Burma Related News - October 30-31, 2012.

[BRN]

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BURMA RELATED NEWS OCTOBER 30-31, 2012.
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AP - UN says Myanmar opium production on rise
Reuters - Myanmar's Dawei developer to promote light industry
Myanmar foreign investment bill in parliament again
Reuters - Myanmar opium output rises despite eradication effort ion
Reuters - 130 missing in Rohingya boat sinking: Bangladesh
Reuters - Fear, mistrust grip Myanmar's volatile Rakhine reg
Reuters - Myanmar must protect Muslims and halt discrimination, U.N. says
AFP - Myanmar camps overwhelmed after fresh unrest: UN
CSM - Myanmar unrest threatens to destabilize democracy and region
Aljazeera – Myanmar 'rejects talks' on ethnic violence
The Hindu - Myanmar for ‘win-win’ solution in Rakhine: Minister
ANI - Burmese authorities not doing enough to protect displaced Rohingyas: Human Rights Watch
IANS - UNHCR calls on Dhaka to open border
Forbes - Myanmar's Ethnic Conflict Flares In Shadow Of Asian Oil Investments
Kitsap Sun - Bainbridge school reaches out to students in Myanmar
New York Times - As Violence Continues, Rohingya Find Few Defenders in Myanmar
Financial Times - KPMG Opens Office in Myanmar
OilPrice.com - Myanmar: New Frontline for East-West Oil Rush
Asia Times Online - Myanmar: Old atrocity, new implications
Deccan Herald - India, US, Japan discuss Africa, Myanmar, Afghanistan
Bernama - Myanmar To Suspend Wood Log Export In 2014
The Irrawaddy - Burmese Cars Will No Longer Run on CNG
The Irrawaddy - Displacement Down in Eastern Burma: TBBC
The Irrawaddy - Govt Launches Fresh Arakan Strife Probe
Mizzima News - Singapore Airlines starts service to Rangoon
Mizzima News - Burma tells Asean Rakhine State unrest is ‘internal matter’
Mizzima News - Burmese officials struggle for control in Rakhine State
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UN says Myanmar opium production on rise
By TODD PITMAN | Associated Press – 13 hrs ago

BANGKOK (AP) — The cultivation of illegal opium has increased in Myanmar for a sixth successive year, fueled in part by rising demand for heroin across Asia, the United Nations said Wednesday.

The upsurge comes despite a government campaign to eradicate the crop from the Southeast Asian nation, which has won praise worldwide for taking major steps toward democratic reform after the long-ruling military junta ceded power last year.

Myanmar is the world's second-largest producer of opium after Afghanistan, accounting for about 25 percent of global poppy production, according to the U.N.

The rise in output of opium — the raw ingredient used to make heroin — was documented in the latest annual survey by the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime.

The report said farmland under opium cultivation rose by 17 percent this year, up from about nearly 40,000 hectares (100,000 acres) in 2011 to 51,000 hectares (126,000 acres) in 2012.

Myanmar's illegal crop is farmed mostly in Kachin and Shan states. The two areas, located along the country's borders with China, Thailand and Laos, have been plagued by fighting between insurgent groups and the army.

Poppy is highly lucrative for impoverished farmers in need of cash, and the fact it can fetch as much as 19 times that of rice poses a huge challenge to government efforts to eradicate it.

The estimated 690 metric tons produced in Myanmar in 2012 was valued at roughly $359 million, the report said. That output was up from an estimated 610 metric tons last year.

"One probable factor behind the resurgence in opium production in Southeast Asia is the demand for opiates, both locally and in the region in general," the report said.

The vast majority of consumers are in China, with opiate users in East Asia and the Pacific Ocean region accounting for about one quarter of the world's total.

The swath of Southeast Asia where the borders of Myanmar, Thailand and Laos meet is known as the Golden Triangle. It produced more than half of the world's opium in 1990 and one third in 1998.

A year later, Myanmar set out to become opium-free by 2014. That campaign had made considerable strides, but production has risen every year since 2006 as demand and prices grew.

The latest U.N. survey indicated the government has stepped up efforts to curtail output.

Citing government figures, the report said the government had eradicated poppies on about 24,000 hectares of land in 2012, compared to 7,000 hectares the previous year.

The 236 percent increase "is a significant increase on the area reported as eradicated in previous years."
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Myanmar's Dawei developer to promote light industry
BANGKOK | Tue Oct 30, 2012 7:22am EDT

Oct 30 (Reuters) - The Thai developer of the $50 billion Dawei economic zone in Myanmar plans to invest more than 1 billion baht ($32 million) on infrastructure to help attract light industry amid uncertainty over the project.

The plan includes building a 33-megawatt power plant plus road and water systems on the 633 rais (101 hectares) of land designated for light industry, Somchet Thinaphong, managing director of Dawei Development Co, told Reuters on Tuesday.

"We are arranging land area of 633 rais for the light industries. For heavy industry, we are still working on that," Somchet said.

He said the company had already lined up companies keen to invest in the light industry zone. He declined to give names.

Somchet said the small power plant would use natural gas as fuel and Italian-Thai Development, Thailand's largest construction firm and the parent of Dawei Development, was working on how to supply the gas.

Italian-Thai has been struggling to find backing for the 250 sq km (100 sq mile) complex, which was planned to include a deep-sea port, steel mills, refineries, a petrochemical complex and power plants.

Italian-Thai has said it aimed to conclude financial plans for the project by the end of this year.

But it has struggled to find $8.5 billion to finance infrastructure and utilities under the first phase and the governments of Thailand and Japan have stepped in to keep it afloat.

In September sources said Thai banks would provide short-term loans before an expected Japanese loan of up to $3.2 billion could be secured.

A lack of basic infrastructure such as roads and ports have made it difficult for the Dawei project to get off the ground, CIMB Securities said in a research note.

In May the Thai government approved a budget of $1.1 billion for infrastructure inside Thailand that would link up with the zone, including a four-lane highway to the border and homes for Thais who would work in the zone.

Ministers and senior officials from Thailand and Myanmar are due to meet in Bangkok on Nov. 7 to discuss the project, with the new Thai road, energy and the planned deep-sea port on the agenda.
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Myanmar foreign investment bill in parliament again
Aung Hla Tun Reuters
11:59 p.m. EDT, October 31, 2012

YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar's new foreign investment bill was with parliament on Thursday, after amendments to address concerns of foreign firms eager to enter the country, and it could be quickly approved and sent to the president to be signed into law, lawmakers said.

The bill has passed back and forth between the legislative and executive branches since March in a tussle involving a government eager to attract foreign investment, tycoons determined to protect their monopolies, and small businesses keen not to be shut out.

"The bill of the new Foreign Investment Law will be brought to the Union Parliament on November 1, where I think it will be passed after some discussion," Thein Nyunt, lower house law maker and leader of New National Democratic Party (NNDP), told Reuters.

"Since agreement had been reached between the bill committees of the upper and lower houses on the most important provisions, I am sure the bill will be approved," he added, without elaborating on the content of the bill.

A member of one of the committees, who attended an emergency meeting in October, also said agreement had been reached on the main provisions.

A clause requiring foreign investors to provide at least 35 percent of start-up capital in a joint venture with local partners had been dropped, he said, asking not to be named.

"Now it has been changed to 'the participation ratio of the joint venture is only to be decided by local and foreign partners'. It means anything they both agree," he said.

Another controversial provision stipulated that foreigners could only own 50 percent of a joint venture in certain sectors deemed sensitive.

"Now it has been decided not to mention this ratio in the Foreign Investment Law since it can sting foreign investors. Instead, the ratio will be mentioned only in the relevant rules and regulations, and only if necessary," the committee member said.

"These changes were initiated by the president, so I am sure he will sign the bill when it is sent to him," he added, suggesting that could happen in November.

President Thein Sein took office in March 2011 at the head of a quasi-civilian government that brought almost 50 years of military rule to an end.

He has undertaken economic and political reforms that have persuaded Western countries to suspend sanctions and prompted an upsurge of interest in the country by multinational firms, who see potential in its abundant resources and primitive economy.
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Myanmar opium output rises despite eradication effort
By Paul Carsten | Reuters – 20 hrs ago

(Reuters) - Opium poppy cultivation in Myanmar has risen for the sixth consecutive year despite a state eradication campaign, a United Nations report said on Wednesday, throwing doubt on government assertions the problem would be over by 2014.

Unprecedented eradication efforts managed to destroy almost 24,000 hectares (59,280 acres) of poppy fields in the 2012 season, running from the autumn 2011 to early summer this year, more than triple the previous year's total.

But the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said land used for cultivation in Myanmar, the world's second top producer of opium after Afghanistan, still increased 17 percent to its highest level in eight years.

Myanmar is forecast to produce 690 tonnes of opium in 2011/12 according to the report, up from 610 tonnes - about 10 percent of the world's opium - the previous year, the UNODC said. Afghanistan produces around 90 percent.

Land in the Burmese part of the Golden Triangle - a lawless region of Myanmar, Thailand and Laos home to vast drug trafficking operations - is scarce and many poor farmers opt to use it for poppies, which earn them 19 times more per hectare than rice, according to the UNODC report.

Four out of every ten households surveyed in poppy-growing villages grew the crop themselves, but other households participated in the cultivation and harvesting, making it vital to the economies of whole communities.

Production of opium is closely linked to ethnic insurgencies inside Myanmar, said Gary Lewis, UNODC regional representative.

"There is no question that there is a strong connection between the conflicts in the country and the most immediate sources of revenue to purchase weapons, and in many instances this is both opium and heroin and methamphetamine pills," Lewis told Reuters.

"The areas of highest cultivation intensity are also the areas of ongoing or suspended conflict. The emergence of peace and security is therefore an essential ingredient in tackling the poppy problem."

The government of President Thein Sein, in power since March 2011, has reached ceasefire agreements with many of the ethnic minority rebel groups that had fought central government for decades, but full resolution of the conflicts is some way off.

Sit Aye, legal adviser to Thein Sein, told Reuters in February that the government wanted to wipe out the opium problem by 2014.

Neighbouring Laos has also seen an increase in cultivation. The UNODC report estimated that land dedicated to growing poppies jumped 66 percent from the 2011 season.

But output in Laos, at 41 tonnes, pales in comparison to that of Myanmar. The UNODC also believes that most of the Laos opium is intended for domestic consumption.

The vast majority of regional demand comes from China, helped by porous borders in the country's southwest.

China accounts for more than 70 percent of all heroin consumption in East Asia and the Pacific. The number of registered users has risen at least 22 percent since 2002, standing at 1.1 million by 2010, according to UNODC.

With China's demand for opium increasing and driving up production in Southeast Asia, it is becoming ever more important for governments to find realistic ways to curb cultivation and bring farmers out of poverty, Lewis said.

"Eradication alone is not the answer," he said. "The real answer is to provide sustainable alternative livelihoods."
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130 missing in Rohingya boat sinking: Bangladesh
By Soe Than Win | Reuters – 14 hrs ago

About 130 passengers are missing after a boat carrying Rohingya refugees sank off the border between Myanmar and Bangladesh, according to Bangladesh police and a Rohingya advocacy group on Wednesday.

Mohammad Farhad, police inspector of Teknaf on the southeast tip of Bangladesh, told AFP that one of six survivors from the sinking reported that the boat had about 130 passengers on board.

Muslim Rohingya men walk past fishing boats near the temperory relief camp at the Bawdupha on the outskirts of Sittwe, capital of Myanmar's western Rakhine state, on October 30. About 130 passengers are missing after a boat carrying Rohingya refugees sank off the border between Myanmar and Bangladesh, according to Bangladesh police and a Rohingya advocacy group on Wednesday.
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Fear, mistrust grip Myanmar's volatile Rakhine region
By Martin Petty | Reuters – Tue, Oct 30, 2012

SITTWE, Myanmar (Reuters) - As security forces police the edgy aftermath of sectarian bloodshed in western Myanmar, fearful Buddhists and Muslims are arming themselves with homemade weapons, testing the government's resolve to prevent a new wave of violence.

Despite government claims that peace has been restored, one Buddhist was shot dead and another wounded on Tuesday when security forces opened fire in Kyauknimaw on Ramree Island, according to official sources in the Rakhine State capital of Sittwe.

Hand grenades were thrown on Sunday night at two mosques in Karen State in the east of the country, domestic media reported, causing no casualties but raising fears of rising anti-Muslim sentiment elsewhere in Myanmar.

The violence between Buddhist Rakhines and Muslim Rohingyas has killed 84 people and wounded 129 since October 21, according to an official toll, in Myanmar's biggest test since a reformist government replaced a military junta 18 months ago.

"The government has reinforced security forces, both police and military, to all conflict areas," said Win Myaing, the Rakhine State spokesman. "If both parties follow the law, there won't be any conflict."

Surin Pitsuwan, secretary general of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, of which Myanmar is a member, warned continuing violence could destabilize the region.

"This has larger and wider implications and we are all potentially affected," he said in an interview with Reuters in Kuala Lumpur. "I am calling the world to pay attention to this and to come around and try and resolve the problem."

Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has disappointed supporters by failing to make a clear moral statement on the ongoing abuses. Her National League for Democracy (NLD) party has remained silent on the issue since releasing a brief statement on October 24. NLD leaders could not be reached for comment.

"WE'RE HERE TO PROTECT YOU"

The United Nations says more than 97 percent of the 28,108 people displaced are Muslims, mostly stateless Rohingya. Many now live in camps, adding to 75,000 mostly Rohingya displaced in June after a previous explosion of sectarian violence killed at least 80 people.

"Calm down! We're here to protect you," shouted an army major at Purein village in northern Rakhine State, where soldiers pleaded with Rohingyas to lay down their swords and machetes.

The Rohingyas said their homes were burned down a week ago by Rakhines armed with slingshots, wooden staves, knives and gasoline.

"Suddenly, we came under attack. Why? I was born here, my father was born here. This is our home," said Badu, the 50-year-old head of a Rohingya family of nine. "We got along before but there's nothing left. Where did all the anger come from?"

Rohingya women now sift the ashes for blackened nails for their men to build the bamboo frames of new homes.

"EVERYONE IS SCARED"

Both Rohingyas and Rakhines in Purein village say the attack was initiated by Buddhists outsiders who torched homes one morning and killed three people, including an elderly woman who was unable to flee. An overstretched military was unable to prevent retribution by Rohingyas.

"The Rohingyas came back to attack us and tried to burn down our village, but everyone had fled," said the Rakhine village leader, Kyaw Maw. "No Rakhines from this village were involved. I don't know who it was that first attacked them."

Kyaw Maw said the Rohingya community there had recently doubled, absorbing new settlers since the June violence, and took a larger share of the rice grown on land no one owned. The days of cordial ties, he said, were over.

"Everyone is scared of them now. We didn't attack them, but they think we are enemies. I want these Kalars to stay well away from us," he said, referring to Rohingyas by a term considered offensive in Myanmar.

Myanmar's Buddhist-majority government regards the estimated 800,000 Rohingyas in the country as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and its laws deny them citizenship. Bangladesh has refused to grant Rohingyas refugee status since 1992. The United Nations calls them "virtually friendless in Myanmar".

"Most Rakhines follow the law," said state spokesman Win Myaing. "The Muslims don't. They want to bully the Rakhine in areas where they have more people."

The violence started in northern Rakhine State and spread south to the town of Kyaukpyu, an area crucial to China's energy investments in Myanmar, where satellite images show an entire Muslim quarter was razed by fires.

The shooting by security forces at Kyauknimaw on Tuesday took place near the spot where a Buddhist woman was raped and murdered, allegedly by Muslims, in May, which helped spark the sectarian violence that engulfed the state the following month.

"As you know, when security forces have to control the situation, there can be gunfire," said spokesman Win Myaing.

If keeping angry Buddhists and Muslims apart is proving hard, then reconciling them seems impossible. Purein is now a village divided. People who a week ago cultivated the same paddy fields now no longer cross a stream that separated the two communities. Few believe authorities will protect them.

"I don't know why this is happening," said a Rohingya man who called himself Pathon.
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Myanmar must protect Muslims and halt discrimination, U.N. says
Reuters – 10 hrs ago

GENEVA (Reuters) - U.N. human rights investigators called on Myanmar on Wednesday to halt deadly sectarian violence and warned it not to use the conflict as a pretext to remove Rohingya minority Muslims.

Some 89 people have been killed in clashes between Buddhist Rakhines and Muslim Rohingyas in western Myanmar in the past 10 days, according to the latest official toll.

"This situation must not become an opportunity to permanently remove an unwelcome community," said a joint statement issued by Tomas Ojea Quintana, U.N. special rapporteur on Myanmar, and independent experts on minority issues and the internally displaced.

They voiced their "deep concern about the assertion of the government and others that the Rohingya are illegal immigrants and stateless persons".

"If the country is to be successful in the process of democratic transition, it must be bold in addressing the human rights challenges that exist," Ojea Quintana said.

"In the case of Rakhine State, this involves addressing the long-standing endemic discrimination against the Rohingya community that exists within sections of local and national government as well as society at large."

The Rohingyas say their homes were burned down by Rakhines armed with slingshots, wooden staves, knives and gasoline.

The United Nations says more than 97 percent of the 28,108 people who have fled the violence are Muslims, mostly stateless Rohingya. Many now live in camps, joining 75,000 mostly Rohingya displaced in June after a previous explosion of sectarian violence killed at least 80 people.

Fearful Buddhists and Muslims are arming themselves with homemade weapons, testing the reformist government's resolve to prevent a new wave of violence.

Rita Izsak, U.N. independent expert on minority issues, said the Rohingya constituted a minority which must be protected according to international minority rights standards.

"The government must take steps to review relevant laws and procedures to provide equal access by the Rohingya community to citizenship and promote dialogue and reconciliation between communities," she said.

The U.N. refugee agency has called on authorities to restore law and order so as to prevent further bloodshed and displacement. An estimated 6,000 people are stranded on boats or on islets along Myanmar's western coast, it said on Tuesday.

"We are appealing to neighbouring countries, Bangladesh being very much one of them, to keep borders open. It is clearly important that people do have access to safe haven," UNHCR spokesman Adrian Edwards told a news briefing on Tuesday.
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Myanmar camps overwhelmed after fresh unrest: UN
Updated October 31, 2012, 9:59 am

SITTWE, Myanmar (AFP) - Food, water and medical help are in short supply at camps in western Myanmar that are "stretched beyond capacity", a UN agency said Tuesday, as authorities struggled to stem communal clashes.

Bloodshed between Buddhists and Muslims in Rakhine state has caused more than 28,000 people to flee their homes this month, the United Nations refugee agency said in a statement.

"It is clearly urgent that law and order be restored to prevent further violence, and that access is facilitated so that aid can be provided to those in need," the agency said.

The ongoing fighting, which erupted on October 21 and killed dozens, has seen whole neighbourhoods razed in a spate of arson attacks that United Nations staff said had resulted in "widespread destruction and displacement".

Thousands from mainly Muslim communities in Rakhine state have streamed towards camps already struggling to cope with the 75,000 people displaced by earlier clashes in June.

"With the new influx, these already overcrowded camps are being stretched beyond capacity in terms of space, shelter and basic supplies such as food and water," UNHCR said.

"Food prices in the area have doubled and there are not enough doctors to treat the sick and wounded."

Authorities have struggled to end the violence.

Police shot and killed one ethnic Rakhine during renewed clashes on Tuesday, a government official told AFP, declining to be named. The death brings the toll from the latest unrest to 89.

"Thousands of people were there. We do not know yet whether the tension has been eased now because communication and transportation is very difficult," he said of the fighting in Kyaukpyu, one of several violence-hit townships.

UNHCR said more than 3,000 people have travelled in boats towards the state capital Sittwe in hopes of finding shelter at the camps on the coast near the outskirts of the city.

Many are now living on the barren shoreline, according to an AFP reporter who visited the scene.

"We have no home, no place to stay, no money -- that's how it is. The children are hungry from when the day starts and they cry," said Ahpu, who was separated from her husband and son as she ran for her life.

The 42-year-old, who gave only one name, told AFP the attack on her village in Kyaukpyu was instigated by ethnic Rakhine Buddhists, with whom her Kaman Muslim community had lived "like family" in the past.

Human Rights Watch on Saturday released satellite images showing what it said was destruction of Kyaukpyu -- a mainly Rohingya Muslim area and the site of a major pipeline taking gas to China -- where virtually all structures appear to have been wiped from the landscape.

Decades-old animosity between Buddhists and minority Rohingya Muslims exploded in June after the apparent rape and murder of an ethnic Rakhine woman sparked a series of revenge attacks.

Myanmar's 800,000 stateless Rohingya, viewed by the United Nations as among the most persecuted minorities on the planet, are seen by the government and many Burmese as illegal immigrants from neighbouring Bangladesh.

But other Muslims in Rakhine have also been swept up in the latest violence, including the Kaman, one of Myanmar's officially recognised ethnic groups.

UNHCR raised concerns about reaching the displaced in "extremely hard-to-reach areas", and said unknown numbers had fled into the hills.

The agency said another 6,000 people were stranded on boats or on islets along Myanmar's west coast and "are looking for safe access to places where they can receive assistance".

Rakhine government spokesman Win Myaing indicated that the unrest could continue to flare.

"Some ask me how long the clashes will continue. We do not know. It could go on for about a month or two. It could even be as long as a year or two," he told AFP.

Myanmar has rejected an offer by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to open talks aimed at quelling the conflict, the bloc's Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan told reporters in Malaysia.

Late Tuesday a Bangladeshi border guard commander told AFP more than 160 Rohingya Muslims fleeing Rakhine state had been "pushed back" since the latest wave of violence erupted.
Bangladesh has said it will not accept any new refugees from Myanmar as it is already burdened with an estimated 300,000 Rohingya living in its southeast -- a stance criticised by the United Nations and rights groups.
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Christian Science Monitor - Myanmar unrest threatens to destabilize democracy and region
A week of clashes in western Myanmar has left at least 84 people dead and forced some 22,000 into crowded camps along the coast, putting pressure on the government.
By Whitney Eulich | Christian Science Monitor – Tue, Oct 30, 2012

Nearly a week of violence between Buddhists and Muslims in western Myanmar that has killed more than 80 people and forced tens of thousands to flee could jeopardize the country’s fledgling democratic process, observers say.

Fighting between the two ethnic groups, Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims, began last June, but the most recent violence started on Oct. 21, just days after Burmese President Thein Sein was reelected as the chairman of the ruling Union Solidarity Development Party.

The government reported 84 people dead and another 29 injured in the latest outbreak of violence, but human rights groups estimate that the death toll could be much higher, reports the Associated Press. More than 32,000 people were displaced by the conflict during the past week, with the Rohingya bearing the brunt of the violence.

The head of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Surin Pitsuwan, put pressure on the Myanmar government to resolve the situation quickly, warning that if the violence is not contained and resolved, it could lead to the radicalization of the Rohingyas. This could not only stress the fragile democracy in Myanmar, but threaten regional security as a whole, report Agence France-Presse and Voice of America.

"If the international community, including ASEAN [the Association of Southeast Asian Nations], are not able to relieve that pressure and pain [the Rohingya] could become radicalized and the entire region could be destabilized,” Mr. Pitsuwan said.

Though the Rohingya have lived in Myanmar (also called Burma) for decades, they are largely viewed domestically as land-hungry intruders who came illegally from neighboring Bangladesh.

The discrimination against the Rohingya is not only culturally ingrained in Myanmar, but institutionalized as well, according to a second Associated Press report:

Today, the Rohingya also face official discrimination, a policy encouraged by Myanmar's previous military regimes to enlist popular support among other groups. A 1984 law formally excluded them as one of the country's 135 ethnicities, meaning most are denied basic civil rights and are deprived of citizenship.

Neighboring Bangladesh, which also does not recognize the Rohingya as citizens, says thousands of Rohingya refugees have sought to flee there by boat. Its policy, however, is to refuse them entry.

"We don't feel safe," a Muslim refugee, Zainabi, told the AP. The fish-seller fled her village with her two sons Thursday after attackers set her home on fire. "I wish the violence would stop, so we can live peacefully."

On Sunday, boats carried refugees toward cramped camps that already house thousands of Rohingyas who fled their homes after a previous wave of violence broke out over the summer. In June, three Rohingya men were accused of raping a Rakhine woman, sparking widespread rioting and leading nearly 80,000 people – mostly Muslim – to flee to nearby camps, reports The Christian Science Monitor.

“I fled my hometown, Pauktaw, on Friday because there is no security at all,” another refugee told AP. “My house was burned to ashes and I have no money left.”

Human Rights Watch released stark satellite pictures showing parts of the area of unrest. One photo was taken on Oct. 9 and shows “hundreds of closely packed houses” and “scores of houseboats along the northern shoreline,” reports the BBC. A second photo, taken on Oct. 25, shows the same 35-acre stretch of land almost entirely absent of houses.

“In one district, with a population of some 3,000, only burnt out poles from the houses and charred stubs of trees were to be seen,” reports the BBC.

President Thein Sein acknowledges the damage, according to his spokesman: "There have been incidents of whole villages and parts of the towns being burnt down in Rakhine state.”

But acknowledging the violence may not be enough. Some fear the country’s failure to address the root cause of violence could exacerbate the crisis.

"These latest incidents between Muslim Rohingyas and Buddhists demonstrate how urgent it is that the authorities intervene to protect everyone, and break the cycle of discrimination and violence," Isabelle Arradon, Amnesty International's Asia-Pacific deputy director, said in a statement.

Salai Elaisa Vahnie, the executive director of the Burmese American Community Institute, based in the US, notes in the Burmese and Southeast Asian newspaper The Irawaddy that Myanmar’s ethnic conflict is a formidable barrier to democracy.

The continued ethnic conflict in Burma reflects the nature of the political crisis in Burma – deeply rooted in and prolonged by the Burman nationalistic claim that effectively utilized the world’s most reclusive and successive military as a tool to accomplish its goals of ethnic cleansing, a policy which ravaged 60 million people with fear and poverty, killed thousands, and produced millions of refugees.

With the recent positive developments led by President Thein Sein, the international community must continue to recognize that the ethnic issue is at the heart of the country’s problem, and only when this issue has been addressed fundamentally, with constitutional and institutional arrangement, can a stable democratic state that respects human rights and embraces peaceful co-existence in diversity be realized. That is when Burma, in real sense and substance, can be considered a democratic state that is capable of positively contributing to regional and world peace, stability and economy.
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Myanmar 'rejects talks' on ethnic violence
Aljazeera – 19 hrs ago

Myanmar has rejected an offer by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to open talks aimed at quelling deadly communal violence there, according to the regional bloc's chief.

Surin Pitsuwan said on Tuesday he proposed setting up tripartite talks between ASEAN, the UN and Myanmar's government to prevent the violence from having a broader regional impact.

But he said Myanmar turned down the offer to discuss the bloodshed in the western Rakhine state that has led to about 180 deaths since June.

The bloodshed has pitted Buddhists against minority Rohingya Muslims.

"Myanmar believes it is their internal matter, but your internal matter could be ours the next day if you are not careful," Surin, ASEAN's secretary-general, said after delivering a speech at a forum in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur.

Fresh fighting in Rakhine this month resulted in another 88 people being killed and added to the thousands of homes torched, with tens of thousands of Rohingya Muslims now living in overcrowded camps.

Higher toll feared

Rights groups fear the actual number killed could be much higher.

“Around 100,000 people have been displaced since the fighting started back in June,” Al Jazeera’s Wayne Hay reported rom Sittwe, capital of Rakhine state.

Most of those displaced lost their homes when they were burned down in what they say is a deliberate attempt by the predominantly Buddhist government to drive them out of the country.

“There were security forces present before the latest violence started,” Muhamed Juhar, a Rohingya Muslim, told Al Jazeera.

"But when the fighting came to our town, there was no security. When they did arrive, it was too late and they also shot into the crowds of Muslims."

In Sittwe Hospital, there is proof that someone had been using guns, but the injured tell a different story about how the violence unfolded.

“We got into a fight with the Muslims when we were on our way to go fishing. They came out of their houses and attacked us with swords,” said Aung Than, a Buddhist suffering from a bullet to the head.

Myanmar's quasi-civilian government, which has been lauded by Western nations for a series of democratic reforms after decades of outright military rule, has imposed emergency rule in the face of continued tension in the region.

And while Buddhists remain free to move about the state, the Rohingya are becoming increasingly restricted, our correspondent said.

Myanmar's 800,000 Rohingya, a Muslim minority, are viewed as illegal immigrants from neighbouring Bangladesh by the government and many Myanmar citizens.

The Rohingya have long been considered by the UN as one of the world's most persecuted minorities.
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NAY PYI TAW, October 31, 2012
The Hindu - Myanmar for ‘win-win’ solution in Rakhine: Minister
Nirupama Subramanian

"Rakhine region had seen no violent incidents after October 26."

Myanmar is working toward finding a solution to the problems in its Rakhine region that will be “win-win situation for all stakeholders”, Minister of Information U Aung Kyi has said.

In a brief interview to The Hindu in the new capital on Wednesday, Mr. Aung Kyi said the Rakhine region had seen no violent incidents after October 26. Efforts were being made to restore peace and stability and “without outside interference”, the region would soon return to normal, he said.

Clashes erupted last week in the State for the second time this year between Rohingya Muslims and ethnic Rakhine Buddhists. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said 89 people were killed and 28,000 people had been displaced in the recent round of violence.

“The officials concerned and authorities are working hard. They are negotiating with the people, holding talks and working hard for regional peace and stability,” said the Minister, speaking through an interpreter.

After a period of positive attention that focused on its democratic reforms, Myanmar has come in for harsh criticism for not acting swiftly enough to prevent the incidents in the Rakhine region.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) issued a strong statement urging the government of Myanmar to protect the rights of the Rohingyas, even as it asked the government of neighbouring Bangladesh to open its borders to refugees fleeing their homes.

A report by Tomás Ojea Quintana, the Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Myanmar who had toured the country after violence first erupted in the region in June this year, also rapped the government for not protecting the rights of the Rohingyas.

Mr. Aung Kyi, who was previously the liaison officer between the government and democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi and is known for being reforms-minded, said it was “not the aim of the local people to cause violence” on such a large scale. Since the incidents, government and NGOs — international and local — were providing humanitarian relief, in the region.

“We firmly believe that there is no reason this situation will grow any further. And we believe that especially, if there is no outside interference, there is no reason this problem will grow bigger. And the local people also have this belief, and from this situation we are going to create a win-win situation for all stakeholders, a solution that will benefit everybody,” he said, but did not go into details about what kind of solution the government had in mind. “Rohingyas are denied citizenship by Myanmar, and as a consequence the rights that go with it.”

But, said Mr. Aung Kyi, Myanmar was “accepting international aid and cooperating with the international organisations in accordance with international norms” and would continue to do so.

The OCHA report said there was a “strong anti-U.N. and NGO feeling” in the Rakhine State and threats were being issued against aid organisations, which were being told they were “biased”; in some places, humanitarian and relief supplies were being turned away.

Mr. Aung Kyi, who is credited with ending a nearly 50-year-long censorship of the press after he took charge of the Information Ministry in August, said “every assistance offered in a constructive way” was being accepted by the government.
Democratisation

He rejected concerns that the situation in Rakhine could affect the democratisation of the country. Instead, he said, the “challenge” of finding a solution to the problem in the region would only help the reforms process move faster.

“We firmly believe that these incidents cannot harm our reforms process, because we have already made a strong commitment to follow our reforms till [they are] successfully achieved. In my view, we will be able to find an answer that serves the interest of all people concerned … that can serve the interest of every stakeholder in this problem,” said the Minister.

“Actually, such kind of incidents, or hardship or any kind of difficulty we see as a challenge, and we are going to overcome this challenge. And we believeif we can overcome this challenge successfully, we can gain more acceleration to our reform process,” he added.

There was “no reason”, he said, for Myanmar to make a U-turn on its reforms. “The country has been conducting reforms with great acceleration and it is also doing the job systematically and gradually, step and step. The reforms you see are very obvious and noticeable, and very remarkable. It is very clear that we have no reason to reverse”.
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Burmese authorities not doing enough to protect displaced Rohingyas: Human Rights Watch
By ANI | ANI – Tue, Oct 30, 2012

New York, Oct.30 (ANI): New York-based Human Rights Watch has said that the authorities in Burma need to do more to protect displaced Rohingyas, even as the Bangladesh Government has shown no interest in doing so.

In a statement, the Director of Human Rights Watch, South Asia, Meenakshi Ganguly, said: "The Rohingyas seem to have become the nowhere people. The authorities in Burma have failed to protect them, and Bangladesh refuses to provide asylum to those fleeing the attacks."

Ganguly added: " It appears that many are in stranded in boats hoping for refuge. India, with its long history of providing shelter, in fact to both Burmese and Bangladeshi refugees, should perhaps press both governments to do the right thing."

"Burma needs to act swiftly to ensure the rights of its Rohingya population instead of disputing their citizenship. Bangladesh should open its borders and provide relief," Ganguly said further.

Ganguly's statement on the condition of Rohingyas follows a similar missive of concern expressed by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), which has called on Bangladesh to open its borders to Rohingyas fleeing sectarian violence in Myanmar.

In a statement issued,UNHCR senior protection officer and officer-in-charge of UNHCR in Dhaka Pia Paguio said: "UNHCR continues to consider that until public order and security are restored for all communities in [Myanmar's] Rakhine State, states should not forcibly return to Myanmar persons originating from Rakhine State."

Paguio,told IRIN on 29 October: "We thus continue to appeal to the government of Bangladesh to open its borders to those in need of a safe haven."

Under Burmese law, the Rohingya - a persecuted minority of 800,000 - are de jure stateless in Myanmar and face constant persecution, while in Muslim-majority Bangladesh they are viewed as illegal migrants.

Bangladesh has repeatedly said it will not accept any Rohingya refugees fleeing ethnic violence in neighbouring Myanmar's western Rakhine State.

Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have fled persecution in Myanmar over the past three decades, the vast majority to Bangladesh in the 1990s.

According to Burmese government estimates released on 29 October, more than 28,000 residents have been displaced in Rakhine State following a week of deadly sectarian violence between Rohingya Muslims and ethnic (mainly Buddhist) Rakhine which began on 21 October.

At least 76 people were killed, and more than 4,600 houses and several religious buildings destroyed, in the unrest, the UN reported on 29 October. There was violence in the Rakhine State townships of Kyaukpyu, Kyauktaw, Minbya, Mrauk-U, Myebon, Pauktaw, Ramree and Rathedaung.

Tensions had increased after monks, and women's and youth groups organized anti-Rohingya and anti-Organization of Islamic Cooperation demonstrations in Sittwe, Mandalay and Yangon, the report said.

The latest displacement comes on top of the 75,000, mostly Rohingya Muslims, currently displaced after communal violence erupted in June following the alleged rape and murder of a Rakhine woman by a group of Muslim men in May.

At least 78 people were killed and close to 5,000 homes and buildings were destroyed in that incident.

Most of the displaced are currently in nine overcrowded camps in Sittwe, separated from the rest of the community due to security concerns.

There are more than 200,000 Rohingya in Bangladesh today, including more than 30,000 documented refugees living in two government-run camps (Kutupalong and Nayapara) within 2km of the Burmese border, according to UNHCR.

UNHCR has not been permitted to register newly arriving Rohingya since mid-1992. Most Rohingya are living in villages and towns in the Cox's Bazar area and receive little to no assistance as the agency is only allowed to assist those who are documented.

UNHCR does not have access to the 193km Myanmar-Bangladesh border to verify the situation of persons arriving from Rakhine State. Moreover, Bangladesh's closed border policy remains in effect.

Despite repeated advocacy efforts by UNHCR, civil society and the diplomatic community, Dhaka, fearing a major influx, closed its borders to persons fleeing communal violence Myanmar in June.

Those who did manage to make it across the border were rounded up and sent back to Myanmar. However, there are no reliable figures on the number of arrivals and the number refouled.

Bangladesh is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention or its 1967 Protocol.

"UNHCR reiterates its readiness to provide protection and assistance to the governments and the people of Bangladesh and Myanmar in addressing this evolving humanitarian situation," said Paguino. (ANI)
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UNHCR calls on Dhaka to open border
By Indo Asian News Service | IANS – Tue, Oct 30, 2012

Washington, Oct 30 (IANS) The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has called on Bangladesh to open its borders to Rohingyas fleeing sectarian violence in Myanmar.

"UNHCR continues to consider that until public order and security are restored for all communities in (Myanmar's) Rakhine State, states should not forcibly return to Myanmar persons originating from Rakhine State," Pia Paguio of UNHCR in Dhaka told IRIN news agency.

"We thus continue to appeal to the government of Bangladesh to open its borders to those in need of a safe haven."

Under Myanmar law, the Rohingya - a persecuted minority of 800,000 - are de jure stateless in Myanmar and face constant persecution while in Muslim-majority Bangladesh they are viewed as illegal migrants.

Bangladesh has repeatedly said it will not accept any Rohingya refugees fleeing ethnic violence in neighbouring Myanmar's western Rakhine State.

Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have fled persecution in Myanmar over the past three decades, the vast majority to Bangladesh in the 1990s.

There are more than 200,000 Rohingya in Bangladesh today, including more than 30,000 documented refugees living in two government-run camps close to the Myanmar border, according to UNHCR.

Bangladesh is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention or its 1967 Protocol.
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10/30/2012 @ 3:01AM
Forbes - Myanmar's Ethnic Conflict Flares In Shadow Of Asian Oil Investments

In a setback for reformers, ethnic violence has spread in western Myanmar (Burma), killing scores of civilians and displacing over 32,000 people. Following the latest fighting between Rakhine and Rohingya groups, satellite images released by Human Rights Watch appear to show the wholesale destruction last week of a coastal community of Rohingya. Boatloads of evacuees have since arrived in camps opened after previous deadly clashes elsewhere in June. Muslim Rohingya face widespread discrimination in a majority Buddhist country that doesn’t recognise them as citizens. Even Rohingya that have lived for generations in Myanmar are accused of being illegal migrants from neighbouring Bangladesh. The U.N. estimates the Rohingya population in Myanmar at 800,000 people. This excludes tens of thousands displaced to Bangladesh and others who have sought refugee protection in Southeast Asia. The head of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, a grouping that includes Myanmar, has warned that the Rohingya crisis could destabilise the region.

While the renewed fighting is troubling for a fragile, multi-ethnic country that has just begun to open up after decades of isolation, the unrest spells particular risk for Asian energy firms. The burnt-out Rohingya community seen in the satellite photo was located in Kyaukpyu in the Bay of Bengal. This is an operational hub for multi-billion dollar investments by Daewoo International, which has offshore gas concessions, and China National Petroleum Co., which is constructing two cross-country pipelines to southwest China. The first, a gas pipeline, may begin operating as early as April 2013 with 400m cubic feet a day supplied to China’s power sector. The second pipeline is designed to carry crude oil cargoes that dock in Kyaukpyu. CNPC has begun building a transshipment port and the twin pipelines, while Daewoo handles the gas production. Australian producer Woodside recently agreed to partner with Daewoo in further exploration in the Bay of Bengal. As Western sanctions against Myanmar are dismantled, more oil giants are likely to join the rush to tap these offshore resources.

An international campaign group, the Shwe Gas Movement, has been putting pressure on Myanmar and its investors to compensate those displaced by pipeline, gas terminal and port. Much of the attention has been on the pipeline’s diagonal path across Myanmar and the role of the military in securing it. But there are also concerns about the impact on Kyaukpyu and other coastal areas. This map shows the project sites. It’s not clear exactly where the attacks on the Rohingya took place; HRW identifies the torched community as being on the eastern shore, near to the industrial zones where CPNC and Daewoo are invested. But the violence spread through several built-up areas in and around the town. An industry consultant in Myanmar told me that while the Chinese port was on the outskirts of Kyaukpyu, Daewoo is running its gas pipeline through a base in the town. This could become a more risky proposition if ethnic violence continues. It also raises security and human-rights concerns for other investors sizing up Myanmar’s oil and gas sector.
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Kitsap Sun - Bainbridge school reaches out to students in Myanmar
By Tad Sooter
updated October 30, 2012 at 9:51 a.m.

BAINBRIDGE ISLAND — The library at Hyla Middle School contains about 4,000 titles, a useful resource for the Bainbridge Island private school's 90 students.

The same school library would be an unheard of luxury in the Southeast Asian nation of Myanmar, where about one-third of the population lives in poverty.

"There are no libraries," Melody Mociulski said of Myanmar, also known as Burma. "There aren't books to put into libraries even if they had them."

The vacuum of educational resources in Myanmar is something Mociulski and a few like-minded islanders are working to address, with the help of Hyla Middle School. Mociulski, Sandy Schubach and Laurie Miller founded Educational Empowerment this year, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting literacy among children in Myanmar. The startup group has partnered with Hyla to create a cultural exchange with schools in Myanmar. It also is working with groups in Myanmar to publish books, create libraries and provide training to teachers.

Mociulski said they plan to print illustrated books of traditional folk tales with text in Burmese and English, which will be available by the end of the year. Education Empowerment will provide the books to schools and also sell them to the public to help raise money for its work.

Mociulski decided to start the new group after traveling extensively in Southeast Asia with the Bainbridge-based Clear Path International charity. She said she was struck by how few Burmese children have access to books of any kind.

"To meet children who had never even owned a picture book before … it broke my heart," Mociulski said.

Education Empowerment is taking advantage of a recent thawing of Myanmar's isolationist foreign policy. The nation's military-dominated government had kept the country closed to the outside world for decades, restricting travel and heavily censoring media. Mociulski said those restrictions have relaxed somewhat in the past few years, allowing access to foreign travelers and aid groups.

Education Empowerment is beginning its work in baby steps, Mociulski said. She traveled to Myanmar early this month with Schubach and Miller to build their relationship with two education groups working in Yangon, the nation's largest city. They also are reaching out to book publishers in Myanmar to help with printing.

Education Empowerment's goal is to build a literacy program that can be sustained by Burmese people using printing presses and other resources available in the country, Mociulski said.

"It has to be sustainable," she said. "I've dealt with so many organizations where it's hard to detach because they're so dependent on you."

While in Myanmar, Mociulski and her partners delivered pictures and drawings from Hyla sixth-grade students to a Buddhist nunnery school in Yangon. They returned with pictures from the Burmese students to share at Hyla. Mociulski said the Burmese students were thrilled to correspond with their American counterparts.

"There is a great deal of enthusiasm on both sides for this new exchange," Mociulski said.

Several Hyla teachers are incorporating studies of Myanmar into their curriculums this school year. Teacher Melissa Dempsey's sixth-grade humanities class created the packages to send to Myanmar this month. The "culture frames" included photographs, drawings and tidbits of information about the Hyla students' lives on Bainbridge.

Kim Trick's eighth-grade English class also will be corresponding with students in Myanmar. They will share personal "Where I'm From" poems along with templates to help the Burmese students write their own poems. The "Where I'm From" poem form was developed by writer George Ella Lyon and caught on as a popular creative writing tool.

Dempsey said Hyla students were eager to begin the exchange this year.

"The students are very excited about the project," Dempsey said. "Every day they're asking me about it."
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View From Asia October 31, 2012, 12:56 am
New York Times - As Violence Continues, Rohingya Find Few Defenders in Myanmar
By MARK MCDONALD

HONG KONG — Violence has continued this week in western Myanmar, as an apparent campaign of ethnic cleansing is being carried out against the Muslim minority group known as the Rohingya — with little response or outcry from Aung San Suu Kyi or other human rights and pro-democracy activists in the country.

A group of several thousand Burmese marched on a Rohingya village on Tuesday to force the residents there to relocate, according to a new report from Radio Free Asia. At least one person was killed when security forces fired on the mob.

Over the past 10 days, violence by extremists and vigilantes in Rakhine State has left at least 89 people dead. Nearly 30,000 people have been rendered homeless, most of them Muslims, pushed into squalid refugee camps. Countless other Rohingya have taken to the sea in a frantic exodus of houseboats, barges and fishing vessels.

Satellite photos published by Human Rights Watch showed a Muslim sector in the town of Kyaukpyu leveled by what appeared to be methodical and premeditated arson — more than 600 homes and nearly 200 houseboats were destroyed. Before-and-after images of the sector can be seen here.

“The opposition, including democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi and other prominent figures, has hopelessly failed to intervene or calm the situation,” said the analyst and editor Aung Zaw in a commentary published Monday in his magazine, Irrawaddy.

“Many, especially in the international community and human rights organizations, were disheartened to see such inaction from those who still claim to represent the democracy movement.”

Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi has been notably restrained in the few comments she has made on the Rohingya clashes, generally saying that both sides are culpable and that the rule of law must prevail. But the Burmese activist Maung Zarni, a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics, said Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s belief that the violence was purely sectarian showed “a shocking naivete.”

“She should know better,” Maung Zarni said, adding that the Rohingya now have so few advocates in Myanmar that they’ve become “a people who feel they are drowning in the sea of Burma’s popular ‘Buddhist’ racist nationalism.”

During a forum at Harvard’s Kennedy School last month, according to a story on Global Post, a student from Thailand asked Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi to “explain why you have been so reluctant” to comment about the oppression of the Rohingya.

“The mood in the room suddenly shifted,” the article said. “Suu Kyi’s tone and expression changed. With an edge in her voice, she answered: ‘You must not forget that there have been human rights violations on both sides of the communal divide. It’s not a matter of condemning one community or the other. I condemn all human rights violations.’ ”

The South Asia director of Human Rights Watch, Meenakshi Ganguly, said in a statement quoted by Zee News:

The Rohingyas seem to have become the nowhere people. The authorities in Burma have failed to protect them, and Bangladesh refuses to provide asylum to those fleeing the attacks.

It appears that many are in stranded in boats hoping for refuge. India, with its long history of providing shelter, in fact to both Burmese and Bangladeshi refugees, should perhaps press both governments to do the right thing.

Burma needs to act swiftly to ensure the rights of its Rohingya population instead of disputing their citizenship. Bangladesh should open its borders and provide relief.

The Rohingya, who are Muslim, are not recognized as citizens by the Myanmar government, nor are they are among the 135 official ethnic groups in the country formerly known as Burma. Deeply impoverished and effectively stateless, the Rohingya are viewed by the Buddhist majority as unwelcome immigrants who have crossed over illegally from neighboring Bangladesh.

Just getting the terms and identifiers right can be a challenge. The Rohingya are referred to locally by many with the derogatory term “Bengalis,” after their language. Members of the Buddhist majority in the area are typically called Rakhines, after the state. Rakhine State was formerly known as Arakan, and the people there are sometimes called the Arakanese.

It was a bloody summer in Rakhine, with anti-Muslim riots triggered in June by the rape and murder of a young Buddhist woman, a crime that was blamed on Muslims. Dozens were killed in the fighting, and 75,000 fled, most of them Muslims.

President Thein Sein initiated a Riot Inquiry Commission after that violence and asked for the panel’s findings by Nov. 14. That deadline, commission members say, will not be met.

“We do not have enough cooperation from all sides,” said one member, Maung Thura, the country’s most famous comedian, who is widely known as Zarganar, his stage name.

“The local ethnic Rakhine, Muslim community, government offices, and even the members of Parliament have become increasingly less willing to participate,” Zarganar, a former political prisoner, told Radio Free Asia.

“It is very disturbing to see that the conflict has worsened,” Zaw Nay Aung, a democracy activist, told Rendezvous in an e-mail on Wednesday. “The Burmese, the majority of whom are Buddhists, are Islamophobic.”

He said anti-Islamic pamphlets have lately been circulating in western Myanmar, stirring up fear and anger among the Buddhists there. Some believe the military-dominated government is behind the propaganda campaign.

“These small booklets are not officially published but rather secretly disseminated,” said Zaw Nay Aung, who called the pamphlets “hate-literature” that suggests global Islam has embarked on a plan to make inroads into non-Muslim countries. The alleged methods in Myanmar are the practice of polygamy, the building and expansion of mosques and the seeking of ethnic minority status for the Rohingya.

Zaw Nay Aung’s pro-democracy group, Burma Independence Advocates, which is based in London, is preparing a report “about the regime’s possible conspiracy on the communal strife,” he said.

“I think this whole mess is deliberately created by the regime to have an effect of rally-round-the flag,” he said. “Many people in Burma today support President Thein Sein for his stance on the Rohingya. He said he would run for a second term, and he’s getting more and more support because of this religious/racial crisis.”

Aung Zaw, the Irrawaddy editor, described one theory that “the strife was intended to allow the Burmese armed forces, or Tatmadaw, to return to the spotlight.”

“In the past,” he said, “the former junta launched several military campaigns against the Rohingya — and every time the Burmese people rallied behind the military.”
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October 31, 2012, 8:38 PM SGT
Financial Times - KPMG Opens Office in Myanmar
By Shibani Mahtani

KPMG expanded its business in Myanmar this week, becoming one of the first globally recognized professional-services firms to set up an office in the Southeast Asian country as it emerges from isolation to become one of region’s potential hot spots.

The firm announced Tuesday that its operations based in neighboring Thailand will extend into Myanmar, with KMPG’s Thailand CEO Kaisri Nuengsigkapian leading operations there. The new office in Yangon will offer tax and advisory services, with auditing services coming soon. KPMG said the new office will be able to draw on the firm’s 1,200-strong team in Thailand. KPMG did not specify how many staff would be based in Yangon.

The move underscores the need for a higher level of professional services in Myanmar as companies navigate the murky legal and investment infrastructure of a country that until recently had been ruled by the military for decades of stagnation. Legal firm Baker & McKenzie, for example, recently hired a Myanmar-trained lawyer in the hope of becoming one of the first recognizable law practices to offer advice to foreign clients looking to enter the market.

“We are finding a considerable amount of interest in the market,” said Christopher Muessel, a partner at VDB Loi, a legal and tax advisory firm for international companies in Southeast Asia. The firm—started this year by partners with significant regional experience—has two offices in Yangon, the commercial center, and a liaison office in the capital, Naypyidaw.

Many companies, though enticed by Myanmar’s investment opportunities now that long-standing sanctions have been dropped, still remain wary about the unclear legal infrastructure, risk of corruption and uncertainty about local partners, according to lawyers. Clients across all sectors, from oil and gas giants to advertising agencies, are now looking to providers of professional services.
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OilPrice.com - Myanmar: New Frontline for East-West Oil Rush
By Jen Alic | Thu, 01 November 2012 00:15 | 0

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Welcome to Myanmar, formerly Burma. A gateway to the Indian Ocean for China and the home of massive oil and gas wealth that is an important element of America’s Asia policy and China’s energy policy. It is also run by a brutal military junta (renamed), is rife with sectarian violence, and has just seen an entire community burned to the ground at a key hub of Chinese operations.

Some might say Myanmar is no longer a military junta. But here we remind you that the new “reformist” government is led by President Thein Sein, who also enjoyed the “prime ministerial” post under the military junta. It’s all just been repackaged.

Myanmar remains dominated in every respect by the ethnic Burmese (only the urban ones, of course), despite the fact that ethnic minorities comprise half of the country’s population. Precariously, and very inconveniently for the government, these sidelined minorities are situated in border regions, in areas that are home to the lion’s share of fossil fuels reserves, and along international trade routes.

The government’s answer seems to be just to get rid of this half of the population. The minorities’ response to this gesture is to form their own militias to fight back. For years, the focus of the Western media has been on “pro-democracy” figurehead Aung San Suu Kyi, who was cut out of various elections and placed under house arrest. But no one really bothered to examine exactly who Suu Kyi is: an elite ethnic Burmese. It was enough to hear the phrase “democracy” attached to her and “house arrest” to conclude that she was the answer to Myanmar’s military junta problems. Plus, she won the Nobel Peace Prize.

While everyone likes to think Myanmar now has a democracy, what it has is an army that operates beyond any civilian control and launches offensives against minority areas in an attempt to clear the path for oil and gas development and free up international trade routes. Indeed, the military gets an automatic 25% of seats in parliament (very democratic).

At present, one focal point of these offensives is in the country’s north, home to the Kachin minority—and also an area that China is eyeing for oil and uranium exploitation and a hydro-power plant, Myitsone Dam. What does the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize winner have to say about all of this? Nothing.

At the same time, ethnic violence in spreading in western Myanmar, with sectarian violence between two rival ethnic groups—the Rakhine and Rohingya—leaving more than 80 dead and 22,000 displaced. During this melee, an entire Rohingya village was raised (some 2,220 homes), as evidenced by satellite images released by Human Rights Watch.

The village, home to the Rohingya minority (who number about 800,000 in Myanmar), is (was) situated in the Bay of Bengal. It was also the operational hub for billion-dollar Chinese oil, gas and pipeline investments. In this area, Daewoo International has won offshore gas concessions, China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) has oil concession, and is constructing two pipelines to southwest China, one carry gas, the other oil.

Myanmar is a key to China’s energy policy. Over 80% of China’s oil (10 million bpd) must traverse the Straits of Malacca between Indonesia and Malaysia, vulnerable to both piracy and geopolitics. China’s planned pipelines from Myanmar will allow it an alternative route that could supply up to 20% of its oil and gas needs.

The US response to Myanmar’s repackaged junta was to lift economic sanctions and let the investment poor in. This, of course, is directly related to the fact that the US does not wish to see China gain more of a foothold in this strategic location than it already has. (Like in Africa, the US has been slow off the starting blocks, allowing China to gain major control over natural resources, unmoved as it is by human rights issues).

This will not end well, however. Elections in Myanmar are scheduled for 2015, and until then, sectarian violence looks set to swell and the government will rush to the finish line to clear its strategic areas of its ethnic hindrances to exploitation and trade. Minority groups will rise up with new militias, with renewed vigor.
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Nov 1, 2012
Asia Times Online - Myanmar: Old atrocity, new implications
By Bertil Lintner

YANGON - An atrocity committed 20 years ago by an armed opposition student group continues to haunt Myanmar, a bloody purge that could have far-reaching consequences for segments of the country's pro-democracy movement, their foreign backers and the new quasi-civilian incarnation of the former military-run regime.

After hiding their pain and anguish for two decades, the survivors and family members of victims are now demanding that those responsible should be brought to justice. Some of the alleged murderers are living in Thailand, supported by international non-government organizations. But if justice is finally served, would it stop there and how long would the military allow for backward-looking investigations into its many past abuses?

Myanmar authorities have kept conspicuously silent on the issue, knowing full well that, as one Myanmar source put it, "if the students after 20 years haven't forgotten and forgiven those who killed their own comrades, what about justice for all those thousands of people who were killed by the military's bullets in 1988 or were tortured and had to spend most of their youth in dark prison cells?"

In early 1992, underground rebels from the anti-government All Burma Students Democratic Front (ABSDF) situated near the Chinese border in northern Kachin State accused almost a third of their comrades, or 107 out of a total of 350-400 in the "student army", of being spies for the military government and its intelligence service.

According to the accounts of survivors, 36 were executed or died from torture they sustained during interrogations. The purge unleashed on other young people who had for several years fought for democracy in remote jungle areas was by all accounts extraordinarily brutal.

Htun Aung Kyaw, the chairman of the northern ABSDF and a well-known former student activist from Mandalay, was beheaded after being tortured with a hot iron, according to the accounts. He had earlier been forced to drink the blood still dripping from the head of a decapitated comrade. Aung Phone, another of those who had been accused and apprehended, had had tied to his foot a landmine, which was detonated and blew off his leg. The following day, he was beheaded.

A young woman activist was gang raped and had sharpened bamboo poles thrust into her vagina, ostensibly to look for poison that was going to be used to kill the leaders of the student army, before she was killed. She was also forced to perform fellatio on the body of her murdered boyfriend. The woman was a student at Rangoon Arts and Science University before joining the armed resistance after the September 1988 massacre of pro-democracy protesters in the then capital.

The witchhunt began in late 1991 when Chinese police in Yingjiang across the border from the ABSDF camp arrested 10 young Myanmar men armed with pistols and grenades. They were sent back to the camp and madness erupted among the young activists.

A videotape later released by the ABSDF shows the accused being brought to "justice". In the video, a row of uniformed young men are seated at a wooden table, looking more like mediaeval inquisitors than the pro-democracy activists they then purported to be.

One of the accused after another admitted to their "crimes" in the videotape. Their statements were in some ways as meticulous in detail as the "confessions" extracted by torture in the Khmer Rouge's Tuol Sleng prison in Cambodia. At night, all the prisoners were kept in a bamboo hut, shackled together without blankets on an earthen floor.

"As our lives were in their hands, we had to bend according to their whims," says Htein Lin, one of the survivors and now a well-known artist in Yangon. Nang Aung Thwe Kyi, another survivor, says that she had a gun pointed at her head while being asked a question she did not understand: "What did they order you to do?"

Then an idealistic student activist in her 20s, she was accused of being a "second lieutenant" working for the government's military intelligence. She now lives in exile in Sydney and continues to support the struggle for democracy in Myanmar.

The families of those accused eventually went to the camp. Some survivors, including Nang Aung Thwe Kyi, were released; others, like Htein Lin, managed to escape just to be caught by government forces and sent to prison for many years.

Conspicuous silence
At the time, the killings garnered little attention from the outside world. Yindee Lertcharoenchok, a Thai reporter for the daily The Nation who visited the camp in the north, wrote about it in her Bangkok-based newspaper. This correspondent highlighted the murders in the July 16, 1992, issue of the now defunct Hong Kong-based weekly Far Eastern Economic Review.

Many international organizations that directly and indirectly funded the anti-government student group were silent on the incident. This despite the fact that the ABSDF's central office on the Thai border had issued a statement on March 1, 1992, justifying the executions on the grounds that those arrested were "government spies" who had "attempted to assassinate" ABSDF leaders.

The ABSDF's then overall chairman, Naing Aung, visited the camp in the north after the arrests and reportedly did not condemn the executions. He also referred to the victims as "spies" in a statement issued by him at the time. When he returned to Myanmar on a short visit on August 31 this year, angry survivors met him at the airport in Yangon with placards that referred to him as a "killer".

Ronald Aung Naing, the secretary general of the ABSDF's northern bureau at the time of the killings, confessed to having a role in the events in a chapter of Thailand-based author Phil Thornton's book Restless Souls: Rebels, Refugees, Medics and Misfits on the Thai-Burma Border.

Today, Naing Aung heads the Thai-border based Forum for Democracy in Burma, while Ronald Aung Naing is a media trainer in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai. Several of those accused of the killings now receive financial support from international advocacy organizations - a situation that is now being highlighted and challenged by survivors of the killings who live in Myanmar and in exile.

Naing Aung said in written response to Asia Times Online questions that he "regrets" the human rights violations, which he says happened without ABSDF headquarters "decision and knowledge". He said he was not aware of the killings until they were reported in The Nation newspaper and that his headquarters had "no physical and constitutional power to take inquiry and follow up action on what [was] really happening".

A scholarship Naing Aung received to study at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government was withdrawn in 2002 by the elite US-based institution after survivors of the massacre protested. In 2008, Ronald Aung Naing was hired as a reporter for the British Broadcasting Corporation's (BBC) Burmese language service but later lost the position for the same reason.

Survivors and family members of the fallen who met this correspondent this month in Yangon were eager to tell their stories and argue their case. Several retrospective articles have recently been published in the Myanmar media about the atrocity.

Maung Maung, alias Shwe Karaweik, a brother of survivor Smar Nyi Nyi, has written and published a local-language book entitled My experience of a modern-day tale of 90,000 hinthas, a gripping account of the purge. Until now, as one of the survivors said, they and their family members did not want to go public to avoid having their accounts being used as propaganda by the military against the entire pro-democracy movement.

On the other hand, the survivors have received little support or sympathy from the opposition, a silence that if it endures could discredit the pro-democracy movement. The government's reluctance to hear their grievances, however, reflects a broader sensitive issue: how to deal with atrocities and human rights abuses committed by the military against the pro-democracy movement and ethnic minority groups?

Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other international human rights organizations have documented in detail the Myanmar's military's use of lethal force against peaceful demonstrations, extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests, torture and rape.

"The ABSDF case should also serve as an example to other perpetrators of violence, from government forces to insurgent groups," said David Mathieson, senior researcher for Myanmar at Human Rights Watch. "This case could spark a broader public debate on addressing issues of past abuses and what mechanism is best suited to end decades of impunity and abuses."

The first die has been cast by the survivors of the ABSDF killings. Yet it remains to be seen if any judicial institution in Myanmar or elsewhere is willing to take up their case. "Ignoring past violations serves to exculpate the abusers, deny the victims and their families the truth, and potentially embolden a new generation of men with guns to perpetrate violence against civilians with impunity," says Mathieson. "Myanmar's defense services have rarely if ever faced adequate legal investigation, nor have ethnic armed groups."

Bertil Lintner is a former correspondent with the Far Eastern Economic Review and author of several books on Burma/Myanmar, including Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma's Struggle for Democracy (published in 2011) and Burma in Revolt: Opium and Insurgency Since 1948 (published in 1994, 1999 and 2003). He is currently a writer with Asia Pacific Media Services.
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China urges Myanmar to resolve issues through negotiation
English.news.cn 2012-10-31 11:38:16

BEIJING, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said at a Tuesday news briefing that China hopes relevant parties in Myanmar will work to negotiate with each other.

Hong made the remarks in response to a question about China's role regarding dialogue between the Myanmar government and the Kachin Independence Army.

"China has always urged relevant parties in Myanmar to resolve relevant issues through peaceful negotiation and consultation so as to maintain peace and tranquility in the China-Myanmar border area," Hong said.

The problem of local ethnic armed forces has existed for a long time in Myanmar, and the issue is part of the country's internal affairs, Hong said.
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Deccan Herald - India, US, Japan discuss Africa, Myanmar, Afghanistan
New Delhi, Oct 31, 2012, DHNS:

Key aspects of developmental co-operation in Myanmar, Afghanistan and Africa came up for discussion at the third round of India-US-Japan Trilateral dialogue held here on Monday.

Senior officials from the three countries discussed Myanmar which included maritime security and a route through the middle or north of Myanmar leading up to Hanoi. Another issue that came up for discussion was South China Sea over which China and Japan have ongoing disputes. Japan briefed the meeting on its stand on the issue.

India briefed the meeting over its initiative on the trilateral connectivity initiative with Myanmar and Thailand. It is expected that the issue will figure during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Phnom Penh in November.

As regards maritime security, the officials discussed co-operation which will be taken forward in the next round of discussions likely to be held in Washington DC, possibly early next year. The exchanges also touched upon strategic overview of the Asia Pacific. India and USA laid stress on issues covering the Gulf of Aden to the South China Sea while Japan spoke on its dispute with China over the Senkaku islands. Briefing reporters on the meeting, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin said the officials discussed the coming East Asia summit and Association of South East Asian Nations the (Asean). All three countries along with China, South Korea, New Zealand, Australia and Russia are dialogue partners of the 10-member Asean.

Favoured effort

The meeting appreciated India’s developmental works in Africa and favoured a collaborative effort by all sides in some key projects in the continent. Piracy in Africa was another major issue that was the subject of the talks. On Afghanistan, the three countries expressed satisfaction over providing economic assistance to Afghanistan.

At the meeting, the US briefed about its much-talked about policy of “pivot to Asia”, an American move driven by the allure of emerging Asian economies, especially China and India. Iran’s nuclear programme was also discussed.

The Monday meeting marks the completion of a cycle of talks that began with the first meeting in Washington in December last year followed by the next one in Tokyo this April.
While the Indian delegation was led by MEA Joint Secretary (East Asia) Gautam Bambawale, the Japanese delegation was led by Deputy Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs Kenji Hiramatsu and the US delegation by Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Robert Blake.
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November 01, 2012 11:36 AM
Myanmar To Suspend Wood Log Export In 2014

YANGON, Nov 1 (Bernama) -- Myanmar will suspend its wood log export in 2014 in a bid to eradicate wood log smuggling and conserve forest, China's Xinhua news agency said citing local media's report on Thursday.

The suspension will be effective from April of the year, reported the 7-Day News, quoting an announcement of the Ministry of Environment and Forestry.

Myanmar exported teak mostly to neighbouring India and China at a rate of 1.6 million tonnes annually, earning US$522 million, the London-based Environment Investigation Agency was cited as saying.

According to the agency, Myanmar exported 18 million cubic metres of wood log in a decade from 2000 to 2010, gaining US$5.7 billion.

There are over 16.32 million hectares of forest reserve area, of which teak plantations cover 24,300 hectares while hardwood area 324,000 hectares, according to statistics.

The forest area accounts for nearly half the country's total area of 67.6 million hectares.

Meanwhile, Myanmar is able to produce nearly 283,000 cubic metres of teak and 1.98 million cubic metres of hardwood annually.

A major exporter of teak in the world, Myanmar takes up 75 percent of the world market.

Myanmar exports teak mostly to India, followed by China, Bangladesh, Thailand and Malaysia.
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Burmese Cars Will No Longer Run on CNG
By MAY LAY / THE IRRAWADDY| October 31, 2012 |

An official from Burma’s state-run Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE) has announced that the government will no longer issue CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) licenses for vehicles—either public or private—as it strives to withhold all natural gas supplies for electricity.

To compensate for any shortfall, he said, the government intends to increase imports of octane, premium diesel and diesel.

“The government is going to keep CNG as a supporting source of electricity in urban areas,” said an executive officer from MOGE. “Almost all our imported cars now run on octane fuels, so CNG will not be needed for vehicles in the future.

“The government will substitute the fuel which is produced nationally with imports of octane, diesel and premium diesel,” he added.

Over the part year, many motorists in Burma have complained that they are unable to acquire CNG licenses and fittings for their vehicles since a substitution policy started in late 2011.

According to Tin Aung, a taxi company owner in Rangoon’s Thingangyun Township: “When the government announced it was abolishing the old cars and importing new ones, they said they would only issue CNG licenses to those cabs which were CNG fitted. I had to pay 1.2 to 1.5 million kyat (US $1,400 to $1,750) for each CNG gas tank to be fitted in every taxi. But now it has been nine months and I still haven’t received a license.”

But when Tin Aung and other motorists contact the MOGE to enquire why the licenses are taking so long to issue, they say they are invariably told that “the minister is too busy” to sign the CNG licensing papers.

According to MOGE data, more than 50,000 taxis and taxi company owners are currently waiting for CNG licenses.

In mid-2010, the government privatized 260 MPPE filling stations. Since then, the price of fuel has increased steadily.

Sources in Rangoon said that the private filling stations are selling their entire quota of fuel every month (One car owner can buy only two gallons of gasoline per day).
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The Irrawaddy - Displacement Down in Eastern Burma: TBBC
By SAW YAN NAING / THE IRRAWADDY| October 31, 2012 |

The level of hostilities and forced displacement has been dramatically reduced in ethnic Karen, Karenni, Shan and Mon communities in eastern and southeastern Burma following a series of ceasefire deals between the Burmese government and several ethnic armed groups, according to the leading aid agency at the Thai-Burmese border.

The Thailand Burma Border Consortium (TBBC) issued a statement on Wednesday saying that, based on its annual survey, approximately 10,000 people in the region were forced from their homes during the past year, which compares to an average of 75,000 people displaced yearly over the previous decade.

The TBBC’s executive director, Jack Dunford, said he is optimistic about the possibility of forging a sustainable solution, but conscious that there are many obstacles still to come.

“The challenge of transforming preliminary ceasefire agreements into a substantive peace process is immense, but this is the best chance we have ever had to create the conditions necessary to support voluntary and dignified return in safety,” he said in a statement.

TBBC estimates that there are about 400,000 internally displaced persons, or IDPs, in southeastern Burma, mostly in mountainous and rural regions. But the recent figures “reflect a hope” that displacement in southeastern Burma will end, said TBBC.

TBBC pointed out, however, that armed conflict continues in Kachin State, and that the ongoing communal violence in western Burma proves that the country still has a long way to go.

Saw Htoo Klei, the secretary of the Karen Office of Relief and Development, which provides assistance to the IDPs in Karen State, agreed that hostilities in eastern and southeastern Burma including Pegu and Tenasserim Divisions have all but halted since the ceasefire agreements were signed. He also noted that many displaced villagers have returned to their homes, albeit tentatively.

He said that the situation remains uneasy in Kachin State, northern Burma, as hostilities continue to flare between government forces and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), which has caused the displacement of some 90,000 people.

The KIA held talks on Tuesday with a government delegation led by President’s Office Minister Aung Min. However, no ceasefire was agreed. Naypyidaw has promised the KIA that it will engage in political dialogue with the main bloc of ethnic groups in the near future, Kachin sources said.

Based on poverty assessments by the TBBC’s community-based partners, the report said that 59 percent of households in rural communities of southeastern Burma are impoverished, with the indicators particularly severe in northern Karen areas where there have been allegations of widespread and systematic human rights violations.

Since late last year, the Burmese government has reached ceasefire agreements with several major ethnic armed groups, including the Karen, Karenni, Shan, Mon and Chin armies.
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The Irrawaddy - Govt Launches Fresh Arakan Strife Probe
By LAWI WENG / THE IRRAWADDY| October 31, 2012 |

The Burmese government has launched an investigation into the causes of the latest violence in Arakan State which erupted last week, according to a Naypyidaw insider.

Zaw Htay, the director of the President’s Office, told The Irrawaddy on Tuesday that there were organizations both inside and outside the country which were apparently trying to instigate clashes. “We will announce the results officially after we get all detailed information about who was behind it,” he said.

Sources in Arakan State suggest that the latest violence was sparked by a domestic dispute between a Muslim man and his wife in Minbya Township. The husband allegedly shot a homemade catapult at a Buddhist neighbor who came to investigate the commotion. Subsequently, a group of ethnic Arakanese began burning the houses of nearby Muslims.

The head of the Muslim community in Minbya denied that they instigated the unrest and told The Irrawaddy that some people were already planning for violence and the family was merely a scapegoat.

The government has reported that 28,000 people have been made homeless during the recent violence, which started on Oct.21, while a total of 2,950 houses, 14 religious buildings and eight rice mills were razed to the ground. Eighty-eight people have been confirmed dead while 129 have been hospitalized as carnage raged across nine townships, according to official figures.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said that there could be even more displaced people as the numbers of those who fled could not be verified.

Vivian Tan, spokesperson for the UNHCR in Bangkok, told The Irrawaddy on Wednesday that, “We believe that there could be more people displaced because some fled to the hills. But we do not know how many. Around 6,000 people got on fishing boats. They are trying to find a safe place to land so they can get some help.”

The UNHCR is asking the Burmese government for better access to displaced communities hiding in remote areas, she added.

“The first greatest need on the ground is for a return to law and order so peace and security can be restored and so we can have access to the region where there are affected people,” said Vivian Tan.

The UNHCR reported that the situation at camps in Sittwe remains desperate as they were already crowded with victims of the June violence before the current crisis unfolded.

Aid groups say there are around 70,000 people at the camps and these are now getting overwhelmed as even more people arrive. Food and water rations are getting low and there are not enough medical supplies to treat the wounded.

Kaung San, the director of the Wan Lark Foundation local humanitarian organization, said that there is not enough food or shelter and many people have had to stay away. “The camps on the Muslim side could more be even more crowded than the Arakanese ones as there are newly displaced people arriving there,” he added.

The Burmese government, World Food Program and UNHCR have been cooperating to build settlements for the displaced. Temporary camps have been set up for the latest victims at affected townships including Minbya, Mrauk-U, Myebon, Kyaukphyu, Kyauktaw and Rathedaung.

Meanwhile, Surin Pitsuwan, general-secretary of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), said that the Arakan conflict could even threaten regional stability.

Asean has offered humanitarian aid to victims in western Burma and Surin Pitsuwan said on Tuesday that the UN and other global organizations should also help to solve the crisis. However, the Burmese government has refused assistance from Asean nations and instead insists that the situation is a domestic matter.

Thein Sein formed an investigation commission to uncover the root cause of the June conflict in August. The commission sent a report to the President’s Office in September after conducting interviews with members of both the Arakanese and Rohingya communities.
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Singapore Airlines starts service to Rangoon
Monday, 29 October 2012 13:57 Mizzima News

Singapore Airlines (SIA) launched flights to Rangoon on Sunday, bringing the total number of foreign airlines flying into Burma to 18, according to tourism groups.

SIA said it will offer daily flight services using Boeing 777-200 aircraft.

Currently, Singapore-based Silk Air operates 16 flights a week to Rangoon with single-aisle Airbus A320, and it will continue nine of its flights after SIA starts its services.

Four foreign airlines launched flights to Rangoon in September and October: Korean Airlines of South Korea; Qatar Airlines of the Middle East, EVA Airlines of Taiwan; and All Nippon Airways of Japan.
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Burma tells Asean Rakhine State unrest is ‘internal matter’
Wednesday, 31 October 2012 12:39 Mizzima News

Asean Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan told the media on Tuesday that he tried to create a consensus within the regional grouping to address the unrest in Burma’s Rakhine State but the effort failed, after Burma declined to give its consent.

Surin Pitsuwan in Kuala Lumpur Photo: gmomf.orgIn Kuala Lampur, Surin said Asean’s lack of consensus to address the issue was not a failure, because there were member states that agreed with his call for a meeting.

“I have written to the foreign ministers of Asean, urging them to meet and address the Rohingya issue and the Asean chair, headed by the Cambodian foreign minister, has agreed with me and issued a letter calling for a meeting on the matter, but it was not a consensus,” he said, in an article posted on the Bernama website on Tuesday. “Myanmar believes that it’s an internal matter.”

Surin said: “But as I said, your internal matter could be ours, the next day, if you are not careful.

“Certainly [the effort] is not a total failure because I am here to articulate…there are member states that agree with me, but we need a consensus,” he told the media after delivering a lecture on Tuesday.
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Burmese officials struggle for control in Rakhine State
Wednesday, 31 October 2012 12:19 Mizzima News

Burmese officials on Tuesday said thousands of security officers are trying to restore order in western Rakhine State, in the midst of escalating clashes between Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims.

A spokesman for Rakhine State, Win Myaing, told the Voice of America (VOA) Burmese Service the situation was under control, but local activists and aid groups on Tuesday reported renewed clashes. Details from the remote area are hard to confirm.

Humanitarian and human rights groups this week have issued dire warnings, calling for Burmese officials to take effective actions to end the violence, which first broke out in June.

Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director for Human Rights Watch, said the government response was slow and inadequate, said VOA.

“It's very very worrisome that the government cannot get this situation under control,” he said. “And, part of it I think is that they don't yet have the political commitment to address the root causes of these problems which is the discriminatory policy against the Rohingya that keeps them in such a helpless situation but also the growing movement towards de facto segregation with Rohingya increasingly confined to Internally Displaced Persons camps.”

UN officials this week cited government figures showing the Rohingya suffered the brunt of attacks from the past week of fighting.

More than 27,000 Muslims were pushed out of their homes and some 4,000 homes burned. Entire Muslim villages were burned to the ground.

Many Rohingya fled the coast of Rakhine State by boat and made their way to refugee camps in the capital, Sittwe.

Maeve Murphy, the head of the U.N. refugee agency's office in Sittwe, was quoted by VOA as saying the local aid agencies do not have enough supplies and are struggling to meet the refugees needs.

“Obviously, they're very terrified,” she said. “It is very difficult, considering the number of incidents that are taking place.”

Murphy said aid groups, which themselves have received threats from extremist groups, are working with the government to distribute food and temporary shelters.

Some Rohingya have tried to flee to Bangladesh for safety, but the border is closed, despite numerous appeals from the UNHCR and Muslim governments to authorities in Dhaka.

Robertson said the Organization of Islamic Cooperation should put more pressure Bangladesh on the issue.

“The actions by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her government towards the Rohingya are nothing short of shameful," said Robertson. “The OIC should be calling out its member Bangladesh for failing to provide basic protections for these fleeing Muslim Rohingya. You know, Bangladesh is essentially defying the international community and getting away with it.”

The secretary-general of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) on Tuesday said the instability, if not checked, could spread beyond Burma. In a speech in Kuala Lumpur, Surin Pitsuwan said Asean and other nations should press harder for political reconciliation in Burma.

The Rohingya in Burma are considered illegal migrants by most Burmese, who refer to them as Bengalis even though many have lived in Burma for generations.
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