Why Burma could become another Rwanda

July 14,2013
Guardian

Ahamed Jarmal

Burma is ethnically cleansing the Rohingya people. When David Cameron meets the Burmese president tomorrow he must call for it to stop

Rohingya Muslims seeking to cross the Naf river into Bangladesh are turned away by border guards. Photograph: Munir Uz Zaman/AFP/Getty Images

After the genocide that tore apart a nation and killed 800,000 in Rwanda, the world said never again. But nearly 20 years later, we find ourselves on the brink of another campaign of destruction against an entire people. Yet once again it is being greeted with silence.

In Burma, ethnic cleansing is happening. We have seen more human rights violations and attacks on Rohingya minorities in the past two years than in the last 20. Organised in monasteries and on Facebook, a wave of hate is being broadcast against the Muslim Rohingya community in Burma and a new apartheid system is being introduced.

My family regularly get called "dogs" or worse when they walk down the street. The government continues to deny us citizenship, telling us this isn't our home. We can't marry the people we love and are told we're only allowed to have two children per family. We can't travel from one village to another without permission. No other minority in the world faces such extreme and vicious treatment. We are being treated as criminals simply because we exist.

But now the situation is getting really desperate. Mobs have attacked our villages, driving us from our homes, children have been hacked to death, and hundreds of my people have been killed by members of the majority. Thugs are distributing leaflets threatening to "wipe us out" and children in schools are being taught that the Rohingya are different.

Everyone from our community is affected. I was lucky enough to flee 10 years ago when it was simply discrimination, but last year the rising violence forced my brother to flee to Bangladesh. Many people I know have faced appalling abuse and torture in a country they used to call home.

If this sounds all too familiar, that is because it is. This is the same type of racist incitement used to such devastating effect in Rwanda against the Tutsis in 1994. All signs are pointing to a coming horror. Yet the government has not just failed to stop these brutal attacks but is participating in it by inciting violence and fuelling hate.

The Burmese government knows this is happening. The same old generals are still in charge. They may have changed their clothes but their hearts and minds are still the same. We had higher hopes for Aung San Suu Kyi, who may have condemned the violence but still hasn't spoken out in favour of the Rohingya. With the elections just two years away, this is an issue that she won't take on.

Burmese president Thein Sein wants to "harmonise" the country and make it pure. He says "there are no Rohingya among the races" and wants us out of our homes and settled in camps run by the UN so that they can look after us. In the past year, more than 140,000 of us have been forced to live in squalid conditions, yet our government has denied us access to aid and many are desperately trying to flee.

In 10 years' time, it is very possible that my community of 800,000 people will be decimated to little more than 50,000 scattered in pockets, living in fear across the country.

On Monday, Thein Sein will arrive in London to meet David Cameron, then on to Paris to see President Hollande. He will sell his country's transition from international pariah to poster boy for democratic change, trade and investment. He'll also talk trade, with an auction for lucrative mineral contracts up for grabs, and a beauty parade leading to heads of state doing all they can to impress.

Before Cameron and Hollande sign commercial contracts we need them to push the generals to show they will stop the Rohingya being wiped off the map in Burma. Over 1 million people have joined this request, signing an Avaaz campaign to get world leaders to take concrete, accountable steps to stop the violence spreading against my people. The attacks on the Rohingya must be independently investigated, new laws supporting our citizenship must be passed and full humanitarian access is urgently needed to awful camps that are home to thousands of Rohingya.

The only way to stop genocide is to prevent it from happening in the first place. World leaders failed to act 20 years ago in Rwanda, then promised they would never let such horrors happen again. My people are praying they meant it.

Burma's Rohingya people: a story of segregation and desperation

 3 June 2013
Guardian
Rushanara Ali

The international community must put pressure on Burma to protect Rohingya Muslims and end segregation in Rakhine state

Rohingya children play on a tent at Bawdupah camp for internally displaced people on the outskirts of Sittwe. Photograph: Soe Than Win/AFP/Getty Images

How desperate and distrustful of your government do you have to be to refuse an offer of relocation when a cyclone is about to hit your home? That many of the displaced Rohingya people in Burma's Rakhine state took this decision demonstrates how difficult their lives have become.

For months now, the Rohingya Muslim people have been targeted in a campaign that a Human Rights Watch report (pdf) has described as "ethnic cleansing". Rohingya Muslims in Burma have been forced into segregated settlements and camps, and – in many cases – cut off from lifesaving aid.

I visited displacement camps in Rakhine in May with Refugees International and Burma Campaign UK, meeting with displaced people who – after suffering horrific attacks by members of the Rakhine Buddhist community in October –were forced to flee into remote areas of the countryside, areas completely unsuitable for displacement camps.
Drinking water had to be brought in on boats by NGOs, and primary healthcare was provided one morning a week. If you needed medical help at other times, you had to hope an NGO would come by boat to get you.
Residents of this squalid community fall ill frequently due to insanitary conditions. I travelled by boat for two hours to Pauktaw, where a UNHCR-supported camp is home to thousands of Rohingya people. The shores adjacent to the camps were covered in faeces, with dead rats floating in the water just metres from where children were bathing to keep cool in the heat.

Since it was attacked, the Rohingya community has been totally cut off from markets and job opportunities; living in a segregated area, its people are barred by the authorities from travelling to the sites where they used to work and trade. Donor governments – including the UK – have helped provide some basic services, but it is nowhere near enough to give these people a safe and dignified existence.

The Rohingyas I met were living in flimsy tents so close to the shore that there was no way they could survive the monsoon season, let alone a cyclone. Even the emergency evacuations now underway will not be enough to get them safely through the coming months. During my visit, I was told that it would take at least two months to build temporary shelters on higher ground, and the government has delayed allocating the necessary land, perhaps in an attempt to assuage local Rakhine extremists. All of this demonstrates the unwillingness of the government to prioritise the safety of the Rohingya community.

Aid agencies have had real difficulties in getting help to people. Apart from the logistical problems created by the camps' isolation, the government has introduced bureaucratic obstacles, including serious delays in providing travel authorisations and visas for aid staff. Most troubling, some Rakhine Buddhist political and religious leaders have made threats against aid agencies because they object to assistance being offered to to the Rohingyas. Instead of taking action, the government refuses to let aid workers operate in areas where threats are made.

Displaced people told me about family members they had lost in the October attacks, speaking of their grief. Most wanted to return home, but were too scared to do so without appropriate protection. And they were aware that rather than focusing on moving people to higher ground during April, the government was conducting a "verification exercise" in displacement camps, in which they tried to force Rohingyas to sign forms admitting that they were "Bengalis". This only added to their distrust of the authorities, which was already high after many of the security services either committed or condoned attacks on their community last year. People told me that they would never be allowed to return home because local authorities were trying to create Muslim-free zones.

In a discussion with a group of Rohingya women, I listened to stories of family members being killed; some had lost seven, eight, nine loved ones. After hearing these testimonies, I wasn't surprised that some Rohingya people took the seemingly irrational decision to refuse relocation in the face of a cyclone. They are so desperate that they do not know who to trust or where they may be sent next. And, as a woman who lost her entire family said, "If, after having lost everything – including my whole family – because we are Rohingya Muslims, [the government] still don't recognise me as Rohingya in my own country, then I might as well be dead".

The UK government, together with the rest of the international community, must keep the pressure on the Burmese government to facilitate full humanitarian access to the Rohingya, end segregation in Rakhine state, provide them with the protection they need to return home, and restore their Burmese citizenship.

• A video documenting Rushanara Ali's trip to Burma can be found here

Rapes by Burmese security forces 'may cause more strife' in troubled region

26 February 2013

Guardian

 Francis Wade

Teenage victim describes how at least 13 women were raped overnight in Arakan state, which has been focus of ethnic riots

Over 90,000 Rohingya refugees have been displaced due to violence between Muslim Rohingya and Rakhine Buddhists in Burma, and many are seeking help in Bangladesh. Video from June 2012. Link to video: Rohingya refugees leave Burma to seek help in Bangladesh At least 13 women, including teenagers, have been subjected to prolonged rape by Burmese security forces in a remote village in the western state of Arakan. Human rights groups have warned that the incident threatens to trigger further violence in a region where several waves of ethno-religious rioting since June last year have killed more than 1,000 people.
The women all belong to the Muslim Rohingya minority, which has borne the brunt of fighting between Muslim and Buddhist communities. One victim, an 18-year-old girl who cannot be named for security reasons, described how a group of uniformed soldiers from Burma's border security unit, known locally as NaSaKa, entered her house in northern Maungdaw township shortly after midnight on 20 February.
"They took us separately to different places and tortured and raped us," she said, referring also to her mother and younger sister, 15. The ordeal lasted until dawn, she said. "They came in and out of the house at least 15 times. They also beat my mother with a gun and dragged her outside to the road and beat her to the ground."
According to the victim, 13 people in the village were assaulted. Chris Lewa, head of the Arakan Project, which has monitoring teams in Maungdaw township, said she had separately confirmed that at least 11 people were raped that night.
The incident comes eight months after the rape of a 26-year-old Buddhist woman by three Rohingya men triggered fierce rioting across Arakan state , and a state of emergency remains in place. Arakanese and Rohingya communities have clashed a number of times. Animosity toward the Muslim group is widespread among Arakanese, many of whom consider them to be illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.
"Sexual violence by Nasaka against Rohingya women has been documented for many years," says Matthew Smith, a researcher with Human Rights Watch, adding that prosecutions are rare for rapes committed by security forces.
Khin Ohmar, founder of the Women's League of Burma, said that such ordeals terrorise the community. "I've heard of cases where rape survivors are kicked out of their village because the village head is so scared of retribution if they complain to the Burma army."
Rohingya Muslim women and boys cross the Naf river into Bangladesh to escape sectarian violence in Arakan state, Burma, in June 2012. Photograph: Munir Uz Zaman/AFP/Getty Images She said that incidents like these happen "every time the army moves into remote areas", and that punishment is normally just transferral to another area "where rape continues but with different women". She thinks that the 20 February incident probably had its roots in "ethno-centric chauvinism and hatred" of the Rohingya.
Following the attacks, villagers fled into nearby forests and across the border into Bangladesh, said Lewa. The victim told the Guardian that she and the other women had received treatment at a local clinic. The extent of their injuries is unclear, although one 19-year-old woman is believed to be in a critical condition.
The protracted violence in Arakan state has left deep scars for communities on both sides. The UN estimates the number of people displaced since June to be around 120,000, the majority Rohingya.
There are fears however that the violence, which initially pitted Rohingya against Arakanese, is increasingly being demarcated along religious lines. Rioting broke out in Rangoon this week after a row over what local Buddhists claimed was the illegal construction of a mosque. The Norway-based Democratic Voice of Burma news organisation also reported last week that the government had placed a ban on all Muslims leaving the Arakanese town of Thandwe, although no official statement has been made.
Buddhist and Muslim communities in Arakan state have now been segregated. In the state capital of Sittwe, all but one Muslim district was razed and emptied last year; the last remaining quarter, Aung Mingalar, whose population swelled from 5,000 to 8,000 residents after fighting broke out, is now guarded by soldiers.
Following a visit to several camps for the displaced this month, UN envoy Tomas Quintana spoke of his concern about aid distribution and freedom of movement. Despite government assurances that displaced Rohingya could eventually return to their homes, Quintana said that stakeholders in Arakan state believed "the current settlements will become permanent".
The medical charity Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) has warned that its staff have received threats from local Arakanese when attempting to get aid to the Rohingya. "It's just awful intimidation and threats of violence from a small but vocal group, through phone calls and on social media," said Peter Paul de Groote, Head of Mission for MSF in Burma.
"Formal permission for access is not the main problem. A big obstacle for MSF is not having enough staff – doctors and other essential personnel are scared to work in Rakhine [Arakan] state." He added that with monsoon season approaching, "we can expect a real humanitarian problem".