Myanmar's " ROHINGYA" Conflict by Anthony Ware & Costas Laoutides

A History of Myanmar since Ancient Times by Michael Aung Thwin and Maitrii Aung Thwin

The battle for Burma ( 1943-1945 ) by John Grehan & Martin Mace

 

ASEAN may exclude Myanmar junta chief from upcoming summit

THE SCOOP

Ain Bandial

October 6, 2021 

With little progress on an agreed roadmap to restore peace, ASEAN's special envoy says Myanmar's inaction is "tantamount to backtracking" 

FILE PHOTO: Brunei's Second Minister of Foreign Affairs, YB Dato Erywan Yusof, speaks during a press conference in Bandar Seri Begawan on Aug 7, 2021 following the wrap-up of the ASEAN Regional Forum. Photo: Rasidah Hj Abu Bakar/The Scoop

BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN – Southeast Asian countries are in talks to bar the head of Myanmar’s junta from the ASEAN summit later this month, due to a lack of progress on an agreed roadmap to restore peace in the strife-torn country.

The junta’s inaction on a five-point plan reached with ASEAN last April was “tantamount to backtracking”, YB Dato Erywan Yusof, the bloc’s special envoy to Myanmar, told a news conference Wednesday.

ASEAN could bar Myanmar general from leaders’ summit

Aljazeera
7 Oct 2021

Regional envoy says the military has made ‘no progress’ on the peace plan agreed in April, as Malaysia says it could open dialogue with shadow administration.

ASEAN invited Myanmar's armed forces chief to a summit in Jakarta in April - at which a so-called consensus towards peace was agreed, but the group's special envoy says 'no progress' has been made since [File: Courtesy of Rusman/Indonesian Presidential Palace/Handout via Reuters] 

 

 

Countries from Southeast Asia are discussing not inviting the head of Myanmar’s military regime to their leaders’ summit later this month, after the generals failed to make progress on an agreed road map to restore peace after their February coup plunged the country into chaos, a regional envoy has said.

ASEAN ‘disappointed’ with Myanmar military’s peace commitment

Aljazeera
4 Oct 2021

Indonesia FM says country’s military rulers have made no significant progress in implementing the group’s peace road map.

The military leader has pledged to hold fresh elections in two years and cooperate with ASEAN on finding a political solution. [Reuters]

Myanmar’s military has made no significant progress in implementing a Southeast Asian roadmap for peace following their coup or given any feedback on the work of a regional envoy in the country, Indonesia’s foreign minister has said.

Arms are coming from Myanmar to destabilise Rohingya camps: minister

bdnews24.com

Senior Correspondent,
Published: 03 Oct 2021 

Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan (File Photo)

Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal has said arms are coming into the country from Myanmar in various ways in an attempt to create "instability" in the Rohingya refugee camps in Cox's Bazar.


However, he claimed that the law and order situation in the camps is "good enough" and that the killers of Rohingya refugee leader Mohammad Mohib Ullah will be brought to justice "soon".

The home minister's remarks came on Sunday after a meeting at the Secretariat on the security measures surrounding Durga Puja.

“The working class in Myanmar stood before the military regime, and they showed us the way.”

Sagebrush Rider

Obadiah Silva 

October 3, 2021

Eight months after the bloody military coup, we interviewed Tincher Sunley, a Burmese grassroots activist who described the situation in his country today. Myanmar is a country in Southeast Asia, a former British colony with decades of political instability and strategic emphasis on China’s natural resources and its access to the Indian Ocean, which will give further economic impetus to its southern region. In the Biden era, the United States aimed at its strategic rival, the Asian Company, with the cynical discourse of “democracy” aimed at restoring the value of international institutions. President Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy is the party that won the November 2020 election, which was overthrown by a coup, but in previous years it ruled alongside the military and was previously complicit in crimes against ethnic minorities. He is now part of the military junta, the opposition front of the “National Unity Government” (NUG), and they rely on this controversy of central powers, which is being transformed into imperialism in the form of “diplomacy”: ONU. The real opposition to the coup arose as young people fighting in the streets against military tanks, their workers in factories and textile workshops went on strike.

China special envoy makes unannounced Myanmar visit

Frontier Myanmar

By AFP
SEPTEMBER 1, 2021

United Wa State Army leader Bao Youxiang (L) and China's Foreign Ministry's special envoy for Asian Affairs Sun Guoxiang watch a military parade, to commemorate 30 years of a ceasefire signed with the Myanmar military in the Wa State, in Panghsang on April 17, 2019. (AFP)

China’s special envoy for Asian affairs has wrapped an unannounced, week-long visit to Myanmar that included discussions with its junta leader on the country’s political future, Beijing said on August 31.

Myanmar has been in political chaos since the military ousted the civilian government in February, launching a bloody crackdown on dissent.

International efforts to stem the violence have failed to yield results, with the European Union accusing junta allies Russia and China of blocking efforts at the UN Security Council to impose an arms embargo.

With Myanmar’s press muzzled, experts warn of surge in environmental crimes

MONGABAY
Carolyn Cowan
27 August 2021

• Myanmar’s military authorities have followed their Feb. 1 coup with a sweeping clampdown on press freedom, including the arrest of reporters, closing of news outlets, and driving of journalists underground or into exile.
• Industry experts say the measures have effectively criminalized independent journalism in the country.
• As conflict and violence spreads throughout the country, monitoring forests, illegal logging and the associated illicit trade on the ground is increasingly risky. Satellite platforms that monitor forest loss will likely become increasingly useful.
• With the loss of the independent press watchdog a reality, experts say they fear the circumstances are ripe for overexploitation of natural resources.

China Doesn’t Want Myanmar’s NLD Dissolved: Informed Sources

The Irrawaddy

27 August 2021

Chinese President Xi Jinping (right) and Myanmar’s detained State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi (left) at the launch ceremony for events to mark the 70th anniversary of China-Myanmar diplomatic relations in Naypyitaw in January 2020. / Myanmar State Counselor’s Office

China has voiced concern over the Myanmar military regime’s plan to dissolve the National League for Democracy (NLD), the party that won the junta-annulled 2020 general election in a landslide, several informed sources told The Irrawaddy. Chinese officials have conveyed to the regime’s leaders Beijing’s message that it wants to see the NLD continue to exist as a political party, they said.

Politicians close to the NLD and several China-Myanmar watchers said the Chinese recently told Myanmar officials that China will continue to support Myanmar and maintain border trade and infrastructure projects on one condition: that the junta keeps the NLD alive.

Four Years After Massacres and Purge, Sympathy for the Rohingya Grows in Myanmar

Radio Free Asia
2021-08-25

Many now see the Myanmar military, which has killed over a thousand protesters and other civilians since the Feb. 1 coup, as a common enemy.

Rohingya refugees walk along a path at Kutupalong refugee camp in Ukhia, Bangladesh, Aug. 25, 2021.

AFP

Four years after the Myanmar military attacked ethnic Rohingya communities in the country’s western Rakhine state, burning villages, killing residents, and driving hundreds of thousands as refugees across the border with Bangladesh, sympathy has grown for the Muslim minority, sources in the country say.

The military’s 2017 scorched earth campaign launched in response to attacks by Muslim insurgents against police posts in Rakhine, has since been described by international rights groups and foreign governments as constituting acts of “genocide” and “crimes against humanity.”

Citizenship of the Rohingya in Myanmar: A historical account

The Daily Star
Md Khalid Rahman
Tue Aug 24, 2021

While the international stakeholders and the Government of Bangladesh have tried for their safe and dignified voluntary return of the Rohingya refugees as per the agreement between Bangladesh and Myanmar, the citizenship issue became one of the crucial contesting conditions. Unfortunately, no government of Myanmar, after the mischievous power-grabbing of the then Burma by the military government led by General Ne Win has responded positively to the citizenship issue of the Rohingya. The present article argues that the citizenship crisis is rooted in the British colonial era that consequently gained momentum through the political demarcation and marginalisation of different ethnicity including Rohingya.

Rohingya woman recounts abuse by Myanmar junta in court

DAILY SABAH
ANADOLU AGENCY
DHAKA ASIA PACIFIC
AUG 19, 2021

A young Rohingya refugee boy stands outside a tent at a refugee camp alongside the banks of the Yamuna River in the southeastern borders of New Delhi, India, July 1, 2021. (AP Photo)

Testifying before a court in Argentina a Rohingya woman described the Myanmar military's genocide, painting a startling picture of the abuse suffered in Rakhine state, a rights body for the minority confirmed Wednesday.

The eyewitness, whose identity has been withheld for security reasons, is one of six Rohingya women treated inhumanely by the Myanmar military in their home country and are now living in cramped Bangladeshi camps. She virtually narrated her ordeal on Tuesday at the Federal Criminal Appeals Court in Buenos Aires, the Argentinian capital.

The Rohingya genocide has been separated into two phases, the first of which was a military campaign from October 2016 to January 2017, and the second of which has been ongoing since August 2017.

Myanmar’s Anti-Junta Resistance Inflicting Rising Casualties: Report

THE I DIPLOMAT

Sebastian Strangio

August 23, 2021

 

 

Nearly seven months since the coup, the armed resistance to the military junta continues to grow and expand.

A civilian militia group in Myanmar claims that it killed around 50 soldiers and injured a number more in a series of landmine attacks in Magwe Region last week, the latest sign of rising resistance to the military junta that seized power in February.

According to a report in The Irrawaddy, which cited a representative from the People’s Defense Force (PDF) in Gangaw township, the casualties stemmed from two incidents. The first took place on August 19, when a vehicle carrying junta soldiers, one of a convoy of six, triggered a landmine planted by the civilian resistance on the Gangaw-Kale Highway. At least 20 soldiers were killed in the explosion and many others were injured, according to The Irrawaddy.

Rohingya women testify in Argentina court on ‘brutal massacre in Rakhine state’

The Daily Star
Wed Aug 18, 2021

Rohingya refugee girls are seen at Kutupalong refugee camp in Cox's Bazaar, Bangladesh. Photo: Anisur Rahman/ Star file

In a historic development, Rohingya women have described how the Myanmar military carried out a brutal massacre in their village, in an Argentinean court of law, under the aegis of universal jurisdiction.

Speaking remotely to the Federal Criminal Appeals Court in Buenos Aires from Cox's Bazar on Tuesday, the women told how soldiers killed their husbands in Chuk Pyin, Rakhine, Myanmar, according to a statement from the Burmese Rohingya Organization UK (BROUK).

Rohingya to give first testimony in push for Myanmar army probe

Frontier Myanmar
AFP
AUGUST 18, 2021

The President of The Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK , Tun Khin (L) and Argentine human rights lawyer Tomas Ojea Quintana (R) leave Argentine federal court in Buenos Aires on November 13, 2019. (AFP)

Rohingya refugees expelled from Myanmar in a bloody crackdown are to testify in court for the first time Tuesday to urge a full judicial investigation into allegations of war crimes committed against them.

A military campaign in Myanmar in 2017 is believed to have killed thousands and forced some 750,000 members of the Muslim minority to flee to refugee camps in Bangladesh, bringing accounts of rape, murder and arson.

US, China tread warily as Myanmar burns

THE STRAIT TIMES
Tan Hui Yee
Indochina Bureau Chief 

AUG 16, 2021,

Volunteers in Myanmar helping a Covid-19 patient with his oxygen supply in the town of Kale last month.PHOTO: REUTERS

Power Play is a weekly column that looks at various facets of US-China rivalry and its implications for Asia.

BANGKOK - Last Tuesday, a group of young people cornered by the Myanmar junta chose a likely death over arrest. They jumped out of a high-rise building in Yangon. The youth were quickly lionised on social media, where those resisting the Feb 1 military coup vowed vengeance.

Link : Here

Outcry over Myanmar junta denying Covid jabs to Rohingya

UCA NEWS

UCA News reporter
August 13, 2021

Diaspora group says deliberately withholding essential health care to Rohingya confirms genocidal charges.

Members of the internally displaced Rohingya community at a camp in Rakhine state. (Photo: AFP) 

 

A diaspora group based in London has decried the Myanmar junta’s plans to withhold Covid-19 vaccinations from hundreds of thousands of Rohingya inside crowded camps in Rakhine state.

“This is a continuation and escalation of the crimes against humanity, including genocide and ethnic cleansing, that have been carried out for decades against Rohingya people,” Tun Khin, president of the Burmese Rohingya Organization UK (BROUK), said in a statement on Aug. 12.

New ASEAN Envoy to Myanmar Pledges to Meet With Opposition, Detained Activists

THE I DIPLOMAT
Sebastian Strangio
August 10, 2021

The envoy’s mission relies on good faith commitment on the part of the junta, but this remains unlikely.

ASEAN’s newly appointed special envoy to Myanmar says he will insist on meeting with jailed politicians, including Aung San Suu Kyi, in line with the Five-Point Consensus agreed by the Southeast Asian bloc in April.

Second Foreign Minister of Brunei Erywan Yusof was formally appointed by ASEAN last week, after protracted negotiations among the bloc’s 10 member states. Speaking to reporters on Saturday in his first public remarks about the role, he said a plan to visit Myanmar was “in the pipeline,” and would be confirmed once he had consulted with all countries and actors concerned.