UN Urges Inquiry over Rohingya

Killings

GENEVA – Blasting the military crackdown on Rohingya Muslim minority in Burma’s Arakan state, UN human rights chief Navi Pillay has called for an independent investigation into rising claims of abuses by security forces amid reports that some 80,000 people have been displaced in the recent inter-communal clashes.

"We have been receiving a stream of reports from independent sources alleging discriminatory and arbitrary responses by security forces, and even their instigation of and involvement in clashes," said Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the BBC reported on Saturday, July 28.

"Reports indicate that the initial swift response of the authorities to the communal violence may have turned into a crackdown targeting Muslims, in particular members of the Rohingya community."

Rohingya Muslims...An Open Wound

Sectarian violence plagued the western Arakan state last month after the killing of 10 Muslims in an attack by Buddhist vigilantes on their bus.

The attack came following the rape and killing of a Buddhist woman, for which Buddhists blame Muslims.

The violence has left dozens of people dead and tens of thousands homeless.

The official death toll of the rioting and its aftermath has been put at 78, although the real figure may be much higher.

Questioning the official death toll, Pillay welcomed a government decision to allow a UN envoy access to Rakhine state next week, but said it was "no substitute for a fully-fledged independent investigation".

Pillay’s comments followed the announcement of the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) that about 80,000 people have been displaced following inter-communal violence in and around the towns of Sittwe and Maungdaw.

"Some displaced Muslims tell UNHCR staff they would also like to go home to resume work, but fear for their safety," spokesman Andrej Mahecic said.

Thousands of Rohingya Muslims fled their homes after ethnic tensions rocked the western state of Arakan.

Observers have said that Burmese monks were seen blocking international aid to Muslim refugees, who fled their homes in the recent bout of violence.

Muslim Pressures

Getting an increased attention from the Muslim world, Rohngya plight has received support from Muslim groups worldwide who increased pressure on the Burmese government to stop human rights abuses.

"This is an issue around which Burmese or ethnically Burman nationals rally around, and that is part of the problem," Jim Della-Giacoma of the International Crisis Group told Voice of America on Friday.

"So any sort of threats from outside groups would only enforce or harden that nationalism and definitely not help the problem."

The plight of the Muslims in Burma's western Arakan state has long been a concern of the global Muslim community.

But attention has intensified in recent weeks after longstanding tensions erupted between Rohingya Muslims and Buddhists.

Amnesty International said Friday that Rohingya Muslims are increasingly being hit with targeted attacks that have included killings, rape and physical abuse.

Condemning the anti-Muslim abuses, Iran termed the conflict as a religiously inspired "genocide."

Several groups have also joined the conversation, including the Pakistani Taliban, which on Thursday threatened to attack Burma to avenge the abuses against the Rohingya population.

Despite the rejection from some prominent Rohingyas, Chris Lewa of the Arakan Project, an NGO that monitors Rohingya issues, said that Burma's military reportedly arrested 38 Muslim religious leaders in northern Rakhine state Thursday following Taliban threats.

"It appears that [the Burmese military] has responded in arresting a number of imams and mullahs from Maungdaw and Buthidaung along the border with Bangladesh," said Lewa.

Described by the UN as one of the world's most persecuted minorities, Burma's ethnic-Bengali Muslims, generally known as the Rohingyas, are facing a catalogue of discrimination in their homeland

They have been denied citizenship rights since an amendment to the citizenship laws in 1982 and are treated as illegal immigrants in their own home.

The Burmese government as well as the Buddhist majority refuse to recognize the term "Rohingya", referring to them as "Bengalis".

Opposition Leader Suu Kyi Calls for Protection of Ethnics in Myanmar

Aung San Suu Kyi called for new laws to protect Myanmar's fractious ethnic minority groups in her first speech to Parliament, highlighting one of the most challenging issues for the country as it opens up to the outside world.

Enlarge Image

Associated Press

Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi spoke in Parliament on Wednesday.

Investors and diplomats have been waiting to see what Ms. Suu Kyi would do now that she is serving in office as leader of Myanmar's opposition, after spending much of the past two decades under a house arrest imposed by the country's former military junta. Ms. Suu Kyi was released in late 2010 and elected to Parliament in April, after Myanmar's military regime handed power to a nominally civilian government. The new leadership has unveiled a series economic and social reforms resulting in a rollback of Western economic sanctions.

Some investors feared Ms. Suu Kyi's push to clean up the country's business environment would make it harder for foreigners to do business there. She frustrated some Western leaders—and pleased human-rights advocates—when she suggested in June that foreigners should refrain from doing business with Myanmar's state oil-and-gas firm until it took steps to improve its transparency. During the years of Myanmar's military regime, she was a staunch backer of sanctions that barred Western companies from doing business there.

But Ms. Suu Kyi for the most part has signaled support for Western investment in recent months, and she has offered cautious backing for a move by the Obama administration this month to suspend some of the U.S.'s most restrictive sanctions.

By focusing on the country's ethnic divisions in her first parliamentary address, Ms. Suu Kyi is helping steer attention toward an issue that continues to bedevil the country's new reformist government—and that has led to rare criticism of Ms. Suu Kyi. Myanmar has long suffered from intense ethnic divides that at times have threatened to pull the country apart, with more than a half-dozen ethnic groups claiming unfair treatment by the country's dominant Burman ethnic group.

At least one group, the Kachin, continues to wage a low-level war against the government, while violence in western Myanmar last month between Rakhine Buddhists and Muslim Rohingyas left at least 78 people dead and led to a government crackdown in the region. The Rohingya conflict, in particular, has unnerved investors and upset rights advocates who fear the violence could escalate, and push Myanmar's military to reassert some of the control it gave up over the past year.

Human-rights groups, meanwhile, have criticized Ms. Suu Kyi for failing to speak out more in favor of the Rohingyas, who most people in Myanmar consider illegal settlers from Bangladesh.

Rising from her seat at the back of Myanmar's Parliament, Ms. Suu Kyi called for an end to discrimination against ethnic minorities as part of the "emergence of a genuine democratic country," the Associated Press reported Wednesday. She urged the government to pass "necessary laws or amend laws to protect the rights of ethnic nationalities," and said protecting minority rights required more than just maintaining ethnic languages and cultures.

"The high poverty rates in ethnic states clearly indicate that development in ethnic regions is not satisfactory and ethnic conflicts in these regions have not ceased," she said. She didn't mention the recent violence in the Rohingya area.

The challenge for Ms. Suu Kyi—and for the government overall—is that the country's ethnic divisions defy easy solutions, even as popular expectations regarding Ms. Suu Kyi's power to bring about change run high. The administration of President Thein Sein has reached cease-fires with some restive minority groups, but peace with the Kachin has remained elusive, and other groups have at times threatened to restart conflicts. Such an effort could entail more-radical change than the country's government is willing to accept, some analysts believe. Leaders have focused recently on trying to steer more economic development into ethnic areas, but many investors remain wary of sinking money into regions where conflicts could flare up.

Many of the groups occupy areas crucial for the country's economic plans because they are home to large portions of Myanmar's rich natural resources, including natural gas and mined commodities.

"Expectations of the people are very, very high. I'm not sure anybody can meet such high expectations," said Aung Thura, chief executive of Thura Swiss Ltd., a Myanmar research outfit, about Ms. Suu Kyi.

Some supporters of Ms. Suu Kyi have called for her to revive talk of a so-called Panglong agreement that would grant ethnic groups more extensive power-sharing in Myanmar's political system, or even the right to secede. The name comes from a previous agreement engineered by her father, independence hero Gen. Aung San, in the 1940s that sought to give more autonomy to ethnic groups. The deal became moot after Myanmar's military took over in a 1962 coup.

HUMAN RIGHTS

Rohingya families risk their lives to escape persecution in Myanmar

In a desperate attempt to sneak into Thailand and cross over to Malaysia to seek asylum, many stateless Rohingya Muslim families s from Myanmar’s Arakan state have booked seats on illegal ferries.

Over the past few years, during autumn and winter, when the sea is calmer, Rohingya men have regularly taken ferries operated by Bangladesh-based people smugglers to reach Thailand and then go overland to Malaysia to work illegally and support their families back home.

Now, however, many Rohingya men are planning to take their wives and children along. "With my brothers and my wives and our five children, we are set to take the boat for Thailand, with the hope that finally we will get shelter in Malaysia," Mr Faizullah, a cloth trader from a village near Maungdaw in Rakhine state told DW over the phone.

"Many other Rohingya families are also planning to flee Myanmar the same way. Persecution is increasing day by day. Life for all of us is extremely unsafe here."

Last month, the alleged rape and murder of a Buddhist woman by Rohingyas triggered an outbreak of ethnic violence that has killed at least 80 people so far.

An unidentified old Rohingya couple mourns the death of their son

Persecution reaches unprecedented levels

As the violence grinds on, persecution of the Rohingyas has increased to an unprecedented level.

Amnesty International has accused the Burmese security forces as well as ethnic Rakhine Buddhists of assault, rape and unlawful killings, as well as of looting Rohingya households.

Moreover, Rohingya sources from inside Myanmar said that thousands of young men had gone into hiding because Rohingya were being arrested on sight. Hundreds of boys and men are in detention.

"The security forces and Rakhine Buddhists have stalled most income-generating activities in Rohingya villages," Mr Faizullah said. "In many villages, Buddhists have stopped selling rice and other provisions to Rohingyas. Security forces and Buddhists are asking us to flee Myanmar. We shall starve to death or get killed here."

"With women and children the boat voyage for Thailand is dangerous," he added. "Yet we are taking the risk because we don't have any income. We hope Thailand will be sympathetic to us because we shall be with women and children. We are sure that Malaysia will grant us asylum on humanitarian grounds."

Nurul Islam, a Chittagong-based Rohingya rights activist said that many Rohingyas shared this view. "They are saying death at sea will be less painful than dying at the hands of the Rakhines and the security forces."

He also said Myanmar's border security force was encouraging Rohingyas to take the risky boat voyage in exchange for bribes worth 10,000 kyats (12 US dollars) per person.

Parveen Akhtar, an illegal Rohingya refugee woman and her children

Risky voyage to Malaysia

Mr Faizullah said he had already got in touch with a Bangladesh-based agent who would charge about three million kyats to take his family to Malaysia.

Kashem, an agent based in Bangladesh's Teknaf, said that he was planning to help at least nine Arakan-based Rohingya families reach Malaysia later this year, when the sea became calmer.

"Our boat will pick up those five families from a point on the Rakhine coast and take them to Thailand from where they will be taken to Malaysia overland. Some of these families failed to enter Bangladesh last month after they were turned back by Bangladesh border guards," Kashem, who has been in the illegal business for eight years, said.

Bangladesh is keeping to its stand not to allow new Rohingya refugees onto its territory. Last week, the Bangladeshi Foreign Minister Dipu Moni even urged Myanmar's government to start the immediate repatriation of the 350,000 Rohingya refugees living in Bangladesh.

An illegal Rohingya refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh

'Horrifying'

Chowdhury R. Abrar, who teaches international relations at Dhaka University, said Bangladesh should reopen its border to the Rohingyas who are fleeing Myanmar.

"The persistent refusals by the Bangladeshi authorities to admit the Rohingyas have left them with no other choice but to undertake this risky life-threatening voyage. It's horrifying to think what will happen to the men, women and children if the Thai authorities do not allow them access to the Thai shores."

Earlier this week, Colonel Manat Kongpan, who heads Thailand's Internal Security Operations Command, said his agency already had an intelligence input that Rohingyas would in increased numbers target Thailand this autumn and winter. He added that they would not be allowed to use Thai territory to go to Malaysia.

Author: Shaikh Azizur Rahman, Dhaka
Editor: Anne Thomas

International Day of Solidarity with


Rohingya: observed for the very first time

Mohd Azmi, Malaysia Consultative Council of Islamic Societies representative Harun N’Aemi Abdul Ghani and Lin looking on as Patel signs the petition.

PETALING JAYA (July 24, 2012: The Stop the Ethnic Cleansing Rohingya in Myanmar International Action Committee urged the United Nations (UN) to intervene in the situation in Myanmar through a petition handed today.

The eight-point petition was handed by committee coordinator Mohd Azmi Abdul Hamid to UN security advisor for Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei, Devendra Patel and UN coordination specialist Dr Lin Mui Kiang.

Mohd Azmi said the petition was in tandem with the International Day of Solidarity for Rohingya, observed for the first time today.

“This day is an initiative taken by the committee to voice our strong concern on the brutal treatment and persecution of the Rohingya Muslim minority, and it is being observed by about 50 organisations in 15 countries.

“We call on international agencies to convene for a special emergency session to resolve the plight of the Rohingya, and demand that the Myanmar government restore to the Rohingya their place as rightful citizens in the country,” he said.

Patel promised the petition would be handed to relevant persons in the UN.

Mohd Azmi said a special delegation comprising representatives from Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia and Malaysia will be going to Yangon next week to seek an audience with Myanmar president Thein Sein and parliamentarian Aung San Suu Kyi.

After handing over the petition, about 50 Rohingya demonstrated outside the building.

They waved placards, gave speeches and burned printed pictures of brutality on their people before dispersing peacefully half an hour later.

Burma embassy rejects visa of Ansar Burney

United Nations former expert adviser on human rights Ansar Burney 

London - The Myanmar Embassy at London rejected visa applications of two-member team of fact finding mission, wanted to visit Burma to dig out the truth of Muslims massacre.
The Myanmar Embassy informed Ansar Burney Trust International office at London that the Human Rights activists and journalists are not allowed to visit Burma on any fact finding mission.
The Chairman of Ansar Burney Trust International and former federal minister for Human Rights, Ansar Burney, Advocate and Secretary of Pakistan Press Club UK on Thursday applied for visa to visit Burma and they were assured by the Embassy for the grant of Visa, but on Tuesday, they were refused with a pretext that human rights organisations and journalists were not allowed.
The fact finding mission wanted to visit Burma to dig out the truth of massacre of Muslims, ethnic cleansing, rape and other severe atrocities with Muslim community.
Ansar Burney said the act of Myanmar government proves the allegations on Burma government of killing of innocent Muslims and massacre of Muslims with rape of Muslim girls and other atrocities of human rights violations.

Rohingya Muslims Recall Burma Horrors

TEKNAF, Bangladesh – Taking perilous boat journeys to escape killing and persecution in their home country, ethnic-Bengali Muslims, known as Rohingyas, are recounting horrors in Burma.

"My father was shot dead by the Burmese military in front me,” Zohara Khatun, a Rohingya Muslim who fled Burma to Bangladesh, told the BBC News Online.

“Our entire village was destroyed. We ran for our lives.”

The 30-year-old is one of hundreds of Rohingya Muslims, who fled deadly sectarian violence in the western Burmese state of Rakhine to Bangladesh.

“I still don't know what happened to my mother.”She says that her village was attacked by Buddhists during a recent bout of sectarian violence in Rakhine last month.

Sectarian violence plagued the western Rakhine state last month after the killing of 10 Muslims in an attack by Buddhist vigilantes on their bus.

The attack followed the rape and murder of a woman in the state, which borders Bangladesh, with Buddhists blaming Muslims for that.

Thousands of homes have been burnt in the violence, forcing tens of thousands of people to escape for their lives. There were reports of extrajudicial killings of Muslims.

The official death toll of the rioting and its aftermath has been put at 78, although the real figure may be much higher.

"My husband was killed in the riots,” recalled Sayeda Begum, a Rohingya Muslim woman.

“The Burmese police were shooting only at the Muslims, not the Buddhists. The military was just watching from the rooftop and they did not intervene.”

Amnesty International said Friday that Rohingya Muslims are increasingly being hit with targeted attacks that have included killings, rape and physical abuse.

Described by the UN as one of the world's most persecuted minorities, Myanmar’s ethnic-Bengali Muslims, generally known as the Rohingyas, are facing a catalogue of discrimination in their homeland.

They have been denied citizenship rights since an amendment to the citizenship laws in 1982 and are treated as illegal immigrants in their own home.

Myanmar’s government as well as the Buddhist majority refuse to recognize the term "Rohingya", referring to them as "Bengalis".

Homeland

Many Rohingya Muslims find no option but to take risky journeys by sea to neighboring Bangladesh to flee persecution in their homeland.

"We were floating on water for six days. I could not feed my children for days," Khatun recalled.

"When we tried to reach Bangladesh, we were not allowed to enter. We did not know where to go."

Bangladeshi authorities have pushed back nearly 1,500 Rohingya Muslims back into Burma since June, saying it cannot afford to help them.

"It is really putting a direct effect on our social stability as well as the economy. If this influx continues then the problem of stability will be at stake," Lt Col Zahid Hasan of the Bangladeshi border guards said.

Human rights groups have piled up pressures on Dhaka to allow in Rohingya Muslim refugees into the country.

"We understand it is not that easy. So we advocate with the government of Bangladesh to give at least temporary protection status to those arriving from Rakhine state of Myanmar [Burma]," said Dirk Hebecker, a senior official from the UN Refugee Agency in the Bangladeshi town of Cox's Bazaar.

There are an estimated 400,000 Rohingya Muslims in Bangladesh.

Dhaka has repeatedly called for Burma to take back Rohingya Muslim refugees, but without much success.

Earlier this month, Burmese President Thein Sein said that Rohingyas should be settled in a third country.

"We are concerned by the president's comments,” said Ahmed Hossain, a Rohingya community leader in Kutupalong camp, near Cox's Bazaar.

“We belong to Burma and we want to go back to our villages. It is difficult to live in refugee camps like this.

"We are willing to go back to Burma only if our security and rights are guaranteed."

Why is the world ignoring Myanmar's Rohingya?

They have been persecuted and discriminated against for decades but few can even pronounce their name let alone know of their plight.

"There is a lot of latent prejudice, racism, whatever you want to call it, inside Burma towards this community and it's playing out right now. It's not over by any means. It's a tinderbox and it could blow up at any time." - Brad Adams from Human Rights Watch

Buddhist attacks on the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, have picked up over the last few weeks following the rape and murder of a Buddhist woman in May.

Human rights groups say the security forces are also involved in the targeted attacks, which started in June.

Thousands of Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh - but thousands more have been refused entry. For those who do make it across the border their troubles are far from over.

An estimated 800,000 Rohingya live in Myanmar's Rakhine state with another 200,000 in Bangladesh. They are not recognised by either country.

Myanmar has long faced tensions with many of its ethnic minorities, and the new government has agreed to a ceasefire with many of the groups.

But last week, Thein Sein, the president of Myanmar, told the UN that the solution was either to send millions of Rohingya to another country or to have the UN look after them.

"It is true that we are not Burmese. We are an independent state – Arakan. And Rohingya is one of the races of Arakan not Burma .... They [the Burmese] are the ones who intervened, they are the ones who are foreigners [in] this land, they are the ones who invaded." - Mohamed Nour, a Rohingya political activist

"We will take responsibility for ethnic nationalities but it is not at all possible to recognise the illegal border-crossing Rohingya who are not of our ethnicity," he said.

He added that the conflict poses a threat to the democratic and economic reforms his government has launched, warning that: "Stability and peace, the democratisation process and the development of the country, which are in transition right now, could be severely affected and much would be lost."

Inside Story asks: Is the plight of the Rohingya being deliberately ignored? Why has the world turned a blind eye to them?

Joining presenter Sami Zeidan to discuss this are guests: Justin Wintle, a historian and author of Perfect Hostage, a biography of Myanmar's opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi; Brad Adams, the executive director of Human Rights Watch's Asia division; Mohamed Nour, a Rohingya political activist; and Dina Madani of the Muslim Minorities and Communities Department at the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.

"When the communal violence backlash hit the Rohingya in Rakhine state, Aung San Suu Kyi came out with expressions of sympathy for them, but so far she has said nothing about granting them the right of citizenship, and somebody's got to do that in Myanmar." Justin Wintle, a historian and author

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WHO ARE THE ROHINGYA?

Their history dates back to the early seventh century when Arab Muslim traders settled in the area. The UN estimates that there are about 800,000 Rohingya in Myanmar, including people of Bengali heritage who settled centuries ago as well as those who entered the country in recent decades. But the law in Myanmar considers as citizens only those who settled in the country before independence in 1948. Post-independence immigrants are officially considered illegal. Adding to the confusion over who is an illegal immigrant is the large exodus of Rohingya who fled to Bangladesh in the 1980s and 1990s because of persecution.

"[We] have urged all member states as part of the Islamic ummah to reach out to our Muslim brothers who are persecuted and to use the international fora to collectively put pressure on Myanmar to stop the violence." Dina Madani from the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC)

World silent as Muslim massacre goes on in Myanmar

Add caption

Kourosh Ziabari

Mohammad Hossein Nikzad, a close personal friend and a senior student of political science just called me a few hours ago, worriedly talking about the dire situation of the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar and the atrocities the Buddhist Rakhines are committing in the East Asian nation.

He called my attention to the mainstream media’s flagrant inattention to the heartrending genocide of the Muslims in Myanmar, saying that they are only a few second-rate news websites and some of the Iranian news agencies which have given coverage to the course of events.

And unfortunately, he was right. My searching for factual reports and articles regarding the massacre of Muslims in Myanmar by the extremist Buddhists yielded no significant results. I only found some pictorial reports of the burning of Myanmarese children published by Iranian news websites, an article by Ramzy Baroud which was republished in some Asian newspapers and an editorial by Dr Ismail Salami on Press TV. Neither Reuters, nor New York Times, nor Washington Post, nor Fox News nor their comrades and cronies in France, Germany, Britain, Australia and Canada had uttered a single word regarding the painful days the Muslims of Myanmar are experiencing.

Rohingyas are a Muslim people living in the Arakan region. As of 2012, 800,000 Rohingyas live in Myanmar. The United Nations says that they are one of the most persecuted minorities of the world. As a result of systematic discrimination they have endured over the past years, many of them have migrated to Bangladesh and Malaysia and currently 300,000 Rohingya Muslims live in Bangladesh and 24,000 in Malaysia.

The persecution of the Rohingya Muslims dates back to the early World War II when the Japanese forces invaded Burma which was then under the British colonial rule. It’s said that on March 28, 1942, about 5,000 Muslims were massacred in Minbya and Mrohaung Townships by the Rakhine nationalists. According to Amnesty International, the Rohingya Muslims have long suffered from human rights violations and as a result, scores of them immigrated to neighbouring Bangladesh for better living conditions.

One instance of discrimination against the Muslims of Rohingya is that they are denied the right of citizenship by the government. Many of them have escaped to Bangladesh and as many as 111,000 of them live in the Thai-Myanmar border.

According to the website of Arakan Rohingya National Organisation (ARNO), Rohingya Muslims require government permission to marry, are forbidden from having more than two children per family and are subjected to modern-day slavery through forced labour. Because the national government denies them the right to citizenship in their homeland, many Rohingyas have their land confiscated and they are restricted from travel. The Human Rights Watch considers the denial of the right of citizenship the most important problem the Muslims of Rohingya face. The government of Myanmar considers the Rohingyas to be “resident foreigners.” This lack of full citizenship rights means that the Rohingya are subject to other abuses, including restrictions on their freedom of movement, discriminatory limitations on access to education and arbitrary confiscation of property.

Some independent sources have told the Human Rights Watch that the government authorities continue to require Rohingya Muslims to perform forced labour. According to HRW, those who refuse or complain are physically threatened, sometimes with death, and children as young as seven years old have been seen on forced labour teams.

But what brought to light the deplorable situation of the Rohingya Muslims once again was the “2012 Rakhine State riots” which led to the killing of 10 Rohingya Muslims who were murdered by a Rakhine mob of 300 while on their way back from the country’s former capital Rangoon. It said that three Rohingya youths allegedly raped and killed a Rakhine woman and as the government sentenced two of them to death, a self-directed group of extremist Rakhine nationalists attacked a bus of Rohingya Muslims and killed ten of them. According to a group of UK-based NGOs, 650 Rohingya Muslims were killed from June 10 to 28, 1,200 went missing and more than 80,000 others were displaced as a result of rioting, arson and rape.

As reported by Associated Press, 1,336 homes belonging to the Rohingya Muslims were burnt during the unrest. However, The Platform, a UK-based human rights organisation puts the number at 6,000. The Burmese army and police were accused of playing a leading role in targeting the Rohingyas through mass arrests and arbitrary violence.

Due to a media blackout in Myanmar and the lack of direct access by the independent journalists to the region, it’s impossible to verify the number of those who have been killed or the homes which were destroyed in the recent riots; however, what is clear is that the Rohingya Muslims are undergoing intolerable hardships and should be paid due attention by the international community.

In the recent weeks, the Burmese opposition leader and 1991 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi made the headlines when it was announced that she finally delivered her Nobel acceptance speech at Oslo’s City Hall two decades after being awarded the prize and almost two years after being released from house arrest. Suu Kyi, however, unpardonably ignored the plight of the Rohingya Muslims and never spoke a word about the hardships and injustices that have befallen them.

In a blatant act of censorship, the Western mainstream media have also stayed away from the massacre of Rohingya Muslims, showing their strong anti-Muslim bias and their duplicitous attitude toward the concept of human rights.

The Rohingya Muslims of Myanmar are living under extremely appalling circumstances. The dictatorial government of Myanmar has deliberately neglected their ordeal and the international community is overlooking their suffering. Is it in compliance with our human values to remain indifferent and apathetic to this unspeakable tragedy? The Western mass media are run by a number of Islamophobes associated with the Israeli lobby. Isn’t it our duty to stand up and protest their indifference to the suffering of Myanmar Muslims?

              –Veterans Today

‘Burma’s Rohingya minority are the Roma of Asia’

A wave of violence between Muslims and Buddhists in west Burma. Among those targeted in the clashes is the Muslim Rohingya minority, called “Asia’s Roma” by researcher David Camroux.

By Charlotte Oberti 

Western Burma has been rocked by violence since the start of June, when the rape and murder of a 27-year-old Buddhist woman, allegedly by local Muslims, triggered a series of reprisals between communities.

THE FIRST WAVE OF VIOLENCE (REPORT FROM JUNE 15) By FRANCE 24

The attacks have left more than 80 people dead and have displaced thousands, prompting the government to declare a state of emergency in Rakhine, a state formerly known as Arakan.

According to David Camroux, a researcher at the Paris-based Sciences Po-Ceri (Centre for international studies and research), the wave of communitarian violence was a disaster waiting to happen in a country torn between different ethnic groups.

A deeply divided society

Named after a Buddhist ethnic group that makes up the majority of the population, Rakhine state also counts a sizeable Muslim minority, which includes the Rohingya, a particularly persecuted group.

The 800,000-strong Rohingya are pariahs: they are stateless, and pejoratively called “Bengalis” by the Burmese, who consider them to be refugees from neighbouring Bangladesh.

DAVID SCOTT MATHIESON, SENIOR RESEARCHER AT HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH, ON BURMA AND THE LONG-STANDING ISSUE OF ROHINGYA MARGINALISATION

But those who have tried to flee by boat to Bangladesh, where they are equally despised, have been turned back.

“The Rohingya are the Roma of Asia, nobody respects their human rights,” David Camroux told FRANCE 24.

In a country where 89% of the population embraces Buddhism and only 4% Islam, anti-Muslim sentiment is rampant.

“British colonisation left its mark on Burma. Britain’s strategy was to divide and conquer, pitting the various ethnic groups against each other. After independence [in 1948] the Burmese became more nationalist, and nowadays xenophobia is common,” said David Camroux.

The Rohingya, who were stripped of their Burmese citizenship in 1982 by military dictator Ne Win, are not represented in parliament, whereas other ethnic minorities such as the Karen, the Shan and the Kachin are.

“They have no political leader and they live in poverty,” said David Camroux.

Forgotten by the international community

Since securing independence in 1948, Burma has struggled to create a feeling of national unity from a patchwork society. The Burmese government, which has renamed the country Myanmar, officially recognises 135 distinct ethnic groups – but the Rohingya are among them.

Opposition figure Aung San Suu Kyi called for national reconciliation in her Nobel Peace Prize speech in Oslo last Saturday.

On her first trip to Europe in two decades, she also told Burmese exiles “we have to avoid saying and doing things that will make the problem worse, we have to calm it down,” referring to the sectarian clashes.

BURMESE REFUGEES IN THAILAND FEAR REFORM PROCESS By FRANCE 24

“But she stopped short of adopting a clear stance [on the Rohingya issue],” said David Camroux. “The Rohingya have been forgotten by the international community.”

Meanwhile, the situation on the ground remains unclear, especially as much of northern Rakhine state is a no-go area for journalists and independent observers, making it difficult to verify conflicting versions of events.

While local authorities say calm has returned to the area, a statement on Thursday by the Myanmar Ethnic Rohingya Human Rights Organizations Malaysia (Merhrom) said the situation was becoming “worse day by day”.

Rohingyas recount terror of Burma clashes

By Anbarasan Ethirajan

BBC News, Teknaf, near Bangladesh-Burma border

Zohara Khatun says she and her family ran for their lives - her father was killed.

Zohara Khatun is still reeling from the trauma of seeing her father killed in western Burma in June.

"My father was shot dead by the Burmese military in front me. Our entire village was destroyed. We ran for our lives. I still don't know what happened to my mother," she said, sitting in a thatched hut in a fishing village near the town of Teknaf in south-eastern Bangladesh.

Ms Khatun is one of the Rohingya Muslims who have managed to cross into Bangladesh following the communal unrest in western Burma's Rakhine province.

The 30-year old broke down repeatedly as she tried to explain what happened over the border.

She says their village came under attack during clashes between majority Buddhists and local Muslims, mostly from the Rohingya minority. Nearly 80 people were killed in the fighting and thousands were displaced.

Human rights groups allege that Burmese security forces continue to carry out mass arrests, forcing many Rohingya Muslims to flee. A state of emergency declared last month is still in force in many places of the province.

Unwanted

There is no independent confirmation of the claims of extra-judicial killings and other abuses - journalists are denied access to the area. Burma denies its security forces are responsible for human rights abuses.

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Since the June clashes, many hundreds of refugees have been trying to get into Bangladesh, taking perilous boat journeys along the Bay of Bengal and across the river Naf, which separates the two countries.

"We were floating on water for six days. I could not feed my children for days," Ms Khatun said.

"When we tried to reach Bangladesh, we were not allowed to enter. We did not know where to go."

There are an estimated 800,000 Rohingya Muslims living in western Burma. The Burmese authorities argue that the Rohingyas are recent migrants from the Indian sub-continent.

But Dhaka says they belong to Burma, so they are not welcome in Bangladesh either. Dhaka says there are already 400,000 Rohingyas living inside the country, most of them, it says illegally.

Bangladesh has pushed nearly 1,500 Rohingya Muslims back into Burma since June saying it cannot afford to help them.

Some - like the family of Zohara Khatun - have managed to get in. The Rohingyas who came recently have been living in hiding among Bangladeshi villagers. They are afraid that if the authorities come to know about them they will be sent back to Burma immediately.

Bangladeshi authorities say they are determined to stop the latest influx.

Lt Col Zahid Hasan of the Bangladeshi border guards showed me how his men have been patrolling the river Naf to prevent Rohingyas from crossing into the country.

"It is really putting a direct effect on our social stability as well as the economy. If this influx continues then the problem of stability will be at stake," Col Hasan said.

"Sometimes these Rohingya people are involved in drug trafficking, human trafficking and other anti-social activities which are really affecting the social stability in this area."

The Rohingyas deny such allegations.

'We belong to Burma'

The refugees I spoke to accused Burmese security forces of turning a blind eye when their villages came under attack.

Sayeda Begum now has no husband and her children no father

"My husband was killed in the riots. The Burmese police were shooting only at the Muslims, not the Buddhists. The military was just watching from the rooftop and they did not intervene," said Sayeda Begum, another Rohingya Muslim woman.

Rohingya Muslims have flocked to Bangladesh over the past 30 years, bringing with them tales of oppression and exclusion.

They are denied citizenship and land rights in Burma. Human rights groups say they are among the most persecuted minorities in the world.

But Bangladesh's refusal to allow in the recent wave of refugees has also attracted criticism.

"We understand it is not that easy. So we advocate with the government of Bangladesh to give at least temporary protection status to those arriving from Rakhine state of Myanmar [Burma]," said Dirk Hebecker, a senior official from the UN Refugee Agency in the Bangladeshi town of Cox's Bazaar.

The Rohingyas who crossed into Bangladesh in the past three decades have been living in camps along the border. The unofficial refugee camps have no running water, drainage or health facilities. The Rohingyas live in abject poverty and squalor in these camps.

Conditions in the unofficial Rohingya refugee camps are squalid

The recent statement by Burmese President Thein Sein that the Rohingyas should be resettled in a third country has also added to the anxiety of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.

"We are concerned by the president's comments. We belong to Burma and we want to go back to our villages. It is difficult to live in refugee camps like this," said Ahmed Hossain, a Rohingya community leader in Kutupalong camp, near Cox's Bazaar.

"We are willing to go back to Burma only if our security and rights are guaranteed."

For years, Bangladesh has been urging the Burmese authorities to take back the Rohingya refugees living in various camps but without much success.

The latest crisis comes at a time when Burma is gradually moving towards democracy. But many here in Bangladesh argue that the process may not be complete unless the Rohingya issue is resolved.