Thursday 30 January 2014

Rohingya people: the most suffering people on earth

Source New Age, 30 Jan

We need not change the course of history. But is it wrong to expect human rights for all that are enshrined in the UN? Sadly, not a single of the 30 clauses of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is honoured by the apartheid Myanmar regime when it comes to its treatment of this unfortunate people, writes Dr Habib Siddiqui from Pennsylvania

THE Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was adopted by the United Nations 65 years ago in December of 1948. The US didn't ratify the genocide convention for another 40 years. The late senator William Proxmire, a Democrat from Wisconsin, took up the task in the 1960s of getting the convention ratified. He assumed it would be easy. But it was not. He ended up giving 3,211 speeches on the floor of the senate, a different speech every day for 19 years, until it was ratified.
It took two more years before President Ronald Reagan finally signed the measure into law on November 5, 1988 — in a hangar at O'Hare Airport in Chicago. 

After the Jewish Holocaust in Europe, the world said 'never again', but the list of genocides since then is long and sorrowful: Cambodia in the 1970s, nearly 2 million dead; Rwanda in 1994, 800,000 dead; Bosnia in the 1990s, 250,000 dead; Chechnya between 1994 and 2000, nearly 250,000 dead, 200,000 missing and 500,000, nearly half the population, internally displaced; in Democratic Republic of the Congo an estimated 6 million people have perished in the past 20 years. In George W Bush's wars, 20,000 civilians were killed in Afghanistan in 2001 alone, and another 655,000 to one million in Iraq between 2003 and 2006, which can only be described as war crimes. 

And how about Myanmar, also known as Burma? And how about its Rohingya people, who are recognised by the UN as one the most persecuted people on earth?
The Rohingya people of Myanmar, who mostly live in the western part, the Rakhine (formerly Arakan) state, bordering the Muslim-majority Bangladesh, are undoubtedly the most suffering people in our time. As it has become almost a norm in the Thein Sein era, earlier this month at least 48 Muslims were massacred when Rakhine Buddhist mobs attacked Du Chee Yar Tan, a village in the Rakhine state. This violence, part of the ongoing genocidal activities against the Rohingya people appears to be the deadliest in a year. 
Navi Pillay, the UN high commissioner for human rights, said she had received credible information that eight Rohingya Muslim men were attacked and killed in Du Chee Yar Tan village by local Rakhine Buddhists on January 9. This was followed by a clash on January 13 in the same village, following the reported kidnapping and killing of a police sergeant by Rohingya residents. The police did nothing to stop a Buddhist mob that entered later that night with knives, sticks and swords, witnesses and rights groups said. 

The village has been emptied and sealed off since the massacre. The humanitarian aid group, Medicins san Frontiers, or Doctors Without Borders, which has several clinics in the area, said it has treated at least 22 patients, including several wounded, who are believed to be victims of the violence.

The United Nations has called on the government to carry out a swift, impartial investigation and to hold those responsible accountable. Pillay said, 'By responding to these incidents quickly and decisively, the government has an opportunity to show transparency and accountability, which will strengthen democracy and the rule of law in Myanmar.'

While the government agencies inside Myanmar have mastered the Goebbels-style propaganda in undercounting the casualty figures, let alone denying such extermination campaigns, the undeniable fact is more than a quarter million Rohingyas have fled their homes since May of 2012. It is probably this exodus of the Rohingya people which is both emboldening and encouraging the rogue regime and its savage, murderous Buddhist mob to get rid of the Muslim population one way or another. 

Denied citizenship in this Buddhist-majority country, the Rohingyas have simply become the most unwanted people in our planet. The nearby Bangladesh does not want the persecuted Rohingyas to settle there either. In desperate attempts to save their lives, many Rohingyas have become now the 'boat people' of our time.
Yet, Myanmar has gone through a change in recent years. The former military general Thein Sein is the poster boy of reform inside the country. With him as the head of the state, a quasi-civil-military government runs the fractured country. Myanmar had its election, too — an imperfect one — in which some opposition politicians had managed to get elected in the limited seats available to them within parliament. The new regime has also released many political prisoners (mostly Buddhists) who were once rotting in many of Myanmar's notorious dungeons. [Many released ones have since been re-imprisoned.] 

In reaction to such 'positive image-building' initiatives, which I call calculated gimmicks, the western world has reciprocated by lifting its political and economic sanctions against the once hated military dictatorship that has ruled the country for almost its entire life since earning independence from Britain in January 4 of 1948. 
There was much expectation — probably too unrealistic and too premature — that the Thein Sein government was serious about 'real' reform and that the Rohingyas will be integrated as citizens at par with other ethnic/national groups inside Myanmar. What we have witnessed instead is worsening of their situations. They are now victims of a highly organised genocidal campaign in which even Buddhists like Aung San Sui Kyi — touted one time as the democracy icon — are sadly, either silent or willing partners in this gross violation of human rights. 

Since May of 2012 an estimated 250,000 Rohingyas have fled their homes. Tens of thousands of Muslims living in other parts of Myanmar have also been victims of organized mob violence, lynching, and wholesale destruction of their homes, schools, mosques and businesses. Many of the Muslim internally displaced persons now live in squalid camps with no provisions and are counting their days hopelessly to be relocated to their burned homes. And yet, such a provision seems unlikely. In recent days, Rakhine Buddhists have organised demonstrations protesting any resettlement of the Rohingya and other Muslims. Bottom line — they want the Rohingya and other Muslims out of Myanmar, if not totally annihilated. 
What is worse, the international NGOs, especially from the Muslim countries, continue to be barred from helping out the Muslim victims. In the face of reported protests from the Rakhine Buddhist community, the Organisation of Islamic Countries could not even open an office to carry out its much needed humanitarian relief work in the troubled region. Many international observers and some experts, including human rights activists, were surprised by such outbreaks of ethnic cleansing drives last year against the Muslims, in general, and the Rohingya people, in particular, let alone the level of Buddhist intolerance against non-Buddhists everywhere inside Myanmar. However, such sad episodes were no surprise to many keen observers and researchers of the Myanmar's problematic history. 

In 2007 when I was invited as chief guest and keynote speaker in an international conference on the Rohingyas of Burma, held in Tokyo, Japan, its theme was the prevalent xenophobia in Myanmar and how to address the issue so that people of all ethnic and religious backgrounds could live harmoniously. One after another the speakers spoke at length about the danger that they foresaw. We all knew that simply a transition to so-called democracy would not and could not solve the Rohingya problem. Instead of a much-needed dialogue for reconciliation and confidence-building between ethnic/national and religious groups, what we recognised and faced from the so-called 'democracy' leaders within the Burmese and Rakhine Diaspora was appalling Buddhist chauvinism. They would not talk with or listen to the Rohingya people; as if, their so-called struggle for democracy against the hated military regime was a purely Buddhist one, the Rohingya Muslims were unwelcome in those dialogues between ethnic/national groups.
The level of Buddhist intolerance, hatred and xenophobia had simply no parallel in our time. Those chauvinist Buddhists were in denial of the very existence of the Rohingya people, in spite of the fact that the latter group comprised more than a third of the population of the Rakhine state and that the ancestors of the Rohingya were the first settlers in the crescent of Arakan before others moved in. While the vast majority of the late comers to the contested territory were Buddhists, the Rohingyas, much like the people living next door — on the other side of the river Naf — in today's Bangladesh had embraced Islam voluntarily. Their conversion had also much to do with the history of the entire region, especially in the post-13th century when the Sultans and the great Mughal emperors ruled vast territories of the South Asia from the foothills of the Himalayas to the shores of the Indian Ocean. 

As a matter of fact, the history of Arakan, sandwiched then between Muslim-dominated India and Buddhist-dominated Burma, would have been much different had it not been for the crucial decision made by the Muslim Sultan of Bengal who reinstalled the fleeing Buddhist king Narameikhtla to the throne of Arakan in 1430 with a massive Muslim force of nearly 60,000 soldiers — sent in two campaigns. Interestingly, the Muslim General Wali Khan, leading a force of 25,000 soldiers, who was instructed to put the fleeing monarch to the throne of Arakan, had claimed it for himself. He was subsequently uprooted in a new campaign, again at the directive of the Sultan of Muslim Bengal, by General Sandi Khan who led a force of 35,000 soldiers. What would be Arakan's history today if the Muslim Sultan of Bengal had let General Wali Khan to rule the country as his client? 

We need not change the course of history. But is it wrong to expect human rights for all that are enshrined in the UN? Sadly, not a single of the 30 clauses of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is honoured by the apartheid Myanmar regime when it comes to its treatment of this unfortunate people. What is more shocking is the emerging fact that the so-called democracy leaders within the Buddhist opposition in Burma have very little, if any, in common with the core values and ideals of democracy. Instead, their behaviour has repeatedly shown that they are closet fascists and are no democrats. Thus, all the efforts of the Rohingya and other non-Buddhist minority groups to reach out to the exiled Buddhist-dominated opposition leadership in the pre-Thein Sein era simply failed. It was an ominous warning for the coming days.

So in 2012 when the region witnessed a series of highly orchestrated ethnic cleansing drives against the Rohingya and other Muslim groups not just within the Rakhine state but all across Myanmar, like some keen observers of the political developments there I was not too surprised. Nor was I amazed with the divisive role played by leaders of the so-called democracy movement. They showed their real fascist colour. But the level of ferocity, savagery and inhumanity simply stunned me! I could not believe what I was witnessing. It showed that the Theravada Buddhists of Myanmar, like their co-religionists in Sri Lanka and Cambodia, have become the worst racists and bigots of our time. With the evolving incendiary and poisonous role of Buddhist monks like Wirathu — the abbot of historically influential Mandalay Ma-soe-yein monastery and his 969 fascist movement, which sanctifies eliminationist policies against the Muslims, surely, the teachings of Gautama Buddha have miserably failed to enlighten them and/or put a lid on their all too obvious savagery and monstrosity. 

On June 20, 2013 twelve Nobel Peace Laureates called upon the Myanmar government for ending violence against Muslims in Burma. They also called for an international independent investigation of the anti-Muslim violence. Yet, the Myanmar regime continues to ignore international plea for integration of the Rohingya and other minorities.

So the plight of the Rohingya and other Muslim minorities continues unabated inside apartheid Myanmar. In ethnic cleansing drives in this country, the victims are usually the Rohingyas and yet they end up in the prisons (and not the Buddhist marauders) overwhelmingly. A peaceful demonstration may cost them their lives in this Mogher Mulluk. The same security forces which did nothing to stop lynching of Muslim victims have no moral qualms in killing them unprovoked for staging a peaceful demonstration. Genocide of the Rohingyas is a national project in Myanmar. It is, therefore, no surprise that ignoble Aung San Suu Kyi is an endorser to this horrendous crime through her wilful silence to condemning it. 

A reading of history shows that genocide succeeds when state sovereignty blocks international responsibility to protect its persecuted group. It continues due to lack of authoritative international institutions to predict it and call it as such. It happens due to lack of ready rapid response forces to stop it and lack of political will to peacefully prevent it and to forcefully intervene to stop it. 
Since founding of the UN, at least 45 genocides and politicides have taken place in our world resulting in deaths of some 70 million people. It is a shameful record that needs to be improved. Let's not allow the UN to add another genocide to its shameful record of failures that either overlooked it or tried to intervene when it was too late! It must stop the war criminals in Myanmar from their genocidal crimes against the Rohingyas.

Dr Habib Siddiqui is a peace and rights activist.

Wednesday 29 January 2014

Duchiradan (Kilaindaung) in southern Maungdaw is on fire

Source rvisiontv, 28 Jan

The west-hamlet of the village of Duchiradan (Kilaindaung) in southern Maungdaw is on fire now. The fire caught Rohingya houses at around 9pm on 28th January 2014 (Myanmar Standard Time-MST). How the fire started in the village is unknown yet. Neither Rohingya from any other village is allowed to go the village nor many locals of the village live there because of the fear of becoming the victims of violence again. Those who were living in the village are believed to have fled to their nearby village as soon as the fire started.
A local from a nearby villages said "we believe the fire that started in the village around 9pm has razed 7-8 houses till now (Speaking at the time, 9:30pm). There are now more than 300 Military and Hlun Hteins combined blocking the village. Besides, Maungdaw higher authority are also in the village now. Hence, we can't approach to the village. Since Rakhine terrorists can roam freely in the village, it is highly likely that they set Rohingya houses into fire."
Duchiradan is the village which was hit by the Myanmar-Regime-sponsored violence on 14thJanuary 2014. Myanmar and Security Force together with Rakhine terrorists mutiliated and killed around 50 innocent people. They raped women/girls. Rohingyas' homes were destroyed and their properties were looted by Rakhine extremists. They arbitrarily arrested many people. More than 300 people are still missing. People believe they were also massacred.


Tuesday 28 January 2014

Thai police rescue hundreds of Rohingya in raid on suspected traffickers' camp

Source Reuters, 27 Jan
A Thai fishing boat plies the invisible maritime border between Thailand and Myanmar, with the hills of Myanmar visible in the background November 1, 2013. REUTERS/Andrew RC Marshall

A Thai fishing boat plies the invisible maritime border between Thailand and Myanmar, with the hills of Myanmar visible in the background November 1, 2013.

CREDIT: REUTERS/ANDREW RC MARSHALL

(Reuters) - Thai police have rescued hundreds of Rohingya Muslims from a remote camp in a raid prompted by a Reuters investigation into human trafficking, police officials said on Monday.

Police detained 531 men, women and children in Sunday's raid at a camp near the town of Sadao in the southern province of Songkhla, on a well-established route for human smugglers near Thailand's border with Malaysia. It was the first raid on illegal Rohingya smuggling camps since January 9, 2013.

The police said they were following up on a December 5 Reuters report that Rohingya were held hostage in camps hidden near the border with Malaysia until relatives pay ransoms to release them. Some were beaten and killed.

The Rohingya are mostly stateless Muslims from Myanmar, also known as Burma. Deadly clashes between Rohingya and ethnic Rakhine Buddhists erupted in Buddhist-majority Myanmar last year, making 140,000 people homeless, most of them Rohingya.

Since then, tens of thousands of Rohingya have fled from Myanmar by boat and many arrive off southwest Thailand.

The United Nations and the United States called for an investigation into the Reuters report, based on a two months of research in three countries, that revealed a clandestine policy to remove Rohingya refugees from Thai immigration detention centers and deliver them to human traffickers waiting at sea.

"After Reuters gave us information, we ordered an investigation into the camps," said Chatchawan Suksomjit, deputy national police chief. He said they captured three suspectedringleaders at the camp, all of them Thai males.

Reuters gave the Thai authorities coordinates to one camp near Sadao which was empty by the time they arrived, but police found another camp nearby.

"From the Reuters report, we received a clue that it was in Kao Roop Chang (village). But the camp was already moved from there when we found it. We found only an empty camp there. So we investigated more until we found the new camp," said Colonel Kan Tammakasem, superintendent of immigration in Songkhla.

The plight of the Rohingya illustrates the limits to Myanmar's wave of democratic reforms since military rule ended in March 2011. Inside Myanmar, they face apartheid-like conditions and, according to the United Nations, many forms of "persecution, discrimination and exploitation".

U.S. SCRUTINY

Police are trying to identify the origins of those detained after the raid, not all of whom were Rohingya, said Chatchawan. "We are interviewing all of them to see if they are victims of human trafficking," he said.

They are being kept at an immigration detention center in Songkhla.

"We have to interview them and proceed according to Thai immigration laws," he said. "It will depend on whether they want to go back. If they are willing we will send them back as we have done before."

Last year, Thailand implemented a secretive policy to deport the Rohingya.

These deportations delivered many Rohingya back into the hands of smuggling networks and human traffickers, who in some cases ferried them back to Thailand's secret border camps, reported Reuters.

The raid comes as the U.S. State Department is finalizing its research for its next Trafficking In Persons (TIP) report, due in June, which ranks countries on their counter-trafficking performance.

Thailand is Southeast Asia's second-biggest economy and a close U.S. ally, but has a poor record in fighting trafficking and faces a possible downgrade to the report's lowest rank, putting it at risk of U.S. sanctions and potentially placing it on a par with North Korea andIran.

Nine people were arrested in Thailand in relation to Rohingya smuggling in 2013, including two government officials, according to police data, but none of the arrests has led to convictions.

(Additional reporting by Jutarat Skulpichetrat; Editing by Jason Szep and Robert Birsel)

Friday 24 January 2014

BREAKING NEWS Order for Arrests of all Rohingya Males Over 10 Years

 
Source UN, 23 Jan


Humanitarian chief Valerie Amos (centre), on a visit in December 2012 to the the Ma Gyee Myaing camp in Sittwe Town, Myanmar, where displaced from Rakhine state are hosted. Photo: UNOCHA/David Ohana

23 January 2014– The United Nations human rights and humanitarian chiefs on Thursday voiced deep concern about reports of alarming levels of violence in Myanmar's Rakhine state, including the killing of many civilians and a policeman, and called for an immediate investigation by the authorities.

The UN has received credible information that, on 9 January, eight Rohingya Muslim men were attacked and killed in Du Chee Yar Tan village by local Rakhine, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said in a news release.

This was followed by a clash on 13 January in the same village in which a police sergeant was captured and killed by the Rohingya villagers. Following this, on the same evening, at least 40 Rohingya Muslim men, women and children were killed in Du Chee Yar Tan village by police and local Rakhine. "I deplore the loss of life in Du Chee Yar Tan and call on the authorities to carry out a full, prompt and impartial investigation and ensure that victims and their families receive justice," said High Commissioner Navi Pillay, adding that her Office stands ready to support this process.

"By responding to these incidents quickly and decisively, the Government has an opportunity to show transparency and accountability, which will strengthen democracy and the rule of law in Myanmar," she stated.

OHCHR also noted there have been reports that 10 Rohingya men from the village have been detained and there are concerns for their treatment in detention.

Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Valerie Amos also called on the Government to immediately launch an impartial investigation into these events and to respect the rights of those arrested and detained.

"I ask the Government of Myanmar to take all necessary measures to ensure the full protection of all civilians and to enable safe and continued access by humanitarian staff to the affected areas in order to assess needs and provide emergency assistance to all those affected by the recent violence," Ms. Amos added in a statement.

Last week, the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Myanmar, Tomás Ojea Quintana, called on the Government to investigate reports of fatal clashes between security forces and Muslims in Rakhine state, where over 110,000 people have been uprooted in Buddhist-Muslim violence in the past 18 months.

Mr. Ojea Quintana said the human rights situation in Rakhine state is posing one of the most serious threats to the process of democratic reform and national reconciliation in Myanmar, which has seen the release of hundreds of prisoners of conscience, greater media freedom, an active Parliament and efforts to reach a ceasefire with various rebel groups.

 
 
BREAKING NEWS Order for Arrests of all Rohingya Males Over 10 Years
 
This is a critical stage in this event that experts say is a Genocide. The Rohingya have always been persecuted, but the news of literally rounding up all Rohingya takes this event to a new level.

Hands cuffed

(RANGOON) - Shocking information out of Myanmar: sources on the ground in Maungdaw say an order has been issued for the arrest of all Rohingya Muslim males over 10. The Rohingya are considered to be the most persecuted people in the world by the United Nations. They have been suffering a Genocidal event since July of 2012, at the hands of the government and Rakhine Buddhist mobs.
Two international people have been contacted from inside Maungdaw that an order from NayPiDaw has been given to arrest all Rohingya males over 10 years old. Mass arrests have started in Maungdaw.
One of these witnesses has said that arrests have already started in Maungdaw. It is not clear if these arrests have occurred in the last 24 hours or include the Jan 14-17 mass arrests in Kiladaung and nearby villages last week.
Our source reports that as of 11:30 p.m. Yamgon time, they are unable to sleep, "because there is much noise from many cars moving on the roads. Only government cars/vehicles are allowed on the roads in Maungdaw town at night."
This is a critical stage in this event that experts say is a Genocide. The Rohingya have always been persecuted, but the news of literally rounding up all Rohingya takes this event to a new level.

Tuesday 21 January 2014

The Rohingyas of Myanmar - Does Anyone Care about their plight?

Source Asiantribune, 21 Jan
 
By Dr. Habib Siddiqui

At the Milwaukee International Conference last year it was noted with great concern that what was going on in the Arakan State was nothing short of genocide. The current events in Myanmar again confirm our fear.

In a recently published article, journalist Dr. Ismail Salami of Press TV demonstrated how the 8-stages of genocide, first coined by Dr. Greg Stanton, are in play when it comes to the Rohingya people. He writes [extra phrases or sentences within the parentheses are mine]:

1) Classification: People are classified into "us" and "other", the first stage towards sociocide and colonization. In Myanmar, Muslims are seen as the 'other' and therefore inferior.

2) Symbolizations: People are given names or symbols in order that others may tell them apart. This stage is not, per se, dangerous unless it turns into dehumanization. [The Rohingya people are called 'Kala' people, or Chittagonians or Bengalis - to symbolize that they are outsiders in the Buddhist majority country of Burma.]

3) Dehumanization: In this stage, one group refuses to acknowledge the humanity of the other group. In other words, one group reduces another group to a subhuman. This is exactly what is happening to the Rohinyga Muslims in Myanmar. [After being classified as state-less in their ancestral land, the Rohingya people face daily dehumanization in the hands of every Buddhist - civilian or government officials. It, thus, sets the stage for crimes against them which are ignored by the government, and considered as legitimate violence to weed them out.]

4) Organization: Genocide is backed up by the government or government-related bodies. A genocidal act is carried out through an intermediary such as terrorist groups or punks in order that the government can exonerate itself from any blame whatsoever. In Myanmar, the government has frequently repeated that the carnage is conducted by mobs. [As has been documented repeatedly, the mobs not only enjoyed the clear support from the Thein Sein Government and the local municipal or township authorities in such pogroms against Muslims they were seen actively participating in such crimes against humanity.]

5) Polarization: Hate groups forbid some of the very fundamental rights of the browbeaten group. For instance, in Myanmar, Rohinyga couples should secure permission to marry. If they marry unofficially, they may be arrested and incarcerated. Muslim men ought to shave their beard so that they may be given permission for marriage. They are not allowed to build new mosques or seminaries nor are they allowed to renovate the old mosques.

6) Preparation: In this stage, the victim groups are identified and made to wear badges which distinguish them from others. Further to that, they are selected for the death row or marked for death. The selection may be random or systematic. For instance, in March 2013, over 40 houses and a mosque were burned and at least 32 people were killed in Myanmar. [The Buddhist terrorist monk Wirathu and his band of hard core racist and bigot monks and supporters have been known to visit a targeted Muslim site days before the planned day of attack. Then they set up meetings with local Buddhists and community leaders where the mob is fed disinformation and hateful messages saying that if the Rohingya and other Muslims are not eliminated the Buddhists would disappear. Thus, the mobs are given the reasons for which they must attack first. The criminal program is meticulously planned and followed with full cooperation of local leaders and government officials.]

7) Extermination: In this stage, the extermination of the downtrodden group starts at the hand of the hate group. The term signifies that the hate group who functions like a killing machine refuses to believe that the people they are killing are indeed human beings with human feelings and worthy of living in this world. [The Rohingya people have been victims of repeated extermination campaigns since at least the 1940s when the Japanese Army moved into the vacated British-occupied territories, let alone the great massacre of 1784 in which many Rohingyas were slaughtered, and others taken as slaves by Buddhist fanatic king Bodawpaya of Burma.]

8) Denial: It is the last stage and a routine with any genocide. In the recent attack and mutilation of women and children, the government denied that a Buddhist mob rampaged through a town and mutilated Muslim women and children while witnesses and a rights group said more than a dozen people may have been killed, and that hundreds have fled their homes.

"We have had no information about killings," Deputy Information Minister Ye Htut told reporters on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Nations Foreign Ministers' meeting in Myanmar's ancient city of Bagan. [End quote.]

The Burma Task, UK, has lately noted that "Pipe bomb [was] found outside Muslim orphanage in Shan State". It noted: "A pipe bomb was found outside a Muslim orphanage in Taunggyi, Shan State, on 25 December, according to Mizzima News. The pipe bomb was discovered inside a plastic bag and military officials carried out a controlled detonation. Three other pipe bombs were discovered in a gutter in Taunggyi earlier in December."

This once again shows that the genocidal campaign in Myanmar is an all-encompassing one with the objective of eliminating the entire Muslim population in this Buddhist majority country.

And yet, the powerful western nations refuse to call a spade a spade and do the needful to stop this genocide of the Rohingya people. Their attitude reminds me of the statement made by various speakers in the Milwaukee conference that the West has been hypocritical in such contentious issues; its self-interest has always taken precedence over its morality. Burma is looked upon as a far distant place that is well into the zone of influence of China, and probably India, too, and the west has nothing at stake, even if they were to ignore the problem.

With all the powers the western powers have in the UN, it has, therefore, become a difficult task for the rest of us who care to find noble and fair solutions to such humanitarian crises of our time. How long should the Rohingya and other vulnerable people wait? Will they have to wait until it is too late – they are all exterminated in a calculated way?

- Asian Tribune -

Saturday 18 January 2014

US urges Myanmar to probe attacks on Muslims after 60 killed

Source todayszaman, 17 Jan
 
A Muslim man is escorted by police officers following a trial at a township court in Meikhtila in central Myanmar, in this May 21, 2013 file photo. (Photo: AP)

The United States on Friday urged Myanmar to investigate reports that security forces and Buddhist mobs attacked members of the Rohingya Muslim minority this week, killing as many as 60 people.

Rights groups reported attacks by security forces and ethnic Rakhine Buddhist mobs against Rohingya in a village in the Maungdaw township of western Rakhine state over the past three days.

"The United States is deeply concerned about reports of fresh violence in Rakhine state, including reports that security forces may have committed abuses," a US Embassy official told Reuters. "We urge the government to thoroughly investigate such reports."

Chris Lewa, director of Rohingya advocacy group Arakan Project, said the numbers of unconfirmed dead ranged from 10 to 60. She said the violence appeared to have started when Rohingya villagers clashed with police on the evening of Jan 13.

Rakhine state government spokesman Win Myaing denied anyone was killed.

Incidents in Maungdaw township and other parts of Rakhine state are difficult to verify independently, as they are off limits to journalists and the government strictly controls access by international aid groups.

Aung Win, a Rohingya activist based in the state capital of Sittwe, told Reuters his contacts were unable to reach the village because it had been "encircled" by security forces, preventing anyone from checking for dead bodies.

Medecins Sans Frontieres, which runs a nearby clinic, said it was concerned that residents who fled the area may need medical care.

"MSF confirms that on Wednesday it saw two wounded people suffering from injuries inflicted as a result of violence - one from a gunshot wound and the other exhibiting injuries consistent with a beating," said Myanmar head of mission Peter-Paul de Groote.

Any deaths this week would add to the tally of at least 237 people killed in religious violenceacross Myanmar since June 2012, which has also displaced more than 140,000 people.

Most of the victims were Muslims and the most deadly incidents happened in Rakhine state, where about one million Rohingya live under apartheid-like conditions, denied citizenship with their movements tightly restricted and with little access to health care, jobs or 

education
.

Rohingya have been fleeing Myanmar in droves, crowding into dangerously overloaded boats, with many dying at sea. The exodus has created problems for neighbouring countries dealing with the flood of illegal immigration.

Myanmar's government said on Thursday, however, it would not discuss the issue at meetings of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), a regional political and economic bloc it will chair through 2014.

"This Bengali issue is our internal affair so we wouldn't discuss it, even if other countries demanded at the ASEAN meetings while our country is the chair," government spokesman Ye Htut told reporters.

Like many in Myanmar, Ye Htut used the term "Bengali" to refer to the Rohingya, who reject the designation, which they see as underscoring an assertion that they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, even though many families have lived in western Myanmar for generations.

Thursday 16 January 2014

7 Rohingyas involving women and children killed, 100 Rohingyas arrested

Source from BROUK president Tun Khin,
 

The early morning at around 3 am of 13th January 2014, a group of police, security forces, military and Rakhine entered Kiladaung village, south of Maungdaw, Arakan State. They entered a house and demanded valuables, gold and money from the Rohingya woman living there. Her husband gone for hiding when the security forces approaching. When the woman refused to give them her jewellery, the security forces raped and killed her. When her children began shouting, many villagers came and confrontation took place.

The police opened fire to the villagers. Three Rohingya women, three children and one man were killed and 4 people wounded by gunshot. About one hundred Rohingyas were arrested at that time and arrests have continued since Tuesday morning. There are reports that military, police and security forces and Rakhines are looting Rohingya properties including cows, rice and valuables. Some sources wrongfully report rumours spread by security forces and police that one police officer was killed.

Wednesday 15 January 2014

Myanmar Security Force (Lun Htin) Arrest Rohingya Women After Failing to Arrest Male Villagers from Kiladaung

Source from Salamnews, 14 Jan

The unrest is taking place in villages south of Maungdaw.

Map of Maungdaww, Burma

(MAUNGDAW, Burma) - According to a reliable news source from Maungdaw, some Rohingya women have been taken to Maungdaw Lun Htin Headquarters from the Kiladaung village (Du Chiradan village), located six miles south of Maungdaw, after Lun Htin (Govt. security forces) failed to arrest male villagers.

It is alleged that last night, a Lun Htin, along with his other Rakhine Buddhist associates, entered the village, reportedly for the purpose of looting.

A G3 gun belonging to one of the Lun Htin is said to have gone missing. So, using the missing weapon as their reason, the security forces entered the village today noon to arrestmale villagers. However, almost all the male villagers escaped from their homes in fear of arrest.

The prevailing tense situation leaves these villagers and also those from other neighboring villages extremely worried.

Edited for Salem-News.com by Tim King

Special thanks to Nurul Islam, Media, GWAB (Grassroots Welfare Association)

________________________________________

Tuesday 14 January 2014

Hostage in Sittwe

Source Roadsandkingdom

Of all the challenges that Myanmar's Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has stared down in her life, the one she faces in 2014 may be the one she fails. She seemingly willed her country to democracy, but as a freed opposition politician she has so far been unable—or,her critics say, unwilling—to help the most vulnerable members of Myanmar society, the Rohingya minority.

A year and a half ago, an outbreak of violence between Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims in Sittwe, Myanmar, started a struggle that drove nearly 150,000 Rohingya from their homes and into poorly run Internally Displaced Person (IDP) camps. Photographer Andrew Stanbridge made multiple trips to Sittwe amidst the continuing violence to document the Rohingya's problematic situation and uncertain future in Myanmar.

In the Muslim neighborhood of Aung Mingalar, security forces and barricades block off roads, preventing Rohingya from taking part in normal Sittwe society, which leaves them with little sources of food or work. Worse are the conditions inside the dusty camps, where those lucky enough to have the official aid buildings live 10 families to each long house. Those that are still waiting for shelter from the government are left to create makeshift tent cities out of whatever they can salvage, whether it be empty food bags from aid groups or dried rice stalks. Temperatures can vary drastically, from searing daytime heat to cold nights and monsoon rains. Access to clean water and food is limited and although toilets are some of the first things built, raw sewage still moves through open waterways. There are frequent disagreements between the police—largely members of the Burmese ethnic majority—and the Rohingya IDPs. These confrontations sometimes turn violent.

There are other oppressed minorities in Myanmar—the Shan, the Kachin, the Karen—but the Rohingya are not even recognized as a legitimate ethnic group in Myanmar, nor are they given citizenship rights. They have no voice. The question for 2014 is: Will Aung San Suu Kyi lend them hers? —Pauline Eiferman
  • Rohingya pick through a burned-out village for useable scraps like nails and bricks.Photo by: Andrew Stanbridge
  • Young men stroll past one of the many shops that have been closed for business since the violence began.Photo by: Andrew Stanbridge
  • Rohingya girls in the Muslim "ghetto" of Sittwe dress up for the Eid holiday.Photo by: Andrew Stanbridge
  • Rations of sweet milk are handed out in Aung Mingalar during the celebration of the Muslim holiday Eid.Photo by: Andrew Stanbridge
  • The entrance to one of the larger Rohingya IDP camps outside of Sittwe.Photo by: Andrew Stanbridge
  • A Rohingya woman crosses a stream that separates two IDP encampments.Photo by: Andrew Stanbridge
  • Many of the camps are built from salvaged materials.Photo by: Andrew Stanbridge
  • A Rohingya woman stands in front of one of the "temporary" encampments.Photo by: Andrew Stanbridge
  • A man and his children take refuge from the searing midday sun in the tent they call home.Photo by: Andrew Stanbridge
  • A Rohingya man prays in a makeshift mosque in one of the IDP camps.Photo by: Andrew Stanbridge
  • A policeman on patrol in the IDP camps shows off his tattoo.Photo by: Andrew Stanbridge
  • Police train their weapons on one of the IDP camps that saw protesting earlier in the day.Photo by: Andrew Stanbridge
  • A Rohingya woman fans her husband who was shot by police forces during the protestsPhoto by: Andrew Stanbridge
  • Villagers and family members surround the body of a Rohingya man killed by police gunfire during the protests.Photo by: Andrew Stanbridge
[Top image: A burned Rohingya mosque in the town of Sittwe, Myanmar.]

Andrew Stanbridge
Andrew Stanbridge is a Portland, OR based photographer who photographs, publishes and exhibits internationally. His most recent work shown here is the culmination of two trips to Sittwe, Myanmar to cover the aftermath of violence between Buddhists and Rohingyan Muslims. More of his work can be found at andrewstanbridge.com.

Monday 13 January 2014

82 Rohingyas pushed back to Myanmar

Source thenationbd, 12 Jan

 The members of 42 Battalion of Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) arrested 82 Rohingyas from several border point areas of Teknaf upazila in Cox's Bazar districts on Saturday morning and pushed back them at evening.

 BGB source said that a mobile team of Teknaf Sadar BOP conducted a drive in Naytongpara border area and arrested 13 Rohingyas and in another drive in Adai number sluice gate area arrested five Rohingyas at morning on Saturday along with children, male and female.
Shahaporirdwip BOP conducted a drive led by
BOP company commander Tota Miah in Badarmokam border area of Shahaporirdwip and arrested 64 Rohingyas last night on Friday who came to Bangladesh crossing border by boat and were going to refugee camp.

 BGB commander in 42 Battalion of Teknaf Lt Col Abuzar Al Jahid acknowledge this information and said that arrested Rohingyas also have been pushed back at afternoon and evening on Saturday with humanitarian aid.

Wednesday 8 January 2014

Sayar U Aye Lwin Meets Burmese Community and Interfaith Religious Groups in Australia

ဇန္န၀ါရီ ၆၊ ၂၀၁၄
M-Media
စုစည္းတင္ျပသူ – သိန္းမိုး၀င္း (Sydney)

Australia ႏိုင္ငံမွ ျမန္မာမိသားစု၀င္မ်ား ၾကီးမႈးၿပီး "ဘာသာေပါင္းစံု ခ်စ္ၾကည္ရင္းနွီးစြာ အတူယွဥ္တြဲ ေနထိုင္ေရးနွင္႔ တရားဥပေဒ စိုးမိုးမႈ အေရးၾကီးပံု" ေဆြးေႏြးဖလွယ္မႈ အစီအစဥ္ကုိ ၂၀၁၃-ခု ဒီဇင္ဘာ ၁၄-ရက္ေန႔မွ ၁၉-ရက္ေန႔အထိ ဆစ္ဒနီၿမိဳ႕တြင္ က်င္းပခဲ့ရာ အလ္ဟာ၈်္ ဆရာ ဦးေအးလြင္ (အစၥလာမ္႔ ဓမၼဗိမၼာန္) တက္ေရာက္ေဆြးေႏြးခဲ့ပါသည္။

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ဆရာ အလ္ဟာဂ်္ ဦးေအးလြင္၏ ဆစ္ဒနီျမိဳ႔ Australia နိုင္ငံသို႔ေရာက္ရွိစဥ္ ျမန္မာမြတ္စလင္ မိသားစု၀င္မ်ားနွင္႔ ေတြ႔ဆံု၍ ဘာသာလူမ်ိဴးမခြဲျခား ရင္းနွီးခ်စ္ခင္စြာ အတူယွဥ္တြဲနိုင္ေရးၾကိဳးပမ္းေနမႈမ်ားအားရွင္းလင္းတင္ျပျပီး ျမန္မာျပည္ဖြား အစၥလာမ္ဘာသာ၀င္ မိသားစုမ်ားမွလဲ ျမန္မာ၌ျဖစ္ေပၚ လ်က္ ရွိေသာ ဘာသာေရး၊ လူမ်ိဴးေရးဆန္ဆန္  ပဋိပကၡမ်ားအတြက္ အထူးပဲ စိုးရိမ္ပူပန္ေနမိၾကေၾကာင္း၊ တိုင္းျပည္သာယာ၀ေျပာေရး-ျပည္သူအားလံုး မခြဲျခား ျငိမ္းခ်မ္းစြာ ယွဥ္တြဲေနထိုင္ေရး-တရားဥပေဒ စိုးမိုးေရးတို႔မွာ Interconnected ျဖစ္ေနေၾကာင္း၊ စစ္မွန္သည္႔ ဒီမိုကေရစီေပၚမွာ အေျခခံသည္႔ ျငိမ္းခ်မ္းမႈမ်ိဴး ျမန္မာျပည္သူျပည္သား အားလံုး  အျမန္ဆံုး ခံစား စံစားနိုင္ေစဖို႔ ဆုမြန္ေကာင္းေတာင္းၾကေၾကာင္း မ်ားေဆြးေႏြးခဲ့ၾကသည္။

Sydney ျမိဳ႕တြင္ ဆရာဦးေအးလြင္ႏွင့္ ျမန္မာျပည္ဖြား မိသားစု၀င္မ်ား (ဗုဒၶဘာသာ၀င္၊ အစၥလာမ္ဘာသာ၀င္၊ ခရစ္ယာန္ ဘာသာ၀င္ နွင္႔ ဟိႏၵဴဘာသာ၀င္) ရပ္မိရပ္ဖမ်ား နွင္႔ ေတြ႔ဆံုရာတြင္လည္း ဆရာဦးေအးလြင္မွ ႐ွင္းလင္းေျပာၾကားခဲ့ရာတြင္ ယခုလက္ရွိ (Religions for Peace) မွ သီတဂူဆရာေတာ္ ဘုရားၾကီး အပါအ၀င္ ဆရာ ဦးေအးလြင္နွင္႔ ဘာသာေပါင္းစံုမွ ဆရာေတာ္ၾကီးမ်ားပူးေပါင္း၍ ခ်စ္ၾကည္ေရးလုပ္ငန္းမ်ား ၾကိဳးစားေဆာင္ရြက္ေနေၾကာင္း၊ RfP ၏ ရည္မွန္းခ်က္သည္ ဘာသာမတူ အယူအဆ မတူသူမ်ားအၾကား Engage လုပ္ေပးျခင္းျဖင္႔ မသမာသူမ်ား၏ ေသြးထိုး ေျခထိုး မဟုတ္ေသြးထိုး ေနမႈမ်ားေမွးမိွန္ကာ အမွန္တရားျဖင္႔ ရွင္းလင္းဖလွယ္နိုင္မႈမ်ား တိုးပြားလာမည္ျဖစ္သည္႔အျပင္ မတူလက္မ်ား ျငိမ္းခ်မ္းစြာ ယွဥ္တြဲေနထိုင္လာနိုင္ရန္ ရည္ရြယ္ၾကိဳးစားေနၾကေၾကာင္း၊ ျမန္မာျပည္တြင္း၌ျပည္သူမ်ားအား ထင္ေရာင္ထင္မွားျဖစ္ေစရန္ ၀ါဒျဖန္႔ေနမႈမ်ား (ဥပမာ – Islamization ၾသဇာလႊမ္းေအာင္ ဓားမိုးျပီးသာသနာျပဳျခင္း၊ သားေဖာက္ သာသနာျပဳျခင္း၊ အိမ္ေထာင္ျပဳျပီး သာသနာျပဳျခင္း၊ ေငြေပး စည္းရံုးျခင္း၊  ေသြးေဆာင္ ဖ်ားေယာင္းျခင္းမ်ားျပဳလုပ္ေနသည္ဟု စြပ္စြဲ ၀ါဒျဖန္႔ေနမႈမ်ား) ရွိေၾကာင္း၊ အစၥလာမ္ဘာသာ ကိုးကြယ္ေနသူမ်ားအား အႏၲရာယ္ သဖြယ္ ပံုေဖာ္ကာ ပတ္၀န္းက်င္နိုင္ငံမ်ားပင္လွ်င္ ဒီအစၥလာမ္ေၾကာင္႔ တစ္ခုျပီးတစ္ခု က်ဆံုးေနျပီ စသျဖင္႔ မိႈင္းတိုက္ေနျခင္းမ်ားသည္ အလြန္ပင္ မွားယြင္းေၾကာင္း၊Islam သည္ ျငိမ္းခ်မ္းေရးဟု အမည္ရျပီး အတင္းအဓမၼ မေလွ်ာ္ ၾသဇာသံုး ေလာကီ လာဘ္လာဘေပး ေသြးေဆာင္ ဖ်ားေယာင္းျခင္းမ်ိဴးကို အစၥလာမ္႔ တရားေတာ္အရ ခြင္႔မျပဳထားေၾကာင္း၊ Social Dispute ကို ဘာသားေရး စနက္တံ အျဖစ္ပံုေဖာ္ကာ မတည္ျငိမ္ေအာင္ ဖန္တီးေနျခင္းမ်ားသာျဖစ္ေၾကာင္း၊ Crime ကို က်ဴးလြန္သူ မည္သူမဆို ထိုသူဟာ ဘာသာ သာသနာရဲ႔ ဆံုးမမႈေအာက္က ေသြဖည္သြားသူျဖစ္၍ ဘာသာေရးနွင္႔ ဘာမွ မပတ္သက္ေသာ Criminal ၏လုပ္ရပ္ အျဖစ္ သာျမင္ရန္ လုိအပ္ေၾကာင္း (၀ါဒ နွင္႔ ၀ါဒီ) ကို ခြဲျမင္ရန္ လိုအပ္ေၾကာင္း၊ ၀ံသာနု ရကၡိတ တရားသည္ အင္မတန္ မြန္ျမတ္ျပီး ဆရာၾကီးဦးရာဇတ္မွ ဤ ၀ံသာနုရကၡိတ စိတ္ဓာတ္ (တို႔ဟာျမန္မာေတြ တို႔ျမန္မာျပည္ ျမန္မာ လူမ်ိဳးကိုခ်စ္ရမည္) ဟု ေၾကြးေၾကာ္ခဲ႔သလို မႏၱေလးျမိဳ႔ခံ သံဃာေတာ္မ်ား၏ ေထာက္ခံမႈကို လဲရခဲ႔ေၾကာင္း၊ သို႔ေသာ္ ဤ၀ံသာနုရကၡိတ တရားကို္ အတိုင္းအတာ တစ္ခုထက္ ေက်ာ္လြန္ကာ တလြဲအသံုးခ်ျပီး ကိုယ္႔အမ်ိဳးကိုယ္ ခ်စ္ျခင္းျဖင္႔ သူတစ္ပါး မုန္းျခင္းမ်ိဴး (ငါနဲ႔မတူ ငါ႔ရန္သူဟု) မျဖစ္သင္႔သည္႔ အျပင္၊ ဗုဒၶေဟာၾကားခဲ႔သည္႔ "ညာနတၱစရိယ၊ ေလာကတၱစရိယ" တရားထံုး နွလံုးမူသင္႔ေၾကာင္း၊ ျမန္မာျပည္၌ ဘယ္ဘာသာသာသနာမွ စတင္ပြင္႔ေပၚခဲ့ျခင္းမ်ိဴး မရွိခဲ႔ပါ။ သို႔ေသာ္ ေထရ၀ါဒ ဗုဒၶဘာသာကို လူမ်ားစု ကိုးကြယ္ျပီး ကမၻာေပၚ၌ ထြန္းကားေနသည္႔ ဘာသာသာသနာမ်ား ျမန္မာျပည္တြင္ က်င္႔သံုး ေနထိုင္ေနၾကသျဖင္႔ ျမန္မာရဲ႔  အလွဟာ Diversity အျဖစ္ရွိေနခဲ႔ပါေၾကာင္းတုိ႔ကုိ ေဆြးေႏြးခ့ဲသည္။

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ထုိ႔ေနာက္ အစၥလာမ္ဘာသာ ျမန္မာျပည္ကိုေရာက္တာ ဆရာၾကီး ဗိုလ္မွဴးဘရွင္တို႔လို ျမန္မာ႔သမိုင္း ကမၻာ႔သမိုင္း ပညာရွင္ၾကီးမ်ား၏ တင္ျပခ်က္မ်ား အရ နွစ္ေပါင္း(၁၂၀၀) ေက်ာ္ခဲ႔ျပီး၊ ပုဂံေခတ္ အေနာ္ရထာ မထူေထာင္ခင္ မင္း (၁၂) ဆက္အရင္ ပိတ္သုဥ္မင္း လက္ထက္ထဲကျဖစ္ေၾကာင္း၊ အဂၤလိပ္ျမန္မာ စစ္ပြဲမ်ားအျပီး ျမန္မာဟာ အိႏိၵယရဲ႕ ျပည္နယ္တစ္ခုအျဖစ္ ျဗိတိသၽွတို႔ သတ္မွတ္လိုက္သည္႔ အတြက္ ျမန္မာဟာ ကၽြန္ေအာက္က သေဘာက္ျဖစ္ခဲ႔ရျပီးေနာက္ နယ္စီးမျခား ကူးသန္း သြားလာမႈမ်ားလည္း ရွိခဲ႔သည္႔ အတြက္ ေျမာက္မ်ားစြာေသာ ဘာသာစံု လူမ်ိဳးစံု ၀င္ထြက္မႈရွိခဲ႔ေၾကာင္း၊ ျမန္မာျပည္ဟာ ပန္းေတြ အလံုးစံုနဲ႔ အင္မတန္လွတဲ႔ ဥယ်ာဥ္သဖြယ္ပါ။ ပန္းတစ္ပြင္႔ထဲ ရွိခ်င္လို႔ မတူကြဲျပားတဲ႔ တစ္ျခားပန္းေတြကို Bulldozer နဲ႔ ထိုးျပီးေတာ႔ တစ္မ်ိဴးထဲ ရွိရမယ္ဆိုရင္ ပန္းတစ္ပြင္႔ထဲလွခ်င္ေတာ႔လွမယ္ သို႔ေသာ္ အလွကေတာ႔ မဆံုနိုင္ဘူး။ အလွဆိုတာ မတူကြဲျပားမႈမ်ားေၾကာင္႔ ရွိေနတာျဖစ္ေၾကာင္း၊ ပညက္ေတာ္ ၁၀ ပါးထဲက ၂ပါးေလာက္ကို နိုင္ေအာင္က်င္႔ျပီဆိုရင္၊ ကံ ၅ပါးကို လံုေအာင္ က်င္႔နိုင္ျပီဆိုရင္ ပဋိပကၡေတြ ေတာ္ေတာ္ ျငိမ္းသြားမည္။ Buddhism မွာ လူကုိၾကည္႔ရင္ "ရုပ္ နဲ႔ နာမ္" ကိုသာ ရႈရမည္ျဖစ္ျပီး အသားအေယာင္၊က်ား/မ စသျဖင္႔ခြဲျခားမရႈရ။ Buddhism အရ တရုတ္၊ ကုလား၊ဗမာ၊ စသျဖင္႔ ခြဲျခားမႈ မျပဳပဲ ေကာင္းေသာသူ နွင္႔ ဆိုးေသာသူဟူ၍ သာ ရႈျမင္ရန္ေဖာ္ျပ ထားေၾကာင္း၊ သို႔ပါ၍ ဤ ဘာသာေပါင္းစံု ခ်စ္ၾကည္ေရး ေဆာင္ရြက္ေနေသာ ဆရာေတာ္ၾကီးမ်ားသည္ မိမိတို႔ ဘာသာအတြင္း၌ Intra-faith  (မိမိဘာသာရဲ႔ သြန္သင္ ဆံုးမမႈ)ကိုနားလည္ သေဘာေပါက္ေစရန္ ရွင္းျပေနၾကသလို Inter-faith (ဘာသာေပါင္းစံု ခ်စ္ၾကည္ရင္းနွီး ဖလွယ္မႈ) မ်ားလည္းေဆာင္ရြက္ေန ပါေၾကာင္း ရွင္းလင္းတင္ျပသြားသည္။

3

ဤအစီအစဥ္တြင္ ျမန္မာျပည္ဖြား ရပ္မိရပ္ဖမ်ားထဲမွလည္း ဘာသာေပါင္းစံု ခ်စ္ၾကည္ရင္းနွီးစြာ အတူယွဥ္တြဲေနထိုင္ေရးကို ျမန္မာျပည္မွ သီတဂူ ဆရာေတာ္ ဘုရားၾကီး အပါအ၀င္ ဆရာဦးေအးလြင္နွင္႔ ဘာသာေပါင္းစံုမွ ဆရာေတာ္ၾကီးမ်ား ပူးေပါင္း၍ ၾကိဳးစားေဆာင္ရြက္ေနျခင္းမ်ားအေပၚ အထူးပဲ ေလးစား ဂုဏ္ယူမိၾကေၾကာင္း၊ ေရွးယခင္ကတည္းက ေအးအတူပူအမွ် အတူ ယွဥ္တြဲေနထိုင္လာခဲ႔ၾကေသာ ဤတိုင္းရင္းသား ျမန္မာလူမ်ိဴးမ်ား အခ်င္းခ်င္း ဘာသာမတူ ကိုးကြယ္မႈ အေပၚ စိတ္၀မ္းကြဲမႈမ်ားမွ အဓိကရုဏ္းမ်ားျဖစ္လာရသည္ အထိ ဆိုးရြားလာမႈအေပၚ ဆစ္ဒနီျမိဳ႔ရွိ ျမန္မာ မိသားစု၀င္မ်ားမွ အထူးပဲ စိုးရိမ္ ပူပန္ေနၾကေၾကာင္း၊ Australia နိုင္ငံတြင္ Multicultural Societies ေတြစုေပါင္းျပိိး ျငိမ္းခ်မ္းစြာ အတူ ယွဥ္တြဲေနထိုင္နိုင္ရျခင္းမွာ Rule of Law ဟူေသာ တရားဥပေဒ စိုးမိုးမႈ ခိုင္မာျခင္းေၾကာင္႔ ျဖစ္၍ ျမန္မာနိုင္ငံတြင္ တရား ဥပေဒစိုးမိုးမႈသည္ Peaceful Coexistence အတြက္ အဓိကအခန္းက႑ တစ္ရပ္ျဖစ္ေၾကာင္း၊ ျငိမ္းခ်မ္းေရးကို လိုလားေသာ လူအဖြဲ႔အစည္းမ်ားမွ တစ္ဖက္က ျပည္သူေတြ အၾကား ၾကိဳးစားေဆာင္ရြက္ေနစဥ္မွာ ျမန္မာျပည္မွ နိုင္ငံေတာ္ အာဏာပိုင္ အဖြဲ႔အစည္းမ်ား အေနျဖင္႔လဲ တရားဥပေဒစိုးမိုးမႈကို အေျခအေနအခ်ိန္အခါ အလိုက္ ခြဲျခားမႈမ်ိဴးမဟုတ္ပဲ တရားမွ်တစြာ ထိထိေရာက္ေရာက္ေဖာ္ေဆာင္သင္႔ေၾကာင္း ျမန္မာျပည္သူျပည္သားမ်ား အေနျဖင္႔လဲ ဘာသာေရး၊ လူမ်ိဴးေရးဆန္ဆန္ ပဋိပကၡမ်ားတြင္ အလြယ္တကူ နားေယာင္တာမ်ိဴး မဟုတ္ဘဲ အေျခအေနျဖစ္ရိုးျဖစ္စဥ္ကို ေသခ်ာေလ႔လာ အကဲခတ္သင္႔ေၾကာင္း၊ ယခုလို မတည္ျငိမ္မႈမ်ားအား Unholy Allies ဟုေခၚသည္႔ မသမာသူ လူတစ္စုမွ အကြက္က်က် စီစဥ္ေဆာင္ရြက္ေန ဟန္တူေၾကာင္း၊ ထို ပဋိပကၡမ်ား အျမန္ဆံုး ရပ္တန္႔သြားဖို႔ ဘာသာေရး အဖြဲ႔အစည္းမ်ား၊လူမႈေရး နယ္ပယ္အသီးသီးမွ အဖြဲ႔အစည္းမ်ား နွင္႔ နိုင္ငံေရးပါတီမ်ား၊ အားလံုးစုေပါင္း၍ ၾကိဳးစားမႈ မျပဳပါက တုိင္းျပည္ ပ်က္သုဥ္း ေခတ္ေမွာင္မွာ ျပန္ရုန္းရ ကိန္းစိုက္နိုင္ေၾကာင္းတုိ႔ကုိ ျမန္မာျပည္ဖြား မိသားစု၀င္ ရပ္မိရပ္ဖမ်ားမွာ ၀ိုင္း၀န္းျပီး အားၾကိဳး မာန္တက္ေဆြးေႏြးခဲ့ၾကပါသည္။

၎ေနာက္ ဆရာ အလ္ဟာ၈်္ ဦးေအးလြင္သည္ ဆစ္ဒနီျမိဳ႔သို႔ေရာက္ရွိစဥ္ ျမန္မာဗုဒၶဘာသာဘုန္းေတာ္ၾကီး ေက်ာင္းတိုက္ (Ochardleigh Street, Yennora, New South Wales) သို႔  သြားေရာက္လည္ပတ္ျခင္း၊ျမန္မာခရစ္ယာန္ ဘာသာဘုန္းေတာ္ၾကီးမ်ားနွင္႔လည္း (Carbramatta West Rd, Carbramatta, NSW) ရွိ Church သို႔ ေလ့လာေရးသြားေရာက္လည္ပတ္ခဲ့သည္။

4

ျမန္မာ႔ Community BCBG Radio, SBS Burmese Radio နွင္႔ ABC Radio Australia  အစီအစဥ္မ်ားနွင္႔  အင္တာဗ်ဴးမ်ား ျပဳလုပ္ခဲ႔စဥ္ ဆရာ အလ္ဟာ၈်္ ဦးေအးလြင္မွ ရွင္းလင္းေဆြးေႏြးခဲ႔သည္မ်ားမွာ ယခင္႔ယခင္ကတည္းက ျမန္မာ၌ ဘာသာေပါင္းစံု လူမ်ိဴးေပါင္းစံု ခ်စ္ခင္ရင္းနွီးစြာ အတူတကြ ယွဥ္တြဲေနထိုင္လာခဲ႔ၾကပံု၊ အစၥလာမ္ဘာသာ ျမန္မာျပည္သို႔ ေရာက္ရွိခဲ႔သည္မွာ နွစ္ေပါင္း ၁၂၀၀ ေက်ာ္ရွိခဲ့ျပီျဖစ္ျပီး ျမန္မာျပည္ဖြား အစၥလာမ္ ဘာသာ၀င္မ်ားဟာ ျမန္မာျပည္ကို ခ်စ္ျမတ္နိုး ျမန္မာျပည္အတြက္ အလုပ္အေကၽြးျပဳခဲ႔ၾကျပီး တိုင္းျပည္ဖြံ႔ျဖိဳး တိုးတက္ေရးအတြက္ ေခာတ္ အဆက္ဆက္ ပါ၀င္ၾကိဳးစားခဲ႔ပံု၊ ပန္းဥယ်ာဥ္တြင္ ပန္းမံေပါင္းစံုေၾကာင္႔ အလွတင္႔သကဲ႔သို႔ ျမန္မာျပည္၌လဲ ဘာသာစံု လူမ်ိဴးစံု DiverseCulture ျဖင္႔  အလွဂုဏ္ မာန္တင္႔ခဲ႔ေသာ History ရွိခဲ႔၍ မတူကြဲျပားမႈမ်ားအား Thread ဟုမယူဆပဲ Strength ဟုယူဆကာMulticultural Diversity မွ တိုင္းျပည္ ဖြံ႔ျဖိဳးတိုးတက္မႈသို႔ ေဖာ္ေဆာင္သြားသင္႔ပံုတုိ႔ကုိ ဆရာဦးေအးလြင္က ထည့္သြင္းေျပာၾကားသြားခဲ့ပါသည္။

အင္တာဗ်ဴးမ်ား

BCBG Radio Interview (29th Dec 2013) (ျမန္မာ):

မူရင္းလင့္=> http://bcbgsydney.blogspot.com.au/
Download ယူရန္ Click Here

SBS Burmese Radio Interview (ျမန္မာ):

မူရင္းလင့္=> http://www.sbs.com.au/yourlanguage/burmese/highlight/page/id/307818/t/U-Aye-Lwin-Islamic-leader-and-Religious-for-Peace-Myanmar
Download ယူရန္ Click Here

ABC Radio Interview (ျမန္မာ):

မူရင္းလင့္=>  http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/burmese/radio/onairhighlights/1238762
Download ယူရန္ Click Here

Mystery of Flow of Thousands of Rohingya Through Thailand Deepens as Families Flee Shelter

Source Phuketwan, 7 Jan

Rohingya among the group that fled a family shelter north of Phuket
Photo by phuketwan.com
PHUKET: Thirteen women and children, among the latest Rohingya arrivals, have quickly vanished from a family shelter north of Phuket with serious questions now being asked about the human trafficking of thousands of people through Thailand.


The escapers - believed to have fled the family shelter in Khao Lak with the help of people traffickers - include a boy aged two who was scheduled to have an operation to relieve a large genital hernia at a local hospital tomorrow.


The women and children were from a boatload of 139 Rohingya apprehended in a forest in Phang Nga province on Christmas Day. The whereabouts of the scores of men and teenage boys from the vessel is not known.

Two more boatloads of 196 and 204 Rohingya - apparently with some Bangladeshis among them - arrived in Thailand on January 1, according to passengers spoken to by Thai media outlets.

Some of those illegal arrivals were subsequently involved in a horrific pickup crash last week that left administrating doctors at a Thai hospital asking whose responsibility it is to care for several critically injured Rohingya for the rest of their lives.

The crash was thoroughly reported on Thailand's popular Channel 3 last night, with doctors noting that one person was killed in the crash, four others were left in comas and four more remain critically injured.

It's thought that the pickup was carrying 18 men and boys to one of several secret traffickers' camps in the jungles of southern Thailand, where thousands of Rohingya, escaping persecution in Burma, are delivered into the hands of sometimes-brutal people traffickers.

The survivors who escaped the pickup crash unscathed and the Thai drivers are believed to have been carried away from the scene of the crash in a second vastly overloaded pickup.

The questions raised by Dr Watdhanachai Kulwiwat and Dr Kitpanu Worgyongsin at Had Yai Hospital about where the Rohingya came from and who cares for them were rippling further afield today.

Local police said the seriously injured Rohingya would be charged with being illegal immigrants and the pickup driver will also be charged, if he is ever apprehended.

How thousands of boatpeople manage to travel south from Burma at sea, be transferred to land in Thailand then hidden for days or weeks in the jungles of southern Thailand without being detected by the Royal Thai Navy, Marine Police, local police the Army or other authorities in uniform remains a complete mystery.

Fifteen-year-old Abu Fayap, speaking while on life support after being transferred with other Rohingya to Had Yai Hospital, told Channel 3 that along with the other seriously injured men he had already paid 50,000 baht to traffickers to be smuggled to Malaysia from Arakan state in Burma through Thailand.

The boy's version of how he was transferred at sea from a small boat in Burma to a much larger boat, then to the boat holding 196 somewhere off the coast of Thailand, tended to confirm that the smuggling of the Rohingya along Thailand's coast is now a large multi-million dollar industry.

Phuketwan reporters have been told that drug smugglers along Thailand's Andaman coast have switched to human traffickingbecause the trade in human flesh is more lucrative and less dangerous.

Nobody can remember the last time any human trafficker was apprehended at sea off Thailand.

Since the Royal Thai Navy sued Phuketwan for criminal defamation under the Computer Crimes Act in December, Channel 3 and Thailand's mainstream media have begun asking more questions about the growing exodus of thousands of Rohingya from Burma, how these people travel through Thailand and who benefits from trafficking them.