Wednesday, October 31, 2012

The Grand Imam Dr. Ahmed Al-Tayeb, Sheikh of Al-Azhar demanded emergencyOIC Meeting for Muslim Rohingyas of Burma

The Grand Imam Dr. Ahmed Al-Tayeb, Sheikh of Al-Azhar said in a statement Tuesday, and call upon the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to hold an emergency summit of foreign ministers of Islamic countries; to discuss the implications of what is happening to Muslims in (Myanmar), and make critical decisions, to put pressure on the government of Burma to save its Muslims solving this crisis, and to call the Security Council to convene an urgent meeting, to issue a binding decision of the Government of Myanmar to stop the violence.

As Burma Violence Continues, Warnings of Broader Instability

Muslims gather at Thechaung refugee camp in Sittwe, Rakhine State, western Burma, October 29, 2012.

ASEAN Chief Fears Radicalization of Burma's Rohingya

UN Says 22,000 Displaced in Burma Fighting

Death Toll in Burma Clashes Doubles

Daniel Schearf

October 30, 2012

BANGKOK — Authorities in Burma say they are working to restore calm to western Rakhine state after a week of sectarian violence left nearly 100 people dead, destroyed thousands of homes and displaced 30,000 people, the vast majority of them Muslim. Amid reports of continuing clashes, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations has expressed concern the instability could spread.

Myanmar declines talks offer to stop violence

Asean proposes meeting to discuss bloodshed in Rakhine state

AFP/Published: 15:07 October 30, 2012

Kuala Lumpur: Myanmar has rejected an offer by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to open talks aimed at quelling deadly communal violence there, the regional bloc’s chief said on Tuesday.

UNHCR calls on Bangladesh to open border

Oct 30, 2012

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has called on Bangladesh to open its borders to Rohingyas fleeing sectarian violence in Myanmar.

“UNHCR continues to consider that until public order and security are restored for all communities in [Myanmar’s] Rakhine State, states should not forcibly return to Myanmar persons originating from Rakhine State,” Pia Paguio, senior protection officer and officer-in-charge of UNHCR in Dhaka, told IRIN on 29 October. “We thus continue to appeal to the government of Bangladesh to open its borders to those in need of a safe haven.”

11 Rohingya organizations appeal to Save the Arakan Muslim Population from Genocide in Arakan-Burma

Tue, 2012-10-30 01:31 — editor

Kula Lumpur, 30 October, (Asiantribune.com):

A total of 11 national and international Rohingya organization members, Rohingya Diaspora in a joint press release have strongly denounce and condemn and expressed serious concern over the current news information that Buddhist Rakhine extremists led by Rakhine ruling political party - Rakhine Nationalities Development Party-(RNDP) had restarted mass killing of Muslim population of Arakan, as well as burning and destruction of Muslims villages and houses, in Minbya, Mrauk Oo, Kyaukpru, Pauktaw, Ratheydaung, Myebone, and Kyauktaw Townships since October 21, 2012.

West media silent on systematic genocide of Rohingyas: Expert

Here we have an entire community being wiped out, a genocide, a holocaust is taking place and people are still making simple statements.”Related Interviews:

Rohingya Muslim community bleeds on

Human rights groups call for action on Burma ethnic strife

By AP News Oct 28, 2012 1:34PM UTC

SITTWE, Burma (AP) — Human rights groups urged an end of sectarian violence in western Burma on Saturday, with one releasing satellite photos of what it said was an entire section of a town apparently burned to the ground by a marauding mob.

An armed police officer guards as Muslim refugees stand behind him at a refugee camp in Sittwe, capital of Rakhine State, western Burma, Saturday. Pic: AP.

Policemen walk toward burning buildings in Sittwe, capital of Rakhine state in western Myanmar. (File photo)

Children stand together on a muddy street at the Aung Mingalar quarter in Sittwe, Myanmar, yesterday. Myanmar could call a state of emergency in Rakhine state if sectarian violence continues there, a legislator said.

Sittwe: Thousands of displaced people have surged towards already overcrowded camps in western Myanmar, officials said yesterday, after vicious new communal violence that has left dozens dead.

Sl	Name of villages	Number of Household	Numbers of Mosques	Death	Injuries	Dates
1	Bahar Fara (Alay Kyuen)	14 (bunt)		1	5	17/6/2012 5:00am
2	Sengadaung	96 (Burnt)	1	3	15	16/06/2012
3	Nairaung (Ratana Pung)	80 (burnt)	1	3	6	25/10/2012 3:00pm
4	Manikkafara	110 destroy	2			12/6/2012
5	Zailla Fara (Noijja)			4		13/6/2012
6	Afok	77 (burnt)	2	3	5	05/06/2012
7	Gufi Taung	116 (burnt)	2			05/08/2012
8	Shwe Hlaing (Milikong)	145 (burnt)	2	11	23	5/8/2012
9	Rohang Fara	108 (burnt)	2			6/8/2012
10	Ambari	230 (burnt)	2	3	20	7/8/2012
11	Mrusaik		1			14/6/2012
12	Fokfara	14 (burnt)		3	9	25/10/2012

Source: Mohammed Toyub

Bahar Fara, Kyauktaw

Tel: +60166649087

Prepared: Mohammad Sadek

22,000 displaced by Myanmar unrest – UN

Agence France-Presse

12:33 pm | Sunday, October 28th, 2012

Muslim refugees gather at a refugee camp in Sittwe, capital of western Rakhine state on October 27, 2012. Thousands of displaced people have surged towards already overcrowded camps in western Myanmar, officials said, after vicious new communal violence that has left dozens dead. AFP

YANGON – More than 22,000 people from mainly Muslim communities have been displaced by fresh unrest in western Myanmar that has killed dozens and seen whole neighbourhoods razed, the UN said Sunday.

Quintana faults Burma for lack of ‘proper decisions’

Tomas Ojea Quintana, the U.N. special reporteur on human rights to Burma. Photo: UN

Tomas Quintana, the UN special rapporteur for human rights in Burma, said on Thursday that Burma's leaders are delaying crucial decisions on ways to reduce tensions in volatile ethnic regions, as a fifth day of sectarian violence and tensions continued between Rohingya Muslims and Buddhists in the western region of the country.

“At the same time, we see that they are not at this point taking the proper decisions toward a real solution,” he said about the Rohingya problem. “I don't see a real analysis of the situation.”

Burma: HRW satellite images 'show Rakhine destruction'

Continue reading the main story

(Reuters) - A human rights group expressed concern for the safety of thousands of Muslims on Saturday after revealing satellite images of a once-thriving coastal community reduced to ashes during a week of violence in western Myanmar.

The images released by the New York-based Human Rights Watch show "near total destruction" of a predominantly Rohingya Muslim part of Kyaukpyu, one of several areas in Rakhine state where battles between Rohingyas and ethnic Rakhine Buddhists threaten to derail the former Burma's fragile democratic transition.

(New York) – The government of Burma should take immediate steps to stop sectarian violence against the Rohingya Muslim population in Arakan State, in western Burma, and ensure protection and aid to both Rohingyas and Arakanese in the state, Human Rights Watch said today. New satellite imagery obtained by Human Rights Watch shows extensive destruction of homes and other property in a predominantly Rohingya Muslim area of the coastal town of Kyauk Pyu – one of several areas of new violence and displacement.

Human Rights Watch identified 811 destroyed structures on the eastern coastal edge of Kyauk Pyu following arson attacks reportedly conducted on October 24, 2012, less than 24 hours before the satellite images were captured.

More than 40 boats of Rohingyas float in the river

Kyaukpru, Arakan State: More than 40 boats of Rohingyas are floating in the river near the Akyab today evening, according to a reliable person from Akyab.

Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar Tomás Ojea Quintana. UN Photo/Evan Schneider

Recently, around 1000 Rohingya were killed in Minbyar, Myebone, Mrauk-U, Kyaukpru Townships of Arakan State. The Rohingyas are completely innocent, defenseless, voiceless Rohingya minority of Arakan State. Children are dieing without foods and drinks, women are drowning into the sea, while overall populations are starving under the sky as their houses and all kinds are shelters were burnt down by the Rakhine people who are being backed by the Burmese security forces.

Article by: Associated Press
Updated: October 26, 2012 - 1:31 AM

SITTWE, Myanmar - Myanmar's government has appealed for peace in the western state of Rakhine, warning that ethnic violence there that has taken at least 56 lives in recent days risks harming the country's reputation as it seeks to install democratic rule.

At least 100 Rohingya Muslims have been killed in a recent wave of sectarian violence in Myanmar’s western state of Rakhine, a Muslim party leader says.

Hla Thein, the vice chairman of the National Democratic Party for Development (NDPD), said on Friday that over 100 Muslims have lost their lives over the past week in clashes between extremist Buddhists and Rohingyas.

The deadly violence peaked on Tuesday night, but people have been killed every day this week, said the leader of the Muslim political party that won four seats in Myanmar’s 2010 election.

Muslim leader calls for Burmese government action to end Rakhine violence

Posted 25 October 2012, 21:39 AEST

A new wave of sectarian violence has broken out in Burma's Rakhine state in the country's west.

At least five people have died, eighty people injured, with hundreds of homes set on fire.

Some villages under fi re, riots occurs in Minbya, MraukU Townships

NAY PYI TAW, 23 Oct-While houses were set fi re in some villages in Minbya Township of Rakhine State starting from 10:30 pm on 21 October, communal strifes erupted in Minbya and MraukU Townships and the riots continued yesterday and to date.

Thursday, 25th October 2012 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia- Thousands of Rohingya Muslims, Kaman Muslims, Burmese Muslims and Malay Muslims demonstrated in Kuala Lumpur today. The demonstration was held in the wake of the state-sponsored apartheid and mass killings of Rohingyas and Kamans in cooperation with Rakhine terrorists in Arakan state, Burma.

Update Situation of Arakan State Violence

24^th October 2012

7:30- Zailla fara (paithey) of Kyauktaw Township was burnt down, 5 mosques were burnt by militia 5 innocent Rohingyas were shot dead on the spot.

2012-10-22

Three people are killed in rioting between Rohingyas and Rakhines in western Burma.

11 Rohingya Muslims killed in Burma

By Areeb Hasni Oct 23rd, 2012 ( 1 Comment )

Share on print 7

Southern Arakan is Burning

After gaining remarkable political achievement during Thin Sein along with Daw Suu tour to US ,Rohingyas feel fearful victim again. Thein Sein won international free licence to finish the remaining Rohingyas. After returning from US ,he   cancelled a diplomatic humanitarian agreement with OIC. He organized many demonstration against OIC,UN and News Media.His new tacic is working now. Rohingyas' last establishments are burning now. First state sponsor genocide was materialized against the Rohingyas. Now International sponsored genocide has been seen especially ancient villages in SOUTH ARAKAN where Rohingyas become small percentage after 1942 MASSACRE.

     The OIC and some ASEAN countries ,US ,EU and international NGOs are very busy to collect and send Humanitarian aids to dying Rohingyas, the Thien Sein Regime is very busy to get US Military help and join army exercises in Thailand. By achieving US endorsement ,Thien Sein Regime is randomly started genocide against TRohingyas.

    We asked many times international protection and UN peace keeping forces but in vain .Instead The US and UN started softening policy to ward Thien Sein .
Now ,who will give us protection ??

Min Bya Township
----
1-. Paisake Ywa (Zalla Para) was set fire 11 pm on 21 octber and some Rohingyas were killed (5 person on the spot).Many missing.People run to find safe area but the racists are stand by to hunt Rohingyas with Auto Rifel and long sowords.

2.Turali Para was set fire at 7 PM today.Rohingyas fate are the same as mentioned above.

3.Pawkse Village has been burning now . Some died .not yet known detail . Many missing.

Patorkilla (Mrouk Oo) Town Ship

1. Parin Village is burning now. Gun fire are there . Unknown causalities are there . Rohingyas are running to unknown destination .

Powktaw Town Ship

I. Puran Para .has been burning since early morning to day 220 houses were blazed . Many killed . The government forces said to the Rohingya run to wards Bangladesh and lives are not save there.
2. Naya para . More than 100 houses were burned this morning and some killed .All the villagers are on run .Gun shots are heard.
The govt. forces said to Rohingya to leave the Township.

Kyawtaw Township

Killing and missing are seen a very where. Moug are seen with rifle and short guns .Warn the Rohingyas to leave the Kyawktaw.

Sandama ,MyourKul Area
----Since one week, wide spread rape have been committed by govt. forces. This area is a locked one .Only by boat local can get stuffs from Akyab (Sistwe). No food ,medicines there.

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Arakan's Buthidaung Jail Becomes Secret Rohingya Killing Center

Nurul Islam for Salem-News.com

Visit of International and Myanmar Investigation teams to this jail is a clarion call of Muslim Rohingyas.

Buthidaung jail in Sittwe

Myanmar’s Rohingya Face “Permanent Segregation”, Activists Warn

By Carey L. Biron Reprint |

WASHINGTON, Oct 9 2012 (IPS) - Following sectarian violence in the western Myanmar state of Rakhine in June, human rights researchers are now warning that the government appears to be attempting to permanently house parts of the stateless Muslim-minority Rohingya

The Rohingya: Unwanted at Home, Unwelcome Abroad

By Lucas Bento & Guled Yusuf

October 9, 2012

Amidst commendable progress in Burma’s democratization, one voice in the country has been consistently silenced. The Rohingya people are quickly becoming the ethnic minority whose fate will likely be remembered as a “casualty” of democracy –

Burma, the Rohingyas and Australia

by Andrew Selth - 8 October 2012 10:23AM

Andrew Selth is a Research Fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute.

Burma faces more than its fair share of complex, sensitive and potentially divisive problems, but it is difficult to imagine one more intractable than the future of the Rohingyas, the estimated 800,000 Muslims of South Asian descent who are denied any formal recognition, either by Naypyidaw or the international

The social and economic conditions of refugees should be improved

ON Thursday, Tan Sri Razali Ismail, the former United Nations special representative to Myanmar, spoke of the need to alleviate the lot of Rohingya refugees living in this country. As the predicament of this Muslim minority has come under the international spotlight following the violence in June, it is understandable that Malaysia's former permanent representative to the world body has singled them out. Indeed, on the same day that he spoke to this newspaper, there was a meeting in Doha organised by the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and Qatar

Demonstration during President Thein Sein's Asia Society Speech in NYC.

New York City

September 27 , 2012

The Rohingya Concern International (RCI)actively participated under the banner of Burma Task Force/New York in the demonstration held on September 27,2012

Strong Condemnation Letter

Burmese Rohingya American Friendship Association (BRAFA)

4818 South 14^th Street, Milwaukee Wisconsin 53221, USA

Tel: (414) 736 4273, (414) 306 1751, Fax: (414) 817 0656

E-mail: brafa2012@yahoo.com

Press Release

Ref: BRAFA 01-12

Date: October 8, 2012

Strong Condemnation Letter

We, the members of the Burmese Rohingya American Friendship Association (BRAFA) strongly condemn the burning of the 800 years old

Interview on the Crisis Facing Burma’s Rohingya People

Posted on October 4, 2012 by Mohiuddin Yusof

Rohingya refugees (Credit: UNHCR)

United to End Genocide interviewed Mr. Mohiuddin M. Yusof, President of Rohingya Concern International, to learn more about the current crisis facing Burma’s Rohingya people following the outbreak of deadly violence in Arakan State this past June.

Transformation, Still Incomplete, Sweeps Burma | The Nation

Transformation, Still Incomplete, Sweeps Burma

Barbara Crossette

October 2, 2012

They are the least likely of political partners. He is a dour, stone-faced former general from a repressive regime. She is a wisp of a woman, a fighter for democracy with a magnetic personality and flowers in her hair. Yet President U Thein Sein of Burma (he calls it Myanmar) and the Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi (who still calls it Burma) have been in the United States in recent weeks, each putting on a display of unprecedented amity and cooperation.

About the Author

Barbara Crossette

Barbara Crossette is

The Nation's United

Nations correspondent.

A former foreign correspondent

for the New York Times,...

Also by the AuthorLiberia's Peacebuilder

Leymah Gbowee, the Liberian

who mustered her desperate

countrywomen into a peace

movement, is attracting

international attention as

one of Africa’s most powerful

voices for social change.

Barbara Crossette

OpinionNation: Hillary Clinton

at the State Department: Hawk

or Humanitarian?

What will Hillary Clinton's legacy be?

Barbara Crossette and Robert Dreyfuss

Thein Sein, speaking to the United Nations General Assembly, said of Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been on a triumphant American tour, during which she collected the Congressional Gold Medal: “As a Myanmar citizen, I would like to congratulate her for the honors she has received in this country in recognition of her efforts for democracy.” Aung San Suu Kyi, speaking at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, called Thein Sein a good partner who “is keen on democratic reforms.”

The two met privately in New York, but did not appear in public together, said Frances Zwenig, Counselor at the US-ASEAN Business Council in Washington, who has been working with the Burmese to promote better understanding and closer ties with the United States.

The political changes are phenomenal in Burma, where I have just been to hear people’s hopes and concerns about their new world. Regionally, Southeast Asia has not seen such a dramatic political shift in a generation or more. In Washington, the Obama administration reacted swiftly to end the isolation and punishment of the Burmese and their pariah junta. The first American ambassador in 22 years has taken up residence in Rangoon, and most sanctions are being suspended or eased, among them, a blanket ban imports from Burma.

Almost two years ago, Aung San Suu Kyi was under house arrest in Rangoon (renamed Yangon by the military in 1989) while Thein Sein was prime minister under a brutal military ruler, Than Shwe, who plotted unsuccessfully in 2003 to have Aung San Suu Kyi assassinated.

By the end of 2010, however, events had taken a momentous, unexpected turn. Only weeks after a flawed November election boycotted by Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy, she was freed from house arrest. In 2011, Thein Sein became a nominally civilian president. In March of this year, “the Lady,” as she is known universally in Burma, led her party to a landslide victory in parliamentary by-elections, winning 43 of 44 contested races, and took her seat as head of the first credible political opposition to emerge since the military first seized power in 1962.

Reforms come at a surprisingly swift pace: the freeing of most (but not yet all) political prisoners, an end to censorship, new freedom of assembly, the winnowing of a black list of as many as 6,000 people denied entry to the country.

There is a lot of real politik at play on both sides. Aung San Suu Kyi, who now talks of compromise as the way out of the Burmese economic and political doldrums, has said on her American tour that she and her party took the contentious but required parliamentary oath to defend an odious military-made constitution because her voters wanted even that small opposition in parliament—about 6.5 percent of more than 600 seats in a bicameral legislature. Democracy activists, not all of them in the National League for Democracy, and many exiles also wanted to see what space could be opened by that political wedge.

For the Burmese military, presiding over a collapsed economy and the corrupt collusion of well placed Burmese in the increasing Chinese domination of trade and the wholesale extraction – for Chinese use -- of natural resources, including oil and gas, gemstones and timber, there had to be new thinking.

Commentators in neighboring countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, in which the Burmese rank at the bottom in human development, have been saying for several years that the generals were beginning to realize that they needed friends in other powerful nations, particularly the United States, to help right the balance. What better voice for Burma in the West than Aung San Suu Kyi, who had become a symbol of everything they were not? Let her go.

Parliament is still packed with military men, and lurking in the background are officers who may see their outrageous economic perks in jeopardy and will have to be convinced that democracy and free enterprise at home, coupled with overtures to industrial nations aboard, will pay off in other, relatively more legal, pursuits than land-grabbing and skimming profits from state-owned enterprises.

Residents of Rangoon -- the largest city but no longer the capital, which has moved north to purpose-built Naypyidaw – say that property speculation has exploded with the vision on the horizon of foreign companies and nongovernmental organizations and their expatriate staffs arriving. Landowners are building garish mansions and apartment complexes for rent at rates as high or higher than Bangkok, some reaching luxury urban American levels.

Assuming everything stays on track over the next few years, the Thein Sein gamble on radical change will be tested in critical national elections in 2015. For the reformers, the stakes are high.

Burma, with about 60 million people (a new census is being planned with the help of the United Nations Population Fund) in an area roughly the size of France, is not an unimportant Asian country. It is strategically placed between rivals China and India, though the Indian government is in such trouble at home – including in the restive Indian Northeast, bordering Burma – that it is not in a position to exert as much influence over Burmese events as China or Thailand can. Meanwhile, half way around the world the possible benefits of a “pivot to Asia” in the Obama administration’s foreign policy thinking, and the implied intention of containing China,are not lost on the Burmese.

The country has enormous potential. Before the military wrecked the economy and severely repressed its people, Burma was the world’s largest rice exporter. It had two of Asia’s leading universities, in Rangoon and Mandalay. Even today, after systematic neglect and occasional attacks on the education system over half a century, the Burmese have a literacy rate of about 92 percent, according to UN agencies and the World Bank.

What the Burmese do not have is ethnic harmony and the fair treatment of minorities, and this is where the government will have to make some very difficult decisions if a more open country can truly develop, and if outsiders can be persuaded not to continue sanctions in the name of human rights.

Thein Sein told his UN audience that “informal consultations” have begun with armed Kachin rebels in the north, who are still at war with the central government, and a commission has been established to report on what caused a recent outbreak of violence in Rakhine (Arakan) state between Muslims known as Rohingyas, and Buddhist Burmese. Foreign diplomats, and a delegation from the Organization of Islamic Cooperation have been given tours of the state.

The conflict Rakhine state reveals more than just ethnic tensions. It highlights the discriminatory view of a large non-Burman minority held by many people in this majority Burman-Buddhist nation, where monks are a powerful political force. Rohingyas, originally ethnically Bengalis, are denied Burmese citizenship even though some of their forbearers have been in the country more than 150 years. They are the subject of racist slurs and, being Muslim, they are the bane of monks, who are respected for their support for the democracy and for the social and educational services they perform in many communities.

The result is that neither the government nor Aung San Suu Kyi, a Burman Buddhist, has been forceful in addressing the inequities suffered by the Rohingyas. Until they do, the transformation of Burma will be incomplete.

Barbara Crossette

October 2, 2012

Source: here

Pages

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Myanmar declines talks offer to stop violence

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Saturday, October 27, 2012

Related Stories

Friday, October 26, 2012

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

2012-10-22

Monday, October 22, 2012

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Monday, October 8, 2012

The social and economic conditions of refugees should be improved

Saturday, October 6, 2012

Thursday, October 4, 2012

Transformation, Still Incomplete, Sweeps Burma

About the Author

Also by the AuthorLiberia's Peacebuilder