Rohingya villagers face starvation in Rathedaung

Rathedaung, Arakan State: Rohingya villagers have been facing from an acute shortage of food, shelter, medicine, and hygienic conditions in Rathidaung Township since June 2012, after being broken out violence between Rakhine mobs and Rohingyas, said a local elder on condition of anonymity.

“Most of the villages were burned down in the riot and there are no homes for us to stay.”

A villager from Shamila village of Rathedaung Township said,” We have been suffering from starvation and lack of medical treatment and etc.”

“There are more than 3,000 villagers in the village. We have no permission to go to another villages. Military is giving us security and the villagers have to ask army for permission to go to Yaung Chaung Market, which is situated in Buthidaung south.”

Another local elder said, “Many times the Rakhine mobs tried to torch our village, but army protected us from them (Rakhines).

A Rohingya farmer said on condition of anonymity, “We could not grow paddy in our fields in time for movement restriction and fear of arrest by the security force.  So, we are facing scarcity of rice, now.

The farmer also said, “We eat food once a day, but we have no food to eat for next day.  When children cry for food, we feed them after cooking banana stems.”

Some reliefs have been arrived in affected areas such as--- Anauk Pyin village, Mozai Diya, Tharat Pyin village, Tha Oo Pyin village, Pryin Chaung, and Kudish Chaung villages of Rathedaung Township. These villages were burned down by Rakhine mobs in June this year, according to sources.

According to different sources, refugees or IDPs in Maungdaw townships have been suffering from an acute shortage of food, shelter, medicine, and hygienic conditions due to an absence of NGOs and supports from other organizations.
Internal Displaced People (IDPs) in Maungdaw Township have been taking refuge in some nearby villages where they can get food and shelter. However, food remains inadequate, and many children, elderly and sick people died because of the lack of healthcare and food supplies.

48-Rohingya pushed back to Burma

Teknaf, Bangladesh: 48-Rohingya including women, children and men were pushed back to Burma by BGB (Border Guard Bangladesh) yesterday night, according to BGB official. 
“They were arrested by BGB and Coast Guard of Bangladesh while entering to Bangladesh yesterday night with four small boats.”

Thirty three persons were arrested from Naitaung Para of Teknaf by the BGB patrol party from two boats, which were carrying timbers from Burma while another 15 Rohingyas were arrested by Coast Guard from Zalia Para of Shapuri Dip while entering Bangladesh by two small boats. 

However, all the arrested Rohingyas were sent back to Burma from Naitaung Para and Shapuri Dip on that night after giving them some supporting, a BGB officer said.


A trader from Maungdaw south said, "We don't know the fate of the people who are sent back to Burma."

The BGB 42 Battalion Commander Lt Col Zahid Hassan confirmed the event.

Why the Rohingya people are fleeing from Arakan, Burma while the weather is coming cooler and cooler. Since June this year, they have been persecuted by the Burmese security forces along with Rakhine extremists. They have no food, no jobs and even they are living like in a big cage as are not allowed to do anything for their livelihood. They are starving, so far.  There are no NGOs, and other supporting groups in Maungdaw and Rathedaung Townships, a local business man of Maungdaw Town said who denied to be named.

An elder from Maungadw said, “We need blankets because of winter.”

Authority use new tactics to fill Bengali in citizen race form

Maungdaw, Arakan State:An inquiry committee comprising members of police, Nasaka, Immigration and some Rakhine leaders called Rohingya Imams (religious leaders) of mosques and villager administration officers from Myoma Khayoungdan village to discuss about mosques opening program where the authority yook signature of the member on November 26, according to a Maulana from the locality who denied to be named.
“The Rohingya Imams (religious leaders) of mosques and villager administration officers realized the authority took the signature for race mention form, but it was late and the authority left the village.”
 Similarly, the Nasaka area No.3 of Maungdaw Township called Rohingya Imams (religious leaders) of mosques and villager administration officers and forced them to sign as Bengali in the citizenship Form, according to a village admin officer who denied to be named.
“At first the imams were called to the Nasaka camp by alluring that they have to discuss on the subject of reopening mosques where the authority discuss to organize the Rohingya community to say Bengali instead of Rohingya.”
The inquiry team collected their - Rohingya Imams (religious leaders) of mosques and villager administration officers- biography and later forced them to sign as Bengali in the Form, But the Imams refused to sign as Bengali and they claimed that their forefathers were Rohingyas and they are also Rohingyas.  They born in Arakan and will die in Arakan, said an elder from the locality.
At that moment, the Nasaka personnel and the police arrested some of the Imams and beaten up severely and also closed their mouths with plaster.  Finally, other Imams left from the scene after realizing the bad intention of Nasaka and police.  But, the inquiry team forcibly took signatures from some of the Imams. After that the Nasaka took photographs of Rohingya Imams (religious leaders) of mosques and villager administration officers. They collected Kyat Taka 2,000 to 3,000 per head for photos, said an aide of Nasaka who preferred not to be named.
Today, the Nasaka also called Imams of Bawli Bazar and Ngakura, village tracts of Maungdaw Township, but they did not go to the Nasaka camp, said a local villager.
But, yesterday, the Nasaka provided Forms to the villagers of Kilaidaung village of Maungdaw south, and today, the Nasaka collected the Forms. All the villagers wrote “ Rohingya Muslims” in the Forms.  The authorities did not give any complaint against the villagers, said a businessman from the village.
The world community including USA, EU, ASEAN and the Muslim world should come forwards to halt the quarrelsome and tougher mechanism of Burmese government against the Rohngya Nuslims, according to a schoolteacher from Maungdaw Town.

Authority force Rohingya to accept Bengali

Maungdaw, Arakan State:  The Nasaka (Burma’s border security force) was taking lists of Rohingya families as Bengali in the column of Nationality in a Form (provided by the government) by threatening (even with gun point) and also taking signature forcibly since yesterday in Maungdaw Township, according to a village leader who denied to be named.  
“Yesterday, the Imams (religious leader) of mosques together with village administration officers of under the Nasaka area No.1, 2, 5 and 6 were summoned to the local Nasaka headquarters. Having reached there to the office, they are ordered to put off the religious dress (cap and long shirt), taking photographs and to pay Kyat 500 each before entering the Nasaka camp.”
Besides, the Nasaka asked their names, age, and the names of their grandfather, grandmother and birth place of them. Later, the Nasaka asked their nationality.  When the Imams said that they are Rohingya nationality, not Bengali, but the authority was “writing in the Nationality column” as Bengali and forcibly taking their signatures, one of  the administration officers said.
The Nasaka personnel forcibly (with gun point) took signatures from some of the imams, but some others fled from the scene and went to their villages seeing the events. The Nasaka collected Taka 2,000 to 3,000 per head for photos, he more added.
“Today, the Nasaka also went to Maung Nama village of Maungdaw north and south as well as Maungdaw town and did similar to yesterday. Villagers do not like the Nasaka’s activities against the Rohingya community that they try to make us Bengali by using their power,” said a trader from Maungdaw. 
“In the wake of its cracks to forcibly to make Bengali to the ethnic Rohingyas, Burmese government has been implementing a measure one after another since last two months.”
“The government is making all efforts to prove its false accusing us of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and is forcing us gently sometimes and terribly sometimes to identify themselves as Bengalis,” said a schoolteacher from Maungdaw Town.
The government’s first policy was dishonest offers and false promises that it will provide Rohingyas with all fundamental rights if they admit to being Bengalis as their ethnic origin, he more added.
When the government has realized that these offers and promises have fallen on deaf ears as nobody dared to lie about ethnicity Rohingyas, the government’s next attempt is to threaten the Rohingyas as by arresting, torturing, beating and extorting huge money.

Certainly, the government’s thinking beyond forcing the Imams first is that perhaps the public will follow them blindly in admitting to be illegal immigrants. And all these efforts are being made by the government to blind the world to its lying for decades and to show as proofs in need, said a Rohingya leader preferring not to be named.
We, the ethnic Rohingya are not motivated to accept the ideology of the brutal regime of President Thein Sein, forcefully; it wants to make us Bengali the whole ethnic Roingya with pressure. We'll constantly resist until end, we'll die as Rohingya, he more added.
“For too long, the people of this state, including ethnic Rakhine, have faced crushing poverty and persecution. But there is no excuse for violence against innocent people. And the Rohingya hold themselves – hold within themselves the same dignity as you do, and I do,” according to President Obama’s speech at Rangoon University.
But, the Rakhine Nationalities Development Party (PNDR) Chairman Dr. Aye Maung telling Irrawaddy, “I do not like the word ‘Rohingya and the word ‘Rohingya’ is newly invented by illegal immigrants. They are trying to be an ethnic group of our country with a grave intention. Obama has to study about them and he was ignorant to use the word “Rohingya”.
The government will pursue a four-point plan - changing people’s prejudices, promoting education, creating jobs—and introducing a program of birth control- aimed at resolving the bitter divisions between Muslim and Buddhist communities in Arakan State, said the Burma’s President Thein Sein, speaking to Burmese media at a press conference on the sidelines of the ASEAN Summit in Phnom Penh on November 21.
This is theoretically an excellent idea. The only problem is, it will go against the Rakhine pogrom of Rohingya extermination. How the President is going to fix that?, said Dr. Abid Bahar, saying with reference of the Rakhine community- monks, politicians, political party and civilian- didn’t want to stay together with Rohingya community.
"The regime needs to be told that there are lots of misunderstanding about the origin of the Rohingya. In their minds, the Rohingya existence has been intimately tied up with "Indian seasonal migration" to Burma. But facts are different,” said Dr. Habib Siddiqui.
Dr. Siddiqui's recent communications with former Ambassador Derek Tonkin of UK amply shows that there were significant Arakanese Muslims all along and the Indian immigration for seasonal labor should not be confused with this indigenous group (that is term used in the British report by Baxter in 1940, after the race riots in Burma). Education to clear such false myths has to be a priority to create a more conduce society in Burma.

Myanmar verifying Muslim citizenship

In this photo taken on Nov. 10, 2012, Muslim refugees walk as Myanmar police officers stand guard at Sin Thet Maw relief camp in Pauktaw township, Rakhine state, western Myanmar (Photo - Khin Maung Win/AP)

SIN THET MAW, Myanmar (AP) -- Guarded by rifle-toting police, immigration authorities in western Myanmar have launched a major operation aimed at settling an explosive question at the heart of the biggest crisis the government has faced since beginning its nascent transition to democracy last year.

It's a question that has helped fuel two bloody spasms of sectarian unrest between ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims since June, and it comes down to one simple thing: Who has the right to be a citizen of Myanmar, and who does not?

A team of Associated Press journalists that traveled recently to the remote island village of Sin Thet Maw, a maze of bamboo huts without electricity in Myanmar's volatile west, found government immigration officials in the midst of a painstaking, census-like operation aimed at verifying the citizenship of Muslims living there, one family at a time.

Armed with pens, stacks of paper and hand-drawn maps, they worked around low wooden tables that sat in the dirt, collecting information about birth dates and places, parents and grandparents - vital details of life and death spanning three generations.

The operation began quietly with no public announcement in the township of Pauktaw on Nov. 8, of which the village of Sin Thet Maw is a part. It will eventually be carried out across all of Rakhine state, the coastal territory where nearly 200 people have died in the last five months, and 110,000 more, mostly Muslims, have fled.

The Thailand-based advocacy group, the Arakan Project, warns the results could be used to definitively rule out citizenship for the Rohingya, who have suffered discrimination for decades and are widely viewed as foreigners from Bangladesh. Muslims in Sin Thet Maw echoed those concerns, and said they had not been told what the operation was for.

"What we know is that they don't want us here," said one 34-year-old Muslim named Zaw Win, who said his family had lived in Sin Thet Maw since 1918.

So far, more than 2,000 Muslim families have gone through the process, but no "illegal settlers have been found," said state spokesman Win Myaing.

It was not immediately clear, however, what would happen to anyone deemed to be illegal. Win Myaing declined to say whether they could deported or not. Bangladesh has regularly turned back Rohingya refugees, as have other countries, including Thailand.

Few issues in Myanmar are as sensitive as this.

The conflict has galvanized an almost nationalistic furor against the Rohingya, who majority Buddhists believe are trying to steal scarce land and forcibly spread the Islamic faith. Myanmar's recent transition to democratic rule has opened the way for monks to stage anti-Rohingya protests as an exercise in freedom of expression, and for vicious anti-Rohingya rants to swamp Internet forums.

In the nearby town of Pauktaw, where all that remains of a once-significant Muslim community are the ashes of charred homes and blackened palm trees, the hatred is clear. Graffiti scrawled inside a destroyed mosque ominously warns that the "Rakhine will drink Kalar blood." Kalar is a derogatory epithet commonly used to refer to Muslims here.

Myanmar's reformist leader, President Thein Sein, had set a harsh tone over the summer, saying that "it is impossible to accept those Rohingya who are not our ethnic nationals."

But this month, he appeared to change course, penning an unprecedented and politically risky letter to the U.N. promising to consider new rights for the Rohingya for the first time.

In the letter, Thein Sein said his government would address contentious issues "ranging from resettlement of displaced populations to granting of citizenship," but he gave no timeline and stopped short of fully committing to naturalize them.

The operation observed by the AP in Sin Thet Maw appeared to be part of an effort to resolve the issue.

By law, anyone whose forefathers lived in Myanmar prior to independence in 1948 has the right to apply for citizenship. But in practice, most Rohingya have been unable to. They must typically obtain permission to travel, and sometimes even to marry.

Discrimination has made it hard to obtain key documents like birth certificates, according to rights groups. Many Rohingya, having migrated here during the era of British colonial rule, speak a Bengali dialect and resemble Muslim Bangladeshis, with darker skin than other ethnic groups in Myanmar.

The road to naturalization grew more difficult with a 1982 citizenship law that excluded the Rohingya from a list of the nation's 135 recognized ethnicities. Since Bangladesh also rejects them, the move effectively rendered the Rohingya living in Myanmar stateless - a population the U.N. estimates at 800,000.

The issue is so fraught that even the word "Rohingya" itself is widely disputed. Buddhists say the term was made up to obscure the Muslim population's South Asian heritage; they do not accept the Rohingya as a separate ethnic group, and instead call them "Bengali" - a reference to the belief they are in fact Bangladeshis who entered illegally.

While some Rohingya have lived in Myanmar for generations and have documents to prove it, others arrived more recently. There is little distinction between these two groups, though. During the last official census in 1983, the Rohingya were excluded.

In places like Sit Thet Maw, Rakhine Buddhist elders believe they are on the front line of a population explosion, and they are worried.

Some 70 years ago, there were about 1,000 Buddhist and 100 Muslim inhabitants here, according to Said Thar Tun Maung, a 59-year-old Rakhine who works as a local government administrator. Today, the Buddhists are a minority: They number just 1,900, compared to 4,000 Rohingya residents.

Tun Maung blamed the demographic changes on higher birth rates among Muslim families, and the illegal arrival of new migrants hunting for fertile farmland and good fishing. Several thousand more Muslims arrived in October after Rakhine mobs burned their homes in the town of Kyaukphyu, swelling the Muslim population here even further. The refugees' presence is considered temporary - they are currently camped along the beach beside their ships.

"This is our land," Tun Maung said. But "it's slowly being taken away from us, and nobody is doing anything to stop it."

The AP team that visited Sin Thet Maw observed four-man government teams conducting interviews with dozens of Muslim families. The Rohingya live in a separate part of Sin Thet Maw that is completely segregated from the Buddhist side of the village by a wide field running hundreds of meters (yards) inland.

Most of those interviewed had temporary national registration cards that were issued by authorities ahead of elections in 2010 in an apparent effort to secure their support. The cards granted the Rohingya the right to vote, but they were stamped with a major caveat that read: "Not proof of citizenship." Most also showed government-issued forms on which their family members had been registered.

There was one question, though, that the officers did not ask - the one that mattered above all the rest. It was represented on the forms by a blank line beside the entry: "Race/Nationality."

After each interview, the officers filled in the empty space with the words: "Bengali," or, "Bengali/Islam."

The consequence of such answers is unclear. One officer, Kyi San, said only: "We're collecting data, not making decisions on nationality."

But several Muslims interviewed by the AP complained that officers refused to classify them as Rohingya, declaring that "the Rohingya do not exist." One man said he was beaten after refusing to sign a form identifying himself as Bengali.

"Being Bengali means we can be arrested and deported. It means we aren't part of this country," said Zaw Win, one of the Muslims who had been interrogated. "We are not Bengali. We are Rohingya."

Written by TODD PITMAN
Associated Press writers Aye Aye Win and Yadana Htun contributed to this report.

Muslims Face Expulsion From Western Myanmar | Thomas Fuller

(Photo - Kuni Takahashi for The New York Times)

A Muslim girl at a camp for displaced people in Sittwe, where Muslims face what some groups are calling ethnic cleansing.

SITTWE, Myanmar — The Buddhist monastery on the edge of this seaside town is a picture of tranquillity, with novice monks in saffron robes finding shade under a towering tree and their teacher, U Nyarna, greeting a visitor in a sunlit prayer room.

 But in these placid surroundings Mr. Nyarna’s message is discordant, and a far cry from the Buddhist precept of avoiding harm to living creatures. Unprompted, Mr. Nyarna launches into a rant against Muslims, calling them invaders, unwanted guests and “vipers in our laps.”

“According to Buddhist teachings we should not kill,” Mr. Nyarna said. “But when we feel threatened we cannot be saints.”

Violence here in Rakhine State — where clashes have left at least 167 people dead and 100,000 people homeless, most of them Muslims — has set off an exodus that some human rights groups condemn as ethnic cleansing. It is a measure of the deep intolerance that pervades the state, a strip of land along the Bay of Bengal in western Myanmar, that Buddhist religious leaders like Mr. Nyarna, who is the head of an association of young monks, are participating in the campaign to oust Muslims from the country, which only recently began a transition to democracy from authoritarian rule.

After a series of deadly rampages and arson attacks over the past five months, Buddhists are calling for Muslims who cannot prove three generations of legal residence — a large part of the nearly one million Muslims from the state — to be put into camps and sent to any country willing to take them. Hatred between Muslims and Buddhists that was kept in check during five decades of military rule has been virtually unrestrained in recent months.

Even the country’s leading liberal voice and defender of the downtrodden, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, has been circumspect in her comments about the violence. President Obama made the issue a priority during his visit to the country this month — the first by a sitting American president — and Muslim nations as diverse as Indonesia and Saudi Arabia have expressed alarm.

Buddhists and Muslims in western Myanmar have had an uneasy coexistence for decades, and in some areas for centuries, but the thin threads that held together the social fabric of Rakhine State have torn apart this year.

Muslims who fled their homes now live in slumlike encampments that are short on food and medical care, surrounded by a Buddhist population that does not want them as neighbors.

“This issue must be solved urgently,” said U Shwe Maung, a Muslim member of Parliament. “When there is no food or shelter, people will die.”

Conditions have become so treacherous for Muslims across the state that Mr. Shwe Maung travels with a security force provided by the government. “They give me a full truck of police,” he said. “Two, three or four policemen is not enough.”

Leaders of the Buddhist majority in the state say they feel threatened by what they say is the swelling Muslim population from high birthrates and by Islamic rituals they find offensive, like the slaughter of animals.

“We are very fearful of Islamicization,” said U Oo Hla Saw, general secretary of the Rakhine Nationalities Development Party, the largest party in the state. “This is our native land; it’s the land of our ancestors.”

During outbreaks of sectarian violence in June and again in October, villagers armed themselves with swords, clubs and sharpened bicycle spokes that they launched from homemade catapults. In Muslim-majority areas, monasteries were burned. In Buddhist-majority areas, mosques were destroyed. The mayhem was set off by the rape and murder of a Buddhist girl for which Muslims were blamed.

The center of Sittwe, a former British colonial outpost, is now empty of the Muslims who once worked in large numbers as stevedores and at other manual jobs.

“I’m scared to go back,” said Aye Tun Sein, who was a teacher at a government school before the upheaval. In his village, Teh Chaung East, a 20 minute drive from Sittwe, he said that no one has a job because no one can leave the village, a collection of shacks and tents.

Political leaders describe the near total segregation of Muslims as temporary, but it appears to be more and more permanent.

“I don’t miss them,” said U Win Maung, a bicycle rickshaw driver whose house was burned down in June by his Muslim neighbors. “The hatred we have for each other is growing day by day.”

During his visit, Mr. Obama spent a considerable portion of a speech at Yangon University focusing on the importance of diversity, singling out the “danger” of the Rakhine situation and telling his audience “there is no excuse for violence against innocent people.” 

“What we’ve learned in the United States is that there are certain principles that are universal, apply to everybody no matter what you look like, no matter where you come from, no matter what religion you practice,” he said.

Divisions are so deep in Rakhine State that the communities cannot agree on what the Muslims should be called. Many Muslims call themselves Rohingya, an ethnic group that is not officially recognized in Myanmar, formerly Burma.

Small Muslim communities coexist with the Buddhist majority across Myanmar, but hatred is greatest for the Rohingya, partly because of their large numbers — at least 800,000, according to the United Nations — and their concentration in Rakhine State. (The country has a population of 55 million.)

The Buddhist residents of Rakhine see themselves as the inheritors of the ancient Buddhist kingdom of Mrauk U. They do not consider themselves ethnically Burmese, and the government recognizes them as a separate group. Rakhine Buddhists say they feel squeezed, persecuted by the Burmese majority and threatened by the swelling Muslim minority.

Before the violence, Rakhine Buddhists and Muslims had a sort of master-servant relationship, a castelike system in which Muslims did menial work and Buddhists were usually the bosses.

“We lived side by side but we never talked to each other,” said Daw Htwe May, a 51-year-old Buddhist resident of Sittwe who lost her home in the violence.

A group of Buddhist women burst out laughing when asked whether their children played with Muslims.

“Even a small boy knows that he should not play with a kalar,” a pejorative term for people of Indian descent, said Daw Thein Hla Yi, 55.

Buddhists say Muslims should be considered illegal immigrants, and they are angry that foreign countries and the foreign news media have sympathy for Muslims.

Leaders from both groups reach back into history for justifications for their cause.

“These people did not migrate from anywhere,” said Mr. Shwe Maung, the Muslim member of Parliament whose father was a police officer and whose grandfather was a landlord in Rakhine State. “They have been living there for several centuries.”

President Thein Sein told a visiting delegation from the United Nations in July that only Muslims who have been in the country for at least three generations would be allowed citizenship. The rest were a “threat to the peace of the nation,” he said, and would be put in camps and sent abroad. The United Nations rejected the idea, saying that it was not in the business of creating refugees.

Diplomats say that Mr. Thein Sein has retreated from that position and is now talking about resettling displaced Muslim populations inside the country. He sent a letter to the United Nations just before Mr. Obama’s visit saying that once passions cooled he would “address contentious political dimensions, ranging from resettlement of displaced populations to granting of citizenship.” But he offered no details or time frame. He has ordered a commission of inquiry, which is expected to issue a report in the coming months.

In Sittwe, Buddhists say they are not ready to make concessions. Mr. Nyarna, the monk, said many Muslims do not “practice human morals” and should be sent to Muslim countries to be among “their own kind.”

Children Face Malnutrition in Burma Camps, Unicef Report Confirms

A school for Rohingya kids without a building in Myanmar (Photo - IHH Turkey)

PHUKET: An alarming report from Dan Rivers of CNN this week said in summary: ''We have come to Rahkine state in Burma (Myanmar) to report on the latest threat to the Rohingya. What we have found is shocking. 

''I was expecting the displaced persons camps to be grim - but I wasn't prepared to see children starving to death. This isn't journalistic hyperbole. Thousands of kids are starving to death.''

Concerns about children dying in camps come as ethnic cleansing in Burma forces teenage boys and men to take to the sea in barely seaworth vessels to sail past Phuket seeking sanctuary.

The nightmare of malnutrition, deaths at sea and possibly genocide is taking place on what, in a small world, can be categorised as Phuket's doorstep. 

NOW this media release comes from UNICEF:

UNICEF scales-up response, calls for stronger combat against child malnutrition in Rakhine State

Rakhine State - While precise information about nutrition levels in Rakhine State is still difficult to obtain, UNICEF is very concerned about the extent and severity of child malnutrition, which has been exacerbated by the ongoing conflict.

Child nutrition levels were not good prior to the outbreak of the Rakhine conflict in June, and subsequent population displacement and the security situation has hampered access to affected children.

UNICEF is scaling up its ongoing efforts to reach children across ethnic lines in need with life-saving nutrition interventions.

''We are working with the government and other partners for unabated access and for additional funding to address the key issue of child malnutrition in the Rakhine state to reverse the risk faced by the children affected by conflict,'' said UNICEF Representative Bertrand Bainvel.

On November 20, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Burma has launched an additional US$41 million Revised Response Plan for Rakhine. The Revised Plan will support urgent humanitarian aid to 115,000 internally displaced persons, living in camps with little or no access to basic services, up till June 2013.

A joint rapid nutrition assessment, carried out in Sittwe in early July indicated a 23.4 percent prevalence of Global and 7.5 percent of Severe Acute Malnutrition in the locations where displaced people are congregated. 

Findings indicated that some 2000 acutely malnourished children were facing a high risk of mortality, with 650 of these children in a severe condition and in urgent need of therapeutic feeding, and an additional nearly 9000 children in need of micronutrient supplements. 

A further 2500 children were likely to develop acute malnutrition if adequate food, healthcare and water and sanitation was not provided.

UNICEF has been working with the Government and partners to examine the nutritional status of children in Sittwe, both to confirm the initial estimates of the severity of the situation and to ensure that those in need receive help as a matter of priority. 

In late October, of 4066 children examined using the Middle and Upper Arm Circumference (MUAC) measurement screening method, 413 were found to be severely acute malnourished and 649 moderately malnourished. 

All these children were treated but they require ongoing nutritional support and UNICEF expects there are more children in similar situations that have not yet been identified and reached.

In response to the situation, UNICEF, through the State Health Department, provided Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food and supplementary food for 6-59 months old children along with micronutrient supplements and continued to promote young child feeding practices including breastfeeding and complementary feeding.

At the point when the second outbreak of unrest broke out in Rakhine in October, expert estimates suggested around 2900 acutely malnourished children were at high risk of mortality; 930 of these children were in severe condition that required therapeutic feeding and some 2000 children were suffering from Moderate Acute Malnutrition and in need of supplementary feeding. 

A further 12,000 children aged 6-59 months old and some 5,400 pregnant and lactating women were in need of micronutrient supplementation. Some challenges in terms of access still exist, with 29 percent of IDP population still unreachable by partners as of October.

More resources are urgently needed to continue and strengthen the nutrition response including for assessments, case identification, referral, monitoring and surveillance. 

Therapeutic feeding must be provided urgently to save the lives of 930 severely acute malnourished children identified thus far and urgent supplementary feeding is needed for the 2000 moderately malnourished children is essential to stop them from falling into severe acute malnutrition. 

Micronutrient supplement must be provided to a further 5400 pregnant and lactating women and 12,400 under-five children to avoid serious malnutrition deficiency and the risk of consequent mortality.

The various organisations working to provide nutrition aid estimate that to respond to the need of a total of 115,000 IDPs for one year, total funding of some US$1.28 million is required . With around $400,000 already secured by partners, the immediate nutrition funding gap is $880,000.

Over the past decades UNICEF adopted a community-based nutrition intervention approach to address persistent child malnutrition in Rakhine, the second poorest state in Myanmar, in the host communities as well as in the displaced population. 

The already vulnerable situation was exacerbated by ethnic conflict that started in June this year.

UNICEF is committed to supporting the health, education, protection rights and prospects of all children in Rakhine State and across Myanmar, based on its humanitarian principles of neutrality and impartiality.

About UNICEF

UNICEF works in 190 countries and territories to help children survive and thrive, from early childhood through adolescence. The world's largest provider of vaccines for developing countries, UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS. UNICEF is funded entirely by the voluntary contributions of individuals, businesses, foundations and governments. 

For more information about UNICEF and its work visit: www.unicef.org

Free Rohingya Campaign and Myanmar Muslim Civil Rights Movement joint petition for Free Dr. Tun Aung

Dr Tun Aung and Family were arrested because they are among very few educated Rohingy a who have access to modern technology to inform the world about ethnic cleanisng and genocide in Arakan Burma. Read his case profile here

He is 65 years old and a patient of Pituitary Tumor and received Nauru surgery twice, one in 1997 and again in 2004 because of the recurrence of tumor. The condition remains serious and still under vital medication and suffering from serious side effect of the medicines. He has very limited eye vision due to the tumors on both sides of the eyes. He recently received varicose vein surgery on his both legs.

Sittwe Provincial Court sentenced religious leader Dr. Tun Aung (aka) Nu Hauk to a total of 12 years imprisonment on Wednesday for his role in the communal strife which erupted in Maungdaw, Arakan (Rakhine) State, on June 8.

Dr. Tun Aung faced six charges, including instigating a riot and fraud, stemming from a request he made to the local authorities on June 8 to hold a gathering to pray for 10 Muslims killed by an Arakanese mob in Taunggok Township on June 3. Despite giving assurances that the gathering would not result in violence, a riot broke out and Htun Aung was later arrested on June 11.

He was sentenced to seven years under the Section 5(j) of the Emergency Provision Act, two years each under the Sections 153(a) and 505(c) of the Criminal Code as well as an additional year under Section 6(1) of Wireless and Telegraph Act of 1933.

Arakan News Update: Forced Labours continue in Maungdaw

29th November 2012, Maung Daw  - On 26/11/12, paramilitary officer of (3) mile NaKaSa headquarter, MaungDaw has compellingly ordered to Mr. Ayub Khan (f) Mr. Du Du Mya, head of Myo-Thu-Gyi village track to arrange five pairs of drought cattle to harrow the lands of NaSaKa and Na-Ta-La villagers and to put altogether (5) manual workers. The NaSaKa has been arranging every year a free labor facility such odds and ends in fields which were confiscated from Rohingyas for 20 years ago for NaTaLa villagers --who were feebly brought from Burma proper and are intentionally being implanted among Rohingyas villagers since 1992 -- to get reek and then mole the affairs of Rohingya Muslims villagers to and --- create mess at the same time to play coordinated filthy political game on Rohingyas in accord with government directions from time to time.

The order of NaSaKa head to arrange five or six pairs of drought cattle to harrow and (5) additional manual labors for every time by Myo Thu Gyi village and Thaung-Pyine village to their requirement, no one knows how many days the Rohingya villagers have to supply such a potent and uncompensated tough labor to the NaSaKa and Na-Ta-La villagers in coming days.

On 28/11/12, NaSaKa forces of 3 miles, MaungDaw Township summoned Mr.Zakaria (f) Mr.Abdul Amin, age 27 years, who is running a shop in MaungDaw market, without any reason and kept in its custody at (3) mile NaSaKa station and as of now no family member has got any exact information and they are gravely concerned about his safety and security in NaSaKa custody.

In Burma, Ethnic Clash Participants Get Hefty Sentences

Muslim people pass the time at their house in Paik Thay, the site of recent violence between Muslim Rohingyas and Buddhist Rakhine people in Burma, November 2, 2012.

Burma's government has promised to take steps to restore peace in Rakhine state, where violence between Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims has flared up twice in the past six months. In particular, the government has pledged to restore the rule of law, but the decision made in a Sittwe court this week calls the sincerity of that pledge into question.

During a news conference last week, Burmese Border Affairs Minister Thein Htay, the top official overseeing efforts to bring peace to Rakhine state, promised law enforcement authorities in the region are ensuring those accused of inciting the violence that first started in June are brought to justice.

"There are some activities to restore the rule of law so we have appointed some administrators in the region and also we have some units for special investigations," the minister announced.

Despite those pledges, international rights groups are concerned that there is mounting evidence that prisoners are being held without due process. Matthew Smith of Human Rights Watch was recently in Rakhine state, formerly known as Arakan.

"I do know hundreds have been rounded up in northern Arakan state," Smith said.

"There are detention facilities throughout northern Arakan, Buthidaung, Maungdaw, Rathedaung and all these places are alleged to be home to detainees now so there's definitely a big need to get some independent eyes into these prisons to talk to people and find out what's going on."

This week Tun Aung, an ethnic Rohingya, was sentenced to 15 years in prison as part of the inquiry into the Rakhine unrest. However, he was convicted of the rarely-prosecuted charge of possessing foreign currency and for transmitting photos of the violence by e-mail. Amnesty International reports he has not been able to seek legal counsel, nor been able to receive medical care for a pituitary tumor.

Tun Aung’s daughter, who works for the United Nations refugee agency, was also arrested and remains in jail at Insein prison in Rangoon.

Abu Tahay, a Rohingya community leader and former MP-elect, says Tun Aung is not the only ethnic Rohingya to receive a hefty jail sentence without a fair trial.

"Not only Tun Aung there is almost hundred people also from Buthidaung and Maungdaw also sentences eight to 12 years within months by the courts. So no lawyers are allowed as per court procedures," he said.

Kyaw Hla Aung, a local administrator for Doctors Without Borders, was in prison with Tun Aung until he gained release in August. He says they were tortured while in jail and were forced to deny their Rohingya ethnicity and say they were, in fact, Bengali.

"Very bad condition. 185 accused were still in jail custody under trial of other cases and two accused were also tortured in jail and killed last 10 days ago," he said.

The two dead men were identified as 56-year-old Shukur Gyi and 60-year-old Fur Ahmed. Kyaw Hla Aung said, when their bodies arrived at their village for burial, they bore signs of torture.

Rights activists say the inquiry into the Rakhine violence is another reminder that the Burmese judicial system has remained largely untouched by recent reforms, and still lacks the independence required for an impartial investigation.

Arakan News Updates: Operations against Rohingyas and Kamans

November 28, Pauktaw, Arakan: A joint operation of Police, Immigration, NaSaKa (Border Security Force), and In-Charges of the Pauktaw township administration together with the Rakhine Extremists from Rakhine National Development Party (RNDP) is being carried out against Rohingyas and Kamans in the township. The joint department is threatening Rohingyas and Kamans that their access lines to foods and medicines will be cut off if they don’t identify and name the illegal Bengalis among them.

Some members of this operation are:

1. Aung Myint Oo and Maung Yan Htun, R.N.D.P (Rakhine National Development Party) members of Pauktaw Township,
2. Than Shwe (Chairman) and Aung Myint Shwe (Secretary) of Ponna Kyi Village Tract, Pautaw Township,
3. NaSaKa and Police staffs of Pauktaw Township.

The irony is that there no Bengalis among them as they are out and out Rohingyas and Kamans. However, torturing, harassing and forcefully making them to say something unreal is a method of genocide and expulsion of these people that the government and Rakhine terrorists have been using for quite a long time.

The question is what RNDP members are doing with Police and Immigration and others? They are neither from neither governmental bodies in Burma nor from the military. They are just members of a political party that doesn’t hold any authoritarian power. So, all in all, it is no longer secret to anyone that it is a state-sponsored ethnic cleansing in cooperation with Rakhine extremists from RNDP intended to annihilate Rohingyas and Kamans from Arakan.

Written by Nyi Nyi Aung and Edited by M.S. Anwar

WORLD-CLASS SOCIOPATHS | M.S. Anwar

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

- Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, Cabinet Hitler

In Burma (or Myanmar), it all began in 1962 with the ascendance of Gen. Ne Win to the power, who led a military coup and seized the power from its first and ever democratically elected government. He was a believer in superstitions, delusional ideologist and ultranationalist. So naturally, he was always hostile to the people of different origin and religion in the country. Therefore, that altogether led him, during his reign, to kill thousands of innocent people and commit countless crimes against humanity. To escape the punishments for his crimes, he used to lie with a straight face so much so that he achieved ultimate happiness and pleasure in doing so. His 26-year-long reign came to the end after the nationwide uprising in 1988. However, the dictators who succeeded him have proven to be the world-class sociopaths, oxymoronic and the most brutal.

Being hostile to Non-Tibeto-Burman-Mongoloid Buddhists, Ne Win implemented exclusionary policies and carried out numbers of operations against Muslim Rohingyas of Indo-Aryan origin in Arakan. Consequently, it led to mass exodus of Rohingyas to neighbouring Bangladesh and other countries. Simultaneously, he brought in thousands of Bengali Magh (Rakhine) Buddhists to replace the leaving Rohingyas. Though his reign came to the end in 1988, his legacy of racism has grown stronger under his successors Gen. Saw Maung, Gen.Than Shwe and the current Pseudo President Thein Sein.

Rohingyas, Kamans and Kachins under the Neo-Nazi Regime

As of today, as a part of genocide, a new wave of atrocities against and mass killings of Rohingyas and Kamans have been being carried out in large scale since 8^th June 2012. Following are some instances of the atrocities being carried out against them.

1. More than seven thousands of them were killed through various means, be in the prisons or outside, while displacing several thousand on their own land.
2. Their women and under-aged girls were or are either raped or gang-raped by Military and others.
3. Their properties are looted on daily basis and their mosques and religious have been locked down. 
4. Their educated people and other innocent people have been detained for nothing.
5. They are inhumanely tortured in the secret cells where they are locked up. The latest method created to torture the newly arrested Rohingyas is that each and every Rohingya is stroked 57 times with a rope made up of Iron Wire before he/she is locked in. It is reported that each shot of stroke is for each member country of OIC.
6. Their access to foods and medicines are blocked. They are starving to death.

Above all, only about 40% of atrocities against them including the losses of lives, properties etc could have been documented. Other about 60% of atrocities would have been successfully covered up by Burmese Regime and Magh (Rakhine) extremists. They had already plotted and conspired to conceal their each and every crime against Rohingyas and Kamans before the violence actually started to take place. Denial of access or free access to Independent Observers, International Investigations, Foreign Media and Humanitarian Workers to Arakan clearly shows that they want to conceal the grave crimes they have been committing. The continual heinous crimes against these people makes their situation worse than the situation of Jews in Nazi Extermination Camps during WWII, Muslims in Bosnia in the late 90s and Hindus in Sri Lanka in the recent years.

Moreover, there has been a hot Genocidal War going on in Kachin State, Nothern Burma for more than a year. Hundreds of innocent Kachins civilians were killed and thousands were displaced. Vandalizing and looting the properties of Kachins and raping their women by Bama military are common now. They are being attacked and killed just because they practice a different religion, demand equal rights and dignity to Bamas and reject their Big-Brother Policy. Meanwhile, Western Capitalist Nations and their Agencies are busy in deciding what Peace Award should be given to the heartless Barbarians in Burmese regime. The outcries of the innocent people are ignored.

The Legacy of Lying

Yet to keep the legacy of lying alive and escape the punishments at ICCJ, Burmese regime is leaving no stone unturned to portray the violence against Rohingyas and Kamans as a SPONTANEOUS eruption of violence. They are trying to portray the violence against these people as “Ethic Clash or Strife, Communal Clash or Strife, Clash Between and so on.” The fact remains is that it is out and out genocide sponsored by the state and propagated by Neo-Nazi Propaganda Minister Bomuu Zaw Htay, the director of Thein Sein’s Office. And it is no longer a secret to anyone. The violence against Rohingyas and Kamans in Arakan is a result of systematic persecutions, implementation of Genocide and Deep-Rooted Islamophobia. Nevertheless, no way can it be said that there were no Maghs dead during this violent period. But those few who died were in their attempts to genocide Rohingyas and Kamans. Likewise, no one can say that no Nazi German Soldiers died in their attempts to genocide Jews during WWII.

Above all, the most awkward and awful accusation against Rohingyas is that they are being labelled as illegal Bengali settlers of British Colonial Period as well as of Post Independence of Burma. It is normal for the general Burmese to think of Rohingyas as so because they were and are kept in the darkness of ignorance and delusion for the longest time in the history. However, it is really pathetic to see some learnt and scholarly people bluffing such meaningless accusations and turning racists.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi: An Oxymoron and Mother of Ignorance

The latest person to join the gang of delusion and fanaticism is none other than Daw Aung San Suu Kyi herself. She recently, in India, described the violence as an international tragedy caused by the illegal immigration of Bengalis through the porous border between Burma and Bangladesh. To quell the violence, hence, illegal immigrations into Arakan, Burma had to be stopped. Is she intentionally lying like her counterparts, Generals in Bama military-Pathological liars, who blatantly lie that no Burmese governments in the past had recognized Rohingyas and the term “Rohingya?” Or doesn’t she really have any clue about the history of Arakan and its situation? Or has her colleague, Ex-General U Tin Oo, a puppet of Ne Win and mass murderer of Rohingyas himself, wrongfully narrated the history of Rohingyas to her?

Besides, she is hypocritically silent on the genocides against Kachins. Upon a question posed by a Kachin Student at LSE Conference during her trip to London, she replied ‘Condemning anyone is not the Solution and we need to find out the root-causes to the problems.” I wonder what she was saying! Doesn’t she know what root-cause to the problem is at a time when every Burmese knows who are behind it and why?

Whatever the cases maybe, it is really pathetic to see her doing mindless stuffs just for the sake of a fixed political target. Her behaviour today is really demeaning to the titles “Democratic Icon and Human Rights Advocate” given to her. She should play straight forward and match her actions to her words. She should stop beating around the bush and being oxymoronic. It is understandable if the Generals in the Bama Military lie. It is not justifiable at all if someone who utters the words of human rights and speaking on behalf of the VOICELESS turns a racist herself and supports the human rights abuses.

Anti-Rohingya Propaganda by Sociopaths in Burma

Neither Rohingyas are illegal immigrants nor is any Bangladeshi migrating into Burma. It is a completely false propaganda spread by Burmese Regime and Magh racists to scapegoat Rohingyas to achieve their respective political targets. After all, why should any Bengali with his/her good and right sense come on a land which has been being ruled by one of the world’s most tyrannical governments, is relatively poor and has poorer infrastructures? Just because Bangladesh has a big population, it can’t be assumed that Bengalis are emigrating to Arakan. Bordering China and India have the biggest populations in the world and both countries have the huge income gaps among their populations!!! Bengalis don’t come to another third-world nation but try to go to the first-world nations. Ask any Bengali in Bangladesh or abroad.

Rohingyas are descendents of aboriginal Proto-Australoid Negritos and indigenous Indo-Aryan people of Arakan, who later came to mix with the people of different ethnic origin. The term “Rohingya” in the form of “Rooinga” existed as early as 17^th Century. Yet, they are not treated as human beings in the predominantly fanatic Buddhist country with the majority people of Tibeto-Burman of Mongoloid origin simply because they are of Indo-Aryan Descends and practice a different religion, Islam. After systematically committing crimes against these people and others for decades, they still keep lying to conceal their crimes against humanity. It seems that Burmese regime really matches the steps of their admired Hitler’s Nazis. Therefore, lying comes naturally to them and they have become generation liars and world-class sociopaths.

M.S. Anwar is an activist and student studying Bachelor of Arts in Business Studies at Westminster International College, Malaysia

Refugee Camp Plan Opposed

A Rohingya woman at a camp for displaced persons on the outskirts of Sittwe, Nov. 2, 2012. Photo - AFP

Local residents in Burma's violence-wracked Rakhine state are against plans to set up a temporary shelter for Rohingyas.

Buddhist Rakhines in western Burma are opposing plans by authorities to set up a refugee camp for Muslim Rohingyas who fled recent deadly violence between the two communities, officials and residents say, as a U.N. panel expressed concern over the government's treatment of the Rohingya stateless group.

The proposed temporary shelter in Pauktaw township, east of the Rakhine state capital Sittwe, is part of plans to resettle more than 100,000 homeless people, mostly Rohingyas, following the communal violence in June and October.

“Local people don’t want them [Rohingyas] to be relocated in the town,” Pauktaw resident Aung Myint told RFA’s Burmese service. “If they are resettled close to the town, there will be problems with them.”

Instead of setting up the camp in their township, residents of Pauktaw, where clashes occurred in October, want authorities to investigate whether any of the displaced Rohingyas are living in Burma illegally, he said.

“We want transparency … on what will be done if they are not yet Burmese citizens,” Aung Myint said. 

“We want the authorities to investigate them according to the 1982 Citizenship Law and decide to replace them in appropriate location when they become Burmese citizens.”

“They are not trustworthy. It is impossible to live together with them [Rohingyas] in the same area,” Aung Myint said.

The 1982 Citizenship Law, which limits citizenship to those who can prove their ancestors lived in the country, bars citizenship rights to many Rohingya, whom the U.N. considers one of the world’s most persecuted minorities.

The Rohingyas have been long viewed by the authorities and by many Burmese as illegal immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh even though many have lived in the country for generations.

Rights groups said many of Burma's 800,000 stateless Rohingyas bore the brunt of the violence. Rakhines were also among those killed and made homeless during the clashes. 

Earlier this month, authorities launched operations to track down illegal Rohingyas, beginning with inspections in Pauktaw.

No decision yet
Rakhine state’s Minister of Social Affairs Aung Kyaw Min said the authorities had not yet decided on the location of the proposed camp in Pauktaw and that they were considering views from “both sides.”

“We are still choosing the appropriate location for them Rohingyas. It might be in the villages,” he told RFA’s Burmese service.

“This plan is not settled yet,” he said. “To fulfill the requests of people from both sides, they need to be fair.”

He added that those who would be settled in the camp had been living in Pauktaw township before they were displaced. 

“We are thinking to replace the refugees who were living in Pauktaw township in an appropriate place in the same township because [neighboring] Sittwe township is much more crowded,” he said.

Around 180 killed were killed in the communal clashes in June and October, according to official figures, with displaced about 111,000 people, officials have said.

U.N. concern
The U.N. General Assembly’s Third Committee, which focuses on rights concerns, adopted a resolution on Monday raising the sensitive issue of citizenship for the stateless Rohingyas and calling on the Burmese government to address human rights abuses on the group.

The committee’s resolution "express[es] particular concern about the situation of the Rohingya minority in Rakhine state [and] urges the government to take action to bring about an improvement in their situation and to protect all their human rights, including their right to a nationality,” according to Reuters news agency.

Burma’s mission to the U.N. told the committee it would accept the resolution but rejected the characterization of the Rohingya as one of Burma’s ethnic groups.

"There has been no such ethnic group as Rohingya among the ethnic groups of Burma," a representative of the mission said, according to Reuters.  

"Despite this fact, the right to citizenship for any member or community has been and will never be denied if they are in line with the law of the land."

The Burma representative said that the two outbreaks of violence were not rooted in any persecution of Rohingyas.  

"The violence in Rakhine state was just a violent communal clash affecting both sides of the community. It is not an issue of religious persecution," he said.

Reported by RFA’s Burmese service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Rachel Vandenbrink.

Unjust law to arrest innocent Rohingyas

“In accord the section of an act 436/512, the following listed persons (Rohingyas) from Maung-Daw Township are regarded as absconders from the law by the Judge of Buthidaung township court and that of the court lawyers”

27 November 2012 :

The Union government, Rakhine state government and entire RNDP party members’ manipulated outburst has affected the whole Rakhine state where there are more or less Rohingyas and Kaman people -- the tortured, burned alive, forcefully evicted, dislocated, looted, oppressed, displaced, mass dead in sea water, and multi designed helplessly sufferers are almost all Rohingyas if compared to some Rakhine fake victims who are being stationed in some well arranged camps as merely to show up.

Though, some Rakhine Buddhists people were surely faced with fatality as they intruded and fought with Rohingyas in respective townships --- for instance AnaukPyin village, Rathedaung Township and Yinthay village in Mrauk-Oo Township -- in all about the state for the last six months. No one can deny the evidences while these have even been shown by the satellite photos for further proofs and reminder.

We, the entire Rohingyas people have been simply cheated by the series of statement (how to handle the case of Rakhine state) of President Thein Sein from time to time. U Thein Sein’s occasional statements and announcements in regard the violence and chaos in Rakhine state through radios and official directives have totally been ridiculous and insensible to meet the organized cooperative and destructive effort of the whole Rakhine assailants against the innocent Rohingyas people’ lives and that of the social livelihoods. If president was an honest person and wished to suppress the chaos, he would have done it with in couple of days as did in 2007 against the saffron revolution. Instead, he does drift the subject to prolong into more mess for nonsense chit-chat from every corner of the world.

All Rakhine perpetrators who have blissfully and obediently involved in chaos-- torching the Rohingyas villages and killing innocent people-- be arrested soon and put in long term jails in several prisons of the country in accord the laws. As almost all entire Rakhine mass people have dutifully involved in the massacre of the Rohingyas innocent people, no Rakhine ladies and gentlemen would abscond from an un-arrested if each Rakhine individual involvement is thoroughly investigated. Almost all Rakhine are guilty-less in the last chaos.

Before and after the one sided attack was launched on Rohingyas in accord their preplanned harmonized action, soon all relevant perpetrators from local and abroad have set up to propagate the attack through their several local journals and oversea Burmese programs such as VOA, RFA, BBC and DVA as if the chaos was run by Rohingyas.

To recoil from their (state government, Rakhine state government, RNDP party and mass Rakhine people) sadism and brutal inhumane activities committed on Rohingyas along Rakhine state for the last six months, the respective governments’ tools such as township courts Judges and the lawyers have knowingly designed their own laws to arbitrarily arrest innocent Rohingyas people from each township to shoulder the wrongdoing of the Union government, Rakhine state government, RNDP and mass Rakhine people to over innocent Rohingyas.

Army arrests Rohingya youth in Maungdaw

Maungdaw, Arakan State: A Rohingya youth was arrested yesterday by army in Maungdaw Town over the allegation that he was involved in the violence of June 8, according to a close relative of the victim.


“The victim was identified as Moulvi Mohamed Alam (25), son of Abdu Shukur, hailed from Nurulla Para (village) of Maungdaw south.”

The victim was arrested by Major Ray Wint Aung, the Deputy Commander of Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) No. 352. The Commander accompanied by some soldiers have been taking station at Maungdaw south after the June violence between Rakhine and Rohingya. The Commander was sent there to control the riot but the commander has discriminating the Rohingya villagers though there is Nasaka (Burma’s border force) is present, said a local elder who denied to be named.

After arrest, the army officer demanded Kyat 3 million from the victim to be released, but the arrestee is not able to pay this huge amount.  As a result, the commander handed over the victim to the Maungdaw police station.

According to a neighbor of the victim, the police filed case with false and fabricated accusation against him and gave three days remand from the court.

Regarding the June riot in Maungdaw Township, over 1,000 Rohingya villagers were arrested excluding Rakhine people. Some were missing and many were killed after security forces’ arrest, according to local sources.

Similarly, Nasaka arrested two Rohingyas –Younous, 28, son of Ismail and Saifullah, 20, son of Molana Abdul Sukur, hailed from Kanpu village, Maungdaw  on November 21, with so called warrant list, said a village admin official.
After nearly six months of riot, the security forces have been arresting arbitrarily only Rohingya villagers. After arrests, villagers were tortured and extorted money from them and some were sent to jail without any proper documents and query. The security forces arrested Rohingya people after entering the village whom they met, especially youths, educated persons and rich men. Meanwhile, if they got chance, they assaulted the Rohingya women and girls, a local trader said.

The security forces will not stop the arrest and harassment against the Rohingya people until and unless the government’s pressure against them.

Government’s New Attempt to Forcibly Bengalize Rohingyas

In the wake of its attempts to forcibly bengalize the ethnic Rohingyas, Myanmar government has been adopting a measure after another in the last couple of months. The government is making all efforts to prove its false accusing them of illegal immigration from Bangladesh and is forcing them softly sometimes and mightily sometimes to identify themselves as Bengalis.

Firstly, the government has started to check and investigate their documents and proofs for identification especially in the areas affected by the current apartheid after it has burnt all the homes and properties into ashes where they have lost everything even the dress worn at the time. Secondly, the investigating team targets the victims that lost every belonging including their, the displaced or the ones who has other weakness like illiteracy, poor mentality, etc.

Its first policy was mendacious temptations and false promises that it will provide Rohingyas with all fundamental rights if they admit to being Bengalis as their ethnic origin. When the government has realized that these temptations and promises have fallen on deaf ears as nobody dared to lie about his ethnicity, its next attempt was to threaten them, as is its wont, by arresting, torturing, beating and extorting huge amount of money. But this attempt appeared to be futile too.


Breaking news of November 24, 2012

Finally, in the regions under NaSaKa (Border Immigration Head Quarter)’s authority in Maungdaw and Buthidaung, every Imam of mosques – who are the spiritual and religious leaders of Rohingya communities – are called by NaSaKa to the respective offices together with village administration saying for an official meeting. Having reached there to the office, they are ordered to put off the religious dress (cap and long shirt called Kurtah) and to pay MMK 500 each before entering. And then they are forced to fill up a form for personal information keeping the ‘Race’ blank and to sign it or to sign a totally blank form. After that, the officials complete the forms writing the ‘Race’ as Bengalis. In the end, the officials let them go back after taking MMK 2000 to 6000 from each.

Indeed, the government’s thinking beyond forcing the Imams first is that perhaps the public will follow them blindly in admitting to be illegal immigrants. And all these efforts are being made by the government to blind the world to its lying for decades and to show as proofs in need.

The Fresh Violence in Maungdaw

“57 times severe punishments were the trademark of 57 member countries of Organization of Islamic Cooperation which is a sister organization NGO of United Nations” 

November 24 – On November 20, Twelve innocent Rohingya people from Zaw-Ma-Tet village (Lam-Ba-Guna Fara) were arrested by NaSaKa forces from Maungdaw Township. In that village, some seven to ten Muslim Rohingya houses were burnt down by Rakhine mobs on November 19 after the President Obama delivered the speech at Yangon University Convocation Hall. “As a golden present to President Obama for his speech in which he mentioned and noted in regard of Rohingya” Rakhine mobs said while torching the houses. The arrestees were falsely accused by the authority that the Rohingya houses were burnt down by themselves and that was the reason why they were arrested.

Before handing over the arrestees Rohingyas to the police of Maungdaw, NaSaKa had started deliberately torturing the arrested ones --- each 57 times severely beating up on their back. “57 times severe punishments were the trademark of 57 member countries of Organization of Islamic Cooperation which is a sister organization NGO of United Nations” NaSaKa forces said.

As a matter of fact, all these grass-root Rohingyas have no exact information or knowledge of Islamic countries’ activities in the sphere of international political activities, but all the relevant authorities have been in “rickety and wobbly” while simply dealing with ordinary Rohingya people. That remarkably all along the times the discriminatory policies adopted on Rohingyas pushes the local people to guess any outside be of assistance—whoever may be, whatever source should be, whichever channel that be---to save them from all sorts of discriminatory policies practicing on innocent Rohingya all along the time. After that, they were transferred to the police station and they again severely punished on innocent Rohingya people and they are still in police custody.

On November 22, some paddy fields workers, whom Amanullah hired to harvest in his paddy fields, each holding sickle to start up to reap the paddy in the field, were being stopped by NaSaKa paramilitary forces and Mr. Amanullah (paddy field owner) was summoned by NaSaKa nearby a house which belongs to a car driver namely Mr. Zafar. Mr. Amanullah, from “Italia” Village of Maungdaw Township, an owner of paddy fields nearly by Block (3) Maungdaw Township, was severely beaten and put in now in police custody. In this regards, though Mr. Amanullah made complaints at the NaSaKa headquarters, head of the military battalion, township police station and township administrative office, yet there is no hint to take action against the complaint by either of the authority.

Military head of “Alay-than-Kyaw” village, County of Maungdaw Township, has systematically formed some Rohingyas and Rakhine human trafficking brokers to recruit those who want to go Malaysia. It is learned that per head 300,000 Kyats is defined for a payment to send to Malaysia --- such a illicit way has been very perilous for job hunters facing many times on a half water way (on international water)--- either the people were intentionally being boarded on the bank of Thai authorities or along the coast of Irrawaddy delta and Tannassarim coast ---where the innocent Rohingya job hunters usually faced long term jail imprisonment by Myanmar authorities on alleged accusation such as Bengali immigrants crossing the Myanmar border unlawfully though its (Myanmar government) acknowledgement that Rohingya being the Myanmar citizens. Such the accidents had been many times and there are many innocent Rohingya people in every jail of the country along the nation. We have found that the alternative authorities of Myanmar from respective regions along Rakhine state have been dishonestly earning money showing the ‘enticement’ job opportunity in Malaysia and Singapore in one hand and crookedly putting the innocent job hunters (Rohingya) from a half water way by turning the sailing boats to the authorities and putting the jails subsequently from the other hand.

Again date on November 22, from the military battalion (14), some six NaSaKa paramilitary forces leading by captain Kyaw Myint entered the “Shwe Zet” village and started the routine investigation against the naive villagers so and so and --- that afraid of being arrested and tortured by the authority, the Rohingya male villagers have fled away to where a bit safe hideout – then a women villager namely “Ms. Zura Khatu” was arrested and now she is in police custody under an alleged accusation of possessing “Bangla mobile phone”.

Army killed one, wounded three in Buthidaung

Buthidaung, Arakan State: Army personnel from Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) No, 551 of Buthidaung Township killed one villager and wounded three others in Buthidaung Township on November 20, according to a villager on condition of anonymity.

“On that day, at around 2:00 pm, a section of army from LIB Battalion No.551 went to Pyin Hla village of Para Pyin Thintan village tract of Buthidaung Township and made blank fire
into air. Seeing and hearing this, the villagers were fleeing from their village. But, later, the soldiers fired to the villagers while they were fleeing. As a result, one villager was killed on the spot and three others were seriously wounded. Some villagers were severely tortured for fleeing the village.”

“The dead villager was identified as Abdu Zawlil (45), son of Sayed Ahmed, hailed from Pyin Hla village.”

The soldiers said to the villagers while beating them, “This is not your country. Why do you live here? These are gifts for Rohingyas,” said one of the villagers who was severely beaten up by the soldiers.

Some of the soldiers from Battalion No.551 temporarily have been taking station at Gwason Island of Buthidaung Township. Its original headquarters or camp is Maung Nama Palay Daung village, east of Buthidaung Town.

On November 21, Border Affairs Minister Than Htay said that security forces have done their best to enforce the rule of law.

A schoolteacher from the locality said, “Government says to impose rule of law immediately, but in practical, it is quite difference. They have actual policy and declared policy.”

International Rights Groups have condemned the government for not taking action to stop the violence.

Egypt has expressed is strong irritation towards the renewal of acts of violence committed against Muslims in Myanmar (formerly Burma), and urged the authorities in Burma to take immediate, decisive action and bring to an end such acts of violence committed against (Burmese) Muslims who belong to the Rohingya ethnicity, said Minister plenipotentiary Amro Rushdi, a spokesman from the Egyptian Foreign Affairs Ministry.

A village elder said, “How will stay at the village, even the security forces discriminate us?”