ARNA press release: GENOCIDE REMEMBRANCE DAY

Our Ref: ARNA/2018/055                

Date: 28 Aug 2018

GENOCIDE REMEMBRANCE DAY

Marking the day (25 Aug) as one year anniversary of Genocide Remembrance Day for the genocidal attacks took place across Mayu regions and also for ongoing genocidal attacks taking place across other townships from 8 June 2012.

Types of vigilante attacks, indiscriminate killings, brutal rapes, persistent persecution, systematic oppression, tyrant abuses, arbitrary arrests, corporal and collective punishments, violence and rapes, massive destruction of historical buildings and houses,  destroying identities,  practicing discriminatory laws and orders, rigid confinement and restriction, segregation and creation of muslim free-zones, permanent barrier in every social, cultural, welfare, health-care, education, livelihood sectors and cutting off of electricity and waters, are very clear evidences of genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes and crimes against humanity. 

A research consortium consisting of academics, practitioners and organisations launched a report entitled “Forced Migration of Rohingya: The Untold Experience”. The key findings of the research is based on recent arrival of 650,000 refugees, are as follows:                                                                                        -An estimated 116,000 Rohingya were beaten when family members are included.
-An estimated 43,000 Rohingya received gunshot wounds when family members are included.
-An estimated 36,000 Rohingya were thrown into fire.
-An estimated 25,000 Rohingya were murdered.
-An estimated 19,000 Rohingya women and adolescents were raped.
-The 82% of participants reported witnessing their neighbours’ death or saw dead bodies.                                      -The 59% of participants reported witnessing neighbours been raped by authorities.
-The 85% of participants reported witnessing the burning of their own or neighbours’ homes.

Yet, the Suu Kyi government’s defiance authoritarian judiciary, brutalities, blockages and restrictions against Rohingya remain very largely active due to lack of effective action from international communities and United Nations. The Suu Kyi government continues denial of their heinous crimes by setting another Inquiry Commission very similar to the past commissions that are not international standard and not capable of leading to the criminal prosecution of all of those responsible and address the root causes to end the cycle of violence and attacks.

The remaining Rohingyas and Kamans in Arakan (Rakhine) state are still systematically trapped and facing frequent attacks, deadly starvation and Rohingya lands are clearing and replacing with mega projects and military base camps from June 2012.   Extended threats of nationalists, extremists monks, gangs and thugs and creation of muslim free-zones  across Arakan (Rakhine) state and central Burma are still exist.

The Rohingya survivors numbering about a million including existing numbers of the past arrivals in Bangladesh remain hopeless, unwanted, enduring with natural disaster and under the treats of repatriation as repatriation deal signed between governments of Myanmar and Bangladesh. Again, the UNDP and UNHCR have achieved signing of MoU with Myanmar government. However, such deal and MoU have no guarantee for improvement of human rights situation on the ground and protected return of Rohingya refugees with dignity and rights.

For decades, the majority of the entire people and the government authorities are jointly denying our existence, horribly terrorizing and actively attacking of our people from all corners. For Rohingya, we are counting the deaths, destruction, attacks, rapes, arson and massive displacement day by day. It is therefore a matter for Rohingya people- are technically in need of creation of a Safe zone (or) Statehood (or) Protectorate (or) Autonomy state.  

On the remark of ‘’Genocide Remembrance Day’’, we ARNA would like to thank and strongly support the United Nations Fact-finding Mission call for prosecution of Myanmar generals. We also would like to call the international communities, United Nations and world leaders to show genuine solidarity and support the neglected victims of Rohingya, Kachin, Shan and Karen by:

1) Taking effective and immediate actions onto the terror government of Myanmar and referral of those perpetrator authorities to ICC.

2) Achieving the Protected Return of Rohingya refugees into Protected Lands to guarantee the lost rights and dignity of Rohingya people.

3) Achieving the release of all muslim political prisoners from central Burma and thousands of Rohingya prisoners involving children mostly detained in Sittwe Central Jail, Buthidaung Jail and many others detained in police lock-up and military camps.

4) Supporting Rohingya themselves to eventually establish a Safe zone (or) a Statehood (or) Protectorate state (or) Autonomy state thru Security Council’s R2P Resolution.

5) Cutting business ties, suspend military aid and ban entry visa of Ms. Suu Kyi, military generals and their family members visiting, studying and investment.

Thankfully,

….…………………………….

M.ILYAS (chairman), UK

M. h/p: +(44) 7780 359718,  

contact in other countries

Habib, h/p: +(61) 406 310077, Australia

HF. Hashim Mahmood, h/p: +(88) 1729 872581, Bangladesh

Ayub Khan, h/p: +(60) 11 33315246, Malaysia

UN documents 'shocking crimes' by Myanmar army: ''Genocide''

Source Aljazeera, 

Top Myanmar generals led brutal campaign against Rohingya involving 'gravest crimes under international law"'. 

Rohingya refugees pray at a protest on Saturday marking the one-year anniversary of their mass exodus [Mohammad Ponir Hossain/Reuters]  

Myanmar's military carried out mass killings and gang rapes of Rohingya with "genocidal intent" and the commander-in-chief and five generals should be prosecuted, UN investigators said on Monday.

It was the first time the United Nations explicitly called for Myanmar officials to face genocide charges over their campaign against the Rohingya, and is likely to deepen the Southeast Asian nation's isolation.

The UN mission found Myanmar's armed forces had taken actions that "undoubtedly amount to the gravest crimes under international law", forcing more than 700,000 Rohingya to flee starting in late August 2017. 

Speaking in Geneva on Monday, Marzuki Darusman, the mission's chairman, said his researchers amassed evidence based on 875 interviews with witnesses and victims, satellite imagery, and verified photos and videos.

Marzuki said victim accounts were "amongst the most shocking human rights violations" he had come across and would "leave a mark on all of us for the rest of our lives".

WATCH: One year since Myanmar army crackdown, Rohingya seek justice (2:44)

He described Myanmar's military as having shown "flagrant disregard for lives" and displayed "extreme levels of brutality".

"The Rohingya are in a continuing situation of severe systemic and institutionalised oppression from birth to death," Marzuki said.

The UN does not apply the word "genocide" lightly.

Its assessment suggests crimes against the Rohingya could meet the strict legal definition used in places such as Bosnia, Rwanda and Sudan's Darfur region.

'Burning entire villages'

The team cited a "conservative" estimate from aid group Reporters Without Borders that some 10,000 people had been killed in the violence, but outside investigators have had no access to the affected regions, making a precise accounting elusive, if not impossible.

The UN report said military generals, including Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing, must face investigation and prosecution for "genocidal intent" in Myanmar's northern Rakhine state, as well as crimes against humanity and other war crimes in the states of Kachin and Shan.

The report singled out Myanmar's military, known as the Tatmadaw, but added that other Myanmar security agencies were also involved in abuses.

"Military necessity would never justify killing indiscriminately, gang-raping women, assaulting children, and burning entire villages," the report said.

"The Tatmadaw's tactics are consistently and grossly disproportionate to actual security threats, especially in Rakhine state but also in northern Myanmar."

A Rohingya family in Balukhali camp [Sorin Furcoi/Al Jazeera]

In Rakhine state, there was evidence of extermination and deportation, the report added.

"The crimes in Rakhine state, and the manner in which they were perpetrated, are similar in nature, gravity and scope to those that have allowed genocidal intent to be established in other contexts," the UN mission concluded, adding there was "sufficient information" to prosecute the military's chain of command. 

Christopher Sidoti, a member of the investigatory committee, urged the UN Security Council and General Assembly to act on the report's findings.

"We are convinced the international community holds the key to dismantling the destructive veil of impunity in Myanmar," he said.

'This is extremely significant'

Mohammed Jamjoom, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Cox's Bazar

"What we've heard in the report really lines up with witness testimonies I've heard here.

For most of the past year, when official bodies of governance spoke about the atrocities committed in Rakhine state, they called it ethnic cleansing. 

Now there's a very extensive UN fact-finding mission recommending that top tier military officials in Myanmar be prosecuted and investigated for genocide.

When the members of the panel in Geneva laid out their investigation, they said that they conducted 875 interviews, they talked about the destructive veil of impunity in Myanmar and they said that until that is lifted, the cycle of violence in Myanmar will continue.

They said there needs to be a mechanism by which these crimes can be prosecuted and the cycle of violence in Myanmar can be ended.

That's going to be very difficult, we don't know exactly where this goes. At some point, it will be presented to the UN Human Rights Council and then potentially to the UN Security Council.

But we must remember that Myanmar is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, so the International Criminal Court does not have jurisdiction."

Criticism of Aung San Suu Kyi

Investigators compiled a list of suspects, which included Min Aung Hlaing and other military commanders.

The mission said a full list of suspects will be made available to any credible body pursuing accountability, adding that the case should be referred to the International Criminal Court, or an ad hoc criminal tribunal. 

Myanmar's civilian leadership also drew criticism for its failure to prevent the abuses.

"The State Counsellor, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, has not used her de facto position as Head of Government, nor her moral authority, to stem or prevent the unfolding events in Rakhine State," the report said. 

The Government and the Tatmadaw have fostered a climate in which hate speech thrives, human rights violations are legitimized, and incitement to discrimination and violence facilitated.

UN REPORT

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate has been criticised internationally for her failure to speak out against abuses in Rakhine State and has had several human rights awards rescinded for her stance.

WATCH

45:21

The Rohingya: Silent Abuse

In August 2017, Myanmar's armed forces launched a campaign ostensibly against Rohingya armed groups in Rakhine state.

Investigators documented mass killings, the destruction of Rohingya dwellings, and "large-scale" gang rape by Myanmar soldiers.

The UN's report drew praise from the ground in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, where refugee camps have taken in hundreds of thousands of Rohingya from across the border.

"We are happy for this. If these army people are punished the world will take note of it. They are killers. They must be punished," said Mohammed Hasan, 46, who lives in the Kutupalong refugee camp.

"They killed thousands, we have seen that. They torched our homes, that's a fact. They raped our women, that's not false." 

Forced Migration of Rohingya: The Untold Experience

Source researchgate, 

As you know, to mark the one year of Rohingya Crisis, a research consortium consisting of academics, practitioners and organisations launched a report entitled "Forced Migration of Rohingya: The Untold Experience". The key findings of the research, based on 650,000 refugees, are as follows:

§ An estimated 116,000 Rohingya were beaten by Myanmar authorities when family members are included.
§ An estimated 43,000 Rohingya received gunshot wounds when family members are included.
§ An estimated 36,000 Rohingya were thrown into fire.
§ An estimated 25,000 Rohingya were murdered.
§ An estimated 19,000 Rohingya women and adolescents were raped
§ 82% of participants reported witnessing their neighbours' death or saw dead bodies in Myanmar before fleeing to Bangladesh.
§ 59% of participants reported witnessing neighbours who had been victims of raped by Myanmar authorities.
§ 85% of participants reported witnessing of the burning down of their own or neighbours' homes.
§ 96% of Rohingya demanded Myanmar citizenship.
§ 96% of Rohingya demanded justice through prosecution of the perpetrators. 
§ Over 93% of Rohingya wanted UN peace force deployment in Rakhine as a precondition for their repatriation to Myanmar.

Putting this together published our research activity on Rohingya Crisis in a Book "Forced Migration of Rohingya: The Untold Experience". All the facts, stories and summaries very heart breaking.

I encourage you all to have a look a share with your network for a wider response and maximum impact on the media. This book is not for sale, free download here:

https://www.researchgate.net/…/326912213_Forced_Migration_o…

Please share with your network for maximum impact on the news and media.

Thanks"

SUU KYI IS MOST POLISHED MOUNTHPIECE OF MYANMAR MILITARY

Source freerohingyacoalition, 25 Aug

Free Rohingya Coalition co-founder Maung Zarni says time to reject false messiahs in Myanmar beginning with Aung San Suu Kyi

LONDON — Watching YouTube Myanmar State Counsellor's 43rd Singapore lecture — 1-hour lecture including the questions and answers – entitled, "Democratic Transition in Myanmar: Challenges and the Way Forward," left me deeply disturbed, pained and outraged. 

The degree of her delusions, distortions and concoctions made me realize that my fellow Burmese dissident has become nothing more than the most polished mouth piece for her former captors, namely the murderous military regime.

Aung San Suu Kyi wasn't simply one dissident leader among several potential leaders of significance that I, like millions of other Burmese Buddhists, supported in those long years of vibrant anti-dictatorship opposition after the nationwide uprisings of 1988.

My sentimental ties to Aung San family is more personal and goes far deeper.

One late great uncle of mine was her father's next-door neighbor, class mate and a friend at Pegu Hall (dormitory) when both were young undergraduates who hailed together from the Buddhist heartland of the then Upper Burma to study Pali, literature, law, etc. at the colonial Rangoon University in the early 1930's.

Through my relative's first-hand accounts of Aung San, the anti-colonial revolutionary and founder of Burma Independence Army under WWII Japan's fascist patronage, as well as my own study of the slain national hero's voluminous speeches and writings, I have developed a lifelong admiration for the man's strength of character, integrity, Marxist-influenced non-racialism and unwavering sense of service to the oppressed of colonial Burma, not just Buddhists nor the majority Burmans or Bama, but all people who considered Burma their home.

In fact, in my high school days in Mandalay of 1970's I learned the worthy English phrase "love of truth" from one of his writings wherein he pointedly said as a father he wanted to instill the love of truth in his three children.

So, when I watched Suu Kyi's speech act performed at the Grand Hyatt in Singapore, available on YouTube, I noted with deep pains and rage that my hero's world famous, or infamous, daughter packed lie after lie – all verifiable – in her prepared lecture, which she proceeded to deliver with a straight face.

Suu Kyi's Singapore lecture August 22 was a speech her own martyred father would most definitely feel so ashamed about.

Two years since Suu Kyi's assumption of her self-declared 'Above-the-President' office as State Counsellor with her reportedly autocratic control over all ministries save the security-related ministries such as Home Affairs, Defense and Border Affairs, her leadership is noted only for serial failures.

The commissions she has formed to address the country's defining problem — crimes against Rohingyas — have become a butt of international jokes. As the country's most revered politician since her father's murder in 1947, Suu Kyi has been unable to deliver on every one of the party's official major priorities: "rule of law, peace, development, amendments to the Constitution". 

And yet in the lecture, the NLD leader served up the typically democracy-indifferent and docile Singaporean audience a rose-tinted view of her leadership and governmental performance, which the official hosts on the panel dutifully clapped and heaped praise on.

For someone who grew up under General Ne Win's "Burmese Way to Socialism" (1962-1988), Suu Kyi's speech sounded more like a typical party General Secretary's report to the Socialist Polit Bureau presided over by Chairman (despot) Ne Win in the 1960's and 1970's.

The State Counsellor in her own words: "In each of the three panglong (peace) meetings held over the last two years, we made valuable progress. in the First Union Peace Conference, a seven-step roadmap for peace and national reconciliation was achieved. In the Second Conference, 37 principles were adopted. Before the Third Conference, two more ethnic armed groups signed the ceasefire agreement and during the Conference itself, 1"4 more principles were adopted."

Not only her words are unpersuasive and uncorroborated by the harsh realities of Myanmar ethnic minorities, particularly more than 100,000 Kachin war refugees in the country's eastern and northern border regions but the world of Myanmar watchers who actually set their foot in these conflict zones offer an assessment radically different from Ms. Suu Kyi's. Virtually all news reports and field studies about the Burmese military's internal colonial war of pacification note not only the regression of the country's peace process under Suu Kyi's incompetent and failing leadership, typically rich in rhetoric and empty of substance, but also the disappearance of the so-called democratic space even for the ethnically dominant Burman Buddhist public.

That "democratic space" was deliberately allowed by the quasi-democratic regime former General Thein Sein in 2010 designed to tango with the Barack Obama-Hillary Clinton administration as the generals sought to rebalance the military's overreliance on the increasingly aggressive and invasive China in the Burmese affairs. 

The emerging, if belated wisdom in Washington is that the Obama's Myanmar embracement policy, once held up as one of his signature achievements emboldened, sped up and facilitated the genocidal destruction of Rohingya people.

Under Suu Kyi's leadership, Myanmar now faces a growing chorus of international calls for the Security Council for the International Criminal Court referral for international crimes in Western Myanmar state of Rakhine, irrespective of whether such calls will bear fruit. Suu Kyi stands accused, with good reasons, of culpability and complicity in the military's crimes against humanity and even genocide against Rohingya people.

It is matters pertaining to Rohingya persecution — which my researcher colleague Natalie Brinham and I call "the slow burning genocide," because of its decades-long nature — on which Suu Kyi's speech act morphed from detectable delusions into deliberate distortions. 

With no basis in reality, Suu Kyi boasted of having implemented most of the Kofi Annan Commission recommendations, thus: "(t)he recommendations of Dr. Kofi Annan's Commission, 88 in all, of which we have to date implemented 81, aim at the establishment of lasting peace and stability in Rakhine." 

Kofi Annan is no more to do the fact-checking. But former ambassador Laetitia van den Assum, one of his fellow Rakhine Commission members, is still alive to know the untruths, nah, outright lies of Ms. Suu Kyi. Van den Assum tweeted "The underlying reasons for their (Rohingyas') flight remain unaddressed". The tweet, which can be seen at https://twitter.com/lvandenassum/status/1032527791303139328, came on the eve of the one year anniversary of Myanmar's large scale military attacks on the unarmed and peaceful Rohingyas in more than 300 villages across northern Rakhine region. 

As a researcher who has spent the last six years concentrating on my own country's decades-long, state-directed persecution of Rohingyas, I find it morally repugnant and empirically false Suu Kyi's disingenuous framing of the largest refugee crisis her military partners in power have created as initially "terror"-related. 

She in effect added insult to the collective injury of the nearly 2 million Rohingya survivors, internally displaced inside Myanmar, internationally deported across the border to Bangladesh, or the diaspora, when she said, "the danger of terrorist activities, which was the initial cause of events leading to the humanitarian crisis in Rakhine, remains real and present today. Unless this security challenge is addressed, the risk of inter-communal violence will remain." 

Suu Kyi words echo how Myanmar military has long framed the Rohingyas — a threat to security — and justified their institutionalized killings of the latter. 

For the first 15 years since the country's popular uprisings in 1988, I had been one of the most hard-working and effective foot soldiers for Suu Kyi in her international campaigns to ostracize and punish Myanmar military leaders. 

I have studied closely Suu Kyi's leadership and poured over every speech of hers, over the last 30 years since she first parachuted onto the Burmese political stage as "the daughter of General Aung San," as she put it. 

Painfully, I have concluded that the daughter of my nationalist hero is no longer part of Myanmar's solution. For she has for all intents and purposes morphed into the most polished mouthpiece of the military perpetrators. 

Suu Kyi even had the audacity to call three generals in her Cabinet "rather sweet" amidst international calls to haul Myanmar generals to the International Criminal Court. 

On Aug. 25, 700,000-plus Rohingya survivors of Myanmar genocide in 35 camps in Kutupalong meet to mourn, memorialize and honor loved ones who were senselessly maimed, mass-raped, slaughtered and burned alive a year ago. The least the world, both grassroots communities and governments, could do is to drop the decades-old policy delusions, globally, that Suu Kyi represents hope, liberty and liberalism. 

As a Burmese, a dominant Bama, Buddhist from an extended military family at that, I will say for the record Myanmar's State Counsellor no longer speaks for me. 

Nor does she represent the humanistic values which I learned to embrace through her father's writings. I know for a fact that there are fellow dissidents inside Myanmar, however small their numbers, who share my categorical rejection of Suu Kyi and her military partners in crimes. 

Let's remember Rohingya victims today. And let's reject false messiahs of Myanmar, starting with Aung San Suu Kyi.

Enough talk. Let’s have action on Rohingya massacres

Source theguardian, 26 Aug

Inquiries were held on the mass killings in Rakhine state and some visa bans imposed; here's what must happen next

The mass exodus of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar into Bangladesh in October 2017. Photograph: Fred Dufour/AFP/Getty Images

A fter the genocides in Rwanda and Srebrenica, the words "never again" were uttered like a mantra by many in the international community. Yet a year ago in Myanmar's Rakhine state, "never again" happened all over again.

On 25 August 2017, the army unleashed a military offensive that forced more than 700,000 Rohingya to flee their villages into neighbouring Bangladesh. It is believed that thousands were killed. Human rights organisations have reported mass rape and eyewitness accounts describe babies and children snatched from their parents' arms and thrown into burning homes or drowned in rivers. Families were burned alive in their homes, villagers lined up and shot and civilians targeted indiscriminately. Zeid Ra'ad al Hussein, the outgoing United Nations high commissioner for human rights, described what happened as "a textbook example of ethnic cleansing", and the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, Yanghee Lee, said she saw "the hallmarks of genocide".

Within the next few weeks, two significant reports will be published. The United States is expected to release the results of its investigation, which may conclude that what has occurred is genocide. The UN fact-finding mission, established before the offensive began last year, will present its report and may well recommend mechanisms for accountability. The evidence and recommendations of these reports must receive serious attention – it is essential that the international community summons the political will to act. This coming week, the UN security council will discuss the situation again, as it has done on several occasions already. Such discussions are vital, but they must move from talk to action.

And yet of course the crisis did not begin a year ago. The plight of the Rohingya has been severe for decades. This predominantly Muslim population has been subjected to dehumanisation and marginalisation, stripped of citizenship rights, rendered stateless and facing restrictions on movement, marriage, access to education and healthcare and freedom of religion or belief.

In 2012, violence broke out between Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims, leaving thousands displaced and parts of the state smouldering. Rohingya were held in dire conditions in camps that observers compare to internment centres. A new campaign by the Myanmar military broke out in October 2016, a prelude to last year's dramatic escalation.

What, then, should be done? The European Union, the US and Canada have imposed visa bans on a few military and security personnel, which is a welcome step, and Washington has recently strengthened some sanctions against some individuals, although not yet the man ultimately responsible, the commander-in-chief, Min Aung Hlaing. But there is no global arms embargo, no targeted sanctions against military-owned enterprises and no action to end impunity by referring the perpetrators of crimes against humanity to the international criminal court. These are steps that the UN and its member states should now adopt.

No steps have been taken against Myanmar's commander-in-chief, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing. Photograph: Lynn Bo Bo/Pool/Reuters

Ending impunity is essential because history shows that if those who perpetrate crimes against humanity get away with it, they or others will take it as a signal that they can repeat the same crimes. We warned of this 18 months ago.

But we must also consider what else can be done in addition to justice and accountability. Myanmar has been torn apart by decades of ethnic conflict, fuelled in recent years by religious intolerance and hatred. Constructive steps towards long-term peace-building and reconciliation are needed, to counter the voices of intolerance and promote the principle of freedom of religion or belief, based on respect for human dignity, for every person of every race in Myanmar. Narratives need to be challenged, hate speech countered, the citizenship rights of the Rohingya respected, voices of peace within all religions strengthened and a genuine peace process and political dialogue enhanced.

Perhaps there is a role for trusted international mediators whose only agenda is the basic dignity of all. Pope Francis visited the country last year and delivered this message – perhaps his good offices could play a role in bringing the different peoples of Myanmar, of different races and religions, including the Rohingya, together in dialogue. For one thing is absolutely certain: if hatred, deeply entrenched in society but manipulated by Myanmar's still powerful military, is not addressed, we will be lamenting "again and again" our failure to live up to our responsibility to protect.

Jan Figel is the European Union's special envoy for freedom of religion or belief outside the EU

Benedict Rogers is East Asia team leader at the human rights organisation CSW