The Latest Crisis in Arakan
The situation inside the Rohingya villages in north-western
Arakan (Rakhine) state of Myanmar, bordering Bangladesh, is dire. Another genocidal
campaign has been launched by the government. As we have seen before with the previous
military regimes, the new government of Aung San Suu Kyi has its version of
justification for its heavy handed treatment of the minority Muslims.
As of Saturday, October 15, at least 92 Rohingyas were shot dead and at least 100 Rohingyas were wounded very badly and more than 150 Rohingya peoples were arbitrary arrested including men and women by the Military and police forces; at least 84 Rohingyas were missing; more than 700 Rohingya homes set on fire by the military. As we have seen many times in the past, the military also raped three Rohingya women inside their homes using rape as a weapon of its ethnic cleansing drive. At least five villages have been completely burnt down by the Myanmar military, making their residents homeless. Afraid of being shot dead by the feared army, many Rohingyas are also fleeing their homes. Many shops have been looted and gutted, and at least one mosque burnt down on 11 October, 2016 in Maungdaw by the military, police forces and the 969 Buddhist fascist group. An estimated 10,000 Rohingyas have been internally displaced as a result of this latest pogrom causing great humanitarian disaster. Due to curfew order and blockade, there is an acute shortage of food, medicine, and other essentials. The situation is exponentially worsening.
On October 14, after 12:00 a.m., some military personnel along with some Rakhine Buddhist civilians raided the market in the Ngakura village tract. They looted all the goods that they found. In the early morning, the military personnel called all the shopkeepers and asked them to shift their goods from their shops to other places wherever they wanted. As the shopkeepers came to their shops to shift their goods, they found no goods inside their shops and all the doors were broken.
According to government
reports in the state media, armed men believed to be from the long-oppressed
Rohingya Muslim minority launched a coordinated assault on predawn hours of
October 9, killing nine police, injuring five and making off with 48 weapons of
various types and 6624 rounds of assorted ammunition, 47 bayonets, and 164
magazines.
A statement from the office of Myanmar's President Htin Kyaw
blamed the little-known "Aqamul Mujahidin" for the attacks around
Maungdaw Township, a mainly Muslim area near the frontier with Bangladesh. "They
persuade the young people using religious extremism, and they have financial
support from outside," said the Burmese language statement.
Shortly after
the attack, military moved in and cordoned off the towns and started its cleansing
of one village after another. Activists claim the
military is using the search for the attackers as a pretext for a crackdown on
the Rohingya, whom rights groups describe as one of the world’s most persecuted
peoples.
Reports
of the latest attacks against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar may signal a new
phase in the "genocidal situation", researchers at London's Queen
Mary University have said.
Credible
reports are emerging of extra-judicial killings, arbitrary arrests, and raids
on Rohingya homes by Myanmar security forces, researchers at the college's
International State Crime Initiative (ISCI) said.
As of Saturday, October 15, at least 92 Rohingyas were shot dead and at least 100 Rohingyas were wounded very badly and more than 150 Rohingya peoples were arbitrary arrested including men and women by the Military and police forces; at least 84 Rohingyas were missing; more than 700 Rohingya homes set on fire by the military. As we have seen many times in the past, the military also raped three Rohingya women inside their homes using rape as a weapon of its ethnic cleansing drive. At least five villages have been completely burnt down by the Myanmar military, making their residents homeless. Afraid of being shot dead by the feared army, many Rohingyas are also fleeing their homes. Many shops have been looted and gutted, and at least one mosque burnt down on 11 October, 2016 in Maungdaw by the military, police forces and the 969 Buddhist fascist group. An estimated 10,000 Rohingyas have been internally displaced as a result of this latest pogrom causing great humanitarian disaster. Due to curfew order and blockade, there is an acute shortage of food, medicine, and other essentials. The situation is exponentially worsening.
On October 14, after 12:00 a.m., some military personnel along with some Rakhine Buddhist civilians raided the market in the Ngakura village tract. They looted all the goods that they found. In the early morning, the military personnel called all the shopkeepers and asked them to shift their goods from their shops to other places wherever they wanted. As the shopkeepers came to their shops to shift their goods, they found no goods inside their shops and all the doors were broken.
At about 10 a.m., military personnel entered the village tract
of Kyet Yoe Pyin and set fire to the whole hamlet, Lu Pann Pyin. Then they set
fire to another hamlet called Ywar Ma. Some of the women from there who
couldn't find a way to escape were shot dead while they were hiding inside their
houses. They were left in homes and the military later set fire to them. It is
estimated that nearly 500 houses are said to have been burnt down in both of
these above mentioned hamlets.
At 11 a.m., some military personnel entered Zedi Pyin hamlet
of Laung Don Village tract where they broke walls and other properties of the
home of Sayid Amin. They ordered the nearby villagers to pack their belongings,
their homes and move someplace else. Whilst on their way back they arrested
Anam Ullah, a mentally disabled nephew of Sayid Amin. They took him to the
Rakhine village of Laung Don Village tract where he was severely tortured and then was released
as he was recognized as having mental problems at the end. As the military
personnel ordered they moved to nearby villages but they think that their
village will be burnt down as well in their absence.
In Laung Don Village tract, the military
personnel were still said to have been roaming as of at 1 a.m., October the 15th.
On October 14, at 10 a.m., some military personnel raided
Aung Sit Pyin village tract and arrested 6 Rohingyas. Days earlier on October
11, 5 Rohingyas from the Say Tha Ma Gyi village were asked to report to Pan Lin
Pyin military outpost. Upon arrival, they were then beaten by forces from
Battalion 263, led by Lt. Col. Hlaing Min Htet.
The military arrested 15 innocent Rohingya civilians
including five children from Pha Wet Chaung village and they were later
killed. “The military raids our village [Pha Wet Chaung]. They arrested 15
villagers including 5 children. Military took them with a truck to NaTaLa
village. Later they all were slaughtered.” a Rohingya told RB News over the
phone.
Kyet Yoe Pyin village has been under attack by the military
since Wednesday. As of Thursday, 162 houses have been burnt down into ashes and
a market where more than 150 Rohingya shops run businesses have also been burnt
to the ground.
Pyaung Pyaik hamlet located in Nga Sa Kyu village was raided
by the military. Before torching the houses, the military and NaTaLa villagers
looted valuable things and cattle. They then torched 40 houses. Later in the
evening more than 100 houses were burnt down. The military shot dead an elderly
woman while torching the houses and they threw her into the fire.
Some children and elderly were blocked inside their houses
before they were set ablaze. They couldn’t escape from fire and many have
reportedly died inside the houses.
According to the RB News, on Thursday at 2 p.m. the military
entered Tha Wun Chaung village and checked the household registration and count
the heads house by house. They found a man who isn’t from that village. The man
was taken by the military and later at 6 p.m. released. After 6 p.m. the
military entered into Sabai Gone and Laung Dun Rohingya villages and set the
houses on fire. An elder said “Many elderly, pregnant women, children are where
the military are torching the houses. I am worried for them. I don’t know
whether they are dead or alive. Now what I am seeing is this government is implementing
the plan of the then president Thein Sein which Rohingyas will be kept in the
camps and sent to third countries.”
According to the villagers, five helicopters were flying
over villages for long hours. They said the military used launchers to kill innocent
civilians.
Reports of killings and mass arrests have spread like
wildfire on social media, stoking fear amongst the Rohingya, who remain the
most persecuted people in our planet.
One local teacher, who did not give her name, said she had
been hiding in a house along with some 20 other school staff and students in a
village near one of Sunday’s attacks, too scared to come out because of the
sound of gunfire. “We haven’t eaten for two days. The situation is not so
good,” she told AFP from Ngakhura, around 42 kilometers (26 miles) from
Maungdaw. “We heard fighting here and there. We do not dare to go out.”
Authorities have extended a regional curfew to between 7 p.m.
and 6 a.m., while local education chief Khin Aung said about 400 schools have
been closed for the next two weeks.
“Villagers tell us they are scared. Some witnessed killings
by the army yesterday,” said Matthew Smith, chief executive of Fortify Rights, a non-profit human rights
organization.
Fortify Rights has received reports of possible
extrajudicial killings of Rohingya men in Maungdaw Township by Myanmar Army
soldiers following the attacks on the police and called on the government,
state security forces, and all parties in Rakhine State to respect human rights
and uphold the responsibility to protect civilians.
According to information received by Fortify Rights, scores
of Myanmar Army soldiers arrived in Myothugyi village, Maungdaw Township at
approximately 6:30 a.m. on October 10. Fortify Rights received information of
at least three killings of unarmed Rohingya men [Nagu (50), Noor Allam (55) and Noor
Bashar (25)] in Myothugyi village on October 10 by military men.
“They took three men...and killed them,” a Rohingya man in
Myothugyi said. “They did not arrest the people, they just killed them.”
The New
York Times
and Reuters reported allegations of seven deaths in Myothugyi village on
October 10. Both outlets reported witnesses alleging that army soldiers shot at
Rohingya as they ran away.
It is worth noting here that the use of lethal force by
state security forces against a civilian is only lawful when necessary to
prevent loss of life and serious injury and when proportionate to the threat at
hand. The U.N. Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law
Enforcement Officials stipulates that the “intentional lethal use of firearms
may only be made when strictly unavoidable in order to protect life.” The U.N.
Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials requires officials to “use force
only when strictly necessary and to the extent required for the performance of
their duty.”
In situations of armed conflict, Article 42 of the Third
Geneva Convention stipulates that the use of force “against those who are
escaping or attempting to escape, shall constitute an extreme measure, which
shall always be preceded by warnings appropriate to the circumstances.”
In all situations, under international humanitarian and
human rights law, the authorities have a responsibility to protect civilians.
There are more than a million Rohingya in northern Rakhine
State, nearly all of whom are denied citizenship and are stateless. For
decades, the Government of Myanmar has strictly restricted Rohingya freedom of
movement, preventing movement between villages, village tracts, and beyond.
The sudden escalation of violence in Rakhine state poses a
serious challenge to the six-month-old government led by Aung San Suu Kyi, who
was swept to power in an election last year but has faced harsh criticism
abroad for failing to tackle rights abuses against the Rohingya and other
Muslims.
In June, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights
reported to the Human Rights Council that there was a “pattern of gross human
rights violations” against Rohingya in Rakhine State that “would suggest a
widespread or systematic attack against the Rohingya, in turn suggesting the
possible commission of crimes against humanity.”
"Since
the attack, we have documented several videos showing armed men – some had
guns, some had sticks and swords – speaking the Rohingya language and
encouraging volunteers to come and engage in armed conflict in Rakhine
State," Matthew Smith from Fortify Rights told Radio France International (RFI).
"This
is a very serious situation unfolding there. The government of Myanmar has
commenced with what appears to be a very brutal crackdown, we're documenting
allegations of extrajudicial killings.” "Essentially the Myanmar Army is
moving into villages, suspecting all of the men and boys of being involved with
this rather small group of armed men and committing a variety of human rights
violations," Smith added.
Northern
Rakhine state is "in effect an information black hole, and in situations
where allegations of human rights violations are difficult or impossible to
independently verify - because of state restrictive practices - the onus must
be on the state to investigate or disprove those allegations", Penny
Green, Professor of Law at Queen Mary University of London and Director of
ISCI, said.
"We
sounded the alarm in 2015 that what we saw amounted to the early stages of a
genocidal process," Green said.
"Local
sources now report a ramped up security and military presence, additional
restrictions on freedom of movement, and a further limiting of access to food
and healthcare. We are concerned that these latest developments may represent a
new chapter in the persecution of the Rohingya, and a potentially more deadly
phase of genocide. The fact that it's practically impossible to verify or
confirm any of these reports underlines the intensity of Rakhine state's
isolation from international view."
Myanmar
government consistently denies international journalists and human rights
organizations access to Northern Rakhine, ISCI said.
Green
added that the merging evidence of indiscriminate violence by security forces
mark a "disturbing yet entirely predictable escalation in the genocidal
process".
Lately the Under-Secretary-General
for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Stephen O’Brien,
concluded his three-day mission to Myanmar. His trip took place shortly after
the outbreak of violence in the northern part of Rakhine State and at a time of
escalating armed clashes in Kachin. “The
recent violence in Rakhine State is deeply troubling and the immediate priority
must be to prevent further violence and to ensure the protection of all
civilians. The situation is affecting all communities in Rakhine and has
further disrupted the provision of health, education, and other essential
services for some of the most vulnerable, particularly the Muslim communities
who are not allowed to move freely.”
“When I was in Rakhine State, I talked to people about their
suffering and their inadequate access to essential services including health
and education. All people in Rakhine State, irrespective of their ethnicity,
religion or citizenship status, must have safe access to their nearest hospital
or medical center, to regular schools and to livelihoods.”
Around 140,000 Rohingyas are still living in displacement
camps, four years after
the outbreak.
Interestingly,
while Suu Kyi’s government finger points young Rohingyas to be the perpetrators,
a senior police officer in Rakhine State's capital Sittwe (Akyab) has claimed that the
attacks had been planned by drug traffickers. “They want the areas to be
unstable so that they can do their business easily,” the officer, who spoke on
condition of anonymity as he has no authority to speak to media, told Anadolu
Agency on Tuesday.
Did the Tadmadaw had
a hand in those attacks and then put the blame on the Rohingya as part of a
sinister ploy for a ‘final solution’ of the Rohingya problem? I won’t be
surprised if the answer is - ‘yes’.
What is also so atypical is that the attacks came at a time
when former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan is leading a commission that is
looking into the conflict between the Rohingya and the Buddhists in the Rakhine
state, which has seen more than several hundred thousand Muslims displaced by
Buddhist violence since 2012. As we have seen, Annan’s commission was unwelcome
by the racist Rakhines and many Buddhists that are affiliated with the fascist
Ma Ba Tha. If we are
looking for a beneficiary, it is these
latter elements within the Buddhist society that benefit from the latest
unrests inside the restive area, and not the Rohingyas.
Knowing the past tactics
and strategy employed by the previous regimes, the new government’s charges of terrorism against the Rohingya youths has to be
taken with a grain of salt. As Myanmar dissident activist Dr. Maung Zarni has rightly pointed out in his blog: "Revving up the
'terrorism' allegations is killing three birds with a single stone: 1) it enables the military to scale up the slow
genocide of the Rohingya in Northern Rakhine; 2) it diverts
racist Burmese public's attention away from the military attacks on the Kachin
and halted the anti-war protest momentum; 3) it
forces Aung San Suu Kyi to relinquish her Kofi Annan Commission initiative as
the military is in due course going to take over the Rakhine administration,
partial or wholly, from the NLD puppets.”
“In that light, the
Statement issued by Htin Kyaw Office is not really credible or verifiable -
beyond what it says,” says Dr. Zarni. “First, all governments lie, and Myanmar Government
lies typically and most frequently. Second, routinely Myanmar Military
Intelligence fabricates stories and evidence. Ask ex-Major Aung Lin Htut in
Marilyn, who was chief of counterintelligence at Myanmar Embassy in Washington.
He KNOWS. Dating back to 1950's in the midst of growing armed Communist
movement, Myanmar Military Intelligence has a long history of fabricating
"facts", manufacturing and planting "evidence", and
extracting false confessions through torture. In the 1950's the Army's
Psychological Warfare Publication called Myawaddy routinely published
anti-Communist propaganda. It would publish pictures of beheaded Buddha images
and damaged temples saying the Communists were responsible for these
anti-Buddhist activities - whereas in fact the military would destroy them for
photo-ops.
It is like USA's Pentagon spending $480 million, to create
anti-Muslim propaganda video-clips of terrorist groups that operate in the name
of Islam such as Al Qaeda."
What’s
needed is a real investigation that focuses on facts and not propaganda. “The
biggest problem is that Myanmar fails time and time again to do real
investigations,” Phil Robertson of Human Rights Watch said in an email sent to
Anadolu Agency on Friday. Thein Sein government had failed to do a credible
investigation after violence in the area in 2012. “And it looks like they are
going down the same failed path again,” Robertson said.
If the Rohingya youths have attacked the police barracks, a reasonable question is: why? Is it because they see no hope? Is it because of the daily dehumanization that they face in Suu Kyi’s
Myanmar? Days before the attacks, several Rohingya women were reportedly raped
by the police and border security forces from the northern townships. Could
such appalling events
trigger these attacks from the Rohingya youths who until this event had avoided any armed conflict with the government forces? Being
abandoned by the rest of
the world, do they feel that they are being pushed into the corner to embrace armed struggle?
If
the answer is – yes, it should be a wake-up call for the
government of Aung San Suu Kyi.
After all, when other ethnic minorities chose armed struggle, the Rohingya
- who were the worst persecuted – had resorted to
entirely peaceful means in their claims for recognition as a legitimate part of
Myanmar’s society. [The exception was in the 1980s when the militant Rohingya
Solidarity Organization (RSO)
was set up
to fight for self-determination of its people.
Small and largely ineffective, it had disappeared by 1994. So the Myanmar
government’s current accusation against
the RSO is bizarre, to say the least.]
Suu Kyi can stop this bleeding process by immediately
stopping all
military offensives against the Rohingya and recognizing
the legitimate rights of the Rohingya people as Myanmar citizens. This basic citizenship
right cannot be denied on the false premise that their community had been
brought to the country from the Indian subcontinent by the British
Raj.
Her government must restore all basic freedoms, including
freedom of movement, marriage, education, healthcare and peaceful-living, and
to lift all aid restrictions in the Rakhine/Arakan State. Her government must end
all forms of persecution and ghettoization of the Rohingya people and
immediately rehabilitate and reintegrate all IDPs in their original places and
properties. It must compensate the victims who had lost their homes and
business. They must be empowered with a sense of belonging and not bewildered
with a sense of utter hopelessness.
Following the footsteps of the previous regimes would be
suicidal for Suu Kyi’s government.
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