Asean opting out of Rakhine efforts

Bangkok Post
Opinion

125 Oct 2019
writer: Tan Sri Syed Hamid Albar, 

Laetitia van den Assum, 

Kobsak Chutikul & Dinna Wisnu

When Asean foreign ministers last met in Bangkok on July 31 and discussed the Rakhine crisis, their conclusions reflected the lowest common denominator of the bloc's membership. Two years after the enforced mass exodus of more than 700,000 Rohingya from Myanmar to Bangladesh, Asean is at risk of becoming irrelevant to the search for solutions.

Asean has been providing humanitarian and development assistance to Rakhine state, but its reluctance to recognise the underlying causes of the crisis gives Myanmar the opportunity to shield behind a shaky Asean consensus. It thus may be making matters worse.

In Myanmar's conflict-torn Rakhine, fresh allegations of 'war crimes'

KFGO
Friday, July 12, 2019
By Poppy McPherson and Thu Thu Aung

 FILE PHOTO: Recently displaced children play around the ancient pagodas in Mrauk U, Rakhine state, Myanmar June 28, 2019. REUTERS/Ann Wang 

MRAUK-U, Myanmar (Reuters) - When 35-year-old Ah Hla showed up to a police station in western Myanmar in late April hoping to see her husband among the prisoners, she didn't know whether he was alive or dead.

Several dozen men, including her fisherman husband, had been detained weeks earlier when the military raided their village in central Rakhine state's Mrauk-U township and accused them of belonging to a rebel army, residents told Reuters.

Hope, frustration at pre-Panglong civil society peace forum.

Frontier

MYANMAR
Friday, March 29, 2019
By EMILY FISHBEIN | FRONTIER

CSO participants from Shan State pose in front of the hall in Kachin National Manaw Park before the forum. (Emily Fishbein | Frontier)

MYITKYINA — Ko Thurain Tun, 21, and a group of four friends dream of founding an organisation to provide humanitarian relief, education, and skills programmes for conflict-affected communities in their home town of Ponnagyun in Rakhine State.

Yet, with the project stalled because of a lack of funding and escalating conflict between the Tatmadaw and the Arakan Army in Rakhine, Thurain Tun boarded a bus for a four-day journey to the Kachin State capital Myitkyina to attend a forum on peace.

Tatmadaw likens Arakan Army demands to ‘a child daydreaming’

Frontier 
MYANMAR
Tuesday, March 26, 2019

Major-General Tun Tun Nyi attends an earlier press conference in Yangon on February 23. (Thuya Zaw | Frontier)

By SU MYAT MON | FRONTIER

YANGON — The Tatmadaw has blamed the Arakan Army for an escalation in fighting in Rakhine State, with military spokespeople accusing the armed group of harming civilians and labelling its demands “impossible”.

“With the thoughts of a child daydreaming, some of the armed groups are asking for what is impossible,” Major-General Soe Naing Oo, chair of the Tatmadaw’s True News Information Team, said at a press briefing in Nay Pyi Taw on Monday to discuss recent fighting with the AA. “Don’t ask for impossible things,” he said.

Eight injured in Mrauk U violence.

Frontier 
MYANMAR
Wednesday, March 20, 2019
By AFP

People look at an unexploded rocket in Mrauk U township in Rakhine State on March 16. (AFP)

YANGON — Fighting between Myanmar's military and the Arakan Army in Mrauk U, the ancient capital of the Rakhine kingdom, has left at least eight injured, scaring tourists and sparking fears that the historical monuments are under threat.

Myanmar’s Rakhine State Sees Increase in Conflict, Displacement

THE GLOBAL POST
by Hannah Leibson ,March 16, 2019

Around 6,000 Rohingya have been living on a thin stretch of land between the two countries since fleeing Myanmar. Photo: Munir Uz Zaman, AFP

More than 3,200 people were displaced last week in Myanmar following intensified fighting between the Arakan Army rebel group and the Myanmar Military in the northern Mrauk-U Township. With nine Myanmar police officers confirmed dead, and eleven more still held-prisoner, this latest clash with the Burmese military signals continued strife for stabilizing Myanmar’s poorest region, sitting at a 78 percent poverty rate.

Myanmar tourism pins hopes on European comeback.

TTG Asia
By Xinyi Liang-Pholsena
Posted on 8 March, 2019

The Myanmar trade is taking on a more positive outlook of the European market, as they believe that the plunge in Western visitor numbers to the country due to the international media coverage of the Rakhine conflict has bottomed out.

May Myat Mon Win, Myanmar Tourism Marketing’s (MTM) chairperson is seeing signs of recovery from the European market.