Rohingya Ethnic Cleansing - Updates & Discussions

[Banglar Bir]

Rohingya crisis and human rights imperialism
by Peter Symonds | Published: 00:05, Nov 30,2017
The handout picture taken and released by the Vatican press office (Osservatore Romano) on November 28 shows Pope Francis, left, greeting Myanmar’s state counsellor leader Aung San Suu Kyi during a meeting in Naypyidaw. — Agence France-Presse/Osservatore Romano
THE visit by Pope Francis this week to Burma (Myanmar) has brought into focus the tragedy confronting the country’s Muslim Rohingya minority who have been forced to flee in droves to neighbouring countries.

At least 6,20,000 men, women and children have been driven out of Burma in recent months by the Burmese army and associated gangs of thugs following minor attacks in August by the Arakan Rohinya Salvation Army. The refugees live in squalid, overcrowded camps in Bangladesh and India, both of which have made clear they are not welcome.

The international response to this massive humanitarian crisis is saturated with hypocrisy and cynicism, above all by the major imperialist powers — the United States, the European Union and their allies — that exploit ‘human rights’ to further their geopolitical interests, including through regime change and wars.

For decades, following its brutal crackdown on mass protests and strikes in 1988, the US and the EU treated the Burmese military regime as a pariah, denouncing its abuse of democratic rights and imposing harsh sanctions.

Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of the opposition National League for Democracy, was universally promoted as a democracy icon and awarded the Nobel peace prize in 1991. Her house arrest by the junta, despite her role in derailing the 1988 protests and keeping the military in power, allowed the establishment media to bestow martyr status on her.

Neither the condemnations of the military nor the accolades for Suu Kyi were based on any genuine concern for the democratic rights or suffering of the Burmese people. Washington’s chief grievance with the Burmese army was that it was too closely aligned with China. Suu Kyi represented that faction of the Burmese elite oriented to the West and the opening of the country to foreign investors.

All that changed when the military regime signalled its willingness to distance itself from China and to engineer a political role for Suu Kyi and her NLD. Virtually overnight, the designation of Burma was changed from ‘rogue state’ to ‘developing democracy’, US and European officials made a beeline for the country, US president Obama visited in 2012 and sanctions were dropped step by step.

When the NLD won the 2016 election and Suu Kyi was installed as de facto head of government, it was hailed as the flowering of democracy. Barely noted was the fact that the military remained in charge of the key security ministries and, through a bloc of unelected parliamentary seats, retained a veto over any change to the constitution it had drawn up.

This sham has now been exposed by the military’s atrocities against the Rohingya in Burma’s western state of Rakhine.

The vilification of Muslim Rohingya in predominantly Buddhist Burma has deep historic roots in the policies of divide-and-rule fostered by British colonial rule over India which included Burma until 1937. Unlike other ethnic minorities, the Burmese elite regarded the Rohingya as ‘illegal immigrants’ or ‘Bengalis’ brought in by the British, even if they had lived for generations within what became independent Burma in 1948.

The military junta that seized power in 1962 whipped up anti-Muslim and anti-Rohingya chauvinism to divide working people and buttress its hold on power. In 1982, it stripped the Rohingya of citizenship rights by not including them as one of the country’s recognised ethnic minorities. Suu Kyi and the NLD are no less deeply imbued with such xenophobia and are opposed to the granting of basic democratic rights to the Rohingya.

With Suu Kyi and her government acting as its facilitators and defenders, the army is carrying out a purge of Muslim Rohingyas on a scale that a decade ago would have produced an international howl of condemnation and demands for tougher sanctions, if not military intervention. The international reaction today is decidedly muted and the calls for action symbolic.

In response to the growing international outrage over the military’s rampage, the US has followed the lead of UN officials and criticised the army’s actions as ‘ethnic cleansing.’ US secretary of state Rex Tillerson, who visited Burma earlier this month, declared that he was ‘deeply concerned by credible reports of widespread atrocities committed by Myanmar’s security forces and vigilantes.’

Asked if the US would reimpose sanctions on Burma, Tillerson declared that it was ‘not something that I’d think advisable at this time.’ He added: ‘We want to see Myanmar succeed. You can’t just impose sanctions and say therefore the crisis is over.’ Tillerson and the Trump administration have studiously avoided any criticism over Suu Kyi’s role in defending the military’s actions.

Various individuals, media and human rights organisations who helped inflate Suu Kyi’s status as a ‘democracy icon’, have begun to cautiously criticise her, even suggesting that her Nobel peace prize be withdrawn. Whether Pope Francis makes any criticism at all of the army or Suu Kyi, or even uses the term ‘Rohingya’, is the subject of media speculation. He met with Burmese military head senior general Min Aung Hlang yesterday without issuing so much as a murmur of criticism.

All this could rapidly change and Burma could return to the status of ‘rogue state’ if Washington judges that it is again getting too close to China. Commander in chief General Hlang has just completed a six-day visit to China where he met with Chinese president Xi Jinping. Suu Kyi is about to head off to Beijing to attend a conference of world political parties and ‘pay a working visit to strengthen bilateral relations.’

For the international working class, the sordid manoeuvres of the major powers and their utter indifference to the suffering of Burma’s Rohingya minority are another lesson in geopolitics. Behind the banner of ‘human rights’ always lie the predatory interests of the imperialist powers which they will ruthlessly prosecute regardless of the often terrible consequences for working people around the world.
World Socialist Web Site, November 28.
http://www.newagebd.net/article/29424/rohingya-crisis-and-human-rights-imperialism

 

[Banglar Bir]

Myanmar and China get their way
AKM Zakaria | Update: 11:56, Nov 30, 2017

An apparent way out has been reached regarding the Rohingya crisis, with Bangladesh and Myanmar signing an ‘agreement’ for the return of the refugees. The consequences of this are being debated and discussed at the moment. Generally speaking, there are two sides involved here - Bangladesh and Myanmar. But there are two important sides outside of this too, and they are India and China.

Normally we call an agreement a win-win deal when all quarters concerned benefit equally. Where does this agreement stand? And it is also important to assess whether it is actually effective at all in resolving the Rohingya crisis.

There are certain salient points to the agreement for the ‘repatriation of persons displaced from the Rakhine state’.
Firstly, Myanmar will take back those who are voluntarily willing to return, after verifying their identity.

Secondly, Myanmar’s decision is final regarding the verification of their identities.

Thirdly, if necessary, the two countries can involve the UN refugee agency in this task.

Fourthly, the refugees returning to Myanmar will initially be kept in temporary camps.

Fifthly, they will have to undergo a citizenship verification process over there.

Outside of this, other important points are, the agreement will apply to the Rohingyas who came to Bangladesh after October last year. The 300 thousand or so refugees, who have been here from beforehand, won’t be able to return under this agreement.

Myanmar did not acquiesce to the agreement the way that Bangladesh wanted it. The agreement was finalised in accordance to Myanmar’s wishes, on the lines of the 1992 agreement for repatriation of the Rohingya refugees.

It is obvious that Myanmar’s interests and conditions have been upheld in the agreement. Our foreign minister doesn’t want to admit this. He said that the repatriation of the refugees is the important issue and Myanmar has agreed to this. The important question here is, under this agreement will the refugees be repatriated in accordance to Bangladesh’s wishes?
Given the terms of the agreement, and past experience, there is no reason to be very hopeful.

Also, under what assurance will the Rohingyas be eager to ‘voluntarily’ return home where they have been facing such barbarity and oppression? What is there in the agreement that will assure them of a safe return?

If there was any other party outside of Bangladesh and Myanmar involved in the agreement, or if there was an international guarantee in this regard then there would be scope for confidence in their return. Bangladesh will be in a fix if the refugees do not want to ‘voluntarily’ return home, based on the agreement signed between Bangladesh and Myanmar.

According to the agreement, the returning refugees will have to stay in camps and their citizenship will be verified once again. If anyone doesn’t pass the verification, what will happen? Will they remain prisoners in the refugee camps? It is difficult to imagine any refugee wanting to willingly return based on such a flimsy agreement.

Even if the repatriation begins within two months as per the agreement, the process will be lengthy and complicated. The foreign minister himself admitted this. The agreement does not have any timeframe in which the repatriation is to be completed.

The Myanmar government’s policy concerning the Rohingyas makes it clear that they will use any excuse to obstruct and delay the process as far as possible. It is obvious that they want to free Arakan of Rohingyas and have been working to that end over the past few decades. They have in effect managed to clear Arakan of Rohingyas.

Myanmar signed an agreement in the past too with Bangladesh for the return of the Rohingyas, but we all know the outcome of that agreement. We cannot understand on what basis is there any hope for the outcome of this agreement to be any different, since it is based on the old agreement. What will Bangladesh do if the Rohingyas, faced with the uncertainty of their fate, refuse to return? Will the refugees be forced to return? If Bangladesh does so, it will lose all the appreciation it has garnered for providing shelter to the refugees.

We stand more to lose than win from this agreement. Prime minister Sheikh Hasina had put forward certain specific recommendations at the UN and other international forums regarding a resolution to the Rohingya crisis and the speedy repatriation and rehabilitation of the Rohingya refugees. She spoke of creating a safety zone under the UN so that the Rohingyas could return to their own homes and that the safety of all citizens of Arakan be ensured.

She also called for the implementation of the Kofi Annan commission recommendations. There is hardly any way for a permanent solution to the Rohingya crisis other than such an initiative. It is also very clear that this work cannot be carried out without international pressure. So was it realistic at all to move away from that stance and go ahead with this deal?

From Myanmar’s perspective, this agreement is a significant achievement. They managed to sign the agreement at a time when international opinion was building up against Myanmar over the Rohingya issue. The brutality against the Rohingyas was gradually being revealed.

The UN and other international agencies and states began to use terms such as ‘genocide’ and ‘ethnic cleansing’. Demands have been raised at an international level, including in the US and other states of the West, from the accused military offices of Myanmar to be tried.

Various moves are also being made to take action against Myanmar. But this agreement with Bangladesh will undoubtedly quell all these initiatives. And Myanmar will use this as a shield. This agreement is an escape route for Myanmar from all the allegations of genocide, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing. Myanmar is the winner.

It was only expected that China would back Myanmar on the Rohingya issue. China and Myanmar have historic ties. When China was isolated from the rest of the world and faced all sorts of sanctions, Myanmar was the only one that maintained relations with the country. But it was shocking for us that India sided with Myanmar.

Bangladesh did not get this regional power, neighbor and closest friend, India, by its side in such a dire crisis. India did not murmur a single stern word in protest against the ethnic cleansing and violence against a particular community in a neighbouring state where hundreds of thousands were being driven away.

Analysts and observers say that India took this stance due to geo-political and economic reasons. One can then ask, has India been able to benefit from such a stand? Will it be able to do so in the future? Reality reveals quite the opposite. India remains silent about the Rohingya issue at present. It is said that China has played a role behind the deal signed between Bangladesh and Myanmar. It is evident that China, as a regional power, holds the control and authority over the Rohingya issue.

India hardly has scope to play a role here, or it has failed to play its due role. India will not be able to make a slightest dent in the influence China wields over Myanmar, particularly over the military there. While the agreement between Bangladesh and Myanmar was being signed in Naypyidaw, the Myanmar military chief was visiting China. And soon Aung San Suu Kyi will be visiting China as well.

So what did India gain from the Rohingya issue? It may gain certain investment and economic benefits, but the calculations are complex when it comes to geo-politics or the completion between China and India.

Both India and China are opposed to western intervention in the region. Both the countries want to exert their influence and power in the region. From the very outset, China wanted to keep the US and the countries of the West away from the Rohingya issue. That is why China pushed the agreement between Bangladesh and Myanmar. It is clear that China wants a sole role in this regard.

China’s role behind the Bangladesh-Myanmar agreement emphasises the strength of China’s role in the region’s geo-politics. This agreement is a victory for both Myanmar and China.

What will Bangladesh do now? Bangladesh’s biggest wish now is for the return of the Rohingyas. Bangladesh had to sign the agreement in accordance to China’s wishes and so now it must get a guarantee from China regarding the implementation of the agreement.
* AKM Zakaria is a senor journalist and can be reached at akmzakaria@gmail.com <mailto:akmzakaria@gmail.com>. This column, originally published in Prothom Alo Bangla print edition, has been rewritten in English by Ayesha Kabir.
http://en.prothom-alo.com/opinion/news/135535/Myanmar-and-China-get-their-way

 

[Banglar Bir]

'The Buddhist society has lost its conscience'
Ayesha Kabir | Update: 18:11, Nov 30, 2017

Zarni is a democracy advocate, Rohingya campaigner, and a former research fellow at the London School of Economics. He lived and worked in the United States for 17 years. In 1995 he founded the Free Burma Coalition and was its director until 2004.
Zarni is also a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment. Zarni now works as independent scholar specialising in racism, violence and mass atrocities. He is an adviser to the European Centre for the Study of Extremism based in Cambridge, UK.

During his recent Dhaka trip, Zarni dropped in at the Prothom Alo office and held a discussion with senior journalists of the daily, including the editor Matiur Rahman. He deliberated on a number of issues pertaining to the Rohingya crisis and the predicament of his homeland.

“The Buddhist society has lost its conscience and has turned racist. The army itself has been founded on fascist lines. And a good society has been manipulated to move into this fascist mode.”

Activist Zarni’s passionate outburst was tinged with regret as he added, “This is no longer the society where I grew up. People of different faiths and societies living together will invariably have a degree of discomfort when it comes to certain differences, but that should not culminate in violence. When I was growing up the army didn’t have that control. The press was free. Then in 1962 Ne Win took over power and the army began to exert its authority over the culture, the society, even day care centres!”

Highlighting the authoritarian nature of the rule, Zarni said, “The party was God. There had been strength in society, families understood they knew better than the army, the monks opposed the authoritarian rule and were against the fascist ideology.
But the army played one religion against the other and propagated its totalitarian ideology.
But now the 55 years of the army’s fascist endeavours have culminated in the present predicament of the state.”

Prothom Alo editor Matiur Rahman pointed to people’s support of the peaceful democratic movement, where Aung San Suu Kyi voiced their aspirations. Zarni responded by saying that since 1988 the movement aimed at opposing military dictatorship.

This was different from a value driven democratic movement. The movement was opposed to the shooting and violence but not for values and principles. He criticised Aung San Suu Kyi, saying she needed ‘revolution of the spirit’. He said that she and others of her ilk spoke the same language as the military, not of human rights and the sanctity of human lives.

“The military had succeeded in manipulating the people into a totalitarian space. We are worse than Germany under Hitler. Society has to resist, but over 90 per cent of the people back the military.”

Concerning the Myanmar army chief’s aspirations to be president, Zarni said, “Becoming the president is the army chief’s ambition. He is the Milosevic of Burma today. He had the gall to tell the Pope that there was no racist discrimination in the country.”

About the future of Aung San Suu Kyi, he said she may be admired in her country but internationally she had lost her stature as a Nobel Laureate.

As to whether Bangladesh was on the correct path, Zarni said that Bangladesh was a nation state with its own interests. The government of Bangladesh had one sort of stance, given its interests with China and the rest of the region, but the people had shown tremendous compassion towards the Rohingyas. They did not see them as illegal entrants this time, but as victims of genocide. This was a powerful and positive sentiment.
http://en.prothom-alo.com/bangladesh/news/135562/“The-Buddhist-society-has-lost-its-conscience”

 

[Banglar Bir]

IS BANGLADESH READY FOR THE CHALLENGE?
Bay of Bengal geopolitics under transformation
Shahid Islam
When the tide of time changes the contours of reality, nations must reset their priorities to meet the emerging challenges and new realities. The geopolitics of the Bay of Bengal and its littoral nations are under transformation amidst competing interests of regional and global powers.

Bangladesh, as a nation central to this new development, must prepare to take the plunges that lurk in the blue waters beyond the nation’s territorial waters, as well as on the shiny shores dotting the vast coastline shared by Myanmar and Bangladesh in particular.

Rohingya dispossession
This new reality has been ushered in by the systematic uprooting of the Rohingya Muslim minorities in Myanmar who are historic inhabitants of a strategic landmass called Arakan (Rakhine state of Myanmar) that spreads over 36,778 km² and, mountains as high as 3,063 metres separate the region from central Myanmar to mesh it neatly with the hilly suburbs of neighbouring Bangladesh.

Besides, the military backed regime in Myanmar considers the Rohingya as Bengali settlers who, the regime believe, should be driven back to their ancestral homes in Bangladesh’s Chittagong area that, until 1666, was part of the Arakan landmass while the rest of the land was annexed by Burma in 1784.

The Rohingya crisis is taking a turn for the worst at a time when the regional and global powers believe that the brewing China-US rivalry — and the Indian decision to strategically align with the USA—is shaping up the parameters of a major global conflict centering Myanmar’s Rakhine state; from where Rohingyas in their hundreds of thousands are being driven back to Bangladesh, sparking a major humanitarian crisis that needs immediate global humanitarian and military interventions.

Stake for Bangladesh
Bangladesh may have been napping—and not alerted by the increased visitations recently to the country of people and dignitaries from the East and the West—while the USA, UK, and their NATO allies might have planned for one of the three particular outcomes to unfold in this festering crisis.

First: Myanmar should take back the dispossessed Rohingyas and offer them citizenship.

Second: The UN should make provision for a Bosnia-type humanitarian intervention backed by military force; a prospect much feared by China, Russia and India.

Third: Arakan should be an independent state for all the inhabitants of the area, including the local Buddhists.

Being an inheritor state of the British empire, Bangladesh does have a historic claim on Arakan due to the Arakan landmass being under the British rule since a bloody war in 1824 between the Burmese and the Brits resulted in the signing of the Treaty of Yandabo (1826), ending prolonged hostilities following Burma’s ceding of Arakan, alongside Tanintharyi (Tenasserim), to the British Indian government.

Legal footnotes
The rationales of the Myanmar regime in driving out the Rohingya minorities from their ancestral home are untenable, and the pattern of racial and ethnic discriminations are staggeringly overwhelming.

Following independence in 1945, the Burmese government passed the Union Citizenship Act, which ascribed the ethnicities “indigenous” to Myanmar, and, excluded the Rohingyas, the Muslim inhabitants of Arakan, for not being indigenous, and hence, not being one of the country’s 135 designated official ethnic groups.

Yet, Bangladesh failed to mount a major diplomatic offensive in 1974 when all citizens in Burma were made to get national registration cards, excluding the Bengali speaking Rohingyas, who were only allowed to obtain foreign registration cards. And again, in 1982, when a new citizenship law prevented the Rohingyas from obtaining Burmese citizenship and rendered them virtually stateless, Bangladesh displayed a curious silence.

Now that the Myanmar regime is evidently found in conducting an orgy of ethnic cleansing and, by now had forcefully evicted almost one million Rohingys from their ancestral homes, Dhaka’s burden to shouldering them can only be ameliorated by moving aggressively toward adopting a Chapter 7 enforceable Resolution under the UN Security Council, which the USA and its NATO allies seem poised to take onboard as the most viable option, according to the diplomatic mutterings swirling around.

China, Russia, India factors
The move is not obstacle-free, however. Myanmar is China’s clientele state and ideologically aligned as the inseparable communist siblings of the same indoctrination. Yet, in the midst of a brewing China-US rivalry for global supremacy, and the Indian decision to strategically align with the USA, Washington does have an upper hand in steering the Rohingya crisis toward a direction suiting its global agenda.

In Bosnia too, in the early 1990s, Russia vehemently opposed any military intervention under the UN mandate while the Bosnian Muslims faced Serv-conducted ethnic cleansing. But the USA proved relentless in its pursuance of creating an independent nation-state for the Bosnian Muslims. The same scenario may get replayed in Arakan unless the Myanmar regime takes back the driven-out Rohingya people sooner.

For its part, India can either tow the US-Western line, or dither on the grey shred of ambivalence, as it did by abstaining from voting lately in the UN Human Rights Commission-mooted motion on the crisis.

The caveat is: Delhi’s failure to make a clear stand on the issue will cost it by
(1) stalling Western support to becoming a permanent member of the UNSC;

(2) losing face with the USA and the West at a time when Delhi’s betrayal with Moscow after decades of strategic cohabitation remains unforgivable, and;

(3) blundering on the false assumption that the historic animosity with Beijing is deferrable, or erasable.

The national interest of Bangladesh, under these givens, will be best served by staying glued with the human-rights-conscious Western regimes to tilt the precarious diplomatic imbalance it now confronts.

http://www.weeklyholiday.net/Homepage/Pages/UserHome.aspx

 

[Banglar Bir]

Shadow minister moves Rohingya crisis in UK parliament
News Desk, bdnews24.com
Published: 2017-11-30 03:23:12.0 BdST Updated: 2017-11-30 04:03:34.0 BdST

MPs at House of Commons, British Parliament. Reuters File Photo

The UK parliament has had a lengthy discussion on the Rohingya crisis which Minister for Asia and the Pacific Mark Field calls a 'global humanitarian catastrophe' and not just a Muslim issue.

British shadow Minister for International Development Roberta Blackman-Woods, who recently visited Bangladesh and Rohingya camps, moved the motion with Ian Paisley in the chair.

Over 20 MPs took part in the discussion at the House of Commons on Tuesday, according to Hansard Online, which says it puts in a substantially verbatim report of what is said in parliament.

Roberta attended the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association conference in Dhaka as a member of the British delegation.

In her opening remarks, Roberta said, "Although stories about the crisis are similar, my visit brought home the vastness of the camps."

"The UNHCR's head of emergency planning told our group of parliamentarians that the camps needed to house the new refugees are the equivalent of a city larger than Manchester and these are being established almost overnight," she told the MPs.

"And it was built with no infrastructure, housing, water, sanitation or any of the tools needed for self-subsistence," she quoted the UNHCR emergency chief.

The International Rescue Committee estimates that nearly 300,000 people need food security assistance and more than 400,000 people need healthcare, Roberta said.

Mariam Begum, a mother of three, has taken refuge at the makeshift camp on Balukhali Hill in Cox’s Bazar’s Ukhia. She says her husband was killed in front of her by Myanmar soldiers. Photo: mostafigur rahman

Only a fraction of the 453,000 Rohingya children at camps receives education. The young people they met were desperate for education—particularly higher education, the shadow minister continued.

Another MP, Philip Hollobone, said, "It is ethnic cleansing, pure and simple, and must be 100% condemned through all diplomatic channels available to us."

"I appreciate the sensitivities of the nascent democracy in Burma, but we must make it clear that the generals are responsible for this ethnic cleansing and that the international community will not put up with it."

"When it comes to the potential return of Rohingya refugees, returning stateless people to remain stateless in their country of origin is not good enough. These people require their nationhood to be given to them."

He also said Britain must stimulate further contributions from other countries, particularly Muslim countries, because 'we are dealing with a Muslim population', and “there are lots of rich Muslim countries in the world that, frankly, should be stepping up to the plate rather more”.

A family of Rohingya refugees at the makeshift camp on Balukhali Hill in Cox’s Bazar’s Ukhia. Photo: mostafigur rahman

Taking the floor, Mark Field said, "It would be very dangerous for this to be seen as only a Muslim issue.

“It is a global humanitarian catastrophe, and while I accept what he says – that we want to see all nations contributing – to try to frame it in an ethnic way would be the wrong way forward."

Rushanara Ali, a Bangladesh-origin Labour MP, asked the minister whether they will be pursuing an independent security presence to protect the Rohingyas.

“Because otherwise, we are expecting the perpetrators of ethnic cleansing to be the ones managing this process?”

"Absolutely," Mark Field said in reply. "We will. I am also wary of the idea of having a long-term presence there, rather like what has happened in the Middle East where one has an unsustainable position for the longer term."

"But in the short term, we need to have an independent international presence to police this matter."

He also said the UK government concluded that the inexcusable violence perpetrated on the Rohingya by the Burmese military and ethnic Rakhine militia appears to be ethnic cleansing – or is ethnic cleansing.

The UK has been leading the international response diplomatically, politically and regarding humanitarian support.

Rohingyas return to a makeshift refugee camp at Balukhali in Ukhia, Cox's Bazar with whatever aid they could collect on Saturday. Photo: muhammad mostafigur rahman

Rushanara expressed concern over the supposed agreement between the Bangladeshis and the Burmese as what she terms 'is deeply problematic", given the state of camps in Rakhine and the way the Rohingya are being treated.

"I visited Burma twice. Our Government needs to ensure that security arrangements are in place and that the Rohingyas’ protection is guaranteed before any such process takes place," she added.

Agreeing with her concern, Roberta said, despite the deal signed on 23 November between Myanmar and Bangladesh to return the Rohingya to Myanmar, there is "understandably widespread aversion" among the displaced Rohingya to returning to their home state at present.

Labour MP from Manchester Jeff Smith said, "The repatriation deal requires that refugees produce a load of documentation, including names of family members, previous addresses, birth dates and a statement of voluntary return."

"Given the systematic denial of citizenship rights, will that be incredibly difficult for them?" he asked.

In reply, Roberta said, “It is clear that the conditions for safe, voluntary and informed returns are not being met.”

The IRC also states that 81 percent of the Rohingyas it interviewed do not wish to return to Myanmar at present, she added.

She also said, "International pressure to solve the crisis is of the utmost urgency, and I would like to hear from the Minister what the Government are going to do to try to step up the amount of aid delivered not only by the UK Government but by other partners, and how they will press for a longer-term international solution to the problem."

Rohingya refugees scrambled for relief materials at Palongkhali in Ukhia, Cox's Bazar on Saturday as aid workers threw clothes from a truck. Photo: muhammad mostafigur rahman

Labour MP from Tooting Rosena Allin-Khan, who also visited the camp, told the House of Commons, "I say on the record, as I have all week, that this is not ethnic cleansing. Ethnic cleansing is not a crime in humanitarian law. This is genocide—the systematic dehumanisation of a population of people—and we have to call it out."

"We are proud to be British, and all that stands for. Our standing in the world is to be applauded. The amount we give to humanitarian efforts is absolutely wonderful, but it is tantamount to putting a sticking plaster on a gunshot wound and allowing the shooter to roam free. We cannot be bystanders to this genocide."

She said she met an Imam in the camp who managed to escape into the bushes as the military arrived in his village and started shooting everybody.

The Imam described, through his tears: "All the men being mutilated and killed as their wives were forced to watch; women being dragged backwards by their hair and gang-raped repeatedly as their children were forced to watch; and their children, as they ran away screaming, being dragged back and thrown into the fires."

"I know that that is hard to hear, but I promised I would tell their stories," she continued.

Another member of the British delegation that visited the refugee camps, Anne Main, a Conservative MP from St Albans said, "There is a cultural problem here—tacit agreement with the process that has happened. The local people in Myanmar are 'not unhappy' that these people have been driven out in the most horrific manner."

"That needs to be addressed. Otherwise, sending the Rohingya back will only send them back into a scenario in which they are permanently under threat, despised and robbed of their rights," she added.

Faisal Rashid, a Labour MP from Warrington South, called upon the British government to lead the way in organising an immediate and effective international response to the crisis.

He urged that the other members of the United Nations Security Council come together and use their collective power to help this persecuted minority.

"The Burmese Government must be held to account, and the war crimes that have been committed by the Burmese military must be investigated in an international court. The Rohingya people need justice," he added.
https://bdnews24.com/world/2017/11/30/shadow-minister-moves-rohingya-crisis-in-uk-parliament

BD-Myanmar pact to repatriate refugees raises chilling questions
Ispita Chakravarty
Scroll.In
Months after thousands of Rohingya Muslims fled Myanmar in the wake of mass killings, rape and arson, Bangladesh plans to send them back. On November 23, it signed a repatriation deal with Myanmar, which is said to be based on an earlier pact signed in 1992, when a similar surge of violence had sent the Rohingya fleeing across the border.

Since August 2017, about 620,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled ethnic cleansing by the Myanmar military. According to a statement by a Bangladeshi minister, repatriation will start in two months. Many Rohingya, crammed into refugee camps in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar and still traumatised by the violence they left behind, say it is too soon to go back.

The deal
The details of the deal are still sketchy and the two countries will reportedly form a joint working committee to oversee the process. This is what is known so far.

At least initially, only the Rohingya who entered Bangladesh after October 2016 will be sent back. Crucially, the agreement refers to them as “displaced Myanmar residents”, rather than citizens. They will need to provide proof of residency with documents issued in Myanmar. Documentation provided by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees will also have to be verified, and Myanmar will be the final arbiter of any dispute on their validity.

According to Bangladesh Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali, Myanmar will settle the repatriated Rohingya in their former neighbourhoods or any place near where their homes once stood. They will not stay in temporary settlements for long.

Both governments have agreed not to discriminate against any particular community in the process, Myanmar has reportedly promised not to penalise any Rohingya for “illegal exodus and return” unless they are found to be involved in terrorist or criminal activities. After repatriation, neither government will provide citizenship or residency to “illegal immigrants”.

A publicity stunt?
Human Rights Watch called the pact a “publicity stunt” and “laughable”, while Amnesty International said it was “unthinkable” for Rohingya refugees to return at the moment. Voices of concern have also been raised in Bangladesh, but the government is not taking questions. “Our only goal is to send the Rohingya back to their country, and there is no point in criticising this agreement,” said Ali in a press briefing. But the problems with the pact are obvious.

First, it makes no space for the involvement of a third party which could have monitored or steered the process. This is an especially crucial gap since neither country’s stance inspires much confidence. Bangladesh has made no secret of wanting to get the refugee population off its soil. As for Myanmar, it has maintained a sullen denial of the atrocities in the face of mounting evidence.

Second, the pact lets Myanmar decide on the legality of the documents produced. As one migration expert pointed out, this “kills a process that could have been neutral”. Since Myanmar stands accused of systematically trying to eject Rohingya from the country and of denying them citizenship, it is debatable how many documents it will admit as valid.

Third, there are logistical problems with producing and verifying the documents. In a country that has denied Rohingya citizenship and basic rights for years, it is not known how many people have identification papers. Besides, many fled leaving everything behind so they might not have the papers even if they were issued.

As former Bangladeshi ambassador M Humayun Kabir points out, most would depend on a “white card” or temporary identity certificate provided by the Myanmar government, which claimed their citizenship was in doubt. These are printed in Burmese but refugees giving their details for registration in Bangladesh often speak in Rakhine, which means names and addresses will often not match.

Fourth, the pact states that neither country will provide citizenship or residency to “illegal immigrants” once registration is complete. Given the difficulties of identification, the process is likely to leave a large number of people out. This will create a large, floating population of so-called illegal migrants left stateless once again. It should be remembered that the Myanmar government justified stripping the Rohingya of civil and political rights by claiming they were illegal Bangladeshi migrants in the first place.

Point of no return
Finally, there is the freighted question of what the Rohingya will return to. With entire villages razed to the ground, the government will need to help them rebuild their homes and lives once again. When the pact still refuses to call the Rohingya citizens of Myanmar, the government’s enthusiasm for such a project may be lacking. The provision about Myanmar penalising so called terrorists or criminals could lay the ground for a fresh campaign of persecution.

So far, there is nothing to suggest that this deal has what the 1992 agreement did not: safeguards to ensure that Myanmar’s military junta will alter its policies towards the Rohingya and not indulge in more killing sprees that will send them running for life across the border once again. With no evidence of a change of heart in the Myanmar government, this pact would only deliver the Rohingya back to their killers.
http://www.weeklyholiday.net/Homepage/Pages/UserHome.aspx?ID=5&date=0#Tid=15204

 

[Banglar Bir]

Is future of Rohingya crisis still up in the air?
In the wake of rigmaroles of parleys and some jibber-jabbers vis-à-vis wool-gathering, now and then cold silence as well as waiting with baited breath in pursuit of resolution to end genocide, bloodshed, rape and premeditated physical annihilation process of the Rohingya Muslim minority population of Rakhaine province of Myanmar [perpetrated by the Burmese armed forces in collusion with the Buddhist civilians] a ray of hope was visible.

But that ‘ray’ of hope of 26 November 2017 too is a ‘faint’ one now—-a will-o’-the-wisp or ignis fatuus. Why? Because the refugee influx still continues and the wretched Rohingyas are still fleeing [at least 3,000 refugees so far ] into Bangladesh even after an agreement was signed with Myanmar to repatriate hundreds of thousands of the Muslim minority displaced along the border, officials said on November 28, 2017, as reported by AFP.

When an apparently confident Foreign Minister A H Mahmood Ali said on 26 November 2017 that Dhaka protected its interest in signing the deal with Naypyidaw over the repatriation of Myanmar nationals and hoped to send them back home within “a reasonable time”, the people of Bangladesh—-now under terribly insufferable economic, ecological and social pressure more than flesh and blood can stand—-felt encouraged.

Mr Ali added, “Our interest has not been ignored or hampered at all…our main goal is to send back the Rohingya Muslims sheltered in Bangladesh and we have been able to make Myanmar agree to take back its nationals.”

Responding to questions from reporters, Mahmood said the criticism about not mentioning a specific timeframe in the agreement for completion of the repatriation was not right, because it can’t be done within a given timeframe. “Both the countries have agreed to start the repatriation process in two months and it will be completed within a reasonable time.”

When newsman asked whether “a reasonable time” is a vague term, the minister said it is obviously a vague term. “There is no benefit in mentioning a specific timeframe as well.” Therefore the exercise seems to be tantamount to an inconsequential exercise since Mr Ali himself admits that “a reasonable time” is obviously a vague term.

Having undergone immeasurable terrible odyssey of recurring persecution for decades, the Rohingya Muslims faced veritable apocalypse of brutal decimation on a catastrophic scale through wholesale slaughter, arson and mass rapes by the military that 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.

Expressions of facts by Anwar Hossain, a Rohingya Muslim of Nein Chong village in Boothidong, Rakhine state—-as written by Kazi Imdad in channel_ionline.com dated 23 November 2017—-recounted how perfidious Suu Kyi betrayed their confidence in her.

There is an old injury mark below his left eye which he had sustained in 1990 when police had beaten him up because he was one of the hundreds of Rohingya Muslims who supported Suu Kyi’s poll symbol ‘Peacock’ in the parliament elections held that year and gave blood. Their Democracy and Human Rights Party supported the ‘Peacock’ symbol. Nurul Kabir said that prior to the 1990 polls his younger brother Anwarul Kabir was tortured to death by police in Akyab Jail. Alas, “after 25 years Suu Kyi betrayed with their blood.”

Aung San Suu Kyi was lambasted a couple of years ago for her insensitive heartless stance on the Rohingyas. Wrote Professor Penny Green, a Director of International State Crime Initiative, in the London-based Independent on 20 May 2015: Suu Kyi’s silence on the genocide of Rohingya Muslims is tantamount to complicity. There will be much more blood if the Burmese government is not stopped in its tracks. Indeed, that has happened in 1978, 1992, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, and much more virulently in 2017.

Rohingya influx has been afflicting Bangladesh since long. In 1978 General Ne Win launched the Nagamin Dragon Operation and thousands of Rohingyas were killed indiscriminately for their allegiance to the Arakan National Liberation Party. However, President Ziaur Rahman sought intervention of the international community for a speedy resolution of the crisis, following which most of the Rohingya refugees were repatriated between 6 October and 24 December in 1979.

Professor Penny Green wrote, “In a genocide silence is complicity, and so it is with Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma’s desperate Rohingya community. The Burmese government’s ongoing persecution of the Rohingya has, in the last two years, reached a level so untenable that the Rohingya are faced with only two options, to remain and risk annihilation or flee.

The current exodus of those seeking asylum is just one manifestation of genocide. Genocide is a process built up over a period of years involving an escalation in the dehumanisation and persecution of the target group. Inside Burma, the Rohingya have been subjected to decades of stigmatization, violence and harassment.”

The AL government’s closest friend India—-not surprisingly—-is among the countries which did not support Dhaka, instead she abstained from voting on the UN resolution condemning the atrocities on the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. [Vide southasianmonitor. com/2017/11/18/india-lets-rohingya-muslims-cruelly-third-time-succession.]

Notwithstanding the fact that the government of Awami League (AL) chief and PM Sheikh Hasina has inked a “bilateral” deal with Naypyidaw over the repatriation of Myanmar nationals on 25 November 2017, her government in its wisdom had planned to reject just 7 days back a proposal by China recommending Bangladesh seek a “bilateral solution” to the ongoing Rohingya refugee crisis with Myanmar. [Vide dhakatribune.com /bangladesh/ foreign-affairs/2017/11/18/ bangladesh-reject-china-rohingya-crisis/ ]

Sheikh Hasina and her Foreign Office mandarins might know better what is in store for us.
Meanwhile, the people can only hope against hope about future of the crisis still up in the air.
http://www.weeklyholiday.net/Homepage/Pages/UserHome.aspx?ID=4&date=0#Tid=15198

12:00 AM, December 01, 2017 / LAST MODIFIED: 03:12 AM, December 01, 2017
Stand by Bangladesh
Pope calls for decisive actions from int'l community to end Rohingya crisis; lauds Bangladesh's role in helping refugees

A child presents a flower bouquet to Pope Francis as President Abdul Hamid receives him. The Pope arrived yesterday on a VVIP flight of Biman Bangladesh Airlines which landed at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport around 2:45pm from Yangon, Myanmar. Photo: PID
Agencies

Pope Francis yesterday called for "decisive" international action on the Rohingya refugee crisis as he began a visit to Bangladesh, where more than 620,000 of the Muslim minority have sought sanctuary after fleeing violence in Myanmar.

The pope made the comment in a speech shortly after arriving from Myanmar, where he walked a diplomatic tightrope, staying away from allegations that the army is waging an ethnic cleansing campaign against the Rohingya, despite pressure to publicly confront the incendiary issue, reports AFP.

"None of us can fail to be aware of the gravity of the situation, the immense toll of human suffering involved, and the precarious living conditions of so many of our brothers and sisters, a majority of whom are women and children, crowded in the refugee camps," he said.

"It is imperative that the international community take decisive measures to address this grave crisis, not only by working to resolve the political issues that have led to the mass displacement of people, but also by offering immediate material assistance to Bangladesh in its effort to respond effectively to urgent human needs," the pope told Bangladeshi dignitaries and diplomats.

He praised Bangladesh for taking in the mass exodus across the border into overcrowded makeshift camps since a fresh outbreak of violence in Rakhine state in late August.

But as in Myanmar, he refrained from using the word "Rohingya", instead referring to "refugees from Rakhine state".

Pope Francis had been urged not to use the name in Myanmar to avoid provoking hardline Buddhists and making the country's Catholics a target.

At a private talk with the pontiff later in the evening, President Abdul Hamid sought his help in sending back the displaced Rohingya to their homeland and keeping up the pressure on Myanmar to resolve the protracted crisis, reports UNB.

"During the meeting, the president categorically sought Pope's active role so that different countries and the international community put pressure on the Myanmar government to settle the issue," President's Press Secretary Joynal Abedin later told journalists.

Francis -- the first pope to visit Bangladesh in 31 years -- will spend three days in the mainly-Muslim country, which is grappling with a rise in Islamist extremism that has seen Catholics attacked for their faith, AFP added.

In Dhaka, he will meet some of the Rohingya refugees, whom he has described as his "brothers and sisters", and lead a mass for Bangladesh's tiny Catholic minority.

DILEMMA
Myanmar's government denies the Rohingya are an ethnic group, insisting they are "Bengali" migrants who are not entitled to full citizenship.

The Vatican has rejected suggestions that the pope's reticence to tackle the Rohingya crisis head-on represented a failure of moral leadership.

"He seemed to comprehend the dilemma he faced," David Mathieson, a Yangon-based analyst, told AFP, applauding the Catholic leader's diplomatic dexterity in a country where the army retains great power.

"He is the pope, not a pugilist... he was here to help the country work through this horrific humanitarian crisis and listen to both the civilian and military leadership."

The pontiff was warmly embraced by Myanmar's Catholics, who make up just over one percent of the population.

Today he will lead a mass at Suhrawardy Udyan in the capital that is expected to be attended by around 100,000 people.

Bangladesh's Catholics make up less than 0.5 percent of the population of 160 million and have for centuries lived in relative harmony with their Muslim neighbours.

But there has been a rise in Islamist attacks in recent years targeting religious minorities, foreigners and secular figures.

The papal visit comes days after the disappearance of a Catholic priest in the same village where suspected Islamist extremists hacked a Catholic grocer to death last year.

Walter William Rosario, 40, had been making arrangements for some 300 Catholics to travel to Dhaka for the pope's mass.

Since 2015 at least three Christians, including two converts from Islam, have been hacked to death in attacks blamed on militant groups.

Tens of thousands of Catholics have travelled to the capital hoping to catch a glimpse of Pope Francis, who is to travel to the park for Friday's mass on a traditional cycle rickshaw.

The 80-year-old Argentine pontiff has established a reputation for his down-to-earth manner, vowing to stamp out extravagance among the clergy and bring the Catholic Church closer to the poor.
http://www.thedailystar.net/frontpage/myanmar-rohingya-refugee-crisis-take-decisive-measures-1498810

U.N. seeks report from Myanmar on rapes, deaths of Rohingya women
November 28, 2017
Stephanie Nebehay | Reuters

A United Nations women's rights panel called on Myanmar on Tuesday to report within six months on rapes and sexual violence against Rohingya women and girls by its security forces in northern Rakhine state and measures taken to punish soldiers.

The U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) also asked authorities to provide details on women and girls killed in the violence since the army crackdown began in late August.

The campaign, which followed attacks on police posts by Rohingya insurgents, has driven more than 600,000 Rohingya to flee to Bangladesh and left their villages burned to the ground.

The rare request for an "exceptional report" from a country was only the panel's fourth since 1982.

"We request an exceptional report from a state when a situation of grave, massive and systematic violations occur and these issues are relevant to mandate of the Committee," panel member Nahla Haidar told Reuters.

"The exceptional report is also like a red flag," she said. The move aimed to help Myanmar authorities "get out of the tunnel of this recent conflict which has really set back Myanmar which was going on the right foot to democratisation", she said.

The U.N. watchdog panel, composed of 23 independent experts, set a six-month deadline for the government to submit the report to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

"The Committee requested information concerning cases of sexual violence, including rape, against Rohingya women and girls by State security forces; and to provide details on the number of women and girls who have been killed or have died due to other non-natural causes during the latest outbreak of violence," it said in a statement.

Haider said: "Essentially it's rape, sexual violence which amounts to torture in certain cases for girls and women. And gang-raping also was documented...And yes, torture - rapes used as a systematic weapon of war".

The experts requested information on "investigations, arrests, prosecutions, convictions and sentences or disciplinary measures imposed on perpetrators, including members of the armed forces, found guilty of such crimes."

Specifically, they sought information on the battalions that have undertaken the "clearance operations" in northern Rakhine state since August 25 "and under whose command".

They asked whether instructions have been given or are being issued to all branches of state security forces that torture, sexual violence and expulsions are banned "and that those responsible will be prosecuted and punished".

The panel said it wanted to know how many Rohingya women and girls are being detained by security forces.

Pope Francis on Tuesday urged the leaders of majority-Buddhist Myanmar, mired in a crisis over the fate of Muslim Rohingya people, to commit themselves to justice, human rights and respect for "each ethnic group and its identity".
http://www.genocidewatch.com/single...rom-Myanmar-on-rapes-deaths-of-Rohingya-women

 

[Banglar Bir]

12:00 AM, November 30, 2017 / LAST MODIFIED: 11:23 AM, November 30, 2017
On the margins of ruin: War and displacement

Life and living on the margins of history has not erased the delicate beauty and resilience of the Rohingya woman. PHOTO: AFP
Rebecca Haque
Not history alone, not literature alone, but my own considerable life experience has convinced me that the world is Manichean, and tragically will forever remain so. Evil has many faces, and man's expulsion from the garden of Eden has tainted the earth with blood spilt in lust and vengeance and vicious hunger for conquest of acres and acres of rich, fertile ground.

Cyclically, mighty civilisations have flourished on the banks of mighty rivers and have perished at the hands of marauding tribes and invading armies, and those same great rivers have overflowed with human blood and carcass. Cain's act and bequest of brother against brother, his murder of Abel, is the original fable of the curse of evil lurking within each human soul.

The mortal frame is a divided box, with opposing, warring desires of the flesh and the spirit, of the mind and the heart, and most unfortunately, yet most powerfully and crucially for the survival of entire civilisations, cultures, and tribes of peoples, the mortal self is itself a complex, convoluted, conflicted unit of light and shadow, of good and evil.

As a child, I have stood many a time on the steps and plinths of the majestic ruins of Mohenjodaro and Harappa, while my love of history books ignited my imagination to fill the emptiness of the rooms and the courtyards and the granaries and the bathhouses and the adjoining fields with living, breathing men, women, and children.

Even my dreams were peopled by sunburnt folk wrapped in white homespun cotton garments. The Indian sub-continent is my geographical space, and I carry my Aryan-Dravidian colour and shape to the Occident and the Orient with pride. Bengal is my birthplace; with my roots firmly attached to the alluvial soil of the Gangetic Plains, I too am the inheritor of a rich culture layered with trajectories of centuries of settlements by Persian and Greek and Arab and Portuguese and Dutch and British voyagers, traders, conquerors.

The bloodlines of the Bengali woman meet all cultures and languages, from the Greco-Roman to the Arabic, from the Hispanic to the Indic, from the Runic to the Hieroglyphic. The profile of the Bengali woman eludes the Cubist frame of Picasso: she is multi ethnic, multi dimensional. A racial chameleon, made from clay and terra cotta, Gandhara, Harappa, and Mohenjodaro.

The Rohingya is my sister as much as the Nubian and the Sumerian. Life and living on the margins of history has not erased the delicate beauty and resilience of the Rohingya woman. Displaced by colonial power two hundred years ago, by the same arm of Empire which divided Bengal not once but twice for its own mercantile gain, the Rohingya flowered across the flowing river and the fluid border beyond the boundary of my native East Bengal.

Now, with evil intent and murder disguised in saffron robes and blood rites, the banks of the Naf are deluged sticky-red with desperate, displaced, ruined shards of humanity. Raped, battered, without her man, embracing the old and the sick and the infant, my sister grabs my shore and begs for help. How can I forsake her, my heart cries, even as it cries at my own inability to actively change her destiny.

In the city of the golden pagodas, the “pure Bamar” sits, complacent and contemptuous of our mixed race and wheatish/brown colour. Long months of placid denial of burning and butchering of Rohingya people by the ruling Burman. Long, arduous months of rescuing and sheltering and feeding the hundreds of thousands of refugees swarming into Cox's Bazaar.

We Bangladeshi Bengalis are universally admired for our hospitality; even the poorest landless labourer is a gracious host and will happily share a meal with the starving. The inexorable forces of Nature and the peculiar contours of geography have often made my precious motherland prey to yearly denudation by flood or furious cyclone.

Millions have migrated to other lands and are contributing to the economy of their adopted countries. Millions more, men and women, are struggling alone in distant lands to feed their own families back home in cities and towns and villages scattered across this tiny Bangladesh. The spirit of survival, of the continuity of family and lineage, is strong and unyielding in the heart of the Bangladeshi woman.

Education and equal opportunity for employment in all spheres of professional and vocational work have made us confident. Innately intelligent, inheritors of a centuries-old rich, diverse tradition of arts and culture, song and dance, many Bangladeshi women are leaders and role-models in these times of war and displacement. Succeeding generations of highly educated and dynamic Bangladeshis have won global recognition and accolades through individual achievements.

Significantly, despite the conservative patriarchal attitude of some menfolk, there has been a fundamental reconfiguration of the ancient system of power and gender-relationship from those dark days when Bengali women were tithed in feudal bondage and deprived of the written word. While the struggle continues for those still on the margins of economic parity and social security, for those ruined by violence, for those subjugated by egregious dogma and perverted edict, I admire the efforts of enlightened fathers and brothers and spouses to fight for just rights of the Bangladeshi woman.

Today, as we house and clothe and feed and succour the ruined, forlorn Rohingya, I cannot but feel anxious for our own swiftly depleting resources. The supercilious Bamar has recently, grudgingly, bowed to international pressure for cessation of violence, but expedient political and economic affiliations of superpower nations have in turn forced us into a dubious “repatriation” treaty.

Now, at the risk of undermining our own national security, the onus is upon us to bear the brunt of keeping the Rohingya in Bangladesh, in refugee camps, for years, perhaps decades, perhaps permanently. The real danger of Rohingya women disappearing inside the dark labyrinth of human trafficking and prostitution is already happening, as verbal and social media messages have indicated. Soon, verifiable statistics will also be available as women's rights activists begin to monitor the situation. Stateless, without a country or national identity or home or a patch of land to call their own, the Rohingya are mostly seen as expendable by the rest of the world.

In contrast, tragically, the Rohingya woman and girl-child, neglected, illiterate, displaced, war-ravaged, but comely of appearance, is apparently seen as profitable commercial commodity by the criminal underworld.

My mind grapples with the horrific proportions of this problem, which has insidiously stretched its tentacles into our public and private spaces. Secret encroachment into our urban and rural spaces and stealing our Bangladeshi identity bring commensurate backlash of anger and rejection directed at the Rohingya.

The perplexing moral dimensions of this problem remind me of the desert fable of the nomad, the camel, and the tent. Apropos with regard to the Rohingya–Bangladeshi–Bengali situation, I look at the photogenic face of the bereft, weeping Rohingya woman, and I think to myself, will I one day become unhoused, naked and defenceless, by offering a bit of space in a gesture of goodwill?
Rebecca Haque is a professor in the Department of English at University of Dhaka.
http://www.thedailystar.net/opinion/perspective/the-margins-ruin-war-and-displacement-1498225

 

[Banglar Bir]

Rohingyas and the politics of crisis
Afsan Chowdhury, November 30, 2017

Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar district, Photo: UNHCR
While Bangladesh is not really able to assert itself on the Rohingya crisis given its lack of clout and support, Myanmar has done better given the solid backing it has received from China. The result has been an MOU of sorts which has not generated any confidence in any quarters and ensured that the heat on Myanmar cooled a bit.
The Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Yi while visiting Bangladesh had said that as a mutual friend of both China and Bangladesh it welcomes the agreement or the MOU.

Myanmar should feel pleased with the MOU which puts no pressure on it to take back the refugees as has been pointed out. It has already started to go down any way compared to the initial days. World press has already started to shift attention and except for stray incidents about Suu Kyi losing one degree or another, Myanmar appears safe.

The West in general is more worried about North Korean bombs and Bangladesh –Myanmar issues are heading towards a low priority zone. Having withstood the initial global condemnation quite effectively, Myanmar is now stabilizing. It translates into dictating terms on the Rohingya matter.

Rohingya politics and Bangladesh
Making sure the Pope doesn’t even utter the word “Rohingya’ during his Myanmar trip was a good example of how strong Myanmar has become in the last three decades since they have been sending Rohingyas to Bangladesh. China has also backed the efforts made by Myanmar and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said everyone should recognize that much progress has happened since the crisis began, which is not Bangladesh’s stand.

While the MOU is about if and how and when – many think never- Rohingyas return to Myanmar, the Bangladesh Government’s position on what will happen if they don’t return is not clear which is a distinct possibility. However, there are domestic political issues involved as well.

The domestic audience wants to hear that Rohingya refugees will return as per the MOU and for the political side of the government which is also facing an election, it can’t afford not to have a “agreement” of some sort which will make it look good.

Real China and reality China
Chinese Minister Wang Yi while in Dhaka said that Bangladesh was the biggest recipient of Chinese concessional financial facilities, 5 billion US dollars in 2017 alone. He also discarded the claims that China loans were too expensive. “All this loans have been provided in light of actual needs,” adding that Bangladesh should dispel such speculations.
Also Read: Myanmar’s Suu Kyi to visit China amid Western criticism over Rohingya exodus

Wang Yi also stated that both One Belt and One Road (OBOR) initiative and strengthening the BCIM (Bangladesh–China–India–Myanmar Forum for Regional Cooperation) were both China’s priorities.

On the Rohingya issue, Wang Yi did admit that internal problems of Myanmar were affecting Bangladesh. He also praised Bangladesh’s humanitarian role on the Rohingya issue. China’s position, he stated, was a solution that was mutually acceptable and within the bi-lateral framework.

While Wnag Yi mentioned the UN’s role in the crisis the message was clear. China is a “good friend of both” and will do the best to play a constructive role. Meaning, China is the only player that matters for the moment.

What about India?
India has been left out of sorts from the crisis management and given China’s economic and military clout- it’s the largest arms supplier to both Myanmar and Bangladesh- India can do little. Some sections of Indian media have expressed a bit of unhappiness about China’s big role but as some analysts say, “India is not as big as China.”

While India has a long relationship with both Bangladesh and Myanmar, the ties are at different levels. Moreover, China’s relationship is also deeper with Myanmar than India’s and though it’s close to Bangladesh, China is rapidly coming closer.

So if India is feeling left out, it really can’t do much at the moment. China is playing top dog and the Indian bark is perhaps louder than its bite.

The stakes for all the countries actually have risen due to the crisis but so has uncertainty. For the moment China and Myanmar with the MOU signed may feel they have an edge over others but the MOU has to work to make Bangladesh in general and Sk. Hasina politically look better in 2018.
Also Read: Indian BSF pushes back Rohingyas to Bangladesh

If the MOU is a dud, her political priorities may push her to look for options which an unexplored West led by the US seems available.
But that may not still include India.

South Asia’s smaller member are also going to be more cautious about China seeing that its wide ranging interest in the region means it can’t take a particular side. The rise of expensive loans will not go away either. So how far China can travel as economies grow is a new era and 2017 seems to be crunch year in that calendar.

Bangladesh has already started to invest 270 million dollars to build a camp for a lakh of refugees which means both long term and immediate prospects are being considered. The Government will also have to reduce emerging anti- Rohingya hostility in the camp zones that may spread and cause political issues for 2018.

India will also worry if a regime change may mean a government less sympathetic to India’s transit facilities, something China may not dislike. And the Jihadist anxiety grows no matter what is said.

In other words, the Rohingya problem has left the refugee camps and entered the main space in Bangladesh and may do so in the region.
Also Read: Pope skips Rohingya crisis in Myanmar speech
https://southasianmonitor.com/2017/11/30/rohingyas-politics-crisis/

Pope’s peace and reconciliation mission to Myanmar
Larry Jagan, November 28, 2017

Thousands of people have lined the streets of Yangon to greet Pope Francis as he arrived in what is a momentous moment for Myanmar. The crowds were waving specially made flags which all carried the Pontiff’s key message on his mission: ‘love and peace’.
The mood is subdued for fear of antagonizing the country’s majority Buddhist population. Everyone knows though that the Pope – effectively the leader of the world’s Christian community is visiting Myanmar.

There are mixed feelings amongst the average people – all Buddhists – as they go about their business. “He’s a man of peace, he represents peace world-wide and preaches peace,” said Win Lwin a 40-year-old taxi driver, a strong supporter of the prodemocracy party and a Buddhist. “Peace is what out country needs most,” he added. Others are more disinterested. “It’s great for the Catholics and Christians,” said a young Yangon student, Nay Aye. “But it won’t affect us.”

However in recent days there has been a vicious campaign in the country’s social media – in the Myanmar language – that remains hostile to his visit, accusing him of stirring religious tensions in the country. But the government remains convinced that the trip can only help its campaign for peace and reconciliation.
Also Read: Why did Pope Francis drop India for Myanmar?

Pope Francis is the world’s most senior religious leader and is on a delicate diplomatic visit. It is the first visit by a Papal leader to Myanmar, and has raised expectations that is presence and message will support the government’s approach and strategy. “The Pope is a unifying figure, preaching compassion, love and peace and his visit comes at a decisive moment,” Denzel Abel, a Myanmar intellectual, former diplomat and a Catholic told the SAM. “He has a charismatic presence, and will certainly galvanize people.

Many hope he can help spur support for Aung San Suu Kyi at a very critical time for her government. Violence in the country’s western region of Northern Rakhine has led to more than 700,000 Muslim Rohingya fleeing across the border into neighboring Bangladesh in the wake of a military crackdown that Washington has called “ethnic cleansing”.

International human rights groups have accused the Myanmar army of “crimes against humanity”: including murder, rape, torture and forcible dislocation; allegations that the Myanmar military denies. These groups are hoping that the Pope will be able to highlight the plight of the Rohingya during his combined visit to both Myanmar and Bangladesh, which ends in Dhaka next Saturday. They are also pushing him to try to end the deadly violence against the largely stateless Muslims.

There have been concerns that the religious leader might use the highly contentious term ‘Rohingya’. It is not recognized by the authorities, who insist they are ‘Bengalis’, to indicate they are from Myanmar but trespassers from Bangladesh. The Pope has called them Rohingya in the past, when he urged the Myanmar authorities to end to the violent persecution of the minority Muslim population. But he is likely to avoid the term on this visit, according to sources close to the Vatican.

“We have asked him at least to refrain from using the word ‘Rohingya’ because this word is very much contested and not acceptable to the military, nor the government, nor to most people in Myanmar,” the Catholic Archbishop of Yangon, Cardinal Charles Bo told the Bangkok Post in an interview last week, after he had returned from Rome, where he briefed the Pope.
Also Read: Hindu groups raise conversion controversy ahead of pope’s Asia visit

The symbolism of the visit is important and the poster welcoming Pipe Francis is highly significant, suggested Denzil Abel. On one side there is Myanmar’s flag and on the other the Pope holding a dove – the international symbol of peace – under the slogan ‘love and peace’. In a video message sent to Myanmar last week, Pope Francis said he wanted the trip to lead to “reconciliation, forgiveness and peace” as well as encourage harmony and cooperation.

The Pope is the second most important leader to visit Myanmar, according to many diplomats in Yangon, after the President of the United States. “The Pope is one of the most respected moral voices in the world today, and therefore his visit is even more significant, coming as it does when Myanmar faces so many problems” said Denzil Abel.

Christianity in Myanmar is over 500 years old, and the Pope’s visit, according to many in the Catholic flock will strengthen recognition and understanding of the institution. It will show the shared Christian and Buddhist’s vision of compassion, he added.

The visit is also highly significant as it comes at a time when Aung San Suu Kyi and her government are facing increasing international pressure to resolve the communal conflict in Rakhine, end the violence and tackle the plight of the Muslim refugees. She has pinned her hopes of a solution on the recommendations of the Kofi Annan Advisory Commission, announced at the end of August, after a year-long investigation.

But immediately after the announcement, increased violence erupted, as a result of insurgent attacks on some thirty police border posts. Now the government is faced with the task of repatriating over half a million refugees from Bangladesh, rebuilding their homes and trying to improve communal relations, between the local Buddhist Arakanese and the Rohingya Muslims. The reconciliation strategy envisaged by the State Counselor, was announced when she launched the Union Enterprise for Humanitarian Assistance, Resettlement and Development in Rakhine, which she chairs herself.

As part of this strategy – and in an effort to stimulate support in the country for government’s Rakhine reconstruction and reconciliation process – Aung San Suu Kyi launched a series of inter-faith meetings throughout the country. These prayer meetings for peace were held during October, initially with the Buddhist monks participating. At the meeting in Yangon, the country’s Catholic leader played a prominent role. Through these, Aung San Suu Kyi hoped not only to improve the situation in Rakhine, but strengthen the whole peace process, according to government insiders.

In her public address to the whole nation, she emphasized Buddhist values. “I have no doubt that all of them [the people of Myanmar here and abroad] will come forth to help us with Metta (loving kindness) and Thitsa (Truth).” The aim was to mobilize the nation behind the Buddhist tenets of love and kindness, and to wrestle Buddhism out of the hands of extremists, according to an advisor involved in the speech.

But the military, and the Buddhist clergy, may have misunderstood this approach. “She looks like she wants to promote other religions above Buddhism,” a former senior military officer reflected.

And the leaders of the Buddhist faith have taken umbrage, at what they saw as a slight against the monks who participate in the ceremonies. Monks were not on present on the stage, but sat at the front near the stage, which was seen as a sign of disrespect. Recently the 47-member Ma Ha Na – the highest official Buddhist authority in the country – recently banned monks from participating in all future interfaith gatherings. This was to prevent this unintended snub enflaming the passions of Buddhists, a devout Buddhist explained to me.
Also Read: High hopes and expectations over pope’s visit to Bangladesh

“Aung San Suu Kyi – as will Pope during his visit – is promoting harmony, love and peace: the appreciation of diversity, and focusing on conciliation,” said Cardinal Bo. Fears that the Pope may inadvertently enflame religious tensions seem to be misplaced. “The Pope doesn’t want to anger any community, and is concerned not to divide or polarize,” Cardinal Bo added. “This would not help the situation: this is not the solution.”

But not all Myanmar Christians are as enthusiastic as the Archbishop in his support fot Myanmar’s civilian leader. “This over enthusiastic support could cause divisions within the wider Christian community — especially the Baptist communities like the Kachin, whose support for Aung San Suu Kyi is at its lowest ever point, given her perceived neglect and indifference to their suffering and persecution,” Seng Raw, a Kachin activist and civil society leader told SAM. “In short it does not support the peace process.”

This is not a view shared by most Catholics who strongly believe that the Pope’s visit will have a positive affect, with its emphasis on unity. This is the reason he is also meeting the army chief, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing – at Cardinal Bo’s suggestion. But Seng Raw also hopes that “Pope Francis’s clear moral leadership — that is lacking in the leaders of this country – will inspire everyone to be more compassionate.”

Aung San Suu is meeting his holiness when he flies to the capital Nayyidaw. This is the second time the two have met. Aung San Suu Kyi at earlier in the year, at which time she invited him to visit. After near two decades of trying, diplomatic relations were established between the Vatican and Myanmar in May this year. The Pope it is understood was anxious to strengthen their ties with a personal visit. But one, which shows his commitment to peace and the plight of the poor, Cardinal Bo told SAM.

There is no doubt that Aung San Suu Kyi wants the Pope’s visit to highlight her governments efforts prioritize peace. Activists working on the peace process and Rakhine reconciliation are hoping that the visit may produce some tangible results, and not remain purely symbolic. The Vatican could involve its good offices to provide concrete support for the process, in much the same way the UN did in the past, mediating between the military and Aung San Suu Kyi, while she was under house arrest. This would keep international support apolitical and may help in finding a solid solution, especially to the problems in Rakhine.
https://southasianmonitor.com/2017/11/28/popes-peace-reconciliation-mission-myanmar/

 

[Banglar Bir]

Clash between AA, Myanmar army intensifying near Bangladesh, India border
SAM Report, December 1, 2017

Arakan Army fighters. Photo: Arakan Army/Facebook
The ongoing clashes between the Myanmar Army and the Arakan Army (AA) are likely to intensify in the coming days, said Khaing Thukha, a spokesperson for the AA, alleging that the Myanmar Army recently launched a large-scale assault utilizing more than 30 battalions in Chin’s State Paletwa Township near Bangladesh, India border.

On November 29, he said, there were clashes in six places for the whole day and the Tatmadaw (Myanmar Army) used two helicopters to attack.

“Fierce clashes are ongoing in Paletwa at the border of India, Bangladesh and Myanmar. Clashes are quite fierce, and the Tatmadaw suffered casualties,” Khaing Thukha said.

“If they continue fighting like this, we will inevitably have to defend ourselves, and the clashes will only intensify,” he added.

The AA has suffered at least five casualties and some injuries in clashes that broke out in early November, said Khaing Thukha, suggesting that the Tatmadaw might have suffered many more casualties and injuries.

He refused to disclose, for security reasons, when the AA started its military activities in Paletwa.

Around 350 Paletwa locals fled across the border to India out of fear after the Tatmadaw bombed AA troops on Wednesday evening, said U Pinnya Jota, a Buddhist monk living in India.

The monk told The Irrawaddy on Thursday, there are now around 2,000 Paletwa residents taking shelter at the border in India including some 1,500 people who fled last week.

“Arakanese villages are providing as much aid as they can. The Indian government has given some rice to them. Around 350 people arrived yesterday [Nov. 29]. They fled after [the Tatmadaw] bombed, around 4:30 p.m. yesterday,” said U Pinnya Jota.

Military leaders have repeatedly said that the Tatmadaw would not hold peace talks with the AA unless it disarmed because it was established only after Myanmar had elected a quasi-civilian government, under former President U Thein Sen in 2011.

The AA, which took part in fighting by allying with Kachin, Ta’ang and Kokang troops in the Kachin Independence Army controlled areas in northern and northeastern Myanmar, has said its troops have been mobilized since 2009.

Locals speculated that the Tatmadaw’s ongoing attacks were retaliation after it lost 11 troops—two officers and nine other ranks—in an AA ambush on Nov. 18 in Chin State’s Paletwa Township.

According to the AA, clashes have been ongoing near Myeik Wa, [a border village near India], since Nov. 25, and there were also clashes at the triangle area at the border of Myanmar, Bangladesh and India on Wednesday.

The AA said it seized two 60 mm launchers, 70 pieces of 60 mm mortar shells, some ammunition and military equipment of the Tatmadaw in clashes on Wednesday.
SOURCE THE IRRAWADDY
https://southasianmonitor.com/2017/...my-intensifying-near-bangladesh-india-border/

 

[Banglar Bir]

12:00 AM, November 28, 2017 / LAST MODIFIED: 12:36 PM, November 28, 2017
ROHINGYA REPATRIATION AGREEMENT
Hope for the best, prepare for the worst

Many of the houses in the Rohingya refugee camps are built on the sides of hills and small ravines, making them susceptible to landslides because of rain. Photo: Rashed Shumon
Maya Barolo-Rizvi
Amidst widespread international outcry and faced with the strong diplomatic stance of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, the Myanmar government has been persuaded to repatriate the Rohingya refugees, according to an agreement reached between the two countries late last week.
Experts, however, are not optimistic, as the criteria for the repatriation of the Rohingyas is yet to be worked out by the Joint Working Group. The United Nations is not directly involved and the agreement does not have the guarantee of the international community.

If the Rohingyas are able to return to their homes with an agreed process that would lead to their full citizenship, the world can breathe a sigh of relief and move on. Bangladesh will have shown its humanitarian commitment and acted as a leader on the global stage, showcasing our values of plurality, tolerance and openness.

However, as the experience of the repatriation of refugees across the globe has shown, the process is often uncertain and slow. The Rohingyas who came to Bangladesh in 1992 are yet to be repatriated. In the case that the Rohingya repatriation is not as speedy as one might wish, we must begin to expand the scope of relief efforts beyond the immediate term.

There is only six months to go till the next monsoon season, when many of the houses in the Rohingya refugee camp—built on the sides of hills and small ravines—will slide away because of rain. Before that, winter will come and with already existing fuel shortages, families will struggle to stay warm. Cyclone season will follow, and with it will come waterborne diseases and the risk of pandemics.

Camp administrators and relief agencies are struggling to meet the immediate needs of the refugees and it is only natural that food, shelter, sanitation, health and security are the first priorities. There are over 200,000 school-age children and it is imperative that going forward relief efforts include arrangements for the provision of education.

It is understandable that the government has shied away from looking beyond providing immediate humanitarian relief for fear that it might be misconstrued in Myanmar as a signal that Bangladesh is prepared to keep the Rohingya for the long haul. For that reason, perhaps formal education does not feature in the discourse.

Moreover, given the recent diplomatic agreement, investing in the development of the refugees may on the surface seem to be a waste, if the Rohingyas are on the verge of returning home. If that turns out to be the case, all we would have lost is some effort, time and money, which is a far better proposition than looking back in retrospect—if the process takes longer than expected—regretting that we could have and should have invested in sustainable developmental opportunities.

A more considered response would be to see this humanitarian disaster also as a developmental opportunity. The international community has the chance to invest in the future of a people that have been historically excluded and marginalised. Along with the children's future, aid agencies must also consider the situation of the thousands of women whose husbands have been killed, leaving them as the primary breadwinners of the family.

When they return to Myanmar, these women will be the heads of their households but are completely unequipped for the task. Investing in skills development and vocational training with which they can support their families will not only help the Rohingya women in the short-run but will be a tool for development within their community and eventually in the Rakhine state.

Development initiatives however must go beyond the camps and into the surrounding areas. The local community in Cox's Bazar has been remarkably hospitable; ordinary people have demonstrated extraordinary charitable instincts as well as an impressive ability to adapt to a huge influx of outsiders. But it has not come without its challenges.

Given the huge demographic shift—estimates say that for every 10 people, there are now seven refugees to three Bangladeshis—the cost of living has increased several folds and there is often a scarcity of consumer goods in the market. Both the civil administration and aid agencies have recognised the importance of ensuring that the needs of the local population are not neglected.

Of course, fear remains that the refugees may not want to return to Myanmar. So long as there is lack of safety, it is neither likely that they will return nor should we force them to. But experience shows that when conditions improve and safety returns, no one wants to live in a foreign land, especially under such dire conditions.

In 1971, following the end of the Liberation War, 10 million Bangladeshis returned in days, rather than weeks, and without any assistance nearly everyone found his or her own way home. We can be sure that once the Myanmar government creates the necessary conditions in the Rakhine state, the Rohingya will return home.

The Rohingya influx is not the result of a sudden policy change of the Myanmar government. Nor is it the result of the supposed ARSA attacks on Myanmar security forces, which took place after the Rohingya exodus began. The eviction was a systematic, brutal and deliberate attempt to rid Myanmar of an unwanted ethnic group.

As the US recently acknowledged, it was ethnic cleansing—and nothing short of a war crime. If the world community fails to respond adequately to this situation, minorities in every plural society in the world will be left at the mercy of majority communities. The National Human Rights Commission should use the interim period to document and record the human rights violations and prepare individual case histories. If in the future the international community wants to convene a war crimes tribunal to bring the perpetrators of the ethnic cleansing to trial, this documentation will be necessary.

Bangladesh's own experience as refugees and of genocide in 1971 has perhaps sensitised us to the needs of the Rohingyas. The PM's response to the Rohingya refugee crisis showed remarkable compassion as well as political bravery.

No less worthy of praise is the civil administration and the tireless, dedicated effort of the international agencies and non-governmental organisations, which have worked together to avert what could have been one of the 21st century's greatest humanitarian disasters. And the exceptional hospitality of the local Cox's Bazar community has been an inspiration to the world.

The recent agreement between Dhaka and Naypyidaw is a success. We should all be optimistic about the bilateral agreement but we should not lose sight of the reality on the ground. The repatriation of refugees is a long and tedious process and much will need to be done before the Rakhine state is safe for the Rohingyas to return.

There is still a chance that the overwhelming international reaction and Aung San Suu Kyi's meteoric fall from grace may stir the Myanmar government into action, but we cannot afford to abandon our efforts now and, in fact, must begin to plan for the medium, if not long-term.
Maya Barolo-Rizvi is the country director of Humane Society Int
http://www.thedailystar.net/opinion/hope-the-best-prepare-the-worst-1497301

2:00 AM, December 02, 2017 / LAST MODIFIED: 04:36 AM, December 02, 2017
'The presence of God today is also called Rohingya'
Pope meets refugees at interfaith gathering, asks for forgiveness

Pope Francis waves to Bangladeshi Christians as he arrives to lead mass in Dhaka yesterday. The pope arrived in Bangladesh from Myanmar on Thursday for the second stage of a visit that has been overshadowed by the plight of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees. Photo: AFP
Star Report
For the first time on his Asia tour, Pope Francis referred to the Rohingya people by name yesterday and assured them of continued support so that they can get their rights back.
"The presence of God today is also called Rohingya," the Pope said during an interfaith meeting at Kakrail Catholic Church where leaders of different communities prayed for religious harmony and global peace.

He also urged the world not to ignore refugees, persecuted minorities, the poor and vulnerable.

"How much our world needs this heart to beat strongly, to counter the virus of political corruption, destructive religious ideologies, and the temptation to turn a blind eye to the needs of the poor, refugees, persecuted minorities, and those who are most vulnerable," he said.

Pope Francis prays with Rohingya refugees during an interreligious meeting in Dhaka yesterday. Photo: Reuters, BSS
The highest spiritual leader of the Catholics met 16 Rohingyas -- 12 men, two women and two children -- who were brought to the cathedral premises with approval from the government and under the supervision of Caritas Bangladesh.

He heard the Rohingyas, held their hands and touched them as they walked to the dais one by one and shared their experiences in brief.

Among them was Shawkat Ara, a 12-year-old Rohingya orphan, who broke down in tears shortly after the pope spoke to her and gently touched her head.

She fled to Bangladesh after losing her entire family in an attack by the military in Myanmar.

"Your tragedy is very hard, very big. We give you space in our hearts," said the pontiff, who arrived in Bangladesh on Thursday afternoon following a three-day visit to Myanmar.

"In the name of all those who persecute you, who have persecuted you, those who have hurt you, above all for the indifference of the world, I ask for forgiveness, forgiveness." Francis said in improvised comments.

"Many of you talked to me about the great heart of Bangladesh, which offered you refuge. Now I appeal to your heart to give us the forgiveness we are asking from you," he told the group of refugees.

The pontiff receives a gift from Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Photo: Reuters, BSS
He also assured them of his support, saying, "We will not close our hearts for you."

Earlier this year from the Vatican, the pope twice defended the Rohingyas by name, once saying that they had been "tortured, killed simply because they wanted to live their culture and their Muslim faith".

The pope's avoidance of the word, Rohingya, in Myanmar was an issue of dismay of the rights activists who termed the atrocities of Myanmar security forces against the minority group as ethnic cleansing, genocide and crimes against humanity.

The authorities in Myanmar reject the term Rohingya. Many in the Buddhist-dominated country regard them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

Fleeing widespread persecution, over 636,000 Rohingyas crossed over from Myanmar into Bangladesh since August 25. Another four lakh had arrived in the previous years.

Rides a rickshaw, Photo: Reuters, BSS
'OPENNESS OF HEART'
Pope Francis arrived at the programme venue of the Kakrail Catholic Church on a rickshaw at 4:30pm amid huge applauds and a Bangla song welcoming a religious leader who is known for championing the rights of refugee.

As the pope took his seat on the dais, wearing a white cassock, the programme began with the national anthem of Bangladesh.

Addressing the unique function that was featured by musical and dance performances by artistes from Banglee as well as Khasia, Santal, Oraon and Mandi communities, Pope Francis said it was a "highly significant moment in my visit to Bangladesh".

“For we have gathered to deepen our friendship and to express our shared desire for the gift of genuine and lasting peace.”

He told the gathering of some six thousand people that the meeting is a clear sign of the efforts of religious leaders and followers to live together with mutual respect and good will.

Meets a Rohingya girl. Photo: Reuters, BSS
In Bangladesh, where the right to religious freedom is a founding principle, this commitment stands as a subtle yet firm rebuke to those who would seek to foment division, hatred and violence in the name of religion, he added.

“It is a particularly gratifying sign of our times that believers and all people of good will feel increasingly called to cooperate in shaping a culture of encounter, dialogue and cooperation in the service of our human family.”

However, it entails more than mere tolerance, he said.

“It challenges us to cultivate an openness of heart that views others as an avenue, not a barrier."

He said “openness of heart” is the condition for a culture of encounter and compared it to a door, which enables communities to embark on a dialogue of life, not a mere exchange of ideas.

Openness is engaging fruitfully with another and sharing distinct religious and cultural identity, but always with humility, honesty and respect, he added.

The pope said openness of heart is likewise a path that leads to the pursuit of goodness, justice and solidarity. It leads to seeking the good of our neighbours.

"Religious concern for the welfare of our neighbour, streaming from an open heart, flows outward like a vast river, to quench the dry and parched wastelands of hatred, corruption, poverty and violence that so damage human lives, tear families apart, and disfigure the gift of creation.”

He said Bangladesh's different religious communities have embraced this path in a particular way by their commitment to the care of the earth and by their response to the natural disasters that have beset the nation in recent years.

He said he too thinks of the common outpouring of grief, prayer and solidarity that accompanied the tragic collapse of Rana Plaza, which remains fresh in the minds of all.

"In this these various ways, we see a clear confirmation that how the path of goodness leads to cooperation in the service of others."

The 80-year-old Roman Catholic leader has frequently sought to influence a world he sees as indifferent to the plight of refugees forced to leave their homelands, whether through poverty or conflict.

Last year he took three Syrian families, all Muslim, back to the Vatican after visiting them on the Greek island of Lesbos, a hotspot for asylum seekers.

He has praised Bangladesh for giving refuge to the Rohingya, who have brought with them stories of horrific abuse at the hands of the Myanmar military and local Buddhist mobs, including rape, arson and murder.

Earlier in the day, the pope led a giant open-air mass in Dhaka attended by around 100,000 Bangladeshi Catholics who sang hymns in Bengali and chanted "viva il papa" ("long live the pope") as he was driven through the crowd in an open-sided popemobile.

There he ordained 16 priests.

"I feel like I am blessed to join the pope's prayers," said 60-year-old widow Pronita Mra, who had travelled from her village in northeastern Bangladesh.

"I hope the pope will pray for peace and harmony among all communities in Bangladesh."

THE MESSAGE OF PEACE
Addressing the interfaith gathering on behalf of the civil society, Professor Emeritus Anisuzzaman said Bangladesh was founded based on the principle of equality for all, but unfortunately religious and ethnic minorities sometimes face oppression.

The veteran educationalist thanked Pope Francis for supporting Rohingyas, and expected that this support would facilitate a solution so that the refugees can return home.

Speaking on behalf of the Muslim community, Maulana Farid Uddin Masud said the whole world is now plagued by violence and clashes among religious groups and nations.

"We are inspired by the way Pope Francis is working for peace," he said and vowed to fight against extremism and all other ills.

He hoped that with the support of pope, who is both a spiritual and a political leader, there will be a peaceful solution to the Rohingya crisis.

Swami Drubeshananda, who spoke on behalf of Hindus, said different religions originated in different times, but all of them speak for human welfare.

He thanked the pope for visiting Bangladesh with the message of peace.

Buddhist community leader Shanghanayak Shuddhananada Mohathero prayed for a stronger fraternity among religious and ethnic groups in Bangladesh.

Besides, he demanded Myanmar take back the Rohingyas protecting their dignity and rights.

Cardinal Patrick D' Rozario, archbishop of Dhaka, said Bangladesh is one of the best examples of religious harmony.

He called for continuing efforts to foster dialogues among all religious and ethnic groups to build a prosperous and peaceful Bangladesh.

Theophil Nisharan Nokrek, from the Catholic community, said people of all religions and ethnicities in Bangladesh live peacefully, but sometimes "bad politics" leads to violence.

He called for more dialogue among different communities.

Bishop Paul Shishir Sarker, from the protestant church, prayed for peace on the occasion. "There is corruption, immorality and poverty among us. Lord, please give us strength so that we can fight these menaces."

Foreign diplomats, including US Ambassador Marcia Bernicat and Indian High Commissioner Harsh Vardhan Shringla, were present at the programme.
[With inputs from CNN, AFP and Reuters]
http://www.thedailystar.net/frontpa...he-presence-god-today-called-rohingya-1499239

 

[Banglar Bir]

Voices from Inside the Rohingya Refugee Camps

Maung Zarni poses with a Rohingya gentleman and a former leader in the Ruling Burma Socialist Party.
By Matthew Gindin
Tricycle
November 28, 2017
Burmese Buddhist and pro-democracy activist Maung Zarni recounts two days he spent in the Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh in early November.
"A young boy showed me his gunshot wound,” Maung Zarni tells me over the telephone. “Everyone had lost a loved one.”

Zarni, a Burmese human rights activist and academic, recently came back from spending two days in the Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh in early November, where he met with about two dozen survivors of the ethnic cleansing campaign against them by the Myanmar government. It is a campaign some are calling genocide. “I call them survivors, not displaced persons or refugees,” Zarni says.

The horrors Zarni heard of there have been thoroughly documented by others. According to an interview that researcher Skye Wheeler gave to Human Rights Watch, following a report she wrote on the systematic use of sexual violence against the Rohingya for the same organization, “People said their villages were surrounded, and then the shooting started, with soldiers launching what we think were some kind of rocket-propelled grenades and setting roofs on fire.

Soldiers shot villagers as they fled. They pushed others into burning houses. In other villages, people were gathered together, and then women were raped, and men were shot or beaten. Almost all the rapes I documented were gang rapes.” The report continues, outlining the emotional and physical pain of women walking tens of miles into Bangladesh with swollen and torn genitals.

A young Rohingya girl in a displaced person’s camp demonstrates how her hands were tied behind her while she was raped; one of her fingers was cut off for resisting.

Zarni, who has dedicated the last several years to drawing international attention to the plight of the Rohingya, pointed to two interviews in particular that filled him both with grief and a renewed commitment to international activism on behalf of the Rohingya.
“I spoke to one Rohingya man who had been made a village administrator in Myanmar due to his eighth-grade education. In Myanmar 80 percent of adult Rohingya are illiterate. The Burmese government deprives them of nutrients for the intellect, medicine for health, food for the body. He answered to Rakhine Buddhist overseers, who in turn answered to the Burmese military.

In 2016 when the military attacked the villages, they had focused on maiming and killing the men, so this time when the military came the men were prepared, and they fled into hiding as much as they could. The Tatmadaw (Burmese military) had changed their strategy, however. This time they employed systematic violence against women and children and the burning of villages to the ground, so that when the men fled it did no good. First, they raped, killed, or expelled the women and children. Then they hunted down the men.

“So when this man fled into the forest,” said Zarni, “the military set fire to his home, where his wife and infant son were inside, hoping to wait out the violence. While he hid in the bushes, he saw his home burn down with his loved ones inside it. He was so angry and in so much pain when he spoke to me. He walked for two hours to come to be heard.”

“The second interview was with a Rohingya woman,” Zarni said. “She told me that her younger sister, who is 16 years old, was dragged into a hut by a group of Burmese soldiers wearing red scarves around their necks while she watched from a hiding place, clutching her baby. They tied up the sister with her hands above her head. Any woman who was captured was stripped naked and raped, and this in a culture where modesty is to a fault. The sister had beautiful long hair. She saw the soldiers cutting her sister’s hair with a knife as they were raping her. Their father, an old man, realized that his younger daughter was in the house being attacked, so he attempted to run to the house. She saw her father shot dead from behind as he ran; they shot him in the head.

One of the soldiers came over and stuck his fingers into the broken skull, then tossed bits of brain to the chickens free-ranging in the yard.”

The Rohingya, who have been called “the world’s most persecuted minority,” have fled Myanmar in large numbers several times in the last decades. Starting in late August, at least 600,000 fled Myanmar after the military began a ruthlessly violent campaign against Rohingya civilians in reprisal for an attack against Burmese security forces by a small band of Rohingya militants.

The attack followed decades of state-sanctioned discrimination against the Rohingya in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, where they have lived under oppressive conditions since the government passed a citizenship act in the 1980s that left most Rohingya stateless and without civil rights.

“We anticipated it was going to be a very emotional trip,” said Zarni, who was accompanied by his wife, Natalie, and younger daughter, Nilah. “I didn’t anticipate that the first thing I felt when I met with a group of women was a sense of deep guilt.

These were the people that my own had wronged so horribly. Although I have committed myself to speaking out on this issue for the last six years or so, every day I still feel that I too am responsible and that I have failed. I couldn’t bring myself to say more through the Rohingya interpreter than ‘can you please tell them I am Burmese, I am Buddhist, and I am really sorry.’ All of the sudden I was unable to speak I was so choked up inside.”

“The stories I heard, they were from maybe 25 people,” Zarni said. “There are 600,000 Rohingya in Bangladesh with stories like that.”

A native of Myanmar and the founder of the pro-democracy Free Burma Coalition, Zarni is now based in the UK, where he has left academia to work full-time on human rights issues. Zarni has been in exile from Myanmar for 29 years, with the exception of a three-year period when he was working on negotiations to end the military-ruled country’s international isolation. Zarni’s own story is heartwrenching.

“I became a pro-democracy activist while at school in the United States,” he explains, “and after that, I could not safely return to Myanmar. I cut off all ties with my family there for many years to protect them.”

When Zarni’s father became ill, Zarni offered to get him to Thailand to receive better treatment. “I don’t need better medical treatment,” his father said. “I need to see you before I die. That will make me feel better.” His father died nine days later without seeing his son.

“I fought for Aung San Suu Kyi’s freedom,” said Zarni, ”but when I saw, years ago, that she was not truly committed to human rights for all I began openly criticizing her. I had hoped when she came into power I could return to Myanmar, but now that she has failed to do anything for the Rohingya and has even actively aided their persecution, I have become a critic of the current administration as well, and so again I am persona non grata in Myanmar.”

September 2017 article on Maung Zarni

Zarni is not exaggerating. Major Burmese newspapers have run front page headlines calling him an “enemy of the state,” and Burmese social media sites are awash with claims that he is a terrorist sympathizer and an academic fraud who holds a fake Ph.D.

Zarni grew up in a military family and says that he himself absorbed his country’s ethnic nationalism and racism as a child. “Undoing my racism has been a long process,” said Zarni, who credits his wife, Natalie, for introducing him to the plight of the Rohingya and challenging his untreated Burmese chauvinism. “I am still rewiring myself as a Buddhist.”

Meanwhile, the plight of the Rohingya continues. On November 23, a deal was reached between Myanmar and Bangladesh for the repatriation of several hundred thousand refugees. Despite calling for significant involvement from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, the UN, which was not consulted in the making of the agreement, has expressed opposition to the deal.

“At present, conditions in Myanmar’s Rakhine State are not in place to enable safe and sustainable returns. Refugees are still fleeing, and many have suffered violence, rape, and deep psychological harm. Some have witnessed the deaths of family members and friends. Most have little or nothing to go back to, their homes and villages destroyed. Deep divisions between communities remain unaddressed. And humanitarian access in northern Rakhine State remains negligible,” said Adrian Edwards, a spokesperson for the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, at a press briefing on Friday.

Several activists have expressed concern that those Rohingya who choose to return may be interned in Myanmar camps in a repetition of the fate of many Rohingya who were repatriated in 2012 following a similar crisis, despite assurances from the government that such internment would be “temporary.”

Zarni, speaking to Tricycle after the signing of the deal, was unimpressed.
Pointing to the waves of “genocidal activity” against the Rohingya since 1978, Zarni said, “Repatriation is simply a tactical move to get the world off its back.”
Matthew Gindin is a freelance journalist and educator who lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. A former Buddhist monk in the Thai Forest tradition, he has taught meditation in various contexts for over a decade. He is the author of Everyone In Love: The Beautiful Theology of Rav Yehuda Ashlag.
http://www.rohingyablogger.com/2017/11/voices-from-inside-rohingya-refugee.html

07:15 PM, December 01, 2017 / LAST MODIFIED: 09:51 PM, December 01, 2017
Pope calls refugees 'Rohingya' after emotional meeting in Dhaka

Pope Francis attends an inter-religious conference at St Mary’s Cathedral in Dhaka, December 1, 2017. Reuters

AFP, Dhaka
Pope Francis referred to refugees who have fled Myanmar for Bangladesh as "Rohingya" on Friday, using the politically sensitive name for the persecuted minority for the first time on an Asia tour dominated by their plight after meeting some of them in Dhaka.
In a brief but strongly worded speech that followed an emotional encounter with a small group of the refugees who have fled to Bangladesh, he asked for forgiveness for all that the Rohingya have suffered "in the face of the world's indifference".

"Today the presence of God is also called Rohingya," the pope said on the sidelines of a gathering with the leaders of different faiths in Dhaka.

"Your tragedy is very hard, very great, but it has a place in our hearts. In the name of all those who have persecuted you, who have harmed you, in the face of the world's indifference, I ask for your forgiveness."

More than 620,000 Rohingya have flooded into Bangladesh in the last three months, fleeing a violent military crackdown in mainly Buddhist Myanmar that the United Nations has described as ethnic cleansing.

Among those the pope met was Shawkat Ara, a 12-year-old Rohingya orphan who broke down in tears shortly after the pope spoke to her and gently touched her head.

"My parents were killed. I don’t have any joy," she told AFP, saying she had lost her entire family in an attack by the military in Myanmar.

Pope Francis is known for championing the rights of refugees and has repeatedly expressed his support for the Rohingya, a persecuted Muslim minority whom he has described as his "brothers and sisters".

But the usually forthright pontiff walked a diplomatic tightrope during his four days in Myanmar -- the first ever papal visit to the country -- avoiding any direct reference to the ethnic cleansing allegations in public while appealing to Buddhist leaders to overcome "prejudice and hatred".

Hours after arriving in Bangladesh he addressed the issue head-on, calling for "decisive" international measures to address the "grave crisis".

But as in Myanmar, he avoided using the term "Rohingya", drawing criticism from some rights activists and refugees.

The word is politically sensitive in mainly Buddhist Myanmar because many there refuse to see the Rohingya as a distinct ethnic group.

- Religious freedom -
The 80-year-old Roman Catholic leader has frequently sought to influence a world he sees as indifferent to the plight of refugees forced to leave their homelands, whether through poverty or conflict.

Last year he took three Syrian families, all Muslim, back to the Vatican after visiting them on the Greek island of Lesbos, a hotspot for asylum seekers.

He has praised Bangladesh for giving refuge to the Rohingya, who have brought with them stories of horrific abuse at the hands of the Myanmar military and local Buddhist mobs, including rape, arson and murder.

Earlier the pope led a giant open-air mass in Dhaka attended by around 100,000 Bangladeshi Catholics who sang hymns in Bengali and chanted "viva il papa" ("long live the pope") as he was driven through the crowd in an open-sided popemobile.

Bangladesh has a tiny Christian population but they turned out in large numbers for Friday's service, many having queued for hours to get into the park.

Some 4,000 police and security forces were deployed for the mass in the mainly Muslim country, which has suffered a number of attacks on religious minorities by Islamist extremists in recent years.

"I feel like I am blessed to join the Pope's prayers," said 60-year-old widow Pronita Mra, who had travelled from her village in northeastern Bangladesh.

"I'll pray for my late husband and parents so that they go to heaven. I hope the Pope will pray for peace and harmony among all communities in Bangladesh."

Christians make up less than 0.5 percent of officially secular Bangladesh's population of 160 million and community leaders say it has become more difficult to practise their faith openly.

But speaking to Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu leaders, Francis praised the country's commitment to religious freedom, which he said "stands as a subtle yet firm rebuke to those who would seek to foment division, hatred and violence in the name of religion".
http://www.thedailystar.net/city/dh...s-refugees-prays-their-return-myanmar-1499128

 

[Banglar Bir]

China, Myanmar hail close ties amid Rohingya outcry
Reuters
Published at 10:51 PM December 01, 2017

Myanmar's State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi arrives at the opening ceremony of the "CPC in dialogue with world political parties high-level meeting, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China on Friday; December 1, 2017 Reuters
'The (Communist) Party and the Chinese government will continue their policy of friendship towards Myanmar,' Xi told Suu Kyi during their meeting.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Aung San Suu Kyi touted their nations’ close ties on Friday as Myanmar’s civilian leader, under fire over the Rohingya refugee crisis, visited Beijing on Friday.

Suu Kyi was in friendly territory in China and neither she nor Xi publicly mentioned the plight of Myanmar’s Rohingya minority group as they met in the Chinese capital.

“The (Communist) Party and the Chinese government will, as in the past, continue their policy of friendship towards Myanmar,” Xi told Suu Kyi during their meeting, according to the Xinhua news agency.

Suu Kyi, who took office in 2015 after five decades of military dictatorship, gave a speech later during a meeting of world parties hosted by the Chinese Communist Party.

“China and Myanmar are committed to creating closer ties,” she said, adding that the founding goals of the CCP — “happiness for the Chinese people and rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” — and those of her National League for Democracy party are “not that dissimilar”.

The UN and US say the Rohingya are victims of an ethnic cleansing campaign by Myanmar’s military that has sent 620,000 of them fleeing into Bangladesh since late August.

Rohingya refugees have recounted widespread cases of rape, murder and arson at the hands of Myanmar’s military and Buddhist mobs.

Myanmar’s army insists its crackdown has been proportionate and targeted only at Rohingya rebels.

“Although Myanmar is not yet among the rich and powerful nations of the world, we are ambitious,” Suu Kyi said at the CCP gathering.

“Our ambition is to become a responsible member of the international community, willing and able to contribute to its peace and friendship throughout the world.”

Myanmar has received unflinching support from China, which has invested billions on ports, gas and oil in Rakhine — including a $2.45 billion pipeline that opened in April.

Xi met with Myanmar’s powerful army chief Min Aung Hlaing in Beijing last week.

Last month, strong Chinese opposition forced the UN Security Council to drop plans to adopt a resolution demanding an end to the violence.

Beijing has presented its own proposal to resolve the crisis with a ceasefire, refugee repatriation and poverty alleviation.

Bangladesh and Myanmar have reached a deal to begin returning refugees in two months.
http://www.dhakatribune.com/world/asia/2017/12/01/china-myanmar-rohingya-outcry/

Rohingya issue: Bangladesh caught in its short-sightedness
Published: 00:05, Nov 29,2017 | Updated: 01:15, Nov 29,2017

WHY no one seems to be too enthusiastic about the recently signed MoU between Bangladesh and Myanmar on Rohingya repatriation is best explained when our foreign minister says that it has been drafted as Myanmar desired. He added that Bangladesh is happy that Myanmar has agreed to take some of them back.
But Myanmar may be comfortable that the heat will be low now after the MoU and, of course, it can send more refugees any time and Bangladesh can do little about it. Rohingya situation/status has not changed since 1977 and Bangladesh remains at the mercy of Myanmar’s political will.

The facilitator appears to be China who was beginning to feel the heat internationally and knew that at some point of time, the United States might offer something to Bangladesh or do something that could make China uncomfortable.

China’s stake in Myanmar is high and it can still call the shots there and that is what mattered in the end. It came to Bangladesh and reduced the multi-lateral directions that Bangladesh was being forced to take and made it firmly bilateral under Chinese supervision. It was what both China and Myanmar had wanted knowing from the past that Bangladesh’s capacity to diplomatically handle the Rohingya on its own is limited.
Does the MoU mean much?
THE MoU basically takes the heat off Myanmar and gives China more space to pursue OBOR and other economic priorities. But it leaves Bangladesh as vulnerable as before. Given that the MoU follows the 1992 framework closely, the flaws of that one remains. It appears hurriedly cobbled together but as pro-Bangladesh government analysts are saying, It is a beginning at least.

A critical part of the MoU say, only those who came after the alleged ARSA attack will qualify to be considered for repatriation. By doing so, Bangladesh has endorsed the Myanmar, China and Russian position that all of this was due to Rohingya insurgency and not Myanmar army activities.

This also means that the Rohingya refugees before the alleged attack have lost the right to return as the MoU specifically denies/ignores the existence of any such people making the return of all Rohingyas impossible. Thus, about 4,00,00 are now here to stay as Myanmar wanted. It also relieves itself of any accusation that an ethnic cleansing took place.

Ethnic cleansing was actually used by the United Nations which has said that the situation in Myanmar is not fit for the refugees to return. Our media also report that most Rohingyas now in the camps are also not willing to return either. Where does the situation go from here now?
Will refugees return if they at all go back?
IT IS certainly not in favour of the refugees because they are not even a party to the discussion. It is an MoU between Myanmar, which does not recognise the Rohingyas as its citizens, and Bangladesh, which does not accept them as refugees. In this strange quandary, the Rohingyas have no role to play. They are not just victims but invisible too.

But several issues have been mentioned regarding their return to Myanmar which may mean that this is just a time-buyer and another deluge is possible in future. This is apart from the fact that many may not be able to prove their status as residents of Myanmar as mentioned in the MoU.

The 1993 term was vague on their status and the citizenship or associate citizenship is not about to be returned to them; so, even if they do return, they will be housed in temporary shelters and camps which many fear will be used to coerce them again. In that case, what guarantee is there that they will not escape back to Bangladesh? Commenting on the MoU, the Australian web site ‘Conversation’ which has covered the issue since the crisis says:

‘The idea of voluntary return stems from a 1993 agreement between Bangladesh and Myanmar, under which those Rohingyas who can prove their identity must fill in forms with the names of family members, their previous address in Myanmar, their date of birth, and a disclaimer that they are returning voluntarily. But those who do choose to return will face extortion, arbitrary taxation, and restrictions on freedom of movement. Many will be required to undertake forced labour, and some will face state-sponsored violence and extrajudicial killings.’
Given this scenario, how far will the MoU guarantee a safe repatriation?
It is admitted by all that China has played a critical part in getting the MoU signed as all the negative publicity was hurting China’s image as the prime vendor in the region. China needs aggressive marketing stances which have stumbled a bit recently in the region. However, it remains strong enough to push Myanmar and Bangladesh to a MoU and in this equation the Rohingyas are not a factor.

The problem is that an MoU that was signed and admitted by the foreign minister was largely done as sought by Myanmar. The world has cited evidence of ethnic cleansing and the people responsible are still in power. No dates and guidelines, no guarantee of safety, no involvement of the United Nations — barring consultation with the UNHCR — if and when Myanmar decides, and, of course, no mention of any long-term plan that leaves Bangladesh as vulnerable as before to a fresh exodus.

Will Bangladesh force the Rohingyas to return if they refuse as it looks like? Will they erect fences to prevent another exodus? At this point, it seems more like a victory for China followed by Myanmar and a helpless Bangladesh caught in the trap of its own short-sightedness.

Afsan Chowdhury is a journalist and researcher.
http://www.newagebd.net/article/29354/rohingya-issue-bangladesh-caught-in-its-short-sightedness

 

[Banglar Bir]

The Rohingya tragedy shows human solidarity is a lie
www.thestateless.com/2017/12/the-rohingya-tragedy-shows-human-solidarity-is-a-lie.html

The Rohingya tragedy has shown how a UN member State can have an internal policy built on racial and religious discrimination, writes Karman [Showkat Shafi/Al Jazeera]
By Tawakkol Karman, Al Jazeera
Nobody argues any more about what is happening in Myanmar. The United Nations, international human rights organisations and world capitals all agree that the war being waged on the Rohingya Muslims is a clear example of ethnic cleansing and genocide.

According to international reports, the number of people who have fled Myanmar military operations in Rakhine state have reached approximately 600,000 refugees by October.

The crisis continues to get worse, fanned on one hand, by the Myanmar government’s intolerance and insistence on continuing their racist exclusionary policies, and on the other hand, by the fact that the world’s interest in what is happening in Myanmar is just not deep enough.

Human solidarity
The most dangerous thing the Rohingya tragedy has uncovered is that the idea of “human solidarity” may be nothing more than a big lie.

Those who call and fight for freedoms and human rights regardless of race or religion or colour or ideology – and I am one of those – are facing a huge conundrum. Why is this happening? Why is this human holocaust, happening right before our eyes, not being stopped? Are there unknown conditions that must be met in order to show human solidarity and offer the support needed to end a particular people’s suffering?

These are questions whose answers, I fear, will be terrifying. Is human solidarity something afforded only to the strong and rich who have political or economic power in the international arena?

The Rohingya tragedy has confirmed what we’ve said about the use of ‘terrorism’ by dictatorships as a useful excuse to realise political goals and destroy opposition or political opponents.

Many are starting to understand that human solidarity does not extend to Muslims. Regardless of how accurate that opinion is, it is an indicator of the doubts that have taken root in the minds of some, and that is not a good thing.

And this is not the only loss that has come out of the Rohingya tragedy. The regime in Myanmar, which is perpetrating horrific violations every day, can still find allies who defend what it is doing. The Myanmar regime’s responsibility for the extermination of the Rohingya is clear and its statements denying what is happening are mendacious.

Sacrificing her past as a fighter for rights and freedom in order to embrace tyranny, Aung San Suu Kyi – leader of the Myanmar government and Nobel Peace Prize laureate – serves as a prime example of the damage that can befall someone we thought would keep her principles no matter what.

It is truly tragic that Aung San Suu Kyi is defying reality and denying with confidence the violence and ethnic cleansing, to an extent that Amnesty International has classified her affirmations as “a mix of untruths and victim blaming“. Aung San Suu Kyi could have fought and won a victory for human rights or for her own conscience at the very least. But she preferred to fight for her “nation” and its military vision built on exclusion, marginalisation and rejection of diversity. What a tragic end for a woman who so many counted on.

The ‘terrorism’ excuse
The Rohingya tragedy has confirmed what we’ve said about the use of “terrorism” by dictatorships as a useful excuse to realise political goals and destroy opposition or political opponents.

The world has seen how entire villages are destroyed and their inhabitants killed or displaced, all atrocities committed in the name of the “war on terror”; who can accept these justifications? I would think no one.

The truth is that using “terrorism” as an excuse to suppress opponents and to enable tyrannical political leadership to strengthen its bases is an old ruse that everyone can see through. The UN and international community have to be brave and prevent the use of “terrorism” in this way.

Authoritarian regimes must be deprived of the opportunity to use a just cause such as fighting “terrorism” for their own ends. Not only that, but there must also be a real accounting of those who have perpetrated human rights violations for any reason.

Fighting racism
There are numerous calls to end the military operations against the Rohingya today. This can be seen as a positive development, and although it comes very late – better late than never.

In spite of that fact, the regime in Myanmar likely will not respond to these calls unless there is a unified international stance against the crimes against humanity that are being perpetrated there. The military in Myanmar are still the ones who call the shots, and they don’t see anything wrong with denying the Rohingya their rights.

The Rohingya tragedy has shown how a UN member state can have an internal policy built on racial and religious discrimination without any international consequences. Therefore pressure must be increased on the regime in Myanmar if we are to see real course correction.

It is time to take a firm stance on Myanmar. We should not pacify a state promoting apartheid policies. It is time to stop a human tragedy that has persisted for decades.

A few days ago, Bangladesh and Myanmar reached an agreement that allows the repatriation of Rohingya refugees, who were subjected to a campaign of persecution and forcible displacement by the Myanmar army only two months ago. But this agreement, even if implemented, is not enough to go on as if nothing happened.

It is true that the repatriation of the Muslim-majority Rohingya is very important to put an end to this tragedy, but what guarantees will the Myanmar government provide for not repeating its ethnic cleansing campaign?

Nevertheless, this agreement should be a prelude to the end of abhorrent discrimination against the Rohingya who should be given political and civil rights as citizens of Myanmar.

The Rohingya have lived for a long time without knowing the true meaning of humanity and justice. Would it not be wonderful if they could find some of that now? We must work to realise that with all our strength, not just for them, but for all of us.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.
Tawakkol Karman
Tawakkol Karman, a co-recipient of the 2011 Nobel peace prize, is a Yemeni journalist and human rights activist.
http://www.thestateless.com/2017/12/the-rohingya-tragedy-shows-human-solidarity-is-a-lie.html


The Stateless Rohingya
Pope Francis asks for ‘forgiveness’ from persecuted #Rohingya Muslims in Bangladesh
By Tom Embury-Dennis, Independent
Pontiff also mentions word 'Rohingya' for first time during Asia trip
Pope Francis has met with a group of Rohingya Muslims in Bangladesh, asking them for "forgiveness" in the name of all of those who have "hurt you".

The Pope also mentioned the word "Rohingya" in public for the first time during his trip to Asia, telling 16 refugees: "The presence of God today is also called Rohingya."

"In the name of all of those who have persecuted you, hurt you, I ask forgiveness. I appeal to your large hearts to give us the forgiveness that we are asking," he said.
http://www.thestateless.com/…/pope-francis-asks-for-forgive…

www.thestateless.com
THESTATELESS.COM

 

[LegitimateIdiot]

dang n

The Rohingya tragedy shows human solidarity is a lie
www.thestateless.com/2017/12/the-rohingya-tragedy-shows-human-solidarity-is-a-lie.html

The Rohingya tragedy has shown how a UN member State can have an internal policy built on racial and religious discrimination, writes Karman [Showkat Shafi/Al Jazeera]
By Tawakkol Karman, Al Jazeera
Nobody argues any more about what is happening in Myanmar. The United Nations, international human rights organisations and world capitals all agree that the war being waged on the Rohingya Muslims is a clear example of ethnic cleansing and genocide.

According to international reports, the number of people who have fled Myanmar military operations in Rakhine state have reached approximately 600,000 refugees by October.

The crisis continues to get worse, fanned on one hand, by the Myanmar government’s intolerance and insistence on continuing their racist exclusionary policies, and on the other hand, by the fact that the world’s interest in what is happening in Myanmar is just not deep enough.

Human solidarity
The most dangerous thing the Rohingya tragedy has uncovered is that the idea of “human solidarity” may be nothing more than a big lie.

Those who call and fight for freedoms and human rights regardless of race or religion or colour or ideology – and I am one of those – are facing a huge conundrum. Why is this happening? Why is this human holocaust, happening right before our eyes, not being stopped? Are there unknown conditions that must be met in order to show human solidarity and offer the support needed to end a particular people’s suffering?

These are questions whose answers, I fear, will be terrifying. Is human solidarity something afforded only to the strong and rich who have political or economic power in the international arena?

The Rohingya tragedy has confirmed what we’ve said about the use of ‘terrorism’ by dictatorships as a useful excuse to realise political goals and destroy opposition or political opponents.

Many are starting to understand that human solidarity does not extend to Muslims. Regardless of how accurate that opinion is, it is an indicator of the doubts that have taken root in the minds of some, and that is not a good thing.

And this is not the only loss that has come out of the Rohingya tragedy. The regime in Myanmar, which is perpetrating horrific violations every day, can still find allies who defend what it is doing. The Myanmar regime’s responsibility for the extermination of the Rohingya is clear and its statements denying what is happening are mendacious.

Sacrificing her past as a fighter for rights and freedom in order to embrace tyranny, Aung San Suu Kyi – leader of the Myanmar government and Nobel Peace Prize laureate – serves as a prime example of the damage that can befall someone we thought would keep her principles no matter what.

It is truly tragic that Aung San Suu Kyi is defying reality and denying with confidence the violence and ethnic cleansing, to an extent that Amnesty International has classified her affirmations as “a mix of untruths and victim blaming“. Aung San Suu Kyi could have fought and won a victory for human rights or for her own conscience at the very least. But she preferred to fight for her “nation” and its military vision built on exclusion, marginalisation and rejection of diversity. What a tragic end for a woman who so many counted on.

The ‘terrorism’ excuse
The Rohingya tragedy has confirmed what we’ve said about the use of “terrorism” by dictatorships as a useful excuse to realise political goals and destroy opposition or political opponents.

The world has seen how entire villages are destroyed and their inhabitants killed or displaced, all atrocities committed in the name of the “war on terror”; who can accept these justifications? I would think no one.

The truth is that using “terrorism” as an excuse to suppress opponents and to enable tyrannical political leadership to strengthen its bases is an old ruse that everyone can see through. The UN and international community have to be brave and prevent the use of “terrorism” in this way.

Authoritarian regimes must be deprived of the opportunity to use a just cause such as fighting “terrorism” for their own ends. Not only that, but there must also be a real accounting of those who have perpetrated human rights violations for any reason.

Fighting racism
There are numerous calls to end the military operations against the Rohingya today. This can be seen as a positive development, and although it comes very late – better late than never.

In spite of that fact, the regime in Myanmar likely will not respond to these calls unless there is a unified international stance against the crimes against humanity that are being perpetrated there. The military in Myanmar are still the ones who call the shots, and they don’t see anything wrong with denying the Rohingya their rights.

The Rohingya tragedy has shown how a UN member state can have an internal policy built on racial and religious discrimination without any international consequences. Therefore pressure must be increased on the regime in Myanmar if we are to see real course correction.

It is time to take a firm stance on Myanmar. We should not pacify a state promoting apartheid policies. It is time to stop a human tragedy that has persisted for decades.

A few days ago, Bangladesh and Myanmar reached an agreement that allows the repatriation of Rohingya refugees, who were subjected to a campaign of persecution and forcible displacement by the Myanmar army only two months ago. But this agreement, even if implemented, is not enough to go on as if nothing happened.

It is true that the repatriation of the Muslim-majority Rohingya is very important to put an end to this tragedy, but what guarantees will the Myanmar government provide for not repeating its ethnic cleansing campaign?

Nevertheless, this agreement should be a prelude to the end of abhorrent discrimination against the Rohingya who should be given political and civil rights as citizens of Myanmar.

The Rohingya have lived for a long time without knowing the true meaning of humanity and justice. Would it not be wonderful if they could find some of that now? We must work to realise that with all our strength, not just for them, but for all of us.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.
Tawakkol Karman
Tawakkol Karman, a co-recipient of the 2011 Nobel peace prize, is a Yemeni journalist and human rights activist.
http://www.thestateless.com/2017/12/the-rohingya-tragedy-shows-human-solidarity-is-a-lie.html


The Stateless Rohingya
Pope Francis asks for ‘forgiveness’ from persecuted #Rohingya Muslims in Bangladesh
By Tom Embury-Dennis, Independent
Pontiff also mentions word 'Rohingya' for first time during Asia trip
Pope Francis has met with a group of Rohingya Muslims in Bangladesh, asking them for "forgiveness" in the name of all of those who have "hurt you".

The Pope also mentioned the word "Rohingya" in public for the first time during his trip to Asia, telling 16 refugees: "The presence of God today is also called Rohingya."

"In the name of all of those who have persecuted you, hurt you, I ask forgiveness. I appeal to your large hearts to give us the forgiveness that we are asking," he said.
http://www.thestateless.com/…/pope-francis-asks-for-forgive…

www.thestateless.com
THESTATELESS.COM

dang no one else responidng to you that sucks

 

[Banglar Bir]

Rohingya rape survivor hopes Pope Francis can help find justice
Reuters
Published at 10:33 PM December 01, 2017
Last updated at 11:32 PM December 01, 2017

Pope Francis meets a group of Rohingya refugees during an inter-religious conference at St Mary’s Cathedral in Dhaka, Bangladesh on December 1, 2017 Reuters
The Rohingya refugees who met the pope on Friday said they would not risk going back to their homeland without assurances for their safety
A 27-year-old Rohingya Muslim woman refugee from Myanmar met Pope Francis on Friday in the hope he can help her find justice for the abuse she says she suffered at the hands of Myanmar soldiers, including rape.

Pope Francis, visiting both Myanmar and Bangladesh this week, has called for decisive measures to resolve the political reasons that caused the Rohingyas to flee from Myanmar and urged help for Bangladesh to deal with and influx of more than 6,20,000 refugees since late August.

The Pope heard first hand, from the woman and other refuge seekers, the sort of accounts that have led to accusations from the United Nations that majority-Buddhist Myanmar has waged a policy of ethnic cleansing against the Muslim minority, including killings and rape.

“They captured me and some other women, tortured us,” the woman told Reuters in the office of an aid group in Dhaka.

“I still bleed, there is pain in the abdomen, my back hurts, I get headaches. Medicines have not helped much,” the woman said as her young daughter clutched at her black burqa.

Myanmar’s army has denied all accusations of rape and killings by the security forces. It said an internal investigation found no evidence of rape or killings by the security forces.

Also Read- Pope refers to Rohingya after meeting refugees
The woman and her husband said they fled from their village in Myanmar’s Rakhine State in late August, soon after the army launched a crackdown following attacks on security posts by Rohingya militants.

The woman said that on the fourth day of her 17-day-trek to the safety of a refugee camp in Bangladesh, she was raped by Myanmar soldiers after she got separated briefly from her husband.

“I will share my pain with him,” the woman said of the Pope, referring to him the “head of the Christians.”

Her husband sighed as she narrated how she was raped along with nearly a dozen other women by a stream.

“I will tell him (the Pope) about the stinking bodies we saw on our way to Bangladesh. I want him to recognise us as Rohingyas. I want my torturers to be punished,” she said.
Also Read- Pope Francis meets 16 Rohingya refugees

New York-based rights group Human Rights Watch this month accused Myanmar security forces of committing widespread rape as part of a campaign of ethnic cleansing.

The United States has said the campaign by Myanmar’s military included “horrendous atrocities” aimed at “ethnic cleansing.”

The Pope celebrated a huge outdoor mass on Friday to ordain new priests from Bangladesh on his first full day in the country after arriving from Myanmar.

In calls for peace in Myanmar, he did not use the word “Rohingya” to describe members of the Muslim minority. The term is contested by the Myanmar government and military.

The Rohingya refugees who met the Pope on Friday said they could not risk going back to their homeland without assurances for their safety.

“We should be recognised as bona fide citizens of Myanmar, we should be assured life-long security, we should be allowed to pursue higher education, only then we can go back,” said the woman’s husband.
“I want justice for my wife.”
http://www.dhakatribune.com/world/south-asia/2017/12/01/pope-rohingya-rape-survivor/