Rohingya Ethnic Cleansing - Updates & Discussions

[Hephaestus]

'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.

Liars...

 

[Banglar Bir]

Rohingya Cultural Anthropology
Sun, 2017-10-01 08:48 — editor
By Dr. Shwe Lu Maung
Myanmar, with her rich cultural and natural resources, has every potential to be a world leader that everybody will love. However, to my anguish:?

(The author's note: The account given here is a very short summary of the facts drawn from my published books. Deeper and broader presentations and discussions can be found in my books).

With hate ideology and violent persecution of the Rohingya people Myanmar has now entered into the darkest era of human civilization in the post WWII. Based on the 1990 Myanmar election data, I calculated in my book The Price of Silence (2005), p 252, that there were 1.87 million Rohingya in a total population of around 4 millions in the Rakhine State, in 1990. Today, based on the latest United Nations and media reports as of September 29, 2017, Rohingya exodus passed half a million mark at 501,000, in addition to earlier mass exoduses since 1978. As such, there is left less than 500,000 Rohingya inside Myanmar. That means more than 73% of Rohingya population has been forced out of Myanmar.
Beyond doubt, this is 'ethnic cleansing'.
In the statues of International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), the 'ethnic cleansing' is defined as a 'crime against humanity' and depending upon the severity it may amount to genocide. In spite of the obvious brutal scorched-earth criminal activities of the Myanmar authorities it is saddening to see that certain powers are putting blame on 'Rohingya,' as the central cause of the crisis, asserting that 'Rohingya' is a political construct of the Bengali illegal immigrants to gain a hold in Myanmar.

At the same time, undue supports to the Myanmar authorities are being showered by certain powers with the hope of getting a mega slice of Myanmar natural resources and economic benefit. Rohingya Mayu region is rich in gas, oil, and coal.

Under such global attitude of greed for power and money, how shall a common man like me go against the world powers, against the socio-economic currents, and fight for justice in this case of Myanmar’s crimes against humanity? At least, with the hope that, one day, there will be an international tribunal for Myanmar crimes against humanity, I can try to tell the factual story with a presentation of the Rohingya cultural anthropology, which constitutes a strong antithesis of the Myanmar hate ideology.
Part 1: The Rohingya - a legend, not a myth
A legend is a tradition or history based on the actual event, extraordinary in nature, in a distant past, whereas a myth is purely a make-to-believe imaginary fictional story.

Let us see. Myanmar accuses that Rohingya is a political construct of the Mujahideens in 1958 in light of the absence of the word "Rohingya" in the existing Myanmar historical records. However, upon a careful examination, I find that the existence of Rohingya is manifested in the Rakhine chronicles by the Rakhine historians themselves, such as Rakhine Maha Razawin by Saya Me, written in 1840. The first book on Myanmar (Burma) history by a non-Burman is History of Burma by Sir Arthur Phayre, published by Trübner & Co., London, in 1833. This is the earliest and most reliable recorded history of Burma written by a person who had long experience in Arakan and Myanmar from 1824 to 1867 as a soldier, diplomat and governor. The following is his description of Arakan.

“The country known in Europe as Arakan extends for 350 miles along the eastern shore of the Bay of Bengal. It is called by the natives Rakhaingpyi, or land of the Rakhaing. The same word in the Pali form, Yakkho, and also Raksha, is applied to beings, some good and some bad, who have their abode on Mount Meru, and are guards round the mansion of Sekra or Indra." (Sir Arthur Phayre, History of Burma, 1883, p 41).

This is a legend but not a myth. The Myanmar version of Mt. Meru is Mt. Mayu. In Burmese dialects 'e' and 'a' sounds are indistinguishable and 'r' is pronounced as 'y', like 'Yangon' for 'Rangoon'. Now, it is a striking coincidence that we have the Rohingya people in the region along the ridge, east and west, of Mt. Mayu, in Arakan. "Rohingya" is a derivative of the Sanskrit word "Raksha" whereas "Rakhine" comes from the Pali version "Rakkha." (For more detail consult The Rakhine State Violence, Vol. 2: The Rohingya). It is also possible that the term "Ra-khine-thar" simply is a Burmese transliteration of "Ra-k-sha." The words mean a guard or soldier in English.

They are the soldiers who guard Mt. Meru, the abode of King Indra of Heaven. The oriental cosmology with Mt. Meru as the center of universe is the main stay in Myanmar culture. In Burmese literature, Mt. Meru is popular as Myint Mohr, Myint for Mount and Mohr is the direct adaptation of Devan?gar? Meru into Burmese script. While Mt. Meru is an object of belief, Mt. Mayu in Arakan is a reality. In deed, we do not know when or who gave the name. When I try to connect the dots in the "out-of-African" human migration that gradually populated the world, it makes me ponder when I find that Mt. Meru also exists near the Tanzanian Olduvai Gorge, the famous archaeological site of human evolution, where the fossils of the early human species Homo habilis, Paranthropus boisei, Homo erectus, and Homo sapiens have been found. In the midway of Tanzania and Arakan, another Mt. Meru stands in Garhwal Himalayas of the Uttarakhand region, India.

In Arakan, it is a fact bigger than reality to find Mt. Meru, or Mt. Mayu in Burmese, is guarded by the Rohingya of Raksha descent. Raksha or ogre is the identity given to the native dark skin people by the invaders of light skin color. A similar scenario can be found in Sri Lanka history of the invader Prince Vijaya and the native ogre woman called Kuveni. Therefore, it is sound to conclude that the term "Rohingya" is not a myth of 1958 political construct by the then Mujahideens, but a legend embedded with facts and recorded in the Rakhine chronicles written by the Rakhine themselves.

Then, the question arises: who are the Rakhine?
Part 2: The Rakhine - children of the conquerors.
The legendary aboriginality of the Rohingya is supported by the Rakhine's claim that they are the descendants of the conquerors and the indigenous people. Most distinctly, the most famous and prominent Rakhine intellectual, aristocratic politician and Barister-at-law, U Kyaw Min (ICS, MP), who was one of the elite eight Indian Civil Service (ICS) of all British Burma, and a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1950 to 1962 in the independent Burma, representing the Rakhine political party known as Ratanya (Arakan National United Organization), asserted that "the Arakanese people are of Aryan stock mixed with the indigenous people who have inhabited Arakan from time immemorial," in his extremely popular pamphlet The Arakan State, the Pye Daw Tha Press, 1958, see page 1, Mistaken Belief.

He wrote it in a serious rebuttal to the Burmese assertion that the Rakhine are also the Burmese who have acquired some distinct characteristics due to localization for a long time. The Rakhine being the descendents of the Indo-Aryan stock is the well accepted Rakhine legend. Every Rakhine will proudly say as such, regardless of his or her biometric phenotype.

How come? A satisfactory answer came from another famous Rakhine intellectual U San Tha Aung, who was a professor of physics, and became the Vice Chancellor of Rangoon University and then the Director General of Higher Education in the days of Ne Win's regime. In his famous book The Buddhist Art of Ancient Arakan, Chapter 1: Geographical Description, Subheading: The Peoples of Arakan, he wrote, "The earliest people who lived in Arakan were Negritos who are mentioned in the chronicles as "Bilus" (cannibals). They appear to have been the direct neolithic descendents of the Arakanese soil. Later, waves of peoples of different races came into this land from the north." Based on the legends of First Dhannyawaddi Kingdom recorded in the Arakanese chronicles, it is possible that the Indo-Aryan peoples of Northern India conquered Arakan in an ancient past, most likely in the days of Great Mauryan Empire 322 to 187 BCE.

The first king of Dhannyawady Kingdom was Marayu, which is a corruption of Maurya. In this regard, I must say that the Rakhine historians placing of the King Marayu in 2600 BCE is a mysterious error. The language of the Mauryan Empire was Magadha.

This is the reason why the Rakhine people say that every body spoke Magadha in the old days and now, only the birds do so.

U San Tha Aung believed that the Magadha-speaking Rakhine were known as Magh or Mogh by the people of Bengal. Up to today some Bengali and Rohingya call the Rakhine Mogh. However, they say a 'Mogh' means a 'pirate', referring to a period of the Portuguese and Rakhine pirates operating in the Bay of Bengal in early 1600s. I agree with U San Tha Aung since the term Magh or Mogh existed much earlier than the age of the Portuguese pirates. Again, in support of the Magadha origin, the scholars also know that a Bengali poet named Daulat Qazi who served the Rakhine king Thiri Thu-Dhamma Raja (r.1622-1638 CE), in his epic poem ‘Satî Mainâ’, mentioned Magadha descent of the king and his kingdom as follow.

“To the east of the river Karnafuli there is a palace, Roshang
City by name – like the Heaven.
There rules the glorious king of Magadha descent a follower
of the Buddha,
Name being Sri Sudhamma Raja, renown for his justice.
His power is like the morning sun, famous in the world,
Grooms the subjects like his own children.
Reveres the Lord [Buddha] and purely religious,
One’s sins are forgiven when one sees his feet…”
(The Rakhine State Violence Vol. 2: The Rohingya, p 173)

It is important note that the 17th century poet of the Arakan Palace, Daulat Qazi, used the word 'Roshang' but not 'Rakhine'.

Now, the Rakhine also claim that they are also the descendants of Rakha (Rakkha) or Bilu. Rakkha is the Pali version of the Sanskrit word "Raksha." Sanskrit is an earlier language than Pali. Therefore, it is reasonable to accept that the Pali version Rakkha became prominent when the ancient land of Arakan was conquered around 322 BCE and ruled by the Mauryans who spoke Magadha, a Pali language.

Both U Kyaw Min and U San Tha Aung clearly believed that the Rakhine are the descendants of the conquerors, the Magadha-speaking Mauryans, and the indigenous people. As such, they came to be known as the Rakhine in Pali version. In light of these statements, it is reasonable to believe that the Sanskrit version 'Rohingya' and the Pali version 'Rakhine' diverged beginning at the time of the Mauryan rule of Dhannyawady Kingdom. So must also be the Rohingya, the natives, and the Rakhine, the children of the conquerors married to natives.

Then, the question arises: why the Rakhine speaks a Burmese dialect today? The answer came from the internationally accepted history. It is a common knowledge that the Mauryan Empire fell and the Dyannyawadi Kingdom also vanished.

Then, there emerged Sanskrit-speaking Three City Kingdoms, namely Samatata, Harikela, and Ves?l?, with the symbol of ?r?vatsa. Today, the Rakhine State Flag still is embedded with the symbol of ?r?vatsa. The former two kingdoms are in today’s Chittagong region and Ves?l? is in today’s Rakhine State of Myanmar. Rakhine Ves?l? was ruled by a dynasty bearing the name Chandra, using Sanskrit as its royal language, but we do not know the language of the commoners in that period.

No matter what, Ves?l? was conquered by the Burmese in 957 as per candid description of Maurice Collis who in his famous book The Land of Great Image (1943, pp 136-137) wrote that Arakan was conquered by the "Mongolian barbarians" in 957 CE and as a result, the inhabitants are "a mixture of Mongolian and Indian races."

Maurice Collis was a British Commissioner of Arakan and his knowledge of Arakan is formidable. He is in agreement with Professor Daniel George Edward Hall, who was the founding father of the Department of History at Rangoon University in 1921. Professor Hall wrote in his book, A history of Southeast Asia (1964), that Burmese arrived at Arakan only in the 10th century AD and the earlier kingdoms of Arakan belonged to the Indians "ruling over a population similar to that of Bengal."

Again, these historical events are supported by another prominent scholar, Randy J. LaPolla, who is currently a Professor, at the Division of Linguistics and Multilingual Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He wrote, "The people we have come to think of as the Burmese had been in Yunnan, under the control of the Nanzhao kingdom, and moved down into Burma beginning in the middle of the ninth century." (See p. 237 of Randy J. LaPolla, The role of migration and language ... Case Studies in Language Change, Oxford University Press, November 2001).

According to him, the Burmese established themselves by conquering the Pyu and the Mon. Later, they conquered Arakan. Since then, the Rakhine has been under the influence of the Burmese. Consequently, the Rakhine today speaks a dialect of Burmese and, in deed, the Burmese blood also runs in them. As such, the Rakhine are a mixed population of the aborigines Negritos, Mauryans who are the Northern Indo-Aryans, and the Burmese of Yunan origin. That is why you will find many skin color shades, from black, yellow, golden to snow-white, among the Rakhine. I can see these beautiful phenotypes in my clan.

I came from a large and well-established clan whose forebears founded and ruled Laymro and Mrauk-U dynasties from 13th to 18th century. I have relatives and distant relatives through out Arakan spanning from Bandarban and Cox's Bazar area of Bangladesh to Taungup and Gwa area of Rakhine State, Myanmar. I came to realize this amazing genetic diversity when I learned Mendelian inheritance laws and Punnett Squares at Rangoon University and I am proud that I am a Homo sapiens having a rich gene pool, though I am not a tall, dark and handsome man.

Similarly, today Rohingya are no longer the Raksha of the ancient days. Their gene pool has been enriched by the waves of new settlers in the days of the Arakan Empire as described by the famous poet Alaol in his epic poem, Padmavati (1648).
Part 3: The Rohingya of Central Arakan
It will be naive to say that there is no Bengali in Arakan. Based on the commonness of mtDNA macrohaplogroup M in both Bengal and Myanmar, a very similar, if not the same, population must have lived in both regions some 10,000 to 40,000 years ago.

Thousands of years passed and Professor DGE Hall, based on the archaeological artifacts, found evidence that before the Burmese occupation in the 10th century Arakan had a similar population to that of Bengal.

We must keep in our mind that what we now know as Bengal and Burma (Myanmar) took their respective politico-cultural shapes only in the 12th century. Accordingly, the first recorded Bengali settlers in Arakan are the soldiers of Sultan Jalaluddin Muhammad Shah of Gaur, then the capital of independent Bengal, who were given to the dethroned Rakhine King Mun Saw Mwan, to restore his throne from the Burmese occupation in 1430 CE.

The Burmese hatred towards the Bengali probably began here. The number of soldiers described by the scholars varies from 30,000 to 50,000 but we do not know how many stayed on. We do know that a good number of the Bengali soldiers served the Rakhine kings of Arakan from 1430 to 1784. The Rakhine kings ruled the twelve cities of Bengal, including Chittagong for 150 years.

Many captives from the occupied areas were forced to slave-labor in the paddy fields of the Rakhine kings as witnessed and recorded by the Portuguese Augustinian friar Sebastião Manrique's in 1628. With the help of the Bengali and with the revenues and exploits from Bengal, Arakan prospered. Even the most famous king of Arakan Min Bin (r.1531-1553) had Bengali queens as noted by Professor Pamela Gutman in her book Burma's Lost Kingdoms: Splendours of Arakan (p. 100). As such, even the Rakhine royals carried the Bengali genes.

In the course of time, they all became Arakanized and mostly settled in the central Arakan, not in the northern Arakan. Their descendents prefer to be known as the Rakhine Muslims. Again, R.B. Smart on the page 90 of his report wrote, "They (Mussalmen) differ but little from the Arakanese except in their religion and in the social customs which their religion directs; in writing they use Burmese, but amongst themselves employ colloquially the language of their ancestors.

Long residence in this enervating climate and the example set by them, the people among whom they have resided for generations, have had the effect of rendering these people almost as indolent and extravagant as the Arakanese themselves."

This I know because I had Muslim friends in my school and university days and about 10% of them, with trust, confided me that they were the descendents of these Arakanized Bengali and that they had Rakhine father or mother in their family tree, and therefore they are also the 'Rakhaingthar' or 'Roshangya'. This is the reality of cultural anthropology brought about by the Arakan Empire and, naturally, we must accept its manifestations in every aspect.

Most of the Arakanese Muslim soldiers were killed, along with their Arakanese Buddhist comrades in defense of Arakan against the Burmese occupational war in 1784.

During the Burmese genocidal occupation of Arakan from 1784 to 1824, some 250,000 Arakanese people (The Price of Silence (2005), p 244), both Buddhists and Muslims, were killed and more than 100,000 were enslaved by the Burmese kings either as the forced labor to build the pagodas (e.g. Mingun), and water reservoirs (e.g. Meiktila Lake), or as the conscripts in their fight against Siam (now Thailand). Near the Thai border, a southern Burmese community known as the Beik-thar (also known as Myeik) is made up of the descendents of the Rakhine soldiers who settled there during the Burmese-Siamese Wars (1785-1812).

They still speak Burmese with distinctive Rakhine accent. Many Arakanese Muslims were forced to dig Meiktila Lake and they are known as the Mye-du (Muslim), meaning earth-diggers. Today, they live in or around the city of Meiktila and suffered serious attack from the Buddhist extremists in 2013.

At the event of the 1784 Burmese genocidal occupation of Arakan, the people of Arakan (Arakanese), including Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, and animists, fled. Later, many more fled from the brutality of the Burmese occupational forces. Again, more people fled from the First Anglo-Burma War (1824-1826). Most of them returned to Arakan when the British occupied it in 1826. The return of the Arakanese Buddhists, Hindus, and animists are viewed as the return of the natives by the today Burmese authorities, but the return of the Arakanese Muslims is considered as the Bengali infiltration and they now face the ethnic cleansing. Therefore, we must carefully review the historical records. Two very important reports are discussed here. The emphases in italics are mine.

1. As per British record (B.R. Pearn, King-Bering, Jour. Burma Research Soc., Vol. XXXIII (II), 1933, p445), is that "by the year 1789, two-thirds of the inhabitants of Arakan were said to have deserted their land." Please note the term 'the inhabitants of Arakan,' which carries the meaning that all communities of Arakan, fled into the British territory in Bengal and India.

2. The British Deputy Commissioner, R.B. Smart in his report (Burma Gazetteer Akyab District Volume A, Rangoon, Superintendent, Government Printing, Burma, 1917, p 84) wrote, "When Arakan was first ceded it wasfound to be depopulated but immigrants soon flocked in, composed mainly of persons who had been driven out by the Burmese or who escaped during the war and who came back to their homes from Chittagong and other neighboring districts,and as the country became more settled the immigration increased." Arakan was ceded by the Burmese to the British in 1826 when the Burmese was defeated in the First Anglo-Burma War, 1824-1826.

The Deputy Commissioner Smart's elaboration that "the immigrants" are "composed mainly of persons who had been driven out by the Burmese or who escaped during the war"is the critical information we must bear in our minds in every page when we read his report. It is imperative to do so. Deputy Commissioner Smart used the word 'immigrants' for all returnees. In the later sections of his report, his use of the word 'Arakanese' only for the 'Rakaing' (i.e. Rakhine) is arbitrary since the word 'Arakanese' is a derivative of the name of the country 'Arakan' and as such it covers all inhabitants of Arakan.

He also generalized in the use of the word 'Chittagonian' for the 'Arakanese Muslims', and 'Chittagonian Hindu' for the 'Arakanese Hindu' for the simple reason that they all came from "Chittagong and neighboring districts" where they had been exiled during the Burmese occupation (1784-1824) and the First Anglo-Burma War (1824-1826), for more than 40 years. Many of them must have been born there. Therefore, in the eyes of the British who effectively ruled Bengal since 1765 they were all Bengali or Chittagonians.

Futhermore, R.B. Smart on the page 89 of his report, clearly mentioned that the Mahomedans "were, for the most part, descendants of slaves captured by the Arakanese and Burmese in their wars with their neighbours." As such, the word 'Chittagonian' in his report is a much generalized term for the convenience of reporting.

Today, the Myanmar authorities' assertion that the Muslims of Arakan are the Bengali Chittagonian illegal immigrants of British era is absolutely invalid because it totally ignores the abovementioned report of B.R. Pearn (1933) and clarification of R. B. Smart (1917). The accusation that today Arakanese Muslims are the Chittagonian agricultural laborers (coolies) is also wrong because Deputy Commissioner Smart, in his report on pages 103 and 104, clearly mentioned that the 'coolies come from Chittagong, Kyaukpyu and Sandoway districts," and "with the exception of a few who obtain further employment, return to their home."

At the same time, Myanmar's assertion that all 'returnees' were the Rakhine only does not reflect the historical reality of Arakan. We must be fully aware of the fact that Arakan Kingdom was multi-ethnic and multicultural, as recorded by the famous Bengali poet Alaol in his epic poem Padmavati, written in 1648. Alaol served in the royal palace of Rakhaing kings Narapadigyi (r.1638-1645 CE), Thado Mintar (r.1645—1652 CE), and Sandathu-dhamma (r.1652-1684 CE). In his description of the multi-ethnic and multicultural society of Arakan, which id given below, I counted 41 ethnic groups.

“People from every country, hearing the magnificence of Roshang, Took shelter under the King. Arabian, Michiri [Egyptian], Shami [Syrian], Turkish, Habsi [African], Rumi Khprachani and Uzbek. Lahuri, Multani, Sindi, Kashmiri, Dakkhini (Deccanese), Hindi, Kamrupi [Assamese] and Bangadeshi [Bengali], Ahopai Khotanchari, Karnali, Malayabari, From Achi, Kuchi [Cochi] and Karnataka. Countless Sheik, Soiyadjada, Moghul, Pathan warriors, Rajput, Hindu of various nationals. Avai [Inwa], Burmese, Siam [Thai], Tripura, Kuki to name. How many more should I elaborate. Armenian, Olandaz [Dutch], Dinemar, Engraj [English], Castiman and Franças [French]. Hipani [Spanish], Almani [German], Chholdar, Nachhrani [Nestorian], Many races including Portuguese."

As such, when we read carefully various historical accounts it is clear that Arakan was a multiethnic and multicultural and that the settlers at various phases of Arakan’s history intermarried with the local people.

In particular, the multiethnic and multicultural diversification as well as the melting or intermixing took place in central Arakan, far away form the Mayu region. The mixed descendants are also known as the Roshangya that changes into Rohingya in the course of time.

This may seem to complicate the scenario because we now have a second layer of Rohingya. Nevertheless, the second layer of the Rohingya does not compromise the aboriginality of the Rohingya; rather it enriches the Rohingya culture and gene pool.

Notwithstanding, the second layer of Rohingya was a making of the Rakhine people, their kings, and the Burmese conquerors, and consequently the responsibility devolves onto the Rakhine and their master, the Burmese. Therefore, Myanmar today must handle the Rohingya issue with a sincere sense of due responsibility.

Let us not forget that, in the 17th century, Poet Alaol, like Daulat Qazi, also referred Arakan as Roshang, which is the direct derivative the Sanskrit word 'Raksha'.
Therefore, it is obvious that Arakan was also known as Roshang and as such, the 'Roshangya' or later 'Rohingya' are also Arakanese.

In the later days, due to the racial and cultural divergence the Arakanese Buddhists prominently became 'Rakhine' with Pali inclination and the Arakanese Muslims remain as 'Rohingya' having Sanskrit lineage.
With the event of the Buddhist dominance, in particular after the Burmese genocidal occupation of Arakan in 1784, the 'Rohingya' faded into the unknown place of history. The Buddhist dominance gradually advanced to Buddhist ultra-nationalism or Myanmarism, which is a hate ideology, (see The Price of Silence. ISBN-13: 978-1928840039, 2005), resulting in ethnic cleansing, with the event of General Ne Win's fascist militarism in 1962 and his racist Citizenship Act of Burma, 1982. Why Myanmar is still acting as the occupational force? Why the world is tolerating such crimes against humanity? This is 2017, not 1784.
Part 4: Rohingya - neither Bengali nor Burmese
A study of the linguistic scenario also renders strong support to the abovementioned legends and history of Rohingya aboriginality, elucidating that they are neither Bengali nor Burmese.

It has been established that the Rohingya is a dialect within the Indic (Indo-Aryan) languages of Indo-European language phylum.
Therefore, it is native to South Asia as per today’s geographical classification. Burma is included in the Southeast Asia.

However, if we look at the map, say the Google Earth, we can easily see that Arakan of Burma is more of South Asia than of Southeast Asia.

As a matter of fact, I have concluded that Arakan or the ancient legendary Rakkhapura was an extension of the Brahmaputra Civilization (p 223, The Rakhine State Violence, Vol. 2: The Rohingya). Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that the Rohingya speakers are the indigenous to the region.
On the other hand, the Rakhine language is an archaic dialect of today’s Burman language, which is classified as the Tibeto-Burman branch of Sino-Tibetan phylum.

According to Professor Randy J. LaPolla, a distinguished scholar of linguistics the Sino-Tibetan language was originated in the Yellow River valley of China some 6,500 years ago (p 99, The Rakhine State Violence, Vol. 2: The Rohingya). As such, it is clear that the Tibeto-Burman speakers of Myanmar are the emigrants from north China. This squarely invalidates the assertion by the Myanmar scholars and authorities that Myanmar is a native land of the Tibeto-Burman speakers.

Furthermore, a Sino-Burmese scholar named Chen Yi-Sein who taught at Rangoon University and was a member of the Burma Historical Commission from 1956 to 1987, identified the Pyu of Taungdwingyi, central Burma, being the Dravidian speakers, contradicting the popular version that the Pyu were the Tibeto-Burman speakers.
Current scholars like Michael Aung-Thwin, University of Hawaii at Manoa, has described that the Pyu musicians entertained with Sanskrit songs at the Tang Court in 800–802 as per the Chinese records. Pyu scripts are based on the Southern Indian Brahmi scripts.

The artifacts found in various Pyu archaeological sites, dating from 1st to 9th century CE, were written in Pyu, Sanskrit or Pali. In addition, from the available archaeological artifacts we have good reasons to believe that Pyu belonged to the same stock of South Asian people such as Tamil.

The native people of Taungdwingyi and Prome (pyay) region have dark skin color and the girls are popular as 'nyochaw' or 'brown beauties'. Burmese chronicles also mention that two blind Princes of Tagaung were cured to regain their eye sights by an ogre-nymph in the region of Shinma-daung and Mt. Popa, at the bank of Irrawaddy River.
The ogre-nymph is, for sure, a dark-brown Dravidian speaking lady. The names, Mt. Popa (Puppha) and River Irrawaddy (Iravati) are not of Tibeto-Burman but are of Indic and Dravidian origin. In parallel, it is well-established that the Mon of Mon-Khmer people were in Burma long before the arrival of the Tibeto-Burman speakers. The Mon-Khmer language is in the family of Austroasiatic language phylum. In addition to the Mon, the languages of the Palaung and the Wa of Myanmar also fall in the family of the Austroasiatic languages.

There was no mentioning of Rakhine in Ves?l? ?nandachandra Sanskrit stone inscription. The word Rakhine (Rakkhaing) first appeared only in the 14th century literature known as Shin Nagainda Mawgwun, an epic poem. It says they are known as the Rakhine (the guardians) because they safeguard two faculties such as Amyo (kindred) and Sila (religion). The Burmese script first appeared along with Pali, Pyu and Mon scripts in the Myazedi Stone Inscription made by Prince Raza Kumar of Pagan (Bagan) in 1113 CE. And it is believed that the Myanmar scripts were invented based on the Pyu scripts. As such, among the major languages and scripts, the Burmese language and scripts are the last to appear in Burma.

Today, the Rohingya language is unique with its own features within the Indo-European language family. It is also important to know that the Rohingya language is not legible to the Bengali and vice versa; however, a Rohingya can understand the Chakma language and vice versa, as pointed out by Dr. Muhammad Firdaus, M.D., FACP, an American physician of Rohingya ancestry, in USA.

As such there is some affinity to each other between the Chakma and Rohingya languages. This intrigues me because Marayu, the founding king of Dhannyawadi is recorded to be the son of a Chakma woman and a Mauryan prince (The Rakhine State Violence Vol. 2: The Rohingya, pp 89-90). For sure, the Rohingya is not a Bengali dialect as concocted by the Myanmar authorities.
Accordingly, we must reject the Burmese wrongful alienation of the Rohingya by calling them Bengali just because they speak an Indic but not Tibeto-Burman dialect. Finally, we must, with all due justice, respect the uniqueness of the Rohingya and its own identity, independent of Bengali and Burmese. Thereby, we must honor their rights to self-identification and self-determination.
Part 5: Rohingya - the aborigines and siblings
Today, no evidence is complete in the absence of genetics and DNA technology. There are two distinct lines of genetics inheritance, one from the mother and the other from the father. We can follow the genetic trail by tracing the genetic markers known as the haplotypes and those having the same haplotypes are grouped into the haplogroups.
The genetic materials known as the mitochondrial DNA or mtDNA is uniquely inherited from the mother only. Therefore, from the studies of the mtDNA, we can trace the origin of our maternal ancestry way back to the remote time of human evolution.
In light of present knowledge, it is established that our Mitochrondrial Eve lived some 194,000 years ago, possibly somewhere in East Africa, and she carried the macrohaplogroup L.
The mother macrohaplogroup L branched out to L1-6 macrohaplogroups. It would appear that the early human who had mtDNA macrohaplogroup L3 came out of Africa probably some 94,000 years ago.
From the macrohaplogroup L3 emerged the macrohaplogroups M and N, as early as some 62,000 years ago.
All the European population carries the macrohaplogroup N whereas the Asian population, from the Indian Subcontinent, Southeast Asia to Far East, has the mcarohaplogroup M.
The mother's mtDNA is a better indicator of the aboriginality of a local group because it is men who usually migrate or invade. For example, from the studies of Venezuelan population genetics we know that all the paternal Y-chromosome comes from almost exclusively of the European invaders while the maternal mtDNA is purely of the indigenous women, indicating that the indigenous males were wiped out.

In a study of 44 complete mtDNA sequences of Myanmar people by M. Summerer and his colleagues (BMC Evolutionary Biology, 2014, 14:17, pp 1471-2148) they found that all Burmese mtDNA fall in the macrohaplogroup M.
Most interestingly, M. Metspalu and his colleagues (BMC Genetics 2004, 5:26, pp 1471-2156) discovered that the frequency of macrohaplogroup M peaks at 86% at West Bengal, indicating that Bengal serves as the Grand Central of human migration from South to East and Southeast Asia.

Therefore, it is not surprising when HUGO Pan-Asian SNP Consortium, consisting of 92 scientists (Science, 2009, 326: pp 1541-1545), concluded, "the evidence from our autosomal data and the accompanying simulation studies...point toward a history that unites the Negrito and non-Negrito populations of Southeast and East Asia via a single primary wave of entry of humans into the continent." In other words, it is not wrong to say that Bengali women are the mothers of all Southeast and East Asian population that includes the Burmese as well.

As such, the entire population of South, East, and Southeast Asia is connected by the mtDNA macrohaplogroup M and all are the descendants of the Asian Negritos.
This is in absolute agreement with the statements of U Kyaw Min and U San Tha Aung that the earliest people of Arakan are Negritos. Thus, there is overwhelming agreement between science and legend supporting the Rohingya existence since the time immemorial and they are known as Raksha or Bilu (meaning dark and ugly ogre) in the Myanmar chronicles.
It is excitingly so because Raksha or Bilu are the guards of Mt. Meru and the Rohingya today are concentrated in the region of Mt. Mayu, which is the physical representation of the Buddhist cosmological Mt. Meru. The Buddhists must be very grateful to the Rohingya for safe-guarding their sacred mountain since the beginning of the world.

Beyond doubt, with the science of modern genetics, it confirms that the Rohingya, who appears to be a modern image of our ancestral Negritos, are the aborigines of Arakan.
Now, the Burmese still call the Chinese 'paukphaw', meaning 'sibling', reflecting their historical cultural lineage. I would like to suggest that the Burmese may also call a Rohingya 'paukphaw' because he is also a sibling in light of the anthropological genetics. Again, based on the population genetics, we also know with certainty that of the total three billion DNA nucleotides in our human genome 99.99% is the same in the entire human population. As such, we all are siblings.
Part 6: Rohingya - the victims of civilization
In the days of Arakan Kingdoms, there were slavery and discrimination, but there was no recorded communal violence or ethnic cleansing. The same is true during the days of British rule.
The Rohingya problem emerged only when the British withdrew in 1947-48, and the three nation states known as Pakistan, India and Burma were created.
Many peoples got divided along the new border lines. The biggest example is the division of Great Bengal into lesser West Bengal and East Bengal within India and Pakistan respectively. East Bengal, in 1971 violently broke off from Pakistan to become an independent sovereign nation, Bangladesh.

The smaller peoples, such as Baloch, Kashmiri, Naga, Mizo, Manipuri, Chakma, Rohingya, Rakhine, Chin, Kachin, Shan, Kaya, Karen, Mon etc., are not that fortunate. The Rohingya are the worst because they got cemented at the bottom of the Myanmar racial hierarchy, as illustrated below.

The Rohingya dilemma began when their ancestral region was divided into Pakistan (now Bangladesh) and Burma, along the midstream of Naaf River.

They are agriculturists and fishermen, and still are nomadic to some extent. Their ancestral land runs along the east and west Banks of Naaf River. They were caught in the brand new nationalism and citizenship acts of Pakistan and Burma.

They had no understanding of what the heck a nation state or citizenship is in the modern civilized world. All they knew was that their freedom had been severely restricted and their villages were divided by the demarcation of a border line running in the middle of their ancestral land.
In confusion, chaos and rebellion broke out. U Nu Government of Burma settled the situation in a peaceful manner, which is well reflected in the speech of Brigadier General Aung Gyi on the 4th of July 1961 when he welcomed the end of armed insurrection of some 200 Rohingya.
Aung Gyi's speech reads as follow in my English translation from the original Burmese that appeared in the Khit-ye Sa-saung (p 31, The Rakhine State Violence, Vol. 2: The Rohingya).

"First, I would like to talk about the matter that is concerned for all people of Mayu District. Our Mayu District is bordered in the West with Pakistan. Due to the border connection there are people of Muslim religion both at the East and West sides of the border.
The people at the West [of the border] are called Pakistani and those at the East [of the border] inside Myanmar are known as the Rohingya. I would like to say this: This place [Mayu District], which is connected with Pakistan, is not the only place where the same “kind of people” (Lumyo) lives at both sides of the border."

Then, he gave the examples of Lisu, E-kaw, La-Wa, Shan living inside Myanmar and China, and Tai, Mon, Karen inside Myanmar and Thailand. After that he said the following.

"At this moment, before the audience, I would like to say openly and precisely. People in the bordering regions have relatives on either side. Despite having the relatives, those who live over there must be Pakistani and those who live here must be citizens of the Myanmar Union."

Thus, U Nu Government implemented peace and citizenship to the Rohingya. The problem was solved and ended there, in 1961.
However, in 1962, most unfortunately, General Ne Win and his army seized power, abolished all democratic institutions, and introduced militarized ultra-nationalism and racial hierarchy. With hate ideology, Myanmar’s ethnic cleansing of Rohingya has reached to a point of genocide and crimes against humanity.
For long 55 years from 1962 to 2017, the civilized world did nothing. U Nu had said, "It is a sin to kill, but it is a greater sin to watch the killing with folded arms." As long as the world remains silent with folded arms the Rohingya and their alike will be suffering in the hell of civilization.

Dr. Shwe Lu Maung, is an author of several books on Burma (Myanmar), and is a living authority on his native Rakhine (Arakan) state. He is a scientist by training and profession and claims to be a social Darwinist. Before settling in the USA, he spent decades living both in Burma and Bangladesh.
- Asian Tribune -
http://www.asiantribune.com/node/91042

 

[Banglar Bir]

What's next to stop Myanmar?
Sun, 2017-10-01 11:31 — editor
By Habib Siddiqui
According to aid workers inside Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, as of last Friday, more than half a million Rohingyas have poured into the country from Myanmar. More than 60% of these refugees are women and children under the age of twelve. It is feared that young Rohingya men are either butchered by the Myanmar security forces or are being detained and tortured or lynched by security forces and Buddhist neo-fascists, and some may also be hiding in jungles to escape the killing fields. They are victims of a very sinister genocidal campaign inside Myanmar that has become a national project to eliminate Rohingya presence in this Buddhist majority country.

The United Nations have condemned vehemently the criminal activities of Suu Kyi’s government and her ‘rapist and arsonist’ military/security forces. The UN Secretary General has called it a ‘text book case of ethnic cleansing.’

The U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley on Thursday, September 28, called on countries to suspend providing weapons to Myanmar over violence against Rohingya Muslims until the military puts sufficient accountability measures in place. It was the first time the United States called for punishment of military leaders behind the repression, but stopped short of threatening to re-impose U.S. sanctions which were suspended, rather foolishly or thoughtlessly, under the Obama administration.

“We cannot be afraid to call the actions of the Burmese authorities what they appear to be - a brutal, sustained campaign to cleanse the country of an ethnic minority,” Haley told the U.N. Security Council, the first time Washington has echoed the U.N.’s accusation that the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people in Rakhine State was ethnic cleansing.

“The Burmese military must respect human rights and fundamental freedoms. Those who have been accused of committing abuses should be removed from command responsibilities immediately and prosecuted for wrongdoing,” Haley said. “And any country that is currently providing weapons to the Burmese military should suspend these activities until sufficient accountability measures are in place,” Haley said.

Meanwhile, international aid groups in Myanmar have urged the government to allow free access to Rakhine State, where an army offensive has sent more than 500,000 people fleeing to Bangladesh, but hundreds of thousands remain cut off from food, shelter and medical care. Many refugees have died while trying to get into Bangladesh.

The United Nations said lately that at least 15 refugees, including nine children, drowned when their boat capsized off the coast in bad weather.

The Myanmar government has stopped international aid groups and U.N. agencies from carrying out most of their work in the north of Rakhine state, citing insecurity since the Aug. 25 insurgent attacks. Aid groups said in a joint statement they were: “increasingly concerned about severe restrictions on humanitarian access and impediments to the delivery of critically needed humanitarian assistance throughout Rakhine State.” “We urge the government and authorities of Myanmar to ensure that all people in need in Rakhine Sate have full, free and unimpeded access to life-saving humanitarian assistance.”

The sad reality is that despite all condemnations from the world leaders and worries and concerns of international aid agencies and human rights activists, Myanmar is not going to change her criminal course. Its rouge government, since the time of Ne Win, has learned how to ignore world opinion and reinvent its savagery.

The other grim fact is that our world media have had a very small attention span and that soon the ongoing genocidal crimes of the murderous Myanmar government and its neo-fascists within the general public will all be forgotten only to be rudely awakened with another surge of violence inside and refugee exodus from Myanmar. At this rate, I am afraid that not a single Rohingya would be left behind in that of den of extreme intolerance.

Last week, I got a call from my cousin (Sheikh Fariduddin Ahmed Chowdhury who was one of the Dhaka University student leaders of the 1969 Students’ Movement in the then East Pakistan) in Chittagong who had gone to the refugee camps in Cox's Bazar to personally find out the condition of the Rohingya refugees and provide humanitarian aid. He was simply horrified to learn of their plight first hand. He said he had never seen a people in such a hopeless and despair condition in his life. To the refugees, the world has failed to stop their suffering and life has lost all its charms and meaning to live long; they are totally hopeless.

It is there that - what's next - is crucial for us to ponder about and find an answer to that may help us all to avoid a repeat of the current events.

'Boycott Myanmar' seems to be a good slogan and tactic to try given that all other earlier activities of human rights activists and conscientious global citizens have failed to put the moral compass right for our powerful world leaders. The latter have not done anything to stop the bleeding process other than airing empty words that don't bite. Talks will surely not sober a rogue and pariah state that has known and learned that it has its backers in China, India, Israel and Russia - to name just few countries.

We have also seen the failure of the BDS movement in making a difference for the Palestinian people again for the same reason - Israel has its powerful patrons within the UNSC. No matter what this 'other apartheid' state does, with patrons like the USA it need not fear the world opinion. Thus, we had dismal failure to repeat the success of the South African experiment.

This experience sums up our dilemma vis -a-vis Myanmar! As brother Dr. Shwe Lu Maung told me the other day when a person chooses not to wake up and pretends to sleep he would ignore the cries and screams of others; even a bucket full of hot water thrown at him may not do the trick. That is what is happening with Suu Kyi and her criminal government, rapist and arsonist military and neo-fascist lynch mobs and monks! As part of a national project to eliminate Rohingyas from the soil of its ancestors, these criminals will continue to do what have proven to expedite their criminal plan. They are all in a state of self-delusion and -denial of their evil!

Perhaps the only way we could stop these savages is to hang them high - of course, via Nuremburg type trials. Will that ever happen in our time? I am not sure. The Rohingyas, sadly, don't have celebrity lawyers like Amal Clooney to start the process of incriminating Myanmar government and its murderers.

All said, we can surely try a BDS campaign for Myanmar. Who knows what did not work for Israel may work for Myanmar, after all, Myanmar is not Israel! If European countries and the USA plus Japan can be influenced by the moral justification to boycott Myanmar, others may find it difficult to trade with it.
- Asian Tribune -
http://www.asiantribune.com/node/91043

 

[Banglar Bir]

The Principle of Responsibility to Protect: The Case of Rohingya in Myanmar
Article · August 2015 
Hariati Ibrahim
International Islamic University Malaysia
Rohaida Nordin
National University of Malaysia
Abstract
This article discusses the plight of the Rohingya, an ethnic group in Myanmar who has been suffering an institutionalised persecution and discrimination since the administration of military junta. The paper argues that the Rohingya is facing a serious threat of genocide, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity, while the government of Myanmar has failed in its primary duty to protect them.

Due to such failure, the responsibility to protect them falls on the international community to prevent the occurrence of mass atrocities under the principle of Responsibility to Protect (R2P).

The objectives of this article are twofold.
First is to provide an understanding of the plight of the Rohingya and
Second is to analyse the application of R2P as a solution to the crisis.
This article provides recommendations to the government of Myanmar, Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the United Nations (UN) on the role to be played through tripartite action for the application of the principle of R2P in Rohingya crisis.
To do this, the researchers conducted a qualitative analysis of plethora of literatures and official reports on Rohingya crisis and R2P.
Discover the.........
Click on the link to read the PDF article
https://www.researchgate.net/public...ty_to_Protect_The_Case_of_Rohingya_in_Myanmar

Responsibility to Protect the Rohingya?
2017-09-18 / CHARLI CARPENTER
This is a guest post (begun as a series of tweets) by Phil Orchard, Senior Lecturer in Peace and Conflict Studies and International Relations at the University of Queensland and the Research Director of the Asia-Pacific Centre for the Responsibility to Protect.
He is the author of A Right to Flee: Refugees, States, and the Construction of International Cooperation, the forthcoming Protecting the Internally Displaced: Rhetoric and Reality and, with Alexander Betts, the co-editor of Implementation and World Politics: How International Norms Change Practice.
He tweets @p_orchard.

The past three weeks have seen remarkable violence in Rakhine State, Myanmar. On 25 August, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) launched a series of coordinated attacks on police posts and a military base which killed twelve government officials.

The ARSA, an armed insurgency organization which began its first attacks in October, claims that their goal is have the Rohingya be “a recognized ethnic group within Myanmar.” While many Rohingya can trace their roots back centuries in Myanmar, the government considers them to be illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.
It does not recognize the term Rohingya, and has refused to grant them citizenship; as a result “the vast majority of the group’s members have no legal documentation, effectively making them stateless” and face significant discrimination and government restrictions.

The Myanmar government has responded to the ARSA by branding it a terrorist organization and claiming that the Tatmadaw, the Armed Forces of Myanmar, is using “clearance operations” to target militants.

Even Aung San Suu Kyi has “blamed ‘terrorists’ for ‘a huge iceberg of misinformation calculated to create a lot of problems between different countries.’” The government has also claimed that the Rohingya are burning their own villages, however reporters from the AFP and BBC have documented several incidents being staged. The government has also denied requests for UN humanitarianagencies and US government officials to access the area.

The violence has led an estimated 391,000 Rohingya refugees to flee across the border into Bangladesh. There is also evidence that the Tatmadaw, the Armed Forces of Myanmar, have been laying mines along the border with Bangladesh to deliberately target Rohingya refugees crossing the border. And the government has suggested that any civilians seeking to return from Bangladesh will need to show “proof of nationality.”

Over the past week, and following a significant upsurge in reporting on the crisis, the UN system has begun to respond.
On September 11th, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, labelled the attacks as a “textbook example” of ethnic cleansing, a view which has been supported by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres supported.

Ethnic cleansing, while it has never been defined as a crime in international law, is included alongside genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity in the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine as mass atrocity crimes.

The R2P doctrine recognizes that states have three responsibilities.
This has been called the three pillar approach following UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s 2009 Report on the Responsibility to Protect that states have a responsibility to protect their own populations from these four atrocity crimes
(Pillar 1), that the international community has a responsibility to assist states in upholding their own responsibilities
(Pillar 2), and that, in cases where states are manifest failing in their responsibility, the UN Security Council can take action under Chapter VII of the UN Charter
(Pillar 3). Pillar 3 R2P actions are rare – the only intervention to occur without the concerned state’s consent was that of Libya in 2011. But it is important to note that the R2P does not require such interventions to occur.

Instead, Jennifer Welsh has referred to it as a ‘duty of conduct’ by members of the international community, which requires them “to identify when atrocity crimes are being committed (or when there is threat of commission) and to deliberate on how the three-pillar framework might apply.” Alex Bellamy has similarly argued that what the R2P does is create “shared expectations within international society that
(1) governments and international organizations do, in fact, exercise this responsibility;
(2) they recognize both a limited duty and a right to do so; and
(3) failure to fulfill this duty should attract criticism.”

The UN Security Council did meet on Wednesday and issued a statement following the meeting – a major shift as the Council had not been able to agree on a common stance on Myanmar for nine years. The statement (which was circulated on twitter by Human Rights Watch’s Ken Roth) is relatively innocuous.
The Council members note their deep concern and call for immediate steps to end the violence, ensure the protection of civilians and resolve the refugee problem, but does not specifically identify perpetrators. In fact, it spends more time on the issue of aid, noting that the government of Myanmar had made commitments “to provide humanitarian assistance to all displaced individuals” and that the government needed “to fulfil these commitments.”

Two elements suggest the Council is unlikely to take other action.
The first is the politics of the Council – China continues to support the government of Myanmar and is unlikely to authorize further action. China’s foreign ministry spokesperson noted on September 12th that while China condemns the violent attacks, “the international community should support the efforts made by Myanmar to maintain national development and stability and create enabling external conditions for the proper settlement of the issue of Rakhine State.” Any further actions would need China’s support.

The second is that the Council has been far slower to take action in situations where there is just large scale displacement, as opposed to large scale killings. While the cleansing has been brutal, it appears to have led to relatively few deaths.
The government suggests 430 people have been killed, mostly insurgents, while the government of Bangladesh has estimated the death toll at 3,000. States deliberately displacing their own populations is surprisingly common.

The Council’s past practice has simply been to condemn large scale displacement, and only rarely has it taken action when refugee flows were large enough to potentially a threat to regional or international peace and security. Combined, therefore, these two elements suggest the Council is unlikely to take further concrete actions unless the situation further deteriorates.

Other UN mechanisms have been similarly stymied. The UN Human Rights Council created a Fact-Finding Mission to investigate the situation in Rakhine State in March, but the government has refused it entry.

But there is also another path forward on this crisis, a path that goes to the International Criminal Court.

Ethnic cleansing is not an international crime, but in a report released on Thursday based on widespread satellite imagery, photographs, videos, and interviews, Amnesty International noted that: “There is a clear and systematic pattern of abuse here.
Security forces surround a village, shoot people fleeing in panic and then torch houses to the ground. In legal terms, these are crimes against humanity – systematic attacks and forcible deportation of civilians.”

I’ve argued that forced displacement can constitute an international crime if it includes either the forcible transfer of civilians within a state’s territory or the forced deportation of civilians across an international border.
Forced deportation can constitute a crime against humanity, meaning the “forced displacement of the persons concerned by expulsion or other coercive acts from the area in which they are lawfully present, without grounds permitted under international law” as established by Article 7(1)(d) and Article 7(2)(d) of the ICC’s Rome Statute.
This does not require an armed conflict to be present. For it to be widespread requires it to be a large-scale action involving a substantial number of victims, while for it to be systematic requires a high degree of orchestration and planning, both of which appear to be the case here.

How does the ICC become involved? Bangladesh has ratified the Rome Statute, and therefore has the ability to refer a case to the Court.
The Rome Statute establishes only that a “State Party may refer to the Prosecutor a situation in which one or more crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court appear to have been committed…” (Art 14(1)). And Article 12(2) establishes that jurisdiction applies if it is “the state on the territory of which the conduct in question occurred…” or if “the State of which the person accused of the crime is a national.” So, the Court’s jurisdiction would appear to be clear – it is only on the territory of the state where the conduct occurred, which would mean that Myanmar would need to refer the issue.

But forced deportation – perhaps uniquely – is a crime by definition that includes people being forced to cross borders. This leads to a possible argument by Bangladesh that the Court would have jurisdiction as the conduct is occurring across the border between Myanmar and Bangladesh.

Would the Court accept such an argument? It would be an important precedent if it did. Even if it did not, though, a Bangladeshi referral might have important immediate deterrent effects. Right now, the Tatmadaw is operating with impunity against the Rohingya. Yet, there is increasing evidence that the ICC may be having a deterrent effect.
As Jo and Simmons argued last year, among the effects are a “reduction in intentional civilian killing by government actors when states implement ICC-consistent statutes in domestic criminal law…” Such effects would certainly be limited in this case, but it would demonstrate a credible form of international action in response to this crisis, and at least put the Tatmadaw on notice
http://duckofminerva.com/2017/09/responsibility-to-protect-the-rohingya.html

 

[Banglar Bir]

Rohingya crisis: 'Persecution' could be used by IS group to fight the West, Julie Bishop warns
Matthew Doran
Posted Sun at 7:09am
VIDEO: Julie Bishop says Australia is "deeply disturbed" by situation in Myanmar (ABC News)
RELATED STORY: Rohingya children among 19 dead, more than 50 missing after boat capsizes near Bangladesh
RELATED STORY: Australia to continue Myanmar military training despite rights abuses
MAP: Burma violence continues against ethnic minorities in Myanmar, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has warned.
Key points:

• Rohingya crisis could give rise to broader problems, Julie Bishop says
• Aung San Suu Kyi faces strident criticism of her handling of the situation
• "Australia maintains an arms embargo on Myanmar," DFAT says

It is believed more than half-a-million Rohingya Muslims have fled persecution in Myanmar's Rakhine state.
Who are the Rohingya?

The plight of Myanmar's Rohingya refugees, a Muslim ethnic minority group rendered stateless in their homeland and detained in transit nations, is desperately bleak.
The situation has triggered a humanitarian crisis in neighbouring Bangladesh, which has accepted the refugees pouring over the border.

Ms Bishop argued the ongoing violence, prompted by a military offensive in Myanmar, could give rise to broader problems.

"We are deeply concerned that the persecution of a significant group of Muslim Rohingyas will be used by ISIS and other terrorist groups as part of their narrative to take up arms and to fight against the West," Ms Bishop told Insiders.
"That's why this Myanmar situation must be resolved.
"There's got to be a political resolution but in the meantime, the humanitarian disaster needs our full attention."

Myanmar's leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, has faced strident criticism over her handling of the situation, with many describing it as a lack of action from the once-lauded political activist.

Earlier this week, Bangladesh police said more than 50 Rohingya refugees from Myanmar were reported missing and dozens died after their boat capsized.

PHOTO: Rohingya refugee sisters, who just arrived under the cover of darkness by wooden boats from Myanmar, try to find their parents. (Reuters: Damir Sagolj)

PHOTO: Lalu Miya cries over the bodies of his wife and children, who died after a boat with Rohingya refugees capsized. (Reuters: Damir Sagolj)
'Australia maintains arms embargo': Bishop
Ms Bishop told Insiders Australia supported a UN-led investigation.
"Australia has supported an independent investigation to verify the facts on the ground, a UN-led investigation," Ms Bishop said.
Was the speech too little, too late?

Aung San Suu Kyi may be a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, but her address to the nation was more the speech of a politician, writes Anne Barker.
"State Councillor Aung San Suu Kyi has confirmed that she will invite UN representatives and international diplomats into Rakhine state this Monday — Australia's ambassador to Myanmar will attend that visit."

Earlier in the week, the United States ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, called on countries to suspend providing weapons to Myanmar over violence against Rohingya Muslims.

"Australia maintains an arms embargo on Myanmar due to concerns about ongoing conflict, weapons proliferation and human rights," a spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade told the ABC.

"This prohibits the export of arms and related materials and associated services to Myanmar.
"Australia does not sell weapons or conduct joint military exercises with Myanmar."

PHOTO: UN has called on countries to suspend providing weapons to Myanmar over violence against Rohingya Muslims. (AP: Bernat Armangue)
Topics: refugees, unrest-conflict-and-war, religion-and-beliefs, burma, bangladesh, australia
MYANMAR'S ROHINGYAS
Why are the Rohingya stateless?

How the military still controls Myanmar, not Aung San Suu Kyi

As Rohingya camps spread, disease fears grow
Rohingya Muslims fight for scarce resources in Bangladesh refugee camps
Was Aung San Suu Kyi's speech too little, too late?
Myanmar could be on the brink of genocide, UN expert says
Suu Kyi in an unenviable position as plight of Rohingya worsens
Malala calls on Suu Kyi to condemn 'shameful' Rohingya abuses
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-...ya-crisis-to-fight-west,-bishop-warns/9005326

 

[Banglar Bir]

12:00 AM, October 01, 2017 / LAST MODIFIED: 12:42 PM, October 01, 2017
UNSC FAILS TO CENSURE MYANMAR
Can Rohingyas return to their homeland?

With the current inflow of over 500,000 Rohingyas, the total number of Rohingya refugees presently living in Bangladesh is now nearly one million. PHOTO: STAR
Mahmood Hasan
On September 28, the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres briefed members of the Security Council in an open session on the ongoing violence in Rakhine which had forced 500,000 Rohingyas to take refuge in Bangladesh. The meeting was held at the request of 7 members of the Security Council. No statement was issued by the President of the Council—currently held by Ethiopia.

At the briefing, Secretary General Guterres said that “the situation has spiralled into the world's fastest developing refugee emergency, a humanitarian and human rights nightmare…We have received bone-chilling accounts from those who fled.” Testimonies pointed to serious human rights violations, noted Guterres. “This is unacceptable and must end immediately,” demanded the Secretary General.

Myanmar's representative U Thaung Tun, echoing Aung San Suu Kyi, denied all allegations of ethnic cleansing and genocide. Bangladesh's Ambassador Masud Bin Momen reflected on Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's plan, calling for the creation of safe zones inside Myanmar and repatriation of the displaced Rohingyas. US Ambassador Nikki Haley said, “We must consider action against Burmese security forces who are implicated in abuses and stoking hatred.” US, Britain and France, all permanent members, were joined by other members demanding immediate end to the ongoing violence and a strong UNSC response. Japan condemned the attacks on civilians. But Chinese deputy Ambassador Wu Haitao said that the situation in Rakhine was stabilising and that all parties should work constructively. Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia warned that “excessive pressure” on Myanmar's government “could only aggravate the situation in the country and around it.” China and Russia, both permanent members, were against issuing any statement.

Bangladesh wanted a consensus leading to a strong statement from the UNSC calling upon the Myanmar authorities to stop the ethnic cleansing and create a situation that would facilitate the return of the Rohingyas from Bangladesh. With the current inflow of over 500,000 Rohingyas, the total number of Rohingya refugee presently living in Bangladesh is now nearly one million—an untenable economic burden on Bangladesh. Clearly, the permanent members were divided—a serious setback for Bangladesh.

The crux of the crisis lies in the Myanmar authorities' refusal to grant citizenship to the Rojhingyas and the systematic discrimination against them that has continued since the promulgation of the 1982 Citizenship Law. The narrative that follows is all too familiar for repetition.

The Annan report also mentioned the citizenship issue very cursorily. There are serious lacunae in the recommendations—it does not use the term “Rohingya” but “Muslims of Rakhine”; it does not call upon Myanmar to restore citizenship and basic rights of the Rohingyas, but only calls on the Myanmar government to quicken the verification process and revisit (not change) the 1982 Citizenship Law.

Suu Kyi in her speech to the Myanmar parliament on September 19 mentioned that all Rohingyas (she did not use the term) would be able to return after a process of verification. This is a clear trap; as the verification process would drag on for years, if not decades. Primarily because the majority of Rohingyas do not possess any document issued by the Myanmar authorities. It would be a herculean task for international organisations—IOM, OCHA, UNHCR, etc—to prove that these are displaced Rohingyas, who fled Rakhine following brutal persecution.

The Annan report is clearly a tailored document that fits in with the Rohingya expulsion plan of the Myanmar junta. The Commission was set up by Suu Kyi, presumably at the junta's advice, to deflect world opinion. It neither had any international mandate nor was Bangladesh involved in setting it up.

The junta has been planning for decades to change the demographic composition of Rakhine. It had planned to expel the Rohingya Muslims and Hindus from Rakhine and establish Buddhist majority in the state. That policy led to repeated violence against the Rohingyas since 1978 and forced these people to repeatedly take refuge in Bangladesh.

After the current spate of ethnic cleansing, the junta is determined not to allow the displaced Rohingyas to return to Myanmar. The junta's policy towards Rohingyas was made abundantly clear by Myanmar's Army Chief General Min Aung Hlaing when he said, “They have demanded recognition as Rohingyas, which has never been an ethnic group in Myanmar.” The Myanmar military has planted landmines along the border with Bangladesh. According to reports, it has mobilised 70 battalions of troops with heavy artillery and equipment to crush ARSA insurgency and thwart the Rohingyas from returning to Rakhine.

Referring to the process of repatriation of Rohingyas, Guterres said that the 1993 Joint Statement by the Foreign Ministers of Bangladesh and Myanmar was not sufficient in the present circumstances. “The Muslims of Rakhine state should be granted nationality” the Secretary General insisted. If Suu Kyi's offer for the verification process is taken along with the Annan recommendations, only a handful of Rohingyas will be able to go back to Myanmar—much less than those of 1978 and 1993. General Hlaing, it seems, will certainly not agree to take back all the Rohingyas.

The Rohingya issue is an internal issue for Myanmar; but has become an international issue because of the exodus of Rohingyas into Bangladesh. Therefore, Bangladesh must keep the UN Security Council fully involved in the repatriation of these people and in resolving the problem permanently. It would be a folly if Bangladesh tries to resolve this problem bilaterally with Myanmar.

Bangladesh has to convince China and Russia and get the UNSC to adopt a binding resolution with the following included: i) impose economic sanctions on Myanmar, for as long as this crisis is not permanently resolved; ii) repatriation of all Rohingyas within a fixed timeframe, under UN supervision; and, iii) grant full citizenship to all Rohingyas with their human rights fully recognised.

Unless the UNSC comes forward with a stringent resolution under Chapter VII of its Charter, it appears that Bangladesh is doomed to host these hapless Rohingyas for a long time.
Mahmood Hasan is former Ambassador and Secretary.
http://www.thedailystar.net/opinion/bystander/can-rohingyas-return-their-homeland-1470073

India, Myanmar, and the convenient discovery of Hindu mass graves

A Hindu family stays in a shelter near Maungdaw, in the north of Rakhine state, Myanmar, September 12, 2017
Reuters
By Fazlur Rahman Raju
Dhaka Tribune
October 1, 2017
'Thousands have been killed, where are their bodies, their mass graves?'
Security experts and human rights activists believe Myanmar is carrying out a media campaign to blame Rohingya insurgents for the killing of Hindus in Myanmar in a bid to take attention away from the ethnic cleansing carried out by the Myanmar army in the Rakhine state, and also to influence public opinion in India.

“Myanmar is trying to get support from India by trying to establish that the ARSA is involved the anti-Hindu activities,” said veteran journalist and political commentator Afsan Chowdhury.
Myanmar, said security analyst Major General Md Abdur Rashid (retd), is trying to prove that the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) had killed the Hindus to convince the outside world that the army clampdown was a timely and a right one.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi went on a two-day state visit to Myanmar around two weeks after the country’s army started a crackdown on the Rohingya, on September 7, where he refrained from criticising the government for the atrocities being carried out on the Rohingyas.

On September 27, Myanmar claimed to have discovered mass graves containing bodies of 45 Hindu Rohingyas, including 28 bodies in one place, and blamed Rohingya insurgents for it. Most international publications and news agencies promptly ran the story, including all major Indian outlets. India Today and Daily Mail took it a step further and ran stories on the “forced conversion” of Hindus in the Bangladeshi refugee camps.

India on Friday asked Myanmar to bring the people linked to the Hindu carnage to justice.
Maung Zarni, a Burmese academic exiled in the UK, on Tuesday told The Citizen that this development came after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s endorsement of Suu Kyi, adding, “I do not believe it at all, not at all.”

“Thousands have been killed, where are their bodies, their mass graves?” he asked.
“The information [about the corpses] has come from the Burmese military and government and not an independent source. If this is so then let the government bring in the United Nations to investigate these mass graves and determine whether indeed this crime has taken place at all,” he said.
Abdur Rashid said: “Myanmar initially tried to defend the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya in the name of fighting terrorism, which the rest of the world did not believe.”

“When Myanmar realised that its counter-terrorism theory was failing, it tried to label Rohingya people as Bengali terrorists, but in vain, as Bangladesh protested the issue vigorously,” he said.
Shahab Enam Khan, associate professor of International Relations Department at Jahangirnagar University, said: “The first question is whether the ARSA really is capable of killing a huge number of Hindus in Myanmar? Until now, it is just a tiny outfit which was suddenly made out to be a huge force by the Burmese Junta.”
“…Myanmar’s claim of Hindus being killed is an effort to dress it in the garb of Islamic terrorism and a ridiculous attempt to divert the world’s attention from the Rohingya genocide,” he said.
Myanmar government’s Information Committee on September 25, quoting an unnamed person, said 300 ARSA militants had detained some 100 people from Yebawkya village, killing most of them the same day.

Reuters, on Wednesday, while reporting that Myanmar authorities displayed the bodies of Hindu villagers they say were killed by Muslim insurgents, described them as ‘victims of a surge of violence in someone else’s fight, now playing their part in a propaganda war.’
On the same day, Human Rights Watch also published a statement critical of the discovery of Hindu bodies.

“While Burmese authorities have put on a stage-managed tour to the Hindu village in question, as well as Rohingya villages unaffected by the recent violence, they have denied access to independent monitors to the mass graves and the rest of northern Rakhine State…,” it said in the statement.
The government’s quick conclusion on ARSA’s guilt contrasts sharply with its own unwillingness to credibly investigate countless alleged crimes committed by its own forces against Rohingya Muslims, it said.

“Burma’s government should stop playing politics with the dead. Beyond stopping military atrocities, it should allow the United Nations fact-finding mission into the country to investigate all crimes,” the rights body further said.
Maung Zarni said many powerful western countries have completely rejected Myanmar’s claim over the mass grave, however South Asia has bit into the narrative being put out by Myanmar, as was visible when Modi went and stood by SuuKyi despite strong world criticism.
“What is really scary is the Burmese military’s attempt to expand the circle of enemies against the Rohingya,” Zarni said.

Meanwhile, the editor and executive director of Myanmar Times, the oldest privately owned and operated English-language newspaper in Myanmar, Kavi Chongkittavorn, made some revealing statements about Myanmar’s position vis-à-vis the Rohingya.

“What is the role of media under the current government?” Chongkittavorn posed the question to himself during a panel discussion that ran from August 11 to 13. His answer: “The most important [role] is constructing the Myanmar narrative.”

“You read Aung San Suu Kyi’s comments, you read New Light of Myanmar, and you read everything that comes from the government. The government wants to construct the Myanmar narrative, which is still absent,” Chongkittavorn said.

“You need a massive [number of] people to believe the same thing.”

 

[Banglar Bir]

Rohingya crisis splits Asean on religious lines
Malaysia's open criticism of Myanmar's treatment of its Rohingya Muslim minority speaks to the potential for wider regional communal conflict
By NILE BOWIE SINGAPORE, OCTOBER 1, 2017

A woman makes her way to the shore as hundreds of Rohingya refugees arrive under the cover of darkness by wooden boats from Myanmar to Shah Porir Dwip, in Teknaf, near Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh, September 27, 2017. Photo: Reuters/Damir Sagolj

Clear divisions are emerging among members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) over Myanmar’s military operations in Rakhine state, a diplomatic divide that threatens to split the regional grouping on religious lines.

Myanmar’s military-led “clearance operations” have led to civilian causalities, allegations of grotesque rights abuses and the displacement of over 500,000 ethnic Rohingya who have sought refuge in neighboring Bangladesh.

Malaysia took the rare step last week of disassociating itself from a joint statement issued by the Philippines, the grouping’s current chairman, because from Kuala Lumpur’s perspective it misrepresented the situation. Malaysian Foreign Minister Anifah Aman, in an unusually sharp rebuke, maintained that the chairman’s remarks failed to reflect Asean’s founding principle of consensus.

The Asean statement expressed support for Myanmar in efforts “to bring peace, stability, rule of law and to promote harmony and reconciliation between various communities,” and omitted the term “Rohingya” in referring to the persecuted Muslim minority group – in accordance with Naypyidaw’s opposition to its use as an official ethnic group classification.

Rohingya refugees reach for food near Balukhali in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, September 4, 2017. Photo: Reuters/Mohammad Ponir Hossain
Malaysia’s dissenting remarks followed on Prime Minister Najib Razak’s own activist stance on the issue, demonstrated by his championing of the Rohingya cause in the international arena and at political rallies at home where he has characterized Myanmar’s treatment of the minority community as an “insult to Islam.”

“What’s the use of Aung San Suu Kyi having a Nobel prize?” asked the premier referring to Myanmar’s de facto leader as he addressed a massive protest rally alongside the leader of the fundamentalist Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) last December at a stadium in Kuala Lumpur. In the same address, he urged the United Nations to take action in support of the Rohingya.

Najib also expressed hope that the United States would play a positive role in diffusing the crisis during his recent meeting with President Donald Trump at the White House.

Malaysia has simultaneously called on China – which views the conflict as an “internal affair” and has welcomed Myanmar’s efforts to combat extremists – to help resolve the Rohingya refugee crisis. Najib has cultivated close economic and strategic ties with Beijing in recent years.

Muslim-majority Malaysia’s coast guard announced earlier this month that it would no longer turn away Rohingya fleeing Myanmar’s violence, promising to provide temporary shelter to refugees fleeing the Myanmar military’s scorched earth clearance operations.

Rohingyas living in Malaysia protest against the treatment of Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims at the Myanmar embassy in Kuala Lumpur, September 8, 2017. Photo: Reuters/Lai Seng Sin
That assault was triggered by surprise lethal attacks on police and military posts staged on August 25 by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), an emergent Rohingya militant group whose leadership has alleged ties to extremist elements in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

Although it is not a signatory to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, Malaysia hosts an estimated 59,000 Rohingya refugees registered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), although unofficial numbers are believed to be nearly double that number.

While Najib has provided generous amounts of humanitarian aid to refugees in Bangladesh and displayed broad solidarity with the Rohingya, asylum seekers in Malaysia are still considered illegal immigrants under local immigration laws, barring refugees from legal employment, access to state schools and leaving them subject to arrest, detention or deportation.

Critics of Malaysia’s premier, who has been embroiled in money laundering controversies related to the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) scandal, claim his proactive stance on the Rohingya issue falls short on solutions and appears motivated by political considerations to consolidate domestic Malay Muslim support ahead of general elections that must be held at the latest by August 2018.

Buddhist-majority Myanmar has accused Najib’s government of violating the Asean charter of non-interference and exploiting the crisis “to promote a certain political agenda.” Najib has also claimed that Myanmar’s de facto leader Suu Kyi has outright refused to meet Foreign Minister Anifah Aman to discuss the Rohingya issue.

Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak (C) speaks to supporters during the United Malays National Organization (UMNO) 71st anniversary celebration in Bukit Jalil stadium on May 11, 2017. Photo: Mohd Rasfan.

The snub was part of a wider diplomatic spat. Last year, Naypyidaw barred its citizens from working in Malaysia, a top regional destination for migrant labor due to relatively higher wages, and suspended its policy of visas-on-arrival for Malaysians in January, making it the only Asean country whose citizens need to acquire a visa before visiting Myanmar.

Despite diplomatic tensions, bilateral trade has grown, up from around US$900 million in 2015 to US$1.15 billion in 2016, according to statistics from the Malaysia External Trade Development Corporation (Martrade). Around 4.5% of Myanmar’s imports originate from Malaysia, while Myanmar was Malaysia’s sixth largest trading partner within Asean in 2015.

“Asean risks losing credibility and international confidence if the regional grouping continues to ignore the plight of the Rohingya,” wrote former Asean secretary general Surin Pitsuwan, a Thai Muslim, in a recent editorial. “The regional grouping needs to act urgently to prevent the Rakhine crisis from spiraling into regional tensions.”

The Rohingya issue’s emotional pull in Asean areas with significant Muslim populations has sparked concerns of communal strife with security implications that could escalate well beyond Myanmar’s borders. Asean’s inability to contain the Rakhine crisis opens prospects for deepening cultural and religious divisions in Southeast Asia, where rising identity politics present myriad potential dangers.

Muslim youth pray for the Marawi siege and the plight of Rohingyas in Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines September 29, 2017. Photo: Reuters/Dondi Tawatao

Diplomats and observers believe Myanmar’s treatment of the Rohingya could become a magnet for international extremists, while government-sanctioned rallies condemning Myanmar can potentially backfire on political leaders, worsen ties between nations and fuel radicalization that risks inciting communal violence and instability in Asean’s mix of Buddhist, Christian and Muslim communities.

That appears to be happening already in spots. Mohamad Fuzi Harun, Malaysia’s police chief, recently disclosed intelligence that confirmed Malaysian citizens were present in Rakhine engaged in armed struggle against the Myanmar government, and that other Malaysian militants are quietly preparing to join the fight.

Malaysia’s anti-terror chief Ayob Khan Mydin Pitchay made similar comments to local media claiming that Islamic State (IS) was actively using the Rohingya issue as a platform to recruit new members locally to carry out attacks, though he did not say whether the suspected Malaysian militants were fighting alongside ARSA in Rakhine.

IS-inspired militants from Malaysia, Indonesia and several Middle Eastern and Central Asian countries unexpectedly laid siege in May to the Philippine city of Marawi on the southern island of Mindanao. Fighting has continued with a pocket of militants holding a last position in the ruined city.

Filipino soldiers in Marawi City with Islamic State graffiti in the background, June 2, 2017. Photo: Reuters/Romeo Ranoco

Security analysts believe IS fighters are in the process of shifting their militant activities from the Middle East to Southeast Asia, as counterterrorism efforts in Syria and Iraq roll back the terror organization’s territorial gains and influence.

“There is a danger that the situation in Rakhine will make the territory a hotbed of international terrorist activity, both for the IS and Al Qaeda,” said Jasminder Singh of the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.

He warned of the potential for attacks in Myanmar and against its interests in the region, seen in a recent petrol bomb attack on Naypyidaw’s embassy in Jakarta.

As the Rohingya issue becomes a regional lightning rod for communal divisions, inaction and the absence of a collective response may fuel further radicalization, raising the risk of terrorist militants opening a second Asean front in Myanmar’s now burning Rakhine state.
http://www.atimes.com/article/rohingya-crisis-splits-asean-religious-lines/

 

[Banglar Bir]

Rohingya crisis splits Asean on religious lines
Malaysia's open criticism of Myanmar's treatment of its Rohingya Muslim minority speaks to the potential for wider regional communal conflict
By NILE BOWIE SINGAPORE, OCTOBER 1, 2017

A woman makes her way to the shore as hundreds of Rohingya refugees arrive under the cover of darkness by wooden boats from Myanmar to Shah Porir Dwip, in Teknaf, near Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh, September 27, 2017. Photo: Reuters/Damir Sagolj

Clear divisions are emerging among members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) over Myanmar’s military operations in Rakhine state, a diplomatic divide that threatens to split the regional grouping on religious lines.

Myanmar’s military-led “clearance operations” have led to civilian causalities, allegations of grotesque rights abuses and the displacement of over 500,000 ethnic Rohingya who have sought refuge in neighboring Bangladesh.

Malaysia took the rare step last week of disassociating itself from a joint statement issued by the Philippines, the grouping’s current chairman, because from Kuala Lumpur’s perspective it misrepresented the situation. Malaysian Foreign Minister Anifah Aman, in an unusually sharp rebuke, maintained that the chairman’s remarks failed to reflect Asean’s founding principle of consensus.

The Asean statement expressed support for Myanmar in efforts “to bring peace, stability, rule of law and to promote harmony and reconciliation between various communities,” and omitted the term “Rohingya” in referring to the persecuted Muslim minority group – in accordance with Naypyidaw’s opposition to its use as an official ethnic group classification.

Rohingya refugees reach for food near Balukhali in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, September 4, 2017. Photo: Reuters/Mohammad Ponir Hossain

Malaysia’s dissenting remarks followed on Prime Minister Najib Razak’s own activist stance on the issue, demonstrated by his championing of the Rohingya cause in the international arena and at political rallies at home where he has characterized Myanmar’s treatment of the minority community as an “insult to Islam.”

“What’s the use of Aung San Suu Kyi having a Nobel prize?” asked the premier referring to Myanmar’s de facto leader as he addressed a massive protest rally alongside the leader of the fundamentalist Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) last December at a stadium in Kuala Lumpur. In the same address, he urged the United Nations to take action in support of the Rohingya.

Najib also expressed hope that the United States would play a positive role in diffusing the crisis during his recent meeting with President Donald Trump at the White House.

Malaysia has simultaneously called on China – which views the conflict as an “internal affair” and has welcomed Myanmar’s efforts to combat extremists – to help resolve the Rohingya refugee crisis. Najib has cultivated close economic and strategic ties with Beijing in recent years.

Muslim-majority Malaysia’s coast guard announced earlier this month that it would no longer turn away Rohingya fleeing Myanmar’s violence, promising to provide temporary shelter to refugees fleeing the Myanmar military’s scorched earth clearance operations.

Rohingyas living in Malaysia protest against the treatment of Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims at the Myanmar embassy in Kuala Lumpur, September 8, 2017. Photo: Reuters/Lai Seng Sin
That assault was triggered by surprise lethal attacks on police and military posts staged on August 25 by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), an emergent Rohingya militant group whose leadership has alleged ties to extremist elements in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

Although it is not a signatory to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, Malaysia hosts an estimated 59,000 Rohingya refugees registered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), although unofficial numbers are believed to be nearly double that number.

While Najib has provided generous amounts of humanitarian aid to refugees in Bangladesh and displayed broad solidarity with the Rohingya, asylum seekers in Malaysia are still considered illegal immigrants under local immigration laws, barring refugees from legal employment, access to state schools and leaving them subject to arrest, detention or deportation.

Critics of Malaysia’s premier, who has been embroiled in money laundering controversies related to the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) scandal, claim his proactive stance on the Rohingya issue falls short on solutions and appears motivated by political considerations to consolidate domestic Malay Muslim support ahead of general elections that must be held at the latest by August 2018.

Buddhist-majority Myanmar has accused Najib’s government of violating the Asean charter of non-interference and exploiting the crisis “to promote a certain political agenda.” Najib has also claimed that Myanmar’s de facto leader Suu Kyi has outright refused to meet Foreign Minister Anifah Aman to discuss the Rohingya issue.

Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak (C) speaks to supporters during the United Malays National Organization (UMNO) 71st anniversary celebration in Bukit Jalil stadium on May 11, 2017. Photo: Mohd Rasfan
The snub was part of a wider diplomatic spat. Last year, Naypyidaw barred its citizens from working in Malaysia, a top regional destination for migrant labor due to relatively higher wages, and suspended its policy of visas-on-arrival for Malaysians in January, making it the only Asean country whose citizens need to acquire a visa before visiting Myanmar.

Despite diplomatic tensions, bilateral trade has grown, up from around US$900 million in 2015 to US$1.15 billion in 2016, according to statistics from the Malaysia External Trade Development Corporation (Martrade). Around 4.5% of Myanmar’s imports originate from Malaysia, while Myanmar was Malaysia’s sixth largest trading partner within Asean in 2015.

“Asean risks losing credibility and international confidence if the regional grouping continues to ignore the plight of the Rohingya,” wrote former Asean secretary general Surin Pitsuwan, a Thai Muslim, in a recent editorial. “The regional grouping needs to act urgently to prevent the Rakhine crisis from spiraling into regional tensions.”

The Rohingya issue’s emotional pull in Asean areas with significant Muslim populations has sparked concerns of communal strife with security implications that could escalate well beyond Myanmar’s borders. Asean’s inability to contain the Rakhine crisis opens prospects for deepening cultural and religious divisions in Southeast Asia, where rising identity politics present myriad potential dangers.

Muslim youth pray for the Marawi siege and the plight of Rohingyas in Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines September 29, 2017. Photo: Reuters/Dondi Tawatao

Diplomats and observers believe Myanmar’s treatment of the Rohingya could become a magnet for international extremists, while government-sanctioned rallies condemning Myanmar can potentially backfire on political leaders, worsen ties between nations and fuel radicalization that risks inciting communal violence and instability in Asean’s mix of Buddhist, Christian and Muslim communities.

That appears to be happening already in spots. Mohamad Fuzi Harun, Malaysia’s police chief, recently disclosed intelligence that confirmed Malaysian citizens were present in Rakhine engaged in armed struggle against the Myanmar government, and that other Malaysian militants are quietly preparing to join the fight.

Malaysia’s anti-terror chief Ayob Khan Mydin Pitchay made similar comments to local media claiming that Islamic State (IS) was actively using the Rohingya issue as a platform to recruit new members locally to carry out attacks, though he did not say whether the suspected Malaysian militants were fighting alongside ARSA in Rakhine.

IS-inspired militants from Malaysia, Indonesia and several Middle Eastern and Central Asian countries unexpectedly laid siege in May to the Philippine city of Marawi on the southern island of Mindanao. Fighting has continued with a pocket of militants holding a last position in the ruined city.

Filipino soldiers in Marawi City with Islamic State graffiti in the background, June 2, 2017. Photo: Reuters/Romeo Ranoco

Security analysts believe IS fighters are in the process of shifting their militant activities from the Middle East to Southeast Asia, as counterterrorism efforts in Syria and Iraq roll back the terror organization’s territorial gains and influence.

“There is a danger that the situation in Rakhine will make the territory a hotbed of international terrorist activity, both for the IS and Al Qaeda,” said Jasminder Singh of the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.

He warned of the potential for attacks in Myanmar and against its interests in the region, seen in a recent petrol bomb attack on Naypyidaw’s embassy in Jakarta.

As the Rohingya issue becomes a regional lightning rod for communal divisions, inaction and the absence of a collective response may fuel further radicalization, raising the risk of terrorist militants opening a second Asean front in Myanmar’s now burning Rakhine state.
SOUTHEAST ASIA DIPLOMACY MYANMAR
http://www.atimes.com/article/rohingya-crisis-splits-asean-religious-lines/

 

[Banglar Bir]

The Nobel peace prize is a who’s who of hawks, hypocrites and war criminals
Arwa Mahdawi
Aung San Suu Kyi is the latest Nobel peace prize laureate to bring the award into disrepute. But people misunderstand what it stands for: absolutely nothing

Indian Muslims hold placards and shout slogans during a protest against the persecution of Rohingya Muslims Photograph: Tsering Topgyal/AP
Sunday 1 October 2017 17.00 BST Last modified on Monday 2 October 2017 00.10 BST

It’s that time of year again! The days are growing shorter and the smell of Nordic niceties is in the air. Yes, Monday marks the start of Nobel season, the world’s most prestigious prize-giving ceremony and our annual reminder that Norway exists. Over the course of the week, Nobel prizes will be awarded in six categories – but the only ones most people pay attention to are literature (particularly if the prize goes to a rock star) and peace.

There’s been quite a kerfuffle about the prestigious peace prize recently, what with that whole Aung San Suu Kyi being complicit in a genocide thing. Last month, Aung San Suu Kyi – who was awarded the 1991 Nobel peace prize “for her non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights” – spent weeks struggling to mention anything about the human rights abuses being committed against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. When she finally broke her silence in late September, it was to give a Trump Esque “both sides” sort of speech, which Amnesty International denounced as a “mix of untruths and victim-blaming”.

Aung San Suu Kyi’s behaviour has led many to believe she no longer deserves to be a peace laureate and as of last week almost half a million people had signed a petition urging the Nobel committee to revoke her award. Now, I understand why so many people feel disappointed in Aung San Suu Kyi, I really do. But arguing she’s not worthy of her Nobel is nonsense. Sorry, but Aung San Suu Kyi absolutely deserves her peace prize. Asking the Nobel committee to revoke it is to misunderstand what the prize stands for. Which, to put it bluntly, is absolutely nothing.

Let’s face it, the Nobel peace prize is a farce; it has been for a long time. Really, it’s time we stopped pretending otherwise and put an end to the pomp and pretence altogether. Indeed, it’s amazing anyone can still say the words “Nobel peace prize” with a straight face considering its recipients constitute a who’s who of hawks, hypocrites and war criminals. I know, I know, #NotAll Nobel peace laureates! There have certainly been recipients, such as Desmond Tutu, who have greatly deserved to be recognised for their work in advancing peace. However, I’m afraid there have also been enough prize embarrassments to have rendered the award meaningless.

Chief among these is 1973 recipient Henry Kissinger, recognised for his efforts in negotiating a ceasefire in the Vietnam war. While negotiating that ceasefire, Kissinger was secretly carpet-bombing Cambodia. The worst of his bombing started in February 1973, a month after Washington, Hanoi and Saigon signed the Paris Peace accords. It’s little wonder that Le Duc Tho, the Vietnamese communist leader who was awarded the prize alongside Kissinger, rejected it in disgust.

Then you’ve got Shimon Peres, who was jointly awarded the Nobel peace prize in 1994 with Yitzhak Rabin, and Yasser Arafat. In the decades before getting the prize Peres systematically helped amp up Israel’s nuclear capabilities – which is completely at odds with the committee’s stipulation that the award should go to those who help demilitarise their country. What’s more, two years after the prize, Peres was responsible for a massacre that killed 106 people sheltering in a UN compound in the Lebanese town of Qana.

While Kissinger and Peres are two of the more egregious examples, there are numerous other peace laureates who have been extremely dubious choices, including Barack Obama, Colombian leader Juan Manuel Santos and the EU – to name just a few.

Indeed, the Nobel peace prize has become so tainted that some peace activists refuse to be associated with it. Mordechai Vanunu, a former nuclear technician who spent 18 years in prison for leaking details of Israel’s nuclear programme, has repeatedly asked be removed from a list of Nobel peace prize nominees. In a 2009 letter to the Nobel committee, he said he didn’t want “to belong to a list of laureates that also includes Shimon Peres, the man behind Israeli atomic policy”.

Perhaps it’s only to be expected that the Nobel peace prize has descended into farce. It was, after all, born out of a mistake. As the story goes, in 1888 a French newspaper erroneously wrote that Alfred Nobel, inventor of dynamite, had died. The paper marked the event of Alfred’s non-death with a bit of quality French snark: “Dr Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday.” Nobel was mortified that he was going to be remembered as a “merchant of death” and so set up the Nobel prize. It was a calculated rebranding effort; an exercise in PR.

You might think that the peace prize has got to a place where it is beyond parody – indeed, Tom Lehrer memorably quipped that “political satire became obsolete when Kissinger was awarded the Nobel peace prize”.

However, the Noble prize has actually spawned a rather notable parody. Every autumn since 1991, the Ig Nobel prizes recognise a number of unusual achievements “that first make people laugh, and then make them think”.

Fittingly, last year’s Ig Nobel peace award went to the authors of a study called On the Reception and Detection of Pseudo-Profound Bullshit. The introduction to the paper begins by stating that: “In On Bullshit, the philosopher Frankfurt (2005) defines bullshit as something that is designed to impress but that was constructed absent direct concern for the truth.” I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a pretty apt definition of the real Nobel peace prize to me.
https://www.theguardian.com/comment...hypocrites-and-war-criminals?CMP=share_btn_fb

 

[Banglar Bir]

A web of lies
Tribune Editorial
Published at 06:34 PM October 02, 2017
Last updated at 07:39 AM October 03, 2017

Photo: SYED ZAKIR HOSSAIN
The real perpetrators, of course, are the Myanmar army, and they are the ones to be blamed for the persecution of all Rohingya, be they Hindu or Muslim
Although the Rohingya refugees who have fled across the border to Bangladesh are overwhelmingly Muslim, there is a small minority of Hindus among them, and their accounts of the horrors encountered at the hands of the Myanmar army are similar to everyone else’s.

But shamefully, the Myanmar government is trying to twist the narrative to its own purposes, and has put the blame on the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) for the persecution encountered by Hindus.

The mass grave of Hindus containing 45 bodies found near Fakirabazar has been attributed to ARSA by the Myanmar government, a claim that is nonsense, and has been debunked.

A disgraceful web of lies has been spun, by the Myanmar government — and this lie has regrettably been spread further by many in the media — that tries to take the focus off the real killers, and puts the blame on an easy scapegoat: ARSA.

The real perpetrators, of course, are the Myanmar army, and they are the ones to be blamed for the persecution of all Rohingya, be they Hindu or Muslim.

There are enough statements from Hindu Rohingya to attest to the truth: Many said they were attacked by Rakhine Buddhists, and later on mysteriously changed their own statements saying they were attacked by Muslims.

Many Hindu refugees have affirmed that their families were slaughtered by the Myanmar army due to their refusal to take part in the killing of Muslims.

Myanmar’s calculated lies aim to foment discontent against ARSA and distract the world from the real crimes being committed by Myanmar against the helpless Rohingya population.

It is a shameful act of misdirection for political ends, and Myanmar cannot be allowed to get away with it.
http://www.dhakatribune.com/opinion/editorial/2017/10/02/a-web-of-lies/

 

[Banglar Bir]

Rakhine crisis covers inner conflict
Larry Jagan, October 3, 2017

Myanmar Army Chief, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi

Controlling the violence in Rakhine masks a battle for supremacy within government. The military and the civilian leader, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing and Aung San Suu Kyi are at loggerheads over how to proceed, though publicly they are maintaining a dignified show of unity. The military wants to declare a state of emergency in Rakhine to increase their control of events there. This is something that the Lady – as she more commonly known – has resisted since the latest outbreak of violence in late August.

It still dominates the government agenda, behind the scenes. Aung San Suu Kyi cancelled her visit to the UN General Assembly because of it. At the time president Htin Kyaw was undergoing medical treatment and if she left the country, the first vice president Myint Swe – the military’s appointment to the executive — would be in control of the government, making it almost certain he would approve any move by the army to declare a state of emergency. So, the Lady remained in place in Naypyidaw to ensure this did not happen.

But this is only one aspect of the battle. Behind the scenes the pro-democracy leader fears the army chief, Senior Min Aung Hlaing is preparing his bid for the presidency, after the next elections in 2020. The army boss’s term of office is up in the next few months, according to government insiders, who say that Aung Sa Suu Kyi only agreed to extend his term for two years, when she was preparing to form the government in early 2016. As far as Min Aung Hlaing – and the military – is concerned, it was extended for five years to the end of until 2020 – coinciding with the next elections.

But the unfortunate reality is that the continued international criticism of Myanmar over Rakhine, and the personal attacks on Aung San Suu Kyi’s reputation, is playing right into the hands of the Myanmar military. It has severely weakened her position, and significantly increases the prospect of Min Aung Hlaing being the country’s next president.

This apparent difference of opinion can only be resolved at a meeting of the National Defense and Security Council (NDSC), something which Aung San Suu Kyi is also resisting. It has not met since she formed the government in early 2016. The military commander has been urging her to convene the Council – though it is actually chaired by the president – to discuss the situation in Rakhine, and agree a common approach.

Only the NDSC has the authority to declare a state of emergency, according to government insiders. While two top level meetings have been held on Rakhine – one last October after the initial “terrorist attacks” and another more recently – but the NDSC has yet to be convened. Even the former military supremo, Than Shwe, recently suggested that it was time for the Council to discuss the Rakhine situation. But Aung San Suu Kyi is likely to continue to resist calls for it to meet: largely because she will not control the agenda there – the military will.

The NDSC is made up of the president the two vice presidents – one of whom was appointed by the military – the military commander and his deputy, the speakers of the lower and upper houses of parliament, the three cabinet ministers appointed by the military – defense, border and home affairs, and the foreign minister — Aung San Suu Kyi. This gives the military the edge in numbers, though decisions are usually made on a consensus basis, according to senior military sources, with intimate knowledge of its workings.

Strategically Aung San Suu Kyi is preparing her party — the National League for Democracy (NLD) — for the next elections. She is aware that there are two major hurdles looming – the activities of the nationalist Buddhist organization, Ma Ba Tha or the Association for the Protection of Race and Religion, and the military. She has sent messages to the central committee and the rank and file to be both patient and vigilant, through the speaker Win Myint, who has also been given he role of party spokesman. She does not want to be further isolated in her tussle with Min Aung Hlaing – and further unrest and agitation elsewhere in Myanmar might hand the military chief the initiative.

The political battle is now about to hot up. The crucial concern is constitutional change. Though members of the NLD central committee insisted recently that constitutional change before 2020 was on the cards, Aung San Suu Kyi at least is resigned to the fact that it wont happen. This means a quarter of the MPs in all parliaments, national and regional, will still be appointed by the military. This will make it difficult for the NLD to form the next government – post-2020 – as they cannot expect a repeat of their overwhelming electoral victory in 2015. Already their popularity in the country’s ethnic areas is declining, as evidenced in the by-election results earlier this year.

So Min Aung Hlaing’s bid for the presidency has a head start – the 25% of MPs who are serving soldiers. He only needs to pick up another 25% to be a shoe in for president. He is already courting the pro-military Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) – created by the former military leader, Than Shwe and formed the previous government. He talks regularly with the current head of the USDP, Than Htay – another former general – according to military sources. The USDP is already allied with the military perspective – as seen by their MPs in parliament. The recently joined he military MPs in calling for the convening of the NDSC to discuss Rakhine. So their support for Min Aung Hlaing’s political bid for residency is assured. The general would then hope to pick up some support from other political parties, and even ethnic representatives.

There is no doubting Min Aung Hlaing’s political ambitions, according to former military officers who know him well. And the Rakhine problems have helped to boost his profile, especially nationally. Social media is presenting him unashamedly as a “national hero” and he is no doubt basking in this “new found” glory. What is worse is that he is increasing stretching the international state as a statesman and leader.

His recent trips to Europe, India and Japan highlight his position as an accepted leader of Myanmar. In Europe – Austria, Belgium, Germany and Italy – earlier this year, he met the civilian leaders of all these countries, something that is generally unusual, and in stark contrast to a few ears ago when Myanmar’s military leaders were banned from entering these countries. Similarly in India and Japan, he met the prime ministers: Narendra Modi and Shinzo Abe. In both cases, the civilian government leader seldom or ever meets a visiting military commander.

Privately Aung San Suu Kyi was irked by the reception he received in these countries, and feared he was being treated as “the leader” of Myanmar, according to government insiders. But the unfortunate reality is that the continued international criticism of Myanmar over Rakhine, and the personal attacks on Aung San Suu Kyi’s reputation, is playing right into the hands of the Myanmar military. It has severely weakened her position, and significantly increases the prospect of Min Aung Hlaing being the country’s next president.
http://southasianmonitor.com/2017/10/03/rakhine-crisis-covers-inner-conflict/

 

[Banglar Bir]

China-India rivalry warms up in South Asia
Ashis Biswas
Published at 09:43 AM October 02, 2017
Last updated at 09:46 AM October 02, 2017

Naypyitaw wins valuable breathing space, thanks to China-India rivalryBigstock
Even as India and China jostle for greater political space in South Asia, both are competing to stand by Myanmar in its hour of crisis
For all the bilateral co-operation and warmth within the BRICS and other institutions, the intense China versus India rivalry remains as competitive as ever in South Asia.

Being the stronger and more developed country, China generally takes the initiative in the race for regional supremacy and sets the pace. Its latest move, an offer for an investment of $7.3 billion into infrastructure projects in Myanmar’s troubled Rakhine state will certainly set alarm bells ringing in New Delhi.

This puts China in a directly confrontational course with India, because major Indian groups like Essar and others, are committed to investing over $3 billion in Rakhine – and in infrastructure projects too. These projects are a critical core of India’s much publicised ‘Act East’ policy. Their importance, not only to India’s expanding economy but also its strategic outreach, are among the reasons why India has not attacked Myanmar too strongly over the Rohingya crisis that threatens South Asia’s geo-political stability.

Critics of Indian policies and of Prime Minister Narendra Modi suggest that the major reason for the surprisingly bland joint statement issued at the end of Modi’s visit to Myanmar was Delhi’s keenness not to upset Naypyitaw too much. “Not to the extent where the Burmese authorities were irked to cancel or re-examine the terms of the projects lined up bilaterally,” says a Kolkata-based analyst.

Ironically, even as they jostle to win greater political space in the South Asia region, on one point India and China are united – both are competing to stand by Myanmar in its hour of crisis to the consternation of other countries.

For China, the timing of its proposed move into the Rakhine makes very good sense. Myanmar is almost completely isolated in the international community because of its hardline approach towards the Rohingya.

Naturally, Myanmar is not in a dominant bargaining position to discuss favourable trade and other terms. Naypyitaw is more likely to capitulate to ‘suggestions’ from bigger aid-giving neighbours on specific projects – unless it manages to play off one against the other. Naypyitaw wins valuable breathing space, thanks to Beijing and Delhi.

This has clear and worrying implications for Bangladesh and other countries. China sees a major role for Bangladesh in its future geo-political strategy for the region. Only days ago, in the influential Global Times daily, it was proposed that China could set up major industrial production centres ‘around India’ to pressure Delhi into making more investments for regional development. The article mentioned Bangladesh as one of the areas where such centres could come up.

Such a move, it is argued, would pressure India to ‘co-operate more’ with its neighbours. ‘Not a bad thing,’ the write-up concluded on a smug note.

Within days of the article, now China spells out a new development plan for the Rakhine, a clear signal that there would be no delays in the implementation of its projects. It also sends a clear message to Dhaka and Delhi that Beijing means business.

These developments leave Indian policymakers and rulers deeply worried. They are well aware that they cannot compete with their bigger neighbour in terms of finance or other resources. Bangladesh, like Myanmar, will also be able to play off one country against the other, which will not be relished by Delhi.

However, this does not mean that China will have everything going its way either. Thanks to the cancellation of the massive dam building and other related projects at Myitsone, Myanmar is well aware of the nature and consequences of Chinese aided investment: a ruined environment, no sharing of technology or generation of attractive jobs, accepting Chinese labour on their own territory and having little control of project implementation matters or eventual market access.

Already in Pakistan, experts are questioning how their country would benefit in any way. There are over 250 textile mills closed in Pakistan because of a power shortage, falling production and failure to rev up exports, ousted by Chinese, Indian and Bangladeshi competition.

Now China is setting up textile units in its West, very close to the Chinese terminal of the CPEC economic corridor. “This should drive the last nail into the coffin of our home textile industry,” a Pakistani analyst said in a recent TV programme. “Far from boosting Pakistan’s economy and helping its production, these Chinese units will grab whatever remains of our domestic market,” he warned.

The expert mentioned the experience of Sri Lanka, which was forced by the fear of running up huge debts, to agree to Chinese proposals to the point where 90% of economic benefits from the Hambantota Port and related projects, would go China’s way. Others cited the example of how Venezuela is currently ruing the terms of its agreement with China, originally intended to help it tide over a difficult economic situation.

Delhi-based analysts think that given their experience of ‘doing business with China‘, Naypyitaw would be circumspect with Beijing when it comes to working out new deals. They remain equally confident that Bangladesh too will never become a ‘Chinese colony’ either. Dhaka had earlier turned down proposals from the World Bank and China as the terms were not favourable.

“At least the present Awami League government, headed by a strong nationalist leader like Shiekh Hasina, will never take dictations from foreign powers or be railroaded into disastrous economic deals,” says one analyst.

Also, India would remember that it cannot have everything its own way in Bangladesh – which, to echo the punchline of the Global Times article, would be ‘not a bad thing’.
http://www.dhakatribune.com/world/south-asia/2017/10/02/china-india-rivalry-warms-south-asia/

Myanmar: The Invention of Rohingya Extremists
www.thestateless.com/2017/10/myanmar-the-invention-of-rohingya-extremists.html

Rohingya refugees walking to a camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, October 2, 2017. Cathal McNaughton/Reuters
By Joseph Allchin,
The New York Review of Books

It is not hard to get guns on the Chittagong littoral. Or at least, that’s what my interviewee was telling me underneath a canopy of trees outside his house in the fishing village of Shamlapur, in southern Bangladesh. His men stood round carrying his cigarettes and laughing obediently at his quips.

Connections with both the police and underworld were what my acquaintance had, and what makes the world turn in this Wild West corner of Bangladesh, where smuggling is the primary source of income and power. He was reflecting on a new phenomenon in this region: the prospect that a tragically displaced people, the Rohingya, would produce an armed resistance movement to challenge their persecution by the military in their homeland, across the border in Myanmar.

On August 25, a rag-tag group of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, or ARSA, appeared out of the darkness armed mainly with sticks and machetes and stormed some thirty police posts, killing about a dozen Myanmar security personnel in Rakhine State (also known as Arakan State) in western Myanmar.

The Myanmar military responded with overwhelming force and brutality, reportedly killing and raping civilians indiscriminately and burning villages. Within a few weeks, under the pretext of “clearance operations” against a population it accuses of having immigrated illegally from Bangladesh and harboring extremists and terrorists, the military forced more than half a million Rohingya to flee across the border into Bangladesh, where they joined another half-million or so who have fled the apartheid-like conditions and periodic pogroms of recent years.

Myanmar’s government has faced numerous ethnic insurgent movements. For example, in the north of the country, the Kachin Independence Army is fighting a far better-equipped insurgency in the borderlands near China. Yet the Kachin people, who are often Christian, have faced no such comprehensive campaign of ethnic cleansing or accusations of being terrorists because of their faith.
The difference is that the Rohingya people are mostly Sunni Muslim. Myanmar’s military rulers have long sought to portray the Rohingya as a fifth column of dangerous Islamist extremists with links to al-Qaeda.

The demonization of this Muslim minority as “extremists” or “terrorists” has proved effective for nationalist politicians with Myanmar’s Buddhist majority. But this othering of the Rohingya now risks dangerous secondary effects.
Chiefly, that the government’s conjuring of the specter of a jihadist insurgency may prove self-fulfilling, with an embittered, radicalized Rohingya diaspora forced over the border at bayonet point into Bangladesh, where a coterie of Islamist groups like Hizb-ut-Tahrir are using the Rohingya cause to whip up popular sentiment for their own political purposes.

The portrayal of the Rohingyas as an Islamist terrorist menace has deep roots. A full decade before Myanmar’s transition to democracy, the Myanmar intelligence community saw an opportunity in the “global war on terror.” On October 10, 2002, the same day that the US Senate approved George W. Bush’s ill-fated war on Iraq on the bogus grounds of Saddam Hussein’s purported connections to al-Qaeda and possession of weapons of mass destruction, the State Department received a cable from its mission in Yangon that relayed a rare example of intelligence-sharing from their Myanmar counterparts.
This was a very unusual instance of cooperation since, at the time, Myanmar was under strict sanctions and the country at large was cut off from the international community.

The intelligence Myanmar provided claimed that two now-defunct groups, the Rohingya Solidarity Organization and the Arakan Rohingya National Organization, had met and received training from al-Qaeda operatives; the diplomatic cable also reported that these Rohingya groups were trying to establish connections with other Burmese ethnic insurgent groups based on the country’s border with Thailand.

The US embassy believed that the Myanmar generals wanted “to bolster relations with the United States by getting credit for cooperation on the [counter terror] front,” and also to tarnish the reputation of other ethnic insurgent groups because of an association with groups seeking support from al-Qaeda. Most ethnic insurgent groups had an affinity with pro-democracy activists because of their shared struggle against the military. Historically, Myanmar’s armed forces have used divide-and-rule tactics to weaken their opponents and disenfranchised minorities.

But there was no evidence that any Rohingya group had successfully developed connections with al-Qaeda for operations in Myanmar. One of the purported Rohingya acquaintances of Osama Bin Laden, an activist named Salim Ullah, told me that when a Muslim picks up a gun in Myanmar, he is labeled a terrorist; when a Buddhist does so, he is making a cry for liberty. Prejudice against the Rohingya has become ingrained within a majority of the Buddhist population, including among many who have supported other ethnic armed groups.
Even many former pro-democracy campaigners have adopted the military’s labeling of the entire Rohingya population as terrorists.

The tension between the majority population and the Muslim minority has been further whipped up by Myanmar’s ultra-nationalist monks. This hostility has elicited a growing online response from foreign Islamists. Groups affiliated with al-Qaeda and other jihadist movements are now using the plight of the Rohingya to promote their own narratives of Muslim persecution.

Until recently, most of this propaganda saw the “liberation” of Arakan State in Myanmar, where most Rohingya Muslims traditionally live, as a notional aim, something to be done once neighboring Bangladesh had been “conquered” and a caliphate installed there. But now, groups like al-Qaeda seem to have more directly taken up the cause of the Rohingya. In mid-September, an al-Qaeda communiqué called for “all mujahid brothers in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and the Philippines to set out for Burma [Myanmar] to help their Muslim brothers.”

There is no sign yet that the Rohingya insurgent group has allied itself with outside jihadist groups. Indeed, ARSA’s decision in March to drop its Arabic name in favor of a more secular-sounding English one suggests that ARSA has not been subsumed by any transnational Islamist extremist organization.

The group’s charismatic leader, Ata Ullah, does have connections in both Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, and was brought up in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, believed to be where the al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri is being sheltered. But as is evident from ARSA’s modest capabilities and lack of weaponry, efforts by Ullah to solicit support from groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Taliban have so far not borne fruit.

However, with the huge swell of anger over the clearance operations and vast exodus of Rohingya civilians, this could change. Already, Egyptian militants have bombed Myanmar’s embassy in Cairo.
In Bangladesh, the country’s counterterrorism chief, Monirul Islam, echoes what my contact in Shamlapur told me: “Guns are available and [are] smuggled into Bangladesh from Myanmar or from India.”
Islam claims that an AK-47 clone can be bought for a little over $1,000 on the black market; a pistol might cost just a few hundred dollars. Efforts to source weapons can open up militant groups to surveillance by local intelligence agencies; in Bangladesh, such movements generally rely on patronage from powerful quarters to avoid such attention.

Bangladeshi Islamists have been working hard to exploit the Rohingya’s plight, portraying the crisis as a grand, prophesied conflict between the forces of belief and unbelief. ARSA itself has also sought to gain popular support in Bangladesh for its insurrection. Indeed, a broad consensus of support for the Rohingya has developed, where previously they were dismissed as exploitable interlopers. Bangladesh’s prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, has won plaudits for the compassion she has expressed—although her move appears a political necessity given the loud voice with which Islamists have jumped on the cause.

One purported ARSA commander recently argued that the Myanmar military had “been torturing us day by day so we had no alternative. That’s why we acted [on August 25] … We knew this would happen.” That message of inevitable conflict and existential struggle chimes with many Rohingya people.
Even the women I interviewed in southern Bangladesh said, without prompting, that they would fight if they could; they had nothing left. A month-long ceasefire declared by ARSA will expire on October 10; it is likely that the group will resume its low-intensity attacks. When that happens, any Rohingya villagers still left in Myanmar can expect further vicious reprisals from the military.

Just as the Bush administration’s misguided war on terror helped to foster Islamist extremism all over the world, the Myanmar generals’ intentional exaggeration of largely imagined relations between Rohingya insurgents and international jihadist groups may result in similar unwanted consequences.

While the Myanmar military originally sought to divide Rohingya insurgents from potential allies among other anti-government, pro-democracy ethnic groups by playing on historic resentments, its policy may well end up driving Rohingya militants, whether in form of ARSA or still more frightening expressions of rage, into the arms of the real extremists.

 

[Banglar Bir]

Gregory Stanton, Chowdhury Abrar and Maung Zarni give joint interview on Myanmar Genocide, U of Malaya Law Faculty, 20 Sept 2017

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[Banglar Bir]

Europe puts off investment deal with Myanmar

This aerial picture taken on September 27, 2017 shows burnt villages near Maungdaw in Myanmar's northern Rakhine State. Photo: AFP
Star Online Report
The inking of the investment protection agreement (IPA) between the European Union and Myanmar has been put off until an unknown date.
On September 14, the Committee on International Trade of the European Parliament announced that it has postponed its visit to Myanmar, which was meant to finalise the EU-Myanmar investment agreement, according to a report published in the Myanmar Times.

The change was due to the recent developments in the country, the report says.

The committee’s chair, Bernd Lange, said that the delegation is postponed until further notice.

“The EP's International Trade Committee decided to postpone the delegation to Myanmar to an unknown date as it was clear that the current political and human rights' situation in the country, as outlined in the EP's resolution adopted on Thursday 14 September, does not allow for a fruitful discussion on a potential EU-Myanmar investment agreement. It is clear that under these conditions, the ratification of an investment agreement with Myanmar is not possible,” he said.

On September 14, the legislature adopted the “European Parliament resolution on Myanmar, in particular the situation of Rohingyas”.

A well-placed source within the European business community in the country, who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter, told The Myanmar Times that the delegation cancelled their trip because the position of Brussels is essentially that the signing of the IPA cannot be done “under these conditions”, in relation to the situation in Rakhine State.

The agreement would have been the first standalone investment protection agreement of the European Union with the country. In April, the European Chamber of Commerce in Myanmar stated that the negotiations “should be finished within a few months”. The IPA is expected to provide a level-playing field for European investors and promote corporate standards, hence boosting EU investments in Myanmar, says the report in the Myanmar Times.

In late April, then-European Union ambassador Roland Kobia told The Myanmar Times in an interview that the agreement is near completion.

“Myanmar has signed about 10 investment protection agreements [IPA] with different countries but not yet with the EU. It is not good for EU companies and for Myanmar as it reduces the incentive for companies to invest here. Our companies are not on a level playing field with companies that have investment protection agreements. We have been negotiating this agreement since 2014, and are very close to reaching an agreement, which would probably be the most comprehensive agreement that Myanmar has signed so far, with high international standards. This agreement would indeed bring by far the best economic, social rules to ensure fair trade and the protection of workers in Myanmar,” Mr Kobia said.

The committee has not provided any indication on when the visit would take place.

The delegation of the European Union to Myanmar based in Yangon and the European Chamber of Commerce in Myanmar could not be reached for comment by the Myanmar Times.
Source: Myanmar Times
http://www.thedailystar.net/rohingya-crisis/europe-puts-investment-deal-myanmar-1470478

 

[Banglar Bir]

‘Are we heading for a Bihari-like situation?’
SAM Staff, September 27, 2017

Obsession with one nation, one religion and one language continues down till today in Myanmar, leading to its present predicament. The psyche of the country has been shaped by a fear of disintegration, xenophobia, military fears of uprisings and invasions and also by a strong sense of Burmese nationalism.

These observations were made by Brig Gen (retd) Shafaat Ahmad, PhD scholar on Myanmar Studies. He was speaking at a roundtable on ‘Understanding Myanmar: Managing the Rohingya Refugee Crisis.’ The roundtable was organised by Bangladesh Institute of Peace and Strategic Studies (BIPSS) at the think-tank’s office in the capital city on Tuesday.

At the outset of the programme, BIPSS president Maj Gen (retd) Muniruzzaman pointed out that, to understand the present crisis pertaining to the Rohingyas, it was necessary to go back in history to understand the mindset of the people, the events and geo-political developments that have created the present-day situation.

“Buddhism is a binding force in Myanmar,” said Shafaat Ahmad, referring to a common saying that ‘to be Burman is to be Buddhist.’ It has been a society guided by the monks, he observed.

Pointing to the issues that boosted the extreme nationalism in Myanmar, he listed these as diarchy, education, political monks, the influx of Indian and the ultra-nationalist 969 movement.

The 2008 constitution gave enormous power to the military and obviously, Shafaat Ahmad pointed out, Aung San Suu Kyi virtually has no power at all. The foreign policy was shaped by the military and the country’s geo-strategic stakes lay with Indian and China.

There was a change in the foreign policy of Myanmar after 2001, when it shed its isolation and opened up to the world. It even held ASEAN chairmanship in 2014. There was a lifting of sanctions by various countries and visitors flocked to Myanmar. There was a new government at the helm and the leaders visited all the neighbouring countries, except Bangladesh.

In managing the refugee crisis, Shafaat Ahmad presented a brief chronology of the changing scenario for Rohingyas. In 1961, two Rohingyas were elected as members of parliament. In 2010, four Rohingyas were elected to the parliament. In 1962 the military took over. Then coming up to 1982, the Citizenship Act was imposed, denying the Rohingyas of their fundamental rights as citizens of Myanmar.

The key presentation posed questions in conclusion: What is the Bangladesh plan concerning the Rohingya refugee crisis? Are we heading for a Palestine or Bihari-like situation? Can the refugees be confined to a particular area? And for how long? And what is the involvement of the local political elements?

Commenting on the present situation, former election commissioner Brig Gen (red) Sakhawat Hossain referred to the ASEAN stand that this was an ‘internal affair of Myanmar’. He said this was the longest-ever civil war and though it affected Bangladesh, the Bangladesh government never had any tangible Burma policy.

He said the two countries that could help mediate the problem were China and India. However, neither would be interested in doing so. India had interests in its Kaladan multimodal project which ran through Myanmar. And China also had an enormous investment there. Another powerful country, Russia, had two nuclear reactor projects in Myanmar and had trained 20 Myanmar students in nuclear science for the sake of these projects. So given their respective interests, none of these countries were likely to intervene in the situation.

Former civil and military bureaucrats, media persons, academics and members of the civil society also spoke at the roundtable.
http://southasianmonitor.com/2017/09/27/heading-bihari-like-situation/

The frictions in the Rakhine state are less about Islamophobia than Rohingya-phobia’
Eminent Arakan historian Jacques P. Leider talks about the historical context of the Rohingya conflict
Sangeeta Barooah Pisharoty, October 1, 2017

Jacques P. Leider. Credit: YouTube
Photographs of terrified Muslim men, women and children fleeing the Rakhine state of Myanmar to neighbouring Bangladesh in the last few weeks have made the global community take note of the Rohingya issue like never before.

A brutal crackdown by the Myanmar army on the Rohingya Muslim inhabited areas of Rakhine (formerly Arakan), in response to a reported attack in mid-August on the security posts by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), an armed group fighting for the rights of the Rohingyas, led to the exodus of more than 400,000 Rohingyas to refugee camps in Bangladesh.

While the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) has called it a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing”, heads of states of countries have accused the Myanmar government of committing “genocide”. The long silence of Mynamar’s State Counsellor and Nobel Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has also been questioned widely.

Media reports have failed to focus on the historical context of the conflict that treads back to the British colonial period. Revisiting the conflict may help find a possible solution to the crisis.

Jacques P. Leider is a well-known Arakan historian who has studied and written extensively about the complex Rohingya issue.

Leider, head of the Bangkok-based Ecole Françaised’ Extrême-Orient (EFEO), makes a deeper and nuanced assessment of the conflict which has simmered for decades before snowballing into a worrisome humanitarian crisis of South East Asia. In course of the interview, Leider categorically states, “The Western media fails to make a clear distinction between anti-Muslim violence in Myanmar’s urban centres and the radically different context of the Rakhine State.”
Below are excerpts from the interview:
You have been studying the socio-political history of the Arakan region of Myanmar for years. What led you to take a deep interest in it?

I studied history as well as Burmese language and civilisation in Paris. When I looked for a convenient topic for my MA research, my teacher oriented me towards the Burmese manuscripts collection at the French National Library. Somewhat surprisingly, I found a significant body of manuscripts on palm leaves and paper that dealt with Arakan in the early colonial period. The Buddhist kingdom of Mrauk U (1430-1785) became the focus of my doctoral research. Thereafter, I did research on many other topics, but Arakan’s history remained a constant element in my research.

This is a question you are often asked in media interviews which I will repeat here, simply because many people worldwide still do wonder who, after all, is a Rohingya; what is the origin of the term; is it an ethnic term; how old is this term; is it different from terms ‘Bengali’ and ‘Kalar’, also used to refer the Rohingyas in Myanmar?

‘Rohingya’ means ‘Arakanese’ in the East Bengali dialect spoken by people in North Arakan, ‘Rohang’ being a local phonological variant of ‘Roshang’, the region’s name in Bengali literature. To clarify the conundrum around the contested name ‘Rohingya’, one must step back in time and embed the issue to the regional history of Muslim migrations. Throughout the early modern period, Muslims from all over the Indian Ocean came to live in port cities of continental Buddhist Southeast Asia (Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, etc.), but the migration of ‘Indians’ (including Muslims, Hindus and people of other religions) during the colonial period increased their number considerably.

This is a well-known story that does not need to be elaborated. In Arakan, it was overwhelmingly Chittagonian labour, both seasonal and residential, that was attracted after the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. Until the Second World War, the much older pre-colonial Muslim community of Arakan that was socially integrated, on the one hand, and the more recent migrant community of ‘Chittagonians’, on the other hand, remained distinctive groups. It was the group with recent migrant roots that became most politically active.

In the 1950s, both Arakan Muslim parliamentarians and Muslim insurgents (the ‘Mujahids’) shared the idea of an autonomous Muslim zone adopting the Sharia law and Urdu as an official language. Then, under the push of a younger generation, there were discussions to adopt a name of their own. This issue was politically contested as there were already many group divisions that weakened political cohesion. Various spellings such as Roewhengyas, Ruhangyas and others were proposed, all linked to an old, but as it seems, mainly orally used term ‘Rwangya’. The current spelling, Rohingya, is traceable in print since 1963.

In British administrative records, none of these terms had ever been used. For decades, the Muslims in Arakan were classified according to religion (Muslim), language (such as Bengali) and place of origins (predominantly Chittagong). The self-perception of different groups was only considered in the 1921 and 1931 census reports.

Moreover, the British classified people of Indian origins in Burma as ‘foreigners’. The question of how long these people had been living in the country was not put on record. ‘Foreigner’ is also the meaning of the very old word ‘Kalar’ that, in Burmese literature and usage, refers to people from the West, these being mainly Indians, but also more specifically Indian Muslims. A frequently noted pejorative connotation in the use of this term depends largely on the context. It is much too common to say that it is only depreciative, as the Western media have systematically put it.

The term ‘Bengali’ to designate officially Muslims of North Arakan was used by the Burmese administration relatively late, starting in the late 1970s and 1980s. One should bear in mind that back in the 1950s, Pakistan recognised that a great number of Muslims in Burma had a claim on Pakistani citizenship and the term ‘Pakistanis’ was also used for people whom everybody identifies today as Rohingyas. Why were all these issues of belonging not clarified early on? In fact, a performing bureaucracy did only emerge very slowly. Burma’s Ministry of Immigration became functional ten years after independence. Today, these terms are politicised and contested. Each one has become a weapon in a media contest where a serene look at history would do away with some of the zealous energy that is driving the confrontation.

The Muslim-Buddhist friction in the Rakhine state particularly goes back since the British time. Will you throw some light on the history behind this friction. How much of it can be traced to the Rakhine Muslims’ secessionist or autonomy movement in the 1940s to create a Muslim zone and align it to the then East Pakistan? What relevance does that movement have on the extreme friction that we now see between the Rohingyas and the Rakhine Buddhists and the general perception of the Rohingyas in Yangon?

These are historically legitimate questions and they are politically relevant today. Yet, we lack in-depth studies to push for a necessary discussion. My answers are derived from a broad understanding of the context where I try to fit in the two ethno-religious communities. Unlike the mainstream media that singularise the case of the Rohingya Muslims in their relation to the state, I consider that, primarily, one cannot understand the politics of one group without observing the other. Both communities have always been internally divided about the choice of their political options (federalism or separatism/autonomy). They have only been united in their opposition to the unitary state and to each other.

The political dynamics of the Rohingya Muslim movement were driven by leaders from the north, mainly from the township of Maungdaw. In the 1950s, the Rohingyas were initially the movement of a social and economic elite (including Rakhine Muslim students in Rangoon) that did not include, and did not attempt, to represent all the Muslims of Arakan when it claimed an autonomous zone. North Arakan Muslim leaders had made clear to the British in 1947 and to the first Burmese government in 1948 that a political compromise with the Arakanese (or Rakhine) was not an option for them. Local Muslim leaders had greatly helped the British during the Second World War (by opposing the Japanese forward movement towards Bengal as against the Buddhists supporting the Japanese) and hoped, therefore, for their support to create a frontier zone with a specific status.

Putting afterwards their hope in Prime Minister U Nu’s government in the 1950s earned them a political reward in the early 1960s when the short-lived ‘Mayu Frontier Administration’ in North Arakan was created. In the 1970s, Rohingyas were mainly identified with Muslim rebel groups based on the (Myanmar) border with Bangladesh, desperate to obtain military support from Middle East countries. As Rohingya organisations in the diaspora failed to be accepted among the armed ethnic groups and the democratic anti-junta front during the 1980s and 1990s, their efforts to gain an international hearing became increasingly rooted in a human rights’ discourse.

The descriptions of the dismal condition of Muslims in the Rakhine State, the misery of refugees driven into Bangladesh, the tragedy of boat people and what was described internationally as the systematic harassment of their community in Myanmar bore ample testimony to the discourse on the plight of the Rohingyas.

Today, with the backing of liberal democracies, Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) member countries, UN organisations and human rights organisations that lobby for them, Rohingyas have many allies abroad and none in the country many of them call home.

In Myanmar, they fail to get recognition because their ethnic claim cannot be negotiated politically. So why the quasi-obsession with ethnic recognition by the state? Unlike in other countries, it is ethnic recognition that provides primordial constitutional legitimacy for political representation and citizenship. It is not the only criterion, but for the first generation Rohingyas, it was adamantly clear that only ethnic recognition would give them the necessary leverage for political claims. It should be clear from these explanations that the motives to support the Rohingya cause today draw on a vast array of different historical and legal arguments that do not form a single, unified body. There has been a general reluctance by international actors to get involved in the historical narratives that have animated impassionate debates between the Rakhine and Rohingya writers.

U Kyaw Min, an Arakanese parliamentarian and nationalist leader, stated in 1956 that the Arakanese had no problem with the Muslims, suggesting that a deal with the divided Muslims was always at hand. Yet over the decades, the communal frictions have increased because other, non-political issues impacted the Rakhine perspectives.

For the Rohingyas, Muslim communal autonomy meant a fair deal that would see both communities get along politically and socially, but for the Rakhine, it meant the breaking apart of their motherland. Later on, it was the unequal demographic growth of the Muslim community that produced a latent anxiety among the Buddhists.

Despite a general understanding that a part of the Arakan Muslims had deep roots in the country and that Rakhine history cannot be understood without its social and religious complications with Bengal from the past down to the present, a pervasive Rakhine narrative about Muslims in Arakan has viewed them as ‘guests’ who have betrayed the trust of their hosts by claiming territorial ownership. The claim of a distinctive ethnicity made by Rohingyas is, therefore, considered by them as fake. The frictions are less about Islamophobia than Rohingyaphobia.

Against this complex background, it is not possible to establish a straightforward link of causality between the late 1940s and today. Yet, it is the verbatim quotes of relatively simplistic statements made by both sides that have enjoyed national and international resonance in 2012 and fed back into the cycle of frictions.

There are other Muslims living in Myanmar even though much smaller in number than the Rohingyas. How much support do the Rohingyas have from these groups? Or, has the political term ‘Rohingya’ pushed these groups away from them?

There are various Muslim communities in the Rakhine state and there are a number of different Muslim communities across Myanmar – some of them possibly even older than the pre-colonial Muslim community in Rakhine. As an academic, I would use expressions such as “historically multi-layered and ethnically diverse communities”. Many are of various Indian ethno-linguistic origins, others are of Malay or Chinese Yunnan origins (like the Panthay in Mandalay), one group of so-called Burmese Muslims has more recently adopted the name ‘Pathi’ (a term found in the royal chronicles to designate a Muslim community) to underscore its antiquity.

By emphasising a distinctive ethnicity, the Rohingya leadership cut off the complex family of Rakhine Muslims from a long continuity of historical roots in Bengal and specifically south-east Bengal identities. For that reason, I have been talking about an effort on their behalf to de-Indianise themselves.

The ethnic claim also deprived the Rohingyas of political solidarity with the other Muslim communities of Burma (Myanmar) that did neither raise ‘ethnic’ claims nor made expressly claims for political autonomy.

One may recall that in an unfavorable political context that emerged since the 1960s, Indians in Burma became victims of nationalist politics. On top of local economic prejudice against Indians, the explicit political nature of the Rohingya project was perceived by many urban Muslims as toxic. There are still no public enquiries about this topic in Myanmar today, but anecdotal evidence would suggest that there is no substantial level of Muslim solidarity with the Rohingyas.
It does not mean and I will not argue that it does not exist, but it’s at least not articulated. More soberly, urban Muslims in contemporary Myanmar urban centres, whatever their private feelings are, would have nothing to win to stand up for the Rohingya cause. Is the Rohingya project, therefore, to be called an ambition that has backfired on itself?

To be true from a social and anthropological perspective, one has to recognise that during the last 50 years there has indeed been an ongoing melting process that has brought Muslims in Rakhine state closely together, forging a shared identity under the impact of state oppression and civic exclusion. There were never as many Muslims who identified themselves as Rohingyas than after 2012.

As you have always pointed out in your writings, the conflict in the Rakhine state has been traditionally triangular: the state vs the Rohingyas vs the Rakhine Buddhist. The narrative now, at least internationally, has become the state and Rakhine Buddhists vs the Rohingyas. Is it correct to include the voice of the Buddhist Rakhines in the extreme right wing 969 movement led by U. Wirathu or there is a separate voice that hasn’t found space in the international arena yet?

It is important to recall that the Rakhine themselves have struggled to be recognised as an ethnic group after independence and their ethnically denominated Rakhine state was only created in 1974. They are keen to stress their separate historical and cultural identity despite the religion, language and cultural traits they share with the majority Burmese (or Bamar).

The 969 movement has picked up the Rakhine crisis issues to feed its own anti-Muslim discourse, but it was not bred in the Rakhine state. The Western media still fails to make a clear distinction between anti-Muslim violence in Myanmar’s urban centres and the radically different context of the Rakhine state.
Even well-meaning academics tend to exemplify Islamophobia in Myanmar by pointing to the high number of Muslim IDPs (internally displaced people) in Rakhine state. At the same time, the political sentiments of Rakhine people are not integrated into international political analysis.

On the other hand, the traditionally reclusive Rakhines have entirely failed to communicate a positive image of themselves to the rest of the world, to commit themselves publicly to tolerance and to invest in politically constructive ideas for the future. In a globalised world, it’s not enough to lay back and complain in confidential circles about the world that does not respect “us”.

Even though there was a huge exodus of Rohingyas to Bangladesh in 1978 following the violence – many of whom were repatriated in 1979 – the internationalisation of the Rohingya issue happened only after the 2012 violence. What changed then?

In terms of international media attention and support by the West and the Middle East, the aftermath of 2012 was an immense success for the Rohingya diaspora. One spin-off was the genocide narrative that severely impedes efforts of the current Myanmar administration to rebalance the discussion in their favour.

For the Rohingyas in the country, it was a disaster. Rohingyas, despite their lack of full citizenship rights since 1982, had been granted voting rights and had participated in regional and national elections until 2010. But the suppression of their ‘white cards’ in 2015 by the national parliament cut them off from any form of political representation.
This is ultimately not in the interest of the state. Put in Machiavellian terms, the army controlled the Rakhine state by playing the prejudice and interests of one community against those of the other one. This form of containing and at the same time, abusing the potential for communal frictions, also guaranteed state access to intelligence about the inner workings of these groups. The fast rise and the surprise of attacks of ARSA since October 2016 reflect an extraordinary intelligence failure on the side of the security forces.

There is a strong Rohingya diaspora voice which has been able to establish the issue as a humanitarian and Muslim victimhood issue. But you have said in your writings that “internationalisation has not opened new ground in the domestic political arena where both Muslims and Buddhists have been longing for peace.” Instead, you said, “It confirms some of the fears already had by the Buddhists, namely, the alleged threat of an international Muslim alliance.” If you can elaborate it a bit…

Your question relates to the arena of media fitness. When Myanmar opened up by the decision of the military elite in 2011, many people in the country regained hope about their political and economic future. But the hopes bear many contradictions, because the interests of the various ethnic and religious groups and the state are competing.

The language, the terminologies, the mature thinking to address and negotiate publicly these contradictions and inherent conflicts had not yet been learnt. Public intellectuals and news editors were not present to orient the discussion and guide the public. Countrywide, educational infrastructure has been in a mess.
What was “there” was the state of mind of the early 1960s and some of the memory of the 1950s as the country left a time-warp of several decades of isolation and party-line thinking. The international media that descended on Yangon after 2011 spoke a language that people were unable to assess rationally.
Facebook became the foremost instrument of public discussion for the happy few with access to computers and 24-hour electricity, soon drunken with the newly-found freedom to criticise and wildly indulging in racist rampage when the conflict exploded in the Rakhine state.
Trigger-happy rhetoric sustained a constant reiteration of “us the Buddhists” and the “rest of the world that does not understand Myanmar”.
The Rohingya diaspora invested in sophisticated strategies of communication that neither the Myanmar state nor any of its ethnic constituencies have been able to cope with. Buddhist resentment was bound to increase.

Some countries have termed the Rohingya issue as genocide. Though, it is not for the first time the term has been used to define the extreme odds faced by the Rohingya Muslims. Yours writings point out that the term was first used in the 1951 charter of the Arakan Muslim Conference. In 1978, it was used by some Rakhine Muslim groups when violence led Rohingyas to flee to Bangladesh. However, post 2015, we are getting to hear it more often, and internationally. How do you see the use of this term, particularly by the international rights organisations and heads of states? In one of your articles on the issue, you said, “The accusation of the term hits hard on the credibility of the state.”

Genocide accusations resound very strongly and have an immediate impact on global audiences; they are perceived as an urgent call for action and possible intervention. Indictments of genocide should, therefore, be made on grounds that leave no doubt for interpretation. The accusation of a Rohingya genocide is still very much open for further discussion. This is not the only accusation of genocide that has been made within the region.
Rakhine nationalists have alleged that the Burmese conquest of 1785 marked the beginning of a long-term effort to exterminate the Rakhine ethnic group and in the British census of 1901, the compiler hinted at the perspective of a disappearance of the Rakhine “race” due to Chittagonian immigration. Accusations have also been made about the genocide of the Chittagong Hill Tracts people in Bangladesh, especially during the Chittagong Hill Tracts war (1977-97).
The charges of a “slow genocide” of the Rohingyas has been mostly made by people who discovered the Rohingya issue only in 2012. Questioning the use of the term ‘genocide’ does not mean that one intends to belittle mass atrocities and serious violations of human rights.

It’s a fact that the Muslim population in the Rakhine state has been steadily growing despite massive emigration. In Maungdaw township, it has grown from 34% after the war to 92% (according to UNHCR sources), despite the fact that there has been a steady flow of people out of the region. The picture gets blurred when ‘genocide’ is used both as a rhetoric tool to express indignation about indiscriminate state oppression and as a description for an alleged state-led plan to exterminate a whole population.

You have spoken about the Myanmar government playing into the hands of the Rakhine nationalists by increasingly denying rights to the Muslims. Will you elaborate it a bit?

I am not sure I have put my argument clearly and if I didn’t, I should elaborate indeed. I do not mean to say that more the Muslims are harassed and flee, more the Rakhine community will have a reason to rejoice. Such an impression would be entirely wrong.

Since the colonial period, the Muslims have established a reputation as hard-working people despite the general poverty of the population as a whole. There are many problematic issues to be addressed, such as population growth and women’s rights, but there’s a right for people to live where their families have lived now for decades.
Only an ethno-political consensus of the two groups will make sure that there is a future for the people of the Rakhine state. I am talking about the progress and welfare of rural people at a basic level and initiatives that will lift people out of poverty. I am not talking about showcase government-led projects such as the port of Sittway modernised by India and the gas pipeline built by China and serving China’s thirst for natural resources. The bad news about the events in the Rakhine state have been ruining the reputation of the region and clearly lessen chances for diversified foreign investment.

Besides the economic aspect, there’s the political aspect. After the elections of 2015, the situation in the regional parliament of the Rakhine state became soon blocked by the appointment of a chief minister who belongs to the government party of Aung San Suu Kyi, the National League for Democracy.
But it is the Arakan National Party that holds a majority in the regional parliament. The conclusion is this: pleasing or antagonising the Rakhine ethnics is not necessarily related to government policies towards the Muslims and vice-versa.

What is the way out? Aung San Syu Ki said that the state would soon begin verification process for the return of the Rohingyas. Do you think a fruitful political dialogue will possibly follow this?

There is not a single way out; there are rather many patient steps to be taken by the stakeholders and actors in the conflict sphere to improve the situation. While the immediate prospect looks bleak, not least because no one really knows what role the new group, ARSA, is going to play, one should not be blind to the fact that there have been no revenge killings and no riots in the rest of the Rakhine state during the last weeks.
Most people in the country seem painfully aware that the current crisis may produce a dangerous international backlash. On the other hand, since 2013, many other ethnic groups that are hoping for peace and development and for international support as well, have grown desperate as the Rohingya lobby groups have appropriated a lot of the attention of international donors.

The near prospects will be dictated by the international involvement in the crisis. A repatriation effort will likely be engaged on the basis of the earlier agreement with Bangladesh and under international auspices.

The government should try to apply, as it had promised, the recommendations of the Kofi Annan Advisory Commission report that make a lot of sense in terms of improving general livelihood in the region. True, none of those recommendations expressly address the issue of a political dialogue that you refer to. The international community does not seem to imagine anything like that either.
It seems enthralled by the apparently unprecedented drama of another exodus that is still poorly understood. Sticking with their fascination for Aung San Suu Kyi, once a saint and de facto prisoner, a leader and a fallen angel today, the United States, the European Union and other interested parties fail to address and engage with some of the fundamental issues that we need to know more about, namely social and political drivers in the arch-conservative Muslim Rohingya society, transnational Rohingya dynamics, the relationship between the diaspora and Rohingyas in Myanmar as well as similarly structured issues relating to the social and political lives of the Rakhine community.

What we know already is that the management of the Rakhine State and its people display a state failure that has extended over several decades. We also know that the state has failed to stand up for the protection and welfare of the people and has shown itself as a weak rather than as a potent force. Only a collective effort will pay off, the state alone will not be able to shoulder the entire burden. Dialogue is, no doubt, one among the important steps to be taken.
http://southasianmonitor.com/2017/10/01/frictions-rakhine-state-less-islamophobia-rohingya-phobia/