Democratic Voice of Burma |
- KNPP and gov’t reach agreement
- UN employee stabbed by unidentified assailant in Rangoon
- Activists speak out against arrest warrant
- Suu Kyi slams proposed inter-faith marriage law
- What lies beneath the rash of anti-Muslim violence in Burma?
| KNPP and gov’t reach agreement Posted: 21 Jun 2013 03:48 AM PDT Karenni rebels and government peace negotiators reached an 8-point agreement which included working together for a nationwide ceasefire and forming a joint-peace monitoring committee, at a landmark meeting in Loikaw on Thursday. |
| UN employee stabbed by unidentified assailant in Rangoon Posted: 21 Jun 2013 02:00 AM PDT An American citizen working for the UN's World Food Programme (WFP) was reportedly stabbed in neck last week while walking in downtown Rangoon, according to an internal memo obtained by DVB. On 13 June, the WFP employee was walking down Alanpya Phaya Road in Rangoon's Dagon township around 9:45pm when an unidentified male assailant stabbed her in the neck then proceeded to flee the scene. According to a report posted on the Rangoon Police Department's Facebook page, the victim was able to reach the nearby Rangoon General Hospital, where she underwent an operation, and was in stable condition after surgery. "Knowing the guy has not been caught and not knowing his motives has left people feeling a bit nervous," said Ali Fowle, a freelance journalist based in Rangoon, adding that foreigners generally viewed the city as safe and were taken aback by the recent assault. "The attack happened in an area which is heavily populated by foreigners, right next to the British compound and close to Nawayday and York Road (Yaw Min Gyi), so people are still uneasy and planning to be cautious." Following the incident the UNHCR's safety advisor in Rangoon sent an email warning UN staff to avoid walking down dark, empty streets alone. Dagon township's police department are in the process of investigating the assault; however, the office was unavailable for comment when contacted by DVB. According to a representative from the US embassy, American officials provided the victim with assistance following the incident and confirmed that she was transfered to Bangkok on 15 June where she is now recovering. UN officials in Rangoon were also unavailable for comment. This story was updated on 21 June 2013. |
| Activists speak out against arrest warrant Posted: 21 Jun 2013 12:59 AM PDT BY ALI FOWLE Three activists facing arrest have spoken out about the charges brought against them in a press conference in Rangoon. They are being charged for inciting unrest over comments made to the media crticising police action in regard to the Latpadaung mining project. But Moe Thway, Wai Lu and Wai Hmuu Thwin said their arrest warrants pose a serious threat to freedom of expression in the country. |
| Suu Kyi slams proposed inter-faith marriage law Posted: 21 Jun 2013 12:20 AM PDT Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has criticised a proposal by nationalist monks to restrict marriages between Buddhist women and men of other faiths, describing it as a violation of human rights, a report said Friday. “This is one-sided. Why only women? You cannot treat the women unfairly,” Radio Free Asia quoted the Nobel Peace Laureate as saying in an interview. “I also understand that this is not in accordance with the laws of the country and especially that it is not part of Buddhism,” the veteran activist said. “It is a violation of women’s rights and human rights.” Under the proposal – spearheaded by the controversial Mandalay abbot Wirathu – non-Buddhist men wishing to marry a Buddhist woman would have to convert and gain permission from her parents to wed or risk 10 years in jail. The idea was raised at a recent meeting of more than 200 monks called to discuss a surge in Buddhist-Muslim violence in the former junta-ruled country. Wirathu said the law was needed “because Buddhist girls have lost freedom of religion when they married Muslim men”. Senior monks have distanced themselves from the proposal, while women’s rights groups have voiced opposition. Sectarian bloodshed – mostly targeting Muslims – has laid bare deep divides that were largely suppressed under decades of military rule which ended two years ago in the Buddhist-majority country. Radical monks – once at the forefront of the country’s pro-democracy movement – have led a campaign to shun shops owned by Muslims and only to visit stores run by Buddhists. Some were also involved in the religious unrest. Suu Kyi has been accused by some international human rights activists of failing to clearly condemn the anti-Muslim violence. Dozens of people were killed in clashes in central Burma in March while about 200 people died last year in sectarian unrest in Arakan state. Last month Suu Kyi criticised a controversial ban imposed on Rohingya Muslims who have more than two children. |
| What lies beneath the rash of anti-Muslim violence in Burma? Posted: 20 Jun 2013 10:59 PM PDT Over the past twelve months, brutal attacks on Burma's Muslim community have taken place across the country, spreading from Arakan state in the west to, most recently, Shan state in the east. Serious atrocities have occurred, including acts that allegedly amount to crimes against humanity. Many of the worst offences are believed to have perpetrated with the aid of state agencies; in other incidents, the police stood by and did nothing to prevent loss of life. Such extremely grave abuses have elicited widespread concern, but in an alarming number of cases, perhaps even the majority, impunity for the perpetrators has followed. By contrast, Muslims accused of crimes related to the same incidents have felt the full force of the law quickly, excessively and unmistakably. These patterns are disturbingly instructive and hint at institutional prejudices that have survived Burma's recent reforms; insufficient responses to Muslim persecution from the international community, on the other hand, are far harder to explain. Such moral laxity has helped to condemn the Burmese Islamic community to ongoing suffering and vulnerability in the face of increasingly militant Buddhist-chauvinist hostility. In lieu of adequate foreign or internal pressure, it falls to journalists, rights campaigners and other interested groups both within and outside of Burma to step up and confront this plague of violence and bigotry. The best way that this can be done, in my view, is to expose those most responsible for its recrudescence. I say this with a conviction that there is some level of organisation behind the recent attacks on the Muslim community, and that the simplistic narrative that such acts are merely the product of relaxed state authoritarianism is pernicious and unconvincing. In fact, I felt prompted to write this op-ed precisely because of information that I have received from reliable sources on the issue. Their claims were made prior to an important piece featured in the Straits Times recently by Nirmal Ghosh. Many will have read Mr Ghosh's article "Old Monsters Stirring Up Trouble", in which he cites a military source within Naypyidaw who points the finger at a notorious paramilitary group linked to the former regime and a controversial ex-minister- namely, the Swan Arshin and Aung Thaung respectively. "There are appear to be common features to most of the major anti-Muslim incidents" Prior to reading Ghosh's article, I was told by a separate figure in Naypyidaw that Aung Thaung was central to the violence, and yet another reliable source within the Sangha asserted that the infamous anti-Muslim 969 movement had deep links to the Swan Arshin. Another, very solid source with access to privileged government information shared with me his awareness that Wirathu, the demagogic monk famously associated with the 969 group, had been present in Lashio the day before the attacks in the town began. It is a claim that seems plausible given that it was reported he was spotted in Shan state in late May. It is worth noting that Wirathu was also recognised to have been preaching in Meikhtila not long before the atrocities that took place there occurred, and was present in the city on the day of the attacks. Links between Wirathu and Aung Thaung in themselves have been subjected to a great deal of speculation, in particular the Abbot's meeting with the former minister immediately prior to the attacks in Arakan state in October. According to my own interviews with eyewitnesses to the attacks throughout the country, conducted both while I have been in Burma and from abroad, there are appear to be common features to most of the major anti-Muslim incidents. Witnesses in Sittwe with whom I met were very clear that many of the 'attackers were strangers'; in Meikhtila, this was again a recurrent message from sources I contacted; finally in Lashio the presence of outsiders was confirmed by multiple sources. Another witness to a separate act of violence, this time in Rangoon, told me that he saw groups of young men attack a mosque near Annawratha Road from their vehicles with projectiles in the middle of the night. In his words it was 'definitely an organised attack', in keeping with many other reported mosque assaults. The presence of men on motorbikes behaving similarly was confirmed by another source who saw events take place in Oakkan. I mention the above allegations without endorsing them, but acknowledging that they certainly merit reporting- and further investigation. Aung Thaung for his part has unsurprisingly denied the claims reported by the Straits Times. Regardless, urgent questions need to be asked: who are these people that my sources- and many others- have seen in vehicles, throwing projectiles and coming from out of town? Why was it consistently reported that the outsiders in Lashio were heard singing Burmese nationalist songs, and being of Burmese not Shan appearance? What was Wirathu doing so close to the action, before and during several incidents? Why are the perpetrators, and in the indeed the whole 969 operation not adequately subjected to the censure of the law; and why have police and firefighters been to reluctant to intervene as Muslims are being assaulted and their homes burnt, as has been so often reported? It is up to responsible journalists to aggressively dig out the answers to these questions and expose the agendas at work behind the terror campaign being conducted against Muslims in Burma. In my opinion, not doing so would be yet another gutless betrayal of the victims of these egregious crimes by those with the power to do something to help. Emanuel Stoakes is a freelance journalist based in the United Kingdom and New Zealand -The opinions and views expressed in this piece are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect DVB's editorial policy. |
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