Burma risks becoming 'the next Rwanda' as violence grows

July 14,2013
Independent
Jane Merrick

Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary expected to announce fresh trade deals between UK and Burma when they meet President Thein Sein at Downing Street

David Cameron is being urged to demand an end to the violence against Burma's Muslim minority when he meets the country's President in London tomorrow.

Campaigners say Burma risks becoming "the next Rwanda", with chilling echoes of the build-up to the 1990s genocide in evidence.
The Prime Minister and William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, are expected to announce fresh trade deals between the UK and Burma when they meet President Thein Sein at Downing Street. The talks follow Mr Cameron's historic visit to Burma last year, when he also met the pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. He was the first Western leader to visit Burma since elections took place for the first time in 20 years in 2010.
President Sein's government is military backed and there remain deep concerns over human rights and democratic reform. Hundreds of Rohingya, the Muslim minority people, have been killed and 140,000 have been displaced since violence erupted last year. President Sein has been accused of failing to protect the Rohingya, and some members of the regime have been accused of participating in the attacks.
Avaaz, the global campaign group, which has gathered 970,000 signatures urging the UK and France to back a peace plan ahead of President Sein's visit, noted five parallels between the situations in Burma and Rwanda including making Rohingya second-class citizens, as with the Rwandan Tutsis, ethnic violence erupting after decades of discrimination in both countries, and state participation and complicity in persecution.
As with Rwanda, where the international community was slow to wake up to the genocide, Avaaz says that since the elections replaced the junta with a military-backed civilian government, Western nations such as the UK and France are doing little to stop the deteriorating situation facing the Rohingya.
Ahamed Jarmal, general secretary of the Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK, said: "We are being hacked to death, burned in our houses and driven from our homes. The only way to stop genocide is to prevent it from happening. Before commercial contracts are signed, Cameron must demand that the generals will not wipe the Rohingya off the map of Burma."

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: UK’s Cameron Should Press President on Rights

July 13.2013
HRW

(London) – Britain’s Prime Minster David Cameron should urge visiting Burmese President Thein Sein to bring those responsible for atrocities against Burma’s Muslims to justice, release all political prisoners, and ensure that new legislation meets international human rights standards, Human Rights Watch said today. Thein Sein is visiting the United Kingdom from July 14 to 16, 2013.

Despite important changes in Burma over the past two years, many serious human rights problems remain.Pledgesmade by Thein Sein, including those to US President Barack Obama in November 2012, to improve human rights remain partially or completely unfulfilled, including granting full humanitarian access to ethnic conflict areas, releasing all remaining political prisoners, amending abusive laws, and allowing the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to establish offices in the country.

“Prime Minister Cameron should not miss an important opportunity to press Burma’s president on justice for crimes against humanity committed against the country’s Muslims, the release of remaining political prisoners, or an end to repressive laws,” said David Mepham, UK director. “Recent improvements in Burma will continue only as long as world leaders keep up the pressure to bring an end to the many human rights abuses still occurring in the country.”
On April 22, European Union foreign ministers lifted sanctions, includingtargeted sanctions on the Burmese army and government individuals and entities, leaving only its export ban on arms to Burma.
“The scrapping of targeted sanctions on Burma was premature and surrendered key leverage to improve the country’s still dire human rights situation,” Mepham said.
In 2012, state security forces, local Arakanese political party officials, and Buddhist monks participated in crimes against humanity during acampaign of ethnic cleansing against ethnic Rohingya and other Muslims in western Burma’s Arakan State. More than 140,000 Muslims remain in camps, are denied freedom of movement, and lack adequate shelter, humanitarian aid, and basic services. Thein Sein has not fulfilled his pledge to take “decisive action to prevent violent attacks against civilians,” hold accountable perpetrators of abuses, and “address contentious political dimensions, ranging from resettlement of displaced populations to granting of citizenship.”
Humanitarian aid organisations also remain without full access to conflict areas in other parts of Burma, including Kachin State in the north, where a two-year armed conflict between government forces and Kachin rebels has displaced over 80,000 people, and in eastern Burma, where over 400,000 people are displaced from decades of civil war.
The Burmese government should amend or revoke laws and regulations that discriminate against ethnic minorities. These include Burma’s 1982 Citizenship Law, which effectively denies Rohingya and other ethnic groups the ability to obtain citizenship, even when their families have lived in Burma for generations. Thein Sein should publicly repudiate a discriminatory decree that limits Rohingya families to two children each.
Burma has still not issued an invitation to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, and there has been no significant progress in negotiations with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to set up such an office. Meanwhile, more than 200 political prisoners are estimated to be in Burma’s prisons.
“Prime Minister Cameron needs to insist that Thein Sein cease his foot-dragging on pledges he made to improve human rights,” Mepham said. “There’s no good reason why the UN should not be able to open an office and monitor the human rights situation across the country.”
Doing business in Burma involves various human rights risks. These include the lack of rule of law and an independent judiciary, major tensions over the acquisition and use of land, and disregard of community concerns in government-approved projects. The military’s extensive involvement in the economy, use of forced labor, and abusive security practices in business operations heightens concerns. Corruption is pervasive throughout the country.
Thein Sein’s government continues to use repressive laws to undermine peaceful protests against projects that impact livelihoods and land. The authorities violently cracked down on people protesting a copper mining project in northern Burma in November and prosecuted demonstrators peacefully protesting against a natural gas project in Arakan State in April. Major infrastructure projects and land acquisitions for companies have also generated controversy involving both companies and the Burmese military in land seizures.
The UK government should acknowledge that the political reform process in Burma is very far from complete. Key measures of progress include legal reform, free and fair parliamentary elections in 2015, and amendments to the constitution to remove the Burmese military’s constitutional authority over civilian government, including ending the military’s authority to appoint 25 percent of the seats in the parliament and to dismiss the parliament and president.

“Failure to press the Burmese government to meet its reform commitments will send precisely the wrong message to Thein Sein, leading him to believe his government is no longer under serious international pressure to follow through on reforms,” Mepham said. “David Cameron should ensure that this trip is not a ‘victory lap’ for the Burmese president but rather a public re-commitment by Burma to meet its human rights obligations.” 

Rohingya Refugees In India: Tales Of Endless Persecution, Torture And Exploitation

13 July, 2013

Countercurrents.org
Shivnaryan Rajpurohit

Another World Refugee Day on June 20 was met with familiar indifference by host countries. Every year, it is passed off as a necessary irritant when media air and publish stories on refugees.

Well, this is another sordid tale of Rohingya refugees--who fled Myanmar--in India, sheltering around 11000 Myanmarese refugees (a figure obtained from the UNHCR). In June and October 2012, Indian cities-- Jammu, Delhi, and Hyderabad-- and the state of Mizoram saw the influx of Rohingya Muslims. The trickle still continues.

In Madanapur Kahdar locality of Delhi, around 200 Rohingyas, tortured and persecuted by military junta and Buddhists, reside in a makeshift camp. They escaped death and violence in Rakhine State, western coast of Myanmar. In the camp each family has lost at least one person during anti-Muslim riots in Rakhine.

The low-lying Rhohingya camp-- owned by the Zakat Foundation India which helped them last year when they protested outside the UNHCR office for their refugee status-- is approached by dusty lanes. Surrounded by drainage and mounds of boulders, the camp is no less squalid than that of Haiti or Kenya. Propped by bamboos and covered by tarpaulin sheets, every room is wobbly. Thatched roofs are paper-weighted by big boulders. During early monsoon showers when Delhi revelled the Rohingyas bucketed out water from the narrow passages of the camp.

Dreary eyes and dropped shoulders of Rohingyas are telltale signs of their hardship in India. This stateless minority--since they are not recognised in the land of Aung Saan Suu Kyi-- has been exploited not only in Myanmar but also in Bangladesh which has recently said that it could not accommodate more people.

Fighting his tears, differently-abled Abdul Karim, 28, recounts horrific tales of genocide unleashed in Myanmar. Born to Myanmarese parents in India, Abdul has been living in India for 28 years, but no citizenship for him: he does not have birth certificate to prove because he was born in an Indian jungle when his parents crossed over to India. Still coming to terms with what happened to his parents--hacked to death by military junta on their return journey in Myanmar--distraught Karim relives his gory past every day.

“Nobody owns us,” he says on his stateless status

“Every time we cross the border we have to pay the price in the form of money or woman to the army, stationed at borders. We do not have any protection. We are born to tolerate everything silently,” he adds.

“Recognition is the main thing. Our cries are listened but not acted upon. We are born to see bloodletting. Now we have resigned ourselves to torture and persecution,” he says as his eyes well up.

After finding shelter in the camp, Abdul started working in a tin factory which paid him partially after one month. “The owner gives me the slip whenever I visit the factory,” he bemoans. Now he runs a shop in the settlement.

The most vulnerable sections of the society during riots and bloodletting are women and children. None of the children goes to school. Fully aware of the role played by education , Abdul Kayoom repents,“Today I am a hawker because I was not allowed to study in my country. I do not want same thing to happen to my children.” “In India we are at least safe and can practice our religion,” he adds.

In addition to that, the camp houses around 10 destitute widows who are ragpickers. One of them is a mother of one. Clad in a ragged vermillion T-shirt and loosely-draped sari,Samjida Begum, aged 20, lost her husband last year during the riots in Myanmar. She thereafter fled her country and came to India by illegally crossing the Indo-Bangladesh border. She is a ragpicker now, earning Rs 60-70 a day. Having learnt from her harrowing stay in Myanmar, She is firm to have her baby educated and be brought up in a peaceful environment. “I want to educate her so that she should have a good life,” she pledges.

Most of the refugees work as daily-wage labourers, rickshaw pullers, factory workers, and vegetable hawkers.

Out of 5o families around 40 have so far received temporary refugee cards from the UNHCR which provides them with subsistence allowance of Rs 1000 to each employed family. However, this allowance has not touched destitutes, like Samjida Begum, and handicapped.

But the UNHCR, which has the mandate over 24000 refugees of various nationalities in India, differs on discriminating against anyone. In an emailed reply, it says that the Rohingyas have been treated at par with that of other countries. It assures that it can do more but resources crunch has pushed them backwards on crucial issues

Everyone in the camp calls themselves refugees rather than migrants because they fled to India not on their own volition but due to anti-Muslim violence in Arakan state. They feared persecution and torture. Moreover their property had been appropriated by the government and Buddhist hooligans in Myanmar.

“We had enough to eat and lived happily in our village, but Buddhists looted everything. We were intimidated there,” Mohammad Haroon laments, another refugee who escaped from the wanton killing of Muslims in northern Rakhine State of Myanmar.

When asked about their voluntary repatriation if Aung Saan Suu Kyi comes to power, they raise their decibel and accuse Suu Kyi of failing them.

On their expectations from the UNHCR and the government of India, they contend that it has been satisfactory. They meekly criticise the government of India and are appalled by government’s indifference. “For the past one-and-a-half year, nobody from the government has visited us,” says Mohammad Haroon.

However the UNHCR hails India in some regards. It says, “Overall, India offers safe asylum to refugees and asylum seekers. Despite the absence of a national legal framework for refugees, India has traditionally been hospitable towards refugees.”

If seen in the context of the arrival of some Hindus from Pakistan it becomes clear that the criterion vary as how to treat asylum-seekers and refugees. Hindu refugees from Pakistan have afforded an opportunity to our politicians to score brownie points. In Rajasthan, the state government met all of them and paid heed to their sufferings. The RSS and VHP hijacked this issue and shed brotherly tears for the Hindus. It highlights that our response to refugees is shaped by religion and ethnicities-- an abominable practice which thrives on adhocism

Though India has done next to nothing to Rohingyas but the principle of non-refoulement has been complied with by India as none of the refugees has been forcefully repatriated.

Now it seems that refugees’ not-so-troubled stay may face aberration once again

Zakat Foundation which temporary rehabilitated the Rohingyas on the current location says that this land was granted for an orphanage. “After securing procedural documents, we will start building the orphanage. It might take around two months,” says Mumtaz Nazmi, secretary of Zakat Foundation.

“It’s the turn of the government of India to bail them out,” he asserts

Nobody knows what is in store for the Rohingyas once the Foundation starts removing them to build an orphanage. Their trepidation is palpable as they know sooner or later they will have to vacate the place for orphanage.

In broad strokes India’s laxity to frame a refugee law is the culprit. It has been belaboured by intellectuals. They have asked India to sign the Refugee Convention 1951 and Protocol 1967, and to promulgate a legal framework for refugees. Despite these urges, the cavalier attitude of the government has not caved in.

However, judicial intervention in this regard comes as a breath of fresh air. The Supreme Court has declared that Article 21 and Article 14, among other constitutional rights, are applicable to everyone residing in India. Judicial intervention notwithstanding, government’s intransigence to frame a law is inexplicable. It is need of the hour to pass a law when forced displacement has reached its peak in 18 years.

By framing a law, India will not only help itself but thousands of refugees from Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Bhutan.

Shivnaryan Rajpurohit is from Bikaner, Rajasthan and a graduate of the Asian College of Journalism, Chennai. He blogs at akpushpa@wordpress.com

Benedict Rogers: What Cameron and Hague should tell Burma's President tomorrow

July 13,2013
Conservative Home

Benedict Rogers

Benedict Rogers is a human rights activist, a former Parliamentary Candidate, and is Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission.
Tomorrow, Burma’s President Thein Sein will arrive in London. Until a year ago, the idea of a Burmese General with blood on his hands making an official visit to the United Kingdom would have been inconceivable. His visit is a sign of how much and how fast not only Burma, but British Government attitudes towards Burma’s regime, have changed.
In the past two years, President Thein Sein’s Government has certainly introduced reforms that have changed the atmosphere and landscape significantly. A key turning-point came when he met Burma’s democracy leader and Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi in Naypyidaw for the first time in 2011. That paved the way for a series of reforms, including the release of many political prisoners; increased space for political activists, civil society and the media; improvements in freedom of expression; and preliminary ceasefires with most of the ethnic armed resistance groups. In 2012, Aung San Suu Kyi and 42 of her colleagues from the National League for Democracy (NLD) were elected to Parliament. As Lord Alton and I wrote following our visit to Burma in March, we should be quick to welcome and encourage these changes.
Nevertheless, there is a risk of premature euphoria. Indeed, Burma Campaign UK accuses Foreign Secretary William Hague of viewing Burma through rose-tinted glasses. Thein Sein’s visit, therefore, must be used as an opportunity to deliver some very clear messages, rather than an occasion to fête a dictator, albeit one more subtle, mild-mannered and seemingly more reforming than his predecessors.

If Burma’s transition to democracy is to be genuine, Thein Sein needs to move from piecemeal changes of atmosphere to substantive reforms of the system that lead to respect for human rights and a genuine peace in the country. So far, what is described as a reform ‘process’ is arguably more of a collection of ad hoc headline-grabbing measures, designed to create little more than an impression and atmosphere of change. For it to become a real ‘process’, Thein Sein needs to put more meat on the bone. All remaining political prisoners should be released, for a start. Thein Sein has developed a worrying habit of freeing political prisoners just before a key overseas visit or a major UN debate, effectively holding those remaining in jail hostages to fortune. If he is sincere as a reformer, he should immediately and unconditionally release all remaining political detainees.
Repressive laws still used to lock dissidents up should be reformed or repealed. While there certainly is more space for freedom of expression in the cities, the brutal crackdown on protestors at Letpadaung copper mine last year shows old habits die hard, and just last month, many activists were charged and jailed under section 505 of Burma’s Penal Code and Section 18 of the Peaceful Assembly and Procession Law. Latest reports on political prisoners do not make good reading for the rose-tinted spectacle wearers.
Then there is the question of the constitution. Imposed by the previous military regime in a sham process in 2008, it guarantees the Burma Army 25 per cent of the parliamentary seats, guarantees the military immunity from prosecution, and bars anyone married to a foreigner or having children who are foreign citizens from being a candidate for President. The obstacles to amending what Aung San Suu Kyi has described as one of the "most difficult" constitutions in the world are huge, but the establishment of a genuine democracy cannot occur without constitutional reform. A process that has brought Aung San Suu Kyi into the fold will not succeed if it ultimately excludes her from contesting the presidency.
Press freedom is another area of concern. While there have been significant improvements, a new Printing and Publishing Enterprise Law Bill passed by the legislature contains some concerning clauses, as the organisation Article 19 has detailed. For example, the bill fails to recognise the right to freedom of expression, provides for strict controls of the press by Government and has prompted the new Press Council to threaten to resign in protest. Without press freedom guaranteed, the transition to real democracy will fail.
The gravest concerns, however, are in regard to Burma’s ethnic and religious tensions. Since Thein Sein became President, war has increased, religious intolerance risen and the human rights and humanitarian crisis worsened. Two years ago, Thein Sein’s Government broke a 17-year ceasefire with the ethnic Kachin people in the north of the country, launching a major military offensive which resulted in more than 100,000 people fleeing their homes. More than 200 villages have been burned down, 66 churches destroyed, and there have been reports of the widespread use of rape, forced labour, torture and killing of civilians. Even in recent weeks, despite signing a seven-point agreement with the Kachin’s armed resistance to de-escalate the fighting and move towards a ceasefire, further gross violations of human rights have been perpetrated.
In other ethnic areas, where ceasefires have been reached, a new challenge has arisen: land confiscation. And in Shan State, the Burma Army has frequently violated the ceasefire. To secure a genuine peace in Burma, there must be a peace process, involving a political dialogue. Ceasefires alone are not enough, for they are – as Zoya Phan, a Karen activist who addressed the Conservative Party Conference in 2006 and 2007, describes – "just pressing the pause button" on decades of conflict. Only a political solution will enable the people of Burma to press the stop button on war, and the political solution must involve a federal system, guaranteeing the ethnic nationalities autonomy and equal rights.
The plight of the Muslim Rohingya people is dire, after two waves of horrific violence in June and October last year. At least 130,000 are displaced, living in desperate conditions in temporary camps. Thousands have been killed. While the violence was largely perpetrated by Rakhine Buddhists, security forces have been complicit. Human Rights Watch claims ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity are taking place.
And then there is the wider anti-Muslim violence, which has spread across the country this year. As with the slaughter of Rohingyas, the security forces largely stood by and watched as pogroms swept Meikhtila in central Burma, to Oakkan near Rangoon, to Lashio in the north. I visited a Muslim area near Naypyidaw three days after an attack had taken place, and saw the burned-out madrassah and the terror in peoples’ eyes.
In their discussions with Thein Sein, David Cameron and William Hague must make these concerns the priority. There is a perception that the British Government’s priority now is trade, and that trade trumps human rights, humanitarian concerns and democracy. A few months ago I was at a conference where two current British ministers and one former minister spoke, alongside a senior Burmese minister. Ironically, I heard quite a lot from the Burmese minister about democracy and human rights, yet those terms did not pass the lips of the British ministers.
David Cameron and William Hague must press Thein Sein on the need to release all remaining political prisoners, repeal repressive laws, establish a nationwide peace process and political dialogue and ensure that security forces act to prevent further religiously-motivated violence and protect vulnerable communities. They must urge him to take steps to stop the growing religious intolerance, curb the activities of the militant Buddhist movement ‘969’, and promote religious freedom and harmony.
They must secure Thein Sein’s co-operation with an international investigation into the violence against the Rohingyas, reform of the 1982 citizenship law which currently renders the Rohingyas stateless, and unconditional, unhindered, immediate access for aid organisations to all internally displaced people in Arakan State. They must also insist on aid access to all areas of Kachin State. Finally, they must set out clear timelines by which these benchmarks must be met.
If these steps are achieved, Thein Sein’s visit will have been worthwhile. I believe that when a dictator unclenches their fist, they must be met with an outstretched palm. Following Aung San Suu Kyi’s visit to the UK a year ago, and given the changes Thein Sein has made, it is right to engage with him, and encourage him further. But our engagement must be robust and critical, learning from past experience that the language the Burmese Generals understand best is that of concrete expectations and related consequences, not premature accolades.
Thein Sein has begun to change the atmosphere in Burma in many respects for the better, but under his presidency 250,000 people have been displaced, a new war has started and a new campaign of religious intolerance has emerged. The Economist Intelligence Unit still ranks Burma as one of the worst authoritarian regimes in the world. Rape, forced labour and killing of civilians could amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity. There is a very, very long way still to go, and Thein Sein should be left under no illusions about that.
Britain has been one of the leading voices for democracy and human rights in Burma. William Hague has been robust on Burma in the past. He made his first speech on human rights and foreign policy alongside a Burmese activist, in 2006. Conservatives have a good track record on Burma. It is in all our interests to ensure that a stable, peaceful democracy which respects human rights is established in Burma.

Muslims From Yangon Share Stories of Discrimination

July 12.2013

New York Times

 Hanna Ingber

Myanmar’s Muslim minority has faced a series of deadly attacks over the past year that have tarnished the country’s image even as it is trying to transform itself into a stable, peaceful democracy after decades of military rule. As my colleague Thomas Fuller has reported, sectarian clashes in the western state of Rakhine in 2012 left at least 167 dead and forced 100,000 people, most of them Muslims, to flee their homes. Buddhist mobs went on a rampage in Meiktila in central Myanmar in March, killing dozens. And critics say a radical Buddhist movement has fanned the flames of discrimination, discouraging Buddhists from doing business with Muslims or intermarrying.
The violence has raised fears among Muslims in Yangon and elsewhere that they, too, could come under attack.
Asked on Facebook to share with The Times their personal experiences with religious discrimination, a handful of Burmese Muslims wrote to us about the prejudice they have felt from colleagues, fellow students and even teachers. One woman said several members of her extended family, including one who was pregnant, were killed 10 years ago in an attack by Buddhists. The responses reflected a sense that while there has been an increase in attacks since Myanmar, also known as Burma, began opening up, the sectarian divisions within society have deep roots.
Below are four such responses, which were submitted in English.
Moe, 34, grew up in Yangon and was one of the few Muslim students in a school with mostly Buddhists. Classmates and some teachers, he wrote in an e-mail, harassed him for being Muslim and called him “kalar,” a pejorative word used to describe people from South Asia or people of Indian ancestry.
“When you dig out the history, today violence towards Muslims are not new. We have grown up with fears,” wrote Moe, who asked to be referred to by his middle name.
When Moe was 18, he applied for a national registration card with his friend, who was Buddhist. The cards are used to prove citizenship, according to the State Department. While the friend received his card two weeks later, Moe said his never came. After a few months, Moe asked the immigration officer about the delay. According to Moe, the officer told him that he had been directed not to give such cards to Muslims.
“He took out my application form and threw it on the floor. I collected it from the floor with tears in my eyes,” Moe wrote. “Some Buddhist applicants were laughing at me.”
Moe applied again years later. After a lengthy process, which he said included the paying of multiple bribes and being forced to incorrectly identify his race as Bengali, he received the card.
“That day was happiest day for me. But my mother owed debt for me,” he wrote.
Ten years ago, one reader wrote, Buddhist activists attacked the home of a cousins’ family in Kyaukse, a town in central Myanmar about 70 miles from Meiktila. She said the activists blocked the entrance to the home as they set it on fire, causing five of the relatives, including two children and a pregnant woman, to burn to death.
The reader has since moved abroad, but did not want to be identified as she returns to the country for visits. She now worries for the safety of her family in Yangon.
“After some recent events, I am still worried for my family in Myanmar, especially for my old mother, so I try to call them and check now and then to make sure they are all right,” she wrote. “I really hope some peaceful days will be ahead for my fellow Muslims living in Myanmar.”
One woman who identified herself as a teacher at a public high school in Yangon said that in May she was forced by the head of her school to quit her job and transfer her class to a different teacher. After pressing for a reason, the teacher, who asked that her name not be used, was told it was because she was a Muslim. Local officials, she said, told the school that there could be no Muslim teachers in the area this year.
“As soon as I heard that, tears flowed down n I couldn’t stand up straight,” she wrote. “Then I transferred my class. I feel regret: being a teacher in Myanmar, studying hard for 6 years to get M.Ed. degree, molding the students as good citizens, trying my best during 10 years experience as a senior teacher & having hobby of teaching. How cruel discrimination it is!”
Wayne, 22, grew up in Yangon and said that he faced discrimination in school from the age of 5 because he is Muslim.
“Almost everyday in school, people made fun of me and my other friends of minority religions such as Islam and Christianity,” said Wayne, who has since moved abroad.
Some teachers in his schools also made derogatory comments against non-Buddhists during class.
“They sometimes mentioned unnecessary things during history classes such as how Muslims (especially Indians) made good slaves in the past and the class would break into a mocking laughter,” wrote Wayne, who asked to be identified by his middle name.
“Another teacher (ironically my best English grammar teacher) mentioned openly” that he hated Muslims, he wrote.
Wayne said that when he was in his final year of high school, he received a merit-based scholarship to attend an education program abroad. However, he said, the teacher announced to the class that the scholarship had been revoked because of his religion.
“She spilled her words with such a cold and cruel tone as if it was my fault that I am not a Buddhist and as if the action was completely fair,” Wayne wrote.
Wayne said that his relatives back home now face even greater difficulties because of the radical Buddhist movement, which calls itself 969.
“Because of these, some of my friends and relatives there in Myanmar now are having difficulties in running their businesses,” he wrote.

Carr apprehensive about Rohingyas' future in Myanmar

July 12,2013
Radio Australia


Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr says Australia won't use foreign aid as a bargaining tool with Myanmar, despite being "apprehensive" about the future of the country's minority Rohingya Muslim population.

Senator Carr has raised their plight during talks with the government in Naypyidaw, but he's ruled out accepting large numbers of Rohingyas as refugees, even though they are not considered to be citizens of Myanmar.
Presenter: Naomi Woodley
Speaker: Bob Carr, Australian Foreign Minister
BOB CARR: Australia takes a keen interest in their plight and in the need for reconciliation and harmony within this part of Myanmar.
NAOMI WOODLEY: How was that message received by the different political groups in Myanmar?
BOB CARR: Well, the representatives of the government pointed to the efforts they had made to bring communities back together and promote tolerance. They emphasised that education and the development of opportunities across all the ethnic groups in Rakhine state would be vital to longer term success.
We, for our part, are able to talk about the humanitarian assistance we provided in that state. I've announced an increase of $3.2 million going towards the emergency accommodation required but I've got to say, after spending the day in Yangon talking to our representatives of the Rohingya people and to representatives of a group at odds with them, the Arakan League for Democracy and the Rakhine Nationalities Democratic Party* that I'm pretty apprehensive.
NAOMI WOODLEY: Given Aung San Suu Kyi's special status across the world as really a symbol of peaceful struggle and the pursuit of democracy and rights, are you disappointed that she hasn't taken a more aggressive stance on this?
BOB CARR: I wouldn't criticise any of the political leadership of Myanmar. I'd simply highlight that this is an extraordinarily difficult problem. It goes back to colonial times and earlier. As the minister for reconciliation said to me, he said we've got 11 armed ethnic groups and we've got 135 recognised ethnic groups.
NAOMI WOODLEY: Australia is one of the largest contributors of aid towards Myanmar. How quickly are we going to get to a point where the Australian Government would start to look at aid or make aid contingent on some action being taken towards resolving this particular tension?
BOB CARR: Yeah, this is such a wretchedly poor country, we couldn't do that. Our simple humanitarian instincts require that we go on giving aid while, with the credibility that gives us and being seen as something of a champion of Myanmar, we will continue to press with the government and with opposition leadership the plight of the Rohingya.
NAOMI WOODLEY: But then how do you make that message effective because this is a problem that has been growing in seriousness. It is a deep seated problem. So if you're not going to use the sharp end of aid, how does Australia adequately convey this message in a way that will see some action taken?
BOB CARR: Well, Myanmar does care about the way the world perceives it. It does desperately need an inflow of investment dollars to lift the living standards of its people, to see more people move into employment and to see more people liberated from rural poverty.
I think it does care that the headlines around the world these days about ethnic and sectarian tensions in Rakhine province and not about the fact that the government has concluded peace agreements, ceasefires with 11 armed ethnic groups, which is an awe inspiring achievement and one the country can truly be proud of.
TONY EASTLEY: That's the Foreign Affairs Minister Bob Carr, who's been in Myanmar for the last couple of days. He was speaking to AM's Naomi Woodley.

The Tragedy of Burma's 'Boat People'

Jul 12, 2013

VOA News: Reporter Steve Sandford tells On Assignment's Philip Alexiou about the plight of Burma's Rohingya Muslims -- many of whom have fled on boats to Thailand to escape attacks. In Burma, they are considered illegal immigrants and denied citizenship. And, as Steve reports, Thailand isn't treating them much better.

Jakarta Pressing Burma on Rohingya Legal Rights

Indonesia's Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa attends the opening session of the 46th ASEAN Foreign Ministers' Meeting in Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei, June 30, 2013. (File)

July 10, 2013

VOA

Ron Corben

BANGKOK — Indonesia is pressing Burma’s government to grant legal status to the country’s Muslim Rohingya. As more Rohingya seek asylum in Indonesia and elsewhere abroad, Ron Corben reports from Bangkok that Indonesia’s Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa says Burma needs to take action to end inter-communal violence.

Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Marty Natalegawa, says Burma has to press on with democratic reforms and recognize the legal rights of hundreds of thousands of stateless Muslim Rohingya.

Burma - also known as Myanmar - has been wracked by sectarian bloodshed over the past year that has led to more than 200 deaths and displaced tens of thousands. Fighting began in communities with large numbers of ethnic Rohingya, who are denied citizenship in Burma.

Natalegawa, speaking to reporters in Bangkok Wednesday, says Indonesia is “encouraging” Burma to grant legal recognition to the Rohingya as an initial step to ease tensions.

“There is the issue of the status issue, which on the one hand is political as well as legal, which we are now encouraging the government of Myanmar to address in a fundamental way so that the Rohingya can obtain the kind of status and legal rights similar and akin to the rest of their countrymen,” said Natalegawa.

Burmese authorities have long excluded Rohingya from the ethnic groups recognized as Burmese citizens, claiming that they have always been illegal immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh.

Natalegawa says there is a “huge sense of distrust” that now lies between the Buddhist majority and Muslim minority in Burma as a result of the sectarian bloodshed. He said Indonesia had to work through similar bouts of violence since the late 1990s as it moved towards democratization. He says Indonesia is ready to share its experience with Burmese authorities in rebuilding the communities.

“So we know there is an issue to be addressed but I believe that this is part and parcel of Myanmar’s democratization efforts," he said. "It cannot be treated in isolation so we must impress upon the Myanmar government as we have been, that to be able to transform democratically there must be at the same time, not sequentially, at the same time they must also address the issue of communal tensions and horizontal conflicts.”

Thousands of Rohingya have fled by boat on perilous journeys, with an unknown number perishing at sea, as they seek asylum abroad.

Indonesia is planning to convene a major regional conference this year to combat people smugglers and reduce the flows of boat people coming into the region.  

Muslim nations press UN over Myanmar Rohingyas

July 11,2013

APF

Muslim Rohingyas sitting inside their collective tent at the Dabang Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camp in October 2012. (AFP/File - Christophe Archambault)

Islamic nations on Wednesday called on UN leader Ban Ki-moon to do more to halt the "tyranny" they say Muslims are enduring in Myanmar.

UNITED NATIONS: Islamic nations on Wednesday called on UN leader Ban Ki-moon to do more to halt the "tyranny" they say Muslims are enduring in Myanmar.
Religious riots in Buddhist-majority Myanmar have cast a shadow over heralded political reforms since military rule ended two years ago. Envoys to the UN from Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) countries say the global body should pressure the Myanmar government over the troubles.
"Myanmar is having a honeymoon with the world. The only problem is that that honeymoon is being built on the bodies of the Muslim victims in that country," said Saudi Arabia's UN ambassador Abdullah al-Mouallemi.
Mouallemi and other ambassadors from OIC members met Ban on Wednesday to demand more action by the United Nations, particularly over Rohingya Muslims.
In March at least 44 people, mainly Muslims, were killed in sectarian strife in central Myanmar.
Communal unrest last year in the western state of Rakhine left about 200 people dead and up to 140,000 displaced, mainly Rohingyas, minority Muslims who are rejected by many in Myanmar.
Roble Olhaye, Djibouti's UN ambassador and head of the OIC group at UN, called the action against Rohingyas "ethnic cleansing".
"The Myanmar authorities are failing in taking the necessary measures to stem the violence," he added at a press conference with Mouallemi.
"What we need from the UN is to have its voice heard loud and clear, being the conscience of the world," Olhaye said.
Olhaye and Mouallemi said the UN leader had promised to be more vocal about defending Muslims in Myanmar.
"We called on the secretary general to interfere to make his voice heard more loudly," said the Saudi envoy. "The most basic human rights and human values are being stepped upon by the current government and by the radical elements within Myanmar."
Mouallemi said Islamic nations wanted the United Nations and the major powers -- particularly the United States, Russia, China, European Union and Myanmar's neighbours -- to speak out against what he called the "ethnic cleansing" of Rohingyas.
"I think there is a lot more that the UN can and should do," he said, adding that Muslim nations would also be speaking with UN Security Council members about Myanmar.
"Myanmar is trying to open itself to the world, trying to attract attention, investment, engagement by the entire world. It is not enough to simply say that you must have elections and feed the basic structures of democracy.
"There has to be an end to the killing, that is much more basic, there has to be an end to the persecution, to the tyranny that this population is facing," said Mouallemi.
Ban met on Wednesday with members of the Group of Friends on Myanmar, which includes the United States, China, European and Asian nations to discuss changes in Myanmar and recent unrest, said a UN spokesman.
The group welcomed peace talks with Kachin rebels, but also "stressed the urgent need for effective action to punish the perpetrators of the violence" in Rakhine and "urgent attention" to issues including Rohingyas citizenship.
Ban "expressed his confidence that Myanmar would continue to make all round progress in strengthening its democratic institutions", said the spokesman.

UN Chief Tells Myanmar to Make Rohingyas Citizens

July 10,2013
AP
PETER JAMES SPIELMANN

 The U.N. chief on Wednesday warned Myanmar that it must end Buddhist attacks on minority Muslims in the Southeast Asian country if it wants to be seen as a credible nation.
Sectarian violence against Rohingya Muslims in the predominantly Buddhist nation has killed hundreds in the past year, and uprooted about 140,000, in what some say presents a threat to Myanmar's political reforms because it could encourage security forces to re-assert control.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Wednesday: "It is important for the Myanmar authorities to take necessary steps to address the legitimate grievances of minority communities, including the citizenship demands of the Muslim/Rohingya."
He says failing to do so could risk "undermining the reform process and triggering negative regional repercussions."
In 1982, Myanmar passed a citizenship law recognizing eight races and 130 minority groups — but omitted the nation's 800,000 Rohingyas, among Myanmar's 60 million people. Many Myanmar Buddhists view the Rohingyas as interlopers brought in by the British colonialists when the nation was known as Burma.
Earlier this year, Myanmar passed a law limiting Rohingyas in two townships in the western state of Rakhine, bordering Bangladesh, to having two children, a law that does not apply to Buddhists. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi criticized the law, and was widely denounced by Buddhists in Myanmar. Seen as likely to be elected president of Myanmar, she has had little else to say about Rohingya rights.
Myanmar had been ostracized by most of the world for 50 years after a coup that instituted military rule. But in recent years the country has been cautiously welcomed after it freed many political prisoners and ended the house arrest of Syu Kyi and instituted reforms. President Barack Obama visited the country last year on an Asian tour, as a hallmark of Myanmar's rehabilitation.
Muslim ambassadors on Wednesday said Myanmar cannot rejoin the community of democratic nations if it doesn't protect minority rights.
"It is not enough to just have elections, you have to end the killings and persecutions," Saudi Arabian U.N. Ambassador Abdallah Yahya al-Mouallemi told reporters. He said the Rohingya are barred from citizenship, work, travel, religious practice, and even the proper burial of their dead.
Djibouti's U.N. Ambassador Roble Olhaye, representing the Organization of the Islamic Conference, said that the Rohingya live in "permanent segregation in what amounts to ethnic cleansing."
A call to the Myanmar U.N. Mission went unanswered on Wednesday evening.

Ban spoke at a meeting of ambassadors from the "Group of Friends on Myanmar," consisting of Australia, China, France, India, Indonesia, Japan, Norway, Russia, Singapore, Thailand, Britain, the United States, Vietnam, and the country holding the presidency of the European Union, currently Lithuania.

Assailants kill Muslims with impunity across Myanmar: Rights activists

July 10,2013

Press TV

Rohingyas are seen at a camp for displaced people in Myanmar's western Rakhine State (file photo).

Several human rights groups and activists have strongly criticized the Myanmar government for its silence over growing violence against the Rohingya Muslims across the Southeast Asian country.

Several international rights groups and activists warned in a joint statement on Monday that impunity for the Buddhist assailants will further embolden them to commit more crimes against the Muslim minority, and will turn Myanmar into a breeding ground for extremism.

The statement comes more than three months after authorities failed to charge any suspect in connection with an attack on an Islamic school that claimed dozens of lives in central Myanmar.

The school on the outskirts of Meiktila town was razed during the bloodshed in March that triggered an outbreak of violence against the Muslim across the southeast Asian country. Hundreds of thugs used steel chains, sticks and knives to attack the students and teachers.

According to official figures, nearly 50 people were killed and thousands were left homeless across the troubled region.

The rights group, Physicians for Human Rights, has put together information and eyewitness testimonies to show the scale of violence and horrors at the massacre site.

Last year western Myanmar's Rakhine State saw a wave of violence against the Muslim community that left more than 200 people dead.

Scores of Rohingya Muslims have been killed and thousands of others displaced as a result of attacks by Buddhist extremists in Myanmar in recent months.

International bodies accuse the government of turning a blind eye to the attacks.

Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar account for about five percent of the country’s population of nearly 60 million. They have been persecuted and faced torture, neglect, and repression since the country's independence in 1948.

Myanmar’s government has been repeatedly criticized for failing to protect the Rohingya Muslims.  

Rohingyas do not want to return to Myanmar

July 10,2013
IANS
Alok Singh

Jasmine, 20, dreads going back to Myanmar where she says people of her community are treated like pariah and subjected to atrocities. She is among the 195 Rohingya Muslims of Myanmar who are languishing in a deplorable state in in the Jaitpur shantytown in the southeastern periphery of the capital for the past year.
"We would die but won't go back to Burma (Myanmar). Life is a virtual hell there. Though life is not easy here, it is much better than in Burma. No one harasses us here," Jasmine told IANS.
"I don't know the future of my three-year-old daughter. How will she grow up? Where will she study?" a worried Jasmine said while her daughter was playing in a muddy pool of water outside her hut.
In May 2012, this group of Rohingyas had crossed over into India from Bangladesh. They had fled Myanmar fearing attacks on them from Buddhists in the violence that spread through Myanmar's Rakhine province (also known as Arakan).
Rohingyas are not recognised among the 135 ethnic groups in Myanmar and they are treated as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.
Bangladesh rejects them, saying they are Myanmarese, with the result that they are living without any civil rights or citizenship.
The temporary settlement of Rohingyas in Jaitpur, comprising a cluster of dirty plastic sheet-covered bamboo huts, is devoid of any basic amenities and the lives of their children and women are pitiable.
"We are looted, exploited and beaten there. No one employs us because we are Muslims," 44-year old Haroon, who is from Busidung in Myanmar, told IANS.
P. Kalam, 20, a daily wage labour who earns Rs.200 a day, said: "Only I know how I am living away from my parents. They don't want me to return to them in Myanmar," said Kalam, who is from the Mongdu area in Myanmar.
The Rohingyas are demanding full refugee status with rights before the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR. In May last year, hundreds of them demonstrated outside the UNHCR office in Vasant Vihar in south Delhi. Most of the Rohingyas who arrived in New Delhi last year spread out to other parts of India, including Jammu and Kashmir.
"We want refugee status in India or another country," said Mohammad Jakaria, a rickshaw puller.
Kalam fled his country thinking that things would get worse. He married Taslima in New Delhi who is also from Myanmar.
Taslima's parents were killed in an attack by local goons in one of the districts of Myanmar.
According to Alana Golmei, a project manager in Burma Center, Delhi, the Burma-Rohingya conflict is very complicated. It needs proper documentation in solving the issue.
"If media reports are to be believed, they are being persecuted. India being a neighbour country can help them by providing shelter for some time," she said.
She said an estimated 3,000 Rohingyas have taken shelter in other Indian cities like Hyderabad, Aligarh, Saharanpur and Mathura in Uttar Pradesh and Mewat in Haryana.
Outside India, Rohingyas have found themselves as asylum seekers in Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia.
(Alok Singh can be contacted at alok.s@ians.in)

Aust to help but not resettle Rohingya

July 9, 2013
Nine News

Few ethnic groups would have as strong a claim to Australian assistance than the oppressed Rohingya minority of Myanmar, but the solution isn't to resettle them in Australia, Foreign Minister Bob Carr says.

Senator Carr said the Rohingya, some 800,000 stateless Muslim settlers originally from Bangladesh, were by any test enormously oppressed, suffering routine discrimination and violence.
"If you look at all the people suffering in our region, there would be few who'd have a stronger claim than the Rohingya to our assistance," he told Sky News.
Senator Carr said Australia provided significant aid to the Rohingya people.
But he said they would not be resettled in Australia.
"No, we rule that out. We say that in line with the United Nations High Commission on Refugee priorities, we need a durable solution within Myanmar. We haven't got the capacity to take asylum seekers from Myanmar," he said.
Senator Carr said the focus would be on encouraging the Myanmar government to achieve a durable political solution.
"Reconciliation within these countries, encouraged by Australia, sensible Australian aid programs where it can make a difference, this is an alternative to the fantasy that somehow we can take the pressure off the world's trouble spots simply by resettling in Australia," he said.

Govt Welcomes Aid for Arakan Crisis, Defends Rohingya Travel Restrictions

A Rohingya family have a meager meal in a camp for displaced Muslim families in May. (Photo: Jpaing / The Irrawaddy)

July 9, 2013
Lawi Weng
The Irrawaddy


RANGOON — Burma’s government told international community representatives on Tuesday that its handling of the Arakan crisis is leading to improvements, adding that US $66 million in international aid allocated to projects in the area was helping affected communities.
Authorities also defended the travel restrictions that are being imposing on the state’s Rohingya Muslims, which have been widely criticized as discriminatory and in violation of basic human rights.
“We have tightened security for Bengali people at their camps. We blocked them from travelling to areas where there are Arakanese in order to avoid further violence,” Arakan State government spokesman Hla Thein told dozens of diplomats, UN officials and aid workers gathered for a briefing at the Foreign Ministry.
“We did not confine [Muslims] to the camps. We just protect them for security reasons. We are worried that some people misunderstand our intentions. They separated [their communities] themselves after the violence,” Hla Thein said.
Some 140,000 people, mostly Rohingyas, remained displaced in Arakan State after last year’s inter-communal violence, which killed 192 people. Authorities are being accused of supporting Buddhist mob attacks on the Rohingya.
The government does not recognize the group as Burmese citizens and refers to them as “Bengalis,” to suggest they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.
Central government officials also addressed the international community to talk about cooperation between the government and aid organizations, which committed $66 million in foreign aid so far in order to relieve the situation in Arakan State.
“The current coordination between the government and the UN agencies is progressing but needs further necessary coordination,” said Maj-Gen Zaw Win, a member of the Committee for Implementation of Peace, Stability and Development in Arakan State.
The committee’s chairman Aye Win said that deep divisions remained between Muslim and Buddhist communities in Arakan.
“We have studied the feeling and ideas of the people and found that they still don’t feel like staying together… Both sides have destroyed their livelihoods and they lost confidence in each other,” he told the international community, adding that it would take time before the communities could live together again.
Aye Win said that the region needed to have socio-economic development in order to create a way out of the crisis and the inter-communal tensions.
International human rights groups have accused the government of reinforcing the Rohingya’s statelessness and of tightening numerous restrictions on the Muslim population, which have affected their freedom of movement, access to healthcare, education and employment, and other basic rights.
There is a deep mistrust towards the authorities among the displaced Muslim population, which has been forced to stay in dirty, crowded camps in the countryside.
Aid groups have complained that relief operations in the Rohingya camps are regularly blocked by authorities and have called for lifting the restrictions on the Muslim population.
One of the UN representatives attending Tuesday’s briefing noted that the government was right in concluding that the Arakan crisis can only be resolved if trust is restored.

“The authorities have emphasized the building of trust and confidence. And that is the main thing that needs to happen now, between the communities, and between the authorities and the communities,” said Hans ten Feld, Burma representative for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

Rohingyas in NCR are safe but miserable

 Jul 9, 2013
Times of India
Ambika Pandit

NEW DELHI: Off the busy Gurgaon-Sohna Road, in a village called Firozepur Namak, stands a cluster of huts housing Rohingya refugees from Myanmar's Arakan region. Its 280 asylum-seekers hope to return home one day but for now they are worried about being evicted from this village that has been their home for about a year. The plot they are squatting on belonged to a doctor but he has sold it, they say. The 65 families have been told to find another place soon after Ramzan.

The strife in Myanmar haunts them as many still have relatives in Arakan. In India, they find themselves cut off from the mainstream as asylum seekers. The Rohingyas have been raising the demand for full refugee status with rights before the United Nations' refugee agency, UNHCR. The last big protest happened in May 2012 when thousands demonstrated outside the UNHCR office in Vasant Vihar in south Delhi.

The Rohingyas justify the demonstration by pointing to the conditions in the settlement. Monday's downpour left the low-lying ground waterlogged. The residents are worried about mosquitoes and sickness as the monsoon breaks in full force over the NCR. Their huts are sturdy but this damp weather makes living in them unbearable.

The men work as day labour. Some earn Rs 300 a day weaving Burmese bamboo huts that have attracted the attention of locals. Some such huts have come up along the Gurgaon-Sohna highway.

The 85 children in the camp have no friends in the village as they speak a different language. Fatima, 10, plays with other Rohingya children around a pool of dirty water. School to her means the two hours she spends in a large hut where the elders teach some Arabic. A boy, Zahidullah, says they just idle away their time all day in the open. They never go out of the bamboo gate that opens onto the road.

Mamun Rafique, chairman of the Myanmar Rohingya Refugee Relief and Rehabilitation Committee, says the families are most worried about the education of their children. "Members of our committee are planning to take the assistance of an NGO to help educate the children. We need to secure their future," Rafique says. He came from Myanmar two years ago with his wife. His parents and daughter are still in Arakan.

On the atrocities that drove them out of Arakan, 55-year-old Shahzan says all their rights, including the right of their children to marry, were taken away. She came to India four years ago. Her son, Mohd Hassan, found his life partner at the settlement and had a traditional nikah in a hut which now also serves as a mosque for the community. Inside this hut one finds dreams of a better life as paper wall hangings crafted like chandeliers dangle from the plastic roof. 

Discourage rumours on Bodh Gaya blasts, urge religious leaders, activists

July 9,2013

The Hindu

The attack could be used to target Muslims in the country in order to gain political polarisation before the coming general election, and unleash a new wave of violence against Muslims in Myanmar

Religious leaders and peace activists across the country have appealed to people to view the terror attack in Bodh Gaya as an act of misguided criminals and not to speculate — that it could have been a retaliation to attacks on Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims — until a proper probe is completed.

Condemning the bomb blasts, in which three persons were injured, the signatories to a statement on Tuesday said they were deeply pained and shocked by the heinous terror attack targeting innocent people at a place of great spiritual and historical significance and unequivocally condemned the dastardly act of crime against humanity.

Referring to speculation that the attack could be in retaliation to attacks on Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, they said all such speculations should be discouraged till proper investigation was conducted and the identity of culprits firmly established.

The attack, they felt, could be used to target Muslims in the country in order to gain political polarisation before the coming general election, and unleash a new wave of violence against Muslims in Myanmar, who were already suffering grave violence and untold sufferings for years.

Lakhs had to flee Myanmar to save their lives over the past years. This mindless action, the signatories to the appeal said, might also make scores of Rohingya refugees around the world vulnerable and open to retaliatory attacks in different countries where they had taken refuge.

The statement urged the government to initiate a speedy, professional and thorough probe to apprehend the culprits and expose and punish both the perpetrators and conspirators behind the dreadful act.

The signatories to the statement were film maker Mahesh Bhatt; Swami Agnivesh, Arya Samaj, New Delhi; Mazher Hussain and Sardar Nanak Singh Nishtar, Confederation of Voluntary Associations, Hyderabad; D. Yadiah, Boudhik Pramukh, All India Samata Sainik Dal; Binayak Sen, People’s Union for Civil Liberties; Kamla Bhasin, New Delhi; Maulana Syed Shah Hamid Hussain Shutari, All India Sunni Ulema Board; Fr. Dominic Emmanuel, Delhi Catholic Church, New Delhi; Ram Punyani, All India Secular Forum, Mumbai; Zafar Mahmood, Zakat Foundation, New Delhi; Ilina Sen, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai; Hasan Mansoor, PUCL, Bangalore; Sandeep Panday, ASHA, Lucknow; A. Faizur Rahman, Islamic Forum for Promotion of Moderate Thought, Chennai, and Iqbal Ahmad Engineer, Centre for Peace and True Message, Hyderabad.

The Mad Monks of Myanmar

July 9,2013

The Diplomat

In this photo essay, The Diplomat offers a close-up look at the anti-Muslim 969 movement on the rise in Myanmar today.

Myanmar is home to a growing wave of anti-Muslim sentiment, as seen in the troubling 969 movement. The numerical significance of the digits is rooted in Buddhism’s Three Jewels (Tiratana), which comprise 24 attributes: nine special attributes of Lord Buddha, six core Buddhist teachings, and nine attributes of monkhood.
Coopted by members of Myanmar’s nationalistic Buddhist majority, the number has become a symbol of religious division that has led to both discrimination and violence. Even the government, under President Thein Sein, has taken controversial actions that seem to align with its anti-Muslim stance, from its ongoing purge of the nation's Muslim minority Rohingyas to its highly contentious two-child policy, applied solely to the same group.
While the movement has infiltrated the country’s mainstream over a long period of time, a prominent Buddhist monk, Ashin Wirathu, has recently become its unofficial leader. A photograph of Wirathu in crimson robes, with the words “The Face of Buddhist Terror”, made the cover of the July issue of TIME Magazine, causing a furor in Myanmar and drawing international attention to the country's heated religious tensions.

In this photo essay, The Diplomat gives an exclusive look at the 969 movement from the inside, including up-close images of the monk who has made international headlines.

In the first image (above) Wirathu is welcomed by supporters at his monastery in Mandalay. Since publicly promoting the 969 movement on social networks, he is often referred to as the “Burmese Bin Laden”. The number “969”, are seen everywhere in the nation's streets: on motor taxis, shop windows, betel nut carts. In a country keen on numerology, 969 officially presents itself as a return to Buddhist roots and the teachings of the faith's founder. However, it is widely accused of being a vehicle of religious hatred and extremist brainwashing.

“If Myanmar wants to live in peace, Buddhists and Muslims have to live separately”, Wirathu told The Diplomat.

We met Wirathu, the saffron robed monk, while he was supervising an exam where he teaches at Masoeyein Monastery in the nation's ancient capital of Mandalay.

The walls of his office are plastered with giant portraits of himself. Outside, plastic banners display the charred bodies of Buddhist casualties in southern Thailand (a region struggling with an Islamist insurgency) and in Myanmar's western Rakhine state (where the Muslim Rohingya minority is enduring a de facto ethnic cleansing).

The infamous monk looks much younger than his 46 years. In his soft and calm voice, he said: “Muslims are fundamentally bad. Mohammed allows them to kill any creature. Islam is a religion of thieves, they do not want peace.”

His racist rants are widely spread on YouTube and social media websites where they are watched by thousands. In 2003, Wirathu was sentenced to 25 years in jail for inciting anti‐Muslim hatred. He was released in 2010 following a general amnesty of political prisoners. With the landmark political reforms implemented by the semi-civilian government that has been in power since March 2011, he is now free to move, speak, and even hold rallies.

Young students in a Madrasa, near Joon Mosque in central Mandalay.

Officially, Islam accounts for 4 percent of Myanmar’s population of 55 million – a figure many 969 followers say is underestimated, claiming the percentage is closer to 24 percent. Members of the movement are convinced that Myanmar is falling prey to an international Islamist conspiracy. In their view, the Muslim minority triggers sectarian riots as a ploy to receive sympathy funding from countries like Saudi Arabia.

“What you see is just the tip of the iceberg," said Wimalar Biwuntha, a prominent member of the 969 movement. "The Muslims here are backed from the outside, by more than 58 Arab countries. More and more countries are giving them money."

According to Myo Win, spokesman for the Myanmar Muslim Network, Muslim organizations estimate that between 8 and 10 percent of Myanmar's total population are Muslims.

Mr Tin Maung Myin is seen here cleaning what remains of his demolished home in Meiktila (200km south of Mandalay).

This was the first time he was allowed to return to his house three months after the clashes that claimed at least 44 lives (mostly Muslims). During the violence, entire quarters of Meiktila were wiped off the map, leaving behind fields of blackened ruins.

In three days, more than 820 buildings were destroyed, according to Human Rights Watch. Where houses once stood, burned trees now tower over a sea of bricks and metal. The mosques have not reopened since. Some 12,000 refugees remain dispersed between five refugee camps under tight police protection. At the end of May, seven Muslims were sentenced to heavy jail terms for their responsibility in the events. No Buddhists were convicted.

A woman, who returned to her destroyed home in Meiktila, recovers pieces of a burnt book in Urdu explaining the teachings of Islam.

That day, the Muslim community started a seven-day clean up program escorted by armed police. The families from the area were allowed to return to their plots for the first time to clear the rubble and recover anything that was not destroyed in the riots.

Wirathu (center) and Wimalar (left) stand among more than 200 Buddhist monks who gathered to discuss how to resolve the growing conflict between Buddhists and Muslims. The conference, held in a monastery on the outskirts of Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city, was viewed by local and international media less as an effort to promote conflict resolution than an opportunity to discuss an interfaith marriage law that the 969 movement hopes to present to the government in the coming weeks.

The law, inspired by similar legislation in Singapore, hopes to limit the number of Buddhist women who marry Muslim men. The drafted law stipulates that Muslims would have to seek permission from local authorities in their regions to validate such unions.

“Muslim men try to win the love of poor Buddhist women for their reproductive tactics. They produce a lot of children, they are snowballing. We have a duty to defend ourselves if we don’t want to be overwhelmed,” said Wimalar, 41, who helped draft the proposed law.

Wirathu and his entourage leave after a sermon attended by hundreds in Mandalay.

Wirathu's followers gathered in a lavish setting strewn with lights and decorations to listen to his speech, which was streamed live on a screen. He preached for nearly two hours on the Buddhist teachings and shared his take on Muslims and the recent conflicts that have arisen in the country. A local attendee told The Diplomat that around 70 percent of his speech was anti-Muslim.

While Wirathu delivered his sermon, just blocks away in the Dhamma Tharlar Hall, several local organizations and civil society activists organized a peace event. Around 2,000 people of different faiths gathered to listen to a peaceful sermon meant to promote peaceful interfaith exchange.

The initiative, spearheaded by the Committee for the Prevention of the Creation of Riots, came about after worried parents pulled their children from schools amid rumors of religious violence a few weeks earlier.