UN SC RESOLUTION
A road map for speedy repatriation process of Rohingyas
Abdul Hannan
The latest Security Council consensus statement, the fourth in a row in course of last three months is the most comprehensive, substantive and explicit one providing a framework of road map for speedy repatriation process of Rohingyas to their home in Myanmar.
The statement is clear and forthright with no scope for ambiguity or equivocation and calls upon the stakeholders of the crisis to get down to business in right earnest in cooperation with the UN and other relevant international organisations immediately.
The Security Council strongly condemned the violence that has caused more than 600,000 Rohingyas to flee Myanmar to Bangladesh.
The statement called on Myanmar to ensure no further excessive use of military force in Rakhine state and expressed grave concern at human rights violation.
The statement stressed the importance of bringing those responsible for human rights violation accountable.
Suu Kyi’s predictable reaction
Britain initially circulated a security resolution with similar language backed by France and the US. But the resolution was legally binding and
China strongly opposed it. So Britain and France turned the resolution into a presidential statement which nonetheless remains the strongest Council statement ever on the issue, albeit without the clout and weight of a resolution.
The British and French delegations in the Council received well deserved thanks and appreciation from the permanent representative of Bangladesh for their persistent and active interest for adopting the most comprehensive statement on the matter.
The most important operative paragraph in the statement is when it urged upon the government of Myanmar to work with the government of Bangladesh and the UN to allow the voluntary return of all refugees in condition of safety and dignity to their homes in Myanmar.
The Security Council statement also urged upon Myanmar and Bangladesh to invite the UN High commissioner for refugees and other relevant international organisations to participate fully in the joint working group for implementation of repatriation process.
This last proposal rankled in the mind of Myanmar which sharply reacted that UN involvement would seriously harm the current bilateral negotiations. Her argument is ridiculous as she wants the joint working group to remain confined to bilateral negotiation between Bangladesh and Myanmar.
The reason of Myanmar de facto leader Suu Kyi’s displeasure and adverse reaction of denunciation of council proposal as an undue pressure is not far to seek. Myanmar wants to pursue a policy of foot dragging, soft peddling and subterfuge through bilateral protracted talks. Her obduracy and intransigence on the matter is clear.
By her angry reaction she has only betrayed her hypocrisy and perfidy to thwart and frustrate the repatriation process with one pretext or another.
Follow Security Council’s roadmap
The recent Ananda Bazar disclosure of absurdity of her four conditions of verifying the bonafide of residence in Myanmar of Rohingya refugees is a case in point. But she should understand that the plight of Rohingyas is now fully internationalised and its solution involves participation of international community.
There is no getting away from it.
The Security Council has provided the road map for expeditious solution of the crisis and Myanmar military authorities should implement it with unquestioning obedience.
Now during the forthcoming visit of our Foreign Minister to Myanmar, he should insist on inviting participation of UNHCR and other relevant organisations in the joint working group in accordance with the directive in the security council statement and not fall into the trap of bilateral negotiations as laid down by Myanmar as a delaying tactics.
Our civil society has always expressed concern about the potential danger of bilateral negotiations without UN and international participation to resolve the problem.
Myanmar delegation in the Council debate continued to refuse to face the reality of Rohingya situation in the face and shifted the blame on so called terrorist attacks by Rohingyas as the root cause.
Bangladesh representative Masud bin Momen regretted the continual denial by Myanmar and nailed the
lie of so called terrorist attack as a fiction and figment of imagination. He said that time was of essence to solve the massive humanitarian catastrophe caused by exodus of persecuted and displaced Rohingyas to Bangladesh.
Pressures mounting on Myanmar
The pressure on Myanmar is mounting. The 3rd committee of the UN General Assembly is soon going to pass a resolution on Rohingya crisis seeking early repatriation of Rohingyas to their homes in Myanmar.
The Council statement also wanted the secretary general to appoint a special representative to supervise the repatriation process.
The statement was serious when it urged upon the secretary general to report progress on the matter to the Security Council after 30 days.
Unless Myanmar wish to be consigned once again as an international pariah, she should heed the counsels of good sense, honour and dignity by the international public opinion.
Abdul Hannan is a columnist and former diplomat.
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ROHINGYA MUSLIM REFUGEE CRISIS
Their abject plight is beyond description
Iqbal Hossain
ACROSS the world the supremacy of photographs is unanimously recognised; however in tandem with it certainly words too can be very appositely effective as is unmistakably evident in the news reports of the print media of the country.
Over the last three months the daily newspapers of Bangladesh and the private TV channels have done an excellent job in reporting about the distress, torment, agony and sufferings of the victims of premeditated persecution, pogrom, rape and murder as part of the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya Muslims of Arakan or Rakhaine province of Myanmar.
Genocide of Rohingya Muslims
There is “mounting evidence” of genocide of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, says a new report by US-based Holocaust Memorial Museum, after an investigation by Fortify Rights. The report calls for an immediate halt to the atrocities in Rakhine. “Without urgent action, there’s a high risk of more mass atrocities,” said Cameron Hudson, director of the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide at the Museum in a statement.
Echoing the findings of Fortify Rights when giving evidence before a parliamentary committee, Human Rights Watch (HRW), Burma Campaign UK and other rights groups urged the government and the international community to see the Nobel laureate as “part of the problem”, The Guardian reports. It added that the military crackdown had “thousands” of Rohingyas dead, forced an exodus of 600,000 people and mentioned numerous instances of “appalling rape”.
Catastrophic decimation
The comprehensive editorial of the Holiday, dated 27 October 2017, has expressed the Rohingya crisis in a short and snappy procedure indicating the course of action. The comment entitled “Sushma Swaraj’s Visit: Rohingya crisis vis-à-vis Indo-Bangla ties” correctly states: “Veritable apocalypse of brutal decimation on a catastrophic scale of the Rohingya Muslims of Rakhaine in Myanmar through wholesale slaughter, arson, mass rapes by the military and violent Buddhists forced out the wretched humans whose ceaseless influx into Bangladesh drew extraordinarily sympathetic attention of the peoples of the world and the UN in particular.
Turkish First Lady Emine Erdogan flew 5,616km and visited Kutupalang refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar on Sep 7, 2017”.
Sultan Jalal-al Deen Shah and Rohingyas
Myanmar is distorting the history of the Rohingya Muslims. Throwing light on the actual history of the Rohingya Muslims the editorial of the Holiday enunciates,
“Myanmar government continues to spread disinformation with the intent to mislead the UN and the world by concealing actual history.
In the early part of 15th century (circa 1406 AD) lower Burma’s king Meng-Sho-Ai defeated Arakanese king Meng-Shoa Mown and conquered Arakan. Later on, Mown sought military assistance from the ruler of Goud, Sultan Jalal-al Deen Shah who helped him with a commander and many soldiers who defeated Burmese king Meng-Sho-Ai, and king Mown regained his kingdom. He relocated his kingdom at Rohong from which were the people known as Rohingya and at his request the Muslim soldiers permanently settled in Arakan”.
“No pictures, no videos, no writings can explain what is happening over there. It is beyond explanation,” wrote on 20 Sept 2017 Showkat Shafi of Al Jazeera worldwide TV news netwok headquartered in Doha, Qatar. The refugees carry harrowing stories of mass killings, gang rapes and razing of whole villages, enough to break down even the most seasoned journalists.
“Textbook ethnic cleansing”
The Muslim Rohingyas who have fled “textbook ethnic cleansing” in Myanmar to arrive in makeshift camps in Bangladesh are unwanted by both countries. In Bangladesh they are a huge burden; in Myanmar they are loathed. They are not recognised as citizens by Myanmar and have lived under an apartheid system in the western Rakhine state for decades.
Historical evidence of Muslims living permanently in the area now known as Rakhine State goes back at least to the Mrauk-U kingdom of the 15th century. “Some [Muslims] were serving in the court as ministers, even prime ministers — there were generals in the army, the royal army,” Aye Lwin, a Muslim leader, interfaith activist and educator, said. “Devout Buddhist Rakhine kings, they had Muslim titles … and these kings they minted coins with Arabic inscriptions,” Aye Lwin told the ABC, Australia.
But Rakhine historians see it in a different way. Aye Chan, professor emeritus at Kanda University, said,
“I never deny the existence of the Muslim community in the Mrauk-U kingdom before the Burmese conquest of the kingdom in 1785 … but it was a very small community.”
Number of orphans is disconcerting — 36.373
A general assumption is that an orphan is a child who has two departed parents; but the more all-encompassing explanations used by relief agencies tend to spotlight on a child who is deprived of parental care. An orphan is a young person under 18 years of age who has lost one or both parents.
The the Department of Social Welfare under the Social Welfare Ministry in its survey, conducted from 20 September to 10 November 2017, have enumerated the Rohingya orphans. Their number is disconcerting ___ 36.373.
Thousands of tragic episodes
Journalists Mohammad Al-Masum Molla and Mohammad Ali Jinnat wrote about four-year-old Nur Khan who squirmed in fear whenever he saw someone unfamiliar near his shack in Ukhia of Cox’s Bazar. When he came across anyone holding any object, he shuddered. The reason behind it is: five weeks ago, the child witnessed both his parents being brutally murdered.
Their father, Shahidul Amin, was a grocer in Bolly Bazar in Mangduaw, Myanmar. The day when he was killed along with his wife, their paternal grandfather asked their maternal grandmother to take the children and flee immediately. “Leave the country as soon as possible, he said. I left taking them with me,” Rafia Begum, their grandmother who brought them to Bangladesh, said.
“We crossed the border on September 1 but have not been able to contact Hasan’s grandfather ever since,” said Rafia, a widow in her 50s. Weighed down with pain and suffering, she seemed to have aged a decade in the past month.
While their grandmother spoke of the strenuous journey to escape the conflict-ridden Rakhine state, Nur Khan stared vacantly, into seemingly nothingness. He kept mum when asked what his name was. He did not wish to speak, especially to a stranger. Nur Khan seemed like he did not know who to trust outside of his immediate family.
There are thousands of such tragic episodes.
607,0001 Rohingya refugees
The influx of Rohingya Muslim refugees from northern parts of Myanmar Rakhine State into Bangladesh restarted following attacks at Myanmar Border Guard Police posts on 25 August 2017.
As of 31 October, the Inter-Sector Coordination Group (ISCG) reported that 607,0001 Rohingya refugees have entered Bangladesh since the attacks. According to ISCG’s rapid needs assessment, 58 per cent of new arrivals are children and 60 per cent are women including a high number of pregnant (3 per cent) and lactating women (7 per cent).
The atrocities of the Myanmar military forces are continuing, while Aung San Suu Kyi is silent. She is implicated in the “ethnic cleansing” of the Rohingya Muslim minority in Myanmar, UK lawmakers heard on 15 November 2017. Yes, I’m afraid she is complicit,” said Mark Farmaner, director of Burma Campaign UK. Rohingya crisis started in 1978 and was solved during the rule of President Ziaur Rahman.
It should be resolved permanently, and for this there should be sustained diplomatic effort to solve this predicament.
Email:
iqbal_567@yahoo.com
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New Report: Mounting Evidence of Genocide of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar
New Report: Mounting Evidence of Genocide of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar
International cooperation needed to halt killing and seek justice
(WASHINGTON D.C. and COX’S BAZAR, November 15, 2017) — There is “mounting evidence” of genocide against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, according to a new report published today by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and Fortify Rights.
The government of Myanmar has a responsibility to halt atrocities being perpetrated by Myanmar security forces, civilian perpetrators, and militants and hold perpetrators accountable. The international community should develop and implement a shared strategy to ensure the cessation of atrocities and advance accountability.
“The Rohingya have suffered attacks and systematic violations for decades, and the international community must not fail them now when their very existence in Myanmar is threatened” said Cameron Hudson, Director of the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. “Without urgent action, there’s a high risk of more mass atrocities.”
“They Tried to Kill Us All”: Atrocity Crimes against Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine State, Myanmar is based on one year of research conducted by Fortify Rights and the United States Holocaust Museum in Myanmar and Bangladesh. More than 200 in-depth, in-person interviews—documented primarily by Fortify Rights in Myanmar and on the Myanmar-Bangladesh border—with Rohingya survivors and eyewitnesses of atrocity crimes, as well as international aid workers, informed the report.
It documents widespread and systematic attacks on Rohingya civilians from October 9 - December 2016 and from August 25, 2017 to the present day committed by Myanmar Army soldiers, police, and civilians.
“They tried to kill us all,” said “Mohammed Rafiq,” 25, from Min Gyi village in Maungdaw Township, recalling how soldiers corralled villagers in a group and opened fire on them on August 30, 2017. “There was nothing left. People were shot in the chest, stomach, legs, face, head, everywhere.”
The report reveals how Myanmar state security forces and civilian perpetrators committed mass killings in dozens of villages in Maungdaw Township in the first wave of violence in 2016 and in villages throughout all three townships of northern Rakhine State since August 25, 2017.
Myanmar Army soldiers and civilian perpetrators slit throats; burned victims alive, including infants and children; beat civilians to death; raped and gang raped women and children. State security forces opened fire on men, women, and children at close range and at a distance and from land and helicopters, killing untold numbers. Survivors from some villages described how perpetrators slashed women’s breasts, hacked bodies to pieces, and beheaded victims, including children.
“These crimes thrive on impunity and inaction,” said Matthew Smith, Chief Executive Officer of Fortify Rights. “Condemnations aren’t enough. Without urgent international action towards accountability, more mass killings are likely.”
More than half of Myanmar’s one million Rohingya have fled the country in the past nine weeks and over 700,000 Rohingya are now living as refugees in Bangladesh. Thousands are still arriving in Bangladesh weekly. Since 2012, the Government of Myanmar has confined more than 120,000 Rohingya to more than 35 internment camps throughout Rakhine State.
The Myanmar Army-led assault on Rohingya civilians comes in response to attacks by the Rohingya militant group, Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) on three police outposts on October 9, 2016 that left nine dead and another attack on 30 police outposts and one army base on August 25, 2017 that left at least 12 dead. Members of ARSA are also responsible for human rights violations.
The government of Myanmar has enforced strict restrictions on Rohingya freedom of movement, marriage, childbirth, and other aspects of daily life for decades. The authorities deny Rohingya Myanmar citizenship by law and deny their ethnic identity, claiming they are interlopers from Bangladesh and casting them as an existential threat to Buddhist culture. The government continues to deny the delivery of essential humanitarian aid, including food and nutrition, to affected areas of northern Rakhine State.
“These crimes won’t end on their own,” said Matthew Smith, Chief Executive Officer at Fortify Rights. “People of conscience in Myanmar need to do everything possible to end the abuses and culture of impunity in the country.”
Along with recommendations for the Government of Myanmar, the report details options for the international community, such as: enacting targeted sanctions on the individuals responsible for crimes in Rakhine State, instituting an arms embargo on Myanmar, and referring the situation to the International Criminal Court, which was established to investigate, try, and prosecute those responsible for atrocity crimes when the State is unwilling or unable to do so.
http://www.rohingyablogger.com/2017/11/new-report-mounting-evidence-of.html
Chinese foreign minister to visit Myanmar, Bangladesh amid Rohingya crisis
Reuters
Published at 08:22 PM November 16, 2017
Last updated at 08:25 PM November 16, 2017
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi REUTERS
China and Myanmar have for years maintained close economic and diplomatic relations
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will visit Myanmar and Bangladesh from this weekend, his ministry said on Thursday, amid a crisis over Myanmar’s treatment of Rohingyas.
More than 610,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh since late August, driven out by a military counter-insurgency clearance operation in Buddhist-majority Myanmar’s Rakhine State.
A top UN official has described the military’s actions as a textbook case of “ethnic cleansing”. Myanmar rejects accusations of rights abuses.
China has expressed support for what it calls the Myanmar government’s efforts to protect stability.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told reporters that Wang would go to Bangladesh and Myanmar this weekend where he would meet his counterparts and exchange views on bilateral ties and issues of mutual regional concern.
On Monday and Tuesday, Wang would attend a meeting of Asian and European foreign ministers in the Myanmar capital of Naypyitaw, Geng added.
He did not say whether Wang would discuss the Rohingya issue.
China and Myanmar have for years maintained close economic and diplomatic relations.
The United States and other Western countries have become more engaged with Myanmar in recent years, since it began a transition to civilian government after nearly 50 years of military rule.
International concern over the Rohingya situation has grown.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called during a visit to Myanmar on Wednesday for a credible investigation into reports of human rights abuses against the Rohingya committed by Myanmar’s security forces.
http://www.dhakatribune.com/world/s...-minister-visit-myanmar-amid-rohingya-crisis/
Human Rights Watch accuses Myanmar army
Special Correspondent
Human Rights Watch on Thursday accused Myanmar security forces of committing widespread rape against women and girls as part of a campaign of ethnic cleansing during the past three months against Rohingya Muslims in the country’s Rakhine state.
The allegation in a report by the New York-based rights group echoes an accusation by Pramila Patten, the UN special envoy on sexual violence in conflict, earlier this week. Patten said sexual violence was ‘being commanded, orchestrated and perpetrated by the Armed Forces of Myanmar.’
Myanmar’s army released a report on Monday denying all allegations of rape and killings by security forces, days after replacing the general in charge of the operation that drove more than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee to Bangladesh.
The United Nations has denounced the violence as a classic example of ethnic cleansing. The Myanmar government has denied allegations of ethnic cleansing.
Human Rights Watch spoke to 52 Rohingya women and girls who fled to Bangladesh, 29 of whom said they had been raped. All but one of the rapes were gang rapes, Human Rights Watch said.
‘Rape has been a prominent and devastating feature of the Burmese military’s campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya,’ said Skye Wheeler, women’s rights emergencies researcher at Human Rights Watch and author of the report.
‘The Burmese military’s barbaric acts of violence have left countless women and girls brutally harmed and traumatized,’ she said in a statement.
Human Rights Watch called on the UN Security Council to impose an arms embargo on Myanmar and targeted sanctions against military leaders responsible for human rights violations, including sexual violence.
The 15-member council last week urged the Myanmar government to ‘ensure no further excessive use of military force in Rakhine state.’ It asked UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres to report back in 30 days on the situation.
Myanmar has said the military clearance operation was necessary for national security after Rohingya militants attacked 30 security posts and an army base in Rakhine state on August 25.
Myanmar is refusing entry to a UN panel that was tasked with investigating allegations of abuses after a smaller military counteroffensive launched in October 2016.
Hala Sadak, a 15-year-old from village Hathi Para in Maungdaw Township, told Human Rights Watch that soldiers had stripped her naked and then about 10 men raped her.
She told Human Rights Watch: ‘When my brother and sister came to get me, I was lying there on the ground, they thought I was dead.
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