Genocide
Individual Documents
Description:
"Myanmar’s military regime has added a genocide law to the country’s colonial-era Penal Code, a move being seen by legal experts as an attempt to ease international pressure on the regime as it faces a genocide charge at a United Nations court for its soldiers’ atrocities against the Rohingya.
The new provisions published in junta-controlled newspapers threaten the death sentence for murders committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. The provisions were signed by coup leader Senior General Min Aung Hlaing on Tuesday.
The addition to the Penal Code also carries a life sentence for other crimes committed with genocidal purpose.
They include causing grievous hurt or serious mental harm to members of a group, deliberately inflicting on a group conditions of life calculated to bring its physical destruction in whole or in part, imposing measures, not in accordance with any existing laws, intended to prevent births within a group, and forcibly transferring children of a group to another group.
The promulgation of the new genocide law coincided with an online campaign to mark the fourth anniversary of atrocities against the Rohingya, the stateless Muslim people in Rakhine State, in 2017. A Rohingya Genocide Remembrance Day was organized online on Wednesday, with many activists expressing their apologies to the Rohingya for failing to speak out while they were being persecuted by the Myanmar military.
Over 700,000 Rohingya fled to neighboring Bangladesh after the military carried out clearance operations in Rakhine in response to the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army’s attacks on security outposts in August 2017. The Gambia, representing the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, filed a genocide case against Myanmar at the United Nations International Court of Justice (ICJ) in late 2019.
However, both the then National League for Democracy government and the military denied the accusations of genocide. In January 2020, the ICJ ordered Myanmar to comply with four provisional measures as requested by The Gambia.
The measures require that Myanmar take steps to prevent genocide from occurring in the future, as well as ensuring that the military and its affiliates do not commit further acts of genocide, in particular killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, and preventing births. Myanmar is also required to preserve all evidence of genocide, and provide regular updates on its progress on these measures.
One legal expert, who asked for anonymity, said that the military regime has enacted the genocide law to ease international pressure on it as it faces the genocide charge at the ICJ, but the move will not give the regime any protection from crimes it has previously committed.
“The law will not have an effect on things that happened before its enactment. This law should be accepted as it presents the opportunity for citizens, ethnic groups and religious organizations to open cases regarding genocidal crimes in the future,” he added.
The junta said it had enacted the genocide law because it was liable to do so after Myanmar ratified the Genocide Convention on December 30, 1949 and then became a member of the Convention in March 1956.
“As we are a member country, we have a responsibility to enact a law. So we have enacted a law to prevent and punish genocide,” said the regime spokesperson, Major General Zaw Min Tun.
The junta has also changed the Code of Criminal Procedures, which allows authorities to arrest genocide suspects without a warrant. People accused of genocide can no longer be bailed.
“They just want to show the international community that they are against genocide and are taking action to prevent it,” said another legal expert. Meanwhile, the parallel National Unity Government (NUG) is also working to prosecute Myanmar’s military at the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Myanmar is not an ICC member, but Acting President Duwa Lashi La of the NUG lodged a declaration with the ICC registrar last week, accepting the ICC’s jurisdiction with respect to international crimes committed in Myanmar since July 1, 2002, the earliest date permitted by the Rome Statute that established the ICC.
To mark Rohingya Genocide Remembrance Day, the NUG Deputy Minister for Women, Youths and Children Affairs, Daw Ei Thinzar Maung, called on Myanmar people to show sympathy for the traumatic experiences Rohingya women and children and other ethnic minorities have suffered. She also urged them to protect the vulnerable and to speak out for them to prevent genocidal acts from occurring in the future..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update:
2021-08-26
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Genocide, 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, National Unity Government (NUG), International Criminal Court, International Court of Justice (ICJ) - General
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"25 August 2021: Four years ago, decades of state persecution of Rohingya in Myanmar culminated in a campaign of genocidal atrocities committed against Rohingya by the Myanmar military. Today, the Special Advisory Council for Myanmar (SAC-M) remembers the victims, those still facing persecution in Rakhine state, and the refugees in Cox’s Bazar and around the world.
The 25th of August marks the day in 2017 when the Myanmar military and security forces descended upon Rohingya villages in northern Rakhine state and unleashed a campaign of horror against Rohingya girls, boys, women and men. Thousands were killed, thousands more were raped and tortured, and three quarters of a million people were forced to flee to Bangladesh, where they remain. Those who fled joined a quarter of a million earlier Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.
“We three have all been profoundly changed by our investigations into what was done to the Rohingya in August 2017, by meeting with survivors and hearing your stories,” the members of SAC-M said to the survivors. “Today, we remember the victims, we encourage you in your struggle and we reaffirm our commitment to the continuing fight for justice, reparation and the reinstatement of your rights.”
The one million Rohingya refugees confined to camps in Bangladesh continue to endure dire conditions. Deadly fires swept through the camps earlier in the year and now serious flooding has caused further destruction.
The coup launched by the Myanmar military in February has created further uncertainty around the prospects for establishing conditions in Myanmar conducive to the voluntary, safe, dignified and durable return of Rohingya refugees.
The Rohingya who remain in northern and central Rakhine face deteriorating conditions and ongoing discrimination. Their access to COVID-19 vaccination programmes is reported to be restricted or prevented entirely. Meanwhile, the threat of more military rule – the same military responsible for the atrocities remembered today – threatens to entrench the military’s impunity for its crimes and render justice ever more remote.
“The fourth anniversary of the atrocities also serves as a moment for us all to recall the lessons of history, and what may come if racism, exclusion, persecution and impunity for human rights violations are allowed to prevail,” said SAC-M. “Those lessons must inspire the people of Myanmar as they rise up against the military and look to a future of peace, pluralism and a new democracy in which the Rohingya are full, equal participants in Myanmar society.”
Should a tragedy of such magnitude that fatefully befell the Rohingya, which is veritably a national tragedy, ever recur, that would spell the demise of the idea of the Myanmar nation.
On this day of remembrance SAC-M calls on the people of Myanmar and the international community not to forget. Not to forget what the Myanmar military has done. Not to forget what it continues to do. Not to forget what is at stake for all those striving to resist military rule. Not to forget the Rohingya..."
Source/publisher:
Special Advisory Council for Myanmar
Date of entry/update:
2021-08-26
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Genocide, Discrimination against the Rohingya, Rohingya (cultural, political etc.), Human Rights and international relations
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109.62 KB 536.29 KB
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Sub-title:
August 25 is observed by Rohingya as 'Genocide Remembrance Day,' but theirs is not just the story of a single day in 2017
Description:
"Kabir, a Rohingya refugee, fled his village in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state on August 25, 2017. But this was not the first time he had been forced to flee, nor the first time Myanmar soldiers had burned down his home. Nor is Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, where he now lives, the first camp he has sought refuge in.
In August 2017, Myanmar security forces launched a campaign of killings, rape and arson against the Rohingya Muslims in northern Rakhine amounting to crimes against humanity and acts of genocide. More than 730,000 escaped to Bangladesh over the next few weeks.
August 25 has come to be observed by Rohingya as “Genocide Remembrance Day,” but their plight is not the story of a single day, or even a single mass exodus. The roots of August 25, 2017, lie in the decades of state repression and violence that preceded it, orchestrated by successive governments to erode their freedoms and enshrine their vulnerability.
Kabir, now 27, grew up in Rathedaung township. As a teenager, he worked as a day laborer on farms or construction projects.
Kabir had to carry travel permits to pass through security checkpoints to get to work. He was, like almost all Rohingya in Myanmar, denied the citizenship that would recognize his family’s roots in the country. The authorities would harass them on the job, he told us, fining Rohingya workers for missing a day or beating them for making a mistake.
“But still I was happy,” he said. “At least we could work.”
In 2012, he said, things changed. A targeted campaign of hate and discrimination against the Rohingya started across Rakhine state, led by ethnic Rakhine nationalists and Buddhist leaders, stoked by the military and police.
That July, Buddhist monks in Rathedaung issued a statement presenting a plan for the “Arakan Ethnic Cleansing Program” of Rohingya. Violent attacks flared and tensions grew. “Our Buddhist neighbors ostracized us,” said Kabir, identified in this article by only his first name for his security.
By October, Rakhine villagers, often alongside police and soldiers, were burning Muslim homes, destroying mosques, and looting property in townships across Rakhine state.
“For 15 days, they couldn’t set our houses on fire because it was raining,” Kabir said. “But one day, our neighbors along with Buddhists from other areas attacked our village. We tried to fight back but couldn’t. Finally, we fled.”
Kabir’s family ended up in a settlement with other displaced Rohingya in Koe Tan Kauk, or Dunse Para in the Rohingya language, a village tract in Rathedaung along the Bay of Bengal. Rohingya across Rakhine were living under an oppressive regimen, denied freedom of movement and other basic rights.
In October 2016, the ethnic armed group later known as the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) attacked three police outposts in northern Rakhine state, including one in Koe Tan Kauk. Myanmar military and police responded with brutal “clearance operations,” killing and raping Rohingya and burning down their homes. The authorities arbitrarily rounded up young men, interrogating and torturing them.
Soldiers rounded up all the men and teenage boys from Kabir’s settlement in Koe Tan Kauk and held them at a local military camp. The soldiers separated 12 of them from the group, including Kabir, and took them to a nearby school, where they interrogated them about ARSA and beat them. Kabir said he saw one man’s nails pulled out.
“They took each of us on our own into a room for interrogation,” he said. “Waiting outside you could hear the screams. When it was my turn, they beat me with a stick and military belt at the same time. At one point, one of them kicked me in the genitals, and I fell unconscious.”
The young Rohingya men were held at a pagoda for three days. Some were then sent to the prison in Sittwe, the state capital. Kabir and others were released after paying bribes and signing a paper from their interrogators saying they weren’t tortured.
Soldiers and border-guard police kept the Rohingya camps and hamlets in Koe Tan Kauk under constant surveillance into 2017. Rohingya men and women were barred from fishing or collecting wood; schools remained closed.
The security-force presence grew. In August, naval craft arrived off the coast of Koe Tan Kauk, bringing soldiers from the notoriously abusive light infantry divisions (LIDs) to northern Rakhine state.
On August 25 at about 4am, villagers in Koe Tan Kauk awoke to the sound of gunshots. The military later reported that two of the several ARSA attacks carried out simultaneously that morning had taken place in Koe Tan Kauk. Seven members of the armed group were killed.
Security forces, including the 33rd LID, and local ethnic Rakhine arrived that same morning, shooting at Rohingya villagers who attempted to flee to the forested hills. Some, they captured and slit their throats.
Women and girls were brought to the military camp and raped. Older persons, and people with disabilities, were burned alive in their homes as the entire Rohingya areas of Koe Tan Kauk were torched.
“The whole camp was burned,” Kabir said.
Satellites first detected active fires in Koe Tan Kauk in the early afternoon of August 25. The imagery revealed 700 buildings burned, encompassing every Rohingya hamlet and camp. The extensive areas destroyed meant it was very likely the burning was deliberate.
A United Nations Fact-Finding Mission reported later that the Myanmar naval ships stationed just offshore fired weapons at the village. Hundreds were killed. Almost every person from Koe Tan Kauk whom the UN interviewed said he or she had lost at least one family member.
Again, Kabir and his family fled. First to Inn Din, then Bossara, north of Koe Tan Kauk in Maungdaw township.
“From there, we walked for nine days to reach Aley Than Kyaw,” Kabir said, to the beach in southern Maungdaw. The trek took them through the jungle mountains where every day thousands more Rohingya were fleeing, seeking refuge as the military torched their villages and homes.
Kabir paid 100,000 kyat (US$70) a head for his family to cross the Naf River by boat to reach Bangladesh. In Cox’s Bazar, they joined what would become the world’s largest refugee camp.
Four years later they live there still, entirely dependent on humanitarian assistance and his sister’s small income from her work at an aid organization. Nearly a million Rohingya live in the sprawling, overcrowded camps, facing deadly landslides and the risk of disease, fires among the bamboo and plastic shelters, and violence.
An initial welcome by the Bangladeshi government and host communities has been replaced with increasing restrictions on their rights to livelihoods, freedom of movement, and adequate education and health. Bangladeshi authorities are threatening to move an additional 80,000 Rohingya to join the 20,000 refugees already sent to Bhasan Char, a remote, low-lying island that many fear is unfit and unsafe for habitation.
The prospect of Kabir and his family returning safely to Myanmar, meanwhile, has never been more distant. In Rakhine state, 600,000 Rohingya remain trapped in squalid and oppressive conditions amounting to the crimes against humanity of persecution, apartheid, and severe deprivation of liberty.
Since the military coup on February 1 this year, they have lived under an abusive junta led by the same generals responsible for the grave crimes against them.
Those seeking to flee by boat in the Bay of Bengal and Andaman Sea have never faced greater risks, the UN refugee agency recently reported. Rohingya who have reached Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia or India live on the margins as undocumented migrants, facing constant threat of arrest and detention, or forced return to military-controlled Myanmar.
And everywhere, Rohingya are still awaiting justice. That is what they have been asking for, not just for the past four years, but for decades. They are demanding that those responsible for these crimes against the Rohingya be held to account, and that governments claiming to be in their corner should do all that they can to make that happen.
Myanmar’s military coup has only underscored the devastation that decades of impunity can bring.
“We are losing hope here, too,” Kabir said in Cox’s Bazar. “We were very industrious people in our village. But our fate made us live this refugee life. Still, I have hope that one day we will be able to go back to our village to live with safety and security.”..."
Source/publisher:
"Asia Times" (Hong Kong)
Date of entry/update:
2021-08-26
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Genocide, Discrimination against the Rohingya, Rohingya (cultural, political etc.), Burmese refugees in Bangladesh
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Description:
"Today, on the fourth anniversary of the Rohingya genocide in Myanmar, we call for justice and inclusion for the
Rohingya.
Decades of discrimination and mistreatment peaked on 25 August 2017. when the Myanmar military initiated a
brutal crackdown against the Rohingya in Rakhine State that led to mass human rights violations and caused over
725.000 Rohingya to flee to Bangladesh. Today, approximately 1 million Rohingya reside in the refugee camps in
Cox's Bazar. Bangladesh. The overcrowded and under-resourced camps are ill-equipped to face rising COVID-19,
dengue fever, and cholera cases and are vulnerable to floods and fires. Meanwhile, back in Myanmar, hundreds of
thousands of Rohingya remain internally displaced, many confined in detention camps, and the country as a whole,
since the 1 February 2021 coup, is in a state of crisis.
Despite the hardship the Rohingya have faced, they demonstrate, on a daily basis, their resilience and strength.
Since 2019, A]AR has worked with Rohi ngya refugees in the camps and has witnessed this determi nation first-hand.
Carrying the trauma of the past and the uncertainty of the future, the refugees persist, tirelessly seeking out new
ways to improve their circumstances while continuing to honor their culture and faith.
Several international mechanisms are working to advance justice for the Rohingya. and the pro-democracy
movement has taken steps to show its support of the Rohi ngya. However, at present, both justice and the voluntary,
safe, and dignified return of the Rohingya remain a distant goal. This must change.
On this anniversary, we therefore call on the international community to:
• Advance initiatives providing urgent and interim measures to help repair the lives of survivors and invest
in long-term empowerment programming for survivors;
• Promote accountability by joining The Gambia in its case against Myanmar before the International Court
of justice (ICJ) and by supporting and enhancing understanding of the accountability mechanisms,
including the ICJ, the International Criminal Court (ICC), and the Independent Investigative Mechanisms
for Myanmar (IIMM), and by pursuing universal jurisdiction cases in their own countries;
• Support the pro-democracy movement in Myanmar;
• Support Bangladesh in the provision of assistance and resources to the Rohingya; and
• Maintain pressure on ASEAN to give effect to the right of Rohingya survivors to an effective and
enforceable remedy..."
Source/publisher:
Asia Justice and Rights, Sisters2Sisters, Perlindungan Insani Indonesia, KontraS, KontraS Aceh, The May 18 Memorial Foundation, Cross Cultural Foundation, Kurawal Foundation, Migrant CARE, Milk Tea Alliance Indonesia, SP Kinasih Solidaritas Perempuan, YLB
Date of entry/update:
2021-08-25
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Genocide, Discrimination against the Rohingya, Rohingya (cultural, political etc.), International Criminal Court, International Court of Justice (ICJ) - General
Language:
Format :
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Size:
58.63 KB 25.59 KB 251.39 KB
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"To Our Rohingya sisters,
On this day commemorating the Rohingya genocide, the Karen Women’s Organization
(KWO) wishes to express our solidarity for the pain and suffering Rohingya victims and their
families have endured under militarized campaigns waged by the Burmese Army. KWO is all
too familiar with the brutality of which the junta is capable of. Our communities have been
devastated by scorched earth campaigns and a slow genocide of the Karen people for
decades.
The struggle of ethnic people is rooted in the military’s desire to preserve Bamar history and
traditions. Their ruthless attempts to assimilate the population has come with destruction
and force waged against the Karen, and other ethnic groups in the country. Our differences
and diversity ought to be celebrated. But instead, the junta continues to attempt to
aggressively eliminate our very existence.
Women and girls in particular have been subjected to harrowing forms of gender-based
violence and sexual assault. The Burmese military has long used rape as a weapon of war
against ethnic women to intimidate, traumatize and silence their victims. These abuses
weigh heavy, but they must not deter, distract nor disengage from our efforts to hold the
Burmese military accountable. We are haunted by the junta’s unrelenting attacks which have
taken loved ones from us too soon, and forced us to carry the weight of lives lost without
justice. But we cannot let them win. We must be strong and carry on without fear.
KWO offers our solidarity in the strongest possible forms and will fight for the day when our
suffering is no longer in vain, and for long-lasting peace in Burma where we are all
recognized as equals, regardless of our ethnicity, religion or gender. Until then, we are with
you in our ongoing calls for justice..."
Source/publisher:
Karen Women's Organization
Date of entry/update:
2021-08-25
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Genocide, Discrimination against the Rohingya, Rohingya (cultural, political etc.), Women's rights
Language:
Format :
pdf
Size:
111.65 KB
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Description:
"Today is a most memorable day for us, for our children and for our generations to come. On this day of August 25, 2017, the Burma/Myanmar brute forces, army, police and state-sponsored non-state actors and Buddhist Rakhine vigilantes started pre-planned genocidal onslaughts against our innocent people carrying out mass murder, widespread rape, systematic arson attacks and wholesale destruction of homes and villages.
Today we remember something that happened to us or to our communities. Similarly, we remember something that happened before 25 August 2017, and the mass atrocity crimes between 2012 to 2016 in Arakan and across the country. Today we also remember what befell our people before we were born, specifically the killing of about100,000 of our innocent people in 1942.
Today our people, the survivors in Arakan and refugee camps, are mere ruins. We are a people without a past for it was taken away from us, and without a future. Everything is broken and our homeland is irrecoverably destroyed.
The crimes never happen overnight. The Rohingya genocide is the last step in the continuity of destruction that began decades ago, largely from 1962 military takeover in Burma. Their aim is to destroy our people in whole or in part from our ancestral homeland to which we have physical, psychological and spiritual attachment.
There are many testimonies of survivors. They were unarmed people caught off guard, chosen as victims solely because of their ethnicity and religion. In spite of our repeated forewarning of genocide looming over our defenceless people, there was no international response.
Here, we are compelled to ask ourselves: how was this genocide possible at all? The answer lies in the inactivity of the international community, which according to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crimes of Genocide (1948), was obliged to act, that is to “prevent and punish” genocide. Unfortunately, still almost all governments have avoided calling the crime by its proper name –genocide—eschew their obligation from the Convention, which, ultimately, implies intervening. Encouraged by the hesitancy of the international community, the perpetrators realized their criminal policy without punishment.
We thank the people and government of Bangladesh for sheltering and looking after our refugees on humanitarian grounds. We also appreciate the international community for their humanitarian aid.
We are grateful to The Republic of Gambia for filing a genocide case in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) with the backing of Bangladesh and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). Despite Court (ICJ) Order on 23 January 2020, the Rohingya who are left behind in Arakan are under constant threat of genocide facing a great humanitarian disaster. Sponsored demographic changes are progressively made in the Rohingya Homeland of North Arakan.
Under the present unsafe conditions, the return of Rohingya refugees from Bangladesh and elsewhere to Burma will put them at risk of further crimes. The international community must not fail them again, and it has a responsibility to protect them. The UNSC should refer the criminals to International Criminal Court. This is the time for the United Nations to intervene in Arakan/Rakhine State, if necessary, by seeking global consensus.
The punishing of crimes must be accepted as a personal moral imperative. Without embracing the responsibility for the crimes, there is no compromise with the criminals and the enemies of humanity. All perpetrators must be brought to justice.
In conclusion, today we remember and honour all those who were killed as heroes and shaheeds (martyrs). We will remember them forever. Today we also salute our female survivors, including the rape victims, for their courageous efforts to survive, even as refugee widows and orphans. The carnage is more than a tragedy. The extent of barbarity or methods employed in Arakan/Rakhine State against our people surpassed everything else that took place on the territory of Myanmar. That will not and cannot be forgotten..."
Source/publisher:
Arakan Rohingya National Organisation
Date of entry/update:
2021-08-25
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Genocide, Discrimination against the Rohingya, Human Rights and international relations, Rohingya (cultural, political etc.)
Language:
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Description:
"On the 4th anniversary of the genocidal military offensive against Rohingya civilians, British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab is still refusing to act to hold the Burmese military accountable for their crimes.
Dominic Raab refuses to support referring Burma to the International Criminal Court, and refuses to join the genocide case at the International Court of Justice.
“Not only is Dominic Raab failing to act to support accountability for genocide of the Rohingya, he is actively resisting cross-party pressure on him to do so,” said Anna Roberts, Executive Director of Burma Campaign UK. “Dominic Raab refuses to join the genocide case at the International Court of Justice, despite cross-party support for him to do so. His failure to act makes no sense either in terms of promoting accountability, or politically for himself and his own reputation as an embattled Foreign Secretary who says he wants to support human rights.”
On 25th August 2017 the Burmese military launched a pre-planned attack against ethnic Rohingya civilians in Rakhine State, Burma. Around 800,000 Rohingya were forced to flee to neighbouring Bangladesh. Thousands of people were killed and raped. The majority of the Rohingya forced to flee were children.
UN investigators have concluded that what took place was genocide and called for Burma to be referred to the International Criminal Court, but despite Foreign Office Minister Mark Field stating in October 2017 that the UK would support a referral if the UN supported that approach, the British government is still refusing to say it supports a referral.
At the same time Dominic Raab is refusing to join the genocide case at the International Court of Justice. While claiming international leadership on addressing human rights in Burma, it was in fact Gambia which brought the genocide case to the court, with Dominic Raab watching from the sidelines and resisting cross-party pressure in the UK to join the case.
The cross-party Foreign Affairs Committee of the British Parliament published a report in July 2021 calling on the British government to join the case.
104 MPs backed a Parliamentary Motion calling on the British government to join the ICJ case and support ICC referral.
104 MPs and Lords, including former Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, wrote to Dominic Raab calling on him to join the case at the ICJ.
The Labour Party supports joining the case at the ICJ.
As does the Liberal Democrat party.
Rohingya community organisations and international human rights and humanitarian organisations have also called on the British government to join the case at the ICJ.
Burma Campaign UK has published a briefing paper detailing the hypocrisy and inconsistencies of Dominic Raab’s stated support for accountability whilst at the same time steadfastly refusing to take action to support accountability..."
Source/publisher:
"Burma Campaign UK" (London)
Date of entry/update:
2021-08-25
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
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Description:
"On this 4th anniversary of the Rohingya Genocide Remembrance Day, the Women’s League of
Burma (WLB) would like to convey our message of solidarity to our Rohingya sisters and
brothers. We share your sorrows, pain and demand justice in the name of all those who
perished in the brutal crackdowns by the Burmese military and the survivors who remain.
WLB condemns in the strongest possible terms the violence committed by the Burmese
military, which forced more than 700,000 Rohingyas to flee from Rakhine State into
Bangladesh.
The WLB and its member organizations have also experienced the agony of being forced to
flee our homelands all as well. For decades, the Burmese military has terrorized ethnic
communities with their wide-spread campaigns of violence. Sexual and gender-based
violence, especially rape has been systemically utilized by the Burmese military junta.
Women and girls in ethnic areas have long suffered under the Burmese military junta's culture
of impunity. Accountability for the crimes against ethnic women and girls is long overdue.
Hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians have been forced to flee for their lives. This
humanitarian crisis has disproportionate impact on women and children. They face great risks
ranging from including malnutrition to being sexually exploited.
Since the military coup on February 1, the human rights situation in Burma is deteriorating
day by day. Civilians of every gender, religion and socio-economic background have been
killed and detained by the junta simply for demanding their basic fundamental rights and
freedoms. The Burmese military junta perhaps think it is above the law and that there are no
consequences for the atrocity crimes and human rights violations it committed in Rakhine
state and continues to do so all over Burma.
Impunity has emboldened them so the world must act to ensure that the harrowing ordeals
faced by our Rohingya sisters, brothers and other ethnic community over the decades must
never happen to others. We must put an end to sexual violence in conflict, extrajudicial
killings, arrests of peaceful protesters and inhuman treatment in detention.
WLB reinforces our repeated calls for an immediate referral of the Burmese military junta to
the International Criminal Court and domestic courts with jurisdiction to bring justice for
victims and survivors.
And to our Rohingya sisters and brothers, we hold your pain close to our hearts and vow to
work alongside you all to break free of the reins of injustice which have kept us chained for
too long.....၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ် သြဂုတ်လ ၂၅ ရက်နေ့တွင် အမျိုးသမီးများအဖွဲ့ချုပ် (မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ) သည် ရိုဟင်ဂျာညီအစ်ကို ညီအစ်မများ နှင့် တသားတည်းရပ်တည်ကြောင့် သတင်းစကားပါးခြင်း ဆိုသည့် ထုတ်ပြန်ကြောညာချက်ကို ထုတ်ပြန်ခဲ့သည်။..."
Source/publisher:
Women's League of Burma
Date of entry/update:
2021-08-25
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Genocide, Discrimination against the Rohingya, Rohingya (cultural, political etc.), Women's rights
Language:
Format :
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Size:
27.66 KB 529.81 KB
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Description:
"1. Today, August 25, 2021, marks a grim anniversary in the world's modern history and
that of Myanmar: the fourth anniversary of the beginning of the fascist Myanmar
military's acts of genocide committed against Rohingya and torture and oppression
committed against Hindus, Mro, Thet, Khami, Maramagyi, Daingnet, and Kaman of
Rakhine State. Today also marks the 206th day since the fascist military' unjust seizure of
power from the democratically-elected government.
2. Our Spring Revolution Interfaith Network fully supports the National Unity
Government's Policy Position on the Rohingya in Rakhine State, and we welcome the
NUG's agreement to accept the International Criminal Court's jurisdiction with respect to
international crimes committed in Myanmar.
3. We, the Spring Revolution Interfaith Network, strongly urge the international
community to take action against those who have enjoyed impunity for their
unspeakable atrocities against people of diverse ethnic and religious groups historically
and through the present, in order to provide justice to victims of genocide in Rakhine
State and victims of the current regime of terror in Myanmar.
4. We, the Spring Revolution Interfaith Network, deeply regret and apologize for our
failures to speak out or work for the justice of the Rohingya who fled genocidal acts, and
the Hindus, Mro, Thet, Khami, Maramagyi, Daingnet, and Kaman people in Rakhine State
who also suffered atrocities at the hands of the fascist military.
5. We, the Spring Revolution Interfaith Network, hereby declare our strong desire to
collaborate with revolutionary groups from all ethnic communities and religious entities
in order to build a federal democratic country based on non-discrimination, freedom,
justice, and equality for all.....နွေဦးတော်လှန်ရေး ဘာသာပေါင်းစုံကွန်ရက် သဘောထားထုတ်ပြန်ချက်
ခေတ်အဆက်ဆက်တွင် တရားမဲ့ပြုကျင့်ခံခဲ့ကြရသည့် နိုင်ငံအနှံ့မှ လူမျိုးစု ညီအစ်ကိုမောင်နှမများ အပါအဝင် ရခိုင်ပြည်နယ်အတွင်းရှိ လူမျိုးတုန်းသတ်ဖြတ်ခြင်းခံခဲ့ရသည့် ရိုဟင်ဂျာလူမျိုးများ၊ ဟိန္ဒူဘာသာဝင်များ၊ မြို၊သက်၊ခမီ၊မရမာကြီး၊ ဒိုင်းနက်၊ကမန် စသည့်လူမျိုးစုငယ်များ ခံစားခဲ့ရသည့် ဘေးဒုက္ခများအား တရားမျှတမှုရရှိစေရန် ထိရောက်စွာ လုပ်ဆောင်ပေးနိုင်ခြင်းမရှိသည့်အပေါ် မိမိတို့က ဝမ်းနည်းစွာ တောင်းပန်အပ်ပါသည်။..."
Source/publisher:
The Spring Revolution Interfaith Network
Date of entry/update:
2021-08-25
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
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27.66 KB 241.56 KB
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Sub-title:
Covering up wrongdoing in the name of unity and as a strategy against the junta will only ensure that past injustices are perpetuated and that military rule will live on indefinitely.
Description:
"The formation of Myanmar’s National Unity Government (NUG) by elected members of parliament, ethnic and civil society leaders, and representatives of the Civil Disobedience Movement and General Strike Committees of the Spring Revolution was a historic moment. For the country’s diverse communities, it offered real hope that a genuine federal democracy—one that guarantees and protects their rights— can be established. As a moral as well as a political guide, the NUG must therefore transparently communicate to the people of Myanmar what and who it stands for.
To live up to its historic role, the NUG must now face the lack of justice and accountability that have allowed the Myanmar military to commit grave crimes against ethnic communities, including the Rohingya, for decades. For far too long, the military has acted with total impunity.
The last decade has seen the enactment and maintenance of racist, Islamophobic, and misogynistic legal frameworks that have served to enable the military’s most egregious abuses. The four “Race and Religion Protection Laws” adopted in 2015 built on the 1982 Citizenship Law to enshrine deeply discriminatory attitudes against a segment of the population; together with the empowerment of extremist Buddhist nationalists, they laid the groundwork for the incitement of anti-Muslim violence and the Myanmar military’s “clearance operations” against the Rohingya in 2017.
The genocide of that year went beyond the horrific crimes routinely committed by the military in ethnic areas for decades. More than 800,000 Rohingya were systematically murdered, raped and expelled from their homeland and a system of apartheid was created in which those who remained in Myanmar were confined to internment camps.
When it was in power, the National League for Democracy (NLD) remained silent in the face of the military’s grave crimes, particularly those committed against the Rohingya. Rather than cooperating with international mechanisms to hold the military accountable, the ruling party defended the generals at hearings held by the International Court of Justice. It even intentionally avoided using the term “Rohingya”, in line with state attempts to erase Rohingya identity. The NLD government did not repeal racist laws, despite having the capacity to do so with their parliamentary majority.
The culpability of the previous NLD government needs to be addressed head on. Covering up wrongdoing in the name of unity and as a strategy against the junta will only ensure that past injustices are perpetuated and that military rule will live on indefinitely.
We have seen some signs of hope. The NUG has adopted a policy paper on the Rohingya that is a positive start in acknowledging their rights, ending systemic efforts to oppress and exclude them, and recognizing the atrocity crimes that they have faced. It is encouraging that the NUG has moved towards achieving justice and accountability by working to become a party to the Rome Statute. However, more concrete steps must be taken.
It is precisely because the military has never faced any significant consequences for its crimes against the Rohingya and other ethnic groups that it is now able to inflict horrific atrocities against the rest of the population. Justice and equality for the Rohingya will serve not just the Rohingya alone, but also all the other peoples of Myanmar.
This is the moment for the NUG to start building the foundation for an inclusive, federal, and democratic Myanmar. The NUG’s declaration that it will grant the International Criminal Court jurisdiction to prosecute crimes dating back to 2002, made in response to calls from Myanmar civil society organizations and the international community, is a welcome move. The NUG must continue on this path towards ratifying the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and support the Court’s procedures in order to bring the perpetrators of serious crimes to account.
The NUG and the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH) should use their power now to repeal racist laws such as the 1982 Citizenship Law and the four “Race and Religion Protection Laws”. These laws are not only racist and xenophobic, but also perpetuate gendered discrimination and violence and violate the rights of children, while subscribing to the misogynistic and patriarchal system fostered by decades of military rule.
The NUG must listen to the voices of all the people of Myanmar, including those of the Rohingya and other ethnic and religious minorities—and particularly those of the victims and survivors of crimes committed by the Myanmar military. More importantly, it is vital that the Rohingya are included in the NUG’s political processes as we work towards dismantling institutionalized systems of oppression and discrimination built and entrenched by the military. This will be essential as we reimagine an inclusive and transformative future for Myanmar that guarantees and respects the humanity and human rights of all.
As the Myanmar military has waged a nationwide campaign of terror against the country’s people, solidarity with the Rohingya has been displayed on protest banners, on social media, and in comments by public figures. On August 25, the anniversary of the start of the military’s 2017 campaign against the Rohingya, members of Myanmar civil society plan to release an open letter calling for the restoration of their rights and for the military to be held accountable for its crimes. In this way, we can begin to imagine a Myanmar that derives strength from its diversity, rather than from notions of ethnic supremacy.
The NUG must act as a beacon for this future Myanmar and take concrete actions to demonstrate its political will to ensure and guarantee the equal rights of the Rohingya. They must also recognize that the crime of genocide was committed by the military against the Rohingya in 2017 and fully cooperate with international accountability mechanisms to seek justice for the victims and survivors.
Only by doing so can the NUG ensure that when democracy is restored in Myanmar, it will be able to foster a just and peaceful society based on federal principles, inclusivity, human rights, and human dignity that we can all belong to and be proud of and keep nurturing for future generations to come..."
Source/publisher:
"Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update:
2021-08-24
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Discrimination against the Rohingya, Genocide, Rohingya (cultural, political etc.), National Unity Government (NUG)
Language:
Local URL:
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Description:
"Immediate Release
Date: August 21, 2020
Rohingyas and those that stand in solidarity with them, will mark the 3rd anniversary of Myanmar’s genocide, in the first ever worldwide multilingual online rally. The event will bring together more than four dozen international supporters including UN officials, human rights activists, genocide scholars, international law experts, and concerned journalists from all continents. They will join Rohingya survivors and refugees to memorialise and honour the thousands of victims slaughtered, raped and tortured in the violent purge by Myanmar government troops, that began on 25th August 2017.
Solidarity, messages of compassion, and calls to end the ongoing genocide will be delivered in 12 languages including Rohingya, Burmese, Bengali, Hindi, Urdu, Malay, Bahasa Indonesian, Mandarin, Khmer, Japanese, Italian, Spanish and Turkish.
Tan Sri Syed Hamid Albar, the last OIC Special Envoy to Myanmar and former Minister of Foreign, Defence and Home affairs of Malaysia will open the global memorial service. He will be joined by former UN special rapporteur on human rights situation in Myanmar, Argentinian human rights lawyer Tomas Ojea Quintana, Head of the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM) Nicholas Koumjian, Founding President of the Genocide Watch Prof. Gregory Stanton, Malaysian MP & Chair of ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights Charles Santiago, former Secretary General of South Asia Forum for Human Rights Tapan Kumar Bose, South African author & TV journalist Imran Garda, Uzbek documentary filmmaker Shahida Tulaganova, British journalist Shafiur Rahman, and Cambodian genocide scholar Farina So.
“Neither pandemic nor repressive regimes can silence the voices of Rohingya people who demand accountability, restoration of full and equal citizenship and a homeland with inalienable rights of all peoples.” said Ro Nay San Lwin, Co-founder and Coordinator of the Free Rohingya Coalition.
Prominent Rohingya refugees and survivors – from Bangladeshi refugee camps and throughout the diaspora – will honour the memories of their fellow Rohingya victims who were murdered during past four decades of various waves of genocidal killings.
Among the Rohingya speakers are nominee for International Women of Courage Award for Malaysia (2018) by US State Department & Founder of Rohingya Women Development Network Sharifah Shakirah, Ms World Australia National Finalist 2020 Pan Sandar Myint, Co-author of “First They Erase Our Name” Habiburahman, President of Burmese Rohingya Association Japan Zaw Min Htut, and President of Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK Tun Khin.
Musicians from Asia, Africa, Europe and USA will perform live as an act of solidarity for Rohingya people.
The online rally will be Facebook Live at the Free Rohingya Coalition Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/FreeRohingyaCoalition) at 1400 GMT (3PM UK) on 25th August. In addition, it will be live streamed on Turkish International news channel Anadolu Agency through its 13 world languages programme.
Rohingyas in Myanmar have been subjected to state policies of persecution which are widely considered to be a textbook example of genocide. Myanmar is currently facing a full investigation for its grave crimes in international law including the crimes of deportation and other crimes against humanity by the ICC. Last December UN’s highest court, International Court of Justice began the public hearing over Gambia’s allegations that Myanmar has violated its obligations under the genocide convention. This January ICJ judges had unanimously ordered Myanmar to immediately end any and all acts of genocide against Rohingya people, as they are protected by the genocide convention.
The memorial is hosted by the Free Rohingya Coalition in collaboration with the Documentation Centre of Cambodia, one of the world’s leading genocide centres, and Forces of Renewal Southeast Asia, a region-wide grassroot network rights activists and scholars.
Free Rohingya Coalition is a global network of Rohingya activists and friends of Rohingyas who share common concerns about Myanmar’s ongoing genocide and the need for Rohingya survivors to play an active role in seeking a viable future for their group.
For more information, please contact:
Dr. Maung Zarni +44 7710 473322
Ro Nay San Lwin +49 176 62139138..."
Source/publisher:
Free Rohingya Coalition
Date of entry/update:
2021-08-24
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Discrimination against the Rohingya, Genocide, Rohingya (cultural, political etc.), Human Rights and international relations
Language:
Local URL:
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Description:
"This Wednesday, August 25, marks the fourth year since the Myanmar military waged genocidal attacks on the Rohingya. The attacks led to thousands of deaths, mass rape, and the forced displacement of nearly 800,000 refugees to Bangladesh. Refugees International has consistently urged the U.S. government to recognize those attacks for what they are: genocide. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken launched a formal review on a Rohingya genocide determination in early 2021 and recently stated that it was being “very actively considered.” But the United States has yet to make a genocide determination.
Refugees International Senior Advocate for Human Rights Daniel Sullivan made the following statement:
“Four years ago, I witnessed hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fleeing into Bangladesh by foot with only the clothes on their backs. They described in disturbingly consistent detail the tactics of the Myanmar military: surrounding villages, setting fires, and shooting people as they fled. The U.S. State Department, among many other organizations, has collected a mountain of evidence since.
Secretary Blinken should hesitate no longer in making a genocide determination.
The Myanmar military continues to attempt to consolidate power, expanding its history of cruel tactics against ethnic minorities to anyone who opposes its coup. Impunity has only fueled the military’s actions. Failure to recognize past abuses will only encourage the perpetrators and increase the risk of further mass atrocities. The stakes could not be higher.
A Rohingya genocide determination would underscore the United States’ commitment to accountability and create the precedent for recognizing abuses against other minority groups. It would create momentum for further global actions, including new targeted sanctions, an arms embargo, and reinforcement of accountability efforts. A Rohingya genocide determination would also signal U.S. solidarity with the Rohingya and with countries like Bangladesh, which continues to host nearly 1 million Rohingya refugees. Such solidarity may encourage increased humanitarian aid and positive policies toward refugees, even as Bangladesh implements more restrictions in the camps.
Perhaps most importantly, the horrible facts justify a legal determination that the state of Myanmar is responsible for this crime.
A genocide determination matters. It matters to the Rohingya who have suffered from the Myanmar military’s attacks. It matters to the latest targets of the military’s abuses. And it matters as a strong message to future would-be genocidaires. The time to call it genocide is now.”
Refugees International led a recent joint letter signed by 95 organizations to Secretary Blinken urging a Rohingya genocide determination. The letter builds on previous efforts with the Trump administration as part of the #CallitGenocide campaign, which included a nearly 9,000-signature petition and a legal and human rights experts letter (signed by two senior officials in the Biden administration). Refugees International’s analysis on why the attacks on the Rohingya constitute genocide can be found here..."
Source/publisher:
Refugees International
Date of entry/update:
2021-08-20
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Discrimination against the Rohingya, Genocide, Rohingya (cultural, political etc.), Human Rights and international relations
Language:
Local URL:
more
Description:
"As the world recognises International Day Commemorating the Victims of Acts of Violence Based on Religion or Belief, BHRN calls on the international community to remember the religious minorities of Burma who are facing ongoing violence and oppression for their beliefs. Muslims, Christians, and other religious minorities have suffered in Burma for years in the country at the hands of the military and ultra- nationalists and these offenses continue to this day.
“While the world commemorates the victims of violence based on religion or belief, we must do all we can for those who are suffering still. In Burma, religious persecution against Muslims and Christians remains one of the most serious issues in the country. The illegitimate military junta has maintained its attacks on minorities since seizing power and there is legitimate fear this will only get worse as they maintain control. The best way we can honour the victims of the past is to prevent others from being victimized in the future,” said BHRN’s Executive Director Kyaw Win.
Burma has been the site of ongoing violence against religious and ethnic minorities for decades. Christians in Kachin, Karen, Karennie and Chin states have all faced serious persecution and violence by the armed forces, and Christians across the country have faced restrictions on their freedom to practice their religion. Similarly, Muslims throughout the country have faced horrific violence, including the genocide of the Rohingya, as well as oppressive restrictions on their ability to practice their religion freely.
The observation of International Day Commemorating the Victims of Acts of Violence Based on Religion or Belief falls just a few days short of the anniversary of the Rohingya genocide. While reflecting on these two important dates BHRN calls on the world to act to prevent any further suffering in Burma. Sanctions on all business interests of the military must be imposed and a global arms embargo must be enforced against the junta. The international community must work with Burma’s legitimate leaders in the National Unity Government to create a plan that will ensure the rights of all minorities and use every tool available to return the NUG to power to implement it.
Organisation’s Background
BHRN is based in London and operates across Burma/Myanmar working for human rights, minority rights and religious freedom in the country. BHRN has played a crucial role in advocating for human rights and religious freedom with politicians and world leaders..."
Source/publisher:
Burma Human Rights Network
Date of entry/update:
2021-08-20
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Human Rights and international relations, Genocide, Discrimination against the Rohingya, Rakhine (Arakanese) periodicals
Language:
Format :
pdf
Size:
129.42 KB
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Description:
"Dear Secretary Blinken,
We, the undersigned organizations, write to urge you to publicly determine that the state of Myanmar has committed genocide and crimes against humanity against the Rohingya people. We welcomed your launch of a process earlier this year to make such an official determination. Now, several months later, as the fourth anniversary of the brutal campaign against the Rohingya approaches - and with the ongoing risk of further atrocities - we urge you to publicly announce your determination and to refer to the crimes by their proper name: crimes against humanity and genocide.
The February 1st coup by the same military that perpetrated abuses against the Rohingya, and the ongoing abuses by the Myanmar military against the Rohingya, other ethnic groups, and the Burmese population in general, only underscore the importance of recognizing the military’s past crimes against the Rohingya for what they are. We have welcomed your attention to the coup and the sanctions measures you have imposed on those responsible. While the coup does not impact the factual and legal basis for a possible genocide determination, it does underscore the importance of the United States speaking forthrightly about gross abuses of human rights when they occur. Such action is critical in sending signals to governments and the Myanmar military, that abusers will be held accountable. Such signals also play a critical role in deterring further abuses.
In the case of the Rohingya, the evidence of genocide and crimes against humanity is clear and convincing and has been amply documented. As prominent legal and human rights experts, including former high-level State Department and White House officials (two of whom are now serving in senior positions in the Biden administration), concluded in a letter in August 2020 [attached]:
“[We] believe the information and assessments produced so far compels the United States, in its capacity as a government and not as a court, to publicly express its view that genocide has been committed and may be continuing against the Rohingya of Myanmar.”
The military coup places an increased urgency on this request as the last trappings of democratic restraints on the military are pulled away. The military’s actions are already greatly exacerbating the COVID pandemic and a growing humanitarian crisis. A U.S. government determination of genocide and crimes against humanity would subject Myanmar and its military to much needed international scrutiny at a time of increased risk of atrocities against the Rohingya and other ethnic minority groups including the Chin, Karen, Kachin, Rakhine, and Shan, as well as against the population of Myanmar as a whole, who have been targeted for opposing the coup. Such a determination would also be useful in exposing atrocities and preserving the truth ahead of any future transitional justice actions. A Rohingya genocide determination would in no way preclude further atrocity determinations regarding abuses committed by the military against other ethnic groups or others. Rather, it would demonstrate a commitment to evidence-based accountability as the struggle for a truly inclusive and representative democratic Myanmar continues.
A determination would also help to ensure continued international attention on the plight of the Rohingya, while enabling the United States to mobilize additional diplomatic and economic pressure on Myanmar to shift its behavior. This attention could offer a measure of protection for the Rohingya and others in Myanmar. It would also represent an expression of solidarity with the governments of Bangladesh and other refugee hosting countries, signaling the United States is committed both to accountability and supporting conditions for safe and voluntary return when conditions so permit.
Such a determination would be wholly consistent with findings of the Department of State, which concluded that the attacks on the Rohingya were “well-planned and coordinated” and that they were "extreme, large-scale, widespread, and seemingly geared toward both terrorizing the population and driving out the Rohingya residents." The law group engaged by the State Department to investigate atrocities against the Rohingya conducted its own legal analysis and found reasonable grounds to believe that genocide was committed. Several other independent groups have reached similar conclusions including Refugees International, the International State Crime Initiative, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, and Fortify Rights in collaboration with Covington & Burling LLP. The U.S. House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to recognize that “atrocities committed against the Rohingya by the Burmese military and security forces since August 2017 constitute crimes against humanity and genocide.” A UN Independent Fact-Finding Mission similarly found “a pattern of conduct that infers genocidal intent on the part of the State to destroy the Rohingya, in whole or in part, as a group.” The Fact-Finding Mission has further warned, “The State of Myanmar continues to harbour genocidal intent and the Rohingya remain under serious risk of genocide.”
Now is the time to use the words that fit the crimes. U.S. leadership matters. We call upon you to demonstrate the moral leadership and courage necessary to push global action in the face of genocide.
Again, we welcome your review and urge you to finalize it quickly. Should you have any questions, please feel free to be in touch with Daniel Sullivan ([email protected])..."
Source/publisher:
Refugees International
Date of entry/update:
2021-08-11
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Discrimination against the Rohingya, Rohingya (cultural, political etc.), Genocide, Human Rights and international relations
Language:
Format :
pdf
Size:
127.37 KB
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Description:
"Aug. 4, 2021, Myanmar: US/Luxembourg satellite company Intelsat is continuing to lease transponder capacity to Myanmar’s brutal military junta via a UK subsidiary. Intelsat confirmed to Justice For Myanmar that they do not know how the capacity is being utilised. Intelsat would not answer questions regarding their compliance with sanctions in the EU and UK, which restrict the sale of technology to Myanmar that can be used for internal repression.
Myanmar’s agreement to lease capacity on Intelsat 39, branded Myanmarsat-2, was signed in 2018 and the Maxar Technologies-built satellite was launched in 2019. The agreement was signed by the Ministry of Transport and Communications, under the National League for Democracy-led government. However, it was overseen by a steering committee headed by military appointed Vice President Lt Gen Myint Swe. Committee members included the ministers of defence and home affairs, who are also military appointees, raising serious concerns over Intelsat’s human rights due diligence following the military’s genocide against the Rohingya.
Justice For Myanmar spokesperson Yadanar Maung says: “We call on Intelsat to act immediately to prevent the illegal and murderous Myanmar junta from using satellite capacity for military purposes. The Myanmarsat-2 agreement was signed under the National League for Democracy-led government and Intelsat must now consult with the National Unity Government over their continued business in Myanmar, not the illegal junta. We also call on the UK, Luxembourg, and US governments to ensure Intelsat is in compliance with sanctions and protecting human rights in Myanmar. The military has been widening its nationwide terror campaign against the Myanmar people and has murdered over 940 civilians, including children. More than 5,400 have been arrested, facing torture. We have grave concerns that satellite communications now under junta control can be used to support their violent attacks against the Myanmar people.”..."
Source/publisher:
Justice For Myanmar
Date of entry/update:
2021-08-04
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Human Rights and international relations, Business and the Military, Sanctions, Genocide, 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état
Language:
Format :
pdf
Size:
214.47 KB
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Description:
"Your Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen,
I would like to thank you for the opportunity to engage through this interactive dialogue with the Human Rights Council and exchange on issues and situations that are of major concern to my mandate. Previous such engagements have enabled action on highlighted situations, and it is my hope that today’s discussion will do the same.
Part of my mandate as Special Adviser is to provide early warning and to collect existing information on massive and serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, including against ethnic, religious and national minorities, which if not prevented or halted, might lead to genocide. Atrocity crimes – war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide - affect entire societies through generations. Prevention is so much less costly – in all areas, and particularly in saving human lives.
The inaction to promptly respond to those warning signs allows genocide and atrocities to happen. We need stronger commitment and early action at the community, national, regional and international level and sincere approaches to prevention and early action is more urgent than ever.
We can’t repeat the same failures and their devastating impacts, such as the conflict in Syria, which has raged for over 10 years with ongoing gross violations against civilians. There must be UNITED NATIONS accountability for the gross violations and crimes committed against the people in Syria, and prompt collective actions by international community to protect the population.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Since the military takeover in Myanmar, I have issued multiple warnings of a heightened risk of atrocity crimes in this country. The widespread and increasingly systematic attacks against peaceful protesters, resulting in killings of hundreds of people, thousands arbitrarily arrested - many subjected to enforced disappearance – the targeted killings of civilians as a result of clashes between the Myanmar Armed Forces and ethnic armed organizations, may constitute crimes against humanity. The human rights, humanitarian and security situation are deteriorating quickly, with indiscriminate attacks against civilian population, threatening the lives of thousands of people in Myanmar.
I am deeply concerned about the impact that the current situation may have on the minority groups, including the Rohingya population. The office of the Special Adviser has warned, since the violence against the Rohingyas in 2017, that despite the numerous warnings of the risk of atrocity crimes, no early actions were taken to stop the killings, torture, rape, forcible displacement and horrible suffering of Rohingya people. Today, in 2021, the escalation of violence in Myanmar continues against civilians, putting the Rohingya and other minority groups at imminent risks. Root causes need to be addressed, including guaranteeing definite citizenship and other rights to the Rohingya community in Myanmar, ensuring accountability for past crimes in order to deter more atrocity crimes from being committed. Stronger support is also needed to the international mechanisms, including the International Criminal Court and the Human Rights Council- Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar in fighting impunity in the country.
In Yemen, I’m growing increasingly concerned about the protection situation of civilians as the conflict continues in the absence of a nationwide ceasefire. Indiscriminate and targeted attacks across a proliferation of frontlines have resulted in ongoing grave violations of international human rights and humanitarian law that may amount to war crimes. In particular, the situation in Ma’rib has become increasingly dire for the large number of displaced people residing there as the fight for control of the area draws on. I also highlight the grave impact that the denial and obstruction of humanitarian aid and other essential goods is having on civilians countrywide, particularly as the number of cases of COVID-19 continue to rise.
On Afghanistan, I echo the recent call by the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the concerns raised by SRSG Deborah Lyons to the Security Council, for the international community to do more to support Afghanistan and prevent a reversal on the important gains made on the rights of women and minority communities over the past several years. I am particularly concerned over reports of attacks and targeting of minority communities such as the Hazara. The 8 May attack on students, most of whom were girls, in a majority-Hazara area of Kabul, is one horrific example of the violence faced by this community and which is also specifically targeted at women and girls. I urge this Council to look at ways it can support ongoing efforts to protect these populations.
Ladies and gentlemen,
In Ethiopia there are continue reports of ethnic and religious tensions, hate speech, incitement to violence and allegations of human rights violations and abuses including killings, rape, displacement of populations and destruction of property. I have previously called on the Ethiopian authorities to establish national mechanisms for accountability of alleged human rights violations and other crimes committed, to address the root causes of ethnic violence, build national cohesion and reconciliation.
Central-African Republic has witnessed increasing human rights violations, targeted violence against communities and forced displacement of civilians committed by armed groups, government forces and bilaterally deployed security personnel, which could contribute to risks of atrocity crimes.
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, armed groups and intercommunal violence continues to threaten populations in eastern provinces. Escalating violence, particularly in Ituri and North Kivu, results in large numbers killed and a displacement crisis. My office is working closely with the peacekeeping mission – MONUSCO – to find ways to improve protection outcomes for the long- suffering civilian population and support the Mission’s efforts aimed at addressing and countering hate speech that contributes to fuel tensions between communities.
In South Sudan, there is persistent localized violence across many areas of the country amid limited progress in implementing the terms of the peace agreement. Much of this violence, which is perpetrated along ethnic lines, is fueled by an increasing proliferation of weapons and ammunition, with armed militia. My office has been advocating for accountability for atrocity crimes committed and the implementation of transitional justice measures contained in the peace agreement, noting that the Hybrid Court for South Sudan needs to be established and swiftly operationalized in coordination with the African Union.
I welcome the 30th special session of the Human Rights Council on the grave human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem on 27 May 2021. While I am glad that the parties to the conflict managed to agree on a ceasefire at the end of May, the situation remains very volatile in Israel and the OPT and tensions can trigger renewed violence. I support the HRC resolution establishing an international commission of inquiry to investigate violations of international humanitarian law and all alleged violations and abuses of international human rights law leading up to and since 13 April 2021, and all underlying root causes of recurrent tensions. Only by addressing the root causes of the violence, we will prevent further serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law in the context of this conflict.
I welcome the resolution recently adopted by the Human Rights Council on Sri Lanka which strengthens avenues for accountability and reconciliation. The report by the High Commissioner sets out several areas of concern including continued impunity for past violations, militarization of government functions, increase in divisive and hateful rhetoric again minority communities as well as intimidation of civil society, these trends are also concerning from an atrocity prevention perspective. I encourage the Sri Lankan Government to ensure accountability for past violations, to invest in comprehensive reconciliation and to respond to hateful and divisive narratives by strengthening efforts to promote non-discrimination and inclusion for all Sri Lankans. My Office stands ready to support in these efforts.
Justice, accountability and reparation are fundamental to break those cycles of atrocity crimes, reconstruct trust in institutions, reconcile populations divided by conflict, provide victims with a real opportunity to rebuild their lives and and build real and lasting peace. I encourage this Council to ensure victims’ right to truth, justice and reparation are reflected in your actions and decisions, which will in turn assist in preventing future crimes.
Justice and accountability remain central for trust-building and reconciliation in the region of the Western Balkans. Just last week, I concluded an official visit as Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, precisely to Bosnia and Herzegovina. I expressed concern, in all my meetings, at persistent instances of genocide and war crimes denial and glorification of war criminals. I also expressed concern at increasing patterns of hate speech. Some of my interlocutors likened the ongoing inflammatory rhetoric to that which existed prior to the 1992-1995 war in the country. I strongly believe that the situation in the country requires increased high-level commitment to trust-building and reconciliation, specially by the top leadership level.
During my ten days in the country, I visited various grassroots initiatives that are contributing to build trust from the bottom up. There is much to admire and learn from the work of these local peace champions that are building mutual trust, respect and understanding at the grassroots level. They constitute a positive example to be replicated by political leaders in building a future of peace and prosperity.
In the region of the Americas, I am particular concerned on the situation of indigenous peoples.
In Brazil, Ecuador and other countries, I call on governments to protect communities at risk and ensure accountability for the crimes committed. The discrimination and hate speech against the displaced populations, such in the context of Venezuela, remains a great concern for my office. I would also like to highlight the fundamental role of transitional justice in Colombia to ensure peace can prevail, and the need for an immediate response to the violence against human rights activists and former combatants.
The Office maintains a general concern on the impact of racism and discrimination in the overall Global North, which can ignite social polarization increasing the risk of atrocity crimes when/where elements of resilience are weak with a focus on migrant/refugee populations.
Excellencies,
When atrocity crimes are committed, the repercussions are felt across borders and cause disastrous human, economic and security consequences. The sharp increase in the number of people displaced including refugees fleeing Myanmar, Central-African Republic, Ethiopia,
Democratic Republic of the Congo, among others, requires an urgent response. People displaced need to be protected by neighboring countries, according to international norms and principles, while the root causes of the problem must be addressed. This includes guaranteeing full protection and respect of human rights of the population, with attention to the vulnerable minority groups, and ensuring accountability for past crimes.
The Human Rights Council through its mechanisms have provided important contributions in deterring atrocity crimes, through the early warning of special procedures mandate holders and through the establishment of facts and promotion of accountability by the commissions of inquiry and investigative bodies. I encourage this Council to continue and strengthen such efforts on early warning and early action, to deter further atrocities to happen, with a focus on the country situations I have just highlighted. I also encourage the Council and Member States to use the Universal Periodic Review as a tool to detect and address underlying risks factors of atrocity in countries under review, as well as report on their efforts towards preventing these crimes.
I want to reiterate the call from my predecessors and the Secretary-General for the universal ratification of the Genocide Convention. Forty-two United Nations Member States have yet to accede or ratify the Convention. It is time to commit and act to eradicate the scourge of the crime of genocide from our societies.
As Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, I am committed to do my utmost to continue providing early warning and recommendations on potential situations of atrocity crimes. I will also continue to assist in building the capacity of national authorities, regional organizations and civil society, including community leaders, to prevent and respond to atrocity crimes. I ask this body and all Member States to do the same. Genocide and other atrocity crimes are preventable if we put aside narrow political interests and work together. Prevention is a collective responsibility and its upon us to make this a reality, that “never again” will any person experience the terrible suffering of this egregious crime of Genocide.....
Thank you...."
Source/publisher:
UN Human Rights Council via "Reliefweb" (New York)
Date of entry/update:
2021-06-29
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"The Myanmar military regime has organized a new legal team led by its foreign minister, U Wunna Maung Lwin, to present the defense in the Rohingya genocide case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague.
The regime’s order restructuring the committee, which was previously led by detained State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, was announced in a bulletin published by the Myanmar Gazette on Thursday.
The panel has eight members. Among them are two former military officers—U Wunna Maung Lwin, who will serve as chairman; and the regime’s planning, finance and industry minister, U Win Shein—and two serving lieutenant generals: Yar Pyae and Adjutant General Myo Zaw Thein.
The other members of the panel are the junta’s minister for international cooperation, U Ko Ko Hlaing, as vice chairman; its new union attorney general, Daw Thida Oo; its deputy foreign minister, U Kyaw Myo Htut; and Daw Khin Oo Hlaing, who is said to be an international criminal law expert and also a member of a seven-member advisory board to the regime.
After a brutal military crackdown in the western state of Rakhine in 2017 that forced more than 700,000 Rohingya to flee across the border to neighboring Bangladesh, the African nation of Gambia in November 2019 brought a case at the ICJ—which is an organ of the UN and is also known as the World Court—accusing Myanmar of committing genocide against the Rohingya. State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi defended the country against the charge in December 2019.
Gambia’s legal team submitted a list of the Myanmar military’s atrocities against the minority Muslim group in northern Rakhine state. These included mass rapes, the burning of families in their homes and the killing of dozens of Rohingya children. As the case could take years, Gambia asked the ICJ to order Myanmar to take “provisional measures” to prevent more violations.
Going further than the measures requested by Gambia, the ICJ ordered Myanmar on Jan. 23 to report on its compliance with the provisional measures in four months and then every six months thereafter. The Daw Aung San Suu Kyi-led civilian government submitted two reports prior to its ouster by the military in a coup on Feb. 1.
The deputy foreign minister for Myanmar’s parallel National Unity Government (NUG), U Moe Zaw Oo, said during an online press conference on June 4 that the civilian government would no longer offer a defense in the case. It vowed to work with the ICJ and said it would accept the court’s decision in the case.
The NUG also said it is considering accepting the exercise of jurisdiction by a separate international court, the International Criminal Court, over the killings, torture and other crimes against civilians committed by the Myanmar junta since the coup on Feb. 1. The Myanmar military seized power from the democratically elected National League for Democracy government, detained civilian leaders and abolished the new Parliament on the day it was scheduled to convene.
Since the coup, the Myanmar regime has killed at least 877 people and arrested more than 6,200, of whom 5,088 remain in detention, according to advocacy group the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.
At least 25 civilians have been tortured to death after being arrested by regime forces since the military takeover..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update:
2021-06-24
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
International Court of Justice (ICJ) - Myanmar, Discrimination against the Rohingya, Genocide, Ethnic Cleansing, Rohingya (cultural, political etc.), 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état
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"A 12-year-old boy in ragged clothing shoulders a child, his younger sister of 3 years, as they walk mile after mile, escaping their home, because their father was shot dead on the spot and their mother was raped in front of them and killed thereafter. They are fleeing with many others who have similar experiences. Some of them lost their parents, or brothers and sisters while others saw their entire families burn alive. Two pregnant women walk for miles with inexplicable
hardship, but try their best to keep their babies inside alive.
The group finally enters Bangladesh after walking one day and seven hours, crossing lands and hills, and riding by boat. Like this group, more than half a million Rohingyas have fled persecution in Myanmar to Bangladesh since the military crackdown started on August 25, 2017. Following an alleged attack on 30 police camps and one military base by the radical Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), Myanmar security forces indiscriminately fired on Rohingya
civilians, burnt their houses down, raped girls and women, and killed hundreds of Rohingyas mercilessly. The intensity of atrocity was so extreme that the global community, including the United Nations, the European Union, human rights groups like International Organization of Migration (IOM), Amnesty International, and the Human Rights Watch, came forward to stand beside Rohingyas and condemn Myanmar for its deadly violence, severe brutality, and
crimes against humanity. The United Nations Human Rights Council termed it as a "textbook example of ethnic cleansing" and major international media outlets like the New York Times, ABC News, and CNN have called it genocide.
Many agencies working in the borderland of Bangladesh and Myanmar to support Rohingyas, particularly wounded ones, old people, children, and pregnant women, have said that this is one of the most devastating humanitarian catastrophes in the history of refugee crises. Myanmar's de facto leader, and also
a Nobel laureate in peace, Aung San Suu Ki, has also been accused by the international community of supporting the genocide committed by the Myanmar security forces.
The reason the Rohingyas, often called “the most persecuted people in the world," have been repressed and afflicted for decades is because of their identity as an ethno-linguistic and religious minority within the state structure of Myanmar. Additionally, a growing anti-Muslim Buddhist sentiment instigated by Ashin Wirathu, a Buddhist monk named by TIME “Burmese Bin-Laden,”
has contributed to the current critical condition unsuitable for Rohingya
Muslims’ peaceful living in Rakhine state.
The citizenship of Rohingya people was taken away by the Myanmar Citizenship Law of 1982, which conferred citizenship to 135 nationals, excluding Rohingyas, even though they have been residents of Arakan, what is now called Rakhine state, since the eighth century. Following the independence of Burma, now Myanmar, in 1948, the Rohingyas were close to gaining state recognition, but
after General Ne Win took power in 1962, the military regime started and this hope was lost. During this period of time, the Rohingyas underwent a brutal experience of human rights violations, atrocities, and a severe degree of oppression in their everyday experiences. Their lives were restricted, freedom of movement was cut off, education was halted, and even marriage became subject
to military approval. Following the Citizenship Law of 1982, the Rohingyas started living in an “open jail” as they were confined to their villages. In 1978, a severe military crackdown took place in Arakan state that triggered a massive influx of 200,000 Rohingyas to Bangladesh. The second influx occurred in 1991 when around 250,000 Rohingyas took refuge in Bangladesh. Following
an effective international pressure, under an agreement between Bangladesh and Myanmar, almost all in 1978 and some 236,000 Rohingyas in 1992 were repatriated, but a large number of them returned to Bangladesh because the situation of the Rakhine state remained unchanged.
A big riot of Rakhine Buddhists supported by state agencies and Rohingya Muslims took place in June 2012, forcing around 120,000 Rohingyas to flee to Bangladesh. In October 2016, 87,000 Rohingyas left Myanmar to escape deadly military operation. However, 2017 has witnessed even more extreme atrocities committed by the Myanmar security force, compelling around 600,000 Rohingyas to flee and take refuge in Bangladesh. Of the 600,000, 50 percent are
children, 30 percent are women (85 thousand are pregnant), 15 percent are old, and the remaining 5 percent are youth.
Many reports and Rohingyas' narratives have confirmed that thousands of Rohingya youths were killed in Rakhine state by the security forces. Now, the majority of Rohingyas live in Bangladesh (1,100,000 [combined with previously living 500,000 and newly arrived 600,000]), 800,000 live in Myanmar, and the remaining 700,000 live in other countries (India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia,
Thailand, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates). Due to their miserable lives and inhuman state of livings, the Rohingyas have become an ideal example of how people lead their lives in the presence of "everyday death." Many attempts
are being made to resolve the Rohingya crisis, but nobody knows when, and how, Rohingya people will gain a peaceful life with due human dignity..."
Source/publisher:
Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs
Date of entry/update:
2021-06-19
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), Discrimination against the Rohingya, Rohingya (cultural, political etc.), Genocide, Ethnic Cleansing, Burmese refugees in Bangladesh
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"The situation in Myanmar: The General Assembly,
Guided by the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1
Recalling its relevant resolutions on Myanmar, the resolutions of the Human Rights Council, including the most recent, resolution 46/21 of 24 March 2021, adopted by consensus, as well as the Security Council statement on the situation in Myanmar of 4 February 2021, the statement by the President of the Security Council on the situation in Myanmar of 10 March 20212 and the press elements of the Security
Council on the situation in Myanmar of 1 and 30 April 2021,
Expressing grave concern about the declaration of the state of emergency by the Myanmar armed forces on 1 February 2021 and subsequent actions taken against the elected civilian Government, which also impact regional stability, and stressing its
continued call upon Myanmar to act in accordance with the principle of adherence to the rule of law, good governance, the principles of democracy and constitutional government, respect for fundamental freedoms and the promotion and protection of human rights, as also provided for in the Charter of the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations,3 Stressing its strong support for the central role of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the continued constructive engagement of the Association with
Myanmar in a positive manner towards facilitating a peaceful solution in the interest of the people of Myanmar and their livelihoods, and welcoming the holding and the outcome of the Leaders’ Meeting of the Association, on 24 April 2021, at the secretariat of the Association, taking into account in particular the Chairman’s statement on the Leaders’ Meeting and the five-point consensus reached during the
Meeting,4 Welcoming the statements made by the Chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations on 1 February and 2 March 2021, in which the Chair recalled the purposes and principles of the Charter of the Association, notably the principle of democracy, adherence to the rule of law, good governance, the respect for and
protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms, and called upon all parties to exercise utmost restraint and seek a peaceful solution through constructive dialogue and practical reconciliation in the interests of the people and their livelihoods, Expressing deep concern about the arbitrary detention and arrest of President
Win Myint, State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, and other government officials and politicians, human rights defenders, journalists, civil society members, foreign experts and others, Strongly condemning the use of lethal force and violence, which has led to
injuries and fatalities in many cases, against peaceful demonstrators, as well as members of civil society, women, youth, children and others, expressing deep concern at restrictions on medical personnel, civil society, labour union members, journalists and media workers, and people who protect and promote human rights, and calling
for the immediate release of all those detained arbitrarily, Expressing concern for the safety and rights of all foreign nationals in Myanmar,
Expressing unequivocal support for the democratic transition in Myanmar and for the need to uphold democratic institutions and processes, refrain from violence and fully respect human rights, fundamental freedoms and the rule of law, Noting in this context the various initiatives, movements and structures aimed
at expressing the will of the people for a peaceful and democratic Myanmar, Underlining the need for a long-term peaceful political solution for Myanmar, including a return to its path of democratic transition and national reconciliation through an inclusive and peaceful dialogue between all parties, in accordance with the will and interests of the people of Myanmar, Reaffirming its support for the Special Envoy of the Secretary-General on Myanmar and her efforts to maintain communication and engage constructively with
all relevant parties in Myanmar, welcoming her briefing of 26 February 2021, and reiterating its request for continued reporting to the General Assembly as warranted by the situation on the ground,
Concerned at the human rights situation of persons belonging to ethnic, religious and other minorities in Myanmar, including the Rohingya Muslim minority, in particular with respect to the violations committed against them and their rights related to citizenship status, and reiterating the responsibility of the Myanmar armed
forces to respect the human rights of all persons in Myanmar, Expressing concern that recent developments pose particular serious challenges for the voluntary, safe, dignified and sustainable return of Rohingya refugees and all internally displaced persons, including those displaced since 1 February 2021..."
Source/publisher:
United Nations General Assembly (A/75/L.85/Rev.1)
Date of entry/update:
2021-06-19
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
GA resolutions on the situation of human rights in Myanmar (English), Reports to the GA by the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar (English), Human Rights and international relations, Rohingya (cultural, political etc.), Genocide
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"A Muslim minority ethnic group in Buddhist dominated Myanmar, the Rohingya constitute about 4 percent of the country’s population. They inhabit the northern part of the Rakhine (formerly Arakan) State of Myanmar, one of the least developed parts of the country.
Persecuted for decades by the Burmese State, their numbers inside Myanmar have diminished steadily over the years from well in excess of a million to a few hundred thousand. Denial of citizenship, religious persecution, killings, rape, massacres and refusal to provide
even the most basic of human rights by subjecting them to forced labor, seizure of their land and property, extortion, denial of the freedom to travel to find work, and most humiliatingly
placing restrictions on marriage and the number of children they can have has led to hundreds of thousands of impoverished Rohingya fleeing to neighbouring countries, especially Bangladesh, over the course of the last seven decades. The United Nations (UN) has described them as "the most persecuted minority in the world".
At the core of the issue is the identity and religion of the Rohingya, with the Myanmar government refusing to acknowledge or use the term Rohingya, insisting on calling them ‘Bengali’ instead to highlight their alleged foreign origins. The largeststateless community in the world,the close to a million Rohingya living in appalling
conditions in makeshift refugee camps in Bangladesh are confronted with an enormous humanitarian crisis. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) stated on 13 December 2017, that while there were 400,000 Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh in early
2017, by the end of that year this number had swelled to over 1,000,000. The scale of the crisis is put into clear perspective by the fact that in contrast to their swelling numbers in Bangladesh, only an estimated 180,000 Rohingya remain in their native Rakhine State in
Myanmar. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recently termed the State of the Rohingya as "catastrophic" and "completely unacceptable". Their miserable condition is being sought to
be exploited by radical Islamic organizations backed by the Pakistani intelligence agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) such as the Lashkar-e-Taibah (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), as well as by other Sunni militant organizations, to serve their own nefarious purposes. Rohingya insurgent organizations such as the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) are being set up, and the attacks against Myanmar security forces launched by these insurgents
are providing the excuse for a highly disproportionate response by the Myanmar government, thereby exacerbating the already grave plight of the Rohingya. That the ISI-backed groups are
also looking to direct the attention of radicalized elements from the Rohingya against the Sheikh Hasina-led government in Bangladesh and against India lends wider security ramifications to the issue.
US Vice President Mike Pence assessed the situation aptly when he described the Rohingya expulsion as a "historic exodus" and a "great tragedy unfolding", adding that the situation may "sow seeds of hatred and chaos that may well consume the region for generations to
come and threaten the peace of us all"..."
Source/publisher:
European Foundation for South Asian Studies (Amsterdam)
Date of entry/update:
2021-06-14
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), Discrimination against the Rohingya, Genocide, Ethnic Cleansing, Rohingya (cultural, political etc.), Burmese refugees in Bangladesh
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"PREFACE: The Rohingya crisis defies easy summary. Terms such as ethnic
cleansing, genocide, abuse of human rights, have all been
applied to what is undoubtedly a major humanitarian crisis of our
times. Understanding and responding to the plight of hundreds of
thousands of Rohingyas requires a multi-disciplinary approach,
with the need for engagement from a wide variety of
perspectives. Legal and medical questions, issues around
cultural contexts and the physical environment, psychological
and social factors, religious and political considerations, are all
highly relevant. There is no simple solution to a whole complex
of interconnected issues: here, as in so many other cases, the
eruption and tragic human consequences of collective violence
raise innumerable challenges. It is all the more urgent that we
can bring people together to engage in the kind of informed
debate that can assist intelligent action.
We are delighted that such a distinguished and broad range of
scholars and practitioners have contributed their insights in this
booklet of abstracts, and that some of them will be able to
contribute further in person at the conference held at UCL on 4-
5 July 2019. We welcome participation in what we hope will be a
productive set of encounters, seeking both to understand and,
through enhanced understanding, to inform more effective
responses to this still unfolding crisis.....Genocide Studie.....FORWARD : According to the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR), there are over 70 million people worldwide
who have been forcibly displaced from their homes. As an
underlying principle of the UN Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs) to be achieved by 2030 is to leave no one behind, it is
essential that the needs and aspirations of the forcibly displaced
are addressed. Of these about 10 million are stateless. With
limited or no legal rights, and often denied refugee legal status,
the challenges they face are severe. About one third of the
stateless forcibly displaced, belong to the Rohingya diaspora.
The Rohingya are a Muslim-majority ethnic group from today's
Rakhine State in Myanmar. After a long period of systematic
exclusion, the Rohingya were stripped of their citizenship in
1982. Since the late 1970s, nearly two million Rohingya have fled
Myanmar, with another one million living as internally displace
people (IDPs) within Rakhine State, in waves of violent forced
displacement perpetrated by the Myanmar authorities.
Violence towards the Rohingya in Myanmar from 2017, caused
the mass displacement of people to southeastern Bangladesh.
The Human Rights Council acting under UN resolution 34/22 has
cited this as a crime against humanity and called for an
investigation for genocide against the authorities in Myanmar.
The majority of the nearly one million displaced persons are
residing in overcrowded temporary makeshift shelters, of
bamboo frames and plastic sheeting, in Cox’s Bazar district.
Kutupalong is the world’s largest refugee camp. These camps
are highly susceptible to rainfall-triggered landslides, flash
flooding and cyclones and the likelihood of a public health
emergency from infectious diseases is high, which in this
vulnerable population threatens new disaster...."
Source/publisher:
University College London
Date of entry/update:
2021-06-12
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), Internal displacement/forced migration of Rohingyas, Discrimination against the Rohingya, Genocide, Ethnic Cleansing, Human Rights and international relations, Rohingya (cultural, political etc.), Muslims in Burma, Statelessness in Burma/Myanmar, Burmese refugees in Bangladesh
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"This article is part of a Just Security series on the Feb. 1, 2021 coup in Myanmar. The series brings together expert local and international voices on the coup and its broader context. The series is a collaboration between Just Security and the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School.
This installment reflects conversations with Rohingya residents of refugee camps in Bangladesh about the coup in Myanmar. Camp residents’ views were collected by Shabbir Ahmad and other members of a team of Rohingya researchers during a recent community feedback collection project. The opinions expressed here are the views of the authors and camp residents, not those of any institution with which the authors are affiliated.
The Rohingya community of Myanmar has been isolated and persecuted for decades, leading to waves of mass displacement, isolation, and resistance. The situation of the Rohingya deteriorated further into crisis after the National League for Democracy (NLD) took power in 2015, starting with a 2016 crackdown and culminating in the massive 2017 violence that displaced over 700,000 people.
Refugees in Bangladesh believe the situation could worsen even further under the current junta, creating new risks for the Rohingya who remain in Myanmar and indefinitely delaying any prospect of a safe repatriation for those displaced. According to one camp resident: “The democratic government didn’t do well for us Rohingya. However, the current conditions will be even worse for us, and maybe for everyone in Myanmar.” According to another, “We Rohingya people don’t expect anything positive to come from the military coup. We know very well that the Myanmar Army is merciless and doesn’t feel afraid of committing injustice.” The greatest fear for many camp residents is that repatriation at a large scale will be impossible as long as Myanmar remains under the control of the Myanmar military, the Tatmadaw. In recent comments, junta leader Min Aung Hlaing affirmed these concerns, reiterating once again that the Tatmadaw does not recognize the identity of the Rohingya people or their right to return home. As long as the junta remains in place, there is little possibility of forging solutions to the outstanding political, legal, and justice questions surrounding the Rohingya crisis.
But there is another dimension of the coup in which an unanticipated, positive change has emerged: There has been a wave of social and political reconciliation between Rohingya and other Myanmar people. Though the situation remains formidable both for Rohingya in Myanmar and for those who seek to return from Bangladesh, certain social and political fault lines that have been present throughout Myanmar’s recent history seem to be shifting.
Emerging Grassroots Solidarity
After the first large-scale protests against the coup took place in Yangon on Feb. 6, Shabbir Ahmad, a young Rohingya social activist and educator who currently lives as a refugee in Bangladesh, met with several other youth. They decided to use Twitter to express support for the anti-coup protesters within Myanmar. And they have been at it ever since.
At first, Shabbir and his friends’ tweets received little attention, but they persisted. The Tatmadaw’s crackdown on protesters grew increasingly brutal, and Shabbir watched as civilians across Myanmar were afflicted by violence similar to that committed against Rohingya in 2017. Many in Myanmar began to recognize the magnitude of the Rohingya people’s suffering as they experienced indiscriminate violence firsthand themselves. Rather suddenly, according to Shabbir, “hundreds of Twitter users began apologizing in comments under my tweets. They expressed regret for not supporting Rohingya during the Tatmadaw’s genocidal campaigns, for misunderstanding our plight, and for being afraid to speak up. It was remarkable for us to finally feel their support.”
Shabbir continued posting prayers for the protesters’ safety and security, sharing condolences for those killed in the protests. Four months after the coup, he still posts solidarity messages and photos from the camps nearly every day under his Burmese name, Naing Oo. (Rohingya and others from minoritized ethnic groups in Myanmar often have two names, one in their mother tongue and one in Burmese.)
Shabbir’s most viral Tweet to date was a photo series of refugees whose bamboo and tarpaulin huts burned in the recent devastating March 22 fire that left 45,000 refugees without shelter. “Despite losing their homes and possessions the night before the photos were taken, my subjects were eager to be photographed squatting atop the ashes and rubble of their shelters while making the three-finger Hunger Games salute that has become emblematic of the Myanmar anti-coup resistance movement,” Shabbir described. “Their determination to show solidarity during their own moment of loss struck Myanmar Twitter users, dozens of whom apologized to the Rohingya under my post. Some expressed regret, shame, and grief.” Shabbir tried to reply to each comment in order to make personal connections.
In the past, Shabbir said, “We Rohingya lamented our inability to build a good relationship with other Myanmar people. We never felt any support from them, even during our most difficult times. But since we began voicing our support for the coup protestors, we have felt a big shift in the relationship between the communities.” This includes elders and others who don’t use social media but have heard from others about the online reconciliation. “Everyone in the camps is aware that this is happening, and nearly everyone has been supportive,” he added.
Still, the outpourings of solidarity were not without controversy. “Mistrust was hard to overcome. Amongst refugees, there were a few people who didn’t like what we Twitter users were doing,” Shabbir explained. “They thought Myanmar civilians were pretending to reconcile in order to get support from the international community, and that they would betray Rohingya after using them. My friends and I worked tirelessly to convince our fellow camp residents that our outreach efforts could bring long-term benefits, and subsequently, we think we have earned most people’s trust.”
According to Shabbir, “It seems that refugees here in the camps have authentically forgiven and are feeling happy to finally forge good relationships with Myanmar people of all ethnicities.” He expressed that no one could have imagined that the coup would bring about this positive development, which has shown that some solutions can and must be forged by “ordinary” people rather than by politicians and figureheads in Myanmar and the international community.
Signs of Political Progress
The emerging reconciliation was soon visible offline as well, with anti-coup protestors in Yangon showing up to rallies with handwritten signs apologizing to Rohingya. The willingness of new civilian leaders to recognize the Rohingya suggested to Shabbir and his peers that social activism could trickle up to influence discourse at the national level. Supportive comments made by members of the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH) and its international envoy Dr. Sasa, who has promised to pursue justice for Rohingya, were a source of encouragement to continue expressing solidarity.
However, during the initial months after the coup, there was ambiguity as to whether the positive expressions from Dr. Sasa and others would amount to a departure from the stance of the previous NLD government. The National Unity Government (NUG) was formed by the CRPH on April 16 and there were some initial doubts over whether it would condemn longstanding policies of Rohingya exclusion and persecution. But it has since taken several steps to distinguish itself from the recently ousted civilian administration. One positive sign came on May 20, when NUG Special Representative U Htin Linn Aung stated during a Wilson Center webinar that the NUG fully intends to support Rohingya repatriation. On May 30, the NUG published a press statement asserting that it would cooperate with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) process currently underway to determine whether Myanmar committed genocide against the Rohingya.
Then, on June 3, the NUG released a progressive policy position statement lauded by many observers and described as a “monumental shift” by the human rights group Fortify Rights. The NUG’s statement declared its intent to do away with Myanmar’s problematic and outdated 1982 citizenship law, and to ensure birthright citizenship to all people born in Myanmar as well as to the children of Myanmar citizens. This would effectively mean the acknowledgement of existing citizenship rights for the Rohingya.
The June 3 statement also clarified the NUG’s position in regard to the current International Criminal Court (ICC) investigation on crimes committed by the Tatmadaw against the Rohingya. Previously, the NUG had only mentioned that it would consider accepting the ICC’s jurisdiction to investigate the Tatmadaw’s crimes since the coup, which would not cover earlier periods of violence against the Rohingya. According to the June 3 statement, however, the NUG intends to “initiate processes to grant the ICC jurisdiction over crimes committed in Myanmar against the Rohingyas and other communities” – a commitment that offers hope for full accountability.
Despite feeling hopeful about the recent developments, Shabbir and others in the camps have been careful to temper their optimism. The junta’s grasp on power in Myanmar remains fierce, if threatened, and the NUG has no certain pathway to gaining control. Shabbir sees the addition of a Rohingya representative to the NUG cabinet as a critical next step to bridge the gap between social reconciliation and the political action needed to forge lasting solutions, but so far, no Rohingya cabinet members have been named.
According to Shabbir, “This lack of inclusion has been disheartening for many people who fear it signals that the support from Dr. Sasa and others is disingenuous. But we camp residents remain hopeful that the NUG will involve the Rohingya soon.” Whether this will happen remains questionable. Though Dr. Sasa was appointed as the NUG’s International Cooperation Minister, politicians who have publicly expressed anti-Rohingya views were also given key positions in the NUG. “Fortunately, Rohingya Twitter users have seen various Myanmar people posting on social media to encourage the NUG to involve us,” Shabbir added. “We acknowledge that it may take time to build a good relationship with the NUG, and we are encouraged by the progress made thus far.” The need for recognition of Rohingya issues by the NUG has been noted internationally as well. During a congressional hearing on May 5, several U.S. officials said that support for the NUG should be contingent upon adoption of an explicit anti-genocide policy.
Life as a Waiting Game
Meanwhile, life for those in the camps continues as a waiting game. Eager to return home, many closely follow Myanmar politics, weighing whether each development might promote or hinder the prospect of safe repatriation. The coup is the most significant of these developments since the mass exodus of Rohingya to Bangladesh four years ago. Many people arrived in Bangladesh expecting to return home “in days or weeks, not years” once the violence subsided, as one person put it. Now, they are confronted with the reality of having to endure camp conditions for years or even decades. Those initially confident in prompt repatriation now accept that the violence and instability resulting from the coup is likely to further delay the prospect of repatriation in the near term.
Camp residents nevertheless remain hopeful that international justice and accountability delivered through the ICJ and ICC will help expedite progress toward solutions, and the NUG’s statement of support for these international mechanisms is a positive step. However, the residents lack access to clear information about these legal mechanisms, their scope, and their limitations, leading to what many would argue are overly optimistic perceptions given the history of international justice moving at a glacial pace. Victims have long called for international action to resolve the refugee crisis and hold perpetrators of war crimes and other atrocities accountable, but many have been disappointed by an international response perceived as slow and inadequate: “What is the reason why we need to suffer in the camps for over three years? Why isn’t the international community doing anything for us?” Anti-coup protestors in Myanmar are now similarly frustrated by what they view as a lack of prompt and effective international support.
But many forms of justice that Rohingya need in their daily lives – citizenship, repatriation, access to education, and other services – will not be delivered by foreign politicians or faraway courts in Europe. As the coup and resulting instability cement the reality of long-term displacement, camp residents’ need for access to education, livelihoods, civil justice, and basic rights demands more urgent attention. Parents fear that their children will become part of a lost generation of unschooled youth, and illicit economic activity proliferates as refugees face financial pressures but lack the right to formal employment. While international accountability is ultimately necessary for sustainable peace, displaced Rohingya families face more urgent needs every day, as do Rohingya still living in Myanmar.
Complex Hopes and Next Steps
There are a few outliers in the camps, people who have an open mind about the Tatmadaw’s seizure of power or who think that the coup could have a positive impact on repatriation. They wonder if, free of the democratic process laden with complexities and bureaucratic red tape, the Tatmadaw might opt to relieve international pressure by addressing the crisis. One person commented, “The NLD had no real power to give us our rights. Whenever they consulted about Rohingya issues in Parliament, some members would always object, so they couldn’t do anything. But if the military could be convinced by the international community to give rights to Rohingya, they wouldn’t need to consult in Parliament and they could do as they wish.”
But these optimistic views were mostly voiced immediately after the coup. Some people’s hopes were raised when Tatmadaw commanders met with groups of Rohingya elders in Rakhine State just days after seizing power. The commanders blamed Aung San Suu Kyi for the crisis and vowed to make progress where the NLD had failed. Junta leader Min Aung Hlaing stated the same in a televised address on February 8. However, no follow-up action was taken, and these early hopes have faded. Some commentators were struck by the Tatmadaw’s audacity in attempting to shift blame for military repression of Rohingya to the previous civilian government.
As the junta has made no public efforts to engage with the ICC and ICJ cases about the Rohingya crisis while continuing to enact violence throughout Myanmar, it has provided no reason for affected communities to believe that it would pursue just and sustainable solutions. And the voices of hope have diminished with time as the Tatmadaw’s indiscriminate cruelty has been on full display with the killings of civilians in the streets and renewed violence against other ethnic minorities in the border regions.
Over the past four years, contending with the daily hardships of refugee life was difficult enough, but was viewed by many in the camps as a short-term necessity. People’s mental health is now impacted as they orient to the bleak prospect of remaining displaced for the foreseeable future due to the coup. In this context, the NUG’s positions in support of Rohingya citizenship and international justice are particularly welcome signs that progress is possible and that they will someday return home. As Rohingya have continuously stated, the right to Myanmar citizenship is the most fundamental guarantor of their future protection. Without citizenship, it is hard to envision a pathway toward just, safe, and sustainable repatriation.
Ultimately, the end of military rule is necessary as a precursor to forging peace and political solutions. In the meantime, the NUG should not lose sight of the need for Rohingya inclusion, their daily challenges in Myanmar and in the camps, and their right to justice. A meaningful next step would be for the NUG to add a Rohingya representative to its cabinet. As others have noted, the NUG should also reconsider the inclusion in the cabinet of officials who hold anti-Rohingya views. Taking these steps would earn the NUG greater international legitimacy, and, more importantly, would strengthen its ability to work toward an inclusive and just society..."
Source/publisher:
Just Security (New York)
Date of entry/update:
2021-06-11
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Individual Documents
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Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), Discrimination against the Rohingya, Genocide, Rohingya (cultural, political etc.), International Court of Justice (ICJ) - General, 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, National Unity Government (NUG)
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"May 25, 2021)–The Government of the United Kingdom should take immediate action to deprive the Myanmar military junta of natural gas revenues, weapons, and political legitimacy, and ensure accountability for its past and present mass atrocity crimes in the country, Fortify Rights said today in a submission to the U.K. Parliament.
Fortify Rights today submitted evidence to the U.K. Foreign Affairs Committee, which is holding an inquiry into the U.K. government’s response to the crisis in Myanmar following the February 1 coup d’état. The committee will also hear oral evidence from U.N. Special Rapporteur Thomas Andrews, Myanmar National Unity Government (NUG) Minister Dr. Sasa, human rights defender Thinzar Shunlei Yi, and others. The committee will then draft a report and make recommendations to the U.K. government.
The Fortify Rights submission recommends the U.K. “work with relevant governments and foreign operators of Myanmar gas fields to ensure the junta is unable to access natural gas revenues from its accounts and ensure revenues are effectively held in trust until democracy is restored.” Fortify Rights urged the U.K. to sanction the Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise and other specified entities to ensure the country’s natural gas wealth is not controlled by the illegal military junta.
As the penholder at the U.N. Security Council, the U.K. should table a resolution that includes a global arms embargo, targeted sanctions, and a referral of the situation in Myanmar to the International Criminal Court (ICC), forcing a veto from China or Russia, if necessary, Fortify Rights said. The U.K. should simultaneously lead efforts beyond the Security Council to build an international coalition to achieve these same aims.
Fortify Rights also called on the U.K. government to reverse recently announced funding cuts to Rohingya refugee response efforts in Bangladesh and to conduct an urgent public review of U.K. aid spending in Myanmar to ensure it does not reach the military junta. The U.K. government should also work with countries receiving Myanmar refugees, including Thailand, Bangladesh, India, and Malaysia, to ensure refugee protection.
In November 2019, The Gambia opened a case against Myanmar at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, alleging Myanmar violated its obligations under the Genocide Convention with regard to mass-scale, army-led attacks against Rohingya men, women, and children. In light of the coup, long-persecuted minorities in Myanmar, such as the Rohingya, face increased existential risks,Fortify Rights said.
“The U.K. should formally join the case at the ICJ brought by The Gambia against Myanmar for violations of the Genocide Convention,” Fortify Rights said in its submission.
Since the coup, the junta-controlled military and police reportedly killed more than 800 people and arbitrarily detained more than 4,000 nationwide. In a document seen by Fortify Rights, provided by the Myanmar junta to members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) ahead of an emergency summit to discuss Myanmar last month, the junta claimed it detained 9,848 persons, released 4,511, and charged 5,070 between February 1 and April 15. The junta has also launched airstrikes against villages in ethnic army-controlled border areas, reportedly killing, injuring, and displacing tens of thousands of civilians. The junta also cut internet access and mobile data nationally, preventing the population from communicating with each other and the outside world.
On April 16, elected legislators in Myanmar and others formed the National Unity Government (NUG) to fulfill the will of the people as expressed through the November 2020 elections. In its submission to the Foreign Affairs Committee, Fortify Rights recommended the U.K. government recognize and engage the NUG as the legitimate Government of Myanmar.
In its April 29 announcement launching the U.K. inquiry, the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Tom Tugendhat, referenced “deeply distressing reports” of the junta’s human rights violations against peaceful protesters in Myanmar, noting that “[e]fforts to curb the violence and brutality through the imposition of sanctions have, unfortunately, fallen short.”
“This urgent inquiry will determine how the Government can improve its response to the crisis, as well as how the U.K. can use its influence in organizations such as the U.N. to help deliver a peaceful resolution for the people of Myanmar,” he said..."
Source/publisher:
"Fortify Rights"
Date of entry/update:
2021-06-10
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), Genocide, International Court of Justice (ICJ) - General, Rohingya (cultural, political etc.), Human Rights and international relations, Business and the Military, Sanctions, 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état
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"Myanmar's junta leader Min Aung Hlaing cast doubt on the return of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslim refugees who fled to Bangladesh in comments made in his first interview since taking power in a Feb. 1 coup.
Min Aung Hlaing was asked by Chinese-language Phoenix television whether the Muslims could be allowed back to Rakhine State - from where most fled an army crackdown in 2017 that U.N. investigators said had "genocidal intent".
"If it doesn't comply with Myanmar's laws, what else is there to consider? I don't believe there is any country in the world that would go beyond their own country's refugee laws to accept refugees," Min Aung Hlaing responded, according to a transcript of the interview.
When asked whether that meant vocal international appeals on behalf of the Rohingya were to no avail, he nodded.
Min Aung Hlaing, who headed the army in 2017 when some 700,000 Rohingya fled from advancing troops, reiterated the view of nationalists in Buddhist-majority Myanmar that the Rohingya are not one of its ethnic groups.
He said the term Rohingya had only emerged since independence from Britain in 1948.
"After we gained our independence, the census also registered the words 'Bengali', 'Pakistani' and 'Chittagong', but never the word 'Rohingya', thus we never accepted it," Min Aung Hlaing said.
Rohingya have been widely referred to as Bengali by Myanmar authorities - implying that they are outsiders from Bangladesh, although some can trace their roots in Myanmar back for centuries.
Myanmar's elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who was overthrown by Min Aung Hlaing on Feb. 1, had also come under international criticism for defending the army against charges of genocide relating to the Rohingya.
She and the military rejected accusations of genocide saying the security forces were engaged in legitimate operations against Rohingya insurgents when the refugees fled to Bangladesh.
Not long after the coup, Min Aung Hlaing said efforts to repatriate refugees from Bangladesh would continue, but there has been no sign of progress while the junta has struggled to impose control in Myanmar.
Bangladesh is keen to see the Rohingya go back to Myanmar from the huge camps in which most of them are living in southeastern Bangladeshi border districts.
Bangladesh's Dhaka Tribune journal reported on Monday that efforts were underway to restart talks on the repatriation between Bangladesh and Myanmar with the help of China..."
Source/publisher:
"Reuters" (UK)
Date of entry/update:
2021-06-02
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), Discrimination against the Rohingya, Genocide, Rohingya (cultural, political etc.), Muslims in Burma, Burmese refugees in Bangladesh, 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état
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Summary:
"Myanmar’s National Unity Government (NUG) said that as the country’s lawful government it is taking all steps necessary to cooperate with the world’s highest court, the International Court of...
Description:
"Myanmar’s National Unity Government (NUG) said that as the country’s lawful government it is taking all steps necessary to cooperate with the world’s highest court, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), on proceedings in a case in which Myanmar is accused of committing genocide against the Rohingya.
After a brutal military crackdown in the western state of Rakhine in 2017 that forced more than 700,000 Rohingya to flee across the border to neighboring Bangladesh, Gambia in November 2019 brought a case at the ICJ—which is an organ of the UN and is also known as the World Court—accusing Myanmar of committing genocide against the Rohingya. State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi defended the country against the charge in December 2019.
Gambia’s legal team listed the Myanmar military’s atrocities against the minority Muslim group in northern Rakhine state, including mass rapes, the burning of families in their homes and the killing of dozens of Rohingya children. As the case could take years, the African nation asked the ICJ to order “provisional measures” to prevent more violations.
Going further than the measures requested by Gambia, the ICJ ordered Myanmar on Jan. 23 to report on its compliance with the provisional measures in four months and then every six months thereafter. The Daw Aung San Suu Kyi-led civilian government submitted two reports prior to its ouster by the military in a coup on Feb. 1.
In a statement released on Sunday, the NUG said it is very concerned about the difficult situation facing the Rohingya, especially those who fled to Bangladesh in 2016-17.
As the lawful government, ensuring continuity of representation before the court and being mindful of the timetable established by the court are among its duties, the NUG said.
It added that it is also considering accepting the exercise of jurisdiction by a separate international court, the International Criminal Court, over the killings, torture and other crimes against civilians committed by the Myanmar junta since the coup on Feb. 1. The Myanmar military seized power from the democratically elected National League for Democracy government, detained civilian leaders and abolished the new Parliament on the day it was scheduled to convene.
Since the coup, the Myanmar regime has killed at least 840 people and arrested more than 5,500, of whom 4,409 remain in detention, according to advocacy group the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update:
2021-06-02
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), Discrimination against the Rohingya, Genocide, International Criminal Court, Rohingya (cultural, political etc.), Muslims in Burma, International Court of Justice (ICJ) - General, 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, National Unity Government (NUG)
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Sub-title:
The Biden administration has a chance to reassert the United States’ moral authority on human rights.
Description:
"Justice delayed is justice denied. As lawyers who have advised nearly every international criminal and hybrid tribunal, as well as over two dozen peace negotiations around the world, we have seen firsthand the consequences of ignoring atrocities in the name of preserving peace or alliances.
The Biden administration is faced with an historic opportunity. By labeling the atrocities committed against the Rohingya in Myanmar’s Rakhine State as genocide, the Biden administration has a chance to reassert the United States’ moral authority on human rights and to lead the international community on issues of justice and accountability. The Biden administration should speak out firmly and clearly in favor of holding Myanmar and the individual perpetrators accountable for “the crime of all crimes.”
We know firsthand the gravity of the atrocities committed against the Rohingya. In March and April 2018, our pro bono law firm, the Public International Law & Policy Group (PILPG), at the request of the U.S. Department of State, undertook a large-scale, comprehensive human rights documentation investigation mission in the refugee camps and settlement areas in eastern Bangladesh. Our investigation mission aimed to provide an accurate accounting of the patterns of abuse and atrocity crimes perpetrated against the Rohingya in Myanmar’s Rakhine State and to help inform the policy decisions related to accountability in Myanmar.
Our team of expert investigators interviewed over 1,000 Rohingya refugees in the Cox’s Bazar camps, documenting shocking patterns of violence, abuse, and widespread human rights violations committed against the Rohingya. Among the abuses are widespread killings, torture, persecution, rapes, and other sexual violence.
Our team, including many former State Department lawyers, analyzed 15,000 pages of interview responses from 1,024 questionnaires. The evidence led us to conclude that there are reasonable grounds to believe that genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes have been committed against the Rohingya in northern Rakhine State.
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When we sent our factual findings report and data to the State Department in 2018, the Trump administration chose not to label any of these crimes as genocide or crimes against humanity, thereby excusing the United States from any legal or moral obligation to take action.
This April, the Biden administration demonstrated its willingness to acknowledge the crime of genocide in another context, as President Biden became the first sitting U.S. president to formally call the crimes committed against Armenians in the Ottoman Empire genocide. The United States should not wait 106 years (or even 106 days) to similarly label the crimes committed against Rohingya civilians. By acknowledging the Rohingya genocide, the Biden administration has the rare opportunity to reverse a previous wrong and lead with moral clarity on the international stage.
As the international community has stayed largely silent in the face of the Rohingya genocide, we have already begun to witness the consequences.
Over 18,000 Rohingya have been relocated from the camps in Cox’s Bazar to a remote island in Bangladesh in the past six months. Those still living in Cox’s Bazar have faced deadly fires and suspiciously consistent destruction of their homes and livelihoods.
In Myanmar itself, this silence and complicity has eroded the legitimacy of democratic government and empowered the military. As Aung San Suu Kyi defended the actions of Myanmar’s military against the Rohingya population before the International Court of Justice, she both undermined her moral authority to lead a democratic Myanmar and emboldened the military to bring an end to her leadership role, as seen in this year’s coup and unrest.
To secure a durable peace in Myanmar and to provide justice, redress, and a hopeful future for the victims of the Rohingya genocide, the United States must use its position of power on the international stage to lead with values of human rights and recognize the Rohingya genocide. As an international leader, America may be “back,” but it should not be back to business as usual with delayed recognition of genocide..."
Source/publisher:
"The Diplomat" (Japan)
Date of entry/update:
2021-06-02
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), Discrimination against the Rohingya, Genocide, Rohingya (cultural, political etc.), Muslims in Burma, Burmese refugees in Bangladesh
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Sub-title:
The case of Rohingya refugee crisis
Description:
"Background: The Rohingya are a large Muslim ethnic minority in Myanmar at the center of a humanitarian catastrophe. Myanmar government does not recognize them as citizens or one of the 135 recognized
ethnic groups in the country. Myanmar regards them as illegal immigrants, a view rooted in their heritage in East Bengal, now called Bangladesh.1 However, the history of the geographic region of Myanmar dates back to centuries and it is evident from
the chronological conflicts that the roots of the Rohingya community belong to that region and the people are subjected to mere communal conflicts. But before discussing their origin the question
naturally arises that where did this term “Rohingya” come from. As mentioned by Dr. Nasir Uddin, in his book “To host or to hurt”, ‘After summarizing the unpublished thesis of A.S. Bahar entitled “The Arakani Rohingyas in Burmese Society”, M. A. Alam codify the origin of the Rohingyas as follows: “ Rohang, the old name of the Arakan, was very familiar region for the Arab seafarers even during the pre-islamic days. Tides of people like the Arabs, Moors, Turks, Pathans, Moghuls, Central Asians, Bengalis came mostly as
traders, warriors, preachers and captives overland or through sea route. Many settled in Arakan, and mixing with the local people, developed the present stock of people known as ethnic Rohingya. (To host or to hurt, Nasir Uddin) The history of the region of Burma has seen a sequence of ethnic shifts, conquests, expansion and
collapse that is quite typical of the history of most regions of the world. In the last millennium and a half, there has tended to be a core state or core in the Irrawaddy Valley, which repeatedly expanded towards
and contracted from the periphery of the modern day territory of Myanmar; therefore by the mid 90’s around one third of the population of Myanmar was made up of ethnic groups distinct from the Burman
majority. This naturally reflected the history of interaction with China to the north, India to the west, Thailand and Laos to the east and Indonesia and Malaysia to the south. In particular, the mountainous
regions to the north and east of the central Irrawaddy regions have long been home to a diverse range of non-Burmese ethnicities. Some of these groups live exclusively in modern day Myanmar but many live
on both sides of the various borders. Up to the nineteenth century, the evidence points to a degree of ethnic and religious tolerance, even as the Burmese regions became increasingly dominated by
Buddhism, while more marginal groups retained animist beliefs or adopted Christianity or Islam. These discussions lead to the fact that it is particularly important to separate the history of Arakan from
that of Burma up to the 1800s. The core of the Burmese civilization in central Burma, along the Irrawaddy Valley is geographicaly and culturally linked to the tibetian region, southwest China and the
rest of East Asia. The south (the modern day Mon and Taninthayri provinces) is part of the wider Malaysian Peninsula and has sea links to the south, including Sri Lanka and parts of Indonesia. In fact,
this was the original vector for the early spread of Buddhism to Burma.
However, Arakan region in the west has always been separated from the rest of Burma by a high and difficult-to-traverse coastal mountain range. As such, for most of its early history, both in terms of ethnic
makeup and political economic interaction, the natural links of the region were across the Bay of Bengal to India rather than with the rest of Burma. It was also a relatively poor province, reliant on subsistence
agriculture and fishing, so it was generally of little interest to would be conquerors..."
Source/publisher:
Department of Architecture (Bangladesh)
Date of entry/update:
2021-05-31
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), Discrimination against the Rohingya, Genocide, Ethnic Cleansing, Muslims in Burma, Rohingya (cultural, political etc.), Burmese refugees in Bangladesh
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"The year was defined by the Rohingya crisis, which lingers on and remains un-resolved. The agreement signed by the governments of Myanmar and Bangladesh in November 2017 had several aborted starts in 2018. Both governments came under the pressure of China to deal with the repatriation of the Rohingya refugees bilaterally, without the involvement of other (international) parties. What was evi-dently a forced repatriation plan was eventually halted in November. The outcry of human rights and refugee organisations continued unabated, as did western outrage against State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, widely seen as callous and complicit in the military’s atrocities against the Rohingya. As ties with the United States worsened, ChIn response to the series of terrorist attacks in August 2017 by the Rohingya militant organisation named the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army
(ARSA), the Myanmar military carried out what it termed ‘clearance operations’, which in the space of a few weeks in September, and involving mass rape, arson and indiscriminate killings, led to one of the greatest refugee crisis in recent decades.1 Approximately 750,000 Rohingya (representing the majority of this stateless, largely Muslim ethnic group) fled Rakhine state seeking refuge on the other side of the border, in the Chittagong district of eastern Bangladesh. The fallout within Bangladesh was that this impoverished South-East Asian country was confronted with a crisis withina’s economic clout in Myanmar was consolidated, as evidenced by the expansion of economic projects and Beijing’s leverage on Nay Pyi Taw during the
crisis. At home, however, Suu Kyi remained personally popular. Despite some efforts at rebooting, her government’s performance has oscillated between ineptitude and incompetence. Some personnel reshuffles and new strategic plans notwithstanding, its shortcomings remain well-known, being plagued by personalisation, the central-
isation of decision-making and over-reliance on loyalty, to the detriment of expertise and professionalism. The NLD’s cohabitation with the military has continued, but no open rifts have thus far surfaced.....Introduction: In response to the series of terrorist attacks in August 2017 by the Rohingya militant organisation named the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), the Myanmar military carried out what it termed ‘clearance operations’, which in the space of a few weeks in September, and involving mass rape, arson and indiscriminate killings, led to one of the greatest refugee
crisis in recent decades.1 Approximately 750,000 Rohingya (representing the majority of this stateless, largely Muslim ethnic group) fled Rakhine state seeking refuge on the other side of the border, in the Chittagong district of eastern Bangladesh. The fallout within Bangladesh was that this impoverished South-East Asian country was confronted with a crisis with which it could barely cope. Within the borders of Myanmar, physical destruction across Rakhine state was observed, yet there was also widespread
support across most segments of Myanmar society for the way in which the authorities handled the crisis. The agreement signed by the governments of Myanmar and Bangladesh in November 2017 went through several aborted starts in 2018. Both governments came under the pressure of China to deal with the repatriation
of the Rohingya refugees bilaterally, without the involvement of other (international) parties. The outcry of human rights and refugee organisations continued unabated, as did western outrage against State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, widely seen as callous and complicit in the military’s atrocities against the Rohingya.
Of course, dealing with the Rohingya crisis and the repatriation issue
was not the only issue faced by the Myanmar government in 2018, but the fallout from the violence continued to cast a long and dark shadow on the country’s international image. Domestically, Aung San Suu Kyi remained personally popular, despite an overall poor government performance. Being about halfway into the National League for Democracy’s (NLD) term in office, it is now a good time to assess the performance of the government in terms of its domestic, economic and foreign policy. Its performance has been rather disappointing. Always bound to disappoint in light of the unrealistically high expectations that accompanied it, the government led defacto by Aung San Suu Kyi has combined ineptitude, centralisation and personalisation of decision-making. Substantial time has been spent on drawing up strategic plans, and less on actually building up human capacity,
expertise and turning plans into practice. This article is structured as follows. First, it revisits developments in domestic policy. Stalled progress in the peace process and increasingly fraught relations with ethnic Rakhine suggest that despite some efforts at
rebooting, transition has stalled.2 The subsequent section reviews the mixed picture insofar as the economy is concerned. Lastly, it examines how the country’s international ties have been affected by the crisis, enabling China to consolidate its already strong influence..."
Source/publisher:
University of St Andrews (Scotland)
Date of entry/update:
2021-05-29
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), Discrimination against the Rohingya, Genocide, Ethnic Cleansing, Burmese refugees in Bangladesh
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pdf
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126.02 KB (14 pages)
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Description:
"Lux et veritas. Light and truth. These are the words proudly emblazoned on the banners that adorn Yale’s New Haven buildings, stamped in the seals imprinted in the diplomas we earn after graduating, guiding us during the years we pore through books and listen to lectures, always to learn more, to do better, to thrive for the most.
I went to Yale for my undergraduate studies where I took classes on conflict resolution and was mentored by pre-eminent academics in understanding root causes and patterns of genocide. I tried to understand how and why people commit mass atrocities, and what political and social forces enable them. I believed that the more we study atrocities, the more we can do to prevent them. I have since realized that a key element in the enablement of mass atrocities is the mobilization of financial resources that powers and legitimizes oppressive regimes. I’ve been dismayed to see a representative of a Yale-founded institution linked to the funding of the Myanmar military.
Here is a truth: in 2011, Kay Kuok Oon Kwong, the Director of Shangri-La Hotel Limited and niece of Malaysia’s richest man, was announced as the Chair of the Yale-NUS Governing Board. Yale-NUS was jointly founded by Yale and NUS in 2011 and Yale-NUS graduates join the ranks of the Yale Alumni Association as international affiliates. When Kuok joined the Governing Board, she was also the Director of the Trader Square Group (a subsidiary of Shangri-La Asia), which signed a land lease agreement with the Quartermaster General, an office of the Myanmar military under the Ministry of Defense. The land lease agreement was to develop an office tower and retail mall, Sule Square, in Yangon. As the Director, Kuok was responsible for overseeing the agreement. The following year, in a public ceremony, Kuok thanked the Quartermaster General for leasing the land. In October 2017, the Sule Square development was opened, with Kuok present at the ceremony.
Myanmar’s Quartermaster General plays a key role in managing the military’s business, and is responsible for purchasing arms and for Ministry of Defense budget requests to the Parliament. Due to its role in managing supplies and budgets, it is responsible for managing leasing arrangements for military-owned land across the country. The defense budget, managed by the Quartermaster General, is used to fund the purchase of weapons and military supplies, such as a missile director system, that in turn has been used to commit genocide against the Rohingya and vast crimes against humanity against ethnic groups in Myanmar.
Kuok’s opening ceremony of the Sule Square took place 2 months after the Rohingya clearance operations committed by the Myanmar military, which, in September 2017 alone, resulted in the deaths of at least 6,700 Rohingya, followed by the exodus of 742,000 Rohingya to Bangladesh and the internal displacement of over 130,000 Rohingya. In December 2019, the Myanmar military was brought to the International Court of Justice for genocidal acts against the Rohingya.
Here is some light: By leasing land from and engaging in business with the Myanmar military, Kuok is directly contributing to the financing of the military, which may amount to aiding and abetting the commission of their international crimes. The UN Fact Finding Mission on Myanmar in 2019 examined the military’s sources of revenue that “enhances its ability to carry out gross violations of human rights with impunity”. The report assessed how the military uses its own businesses in addition to foreign companies to support military operations. The Mission examined military owned businesses, such as MEC and MEHL, and named Shangri-La’s land lease in its report. It found that “any foreign business involving the Tatmadaw poses a high risk of contributing to or being linked to violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law”. It recommended that foreign businesses sever ties with the Myanmar military to ensure they were not complicit in crimes against humanity. The Mission stated it “puts companies on further and effective notice of the human rights implications that arise from maintaining business connections with the Tatmadaw”. Yet Kuok continued to maintain her business with the Myanmar military, paying likely significant amounts in land leasing that go directly to the Myanmar army. Although the exact terms of the Sule Square land lease are unknown, a different shopping and hotel complex in Yangon brings in about $20 million a year to the military.
On February 1 2021, the Myanmar military attempted a coup d’etat and has escalated its crimes nationwide, which, according to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Myanmar, almost certainly amount to crimes against humanity. The violence since the coup is part of a continuation of decades of extreme violence perpetuated against ethnic and religious minorities, including the Rohingya. Over the 3 months since the coup, the Myanmar military has killed over 780 people, including over 40 children, arbitrarily imprisoned over 3800 people, internally displaced 50,000 individuals, and has injured and tortured countless others. There is video evidence of men being burnt alive, rescue workers and doctors being shot and abducted for helping the injured, and the bodies of the murdered being held for ransom by military soldiers, depriving families of closure. Many activists, politicians, ordinary people who are holding on to hope for a future free of repression and fear are on the run. Yet they continue to fight for their rights, and they demand that, at the very least, the international community stop providing the military with the finances to brutalize them.
Given the escalation of violence since the coup, various companies have been assessing their business connections to the military more seriously. The Singapore Stock Exchange (SGX) has announced suspension of trading of ETC, a company that is involved in leasing land from the Quartermaster General. Civil society organizations, including Human Rights Watch, sent a submission to the UN Working Group on Human Rights and Transnational Corporations and Other Businesses inquiring into the land lease agreements of Japanese businesses with the Quartermaster General. Kuok’s tenants, Coca Cola and McKinsey & Company, stated they would terminate their lease from the Sule Square office, and Reuters and the World Bank Group stated they were reviewing their plans.
And while this is happening, Kuok, the Chair of the Yale-NUS Governing Board, allegedly continues her business with the Myanmar’s military junta.
The Governing Board of Yale-NUS provides “oversight of the College and its development and management,” and is responsible for overseeing the operations and establishing policies for the college. As the Chair of the Governing Board, Kuok thus plays a very important role in the strategic direction of the college, which makes it all the more paramount to assess whether and how her business interests might be impacting the college.
In particular, although Yale-NUS’ spokesperson Jeannie Tay Meow Sein has stated that Kuok’s business affairs are distinct from her role on the Governing Board, Kuok’s role raises questions about whether Yale-NUS is receiving donations from her, and whether these donations are tainted with the carnage of the Myanmar military. It raises the question overall about the finances of Yale-NUS, and where these finances come from.
There were concerns from students and professors about Yale extending its outreach to Singapore due to limits on freedom of expression in the country, nonetheless Yale established Yale-NUS and continues to play an ancillary role in the school. Yale’s mission states that it is “committed to improving the world today and for future generations”. Yale President Peter Salovey, who sits on the Governing Board of Yale-NUS, has written that “the country and the world need the very best from Yale – right now”. The best cannot entail doing business with a murderous regime.
As one of the founders of Yale-NUS, it is past time that Yale shed light and truth on its school in Singapore, conduct a thorough investigation into Kuok’s business affairs in Myanmar, and assess whether she is representing or compromising Yale’s mission to improve the world..."
Source/publisher:
"Tea Circle" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update:
2021-05-27
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Business and the Military, Human Rights and international relations, Racial or ethnic discrimination in Burma: reports of violations against several groups, Genocide, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Right to Life: reports of violations in Burma, Armed conflict in Burma - attacks on civilians, 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état
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Description:
"Abstract: The tension and violence against the Rohingya in Rakhine State, Myanmar has been escalating to the extent that it could be called ethnic cleansing or crime against humanity. The international
community has insufficiently done in preventing and protecting the Rohingya that are facing persecution in Myanmar. The national mechanism in Myanmar which consists of the Rakhine
Conflict Investigation Commission, the Myanmar National Human Rights Commission, and the Central Committee for Rakhine State Peace, Stability, and Development Implementation intends
to address the truth and solution to the crisis. Moreover, due to the latest incident in Muangtaw where nine policemen were killed, the Myanmar government also establishes another commission
to investigate such an incident. The international community also calls for the independent truth commission to address the Rohingya issue. It is high time to examine and assess those mechanisms
to what extent they help mete justice and accountability for atrocities in Myanmar. This paper will also compare and contrast the works of human rights and investigation commissions established
by Myanmar and the others in order to suggest the best practices to enhance the mechanisms in Myanmar.....INTRODUCTION: Atrocity crimes are pervasive in many areas of the world. They are gross human rights violations which the international community must not tolerate because they are crimes of international concern which pose a threat to peace and international security. 1 However, some
atrocity crimes happen in the areas out of sight of the world. Little is known about what has been happening in those areas, such as in Myanmar. Myanmar seems to be a peaceful Buddhist country
in Southeast Asia; however, it has been facing internal armed conflicts for decades since the country has become independent from the United Kingdom in 1948. 2 The conflicts and human
rights abuses have erupted in several states namely Kachin, Shan, Kayah, Kayin, and Rakhine.3 Particularly, in Rakhine State, Myanmar attempts to hide atrocities against the Muslim minority –
the Rohingya – from the attention of the international community to avoid responsibility and accountability. This paper focuses on the problems in Rakhine State, in particular the Rohingya
issue. The Rohingya conflict is now not only a domestic concern but being treated as an international problem. Several reports from non-governmental organizations and international affairs literatures regarding the Rohingya issues have been published. Yet, only a few legal publications and the non-governmental organizations (NGOs)’ reports have addressed or touched upon the Rohingya problem regarding the possibility of the crime of genocide and crime against
humanity. 4 None of the legal literature has examined the attempts of the government and the international community to bring justice and accountability to the Rohingya. Therefore, this will be the very first preliminary study on the transitional justice mechanisms of the contemporary conflicts. This paper will explore, examine, analyze, and assess the legal implications of the mechanisms to resolve the Rohingya issue established by both Myanmar in the domestic level and the international community at the international level. This paper argues that despite the number of mechanisms, they are fragmented, overlapping, and have not served sufficient justice and
accountability for the violence against the Rohingya. Therefore, the government of Myanmar should push more effort to address this issue.
The first part of the paper will explore the background of the Rohingya story in terms of both historical and contemporary contexts to address the root causes and figure how conflict evolves through time. The second part will describe both domestic, hybrid, and international
mechanisms dealing with the atrocity against the Rohingya in Myanmar. This will explain how those mechanisms emerge and function. The third part will assess and analyze the impacts of each
mechanisms based on their progress, procedures, and outcomes. This part will also compare and contrast the work of those mechanisms to evaluate the capabilities to probe the ongoing conflict.
The fourth part will juxtapose the existing mechanisms to the other types of mechanisms used elsewhere and will also look at the way forward to bring justice and accountability to Myanmar.
This part will also provide a critical review of the paradox of justice and peace in the Myanmar context and the introduction of the anticipated mechanisms. Lastly, this paper will conclude with
some preliminary observations of the works and studies of those transitional justice mechanisms and will provide some recommendations to enhance the capacity of the mechanisms..."
Source/publisher:
Jutha Saovabha
Date of entry/update:
2021-05-27
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), Discrimination against the Rohingya, Genocide, Ethnic Cleansing, Rohingya (cultural, political etc.), Burmese refugees in Bangladesh
Language:
Format :
pdf
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320.88 KB
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Description:
"Summary: Myanmar, also known as Burma, has suffered decades of repressive military rule, poverty due to years of isolationist economic policies, and civil war with ethnic minority groups.
The transfer to civilian leadership in 2011 spurred hopes of democratic reforms. But the military maintained control over parts of the government, and security forces began a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya.
The military launched a coup in February 2021, announcing a yearlong state of emergency and arresting opposition figures, including de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi, and civil society activists.....Introduction: Throughout its decades of independence, Myanmar has struggled with military rule, civil war, isolation from global affairs, and widespread poverty. In 2011, the military junta dissolved, giving way to a military-installed transitional government and ushering in what many believed would be a new era for the Southeast Asian nation. The country’s longtime opposition party—the National League for Democracy (NLD), led by Aung San Suu Kyi—won majorities in both chambers of parliament in 2015, and some foreign governments and companies that had previously shunned Myanmar began developing ties with it.
But the military, known as the Tatmadaw, has continued to dominate many aspects of domestic affairs. Military and civilian leaders, including Suu Kyi, have also faced international condemnation for ongoing human rights abuses and brutal violence against Rohingya Muslims in the western state of Rakhine, which a UN report said were committed with “genocidal intent.” In February 2021, the military staged a coup and officially retook control, dashing hopes for democratic progress..."
Source/publisher:
Council on Foreign Relations (New York)
Date of entry/update:
2021-05-24
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), Racial or ethnic discrimination in Burma: reports of violations against several groups, Discrimination against the Rohingya, Ethnic Cleansing, Genocide, International Court of Justice (ICJ) - General, Several Groups, Rohingya (cultural, political etc.), 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état
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Description:
"The British government has announced shocking cuts to its aid in support of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. The £27.6 million announced amounts to a 42% cut in aid to Rohingya refugees compared to what the government contributed in October 2020, and less than a quarter of what the UK contributed in 2019.
The statement, which was dated yesterday but distributed today, made no mention of the fact that it amounts to a cut of around 42% in aid to Rohingya refugees.
“Even in a climate where aid cuts were expected due to the government’s broken promise of delivering 0.7% of GNI in aid, this is still shocking”, said Karin Valtersson, Campaigns Officer at Burma Campaign UK. “The Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh are genocide survivors, they are some of the most vulnerable people on the planet, many are survivors of sexual violence, of torture, of having witnessed family members including children being killed by the Burmese army.”
The Rohingya fled genocide at the hands of the Burma military in 2017 and the refugee camp is the largest in the world. According to official figures, over 880,000 refugees reside in the camp, over half are children.
The announcement of the slashing of support for the Rohingya refugees comes at the same time as Burma Campaign UK warns of overall cut to the Burma aid budget. The aid for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh is not part of the Burma aid budget.
Poverty levels are rising steeply in Burma as the people are bravely opposing the military coup and at the same time are suffering the consequences of military brutality and an economic crash due to both the coup and the Covid epidemic.
“Dominic Raab talks the talk but he doesn’t walk the walk on Burma. He likes to offer statements, whether it is on justice or support to protestors, but doesn’t follow it up with action. This includes aid. In their most dire moment of need, Dominic Raab has decided to abandon the poorest people of Burma”, said Karin Valtersson.
The military coup has made it even more unlikely for the Rohingya to be able to return to Burma in the short-term, as the general that led the genocide against them, Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing, is now the leader of the country. Instead of cutting aid to the Rohingya camps, the international community, including the British government, should work with Bangladesh to plan for a protracted refugee crisis with decent shelter and living conditions for the Rohingya.
“Over half of the refugees in the camp are children, and they are living in squalid conditions with not enough access to sanitation or hygiene, and very little education. The camp is fenced in by barbed wire and the security in the camp is deteriorating. The living conditions of these children are unimaginable as they are and these cuts will make their situation even worse”, said Karin Valtersson.
The way in which the UK government releases aid spending figures year on year makes it hard to do precise year on year comparisons. According to Burma Campaign UK research, the aid allocation to the Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh since the genocide of 2017 is as follows:
2017-2018: £129m,
2019: £117m,
2020: £47.5m,
2021: £27.6m..."
Source/publisher:
"Burma Campaign UK" (London)
Date of entry/update:
2021-05-20
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), Discrimination against the Rohingya, Genocide, Rohingya (cultural, political etc.), Burmese refugees in Bangladesh
Language:
Local URL:
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Description:
"Burma Campaign UK today releases a new briefing paper: ‘Why is Dominic Raab Refusing to Act on Accountability for Burmese Military Crimes?
The paper details how, despite British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab and other government ministers repeatedly talking about holding the Burmese military to account for its crimes, in practice they are fiercely resisting pressure to take action on accountability.
Dominic Raab refuses to say he supports referring Burma to the International Criminal Court.
Dominic Raab refuses to join the Rohingya genocide case at the International Court of Justice.
Dominic Raab repeatedly blocked UK legislation which would have enabled the UK to make genocide determinations and take more action in response to genocide.
For decades, the Burmese military has been committing human rights violations which break international law. They have enjoyed impunity for their crimes, encouraging them to commit further crimes. Holding the military to account for their crimes is essential to ending the decades long cycle of human rights violations and military dictatorship in Burma.
The British government did not implement the recommendations of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar, set up in response to the genocide of the Rohingya and violations of international law against other ethnic groups in Kachin and Shan States.
The only action the British government took against the generals in response to genocide of the Rohingya was to stop a handful of generals from taking holidays in the UK (a visa ban).
The briefing paper poses the question:
“The British government and the rest of the international community need to reflect on whether the military being allowed to get away with genocide would have been a factor in their calculations as to whether they could get away with the coup without facing serious consequences from the international community.”
“It is hypocritical of Dominic Raab to talk about accountability at the same time as refusing to act on accountability,” said Mark Farmaner, Director of Burma Campaign UK. “There are millions of good reasons to act on accountability, millions of people suffering under the military. There is no good reason not to act."..."
Source/publisher:
"Burma Campaign UK" (London)
Date of entry/update:
2021-05-20
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Racial or ethnic discrimination in Burma: reports of violations against several groups, Discrimination against the Rohingya, Genocide, International Criminal Court, Rohingya (cultural, political etc.), International Court of Justice (ICJ) - General
Language:
Local URL:
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Description:
"This briefing looks at the gap between the words
and the actions of the British government when it
comes to action on accountability.
At the same time as making repeated statements
about holding the Burmese military to account for
their crimes, British Foreign Secretary Dominic
Raab is refusing to publicly support referring Burma
to the International Criminal Court, and refusing to
join the Rohingya genocide case at the International
Court of Justice.
One of many examples of a British Government
Minister talking about accountability since the
military coup on 1st February 2021 came on
Saturday 27th March.
Following the killing of more than 120 people by
the Burmese military, Dominic Raab once again
Tweeted about holding the military to account.
He stated:
“Today’s killing of unarmed civilians, including
children, marks a new low. We will work with our
international partners to end this senseless violence,
hold those responsible to account, and secure a
path back to democracy.”.....At the same time Dominic Raab: Refuses to publicly support the UN Security
Council referring Burma to the International
Criminal Court.
• Refuses to join the Rohingya genocide case
at the International Court of Justice.
• Repeatedly blocked amendments to
bills in the British Parliament to enable
determinations of genocide to be made
and more action to be taken in response to
genocide.....Impunity has encouraged further human
rights abuses: As has been well documented, the Burmese military
has been violating international law for decades.
It has done so with impunity at a domestic and
international level. This impunity encourages further
violations of international law and further horrific
human rights violations.
During the past ten years, as the British government
heralded a so-called democratic transition in Burma,
human rights violations against ethnic minorities, so
serious that they violate international law, actually
increased..."
Source/publisher:
"Burma Campaign UK" (London)
Date of entry/update:
2021-05-20
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), Discrimination against the Rohingya, Genocide, International Criminal Court, Rohingya (cultural, political etc.), International Court of Justice (ICJ) - General, Racial or ethnic discrimination in Burma: reports of violations against several groups, 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état
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Format :
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Size:
426.2 KB
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Sub-title:
The Rohingyas were equal citizens and enjoyed all the rights and privileges as any other until 1982 when the Citizenship rules of Myanmar were re-written and this time it left out the Rohingya.
Description:
"Ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya – a reality: Many believe that the Rohingya have been a part of Myanmar well before the British colonists arrived and have been an integral part of the country ever since. They have been mostly concentrated in the Rakhine region of the country and have been subjected to horrific atrocities from time to time. There have been countless instances of genocide-like situations for the community before but nothing as brutal as what started in 2012 and has been going on ever since albeit with varying degrees of intensity. The events have plagued a stratum of people who have in many ways got used to living in conditions that are sub-human and have accepted the same as their destiny.
The world is aware of what has been going on in Myanmar for way too long now, but nothing has been done so far to save the countless lives that are being lost on a daily basis. As many as 800,000 people have been displaced from the Rakhine region into Bangladesh, Malaysia, Thailand, and India. Their living conditions in those countries are not better than what it would have been had they been at the mercy of Lucifer himself. The ones who were unlucky enough to stay back have faced a greater ordeal. They have been restricted to a concentration camp-like holding areas and have been denied basic human rights like the right to movement, medical treatment, etc. They are not allowed to work or earn and are forced to live off the scraps that the government gives them. There are no medical facilities in these camps and the one doctor who treats patients is not even a doctor. Children are dying of malnutrition and of diseases like dysentery and diarrhea that are easily treatable.....The silence of a Noble Peace Prize winner: It’s almost ironic that the Prime Minister-equivalent of Myanmar is 1991 Noble Peace prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi. Her father was the one who broke the shackles of colonialism and made the country in the image of a nation that gave equal rights and privileges to all citizens irrespective of their religion, caste, creed, etc. The Rohingya in Myanmar were equal citizens and enjoyed all the rights and privileges as any other until 1982 when the Citizenship rules of the country were re-written and this time it left out the Rohingya. Stripped off their honour and right to exist, they started crumbling under the oppression meted out to them by the security forces and the ethnic Rakhine Buddhists with whom they were sharing the land.
When Suu Kyi was questioned about the genocides of 2016 and beyond by a journalist, she replied by saying that she would not go so far as to call it a genocide. Shockingly, even after the truckload of evidence and testimonials at her disposal, she continues to shrug off the genocides by calling the evidences exaggerated and asking the world to ask the question “why the same was happening” instead of telling her that “it was happening”. That was one of the most perplexing statements that I heard from a world leader in a long time.....The impact of Ashin Wirathu and his 969 Movement: Ashin Wirathu, a Buddhist monk who was hailed by the then president of Myanmar as the son of Buddha has been known to be someone who has peddled his hate for the Muslim community under the guise of Nationalist fervour for long. He was even featured on the TIME Magazine cover with a headline that read “THE FACE OF BUDDHIST TERROR”. He was imprisoned on charges of inciting violence and was sentenced to 25 years imprisonment but with the situation in Myanmar changing and the need of a leader to mobilize mass emotion felt, he was given a pardon and released after serving 8 years of his sentence. The man immediately got back to his work and using his “969 Movement”, did exactly what the ones who had released him believed he would — spread chaos and violence with his venomous speeches.
Within a short span of time, he had incited enough hate to generate multiple riots. But he did something that was far more important for the government and military than any of the violence that he was inciting. He was able to integrate many different ethnic Buddhist groups under the common umbrella of “hatred for the Muslim Bengalis” and this let the government and the forces concentrate their full might on the Rohingya sidelining all the protest and the other disturbances from different ethnic groups that had plagued the country. The Buddhists completely forgot how brutally they were subdued by the very same government and military and were up in arms in support of what they were doing.....The Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army – retribution or mistake: The Rohingya, who had faced violence for so long finally found a voice in the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), also known by its former name Harakah al-Yaqin (meaning Movement of Faith). The organization was founded by Ataullah Abu Ammar Jununi, a Karachi-born Rohingya who served as an imam to a 150,000 Rohingya diaspora in the city of Mecca. He received training under the Taliban in Karachi and arrived in Rakhine, Myanmar in 2012 coinciding with the beginning of the religious riots. On 9 October 2016, Ataullah led hundreds of insurgents to the Bangladesh-Myanmar border, where they attacked Burmese Border Police posts. A week later, Ataullah appeared in an online video, claiming responsibility for the attacks. Ataullah led a second large-scale attack on 25th August 2017, which resulted in the deaths of 71 people. This was just the instigation and reason that the Myanmar Army needed to get into action. Using the attacks as pretext, the army intensified its operations and cracked down with renewed vigour and never seen before horror. When asked if ARSA was a religion-based terrorist group in an interview, one of its members made it clear that they were not religious in nature and their struggle was only for the rights of the Rohingya many of whom were Hindus.....My views on the subject: It must be agreed that Myanmar’s Rohingya have been a subjugated lot for centuries. In the absence of the very basic of human rights, it is always possible for people to resort to violence especially when they are funded from outside. With the kind of torture and insults that the Myanmar Rohingya have had to face post-2012, it is no surprise that they rose up in revolt. The Myanmar government and the military used the violence on their part as a weapon against them and targeted not only terrorists but mostly innocent civilians. They threw small kids into burning houses. There was a woman who was attacked by the security forces and after being hit on the head, she fell unconscious. By the time she gained consciousness, she realized that she was raped by at least 20 different people. A 48-year-old man who, up till the attacks was a shopkeeper, never got to meet his son who was in another part of the same area and never made it back. He had a good life but he is now one of the 8 million refugees in Bangladesh lying in the mud and in a dilapidating thatched hut with 5 little children.
It is necessary to bring the terrorists to justice, but the law of my country has always taught me that it is ok to let 10 guilty escape rather than punish one innocent. That is the belief that we Indians have grown up with. To us what is happening to the Rohingya is beyond anything that we could ever learn to come to terms with. I am confident that there must have been other ways to deal with this situation. Many parts of my country are plagued by terrorism and radicalism, but we never see our military burning away villages or using helicopter-borne artillery targeting one and all. With piles of evidence and first-person accounts to contain with, it is left to be seen when the world community will do something about this ongoing genocide. It is also left to be seen if the Rohingya community will survive this extermination..."
Source/publisher:
EastMojo
Date of entry/update:
2021-05-19
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), Discrimination against the Rohingya, Genocide, Ethnic Cleansing, Rohingya (cultural, political etc.), Arakanese/Rakhine/Rohingya history, Statelessness in Burma/Myanmar, Burmese refugees in Bangladesh
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Local URL:
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Description:
"Introduction: Not so many people were acquainted with the issue of Rohingya prior to the communal conflict that erupted in 2012. In fact, the conflict has brought the “hidden” issue to the surface, to a new level of visibility particularly among common people. Nevertheless, there is still relatively plenteous unknown patency behind the
tragedy that occurred to the Rohingyas, besides a simple fact that it is an ethnoreligious conflict between Buddhist majority of Burman and Arakanese against the Muslim minority of Rohingya. The United Nations, indeed, even has regarded the Rohingyas as one
of the world’s most persecuted minorities1 and among the world’s least wanted.2 This paper observes three major issues that are strongly linked and contributed to the creation of predicament for the Rohingyas. Comprehending these three issues are pivotal in order to see and possess thorough understanding about the Rohingyas The first issue covers the problem that related to the legal status of the Rohingyas. Second, the issue that related with the human rights abuse that happened toward the Rohingyas. Third, the issue of Buddhist fundamentalism.....The Birth of The Stateless Rohingya: The statelessness of Rohingya is a product of legal-political process
conducted by the Burmese regime ever since the birth of modern Burma. The main driving force behind this policy has been the (political) stance of the Burmese authority that does not consider
the Rohingya as a part of its native population (shown by the Panglong Agreement). In fact, the origin of Rohingya is still debatable hitherto. Both sides, the Burmese and the proRohingya, claim to have the most precise argument regarding the origin of Rohingya.
Based on the point of view of Burmese historians, Khin Mau Saw, for
example, stated that there had never been the term “Rohingya” before 1950’s (when the Mujahids changed their name into “Rohingyas”) supported by the fact that there was no such name as “Rohingya” in the Census of India 1921 (Burma) compiled by G.G Granthan,
I.C.S (Superintendant of Census Operation Burma) or in the Burma
Gazetter, Akyab District compiled by R.B Smart..."
Source/publisher:
Ricky Raymon
Date of entry/update:
2021-05-14
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), Discrimination against the Rohingya, Genocide, Ethnic Cleansing, Human Rights and international relations, Rohingya (cultural, political etc.), Muslims in Burma, Statelessness in Burma/Myanmar, Burmese refugees in Bangladesh
Language:
Format :
pdf
Size:
84.34 KB
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Description:
"A brutal crackdown could happen any day. Military violence is expected every day. Soldiers have casually killed peaceful protesters throughout the four weeks since Myanmar’s military undertook a coup to remove the country’s civilian government. Military violence has incrementally, but steadily increased. Bravely, millions of peaceful protesters still take to Myanmar’s streets to oppose the military coup and demand the release of the country’s civilian leaders including Aung San Suu Kyi. By employing tactics learned from other recent Asian protest movements, they have seemingly confounded Myanmar’s military, which has struggled to deal with the nature of protests and their scale.
But Myanmar’s military leaders are cunning and may well have foreseen elements of the protesters’ strategy and adopted their own plans accordingly. The success of anti-coup campaigners may well depend on their preparedness to continue searching for outside examples of how to successfully defeat entrenched but illegitimate rulers.
The determination and size of Myanmar’s peaceful anti-coup protests are impressive. Three weeks after the coup and despite draconian new laws that threaten to punish with twenty years jail the act of inciting “hatred or contempt” towards coup leaders, crowds have continued to grow. Protesters have numbered in the millions, with new groups joining the movement daily. A nationwide civil disobedience movement is under way, and the country’s bureaucracy, banking, and transport systems have ceased to function. The military’s legitimacy as competent managers is in tatters.
Protesters know they are facing off with one of the world’s most vicious militaries, a force with more than half a million active personnel that is known to routinely turn weapons on civilians. A 2018 UN Human Rights Council report described how the military routinely committed crimes against humanity and war crimes against ethnic minority groups. Myanmar’s military stands accused of genocide against the Rohingya during a 2017 campaign that included mass murder, widespread gang rapes of women and girls as a military tactic, and the razing of hundreds of towns and villages. Soldiers commit atrocities with impunity — those few that might ever be found guilty of crimes by Myanmar’s courts are routinely pardoned soon after.
The worst military violence is usually reserved for Myanmar’s ethnic minorities, but historically the military has also been prepared to meet popular peaceful uprisings — like the 1988 protests that first brought Aung San Suu Kyi to political prominence — with brutal force. In 1988, the military put down protests by killing thousands, making widespread arrests, and imposing decades-long prison sentences. Similar tactics were employed to end the 2007 monk-led Saffron Revolution.
A grim indication of what Myanmar’s protesters expect is that many have taken to writing their blood type on their forearms with permanent markers so medical teams can better care for them when the violence comes.
Already the military has used live rounds to kill peaceful protesters in Mandalay and the capital Naypyitaw. There are also reports that soldiers fired on ambulances and medical teams that came to assist the injured. Troops from the 33rd Light Infantry Division, infamous for their genocidal actions against Rohingya civilians, have been prominently deployed in Mandalay. Their unconcealed presence can only have been intended to instil fear in the protesters about what future violence might soon come.
So far, the military’s use of violence has not been overwhelming; they have focussed more on mass arrests than mass murder, with killings of peaceful protesters in the dozens rather than the thousands. Several hundred new political prisoners are now refilling the jails that were emptied during a recent prisoner amnesty. More are arrested daily. One explanation for the military’s seeming reluctance to meet the current protests with the same brutality they demonstrated in 1988 or 2007 is that this time the protest movement is much, much larger and represents a wider cross-section of the national population.....The protesters’ new strategies: Myanmar’s youthful protest movement has adopted strategies learned from Asia’s other youth-infused activist movements — particularly those in Thailand, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Protesters often style themselves as part of the Milk Tea Alliance of democracy campaigners. Originally symbolic of opposition to Chinese encroachment in domestic affairs and anti-authoritarianism, the Milk Tea Alliance derived its name from a perceived cultural similarity between the places from which it drew its membership — namely, an affinity for milky tea products, marking a distinction with China’s traditional love of black tea. Since the coup, #milkteaalliance has been widely used in Myanmar.
Shrewdly, protest leaders have adopted similarly diversified leadership strategies to those of other Milk Tea Alliance groups. This, and widespread participation in a national civil disobedience movement, has presented the military with genuine challenges in identifying and arresting individual movement leaders. From Thailand, Myanmar’s protesters adopted the three-finger salute as a symbol of opposition to the coup. Images of Myanmar’s frustrated population staring down armoured vehicles in the streets of Yangon while defiantly saluting for democracy appeared in media worldwide and helped keep the eyes of the world focussed on Myanmar for weeks after the coup.
Less high profile but no less significant has been the protesters’ adoption of key tactics from Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement — particularly the “be like water” mantra. This has encouraged protesters to avoid direct confrontation with soldiers and instead adopt a highly agile style of protest that forces the authorities to constantly respond and adapt to the protesters’ agenda. By behaving like political flash mobs and frequently changing tactics, protesters have seemed frequently to catch the authorities off guard. Over the last three weeks, protesters deployed an astonishing number of different tactics, from traditional marches, to sit ins and music performances outside foreign embassies. They have shut down road transport by parking “broken down” cars at key intersections and driven convoys of vehicles so slowly as to create gridlock. One protest even involved a train of elephants with their mahouts.....Has the military adopted a new strategy, too?: Regardless of the protesters’ agility, the military is yet to attempt to put down this uprising with the same ferocity it used in earlier demonstrations. This suggests the military too might be adopting a new strategy. Rather than using aggressive approaches similar to those deployed by China’s security services in Hong Kong or the Thai authorities’ mass arrest of protesters, Myanmar’s military has attempted to disrupt protests through nightly internet blackouts, by arresting those key leaders they can identify and locate, and through occasional violence at protest sites. Compared to the speedy and overwhelming violence meted out to Rohingya civilian populations in 2017, the military’s approach towards anti-coup protesters seems deliberately unhurried.
The military has used an approach closer to the Kremlin-inspired response to recent protests in Belarus, rather than aping the tactics of China’s security forces in Hong Kong. Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko, when facing widespread protests against his rigged August 2020 election, did not immediately use overwhelming force to crush opposition; instead, he hoped the protests would dissipate of their own accord. Protests have continued, but they have failed to dislodge Lukashenko who seems determined to weather the storm through incremental arrests of activists and the targeting of domestic journalists.
The break with Chinese-inspired anti-dissident strategies should not necessarily come as a surprise. Internationally, China is widely regarded as supportive of Myanmar’s military, and has worn significant domestic opprobrium for its refusal to condemn the coup. Anti-Chinese feeling within Myanmar is approaching feverish levels, but China has been less than fulsome in its support for the coup. China’s Ambassador told Myanmar media that the coup was, “absolutely not what China wants to see.” China’s authorities had a close relationship with Aung San Suu Kyi’s government and have had, at times, a tetchy relationship with Myanmar’s military, which may now feel they have some reason to doubt the reliability of Chinese advice.
That the military might turn to Myanmar’s other long-term defender on the United Nations Security Council, Russia, should also not be surprising. Russia has left little doubt that it regards the coup as legitimate, with Russia’s representative to the UN Human Rights Council describing it as a “purely domestic affair of the sovereign state.”
Russia, while not a major trading partner of Myanmar, is one of its major arms dealers and has extensive experience quelling revolutions in the countries on its own periphery. Myanmar’s massive street protests are certainly reminiscent of the colour revolutions of former Soviet states.
In recent years, Myanmar’s military have developed much closer ties with Russia. TASS, Russia’s official news agency, described this process as “intensive development.” Russia’s geostrategic interests are certainly served by maintaining close ties with the Myanmar military; and Myanmar, in 2018, agreed to make it easier for Russian naval ships to visit Myanmar ports, thereby enhancing Russian access to the Bay of Bengal. Just weeks before the coup, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu visited Myanmar to discuss military cooperation with coup-leader Min Aung Hlaing. During that visit, extensive arrangements were put in place that would enable Myanmar to purchase new surface-to-air missile systems, intelligence and electronic warfare drones, and radar from Russia. It is possible, moreover, that an understanding was reached between them about intelligence cooperation, and the coup leaders’ response to Myanmar’s protest movement might now be informed by the Kremlin’s experience in undermining popular uprisings.....The protesters’ new strategies: Myanmar’s anti-coup protesters have successfully adopted many of the tactics and strategies of the Milk Tea Alliance. These tactics — which have peaceful strategies at their core — were developed in the crucible of east and southeast Asian protest. Myanmar has a long history of peaceful anti-military protest; this is the approach Aung San Suu Kyi and her supporters have long advocated. However, the close ties that have developed between the militaries of Myanmar and Russia may make peaceful Milk Tea Alliance tactics less useful in the longer-term.
Pre-empting the military tactics derived from Russia’s experience of undermining anti-authoritarian uprisings might require a significant tactical rethink by Myanmar’s protest movement. For instance, key to the success of Ukraine’s 2014 Euromaidan revolution was protesters’ preparedness to themselves embrace violence in response to official crackdowns. This avoided prolonged conflict of the kind we see today in Belarus, where Lukashenko remains in power and the protest movement is steadily weakened through arrests.
The success of Myanmar’s popular uprising may now depend on its leaders’ ability to swiftly refine the approach of the Milk Tea Alliance, and to learn lessons from the experience of Belarus and Ukraine — places where anti-protest tactics inspired by Russia’s military have been successful. Afterall, there is strong evidence Myanmar’s military has already learned from Russia’s tactics.
Ronan Lee is Visiting Scholar at the International State Crime Initiative in the School of Law, Queen Mary University of London. He was formerly a Queensland State Member of Parliament (2001–2009) and served on the frontbench as a Parliamentary Secretary (2006–2008) in portfolios including Justice, Main Roads and Local Government, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Partnerships. He is the author of Myanmar’s Rohingya Genocide: Identity, History and Hate Speech..."
Source/publisher:
Australian Broadcasting Corporation (Australia)
Date of entry/update:
2021-05-08
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Anti-coup protesters, Spring Revolution, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Freedom of opinion and expression: - the situation in Burma/Myanmar - reports, analyses, recommendations, Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association, violations of, Right to Life: reports of violations in Burma, Discrimination against the Rohingya, Genocide, Rohingya (cultural, political etc.), 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état
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"Saffron robed Buddhist monks, leather clad punks, shirtless muscle-bound hunks, taffeta ballgown wearing “princes protesters”, chefs in toques, black robed lawyers, construction workers in hard hats, nurses and doctors in scrubs, tattooed martial artists, nat spirit worshipers, civil servants, drag queens, trade unionists, farmers, teachers, taxi drivers, Christians, Hindus, Muslims, the old, the young, women, men, girls and boys — this week and last, these were just some of the groups who joined the biggest protests against military rule ever seen in Myanmar.
Protesters arrived on foot, in convoys of bicycles, motorcycles, horse pulled drays, cars, trucks, tractors, and boats. They represented every religion, ethnic, and age group, and they gathered in hundreds of villages, towns, and cities. One protest took place on the water using boats among the floating villages of Inle Lake, a popular tourist spot. Yangon’s shops sold out of red balloons, the colour Aung San Suu Kyi’s political party. The flags and traditional dress of Myanmar’s ethnic minority communities were proudly displayed. Yangon’s usually hidden Rohingya community even openly joined in, and Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh showed solidarity by holding candle-light vigils and sharing photos displaying the three fingered salute that has been adopted by the protesters.
Amid a sometimes carnivalesque atmosphere, protesters sang songs, gave speeches, recited poetry, painted banners, and posted on social media — the protests have an undoubtedly youthful edge. It would hardly have been possible to imagine, let alone bring together, a more diverse mix of Myanmar’s fifty-five million people. But apparent within this extraordinary diversity, was unity behind a common goal: the restoration of Myanmar’s democratically elected civilian government and the removal of the military from political power.
By undertaking a coup and arresting Myanmar’s recently re-elected civilian political leaders, military boss Senior General Min Aung Hlaing precipitated nationwide social unrest. Day after day, protesters have ignored military instructions to disperse, and there is widespread and growing resistance to the new military junta with public servants and hospital staff downing their tools. Banks were reported closed because they lacked the staff to open. It seems every day more people join the resistance. Notably, this has included defections of police — usually under military control — to join the protests, labelling themselves “People’s Police” and calling for the restoration of the democratically elected civilian government.....The threat of military violence: The military will not give up easily. Every protester, however enthusiastic, knows the threat of catastrophic violence constantly looms. To hold on to power, the military could unleash unspeakable violence against peaceful protesters at any moment. They have recent form for this. In 2017, the military subjected Myanmar’s Rohingya community to indiscriminate murders, widespread sexual assaults, village burnings, and mass detention — more than 700,000 Rohingya fled to Bangladesh. Similar violence could easily be brought to bear on the protesters.
For the protesters, the casual brutality of Myanmar’s military was highlighted during the first days of the coup when peaceful gatherings in the capital Nay Pyi Taw were met with water cannons and rubber bullets interspersed with live rounds, leading to the shooting of a 19-year-old woman in the head. Mya Thwate Thwate Khaing, a grocery store worker who travelled from her village with her sisters, remains in a critical condition and is not expected to survive the shooting. She may not be the first protester murdered by Myanmar’s military but in a country where social mores often lean to the traditional, the optics of shooting a young woman as she peacefully asked for the return of the democratically elected government has further undermined the military’s standing.
Growing protests demonstrate the coup lacks public support and its military leaders lack legitimacy. While previous military coups have been unpopular, the military was often able to use “divide and rule” tactics to play groups off against each other and undermine coordinated resistance. However, this time the coup leaders have simultaneously unified virtually every key sector of the country against them.....Myanmar’s generational change: Before the coup, Myanmar’s demographics were already flowing strongly against continued military influence in government. While a defining feature of modern Myanmar politics has been the strong influence of the 1988 uprising that catapulted Aung San Suu Kyi and many other civilian government leaders — including ousted President Win Myint — to political prominence, more than seventy per cent of Myanmar’s population was not born when that uprising occurred. Myanmar’s young people have been kept away from power by the political endurance of those who first came to prominence in 1988 and have largely filled key leadership roles in Aung San Suu Kyi’s administration, but as time passes that situation was always bound to change.
Myanmar’s young people have grown up as Myanmar liberalised its previously highly restricted communications and media sectors, they have good links with and knowledge of the world beyond Myanmar and are accustomed to freely expressing their political opinions. The aspirations of Myanmar’s youth often contrast wildly with those of their parents and grandparents, who grew up under military-rule when the country was a hermit state closed to outside media and hostile to foreign influences. Young protesters are making clear that they do not want to be ruled by old, male soldiers and indications are they will continue to resist until the military is overthrown.
Myanmar’s street protests are also making clear many don’t merely want a return to the pre-coup status quo, which included extensive military influence in government, no civilian oversight of the military, and a military veto on constitutional change — they want the military out of politics permanently. And quickly. Much more quickly than Aung San Suu Kyi’s civilian administration, tarnished internationally by its failure to oppose genocide against the Rohingya, have pushed for during its time in power.....The importance of Rohingya solidarity: Young people will hope the tide of demographics helps lead to the washing away of martial rule, but to take on Myanmar’s entrenched military, they will need all the allies they can find. This is a central point I make in my book Myanmar’s Rohingya Genocide, where I call for Myanmar’s young people and the Rohingya to embrace each other as natural allies. My hope is that as Myanmar’s younger generation move closer to political power, a more humanitarian approach towards the Rohingya could be a consequence of a generational change in Myanmar politics, and I strongly encourage the Rohingya leadership to actively engage with young people to seek common ground.
Of course, it would be understandable if some Rohingya opted to sit out these protests, treating Aung San Suu Kyi’s arrest as fair comeuppance for her endorsement of military actions against them, but the Rohingya’s leadership understands that removing the military from political power in Myanmar must be a priority — the strong solidarity with protesters already shown by Rohingya groups is proof of this.
There have been powerful examples of Rohingya solidarity with the protests and a statement condemning the coup from the Rohingya Women’s Network is a particularly significant endorsement, considering the specific targeting of Rohingya women and girls by Myanmar’s military.
The Rohingya have been disappointed by Myanmar's civilian politicians, but they support Myanmar's moves towards democracy — and they especially support calls for the rejection of the compromised 2008 Constitution that allows the military to avoid civilian government oversight. The coup and its aftermath present real opportunities for the Rohingya and Myanmar’s young people to forge common cause for the removal of the military from political influence in Myanmar permanently and reforming the constitutional framework so they can never return to power....Myanmar’s Rohingya reckoning: There are strong indications this important political realignment was already under way in Myanmar before the coup, with some youth activists concerned about the growth of racism in politics having taken action to curb it. Young inter-faith activists and groups like Generation Wave have been vocal supporters of human rights for all in Myanmar, including the Rohingya, and were strongly critical of ongoing military influence on politics.
Young political activists, especially those from ethnic minority groups, had been growing increasingly frustrated with restrictions on freedom of expression and with public expressions of racism. The #BlackLivesMatter-inspired “Don’t call me Kalar” social media campaign is an excellent example of this. “Kalar” is a pejorative often applied by racists to Rohingya and others with darker skin, but young people embraced with gusto an online campaign to end the practice, demonstrating similar cleverness, wit, and political edginess as we have seen in many anti-coup protests.
Public silence during the 2017 Rohingya crisis has increasingly been a subject of concern for anti-coup protesters, many of whom are fast coming to terms with the inconsistency of their silence when the military brutalised the Rohingya while they themselves now call for international help to remove that same military from power. It is better this realisation comes late than not at all. The sight of democracy protesters in downtown Yangon carrying signs reading, “I really regret about Rohingya crisis”, are an indication a rethink about the reaction towards the Rohingya’s most recent crisis in 2017 is underway for some.
One of many recent tweets I have received points to this reckoning, and highlights the legacy of decades of state media demonisation of the Rohingya, who were commonly portrayed as sinister foreign interlopers rather than a group indigenous to Myanmar:
Many in Myanmar have been unaware the Rohingya were uncontroversially recognised as citizens during the civilian government era that followed independence between 1948 and 1962, but had their rights restricted and their citizenship rights disputed once the military seized power in the 1962 coup that presaged five decades of military rule. The Rohingya know better than most the value of a democracy and the perils of military rule. Considering the international support they can harness, the Rohingya should now be a key ally of democracy protesters in the campaign to oust the military. The most effective way for the Rohingya and others in Myanmar to fight the military is by cooperating.
Myanmar’s coup is a step too far for most and defeating it is an opportunity for the country to at last change its constitution in order to kick the military from politics. This presents Myanmar with a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reimagine the country’s future. The shared experience of military oppression of the Rohingya and Myanmar’s majority, made tangible by the coup and its aftermath, opens up a path forward — one that realises the future imagined when the country emerged from colonial rule in 1948, a time when the Rohingya played a full role in politics and were regarded as a legitimate part of the national fabric.
But achieving this future means the military’s coup first needs to be defeated — and in the short term, that’s far from a sure bet.
Ronan Lee is Visiting Scholar at the International State Crime Initiative in the School of Law, Queen Mary University of London. He was formerly a Queensland State Member of Parliament (2001–2009) and served on the frontbench as a Parliamentary Secretary (2006–2008) in portfolios including Justice, Main Roads and Local Government, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Partnerships. He is the author of Myanmar’s Rohingya Genocide: Identity, History and Hate Speech..."
Source/publisher:
Australian Broadcasting Corporation (Australia)
Date of entry/update:
2021-05-08
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Anti-coup protesters, Spring Revolution, Freedom of opinion and expression: - the situation in Burma/Myanmar - reports, analyses, recommendations, Discrimination against the Rohingya, Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), Genocide, Rohingya (cultural, political etc.), Burmese refugees in Bangladesh, 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état
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"We live in a rapidly changing world in which people often seek about human rights. But it turns meaningless when we see the number of refugees around the world is increasing rapidly. It will be unbelievable to hear that,the present world is facing the most global refugee crisis and we are witnessing a massive shift of humanity due to racial violent disorder, religious virulence, extreme nationalism, political and social conflict. In recent worlds Rohingya Muslims refugee have been the focus of considerable loved ones public concern .
It is believed that Rohingya Muslims are the most persecuted population all over the world.They have faced decades of systematic discrimination, stateless and targeted violence since the early 20th century. But the Rohingya affair has been largely ignored by the world community due to geopolitics , something that pushed some scholars to think that they represent a ghost and forgotten ethnic group, suffering slow burning genocide. The UN called the Myanmar authority to put an end the brutal security operation claiming the atrocities against the Rohingya as ‚a textbook example of ethnic cleansing‛
As Myanmar authorities are subjecting the Rohingya Muslim minority to collective punishment ,millions of Rohingya muslims crossed the international border and took shelter in Bangladesh. Bangladesh provided shelter for them from the humanitarian perspective as it was going on for many years with a significant spikes following violent attacks in 1978 ,1991-1992 ,2016 and finally in late August 2017.
Following the co-ordinate attack on 30 police camps and an army base by so called the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA)1 a group previously known as Harakah al-Yaqin on August 25, 2017,causing deaths of 12 police officers, the Myanmar military began a major crackdown in the villages of Northern Rakhaine State. The atrocities included attacks on Rohingya people and locations, looting and burning down Rohingya villages, mass killing of Rohingya civilians, gang rapes, and other sexual violence. As a result Rohingya Muslims started to flee to save their life to avoid ethnic and religious persecution by Myanmar’s security forces and as a neighbouring country their destination is of course Bangladesh. As of 15 October 2017, the Inter-Sector Coordination Group (ISCG)2 reported that 537,0001 Rohingya refugees have entered Bangladesh since the attacks.But anoher report says that at least 720,000 Rohingya fled after the bloody crackdown and entered Bangladesh to join some 300,000 already living in the camps who took shelter during past influx. More than 6,700 Rohingya Muslims including at least 730 children under the age of five were killed in the first month of the crackdown according to Medcins Sans Frontieres (MSF) an international humanitarian medical non governmental organization (NGO) of French but Myanmar claims officially the figure is only 400. Whatever the figure is, the question arises towards international community whether it will be regarded as ‚Genocide ‚or ‚Ethnic cleansing.‛.....Ethnic cleansing defined: Ethnic cleansing and genocide seems to be same in nature but completely two distinct concept. The term ethnic cleansing is a literal translation of the Serbo-Croatian phrase :‚etnicko ciscenje‛ , that is focused in the context of the 1990’s conflict in the former Youguslavia . But the roots of the term and who started the term is still unknown. It is believed that the term ethnic cleansing is invented by Slobodan Milosevic.3 The expression ethnic cleansing has been used in resolutions of the Security Council and the General Assembly and has acknowledged in judgements and indictments of the ICTY.
There is no international treaty relating to the crime Ethnic Cleansing. As it has not been considered as an independent crime under international law ,so no exact definition will be given or what exact acts will be constituted for the purposes of the ethnic cleansing is not cleared. However a United Nations Commission of experts mandated to look into violations of international humanitarian law in the territory of the former Youguslavia defined ethnic cleansing in its interim report S/25274 as "… rendering an area ethnically homogeneous by using force or intimidation to remove persons of given groups from the area."4..."
Source/publisher:
Jagannath University (Dhaka)
Date of entry/update:
2021-05-03
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), Discrimination against the Rohingya, Genocide, Ethnic Cleansing, International Criminal Court, Rohingya (cultural, political etc.), Burmese refugees in Bangladesh
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"A leading Myanmar swimmer has called for the country's Olympic committee to be expelled from the Olympic Movement, saying "genocidaires do not deserve to be in the Olympics."
In a Facebook post, swimmer Win Htet Oo said by rejecting the Myanmar Olympic Committee he had foregone any chance of competing at the Tokyo Olympic Games later this year.
Currently training in Melbourne, Win Htet Oo's Facebook profile says he's "a Myanmar swimmer dreaming about Tokyo 2020."
The swimmer has been a vocal critic of the Myanmar in recent weeks.
"I do not wish to participate in the Tokyo Games under the stewardship of a NOC [National Olympic Committee] that is tied to a regime that continues to inflict suffering on my people," said Win Htet Oo in another Facebook post on April 10.
The IOC did not immediately respond to CNN's request for comment, but the organization told AFP that "'to the best of our knowledge,'" Win Htet Oo had not been selected by the Myanmar team.
World Swimming Magazine describes Win Htet Oo as one of Myanmar's "top swimmers," who swam for his country at the 2013 and 2019 Southeast Asian Games
There is no listing for Win Htet Oo on the website of swimming's governing body (Fédération Internationale De Natation).
The Myanmar Olympic Committee did not respond to CNN's request for comment.
READ: Protests and demonstrations banned at 2020 Tokyo Olympics
In February, Myanmar armed forces commander in chief Gen. Min Aung Hlaing seized power, overthrowing the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy party and installing a military junta.
The following months have seen ongoing protests against his rule and the rise of a Civil Disobedience movement in which thousands of blue- and white-collar workers including doctors, teachers, civil servants and factory workers have gone on strike with the aim of disrupting the economy and unseating the general.
Security forces have brutally suppressed the protests with deadly and systematic crackdowns in which police and soldiers have shot people dead in the streets and arbitrarily detained perceived opponents.
More than 750 people have been killed by security forces since the coup, and more than 4,500 arrested, according to advocacy group Assistance Association of Political Prisoners.
On March 28, UN officials condemned "systematic" attacks on peaceful protesters and called on the international community to "protect the people of Myanmar from atrocity crimes."
"The shameful, cowardly, brutal actions of the military and police -- who have been filmed shooting at protesters as they flee, and who have not even spared young children -- must be halted immediately," said Alice Wairimu Nderitu, United Nations Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, and Michelle Bachelet, the High Commissioner for Human Rights in a joint statement.
READ: Which nation is expected to top Olympic medal table?
A UN Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar in 2018 called for Min Aung Hlaing to be investigated and prosecuted for genocide over his military's brutal crackdown on the Rohingya Muslim minority in Rakhine State in 2017.
In his latest Facebook post, Win Htet Oo said he'd been inspired "by the continued defiance to military rule in Myanmar by an intersectional movement that will never submit. Their bravery is undying."
"The National Unity Government is the only legitimate representative of the people of Myanmar and all international organisations and governments should recognise the NUG as Myanmar's government," added Win Htet Oo, who swam for New York University between 2012 and 2015..."
Source/publisher:
"CNN" (USA)
Date of entry/update:
2021-05-02
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Anti-coup protesters, Spring Revolution, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Human Rights and international relations, Genocide, Discrimination against the Rohingya, 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état
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"The UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, Alice Wairimu Nderitu, and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, on Sunday issued a clear warning of a heightened risk of...
Sub-title:
Myanmar: Top UN officials condemn “systematic” attacks on peaceful protesters, and flag international responsibility to protect the people from atrocity crimes
Description:
"The UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, Alice Wairimu Nderitu, and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, on Sunday issued a clear warning of a heightened risk of atrocity crimes in Myanmar, following another day of widespread bloodshed by the Myanmar military.
The two senior UN officials strongly condemned the Myanmar military’s widespread, lethal, increasingly systematic attacks against peaceful protesters, as well as other serious violations of human rights since it seized power on 1 February 2021. Thousands of people have also been arbitrarily arrested – many subjected to enforced disappearance. Saturday witnessed the bloodiest day since the demonstrations against the coup began, with security forces killing at least 107 individuals – including 7 children – according to multiple credible reports, with the number of deaths expected to rise as reports are confirmed. Hundreds more were wounded and detained during these seemingly coordinated attacks in over 40 locations throughout the country.
Bachelet and Nderitu called on the military to immediately stop killing the very people it has the duty to serve and protect.
“The shameful, cowardly, brutal actions of the military and police – who have been filmed shooting at protesters as they flee, and who have not even spared young children – must be halted immediately. The international community has a responsibility to protect the people of Myanmar from atrocity crimes,” Bachelet and Nderitu said.
The Special Adviser and the High Commissioner called on the Security Council to take further steps, building on its statement of 10 March 2021, and for ASEAN and the wider international community to act promptly to uphold the responsibility to protect the people of Myanmar from atrocity crimes. While the State has the primary responsibility to protect its population, the international community shares that responsibility, and in cases where the State is manifestly failing, the international community “should take timely and collective action in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations to protect civilian populations that are at risk of atrocity crimes.”
Nderitu and Bachelet called for an end to systemic impunity in Myanmar. “We must ensure accountability for past crimes and deter the most serious international crimes from being committed,” the two officials stated. “The failure to address the atrocity crimes the military has committed in the past, including against Rohingya and other minorities, has brought Myanmar to this terrible pass. There is no way forward without accountability and fundamental reform of the military.”
The senior officials urged all parties – including defecting officials, police and military officers – to cooperate with international mechanisms, including the International Criminal Court and the Human Rights Council’s Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar, in fighting impunity in the country.
This situation has also put at further risk the already vulnerable ethnic and religious minorities in Myanmar, including the Rohingya. This population has long suffered horrific violence at the hands of the Myanmar military with impunity, as documented by the Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar established by the Human Rights Council.
“We are deeply concerned about the impact that the current situation may have on these populations and are closely monitoring developments. The rights of minority groups, including the Rohingya population must be fully respected,” the two UN officials stated. They noted the diversity of the protest movement, and encouraged the newfound sense of unity across ethnic and religious divides, as well as the growing recognition of past crimes against minorities, including Rohingya..."
Source/publisher:
United Nations Secretary-General
Date of entry/update:
2021-05-02
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Genocide, Human Rights and international relations, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Discrimination against the Rohingya
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"This thesis has been written as a response to the worrying rise of hate speech online and focuses primarily on Myanmar. It aims to analyse hate speech as a factor of Myanmar’s internal conflicts and, through my own field research and an examination of existing literature, it attempts to suggest effective, long term methods to counter hate and build peace. Building peace and resolving conflict requires commitment to constructing a foundation of activities and actors, across all levels of society, which aim to achieve sustainable reconciliation.1 As Wallensteen suggests, conflict resolution is far more than the absence of violence: it is the agreement of parties to respect each other and live together in peace.2 Therefore, the core focus of this research is to discuss how Smile Education and Development Foundation can equip young people with the tools to challenge online hate speech and bring communities together.
This research is specifically focused on Buddhist hate speech, though this is not to suggest that there is no negative rhetoric or actions from Muslims or other minority groups. However, this study would suggest that by transforming negative attitudes towards Muslims and the religious/ethnic/cultural ‘Other’, the chance of future violence from either party decreases significantly.
Myanmar has a history of intrastate conflict which is largely down to the marginalization of minority groups; the Burman (Bamar) ethnic group constitutes two thirds of the country but controls the government and military, often failing to protect the rights of the ethnically diverse remainder of the country. To further understand the complex situation, a conflict assessment of Myanmar will be conducted in chapter one, using Mathew Levinger’s four step assessment framework. The assessment will draw upon the marginalization of ethnic and religious groups as a driver of conflict and Buddhist/Muslim tensions, in addition to economic struggles and the oppressive military junta. It is important to address the key components of the conflict in Myanmar to understand how existing tensions can be exploited to spread hatred and mistrust against Muslims, who, as a consequence, are often blamed for problems within society.
One of the most common manifestations of religious intolerance, both in Myanmar and other contexts, is online hate speech. The internet has provided tools to enrich society, connect the world, and create educational information available to those who would not have had access to this before. However, these same tools have paradoxically become a platform to spread lies, prejudice and hatred that will often target religious or ethnic minority groups. Chapter two aims to deconstruct online hate speech and the consequences for Myanmar’s Muslim community, focusing primarily on Facebook – the most used social media platform in the country. While such hate speech can be brushed off by some as bigoted ranting or merely painful words, many, including Foxman and Wolf (2013), and Waldron (2012), whose work is discussed in chapter two, believe it could serve as a warning sign for more severe consequences. Worryingly for targeted minority groups such as the Muslim community in Myanmar, hate speech’s widespread appearance makes it seem increasingly acceptable. Once the youth become actively involved in these hate sites, they will be exposed to value sets and ideologies that soon become the norm. With a large percentage of internet users consisting of younger people, the focus of this report, the impact of this hate and the distorted truths that circulate online can affect many generations to come. It is what Waldron describes as a ‘slow poison’ threatening social peace.
Chapter three draws on the conclusions made in the conflict assessment of chapter one, and of chapter two’s analysis of the harm of online hate speech in Myanmar, to evaluate the best possible methods of countering hate speech for this context. Through addressing religious peacebuilding ideas from Gopin, examining existing counter hate speech campaigns in Myanmar and from around the world, and bringing in points discussed in both focus groups, I will draw conclusions about methods of prevention, regulation, and counter narratives that may be useful in bringing together Myanmar’s Buddhist and Muslim communities..."
Source/publisher:
University of Winchester (UK)
Date of entry/update:
2021-05-02
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), Discrimination against the Rohingya, Freedom of opinion and expression: - the situation in Burma/Myanmar - reports, analyses, recommendations, Genocide, Muslims in Burma, Rohingya (cultural, political etc.)
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"Amid all cosmopolitan whimpering of a barrier free
world, modern-State with its essence of legal coercion
and phlegmatic exclusivity continues to flaunt. In such
absoluteness, enquiring the issues of people seeking
refugee would be synonymous to that of traversing the
margins. Particularly at a time of extreme jingoism and
other form of conservative assertions, the idea of ‘global
village’ unfolds as a ‘formless chaos’, more particularly
for the displaced people and subsequent forced refugees.
While prolongation of UN and the ever expanding wave
of globalization yield a consolatory ground, the reality
of many lives opens horizon of indispensable necessity
to contemplate global injustice and question the ideal
protocols of international morality. For instance, the
images of Syrian exodus in recent times reminded
many the reality of inter war period. Moreover, the
events, inter alia, Brexit, the result of U.S. Presidential
election and subsequent anti-immigration policies and
many immigration related reforms under taken by sub
continental governments insinuate the world might
be undergoing a radical phase of extremely inwardly
complacent national attitude. Many a countries not
signing the 1951 Refugee Convention makes the
issue of the refugees all the more important and worth
academic contemplation. In fact, the immediate fallout
of many refugee related events has given the world a
pressing sense of human rights violation in multiple
facets as well as degrees. More often than not, the world
has proved to be too unkind to let the hapless sustain.
If one were to rhapsodise recent cases of refugee that
can really interrogate the intrinsic values of human
survival, for obvious reason, it would have been the
Syrian exodus and the Statelessness of the Rohingyas.
While the agonizing plights of these two populations
have been captivated by media with subsequent
deliberation, a fruitful solution to their problem is still
a distant dream. This paper attempts to decipher the
Rohingya issue and construe it as an enduring injustice
embodied in indifference as well as abandonment. It is with this argument that the paper starts with a brief
account of the historiography of the Rohingyas, giving
some sense to understand the trajectory of their current
predicament. The next section would seek to trace the
root, events and pattern of probable genocide inflicted
on these people. This section would establish the
violence, marginalization and state sponsored atrocities
to recover the pattern of a radical and enduring injustice.
The last section arrests the state of stolidity on part of
international community as well as abandonment of the
population by the Burmese government. This would
eventually prove their case as one of enduring injustice
embodied in indifference..."
Source/publisher:
Global Research Forum on Diaspora and Transnationalism (GRFDT)
Date of entry/update:
2021-05-01
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), Discrimination against the Rohingya, Genocide, Ethnic Cleansing, Rohingya (cultural, political etc.), 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état
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Description:
"Violations of religious freedom are increasing and persecution takes place in more than 25 countries, with China and Myanmar among those that have the worst records, according to a report by a Vatican-backed charity.
The Religious Freedom in the World Report, covering 2019-2020 and issued on Tuesday, said that in some countries, such as Niger, Turkey and Pakistan, prejudices against religious minorities led local residents to blame them for the COVID-19 pandemic and denial of access to medical aid.
The 800-page report was prepared by Aid to the Church in Need International (ACN), a worldwide Catholic charity that studies violations of freedoms of all religions.
The latest report put 26 countries in a "red" category denoting the existence of persecution, compared to 21 countries at the time of the last report two years ago.
It put 36 countries in the "orange" category denoting discrimination, compared to 17 two years ago.
The report describes discrimination as when laws or rules apply to a particular group and not to all, and persecution as when there is an active programme to subjugate people based on religion.
"There has been a significant increase in the severity of religiously-motivated persecution and oppression," the report said.
It was particularly scathing about China and Myanmar.
"The apparatus of repression constructed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in recent years is ... fine-tuned, pervasive, and technologically sophisticated," the report said.
The most egregious violations were against Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang "where the atrocities have reached such a scale that a growing number of experts describe them as genocide", it said.....
HARASSMENT AND ARREST":
In February, the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden endorsed a last-minute determination by the Trump administration that China has committed genocide in Xinjiang and has said the United States must be prepared to impose costs on China.
China says the complexes it set up in Xinjiang provide vocational training to help stamp out Islamist extremism and separatism. The Chinese foreign ministry has called allegations of forced labour and human rights violations "groundless rumour and slander".
The ACN report said Catholic hierarchy in China "continue to suffer harassment and arrest" despite a landmark deal signed in 2018 between Bejing and the Vatican on the appointment of bishops on the mainland.
Reuters reported last year that two nuns who work at the Vatican mission in Hong Kong were arrested when they went home to the mainland for a visit.
China was increasing the use of facial recognition on worshippers of various religions, it said.
In Myanmar, the report said Rohingya Muslims "have been the victims of the most egregious violations of human rights in recent memory".
Last year, the International Court of Justice ordered Myanmar to take urgent measures to protect Rohingya from genocide. The government has denied accusations of genocide.
The ACN report said the military coup on Feb. 1 was "likely to make things worse for all religious minorities" in Myanmar, where about 8% of the population is Christian.
Africa would be "the next battleground against Islamic militants," the report said.
Militant groups were causing havoc in countries including Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, northern Cameroon, Chad, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia and Mozambique, it said..."
Source/publisher:
"Reuters" (UK)
Date of entry/update:
2021-04-21
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Religious freedom: reports of violations in Burma, Discrimination against Muslims in Burma/Myanmar, Discrimination against the Rohingya, Racial or ethnic discrimination in Burma: reports of violations against several groups, Genocide, Muslims in Burma, Several Groups, Rohingya (cultural, political etc.), 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, China-Burma relations
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Description:
"Did migration processes into colonial Burma – from India and elsewhere – amount to a “transfer of civilians” into an occupied territory, a practice prohibited by international law today? Should the international community reconsider such colonial-era population movements as a “colonial wrong”, conceding that a historical injustice has been committed by European colonialism, in order to make contemporary Myanmar political and military actors more ready to accept accountability for the severe human rights violations committed against the Rohingya? These questions, based on problematic assumptions about history and with potentially dangerous political implications, were discussed at a meeting of international lawyers in Yangon, the proceedings of which were recently published online (Morten Bergsmo, Wolfgang Kaleck and Kyaw Yin Hlaing (eds.): Colonial Wrongs and Access to International Law; Brussels: Torkel Opsahl Academic EPublisher 9 November 2020).
International criminal justice faces a crisis of legitimacy. The International Criminal Court (ICC, constituted by the Rome Statute and operative since 2002) especially stands accused of applying what Wolfgang Kaleck has called “double standards”. Its prosecution of severe human rights violators focuses on persons from countries with little power in global politics, many of them in Sub-Saharan Africa so far. At the same time, the Court finds it virtually impossible to prosecute perpetrators protected by major powers in the international system, especially the United States. The argument of “double standards” can be extended by giving it a postcolonial pitch: international criminal law is unable to address “colonial wrongs” – crimes committed by colonial powers – and thus cannot deal with the history behind current governance failures and violent conflicts that contributed to the very human rights violations it tries to prosecute.
In order to address such questions, senior international law specialists and academics met for a conference in Yangon in November 2019. Myanmar constituted a very conscious choice of location for the conference and provided the backdrop to discuss questions such as: Did the migration of substantial non-indigenous populations (primarily from India) into colonial Burma constitute a “transfer of civilians” into an occupied territory – a practice that is regarded as a crime against humanity under today’s international criminal law? And if so, how should this be taken into account as a “colonial wrong” when prosecuting perpetrators of severe human rights violations, especially those perpetrated against the Rohingya in Myanmar’s Rakhine State in 2016-7? (The conference volume includes papers on systematic legal aspects and a few other country case studies, especially on the fate of indigenous populations in European settler colonies. However, it does not include studies on other historical examples of colonial-era population movements that could have put the Burma case into a broader historical perspective.)
The decision by the Yangon conference organizers to discuss their agenda through the lens of Burmese history (and, of course, to hold it in Myanmar itself) could be seen as courageous; one may regard it as hazardous as well. The hazard is likely obvious to students of Myanmar history and contemporary politics: Does this “transfer of civilians into occupied territory” line of argument really do justice to Burma’s actual colonial history? And does it not risk undermining the citizenship rights of people whose ancestors migrated into Myanmar a century or more ago – and whose very citizenship rights are already severely embattled in Myanmar today?
The organizers of the Yangon conference were of course aware they were entering a particularly difficult territory. They did so for good reason. In his concept paper laying the groundwork for the conference (first published in August 2019), Morten Bergsmo observes an “unusually polarised climate” in Myanmar around the issue of human rights violations in Rakhine. The official Myanmar narrative frames the issue primarily as one of “illegal migration” and “suppression of terrorism”. By contrast, a major strand in the international narrative (in reality mostly that of Western countries, U.N. institutions and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation) discusses “the Rohingya genocide” and calls for prosecution under international criminal law. Bergsmo suggests that a recognition of “colonial wrongs”, especially the destruction of the sovereignty of the precolonial Burmese kingdom and the following mass migration of people from India into Burma, enabled by the British, may help to create a bridge, enabling a more fruitful dialogue.
I certainly agree with Bergsmo’s observation on the “unusually polarized climate” around Myanmar today that currently makes meaningful dialogue about severe human rights violations very difficult, if not impossible. However, I very much doubt that the acceptance of what may be called a “postcolonial guilt theory” of acknowledging “colonial wrongs” in Burma will contribute to any greater degree of acceptance for ICC proceedings in Myanmar. I doubt this not merely because the argument is based on weak legal and misleading historical foundations. Even worse, such a line of reasoning – if it ever enters mainstream political debate – obviously risks strengthening the militant exclusionary nationalism in Myanmar that stands at the root of the Rohingya crisis. And it risks doing so for all the wrong reasons.
To be sure, Bergsmo and the other international lawyers involved in this project do not want to trade responsibilities: In their view, this is not about downplaying or relativising responsibility for killings and other human rights violations against the Rohingya or others. It is about creating a dialogue that may lead to greater acceptance of international judicial proceedings on these violations. The book itself includes an explicit warning by the only Myanmar contributor and editor, Kyaw Yin Hlaing of the Centre for Diversity and National Harmony in Yangon. In his chapter, he reviews how contemporaries perceived the migration of Indians, and especially Indian Muslims, into colonial Burma as a result of the colonial situation, stoking fears of indigenous people being overwhelmed, of indigenous men losing their land and their women to foreigners; he also recalls how these sentiments were systematically fuelled further by military rulers as part of anti-colonial narratives since the 1960s. Kyaw Yin Hlaing cautions that, within this context, legal arguments about historical wrongs run a high risk of being misused to undermine peaceful coexistence among different ethnic groups today: “Promoting accountability and the legitimacy of international law are valid considerations, but are less important than the lives and well-being of the populations (of all kinds) living in former colonies” (362). The remainder of the volume, however, does not take much notice of this warning. Instead, rather than reflecting the concrete historical and social context that their legal arguments about “colonial wrongs” may meet in Myanmar today, the contributors proceed, with what they appear to think of as their righteous “postcolonial” approach, into very treacherous legal and historical territory.
On the legal side, the limitations of the argument are obvious and even acknowledged accordingly by contributors. The “transfer of civilians” into “occupied territory” constitutes an international crime only since the (Fourth) Geneva Convention of 1949. The Convention explicitly outlawed such a practice informed by the experiences of Nazi Germany’s exterminatory policies in occupied Eastern Europe. (In more recent decades, the concept has usually been applied to legally attack Israeli settlement policies in the West Bank, though not for example, against Moroccan population settlement policies in the former Western Sahara). “Transfer of civilians” was reaffirmed as a “crime against humanity” and “war crime” under the Rome Statute that created the ICC. Legally, therefore, any “transfers” before 1949 – including nearly all population movements under European colonial rule in Africa and Asia – are not covered under these prohibitions. Nonetheless, various contributors to the volume set out to develop lines of argument designed to describe actions by European colonial states as legally relevant “colonial wrongs” or “grievances” that may have led to atrocities later on. Not being a lawyer myself, I am not in a position to judge whether and how any such arguments have a potential to become part of relevant international law; the authors are surely committed to this. Beyond the immanent logic of these legal arguments, however, we also need to ask whether they make sense in the concrete case of the history of colonial Burma.
It is one thing to assert historical and political responsibility of former colonial powers for obvious atrocities committed during their rule, such as the 1904-8 genocide of the Herero and Nama people in what was then German South West Africa (Namibia), or the issue of British capital punishment practices in colonial Kenya during the Mau Mau war in the 1950s. It is an entirely different – and very wrong – matter to group British migration policies in colonial Burma into the same (or a similar) class of “colonial wrongs”.
The volume under review includes two contributions, by Jacques Leider and Derek Tonkin, which document the history of migration into Arakan / Rakhine in great detail. While there has been a presence of Muslim communities in Arakan for centuries, they show specifically that labour-related cross-border migration from the Chittagong area of Bengal began even before British colonial rule and expanded rapidly under it, especially in the latter years of the 19th and the early 20th century. Labour needs of local ethnic Rakhine landlords were a major factor; settlement and land acquisition by the migrants followed. Over time this led to a concentration of Muslim agriculturalists in Northern Rakhine who later acquired the Rohingya ethnonym (a fact disputed by Rohingya nationalists who claim a much earlier origin of the term). Until 1937, all this happened within the single territory of British India of which Burma was a part, without any internal border controls. Migration into colonial Arakan, with no force by the colonial power involved, was driven by economic needs and interests, and it was pursued by local individual and group agency. To categorize this process as a “colonial wrong” constitutes an ahistorical narrative which in effect denies agency to any colonial subjects.
Likewise, Indian migration into the mainland and the urban centres of colonial Burma, especially Rangoon, was driven by the economic interest and agency of those who migrated, mostly from other parts of British India (while some came from China as well). Again, no forced labour was involved here. British policies played a stronger role than in Rakhine, in so far as the colonial state and the colonial economy created a demand for business professionals, traders and urban workers from India to move to Burma. In addition, civil servants and soldiers were temporarily transferred into colonial Burma, and some of them may have decided to settle there later on. For all of these groups, the colonial state made movement and long-term settlement possible, for example by creating an enabling environment of transport systems and urban facilities. All this led to social tension and instances of violence by the 1930s and contributed to the prominent anti-Indian streak within Burmese anti-colonial nationalism.
However, the policies and incentives employed by the British in Burma were pretty much standard practices of “development policy”, as conceptualized by colonial powers in the first half of the 20th century; some of them were even continued after independence. To describe resulting migration processes under colonial rule as a “transfer of civilians” into an “occupied territory” (with the connotation that they were designed to overwhelm, drive out or exterminate the local Burmese population) does not only constitute a severe category error. It risks feeding into the “anti-foreigner”, xenophobic narrative within Burmese (and Rakhine) nationalism that has its historical roots in the late colonial period but has become ever more extreme under military rule since 1962. In effect, this narrative culminated in the discriminatory 1982 Citizenship Law and contributed to the perception of the Rohingya as “illegal aliens”, leading to violence and ultimately resulting in their flight and expulsion, in 2017.
Of course, the experts advancing the “colonial wrongs” argument who contributed to the volume under review do not intend to condone any such discrimination or violence. But they appear to underestimate the fact that a core element of the very narrative they are proposing in order to increase global acceptance for international criminal law – that colonialism committed a crime by bringing in “foreigners” – is in fact already a core element of the exclusionary narrative of Burmese nationalism. It has been in use for decades, has been worsening over time, and it has already led to extreme marginalization and violence.
Does all this matter? Clearly, a more balanced approach – one that does not just let powerful perpetrators off the hook while prosecuting only those who are already out of power – is very necessary in order to secure the very legitimacy of the international criminal law system. However, the Myanmar example shows that an inappropriate application of a simplistic, if not outright wrong postcolonial narrative is risky. Defenders of the Myanmar official position on the Rohingya issue hardly need international lawyers to remind them that “Indians”, “Bengalis” or other foreigners who migrated into the country in colonial times came in as a result of a “colonial wrong”. They have been making this point all along, but now they can do so with innovative phrasing and the international academic and legal legitimation provided by this volume.
Disturbingly, they appear to do so already: Derek Tonkin (281-2, and email communication, 18.11.2020) documents the first two instances of the verbatim use of the “transfer of civilians” argument employed by high-ranking Myanmar officials in U.N. contexts, within weeks after the publication of Morten Bergsmo’s concept paper. It is difficult to think of this as a mere coincidence.
The military coup of February 1st, 2021, has led the country into a massive crisis. The outcome is anything but clear at this point in time, and Myanmar may face an extended period of military rule, violent conflict, economic decline and even state failure. But the broad resistance against the military takeover and the political dynamics since the coup also have a potential to do away with long-established, outdated ideas and institutions in Myanmar’s political and legal system, in order to create a true break with the past.
Many in Myanmar and internationally no longer see the Myanmar military as a legitimate partner in any substantive discussion about the political future of the country; in their view, the Tatmadaw has to return to the barracks without claiming special political prerogatives, or it has to disappear as an institution. A Rohingya voice has been emerging in the protests against the regime, and there is hope that the community will gain broader acceptance among the Burmese majority population.
The declaration of the Federal Democracy Charter and the intent to abolish the 2008 constitution by the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH) on March 31st, 2021, imply an outright rejection of fundamental political ideas and institutions imposed by the Tatmadaw over decades. This could and should include a rejection of the very concept of belonging represented by the idea of “national races” (taingyinthar), and of the system of graded citizenship rights, based on an individual’s real or putative migratory background. Instead, Myanmar should acquire a new citizenship law that follows globally accepted standards, is inclusive and provides equal rights to everyone living in the country, not subject to political or bureaucratic manipulation.
I have shown in this article that arguments about real or imagined “colonial wrongs” in the debate and legal discourse about contemporary human rights violations, when applied to Burma/Myanmar, were highly problematic even before the coup. Now and in any future processes of transitional justice, however, they deserve to be discarded in their entirety, as a misguided attempt of appeasing perpetrators of human rights violations on a grand scale and their political allies.
Dr. Axel Harneit-Sievers, a historian by professional background, has been the country director of the Heinrich Böll Stiftung’s Myanmar office in Yangon from 2018 until May 2021. Opinions expressed here are personal and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Heinrich Böll Stiftung..."
Source/publisher:
"Tea Circle" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update:
2021-04-19
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Political History, Atrocities Against Groups, International Criminal Court, Genocide, Discrimination against the Rohingya, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Rohingya (cultural, political etc.), Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first)
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219.72 KB
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Description:
"Conflict is inevitable and normal thing. Also the existence of the conflict in not a problem but the problem is how to handle it. When the conflict cause death of thousands and 1 migrate a lot that means the conflict reach a high level and it needs for immediate solution.
In addition the very notion of ethnicity is a struggle topic in the social sciences for years.2 The Muslims minority in Myanmar (Rohingya) is suffered from violence in their home country and as result many of them fled to the neighbor country such as Bangladesh. They
are one of the most marginalized refugee communities in south and Southeast Asia. In general the problem in Myanmar is a humanitarian and moral issue due to racial differences and governance problem. The Rohingya people are victims of the discriminatory policies of
the government. 3 If we look to the political and military conflicts in the world map, we found that the most areas of tension are concentrated in places where there are Muslim minorities. This paper
will focus in the Muslims minority in Myanmar. Firstly this paper will explain the historical background of the Muslim minority and the political system in the country. Then the conflict in Myanmar and how it escalates until it become hard to solve it. Moreover this paper will discuss the political interest and it’s related with violence. After that it will discuss the response of the international community. Then it will discuss the solutions alternative for this conflict. The current Burmese government‘s will not provide a solution to the ethnic conflict in Myanmar. In addition Burma‘s ethnic problems could be solved by negotiation between the groups with a powerful mediator. This will happen through the establishment of a real federal political system that guarantees the autonomy for all ethnic groups in Myan-
mar or gives the independence for the Muslims minority in Myanmar..."
Source/publisher:
Sultan Qaboos University:College of Economy and Political Science
Date of entry/update:
2021-04-14
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), Discrimination against the Rohingya, Ethnic Cleansing, Genocide, Rohingya (cultural, political etc.), Muslims in Burma, Burmese refugees in Bangladesh
Language:
Format :
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Size:
197.9 KB
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Description:
"The international community has shown great interest in the Rohingya1Muslims problem, especially in the aftermath of the violence in June and October 2012.While scores of writers in international media have focused on the subjectivity of the conflict, there are academics and policy-makers pondering what could be done to achieve long-term solutions to the inherent problem. Myanmar2 has experienced myriad ethnic conflicts since its indepen- dence from the British in January 1948, but what makes the Rohingya problem unique
and why has it caught the attention of the wider international community? Is it because the Rohingya Muslims are less fortunate community than the other groups or is it because they are distinctive?
It is puzzling to see some social or cultural groups within a society tend to express themselves more radically than the others. It is equally intriguing to see how governments often respond differently to such phenomenon. A society may be divided along the lines of culture, religion, political affiliations or other forms of divisions. One dominant theor- etical model social scientists employ to study political stability in a segmented society is “consociational democracy”. 3 Arend Lijphart defines consociational democracy as a “government by elite cartel designed to turn a democracy with a fragmented political
culture into a stable democracy”. 4 Under such political arrangement, the elites attempt to form a stable government by accommodating or integrating diverse views and interests of people belonging to different cultural groups. A successful consociational democracy
requires that the elites have the “ability to accommodate the divergent interests and demands of the subcultures” and also have the “ability to transcend cleavages and to join in a common effort with the elites of rival subcultures”. The possibility of such cooperation between rival elites would depend on their “commitment to the maintenance
of the system and to the improvement of its cohesion and stability” provided that the elites understand the “perils of political fragmentation”.5 Consociational democracy emphasizes the role of “elite behavior” in diverse societies.6 Cooperation between elites within the same group and also with elites of other groups or
cultures is essential. In successful consociational democracy, the elites find ways to accommodate different sections of the society by sharing power as well as reaching decisions by means of “consensus” or “unanimity”. 7 In an attempt to find a common
ground to establish a grand coalition government, the elites try to achieve two objectives. First, the goal of elites is to settle “conflicts of interest” that may exist among the parti- cipating members. Second, by settling conflicts of interest, the elites also want to achieve a settlement or result that is “most favorable” to their own supporters. The extent to which the elites can reach a consensus agreement is dependent upon how much each participating elite can make “concessions”. The elites know that they cannot solve conflicts of interest unilaterally, and therefore, need to make a strategic “bar-
gaining”. One elite’s interest may not necessarily be the same as that of the other elites and vice versa. Such differences would give each elite a chance to bargain for the best possible outcome that involves “competition as well as cooperation”.8 Purpose of Study
This article attempts to understand the nature of conflict between Rohingya Muslims and Rakhine9 Buddhists of Rakhine state in the Western part of Myanmar in 2012. The violent conflict first started in June, and seemingly subsided for three months, but later erupted again in October. While the two groups blamed each other for inciting the violence, they could not find a mutually acceptable peaceful solution among themselves.
The Rohingyas accused the Rakhine state government and the central government of deliberately attempting to eliminate their population and termed the violence as state sponsored ethnic cleansing. The central government denied such allegations, but failed to produce a concrete plan for long-term solutions. In this article, I attempt to explain
the underlying factors causing such mayhem and argue that consociational democracy should be pursued to achieve long-term solutions to the problem. However, I must be clear here that consociational democracy cannot work effectively or may even be irrelevant without first addressing the Rohingyas’ citizenship and identity problems. In order to understand the nature of violence in 2012, I will briefly discuss the historical context of the problem. I will then analyze the policies of the Myanmar government toward the issue, and discuss the general perception of the Myanmar people toward the conflict. I will also study the reactions of international community vis-à-vis the Rohingya conundrum. After presenting the different perspectives, I will discuss why I believe consociational democracy is the ideal approach to solve the problem..."
Source/publisher:
"Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs" via "Routledge" (London)
Date of entry/update:
2021-04-13
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), Racial or ethnic discrimination in Burma: reports of violations against several groups, Ethnic Cleansing, Genocide, Rohingya (cultural, political etc.), Burmese refugees in Bangladesh
Language:
Format :
pdf
Size:
105.78 KB
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Summary:
"Burma is the second largest country in Southeast Asia, and prior to the current period of opening that began in 2010, had been under tight military control since 1962. Until recently, on the rare...
Description:
"Burma is the second largest country in Southeast Asia, and prior to the current period of opening that began in 2010, had been under tight military control since 1962. Until recently, on the rare occasions when the country has invited inter- national attention, it has done so for its lack of democracy and its abusive human rights record. Despite Burma’s diversity, with 135 ethnic groups legally recognized by the 1982 Citizenship Law, the Rohingyas are not listed as such, although many have lived in Burma for generations. Thus the Rohingya remain
stateless, with a total population in Burma of approximately 800,000, a component of the four percent of the Burmese population who are Muslim in a country that is 90% Buddhist. The Rohingyas have been much maligned, called ‘ugly as ogres,’dirty, terrorists, and ‘kalar,’ a racial slur. Myanmar’s government refers to the
Rohingya as ‘Bengalis’ or ‘illegal Bengalis,’ which speaks of their status as uprooted Bangladeshi immigrants during the British occupation. Anti-Muslim violence occurred in 1978, 1997, and 2001, in different areas of Burma, and violence between the Muslim Rohingyas and the Rakhine Buddhists has been referred to by one UN official as a ‘chronic crisis’ (Fuller, 2012: 19). In the June 2012 violence, almost 5,000 Rohingya houses were burned down by Rakhine
Buddhists, police, military, and other ‘security’ forces, more than 30,000 Rohingyas became homeless, and many lost their lives. The violence between June 2012 and March 2014, including a major wave of violence in October 2012, resulted in the deaths of more than 200 people and displaced another 140,000, the vast majority of
them Rohingya. While there have been Rakhine victims, the majority have been Rohingya. While some Rohingyas are taking shelter in displacement camps, others have tried to enter neighboring countries such as Bangladesh. Most often they are denied entry, facing dangerous and often deadly conditions at sea. Their plight has
triggered international calls by non-governmental organizations (NGOs), human rights groups and other countries to grant them entry into Bangladesh and other countries according to international law.
Despite elections in Burma in 2010 that led to a nominally civilian government, the military’s influence remains strong, as it is constitutionally guaranteed 25% of the parliamentary seats. Former military general and now president, Thein Sein, and
Burmese opposition leader and now member of parliament, Aung San Suu Kyi, have both vowed to work towards democratic change. The nature of these changes, and the international interest in Burma that has skyrocketed since the first signs of democratic progress in the country, are the focus of much discussion and debate.
Our purpose here is to analyze how the three media sources construct the story of the sectarian violence threatening to derail the reform process, and the implications this may have for Myanmar’s media and for media systems in countries in transition. We find that combining attention to Mutua’s SVS framework with attention to the politics of immediation provides insight into how different patterns of media representation imply different policy solutions. The next section contextualizes Mutua’s approach and framework..."
Source/publisher:
"International Communication Gazette"
Date of entry/update:
2021-04-13
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), Discrimination against the Rakhine, Discrimination against the Rohingya, Ethnic Cleansing, Genocide, Rohingya (cultural, political etc.), Muslims in Burma, Burmese refugees in Bangladesh
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Sub-title:
Returned Refugees Face Risks to Life, Liberty Under Oppressive Junta
Description:
"The Indian government should halt any plans to deport ethnic Rohingya and others to Myanmar, where they would be at risk from its oppressive military junta, Human Rights Watch said today. On March 6, 2021, the authorities in Jammu and Kashmir detained nearly 170 Rohingya, sent them to a holding center as part of a verification process, and said they plan to deport them. Myanmar authorities have also asked the Indian government to return eight police officers who with their families sought refuge in India after the military coup.
Since the February 1 coup, when the Myanmar military overthrew the democratically elected government, the security forces have used excessive and lethal force against peaceful protesters throughout the country. They have killed at least 55 people and carried out hundreds of arbitrary arrests and detentions including enforced disappearances. The junta has amended laws to strip away basic rights, brought politically motivated prosecutions, and intermittently blocked internet access.
“Any plan to forcibly return Rohingya and others to Myanmar will put them back in the grip of the oppressive military junta that they fled,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director. “Myanmar’s long-abusive military is even more lawless now that it is back in power, and the Indian government should uphold its international law obligations and protect those in need of refuge within its borders.”
The recent detention of Rohingya in Jammu and Kashmir follows the Indian government’s announcement in 2017 that it would deport all Rohingya, whom they consider to be “illegal immigrants.” Since October 2018, the Indian government has deported 12 Rohingya to Myanmar, claiming that they left voluntarily.
Many Rohingya in Jammu and Kashmir say that they hold identity documents issued by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and that they feared for their safety in Myanmar. Over a million Rohingya have fled Myanmar, primarily to Bangladesh, most of them since the military’s campaign of ethnic cleansing that began in August 2017. The 600,000 Rohingya remaining in Myanmar’s Rakhine State face severe repression and violence, with no freedom of movement, no access to citizenship, or other basic rights. Abuses against the Rohingya in Rakhine State amount to the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution, Human Rights Watch said.
“We are not ready to go back, until the situation improves in Myanmar,” said Mohammad Saleem, 42, a Rohingya refugee in Jammu and Kashmir. “It is extremely distressing for us to be sent back to Myanmar against our wishes.”
Indian authorities nonetheless say that they will deport Rohingya irregular immigrants not holding valid travel documents required under the Foreigners Act. But any forcible returns to Myanmar will violate the international legal principle of non-refoulement, which prohibits countries from returning anyone to a country where they may face persecution, torture, or other serious harm, Human Rights Watch said. Although India is not a party to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention or its 1967 Protocol, non-refoulement is recognized as customary international law and is binding on all countries.
Human Rights Watch has extensively documented rampant and systemic human rights violations against the Rohingya in Myanmar. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in January 2020 imposed provisional measures on Myanmar to prevent genocide while it adjudicates alleged violations of the Genocide Convention. The International Criminal Court (ICC) in November 2019 began an investigation into Myanmar’s forced deportation of Rohingya and related crimes against humanity..."
Source/publisher:
"Human Rights Watch" (USA)
Date of entry/update:
2021-03-10
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), Freedom of opinion and expression: - the situation in Burma/Myanmar - reports, analyses, recommendations, Freedom of Movement, violations of in Burma/Myanmar, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, The Military's political role, Discrimination against the Rohingya, Genocide, Rohingya (cultural, political etc.), International Court of Justice (ICJ) - Myanmar, International Criminal Court (Myanmar)
Language:
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Sub-title:
Filing, made two weeks before military staged a coup and detained the country’s civilian leaders, is likely to delay proceedings by at least a year.
Description:
"Myanmar is being accused of attempting to delay court proceedings after it emerged the country last month filed preliminary objections to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over genocide charges for its treatment of the mostly Muslim Rohingya.
The case was brought by The Gambia in 2019 after a brutal military crackdown in the western state of Rakhine in 2017 forced hundreds of thousands of Rohingya to flee across the border to neighbouring Bangladesh. “On 20 January 2021, the Republic of the Union of Myanmar filed preliminary objections to the jurisdiction of the Court and the admissibility of the Application,” the ICJ said in a filing signed by Court President Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf and dated January 28.
The filing did not elaborate on the nature of the objections, but legal experts say they are likely to include whether the court has jurisdiction to hear the case and whether The Gambia has the appropriate standing to bring the suit.
Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s former civilian leader raised similar issues during preliminary hearings in December 2019 when she travelled to The Hague to defend her country’s treatment of a minority group that has been described as among the world’s most persecuted.
The Gambia has until May 20 to respond and the court will then consider the points raised.
“These objections will fail and are nothing more than delaying tactics,” Mark Farmaner, the director of the Burma Campaign UK wrote on Twitter, urging the British government to intervene..."
Source/publisher:
"Al Jazeera" (Qatar)
Date of entry/update:
2021-02-05
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), Genocide, Discrimination against the Rohingya, International Court of Justice (ICJ) - Myanmar
Language:
Local URL:
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Description:
"When the Myanmar Army attacked and massacred ethnic Rohingya civilians in 2017, more than 700,000 men, women, and children fled to Bangladesh, some riddled with bullets, burns, and gaping wounds. Hundreds of villages were in ashes, razed by soldiers and their civilian proxies.
But long after the physical wounds scarred over, Rohingya continue to suffer mental harm on a massive scale. President-elect Biden can and should do something about it.
There are upwards of one million Rohingya refugees now languishing in Bangladesh. They are experiencing trauma, depression, and anxiety at staggering rates. The World Health Organization estimates that approximately 15 to 20 percent of adults will experience some type of moderate or mild mental health disorder one year after an emergency, and in theory, those figures should decrease over time. By contrast, a new report published by Fortify Rights finds that 89 percent of Rohingya refugees in sprawling camps in Bangladesh are experiencing serious depression. Eighty-four percent are experiencing severe emotional distress. And a staggering 62 percent are experiencing symptoms equivalent to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder—a debilitating condition that can prevent its victims from leading normal and constructive lives. What drives these extreme levels of distress?
Ongoing genocide in Myanmar is partly to blame, but the new quantitative data reveals that long-term systematic human rights violations in Myanmar and ongoing impunity are also key factors that continue to impact Rohingya mental health..."
Source/publisher:
"Time"
Date of entry/update:
2021-01-07
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), Discrimination against the Rohingya, Genocide, Atrocities against Groups - documents, Burmese refugees in Bangladesh, Mental health
Language:
Local URL:
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Description:
"The lawyers prosecuting Myanmar for the alleged genocide against the Rohingya are once again breaking new legal ground. The International Court of Justice action by the Gambia was unprecedented, and long overdue, when initiated last year. But the received wisdom is that genocide accountability is particularly difficult because the plaintiff has to prove genocidal intent. And proving intent is taken to be one of the hardest standards to clear in legal proceedings.
But in a logical, if unprecedented, move, the Gambian legal team, led by the formidable Justice Minister Abubacarr Tambadou, have asked a US court to force Facebook to hand over the data they have relating to the leading Myanmar army officials who ordered the “clearance operations” against the Rohingya, chief among them Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the commander-in-chief of Myanmar’s armed forces.
If there is anywhere the prosecution might find records of the thinking that went into the actions by the Myanmar military before and during the operations against the Rohingya, Facebook is going to be the place. In 2017, I wrote about the ways in which Facebook was the principal medium through which anti-Rohingya hatred and propaganda was being stoked up for years, leading to the “clearing operations.” And, while at that time I was referring mainly to the crazed rants of extremist nationalists and Buddhist fundamentalists from Myanmar’s civil society, many senior officials, including the military leadership of the country, also weighed in on the issue on Facebook.
Without wanting to pre-judge the proceedings, those statements by leading government and military officials were never to condemn the worst excesses of hate-baiting against the Rohingya, but instead had the general intent and purpose of moderating and rationalizing antagonism toward the minority group. On those grounds alone, it may be possible to make inferences about intent. But perhaps a bigger prize is possible: It would be of genuine public interest to see what the communications between leading military officials looked like at the time, and to what extent their hostility to the Rohingya might have been expressed in genocidal language in private..."
Source/publisher:
"Arab News" (Saudi Arabia)
Date of entry/update:
2020-06-17
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), Discrimination against the Rohingya, Genocide
Language:
Local URL:
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Sub-title:
Human rights lawyers: Facebook posts of officials 'may constitute evidence of genocidal intent' against Muslim minority.
Description:
"Lawyers bringing a case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) accusing Myanmar of genocide against its Rohingya Muslim minority have asked a United States district court to order Facebook to release posts and communications from the country's military and police.
The ICJ, based in the Hague, has agreed to hear a case accusing Myanmar of genocide against the Rohingya in violation of a 1948 convention.
More:
UN's Guterres asks Bangladesh to move Rohingya to refugee camps
First coronavirus case found in Bangladesh Rohingya refugee camps
Bangladesh quarantines hundreds of Rohingya rescued from sea
The ICJ, a United Nations court commonly known as the World Court, accepts cases between states, and the case against Myanmar was brought by the Gambia with the backing of a group of Muslim countries.
Hundreds of thousands of Muslims have fled a crackdown in mainly Buddhist Myanmar, which considers members of its Rohingya minority to be foreigners. Rights groups have documented killings of civilians and burning of villages. Myanmar authorities say they have been battling an insurgency and deny carrying out systematic atrocities.
In 2018 UN human rights investigators said that Facebook had played a key role in spreading hate speech that fuelled violence in Myanmar. Facebook has said it is working to block hate speech.
A request, filed on behalf of the Gambia on June 8 with the US District Court for the District of Columbia, calls on Facebook to release "all documents and communications produced, drafted, posted or published on the Facebook page" of Myanmar military officials and police forces..."
Source/publisher:
"Al Jazeera" (Qatar)
Date of entry/update:
2020-06-11
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), Burmese refugees in Bangladesh, International Court of Justice (ICJ) - Myanmar, Genocide
Language:
Local URL:
more
Description:
"Myanmar has sidelined an international court order to improve conditions for its long-embattled Rohingya minority, despite fears that the Southeast Asian government is trying to commit genocide against the group, observers say.
The U.N.’s International Court of Justice in January ordered Myanmar to "take all measures within its power" to prevent any acts of genocide against ethnic Rohingya Muslims, who fled the country amid a bloody military crackdown in 2017. The ICJ ordered Myanmar to submit a report within four months on what actions it is taking to comply with the court's decision, and to submit follow-up reports every six months after that.
The court last month accepted the first of the required reports, but its contents have not been released.
Nevertheless, observers contacted say there has been little change.
“The situation to me seems like it’s more of the same,” said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, political science professor at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok. “There has not been any major deterioration, but also no major new measures.”
The COVID-19 pandemic prompted Myanmar to control people’s movement in Rakhine state in western Myanmar where about 400,000 Rohingya live, Thitinan said. Legislative elections set for November will embolden the government to stiffen its stance toward the Rohingya, he added. Voters of other groups see the Muslim minority as uninvited people allowed in during British colonial rule over Myanmar. “The Rohingya is a very paradoxical issue,” Thitinan said. “To the outside world, there’s a lot of sympathy and outcry. Within Myanmar, it’s the opposite.”
The Rohingya crisis has tarnished the international reputation of Myanmar’s de facto head of state, former opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
Myanmar has targeted the Rohingya in a “systematic” way, a court news release said. “Genocidal acts” including mass murder, rape and setting fires were intended to wipe out the group, the release said. It pointed to an increase in those acts starting from August 2017..."
Source/publisher:
"VOA" (Washington, D.C)
Date of entry/update:
2020-06-07
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), International Court of Justice (ICJ) - Myanmar, Genocide
Language:
Local URL:
more
Description:
"An Argentine court has moved one step closer to opening a historic investigation against Myanmar's military and civilian leadership over genocide against the Rohingya people, the Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK (BROUK) said today.
The court in Buenos Aires on Friday overturned a previous decision not to pursue a case against State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and senior officers in the Myanmar military. Instead, it has requested more information from the International Criminal Court (ICC) to ensure that a case in Argentina would not duplicate other justice efforts, BROUK said in a statement. The Argentine court's progress comes in addition to the ICC investigation and the Gambia's case filed in November, 2019 against Myanmar for violating the Genocide Convention with the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
On November 13, last year, BROUK filed a petition with the Argentinian court to open an investigation into the role of Myanmar's civilian and military leaders in committing genocide and crimes against humanity against the Rohingyas. Under the principle of universal jurisdiction, such crimes can be investigated anywhere in the world regardless of where they were committed.
"For decades, Myanmar authorities have tried to wipe the Rohingya out as a people. Today, the Argentinean judiciary has sent a clear signal that it is taking seriously the pursuit of justice for some of the worst crimes of our time, and we are grateful for this display of leadership and respect for international law," said Tun Khin, President of BROUK. "Today's ruling brings us closer to what victims most want to see -- that the architects of the genocide against the Rohingya face a court of law. We are convinced that a universal jurisdiction case in Argentina will only complement and strengthen other international justice efforts, not undermine them," he said..."
Source/publisher:
"The Daily Star" (Bangladesh)
Date of entry/update:
2020-06-03
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Language:
Local URL:
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Summary:
"Myanmar recently sent its first report to the International Criminal Court on the steps it’s taking to protect the Rohingya. The report isn’t public, but Rohingya activists and rights advocates say...
Description:
"Myanmar recently sent its first report to the International Criminal Court on the steps it’s taking to protect the Rohingya. The report isn’t public, but Rohingya activists and rights advocates say ongoing violence and human rights abuses show Myanmar hasn’t complied with the court’s orders.
Editorial
Rights advocates and ethnic Rohingya activists say Myanmar is failing to comply with orders from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to take steps to protect the Muslim minority from ongoing genocide.
On May 23, Myanmar submitted its first report to the ICJ outlining how the government and military are complying with the court’s orders to prevent genocide and preserve evidence. The court issued the orders in January after the first hearings in the case brought by The Gambia charging Myanmar with genocide, as the case could take years to resolve.
Though the report is not yet public, ALTSEAN Burma (the Alternative ASEAN Network on Burma) and other groups claim Myanmar has done little to end violence against ethnic minorities, prevent discrimination or stop hate speech and violence.
Following the ICJ hearing, there have been at least five cases in which Rohingya civilians were killed by the Myanmar military or in fighting between the military and ethnic armed group the Arakan Army (AA).
In an op-ed in Frontier Myanmar, three Rohingya youth leaders—Zahidullah, Shohid and Abdullah Zubair—say Myanmar hasn’t changed its course since the ICJ hearing in January.
“If we had an opportunity to respond to Myanmar’s report, the following is what we would say.
In the four months since the ICJ issued the provisional measures ruling, our lives in Bangladesh and Myanmar have become worse,” the three wrote. They say that Rohingya groups have documented at least 54 cases of rights abuses against Rohingya in Rakhine between January and May..."
Source/publisher:
"ASEAN Today" (Singapore)
Date of entry/update:
2020-05-30
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
International Court of Justice (ICJ) - Myanmar, Genocide, Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first)
Language:
Local URL:
more
Sub-title:
Expectations about international justice are unrealistically high among Rohingya in the camps in Bangladesh, and the case before the ICJ is likely to end in disappointment.
Description:
"On May 23, Myanmar had to submit its first report to the International Court of Justice in The Hague about the measures it has taken to prevent the genocide of the Rohingya people. The report was not made public so we can only guess what Myanmar is telling the court about the situation in Rakhine State.
There have been many times during the past three years when discussions about the Rohingya have taken place in other countries without our involvement. If we had an opportunity to respond to Myanmar’s report, the following is what we would say.
In the four months since the ICJ issued the provisional measures ruling, our lives in Bangladesh and Myanmar have become worse. There is no justice for us in the camps, where we have no education, no livelihoods, no movement, no internet and no hope for the future.
There is no justice for the Rohingya who are forced to flee on boats and are abused and extorted by people smugglers.
Support independent journalism in Myanmar. Sign up to be a Frontier member.
There is no justice for the hundreds of young men who are forced to join criminal gangs in the camps, or the women and girls who are harassed and abused by gang leaders. There is no justice for our brothers and sisters in Rakhine who are caught in the middle of a war that is not their own.
Rohingya civil society groups that help refugees have been documenting abuses in Rakhine since the ICJ handed down its ruling in January. Between January and May they have recorded 54 cases of human rights abuses against Rohingya, including deaths and injuries by landmines and shelling. Because the internet has been blocked on both sides of the border, we think the number of cases is likely much higher..."
Source/publisher:
"Frontier Myanmar" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update:
2020-05-30
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
International Court of Justice (ICJ) - Myanmar, Genocide, Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first)
Language:
Local URL:
more
Description:
"Myanmar, on Saturday, confirmed that it had submitted a report to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), or sometimes called the World Court, on preventing further acts of genocide against the country's Muslim Rohingya minority as well as preserving evidence of the genocidal campaign seen in recent years.
In January, the top UN court issued a provisional order asking Myanmar to take certain preventive measures against the genocide of the Rohingya community in the western Rakhine state of Myanmar, reports Turkey’s Anadolu Agency.
About its compliance report, a Foreign Ministry official of Myanmar, on Saturday said: “We submitted it to the ICJ today.”
As he was not authorized to speak to the media, he sought anonymity, and informed the report was based on three directives issued by the president’s office this April in response to the ICJ order.
He said Myanmar’s President Win Myint ordered the regional government and military not to remove or destroy evidence of a genocide, and prevent anyone and all groups from committing genocidal acts as well as prevent incitement and hate speech against the Rohingya population.
“What I know is that the report was based on what we have done and what we are doing regarding these three directives,” commented the official.
It is unclear if the court will make the report public..."
Source/publisher:
"Dhaka Tribune" (Bangladesh)
Date of entry/update:
2020-05-26
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), International Court of Justice (ICJ) - Myanmar, Genocide
Language:
Local URL:
more
Sub-title:
Myanmar leaders said to order prevention of genocidal acts and hate speech against Rohingya Muslims
Description:
"Myanmar confirmed on Saturday that it had submitted a report to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on preventing further acts of genocide against the country's Muslim Rohingya minority as well as preserving evidence of the genocidal campaign seen in recent years.
In January, the top UN court issued a provisional order asking Myanmar to implement certain preventive measures against the genocide of the Rohingya community in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state.
About Myanmar’s compliance report, a Foreign Ministry official on Saturday told Anadolu Agency over the phone: “We submitted it to the ICJ today.”
On condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to media, the official said the report was based on three directives issued by the president’s office this April in response to the ICJ order.
He said Win Myint, Myanmar’s president, ordered the regional government and military not to remove or destroy evidence of a genocide while it must prevent anyone and all groups from committing genocidal acts as well as prevent incitement and hate speech against the Rohingya.
‘What I know is that the report was based on what we done and what we are doing regarding these three directives,” said the official..."
Source/publisher:
"Anadolu Agency" (Ankara)
Date of entry/update:
2020-05-24
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
International Court of Justice (ICJ) - Myanmar, Genocide, Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first)
Language:
Local URL:
more
Sub-title:
4 months after UN court orders Myanmar to prevent Rohingya genocide, Yangon scheduled to submit first report on May 23
Description:
"Myanmar on Saturday will submit its first compliance report to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on a previous order to prevent and not commit genocide against the Muslim Rohingya minority in the country.
Early in January, the top UN court issued a provisional order asking Myanmar to implement certain preventive measures against the genocide of the persecuted community.
The ICJ may rule against making the report public. However, Myanmar was ordered to share a copy of the report with Gambia for the West African country to submit its comments.
The ICJ is set to hear Myanmar on its implementation of "all measures taken to give effect" to its order, seeking to ensure Yangon prevents genocidal acts -- including by its own security forces -- and preserve all potential evidence of genocidal acts.
The ICJ had given to Myanmar four months, ending on May 23, 2020. Subsequent reports will be filed every six months.
However, the UN's former Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, Yanghee Lee, said Myanmar had not taken any steps since the order.
"Sadly, no progress at all," Lee said in a webinar organized by the Global Justice Center.
The ICJ delivered its verdict on a case filed last December by Gambia.
The Maldives has also hired prominent human rights lawyer Amal Clooney to represent the persecuted Rohingya at the UN court alongside Gambia..."
Source/publisher:
"Anadolu Agency" (Ankara)
Date of entry/update:
2020-05-23
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
International Court of Justice (ICJ) - Myanmar, Genocide, Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first)
Language:
Local URL:
more
Sub-title:
As the deadline approaches to answer to the UN’s top court about abuses against the Rohingya, the government and the military are using the same old tricks
Description:
"Myanmar has until tomorrow to submit a report to the United Nation’s highest court detailing what it is doing to protect the mostly Muslim Rohingya minority from genocide.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered the report, the first of many, as part of “provisional measures” at the start of a trial that is expected to take years.
It made the ruling after The Gambia accused Myanmar of genocide following mass rapes and killings against the Rohingya that forced over 730,000 to flee to Bangladesh in 2017.
In response to this case, the government and the military are taking slightly different, but equally flawed, approaches.
The government has tried to feed people inside Myanmar a nationlist narrative about the need to fight “terrorists” while presenting itself abroad as diplomatic and reasonable.
The military, meanwhile, is brazenly continuing its attacks in Rakhine but pursuing sham accountability against soldiers who have been caught red-handed abusing civilians.
Both are attempts to appease the international community by giving the appearance of cooperation, and neither is a genuine effort to take this opportunity to right the injustices done to the Rohingya and other minority groups..."
Source/publisher:
"Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update:
2020-05-23
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
International Court of Justice (ICJ) - Myanmar, Genocide, Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first)
Language:
Local URL:
more
Sub-title:
The country has until May 23 to provide evidence to the International Court of Justice that genocide has stopped
Description:
"The clock is ticking down to a May 23 deadline for Myanmar’s government to provide demonstrable evidence that it has taken substantive action in the first four months of 2020 to protect its Rohingya minority from genocide.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) imposed that deadline in January in response to The Gambia’s petition for “provisional measures” to protect the Rohingya from “real and imminent risk” of genocide by Myanmar authorities.
Those provisional measures are the ICJ’s first response to The Gambia’s official complaint of Myanmar’s violations of the United Nations’ Genocide Convention. The complaint cited the extreme violence that the Myanmar military, or Tatmadaw, along with Border Security Guard units and armed Buddhist Rakhine civilians, unleashed against Muslim Rohingya civilians in late 2017. The ICJ decision imposed a series of obligations on the Myanmar government linked to a specific timetable for detailing its efforts to meet those benchmarks. The obligations include “taking all measures within its power to prevent” actions that meet the legal definition of acts of genocide and to ensure that the Myanmar military “do not commit acts of genocide, or of conspiracy to commit genocide, of direct and public incitement to commit genocide, of attempt to commit genocide, or of complicity in genocide.”..."
Source/publisher:
"Asia Times" (Hong Kong)
Date of entry/update:
2020-05-22
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
International Court of Justice (ICJ) - Myanmar, Genocide, Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first)
Language:
Local URL:
more
Description:
"Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, foreign minister of Myanmar, went to The Hague last December to defend her country against charges of genocide. By going, she also acknowledged that the international community has a legitimate interest in holding countries accountable for genocide and crimes against humanity. Obviously, this includes Myanmar, but as importantly it also includes every other country. By responding as she did, Myanmar’s foreign minister actually raised the bar for other countries accused of committing war crimes.
Myanmar is perhaps the first country to acknowledge the legitimacy of the international court, and the requirement that such serious accusations must be responded to. Indeed, such genocide charges are typically leveled only at already-defeated countries and deposed dictators. Or, as commonly, such crimes are not prosecuted at all. This has been the general policy for most of the other genocides that took place since the international genocide law was promulgated after World War II. By responding, Myanmar is in fact helping to establish new levels of accountability for not just its own army, but the larger community of nations..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update:
2020-04-27
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Language:
Local URL:
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Description:
"As recently as two weeks ago, some of the few Rohingya remaining in Myanmar were still trying to make their way across the border to the relative safety of Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh. This comes 16 months after the governments of Myanmar and Bangladesh agreed Rohingya who had previously fled Myanmar would be helped to return to the country of their birth, and over two months since the International Court of Justice ruled that Myanmar must take a number of steps to protect the Rohingya, who it judged as “at risk of genocide.”
It therefore seems that fears for the safety of the Rohingya remaining in Myanmar were, unfortunately, well founded. And those who made it to the border were some of the luckier ones. The situation is probably even more precarious for the majority of those still in the country, who find themselves in internally displaced people’s camps in Myanmar under the direct supervision and “protection” of the Myanmar military, who orchestrated the “clearance operations” against them in the first place.
As if the background situation of the ethnic cleansing, plus the intrusion the COVID-19 pandemic, were not enough, the Myanmar military has once again ramped up attacks against insurgent groups, and any civilian who belongs to the same ethnic group as the insurgents. Presumably the calculation was that the pandemic might make the insurgent groups less organized and more vulnerable to attack. If that was the case, then it would appear that calculation was wrong..."
Source/publisher:
Arab News (Saudi Arabia)
Date of entry/update:
2020-04-26
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), Genocide, International Court of Justice (ICJ) - Myanmar
Language:
Local URL:
more
Description:
"...Considerable historical evidence affirms that the Rohingya Muslims are indigenous inhabitants and rightful citizens of Myanmar, who have been living in Rakhine State not for decades, but for centuries. The Myanmar government has been systematically eradicating the Rohingya people due to their Islamic religious identity. This analysis finds that the ongoing persecution on Rohingya Muslims is a manifestation of a classical model of ethnic cleansing. The disasters experienced in Rakhine State present a complete evidence of systematic, widespread and prolific human rights violations, including heinous crimes against humanity. This article presents an academic perspective on repeated incidents, based on authentic proofs to international community of ethnic cleansing committed by the Myanmar army. This research has been carried out through various types of sources, such as recent and previously published books, articles, local and international newspapers, TV channels, magazines, documentaries, human rights organizations’ reports, and eye-witness accounts of the victims. Finally, it provides suggestions to resolve the rising problems, which may bring a permanent solution to the long-lasting humanitarian crisis in Rakhine State..."
Date of entry/update:
2020-04-05
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), Burmese refugees in Bangladesh, Discrimination against the Rohingya, Genocide
Language:
Format :
PDF
Size:
1.8 MB
Local URL:
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Description:
"...Following independence in 1948, successive Burmese regimes have fought continuous wars against ethno-religious minorities living on the periphery. The following article analyzes these conflicts through the lens of prospect theory. According to this perspective, regimes are highly sensitive to relative losses and may employ genocidal policies as a means of state-preservation. Our framework applies this theory to three sub-national cases of genocide perpetrated against the Karen, Kachin, and Rohingya ethno-religious groups. Through qualitative case analysis, we unpack multifaceted processes of violence perpetrated against civilians and non-combatants in Burma. Based on our findings, we argue that the Tatmadaw (Burmese military) engaged in genocidal policies, including forced displacement and labor, slash-and-burn tactics, ethno-religious co-optation, and political killings as an instrumental means of preserving the state. Notably, while the military engaged in extreme violence against all three groups, their interest in state preservation varied. Genocidal violence employed against Karen and Kachin, long recognized by the military as “legitimate” groups, was perpetrated to assimilate “hill tribes” into the state. Conversely, violence against the Rohingya evolved with the goal of pushing a perceived “foreign” group out. This study contributes to the growing body of literature within Genocide Studies, linking macro-level theory to sub-national case studies..."
Date of entry/update:
2020-04-05
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Racial or ethnic discrimination in Burma: reports of violations against several groups, Genocide
Language:
Format :
PDF
Size:
1.59 MB
Local URL:
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Sub-title:
The award was granted to the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi three years ago.
Description:
"The City of London Corporation (CLC) on Thursday revoked an honour granted to Aung San Suu Kyi over the treatment of minority Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.
Elected representatives on the body that runs London's historic centre and financial district voted to revoke the freedom of the city granted to Suu Kyi three years ago.
More:
ICJ orders Myanmar to protect Rohingya
Myanmar finds war crimes but no genocide in Rohingya crackdown
'Justice served': Rohingya in Bangladesh hail ICJ order
This move in the United Kingdom followed Suu Kyi's appearance, as Myanmar's civilian leader, at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague in December to personally defend her country against allegations of rape, arson and mass killings against Rohingya victims..."
Source/publisher:
"Al Jazeera" (Qatar)
Date of entry/update:
2020-03-06
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), About Aung San Suu Kyi, Genocide, Discrimination against the Rohingya, Burmese refugees in Bangladesh
Language:
Local URL:
more
Sub-title:
Myanmar is restricting media access to the far western state of Rakhine where the military is fighting Arakan Army rebels.
Description:
""I think I might have told you too much already. Someone will probably tell the government I've been speaking to journalists," the shopkeeper told me.
We were in Maungdaw, a once-bustling town in the northern part of Rakhine state, Myanmar.
We looked around.
There wasn't anyone who stood out as secret police.
After all, it's usually not difficult to pick them out. They are normally better dressed than villagers. A close-cropped haircut means they are most likely to be military intelligence. Sometimes there's a tell-tale sign- a walkie talkie. But the shopkeeper was still worried. He wouldn't tell us his name or give us his phone number. We were on a government-arranged media trip to northern Rakhine. This was where the Myanmar military had launched a brutal crackdown on 25 August 2017, targetting the mainly Muslim Rohingya, an ethnic minority in Myanmar.
Soldiers and Buddhist mobs were accused of killing, torturing and raping Rohingya men and women. Homes were ransacked and set ablaze. The fires raged for days and could be seen from across the border in Bangladesh..."
Source/publisher:
"Al Jazeera" (Qatar)
Date of entry/update:
2020-03-06
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), Genocide, Discrimination against the Rohingya, Burmese refugees in Bangladesh
Language:
Local URL:
more
Sub-title:
The list of countries planning economic and legal measures against Myanmar is growing
Description:
"Last week, the government of Myanmar started paying a real price for its failure to provide meaningful accountability for its security forces’ widespread and systematic violence against the country’s Muslim Rohingya minority in northern Rakhine state in late 2017.
Literally.
On February 26, Germany’s development minister, Gerd Müller, announced that Berlin was suspending development cooperation with Myanmar because of its “ethnic cleansing” of its Rohingya minority. Müller said the suspension would remain in place until Myanmar delivered on its commitment to “guaranteeing the safe return of the more than 700,000 Rohingya who fled for their lives to Bangladesh in late 2017 and protecting the Rohingya who still live in the country.”
Although Müller didn’t specify the financial cost of that suspension, he simultaneously announced an additional German government contribution of €15 million (US$16.5 million) to support Bangladesh’s Rohingya refugee population..."
Source/publisher:
"Asia Times" (Hong Kong)
Date of entry/update:
2020-03-03
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), International Court of Justice (ICJ) - Myanmar, Genocide
Language:
Local URL:
more
Description:
"Al Jazeera cameras have been allowed on a tightly-controlled, government-organised trip to Rakhine state in northern Myanmar, where the army has denied carrying out a genocidal campaign against the Rohingya..."
Source/publisher:
"Al Jazeera" (Qatar)
Date of entry/update:
2020-03-02
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), Genocide, Discrimination against the Rohingya, International Court of Justice (ICJ) - Myanmar
Language:
Local URL:
more
Summary:
"In 1948, Myanmar, then called Burma, gained independence from Britain, although the promised autonomy to the Rohingya people (who are mainly Muslim), as well as other ethnic groups like the Shan and...
Description:
"In 1948, Myanmar, then called Burma, gained independence from Britain, although the promised autonomy to the Rohingya people (who are mainly Muslim), as well as other ethnic groups like the Shan and Kachin people was never granted. Instead, military-government led persecution and theft of land have been their lot. The Rohingya people were stripped of their nationality in 1982, and subsequently labelled as ‘Bangladeshis’.
Since 2012, especially in 2015 and 2017, there were several outbreaks of vicious attacks on the Rohingya people by the Tatmadaw, the Myanmar military forces, which forced over 700,000 to flee from Rakhine province into refugee camps in neighbouring Bangladesh. More than a million Rohingyas live in the squalor, disease, and poverty of the refugee camps in southern Bangladesh, having fled from appalling violence and rape or sexual abuse.
According to “Physicians for Human Rights”, Rohingyas in the camps had been subject to being beaten or injured with weapons, hit by grenades or mortars, or raped or sexually assaulted. For example, in 2017, 6-year-old Abdul Wahid was shot in the head and left leg; despite surviving the attack after surgery in Bangladesh, walking is now an extreme difficulty for him. 21-year-old Rabia Basri lost five relatives when fired at by military forces, and is now unable to walk or even carry loads without the use of crutches.These examples are but the tip of the iceberg.
There are currently around ten refugee camps in Bangladesh, each housing anywhere between 9,000 and 600,000 Rohingyas. The largest camp, Kutupalong, has the highest number and contains an expansion site of makeshift camps.
International hypocrisy
The government of Bangladesh is, of course, not a benevolent force intervening in the crisis; it previously provided the Myanmar government with tens of thousands of names of Rohingyas marked for repatriation, following a joint agreement signed in 2018.
Voluntary repatriation has been refused by many Rohingya refugees over fears of further violence or sexual assault when back in Rakhine province. The government of Myanmar has also steadfastly refused to grant full citizenship to the Rohingya people, instead offering only the concession of ‘part-citizenship’..."
Source/publisher:
"The Socialist" (UK)
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-28
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
International Court of Justice (ICJ) - Myanmar, Genocide, Discrimination against the Rohingya, Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first)
Language:
Local URL:
more
Sub-title:
Human rights lawyer will represent Maldives, which is joining the Gambia in taking Myanmar to court for alleged genocide
Description:
"Amal Clooney will represent the Maldives in seeking justice for Rohingya Muslims at the UN’s highest court, where Myanmar faces accusations of genocide.
The Maldivian government has said it will join the Gambia in challenging Myanmar’s treatment of Rohingya people during an army crackdown in Rakhine state in 2017 that forced more than 700,000 people to flee to neighbouring Bangladesh.
In a unanimous decision in January, the international court of justice (ICJ) in The Hague imposed emergency “provisional measures” on Myanmar, instructing it to prevent genocidal violence against its Rohingya minority and preserve any evidence of past crimes.
The ruling was an outright rejection of the defence put forward by Aung San Suu Kyi, who attended court in person to defend the military’s actions. In evidence to the court she urged ICJ judges to dismiss allegations of genocide and instead allow the country’s court martial system to deal with any human rights abuses. A final judgement is expected to take years. In a statement, Clooney, the human rights lawyer and barrister at Doughty Street Chambers in London, said: “Accountability for genocide in Myanmar is long overdue and I look forward to working on this important effort to seek judicial remedies for Rohingya survivors.”
Clooney successfully represented former the Maldivian president Mohamed Nasheed and secured a UN decision that his 2015 jailing for 13 years was illegal.
She also represented Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, who spent more than 500 days in prison in Myanmar convicted of breaking the colonial-era Official Secrets Act. The journalists had been working on a Reuters investigation into the killing of 10 Rohingya Muslim men in Rakhine state. They were freed in May 2019..."
Source/publisher:
"The Guardian" (UK)
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-27
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
International Court of Justice (ICJ) - Myanmar, Genocide, Discrimination against the Rohingya, Burmese refugees in Bangladesh, Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first)
Language:
Local URL:
more
Sub-title:
British-Lebanese lawyer said she is delighted to represent the Rohingya before the International Court of Justice.
Description:
"The Maldives has hired the services of prominent human rights lawyer Amal Clooney to represent the persecuted Rohingya at the United Nations court.
"I am delighted to have been asked to represent the Maldives before the International Court of Justice [ICJ]. Accountability for genocide in Myanmar is long overdue and I look forward to working on this important effort to seek judicial remedies for Rohingya survivors," the British-Lebanese lawyer said. More:
Will the ICJ order Myanmar to stop alleged Rohingya genocide?
'Great news': Bangladesh allows education for Rohingya children
'Justice served': Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh hail ICJ ruling
Clooney is married to Hollywood actor George Clooney.
The Maldives said it will file a written declaration of intervention at the ICJ supporting the Rohingya, a persecuted Muslim minority in Myanmar.
"In line with the decision taken at the 14th Islamic Summit of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation [OIC], the Republic of Maldives intends to extend its support for the efforts to seek accountability for the acts of genocide committed against the Rohingya people," Foreign Minister Abdulla Shahid said..."
Source/publisher:
"Al Jazeera" (Qatar)
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-27
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), International Court of Justice (ICJ) - Myanmar, Genocide
Language:
Local URL:
more
Sub-title:
The minister made the declaration while addressing the 43rd Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva on Tuesday
Description:
"Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdulla Shahid has announced the Maldivian administration's decision to file a written declaration of intervention at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague, in support of the persecuted Rohingya people.
The minister made the declaration while addressing the 43rd Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva on Tuesday.
In his statement, Minister Shahid noted that the government welcomed ICJ's ruling last month, which ordered Myanmar to "take all measures within its power” to protect the Rohingya from genocide.
"The Maldives intends to support the ongoing efforts to secure accountability for the perpetrators of genocide against the Rohingya people, in line with the decision taken by the OIC during the Summit held in Makkah last year," said Minister Shahid, referring to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation's calls on the ad hoc ministerial committee to launch a case over Myanmar's human rights violations against the Rohingya Muslims at the ICJ..."
Source/publisher:
"Dhaka Tribune" (Bangladesh)
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-26
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
International Court of Justice (ICJ) - Myanmar, Genocide, Discrimination against the Rohingya, Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first)
Language:
Local URL:
more
Description:
"Professor William Schabas, who defended Myanmar at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against genocide charges in December, will deliver a lecture at Yangon University on March 5.
The Canadian-born academic is professor of international law at Middlesex University in the UK. He was among three senior members of Myanmar’s delegation at the ICJ. In December at the ICJ, Schabas denied genocide took place during the military clearance operation in Rakhine State in 2017 against the Rohingya community in which hundreds were killed and hundreds of thousands displaced.
Schabas will give a lecturer on legal affairs at Yangon University’s Convocation Hall in the morning, director-general of the Higher Education Department Dr. Thein Win told The Irrawaddy.
“The event is mainly intended for law students so that they can learn from a foreign academic to broaden their horizons,” he said..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-26
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Language:
Local URL:
more
Description:
"In this episode of UpFront we challenge Aung San Suu Kyi's former spokesperson on allegations of genocide in Myanmar's Rakhine state.
And we debate the police response to protests in France against President Emmanuel Macron's government with La Republique En Marche MP Roland Lescure..."
Source/publisher:
"Al Jazeera" (Qatar)
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-24
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), Discrimination against the Rohingya, Genocide, About Aung San Suu Kyi
Language:
Local URL:
more
Sub-title:
Aung San Suu Kyi's former spokesperson Nyo Ohn Myint dismisses atrocities carried out against the Rohingya.
Description:
"In January the International Court of Justice ordered Myanmar to prevent the genocide of Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine state. Myanmar's government rejected the ruling, saying it was based on a "distorted picture of the situation".
According to the UN, at least 10,000 people have been killed and more than 700,000 have fled Rakhine state since the Myanmar military's crackdown began in 2017. Thousands of Rohingya women and girls have been raped, and around 300 villages burnt to the ground.
The former spokesman of Myanmar's de-facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, is dismissing the allegations, describing them as "one-sided".
"Most of the international people live in the rumours, hearsay," Nyo Ohn Myint said.
"This is a political accusation … because you know, they just joined the bandwagon," he added.
Nyo Ohn Myint also questioned the evidence gathered by the international community - which has been denied access to Rakhine state by Myanmar's government.
"When I read the US State Department report that said the Rohingya women were raped by soldiers and surrounded by hundreds of soldiers, it looked like the very, you know ... third-class Hollywood movie," he said.
Nyo Ohn Myint suggested that some of the women who gave accounts of their rape to Amnesty International were lying.
"I don't know because if I, if I look at her eye, maybe she was true or maybe she was lying," he said.
This week's Headliner, Aung San Suu Kyi's former spokesperson, Nyo Ohn Myint..."
Source/publisher:
"Al Jazeera" (Qatar)
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-23
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), Discrimination against the Rohingya, Burmese refugees in Bangladesh, Genocide
Language:
Local URL:
more
Sub-title:
Exclusive: Australia accused of giving legitimacy and credibility to a military accused of mass atrocities
Description:
"The commander-in-chief of Myanmar’s defence forces – recommended by the UN for investigation and prosecution for war crimes and genocide – has met with Australia’s ambassador and says he wants to train more of his officers in Australia.
Senior General Min Aung Hlaing is the supreme commander of Myanmar’s military, known as the Tatmadaw, which has been accused of genocide in its systematic persecution of the ethnic and religious minority Rohingya.
In “clearance operations” begun in August 2017, thousands of Rohingya were murdered, women and girls were gang raped, while pregnant women were targeted for torture and murder. Other people were burned alive in their homes, and more than 700,000 Rohingya fled over the border to Bangladesh.
Australia’s ambassador, Andrea Faulkner, met Min Aung Hlaing on 29 January at the Bayintnaung Villa in the capital, Naypyidaw. The pair exchanged gifts and posed for photos. Human Rights Watch has said Australia’s decision to take the meeting risked giving legitimacy and credibility to a military accused of mass atrocities..."
Source/publisher:
"The Guardian" (UK)
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-21
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), Genocide, Discrimination against the Rohingya, Burmese refugees in Bangladesh, Australia-Burma relations
Language:
Local URL:
more
Sub-title:
How likely is Myanmar to make policy changes after the ICJ ruling?
Description:
"oes Myanmar have any obligation to take the world court -- the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague – seriously?
The second question is whether Myanmar’s quasi-military ruler has the political will to implement the landmark judgment of January 23. Myanmar has officially rejected the International Court of Justice’s historic ruling, and accused international rights groups of making exaggerated statements about the prevailing situation. It also rejected the UN fact-finding mission’s report on the basis of being “one-sided.”
It is well understood that the ICJ has no legal jurisdiction over Myanmar or any individual nation.
The ICJ ordered Myanmar to implement vital measures to protect its Rohingya population from facing any further atrocities. This ruling has been hailed as an “accomplishment of international justice.” The court further ordered Myanmar to ensure protection from destruction of any evidence of “possible” genocide.
The ruling means that a global body, for the first time, has officially recognized the threat of abuse against the Rohingya, and ordered Myanmar to protect the community..."
Source/publisher:
"Dhaka Tribune" (Bangladesh)
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-18
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
International Court of Justice (ICJ) - Myanmar, Genocide, Discrimination against the Rohingya, Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first)
Language:
Local URL:
more
Sub-title:
Kirin has stakes in two breweries and donated directly to the military, which the UN says is ‘indefensible’
Description:
"Japanese beverages giant Kirin – parent brewer of a suite of Australian beer brands such as XXXX, Tooheys, and James Squire – could pull out of the brewery it co-owns with the Myanmar military, after facing international condemnation for its business partnership with an army accused of genocide.
The company’s president and chief executive, Yoshinori Isozaki, said in a statement the company recognised the “challenges of operating in frontier markets” and was working to improve its practices.
“Human rights is fundamental to all of our business activities … we are reviewing strategic options for our operations in Myanmar.”
Kirin’s review of its partnership with the Myanmar military is being led by its international advisory board, whose members include Australians Sir Rod Eddington and Paula Dwyer. Kirin owns a little over half of both Myanmar Brewery and Mandalay Brewery in partnership with Myanmar Economic Holdings Ltd (MEHL), a conglomerate of the Myanmar military, accused of committing genocide in its persecution of the Rohingya ethnic and religious minority.
The business partnership with Kirin provides not only much-needed foreign currency for the isolated Myanmar military – which is subject to global arms embargoes – but also, crucially, is a source of international legitimacy..."
Source/publisher:
"The Guardian" (UK)
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-16
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), Discrimination against the Rohingya, Genocide, Japan-Burma relations
Language:
Local URL:
more
Description:
"On 23 January, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued what amounted to a “cease and desist” order against Myanmar, ordering authorities there to end genocidal practices against the Rohingya. The ruling of the so-called “World Court” has brought hope that international justice will prevail after the horrors inflicted on women, men and children in Rakhine State by Myanmar’s security forces.
But while the court’s ruling was a landmark moment, there are still many lingering questions. What happens next? What effects will the ruling have on Myanmar’s domestic scene, where an election looms later this year? Will Myanmar comply with the order — and what happens if it does not?
The ICJ’s ruling meant that a global legal body for the first time officially recognised the real threat of abuse against the Rohingya, and ordered Myanmar to do what it can to protect them. The ICJ also called on Myanmar to prevent further breaches of the Genocide Convention, rein in abuses by its security forces and preserve evidence of past abuses..."
Source/publisher:
"Euronews" (Lyon)
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-15
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
International Court of Justice (ICJ) - Myanmar, Genocide, Discrimination against the Rohingya, Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first)
Language:
Local URL:
more
Sub-title:
Genesis of sustained, institutionalized destruction of Rohingya is anchored in group’s identity as Muslims
Description:
"The International Court of Justice’s Jan. 23 interim order in a case filed by Gambia against Myanmar is designed to protect the Rohingya and preserve the crime sites. It has brought a sense of vindication to several million Rohingya victims – in the diaspora, inside Myanmar, and in refugee camps in Bangladesh.
It was by far the most significant act the international community has taken since the Rohingya have been subjected to a national policy of discrimination, disenfranchisement, displacement and destructive deportation by various organs of the state in Myanmar.
The case which Gambia brought before the court has focused narrowly on the violent events of 2016 and 2017. However, it is crucial to see this group destruction in the proper context which began under the false pretext of Myanmar’s attempts at cracking down on the “illegal immigration” across Myanmar-Bangladesh borders which stretch 270 miles.
As a matter of fact, today (Feb. 12) marks the 42nd anniversary of the first violently genocidal purge -- centrally organized by the then military dictatorship of General Ne Win in Rangoon involving various agencies, not only the government troops and police force but also departments or ministries of religious affairs, customs and various branches of intelligence
Paradoxically, this is also the date in which Myanmar celebrates “Union Day” -- when the country’s majority Buddhist Burmese public and several national minorities along the borders of colonial Burma agreed to merge their regions voluntarily to form a single federated independent nation in 1947.
On the very same day, in Rakhine, a state in western Myanmar that borders Bangladesh, Myanmar launched the first-ever violent deportation of literally hundreds of thousands of Rohingya -- the majority of whom were born and raised in the region and had official IDs and documentation that proved their Myanmar nationality.
The purges were carried out in two phases under military-style operations collectively known as Operation Dragon King.
The first phase was launched in Rakhine state’s capital Sittwe on Feb. 12, 1978, and lasted only a week, involving 200 interagency forces that resorted to various acts of violence and terror. The second phase was carried out in the northern Rakhine towns of Buthidaung and Maungdaw with 400 interagency security forces.
Myanmar troops resorted to arson, slaughter, rape and other terror methods in the region where the population was peaceful, unarmed and compliant as evidenced in the newspaper reports of the time from Bangladesh, Pakistan and other Asian regions..."
Source/publisher:
"Anadolu Agency" (Ankara)
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-13
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Genocide, Discrimination against the Rohingya, Burmese refugees in Bangladesh, Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first)
Language:
Local URL:
more
Sub-title:
Political will is extremely crucial since ICJ has no jurisdiction or legal apparatus over individual nations.
Description:
"In a historic judgement, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on 23 January ordered Myanmar to implement vital measures to protect its Rohingya population from any further atrocities. This ruling has been hailed as an “accomplishment of international justice.” This lawsuit was brought by Gambia, a small African Muslim state backed by the 57 nation Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in November at the United Nations’ highest body for disputes between states. It accused Myanmar of genocide against Rohingya in violation of a 1948 Genocide Convention.
The court witnessed the trial on 10–11 December where the State Counsellor of Myanmar Aung San Suu Kyi was herself present to defend her country’s honour. She emphasised that the accusations made against her government are “incomplete and misleading factual picture of the situation,” thus categorically denying the allegations of genocide and thereby requesting to dismiss the charges brought to it. Under the presiding Judge Abdulqawi Yusuf and 16 other judges present in the panel, the undisputed ruling on 23 January granted Gambia’s request for preliminary measures. According to the court, the Rohingyas face an ongoing threat that necessitates Myanmar to “take all measures within its power to prevent all acts” prohibited under the 1948 Genocide Convention, and report back to the court within four months, and then, every six months after that..."
Source/publisher:
Observer Research Foundation (ORF) via "Europe-Asia Studies"
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-11
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
International Court of Justice (ICJ) - Myanmar, Genocide, Discrimination against the Rohingya, Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first)
Language:
Local URL:
more
Description:
"Worldwide 70.8 million people were forcibly displaced from their home because of armed
conflict, generalized violence and human rights violations. These millions of stateless people
have been denied national identity and fundamental rights (education, healthcare, employment
and freedom of movement) (UNHCR, 2019a). According to UNHCR, 67% (Two-thirds) of all
the refugees worldwide belong to only five countries: Syria, Afghanistan, South Sudan,
Myanmar and Somalia (UNHCR, 2019b). The Rohingya ethnic minority group is among some
of those stateless people who used to live in the Rakhine state of Myanmar. Myanmar is a multiethnic, multi-lingual and multi-religious country which has 135 official ethnic groups. All of
these ethnic groups are aggregated in eight major ethnic groups where Bamars (32% of the total
population) are the majority, and intrastate conflicts are often recorded between the Burmese
military force (Tatmadaw1
) and other ethnic armed groups (Stokke et al., 2018:3-4, 46;
Strömberg, 2018:6; François and Souris, 2018:12; Mithun, 2018:648). In contrast, compared to
the other ethnic conflicts in Myanmar, “The Rohingya conflict is highly asymmetrical in terms
of power, resources and military assets as the Rohingya population as a group has very few
resources, military or otherwise”. Describing the Rohingya conflict as a two-party conflict is
difficult. It is more like systematic discrimination, denial of human rights and violence,
specifically against the Rohingya civilians (SIDA, 2019:2)..."
Source/publisher:
Academia.edu (USA) via Mostakim Bin Motaher
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-11
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), Discrimination against the Rohingya, Genocide, Burmese refugees in Bangladesh
Language:
Format :
pdf
Size:
864.87 KB (33 pages)
Local URL:
more
Sub-title:
The ICJ's order that Myanmar does all it can to prevent genocide offers the Rohingya hope for the future.
Description:
"On January 23, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague imposed emergency "provisional measures" on Myanmar regarding its actions against and treatment of the Rohingya minority - my people. To the average person this may sound like incomprehensible legalese. But for many Rohingya, who had long been waiting for the international community to take meaningful action to end their suffering, this was some of the best news they had ever received.
With this decision, the United Nations' "World Court" effectively instructed the government of Aung San Suu Kyi to respect the requirements of the 1948 genocide convention and bring an end to its military's attacks on the Rohingya. This decision marked the first time that a credible international body said "enough" to the government that for so many decades has abused and oppressed us.
My people's plight captured global headlines in August 2017, when the Tatmadaw (the Myanmar military) launched a vicious "clearance operation" in the Rakhine State, which was home to more than a million Rohingya. Over the course of a few weeks, soldiers rampaged through the region, killing thousands, committing mass rapes, burning villages to the ground, and driving more than 700,000 people to flee into neighbouring Bangladesh.
As shocking as the violence was, it was only the tip of the iceberg. For decades, the Myanmar authorities have confined the Rohingya to a virtual open-air prison in the Rakhine state. It denied us citizenship since 1982, effectively rendering us stateless. Our freedom of movement even within Myanmar is extremely limited. We are expected to acquire official permission, and often pay bribes, to leave our home villages. Healthcare and education are off-limits to most Rohingya. This is all part of a deliberate effort by Myanmar not only to dehumanise us, but also to make our lives so miserable that we have no option but to leave..."
Source/publisher:
"Al Jazeera" (Qatar)
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-08
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
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International Court of Justice (ICJ) - Myanmar, Genocide, Discrimination against the Rohingya, Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first)
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"Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has sought continued support of the European Union (EU) to ensure safe, dignified, and sustainable return of the displaced Rohingya refugees back to Myanmar, a media report said on Friday.
"The Bangladesh Prime Minister thanked the EU members, including Italy, for their support to the cause of the Rohingya," The Daily Star newspaper quoted a joint statement issued on Thursday after talks between Hasina and her Italian counterpart Giuseppe Conte in Rome, as saying.
Briefing reporters after the meeting, Hasina's Press Secretary Ihsanul Karim said both sides welcomed the January 23 decision of International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the Rohingya crisis.
Karim said that Conte appreciated Bangladesh's management of the Rohingya crisis, adding that he encouraged Hasina to continue with the policy of hospitality. In its January ruling, the ICJ directed Myanmar to prevent the alleged genocide against the Muslim minority community.
The court said Myanmar must "take all measures within its power to prevent the commission of all acts" described by the convention.
Nearly 738,000 Rohingya refugees are living in camps in Bangladesh since Aug. 25, 2017, following a wave of persecution and violence in Myanmar that the UN has described as a textbook example of ethnic cleansing and possible genocide.
Myanmar does not use the Rohingya term and also doesn't recognize them as its citizens, arguing that they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh..."
Source/publisher:
Daijiworld.com
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-07
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
International Court of Justice (ICJ) - Myanmar, Genocide, Discrimination against the Rohingya, Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first)
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Sub-title:
The reach of the International Court of Justice is limited in ameliorating violent conflicts within or between states, says Hurst Hannum.
Description:
"Myanmar has been ordered by the International Court of Justice to take “provisional measures” to protect the Rohingya, an ethnic Muslim minority in the Buddhist-majority country that has suffered “mass killing, mass displacement, mass fear [and] overwhelming … brutality” at the hands of the military.
Over 700,000 Rohingya fled or were forced out of the country since 2016, most to neighbouring Bangladesh. The order comes after the African state of Gambia in November 2019 filed a complaint of genocide of the Rohingya against Myanmar with the International Court of Justice, the judicial organ of the United Nations.
Under the 1948 Genocide Convention, genocide requires a specific intent to destroy a group in whole or in part. READ: Myanmar already protecting Rohingya, ruling party says after world court's order
The United Nations (UN) General Assembly and numerous human rights organisations have for years condemned Myanmar’s attacks on the Rohingya..."
Source/publisher:
"CNA" (Singapore)
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-05
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
International Court of Justice (ICJ) - Myanmar, Genocide, Discrimination against the Rohingya, Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first)
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Sub-title:
Myanmar's allies China and Vietnam block vote on a joint statement forcing EU member states to make separate report.
Description:
"The UN Security Council on Tuesday discussed the International Court of Justice's order that Myanmar do all it can to prevent genocide against the Rohingya Muslims, but failed to agree on a statement.
China, an ally of Myanmar, as well as Vietnam, which is a member of the regional Association of Southeast Nations (ASEAN) along with Myanmar, objected, diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity because it was a closed-door meeting.
More:
'As expected': People in Myanmar shrug off ICJ Rohingya ruling
After ICJ ruling, Myanmar denies genocide against Rohingya
Myanmar: Defending genocide at the CJ
Instead, the European Union members of the council urged Myanmar in a joint statement to reporters afterwards to comply with the measures ordered by the UN's top court, stressing that they were "compulsory under international law."
France, Germany, Belgium and Estonia along with former council member Poland also urged Myanmar "to take credible action to bring to justice those responsible for human rights violations."..."
Source/publisher:
"Al Jazeera" (Qatar)
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-05
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
International Court of Justice (ICJ) - Myanmar, Genocide, Discrimination against the Rohingya, Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first)
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Description:
"In the wake of the ruling from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordering Myanmar to prevent genocide against the Rohingya going forward, the initial excitement was tempered by pragmatics—how this important court order can be enforced so that it actually protects the 600,000 Rohingya who remain in Rakhine State.
To be sure, there is no confusion that these measures are binding—as the court noted, they create international legal obligations that require Myanmar’s compliance. But how can the international community guarantee that Myanmar actually does anything? And does Myanmar’s civilian government have the capacity to do what is needed?
The answers to these questions are mixed, generally relying on exertion of geopolitical pressure, including through the United Nations Security Council, to which the order has been transmitted. As a general rule and absent a concrete enforcement mechanism, ICJ orders have a reliable compliance rate. However, looking at the Myanmar case in context, and in particular the measures requiring prevention of the commission of genocide by Myanmar’s military, compliance will require a serious and concerted effort by both the international community and the civilian government..."
Source/publisher:
"Just Security"
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-04
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
International Court of Justice (ICJ) - Myanmar, Genocide, Discrimination against the Rohingya, Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first)
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Sub-title:
Landmark initial ruling against Myanmar also raises doubts about UN impartiality and credibility
Description:
"Given the persistent global publicity and intense lobbying on behalf of persecuted Rohingya refugees, a provisional decision handed down on January 23 against Myanmar by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague came as no surprise.
The ICJ, the United Nations’ principal judicial organ, ordered Myanmar to take measures to stop killing and harming Rohingyas and to implement “all measures within its power to prevent genocide.”
The ruling, likened in reports to a “restraining order”, said Myanmar’s government must further ensure that its military does not “attempt to commit genocide or conspire to commit genocide.” At the same time, ICJ judges underlined in dry legalese that the initial ruling would in no way prejudice the court’s dealing with the “merits of the case”, meaning it has not yet decided whether or not genocide was committed.
The court did go further than requested by Gambia, the country which has brought the case to the ICJ on behalf of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), by ordering Myanmar to report on measures taken to comply with the ruling in four months and thereafter every six months. The initial ruling will add more international pressure on Myanmar to hold those responsible for alleged crimes against humanity to account, but will also likely cause the nation’s leaders to more deeply entrench their position of denial..."
Source/publisher:
"Asia Times" (Hong Kong)
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-03
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
International Court of Justice (ICJ) - Myanmar, Genocide, Discrimination against the Rohingya, Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first)
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Description:
"The Rohingya, who have been described by the UN as the most persecuted minority in the world, experienced a glimmer of hope last week, when the International Court of Justice (ICJ) delivered a remarkable ruling that those members of the community remaining in Myanmar currently face a credible threat of genocide. This was the first time that a genocide case has been brought before the ICJ by a signatory county — in this case, The Gambia.
The case before the ICJ took an unexpected turn in November, when Aung San Suu Kyi, the long-time pro-democracy icon and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and currently the most powerful person in the civilian government in Myanmar, announced that she would defend Myanmar against the charges of genocide in person before the court in The Hague.
For a while, Suu Kyi’s former friends and allies in the international community sought to make sense of what was happening to the Rohingya by casting her as a prisoner of fate to the military establishment, which still controls most of the reins of power in the country. But as Suu Kyi became an increasingly prominent apologist for the army, and even adopted the language of those clamoring for the genocide by denying the very identity of the Rohingya and casting them as foreign “Bengalis,” we have increasingly run out of doubt to give her the benefit of.
All possible doubt was finally dispelled when she appeared before the ICJ, casually admitting that war crimes had taken place, but that what had happened could not be genocide because there was no genocidal intent. She made this case while still refusing to utter the word “Rohingya” and insisting that she was talking about “Bengalis” — an “other” she should not be expected to be responsible for..."
Source/publisher:
Arab News (Saudi Arabia)
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-03
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
International Court of Justice (ICJ) - Myanmar, Genocide, Discrimination against the Rohingya, Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first)
Language:
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Sub-title:
The Myanmar military’s years-long campaign against the Rohingya Muslims left hundreds of villages a smoldering pile of debris.
Description:
"Myanmar has been ordered by the International Court of Justice to take “provisional measures” to protect the Rohingya, an ethnic Muslim minority in the Buddhist-majority country that has suffered “mass killing, mass displacement, mass fear [and] overwhelming…brutality” at the hands of the military.
Over 700,000 Rohingya fled or were forced out of the country since 2016, most to neighboring Bangladesh.
The order comes after the African state of The Gambia in November 2019 filed a complaint of genocide of the Rohingya against Myanmar with the International Court of Justice, the judicial organ of the United Nations. Under the 1948 Genocide Convention, genocide requires a specific intent to destroy a group in whole or in part.
The U.N. General Assembly and numerous human rights organizations have for years condemned Myanmar’s attacks on the Rohingya. The country – which was slowly emerging from the global economic and political isolation that followed its 1989 military coup by making some very modest concessions to democracy – has also been subjected to new sanctions..."
Source/publisher:
The National Interest Online (USA)
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-03
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
International Court of Justice (ICJ) - Myanmar, Genocide, Discrimination against the Rohingya, Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first)
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Sub-title:
The ICJ ruling on Myanmar is a rare bright point in a woeful international response. Unfortunately its powers are limited
Description:
"On Thursday the internet in Kutupalong, a city-sized refugee camp in south-eastern Bangladesh, was switched back on for a few hours. The camp’s residents gathered around their phones as, 5,000 miles away in The Hague, the international court of justice (ICJ) delivered a ruling on Myanmar’s treatment of its Rohingya Muslim minority. They cheered as the court issued a set of legally binding obligations: that Myanmar’s military does not commit acts of genocide against some 600,000 Rohingya who still live in the country, and that evidence of past crimes remains intact. This was the first legal victory for Rohingya since 2017, when upwards of 700,000 were driven into Bangladesh in a campaign by Myanmar’s military that produced the most concentrated outflow of refugees anywhere since the Rwanda genocide in 1994. Responding to attacks by Rohingya militants on security posts in Myanmar’s Rakhine state in late August 2017, military units acted with such ferocity that, within two months, the country had been emptied of nearly half its entire Rohingya population. Those who made it to Bangladesh recounted how troops encircled villages at night and opened fire, cutting down those who fled. Satellite imagery revealed more than 380 destroyed villages, and in the year that followed, new security bases were built where Rohingya homes once stood. Yet until now, there had been little substantive international action..."
Source/publisher:
"The Guardian" (UK)
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-03
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
International Court of Justice (ICJ) - Myanmar, Genocide, Discrimination against the Rohingya, Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first)
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Sub-title:
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has ordered measures to prevent the genocide of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar (formerly Burma).
Description:
"The decision comes despite de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi defending her country against the accusations in person last month.
Thousands of Rohingya died and more than 700,000 fled to Bangladesh during an army crackdown in 2017.
UN investigators have warned that genocidal actions could recur.
The ICJ case, lodged by the African Muslim-majority nation of The Gambia, called for emergency measures to be taken against the Myanmar military until a fuller investigation could be launched.
The man who took Aung San Suu Kyi to the world court
Myanmar Rohingya: What you need to know
The Lady who fell from grace
Myanmar, a predominantly Buddhist state, has always insisted that its military campaign was waged to tackle an extremist threat in Rakhine state.
In her defence statement at the court in The Hague, Ms Suu Kyi described the violence as an "internal armed conflict" triggered by Rohingya militant attacks on government security posts..."
Source/publisher:
"BBC News" (London)
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-01
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
International Court of Justice (ICJ) - Myanmar, Genocide, Discrimination against the Rohingya, Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first)
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Sub-title:
So-called Independent Commission of Enquiry whitewashes military abuses in bid to elude genocide charges
Description:
"Myanmar’s government made a stunningly rare admission of wrongdoing recently when it admitted that “war crimes” had been perpetrated against Muslims in Rakhine state during the violence of 2017. Unsurprisingly, it concluded the savagery did not constitute genocide as United Nations (UN) and other human rights investigators have suggested.
The government made the admission following the finalization of the Independent Commission of Enquiry (ICOE) report, the executive summary of which was made public just days before the United Nations’ International Court of Justice (ICJ) announced temporary provisions on Myanmar in its ongoing proceedings on genocide charges. The ICOE’s conclusions evinced two broad international receptions: one of measured acknowledgement that it admitted to serious crimes previously flatly denied by the administration of State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi – and thus provides a foundation for further discussion on accountability – and another of blithe indifference. While the report should be dismissed as another exercise in cynical codswallop from an unrepentant military and civilian government, the ICOE experience nonetheless signals something more. That is, the report bids to peddle a sense of official partial closure on what happened in Rakhine state and that government business may now return to normal..."
Source/publisher:
"Asia Times" (Hong Kong)
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-01
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
International Court of Justice (ICJ) - Myanmar, Genocide, Discrimination against the Rohingya, Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory
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Description:
"Myanmar has been ordered by the International Court of Justice to take “provisional measures” to protect the Rohingya, an ethnic Muslim minority in the Buddhist-majority country that has suffered “mass killing, mass displacement, mass fear [and] overwhelming…brutality” at the hands of the military.
Over 700,000 Rohingya fled or were forced out of the country since 2016, most to neighboring Bangladesh.
The order comes after the African state of The Gambia in November 2019 filed a complaint of genocide of the Rohingya against Myanmar with the International Court of Justice, the judicial organ of the United Nations. Under the 1948 Genocide Convention, genocide requires a specific intent to destroy a group in whole or in part.
The U.N. General Assembly and numerous human rights organizations have for years condemned Myanmar’s attacks on the Rohingya. The country – which was slowly emerging from the global economic and political isolation that followed its 1989 military coup by making some very modest concessions to democracy – has also been subjected to new sanctions.
But this is the first judicial intervention in the crisis. Can international law protect the Rohingya when diplomacy, politics and sanctions have failed?..."
Source/publisher:
"The Conversation"
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-01
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), Genocide, Discrimination against the Rohingya
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Sub-title:
Despite indifference to legal cases some ethnic minority groups are backing the Rohingya to push back against military.
Description:
" While thousands rallied in Yangon in December to support Myanmar's government as it contested allegations of genocide at the International Court of Justice, the public response to the first of the court's rulings has been decidedly more muted.
The ICJ imposed a series of provisional measures on Myanmar last week, ordering it to take certain action to prevent future acts of genocide against the Rohingya Muslim minority.
The judges also rejected Myanmar's motions to dismiss the case, which means the trial will now proceed to hear arguments on the alleged genocide itself.
The decision brought criticism from officials. Than Htay, the chairman of the military-aligned opposition Union Solidarity and Development Party claimed “all 52 million people” in Myanmar would disagree with it, according to The Standard Time Daily, a local newspaper.
But on the streets of the country's biggest city, the ruling barely registered.
Two students who spoke to Al Jazeera separately both said neither they nor their friends particularly cared about the ICJ. “Yes I know about it, but I don’t really follow it,” said one.
Another woman, from Rakhine but living in Yangon, said the result was “as expected”. When asked if she agreed with the ruling, she said: “Yes. It should be.”
The ICJ case against Myanmar was brought by the Gambia accusing the country of committing genocide in its actions against the Rohingya and a brutal military crackdown in Rakhine in 2017 that sent 740,000 people fleeing across the border to Bangladesh..."
Source/publisher:
"Al Jazeera" (Qatar)
Date of entry/update:
2020-01-31
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
International Court of Justice (ICJ) - Myanmar, Genocide, Discrimination against the Rohingya, Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first)
Language:
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Sub-title:
A weekly look at the public conversations shaping ideas beyond borders — in the Subcontinent. Curated by Asad Ali
Description:
"The editorial again pointedly ends by saying that since “What Bangladesh has been saying has found a voice at the World Court, we once again appeal to the entire world to step up its effort to assist Bangladesh in protecting the Rohingyas, and to hold Myanmar accountable for its many crimes that must not be ignored any longer.” The grim situation of the Rohingyas in Myanmar and the decision of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), The Hague — ordering Myanmar to urgently take “provisional” measures to protect the Rohingya from violence — is highlighted in an editorial in Daily Star. It recounts the ICJ verdict to justify “what Bangladesh has been saying at the top of its voice”. The editorial, right at the outset, says, “We hope the whole world is listening at last.” It then goes about putting into perspective the Rohingya crisis and Myanmar’s inability to deal with it in a humane manner: “Declaring there is prima facie evidence of breaches of the 1948 genocide convention, the court found that the Rohingyas remaining in Myanmar were “extremely vulnerable” to violence at the hands of Myanmar’s military. And, therefore, the panel of 17 judges, in its unanimous ruling, asked Myanmar to report back to it within four months on the actions it has taken to prevent any serious harm being done to the Rohingyas and every six months thenceforth.” The editorial goes on to say that, “We owe a debt of gratitude to Gambia for bringing this matter to the attention of the ICJ. Despite the fact that the ruling dealt only with the Gambia’s request for so-called preliminary measures, the equivalent of a restraining order for states —not the court’s final decision — it nevertheless could pave the way for Myanmar to finally be held accountable for its atrocities against the Rohingyas.”..."
Source/publisher:
"The Indian Express" (India)
Date of entry/update:
2020-01-31
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
International Court of Justice (ICJ) - Myanmar, Genocide, Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first)
Language:
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Description:
"The inability of international law to effectively address situations of mass human rights atrocities, in particular genocide, within States has been the source of much consternation for international lawyers. The term genocide, deriving from the Greek prefix genos meaning race or tribe and the Latin suffix cide meaning killing, was coined by Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin in 1944, in the aftermath of the Holocaust. It was soon codified as an independent crime under the 1948 United Nations Convention, acceded to by around 152 states. However, in over 70 years of operation of the Convention, the record of establishing State responsibility for the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide has been unsatisfactory, illustrated by well-documented failures in Cambodia, Rwanda and Yugoslavia.
However, in a significant ruling on the Rohingya issue, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) took tentative steps towards remedying In its preliminary judgment, the ICJ unanimously granted provisional measures, at the request of Gambia, directing Myanmar to take all measures within its power to prevent the commission of all acts, including by any persons subject to its direction, control or influence, which constitute genocide under the convention in relation to the Rohingya people in its territory; and take all measures to prevent the destruction and ensure the preservation of evidence related to the allegation of genocide. More strikingly, the ICJ sought to oversee the implementation of its provisional measures, directing Myanmar to submit a report to the court on all measures taken to give effect to the order, within four months from the date of the order, and thereafter every six months until the final decision.its otherwise unenviable record of adjudicating allegations of genocide..."
Source/publisher:
"Hindustan Times " (India)
Date of entry/update:
2020-01-30
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
International Court of Justice (ICJ) - Myanmar, Genocide, Discrimination against the Rohingya, Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first)
Language:
Local URL:
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Sub-title:
Why would Gambia step up for the Muslim minority Rohingya thousands of miles away?
Description:
"On Thursday, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued a unanimous ruling that ordered Myanmar to “take all measures within its power” to protect its ethnic minority Rohingya population from genocide. The case — against which Myanmar’s civilian leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, argued unsuccessfully — ended up in front of the ICJ because of a tiny African country thousands of miles away. Here’s what you need to know about this story. How the case got started
The case before the ICJ started a few weeks ago, when Gambia accused Myanmar of violating the United Nations’ 1948 Convention on Genocide. Suu Kyi flew to The Hague to defend her country, arguing that her government’s actions were legitimate counterinsurgency efforts against rebels in Rakhine state. Gambia requested immediate measures to prevent further harm to the Rohingya. Last week’s ruling was the ICJ’s response. The ICJ has not yet ruled whether genocide has been committed. The court demanded that Myanmar report back within four months on what steps it has taken and preserve any evidence relevant to the genocide case..."
Source/publisher:
"The Washington Post" (USA)
Date of entry/update:
2020-01-30
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
International Court of Justice (ICJ) - Myanmar, Genocide, Discrimination against the Rohingya, Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first)
Language:
Local URL:
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