Myanmar Archives - Politics Today https://politicstoday.org/tag/myanmar/ Tue, 21 Nov 2023 14:54:16 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.8 Philippines: ASEAN Faces Tough Challenge as Myanmar Conflict Escalates https://politicstoday.org/philippines-asean-faces-tough-challenge-as-myanmar-conflict-escalates/ Tue, 21 Nov 2023 14:54:16 +0000 https://politicstoday.org/?p=28707

The world will be watching closely to see how ASEAN members deal with one of Southeast Asia's most pressing regional conflicts.

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n a recent forum held in Hawaii, Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. brought to light the escalating conflict in Myanmar, marking it as a significant and complex challenge for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

The situation in Myanmar has seen over a million people displaced, following the military coup in 2021, which overturned years of tentative democratic progress and led to both internal conflict and economic downturn.

President Marcos highlighted the commitment of ASEAN to address the crisis, despite the intricacies involved, including the substantial humanitarian impact.

The United Nations reports that the displacement numbers have been rising since the coup, as the military faces resistance from an alliance of ethnic-minority groups and pro-democracy fighters.

Read: Myanmar’s Once Nationalist Military Has Just Lost the Nation

ASEAN response

ASEAN, in response to the junta’s actions post-coup, has excluded the top generals from its meetings, demanding adherence to a peace roadmap established two years ago. This move signifies ASEAN’s ongoing efforts to promote peace and stability in the region.

The Philippines is set to chair ASEAN in 2026, taking over from Myanmar as host, and President Marcos’ statements come at a critical juncture. He acknowledged the loss of support for the military junta from within its own ranks, according to recent analyses.

Furthermore, Marcos pointed out the ‘exponential’ growth of the humanitarian cost of the conflict over recent years, which has also affected the Philippines, with reports of Filipino citizens being among the victims of human trafficking linked to the turmoil in Myanmar.

Read: China Expresses Concern after Military Bases Agreement between the US and the Philippines

The turmoil in Myanmar

The ASEAN bloc has been facing increased pressure to mediate and provide solutions to the Myanmar crisis, as the military-led offensive continues to displace thousands more.

President Marcos’ call to action underscores the need for ASEAN to navigate this difficult issue effectively, taking into consideration the broad humanitarian and political implications.

As the situation develops, ASEAN’s role in shaping the outcome of the Myanmar crisis remains pivotal, with the world watching closely how the bloc will manage one of the most pressing regional conflicts in Southeast Asia.

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]]> Stalemate: Autonomy and Insurgency on the China-Myanmar Border https://politicstoday.org/stalemate-autonomy-insurgency-china-myanmar-border/ Tue, 22 Aug 2023 07:50:58 +0000 https://politicstoday.org/stalemate-autonomy-insurgency-china-myanmar-border/

Often brushed aside as mere rebels or linked to drug trade, the United Wa State Army defies conventional expectations.

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On the lush hills of the Myanmar-China border stands an autonomous self-governing polity in Myanmar, the Wa State. It is de facto independent from the rest of the country and has its own political system, administrative divisions and army. Stalemate delves into the captivating history and contemporary political landscape of the United Wa State Army (UWSA), an insurgent force with 20,000-30,000 active forces that stands as Asia’s most formidable.

This narrative of ethnographic exploration paints a vivid picture of an upland community, often brushed aside as mere rebels or linked to drug trade, yet proficiently upholding a unique autonomy that navigates between two dominant states. Rather than sidestepping the neighboring states, the Wa polity actively engages with them, a dynamic that unfolds against the backdrop of sovereignty and statehood struggles.

Read: Insurgency Warfare: A Global History to the Present

Through the lens of Andrew Ong’s meticulous analysis, in Stalemate: Autonomy and Insurgency on the China-Myanmar Border readers are led through the political culture entrenched within Wa elites and the general populace, the complex web of UWSA’s international connections, and the intricate capital flows in conjunction with China, illuminating the orchestration behind Wa autonomy. Geopolitical strategy and involvement in the shadow economy is what breathes life into the concept of Wa autonomy. In fact, the book adeptly navigates through the multifaceted borderland geopolitics and the nuances of the shadow economy, highlighting how the United Wa State Army carefully treads this intricate path.

Blending anthropological insights with his personal encounters as a World Food Programme employee in Wa State, Ong delivers a contemplative on-the-ground portrayal of political dynamics in Wa. His objectives, intertwined and interwoven, unfold in three tiers. Primarily, he endeavors to enable readers to perceive the world through the eyes of Wa State’s inhabitants, gaining their perspective. Subsequently, he aims to foster comprehension of the disparities between Wa governance principles and international norms. Lastly, he prompts a reconsideration of conventional interpretations of disorder and stability.

Read: An Axis of Evil: Why Russia and China Protect Myanmar’s Military Regime

Through the perspectives of the political elite of the Wa State, Ong goes on to dissect the apparent deadlock existing between the Myanmar state and the UWSA, a standoff characterized by what he terms “tactical dissonance.” This intriguing concept encapsulates the UWSA’s dual stance of projecting authority while simultaneously exhibiting subordination, thereby creating a web of disruptions and connections. It’s through this very dichotomy that the relative stability emerges, a stability that defies conventional understanding by underscoring the role of seemingly cryptic and chaotic political signals, economic regulations, and military governance.

Stalemate provides an enthralling narrative that delves into the captivating world of the United Wa State Army, unearthing the complex interplay of power dynamics, sovereignty struggles, and tactical maneuvering that defy conventional expectations. Every chapter begins with a captivating short story from Ong’s experiences in Wa State. This is followed by a brief explanation of the theory, usually consisting of a paragraph or two, which is then demonstrated through additional field notes.

Finally, Ong questions the concept of “ceasefire capitalism,” and views the disorderly aspects of the conflict economy, like arms and wildlife trades, as forces that strangely unite opposing sides. This book stands as an indispensable read for anyone seeking a discovery into the fascinating and unique polity known as the UWSA and the intricate web of politics, autonomy, and an orderly disorder.

Andrew Ong, Stalemate: Autonomy and Insurgency on the China-Myanmar Border (Cornell University Press, 2023) ISBN13: 9781501770715, 276 pages

Written by Dilara Özer

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]]> American Political Opportunism and the Long Overdue Rohingya Genocide Determination https://politicstoday.org/united-states-rohingya-genocide-determination/ Wed, 30 Mar 2022 18:24:57 +0000 https://politicstoday.org/united-states-rohingya-genocide-determination/

By not calling crimes against the Rohingya a genocide, the US falsely though it would steer Myanmar’s military away from Washington’s imperial rival, China.

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On March 21, U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken announced a (Rohingya) “genocide determination.” The U.S. decision was largely welcomed by Rohingya survivors.

Myanmar is a signatory to the interstate treaty Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG) or Genocide Convention. Since it launched its first genocidal purge against Rohingyas in February 1978, two successive generations of Rohingya rights activists—some, lawyers—have named the crime their group has endured as genocide and campaigned for international recognition.

As evidenced from numerous “welcoming statements” from refugee camps in Bangladesh and diaspora campaign groups, the Rohingya rightly feel vindicated now that one of the world’s most powerful states has officially called the crimes against them a genocide, albeit after years of strategic avoidance. Within their reasoning for avoidance, was not wanting to rock the country’s Washington-brokered, neo-liberal “democratic transition,” with Aung San Suu Kyi eventually taking the helm as Myanmar state counsellor in 2016.

Read: An Axis of Evil: Why Russia and China Protect Myanmar’s Military Regime

Washington’s strategic calculation, namely that by not calling crimes against the Rohingya a genocide, the United States would in due course steer Myanmar’s most powerful stakeholder, the military, away from Washington’s number one imperial rival, China, also proved patently false.

Moreover, I would venture a guess that the divestment of the California-headquartered Chevron corporation from its three-decades of highly controversial natural gas production in Myanmar removed a significant corporate barrier in declaring that Myanmar has committed the crime of genocide. The construction of the gas pipeline was associated with the use of forced labor and other crimes against humanity.

Predictably, Myanmar’s coup regime dismissed Blinken’s announcement as “politically motivated.”  Likewise, led by Myanmar’s military-patronized Buddhist, Islamic, and Hindu leaders and cronies, the newly formed Interfaith Peace and Harmony Council joined the military regime in dismissing and denouncing Blinken’s “determination” as a fantastical announcement, falsely claiming that there was no corroborating evidence.

The painful truth is that this religious council’s statement and the regime’s dismissal most likely would have been endorsed by Aung San Suu Kyi, had she not been imprisoned after the coup. She was the council’s original patron and the regime’s most significant civilian collaborator.

Read: Myanmar’s Once Nationalist Military Has Just Lost the Nation

The Burmese Nobel Peace laureate has lost her moral authority and international stature after years of studied silence and evasions over her country’s well-documented genocide. Her old friends and loyal supporters, including the late Desmond Tutu, have publicly called her out on her culpability.

In December 2019, in her capacity as Myanmar state counsellor, the de facto head of state, Suu Kyi traveled to The Hague where she served as the agent or official state representative in The Gambia v. Myanmar case and denied Gambia’s genocide allegations lodged at the UN’s highest court of states, the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

Blinken’s “genocide determination” pinned the genocide label exclusively on the country’s military leaders. In fact, genocides are institutional crimes typically planned, organized, managed, executed, and denied by various organs of a state and those who were in charge.

During the two genocidal purges of 2016 and 2017, which were the sole focus of the U.S. State Department’s forensic investigation completed in 2018 involving interviews with 1,000 survivors in refugee camps in Bangladesh, Aung San Suu Kyi was Myanmar’s state counsellor, foreign minister, and the autocratic chair of the then ruling National League for Democracy.

Her official denial of genocide at the ICJ  and her public acts of denial on numerous occasions removed any doubt as to where she stood and what her official and public roles were in the crime which the United States has now officially called a genocide.

On my part, as a Burmese scholar and activist who blew the genocide whistle, I should also share the joy of vindication with my fellow Myanmar people, namely the Rohingya.

In 2014, following a three-year study, I co-authored The Slow-Burning Genocide of Myanmar’s Rohingya, the first academic study of Rohingya persecution using the genocide framework, jointly conducted with my researcher colleague and wife Natalie Brinham (pseudonym Alice Cowley).

Read: Why Some Genocides Are More Equal Than Others

But I do not add my voice to the international chorus of welcomes to Blinken’s genocide determination for several reasons.

First, Blinken’s genocide determination was not accompanied by any indication whatsoever that the United States is determined to mobilize its enormous financial, military, and diplomatic clout in the right direction—that is to help the current post-Aung San Suu Kyi wave of popular resistance, armed and non-violent, that seek to delegitimize, weaken, and eventually force the military to relinquish its monopoly over Myanmar’s state institutions, the very institutions and structures which served as the instruments of genocide.

Washington is capable of such acts as has been amply demonstrated in its response to Russia’s crimes of aggression against Ukraine. Since February 24, when the Russian tanks rolled across the Ukrainian borders, not a day has gone by, without the United States announcing some kind of concrete punitive measures or threats against Russia.

In my FORSEA Dialogue on Democratic Struggles across Asia on March 21, Ei Thinzar Maung, this year’s Burmese recipient of the U.S. Secretary of State’s International Women of Courage Award, and Padoh Saw Taw Nee, head of the Foreign Affairs Department of the Karen National Union, Myanmar’s oldest resistance organization, publicly urged the United States government to release the $1 billion Myanmar sovereign fund frozen by Blinken’s boss, President Biden, following the coup in Myanmar so that the money could be used to fund Myanmar’s rightful resistance against the “terrorist”-like occupying military.

I am painfully aware that Myanmar people’s armed resistance against the genocidal military is not deemed support-worthy, unlike the Ukrainian resistance that is fighting the West’s proxy war against Putin’s Russia.

I have long shared the widespread dismay towards Washington’s foot-dragging regarding the gravest crimes in international law that has occurred irrespective of the political party in the White House. It’s an entirely different matter when groups such as DAESH, the “Islamic State,” or adversarial state actors (such as China)—then, the U.S. springs into action. After all, these battles advance American strategic agendas.

Read: Genocide on Trial: The Rohingya Plight and Gambia’s Moral Foreign Policy

Using the Genocide Convention only when it serves the U.S. strategic and political interests cheapens the term “genocide” and undermines the gravity of the crimes. The political instrumentalization adds insult to the injuries of many—not only the Rohingyas, but also all other preceding victim groups.

By not calling genocides by their legal name, Washington follows a decades-old pattern of failing to prevent genocide and failing to punish genocidal perpetrators and criminal states. According to Dr. Gregory Stanton, former U.S. diplomat and renowned genocide scholar at Genocide Watch, Bill Clinton’s Secretary of State Warren Christopher was known to have instructed all U.S. missions not to use the word “genocide,” only “acts of genocide” in the midst of Rwanda’s mass killings, while Kofi Annan, under the heavy influence of the Cold War-victorious Americans and in his capacity as head of the UN Peacekeeping Operations at the New York headquarters, ordered the UN Peacekeeping Forces in Kigali, Rwanda to stand down as the genocide was visibly underway.

Samantha Power, Obama’s U.S. representative to the United Nations and now Biden’s head of the United States Agency for International Aid (USAID), won a Pulitzer with her book entitled A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide which indignantly detailed a long history of U.S. failures to do good in cases of genocides. Three successive U.S. presidents, Obama, Trump, and the incumbent Biden, have all been fully aware of the genocidal nature of Myanmar’s persecution of the Rohingya. Painfully, until this week, the United States held its nose.

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Rather ironically, Power who, as a former Balkan War journalist, asked, “Why do American leaders who vow ‘never again’ repeatedly fail to stop genocide?” chose to toe Washington’s line when she joined the U.S. government. Wai Wai Nu, a prominent Rohingya campaigner and former trainee in my genocide-sensitivity workshops at the Documentation Centre, Cambodia, recounted to me her meeting with then U.S. representative Madam Power in her office in New York where she was gifted a copy of A Problem from Hell, with an autographic note, which clearly indicated that the best-selling author of U.S. policy failures in genocides KNEW what the Rohingyas were subjected to genocide. Still, Power chose silence.

The historical fact is this: Myanmar’s genocidal purges of the Rohingya Muslims have been on Washington’s radar ever since the late U.S. senator Edward Kennedy, made his first visit to Bangladesh in 1978— the year of the first wave of the Rohingya genocidal violence into the then newly independent republic of Bangladesh. Kennedy was instrumental in the U.S. decision to contribute $250,000 to humanitarian relief for “Muslims from Burma” as the victims were then referred to in various regional news outlets such as the Far Eastern Economic Review, Bangkok Post, and Pakistan’s Dawn.

Beyond stating that Washington has made a $1 million contribution to the United Nations’ Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar based in Geneva and Blinken’s “genocide determination” speech, flowery and emotive, at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, no U.S. commitments have been made on specific actions by the Biden administration to support the reversal of the genocidal policies and practices against 600,000 Rohingya trapped inside Myanmar in the Internally displaced persons (IDPs) camps and open-air prisons of Western Myanmar.

Nor does Blinken’s act of determination offer any concrete support for Myanmar’s nationwide resistance aimed at dismantling Myanmar’s repressive and murderous structures, also being weaponized against the public at large by the same regime.

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]]> An Axis of Evil: Why Russia and China Protect Myanmar’s Military Regime https://politicstoday.org/an-axis-of-evil-why-russia-and-china-protect-myanmars-military-regime/ Fri, 14 May 2021 13:53:08 +0000 https://politicstoday.org/an-axis-of-evil-why-russia-and-china-protect-myanmars-military-regime/

China and Russia are enabling and protecting the criminal regime in Myanmar that resorts to terrorism against its own people.

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Ha… Truly! Truly! The Burmese fighter just got shot down!” exclaimed a young village woman as she videotaped an attack aircraft which flew high above her wooden house in the ethnic Kachin State on the morning of May 3. Her 41-second clip, which captured the very moment the Russian-made Mi-35 Phoenix transport/attack helicopter got hit by a rocket fired by the Kachin Independence Army ground troops and went down, has since gone viral on Burmese social media platforms where it is widely and wildly celebrated by anti-coup protesters.

The attack helicopter was hit by what must have been a surface-to-air shoulder-launched rocket fired by the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) troops. To the wild delight of eyewitnesses in Eastern Myanmar and Burmese social media users alike,  the Russian attack helicopter went down very fast without any sign of the pilots having been able to eject from their cockpit.

To generations of politically conscious Burmese, the initial shine of the classless, raceless utopia of the USSR of the 1930s has long worn off, decades before the collapse of what the late Ronald Reagan memorably dubbed the “Evil Empire.” In the early years of the first military dictatorship under General Ne Win, the word “Moscow” was the popular Burmese slang for the country’s notorious jails where thousands of dissidents were locked up in appalling conditions.

Read: Myanmar’s Once Nationalist Military Has Just Lost the Nation

Ever since the Myanmar Tatmadaw, the country’s armed forces, acquired sophisticated, Russian-made attack helicopters, ethnic armed resistance organizations have been known to entertain the need for military hardware which could protect their ethnic minority communities – and the troops which usually control the country’s highlands – from airstrikes by these “beasts.”  The morale and combat capacities of Naypyidaw’s ground troops are extremely low, despite the observations to the contrary by foreign armchair experts on Myanmar.

Even many lay persons among the Burmese public with rudimentary understanding of military affairs are acutely aware of the game-changing role Stinger shoulder-fired, anti-aircraft, surface-to-air rockets played in turning the tide of war in Afghanistan. Stingers were used by fighters who attempted to repel the occupying Soviet troops.

Ever since the Myanmar Tatmadaw, the country’s armed forces, acquired sophisticated, Russian-made attack helicopters, ethnic armed resistance organizations have been known to entertain the need for military hardware which could protect their ethnic minority communities.

I don’t know the exact weapon that the KIA fired to bring down the first Russian attack helicopter since the resumption of the intensifying civil war in Northern Myanmar. In the country’s eastern region along the Thai-Myanmar borders, where the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) troops have been battling the coup regime’s troops, the Myanmar military has been launching airstrikes against ethnic villages of Karen resistance fighters, using sophisticated attack aircraft – fighter jets and helicopters – capable of carrying out radar-guided night attacks.

Since the coup of February 1, 2021, much has been written about China’s role in the military’s coup, while Russian support for the coup regime of Min Aung Hlaing has been covered or discussed less.

The Burmese public opinion has categorically turned anti-China as a result of Beijing’s unmistakable backing of the coup regime. But Russian support has been no less consequential, in terms of the supply of military hardware, veto-protection at the Security Council, and the training of Burmese military officers in weapons engineering, information technology, and other military sciences.

Read: Genocide on Trial: The Rohingya Plight and Gambia’s Moral Foreign Policy

Ten years ago, the significant Russian – and N. Korean – involvement in Myanmar military’s arms procurement and military training hit world news headlines, and specifically the Burmese’s quest for nuclear and missile technologies. One of the major Myanmar policy concerns on the part of the Obama administration was the resumption of Myanmar – N. Korea ties towards this unsavory tech-acquisition.

But neither the Burmese military regime’s collaboration with Pyongyang nor the attempts to acquire advanced Russian technology produced any yield in terms of nukes and advanced weapons systems.  In spite of this failure, over the last 20 years, the Myanmar military has kept up its military-to-military ties with Moscow.

Around 2010, I interviewed several Myanmar army defectors in temporary hiding in Thailand and the Philippines, who, as weapons engineers, were sent in the early 2000s to Moscow and St. Petersburg for PhDs and other advanced training in military engineering. The Myanmar Ministry of Defence Department of Military Training has established a Russian language department at the country’s military academies – the Defence Services Academy (DSA) and the Defence Services Technological Academy (DSTA) – where thousands of young Burmese men between the ages of 16 and 21 undergo 4-year-long officer training. Over at least the last 20 years, hundreds of graduates every year have been sent to the Russian Federation for further studies.

Members of human rights organizations gather to show solidarity for human rights, freedom and democracy in Asia in Tokyo, Japan on May 09, 2021. Protesters carrying East Turkestan, Myanmar, Cambodia and Mongolia flags, shout "Stop the Uighur massacre", "Freedom to East Turkistan", "Release Suu Kyi", "Help Southern Mongolia" slogans. Demonstration Japan protest Tokyo Turkmenistan Uighur Photo by David Mareuil. Anadolu Agency.

Some Myanmar observers have already pointed out how Russia has been a major arms supplier for the regime in Naypyidaw.  According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Russia and China account for 31.6% and 56.34% respectively in Myanmar’s arms imports over the last decade (2010-19).

Alongside China, Putin’s Russia has also proven to be a fully reliable veto-protector at the United Nations Security Council when it comes even to non-binding resolutions around the egregious and pervasive human rights crimes of the Myanmar military, from war crimes and crimes against humanity in the ethnic minority regions of Northern and Eastern Myanmar to the full-blown genocide against Rohingyas in Western Myanmar. Even in the midst of the genocidal killings of Rohingyas, the Russian representatives at the United Nations typically echoed and amplified the justificatory polemic of Myanmar’s military, falsely framing Rohingya Muslims as a security threat to the country.

Even in the midst of the genocidal killings of Rohingyas, the Russian representatives at the United Nations typically echoed and amplified the justificatory polemic of Myanmar’s military, falsely framing Rohingya Muslims as a security threat to the country.

Ideologically, Putin’s Russia operates from this antiterrorism space. Moscow used the same rhetoric against the independence-minded breakaway majority-Muslim republic of Chechnya, where the Russian military used its overwhelming might to crush popular independence aspirations and armed revolt against Russian rule.

In addition, the fact that former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev (2008-2012), a Putin ally who is considered more liberal and outward-looking than the ex-KGB killer, failed in his attempts to adopt democratic reforms and create a high tech-based, and a diversified modern economy has forced Russia to fall back on its economic dependence on selling off natural gas and arms.
Geostrategically, Russia has few allies in Asia as India, its former ally, is now increasingly tied to the United States via the Indo-Pacific (military) alliance known as  The Quad, or the US-led Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, an informal strategic alliance of USA, Japan, India and Australia  Therefore, protecting the Myanmar military unconditionally is protecting both Moscow’s pocket and its strategic toehold in mainland Southeast Asia.

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Even the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), not known for defending human rights or promoting democratization, apparently found the Myanmar military’s post-coup slaughter of unarmed peaceful protesters and its terroristic methods in quelling the nationwide uprisings indefensible.

Alas, Moscow viewed these barbaric acts of its Southeast Asian arms customer differently: Russian Deputy Defence Minister General Alexander Fomin was the only high-ranking foreign representative to attend Myanmar military’s Armed Forces Day on March 27 – all the others were low-level officials from seven Asian neighbors. The day before, Fomin received the highest military honors from Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing, the coup leader, accused of committing genocide against Rohingyas. A report by the Financial Times on April 2 reminded readers that Fomin’s presence “echoed (Moscow’s) 2015 decision to lend military support to President Bashar al-Assad’s pariah regime in Syria, helping turn the tide of the civil war in the dictator’s favor.”

For increasingly expansionist China, Myanmar with its 1,400-miles Sino-Burmese borders, is geopolitically too important to let any domestic actor friendly to the United States, and conversely hostile to Beijing’s core interests, come to power. In an unprecedented manner, Chairman- for-Life Xi officially invited Myanmar’s iconic political leader Aung San Suu Kyi to Beijing in 2014 and feted her as the country’s leader even though at the time she was only the leader of the opposition party National League for Democracy (NLD).

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As both the Myanmar military leadership and Suu Kyi received international condemnation for their respective roles in the Rohingya genocide by Western governments – particularly the United States – China was not wrong to deem either party, be it the generals or Suu Kyi and her once pro-human rights NLD, as acceptable.

Suu Kyi’s presidential predecessor, ex-general Thein Sein, cancelled the largest Sino-Burmese hydropower project in Northern Myanmar, the mega-dam project at Myitsone, the confluence of the two riverlets which form the country’s main artery, Irrawaddy River. This was done in part to cement his attempts at renormalizing the Burmese military’s ties with the West, in general, and the Obama White House with its (anti-China) “ Pivot to Asia” or “Rebalancing” towards Asia and, in part, to register the unhappiness of the Myanmar military with regard to Beijing’s tacit support for anti-Burmese ethnic armed resistance organizations along the Sino-Myanmar borders such as the Kachin Independence Organization, the ethnically Han Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) of Kokang and, most substantively, the Mandarin-speaking United Wa State Army, Beijing’s local proxy in Eastern Myanmar.

Ironically, once considered as “pro-American” by Beijing Suu Kyi inked the bilateral Sino-Myanmar agreement to allow Beijing to build its single most important geo-economic project in Myanmar: the 800-kilometer-long gas and oil twin pipeline which originates at Ma Dae, the Western Myanmar coastline of Rakhine State and snakes through Burma until it reaches the southern Chinese province of Yunnan.

Read: Genocide as a Label of Choice: Why Some Genocides Are More Equal Than Others

Additionally, China has gained Myanmar’s official concessions to build a deep-water port on the same Rakhine coast of western Myanmar, which serves as one of only two major access points to the Indian Ocean for Beijing – the other is Gwadar in Pakistan, China’s key strategic ally. In addition, Beijing also pursues the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor project, which is in turn an integral part of its Belt and Road Initiative, increasingly seen as an economically colonialist project throughout Asia.

Of these projects, the Chinese pipeline is the single most strategically important project for Beijing in its quest for energy security. Until this overland pipeline’s completion, China was exclusively dependent on Middle Eastern gas and the oil transported through the narrow Straits of Malacca in the South China Sea. The latter was already volatile and tension-filled, thanks to Beijing’s unlawful projection of its sovereignty beyond its exclusive economic zone (200 nautical miles from the baseline shores) in contravention of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 1982.

Emphatically speaking, China views this 800-kilometer-long twin pipeline as its “sovereign asset” which is integral to its long-term “Grand Strategy” to remake its fairy-tale “Middle Kingdom” as the “Center of the New World Order” wherein China replaces, it is fervently hoped, the USA as the global hegemon.

Against the backdrop of the early slaughter of unarmed, peaceful protesters by the Myanmar coup regime of General Min Aung Hlaing, according to the secret memo (dated February 24) leaked by anti-coup diplomats inside Myanmar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Naypyidaw, Beijing’s top foreign policy planners held a 45-minute confidential Zoom meeting with Myanmar police chief and other senior bureaucrats in Myanmar’s Foreign Ministry. The sole focus of the discussion was how best to protect China’s pipeline and, to a lesser extent, other economic projects such as the notorious Letpadaung Copper Mine and some Chinese-owned factories in the old capital Yangon.

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Against the widely shared images of the anti-coup protesters in Myanmar burning effigies of Chairman Xi and the Chinese flag, China’s official English-language mouthpiece, The Global Times, has run editorials unveiling the open threat that China could send troops across the borders to protect its assets and interests. The same Global Times editorial board also attacked well-known Myanmar cyberactivists such as Nay San Lwin of the Free Rohingya Coalition for spreading anti-China sentiments in social media.

China has always spun its Myanmar policy as “non-interference” in the sovereign affairs of its southern neighbor despite the fact that it consistently protects the military perpetrators in power in Naypyidaw. The Burmese publicly and openly mock China’s indefensible rhetoric of treating the slaughter of unarmed Myanmar protesters – and the genocide of Rohingya in 2017 – by its client Burmese regime as an “internal affair” by presenting the popular desire and strident calls for blowing up the Chinese pipeline as an “internal affair” of Myanmar.

Over the last three months since the  coup there have been documented accounts of Chinese security personnel physically stationed in Myanmar providing advisory and technical assistance to the coup perpetrators as they commit crimes against humanity such as forced disappearances, summary executions, murder by snipers, night raids and abductions, the detention of over 4,000 activists, and the slaughter of 750 unarmed Myanmar civilians and activists alike.

Of all the external players with varying degrees of concerns regarding the Southeast Asian country’s all-out civil war, Russia and China have the greatest leverage vis-à-vis India, ASEAN, the USA, the EU, and Japan. So far, Moscow and Beijing appear to think that their arms customer and/or geopolitical client, namely the Burmese military, will kill its way out of the corner which it has put itself in.

Nation states, and particularly the ones with expansionist projects, typically pursue their hardcore material and strategic interests. As perpetrators of international state crimes themselves, there is no sign that either Xi’s China or Putin’s Russian Federation will review and amend their shared anti-human rights and anti-democratic orientation, at home or globally. Bearing great pain for the 54 million Burmese of all ethnicities and faiths, these two global powers are an axis of evil, enabling and protecting the criminal regime that resorts to terrorism against its own people.

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]]> Myanmar’s Once Nationalist Military Has Just Lost the Nation https://politicstoday.org/myanmars-once-nationalist-military-has-just-lost-the-nation/ Mon, 15 Mar 2021 10:00:14 +0000 https://politicstoday.org/myanmars-once-nationalist-military-has-just-lost-the-nation/

Whatever the outcome of the violent confrontation between civil society and the military will be, one thing is certain: the Burmese military has lost the nation irretrievably.

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National armed forces typically do not use snipers, heavily armed infantry divisions, and fighter-bombers to quell all unarmed peaceful protests – and during peace time. But Myanmar’s Tatmadaw, or the defense services, do.

Consequently, as evidenced in the thousands of social media comments, the overwhelming majority of public opinion in Myanmar has irreversibly turned against the armed forces. The multiethnic public views the Tatmadaw as a ruthless occupying force at best – and a downright terrorist mafia at worst.

For the country’s non-Burmese ethnic nationalities or national minorities such as the Karen, Kachin, Shan, Chin, Mon, Rakhine, Rohingya, and so on, the Tatmadaw – primarily commanded by majoritarian Burmese and exclusively by Buddhists – has been an alien colonial occupier.

If these communities in distress self-organize armed resistance, the Tatmadaw typically resorts to a variation of the old British era “pacification” military campaigns. It has burned entire ethnic minority villages, forcibly relocated villagers into controllable areas, or simply violently deported them across the borders into neighboring Thailand, India, or China.

To date, Myanmar under the military’s dominance is home to possibly the longest low-intensity civil war in the world, which ensued after World War II ended. There are about two dozen ethnic armed organizations, with varying troops all across the border regions, which are the ancestral homelands of myriad of ethnic minorities. The Tatmadaw’s war crimes and crimes against humanity are well-documented, and include rape as a weapon of communal subjugation, forced labor, summary execution, torture, murder, and so on.

Read: Why Some Genocides Are More Equal Than Others

In Myanmar’s western region of Rakhine that is adjacent to Bangladesh, the army has been engaged in systematic and sustained campaigns of terror against the Rohingya ethnic minority for the last 40 years. One of the major reasons the United Nations General Assembly established the mandate of the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar as early as 1993 was the credible news reports of crimes against humanity against this Muslim minority.

In 2016 and 2017, the Burmese army waged the largest genocidal attacks on this unarmed, destitute, and vulnerable Muslim population of roughly two million. The attacks made the international community stand up and pay attention to the situation.

According to the report of the UN International Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar, in the span of 10 months, the army destroyed about 39,000 homes, mosques, schools, rice warehouses, and businesses while killing an estimated 10,000 Rohingyas of all ages and mass-raping women. The two campaigns of genocidal terror triggered the survival flight of a total of 840,000 survivors into neighboring Bangladesh.

VIDEO: Myanmar activist speaks out while on the run from police

This large-scale systematic destruction of Rohingyas as a minority community and the crimes of deportation en masse have resulted in two major judicial and investigative processes. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague has a pending genocide case after Gambia launched a legal challenge against Myanmar, as a state party to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, on violating its treaty obligations to prevent genocide and punish perpetrators under the terms of the Genocide Convention.

Meanwhile, in the same city, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has launched a full investigation into Myanmar’s crimes of deportation and other grave international crimes that have led to the exodus of nearly one million Rohingyas from their ancestral land of Western Myanmar into Bangladesh. In both court cases, Myanmar’s Tatmadaw is the main instrument of the international crimes and the Burmese commanders are the principal architects behind the crimes.

Although possibly not widely and severely despised among the majoritarian Burmese society, in segments of the population the army (Tatmadaw) is deeply despised  for its bloody crackdown of chronic political unrests, particularly by politically conscious university students, socially engaged Buddhist monks, labor rights activists, and farmers for their vocal criticism and opposition to half a century of military control and dominance over society, political affairs, and the national economy.

People gather to protest against the military coup in Mandalay, Myanmar on February 28, 2021. Photo by Stringer via Anadolu Images

The Burmese army has built expansive prison complexes and interrogation or torture centers all across the country where human rights activists, journalists, pro-democracy dissidents, and all types of regime critics are forced to confess to crimes they did not commit.

The Burmese military leaders have long discarded the pledge of the founder of the Myanmar Armed Forces Aung San to build a democratic federated union of multiethnic nations.

Since the commercial opening which followed the collapse of the one-party military dictatorship of General Ne Win with its economically ruinous socialist economy, the military in Myanmar has become the most dominant economic player. The generals, their families, and cronies have raked in their ill-gotten gains to the tunes of billions of dollars while the public at large remained pauperized. Roughly five million working-age Burmese of all backgrounds have left the country as migrant workers for greener pastures across Southeast Asia’s middle-income countries such as Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore.

Politically, the Burmese military leaders have long discarded the pledge of the founder of the Myanmar Armed Forces Aung San to build a democratic federated union of multiethnic nations who join voluntarily along the principle of ethnic group equality and the right to self-determination. Successive generations of military leaders since the first coup of 1958 have typically been scornful of liberal democratic principles. They view the federal, power-sharing arrangement as a formula for Balkanization.

Read: Genocide on Trial: The Rohingya Plight and Gambia’s Moral Foreign Policy

Against the founding principles extensively worked out and articulated well by Aung San, who is widely viewed as the primary architect of the country’s independence from Britain, the top military commanders, who have had a disproportionate share of power and influence over this nationalist institution, have built a radically different version of the armed forces.

The new incarnation of the Tatmadaw sees itself as the only cohesive national organization capable of keeping the fractious multiethnic country together. The military officer corps sees itself as ideologically “pure”- as a nationalist and selfless body of competent men vis-à-vis bickering, incompetent politicians and unruly activists.

Half a century of total control over society, politics, and the economy is long enough for this ruling and/or dominant institution to forge itself as a distinct social class, with its class, economic, and political interests. Typically, in military-controlled polities, the military is referred to as a state within the state. In the Burmese case, the military has become a separate society within the society at large.

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Historically, the Tatmadaw was founded as a local proxy against the British in Burma in December 1942 under the patronage of fascist Japan with the nationalist Aung San, Aung San Suu Kyi’s martyred father, as its first commander-in-chief.

Aung San’s vision of this force was that it would be a crucial instrument in the wider popular struggle for liberation to end a century of British colonial rule and, post-independence, to turn it into a professional military, in a federated democratic union of multiethnic peoples.

Suu Kyi herself has repeatedly identified herself with the armed forces – even while the troops have been engaged in vicious military operations – expressing her “genuine affection” for the generals whom she called “my siblings because they are my father’s sons.” She has defended the Tatmadaw against genocide allegations at numerous international fora – most shockingly at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). She has publicly praised this institution as it launched brutal military operations against other minorities such as Buddhist Rakhine on the western coast.

Since she was first elected MP in the 2012 by-elections, Suu Kyi has sought to help open the doors for the hermit-like army leaders, particularly with respect to the militaries in western democracies. Apparently, she was motivated by her desire to trigger some kind of re-professionalization of the Tatmadaw so that it will be a cooperative partner in her main project of democratic reforms. But her reforms were becoming a serious threat “the military elite’s institutional and personal interests – in terms of political influence, bureaucratic dominance, and financial interests.

Read: Pope Francis’s failure to say the word “Rohingya”

The top commanders of the Burmese army have come to fear the prospect of having to face justice as a result of the ICC’s full investigation into the military’s atrocities against Rohingyas. To make matters worse, the well-known personal animosities between the Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing, who was originally scheduled to retire this July, and Suu Kyi finally boiled over. Accordingly, the coup of February 1 was the military establishment’s attempt to re-assert its control in the most radical and direct ways.

However, the coup leaders in Myanmar were stung by the incredibly decisive popular opposition from society at large. Nor did they foresee that the ethnic armed organizations, which had signed nationwide ceasefire agreements with the generals, would throw in their lots with the millions of defiant protesters who have resorted to civil disobedience.

Perhaps the action that has had the most chilling and crippling impact on the coup leaders is the fact that the Civil Disobedience Movement enjoys tremendous support and participation by the hundreds of thousands of civil servants who serve in all non-security ministries including the important Foreign Ministry and other technical ministries such as Health, Transport, Construction, Mining, Forestry, Agriculture, Finance, Education, and so on.

On February 26, Myanmar’s Permanent Representative to the UN Kyaw Moe Tun made world news headlines when he officially briefed the UN General Assembly on the people’s revolt – which he openly endorsed – and urged the UN not to recognize the coup regime. In Myanmar’s capital, Naypyidaw, a senior foreign ministry official leaked six pages of damning classified minutes of the February 23 meeting between the Chinese and Myanmar security and diplomatic officials.

The result is that the coup leaders have found themselves with a completely non-functioning and hollowed out political state; a determined, sustained, and massive revolt on an unprecedented scale; and widespread global condemnation including the unanimous presidential statement by the Security Council that strongly condemned the violence against the peaceful protesters and voiced “deep concerns” over the coup’s restrictions.

Protesters pose for photos near an armored personnel carrier parked outside the Central Bank of Myanmar as they gather to protest against the military coup, in Yangon, Myanmar on February 15, 2021. Photo by Stringer via Anadolu Images

Shocked, angered, and globally friendless (save for Russia and China), the coup leaders in Myanmar responded to the protests at home in the only way they know: organized terror. Over the last 36 days, the Burmese military has gone on to commit widespread crimes against humanity against completely unarmed, peaceful protesters – estimated to be over 20 million across the country.

On March 4, 2021, Michelle Bachelet, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva, officially called on the Myanmar army to end the murder and enforced disappearances of civilian populations in over 570 locations throughout Myanmar. Over 50 civilians have been murdered – some by military snipers from roof tops of urban buildings – while over 1,750 have been detained. What is more, an unknown number of protesters and citizens alike have been forcibly disappeared by the Tatmadaw and other security units deployed by the State Administration Council (SAC), the military junta.

It is a great irony that the Tatmadaw, which was founded in December 1942 as a nationalist armed liberation force for the colonized, ethnically diverse peoples of colonial Burma by the revolutionary democrat Aung San, has categorically morphed into the country’s most universally hated and feared organization used as the primary instrument of repression and exploitation against humanity by criminals in generals’ uniforms.

This once venerable institution is now at war with the entire society, who now cheer gleefully at the latest news of a soldier being killed in the Rohingya area in a bomb blast, assumed to have been committed by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, dubbed as “Muslim terrorists.”

Whatever the immediate outcome of this violent confrontation between civil society and the military will be, one thing is certain: the Burmese military has lost the nation irretrievably. Without a nation that supports it the Tatmadaw once and for all has stopped being a national defense service. The overwhelming majority in Myanmar view and treat the Tatmadaw as terrorists that must be repelled by any means possible.

The post Myanmar’s Once Nationalist Military Has Just Lost the Nation appeared first on Politics Today.

]]> Genocide on Trial: The Rohingya Plight and Gambia’s Moral Foreign Policy https://politicstoday.org/genocide-on-trial-the-rohingya-plight-and-gambias-moral-foreign-policy/ Fri, 20 Dec 2019 10:56:51 +0000 https://politicstoday.org/genocide-on-trial-the-rohingya-plight-and-gambias-moral-foreign-policy/

Gambia became the first nation to bring charges of genocide against another state to the International Court of Justice, setting a new precedent in moral leadership, foreign policy, and the protection of human rights.

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Once again the global community’s attention was turned to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, the Netherlands. On Tuesday, the 10th and Wednesday 11th December, lawyers and legal experts representing Gambia and Myanmar made their presentations before the court with varying degrees of persuasion. Gambia, with the support of the members of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation filed a case before the ICJ alleging that the Myanmar’s military, the Tatmadaw, committed acts of genocide against the Rohingya. While the final ruling on the case can take some time, hearings related to Gambia’s request for provisional measures for the immediate protection of the Rohingya people were heard.

In attendance was Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s once highly esteemed civilian leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi has more recently been the recipient of global condemnation for her silence and complicity in the Rohingya persecutions and was now, in a twist many would not imagined, fronting the court to defend her country’s horrendous actions. Indeed, when the Gambia, a tiny West African nation took Myanmar to the ICJ on November 11, on charges of genocide against the Rohingya community, humanity at large was ethically and morally “absolved” of its inaction. Gambia’s moral foreign policy and sense of duty to the continuing suffering of the Rohingya ought to be commended and reverberate a globally as a warning against regimes that torture, massacre and maim their citizens at will.

The Rohingya Muslim genocide

The Rohingya, a minority ethnic group from Myanmar’s North-Western Rakhine state, and the nation’s only overwhelmingly Muslim community has faced a sporadic military suppression for years. However, in 2017 the world witnessed a coordinated and large-scale persecution and of the Rohingya from Rakhine state. Consequently, since 25 August 2017, approximately 742,000, fled to neighbouring Bangladesh seeking refuge.

Despite the censorship and cover up of Myanmar’s military regime, testimonies from survivors painted a horrific picture of what happened during the military crackdowns. Narratives of pain, trauma and anguish have been documented among Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. In their report Forced Migration of Rohingya: The Untold Experience (2018) the Ontario International Development Agency (OIDA) noted how nearly 24,000 Rohingya were killed by the military, 34,000 thrown and burnt in fires by vigilante groups aided by the military, and of the despicable mass gang rapes of Rohingya women and girls.

In addition to the genocide, a comprehensive ethnocide against the Rohingya was carried out, with mosques and other cultural sites razed and destroyed by vigilante youths led by extremist Buddhist monks. In his book Myanmar’s Enemy Within: Buddhist Violence and the Making of a Muslim Other (2017) Francis Wade illustrates how Buddhist nationalism coupled with Islamophobic rhetoric borrowed from India’s Hindu-Nationalists and far-right movements in the West fuelled and exacerbated the continuing persecution of the Rohingya in Myanmar.

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The Rohingya have been massacred en-masse, their homes destroyed, and their history and material culture erased from Rakhine state, those in Bangladeshi refugee camps have been rendered stateless, while the few who remain in Myanmar live under an apartheid style regime.

Humanity is on trial at the ICJ

Never has a nation brought charges of genocide against another nation to the ICJ. Gambia’s effort to seek accountability and ultimately redress for the persecution of the Rohingya in Myanmar set a new precedent in foreign policy, the moral leadership of nation states, and for global justice against the worst human rights violations.

The plight facing the Rohingya has been catastrophic. The violence and persecution by the Myanmar military and the resulting humanitarian crisis that it occasioned did not receive equal global outrage and immediate action. Hence, it is understandable that many are praising and appreciating Gambia’s legal initiative at the ICJ – a defence which is long overdue. In their presentations before the court, lawyers for Gambia laid out documented details of  “mass shootings, throat slitting, infanticide, torture, rape and burning down of villages, carried out systematically and together amounting to the destruction of the Rohingya as a group, in whole or part”. This was excruciating evidence presented before the court as many watched online and across social media platforms globally.

Despite this, Aung San Suu Kyi’s defence was one of total denial, with her presence at The Hague eliciting widespread criticism and daily protests outside the court. Interestingly, throughout her speech before the court, Aung San Suu Kyi decidedly avoided to use the term “Rohingya”. Indeed this is a reflection of Myanmar’s state policy: one predicated on denial and the non-recognition of Rohingya persecution, suffering and even their very identity and citizenship of  Myanmar.

To be clear, the trial of genocide at the ICJ will not immediately lessen the Rohingya’s plight and suffering in Myanmar, and in those in refugee camps; but it sends a clear message to the military regime: the world will hold them accountable for their actions now and in the future. What the Rohingya will need is comprehensive and long-term humanitarian support that will rebuild and stabilize their livelihoods, and more importantly, the political will which will one day enable them to return to a safe and secure homeland in Rakhine state.

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]]> Pope Francis’s failure to say the word “Rohingya” https://politicstoday.org/pope-franciss-failure-to-say-the-word-rohingya/ Wed, 29 Nov 2017 14:40:06 +0000 https://politicstoday.org/pope-franciss-failure-to-say-the-word-rohingya/

“The pope missed an opportunity to reinforce his previous messages that affirmed the rights of the Rohingya to self-identify and used the name that they had chosen for themselves.”

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The leader of the Roman Catholic church Pope Francis visited Myanmar, the majority-Buddhist country that the US, UN and UK has accused of “ethnic cleansing” against its Muslim Rohingya people.

The pope will also visit Bangladesh, where more than 620,000 Rohingya have fled to escape what Amnesty International has called “crimes against humanity.”

Before the visit, the Cardinal of Myanmar Charles Bo had advised the pope not to use the term “Rohingya.”

“If he doesn’t use it, the international community will say something,” Bo acknowledged. “If he does use it, then it could be very bad for the military, the government and the Buddhist community.”

The Pope was publicly urged to avoid using the word seemingly out of concern that it would have negative repercussions for the Catholic minority.

The pope’s visit to Myanmar had been shrouded in speculation over whether he would refer to Rohingya directly or not.

Pope Francis on Tuesday called for respect for the rights of all of Myanmar’s ethnic groups without mentioning persecuted Rohingya Muslims or what has been condemned by the UN and US as “ethnic cleansing” directly.

On Tuesday, speaking in the capital Nay Pyi Taw, the pope referred to the continued suffering of Myanmar’s people “from civil conflict and hostilities.”

Saying that they “have lasted all too long and created deep divisions,” the pope talked of the need to “respect the rights of all who call this land their home.”

“The future of Myanmar must be peace, a peace based on respect for the dignity and rights of each member of society, respect for each ethnic group and its identity, respect for the rule of law and respect for a democratic order that enables each individual and every group — none excluded — to offer its legitimate contribution to the common good,” Pope Francis said.

The pope has already used the word Rohingya in two appeals from the Vatican this year. Previously Francis has prayed for “our Rohingya brothers and sisters.” His avoidance of the term now was seen by many as a retreat from his earlier support for the oppressed and marginalized around the world.

Many in Myanmar refuse to identify the Muslims of Rakhine as Rohingya, claiming they are migrants from Bangladesh even though they have lived there for generations.

Missed opportunity

The pope praised Suu Kyi’s efforts towards reconciliation after decades of military rule.

Suu Kyi in turn referred to the “situation in the Rakhine” and thanked those who had supported the government.

Human Rights Watch’s regional deputy director Phil Robertson, said he hoped Pope Francis would use the term.

“The pope missed an opportunity to reinforce his previous messages that affirmed the rights of the Rohingya to self-identify and used the name that they had chosen for themselves,” he said.

“The Rohingya have been stripped of so many things, but their name should never be one of them,” Robertson added.

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“He risks either compromising his moral authority or putting in danger the Christians of that country,” said Father Thomas Reese, a prominent American author and analyst at Religion News Service.

Rohingya, described by the UN as the world’s most persecuted people, have faced heightened fears of attack since dozens were killed in communal violence in 2012.

Amnesty International said the Rohingya and Muslims generally in Rakhine State had been subjected to “systemic social and political exclusion” for decades and accused the military of “crimes against humanity” in the last two years including murder, rape torture and forcible displacement.

Speaking in September, Bangladeshi Foreign Minister Abul Hasan Mahmood Ali said around 3,000 Rohingya had been killed in the operation.

Rohingya have faced discrimination in the predominantly Buddhist country for decades. They are deprived of citizenship and unable to access basic services.

In a five-month security operation launched last year, the UN documented mass gang rapes, killings — including of infants and young children — brutal beatings and disappearances committed by security personnel.

The international community has called on the Myanmar government and military to immediately halt atrocities and allow Rohingya to return home safely.

Meanwhile in the UK, Oxford City Council on Monday evening stripped Suu Kyi of the Freedom of the City of Oxford, awarded to her in 1997.

Open-air Mass in Yangon

Pope Francis on Wednesday led an open-air Mass in Yangon for more than 200,000 Catholics from across Myanmar.

The flags of Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam in the crowd, indicated many had travelled from further afield.

From late Tuesday night, thousands of Catholics began gathering at the Kyaik Kasan stadium in Thingangyun Township to see Francis.

The pope called on Myanmar’s ethnic minorities – who have suffered decades of oppression at the hands of the military – not to give in to the desire for revenge.

“I know that many in Myanmar bear the wounds of violence, wounds both visible and invisible,” Francis said in Italian that was translated into Burmese, referring to the Karen, Kachin, Sha and Wa peoples, who make up around 40 percent of the population

He urged people to respond with “forgiveness and compassion” and added: “The way of revenge is not the way of Jesus.”

His message of forgiveness was his first public Mass in the predominantly Buddhist nation.

The pope said his priority in Myanmar was to minister to its 660,000-strong Roman Catholic community.

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]]> A rare US talk on Rohingyas https://politicstoday.org/a-rare-us-talk-on-rohingyas/ Mon, 20 Nov 2017 10:21:06 +0000 https://politicstoday.org/a-rare-us-talk-on-rohingyas/

Germany, Sweden, Japan and the European Union offered their strong support to Bangladesh over the Rohingya issue.

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As Rohingyas face purge and mass massacres in their home country Myanmar at the hands of Buddhist mobs and the state military, in neighboring Bangladesh a US delegation is reported to have called the atrocities against Rohingyas as “war crimes.”

Jeff Merkley, leader of the delegation, told Prime Minister Sheik Hasina that the events in Myanmar are “like war crimes,” a day after the US lawmakers visited Rohingya camps in Cox’s Bazar.

He appreciated Bangladesh’s response to the challenge of Rohingyas who are fleeing Myanmar in droves to find shelter in Bangladesh. The US delegation claimed that they were ready to provide any assistance to resolve the crisis.

Bangladesh, even though with poor resources and a high poverty rate, is becoming the main host country to bear the burden of Rohingya refugees.

US Senator Richard Durbin, Congresswomen Betty McCollum and Jan Schakowsky, and Congressman David N. Cicilline were part of the delegation.

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Meanwhile, Germany, Sweden, Japan and the European Union also offered their strong support to Bangladesh over the Rohingya issue. German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel, Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom, Japanese Foreign Minister Tara Kono and European Union High Representative and Vice President Federica Mogherin separately called on the prime minister at her official Ganabhaban residence Sunday evening.

An estimated 620,000 Rohingya have crossed from Myanmar’s western state of Rakhine into Bangladesh over the past three months, according to the UN.

The refugees are fleeing a military operation in which security forces and Buddhist mobs have killed men, women and children, looted homes and torched Rohingya villages. Around 3,000 Rohingya are reported to have been killed in the crackdown.

*Written by Waseem Ahad. 

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]]> Security Council fails on Rohingya crisis https://politicstoday.org/security-council-fails-on-rohingya-crisis/ Tue, 07 Nov 2017 10:34:00 +0000 https://politicstoday.org/security-council-fails-on-rohingya-crisis/

Security Council failure comes as the latest dash for Rohingyas who are facing state purge and ethnic cleansing in their home country that denies them recognition.

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As the numbers of Rohingya Muslims fleeing Myanmar reach more than 600,000, the UN Security Council met yet another failure on the issue on Monday.

Myanmar’s neighbor and permanent member of the Security Council, China, blocked a resolution condemning the violence of Rakhine state, Myanmar against Rohingya Muslims. The resolution was backed by the U.S., U.K. and France. Security Council failure comes as the latest dash for Rohingyas who are facing state purge and ethnic cleansing in their home country that denies them recognition.

Rohingya is the latest question on international conscience that has incessantly chosen to give precedence to state interests over morality.

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In spite of the veto, in a unanimous statement the Council called on the Myanmar administration to allow Rohingya Muslims to return to their homes from neighboring Bangladesh, which has been sheltering the refugees since the outbreak of the crisis in August this year.

The Security Council also condemned the violence inflicted upon poor Rohingyas, expressing “grave concerns” over human rights violations against the Rohingya such as killing, sexual violence and burning of homes and property.

Asking the Myanmar government to halt further “excessive” use of military force in Rakhine state, the council called for restoration of civilian administration and for the application of the rule of law.

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]]> Myanmar’s Suu Kyi visits Rakhine State https://politicstoday.org/myanmars-suu-kyi-visits-rakhine-state/ Thu, 02 Nov 2017 09:31:59 +0000 https://politicstoday.org/myanmars-suu-kyi-visits-rakhine-state/

While Suu Kyi has stated that the Rohingya can return, there are concerns that the atrocities committed by the security forces and Buddhist mobs may continue.

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De-facto leader of Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi, has visited Rakhine state for the first time since 2015. Her previous visit was part of her election campaign strategy, in which she visited areas where there was no violence or conflict.

While Suu Kyi’s visit was unannounced, she reached capital Sittwe under intensive security measures. During the one day trip Suu Kyi also visited Maungdaw and Buthiduang, where violent incidents took place.

The fact that former Nobel prize recipient San Suu Kyi had not reacted to events described by the UN as a “textbook ethnic cleansing” had been heavily criticized.

The UN documented lootings of homes and villages, brutal beatings and losses, events such as gang rape, deaths – involving infants and young children – committed by security officials. In their report, UN investigators stated such violations may have reached to an extent where they constitute a crime against humanity.

Suu Kyi, on the other hand, has argued that the region can only be restored with the help of investments and development. Still, international aid agencies are restricted from entering the affected areas.

Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya are not recognized by Myanmar and are not given passports, practically making them stateless. Those fleeing violence have taken refuge in Bangladesh, where they have remained in a precarious situation since August.

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The Myanmar administration has denied the allegations of “ethnic cleansing” and claimed that security forces have taken measures only as a result of the Rohingya’s attacks on security posts.

Repatriation

During her visit, it was also noted that Aung San Suu Kyi did not mention anything about the hundreds of thousands of immigrants who are currently located on a buffer zone between Myanmar and Bangladesh.

While Suu Kyi has stated that the Rohingya can return, there are concerns that the atrocities committed by the security forces and Buddhist mobs may continue.

Ali Hossein, a top government administrator in Bangladesh’s most affected Cox’s Bazar explained that his state is doing “more than enough” and blamed Myanmar for not taking action to start a repatriation process.

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]]> Turkey praised for its humanitarian efforts https://politicstoday.org/turkey-praised-for-its-humanitarian-efforts/ Wed, 25 Oct 2017 03:43:32 +0000 https://politicstoday.org/turkey-praised-for-its-humanitarian-efforts/

Filippo Grandi addressed Turkey as a “generous humanitarian donor,” following its pledge to spend $50 million on supporting Rohingya refuges.

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Since August 25, 2017 according to the United Nations, over 600,000 Rohingya have crossed from Myanmar’s western state of Rakhine over to Bangladesh.

Rohingya Muslims have been fleeing military operations in which security forces and Buddhist mobs have killed men, women and children, looted homes and torched Rohingya villages. Records also indicate that women have been victim to rape and torture.

According to Bangladeshi Foreign Minister Abul Hasan Mahmood Ali, around 3,000 Rohingya have been killed in the crackdown.

While Turkey has been at the forefront in providing aid with its humanitarian organizations, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also raised the issue at the UN General Assembly held last month.

Mehmet Gulluoglu, head of Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) reported that the Turkish Red Crescent had raised over $5.4 million for the Rohingya, while AFAD itself has raised $16.2 million since 2012.

While the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA) and Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH) have been active in providing aid for the Rohingya, during the Geneva conference IHH representative Taha Keskin stated: “We gladly announce that we are going to allocate $10 million for suffering Rohingya people through 2017 and 2018. We will continue to implement our projects from varied clusters through local organizations in Bangladesh and Myanmar.”

According to the UN, the Geneva conference raised $344 million in pledges for humanitarian aid to the Rohingya refugees.

Speaking at the conference, UN High Commissioner for refugees applauded Turkey’s humanitarian efforts.

Filippo Grandi addressed Turkey as a “generous humanitarian donor,” following its pledge to spend $50 million on supporting Rohingya refuges.

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“I would like to say that Turkey continues to be a generous humanitarian donor globally besides the largest refugee-hosting country in the world.”

“We have to continue to improve the response to the very massive crisis, the biggest and the fastest we have seen in many years.”

Commenting on the standards of life within refugee camps in Bangladesh, Grandi said: “More than 800,000 stateless Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh aspire to a life that meets their immediate needs for food, medicine, water, and shelter. But beyond that, a life that has hope for the future where their identity is recognized, they are free from discrimination, and are able to return safely to their homes in Myanmar. As we come together in solidarity, I want to thank Bangladesh and its refugee-hosting communities and the donors for supporting them.”

Israel still selling weapons to Myanmar

While the UN has documented mass gang rapes, killings, brutal beatings and disappearances committed by the Myanmar security personnel, including a report in which UN investigators stated that such violations may have constituted crimes against humanity, it has been reported that Israel still continues to sell advanced weapons to the Myanmar navy.

According to Israeli daily Haaretz, “Isreali-made navy patrol boats custom-fitted with remote weapon stations are part of arms deals estimated to be worth tens of millions.”

According to the report, weapons sold to Myanmar include Typhoon missiles produced by the Rafael Advanced Defense Systems company, which normally produces such systems for Israel.

The U.S. and EU have applied an arms embargo on the Myanmar military.

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]]> Turkey’s humanitarian efforts continue for Rohingya Muslims https://politicstoday.org/turkeys-humanitarian-efforts-continue-for-rohingya-muslims/ Fri, 13 Oct 2017 02:27:00 +0000 https://politicstoday.org/turkeys-humanitarian-efforts-continue-for-rohingya-muslims/

In addition to its humanitarian agencies, an announcement made by the Parliamentary Union of Organization of Islamic Cooperation (PUOIC) stated that a group of Turkish lawmakers will visit Rohingya Muslims in Bangladesh in order to assess the situation first hand.

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Following the crimes committed against Rohingya Muslims by the Myanmar security officers and Buddhist mobs, according to the United Nations, since August 25 approximately 520,000 Rohingya have crossed from Rakhine to Bangladesh.

According to Bangladeshi Foreign Minister Abul Hasan Mahmood Ali, around 3,000 Rohingya have been killed in the crackdown.

Since the events have unfolded, Turkey has led the cause in humanitarian assistance. Not only has it delivered tons of aid through the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency, the First Lady also visited Rohingya refugees in order to deliver aid.

More, President Erdogan brought the Rohingya crisis to the agenda during the UN General Assembly last month, urging the international community to form an alliance in order to combat these crimes against humanity.

In addition to TIKA, Turkey-based Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH) has stated that it has delivered aid to 270,000 Rohingya refugees.

A statement released by Vice-Chairman Yasar Kutluay indicated that these humanitarian efforts are to continue in the region in order to help the living standards of refugees that have migrated to Bangladesh.

Turkish MPs to meet Rohingya Muslims in Bangladesh

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In addition to its humanitarian agencies, an announcement made by the Parliamentary Union of Organization of Islamic Cooperation (PUOIC) stated that a group of Turkish lawmakers will visit Rohingya Muslims in Bangladesh in order to assess the situation first hand.

Head of PUOIC, Orhan Atalay, also an MP for AK Party, said that the decision was made during the executive committee meeting of the parliamentary body in Tehran, Iran on Saturday.

The visit to Bangladesh is expected to take place before the PUOIC’s general conference on January 10, 2018.

Atalay stated that this proposal was made in order to assess “what can be done for the tragic situation of Arakan [Rohingya] Muslims.”

“Our proposal was put to the vote and it was unanimously accepted.”

Atalay finally added that the executive committee also stood in favor of an “institutive cooperation” against terrorism and extremism.

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]]> Attacks against Rohingya continue in Myanmar https://politicstoday.org/attacks-against-rohingya-continue-in-myanmar/ Sat, 07 Oct 2017 22:06:57 +0000 https://politicstoday.org/attacks-against-rohingya-continue-in-myanmar/

“The patterns of attacks are evidently conducted systematically. The vigilante group torch Rohingya homes, the Rohingya families flee and police open fire at them.”

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According to a report published by the US-based Arakan Rohingya Union, attacks on the Rohingya in Myanmar are continuing despite the government declaring an end to Myanmar’s military operation in Rakhine state.

The Union made its observation in the “Narrative Report on Situation on the Ground in Northern Arakan/Rakhine State, Myanmar,” noting that Myanmar government officials reportedly met leaders of the Rohingya community and told them that the military had completed its operation and rooted out “insurgents.”

In comparison to this, the report states that “attacks on civilians and torching of homes by Buddhist Rakhine vigilantes under the cover of the police have dramatically increased since then.”

“The patterns of attacks are evidently conducted systematically. The vigilante group torch Rohingya homes, the Rohingya families flee and police open fire at them.”

The report included that information about the “continuous killing of Rohingya families by the vigilantes under the cover of police and increased sexual violence against Rohingya women” was still being received from refugees arriving in Bangladesh.

Appealing for global pressure on the Myanmar administration, the report emphasizes “If they [Rohingya Muslims] will be relocated from camps to permanent locations, it is possible that they will not be allowed to return to their original properties in their villages.”

While the Rohingya crisis was on the agenda during the UN General Assembly last month, the international community has failed to insert pressure on the de-facto leader of Myanmar, former Nobel Peace recipient, Aung San Suu Kyi.

In spite of recent developments and the lack of unity from the international community, the report urged to form a strong coalition “to pressure the Security Council for urgent and ambitious actions, including a resolution to address the crisis facing the Rohingya, and designate a safezone for all people in Northern Arakan state protected by multinational security forces.”

Since August 25, the UN has reported that over 500,000 Rohingya have crossed over to Bangladesh, and that during this crisis over 3,000 Rohingya have been killed.

http://thenewturkey.org/setting-an-example-turkeys-lead-on-humanitarian-aid/

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Rohingya crisis: a humanitarian approach

Kerem Divanlioglu, Turkey’s ambassador to Myanmar, was part of a 48-person team including UN officials and foreign diplomats based in the commercial capital, Yangon, who visited the Maungdaw area of Rakhine state on October 2.

Speaking to Anadolu Agency, Divanlioglu said that while Turkey doesn’t have any expectations, the country is helping Rohingya Muslims due to its “humanitarian stance.”

Adding that Turkey does not have a political agenda in Myanmar, he stated that “we’ve kept the dialogue channels open with Myanamar authorities, as we only want to help them in a humanistic way.”

He described how when flying over Arakan [Rakhine state], “I saw many villages that were completely destroyed,” adding that only five Muslim villages in the Rathidaung district were habitable.

Visiting a village, Ah Nauk Pyin, the diplomat spoke to the Muslim community, who he said only wants “safety and food.”

In addition to Divanlioglu’s comments, the Turkish Health Ministry has confirmed that it will send aid worth 196 million Turkish liras ($54 million) to Bangladesh for Rohingya Muslims who have crossed over from Rakhine state.

According to a source from the Ministry, the aid will be delivered through the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD).

Source: AA and other agencies

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]]> Rohingya: an embarrassment for humanity https://politicstoday.org/rohingya-an-embarrassment-for-humanity/ Wed, 27 Sep 2017 10:24:37 +0000 https://politicstoday.org/rohingya-an-embarrassment-for-humanity/

The leader of the Bangladesh National Human Rights Commission, Kazi Reazul Hoque, has called for Myanmar to face the UN court for crimes against humanity.

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The crimes committed against the Rohingya Muslims by Myanmar state security personnel and Buddhist mobs have re-emerged on the political agenda as an estimated 400,000 refugees escape violence and seek asylum in Bangladesh.

Crimes against the Rohingya include murder, looting homes and torture. According to Bangladeshi Foreign Minister Abul Hasan Mahmood Ali, around 3,000 Rohingya have been killed in the crackdown.

Latest developments pushed the UN into suggesting that the Myanmar treatment of Rohingya looks like “textbook ethnic cleansing.”

Speaking at the launch of the Burma Human Rights Network’s report on persecution of Rohingya Muslims, executive director Kyaw Yin suggested that the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar should be perceived as a humanitarian issue rather than a religious one.

Yin warned that the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Myanmar could possibly trigger greater influence of extremism among victims.

He told the forum that “the actions by the Rohingya people by joining extremist groups could undo all the work that the international community has put in to advocate for their plight.”

In addition to Kyaw Yin, speaking at the same forum, Association of Southeast Nations (ASEAN) Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights’ Malaysian Chairman Edmund Bon told the audience that the international community was still hopeful about the ASEAN in resolving the crisis in Myanmar.

He mentioned that the “Malaysian and international community still have hope on the ASEAN to step in and resolve the crisis. ASEAN has used its dialogue and diplomatic ties to ease many tensions around the world, and it would be unjust for them not to step in a crisis which happens at home.”

The Chairman also added that the government of Malaysia had engaged with Myanmar on multiple occasions before the crisis emerged on the international platform, adding that however, bilateral diplomacy had “certain limits.”

Myanmar to face UN court

While hosting up to 400,000 Rohingya refugees, the Bangladesh National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) called on the international community to take the government of Myanmar to the UN Court of Justice for committing crimes against humanity in Rakhine state.

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Speaking at the International Ombudsman Conference in Istanbul, head of the NHRC, Kazi Reazul Hoque said “we urged the OIC and the ASEAN member states and UN organs to consider referring the matter [or persecution of Rohingya Muslims] to the International Court of Justice or the International Human Court.”

He also urged for the UN Human Rights Commission and the international community to “mobilize political pressure on Myanmar’s government to find a durable solution” to the Rohingya crisis.

“The durable solution must include the right to return to their homelands in a safe, secure and dignified way,” Hoque added.

“All fundamental rights of the Rohingya should be respected in the process of resolving the current crisis.”

Hoque led a four-member delegation on an emergency fact-finding mission between September 9 and 11 and interviewed several Rohingya refugees currently in Bangladesh. The statements of the refugees, including stories of torture, rape and murder account to “extreme violation of human rights” and are “crimes against humanity” he mentioned.

Turkey continues to aid the Rohingya

Whilst the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA) has maintained the lead in providing humanitarian assistance to the Rohingya living on camps in Bangladesh, Turkey-based Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH) said on Tuesday that it has delivered emergency food aid to 3,125 Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine State.

A press release by IHH informed that the aid was distributed on Monday and Tuesday to the villages of Depaing Thingying Bali, Dapaing South Bali IDP and camps near the Sittwe Township of southern Rakhine State.

The emergency food aid consisted of rice, oil, chickpeas, salt and pepper, and reportedly should be enough for one month.

IHH also plans to deliver basic life supplies to 125,000 Rohingya within the following days.

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]]> Land Mines across western Myanmar https://politicstoday.org/land-mines-across-western-myanmar/ Tue, 26 Sep 2017 05:53:03 +0000 https://politicstoday.org/land-mines-across-western-myanmar/

Latest announcements from the UN predict the current number of refugees in Bangladesh to stand around 420,000.

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The Rohingya crisis remains on the political agenda following attacks by Buddhist mobs and the security forces against the Rohingya in Rakhine State in Myanmar, causing a refugee crisis in the region.

Reports of the Arakan Security Forces committing crimes against humanity, including mass killings and gang rapes, have been described by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, as a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing.”

De facto leader of Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi, a former Noble Peace recipient, skipped the UN General Assembly due to the international opposition and criticism she was receiving. While escaping the UN, Suu Kyi, condemned the human rights violations against Rohingya Muslims and claimed that “we want to find out what the real problems are.”

In her first address in regards to the crisis, Suu Kyi sidestepped allegations of atrocities committed against the stateless Muslim minority and cast the conflict as just one of many problems ailing the country.

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While Myanmar’s leader chose to deny the security force’s involvement in the violence, statements made by the refugees arriving in the camps detail how the military were involved in laying mines across the villages and other crimes committed especially against women and young children.

In addition to personal statements, New York-based Human Rights Watch, citing evidence including photo and video recordings, confirmed that the military laid anti-personnel landmines at key crossing points on Myanmar’s western border with neighboring Bangladesh.

Latest announcements from the UN predict the current number of refugees in Bangladesh to stand around 420,000.

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]]> Elderly Rohingya miserably fail to escape death https://politicstoday.org/elderly-rohingya-miserably-fail-to-escape-death/ Sat, 23 Sep 2017 07:44:15 +0000 https://politicstoday.org/elderly-rohingya-miserably-fail-to-escape-death/

“Nearly 1 million Rohingya are being subjected to genocide and are fleeing to Bangladesh,” “we never said it was Buddhists who killed them..."

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The terror in Rakhine State has once again emerged on the political agenda. Since 25 August mass atrocities against the Rohingya Muslims have been noted by the UN, indicating that these crimes can amount to crimes against humanity.

Following the crimes committed by the Myanmar security forces and Buddhist mobs, including mass rape, murder and gang violence, Rohingya Muslims escaping violence have begun seeking refuge in Bangladesh.

According to the latest survey of Inter Sector Coordination Group (ISCG), an information hub for the agencies working with the Rohingya issue in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, 429,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh since the 25th of August. 145,000 have taken refuge in the camps while 196,000 Rohingya are still staying on hills and under tents. According to estimates, 88,000 are living with relatives who had left previously.

An issue that has been raised regarding the accommodation of the Rohingya in the refugee camps is the sanitary and living conditions. In fact, many elderly are noted to die on the way or arrive sick to the camps. Those that are currently living in the camps are close to death for lack of sanitary drinking water and muddy living conditions.

Hope for assistance: ASEAN fund may be used to help

The atrocities committed against the Rohingya Muslims have occupied the political agenda for a couple of weeks now, and has reached peak as many world leaders called for the international community to take action during the United Nations General Assembly this week.

While Turkey has maintained the lead in providing humanitarian assistance to the Rohingya in need, as the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA), accompanied by First Lady Emine Erdogan, delivered 1,000 tons of aid, lately the Philippines explained that the ASEAN trust fund may be used to help persecuted Rohingya fleeing to Bangladesh.

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Secretary Catalino Cuy of the Interior and Local Government, who chairs the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Transnational Crime, announced the move after the closing session in Manila on Thursday.

According to the Minister, the mass exodus of the Rohingya from Myanmar to Bangladesh can be categorized as irregular movement and therefore can potentially benefit from the trust fund.

Buddhist terror?

In spit of discussions surrounding the Rohingya crisis, this matter has emerged on a different extension: it is not being labelled “Buddhist terror.”

The President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, highlighted this matter during a speech made at an intercultural event in New York hosted by the Turkish American National Steering Committee (TASC).

While harshly criticizing the use of “Islamic terror” in world media and political discourse, the President stated that “nearly 1 million Rohingya are being subjected to genocide and are fleeing to Bangladesh,” “we never said it was Buddhists who killed them. This is indeed the case, but we never put it as such. Now I call on those who want to endear Buddhists to the world: What gives you the right to say ‘Islamic terror?”

In criticism of those labelling Daesh as an “Islamic terrorist group,” Erdogan highlighted a double standard between Islam and other faiths by asserting, “whoever kills a soul, it is as if they have killed entire humanity. This is among the principles of our faith. Nobody should dare associate Daesh with Islam or Muslims. It is a terrorist group.”

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]]> The Rohingya crisis and the problem of aid https://politicstoday.org/the-rohingya-crisis-and-the-problem-of-aid/ Thu, 21 Sep 2017 04:44:59 +0000 https://politicstoday.org/the-rohingya-crisis-and-the-problem-of-aid/

Total US humanitarian funding for internally displaces people in Myanmar and refugees since last October now stands at $95 million.

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Since August 2017, the crimes taking place against the Rohingya have once again gained an international dimension.

The Rohingya, which has been described by the United Nations as the world’s most persecuted peoples, have faced heightened fears of attack from the Myanmar military and Buddhist mobs since 2012.

In latest reports, the UN has documented mass gang rapes, killings – including infants and young children – brutal beatings and disappearances committed by the security personnel.

UN investigators have also labelled such violations as crimes against humanity.

Since the beginning of the outbreak of the crisis, the government of Turkey has led the way in providing humanitarian aid to the refugees that have crossed the border to Bangladesh. Latest reports state this figure to be around nearly 400,000, while approximately 3000 Rohingya have lost their lives on their struggle to escape the violence.

After the visit by TIKA, assisted by First Lady Emine Erdogan, where 1,000 tons of aid was delivered to the Rohingya Muslims who had fled violence, President Erdogan raised the issue at the UN General Assembly claiming that the international community has remained silent once again “just like it did in Syria.”

While the de facto leader of Myanmar, Aung Sang Suu Kyi, a former Nobel Peace recipient did not attend the UN General Assembly due to increasing criticism from the international community, she said on Tuesday that her government will grant access to international observers in the conflict-hit Rakhine state.

While official statements indicate an open investigation and freedom to provide aid, the Myanmar government have reported attempts of Buddhist mobs to destroy a ship carrying aid to the displaced people in western Rakhine.

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According to a press release from Suu Kyi, the riot began on Wednesday when around 50 people forced staff of the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) to unload the aid from a ship at a jetty in Rakhine state capital Sittway.

8 people have been detained for interrogation after police dispersed a crowd comprising around 300 people by firing warning shots and water cannons.

US to provide aid to those displaced

While British Prime Minister Theresa May announced earlier this week that the UK government will stop providing military assistance and training to the Myanmar army, the US announced on Wednesday that it would provide nearly $32 million in humanitarian aid in order to help address the ongoing Rohingya crisis.

“The rapid influx of hundreds of thousands of refugees has stained resources and overwhelmed humanitarian agencies and local authorities,” the US State Department said in announcing the new funds.

The aid will provide a range of needed services including emergency shelter, food, water and health assistance.

Further, the statement by the State Department added that “the United States calls upon all parties to allow for unfettered humanitarian access to people in Rakhine State, Burma [Myanmar], and we also encourage other donors to join us in providing additional humanitarian assistance for those affected by the crisis.”

Total US humanitarian funding for internally displaces people in Myanmar and refugees since last October now stands at $95 million.

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]]> Diplomatic tensions with Myanmar as Rohingya Muslims escape violence https://politicstoday.org/13801-2/ Wed, 20 Sep 2017 08:32:11 +0000 https://politicstoday.org/13801-2/

De facto leader of Myanmar, former Nobel Peace recipient, Aung San Suu Kyi, did not attend the UN GA due to increasing criticism involving her government in an ethnic cleansing.

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Since violence erupted in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, the UN has stated that an approximate of 421,000 Rohingya Muslims have crossed from Myanmar to Bangladesh since August 25.

“Many of the new arrivals, who walked for days throughout jungle in intense heat and monsoon rains, are already sick and malnourished by the time they reach the teeming settlements of Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh,” Joel Millman, spokesman for the UN’s International Agency for Migration (IOM) told a news conference at the UN in Geneva on Tuesday.

More than 170,000 newly arrived Rohingya refugees are yet to receive primary healthcare services Millman added.

The refugees are fleeing a fresh security operation in which security forces and Buddhist mobs have killed men, women and children, looed homes and torched Rohingya villages. According to Banglades, around 3,000 Rohingya have been killed in the crackdown.

The World Health Organization launched an urgent immunization program on Saturday to vaccinate 150,000 newly arrived children.

The Rohingya, described by the UN as the world’s most persecuted people, have faced heightened fears of attack since dozens were killed in communal violence in 2012.

Further, the international organization documented mass gang rapes, killings – including infants and young children – brutal beatings, and disappearances committed by security personnel. In a report, UN investigators said such violations may have constituted crimes against humanity.

Humanitarian assistance

In response to the crimes occurring in Myanmar, the Turkish government led humanitarian assistance to Rohingya Muslims. The Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA), with the assistance of First Lady Emine Erdogan, delivered 1,000 ton of aid to those fleeing violence.

While Turkish President Erdogan has repeatedly called for the end to the violence, he maintained his position during the 72nd session of the UN General Assembly.

In his speech, Erdogan stated that “just like Syria, the international community has not given a good account of itself” in regards to helping Rohingya Muslims.

Erdogan continued claiming that “if this tragedy [in Myanmar] is not stopped, the history of humanity will face another dark stain.”

Further, President Erdogan claimed that the lack of international action confirmed the “relevance of the re-structure of the UN, and the Security Council,” elaborating the fact that “the world is bigger than five.”

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De facto leader of Myanmar, former Nobel Peace recipient, Aung San Suu Kyi, did not attend the UN GA due to increasing criticism involving her government in an ethnic cleansing.

Diplomatic response

As a response to the increasing violence against the Rohingya, UK Prime Minister Theresa May announced that the UK will “stop all defense engagement and training of the Burmese military.”

The UK is suspending all its engagement with Myanmar’s military until the action against the country’s Muslim Rohingya minority is halted, British PM said Tuesday.

“We are very concerned about what is happening to the Rohingya people in Burma [Myanmar]. The military action against them must stop,” May told the UN GA in New York.

Noting that “too many vulnerable people” had to flee for their lives, May said: “Aung San Suu Kyi and the Burmese government need to make it very clear that the military action should stop.”

“The British government is announcing today that we are going to stop all defense engagement and training of the Burmese military by the Ministry of Defense until this issue is resolved,” she added.

Last year, the UK spent around £305,000 (some $412,000) as part of a training program provided to the Myanmar military on democracy, leadership and English language. The program offered by the Ministry of Defense does not include combat training.

Myanmar blocks resolution on Rohingya

Following the absence of Suu Kyi at the UN GA, the government of Myanmar also blocked a resolution at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Authored by Indonesia, the resolution “expressed concern over the humanitarian crisis in the region and urged all parties to respect the rule of law, exercise maximum self-restraint and stop the ongoing violence against the Rohingya in Rakhine state.”

While governor Suu Kyi has spoken out and denied involvement of the military in the crimes against the Rohingya, questions still arise as to the reason why she is reluctant to operate with the international community.

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]]> Protests in Support of Rohingya Muslims all over the World https://politicstoday.org/protests-in-support-of-rohingya-muslims-all-over-the-world/ Sat, 16 Sep 2017 10:59:22 +0000 https://politicstoday.org/protests-in-support-of-rohingya-muslims-all-over-the-world/

Following increasing violence against Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine state, rallies have emerged across the world in protest of the humanitarian catastrophe.

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While the UN has described the Rohingya as the most executed peoples, increasing support from all over the world has raised political awareness of the crimes taking place.

Following the flee of approximately 300,000 Rohingya to Bangladesh, demonstrations took place in London, India, Chechnya, Indonesia and other countries in Asia, with the hope of increasing pressure on Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the de-facto leader of Myanmar.

While hundreds gathered outside the Myanmar embassy in London, Indonesia saw mass rallies in support of the Rohingya. In the capital Jakarta, the protesters prayed outside the Myanmar embassy and called on cutting diplomatic ties with Myanmar.

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Apart from mass protests and rallies over Asia and Europe, prominent individuals have also spoken against the perpetuated violence, calling for a diplomatic resolution. Education activist Malala Yousafzai has called for Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace recipient, to use her position to “stop the violence.”

Regardless of increasing international pressure however, the de-facto leader of Myanmar has cancelled plans to attend the UN General Assembly in which the Rohingya crisis is going to be discussed.

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