Tour guide turned Arakan Army commander sees nationhood in victory

COCONUTS YANGON
By Edward Cowley
Jun 23, 2020

Twan Mrat Naing, 41, leads the Arakan Army.

While the world’s attention is focused on COVID-19, war is brewing in the jungles of western Myanmar. The Arakan Army, or AA, was formed just a few years ago by students, workers and farmers but has learned the ruthless tactics of guerrilla warfare quickly.

Major-General Twan Mrat Naing, its commander, aspires to no less than forging a new nation.

“My personal dream,” he said, “is to see our national flag at the Olympic Games and to hear our national anthem sung.”

Preventing genocide should be the interest of ASEAN

TheJakartaPost
Yuyun Wahyuningrum
Jakarta / Fri, June 19, 2020

A burnt villages is pictured from a Myanmar military helicopter providing a tour for British foreign minister over Maungdaw, Rakhine state, on September 20, 2018. British foreign minister Jeremy Hunt's busy two-day visit comes the same week UN investigators released a damning and meticulous report detailing why six Myanmar generals should be prosecuted for genocide against the Rohingya Muslim minority, who were chased out of Rakhine state after the Myanmar military launched a brutal crackdown in August 2017. (AFP/Ye Aung THU / POOL ) 

Myanmar’s violent civil war makes it hard to obey ICJ orders to protect the Rohingya

ASEAN Today
May 30, 2020

Aerial view of a burned Rohingya village in Rakhine State, Myanmar. Photo: Zlatica Hoke (VOA) / Public domain

Myanmar recently sent its first report to the International Court of Justice on the steps it’s taking to protect the Rohingya. The report isn’t public, but Rohingya activists and rights advocates say ongoing violence and human rights abuses show Myanmar hasn’t complied with the court’s orders.

Covid19 and Conflict in Myanmar: No Truce for the Rohingya

ORF
OBSERVER  
RESEARCH  
FOUNDATION
K. Yhome
May 30'2020

As conflict escalates in western Myanmar amid the rise of coronavirus cases in the country, there is growing concern of a deepening humanitarian crisis. As of May 26, Myanmar has recorded 206 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 6 deaths. Clashes between the Myanmar military and the Arakan Army (AA), an armed group seeking greater autonomy for ethnic Rohingya people, have displaced hundred thousand people since conflicts started over a year ago.

Myanmar Military Says Police Missing After Rebel. Attack

The New York Times

By The Associated Press
May 29, 2020

 

YANGON, Myanmar — Myanmar’s military said Friday that 10 members of the paramilitary Border Guard Police are missing along with three of their family members after a predawn attack allegedly by the Arakan Army, an ethnic rebel group.

A statement on the website of the Office of the Commander-in-Chief of Defense Services said about 100 members of the rebel force, which claims to represent the Buddhist ethnic Rakhine minority, attacked a police post in Rakhine state’s Rathedaung township shortly after 2 a.m. Friday.

Atrocities on Rohingyas: Nothing credible done to improve situation in Rakhine

The Daily Star

Diplomatic correspondent
May 23, 2020

Say Asean parliamentarians as Myanmar set to submit first report today to ICJ in genocide case

Myanmar has done nothing credible to improve the situation for the Rohingya in Rakhine state of Myanmar, said Asean Parliamentarians for Human Rights yesterday, a day ahead of the deadline for Myanmar, as asked by UN top court, to submit its first report today on actions taken to prevent genocide against the Rohingya.

Scope with Waqar Rizvi | Myanmar: War crimes | Brexit: EU-UK committee meeting | Ep 244 | Indus News

NewsX.tv

International News Library

May,2,2020

Watch Waqar Rizvi conferring with a panel of experts on recent International events in the SCOPE.

Topics:
1. Myanmar: War crimes against minorities
2. Brexit: UK-EU committee discuss implementation
Guests:
Nay San Lwin – (Rohingya Activist)
Nasir Zakaria – (Rohingya Activist)
Bridget Welsh – (Researcher)
Alex de Ruyter – (Brexit Expert)
Mark Brolin – (Political Analyst)

Myanmar ships 800 freed Rohingya prisoners back to Rakhine

THE Star  
Myanmar
Monday, 20 Apr 2020

Released Rohingya prisoners arrive in Sittwe jetty in Rakhine State after being transported by military boat on Monday (April 20). Myanmar sent more than 800 Rohingya back to its restive Rakhine state on Monday after releasing them from various overcrowded jails as the country, accused of genocide against the minority, tries to grapple with the coronavirus crisis. - AFP

 

SITTWE (Myanmar): The Myanmar Government shipped hundreds of recently released Rohingya inmates back to the country's restive western borderlands on Monday (April 20), after fears that its overcrowded prisons could become hotbeds for runaway Covid-19 (coronavirus) outbreaks.

Men, women and children belonging to the stateless and long-persecuted Muslim minority were among nearly 25,000 prisoners freed last week by a presidential pardon to mark the country's April New Year celebrations.

Bomb kills Rohingya boy in Myanmar's troubled Rakhine

AA

Kyaw Ye Lynn

YANGON, Myanmar

06.03.2020
Boy was 12 years old, blasts in 2 Muslim villages, says police official 

A Rohingya Muslim boy was killed and five others injured in a series of bombings in Myanmar's conflict-hit Rakhine state, according to officials on Friday.

"We received reports of blasts in two Muslim villages today," said a local police officer on condition of anonymity as he was not the authorized spokesperson.

The slain boy is 12 years old, he added.

Shelling destroys houses in Rakhine

MYANMAR TIMES

Saturday, March 07, 2020
Khin Myat Myat Wai   



Artillery fire in Rathedaung township in northern Rakhine sparked fires that destroyed 24 houses, but there were no casualties, residents said.
People in Kyauk Tan village have fled their homes, fearing more attacks, said U Thaung Shay, a villager whose house burned down.

“My house burned yesterday when an artillery shell hit it,” he said. “Now we are seeking help from other villagers to clear our destroyed homes.”

He accused the Tatmadaw (military) of firing the heavy artillery in retaliation for a landmine explosion that injured troops in nearby Tharzi village on Sunday.

3 Rohingya Muslims killed in Myanmar shelling

AA

Kyaw Ye Lynn 

YANGON, Myanmar

29.02.2020 

Artillery shells land in Rohingya villages in western Rakhine state, official says 

At least three Rohingya Muslims were killed and at least 10 other villagers injured after an artillery shell hit a village in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state on Saturday, an official said.

The incident happened in two Rohingya villages in Mrauk-U township on Saturday shortly after Arakan Army -- a predominantly Buddhist ethnic group -- attacked a military convoy carrying out the regular patrol in the area.

“When I Think About it, I Get Heart Sick”

RADIO FREE ASIA
2020-02-25


-RFA spoke to Rohingya Muslims in displacement camps in Myanmar’s Rakhine state. They are among the 120,000 Rohingya who were forced from their homes after communal violence between Buddhists and Muslims in 2012 left more than 200 people dead.


Link :https://www.rfa.org/english/video?v=1_pjt8p49z

Myanmar reimposes internet shutdown in conflict-torn Rakhine, Chin states: telco operator

bdnews24.com
Reuters
04 Feb 2020

FILE PHOTO: A landscape view of the downtown with ancient pagodas in the background in Mrauk U, Rakhine state, Myanmar Jun 28, 2019. REUTERS/Ann Wang

Myanmar has reimposed an internet shutdown in two conflict-torn western states, after partially lifting the blackout five months ago, a leading telecoms operator said late on Monday.

 

Norwegian mobile operator Telenor Group said in a statement the transport and communications ministry had ordered for mobile internet traffic to be stopped again in five townships in Rakhine and Chin states for three months.

Myanmar panel: Security forces likely committed war crimes

The WashingtonTimes
Associated Press
Monday, January 20, 2020

Myanmar’s leader Aung San Suu Kyi, right, shakes hands with Philippine diplomat Rosario Manalo, a member of the Independent Commission of Enquiry for Rakhine State, at the Presidential Palace in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Monday, Jan. 20, 2020. An independent commission established ... more >

 

NAYPYITAW, Myanmar (AP) - An independent commission established by Myanmar’s government has concluded there are reasons to believe that security forces committed war crimes in counterinsurgency operations that led more than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee to neighboring Bangladesh.

Myanmar’s For-Profit Genocide

THE INVESTIGATIVE JOURNAL

by Wendy Bone

Friday January 10, 2020  

 

Brutal operations against the Rohingya minority and stealing their land in Rakhine are crimes under international law — violations supported by Myanmar’s military business ties, foreign companies and arms deals. 

Arif Ismael ran an after-school tutoring program at his home before the mobs arrived to burn it down.

Arif lived with his family in Sittwe, the capital of Myanmar’s Rakhine State, where he taught English, the Myanmar language, and economics. His program for junior high school students had been running well for the past year, despite government limitations imposed on him as a Rohingya Muslim, Rakhine’s largest ethnic minority. For the past 40 years, Rakhine’s more than one million Rohingya had been denied higher education, proper medical care, and citizenship in the country they had lived in for generations.

Rakhine is on a precipice

Frontier 
MYANMAR 
Friday, January 10, 2020

Illustration by Jared Downing | Frontier

As Myanmar marked Independence Day on January 4 with formal ceremonies, a national holiday and street games, a very different anniversary passed almost without mention in the country’s west.

Exactly a year earlier, Arakan Army soldiers had staged coordinated attacks on four police stations in northern Rakhine State, killing 13 officers. The attacks have precipitated bloody clashes, mass displacement and human rights violations in Rakhine and neighbouring Chin State.

It Isn’t Just the Rohingya. Myanmar Is Now Attacking Buddhists in Rakhine State, Too.

FP   

Jonathan Gorvett 

 October 31, 2019,

This latest battle could be the army’s undoing.

Three people walking along a road are seen during a government-organized visit for journalists in Buthidaung townships close to the surge of fighting between the Arakan Army and government troops in the restive Rakhine state on Jan. 25. Richard Sargent/AFP/Getty Images

 

MRAUK U, Myanmar—Here in the town of Mrauk U, in Myanmar’s troubled Rakhine state, there has been little to celebrate during this October’s Thadingyut, the second-most important annual festival of the Buddhist calendar. Normally, the auspicious full moon would be hailed with a floating armada of delicate candlelit paper lanterns and song, theater, and dance.

Yet this year, there are no celebrations.

Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi scolds world for lacking focus on Rakhine 'terrorists'

THE STRAITS TIMES

Oct 24, 2019,

 

In a photo taken on Aug 20, 2019, Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi delivers the opening speech during the Myanmar-Japan-US Forum on Fostering Responsible Investment in Yangon.PHOTO: AFP

 
YANGON (AFP) - Myanmar's civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi has bemoaned the lack of global scrutiny on extremism and "terrorists" inside Rakhine state, where her country's army stands accused of committing genocide against Rohingya Muslims.

The comments from the Nobel laureate are part of a longstanding defence of the army campaign against the Rohingya, which drove nearly three-quarters of a million of the minority into Bangladesh in 2017.
That campaign brought US sanctions on key military figures and allegations of genocide by United Nations investigators. 

Protesters Outside Myanmar Embassy in Tokyo Condemn ‘Silent Genocide’ in Rakhine

The Irrawaddy
By The Irrawaddy
22 October 2019

 Coinciding with State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s visit to the Japanese capital, dozens of Arakanese people stage a protest in front of the Myanmar Embassy in Tokyo on Monday. / Myat Thaw Khine 

YANGON—In a move timed to coincide with State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s visit to Japan, dozens of Arakanese people staged a protest in front of the Myanmar Embassy in Tokyo on Monday afternoon condemning her government for arresting civilians and expanding the conflict in Rakhine State, a campaign they labeled a “silent genocide.”

The State Counselor arrived in Tokyo on Sunday night in order to attend the Japanese emperor’s enthronement ceremony on Tuesday. Upon her arrival, she was welcomed by a group of supporters who held a banner denouncing the planned embassy protest.

Rebels Dressed as Soccer Players Abduct Bus Passengers in Myanmar

The New York Times
By Saw Nang and Richard C. Paddock
Oct. 13, 2019

Gunmen stopped the vehicle on a highway outside the town of Mrauk U and seized 31 people, most of them firefighters, the authorities said.

MANDALAY, Myanmar — Gunmen dressed in soccer uniforms halted an express bus on a main highway in Myanmar’s troubled Rakhine State and kidnapped 31 people, most of them firefighters, the authorities said on Sunday.