Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first)

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Description: The first 7 minutes are abut the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh
Source/publisher: UN General Assembly
2017-09-21
Date of entry/update: 2017-09-22
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Description: "KhinZaw Win on the worsening, bloody business-as-usual in Rakhine...I returned to Myanmar to find the country locked in yet another Rohingya crisis, one that is far more serious this time. Before I left I stated that military administration in Rakhine could be imminent. Then on 25 August there were fresh attacks and the situation blew up again. Security personnel as well as civilians have been killed. On Friday 1 September there was a press conference by the Defence Ministry where the spokesman said that the military had proposed that military administration be installed in north Rakhine but the government of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi had turned it down. If military rule had been established and the violence grew worse, the onus would have been on the military. But now she and the NLD government have to bear the blame for not heeding this advice. The fact of people getting killed and brutalized, whoever they are, is no longer a matter for explanation or blame, much less denial. The inadequacy of such responses stands out. There does not appear to be any well-thought-out approach to the Rohingya issue, much less a national security strategy. Since the beginning of this year there have been calls to convene a meeting of the National Defence and Security Council but the state counselor was extremely reluctant to do so. More is the pity, I should say..."
KhinZaw Win
Source/publisher: teacircleoxford
2017-09-11
Date of entry/update: 2017-09-20
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Description: Emma Alberici speaks to Amnesty International?s crisis response director Tirana Hassan about the ongoing violence against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar and Australia?s response to the attacks.
Emma Alberici (interviewer), Tirana Hassan (interviewee)
Source/publisher: ABC News
2017-09-12
Date of entry/update: 2017-09-15
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Description: "More than 80 sites set ablaze in orchestrated campaign since 25 August... More than 370,000 Rohingya fled across border in less than three weeks... Testimonies show attacks were planned, deliberate and systematic... Amnesty International can reveal new evidence pointing to a mass-scale scorched-earth campaign across northern Rakhine State, where Myanmar security forces and vigilante mobs are burning down entire Rohingya villages and shooting people at random as they try to flee. The organization?s analysis of active fire-detection data, satellite imagery, photographs and videos from the ground, as well as interviews with dozens of eyewitnesses in Myanmar and across the border in Bangladesh, shows how an orchestrated campaign of systematic burnings has targeted Rohingya villages across northern Rakhine State for almost three weeks. ?The evidence is irrefutable ? the Myanmar security forces are setting northern Rakhine State ablaze in a targeted campaign to push the Rohingya people out of Myanmar. Make no mistake: this is ethnic cleansing,” said Tirana Hassan, Amnesty International?s Crisis Response Director..." Additional articles and images
Source/publisher: Amnesty International
2017-09-14
Date of entry/update: 2017-09-15
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Description: "Rohingya exodus puts pressure back on UN rights probe While the international community mulls action, deep-rooted Buddhist distrust of aid groups grows in Rakhine State... An unfolding humanitarian emergency along the Myanmar-Bangladesh border is intensifying pressure on the UN to take action, with fears that an unprecedented exodus of Rohingya refugees fleeing a military clampdown in Myanmar?s Rakhine State could amount to ethnic cleansing. A long-delayed UN fact-finding mission to Myanmar is renewing attempts to investigate allegations of serious rights violations, while the UN Security Council is set to hold a meeting on the crisis today after a request from Britain. Since 25 August, more than 370,000 Rohingya refugees have surged over the conflict-torn Myanmar border into crowded refugee camps in Bangladesh, bringing stories of razed villages, executions, and forced expulsions. The violence has underscored the urgency of the UN probe. The fact-finding mission was mandated in March by the Human Rights Council to investigate allegations of severe rights violations, particularly in Rakhine State, where the Buddhist majority has badly strained relations with international agencies and aid groups. ?We are working day and night to send a team as soon as it is practically possible to establish the facts,” Marzuki Darusman, an Indonesian lawyer who chairs the three-member team, told IRIN in a statement. "The fact-finding mission is very concerned about the reports coming out on recent developments.”..."
Source/publisher: Irin
2017-09-13
Date of entry/update: 2017-09-15
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Description: "...Almost 400,000 Rohingya refugees have surged into Bangladesh from Myanmar?s Rakhine State over the last three weeks. They come on foot, plodding for days through underbrush and dirt trails; they arrive by boat, risking the monsoon season waves along the coast, or the currents of the Naf River, which divides the two countries along Bangladesh?s southern edge.Aid groups say the influx has exhausted relief supplies and pushed existing refugee camps ? filled by earlier waves of Rohingya refugees ? to the breaking point. With no space left in the camps, refugees are spreading out on roadsides, or spontaneously forming new settlements in open spaces. ?It?s beyond overcrowded,” says Vivian Tan, a spokeswoman for the UN?s refugee agency, UNHCR. ?A few days ago, we thought it was at saturation point. Since then, more people have arrived. And they?re still coming.” For mile after mile, refugees line the roads around the overflowing camps. Some sit on old rice bags, filled with what belongings they managed to bring with them. Luckier ones carry a solar panel, or a chicken. Others carry their elderly relatives on their backs. For now, the Rohingya are safe in Bangladesh ? but they have nowhere to go..."
Verena Hölzl
Source/publisher: Irin
2017-09-15
Date of entry/update: 2017-09-15
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Description: "The violence since 25 August that has driven 270,000 Rohingya civilians over Myanmar?s border into Bangladesh is not just causing a humanitarian catastrophe. It is also driving up the risks that the country?s five-year-old transition from military rule will stumble, that Rohingya communities will be radicalised, and that regional stability will be weakened... Since 2012, the International Crisis Group repeatedly has warned that, if left unresolved, Rakhine State?s volatile dynamics pose a major risk to Myanmar?s transition. If dealt with primarily through a heavy-handed, indiscriminate security response, rather than in the framework of a political strategy, the dangers were clearly set to become far worse. The events of recent weeks are not just causing enormous suffering to civilians, but bring Myanmar precipitously close to just such an unraveling of much that has been achieved since the end of military rule. The 25 August attacks on Myanmar security forces by the militant group Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), also known as Harakah al-Yaqin, which the government has designated a terrorist group, undoubtedly were intended as a provocation. Neither these attacks nor the reported killing of non-Rohingya civilians, at least some of which are undoubtedly the work of the group, are excusable, no matter what political agenda they claim to represent. Any government has the responsibility to defend itself and the people living in the country. At the same time, such government security responses need to be proportionate and not target civilians..."
Source/publisher: International Crisis Group (ICG) Statement 8 September 2017
2017-09-08
Date of entry/update: 2017-09-09
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Description: "The controversy surrounding Myanmar?s Rohingya people is evident in conflicting stories about the ethnic group?s origin. The Burmese government and Burmese historians argue that the Rohingya are actually Bengali Muslims, refusing to recognize the term ?Rohingya.” They claim that the Rohingya migrated to Rakhine state in Myanmar from Bengal during and after the British colonial era of 1824-1948. However, most experts outside of Myanmar agree that the Rohingya have been living in Rakhine state since at least the 15th century, and possibly as early as the 7th century. Claims that the Rohingya are recent immigrants from Bangladesh are simply untrue. WHO ARE THE ROHINGYA? While the government has played a significant role in the oppression of the Rohingya, it has not been without the help of Burmese citizens. There is widespread dislike and even hatred toward the Rohingya in Myanmar. The Burmese government has ingrained this disdain into it?s citizens, using dislike for the Rohingya as a way to mobilize support. Leading up to November 2015 elections, President Thein Sein has pointed to the passage of numerous discriminatory laws as evidence that he is a strong leader and should be elected for another term. His campaign is fueled, at least in part, by anti-Muslim rhetoric. The Rohingya are a stateless people, hated in their own country and forced to live in appalling living conditions. 1. For the sake of clarity, the term ?Myanmar” will be used throughout the report except when referring to the country before 1989, when it?s name was still ?Burma.” There are between 800,000 and 1,100,000 Rohingya in Myanmar today, 80% of whom live in Rakhine state. The Rohingya primarily reside in the two northern townships in Rakhine state--Maungdaw and Buthidaung--along the border with Bangladesh. Rakhine Buddhists are the major population group residing in Rakhine state. Tensions leading to violence between these two groups is a regular occurrence..."
Source/publisher: Equal Rights Trust
2015-09-30
Date of entry/update: 2017-09-09
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Language: English
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Description: Useful collection of material on the Rohingya and their situation.... "The Rohingya are often described as "the world?s most persecuted minority". They are an ethnic Muslim group who have lived for centuries in the majority Buddhist Myanmar. Currently, there are about 1.1 million Rohingya Muslims who live in the Southeast Asian country. The Rohingya speak Rohingya or Ruaingga, a dialect that is distinct to others spoken in Rakhine State and throughout Myanmar. They are not considered one of the country?s 135 official ethnic groups and have been denied citizenship in Myanmar since 1982, which has effectively rendered them stateless..."....Analysis/description under several headings interspersed with 11 videos, texts, pictures...: Who are the Rohingya?...Where are the Rohingya from?...How and why are they being persecuted? And why aren?t they recognised?...How many Rohingya have fled Myanmar and where have they gone?...Chart showing Rohingya movement since the late ?70s...What do Aung San Suu Kyi and the Myanmar government say about the Rohingya?...What does Bangladesh say about the Rohingya?...What does the international community say about the Rohingya?...What is the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army?...
Al Jazeera Staff
Source/publisher: Al Jazeera
2017-08-31
Date of entry/update: 2017-09-02
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Description: "In the early hours of 25 August, militants from Harakah al-Yaqin � a Rohingya insurgent group that noww refers to itself in English as the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army ? mounted coordinated attacks on 30 police posts and an army base in the north of Myanmar?s Rakhine state, in the townships of Maungdaw, Buthidaung and Rathedaung. The government reports that the attackers, equipped with hand-held explosive devices, machetes and a few small arms, killed ten police officers, a soldier and an immigration official. Reportedly, 77 insurgents also were killed and one captured. In response, the military is conducting ?clearance operations” across the area and police in rural outposts have moved to more secure locations in case of further attacks. Clashes continue in some locations, and there are reports of vigilantism against Rohingya communities. Both Rohingya and Buddhist residents are attempting to flee the areas affected. Time is not on the government?s side if Rakhine state is to be pulled back from the brink. It must quickly take bold measures to address legitimate Rohingya concerns...The Rohingya insurgent attacks that killed twelve Myanmar soldiers and officials and perhaps 77 of their own number is a serious escalation of a ten-month-old crisis. They make implementation of this week?s recommendations to address Rohingya grievances from Kofi Annan?s Advisory Commission both harder and more urgent."
Source/publisher: International Crisis Group (ICG)
2017-08-27
Date of entry/update: 2017-08-27
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Description: "After one year of consultations held across Rakhine State and in other parts of the country and the region, the Advisory Commission submitted its final report to national authorities on 23 August. The report recommends urgent and sustained action on a number of fronts to prevent violence, maintain peace, foster reconciliation and offer a sense of hope to the State?s hard-pressed population. The final report of the Advisory Commission on Rakhine State, chaired by Kofi Annan, puts forward recommendations to surmount the political, socio-economic and humanitarian challenges that currently face Rakhine State. It builds on the Commission?s interim report released in March of this year. ?Unless concerted action ? led by the government and aided by all sectors of the government and society ? is taken soon, we risk the return of another cycle of violence and radicalisation, which will further deepen the chronic poverty that afflicts Rakhine State”, said Kofi Annan, Chair of the Advisory Commission on Rakhine State. The final report addresses in depth a broad range of structural issues that are impediments to the peace and prosperity of Rakhine State. Several recommendations focus specifically on citizenship verification, rights and equality before the law, documentation, the situation of the internally displaced and freedom of movement, which affect the Muslim population disproportionally. An overview of the thematic focus areas of the report and its recommendations can be found here. The report is the outcome of over 150 consultations and meetings held by the Advisory Commission since its launch in September 2016. Commission members have travelled extensively throughout Rakhine State, and held meetings in Yangon and Naypyitaw, Indonesia, Thailand, Bangladesh, and Geneva. ?The Commission has put forward honest and constructive recommendations which we know will create debate,” Commission Chair Kofi Annan said. ?However, if adopted and implemented in the spirit in which they were conceived, I firmly believe that our recommendations, along with those of our interim report, can trace a path to lasting peace, development and respect for the rule of law in Rakhine State.” With the submission of its final report, the Advisory Commission on Rakhine has completed its mandate. However, the Commission?s report recommends a national mechanism be established to ensure the effective implementation of its recommendations. ?We propose a ministerial-level appointment to be made with the sole function of coordinating policy on Rakhine State and ensuring the effective implementation of the Rakhine Advisory Commission?s recommendations,” says Commission Chair Kofi Annan. ?The appointee should be supported by a permanent and well-staffed secretariat, which will be an integral part of the Central Committee on Implementation of Peace and Development in Rakhine State and support its work.”
Kofi Annan (Chair), U Win Mra, U Aye Lwin, Dr Tha Hla Shwe, Dr Mya Thida, Daw Saw Khin Tint, U Khin Maung Lay, Mr Ghassan Salamé, Ms Laetitia van den Assum
Source/publisher: Advisory Commission on Rakhine State
2017-08-24
Date of entry/update: 2017-08-24
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English, Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
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Description: "The newly formed Arakan Rohingya Solidarity Association militant group is wreaking havoc in the country?s already volatile western Rakhine State..."
Kayleigh Long
Source/publisher: "Asia Times"
2017-06-20
Date of entry/update: 2017-08-14
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Description: RANGOON ? "An Arakan State Advisory Commission delegate who participated in a three-day trip to Bangladesh, Al Haj U Aye Lwin, told The Irrawaddy on Thursday that the living conditions for Muslim refugees on the Bangladeshi border were ?inappropriate even for animals.”..."
Moe Myint
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy"
2017-02-03
Date of entry/update: 2017-02-04
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Description: Executive Summary: "The deadly attacks on Border Guard Police (BGP) bases in Myanmar?s northern Rakhine State on 9 October 2016 and the days following, and a serious escalation on 12 November when a senior army officer was killed, signify the emergence of a new Muslim insurgency there. The current violence is qualitatively different from anything in recent decades, seriously threatens the prospects of stability and development in the state and has serious implications for Myanmar as a whole. The government faces a huge challenge in calibrating and integrating its political, policy and security responses to ensure that violence does not escalate and intercommunal tensions are kept under control. It requires also taking due account of the grievances and fears of Rakhine Buddhists. Failure to get this right would carry enormous risks. While the government has a clear duty to maintain security and take action against the attackers, it needs, if its response is to be effective, to make more judicious use of force and focus on a political and policy approach that addresses the sense of hopelessness and despair underlying the anger of many Muslims in Rakhine State. Complicating this is that Aung San Suu Kyi has some influence, but under the constitution no direct control over the military. The insurgent group, which refers to itself as Harakah al-Yaqin (Faith Movement, HaY), is led by a committee of Rohingya émigrés in Saudi Arabia and is commanded on the ground by Rohingya with international training and experience in modern guerrilla war tactics. It benefits from the legitimacy provided by local and international fatwas (religious judicial opinions) in support of its cause and enjoys considerable sympathy and backing from Muslims in northern Rakhine State, including several hundred locally trained recruits. The emergence of this well-organised, apparently well-funded group is a gamechanger in the Myanmar government?s efforts to address the complex challenges in Rakhine State, which include longstanding discrimination against its Muslim population, denial of rights and lack of citizenship. The current use of disproportionate military force in response to the attacks, which fails to adequately distinguish militants from civilians, together with denial of humanitarian assistance to an extremely vulnerable population and the lack of an overarching political strategy that would offer them some hope for the future, is unlikely to dislodge the group and risks generating a spiral of violence and potential mass displacement. HaY would not have been able to establish itself and make detailed preparations without the buy-in of some local leaders and communities. Yet, this has never been a radicalised population, and the majority of the community, its elders and religious leaders have previously eschewed violence as counterproductive. The fact that more people are now embracing violence reflects deep policy failures over many years rather than any sort of inevitability. It is important for the government?s response to start from an appreciation of why a violent reaction from some Muslims in Rakhine State has emerged. The population has seen its rights progressively eroded, its gradual marginalisation from social and political life, and rights abuses. This has become particularly acute since the 2012 anti-Muslim violence in Rakhine. Disenfranchisement prior to the 2015 elections severed the last link with politics and means of influence. At the same time, the disruption of maritime migration routes to Malaysia closed a vital escape valve, particularly for young men whose only tangible hope for the future was dashed. An increasing sense of despair has driven more people to consider a violent response, but it is not too late for the government to reverse the trend. It requires recognising first that these people have lived in the area for generations and will continue to do so. Ways must be found to give them a place in the nation?s life. A heavy-handed security response that fails to respect fundamental principles of proportionality and distinction is not only in violation of international norms; it is also deeply counterproductive. It will likely create further despair and animosity, increasing support for HaY and further entrenching violence. International experience strongly suggests that an aggressive military response, particularly if not embedded in a broader policy framework, will be ineffective against the armed group and has the potential to considerably aggravate matters. So far, though there are indications of some training and solidarity, HaY does not appear to have a transnational jihadist or terrorist agenda. But there are risks that if the government mishandles the situation, including by continued use of disproportionate force that has driven tens of thousands from their homes or across the border to Bangladesh, it could create conditions for further radicalising sections of the Rohingya population that transnational jihadists could exploit to pursue their own agendas in the country. To avoid that requires subordinating the security response and integrating it into a well-crafted, overarching political strategy ? building stronger, more positive relations between Muslim communities and the Myanmar state and closer cooperation and intelligence sharing with regional countries."
Source/publisher: International Crisis Group (ICG) Asia Report N°283
2016-12-19
Date of entry/update: 2016-12-19
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Description: "High-definition satellite imagery shows widespread fire-related destruction in ethnic Rohingya villages in Burma?s Rakhine State, Human Rights Watch said today. The Burmese government should immediately invite the United Nations to assist in investigating reported destruction of villages in the area. ?New satellite images not only confirm the widespread destruction of Rohingya villages but show that it was even greater than we first thought,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. ?Burmese authorities should promptly establish a UN-assisted investigation as a first step toward ensuring justice and security for the victims.” Human Rights Watch identified a total of 430 destroyed buildings in three villages of northern Maungdaw district from an analysis of very high resolution satellite imagery recorded on the mornings of October 22, November 3, and November 10, 2016. Of this total, 85 buildings were destroyed in the village of Pyaung Pyit (Ngar Sar Kyu), 245 in Kyet Yoe Pyin, and 100 in Wa Peik (Kyee Kan Pyin). Damage signatures in each of the assessed villages were consistent with fire, including the presence of large burn scars and destroyed tree cover. Because of dense tree cover it is possible that the actual number of destroyed buildings is higher..."
Source/publisher: Human Rights Watch
2016-11-13
Date of entry/update: 2016-11-18
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Description: "Nay Pyi Taw, August 23 The Government of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, committed to finding lasting solutions to the complex and delicate issues in the Rakhine State, will establish an Advisory Commission on Rakhine State. A Memorandum of Understanding is to be signed between the Ministry of Office of the State-Counsellor and the Kofi Annan Foundation. The nine-member Advisory Commission, a national initiative to resolve protracted issues in the region, will be chaired by former Secretary-General of the United Nations, Chairman and Founder of the Kofi Annan Foundation and noble laureate, Mr. Kofi Annan and will be composed of (3) international and (6) national persons of Eminence who are highly experienced, respected and neutral individuals. The commission members are : • U Win Mra, Chair of the Myanmar National Human Rights Commission • Dr. Thar Hla Shwe, President of Myanmar Red Cross Society • Mr. Ghassan Salame?, Lebanese Minister of Culture (2000- 2003), UN Special Advisor to Secretary-General (2003-2006) • Ms Laetitia van den Assum, Special Advisor to the UNAIDS (2005-2006), the Netherlands? Ambassador to the United Kingdom (2012-2015) • U Aye Lwin, Core Member and Founder of Religious for Peace, Myanmar • Dr. Mya Thida, President of Obstetrical and Gynecological Society of MMA, Member of the Myanmar Academy of Medical Science • U Khin Maung Lay, Member of the Myanmar National Human Rights Commission • Daw Saw Khin Tint, Chairperson (Rakhine Literature and Culture association, Yangon) and Vice-Chairperson (Rakhine Women Association) The Commission will undertake meetings with all relevant stakeholders, international experts and foreign dignitaries to hear their views and to analyze relevant issues with a view to finding the best possible solutions to prevailing problems..."
Source/publisher: Myanmar State Counsellor?s Office
2016-08-23
Date of entry/update: 2016-08-24
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Description: "The establishment of a high-level commission headed by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan is a welcome step towards addressing the human rights situation in Myanmar?s Rakhine state, Amnesty International said today. ?Today?s announcement is a sign that Myanmar?s authorities are taking the situation in Rakhine state seriously. But it will only have been a worthwhile exercise if it paves the way for the realization of human rights for all people in the state,” said Rafendi Djamin, Amnesty International?s Director for South East Asia and the Pacific...."
Source/publisher: Amnesty International
2016-08-24
Date of entry/update: 2016-08-24
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Description: "Two years after a wave of violence hit the region, Myanmar?s Rakhine State has become a segregated zone. Two million ethnic Rakhine live apart from 1.2 million stateless Rohingya, who are trapped inside displacement camps or barred from leaving their villages. Ending this segregation and protecting the rights of the Rohingya are necessary components of Myanmar?s move toward democracy. However, the Rakhine leadership has rejected ? both politically and with force ? any reintegration of the two communities, and it is seeking to exclude the Rohingya from any role in the state?s development, distribution of resources, and political representation. Recently, Myanmar?s central government developed a draft ?Rakhine Action Plan” that would provide some Rohingya with the opportunity to apply for citizenship, but only if they identify as ethnically ?Bengali.” Those who are found ineligible for citizenship, or who refuse to comply, would be rendered to internment camps. The plan as currently drafted is indefensible, and the international community must demand that it be revised to reflect the rights of Rohingya to self-identify; secure citizenship; and live without arbitrary restrictions on their movement, religion, education, and livelihoods. The plan must also support the positive development of all communities in Rakhine State..."
Sarnata Reynolds
Source/publisher: Refugees International
2014-11-17
Date of entry/update: 2016-08-17
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Description: SUBMISSION TO THE COMMITTEE ON THE ELIMINATION OF DISCRIMINATION AGAINST WOMEN (CEDAW) For the Examination of the combined 4th and 5th periodic State Party Reports (CEDAW/C/MMR/4-5) - MYANMAR - June 2016.....RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE CEDAW COMMITTEE: "The Committee should urge the Government of Myanmar: * To take immediate steps to eradicate all discriminatory policies and practices against the Rohingya population; * To combat all acts of incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence against religious and ethnic minorities, in particular against the Rohingya, condemn such acts publicly and take swift legal action against perpetrators; * To take all necessary measures to establish the rule of law in Rakhine State, end impunity, and provide security and equal protection of the law to all, including Rohingya women; * To engage in a confidence-building process with all communities in Rakhine State, inclusive of women, and to promote interfaith and intercommunal dialogue; * To ensure that any Action Plan for Peace and Reconciliation in Rakhine State is in line with international human rights principles, especially those relating specifically to women... On Citizenship and birth registration: * To review the 1982 Citizenship Law in accordance with international standards in order to prevent and eradicate statelessness in Myanmar, to bring Myanmar law into compliance with the universally respected prohibition of racial discrimination and with Myanmar?s obligations under Article 7 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) with the intention of granting citizenship and associated rights to the Rohingyas; * To urgently resolve the legal status of Rohingyas through a transparent process that will provide incentives to all stakeholders to participate in the process in order to grant citizenship and associated rights to the Rohingyas; * To issue birth certificates to all Rohingya children born in Myanmar in compliance with domestic law and Myanmar?s obligations under the CRC (Article 7.1); * To immediately register all Rohingya children by removing burdensome requirements which make it difficult to insert their names in their parents? family list. * To abolish without delay all local orders restricting movement and marriage, and which seek to limit the number of children a family can have, orders which are exclusively applied on the Rohingya in Rakhine State... On freedom of movement: * To revise and repeal all orders and regulations that restrict the freedom of movement of the Rohingya; * To lift the curfew still in place in Maungdaw and Buthidaung Townships; * To establish conditions conducive to the voluntary return of the displaced Rohingyas to their place of origin or to other places of voluntary resettlement in safety and dignity, and to ensure adequate reintegration and security... On access to livelihood and basic services: * To substantially improve access to quality health care and education services to Rohingya children, in IDP camps as well as in all other locations; * To guarantee unhindered humanitarian access to all Rohingya communities in Rakhine State; * To withdraw the Population Control Healthcare Bill in particular, as this law could result in new restrictions targeting Rohingya women as it allows authorities to impose 3-year birth spacing in any region of the country, in particular as it could further increase discrimination against Rohingya women; * To conduct extensive teacher training among Rohingyas, including for women, and to restore access to higher education, including university education, to Rohingya students; * To ensure access to food and eradicate malnutrition so that women and children can meet their physical and mental needs and responsibilities... On violence against women and access to justice: * To establish support mechanisms for women victims of all forms of violence, including sexual and gender-based abuses; * To increase training, capacity-building and awareness-raising for all actors involved in assisting women subject to violence, including police forces, health practitioners and teachers, community volunteers and other service providers; * To provide legal aid and effective access to justice to encourage women victims of violence to seek redress; * To take legal action against perpetrators of sexual violence against women, and, in particular, investigate and prosecute members of State authorities committing rape and sexual harassment against Rohingya women... On ratifying other international human rights treaties: * To accede to the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness; * To become a State Party to the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women; and, * To accede to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), the International Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) and other relevant human rights instruments."
Source/publisher: The Arakan Project
2016-06-30
Date of entry/update: 2016-07-07
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Description: Human Rights Council Thirty-second session Agenda item 2... Annual report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and reports of the Office of the High Commissioner and the Secretary-General..... Situation of human rights of Rohingya Muslims and other minorities in Myanmar Report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights....."The present report, submitted pursuant to Human Rights Council resolution 29/21, examines the situation of human rights of Rohingya Muslims and other minorities in Myanmar. It analyzes patterns of human rights violations and abuses, particularly discrimination, and concludes with recommendations on measures to be taken by the Government to improve the situation of minorities in Myanmar."
Source/publisher: United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (A/HRC/32/18) - Advance Unedited Version
2016-06-20
Date of entry/update: 2016-06-22
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Language: English
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Description: "...What assistance has the ICRC been providing to IDPs in Kachin and Shan states? I have had the opportunity to see two camps and a settlement where displaced people are living. One in Myitkyina, where people have been living for several years, and then two in Kutkai in northern Shan State, where displaced people had just arrived. I really feel that there is quite a difference in terms of living standards in one camp where there are people newly arrived. There, we provide emergency assistance. Whereas in Myitkyina we support livelihoods, for instance, in providing cash grants, so that people can open their own shop, earn their own money and stand on their own feet. What short- and long-term aid does the ICRC provide to IDPs? In the short term, it is basically humanitarian assistance, for instance the provisions of shelters. It was the first need that I saw in the camps that I visited in the north of Kutkai and we provided material to every family to build shelters. Then, it is about improving access to water, access to health care and to basic food. In order to provide access to food items, for instance, we distribute cash to every family every month so that they can buy their own food. We provide K7,000 per person per month. For a family of five, it?s K35,000 per month..... For the longer term, we develop other supports for families who show interest in developing economic projects, what we call conditional cash grants. With that money, I saw families in a camp in Myitkyina who opened their own shops, for instance, small grocery shops, or started to raise pigs. .....We have a program called Weapon Contamination [to raise awareness among the public]. We have specialists who are working with Myanmar Red Cross volunteers to sensitise the population on the risks of mines. Myanmar is not a signatory to the mine-ban convention known as the Ottawa Treaty. In our sensitisation work with the army and the armed groups, we very much base our arguments on the fact that we say that we understand why they use it for defence. But the problem is that if you use landmines, they will be there for a long time, and 30 years after, even if there is peace they might explode. So you are really creating a problem that will last for many decades and that will make the lives of people in these areas extremely difficult for a very long time. Landmines are a weapon that have lasting consequences. We see it in countries like Colombia, Afghanistan, even in Bosnia there are still landmines more than 20 years after the end of the conflict and people are at risk of getting hurt or their livestock affected. I think Myanmar is facing, not the whole country, but in certain areas, a serious problem with landmines. So our work consists not only of physical rehabilitation but also to encourage all parties to conflict to address this issue urgently, to start talks in order to clear the affected areas of mines so the population will be able to use the land for farming, to have access to water and grazing land. We are ready to help..."
SANN OO
Source/publisher: "Frontier Myanmar"
2016-06-11
Date of entry/update: 2016-06-14
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "The Muslim minority living in western Myanmar/Burma?s Rakhine State ? at least 800 000 people ? identify themselves as Rohingya. For decades they have suffered legal and social discrimination . While there are historical economic relations with the Buddhist Rakhine community there are also long-standing tensions between the two communities. The Rohingyas have been denied the right to citizenship and even the right to self-identify , and were stripped of their voting rights in the last national and local elections. They are also subject to many restrictions in day to day life: banned from travelling without authorization and prohibited from working outside their villages, they cannot even get married without permission from the authorities, and, because of movement restrictions, they lack sufficient access to livelihood opportunities, medical care and education. The number of children per couple is theoretically restricted to two but, because it cannot be enforced, there are thousands of children without any administrative existence..."
Source/publisher: ECHO (European Commission)
2016-04-30
Date of entry/update: 2016-06-06
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
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Description: Summary: "In 2015, mixed maritime movements in South-East Asia were characterized by two distinct phases: from January to May, when the volume crossing the Bay of Bengal and Andaman Sea was significantly greater than during the same period in previous years; and from June to December, when such movements all but disappeared following the abandonment of thousands of refugees and migrants at sea in May. Some 1,600 refugees and migrants were estimated to have departed by sea from the Bay of Bengal in the second half of 2015, 96% less than in the second half of 2014. By contrast, the 31,000 departures estimated in the first half of 2015 were 34% higher than in the first half of 2014. Refugees familiar with the route told UNHCR in interviews that the sharp decline in departures in the second half of 2015 was a result of increased scrutiny by—and of —authorities at both departure and arrival points and harsher conditions upon arrival, as demonstrated by the discovery of mass graves and the continued detention in Malaysia of the hundreds of refugees who disembarked in May. In total, approximately 33,600 refugees and migrants travelled through South-East Asia in mixed maritime movements in 2015, including approximately 1,000 who either crossed the Strait of Malacca or attempted to reach Australia from Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Viet Nam. Mixed maritime movements originating from the Bay of Bengal in particular continued to result in scores of deaths at a fatality rate three times higher than in the Mediterranean Sea. In 2015, approximately 370 refugees and migrants who departed from the Bay of Bengal are estimated to have died before reaching land, mostly from starvation, dehydration, disease, and abuse by people smugglers."
Source/publisher: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
2016-02-29
Date of entry/update: 2016-04-03
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 1.28 MB
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Description: "Khaing Hla Pyaint is an incredibly determined young Arakanese man who decided that whatever it takes, he will work for his country and help his people. On a long journey from Arakan State near Bangladeshi border to the Thai border town of Mae Sot, Khaing Hla Pyaint experienced deportation, imprisonment, and torture, until he could finally reach his goal and become a soldier in the jungles of Karen State. Despite the hardship, Khaing Hla Pyaint has never regretted the choices he has made. Why was he so determined to work for his country? How did his childhood experiences and further education make him realise he wants to help his people? Read the second part of the unbelievable story of this young dedicated soldier and learn how he feels about the root causes of the conflict, and how he thinks the international community and donors can promote change instead of funding more arms and training for the Burma Army."...See the Alternate link for part 2.
Source/publisher: Burma Link
2013-12-09
Date of entry/update: 2016-03-21
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "United Nations representatives are continuing to pressure Myanmar on the international stage over its treatment of Muslim minorities and internally displaced people. A high-ranking UN official who recently toured IDP camps in Rakhine, Kachin and Shan states yesterday spoke of his ?heartbreaking” experiences. John Ging, director of operations for the Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), stressed that the welfare of these groups cannot be forgotten in the aftermath of the election as the country continues to transform economically and politically. In Rakhine State, Mr Ging met with some of the 120,000 Muslim Rohingya ? who are officially called Bengalis by the government ? and 5000 ethnic Rakhine who remain displaced after communal violence in 2012, which saw more than 150 killed and several villages razed. While acknowledging that the government has made progress in improving the living conditions for some, he also described temporary shelters in a state of collapse and appalling sanitation conditions. Many of the camps lack running water or an operational sewage system. UNOCHA noted that Muslim camp inhabitants continue to face extreme restrictions on their movement, and are denied access to local hospitals. ?One mother told me that her baby, less than a month old, died from lack of oxygen in December after she was denied access to treatment at the nearby township hospital in Myebon,” Mr Ging said. He appealed for an end to such discriminatory policies. ?[These policies] do not reflect the values of the people of Myanmar or the historical diversity of the country. Segregation and disenfranchisement are flawed and inhumane policies, and history teaches us that they fail every time.”..."
Nick Baker
Source/publisher: "Myanmar Times"
2016-03-03
Date of entry/update: 2016-03-03
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "The 1953/54 Census was partial due to security issues in various parts of Burma. Based on the complete urban enumeration and partial rural sampling, the nation?s population in 1955 w as projected to be 20.4 million. The proportion of urban population is not given, but was independently estimated at 19% in 1960 by a World Bank source. The 1953/54 Census found 8% of urban national population was Muslim and 3% of rural, for a weighted average of 4% for the whole country. The Arakan population had 52% of the national rural Muslim population and 10% of the urban Muslim population. Using the 1955 population, there would have been 805 thousand Muslims in all of Burma, 310 thousand in urban and 495 thousand in rural areas. In the Arakan (now Rakhine) state, there would have been 31 thousand urban Muslims and 257 thousand rural Muslims for a total of 288 thousand Muslims out of a total state population of 1.4 million or 20.6% Muslim to total pop ulation in the state. 25 After 1962, Buddhists but not Muslims in Rakhine were allowed to migrate to other parts of Burma, which may have raised the Muslim share of the total population since then..."
David Dapice, Nguyen Xuan Thanh
Source/publisher: Ash Center, Harvard via Network Myanmar
2013-06-30
Date of entry/update: 2015-11-14
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Language: English
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Description: "To many Burmese and Rakhine Buddhists of today?s Myanmar the existence of the non-Buddhist Rohingya people is mostly seen as a direct result of Indian, or more particularly, Bengali immigration during the post-1826 era of British occupation of the territories. To them, the Rohingya history starts with the British occupation of Burma, dating back to 1826 after the First Anglo-Burmese War of 1824-26 in which Arakan and Tenasserim came under the East India Company, with its bases in Calcutta (today?s Kolkata in West Bengal of India). The so-called Indian immigration to Burma is intimately linked with the colonial administration?s desire to transform Burma into a rice bowl for the British Empire. In this paper an attempt is made to reappraise the events during the British occupation of Burma starting with its annexation of Arakan and its commercial attractiveness which drew people from other parts of the region to settle ? mostly temporarily ? there. The questionable influx of Bengalis, or more particularly Chittagonians (from nearby Chittagong District of British Bengal), to beef up the number of Arakanese Muslims, especially, the Rohingyas of Burma is also examined from available sources..."
Habib Siddiqui
Source/publisher: Asian Tribune via Network Myanmar
2012-11-25
Date of entry/update: 2015-11-14
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "When the British occupied Arakan, the country was a scarcely populated area. Consequently, formerly high-yield paddy fields of the fertile Kaladan and Lemro river valleys germinated nothing but wild plants for many years. It is worth noting here that those valleys in the pre-Burman colonization period used to be cultivated by Rohingya Muslims and Hindus, whose forefathers were abducted from Bengal in the 16th and 17th centuries by the Magh and Portuguese pirates to work as slave labors..."
Habib Siddiqui
Source/publisher: Asian Tribune via Network Myanmar
2012-12-02
Date of entry/update: 2015-11-14
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "The Burmese history is replete with accusations against the British government of following a policy of divide and rule; deliberately separating the hilly people from the Burmans/Burmese. According to historian Maung Aung, this policy had the full support of the Christian missions, who wanted to convert the hilly people to Christianity. The British government also kept the racial groups further apart by denying military training to the Burmans and Shans, and giving that privilege to Chins, Kachins and Karens. The latter fought alongside the British and Indian forces ? drawn mostly from the Gurkha (Nepalese) and Sikh population - in campaign against the guerillas. The Burmese also hated that in the Anglo-Burmese wars, the Indian troops had fought side by side with the British in their regiments..."
Habib Siddiqui
Source/publisher: Asian Tribune via Network Myanmar
2012-12-09
Date of entry/update: 2015-11-14
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "...On the matter of annual increase or decrease in the Indian population in Burma due to immigration from and emigration to India, the report notes, ?Unfortunately, the records are so flagrantly at variance and lead to conclusions so widely different that it seems hardly worth while trying to draw any inferences whatsoever from such dubious material.” As to the nature of such trends, the report says, ?Indian immigrants ordinarily spend from two to four years in Burma before going home, the period being shorter or longer according s the savings they accumulate are greater or less. Immigrants arriving in 1927 and 1928 would expect to revisit their homes in India in about 1930 and 1931. High immigrant figures in 1927 and 1928 would therefore connote high emigrant figures about 1930 and 1931.” As to the causes governing periodic fluctuations in the volume of Indian immigration and emigration, the report says, ?Immigrants are in search of work and it would seem reasonable to suppose that they come to Burma either because employment at home is hard to find or is not sufficiently remunerated to content them and because they expect to find work more easily in Burma or earn higher wages. The evidence indicates that wage levels in Burma, though only sufficient to support a low standard of living, are attractive to the Indian immigrant in comparison with the levels in his province of origin. As already stated, he comes with the intention of staying in Burma for three years or thereabouts after which he revisits his home and in the majority cases returns to Burma after an interval varying from a few months to the best part of a year, but probably on an average of about six months.” A closer look at the Baxter Report, therefore, shows that the Chittagonian workers who came to Arakan came as seasonal workers and left when their job was terminated or ended in Burma. Unlike Indian workers, who had to save enough money to return to their homes, the proximity of Chittagong did not require them to overstay. It would be a terrible mistake to confuse those migrant workers with the indigenous community of Arakanese Muslims (e.g., the Rohingyas of Burma), who were culturally Indian/Bengali/Muslim."
Habib Siddiqui
Source/publisher: Asian Tribune via Network Myanmar
2012-12-15
Date of entry/update: 2015-11-14
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: British Gazeteers and Other Reports: Account of Arakan: Lieut. Phayre Senior Assistant Commissioner - JAS Vol. 117 No. 33 - 1841
Lieut. Phayre
Source/publisher: JAS Vol. 117 No. 33, 1841 via Network Myanmar
1840-11-30
Date of entry/update: 2015-11-07
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
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John Ogilvy Hay
Source/publisher: Tribal Analysis Center via Network Myanmar
1891-11-30
Date of entry/update: 2015-11-07
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: British Gazeteers and Other Reports: British Burma Gazetteer Vol II 1879 - Selected pages on Aykyab town and district
Source/publisher: British Burma Gazetteer, Vol. II, Rangoon, 1879 via Network Myanmar
1878-11-30
Date of entry/update: 2015-11-07
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Source/publisher: Burma gazetteer, Volume A, Rangoon 1917 via Network Myanmar
1911-11-30
Date of entry/update: 2015-11-07
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Thomas Campbell Robertson
Source/publisher: Richard Bentley, 1853 via Network Myanmar
1853-02-28
Date of entry/update: 2015-11-07
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Language: English
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Description: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: "The situation in Myanmar?s Rakhine State is driving a regional crisis. Systematic discrim-ination against Rohingya Muslims has contributed to the largest regional outflow of asylum seekers by sea in decades. Humanitarian conditions in Rohingya villages and internally displaced persons (IDP) camps are dire, and Rohingya suffer frequent abuses at the hands of Myanmar authorities. In May 2015, the region was forced to grapple with the results of these conditions, as thousands of Rohingya asylum seekers were stranded on boats in the Andaman Sea, making international headlines. ASEAN leaders met at the time in the hopes of resolving the crisis, but failed to craft a regional response to the drivers of the outflow, which are rooted in Rakhine State. In the months since, these underlying drivers have been compounded by an increasing sense of desperation among Rohingya, driven principally by political exclusion. The disenfranchisement of an estimated one million Rohingya voters, as well as the rejection of dozens of Rohingya parliamentary candidates in advance of the 8 November general election, has led many Rohingya to believe that there is little hope for their future in Myanmar. With no opportunity to take part in perhaps the most consequential election in Myanmar?s history and no hope of any political representation, Rohingya feel they are being forced out of the country. Furthering this perception is the proliferation of anti-Muslim hate speech and sentiment across Myanmar and the government?s failure to address this growing threat. If left unchecked, Buddhist extremists will continue to vilify Rohingya for political purposes, and further episodes of inter-communal violence could erupt in Rakhine State and other areas, driving still more Rohingya to flee their homes. During 2015, ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR) undertook two fact-finding missions to Myanmar to assess the situation and further investigate the root causes of the Rohingya exodus. APHR?s team of parliamentarians and researchers met with government officials, religious leaders, civil society representatives, and UN agencies, as well as Rohingya and Rakhine community members and IDPs. The findings were clear: ASEAN risks another full-blown crisis as a result of unresolved conditions in Myanmar. Unless serious steps are taken to address the situation of depri-vation and despair in Rakhine State, many Rohingya will have no other option but to flee in search of asylum elsewhere. The next wave of refugees is coming. Tens of thousands of Rohingya have already fled by sea, but nearly a million more are still undergoing heavy persecution throughout Rakhine State. When the remaining Rohingya begin to leave, they will be extremely vulnerable to human trafficking to Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia..."
Source/publisher: ASEAN PARLIAMENTARIANS FOR HUMAN RIGHTS via ALSEAN-BURMA
2015-09-30
Date of entry/update: 2015-11-06
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: British Gazeteers and Other Reports: Extract from the 1917 Gazetteer of Akyab (Sittwe + Maungdaw Districts): R B Smart
Mr. R. B. Smart
Source/publisher: Burma gazetteer, Volume A, Rangoon 1917 via Network Myanmar
1916-11-30
Date of entry/update: 2015-11-03
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: British Census Records and Reports 1872-1931: An Account of Indians in the 1931 Census, Chapter XII
Source/publisher: British Foreign Office via Network Myanmar
1930-11-30
Date of entry/update: 2015-11-02
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 1.28 MB
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Description: British Census Records and Reports 1872-1931: Chapter 11 on Race and Caste from the 1921 Census
Source/publisher: British Foreign Office via Network Myanmar
1920-11-30
Date of entry/update: 2015-11-02
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 5.72 MB
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Description: British Census Records and Reports 1872-1931: Extract on Arakan from the 1872 Census
Source/publisher: British Foreign Office via Network Myanmar
1871-11-30
Date of entry/update: 2015-11-02
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 2.11 MB
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Description: British Census Records and Reports 1872-1931: Extract on Indian, including seasonal migration, from the 1911 Census
Source/publisher: British Foreign Office via Network Myanmar
1910-11-30
Date of entry/update: 2015-11-02
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 2.51 MB
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Description: British Census Records and Reports 1872-1931: Extract on Race from the 1901 Census
Source/publisher: British Foreign Office via Network Myanmar
1900-11-30
Date of entry/update: 2015-11-02
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 579.48 KB
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Description: British Census Records and Reports 1872-1931: Extract on Race from the 1911 Census
Source/publisher: British Foreign Office via Network Myanmar
1910-11-30
Date of entry/update: 2015-11-02
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 1.36 MB
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Description: British Census Records and Reports 1872-1931: Extract on Religion from the 1891 Census
Source/publisher: British Foreign Office via Network Myanmar
1890-11-30
Date of entry/update: 2015-11-02
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 365.68 KB
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Description: British Census Records and Reports 1872-1931: Extracts from the 1881 Census
Source/publisher: British Foreign Office via Network Myanmar
1880-11-30
Date of entry/update: 2015-11-02
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 1.22 MB
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Description: British Census Records and Reports 1872-1931: Tables on Race and Language in the 1931 Census
Source/publisher: British Foreign Office via Network Myanmar
1930-11-30
Date of entry/update: 2015-11-02
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 392.39 KB
Local URL:
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Source/publisher: Network Myanmar
1949-01-26
Date of entry/update: 2015-11-01
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 1.45 MB
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Peter Murray
Source/publisher: Network Myanmar
1942-11-30
Date of entry/update: 2015-11-01
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 1.66 MB
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Description: Extract from Anthony Irwin?s ?Burma Outpost? Arakan 1942
Anthony Irwin
Source/publisher: Collins via Network Myanmar
1944-11-30
Date of entry/update: 2015-11-01
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 807.25 KB
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Source/publisher: Network Myanmar
1964-01-28
Date of entry/update: 2015-11-01
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 1.36 MB
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Description: British Records and Reminiscences: The Mujahid Revolt in Arakan
Source/publisher: Network Myanmar
1952-12-31
Date of entry/update: 2015-11-01
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 96.64 KB
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Description: Return to Arakan 1944-45: Memoirs of Robert Mole
Robert Mole
Source/publisher: Pentland Books via Network Myanmar
1944-11-30
Date of entry/update: 2015-11-01
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 64.77 KB
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Description: Executive Summary: "In May 2015 scenes of desperate people stranded without food or water on captain-less boats off the coasts of Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia brought global attention to the Rohingya, a 1.1 million-strong Muslim ethnic group in Rakhine state, Myanmar (formerly Burma). The immediate humanitarian crisis, however, masked a much deeper and more unpalatable crisis ? a genocidal persecution organised by the Myanmar State from which the Rohingya were fleeing. Reports of this persecution led researchers from the International State Crime Initiative (ISCI) to explore whether or not well-documented state crimes against Myanmar?s Rohingya do indeed amount to genocide. ISCI?s detailed research found ample evidence that the Rohingya have been subjected to systematic and widespread violations of human rights, including killings, torture, rape and arbitrary detention; destruction of their homes and villages; land confiscation; forced labour; denial of citizenship; denial of the right to identify themselves as Rohingya; denial of access to healthcare, education and employment; restrictions on freedom of movement, and State-sanctioned campaigns of religious hatred. It also found compelling evidence of State-led policies, laws and strategies of genocidal persecution stretching back over 30 years, and of the Myanmar State coordinating with Rakhine ultra-nationalists, racist monks and its own security forces in a genocidal process against the Rohingya. The persecution entered a new and more devastating phase in 2012. Organised massacres left over 200 Rohingya men, women and children dead. Up to 60 Rakhine were also killed during the June violence. Hundreds of homes, the vast majority belonging to Rohingya, were destroyed. Around 138,000 Rohingya were displaced and ended up in what are effectively detention camps. A further 4,500 desperate Rohingya people live in a squalid ghetto in Sittwe, Rakhine state?s capital. The Myanmar government?s escalating institutionalized discrimination against the Rohingya has allowed hate speech to flourish, encouraged Islamophobia and granted impunity to perpetrators of the violence. The systematic, planned and targeted weakening of the Rohingya through mass violence and other measures, as well as the regime?s successive implementation of discriminatory and persecutory policies against them, amounts to a process of genocide. This process emerged in the 1970s, and has accelerated during Myanmar?s faltering transition to democracy. Part I of this report describes the history, politics and economics of the State?s persecution of the Rohingya, affording particular attention to the relationship between the Rakhine Buddhist community and the State. Part II then analyses these processes of persecution using Daniel Feierstein?s delineation of genocide?s six stages, as outlined in his book, Genocide as Social Practice. Specifically, we will focus on genocide?s first four stages: 1) stigmatisation and dehumanisation; 2) harassment, violence and terror; 3) isolation and segregation; and 4) the systematic weakening of the target group. The systematic weakening process that has accompanied the dehumanisation, violence and segregation has been so successful that the Rohingya in Myanmar can be described as a people whose agency has been effectively destroyed. Those who can, flee, while those who remain endure the barest of lives. Now, the Rohingya potentially face the final two stages of genocide ? mass annihilation and erasure of the group from Myanmar?s history. The report documents in detail the evidence for genocide, its historical genesis and the political, social and economic conditions in which it has emerged. It identifies the architects of the genocide as Myanmar State officials and security forces, Rakhine nationalist civil society leaders and Buddhist monks, and points to a significant degree of coordination between these agencies in the pursuit of eliminating the Rohingya from Myanmar?s political landscape. The report is based on a 12-month period of research, four of which were spent in the field between October 2014 and February 2015. The research included 176 interviews, observational fieldwork and documentary sources. ISCI concludes that genocide is taking place in Myanmar and warns of the serious and present danger of the annihilation of the country?s Rohingya population"
Penny Green, Thomas MacManus, Alicia de la Cour Venning
Source/publisher: International State Crime Initiative (ISCI)
2015-10-29
Date of entry/update: 2015-10-30
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 3.24 MB
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Description: CONTENTS:- I. SUMMARY... II. METHODOLOGY... III. HISTORY OF HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES AGAINST ROHINGYA IN MYANMAR: A. ROHINGYA UNDER MILITARY RULE: FROM MYANMAR?S INDEPENDENCE THROUGH 2011: 1. Denial of Citizenship... 2. Forced Displacement... 3. Forced Labor... 4. Religious Persecution... 5. Marriage Restrictions and Population Control..... B. THEIN SEIN?S ADMINISTRATION: 1. Arbitrary Detention... 2. Forced Labor... 3. Sexual Violence... 4. Restrictions on Freedom of Movement... 5. Marriage Restrictions and Population Control..... C. 2012 UNREST IN RAKHINE: STATE..... D. THE CONTINUED PLIGHT OF THE ROHINGYA: 2013 ? PRESENT: 1. Conditions in Internally Displaced Person (IDP) Camps... 2. Discriminatory Laws and Government Practices Against Rohingya..... IV. APPLICATION OF THE LAW OF GENOCIDE TO THE CASE OF THE ROHINGYA: A. INTRODUCTION TO THE LAW OF GENOCIDE.... B. THE ?GROUP” ELEMENT OF THE CRIME OF GENOCIDE: 1. National, Ethnical, Racial, or Religious Group... 2. Rohingya as an Enumerated Group.... 3. Conclusion on the ?Group” Element..... C. THE ?ACTS” ELEMENT OF THE CRIME OF GENOCIDE... 1. Killing Members of the Group... 2. Causing Serious Bodily or Mental Harm to Members of the Group... 3. Deliberately Inflicting on the Group Conditions of Life Calculated to Bring About its Physical Destruction in Whole or in Part... 4. Imposing Measures Intended to Prevent Births Within the Group... 5. Conclusion on the ?Acts” Element..... D. THE ?INTENT” ELEMENT OF THE CRIME OF GENOCIDE: 1. Anti-Rohingya and Anti-Muslim Rhetoric... 2. Evidence Indicating Intent to Inflict Conditions of Life on Rohingya Calculated to Bring About Their Physical Destruction... 3. Mass Scale of Acts Targeting Rohingya... 4. Conclusion on the ?Intent” Element..... V. STATE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE CRIME OF GENOCIDE: A. STATE RESPONSIBILITY FOR ACTS OF STATE ORGANS... B. STATE RESPONSIBILITY FOR ACTS OF NON-STATE ACTORS... C. STATE DUTY TO PREVENT GENOCIDE... VI. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION.
Source/publisher: FORTIFY RIGHTS via ALLARD K. LOWENSTEIN INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHT S CLINIC, YALE LAW SCHOOL
2015-10-29
Date of entry/update: 2015-10-28
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 2.98 MB
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Description: ?Documents obtained by Al Jazeera?s Investigative Unit expose the inner workings of the Myanmar government, providing ?strong evidence” of genocide against the Rohingya minority?... ?Strong evidence? of genocide in Myanmar, finds Al Jazeera investigation... Exclusive evidence obtained by Al Jazeera?s Investigative Unit reveals government has been triggering communal violence..."
Source/publisher: Al Jazeera with Fortify Rights
2015-10-26
Date of entry/update: 2015-10-26
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language: English (some in Burmese or Rohingya with English sub-titles)
Local URL:
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Description: ABC News, featuring Fortify Rights, investigates the ongoing persecution and deprivations of Rohingya in Myanmar, October 21, 2015.
Source/publisher: ABC News via Youtube
2015-10-21
Date of entry/update: 2015-10-23
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "In May 2015 three boats carrying 1,800 women, men and children landed in Aceh, Indonesia. Most of the passengers were Muslim Rohingya, a persecuted religious and ethnic minority from Myanmar. All those who arrived had endured weeks or months at sea, in overcrowded boats controlled by ruthless traffickers or abusive people-smugglers. The report includes testimonies from the Rohingya on the shocking conditions and human rights abuses they suffered on the boats for weeks or sometimes months on end, including killings and beatings while they were held hostage for ransom."
Source/publisher: Amnesty International, (ASA 21/2574/2015)
2015-10-20
Date of entry/update: 2015-10-21
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English (available also in Indonesian)
Format : pdf
Size: 3.21 MB
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Description: Introduction: "The Expansion of Islam in Southeast Asia1: "Much before the first century, there is evidence of commerce between the Roman Empire and other Mediterranean lands, the cargo making its way mainly aboard Roman and Indian vessels. At the large port which sprang up on the southern coast of Ceylon, merchandise was exchanged between the Roman Empire, India, South­ east Asia, and China. One route went around the Indian subcontinent in the direc­tion of the Straits of Hormuz to the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf, and from there up the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers to ports on the Mediterranean. Another route skirted the Arabian subcontinent to the port of Hadramaut, from there to the Straits of Bab al Mandeb and then to the Red Sea and Akaba. Alternately, the land route went from Hadramaut to Mecca and continued from there to Gaza or Da­mascus. Merchandise was transported via all these routes from China and India to Mediterranean ports and Europe; merchandise was transported along the same routes from the Middle East back to China and India. In the Mediterranean littoral, the appetite for merchandise from Asia motivated Indian merchants to develop their contacts in Southeast Asia and even further afield. In the Middle East, from at least the first century, Arab merchants were also acquainted with trade routes through Asian waters. Most of these merchants came from trade centers along the Red Sea, southern Arabia, or the Persian Gulf. By the third century, there were already Persian merchants along the Malay Peninsula. These Arabs and Persians acted as go-betweens for European merchants who dealt with Asian merchants active in India and the western parts of the Malaysian archipelago. Arab commerce extended to China. It is likely that a group of Arab merchants, and perhaps Per­sians as well, were in the city of Canton as early as the third century. Apparently the sea lanes from Egypt and Persia to India on the one hand, and from India to Southeast Asia on the other, were in Arab hands, and the number of Arab and Persian merchants grew in the first decade of the seventh century. But, because their ships were technically inferior and so had to stay close to the shore, the Chinese were not as involved in trade in the southern waters until long after the Indians, the Arabs, and the Malays of Southeast Asia, each of whom had learned enough about seasonal winds and navigation to sail in the open sea. In time, this commerce became a Muslim monopoly at both its western and eastern ends..."
Moshe Yegar
Source/publisher: Network Myanmar
2001-11-30
Date of entry/update: 2015-10-04
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Myint Thein
Source/publisher: Network Myanmar
2008-11-30
Date of entry/update: 2015-10-04
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language: Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
Format : pdf
Size: 2.72 MB
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Description: Perception of the conflict: " -Displacement of ? Rohingya ” and refugee crisis: humanitarian and human rights crisis -Key words in reports and media: Human rights violations, ?racism”; harassment, extortion, ?stateless people”; citizenship issue -Government failure to protect -Recurrence of communal crises/persecution (1942, 1947-54, 1977-8, 1991-2) -More recent aspects: -Presence of NGOs and UNHCR in Rakhine/ close observation -Media involvement (traditional news; web related social networks) -Andrew Selth: ?Accurate and objective analyses tend to be drowned out by passionate interventions from activists and others, amplified by the internet.” -Internationalization : -Calls to the government of Myanmar to shoulder its responsibility -Involvement of Muslims countries and organizations (visits; donations)..."
Jacques P. Leider
Source/publisher: Network Myanmar
2012-10-18
Date of entry/update: 2015-09-23
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
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Description: Towards a historical appreciation: "  The Myanmar conquest of Rakhine  Important chapter of Rakhine?s history: period of dramatic changes and a point of historical no-return  Negatively viewed from a Rakhine nationalist point of view  Need for a critical historical review:  A complex picture  The past (what happened), history (what is written down), memory (what and how people chose to remember), identity (who you are), autonomy (to stand on one?s own feet) and connection  The central perspective of the conqueror vs the view of the victims  Political and economic context  Long decline of Rakhine monarchy and receding political and economic role in the Bay of Bengal: not a threat anymore  Rise of Western colonialism: East India Company in Bengal (the British in India)  Resurgence of Myanmar expansionism (early Konbaung dynasty..."
Jacques P. Leider
Source/publisher: Network Myanmar
2013-02-28
Date of entry/update: 2015-09-23
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "Arakan ist die herkömmliche Bezeichnung einer Küstenre- gion im Westen Myanmars, die seit 1974 verwaltungsmäßig als Rakhine State bekannt ist. Die Region an der Grenze zu Bangladesch blickt zurück auf die Geschichte eines bis 1785 unabhängigen buddhistischen Königreichs, das sich im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert erfolgreich gegen die Bedrohung durch die Mogulverwalter Bengalens wie auch birmanische Inva- sionen zur Wehr setzte. Wie in anderen buddhistischen König tümern des kontinentalen Südostasien, bildeten auch in Arakan Muslime verschiedener Provenienz einen Bestand- teil des wirtschaftlichen und kulturellen Lebens. »Rohingya« ist der Name einer politischen Bewegung der Muslime im Norden Arakans, die sich nach der Unabhängig - keit Pakistans (1947) und Birmas (1948) entwickelte. Sie ver- langte die Anerkennung der Muslime als ethnischer Gruppe der Rohingya und die Schaffung eines autonomen muslimi - schen Gebiets. Während letzteres Ziel mit der Schaffung der »Mayu Frontier Zone« (1961 ? 1964) kurzzeitig erreicht wur- de, kam es langfristig weder zu einer legalen Verankerung noch zu einer sozialen Akzeptanz einer separaten ethnischen Identität der Rohingya im Land. Spannungen und Gewalt prägten das Verhältnis der buddhistischen und muslimi- schen Volksgruppen seit der Zeit der japanischen Besatzung. Davon zeugen insbesondere zwei massive Fluchtbewegun- gen von jeweils einer viertel Million Muslimen nach Bang- la desch in den Siebzigern und frühen Neunzigern des 20. Jahrhunderts. Über die Jahre wurden die unheilvollen Ge- gensätze und ungelösten Konflikte im Dreiecksverhältnis zwischen der birmanischen Militärregierung, den Buddhis- ten und den Muslimen Arakans in den westlichen Medien aber trotzdem kaum besprochen. Erst die Gewaltausbrüche zwischen Muslimen und Buddhisten im Juni und Oktober 2012 provozierten eine Flut von gleichlautenden Berichten über Menschenrechtsverletzungen und Elend im Rakhine State. Über 200 Menschen starben. Mehr als 130.000, über- wiegend muslimische Bewohner, verließen fluchtartig ihre Wohngebiete und leben seitdem, von internationalen Hilfs- werken betreut, in notdürftigen Behausungen."
Jacques P. Leider
Source/publisher: Network Myanmar
2014-09-30
Date of entry/update: 2015-09-23
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: Deutsch, German
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Description: "As most countries in continental Southeast Asia, Burma/Myanmar is home since many centuries to Muslim communities whose ethnic and geographic origins are traced to either China, India, Malaysia and more recently Persia. Since the 1950s, leaders of the Muslim community in Arakan (Rakhine; Western Burma/Myanmar) have raised the claim of being a separate ethnic group within Burma?s already highly complex patchwork of ethnicities. By that way the Arakan Muslims set themselves consciously apart from other Indian immigrants who took root in Burma/Myanmar mostly during the British colonial period. This claim has been contested for various reasons. It is clear that the country of origin of most Muslims from Arakan is Bengal. Both the old Muslim community that lived in Arakan before the fall of the kingdom in 1785 and the more recent and much more numerous one that developed during the British colonial period (after 1825) trace their origins overwhelmingly to Bengal. This is not surprising as Bengal/East Pakistan/Bangladesh is the neighbouring country and historical relations have existed for centuries between East Bengal and Arakan. Chittagong, today the second biggest city of Bangladesh, was controlled by the Arakanese kings for over eighty years. The language of the Muslims is derived from Chittagonian Bengali. North-south migrations (and earlier deportations) of the population are the rule rather than the exception, as well for Tibeto-Burman as for Aryan populations ..."
Jacques P. Leider
Source/publisher: Network Myanmar
2012-08-26
Date of entry/update: 2015-09-23
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Jacques P. Leider
Source/publisher: Burma Studies va Network Myanmar
2011-11-30
Date of entry/update: 2015-09-23
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: Summary: "The underlying reasons for the use of the word ?Rohingya” in 1950- 60s by the AFPFL Government to describe Muslim Community of Northern Arakan is examined. A possible State-Military bilateral agreement in 1960s between Burma and Pakistan with regards to that Arakan Muslim community has been identified. Verified the consistent pattern that the Burmese Government since 1960 had agreed to take responsibility, i.e. providing the legal residency, for the Muslim Community of Northern Arakan."
Ne Oo
Source/publisher: The Network for International Protection of Refugees via Network Myanmar
2015-08-15
Date of entry/update: 2015-09-23
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "For quite a long time during the nineteenth and twentieth century, ethnicity was defined by cultural and racial criteria supported by the underlying assumption that cultural characteristics were markers of a fixed identity. People could thus be divided and subdivided into essentialized ethnic categories. It is this ?culturalist” and racial understanding of ethnic identity, read back into history and widely spread in Myanmar, that has led to the formulation of the so-called list of 135 ethnic groups, a list that reflects political choices based on ethnic, cultural and historical criteria. These groups are hierarchi zed and co-exist in a multi-layered context that is determined by historical precursors, socio - economic environments and changing political conditions. Some are arguably more dominant and prominent than others. In Myanmar the constitutionally defined ethnic categories are often said to derive from the colonial state. But one may as well trace the concept of such categories back to various lists of 101 peoples found in precolonial Myanmar, Rakhine and Mon texts.1 While ethnicity is a rigid concept that dominates political and social relations in Myanmar, contemporary scholarship would not support the inflexibility of such categories, because it rejects the ?reification of ethnic distinctions” and the ?obscuring” of processes of ethnic change.2 Anthropological research tells us that ethnic identity is not intrinsically given and fixed, but subject to change as much as society as a whole is nowhere fitting a once-for-all model. Identities undergo transformation, as people migrate and adapt to new places, to socio-economic change and to cultural challenges. The close observation and analysis of such changes is precisely one of the objects of social studies in general and historians, in particular, have been interested in identities that fade and new collective id entities that take shape. Collective self-awareness and cultural markers form the visible and vocal parts of novel identities, but it is the creation of new political borders (or state-building) and the emergence of divisive political projects that appear, at hindsight, as the key determinant factors. When the formation of identities is analyzed, the deeply political nature of this process cannot escape our attention. Identity, in the view of modern scholars, is not merely a naturally given, but it is very m uch written into a collective, open-ended historical experience, both construed and fluid. This does not mean though that newly emergent identities will automatically take hold, go socially and legally uncontested and obtain recognition. The issue can be highly controversial. When social scientists focus, for example, on the building of a collective national identity in the State of Singapore, a relatively new country, or the issue of recognition of the Palestinians as a nation, they face such highly complex, historically individualized and eventually contested contexts..."
Jacques P. Leider
Source/publisher: Network Myanmar
2014-01-28
Date of entry/update: 2015-09-23
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "...Bamar Muslims began to actively express their awareness of being Bamar Muslims as indigenous citizens around the 1930s, almost at the same time that Burmese nationalism was on the rise. Bamar Muslims continued to raise their voices during the last military regime, yet most Buddhist Burmese did not recognize them as native. Using documents and interviews, this study will explore how the idea of Muslims as indigenous citizens emerged during the colonial period, and how it evolved up through the present time..."
SAITO Ayako
Source/publisher: The Journal of Sophia Asian Studies No.32 (2014)
2014-12-27
Date of entry/update: 2015-09-19
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Language: English
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Description: "Amidst the political and humanitarian crises faced by Rohingya people in Arakan, a powerful tropical cyclone had made its landfall in Arakan, setting off a new wave of humanitarian crises in several townships in the Arakan state. On the political side, the date for the General Election in Myanmar is set for 8 November, 2015. While the ruling military?s USDP-dominated Government continues to deny the basic rights and citizenship of Rohingya and reject their ethnic identity, it has renewed its old strategy — reminiscent to what USDP did in the 2010 General Election — to secure the votes from Rohingya. Simultaneously, the main opposition party of the Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi?s National League for Democracy, reportedly has also taken dramatic steps against Muslims in Myanmar. Currently, the Rohingya are not in the voters? list issued by the Government...".....Written NGO statements to the 29th Session of UN Human Rights Council." .....Written NGO statement to the 30th Session of UN Human Rights Council.
Source/publisher: Maarij Foundation for Peace and Development via UN Human Rights Council (A/HRC/30/NGO/60)
2015-09-04
Date of entry/update: 2015-09-15
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "GELUGOR, Malaysia — The young woman had been penned in a camp in the sweltering jungle of southern Thailand for two months when she was offered a deal. She fled Myanmar this year hoping to reach safety in Malaysia, after anti-Muslim rioters burned her village. But her family could not afford the $1,260 the smugglers demanded to complete the journey. A stranger was willing to pay for her freedom, the smugglers said, if she agreed to marry him. ?I was allowed to call my parents, and they said that if I was willing, it would be better for all the family,” said the woman, Shahidah Yunus, 22. ?I understood what I must do.” She joined the hundreds of young Rohingya women from Myanmar sold into marriage to Rohingya men already in Malaysia as the price of escaping violence and poverty in their homeland. While some Rohingya women agree to such marriages to escape imprisonment or worse at the hands of smugglers, others are tricked or coerced. Some are only teenagers. Continue reading the main story RELATED COVERAGE France and Britain Seek Help on Calais Migrants From E.U.AUG. 2, 2015 A Bangladeshi Town in Human Trafficking?s GripJULY 23, 2015 Jubair, 13, was left behind when his mother and siblings fled Myanmar for Malaysia. ?I didn?t know about it,” he said. ?She could not find me. She could not tell me.”A Migrant Mother?s Anguished ChoiceJULY 5, 2015 Oma Salema, 12, holding her undernourished brother, Ayub Khan, 1, in Sittwe Camp.Myanmar to Bar Rohingya From Fleeing, but Won?t Address Their PlightJUNE 12, 2015 Malaysia offers at least some modicum of opportunity for Rohingya migrants. Rohingya gathered at an apartment block in Kuala Lumpur that is home to several families.Even in Safety of Malaysia, Rohingya Migrants Face Bleak ProspectsJUNE 3, 2015 Rohingya migrants with airdropped food. A boat carrying them and scores of others, including young children, was found floating in Thai waters; passengers said several people had died.Rohingya Migrants From Myanmar, Shunned by Malaysia, Are Spotted Adrift in Andaman SeaMAY 14, 2015 How Myanmar and Its Neighbors Are Responding to the Rohingya CrisisMAY 14, 2015 Their numbers are difficult to gauge, but officials and activists estimate that in recent years hundreds, if not thousands, of Rohingya women every year have been married off this way, and that their numbers have been increasing..."
Chris Buckley, Ellen Barry
Source/publisher: "New York Times"
2015-08-02
Date of entry/update: 2015-08-20
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Language: English
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Description: "Disturbing images and reports of decrepit vessels crammed with Rohingya people from Myanmar adrift in the Andaman Sea have featured prominently in Western newspapers and media websites of late. In April, a Thai government crackdown on human trafficking prompted smugglers to abandon their human cargoes at sea, leaving dozens of boats packed with migrants drifting aimlessly for weeks. Almost without missing a beat, media and rights groups condemned Myanmar for creating this humanitarian crisis ? in the process reviving the old narrative of the pariah state. The perpetual refrain about desperate attempts by Rohingya (or ?Bengalis,” as they are widely called in Myanmar) to flee persecution by powerful Buddhists does not give the full picture ? in fact, this narrative of one-sided victimhood will help neither readers who wish to understand the roots of the crisis nor the Rohingya themselves. The people who call themselves Rohingya are a Muslim minority originally from Bangladesh but with a longstanding presence in Myanmar?s western Rakhine state. Some Muslim families can trace their history in Rakhine to the 16th century. When Mughals invaded Bengal in 1575, many Muslim Bengalis sought refuge in neighboring territory, where ethnic Rakhine people had been living and reigning independently for more than three thousand years..."
Mariana Olaizola Rosenblat
Source/publisher: "The Diplomat"
2015-07-08
Date of entry/update: 2015-07-13
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Language: English
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Description: Text plus links and short videos....."Torture, rape, corruption, and ransom demands - the horror experienced by migrants has been allowed to flourish for decades, according to a source inside the Southeast Asian trafficking industry from Yangon and Bangladesh. Each year thousands of Rohingya refugees flee from Myanmar to camps at Cox?s Bazar across the border in Bangladesh. Seeking to continue their journey to countries such as Malaysia, they are vulnerable to the gangs who organise boat travel..."
Syed Tashfin Chowdhury, Florence Looi
Source/publisher: Al Jazeera
2015-06-23
Date of entry/update: 2015-06-25
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Language: English
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Description: "Myanmar?s Rohingya suffer brutal state crime because of deeply entrenched and unchecked Islamophobia...The Rohingya are an ethnic group with ancient traditions in Myanmar and a continuous physical presence there for at least past two centuries. But they are defined by the Myanmar state as Bangladeshi nationals with no right to the privileges of Myanmar citizenship. Abu Tahay, chair of the Union National Development Party, shows me the historical evidence which positions the Rohingya ethnic minority in Myanmar before the military?s pre-colonial citizenship cut-off date of 1823. He shows me research from the Australian National University which identifies 8th century Rohingya stone monuments, in the Myanmar state of Arakan (also known as Rakhine). It is compelling evidence and he leaves nothing out. On its basis, the Rohingya are surely entitled to Myanmar citizenship and ethnic minority recognition. Instead, theirs is a "bare life" in which every aspect of social and political life is restricted and diminished..."
Penny Green
Source/publisher: Al Jazeera
2013-04-30
Date of entry/update: 2015-06-04
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Language: English
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Description: "This week, the full impact of the Burmese government repression [2] of Rohingyas, one of its internal minority populations, was exposed to the world. Thousands of Burmese refugees have been stranded in boats [3] in the Andaman Sea and Malaccan Straits as Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia try to prevent them from landing on their shores [4]. There are great fears for the well being of these people. The recent stand by Australian governments to reject asylum seekers and turn boats around [5] has helped to create this inhumane situation by empowering other countries to do the same."
Source/publisher: Australia Asia Worker Links
2015-05-17
Date of entry/update: 2015-05-17
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: Executive Summary: "The longstanding persecution of the Rohingya Muslim minority in Myanmar has led to the highest outflow of asylum seekers by sea since the U.S. war in Vietnam. Human rights violations against Rohingya have resulted in a regional human trafficking epidemic, and there have been further abuses against Rohingya upon their arrival in other Southeast Asian countries. This protracted culture of abuse threatens Myanmar?s political transition, puts strains on regional economies, and supports the rise of extremist ideologies that pose potential security threats throughout the region. Ongoing human rights abuses against Rohingya pose a threat to regional peace and security and must end. Broader anti-Muslim rhetoric and violence has also flared up in locations across Myanmar in recent years. These incidents, as well as ongoing abuses against ethnic minority groups throughout the country, pose similar risks for Myanmar and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). In April 2015, ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR), an organization of members of parliament from several ASEAN countries, conducted a fact-finding mission in Myanmar. APHR is deeply concerned about the current dynamics there and how they affect the region and the broader global community. APHR is equally concerned with the failure of ASEAN nations to adequately respond. Critical national elections in Myanmar are slated for the end of 2015. APHR has found an alarmingly high risk of atrocities against Rohingya, other Muslims, and other ethnic minority groups in the lead up to the election. These risks constitute a regional concern, not only due to potential cross-border spillover effects, but also because ASEAN member states share a moral responsibility to take all possible measures to prevent the commission of atrocities within ASEAN. Despite these troubling realities, the Rohingya issue remains conspicuously absent from the agenda of the ASEAN Summit. ASEAN and other global leaders ignore these dynamics at their own peril. The Rohingya crisis and broader animosity toward other Muslims and ethnic minorities in Myanmar are not just a Myanmar problem—they are an ASEAN problem. Nearly every common risk factor for atrocity crimes identified in the United Nations? Framework of Analysis for Atrocity Crimes is present in Myanmar today. This report draws upon APHR?s collective knowledge to analyze the situation in Myanmar within the context of this United Nations? Framework. Based on this analysis, it is clear that there is a high risk of ongoing atrocity crimes in Myanmar in 2015 and beyond. The report represents a call to action. It demonstrates that the escalating human rights crisis in Myanmar and Southeast Asia more broadly is exacerbated by the failure of ASEAN to take effective action. ASEAN should:..."
Source/publisher: ASEAAN Parlaimetarians for Human Rights (APHR)
2015-03-31
Date of entry/update: 2015-05-06
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
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Description: "In March 2015, staff of the SIMON-SKJODT CENTER FOR THE PREVENTION OF GENOCIDE traveled to Burma, also called Myanmar, to investigate the threats facing the Rohingya, a Muslim minority group that has been subject to dehumanization through rampant hate speech, the denial of citizenship, and restrictions on freedom of movement, in addition to a host of other human rights violations that put this population at grave risk of additional mass atrocities and even genocide.... STARKEST EARLY WARNING SIGNS OF FUTURE MASS ATROCITIES: This list represents some of the concerns we heard the most often from Rohingya leaders and survivors: • Physical violence targeted against Rohingya people, homes, and businesses • Physical segregation of the Rohingya from members of other ethnic groups • Blockage of humanitarian assistance, including necessary health care • Deplorable living conditions for those displaced from their homes • Rampant and unchecked hate speech against Rohingya and other Muslims • Restrictions on movement • Stripping of citizenship • Destruction of mosques, onerous processes for Rohingya to maintain or fix mosques, and other restrictions on freedom of religion • Extortion and illegal taxation • Land confiscation • Two-child policy and restrictions on marriage in some areas of Rakhine State • ?Supply checks” or raids by security forces on Rohingya homes • Sexual violence and arbitrary arrest and detention • Abuses in detention • Revocation of legal or other documents • Inability to pursue livelihoods and restrictions on business opportunities • Lack of opportunities to pursue education • Restrictions on voting • Government blockage of information flow in and out of Rohingya communities..."
Source/publisher: UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM (IMON-SKJODT CENTER FOR THE PREVENTION OF GENOCIDE)
2015-05-01
Date of entry/update: 2015-05-06
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: Written statement submitted by the Society for Threatened Peoples, a non - governmental organization in special consultative status...."Currently, the Myanmar parliament is debating a controversial legislative package called the ?Laws on Protection of Race and Religion” which includes the Religion Conv ersion Bill, Interfaith Marriage Bill, Population Control Bill, and the Monogamy Bill. The legislation has been proposed by an extremist Buddhist organization called the Association for the Protection of Race and Religion, which is connected to the nationa list Buddhist monk Wirathu and the 969 Movement. This group of bills is not only violating human rights in several ways but it is also endangering the peace and unity of the country. The Religion Conversion Bill includes restrictions on converting to an other religion especially for those who are wishing to convert from Theravada Buddhism to a minority religion or to atheism. The bill set out a process for applying for official permission to convert from one religion to another, giving Township - level offi cial from various government departments the power to determine whether an applicant has exercised free will in choosing to change religion. Penalties up to two years are foreseen for those who are found to be applying for conversion ?with the intent of in sulting or destroying a religion” or ?undue influence or pressure...".....Written NGO statement to the 28th Session of UN Human Rights Council.
Source/publisher: Society for Threatened Peoples via United Nations (A/HRC/28/NGO/66)
2015-02-24
Date of entry/update: 2015-03-11
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Language: English
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Description: "...We need to see this diversity inherent in Myanmar?s population, and this includes within the Muslim communities. How do we begin to capture the diversity and richness of Myanmar?s Muslim mosaic? Central to the politics of belonging is how Muslims define themselves. Let me take the 2014 census as an example of how Muslims are seeking to redefine their identity. International commentary on the census primarily focused on the categories the government would use to mark religion and ethnicity, and specifically whether it would allow individuals to identify as ?Rohingya?. But there was an absence of coverage of broader Muslim responses to the census. Observers failed to see the fierce discussion and debate within Muslim communities about what categories they wanted to use to define their religious and ethnic status in the census. Many in the Burmese Muslim community were confused: they did not want to list their ethnicity as ?Burman?, even if they identified as part Burman. This was because they felt that the ethnic category ?Burman? may be conflated by the government with ?Buddhists?, and therefore overestimated the numbers of Buddhists. On the other hand, as Muslims who take pride in their ?Burmeseness? ? both in terms of their ancestry as well as the use of Burmese language, clothing and culture ? wanted recognition that they belong to Myanmar too..."
Melissa Crouch
Source/publisher: "New Mandala"
2014-11-04
Date of entry/update: 2014-12-13
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Description: "The most controversial aspect of the census recently held in Burma has been the denial of the large Muslim population in Arakan to identify themselves as Rohingya, the term of their choice. The government ban means as many as one million people remain uncounted in Arakan. That is scarcely surprising, as the Burmese government, Rakhine ultra-nationalists and seemingly a majority of the Burmese population have denied for years the existence of the Rohingya identity. According to them, the Rohingya ethnicity is an invention devised by immigrants from Bangladesh to take over the land in Arakan. Few people have made more effort to deny the claims of ethnicity by the Rohingya than Derek Tonkin, former British ambassador to Thailand and editor of the website Network Myanmar. Mr. Tonkin has reached his conclusions after digging deeply in colonial British archives, where he has not found a single use of the term Rohingya. His command of the British colonial records is nothing less than impressive, but by relying almost solely on these sources he only offers a partial picture, from which I think he draws incorrect conclusions..."
Carlos Sardina Galache
Source/publisher: "New Mandala"
2014-09-22
Date of entry/update: 2014-12-13
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: Speakers and panel discussion: 3-hour video - 2 parts: Panel 1: Rohingya voices. Chair: Felicia Knaul, Director, Harvard Global Equity Initiative a) Daw Khin Hla, a Rohingya refugee and a researcher with Rohingya Blogger and former Middle School teacher [NOTE: former Middle School teacher from Northern Rakhine ? on health and education of Rohingya] b) Tun Khin, President, Burmese Rohingya Organization of United Kingdom [NOTE: grassroots activism and on the history and status of Rohingya nationality and statelessness c) U Ba Sein, Rohingya refugee and co-founder of Rohinger Blogger, former staff of Burma?s Ministry of Cooperatives d) Wakar Udin, General Secretary, Arakan Rohingya Union [NOTE: a political NGO with an official status with the OIC and a leading spokesperson on Rohingya affairs ? on international perspectives and policies related to persecution of Rohingya]..... Panel 2: Historical, political and human rights perspectives Chair: Afsan Bhadelia, Research Associate, Harvard Global Equity Initiative a) Amartya Sen, Lamont University Professor, Harvard University; Nobel Prize Laureate, Economics, 1998; and Chair, Steering Committee, Harvard Global Equity Initiative b) Maung Zarni, Lecturer, Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School; co-author of The Slow Burning Genocide of Myanmar?s Rohingya, Pacific Rim Law and Policy Journal, Spring 2014 c) Malik Mujahid, Chair, Parliament of the World?s Religions; and President, Justice for All.... Panel 3: The right to health and essential life services Chair: Lincoln Chen, President, China Medical Board a) Lilianne Fan, Research Fellow, Humanitarian Policy Group, Overseas Development Institute b) Susannah Sirkin, Director of International Policy and Partnerships & Senior Advisor, Physicians for Human Rights Commentator: Felicia Knaul, Director, Harvard Global Equity Initiative..... Panel 4: Developing an evidence-for-advocacy research agenda Chair: Felicia Knaul, Director, Harvard Global Equity Initiative a) Amartya Sen, Lamont University Professor, Harvard University; Nobel Prize Laureate, Economics, 1998; and Chair, Steering Committee, Harvard Global Equity Initiative b) Maung Zarni, Lecturer, Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School; co-author of The Slow Burning Genocide of Myanmar?s Rohingya, Pacific Rim Law and Policy Journal, Spring 2014 c) Lincoln Chen, President, China Medical Board
Source/publisher: Harvard Global Equity Initiative
2014-11-04
Date of entry/update: 2014-11-27
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Description: Speakers and panel discussion. Panel 1: Rohingya voices Chair: Felicia Knaul, Director, Harvard Global Equity Initiative a) Daw Khin Hla, a Rohingya refugee and a researcher with Rohingya Blogger and former Middle School teacher [NOTE: former Middle School teacher from Northern Rakhine ? on health and education of Rohingya] b) Tun Khin, President, Burmese Rohingya Organization of United Kingdom [NOTE: grassroots activism and on the history and status of Rohingya nationality and statelessness c) U Ba Sein, Rohingya refugee and co-founder of Rohinger Blogger, former staff of Burma?s Ministry of Cooperatives d) Wakar Udin, General Secretary, Arakan Rohingya Union [NOTE: a political NGO with an official status with the OIC and a leading spokesperson on Rohingya affairs ? on international perspectives and policies related to persecution of Rohingya]..... Panel 2: Historical, political and human rights perspectives Chair: Afsan Bhadelia, Research Associate, Harvard Global Equity Initiative a) Amartya Sen, Lamont University Professor, Harvard University; Nobel Prize Laureate, Economics, 1998; and Chair, Steering Committee, Harvard Global Equity Initiative b) Maung Zarni, Lecturer, Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School; co-author of The Slow Burning Genocide of Myanmar?s Rohingya, Pacific Rim Law and Policy Journal, Spring 2014 c) Malik Mujahid, Chair, Parliament of the World?s Religions; and President, Justice for All.... Panel 3: The right to health and essential life services Chair: Lincoln Chen, President, China Medical Board a) Lilianne Fan, Research Fellow, Humanitarian Policy Group, Overseas Development Institute b) Susannah Sirkin, Director of International Policy and Partnerships & Senior Advisor, Physicians for Human Rights Commentator: Felicia Knaul, Director, Harvard Global Equity Initiative..... Panel 4: Developing an evidence-for-advocacy research agenda Chair: Felicia Knaul, Director, Harvard Global Equity Initiative a) Amartya Sen, Lamont University Professor, Harvard University; Nobel Prize Laureate, Economics, 1998; and Chair, Steering Committee, Harvard Global Equity Initiative b) Maung Zarni, Lecturer, Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School; co-author of The Slow Burning Genocide of Myanmar?s Rohingya, Pacific Rim Law and Policy Journal, Spring 2014 c) Lincoln Chen, President, China Medical Board
Source/publisher: Harvard Global Equity Initiative
2014-11-04
Date of entry/update: 2014-11-27
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Description: "Two years after a wave of violence hit the region, Myanmar?s Rakhine State has become a segregated zone. Two million ethnic Rakhine live apart from 1.2 million stateless Rohingya, who are trapped inside displacement camps or barred from leaving their villages. Ending this segregation and protecting the rights of the Rohingya are necessary components of Myanmar?s move toward democracy. However, the Rakhine leadership has rejected ? both politically and with force ? any reintegration of the two communities, and it is seeking to exclude the Rohingya from any role in the state?s development, distribution of resources, and political representation. Recently, Myanmar?s central government developed a draft ?Rakhine Action Plan” that would provide some Rohingya with the opportunity to apply for citizenship, but only if they identify as ethnically ?Bengali.” Those who are found ineligible for citizenship, or who refuse to comply, would be rendered to internment camps. The plan as currently drafted is indefensible, and the international community must demand that it be revised to reflect the rights of Rohingya to self-identify; secure citizenship; and live without arbitrary restrictions on their movement, religion, education, and livelihoods. The plan must also support the positive development of all communities in Rakhine State..."
Sarnata Reynolds
Source/publisher: Refugees International
2014-11-17
Date of entry/update: 2014-11-25
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Description: "The sectarian violence that erupted in Rakhine (Arakan) state in Myanmar has prompted heated discussions over ethnicity, citizenship and belonging. Subsequently, in an effort to determine accurate numbers, a fortnight-long registration exercise was conducted by government authorities in Pauktaw Township in Rakhine state in November 2012. However, the Rohingya reportedly refused to register because the authorities erased the term ?Rohingya? from completed forms and replaced it with ?Bengali?. The Rohingya fear that, once registered as ?Bengali?, they would be declared illegal immigrants by the authorities and summarily deported from the country. The Rohingya?s claim to being a bona fide ethnic group of Myanmar, and hence their claim to citizenship, is steeped in controversy. They assert that they have been living in Rakhine state for thousands of years, even before the Burmans conquered the Arakan kingdom in 1748. This is disputed by the government and certain sectors of Myanmar society who assert that the Rohingya are, in fact, illegal migrants from Chittagong in Bangladesh who crossed into Burma in the nineteenth century. The classification of ethnicity in the registration exercise may be inaccurate, but it is not accidental. The Rohingya?s refusal to being labelled ?Bengali? highlights their acute awareness of the politics of labelling, and is a way of resisting state-imposed definitions and manipulations of ethnicity, and thus criteria of belonging..."
Su-Ann Oh
Source/publisher: International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS) "The Newsletter"| No.66 | Winter 2013
2012-11-30
Date of entry/update: 2014-11-24
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Description: 30 high-quality black and white photographs of the Rohingya living conditions in displacement camps in Burma/Myanmar.....Navigation of the essay is difficult, with no apparent means to copy text.
Greg Constantine
Source/publisher: http://www.exiledtonowhere.com/
2014-10-31
Date of entry/update: 2014-11-18
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Description: The International Crisis Group?s latest report, Myanmar: The Politics of Rakhine State, looks at how the legacy of colonial history, decades of authoritarian rule and state-society conflict have laid the foundation for today?s complex mix of intercommunal and inter-religious tensions. Rakhine State, whose majority ethnic Rakhine population perceive themselves to be ? with some justification ? victims of discrimination by the political centre, has experienced a violent surge of Buddhist nationalism against minority Muslim communities, themselves also victims of discrimination. The government has taken steps to respond: by restoring security, starting a pilot citizenship verification process and developing a comprehensive action plan. However, parts of this plan are highly problematic, and risk deepening segregation and fuelling tensions further, particularly in the lead-up to the 2015 elections. The report?s major findings and recommendations are: Rakhine Buddhists have tended to be cast as violent extremists, which ignores the diversity of opinions that exists and the fact that they themselves are a long-oppressed minority. They are concerned that their culture is under threat and that they could soon become a minority in their state. These fears, whether well-founded or not, need to be acknowledged if solutions are to be developed. The desperate situation of Muslim communities including the Rohingya, who have been progressively marginalised, must also be frankly recognised and resolutely addressed. The government faces a difficult challenge: the demands and expectations of Rakhine and Rohingya communities will be very difficult to reconcile. Ways must be found to allay Rakhine fears, while ensuring the fundamental rights of Muslim communities are respected. To end the climate of impunity, the government must bring to justice those who organised and participated in violence. Clarifying the legal status of those without citizenship is important. But many Muslims will likely refuse to identify as ?Bengali”, fearing this is a precursor to denial of citizenship. A negotiated solution should be pursued, or the citizenship process may stall. Coercion is likely to spark violence. The international community ? especially UN agencies on the ground ? have a critical role in supporting the humanitarian and protection needs of vulnerable communities, which are likely to persist for years. The government itself must do more in this regard. Unless Myanmar is successful in creating a new sense of national identity that embraces the country?s cultural, ethnic and religious diversity, peace and stability will remain elusive nationwide. ?Any policy approach to the problem must start from the recognition that there will be no easy fixes and that reconciliation will take a long time” says says Jonathan Prentice, Chief Policy Officer and Acting Asia Program Director. ?Halting extremist violence requires starting a credible process now that can demonstrate to the Rakhine and Muslim communities that political avenues exist in which their legitimate aspirations might be realised”.
Source/publisher: International Crisis Group (ICG) Asia Report N°261
2014-10-22
Date of entry/update: 2014-10-25
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Description: The highly volatile situation in Myanmar?s Rakhine State adds dangerously to the country?s political and religious tensions. Long-term, incremental solutions are critical for the future of Rakhine State and the country as a whole.
Source/publisher: International Crisis Group
2014-10-22
Date of entry/update: 2014-10-25
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Description: CONTENTS: I. Muslims in Burma in the Days of the Kings... The Beginnings of Muslim Settlement in the Irrawaddy Valley... Muslim Settlement in Arakan... Why Burma Did Not Become Muslim ...... II. Muslims in Burma During British Rule: Immigration from India... Organizations of Muslim Immigrants from India.. Organizations of Burmese Muslims.... The Burma Moslem Society... The General Council of Burma Moslem Associations... The Renaissance Movement... The Japanese Occupation...... III. Muslims in Burma Since Independence: Structural Changes in the Muslim Community... The General Council of Burman Moslem Associations... The Burma Muslim Congress... The Burma Muslim Organization... The Indian Muslims after World War II... Religious Activities... The Arakanese Muslims...... IV. Conclusion: Major Aspects of Muslim Community Life...... Appendices: A. How Many Muslims Are There in Burma?... B. Legislation on Islamic Subjects ... C. Various Documents of the General Council of Burman Moslem Associations ... D. Muslim Press ... E. Persons Interviewed ... F. Burma Newspapers Consulted... Bibliography... Indices... Personal Names... Geographical Names... Institutions... Groups.
Moshe Yegar
Source/publisher: NetIPR
1971-11-30
Date of entry/update: 2014-09-26
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Description: "Already widely reduced to statelessness and in many cases forced into camps for displaced people, an 800,000-strong population of Muslims in western Myanmar now faces increasing efforts to eradicate the very word they use to identify themselves as a group. Under pressure from Myanmar?s nominally-civilian government, the international community sometimes appears complicit in the airbrushing of ?Rohingya? from official discourse. In this briefing, IRIN breaks down some of the questions about a group of people that has been called one of the most persecuted minorities in the world.
Source/publisher: IRIN
2014-09-15
Date of entry/update: 2014-09-23
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Description: "Muslims in Burma, most of whom are Sunni, constitute at least 4 per cent of the country?s entire population (CIA World Factbook, 2006), with the largest concentration in the north of Rakhine State (also known as Arakan), especially around Maungdaw, Buthidaung, Rathedaung, Akyab and Kyauktaw. There are a number of distinct Muslim communities in Burma, not all of which share the same cultural or ethnic background. While the country?s largest Muslim population resides in Rakhine State (also known as Arakan), it is actually made up of two distinct groups: those whose ancestors appear to be long established, going back hundreds and hundreds of years, and others whose ancestors arrived more recently during the British colonial period (from 1824 until 1948). The majority of Muslims in Rakhine State refer to themselves as ?Rohingya?: their language (Rohingya) is derived from the Bengali language and is similar to the Chittagonian dialect spoken in nearby Chittagong, in Bangladesh. There is some dispute as to whether the Rohingya are indigenous to the region or are more ?recent?, being in the main the descendants of those who arrived in Rakhine State during the British colonial administration. A second group of Muslims in the Rakhine State does not consider themselves as Rohingya, as they speak Rakhine which is closely related to the Burmese language, claim their ancestors have lived in the state for many centuries, and tend to share similar customs to the Rakhine Buddhists. They identify themselves ?Arakanese Muslims?, ?Burmese Muslims? or simply ?Muslims?..."
Source/publisher: Minority Rights Group (World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples)
2017-11-30
Date of entry/update: 2014-08-21
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Description: Executive Summary: 1. Introduction "On August 17th, 2012, President U Thein Sein established the Rakhine Commission of Inquiry through a Presidential Executive Order. This Commission composed of prominent historians, social scientists, legal experts, and civil society leaders, from a broad range of sectors was asked to examine the following 8 areas: (1) investigate the root causes that led to the disturbance of peace and security; (2) verify the extent of loss of life, property and other collateral damage; (3) examine the effort to restore peace and promote law and order; (4) outline means to provide relief and implement resettlement programs; (5) develop short- and long-term strategies to reconcile differences; (6) establish mutual understanding and promote peaceful co-existence between various religious and ethnic groups; (7) advise on the promotion of the rule of law; (8) advise on the promotion of social and economic development. The Commission drafted its report after an extensive survey and archival research on Rakhine state. The Commission received support from various government agencies, civil society organisations, political parties, and the general public. In gathering and analyzing the data it received the Commission aimed to maintain its impartiality. The overarching goal of the Commission?s final report was to promote peace and development in the region rather than place the blame on a specific group or community. The implementation of its recommendations will require close cooperation between the various government agencies, the general public and all sectors of society, as well as from all citizens to create and sustain the desired environment of peace and communal stability. This stand-alone pr?cis was drafted on the basis of the translation of the original report from Myanmar into English, which after editing is still over 60 pages long. The Commission would like to make a shorter version available to the international community to give it access to the essential information with some more details than the original Executive Summary. It does not change the essence of the original report, but in the interest of conciseness has regrouped some of the issues and recommendations, and therefore does not follow the structure of the original report exactly. Two caveats have to be made to understand the original report or this summary: on one hand, the Commission faced several constraints in its work: (a) the nature of the Commission?s mandate was not easily understood and its neutrality was often rejected by Rakhine; (b) outside actors, in particular some Bengali leaders in Yangon, exercised undue influence by trying to impose interviewees on the Commission, and by controlling the answers interviewees gave to the Commission; (c) access to people in more remote areas was hampered by the fact that not all Bengalis speak Myanmar language. In order to counter these constraints the Commission trained local young people on how to collect data, and used purposive and quota sampling instead of probability or random sampling. The Commission also enlisted the help of moderate Muslim and Bengali leaders in Yangon. On the other hand, the use of certain terms needs to be made clear: the report uses the term ?Bengalis? when referring to people of Bengali origin. The term ?Rohingya? is not recognized in Myanmar and its use has become increasingly politicized; as to the term of ?Kala?, it was traditionally used for all foreigners from west of the country. The Brits were referred to as Kala Hpyu (white kala). Today it is used colloquially for people originating from the Indian subcontinent. Opinions differ as to what it is derogatory or not..."
Source/publisher: Republic of the Union of Myanmar
2013-07-08
Date of entry/update: 2013-08-11
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Language: English
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Description: Introduction: "The plight of Myanmar?s Muslim Rohingya people has received renewed international attention over the past year as a result of ongoing sectarian violence and displacement in the country?s western state of Rakhine. A report published in The Economist in November 2012 provides a compelling summary of the Rohingya?s plight: The political transformation in Myanmar this past year or more has so far seemed one of history?s more remarkable revolutions. It has seemed, indeed, to be a revolution without losers. The army, which brutalised the country for half a century, remains influential and unpunished. Political prisoners have been freed by the hundreds. The opposition and its heroine, Aung San Suu Kyi, have successfully entered mainstream politics. ... One group, however, has lost, and lost terribly. Around 1m members of the mostly Muslim Rohingya minority remain in Myanmar?s impoverished western state of Rakhine. They are survivors of relentless rounds of persecution that have created a diaspora around the world that is perhaps twice as big ... Rakhine politicians say frankly that the only alternative to mass deportation is a Burmese form of apartheid, in which more Rohingyas are corralled into squalid, semi - permanent internal - refugee camps. This Research Paper surveys the issues and regional responses, including that of Australia, surrounding the current conflict and humanitarian situation in Rakhine state. It argues that while the ongoing humanitarian emergency presents the most pressing concern for Myanmar, its neighbours and its international partners , the conflict also highlights a n intensification of a dangerous uncertainty surrounding the future place of the Rohingya, and possibly Muslims more generally, within a multi - ethnic and plural Myanmar . This uncertainty threatens Myanmar ? s current reform process and, through the large - scale displacement of communities, undermines wider regional security".
Dr. Cameron Hill
Source/publisher: Australian Parliament
2013-07-24
Date of entry/update: 2013-08-11
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Language: English
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Description: "SITTWE, 31 May 2013 (IRIN) - Aid workers are calling for better health access for an estimated 140,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Myanmar?s western Rakhine State, most of them Rohingya Muslims. Although a number of NGOs and government mobile clinics are providing basic health services inside the roughly 80 camps and settlements, they are limited, and emergency health referrals remain a serious concern, they say. According to M?decins Sans Fronti?res (MSF), conditions inside the camps, combined with the segregation of ethnic Buddhist Rakhine and Muslim Rohingya and ongoing movement restrictions, are having a severe impact on health care. Movement restrictions were slapped on Rohingyas around Sittwe, the Rakhine State capital, after bouts of sectarian violence in June and October 2012. Another concern is the negative attitude of many ethnic Rakhine to assistance provided to Muslim IDPs. ?With threats and intimidation both to health provider and patient, this becomes an irreconcilable dilemma,? Carol Jacobsen of the medical NGO Merlin told IRIN, adding that ?hostile access?, limited transportation and poor security were obstacles to health care for the Muslim population..."
Source/publisher: IRIN
2013-05-31
Date of entry/update: 2013-06-06
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Language: English, Arabic
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Description: "Key Conclusions: Three interconnected and difficult issues need attention for the country to move forward—citizenship for the Rohingya; building capacity in the police to prevent violence against Muslims; and re-envisioning the country as one that is multi-ethnic, multilingual, and multi-religious. The transition from authoritarian rule to democracy could take decades. Key waypoints are the 2015 elections, implementing constitutional reforms, and the achievement of true civilian leadership. The US should engage on a broad range of issues and stop using sanctions as a diplomatic tool. An enduring partnership would involve sustained support for the transition across the spectrum of political interests, and transitional development assistance would expand to include programs for education, health, and the media..."
Jim Della-Giacoma
Source/publisher: International Crisis Group (ICG)
2013-05-21
Date of entry/update: 2013-06-02
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Description: A written statement submitted to the Human Rights Council, 23rd session by the Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC), a non-governmental organisation with general consultative status... 1. Following the communal violence that wracked the western parts of Myanmar near the border of Bangladesh in 2012, the country?s president established a commission of inquiry comprising of retired public servants, religious figures, politicians, academics and members of civil society. The commission handed down its findings on 22 April 2013. Despite high expectations, the 119-page report is gravely flawed. Although it contains a few useful recommendations and observations, to which the Special Rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar alluded in a press release of 1 May 2013, the commission?s positive contributions are outweighed by a range of omissions and misrepresentations and by an us-versus-them mentality that pervades the document..."
Source/publisher: Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC)
2013-05-23
Date of entry/update: 2013-05-27
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Description: "A red Storm Alert remains in effect for Tropical Cyclone Mahasen which is currently moving across the Indian Ocean towards Bangladesh and Myanmar. The cyclone does appear to have weakened and it is has been downgraded to a category-1 cyclone. It is expected to reach land now early on Friday morning (17 May). In its current path the cyclone is expected to hit north of Chittagong, Bangladesh but could, depending on its final trajectory, bring life threatening conditions for 8.2 million people in northeast India, Bangladesh and Myanmar. The highest impact, tidal surge and rainfall predictions are for the Chittagong and Cox?s Bazaar areas of Bangladesh...n Myanmar, relocation and evacuation efforts according to the Government?s plan are underway. As part of stage-1, the plan is to move 38,000 IDPs yesterday and today (14 May). It is unclear how many people have been relocated. Teams from humanitarian agencies have been monitoring the relocation efforts. Some IDPs are reluctant to relocate and some communities have refused to use military vehicles or to shelter in military barracks. Discussions between Government and communities in Sittwe are ongoing to negotiate alternative sites. The Government agrees that relocations are to be done in consultation with the IDPs. Muslim leaders have issued a statement encouraging people to cooperate with authorities. Humanitarian agencies are keen to understand what the triggers are for starting stage-2 of the evacuation plan which involves moving 100,000 IDPs..."
Source/publisher: UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA)
2013-05-14
Date of entry/update: 2013-05-14
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Description: "RANGOON — Rohingya leaders have reacted angrily to the findings of the official investigation into a wave of brutal violence that hit Arakan State in 2012, slamming the report findings as selective and slanted. Speaking after members of a commission formed last year to investigate the violence presented a summary of their report today in Rangoon, Myo Thant, a Rohingya representative of the Democracy and Human Rights Party, told The Irrawaddy that the report did not present a completely accurate picture of the Arakan situation. ?This report has some good suggestions, but in ways it is biased and incomplete,” he said. Commission members, including former political prisoners Ko Ko Gyi and Maung Thura, better known as Zarganar, launched the summary of the commission?s findings today at the Myanmar Peace Center..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy"
2013-04-29
Date of entry/update: 2013-05-02
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Description: GENEVA (1 May 2013) – "The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Myanmar, Tom?s Ojea Quintana, today welcomed some forward thinking recommendations from the Rakhine Investigation Commission report. However, he expressed concerns over the lack of recommendations to address impunity and ensure investigations into credible allegations of widespread and systematic human rights violations targeting the Muslim community in Rakhine State..."
Tomás Ojea Quintana
Source/publisher: UN Information Centre, Yangon
2013-05-01
Date of entry/update: 2013-05-02
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Description: The recommendations are in the form of a 7-page table listing Task, Implementation Department and Responsible Committees for the following issues: Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) Situation... Temporary Shelters before the Monsoon Season... Resettlement... Reopening of Schools... Food Security and Malnutrition... Livelihoods... Permanent Settlement... Social Kaman Ethnic Group Issue... Population Growth...Social Integration... Formation of Truth-Finding Committee...Citizenship...Economy... Health... Education...Religion...INGO and LNGO Interaction...Security and Administration...Rule of Law...Peaceful Coexistence...Media
Source/publisher: Rakhine State Conflicts Investigation Commission via "The New Light of Myanmar"
2013-05-01
Date of entry/update: 2013-05-01
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English, Burmese/ မြန်မာဘာသာ
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Size: 158.12 KB 444.71 KB
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Source/publisher: Rakhine State Conflicts Investigation Commission
2013-04-29
Date of entry/update: 2013-05-01
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Language: Burmese/ မြန်မာဘာသာ
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Description: HIGHLIGHTS: • Preparedness Plan for the rainy season focuses on m eeting the immediate shelter needs of 69,000 people deemed the most vulnerable. • HC/RC highlight s priority actions needed by Government for a swift implementation of the Plan . • The Central Committee for Peace and Development in Rakhine chaired by the Vice President formed last month. • CERF contributes $5 million in response to immediate needs in Rakhine
Source/publisher: UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA)
2013-03-31
Date of entry/update: 2013-04-30
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Description: "This document has been elaborated by humanitarian partners to address existing humanitarian concerns in view of protracted displacement and the likelihood of the worsening of the humanitarian situation in Rakhine State anticipating the upcoming rains and the possibility for further violence across the State and possibly beyond. It is composed of three sections: a) Introduction, b) Preparedness Plan for the rains (to be implemented between March and June 2013) and c) Contingency Planning for natural and human-made disasters. Chapter a) and b) are included in this document, while chapter c) is under elaboration. Inter-communal conflict in Rakhine State started in early June 2012 and resurged in October 2012. This has resulted in the displacement of people, loss of lives and livelihoods and restricted movement for many. Conditions in most camps are still far below international emergency standards eight months after the crisis started: shelter, water and sanitation, health and other services are insufficient. Access to livelihood and basic services has been further complicated by prolonged displacement of people or their living in isolated villages. Rakhine State is prone to impacts of cyclones and s uffered of severe floods and the situation of IDPs camps is going to further worsen during the rainy season which will start in May unless immediate action is taken. Meeting the immediate shelter needs of 69,000 people before the rainy season is a top priority as they are located in flood-prone camps and/or living in tents and makeshift shelters which will not withstand the rains. The situation is particularly concerning in 13 camps in Sittwe (40,000 people), Pauktaw (20,000 people), Myebon (3,900) people which will be inundated as they are in former paddy fields or close to the shore and at risk of storm surge. Another 5,000 IDPs are not in appropriate shelters to withstand the rains. Flooding will result in a rapid deterioration of shelter, water a nd sanitation and health conditions. Overflowing of latrines and lack of drainage will increase risks of water-borne diseases, morbidity and mortality. The following actions, which can only be taken by the Government are needed..."
Source/publisher: UN Country Team in Myanmar
2013-03-31
Date of entry/update: 2013-04-30
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Language: English
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