Because it is a target of the EJ plans now. US main purpose is EJ activities in these countries.Varoon Shekhar wrote:The international media, particularly the American and British, is ignoring the Buddhist links between India and Myanmar. PM Singh has touched on it.
Looks like a lot of adhocism in MEA policy. There are no strong values that drive the policy. Its a weather cock or wind vane.It was unbearably hot in Kolkata in May last year when 31 Arakanese and Karen men walked out of Presidency Jail. It took them a little time to spot the TV cameras waiting to record their acquittal, their free walk. Once they knew where to look, they posed with victory signs.
Yet, most were too tired to flash a smile or even realise that they were free. Three of their comrades were still in jail. Two others had died over the years. The tiredness was not surprising. It had been 13 years since February 1998 when these men had been allegedly backstabbed by the Indian Army. It was a vicious 180-degree turn on India's part that had falsely turned these men engaged in a freedom struggle into a group of international gun-runners.
The rebels were members of the National Unity Party of Arakan and the Karen National Union. They had worked closely with the Indian Army Intelligence since 1995. They supplied information on training camps of north-eastern Indian insurgents inside Burma. In return they had the assurance of support from the Indian Intelligence for their struggle against the Burmese military junta.
It was with this promise and invite, in 1998, that these men set sail from Thai waters on two boats for Andaman's Landfall Island. The idea was to set up a base for their struggle. India, however, had a bigger game plan. It wanted them to monitor Chinese movements in the region. India had reason enough to believe that there was Chinese presence in the area. The Chinese were being helped by the Burmese junta.
For the Burmese rebels, it was an unexpected welcome at the little, uninhabited island. They were arrested as soon as they reached and their leader Gen Khaing Raza and five others, allegedly, were dragged inside the jungle on the island and shot dead. In a press briefing, the Indian Army informed the media that international gun-runners who were trying to supply arms to north-eastern Indian rebels had been caught in the operation codenamed Operation Leech.
There were no doubts that the Arakanese and Karen men had been used and dumped. Some Indians blamed the incident on a 'rogue agent'. But it was unlikely that an operation of this level was driven without the knowledge of others. It was one of many examples of India's recent Burma engagement that has been one of false promises, false starts, myopic engagements that turned deadly for others.
Ten years before Operation Leech, in September 1988, the streets of Yangon were witnessing one of the world's most spontaneous outcries against the repression of democracy. The National League for Democracy, headed by the magnetic Aung Saan Suu Kyi, had won over the hearts and minds of each and every one in Burma. But the army generals in Burma had other plans. They would not let go of power so easily. So NLD workers were jailed, students shot and Daw Suu Kyi, daughter of the legendary General Aung Saan, the founder of independent Burma, was put under a virtual house arrest.
In 1990, her party won 80 per cent of the seats for a committee that was to draft a new constitution. The results were rejected by the generals.
In 1987, year before Yangon's democracy wave, Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had visited Burma. It was a time when a lot was happening in this corner of the world. Mr Gandhi had successfully signed a peace treaty with the rebels in Mizoram in June 1986. He had signed the Assam Accord in 1985 with Prafulla Mahanta. His engagement with North-East India and the 1,600 kilometre long border it shared with Burma was knowingly and unknowingly gathering pace and evolving. In 1988, as Bertil Lintner pointed out at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library talk (in 1992), "Daring anti-military broadcasts over All India Radio's Burmese language service became extremely popular and many Burmese undoubtedly saw India as an ideal once again, as it had been in the fifties."
India it seemed was 'looking east' and 'acting east' much before the 'master of public speaking', Harvard-educated American President Barack Obama, would dare the Indian Government to do so in his famous speech in Indian Parliament in 2010.
And yet, to outdo and erase it all, India would soon put on blinkers and start its turnarounds on Burma.
How did it suddenly happen? By 1990, the Indian Army had moved into the plains of Assam leading counter-insurgency operations against the United Liberation Front of Assam. The National Socialist Council of Nagaland (I-M) faction was reframing its strategies for the Naga cause. Militancy in Manipur was at its peak. Most of these groups had set up their bases in the Chittagong hill tracts of Bangladesh and inside Burma. This was also a time when militancy in Kashmir was taking violent turns.
India decided to abandon its pro-democracy moves and court the military regime in Burma to its advantage. Tacit support was extended to the junta which would many years later, allegedly, lead to hardware help extended to the Burmese army by the Indians.
The 'look east' policy, a buzzword for engagement with this region also came up during this time when Narasimha Rao was the Prime Minister. It still hangs around Indian policymakers' neck. By the time Atal Bihari Vajpayee became the Prime Minister, military diplomacy was the key driving focus of India's Burma policy. The belief was that it would reap dividends when it came to controlling insurgents in North-East India. That belief stayed on and so did militancy in the North-East. Burma, even now, remains a safe haven for militants. Later, India would also force itself to believe that its thumbs up to the Burmese army would help India get investments in Burma. Ironically, when India was changing its Burma tracks, India would honour Aung Saan Suu Kyi with the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding in 1992.
This month, twenty-five years after Rajiv Gandhi's Burma visit, Dr Manmohan Singh and his band of tweeting and ipad carrying new age Indian Foreign Service and Indian Administrative service officers decided it's time to hop on to the Burma bus. Last year, Burma had witnessed a heavily rigged election that had allowed the military regime to embrace democracy. General Thin Sein and his military men, who are remembered for their brutal repression of pro-democracy movements by Buddhist monks in Burma in 2008, are now 'elected' ministers. For India and the rest of the world, Burma's Berlin Wall Moment had happened with its elections. Subsequent by-elections that elected Suu Kyi as the leader of the opposition had given a green signal to the diplomats across the world. For all of them, Burma's papers are certainly now in order. It was all okay to engage with Burma's new democratic avatar. In that all-okay-with-Burma euphoria, on the morning of the PM's visit, one Foreign Ministry officer started pulling out nuggets from history and tweeting about it.
Almost all that could be put in various instalments of 140 characters except India's volte-face on the democracy movement in Burma.
When we landed with Dr Singh and his team in Burma, we were actually in the middle of nowhere. The capital city Nay Pi Taw [meaning 'abode of kings'] had been built in 2005 by the military junta apparently to assert more control over the people. Forests had been cleared and government officials had been forced to shift to this new capital city overnight or lose their jobs. Much of the city is still under construction. It was one more regressive policy similar to the one that had led the generals to rename Burma as Myanmar. Post Burma's last elections, all of this is now official according to the ground rules of democracy. So the Indian delegation of civil servants and ministers calibrated their visit in accordance to what the government of the day in Burma wants. It was a practical embrace and an effort to build new and independent bridges with the country. Foreign Minister SM Krishna came out with tailored statements that made it clear that India will not engage with Burma's internal democracy problems. India meant business and wanted business, and still does. Yet the numbers are against India.
India is Burma's 13th largest trading partner. The trading amount is $1.4 billion, an amount India plans to double by 2015. China remains at the forefront in the trade game. Seventy per cent of the Foreign Direct Investment in Burma is by the Chinese. The amount is a staggering $20 billion. After decades of isolation, the Americans and the European Union have lifted trade sanctions.
The western democracies and their trading corporations are desperate to get a toehold in the Burma market. And India also wants a share of that pie. So, the Indian business delegation had heavyweights like Sunil Bharti Mittal and Navin Jindal as part of the team.
Going by a 2004 secret report prepared by the Burmese junta, there has been a conscious effort to come out of the Chinese influence in the country. In September 2011, Burma suspended the controversial Myitsone Dam project. It was a clear snub to the Chinese arrogance in Burma. And yet Chinese influence seems all pervasive from 16-lane highways that take us to the Presidential Palace to roads built out of nowhere in a ghost capital city.
From the moment we landed in Nay Pi Taw to the moment we flew out of Yangon, India and Burma were engaged in signing Memoranda of Understanding. Almost as if someone had whispered in the ears of the Indian delegation, "seize the moment". The MoU flurry extended, on various fronts, from education to technical cooperation and even cultural exchange. Yet there seemed to be a lack of clarity on specifics. For one, none of the chief ministers from the north-eastern states were part of the 'look east' chanting Indian delegation. So, when India signed an agreement on development of border haats, it seemed that our officers should have done well to spend some more time than the customary visit to Mizoram or to Manipur before floating such an idea. The much talked about Imphal-Mandalay bus service looked lovely on paper. But the embarrassing reality of zero roads beyond some kilometres in Manipur seemed to have escaped the mandarins in Delhi.
By the time the Indian delegation reached Yangong, it was drizzling. To the surprise and horror of many, the Indian Prime Minister met pro-democracy leader Suu Kyi in a hotel and not at her residence, which had come to signify the idea of democracy in Burma. It almost looked like India was waiting to rewrite history with only its MoUs and the business delegation. Not one person questioned that the idea of democracy was being reduced to tokenism.
India in 2012 had indeed woken up and smelt the coffee. Though, it might have woken up a bit too late. So, when we reached the hotel, the journalists were led into a room, a makeshift press area, and Dr Singh met Suu Kyi in the other half of that long room split into two rooms by an ingenious partition. The partition was not sound-proof though. So as an excited press contingent waited for Suu Kyi, anxious Indian officials kept signalling to the press to keep quiet.
Suu Kyi was all grace and dignity. It was an honour to be in a room with her. It was an honour to be part of a media waiting to catch a glimpse of her. She came, spoke to the media and accepted an invitation to come to India, and left. A rival media reporter got the soundbite of her life before Suu Kyi left the hotel. I was stuck in another corner waiting for her. Suu Kyi's magnetism overshadowed everything and bared in front of me the reason why the present government was scared of her and her ideals. If only India could have taken the lead before it decided to wear its 'practical' Burma jacket.
A day before the Indian delegation met Suu Kyi, local English daily The New Light of Myanmar came out with an editorial that said "be happy with what you've got". People love India and yet expectations from India aren't much.
By the time Dr Singh had come back to Delhi, he had already spoken about Anna Hazare and other domestic issues. Reporters were happy. From mid-air, officials had faxed copies of the PM's statement. The Burma business was over.
Expect more of these Mohammedans to show up in Delhi claiming "refugee" status.Deadly Riots Raise Muslim-Buddhist Tensions in Myanmar
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: June 9, 2012
YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Security forces in western Myanmar fired on rioters who burned hundreds of homes in an outbreak of sectarian violence that killed at least seven people, state-controlled news media reported Saturday, adding that calm had been restored.
The rioting on Friday reflected longstanding tensions in the state of Rakhine between Buddhist residents and Muslims, many of whom are considered to be illegal settlers from neighboring Bangladesh. Although the root of the problem is localized — centering on the resentment of the settlers — there is fear that the trouble could spread elsewhere because of the religious divide.
The state-run newspaper Myanma Ahlin said security forces had to open fire to restrain the rioters, and state television said soldiers had been deployed to help the police in Maungdaw and Buthidaung Townships. A dusk-to-dawn curfew was applied, and public gatherings of more than five people banned.
According to the television report, seven people were killed and 17 wounded. It said 494 houses, 19 shops and a guesthouse were burned down.
Myanma Ahlin said that about 1,000 “terrorists” were responsible for the rampage, and that some of them stormed Maungdaw General Hospital. State news media did not otherwise identify the rioters, but the area is 90 percent Muslim, and residents contacted by telephone said the people in the mob were Muslims. The dead were evidently all Buddhists, judging by the names of the victims mentioned in the newspaper, which added that those hurt had knife wounds. It was not clear whether the security forces were responsible for any of the casualties.
The trigger for the latest round of violence was the rape and killing of a young Buddhist girl last month. Three Muslim youths have been put on trial, Myanma Ahlin reported on Saturday. Some anti-Muslim pamphlets were circulated about the crime, apparently inflaming local Buddhists. On June 3, 10 Muslims were killed by a mob that attacked a bus carrying them from a religious gathering in the town of Taungup in Rakhine State.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/10/world ... lobal-home
New Delhi, Aug 3 — India Friday rolled out the red carpet for the Myanmar armed forces chief, assuring that it will support its neighbour by providing military training to its personnel.
Myanmar armed forces commander-in-chief General Min Aung Hlaing, who landed in India on Wednesday, met India's Defence Minister A.K. Antony, Indian Navy chief Admiral Nirmal Verma, Indian Air Force chief Air Chief Marshal N.A.K. Browne and Indian Army chief Gen. Bikram Singh Friday.
During these meetings, the two sides are believed to have discussed the regional security situation, apart from new ideas for ramping up the bilateral military relations between the two nations.
The Myanmar general's visit comes just over two months after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh went to Nay Pyi Taw and Yangon towards end-May, the first by an Indian prime minister in 25 years.
While India and Myanmar signed a dozen bilateral agreements during this visit, Manmohan Singh also met opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi during his three-day stay.
Gen. Hlaing is scheduled to be in India till Aug 8.
Apart from visiting Buddhist sites in Bodh Gaya, the Myanmarese general will also be hosted at the Eastern Army Command at Kolkata, Eastern Naval Command at Visakhapatnam and other defence establishments during the visit.
India had in late-1990s decided to increase its bilateral relations with the then military-ruled Myanmar after having backed the pro-democracy Suu Kyi for years. That turnaround in its strategy happened after the realisation that China was getting entrenched in Myanmar, which is India's gateway to Southeast Asia.
India had cast aside concerns of other global powers and agreed to supply military equipment to Myanmar, the only Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) member-country with which it shares a land border.
It had also transferred an Islander maritime patrol plane as well as 105mm light artillery guns, naval gun-boats, mortars, grenade-launchers and rifles to Yangon since then.
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So let's see how China uses its veto power!Another key decision taken up by the OIC was to condemn “the continued recourse to violence by the Myanmar authorities against the members of this minority and their refusal to recognize their right to citizenship.”
“The summit has decided to bring this matter before the General Assembly of the United Nations,” it said in a final statement.
The OIC announced on Saturday before the summit that it had received a green light from Myanmar to assist displaced Rohingya.
It said Myanmar gave its agreement following talks in the capital Yangon on Friday between a delegation from the pan-Islamic body and President Thein Sein on the “deplorable humanitarian situation in Rakhine state.”
The delegation assured Thein Sein that Islamic humanitarian organizations were willing to provide aid to all residents of the strife-torn state.
King Abdullah decided last Saturday to grant $50 million to the Rohingya, describing them as victims of “several rights violations, including ethnic cleansing, murder, rape and forced displacement.”
Violence between Buddhists and Rohingya has left scores dead, with official figures indicating that 80 people from both sides died in initial fighting in June.
The entire state has been under emergency rule since early June with a heavy army and police presence.
Aung San Suu Kyi's visit to India this week offers New Delhi an opportunity to reflect on the results of it abandoning support for Myanmar's democracy movement with the introduction of the "Look East" policy. With political lines blurring in Naypyidaw, more emphasis must be put on cooperation on tackling India's northeastern insurgency, China's growing influence and expanding Southeast Asian trade. - Nehginpao Kipgen
Historic evidence shows that people of Rohingya ethnicity have been living in the Rakhine state of Myanmar for centuries, whereas Bangladesh came into existence only in 1971," a foreign office statement said.Dhaka's reaction came three days after Suu Kyi, in New Delhi [ Images ], said there were quarrels about if the Rohingyas were "true citizens under law" or came over to Myanmar as migrants later from Bangladesh.
"Bangladesh will say all these people have come from Burma (Myanmar) and the Burmese say all these people have come over from Bangladesh," Suu Kyi had told the media, visibly disappointing Dhaka."The (foreign) ministry wishes to express surprise at such comments since these are clearly at variance from the position of the Myanmar government and the action taken by them to resolve the issue over the last several years," said the statement issued by the foreign office.The foreign office recalled that since Bangladesh's emergence as an independent state on December 16, 1971, there had been occasional influxes of "Myanmar nationals of Rohingya ethnicity" from Myanmar to Bangladesh "due to internal situations in their homeland".It said the last such major influx took place in 1991-92 when 250,877 Rohingyas took refuge in Bangladesh and of them Myanmar took back 236,599 refugees through a tripartite agreement between Bangladesh, Myanmar and UNHCR "after verification of their antecedents as people of Myanmar origin".
"The remaining Myanmar refugees, along with their offspring, are staying in two refugee camps in Bangladesh. A quarter of these residual refugees were verified and confirmed by the Myanmar government as their nationals," the statement said.The refugees fled their country to take refuge in Bangladesh amid reported repression by the then Myanmar junta in 1991 while the exodus also took place on a massive scale in two subsequent phases while Dhaka estimated their number to be ranged between 400,000 and 500,000."In numerous interactions at various levels, including during the visit of Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina [ Images ] to Myanmar in December 2011... Myanmar has assured Bangladesh to take back these undocumented (400,000 to 500,000) Myanmar nationals after verification of their origin," the statement said.The Rohingyas at the home in Buddhist majority Rakhine sate in western Myanmar were exposed to fresh difficulties with the outbreak of sectarian or communal violence that has left at least 180 people dead.Dhaka, however, appreciated a recent Myanmar decision to review the citizenship laws to ensure inclusive nationality for all members of Myanmar society."Bangladesh also expects that this review will uphold accepted international standards in determining the nationality of all people living in Myanmar," the foreign office statement said
AbhiJ wrote:Muslims made to pay Jizya by Kuffars
What days have come for Mohammedians?It was not the first time the army had threatened her — eight years ago she committed a crime by getting married, which was punishable by death. The Rohingyas are not permitted to marry in Myanmar because the authorities fear the Muslim ethnic group’s population would increase otherwise. Ms. Begum had to pay a “marriage tax,” which cost the couple all their savings, to escape punishment.
seems to be a bright idea. is it secular enough to implement in India?AbhiJ wrote:Muslims made to pay Jizya by Kuffars
It was not the first time the army had threatened her — eight years ago she committed a crime by getting married, which was punishable by death. The Rohingyas are not permitted to marry in Myanmar because the authorities fear the Muslim ethnic group’s population would increase otherwise. Ms. Begum had to pay a “marriage tax,” which cost the couple all their savings, to escape punishment.RamaY wrote:Jai Ho Myanmar! Jai Ho Myanmar Buddhism!
What days have come for Mohammedians?
this news item is from The Asahi Shimbun a japan based newpaper published on 25 nov 2012. everybody oin the neighbourhood seems to want a few of them n bums and missilesNorth Korea tried to ship materials suitable for uranium enrichment or missile development to Myanmar via China this year, in violation of a U.N. Security Council resolution,
The shipment included about 50 metal pipes and 15 high-specification aluminum alloy bars, at least some of them offering the high strength needed in centrifuges for a nuclear weapons program.
Japan seized the items aboard a cargo vessel docked at Tokyo Port on Aug. 22, a raid which took place at the request of the United States, sources told The Asahi Shimbun.
Authorities concluded that the shipment originated in North Korea because the bars were found to be inscribed "DPRK," although investigators were unable to confirm the origin from cargo documents or from the ship's crew, the sources said.
Japan, the United States and South Korea believe Myanmar has abandoned its one-time nuclear weapons ambitions. This makes officials suspect that the aluminum alloy may have been intended for use in building missiles instead.
A South Korean government source said Myanmar may have been trying to develop short-range missiles in the event of border disputes with its neighbors.
The United States is among nations now easing sanctions against Myanmar and supporting its move toward democracy. On Nov. 19, Barack Obama, the first serving U.S. president to visit Myanmar, met with President Thein Sein in Yangon and requested that he sever military ties with North Korea.
The revelation of apparent continued links could hamper international reconciliation. And Pyongyang has complained of U.S. pressure on Myanmar to end relations.
It will also likely cause international criticism of Myanmar and China, which have both denied violating the U.N. ban on North Korean exports of weapons and related materials.
The cargo was to have been delivered to Soe Ming Htike, a Yangon-based construction company, which the U.S. government believes is a front for Myanmar's military procurement.
In an interview with The Asahi Shimbun, a company based in Dalian, China, confirmed that it had tried to send aluminum alloy to Myanmar.
"We became the cargo's owner at the request of a company," an official said. "We have learned that the cargo was seized, but we do not know why."
Japanese government officials believe North Korea acquired the aluminum alloy from China. They said North Korea is unlikely to possess the technology needed to produce such material.
At a meeting held to discuss the matter, Japanese officials from several government agencies agreed that the Chinese military—which ultimately controls its defense industry—must have approved North Korea's exporting the materials to Myanmar.
The sources said the cargo was loaded onto the 17,138-ton Wan Hai 215, a Singapore-registered cargo vessel operated by a Taiwanese shipping company, in Dalian on July 27.
On Aug. 9, the cargo was offloaded and placed aboard the 27,800-ton Wan Hai 313 in Shekou, China.
On Aug. 14, the cargo was scheduled to change ships once again in Malaysia and to reach Yangon Port the following day.
The United States learned about the cargo's possible contents and asked the Taiwanese shipping company not to carry out the transshipment in Malaysia.
The Wan Hai 313 entered Tokyo Port on Aug. 22. Officers from Tokyo Customs, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and other agencies examined the cargo and found the items in question.
For the first time, Japan applied a special measures law that allows the government to inspect cargo on ships suspected of carrying weapons and related materials to and from North Korea.
Meanwhile, the discovery could force Japan, the United States and South Korea to review their nuclear nonproliferation policy.
A Japanese government source said since North Korea has no apparent difficulty procuring the necessary aluminum alloy it now likely "has acquired a large number of centrifuges."
In November 2010, North Korea showed centrifuges to U.S. experts at a nuclear facility at Yongbyon. Officials claimed there were 2,000 centrifuges, enough to produce 40 kilograms of highly enriched uranium in one year, if certain conditions are met. That amount is sufficient for one or two nuclear bombs.
The U.S. and South Korean intelligence agencies suspect that North Korea is operating additional underground uranium enrichment facilities elsewhere.
"North Korea would never disclose all its cards," one South Korean government source said. "There must be other facilities."
It is difficult to monitor the activities of centrifuges with an intelligence satellite because the site needed is small compared with the large reactor needed to produce plutonium for bombs.
North Korea and Myanmar have had military ties for years.
Sources quoted Shwe Mann, speaker of Myanmar's lower house, as recently telling Japanese government officials that North Korea has yet to deliver some weapons ordered by Myanmar in the past. But, the speaker insisted, Myanmar would pursue no new weapons purchases from North Korea.
Shwe Mann's remark effectively contradicts Myanmar's official stance that it has not had any military transactions since spring 2011.
The United States and South Korea learned that Myanmar signed contracts to purchase military supplies from North Korea when Shwe Mann visited the country in November 2008 as joint chief of staff. Among facilities Shwe Mann inspected was a North Korean missile factory.
In January, a ship arrived at Yangon Port via China, carrying cargo that had been loaded in Nampho, North Korea, ordered by an organization affiliated with the Myanmar military.
"The cargo was a primary machine tool for weapons manufacture," said a diplomatic source in Yangon. "Military ties between Myanmar and North Korea have not been cut off."
North Korean military engineers have been spotted in Myanmar, as well as officials from a company that procures personal funds for the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un.
The U.S. and South Korean intelligence agencies have stationed personnel at airports and ports in Myanmar to monitor traffic, but North Koreans are apparently traveling by land through China, sources said.
Investigations by Japan and the United States have found that Myanmar has—at some point—imported from North Korea weapons that include mortars.
Myanmar has also informally told the United States it built underground tunnels near Naypyidaw and elsewhere with technical assistance from the North Korean military.
Japan, the United States and South Korea have refrained from disclosing details about military ties between North Korea and Myanmar.
"If we went public with that, we would thrust Myanmar closer to China and North Korea," said one Japanese government source.
Meanwhile, a Chinese government source criticized the approach of countries such as the United States toward Myanmar.
"It does not contain only niceties, such as an evaluation of the pro-democracy movement," the source said. "This is a geopolitical confrontation between China and the United States."
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http://rohingyajournalismfund.blogspot.nl/SUNDAY, 10 MARCH 2013
The importance of this project
I'd like to give a bit more of a picture of how this fund idea came about, and why we consider it such an important project:
We have received reliable reports that a third round of violence against the Rohingya (and very likely Kaman) minority groups in Burma is being planned, and is likely to be executed in the near future (around the turn of the month.) So far international media coverage of the persecution and ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya has been relatively limited, despite the situation being extremely grave and getting steadily worse- but if we can document the latest conflagration on the ground this could change all that.
In the case of the Sri Lankan civil war, it was only when the appalling nature of the atrocities visited upon Tamil civilians were exposed by the work of Sri Lankan journalists and Channel 4 that the international community began to get really serious about seeking accountability and others became aware of the suffering of the victims.
The first Burma leader to visit Australia since 1974, Thein Sein joined Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard for a news conference where she announced it will restore limited military cooperation and increase business ties with the Southeast Asian country, which ended five decades of military rule in 2011.
(Reuters) - Unrest between Buddhists and Muslims in central Myanmar has reduced neighborhoods to ashes and stoked fears that last year's sectarian bloodshed is spreading into the country's heartland in a test of Asia's newest democracy.
Buildings in Meikhtila were still burning early on Friday and agitated Buddhist crowds roamed the otherwise near-deserted streets after three days of turbulence, said Reuters reporters in the city 540 km (336 miles) north of the commercial capital Yangon.
Reuters saw some Meikhtila residents arming themselves with knives and sticks in an eerie echo of the Rakhine violence in 2012, when pitched battles between the two communities later morphed into orchestrated attacks on Muslim communities by organized gangs of ethnic Rakhine Buddhists.
Myanmar is a predominantly Buddhist country, but about 5 percent of its 60 million people are Muslims. There are large and long-established communities in Yangon and Mandalay, Myanmar's two largest cities, where tensions are simmering.
"Everyone is in shock here. We never expected this to happen," said a Muslim teacher in Mandalay, requesting anonymity.
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http://world.time.com/2013/03/24/u-n-s-burma-envoy-visits-city-wracked-by-violence/Western news outlets are abuzz about how Thein Sein’s new government in Myanmar is taking measures to open up the country’s borders to FDI and international trade. Much of this excitement stems from its implications for trade routes. Billions could be saved on shipping if an easy overland route was developed from Southeast Asia to India and more Westerly nations.What many publications aren’t mentioning, however, is that Thein Sein’s ‘historic’ trade agreements aren’t anything new. In fact, this isn’t the first time the Burmese government has tried to establish trade links with its neighbors since the 2000’s. Not all of them were successful. We discovered this firsthand in February, when we set off on a six week bicycle tour to explore the country. One of the areas we visited was the Myanmar-India border, where our pedaling took us on the remnants of the great, but failed, India-Myanmar Friendship Road.The India-Myanmar Friendship road is striking, if only because it’s such a spectacular failure. Opened in 2001, to the tune of 30 million USD, the 100 mile highway was entirely financed and constructed by the Indian army. There was much fanfare at the time; the highway was supposed to mark a new era in trade between Myanmar and its subcontinent neighbor. Unfortunately, it did nothing of the kind.The problem was that Myanmar did not uphold its ends of the deal.
While the India-Myanmar friendship road is 100 miles long, it doesn’t really go anywhere. When the Indian army constructed the road from the border crossing at Moreh and Tamu, to a Burmese junction town called Kalewa, they were counting on Myanmar’s government to connect the highway to its interior. That never happened; at Kalewa, the road turns onto a beautiful, expenisve, and Indian built suspension bridge, and then stops. It turns into a rutted, dust-covered dirt road that stretches on for another hundred miles, and is sometimes buried so deep in sand that motorcyclists cannot get up the hills.Thein Sein’s new government wants to change that. In the past year, India and Myanmar have again been talking about renewing trade through the Moreh-Tamu border. India has been especially aggressive in its rhetoric with Indian Prime Minister Manoman Singh’s well-publicized “Looking East” policy. But with the disaster of 2001’s friendship road, it makes one wonder, what is to prevent another repeat in 2013?
The answer is that this time, India is taking on all responsibility
Burma’s president, Thein Sein, has declared a state of emergency in the town of Meikhtila and the surrounding region due to ongoing violence between the Muslim and Buddhist population in central Burma.
The violence allegedly began when a Muslim owner of a gold shop got into a dispute with his Buddhist customers. Muslims are now fleeing the area and seeking refuge from marauding Buddhists who have killed an estimated 20 people and have burned homes and at least 5 mosques in the town, according to news reports.This latest bout of violence is a reminder that despite Burma’s significant political reforms, the country remains either unable or unwilling to sufficiently protect the human rights of minority groups.In declaring a state of emergency, Sein has allowed the Burmese military to assist the overloaded police force. While many view military assistance as a positive development, the Burmese military has a history of abuse toward the civilian population, including the Muslim community. This latest upheaval is reminiscent of Burma’s Muslim–Buddhist conflict in the Rakhine state just last year, where an estimated 115,000 people were displaced and approximately 100 people died.Escalating violence and rioting has led the police to evacuate close to 1,500 people from Meikhtila. A veiled Buddhist monk even put a knife to the neck of one Associated Press photographer and forced him to surrender his camera’s memory stick. Attempts to suppress press freedom are not unusual, but these events demonstrate that despite Burma’s relaxation of media censorship, protection of press freedoms is not a given.In its effort to respond appropriately to Burma’s reforms, the U.S. must be careful not to get ahead of events. Burma policy must be geared to the long term and maintain enough leverage to influence developments there for the next several years—until reforms are complete.
The European Union is expected to lift all sanctions on Burma next week, except for an arms embargo, in recognition of the “remarkable process of reform” in the country, a document obtained by Reuters has shown.
The decision comes at a time when violence is threatening the fledgling reforms. The opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi said she objected to violence “committed by anybody against anybody” and that Buddhist-Muslim clashes threatened Burma’s progress toward greater democracy and economic growth.
Human rights groups have criticised Burma’s government for failing to prevent attacks on minority Muslims by majority Buddhists. Sectarian violence in western Rakhine state has killed hundreds and driven more than 100,000 Rohingya Muslims from their homes.
Increasingly, the violence has not been limited to Rohingya Muslims. In the wake of last year’s violence, the Kaman, a distinct Muslim ethnic group, was also targeted.
Anindya wrote:The anti-Islam campaign is beginning to gather force in several place across the globe. The 969 campaign in Burma is just one example of what is happening outside Europe. Similar opposition to Islamic practices is beginning to gather steam in parts of Sri lanka for example.
‘969’: The three digits that are terrifying Muslims in Burma
Brightly-coloured posters and stickers bearing the number "969" are popping up in cities all over Burma. These look innocuous enough at first glance. However, “969” actually denotes an anti-Islam campaign led by hardliner Buddhist monks. Burmese Muslims say it has stirred up hatred and paranoia, resulting in a string of bloody anti-Muslim riots across the country over the past weeks.
The three digits ‘969’ originally refer to the Buddha’s “three jewels” , but they are now being used as a brand name for a nationalist, anti-Muslim campaign led by a prominent monk based in Mandalay. Wirathu, who likes to refer to himself as the “Burmese Bin Laden”, was jailed in 2003 for inciting riots against Muslims, but was released as part of a general amnesty in 2012. Since then, he’s spearheaded the fast-growing ‘969’ movement, making numerous speeches calling on Buddhists to “buy 969” and boycott Muslim-owned stores.
Anti-Muslim sentiment has boiled over repeatedly since the ‘969’ campaign first emerged several months ago. In late March, rioters went on a three-day rampage in the central town of Meikhtila, burning down Muslims’ homes, businesses, and mosques. About 40 people were killed. The remnants of Muslim-owned stores were spray-painted with the digits ‘969’. Many witnesses said that during all this, the police stood by and watched. Shortly afterwards, more riots erupted in the Bago region after travelling monks preached the ‘969’ ideology. And early this week, fresh clashes broke out in Oakkan, a town north of Rangoon, where at least one person was killed.