Board ‘failing Rohingya’

[webfact]

Board ‘failing Rohingya’

By SUPALAK GANJANAKHUNDEE 
THE NATION

 

A Rohingya refugee uses bamboo to fix his roof during the monsoon season at Balukhali refugee camp in Ukhia on July 21, 2018. AFP PHOTO / MUNIR UZ ZAMAN

 

VETERAN DIPLOMAT and former lawmaker Kobsak Chutikul said yesterday that his resignation from the advisory board on the Rohingya crisis is a cautionary message from a long-time friend of Myanmar since the matter is now at a critical stage.

 

Next month, the government in Nay Pyi Taw and many agencies involved in the crisis will come under intense pressure, he warned. The anniversary of a multi-recommendation report on the Rohingya by the former UN secretary-general that preceded the escalation of violence will draw the world’s focus.

 

Kobsak quit his position nearly two weeks ago as a senior consultant to the international advisory board tasked with making recommendations after alleged military actions against the Rohingya Muslim minority in the nation drew widespread condemnation.

 

Kobsak said he quit the post because he saw the board potentially becoming a part of the problem related to the crisis.

 

The existence of boards and committees could give the false impression that “we have done something to deal with the problems but in fact, we have not”, Kobsak told The Nation. “It’s a kind of self-delusion.”

 

International organisations working, funding and writing reports on the Rohingya issue were asking about the progress of the work, he said.

 

“How many have returned safely from refugee camps? Have their homes been rebuilt? Where are the schools for the children and what about public health service for them? These are among the questions that had no firm answers,” Kobsak said.

 

Kobsak is with Rohingya refugees in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh

 

August 24 and 25 will mark the anniversary of the recommendation report by former UN chief Kofi Annan, and the militant attack on Myanmar security outposts. That attack prompted an overwhelming response by the Myanmar military, killing thousands of minority civilians and forcing 700,000 people to flee across the border into Bangladesh.

 

During the anniversary, extremists would be able to exploit the lack of progress on the work of the committee to radicalise the people and destabilise the region, Kobsak said.

 

The UN General Assembly and the Security Council would raise the Rohingya issue during the September meetings, he said. The European Union has imposed sanctions and the United States might soon follow suit, he said.

 

Hundreds of thousands of refugees living on steep muddy slopes are facing a very high risk of natural disaster during the monsoon season, he warned.

 

“We can neither play for time nor hope that time could solve the problem. Time is of the essence in this matter, and in fact it could worsen the situation,” he said.

 

Kobsak said his resignation was not a protest but rather a message to all concerned parties as he has a lot of sympathy for Myanmar’s people given the complexity of the issues.

 

“I’m nobody, but I had the honour to work on this tough issue. I blame nobody but speak with good intention from what I have seen,” he said.

 

Myanmar’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi picked former Thai foreign minister Surakiart Sathirathai to lead an advisory board for the implementation of the Annan’s 88 recommendations. The board, made up of foreign experts but also with local members, would complete its mandate by the end of this year.

 

“The solution is already there, but we cannot just set up committees and committees to oversee the recommendations,” Kobsak said.

 

Kobsak’s resignation was regarded as another setback for Surakiart’s advisory board after the withdrawal in January of former US ambassador to the UN, Bill Richardson. Richardson had accused the board of “whitewashing” or “cheerleading” Aung San Suu Kyi over the Royingya crisis. Kobsak said Richardson’s pullout was premature. 

 

The Nation could reach neither the Myanmar government nor Surakiart for comment yesterday. Surakiart, however, told Bangkokinsight website that Myanmar has already implemented 60 out of 88 of Annan’s recommendations. The government has also signed a memorandum of understanding with the UN Human Rights Council and UN Development Programme to prepare for the return of refugees, he said. 

 

Rohingya political activist Khin Maung Myint said the Rohingya community in Myanmar had never seen any of the outcomes of the implementation, and the board and the authority have never listened to their opinion.

 

Rohingya met with Annan’s board twice but not with Surakiart’s team, he said.

 

“What they [Surakiart’s board] do is fly to the capital and have a lavish dinner, but don’t really tough out the solution about how to implement Annan’s recommendations,” said the activist, who is also known as Sam Naeem. “They cannot solve the problem by setting up commissions.”

 

Kobsak suggested that Myanmar’s authorities, notably the military, as well as the international community need to work with the new UN special envoy Christine Schraner Burgener. The former Swiss ambassador to Thailand and Myanmar knows the country very well, said Kobsak. 

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/asean-plus/30350591

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2018-07-23

[spidermike007]

Nothing is being done by the Burmese officials. Why? They do not want them back. They say they do, much the same as Tiny Don says he is a patriot. Fake news. Not the case for one nanosecond. Suu Kyi keeps up her support of this racist policy, and by association is responsible for genocide. Turns out, after all these years, we find out the Nobel prize winning freedom fighter is a rabid racist, who is afraid to alienate some of her supporters. Go figure. A weak and pathetic figure. 

 

Not sure how this saga will end. But there is no doubt the Rohingya are in dire straits. Some solution must be found. And the international community has to stop agreeing to the Burmese solution. There is no Burmese solution, other than to execute every general in the country, and get rid of Suu Kyi.

[phantomfiddler]

33 minutes ago, spidermike007 said:

Nothing is being done by the Burmese officials. Why? They do not want them back. They say they do, much the same as Tiny Don says he is a patriot. Fake news. Not the case for one nanosecond. Suu Kyi keeps up her support of this racist policy, and by association is responsible for genocide. Turns out, after all these years, we find out the Nobel prize winning freedom fighter is a rabid racist, who is afraid to alienate some of her supporters. Go figure. A weak and pathetic figure. 

 

Not sure how this saga will end. But there is no doubt the Rohingya are in dire straits. Some solution must be found. And the international community has to stop agreeing to the Burmese solution. There is no Burmese solution, other than to execute every general in the country, and get rid of Suu Kyi.

Who can blame the Burmese for not wanting them to settle in Burma, since it is said that they are really from Bangladesh. Wherever muslims go, trouble soon follows, and this is the reason Buddhist dominated countries do dot want them. The only ideal solution is for there to be muslim and non-muslim countries, such as Japan, so that the muslims can cheerfully fight each other as seems to be their wont, and leave the civilized world alone.

[spidermike007]

4 minutes ago, phantomfiddler said:

Who can blame the Burmese for not wanting them to settle in Burma, since it is said that they are really from Bangladesh. Wherever muslims go, trouble soon follows, and this is the reason Buddhist dominated countries do dot want them. The only ideal solution is for there to be muslim and non-muslim countries, such as Japan, so that the muslims can cheerfully fight each other as seems to be their wont, and leave the civilized world alone.

Some posts are better off left alone. How does one even reply to a comment like this? Definitely sounds like the rantings of a Tiny Don supporter.

[sammieuk1]

Genocide is a messy business orchestrated by military despots and there is a surplus and never ending supply of them right now. 

[bkkgriz]

Plenty of nice Muslim majority countries to go to. Why is it Muslim countries never take in refugees? Plenty of rich Muslim majority countries in the Gulf. Lots of room too. They must be racists since they don't want to help. Is this how it works? Help me out snowflakes, I am new to the no argument name calling game.

[bkkgriz]

4 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

Suu Kyi keeps up her support of this racist policy, and by association is responsible for genocide. Turns out, after all these years, we find out the Nobel prize winning freedom fighter is a rabid racist, who is afraid to alienate some of her supporters. Go figure. A weak and pathetic figure. 

So let me see if I am understanding your rhetoric here. Suu Kyi, an Asian woman, is racist towards the Rohingya, also Asian people. Is that what you are saying? The Asian woman, Suu Kyi, hates her own race. Am I getting your argument right? You do understand that Muslim is not a race, right? Islam is a political ideology, it is not a race. Anyone can become Muslim, just as anyone can become a Christian or a Buddhist. If you are going to just argue by virtue of ad hominem attack, you should at least get some of your information straight. 

[spidermike007]

3 hours ago, bkkgriz said:

So let me see if I am understanding your rhetoric here. Suu Kyi, an Asian woman, is racist towards the Rohingya, also Asian people. Is that what you are saying? The Asian woman, Suu Kyi, hates her own race. Am I getting your argument right? You do understand that Muslim is not a race, right? Islam is a political ideology, it is not a race. Anyone can become Muslim, just as anyone can become a Christian or a Buddhist. If you are going to just argue by virtue of ad hominem attack, you should at least get some of your information straight. 

Yes. She is racist toward the Muslim portion of the Burmese population. The Rohingya are just as Burmese as the Americans who came to the US within the last century. Most have been there for a century or longer. The fact that they have never been granted recognition does not change the facts, and the fact that they are Muslim does not make them second class citizens. Unless of course you want to use Tiny Don type logic. The fact that she has made no effort whatsoever to stop the atrocities, or address the issues makes her guilt even more pronounced. She is supposed to be the moral leader of the nation. We cannot expect anything out of the Burmese army, which are closer to animals, than humans. 

 

Allow hate speech to thrive, absent yourself from any kind of moral leadership, and you must surely expect to reap the whirlwind. So it is not as if Aung San Suu Kyi can – or should – escape a degree of blame. To those who might argue that she is doing the best she can under the circumstances, the rejoinder has to be: for whom? The majority Buddhist Bamar, or the whole country?

Given her longstanding ties to Britain, criticism in this country has been particularly loud. The foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, urged her to use the “moral capital” she has built up to stop the persecution. Aung San Suu Kyi – the Lady, the Iron Butterfly, a Nobel laureate, a pro-democracy icon and the Nelson Mandela of Myanmar – has turned out to be very different indeed from her South African counterpart.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/sep/19/west-aung-san-suu-kyi-saint-nobel-rohingya

[My Thai Life]

On 7/23/2018 at 1:28 PM, bkkgriz said:

 Anyone can become Muslim, just as anyone can become a Christian or a Buddhist. 

True-ish, but a muslim cannot become a Christian or a Buddhist or an atheist or any form of non-muslim or gay without being stoned to death in vast swathes of the muslim world.

 

My heart goes out to the Rohingya, and to all secular muslims too, but western liberals in general are way off beam in their assessment of this situation, and of islam in general.

 

It's precisely because I am a liberal that I loathe islam so profoundly. And no this isn't phobia, it's based on experience of living in muslim countries and of observing the obscene and  regressive practices islam has brought to  my home country.

[cooked]

On 7/23/2018 at 5:05 PM, spidermike007 said:

Yes. She is racist toward the Muslim portion of the Burmese population. The Rohingya are just as Burmese as the Americans who came to the US within the last century. Most have been there for a century or longer. The fact that they have never been granted recognition does not change the facts, and the fact that they are Muslim does not make them second class citizens. Unless of course you want to use Tiny Don type logic. The fact that she has made no effort whatsoever to stop the atrocities, or address the issues makes her guilt even more pronounced. She is supposed to be the moral leader of the nation. We cannot expect anything out of the Burmese army, which are closer to animals, than humans. 

 

Allow hate speech to thrive, absent yourself from any kind of moral leadership, and you must surely expect to reap the whirlwind. So it is not as if Aung San Suu Kyi can – or should – escape a degree of blame. To those who might argue that she is doing the best she can under the circumstances, the rejoinder has to be: for whom? The majority Buddhist Bamar, or the whole country?

Given her longstanding ties to Britain, criticism in this country has been particularly loud. The foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, urged her to use the “moral capital” she has built up to stop the persecution. Aung San Suu Kyi – the Lady, the Iron Butterfly, a Nobel laureate, a pro-democracy icon and the Nelson Mandela of Myanmar – has turned out to be very different indeed from her South African counterpart.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/sep/19/west-aung-san-suu-kyi-saint-nobel-rohingya

Stop reading the Guardian.

Most of the self named "Rohingya" HAVE NOT been present for over a century and there is ample evidence that Chittagong Bangladeshis have been crossing the border into the Rakhine by the hundreds of thousands since 1948 and especially since the Pakistan-Bangladesh war of 1972. In the northern Rakhine they are still the majority in townships that were previously Buddhist majority. The Buddhists were persecuted and victimised for years, by a a people that has openly declared its desire for the formation of an independent Islamic state. 

Boris knows all about the oil and gas reserves in the Rakhine as does Bangladesh and other Western powers. At present the oil and gas is going by pipeline to China... contract for that signed in 2011, present troubles started in 2012. Coincidence of course, same as the fact that ARSA started an armed rebellion on the Eve of Kofi Anan's proposals for finding a solution in the Rakhine.

The people of Myanmar didn't ask for a Nobel prize, screw that, if she wants Myanmar to hang on to the democratisation process which is still very much ongoing, she cannot attack the military who still call the shots, she has to tread very carefully. 

Apart from all that, did you read that the Chittagonian Muslims (Rohingya) are doing exactly the same thing in the CHT ? Probably not. Don't know what they CHT are? I don't know who Tiny Don is either.

The Roros are at the very bottom of the Islamic social ladder and nobody wants them.

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