Rohingya Trucked North: Checkpoint Exposes 127 in Minivan Convoy

Rohingya arrested in southern Thailand await return to the Burma border

(Photo - 77 Nation Channel)

Chutima Sidasathian & Alan Morison 

Phuket Wan

December 27, 2012 

PHUKET: A total of 127 Rohingya have been arrested in southern Thailand and trucked back to the Thailand-Burma border. 

Those held were in five minivans in a convoy bound for the Malaysian border crossing at Padang Besar in Songkhla province.

On December 24 a police-Army checkpoint in Satun province pulled over two of the vans, which each contained 22 men and boys. 

The drivers of another three minivans fled after dropping off their passengers, who totalled 83. 

The youngest of those arrested was a boy aged 10. Most of the captured Rohingya were teenagers or young men. 

Hundreds are fleeing the Burmese state of Rakhine where thousands of homes have been torched since June in a simmering racial conflict between local residents and the Muslim Rohingya.

About 170 are reported to have been killed in the conflict, which has left thousands of Rohingya confined in displaced persons camps. 

Many prefer to take their chances by paying people smugglers and fleeing by sea, with Malaysia as the target for most.

How the Rohingya arrested on December 24 got to Songkhla province in southern Thailand is not known. Part of their journey was probably made by sea. 

Brokers on the Thai-Malaysia border are known to systematically transfer Rohingya south from camps hidden in plantations in Thailand with the connivance of officials in both countries.

The arrest of the 127 may have come because the officers at the checkpoint are not part of the system or rival brokers have perhaps fallen out. 

The arrests were made by officers from Khuankalong police station in Satun, where Lieutenant Sompong Meechoo said local police were not part of any smuggling group. 

''The Rohingya will be trucked straight back to Ranong,'' he said, referring to the Thai-Burma border port hundreds of kilometres to the north where the arrested men and boys could possibly have stopped off on their journey. 

Because the arrested Rohingya are inevitably all men and boys, some reports speculate that they could be heading to join the insurgency in Thailand's south.

Thailand's Internal Security Operations Command has checked out these reports over several years but never found evidence to justify them.

Isoc tallies 2817 Rohingya arrested or ''helped on'' in Thailand in October and November. 

Other experts in the deep south conflict say there has never been an instance where a single Rohingya has been killed or injured in incriminating circumstances in eight years of conflict. 

Chris Lewa, director of the advocacy group Arakan Project, said: ''Rohingya only transit through Thailand on their way to Malaysia, helped on by Thai authorities. 

''There has never been any evidence of Rohingya involvement in the deep South insurgency. 

''Why should countries in the region repeatedly make these kinds of assumptions just because they are Muslims?''

The Rohingya are protective of their womenfolk, who seldom venture far from home. However, having a boy of 10 among the latest batch of arrests indicates some are becoming more desperate to flee Burma. 

Hundreds of Rohingya are believed to be voyaging past the Andaman coast and the holiday island of Phuket this relatively tranquil October-April ''sailing season.''

Those apprehended on land north of Phuket are usually trucked quickly back to Ranong, often described as Burmese to reduce complications. 

As stateless non-citizens, the Rohingya are not wanted back in Burma so they are usually delivered to people smugglers. 

The smugglers demand extra payments and those who cannot meet the terms are usually put to work in fish factories or indentured to trawlers.

Earlier this month, Singapore refused to allow a Vietnamese cargo ship to dock with 40 Rohingya who survived a sinking in which 200 are thought to have drowned. 

All of Burma's Asean neighbors continue to turn a blind eye to the tacit ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya now underway in Burma.

Protect Rohingya human rights, including their right to a nationality: UN

The U.N. General Assembly has unanimously adopted a resolution by the 193-member world body on December 24, urges Burmese government action to improve the situation of the Rohingya Muslim minority “and to protect all their human rights, including their right to a nationality.”

The resolution noted substantial efforts by Burmese’s government towards political reform, democratization, national reconciliation and improvements in human rights. But it said there were still “systematic violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms.”
The General Assembly urged the government "to accelerate its efforts to address discrimination, human rights violations, violence, displacement and economic deprivation affecting various ethnic minorities," singling out the Rohingyas and Kachin.
The U.N. General Assembly has unanimously adopted a resolution welcoming positive changes in Burma, but expressing serious concern at an upsurge of sectarian violence between Muslims and Buddhists in Arakan state.
The European Union-sponsored resolution was adopted by consensus, with the assembly president banging his gavel.
EU foreign policy Chief Catherine Ashton said earlier this month after the resolution's approval by the assembly's human rights committee that she was "particularly pleased by the constructive approach by the government of Myanmar in working closely on the text with the EU."
U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos said earlier this month that for nearly six months, the U.N. has not able to provide assistance to the IDPs in Arakan State where Rohingyas were keeping in the camps which condition is dire.
The Rohingyas in the western state of Arakan, are in citizenship limbo, and the Burmese government refuses to do anything about the situation, despite the international community’s calls for Burma to give the Rohingyas legal status.
Rohingya Muslims have faced torture, neglect, and repression in Burma since it achieved independence in 1948.
Buddhist extremists frequently attack Rohingyas and have set fire to their homes in several villages in Arakan where hundreds of Rohingyas are believed to have been killed and thousands displaced in recent attacks. Burmese Army forces allegedly provided the extremist Buddhists containers of petrol for torching the houses of Muslim villagers, who are then forced to flee. Burmese’s government has been accused of failing to protect the Muslim minority, according to Human rights reports.
Rohingyas are said to be Muslim descendants of Persian, Turkish, Bengali, and Pathan origin, who migrated to Myanmar as early as the 8th century.
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have issued separate statements, calling on Myanmar to take action to protect the Rohingya Muslim population against extremist Buddhists.

Couple arrested for marriage after 14 years in Mangdaw

Maungdaw, Arakan State:  A couple was arrested by Nasaka (Burma’s border security force) at Maungdaw north on December 21, over the allegation that he had married without permission from the concerned authority after 14 years later, according to a friend of the victim.
“The victims are identified as Shoffi Ullah (37), and his wife Ms Jubaida Khatun (30). Both of them belong to Maung Nama Aley Wra (village) of Maungdaw north.  Mohammad Sidique is the father of Shoffi Ullah.”
Fourteen years (14- year) ago, in   1998, Shofi Ullah had  tied the knot with Ms Juabaida Khatun after getting necessary documents from concerned authority of Village Peace and Development Council ( VPDC) Chairman. At that time, it was not necessary to get marriage permission from local Nasaka authority and the local VPDC Chairman’s permission was accepted for the marriage, said a local trader preferring not to be named. 
On that day, at night, a section of Nasaka went to the victim’s house and arrested Shoffi Ullah along with his wife Jubaida Khatun over the allegation that they had got married without permission from the concerned authority. The Nasaka was from Aung Mingala Nasaka camp of Maungdaw north.  After arrest, they were brought to Nasaka camp where they were detained. The arrestees showed the documents to the Nasaka about their marriage, but, the Nasaka rejected it, a local leader from the locality said on condition of anonymity.
The next day, on December 22, in the evening, they were released after taking Kyat 300,000 by Nasaka officer Myo Than, the local leader added.
“It is a deliberate action against the couple to get money,” said a close relative of the victims.
“It is a meaning less action against the Rohingya community by using their power. Arakan State becomes a lawless land only for Rohingya people,” said a local elder.
When contacted to the Nasaka camp, after getting a telephone number from a Nasaka aide, but the Nasaka did not response the call.

Nasaka arrests a boy with false allegation

Maungdaw, Arakan State: A Rohingya boy was arrested over allegation by a group of Burma border security force (Nasaka) personnel from Nasaka area No. 8 on December 24, said a local villager.

The arrested was identified Enayet Ullah (12), son of Aman Ullah, hailed from Myient Hlut of Maungdaw township.
He was arrested yesterday night with false allegation of using Bangladeshi mobile without knowledge of concerned authorities. But, the Nasaka personnel have no evidence, using the Bangladesh mobile, according to a local elder from the village.
After arrest, he was severely beaten up on the spot. He was also detained in the custody of Nasaka. However, he was released after taking kyat 100,000 today, said an aide of Nasaka.
According to sources, many Rohingya villgers were arrested and extorted money with false cases by the security forces.

Blankets need for the poor displaced people in northern Arakan

Maungdaw, Arakan State: Blankets and warm clothes are needed for the poor displaced people living in Maungdaw and Rathedaung Townships. Severe cold accompanied by dense fog for the last few days has disrupted normal life in the areas, said a businessman from Maungdaw who denied his name.
“Around 7,000 cold hit people are passing their days and nights   in misery without warm clothes and blankets. The people are living nearby Mountain areas beside rivers are the most vulnerable. Poor people do not have ability to purchase warm clothes to protect them from the biting cold.”
Many people, especially children and aged ones, have been attacked with different cold-related diseases like--- diarrhea and pneumonia--- in the towns. The people of low income group, specially the farm laborers, are the worst sufferers, he more added.
A village leader from Rathedaung Township said that the poor people of his area are the worst suffers due to burring down their villages and houses by racist Rakhines with the help of security forces, now; minimum 5,000 people are suffering from shortage of warm clothes and blankets because of destroying houses. They are leading a hand to mouth existence without shelter. They are getting some supports from some NGOs but it is not sufficient.
Besides, in Maungdaw township, especially in Maungdaw Town and Maungdaw southern side, at least 250 houses and two  markets were burned down or destroyed by some Rakhine mobs with the help of security forces such as---police, Hluntin (riot police), Nasaka (Burma’s border security police), Sarapa (Military Intelligence), and army. They (IDPs) have been taking shelters nearby villages and the relatives’ houses, a trader from Maungdaw said preferring not to be named.
But the Rohingya IDPs of Maungdaw and Rathedaung townships are not recognized by the Thein Sein’s government and did not get any support from any quarter, even from the present government. They have also been kept in the villages of nearby other Rohingya villagers without getting any access to do work to support their family members, said a local villager.
Whenever, the foreign or local delegations came to visit Maungdaw Township to oversee the situation of local people including Rakhine and Rohingya, the authority indirectly forced them to visit the Rakhine (Natala)IDPs camps  excluding  Rohingya IDPs  who have been  locking  in the villages.  But, few foreign members accidently met some Rohingya villagers who have been suffering from acute difficulties since long, said a schoolteacher from the locality.
As a result, the Rohingya IDPs of Maungdaw and Rathedaung Townships ask to international community to provide them shelter, blankets and warm clothes to protect from winter season, the teacher more added.

Humanitarian crisis for Burma's eternal outsiders

Life for the Rohingya
Since the ethnic fighting broke out in June, much of the Rohingya population have fled their homes, fearing more attacks.

Lindsay Murdoch

The Sydney Morning Herald
December 25, 2012

They scavenge for grass and plants to eat and live in makeshift camps and town slums surrounded by barbed-wire checkpoints, refugee prisoners in their own country. 

Sitting among filth and garbage in a bamboo hut Ali Hassan, a 24-year-old former brick worker, pleads for the lives of his newborn twins. 

''My babies are starving in front of my eyes. I cannot buy anything now I have no money,'' he says.

Dire … Haleema Ahmed, above, scavenges for plants among the weeds and grass to supplement her family's food intake. Photo: Steve Sandford

There is an abundance of fish in the sea and rivers of Burma's western Rakhine state, which borders Bangladesh. 

There are also coconuts in the trees and rice in the fields. 

But the United Nations's most senior humanitarian official, Valerie Amos, describes conditions in camps where more than 115,000 people displaced by ethnic violence are struggling to survive as ''dire''.

Displaced Rohingya children at the edge of Camp Coconut. Photo: Steve Sandford

''I have seen many camps during my time but the conditions in these camps rank among the worst,'' she says. 

The camp occupants are Rohingyas, members of a Muslim minority who are denied Burmese citizenship even though their families have lived in the country for centuries. The UN says they are among the world's most persecuted people. 

Following an outbreak of ethnic violence in June and again in October and a subsequent clampdown by Burma's security forces, tens of thousands of Rohingya are prohibited by soldiers from leaving designated areas to work, forage for food or seek medical treatment. 

Heartbreaking images emerging from Rakhine, also known as Arakan, point to ethnic cleansing of 800,000 Rohingya, who are seen by the Burmese government and many of the country's Buddhists as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. 

Video taken for Fairfax Media in a slum Muslim area of the Rakhine capital, Sittwe, shows a mother of seven, Haleema Ahmed, scavenging for grass and plants to help feed her family, reviving memories of images of starving villagers eating grass in North Korea. 

''The food that is being donated to us is not enough to eat. We have to help ourselves to find our own food,'' she says. ''I have to collect grass and plants to sell and eat to fill my empty stomach.'' 

Zaleena Hatwa, 33, a mother of two boys and three girls, is living in a one-room hut at ''Camp Coconut'', where beachside coconut trees mark a boundary the Rohingya may not cross. ''I fled my house only with the clothes I was wearing … they beat and killed many of us,'' she says. 

Zaleena Hatwa says before the violence she had a house and money. ''Now I am forced to live like a crazy street person,'' she says. 

There are few Rohingya leaders to speak up internationally for their people, who are referred to by the Burmese Buddhist majority as ''Bengalis'' or the pejorative term for foreigner, ''kalar''. 

Abdul Hakim, a cleric at a small Muslim mosque in the Aung Min Glar district of Sittwe, called for the United Nations to intervene to save his people. 

''The Rohingya have been living here for 800 years but now the Buddhist want to drive the Rohingya all out of Arakan … they don't want to live together with the Muslim,'' he said. ''We want equal rights and we want the rule of law. We want peace and justice. The UN has the power, if they want to do something, they can.'' 

Baroness Amos, who visited eight refugee camps recently, called on the Burmese government to promote reconciliation in Rakhine, where she said tensions ''between communities is running very high''. 

Her remarks underscored concerns about Burma's stability as it emerges from 50 years of repressive military rule under the reformist government of the President, Thein Sein. 

The government and Rakhine community groups have placed extreme restrictions on humanitarian agencies working in Rohingya camps and Muslim areas. 

People seen to be working with the Rohingya are often threatened. 

Aid workers report seeing starving babies and toddlers so weakened by hunger they sit limply in their parents' arms. 

The UN estimates there are 2900 babies and toddlers with acute malnutrition in the camps who may already be beyond help. 

Satellite imagery shows extensive destruction of homes and property in Muslim areas following a rapid escalation of violence since June that led to at least 170 deaths. 

One 14-hectare coastal area shows almost 1000 razed buildings, houseboats and floating barges. Reports have emerged of mass graves, and human rights organisations cite executions, torture, rapes, beatings, mass arrests and burnings by security forces, mainly against Rohingya. 

The violence erupted after reports circulated that on May 28 a Rakhine Buddhist woman had been raped and killed. Retaliation was swift after details were circulated in an incendiary pamphlet. 

On June 3, a large group of Rakhine Buddhists stopped a bus and killed 10 Muslims on board. Violence between Rohingya and Rakhine then swept through Sittwe and surrounding areas. 

Since October more than 4000 Rohingya have paid smugglers to get on typically leaking and unsafe boats to make the perilous voyage to Muslim-majority Malaysia, where their presence is mostly tolerated. Several hundred have drowned in at least four boat sinkings. 

At least one boat a day now leaves the region, its passengers mostly Rohingya men and teenage boys seeking a new life. Many others have fled to Bangladesh, where 400,000 Rohingya are languishing in camps. Bangladesh also considers them illegal immigrants. 

In Rakhine state, authorities have begun a process of verifying the nationality of all Muslims, but there are widespread calls for those deemed ''illegal'' to be deported. The goal of the survey is unclear. 

A 1982 law enshrines the citizenship of Burma's officially-recognised ethnic groups but the Rohingya were excluded despite their claims to have met the criteria of having ancestors in the country before 1823, the date of the first Anglo-Burmese war. Rohingyas say they can trace their ancestry back to an eighth-century shipwreck on an Arakan island. 

Observers say widespread hostility towards the Rohingya throughout Burma is likely to inhibit their naturalisation. 

''We have no plan to accept as an ethnic group those who are stateless, or any new tribes who are not officially recognised, like the Rohingya,'' said Zaw Htay, a high-ranking government official. 

The opposition leader and democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi has disappointed international supporters by failing to speak up strongly for the Rohingya, prompting speculation she has her eye on 2015 elections. 

In a squalid camp near Sittwe, Rashid Ahmad, 63, tells how security forces watched as a Rakhine mob attacked Rohingya residents in his village. 

''They started beating and killing people, so my family and my niece's family ran away from the village to the seashore to take a boat,'' Rashid Ahmad said. 

''My niece had already got on a boat but a mob of Rakhine people pulled her off the boat with her two children. 

''One was a boy and the other a girl. They killed the boy with a long knife and spears … my niece was raped and then killed by the Rakhine mob.'' 

Rashid Ahmad said his people had lived in Burma for a long time and have a proud history as Muslims ''but have never felt law and justice from the government''. 

''We are helpless unless we get help from another country,'' he said.

Lawmakers - Arresting Rohingyas Alive, Returning Dead!

Maung Than Soe (aka) Mohammed Khan

RB News

December 25, 2012

(Translated into English by M.S. Anwar) 

A Letter from a Bleeding Heart to RB News 

I, Daw Kyaut Khin at my 41, daughter of U Hla Kyaw, a widow and mother of three children, was born and brought up at the quarter of MyoThuGyi in Sittwe (Akyab), a place where we have been living for generations. On 10th June 2012, when Rakhine terrorists were killing and annihilating Muslims in our quarter, I was struggling to escape the horrific scenes with my two children (my eldest son was away from home on his trip) to save our lives. Meanwhile, my second son, Maung Than Soe @ Mohammed Khan (Son of U Maung Oo Shwe), was arrested and abducted by the two Police officers, Win Tun Oo and Than Shwe, from Police Station No.1. 

My Son was trying to escape from the hands of the two Police officers and run away as he was too frightened, he was hacked with sword by the waiting Rakhine (Buddhist) terrorists and consequently got severe injuries on his head and right arm. I could not help and do anything as Police dragged away my son with such injuries. As I was attempting to run for life with my four-year-old child with a broken and bleeding heart, we were beaten and hacked by the Rakhine terrorists. As a result, I had to get my head stitched nine times and my four-year-old daughter also got injuries on her hand. 

As I was getting treatment in hospital for the severe injuries I was given, I got a chance to see my son, Maung Than Soe, from a distance, ailing from the critical injuries. 

The lawmakers and authority of this country, feel it being in my shoes what and how I would be feeling going through such pains! I can’t explain! 

On 19th December 2012, to make my heart bleed more, only the dead of my son, Maung Than Soe, was delivered to me from the above mentioned Police Station No.1. His dead body was full of injuries resulted from the tortures by the inhumane police. 

My son was arrested 6-7 months ago and I was never given a chance to see him in the prison. I was never given a chance to provide him with foods and medicines. Which country on earth will have such lawmakers who arrest innocent people alive and return their mere dead bodies!!! 

Feel it, how much pain we, weak and vulnerable people, are going through! My father is also a pure Rakhine and my mother is Kaman. 

What fault have we done? 

Is our fault that we are Muslims?

Concerning the arrest of my son, Police had never given me any notice or any other documents. 

Is it that anybody here can be killed, hacked or chopped on mere reason that he/she is Muslim?? 

Daw Kyaut Khin 

Sittwe