Fire in market at Rohingya camp in Bangladesh kills 3

AA

Md. Kamruzzaman 

DHAKA, Bangladesh

02.04.2021

At least 7 shops have been gutted, says fire service official

FILE PHOTO

At least three Rohingya refugees were killed and seven shops were gutted when a fire broke out early Friday in a market at the Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh’s southern district of Cox’s Bazar, in the second such incident in the past 10 days, according to official sources.

“We have recovered three bodies from inside the gutted shops,” Md Abdullah, deputy assistant director of Cox's Bazar Fire Service and Civil Defense, told Anadolu Agency.

Ethnic armed groups and how they've responded

THE STRAITS TIMES
APR 2, 2021,

YANGON • Unrest in coup-hit Myanmar has thrown the spotlight on some of the country's armed ethnic groups, as three of them threaten the junta with retaliation for its deadly crackdown on protests. Some analysts are warning that the crisis could spiral into even more conflict if the insurgents follow through on their threats. Here's a breakdown of some of the myriad armed groups.

WHO ARE THE REBELS?

Independence from British colonial rule in 1948 left a complex patchwork of cultural, ethnic and linguistic groups in Myanmar. In the decades since, a messy struggle has worn on in different regions over autonomy, ethnic identity, drugs, jade and other natural resources.

Column by Mahfuz Anam: The trouble with our only other neighbour

The Daily Star
Mahfuz Anam
April 02, 2021

Global response focuses on the coup, ignoring the Rohingya problem

File photo of demonstrators protesting the military coup in Yangon, Myanmar. Photo: Reuters/Stringer

Myanmar is our only other neighbour, with India being the overwhelming first. To the credit of our policymakers, we have tried our best to maintain good relations with Myanmar notwithstanding their treatment of Rohingyas, forcing nearly 300,000 of them upon us thirty years ago, in the early nineties.

We really wanted to have a cordial relation, if not a warm one, with them. We thought if the whole world could trade with them, why couldn't we (especially after the withdrawal of western sanctions)? Thus, we reacted to the Rohingya influx of the nineties very softly. The tactics appeared to work when more than 230,000 of the 250,000 refugees from the first influx were repatriated, with the UNHCR playing an active role in the process. With about 20,000 remaining, we heaved a sigh of relief hoping that the rest would also be repatriated in time.

China to support ASEAN mediation on Myanmar crisis

AA

Riyaz Ul Khaliq 

ANKARA

01.04.2021

China on Thursday said it supports the idea that leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) hold a “special meeting as soon as possible to mediate” in Myanmar, which is witnessing mass demonstrations against the military coup launched last on Feb. 1

“Myanmar is a member of the ASEAN family, and a close neighbor to China. We all hope different forces in Myanmar can start a dialogue as soon … to solve divergence under the framework of the law and the constitution and promote hard-won democratization,” Wang told a news conference alongside visiting Malaysian Foreign Minister Hishammuddin Hussein in China’s eastern Nanping city.

BURMA: STICK TO NON-VIOLENCE

KASHMIR TIMES

Gwynne Dyer. 

Dated: 4/2/2021

“Federalism is the ultimate political heresy in Burma. The army’s self-assigned task ever since independence has been maintaining the hegemony of the ethnic Bamar majority (about two-thirds of the country’s 54 million people) over the Karen, Shan, Mon, Chin, Kachin, Rakhine, Rohingya and Karenni minorities.”

The non-violent democratic resistance in Burma (or Myanmar, as the army renamed it in 1989) is living through terrible times, but statistics are on its side: most non-violent movements eventually win. But it’s hard to stay non-violent when you are up against a force as ruthless and brutal as the Tatmadaw.

Analysis: Myanmar's neighbour Thailand unlikely to toughen stance on coup

REUTERS

Kay Johnson, Panarat Thepgumpanat
APAC
APRIL 2, 2021

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand has slightly hardened its language on Myanmar by saying it is “gravely concerned” about escalating bloodshed since a Feb. 1 coup, but close military ties and fears of a flood of refugees mean it is unlikely to go further, analysts say.

FILE PHOTO: People who are fleeing the violence in Myanmar sit in a boat as they approach a Thai soldier at the border village of Mae Sam Laep, Mae Hong Son province, Thailand March 30, 2021. REUTERS/Soe Zeya Tun/File Photo

That leaves Thailand out of step with some members of the 10-strong Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), as they seek to ramp up pressure on the junta, but could also position it as a possible mediator.

“(Thailand’s position) is difficult, but I think there is an opportunity because we’ve become an important partner,” Panitan Wattanayagorn, a political scientist at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University, told Reuters.

Chinese Embassy Protest ( 31st March'2021 ) Join demonstration

CRPH Supporter UK
31st March 2021

ရိုဟင်ဂျာ လေးထောင်ကျော် ဘာဆာချာကျွန်းထပ်မံပို့ဆောင်

VOA
မဆုမွန်
01 ဧပြီ၊ 2021

ဘင်္ဂလားဒေ့ရှ်နိုင်ငံ ဒုက္ခသည်စခန်းက ရိုဟင်ဂျာဒုက္ခသည်များ Bhashan Char သို့ ပြောင်းရွှေ့နေထိုင်တဲ့ မြင်ကွင်း။

 

ပင်လယ်ထဲကကျွန်း ဘာဆာချာဆီကို ဘင်္ဂလားဒေ့ရှ် ဒုက္ခသည်စခန်းတွေထဲက နောက်ထပ် ရိုဟင်ဂျာဒုက ္ခသည်တွေ လေးထောင်ကျော် ခြောက်ကြိမ်မြောက် ထပ်ပို့ဆောင်လိုက်ပါပြီ။ မြန်မာပြည်ပြန်ရေးမျှော်လင့်ချက် နည်းလာသလို ဒုက္ခသည်စခန်းတွေထဲမှာလည်း မီးဘေး မိုးများရေကြီးမြေပြိုတာလိုမျိုး သဘာဝဘေးတွေနဲ့ရင် ဆိုင်ရပြီး အနာဂတ်မဲ့လာလို့ ဘာဆန်ချာကျွန်းကိုပဲ ပြောင်းရွှေ့သွားကြဖို့ဆုံးဖြတ်လိုက်ကြတာလို့ ရိုဟင်ဂျာ ဒုက္ခသည်တွေက ပြောပါတယ်။ မိသားစုလိုက် ပြောင်းရွှေ့နေကြတဲ့ နောက်ဆုံးအခြေအနေကို ကုတပလောင် ဒုက္ခသည်စခန်း အမှတ်(၇)မှာ ခိုလှုံနေထိုင်သူ စေတနာ့ဝန်ထမ်းတဦးလည်းဖြစ်တဲ့ ရိုဟင်ဂျာဒုက္ခသည် ဦး အောင် မြိုင်ကို ဗွီအိုအေမြန်မာပိုင်း သတင်းထောက် မဆုမွန် ဆက်သွယ်မေးမြန်းထားပါတယ်။

Myanmar coup: More than 40 children killed by military, rights group says

B B C

01 April 2021Protesters held a "silent strike" in Yangon after a seven year old was shot dead in Mandalay

At least 43 children have been killed by armed forces in Myanmar since February's military coup, according to rights organisation Save the Children.

The group said the South East Asian country was in a "nightmare situation", with the youngest known victim just six years old.

A local monitoring group puts the overall death toll at 536.

Meanwhile, ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been charged with violating the country's official secrets act.

UN security council must act to stop 'bloodbath' in Myanmar, says envoy

The Guardian

A reporter in Myanmar, and agencies
Thu 1 Apr 2021

Alternative civilian government proposes ‘federal democracy charter’, amid fears of civil war



Karen villagers fleeing to Thailand as a result of airstrikes launched by Myanmar’s military. Photograph: Royal Thai Army Handout/EPA

Myanmar protesters have burned a copy of the country’s military-drafted constitution as the UN envoy monitoring the crisis warned the security council of the risk of civil war and an imminent “bloodbath” if the junta is allowed to continue violently repressing a pro-democracy movement.

“I appeal to this council to consider all available tools to take collective action and do what is right, what the people of Myanmar deserve, and prevent a multidimensional catastrophe in the heart of Asia,” the special envoy on Myanmar, Christine Schraner Burgener, told the closed-door session.

Burma is at a crossroads

NEWAGE 

Dmitry Mosyakov
Apr 01,2021

— New Eastern Outlook

THE events occurring in Burma, where numerous street demonstrations have not subsided against the military, which took power into its own hands on February 1, 2021, continue to attract intense attention. The fact is that although a change from civilian to military power has taken place, it is absolutely unclear how events will further develop: whether the military will be able to retain power or, under the pressure of mass demonstrations and a split in its own ranks, Aung San Suu Kyi and her party members will return to power.

Blinken orders most State Department staff out of Myanmar

Washington Examiner

Washington Examiner

Joel Gehrke, Foreign Affairs Reporter 

March 30, 2021

Secretary of State Antony Blinken is ordering most State Department personnel in Myanmar to leave the country after more than 100 people were killed by the regime during protests against the military junta.

“The actions that we’ve seen by the Burmese military in terms of its attacks on civilians are reprehensible,” Blinken told reporters Tuesday, using the name for the nation that military officials discarded in a previous seizure of power. “Some people simply caught in the crossfire, others just expressing peacefully their views ... This follows a series of other attacks and, indeed, increasingly disturbing and even horrifying violence.”

Three Rohingya people killed, 10 injured in Kutupalong camp fire

NEWAGE

Staff Correspondent
Apr 02,2021

At least three Rohingya men were burnt to death and 10 others injured in a fire at a market adjacent to Kutupalong Rohingya camp under Ukhia upazila in Cox’s Bazar on early Friday.

The deceased were identified as Arman Ullah, 20, Faridul Islam, and Muhammad Ayas. They all are employees of a shop owned by one Syed Mosfata, officials said

2,495 Rohingyas off to Bhasan Char in sixth phase

Prothom Alo

Prothom Alo English Desk
31 Mar 2021,

First batch of Rohingyas arrives at Bhasan Char, NoakhaliProthom Alo file photo

Nearly 2,500 Rohingyas are being relocated from the camps in Cox’s Bazar to Bhasan Char island in the sixth phase.

Cox’s Bazar Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner (RRRC) Shah Rezwan Hayat said 47 buses carrying the Rohingyas have reached Chattogram.

Rohingyas willing to go to Bhasan Char were brought to the temporary transit point at Ukhiya Degree College ground and given necessary items including food, water and medicine.

Rohingya Majhis (leaders) said many forcibly displaced Myanmar nationals are now willing to move to Bhasan Char after learning about the facilities and quality of life there.

Defusing Myanmar Requires More Than Western Sanctions

Bloomberg
Clara Ferreira Marques
1 April 2021,

The junta’s violence has killed hundreds of protesters and put insurgent groups on a war footing. Time is running out to avert a cataclysm.

Protesters prepare Molotov cocktails.Source: Getty Images

Myanmar has long been a textbook example of sanctions failure. Years of isolation battered the population but didn’t loosen the grip of the Tatmadaw, as the armed forces are known. When they ceded ground a decade ago, they did so on their own terms — and even that, as February’s coup proved, was all too easily reversed.

Myanmar junta offers ceasefire to some, as UN envoy warns of 'bloodbath'

CNN
Richard Roth, Caitlin Hu and Taylor Barnes,
April 1, 2021

UN envoy says a 'bloodbath is imminent' in Myanmar 04:51

(CNN)As the United Nations Security Council discussed Myanmar's military coup on Wednesday, the country's junta declared a "ceasefire" -- though it said it would continue to respond to "actions that disrupt government security and administration."

The ceasefire appeared to refer to actions taken against ethnic armed groups, where fighting has increased since the junta's seizure of power in a coup on February 1. The statement, carried on Myanmar's state television MRTV, called on ethnic armed groups to "keep the peace" and said the military would "suspend its operations unilaterally from April 1 to April 30."

Excluded from the peace, however, are those who "disrupt" government security.

US orders some diplomats to leave Myanmar as unrest grows

AP
March 30, 2021

Anti-coup protesters stand beside a burning tire as they fortify their position against the military during a demonstration in Yangon, Myanmar on Tuesday March 30, 2021. Thailand’s prime minister denied Tuesday that his country’s security forces have sent villagers back to Myanmar who fled from military airstrikes and said his government is ready to shelter anyone who is escaping fighting.(AP Photo)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The State Department on Tuesday ordered non-essential U.S. diplomats and their families to leave Myanmar, as a deadly government crackdown on demonstrators protesting last month’s coup intensifies.

The department said in a brief statement it would require non-emergency U.S. government employees and their dependents to depart the country in an upgrade of its previous instructions from Feb. 14 that had allowed them to leave voluntarily. The department also reiterated an earlier warning for Americans not to travel to Myanmar, also known as Burma.

ဆႏၵျပျပည္သူေတြကို ရာဇဝတ္သားေတြလို႔ တပ္ထဲမွာ ျမင္ေနၾကတယ္

The New York Times
သာသာၿပန္ေဆာင္းပါး
၂၂-၀၃-၂၀၂၁

အရပ္သားေတြဘက္ ေသနတ္ေျပာင္းထပ္လွည့္ခဲ့တဲ့ စစ္တပ္အေၾကာင္းကို အရာရွိ ၄ ေယာက္က ဖြင့္ခ်ခဲ့ပါ တယ္။ စစ္သားအမ်ားစုအတြက္ေတာ့ တပ္မေတာ္ႀကီးကပဲ သူတို႔ရဲ့ကမၻာျဖစ္ေနတယ္လို႔ တစ္ေယာက္က ဆိုပါတယ္။

ရန္ကုန္ၿမိဳ႕ရဲ့ ပူျပင္းလွတဲ့ လမ္းမေတြေပၚမွာ က်ည္ဆံအခြံေတြကို ဗိုလ္ႀကီးထြန္းျမတ္ေအာင္ ကုန္း ကုန္းကြကြ လိုက္ေကာက္ေနတယ္။ သူ႔ရင္ထဲမွာလည္း ပ်ိဳ႕အန္ခ်င္သလိုလို ျဖစ္လို႔ေပါ့။ ဒီက်ည္ခြံေတြ ကို ၾကည့္လိုက္တာ နဲ႔ ဒါေတြဟာ ေသနတ္အစစ္ကေန လူအစစ္ေတြကို ပစ္လိုက္တဲ့ က်ည္အစစ္ေတြပဲဆိုတာ သူသိလို က္တယ္။

မတ္လအေစာပိုင္း အဲဒီညမွာ သူ႔ေဖ့စ္ဘြတ္ကို ဖြင့္လိုက္တဲ့အခါ တပ္မေတာ္က လူေပါင္းမ်ားစြာကို သတ္ျဖတ္ ခဲ့ တယ္ဆို တာ သူသိလိုက္ရတယ္။ သတ္လိုက္တဲ့ လူေတြက တကယ့္ကို သူ႔လိုပဲ ယူနီေဖာင္း ဝတ္ထားတဲ့ သူေတြျဖစ္ေ နတယ္။ 

US ratchets up pressure on Myanmar’s military after its bloodiest weekend since the coup

VOX

Alex Ward@AlexWardVoxalex.ward@vox.com 

Mar 29, 2021,

Reports indicate Myanmar’s junta killed about 140 people over the weekend. The Biden administration is responding with trade restrictions.


A relative cries during the funeral of a protester in Myanmar on March 29. AFP via Getty Images

The Biden administration is stepping up its actions to punish Myanmar’s ruling military junta in the wake of a bloody weekend targeting civilians protesting against the February military coup.

On Saturday, the military commemorated Armed Forces Day by killing about 140 people — including six children — in 44 cities and towns amid nationwide peaceful protests, according to local reports and activists. One of the children, 11-year-old Aye Myat Thu, was buried with her drawings and toys as her family mourned beside her.

World must not forget Myanmar's ethnic minorities

NEKKEI ASIA

Denis D. Gray
March 31, 2021

Escaping Karen villagers, pictured on Mar.28: more than 10,000 members of the ethnic minority have been driven from their villages. © Karen Teacher Working Group/Reuters

Denis D. Gray is a former Associated Press correspondent. He has reported on Myanmar's ethnic minorities since the 1970s.

The world's attention has been focused on atrocities taking place in Myanmar's central heartland: the towns, cities and villages largely populated by the ethnic Burman majority, where pro-democracy demonstrators, enraged by the Feb. 1 coup, are being gunned down by the junta's forces.

But on the country's edge, ethnic minorities making up about 40% of the population are also being brutalized. The new push by Myanmar's military to target ethnic rural areas has opened up a dangerous front in the junta's bid to "pacify" the population, which has soundly rejected the power grab by Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing.