Sittwe (Mizzima) – A seven-person delegation led by Turkish Ambassador to Burma Murat Yavuz Ates visited Sittwe [Sittway] and met with officials of the Arakan [Rakhine] State government last week, while providing immediate aid to displaced persons in government camps.
Tents set up for internally displaced people on the side of the road in Thet Kel Pyin camp, Rakhine state, Burma. Photo: OCHA.
The ambassador met with Arakan State Chief Minister Hla Maung Tin and also visited Mingan village, Kyaukphyu Township, and provided medicine and bags of rice to Arakanese refugees. The delegation also provided 2,228 bags of rice to refugees in Thakkaypyin village in Sittwe Township.
Recent weeks have seen a wave of international officials visiting Rakhine State to access the situation and to determine the refugees needs.
A delegation from the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), led by Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, visited the Bawduba Rohingya refugee camp in Sittwe, a Muslim Quarter [Aung Mingala], and the Arakanese refugee camp in Sutaungpyace Temple on Sept. 10.
On Sept. 8, a 11-person delegation led by the US Department of State Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Joe Yun, the US ambassador to Burma Derek Mitchell and UNHCR representative Hans ten Feld visited refugee camps in Maungdaw.
Officials said six houses and 122 temporary tents have been constructed for refugees in Mawyawaddy village in Maungdaw Township; 122 dwellings totaling 463 people were put up at a relief camp in the Alalthankyaw village; and 38 houses and 79 temporary tents had been built for refugees in Shweyinaye village, a state-run newspaper reported on Tuesday.
Seventy-six households totaling 266 people have been constructed in the “4-mile” camp and Parahita camp in Maungdaw, said reports.
The United States on Thursday urged Bangladesh to keep its border open to Rohingya refugees fleeing Myanmar in the wake of June violence but advocated their safe repatriation as a long-term solution.
A delegation of the U.S. State Department recently visited the troubled region in Myanmar where violence between Rakhaine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims in June left at least 80 people dead. The team later visited refugee camps of Rohingya in Bangladesh’s southern Cox’s Bazar district.
U.S. officials said at a news conference in Dhaka that the situation in Myanmar was still grave for the Rohingya people.
They urged both Myanmar and Bangladesh to work out a long-term solution while stressed the need for providing food and basic healthcare to stateless Rohingya.
Dan W. Mozena praised Bangladesh for its years of support to the Rohingya people but urged the country to do more for tens of thousands of undocumented Rohingya in Bangladesh.
Mozena, who did not visit Myanmar but went with the full delegation to the camps in Bangladesh, said the situation was “grim” among refugees outside the official camps who were deprived of basic needs.
Some 28,000 Rohingya refugees live in two official camps in Cox’s Bazar district, but tens of thousands of others languish outside without proper care or facilities.
The government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina earlier this year asked three international organizations to stop providing services to undocumented Rohingya to discourage fresh refugees from Myanmar. The government says it needs to take precautions because it has intelligence reports that some Islamic militant groups have targeted the Rohingya refugees for recruitment.
The U.S. officials were concerned about the situation of Rohingya people in Myanmar, said one of the delegation who visited there, Kelly Clements, deputy assistant secretary for Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration.
Clements said displacement of Rohingya people was still rampant in the troubled region, where many homes were burned to the ground during the violence. But she praised Myanmar for allowing them “unprecedented access” to see the area.
She said reconciliation and reintegration of the ethnic groups should top Myanmar’s government agenda to resolve the crisis.
She said both Bangladesh and Myanmar should ensure basic assistance to the people in trouble.
The U.S. officials also pushed for continuous dialogue between Bangladesh and Myanmar.
Myanmar considers the Rohingya to be illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and denies them citizenship. Bangladesh says Rohingya have been living in Myanmar for centuries and should be recognized there as citizens.
In the 1990s, about 250,000 Rohingya Muslims fled to Bangladesh in the face of alleged persecution by the military junta.
Later, Myanmar took back most of them, leaving some 28,000 in two camps run by the government and the United Nations.
Bangladesh has been unsuccessfully negotiating with Myanmar for years to send them back and, in the meantime, tens of thousands of others have entered Bangladesh illegally in recent years.
In August 2008 the Irish Centre for Human Rights received funding from Irish Aid to launch a project on the human rights situation of the Rohingyas/Muslims of Rakhine State in Western Burma/Myanmar. As part of the project a research unit was established at the Irish Centre for Human Rights to carry an open source research and take part in a fact-finding mission and the drafting of a report under the supervision of Prof. William Schabas.
In 2009, Nancie Prudhomme (project manager and researcher) and Joseph Powderly (project researcher) undertook a 4-week fact-finding mission to gather more detailed, first-hand and new information about the situation of the Rohingyas in Western Burma. As part of their mission Nancie and Joseph visited Burma and Thailand. In Thailand, they had meetings on the situation of the Rohingya “boat people” pushed back to sea at the beginning of 2009 and on the status of the Rohingya issue within Asia generally and more specifically at the ASEAN level.
As part of the fact-finding mission the researchers also spent two weeks in Bangladesh visiting refugee camps and interviewing Rohingya refugees and human rights and humanitarian workers. The researchers were joined in Bangladesh by Mr. John Ralston, Executive Director of the International Institution for Criminal Investigation and former Chief of Investigations at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and for the UN Independent Commission of Inquiry for Darfur. The team interviewed Rohingya victims in and around refugee camps in Bangladesh. The mission in Bangladesh provided detailed information on the causes for flight to Bangladesh and the current situation in Western Burma.
The report of the Rohingya project was officially launched on June 16 th, 2010 by Micheál Martin, the Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs, at Iveagh House.
Abuses Follow Horrific June Violence Between Arakan Buddhists and Rohingya
AUGUST 1, 2012
(Bangkok) – Burmese security forces committed killings, rape, and mass arrests against Rohingya Muslims after failing to protect both them and Arakan Buddhists during deadly sectarian violence in western Burma in June 2012. Government restrictions on humanitarian access to the Rohingya community have left many of the over 100,000 people displaced and in dire need of food, shelter, and medical care.
The 56-page report, “‘The Government Could Have Stopped This’: Sectarian Violence and Ensuing Abuses in Burma’s Arakan State,” describes how the Burmese authorities failed to take adequate measures to stem rising tensions and the outbreak of sectarian violence in Arakan State. Though the army eventually contained the mob violence in the state capital, Sittwe, both Arakan and Rohingya witnesses told Human Rights Watch that government forces stood by while members from each community attacked the other, razing villages and committing an unknown number of killings.
“Burmese security forces failed to protect the Arakan and Rohingya from each other and then unleashed a campaign of violence and mass roundups against the Rohingya,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The government claims it is committed to ending ethnic strife and abuse, but recent events in Arakan State demonstrate that state-sponsored persecution and discrimination persist.”
The Burmese government should take urgent measures to end abuses by their forces, ensure humanitarian access, and permit independent international monitors to visit affected areas and investigate abuses, Human Rights Watch said.
The “Government Could Have Stopped This,” is based on 57 interviews conducted in June and July with affected Arakan, Rohingya, and others in Burma and in Bangladesh, where Rohingya have sought refuge from the violence and abuses.
The violence erupted in early June after reports circulated that on May 28 an Arakan Buddhist woman was raped and killed in the town of Ramri by three Muslim men. Details of the crime were circulated locally in an incendiary pamphlet, and on June 3 a large group of Arakan villagers in Toungop stopped a bus and brutally killed 10 Muslims on board. Human Rights Watch confirmed that nearby local police and army stood by and watched but did not intervene. In retaliation, on June 8 thousands of Rohingya rioted in Maungdaw town after Friday prayers, killed an unknown number of Arakan, and destroyed considerable Arakan property. Violence between Rohingya and Arakan then swept through Sittwe and surrounding areas.
Marauding mobs from both Arakan and Rohingya communities stormed unsuspecting villages and neighborhoods, brutally killed residents, and destroyed and burned homes, shops, and houses of worship. With little to no government security present to stop the violence, people armed themselves with swords, spears, sticks, iron rods, knives, and other basic weaponry. Inflammatory anti-Muslim media accounts and local propaganda fanned the violence. Numerous Arakan and Rohingya who spoke to Human Rights Watch reached the conclusion that the authorities could have prevented the violence and the ensuing abuses could have been avoided.
A 29-year-old Arakan man and an older Rohingya man each told Human Rights Watch, separately but in the same words, “The government could have stopped this.”
The Burmese army’s presence in Sittwe eventually stemmed the violence. However, on June 12, Arakan mobs burned down the homes of up to 10,000 Rohingya and non-Rohingya Muslims in the city’s largest Muslim neighborhood while the police and paramilitary Lon Thein forces opened fire on Rohingya with live ammunition.
A Rohingya man in Sittwe, 36, told Human Rights Watch that an Arakan mob “started torching the houses. When the people tried to put out the fires, the paramilitary shot at us. And the group beat people with big sticks.” Another Rohingya man from the same neighborhood said, “I was just a few feet away. I was on the road. I saw them shoot at least six people – one woman, two children, and three men. The police took their bodies away.” In Sittwe, where the population was about half Arakan and half Muslim, most Muslims have fled the city or were forcibly relocated, raising questions about whether the government will respect their right to return home. Human Rights Watch found the center of the once diverse capital now largely segregated and devoid of Muslims.
In northern Arakan State, the army, police, Nasaka border guard forces, and Lon Thein paramilitaries have committed killings, mass arrests, and other abuses against Rohingya. They have operated in concert with local Arakan residents to loot food stocks and valuables from Rohingya homes. Nasaka and soldiers have fired upon crowds of Rohingya villagers as they attempted to escape the violence, leaving many dead and wounded.
“If the atrocities in Arakan had happened before the government’s reform process started, the international reaction would have been swift and strong,” said Adams. “But the international community appears to be blinded by a romantic narrative of sweeping change in Burma, signing new trade deals and lifting sanctions even while the abuses continue.”
Since June, the government has detained hundreds of Rohingya men and boys, who remain incommunicado. The authorities in northern Arakan State have a long history of torture and mistreatment of Rohingya detainees, Human Rights Watch said. In the southern coastal town of Moulmein, 82 fleeing Rohingya were reportedly arrested in late June and sentenced to one year in prison for violating immigration laws.
“The Burmese authorities should immediately release details of detained Rohingya, allow access to family members and humanitarian agencies, and release anyone not charged with a crime recognized under international law in which there is credible evidence,” Adams said. “This is a test case of the government’s stated commitment to reform and protecting basic rights.”
Burma’s 1982 Citizenship Law effectively denies Burmese citizenship to the Rohingya population, estimated at 800,000 to 1 million people. On July 12, Burmese President Thein Sein said the “only solution” to the sectarian strife was to expel the Rohingya to other countries or to camps overseen by the United Nations refugee agency.
“We will send them away if any third country would accept them,” he said.
Burmese law and policy discriminate against Rohingya, infringing on their rights to freedom of movement, education, and employment. Burmese government officials typically refer to the Rohingya as “Bengali,” “so-called Rohingya,” or the pejorative “Kalar,” and Rohingya face considerable prejudice from Burmese society generally, including from longtime democracy advocates and ethnic minorities who themselves have long faced oppression from the Burmese state.
Burma’s new human rights commission – led by chairman Win Mra, an ethnic Arakan – has not played an effective role in monitoring abuses in Arakan State, Human Rights Watch said. In a July 11 assessment of the sectarian violence, the commission reported on no government abuses, claimed all humanitarian needs were being met, and failed to address Rohingya citizenship and persecution.
“The Burmese government needs to urgently amend its citizenship law to end official discrimination against the Rohingya,” Adams said. “President Thein Sein cannot credibly claim to be promoting human rights while calling for the expulsion of people because of their ethnicity and religion.”
The sectarian violence has created urgent humanitarian needs for both Arakan and Rohingya communities, Human Rights Watch said. Local Arakan organizations, largely supported by domestic contributions, have provided food, clothing, medicine, and shelter to displaced Arakan. By contrast, the Rohingya population’s access to markets, food, and work remains dangerous or blocked, and many have been in hiding for weeks.
The government has restricted access to affected areas, particularly Rohingya areas, crippling the humanitarian response. United Nations and humanitarian aid workers have faced arrest as well as threats and intimidation from the local Arakan population, which perceives the aid agencies as biased toward the Rohingya. Government restrictions have made some areas, such as villages south of Maungdaw, inaccessible to humanitarian agencies.
“The authorities should immediately grant unfettered humanitarian access to all affected populations and begin work to prevent future violence between the communities,” Adams said. “The government should assist both communities with property restitution and ensure all of the displaced can return home and live in safety.”
Since the June violence, thousands of Rohingya have fled to neighboring Bangladesh where they have faced pushbacks from the Bangladeshi government in violation of international law. Human Rights Watch witnessed Rohingya men, women, and children who arrived onshore and pleaded for mercy from Bangladesh authorities, only to be pushed back to sea in barely seaworthy wooden boats during rough monsoon rains, putting them at grave risk of drowning or starvation at sea or persecution in Burma. It is unknown how many died in these pushbacks. Those who were able to make it into Bangladesh live in hiding, with no access to food, shelter, or protection.
Bangladesh is obligated to open its borders and provide the Rohingya at least temporary refuge until it is safe for them to return, in accordance with international human rights norms. Human Rights Watch called on concerned governments to assist Bangladesh in doing so and press both Burma and Bangladesh to end abuses and ensure the safety of Rohingyas.
“Bangladesh is violating its international legal obligations by callously pushing asylum seekers in rickety boats back into the open sea,” Adams said. Accounts From “The Government Could Have Stopped This”
“We discussed it and decided to burn down some [Rohingya] villages that all the Muslims used as a headquarters. For example, Narzi and Bhumi. We first started to set fire to Bhumi village, the headquarters of the Muslim people. We burned down the houses and then they burned down ours. In some areas, we did not burn down houses. It would have been foolish in some areas where most houses are near Arakan houses. They would all catch fire. It was a three-day offensive. It started near Bhumi village near Sittwe University because Bhumi is their headquarters.” – Arakan man, 45, Sittwe, Arakan State, June 2012
“The first Muslim people [who arrived] used guns. At that time, we heard the shooting and my husband tried to attack the Muslim people. They killed him right there in the village. His arm was cut off and his head was nearly cut off. He was 35 years old.” – Arakan mother of five children, 31, Sittwe, Arakan State, June 2012
“I fell down and couldn’t breathe I was so scared. I saw all the violence. Around 300 Muslims came to attack our village. They came and burned the houses. I saw them burning the houses…. The police did not come during the violence. When the Muslims came and burned the village, I fled. It was not until I got to Sittwe that I saw any police.” – Arakan woman, 40, Sittwe, Arakan State, June 2012
“In front of my eyes, first the Lon Thein [paramilitaries] came and said they came to protect us, but when the Arakan came and torched the houses, we tried to put out the fires and they started beating us. A lot of people were shot [by the police] at a close distance. I saw people get shot at close range. The whole village witnessed it. They were people from my village. They were 15 or 20 feet away from me…. I saw at least 50 people killed…. When we tried to go put out the fire, we were not allowed to go. First they shot once in the air, and then at the people.” – Rohingya man, 28, Sittwe, Arakan State, June 2012
“The government did not return the dead bodies to our family. They took them and cremated them in the monastery. I did not get the bodies of my two brothers-in-law…. They were killed by the Arakan in front of me. The police were there. It was not far from the police. They were killed in front of me and the police did nothing.” – Rohingya man, 65, Sittwe, Arakan State, June 2012
This report describes how the Burmese authorities failed to take adequate measures to stem rising tensions and the outbreak of sectarian violence in Arakan State. Though the army eventually contained the mob violence in the state capital, Sittwe, both Arakan and Rohingya witnesses told Human Rights Watch that government forces stood by while members from each community attacked the other, razing villages and committing an unknown number of killings.The report is based on 57 interviews conducted in June and July 2012 with affected Arakan, Rohingya, and others in Burma and in Bangladesh, where Rohingya have sought refuge from the violence and abuses.
On the eve of a visit to the US to accept Washington’s highest honour, Aung San Suu Kyi faces accusations of ignoring the plight of Burma’s Rohingya minority. Photo: AFP
Lindsay Murdoch, Bangkok
Burma’s pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi will be awarded Washington’s highest honour next week amid criticism she has failed to speak up for almost one million persecuted Rohingya Muslims living in her country.
Ms Suu Kyi, 67, will receive the Congressional Gold Medal for enduring more than 20 years of personal denigration and 15 years of house arrest as she became the voice of Burma’s downtrodden.
But human rights groups and some academics have expressed disappointment the mother of two who took a seat in Burma’s military-dominated Parliament in July has dodged questions on the plight of the Rohingya, stateless people who are widely reviled by Burma’s Buddhist majority.
One Scottish academic has even suggested she return her 1991 Nobel Peace Prize.
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Ms Suu Kyi is likely to be pressed on her views about the Rohingya during her first trip to the US since she was put under house arrest by Burma’s generals in 1990.
But diplomats say she would face a backlash from Burmese Buddhists, including many of her own supporters, if she was to express support for the Rohingya.
Monks who had been long-time pro-democracy advocates took to the streets of Burma’s second largest city Mandalay for three days last week to demand the Rohingya be deported.
Since bloody clashes erupted between Rohingya and Arakan Buddhists in Burma’s western Arakan state in June – leaving an estimated 100,000 people displaced and at least 78 dead – Ms Suu Kyi has given only scripted answers about the bloodshed to journalists, referring to the need for a “rule of law”.
She has declined to say whether the Rohingya, who under a 1982 law are treated as non-citizens, should be granted citizenship.
The Rohingya, who speak a Bengali dialect and tend to have darker complexions than Burmese, are classified as immigrants from Bangladesh despite having lived in Burma for centuries.
They face restrictions on their movement, access to education and employment and are denied other basic rights.
Many would face possible starvation without the intervention of United Nations agencies.
Burma’s President Thein Sein, a former general who has won praise for introducing democratic reforms in his country, said in July the “only solution” is for the Rohingya to leave Burma.
“We will send them away if any third country would accept them,” he said.
Burma’s treatment of the Rohingya has prompted criticism from many Muslim groups and nations, including Malaysia and Indonesia.
A US delegation that returned on Monday from a two-day tour of areas of Arakan affected by the sectarian violence said it had “great concern” about the situation there.
“Broad swathes of both communities have been affected and the humanitarian situation remains of great concern,” said a statement from the US embassy in Rangoon.
Phil Robertson, who oversees the work of Human Rights Watch in Asia, said the international community rightly looks to Ms Suu Kyi as a beacon of light and moral authority in Burma.
“We encourage her to speak up and take a leadership role on the situation in Arakan,” he said.
About 300,000 Rohingya who have fled the Burma violence are living in Bangladesh, many of them in squalid camps where Bangladesh has restricted aid.
When the violence broke out in June, Bangladesh closed its border and pushed an unknown number of boats carrying men, women and children back out to sea, Human Rights Watch says. Their fate is unknown.
There are fears that when the monsoon season ends within weeks many Rohingya in Bangladesh will attempt dangerous voyages to Malaysia, where tens of thousands of them already there are waiting to be resettled in third countries like Australia.
Thailand has a policy to intercept boats carrying Rohingya at sea and provide them with fuel, water and food but not to allow them to land on its shores.
Thailand has previously towed Rohingya boats which have landed on its shores back out to sea, causing the deaths of hundreds of people.
British MPs this week said the situation in Rakhine State in Burma is an issue of human rights, justice and desperate humanitarian need, and called for the British government to respond.
Tun Khin of the Burmese Rohingya Organization UK. Photo: screenshotSpeakers said that reports indicated that some members of the Burmese security services have been directly engaged in violence towards the Rohingya, with allegations of mass killings, mass arrests and looting.
Responding to the debate, Tun Khin, president of BROUK, said, “The Burmese Government must be held to account for how they are treating the Muslim people. Injustice is being done to the Rohingya people.”
“It has been three months since Rohingya have not been able to leave their homes in Kyauktaw, Min Bya, Puaktaw Pone Nar Kyun and Mrauk Oo,” he said in a statement issued by the Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK (BROUK).
Many Rohingyas do not have any food and are afraid to leave their homes, he said.
“They have become refugees in their homes,” he said. “Urgent UN monitor teams must be allowed into the area and we need a UN Commission of Inquiry into who perpetrated crimes against humanity against Rohingyas.”
He called on the UK government to withdraw the invitation to President Thein Sein to visit the UK in order to bring home to him the seriousness of the current situation.
He also asked the British Government “to ensure strong wording in the upcoming UN General Assembly Resolution on Burma, including reform of the 1982 Citizenship Law and the establishment of a UN Commission of Inquiry into what has taken place in Arakan State.”
Days after the violence started, security forces began targeting predominantly Muslim areas and arrested many Rohingya men and boys, who have not been heard of since, according to a BROUK statement.
MPs said the violence of the summer has brought Burma’s 1982 citizenship law into sharp focus, and noted calls for the Burmese government to repeal that law and to replace it with a new law based on human rights, which recognizes and respects the equal rights of all the Burmese people and is in accordance with international standards.
Jonathan Ashworth, MP, who opened the debate, said that historically, the Burmese government was, perhaps, more sympathetic towards citizenship rights in relation to the Rohingya.
The first president of Burma said that the “Muslims of Arakan certainly belong to the indigenous races of Burma. If they do not belong to the indigenous races, we also cannot be taken as indigenous races,” he said.
MPs mentioned that if the Burmese government is serious about democratic reform, it should eliminate discriminatory laws, and also urged the Government of Bangladesh to treat the refugees with more compassion and to allow the United Nations and other groups greater access to provide humanitarian aid.
႐ိုဟင္ဂ်ာ လူမ်ဳိးစု အသံ 
