Breaking News : June 16 evening (Daily Update)

Breaking News : June 16 evening Security personnel start arresting Rohingya in Maungdaw
Security personnel – Police, Hluntin and Nasaka – start arresting Rohingya community in Maungdaw today (June 16, 2012). The police and Hluntin are still using Rakhine when they went to the Rohingya villages in Maungdaw.

Arrested person are:-

1.  Younous , Chairman of Regional Development Association (RDA) with two other , name not know yet from Maungdaw Town.
2. Kaseim son of Rahim Ullah,  Berahaman son of Hussein, Molana Islam, Anis Ullah son of Molana Rashid, Ahmed Rafique son of Syed Islam,  one from Ward number 4  and another one is from Padaung , arrested by Nasaka  and Police while they are fishing in the stream near the Sawmawna para as they have no foods to feed their family.
3. Dildar son of Ano Meah, Salim Islam son of Abdul Goni, Nurul Islam, Nur Mohamed son of Amin Ullah were arrested by Nasaka from Thayai Gonetan ( Knonena para) village
4. Jamil son of Musawddin  and Mohamed Ali from Maungdaw Town

Burned down house and looting
The Security personnel burned down the following houses in Thayai Gonetan ( Knonena para) village today. The security personnel had loot their ( Rohingya) property before burned down.

1. Yousuf son of Hasson, Mohamed son of Habib Ullah, Abul Hussein son of Hasson, Master Fazal, Ferose son of  Yousuf, Shamshu son of Kaseim, Anwer son of Abu Taher and  Salim Ullah son of Abdul Goni.
2. New Settlers (Natala) and Rakhines together toke away cow from grassing field of Sammawna para, Myothu Gyi  and Nyaung Chaung villages.

Breaking News: Friday evening ( June 15, 2012) Stranded Rohingya boats in Naf River disappeared

Stranded Rohingya 15 boats in Naf River are disappearing with more than 2000 Rohingyas since early morning today who fleeing to Bangladesh because of violence by police, Hluntin and Rakhines.

The Rohingya who were drifting in the Naf River as the authority of Bangladesh didn’t allow to enter its land, hit heavy rain and windy since Wednesday night.

The stranded Rohingya boats are not seen in the Naf River today evening and no body know where the boat gone, according to local from Shapuri Dip.

People believe that those boats are missing in the heavy rain and windy with 35 fishing boats in the sea. The Bangladesh –Baurma border areas are under water for heavy rain and windy which started since Wednesday night.

Rape

4 Burma border security force (Nasaka) personnel from three mile check post raped a Rohingya woman – Kala Banu (not real name), (30) from Sammawna para near Myothu Gyi village today evening where the Nasaka personnel took all her goods. In this village, no men are living in the village only female are staying in their home to protect from looting. But, noe the Nasaka are going to rape the female as there are no men in the village.


Some of Rohingya refugees land on Bangladesh soil

Teknaf, Bangladesh: Some of Rohingya refugees entered the Bangladesh without knowledge of Bangladesh authorities who have been floating since last Monday after fleeing from Akyab (Sittwe) of Burma.

More than 2,000 Rohingya refugees carrying by 13 boats and have been floating in the Naff River where to take refuge in Bangladesh to escape sectarian riots. Rohingyas are fleeing to Bangladesh from Akyab because of violence in Arakan State where Rohingya villages were burnt down and many innocent Rohingyas were killed by police, Hluntin and Rakhines.

According to Nazim Uddin, upazila Nirbahi Officer (UNO), some Burmese nationals (Rohingyas) had secretly entered into the territory of Bangladesh escaping strict vigilance.”

According to different sources, 39 victims of Rohingyas including women and children entered the Saint-Martin Island on June 12 and more than 200 entered into Shapuri Dip yesterday night.

Among them, some Rohingya refugees have been suffering from crisis of rations. There are some wounded persons and taking shelter in the local areas where they have been facing many difficulties.

A local source said on condition of anonymity that five Rohingya young girls have been missing from the groups who reached at Shapuri Dip yesterday night. They were kidnapped by a group of local youths and some local youths also tried to attempt to sexual assault to the women including girls. Some other Rohingya refugees are floating in the Naff River in the bad weather.

The local also said, most of the children are now suffering from diarrhea, phenomena, fever and cough who reached at the Bangladesh soil. It is very important to provide proper treatment and adequate food immediately by International Community and Bangladesh authorities because of heavy rain in the border.

According to an aide of BGB, despite several light signals the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB men), who were out there to prevent Rohingya influx, could see no human movement or hails in the boat. It was quite difficult for them to get close to the boat as it was moving irregularly. When they managed to get close they found no one in the trawler.

He also said that he was surprised, as one of the BGB men went for a look in the dark engine room, he suddenly noticed movement of tiny hands and legs.

“It was a newborn baby,” Maj Saiful Wadud, the operation officer of BGB said that they had a tough time getting on to the unsteady boat and brought the baby out. It took them two and a half hours to execute the rescue.

Maj Saiful said, the baby was in a terrible condition and did not have the strength to even cry. The Major also said they had already informed the higher authorities of the matter and necessary steps would be taken.

BGB suspects that the trawler, in which the baby was, might have been attacked by robbers and the passengers abandoned the boat leaving the newborn behind.

BGB and locals provided the refugees with food, water and saline yesterday as the intruders had to be kept waiting in Bangladesh due to bad weather. They were finally escorted out of the territory around 5:00pm.

A Rohingya in tears pleads with BGB and Coast Guard personnel to be let ashore with his family on the Naf River near Teknaf yesterday. The border guards gave them water, food and fuel and sent them on their way back home from which they had run away, according to Daily Star.

On Tuesday, Foreign Minister Dipu Moni said at a news conference in Dhaka that it was “not in our best interest that new refugees come from Myanmar”.

Similarly, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) called on the Bangladesh government on Tuesday to let the Myanmar refugees enter the country who are fleeing sectarian violence in their country.

12-Rakhine with arms arrested in Maungdaw

Maungdaw, Arakan State: Twelve Rakhines with arms were arrested by army yesterday midnight while climbing up to Pruma river bank nearby Khain Paran (Rakhine) village from a small boat, said a village elder from the locality.

Yesterday, at 12:00 pm (midnight) 12-Rakhine with eight automatic rifles and eight long swords were arrested by patrol (army) at Ngakura village of Maungdaw north while climbing up from the Puma river bank from a small row boat,. They went to Khain Paran Para (Rakhine village) of Maungdaw from Myitna (Chowdary para), a Rkhine village of Nilla under the Teknaf police station, Cox’s Bazar district.

They are ex-armed members of Arakan Liberation Party (ALP) of Abakan, which recently made ceasefire agreement with Burmese government in Akyab (Sitwee), the capital of Arakan State, said another villager.

They pretended to be Nasaka (Burma’s border security force) of Nagkura Nasaka camp, but when the army confirmed whether they were Nasaka or not by contacting with the Nasaka camp, the Nasaka officer asked the patrol army, they were not Nasaka of the camp and then they were arrested by the patrol army.

On June 13, in the early morning, the arrested Rakhines carders were sent to Nasaka headquarters of Kawar Bill (Kyi Gan Pyin) of Maundaw Township, said a villager who saw the event.

But, after the incident broken out between Rohingyas and Rakhine at Maungdaw, inside and outside of Burmese with Rakhine people inside and outside of Arakan State told in printing and electronic media that the armed carders of Rohingya Solidarity Organization (RSO) entered north Arakan from Bangladesh which was given reference to a Facebook of Burma President office director and saying attacked the Rakhine villagers, killing Rakhines.

In reality, a group of Rakhines with the help of police and Hluntin attack the Rohingya villagers in Maungdaw and Sittwe (Akyab) by setting on fire of Rohingya houses, killing villagers, looting properties of Rohingya community. But, this incident is doctored that Rohingyas are killing Rakhine people, set on fire of Rakhine villages. Most of the media in Burma propagate that Rohingyas attacked Rakhine villagers, according to Rohingyas inside Arakan.

Some of the Rakhine ultra-nationalist group leaders are Hla Myint, Ni Maung Shwe, son of U Ni Maung, hailed from Ward No. 3, Maung Aye, son of U Aung Tun Sein of Ward No. 1, Than Kay, hailed from Ward No. 4, Kyaw Aye, Ward No.3, Paung Mee, the owner of the united rest house and Khin Maung, Ward No. 3 of Maungdaw town. They have been looting goods, killing many Rohingyas, therefore it is not a riot, but it is premeditated genocide against the Rohingyas, said a trader from Maungdaw.

“We have never heard of this kind of state emergency which is means only for one party, the other party is free whatever they want to do, they can. If the government has a political will, it can be controlled with an hour by sending army, said a politician inside Arakan.

Instead of neutral role of army, Rakhines are protected, the security of Rohingyas are kept at the mercy of police, Hluntin and Rakhine. This means to kill incentive to the Rakhines. It is to be noted that the emergency declared on Sunday is strictly enforced to the Rohingyas only, not to the other community (Rakhines).

The dead bodies of Akyab were sent to unknown places and took photographs after covering the dead bodies with robes of monks to dupe the people across the world, that Rohingyas killed the Buddhist monks, a villager from Akyab said.


Breaking News : June 14 evening

10-Rohingya girls raped today in Maungdaw

Ms. Hamida (18), daughter of Rahim Ullah, Rahena (19), daughter of Ms. Momina and other six Rohingya girls from Baggona village and Hasina (18), daughter of Abdul Haque, Hamida (16), daughter of Baser and Nur Kaida (17), daughter of Habi Rahaman from Nurullah para were raped by army today.

In addition, army also looted properties of Rohingya villagers especially money, gold and silver from the villagers.

On the other side, army forced Rohingya villagers in Maungdaw south, with a marketing list which cost around 50,000kyat. The army threatened to kill the villagers, if not follow the ordered.

One Natala villager named Saw Maung (Rakhine) guided the operation against the Rohingyas at Nurullah Para.

Rohingya dead bodies’ bags seen in Maungdaw

12 bags of Rohingya’s dead bodies were seen under the bridge which connects ward number 5 and ward number 3 in Maungdaw. The legs of dead bodies are seen on the water. When the Rohingya from Ward number 5 tried to take out from the water, but, police arrived at the spot and surround. No one was allowed to go to the spot.

Robbery committed by army in Maungdaw

Army robbed the Rohingya villagers – Shamsu (40), Md. Johar (35), Foruk Ahmed (40) and Ismail (80) of Baggona under the Maungdaw Township today at about 2:00 pm, where Md. Johar was tortured seriously.

Army looted money and gold from the said villagers.

Breaking News : The latest News in June 14

Maungdaw, Arakan State: : A Rohingya religious student –Mammon Rashid ,son of Abu Siddque- 18, was shot by army while running away to the religious school when he saw the army and he was wounded at his leg.

Army arrested 12 armed Rakhines -ex members of Arakan Liberation Party (ALP)- with 8 automatic Rifles and 8 long swords yesterday mid night at Ngakura village of Maungdaw northern while they were climbing towards the bank of Purma river near by Khine pin (Rakhine ) village. They went there by a rowing boat from Chowdary ( Mritna Yawa) para under Teknaf Upazila, Bangladesh . After arrest, they were sent to Burma border security force (Nasaka) Headquarters today morning.

Rarkhine killed about 700 men, women and children and burned down the whole village of Zofran, Ahhnawkpin, Tharakpin, Pinchaung, Kwedi Chaung, Thaoopin, Moezindeya and Nirambawkara villages of Rathidaung Township last night. Most of the people fled to Bawsara village of Rathidaung after crossing the mountain pass today early in the morning. But, they were pushed back to their original village by a group of Nasaka . But, their faith is unknown.

Bangladesh 'turns back' Myanmar refugees

Unknown number of people fleeing violence in Rakhine region are adrift in boats on Naf river, says UN refugee agency. Last Modified: 15 Jun 2012 14:48

UN officials who reached Rakhine this week said they saw a number of 'smouldering villages' [Reuters]

An unknown number of people fleeing violence in Myanmar's troubled Rakhine region are adrift in boats on the Naf river and some have been turned back by Bangladesh authorities, the United Nations refugee agency said. "The UN refugee agency has first-hand, credible accounts of boats from Myanmar not being enabled to access Bangladeshi territory. These reports indicate women, children and some wounded are onboard," the Geneva-based agency said in a statement on Friday. Andrej Mahecic, spokesman of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told a news briefing in Geneva: "They are turning them back. Some were quite close because the locals were trying to give assistance to them." "It is vital that these people are allowed access to a safe haven and shelter," Mahecic said. Sectarian violence The bloodshed has displaced tens of thousands of people, left dozens dead and many homes destroyed, in the western region. The Buddhist Rakhine and Muslim Rohingya have accused each other of violent attacks which have caused thousands of people to flee, according to government figures. Al Jazeera's Wayne Hay reports on the sectarian violence in Myanmar's Rakhine state  "UNHCR recognises that, for years, Bangladesh has been bearing the brunt of the forced displacement caused by earlier crises in Myanmar," said Mahecic. "The latest events pose new challenges and UNHCR hopes that Bangladesh will respond in line with the country's long history of compassion and solidarity." Agency workers visiting areas of unrest on Wednesday and Thursday to assess the situation witnessed "smouldering villages", he said. "The situation is still tense. We hope that law and order will be reestablished soon - that would allow us to redeploy the staff that we had to move from the area temporarily as a precaution." Those adrift are in desperate need of water food and medical care, he said, adding: "We have been talking to the Bangladeshi authorities and we hope that Bangladesh, in line with its long tradition of hospitality for the people of Myanmar, will allow access to safe haven and to assistance for this people." There are already some 30,000 Rohingya staying in two camps in Cox's Bazaar, Bangladesh. Bangladesh Foreign Minister Dipu Moni said on Tuesday the impoverished country's resources were already strained. 'Illegal immigrants' Myanmar considers Rohingya to be illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and denies them citizenship. Bangladesh says Rohingya have been living in Myanmar for centuries and should be recognised there as citizens. Myanmar's state television on Thursday showed what it said were 29 people who were allegedly involved in the recent unrest between the two communities of ethnic Buddhist Rakhine and Rohingya in Rakhine state. The arrest allegedly took place on Wednesday night in Sittwe where 16 Muslim Rohingya and 13 Buddhist Rakhines were seized with knives, sticks and 70 petrol bottles. With tension running high in the country, police urged local residents to be alert and to report any suspicious incidents. More than 20 people have been killed in the fighting that erupted last week. The clashes between Rohingya and ethnic Rakhine Buddhists have taken a roughly equal toll on both communities, though each blames the other for the violence.

Suu Kyi: Nobel prize inspired democracy fight

Aung San Suu Kyi, finally accepts peace honour, saying award ensured struggle for freedom in Myanmar was not forgotten. Last Modified: 16 Jun 2012 14:14

Aung San Suu Kyi: "The Nobel Peace Prize opened up a door in my heart" [Al Jazeera]

Aung San Suu Kyi has described how winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 encouraged her to keep up the struggle for democracy in Myanmar through her years as a political prisoner. Suu Kyi, on finally being able to receive the prize, after decades of detention said at the ceremony on Saturday that winning the prize while under house arrest 21 years ago helped to shatter her sense of isolation and made her feel that the world would demand democracy in her military-controlled homeland. Suu Kyi received two standing ovations inside Oslo's city hall as she gave her long-delayed acceptance speech to the Norwegian Nobel Committee in front of Norway's King Harald, Queen Sonja and about 600 dignitaries. "Often during my days of house arrest, it felt as though I were no longer a part of the real world," she said. "What the Nobel Peace Prize did was to draw me once again into the world of other human beings, outside the isolated area in which I lived, to restore a sense of reality to me," said Suu Kyi. "...and what was more important, the Nobel Prize had drawn the attention of the world to the struggle for democracy and human rights in Burma [Myanmar]. We were not going to be forgotten,'' she said. Thorbjorn Jagland, chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, introduced Suu Kyi as a leader of "awe-inspiring tenacity, sacrifice and firmness of principle". "In your isolation, you have become a moral leader for the whole world," he said. 'Cautious optimism' Suu Kyi, who was released from years under house arrest in 2010, has led her National League for Democracy party into opposition in Myanmar's parliament. However, she offered cautious support for the first tentative steps toward democratic reform in her country and said that future progress depended on continued foreign pressure on the government. "If I advocate cautious optimism, it is not because I do not have faith in the future, but because I do not want to encourage blind faith," she said. "Without faith in the future, without the conviction that democratic values and fundamental human rights are not only necessary but possible for our society, our movement could not have been sustained throughout the destroying years,'' Suu Kyi said. When Suu Kyi won the honour in 1991, she did not accept it in person, fearing she would be blocked from returning to the country, where she had become a symbol of non-violent defiance. But her presence in the Norwegian capital on Saturday is testimony to the past year's sweeping political change in her Southeast Asian homeland. 'Starting out' Suu Kyi, who turns 67 next week and who fell ill in Switzerland, blaming the strain of jetlag and exhaustion, said on Friday that she was on a journey of "rediscovery and discovery, seeing the world with new eyes". The world around her has certainly changed since she learned in 1991 that she had won the Nobel, listening to a shortwave radio, isolated in the crumbling lakeside mansion in Yangon that would be her prison for a total of 15 years. Her husband Michael Aris and their two sons, Kim and Alexander, accepted the award on her behalf. When her husband died of cancer in 1999, Suu Kyi could not be by his side, again fearing she would not be allowed to come home. Then, last year, Myanmar's military-backed government surprised the world with reforms that have brought cautious hope for real change, rewarded with visits since by Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, and David Cameron, the British prime minister. Al Jazeera's Jonah Hull, reporting from Oslo, said that while people around the world were watching Suu Ki closely to gauge her political ambitions, she has said only that she will continue to work for democracy, human rights and for the freedom of political prisoners, just as she has in the past. Ex-general President Thein Sein has freed hundreds of political prisoners, welcomed Suu Kyi's party back into mainstream politics, and signed ceasefires with ethnic rebel groups, leading Western nations to ease sanctions. In April 2012, she won a seat in the country's national assembly, her first opportunity to run for office.

Myanmar raises death toll from clashes

State media says 50 people killed and thousands more displaced by clashes between Rakhine Budhists and Rohingya Muslims. Last Modified: 16 Jun 2012 10:10

Nearly 32,000 people from both the communities are being housed in camps across Rakhine state [Reuters]

Myanmar’s state media says the death toll has gone up to 50 in ethnic clashes in the western state of Rakhine, as the UN warned of "immense hardship" faced by thousands displaced by rioting. The New Light of Myanmar newspaper said on Saturday that 54 other people were injured and 2,230 houses and buildings were destroyed by fire during the clashes between Rakhine Budhists and Rohingya Muslims. The report did not say whether the updated toll included 10 Muslims beaten to death on June 3 by a Buddhist mob in apparent revenge for the rape and murder of a Rakhine woman, which sparked the violence. The violence was a result of long-standing tensions between the ethnic Rakhine community and the minority Rohingya, whom many Rakhines regard as illegal immigrants from neighbouring Bangladesh. The Rohingya say they have lived in the region for decades. A senior state official said on Thursday that 29 people had been killed, but rights groups and other local sources believe the real figure could be much higher, as there was hardly any information from the remote villages. Despite the apparent cessation of violence, the area still faces a humanitarian crisis because of the numbers of displaced people. Thousands displaced Nearly 32,000 people from both sides are being housed in camps across Rakhine, officials in the capital, Sittwe said on Thursday, after thousands of homes were set ablaze. Unknown numbers of Rohingya have also tried to flee to Bangladesh, but the authorities there have barred their entry. A UN team witnessed the devastation on a two-day visit to the region, saying that about 10,000 displaced people, both Rakhine and Rohingya, were sheltering in Sittwe alone. Pledging help for the affected area, UN special adviser Vijay Nambiar praised the government for its "prompt, firm and sensitive" response to the clashes but urged a "full, impartial and credible" probe into the unrest. Sittwe, a port city and the region's main urban centre, was calm for the fourth straight day, though many shops and markets remained closed and people were still fearful of further arson attacks. Soldiers were sent to help quell the violence and when the situation spread to Sittwe, President Thein Sein declared a state of emergency, giving the military full administrative powers to keep order. Myanmar's government doesn’t consider the country's about 800,000 Rohingya Muslims as citizens, thereby rendering them stateless and unable to access to education, health and social security.

US Congressman Crowley on Violence in Burma’s Arakan State

CHIEF DEPUTY WHIP JOSEPH CROWLEY
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 15, 2012 courtney.gidner@mail.house.gov

Congressman Crowley on Violence in Burma’s Arakan State

(Queens, N.Y.) – Today, Rep. Joe Crowley (D-NY), a leader in the House on Burma, released the following statement in response to increased violence in Burma’s Arakan State and the Government of Bangladesh’s refusal of refugees from the violence. Communal tensions, long simmering in Arakan State, have erupted this month into violence marked by the burning of homes, killings, and other physical attacks. Both Buddhists and Muslims have been the victims of this recent violence. Some Rohingya, members of a Muslim minority group that has long been persecuted in both Burma and Bangladesh, have fled the violence in Burma to seek safety in Bangladesh. The Government of Bangladesh has openly refused to offer sanctuary, even to the wounded, and has reportedly sent many individuals back to Burma.

“I strongly urge the Government of Bangladesh to adhere to its international obligations not to turn away those trying to escape attacks in Burma and allow those individuals to have access to essential services. I also urge the Government of Burma to protect human rights throughout the country, and respond to this outbreak of violence in a manner that respects the rule of law and fundamental freedoms. The attacks highlight the challenges facing Burma’s government; its country’s leaders should protect the rights of all ethnic minorities, promote dialogue among ethnic groups, and hold perpetrators of crimes accountable under a fair and transparent legal system. The government should follow the calls of democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and firmly establish the rule of law in order to bring an end to strife.”

Congressman Crowley is the seven-term representative from the 7th Congressional District of New York, which includes sections of Queens and the Bronx. He is a member of the powerful Ways and Means Committee and serves as a Chief Deputy Whip in the House of Representatives.

Foreign Office Minister calls on all parties to end violence in western Burma

Foreign Office Minister Jeremy Browne 'deeply concerned' by ongoing violence
Following reports of further civil unrest in Rakhine State in western Burma today, Foreign Office Minister Jeremy Browne said:

"I am deeply concerned by the ongoing violence in Rakhine State. We call on all parties to act with restraint, and urge the authorities and community leaders to open discussions to end the violence and to protect all members of the local population. The UK and international community will continue to monitor the situation very closely. We have welcomed the reforms led by President Thein Sein and Daw ASSK in Burma in recent months and hope that they will work with the local authorities and community to resolve the situation rapidly in a peaceful and constructive manner."

In light of the ongoing violence, Mr Browne this evening announced that the FCO had updated its travel advice to advise 'against all but essential travel to Rakhine State in western Burma' including the state capital, Sittwe. He said:

"The safety of British Nationals is our priority. We have carefully reviewed our advice and now advise against all but essential travel to Rakhine State due to ongoing civil unrest in several locations and the risk that the situation could worsen. This does not affect other parts of Burma including the capital, Rangoon.

"The Burmese Government this afternoon announced a State of Emergency and a curfew across much of Rakhine State, including Sittwe. The current curfew times are 6pm to 6am Burma time, but this may change. We advise any British Nationals in Rakhine state to check the timings of the curfew locally and follow any instructions.

"The Embassy in Rangoon stands ready to provide consular assistance. British nationals working for NGOs and other companies should keep in close contact with those organisations. British tourists in the area should stay in close touch with their tour operator if they have one"

Burma conflict spurs hatred for Asia's outcasts

Associated Press


BANGKOK – They have been called ogres and animals, terrorists and much worse — when their existence is even acknowledged.

Asia's more than 1 million ethnic Rohingya Muslims are considered by rights groups to be among the most persecuted people on earth. Most live in a bizarre, 21st-century purgatory without passports, unable to travel freely or call any place home.

In Burma, shaken this week by a bloody spasm of violence involving Rohingyas that left dozens of civilians dead, they are almost universally despised. The military junta whose half-century of rule ended only last year cast the group as foreigners for decades — fueling a profound resentment now reflected in waves of vitriolic hatred that are being posted online.

"People feel it very acceptable to say that 'we will work on wiping out all the Rohingyas,'" said Debbie Stothard, an activist with the Alternative ASEAN Network on Burma, referring to hyperbolic Internet comments she called "disturbing."

The Burma government regards Rohingyas mostly as illegal migrants from Bangladesh, despite the fact many of their families have lived in Burma for generations. Bangladesh rejects them just as stridently.

"This is the tragedy of being stateless," said Chris Lewa, who runs a non-governmental organization called the Arakan Project that advocates for the Rohingya cause worldwide.

"In Burma they're told they're illegals who should go back to Bangladesh. In Bangladesh, they're told they're Burmese who should go back home," Lewa said. "Unfortunately, they're just caught in the middle. They have been persecuted for decades, and it's only getting worse."

That fact was made painfully clear this week as Bangladeshi coast guard units turned back boatload after boatload of terrified Rohingya refugees trying to escape the latest violence in Burma's Rakhine state. Rohingyas have clashed with ethnic Rakhine Buddhists, and each side blames the other for the violence.

The boats were filled with women and children, and Bangladesh has defied international calls to let them in, saying the impoverished country's resources are already too strained.

A few have slipped through, however, including a month-old baby found Wednesday abandoned in a boat after its occupants fled border guards. Three other Rohingyas have been treated for gunshot wounds at a hospital in the Bangladeshi town of Chittagong, including one who died.

The unrest, which has seen more than 1,500 homes charred and thousands of people displaced along Burma's western coast, erupted after a mob dragged 10 Muslims off a bus and killed them in apparent retaliation for the rape and murder last month of a 27-year-old Buddhist woman, allegedly by Muslims.

On Thursday, Rakhine state was reportedly calm. But Rohingyas living there "very much feel like they're trapped in a box," said Phil Robertson of Human Rights Watch. "They're surrounded by enemies, and there is an extremely high level of frustration."

The grudges go back far. Bitterness against the Rohingya in Burma has roots in a complex web of issues: the fear that Muslims are encroaching illegally on scarce land in a predominantly Buddhist country; the fact that the Rohingya look different than other Burmese; an effort by the former junta to portray them as foreigners.

Across the border in Bangladesh, civilians — not the government — are more tolerant. But even there, the Rohingya are largely unwanted because their presence in the overpopulated country only adds to competition for scarce resources and jobs.

Burma's government has the largest Rohingya population in the world: 800,000, according to the United Nations. Another 250,000 are in Bangladesh, and hundreds of thousands more are scattered around other parts of the world, primarily the Middle East.

Human Rights Watch and other independent advocacy groups say Rohingyas are routinely discriminated against. In Burma, they are regularly subjected to forced labor by the army, a humiliation not usually applied to ethnic Rakhine who inhabit the same area, Lewa said.

The Rohingya must get government permission to travel outside their own villages and even to marry. Apparently concerned about their numbers growing, authorities have also barred them from having more than two children.

In 1978, Burma's army drove more than 200,000 Rohingyas into Bangladesh, according to rights groups and the U.S. Campaign for Burma. Some 10,000 died in squalid conditions, and the rest returned to Burma. The campaign was repeated in 1991-1992, and again a majority returned.

The Rohingya last garnered world headlines in 2009, when five boatloads of haggard migrants fleeing Burma were intercepted by Thai authorities. Rights groups allege they were detained and beaten, then forced back to sea, emaciated and bloodied, in vessels with no engines and little food or water. Hundreds are believed to have drowned.

The same year, Burma's consul general in Hong Kong — now a U.N. ambassador — described the Rohingya as "ugly as ogres" in an open letter to diplomats in which he compared their "dark brown" skin to that of the "fair and soft" ethnic Burmese majority.

The latest unrest has focused fresh attention on the Rohingyas' plight, but it has also galvanized a virulent new strain of resentment.

Many Burmese have taken to the Internet to denounce the Rohingya as foreign invaders, with some comparing them to al-Qaida and the Taliban.

While vitriol has come from both sides, what makes the latest unrest unique is that virtually "the entire population is openly and completely against" them, said Sai Latt, a writer and Burma analyst studying at Canada's Simon Fraser University.

"We have heard of scholars, journalists, writers, celebrities, even the so-called democracy fighters openly making comments against Rohingyas," Sai Latt said.

One Burmese actress posted "I hate them 100%" on her Facebook wall on Monday as the fires burned. By Thursday, her comment had nearly 250 "likes."

Prominent Burmese language journals have reported "only the Rakhine side," Sai Latt said. And many people have lashed out at foreign media, accusing them of getting the story wrong.

Ko Ko Gyi, a prominent former political prisoner released in January, has said Rohingyas should not be mistreated but added they "are not an ethnic group in Burma at all." He blamed the recent violence on illegal migrants from Bangladesh.

The Rohingya speak a Bengali dialect similar to one spoken by residents of southern Bangladesh. And physically, they are almost indistinguishable from their Bangladeshi counterparts, said Lewa, of the Arakan Project.

But their history — specifically the amount of time they've lived in Burma, and who among them qualifies as a legitimate resident — is bitterly disputed.

Some say the Rohingya are descended from Arab settlers in the 7th century, and that their state was conquered by the Burmese in 1784. Later waves arrived from British-run colonial India in the 1800s, but like the colonists themselves, they were regarded as foreigners.

That view persisted through half a century of military rule, which finally ended last year. Burma's post-junta government does not recognize them as one of the country's 135 indigenous national ethnic groups. And many people stridently believe they are not even a real ethnic group — rather, they are only illegal migrants from Bangladesh.

President Thein Sein, who has instituted a state of emergency and sent in troops to contain the violence, has warned any escalation could jeopardize the nation's fragile democratic reforms.

The International Crisis Group said that ironically, the nation's newfound freedoms may have helped contribute to the unrest.

"The loosening of authoritarian constraints may well have enabled this current crisis to take on a virulent intensity," the group said. "It is not uncommon that when an authoritarian state loosens its grip, old angers flare up and spread fast.

Internet Unshackled, Burmese Aim Venom at Ethnic Minority

BANGKOK — Over the past year, Myanmar’s government has ended its heavy censorship, allowing citizens unfettered access to a wide variety of Web sites that had been banned during military rule. When the government first began dismantling its Internet controls in August, visits to sites like YouTube soared.

But as the poverty-stricken country of 55 million makes a delicate transition to democracy, hateful comments are also flourishing online about a Muslim ethnic group, the Rohingya, that is embroiled in sectarian clashes in western Myanmar that have left more than two dozen people dead.

“The lid of authoritarianism has come off, and people finally have the freedom to express themselves,” said U Aung Naing Oo, the author of “Dialogue,” a book about conflict resolution in Myanmar’s fractious society. “All these grievances have come out,” and “the voices of reason are on the sidelines for now.”

When the discovery of a “Rohingya body” was announced Thursday on the Facebook page of the Eleven Media Group, one of the largest private media organizations in Myanmar, one reader, Pyaephyo Aung, wrote that he had been “waiting for this kind of news for a long time.” Another reader, Ko Nyi, used a racial slur and said, “It’s not even enough that he is dead.”

In online forums, Rohingya are referred to as dogs, thieves, terrorists and various expletives. Commenters urge the government to “make them disappear” and seem particularly enraged that Western countries and the United Nations are highlighting their plight.

The violence in Rakhine State, which borders Bangladesh, has left 29 people dead and more than 2,500 houses burned during the past week, according to officials quoted in the Burmese news media. About 30,000 people have been displaced by the violence, according to the United Nations.

Harder to measure has been damage to Myanmar’s complex multiethnic fabric as the government of President Thein Sein tries to steer the country toward reconciliation between the military and the people, and between the Bamar majority and the dozens of smaller ethnic groups.

So far, the violence has been limited to Rakhine, which is relatively isolated from the rest of the country by a mountain range. But many among those who have posted angry comments on Internet sites have equated the Rohingya with other Muslims scattered around Myanmar. In Yangon, Myanmar’s main city, worshipers at mosques reported that prayer services left out traditional Friday sermons as a precaution against widening the sectarian conflict.

The issue of the Rohingya is so delicate that even Myanmar’s leading defender of human rights and democracy, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, has been oblique and evasive about the situation. Asked at a news conference on Thursday whether the estimated 800,000 Rohingyas in Myanmar should be given citizenship, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi was equivocal. “We have to be very clear about what the laws of citizenship are and who are entitled to them,” she said in Geneva, which she was visiting as part of a European tour. “All those who are entitled to citizenship should be treated as full citizens deserving all the rights that must be given to them.”

Defending the Rohingya, who are stateless and are described by the United Nations as one of the most oppressed minorities in Asia, is politically risky for both Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi and Mr. Thein Sein.

Mr. Thein Sein’s government is trying to rein in the news media to limit violence against the Rohingya. A popular publication called Hlyat Ta Pyet was banned this week for an indefinite period after it published what the government judged to be inflammatory coverage of the violence in Rakhine, said U Maung Myint, president of the Burma Media Association, which advocates media freedom.

The government has also ordered that all Rakhine-related news go through the censorship board, a rollback to the procedures during military rule. “This is the worst moment for media since the ‘civilian’ government assumed power,” Mr. Maung Myint said.

The Internet, however, has remained unfettered — and heavily tilted against the Rohingya. On Facebook and on news sites, there appeared to be very few comments this week defending the Rohingya or calling for reconciliation.

A United Nations report published in December described the Rohingya as “virtually friendless” among other ethnic groups in Myanmar. That is a polite assessment.

The source of the hatred toward the Rohingya is complex but appears to turn on religion, language, colonial resentment, nationalism and skin color.

In 2009, a Burmese diplomat who was then consul general in Hong Kong sent a letter to local newspapers and other diplomatic missions calling the Rohingya “ugly as ogres.” The diplomat, U Ye Myint Aung, compared the “dark brown” complexion of Rohingyas with the “fair and soft” skin of the majority of people in Myanmar.

The Rohingya are often called “Bengali” by their opponents in Myanmar, a term that suggests that they belong in India or Bangladesh.

Although they have been denied citizenship and are subjected to “forced labor, extortion, restriction on freedom of movement, the absence of residence rights, inequitable marriage regulations and land confiscation,” according to the United Nations, the government has allowed many of them to vote, including in the country’s first elections after military rule, in 2010.

Like the Roma of Europe, they are not wanted in either Myanmar or neighboring Bangladesh. United Nations officials in Geneva said Friday that Bangladeshi border guards were pushing back boatloads of people trying to flee. The boats, laden with women, children and others wounded in the violence, have been left drifting in the broad Naf River delta between the two countries, short of food and water, said the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

The provenance of the Rohingya is as difficult to trace as that of many of Myanmar’s other ethnic groups: they appear to be a mixture of Arabs, Moors, Turks, Persians, Moguls and Pathans, according to the United Nations. Myanmar’s government counts more than 130 ethnicities in the country. The Rohingya are not on that list.

Many online commentators in Myanmar have called for the expulsion of the Rohingya — or worse. When the Eleven Media Group reported Thursday that a woman’s corpse was spotted floating in a river, but did not disclose the ethnicity of the victim, one reader said he was confused. “I don’t know if I should be happy or sad,” he said, “because I don’t know what nationality she is.”

Poypiti Amatatham contributed reporting from Bangkok, and Nick Cumming-Bruce from Geneva.

The Rohingya question

An old wound in the body politic of Myanmar was reopened last week. In western Myanmar, in the state of Rakhine next to Bangladesh, a group of Muslims riding a bus were killed by a mob of Buddhists. According to news reports the killers displayed a degree of cruelty that is the usual hallmark of Myanmar's security forces. The incident was allegedly in response to the rape and murder of a Buddhist girl by three Muslim men, a few days before. The ten Muslims killed that day were beaten to death before the bus was set on fire. It did not matter to the killers that the men accused of the rape had already been arrested and were in jail.

Reactions inside Myanmar of the killing was even more startling. Comments circulated in the internet said that 'killing of the kalas is good'. The term 'kala' refers pejoratively to the dark skinned Muslims of South Asian descent known in Myanmar as the Rohingyas. It reflected their general resentment towards these Muslims.

But who exactly are these Rohingyas? Why are they the target of xenophobic elements in Myanmar society ?

Myanmar's frontier areas are inhabited by many ethnic groups. Most of such groups are recognised as citizens of that country. But there are exceptions. One of the notable one is the Rohingyas. They live along the Myanmar border with Bangladesh. These people have deep historical roots in north Rakhine (also called Arakan). Their name comes from the word 'Rohans' which was the earlier name of the Arakan. They are an ethnic mix of Bengalis, Persians, Moghuls, Turks and Pathans. Their language is part Bengali ( as spoken in Chittagong in Bangladesh) with sprinklings of Urdu, Hindi and Arabic words. The tall Arakan Yoma mountains cuts off their area from the rest of Myanmar. So for centuries they have been living isolated from the mainland. It has been so since the 7th century when they first settled there.

Indeed upto 1784, Arakan was an independent Muslim kingdom. In that year it was colonised by a Buddhist Burmese king called Bodawphaya. From that time two distinct communities started living in this 22,000 square mile territory . They were the Muslim Rohingyas and the Buddhist Maghs. When the British came in 1824 and started ruling all of Burma, they recorded that Arakan had one lakh population of which 30% were Muslims. This percentage of Muslims however increased over the years. However the British at one stage of their stay profiled the various races living in Burma. They identified a total of 135 distinct races in that country. But they had left out the Rohingyas as a separate ethnic group. This mistake made by the British is being paid ever since by the hapless Rohingyas .

After Burma got its independence from Britain in 1948, a number of Rohingyas were elected to Burma's post colonial parliament. Under their 1948 Citizenship Law, they were also made bonafide citizens of the country. It was well known that from 1961 to 1965, the Burmese Broadcasting Service also had a Rohingya language programme.

But all this began to change under the rule of General Ne Win who overturned the democratic government in a military coup in 1962. Ne Win's argument was that the ruling political party before his takeover , recognised Rohingyas as an ethnic group merely to get their votes. He therefore took away their Burmese citizenship and made them stateless. They were considered as immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh (then East Pakistan).

The army then subjected them to forced labour, expropriated their property and did extra judicial killing. They denied Rohingyas employment, access to education and trade, and also restricted their movement. Even their right to marry and to form families was subject to permission which had to be bought with high bribes from the authorities. In effect the world began to see a 'slow genocide' taking place against these people. Many of the Rohingyas in the face of persecution left their land and escaped by boats to Bangladesh. In 1978 and then again in 1991 major exodus took place.

In 1992, the United Nations General Assembly passed resolution No. 47/144 recognising the suffering of the Rohingyas in the hand of the Burmese army. About 200,000 Rohingyas had by then fled to Bangladesh. But the military government there did not take steps to bring them back to their homeland. About 28,000 of them who are registered with UNCHR are still housed in two big camps in the Cox's Bazar district of Bangladesh, after the rest left for various destinations within Bangladesh or in other countries of the region. The Myanmar (then Burmese) government has not responded to the pleas of the Bangladesh Government or the international community to take them back.

Now that there are fresh attacks on the Rohingyas across the border a new exodus is likely. Already we have seen some of these people taking small boats and crossing the Bay to reach safe haven in Bangladesh. This time our Government is discouraging their entry into Bangladesh. Our Border Guards and the Coast Guards have been alerted and under their supervision these small groups are being temporarily fed, given emergency medical treatment and sent back.

For our Government a serious moral and ethical issue is involved here. In 1971 when we were subjected to torture by the then military Government of Pakistan, we left for safe havens in neighbouring India. We were received and housed there for nine months. But in these months many of us fought a war of liberation and returned as soon we got our independence. Many people seem uncomfortable with our government dissuading the persecuted Rohingyas to go back to their homes. Even some of our international friends have been putting pressure to accept Rohingya refugees. But there is more to this than that.

In more than 21 years we have been requesting the Myanmar government to solve the Rohingya question so that these hapless people feel secure and can go back. But they have been dragging their feet. They obviously think that Bangladesh cannot but give refuge to Muslims. But the political scenario within Myanmar has changed dramatically in the past couple of years. Today under the leadership of President Thein Sein , Myanmar is moving towards a democratic system of governance. Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi has been released from house arrest and she and her party has returned to parliament there. In this new dispensation the Rohingyas may see some positive changes .

But the timing of the riots against the Rohingyas is quite worrying. Many see this as a ploy by the entrenched military to keep Suu Kyi under political pressure. She cannot overtly support the Rohingyas for then she may lose support of Buddhists there. But she cannot at the same time afford to ignore the human rights violations of the Rohingyas. This will bring condemnation from the international community. She has therefore to find a solution to this question with the authorities there soon.

A possible way out for the Myanmar government is to repeal or amend the 1982 Burmese Citizenship Law. Translated it means that the Rohingyas should have their citizenship rights restored. Once they are recognised as citizens then they will have their basic rights.

Next month the president of Myanmar is expected to visit Dhaka. If the visit take place we must do our homework now and build international pressure on Myanmar to resolve the Rohingya question. We must insist that it would be to the mutual benefit of our two countries to have a peaceful border. But if Myanmar wants to keep this wound in their body politic festering , then we may caution them that it may take some time before a democratic Myanmar can join the comity of other democratic nations in the region if not in the world. They must resolve this sectarian issue first which has potential to spill over their borders, before they can display any democratic credentials.
The writer is a former Ambassador and is a regular commentator on contemporary issues.

Some 30,000 without food, shelter in Myanmar clashes

Rohingya refugees from Myanmar sit on a boat as they try to get into Bangladesh in Teknaf June 13, 2012. REUTERS/Andrew Biraj

SITTWE, Myanmar (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of displaced Muslim Rohingyas and ethnic Rakhine Buddhists were in need of food, water and shelter in northwestern Myanmar on Thursday after fleeing the country's worst sectarian clashes in years.

Houses were burnt down late on Wednesday in two villages near the Bangladesh border, but there were no reports of further deaths. Scores of people are feared to have been killed in the rioting that broke out in Rakhine state on June 8.

Places that were flashpoints earlier in the week, including the state capital Sittwe, were quiet as violence started to subside after days of arson attacks and killings that have presented reformist President Thein Sein with one of his biggest challenges since taking office last year.

The violence had killed 29 people as of Thursday and displaced more than 30,000, said Htein Lin, secretary of the Ministry for Border Affairs. Around 2,500 houses have been burnt down.

"Tensions between the two groups have eased. There are around 20,000 refugees in Sittwe. Most of them are from the villages where people fled in fear of the violence," Aung Myat Kyaw, a senator for Rakhine state, told Reuters.

"They are in need of food and, because of the heavy rain, there are concerns about the refugees' health and whether they have enough shelter," he added.

The army has taken hundreds of Rohingyas to Muslim villages outside Sittwe to ensure their safety.

"They are worried for their lives. The army is there so their life is secure," said Shwe Maung, a Muslim member of parliament for the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party. "There are still so many Rohingyas in downtown Sittwe and they are afraid of being attacked."

The United Nations and a medical aid group said this week they were pulling staff out of the area because of the violence. U.N. special envoy for Myanmar, Vijay Nambiar, travelled to the area on Wednesday.

DELICATE SITUATION

Speaking at an International Labour Organization conference in Geneva, the first stop on a five-nation European tour, Myanmar Nobel laureate and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi expressed concern about the unrest and said laws needed to be enforced to prevent such conflicts from taking place.

"Without the rule of law, such communal strife will only continue," she told a news conference.

"The present situation will have to be handled with delicacy and sensitivity and we need the cooperation of all people concerned to rebuild the peace that we want for our country."

Food shortages could last three to four days as poor roads and infrastructure delayed supplies from aid organizations, said Htun Myit Thein of the Wan Latt Foundation, which is managing three camps that together hold about 12,000 people in Sittwe.

"The camps aren't clean enough and some of the men are getting ill," he said. "So far there is no support from the government or international groups."

It is unclear what sparked the rioting. Relations between the two communities have been uneasy for generations and tension flared last month after the gang rape and murder of a Buddhist woman that was blamed on Muslims.

That led to the killing of 10 Muslims in reprisal on June 3, when a Buddhist mob stopped a bus they were travelling on. The passengers had no connection to the murdered woman. State media said three Muslims are on trial for the woman's death.

The violence follows a year of dramatic political change after nearly 50 years of repressive military rule, which includes the release of hundreds of political prisoners and truces with ethnic minority rebels.

The government has also allowed trade unions and promised to get rid of forced labour. Recognizing this progress, the International Labour Organization lifted restrictions on Myanmar on Wednesday.

The communal violence in Rakhine state and the international reaction may prompt further change: the Rohingyas are not included among the officially recognized ethnic groups of Myanmar but Thein Sein may be forced to improve their plight.

Up to 800,000 Rohingyas live along Myanmar's border with Bangladesh in abject conditions. Neither country recognizes them as citizens and the Bangladeshi authorities have turned away boats of Rohingyas fleeing the violence this week.