Good thing about Indian attitude is that all BD'shis have now seen how much hate Hindus have for Muslims. It will weaken pro-India politics in BD definitely.
Rohingya Ethnic Cleansing - Updates & Discussions
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Good thing about Indian attitude is that all BD'shis have now seen how much hate Hindus have for Muslims. It will weaken pro-India politics in BD definitely.
Nilgiri
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Plenty of much worse ones, normally when there was no source country right next door to even return/flee to (which makes the claim of so called injustice a debate rather than any settled fact).
Extinction btw means complete ridding of a population. I know the word genocide is a much used one in BD (along with it being 3 million in size)....but when people overall move from A to B they are not being made extinct FYI. Rohingya culture can flourish in its hearth Bengali muslim culture in BD. Get your aid from whoever you need to and integrate them.
EastBengalPro
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On Bangladesh-Myanmar border, refugees respond with anger and skepticism to leader's first speech on Rohingya crisis.
Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh - Breaking her silence on the violence in Myanmar's Rakhine state that has sent hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims fleeing, the country's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi has condemned "all human rights violations" there.
In a highly-anticipated speech to the nation from the capital, Naypyitaw, she said on Tuesday that she "feels deeply" for the suffering of the people caught up in the crisis, and warned that anyone responsible for abuses would face action.
But, she failed to address UN accusations of a campaign of "ethnic cleansing" against the Rohingya by Myanmar's military - an offensive that has forced more than 420,000 Rohingya to flee to neighbouring Bangladesh.
Instead, she suggested the minority group was partly responsible, saying a "great majority" of Muslims within the region stayed and that "more than 50 percent of their villages were intact".
Suu Kyi, whose party won a landslide victory in 2015 ending five decades of dominance by the army, also said her government was ready to start a "verification process" at any time to bring back refugees who had fled the violence.
Myanmar, a Buddhist-majority country, has for years faced criticism for its treatment of the more than one million Rohingya, who are denied citizenship and struggle to access basic services.
Here are reactions to the speech from Rohingya refugees Al Jazeera has spoken to near the Myanmar-Bangladesh border.
Khairul Amin, 40, Balukhali camp
I want to go back if I am ensured my basic rights. But it's hard for me to believe Suu Kyi will act on her words.
Suu Kyi is a traitor. A majority of the Rohingya voted for her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), on the promise that she would provide us with national identification cards.
But once she won, she joined hands with the army-backed party [the USDP] and forgot about us.
Sultan Ahmed, 80, Balukhali camp
I lost everything. What's the meaning of returning back?
Suu Kyi is a traitor, we can't rely on her words.
Suu Kyi is only a name there [Myanmar], nobody cares about her. Everything is run and decided by the army.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/09/rohingya-refugees-react-suu-kyi-speech-170919111823443.html
Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh - Breaking her silence on the violence in Myanmar's Rakhine state that has sent hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims fleeing, the country's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi has condemned "all human rights violations" there.
In a highly-anticipated speech to the nation from the capital, Naypyitaw, she said on Tuesday that she "feels deeply" for the suffering of the people caught up in the crisis, and warned that anyone responsible for abuses would face action.
But, she failed to address UN accusations of a campaign of "ethnic cleansing" against the Rohingya by Myanmar's military - an offensive that has forced more than 420,000 Rohingya to flee to neighbouring Bangladesh.
Instead, she suggested the minority group was partly responsible, saying a "great majority" of Muslims within the region stayed and that "more than 50 percent of their villages were intact".
Suu Kyi, whose party won a landslide victory in 2015 ending five decades of dominance by the army, also said her government was ready to start a "verification process" at any time to bring back refugees who had fled the violence.
Myanmar, a Buddhist-majority country, has for years faced criticism for its treatment of the more than one million Rohingya, who are denied citizenship and struggle to access basic services.
Here are reactions to the speech from Rohingya refugees Al Jazeera has spoken to near the Myanmar-Bangladesh border.
Khairul Amin, 40, Balukhali camp
I want to go back if I am ensured my basic rights. But it's hard for me to believe Suu Kyi will act on her words.
Suu Kyi is a traitor. A majority of the Rohingya voted for her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), on the promise that she would provide us with national identification cards.
But once she won, she joined hands with the army-backed party [the USDP] and forgot about us.
Sultan Ahmed, 80, Balukhali camp
I lost everything. What's the meaning of returning back?
Suu Kyi is a traitor, we can't rely on her words.
Suu Kyi is only a name there [Myanmar], nobody cares about her. Everything is run and decided by the army.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/09/rohingya-refugees-react-suu-kyi-speech-170919111823443.html
EastBengalPro
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For generations, Rohingya Muslims have called Myanmar home. Now, in what appears to be a systematic purge, the minority ethnic group is being wiped off the map.
After a series of attacks by Muslim militants last month, security forces and allied mobs retaliated by burning down thousands of Rohingya homes in the predominantly Buddhist nation.
More than 500,000 people — roughly half their population — have fled to neighboring Bangladesh in the past year, most of them in the last three weeks.
And they are still leaving, piling into wooden boats that take them to sprawling, monsoon-drenched refugee camps in Bangladesh.
In a speech Tuesday, Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi did not address a U.N. statement that the army has engaged in a "textbook case" of ethnic cleansing. Instead, she told concerned diplomats that while many villages were destroyed, more than half were still intact.
U.N. General-Secretary Antonio Guterres told the General Assembly on Tuesday that "I take note" of Suu Kyi's speech.
"This is the worst crisis in Rohingya history," said Chris Lewa, founder of the Arakan Project, which works to improve conditions for the ethnic minority, citing the monumental size and speed of the exodus. "Security forces have been burning villages one by one, in a very systematic way. And it's still ongoing."
Using a network of monitors, Lewa and her agency are meticulously documenting tracts of villages that have been partially or completely burned down in three townships in northern Rakhine state, where the vast majority of Myanmar's 1.1 million Rohingya once lived. It's a painstaking task because there are hundreds of them, and information is almost impossible to verify because the army has blocked access to the area. Satellite imagery released by Human Rights Watch on Tuesday shows massive swaths of scorched landscape and the near total destruction of 214 villages.
The Arakan Project said Tuesday that almost every tract of villages in Maungdaw township suffered some burning, and that almost all Rohingya had abandoned the area.
Sixteen of the 21 Rohingya villages in the northern part of Rathedaung township — in eight village tracts — were targeted. Three camps for Rohingya who were displaced in communal riots five years ago also were torched.
Buthidaung, to the east, so far has been largely spared. It is the only township where security operations appear limited to areas where the attacks by Rohingya militants, which triggered the ongoing crackdown, occurred. Separated from the other Rohingya townships by mountains, and with more Buddhists and more soldiers, Buthidaung has historically had fewer tensions.
In her speech, Suu Kyi noted that most Rohingya villages did not suffer violence, and said the government would look into "why are they not at each other's throats in these particular areas." Rohingya refugees angrily viewed that as the government deflecting blame for attacks by its own forces.
The Rohingya have had a long and troubled history in Myanmar, where many in the country's 60 million people look on them with disdain.
Though members of the ethnic minority first arrived generations ago, Rohingya were stripped of their citizenship in 1982, denying them almost all rights and rendering them stateless. They cannot travel freely, practice their religion, or work as teachers or doctors, and they have little access to medical care, food or education.
The U.N. has labeled the Rohingya one of the world's most persecuted religious minorities.
Still, if it weren't for their safety, many would rather live in Myanmar than be forced to another country that doesn't want them.
"Now we can't even buy plastic to make a shelter," said 32-year-old Kefayet Ullah of the camp in Bangladesh where he and his family are struggling to get from one day to the next.
In Rakhine, they had land for farming and a small shop. Now they have nothing.
"Our heart is crying for our home," he said, tears streaming down his face. "Even the father of my grandfather was born in Myanmar."
This is not the first time the Rohingya have fled en masse.
Hundreds of thousands left in 1978 and again in the early 1990s, fleeing military and government oppression, though policies were later put in place that allowed many to return. Communal violence in 2012, as the country was transitioning from a half-century of dictatorship to democracy, sent another 100,000 fleeing by boat. Some 120,000 remain trapped in camps under apartheid-like conditions outside Rakhine's capital, Sittwe.
But no exodus has been as massive and swift as the one taking place now.
The military crackdown came in retaliation for a series of coordinated attacks by Rohingya militants led by Attaullah Abu Ammar Jununi, who was born in Pakistan and raised in Saudi Arabia.
Last October, the militants struck police posts, killing several officers and triggering a brutal military response that sent 87,000 Rohingya fleeing. Then on Aug. 25, a day after a state-appointed commission of inquiry headed by former U.N. chief Kofi Annan released a report about the earlier bloodshed, the militants struck again.
They attacked more than 30 police and army posts, causing casualties.
It was the excuse security forces wanted. They hit back and hard. Together with Buddhist mobs, they burned down villages, killed, looted and raped.
That sent a staggering 421,000 fleeing as of Tuesday, according to U.N. estimates.
"The military crackdown resembles a cynical ploy to forcibly transfer large numbers of people without possibility of return," Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said earlier this month in Geneva, calling it a "textbook example of ethnic cleansing."
It could be months before the extent of the devastation is clear because the army has blocked access to the affected areas. Yanghee Lee, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Myanmar, said at least 1,000 civilians were killed. The government claims more than 400 died, the vast majority Rohingya militants. They put the number of civilians killed at 30.
Whether it's the end game for the Rohingya in Myanmar remains to be seen, said Richard Horsey, a political analyst in Yangon. It depends in part on whether arrangements will be made by Bangladesh and Myanmar for their eventual return and the extent of the destruction.
"We are still waiting for a full picture of how many villages are depopulated versus how many were destroyed," he said.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-myanmar-rohingya-suu-kyi-20170919-story.html
After a series of attacks by Muslim militants last month, security forces and allied mobs retaliated by burning down thousands of Rohingya homes in the predominantly Buddhist nation.
More than 500,000 people — roughly half their population — have fled to neighboring Bangladesh in the past year, most of them in the last three weeks.
And they are still leaving, piling into wooden boats that take them to sprawling, monsoon-drenched refugee camps in Bangladesh.
In a speech Tuesday, Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi did not address a U.N. statement that the army has engaged in a "textbook case" of ethnic cleansing. Instead, she told concerned diplomats that while many villages were destroyed, more than half were still intact.
U.N. General-Secretary Antonio Guterres told the General Assembly on Tuesday that "I take note" of Suu Kyi's speech.
"This is the worst crisis in Rohingya history," said Chris Lewa, founder of the Arakan Project, which works to improve conditions for the ethnic minority, citing the monumental size and speed of the exodus. "Security forces have been burning villages one by one, in a very systematic way. And it's still ongoing."
Using a network of monitors, Lewa and her agency are meticulously documenting tracts of villages that have been partially or completely burned down in three townships in northern Rakhine state, where the vast majority of Myanmar's 1.1 million Rohingya once lived. It's a painstaking task because there are hundreds of them, and information is almost impossible to verify because the army has blocked access to the area. Satellite imagery released by Human Rights Watch on Tuesday shows massive swaths of scorched landscape and the near total destruction of 214 villages.
The Arakan Project said Tuesday that almost every tract of villages in Maungdaw township suffered some burning, and that almost all Rohingya had abandoned the area.
Sixteen of the 21 Rohingya villages in the northern part of Rathedaung township — in eight village tracts — were targeted. Three camps for Rohingya who were displaced in communal riots five years ago also were torched.
Buthidaung, to the east, so far has been largely spared. It is the only township where security operations appear limited to areas where the attacks by Rohingya militants, which triggered the ongoing crackdown, occurred. Separated from the other Rohingya townships by mountains, and with more Buddhists and more soldiers, Buthidaung has historically had fewer tensions.
In her speech, Suu Kyi noted that most Rohingya villages did not suffer violence, and said the government would look into "why are they not at each other's throats in these particular areas." Rohingya refugees angrily viewed that as the government deflecting blame for attacks by its own forces.
The Rohingya have had a long and troubled history in Myanmar, where many in the country's 60 million people look on them with disdain.
Though members of the ethnic minority first arrived generations ago, Rohingya were stripped of their citizenship in 1982, denying them almost all rights and rendering them stateless. They cannot travel freely, practice their religion, or work as teachers or doctors, and they have little access to medical care, food or education.
The U.N. has labeled the Rohingya one of the world's most persecuted religious minorities.
Still, if it weren't for their safety, many would rather live in Myanmar than be forced to another country that doesn't want them.
"Now we can't even buy plastic to make a shelter," said 32-year-old Kefayet Ullah of the camp in Bangladesh where he and his family are struggling to get from one day to the next.
In Rakhine, they had land for farming and a small shop. Now they have nothing.
"Our heart is crying for our home," he said, tears streaming down his face. "Even the father of my grandfather was born in Myanmar."
This is not the first time the Rohingya have fled en masse.
Hundreds of thousands left in 1978 and again in the early 1990s, fleeing military and government oppression, though policies were later put in place that allowed many to return. Communal violence in 2012, as the country was transitioning from a half-century of dictatorship to democracy, sent another 100,000 fleeing by boat. Some 120,000 remain trapped in camps under apartheid-like conditions outside Rakhine's capital, Sittwe.
But no exodus has been as massive and swift as the one taking place now.
The military crackdown came in retaliation for a series of coordinated attacks by Rohingya militants led by Attaullah Abu Ammar Jununi, who was born in Pakistan and raised in Saudi Arabia.
Last October, the militants struck police posts, killing several officers and triggering a brutal military response that sent 87,000 Rohingya fleeing. Then on Aug. 25, a day after a state-appointed commission of inquiry headed by former U.N. chief Kofi Annan released a report about the earlier bloodshed, the militants struck again.
They attacked more than 30 police and army posts, causing casualties.
It was the excuse security forces wanted. They hit back and hard. Together with Buddhist mobs, they burned down villages, killed, looted and raped.
That sent a staggering 421,000 fleeing as of Tuesday, according to U.N. estimates.
"The military crackdown resembles a cynical ploy to forcibly transfer large numbers of people without possibility of return," Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said earlier this month in Geneva, calling it a "textbook example of ethnic cleansing."
It could be months before the extent of the devastation is clear because the army has blocked access to the affected areas. Yanghee Lee, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Myanmar, said at least 1,000 civilians were killed. The government claims more than 400 died, the vast majority Rohingya militants. They put the number of civilians killed at 30.
Whether it's the end game for the Rohingya in Myanmar remains to be seen, said Richard Horsey, a political analyst in Yangon. It depends in part on whether arrangements will be made by Bangladesh and Myanmar for their eventual return and the extent of the destruction.
"We are still waiting for a full picture of how many villages are depopulated versus how many were destroyed," he said.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-myanmar-rohingya-suu-kyi-20170919-story.html
EastBengalPro
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At last the United Nations head has spoken and sent out a warning to the Nobel laureate and Myanmar’s de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, to halt her army offensive that has forced hundreds of thousands of the Muslim Rohingya minority to flee to neighbouring Bangladesh. However, it is better late than never. The UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, warned the Myanmarese leader that she has “a last chance” to stop what was being considered by the UN as a genocide against the Muslim population in the heavily Buddhist populated northern Myanmar state of Rakhine.
“Unless she acted now”, he told the BBC World News on September 18, “the tragedy will be absolutely horrible”. Guterres’ warning came after Bangladesh declared its toughest restriction against more than 400,000 Rohingya refugees who have been forcibly displaced from Myanmar in the last three weeks. Over many decades of persecution, almost 900,000 Rohingya have so far fled to southern Bangladesh and other surrounding countries, following similar vicious acts of ethnic cleansing in the country.
Rohingya, stateless Indo-Aryan race in Rakhine state, are now subject to real genocide. Before the 2015 Rohingya refugee crisis and the Myanmar military crackdown in 2016 and 2017 with the full knowledge of Suu Kyi, the Rohingya population in Myanmar was around 1.3 million residing chiefly in the Rakhine, almost 90 per cent of the entire population of the northern state. Additionally, more than 100,000 Rohingya in Myanmar are strictly confined in camps for internally displaced persons.
What’s happening in Myanmar is in many ways a painful reminder of what’s been unfolding in Palestine over seven decades. Huge mass evacuation and displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and expropriation of their land since the creation of Israel in 1948. Both peoples, Rohingya and Palestinians, have been repeatedly persecuted, displaced and denied citizenship.
Rohingya majority are Muslim while a minority are Hindu. Described by a 2013 UN report as one of the most persecuted minorities in the world, the Rohingya are officially denied citizenship under the 1982 ‘Burmese Citizenship Law’. This law effectively denies the Rohingya the right of acquiring a nationality. According to the Human Rights Watch (HRW), the Myanmarese law does not recognise the ethnic minority as one of the country’s national races even though history traces the Rohingya back to the arrival of Islam in the 8th century in South East Asia.
Rohingya are also face restrictions regarding freedom of movement, state education and civil service jobs. They have been subjected to military crackdowns repeatedly in 1978, 1991-1992, 2012, 2015 and 2016-2017, with no effective protest from the world community till now. The UN is now officially describing Myanmar’s persecution of the Rohingya as ‘ethnic cleansing’, and the UN special investigator on Myanmar, Yanghee Lee, believes this persecution would eventually lead to the expulsion of the entire Rohingya population from the country. Myanmar’s government refuses to recognise the term ‘Rohingya’ and refers to them instead as Bengalis. HRW is now comparing the conditions faced by the Rohingya in Myanmar with ‘apartheid’.
Based on the information available to many human rights organisations, Myanmar seeks to establish a religiously homogenous Buddhist population in Rakhine, and hence the brutality against its Muslim Rohingya with the aim of driving them out of the country. The reports are horrific: unknown thousands have been killed, entire families burned alive, villages set on fire, children as young as five beheaded, women raped and borderlands deliberately booby-trapped with landmines as tens of thousands of civilian innocent people try to escape to the safe territories of Bangladesh.
According to a damning study by the International State Crime Initiative (ISCI) at the Queen Mary University of London, the Muslim Rohingya community of Myanmar “has been systematically persecuted and expunged from the national narrative — often at the behest of powerful extremist groups from the country’s majority Buddhist population and even government authorities — to the point where complete extermination is a possibility”.
Denunciations have started to pour in, though too late, accusing the Buddhist majority and Myanmar’s government of committing genocide. ISCI report concludes that after decades of oppression, “the Rohingya have reached the final stages of genocide”. The report borrowed the genocide expert Daniel Feierstein’s framework of the six stages of genocide as outlined in his book Genocide as Social Practice, to examine event in Myanmar.
Based on interviews, media reports and government documents, the report established how the Rohingya have undergone the first four stages: stigmatisation and dehumanisation; harassment, violence and terror; isolation and segregation; systematic weakening and are on the verge of ‘mass annihilation’. The sixth stage that involves the “removal of the victim group from collective history”, is already underway in Myanmar according to the report.
Rohingya are the only group of the country’s 135 officially recognised ethnicities that have been targeted by the Myanmarese Buddhist majority, the military junta and government. They have undergone decades of discrimination and deprivation, but now they are on the verge of total cleansing. The country’s de facto leader and Nobel laureate, is saying almost nothing. She had even cancelled her scheduled slot to address the UN General Assembly to avoid criticism. Suu Kyi is certainly neglecting her moral responsibility as a former human rights leader, to say the least. If she gets away with it, as many believe she will, her inaction would only encourage states such as Israel, and its most extreme government to escalate persecution against the Palestinians.
http://gulfnews.com/opinion/thinker...reminder-of-the-palestinian-tragedy-1.2092738
“Unless she acted now”, he told the BBC World News on September 18, “the tragedy will be absolutely horrible”. Guterres’ warning came after Bangladesh declared its toughest restriction against more than 400,000 Rohingya refugees who have been forcibly displaced from Myanmar in the last three weeks. Over many decades of persecution, almost 900,000 Rohingya have so far fled to southern Bangladesh and other surrounding countries, following similar vicious acts of ethnic cleansing in the country.
Rohingya, stateless Indo-Aryan race in Rakhine state, are now subject to real genocide. Before the 2015 Rohingya refugee crisis and the Myanmar military crackdown in 2016 and 2017 with the full knowledge of Suu Kyi, the Rohingya population in Myanmar was around 1.3 million residing chiefly in the Rakhine, almost 90 per cent of the entire population of the northern state. Additionally, more than 100,000 Rohingya in Myanmar are strictly confined in camps for internally displaced persons.
What’s happening in Myanmar is in many ways a painful reminder of what’s been unfolding in Palestine over seven decades. Huge mass evacuation and displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and expropriation of their land since the creation of Israel in 1948. Both peoples, Rohingya and Palestinians, have been repeatedly persecuted, displaced and denied citizenship.
Rohingya majority are Muslim while a minority are Hindu. Described by a 2013 UN report as one of the most persecuted minorities in the world, the Rohingya are officially denied citizenship under the 1982 ‘Burmese Citizenship Law’. This law effectively denies the Rohingya the right of acquiring a nationality. According to the Human Rights Watch (HRW), the Myanmarese law does not recognise the ethnic minority as one of the country’s national races even though history traces the Rohingya back to the arrival of Islam in the 8th century in South East Asia.
Rohingya are also face restrictions regarding freedom of movement, state education and civil service jobs. They have been subjected to military crackdowns repeatedly in 1978, 1991-1992, 2012, 2015 and 2016-2017, with no effective protest from the world community till now. The UN is now officially describing Myanmar’s persecution of the Rohingya as ‘ethnic cleansing’, and the UN special investigator on Myanmar, Yanghee Lee, believes this persecution would eventually lead to the expulsion of the entire Rohingya population from the country. Myanmar’s government refuses to recognise the term ‘Rohingya’ and refers to them instead as Bengalis. HRW is now comparing the conditions faced by the Rohingya in Myanmar with ‘apartheid’.
Based on the information available to many human rights organisations, Myanmar seeks to establish a religiously homogenous Buddhist population in Rakhine, and hence the brutality against its Muslim Rohingya with the aim of driving them out of the country. The reports are horrific: unknown thousands have been killed, entire families burned alive, villages set on fire, children as young as five beheaded, women raped and borderlands deliberately booby-trapped with landmines as tens of thousands of civilian innocent people try to escape to the safe territories of Bangladesh.
According to a damning study by the International State Crime Initiative (ISCI) at the Queen Mary University of London, the Muslim Rohingya community of Myanmar “has been systematically persecuted and expunged from the national narrative — often at the behest of powerful extremist groups from the country’s majority Buddhist population and even government authorities — to the point where complete extermination is a possibility”.
Denunciations have started to pour in, though too late, accusing the Buddhist majority and Myanmar’s government of committing genocide. ISCI report concludes that after decades of oppression, “the Rohingya have reached the final stages of genocide”. The report borrowed the genocide expert Daniel Feierstein’s framework of the six stages of genocide as outlined in his book Genocide as Social Practice, to examine event in Myanmar.
Based on interviews, media reports and government documents, the report established how the Rohingya have undergone the first four stages: stigmatisation and dehumanisation; harassment, violence and terror; isolation and segregation; systematic weakening and are on the verge of ‘mass annihilation’. The sixth stage that involves the “removal of the victim group from collective history”, is already underway in Myanmar according to the report.
Rohingya are the only group of the country’s 135 officially recognised ethnicities that have been targeted by the Myanmarese Buddhist majority, the military junta and government. They have undergone decades of discrimination and deprivation, but now they are on the verge of total cleansing. The country’s de facto leader and Nobel laureate, is saying almost nothing. She had even cancelled her scheduled slot to address the UN General Assembly to avoid criticism. Suu Kyi is certainly neglecting her moral responsibility as a former human rights leader, to say the least. If she gets away with it, as many believe she will, her inaction would only encourage states such as Israel, and its most extreme government to escalate persecution against the Palestinians.
http://gulfnews.com/opinion/thinker...reminder-of-the-palestinian-tragedy-1.2092738
Sayed Hamza Amir Khalil
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Read the article on Times of Islamabad, Google it "RAW backed insurgency in Myanmar" Sadly i can not attach the link but here is the proper name of Opinion..
RAW backed Insurgency, Oil Interests, CPEC & Massacre of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar
RAW backed Insurgency, Oil Interests, CPEC & Massacre of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar
war&peace
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No surprise, you are an Islamophobe hindu and you always support terrorists.
Nilgiri
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LOL, why dont you actually wait and see what's implemented.
You think MM army cares much for what Suu Kyi announces optically?
People simply cannot return to villages that do not physically exist anymore right now.
ARSA did a good job all around to give MM motive for this wave
LOL, why dont you actually wait and see what's implemented.
You think MM army cares much for what Suu Kyi announces optically?
People simply cannot return to villages that do not physically exist anymore right now.
ARSA did a good job all around to give MM motive for this wave
This is the beginning of the climbdown.
It matters little that the villages have been destroyed as Myanmar will just have to pay to rebuild them again. They have been caught red-handed setting fire to Rohingya villages in the first place.
PS - Did you like the photo where they staged an incident where they forced a Hindu Ronhingya woman to wear a table cloth in place of a headscarf and then she was photographed in a Hindu camp? These savages are as dumb as f*ck.
September 20, 2017 / LAST MODIFIED: 03:02 PM, September 20, 2017
Suu Kyi’s award suspended by UK union over Myanmar crisis
Star Online Report
One of Britain’s largest trade unions has suspended an award given to Aung San Suu Kyi when she was a political prisoner, as international criticism mounts over Myanmar refugee crisis, according to a report of The Guardian.
Unison, the country’s second largest trade union, came up with the move as a number of British institutions say they are reviewing or removing honours bestowed on Aung San Suu Kyi during her campaign for democracy under Myanmar’s oppressive military junta, the report said.
This suspension comes as many British institutions say they are reviewing or removing honours bestowed on Aung San Suu Kyi during her campaign for democracy under Myanmar’s oppressive military junta, reports The Guardian.
“The situation facing the Rohingya of Myanmar is appalling,” The Guardian reports quoting Margaret McKee, Unison’s president.
“Aung San Suu Kyi’s honorary membership of Unison has been suspended, and we hope that she responds to international pressure,” McKee added according to the report.
Bristol University, one of the universities that awarded honorary degrees to Suu Kyi during her time in opposition, also said it was reviewing its award in light of the accusations of brutal mistreatment of the Rohingyas in the Rakhine state of Myanmar, described by the UN as a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing”.
“The university shares the growing concern with the ongoing situation in Myanmar,” a spokesperson for Bristol University said, according to The Guardian.
“In 1998 we awarded an honorary degree of doctor of laws to Dr Aung San Suu Kyi, who at the time was leading the struggle for human rights and democracy in the then Burma.”
“In terms of this award it would be wrong to make any decision at this time to consider revoking such an honour but we will continue to monitor and review the situation as necessary.”
The London School of Economics student union said it would be stripping the former political prisoner of her honorary presidency.
“We will be actively removing Aung San Suu Kyi’s honorary presidency as a symbol of our opposition to her current position and inaction in the face of genocide,” said Mahatir Pasha, the union’s general secretary.
Over the last 3 decades Aung San Suu Kyi has been awarded with honorary degrees from several UK universities including Glasgow, Bath and Cambridge, as well as the freedom of several cities, and other honours.
Oxford councillors announced that they might reconsider the freedom of the city of Oxford awarded to Suu Kyi in 1997 at next month’s council meeting, the report said.
Suu Kyi’s award suspended by UK union over Myanmar crisis
Star Online Report
One of Britain’s largest trade unions has suspended an award given to Aung San Suu Kyi when she was a political prisoner, as international criticism mounts over Myanmar refugee crisis, according to a report of The Guardian.
Unison, the country’s second largest trade union, came up with the move as a number of British institutions say they are reviewing or removing honours bestowed on Aung San Suu Kyi during her campaign for democracy under Myanmar’s oppressive military junta, the report said.
This suspension comes as many British institutions say they are reviewing or removing honours bestowed on Aung San Suu Kyi during her campaign for democracy under Myanmar’s oppressive military junta, reports The Guardian.
“The situation facing the Rohingya of Myanmar is appalling,” The Guardian reports quoting Margaret McKee, Unison’s president.
“Aung San Suu Kyi’s honorary membership of Unison has been suspended, and we hope that she responds to international pressure,” McKee added according to the report.
Bristol University, one of the universities that awarded honorary degrees to Suu Kyi during her time in opposition, also said it was reviewing its award in light of the accusations of brutal mistreatment of the Rohingyas in the Rakhine state of Myanmar, described by the UN as a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing”.
“The university shares the growing concern with the ongoing situation in Myanmar,” a spokesperson for Bristol University said, according to The Guardian.
“In 1998 we awarded an honorary degree of doctor of laws to Dr Aung San Suu Kyi, who at the time was leading the struggle for human rights and democracy in the then Burma.”
“In terms of this award it would be wrong to make any decision at this time to consider revoking such an honour but we will continue to monitor and review the situation as necessary.”
The London School of Economics student union said it would be stripping the former political prisoner of her honorary presidency.
“We will be actively removing Aung San Suu Kyi’s honorary presidency as a symbol of our opposition to her current position and inaction in the face of genocide,” said Mahatir Pasha, the union’s general secretary.
Over the last 3 decades Aung San Suu Kyi has been awarded with honorary degrees from several UK universities including Glasgow, Bath and Cambridge, as well as the freedom of several cities, and other honours.
Oxford councillors announced that they might reconsider the freedom of the city of Oxford awarded to Suu Kyi in 1997 at next month’s council meeting, the report said.
Banglar Bir
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Lady: “Caught between a rock and a hard place”
Larry Jagan, September 18, 2017
Four hundred thousand Muslim Rohingyas have fled across the border to Bangladesh from Myanmar in the last 3 weeks to escape the army’s clearance operations. Human rights groups claim it’s a “scorched earth” policy – reminiscent of the military’s traditional ‘four cuts’ strategy for dealing with other conflict zones. Some 3,000 houses have been razed to the ground, according to local activists.
The international hue and cry has become deafening: with the European Union cancelling an important trade mission in retaliation. The Bangladesh prime minister Sheik Hasina – once a close ally of Aung San Suu Kyi, especially when she was under house arrest – will raise the Rohingya issue as a matter of urgency at the UN general assembly next week, according to senior Bangladesh government officials.
The prime minister will highlight the basic causes behind the Rohingya crisis: “She will ask [the UN] for immediate implementation of the recommendations made by Kofi Annan’s commission [Advisory Commission on Rakhine State],” the Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali told a press conference in Dhaka last week. Other world leaders have also urged the Myanmar government to adopt the Kofi Annan recommendations, as a matter of urgency.
Aung San Suu Kyi is skipping the UN meeting next week – with the vice president leading the Myanmar delegation instead — to allow her to concentrate on tackling the Rakhine situation, using the Kofi Annan recommendations as the basis of the government’s approach.
This is in fact was the Lady’s strategy all along, according to government insiders, but the security situation in Rakhine has prevented this so far. “The security forces have been instructed to adhere strictly to the Code of Conduct in carrying out security operations, to exercise all due restraint, and to take full measures to avoid collateral damage and the harming of innocent civilians in the course of carrying out their legitimate duty to restore stability,” said a statement issued by Aung San Suu Kyi’s office late last week.
However Aung San Suu Kyi will address the nation in a few days outlining the government’s roadmap to reconciliation in Rakhine state, according to government sources. As part of this plan, a “Ministerial-led Committee to monitor the progress of the implementation of the recommendations will be established speedily, and an Advisory Board comprised of eminent persons from home and abroad will also be constituted to assist the Committee in its work,” according to Aung San Suu Kyi’s latest statement.
But the Lady is between a rock and a hard place, according to diplomats and analysts based in Yangon. “She does not have complete freedom to move, when it comes to the situation in Rakhine,” a diplomat told SAM on condition of anonymity. It is the army commander who is calling the shots, he added.
The civilian government and the army are in a power sharing arrangement, established by the Constitution drawn up by the previous military regime, before they stood down. Under the constitution, the military appoints 25 percent of MPs in both houses in the national parliament and all 14 regional assemblies. The army appoints one of the 3 vice presidents, and three ministers in the Cabinet – Border and Home Affairs and the Defense minister – including the police.
“With its control over the three key power ministries, the Tatmadaw [the Myanmar military] and it’s minions in the GAD [General Administration Department – the local bureaucratic administration] are running rings around the National League for Democracy’s chief ministers, who find themselves ‘home alone’, cut out of decisions and relegated to ribbon cutting ceremonies” said long-time Myanmar observer, and regional head of the Human Rights Watch, Phil Robertson.
This is certainly the case in Rakhine, where the local NLD administration is close to the military and the hardline local politicians of the Arakan National Party, whose outlook is distinctly anti-Muslim. Inside Rakhine State, the local Buddhist population is even more hostile. Conflict between them and the Rohingya — who they refer to as Bengalis — goes back many decades. This discrimination dates back to before Independence.
In fact much of the looting and burning of Rohingya homes, is actually carried out by Rakhine villagers, who accompany the police and military on their “clearance operations”.
Much of the Myanmar population agrees with the official view that they are not citizens of Myanmar, but illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, even though many Rohingya families have been in the country for generations.
This has left Aung San Suu Kyi in an impossible position in terms of public opinion – she cannot be seen to openly support the Rakhine Muslims, for fear of alienating the majority of the country’s dominant Myanmar ethnic groups – the Bamar. This antipathy has intensified after the attacks by the Arakan Rohingya Solidarity Army (ARSA) last October and again in August.
So instead of using her moral authority, she remained silent on the issue, as far back as the first contemporary outbreak of violence in 2012. Now she has the added complication of having to work with the army. After the election, the two leaders had to find ways to work together. She had the mandate, the generals the real power.
“Since the very first days of the NLD government the two real leaders – the Lady and the General — have had a clear understandings on how they should work together,” said a former senior military officer. “It’s a mutual recognition of their de facto leadership: Min Aung Hlaing leads in security matters and Aung San Suu Kyi the rest,” he explained.
The problem is that there is no arena for the two to discuss overlapping concerns as with the current situation in Rakhine. The National Defense and Security Council is the only meeting ground, but the military holds the numbers: six out of 11 seats are military appointees. But the NDSC also has the power to suspend democratic government. Aung San Suu Kyi is loath to call it for fear she will loose the upper hand.
The NDSC has never met during the NLD government, according to senior government officials. Although there has been two quasi meetings on Rakhine – one last October and the other shortly after the ARSA attacks. The other reason the Lady is resisting calling such a meeting is Senior General Min Aung Hlaing’s term of office is due up shortly – and the only place a formal extension can be agreed is at the NDSC. He wants an extension till 2020. And Aung San Suu Kyi, according to government insiders, wants to avoid a confrontation on this issue – at least for the time being.
http://southasianmonitor.com/2017/09/18/lady-caught-rock-hard-place/
Geo-politics behind India’s U-turn on Rohingyas
P K Balachandran, September 16, 2017
Geo-politics appears to be behind India’s U-turn on Rohingyas. On Thursday, New Delhi swung from voicing unreserved support to Aung San Suu Kyi’s tough militaristic policy on the Bengali-speaking Muslim community to strongly approving Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s view that continued military action by Myanmar against the Rohingyas will destabilize Bangladesh economically and politically with grave implications for the entire region.
From wholeheartedly endorsing Suu Kyi’s view that the Rohingya issue is essentially an Islamic terrorist plot with security implications for both Myanmar and India, New Delhi is now saying that international pressure will be brought on Suu Kyi to take a more “restrained” (humanitarian) and “mature” approach to the issue.
Late at night on Thursday, the Indian External Affairs Minister, Sushma Swaraj, rang up Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to say that India is pushing Myanmar both “bilaterally and multilaterally” to take back the refugees. According to Bangladeshi officials what India is saying is that Myanmar must stop atrocities against the Rohingyas and take the 400,000 displaced back.
India rushes aid
Earlier in the day, Indian High Commissioner in Bangladesh, Harsh Vardhan Shringla, handed over 53 tons of relief material to the Bangladesh authorities.
Sensing great disappointment with, and anger against India in Bangladesh, Shringla met Indian Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar in New Delhi on Wednesday and secured sanction for the supply of humanitarian assistance to the Rohingyas.
The supplies arrived Chittagong on Thursday and the Indian High Commissioner himself distributed the relief material among the displaced Rohingyas at Cox’sBazaar..
Preceding this, last Saturday, the Bangladesh High Commissioner in New Delhi, Syed Muazzem Ali, had worked on Indian Foreign Office officials and secured a statement from South Block saying that Myanmar should approach the Rohingya issue with “restraint and maturity with focus on the welfare of the civilian population alongside those of the security forces”.
“It is imperative that violence is ended and normalcy in the state is restored expeditiously,” the Indian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar had said.
Indian High Commissioner in Dhaka, Shringla’s was then called to New Delhi urgently to brief the Foreign Office in South Block. The security-conscious officials at the Home Ministry in North Block were also briefed as, after all, it was the Deputy Home Minister, Kiren Rijiju, who had declared the 40,000 Rohingya refugees in India are “illegal immigrants” who ought to be thrown out.
Reasons behind change
While the immediate reason for the policy change can be attributed to diplomatic pressure from Bangladesh, there are deeper causes.
Although China continued to back Myanmar on the Rohingya issue, India felt isolated, with every country including its strategic ally, the United States, condemning Suu Kyi. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Chief, Prince Zeid, had also criticized the Indian government’s plans to deport Rohingyas.
A stage had been reached at which India had no option but to abandon its policy of copying China in every sphere in a bid to outdo it. It had to take an independent stand based on a cool calculation of its own interests.
If New Delhi failed to back Bangladesh’s plea that if Myanmar did not stop military action and take back the Rohingyas Bangladesh would be under tremendous economic strain, the consequences to India itself would be multifarious and highly detrimental.
And if the Bangladeshi economy were to break down, the common Bangladeshi would blame India for it. That would go against the India-friendly Sheikh Hasina in the next Bangladeshi parliamentary elections.
Bangladeshi Islamic militants, who are now kept on a leash by strong police action, will gain popular support to the detriment of Hasina’s Awami League and to the advantage of the not-so-India- friendly Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).
Sheikh Hasina herself might go easy on the Islamic militants to retain public support. She may have no incentive to take stern action against Indian Jehadists seeking shelter in Bangladesh. Indo-Bangla security cooperation, which has been working well for India so far, might be a thing of the past.
And finally, Rohingyas, now pouring into Bangladesh, may spill over into India (as they are already doing) and cause communal tension in West Bengal, ruled by the anti-Modi Chief Minister Mamata Banerji.
In short, a problem in distant Myanmar might become a domestic headache for the government of India and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Economic stakes in Myanmar
Furthermore, India’s ambitious economic projects in Myanmar, like the deep-water port in Sittwe and the road linking Mizoram in India with Thailand passes through the now troubled North Myamnar. Sittwe is in Rakhine State – the home of the Rohingyas.
These projects, taken up to counter growing Chinese influence over Myanmar, will grind to a halt if the area continues to be restive and violence-ridden.
http://southasianmonitor.com/2017/09/16/geo-politics-behind-indias-u-turn-rohingyas/
Where is Myanmar? What is Going on There?
Where is Myanmar?
The Republic of the Union of Myanmar, previously known as Burma, is located in south east Asia. It is bordered by Thailand in the southeast, Laos in the east, China in the north and northeast, India to the northwest, Bangladesh to the west, and the Bay of Bengal in the south. The capital of Myanmar is Naypyidaw, and the majority in the country practice Theravada Buddhism.
The history of Myanmar is marked by turbulent strife – first against British colonial rule, then against the military junta, and then the civil war that has been fought between the various ethnic groups that form the country. More recently, in 2015 democratic elections were held after two decades, and a popular government installed. The recent Rohingya crisis has once again cast a shadow over the country.
Who are the Rohingya?
The Rohingya are a minority ethnic community that live in Myanmar, but are not recognized by the government as indigenous Myanmar citizens. As of 2015, about 1.1 million Sunni Islam practicing Rohingya Muslims were living in the state of Rakhine (in the country of Myanmar). The ethnic violence in Myanmar stems from this dispute. The government of Myanmar claims that the community entered the country from Bangladesh during the British colonial rule and is still living on as a refugee community. Bangladesh, on the other hand, claims that the Rohingya are not Bangladeshi since they have lived in Myanmar for over six centuries now. This leaves the community largely stateless.
The Rohingya community (in Myanmar) lives in a state of abject poverty. The living conditions are dismal, and as a group, they have minimal civil rights. The community has no access to healthcare or education, and cannot marry outside the community. The Rohingya Muslims of Myanmar have been facing systemic discrimination, gross human rights violations, and abuse.
Violent attacks against members of the Rohingya community are very common, according to the UN. Waves of violence often erupt and hundreds are killed or injured. So much so, that over the years these attacks are being considered a form of ‘ethnic cleansing,’ and a government sanctioned genocide.
What is the recent crisis?
Last year, a group of militants from the Rohingya community mounted an armed attack on numerous Myanmar border outposts. In response, the state’s army attacked and killed hundreds of young boys and men. Women were raped, and thousands were forced to flee. This year again, the militants from the community attacked military bases, and the Myanmar forces responded furiously, destroying over 80 villages and killing hundreds of civilians. News reports suggest that the Myanmar government has now restricted food and water to the Rakhine state as well.
Some 370,000 Rohingya have fled their homes over the past years and sought refuge in the neighboring country of Bangladesh. Furthermore, there are about 40,000 Rohingya refugees in India. Both Bangladesh and India are not interested in letting the refugees stay on indefinitely and want Myanmar to take them back.
Aung San Suu Kyi, the State Counsellor, is the head of the elected government but does not control the military. To date, Suu Kyi has been unwilling to denounce this treatment of the Rohingya for fear of losing the support of the Buddhist majority and the powerful military. Aung San Suu Kyi is a Nobel Peace Prize awardee and her silence is drawing serious flak from all over the world.
The United Nations Security Council has strongly condemned the violence against civilian in Myanmar and has asked the country to ensure that peace is restored and the safety of the Rohingya ensured. As yet, the crisis remains unresolved.
Related Maps:
Myanmar map
Bangladesh map
India map
Largest Muslim Population Countries
Larry Jagan, September 18, 2017
Four hundred thousand Muslim Rohingyas have fled across the border to Bangladesh from Myanmar in the last 3 weeks to escape the army’s clearance operations. Human rights groups claim it’s a “scorched earth” policy – reminiscent of the military’s traditional ‘four cuts’ strategy for dealing with other conflict zones. Some 3,000 houses have been razed to the ground, according to local activists.
The international hue and cry has become deafening: with the European Union cancelling an important trade mission in retaliation. The Bangladesh prime minister Sheik Hasina – once a close ally of Aung San Suu Kyi, especially when she was under house arrest – will raise the Rohingya issue as a matter of urgency at the UN general assembly next week, according to senior Bangladesh government officials.
The prime minister will highlight the basic causes behind the Rohingya crisis: “She will ask [the UN] for immediate implementation of the recommendations made by Kofi Annan’s commission [Advisory Commission on Rakhine State],” the Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali told a press conference in Dhaka last week. Other world leaders have also urged the Myanmar government to adopt the Kofi Annan recommendations, as a matter of urgency.
Aung San Suu Kyi is skipping the UN meeting next week – with the vice president leading the Myanmar delegation instead — to allow her to concentrate on tackling the Rakhine situation, using the Kofi Annan recommendations as the basis of the government’s approach.
This is in fact was the Lady’s strategy all along, according to government insiders, but the security situation in Rakhine has prevented this so far. “The security forces have been instructed to adhere strictly to the Code of Conduct in carrying out security operations, to exercise all due restraint, and to take full measures to avoid collateral damage and the harming of innocent civilians in the course of carrying out their legitimate duty to restore stability,” said a statement issued by Aung San Suu Kyi’s office late last week.
However Aung San Suu Kyi will address the nation in a few days outlining the government’s roadmap to reconciliation in Rakhine state, according to government sources. As part of this plan, a “Ministerial-led Committee to monitor the progress of the implementation of the recommendations will be established speedily, and an Advisory Board comprised of eminent persons from home and abroad will also be constituted to assist the Committee in its work,” according to Aung San Suu Kyi’s latest statement.
But the Lady is between a rock and a hard place, according to diplomats and analysts based in Yangon. “She does not have complete freedom to move, when it comes to the situation in Rakhine,” a diplomat told SAM on condition of anonymity. It is the army commander who is calling the shots, he added.
The civilian government and the army are in a power sharing arrangement, established by the Constitution drawn up by the previous military regime, before they stood down. Under the constitution, the military appoints 25 percent of MPs in both houses in the national parliament and all 14 regional assemblies. The army appoints one of the 3 vice presidents, and three ministers in the Cabinet – Border and Home Affairs and the Defense minister – including the police.
“With its control over the three key power ministries, the Tatmadaw [the Myanmar military] and it’s minions in the GAD [General Administration Department – the local bureaucratic administration] are running rings around the National League for Democracy’s chief ministers, who find themselves ‘home alone’, cut out of decisions and relegated to ribbon cutting ceremonies” said long-time Myanmar observer, and regional head of the Human Rights Watch, Phil Robertson.
This is certainly the case in Rakhine, where the local NLD administration is close to the military and the hardline local politicians of the Arakan National Party, whose outlook is distinctly anti-Muslim. Inside Rakhine State, the local Buddhist population is even more hostile. Conflict between them and the Rohingya — who they refer to as Bengalis — goes back many decades. This discrimination dates back to before Independence.
In fact much of the looting and burning of Rohingya homes, is actually carried out by Rakhine villagers, who accompany the police and military on their “clearance operations”.
Much of the Myanmar population agrees with the official view that they are not citizens of Myanmar, but illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, even though many Rohingya families have been in the country for generations.
This has left Aung San Suu Kyi in an impossible position in terms of public opinion – she cannot be seen to openly support the Rakhine Muslims, for fear of alienating the majority of the country’s dominant Myanmar ethnic groups – the Bamar. This antipathy has intensified after the attacks by the Arakan Rohingya Solidarity Army (ARSA) last October and again in August.
So instead of using her moral authority, she remained silent on the issue, as far back as the first contemporary outbreak of violence in 2012. Now she has the added complication of having to work with the army. After the election, the two leaders had to find ways to work together. She had the mandate, the generals the real power.
“Since the very first days of the NLD government the two real leaders – the Lady and the General — have had a clear understandings on how they should work together,” said a former senior military officer. “It’s a mutual recognition of their de facto leadership: Min Aung Hlaing leads in security matters and Aung San Suu Kyi the rest,” he explained.
The problem is that there is no arena for the two to discuss overlapping concerns as with the current situation in Rakhine. The National Defense and Security Council is the only meeting ground, but the military holds the numbers: six out of 11 seats are military appointees. But the NDSC also has the power to suspend democratic government. Aung San Suu Kyi is loath to call it for fear she will loose the upper hand.
The NDSC has never met during the NLD government, according to senior government officials. Although there has been two quasi meetings on Rakhine – one last October and the other shortly after the ARSA attacks. The other reason the Lady is resisting calling such a meeting is Senior General Min Aung Hlaing’s term of office is due up shortly – and the only place a formal extension can be agreed is at the NDSC. He wants an extension till 2020. And Aung San Suu Kyi, according to government insiders, wants to avoid a confrontation on this issue – at least for the time being.
http://southasianmonitor.com/2017/09/18/lady-caught-rock-hard-place/
Geo-politics behind India’s U-turn on Rohingyas
P K Balachandran, September 16, 2017
Geo-politics appears to be behind India’s U-turn on Rohingyas. On Thursday, New Delhi swung from voicing unreserved support to Aung San Suu Kyi’s tough militaristic policy on the Bengali-speaking Muslim community to strongly approving Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s view that continued military action by Myanmar against the Rohingyas will destabilize Bangladesh economically and politically with grave implications for the entire region.
From wholeheartedly endorsing Suu Kyi’s view that the Rohingya issue is essentially an Islamic terrorist plot with security implications for both Myanmar and India, New Delhi is now saying that international pressure will be brought on Suu Kyi to take a more “restrained” (humanitarian) and “mature” approach to the issue.
Late at night on Thursday, the Indian External Affairs Minister, Sushma Swaraj, rang up Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to say that India is pushing Myanmar both “bilaterally and multilaterally” to take back the refugees. According to Bangladeshi officials what India is saying is that Myanmar must stop atrocities against the Rohingyas and take the 400,000 displaced back.
India rushes aid
Earlier in the day, Indian High Commissioner in Bangladesh, Harsh Vardhan Shringla, handed over 53 tons of relief material to the Bangladesh authorities.
Sensing great disappointment with, and anger against India in Bangladesh, Shringla met Indian Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar in New Delhi on Wednesday and secured sanction for the supply of humanitarian assistance to the Rohingyas.
The supplies arrived Chittagong on Thursday and the Indian High Commissioner himself distributed the relief material among the displaced Rohingyas at Cox’sBazaar..
Preceding this, last Saturday, the Bangladesh High Commissioner in New Delhi, Syed Muazzem Ali, had worked on Indian Foreign Office officials and secured a statement from South Block saying that Myanmar should approach the Rohingya issue with “restraint and maturity with focus on the welfare of the civilian population alongside those of the security forces”.
“It is imperative that violence is ended and normalcy in the state is restored expeditiously,” the Indian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar had said.
Indian High Commissioner in Dhaka, Shringla’s was then called to New Delhi urgently to brief the Foreign Office in South Block. The security-conscious officials at the Home Ministry in North Block were also briefed as, after all, it was the Deputy Home Minister, Kiren Rijiju, who had declared the 40,000 Rohingya refugees in India are “illegal immigrants” who ought to be thrown out.
Reasons behind change
While the immediate reason for the policy change can be attributed to diplomatic pressure from Bangladesh, there are deeper causes.
Although China continued to back Myanmar on the Rohingya issue, India felt isolated, with every country including its strategic ally, the United States, condemning Suu Kyi. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Chief, Prince Zeid, had also criticized the Indian government’s plans to deport Rohingyas.
A stage had been reached at which India had no option but to abandon its policy of copying China in every sphere in a bid to outdo it. It had to take an independent stand based on a cool calculation of its own interests.
If New Delhi failed to back Bangladesh’s plea that if Myanmar did not stop military action and take back the Rohingyas Bangladesh would be under tremendous economic strain, the consequences to India itself would be multifarious and highly detrimental.
And if the Bangladeshi economy were to break down, the common Bangladeshi would blame India for it. That would go against the India-friendly Sheikh Hasina in the next Bangladeshi parliamentary elections.
Bangladeshi Islamic militants, who are now kept on a leash by strong police action, will gain popular support to the detriment of Hasina’s Awami League and to the advantage of the not-so-India- friendly Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).
Sheikh Hasina herself might go easy on the Islamic militants to retain public support. She may have no incentive to take stern action against Indian Jehadists seeking shelter in Bangladesh. Indo-Bangla security cooperation, which has been working well for India so far, might be a thing of the past.
And finally, Rohingyas, now pouring into Bangladesh, may spill over into India (as they are already doing) and cause communal tension in West Bengal, ruled by the anti-Modi Chief Minister Mamata Banerji.
In short, a problem in distant Myanmar might become a domestic headache for the government of India and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Economic stakes in Myanmar
Furthermore, India’s ambitious economic projects in Myanmar, like the deep-water port in Sittwe and the road linking Mizoram in India with Thailand passes through the now troubled North Myamnar. Sittwe is in Rakhine State – the home of the Rohingyas.
These projects, taken up to counter growing Chinese influence over Myanmar, will grind to a halt if the area continues to be restive and violence-ridden.
http://southasianmonitor.com/2017/09/16/geo-politics-behind-indias-u-turn-rohingyas/
Where is Myanmar? What is Going on There?
Where is Myanmar?
The Republic of the Union of Myanmar, previously known as Burma, is located in south east Asia. It is bordered by Thailand in the southeast, Laos in the east, China in the north and northeast, India to the northwest, Bangladesh to the west, and the Bay of Bengal in the south. The capital of Myanmar is Naypyidaw, and the majority in the country practice Theravada Buddhism.
The history of Myanmar is marked by turbulent strife – first against British colonial rule, then against the military junta, and then the civil war that has been fought between the various ethnic groups that form the country. More recently, in 2015 democratic elections were held after two decades, and a popular government installed. The recent Rohingya crisis has once again cast a shadow over the country.
Who are the Rohingya?
The Rohingya are a minority ethnic community that live in Myanmar, but are not recognized by the government as indigenous Myanmar citizens. As of 2015, about 1.1 million Sunni Islam practicing Rohingya Muslims were living in the state of Rakhine (in the country of Myanmar). The ethnic violence in Myanmar stems from this dispute. The government of Myanmar claims that the community entered the country from Bangladesh during the British colonial rule and is still living on as a refugee community. Bangladesh, on the other hand, claims that the Rohingya are not Bangladeshi since they have lived in Myanmar for over six centuries now. This leaves the community largely stateless.
The Rohingya community (in Myanmar) lives in a state of abject poverty. The living conditions are dismal, and as a group, they have minimal civil rights. The community has no access to healthcare or education, and cannot marry outside the community. The Rohingya Muslims of Myanmar have been facing systemic discrimination, gross human rights violations, and abuse.
Violent attacks against members of the Rohingya community are very common, according to the UN. Waves of violence often erupt and hundreds are killed or injured. So much so, that over the years these attacks are being considered a form of ‘ethnic cleansing,’ and a government sanctioned genocide.
What is the recent crisis?
Last year, a group of militants from the Rohingya community mounted an armed attack on numerous Myanmar border outposts. In response, the state’s army attacked and killed hundreds of young boys and men. Women were raped, and thousands were forced to flee. This year again, the militants from the community attacked military bases, and the Myanmar forces responded furiously, destroying over 80 villages and killing hundreds of civilians. News reports suggest that the Myanmar government has now restricted food and water to the Rakhine state as well.
Some 370,000 Rohingya have fled their homes over the past years and sought refuge in the neighboring country of Bangladesh. Furthermore, there are about 40,000 Rohingya refugees in India. Both Bangladesh and India are not interested in letting the refugees stay on indefinitely and want Myanmar to take them back.
Aung San Suu Kyi, the State Counsellor, is the head of the elected government but does not control the military. To date, Suu Kyi has been unwilling to denounce this treatment of the Rohingya for fear of losing the support of the Buddhist majority and the powerful military. Aung San Suu Kyi is a Nobel Peace Prize awardee and her silence is drawing serious flak from all over the world.
The United Nations Security Council has strongly condemned the violence against civilian in Myanmar and has asked the country to ensure that peace is restored and the safety of the Rohingya ensured. As yet, the crisis remains unresolved.
Related Maps:
Myanmar map
Bangladesh map
India map
Largest Muslim Population Countries
Banglar Bir
SENIOR MEMBER
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The Great Lie
After decades of suppression it should surprise no one that the Rohingya have tried to defend themselves
Forrest Cookson
“A Lie told once remains a Lie, but a Lie told a thousand times becomes the truth” JosephGoebbels In Myanmar today the army is engaged in massive ethnic cleansing of the Muslim Rohingya. There were about one million Rohingya in the Rakhine State of Myanmar on January 2017.
By January 2019 there will be 100,000-200,000 left inside Myanmar, the residue of the ethnic cleansing. Where will they all go? There are two destinations—Bangladesh or death. Already the UN reports 300,000 have come across the border recently [to join the 400,000 already in Bangladesh] a The crossing rate is of the order of 10,000-20,000 per day and in another 20 days there will be some 500,000 new refugees in Bangladesh. By January 2019 there will be 600-800,000 for a total of at least one million in Bangladesh. One can expect 100-200,000 dead, killing at the rate 500 per day is feasible for the Myanmar army over the next year. Who is going to stop them?
This is genocide. Make no mistake. The intent of the Myanmar army is to kill or drive out all of the Rohingya, most of whom are Muslim. This is being done by burning down the villages where the Rohingya live, killing their cattle, killing men and children, raping women and girls in a systematic way to destroy the society. The evidence for this is in the space pictures of the villages burning and in the testimony of thousands who have crossed into Bangladesh and told their story.
The abuse and ethnic cleaning of the Rohingya is not a new story there have been many incidents in the past in the past few years and the cruelty and evil of the Tatmadaw [Myanmar army] has been well documented. There is for example a detailed legal assessment done at the Yale Law School 2015 that concludes that the three points needed to reach a finding that the Genocide has been committed according to the Genocide Convention. These points are:
1.The Rohingya are a group according to the convention
2. Genocidal acts have been committed by the Burmese Government.
3. The intent is to destroy the Rohingya
The abuse and killing have gotten much worse since 2015. The world has done little about this terrible situation. The person who fought for democracy in Myanmar has exposed herself as a cruel leader no longer unworthy of respect.
After decades of suppression it should surprise no one that the Rohingya have tried to defend themselves. The Arakan Salvation Army [ARSA] in 2016 launched attacks against police posts where lurked the monsters that were raping and killing. The Tatmadaw saw an excuse to attack ever more viciously now trumpeting the excuse that the poor Myanmar army had been attacked by the ferrous ARSA Islamic insurgents. ARSA on September 10 announced a cease fire to try to bring the killing and destruction to an end which the Myanmar Government rejected with the claim that “we do not negotiate with terrorists”. George Orwell has returned to Burma.
The Myanmar Government with the support of their friends has commenced trumpeting the Great Lie. The Great Lie is the assertion that the burning of the villages and the killing is the work of the ARSA determined to establish an independent Islamic fundamentalist Rakhine State. This is the trap that faces any oppressed group that attempts to defend itself against violence perpetuated against them. This self-defense is then used as an excuse for further violence and attacks against the oppressed group. This is more or less what happened to the population of East Pakistan.
The Myanmar Government has invited the international press into Myanmar and fed them this Great Lie. Most independent journalists will not fall for this. One important television correspondent repeated the claims of the Myanmar Government in such a way to convey their falsehood.
However it is worse. The Chinese press is repeating the same lies over and over. So is the Russian press. Even the Prime Minister of India to his everlasting shame has signed on to the Great Lie.
The quotation from Joseph Goebbels the great propagandist of Nazi Germany is directly on point. Goebbels used this technique repeatedly for example in Czechoslovakia to claim abuse of German residents as an excuse for intervention.
The Russian press is going even further and asserting that this an operation of the United States Government modeled on Kosovo!!
These are the ways that the Great Lie is created and repeated and repeated as Goebbels taught. Everyday now Myanmar helped by India, China, and Russia are building this Great Lie.
This will be used to reject and push back against the accusations of Genocide against the leaders of the Myanmar state, their security forces and intelligence services. While trumpeting the Great Lie the killing, destruction of villages, raping of women and girls goes on. All in the name of fighting against the ARSA.
One expects the Chinese and the Russians to see rape, torture, destruction of property, and killing to be legitimate state policy. We have seen so much of this behavior by these two states that we are numb to their evil. We expect this from the Myanmar army driven on by a wild Buddhist monk who it is known is high on narcotics when he preaches. But we are disappointed with the lack of courage of Aung San Sun Kyi who is now persona non grata among moral people. We are disappointed in Prime Minister Modi who has thrown India in with this evil.
The point of recognizing the Great Lie is that it must be fought. The reality of the oppression of the Rohingya must be fought by proving the Great Lie is just that. How do that?
The Bangladesh Government must invite the press corps of the world to come and see for themselves, to interview the poor souls who have made it across the border and hear the stories of the behavior of the Tatmadaw. The Bangladesh Government should establish its own record keeping by interviewing and building oral records of the refugees. Care must be taken to be sure they can be located as in time these records will be the basis of trials for Crimes Against Humanity and Genocide. Bangladesh should also mobilize its considerable legal talents to build a case against the Myanmar Government.
A systematic case of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity can and should be built.
A list of generals and others in Myanmar should be assembled and the UN Security Council, the US Government, the EU and Japan approached to bring sanctions against these people.
The Great Lie must be fought under Bangladesh leadership. While other countries may provide support and funding, this is an effort that Bangladesh should take. It is Bangladesh that is bearing the brunt of the oppression of the Rohingya. This is an undeclared war against Bangladesh and should be met by appropriate opposition.
http://www.theindependentbd.com/post/114668
After decades of suppression it should surprise no one that the Rohingya have tried to defend themselves
Forrest Cookson
“A Lie told once remains a Lie, but a Lie told a thousand times becomes the truth” JosephGoebbels In Myanmar today the army is engaged in massive ethnic cleansing of the Muslim Rohingya. There were about one million Rohingya in the Rakhine State of Myanmar on January 2017.
By January 2019 there will be 100,000-200,000 left inside Myanmar, the residue of the ethnic cleansing. Where will they all go? There are two destinations—Bangladesh or death. Already the UN reports 300,000 have come across the border recently [to join the 400,000 already in Bangladesh] a The crossing rate is of the order of 10,000-20,000 per day and in another 20 days there will be some 500,000 new refugees in Bangladesh. By January 2019 there will be 600-800,000 for a total of at least one million in Bangladesh. One can expect 100-200,000 dead, killing at the rate 500 per day is feasible for the Myanmar army over the next year. Who is going to stop them?
This is genocide. Make no mistake. The intent of the Myanmar army is to kill or drive out all of the Rohingya, most of whom are Muslim. This is being done by burning down the villages where the Rohingya live, killing their cattle, killing men and children, raping women and girls in a systematic way to destroy the society. The evidence for this is in the space pictures of the villages burning and in the testimony of thousands who have crossed into Bangladesh and told their story.
The abuse and ethnic cleaning of the Rohingya is not a new story there have been many incidents in the past in the past few years and the cruelty and evil of the Tatmadaw [Myanmar army] has been well documented. There is for example a detailed legal assessment done at the Yale Law School 2015 that concludes that the three points needed to reach a finding that the Genocide has been committed according to the Genocide Convention. These points are:
1.The Rohingya are a group according to the convention
2. Genocidal acts have been committed by the Burmese Government.
3. The intent is to destroy the Rohingya
The abuse and killing have gotten much worse since 2015. The world has done little about this terrible situation. The person who fought for democracy in Myanmar has exposed herself as a cruel leader no longer unworthy of respect.
After decades of suppression it should surprise no one that the Rohingya have tried to defend themselves. The Arakan Salvation Army [ARSA] in 2016 launched attacks against police posts where lurked the monsters that were raping and killing. The Tatmadaw saw an excuse to attack ever more viciously now trumpeting the excuse that the poor Myanmar army had been attacked by the ferrous ARSA Islamic insurgents. ARSA on September 10 announced a cease fire to try to bring the killing and destruction to an end which the Myanmar Government rejected with the claim that “we do not negotiate with terrorists”. George Orwell has returned to Burma.
The Myanmar Government with the support of their friends has commenced trumpeting the Great Lie. The Great Lie is the assertion that the burning of the villages and the killing is the work of the ARSA determined to establish an independent Islamic fundamentalist Rakhine State. This is the trap that faces any oppressed group that attempts to defend itself against violence perpetuated against them. This self-defense is then used as an excuse for further violence and attacks against the oppressed group. This is more or less what happened to the population of East Pakistan.
The Myanmar Government has invited the international press into Myanmar and fed them this Great Lie. Most independent journalists will not fall for this. One important television correspondent repeated the claims of the Myanmar Government in such a way to convey their falsehood.
However it is worse. The Chinese press is repeating the same lies over and over. So is the Russian press. Even the Prime Minister of India to his everlasting shame has signed on to the Great Lie.
The quotation from Joseph Goebbels the great propagandist of Nazi Germany is directly on point. Goebbels used this technique repeatedly for example in Czechoslovakia to claim abuse of German residents as an excuse for intervention.
The Russian press is going even further and asserting that this an operation of the United States Government modeled on Kosovo!!
These are the ways that the Great Lie is created and repeated and repeated as Goebbels taught. Everyday now Myanmar helped by India, China, and Russia are building this Great Lie.
This will be used to reject and push back against the accusations of Genocide against the leaders of the Myanmar state, their security forces and intelligence services. While trumpeting the Great Lie the killing, destruction of villages, raping of women and girls goes on. All in the name of fighting against the ARSA.
One expects the Chinese and the Russians to see rape, torture, destruction of property, and killing to be legitimate state policy. We have seen so much of this behavior by these two states that we are numb to their evil. We expect this from the Myanmar army driven on by a wild Buddhist monk who it is known is high on narcotics when he preaches. But we are disappointed with the lack of courage of Aung San Sun Kyi who is now persona non grata among moral people. We are disappointed in Prime Minister Modi who has thrown India in with this evil.
The point of recognizing the Great Lie is that it must be fought. The reality of the oppression of the Rohingya must be fought by proving the Great Lie is just that. How do that?
The Bangladesh Government must invite the press corps of the world to come and see for themselves, to interview the poor souls who have made it across the border and hear the stories of the behavior of the Tatmadaw. The Bangladesh Government should establish its own record keeping by interviewing and building oral records of the refugees. Care must be taken to be sure they can be located as in time these records will be the basis of trials for Crimes Against Humanity and Genocide. Bangladesh should also mobilize its considerable legal talents to build a case against the Myanmar Government.
A systematic case of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity can and should be built.
A list of generals and others in Myanmar should be assembled and the UN Security Council, the US Government, the EU and Japan approached to bring sanctions against these people.
The Great Lie must be fought under Bangladesh leadership. While other countries may provide support and funding, this is an effort that Bangladesh should take. It is Bangladesh that is bearing the brunt of the oppression of the Rohingya. This is an undeclared war against Bangladesh and should be met by appropriate opposition.
http://www.theindependentbd.com/post/114668
Nilgiri
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Yeah like the tall claims you made about shooting down the next MM aircraft that violates BD airspace officially. (Which you still haven't conceded to btw).
Keep the butthurt of realised reality coming....clinging on to the little scraps thrown optically as always to assuage it.
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