BBC News – Burma apologises for police attack on protesting monks

Saturday, 8 December 2012. The government in Burma has apologised to Buddhist monks for the injuries sustained during a police operation outside a copper mine nine days ago.

More than 50 people, including 20 monks, were injured when police tried to clear protesters who said local farmers had been forced off the land.

Injuries included severe burns blamed on incendiary devices thrown by police.

The raid last month was the toughest action since a more reformist government came to power last year.

The BBC’s South East Asia correspondent, Jonathan Head, says the apology reflects the government’s nervousness over the role of monks, who command high public respect.

They often take up political and social causes, bringing them into conflict with the authorities.

Joint venture

Religious Affairs Minister Myint Maung told a delegation of senior monks that the police regretted the injuries, which he blamed on the “incompetency” of the authorities.

He said the government would do its utmost to prevent such incidents happening again.

It has established a commission of inquiry, headed by opposition leader Aung Sung Suu Kyi.

She visited the area last Friday and demanded an apology for the monks.

Eight people have been charged in connection with the protests. They are being held in Insein prison in Rangoon.

The Monywa copper mine in northern Burma is a joint venture between a Chinese company and Myanmar Economic Holdings, owned by the Burmese military.

Hundreds of people are alleged to have been forced from their land to make way for a $1 bn (£620m) expansion of the mine.

More than 7,800 acres (3,200 hectares) of land is being appropriated. Considerable damage to the environment is also reported.

Activists are calling for work at the project to be suspended to allow impact studies to be carried out, but China insists that the contentious points have already been resolved.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-20650576

BBC News – Burma acknowledges mass burnings in Rakhine unrest

Saturday, 27 October 2012. Burma’s president has acknowledged major destruction in the west of the country, scene of recent ethnic unrest.

“There have been incidents of whole villages and parts of the towns being burnt down in Rakhine state,” Thein Sein’s spokesman told the BBC.

He was speaking after Human Rights Watch released satellite pictures showing hundreds of buildings destroyed in the coastal town of Kyaukpyu alone.

It says the victims were mostly Muslim Rohingya, targeted by non-Muslims.

Presidential spokesman Zaw Htay told the BBC the government was tightening security in Rakhine state, which is also known as Arakan.

“If necessary, we will send more police and military troops in order to get back stability,” he added.

There is long-standing tension between ethnic Rakhine people, who make up the majority of the state’s population, and Muslims, many of whom are Rohingya and are stateless.

The Burmese authorities regard the Rohingya as illegal immigrants and correspondents say there is widespread public hostility to them.

‘Bodies at sea’

The satellite pictures released by Human Right Watch, a US-based group, show Kyaukpyu district on 9 October, and then on 25 October.

On 9 October, hundreds of closely packed houses can be seen on the peninsula, as well as scores of houseboats along the northern shoreline.

But in the image taken on Thursday, few boats remain and the 35-acre district is almost entirely empty of houses.

HRW said many residents are thought to have fled by boat.

A local reporter who visited the site told the BBC’s Burmese service the area had been completely destroyed, with some buildings still smouldering.

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.

The government says the death toll from the attacks this week has reached 82, with a further 129 people injured, and that nearly 3,000 houses have been destroyed.

It was the first serious outburst of violence since June, when a state of emergency was declared in Rakhine.

At that time deadly clashes claimed dozens of lives and thousands of people were forced to flee their homes – many are yet to return.

Eid plans cancelled

HRW said it feared the death toll from the latest unrest could be much higher, based on witness reports and “the government’s well-documented history of underestimating figures that might lead to criticism of the state”.

Non-Muslims are reporting that this time they too were fired on by government forces during the unrest, and suffered many casualties.

The government has declared a curfew in the affected areas, but its response since the violence first broke out is being widely criticised as inadequate, says the BBC’s Jonathan Head in Bangkok.

On Friday six towns were hit by clashes and a night-time curfew is in place in several locations including Min Bya and Mrauk Oo where the latest spate of violence began.

It is unclear what prompted the latest clashes. The Rakhine Buddhists and Muslims, believed to be mainly Rohingya, blame each other for the violence.

In Bangladesh, border officials said they believed several boats with Rohingyas on board were waiting to try to cross the river from Burma. One official said 52 Rohingya had been sent back in the last few days.

Muslims throughout Burma have abandoned plans to celebrate the festival of Eid al-Adha because of the violence.

In August, Burma set up a commission to investigate the violence between Buddhists and Muslims in the west of the country.

Authorities earlier rejected a UN-led inquiry.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-20110150

BBC News – Burma Rakhine clashes death toll at 56 – state officials

Thursday, 25 October 2012. At least 56 people have been killed and hundreds of homes torched since Sunday, as clashes spread in Burma’s Rakhine state, officials say.

Several were killed overnight as violence erupted despite a night-time curfew in at least two towns.

The latest clashes are the first serious outburst of violence since June when a state of emergency was declared in Rakhine after 90 people were killed.

But tensions remained high between ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and Muslims.

It is unclear what prompted the latest clashes. The Rakhine Buddhists and Muslims blame each other for the violence.

Clashes erupted in the Ratha Taung township late last night but this later spread to the Kyauk Taw township, where security forces opened fire, reports say.

Rakhine state spokesman Win Myaing told BBC Burmese on Thursday that the total death toll since violence flared up again on Sunday had reached 56.

More than 1,000 houses have been torched since then and police have deployed reinforcements in the townships of Min Bya and Mrauk Oo, where curfews are now in effect.

It was the rape and murder of a Buddhist woman by three Muslims in May that set off the initial unrest.

A mob later killed 10 Muslims in retaliation, although they were unconnected with the earlier incident, and the violence escalated after that.

In June, about 90 people were killed as clashes spread across the state.

The houses of both Buddhists and Muslims were burnt down and thousands of people fled. Muslims throughout Burma have abandoned plans to celebrate the festival of Eid al-Adha because of the violence.

There is long-standing tension between the ethnic Rakhine people, who make up the majority of the state’s population, and Muslims, many of whom are Rohingya. The Burmese authorities regard the Rohingya as illegal immigrants and correspondents say there is widepsread public hostility to them.

In August Burma set up a commission to investigate the violence between Buddhists and Muslims in the west of the country.

Authorities earlier rejected a UN-led inquiry.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-20083287

BBC News – Burma’s Thein Sein ‘would accept Suu Kyi as president’

Saturday 29 September 2012. Burmese leader Thein Sein has told the BBC he would accept Aung San Suu Kyi as president if the people vote for her.

The president insisted that the will of the people would be respected whoever they chose in an election due in 2015.

He reiterated his commitment to the country’s reform programme, and said he and Ms Suu Kyi were working together.

Thein Sein, a former leader of the military junta that ruled Burma for decades, has overseen a dramatic shift towards a civilian-led government.

Two days ago he spoke at the UN General Assembly, congratulating Ms Suu Kyi on receiving the US Congressional Gold Medal.

In an interview with the BBC’s Hardtalk programme, he went even further by talking about the possibility of the Nobel Peace Prize winner becoming president.

“Whether she will become a leader of the nation depends on the will of the people. If the people accept her, then I will have to accept her,” he said.

“There isn’t any problem between me and Aung San Suu Kyi. We are working together.”

But he added that the army, which retains many of the seats in parliament, will continue to play a central role in the country’s politics.

Ms Suu Kyi was kept under house arrest for 15 years and repeatedly denounced by the former regime.

Thein Sein’s remarks this week have been the warmest from Burma’s political leadership since the junta was formally dissolved in March 2011.

But Burma still faces many problems, including a recent outbreak of fighting between Muslim Rohingya people and Buddhist Rakhine people.

The president has repeatedly pledged to end internal strife, but neither he nor Ms Suu Kyi have provided a possible solution to the problems in Rakhine state.

Meanwhile, the president also renewed his appeal for economic sanctions placed on his country to be lifted.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has already said the US would ease its import ban on Burmese goods.

Many other targeted measures have already been lifted by the US and other Western countries.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-19772834

BBC News – Aung San Suu Kyi: Burma pro-democracy leader visits US

Sunday, 16 September 2012. Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi is travelling to the United States, her first visit to the country in two decades.

During her 18-day trip she will be presented with the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honour in the US, among other awards.

She will also meet President Barack Obama and various Burmese groups.

Aung San Suu Kyi spent years under house arrest in Burma, but was elected to parliament in April.

The new civilian-led, but military-backed, government has enacted a series of political and social reforms, including the relaxing of media laws, the legalisation of protests and the releasing of hundreds of political prisoners.

In response, Western nations including the US have lifted sanctions imposed during the military rule.

The Nobel laureate is likely to face questions over deadly ethnic conflict in western Rakhine state earlier this year.

The violence, which pitted Burma’s majority Buddhists against minority Muslims, was sparked by the rape and murder of a young Buddhist woman. Dozens of people died and thousands were displaced.

Rights groups have expressed concern over the fate of the Rohingya, a mostly Muslim group who Burma says are not Burmese citizens but who have often been denied asylum in neighbouring countries.

Aung San Suu Kyi has remained relatively quiet on the issue, although has called in parliament for laws to protect the rights of ethnic minorities.

Asked in June whether Rohingya should be regarded as Burmese citizens, she said: “I do not know”, saying Burma should clarify its citizenship laws.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-19617156

BBC News – Muslims in Burma’s Rakhine state ‘abused’ – Amnesty International

Friday, 20 July 2012. Muslims in Burma’s western Rakhine state have been subjected to attacks and arbitrary arrests in the weeks since communal violence erupted, Amnesty International says.

A state of emergency was declared in Rakhine in June after deadly clashes between Buddhists and Muslims.

Since then, hundreds of people have been detained in the areas where Muslim Rohingya people live, a spokesman said.

The government has dismissed the allegations as “groundless and biased”.

Win Myaing, a government spokesman for Rakhine state, told the Associated Press news agency that the claims are “totally opposite of what is happening on the ground”, adding that the region was calm.

But although communal violence has eased since the unrest in June, violations by the security forces appear to have increased, rights groups say.

‘Rohingyas beaten’

Amnesty accuses Burmese security forces as well as ethnic Rakhine Buddhist residents of assaults, unlawful killings of Muslims and the destruction of property.

“Most cases have meant targeted attacks on the minority Rohingya population and they were bearing the brunt of most of that communal violence in June and they continue to bear the lion’s share of the violations perpetrated by the state security forces,” Amnesty researcher Benjamin Zawacki told the BBC’s Viv Marsh.

Chris Lewa, director of The Arakan Project, which focuses on Rohingyas in the region, also told our correspondent that hundreds of Rohingya Muslims had been arrested, with allegations that some had been beaten and even tortured.

“Shortly after the main violence… then we start seeing a new phase of, I would say, state-sanctioned abuses, where especially in Maung Daw… we heard on a daily basis about mass arrests of Rohingya,” Ms Lewa told the BBC.

Reports from the group’s network of sources in the area, mostly Rohingya, also said that authorities allowed Rakhine youth to assault Rohingyas in custody. The group also alleges that Burmese authorities took part in looting of shops and homes belonging to Rohingya.

The Burmese authorities denied similar allegations made by Amnesty International.

Some of the Rohingya Muslims arrested were held in connection with violence that erupted in Rakhine on 8 June, the day on which, observers say, violence was largely carried out by Rohingyas. The Arakan Project also says that some Rakhine, particularly those found with weapons, were arrested.

It is difficult to verify any of the information provided by such sources, as journalists cannot access the area.

Long-standing tension

Violence between Buddhists and Muslims flared after the rape and murder of a Buddhist woman in May, followed by an attack on a bus carrying Muslims.

Communal unrest continued in parts of Maung Daw as Muslims attacked Buddhist homes. Reprisal attacks then targeted Muslim homes and communities. The attacks left many dead and forced thousands of people on both sides to flee their homes.

There have been long-standing tensions between Rakhine people, who are Buddhist and make up the majority of the state’s population, and Muslims, many of whom are Rohingya.

Many Rakhine Buddhists have said that much of the violence in June was carried out against them by Rohingya groups.

Rohingyas say they have been forced to flee because of the violence.

Earlier this month, Burma’s President Thein Sein said the “solution” for the Rohingya was deportation or refugee camps.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-18921960

BBC News – Burma nominates new vice-president Myint Swe

Tuesday 10 July 2012. Burma’s military has nominated a former general to be one of the country’s two vice presidents.

Myint Swe is widely considered to be a hardliner and has close links to the former leader of Burma’s military junta, Than Shwe.

Once the appointment is confirmed by parliament, he will replace Tin Aung Myint Oo, who stood down for health reasons.

Correspondents say this is unlikely to shift Burma’s current reformist agenda.

The dominance of Burma’s military is entrenched in its parliament and political system.

A total of 25% of its MPs are from the armed forces and one of the vice-presidents is always a military nominee.

Like most of the senior members of the cabinet, Myint Swe has a military background and played a full role in what was until recently a highly repressive military dictatorship, says the BBC’s Jonah Fisher in Bangkok.

Parliamentary approval of the military’s nominee is a formality.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-18779035

BBC News – Burma tells Aung San Suu Kyi ‘call us Myanmar’

Friday 29 June 2012. Burmese officials have told opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi to call the country by its official name, Myanmar.

The country was renamed Myanmar in 1989 by its then military rulers and the change has been widely adopted since.

But opposition groups have continued to use the old name as a sign of defiance, along with some Western governments and media organisations.

Ms Suu Kyi was freed from arrest in 2010 and elected to parliament this year amid continuing political reforms.

She is set to return from a high-profile trip to Europe, during which she referred to her country as Burma.

She also used the term Burma during a speech to the World Economic Forum in Thailand on 1 June, apparently annoying her country’s military-backed civilian government.

Correspondents say the authorities may be trying assert themselves after Ms Suu Kyi, who leads the National League for Democracy (NLD), was feted throughout her European tour.

In a statement published in The New Light of Myanmar newspaper, the electoral commission said: “As it is prescribed in the constitution that ‘the state shall be known as The Republic of the Union of Myanmar’, no one has the right to call [the country] Burma.

“It is announced that the commission… has again informed the NLD to write/address the name of the state as prescribed in the constitution… and respect the constitution.”

NLD party spokesman Nyan Win responded by saying that referring to the country as Burma “does not amount to disrespecting the constitution”.

The then ruling military chose to rename Burma two decades ago, arguing that the old name was a hangover from colonialism and only represented the dominant Burman ethnic group.

Etymologists and others suggest that this argument is false, as both Myanmar and Burma come from the same root – referring to the Burman ethnic group – and have been used interchangeably for centuries.

The US and UK governments still use Burma to refer to the country, as do some media organisations, including the BBC.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-18643715

BBC News – UN urges Bangladesh to take in people fleeing Burma violence

Friday 15 June 2012. The United Nations has urged Bangladesh to accept refugees fleeing violence between Buddhists and Muslims in Burma.

Tens of thousands of refugees have fled Burma’s province of Rakhine by boat. About 30,000 are already in camps in Bangladesh.

As many as 1,500 are said to have been turned back in recent days.

The UN’s refugee agency in Geneva, the UNHCR, says women and children have been left adrift on boats in the river Naf without food or care.

“There are now a number of boats drifting in the mouth of the Naf River with desperate people onboard in need of water, food and medical care,” the UNHCR said in a statement.

“It is vital that these people are allowed access to a safe haven and shelter.”

The violence flared after the murder of a Buddhist woman last month, followed by an attack on a bus carrying Muslims which killed 10 people.

Burmese officials have said the fighting has killed 29 people and thousands of homes have been burnt down.

Stateless group

Most of the refugees travel to Bangladesh by boat through the river Naf which marks the border with Burma.

The majority of the mainly-Muslim Rohingya refugees already in Bangladesh are staying in two camps in Cox’s Bazar district.

Rakhine state is named after the ethnic Rakhine Buddhist majority, but also has a sizeable Muslim population, including the Rohingyas.

The Rohingyas are a Muslim group and are stateless, as Burma considers them to be illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

According to reports, rioting began on Friday last week in the town of Maung Daw, spreading to the state capital Sittwe and neighbouring villages.

Two days later, President Thein Sein declared a state of emergency there.

On Thursday Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi warned that the strife would continue without “the rule of law”.

Speaking in Geneva on her first trip to Europe since 1988, she said the situation should be handled “with delicacy and sensitivity”.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-18460804

BBC News – India-Burma border caught up in a time warp

Saturday 26 May 2012. As Manmohan Singh begins a visit to Burma on 28 May, the first by an Indian prime minister in 25 years, the BBC’s Sanjoy Majumder travels to Moreh on the India-Burma border to find a town frozen in time.

Moreh, in India’s north-eastern state of Manipur, has all the trappings of a frontier town caught in a time warp.

A single, dusty lane snakes through the middle of the town, with rows of wooden shops, restaurants and houses lining either side.

Buddhist monks, Tamil traders, Burmese women with their faces smeared with sandalwood paste and Indian army soldiers saunter past in the searing midday heat.

At the end of the road, workers are busy constructing a ceremonial archway. Just beyond it is a barrier and then the large, shiny border gates with the Indian state emblem on them.

As they swing open at 07:00, traders, schoolchildren and villagers scramble through, crossing over to the other side. No papers are required as long as they are back before sundown.

‘Porous border’

But like most things in Moreh and between India and Burma, this is just window-dressing.

Only a part of the border is fenced so even before the gates open, many others have already made the crossing, walking along dirt tracks, through fields and ditches in full view of the army.

“As you can see, this is a porous border,” one Indian soldier tells me.

It is possibly the reason why, until recently, Moreh also had a wild reputation – as a major transit point for heroin and arms.

Efforts are on, however, to change all this. Construction is on at full swing to widen the road leading away from the border and into India. Eventually, the plan is for this to become India’s major gateway into South East Asia.

Delhi is also developing ports inside Burma and there are plans for a rail link – as part of the trans-Asian network that will link South East Asia with Europe.

But there are clearly plenty of hurdles.

“Both sides of the border are poor and underdeveloped,” says Sanjoy Hazarika, a leading expert on northeast India.

They are also awash with ethnic tribes who are often at conflict with the governments in Delhi and Nay Pyi Taw, part of the reason why the region is a hot-bed of insurgency.

The highway leading from Moreh to the Manipuri capital, Imphal, is dotted with army camps and military checkposts.

Strong links

“I make payments of several thousand rupees on each journey,” complains one trader about the bribes he has to hand over to the police, soldiers and the insurgents.

But the strong historical, cultural and economic links that exist between the two sides of the border are also India’s trading currency, as it hopes to gain goodwill and more from Burma.

As the border gates open every morning, groups of schoolchildren from Burma cross into India, standing out in their bright uniforms.

“They come here to study English,” explains K Shamol Singh, headmaster at the Eastern Shine missionary school, one of several in Moreh with a sizeable number of Burmese students.

“They don’t have good English-language schools in the Burmese countryside. The hope is that the language skills they acquire will help them get jobs in countries such as Thailand and Singapore.”

It is another illustration of how easy it has been even for legitimate visitors to travel across the border.

Strategic jigsaw

But economics is only one part of the puzzle. India has strong political and strategic interests in Burma.

Until the 1990s, it was a strong supporter of the pro-democracy movement of Aung San Suu Kyi who studied in India and whose mother served as ambassador in Delhi.

Many Burmese students and activists fled to India after the military crackdown following the 1988 uprising.

Among them was Dr Thura, a political activist who is among an estimated 10,000 Burmese refugees in India.

“We were contacted by the Indian embassy and given money to go across,” he tells me in the house he shares with four other Burmese families in the Manipuri town of Churachandpur, west of Moreh.

“We thought we’d get arms and training to take on the Burmese military. Instead, we were put inside a camp for the next three years and not allowed to move out.”

Many Burmese exiles living in India like Dr Thura are bitter and feel let down by the world’s largest democracy.

In the 1990s, as India realised China was gaining in influence in Burma, it switched tracks and began reaching out to the generals as part of its “Look East” policy.

But many are sceptical of whether it has achieved much or if its ambitions of using Burma as a foothold into South East Asia will ever be realised.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-18156861