Rohingya welcome European Parliament Resolution on Burma

Arakan State: Rohingya political groups had welcomed the European Parliament resolution (2012/2604(RSP)) of 20 April 2012 which called for changes to the 1982 law on citizenship to ensure due recognition of the right to citizenship of the Rohingya ethnic minority in Burma, according to press release of the Arakan Rohingya National Organisation (ARNO).

“The resolution also called for the release of all political prisoners without delay and conditions, and access of ICRC and international human rights bodies to  Burma’s prisons; to introduce amendments to the 2008 constitution; to guarantee free and independent media; to initiate legal reforms in order to ensure a truly independent and impartial judiciary and to establish process of justice and accountability for past human rights abuses.”

The Rohingya groups - the Arakan Rohingya National Organisation (ARNO) and the Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK (BROUK).

“The whole Rohingya people feel encouraged by this resolution,” said Nurul Islam, the President of ARNO.

“While cautiously welcoming the recent positive changes in Burma, including mutual rapprochement between President U Thein Sein and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the resolution expresses concerns on the policies and discrimination against Rohingya people, and issues concerning human rights and other important matters,” the press release said.

The Burma citizenship law of 1982 was designed by former BSPP dictator General Ne Win to exterminate Rohingya Muslims from Arakan. It violates several fundamental principles of customary international law standards, has deprived the Rohingya of their Burmese citizenship rendering them ‘stateless’ in their own homeland. 1982 citizenship law effects to Rohingya in their all activities such as restriction on movement, marriage, and education and so on, according to BROUK press released.

The law promotes discrimination against those who do not belong to so-called racially pure-blooded 135 ethnic groups that the government accepts as Burmese nationals and deliberately denies citizenship to Rohingya who had previously been recognized as citizens and ethnic group in Burma, according to ARNO press release.

The rejection of Rohingya’s citizenship rights and ethnic rights by the government of Thein Sein is the main contributing factor to the growth of the refugee problem and the boat people crisis in the region. The Junta’s policy towards Rohingyas has been intolerable. The extreme situation has forced them to prefer to take perilous voyages by rickety boats across seas and oceans rather than live in their homeland; as a result hundreds of Rohingya boat people drowned over the years, according to Tun Khin, the president, BROUK.

Therefore, we urge upon the international community and governments to set the ‘issue of Rohingya citizenship’ as one of the benchmarks for lifting sanctions on the Burmese government as the 1982 citizenship law largely ignores state’s ‘obligation to respect the right to nationality’ and it does not oblige the state to protect stateless persons.

The resolution also calls on the Burmese authorities, among other things, to completely end the decade-old internal armed conflicts, to take more positive measures for peace negotiations towards political and democratic reforms.

Similarly, the Christian Solidarity Worldwide has welcomed the European Union’s decision to suspend sanctions against Burma for a year, which called for “substantially improved” access for humanitarian assistance, especially for those affected by the conflict in Kachin State and along the eastern border, as well as moves towards improving the welfare of the predominantly Muslim Rohingya people who live in northern Arakan State but are denied citizenship and are subjected to severe restrictions and persecution.

Two Rohingya women refugee missing in Cox’s Baza

Cox’Bazar, Bangladesh: Two Rohingya women were missing after local people picked up from the Kutupalong unregistered refugee camp on April 20, according to an elder refugee from the camp.

“The local people who hail from Ali Zalal village with other local went to the camp for searching of a Rohingya house maid –working in their house and run away from home – where the local didn’t see the maid and the local picked up an old lady and young girl from the shack of Hussein Ahmed.”

The maid, Ms.Ohmaizan, a Rohingya maid working in a house of Ali Zalal village of Cox’s Bazar is a close relatives of Hussein Ahmed. The Hussein’s family visited the local resident where Ms.Ohmaizan worked and the local also know the location of Hussein, according to Hussein Ahmed.

The owner of Ms.Ohmaizan suspected the Hussein family after the maid run away from his house. So, he and other local went to the unregistered refugee camp and searched the shack of Hussein for Ms.Ohmaizan. But, they fail to find the maid and then charged the Hussein family. The local forcefully picked up the family of Hussein. The local left Hussein in the Kutupalong for weakness of his health.  But, the local picked up Yasmin ,50 years, the wife of Hussein and Ms. Anowara , 20, the daughter of Hussein, said Anno who is the eyewitness for the event.

“The local had beaten severely the two refugee women while the refugee refused to go with them. No refugee had protected the women or camp committee.”

“The local picked up the two refugees on April 20 at about 6:30pm and after that no one had information where about the two refugee. Hussein who is very poor and an old man, can’t able to follow his family where about,” said a refugee woman from the camp.

The Hussein family didn’t take any responsibility for Ms.Ohmaizan and had not sent her to the local resident. The only things is the family visited the resident and introduced themselves as relatives. Why the local picked up the two women? They can complain to the concerned authority to find the maid, said an elder from refugee camp.

Govt Wants to Start Resettling Refugees: Minister

A KNPP peace delegation signs a ceasefire agreement in the Karenni capital Loikaw on March 7, 2012

Burmese Railways Minister Aung Min, the chief government negotiator in talks with ethnic armed groups, has said that Naypyidaw wants to begin resettling internally displaced persons (IDPs) and war refugees before the start of the rainy season, which begins in June.
Aung Min mentioned the plan during informal talks on Saturday with the ethnic Karenni armed group, the Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP), in the northern Thai border town of Mae Hong Son, said KNPP Secretary 1 Khu Oo Reh.
“He [Aung Min] told us that the government has plans for the resettlement of IDPs and refugees and also wants migrant workers to return,” said Khu Oo Reh.
“They want to start resettling IDPs and refugees by the start of the upcoming rainy season,” he said. “But we think it is impossible and unrealistic, because we don’t know how sure our peace process is. We are just in the process of negotiations.”
There are about 150,000 mostly ethnic Karen refugees from Burma living in nine refugee camps along the Thai-Burmese border and an estimated 1.5 million IDPs inside the country, according to relief and humanitarian aid agencies.
It is believed that Thailand alone is host to as many as two million migrants workers from Burma, most of them unregistered.
Khu Oo Reh noted out that before any resettlement program can begin, a number of issues needed to be addressed, including the demining of conflict zones, deciding where the returnees would live and getting the support of international humanitarian groups.
Aung Min met the KNPP on Saturday, the same day he returned from a trip to Europe, where he briefed Norwegian government ministers on the progress of Naypyidaw’s efforts to reach peace deals with ethnic armed groups.
Despite reaching a series of ceasefire agreements with armed groups representing Burma’s Wa, Karen, Shan, Mon, Karenni and Chin minorities, the government has yet to end nearly a year of fighting with the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), the country’s second-largest ethnic militia.
Sources in Laiza, the headquarters of the KIA’s political wing, the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), said that heavy fighting in the area on Sunday left two Burmese soldiers dead and two injured.
Despite such incidents, however, there is still unprecedented hope of an eventual end to ethnic conflict, though observers say it could take years before a lasting peace takes hold.
Saw Htun Htun, the chairman of the Mae La camp, the largest refugee camp on the Thai-Burmese border, said that refugee repatriation would remain impossible in the near future due to continuing security concerns, but added that it could happen within the next five years.

Police kills a Rohingya in Maungdaw

Maungdaw,Arakan State: Police personnel from Ramawaddy village outpost had beaten a Rohingya beggar  on April 20 in the evening  and died in the hospital at about 9:00pm,said a village administration office member.

Hussein, the Rohingya beggar in the hospital after dead

“The Rohingya beggar- Hussein- is living a village of Alay Than Kyaw who is begging for money for his survival around the village near the Alay Than Kyaw.”

Hussein had crossed the police outpost after begging in the villages and had returned to his village in the evening of April 20 where the Rakhine community had come and enjoying for their water festival in Alay Than Kyaw from every corner of Maungdaw township. All the Rakhine community was also drunk at that time. The outpost police officer- a sergeant - who beat the beggar severely without any question until the beggar become unconsciousness, said a village who is the eyewitness from the village.

Assistant Inspector, Hla Myo Htun-the outpost officer in charge- had taken the beggar to the Alya Than Kyaw hospital for treatment but the bagger died in the hospital at about 9:00pm at night, said a staff of hospital who deny to name.

The bagger is an old man who begs for money or foods in the village by village to survival his family as he was old age and not able to work hard. He never asked the sergeant for money or foods. He was only passing in front of outpost and the sergeant had beaten the beggar until dead. Why? One things, he is Rohingya and not a Buddhist, said the hospital staff.

In Maungdaw, the government staff – police and Nasaka – didn’t care the Rohingya as a human. Whenever they want to do some things against the Rohingy they don’t care any law. What they say is the Law, said a student from Alay Than Kyaw.

Suu Kyi set for first trip abroad in 24 years

Myanmar pro-democracy icon set to visit Norway and UK in June in first trip outside country since her detention in 1989.

Suu Kyi was invited to Britain during a meeting with British Prime Minister David Cameron last week 

 

Myanmar's Nobel Peace Prize laureate and pro-democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, is set to travel outside the country for the first time in 24 years.
The party of the newly elected member of parliament said on Wednesday that Suu Kyi had accepted invitations to visit Norway and Britain in June.
Suu Kyi was invited to visit Britain during a meeting with David Cameron, the British prime minister, in Yangon last week.
"Two years ago I would have said thank you for the invitation, but sorry," she said of Friday's offer by the British leader.
The fact that she would consider the offer, rather than reject it outright, showed "great progress" had been achieved in Myanmar she said.
The city of Oxford, where she attended university in the 1970s, will be on the agenda for the Britain visit, Nyan Win, spokesman for her National League for Democracy (NLD) party told the Reuters news agency.
He said the exact route and dates for Suu Kyi's first travels outside the southeast Asian nation in more than two decades had not yet been set.
The 66-year-old Suu Kyi, first detained in 1989, spent 15 of the last 21 years in detention.
Following her November 2010 release, Suu Kyi refused to leave the country during the brief periods when she was not held by authorities, for fear of not being allowed to return.
Suu Kyi's expected travel caps months of change in Myanmar, following a series of reforms under President Thein Sein, a former general, including a historic by-election on April 1 that won Suu Kyi one of her party's 43 seats in a year-old parliament.
After five decades of military rule, Thein Sein's reforms included the release of political prisoners, more media freedom, dialogue with ethnic armed groups and an exchange rate unification seen as crucial to fixing the economy.

UNHCR and Bangladesh authority jointly hold meeting about refugee repatriation

Teknaf, Bangladesh: A High level delegation of UNHCR and Bangladesh concerned authorities for refugee repatriation jointly held a meeting with official refugees in the Nayapara camp on April 9, regarding the repatriation, said a schoolteacher from Nayapara camp.

Hunt Chess, the Country Representative of Burma of UNHCR explained the refugee about the situation of Burma

Hunt Chess, the Country Representative of Burma of UNHCR who recently came from Burma said that “the political situation of Burma is changing and the economic development is also progressing than before. Besides, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi including other political prisoners was released by the Burmese authority.”

“I come here to inform the refugees about the situation of Burma and the progressiveness which has been made recently in Burma. If the refugees want to go back, we will facilitate the refugees return.”

Feroz Salah Uddin, the Refugee Relief and Repatriation commissioners (RRRC) said, “We don’t want to force the refugees for repatriation, we want voluntarily repatriation. Refugees can go back to Burma and we want to take decision by themselves.”

The country representative of UNHCR, Dhaka, RRRC, Kamorul Zaman, the Camp-in-Charge, office staff and others were participated in the meeting, sources said.

The delegation of UNHCR and Bangladesh  authorities with refugee in the meeting

Noor Mohamed (27), a refugee from the camp submitted an application to the delegates, and it has the following points:  1) to recognize as citizens of Burma with Rohingya ethnicity by the UN-recognized democratic government of Burma, 2) to have equal rights like other ethnic groups in Burma, 3) to provide compensations and to return of confiscated lands and other properties, 4) to stop human rights violations and racial discrimination, especially against the Rohingya community.

“We will go back to our motherland, if our demands are accepted and fulfilled by the Burmese authority. We don’t want to stay in the small sheds with bad condition anymore.  How long are we living in Bangladesh in such condition?” Noor Mohamed said.

According to refugees, they also urged to the Burmese authority through the delegates to immediately fulfill the said conditions.

“Another refugee woman said, “We have been living in Bangladesh over 20 years. How long we have to stay here. We want our citizenship rights, equal rights and want to stay peacefully in our country.

The meeting was started at around 1:00 pm and ended 2:00 pm.

Similarly, the high level delegates also visited the Kutupalong official camp and held meeting with the official refugees, said a schoolteacher from Kutupalong camp.

Winds and rain destroys huts of Kutupalong makeshift

Cox’s Bazaar, Bangladesh: Heavy rains and winds destroyed some huts of Kutupalong makeshift camp on April 9, according to a Refugee committee member from Kutupalong makeshift camp.

The winds and heavy rain destroyed the Rohingya refugee huts in Kutupalong makeshift camp

“The winds started at night at around 10:00 pm, and then heavy rains started.”

Another refugee from makeshift camp said, “We are afraid that our makeshift camp will be damaged in the heavy rains accompanied by strong winds. But, later on, the wind became calm and slow. So, we, the unofficial refugees are safe.”

According to different sources, at least 20 people were killed and 74 others injured in storms and lightning strikes triggered by pre-monsoon rains at different parts of the country – Bangladesh.

Buses and cars plying on the Dhaka-Chittagong highway remained suspended from 7:30 pm to 9:00 pm due to bad weather on that day.

Maritime ports of Chittagong, Cox's Bazar and Mongla were advised to hoist local cautionary signal-3, the Met office said in a special bulletin on .yesterday.

All fishing boats and trawlers out in the Bay and deep sea were asked to come close to the coast and proceed with caution until further notice.