11 October 2013 Last update

Syria chemical weapons monitors win Nobel Peace Prize

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The OPCW had helped chemical weapons become "taboo", Norwegian Nobel Committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland said

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• 'Extensive work' recognised Watch
• Profile: Chemical weapons watchdog
• Behind the scenes at an OPCW lab Watch

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the body overseeing the destruction of Syria's chemical arsenal, has won the Nobel Peace Prize.

The Nobel Committee said it was in honour of the OPCW's "extensive work to eliminate chemical weapons".
The OPCW, based in The Hague, was established to enforce the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention.
OPCW director general Ahmet Uzumcu said the award was a "great honour" and would spur it on in its work.
He said the deployment of chemical weapons in Syria had been a "tragic reminder that there remains much work to be done".
The OPCW recently sent inspectors to oversee the dismantling of Syria's stockpile of chemical weapons.
It is the first time OPCW inspectors have worked in an active war zone.
The watchdog picks up a gold medal and 8m Swedish kronor ($1.25m; £780,000) as winner of the most coveted of the Nobel honours.

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Analysis

Paul Adams BBC World Affairs Correspondent

The OPCW has been working to rid the world of chemical weapons for the past 16 years. For the most part, this task has been laborious and unheralded.

A staff of about 500, working from its headquarters at The Hague, is charged with making sure that the 189 signatories to the Chemical Weapons Convention are abiding by its terms.
But it is only in recent weeks, following the use of chemical weapons in Syria, that the OPCW has become a household name.

It is facing its biggest challenge ever - to verify and destroy Syria's entire chemical weapons programme by the middle of next year. The Nobel committee clearly feels it needs all the support it can get.

It is not uncommon for organisations to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. It has happened 24 times since 1901. Non-proliferation has been an occasional theme, with campaigners for nuclear disarmament and against land mines among those recognised.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon praised the award, saying the OPCW had "greatly strengthened the rule of law in the field of disarmament and non-proliferation".

'Vindication' Announcing the award in Oslo, Norwegian Nobel Committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland said it wanted to recognise the OPCW's "extensive work".

"The conventions and the work of the OPCW have defined the use of chemical weapons as a taboo under international law," he said.

"Recent events in Syria, where chemical weapons have again been put to use, have underlined the need to enhance the efforts to do away with such weapons."
The Nobel Committee also criticised Russia and the US for failing to meet an April 2012 deadline to destroy their chemical weapons arsenals.
The OPCW's Ahmet Uzumcu said the organisation had been working "with quiet determination to rid the world of these heinous weapons", away from the spotlight, for the past 16 years.

He said the Syria mission was the first time the OPCW had worked to such a short timeframe and in an ongoing conflict, and that it was "conscious of the enormous trust" placed on it by the international community.

Praising the commitment of his staff and the support of member states, he said the Nobel Peace Prize would "spur us to untiring effort, even stronger commitment and greater dedication" to bring about a world free of chemical weapons".

The OPCW's Ahmet Uzumcu said the prize would spur the organisation's efforts

The head of the OPCW inspection team in Syria, Ake Sellstrom, said: "This is a powerful pat on the back that will strengthen the organisation's work in Syria."

The OPCW is made up of 189 member states and the principal role of its 500-strong staff is to monitor and destroy all existing chemical weapons.
It draws on a network of some of the best laboratories and scientists in the world to help it in its work, the BBC's science correspondent Pallab Ghosh says.
The 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention has contributed to the destruction of nearly 80% of the world's chemical weapons stockpile.

Syria is expected to sign the treaty in the coming days.
French President Francois Hollande said the Nobel prize was a "vindication" of the international efforts in Syria and pledged continued support for the OPCW's work there and elsewhere.

US Secretary of State John Kerry said the "Nobel Committee has rightly recognised [the OPCW's] bravery and resolve".
European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso, EU President Herman Van Rompuy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel all congratulated the OPCW.

Notable omission There were a record 259 nominees for this year's Peace Prize, but the list remains a secret.
Pakistani schoolgirl campaigner Malala Yousafzai and gynaecologist Denis Mukwege of the Democratic Republic of Congo had been tipped as favourites to take the award.
Malala praised the work of the OPCW after the announcement and thanked those who had offered her encouragement.
"I would like to congratulate them on this much-deserved global recognition," she said in a statement.
"I would also like to thank the people and media in Pakistan, and those from all over the world, for their support, kindness and prayers. I will continue to fight for the education for every child, and I hope people will continue to support me in my cause."

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OPCW

• Born out of the Chemical Weapons Convention signed by nations in 1993
• Convention entered into force in 1997, allowing OPCW to start its work
• Within 10 years, inspectors had destroyed 25,000 tonnes of weapons
• By 2013, about 80% of world's declared stockpile had been destroyed
• Thousands of tonnes remain in the possession of the US and Russia

• Profile: OPCW

Others who had been listed as contenders were Chelsea Manning (formerly Bradley Manning), the US soldier convicted of giving classified documents to Wikileaks and Maggie Gobran, an Egyptian computer scientist who abandoned her academic career to become a Coptic Christian nun and founded the charity Stephen's Children.

But an hour before Friday's announcement, NRK reported the award would go to the OPCW.
The European Union won the prize in 2012 in recognition of its contribution to peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe.


Previous Nobel Peace Prize laureates include anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela, US President Barack Obama, the Dalai Lama and Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
The Nobel Committee has in the past publicly regretted never awarding the prize to Mahatma Gandhi, the pacifist leader of the Indian nationalist movement against British rule, even though he was nominated five times.

source:BBC World news.

FORMER PARIAH MYANMAR TAKES ASEAN CHAIR

Phil Robertson

Phil Robertson shared a link Former pariah Myanmar takes ASEAN chair: ""Sadly, respect for human rights has never been an important qualification for being ASEAN chair," said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at New York-based Human Rights Watch. "Myanmar's human rights record is still highly problematic but this is nothing that ASEAN ever had a problem with," he told AFP. "No one should forget that with a few exceptions, #ASEAN continues to be a grouping of frequently dictatorial rights abusing states." #Burma #Myanmar"

Former pariah Myanmar takes ASEAN chair www.google.com Bandar Seri Begawan — Myanmar won a new diplomatic prize Thursday for its dramatic political reforms, taking the helm of Southeast Asia's regional bloc despite warnings from some critics that the move was premature.

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Myanmar: Will anyone speak up for the world's most persecuted minority?

Dawood I. Ahmed and Nadia Ishaq October 10, 2013 01:34

Commentary: Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims continue to be targets of ethnic cleansing.

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Muslim residents take shelter at a house in Thabyu Chai village near Thandwe, in Myanmar's western Rakhine state on October 2, 2013. Terrified women and children hid in forests and security forces patrolled tense villages in western Myanmar as police said the toll from fresh anti-Muslim unrest rose to five. (SOE THAN WIN/AFP/Getty Images)

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CHICAGO — Myanmar may be the newest poster-child for democracy, but the country continues its campaign of ethnic cleansing against Rohingya Muslims in Arakan State.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) has dubbed the violence by Myanmar, otherwise known as Burma, “crimes against humanity.” United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said earlier this year that Myanmar urgently needed to address the “disturbing” humanitarian situation of the Rohingya.

Since June 2012, HRW has documented the role of the Myanmar government and local authorities in the forcible displacement of more than 125,000 Rohingya and other Muslims in an ongoing humanitarian crisis.

Coordinated attacks by the government, monks and even civilians have resulted in killing, burning and making homeless tens of thousands of Rohingya, according to the group; even children have not been spared. “Hog-tied” corpses have been buried in mass graves and young women raped. Desperately needed humanitarian aid has been denied.

The worst atrocities against the Rohingya have occurred since Myanmar became more “democratic. ” The violence started in June 2012, after Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party overwhelmingly won by-elections two months earlier.

One wonders whether that was the moment those behind the "ethnic cleansing" were waiting for. The army in Sittwe has besieged the Rohingya, a tactic that is pushing them close to starvation. There is nothing subtle about state complicity in the crimes that seem directed at eradicating the Rohingya from Myanmar.

Myanmar’s President, Thein Sein, has gone so far as to say that Rohingyas are "not our ethnicity ... we will send them away if any third country will accept them."

President Sein has even proposed the solution: he wants the Rohingya to be placed in UN-sponsored refugee camps, or resettled elsewhere.

For decades, the state has tried to get rid the Rohingya. Shortly after the military seized power in 1962, it began to dissolve Rohingya social and political organizations. The 1974 Emergency Immigration Act stripped Burmese nationality from the Rohingyas. Under the 1982 Citizenship Law, Rohingya were declared “non-national” or “foreign residents.”
The result is that hundreds of thousands of Rohingya in Myanmar and abroad are effectively stateless. Since 1984, Myanmar has even outlawed Rohingya families from having more than two children. Arbitrary arrests by soldiers are common, as are land grabs by the government.

Rather than criticize the state and promote a counter-narrative, media in Myanmar have tried to legitimize the violence by describing the Rohingya using the derogatory term “kalar,” meaning a dark-skinned person of South Asian appearance.

The press also calls the Rohingya trespassers from Bangladesh, ignoring the history of the Rohingya as indigenous to Myanmar. For centuries they have lived in Arakan State, a western region along the Bay of Bengal.

The Rohingya speak a different language from the majority of people in Myanmar, giving their detractors another rationale for classifying them as outsiders. Those who have been exiled to Bangladesh are shunned as intruders when they attempt to return.

Today, Rohingya babies are not issued birth certificates. Rohingya cannot marry without government permission, which is almost never given. Existing Rohingya marriages are not recognized unless heavy bribes are paid. Rohingya are not even permitted to travel outside their villages.

The Rakhine state government has closed down Islamic schools and banned Muslim children from state education.

If it won't acknowledge violence against the Rohingya as genocide, the international community should at least acknowledge that a humanitarian disaster has unfolded in Myanmar while the world slept.

It appears that the United States, Europe, China and Muslim countries are not facing up to the reality that the nightmare continues. Answers for this collective behavior are scarce. If maintaining the appearance of democracy in Myanmar is good for business, it comes at a huge humanitarian cost, as the Rohingya are finding out.

Dawood I. Ahmed is a lawyer from Pakistan who has worked at the United Nationa and is a doctoral candidate in human rights at the University of Chicago. Nadia Ishaq is a New York based attorney. She advocates on human rights concerns pertinent to South Asia. She previously worked in the region as a cross border transactional attorney.

Myanmar: “Prisoners of conscience must be released without any conditions” – UN rights expert

Source: OHCHR-Bangkok	9:21 AM (7 hours ago)
to

Myanmar: “Prisoners of conscience must be released without any conditions”
– UN rights expert

GENEVA (9 October 2013) – The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the
human rights situation in Myanmar, Tomás Ojea Quintana, has welcomed the
latest presidential amnesty on 8 October resulting in the release of 56
prisoners of conscience, while raising concerns over ongoing arrests of
activists and conditions attached to arrests.

“I commend the Government for this latest amnesty, and celebrate the
release of these people who had been unjustly imprisoned under the previous
military Government,” Mr. Ojea Quintana said. “These releases are not only
important for the victims and their families, but also for the ongoing
process of democratic transition and national reconciliation.”

“However, the release of prisoners of conscience is something that should
be based on principle and should therefore occur immediately and
unconditionally,” the expert said, while noting that the Code of Criminal
Procedure enables the attachment of conditions to the discharge of
prisoners, such as the imposition of the remaining sentence if the
President judges that a condition of release has been broken.

“Administrative obstacles should also be removed which hinder former
prisoners’ freedom to relocate to different states and regions in Myanmar,
restrict them in running for public office, as well as hinder their
acquisition of passports and professional work licences,” he said. “The
release of prisoners of conscience must be without any conditions.”

The human rights expert also expressed concern over ongoing arrests and
convictions taking place which he believes are politically motivated,
including individuals involved in land rights protests: “These releases
need to be accompanied by legislative reforms, including the Peaceful
Assembly and Peaceful Procession Act, to ensure that new prisoners of
conscience do not take the place of old ones.”

“There are also other cases that need to be included in the President’s
commitment to release all political prisoners by the end of the year,
including the four INGO workers who have been arbitrarily detained in
Buthidaung Prison since June and July 2012, and human rights defenders in
Rakhine State such as Dr. Tun Aung and U Kyaw Hla Aung, who have also been
arbitrarily detained since June 2012 and July 2013 respectively,” he said.

The Special Rapporteur will present his latest report on the human rights
situation in Myanmar to the General Assembly in New York on 24 October
2013.

ENDS

Mr. Tomás Ojea Quintana (Argentina) was appointed by the United Nations
Human Rights Council in May 2008. As Special Rapporteur, he is independent
from any government or organization and serves in his individual capacity.
He has worked at the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights. He was also
the Executive Director of the OHCHR Programme for Protection and Promotion
of Human Rights in Bolivia. Most recently, Mr. Ojea Quintana has
represented the Argentinean NGO “Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo” in cases
concerning child abduction during the military régime. Learn more, log on
to:
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/SP/CountriesMandates/MM/Pages/SRMyanmar.aspx

Opinion

Are invisible forces orchestrating Myanmar's anti-Muslim violence?

The military has much to lose from democratic reforms and may be using the bloodshed as a way to reassert control. Last Modified: 09 Oct 2013 16:14

Francis Wade Francis Wade is a Thailand-based freelance journalist and analyst covering Myanmar and Southeast Asia.(please listen here) RSS

The Buddhist Rakhine consider Muslim Rohingya to be Bengalis and have directed most of the sectarian bloodshed at them, writes Francis Wade [EPA]

Myanmar's president made his first trip to the violence-hit town of Thandwe last week, days after a 94-year-old Muslim woman was slain by Buddhists in a nearby village. Spurred on by an unrelated argument between a Muslim political leader and a Buddhist taxi driver two days prior, a mob approached her home in a nearby village on October 1. Her daughter managed to escape, but returned to find a charred house and a mother with cuts to her neck, head and stomach. The state-run New Light of Myanmar later quoted President Thein Sein as saying that he had suspicions about the nature of the Thandwe attacks, where close to 100 houses were razed. "Ethnic Rakhine [Buddhists] and ethnic Kaman [Muslims] have been living here in peaceful co-existence for many years,” he said. "External motives instigated violence and conflicts. According to the evidence in hand, rioters who set fire to the villages are outsiders.” For someone who has demonstrated such ineptness at confronting head-on the anti-Muslim violence over the past 16 months, the statement is surprising. In it, he finally appears to acknowledge that organised networks of Buddhist extremists are operating in Myanmar.  It's something that observers have long suspected: the method and style of attacks in Rakhine state, Mandalay region, Shan state and beyond, have been eerily similar, with small trigger events causing mobs to form quickly and descend on towns en masse, weapons already prepared. In most cases, police have stood by and watched, and often locals at the scene have claimed the mobs are formed of "outsiders". A photograph taken near Thandwe this week shows a truckload of armed men sporting red bandanas,which appears at odds with the idea that these groups are just rabbles of aggrieved local civilians. The role of Buddhist monks in advocating violence against Muslims has also taken many by surprise, although monks were also involved in attacks on mosques during anti-Muslim violence in 1997. Not a new phenomenon If there is an organised element to this, then it raises the question of who, and why. There's no clear answer, but powerful forces in Myanmar, particularly the military, would benefit from this unrest. On several occasions in the past few decades, violent clashes directed at an ethnic minority group have coincided with political sensitivities in the country: the 1967 anti-Chinese riots, when the military orchestrated attacks on Chinese-owned properties, in part to distract from General Ne Win's damaging mismanagement of the economy; and in 1988, when attacks on Muslims broke out in Taunggyi and Prome as anti-regime protests swept the country. Many at the time believed the military had sought to inflame ethnic tensions in order to split what could have otherwise been a cohesive anti-regime front. Can this theory be applied to Myanmar today? Thein Sein's democratic reforms will have unnerved the military, which receives more than one-fifth of the total state budget. With moves towards democratic rule, questions are asked of the colossal resources channeled to the armed forces, and whether its position as the patriarch of Myanmar society is still relevant. This week, the military-backed ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party warned that the country would be in "serious danger and face consequences beyond expectation” if the constitution was overhauled. One of the main reasons the opposition has for revising the junta-drafted 2008 constitution would be to dilute the power of the military.  Societal unrest, whether it be communal tensions or ongoing conflict with ethnic armies, provides a prime opportunity for any military to reassert its waning influence. Already this has worked to surprising effect in a country where ethnic and political divides run deep. Rakhine, who have long resisted military encroachment on their state, now ask for their protection against what they see as an Islamic tide sweeping the state. Prominent members of the pro-democracy movement have said they would join forces with the army to fight off "foreign invaders”, namely the Muslim Rohingya minority. The role of Buddhist monks in advocating violence against Muslims has also taken many by surprise, although monks were also involved in attacks on mosques during anti-Muslim violence in 1997 . Rohingya, an existential threat?  There's no smoking gun in all this, but the evolution of the conflict that began in Sittwe last June between the people of Rakhine and Rohingya suggests something beyond a localised tussle for ethnic or religious dominance. Importantly, the latest attacks in Thandwe were directed at Kaman Muslims, while the vast majority of the violence to hit Rakhine state since June last year has targeted the Rohingya, who are distinct from the Kaman. While the Kaman had until then lived peacefully in the state, the Rohingya were long seen by Rakhine as illegal Bengali immigrants, and their presence there considered an existential threat to the Buddhist population. Campaigns of violence against the Rohingya were therefore justified in the eyes of many Rakhine as a means of defending the land and preserving Buddhism. That narrative shifted somewhat when violence broke out in Meiktila in central Myanmar in March this year. Meiktila has a Muslim population, but they are not Rohingya, as is the case in Lashio in Shan state, Oakkan in Yangon division and Hpakant in Kachin state, where subsequent deadly attacks on Muslims took place. Rather than an issue confined to one ethnic minority in western Myanmar, it has escalated to a campaign against Muslims in general. As Myanmar academic Maung Zarni noted in a recent email, not every bout of inter-ethnic violence is state orchestrated. Genuine local grievances can and do result in fits of rage. But, says Zarni, there is a history of manufactured ethno-religious mobilisation "aimed at destablising the order in Burma since the British time”, something that independence hero General Aung San had warned of following the departure of the colonial power. Can this anti-Muslim ideology really have spread across such vast geographical divides without the aid of an entity like the military, the only entity that can operate on a nationwide scale? Various analysts have tried to rationalise the evolution of this latest anti-Muslim conflict by likening it to a Yugoslavia-style scenario, where ethnic tensions that were bottled for decades burst to the surface following a shift in the style of rule. This has likely played a role in Myanmar, given attempts by successive rulers since independence to undermine the legitimacy of Muslims as "real" countrymen. Fueled on by the rise of social media, the propaganda and provocation can spread like wildfire, so that Meiktila is now not so distant from Sittwe. But there is something highly suspicious in the commonalities of attacks across the country. On Saturday, a mob gathered outside a police station in Kyaunggon, near Yangon, and demanded they hand over a Muslim man suspected of an attempting to rape a Buddhist girl a month ago. When the police refused, they torched five Muslim homes. A similar situation triggered the Thandwe riots, with police refusing to hand over the Kaman Muslim leader who was arrested in the wake of the argument.  Same tactics used by the junta?   It's a pattern that has played out across the country, across disparate ethnic states such as the Shan, Kachin and Rakhine. In Kachin state, anti-Muslim violenceis a new phenomenon. Yet the only common thread that unites these ethnic groups' nationalism is a resistance to Burman, and not Muslim, designs on their states.There are few other obvious synapses that bridge these vast ideological and geographical divides, and across which this anti-Muslim sentiment could pass with such speed. How then has this violent reaction to the presence of Muslims? The anti-Chinese riots of the 1960s and 1970s followed major influxes of Chinese into Myanmar, and were in part a reaction to local fears that jobs were going to immigrants. This pretext for the violence cannot be applied in the same way to Muslims. It is not beyond reason to suspect that an entity that is able to operate on a nationwide scale (of which there are few in Myanmar) may have a hand in current events. Only two hold this position – the military, and the Sangha, the religious council that administers Buddhist institutions and which, given the historic importance of Buddhism to societal cohesion in Myanmar, has its own vested interests in stemming the growth of the country’s Muslim population. So rather than being particular to Thandwe, Thein Sein was echoing something that victims of anti-Muslim violence elsewhere have said, essentially that there is a seemingly invisible force orchestrating the early stages of these attacks. Who, exactly, it isn't clear. The popular anti-Muslim 969 movement has been traced back to the religious affairs minister under the former junta, but the wider 969 sentiment is alive and well in government today: even Thein Sein, considered a comparative moderate, has publicly called for the removal of the Rohingya, and considers the 969 doctrine, despite its intrinsic links with the violence, to be a "symbol of peace". Last week, Shwe Mann, the powerful speaker of the Lower House, said: "I appreciate the attempts of the Rakhine people to protect Myanmar," which feeds the narrative that Bengalis are trying to take over the country's westernmost state, and must be repelled. Consequently, it's not too giant a leap to suggest the government could at least be accommodating whatever forces are mobilising mobs to torch Muslim neighbourhoods. If that's the case, however, why would Thein Sein himself hint at this? Again, there's no clear-cut answer, but what's been a surprise to many observers is the disunity in government, with even the military-appointed MPs not always voting as one bloc. Thein Sein appears to want the country to move forward, but others in his cabinet evidently want to retain the control they had under military rule.  Some of the tactics seen in the anti-Muslim violence are similar to those used by the junta, with the "outsider" mobs reminiscent of the plain-clothed civilian militias like Swan Arr Shin, which were used so effectively by the generals to stir up violence and confuse allegiances during peaceful protests. Factor in the numerous reports of police inaction, and even instructions not to intervene until well into the second day of violence in Meiktila, and the picture grows murkier. Rather than being a case of either/or, what may have occurred is a synthesis between two major interests – those of an embattled military-political elite with willing collaborators in the Sangha and in Rakhine political parties, and those of a civilian population indoctrinated to consider Muslims as lesser or non-citizens. One feeds the other, and together work in perfect harmony: military or political leaders looking for a pretext to reassert control in a rapidly evolving country would see the undercurrent of anti-Muslim attitudes in Myanmar society as a classic divide and rule opportunity - help manufacture a threat, and jump in to save the day. It serves as both a PR coup in the face of domestic criticism of the security state in Myanmar, and helps split and weaken society - again a boon for the military. This tactic certainly has historical precedence in Myanmar, and may well have been reinvigorated by a military that today has much to lose from democratic reform.  Francis Wade is a Thailand-based freelance journalist and analyst covering Myanmar and Southeast Asia. The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.

Source: Al Jazeera

SHOULD THIEN SEIN GET THE NOBLE PEACE PRIZE?

By MYINT ZAN / ASIA SENTINEL| Wednesday, October 9, 2013 |

 

The 2013 winner – or winners – of the Nobel Peace Prize will be announced in the next few days, an award that relatively few Asians have won. When the nominations for the 2013 Peace Prize closed in February, among the 15 or so names mentioned as possible laureates was the “reformist President of Myanmar,” Thein Sein.

That is an eventuality almost no one could have foreseen three years ago and indicates the relative progress Burma has made from the dark days of a long, naked and very oppressive military rule. But despite Thein Sein’s steadily rising popularity, he has made statements that call into question his suitability for the prize.

Among the 12 Asians who have won the world’s most prestigious peace prize is Aung San Suu Kyi, the 1991 peace laureate, who spent various stints under house arrest for 15 years following her return to Burma in April 1988 to nurse her ailing mother. From about October 2007 to Suu Kyi’s eventual release in November 2010, Thein Sein was the Prime Minister and head of government in the previous regime that kept her there.

The past is not really dead and perhaps not even past, especially when the past is not directly related to Suu Kyi’s house arrest. In connection with the past atrocities committed by previous military regimes in the brutal crushing of the monk-led Saffron Revolution of 2007 and the student-led nation-wide uprising of 1988, Thein Sein stated that the top and middle-ranking military officials who crushed the protests were “doing their duty.”

That was the response he gave through a translator to a British Broadcasting Corporation’s interviewer’s question less than a year ago when asked whether he intended to investigate the “past excesses” of the Burmese Army.

The phrase “partly previous military regime” is used since in addition to former General Thein Sein, many members of the self-abolished military junta, with or without their military uniforms, continue to occupy cabinet, legislative and even judicial posts.

An apparently reformist president who has been praised to the skies by some Burmese and foreigners alike thus refuses to acknowledge that there were such “excesses.” This amounts to “covering a dead elephant with a goat skin,” a Burmese-language reference to the fact that the deaths of hundreds, perhaps thousands of students, monks and common citizens were covered up after they were shot down by military troops in the two protests.

Another Nobel laureate (for the year 1993), the former president of South Africa Francis de Clerk, eventually acknowledged the wrongdoings of the apartheid system which in part, led to the establishment of truth and reconciliation commissions. In contrast, one dare not and realistically should not have the audacity to hope that even something close to a genuine truth and reconciliation commission in Burma would be formed. Indeed it may be better to tear down any such expectations since its formation is not among the stunning reforms’ that Thein Sein has apparently initiated.

Three more statements from Thein Sein need to be mentioned, two mainly for domestic audiences and one initially made in the context of his meeting with a group of Burmese diaspora.

In a press conference in Burma, a few months ago, the president stated that the British colonial government in their rule of more than 100 years built only one major bridge but the partly previous military regimes which ruled for “only” 23 years built more than 100 bridges! So a combined reading of the President’s recent statements is: “We must forget the alleged’ abuses of the military. They were merely doing their duty.” And since the regime – of which he was a member and head of government for a few years has built more than 100 bridges it is several hundred times better than British colonial rule!

At the time of independence in 1948 Burma had some of the best infrastructure in Southeast Asia. The nascent democracy of the 1950s was, in comparison with the last 50 years, an age of relative progress and prosperity. After about five decades of military and one-party rule Burma lagged behind many other Asian countries including a few of its neighbors not only economically but also in terms of relative political freedoms and judicial independence.

Indeed Thein Sein himself stated, several months ago, in a meeting with Burmese expatriates or Burmese diaspora that Myanmar could reach the status before the 1960s’ if concerted efforts were made towards it. This is an implicit if not explicit acknowledgment that things were much better in the retrospectively renamed Myanmar in the 1950s and early 1960s before the military coup of 1962. Yet for two generations both in schools, universities and the almost totally government-controlled media Burmese were told how “parliamentary democracy” corrupts and how the Army has repeatedly saved the country from disintegration. Yet in a not-so-Freudian slip the president was indirectly acknowledging that the nascent Burmese democracy from the late 1940s to early 1960s expunged by successive Burmese military and military-led one party regime did have merit worthy of his government to emulate. Perhaps that message was intended mainly for the Burmese diaspora.

Yet the mixed messages from the president continue, especially when the target audience is the local Burmese. On February 12, 2013 the 67th anniversary of Union Day, in a message to the nation published in the front page of all the government newspapers the president stated to the effect that the Burmese had suffered because of the colonial education system. In fact the English translation of the president’s Union Day message used the phrase “colonial education system” but the Burmese version used the harsher phrase “slave education system”.

Successive Burmese military juntas were responsible for the rapid and marked deterioration of what had been a creditable education and university system of the 1950s. After the crushing of the student-led 1988 uprising, the campus of Rangoon University was covered with weeds. Students seeking higher education in Burma were robbed of their future, a trend which in recent months the current administration has admittedly but belatedly tried to reverse with assistance from some foreign universities.

Two days before President Thein Sein’s 2013 Union Day message, a headline in the same official government newspaper The New Light of Myanmar stated: “As Myanmar belongs to the Common Law Legal System family, the Myanmar Judicial System is deeply rooted with legal maxims, judicial customs and precedents which are enshrined with International Legal Principles that are utilized by successive judges all over the world.”

This is reportage of a rule-of-law seminar held at the capital Naypyidaw on Feb. 9 summarizing a speech by the Attorney-General. In contrast to this “blame all on the colonialists” rhetoric of the previous regimes and indeed two days before his President’s statement the Attorney-General proudly says that “Myanmar belongs to the common law legal system”. That common law legal system is derived from the same colonial or “slave” legal and educational system, established across the world in former British colonies.
Yet another Nobel peace laureate (of 2001), former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, writes in his memoirs “Interventions: A Life in Peace and War” that some African leaders continue to play the colonial blame game for which Annan chastises some of his fellow African elites.

Hence the apparently tipped Nobel Peace Prize nominee would probably need to unlearn or at least be aware that the colonial blame game does have its detractors even among albeit a relatively few Asian and African elites. This is not to defend colonialism by any means. But at the same time those who consistently or even occasionally play the blame game for their long-past colonial history need to be aware of the legitimate criticisms of this “blame (entirely) the colonial past for all its woes” of some elites and leaders of developing countries.

The Burmese government’s reforms – despite their checkered results are, one readily acknowledges, noteworthy but not that stunning, nor even very significant to the extent that its head of state should receive the additional plaudits of a Nobel Peace Prize.
Myint Zan is a Professor at the Faculty of Law, Multimedia University in Melaka, Malaysia.This article first appeared on Asia Sentinel on October 8, 2013.

source:The Irrawaddy news.

Burma’s half-hearted attempt to stop anti-Muslim pogroms

A dead body is left on a street in Meikhtila after anti-Muslim riots in March 2013. (Reuters)

• By COLIN HINSHELWOOD
• 9 October 2013

The vicious stabbing to death of a 94-year-old Muslim woman in Arakan state marks a new low in Burma’s shameful communal tensions. It should place President Thein Sein in a tight predicament as he put his international reputation on the line by promising a “zero-tolerance approach” to ethnic violence during a high-profile tour of Europe in July at a time when he was openly courting European investment and the lifting of the remaining sanctions on his country.

His words were echoed on 30 September by Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin speaking at the UN in the wake of riots in villages around Sandoway where five people were killed and at least 70 homes were burnt down by mobs which the president claimed were instigated by “outsiders”.

Alas it is a scene all too familiar in Burma in recent months: an innocuous personal argument between two locals—one Muslim and one Buddhist—leading to a huge mob forming to attack the Muslim residents and burn down their homes.

The attacks follow a consistent pattern and are clearly well organised. Anti-Muslim mobs now seem to be sitting in the wings in various parts of the country, waiting for the call. These thugs are allowed to travel in and out of villages with impunity armed with clubs and machetes. Local Muslims report being forcibly disarmed by the authorities and promised protection before a crowd of Buddhists torched their homes while the police looked on with indifference. The unwillingness of the police to form roadblocks or otherwise prevent these hooligans from entering towns to attack Muslims is a failure of duty so large it either represents support for the mob violence, suggests collusion on behalf of the security forces’ superiors or incompetence within the police hierarchy on a grand scale.

Although we as media often write that “calm has been restored” following a night of anti-Muslim pogroms, a closer look at these incidents suggests strongly that the rioters in each case simply decided to return home unimpeded; the police did not move in to prevent the savagery.

Last week Thein Sein emphasised: “The most important thing is we shouldn’t allow these things to happen again.” However, it is becoming increasingly evident that an anti-Muslim infrastructure has been organised in many areas around the country. Some say the 969 group are behind it. Many would conclude that the Rakhine Nationalities Development Party and their allies are playing the nationalist card in Arakan state to unsettle a fragile society, while others continue to point the finger at disgruntled factions of the military. Perhaps the reality is a mixture of all these elements and more. In any case, it seems clear the racist organisers will continue campaigning, recruiting violent thugs, and enflaming religious hatred as long as they can.

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If the Burmese government was truly united in its goal of ending this communal conflict, then it would have cracked down on culpable officers within its security forces many months ago, and against organisations and political parties whose agenda is transparently to abuse, terrorise, segregate or exile Muslim minorities from their communities.

But no attempt has been made to identify who pulls the strings in this tragic episode which has tainted Burma’s march toward reform and democracy. In fact, while paying lip service to the international community about equality and “zero tolerance”, the president and his senior ministers continue to talk out the other side of their mouths when addressing Burman and Arakanese Buddhist audiences.

In June, Thein Sein memorably described anti-Muslim icon Wirathu as a “son of Buddha” and a “noble person” committed to peace. And only last week parliamentary speaker Shwe Mann was quoted by the Myanmar Times praising the ethnic Rakhine people – i.e. Arakanese Buddhists – for “safeguarding Burma’s western border”. Speaking some days after Arakanese Buddhist leaders had called for the formation of a people’s militia to protect the country from illegal immigrants, Shwe Mann’s comments can be interpreted as nothing less than an endorsement of the vigilante mobs who have wreaked terror on Rohingya and Kaman Muslim villages over the last 16 months.

In short, no evidence exists that the Thein Sein government is willing to make an attempt to curb the anti-Muslim sentiment in the country. This weekend another attack flared in Kyaung Gone near Rangoon after the alleged rape of a Buddhist girl by a Muslim man. In other words, every village or town where a sizeable Muslim minority lives remains a ticking time bomb. It is only a matter of time before a personal argument spirals into yet another bloodbath while the police sit on their hands and central government officials continue talking out both sides of their mouths.

Children are Victims in Arakan State, Unicef Says

BURMA

By NYEIN NYEIN / THE IRRAWADDY| Tuesday, October 8, 2013 |

An ethnic Rohingya boy and woman eat at a camp for displaced Muslim families in Arakan State. (Photo: JPaing / The Irrawaddy)

RANGOON — The UN agency for children’s rights has called for an end to communal violence in west Burma, where clashes last week between Muslims and Buddhists left hundreds of people homeless.

Unicef issued a statement on Tuesday urging an end to violence in Arakan State, following the third major wave of communal violence to hit the state since last year. The clashes last week near the southern town of Thandwe left five people dead and destroyed some 110 homes.

In the two waves of unrest last year—elsewhere in Arakan State, in June and October—more than 140,000 people were displaced, and more than 105,000 were children affected by the violence, according to statistics from Unicef, which is providing aid locally.

“We are concerned the inter-communal violence is spreading in the whole country,” Bertrand Bainvel, a Unicef spokesman in Rangoon, told The Irrawaddy. Anti-Muslim riots have also broken out in several locations across Burma this year.
Bainvel said the violence could affect the country’s ability to promote peace and stay united in the long term, amid a transition to democracy after decades of military rule. Of the unrest, he said, “first and foremost, if affects children.”

“It is difficult for them to understand what is going on. It is psychologically very difficult.”
Unicef, which has provided assistance in Arakan State for education, nutrition and health, as well as psychosocial support, says the unrest has made it nearly impossible for many affected children to continue their education or access health care. “Even if they manage to go to school, it is difficult for them to concentrate on learning because they will hear about the burning, shooting or adults speaking about violence,” the Unicef spokesman said. “Even if their houses weren’t burned, maybe their neighbors’ homes were.”

In temporary camps for displaced families near Sittwe, the state capital, about 85,000 children are 18 years old or younger. These include both Muslims and ethnic Arakanese Buddhists.

Unicef operates a temporary learning center for displaced children in camps in Sittwe as well as nearby Myaybon, Pauktaw and Kyauktaw townships, but only 7,500 children aged 11 to 14 have access to it. Unicef says another 1,000 children will soon be able to attend.

Farther north in Kachin State, where clashes continue between ethnic rebel armed groups and the government army, 8,000 children between the ages of 6 and 9 attend schools in rebel-controlled territory. Unicef does not have other data on the number of children affected by conflicts elsewhere in the country due to government restrictions on traveling to those areas.

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Breakingnews > Muslim-owned houses destroyed/Genocide spreads to Irrawady Division!

Credit:Bangkok Post

• Published: 6 Oct 2013 at 13.3o

A mob of angry Buddhists destroyed five Muslim-owned houses in Myanmar early Sunday following reports that a 14-year-old Buddhist girl was raped, officials said.

The latest round of communal violence erupted shortly after midnight when about 100 people surrounded a police station in the town of Kyaung Gone, 50 kilometres north-west of Yangon, demanding that police hand over a Muslim rape suspect.

"When we refused their demand, they became angry and started destroying Muslim houses," an official from the town's administrative office said.

Another Muslim-owned house was partially destroyed by fire, according to witnesses.
No injuries were reported in the rampage.

Clashes between Buddhists and Muslims have spread since last year, when sectarian fighting claimed at least 167 lives and left 140,000 people homeless, mostly Rohingya Muslims, in the western state of Rakhine.

RNDP Not to Blame for Thandwe Violence: Local Party Member

BURMA

By LAWI WENG / THE IRRAWADDY| Saturday, October 5, 2013 | 

 

Tun Shwe, a local RNDP member in Thandwe, denies that his party was involved in the outbreak of anti-Muslim violence in the township. Click on the box below to see more images. (Steve Tickner / The Irrawaddy)

THANDWE — Several local Arakanese politicians and community leaders were apprehended in Thandwe Township in recent days in relation to the outbreak of inter-communal violence between ethnic Arakanese Buddhists and local Muslim communities.

A Thandwe Arakanese leader, however, has blamed the unrest on “Bengali” Muslims, who he claimed had been coming to the southern Arakan State town and “started the violence.”

“Some people hide inside trucks and secretly came to the town or some came by boats from the sea, secretly, to settle in the town,” said Tun Shwe, a central committee member of the Rakhine National Development Party’s (RNDP) Thandwe office.

He said “more and more” Muslims had come to Thandwe from northern Arakan State, after inter-communal violence in June and October last year affected their communities there.
Most Muslims in northern Arakan call themselves Rohingyas. Burma’s government refuses to recognize the group as citizens and — like local ethnic Arakanese communities — it refers to them as “Bengali” immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh.

The villages in Thandwe Township that suffered from attacks this week, however, are ethnic Kaman Muslims, a group that is officially recognized as a Burmese minority with a recorded history in southern Arakan State.

RNDP member Tun Shwe accepts that the Kaman have long lived in Thandwe, but still he maintains that a supposed influx of “Bengali” Muslims caused the recent violence, although he was unable to explain where this group of newcomers was residing.
“Yes, there are local Muslim inhabitants here. But, [since last year] more Bengalis came to Thandwe,” he claimed.

The anti-Muslim violence in Thandwe Township began on Sunday and was reportedly sparked by an argument between a Buddhist motorbike taxi driver and a Kaman Muslim man.

Between Sunday and Wednesday, more than 100 homes were destroyed in at least five Kaman villages. Six people were reported killed, five injured and hundreds of villagers were forced to flee.

In recent days, Thandwe police have arrested two local RNDP members, including the Thandwe RNDP chairman Maung Pu, in relation with the violence. Two local members of civil society group Protection of Nationality, Religion and Dhamma were also detained.
International human rights groups have previously accused RNDP members, local Buddhist leaders and nationalist Arakanese civil society groups of organizing attacks on Rohingya communities.

In Thandwe, tensions began to rise after Arakanese community groups organized ‘Buddhist Day’ on Aug. 26, an event that attracted tens of thousands of people and hundreds of monks from the area. Members of the Buddhist nationalist 969 movement were also present and actively spread their virulent anti-Muslim messages among the township’s inhabitants.
Tun Shwe denied, however, that the RNDP and local Arakanese community organizations had been whipping up anti-Muslim sentiment in the weeks leading up the violence. “Our party attempted to stop tensions among the people,” he said, adding that, “Our chairman was not involved in the house burning.”

Win Naing, Thandwe representative of the National League for Democracy, the opposition party of Aung San Suu Kyi, said he believed that the local RNDP branch had indeed played an organizing role in the unrest.
“We found that their members were involved in the violence. The authorities should thoroughly interrogate those that they have detained in order to stop this violence,” Win Naing said.

US Maintains Block on Military Assistance to Burma

BURMA

By SAMANTHA MICHAELS / THE IRRAWADDY| Friday, October 4, 2013 |

1

A billboard promoting a “No Child Soldiers” campaign was erected in Rangoon earlier this year. The United States has maintained a block on military assistance to President Thein Sein’s quasi-civilian government for its use of child soldiers in armed conflict. (Photo: Steve Tickner / The Irrawaddy)

RANGOON — Following pledges to enhance military ties with Burma, the United States has maintained a block on military assistance to President Thein Sein’s quasi-civilian government for its use of child soldiers in armed conflict, US officials said on Thursday.

Burma is one of five countries that will not receive US military assistance in 2014 under the Child Soldiers Prevention Act (CSPA), which places restrictions on security assistance and commercial licensing of military equipment for governments found to use child soldiers.
State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said the sanctions would affect Burma, Rwanda, Central African Republic, Sudan and Syria.

The CSPA requires the United States to identify countries whose government armed forces or government-supported armed groups recruit and use child soldiers. Ten countries were identified on the 2013 list, published in the State Department’s annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report.

Harf said President Barack Obama on Tuesday waived in full or in part the restrictions on military assistance for five countries on the list this year—including Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen—while deciding not to waive the restrictions for the rest, including Burma.

Restrictions will apply in the 2014 fiscal year and prohibit assistance through International Military Education and Training (IMET), which helps train foreign militaries, as well as Foreign Military Financing (FMF), which funds the sale of US military material and services.
When asked why Burma did not receive a waiver, Harf said “steps are being taken … to begin to address the child soldiers issue in Burma.”

“In 2012, the government of Burma signed a child soldiers action plan with the UN, which had been under negotiation for more than five years,” she told reporters in Washington on Thursday, according to a press briefing transcript on the State Department website. “So we’ll continue to raise this issue diplomatically with the Burmese government.”

While some sanctioned countries including Rwanda were earlier slated to receive a small amount of IMET and FMF funding, Harf said she did not believe that Burma received such assistance.

Burma has been on the CSPA list since 2009, when the US law went into effect.
Since Thein Sein’s reformist government came to power in 2011, the United States has lifted nearly all of its economic sanctions on Burma as a reward for political reforms, but it has kept an embargo on arms sales, amid ongoing accusations of rights abuses by Burma’s armed forces.

However, the Obama administration has indicated that it wants to resume nonlethal defense training and assistance for Burma. The United States cut military assistance after the Burmese military junta brutally cracked down on pro-democracy protesters in 1988.
In the eight years prior to 1988, the United States reportedly financed US$4.7 million in military sales to Burma and trained 167 officers at US military schools, according to the Associated Press.

Amid ongoing political and economic reforms, the Obama administration has expressed a desire to improve military-to-military relations with Burma to encourage a more professional armed forces. US defense legal experts visited the Southeast Asian nation in August for the second time in two months to consider possibilities of offering training on human rights and rule of law. US Ambassador Derek Mitchell also met with the chief of Burma’s military, Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing, in Naypyidaw to discuss legal practices in military combat.
Despite reassurances that any assistance would be gradual and nonlethal, the idea of enhancing military ties has met with resistance from some US lawmakers and activists who caution against granting international legitimacy to a Burmese military that continues to use child soldiers and has displaced more than 100,000 civilians over the past two years in clashes with non-state armed groups.

The US Embassy in Rangoon could not be reached on Friday to comment on how the military assistance restrictions in 2014 would affect US efforts to enhance military ties with Burma.

The Burma military was notorious under the former regime for recruiting child soldiers to wage wars over several decades against non-state armed groups in ethnic states. Thein Sein’s administration has sought to clean up the military’s image by discharging dozens of underage soldiers. In August, the Burmese military erected an eye-catching billboard in downtown Rangoon to promote a “No Child Soldiers” campaign.
The military discharged 68 child soldiers in August, according to the United Nations, and in July it released 42 children and young adults who were recruited for soldiering and other duties.

However, new cases of child soldiers continue to be reported. In August, around the same time the billboard went up in Rangoon, two families in the city publicly alleged at a press conference that the military had recruited two of their children.

Source:The Irrawaddy.

Dispatches: Boat Migrant Tragedy Should Shake Europe’s Conscience

Dispatches: A look at human rights in the news today
All Dispatches »

October 3, 2013

Judith Sunderland

The scale of this latest tragedy is unprecedented: at least 94 people have died and hundreds are missing after an overcrowded boat carrying some 500 people caught fire and sank off the coast of Lampedusa, Italy, early Thursday morning. Some 140 people have been rescued and the search continues for more survivors even as hope fades.

But deaths of migrants and asylum seekers trying to reach European shores are a recurring tragedy, and a continuing European shame. An estimated 1,500 died attempting the crossing in 2011, a year that saw a significant increase in crossings due to the conflict and upheaval in North Africa. Numbers were thankfully lower in 2012, with an estimated 500 deaths – still a shocking number. Yesterday I contacted UNHCR in Rome to get their most recent estimate for deaths at sea this year: they calculated about 100 (there is never any certainty). Tragically, that number has doubled in the space of a few hours.

The Italian government has called for a day of mourning tomorrow. This is appropriate, but of course not enough. The deaths of so many should shock the conscience of all in Europe, including Europe’s decision-makers. For too long, EU border control, including sea border surveillance, has been focused on barring entry, rather than saving lives. That has to change.

Preventing deaths at sea needs to be at the heart of a coordinated European-wide approach to boat migration. This entails improving search and rescue coordination among EU member states, resolving disputes over responsibility for rescue and disembarkation, removing disincentives for commercial vessels to conduct rescues, and replacing the persistent emphasis on border enforcement with the imperative of saving lives.

Latest Myanmar violence blamed on religious and ethnic extremists

credit:Reuters

By Jared Ferrie

THANDWE, Myanmar | Fri Oct 4, 2013 3:32am EDT

(Reuters) -

 The Buddhist mob mutilated and burned Khin Naing so severely his son couldn't recognise the body, one of series of attacks that suggest a resurgence of a monk-led movement in Myanmar accused of stoking violence against Muslims.

Flies were buzzing around the bloodied patch of earth outside a ransacked mosque in Tha Phyu Chai village where police removed Khin Naing's body after he was hacked to death by ethnic Rakhine Buddhists.

"He couldn't run fast enough from the Rakhine people," said his son, Tun Tun Naing, 17, who emerged from hiding to identify his father's corpse from what remained of his charred clothing.

Khin Naing was one of five Muslims killed and four Rakhine Buddhists wounded in four days of violence in Thandwe, a township in western Rakhine State popular with foreign tourists for its nearby Ngapali Beach.

Not far from its resorts, Buddhists armed with sticks, slingshots and machetes launched repeated attacks on Muslim villagers from Sunday, burning down dozens of homes, witnesses said.

Sectarian violence in Myanmar has killed at least 240 people and displaced 140,000, most of them Muslims, since June 2012.

The latest bloodshed in Thandwe shows Myanmar's reformist government struggling to curb the spread of a Buddhist nationalist movement known as 969 and control members of an ethnic Rakhine political party implicated in violence.

The 969 movement is led by firebrand monks who preach that Islam is a threat and urge supporters to shun interfaith marriage and boycott Muslim-run businesses.

The numbers symbolise the Buddha, his teachings and the monkhood. Many anti-Muslim attacks have taken place where monks have preached the 969 creed but the violence had ebbed in recent weeks until the Thandwe attacks.

Police in Thandwe say they have arrested six people, including the local chairman of the Rakhine Nationalities Development Party (RNDP) and supporters of the 969 movement. RNDP members were implicated in anti-Muslim violence last October in which at least 89 people were killed, a Reuters investigation found.

The latest violence coincided with a three-day visit to Rakhine State by President Thein Sein. Tension was high as he arrived in Thandwe on Wednesday, with police firing shots in the air to disperse a crowd.

"ENEMY BASES"

Evidence of 969 activity is hard to miss.
Banners bearing the movement's logo flank roads to Ngapali beach. Muslims said 969 supporters had recently blasted Buddhist nationalistic songs from speakers at Thandwe town hall.

That followed a sermon in Shwe Hlay village by a prominent 969 monk called Wirathu, who once described mosques as "enemy bases".

"After that, we had to be very careful in the village and not bump into Buddhists or make them angry," said Myint Aung, one of scores of Muslim residents of Tha Phyu Chai village huddled near one of the few homes left standing.

Wirathu's admirers include Sann Sint, minister of religious affairs, who told Reuters in June the monk only promoted "love and understanding between religions".
President Thein Sein has called Wirathu "a son of Lord Buddha" and said 969 "is just a symbol of peace".

About five percent of Myanmar's 60 million people are Muslim, according to government estimates. About a million more are Rohingya Muslims, mostly stateless and living in northern Rakhine State.

Maung Myint Htay, a Buddhist resident of Tha Phyu Chai, said he played no part in Tuesday's attacks, but didn't condemn them.
"It's not wrong," he said, adding that Rakhine people had a "historical duty" to protect their homeland from Muslims.

Myint Moe of a group called the Committee for the Protection of Religion and Nationality acknowledged that he distributed 969 stickers and had the support of hundreds of Buddhist monks.

Myint Moe rejected the name "Rohingya" and instead referred to members of that community as "Bengalis", a term that implies they are illegal migrants from neighbouring Bangladesh.

An RNDP official in Thandwe said the arrest of party members could cause more unrest.
"It's the responsibility of the government because they arrested the party leader and religious leaders," said Maung Maung Phyu. "People are angry."
(Amends transliteration of name in paragraph three to Tun.)


(Additional reporting by Min Zayar Oo in Yangon; Editing by Martin Petty, Andrew R.C. Marshall and Robert Birsel)

Breakingnews > Thein Sein tours riot-torn Rakhine

credit:Bangkok Post

Published: 4 Oct 2013 

Myanmar's president on Thursday met communities in an area convulsed by deadly anti-Muslim violence, after mobs torched property and police fired warning shots to try to restore order.

A Muslim man inspects the burnt area of a vandalised building in Thabyu Chi village near Thandwe, in Myanmar's western Rakhine state on October 3, 2013

Six people have been arrested after several days of tensions spilled into bloodshed on Tuesday in the western state of Rakhine, with the death toll now standing at six -- all Muslims, police said.

Thein Sein met local residents and hoteliers in the flashpoint town of Thandwe but did not venture into outlying villages, before returning to the capital Naypyidaw.

The Myanmar leader was on his first visit to Rakhine since a wave of religious violence erupted there last year, leaving dozens dead and tens of thousands homeless.
Unrest flared again on Wednesday evening despite the nearby presence of the president, a Rakhine police official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

"The police opened fire to control the situation," the official said, adding that two houses on the outskirts of Thandwe owned by a local Muslim were torched but no one was injured.
The man was allegedly involved in a verbal argument with a Buddhist tuk tuk driver that sparked the initial unrest at the weekend. His house in Thandwe was burned by a mob and he has since been arrested by local police on unknown charges.

Muslim families fled into forests in terror after Tuesday's violence, which saw a mob of some 800 Buddhist thugs set alight dozens of homes in their village on the outskirts of Thandwe.

A 94-year-old woman was knifed to death in the rioting, which happened near the popular tourist destination of Ngapali Beach.
Rights groups have previously accused Myanmar's authorities of complicity with rioters in the Buddhist-majority nation -- a claim the government denies.
The international community has expressed growing disquiet at the fresh unrest in strife-racked Rakhine.

Both the US and UN expressed serious concern over the latest incidents and urged swift action to quell conflict and bring perpetrators to justice.
What began last year as communal fighting between Rakhine Buddhists and stateless Rohingya Muslims has since spread, with other minority Muslim groups increasingly targeted.

Around 250 people have been killed and more than 140,000 left homeless in several outbreaks of Buddhist-Muslim violence around the country since June 2012, mostly in Rakhine