Sectarian violence continues in Myanmar

 Security forces have been unable to stop clashes between Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims in the country's west.

Most Rohingya are stateless, not recognised as citizens by either Myanmar or neighbouring Bangladesh [Reuters]

Violence continued in western Myanmar on Tuesday with security forces struggling to contain sectarian and ethnic clashes that have displaced thousands of people.
The conflict between ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims has left about 25 people dead and dozens wounded in five days of sectarian violence in the coastal Rakhine state.
"About 25 people have been killed during the unrest," a senior government official told AFP news agency on Tuesday, without providing details of how they died or whether they were Buddhists or Muslims.

Wayne Hay | Correspondent Recent violence in Rakhine state is a stark and brutal reminder of the challenges Myanmar faces. At least 17 people have been killed in the past week in attacks between Muslim and Buddhist communities. At the heart of the issue are the minority Muslim Rohingya who are given few rights in Myanmar and are not afforded the status of an official ethnic minority group. There are many other areas of ethnic, religious and social tension in Myanmar. The situation in Rakhine state may be isolated for now, but it shows just how fragile many parts of Myanmar are. There may also be hardliners within the country who would jump on any instability to try to prove that Myanmar is not quite ready for the democratic path it has embarked on.

President Thein Sein has declared a state of emergency and deployed army troops to restore stability, warning that the unrest could threaten the fragile nation's recent democratic reforms as it emerges from half a century of military rule.
On Tuesday in the regional capital, Sittwe, police fired live rounds into the air to disperse a group of Rohingya who could be seen burning homes in one neighbourhood.
Much of the port city remained calm, however, including the main street. Schools, banks and most shops were closed, though some opened briefly to sell fish and vegetables early in the morning to residents who braved the tense streets.
"Tensions are still very high and it is very dangerous," said Tha Zan Hla, an ethnic Rakhine.
The unrest was triggered by the rape and murder last month of a Buddhist girl, allegedly by three Muslims, and the June 3 lynching of 10 Muslims in apparent retaliation. There are long-standing tensions between the two groups.
The government regards the Rohingya as illegal migrants from Bangladesh and has rendered them stateless by denying them citizenship. Although some are recent settlers, many have lived in Myanmar for generations and rights groups say they suffer severe discrimination.
The conflict poses one the biggest tests yet for Myanmar's new government as it tries to reform the nation after the long-ruling army junta ceded power last year.
Bangladesh closes border
Also on Tuesday, Bangladesh border guards pushed back three more boats carrying about 100 Rohingya Muslims fleeing religious violence in Myanmar, officials said on Tuesday.
Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) teams intercepted the boats carrying Rohingya people as they tried to enter Bangladesh on Monday night over the Naf river that separates the nations, BGB Major Shafiqur Rahman said.
"The three boats were carrying 103 Rohingya, including 81 women and children, who were coming from Akyab [Sittwe]," he told AFP.
The boats were detained and later returned to Myanmar territory, he said, adding the BGB had turned away 11 boats carrying more than 400 Rohingya since Monday.
Security has been stepped up along Bangladesh's 200-kilometre border with Myanmar to prevent an influx of Rohingya refugees.
"We got a reinforcement of 120 soldiers on Monday to beef up border patrols," Rahman said.
Bangladeshi officials estimate that a total of 300,000 Rohingya people live in the country, with only about a tenth of them in two official refugee camps in the southern district of Cox's Bazaar.
Rohingya are a stateless people described by the United Nations as one of the world's most persecuted minorities.
The Myanmar government considers the Rohingya to be foreigners, while many citizens see them as illegal immigrants from Muslim-majority Bangladesh and view them with hostility.

Evening situation of Jun 11 of Maungdaw, Buthidaung and Akyab

Maungdaw, Arakan State: The Burmese president declared yesterday night that army will control unrest areas of Arakan state from June 10. But, in the morning of June 11, police and a group of Rakhine racists started arson attack, looting properties, destroying houses and killing the innocent Rohingya girl and men, said an elder from Maungdaw.

Jamila,28 , daughter Sarfaras, hailed from Shwezar who came to her relative house for taking photograph for her wedding application on Friday (on June 8). But, she was not able to return to her home for unrest. Today at about 10:00am, she was shot death by police while she was going to her another relative house with her three brothers which is not far away. But, her relatives did not find all of them, according to her relative.

Police with some Rakhines went to the Ward number 3 of Maungdaw Town and asked the Rohingya villagers to vacate the village immediately; otherwise, we will not take any responsible for the villagers. Some villagers stayed at the Ward and some were left the village. The Police and Rakhine attacked the reaming villagers where 10 villagers were killed and kept the dead bodies in front of Myoma cinema hall till 4:00pm. After that the dead bodies were shifted to unknown place by truck, said a villager who lives near the spot.

Army was deployed to Maungdaw south and north today morning, but not to Maungdaw town. But, army is deployed in Maungdaw town in the evening, the situation become calm. However, at 7:00pm, police fired to Shwezar south village under the Shwezar village tract where the villagers fled from their homes leaving their properties. Meanwhile, Rakhine villagers from Aung Bala village looted the goods of Rohingyas. Later, police box of Shwezar Bridge brought two trucks of Rakhine youths and dropped to the said Rakhine village. The Rohingyas are living in panic-stricken.

Two Rohingya youths were shot death in Buthidaung Town at about 8:00pm yesterday while they were sitting beside Maungdaw-Buthidaung high way.

Moulana Zaiul Haque, the Imman (Religious leader) of Juma Mosque of Sittwe( Akyab), by police today at about 3:15pm while Rakhines trying to destroy the Mosque.

Sectarian tinderbox explodes in Myanmar

Diplomats fear violence will invite harsh military crackdown

Nirmal Ghosh
The Straits Times
Publication Date : 12-06-2012

With sectarian tension on the boil in Myanmar's Rakhine state, analysts and diplomats are worried about the spreading violence as well as a heavy- handed crackdown.

Yesterday, security forces sought to restore order after a weekend of violence in which Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims set upon each other, torching houses in towns and entire hamlets.

At least seven people have died and 500 homes destroyed since the violence erupted last Friday in the town of Maungdaw and spread quickly to the state capital Sittwe.

Yesterday, plumes of black smoke still rose over parts of Sittwe, while Buddhists were seen wielding makeshift weapons such as bamboo stakes, said Reuters.

In a village near Sittwe, an unidentified ethnic Rakhine told Reuters: "We are burning Rohingya houses because they live near our village and they gather at night and try to attack us."

Muslims were seen setting alight houses as well.

Police retrieved four corpses, including one believed to be that of an ethnic Rakhine woman, reported the Associated Press. The other bodies were wrapped in blankets, and it was not clear who they were.

Signalling the gravity of the situation, President Thein Sein on Sunday night delivered a grim warning that the sectarian violence threatened the country's transition to democracy - a process begun with sweeping reforms under his presidency, after decades of repressive military rule.

"If we put racial and religious issues at the forefront, if we put the never-ending hatred, desire for revenge and anarchic actions at the forefront, and if we continue to retaliate and terrorise and kill each other," there was a danger the troubles could multiply and move beyond Rakhine, he said in a televised address.

If this happened, "the country's stability and peace, democratisation process and development could be severely affected and much would be lost".

The government imposed a state of emergency in areas of Rakhine state on Sunday. The order banned congregations of more than five people, including specifically in mosques. A night curfew was also in force.

Troops had been "ordered... to protect the airport and the Rakhine villages under attack in Sittwe", Zaw Htay, director of the President's Office, was quoted as saying by Reuters.

The United Nations yesterday pulled out staff and their families from its offices in Maungdaw, Buthidaung and Sittwe, and asked for government help to transport them to Yangon.

The cycle of violence followed the recent rape and murder of a Rakhine Buddhist woman, allegedly by three Muslim men. In retaliation, an angry Buddhist mob beat 10 Muslims to death on June 3.

But Rakhine has always been a potential tinderbox because of the majority Buddhists' resentment towards the minority Muslim population, comprising both ethnic Rakhine and the Rohingya, seen as immigrants.

At the same time, resentment has also built up in the Rohingya community after years of discrimination and harsh treatment. They are seen as illegal immigrants from neighbouring Bangladesh and denied citizenship.

However, Bangladesh does not see them as Bangladeshis. Some 800,000 of the effectively stateless Rohingya live in Rakhine, another 200,000 in Bangladesh - including some 30,000 in squalid camps - and there are a further one million scattered around the world.

The Rohingya's plight caught international attention in 2010 when five boatloads of migrants fleeing Myanmar were detained by the Thai authorities and allegedly set adrift at sea with little food and water. Hundreds were believed to have drowned.

This time, to escape the violence in Rakhine, some 300 Rohingya, mainly women and children, tried to flee to Bangladesh in eight boats. But Bangladeshi border guards yesterday turned them back after giving them food and water.

A Yangon-based diplomat, who asked not to be identified, told The Straits Times over the phone: "It is really tense right now. But the government is taking action and there is probably a cleaning-up process (by security forces) now."

He said there was a perception that this round of violence was not entirely locally fomented. The Myanmar navy has been deployed off the coast to intercept outsiders trying to land, he noted.

The diplomat said the conflict would not necessarily strengthen hardliners in the army, which has always feared the break-up of Myanmar along ethnic lines if the country were to embrace liberal democracy.

Aung Naing Oo, deputy director of the Thailand-based Vahu Development Institute, said: "When authoritarian rule is lifted, something like this is bound to happen."

Myanmar analysts have sounded warnings about the escalation of violence.

Phil Robertson, deputy director in the region for the New York-based Human Rights Watch, said: "This is a very worrisome escalation of tit-for-tat violence.

"Fundamentally, the government has to realise that its policy in Rakhine state is not working... They need a fundamental rethink on how they treat the Rohingya."

Independent Myanmar analyst Richard Horsey said: "In a mature democracy, there may be more understanding if you have to roll out a heavy-handed response, but in people's minds, it is going to be linked to old repression rather than an understanding that it is needed to restore law and order."

He warned that there was a risk that the state would be seen as partisan.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urges immediate end to Myanmar violence

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Office of the Spokesperson
June 11, 2012

STATEMENT BY SECRETARY CLINTON

Violence in Burma’s Rakhine State

The United States continues to be deeply concerned about reports of ongoing ethnic and sectarian violence in western Burma’s Rakhine State and urges all parties to exercise restraint and immediately halt all attacks. The Burmese Government has announced a State of Emergency and curfews in Rakhine State, but reports of violence continue.

We join others in the international community and call on authorities to work with local leaders—together with Muslim, Buddhist, and ethnic representatives, including Rohingya—to halt the ongoing violence, begin a dialogue toward a peaceful resolution, and ensure an expeditious and transparent investigation into these incidents that respects due process and the rule of law.

The United States has welcomed Burma’s recent reform efforts and the important steps President Thein Sein, Aung San Suu Kyi, and other leaders inside and outside of government have taken. The situation in Rakhine State underscores the critical need for mutual respect among all ethnic and religious groups and for serious efforts to achieve national reconciliation in Burma. We urge the people of Burma to work together toward a peaceful, prosperous, and democratic country that respects the rights of all its diverse peoples.

Source here 

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Clinton voices deep concern on Myanmar sectarian unrest

(Reuters) - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has voiced deep concern over sectarian violence in Myanmar, unrest that threatens to endanger democratic and economic reforms in the country after decades of military-ruled isolation.

Clinton and the European Union, which both recently suspended economic sanctions against Myanmar to recognize and encourage its transition to democracy, have appealed to the nation's rulers to calm the situation and bring reconciliation.

Tensions between Buddhists and Muslim Rohingyas, a stateless people, turned violent in Myanmar's northwest over the past week, after the gang rape and murder of a Buddhist woman, widely blamed on Muslims, sparked bloody reprisals.

"The situation in Rakhine state underscores the critical need for mutual respect among all ethnic and religious groups and for serious efforts to achieve national reconciliation in Burma," Clinton said in a statement on Monday.

"We urge the people of Burma to work together toward a peaceful, prosperous, and democratic country that respects the rights of all its diverse peoples."

At the weekend, mobs of Muslims and Buddhists torched houses in Sittwe, the biggest town in Myanmar's western Rakhine State. Hundreds of Rohingyas boarded boats to try to flee into neighboring Bangladesh but many were turned back.

It is the worst communal violence since a reformist government replaced a junta last year, began to allow political pluralism and vowed to tackle ethnic divisions.

The European Union said on Monday it was satisfied with the "measured" handling of the violence so far by Myanmar President Thein Sein, who has said the unrest could jeopardize the transition to democracy if allowed to spiral out of control.

"We believe that the security forces are handling this difficult intercommunal violence in an appropriate way," said Maja Kocijanic, spokeswoman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton. "We welcome the priority which the Myanmar government is giving to dealing with all ethnic conflicts."

RIGHTS GROUP CRITICISES GOVT

However, U.S.-based Human Rights Watch criticized Thein Sein's handling of the violence, saying he had effectively ceded control of the situation to the army and that troops had opened fire on Rohingyas since the unrest erupted in Rakhine State, also known by its former name Arakan.

"Deadly violence in Arakan State is spiraling out of control under the government's watch," Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement on Tuesday.

The group urged the government to allow international journalists, aid workers and diplomats into the area.

"Opening the area to independent international observers would put all sides on notice that they were being closely watched," Pearson added.

EU states suspended most sanctions against Myanmar after it released many political prisoners, allowed opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy to contest by-elections, and lifted some repressive measures.

They had previously frozen the assets of nearly 1,000 companies and institutions, and banned almost 500 people from entering the bloc.

The United States, which had imposed more stringent and comprehensive sanctions against Myanmar, has also suspended curbs on U.S. investment and the provision of financial services in response to changes in the country.

At least eight people were killed and many wounded, authorities said, after fighting erupted on Friday in the town of Maungdaw, and quickly spread to Sittwe and nearby villages.

Sate-run MRTV announced curfews in three towns, including Thandwe, the gateway to Myanmar's tourist beaches, and Kyaukphyu, where China is building a port complex. The curfews underline the risk to Myanmar's attempts to encourage tourism and foreign investment back into the country.

The United Nations said it had started evacuating staff from the area.

INVESTMENT NEED

Western firms are keen to help meet Myanmar's vast need for investment in health, telecommunications, housing, energy and other infrastructure after decades of isolation.

The country also has large untapped resources of oil and natural gas and the potential to be a major exporter of rice and wood. Moreover, Myanmar neighbors the world's two biggest emerging markets, China and India.

Buddhists and Muslims have long lived in uneasy proximity in Sittwe, where ethnic Rakhine Buddhists were carrying bamboo stakes, machetes, slingshots and other makeshift weapons at the weekend after Muslims were seen setting houses on fire.

Rohingyas live in abject conditions along Myanmar's border with Bangladesh and are despised by many Rakhine, who belong to the predominantly Buddhist majority.

About 100 Rohingyas tried to flee by boat into Bangladesh but were pushed back on Monday, Bangladesh's border guard said.

Five boats carrying about 200 Rohingyas were pushed back out to sea on Sunday, said Anwar Hossain, a major with the guard.

Rohingya activists have long demanded recognition in Myanmar as an indigenous ethnic group with full citizenship by birthright, claiming a centuries-old lineage in Rakhine State, where they number some 800,000.

But the government regards them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and denies them citizenship. Bangladesh has refused to grant Rohingyas refugee status since 1992.

The authorities have blamed Rohingya mobs for the violence. But Rohingya activists and residents accuse ethnic Rakhine of terrorizing their communities.

State media said three men had gone on trial on Friday for the rape and murder.

(Reporting by Reuters in Sittwe, Nurul Islam in Bangladesh and Sebastian Moffett in Brussels. Writing by Andrew R.C. Marshall and Sebastian Moffett.; Editing by Jason Szep and Mark Bendeich)

Sources:

NGOs: Stop violence against Rohingyas

This Friday, the NGOs will hold a two-km peaceful march from the Tabung Haji mosque to hand over a memorandum to the Myanmar Embassy in Kuala Lumpur.

GEORGE TOWN: A coalition of Malaysian NGOs has called on the Myanmar government to immediately stop the violence and arson attacks against the Rohingya Muslims in the western Rakhine state.

The coalition also wants President Thein Sein’s government to bring the criminals behind the violence to justice and compensate the Rohingya victims.

Currently Rohingyas are under arson attack and violence by Rakhinese ethnic group following an alleged rape – murder of a Rakhinese girl by three Rohingyas last month.

The arson attacks and violence against the community is said to have spread in many parts of Rakhine state.

The NGO coalition comprises Citizens International, UJN, ABIM, MAPIM, SHURA, KUMS-Malaysia, TERAS, PUM, WADAH, SALIMAH, GAMIS, PKPIM, PUK, MSA-Stevens and UNIROD.

In a joint statement, the coalition chairman SM Mohamed Idris condemned the killings and failure of authorities to protect the Rohingya civilian population.

The coalition would now lobby internationally to stop the violence, including submitting memorandums to United Nations and Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak.

This Friday, the coalition will hold a two-km peaceful march from the Tabung Haji mosque to hand over a memorandum to the Myanmar Embassy in Kuala Lumpur.

Both the US and EU recently eased sanctions on Burma amid a process of reform that began with the election of a military-backed nominally civilian government in November 2010 that ended decades of military rule.

Illegal immigrants from Bangladesh

Activists, however, have criticised Yangon for allowing troops to take control of the western province and have asked that journalists, aid workers and diplomats be allowed into the area.

“The violence is spiralling out of control under the government’s watch,” said Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch in a statement.

President Thein Sein declared a state of emergency late Sunday night after unrest over the weekend saw rival Buddhist and Muslim groups setting houses on fire.

Idris also called Yangon administration to recognise the Rohingyas as citizens with equal rights as other ethnic groups in Myanmar.

Rohingyas are a stateless Muslim group in Myanmar as Yangon considers them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

Idris said the Rohingya community has faced discrimination and persecution from the Myanmar military regime for over 60 years.

He said it was wrong for Yangon to classify Rohingyas as illegal immigrants when the community had always been a permanent ethnic community in Myanmar.

Idris called on Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy to convene a dialogue with the Rohingya community to address their grievances.