Wirathu: The Pit Bull Of Myanmar Regime – OpEd

Source eurasiarview, 24 Jan

By Dr. Habib Siddiqui

Myanmar's terrorist – Buddhist monk Wirathu is untouchable inside the country. In 2003 he was sentenced to 25 years in prison but was released in 2010 along with other political prisoners. Most keen observers knew the reason as to why this anti-Muslim zealot was freed by the regime. He was to serve as its pit bull and inciter for committing hate crimes and ethnic cleansing drives against the minority Muslims, esp. the Rohingya people that live in the Arakan (Rakhine) state of Myanmar, bordering Bangladesh.

And Wirathu continues to deliver for the regime. He has effectively become the face of Burmese Buddhism. His '969' fascist movement has led to widespread hate crimes and genocidal campaigns against the minority Muslims all across the Buddhist-dominated country, and has brutally rendered more than a million Muslims homeless. Many Burmese Muslims are risking their lives to get out of this den of hatred and intolerance, once called Burma. So frightening is the situation inside Myanmar, esp. the Rakhine state, even the Rohingya refugees that live under horrible conditions in makeshift camps inside Cox's Bazar district of Bangladesh don't want to return to their ancestral land inside the Buddhist country.

That is what Buddhist terrorism has done for its victims! And Wirathu's signature is everywhere in all such genocidal activities against the minority Muslims since his release from the prison.
In recent days, Wirathu has again shown what a monster and ugly devil he is. He had the audacity of calling the UN special envoy – Yanghee Lee – a 'whore' and a 'bitch.'

So what was Ms. Lee's crime? Well, Ms Lee, who was on a 10-day trip to the South East Asian country, said the Rohingya faced systematic discrimination. She criticized draft legislation, proposed by a coalition of nationalist Buddhist monks, which includes curbs on interfaith marriage and religious conversions.

All these proposals and calling a spade a spade were too much for the Buddhist monk Wirathu to swallow. Last Friday, he spoke at a public rally where he criticized the UN interference and personally attacked Ms Lee, according to local media.

"We have explained about the race protection law, but the bitch criticized the laws without studying them properly," he said from the stage to the crowd.

"Don't assume that you are a respectable person because of your position. For us, you are a whore." He added, "You can offer your arse (ass) to the kalars if you so wish but you are not selling off our Rakhine State."

And yet, despite world-wide condemnations for his sexist and insulting remarks, the Myanmar government has not silenced its pit bull – the foul-mouthed monk – Wirathu.

I am not surprised. As already hinted, he is their guy, doing their evil, playing their games and ethnically cleansing Muslims from the face of Myanmar – which were/are all sanctioned by the Myanmar government for decades.

The Fortify Rights, a human rights group, last year provided evidences showing that discrimination of the Rohingya Muslims was the state policy. It was premeditated and willful. It said that the government's orders, shown in leaked documents, amounted to "state policies of persecution" in Rakhine state. In a report, Fortify Rights said it had analyzed 12 government documents from 1993 to 2013, and found that government policies imposed "extensive restrictions on the basic freedoms of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar's Rakhine state". The policies restricted Rohingya's "movement, marriage, childbirth, home repairs and construction of houses of worship", it said. Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine state were also prohibited from travelling between townships, or out of Rakhine, without permission, the report said.

The report said a government order stipulated that married Rohingya couples in parts of Rakhine state could not have more than two children, while another document said Rohingya had to apply for permission to marry, in what the report described as a "humiliating and financially prohibitive" process.

One document published in the report said officials should force a woman to breastfeed her child if there were doubts over whether she was the birth mother.

The restrictions against the Rohingyas have been known about for some time, but what's new for the world community back in February of 2014 was that campaigners said they had the official orders issued by the Buddhist-dominated local government in Rakhine state.

A year is approaching soon since the publication of the report from the Fortify Rights. And nothing has happened to motivate the criminal Myanmar regime and its murderous rank and file within the larger Buddhist community to change its genocidal policies against the Rohingya people, who remain the most persecuted people in our time.

Last week, the UN passed a resolution calling on Myanmar to give the Rohingya people citizenship.

It is highly unlikely that the Myanmar regime will oblige. Its pit bull – the face of Burmese Buddhism – has already opened its ugly mouth, insulting the UN, of which Myanmar remains a member state. The UN human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein has called on religious and political leaders in Myanmar to unequivocally condemn all forms of incitement to hatred including abhorrent public personal attack against Ms. Lee. Instead of apologizing, Wirathu has defended his personal attack on United Nations special rapporteur Yanghee Lee, saying senior monks had used similar language in the past – even at the sacred Shwedagon Pagoda.

Buddhist monks are a powerful political lobby inside Myanmar. With a general election scheduled this year I doubt any political leader would speak up and risk Wirathu and the fascist monks turning on them. It should also be noted that Buddhist monastic code, called Patimokkha, allows for use of such abusive words that were used by Wirathu.

It would be thus foolish of the world community to expect the unexpected from inside Myanmar. It has to take actions that are meaningful and that stop the extinction of the Rohingya people.
As I have said a number of times, feeding only carrots to an unruly donkey won't do the tricks. Only biting sanctions can sober the Myanmar's pariah regime and its pit bull Wirathu. When they feel the pain they will know what have contributed to their pains and hopefully, change their demonic course for the better.

Dr. Habib Siddiqui

Dr. Habib Siddiqui has a long history as a peaceful activist in an effort towards improving human rights and creating a just and equitable world. He has written extensively in the arena of humanity, global politics, social conscience and human rights since 1980, many of which have appeared in newspapers, magazines, journals and the Internet.

He has tirelessly championed the cause of the disadvantaged, the poor and the forgotten here in Americas and abroad. Commenting on his articles, others have said, "His meticulously researched essays and articles combined with real human dimensions on the plight of the displaced peoples of Rohingya in Myanmar, Chechnya, Bosnia, Kosovo and Palestine, and American Muslims in the post-9/11 era have made him a singular important intellectual offering a sane voice with counterpoints to the shrill threats of the oppressors and the powerful. He offers a fresh and insightful perspective on a whole generation of a misunderstood and displaced people with little or no voice of their own."

He has authored 11 books, five of which are now available through Amazon.com. His latest book - Devotional Stories is published by A.S. Noordeen, Malaysia.

MSF finds worsened health conditions in Myanmar's Rakhine

Source nationmultimedia, 21 Jan

MSF finds worsened health conditions in Myanmar - © Ye Naung/ 7 Days News, EPA

Yangon (dpa) - Conditions for patients in Myanmar's western province of Rakhine have worsened since the expulsion of medical aid group Doctors Without Borders (MSF), the group said Wednesday after restarting medical clinics in the area.

The group was expelled by authorities in February after treating victims from both sides of clashes between Buddhist locals and members of the Muslim ethnic Royingya community.

"We learn that, during our suspension, just a few patients received medical care from government," said Reshma Adatia, operational adviser to MSF-Holland on Myanmar.

"It's like we have to start from a minus situation."

The group restarted primary health clinics on December 17 after talks with the government.

In the past four weeks it has treated more than 3,480 outpatients and consulted more than 550 pregnant women, MSF said on Tuesday.

MSF also provides healthcare to all ethnic groups in Shan and Kachin states as well as Yangon.

Myanmar becomes battleground of growing China-U.S. rivalry

Source Thehindhu, 23 Jan

A rebel soldier peers from an outpost south of Laiza, in Myanmar's Kachin state:Source: AFP

China's focus on deepening ties with Latin America has impacted U.S. engagement with Myanmar

China is feeling the heat in Myanmar — a country which is central to Beijing's energy security and Silk Road plans — following Washington's push to entrench itself in Nay Pyi Daw.

The website Duowei run by overseas Chinese is reporting that China's focus on deepening ties with Latin American countries, in Washington's backyard, has impacted on the decision by the United States to energise its engagement with Myanmar.

Analysts say Yunnan — China's strategic province, which is one of the starting points of President Xi Jinping's 21st century Maritime Silk Road (MSR) project — could be the ultimate target of American inroads in Myanmar. Yunnan is China's gateway to Southeast Asia, sharing common borders with Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam.

The contest for influence seems to be peaking in the run-up to the October elections in Myanmar, whose results are likely to define the country's geopolitical gradient.

According to Duowei, talks on human rights between the U.S. and Myanmar took place between January 11 and 15. But apart from the Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labour Tom Malinowski, who headed the delegation, two senior officials from the U.S. Pacific Command — Lieutenant General Anthony Crutchfield, as well as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence for East Asia, David F. Helvey also joined the dialogue. Gen. Crutchfield also paid a visit to Myitkyina in Kachin state, the region embroiled in a civil war. A Chinese consular delegation is currently visiting Myitkyina, to ascertain whether some Chinese citizens were trapped in the Kachin state amid armed clashes.

Observers say that any deterioration of the situation following an intensification of fighting between the Myanmar's government forces and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) should worry China, as it could trigger a flood of refugees towards Yunnan, which is not far from that zone.

The website Sina Military Network is reporting that should Myanmar's army attack Pharkant, one of the main Kachin bases, which is close to the Chinese border, it could trigger refugee flows into Yunnan, a situation similar to 2009, when there was an outpouring of refugees, following an attack by government troops in the Kokang Special Region, which borders Yunnan.

Any refugee exodus can flare social tensions as the Kachin people belong to the same ethnic group as the Jingpo people who reside in the Yunnan province, and would be naturally empathetic to those displaced across the border. Instability in northern Myanmar also has economic implications as China is a major market for jade, gemstones and teak, which originates in the Kachin hills.

For China, a loss of turf in Myanmar can remove one of the hinges of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the MSR — both essential to integrate the economies of Asia and Europe, with China as the hub. China has signed an agreement to build a railroad from Myanmar's port of Kyaukpyu on the Bay of Bengal to its Yunnan province. But the implementation of the project, which would help China to evade the Malacca straits — an international trade artery in waters dominated by the U.S. — is encountering serious difficulties. These obstructions could multiply if a pro-Washington government takes charge in Nay Pyi Daw, following the elections.

Kyaukpyu is also the starting point of a gas and oil pipeline that heads towards Yunnan. Analysts say that Beijing is already wary of local protests against the project, which could multiply if an unfriendly government takes charge in Myanmar.

98 Rohingya migrants detained

Source Bangkokpost, 11 Jan

• A Rohingya migrant receives a health examination at a detention centre in Songkhla's Sadao district. TAWATCHAI KEMGUMNERD

A total of 98 Rohingya migrants, believed to have been smuggled into the country by a human-trafficking ring, were arrested at a checkpoint in Hua Sai district of Nakhon Si Thammarat province early on Sunday, according to Manager Online. 

Pol Capt Somporn Thongcheen, deputy suppression chief of Hua Sai district, said police set up the checkpoint on the Nakhon Si Thammarat-Songkhla road at Village Group 2 in tambon Sai Khao after obtaining information that a number of illegal migrants would be sent through Hua Sai district, heading for Songkhla.

At about 4am, a convoy of vehicles was spotted moving along the road toward the checkpoint. Officers were able to stop five of them, but the rest managed to escaped. The vehicles were three four-door pickup trucks, one pickup truck modified as a van, and a Toyota Fortuner.

The drivers of three vehicles fled the scene. Only two drivers were arrested. They were identified as Sawat Phadungchart, 29, of Ranong's Suksamran district, and Suthipong Chuaypat, 49, of Surat Thani's Chaiya district.

The 98 Rohingya migrants were found crammed in the five vehicles. One of them, a woman, died, probably because she had been squashed tight in a vehicle for a long time. All of the others appeared exhausted.

The Rohingya were taken to Hua Sai district police station for examination and official recording. They were then taken in small groups to Hua Sai Hospital for treatment as all had been crammed into the vehicles without food for two days.

Under initial questioning, the two drivers said they had picked up the Rohingya from a coastal area of Phangnga and were taking them to Songkhla.

Churin Khwanthong, chief of the social development and human security office of Nakhon Si Thammarat, assigned officials to interview each of the Rohingya migrants through interpreters to find out if they were victims of a human-trafficking movement.

Many local Muslim people, on learning of the arrest of the Rohingya, came to the police station to give them food and clothing. 

The dead Rohingya woman was buried by workers of the Pracha Ruamjai Foundation.

Rohingya dies in crammed pickup truck

Source Bangkokpost, 12 Jan

 

Rohingya migrants wait to be questioned at Hua Sai police station in Nakhon Si Thammarat after they were arrested early yesterday. Nucharee Rakrun.

She was among 98 Rohingya migrants believed to have been smuggled into the country by a human-trafficking ring. They were arrested at a checkpoint in Hua Sai district of Nakhon Si Thammarat province early... 

The dead woman was buried by workers from the Pracha Ruamjai Foundation.

Pol Capt Somporn Thongcheen, deputy inspector in charge of crime suppression at Hua Sai poli ce station, said the 98 migrants were found crammed into five vehicles.

He said the woman most likely suffocated and the others appeared exhausted.
Pol Capt Somporn said Hua Sai police set up the checkpoint on the Nakhon Si Thammarat-Songkhla road at Village Group 2 in tambon Sai Khao after obtaining information that a number of illegal migrants would pass through the district on their way to Songkhla.

About 4am yesterday, a convoy of vehicles was spotted heading towards the checkpoint.
Officers were able to stop five of the vehicles, but the rest escaped.

There were three four-door pickups, one pickup modified as a van and a Toyota Fortuner.

The drivers of three vehicles fled the scene and the other two were arrested. They were identified as Sawat Phadungchart, 29, of Ranong's Suksamran district, and Suthipong Chuaypat, 49, of Surat Thani's Chaiya district.

The migrants found in the five vehicles were later taken to Hua Sai police station.

They were then taken in small groups to Hua Sai Hospital for treatment. All had been travelling without food for two days, Pol Capt Somporn said.

The two drivers said they had picked the Rohingya up from a coastal area of Phangnga and were taking them to Songkhla.
Human trafficking rings have changed their routes from Andaman coastal provinces to provinces along the Gulf of Thailand to avoid strict suppression there, Pol Capt Somporn said.

Churin Khwanthong, chief of the social development and human security office of Nakhon Si Thammarat, said he assigned officials to interview each migrant through interpreters to find out if they had been victims of a human-trafficking movement.

If they were victims of human trafficking rings, authorities would find ways to deport them back to their country of origin, Mr Churin said.

Many local Muslims came to the police station to give food and clothing to the Rohingya after learning of their arrest.

Rohingya have fled their homes in Rakhine state in Myanmar via Thailand to Malaysia in increasing numbers recently. 

 

50 Rohingya held after chase in Phang Nga, smugglers escape

Source nationalmultimedia, 6 Jan

More than 50 migrants, mostly Rohingya Muslims, were apprehended after a pursuit yesterday in Thailand's southern province of Phang Nga when smugglers attempting to transport them in three pick-up trucks were intercepted by civilian authorities.

The group, six of whom are children, have been detained by police pending charges of illegal entry and repatriation, Manit Phianthong, chief of Takua Pa district, said. 

Manit led a stakeout that intercepted the three vehicles and later pursued two of the cars, which sought initially to get away.

Manit said they had received tip-offs from residents that illegal migrants were on their way to Malaysia, after being smuggled into Thailand via Ranong. A stakeout was set up on Sunday evening and they spotted the three cars at 3:30am. The three drivers managed to escape in the darkness, after one hit a power pole and two others headed into palm plantations and got stuck.

Of the 53 people held, 37 are believed to be from the Rohingya minority, with the remainder from Bangladesh - a source of increasing numbers of migrants arriving on Thai shores.

Twenty-one of the group are aged under 18 and some are as young as five, according to the chief of Takua Pa district in Phang Nga province.

"The group were from Myanmar and Bangladesh," Manit said. "They arrived on boats and were taken in three trucks into Takua Pa before dawn on Monday" for transit through to Malaysia.

"We had already set up checkpoints as we had information they would come," he added, explaining the trucks were forced onto a side road where the drivers fled, leaving the migrants behind.

The migrants have been taken to be interviewed by social workers to determine if they are victims of trafficking.

"If they are found to be victims, they will be witnesses in a human trafficking case and will be put in shelters... but if not, they will be charged with illegal entry," Manit said. 

Thousands of Rohingya - a Muslim minority group not recognised as citizens in Myanmar - have fled deadly communal unrest in Myanmar's Rakhine state since 2012. Most have headed for mainly Muslim Malaysia.

Myanmar views its population of roughly 800,000 Rohingya - described by the United Nations as one of the world's most persecuted minorities - as illegal Bangladeshi immigrants and denies them citizenship.

Rights groups say the stateless migrants often fall into the hands of people-traffickers.

They have also criticised Thailand in the past for pushing boatloads of Rohingya entering Thai waters back out to sea and for holding migrants in overcrowded facilities.

Thailand said last year it was investigating allegations that some army officials in the kingdom were involved in the trafficking of Rohingya.

50 Rohingya held as traffickers flee

Source Bangkokpost, 5 Jan

Rohingya migrants sit on a police van in southern Thailand. Pic: AP.

Fifty Rohingya Muslims were detained the Thai traffickers who allegedly smuggled them through Thailand escaped after one of their vehicles slammed into a power pole in Phangnga province early Monday. 

Some 30 officials and volunteers led by Takua Pa district chief Manit Pianthong  had been on guard in Takua Pa district since Sunday night following a tip that a human-trafficking gang would traverse the area to smuggle illegal Rohingya migrants en route to Malaysia. The officials hid in a roadside rubber plantation, in Bangkrak Nai village in tambon Khok Kian awaiting their arrival, Manager Online reported Monday.

At about 3.30am, a pickup truck with a Bangkok license plate came through the area, prompting the officers and volunteers to stop the vehicle for a search. But the driver sped past and hit two vehicles parked nearby. Even then, however, the driver did not stop. Still attempting to escape, he slammed into a roadside power pole.  He managed to flee before officials could apprehend him, abandoning the damaged truck and 16 Royingya inside.

Two other pickups also sped past before the drivers fled into a palm-tree plantation, leaving their vehicles and migrants on the road.

A total of 50 Rohingya were rounded up. The migrants, including six children, had been smuggled from neighbouring Ranong province. Authorities have stepped up a hunt for the three drivers, who were Thais.