UN Chief Writes To Security Council To Propose Steps To End Myanmar Violence

UN Chief Writes To Security Council To Propose Steps To End Myanmar Violence

29 August 2017

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Tuesday he had written to the U.N. Security Council to express his concern over violence in Myanmar's Rakhine state against Rohingya Muslims.

Guterres appealed to Myanmar authorities to end violence, which he warned was "creating a situation that can destabilize the region." When asked about ethnic cleansing, Guterres said: "We are facing a risk, I hope we don't get there."

Violence broke out in the Rakhine after security forces launched an operation against Rohingya Muslims, forcing nearly 125,000 people, including women and children to flee and seek refuge in neighboring Bangladesh since Aug. 25, when clashes began. Myanmar security forces are accused of using disproportionate force and destroying the homes of the Rohingya people.

Meanwhile, Turkey, Azerbaijan and Georgia will convene today in Azerbaijan's capital Baku within the scope of the trilateral meeting mechanism.

Myanmar: Rohingya insurgents declare month-long ceasefire

Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army says move will allow aid deliveries amid reports government is encouraging refugees to flee

Rohingya insurgents declared a month-long unilateral ceasefire last night, saying it would allow aid to reach north-western Myanmar.

The Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (Arsa) had launched attacks on police posts and an army base last month, prompting retaliation by Myanmar's military. The violence led to more than 270,000 refugees from the persecuted Rohingya Muslim community fleeing to Bangladesh over the last two weeks, according to the UN's refugee agency (UNHCR).

"Arsa strongly encourages all concerned humanitarian actors to resume their humanitarian assistance to all victims of the humanitarian crisis, irrespective of ethnic or religious background during the ceasefire period," the organisation said in a statement.

In some areas, Arsa militants seemed to have been operating without opposition. Dhaka Tribune journalist Adil Sakhawat told the Observer he had seen black-clothed Arsa militants in control of a Myanmar border outpost at Kutkhali on the Naf river, on the frontier with Bangladesh.

The free hand given to Arsa has led to fears that the government is encouraging refugees to flee across the border into Bangladesh, by providing safe passage through rebel-held crossing points.

According to Sakhawat, who had just returned from the Myanmar side of the border, the militants were armed only with wooden clubs as they watched a steady stream of refugees pass. From Kutkhali, it had been possible to see another border post controlled by Myanmar forces. "They are just watching," he said.

That the Myanmar military had been allowing Arsa to operate freely in Kutkhali leads to the suspicion that they have opened at least one, if not two, corridors for the refugees to flee down safely, in an attempt to rid north Rakhine state of as many Rohingya as possible. With the Rohingya terrified of Myanmar forces, Arsa's presence might be aimed at reassuring the refugees that Kutkhali is a safe way out of the country.

Observers suggest the rebels are too weak to seriously challenge the Myanmar armed forces. "Many members of the group have fled and, despite the casualties, they aren't a very well-armed force," said Matthew Smith of Fortify Rights, an NGO that has been documenting human rights abuses in Rakhine. "Rohingya know that this group has no capacity to defeat or even fight the Myanmar security forces."

Yangon, which appears to be waging a campaign against Rohingya villages that many claim bears the hallmarks of ethnic cleansing, is intent on portraying its military campaign in north Rakhine as a response to attacks against nine border posts on 25 August.

Speaking to the BBC on Saturday, Myanmar's minister for social welfare, relief and resettlement, Win Myat Aye, said: "Only those who prove they have lived in Rakhine and are citizens would be accepted to come back."

To the fleeing Rohingya, Arsa is little more than a phantom force or they do not want to talk about it. "I don't know about Arsa," said farmer Abdul Kalam, 33, from a village called Sita Porakka in Maungdaw, as he lay in a dirty hospital in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, 25 miles from the border.

"I don't know why the military attacked our village," said Kalam, also from Sita Porakka. Around him, Bangladeshi military intelligence officers milled. Fleeing Rohingya speak of the Myanmar military murdering civilians with impunity, aided by local ethnic-Rakhine militiamen.

In the past few days, the first Rohingya from Rathedaung, 25 miles (40km) from the Naf river, have begun to cross into Bangladesh. Their stories suggest that in central Rakhine the military is waging an even more systematic and brutal campaign against civilians. In a mud hut in Kutupalong refugee camp, new arrivals from Rathedaung have found shelter with relatives. "In every family, there are two to four people who have been killed by the Burmese military," says Neyamullah, 21.

According to the UNHCR, the refugees now face increasingly dire conditions as they attempt to rebuild their lives. Thousands of Rohingya are spilling down the road that links Ukhia and Gumdum, waiting for local Bangladeshis to give them food or building materials. Local truckers, who have plied a brisk trade ferrying Rohingya to the refugee camps, occasionally lob a sack of puffed rice onto the road as a gesture of support.

"We need food urgently," said Jaheed Hussain, 45, crouched in a shelter that he has been building. Beside him, a plastic bag with Burmese characters was stuck in the mud. "I have nothing left," he said. Jaheed's shelter hugs the side of the highest hill in Teing Kali. From the top he can see the smoke still billowing from the village in Myanmar that he fled from on 25 August.

"The Rohingya need food, medical support and shelter," said Nur Khan Liton, a Bangladeshi human rights activist. "The international community is ignoring people's basic needs."

Many of those crossing into Bangladesh arrive destitute. "They want 10,000 Bangladeshi taka ($122) to take us," said one new arrival, bemoaning the price that Bangladeshi fisherman are asking to take them across the river.

Myanmar To Provide Aid To Persecuted Rohingya Muslims

Camps will be set up to provide aid for displaced Muslims inside Rakhine state, state-backed media said Saturday, the first time in a 16-day crisis Myanmar's government has offered any relief for Rohingya scattered by violence, many to Bangladesh.

Around 270,000 Rohingya have fled since Aug. 25 when militant attacks sent unrest churning through Rakhine, arriving in Bangladesh hungry and exhausted and squashing into already overcrowded refugee camps.

Tens of thousands more are believed to be on the move inside Rakhine, fleeing burning villages, the army and ethnic Rakhine mobs -- who Rohingya refugees accuse of attacking civilians -- only to become stranded in hills without food, water, shelter or medical care.

Bangladesh has urged Myanmar to stem the exodus by providing for the displaced inside the country and provide 'safe zones' for the Rohingya.

Around 27,000 Buddhists and Hindus have also been displaced following attacks by Rohingya militants and are receiving government help in monasteries and schools.

But the Rohingya, a stateless group refused citizenship by Myanmar, have been left to fend for themselves in what rights groups allege is a part of systematic campaign to force them out of the country.

Two weeks after violence scorched through the country, the government has said it will establish three camps in north, south and central Maungdaw -- the epicenter of the violence and a Rohingya majority area.

"Displaced people who are currently spread out will be able to receive humanitarian aid and medical care" distributed by local Red Cross workers, the Global New Light of Myanmar reported on Saturday.

The report did not refer directly to the Rohingya but mentioned village clusters where the minority lived until the unrest.

Branded 'Bengalis' -- shorthand for illegal immigrants from Bangladesh -- the Rohingya have long been subjected to discrimination in mostly Buddhist Myanmar.

Around 120,000 have languished in basic displaced camps following religious violence in 2012, while the rest are subject to suffocating restrictions on their movement and rights to work.

Yanghee Lee, the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, on Friday said over a thousand people may have been killed in the subsequent army crackdown, the majority likely to be Rohingya.

In an interview with AFP she said Myanmar's star politician Aung San Suu Kyi, a fearless democracy campaigner under the former junta, had failed to use her moral authority to defend the Rohingya.

"I think we need to delete our memories of the imprisoned democratic icon," Lee said, explaining that Suu Kyi was now a politician not a rights defender.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner has been condemned for her refusal to bend to pressure and speak out for the Rohingya including by Suu fellow Nobel laureates Malala Yousafzai and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

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