Police uses emergency Act 144 to extort money

Maungdaw, Arakan State: Police personnel from Maungdaw police department used the emergency Act 144 to extort money from Rohingyas youth on October 19, according to an elder from Maungdaw.
“The police personnel- U Maung Chey- extorted 100,000 kyat from five Rohingyas youth who are sitting and talking each other in a place near the Maungdaw clock tower with allegation of emergency Act 144.”

The Rohingyas youth are between 15 – 18 year old and they are sitting like Rakhine community, but the police personnel U Maung Chey alleged them they broke the emergency Act 144 which was imposed in Maungdaw since June riot, said a student’s relative.
Maungdaw police personnel are extorting money from Rohingya community in Maungdaw since the riot started in June using so-called arrest list, involving in the riot, according to a teacher from Maungdaw.
“The police personnel from Maungdaw police station are stationed near the clock tower where most of the Rohingyas from rural areas pass this place while they go to the market and the police personnel called the Rohingyas who passed the place and accused them that they were involved in the riot. After that the police asked money to release otherwise to arrest and kept in a hotel which was their camp to keep the Rohingya.”
“Military Intelligent personnel raided the hotel where the police personnel kept the Rohingya to extort money from them. The Military Intelligent seized huge money and rescue three Rohingyas from the hotel last month with information. The Military Intelligent arrest a police officer with this connection, but other police officer started again their plan to extort the money from Rohingyas.”
The emergency Act was imposed in northern Arakan where no more than five persons gather in a place. But, Rakhines community is able to gather more than five persons under the emergency Act 144, said a student from Maungdaw.
“Recently, Rakhine community demonstrated in Akyab and Rathidaung with more than hundreds of people against the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) under the emergency Act 144 imposed areas. How can the Rakhines demonstrated in unrest areas without support of President Thein Sein government. This is only a magic show, the Thein Sein government play to the world.”
“The government reacted quickly by declaring a Emergency Section 144 on June 9 and a curfew on June 10. These measures did not, however, stop the violence and nor was it intended for that purpose. In fact, the curfew was intended to give the Rakhines an upper hand in the violence. While the security forces made sure the Rohingyas stayed indoors, mobs of Rakhines looted and pillaged with impunity. Videos of burning Rohingya villages surfaced all over the internet and the international news networks. Many of the looters, proud of their handiwork, spoke before cameras. The security forces did little to stop them and in many cases aided the mobs. There were consistent reports of extra judicial killings, beatings and intimidation of the Rohingyas by the armed forces. Many Rohingyas were killed and women were raped during this time. The government figures suggested that altogether 78 people, mostly Rohingyas, died in the conflict. Human rights groups estimate the figure to be much higher,” according to No Respite for Rohingyas by Shudeepto Ariquzzaman which published on http://www.thedailystar.net/forum/2012/October/no.htm

Rohingyas were ordered to be slaves of Bengali Rakhines

Date 19.10.2012 According to the source of ERC, Rohingya Muslims of Alethankyaw were summoned to attend a meeting arranged by Border Control (Na Sa Ka) area 8 commander Aung Naing Oo and police officers today. But no one appeared to the meeting. So they send security forces to the village and herded all Rohingya Muslims they found on the road and in the village to the meeting ground. The area commander told the people that they have to live together with Bengali Rakhine people, under their command and obey their orders like slaves because Bengali Rakhines are citizens of the country and Rohingya Muslims are aliens who are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. Anyone who disobeys Bengali Rakhine will be severely punished. They said that whoever unwilling to live under this condition should leave the country forever. When a Rohingya Muslim raised the question why authorities are arresting innocent Muslims who are not committed any crimes, the authority answered that it was because Rakhines had complained about those peoples and there were 81 more peoples in their list to be arrested.

Rohingya Muslims always intend to peacefully coexist with ethnic Rakhines as they have lived for many years but not in the condition the authorities described. Rohingya Muslims need equal citizenship as Rakhines. We Rohingyas are not aliens but citizens of the country. We Rohingyas are the natives of our mother land Arakan. So we seek urgent intervention from international community to solve this problem.

About 3,000 Rohingya Muslims living in the temporary shelters in the shen khali Village of Rathedaung Township are in dire situation. They are starving and need urgent food and medication supply. We request NGOs to help and save these peoples from starvation.

Muslims in Arakan State are decided not to perform Qurbani (Sacrifice) this year one of the most important days in Islam. Since Rohingya Muslims are not allowed to pray compulsory five time prayer in Mosque they say that they should better refrain.

No help, please, we’re Buddhists

When offending the Muslim world seems a small price to pay

Oct 20th 2012 | YANGON | 

IT IS as if a veil had been lifted to reveal a hideous blemish. Terrible ethnic and religious violence in June in Myanmar’s western state of Rakhine pitted Buddhists against the mostly Muslim Rohingya minority. The aftermath risks marring the coming-out celebrations of Myanmar’s hugely welcome rejection of tyrannous isolation. Thein Sein, a former general who has become the country’s reforming president, is thought by some unlucky to have lost this year’s Nobel peace prize (to the EU). But on October 15th he reneged on an agreement to let the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation (OIC) open an office in Myanmar’s commercial hub, Yangon.

The OIC, which groups 57 countries with large Muslim populations, wanted to help the Rohingyas. They make up most of the 75,000 people displaced by the violence into camps around Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine. Aid workers say their conditions are dire, with many suffering malnutrition. Sanitation is woeful.

Myanmar has 135 recognised ethnic groups. A belief that nearly unites them is that the Rohingyas are not Burmese, but illegal “Bengali” settlers, who should be in Bangladesh or elsewhere. Mr Thein Sein himself has suggested the solution to Myanmar’s Rohingya problem is to deport them all. No other country, however, accepts them. And so they are stateless.

Many Muslim countries wanted to channel aid to Rohingyas through the OIC (such as most of the $50m pledged by Saudi Arabia). But, the president said, opening an OIC office would not be “in accordance with the people’s desires”. This was a response to demonstrations, often led by Buddhist monks, against the proposed office. They took place in a number of cities, including Yangon, Mandalay and, especially, Sittwe.

There are competing analyses of the president’s decision. The most optimistic is that, in the new Myanmar, it is impossible to suppress protests violently, especially if they are led by monks. A more cynical view is that the government tolerated or even instigated the protests to give it a pretext. Many of the demonstrations were without the approvals required under Burmese law, yet nobody has been punished.

The government’s motive was simple, Rohingya politicians say. It wants to keep foreign eyes out as it makes life in Myanmar so intolerable for Rohingyas that those still in the country join the diaspora, who, at an estimated 1.5m or more, already outnumber them.

The only thing that might sway Burmese opinion in favour of the Rohingyas, some say, would be the staunch support of Myanmar’s most famous and revered politician, the opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. But she has been largely silent on their plight. Perhaps the only thing that might dent the popularity she and her party enjoy would be for her to take up the cudgels on behalf of this benighted minority.

US invites Myanmar to joint military drills

Inclusion in world's largest multi-national military field exercise seen as first step towards US-Myanmar military ties.

The United States has invited Myanmar to the world's largest multi-national military field exercise, a powerful symbolic gesture toward a military with a grim human rights record and a milestone in its rapprochement with the West. Myanmar was invited to observe Cobra Gold, which brings together thousands of American and Thai military personnel and participants from other Asian countries for joint annual maneuvers, officials from countries participating in the exercises told Reuters on Friday. "It's a significant and symbolic gesture that shows the rapprochement is gathering momentum," said Christopher Roberts, a security expert at Australia National University. The invitation is part of a carefully calibrated re-engagement with Myanmar's military under the umbrella of humanitarian dialogue, the sources said, constituting one of the boldest rewards for Myanmar's new semi-civilian government after 49 years of direct military rule. It is also seen as a first step towards US-Myanmar military-to-military ties, cut off after 1988 when soldiers opened fire on pro-democracy protesters in a crackdown that killed or wounded thousands and led to the house arrest of democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi. The invitation came after intense lobbying by Thailand, co-host of the exercises, the sources said. It could prompt charges that Washington is moving too quickly in seeking to rehabilitate a military accused of continued human rights violations in ethnic regions such as Kachin State where tens of thousands of people have been displaced in 16 months of fighting. War crimes Refugees fled forced labour, killings, rape and torture by the Myanmar military, reported Human Rights Watch in June. "Burma's military continues to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity. It is shocking that the United States would invite them to military exercises," said Mark Farmaner, director of advocacy group Burma Campaign UK. The invitation follows a visit this week by a delegation led by Michael Posner, the US State Department's top human rights official, to Naypyitaw, the capital of Myanmar, also known as Burma. The US team also included Vikram Singh, the deputy assistant secretary of the US Defense Department, and other US military officials. The talks on the Myanmar side were led by Aung Thaw, deputy minister for defence commodore . Myanmar state media reported that the "two sides held talks on levels and operations of defence institutions of Myanmar and US and exchanged views on future dialogue and bilateral cooperation". US officials in Bangkok and Washington declined to comment. The invitation is another illustration of the Obama administration's pivot this year from Iraq and Afghanistan to focus national security resources on the Asia-Pacific region. Military presence Cobra Gold, which began in 1980, take places in Chon Buri, a province east of Bangkok where the United States built up a massive military presence during the Vietnam War. Last year, about 10,000 US military personnel took part, along with about 3,400 Thais. Five other countries participated - Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea. And nine countries sent observers, including China. "In the past, Myanmar has always been unhappy about this Cobra Gold, thinking that it was directed against them and was like a step towards invasion," said Dr Tin Maung Maung Than, a senior fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore and expert on Myanmar's military. Even when it was a dictatorship, Myanmar sent more officers to the United States than to any other country. More than 1,200 officers trained there between Myanmar's independence from Britain in 1948 and General Ne Win's military coup in 1962, according to Maung Aung Myoe, author of "Building the Tatmadaw: Myanmar Armed Forces since 1948". Ne Win's coup ushered in nearly half a century of isolation and misrule, but the United States maintained military ties as a bulwark against the spread of communism from neighbouring China. Some 255 Myanmar officers graduated from the US from 1980 to 1988 under the International Military Education and Training programme, more than from any other country, said Maung Aung Myoe. The programme was halted, and US sanctions were imposed, after the junta crushed the 1988 uprising and refused to honour the results of a general election won by Suu Kyi's party two years later.