Radical Buddhist monks stormed a United Nations safe house for Rohingya refugees near Sri Lanka’s capital Tuesday and forced authorities to relocate the group, officials said.

Saffron-robed Buddhist monks led a mob that broke down gates and entered the walled multi-storied compound as frightened refugees huddled together in upstairs rooms, a police official said.

“We have pushed back the mob and the refugees will be relocated in a safer place,” the official told reporters, asking not to be named as he was not authorised to speak to the media.

The 31 Rohingya refugees were rescued by the Sri Lankan navy in May after they were found drifting in a boat off the island’s northern waters.

The Rohingya were eventually to be resettled in a third country, the official said, adding that they were authorised to remain in Sri Lanka pending the processing of their papers.

A monk who stormed into the building was filmed by his radical Sinhale Jathika Balamuluwa (Sinhalese National Force) as he urged others to join him and smash the premises.

“These are Rohingya terrorists who killed Buddhist monks in Myanmar,” the monk said in his live commentary on Facebook, pointing to Rohingya mothers with small children in their arms.

Sri Lanka’s extremist Buddhist monks have close links with their ultra-nationalist counterparts in Myanmar. Both have been accused of orchestrating violence against minority Muslims in the two countries.

The police official said the refugees were taken into “protective custody” and had been brought back to their safe house when the mob returned and started throwing stones.

Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims have fled Myanmar in the face of the current wave of violence in that country.

The Rohingya Muslims have been the target of decades of state-backed persecution and discrimination in mainly Buddhist Myanmar.

Many view them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, despite their long-established roots in the country.
http://www.dhakatribune.com/world/s...-led-mob-attacks-rohingya-refugees-sri-lanka/

 

[Banglar Bir]

12:00 AM, September 27, 2017 / LAST MODIFIED: 02:23 AM, September 27, 2017
Rohingyas: Where are the Saudis?

Khademul Islam
The Saudi response to the current Rohingya crisis, in contrast to previous ones, has been noticeably low-key. During past attempts by Myanmar at ethnic cleansing of the Rohingyas, Saudi Arabia would be in the lead in providing relief aid and taking up the cause in international forums.

It is the only Arab state to have openly supported the Rohingyas; in 2013, in a rare move for the kingdom, it publicly condemned Myanmar at a UN meet. Much earlier, King Faisal had offered stateless Rohingyas safe haven; later King Abdullah extended them residency permits and access to free education, healthcare and employment.

Today there are about 250,000 Myanmar Muslims in Saudi Arabia. Westerners have levelled broadsides at the Saudis for segregating them in slums, but with zero other options that criticism is neither here nor there. In the present crisis younger Arabs have been vocal on social media in supporting the Rohingyas and condemning Myanmar, but official Arab reactions have been routine and laggard. The lead this time was taken by Turkey and Indonesia, with an angered President Erdogan dispatching his wife on a high-profile visit to Bangladesh and the Indonesian foreign minister jetting in to Bangladesh and Myanmar to try and resolve matters.

It may be that the kingdom is distracted by its own set of crises.

Saudi Arabia has long been known to be opaque and enigmatic, but signs of disquiet can be discerned through the veil. One was the way the present King Salman rode roughshod over the traditional rules of succession to place his 31-year-old son Prince Muhammad bin Salman unassailably on the path to the throne. The concentration of the posts and powers of general secretary to the court, defence minister and crown prince in him, and an ailing 81-year-old king, means that the prince is effectively the ruler of the land.

Potential dissenters to the new dispensation—such as three prominent clerics not on the royal payroll—have been silenced. Saudi Arabia is a wealthy nation yet is also a welfare state where, as Malise Ruthven recently wrote in the London Review of Books, “40 per cent of people between the ages of 20 and 24 are unemployed, where 40 per cent of Saudis live in relative poverty and at least 60 per cent can't afford to buy homes”.

Its economy urgently needs to be diversified. It is critically dependent on both foreign technical expertise at the top and manual labour at the bottom. The younger generation is net savvy and restless, hungry for change and wanting a more equal distribution of the riches. The gerontocracy of the ruling house of Al Saud has signalled that its time is up, and that fresh blood and youthful energy are required to tackle these problems. So for the first time a grandson, and not a son, of the state's founder King Abd al-Aziz is poised to ascend to the throne. Appearances to the contrary, the Saudi ship is setting sail into uncharted waters and nobody can tell what turbulences lie ahead.

The 2011 Arab Spring was a shock to the Saudi monarchy, which tended to view it through the prism of its conflict with Iran, more as Shia uprisings instigated by Iran instead of a popular movement for democracy. It was especially alarmed by the Shia-led (that the Shias were also poor and marginalised seemed incidental to the Saudis) protests that seriously threatened the ruling royals of Bahrain, until Saudi troops dealt with the revolt. Uneasy, ever since, have been the heads that have worn the Saudi crown. The conflict has sharpened, with merciless proxy wars between Iran and Saudi Arabia fought in Syria and Yemen.

These wars are currently stalemated, frustrating the Saudis and the new crown prince who was gung-ho about them. The latest fiasco is the split with Qatar over its relationship with Iran, with the Qataris refusing to kow-tow and causing a crack in the Saudi-designed coalition of Sunni states. Though the Saudis portray the long-running conflict with Iran as a sectarian Sunni-Shia one, it is also rooted and energised by antagonistic ideologies that offer competing models of state and government for Muslims worldwide. Iran is deeply anti-monarchial, a modified theocracy armed with anti-colonial rhetoric and continuing hostilities with the USA. Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, is an absolute monarchy, tied umbilically to the USA and governed by a family currently numbering 7,000 members in a finessed partnership with extremely orthodox Wahabi clerics.

This is not a fight destined to end soon.

Which brings it right back to aid for the Rohingyas. While the UAE has given tents, Saudis have provided emergency relief and the Qataris have dispatched a medical team, Arab posts on WhatsApp noted that Qatar donated USD 30 million for Hurricane Harvey while giving, over the years, a grand total of USD 100,000 to the Rohingyas. Equally, the Saudis, who recently hosted Trump, aside from the USD 110 billion arms deal also, as reported in the American press, presented him with 83 gifts including a wool robe lined with white tiger fur and a jazzy collection of swords, daggers and holsters.

On reflection, perhaps Qatar could have shaved a million dollars off the Harvey relief cash and redirected them to the Rohingyas shivering under sheets of monsoon rain? And the Saudis could have presented 82 gifts, minus one jewel-encrusted sword whose cost no doubt could feed a thousand starving Rohingya families for a month?

Surely, the Americans were not going to miss a mere million bucks, or Trump threaten to nuke Riyadh over one fancy scimitar?
Khademul Islam is the editor of the literary journal Bengal Lights.
http://www.thedailystar.net/opinion/mayanmar-refugee-crisis-rohingyas-where-are-the-saudis-1468105

 

[Banglar Bir]

UN Security Council moves to confront Myanmar crisis
AFP
Published at 09:40 AM September 27, 2017

The United Nations estimates that 480,000 Rohingya have entered Bangladesh fleeing the violence in Myanmar Mahmud Hossain Opu/Dhaka Tribune
The military operation followed attacks on August 25 by Rohingya militants on police posts
The UN Security Council met behind closed doors on Tuesday to discuss the violence in Myanmar, moving to step up its response to the exodus of 480,000 Rohingya in what has been condemned as “ethnic cleansing.”

The meeting will set the stage for a public session of the top UN body on Thursday, during which UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is set to brief on the crisis and China, along with other council members, will deliver remarks.

International alarm is growing over the fate of the Rohingya who have been fleeing an army campaign in Rakhine state that the United Nations says has included killings, rape and the torching of villages.

The military operation followed attacks on August 25 by Rohingya militants on police posts.

British Deputy UN Ambassador Jonathan Allen said the council must “send a clear message to the authorities of Myanmar that the violence needs to stop.”

Humanitarian aid must be allowed in Rakhine state and the status of the Rohingya, who are stateless in Myanmar, must be addressed, he said.

French Ambassador Francois Delattre said he was pushing for a “strong and united response” from the council to pile pressure on authorities in Myanmar.

China, a supporter of Myanmar’s former junta, backed a council statement earlier this month calling for an end to the violence, but the exodus has continued.

Rights groups, which have accused the council of dragging its feet on Myanmar, are calling for urgent action to address what they have denounced as crimes against humanity against the Rohingya.

“The council urgently needs to consider an arms embargo against the Burmese military and targeted sanctions against those responsible for the criminal campaign against the Rohingya,” said Human Rights Watch’s UN director Lou Charbonneau.

“We hope the secretary-general will drive home the importance of urgent action now by the council,” he said.

France, which takes over the council presidency in October, has invited former UN chief Kofi Annan to brief next week on his recent report which advocates citizenship for the Rohingya.

Myanmar’s de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, has disappointed human rights groups who had campaigned for her freedom during the Nobel Peace Prize winner’s 15 years under house arrest by a military junta.

The council meeting will measure the level of support Suu Kyi still enjoys with Western allies after her nationwide address last week failed to quell the outrage.
http://www.dhakatribune.com/world/2017/09/27/217929/

Culpability through denial and inaction
September 24, 2017
C R Abrar | The Daily Star,

A Rohingya refugee cries as he holds his 40-day-old son, who died as a boat capsized in the shore of Shah Porir Dwip while crossing the Bangladesh-Myanmar border, in Teknaf, on September 14, 2017. Photo: Reuters
Finally, the barbaric regime of Myanmar has been put on the dock and found guilty of the crime of all crimes: genocide. The verdict was delivered on the last day of the final session of the Permanent People's Tribunal (PPT) on alleged state crimes against the Rohingya, Kachins and other ethnic minority groups on September 22 in Kuala Lumpur after three days of deliberations. In the opening session held in London in March this year, following preliminary hearings on the complaints of Kachins, Rohingyas and other Muslim populations in Myanmar, the court convened this final hearing.

The tribunal, comprised of eminent jurists, genocide scholars and those involved in past genocide trials, heard testimonies of a number of survivors, members of victims' families, witnesses and expert witnesses. Oral testimonies, documents and records, including those of the Burmese government and the military (retrieved from archival sources of different countries), and visual materials (photographs and video footages) were presented before the tribunal.

Although symbolic, the verdict has major significance. For the first time, a conclusion has been drawn by competent authorities following thorough examination of facts and rigorous legal scrutiny: “The State of Myanmar is guilty of the crime of genocide against the Rohingya group.” It went on to observe that “genocide against the Rohingya is now taking place with ongoing acts of genocide and the possibility the casualties of that genocide could be even higher in the future if nothing is done to stop it.” This essay argues that despite overwhelming evidence there has been a palpable reticence of the international community to call it genocide.

The international community refused to acknowledge that the Burmese state's intent and actions were systematically directed to dismantle the structures of protection that the Rohingyas enjoyed until the martial law regime of General Ne Win in 1962. Jettisoning the country's pluralist and secularist practices from the get-go, the military government was hell-bent on ridding the country of the Rohingya population. 1978 witnessed the brutal execution of that intent when about 280,000 were driven out of Arakan with the launch of Operation Naga Min, or Operation King Dragon. The 1978 exodus was not the outcome of any communal strife between the Buddhist Rakhines and the Rohingya Muslims in Arakan. It was the result of a deliberate policy of banishing an ethnic minority from their ancestral habitat by the Burmese state.

Within months of their arrival in Bangladesh, Myanmar (then Burma) had to concede to Bangladesh's demand of taking back the Rohingyas who by law were still its citizens. By the subsequent enactment of the 1982 Citizenship Law, Rohingyas were stripped of their rightful status. In pursuit of its genocidal agenda the Burmese state crafted a comprehensive policy to destroy the Rohingya identity by systematically denying the community members to live in dignity and pursue their faith and cultural traditions. Since then a plethora of laws, regulations and administrative orders have been passed and institutions such as the infamous security force Nasaka were created—subjecting the Rohingyas to what a witness during the Kuala Lumpur trial termed as “sub-human”. Despite the absence of any looming threat, the northern Arakan region was gradually turned into a militarised zone. Its Muslim residents have been subjected to degrading treatment, discrimination, torture, forced labour, forced relocation, and arbitrary taxes, and denied opportunities to practise their faith and culture and access justice. As a logical follow-up to such “systematic weakening” another state-sponsored mass flight was orchestrated in 1992 resulting in 250,000 Rohingyas seeking refuge in neighbouring Bangladesh. The international community still chose to look the other way, remaining resolute in its denial mode.

Shrewd Burmese generals by then framed the project of depopulating Arakan of Rohingyas—not by brute force (that would draw international media attention and condemnation) but by creating conditions in which sustaining life became impossible. This resulted in slow and incremental outward movement of Rohingyas in small groups since 1992. Their number cumulatively stood at 300,000 in Bangladesh until the unfolding of events following August 25, 2017. In the interim, spikes in violence in Arakan shored up the number of incoming refugees.

Little effort was given to find out what prompted the cross-border movement of the Rohingyas. Compassion fatigue for the residual caseload of 23,000 registered refugees living in camps (the number by now swelled to 31,000) evoked little interest of the outside world towards the “most persecuted minority of the world”. The Rohingyas' claim to secure international protection was perhaps further constrained by the fact that unlike Iraq and Libya, Arakan remains void of black gold. In the headquarters of international agencies in New York and Geneva and national capitals of concerned countries, it was perhaps a conscious choice to not confront the bitter truth of enduring genocide since it would necessitate urgent international action. Despite the ongoing genocide, Rohingyas were left to face the vicious state forces quite like their poor cousins in Burundi and Rwanda.

By foot-dragging over the issue of recognising the Burmese government's acts as genocide, powerful states and international actors—who champion rule of law, democracy and freedom, and human rights—allowed the murderous Burmese army to act with impunity in implementing its long-drawn-out genocidal agenda on the Rohingyas. The international community's denial also contributed to the Burmese military's decision for the “final solution” of the Rohingya question that the world is now faced with. There appears to be a striking similarity between Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasement of Nazi Germany and that of these entities' strategy of placating the Burmese military.

The heart-wrenching testimonies and video footages presented before the tribunal convinced the judges in no uncertain terms what Raphael Lemkin, the Polish lawyer who coined the term “genocide”, meant: “Destruction of a nation or an ethnic group.” The tribunal concurred with Lemkin that in the Rohingya case, the national identity of the oppressed group was destroyed and national identity of the oppressor was imposed. The Rohingya case also sufficiently meets renowned genocide scholar and Genocide Watch's President Gregory Stanton's ten conditions of genocide: classification, symbolisation, discrimination, dehumanisation, organisation, polarisation, preparation, persecution, extermination and denial. Stanton reminds us that these stages are predictable but not inexorable, and the process is not linear. Most importantly, “at each stage, preventive measures can stop it.”

In their rush to embrace the once-pariah state of Myanmar, the powerful countries expediently sacrificed the Rohingyas at the altar of strategic and commercial interests, and international organisations hid behind the façade of intricacies of legal interpretations. Their usage of the term “ethnic cleansing”, a term that has no place in international law, is a scheme to not state the fact. As Daniel Feierstein, the chair judge of the PPT, poignantly reminded the court, “It's a concept created by the perpetrator Slobodan Miloseviç.” It's a shame that the world is resorting to the perpetrator's language to justify its inaction.

Days ago, the UN Secretary-General, in response to a question about whether he agreed with UN Human Rights Chief Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein that what's happening in Rakhine State is ethnic cleansing, retorted back to the journalist saying, “When one-third of the Rohingya population had to flee the country, can you find a better word to describe it?”
Yes, Mr Secretary-General, it's the G word.
http://www.genocidewatch.com/single-post/2017/09/24/Culpability-through-denial-and-inaction

 

[Banglar Bir]

The Rohingya: Southeast Asia's Palestinians

Nada Elia
The Rohingya: Southeast Asia's Palestinians
Myanmar seeks to establish a religiously homogeneous Buddhist state by displacing its predominantly-Muslim Rohingya population[Anadolu]
Date of publication: 12 September, 2017
Rohingya, Palestinians, Israel, genocide, UN, citizenship, repression, ethnic cleansingAs they approach genocidal dimensions, with close to 300,000 hounded civilians forced to flee in the past two weeks alone, the Myanmar junta attacks on the Rohingya community are finally making headlines in the mainstream news.
The reports are horrific: Untold thousands have been killed, entire families burned alive, villages set on fire, children as young as five beheaded, women raped and the borderlands are booby-trapped with landmines, as members of "one of the most persecuted communities in the world" try to escape to safer ground in Bangladesh.

Denunciations are pouring in too - much too late, as is always the case in genocides. A damning new study by Queen Mary University of London concludes that after decades of oppression, the Rohingya have reached "the final stages of genocide".

Yet one important aspect of the government's attacks on this population remains mostly hushed up, with the exception of a few courageous voices: The weapons used by the Burmese military for this ethnic cleansing have been field tested in another set of racist assaults, namely Israel's cyclical wars on the Palestinian people; mostly civilian refugees trapped in Gaza, but also in the West Bank.

• The alliance between Israel and Myanmar should come as no surprise. Even though Jews had historically experienced anti-Semitism in Europe, not Palestine, the Palestinian people was made to pay the price for the pogroms and Holocaust.

Today, as it emerges from decades of colonialism followed by military rule, Myanmar also shows signs of nationalism gone awry

Israel's insistence that it be recognised as "the Jewish state," even though, or more correctly because it is built on the ruins of what used to be a thriving multi-religious land, stems from its desire to legitimise ethnic cleansing.

Today, as it emerges from decades of colonialism followed by military rule, Myanmar also shows signs of nationalism gone awry, as it seeks to establish a religiously homogeneous Buddhist state by displacing its predominantly-Muslim Rohingya population.

The many parallels between Israel's treatment of the Palestinian people, and Myanmar's treatment of its Rohingya communities, are also worth exploring.

Palestinian-American journalist Ramzi Baroud has already pointed out that, for anyone familiar with the circumstances of the Palestinian people, the similarities are obvious.

Indeed, the latest escalation by Myanmar against the Rohingya follows a pattern most familiar in Israel: Myanmar's attacks, launched on 26 August, are described as a "response" to attacks by Rohingya militants on 25 August.

That the latest escalation by the Burmese military should be presented as "response," with no reference to the context of extreme decades-long repression, is uncomfortably reminiscent of Israel's murderous assaults on an entire population, in response to rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip that, in most cases, fizzle harmlessly across an illegal border.

Indeed, Israel is notorious for its disproportionate collective punishment of entire families, generally in "response" to an angry teenager's lashing out at the egregious injustice they are subjected to. And the genocidal blockade on the Gaza Strip is Israel's response to the outcome of democratic elections which were not to its liking.

Israel was founded on the genocide of the Palestinian people. While common knowledge to anyone who cares about justice, that reality has historically been hushed up and denied too, because accusing a country of genocide necessitates multinational intervention and sanctions, which the United Nations clearly is unwilling to implement.

Demonstrators gathering in front of United Nations High Commissioner building stage a rally
to protest Myanmar's oppression of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar's Rakhine state, in Gaza, Gaza City on 10 September, 2017 [Anadolu]

This is despite the fact that the UN's own definition of genocide would incriminate Israel. Additionally, Israel has maintained its Jewish supremacy against the "demographic threat" posed by the Palestinian people through a violent military occupation, punctuated by episodes of all-out wars against the Gaza Strip. It describes these episodes as "mowing the lawn", a sanitised expression that erases the indiscriminate violence against the two million mostly-civilian refugees trapped in one of the most densely populated areas in the world.

Myanmar stripped the Rohingya of their citizenship in 1982, and has since engaged in episodic attacks against this community, repeatedly forcing them to flee into neighboring countries, with harrowing stories of murder, rape and torched villages. Myanmar's official position is that the Rohingya are originally from Bangladesh, and it refers to them as "Bengalis," just as Israel would have the Palestinians be "southern Syrians," (as Golda Meir put it) or “Jordanian,” and refers to them as “Arab,” rather than Palestinian.
Yusuf Jimoh Aweda @yusufomo99
Dear @UN, the way you're about sanctioning NK for NW, please sanction Israel for occupying Palestine and Burma for the Rohingya genocide.
Israel has a two-tier system of citizenship, whereby only Jews are "nationals," while non-Jews can be "citizens," with a different and unequal set of rights.

Moreover, even as it violates the universally recognised human "right of return," which would allow Palestinians displaced in 1948 to return to their homeland, Israel has a "Law of Return" that allows anyone with a Jewish grandparent to claim nationality in Israel.

Myanmar has a multi-tiered citizenship system which also legitimates institutional racism. The 1982 Burmese Citizenship Law has three levels of citizenship, namely "citizenship," "associate citizenship," and "naturalised citizenship".
Read more: Call it what you wish, it amounts to Apartheid
"Citizens," the most privileged category, are members of what are considered "national races," or people whose ancestors can document a presence in the country prior to 1823, the beginning of the British occupation of the region.

"Associate citizens" are those who cannot produce evidence of ancestral presence in Burma before 1823, but who had applied for citizenship prior to independence in 1948. "Naturalized citizens" must be able to provide "conclusive evidence" that they, or their parents, lived in the country prior to 1948.

Additionally, to qualify for any category of citizenship, one must be of "good character" and "sound mind," and fluent in one of the "national languages," (which do not include Rohingya).

With these arcane and highly subjective criteria, the Rohingya are disqualified from citizenship. Finally, and in violation of international law which states that an infant born in a country should receive that country's nationality if it is otherwise stateless, Rohingya babies do not qualify for Myanmar citizenship.
Denunciations of one genocide but not another sound hollow at best, self-serving at worst. If one recognises "the precursors of genocide," one should denounce these everywhere.

Myanmar's official position is that the Rohingya are originally from Bangladesh, and it refers to them as 'Bengalis,' just as Israel would have the Palestinians be 'southern Syrians,'

Cameron Hudson, director of the Holocaust Museum's Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide, says, "government efforts to deny Rohingya citizenship rights, restrict their freedom of movement and the practice of their faith, and deny their basic human rights have all been identified as leading precursors to a genocide".

With this in mind, we should also denounce these same measures elsewhere: Israel denies Palestinians their basic human rights, it restricts their freedom of movement with hundreds of checkpoints and a 12-year siege, it prevents them from practicing their faith by denying them access to al-Aqsa mosque, and by banning the Muslim call to prayer.

The Rohingya and the Palestinian people have much in common, as both have been persecuted, repeatedly displaced, denied citizenship, and are now subjected to genocide, for the sake of maintaining the ethnic supremacy of one ruling group.

Hopefully, the outrage over the latest attacks on the Rohingya will not subside as soon as a ceasefire is announced, as the oppression is systemic, institutionalised, relentless, just as Israel's violation of the human rights of the Palestinians is a permanent feature of "the Jewish state".

But Israel's crimes go beyond its own borders, and if turning a blind eye to genocide makes the rest of the world complicit, what does supplying the guilty party with the weapons of genocide make Israel?
Nada Elia is a Diaspora Palestinian scholar, writer, public speaker and BDS organiser.
Follow her on Twitter: @nadaelia48
Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff.
https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/comment/2017/9/12/the-rohingya-southeast-asias-palestinians

 

[Banglar Bir]

Religion And Nationalism: Is Southeast Asia Turning Into The Next Middle East?
NGO workers distribute food to Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh - Can Erok/ZUMA
The tragedy of the Rohingya in Myanmar should be viewed within the region-wide context of the resurgence of religious nationalism across Southeast Asia.
Dominique Moisi
LES ECHOS
English edition • WORLDCRUNCH 2017-09-26
-Analysis-

Does Southeast Asia risk turning into the new Middle East? Will it be the next region to be dominated by the encounter of a culture of humiliation and a culture of violent rivalry between and within nations? Luckily we aren’t there yet, nor is it inevitable. But the question itself underscores the significance of the new situation created by the rise of religious nationalism throughout Southeast Asia.

The eruption of Islamic fundamentalism appears to have contributed to the awakening of Buddhist nationalism, like in Myanmar, or to Hindu nationalismas has happened in Narendra Modi’s India.

The tragedy of the Rohingya in Myanmar must be considered within the context of the resurgence of religious nationalism. A minority that has always been humiliated, the Rohingya do not even have the right to citizenship. As French President Emmanuel Macron said in his speech at the United Nations, it is not a matter of restoring, but of establishing their rights in a country where being Burmese means being Buddhist.
Now Myanmar, with the Rohingya, has its 'unnamables.'
Of course they are a tiny minority: 88% of the Myanmar population is Buddhist, with 6% Christian and only 4% Muslim. In an address ahead of the UN General Assembly, Aung San Suu Kyi, the icon of Burmese democracy, did not even mention the Rohingya by name.

India has its “untouchables” and now Myanmar, with the Rohingya, has its “unnamables.” Suu Kyi’s silence is probably as much the product of her personal disregard for the fate of a minority that does not exist in her eyes as it is the result of a political calculation in relation to the armed forces with which she currently shares power.

“Local” at first, the Rohingya tragedy became over time a regional, if not international crisis in a part of the world where national and religious identity increasingly tend to overlap. Was Pakistan not created in order to absorb the Muslim minority of the Indian former empire? How can the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which has accompanied the progressive establishment of peace and prosperity in the region, survive the emergence of divisions based strictly on religion: Buddhists on one side, Muslims on the other?

In Myanmar and Thailand, the population’s majority is Buddhist; in Malaysia and Indonesia, the majority is Muslim. The legacy of the empires, British and Dutch, has left scars in this region that could reopen at any time. During the Raj, the British, like all the empires before them, tended to use the minorities to establish their authority. “You are mistreated. Let us protect you against the discrimination of which you are victims,” they used to say. Once the colonization ended, these minorities were not only still considered inferior; they were now also traitors.

The Mesjid Istiqlal mosque in Jakarta, Indonesia — Photo: Cazzjj
It was this discrimination that drove a minority of Rohingya youth to choose the path of violence, encouraged, perhaps, by the fiery speeches of Muslim fundamentalists in the Middle East or even in Asia. The tragedy is that this radicalization of a minority of Muslims emerged precisely as we were witnessing a similar fundamentalist and ultra-nationalist strain rising within the Buddhist community.

Buddha might well have preached peace and tolerance, but the fervent monks started to behave like modern-day Savonarolas, inciting hatred against the Muslims. This led to a succession of religiously motivated massacres, at first entirely ignored by the international community. “What do you want..." the thinking seemed to be. "This is happening very far away, and aren’t the victims Muslims, potential terrorists?”

And there, precisely, lies the problem in this era of globalization and the communications revolution. Defeated on the ground in Syria and Iraq, can terrorist organizations like the Islamic State (ISIS), dream of using the fate of the Rohingya to mobilize the emotions of Asia’s Muslims? Demographically, the world’s largest Muslim country, Indonesia, is in the region. After the fate of the Bosnian Muslims during the Balkan war in the 1990s, the tragedy of the Rohingya now provides a new opportunity to denounce the selective sympathies of the Western world.

It is essential to put an end to this cultural, more than religious, trend, if we want to avoid a domino effect that will have catastrophic consequences for the equilibrium of the entire region. Maybe the UN can add action to its words and find in the Rohingya crisis an opportunity to save its reputation by stopping Southeast Asia from becoming a new Middle East?
Now that's a lot to hope for.
https://www.worldcrunch.com/opinion...theast-asia-turning-into-the-next-middle-east

 

[Banglar Bir]

UNICEF: Children at heart of Rohingya Crisis
UNICEF'S Edouard Beigbeder explains to CNN what is needed for child refugees fleeing violence in Myanmar.
Source: CNN
https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http...GIG83fyruUr8RxR26qvozTdcISYb-6TVXIrh3hVVEAacR

 

[Banglar Bir]

Fresh Rohingya refugees arrive in Bangladeshi camps
UN warns of heightened risk of human trafficking for more than 800,000 Rohingya
September 26, 2017 Anadolu Agency

Archive
The number of Rohingya Muslims who have fled to Bangladesh in the past month has risen to 436,000, the UN said Monday.

Men, women and children fleeing atrocities by Myanmar security forces in the western state of Rakhine faced a “heightened risk” of falling victim to human trafficking, Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, said.

Rohingya have been targeted by what UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein described as a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing”.

They are fleeing a fresh security operation in which security forces and Buddhist mobs have killed men, women and children, looted homes and torched Rohingya villages.

According to Bangladeshi Foreign Minister Abul Hasan Mahmood Ali, around 3,000 Rohingya have been killed in the crackdown.

In total, more than 800,000 Rohingya refugees are now believed to be in Bangladesh.

Turkey has been at the forefront of providing aid to Rohingya refugees, and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has raised the issue with the UN.

The Rohingya, described by the UN as the world's most persecuted people, have faced heightened fears of attack since dozens were killed in communal violence in 2012.
http://www.yenisafak.com/en/world/f...glish&utm_campaign=facebook-yenisafak-english

Resources: The Untold Story Behind Myanmar’s Rohingyas
09/24/2017 09:59 am ET

The Western media have rightly focused on two critical aspects of the Rohingya tragedy in Myanmar – the humanitarian crisis it has created and Aung San Suu Kyi’s failure to publicly criticize the Myanmar government’s policy of ethnically cleansing Rakhine state.
Left unsaid, however, is the reason why the government is pursuing its policy, and the role of other nations in creating an atmosphere conducive to the crackdown. In short, it is a tale of greed, money, and power.

The roots of the violence in Rakhine State are multifaceted and rooted in British colonial officials’ failure to include the word “Rohingya” in censuses taken of the then-British colony, which was subsequently used as a means of falsely characterizing the Rohingya as illegal immigrants from neighboring regions, with no historical legitimacy in Burma. That is of course not true, but based on the opening the British created, the former military regime and the current democratically-elected government have both denied the Rohingya full citizenship, strictly limiting basic freedoms of movement and suffrage.

Suu Kyi finds herself in a precarious position, reemphasizing her support for non-violent political change, while at the same time referring to the Rohingya’s disrespect for the “Rule of Law” as a justification for a strong military presence in Rakhine state. Suu Kyi was quite happy to be portrayed as a human rights icon while she was herself a political prisoner, but since becoming the country’s de facto leader, where the Rohingyas are concerned, she may rightly be referred to as a garden variety politician, beholden to the power behind the throne (the military). The West appears to have been wrong to have placed her on such a human rights pedestal.

While her silence has certainly contributed to the sad plight of the Rohingyas, it is ultimately Myanmar’s military rulers, who have plundered the great natural resource wealth of the country for decades, that are ultimately to blame for this state of affairs. Having refused to give up their power while allowing a thin veil of ‘democracy’ (with a distinctly small ‘d’) to descend over the country, their ongoing unbridled pursuit of wealth from the sale of the country’s natural resources to countries around the world is the ultimate reason why the brutal assault on the Rohingyas persists.
If Rakhine state was devoid of natural resource wealth, and if it were not geostrategically important to the transport of oil and gas to China and beyond, perhaps the government would not care quite so much about the Rohingyas. But the truth is that countries from around the world are involved in the extraction of natural resources from Myanmar more generally, and Rakhine state specifically. For example, in 2013, China completed construction of a natural gas pipeline from Myanmar’s coast that begins and runs through Rakhine state, the result of a 30-year contract agreed to with the country’s military. Such a multi-billion dollar contract will take precedence over other concerns in a kleptocracy such as Myanmar.

Saudi Arabia has also been working with the Burmese and Chinese governments to industrialize natural resource production and distribution within Rakhine State. Saudi Arabia and some of its smaller Persian Gulf neighbors became deeply involved in Myanmar’s oil industry in 2011, when Riyadh and Beijing signed a Memorandum of Understanding in which China pledged to provide 200,000 barrels of crude oil per day through the Sino-Burma oil pipeline. The United Arab Emirates has also built roads and hotels to supplement Rakhine State’s booming oil industry. And in 2014, Qatar began transporting methane to China via Myanmar, further emphasizing the important role of Burma in connecting China and the Arab Gulf states.

It would be difficult to imagine, given the monetary stakes involved, that the military in Myanmar will ever give up power, or allow human rights to supersede their ability to continue to rule the country with an iron fist. For that reason, the government is unlikely to reverse its position on the Rohingya in the future — with or without Suu Kyi at the helm. It is clear that Suu Kyi has made her deal with the devil in order to remain in her position, but much of the world must be asking if the price of doing so it simply too high. Having embarked on this path, it would seem that the military in Myanmar will not rest until the Rohingya have been scrubbed from Rakhine state.

*Daniel Wagner is founder of Country Risk Solutions, managing director of Risk Cooperative, and author of the new book “Virtual Terror”.
This article was first published in the South China Morning Post.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry...ources-the-untold_us_59c7b9bce4b0b7022a646b53

'Take Myanmar to UN court for crimes against humanity’
Bangladesh’s rights body urges Myanmar to face top UN court over persecution of Rohingya Muslims
September 27, 2017 Anadolu Agency

File photo
Bangladesh’s National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) called on the international community on Tuesday to take the government of neighboring Myanmar to the UN Court of Justice for committing crimes against humanity in Rakhine state.

“We urged the OIC and the ASEAN [Association of Southeast Asian Nations] member states and UN organs to consider referring the matter [of persecution of Rohingya Muslims] to the International Court of Justice or the International Human Court,” commission head Kazi Reazul Hoque said at the International Ombudsman Conference in Istanbul.

He also called on the UN Human Rights Commission and the international community “to mobilize political pressure on Myanmar’s government to find a durable solution” to the Rohingya crisis.

“The durable solution must include the right to return to their homelands in a safe, secure and dignified way,” Hoque added.

“All fundamental rights of the Rohingya should be respected in the process of resolving the current crisis.”

Hoque, who led a four-member delegation on an emergency fact-finding mission on Sept. 9-11, interviewed several Rohingya refugees who fled to Bangladesh, and reported horror stories of cruelty and shocking tales of brutality, including serious injuries from bullets, burning, and physical torture.

“All these atrocities are carried out by the Myanmar military…This is an extreme violation of human rights, these are crimes against humanity,” he mentioned.

“Crimes against humanity are only possible when racism, xenophobia, and hate speech are practiced in extremely high degrees.
- Traumatized
The fact-finding body also found that most refugees, particularly women and children, are traumatized, according to Hoque.

“They have gone emotionless, they are concerned more about safety rather than food.”

He underlined the pervasive discrimination in Rakhine state, saying, “It is clear that Rohingya are severely subjected to religious discrimination.”

The commission has also sent out a call for action to many international, regional, and local entities, including UN agencies, ASEAN’s Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and diplomatic missions in capital Dhaka which directly or indirectly have a stake in the issue.

“It is the unequivocal responsibility of the government of Myanmar to ensure the protection of Rohingya living in Rakhine regardless of their religion, ethnicity, or citizenship status," he said, urging an immediate end to the violence and unhindered access to humanitarian aid.

Hoque said Bangladesh is hosting “around one million Rohingya" refugees, including the arrivals since Aug. 25, and the country is trying to handle the situation despite being a “lower-middle income and densely populated country”.

Despite these difficulties, Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina gave them shelter and committed to extend all basic necessities for them, he added.

He also urged emergency humanitarian assistance for Rohingya living in refugee camps in Bangladesh.
- Fleeing violence
Since Aug. 25, more than 436,000 Rohingya have crossed from Myanmar's western state of Rakhine into Bangladesh, according to the UN's migration agency’s latest report on Monday.

The refugees are fleeing a fresh security operation in which security forces and Buddhist mobs have killed men, women and children, looted homes and torched Rohingya villages. According to Bangladeshi Foreign Minister Abul Hasan Mahmood Ali, around 3,000 Rohingya have been killed in the crackdown.

Turkey has been at the forefront of providing aid to Rohingya refugees and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan highlighted the issue at this year's UN General Assembly.

The Rohingya, described by the UN as the world's most persecuted people, have faced heightened fears of attack since dozens were killed in communal violence in 2012.
http://www.yenisafak.com/en/dunya/t...glish&utm_campaign=facebook-yenisafak-english

 

[Banglar Bir]

Rohingya Documentary: ‘A boy with no name for a people with no identity’

Channel 4 News
Published on Sep 18, 2017
Almost 400,000 Rohingya Muslims have now fled the violence in Myanmar in the last three weeks, including 240,000 children. Refugee camps across the border in Bangladesh are overflowing, and aid agencies fear it could get worse, warning up to a million could flee. Jonathan Miller has been in the region to see it all first hand.

Rohingya's Exodus: A special report on Myanmar
Sky News

This is the real Aung San Suu Kyi.
Ton Kraayenvanger

AL JAZEERA WORLD S2017 • E20

Al Jazeera World - The Rohingya: Silent Abuse
Al Jazeera English
Rohingya news: the desperate journey to safety
Channel 4 News
THE LISTENING POST S2017 • E43
The Listening Post - Rohingya: Hate speech, lies and media misinformation
Al Jazeera English
Al Jazeera Investigates - Genocide Agenda

Featured Documentary - The Hidden Genocide
Al Jazeera English

Myanmar's Anti-Muslim Monks | AJ+ Docs
AJ+
Rohingya crisis: Meeting Myanmar's hardline Buddhist monks -
BBC News
Covering the Rohingya: Separating fact from fiction - The Listening Post (Lead)
Al Jazeera English

Myanmar - Rohingya Genocide - In the NOW

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[Banglar Bir]

Myanmar government will take over burned Rakhine land
Reuters
Published at 02:14 PM September 27, 2017
Last updated at 02:19 PM September 27, 2017

Rohingya refugee children pose for a picture in a camp at Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, September 26, 2017 Reuters
'According to the law, burnt land becomes government-managed land,' Myanmar minister for Social Development said
Myanmar’s government will manage the redevelopment of villages torched during violence in Rakhine state that has sent nearly half a million Rohingya Muslims fleeing to Bangladesh, a minister was reported on Wednesday as saying.

The plan for the redevelopment of areas destroyed by fires, which the government has blamed on Rohingya insurgents, is likely to raise concern about the prospects for the return of the 480,000 refugees, and compound fears of ethnic cleansing.

“According to the law, burnt land becomes government-managed land,” Minister for Social Development, Relief and Resettlement Win Myat Aye told a meeting in the Rakhine state capital of Sittwe, the Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper reported.

Win Myat Aye also heads a committee tasked with implementing recommendations on solving Rakhine’s long-simmering tensions.

Citing a disaster management law, he said in a meeting with authorities on Tuesday that redevelopment would “be very effective”. The law states the government oversees reconstruction in areas damaged in disasters, including conflict.

There was no elaboration on any plan or what access to their old villages any returning Rohingya could expect. The minister was not immediately available for comment.

Human rights groups using satellite images have said that about half of more than 400 Rohingya villages in the north of Rakhine state have been burned in the violence.

Refugees arriving in Bangladesh have accused the army and Buddhist vigilantes of mounting a campaign of violence and arson aimed at driving Rohingya out of Myanmar.

Buddhist-majority Myanmar has rejected UN accusations of ethnic cleansing against Rohingya Muslims in response to coordinated attacks by Rohingya insurgents on the security forces on August 25.

The government has reported that about half of Rohingya villages have been abandoned but it blames insurgents of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army for the fires and for attacking civilians.

The government says nearly 500 people have been killed since August 25, nearly 400 of them insurgents. It has also rejected accusations of crimes against humanity, levelled this week by Human Rights Watch.
Number keep rising
The violence and the refugee exodus is the biggest crisis the government of Nobel peace laureate Suu Kyi has faced since it came to power last year in a transition from nearly 50 years of military rule.

Myanmar regards the Rohingya as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and bouts of suppression and strife have flared for decades. Most Rohingya are stateless.

Suu Kyi has faced scathing criticism and calls for her Nobel prize to be withdrawn. She denounced rights violations in an address last week and vowed that abusers would be prosecuted. She also said any refugees verified as coming from Myanmar under a 1992 process agreed with Bangladesh would be allowed back.

But many refugees are gloomy about their chances of going home, saying they fear they lack the paperwork they expect would be demanded to prove they came from Myanmar.

A group of aid organisations said on Tuesday the total number of refugees who had fled to Bangladesh since August 25 had been revised up to 480,000, after 35,000 people were found to have been missed out of the previous tally.

Aid agencies say refugees are still arriving though at a slower rate, and they have a contingency plan for a total of 700,000.

That figure is part of an overall plan to help 1.2 million people, including 200,000 Rohingya who were already in camps in Bangladesh and 300,000 people in “host communities”, or people helping refugees who also need aid.
http://www.dhakatribune.com/world/s...ar-minister-government-will-take-burned-land/

UN Security Council to discuss Bangladesh PM's 5-point proposal on the Rohingya
Sheikh Shahariar Zaman
Published at 12:41 PM September 27, 2017

Nearly half a million Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh since August 25
The United Nations will discuss the Rohingya humanitarian crisis, which it has described as “ethnic cleansing” in Myanmar’s Rakhine state.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s five-point proposal to resolve the crisis has been submitted to the UN for its consideration.

A senior government official said the Security Council discussed the Rohingya issue twice before. “It will discuss the issue again on Thursday,” the official said. “Before that, the foreign minister will brief ambassadors of Security Council member countries.”

The plight of Rohingya has caught global attention. Bangladesh, which shelters nearly 900,000 Rohingya, has been pushing for a solution to the crisis for a long time.
Also Read-The untapped wealth of Rakhine and the persecution of the Rohingya
When asked if any resolution would be adopted, the official said: “We will have to wait and see.”

About China and Russia’s roles, the official said: “It would be impossible to hold any discussions in the Security Council without their support. But the [Rohingya] issue has been discussed twice there and will be discussed again. We can understand their stance from this development.”

But Russia has dubbed the Rohingya issue an internal matter of the Myanmar government. China, which has huge business interest in Myanmar, is expected to block any move that would put pressure on Yangon.
Also Read- Bangladesh PM at UNGA: Create safe zones inside Myanmar for the Rohingya
The Rohingya are one of the most persecuted minorities in the world. They are not recognised as citizens by Buddhist-majority Myanmar, which sees them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

A violent military crackdown targeting the minority has sent nearly half a million Rohingya fleeing to Bangladesh since August 25.

The Security Council discussed the Rohingya issue in August. It held talks on the matter again the next month and issued a statement on Myanmar

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who went to the UN after visiting the refugees in Cox’s Bazar, put forth her five-point proposal during her speech at the assembly on September 21.

They included stopping violence and ethnic cleansing in the Rakhine state, returning Rohinngya to their homeland, creating a ‘safe zone’ in Myanmar and implementation of the Kofi Annan Commission Report’s recommendations.

“Bangladesh is keeping in touch with the global communities to resolve the Rohingya crisis,” a government official in Dhaka said.
The article was first published on Bangla Tribune
http://www.dhakatribune.com/banglad...gladesh-pm-hasinas-5-point-proposal-rohingya/

 

[Banglar Bir]

05:42 PM, September 27, 2017 / LAST MODIFIED: 05:49 PM, September 27, 2017
"Big question" is whether Rohingya can go home:UN refugee chief

UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi attends a news conference on Myanmar at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, September 27, 2017. Photo: Reuters
Reuters, Geneva

The United Nations refugee chief called today for the plight of up to 800,000 Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh to be resolved, saying the "big question" was whether they would be allowed to return to their homeland.

Filippo Grandi, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, speaking on return from a visit to Bangladesh, said that he hoped to discuss the issue of statelessness of Rohingya with Myanmar authorities at a meeting in Geneva next week.

"It is very clear the cause of this crisis is in Myanmar but that the solution is also in Myanmar," he told a news conference in Geneva. He warned that "the risk of spread of terrorist violence in this particular region is very very high" unless the issue are resolved.
http://www.thedailystar.net/world/m...m_medium=newsurl&utm_term=all&utm_content=al

 

[Banglar Bir]

Yeni Şafak
Nearly 436,000 Rohingya Muslims who have crossed into Bangladesh since Aug. 25, escaping the Myanmar army's violence, live in tent camps. Almost a quarter of a million of them are children, most of whom face malnutrition and diseases. A care center built in the Kutupalong camp provides Rohingya children with clean water and food.
http://www.yenisafak.com/…/rohingya-refugee-children-face-r…

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Rohingya widow with five children struggles at refugee camp in Bangladesh
Haber Merkezi 15:21 September 27, 2017 Yeni Şafak
Rohingya refugees fleeing from Myanmar to Bangladesh face new adversities at camps. They must line up to receive their food rations. Approximately 480,000 refugees have fled their homes in Myanmar due to what the UN calls an “ethnic cleansing." Human rights groups using satellite images have said that about half of more than 400 Rohingya villages in the north of Rahkine State have been burned in the violence.
http://yenisafak.vod.ma.doracdn.com...17/09/27/465abdc586fa44d4827942446ebdae8d.mp4

http://yenisafak.vod.ma.doracdn.com...17/09/27/465abdc586fa44d4827942446ebdae8d.mp4

 

[Banglar Bir]

China Unlikely to Back Tougher UN Actions Against Myanmar
September 26, 2017
William Ide and Saibal Dasgupta | VOA

A Rohingya refugee reacts as people scuffle while waiting to receive aid in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, Sept. 26, 2017.
The United Nations will focus its attention this week on the Rohingya humanitarian crisis and what has been described as “ethnic cleansing” in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, although analysts say China is unlikely to support any actions that would put pressure on Yangon and its military.

One key reason Beijing is unlikely to back tougher steps, the experts note, is because the crisis is happening in a state where China has huge business interests.

The business interests not only account for billions of dollars in investment, but are part of the country’s ambitious global “Belt and Road” trade project.
Almost right in the middle of Rakhine state’s coastline on the Bay of Bengal, a consortium led by China’s CITIC Group has proposed taking a 70 percent to 85 percent stake in a $7.3 billion deep sea port. The port at Kyauk Pyu is a key link in China’s “Belt and Road” initiative, and what some Chinese analysts call “blue economic passageways.”

In addition to the sea port, China also plans to build an industrial park and a special economic zone there, where Chinese companies will be located.

The project is a crucial link in a larger passageway connecting China’s southwestern provinces with the Indian Ocean, Africa and further to the Mediterranean Sea. The port is also where oil and gas pipelines begin and run through Myanmar to China’s southern Yunnan province.

“The importance of your investments, to secure your investments and ensure that this region [Rakhine state of Myanmar] is peaceful so that your important pipelines can pass through. I would say that this takes more precedence against the humanitarian issue,” says Irene Chan, an associate research fellow with the China Programme at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. “Chinese foreign policy is very much driven by domestic needs.”

A Chinese port terminal is seen in Made island outside Kyauk Pyu, Rakhine state, Myanmar, May 18, 2017.

Chan adds that Beijing is trying to use neighboring countries like Myanmar to export its industrial overcapacity, and provide the necessary development impetus to its relatively backward western region.

The latest outbreak of violence began in late August when a group of Rohingya militants attacked dozens of police posts and an army base. The group says the attack was launched to protect their ethnic minority from persecution.

Fleeing Buddhist Rakhine residents arrive by ship from the unrest in Maungdaw region at the jetty, Aug. 29, 2017, in Sittwe, Rakhine State, western Myanmar.

At least 400 people have been killed in the violence and subsequent clashes, while a military counteroffensive has pushed more than 400,000 Rohingya into Bangladesh.

Some of the world’s major countries including China, Russia and India have refused to specifically condemn the ongoing violence against the Rohingyas.

Beijing has offered small amounts of humanitarian aid to both Bangladesh and Myanmar, and Chinese officials have spoken about the need for a permanent solution to the crisis.

Rohingya refugees queue for aid at Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, Sept. 26, 2017.

When it comes to the crisis and the ongoing violence, however, China has put its support squarely behind the Myanmar government and military, and what it says are efforts to “protect its national security.”

“It [China] clearly is supporting the government of Myanmar in addressing the issue of how it responded to the attack by the so-called [Arakan] Rohingya Salvation Army. China is telling the Myanmar, telling the U.N. that it understands and supports Myanmar’s attempts to preserve its sovereignty,” said Murray Hiebert, who serves as senior adviser and deputy director of the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Tuesday, the U.N. will hold a closed-door briefing on the crisis. On Thursday, U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres will address the Security Council about the situation. So far, a U.N. Human Rights Council fact-finding mission, established earlier this year, has been barred from visiting Myanmar's Rakhine state.

Houses are on fire in Gawdu Zara village, northern Rakhine state, Myanmar, Sept. 7, 2017.

The United States has called for “strong and swift action” to end the violence, but already earlier this month there were reports that Myanmar was negotiating with Russia and China to protect Yangon from any Security Council actions.

“China certainly would not accept resolution or something of this kind at the Security Council at this point, that’s for sure,” Hiebert said. “I don’t know if it could change its position depending on what the wording of the resolution would be, but China very much would stand behind the Myanmar government’s opposition to the U.N. taking any political action, taking any direct action.”

Hiebert, does not think, though, that China needs to placate Yangon to forward its economic agenda in Myanmar.

Kerry Brown, a professor of Chinese studies at London’s King College said, “[China] will need to produce a balancing act, where it will not antagonize an important regional partner and ally, nor through this action irritate the international community.”

He says Beijing is likely to “assert to the Myanmar leadership the imperative that they maintain stability and do not create a crisis, but in such a way that it still will be regarded as non-interventionist and a relatively benign ally.”

Analyst say the Western world is divided about whether it should put more pressure on Myanmar’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Some believe that international disapproval of her role on the Rohingya crisis would offer Myanmar’s military an opportunity to push her out of the picture and assume full control.
(c) 2017 VOA
http://www.genocidewatch.com/single...ly-to-Back-Tougher-UN-Actions-Against-Myanmar

 

[TopCat]

 

[Banglar Bir]

12:00 AM, September 28, 2017 / LAST MODIFIED: 03:01 AM, September 28, 2017
Heat, unsafe water take toll on kids
Diseases spreading at refugee camps

Feverish toddlers put to sleep at Thyingkhali Rohingya camp in Ukhia. Their mother placed the branches to protect them from yesterday's sweltering heat. Photos: Anisur Rahman
Wasim Bin Habib

Wrapping his two-year-old daughter in a towel, Jiraman Ali was walking fast towards a medial camp near their temporary shelter at Balukhali in Ukhia.

He looked pale and tired as the child, Jashmin Ara Bibi, had been running a high fever for the last four days.

"We took her to the camp two days ago. Doctors there gave her some syrup. She is taking it on time but the temperature is not coming down,” said the Rohingya man as the baby girl kept coughing with a stuffy nose.

Eleven days ago, Ali, in his 30s, along with five of his family members arrived in Bangladesh fleeing persecution in Maungdaw. As usual, their journey was not smooth. First, they had to walk down the hills for days and then ride a rickety wooden fishing boat to cross the Naf river.

During the journey, Ali's eldest son badly hurt himself falling off a slope and was taking medicines. But the man told The Daily Star yesterday he was terrified that his baby girl was not improving.

Like Jashmin, children living at temporary Rohingya shelters in Ukhia and Teknaf of Cox's Bazar are falling ill every day mainly due to unhealthy living conditions and lack of safe drinking water, say doctors. The hot and humid weather was only increasing their woes.

Fever, respiratory tract infection, cough, dysentery, diarrhoea and skin diseases are spreading among the Rohingyas, especially the children, say the doctors at the medical camps set up by the government and non-government organisations (NGOs).

The exact number of the children fallen sick is hard to come by, but the doctors say they are grappling with a huge number of patients, mostly children.

The scorching heat during the daytime was making the life of the Rohingyas extremely difficult. Also, their makeshift shacks with polythene roofs were hardly able to save them from the rain. Probably, these were making the refugees, even the adults, sick, according to the physicians.

Many others fell sick because they had days of starvation during their perilous journey to Bangladesh.

"During the daytime, we feel like being roasted inside the shack. We bathe in our own sweat," Sanjida, a 33-year-old Rohingya woman, told this correspondent near the crowded medical camp at Balukhali yesterday afternoon.

Her four-year-old son was suffering from diarrhoea and got prickly heat all over his body.

"During the night, we place large pieces of polythene over our muddy floor and sleep on them. It's quite cold there and we've got nothing to keep us warm,” she said, adding, they could not bring anything with them as they had to flee for their lives in Myanmar.

"Things get even worse when it rains. The polythene over our head either gets washed away or rainwater leaks through it. We get drenched every time it rains.”

Sanjida lamented that she was not being able to properly feed her ailing son. “We're eating whatever we're being given as relief. We are surviving somehow; but the lack of drinking water is our biggest problem.”

The number of tube wells set up for the Rohingyas is inadequate, she added.

At the camp in Bagguna of Palangkhali union, Rohingya woman Suraiya found out a unique way to keep her ailing sons -- Osman and Saifat -- cool amid the scorching heat.

The mother covered the babies with leaves of a tree. "The green leaves won't let the heat go in,” she said.

Yards away, Abdul Malek, another refugee, was pouring water on the forehead of his two-year-old son inside their tiny hut. The little boy was shivering.

Mohammed Alam, a doctor from the medical team formed jointly by the directorate general of the family planning and the health ministry for the Balukhali shelter, said most of their patients were suffering from fever, dysentery and diarrhoea.

Dipayan, another doctor at the camp, said given the huge number of the refugees, their challenge would be to check the spread of contagious diseases like Hepatitis B and tuberculosis.

Meanwhile, Health Minister Mohammed Nasim yesterday sought assistance from the icddr,b for preventing any outbreak of diseases in the Rohingya refugee camps.

"I would expect the icddr,b to explore how a mass vaccination of Rohingya refugees, especially of children under five, can be carried out to prevent any imminent disease outbreak,” Nasim told a discussion, titled “Collaboration Between The Government of Bangladesh and icddr,b: Past, Present and Future”, organised by icddr,b at its Sasakawa Auditorium, says a press release.
http://www.thedailystar.net/frontpa...is-heat-unsafe-water-taking-toll-kids-1468780

 

[Banglar Bir]

ARSA denies involvement in violence against civilians
Tribune Desk
Published at 12:26 AM September 28, 2017
Last updated at 12:56 AM September 28, 2017

'ARSA will be conducting thorough investigations and issuing detailed statements from time to time in relation to the ongoing war crimes'
The Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) on Wednesday denied their involvement in any violence in the Rakhine state of Myanmar on August 25.

“ARSA categorically denies that any of its members or combatants perpetrated murder, sexual violence, or forcible recruitment in the villages of Fakirabazar, Riktapara, and Chikonchhari in Maungdaw on or about August 25, 2017,” the Rohingya insurgent group said in a press release.

In addition, the group also called for the Myanmar government to stop “victim blaming” and allow investigations into the atrocities and human rights abuses in the conflict stricken area.

ARSA_The Army @ARSA_Official
STATEMENT (27.9.2017)
Burmese Govt has to Stop 'Victim Blaming', Allow Investigations into Atrocities;
ARSA Denies of Targetting Civilians
Sep 27, 2017
“ARSA will be conducting thorough investigations and issuing detailed statements from time to time in relation to the ongoing war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, and human rights abuses committed by the Burmese (Myanmarese) brutal military regieme,” the press release read.

ARSA also expressed their sympathy for all victims of the violence in Rakhine state “irrespective of ethnic or religious background.”

Over 480,000 Rohingya refugees have fled Myanmar for Bangladesh since August 25, when alleged insurgent attacks on security officials sparked a renewed military crackdown in the Rakhine state.
http://www.dhakatribune.com/world/south-asia/2017/09/28/arsa-denies-involvement-violence/

26 September, 2017 11:05:38 AM
The Great Lie 2: The conspiracy
Denied citizenship on spurious grounds, the Rohingya exist without nation and will little hope for a better future
Forrest Cookson

The Great Lie is the claim put forth by the Myanmar Government that the military actions against the Rohingya are in response to the August 25 attacks of the ARSA on a number of police posts and army camps. The position that the violence involving the Rohingya was caused by these uprisings by an organization allegedly a Islamic fundamentalist group connected with ISIS or Al-Qaida is a fabrication put forth by the Myanmar authorities and repeated endlessly, accompanied by their allies in China and Russia joining in the chanting.

In this article I describe the conspiracy underlying the events in Myanmar of the past month. Years of abuse by the Myanmar army, the police, the Buddhist clergy, and the civil administration have left the Muslim Rohingya in poor condition. Most living in poverty with low levels of health, little access to education, scorned and looked down on by much of the Myanmar population, this group has been driven to bottom of Burmese society. Denied citizenship on spurious grounds, the Rohingya exist without nation and will little hope for a better future.

Many of the young men attempted to escape to Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia, usually by sea, seeking employment in Malaysia or Indonesia. This passage was dangerous and often ended in death from the cruel behavior of the Thai and Indonesia authorities. A recent trial in Thailand convicted a Thai general and many military persons of engaging in trafficking of people and murdering many Rohingya making their way to Malaysia and Indonesia.

The strategic objective of the Myanmar Government is to get rid of the Muslim Rohingya. They are prepared to do so by driving Rohingya out of the country into Bangladesh or by killing them. There have been various efforts to do so in the past few years; these efforts have increased in recent months. The generally accepted estimate is that at the beginning of 2017 there were about 1 million Rohingya in Myanmar in early 2017. [Reliable population data is not available].

At the time of writing there are about 500,000 Rohingya that have crossed the border into Bangladesh. Many attempting to reach Bangladesh have been killed, a process that continues. There are no reliable numbers of those killed or who have died from disease or starvation but it will run into many thousands. We make an estimate below of how many the Myanmar army may have slaughtered.

It is no surprise that many young men seeing the treatment of their families and the wickedness of the Myanmar Buddhists react by by fighting back. Most young Rohingya men want to draw their sword to protect their families, so the formation of groups to fight back is the natural response of this tortured population. One should not underestimate the Myanmar intelligence services. They are fully cognizant of the formation of resistance groups and undertake to penetrate and learn about the membership and activities of these Rohingya opposition groups.

What happened on August 25 this year was a sinister plot of the Myanmar Intelligence Service [I will call them MIS] under the guidance of the sinister, evil General Soe Htut. The Myanmar army was very upset that the Kofi Annan Commission Report on the Rakhine State would recommend actions towards restoring citizenship to the Rohingya and essentially argue for their legitimate presence in Myanmar. To misdirect the attention of the world, the ARSA infiltrated by and partly directed by the MIS encouraged attacks against police posts and an army post. Arms, tactical guidance and encouragement were provided by the MIS to an unwitting ARSA.

The attacks were coordinated with a counter propaganda campaign and military counterstrikes. Both occurred so rapidly as to reveal to any alert observer that the MIS had advanced warning of these attacks. But it was more than advanced warning, the MIS was behind these attacks. The scope and violence of the Myanmar army’s response is clear evidence that they were waiting for the August 25 ARSA attack. The date of the attack corresponded to the Kofi Annan report, strongly suggesting that the MIS controlled the timing.

The propaganda war launched by the Myanmar army then got into full gear. “Not only had these monsters attacked our police stations but now they were burning down their own villages.” The Myanmar army had to have some explanation of the burning of the villages as the view from space showed exactly what was going on. What better than to blame it on the Rohingya themselves. Foreign reporters were brought to Myanmar and fed this nonsense.

The Indian Government, the Chinese Government, and the Russian Government may or may not have known about the plot but all three fell into line supporting the Myanmar Government, trumpeting their opposition to Islamic sponsored violence and supporting the violent repression of the Rohingya. Innocents around the world joined in justifying the so called self defense measures of the poor Myanmar army attacked by these powerful, monstrous Muslim Rohingya.

The results are here for all to see, almost 500,000 people pushed out of their homes, their houses burnt down, their livestock killed, their possession destroyed or looted. The deaths of Rohingya will certainly total more than 100,000 if one could ever count. Preliminary reports show two characteristics: Most people interviewed report that at least one member of their family was killed while fleeing to Bangladesh. Allowing five persons per family, then for 100,000 families fleeing there should be 100,000 killed over the past month. Bangladeshis know all too well how many people can be killed by an army on the rampage against unarmed civilian populations. The second observation is the limited number of men in the masses of Rohingya that have come over the border.

A family of five would on the average have 3 adults and 2 children. So there are 1.5 adult males per family. If there is only 0.5 adult males per family that would mean about 50,000 adult males in the 500,000 and would be perceived as a shortage of men. Again this implies about 100,000 men killed. In this picture we have 200,000 children and 250,000 women.

Not only have the Rohingya been pushed out of their land, but there is a case that at least 100,000 have been killed; while many women and girls were raped. Most interviews report at least one woman or gir has been raped.

Hundreds of thousands of women and children have been driven into Bangladesh while this slaughter and rape took place in Myanmar. All of this was triggered by a plot of the Myanmar army to concoct an excuse to attack this unarmed population to kill and push them into Bangladesh.

This cruel vicious program has been cheered on by the Chinese, the Indians and the Russians. It is hard to come to terms with people so cruel and so callous.

All of these people continue to chant the Great Lie. How can Bangladesh perceive these three nations as friends of Bangladesh?

The expulsion and murder of the Rohingya are genocide.This expulsion is also equivalent to an act of war against Bangladesh. The Indian, Russian and Chinese Governments are complicit in this genocide and aggression against Bangladesh.
The writer is an economist
http://www.theindependentbd.com/post/115963

China affirms support for Myanmar on Rakhine issue
SAM Report, September 28, 2017

Myanmar Vice President U Myint Swe (center right) and Chinese Ambassador to Myanmar Hong Liang at the reception to mark the 68th anniversary of the founding of People’s Republic of China in Naypyitaw. / Htet Naing Zaw / The Irrawaddy

Chinese Ambassador to Myanmar Hong Liang showed his support for the Myanmar government’s handling of the issues in Rakhine State, assuring that China would stand “firmly” by Myanmar on the international stage.

“We hope that the international community will create a good external environment so that Myanmar can solve its problems properly,” said Hong Liang at a reception on Tuesday to mark the 68th anniversary of the founding of People’s Republic of China ahead of an open discussion on Rakhine at the UN Security Council on Thursday.

Myanmar has faced increasing international pressure over government security operations in northern Rakhine State that have left hundreds dead, sent nearly 500,000 self-identifying Rohingya Muslims fleeing to Bangladesh, and been labeled a “text book example of ethnic cleansing,” by the UN.

Myanmar’s UN representative U Hau do Suan, however, insisted at the UN General Assembly on Monday that ethnic cleansing was not taking place against Muslims in Rakhine “in the strongest terms.”

Hong Liang promised to continue providing humanitarian aid for people in Rakhine State, noting the Chinese government provided 200 million kyats for Rakhine State through the Ministry of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement last week.

China supports cooperation between Myanmar and Bangladesh to solve border problems and sincerely hopes that the Myanmar government will be able to bring harmony, stability and prosperity to societies in Rakhine State, he said.

“Myanmar and China have always maintained bilateral cooperation as well as close cooperation in areas of mutual interest in regional and international arenas including the UN,” Myanmar Vice-President U Nyan Tun said at the reception.

When asked about China’s view on State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s briefing to foreign diplomats last week, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Lu Kang said at the ministry’s regular press conference on Sept. 19 that her speech will “help the international community to better know about the situation in Myanmar and understand and support the Myanmar government’s effort to achieve domestic peace and national reconciliation”

“As a friendly neighbor of Myanmar, the Chinese will continue providing necessary assistance for [Myanmar] to uphold internal stability and development,” he said.

Myanmar is economically dependent on China while China also requires Myanmar to expand its influence on the international stage, and the two countries need each other, said U Myo Zaw Aung, member of Lower House International Relations Committee.

“China has its interests not only in Kyaukphyu [of Rakhine State], but also across the country. It has friendly ties with the Myanmar government partly because of those interests. There is a need for a stronger bond between two countries to continue to engage in businesses of great mutual interests,” said U Myo Zaw Aung.

Despite China’s Special Envoy of Asian Affairs Sun Guoxiang’s request for China’s direct involvement in solving the Rakhine issue, the Myanmar government replied in April that it would only cooperate with Bangladesh to find a solution.

China has funded schools, hospitals, the renovation of Bagan temples, afforestation, scholarships and eye surgeries for Myanmar people, which reflect the friendship between two countries, said Hong Liang.
SOURCE THE IRRAWADDY
http://southasianmonitor.com/2017/09/28/china-affirms-support-myanmar-rakhine-issue/