UAE urges international community to find lasting solutions for Rohingya Muslim minority

Source WAM, 29 Sept

 

WAM NEW YORK, 28th September 2013 (WAM)-- The UAE has expressed concern over the acts of violence which target the Rohingya Muslim minority in Myanmar, and demanded the international community encourage the government of Myanmar to carry out its duty to put an end to these acts which contradict the basic principles of human rights, as well as to help the Rohingya restore their rights as a Muslim Minority in Myanmar.

The UAE also re-affirmed that it will continue to provide humanitarian aid to the victims of violence in Myanmar and to defend the legitimate rights of the Muslim minority in the country.

This came in the UAE's statement at the meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Contact Group on Rohingya, held in New York, USA, under the chairmanship of Prof. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the Secretary General of OIC, on the margins of the 68th United Nations General Assembly.

The UAE's statement at the OIC meeting in New York was read out by the Assistant Foreign Minister for International Organisations Affairs, Dr. Saeed Mohammed Al Shamsi.

The UAE official also demanded a unified and practical stance in order to motivate the United Nations and human rights bodies to take the necessary practical steps towards resolving the issue of the Rohingya Muslim minority and providing humanitarian and development aid.

This includes, according to the UAE statement, discussing the issue at the Human Rights Council, setting up of a fact-finding committee, continuous reporting on the issue by the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, and following up the issue by the UN Secretary General, as part of the UN's humanitarian and moral responsibilities, as well as backing all the aforementioned moves by a UN General Assembly resolution and any forms of international pressures towards finding a lasting solutions to the issue, preventing more sectarian conflicts and deterring extremists.

Thanking the OIC Secretary General for his efforts for the issue, Dr. Al Shamsi emphasised the need for coming up with practical recommendations and mechanisms to come up with a unified stance at the current UN General Assembly in order to find acceptable solutions to the issue of the Rohingya Muslim minority in Myanmar WAM/MMYS

The world is Dead Ruthless to Rohingya, Isn’t it?

Source burmatimes, 26 Sept

BurmaTimes (Ibrahim Shah) According to the history, it is evident that the Rohingya ethnic minority of Arakan, western Burma inhabit there since even before the first invasion of Burmese intruder in 1044 AD.

The Burmese imperialists have been perpetuating crimes against Humanity or Rohingya imposing discriminatory territorial Acts perpetually since 1978.

The Burmese Hitlerite generals massacred Rohingya in reiteration by "hidden genocide"–discrimination, incrimination, land confiscation, change demographics resettling eastern untamed Buddhists whose profession is only robbery and theft. The most horrible Military operations against Rohingya are in — 1977-78, 1990-92.

Due to miscarriage of various previous Hidden genocide methods, the Burmese notorious successive generals imposed horrible fresh territorial Acts .The long massacre by marriage restriction since 1990 and the most terrible massacre by a deliberate deadly violence in amid June 2012 that is triggered to deprive the fundamental rights of Rohingya amid ongoing democracy.

Amidst the deadly violence in June, More than, 140,000 Rohingya are displaced, countless are missed and buried in mass graves, women are gang-raped and the corpses are thrown into forests by armies and Rakhine extremists , kidnapped many women and are subjected to be sex-slaves, confined the internal displaced people( IDP) in concentration camps and so on.

Due to reiterative miscarriage of gradual dead eradication of Rohingya, the Burmese genocidal regime imposed a new dehumanization Act— two child policy for Rohingya amid ongoing democratic reforms.

For "Completion of Rohingya Genocide" in a vast momentum, the quasi-civilian regime led by President Thein Sein has been carrying out three last genocidal policies simultaneously— postponement of available medication for Rohingya serious patients, deadly confinement in movement until Rohingya cannot earn daily necessities and birth control as "Two-Child Policy".

As well as, neighbor country Bangladesh recently passed a law for birth control of Rohingya. The Bangladesh authorities are utterly silent to the infiltration of the well-settled Mogh of western Burma who are involved with many crimes including smuggling Yaba Tablets.

Concurrently, Rohingya have been undergoing unprecedented persecution, starvation and unexpected diseases.

Thus,  it is deadly dreadful and crucially important to pay attention corporately to the several catastrophes that Rohingya undergo in the same breath today in their ancestral place western Burma.

Today, the Rohingya people flee desperately to escape the deadly persecution of the Burmese genocidal regime whether it is convenient or inconvenient—on foot and by wooden-boat.

Here is the climax of this article – The world is dead ruthless to Rohingya, Isn't it?— whenever Rohingya reach to any part of this earth, they are pushed back to oceans or hunted by human traffickers or imprisoned lifetime or beaten to acknowledge unwillingly as other nationalities except Rohingya.

Let's observe in the turn of respective victims of other nationalities—whoever seek asylum in any part of this world, on the double, they achieve higher dignity, protection and comfort in the same breath.

But, as asylum seekers or persecuted victims, there is no country to accept the vulnerable Rohingya who have been undergoing state-sponsored discrimination or hidden genocide since 35 years. (http://www.maungzarni.com/2012/08/the-official-evidence-of-rohingya.html )

In accordance with the observations of the Burmese dissidents, Rohingya activists and international media and observers, Rohingya undergo sudden death due to lack of proper medication and adequate food.

Accordingly, the possibility of dead extinction of Rohingya is extremely high within some years unless world bodies intervene in Rohingya issue immediately.

It is expressed with grave sorrow that the world is unawarely silent on the Rohingya plight.

Will the world be densely populated if the stateless Rohingya are granted residential cards until restoration of their deprived rights in their homeland, Burma?

No home or asylum for Rohingya in this ruthless world, in fact, it is miserable!

Writer will reached at info@burmatimes.net

Sea Baby Among Rohingya Now Fleeing Indefinite Detention in Thailand

Source Phuketwan, September 17, 2013

PHUKET: A boy born on a boat off the coast of Thailand was among the Rohingya who fled a family refuge centre north of Phuket early today.

On the run: Baby born at sea Muhamad Hamid at a shelter in February

Photo by phuketwan.com/file

The group of eight women and children were in the province of Surat Thani tonight, having given themselves over to human traffickers rather than endure any longer a frustrating nine-month wait in Thailand.

The Phang Nga shelter north of Phuket, which once held more than 70 women and children, is now inhabited by a dwindling 29 Rohingya.

A 12-year-old boy, who fled Burma alone in December with no relatives awaiting him in Malaysia, cried while on the telephone to friends, telling them about his escape early today.

Unless he is able to find the 40,000 baht the traffickers will ask for his safe passage to Malaysia, he is likely to be sold onto a trawler or to a fish factory.

The previous night, another 10 Rohingya escaped from a different Thai family shelter in Prachuap Khiri Khan province.

Phuketwan has been told by usually reliable sources that human trafficking continues in Thailand in the same unrestricted way that it has flourished since the first Rohingya fled persecution in Burma many years ago.

Although there are about 1800 Rohingya still being held in government Immigration centres, police stations and family shelters, the sources say nearly twice that number are in traffickers' camps on the mainland or on islands along the Andaman Sea coast.

The scores of Rohingya who emerged from the jungle in the southern province of Songkhla on Thursday were part of a group waiting to be traded across the border to Malaysia, Phuketwan has been told.

In coming months, as the safe ''sailing season'' gets underway in earnest, more Rohingya are expected to flee Burma in unprecedented numbers, with many of them likely to pass through Thailand on their path to Malaysia.

Although several traffickers' camps were raided in January with Rohingya men, women and children taken into custody in Thailand, other camps and other victims have since taken their place.

It's perilous to sail in the monsoon season, yet many Rohingya have done so this year. Even more are expected to take to the sea between October and April, when it's safer.

Whatever point Thailand hoped to prove by ''rescuing'' from camps and boats hundreds of Rohingya who would have been in Malaysia within days has been lost. Nine months on, no practical Rohingya policy has been forthcoming.

The mass exodus from Burma is about to resume. And the level of desperation remains so high that more babies may be born at sea.

Now nine months old, Muhamad Hamid came into the world on a boat on December 24. Because his people are stateless and unwanted, there is no official record of his birth.

His mother, NuRu, 34, went into labor on the eleventh day of her voyage, so keen to flee ethnic cleansing in Burma that the possibility of giving birth at sea did not stop her.

Now on the run, she knows that Thailand offers no more hope than Burma. All she can do is hope that perhaps Malaysia will be different, if she can get there.

1st meeting of Myanmar president and top activitists

Source nationmultimedia, 15 Sept

Yangon (dpa) - Myanmar President Thein Sein met the country's top political activists for the first time this weekend, media reports said Sunday.

The meeting between the president and leaders of the 88 Generation Students occurred Saturday in Naypyitaw, The New Light of Myanmar reported.

The "cordial discussions" covered a wide range of topics including "reconciliation , mapping out of a new form of political culture, flourishing of democracy system ... inclusiveness of national race groups," the government mouthpiece said.

Leading the talks for the former dissident group were Min Ko Naing and Ko Ko Gyi, both of whom were released from lengthy prison terms in January, 2012, under an amnesty issued by Thein Sein.

Both men were key leaders of anti-military student protests in 1988, when mass demonstrations rocked the county, ending in an army crackdown that claimed up to 3,000 dead.

In 2005, after years in prison, former student leaders established the 88 Students Generation Group in Yangon. They played a key role in the "Saffron Revolution" of 2007 - street protests led by Buddhist monks - for which many received 65-year jail sentences.

No end in sight

Source Arabnews, 13 Sept

The silence of the world over the slow burning genocide of the Muslims in Myanmar is very surprising. Every now and then we read reports of the Rohingya Muslims — fleeing persecution — arriving in neighboring countries by boats. Is the world silent because the Rohingyas do not matter and amount to nothing in this capitalist world? Even the United Nations has so far done nothing to check the situation. Paying lip service won't work anymore as the situation has reached such a point where a UNintervention becomes mandatory. 

But I feel that the cries of the poor Rohingyas are falling on deaf ears and nobody will try to rescue them from Buddhist terrorists. Even the media in the Muslim world appears silent in highlighting the plight of these Arakanese Muslims. The world must act before it is too late. — Suresh Kumar, Riyadh

250 Rohingya men swim ashore in Satun

12 Sept, Source Nationmultimedia

Some 250 Rohingya men aged 15-40 swam ashore in Satun's Thung Wa district yesterday morning after their boat was hit by a monsoon storm and their 15-day supply of food ran out.

Two of the Rohingya men were seriously ill and reportedly remained on the boat.

They were taken to a public park in Tambon Khon Khlan, where locals provided them with food and basic medicines, while police and district officials conducted an inspection. An initial probe found that the men left Myanmar in the boat on August 26 bound for Malaysia. Nine days later, their supply of food and water ran out, while the boat was hit by monsoon weather, causing them to drift off course. The Rohingya told police that two men died during the journey and the bodies were buried at sea. After they spotted the coast of Satun they swam to shore to survive. The migrants were kept at the park, pending further action by Internal Security Operations Command officials.

Buddhists in Myanmar torch Muslim homes and shops

Source huffing post, 25 Aug

HTAN GONE, Myanmar — Members of a 1,000-strong Buddhist mob torched dozens of homes and shops in northwestern Myanmar following rumors that a Muslim man tried to sexually assault a young woman, officials and witnesses said, as the country was once again gripped by sectarian violence.

The rioters, who sang the country's national anthem as they rampaged, dispersed after security forces arrived early Sunday, shooting into the air. No injuries were reported.

The hours-long riot in Htan Gone village, located 16 kilometers (10 miles) south of the town of Kantbalu in the region of Sagaing, began late Saturday after a crowd surrounded a police station, demanding that the suspect in the attempted assault be handed over, a police officer told The Associated Press. The officer requested anonymity because he did not have the authority to speak to reporters.

State television reported that about 42 houses and 15 shops were burned and destroyed – most belonging to Muslims.

The predominantly Buddhist nation of 60 million has been grappling with sectarian violence since the country's military rulers handed over power to a nominally civilian government in 2011.

The unrest – which has killed more than 250 people and left 140,000 others displaced – began last year in the western state of Rakhine, where nationalist Buddhists accuse the Rohingya Muslim community of illegally entering the country and encroaching on their land. The violence, on a smaller scale but still deadly, spread earlier this year to other parts of the country, fueling deep-seeded prejudices against the Islamic minority and threatening Myanmar's fragile transition to democracy.

Almost all of the victims have been Muslims, often attacked as security forces stood by.

The Information Ministry said the latest round of violence was triggered by a report that a Muslim man attempted to sexually assault a Buddhist woman on her way home from work.

At its height, up to 1,000 people were rampaging through Htan Gone village, the ministry said.

"People descended on our village with swords and spears, and sang the national anthem and began destroying shops and burned houses," said Aung San, a 48-year-old Muslim man whose house was burned. "Police shouted at the mob to disperse, but did not take any serious action."

Aung San, who lives with his parents, who are in their 70s, said his family had to flee when the mob burned their house down.

"We hid my parents and two sisters in a cemetery before the mob burned our house, and we fled later," he said. He and his family were taking refuge Sunday at a Muslim school.

Myint Naing, an opposition lawmaker who represents constituents in Kantbalu, was outraged by the latest violence. He said Muslims and Buddhists have lived side-by-side in the area for many years.

"There is a mosque in almost every village in our township and we live a peaceful co-existence," he said as he headed to the scene, adding that at least one mosque was burned down in the violence.

"I cannot understand why the authorities were unable to control the crowd when it originally started," he said.

Muslims In Sagaing Division Are Under Attack By Buddhists Mobs

Source RB, 24 Aug

Kanbalu, Sagaing – The Muslims in Htan Gone, Kanbalu Township in the Sagaing Division are under attacks by local Buddhist mobs according to locals.

It is unclear as to why the violence started, but it is not unusual in Myanmar, as the Muslims in several townships have been attacked by Buddhist mobs since March 2013. This has become far too routine after the violence took place in Arak...an State in 2012.

RB News has received reports from locals that the monks and the Buddhist mobs have surrounded the mosque in Htan Gone since 9:30 pm local time. Although the situation was extremely tense the mosque hasn't yet been attacked.

However, there have been about seven Muslim shops that were destroyed by the mobs and six Muslim homes that have been burnt down by the mobs. Additionally a chicken farm was also burnt down.

The military and local police are surrounding the nearby mosque to observe the situation. However, it can't be said that the mosque would be safe seeing as how the security forces are constantly near the place where the violence take place and they never show any effort to stop the violence against Muslims.

Earlier in the day the telephone landlines and mobile phones were working properly but the lines became incommunicado after the crowds appeared in front of the mosque. The locals said the crowd was about 200 and now growing to somewhere around 500 in all.

Although the fire brigade came the mobs didn't allow them to enter the area of the conflict.

UN envoy says Myanmar failed to protect him in attack

Source NZyahoonews, 22 Aug

YANGON (AFP) - The UN's rights envoy on Myanmar Wednesday slammed the nation's government for failing to protect him when his convoy came under attack in a town reeling from religious unrest.

"The state has to protect me as a responsibility... This did not happen. The state failed to protect me," Tomas Ojea Quintan, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights, told reporters at the end of his 10 day visit to the country.

No one is thought to have been injured in the incident, which occurred on August 19 in the town of Meiktila, central Myanmar, where anti-Muslim violence in March left at least 44 dead.

In a statement the UN envoy said his vehicle "was descended upon by a crowd of around 200 people who proceeded to punch and kick the windows and doors of the car while shouting abuse".

He said the incident forced him to abandon plans to visit a local camp, where some 1,600 displaced Muslims are sheltering.

"The fear that I felt during this incident, being left totally unprotected by the nearby police, gave me an insight into the fear residents would have felt when being chased down by violent mobs during the violence last March," he said.

He reiterated reports of security forces failing to stop the March unrest, saying "police allegedly stood by as angry mobs beat, stabbed and burned" their victims to death.

Attacks against Muslims -- who make up an estimated four percent of Myanmar's population -- have exposed deep fractures in the Buddhist-majority nation and cast a shadow over its emergence from army rule.

The watchdog Physicians for Human Rights on Tuesday warned that Myanmar risked "catastrophic" levels of conflict, including "potential crimes against humanity and/or genocide" if authorities failed to stem anti-Muslim hate speech and a culture of impunity around the clashes.

Riots in Meiktila, sparked by an argument in a gold shop and the brutal murder of a Buddhist monk, saw Buddhist mobs torch whole Muslim areas in violence that spread to other parts of the country.

The victims included more than 20 students and teachers of a Muslim school on the outskirts of Meiktila, who were set upon by armed men and beaten and burned to death, according to witnesses interviewed by AFP.

Graphic video footage given to AFP by activists shows an embankment next to the school turned into a killing ground, watched over by uniformed police.

After the March violence, Quintana said the reluctance of security forces to crack down on the unrest suggested a possible state link to the fighting -- a claim rejected by the government.

The unrest followed two outbreaks of conflict in western Rakhine state in June and October last year that left around 200 people dead, mainly Rohingya Muslims who are seen by many in Myanmar as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

A sense of deep distrust between Muslims, Buddhists and the security forces pervades the state, which Quintana visited at the start of his trip.

At least one person was killed and around 10 injured earlier this month in a violent clash in a camp for dispossessed Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine that broke out just days before Quintana toured the area.

In June, five Muslims including three Rohingya women were killed by security forces who opened fire during disputes in two separate incidents in camps in Rakhine.

Invisible Pakistanis: Neither here nor there

Source tribune, 20 Aug

A Burmese Muslim woman. PHOTO: AFP

"I've been in this country for over 30 years," says Muhammad* quietly, speaking with the articulate poise of a man schooled at a convent in Rangoon, Myanmar. "And yet, I am still not a Pakistani citizen."

Muhammad is not alone. Following the year 1962, Pakistan's sprawling urban centres were freshly peopled by throngs of Muslim families from urban Myanmar, on the run from discriminatory communist reforms in their home country.

Five decades later, these migrants stay on as unregistered citizens – they are neither Pakistani, nor Burmese.

Out with the Muslims

As Pakistan crossed economic milestones under Ayub Khan's regime in the 1960s, Muslims in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, endured unprecedented difficulties through military dictator Ne Win's communist reforms.

Migrants relate that their properties were held, factories seized and that they were disadvantaged in universities and the job market.

"My father was a rich and famous marble trader in Burma," relates Shirley, 50, who insists on keeping the Christian name she had at the Rangoon convent school she attended. "His offices and factories were seized by the military. Discrimination was seeping in, even before Ne Win."

Eaters of insects

And yet, in many ways, the move to Pakistan for many Muslim Burmese proved to be a case of falling out of the frying pan and diving head-first into the fire.

Most who landed in Pakistan belonged to Muslim trading families, and they eyed the growing economy of the fledgling Islamic state in the West as consisting of their 'Muslim brothers.'

"But the 'Muslim brothers' thought we were Burmese Buddhists pretending to be Muslims," says Muhammad, who migrated to Karachi from Thingankyung, a city in the suburbs of Rangoon.

"Our food was different. We cooked seafood like crabs, shrimps and lobsters. In the 1960s, Pakistanis thought these were insects that smelled nasty when cooked. They did not know that crab soup and Burmese Khao Suay would go on to be the most sought after delicacies in 2013!"

Moreover, difficulty of conversing in Urdu did little to help Muslim migrants from Burma.

"We were at ease with English and the Burmese language, but naturally spoke Urdu like a Chinese or Japanese would," says Shirley. "Because of our [poor] Urdu, our food and our liberal values, many in Karachi thought we weren't Muslims at all."

Where are the laws?

According to Muhammad, there is a great dearth of assimilation laws in Pakistan.

"Unlike what happens in a country like Canada, Burmese Muslims in Pakistan cannot become naturalised citizens since there are no laws of the like," he states.

However, Director General Immigrations and Passports Jalal Sikandar says nationality laws vary from country to country, depending on specific conditions.

"Of course, Canada has room for more people. Therefore, the procedure to obtain nationality is much easier," explains Sikandar. "In Pakistan, we do have laws, but they are more tedious as we can't have too many Pakistani nationals."

A Burmese migrant, he says, can attain nationality if he/she marries a Pakistani.

Into the workforce

Salwa*, a primary school teacher, expands upon another grievance faced by Burmese settlers.

Academic certificates received from Burmese institutes are not recognised in Pakistan, which makes it difficult to take up jobs, especially in specialised fields.

"As [our] certificates are written in the Burmese script, no one in Pakistani government offices can read them," says Salwa.

However, the Higher Education Commission (HEC) of Pakistan says degrees received from Myanmar are recognised.

"I have confirmed this from relevant officers," states Murtaza Noor, a spokesman for the HEC, confidently. "As per the current law, the commission can prepare equivalence certificates for graduates of institutes in Myanmar."

In this vein, Salwa does admit that upon migration, educated Burmese Muslims were quickly assimilated into the growing urban workforce, despite not having 'legal' degrees.

"I'm not talking about the Rohingya community, who are different. I'm talking about us, the educated, liberal Muslims of urban Burma," she says. "When my family migrated to Karachi, Pakistan's booming economy had a lot of room for women who were willing to work and spoke good English, legal certificates or not."

*Names changed to protect identity

Published in The Express Tribune, August 20^th, 2013.

One Dead And Over 20 missing After Boat Sank In Naf River

Source RB news, August 15 

Teknaf, Bangladesh – A boat left from Maungdaw Township, Arakan State on it's way to Teknaf, Bangladesh sank in Naf River today. Reportedly one person died and over 20 missing. 

This evening a boat left from Mingalar Gyi village, Maungdaw Township to Teknaf, Bangladesh. Reportedly the boat sank before arriving at Teknaf. Normally the boat would have the capacity for 10 people but the transporter loaded 25 people onboard to get more money. A Rohingya in Teknaf told RB News that the boat sank because it had been overloaded. 

The transporter of the boat is a Rakhine man, U Thein Oo who is a resident of Bangladesh and Myanmar. He owns a restaurant in Maungdaw Township. From 25 persons on boat, only one woman is dead and three surviving people were found near the shore of Teknaf. The remaining 21 persons are missing. 

The people on-board the boat were on their way to Bangladesh for business and to visit. All of them are Rohingyas according to locals. 

A Rohingya said that two transporters are operating a boat in Mingalar Gyi, transporting people for business. One is a Rohingya man, Abaas and another is a Rakhine man U Thein Oo. Today U Thein Oo did the operations of the boat. Although placing 25 people in the small boat is far too heavy for the vessel, U Thien Oo overcrowded the boat and placed all 25 lives at risk.

A Muslim House and Five Boats Burnt Down by 969 Network in ‪Thandwe‬

Source RB, 14 Aug

Thandwe, Arakan – A ‪Kaman‬ Muslim house and 5 boats were set fire by members of the 969 network in Myo Taung quarter. This is in the Thandwe Township of Arakan State. It happened last night at 11 pm according to locals there.

A house and two fishing boats belonging to U Mya Win who lives in Anawyahta Street, were burnt. ...The value of the two boats is at about 16 million kyat. The 969 group also set fire to two fishing boats and two fishnets owned by U Sanay Aung. He lives at the corner of Anawyahta Street and Marga Street. The value of his boats is about 12 million kyat. The fifth fishing boat that was burnt belonged to U Kyaw Tin. He lives in downtown Thandwe. The value of his boat is unknown.