Myanmar’s Rohingya plight faces jihadist hijacking

Author: Iftekharul Bashar, NTU

On 9 October 2016, 200 armed attackers from the Aqa Mul Mujahidin — an organisation with links to the Rohingya Solidarity Organisation (RSO) — carried out a surprise attack on Myanmar’s police at the Maungdaw border, killing 9 police officers. The attackers were from Myanmar’s northern Rakhine (Arakan) State. They seized weapons, ammunition, bayonets and magazines. According to the Myanmar government, the attackers received funding and support from foreign terrorist organisations.

Since the attacks in October, heavy-handed counter-insurgency campaigns have begun and reports have emerged of serious human rights abuses. Myanmar soldiers have been accused of killing Rohingyas and burning their villages, but the government has denied these allegations. The state media has put the death toll at almost 100 people, although advocacy groups claim that more have been killed. More than 20,000 Rohingyas have fled to neighbouring Bangladesh in the past two months.

The Rohingyas are denied citizenship and viewed by the Myanmar government as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. Tens of thousands of internally displaced Rohingyas, following ethnic violence in 2012, live in decrepit camps where travel is restricted. Following regional and international protests, an emergency ASEAN meeting was held in early December to discuss the crisis.

The plight of the Rohingya minority has attracted the attention of regional and international extremist and terrorist groups.

The so-called Islamic State (IS) has expressed its intention to target Myanmar via Bangladesh. In the fourteenth issue of its propaganda magazine Dabiq, a Bangladeshi jihadist called on others to join him to help the oppressed Rohingyas. Aung San Suu Kyi was also singled out by IS as a possible target in a ‘kill list’ sent to Malaysian police in August. In November 2016, Indonesian police thwarted an attempt by a local pro-IS extremist group to carry out a bombing attack on the Myanmar Embassy in Jakarta.

If IS were to firmly establish a foothold in Bangladesh, it would not be difficult for the group to expand its operations into Myanmar. The porous border between Bangladesh and Myanmar provides suitable terrain for insurgent operations. Should IS declare a new wilayat in South Asia, it is likely to include Myanmar’s Rakhine State. IS may capitalise on its contacts with the Bangladeshi militant group known as Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), which already has a pro-IS faction.

Al Qaeda has also shown interest in the Rohingya issue. Al Qaeda’s South Asia chapter, Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), listed Myanmar as one of its key targets in 2014. Abu Zar al-Burmi, a key Pakistani Taliban leader of Burmese origin, condemned Myanmar’s new government for failing to protect Rohingyas and called for armed jihad. A new AQIS magazine released in September 2016, Al Balagh, also urged Muslims to join their fight against oppression. Through its Bangladeshi affiliate, the Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT), Al Qaeda has provided training and support for the Rohingya militants and maintained ties with RSO. More recently, on 10 December 2016 al-Qaeda’s Bengali media platform (known as Titumir Media) has released a video in Bengali calling for taking revenge of the persecution of the Arakan Muslims through an armed struggle.

In cyberspace, regional online extremists have sought to capitalise on the issue, pledging their support through profile pictures with the IS flag and the hashtag ‘Pray for P_A_R_I_S’ which refers to the conflict areas of Palestine, Africa, Rohingya areas, Iraq and Syria. Online extremists in Indonesia have expressed a desire to mount ‘jihad’ on behalf of the Rohingyas and made reference to their hopes of bringing the ‘mujahidin’ (jihadi fighters) into Myanmar. These online jihadist flare-ups suggest that the Rohingya issue is being hijacked by global jihadism.

A group that has recently emerged is Harakah al-Yaqin, or the Movement of Certainty, which is said to consist of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh who crossed the border into northern Rakhine State. Videos of the group first surfaced on the internet in October 2016. The men spoke in a mixture of Bengali, Arakanese and Arabic and were armed with AK-47s. They called on foreign Rohingyas and jihadists to join them in northern Rakhine State to resist Myanmar’s forces. The existence of Harakah al-Yaqin may lead to an escalation of conflict in the region between the Rohingyas and Myanmar’s armed forces.

The RSO, who have been blamed by the Myanmar government for recent violent attacks, is a little-known militant group with an active regional and international presence. Based in Karachi, its members also operate in countries in the Middle East, Bangladesh and India. A significant faction of RSO has close operational ties with fundamentalist extremist and terrorist groups, namely Laskar-e-Taiba in Pakistan, Indian Mujahideen in India and JMB in Bangladesh. Some of the RSO’s leaders received combat training in Pakistan and are active along the Bangladesh–Myanmar border.

Active networks of IS, as well as AQIS, currently pose a threat to Myanmar’s security. A festering Rohingya crisis will create opportunities for exploitation by regional and international terror groups. Myanmar must develop a robust counter-terrorism strategy and beef up its counter-terrorism intelligence to enable authorities to prevent future attacks.

It will also have to bring the Rohingya community on board as strategic partners to alert authorities of terrorist or insurgent activities and to facilitate conflict resolution. Myanmar must begin to manage relations between the Buddhists and Muslims in the country. The government must urgently address the plight of this impoverished minority as they struggle to fulfil their basic needs.


Sumber - East Asia Forum

Burmese Troops Are ‘Squarely Responsible’ for Torching Rohingya Muslim Villages: Rights Group

Feliz Solomon

Some 21,000 Rohingya have fled across the border into Bangladesh with harrowing stories

The Burmese army has burned down more than 1,500 homes and other buildings in a systematic pattern of destruction targeting the country’s stateless Rohingya Muslims, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW).

In a statement released Tuesday, the watchdog said it had collected satellite images and interviews with refugees that directly implicate the army, which has consistently denied allegations of wrongdoing and instead blamed suspected Rohingya jihadists, claiming that they have been torching their own communities.

“The Burma government and military’s barrage of unsubstantiated claims that the Rohingya are burning down their own villages have now finally been exposed as the fraud that we suspected all along,” Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director for HRW, tells TIME.

“Rather than continue this game of denials, the Burmese government should allow access to urgently needed humanitarian assistance, and permit U.N. investigators and the media into these areas to investigate how this human rights disaster has come about, and who needs to be held responsible,” he adds.

Armed military troops and police force travel in trucks through Maungdaw, in Rakhine state, on Oct. 14, 2016,
following a government announcement that terrorist groups were behind a series of attacks on security posts

The accusation is the latest of mounting claims that the Burmese army has carried out a disproportionate response to a deadly attack on security forces attributed to Muslim insurgents.

The Oct. 9 attack on three border security posts by a group of Rohingya militants who call themselves Harakah al-Yaqin triggered a military lockdown on the northern part of Arakan state, also called Rakhine, which lies along Burma’s western border near Bangladesh. Humanitarian aid has been suspended in the area and journalists have been barred as the Burmese army carries out what it calls “clearance operations.”

An estimated 21,000 civilians have since fled across the border into Bangladesh, where they have sought shelter in severely under-resourced refugee camps. Those who fled tell harrowing stories of being terrorized by the armed forces; one Rohingya woman told TIME that she watched her son being thrown into a fire and burned alive.

The U.N.’s human rights envoy for Burma, Yanghee Lee, has warned that evidence indicates the actions of Burmese security forces are “getting very close to what we would all agree are crimes against humanity.”

HRW says its collection of pictures and testimony reveal four new developments: the number of buildings destroyed is higher than previously thought at more than 1,500; the timing and locations of the alleged incidents of arson point to a path taken by troops as they advanced west across the area; the timing and nature of the arson attacks suggest that they were carried out as reprisal; and some of the images show Burmese troops present at the site of at least one major fire.

The Rohingya are a stateless Muslim minority numbering about 1.1 million, and are viewed as one of the world’s most persecuted peoples. They have seen their rights erode rapidly since communal riots in 2012 displaced more than 100,000 and ushered in a state of religious apartheid. Tens of thousands have fled to neighboring countries; those who remained are largely denied freedom of movement and access to basic services.

The crisis on Burma’s western border has put pressure on Burma’s de facto leader, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who was swept to power by a landslide election win last year. Her party, the National League for Democracy, took power in April, the country’s first civilian government following nearly six decades of military dictatorship.

Suu Kyi’s failure to rein in the armed forces as they carried out counterterrorism operations in Arakan state has led some to question how much authority she actually has.


Sumber - TIME

KENYATAAN RASMI PRESIDEN NDP MENGENAI ISU KEZALIMAN TERHADAP UMAT ISLAM ROHINGYA

Baca atau muat turun kenyataan rasmi Presiden NDP (format pdf) di pautan berikut,

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2OXPABIfo1gc0VuRUdqclJWLW8/view?usp=sharing

Burma: New Wave of Destruction in Rohingya Villages

820 Newly Identified Destroyed Buildings; UN-Aided Investigation Urgently Needed

(New York) – New satellite imagery of Burma’s Rakhine State shows 820 newly identified structures destroyed in five different ethnic Rohingya villages between November 10-18, 2016, Human Rights Watch said today. The Burmese government should without further delay invite the United Nations to assist in an impartial investigation of the widespread destruction of villages.

Updated Damage Assessment of Affected Villages in Maungdaw District. Human Rights Watch identified
a total of 820 destroyed buildings in five villages of Maungdaw District from an analysis of very high resolution
satellite imagery recorded on 10, 17 and 18 November 2016. These damages are in addition to the 430 destroyed
buildings Human Rights Watch identified earlier and represent a second, more destructive round of arson attacks
occurring between 10 and 17 November 2016

The latest images bring the total number of destroyed buildings documented by Human Rights Watch in northern Rakhine State through satellite imagery to 1,250. US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power, at a November 17 UN Security Council meeting on the deteriorating situation in Rakhine State, called for international observers to be allowed to investigate and for aid groups to have their access restored. After a short visit by diplomats to the area, Yanghee Lee, the UN special rapporteur on Burma, said on November 18, “The security forces must not be given carte blanche to step up their operations under the smokescreen of having allowed access to an international delegation. Urgent action is needed to bring resolution to the situation."

“These alarming new satellite images confirm that the destruction in Rohingya villages is far greater and in more places than the government has admitted,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The apparent arson attacks against five Rohingya villages is a matter of grave concern for which the Burmese government needs to investigate and prosecute those responsible. UN participation is crucial for such an investigation to be credible.”

Human Rights Watch identified a total of 820 destroyed buildings in five villages of Maungdaw district from an analysis of very high resolution satellite imagery recorded on November 10, 17, and 18. This damage is in addition to the 430 destroyed buildings Human Rights Watch identified from satellite imagery on November 13. Of the 820 destroyed buildings, 255 were in the village of Yae Khat Chaung Gwa Son; 265 in Dar Gyi Zar; 65 in Pwint Hpyu Chaung; 15 in Myaw Taung; and 220 in Wa Peik (in addition to the 100 which were destroyed earlier in the village).

Human Rights Watch also reviewed thermal anomaly data collected by environmental satellite sensors that detected the presence of multiple active fires burning in the village of Pwint Hpyu Chaung on November 12, in Dar Gyi Zar on November 13, and in Yae Khat Chaung Gwa Son on November 13, 14, and 15. Dense tree cover may have concealed a limited number of additional buildings that were destroyed, making it possible that the actual number is higher.

At a press conference on November 15 in response to Human Rights Watch’s November 13 statement, the Burmese government admitted widespread burning but claimed that the total number of buildings destroyed was significantly lower. The government cited helicopter flyovers of the area to arrive at its figures and blamed unspecified “terrorists” for the burnings.

Rohingya Muslim children stand in U Shey Kya village outside Maungdaw in Rakhine state

The new imagery shows village destruction that far exceeds the figures released by the Burmese government, Human Rights Watch said. On November 15, the Burmese military reported that militants burned down 60 homes in Dar Gyi Sar, while the State Counsellor Office’s newly created “Information Committee” reported on November 16 that only 30 buildings were destroyed in the same town. The new imagery shows that 265 buildings have been destroyed in Dar Gyi Zar alone. The State Counsellor’s information committee press release on November 16 mistakenly attributed a claim that all buildings were destroyed in Dar Gyi Zar to Human Rights Watch.

Both the military and the State Counsellor’s information committee reported that 105 buildings were destroyed in Wa Peik village. Satellite imagery collected by Human Rights Watch between November 10-17 shows that an additional 220 buildings were destroyed. This newly documented destruction, coupled with the 100 buildings Human Rights Watch imagery determined were destroyed from images collected between October 9 and November 3, brings the total to 320 buildings destroyed in Wa Peik village.

“On November 15, a government spokesperson suggested that Human Rights Watch was part of a ‘conspiracy’ to harm Burma’s image,” Adams said. “Instead of responding with military-era style accusations and denials, the government should simply look at the facts and take action to protect all people in Burma, whatever their religion or ethnicity.”

The crisis follows violence on October 9, in which gunmen attacked three police outposts in Maungdaw township near the Bangladesh border, leaving nine police officers dead. The government said that the attackers made off with dozens of weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition. The Burmese government asserts the attack was carried out by a Rohingya group, but actual responsibility remains unclear. A second attack on a border guard post that resulted in the death of a police officer reportedly occurred on November 3.

Immediately after the October 9 attack, government forces declared Maungdaw district an “operation zone” and began sweeps of the area to find the attackers and lost weapons. They severely restricted the freedom of movement of local populations and imposed extended curfews, which remain in place. With the area sealed off to observers, local sources reported that government forces committed serious human rights abuses, including torture, rape, extrajudicial executions, and widespread destruction of buildings, including mosques.

On October 28, Reuters published interviews with Rohingya women who allege that Burmese soldiers raped them. The government also allegedly pressured the Myanmar Times to fire one of its editors who reported allegations of rape by Burmese army soldiers.

The Burmese government conducted a government-supervised tour of some impacted sites in Maungdaw on November 2 and 3 with a nine-member delegation of foreign ambassadors, including the UN Resident Coordinator. The delegation conducted no formal investigation or assessment, but confirmed that they saw burned structures in several towns and spoke with several villagers. Allegations of reprisals against those who spoke to delegation members surfaced shortly after the trip concluded.

Another outbreak of violence reportedly began on November 11. The government reported the deaths of 69 alleged militants and 17 security force personnel. Local groups reported significant civilian casualties, but the lack of access makes all casualty reports difficult to verify. The Burmese military said that helicopter gunships called in to provide air support to its troops were attacked by hundreds of militants.

According to humanitarian aid groups, tens of thousands of people have been displaced by the recent violence, with hundreds attempting to flee to Bangladesh.

The government has responded with blanket denials to allegations that the security forces have committed abuses. Officials maintain that terrorists are responsible for the destruction of the buildings and urge that international journalists investigate the claims. However, the government has continued to block journalists, humanitarian aid workers, and human rights investigators from traveling to the impacted areas.

Burma is obligated under international law to conduct thorough, prompt, and impartial investigations of alleged human rights violations, prosecute those responsible, and provide adequate redress for victims of violations. Standards for such investigations can be found, for example, in the UN Principles on the Effective Prevention and Investigation of Extra-legal, Arbitrary and Summary Executions, and the UN Guidance on Commissions of Inquiry and Fact-Finding Missions. Burma’s failure to conduct such investigations in the past underscores the need for UN assistance, Human Rights Watch said.

In early November, the government granted the World Food Programme (WFP) one-time access to four villages for a one-time food delivery. However, humanitarian aid groups continue to be denied full access, placing tens of thousands of already vulnerable people at greater risk.

Thousands of people impacted by the violence in the villages of Maungdaw have been without aid for six weeks. Despite assurances from the Burmese government that aid access to all impacted areas would be restored, many of the most significantly affected areas remain sealed to humanitarian assessment teams and human rights groups.

“After six weeks of violence with virtually no aid reaching tens of thousands of highly vulnerable people, the government needs to act decisively to assist them,” Adams said. “A government with nothing to hide should have no problem granting access to journalists and human rights investigators.”


Sumber - Human Rights Watch

Taking the Rohingya Insurgency at Face Value

By Richard Potter

Much of the speculation about the recent attacks miss a simple truth about the plight of the Rohingya.

Following deadly attacks on three police outposts that killed nine police officers along the Myanmar-Bangladesh border, speculation about the perpetrators has spread wildly, both from the Myanmar government and the media. The attack was apparently carried out by a massive group estimated at 400 people that coordinated simultaneous assaults on three separate border guard police posts near the city of Maungdaw, in Myanmar’s Rakhine State. The attackers were believed to belong to the country’s long oppressed Rohingya Muslim minority. Speculation has been rampant in the wake of the attacks and subsequent military crackdown, ranging from claims that the assailants were trained by the Pakistani Taliban, to those in opposition claiming the entire affair has been orchestrated by the military to seize resources, regain control of the government, and expel the Muslim minority. What seems clear is that much of what happened and who is behind it is lying in plain sight, but very few have been willing to acknowledge it.

Rohingya Muslim men stand at U Shey Kya village outside
Maugndaw in Rakhine state, Myanmar October 27, 2016.

The initial speculation by government and media sources was that the attack was carried out by the Rohingya Solidarity Organization (RSO), even though that group has been defunct since they were disarmed by the Bangladeshi government in the early 2000s. Rumors have abounded that the group in fact remains active, even as the RSOs leadership – and indeed the leaderships of nearly all Rohingya militant groups – have gone into exile and taken on more diplomatic roles. Whatever remnants of the RSO do remain in Bangladesh are a toothless version of what once was. This doesn’t eliminate the potential for militarization of Rohingya in the region, but relies heavily on rumors to explain what might be happening.

Within a few days of the attack unconfirmed videos began to appear online of men insinuating their connection to the attacks, calling for Muslims and Rohingya to join them in combat against the military and government. The group identified itself as al Yakeen in several of the videos, and elsewhere as Harakat al Yaqeen, which was translated to me by fluent Arabic speakers as well as Rohingya familiar with the group as “The Movement of the Faith” or alternatively “The Movement of Hope.” In the first videos released several adult men in civilian clothes can be see holding assault rifles and small pistols. In a later video they appear marching and say their emir, or spiritualist leader, has been injured but is continuing on while asking for others to join them. The camera then pans to show a wider shot of the entire militia walking. Their numbers are so great they are unable to show all of them, but they are apparently in the hundreds. What is beyond striking, though, is that only a handful of the men are adults with guns; the rest are children who appear to be 12 years old or younger armed with swords, sticks and farm tools. The feeling quickly sinks in that these children are being marched to their deaths for something they aren’t even old enough to understand. Frankly, it is horrifying.

The president’s office later released a statement regarding the attacks which attempted to clarify previous unconfirmed statements in a single account of facts. The statements described the leadership of a little known group called “Aqa Mul Mujahadeen,” whom they said was trained by the Pakistani Taliban over the course of six months through an RSO contact. “Aqaa Mul Mujahideen” means “Those who stand as Mujahideen (Muslim warriors)” in Arabic, and reads more as a generic reference than any kind of official name. The statement said that this organization was funded by Middle East backers.

The trouble with these statements is that they make very little sense in light of what information is available. While the government is describing an overwhelming force of well trained and well funded Taliban-tied militants, the reality for them is far more embarrassing: Their police posts were overrun by a militia composed mostly of small children led by downtrodden men armed with farm tools, who stole their guns and quickly vanished. Neither the military nor the police can find them. The insurgency the government is trying to identify is more of an uprising, albeit a well coordinated one. Evidence of funding and links to clandestine groups may prove true over time, but at the moment evidence suggests the attacks were local to the areas near the Naf river, the attackers were only armed with swords and tools before robbing the police posts of their guns, and that their initial tactics were sophomoric at best. The Rohingya they’re fighting now are living in the same conditions as the Rohingya who knowingly fled with human traffickers two years ago that could – and often would – kill, rape and sell them in to slavery, in the hope they might escape the circumstances inside of Myanmar and the Bangladesh refugee camps. It is not a jihadist invasion of Myanmar; It is an act of desperation. But unlike the Rohingya who fled on boats, those fighting believe they preserve some sense of autonomy and dignity after decades of having been denied both.

In one of the videos posted on a channel called “The Faith Movement,” the same men seen in the previous videos appear, but a voice is dubbed over, and seemingly modulated perhaps to hide the identity of the speaker. The dubbing is in English and calls for a restoration of rights and that a number of grievances be immediately resolved. They deny any links to terrorists groups, or any outside influence at all. They clearly express a feeling of abandonment by the international community, and perhaps most unexpected of all they call on the Myanmar government to end its civil war with the ethnic minorities in the country, many of whom have been fickle allies, if not outright political opponents to the Rohingya. While the dubbing of this video can’t be verified yet, when compared to what facts on the ground are known they stand well enough to take seriously. Within all the chaos that has happened since the initial attacks no Buddhist civilians have been targeted or attacked. Whether or not the video itself can be verified, it does seem that those involved in this conflict do want to avoid the label of terrorists, and like the other ethnic groups, they may be seeking to gain legitimate political power through guerrilla fighting as the Kachin Independence Organization and Karen National Union have done in the Kachin and Karen ethnic regions.

As few facts emerge about the conflict journalists have also scrambled to gather information on the militants, but with limited success. Surely if hundreds of men and boys left to go fight the government someone would know about it. Yet, the Rohingya have remained incredibly silent on the issue, and one has to imagine how disheartening it must be to be approached by journalists who have often ignored or minimized cries for help from the community but are suddenly now are interested in a sensational story that risks demonizing them even as they watch dozens of their own die in the crackdown. It confirms in the worst way that their grievances are taken more seriously by the world when they are armed than when they are victims.

On October 11, four Burmese soldiers were reportedly killed in a skirmish in Maungdaw. Accounts varied between government and Rohingya sources about who initiated the fight, but given the high number of casualties of well armed Burmese soldiers it seems likely they were ambushed, which may be a dreadful sign of things to come.

In my conversation about the insurgency with Rohingya I feel swept with guilt for exactly this, and few would open up to me, though they were plainly aware of exactly who al Yakeen was. A small few did agree to talk, and it’s with regret they see their people having run out of options. It is desperation, pure and simple. It can’t be justified, and while listening I am painfully aware of how significantly these events will worsen the suffering of the Rohingya, but it is still imperative to understand where these beliefs came from, how they spread, and how they might be resolved.

As the military and government seek to calm the situation and restore order, they are operating with a heavy hand. Civilian casualties are already high, and credible reports are emerging of Rohingya men dying in police custody, under circumstances that are questionable at best. The situation could easily worsen as resentment and hopelessness increase among the population. The Rohingya have long tried to address their grievances through political means, and the vast majority would prefer to still do so, but lack any course or mechanism. If State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and her party’s new government wants to legitimately restore peace they should be aware their best tool now is compassion. Any acknowledgment of the Rohingya’s humanity, of their suffering, and an offering of a way to dignity and autonomy will do more to reduce violence than any army is capable of. Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy need only to have the courage to do so.


Sumber - The Diplomat

Annan's commission faces Rohingya conundrum

Former UN secretary general Kofi Annan and Myanmar's leader Aung San Suu Kyi
talk during their meeting in Yangon on Monday

Nehginpao Kipgen

In an attempt to find a sustainable solution to the complicated issues between Muslims and Buddhists in Myanmar's Rakhine state, former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan is visiting the Southeast Asian country this week.

Mr Annan, who is scheduled to visit Rakhine state today and tomorrow, is head of the nine-member State Advisory Commission formed last month by the Myanmar government. Mr Annan was the UN secretary-general from 1997-2001.

The other international members of the commission are Ghassan Salame, a scholar from Lebanon and former adviser to Mr Annan, and Laetitia van den Assum, a diplomat from the Netherlands and a former adviser to the UN Programme on HIV and AIDS. The other six members are Myanmar nationals, with two Rakhine Buddhist members, two Muslim members and two government representatives.

The commission has been tasked with finding conflict-prevention measures, ensuring humanitarian assistance, rights and reconciliation, establishing basic infrastructure, and promoting development long-term plans in the restive state. It has been given a year to conduct research and submit its findings.

The commission was formed due to the protracted and lingering tensions between the Buddhists and Muslims (mostly Rohingya) in the wake of the 2012 violence in Rakhine state that left over 100 dead and has resulted in some 125,000 Rohingya Muslims living in designated camps where their movements are restricted.

The timing of Mr Annan's visit is important for the Myanmar government as it happens when the attention of the international community is relatively high on the Southeast Asian nation.

First, Mr Annan's visit comes right after the highly vaunted 21st century Panglong conference where the Myanmar government is seeking to secure peace and reconciliation with the country's ethnic minorities. Several dignitaries, including current UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, attended the conference.

Second, the commission's first visit comes days before Myanmar's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi's planned visit to the US where she will meet President Barack Obama and address the 71st session of the UN General Assembly. By making some progress in the peace process with the country's ethnic armed groups, as well as by taking certain initiatives with regard to the Rohingya issue, Ms Suu Kyi has a strong case to present during her meeting with Mr Obama and her address to the UN. She is expected to make efforts to convince the international community about her government's positive initiatives and urge for patience and continued support.

Despite some positive developments, there are challenges. The first is the opposition of the commission's composition. Since its formation on Aug 24, two political parties -- the Arakan National Party and the Union Solidarity and Development Party -- have called for its cancellation or the removal of the international members on the grounds that they could not be expected to understand the local context or that their involvement would amount to interference in internal affairs.

Whether these political parties will gradually accept and recognise the role of the commission or continue with their opposition remains to be seen. The acceptance or non-acceptance of the commission may also depend on how its work progresses and the strategy it pursues.

The issue of identity will perhaps be the greatest challenge of the commission. Although the Muslims in Rakhine call themselves Rohingya, the Buddhists in Rakhine, and many across Myanmar, call them illegal Bengali immigrants from Bangladesh. In an attempt to pacify both sides, the government chooses to refer to them as the Muslims of Rakhine.

During his recent visit to Myanmar, Mr Ban chose to use the controversial term "Rohingya" in his speech. While the Muslims in Rakhine want to be identified as Rohingya, and the strong opposition from the ultra or nationalist Buddhists of its usage, it is still unclear as to what name the commission would use to address these people in its report.

Another major challenge will be the question of citizenship for the Rohingya. As of now, the government's position on the issue is not much different from its predecessor. The government wants to address this sensitive question in accordance with the 1982 citizenship law, which would have made many of the Rohingya ineligible for citizenship.

According to the 1982 citizenship law, there are three categories of citizenship: citizen, associate citizen and naturalised citizen. Citizens are descendants of residents who lived in Myanmar prior to 1823 or were born to parents both of whom were citizens. Associate citizens are those who acquired citizenship through the 1948 Union Citizenship Act. Naturalised citizens are people who lived in Burma before Jan 4, 1948, and applied for citizenship after 1982.

Because of the continued allegation of being illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, whether the advisory commission would talk to the Dhaka government in the course of its mission remains to be seen. A compounding complicated issue is that Bangladesh, which already hosts about 300,000 Rohingya, has rejected them as its citizens.

The Myanmar government's appointment of the commission is not the first of its kind. In February 2014, the president Thein Sein appointed a 10-member commission to probe the death of a policeman which had sparked what was described as revenge killings of at least 40 Rohingya Muslims by Buddhist mobs in Rakhine state.

Prior to the appointment of the commission, former Myanmar foreign minister Wunna Maung Lwin also announced a separate inquiry by three government-appointed groups into the circumstances that led to the 2014 violence. The Central Committee for Rakhine State Peace, Stability and Development Implementation; the Myanmar National Human Rights Commission; and the Rakhine Conflict Investigation Commission conducted separate investigations into the killings.

Neither the commission nor the separate investigations found a lasting solution. The initiatives partly failed because the government lacked substantive plans to address the core issues of identity and citizenship of the Rohingya.

In light of these failures and the continued pressure from the international community, the participation of foreign experts may help bring new ideas which may pave the way for a possible solution.

In any case, the task of the Annan-led commission, is to conduct research and give its recommendations to the government. With foreign nationals in the commission, it may engender a neutral idea that could be mutually acceptable.

Reconciliation will have a chance to succeed if Rakhine state Muslims and Buddhists are willing to compromise and respect each other's identity and culture. The government and the public must be ready to embrace the Rohingya if any genuine reconciliation is to be achieved.


Sumber - Bangkok Post

Eliminating Statelessness in Southeast Asia

ASEAN can take some reasonable measures to address the plight.

By Michael Caster

The government of Myanmar has come under fire this month following Aung San Suu Kyi’s rebuke of U.S. Ambassador Scot Marciel’s reference to the Rohingya, the estimated one million stateless Muslim inhabitants of Myanmar’s Western Rakhine State. Aung San Suu Kyi’s government refuses to fully confront the issue of the Rohingya, who have been denied equal access to citizenship since the passage of the 1982 Citizenship Law. The denial of citizenship has compounded human rights abuses, rising to the crime of genocide, according to an October study by Fortify Rights. The persecution of the Rohingya has deservedly captured increasing international attention in recent years, although greater awareness and mobilization is needed. The plight of statelessness remains a universal challenge.

Around the world, there are an estimated 15 million stateless people. According to the UNHCR, somewhere a stateless child is born every 10 minutes and within the countries hosting the 20 largest stateless populations some 70,000 stateless children are born every year. In 2014, the UNHCR announced its Campaign to end Statelessness in ten years. The same year, the Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion reported that more people in Asia and the Pacific are affected by statelessness than in any other region of the world. How ASEAN addresses this challenge will be key to achieving the UN’s objective of eradicating statelessness by 2024.

The Right to Have Rights

Hannah Arendt, in The Origins of Totalitarianism, calls citizenship the right to have rights, a sentiment which entered jurisprudence in 1958 through U.S. Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren, who wrote that the denial of citizenship is the denial of all claims to protection from any nation.

Modern notions of nationality emerged following World War I through a series of League of Nations treaties, which granted States total freedom to determine how individuals obtained or lost nationality. Such absolutism of State sovereignty changed following World War II with the realization of the degree of harm caused by discriminatory nationality laws, such as the Nuremburg Laws. This realization gave rise to Article 15 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, granting everyone the right to nationality.

Also in 1948, the United Nations commissioned the Study on Statelessness, released a year later. The Study affirmed that eradicating statelessness requires that, “Every child must receive a nationality at birth” and “No person throughout his life should lose his nationality until he has acquired a new one.”

The Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, adopted in 1954, provides the legal definition of statelessness as “a person who is not considered a national by any state under the operation of its law.” The 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness followed with more guidance. However, both Conventions remain poorly ratified with only 86 and 65 state parties respectively. The Philippines is the only ASEAN country to have ratified the 1954 Convention.

The right to nationality was further codified in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). However, Brunei, Malaysia, Myanmar, and Singapore are not State parties. On the other hand, all ASEAN member states are parties to the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Together they prohibit gender discrimination in matters of nationality, require immediate birth registration, and place an obligation on states to respect the right of the child to preserve identity and nationality.

Statelessness in ASEAN

The 2009 ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human rights (AICHR) and 2010 ASEAN Commission on the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Women and Children (ACWC) are both mandated with developing strategies for the promotion and protection of human rights. ACWC is furthermore empowered “to advocate on behalf of women and children, especially the most vulnerable and marginalized, and encourage ASEAN member states to improve their situation” and “to propose and promote appropriate measures…for the prevention and elimination of all forms of violation of the rights of women and children.”

Stateless people are indisputably among the most vulnerable and marginalized and international norms make explicit reference to women and children’s equal right to nationality. As such, AICHR and ACWC appear to have a mandated obligation to play a leading role in the elimination of statelessness in ASEAN, especially in ensuring birth registration and the elimination of gender discrimination in nationality laws.

One of the challenges to a regional approach is the lack of a unified definition of statelessness in domestic laws. The 1954 Convention provides the legal definition but the failure to ratify or implement in domestic laws provides countries with maneuverability. The Philippines offers the best example, having enacted the Convention and definition into domestic law in 2012. Vietnam and Laos provide a definition for stateless persons but do not go as far as the Philippines in implementing protections. The refusal to implement the accepted international definition in Myanmar, for example, has contributed to the State narrative that Rohingya do not qualify for protection as stateless because they are migrants from Bangladesh.

Birth registration, a human right vital for protecting against stateless, is not equally guaranteed throughout ASEAN. Cambodia provides a best practice in birth registration campaigning. In 2000, only around 5 percent of Cambodian births were registered. The Ministry of Interior, with support from UNICEF and others, initiated a pilot program involving more than 13,000 people who had received specialized training in birth registration. Within the first ten months of the program over 7 million adults and children were registered. Subsequently birth certificates were issued free of charge within 30 days of birth and only a small fee was incurred for late registration.

However, the 1996 Nationality Law offers no definition for statelessness and ambiguity in language implies that Khmer ethnicity may be a prerequisite for citizenship. Despite birth registration campaigning, several thousand stateless people remain in Cambodia.

Prohibitive costs for birth registration, requirements for documents that are sometimes unavailable or nonexistent, and associated costs of transportation or hospital fees, contribute to statelessness as well. Such obstacles often remain even after well-meaning policies have been adopted.

In Thailand, the 2005 National Strategy on Administration of Legal Status and Rights of Persons and 2008 changes in the Nationality Law ostensibly provided undocumented and migrant children, including stateless children, the right to attend primary and elementary school. Unfortunately, transportation or uniform costs continue to make education prohibitively expensive. Similarly, according to Children of the Forest, a child protection organization that works with stateless children and trafficking victims at the Thai-Myanmar border, among the common ways that children there become stateless is that parents will leave the hospital before registration because they couldn’t afford hospital services. Failure to register at the time of birth significantly increases the burden of registration at a later date. In 2015, the Thai government reported that over 18,000 previously stateless people had been given Thai nationality over the preceding three years. However, concerns over remaining obstacles in Thailand and elsewhere remain.

Gender discrimination in nationality laws is a significant contributor to statelessness. In Malaysia, although men and women confer nationality equally, children of Malaysian mothers born abroad only obtain citizenship at the discretion of the Malaysian Government. Mothers in Brunei have no right to pass nationality to their children. In a positive move, Singapore, in 2004, and Indonesia, in 2006, amended their nationality laws to permit mothers to pass citizenship to their children.

Three Approaches for the Elimination of Statelessness

The UNHCR acknowledges that some of the safeguards within the 1961 Convention have been enacted by ASEAN Member States. Still, accession to the two Conventions would provide the clearest framework for adapting national laws and policies to identifying, protecting, and eradicating statelessness within ASEAN. Although this is unlikely any time soon, there are three arguably more achievable measures that would strengthen the efforts to eradicate statelessness: empowering regional human rights bodies; emphasizing birth registration; and eliminating gender discriminatory nationality laws.

ASEAN created and empowered the AICHR and ACWC with a relatively robust mandate but they suffer from the lack of independence and weak enforcement capabilities. ASEAN’s Commitment to human rights, as expressed through the 2004 Vientiane Action Program and subsequent treaties, calls for strengthening such mechanisms.

This includes encouraging and working with States to withdraw reservations and amend laws that violate the right to nationality and birth registration, and localizing the legal definition of statelessness.

While civil society organizations are sometimes invited to regional consultations, the AICHR and ACWC remain under government authority. State representatives are largely coordinated by respective ministries of foreign affairs and not by national human rights institutions. Of course, national human rights institutions are not necessarily independent, as demonstrated in Myanmar and Thailand. However, AICHR and ACWC representatives from Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines have attempted to work around certain political obstacles by involving civil society and individual human rights defenders in the drafting or evaluation process, at times, and should be encouraged to do more so in terms of nationality issues.

Empowering regional human rights bodies to take a more active role in the identification and elimination of statelessness may also require the improvement of complaints mechanisms. Specifically, regional human rights bodies with a mandate over CEDAW and CRC should have specialized training and procedures for hearing complaints of arbitrary denaturalization, denial of nationality at birth or obstacles to birth registration.

The establishment of a regional human rights court would provide another forum for investigating and prosecuting the widespread or systematic arbitrary denial of nationality or grave human rights violations arising from the denial of nationality.

Registration at birth is of paramount importance. The ACWC mandate implies a role for the organization in birth registration campaigning and, in cooperation with child protection and gender experts, it should arguably take a more active role in harmonizing birth registration laws and advising campaigns throughout the region.

Drawing from Cambodia, efforts at raising awareness through television and radio should be maintained while other channels should be investigated and utilized. Public education during popular holidays would likely reach larger audiences. Because of challenges of birth registration campaigns reaching hill tribes or remote regions of Thailand, for example, efforts should be made to identify new strategies for locations or times of greatest community congregation. Registration campaigners should also concentrate around markets, where women may be likely to congregate. Campaigning should be increased around holidays when people from more remote areas are most likely to be present or when weather is more amenable to travel.

In order to address financial and administrative obstacles, a regional funding mechanism could be piloted to offset the costs of birth registration, including associated transportation costs. A period should be designated when birth registration is free, and after that waivers should be made available for the extremely poor.

There is also a role for innovative technology. Digital birth registration programs point to innovation in improving registration and archiving records.

A robust regional investigation into gender-based discrimination in nationality laws is a fundamental component of addressing statelessness. A widespread gender-based assessment of equal access to nationality should be conducted throughout ASEAN. Member states, especially Singapore and Indonesia, should work with Malaysia and Brunei to amend their Nationality Laws to abolish gender discrimination. Based on their mandates, this presents a strong opening for AICHR and ACWC involvement.

Admittedly there remain serious social and political obstacles to eradicating statelessness. Such obstacles have been reproduced through decades of structural violence and historical narratives of exclusion. The involvement of United Nations experts or foreign governments is not always greeted with fanfare. But ASEAN has made specific commitments and empowered regional bodies with a mandate to promote and protect human rights. Identifying and eradicating statelessness in ASEAN cannot be seen as a foreign imposition, as the government of Myanmar claims, but as an obligation inherent in the ASEAN Charter and within the mandate of regional bodies for the full realization of human rights for all.


Sumber - The Diplomat

It's way past time to stop mistreating Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar

A Rohingya Muslim man who fled Myanmar to Bangladesh to escape religious violence cries as he pleads from a
boat after he and others were intercepted by Bangladeshi border authorities in Taknaf, Bangladesh, in June 2012.
Bangladesh had been returning thousands of Rohingya Muslims, according to human rights groups.

By Syed Hamid Albar

There are more refugees and displaced people today, driven from their home by war, persecution, poverty, and climate change, than at any time since World War II. In America, perhaps, it is the Syrian refugee crisis that earns the most attention. But there is another crisis which also speaks deeply to the Assn. of Southeast Asian Nations, ASEAN, and to the Muslim world: the plight of the Rohingya.

The Rohingya are the indigenous people of southwestern Myanmar, or so-called Rakhine State. For years now, they have taken to overcrowded and leaky boats on the open sea, submitted to dangerous human trafficking networks, and seen their families split apart in a desperate bid to find safety somewhere, anywhere. Like many of the world’s refugees, they are Muslim.

But Myanmar is not Syria, torn apart by civil war. Last year, Myanmar’s economy was the fastest-growing in the world. Myanmar is entering a widely heralded new era of democracy, under the direction of Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi. Some of the praise she and her country receive is deserved. But much of it overlooks the unacceptable treatment of her Muslim citizens, who have suffered an ongoing and accelerating process of "otherization" and dehumanization that is deeply frightening to watch.

For decades, the Rohingya have been subject to strict restrictions. Since 1982, they were summarily rendered stateless. Today they have been herded into detention and internment camps, stripped of their valuables, denied freedom of movement, and left impoverished and lacking in even basic healthcare. It is no wonder that so many thousands make such risky journeys across treacherous waters. The plight of the Rohingya may not be well known in the West, but it is well known in the ASEAN and Muslim world.

In fact, it is one of our highest priorities.

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation, or OIC, the world’s second largest intergovernmental organization after the U.N., has appointed me as special envoy to Myanmar. It is a sign of how seriously we take the systemic Islamophobia of Myanmar’s government, and the inexplicable silence of Aung San Suu Kyi--otherwise a champion of the dispossessed and distressed--over this treatment.

Last week in fact, heads of state from more than 30 Muslim countries, including Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Pakistan, among others, and delegations from the remaining OIC member states, gathered in Istanbul for the 13th Islamic Summit. They reiterated their support for the Rohingya and called on the new government of Myanmar, under Aung San Suu Kyi, to begin a national reconciliation process, to restore to the Rohingya the rights they deserve, to honor the potential and promise of this new era in their history.

Indeed, national reconciliation and reintegration of the Rohingya is the only feasible, practicable way of addressing the humanitarian crisis created by years of discriminatory policy and exclusion. Should Myanmar truly wish to re-enter the international community, and realize the full potential long denied it by years of isolation and exclusion, then the question of the Rohingya must be addressed. The country has much to lose, and much to gain.

We hope the lessons of the past years, and the potential of years ahead, encourages the government of Myanmar to move in the right direction. For our part, the OIC is committed to leveraging the full diplomatic, economic and political resources of the Muslim world to that end - a commitment that was also made at last week’s Islamic Summit in Istanbul.

We remind the government of Myanmar, too, of all the ways in which they have worked with, benefited from, and built ties to our member states.

Myanmar is already a member of ASEAN, which groups 10 Southeast Asian countries together, forming what would be the world’s seventh-largest economy, and third-largest country. Three of ASEAN’s members are OIC member states--Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei. Of these, Indonesia is the world’s largest Muslim country and largest economy. Sixty percent of the world’s Muslims live in the Asia Pacific area, meaning that Myanmar is at the heart of a growing region, and a fast-growing Muslim market, which is developing strong links between the Gulf region and Southeast Asia, for which Myanmar could be a potential hub.

We hope, too, that the government of Myanmar can see the undeniable benefits of a long-term partnership with the Muslim world. A resolution of the status of the Rohingya would open the door to deeper ties with the Muslim world, which bring political, economic and national security benefits to Myanmar. A close relationship between Myanmar and the Muslim world is common sense. As Myanmar opens to the world, it welcomes investment, trade and tourism. The Muslim market would look to Myanmar, given its location between South Asia, Southeast Asia and China. These are not abstract aspirations.

In 2015, during catastrophic floods, the Royal Brunei Armed Forces provided emergency humanitarian assistance to the people of Myanmar. On the election of Myanmar’s first civilian president, Indonesia’s (also elected) president, Joko "Jokowi" Widodo, called for increased cooperation between these two Southeast Asian democracies, “especially in the fields of economy, trade and democratization.” Bilateral trade was $500 million in 2014, and businessmen from both countries have met to discuss doubling that amount in this very year.

Malaysia, in turn, imports $303 billion worth of goods from Myanmar, while trade between these two countries is also accelerating. Malaysia is the seventh-largest investor in Myanmar; for example, OCK Group, a Malaysian telecom provider, is planning to build 900 cellphone towers in the country.

These relationships are natural, beneficial and critical. But should the Rohingya crisis continue, Myanmar may find that many of its neighbors--including Bangladesh, one of the world’s largest Muslim countries--will be closed for business, for assistance, and for political engagement and long-term relationships.

No country should be so isolated. The choice to gain new partnerships, new relationships, and to benefit from the region in which it lies, or to descend into ever more discriminatory and violent policies, belongs to Myanmar. We hope Myanmar will make the right decision, and we stand ready to work with Myanmar to finally bring the Rohingya peace and provide them the citizenship, prosperity and security they have so long been denied. It is the better thing to do. It is also the right thing to do. Let us work together to make it happen.

Syed Hamid Albar is the OIC special envoy to Myanmar. He is former foreign minister and minister for defense for the government of Malaysia.


Sumber - LA Times

Myanmar’s Rohingya left behind by election gains: UN

Rohingya Muslim men gather near a window of a mosque at Thet Kel Pyin
village near Sittwe of Rakhine State, western Myanmar.

Yangon

MYANMAR’S persecuted Rohingya continue to languish in “dreadful conditions” with children dying because they are refused healthcare, the UN has warned, adding that the Muslim minority risked being forgotten in the afterglow of recent elections.

The comments were made by a senior UN official following a visit to western Rakhine state, where the Rohingya have been targeted by violent attacks and state-sanctioned discrimination in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, earning a reputation as one of the world’s most persecuted peoples.

More than 100,000 Rohingya are languishing in camps in Myanmar’s west after communal unrest in Rahkine state left villages torched and scores dead in 2012.

They are denied full citizenship and large numbers were disenfranchised in historic November polls that saw the pro-democracy party of Aung San Suu Kyi sail to victory with a massive popular mandate.

John Ging, director of operations at the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), said he was shocked to see the state of the refugee camps during his February visit.

He described a raft of temporary shelters on the verge of collapse, and told familiar stories of families denied medical care on account of their religion.

“It was heartbreaking to see so many children in these dreadful conditions,” he said in a statement from New York on Tuesday.

“One mother told me that her baby, less than a month old, died from lack of oxygen in December after she was denied access to treatment at the nearby township hospital,” he added.

In an accompanying statement, UNOCHA stressed that the Rohingya and other groups displaced by violence “must not be forgotten” as the country advances towards democracy.

“Myanmar is going through an impressive democratic transformation, which is unlocking significant economic growth and development. However, not everyone in Myanmar is benefiting in this transition,” the agency went on to say.

Though Suu Kyi has said she will protect Muslims in the state, the Nobel laureate has faced international criticism for not taking a stronger stance on the Rohingya’s plight, and for failing to field any Muslim candidates in November’s polls.

Carving out a solution for the Rohingya and addressing strident anti-Muslim rhetoric among Buddhist nationalists across the country will be a key test of her administration.


Sumber - The Brunei Times

The only solution to the refugee crisis that shook the world

Harun Yahya

The massive influx of refugees and the tyranny and violence they are fleeing have been the top issue in international headlines lately. The pain suffering millions have been going through is now transforming into an enormous tragedy .

The Muslim Rohingya living in the Rakhine State of the Myanmar are a heavily persecuted community that suffers from oppression, torture and forceful exile. Since 2012, hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have had to leave their homeland and thousands more have lost their lives. The ones left behind had to board unreliable boats to reach neighboring countries through perilous journeys on the high seas, battered constantly by severe winds and monstrous waves.

When Malaysia and Indonesia decided to open their doors to the Rohingya for one year, of whom hundreds have already lost their lives during their journey towards hope, their ordeal subsided to an extent. However, it is clear that a real solution can be achieved only when ASEAN, the UN and the Islamic world come together to develop a permanent solution for the Rohingya. It is crucial that they make an intense effort to make sure that the conditions that are making the Rohingya refugees no longer exist.

It is clear that the Rohingya are not the only people that are suffering from a refugee crisis. In many countries around the world, millions have had to flee ongoing wars and conflicts, becoming refugees in the process. Syrians currently make up the majority  of these downtrodden people, after leaving their homes, families, properties and lives to seek shelter in other countries.

As the Syrian refugees are trying to get to countries that will be accept them, they have to put up with the inhumane, discriminatory and brutal treatment of some EU countries. Indeed, in some of these countries, refugees encounter brutal and violent police force and coast guard practices, they are being subjected to ‘push-back’ operations, and in complete disregard of their special circumstances, are being exiled in masses.  However, this practice that endangers the lives of refugees which includes children, is a blatant violation of international laws.

One of the EU countries that violates human rights with their treatment of  refugees is Hungary, by deploying armored vehicles along its borders, and allowing its soldiers to use plastic bullets and tear gas against the refugees. Slovenia is another such country that tries to stop hundreds of refugees with pepper spray, despite the fact that there are babies, toddlers, women and the elderly amongst them. Unlike those countries, Germany promised to welcome 800,000 and possibly more refugees a year, and therefore is a European country with an admirable behavior towards refugees. Turkey, praised by the entire world for its hospitable, peaceful and embracing attitude, and for its selfless and helpful approach to refugees, has welcomed two and a half million Syrians and has become a prime example in how to handle a refugee crisis. International laws regarding refugees strictly forbid any discrimination against refugees based on religion, language, sex or race. Despite this, Slovakia and the Czech Republic intend to determine the refugees they will accept will be based on their religion and stated that they would accept only a limited number of Christian Syrians; this is another example of a clear violation of human rights and international laws. At this point, it is crucial that Europe, which prides itself with the importance it attaches to democracy and human rights and in treating all faiths equally, takes steps to ensure that EU countries abandon their selfish and discriminatory behavior without further ado.

Europe must accept the fact that the ongoing refugee crisis is not a security issue, but a humanitarian problem. Erecting barbed wires and fences, planting landmines along the borders and subjecting poor people that have already lost pretty much everything  to a new kind of tyranny in order to illegally deprive them of their right to seek safe refuge  will not solve this problem. The solution is possible only with love, a humane approach, patience and altruism. EU countries should respect the right of refugees to live and approach them with love and compassion; after love, compassion and respect are built, swift political, diplomatic and, if need be, military measures will follow so that the circumstances that created the refugee crisis  can be dealt with properly.

As thousands of innocent people are fighting high seas to reach their destination, debating who will guard the borders and how to prevent the refugees from coming, or making borders impassable  through inhumane methods, would inflict irreparable damage upon Europe; such attitudes would lead to moral disgrace  and strip it of its humanity. Those who would simply leave people to die will lose a part of that which is what makes us human; the ability to comprehend the suffering of others and to take action to help such people rebuild their lives. Kicking someone when they're down is hardly commendable behavior. Europe should listen to its heart, open its borders, ensure safe passage to the refugees and put an end to human rights violations so that the refugee problem can be solved. The EU countries know very well that the right to seek asylum  is a basic human rights and therefore they should immediately revoke any legal regulations that prevent these refugees from settling in the country of their choice. According to the Geneva Treaty of 1951, the refugees should be able to enjoy all the rights in the countries they are based.

Clearly, the European Union, with its population of 503 million, can quite easily distribute a couple of million refugees across the continent with  sound planning. Furthermore, it can easily offer them education, employment, the opportunity to open small businesses and assist them in becoming contributing members of the society.

Being indifferent to this crime against humanity which we are witnessing on an almost daily basis, is clearly  wrong. It is important that an urgent action plan is prepared to protect the lives of refugees, to put humanitarian aid programs into action and to take all the necessary steps so that this horrible tragedy ends once and for all.


Sumber - Harakahdaily

Southeast Asia urged to halt repeat of "boat people" tragedy

By Amy Sawitta Lefevre

Southeast Asian countries were urged on Tuesday to treat migrants landing on their shores humanely and avoid a repeat of this year's disaster in which hundreds of refugees were either lost at sea or died in jungle camps.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) called for "full cooperation" this week from governments attending a Bangkok meeting in May aimed at tackling the region's annual migrant crisis as European countries struggle to cope with refugees fleeing war in Syria and Iraq.

Southeast Asian nations agreed to help vulnerable "boat people" stranded at sea following last year's crisis that saw more than 4,000 migrants land in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Myanmar and Bangladesh following a Thai crackdown on people-smuggling gangs.

Some were trapped on boats in the Bay of Bengal and Andaman sea. Hundreds drowned.

October and November mark the start of the four-month "sailing season", the busiest time for smuggling and trafficking ships plying the Bay of Bengal.

"We are still calling for safe disembarkation and humanitarian treatment - shelter, hydration, medical care and safety from the elements and criminality - and full cooperation from all actors, from the international community, that lives are not lost," Joe Lowry, the IOM's spokesman in Asia-Pacific, told Reuters.

Thousands of migrants have fled persecution and poverty in Myanmar and Bangladesh. Many of them are members of Myanmar's Rohingya Muslim minority who live in apartheid-like conditions in the country's Rakhine state, paying smugglers to board rickety boats to sail across to Malaysia.

Some ended up in the hands of traffickers and were held near Thailand's border with Malaysia in often brutal and filthy conditions for months or even years until they could pay a ransom for their release.

A clamp-down by Thai police on human trafficking gangs triggered the regional crisis earlier this year. It followed the discovery in May of 30 bodies in graves near the Thai-Malaysian border, which sparked international outcry.

Thailand has charged 88 people suspected of involvement in human trafficking since launching the investigation into gangs but scores more are on the run.

In a Thai foreign affairs ministry letter to international organisations dated Nov. 23, the ministry said a migration meeting to be held on Friday was "Thailand's proactive step to preempt any possible recurrence of humanitarian crises of May 2015".

Thailand's Interpol director, police Major General Apichart Suribunya, told Reuters ships were bypassing Thailand and heading directly to Malaysia following the Thai crackdown.

"Malaysia is having a headache," he said.

Since late September, when monsoon conditions began to subside, several boats have smuggled a total of about 1,000 passengers across the Bay of Bengal, according to the U.N. refugee agency and the migration-tracking group Arakan Project.

Lowry of IOM said migration patterns had changed.

"The obvious thing is people go directly to Malaysia which cuts out potential for profit for smugglers," he said.


Sumber - Reuters

Bolehkah Rohingya dapat pengadilan

Dr Mohd Hazmi Mohd Rusli, Fareed Mohd Hassan

PENINDASAN terhadap orang-orang Rohingya adalah isu yang hangat diperkatakan sekarang, terutama setelah meletusnya Rusuhan Negeri Rakhine pada tahun 2012.

Isu ini terus memburuk setelah ramai orang Rohingya meninggalkan ‘tanah air’ mereka menggunakan jalur laut yang ramai mengungkapkannya sebagai ‘pelayaran maut’ ke negara-negara jiran terutamanya Thailand, Malaysia dan Indonesia.

Adalah benar untuk menyatakan bahawasanya orang-orang Rohingya ini tidak bernegara. Dengan status sebegini, bolehkah Rohingya mendapatkan pengadilan antarabangsa untuk membela kekejaman yang dilemparkan terhadap mereka?

Terdapat beberapa tribunal jenayah antarabangsa yang ditubuhkan oleh Majlis Keselamatan PBB di Asia Tenggara yang telah membicarakan isu keganasan tentera Indonesia terhadap orang Timor-Leste pada tahun 1999 dan kekejaman Khmer Rouge sewaktu rejim Pol Pot di antara tahun 1975 sehingga 1979. Walau bagaimanapun, tribunal-tribunal ini telah diwujudkan menerusi perjanjian di antara Majlis Keselamatan PBB dan kerajaan Timor-Leste serta kerajaan Kemboja.

Adalah agak mustahil bagi kerajaan Myanmar untuk memohon kepada Majlis Keselamatan PBB untuk menubuhkan tribunal dalam negeri, yang mana banyak ketua kerajaan boleh disabitkan untuk jenayah kekejaman dan pembunuhan beramai-ramai terhadap orang-orang Rohingya.

Sejak Julai 2002, Statut Rom telah mula berkuat kuasa dan bertitik tolak dari sini, dunia telah pun memiliki Mahkamah Jenayah Antarabangsa (ICC). Oleh kerana kekejaman terhadap orang-orang Rohingya ini adalah jenayah pasca-2002, tidak ada keperluan untuk menubuhkan tribunal bagi menguruskan hal orang-orang Rohingya kerana kini telah wujud saluran ICC.

Mahkamah Jenayah Antarabangsa (ICC) telah diwujudkan menerusi sebuah triti yang dipanggil Statut Rom, bertujuan membicarakan dan menghukum individu-individu yang bertanggungjawab ke atas jenayah kekejaman pembunuhan beramai-ramai serta jenayah kemanusiaan, sama ada individu atau pelaku jenayah tersebut adalah seorang pemimpin negara ataupun tidak.

Artikel 7(2)(g) Statut Rom mendefinisikan penindasan sebagai ‘pelucutan hak asasi secara sengaja dengan melanggar lunas undang-undang antarabangsa disebabkan perbezaan identiti kumpulan tersebut’. Orang-orang Rohingya hampir kesemuanya beragama Islam dan secara etnik berbeza dengan kaum-kaum Myanmar yang rata-ratanya beragama Buddha.

Oleh kerana perbezaan ini, mereka telah dinafikan hak-hak asasi sebagai rakyat, tidak diberikan kerakyatan, disekat pergerakan dan telah ditindas secara berleluasa – penindasan yang dikatakan disokong dan ditaja oleh pemerintah Myanmar sendiri. Walaupun Rohingya bukanlah rakyat Myanmar yang sah, bidang kuasa ICC masih berlaku kerana jenayah-jenayah yang dikatakan berlaku ini mengambil tempat dalam wilayah Myanmar.

Selain itu, banyak orang Rohingya telah dibunuh setiap hari di Myanmar dan ini boleh dianggap sebagai jenayah pembunuhan beramai-ramai atau dalam bahasa Inggeris, genocide. ICC mempunyai bidang kuasa untuk membicarakan dan mendengar kes-kes seperti ini.

Artikel 6(1) Statut Rom menjelaskan bahawa jenayah pembunuhan beramai-ramai (genocide) merangkumi segala perlakuan membunuh, secara keseluruhan atau sebahagian, yang berlaku disebabkan etnik, kaum ataupun agama sesetengah kumpulan orang.

Lagi pula, Myanmar adalah negara parti kepada Konvensyen Pembunuhan Beramai-ramai 1948 (Genocide Convention 1948) yang memerlukan kerajaan Myanmar untuk menghalang dan menghukum individu yang terlibat dalam jenayah kemanusiaan ini.

Walau bagaimanapun, tiada inisiatif diambil oleh Myanmar setakat ini untuk membendung atau menghukum pelaku jenayah ini yang kebanyakannya adalah rakyatnya sendiri.

Akibat daripada ini, bencana kemanusiaan meledak mengakibatkan perpindahan secara besar-besaran Rohingya ke negara-negara jiran yang lain.

Walaupun Myanmar bukanlah negara parti Statut Rom, ini tidak bermakna pelaku-pelaku jenayah ini boleh terlepas tanpa sebarang sabitan. Pendakwaraya ICC boleh memulakan penyiasatannya sendiri di bawah Artikel 13(c) Statut Rom.

Majlis Keselamatan PBB boleh juga merujuk situasi di Myanmar ke ICC menerusi Artikel 13(b) Statut Rom, yang mana situasinya sama dengan konflik yang berlaku di Darfur, Sudan dan Libya dan ketiga-tiga negara ini bukanlah negara parti Statut Rom.

Walau bagaimanapun, inisiatif melalui saluran ini memerlukan penglibatan politik dari negara-negara Majlis Keselamatan PBB dan tidak diveto oleh mana-mana kuasa ‘big five’ (China, Amerika Syarikat, Rusia, Perancis dan Britain) bagi membolehkan situasi Rohingya dirujuk dan dibawa ke ICC.

Kesimpulannya, keadilan dan perlindungan wajar diberikan kepada orang Rohingya dengan mengheret individu-individu yang terlibat  dalam jenayah kemanusiaan ke ICC. Masalahnya, siapakah yang akan memulakan proses keadilan melalui saluran ICC ini?


Sumber - Sinar Harian

Thailand's death camps may be the most horrifying places in Southeast Asia

BANGKOK, Thailand — The horrors of the transatlantic slave trade are not resigned to history. They've been revived on creaky boats plying the Bay of Bengal.

In 2015, there is a trade in human cargo that evokes the barbaric middle passage to America in the 1700s. The chattel isn't African captives but men and women called Rohingya, a Muslim ethnicity fleeing apartheid in Myanmar.

The Rohingya's desperation makes them easy prey for traffickers who promise passage to Malaysia, a Muslim-majority nation, for only $100. Instead, they're crammed onto boats for a voyage to secret prisons in Thailand.

The trip can take weeks. Roasting under a tropical sun, the seafaring captives are often permitted only a handful of rice each morning. They may get a few swigs of water every other day. Those who starve to death are simply tossed into the surf.

For those who survive, more agony awaits. The Rohingya are smuggled onto Thailand's beaches and forced into hidden jungle prison camps. Then the torture begins — daily beatings (and, for many women, rape) until relatives cough up more than $2,000 to spare their lives.

These death camps, and the boats that supply them, are perhaps the most dreadful places in all of Southeast Asia.

Rohingya migrants stand and sit on a boat drifting in Thai waters off the southern island of Koh Lipe in the Andaman
sea on May 14, 2015. A boat crammed with scores of Rohingya migrants -- including many young children -- was found drifting in Thai waters on May 14, with passengers saying several people had died over the last few days.

"We were beaten morning and night," says Hanif, 23, a scrawny Rohingya man who was stuck in a camp just nine months ago. He is now living illegally in Bangkok's outskirts.

"They'd beat us to convince our families to pay the ransom," Hanif says. "They'd also beat us randomly just to keep us weak so we couldn't escape."

Hanif is one of half a dozen death camp survivors interviewed by GlobalPost in Thailand. Their accounts are universally gruesome. All endured beatings, starvation, and disease in the hidden prisons. All witnessed deaths at sea as well as in camps, where bodies are dumped into mass graves.

"Women in the camps have it especially bad," says Salima, 30, who wasted away in a camp for months with her two children. "Maybe the guards spared me because I have kids. But younger girls were often handpicked and led into the jungle. They would return in pain asking, ‘Why? Why did I come to this terrible place only to lose my dignity?'"

Sir Anwar

In the camps, the captive Rohingya sleep in mud, under plastic tarps, inside wooden cages. Their food supply is a trickle of soggy rice. Every twitch, every plea for food, can be grounds for overseers to lash captives with bamboo rods.

The violence is used to impose maximum fear. Traffickers want their captives to be genuinely terrified when they press mobile phones to their faces and force them to call their relatives. The overseers will initially request ransoms as high as $4,500 but often settle for about $2,000. These are incredible sums for families who are already struggling under state-sanctioned apartheid back home.

The indignities don't stop there. According to Hanif and other former captives, they were groomed to treat the kingpin of the trafficking syndicate that enslaved them as a revered figure. The man's name, they say, was Anwar.

"We were forced to call him 'Sir Anwar,'" Hanif says. "We had to stand up straight and salute him. We were taught to show him honor."

As relatives back home in Myanmar scramble to raise cash — usually by selling off farmlands and resorting to loan sharks — the prisoners waste away. Their limbs become skinny as twigs. Purplish welts begin to cover their bodies.

"My children's bodies started to shrink," says Salima, whose kids were around 4 and 6 years old when she was imprisoned just one year ago. "At one point, the guards asked if I was ready to throw my kids away."

The lives of Salima and her two children were spared for $2,200. But others succumb to torture and the elements before their families can fulfill traffickers' demands. Just like on the boats, corpses accumulate in the camps, and bodies pile up in mass graves.

Overdue crackdown

Almost every detail emerging from Thailand's death camps is shocking. But equally shocking is the fact that Thai authorities have known about the camps for years.

"There are actually camps still operational here in Thailand," says Matthew Smith, founder of Fortify Rights, a nonprofit watchdog group that has specialized in documenting the plight of Rohingya Muslims. "We've even documented camps that held upwards of 2,000 people with captives moving in and out on a daily basis."

"Authorities have known about these camps for a long time," says Smith, who recently testified about the Rohingya trafficking crisis to the U.S. Congress. "The problem isn't a lack of knowledge. The problem is a lack of political will to stop this."

Thailand — like most countries — treats the Rohingya as an unwanted nuisance. That is unlikely to change: The military government's official policy upon spotting Rohingya at sea is to offer food and fuel so they can make it to Malaysia.

Unofficially, some Thai authorities have received kickbacks from traffickers for allowing camps to proliferate. As far back as two years ago, the military acknowledged soldiers' direct involvement in Rohingya trafficking but claimed — as top brass often do — that the corrupt officers only amounted to a few "bad apples."

Only now are authorities exposing these death camps with vigor.

"For years, we've warned the government so they can crack down. And they've been silent," says Maung Kyaw Nu, chairman of the Burmese Rohingya Association in Thailand. "Why does the government only take action now? After we've lost so many lives? They could have done this years ago and prevented so much tragedy!"

Ongoing raids have turned up nearly 80 Rohingya prison camps along with dozens of corpses in mass graves. A purge of Thai officialdom connected to the trade has resulted in more than 60 arrest warrants so far. Panicked traffickers, fearful of getting arrested, have abandoned incoming boats and left an estimated 8,000 people adrift at sea. Boats packed with hundreds of Rohingya (as well as Bangladeshis) have already drifted onto the shores of Malaysia and Indonesia.

Police have also locked up at least one alleged trafficking kingpin. His name is Anwar. Former captives speaking to GlobalPost were shown his photo, which was taken in police custody. They say he's the same Anwar who operated their jungle camps.

"That's him," says Sabir, a 24-year-old who was living in the camps less than a year ago. "He's a blood sucker."

Mass exodus

By now, the ruthless nature of Rohingya trafficking syndicates is known to all — including Rohingya living on their native lands in Myanmar.

But their attempts to escape via the Bay of Bengal will likely continue. All of the Rohingya interviewed by GlobalPost were aware that the sea journey might kill them. Their decision to accept this risk is a testament to their bleak lives in Myanmar.

"We already live so close to death back home," Salima says. "We're mistreated by police. We're unable to feed ourselves. Women get, you know, dishonored. We think, ‘Well, I might as well risk dying at sea.'"

In Myanmar, Rohingya have endured oppression for decades. Even Rohingya with long family histories in Myanmar are written off as Muslim invaders from neighboring Bangladesh. Their ability to marry, work, and travel is restricted by authorities. More than 150,000 have been violently routed into refugee camps where food and medicine is scarce and death is routine.

Even those living outside these squalid camps are frequently preyed upon by soldiers and police. "We're always forced to work for police, as porters, for zero pay," says Hassam, 38, who was smuggled into Thailand within the last 12 months. "How can I feed my kids if I'm always working like a slave for someone else?"

The Rohingya mass exodus into the Bay of Bengal may be the largest refugee migration in Southeast Asia since the Vietnam War. And yet, according to Smith, the true number of Rohingya who've fled is "significantly higher than current estimates."

Fortify Rights believes that a commonly cited United Nations figure of 130,000 Rohingya fleeing by sea since 2012 is far too low and doesn't cover waves of departures from some of the most persecuted towns and cities in Myanmar. According to Smith, the number could be as high as 250,000.

As this nightmare has played out, the Rohingya crisis has gone from obscurity to a cause célèbre in the West. Last year, it also prodded the United States to plunge Thailand into its lowest human-trafficking ranking — a black mark shared by North Korea and Zimbabwe.

Pressure from the White House is at least partly responsible for Thailand's ongoing raids on death camps and arrests of complicit officials, Smith says. "Thailand is realizing it needs to clean up its act," he says. "But we've seen this in the past. A few arrests are made and there's a failure to convict. Authorities should realize that the international community is watching and expects more."

As for the fate of traffickers captured by authorities, the Rohingya interviewed by GlobalPost have a suggestion.

"Put them to death," says Salima, as her fellow Rohingya nod along. "Then take all the money they made and give it to us."


Sumber - The Week

Rohingya crisis highlights toothless nature of ASEAN

By MALCOLM FOSTER

BANGKOK (AP) — The Southeast Asian grouping known as ASEAN has made a point of not pressuring member nations over internal issues such as rights abuses, and in the case of Myanmar's persecuted Rohingya minority, the policy has come back to haunt it.

Three other ASEAN nations — Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand — now must contend with a humanitarian crisis involving thousands of Rohingya and Bangladeshis stranded off their shores. After years of ignoring the issue, their chances of using diplomacy to achieve any change in Myanmar's behavior appear bleak.

The crisis is among the 10-nation group's biggest tests since the Vietnam War, both in whether it can protect migrants' lives and to what extent the group can confront one of its members — in this case Myanmar. The stakes for ASEAN are high, given the global attention the crisis is getting and the possibility that many migrants could die if no country takes them in.

"This is a test for ASEAN, for ASEAN's sustainability. Its legitimacy will depend on this, and how it is resolved," said Charles Santiago, a Malaysian parliamentarian who is chairman of a regional lawmakers' group pressing for human rights and has spoken out about the need to rescue the refugees and migrants floating in Malacca Strait waters.

Some cracks in the group's bedrock principle of non-interference have appeared.

Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin said over the weekend that Myanmar should take responsibility for resolving ethnic tensions with the Rohingya to prevent other members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations from being burdened, according to the national news agency Bernama.

Rohingya in Myanmar have been persecuted for years, and only more so since 2011, when a long-ruling junta gave way to a nominally elected government. More than 120,000 Rohingya have fled the country since 2012, as Buddhist mobs killed up to 280 of them and drove tens of thousands from their homes. Those displaced are forced to live in camps where they can't work, get an adequate education or receive medical care.

In Thailand, leaders have said the migrant crisis isn't their problem but needs to be addressed by the "origin country" — without being more specific. Myanmar refuses to even use the word "Rohingya," saying the group illegally migrated from Bangladesh, though Rohingya have lived in Myanmar for generations.

Myanmar's Foreign Ministry said in a statement released Tuesday night that it is "equally concerned about the migrant crisis" and will patrol its waters with planes and ships to "save those in trouble."

However, Myanmar denies it is the source of the crisis and appears unwilling to join in regional talks to address it. Its government has cast doubt on whether it will attend a conference to be hosted by Thailand on May 29 that is to include 15 Asian nations affected by the emergency.

Foreign ministers from Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand — countries where about 3,000 migrants washed ashore in crowded boats in recent weeks but that have turned away other vessels — are scheduled to hold a separate meeting Wednesday in Kuala Lumpur.

But experts are doubtful the ministers will be too critical of Myanmar, which could serve to only underline ASEAN's toothless reputation. Most likely, the immediate focus will be on managing the crisis and not getting to the root causes.

"This is going to put on display ASEAN's impotence," said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political scientist and director of the Institute of Security and International Studies at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University. "This is another reflection of ASEAN's ineffectual cohesion."

Founded in 1967 as an anti-communist bloc in the Cold War era, ASEAN has taken few steps to address human rights concerns in the vast region of 600 million people. In a charter adopted in 2007, ASEAN countries committed to uphold international law and human rights but insisted they would not interfere in each other's internal affairs — a loophole that critics say helps member states commit abuses without consequence. In 2009, the group unveiled a commission that was tasked to promote human rights but deprived of power to investigate violations or go after abusers.

At times, ASEAN members have been critical of Myanmar, particularly during the years it was ruled by a military junta.

Though Rohingya asylum-seekers generally go to other ASEAN countries — particularly Malaysia — Myanmar's neighbors have long tolerated the exodus. Ironically, a crackdown by Thai authorities on human smugglers contributed to the crisis, prompting many boat captains and traffickers to abandon their vessels and leave migrants crammed on board with little food, water or fuel, drifting along in the ocean currents.

UNHCR, the U.N. refugee agency, estimated Tuesday that nearly 4,000 people remain stranded at sea with dwindling supplies.

Thailand and Malaysia have stressed that while they recognize the plight of the refugees, they cannot absorb thousands of them for fear that they would encourage more to flood in.

Malaysia, the current chair of ASEAN, has been criticized for turning away two boats packed with hungry people. The nation of about 30 million already has 150,000 asylum-seekers and refugees, including 45,000 Rohingya, most of whom barely scrape by because they have no legal status and cannot legally work. Many have filed for refugee status with the U.N. refugee agency and hope to be resettled in a third country such as the U.S. — a dream that few actually realize.

"What do you expect us to do? We have been very nice to the people who broke into our border," Malaysian Deputy Home Minister Wan Junaidi Jafaar said last Friday. "We have treated them humanely, but they cannot be flooding our shores like this.... They are not welcome here."

While there is a strong emotional argument that the people on the boats need to be saved, any country that does so will have to deal with difficult issues such as their legal standing and dependence on government support. Thitinan said setting up a coordinated regional framework to cope with the problem will take time, and predicted that it would succeed only with international financial support.

Myanmar is particularly unlikely to respond to any ASEAN pressure at the moment because it is focused on November elections, said Bridget Welsh, a senior research associate at the Center for East Asia Democratic Studies of National Taiwan University.

"Right now, the politics of Myanmar are domestic, not international," she said. "They're in a holding pattern until elections happen."

ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights, the group chaired by Santiago, the Malaysian lawmaker, has demanded that ASEAN abandon its non-interference policy, and last week released a statement saying Myanmar's government must be held accountable for the persecution of the Rohingya.

Santiago believes that Myanmar would be more responsive to pressure from China, the U.S. and other major investors in the country regarding its policies toward the Rohingya.

"It appears that so far, ASEAN is unable to respond to a humanitarian crisis involving its own people," he said. "But to be fair, let's see what happens over the next two or three days. My only fear is that before a decision can be made, more people will die."


Sumber - Yahoo News