Myanmar junta crackdowns on non-committal youths

SALEEM SAMAD

Scores of youths have been arrested in Mandalay, the second-largest city in Myanmar after Yangon, since the junta activated the conscription law early this month, according to news pouring in from war-torn Myanmar.

More than 80 people have been arrested by government soldiers since the second week of February in Chanmyathazi, Maha Aungmyay, and Aungmyaythazan townships in Mandalay, according to Myanmar’s dissident news media, The Irrawaddy.

Combined forces of junta soldiers, police, ward administration officials, and militia members have been taking headcounts and checking households for overnight guests in Mandalay since mid-February.

Migrants working in Mandalay or internally displaced people (IDPs) living in the town were arrested as junta troops searched houses, teashops, and restaurants in the ward on Sunday, allegedly to check for unregistered guests during the day as well as at night.

Streets in Mandalay have become almost deserted after evening hours following the activation of the conscription law and reports that young people are being abducted.

Unverified reports on Myanmar social media say abductions by the army have already begun, while potential conscripts speculate that bribery will be the only way to avoid being conscripted.

The national conscription law was implemented on February 10 by Min Aung Hlaing, a Myanmar army general who has ruled Myanmar as the chairman of the State Administration Council since seizing power in the February 2021 coup d'état. He additionally appointed himself Prime Minister in August 2021.

On the other hand, the regime has asked students to join the University Training Corps (UTC), which acts as a reserve for the military’s depleted ranks.

Junta newspapers boast that many generals, including regime boss Hlaing, were former UTC members.

Under the Conscription Law, students can defer service, but the regime wants students to join the UTC to recruit them as reserves in the meantime.

The first UTC was formed in 1922 at Rangoon University under colonial rule. It was modelled on the British Army’s University Officer’s Training Corps, which aims to recruit educated officers and expose civilians who will become future employers to aspects of military life.

There are three days of training a week during the academic year with a camp every October.

Junta newspaper The Global New Light of Myanmar said the UTCs are commanded by the Directorate of Militias and Border Guard Forces, providing students with four years of training.

University staff and UTC students were quoted by junta newspapers saying the organization teaches basic skills and explains what the military does to protect the country.

In the wake of the 2021 coup, the regime revived a colonial-era law that allows authorities to conduct warrantless searches of private homes and requires all residents to register overnight houseguests. Previously, such searches were mainly conducted at night. But junta troops are also searching households in Mandalay during the day.

Myanmar’s military is aiming to recruit 5,000 able-bodied fighters every month from April under a conscription order, Myanmar watch groups say, revealing its weakness.

Meanwhile, junta soldiers are extorting money from people whom they detain under the pretext of overnight guest registration. The detainees are released after payment is made.

However, pro-junta Telegram channels claim that the young men detained are members of the anti-junta People’s Defence Force and that they possess weapons.

Fighters from the People’s Defence Forces (PDFs) have a message for compatriots who have not yet directly supported their resistance against the junta but are now at risk of being pulled into the violent chaos that has engulfed the country since the 2021 coup.

This comes as a coalition of ethnic armed groups and pro-democracy rebels across the country has inflicted heavy losses on government forces, in a counteroffensive that poses an unprecedented – and possibly existential – threat to the Tatmadaw, as Myanmar’s vicious military is known, reports the South China Morning Post.

Reports from Yangon (formerly Rangoon) show queues of hundreds at the Thailand embassy as people seek a legal way out, while hundreds of mainly young men have been detained after sneaking over the border into Thailand to escape the draft – a warning of the potential for a larger exodus ahead.

Thailand, a country that does not have an asylum system for the protection of refugees, is under pressure to consider formalising entry ahead of the expected influx, writes SCMP.

Earlier in January, China brokered the Myanmar ceasefire, urging the junta and rebel militia to ‘exercise maximum restraint’. ‘The two sides agreed to an immediate ceasefire,’ the Chinese foreign ministry claimed, while pledging a continued ‘constructive role’ from Beijing.

The junta and rebel Three Brotherhood Alliance held two days of talks in the Chinese city of Kunming, the ministry spokeswoman reveals.

In another story on Al Jazeera, Myanmar’s military regime has admitted it is facing “heavy assaults” by anti-coup forces who began a coordinated offensive at the end of last month, claiming to have taken control of several towns in border areas and dozens of military outposts.

Spokesperson Zaw Min Tun told Al Jazeera that troops were under “heavy assaults from a significant number of armed rebel soldiers” in Shan State in the north, Kayah State in the east, and Rakhine State in the west.

Anti-coup fighters are using “hundreds” of drones to drop bombs on military posts, and some sites have had to be evacuated, he added.

Myanmar was plunged into crisis when the generals seized power from the elected government of civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi in a coup in February 2021.

First published in The Daily Messenger, 29 February 2024

Saleem Samad is Deputy Editor of The Daily Messenger and an award-winning journalist. An Ashoka Fellow and recipient of the Hellman-Hammett Award. Email: saleemsamad@hotmail.com; Twitter (X): @saleemsamad

Why Rohingya repartition plan to Myanmar has hit a roadblock

SALEEM SAMAD

The million Rohingya refugees living in squalid camps in southeast Bangladesh refused to be resettled into another encampment in Myanmar.

The refusal of the refugees to return to Myanmar has not come as a surprise. They argue that unless Myanmar guarantees their citizenship rights, freedom of movement, access to livelihood, healthcare and education, a sustainable repartition will be half-hearted.

The response by the Rohingya refugees follows Myanmar government’s sudden offer to repatriate by the end of the year 6,000 Rohingya who were regarded as “illegal migrants” in Myanmar.

In persuasion of the repartition offer, a delegation of Rohingya refugees along with Bangladesh government officials recently visited Maungdaw Township and adjoining villages in the Rakhine State resettlement plan.

The settlements were built with support from China, India and Japan. Altogether 3,500 Rohingya will be accommodated in 15 villages, says Rahman.

Bangladesh’s Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner (RRRC) in Cox’s Bazar, Mohammed Mizanur Rahman who led the delegation observed that “repatriation was the only solution to end the refugee crisis”.

However, on their return, they expressed dissatisfaction over the arrangements and facilities made by the Myanmar authority.

Myanmar’s capital Naypyidaw conspicuously remain silent over the returnees citizenship rights, but assured that the Rohingya will be given a c, which the Rohingya refugees regard as too little and too less.

The controversial Citizenship Law of 1982 requires individuals to prove that their ancestors lived in Myanmar before 1823, and refuse to recognise Rohingya Muslims as one of the nation’s ethnic groups or list their language as a national language.

“We don’t want to be confined in resettlement camps,” remarked Oli Hossain, a refugee delegate. He explained that they will never accept NVC, which apparently identifies the Rohingya as ‘aliens’.

Bangladesh authorities also told the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) or UN Refugee Agency, which advocates for the safe, voluntary, dignified and sustainable repatriation of 1.2 million Rohingya refugees who fled the ethno-religious strife in 2017 amid a military crackdown.

The crackdown was sparked after the Islamic jihadist Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) overran a couple of Myanmar Border Guards Forces outposts in August 2017.

Naypyidaw for several years refused to hold dialogue regarding the return of Rohingya, stating that they are not citizens of Myanmar.

Bangladesh has raised the refugee crisis at several international platforms and other global summits. The world leaders lauded Bangladesh leader Sheikh Hasina for providing food and shelter to a million ‘stateless’ Rohingya.

Unfortunately, several attempts to repatriate the refugees fell flat in 2018 and 2019. Instead, Bangladesh blames the intransigent policy of the Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi who was placed under house arrest in February 2021, in the wake of her government’s ouster by military leaders.

Finally, Myanmar’s ‘all-weather friend’ China could pursue Naypyidaw to renew the negotiation on repartition.

Recently, at a critical tripartite meeting of the Foreign Ministry officials between Bangladesh, China and Myanmar in Kunming, despite reservation from the UN Human Rights Office and UN Refugee Agency that Rakhine State is unsafe for repatriation.

Beijing has a crucial regional agenda and several mega Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects are in progress with Naypyidaw.

Some hiccups have emerged in ties between Bangladesh and China especially after Dhaka gave a thumbs-up to join the Indo-Pacific security axis.

Furthermore, Bangladesh has cancelled the deep-sea port in the Bay of Bengal, a multi-purpose barrage over the Teesta River and a couple of other projects after India raised objections.

Researchers on forced migration said they do not see any light at the end of the tunnel for the refugees to return to their homes by the end of this year.

First published in the India Narrative, 29 May 2023

(Saleem Samad is an award-winning independent journalist based in Bangladesh. Views expressed are personal. Twitter: @saleemsamad)

Checkmate for Suu Kyi

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

Myanmar polls a step closer to China

Will a Suu Kyi win help Myanmar stay in China’s good graces?

SALEEM SAMAD

When the world was extremely preoccupied with the tense Trump-Biden American elections, Myanmar held its parliamentary polls on Sunday (November 8), which are expected to deliver a government with a strong popular mandate in Southeast Asia.

Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party (NLD) won a landslide in 2015 and established the first civilian government after 50 years of global isolation and ruthless military regime. Five years later, Suu Kyi remains popular, but 2020 has widened the image from 2015.

Suu Kyi has fallen from the grace of world leaders and is no longer a democracy icon, primarily because she mishandled the rogue military crackdown against the ethnic Rohingya Muslim population, which the United Nations said had “the hallmarks of genocide.”

More than a million Rohingya fled from Rakhine State into neighbouring Bangladesh in 2016 and 2017 after the military waged a campaign of persecution, which the United Nations dubbed as “textbook ethnic cleansing.”

The Rohingya’s citizenship rights were deliberately and permanently erased, restricting them to vote under the discriminatory 1982 Citizenship Law. Even the Rohingya political parties were banned from contesting the elections.

In the face of global criticism, last year Suu Kyi defended her country’s military crackdown and denied genocide at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, explaining that the claims were “incomplete and misleading.”

Many international observers fear that the November elections will not be free, fair, and credible, citing disenfranchisement and campaign restrictions imposed by the Union Election Commission (UEC).

Military chief Gen Min Aung Hlaing’s warnings to the UEC on electioneering directives soured relationships with the government. President U Win Myint stated that the military’s “remarks over the election were inciting instability and causing public concern.”

Bertil Lintner, a Swedish journalist who has written extensively about Myanmar’s armed conflicts, politics, and ethnic crises for nearly 40 years, says it is unfortunate that elections have been suspended in several constituencies, primarily in ethnic areas where armed conflict rages against the Myanmar regime.

China wants Suu Kyi to win Myanmar’s polls. China’s interests will be better served by the Suu Kyi-led status quo than a return to military-dominated rule. Much has changed since the leaders in Beijing favoured Myanmar’s authoritarian military regime and were deeply suspicious of then opposition leader Suu Kyi.

The Chinese Communist Party has made no secret that they would prefer to see Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) win and are wary of the military top brass, whom they find increasingly difficult to influence and control.

Lintner also agrees that the Myanmar foreign policy will likely take its course after the poll -- towards a stronger and closer relationship with China. While the Tatmadaw sees it as their pledge to defend the nation’s sovereignty and seeks to lessen dependence on China, Suu Kyi turned to Beijing for the economic and controversial Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) after her allies and admirers in the West distanced themselves from her over the Rohingya refugee crisis.

First published in the Dhaka Tribune on 10 November 2020

Saleem Samad, is an independent journalist, media rights defender, recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com. Twitter @saleemsamad

Discontent Against Myanmar For Rohingya Crisis

SALEEM SAMAD

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

Militants in Myanmar: Endangered Lives Of Ordinary Rohingyas

SALEEM SAMAD

Two years ago on August 24, Reuters news agency reported that Muslim militants in Myanmar staged a coordinated attack on 30 police posts and an army base in Rakhine State, and at least 59 of the insurgents and 12 members of the security forces were killed.

The Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), a group previously known as Harakah al-Yaqin, which instigated the October attacks, claimed responsibility for the early morning offensive and warned of more.

Nonetheless, the attack caught the Myanmar government by surprise. Its military, known as the Tatmadaw, responded with full-blown pogroms, including attacks on Rohingya villages and acts of arson.

State violence conducted in Rakhine State, what the United Nations has described as "a textbook case of ethnic cleansing" against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar's Rakhine State.

The atrocities ignited fresh exodus of another 700,000 Rohingya civilians to flee to Bangladesh since August 25, killing an estimated 3,000 people and burning 288 Rohingya villages, according to rights groups and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and Human Rights Watch.

However, Myanmar does not hesitate to argue that its actions were counter-terrorism operations, but its response to the threat posed by Rohingya militants is disproportionate and is likely to fuel militancy for years to come, predicts writes Prof Zachary Abuza at the National War College where he focuses on Southeast Asian security issues.

The Rohingya Solidarity Organization (RSO) was active in the mid-1980s to 1990s. The RSO achieves very little militarily, but its ties to the Jamaat-e-Islami and Harkat-ul-Jihad-al Islami (HuJI) in Bangladesh and Pakistan caused concern to regional security. By the mid-2000s, the RSO was defunct.

The Rohingyas literally hoped that the country's democratic transition would address their legal rights. While democratic freedoms also unleashed extreme Buddhist nationalism.

In 2015, Attullah Abu Amar Jununi, also known as Hafiz Tohar, founded Harakah al-Yaqin, the Faith Movement, to "defend, save, and protect [the] Rohingya community … in line with the principles of self-defense".

Attullah was born in Karachi, Pakistan to Rohingya parents, and raised in Saudi Arabia, where he was a cleric in a mosque. He moved to Bangladesh, crossing into Rakhine State in late 2015 or early 2016 via Pakistan.

Attullah led Harakah al-Yaqin was an offshoot of Aqa Mul Mujahideen (Faith Movement of Arakan), which itself emerged from another organization, Harakat ul-Jihad Islami-Arakan, headed by Abdus Qadoos Burmi, a Rohingya from Pakistan.

Disgruntled members of RSO, defected to Harakah al-Yaqin. By 2015, Attullah's group was actively recruiting youths from the refugee camps.

In early 2017 Harakah al-Yaqin rebranded to ARSA and was initially engaged in hit-and-run tactics in a bid to stockpile armory from Myanmar security forces.

The rebranding as the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army was apparently to soundless Islamist and more as a legitimate ethno-nationalist group fighting in self-defense.

But ARSA continued to recruit through its network of clerics and mosques, and there is a far more religious basis to the movement than they publicly admit.

On August 18, 2017, Attullah released a video statement justifying ARSA's actions, stating that his group was established only in response to government and paramilitary abuses against the Rohingya community. "Our primary objective under ARSA is to liberate our people from dehumanized oppression perpetrated by all successive Burmese regimes," he said.

Possibly ARSA leaders hastily decided the attacks on border police check posts only two days after UN Special Representative Kofi Annan submitted his report stating several pragmatic recommendations, and Myanmar tacitly agreed on some issues towards a conflict resolution but disputed with most recommendations on the status of Rohingya Muslims citizenship.

ARSA knew very well that the Myanmar military's response would be heavy-handed. Despite understanding their limitation, the ragtag foot soldiers are poorly funded and possess only limited light weapons and dare not confront the Myanmar military, currently the 11th largest in the world, with its long track record of repression against ethnic minorities.

The duffers in ARSA leadership had no understanding of the consequences of hit-and-run tactics that will endanger the lives of more than a million Rohingyas in Rakhine State.

The two-month long campaign of ethnic cleansing, with even senior officials in the government of de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi justifying the military's attacks on civilians, seems to have caught ARSA off guard, writes Prof Zachary Abuza at the National War College.

Possibly the ARSA did not benefit from Rohingyas languishing in sprawling refugee camps - as UNHCR claimed to the largest refugee camps in the world.

First published The New Nation, 1 October 2019

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 Episode: Jeopardizing Safety, Security Of Rohingya Refugees

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

Why Rohingyas decline to return to Myanmar?

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

Bangladesh: An Emerging Threat

SANCHITA BHATTACHARYA

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 Rakhine State.

Again, on June 30, 2013, three persons were injured as rioters torched two houses in the coastal town of Thandwe in Rakhine State, during clashes between Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims.

Through 2012, Myanmar had witnessed clashes between Rohingya Muslims and Buddhists in Rakhine State, 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.

First published in SOUTH ASIA INTELLIGENCE REVIEW, Weekly Assessments and Briefings,
Volume 12, No. 4, July 29, 2013

Sanchita Bhattacharya is Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management