Why and how the US must confront Burma's Rohingya genocide

[EastBengalPro]

The United States should sanction Burma for its genocide against the Muslim Rohingya people, and lead an international effort to assist impoverished Bangladesh in supporting Rohingya refugees.

That's my conclusion based on the testimony coming out of southeast Bangladesh, where over 500,000 Rohingya civilians have taken refuge to avoid slaughter in Burma. My concern greatly increased after I spoke, Wednesday, with my aid worker aunt, Pat Kerr, who has taken a team to southeast Bangladesh.


Kerr described the situation at the Shah Porir Diip boat station, which sits between Burma and Bangladesh:

"Most of the refugees who arrive in Bangladesh take a boat to this station, and then barter (for example, giving jewelry for the fare) or borrow money to get to the mainland. It is tragic to see families with many young children and all their belongings in a few rice sacks. One young girl was so traumatized she couldn't speak or communicate in any way. Some refugees don't even have a full set of clothes, many don't have sandals. There are more women and children than men, as the Burmese army is killing many of the men. The tales they all told were consistent: many men being killed and all villages burnt. The pattern seems to be that this started in the north of Burma's Rakhine state and is spreading across the whole state to the south. There were 20,000 new refugees yesterday and we saw many boatloads today so the violence has definitely not stopped."

Still, Kerr says, the Bangladeshi Army is doing exceptional work in providing for those in need. She references one officer, Major Tanim, who has established an efficient supply of aid and provision of security for the thousands of refugees in his area.

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are also playing a critical role, she says, describing one camp where, "Every day, 12,000 children are given a meal of meat and rice. This is one of four sites giving a hot meal of meat and rice in the middle of the day. A total of 84,000 meals are served to women and children. This is not including the sacks of dry food (rice and lentils) that are also distributed to thousands, or the medical clinic with free basic medicine."

Unfortunately, it's not enough. The current global strategy towards the Rohingya crisis is the equivalent of bandaging an arterial bleed. More must be done.

First, the U.S. should lead a global diplomatic effort to sanction Burma. At present, the only serious reprisal Burma's government has faced for its genocide is the announcement that Aung San Suu Kyi will be stripped of the freedom of Oxford. That's a very unfunny joke. Considering the scale of this crisis, the Trump administration should immediately call for wide spectrum economic sanctions on the Burmese government and its financial industries. The need for this leadership is even more urgent in the context of reporting by The Guardian, Thursday, that the United Nations has suppressed evidence of its failure to plan and respond to Rohingya refugee needs.

Here, it won't be enough to simply sanction a few random Burmese officials, the U.S. must bring the diplomatic heat. If tough sanctions push Burma into the hands of the Chinese government, so be it. America should seek good relations and strong economic ties with all nations that share our values or support a realist U.S. foreign policy. But at present, Burma offers neither of those things. Incidentally, it says much about the nature of Xi Jinping's foreign policy vision that he is willing to align himself with a genocidal regime.

Second, the U.S. should strengthen its aid to Bangladesh as that nation saves those civilians the Burmese Army has failed to kill. To do so, Secretaries Mattis and Tillerson should send the head of Pacific Command, Admiral Harris, and the State Department's relevant Assistant Secretary, Alice Wells, to visit Dhaka and meet with top Bangladeshi officials. This would consolidate Bangladesh in the knowledge that its humanitarian efforts have not gone unnoticed in Washington. Bangladesh is often low-down in the U.S. foreign policy priority list, but that must now change.

More broadly, President Trump should prioritize the Rohingya in the same way that he has pushed Venezuela's situation up the international agenda. Utilizing his good will with the Sunni-Arab monarchies and recognizing Saudi Arabia's evolving interest in humanitarian issues, Trump should push those governments to increase their aid to the Rohingya (many of whom are Muslim). Additional funds are specifically needed in order to provide the Rohingya with longer-term shelter in Bangladesh. Kerr notes that one need in the camps is a "nighttime service for pregnant women and those in labor, because at the moment, the NGOs only offer treatment during the day."

Ultimately, this isn't that complicated a foreign policy issue. America doesn't need to keep the Burmese government happy, but we must confront this human suffering.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/w...ront-burmas-rohingya-genocide/article/2636643

 

[Banglar Bir]

Across Myanmar, Denial of Ethnic Cleansing and Loathing of Rohingya
HANNAH BEECH
OCT. 24, 2017
Myanmar Army’s campaign of killing, rape and arson in Rakhine, which has driven more than 600,000 Rohingya out of the country since late August, in what the United Nations says is the fastest displacement of a people since the Rwanda genocide.

But in Myanmar, and even in Rakhine itself, there is stark denial that any ethnic cleansing is taking place.

The divergence between how Myanmar and much of the outside world see the Rohingya is not limited to one segment of local society. Nor can hatred in Myanmar of the largely stateless Muslim group be dismissed as a fringe attitude.

THE INTERPRETER
Myanmar, Once a Hope for Democracy, Is Now a Study in How It Fails OCT. 19, 2017

NEWS ANALYSIS
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Rohingya Recount Atrocities: ‘They Threw My Baby Into a Fire’OCT. 11, 2017

New Surge of Rohingya Puts Aid Workers Back on ‘Full Alert’OCT. 10, 2017

In Grim Camps, Rohingya Suffer on ‘Scale That We Couldn’t Imagine’ SEPT. 29, 2017
Government officials, opposition politicians, religious leaders and even local human-rights activists have become unified behind this narrative: The Rohingya are not rightful citizens of Buddhist-majority Myanmar, and now, through the power of a globally resurgent Islam, the minority is falsely trying to hijack the world’s sympathy.

Social media postings have amplified the message, claiming that international aid workers are openly siding with the Rohingya. Accordingly, the Myanmar government has blocked aid agencies’ access to Rohingya still trapped in Myanmar — about 120,000 confined to camps in central Rakhine and tens of thousands more in desperate conditions in the north.
Photo

People gathering in the village of Sin Ma Kaw, which has banned Muslims from staying there. Credit
Adam Dean for The New York Times
The official answer to United Nations accounts of the military’s mass burning of villages and targeting of civilians has been to insist that the Rohingya have been doing it to themselves.

“There is no case of the military killing Muslim civilians,” said Dr. Win Myat Aye, the country’s social welfare minister and the governing National League for Democracy party’s point person on Rakhine. “Muslim people killed their own Muslim people.”

When asked in an interview about the evidence against the military, the minister noted that the Myanmar government had not sent any investigators to Bangladesh to vet the testimony of fleeing Rohingya, but that he would raise the possibility of doing so in a future meeting.

“Thank you for advising us on this idea,” he said.

The Rohingya, who speak a Bengali dialect and tend to look distinct from most of Myanmar’s other ethnic groups, have had roots in Rakhine for generations. Communal tensions between the Rohingya and ethnic Rakhine Buddhists exploded in World War II, when the Rakhine aligned themselves with the Japanese, while the Rohingya chose the British.

Although many Rohingya were considered citizens when Burma became independent in 1948, the military junta that wrested power in 1962 began stripping them of their rights. After a restrictive citizenship law was introduced in 1982, most Rohingya became stateless.

Even the name Rohingya, which the ethnic group has identified with more vocally in recent years, has been taken from them. The Myanmar government usually refers to the Rohingya as Bengalis, implying they belong in Bangladesh. The public tends to call them an epithet used for all Muslims in Myanmar: kalar.

The nomenclature is so sensitive that in a speech this month, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate and de facto leader of the government, referred only to “those who have crossed over to Bangladesh.”

Some ethnic Rakhine politicians are hailing the Rohingya exodus as a good thing.

“All the Bengalis learn in their religious schools is to brutally kill and attack,” said Daw Khin Saw Wai, a Rakhine member of Parliament from Rathedaung Township. “It is impossible to live together in the future.”
Photo

Daw Soe Chay, an ethnic Rakhine Buddhist from Myebon Township, was beaten and publicly shamed after her husband delivered aid to Rohingya Muslims in their camp in Sittwe. CreditAdam Dean for The New York Times
Buddhist monks, moral arbiters in a pious land, have been at the forefront of a campaign to dehumanize the Rohingya. In popular videos, extremist monks refer to the Rohingya as “snakes” or “worse than dogs.”

Outside Mr. Thu Min Gala’s monastery in Sittwe, a pair of signs reflected an alternate sense of reality. One said that the monastery, which is sheltering ethnic Rakhine who fled the conflict zone, would not accept any donations from international agencies. The other warned that multifaith groups were not welcome.

The abbot claimed that the authorities in Rakhine had stopped a car owned by the International Committee of the Red Cross that was filled with weaponry destined for Rohingya militants who carried out attacks against the security forces in August. Mr. Thu Min Gala claimed that sticks of dynamite had been wrapped in paper with the Red Cross logo. The Red Cross denied these accusations.

“We don’t trust the international society,” the abbot said. “They are only on the side of the terrorists.”

At another monastery in Sittwe, an elderly abbot, U Baddanta Thaw Ma, halted my conversation with a young monk by slapping the air in front of my face. “Go! Go! Go!” he yelled in English, before switching to the local Rakhine dialect. “Go away, you foreigner! Go away, you kalar lover.”

Public sentiment against Muslims — who are about 4 percent of Myanmar’s population, encompassing several ethnic groups, including the Rohingya — has spread beyond Rakhine. In 2015 elections, no major political party fielded a Muslim candidate. Today no Muslims serve in Parliament, the first time since the country’s independence.

A couple hours outside Yangon, the country’s largest city, U Aye Swe, an administrator for Sin Ma Kaw village, said he was proud to oversee one of Myanmar’s “Muslim-free” villages, which bar Muslims from spending the night, among other restrictions.

“Kalar are not welcome here because they are violent and they multiply like crazy, with so many wives and children,” he said.
Photo

A Buddhist woman and her son were staying at the Damarama Monastery, in Sittwe, after being displaced by violence in northern Rakhine.
Credit Adam Dean for The New York Times
Mr. Aye Swe admitted he had never met a Muslim before, adding, “I have to thank Facebook because it is giving me the true information in Myanmar.”

Social media messaging has driven much of the rage in Myanmar. Though widespread access to cellphones only started a few years ago, mobile penetration is now about 90 percent. For many people, Facebook is their only source of news, and they have little experience in sifting fake news from credible reporting.

One widely shared message on Facebook, from a spokesman for Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s office, emphasized that biscuits from the World Food Program, a United Nations agency, had been found at a Rohingya militant training camp. The United Nations called the post “irresponsible.”
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The Myanmar government, however, insists the public needs to be guided.

“We do something that we call educating the people,” said U Pe Myint, the nation’s information minister. He acknowledged, “It looks rather like indoctrination, like in an authoritarian or totalitarian state.”

In Yangon, Mr. Pe Myint this month gathered local journalists to discuss what he called “fabricated news” by foreign reporters and a “political war” in which international aid groups favored the Rohingya.

Last month, a mob in Sittwe attacked Red Cross workers, who were loading a boat with supplies that locals believed would only go to the Rohingya.

Even among officials who might otherwise champion human rights, frustration has been directed at foreign critics. Quietly, some defend Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s failure to call out the military and protect the Rohingya by saying it would be political suicide in a country where hatred of the Rohingya is so widespread. They see the recent international pressure, at best, as ignorant of domestic complexities and, at worst, as intent on hindering Myanmar’s development.

“We ask the international community to acknowledge that these Muslims are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and that this crisis is an infringement of our sovereignty,” said U Nyan Win, a spokesman for the National League for Democracy, which shares power with Myanmar’s military. “This is the most important thing with the Rakhine issue.”
Photo

Sin Ma Kaw, where an official said he was proud to oversee one of Myanmar’s “Muslim-free” villages.
Credit Adam Dean for The New York Times
U Ko Ko Gyi, a democracy advocate who was jailed for 17 years by the military when it ruled Myanmar, also evoked national interest.

“We have been human-rights defenders for many years and suffered for a long time but we are standing together on this issue because we need to support our national security,” he said.

“We are a small country that lies between India and China, and the DNA of our ancestors is to try to struggle for our survival,” Mr. Ko Ko Gyi said. “If you in the West criticize us too much, then you will push us into the arms of China and Russia.”

Last month, those two permanent members of the United Nations Security Council shielded Myanmar from an attempt by other nations to condemn the Myanmar military for its offensive in Rakhine.

The humanitarian situation has grown desperate within Rakhine while the official block on aid largely continues.

Throughout the state, ethnic Rakhine have been warned by community leaders not to break the blockade. Last month in Myebon Township, in central Rakhine, women’s activists prevented international aid groups from delivering assistance to an internment camp where thousands of Rohingya have been sequestered since the 2012 sectarian violence, according to foreign staff.

But U Tun Tin, a Rakhine trishaw driver, needed the money and delivered food to the Rohingya camp. Shortly after, his wife, Daw Soe Chay, said she was accosted by a crowd that forced her to a nearby monastery.

Inside the religious compound, they beat her and sheared her hair. Then the mob marched her through Myebon, wearing a sign calling her a “national traitor.”

Despite his wife’s ordeal, Mr. Tun Tin said he did not regret having sent supplies to the camp, where Rohingya say their rations are running low.
“They are human,” he said. “They need to eat, just like us.”
Saw Nang contributed reporting from Yangon, Myanmar.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/24/...column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

 

[Banglar Bir]

Shifting blame as US agenda unfolds in Myanmar
by Tony Cartalucci
Published: 00:05, Oct 27,2017
Updated: 01:08, Oct 27,2017

AS VIOLENCE continues to unfold in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state against the nation’s Rohingya ethnic minority, the agenda driving the conflict is likewise unfolding in a more transparent and direct manner.
As was predicted — the US is shifting blame away from the US-backed client regime headed by Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League of Democracy party the US installed into power in 2015 — and toward Myanmar’s independent institutions, including the nation’s still powerful military.

The US secretary of state Rex Tillerson in a recent talk before the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC laid the blame squarely on Myanmar’s military, claiming:
‘…we’re extraordinarily concerned by what’s happening with the Rohingya in Burma.
I’ve been in contact with Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the civilian side of the government. As you know, this is a power-sharing government that has — that has emerged in Burma.
We really hold the military leadership accountable for what’s happening with the Rakhine area.’

Reuters in an article titled, ‘Lawmakers urge US to craft targeted sanctions on Myanmar military,’ would report:
‘More than 40 lawmakers urged the Trump administration on Wednesday to re-impose US travel bans on Myanmar’s military leaders and prepare targeted sanctions against those responsible for a crackdown on the country’s Rohingya Muslim minority.’

And Freedom House — a subsidiary of the US government and corporate-funded National Endowment for Democracy — would also publish a piece titled, ‘Does Democracy’s Toehold in Myanmar Outweigh the Lives of the Rohingya?,’ shifting the blame away from the very regime it worked for decades to put in power, and target Myanmar’s military.

It claimed:
‘In less than two months, more than half a million Rohingya have fled to neighbouring Bangladesh to escape the destruction of entire settlements, systematic rape, and the mass slaughter of men, women, and children.
This horrendous violence is perpetrated by the military, with assistance from elements of the local Rakhine Buddhist population.’

It is clear that the confined nature of Myanmar’s ongoing Rohingya crisis will not lead to the same type of nationwide militancy observed in Syria.
It is also clear that the United States is likewise confining its condemnation for the violence not to the ultra-violent elements that it cultivated under Suu Kyi’s political movement for decades, but on the military who often stood between Rohingya communities and violent onslaughts.

The pressuring and weakening first, then either co-opting or overthrowing of Myanmar’s current military leadership under the pretext of the current crisis will invite a larger and expanding US and European role in Myanmar’s internal affairs.

Secretary Tillerson alluded to precisely that in his recent remarks, claiming:
‘And so we have been asking for access to the region. We’ve been able to get a couple of our people from our embassy into the region so we can begin to get our own firsthand account of what is occurring.
We’re encouraging access for the aid agencies — the Red Cross, the Red Crescent — UN agencies to — so we can at least address some of the most pressing humanitarian needs, but more importantly so we can get a full understanding of what is going on.

Someone — if these reports are true, someone is going to be held to account for that. And it’s up to the military leadership of Burma to decide what direction do they want to play in the future of Burma, because we see Burma as an important emerging democracy, but this is a real test.

With US ally Saudi Arabia fuelling a militancy under the guise of a Rohingya ‘resistance,’ the US will also be able to justify military aid, joint-operations, and even permanent US military facilities — however meagre — that will present a serious obstacle to Chinese influence in the nation and in the region.
It will also be an obstacle that once erected, will be difficult to dismantle as America’s enduring and unwanted military presence in the Philippines is proving to be.
What’s really happening in Myanmar
WHAT Freedom House in its aforementioned report intentionally omits is that ‘the local Rakhine Buddhist population’ it refers to is actually part of a much larger political — not religious — network that had fed saffron-clad ‘monks’ onto the streets for pro-Suu Kyi protests in 2007 and which has systematically thwarted efforts by the military-led government before Suu Kyi’s rise to power to begin the process of granting Rohingya minorities proper legal and political status within Myanmar.

It is also a political network that has systematically abused, brutalised, and driven Myanmar’s Rohingya population first from their homes and businesses into camps, then from camps to abroad in neighbouring nations including Bangladesh and Thailand.

While attempts to compare Myanmar’s crisis to ongoing conflict driven by US-backed regime change in Syria — it is clear that Myanmar’s crisis is more comparable to the US occupation of Afghanistan minus the presence (for now) of US troops.

While the United States and its European partners control Myanmar’s civilian government, the US is attempting to divide and weaken the Myanmar state to corrode independent institutions still beyond Wall Street and Washington’s control, hinder the central government from achieving any sort of independence itself, as well as create a pretext for an initial and then expanded presence of US missions — economically, diplomatically, and militarily — in Myanmar.

The goal — as it is in Afghanistan — is to disrupt, undermine, and ultimately overturn progress China and other alternative centres of global power have made in the two nations.
In particular, the highly confined violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine state is precisely where China sought to establish and use one of its One Belt, One Road logistical hubs.
America’s plans for its Myanmar client state
Through a large US State Department and European-funded network of faux-non governmental organisations, Western-backed opposition parties, and likewise Western-backed street fronts, Myanmar’s current client regime was successfully installed into power after general elections in 2015.
Prominent opposition party, the National League for Democracy assumed power of the government but maintained little control over the nation’s independent military.

The NLD’s party leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, literally created a new political office for herself to occupy as de facto ‘head of state.’ Under Myanmar’s constitution Suu Kyi was barred from holding high offices in the nation’s political system due to her marriage to a foreign spouse — a British man — and because her children hold dual UK-Myanmar citizenship.
Suu Kyi herself received a foreign education and worked within Western institutions including the United Nations in the US before returning to Myanmar to engage in domestic politics.

Her entry into politics and her ascension into power has been openly funded and backed by the United States, former colonial ruler the United Kingdom, and a long list of European collaborators, for decades.

Many senior positions within Myanmar’s ruling regime are held by likewise products of extensive US funding, training, indoctrination, and support, including the current minister of information Pe Myint.
Just as the US controls the government in Kabul, Afghanistan, it controls the civilian leadership in Naypyidaw, Myanmar.

And just as the US perpetuates the threat of terrorism in Afghanistan as a pretext for the permanent US military occupation of the Central Asian state, the US and its Saudi allies are attempting to use the current Rohingya crisis as a vector to introduce a foreign-funded militancy as a pretext first for joint ‘counter-terrorism’ cooperation with the government of Myanmar, and then the permanent positioning of US military assets in a Southeast Asian state that directly borders China — a long-term goal of US policymakers stretching back decades.

It is expected that the military of Myanmar will come under increasing pressure, targeted sanctions, and outright threats until it capitulates, collapses, or manages to overcome foreign influence and the client regime serving as a vector and facilitator for them.

Meanwhile, Suu Kyi’s regime will continue being granted relative impunity across the West despite the fact that it is her own support base carrying out anti-Rohingya violence.
The crisis will be leveraged to thwart China’s economic inroads and prop up a burgeoning US-European diplomatic and military presence in the country.

Voices across the media exposing US plans will make it increasingly difficult for the US and its partners to manoeuvre in Myanmar and give counterbalancing forces further leverage in frustrating and rolling them back.

New Eastern Outlook, October 25. Tony Cartalucci, a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, writes especially for the online magazine New Eastern Outlook.
http://www.newagebd.net/article/27009/shifting-blame-as-us-agenda-unfolds-in-myanmar

 

[Banglar Bir]

The Lady, the general and sanctions
Larry Jagan, November 1, 2017

Military songs rang out across downtown Yangon on Sunday as tens of thousands rallied in defence of Myanmar’s army, an institution accused by the global community of driving Rohingya Muslims from the country Photo – AP
International criticism of Aung San Suu Kyi and her government over the handling of the violence in Rakhine State is being racketed up.
The UN, Western governments and many Muslim countries are currently pondering resuming sanctions against Myanmar, some have already singled out the military or Tatmadaw.
Later this month (November) the European Union (EU) and the Organization of Islamic States (OIC) are planning to have a sanctions motion put before the UN Security Council.
But all this has done is to further isolate the country’s civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

In an effort to persuade both the civilian government and the Tatmadaw to do more to prevent the communal violence and restore some measure of peace and stability to conflict-torn Rakhine, several countries have announced targeted sanctions directed at the Tatmadaw.

Later this month Pope Francis will visit Myanmar, at the State Counselor’s invitation, all part of Aung San Suu Kyi’s campaign for national reconciliation, with the overall message that “the language of hate, will not deliver peace.” Although not public at the moment, he is expected to visit Rakhine during his trip, according to Myanmar intelligence sources.

Last week the US announced sanctions, which come into force this week. These include the suspension of travel waivers for current and former members of the Myanmar military and a ban on US assistance to military units and officers in northern Rakhine. The US added that it was also mulling over the possibility of economic measures against those responsible for atrocities against the Rohingya Muslims.
Also Read: U.N. picks Norwegian for Myanmar role as tensions simmer over Rohingya crisis
Earlier last month the EU and its member states’ announcement that they would suspend invitations to the Commander-in-Chief and other senior military officers and review all practical defense cooperation, due to the Myanmar military’s disproportionate use of force against the Rohingya in northern Rakhine State.

Sanctions – at least against the military – because of the Rakhine situation, has exacerbated the situation.
“They [the army] now believe she [Aung San Suu Kyi] is a sabotage agent,” said the retired army officer.
The international criticism of their [military] operations in Rakhine and the growing pressure for sanctions is viewed as a “UK-US conspiracy”, orchestrated behind the scenes by Aung San Suu Kyi.
There is a growing belief within the army that they are under siege.

The UK was the first off the mark when two months ago it suspended an aid program it provided to Myanmar’s military — on democracy, leadership and English language – until there is an acceptable resolution to the current situation in Rakhine.
Though it only amounts to around US$ 411,000 last year – it maybe a precursor of more sanctions to come: particularly designed to punish the military, for their behavior.

Contrary to many analysts view, and the military themselves, this move was not at the behest of the State Counselor, nor was she is in fact favor of it, according to sources close to Aung San Suu Kyi. These moves have isolated the civilian government from the army.
Aung San Suu Kyi fears that the increased international criticism of the government’s handling of Rakhine has weakened her position in relation to the army chief – who is increasingly seen in the country as a hero.
Demonstrations in support of the Tatmadaw have been held throughout the country recently.

But instead of encouraging reconciliation and the return of the refugees now harboring in neighboring Bangladesh, it has probably hindered it and delayed any possible solution, one of Aung San Suu Kyi’s closest advisors told South Asian Monitor (SAM). Last Thursday, reflecting the government’s view, an editorial in the state-run Myanmar language newspaper The Mirror slammed the US actions against the military leadership, saying “those actions by no means help solve the problems in Rakhine State.”
Also Read: US Secretary of State calls Myanmar army chief to help end violence in Rakhine
These sanctions have also further exacerbated tensions between Myanmar’s civilian leader, the State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi and the country’s military commander, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, on one hand and the UN on the other.

The result so far has been to isolate Aung San Suu Kyi, and leave her desperately alone, virtually trapped in the Myanmar’s capital, Naypyidaw.
Relations with the UN and many Western countries have also dramatically, deteriorated.
They have also worsened the already acrimonious tensions between her and the army commander.

Inter-religious dialogue also features prominently in Aung San Suu Kyi’s strategy.
In part this follows the recommendations put forward by the Kofi Annan Commission on Rakhine, but is also a function of the State Counselor’s planned overall approach, intended to strengthen her nationalist mantle and challenge the position of the nationalist Buddhist movement led by Ashin Wirathu.
It is intended to stress the shared Buddhist values of virtue of love and kindness, according to a government insider.

The international strategy of targeted sanctions has only increased the gulf between Aung San Suu Kyi and Min Aung Hlaing. Relations between the two have hit rock bottom, according to a senior advisor to the State Counselor. “The mistrust of Aung San Suu Kyi is growing within the military, not just between her and Min Aung Hlaing but the army as a whole,” a senior retired military officer, who is also close to the army commander, told SAM.

Sanctions – at least against the military – because of the Rakhine situation, has exacerbated the situation. “They [the army] now believe she [Aung San Suu Kyi] is a sabotage agent,” said the retired army officer.
The international criticism of their [military] operations in Rakhine and the growing pressure for sanctions is viewed as a “UK-US conspiracy”, orchestrated behind the scenes by Aung San Suu Kyi. There is a growing belief within the army that they are under siege.
Also Read: We must pursue accountability for atrocities in Rakhine, says US
Many analysts suggest that this is the worse thing to happen and will not encourage the military to mend their ways.
Although in the wake of the US announcement, the military withdrew some of its troops from northern Rakhine and allowed the World Food Program to resume its aid work in the area, there is no evidence that there is a direct correlation between the two events.
The military itself has yet to make any official comment, either on the troop withdrawal or the re-imposition of sanctions.

What is clear is that the international community has made Aung San Suu Kyi’s strategy all the more difficult to implement.
She wants to resolve the problems in Rakhine peacefully through dialogue.
“She believes only discussion and peaceful efforts can solve the current crisis,” said one of Aung San Suu Kyi’s close confidants.
A view that the government editorial also reflected: “What the international community should do is assess the military stand [on the Rakhine issue]—right or wrong—through dialogue,” said the Myanmar-language paper.

Aung San Suu Kyi fears that the increased international criticism of the government’s handling of Rakhine has weakened her position in relation to the army chief – who is increasingly seen in the country as a hero. Demonstrations in support of the Tatmadaw have been held throughout the country recently.

But she also sees this as the essential approach of the whole peace process – including the current on-going negotiations with the ethnic rebel groups involved in the national ceasefire talks and the creation of a federal state.
The military is also an integral part of this.
In the end, the fundamental aim is to change the constitution and reduce the military’s political role. This can only happen if the military leaders accept the idea, and that won’t happen if they are alienated.

Inter-religious dialogue also features prominently in Aung San Suu Kyi’s strategy. In part this follows the recommendations put forward by the Kofi Annan Commission on Rakhine, but is also a function of the State Counselor’s planned overall approach, intended to strengthen her nationalist mantle and challenge the position of the nationalist Buddhist movement led by Ashin Wirathu.
It is intended to stress the shared Buddhist values of virtue of love and kindness, according to a government insider.
Also Read: ‘Suu Kyi government played into the hands of the military’
This was the rationale behind the recent interfaith gathering in Yangon, which was addressed by Myanmar’s Catholic cardinal, Charles Maung Bo — one of the few public figures in the country, who has been willing to speak out for the Rohingya. Later this month Pope Francis will visit Myanmar, at the State Counselor’s invitation, all part of Aung San Suu Kyi’s campaign for national reconciliation, with the overall message that “the language of hate, will not deliver peace.”
Although not public at the moment, he is expected to visit Rakhine during his trip, according to Myanmar intelligence sources.

However, this may yet provoke a serious reaction, and not necessarily just from the nationalist Buddhist monks.
The militant group, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army is planning another attack – they claimed responsibility for the terrorist attacks in August this year and October last year on the order guard posts – either just before or just after the Pope’s visit, according to Asian intelligence sources.
The Myanmar military share this concern, and say they are prepared for it this time.

Myanmar’s military must participate in the country’s future political map, and be party to the development and democratization of the country.
The sanctions imposed on Myanmar in the past simply isolate the country and forced its leaders into the hands of the Chinese.
Any fresh sanctions will only do the same.

Instead of considering sanctions against Tatmadaw, the EU and other Western countries should do everything possible to support Aung San Suu Kyi and her government.
They should also encourage the reform of the Tatmadaw.
This is the best way to secure a lasting solution to Rakhine, and promote democracy, peace and development in Myanmar.
https://southasianmonitor.com/2017/11/01/lady-general-sanctions/

 

[Banglar Bir]

12:00 AM, November 08, 2017 / LAST MODIFIED: 02:21 AM, November 08, 2017
FROM A BYSTANDER
Will the “Myanmar democracy” survive the Rohingya crisis?

Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, Commander-in-Chief of the Myanmar armed forces, and Aung San Suu Kyi during Myanmar's top six-party talks at the Presidential Palace at Naypyidaw in 2015. PHOTO: REUTERS
Mahmood Hasan
These are difficult times for Aung San Suu Kyi's democracy.
The crisis is the creation of her xenophobic army chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing.
However, as Hlaing went about committing genocide on the Rohingya, Suu Kyi sided with the general in a show of unity.
On other matters, however, she does not see eye to eye with Hlaing.
Strangely, both Suu Kyi and Hlaing are Islamophobes and are in sync in dealing with minority communities—the Shan, Karen, Kachin, Rohingya, etc. Her handling of desperately poor but peaceful Rohingyas reflects her bigotry and her complicity, which has outraged world opinion. Her prejudices became clear during the 2015 election, when NLD did not field any Muslim candidate from any seat.

Myanmar's so-called democratic government is a forked administration—Suu Kyi's powerless civilian government and the junta-led ministries independent of Suu Kyi. This disconnect between Suu Kyi and Hlaing has brought the core issue to the fore—that of democracy versus military dictatorship.

The powers enjoyed by Suu Kyi as state counsellor are at best tenuous under the military-drafted 2008 constitution. The constitution debarred her from becoming president and she knew that she could not amend the draconian provisions of the constitution given the seat arithmetic in the parliament. Yet she went ahead to play the game laid out by the military.

Not only can she not change the charter, the National Defence and Security Council (NDSC) is the Damocles' sword over her head. This most powerful body has 11 members, six of whom are military men—an in-built majority. Naturally, all important decisions have to be approved by the NDSC. The most dangerous provision in the constitution says that the military can retake powers of the government in case of threats to “national security” or “national unity”—essentially any time the junta wants.

Worst still, the military holds effective charge of three ministries—defence, home affairs and border control—all led by serving generals. The home ministry has taken over the responsibilities of immigration and population, making it very powerful. Suu Kyi's government also does not control the police, justice system, security services and ethnic issues.

Expulsion of the Rohingyas has been the military's plan since 1962, when General Ne Win seized power after the parliamentary democracy experiment failed to establish peace and unite the country. The entire anti-Rohingya narrative is based on lies, which has converted ethnic majority Bamars into ultra-nationalists.

To a large extent, the West is responsible for the current Rohingya crisis.
As part of Pivot to Asia (i.e. containing China), President Obama visited Myanmar twice—in 2012 and 2014, when he met Suu Kyi.
Though Rohingya persecution was ongoing at that time in Rakhine, Obama did not ask Naypyidaw to stop the oppression.
Rather to encourage Suu Kyi's democracy, President Obama overlooked the gross human rights violations committed by the military and lifted the economic sanctions in October 2016.
Now, geopolitical games involving India, China, US, Russia and Japan over Rakhine are putting pressures on Suu Kyi's government, while the expelled Rohingyas wait to return home from Bangladesh.

However, the waiver of sanctions greatly overjoyed Hlaing. He waved the Suu Kyi flag to bring Myanmar out of pariah status and get readmitted into the comity of nations.
The West was befooled that democracy has returned to Myanmar and welcomed Suu Kyi with open arms, barely realising that she is a lame-duck head of government.

Clever Hlaing went ahead with his anti-Rohingya campaign, knowing well that his military's brutal actions will be blamed on Suu Kyi and not on him. Thus the latest attacks on Rohingyas in 2016 and 2017.
He cared little about Suu Kyi's reputation or credibility.
Hlaing's glee has now turned sour as the Trump administration has started to reverse Obama's Myanmar policies.
Hlaing's impunity may not last long.
Little did he foresee that world opinion would go against him.

Interestingly, as international pressure mounts on Hlaing, his popularity has surged within Myanmar, and Suu Kyi is on the back foot. Thousands of Bamar Buddhists rallied in Yangon on November 1, singing patriotic songs. Hlaing is seen as the saviour of Myanmar from Muslim takeover. This is bad news for Suu Kyi's democracy as the old political groups—USDP and allied parties—have become active.

Despite her popularity, Suu Kyi's moral capital is now in tatters. Instead of protesting the junta's brutality she went ahead to make that speech on September 19, 2017, which was clearly drafted by the junta. She denied any wrongdoing by the military and hid behind an “iceberg of misinformation”—to quote Suu Kyi herself. That speech actually undermined her integrity.

In her book Freedom from Fear Suu Kyi wrote, “It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it.” How true. If only the lady could overcome the fear of losing power, she could probably save her brand of democracy from the quasi-military dictatorship and restore the rights of minorities, including Rohingyas. Ultra-nationalism and xenophobia have no place in democracies.

Myanmar as a country has the legal status of a sovereign state. But with its internal contradictions it is not yet a “nation”. Nation-building requires embracing and integrating all people irrespective of race, religion and culture through ensuring human rights.

The paranoid junta does not want to see Suu Kyi succeed in establishing peace or democracy. Perception of threat to national security is the raison d'être of the military. According to observers, instability in Rakhine and international pressure can lead to a collapse of the Suu Kyi government and to the power vacuum being filled in by the military once again. If that happens, it will be the end of the “Myanmar democracy”.
Mahmood Hasan is a former ambassador and secretary of the Bangladesh government.
http://www.thedailystar.net/opinion...democracy-survive-the-rohingya-crisis-1487710

 

[mb444]

BD must do everything it can to ensure that the US and EU move to ostracise the Burmese monkey in every way possible. if US wish to remove the status quo in Burma to effectively get its hand on its natural resources, BD must absolutely assist in the process.

Burmese democracy nor national integrity is in the interest of BD. We must stay the course and continue piling on the pressure from every direction.

 

[Dalit]

The death and destruction has been done. Precious and innocent lives lost won’t return. Anyone sanctioning Burma at this point will do so for cosmetic reasons. The time when pressure and sanctions should have been applied is long gone. The world has also forgotten the massacre. Myanmar isn’t dominating the news. Donald Trump golfing in South Korea is the main news.

 

[UKBengali]

The death and destruction has been done. Precious and innocent lives lost won’t return. Anyone sanctioning Burma at this point will do so for cosmetic reasons. The time when pressure and sanctions should have been applied is long gone. The world has also forgotten the massacre. Myanmar isn’t dominating the news. Donald Trump golfing in South Korea is the main news.

Yes but Myanmar can be made to feel pain as punishment.

 

[mb444]

The death and destruction has been done. Precious and innocent lives lost won’t return. Anyone sanctioning Burma at this point will do so for cosmetic reasons. The time when pressure and sanctions should have been applied is long gone. The world has also forgotten the massacre. Myanmar isn’t dominating the news. Donald Trump golfing in South Korea is the main news.

Depends on what channel you watch.

Sanction are necessary and BD must continue the pressure.

 

[Banglar Bir]

Rohingya Blogger

https://www.facebook.com/

The U.S. Congress moved to pressure the Burmese military into ending the crisis facing the Rohingya, in a bipartisan effort that proposes a range of options aimed at ending the violence against the Muslim minority.
The bill would impose new sanctions, cutting off U.S. cooperation with the military while funding economic assistance.
VOA's congressional reporter Katherine Gypson sat down with the co-sponsors of the bill to learn more.
https://www.facebook.com/RBNewsEnglish/videos/1456075867833835/

 

[Zabaniyah]

BD must do everything it can to ensure that the US and EU move to ostracise the Burmese monkey in every way possible. if US wish to remove the status quo in Burma to effectively get its hand on its natural resources, BD must absolutely assist in the process.

You know, whatever the case may be, you ought to stop using racist stereotypes. It doesn't make you any more better. Not ALL Burmese are evil. There are Burmese Buddhists who are against the persecution.

The death and destruction has been done. Precious and innocent lives lost won’t return. Anyone sanctioning Burma at this point will do so for cosmetic reasons. The time when pressure and sanctions should have been applied is long gone. The world has also forgotten the massacre. Myanmar isn’t dominating the news. Donald Trump golfing in South Korea is the main news.

If you are assuming that the drama in Burma is over, you are wrong. There are Muslims who aren't Rohingya.

I have said before, and I will say it again, this is an issue of land ownership. They wanted to Rohingyas out of the land where they can build an oil pipeline running through Rakhine. One can guess which country that one will lead to.

They had always been like that. Persecuting that, this.

 

[HariSinghNalwa]

USA will not Sanction Tatamadaw generals or Myanmar economy at all ,if they wanted to do it they would have ,but they don't want Myanmar to be totally dependent on China and even Russia emerging as a partner of Myanmar against UNSC sanctions

 

[mb444]

You know, whatever the case may be, you ought to stop using racist stereotypes. It doesn't make you any more better. Not ALL Burmese are evil. There are Burmese Buddhists who are against the persecution.



If you are assuming that the drama in Burma is over, you are wrong. There are Muslims who aren't Rohingya.

I have said before, and I will say it again, this is an issue of land ownership. They wanted to Rohingyas out of the land where they can build an oil pipeline running through Rakhine. One can guess which country that one will lead to.

They had always been like that. Persecuting that, this.

Pray tell where are these mythical civilised Burmese subhumans?

These Neanderthals should be offered no benifit of doubt and treated solely on the basis of their deeds.

 

[UKBengali]

Pray tell where are these mythical civilised Burmese subhumans?

These Neanderthals should be offered no benifit of doubt and treated solely on the basis of their deeds.

Totally agree there. The genocide and ethnic cleansing has mass support with the Barmans.

 

[Centaur]

If United States really the representative of humanity, they should just smash miyanmer army on the ground.
If USA decide to attack miyanmer, Bangladesh should allow them to use our land.
Attack on miyanmer only can solve the genocide case;every other steps are just useless against the savage miyanmer butchers.

. Not ALL Burmese are evil

Almost all are the supporter of violence. Buddhists are peace-loving peoples that are a very big lie today.