The UN special human rights reporter for Burma, Tomas Ojea Quintana, met with five detained UN staff members on Wednesday in Burthidaung Prison in Rakhine State.
United Nations human rights envoy Tomas Ojea Quintana meets with Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi at her home in Rangoon on Thursday, August 2, 2012. The UN special rapporteur on Burma arrived on Sunday. He has visited Rakhine State and is scheduled to visit Kachin State on Friday. Photo: NLD
The five UN local staff members were arrested in Maungtaw Township during the sectarian unrest in June, authorities said. Few details have been provided by Burmese officials.
Quintana meet with the UN local staff members in a special room, and he also met with their attorneys, according to a three paragraph article in the state-runNew Light of Myanmar newspaper on Friday.
The state-run newspaper said that on Thursday Quintana toured refugee camps in Sittwe Township along with a group of ambassadors who were brought to Rakhine State to receive a briefing on the government’s relief effort by Union Minister for Border Affairs Lt-Gen Thein Htaya and other officials.
On July 13, Mizzima reported that three UN employs had appeared in a hearing before the Maungdaw District Court, after being detained by the Nasaka, a border guard force, during the sectarian violence in June.
The Narinjara website also reported a worker with Doctors without Borders was also arrested and appeared in court, but Narinjara was unable to confirm that report.
Officials earlier said at least some members of the detained UN staff are accused of having started fires during the unrest.
Burmese authorities claimed last week that three of the UNHCR local employees detained during the unrest were somehow involved in the riots. Earlier, a government spokesperson claimed some took part in the burning of structures.
“The government has sound evidence that the three UN employees were involved in the Rakhine riots,” said Thein Htay, the border affairs minister, in the first official explanation of the arrests.
The UN continues to call for detailed information about the employees and why they are being held.
“We haven’t had any access to them,” UNHCR spokeswoman Vivian Tan said in Bangkok recently. “We are still unaware of what they’ve been charged with.”
Burma has been asked to clarify why the local aid workers were detained.
The detained staff is believed to include Burmese nationals working for the UNHCR, the agency's spokeswoman Melissa Fleming told a UN briefing in Geneva. Another UN official said the 10 detained included three workers with the UN World Food Programme and some staff from Doctors Without Borders.
The Burmese government has provided almost no information about the detained aid workers even though at least three were brought to court this month in Rakhine State. The authorities offered no details about the hearings or possible charges.
Rohingya Muslim people, fled from Myanmar, hang out at a camp of Border Guards of Bangladesh (BGB). — AP Photo
DHAKA: Bangladesh has ordered three international charities to stop providing aid to Rohingya refugees who cross the border to flee persecution and violence in Myanmar, an official said Thursday.
France’s Doctors without Borders (MSF) and Action Against Hunger (ACF) as well as Britain’s Muslim Aid UK have been told to suspend their services in the Cox’s Bazaar district bordering Myanmar, local administrator Joynul Bari said.
“The charities have been providing aid to tens of thousands of undocumented Rohingya refugees illegally. We asked them to stop all their projects in Cox’s Bazaar following directive from the NGO Affairs Bureau,” he told AFP.
Bari said the charities “were encouraging an influx of Rohingya refugees”from across the border in Myanmar’s Rakhine state in the wake of recent sectarian violence that left at least 80 people killed.
The charities have provided healthcare, training, emergency food and drinking water to the refugees living in Cox’s Bazaar since the early 1990s. MSF runs a clinic near one of the Rohingya camp which provides services to 100,000 people.
Speaking a Bengali dialect similar to one in southeast Bangladesh, the Rohingyas are Muslims seen as illegal immigrants by the Buddhist-majority Myanmar government and many Burmese.
They are viewed by the United Nations as one of the world’s most persecuted minorities.
Obaidur Rahman, country head of Muslim Aid UK in Bangladesh, confirmed to AFP that his group had stopped its Rohingya project following the order.
The government says some 300,000 Rohingya Muslims are living in the country, the vast majority in Cox’s Bazaar, after fleeing persecution in Myanmar. About 30,000 are registered refugees who live in two camps run by the United Nations.
In recent weeks, Bangladesh has turned away boats carrying hundreds of Rohingya fleeing the violence in Myanmar despite pressure from the United States and rights groups to grant them refuge.
Myanmar security forces opened fire on Rohingya Muslims, committed rape and stood by as rival mobs attacked each other during the recent wave of sectarian violence, New York-based Human Rights Watch said Wednesday.
Abuses Follow Horrific June Violence Between Arakan Buddhists and Rohingya
AUGUST 1, 2012
An Arakan man holds homemade weapons in front of a house that was burned during fighting between Arakan Buddhist and Rohingya Muslim (and non-Rohingya Muslim) communities in Sittwe on June 10, 2012.
Burmese security forces failed to protect the Arakan and Rohingya from each other and then unleashed a campaign of violence and mass roundups against the Rohingya. The government claims it is committed to ending ethnic strife and abuse, but recent events in Arakan State demonstrate that state-sponsored persecution and discrimination persist.
Brad Adams, Asia director(Bangkok) – Burmese security forces committed killings, rape, and mass arrests against Rohingya Muslims after failing to protect both them and Arakan Buddhists during deadly sectarian violence in western Burma in June 2012. Government restrictions on humanitarian access to the Rohingya community have left many of the over 100,000 people displaced and in dire need of food, shelter, and medical care.
The 56-page report, “‘The Government Could Have Stopped This’: Sectarian Violence and Ensuing Abuses in Burma’s Arakan State,” describes how the Burmese authorities failed to take adequate measures to stem rising tensions and the outbreak of sectarian violence in Arakan State. Though the army eventually contained the mob violence in the state capital, Sittwe, both Arakan and Rohingya witnesses told Human Rights Watch that government forces stood by while members from each community attacked the other, razing villages and committing an unknown number of killings.
“Burmese security forces failed to protect the Arakan and Rohingya from each other and then unleashed a campaign of violence and mass roundups against the Rohingya,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The government claims it is committed to ending ethnic strife and abuse, but recent events in Arakan State demonstrate that state-sponsored persecution and discrimination persist.”
The Burmese government should take urgent measures to end abuses by their forces, ensure humanitarian access, and permit independent international monitors to visit affected areas and investigate abuses, Human Rights Watch said.
The “Government Could Have Stopped This,” is based on 57 interviews conducted in June and July with affected Arakan, Rohingya, and others in Burma and in Bangladesh, where Rohingya have sought refuge from the violence and abuses.
The violence erupted in early June after reports circulated that on May 28 an Arakan Buddhist woman was raped and killed in the town of Ramri by three Muslim men. Details of the crime were circulated locally in an incendiary pamphlet, and on June 3 a large group of Arakan villagers in Toungop stopped a bus and brutally killed 10 Muslims on board. Human Rights Watch confirmed that nearby local police and army stood by and watched but did not intervene. In retaliation, on June 8 thousands of Rohingya rioted in Maungdaw town after Friday prayers, killed an unknown number of Arakan, and destroyed considerable Arakan property. Violence between Rohingya and Arakan then swept through Sittwe and surrounding areas.
Marauding mobs from both Arakan and Rohingya communities stormed unsuspecting villages and neighborhoods, brutally killed residents, and destroyed and burned homes, shops, and houses of worship. With little to no government security present to stop the violence, people armed themselves with swords, spears, sticks, iron rods, knives, and other basic weaponry. Inflammatory anti-Muslim media accounts and local propaganda fanned the violence. Numerous Arakan and Rohingya who spoke to Human Rights Watch reached the conclusion that the authorities could have prevented the violence and the ensuing abuses could have been avoided.
A 29-year-old Arakan man and an older Rohingya man each told Human Rights Watch, separately but in the same words, “The government could have stopped this.”
The Burmese army’s presence in Sittwe eventually stemmed the violence. However, on June 12, Arakan mobs burned down the homes of up to 10,000 Rohingya and non-Rohingya Muslims in the city’s largest Muslim neighborhood while the police and paramilitary Lon Thein forces opened fire on Rohingya with live ammunition.
A Rohingya man in Sittwe, 36, told Human Rights Watch that an Arakan mob “started torching the houses. When the people tried to put out the fires, the paramilitary shot at us. And the group beat people with big sticks.” Another Rohingya man from the same neighborhood said, “I was just a few feet away. I was on the road. I saw them shoot at least six people – one woman, two children, and three men. The police took their bodies away.”
In Sittwe, where the population was about half Arakan and half Muslim, most Muslims have fled the city or were forcibly relocated, raising questions about whether the government will respect their right to return home. Human Rights Watch found the center of the once diverse capital now largely segregated and devoid of Muslims.
In northern Arakan State, the army, police, Nasaka border guard forces, and Lon Thein paramilitaries have committed killings, mass arrests, and other abuses against Rohingya. They have operated in concert with local Arakan residents to loot food stocks and valuables from Rohingya homes. Nasaka and soldiers have fired upon crowds of Rohingya villagers as they attempted to escape the violence, leaving many dead and wounded.
“If the atrocities in Arakan had happened before the government’s reform process started, the international reaction would have been swift and strong,” said Adams. “But the international community appears to be blinded by a romantic narrative of sweeping change in Burma, signing new trade deals and lifting sanctions even while the abuses continue.”
Since June, the government has detained hundreds of Rohingya men and boys, who remain incommunicado. The authorities in northern Arakan State have a long history of torture and mistreatment of Rohingya detainees, Human Rights Watch said. In the southern coastal town of Moulmein, 82 fleeing Rohingya were reportedly arrested in late June and sentenced to one year in prison for violating immigration laws.
“The Burmese authorities should immediately release details of detained Rohingya, allow access to family members and humanitarian agencies, and release anyone not charged with a crime recognized under international law in which there is credible evidence,” Adams said. “This is a test case of the government’s stated commitment to reform and protecting basic rights.”
Burma’s 1982 Citizenship Law effectively denies Burmese citizenship to the Rohingya population, estimated at 800,000 to 1 million people. On July 12, Burmese President Thein Sein said the “only solution” to the sectarian strife was to expel the Rohingya to other countries or to camps overseen by the United Nations refugee agency.
“We will send them away if any third country would accept them,” he said.
Burmese law and policy discriminate against Rohingya, infringing on their rights to freedom of movement, education, and employment. Burmese government officials typically refer to the Rohingya as “Bengali,” “so-called Rohingya,” or the pejorative “Kalar,” and Rohingya face considerable prejudice from Burmese society generally, including from longtime democracy advocates and ethnic minorities who themselves have long faced oppression from the Burmese state.
Burma’s new human rights commission – led by chairman Win Mra, an ethnic Arakan – has not played an effective role in monitoring abuses in Arakan State, Human Rights Watch said. In a July 11 assessment of the sectarian violence, the commission reported on no government abuses, claimed all humanitarian needs were being met, and failed to address Rohingya citizenship and persecution.
“The Burmese government needs to urgently amend its citizenship law to end official discrimination against the Rohingya,” Adams said. “President Thein Sein cannot credibly claim to be promoting human rights while calling for the expulsion of people because of their ethnicity and religion.”
The sectarian violence has created urgent humanitarian needs for both Arakan and Rohingya communities, Human Rights Watch said. Local Arakan organizations, largely supported by domestic contributions, have provided food, clothing, medicine, and shelter to displaced Arakan. By contrast, the Rohingya population’s access to markets, food, and work remains dangerous or blocked, and many have been in hiding for weeks.
The government has restricted access to affected areas, particularly Rohingya areas, crippling the humanitarian response. United Nations and humanitarian aid workers have faced arrest as well as threats and intimidation from the local Arakan population, which perceives the aid agencies as biased toward the Rohingya. Government restrictions have made some areas, such as villages south of Maungdaw, inaccessible to humanitarian agencies.
“The authorities should immediately grant unfettered humanitarian access to all affected populations and begin work to prevent future violence between the communities,” Adams said. “The government should assist both communities with property restitution and ensure all of the displaced can return home and live in safety.”
Since the June violence, thousands of Rohingya have fled to neighboring Bangladesh where they have faced pushbacks from the Bangladeshi government in violation of international law. Human Rights Watch witnessed Rohingya men, women, and children who arrived onshore and pleaded for mercy from Bangladesh authorities, only to be pushed back to sea in barely seaworthy wooden boats during rough monsoon rains, putting them at grave risk of drowning or starvation at sea or persecution in Burma. It is unknown how many died in these pushbacks. Those who were able to make it into Bangladesh live in hiding, with no access to food, shelter, or protection.
Bangladesh is obligated to open its borders and provide the Rohingya at least temporary refuge until it is safe for them to return, in accordance with international human rights norms. Human Rights Watch called on concerned governments to assist Bangladesh in doing so and press both Burma and Bangladesh to end abuses and ensure the safety of Rohingyas.
“Bangladesh is violating its international legal obligations by callously pushing asylum seekers in rickety boats back into the open sea,” Adams said.
Accounts From “The Government Could Have Stopped This”“We discussed it and decided to burn down some [Rohingya] villages that all the Muslims used as a headquarters. For example, Narzi and Bhumi. We first started to set fire to Bhumi village, the headquarters of the Muslim people. We burned down the houses and then they burned down ours. In some areas, we did not burn down houses. It would have been foolish in some areas where most houses are near Arakan houses. They would all catch fire. It was a three-day offensive. It started near Bhumi village near Sittwe University because Bhumi is their headquarters.”
– Arakan man, 45, Sittwe, Arakan State, June 2012
“The first Muslim people [who arrived] used guns. At that time, we heard the shooting and my husband tried to attack the Muslim people. They killed him right there in the village. His arm was cut off and his head was nearly cut off. He was 35 years old.”
– Arakan mother of five children, 31, Sittwe, Arakan State, June 2012
“I fell down and couldn’t breathe I was so scared. I saw all the violence. Around 300 Muslims came to attack our village. They came and burned the houses. I saw them burning the houses.... The police did not come during the violence. When the Muslims came and burned the village, I fled. It was not until I got to Sittwe that I saw any police.”
– Arakan woman, 40, Sittwe, Arakan State, June 2012
“In front of my eyes, first the Lon Thein [paramilitaries] came and said they came to protect us, but when the Arakan came and torched the houses, we tried to put out the fires and they started beating us. A lot of people were shot [by the police] at a close distance. I saw people get shot at close range. The whole village witnessed it. They were people from my village. They were 15 or 20 feet away from me.... I saw at least 50 people killed.... When we tried to go put out the fire, we were not allowed to go. First they shot once in the air, and then at the people.”
– Rohingya man, 28, Sittwe, Arakan State, June 2012
“The government did not return the dead bodies to our family. They took them and cremated them in the monastery. I did not get the bodies of my two brothers-in-law.... They were killed by the Arakan in front of me. The police were there. It was not far from the police. They were killed in front of me and the police did nothing.”
– Rohingya man, 65, Sittwe, Arakan State, June 2012
UN human rights expert on Burma, Tomas Ojea Quintana, left for Rakhine State on Tuesday to look into reports of abuses against Rakhine Muslims.
Burma’s foreign minister told the media on Monday that “maximum restraint” was used in Rakhine State to quell the sectarian violence.
Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin made his remarks in a press conference with UN rights envoy Quintana, saying security forces did not abuse Rakhine Muslims.
Quintana travels to Rakhine State, following international calls for a credible investigation into the unrest by a neutral body. The UN said this week that Quintana will have only a brief time in the state, but he will talk with government officials, aid groups and others.
Quintana has made clear that investigating the conflict is a priority of his weeklong trip, which started Sunday. The violence in Rakhine State is one of the "challenges" facing Myanmar despite recent political reforms, he siad. On Tuesday, Quintana planned to tour the Muslim-majority townships of Maungdaw and Buthidaung near Bangladesh's border and on Wednesday visit refugee camps in the state capital, Sittwe.
The U.N. has a direct interest in the Rakhine issue because five workers for the world body's refugee agency are among 858 people still detained by authorities in connection with the unrest. Five other workers for international aid agencies are also in detention. The aid workers have been accused of taking part in the violence and "setting fire to villages," Border Affairs Minister Lt. Gen. Thein Htay told reporters, according to a report by The Associated Press.
The United Nations and Muslim groups had raised fears of a crackdown on Muslims following violent clashes involving the minority Muslim Rohingya community in early June, and reports of widespread roundups of Rakhine Muslims.
Wunna Maung Lwin said Burma "totally rejects the attempts by some quarters to politicize and internationalize this situation as a religious issue.”
Quintana will visit Rakhine State where up to 80,000 people still remain displaced follwoing fighting that erupted between Buddhist and Muslim communities in early June.
According to official figures, at least 77 people were killed in the unrest, including eight killed by security forces.
Of the displaced, Burmese officials say the vast majority, around 53,000, are Muslims.
Burma considers an estimated 800,000 Rohingya in the country to be foreigners and many citizens see them as illegal immigrants from neighbouring Bangladesh and view them with hostility.
Fears about their plight have spread across the Islamic world, with threats of violent reprisals against Burma from extremists.
Quintana will be in the country for seven days. On Friday, he will visit Kachin State, the scene of ongoing fighting between the government and ethnic rebels.
The UN has urged Burma to cooperate with a “prompt, independent” investigation into the unrest in Rakhine State.
Last week saw a chorus of protests from international groups calling for a credible investigation into the sectarian violence that has wracked western Burma during the past two months, claiming up to 78 lives and the burning of thousands of homes and businesses in violence pitting Rohingya Muslim and Rakhine Buddhist in attacks and clashes, although the attacks are not exclusively centered on religion, say reports.
RI ready to fight for Rohingya
Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa Indonesia
In his first official statement regarding the prolonged communal violence in western Myanmar between Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims, Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said that Indonesia would raise the problem at the Extraordinary Summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, scheduled for mid-August.
Marty said that Indonesia would emphasize its opposition to any kind of human rights violations, including the violence against the Rohingya in Myanmar.
“We must highlight, again, that Indonesia has consistently rejected discrimination based on religion, ethnicity, or any other reason. Our stance also applies to the ongoing attacks against the Rohingya in Myanmar,” Marty told reporters at his office.
Marty also insisted that Indonesia would not sit idly by while western Myanmar burns.
He said that Indonesia had sent an envoy to Bangladesh and Myanmar in 2010 to investigate the conflict between the Rohingya and the Rakhine after refugees from the conflict poured in into the country.
“We have always brought the issue into multilateral and bilateral discussions with Myanmar. So it’s not true that we don’t care. Our silence doesn’t mean we don’t care,” Marty said.
Data from the Foreign Ministry said that 394 Rohingya have sought refugee status in Indonesia, 124 of whom were ready to be resettled in third party countries. The remaining 199 displaced persons are sheltered in a number of refugee camps in the country.
“We always open our door for anyone who needs our help,” Marty said.
Separately, presidential spokesman Julian Aldrin Pasha said that the Indonesian government would not comment on granting political asylum status to the Rohingya who had arrived in the country.
“I have no statement with regard to that,” Julian said at the Presidential Office on Monday.
Hundreds of the ethnic Muslim have fled Myanmar for several nearby states, including Indonesia.
The United Nations claims there are about 800,000 Rohingya in Myanmar, and considers them among the most persecuted minorities in the world.
At least 78 people have been killed in communal violence there in the last month.
Reports say the Rohingya are currently stranded in the Riau Islands, with some in other locations around West and East Java. They left Myanmar to seek safety and asylum from the Indonesian government, with some apparently hoping to continue on to Australia for the same purpose. They are reportedly surviving in poor conditions, lacking food and other basic necessities.
When asked what the government would do about the situation, Julian said the administration had taken all possible measures, but for the time being, Indonesia could only use diplomacy. “The government has been trying its best in our diplomatic efforts with Myanmar. Hopefully these efforts will stop the violence,” he said.
“Our position is clear: we will make any possible diplomatic efforts to help our Rohingya brothers,” Julian added.
Myanmar, meanwhile, has denied the communal conflict was motivated by religion and rejected any effort to bring an international presence into the conflict.
“Peace and stability is indispensable for the on-going democratization and reform process in Myanmar. National solidarity and racial harmony among different nationalities is vital for the perpetuation of the Union. Myanmar is a multi-religious country where Buddhists, Christians, Muslims and Hindus have been living together in peace and harmony for centuries, hence recent incidents in Rakhine State are neither because of religious oppression nor discrimination,” Myanmar’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said in a statement.
Monday, July 30, 2012
Myanmar rejects Muslim crackdown concerns
UN Human Rights Special Envoy Tomas Ojea Quintana (C) arrives at a hotel in Yangon at the start of his seven day visit to the country on July 29, 2012. Quintana will visit the conflict-ridden Rakhine state and will meet with Myanmar President Thein Sein
Burma has told a UN rights envoy that it rejects accusations of abuse by security forces in the wake of communal unrest in western Rakhine State.
The United Nations had raised fears of a crackdown on Muslims following violent conflict between the minority Muslim Rohingya community and the Buddhists in early June.
In a press conference attended by UN Special Rapporteur Tomas Ojea Quintana, Burma's foreign minister Wunna Maung Lwin said the government had exercised "maximum restraint" in bringing an end to the violence.
He says Burma "totally rejects the attempts by some quarters to politicise and internationalise this situation as a religious issue".
On Tuesday Mr Quintana plans to visit Rakhine, where tens of thousands still remain displaced by fighting that erupted between Buddhist and Muslim communities in early June.
According to official figures, at least 77 people were killed in the unrest, including eight killed by security forces.
Of the more than 60,000 displaced, Burmese officials say the vast majority, around 53,000 are Muslims.
Burma considers the estimated 800,000 Rohingya in the country to be foreigners while many citizens see them as illegal immigrants from neighbouring Bangladesh and view them with hostility.
Fears about their situation have spread across the Islamic world, with threats of violent reprisals against Burma from extremists.
Earlier this month, President Thein Sein told the United Nations that refugee camps or deportation was the "solution" for the Rohingya.
Mr Quintana is set to meet the Burmese leader in the capital Naypyidaw on Friday.
Burma’s foreign minister told the media on Monday that “maximum restraint” was used in Rakhine State to quell the sectarian violence.
