Sunday, October 30, 2011

အေျခအေနကို ထိန္းထားႏိုင္ရမယ္

ဦးဟန္ေညာင္ေဝသည္ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံ၏ ပထမဆံုး သမၼတႀကီးလည္းျဖစ္၊ ေညာင္ေရႊ ေစာ္ဘြားဆက္၏ ေနာက္ဆံုး ေစာ္ဘြားလည္းျဖစ္ေသာ ေစာ္ဘြားႀကီးစပ္ေရႊသိုက္၏ သားတဦးျဖစ္သည္။ လြတ္လပ္ေသာ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံအျဖစ္ ေၾကျငာၿပီး ၄ လ အၾကာ ၁၉၄၈ ခုႏွစ္ ဧၿပီလ ၁၅ ရက္ေန႔တြင္ ဦးဟန္ေညာင္ေဝကို ေမြးဖြားခဲ့သည္။ အေျခခံပညာေရးကို ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံတြင္ သင္ယူဆည္းပူးခဲ့ၿပီး ထိုင္းႏိုင္ငံႏွင့္ ကေနဒါႏိုင္ငံတို႔တြင္ ပညာ ဆက္လက္ဆည္းပူးကာ ဘြဲ႔ရရွိသည္။ ထို႔ေနာက္ ကေနဒါႏိုင္ငံ McGill University မွ စီးပြားေရးစီမံခန္႔ခြဲမႈဆိုင္ရာ မဟာဘြဲ႔ (MBA) ကို ရရိွခဲ့သည္။
ဦးဟန္ေညာင္ေဝ (ဓာတ္ပံု - Shan Herald  Agency for News)
ဦးဟန္ေညာင္ေဝသည္ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံ ဒီမုိကေရစီလႈပ္ရွားမႈအတြက္ ႏွစ္ေပါင္းမ်ားစြာပင္ ေဆာင္ရြက္လာခဲ့သည္။ သူသည္ Burma Alert လစဥ္သတင္းစာေစာင္၏ အယ္ဒီတာ၊ အေ၀းေရာက္ ျပည္ေထာင္စုျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံ အမ်ိဳးသားညြန္႔ေပါင္းအစိုးရ (NCGUB) ၀န္ႀကီးခ်ဳပ္ ဦးစိန္၀င္း၏ အႀကံေပး၊ ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံအတြင္းသို႔ ေန႔စဥ္ ျမန္မာဘာသာအျပင္ တိုင္းရင္းသား (၇) ဘာသာျဖင့္ သတင္းထုတ္လႊင့္ေနေသာ ဒီမုိကရက္တစ္ ျမန္မာ့အသံ (DVB) ၏ စီမံခန္႔ခြဲေရး ညႊန္ၾကားေရးမႉး စသည့္ တာ၀န္မ်ား ယူခဲ့သည္။

၁၉၉၇ ေဖေဖာ္၀ါရီလတြင္ ဦးဟန္ေညာင္ေဝသည္ ဥေရာပ ျမန္မာ႐ံုး၏ ညႊန္ၾကားေရးမႉး ျဖစ္လာခဲ့သည္။ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံတြင္ ဒီမိုကေရစီအစိုးရတရပ္သို႔ အသြင္းကူးေျပာင္းရာတြင္ ျမန္မာ့ဒီမုိကေရစီ လႈပ္ရွားမႈအား ကူညီေထာက္ပ့ံေပးရန္ ဥေရာပသမဂၢႏွင့္ ဂ်ာမန္ Friedrich Ebert ေဖာင္ေဒးရွင္းတို႔က ပူးတြဲအေကာင္အထည္ေဖာ္ေသာ စီမံကိန္းတခုျဖစ္သည္။

လက္ရိွျမန္မာ့ႏို္င္ငံေရး၀န္းက်င္၊ ျပဳျပင္ေျပာင္းလဲမႈမ်ား၏ လက္ရိွအေနအထား၊ တိုင္းျပည္အတြင္းျဖစ္ေပၚေနေသာ အေျပာင္းအလဲမ်ားအေပၚ ႏုိင္ငံတကာ၏ တုန္႔ျပန္ေဆာင္ရြက္ခ်က္၊ သက္ဆိုင္ရာ ပါ၀င္ေဆာင္ရြက္သူမ်ား ရင္ဆိုင္ႀကံဳေတြ႔ေနရသည့္ စိန္ေခၚခ်က္မ်ားႏွင့္ ပတ္သက္၍  ဧရာ၀တီမဂၢဇင္းက ဦးဟန္ေညာင္ေရႊကို ဆက္သြယ္ေမးျမန္းထားပါသည္။

ေမး ။    ။ ျမန္မာအစိုးရနဲ႔ စစ္တပ္ထဲမွာ တဖက္နဲ႔တဖက္ အႀကိတ္အနယ္ ၿပိဳင္ေနၾကတဲ့ ျပဳျပင္ေျပာင္းလဲေရး လိုလားတဲ့အုပ္စုရယ္၊ ေျပာင္းလဲေရးကို မလိုလားတဲ့ ေခါင္းမာတဲ့အုပ္စုရယ္လို႔ ရွိေနတယ္လို႔ ေျပာေနၾကပါတယ္။ ဦးဟန္ေညာင္ေဝကေရာ ဘယ္လိုသေဘာရပါသလဲ။ ျပဳျပင္ေျပာင္းလဲေရးသမားေတြက အသာစီးရေနတယ္လို႔ ထင္ပါသလား။ ဒါမွမဟုတ္ ဒီအုပ္စုႏွစ္ခုစလံုးက အတိုက္အခံနဲ႔ ႏိုင္ငံတကာအသိုင္းအ၀န္းကို ေခ်ာ့တခါ၊ ေျခာက္တလွည့္ ပံုစံမ်ိဳးနဲ႔ ကစားေနတာလား။

ေျဖ ။    ။ ျပဳျပင္ေျပာင္းလိုတဲ့ လစ္ဘရယ္အုပ္စုနဲ႔ ေခါင္းမာတဲ့အုပ္စုၾကား တိုက္ပြဲရယ္လို႔ ရွင္းရွင္းလင္းလင္း မရိွပါဘူး။ သီအုိရီအရ ဆန္းစစ္ၾကည့္လိုက္မယ္ဆိုရင္ေတာ့ အခုအေျခအေနက အဲဒီလိုပံု ေပါက္ေနႏုိင္ပါတယ္။ ဒါေၾကာင့္လည္း ၂၀၀၄ ခုႏွစ္တုန္းက ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ႀကီး ခင္ညြန္႔ကို တခ်ိဳ႕အကဲျဖတ္သူေတြက လစ္ဘရယ္တဦးရယ္လို႔ ျမင္ခဲ့ၾကတာေပါ့။ တဖက္ကၾကည့္ျပန္ေတာ့လည္း ခင္ဗ်ားေျပာသလို အေကာင္းနဲ႔အဆိုး ပံုစံလည္း မဟုတ္ျပန္ဘူးဗ်။ က်ေနာ္တို႔ကိုယ္ က်ေနာ္တို႔လည္း အ႐ူးမလုပ္သင့္ဘူး။ တပ္မေတာ္က အတိုက္အခံကိုလည္း ဂ႐ုမစိုက္ဘူး၊ ႏိုင္ငံတကာ အသိုင္းအဝိုင္းကိုလည္း ဂ႐ုမစိုက္ဘူး။ ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ေန၀င္းက ၁၉၆၂ မွာ အာဏာသိမ္းခဲ့တယ္။ ဘာေၾကာင့္လဲဆိုေတာ့ ဦးႏုက အေျခအေနကို မထိန္းႏိုင္ေတာ့လို႔။ ဦးေန၀င္းက ၁၉၈၈ မွာ ထိန္းမထားႏုိင္ေတာ့ တပ္မေတာ္က တခါ အာဏာထပ္သိမ္းလိုက္တာပဲ။

အဓိကသေဘာတရားက ဘာလဲဆိုေတာ့ ျမန္မာႏို္င္ငံရဲ႕ လြတ္လပ္ေရး၊ အခ်ဳပ္အျခာအာဏာ၊ တိုင္းရင္းသား စည္းလံုးညီညြတ္ေရးကို ကာကြယ္ေစာင့္ေရွာက္ဖို႔ တစံုတဦး (တပ္မေတာ္) က အေျခအေနကို ထိန္းထားႏိုင္ရမယ္။ လမ္းျပေျမပံု ၇ ခ်က္ဆိုတာ ခိုင္မာတဲ့အစိုးရတရပ္နဲ႔ ေဘးနားကေန မားမားရပ္ေပးမယ့္ ခိုင္မာတဲ့တပ္မေတာ္တရပ္ ျဖစ္လာဖို႔ပဲ။ ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္မႉးႀကီး သန္းေရႊက သူ႔ကိုယ္သူကာကြယ္တဲ့အေနနဲ႕ ဇာတ္ညႊန္းထဲကေန ဖယ္ေပးလိုက္ၿပီး ယိုင္နဲ႔နဲ႔ပါတီ၊ အားေပ်ာ့တဲ့ သမၼတနဲ႔ ဒုသမၼတ၊ ခ်ိနဲ႔နဲ႔ ပါလီမန္နဲ႔ ခ်ိနဲ႔နဲ႔တပ္မေတာ္ကို အာဏာလႊဲေပးလိုက္တယ္။ အၿငိမ္းစား ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ႀကီးတေယာက္အေနနဲ႔ သမၼတ ဦးသိန္းစိန္ကလည္း ဒီအေျခအေနကို ဆက္အျဖစ္မခံႏိုင္ဘူး။ အဲဒီေတာ့ ၂၀၀၈ ဖြဲ႔စည္းပံုအေျခခံဥပေဒ လုပ္ပိုင္ခြင့္ေဘာင္အတြင္းကေန ထိန္းခ်ဳပ္ဖို႔ သူႀကိဳးစားခဲ့တယ္။ အခုက်ေနာ္တို႔ ျမင္ေနၾကားေနရတဲ့ သေဘာထား ကြဲလြဲခ်က္ေတြဆိုတာ အေတြးအေခၚပိုင္းအရ မဟုတ္ဘူး။ ပုဂိၢဳလ္ေရးအရ ျဖစ္ေနတာ။ ဘာေၾကာင့္လဲဆိုေတာ့ တခ်ိဳ႕ေတြက ဦးသိန္းစိန္ကို ေခါင္းေဆာင္ေနရာေပးတာ မႀကိဳက္ၾကဘူး။ သူတို႔ကိုယ္တိုင္ ေခါင္းေဆာင္ျဖစ္ခ်င္ေနတာ။

ခိုင္မာတဲ့ အစိုးရတရပ္အေနနဲ႔ ထိန္းခ်ဳပ္ဖို႔အားထုတ္တာ လြန္တဲ့ကိစၥေတာ့မဟုတ္ဘူး။ အေမရိကန္လို ဒီမုိကေရစီ အစိုးရမ်ားကိုယ္တိုင္ အရာရာအားလံုးကို ထိန္းထားခ်င္တယ္။ အဲဒီလိုမဟုတ္ဘူးဆိုရင္ မင္းမဲ့စ႐ိုက္ ျဖစ္ကုန္မွာေပါ့။ ဆိုေတာ့ ေမးရမွာက ဘယ္သူကို ထိန္းခ်ဳပ္ခြင့္ ဘယ္လိုေပးမလဲနဲ႔ အဲဒီထိန္းခ်ဳပ္ခြင့္ကို ဘယ္လိုမ်ိဳး လက္ေတြ႔က်င့္သံုးမလဲ ဆိုတာပဲ။ အဲဒီ ထိန္းခ်ဳပ္ခြင့္ရိွသူကို လူထုဆႏၵ၊ တရားဥပေဒစိုးမိုးမႈ၊ စည္း႐ံုးဆြဲေဆာင္မႈစတဲ့ လုပ္ငန္းစဥ္ေတြကေန ယူမယ္ဆိုရင္ေတာ့ လံုး၀ဥႆုံလက္ခံရမွာပဲ။ ဒါေပမယ့္ အဲဒါကို လက္နက္နဲ႔ လုပ္ယူမယ္ဆိုေတာ့ လက္ခံႏုိင္စရာမရွိဘူး။ ဒါ့ေၾကာင့္ တခ်ိဳ႕ေတြက ဦးသိန္းစိန္ရဲ႕ တရား၀င္မႈနဲ႔ပတ္သက္ၿပီး ေမြးခြန္းထုတ္ေနၾကတယ္။ အခုသူလုပ္ေနတဲ့ နည္းလမ္းေတြအရဆိုရင္ ေတာ္ေတာ္လက္ခံႏုိင္တဲ့ အေျခအေနမွာ ရိွပါတယ္။

ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္မႉးႀကီး သန္းေရႊနဲ႔ မတူတဲ့ တျခားျခားနားခ်က္က ဘာလဲဆိုေတာ့ ယေန႔ေခတ္ကာလမွာ ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံဟာ တုိင္းျပည္တခုအျဖစ္ ဆက္လက္ရပ္တည္ႏုိင္ဖို႔ဆိုရင္ အေျပာင္းအလဲေတြ လုပ္ဖို႔လုိတယ္လို႔ ဦးသိန္းစိန္က ျမင္ပံုရတယ္။ သူကုိယ္တုိင္က လြတ္လပ္မွ်တသူ လစ္ဘရယ္သမားေတာ့ မဟုတ္ဘူး။ ဒါေပမယ့္ အေျခအေနတခုလံုးကုိ ထိန္းထားႏိုင္တဲ့ အစိုးရမ်ိဳး၊ ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံရဲ႕ အက်ိဳးစီးပြား (တျခားတိုင္းျပည္မ်ား၊ စီးပြားေရးလုပ္ငန္းႀကီးမ်ားနဲ႔ ယွဥ္၍) ကို ကာကြယ္ႏိုင္တဲ့ အစိုးရမ်ိဳး သူ႔အစိုးရကို ျဖစ္ေစခ်င္တယ္။

သူ႔အေျပာင္းအလဲေတြ ေအာင္ျမင္မွာလား။ ဒီအတြက္ေတာ့ အေျဖမရိွေသးပါဘူး။ သူ႔ရန္ဖက္ေတြက သူ႔ကို အာဏာကေန ဖယ္လိုက္ႏုိင္တယ္ဆိုရင္၊ ျပည္သူေတြရဲ႕ဒုကၡသုကၡေတြကို သူ႔ရဲ႕ ျပဳျပင္ေျပာင္းလဲေရးေတြကေန ဖယ္ရွားပစ္ႏုိင္ပါတယ္လို႔ သူ႔အေနနဲ႔ ျပည္သူေတြကို နားမခ်ႏိုင္ဘူးဆိုရင္၊ တိုင္းရင္းသားေတြနဲ႔ သူ ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းေရး မတည္ေဆာက္ႏိုင္ဘူးဆိုရင္၊ အစိုးရက သူ႔ရဲ႕ ကတိေတြကို အေကာင္အထည္ မေဖာ္ေပးႏိုင္ဘူးဆိုရင္၊ ႏိုင္ငံတကာအသိုင္းအ၀န္းက သူ႔ရဲ႕အားထုတ္ခ်က္ေတြကို လက္မခံဘဲ ဖိအားေတြ ဆက္ေပးေနမယ္ဆိုရင္ စသျဖင့္ စသျဖင့္ေပါ့၊ အဲဒါဆိုရင္ေတာ့ သူက်ဆံုးမွာပဲ။

က်ေနာ္တို႔ကိုယ္က်ေနာ္တို႔ ေမးရမယ့္ ေမးခြန္းက တျခားအစားထိုးစရာ ရိွသလား၊ အကယ္၍ သူ မေအာင္ျမင္ခဲ့ဘူးဆိုရင္ ဒီမိုကေရစီအေရးအတြက္ ပိုေကာင္းလာမွာလား၊ သူ႔ေနရာမွာ ဘယ္သူနဲ႔၊ ဒါမွမဟုတ္ ဘာနဲ႔ အစားထိုးမလဲ။ ပိုၿပီး ပြင့္လင္းတဲ့ လစ္ဘရယ္ဆန္တဲ့ ဒီမိုကေရစီအရပ္သားအစိုးရ ျဖစ္မလာမွာေတာ့ က်ိန္းေသတယ္။ အျဖစ္ႏုိင္ဆံုး အေျခအေနက တပ္မေတာ္က အာဏာသိမ္းလိမ့္မယ္။ ဦးသိန္းစိန္ရဲ႕ က်ဆံုးခန္းကို ၾကည့္ၿပီး ေနာင္တက္လာမယ့္ စစ္အစိုးရက ပိုၿပီးေတာ့ ေရွး႐ိုးဆန္မယ္၊ ပိုၿပီးဖိႏွိပ္မယ္၊ လစ္ဘရယ္ မျဖစ္ေတာ့ဘူး။

ေမး ။    ။ ဘယ္လို ျပဳျပင္ေျပာင္းလဲမႈမ်ိဳးကို ဦးဟန္ေညာင္ေဝအေနနဲ႔ ျမင္ေတြ႕လိုပါသလဲ။ ျမန္မာအစိုးရအေနနဲ႔ေရာ အခုအခ်ိန္မွာ ဘယ္လို အေသးစိတ္လုပ္ငန္းမ်ိဳးေတြ လုပ္ေဆာင္သင့္ပါသလဲ။
ေျဖ ။    ။ ျပဳျပင္ေျပာင္းလဲေရး ေတာ္ေတာ္မ်ားမ်ားကိုေတာ့ လုပ္ေပးမယ္လို႔ ကတိျပဳထားၿပီးပါၿပီ။ စီးပြားေရးနဲ႔ ပတ္သက္တာေတြကေတာ့ ေတာ့္ေတာ့္ကို ရႈပ္ေထြးၿပီး အေကာင္အထည္ေဖာ္ဖို႔လည္း ခက္ခဲပါတယ္။ ဘာေၾကာင့္လဲဆိုေတာ့ ဒီကိစၥေတြက တခုနဲ႔တခု ဆက္စပ္ေနလို႔လည္း ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။ ႏွစ္ေပါင္း ၅၀ ေက်ာ္ေလာက္ က်ေနာ္တို႔ မ်က္ႏွာလြဲခဲပစ္လုပ္ထားတဲ့၊ ပိုဆိုးလာေနတဲ့ ျပႆနာေတြလည္း ရိွပါတယ္။ က်ေနာ္ထင္တာကေတာ့ အစိုးရအေနနဲ႔ ကတိအသစ္ေတြ ထပ္ေပးေနမယ့္အစား ျပဳျပင္ေျပာင္းလဲေရးအတြက္ ေပးၿပီးသားကတိေတြကိုပဲ အေကာင္အထည္ေဖာ္ဖို႔ ပိုအေရးႀကီးပါတယ္။ ျပဳျပင္ေျပာင္းလဲေရးကို ေဖာ္ေဆာင္တဲ့ေနရာမွာ အခက္အခဲက ဘာလဲဆိုေတာ့ အစိုးရမွာ အေကာင္အထည္ေဖာ္ဖို႔ လုပ္ႏိုင္စြမ္းအား မရိွႏိုင္တာပဲ။ အစိုးရလုပ္ႏုိင္တာထက္ ပိုၿပီး ေမွ်ာ္မွန္းလိုက္မယ္ဆိုရင္ ျပဳျပင္ေျပာင္းလဲေရးေတြက ပိုၿပီးေတာ့ လက္ေတြ႔နဲ႔ ကင္းကြာသြားႏိုင္ပါတယ္။  တခ်ိဳ႕လံုၿခံဳေရးဆိုင္ရာ ဥပေဒေတြ ဖ်က္သိမ္းပစ္တာမ်ိဳး၊ လြတ္ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းသာခြင့္ ေၾကညာတာမ်ိဳး၊ ႏိုင္ငံေရးအက်ဥ္းသားေတြ လႊတ္ေပးတာမ်ိဳး၊ ျပည္ပက အတိုက္အခံေတြ ျပည္တြင္းျပန္လာႏိုင္ေအာင္ လုပ္ထံုးလုပ္နည္းတခ်ိဳ႕ ခ်ေပးတာမ်ိဳး၊ စာေပစိစစ္ေရး ဥပေဒေတြကို ဖ်က္သိမ္းေပးတာမ်ိဳး၊  သတင္းေထာက္ေတြအတြက္ လြတ္လပ္ခြင့္ ပိုေပးတာမ်ိဳးအျပင္ ႏိုင္ငံျခားသတင္းေထာက္ေတြကို ၀င္ခြင့္ျပဳတာမ်ိဳးေတြက ရိွေနၿပီးသား ဗ်ဴ႐ိုကေရစီကို ထပ္ၿပီး အလုပ္မရႈပ္ေစတဲ့ ျပဳလြယ္ျပင္လြယ္တဲ့ အေျပာင္းအလဲေတြပါ။

ေမး ။    ။ တ႐ုတ္ကေဆာက္ေပးမယ့္ ျမစ္ဆံုေရကာတာ တည္ေဆာက္ေရး ယာယီရပ္ဆိုင္းဖို႔ သမၼတ ဦးသိန္းစိန္ရဲ႕ ဆံုးျဖတ္ခ်က္ကို တခ်ိဳ႕က အေမရိကန္အပါအ၀င္ အေနာက္ႏိုင္ငံေတြနဲ႔ ဆက္ဆံေရးပိုေကာင္းေအာင္ လုပ္လိုက္တဲ့ မဟာဗ်ဴဟာ က်ားကြက္လို႔ ျမင္ၾကတယ္။ အာဏာခ်ိန္ခြင္လွ်ာ ညိွတဲ့သေဘာေပါ့။ ဦးဟန္ေညာင္ေဝကေရာ အဲဒီအျမင္ကို သေဘာတူလား။ တ႐ုတ္လႊမ္းမိုးမႈကို ျမန္မာက တုန္႔ျပန္လိုက္တဲ့အကြက္တခုလို႔ တကယ္ေရာ မွတ္ယူလို႔ရပ့ါမလား။ တ႐ုတ္ဖဲခ်ပ္ကို ျမန္မာက ထုတ္ကစားလိုက္ျခင္းအားျဖင့္ အစစ္အမွန္ ႏိုင္ငံေရးျပဳျပင္ ေျပာင္းလဲမႈေတြကေန အသာေလး ေရွာင္ထြက္သြားႏိုင္သလို၊ အေနာက္အုပ္စုနဲ႔လည္း မိတ္ေဆြလုပ္ႏိုင္မယ္လို႔ တခ်ိဳ႕ အကဲျဖတ္ေတြက ေျပာေနၾကတယ္။ အဲဒါကိုေရာ ဘယ္လိုျမင္ပါသလဲ။

ေျဖ ။    ။ ဒီလုပ္ရပ္ကို လူအထင္ႀကီးေလာက္တဲ့ ႏုိင္ငံတကာမဟာဗ်ဴဟာတခုနဲ႔ ဆက္စပ္တယ္လို႔ေတာ့ က်ေနာ္မယံုၾကည္ဘူးဗ်။ အေနာက္ႏိုင္ငံက တခ်ိဳ႕လူေတြရဲ႕ ျဖစ္လိုတဲ့ဆႏၵပါ။ ယာယီရပ္ဆိုင္းဖို႔ ဆံုးျဖတ္လိုက္တာက သမၼတဟာ ဆံုးျဖတ္ႏုိင္တဲ့ အႀကီးအကဲေနရာမွာ ရိွေနတယ္၊ ဆံုးျဖတ္ခ်က္ ခ်ႏိုင္တဲ့ အ႐ိုက္အရာေခါင္းေဆာင္သစ္ တေယာက္ရိွေနၿပီလို႔ ျပည္တြင္းကို အသိေပးလိုက္တာပဲ။ ဒီအျငင္းပြားဖြယ္ ေရကာတာနဲ႔ပတ္သက္ၿပီး ယခင္အခ်ိန္ကေရာ၊ အခုအခ်ိန္အထိပါ ျမန္မာအစိုးရအဖြဲ႔၀င္ေတြနဲ႔ တ႐ုတ္ကုမၼဏီအၾကား လွ်ိဳ႕၀ွက္ညိွႏိႈင္းမႈေတြ ရိွခဲ့ပါတယ္။ သေဘာတူညီခ်က္ပါ တခ်ိဳ႕အခ်က္ေတြကို ဦးသိန္းစိန္ သိပံုမေပၚပါဘူး။ ဆိုေတာ့ ဒီကိစၥႀကီးက ႏိုင္ငံေတာ္ကိစၥရပ္ႀကီးတခု ျဖစ္လာၿပီး ဦးသိန္းစိန္ရွာေနတဲ့ က်ည္ဆန္တေတာင့္ ျဖစ္လာတာေပါ့။ ျမစ္ဆံုေရကာတာကိစၥက ကခ်င္ျပည္သူေတြတင္မကဘဲ ျမန္မာတမ်ိဳးသားလံုးနဲ႔ပါ သက္ဆိုင္တယ္။ ဒီလိုကိစၥမ်ိဳးေတြကေန အမ်ိဳးသားညီညြတ္ေရးကို တကယ္တမ္း တည္ေဆာက္ႏိုင္တယ္။ သမၼတရဲ႕ ဆံုးျဖတ္ခ်က္ကို က်ေနာ့္အေနနဲ႔ ႀကိဳဆိုပါတယ္။ တ႐ုတ္က ၀င္ေရာက္စြက္ဖက္မယ္လို႔ က်ေနာ္တို႔ မထင္ပါဘူး။ တ႐ုတ္က သူရဲ႕ပုဂၢလိက ကုမၸဏီတခု ပိုက္ဆံ ဆံုးရံႈးလို႔ မေပ်ာ္တာမဟုတ္ပါဘူး၊ အႏိုင္က်င့္စရာ တိုင္းျပည္တခု ဆံုး႐ႈံးသြားရေတာ့မွာေၾကာင့္ စိတ္မခ်မ္းမသာ ျဖစ္ေနပံုရပါတယ္။

ျပဳျပင္ေျပာင္းလဲေရးနဲ႔ ပတ္သက္လို႔ကေတာ့ သမၼႀကီးအေနနဲ႔ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံရဲ႕ အခ်ဳပ္အခ်ာအာဏာကို ဆက္လက္ရွင္သန္ေစခ်င္တယ္၊ ကာကြယ္ခ်င္တယ္ဆိုရင္ေတာ့ ျပဳျပင္ေျပာင္းလဲေရးဆိုတာကို သူ႔အေနနဲ႔  ေရွာင္လႊဲလို႔မရပါဘူး။ ေရွ႕ဆက္တိုးဖို႔အတြက္ တျခားနည္းလမ္းလည္း မရိွပါဘူး။ လူေတာ္ေတာ္မ်ားမ်ားက ျပဳျပင္ေျပာင္းလဲေရးနဲ႔ ပတ္သက္လို႔ အဆိုးျမင္ေနၾကတုန္းပဲဗ်။ ဒါေပမယ့္ ဦးသိန္းစိန္ကေတာ့ စြန္႔စားမႈအမ်ားႀကီးယူၿပီး လူတိုင္းထင္ထားတာထက္ ပိုၿပီးလုပ္ျပေနတယ္။ အခုအခ်ိန္မွာ ရိွေနတဲ့အႏၲရာယ္က ဘာလဲဆိုေတာ့ လက္ရိွအေနအထားကို ဆက္ထိန္းထားလိုၿပီး အေျပာင္းအလဲကို မလိုလားတဲ့ ျပည္တြင္း၊ ျပည္ပ လူေတြဆီက ရလာႏိုင္တဲ့ လက္တုန္႔ျပန္ခ်က္ေတြပဲ။

ေမး ။    ။ ဥေရာပသမဂၢရဲ႕ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံအေပၚမွာထားတဲ့ မူ၀ါဒက ေပ်ာ့ေျပာင္းလြန္းတယ္၊ ဘက္ေပါင္းစံုမဟုတ္ဘူး၊ တဖက္တည္းကျဖစ္ေနၿပီး၊ စစ္အစိုးရနဲ႔သူ႔ဘက္သားေတြ အလိုက် လုပ္ေပးေနတဲ့ မူ၀ါဒနီးပါးေတာင္ ျဖစ္ေနၿပီလို႔ တခ်ိဳ႕ လႈပ္ရွားတက္ႂကြသူေတြ၊ အတိုက္အခံေတြက ယံုၾကည္ပါတယ္။  ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံအေပၚမွာထားရိွတဲ့ ဥေရာပသမဂၢရဲ႕ မူ၀ါဒအေပၚမွာ ဘယ္လိုမ်ိဳးအေျပာင္းအလဲ လုပ္သင့္တယ္လို႔ ဦးဟန္ေညာင္ေဝ ေမွ်ာ္လင့္ထားပါသလဲ။ တခ်ိန္တည္းမွာပဲ အေမရိကန္ႏုိင္ငံကလည္း ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံအေပၚထားရိွတဲ့ ဘ႑ာေရးအကူအညီ ကန္႔သတ္ခ်က္ေတြကို ေလွ်ာ့ေပးဖို႔ စဥ္းစားေနတယ္ဆိုၿပီး ယူဆခ်က္ေတြ ထြက္ေပၚေနပါတယ္။ အကယ္၍ အမ်ားက ေမွ်ာ္လင့္ထားသလို ႏိုင္ငံေရးအက်ဥ္းသားေတြ အမ်ားႀကီး လႊတ္ေပးမယ္ဆိုရင္ အေနာက္ႏိုင္ငံေတြအေနနဲ႔ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံအေပၚမွာ ထားရိွတဲ့ စီးပြားေရးပိတ္ဆို႔ အေရးယူမႈေတြကို ႐ုပ္သိမ္းေပးသင့္တဲ့ အခ်ိန္ေရာက္ၿပီလား။ ပိတ္ဆို႔မႈေတြ မ႐ုပ္သိမ္းဘဲနဲ႔ေရာ ဥေရာပသမဂၢနဲ႕ အေမရိကန္အစိုးရအနနဲ႔ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံရဲ႕ ျပဳျပင္ေျပာင္းလဲေရး အားထုတ္ခ်က္ေတြအေပၚ သူတို႔ကလည္း အေကာင္းျမင္ပါတယ္ဆိုတာကို ေနျပည္ေတာ္ကသိေအာင္ ဘယ္လိုအရာမ်ိဳးေတြ လုပ္ေဆာင္ေပးသင့္ပါသလဲ။ သိပ္မေ၀းေတာ့တဲ့ အနာဂတ္မွာ ႏိုင္ငံတကာေငြေၾကးရန္ပံုေငြအဖြဲ႔ (IMF) နဲ႔ ကမာၻ႔ဘဏ္ (World Bank) တို႔က ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံကို နည္းပညာနဲ႔ ေငြေၾကးအကူအညီေပးမယ္လို႔  ဦးဟန္ေညာင္ေဝ ေမွ်ာ္လင့္ပါသလား။

ေျဖ ။    ။ လူတေယာက္က အားနည္းတယ္ဆိုရင္ သူ႔ကို အႏုိင္က်င့္မယ့္သူကို အႏိုင္လာမက်င့္ေအာင္လို႔ မ်က္ႏွာခ်ဳိေသြးႏိုင္တယ္။ အဲဒီ အယူအဆက ဥေရာပသမဂၢနဲ႔ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံကိစၥမွာေတာ့ မဆိုသေလာက္ပဲ မွန္ပါတယ္။ ဥေရာပသမဂၢ ရပ္တည္မႈအတြက္ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံ မလိုပါဘူး။ သူ႔မွာ ျမန္မာထက္ ပိုအားသာတဲ့အခ်က္ ဒုနဲ႔ေဒးပါပဲ။ ဘာေၾကာင့္ ဥေရာပသမဂၢက ျမန္မာႏိုင္င္ငံကို သြားေလခ်ိဳေသြးေနရမွာတုန္း။ အေနာက္ႏိုင္ငံအစိုးရမ်ားလိုပါပဲ၊ ၁၉၉၀ နဲ႔ သကၠရာဇ္ ၂၀၀၀ အေစာပိုင္းႏွစ္ေတြတုန္းက အတိုက္အခံေတြဆီကေန မူ၀ါဒအႀကံဉာဏ္ေတြ ေပးႏိုင္ေအာင္ ဥေရာပသမဂၢက လမ္းဖြင့္ေပးထားခဲ့ပါတယ္။ ဒါေပမယ့္ ႏွစ္ေပါင္း ၁၅ ႏွစ္ (ေရြးခ်ယ္ခံအစိုးရသက္တမ္း သံုးႀကိမ္၊ ေလးႀကိမ္ႏွင့္ ညီမွ်သည္)  ၾကာလာတဲ့အခါမွာေတာ့  ဥေရာပသမဂၢကလည္း အတိုက္အခံေတြရဲ႕ မူ၀ါဒ ဘယ္ေလာက္ထိ အရာေရာက္သလဲ ဆိုတဲ့အေပၚ ေမးခြန္းေတြ စေမးလာပါေတာ့တယ္။ အတိုက္အခံေတြထားတဲ့ မူ၀ါဒက အဓိကအားျဖင့္ ျမန္မာစစ္အစိုးရနဲ႔ ထိပ္တိုက္ေတြ႔ေရး၊ စစ္အစိုးရကို အထီးက်န္ထားေရးပဲ ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။

ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံက သူ႔ဟာသူ ပဋိပကၡနဲ႔ နပမ္းလံုးေနတဲ့အခ်ိန္မွာ ဥေရာပက မတူညီတာေတြကို ျပန္လည္ စုစည္းေနတဲ့အခ်ိန္၊ နယ္စပ္မ်ဥ္းေတြကို ဖြင့္ေပးေနတဲ့အခ်ိန္၊ ပဋိပကၡအမ်ားစုကို ေစ့စပ္ေဆြးေႏြးေရးနည္းလမ္းနဲ႔ ႀကိဳးစားေျဖရွင္းေနတဲ့အခ်ိန္ ဆိုတာကို က်ေနာ္တို႔ သတိခ်ပ္သင့္ပါတယ္။ ဥေရာပသမဂၢက ဒီမိုကရက္တစ္မူေတြ အေပၚမွာ အေျခခံၿပီး ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံဆိုင္ရာ သူ႔ကိုယ္ပိုင္မူ၀ါဒကို စတင္ေရးဆြဲလာပါတယ္။ ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံမွာ ဒီမိုကေရစီ ဖြံ႔ၿဖိဳးလာေစဖို႔ ျပႆနာေတြကို ကူညီေျဖရွင္းေပးဖို႔ နည္းလမ္းေတြပါ ရွာေဖြလာပါတယ္။

ဥေရာပသမဂၢရဲ႕ အေရးယူမႈက ဘက္ေပါင္းစံုမဟုတ္ဘူးလို႔ ဘယ္သူမွ မစြပ္စြဲႏိုင္ပါဘူး။ မူ၀ါဒတခုရဖို႔ ႏွစ္ေပါင္းမ်ားစြာၾကာ အခ်ိန္ယူရပါတယ္။ ႏိုင္ငံေပါင္း ၂၇ ႏိုင္ငံရဲ႕ ေရြးေကာက္ခံ အစိုးရေတြအားလံုးက ခၽြင္းခ်က္မရိွ သေဘာတူရပါတယ္။ ဥေရာပသမဂၢတခုလံုးက ျမန္မာအတိုက္အခံကို ၁၀၀ ရာခုိင္ႏႈန္းအျပည့္အ၀ သေဘာတူတာ မဟုတ္ဘူး၊ အထူးသျဖင့္ ျပည္ပေရာက္ အတုိက္အခံေတြနဲ႔ေပါ့။ တခ်ိဳ႕က ေျပာၿပီေပါ့။ ဥေရာပသမဂၢရဲ႕ မူ၀ါဒက ဒီမိုကေရစီနဲ႔ လူ႔အခြင့္အေရးအေပၚမွာ ေပ်ာ့ေပ်ာင္းလြန္းတယ္၊ စစ္အစိုးရကို ခ်ဥ္းကပ္တဲ့အခါမွာ တျခားသူေတြထက္ပိုၿပီး ေပ်ာ့လြန္းတယ္ စသျဖင့္ေပါ့။ အဖြဲ႔၀င္အစိုးရေပါင္း ၂၇ ခုက သေဘာတူသည့္တိုင္ ဥေရာပသမဂၢ အေနနဲ႔ကေတာ့ ဒီမုိကေရစီ အေျခခံမူေတြကို ဘယ္ေတာ့မွ စြန္႔လႊတ္မွာ မဟုတ္ပါဘူး။ ဘာေၾကာင့္လဲဆိုေတာ့ ဥေရာပတိုက္သူတိုက္သားေတြက ဒီလိုလုပ္ရပ္မ်ိဳးကို ဘယ္ေတာ့မွ လက္ခံမွာ မဟုတ္လို႔ဘဲ ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။ ဒါေၾကာင့္ ဒီအေပၚမွာေတာ့ က်ေနာ္တို႔ စိတ္ခ်လက္ခ်ေနလို႔ရပါတယ္။ အဲဒီမွာ သူမ်ားကို မေ၀ဖန္ခင္ ပထမဦးဆံုးအေနနဲ႔ က်ေနာ္တို႔ကိုယ္က်ေနာ္တို႔ ေမးသင့္တာက  က်ေနာ္တို႔ ကိုယ္တိုင္ကေရာ ဒီမိုကေရစီ က်ေနၿပီလားလို႔ပါ။

ဥေရာပသမဂၢအေနနဲ႔ ျမန္မာအစိုးရနဲ႔ ဆက္လက္ၿပီး ဆက္ဆံေနမယ္ ဆိုတာကိုေတာ့ က်ေနာ္ယံုၾကည္တယ္။ လူထုအေျချပဳ အဖြဲ႔အစည္းနဲ႔ လူထုအက်ိဳးျပဳလုပ္ငန္းေတြ (က်န္းမာေရး၊ ပညာေရး၊ အသက္ေမြး ၀မ္းေၾကာင္းမႈ၊ ဆင္းရဲႏြမ္းပါးမႈ ပေပ်ာက္ေရး၊ စီးပြားေရး၊ သဘာ၀ပတ္၀န္းက်င္ စသျဖင့္) ရဲ႕ လုပ္ႏိုင္စြမ္းေတြကို ကူညီျဖည့္ဆည္းေပးေနမွာပါ။ သေဘာတရားကဘာလဲဆိုေတာ့ အားေကာင္းတဲ့ လူထုအေျချပဳ လူအဖြဲ႔အစည္းမရိွဘဲ ျပည္သူ႔အခြင့္အေရးေတြကို ကာကြယ္ေပးႏိုင္မွာ မဟုတ္ဘူးဆိုတာပဲ။ အလားတူပါပဲ။ ျခစားမႈမရိွတဲ့ ပညာရွင္အရင္းခံ လူထုအက်ိဳးျပဳ၀န္ေဆာင္မႈေတြ မဟုတ္သေရြ႕ ဘယ္အစိုးရကမွ ျပည္သူ႔ထံကို မရိွမျဖစ္ ၀န္ေဆာင္မႈေတြ ေဆာင္းက်ဥ္းေပးႏိုင္မွာ မဟုတ္ပါဘူး။

ျပဳျပင္ေျပာင္းလဲမႈေတြဟာ တကယ္စစ္မွန္တယ္လို႔ ဥေရာပသမဂၢက သေဘာက် ေက်နပ္တယ္ဆိုရင္ သူတို႔ ပိတ္ဆို႔မႈေတြ ဖယ္ရွားမွာပဲ။ ႏိုင္ငံေရးအက်ဥ္းသားေတြ လႊတ္ေပးျခင္းက သူတို႔ထည့္သြင္းစဥ္းစားမယ့္ အခ်က္ေတြထဲက တခ်က္ပဲ။ ဒါေပမယ့္ ပိတ္ဆို႔မႈတခုတည္းက ဥေရာပသမဂၢမူ၀ါဒရဲ႕ အဓိကအေရးပါတဲ့ အစိတ္အပိုင္းေတာ့ မဟုတ္ပါဘူး။ အဓိကအခ်က္က ဘာလဲဆိုေတာ့ စစ္မွန္တဲ့ မူ၀ါဒဆိုင္ရာ ေဆြးေႏြးပြဲ၊ ဒီမုိကေရစီက်တဲ့၊ တရားမွ်တ ပြင့္လင္းတဲ့ လူ႔အဖြဲ႔အစည္းတခု ျဖစ္လာေစေရး ပူးေပါင္းေဆာင္ရြက္ျခင္းေတြပါပဲ။ တကယ္ပဲ IMF နဲ႔ ကမာၻ႔ဘဏ္တို႔က ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံကို နည္းပညာနဲ႔ ေငြေၾကးအကူအညီ ေပးေကာင္းေပးႏုိင္ပါတယ္။ အေမရိကန္သမၼတ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲက ေရွ႕ႏွစ္မွာဆိုတာ့ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲ မၿပီးမခ်င္း အေမရိကန္ဆီက အမ်ားႀကီးေမွ်ာ္လင့္လို႔ မရႏုိင္ဘူးလို႔ က်ေနာ္ထင္တယ္။ ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံက သူတို႔အတြက္ အေရးတႀကီး ဦးစားေပးရမယ့္ကိစၥ မဟုတ္ဘူးေလ။

ေမး ။    ။ အရင္တုန္းက ဦးဟန္ေညာင္ေဝက ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံအေပၚ စီးပြားေရးပိတ္ဆို႔အေရးယူမႈ မူ၀ါဒကို ေထာက္ခံပါတယ္။ အခုေတာ့ ထိေတြ႔ဆက္ဆံေရးဘက္ကို ပိုၿပီး ေထာက္ခံေနပံုေပါက္ေနပါတယ္။ ဘာေၾကာင့္ အဲဒီလို ေျပာင္းလဲသြားရတာပါလဲ။
ေျဖ ။    ။ ပိတ္ဆို႔အေရးယူမႈအေၾကာင္း ေဆြးေႏြးရင္ လူေတြမွာ စိတ္ခံစားခ်က္ေတြ ပါလာတတ္တယ္။ အမွားလုပ္တဲ့ လူေတြကို ဖြံ႔ၿဖိဳးတိုးတက္ခြင့္ ျပဳသင့္သလား၊ အျပစ္ေပးသင့္သလားဆိုၿပီး ေဆြးေႏြးျငင္းခံုပြဲ ျဖစ္လာပါတယ္။ သူတို႔အတြက္ အေရးယူပိတ္ဆို႔မႈဆိုတာ ဂုဏ္သိကၡာနဲ႔ သက္ဆုိင္တယ္လို႔ ထင္ပါတယ္။ ၁၉၉၀ အေစာပိုင္းႏွစ္ ပထမဦးဆံုးအႀကိမ္ က်ေနာ္တို႔  (ျပည္ေထာင္စုျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံ အမ်ိဳးသားညြန္႔ေပါင္းအစိုးရ – NCGUB၊ ျပည္ေထာင္စုအမ်ိဳးသားေကာင္စီ – NCUB၊ အမ်ိဳးသား ဒီမုိကေရစီအဖြဲ႔ခ်ဳပ္ လြတ္ေျမာက္နယ္ေျမ – NLD-LA စသျဖင့္ေပါ့) ေဆြးေႏြးတုန္းက ပိတ္ဆို႔မႈကို ႏိုင္ငံေရးလက္နက္တခုအျဖစ္ ရႈျမင္ခဲ့ပါတယ္။ အစိုးရ ေတာ္ေတာ္မ်ားမ်ားကလည္း ႏိုင္ငံေရးရည္မွန္းခ်က္ေတြ ေအာင္ျမင္ဖို႔ ပိတ္ဆို႔မႈေတြ ခ်မွတ္ခဲ့ပါတယ္။ ေမးစရာရိွတာက အဲဒီရည္မွန္းခ်က္ကေရာ ေအာင္ျမင္ခဲ့လားေပါ့။ မဟုတ္ဘူးဆိုရင္ေတာ့ က်ေနာ္တို႔ ဆက္မလုပ္သင့္ဘူးေပါ့။ ပိတ္ဆို႔မႈကို က်ေနာ္တို႔ တင္ခဲ့ပါတယ္။ ဘာေၾကာင့္လဲဆိုေတာ့ စစ္အစိုးရကို ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္နဲ႔ စကားေျပာေစခ်င္လို႔ပါ။ အေပးအယူတခုေတာ့ရမယ္။ ဒီမိုကေရစီနဲ႔ လူ႔အခြင့္အေရးေတြလည္း ျပန္လည္ရရိွမယ္လို႔ က်ေနာ္တို႔ ေမွ်ာ္လင့္ခဲ့ၾကတယ္။ အဓိကကေတာ့ စစ္ေရး ၀င္ေရာက္စြက္ဖက္မႈ (ဘယ္ေတာ့မွ ျဖစ္လာမွာလည္း မဟုတ္ပါဘူး) မလုပ္လို႔ကေတာ့ စစ္တပ္ကို အေပးအယူစားပြဲဆီ ေရာက္လာဖို႔ ဘယ္ေတာ့မွ လံုေလာက္တဲ့ဖိအား ျဖစ္လာမွာမဟုတ္ဘူး။ ပိတ္ဆို႔မႈေတြ ထပ္ခ်မယ္ဆိုရင္ အေပါက္ေပါက္ေနတဲ့ ပူေဖါင္းကို ေလျဖည့္ေနသလိုပဲ၊ ဘယ္ေတာ့မွ ျပည့္မွာမဟုတ္ဘူး။ ပိတ္ဆို႔မႈ ဖယ္ရွားၿပီးေတာ့ ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ႀကီးေတြကို ေက်နပ္ေအာင္ မလုပ္ႏိုင္ပါဘူး။

ပိတ္ဆို႔မႈေတြက ႏိုင္ငံတကာအသိုင္းအ၀န္းကိုလည္း ခ်ိနဲ႔ေစတယ္။ ဘယ္သူကမွ ဦးစီးဦးေဆာင္ မလုပ္ရဲေတာ့ဘူး။ ဘာေၾကာင့္လဲဆိုေတာ့ စစ္အစိုးရကို ေထာက္ခံတယ္၊ ဒီမိုကေရစီမက်ဘူးဆိုၿပီး ေခါင္းစဥ္တပ္ခံရမွာစိုးလို႔။ အေျပာင္းအလဲေတြ ေဖာ္ေဆာင္တဲ့ေနရာမွာ ႏိုင္ငံတကာ အသိုင္းအ၀န္းကို တျခားနည္းလမ္းေတြမွာ ပိုၿပီး တက္တက္ႂကြႂကြ ပါ၀င္ေစလိုပါတယ္။ သူတို႔ကိုယ္တိုင္ ခ်ိနဲ႔ေနမယ္ဆိုရင္ က်ေနာ္တို႔အတြက္ အသံုးမ၀င္သလို ျမန္မာျပည္သူေတြအတြက္လည္း အကူအညီ မျဖစ္ပါဘူး။ ဒါေၾကာင့္ က်ေနာ္က ပိတ္ဆို႔မႈေတြကို မေထာက္ခံေတာ့တာပါ။ က်ေနာ္လိုခ်င္တဲ့အရာတခုကို က်ေနာ္တို႔လိုခ်င္တဲ့ ပံုစံအတိုင္း မရႏိုင္ေတာ့တဲ့အခါ ေပးလာတဲ့အေျခအေနေပၚမွာ အေျခခံၿပီး တျခားနည္းလမ္းတခုကို က်ေနာ္တို႔ရွာဖို႔လိုပါတယ္။ ဥပမာ ဦးသိန္းစိန္က ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္နဲ႔ စကားေျပာေနတယ္။ သူတို႔ႏွစ္ေယာက္ၾကားမွာ နားလည္မႈတစံုတရာ ရေနပံုရပါတယ္။ အေပးအယူလုပ္ဖို႔ ျပင္ဆင္ထားၿပီးပံုလည္း ရပါတယ္။ ဒါ က်ေနာ္တို႔ အရင္ကလိုခ်င္ခဲ့တဲ့အရာ မဟုတ္ဘူးလား။ ဒါေပမယ့္ က်ေနာ္တို႔ထဲက တခ်ိဳ႕သူေတြက ပိတ္ဆို႔မႈေတြ ပိုေတာင္းဆိုေနတယ္။ က်ေနာ္တို႔က ဘာလုိခ်င္တာလဲ။ က်ေနာ္တို႔ ႀကံဳရသမွ်အရာေတြဟာ က်ေနာ္တို႔အတြက္ အေရးပါသလား၊ မပါဘူးလားဆိုတာေတာင္ မသံုးသပ္ေတာ့ဘဲ က်ေနာ္တို႔က ခံစားတတ္လြန္း၊ မေကာင္းျမင္လြန္းတာ မ်ားေနပါတယ္။ ၂၀၀၅ ခုႏွစ္တုန္းက က်ေနာ္ေျပာခဲ့ဖူးပါတယ္။ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံမွာ တကယ္စစ္မွန္တဲ့ အေျပာင္းအလဲကို က်ေနာ္တို႔ လိုခ်င္တယ္ဆိုရင္ တပ္မေတာ္က အဲဒီအေျပာင္းအလဲေတြကို ဦးေဆာင္ရမယ္။ ဘာေၾကာင့္လဲဆိုေတာ့ သူ႔မွာ အာဏာရိွလို႔ပဲ။ အခု ဦးသိန္းစိန္အစိုးရက ျပဳျပင္ေျပာင္းလဲမႈေတြကို ဦးေဆာင္လုပ္ေနၿပီ။ ဆိုေတာ့ စစ္မွန္တဲ့အေျပာင္းအလဲေတြ ျဖစ္လာမယ္၊ ေနာက္ဆံုးမွာ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံမွာ ဒီမိုကေရစီရလာမွာပါ။

ေမး ။    ။ မၾကာေသးမီက ျမန္မာအစိုးရခ်မွတ္ခဲ့တဲ့ ဆံုးျဖတ္ခ်က္ေတြကို ၾကည့္မယ္ဆိုရင္ အခုလက္ရိွအစိုးရဟာ အရင္ စစ္အုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ေရးကေန ဖြယ္ခြာလာၿပီလုိ႔ ရွင္းရွင္းလင္းလင္း ေတြ႔ႏိုင္ပါတယ္။ ဒါေပမယ့္  တိုင္းရင္းသားလူနည္းစု အေရးမွာေတာ့ တုိးတက္လာတာ က်ေနာ္တို႔ ဘာေၾကာင့္မေတြ႔ရေသးတာလဲ။ ျမန္မာျပည္ အေရွ႕ေျမာက္ဘက္ျခမ္းမွာရိွတဲ့ တိုင္းရင္းသားလက္နက္ကိုင္ အုပ္စုေတြနဲ႔ လက္နက္ကိုင္တုိက္ပြဲေတြကလည္း ဆက္ျဖစ္ေနတုန္းပဲ။ တိုင္းရင္းသားအေရးကိစၥ ေသေသခ်ာခ်ာ ေျဖရွင္းၿပီးတဲ့အခ်ိန္အထိ အေနာက္ႏုိင္ငံေတြအေနနဲ႔ ေနျပည္ေတာ္ရဲ႕ ေဆာင္ရြက္မႈေတြကို တက္တက္ႂကြႂကြ တုန္႔ျပန္တာက ပိုသင့္ေလ်ာ္တယ္လို႔ ထင္ပါသလား။ တိုင္းရင္းသားေဒသေတြမွာ လက္ရိွျဖစ္ေနတဲ့ လူ႔အခြင့္အေရး ခ်ိဳးေဖာက္မႈေတြအေပၚနဲ႔ စံုစမ္းစစ္ေဆးေရးေကာ္မရွင္ (CoI) ဖြဲ႔စည္းေပးေရး ေတာင္းဆိုမႈေတြအေပၚမွာ ဦးဟန္ေညာင္ေဝ ဘယ္လို တုန္႔ျပန္ခ်င္ပါသလဲ။
ေျဖ ။    ။ ဘာေၾကာင့္ မတိုးတက္ေသးသလဲဆိုတာက ဒီျပႆနာေတြဟာ ပိုၿပီးနက္နဲတယ္၊ လူေတြ ေမွ်ာ္လင့္ထားတာထက္ အားေတြပိုစိုက္ဖို႔လိုတယ္၊ အခ်ိန္ပိုယူဖို႔လိုတာေၾကာင့္ပါ။ ဆယ္စုႏွစ္ေပါင္းမ်ားစြာၾကာ တည္ရိွခဲ့တဲ့ ႏွိပ္စက္မႈေတြ၊ ဒုကၡခံစားမႈေတြ ေက်ာ္လြန္ဖို႔ ယံုၾကည္မႈ၊ စိတ္ခ်မႈေတြ တည္ေဆာက္ဖို႔ လိုပါတယ္။ အစိုးရစစ္သားေတြဟာ တိုင္းရင္းသားလူမ်ိဳးေတြကို ဆက္ဆံတဲ့အခါမွာ ဥေပဒအရ ကင္းလြတ္ခြင့္အျပည့္နဲ႔ ေဆာင္ရြက္တယ္ဆိုတဲ့ အခ်က္ကိုေတာ့ အစိုးရအေနနဲ႔ ႐ိုး႐ိုးသားသား အသိအမွတ္ျပဳဖို႔လိုပါတယ္။ အက်ဥ္းေထာင္ေတြထဲက တုိင္းရင္းသားေခါင္းေဆာင္ေတြကို လႊတ္ေပးျခင္းအားျဖင့္ ျပန္လည္ကုစားျခင္း လုပ္ငန္းစဥ္ကို သူတို႔အေနနဲ႔ ကူညီေပးႏိုင္မွာျဖစ္သလို ျပႆနာေတြ ေျဖရွင္းတဲ့အခါမွာလည္း ၀ိုင္း၀န္း ပံ့ပိုးေပးသြားႏိုင္မွာပါ။ ေနျပည္ေတာ္အေနနဲ႔ လုပ္ႏိုင္တာေတြ အမ်ားႀကီးပါ။ ျမစ္ဆံုေရကာတာကိစၥကို ဦးသိန္းစိန္ လုပ္သလိုမ်ိဳး သူတို႔ကုိယ္ပိုင္ဆံုးျဖတ္ခ်က္နဲ႔ လုပ္မယ္ဆို ပိုၿပီးထိေရာက္မွာပါ။ အေနာက္ႏိုင္ငံေတြက ဒါမွမဟုတ္ တျခားႏိုင္ငံျခား အစိုးရေတြက ပါ၀င္ေဆာင္ရြက္တာထက္ သူ႔တို႔ကိုယ္တိုင္ ေဆာင္ရြက္တာက ပိုၿပီးထိေရာက္မွာပါ။  ႏိုင္ငံတကာ အသိုင္းအ၀န္းအေနနဲ႔ ႏွစ္ဖက္စလံုးကို ညိွႏိႈင္းဖို႔ တြန္းအားေပးတဲ့ေနရာမွာ၊ ၿပီးေတာ့ စစ္ေရးလုပ္ငန္းေတြကို စြန္႔ခြာတဲ့ လုပ္ငန္းစဥ္တခုလံုးအတြက္ နည္းပညာအကူအညီနဲ႔ အေထာက္အပံ့ေတြ ပံ့ပိုးတဲ့ေနရာမွာ ကူညီေပးႏိုင္ပါတယ္။ စံုစမ္းစစ္ေဆးေရးေကာ္မရွင္ဆိုတာ ျဖစ္လာမယ့္ဟာ မဟုတ္ပါဘူး။ အခုကာလက က်ေနာ္တို႔အေနနဲ႔ သီအိုရီ ျဖစ္ႏိုင္ေျခေတြဆိုတာထက္ လက္ေတြ႔က်တဲ့ အဆင့္ေတြကိုပဲ အာ႐ံုစိုက္သင့္ပါတယ္။

ေမး ။    ။ အကယ္၍ တေန႔မွာ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံဟာ ပြင့္လင္းလာၿပီဆိုပါေတာ့။ ပြင့္လင္းလာတဲ့ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံမွာ ဦးဟန္ေညာင္ေဝ အေနနဲ႔ေရာ၊ ဦးဟန္ေညာင္ေဝရဲ႕ အဖြဲ႔အစည္းအေနနဲ႔ပါ ဘယ္လိုအခန္းက႑ကေန ပါ၀င္လုိပါသလဲ။

ေျဖ ။    ။ ဥေရာပ ျမန္မာ႐ံုးက ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံတြင္း လူငယ္မ်ိဳးဆက္သစ္နဲ႔ လူထုအေျချပဳအဖြဲ႔အစည္းေတြရဲ႕ လုပ္ႏိုင္စြမ္းေတြ ျမွင့္တင္ေပးတဲ့က႑မွာ ပါ၀င္ေဆာင္ရြက္ေနပါတယ္။ ဒါ့အျပင္ မတူညီတဲ့ တိုင္းရင္းသားအုပ္စုေတြအၾကား နားလည္မႈေတြ တည္ေဆာက္ေပးတဲ့လုပ္ငန္းေတြ၊ လက္နက္နဲ႔ ေျဖရွင္းတဲ့နည္းလမ္းအစား ေတြ႔ဆံုေဆြးေႏြးေရး၊ ေစ့စပ္ညိွႏိႈင္းေရးကတဆင့္ ျပႆနာေတြကို အတူတကြ ေျဖရွင္းတဲ့နည္းလမ္းေတြကို လူထုအၾကား ပညာေပးျခင္း စတဲ့ လုပ္ငန္းေတြမွာလည္း က်ေနာ္တို႔ ပါ၀င္ေဆာင္ရြက္ခဲ့ပါတယ္။ ေယဘုယ်အေနနဲ႔ ၾကည့္မယ္ဆိုရင္ေတာ့ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံသားေတြနဲ႔ ႏိုင္ငံတကာအသိုင္းအ၀န္းအၾကား က်ေနာ္တို႔ ေပါင္းကူးေပးႏုိင္ပါတယ္။ အကယ္၍ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံက ပြင့္လင္းလာၿပီဆိုရင္ေတာ့ က်ေနာ္တို႔အလုပ္ေတြကို ပိုၿပီး ထိထိေရာက္ေရာက္ လုပ္ႏိုင္လာမွာပါ။     ။

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Who are Burma's minority groups?

More than 40% of people living in Burma belong to one of the military-ruled nation's different minority groups. The government recognises eight distinct ethnic groups, with dozens of sub-groups, but refuses to acknowledge others

As the country holds its first elections in 20 years, the BBC profiles some of the main minority groups. Click on each image to find out more.

Map showing Burma ethnic diversity
Update 28 October 2011: The map on this story has been updated to include a section on the Rakhine people. We have also changed the text to make a distinction between ethnic groups and minority groups.

source: BBC

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Rohingya Arakanese Refugees in Bangladesh Demand

The RARC network confirmed that the Rohingya Arakanese Refugees in Bangladesh has put 3 final demands before repatraition.

1. To ensure full citizenship rights with the name of ethnic Rohingya

2. To ensure equal rights like other ethnic nationalities with full human dignity in line of international human   rights mechanism and standard.

3. To give compensation on the loses and damages in their country of origin, including the ensuring the return of their confiscated lands, properties and others.

Bar Council moots monitoring mechanism for Malaysian-Myanmar refugee swap

October 18, 2011
President of the Malaysian Bar, Lim Chee Wee, said today it is crucial both governments prove the swap arrangement will stand up to “international scrutiny”. — file pic
KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 18 — A proper monitoring mechanism is needed for the planned Malaysian-Myanmar refugee swap to ensure transparency and zero human rights violations, the Bar Council said today.
 
Lim Chee Wee, who is president of the Malaysian Bar, said it is crucial both governments prove the swap arrangement will stand up to “international scrutiny,” and pointed out that both Malaysia and Myanmar have had less than satisfactory track records in the treatment of refugees and asylum seekers.


Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein announced yesterday that Malaysia will repatriate detainees of minor immigration crimes from Myanmar back to their country, and vice versa.

“No mention has been made of any monitoring mechanism and whether any determination has been made by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) as to whether any of the detainees to be returned is a genuine asylum seeker.

“It remains a fact that Malaysia and Myanmar are both laggards in respect of openness and transparency of governmental action and of ratification of international human rights conventions,” he said in a statement today.
“This immigration detainee swap must also be located within the context of the need for a wider and more comprehensive regional mechanism that will allow for freedom of movement of nationals from one Asean member country to work in other member countries in order to address the differing labour demands in this region,” Lim added.

Lim said existing laws in Malaysia regarding the handling of refugees did not suffice, and that they needed to be on par with international legal conventions if the government wanted to see the new swap deal through.

Putrajaya previously entered into a refugee swap deal with Canberra, dubbed the “Malaysia Solution”, where Australia would send 800 asylum seekers to Malaysia for processing in return for accepting 4,000 refugees from Malaysia.

After repeated attempts, the deal was finally abandoned last week after Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s administration recognised that it lacked the necessary lawmaker support to push the legislation through.

Source: The Malaysian Insider

M'sia and Myanmar sign exchange detainees deal

KUALA LUMPUR (Oct 17, 2011): Malaysia and Myanmar have agreed in principle to exchange detainees, Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein announced today, sparking concern among human rights groups.
He said the exchange will help reduce congestion at immigration depots nationwide.

“There are about 1,000 Myanmar nationals detained at immigration depots for various immigration related offences,” he told a news conference after meeting Myanmar Deputy Foreign Minister U Maung Myint who is on a three-day working visit.


However, the number of Malaysians detained in Myanmar was not made known.

Hishammuddin said about 257,000 Myanmar nationals had been biometrically registered under the government’s 6P amnesty programme for immigrants.

This proposal comes on the heels of the abandoned Malaysia-Australia agreement in July to swap asylum-seekers for refugees.

Under that deal, which was criticised by rights groups, Australia agreed to accept 4,800 UN-approved refugees in exchange for Malaysia hosting 800 asylum-seekers while their applications were being processed.
However, Australian Prime MinisterJulia Gillard ditched the deal last week for fear of not being able to get the law through parliament where she has a one-seat majority.

The idea to send back Myanmar nationals has raised concern among NGOs which said it would breach human rights as many Myanmars fled their country to escape persecution.

Migrant Care Malaysia director Alex Ong told theSun the situation of the Myanmar nationals was different from that of Indonesians and Bangladeshis.

“The Indonesians and Bangladeshis mostly come to Malaysia as economic migrants, meaning they are seeking wealth and a better life.

“The majority of Myanmar detainees, however, are seeking political asylum, and are not here for economic reasons. We also have to consider their refugee status,” he said.

Tenaganita director Irene Fernandez, when told of the proposal, expressed shock that such an exchange could take place.

“It is worrying because many of them are actually refugees, but because Malaysia is not a signatory to the 1951 United Nations Convention on Refugees and does not recognise anyone as refugees, they are treated as undocumented migrants,” she said.

Earlier, Hishammuddin said besides helping to reduce congestion at detention depots, the swap will foster closer cooperation between Myanmar and Malaysia in tackling cross-border crimes.

“Malaysia and Myanmar have agreed to set up a joint working committee that will enhance efforts to monitor the movement of migrants between the two countries.

“The committee is expected to be set up by next week,” he said, adding that details on the exchange programme will be revealed after its first meeting.

He said the government had also arrived at similar commitments with Indonesia and Bangladesh which were the top two source countries for migrant workers to Malaysia.

U Maung Myint said arrangements will soon be made to send Myanmar nationals detained at depots back to Myanmar.

On the 6P programme, he said while the move to provide amnesty was welcomed, he had requested for an extension of the registration period, which had ended on Aug 31, for Myanmar workers.

The 6P programme is now in the legalisation and enforcement phase which involves the deployment of four million officers from the immigration, police, army and Rela nationwide to act against errant employers and migrant workers.

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Rakhine Attempt to Whitewash Burman King’s Crime

Letter from America: Muslim Identity and Demography in Arakan

By Dr. Habib Siddiqui
Part 4: Rakhine Attempt to Whitewash Burman King’s Crime
Habib_Siddiqui_92.jpg
Khin Maung Saw provides a highly distorted rendition of the 1784 invasion of Arakan and tries to justify the brutal occupation by the racist and bigot Burman King Bodaw Paya by saying that it was all about reformation of the Buddhist Monk's order. To him, all those who fled were only 50,000. And obviously, to him, these were Rakhines (and no Rohingyas).
 
Likewise, the Rohingya factor starts with British control of Arakan, esp. as he puts it, after 1886, as if they simply did not exist before the British colonization. He writes, "Arakan was very under-populated at that time. Therefore, the British brought tens of thousands of Chittagonian Bengali Muslims into Arakan. The Arakanese (Rakhaings) have to bear the burdens of these aliens until today. These aliens tried and are still trying to Islamize Arakan (if not the whole of Burma) by all means."

Obviously, such a narrative belies history, esp. the multi-cultural reality of Arakan during the Mrauk-U dynasty, preceding Bodaw Paya's invasion. As we have noted elsewhere during the 40-year Burmese tyrannical rule (1784-1824) of Arakan, tens of thousands of Arakanese of all faiths were massacred. The conquering Burmese forces demolished mosques, temples and shrines and stole the treasures of Arakan (including the Mahamuni statue). They conscripted and enslaved many, some of whom died out of fatigue and hunger while the living ones were settled at other parts of Burma. Some 20,000 inhabitants were taken as prisoners to Ava. By 1798, Bodaw’s repeated demand for forced slave labor (e.g., to build pagodas) and conscript service and the atrocity of his forces plus the rapacity of his local representatives had forced two-thirds of the inhabitants - Hindu, Muslim and Buddhist alike – to take refuge in Chittagong (Bengal). As noted by Farooque Ahmed, a researcher at the JNU, just the number of Muslim refugees to Bengal might have been 200,000. What is worse: during the next four decades of Burman colonization of Arakan, everything that was materially and culturally Islamic was meticulously razed to the ground.

According to G.E. Harvey, “Arakan had never been populous, and now it became a desert; the towns were deserted and overgrown with jungle, and there was nothing more to be seen but ‘utter destruction … morass, pestilence and death.” Khin Maung Saw’s attempt to whitewash the blood-soaked history of his idol, Bodaw Paya, is simply ludicrous, if not criminal and evil. He may like to re-read the historical account of this Buddhist monster, and learn why the Arakanese enthusiastically collaborated with the East India Company to get rid of the Burmans.

As we have noted earlier, the number of Muslims who lived in Mrohaung, the capital, during Mrauk-U kingdom was rather large, probably half the population. It is not difficult to surmise that the Muslim population could have grown to well over 300,000 in 1784 before the Burman invasion of Arakan, just from the Muslim soldiers alone that had settled there after restoring Narameikhla to the throne in 1430.

It is well known from demographic studies within Bangladesh that most of those fleeing refugees – mostly Muslim (and some Hindu) Rohingyas and Rakhine Buddhists - never returned, even when the British allowed such immigration after it had captured Arakan after the first Anglo-Burmese War of 1824-26. They assimilated within Bengal, esp. Chittagong and Chittagong Hill Tract Districts. For example, the ‘Rohai’, comprising nearly half the population in southern Chittagong, trace their origin to Arakan, and as citizens of Bangladesh, have no desire to return to Arakan after more than two centuries. Similarly many Rakhine Buddhists are now citizens of Bangladesh. If the descendants of Arakan who had fled to Chittagong during Bodaw Paya’s invasion of the territory, can become citizens of Bangladesh, K.M. Saw’s claim that the Rohingyas in Arakan are the aliens and that they don’t deserve Burmese citizenship show his utterly repugnant chauvinistic attitude that is at odds with scores of international laws governing basic human rights.

We have also seen throughout history that a persecuted people, no matter how horrible the living condition is even under the worst of the circumstances minus annihilation, don’t want to leave their ancestral homes. Many would try to endure their sufferings than opt out into a life of refugee. Thus, it is conceivable that in spite of the Burman savagery, many Arakanese Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists continued to live inside Arakan, and many would move to and fro through the porous borders as they felt either secure or insecure.

We are, therefore, not surprised to read Francis Buchanan’s eye-witness account who was a surgeon in 1795 to the British Embassy in Ava, the Burmese capital. He wrote about three dialects spoken: “The first is that spoken by the Mohammedans [Muslims], who have long settled in Arakan and who call themselves Roanigya [Rohingya] or native of Arakan.” In stark contrast to the propaganda of the Buddhist racists in today’s Burma, Buchanan clearly identifies the Rohingya people as the natives of Arakan. [K.M. Saw, e.g., tries to mischievously downplay this with his silly explanations, which are so ludicrous that one can clearly see that he was running out of his evil tricks.] How could the Rohingya be a product of the British colonization when Britain did not even move into the territory until 1824-6, nearly a quarter century after Buchanan’s account?

To account for Muslim factor in Arakan, Saw shoots onto his own foot by quoting R.B. Smart, the deputy assistant commissioner of Akyab: “Since1879, immigration has taken place on a much larger scale, and the descendants of the slaves are resident for the most part in the Kyauktaw and Myohaung [Mrohaung] townships. Maungdaw Township has been overrun by Chittagonian immigrants. Butheedaung is not far behind and new arrivals will be found in almost every part of the district."

Who are these ‘slaves’ that Smart talks about, if they are not the ancestors of today's Rohingyas? So, surely, before 1886, there were already those Kalas in the territory. How did they originate? Did they originate during the British rule, starting at 1824? Surely, not! Can anyone deny the fact that they were a legacy of the Magh-Portuguese piracy, so evident during much of the 17TH and the 18th centuries, when at least 3,000 Bengalis were taken as captives per year, many of whom were forced to work as slaves in Arakan? According to Arthur Phayre, based on the Travelogue of Friar Manrique, the slave population accounted for 15% of the total population of Arakan.

It is not difficult to also understand that under the new political reality of Arakan with the East India Company (EIC) in power, some of the descendants of the Arakanese refugees that had settled in the nearby EIC-controlled Bengal would be allured to settle back in their ancestral land, and that they would prefer to settle in places like Maungdaw and Buthidaung, which are closest to Teknaf, the southern tip of Chittagong in Bengal. That way, if things did not work out for them they could return to Chittagong with much ease.

The new colonizers depended on taxation and land-revenue, and rice export was an important trade in those days. However, with only 740 square miles of the fertile land cultivable in 1871, rice export was accounting for 105,894 Pounds Sterling (less than 10% of the total sea-borne trade of Arakan, amounting to 1.35 million Pounds Sterling).

************ To be continued *********
[Dr Siddiqui’s book - The Forgotten Rohingya: Their Struggle for Human Rights in Burma – is available from Amazon.com]
See also:
- Asian Tribune -

OIC is succeding for forceful repatriation of Rohingyas to Tyranny

Sunday, October 16, 2011
Front Page

Myanmar to 'take back' Rohingya refugees

Updates foreign office on fresh initiative; newly formed Myanmar govt also agrees to discuss undocumented Rohingyas in Bangladesh


The newly formed government of Myanmar has agreed to take back registered Rohingya refugees currently staying at two refugee camps in Cox's Bazar but made no decision on the large number of unregistered Rohingyas living in Bangladesh.

The number of refugees in Nayapara and Kutupalong camps is now 28,000 and the Myanmar government agreed that a large portion of the listed refugees are Myanmar nationals, said Foreign Secretary Mijarul Quayes yesterday at a press briefing at the foreign ministry.

Apart from the refugees, a huge number of undocumented Myanmar nationals are living in Bangladesh without refugee status, he said referring to the unregistered Rohingyas.

“Although they do not have refugee status, we are not forcing them out of the country on humanitarian ground,” Quayes said, adding that the Myanmar authorities have agreed to discuss the undocumented nationals.

The refugees at the camps had declined to return, he said hoping that they may have the confidence to go back now as Myanmar has a new government.

Bangladesh, Myanmar and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) took a fresh initiative to return the refugees to their homeland, said Quayes, who attended Foreign Office Consultations held in Myanmar on August 25.

Both governments are in discussion to launch synchronised patrol of the common border by border guards of the two countries to stop fresh influx of Myanmar citizens into Bangladesh, Quayes said.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is set to visit Myanmar soon to discuss this issue among others but the date of the trip has not been fixed yet, he added.

According to different sources, there are more than 300,000 unregistered Rohingyas living among the local population, in slums and villages mostly throughout Cox's Bazar district but also in smaller numbers in the Chittagong Hill Tracts.

The foreign secretary told the press conference that the huge number of undocumented Rohingyas was damaging the environment, creating social problems and disrupting our job market abroad.

Their presence is damaging the forests in Cox's Bazar and the CHT, and the social environment of the locality as many are involved in different types of anti-social and criminal activities, like prostitution and smuggling.

Rohingyas began fleeing Burma in the late 1970s, although the biggest influx was in 1992 when an estimated 250,000 fled to Bangladesh. Most of them were repatriated following an agreement between Bangladesh and Myanmar with the UNHCR supervision.

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Myanmar nationals top asylum seekers’ list

KUALA LUMPUR: Myanmar nationals are the largest number of asylum seekers in Malaysia, the Dewan Rakyat was told Monday.

Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk Seri Mohamed Nazri Aziz said until Aug, 7,582 of the total 10,850 asylum seekers were Myanmar nationals.

Statistics by United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in Kuala Lumpur showed there were 94,843 'persons of concern' where 83,993 were refugees and 10,850 were asylum seekers.

"Of the total, 67,145 were men and 27,698 women with Mynamar nationals the majority with 7,582 asylum seekers," he said in a written reply to Lim Lip Eng (DAP-Segambut) here.

Lim asked about the number of refugees and asylum seekers in Malaysia and laws that guarantee their welfare and safety while in detention.

Nazri said although Malaysia did not sign any agreement on refugees, no illegal immigrants holding UNHCR cards had been arrested on humanitarian grounds.

Malaysia is not signatory to United Nations Convention Relating to The Status of Refugees 1951 and Protocol Relating to The Status of Refugees 1967.

"Malaysia has allowed the refugees to stay here temporarily until they are relocated to a third country," he said.

However, since Malaysia did not sign any agreement on refugees, the government could not guarantee their welfare and safety. - Bernama 

Source: The Star

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Understanding the Changes in Burma

By DR ZARNI Wednesday, October 12, 2011

All the “dramatic” developments in Burma, including the release of 6,000-plus prisoners, are, as US Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell put it, certainly welcome.  Likewise, the man from the International Crisis Group was singing the praise of Naypyidaw on the BBC World Service News hour with Robin Lustig on 11 Oct .

And yet despite these loud applauses of “changes” in Burma, the Burmese public is finding it very, very difficult to feel hopeful.

Not even Burma’s highly regarded political comedian Zaganar could say he was happy in spite of his new found freedom today when he was released from Myitkyina jail where he was serving 34 years behind bars.   He told the Burmese local Eleven Media Group before boarding the Rangoon-bound plane, "Based on my current experiences I dare not think changes are real and big this time either."

Time magazine quoted his remark to the Associate Press:  "I am not happy at all, as none of my 14 so-called political prisoner friends from Myitkyina prison are among those freed today". 

So, how are we really to understand these much-trumpeted “changes” in Burma?

These changes do not include the change of heart among Burma’s rulers.  They are in fact principally related to only two things.

First, the regime's felt need to realign its geopolitical interests.

The military’s uneasiness about its need to rely on China for international protection runs deep.  Today China is also Burma’s number one foreign investor, all of it in mega-development, infrastructural and resource extractive projects.

And for Naypyidaw dealing with an increasingly aggressive, powerful and rich Beijing, without the backing of the West and the mainstream Burman public, is like fighting with one hand tied behind the back.

Tangible improvements on the human rights, political and development fronts are part of the price the generals have to pay to balance Beijing's growing influence.

Second, the generals and ex-generals have an acute desire to prove that they are not failures at nation-building, as the bulk of the Burmese public thinks. That’s understandable. The military has had nearly half a century to govern, develop and bring about peace and prosperity for all—not just themselves and their families. But they have turned the world’s rice basket into a basket case.

Hard facts on the ground speak louder than the military’s institutionalized fiction that the senior and junior generals vis-à-vis civilians are brilliant nation-builders. The generals’ Burma is ranked second to last, just ahead of Somalia, on Transparency International's Corruption Index. Public provision of health services exists only in name. There are no social safety nets. Period.

Public education, the largest provider of schooling, at all levels lies in ruin. Ninety-nine percent of university graduates don’t know what BA or BSc stands for, let alone how to spell Bachelor of Arts or Science correctly. And forget the home-grown PhDs.

This extremely low quality of human resources is not the exclusive problem of civilian educational and bureaucratic institutions. The bulk of the 4,000-plus graduates from the Defense Services Academy, the Defense Services Technological Academy and the Defense Services Medical Academy failed entrance examinations at Russian educational institutes where they were sent as “state scholars” under civilian disguise.
There are pockets of communities whose socioeconomic and humanitarian conditions are closer to those of countries in Sub-Saharan Africa than to those of an Asian country about to “take off” developmentally. Many spend more than 70 percent of their meager household income on food alone, while wealth is increasingly concentrated in the hands of the Chinese and a handful of cronies, who in part play the role of portfolio managers for the generals and ex-generals.

The country’s ecology and communities face serious threats to their survival from some mega-development projects such as dam construction—seven on the Irrawaddy, Burma’s Nile, alone—and the two major Chinese gas and oil pipelines and Thailand’s $13 billion Special Economic Zone construction in the country's far south.

Nearly one-million Muslims—Arakanese Muslims and Rohingya—are forced to live in semi-concentration camps in Arakan State. In the midst of economically rising Asia, the country produces the fifth largest refugee population in the world. The Burma Army is still waging military operations against armed ethnic groups such as the Kachin Independence Army and the Karen National Union.

Source: The Irrawaddy

Street Campaigns held for Rohingya Refugees in Korea

Rights group Human Asia may only have been campaigning here for under six years, but the small Korean NGO aims to have a big impact on the region. 

The organization which raises awareness on human rights across Asia has set out on an ambitious mission to establish a regional human rights protection mechanism, and it is starting by educating Korea.

And Human Asia program manager Lee Joo-yea thought a Seoul-based organization would be well-placed to lead a forum where representatives of many Asian countries can meet to find common ground on rights. 

“Our long-term aim is to get a human rights convention for Asia,” she said. “The first step is getting a lot of human rights organizations together for an NGO-led forum.” 

While Asian countries such as Thailand and the Philippines do not have the economic resources, and others have questionable human rights records to overcome, Lee believes that Korea now has the economic and diplomatic clout to lead in the field. 

“We are looking to see who can be the leader of the (Asian) human rights movement,” she said. 

“Japan has a past that they are not particularly proud of -― they colonized countries. China is economically successful but has so many human rights violations. It is not that Korea is totally innocent but at least the international community states that Korea is not so guilty ... In that sense we are really proud that we can come in to try to develop the human rights movement in Asia.”

The organization started in 2006 is working to educate people on human rights here and has already drawn interest from the National Human Rights Commission of Korea for a regional human rights forum, hoped to be held in the next three years.

Human Asia campaigners raise awareness of the plight of Rohingya refugees in a recent demonstration in Korea. (Human Asia)


While Lee is optimistic that common ground can be found among Asian countries, she recognizes that there are many hurdles to overcome, including neighboring nations’ differing agendas such as food security in Bangladesh to migrant workers’ rights in Korea.

 She also recognized that further education was needed to put human rights on the agenda here. 

“It is very hard because people have very different ideas about what human rights are,” she said.

“We don’t have any general human rights teaching in schools or universities. Most of the young students don’t have any basic idea of human rights.

 “They think that human rights are something that belong to others. They don’t think of human rights as something they can use to empower themselves.”To change this, the organization has focused for the last six years on education.

 It holds regular workshops for activists, human rights academies and has set up a human rights course with Korea University Graduate School of International Studies, with students attending from countries including the Democratic Republic of Congo and Bangladesh as well as Korea. But now the charity is working to get more people outside of academia involved.“We are starting to run more campaigns to bring in ordinary members of the public as we want to expand our activities to include not just education but also toward more active campaigns,” Lee said. The NGO’s grassroots movement is also developing abroad with branches run by high school students cropping up in America ― in California, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Massachusetts.


In Korea, the charity has held street campaigns for Rohingya Refugees here, originally from Burma. It has also supported groups such as the Jumma people who fled persecution in Bangladesh to become refugees in Korea, and made a field trip to the country to learn more about human rights concerns there. As well as helping under-represented people, each campaign aims to accustom participants to the idea that they can become rights activists in their own way, too. “Korea has developed in various areas including economically, but you don’t have that kind of development in human rights.


 We need to narrow this gap,” said Lee.“In Korea we have a very active civil rights and labor movement and the term human rights was always around but here people often associate the term with struggle, or fighting, or something political.“Even (our country’s) leaders, they think that human rights (can be used as) a tool for them to achieve a leadership position in Asia.”Lee said Human Asia aims to shift the focus from gleaning international prestige to helping people, avoiding many Asian NGOs often narrow scope that was often “very political and either right wing or left wing.”She added: 

“We don’t necessarily represent the whole of Asia but by bringing together other civil society organizations and creating a forum we can discuss our different concerns.


”By Kirsty Taylor (kirstyt@heraldm.com)

REFUGEE GROUPS CONDEMN GOVERNMENT STALLING MALAYSIA AGREEMENT VOTE


From: Ian Rintoul <irintoul@ozemail.com.au>
Date: 13 October 2011 15:51
Subject: [coordracnsw] STOP STALLING ON MALAYSIA AGREEMENT VOTE
 
MEDIA RELEASE

REFUGEE GROUPS CONDEMN GOVERNMENT STALLING MALAYSIA AGREEMENT VOTE

“The Gillard government is achieving nothing by stalling the vote on its Migration Act amendments. They are trying to prolong the inevitable in a vain attempt to maintain the blame game and keep the Malaysia Agreement alive – but everyone knows now it is dead in the water. The longer they delay the vote, the sillier they look.

“This is tricky parliamentary politics at its worst. The government has been distracted by the Malaysia Agreement for too long already. The crisis of self harm and attempted suicide in the Australian detention system is not being dealt with,” said Refugee Action
Coalition spokesperson, Ian Rintoul.

“The arbitrary and bureaucratic delays in refugee processing are inflicting increasing misery on asylum seekers languishing in detention. The fact that some people are waiting two years for ASIO security clearances is a straight abuse of the system – innocent
people are being kept in shocking conditions and are being driven crazy by the uncertainty. There are no excuses for such delays.

“Federal Magistrate Court appeals are now being scheduled for February and March next year. The fact that so many negative decisions are being overturned at every level of appeal shows there is something fundamentally wrong with the off-shore processing system.

“The government should face up to the fact that asylum seekers will now be processed in Australia and move on the correct the abuses in their system. The government should bring on the vote or announce that the legislation will not be introduced and that third country processing is finished.

Like third country processing, offshore processing on Christmas Island and mandatory detention are relics of the anti-refugee policies of the Howard era. It is time those policies were killed off too,” said Rintoul.

There will be a pro-refugee rally will be held in Sydney on Saturday 15 October, starting at Town Hall. Speakers include: Speakers include: Sarah Hanson-Young (Greens Senator), John Menadue,(Founding Chair, Centre for Policy Development, former head of Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs), Linda Scott (NSW co-convener Labor for Refugees), Angeline Loh (Malaysian refugee rights activist), Antony
Loewenstein (independent journalist).

For more information contact Ian Rintoul 0417 275 713

Sunday, October 9, 2011

FRC highlights the current situation of Rohingya people at Senator Office in New York City


Julina Guo (Constituent liaison, Senate Office)- Michael Eatroff (C.L & Foreign Affairs , State Dept),Nay San Oo , Su Su Lwin

Free Rohingya Campaign (FRC) had an opportunity to brief at U.S Senator Kirsten Gillibrand office in New York City, USA on October 6, 2011 to bring attention to the U.S Government, where Rohingyas have been brutally discrimination by Burmese Regime and current situation of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.

Mr. Nay San Oo, Co-founder of FRC and Mrs. Su Su Lwin,a member of FRC are brief about the Rohingya have been invariably subjected to criminal atrocities, torture, inhuman and degrading treatment and punishment, relentless taxation, humiliating restriction on their freedom of movement and residence within the state, prohibition of their right to marry and to found a family, restriction of their right to education, right to work and to get access to food and other essentials including medical care Inside Arakan , Burma. Due to above reasons toward Rohingyas have to move out from Burma to the various countries.

FRC point out in the PowerPoint presentation, Under the Burma 1982 Citizenship Law, Rohingya are evidently being refused citizenship, as the ethnic group is not recognized under by law. This law is grossly discriminatory against the Rohingya made them stateless.





FRC urged to the U.S Government to put necessary pressure to amend the 1982 citizenship law to make sure it comply with basic human right and citizenship right . FRC also urged to US Senate to pressure to the Bangladesh government to give proper protection to the Rohingya refugees, and improve law and order situation in the refugee camps and surrounding area; to recognize all Rohingya asylum seekers in Bangladesh as refugees, and provide them with basic relief such as food, shelter and healthcare in cooperation with the UNHCR and international communities.

Thank you,



Free Rohingya Campaign (FRC)
New York City, United States of America.
1-646-821-1475

info@freerohingyacampaign.com
www.freerohingyacampaign.com

Saturday, October 8, 2011

The Muslim Factor in Arakan

By Dr. Habib Siddiqui
Part 3: The Muslim Factor in Arakan
Habib_Siddiqui_91.jpg
Just as it happened throughout the coastal territories from the Arabian Peninsula to the Barbary Coast and the shores of Gibraltar and Iberian Peninsula (and beyond) via Alexandria, Tripoli and Tunis to the west, and to the shores of Mozambique (originally Musa-bin-Baik) via Zanzibar and Mombasa to the south, and to the lower Gangetic Delta (Bangladesh) and beyond (to the Strait of Malacca) via the Malabar Coast of India to the east, the maritime trade route in the India Ocean in those days (pre-dating European colonization) used to be controlled by the Arab/Persian Muslims.

As they traded they also created pockets of settlements, and interacting with and marrying into the local populace slowly changed the local customs and culture.

Dr. Yegar writes that after the rapid expansion of Islam in the 7th century, “colonies of Muslims, both Arab and Persian, spread all along the sea trade routes… As early as the middle of the 8th century, a sizable Muslim concentration could be found in along the southern coast of China, in the commercial ports of southern India, and Southeast Asia…. Merchants brought silk, spices, perfumes, lumber, porcelain, silver and gold articles, precious jewels, jewelry, and so forth from these countries, and some of the trade made its way to Europe.” “Because sailing ships were dependent on monsoon winds and seasons, it was essential for Arabs and other Muslim traders,” writes Yegar, “to set up domiciles in ports that were located in the heart of local communities. Muslim settlements spread rapidly in Asian port cities as Muslim merchants became vital to the economy of the local communities.”

The local inhabitants of Arakan, as noted in the British Burma Gazetteer (1957), had interactions with the so-called Mohammedans – the ‘Moor Arab Muslims’ (merchants/traders), dating at least to the time of Mahataing Sandya (8th century CE).. As to the Muslim settlements in Arakan, the renowned scholars of the early 20th century, Professor Enamul Haq and Abdul Karim Shahitya Visarad wrote in 1935: “The Muslim influence in Roshang [Mrohang: the capital of Arakan during the Mrauk-U dynasty] and modern Chattagram [Chittagong] has been noticeable from ancient times. The Arab traders established trade link with the East Indies in the eighth and ninth century AD. During this time Chittagong, the lone seaport of East India, became the resting place and colony of the Arabs.

We know from the accounts of the ancient Arab travelers and geologists including Sulaiman (living in 851 AD), Abu Jaidul Hasan (contemporary of Sulaiman), Ibnu Khuradba (died 912 AD), Al-Masudi (died 956 AD), Ibnu Howkal (wrote his travelogue in 976 AD), Al-Idrisi (born last half of 11th century) that the Arab traders became active in the area between Arakan and the eastern bank of the Meghna River [in today’s Bangladesh]. We can also learn about this from the Roshang national history: when Roshang King, Maha Taing Chandra (788 – 810 AD) was ruling in the 9th century, some ship wrecked Muslim traders were washed ashore on “Ronbee” or “Ramree” Island. When they were taken to the Arakanese king, the king ordered them to live in the village (countryside) in his country. Other historians also recognized the fact that Islam and its influence developed in Arakan in the 9th and 10th century AD.” [Explanatory notes within the parentheses [ ] are mine. It is worth noting that in the dialect prevalent in Chittagong and Arakan the vocal sounds ‘Ha’ and ‘Sha’ are interchangeable. Thus the words Roshang and Rohang are interchangeable. – H.S.]

R.B. Smart writes in the British Burma Gazetteer as follows: “The local histories relate that in the ninth century several ships were wrecked on Ramree Island and the Mussalman crews sent to Arakan and placed in villages there. They differ but little from the Arakanese except in their religion and in the social customs which their religion directs, in the writing they use Burmese, but amongst themselves employ colloquially the language of their ancestors.”

As noted by renowned historian Professor Abdul Karim,“The important point to be noticed about these shipwrecked Muslims is that they have stuck to their religion, i.e. Islam and Islamic social customs. Though they used Burmese language and also adopted other local customs, they have retained the language of their ancestors (probably with mixture of local words) in dealing among themselves. Another point to be noted is that the Arab shipwrecked Muslims have retained their religion, language and social customs for more than a thousand years.”

These shipwrecked Arab Muslims became the nucleus of the Muslim population of Arakan; later other Muslims from Arabia, Persia and other countries entered into Arakan.

Dr. Yegar says, “Beginning with their arrival in the Bay of Bengal, the earliest Muslim merchant ships also called at the ports of Arakan and Burma proper… Muslim influence in Arakan was of great cultural and political importance. In effect, Arakan was the beachhead for Muslim penetration into other parts of Burma even if it never achieved the same degree of importance it did in Arakan. As a result of close land and sea contacts maintained between the two countries, Muslims played a key role in the history of the Kingdom of Arakan.”

It is no accident that Akyab (today’s Sittwe, the capital of Arakan state of Burma, situated on the south-eastern bank of the Naaf River) is a Farsi name, as are so many other towns and villages named, and how over the centuries most of these local inhabitants along the coastal towns and villages, tired of a corrupt form of their ancestral region, would convert to Islam. And this happened centuries before Muslim rulers governed some of those territories.

Professor Enamul Haq and Abdul Karim Shahitya Visarad wrote: “The Arabic influence increased to such a large extent in Chittagong during mid-10th century AD that a small Muslim kingdom was established in this region, and the ruler of the kingdom was called ‘Sultan’. Possibly the area from the east bank of the Meghna River to the Naaf was under this ‘Sultan’. We can know about the presence of this ‘Sultan’ in the Roshang [Mrohang, the capital Arakan during the Mrauk-U dynasty] national history. In 953 AD Roshang King, Sulataing Chandra (951- 957 AD) crossed his border into Bangla (Bengal) and defeated the ‘Thuratan’ (Arakanese corrupt form of Sultan), and as a symbol of victory setup a stone victory pillar at a place called “Chaikta-gong” and returned home at the request of the courtiers and friends. This Chaik-ta-gong was the last border of his victory, since according to Roshang national history – ‘Chaik-ta-gong’ means ‘war should not be raised’. Many surmise that the modem name of Chittagong district originated from Chaik-ta-gong.”

If the story of Arakanese king -- mentioned in its Chronicles -- moving into Chittagong can be believed, in southern Bangladesh, especially in Chittagong, not only was there a Muslim community present but also a Muslim Sultanate ruling there in the 10th century. It may explain why Dr. Than Tun, the former Rector of Mandalay University and Professor of History at the Rangoon University, believed that the kings mentioned in the Inscription might have been Rohingyas, who lived in the eastern part of the Naaf River. He writes, “In the Kyaukza or stone inscription of 1442, it was written that some Muslim kings of Arakan were the friends of king of Ava.”

In their masterpiece, Arakan Rajshavay Bangla Shahitya, Professor Enamul Haq and Abdul Karim Shahitya Visarad continued, “In this way the religion of Islam spread and the Muslim influence slowly extended from the eastern bank of the Meghna to Roshang Kingdom in the 8th and 9th centuries. From the travelogues of the Egyptian traveler to India, Ibn Batuta (14th century AD) and from the accounts of the Portuguese pirates in the 16th century, the influence of the “Moors” or Arabs was waxing till then. So it is evident that long before the Muslim race was established in Bengal in the 13th century, Islam reached to this remote region of Bengal. A conclusion may easily be drawn that after the establishment in Bengal, Islam further spread in the region. That is why Bengali literature was for the first time cultivated among the Muslim of the region. Since the 15th century onwards the Muslims of this region began to engage themselves in the study of Bengali, that is, began to write books in Bengali, of which we have lots of proofs.”

The Muslim saints, the Sufis, who came in hundreds to the shores of Bay of Bengal had a fabulous influence in proselytizing the local inhabitants to Islam. The Arakanese chronicle gives reference to the traveling of Sufis in that country at the time of the king Anawarhta (1044-1077 CE) during Pagan period. Even, a Russian merchant, Athanasius Nitikin, who traveled in the East (1470), mentions regarding activities of some Muslim Sufis of Pegu. The Merchant pictured Pegu as "no inconsiderable port, inhabited by Indian dervishes. The products derived from thence are manik, akhut, kyrpuk, which are sold by the dervishes.” As noted by Dr. Mohammed Ali Chowdhury, these dervishes were Muslims, and probably of Arab descent, and that at that time some Muslims (from nearby Muslim India) had settled in those places.

As it happened throughout history, wherever Muslims went and settled, they were able to proselytize the local people. The simplicity of their faith, views about salvation, egalitarian characteristics and ease of practice, and their ethos - morals, values, dealings, manners and customs -- had a profound effect on the local population to gravitate them to the faith of these strangers, the newcomers, away from the degenerative form of their own religion that they had endured. These migrant Muslims married into the local populace and parented children.

In his book, The Essential History of Burma, historian U Kyi writes, “The superior morality of those devout Muslims attracted large number of people towards Islam who embraced it en masse.”

This essential piece of history of the Muslims of the coastal regions of today’s Bangladesh and Arakan state of Burma is simply ignored by chauvinist elements within the Rakhine and Burmese community. They cannot imagine Islam amongst the ordinary masses without rulers being of the same faith. They also forget that Islam from its very inception has been a simple practical religion, away from the curses of racism, supremacist concepts and caste system that so overwhelmingly dominated the then Buddhist and Hindu culture. While the temples, statues, mandirs and pagodas were built with gold and precious ornaments, and monks and priests held the demigod status enjoying the benefits of the vast material resources that were endowed to them for their upkeep, ordinary people went hungry and poor, and were forced to lead a life of begging and eternal servitude.

It is no accident of history either that vast majority of people in places like Malaysia and Indonesia, where no Muslim army went, would one day become Muslims and abandon their ancestral religions.

The restoration of the deposed king Narameikhla (Mong Saw Mwan) to the throne of Arakan by the Muslim Sultan Jalaluddin Muhammad Shah of Bengal, thus ushering in the Mrauk-U dynasty (1430-1784 CE), is a turning point in the history of Arakan. From this time onward, many of its rulers, indebted to the Muslim Sultan adopted Muslim names (and may even have converted to Islam), a practice that would continue for the next two centuries, until 1638 CE. It is worth noting here that when Narameikhla was dethroned in 1404 CE by the Burman forces, he chose to flee to Muslim Bengal instead of both Buddhist-ruled Tripura and Hindu-ruled territories of India.

When the king Naramikhla reached the capital, he was widely acclaimed by his people. He was aided by two contingents of 50,000 Muslim soldiers (first under General Wali Khan and later under Sandi Khan) many of whom later settled in Arakan. They became his advisers and ministers making sure that the territory was not lost again to the Burmans.

The first thing Naramikhla did after regaining his throne was to transfer the capital from Launggyet to Mrohaung, which in the hands of Bengali poets and people became Roshang (Rohang). Those Muslims established the Sandi Khan Mosque in Mrohaung. Their descendants, as noted by the Bengali poets of the 17th century, held high positions during the Mrauk-U dynasty. During the successive centuries the Muslim population in Arakan grew in large numbers as a result of inter-marriage, immigration and conversion. [In my travels around the Diaspora communities, I have come across many of the descendants of those soldiers who came and settled in Arakan during Narameikhla’s time. As Anthony Irwin had noted some 70 years ago, these Muslims look quite different than average Bangladeshis; many of them have distinct Arab and Persian touch about them; many even have Mongoloid touch.]

As a vassal state of the Muslim Sultanate to the west, Arakan adopted the superior Muslim culture from the west in its courts, and minted coins with Arabic inscription of the Muslim article of faith (kalima). In this way, Arakan remained subordinate to Bengal until 1531. Interestingly, however, as noted above, its kings continued using Muslim titles even after they were liberated from dependency on the sultans of Bengal. As to the reason behind this practice, Dr. Yegar writes, “[T]hey were influenced by the fact that many of their subjects had become Muslims. Indeed, many Muslims served in prestigious positions in the royal administration despite its being Buddhist.” In Rakhine Maha Razwin (Great History of Arakan), Tha Thun Aung describes mass conversion of many Arakanese to Islam in the 15th and 16th centuries.

Because of her geographical proximity with the south-eastern parts of Bengal, Arakan developed both political and cultural ties with Bengalis. Major Muslim settlements developed along the rivers of Lemru, Mingen, Kaladan, Mayu and Naaf.

Its courts and royalties patronized Bengali literature. Some of the best known classical Bengali poets (Alaol, Dawlat Qazi, Mardan) came from Arakan. Its capital city essentially became the breeding ground for Bengali literature in the 17th century. This Mrauk-U period also came to be known as the ‘Golden Age’ in the history of Arakan.

It is also worth mentioning here that as a result of rather lax administrative control of Chittagong by the Mughal and Afghan rulers, and the intermittent rebellion by the Sultans of Bengal against the central government in Delhi, the territory was lost to Arakan between 1580 and 1666 CE. So the ties between Chittagong and Arakan were no less striking than those visible today in places like Texas and California with Mexico.

In their masterpiece work "Arakan Rajsabhay Bangala Sahitya,” Abdul Karim Shahitya Visarad and Dr. Enamul Haq wrote, "The way Bangali flourished in the court of the 17th century Arakan, nothing of that sort is found in its [Bengal’s] own soil. It is surprising that during the exile of Bengali language in Arakan, it was greatly appreciated by the Muslim courtiers of the Arakanese kings and the Muslim poets of East Bengal, especially those of the [greater] Chittagong Division.”

These scholars further wrote, “The study of Bengali literature that the Muslim initiated reached perfection under the aegis of the courtiers of the Roshang kings.

It is needless to say that the Kings’ Court of Roshang got filled up with Muslim influence long before this. From the beginning of the 15th century AD the Kings’ Court of Roshang by luck was compelled to heartily receive the Muslim influence…

…. [T]he powerful intrusion of the Muslim influence that penetrated into the Kings’ Court of Roshang in the fifteenth century AD grew all the more in the following centuries. This influence gradually grew so strong that it reached the highest point in the seventeenth century. The Bengali literature in this century shows the full picture of the Muslim influence in the King’s Court of Roshang.”

How can this piece of history about flourishing Bengali literature and the presence of Muslim courtiers and subjects in Arakan be ignored by any objective analyst?

Nor should one forget that when the Mughal Prince Shah Shuja, the Governor of Bengal (1639-59), chose to take asylum in 1660 CE instead of submitting to the authority of Aurangzeb – the new Mughal Emperor, he chose Arakan, which already had many high ranking Muslims serving the king of Arakan. He was accompanied by his family members and retinues, which included hundreds of bodyguards. Upon arrival, however, the Mughal Prince was betrayed by the Arakanese king Sanda Sudamma. While there are competing accounts as to what had ultimately happened to the fate of the Prince, including one account that suggests that Shah Shuja and his family members were treacherously murdered (and another that suggests that he was able to flee to Manipur with some of his retinues), there is little doubt that many of his guards who were attacked savagely by the Maghs of Arakan fled to the nearby jungle. Some of the surviving guards were later made royal archers and bodyguards serving the Arakanese king.

Their descendants, known as the Kamans or Kamanchis (bowman), are to be found settled mostly in Rambree Island. Some of the followers of Shah Shuja escaped the persecution of Maghs and crossed to Burma. The king of Ava settled them in Ramethin, Shwebo, Maydu and Meiktila. Their descendants can be found today at these places.

There was yet another kind of interaction between the Kingdom of Arakan with its eastern neighbor Bengal, beginning in the 17th century, when gaining strength, the kings of Arakan would allow the plunder of Bengal, and Bengali captives – tens of thousands - would be brought to work as slaves in Arakan. When the Portuguese moved to the Bay of Bengal, they were allowed to set up their military posts in Arakan. In return, the Portuguese aided the Rakhine Maghs in their piracy in Bengal, terrorizing its people and harassing the Mughal forces. The joint Magh-Portuguese marauding expeditions into Bengal continued well after they were routed out of Chittagong in 1666 by Shaista Khan, the Mughal Viceroy (Subedar) of Bengal and his son General Bujurg Umid Khan. Taking captives, most of whom were Muslims, forcing them into slavery was an important part of those raids.

Manrique, a Portuguese priest who visited Bengal and Arakan and who spent six years in the Augustinian Church at Dianga (Deang, near Chittagong town) was himself a witness to such Magh-Portuguese piratical raids. He wrote, “They usually made there general attacks three or four times in the year, irrespective of minor raids which went on most of the year, so that during the five years I spent in the kingdom of Arracan, some eighteen thousand people came to the ports of Dianga and Angarcale.”

As can be seen from Manrique’s account, the number of those captives was not small, and was in excess of 3,000 per year, and continued for well over a century of piracy. This is further evidenced by the fact that when the Chittagong fort fell into the hands of the Mughals, 10,000 Bengali (both Muslim and Hindu) captives got liberty and they went to their homes. While the Portuguese pirates sold their captives and/or forcibly baptized them into Christianity, the Magh pirates forced theirs into slave labors in the paddy fields along the Kaladan River (the river was named after these Kalas). So these captives also helped in increasing the Muslim population of Arakan. The descendants of these captives mostly reside now in Kyauktaw and Mrohaung Townships of Arakan.

According to historian Professor Abdul Karim, “In the 17th century the Muslims thronged the capital Mrohaung and they were present in the miniature courts of ministers and other great Muslim officers of the kingdom. An idea of their presence is available in the writings of Muslim poets like Alaol who wrote that people from various countries and belonging to various groups came to Arakan to be under the care of Arakanese king. The Portuguese Padre Fray Sebastien Manrique visited Arakan and stayed for some time; he was also present in the coronation ceremony of the Arakanese king held on 23 January 1635. He gives a description of the coronation procession and says that of the several contingents of army that took part in the coronation, one contingent wholly comprised of Muslim soldiers, let by a Muslim officer called Lashkar Wazir. The leader rode on Iraqi horse, and the contingent comprised of six hundred soldiers. In other contingent, led by Arakanese commanders also there were Muslim soldiers. This evidence of Sebastien Manrique combined with the fact that there were several Muslim ministers in Arakan gives a good picture of the presence of the Muslim in Arakan in the 17th century. The influence of the Muslim officers over the king of Arakan is also evident from the episodes mentioned by Sebastien Manrique.”

The Muslims of Arakan, therefore, are an amalgam of new migrants - Shaikhs, Syeds, Qazis, Mollahs, Alims, Fakirs, Arabs, Rumis (Turks), Moghuls, Pathans - from various parts of the Muslim world that settled during and before the Mrauk-U dynasty, including the captives (the so-called Kolas) brought in from various parts of Bengal and India, and the indigenous Muslims (the children of Bhumiputras who had converted to Islam over the centuries). They created the genesis of what we call the Rohingya Muslims. To put it succinctly: the Rohingya Muslims are the descendants of the indigenous 'Kalas' that either converted or mixed with the Muslim settlers/travelers/Sufis (including Arab/Persian merchants, traders) to the region, the non-returning soldiers who came to restore Narameikhla to the throne of Arakan, the unwilling captives and others that called Arakan their ancestral home. Hence, the Rohingya Muslims are not an ethnic group, which developed from one tribal group affiliation or single racial stock, but are an ethnic group that developed from different stocks of people.

As already demonstrated, the conversion of these indigenous people to Islam has been no different than what has happened throughout history in the last 14 centuries along the coastal regions from Mozambique to Malacca. It should, therefore, come as no surprise that the Rohingyas of Arakan while having some similarities in matters of physical features, and borrowing religious, linguistic and cultural heritage with their neighbors to the west would develop their own distinct identity, albeit a hybrid or mosaic one. They are neither Chittagonians nor are they Bengalis [Bangladeshis].

The Rohingya Muslims - the ‘Musulman Arakanese’ - as Anthony Irwin noted, ‘are quite unlike any other product of India or Burma that I have seen.’ Similarly, Moshe Yeager noted, “There is very little common – except common religion – between the Rohingyas of Arakan and the Indian Muslims of Rangoon or Burmese Muslims…”

While their ancestral territory would later be colonized by the Tibeto-Burman Buddhists - the ancestors of today’s Rakhines - whose cultural ties have been towards the east, it is the strength of their group character that the Rohingyas of Arakan were able to retain their linguistic and genealogical ties to the soil. After all, the Rakhines are genetically, culturally and linguistically closer to the Burmans (of Burma). On the other hand, as Dr. Yegar noted ‘the Rohingyas preserved their own heritage from the impact of the Buddhist environment, not only as far as their religion is concerned, but also in … their culture.’

As the children of the indigenous people of Arakan, the Rohingyas have as much right, if not more, as the Rakhine Buddhists, to identify themselves with the name that they prefer to describe them. If the late-coming Tibeto-Burman admixture has no problem in calling itself the Rakhaing of Arakan, no outsider (and surely not its abuser) has any right to either define the Rohingya maliciously or deny the same privilege in self-identifying itself.

To call these indigenous people of Arakan -- who identify themselves as the Rohingyas in Burma – “unwanted guests” is like calling the Native Americans unwanted refugees who had settled in America after the Europeans. As much as no massacre of yesteryears and ghettoization of the Native Americans today in designated American Indian Reservation camps can obliterate their genuine right, place, history and identity, no propaganda and government or non-government sponsored pogroms can erase the rightful identity of the Rohingya people of Burma. They are the children of the soil of Arakan.
 ************ To be continued *********
[Dr Siddiqui’s book - The Forgotten Rohingya: Their Struggle for Human Rights in Burma – is available from Amazon.com]
See also:
Part 1: http://www.asiantribune.com/news/2011/09/18/letter-america-muslim-identi...
Part 2: http://www.asiantribune.com/news/2011/09/25/letter-america-muslim-identi...
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