Myanmar’s exiled National Unity Government cautiously recognises rights of Rohingyas

THE HINDU
KALLOL BHATTACHERJEE
December 01, 2022

However, the exiled opposition of Myanmar is aware of certain ‘limitations’ regarding the displaced community

The refugee crisis exploded in August-September 2017 when the Myanmar military intensified its so-called anti-terror military campaign that evicted more than a million Rohingyas who were forced to seek shelter in Bangladesh. | Photo Credit: AP

The laws of Myanmar that prompted one of the largest refugee crises in recent decades involving the Rohingya community of the Rakhine province is deeply unpopular among the democratic anti-junta forces. The Hindu was told recently that the ruling military junta is under growing pressure from the “troops” of the National Unity Government (NUG) which is being “actively engaged” by several countries, including France and the United States.

Rohingya caught dangerously in the middle of Rakhine war

Frontier 

MYANMAR

November 30, 2022 

Myanmar’s most vulnerable minority group has been caught in the crossfire of a brutal conflict and say they are pressured to collaborate by both sides, pushing many to risk death or arrest to escape abroad.

When, in July, an informal ceasefire between the Myanmar military and Arakan Army broke down in Rakhine State after 20 months, fighting between the two groups spread to new battlegrounds. This includes the far northern township of Maungdaw, where the vulnerable Rohingya Muslim community form the majority.

“We have been suffering for a long time, but it is getting worse with fighting resuming,” said a 30-year-old Rohingya resident of Maungdaw Township. “We Rohingya people have been shot dead and arrested by both the military and the AA, but we have no right to make complaints to either side.”

 

Rohingya Muslims stuck between Myanmar’s military junta, rebel Arakan Army

AA
Halil Ibrahim Medet
ISTANBUL
28.11.2022

Effect of military coup in country led to even more pressure on Rohingya after decades of oppression, says Arakanese activist

File Photo - A Rohingya Muslim man, fled from oppression within ongoing military operations in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, recites Adhan (call to prayer) as they take shelter at a makeshift camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh on September 24, 2017

After suffering decades of oppression, Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar are now caught between two fires from the country’s repressive military junta and the rebel Buddhist Arakan Army, according to local Arakanese activists.

The UN and other international human rights organizations have called the violence against the country’s Rohingya “ethnic cleansing” or “genocide,” saying the Muslim group is “the most persecuted minority in the world.”

 

Rohingya, Geopolitics and Myanmar: An Uncertain Future

The Daily Star

Shamsher M. Chowdhury, BB
Mon Nov 14, 2022 

Remains of a Rohingya village in Rakhine, Myanmar, after the security forces razed it to the ground during the 2017 crackdown. FILE PHOTO: REUTERS

That the Rohingya community (mostly Muslims) has been subjected to the most acute form of societal scorn and institutionalised discrimination in their own country for decades is all too well-known. The situation started getting bad in the late 1970s, when more than 200,000 Rohingyas were driven out of their homeland in Myanmar's Rakhine (originally Arakan) state by the country's military government, and were forced to take shelter across the border in Bangladesh. Their eventual return was ensured through negotiations between the two countries.

Targeted Killings Spread Terror in Rohingya Refugee Camps

THE I DIPLOMAT

Tanbirul Miraj Ripon

November 15, 2022

Both Bangladesh police and Rohingya accuse the militant group ARSA of conducting a campaign of terror and crime in the refugee camps.

Elite police in Bangladesh launched a crackdown named “Operation Root Out” after targeted killings spiked in Rohingya camps. Police have arrested at least 90 Rohingya refugees, including 24 who were directly involved in the murders. Last October, six Rohingya community leaders and a child were killed in the camp, allegedly by the Myanmar-based armed organization Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA).

Southeast Asian Leaders Struggle With Question of Myanmar Violence

THE I DIPLOMAT

David Rising and Sopheng Cheang
November 11, 2022

ASEAN’s member states continue to be divided on how to handle their problem member, as the country’s conflict continues to worsen.

Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) leaders struggled Friday to come to a consensus on how to pressure Myanmar to comply with a plan for peace, with violence in the member state spiraling out of control since the military seized power in 2021.

The group has banned leaders of Myanmar, also known as Burma, from participating in its top-level events, like the ongoing summit in Phnom Penh, in an effort to pressure them to comply with ASEAN’s Five-Point Consensus plan for peace, so far with little effect.

Myanmar's financial blacklisting is worth the risks it brings

NIKKEI ASIA

Zachary Abuza
November 10, 2022

Disruption of fund flows will hit aid groups and opposition, alongside regime

The Myanmar kyat has lost 60% of its value, © AP

Zachary Abuza is a professor at the National War College in Washington. The views expressed here are his own and may not reflect those of the college or the U.S. government.

Last month, Myanmar took its place alongside North Korea and Iran on the blacklist of the Financial Action Task Force, a Paris-based international organization that combats money laundering, over its failure to regulate its banking system and financial markets.

လူထု ထောက်ခံမှု မြင့်မားလာမှုနှင့်အတူ အင် အားသိန်းချီ ရှိလာသော PDF၊ LDF ၊ PDT တပ်များက စစ်ကောင်စီ ထိန်း ချုပ်ခဲ့သော နယ်မြေများကို တဖြည်းဖြည်း စိုးမိုးသိမ်း ယူလာပြီ

CDMM
by ချစ်သဲညှာ
Nov 10, 2022

မြန်မာနိုင်ငံမှာ ၂၀၂၁ခုနှစ် ပြည်သူ့ကာကွယ်ရေးတပ်ဖွဲ့ (PD)တွေကို စတင်ဖွဲ့စည်းခဲ့ချိန်မှာ PDF တွေကို စစ် ကောင် စီတပ်တွေက အချိန်တိုလေးအတွင်းမှာ နှိမ်နင်းပစ်လိမ့်မယ်လို့ လူတော်တော်များများက ထင်ခဲ့ကြပါ တယ်။ လူငယ်လက်နက်ကိုင်တွေရဲ့ အလျှင်စလို စုဖွဲ့မှုမျိုးပဲလို့ ထင်မှတ်ခဲ့ကြပါတယ်။

ဒါပေမယ့် အားလုံးရဲ့ ထင်ကြေးတွေက လွဲမှားခဲ့ပါတယ်။ လူအများထင်သလို စစ်ကောင်စီက PDF တွေကို မနှိမ် နင်းနိုင်ခဲ့ဘဲ လူထောက်ခံမှု ပိုမိုမြင့်တက်လာပြီး PDFတွေရဲ့ အင်အားက ကြီးမားလာနေပါတယ်။

Rohingya crisis and the need for political unity

The Daily Star

Hrishik Roy, Zaheer Abbas
Mon Sep 5, 2022 

The world must collectively work towards building the capacity of the Rohingya community. PHOTO: REUTERS

Aung San Suu Kyi has been sentenced to five years of imprisonment – although this does not account for the other charges levelled against her, as well as her advanced age. It could very well be that Myanmar's erstwhile paragon of democracy and human rights will never be free again. It is a thumping victory for its military, which has for long battled to undermine democracy in the state.

Why aid groups, and Rohingya themselves, should stop using the term ‘stateless’

The New Humanitarian

Conflict, Interview
BANGKOK
10 November 2022

Rohingya refugees hold placards at the Kutupalong camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, to mark the fifth anniversary of their flight from neighbouring Myanmar to escape a 2017 military crackdown, on 25 August 2022.

 

The use of the terms “stateless” or “statelessness” when referring to the Rohingya population is demotivating and inaccurate, says Aung Kyaw Moe, who serves as a human rights advisor to Myanmar’s National Unity Government – the civilian government-in-exile formed in the wake of the February 2021 military coup. He’s calling for aid organisations to stop using the nomenclature and for all Rohingya to admonish its use.

The perils of repatriation for Rohingya refugees

ASIA TIME

by Saqib Sheikh
October 31, 2022

Myanmar’s main goal is to ease tensions with neighboring Bangladesh, not to show genuine respect for human rights

Rohingya gather at a market in Bangladesh’s Kutupalong refugee camp in Ukhia on May 15, 2020. Photo: AFP

The Rohingya people forced out of the homeland remain at the mercy of the geopolitics of host countries in the region, with potentially worrying implications. 

Bangladesh faces an election in 2023 and the issue of the Rohingya is seen as important for the government to allay concerns of its electorate about the sustainability of meeting the needs of such a large refugee population, and also perceived frictions with locals.

Challenging Malaysia’s Moral Authority on Myanmar

THE I DIPLOMAT
Luke Hunt
October 26, 2022

Deportations of Myanmar asylum seekers and the failure to act on Rohingya death camps are disheartening.

Malaysia has long sought to bolster its diplomatic stocks by exerting its religious credentials through the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and, closer to home, within ASEAN, where it has forged a troika with fellow Muslim countries Indonesia and Brunei.

The troika is an admirable club that emerged after the military in Myanmar, or Tatmadaw, inflicted an ethnic cleansing and alleged genocide against that country’s Muslim Rohingya community in 2017, resulting in more than 1.4 million of them now living in squalid camps in neighboring Bangladesh.

Rohingya man narrates 16 days’ ordeal on route of trafficking

The Daily Star

Mohammad Jamil Khan
Thu Oct 13, 2022 

A transnational syndicate is using a new land route through Myanmar to traffic people, mostly Rohingyas from refugee camps in Bangladesh, to Thailand and Malaysia.

Previously, Rohingyas used to be trafficked to those countries by sea, but traffickers started using the new route as law enforcers increased vigilance in Cox's Bazar and in the Bay of Bengal.

The human trafficking syndicate comprises of Bangladeshis, Rohingyas, people of the Burmese Mog tribe, and Thai and Malaysian nationals and it has been using this land route for around eight months, said sources in law enforcement agencies, Rohingya leaders, and a trafficked youth.

Luring Rohingyas with promises of a better life in Malaysia or Thailand, members of the syndicate first take them from camps in Cox's Bazar, to a village in near Myanmar border, and then send them to the destinations via Rakhine State, they said.

Is the opportunity for Rohingya repatriation slipping away?

The Daily Star

Lt Gen Md Mahfuzur Rahman (LPR)
Sat Aug 13, 2022 

Photo: Mohammad Ponir Hossain/REUTERS

Five years since the 2017 exodus of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar as a result of its military's horrific persecution, there is no sign of repatriation on the horizon. And as long as the military junta continues to rule, there is hardly any scope for repatriation. This was reflected by Myanmar's Senior General Min Aung Hlaing in 2017, when he said in a media interview, "we did not send them to bring them back."

Even after the military coup in February 2021, when the junta was under tremendous pressure from inside and outside, General Min Aung Hlaing reiterated in May 2021, in an interview with an international media outlet, that there is "no option of bringing back the Rohingyas". Whatever discussions on repatriation we hear and see are part of diplomatic rhetoric; no serious analyst would take it at face value. However, it is always better to have engagement with the present Myanmar government on this issue rather than a complete disengagement.

U.S. sanctions target Myanmar junta-linked businessman for procuring Russian-made weapons

REUTERS
Simon Lewis
October 7, 2022

A slogan is written on a street as a protest after the coup in Yangon, Myanmar February 21, 2021. Picture taken with iPhone panoramic mode. REUTERS/Stringer//File Photo

WASHINGTON, Oct 6 (Reuters) - The United States on Thursday imposed sanctions on a Myanmar businessman and two others involved in procuring Russian-made weapons from Belarus for the junta that seized power in the Southeast Asian country early last year, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.

The military staged a coup in February 2021, detaining democratic leaders including Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, then violently suppressed protests, sparking a spiraling conflict.

US Announces Sanctions on Myanmar Military-Linked Arms Broker

THE I DIPLOMAT

By Sebastian Strangio

October 07, 2022

Aung Moe Myint and his Dynasty International company are accused of procuring Russian-made arms from Belarus for the military.

The United States has announced a further round of sanctions on Myanmar’s military government, targeting three individuals and one entity “for their roles related to the procurement of Russian-produced military arms from Belarus for the Burmese regime.”

In a statement announcing the sanctions, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the sanctions “aim to target those abetting the military’s ability to carry out human rights abuses.”

Meta Should Pay Reparations to Rohingya Refugees, Rights Group Says

THE I DIPLOMAT

By Sebastian Strangio 

September 30, 2022

Amnesty International claims that Facebook was aware that its algorithms were amplifying harmful anti-Rohingya hate speech in Myanmar, but still did nothing to stop it.

Facebook’s parent company Meta should pay reparations to Rohingya communities who were driven out of western Myanmar in 2017, given the role that it played in enabling the campaign of ethnic cleansing, the human rights group Amnesty International said in a report published yesterday.

In a new report published yesterday, Amnesty claims that Facebook’s “dangerous algorithms and reckless pursuit of profit… substantially contributed to the atrocities perpetrated by the Myanmar military against the Rohingya people in 2017.”

“ဝ” ပြည်နယ်အရေးနှင့် ဆက်စပ်အတွေးများ

DMG 

အောက်တိုဘာ ၁ -၂၀၂၂
(ဆောင်းပါး)
ဂေါင် -ရေးသည်။

 

ခတ်အဆက်ဆက် စစ်ခေါင်းဆောင်များသည် နိုင်ငံရေးအရ တန်းတူအခွင့်အရေး တောင်းဆိုနေကြသည့် တိုင်း ရင်း သားလက်နက်ကိုင်များအပေါ် သူပုန်၊ သောင်းကျန်းသူ၊ အကြမ်းဖက်အဖွဲ့ စသည်ဖြင့် ခေါ်ဝေါ်သုံးစွဲလာခဲ့ သည်မှာ ယနေ့ထိပင်တွေ့ရသည်။

ထို့အတူ စစ်ခေါင်းဆောင်များက တိုင်းရင်းသားတပ်ဖွဲ့များအား လက်နက်ဖျက်သိမ်းရေး၊ တပ်မတော် (သို့မ ဟုတ်) နယ်ခြားစောင့်တပ် စသည့်နည်းလမ်းပေါင်းစုံဖြင့် တစိုက်မတ်မတ်ပြုလုပ်လာခဲ့သော်လည်း ယခုအခါ ၎င်းတို့နှင့် တိုက်ပွဲမဖြစ်ပွားသည့် အင်အားကြီးအဖွဲ့အချို့ကို အလျော့ပေး ဆက်ဆံလာသည်။

In Myanmar, Grief and Fury After an Attack on a School

The New York Times  

By Sui-Lee Wee
Sept. 23, 2022

 Eleven children died when soldiers fired on the school, where they said rebels had taken cover. “This is a war crime,” said a U.N. expert.

Damage from the Sept. 16 attack on a school in Let Yet Kone village, in the Sagaing region of central Myanmar. Credit...Social Media, via Reuters

 

 It was the noon hour, and children were playing outside the school, squeezing in their last few minutes of fun before lessons began. Suddenly, there came the roar of helicopters overhead.

Bhone Tayza, 7, looked up. His cousin shouted at him to run, and both of them dashed to hide in a hole in the trunk of a tamarind tree. Then Bhone Tayza remembered he had left his school bag in his classroom and ran back to get it. Soldiers started firing rockets.

Myanmar, Bangladesh must solve border tensions peacefully

ASIA TIME

By TILOTTAMA RANI CHARULATA

SEPTEMBER 22, 2022

The Bangladeshi government’s diplomatic and military preparations need to be strengthened

Myanmar border guard police patrol the fence in the 'no man's land' zone between the Myanmar and Bangladesh border. Photo: AFP / Phyo Hein Kyaw

Many Rohingya people fled from Myanmar a few years ago in fear of their lives, but recently the Myanmar army has had to face strong resistance from other independence-seeking rebels. Along with the Arakan Army, the military is in serious conflict with the Cochin Army, and elements of the Shan, Karen, Mong, Shin and Kaya peoples.

As a result, the Tatmadaw (military) has adopted a slightly different strategy from its persecution of the Rohingya to avoid international surveillance of its suppression of the rebels. As a part of this, it has mounted a campaign on the border with Bangladesh.