Sanctions Won't Hurt Myanmar's Brutal Leaders, Activists Say. Here's What Could

TIME
CHAD DE GUZMAN
FEBRUARY 1, 2022 

Protesters hold banners and shout slogans while marching past Myanmar military soldiers who arrived to guard the Central Bank overnight on Feb. 15, 2021 in Yangon, Myanmar. The U.S. Embassy in Myanmar told Americans in Myanmar to "shelter in place" in an announcement after military movements and reports of possible interruptions to telecoms. Armored vehicles were seen on the streets of Myanmar's capital, but protesters turned out in force despite the military presence. Hkun Lat—Getty Images

The U.S. imposed new sanctions on senior leaders of Myanmar’s military junta on Monday—the eve of the one-year anniversary of their overthrow of the country’s democratically elected government and imprisonment of its leader, Aung San Suu Kyi.

The U.S., joined by the U.K., and Canada, announced sanctions on officials who helped prosecute Aung San Suu Kyi, the head of the National League for Democracy. The Nobel Peace Prize laureate was arrested in the Feb. 1, 2021 coup. Myanmar courts have sentenced her to a total of six years in prison as of Jan. 10—but she faces additional charges.

Rebel yell: Arakan Army leader speaks to Asia Times

ASIA TIMES
By BERTIL LINTNER

JANUARY 18, 2022

Rebel commander says military junta could explode ‘like a supernova’ and claims AA’s parallel administration is restoring stability to RakhineTwan Mrat Naing, commander-in-chief of the Arakan Army, attends a meeting of leaders of Myanmar's ethnic armed groups at the United Wa State Army headquarters in Myanmar's northern Shan state, May 6, 2015. Photo: Twitter

CHIANG MAI – At just 43, Major General Twan Mrat Naing may be the youngest and most successful rebel commanders in Myanmar. The force he leads, the Arakan Army (AA), has grown from a handful of recruits when it was first established in April 2009 into one of the war-torn nation’s most powerful and potent ethnic armies.

AA first waged war against the Myanmar military in 2012 in northern Kachin state arm-in-arm with the Kachin Independence Army (KIA). It later fought alongside the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) in northeastern Shan state before launching an insurgency in its home state of Rakhine, also known as Arakan, where thousands have flocked to join its ranks.

ဒေါ်အောင်ဆန်းစုကြည်၏ သူရဲကောင်း ပုံရိပ် အဆုံးသတ် သွားသော နေ့ရက်များ

ဧရာဝတီ
By David Scott Mathieson
23 November 2018

၂၀၀၇ စက်တင်ဘာလ ဖိလစ်ပိုင်နိုင်ငံ မနီလာမြို့တော်ရှိ မြန်မာသံရုံးရှေ့ ဆန္ဒပြပွဲတွင် ဆန္ဒပြသူတဦးက ဒေါ်အောင်ဆန်းစုကြည်ပုံကို ကိုင်ဆောင်ထားစဉ် / Reuters

 မြန်မာခေါင်းဆောင် ဒေါ်အောင်ဆန်းစုကြည်လောက် လူ့အခွင့်အရေး ဂုဏ်ပြုဆုနှင့် ချီးကျူးမှုများခံရသည့် အာ ရှ ခေါင်းဆောင် မရှိသလောက်ပင်။ အလားတူ လူ့အခွင့်အရေးနှင့် ဒီမိုကရေစီ သူရဲကောင်း ပုံရိပ်မှ လူသားမျိုး နွယ်အပေါ် ကျူးလွန်သော ရာဇဝတ်မှုများအလယ်တွင် မာရေကျောရေရှိပြီး ထီမထင်သော ခေါင်း ဆောင်အဖြစ် ရုတ်တရက် အရာကျသွားသူလည်း မရှိပေ။

Worldly, Charming, and Quietly Equipping a Brutal Military

The New York Times

By Hannah Beech
Dec. 24, 2021

A Burmese-Irish family said all the right things, even as it helped Myanmar’s rulers avoid sanctions scrutiny in buying airplanes, defense radar and more.

Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, Myanmar’s military commander in chief, during a parade for the 76th Armed Forces Day in Naypyidaw, the capital, in March.Credit...EPA, via Shutterstock

Three years ago, the Kyaw Thaung family partied at the Pegu Club. The venerable Burmese-Irish clan had restored the teak-lined establishment to its 19th-century glory, evoking the days when gin-sipping colonialists ruled. The Pegu Club project befitted the family’s East-meets-West positioning and the optimism of a country newly engaging with the world.

Amid periodic power cuts in the rest of Yangon, the Kyaw Thaungs danced and sipped champagne among the new elite, including young entrepreneurs returned from exile, bejeweled daughters of generals, and even former political prisoners suddenly responsible for attracting foreign investment to the latest frontier market.

Is There Any Solution to Myanmar’s Rohingya Crisis?

THE I DEPLOMAT

By Sebastian Strangio

December 21, 2021

The February coup has further complicated the potential return of more than 1 million Rohingya refugees to Myanmar.

In the 10 months since the Myanmar military’s seizure of power tipped the nation into a toxic, nationwide political emergency, another serious crisis – that facing the Rohingya refugees of Bangladesh – has largely been consigned to the margins of international attention.

More than 1 million mostly Muslim Rohingya civilians have been entrapped, limbo-like, in the rambling refugee camps that surround the town of Cox’s Bazar in southeastern Bangladesh, since fleeing in scorched-earth military offensives in Myanmar’s Rakhine State in 2016 and 2017. While a solution was remote even before the coup, the new crisis has further compounded their troubles, complicating any resolution to the refugee emergency, while also distracting international attention away from what might be done to resolve it.

Rohingya lawsuit against Facebook a 'wake-up call' for social media

Eco-Bussiness
Thomson Reuters Foundation
Dec. 14, 2021

Will the landmark suit, which argues that the spread of hate speech on the platform facilitated the genocide of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, be a turning point for Big Tech?

Rohingya refugees sit on a makeshift boat as they are interrogated by the Border Guard Bangladesh after crossing the Bangladesh-Myanmar border, at Shah Porir Dwip near Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh November 9, 2017. Image: REUTERS/Navesh Chitrakar/File Photo

A landmark lawsuit by Rohingya refugees against Meta Platforms Inc, formerly known as Facebook, is a “wake-up call” for social media firms and a test case for courts to limit their immunity, human rights and legal experts said.

The $150 billion class-action complaint, filed in California on Monday by law firms Edelson PC and Fields PLLC, argues that Facebook’s failure to police content and its platform’s design contributed to violence against the Rohingya community.

British lawyers also submitted a letter of notice to Facebook’s London office.

Rohingya, Justice, and Lessons from History

PV
December 2nd, 2021
Author: Progressive Voice

“The voluntary and dignified return of Rohingya will not be possible without addressing current human rights and humanitarian crisis stemming from the attempted coup by the Myanmar military. At the root of these crises is the military who continues to be able to enjoy blanket impunity.

 

                                       -“Wai Wai Nu, Women Peace Network

 

While the military junta continues its scorched earth offensives, particularly in Chin State, Sagaing Region, and Karenni State, a missed deadline to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) regarding steps that Myanmar has taken to prevent ongoing genocide against the Rohingya reminds the world that the military’s brutal violence we see today did not begin with its illegal coup attempt of the 1st of February. The ongoing persecution of the Rohingya, highlighted by civil society organizations, should have been a tipping point to catalyze a more effective, coordinated international response.

By the principle of “universal justice”, Argentina will investigate crimes against humanity against the Rohingya community in Myanmar

oicanadian

HELEN HERNANDEZ

28th November 2021

Refugees crossing from Myanmar into Bangladesh (REUTERS file / Jorge Silva)

The news came late due to the time difference. The six women of the Rohingya community, living as refugees in Bangladesh and who dared to tell that they had been raped by the military of their country while murdering their family, felt “relief and hope”. It is that they had just heard how thousands of kilometers away the Argentine Justice had resolved open a criminal case to investigate the crimes to which they and their community were subjected.

လှေစီးပြေး ခိုးဝင် ဘင်္ဂလီနဲ့ ကိုယ်ချင်းစာတရား

Sam Kosai
Facebook Post
17 Nov 2021

လှေစီးပြေး

 

သူတို့တွေဟာ ဆယ်စုနှစ်ပေါင်းများစွာ လူမဆန်တဲ့ ဖိနှိပ်မှုကို ခံခဲ့ကြရတယ်။ ဥပဒေနဲ့အညီ နိုင်ငံတော်က ကြီး မှူးပြီး ဖိနှိပ်တာရော ဒေသန္တရအမိန့် ဆိုတာနဲ့ရောပေါ့။ ဥပဒေမဲ့ လုပ်တာရော လူမဆန်တာရော ပါတာပေါ့။ ပြီးတော့ သူတို့တွေ ဒုက္ခသည်စခန်းထဲမှာ နှစ်ပေါင်းများစွာ နေခဲ့ကြရတာ။ နာမည်ကိုက ဒုက္ခသည်စခန်းဆို တော့ ဒုက္ခချည်းပဲပေါ့။ စိတ်ချမ်းသာစရာ ကောင်းတာ ဘာရှိမလဲ။ ပညာရေး၊ ကျန်းမာရေး၊ လူမှုရေး အားလုံးကို ကန့် သတ်ခံထားရတာ။ အလုပ်လုပ်လို့မရ၊ အပြင်ထွက်လို့မရ။ ကိုယ်တွေဆိုရင်ကော နေနိုင်ကြမလား။ ကိုယ်ချင်းစာကြည့်ဖို့ပါ။ အနေချောင် အစားချောင်တယ်လို့ အလွယ်မပြောကြပါနဲ့ သူများမျက်နှာ ကြည့်ပြီးပေး စာကမ်းစာ စားနေရတဲ့ဘဝ ဘယ်သူကမှ မလိုချင်ပါဘူး။ အရင်က အလုပ်အကိုင်ရှိတဲ့ ပညာတတ်၊ အစိုးရ ဝန်ထမ်း လုပ်ခဲ့သူတွေ၊ လယ်ပိုင်ယာပိုင် ရှိခဲ့သူတွေပဲလေ။ ဒီတော့ ဘင်္ဂလားဒေ့ရှ်ကို ပြေးတယ်။ မလေးရှားကို ပြေးတယ်။ အသက်စွန့်ပြီး ပြေးရတာပါ။ ငရဲခန်းကနေ၊ ငရဲသားတွေ လက်ထဲကနေ လွတ်အောင်ပြေးကြရတာ ပါ။ မေတ္တာတရားတို့၊ ကိုယ်ချင်းစာတရားတို့၊ ကိုယ်ကျင့်သီလတို့ မရှိတော့တဲ့ မျှော်လင့်စရာ မကျန်တော့ တဲ့ နိုင်ငံကနေ ထွက်ပြေးကြရတာပါ။ သတ်မယ်ဖြတ်မယ်နဲ့ ဘီလူးသဘက်စိတ် ပေါက်နေတဲ့ သူတွေလက် ထဲ ကနေ ပြေးကြရတာပါ။

They Warned Their Names Were on a Hit List. They Were Killed

bdnews24.com
Hannah Beech, The New York Times
Published: 15 Nov 2021

The Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh, June 19, 2019. Adam Dean/The New York Times

At night in the refugee camps, with only a thin tarpaulin wall as protection, Mohammed waits for the men to come and kill him.

In less than a month, assassins have killed at least eight people in the Rohingya refugee settlements of southeastern Bangladesh, silencing those who have dared to speak out against the violent gangs that plague the camps. As with Mohammed, the militants threatened their victims before they killed, leaving their targets in a perpetual panic.

“I am living under the knife of a fearful and depressing life,” said Mohammed, a community organiser whose full name is not being used because of the documented risks he faces. “I came to Bangladesh from Myanmar because I would be killed there. Here, also, there are no guarantees for a safe life.”

China Should Resolve The Rohingya Refugee Crisis As Soon As Possible – OpEd

eurasiareview
Pathik Hasan

November 16, 2021                                   Displaced Rohingya in Myanmar. Photo Credit: Tasnim News Agency

China should resolve the Rohingya refugee crisis as soon as possible for ensuring the greater interest of South Asia and South East Asia to some extent its own interest.

For South Asia in general and for Bangladesh as well, the Rohingya crisis is one of the burning issues for a while. As an extra regional power, however, the role of China is very critical here—not only because of her long-standing involvement in the South Asian region but also China being one of the P5 members of the UN Security Council. Nevertheless, it is time Beijing acknowledged and shifted her compass over to the humanitarian grounds and the plight of the Rohingyas rather than maintaining an esoteric image.

Myanmar’s junta kills off all economic hope

ASIA TIME
BERTIL LINTNER
November 3, 2021

A Myanmar shopkeeper counts out kyat notes in Yangon's Pazundaung market in in March 2020. Photo: AFP

As Myanmar descends deeper and deeper into civil war, a conflict driven by nationwide resistance to the military’s disastrous democracy-suspending coup, the economy is taking the brunt of the chaotic collateral damage.

The February 1 coup sparked countrywide labor strikes, runs on banks and now rising warfare punctuated by bomb blasts in key urban areas including the commercial capital of Yangon.

That’s all put the economy in a tailspin while raising stability risks that have caused a growing number of foreign investors to either suspend or abandon their operations and outlays, many committed earlier on the belief Myanmar’s “last frontier” market was moving in a new hopeful democratic direction.

How Cross-Border Crime Ensnares and Endangers Rohingya Refugees in Bangladesh

THE I DIPLOMAT
By MD Mufassir Rashid
November 05, 2021

A porous border and a population of desperate refugees are creating a security nightmare in Cox’s Bazar.

As years drag on without any positive developments regarding repatriation, the situation is worsening in the Rohingya refugee camps in Cox’s Bazaar, Bangladesh. Conflicts among the Rohingya are increasing and various illegal elements are finding their ways into the camps.

On October 23, six people were killed – stabbed and shot dead – in an attack in the camp. That grisly incident followed the murder of a top Rohingya leader, Muhibullah, who was killed in his office. Apart from these major incidents, other crimes are taking places in the camps almost every day. The number of illegal arms is increasing and the camps are being used as a new transit route for Yaba, an illegal drug combining methamphetamines and caffeine. Moreover, gang politics and shadow economies are also on the rise.

Who Will Bear the Financial Burden of Supporting the Rohingyas in Bangladesh?

THE I DIPLOMAT
Kazi Mohammad Jamshed
October 30, 2021

As long as Bangladesh continues to host such large numbers of refugees it will need financial support.

As of July 2021, only $366 million of around $1 billion humanitarian assistance fund required for Rohingya refugees has been committed or disbursed. The disbursement has declined to 34 percent of the total money required; it used to be within the range of 72 to 75 percent in the first three years of the Rohingya influx since 2017. Bangladesh, the host country for the vast majority of Rohingyas who fled atrocities in Myanmar, is left increasingly to fund their care on its own.

This downward trend in disbursements raises a question: Has the world forgotten the plight of the Rohingyas?

2021 marks the fourth anniversary of the military-backed “clearance operation” in Myanmar, followed by a massive exodus of hundreds of thousands of Rohingyas in what UNHRC dubbed a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing.” While the rest of the world turned blind eye to the Rohingyas, Bangladesh generously extended temporary shelter to them. These stateless people have equal rights to lead a dignified life and build a stable future in their homeland like everyone else, which can be guaranteed only if the world community expresses solidarity with them. A stable funding commitment from long-standing donors is a prerequisite for food security, safe water, health care, and non-food items for 1.1 million Rohingyas currently living in Bangladesh.

Armed groups now a threat to Rohingya refugees

THE NEW STRAIT TIMES
October 28, 2021

Rohingya refugees gathering behind a barbed-wire fence in a temporary settlement setup in a "no man's land" border zone between Myanmar and Bangladesh. -AFP PIC

LETTERS: We condemn the heinous murder of six people in a madrasah in an attack at a Rohingya camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, last Friday.

We abhor the sudden killing sprees in the camps as the authorities could have detected that there were signs of violent groups operating inside.

Commissioner Lenarčič in Bangladesh: EU provides €12 million for displaced Rohingyas in Bangladesh and Myanmar

The European Sting
by European Union
October 28, 2021

UNHCR/Roger Arnold

Thousands of new Rohingya refugee arrivals cross the border near Anzuman Para village, Palong Khali, Bangladesh.

This article is brought to you in association with the European Commission.

Commissioner for Crisis Management Janez Lenarčič is concluding today a three-day visit to Bangladesh to see the situation on the ground in the context of the worsening humanitarian crisis affecting Rohingya people. In the margins of his visit, he announced an additional €12 million in humanitarian aid funding for the Rohingya in Bangladesh and Myanmar.

Why Is the World Ignoring Repatriation of Rohingya Refugees?

THE I DIPLOMAT

By Asif Muztaba Hassan
October 25, 2021

Refugee camps in Bangladesh have become a source of business for vested interests.

The Rohingya refugee crisis, which entered its fifth year in August, is showing no signs of winding down. Repatriation of refugees is nowhere in sight, even as management of the large number of refugees that Bangladesh is hosting is getting increasingly complex for its government.

On September 29, Mohibullah, an influential Rohingya community leader, was assassinated by unidentified men near his office in Lambasia in the Kutupalong camp, just a few hundred feet away from two police stations.

Why ASEAN finally took a stand on Myanmar

ASIA TIMES
BERTIL LINTNER
OCTOBER 18, 2021

Regional bloc has a bevy of good reasons to block junta representatives from attending this month's summit meeting

The Myanmar national flag (C) is seen with flags of member countries attending the 35th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit in Bangkok, November 2019. Myanmar's junta chief will be excluded from an upcoming ASEAN summit, the group said on October 16, 2021, a rare rebuke as concerns rise over the military government's commitment to defusing a bloody crisis. Photo: AFP / Romeo Gacad

Has the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) for the first time foregone its longstanding policy of “non-interference” in the internal affairs of one of its ten member states by blocking a representative of Myanmar’s junta from attending the bloc’s upcoming summit in Brunei? And, if so, why?

U.N deal offers no guarantees of free movement for Rohingya on island - leaked agreement

REUTER
Poppy Mcpherson and Ruma Paul
October 15, 2021

A view of sheds and concrete structures built for thousands of displaced Rohingya from Myanmar on Bhasan Char island in Bangladesh, December 29, 2020. REUTERS/Mohammad Ponir Hossain/File Photo

Oct 15 (Reuters) - A deal for the United Nations to start work on a remote Bangladeshi island where the government has sent thousands of Rohingya refugees offers no guarantee they will be allowed to move freely to the mainland, according to a copy of the agreement.

The Bangladesh government has moved nearly 19,000 Rohingya refugees, members of a persecuted mostly Muslim minority from Myanmar, to Bhasan Char island from border camps, despite protests by refugees and opposition from rights groups, who have likened it to an island jail and said some relocations were involuntary.

After Killing, Bangladesh Launches Crackdown in Rohingya Camps

THE I DIPLOMAT

By Sebastian Strangio
October 14, 2021

Bangladeshi police have made nearly 40 arrests, including five in connection with last month’s murder of a prominent Rohingya advocate.

Police in Bangladesh police have arrested nearly 40 refugees at the crowded refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar after the killing of a well-known Rohingya community leader last month. According to a report by Benarnews that cited local officials, the Bangladeshi police have undertaken a blitz against criminal activities in the camps, and arrested many suspected of involvement with illegal weapons and drugs.

“Police so far arrested 38 Rohingya from different refugee camps since the murder of Muhib Ullah,” Rafiqul Islam, an additional police superintendent in Cox’s Bazar, told BenarNews on Tuesday. “Law enforcers are continuing the drives to reduce any offenses or illegal activities in refugee camps.”

According to the officials, five of the suspects were arrested in connection with the recent killing of Mohib Ullah, the head of the Arakan Rohingya Society for Peace and Human Rights (ARSPH), who was reportedly shot and killed by unidentified gunmen outside his office at the Kutupalong refugee camp on September 29.