Her failure to own up to the crackdown on the Rohingya has sullied her reputation
SALEEM SAMAD
A military coup in Myanmar was imminent for two reasons, which immediately invited widespread protests within the country and international condemnation.
First, the Tatmadaw (Myanmar army) since they took the reign of the country in 1962 failed an “election engineering” plan in favour of a pro-military political party. Secondly, Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi gained popularity which brought her confidence in further reforms to democratize the nation, which the military generals were watching with frowns.
Suu Kyi, who spent 15 years under house arrest in the struggle to bring democracy to Myanmar, has been detained along with other leaders of her political party in a military coup.
Meanwhile, the anti-military coup protests swell in Myanmar, and riot police battle demonstrators in Myanmar’s capital Naypyidaw and cities and towns across the country.
The supporters of Suu Kyi, leader of the pro-democracy National League for Democracy (NLD), call for a campaign of civil disobedience -- amidst a blockage of Facebook, fearing further anti-military street protests.
The Buddhist monks, doctors, nurses, teachers, have openly joined protests against the Myanmar coup, which has surprisingly grown louder every hour, since the military coup on February 1.
Myanmar has been a country of military coups and military rule -- shortly since independence from British colonialists in 1948.
In an uneasy power-sharing agreement in 2008, the military made a political partnership in running the country. The army had 25% of the seats in parliament.
Well, the 2015 elections established the road to democracy and installed the first civilian government after 50 years of global isolation and a ruthless military regime.
The February coup derails years of Western-backed efforts to establish democracy in Myanmar, where neighbouring China also has a powerful influence.
China was conspicuously silent in condemning the military coup, which occurred hours before parliament was due for the maiden session since the NLD’s landslide win in a November 8 election.
China was sceptical in strengthening bilateral relations with Myanmar, keeping Suu Kyi in power.
Suu Kyi’s party, the NLD won 396 seats out of 476 in the upper and lower houses of parliament, which has been interpreted by political observers as a referendum on Suu Kyi’s fledgling democratic rule.
Well, the main opposition party, the military-aligned Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), bagged only 33 seats (nearly 7%) in the last elections, eight fewer seats than in 2015.
In response to military chief General Min Aung Hlaing’s claim that the November poll was an “election fraud,” however, Myanmar’s Union Election Commission rejected the claims of voter fraud.
The defenders of democracy fear that Myanmar’s army is likely to scrap the constitution, despite the army chief Gen Hlaing saying the 2008 constitution was “the mother law for all laws” and should be respected.
Its guarantee of military power makes the constitution a “deeply unpopular” document, according to Yangon-based political analyst Khin Zaw Win.
On top of the military junta’s strings of accusations against the pro-democracy leader, Suu Kyi is already accused of ethnic cleansing and genocide of the ethnic Rohingya Muslim population, which the United Nations said had “the hallmarks of genocide.”
She took the responsibilities for the infamous military crackdown on the Rohingya and denied genocide at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, and explained the claims as “incomplete and misleading.”
Soon after shouldering responsibilities of the Myanmar military, Suu Kyi fell from the grace of world leaders and as an icon of democracy, primarily because she mishandled the crisis when more than a million ethnic Rohingya fled the restive Rakhine state into neighbouring Bangladesh in 2016 and 2017, which the United Nations dubbed as a “textbook ethnic cleansing.”
While still hugely popular at home -- the daughter of the independence hero Aung San (who was assassinated in 1947) -- her international reputation has been damaged after she failed to stop the forced expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya from the western Rakhine State in 2017.
To judge whether she has failed the world, the democratization of the country, or is a saviour of the nation from the yoke of the military, is a matter of time.
First Published in the Dhaka Tribune, 10 February 2021
Saleem Samad is an independent journalist, media rights defender, recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He can be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com. Twitter @saleemsamad
Finally, Myanmar will begin to feel the pinch for its failure to provide meaningful accountability for its security forces' widespread and systematic violence and atrocities against the Rohingya Muslims in northern Rakhine state.
Despite global outcry, Myanmar refused to bring to account government and military officials implicated in the genocide, gang rapes, mutilations, and forced eviction by security forces on the Rohingya.
There is growing international frustration among several countries planning economic and legal measures against Myanmar.
The state-sponsored atrocities killed at least 10,000 Rohingya, left scores with physical disabilities, and caused the largest exodus of civilians since the Rwandan genocide. An estimated more than a million Rohingyas are living in refugee camps in Bangladesh for the last two and half years.
Myanmar has demonstrated its defiance against the international move toward meaningful accountability of the demands.
In the past weeks, there were signs of growing international support for the Gambia's International Court of Justice (ICJ) genocide complaint against Myanmar.
In response to Gambia's official complaint of Myanmar's violation of the United Nations' 1948 Genocide Convention initiated in November 2019, the Myanmar government statement to the ICJ asserted that the Gambia's allegations were based on "incomplete and misleading factual picture of the situation in Rakhine state."
The ICJ delivered a harsh rebuke of that narrative on January 23 by supporting the Gambia's request for urgent provisional measures to protect the Rohingya population while the court undertakes the longer-term judicial consideration of the Gambia's genocide allegations.
That statement peddled by the Myanmar military's long-discredited narrative that its activities in northern Rakhine state in August 2017 constituted legitimate "clearance operations" in response to attacks on police posts by the banned Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA).
Myanmar's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi told ICJ justices last December that what transpired in northern Rakhine in late 2017 was mere "an internal armed conflict started by coordinated and comprehensive attacks by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, to which Myanmar's Defence Services responded."
On February 25, Maldives announced that it would file a written "declaration of intervention" at the ICJ in support of the Gambia's genocide complaint.
Maldives' minister of foreign affairs, Abdulla Shahid, said that intervention - the details of which are yet to be made public - demonstrated his country's support for "the ongoing efforts to secure accountability for the perpetrators of genocide against the Rohingya people."
Last November 13, Rohingya and Latin American human-rights organisations filed a case with an Argentine court against Myanmar government and military officials under the principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows that people implicated in the most serious international crimes may be arrested, prosecuted, and convicted in countries other than their own.
The Argentine court filing seeks "the criminal sanction of the perpetrators, accomplices, and cover-ups of the genocide" perpetrated by Myanmar security forces against the Rohingya.
Germany's development minister, Gerd Müller, announced that
Berlin was suspending development cooperation with Myanmar because of its "ethnic cleansing" of its Rohingya minority.
Although Müller didn't specify the financial cost of that suspension, he simultaneously announced an additional German government contribution of €15 million (US$16.5 million) to support Bangladesh's Rohingya refugee population.
Other states are likely to initiate similar ICJ interventions over the coming weeks, including Canada and The Netherlands, whose governments announced in December that they planned to "jointly assist the Gambia at the International Court of Justice."
The biggest challenge remains with the international effort to trigger an ICC investigation of the atrocities that have been complicated by the fact that Myanmar is not a signatory to the Rome Statute that established the court.
Unfortunately, an ICC probe through a resolution of the UN Security Council has been stymied by the opposition of Russia and China.
Meanwhile, the UN-created Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar officially began operations in September 2019 to gather evidence of crimes against humanity against Myanmar's ethnic minorities, including, but not limited to, the Rohingya, nationwide over the past eight years.
That message is that Myanmar should stop obstructing Rohingya accountability efforts, or pay the price of pariah-state status synonymous with murderous impunity.
First published in The New Nation on 19 March 2020 Saleem Samad, is an independent journalist, media rights defender, recipient of Ashoka Fellow (USA) and Hellman-Hammett Award. Twitter @saleemsamad, Email: saleemsamad@hotmail.com
The terror outfit Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) has roots in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, and there is not much evidence to prove that ARSA has any ties to the transnational jihadist network.ARSA's leadership was born and brought up in Karachi, Pakistan and moved to Saudi Arabia. They raised funds mostly from Rohingya's living in Pakistan and Middle-East.
Now it is come to surface, that the terror organisation with the poor fund was unable to launch any large scale skirmishes with Myanmar troops. Long ago they were able to make quite a number of hit-and-run operations, that activities have been significantly neutralised after Myanmar troop's crackdown on Rohingya Muslims.
Well, the Myanmar government officially labelled ARSA as "extremist Bengali [Bangalee] terrorists," warning that its goal is to establish an Islamic state in the region.
The exodus of one million Rohingyas from restive Rakhine State has also brought the ARSA members into Bangladesh territory living in squalid refugee camps.
In the camps, violent gangs who are members of ARSA, prey on people. There is an incentive to join militants because it accords them and their families a degree of security and additional resources.
In a rare interview given to international media, Ataullah abu Ammar Jununi, commonly known simply as Ataullah, said that ARSA would be "open war" and "continued [armed] resistance" until "citizenship rights were reinstated."
Ataullah denied any links to the ISIS in his 18 August 2017 video. He is reported to have turned his back on support from Pakistani-based militants.
Security experts in Bangladesh and abroad explains that ARSA has ideological differences and has reason to distance itself from transnational jihadist network, which would compel Bangladeshi security forces to move against them.
The plight of the Rohingya has been referenced by international jihadists in the past. Abdullah Azzam, the preacher who inspired Osama Bin Laden, raised the Rohingya issue in the 1980s. Al-Qaeda showed cursory interest in the 1990s.
In the July 2014 speech in which he declared the establishment of a caliphate, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi referenced the Rohingya as among "oppressed" Muslim populations worldwide that ISIS was looking to defend.
In 2016, the alleged chief of Islamic State in Bangladesh, Sheikh Abu Ibrahim al-Hanif (killed by Bangladesh counter-terrorism unit), in Dabiq interview that IS sought to turn Bangladesh into a launching pad for attacks in India and Myanmar.
Harkatul Jihad al-Islam (HuJI) and Arakan leaders have been photographed on the stage with Lashkar e-Taiba (LeT) leaders, including Hafiz Saeed. The LET's charitable arms, Jamat-ud Dawa and Falah-i-Insaniat Foundation support the Rohingya refugees in Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Bangladesh and Indian security forces believe that the Aqa Mul Mujahidin (AMM) received funding and support from Pakistan's ISI via the LET.
Indian authorities are investigating whether a little-known Rohingya militant group with links to Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB).
For obvious reasons, none of the global terror networks did set foot in the region. The territory is too hot to handle, as some experts explain.
The recruiters from sleeping-cells disseminated a message that joining ARSA was a Farj (a religious obligation).
However, ARSA remains focused on recruitment and indoctrination, followed by establishing small units and engaging in rudimentary military training.
Often news breaks-out from Rohingya refugee camps in Cox's Bazar and Bandarban of robbers, dacoits, and armed gangs were killed in an encounter by elite anti-crime forces. Most of the slain victims are radicalised Rohingya militants.
Finally, ARSA's military capabilities remain poor, their ragtag foot soldiers are more engaged in extortion, loot and plunder in the refugee camps. The smugglers, drug traders, and gunrunners employ the armed groups for escort services in the region.
There has been no militancy activity for quite some time, and it is unlikely there will be any in the immediate future.
Thus ARSA becomes a toothless tiger in the western frontier.
First published in The New Nation, on 24 February 2020 Saleem Samad, is an independent journalist, media rights defender, recipient of Ashoka Fellow (USA) and Hellman-Hammett Award. Twitter @saleemsamad, Email: saleemsamad@hotmail.com
ARSA leader Ataullah Abu Ammar Jununi flanked by militants (Source: Al-Jazeera)
SALEEM SAMAD
International rights groups have dubbed Arakan Rohingya
Salvation Army (ARSA) as a rogue Islamic militant group, and responsible for
series of crime against humanity in restive Rakhine State, Myanmar.
The ragtag radicalized militant's recruits from among
Rohingyas under the leadership who were born and raised in Pakistan and Saudi
Arabia is creating law and order situation in the refugee camps in Bangladesh.
For decades, the Rohingya have experienced ethnic and
religious persecution in Myanmar. The majority have escaped to Bangladesh. Tens
of thousands have fled to other countries in Southeast Asia, including
Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines.
ARSA remains a poorly equipped and trained force, able to do
little in the way of waging a sustained campaign against Myanmar's security
forces. Presently their primary goal is to consolidate power within the camps
in Bangladesh, also in Malaysia and Indonesia.
The International Crisis Group (ICG) reported on 14 December
2016 that in interviews, the leaders of ARSA claimed to have links to private
individuals in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. The ICG also claimed in an
unconfirmed report that Rohingya villagers had been "secretly
trained" by Afghan and Pakistani fighters.
In 2017, ARSA leader Ataullah Abu Ammar Jununi stated in a video posted online that "our primary objective under ARSA is to liberate
our people from dehumanizing oppression perpetrated by all successive Burmese
(also known as Myanmar) regimes".
The group claims to be an ethnic-nationalist insurgent group
and has denied allegations that they are Islamists, claiming they are secular
and "have no links to terrorist groups or foreign Islamists".
However, ARSA follows many traditional Islamic practices
such as having recruits swear an oath on the Quran, referring to their leader
as an emir (head of state) and asking for fatwas (Islamic religious decrees or
edicts) from foreign Muslim clerics.
London based Amnesty International after conducting
interviews with refugees in Bangladesh and in Rakhine State confirmed that mass
killings carried out by ARSA took place in a cluster of villages in northern
Maungdaw Township at the time of its attacks on police posts in late August
2017. The findings also show ARSA was responsible for low-intensity violence
against civilians.
Security experts believe that the plight of the Rohingyas in
Rakhine State will further deteriorate with the continued activities of ARSA in
the region. This will surely endanger the good intention of the Rohingya
refugees repatriation to Myanmar.
There are real dangers associated with allowing the alleged
oppression against the Rohingya to continue. Several experts have already
predicted that if elements of threats are left unattended the region will come
face to face with a very serious security crisis.
In the void have stepped Islamist civil society organizations
that are now providing education, medical assistance, and food for the
refugees. Bangladeshi Islamist groups, including hardline militant groups like
Hefazat-e-Islam that have engaged in violence, has established over 1000
madrasas in the camps in Cox's Bazar and Bandarban.
ARSA is striving to consolidate its authority in the world's
largest refugee camps in Bangladesh. Similarly, efforts are visible in Malaysia
and Indonesia. The militant outfit controls over the refugee camps not only
gives them power and control over resources there but also gives them
additional pressure when they "fundraise" amongst diaspora
communities.
The militant outfit should be contained based on
intelligence gatherings by security agencies. Their active involvement in
madrasas teaching and reciting Quran is responsible for jeopardizing the safety
and security of the Rohingyas in the camps. The threat perception of the
refugees comes from non-combatant members of ARSA outfit.
The article was first published in The New Nation, 24 September 2019
Saleem Samad, is an independent journalist, recipient of
Ashoka Fellow (USA) and Hellman-Hammett Award. Twitter @saleemsamad; Email:
saleemsamad@hotmail.com
Rohingya refugees, who crossed the border from Myanmar two days before, walk after they received permission from the Bangladeshi army to continue on to the refugee camps, in Palang Khali, near Cox`s Bazar, Bangladesh Oct 19, 2017. REUTERS
SALEEM SAMAD
The first step was to develop confidence-building measures among the refugees. The Myanmar government should have invited a delegation of refugee leaders along with Bangladesh officials to visit the strife-torn Rakhine State.
As feared, the Rohingya refugees refused to return to Myanmar, despite all arrangements made for them to go back, as finalized by two neighbouring countries.
The second attempt in ten months to repatriate the Muslim refugees living in Bangladesh to Myanmar has fallen flat. It is understood that they would not return unless their demands were met by the Myanmar government.
Nearly two years after thousands of Rohingyas were forced to flee from Rakhine State, Myanmar enlisted 3,450 as genuine refugees for repatriation on August 22. But Most feared reprisals and refused to return. A similarly botched effort last November to ensure their return sowed confusion in the refugee camps and sparked protests.
On August 25, 2017, Myanmar security forces began an ethnic cleansing that drove an estimated one million Rohingya to neighbouring Bangladesh.
The refugees have information that an estimated 500,000 Rohingyas who remained in Rakhine State are living in appalling conditions and Myanmar security forces have confined them to camps and villages, severely restricting their freedom of movement.
For those Rohingyas confined in several hamlets, the authorities have denied freedom of movement, deprived their access to sustainable livelihoods and basic humanitarian services including adequate food, medical care, and education. These facts have raised alarm among the refugees here.
Moments after the botched attempt, Bangladesh Foreign Minister Dr AK Momen explained that the refugees eligible for repatriation declined to return to Rakhine State as they did not feel secure and safe.
Bangladesh, aspiring to attain the middle-income threshold by 2021, had been generous with a million Rohingyas – authorities felt the refugee should not be compelled to return to their villages that were not safe.
He lamented that the Myanmar government had the larger responsibility to be proactive in their political commitment to ensure voluntary, safe, and dignified repatriation of Rohingyas languishing in the world's largest refugee camps in Cox's Bazar.
The senior-most Bangladesh official in charge of foreign affairs spelled out two pressing issues, which needed immediate administrative attention.
Second, Bangladesh was planning to set up an International Commission on Rohingya Refugees with members drawn from different countries, maybe also from international organizations.
However, Dr Momen was hopeful in that Myanmar had twice implemented the provisions of the memoranda of understanding (MoU) to repatriate Rohingya refugees in 1993 and 1988.
Accordingly, on 19 December 1993, an Operational Plan for mass repatriation was presented by the UNHCR, facilitating the voluntary repatriation of approximately 190,000 refugees.
From the second refugee influx, in December 1998, over 229,000 refugees had officially returned. But the story of Rohingyas was not over; the cycle of the exodus had not ended.
Aljazeera TV alleged that international media, rights groups, and United Nations were not allowed to visit Rakhine State, especially to the villages from where the Rohingyas were forced to flee in the wake of genocide.
New York-based Human Rights Watch argues that their repatriation carries possible risks exposing refugees to ethnic violence.
A United Nations-backed Fact-Finding Mission found sufficient negative information to warrant the investigation and prosecution of senior military officials for grave crimes, including genocide, in Rakhine State.
The international rights group claimed that the Myanmar regime had not made any effort to probe widespread crime against humanity against the Rohingyas.
The regime also obstructed international efforts to investigate the ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims to protect their basic rights, facilitate international justice for victims, and ensure that any returns of Rohingya refugees were voluntary, safe, and dignified.
Meantime, there is no light at the end of the tunnel for the crisis as yet.
First published in the Bangla Tribune, 24 August 2019 Saleem Samad is a journalist, a media rights defender and recipient of Ashoka Fellow (USA) and Hellman-Hammett Award. Twitter @saleemsamad; Email: saleemsamad@hotmail.com
Rohingyas crossing over to Bangladesh after Rohingya insurgent attacks on Myanmar security forces in August 2017 triggered a sweeping military crackdown Mahmud Hossain Opu /Dhaka Tribune
SALEEM SAMAD
They are particularly vulnerable to violence and exploitation.
Bangladesh is often mentioned as a lighthouse of sustainable development -- women’s empowerment, primary education, child immunization, primary health care in remote villages are all achievements in Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).
With each year, the not-so-poor country has added one feather after another in its hat offered by UN development bodies and international development organizations.
Despite the desired achievements, the government believes that more needs to be done. New strategies are developed with the support of international development partners to enable the hard-to-reach population in remote areas, especially in hill districts and haors (wetlands).
Unicef, in its annual report released early July, argues that it encourages the government to monitor child poverty and enact social and economic policies for greater social protection.
The most challenging tasks for Unicef and the government are to ensure education, shelter, basic health care, care for newborn infants and mothers, and child development, especially for the almost million Rohingya refugees who have fled to Bangladesh.
Among the Rohingya refugees, almost 60% are children. They have brought with them stories of unspeakable violence and brutality that had forced them to flee. Rohingya children are caught up in the violence in Myanmar.
Fortunately, Unicef is on the ground, working with the government and international partners, helping to deliver life-saving supplies and services for Rohingya child refugees in Bangladesh. By April 2019, around 910,000 Rohingya had settled in Cox’s Bazar, thus making it the world’s largest refugee camp.
The Rohingya crisis has grievously affected the children. With the support of the Bangladesh government and humanitarian partners, refugees have gained access to some basic services. But they remain highly dependent on short-term aid, and are living in unspeakable conditions, particularly in nauseating camps, where living conditions are difficult and sometimes dangerous -- especially during Bangladesh’s long monsoon and cyclone seasons.
In Myanmar, most Rohingya have no legal identity or citizenship. Inside the country, Rohingya children are hemmed in by violence, forced displacement, and restrictions on freedom of movement.
In Bangladesh, Rohingya children are not being registered at birth. Lacking a legal identity, they are unable to secure refugee status, one of the first tools for protecting children’s rights and safety.
Until the conditions are in place in Myanmar that would allow Rohingya families to return home with basic rights, safety from violence, free movement, health care, and education, they are stuck in Bangladesh.
Meanwhile, children are unable to follow a formal national education curriculum, being deprived of the skills they so desperately need, if they are to develop and thrive in the future.
On the other hand, older children and adolescents in refugee camps who are deprived of opportunities to learn or make a living are at real risk of becoming a “lost generation” -- ready prey to traffickers and those who would exploit them for political or other ends.
Girls and women are at particular risk of sexual and other gender-based violence in this situation, including being forced into early marriage and being left out of school, as parents keep them at home.
A strong commitment to protecting children against violence is clearly reflected in the SDGs. Children uprooted by conflict and disaster continue to face heightened risks of violence, child labour, and exploitation.
To achieve international goals -- and protect millions of children around the world -- it is imperative to speed up the pace of progress. Indeed, a sense of urgency is required if the child protection targets in the SDGs are to be reached by the 2030 deadline.
Saleem Samad, is an independent journalist, media rights defender, recipient of Ashoka Fellow (USA) and Hellman-Hammett Award. Twitter @saleemsamad, Email
United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) seeks equal treatment for all Rohingyas in Bangladesh and help to provide basic aids to new arrivals.
Apparently the appeal was made amidst confusion created after fresh influx of refugees who fled violence in Myanmar are dubbed 'undocumented' and miss out on vital aid, while those arrived in Bangladesh are considered 'refugees'.
The new influx has highlighted the urgent need to verify the number and location of the new arrivals. Without this information, vulnerable refugees risk falling through the cracks while others could be receiving duplication of assistance, says a top UNHCR officials in Bangladesh.
The influx of refugees in the early 1990s, lives in two government-run camps serviced by UNHCR, and its partners the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the World Food Program (WFP) in Ukhia, Cox's Bazar, bordering troubled Rakhine State.
The 33,000 registered refugees in Kutupalong and Nayapara camps in Ukhia have access to basic services including food assistance, healthcare and education for children, but the registered refugees do not have any legal status in Bangladesh.
More than 70,000 Rohingya are believed to flee during a security operation between October 2016 and February 2017. The security operation by Myanmar Army has recently been postponed after international outcry, including the United Nations, European Union, Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
The Bangladesh government has announced it will conduct a census of undocumented Rohingya living outside the two camps to include the new arrivals.
"We are advocating for a joint verification of the new arrivals with our partners as soon as possible," said Shinji Kubo, UNHCR's Representative in Bangladesh. "This exercise will help the government and humanitarian agencies to better target assistance to those who need it the most, be they new arrivals, refugees who came earlier or locals who host them."
A third category consists of an estimated 200,000 to 500,000 'undocumented' Rohingya who arrived in Bangladesh between the two influxes. They live in makeshift sites and local villages, and until recently had no access to humanitarian aid.
"The current situation is not sustainable," said Shinji Kubo. "Regardless of when they came and where they live, these people have the same needs and deserve equal access to protection and assistance," he told UNHCR press.
Several thousand new arrivals are presently accommodated in the two official camps, pressuring on the capacity of existing refugees and the infrastructure. Many more new arrivals are living in existing makeshift sites or new ones that have sprouted spontaneously.
"In the long run, we hope that all Rohingyas in Bangladesh can be documented to ensure full respect for their rights," said UNHCR's Kubo. "Knowing the profile of this population will also help us to identify longer-term solutions for them."
Article first published in The Asian Age, March 22, 2017
Saleem Samad, is an Ashoka Fellow (USA), an award winning investigative journalist and is Special Correspondent for The Asian Age
Monday, November 14, 2016
Hafiz Mohammed Syed (LeT, Pakistan) sharing the dais with Abdul Qudus Burmi (HuJI, Arakan) and other Rohingya leaders
Myanmar alleges Pakistan links to Rohingya militants
‘deep-rooted’
Saleem Samad
Myanmar for decades has been fighting a proxy war instigated
by Pakistan’s dreaded military intelligence ISI, since the spy-outfit began to
aid and abet Rohingya militants through neighbors.
Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s State Counselor,
has asked to understand the complexities of the issue surrounding problems in
Rakhine State, she said at the BIMSTEC meeting in Goa, India.
Referring to recent attack on Myanmar border police earlier
this month, she alleged the Rohingya militants, apparently recruited and led by
Islamists were trained in Pakistan.
On October 9, militants targeted three Myanmar border posts
along the border with Bangladesh and killed around nine soldiers.
Days after the attack, Myanmar President Htin Kyaw in a
statement blamed a little-known Rohingya militant group “Aqa Mul Mujahideen”
for the border outposts attack and pointed fingers at Pakistan, which did not
surprise Bangladesh or Indian security agencies.
However, both India and Bangladesh are said to be very
worried over the fresh armed conflict of Rohingya militants.
Senior officials in Indian intelligence, who have closely
followed the Rohingya armed militancy for decades told Mizzima, a Myanmar news
agency that the Aqa Mul Mujahideen (AMM) leaders were trained in Pakistan.
Pakistan's ISI's special operations cell coordinates the
activity of the different Rohingya groups, whose leadership is based in the
country.
Soon after General Ziaur Rahman grabbed power after
assassination of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in August 1975, Pakistan spy
agency ISI negotiated funds from Libya and Saudi Arabia to organize clandestine
operations in the Rakhine State of Myanmar.
Since then ISI made significant presence in the region for
covert operation in Myanmar and Northeast States of India.
In latest development, the ISI operatives recruited Rohingya
youths in Rakhine State and trained them in jungle bases on the
Bangladesh-Myanmar border, said an official of the India security agency.
He said that AMM is a new armed group that originated from
the Harkat-ul-Jihad Islami-Arakan (HUJI-A) which enjoys close relations with
the Pakistan Taliban.
The HUJI-A chief is Abdus Qadoos Burmi, a Pakistani national
of Rohingya origin, who is claimed to have recruited Hafiz Tohar from Maungdaw
in Myanmar and arranged for his training in Pakistan.
Tohar is said to be heading the AMM and Qadoos Burmi is close
to the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba/Jamaatud Dawa (LeT/JuD), headed by Hafiz Sayeed.
Mizzima news agency earlier reported the LeT-JuD presence
especially that of its humanitarian front Fala-i-Insaniyat in Rohingya relief
camps in Rakhine State after the 2012 riots.
Qadoos Burmi developed the HUJI-A network in Bangladesh,
using the remote hill-forests on its border with Myanmar, where security
patrols by Bangladesh border security forces is limited.
After training promising recruits in Pakistan, they were
sent to set up recruitment and training bases on the Bangladesh-Myanmar border,
where the fresh Rohingya recruits were trained in combat, weapons and use of
explosives.
In the last several years, Bangladesh security forces zeroed
in on several clandestine militant bases, but those hideouts were found to have
been abandoned, after they were tipped by sources of the combing operations.
Bangladesh security agencies said that in July 2012,
Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD)/Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) started the Difa-e-Musalman-e-Arakan
conference in Pakistan to highlight the Rohingya cause.
"Subsequently, senior JuD operatives, Shahid Mahmood
and Nadeem Awan, visited, in August 2012, Bangladesh to establish direct
contacts with Rohingya elements based in camps along the Bangladesh-Myanmar
border," said a top Bangladesh intelligence official, speaking on
condition of anonymity.
Maulana Ustad Wazeer and Fareed Faizullah, both Pakistani
nationals of Rohingya origin, have been recruiting Rohingya “illegal migrants”
who fled from Bangladesh to Thailand or Malaysia.
Earlier, Bangladesh authorities arrested Maulana Shabeer
Ahmed, a Pakistan-based Rohingya operative in 2012 who revealed that he was
coordinating with Rohingya militants in Bangladesh on behalf of Jaish-e-Mohammed
(JeM).
"We cannot rule out that these Rohingya armed groups
may have close links with Bangladesh's homegrown jihadis and could share
hideouts, finances and sources of weapons supply," said a official of "Counter
Terrorism and Transnational Crime” unit.
The official who is privy to the issue, said Bangladesh and
Myanmar needed to cooperate further in conflict management.
Saleem Samad is an Ashoka Fellow (USA) for trendsetting journalism, he is an awarding winning investigative reporter. Twitter @saleemsamad
On June 27, 2013, two displaced persons (DPs)
were killed and another six were wounded when Security Forces (SFs) fired to
disperse a crowd that had gathered at a military base in Kyein Ni Pyin, a camp
for DPs in the Pauktaw area of Myanmar's
RakhineState.
Again, on June 30, 2013, three persons were
injured as rioters torched two houses in the coastal town of Thandwe
in RakhineState, during clashes between Buddhists
and Rohingya Muslims.
Through 2012, Myanmar
had witnessed clashes between Rohingya Muslims and Buddhists in RakhineState, resulting in about 200 deaths and
displacement of some 22,000 people.
These clashes and the resultant sectarian divide
in Myanmar seems to have
provided an opportunity to Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI, Pakistan's external intelligence agency)-backed
Islamist formations to consolidate their hold in Bangladesh
making the Bangladesh-Myanmar Border
their operational base.
Indeed, according to a July 21, 2013, report, India's
external intelligence agency, Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), has confirmed
that the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and its front,
Jama'at-ud-Dawa (JuD) are working in tandem to extend their footprints along
the Bangladesh-Myanmar border. While the JuD leader Hafiz Muhammad Saeed is
personally leading the Myanmar
campaign, espousing the cause of Rohingyas from various public platforms in Pakistan, his
subordinates have been planning and undertaking visits to the
Bangladesh-Myanmar border region. Intelligence sources indicate that the
Pakistan-sourced support to the Rohingya's is conditional on radicalized
Rohingyas undertaking operations against India as well.
In mid-2012, the JuD established a new forum, Difa-e-Musalman
Arakan-Burma (Defence of
Muslims in Arakan - Myanmar)
in order to mobilise supporters for a campaign against the ruling military
junta of Myanmar.
The JuD deputed a two-member team comprising JuD 'spokesperson' Nadeem Awari
and a member of the Jama'at's 'publication wing', Shahid Mehmood Rehmatullah,
on August 10, 2012, for the task of forging links with senior representatives
of Islamic institutions in Bangladesh and Myanmar.
In addition, Bangladesh agencies tracking one
Shafiul Alam, a dual Pakistani-Nepalese passport holder, who travels frequently
from Pakistan to Bangladesh, recently found that he and one Abdul Karim alias Mohammed
Nur Alam, a Nepal-based Rohingya operative linked to hawala (illegal
money transactions) and fake currency trafficking networks, had been trying to
set up training camps along the Bangladesh-Myanmar border for Rohingya
extremists, in consultation with the LeT 'commander' Ustad Abdul Hamid.
Assessing the Lashkar initiative, on February
27, 2013, Home Minister of Bangladesh Muhiuddin Khan Alamgir noted,
"Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) is active in Bangladesh and
law enforcement agencies tracked down their network and kept them under sharp
security vigil. It is the moral and legal obligation of the Government to
uproot them totally."
Moreover, it has also been reported that other
terror outfits such as Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and Jama'atul
Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), the latter with
known links to Pakistan-based terrorist formations, are also trying to exploit
the issue of the Rohingyas' 'plight' in Myanmar. In this effort, they are
allying with NGOs led by Rohingyas, including the Rohingya Solidarity
Organisation, to establish new bases in Bangladesh. Bangladeshi security
agencies are examining whether Jammat-ul-Arakan, a new outfit comprising
elements of JMB and extremist-minded Rohingya activists, is running militant
camps in the Bandarban District along the Bangladesh-Myanmar border.
Meanwhile, links between Pakistani extremist
formations and Rohingyas have also been uncovered by Bangladeshi security
agencies. Bangladesh Police traced the funds in the bank account of one Maulana
Mohammad Yunus, arrested in August 2012 from a madrasa (Islamic
Seminary) in the Rau sub-district
of Cox's Bazaar District,
to Maulana Shabir Ali Ahmed, a Karachi-based, JeM-linked Bangladeshi national
of Rohingya origin. Another madrasa operator, Abdur Rehman alias Imran alias Mustafa
of Teknaf in Cox's Bazaar is suspected to have coordinated the arrival of
Pakistan-trained Myanmarese mujahideen (holy warriors) at
various locations of Cox's Bazaar at the end of 2012.
The expanding ISI footprint in the Rohingya belt
of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) was also exposed following the arrest of
one Noor-ul-Amin from the Idgah madarasa in Cox's Bazaar, on
September 11, 2012. Amin had reportedly served as a militant 'talent spotter'
and a recruiter of Rohingya cadres in the past. Confirming his association with
the ISI during his interrogation, Amin disclosed that the ISI was involved in
gun-running activity in the Rohingya refugee belt in CHT. According to
estimates, there are about 26,000 documented refugees living in two camps in
Cox's Bazar District in CHT, close to the Myanmar border. Bangladesh Minister for Foreign Affairs Dipu
Moni stated that 300,000 to 500,000 Myanmar
refugees had entered Bangladesh
illegally. ISI agents are also known to have close connections with the drug cartels in South-east Asia.
Evidently, the sectarian clashes in Myanmar have significant potential to impact
adversely on the security situation in Bangladesh,
India, and Myanmar. An
unnamed senior Indian official observed, "Economic and social hardships
faced by Rohingya refugees apart, the involvement of the minority group in arms
smuggling, narcotics, safe sanctuaries for terror elements, including setting
up of training camps, is going to be a major counter-terrorism challenge in the
regional context." Available intelligence inputs indicate that extremist
activities of Rohingya Muslims were being funded mainly by sources in Saudi Arabia.
The militant cadres among the Rohingyas were being trained by Pakistan-based
terror groups and the weapons were being procured from Thailand.
At the official level, India and Myanmar have
agreed to cooperate to prevent cross border movement of armed groups, share
information on seizure of arms and check arms smuggling/drug trafficking. The
agreement was reached during the (Joint Working Group) Meeting between Myanmar and India
held at Bagan in Myanmar
on June 19-20, 2013.
The cycle of violence in the border areas of Bangladesh and Myanmar has increased security
vulnerabilities in the region. Accordingly, on May 18-19, 2013, a new sector
and two battalions (Number 50 and 51) of Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) were set
up to ensure better border management along the Bangladesh-Myanmar border,
especially in Cox's Bazar and Khagrachhari Districts. Another BGB sector has
also been established in Bandarban District.
As the ISI and its terrorist proxies step in to
fish in troubled waters, it is now imperative that Bangladesh, India and
Myanmar act, at once and in concert, to ensure that a greater sagacity attends
Myanmar's policies towards the Rohingyas, and to destroy the emerging criminal
and terrorist networks that seek to exploit the opportunities of the present
disorders to create greater violence and instability in the region.
Photo: Bangladesh border officials denying boatloads of Rohingya refugees from Burma entry at the port town of Shah Porir Dweep, Bangladesh, on June 18, 2012
Abuses Follow Horrific June Violence Between Arakan Buddhists and
Rohingya
Burmese security forces committed killings, rape, and mass arrests against
Rohingya Muslims after failing to protect both them and Arakan Buddhists during
deadly sectarian violence in western Burma in June 2012, Human Rights Watch
said in a new report released today. Government restrictions on humanitarian
access to the Rohingya community have left many of the over 100,000 people
displaced and in dire need of food, shelter, and medical care.
The 56-page report, “‘The
Government Could Have Stopped This’: Sectarian Violence and Ensuing Abuses in
Burma’s Arakan State,” describes how the Burmese authorities failed
to take adequate measures to stem rising tensions and the outbreak of sectarian
violence in Arakan State. Though the army eventually contained the mob violence
in the state capital, Sittwe, both Arakan and Rohingya witnesses told Human
Rights Watch that government forces stood by while members from each community
attacked the other, razing villages and committing an unknown number of
killings.
“Burmese security forces failed to protect the Arakan and Rohingya from each
other and then unleashed a campaign of violence and mass roundups against the
Rohingya,” saidBrad
Adams, Asia director at Human
Rights Watch. “The government claims it is committed to ending ethnic strife
and abuse, but recent events in ArakanState demonstrate that
state-sponsored persecution and discrimination persist.”
The Burmese government should take urgent measures to end abuses by their
forces, ensure humanitarian access, and permit independent international
monitors to visit affected areas and investigate abuses, Human Rights Watch
said.
The “Government Could Have Stopped This,” is based on 57 interviews conducted
in June and July with affected Arakan, Rohingya, and others inBurmaand inBangladesh,
where Rohingya have sought refuge from the violence and abuses.
The violence erupted in early June after reports circulated that on May 28 an
Arakan Buddhist woman was raped and killed in the town of Ramri by three Muslim men. Details of the
crime were circulated locally in an incendiary pamphlet, and on June 3 a large
group of Arakan villagers in Toungop stopped a bus and brutally killed 10
Muslims on board. Human Rights Watch confirmed that nearby local police and
army stood by and watched but did not intervene. In retaliation, on June 8 thousands
of Rohingya rioted in Maungdaw town after Friday prayers, killed an unknown
number of Arakan, and destroyed considerable Arakan property. Violence between
Rohingya and Arakan then swept through Sittwe and surrounding areas.
Marauding mobs from both Arakan and Rohingya communities stormed unsuspecting
villages and neighborhoods, brutally killed residents, and destroyed and burned
homes, shops, and houses of worship. With little to no government security
present to stop the violence, people armed themselves with swords, spears,
sticks, iron rods, knives, and other basic weaponry. Inflammatory anti-Muslim
media accounts and local propaganda fanned the violence. Numerous Arakan and
Rohingya who spoke to Human Rights Watch reached the conclusion that the authorities
could have prevented the violence and the ensuing abuses could have been
avoided.
A 29-year-old Arakan man and an older Rohingya man each told Human Rights
Watch, separately but in the same words, “The government could have stopped
this.”
The Burmese army’s presence in Sittwe eventually stemmed the violence. However,
on June 12, Arakan mobs burned down the homes of up to 10,000 Rohingya and
non-Rohingya Muslims in the city’s largest Muslim neighborhood while the police
and paramilitary Lon Thein forces opened fire on Rohingya with live ammunition.
A Rohingya man in Sittwe, 36, told Human Rights Watch that an Arakan mob
“started torching the houses. When the people tried to put out the fires, the
paramilitary shot at us. And the group beat people with big sticks.” Another
Rohingya man from the same neighborhood said, “I was just a few feet away. I
was on the road. I saw them shoot at least six people – one woman, two
children, and three men. The police took their bodies away.”
In Sittwe, where the population was about half Arakan and half Muslim, most
Muslims have fled the city or were forcibly relocated, raising questions about
whether the government will respect their right to return home. Human Rights
Watch found the center of the once diverse capital now largely segregated and
devoid of Muslims.
In northern ArakanState, the army, police,
Nasaka border guard forces, and Lon Thein paramilitaries have committed
killings, mass arrests, and other abuses against Rohingya. They have operated
in concert with local Arakan residents to loot food stocks and valuables from
Rohingya homes. Nasaka and soldiers have fired upon crowds of Rohingya
villagers as they attempted to escape the violence, leaving many dead and
wounded.
“If the atrocities in Arakan had happened before the government’s reform
process started, the international reaction would have been swift and strong,”
said Adams. “But the international community
appears to be blinded by a romantic narrative of sweeping change in Burma, signing
new trade deals and lifting sanctions even while the abuses continue.”
Since June, the government has detained hundreds of Rohingya men and boys, who
remain incommunicado. The authorities in northern ArakanState
have a long history of torture and mistreatment of Rohingya detainees, Human
Rights Watch said. In the southern coastal town of Moulmein, 82 fleeing Rohingya were reportedly
arrested in late June and sentenced to one year in prison for violating
immigration laws.
“The Burmese authorities should immediately release details of detained
Rohingya, allow access to family members and humanitarian agencies, and release
anyone not charged with a crime recognized under international law in which
there is credible evidence,” Adams said. “This
is a test case of the government’s stated commitment to reform and protecting
basic rights.”
Burma’s
1982 Citizenship Law effectively denies Burmese citizenship to the Rohingya
population, estimated at 800,000 to 1 million people. On July 12, Burmese
President Thein Sein said the “only solution” to the sectarian strife was to
expel the Rohingya to other countries or to camps overseen by the United
Nations refugee agency.
“We will send them away if any third country would accept them,” he said.
Burmese law and policy discriminate against Rohingya, infringing on their
rights to freedom of movement, education, and employment. Burmese government
officials typically refer to the Rohingya as “Bengali,” “so-called Rohingya,”
or the pejorative “Kalar,” and Rohingya face considerable prejudice from
Burmese society generally, including from longtime democracy advocates and
ethnic minorities who themselves have long faced oppression from the Burmese
state.
Burma’s
new human rights commission – led by chairman Win Mra, an ethnic Arakan –
has not played an effective role
in monitoring abuses in ArakanState, Human Rights Watch
said. In a July 11 assessment of the sectarian violence, the commission
reported on no government abuses, claimed all humanitarian needs were being
met, and failed to address Rohingya citizenship and persecution.
“The Burmese government needs to urgently amend its citizenship law to end
official discrimination against the Rohingya,” Adams
said. “President Thein Sein cannot credibly claim to be promoting human rights
while calling for the expulsion of people because of their ethnicity and
religion.”
The sectarian violence has created urgent humanitarian needs for both Arakan
and Rohingya communities, Human Rights Watch said. Local Arakan organizations,
largely supported by domestic contributions, have provided food, clothing,
medicine, and shelter to displaced Arakan. By contrast, the Rohingya
population’s access to markets, food, and work remains dangerous or blocked,
and many have been in hiding for weeks.
The government has restricted access to affected areas, particularly Rohingya
areas, crippling the humanitarian response. United Nations and humanitarian aid
workers have faced arrest as well as threats and intimidation from the local
Arakan population, which perceives the aid agencies as biased toward the
Rohingya. Government restrictions have made some areas, such as villages south
of Maungdaw, inaccessible to humanitarian agencies.
“The authorities should immediately grant unfettered humanitarian access to all
affected populations and begin work to prevent future violence between the
communities,” Adams said. “The government
should assist both communities with property restitution and ensure all of the
displaced can return home and live in safety.”
Since the June violence, thousands of Rohingya have fled to neighboring Bangladesh
where they have faced pushbacks from the Bangladeshi government in violation of
international law. Human Rights Watch witnessed Rohingya men, women, and
children who arrived onshore and pleaded for mercy from Bangladesh authorities, only to be pushed back
to sea in barely seaworthy wooden boats during rough monsoon rains, putting
them at grave risk of drowning or starvation at sea or persecution in Burma. It is
unknown how many died in these pushbacks. Those who were able to make it into Bangladesh live
in hiding, with no access to food, shelter, or protection.
Bangladesh
is obligated to open its borders and provide the Rohingya at least temporary
refuge until it is safe for them to return, in accordance with international
human rights norms. Human Rights Watch called on concerned governments to
assist Bangladesh in doing
so and press both Burma and Bangladesh to
end abuses and ensure the safety of Rohingyas.
“Bangladesh is violating its
international legal obligations by callously pushing asylum seekers in rickety
boats back into the open sea,” Adams said.
