Monday, July 1, 2013

Democratic Voice of Burma

Democratic Voice of Burma

Officials install curfew in Arakan state after mob targets Muslims

Posted: 01 Jul 2013 05:43 AM PDT

A curfew has been issued in Arakan state's Sandoway (Thandwe) after a Buddhist mob set fire to Muslim homes on Sunday evening, following the alleged sexual assault of a woman by two men who were rumoured to be Muslim.

On Sunday afternoon, the suspects and victim were being questioned at Sandoway’s police station when the mob assembled and called for the men to be handed over to the crowd. In response, the town's officials issued a decree banning the gathering of more than five people under article-188 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

Shortly after the order was announced, the mob set fire to several Muslim homes in the town. Officials then installed a curfew between 5pm and 5am under article-144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure in the attack’s wake.

Officials have yet to confirm the suspects' religion; however, a government spokesperson hinted that rumours, not facts, led to the crowds' assumption that the men were Muslims.

"Rumours of the woman being assaulted by an individual from another religion were spread in the town, leading to a mob of around 50 people gathering in front of the police station around 5pm," wrote Deputy Information Minister Ye Htut in a Facebook post published on Sunday evening.

"The police explained to the crowd that the culprits were still being investigated and urged them to disperse."

According to Sandoway Township Administrator Kyaw Soe Lwin, one house was destroyed, while four other homes were set alight in the melee.

While the two suspects who were allegedly involved in the assault were still in custody, none of the rioters behind Sunday's violence had been detained.

"We cannot take action against the [rioters] unless someone files a report, and there was no witness," said Kyaw Soe Lwin. "Even if there was, we cannot arrest people without solid information."

Arakan state spokesperson Win Myaing said acts of mob violence were unlawful.

"It is necessary to follow procedures in accordance with the law when a crime takes place and give it some time," said Win Myaing."It is inappropriate to make demands and act unlawfully with a mob."

A Muslim resident in Sandoway said she felt helpless, as the police failed to prevent the mob from destroying homes yesterday.

"We are afraid to file reports as the police were blatantly ignoring the attacks – they were patrolling in the town as the mob was burning homes – they didn't do anything to stop them," said the Muslim resident, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

However, National League for Democracy's Sandoway township chairman Win Naing said he believed the incident was orchestrated.

"We heard rumours since about six days ago that there was going to be a sexual assault against a [Buddhist woman] by one or two men from another religion – and then it actually happened," said Win Naing.

"Given that the riot spread immediately, it must have been orchestrated."

In May 2012, the alleged rape and murder of an Arakanese woman by three Muslim men led to a revenge attack targeting 10 Islamic pilgrims, who were beaten to death by a Buddhist mob in Arakan state's Taunggup.

Following the massacre, rioting kicked off days later in Arakan state pitting Buddhist Arakanese against Muslim Rohingya. Another round of rioting erupted the following October, which has inflamed sectarian tensions across the country.

Following multiple episodes of anti-Muslim rioting that has spread from Burma's southwest coast to the Shan plateau, hundreds of people have been killed and more than 150,000 people have been displaced across the country.

Monks and misogyny

Posted: 01 Jul 2013 05:30 AM PDT

"Our Buddhist women are not intelligent enough to protect themselves," a religious leader declared last week in defence of a controversial law that would effectively ban interfaith marriages in Burma.

The draft law, which garnered the support of an all-male convention of 1,500 senior monks in Rangoon on Thursday, has exposed a poisonous mix of structural racism and misogyny at the heart of Theravada Buddhism in Burma.

The legislation, if passed, would require Buddhist women to obtain permission from both her family and local authorities before marrying a man of a different faith. This provision was originally targeted exclusively at Muslim men, but later revised in a bid to be "more balanced". This "balance" of course only sought to redress its distinctly anti-Muslim agenda, rather than the inherent sexism that underpins it.

In part, this reflects a dogmatic and patriarchal interpretation of Theravada Buddhism in Burma that seems to indoctrinate the subordination of women. Nuns – who were notably absent from last week's convention – make up roughly one in six of the Buddhist clergy in Burma. But they are not afforded the same virtues as their male counterparts and it is widely believed that women cannot attain enlightenment. Women are subsequently banned from visiting the "holiest" parts of religious monuments.

Nuns cannot be fully ordained, because the ceremony requires at least five other fully ordained nuns to complete, and this community – known as the Bhikkhuni Sangha in Theravada Buddhism — died out centuries ago. Despite attempts to resuscitate the practice in other Theravada countries by using fully ordained nuns from the Mahayana Buddhist tradition to perform the ordinations, it has been met with hostility in most conservative circles and is not recognised in Burma.

This means that nuns are formally excluded from the Burmese Sangha – or monastic community – and are not allowed to deliver sermons or participate in high-level religious debates. In 2005, a nun was arrested and jailed by the military junta for returning to Burma after becoming fully "ordained" as a nun in Sri Lanka.

After being forced to "unconditionally" apologise for her actions, she was promptly deported back to Sri Lanka. In her evocative account of life as a nun in Burma, she recalls being forced to bow down to novice monks as young as five, even if they had been "in robes for less than a day". In other words, Burmese nuns are considered spiritually and intellectually inferior to monks of any age, experience or education.

"Patriarchal structures are endemic throughout Burma's states and provinces."

In the context of the Sangha — which carries enormous moral and political weight in Burmese society – it means that women's voices are marginalised, if not completely ignored. Monks are less likely to take an interest in social issues that affect women, such as sexual and reproductive rights or marital autonomy. Conversely, both the state-backed Sangha Maha Nayaka Committee and prominent supporters of the 2007 anti-government "Saffron Revolution" have played an increasingly vocal role in supporting the interfaith marriage ban.

It is perhaps unsurprising, albeit ironic, that both the Burmese military and the monkhood – two male-dominated and deeply hierarchical institutions – would embrace a shared platform for misogyny. In fact, when monks claim to be “protecting” Buddhist women from their own choices, it reeks eerily of the same condescending paternalism and machismo employed by the military regime to keep the pro-democracy movement in check.

There is an ongoing scholarly debate about whether Theravada Buddhism is intrinsically sexist or has come to internalise a wider culture of gender bias. In many ways this echoes the same parochial and myopic arguments that have contaminated western political discourse for many years – whether it's a question of same-sex marriage, access to safe abortion or the ordination of female bishops.

But certainly the draft law highlights the social, political and cultural ostracism of women in Burma, entrenched by nearly five decades of military rule. Burma is one of only two ASEAN countries, where domestic violence is still legal – despite having one of the highest recorded rates in the region. Marital rape is not considered a crime; while abortion is illegal in all circumstances except to save a woman's life and botched procedures are a leading contributor to Burma's cataclysmic maternal death rate.

Despite some commendable efforts by Aung San Suu Kyi to include more women in the 2012 by-elections, they still hold a tiny 5.7 percent of seats in the lower house of parliament, and an abysmal 1.8 percent in the upper house. (This should worry anyone, who fears the draft law might live to see the florescent lights of parliament.) Section 352 of the 2008 constitution even sanctions professional discrimination on the basis of gender.as long as it is for "positions that are suitable for men only".

Decades of brutal civil wars have taught Burma's armed forces to rape and pillage with impunity. This violence, targeting Christians, Muslims and Buddhists alike, has sent a clear message that women's bodies are collateral damage, if not instruments of war. The ethnic peace processes have been equally marred by a systematic exclusion of female voices – an absence which risks fuelling further gender based violence down the road.

Indeed patriarchal structures are endemic throughout Burma's states and provinces. The Lokaniti or "Guide to Life", a 14th century Burmese text, which outlines a woman's role as domesticated and servile, still carries significant influence among its majority Buddhist population. Luckily, it has not stopped women from speaking out against the monks' proposal.

But the support it has garnered from the monkhood, and the reluctance of a male-dominated Buddhist government to condemn it, remains deeply troubling. It certainly illustrates the need for a strong, organised and vocal feminist movement that cuts across Burma’s religious and secular spheres. In the meanwhile, anyone threatening to strip votes from politicians who oppose the ban would do well to remember that 50.3% of Burma’s electorate are women.

ASEAN officials address anti-Muslim violence in Burma

Posted: 01 Jul 2013 03:30 AM PDT

Malaysian officials urge Burma to take stronger actions to prevent the persecution of Muslims and to bring perpetrators to justice.

Malaysia's Foreign Minister, Anifah Aman, made the comments during the Association of South East Asian Nations summit in Brunei over the weekend.

Aman’s remarks are the latest sign that the communal violence is straining ties between neighboring countries in South East Asia.

Rally against Time

Posted: 01 Jul 2013 02:17 AM PDT

About 400 Buddhist monks and civilians marched against Time Magazine after it dubbed radical Buddhist monk Wirathu, 'The Face of Buddhist Terror' on its front cover.

The article documented the ongoing violence between Muslims and Buddhists in Burma and Sri Lanka but demonstrators claimed it condemned Buddhism as terrorism.

Last week, the government banned Time's July cover story.

Three injured after motorbike explodes near military academy

Posted: 01 Jul 2013 01:56 AM PDT

Two military personnel and a civilian were injured after a motorbike exploded over the weekend in Pyin Oo Lwyin near the country's Defence Services Academy (DSA).

The city's police department said they have found no evidence that the blast was planned.

"As far as we've learnt, the explosion was presumably caused by heat – we didn't find any traces of explosives," said an official at Pyin Oo Lwin Police Station.

"We are still investigating the details – the motorbike was blown to pieces and we are looking into how that happened."

According to a local news reporter U Zaw, who was at the scene after the incident, a military cadet attending the DSA sustained a serious leg injury after the motorbike parked by the city's sports stadium alongside the Lashio-Mandalay road in Pyin Oo Lwin blew up.

"It was quite a strong explosion," said U Zaw. "Three people; a military cadet, a sergeant and a civilian, who were walking by were injured."

During a similar instance in 2011, a bomb was detonated in an empty house in Pyin Oo Lwin as explosives concurrently erupted in Mandalay and Naypyidaw on the same day.

Hundreds protest against Time magazine in downtown Rangoon

Posted: 01 Jul 2013 12:34 AM PDT

Hundreds of Buddhist monks and Rangoon residents denounced Time magazine's July cover story on Buddhist nationalism, while praising Thein Sein's government for banning the article during a rally in the commercial capital on Sunday.

Carrying banners inscribed with statements in Burmese and nonsensical English translations, the protestors marched around Independence Monument in Sule Park and slammed the article that dubbed Burma’s infamous monk Wirathu as "The Face of Buddhist Terror".

"The government and Religious Ministry previously made official statements to denounce the magazine's cover, but we would like to practically inform the people in Burma and across the world – both in Burmese and English – that Buddhism is not a religion of terror and that it doesn't allow or encourage killing," said Parmouhka, a monk from Magwe who helped organise the demonstration.

"Buddhism is the religion of peace, we would like to help people and government leaders of different religions across the world to better understand it, so they can all become Buddhists."

According to a report in Reuters, the demonstrators were granted official permission in accordance with the Peaceful Assembly and Peaceful Procession Law.

Last week, the government banned Time's July cover story, which investigates the rise of Buddhist nationalism in Burma, Sri Lanka and Thailand.

Officials said the ban aimed to prevent sectarian violence from erupting again in the country.The magazine's cover featured Burma's most notorious monk Wirathu, who is renowned for unleashing vitriolic sermons against the country's Muslim minority and leading the Buddhist nationalism movement.

Much like Yugoslavia and Iraq, sectarian tensions have exploded in Burma in the absence of iron-fisted rule. On 27 June, hundreds of Buddhist monks gathered in Aung San Monastery in Insein township, where they officially formed an organisation to 'Safeguard the Race and Buddhist Religion.'

The agreement follows similar conferences in June that have seen the promotion of a draft law that would prohibit interfaith marriage between Buddhists and Muslims.

Riots pitting Buddhist Arakanese against Muslim Rohingya erupted in May 2012, displacing more than 150,000 people and killing hundreds. Since then, sectarian tensions have spread from the country's southwestern coast to the Shan plateau in northern Burma.
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The Irrawaddy Magazine

The Irrawaddy Magazine

Thandwe ‘Stable’ After Anti-Muslim Attack: Official

Posted: 01 Jul 2013 04:54 AM PDT

Burmese security forces patrol downtown Sittwe during inter-communal unrest in June last year. (Photo: The Irrawaddy)

RANGOON — Government security forces have stabilized the situation in Thandwe after an outbreak of anti-Muslim violence destroyed four homes in the town in southern Arakan State on Sunday, a local official said. He added that one Muslim man was arrested for an alleged rape case that sparked the unrest.

Zaw Moe Aung, an official at Thandwe Township's department for information and public relations, said three Muslim-owned homes were torched and another destroyed on Sunday night, while several cars were damaged.

"The situation is more stable now, and all shops and schools are open as usual. Security forces have been deployed in the town," he said on Monday afternoon, adding that a curfew had been imposed.

Zaw Moe Aung said that authorities were investigating the violence but had yet to make any arrests.

He said reports of the alleged rape of a Buddhist woman named Su Su Mon, 18, by a Muslim man named Min Naing, 29, had caused the unrest on Sunday night. "We have detained one person who allegedly raped the woman. He was a motorbike taxi driver and he is Kaman, a Muslim man," the official said.

Deputy Information Minister Ye Htut said in a Facebook post on Monday morning that "a man of another religion" had been charged with raping the woman.

After reports of the supposed incident spread through Thandwe, a group of around 50 people gathered at the local police station and then went on to destroy two homes at around 7 pm, Ye Htut said. "The Myanmar police force is working to find the offenders and take action in accordance with the law," he added.

A Muslim inhabitant of Thandwe said that a Buddhist mob people had burned down three homes and destroyed five others in Dwarawaddy quarter No. 1, while shouting "Kill all the Muslims!"

The situation in the town remained tense on Monday, many shops remained closed and the streets were largely empty, he said, adding that local Muslims were seeking permission from authorities to retrieve their possessions from the destroyed homes before they are looted.

The Muslim community feared another mob attack might occur tonight, the man said. "We are worried that if violence breaks out, we will be trapped in the town," he told The Irrawaddy by phone. "If the authorities can control the situation then there will be no violence."

Thein San, a local Arakanese Buddhist, said the Buddhist community was angered by the supposed rape. "We want to have justice in this case. The authorities should act as soon as they can," he said.

Shwe Maung, a lawmaker for the ruling Union Solidarity Development Party who represents Arakan's Buthidaung Township, said that authorities should decisively quell any further violence.

On Sunday night, he said, security forces had failed to act. "There are questions as to why did not arrest those [attackers], or why did not shoot in the air to break up the unrest, it seems they have no methods to end such unrest," Shwe Maung said.

An estimated 130,000 people live in Thandwe, a coastal town in southern Arakan State, and about a fifth of the population in Muslim, according to Zaw Moe Aung. The town has an airport and is located close to the popular beach resort Ngapali.

The Muslim population of Thandwe comprises mostly Kaman and other recognized Muslim minorities, unlike in northern Arakan State, which has a large Muslim population who identify themselves as Rohingyas. The latter group is not recognized by the government as Burmese citizens.

Thandwe Township was largely spared from the bloody inter-communal violence that broke out in Sittwe, Maungdaw and other townships further north one year ago, where Arakanese Buddhists clashed with Rohingya Muslims.

The violence left 192 people dead and about 140,000 people, mostly Muslims, were displaced, according to UN and government figures. Almost half of the displaced are Muslims who were chased out Sittwe town, where whole Muslim neighborhoods were burned down.

Arakan State authorities and Burma's central government have been accused of supporting the Buddhist mob attacks on Muslim minorities and of doing little to prosecute the Buddhist perpetrators of the violence.

$3 Million Set for Thai Tomb, Cultural Village Project in Burma

Posted: 01 Jul 2013 04:06 AM PDT

The excavation site of the historic tomb of former Siamese King Uthumphon at the edge of Taungthaman Lake in Amarapura Township in Mandalay. (Photo: Teza Hlaing / The Irrawaddy)

RANGOON—More than US$3 million has been earmarked to renovate the historic tomb of a former Siamese king and build a Thai cultural village near the Burmese city of Mandalay, according to a source close to the project.

A Thai restoration team is expected to spend more than 100 million baht ($3.23 million) on the project, the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "If needed, they will likely spend more," the source added.

Since February this year, Thai experts have visited Amarapura Township, Mandalay Division, to excavate a stupa and verify whether it was the historic tomb of former Siamese King Uthumphon.

"According to historical records and our findings, we, both Burmese and Thai experts, can now say the tomb belongs to Uthumphon," Mickey Heart, who has been granted full authority on the project by the Uthumara Memorial Foundation, a section of the Association of Siamese Architects, told reporters on Saturday.

Heart, who works as a go-between on the project for Burmese and Thai experts, added that an excavation team found an urn containing human bones, some pieces of yellow robes from a Buddhist monk, and a third artifact that belonged to a royal descendent.

The tomb resembles a small pagoda and is larger than surrounding grave markers at Linzin Hill graveyard on the edge of Taungthaman Lake. The foundation is seeking permission from local authorities in Mandalay to build the cultural village near the burial site in a bid to preserve the culture of Thai people living in the state in the 18th century.

"If we are granted [permission], the project will take at least two years," Heart said.

According to Burmese history records, King Hsinbyushin (1736-76), the third king of Burma's Konbaung Dynasty, invaded the ancient Thai capital of Ayutthaya in 1767 and brought many of its subjects, including Uthumphon, back to his own capital, Ava.

Dr. Tin Maung Kyi, a well-known Burmese historian and Mandalay resident, previously told The Irrawaddy that Uthumphon was in monkhood when he was brought to Ava as a prisoner of war, and that after dying in captivity, the Thai king's body was buried at Linzin Hill.

It is believed that Uthumphon died during the reign of King Bodawpaya (1745-1819), the sixth Burmese king of the same dynasty.

The authoritative "History of Ayutthaya" website says Uthumphon—who is better known as King Dok Madua, or "fig flower," in Siamese history—was the youngest son of King Borommakot and a minor queen, Phiphit Montri. He was appointed a crown prince by his father.

The Irrawaddy photographer Teza Hlaing contributed to this report from Mandalay.

Campaigners Collect Signatures to Support Restrictive Interfaith Marriage Bill

Posted: 01 Jul 2013 04:00 AM PDT

A signature campaign in Mandalay aims to raise support for a restrictive bill on interfaith marriage between Buddhists and Muslims. (Photo: U Wirathu / Facebook)

MANDALAY—Advocates of a controversial draft law to restrict interfaith marriages between Buddhists and Muslims are collecting signatures for support in Burma's second-biggest city.

"We gave copies of the draft law to pedestrians," Cho Lay, a campaigner in Mandalay, told The Irrawaddy. "We didn't pressure them [to sign], but we explained what it's about. Many were interested and some signed, as they agreed with the [draft] law."

The draft law would require any Buddhist woman to get permission from her parents and local government officials before marrying a Muslim man. It would also require any Muslim man seeking to marry a Buddhist woman to first convert to Buddhism.

Campaigners told The Irrawaddy that they would submit the draft law to Parliament on July 15.

"To protect our nation and nationalities, this draft law must be passed," Cho Lay said. "Because there's no law to protect our Buddhist women, they become victims and their rights are abused. By collecting signatures we will know how many people are interested in protecting women. We will continue our campaign nationwide to collect more signatures."

The signature-collecting campaign began in Mandalay over the weekend, while smaller campaigns were held in Sagaing Division and Magway Division in past weeks. The campaigners claim to have collected more than 5,000 signatures in Mandalay alone over the weekend.

"I think this law should be endorsed—that's why I signed the paper," a resident in Mandalay's Maha Aung Myay Township said.

Another resident said he had not yet signed on to the campaign because he had not been able to study the draft law, but that he planned to read over it later.

U Wirathu, a nationalist monk known for his anti-Muslim rhetoric in Burma, is among the draft law's most prominent supporters. He said on his Facebook page that campaigners had collected more than 500,000 signatures in upper Burma.

The draft law was first presented at a monks' conference in Rangoon's Hmawbi Township in the middle of last month. The bill was not related to the meeting—which was called to discuss ways of resolving tensions that have sparked deadly communal conflicts between majority Buddhists and Muslims in recent months—but was circulated on the sidelines in the presence of U Wirathu.

The draft law was quickly condemned by women's groups and rights activists.

At a second conference of monks last week in Rangoon's Insein Township, senior Buddhist leaders offered more support for the bill. At the meeting, which was again called to discuss ongoing tensions between Buddhists and Muslims, Buddhist leaders urged monks to unite to maintain peace in the country, but also said they supported the proposed restrictions on interfaith marriage and would pressure politicians to accept the bill.

Clashes between Buddhists and Muslims in the past year have left more than 200 people dead and more than 150,000 people—mostly Muslims—displaced.

Tightened Security in Pyin Oo Lwin after Explosion

Posted: 01 Jul 2013 02:57 AM PDT

The remains of a motorcycle that reportedly exploded in Pyin Oo Lwin, Mandalay Division, on Sunday. (Photo: Myanma Ahlin)

Security has been tightened in the wake of an explosion in Pyin Oo Lwin that injured three people on Sunday afternoon in the Mandalay Division garrison town.

Two men from the Defense Services Technological Academy (DSTA) and a woman from a nearby teashop were injured in the blast, which reportedly came from a motorcycle parked near the City Sports Stadium along the Mandalay-Lashio road.

Locals said the explosion was loud and did minor damage to houses nearby. The state-run newspaper Myanma Ahlin said on Monday that it was "a heavy and loud explosion," and that "the victims were 100 feet away from the explosion."

Sergeant Hla Myo Htike and DSTA cadet Shine Myint Maung were admitted to the military hospital in Pyin Oo Lwin, a hill town also known as Maymyo that is home to four military institutes. The teashop employee Ma Nge was admitted to the local public hospital.

A second lieutenant of the Pyin Oo Lwin police told The Irrawaddy on Monday that "we have tightened the security day and night." He said added that "the authorities are still investigating the incident," but provided no further details.

It was not clear whether the incident was the result of a planted bomb or accidental explosion, but a Pyin Oo Lwin resident who asked for anonymity told The Irrawaddy on Monday that the circumstances raised suspicions.

"The motorbike was left at that place and it exploded when the sergeant and the DSTA cadet were near that motorbike," the resident said.

He added that authorities had set up checkpoints in and out of the city since Sunday's incident. Recently, multiple undetonated bombs were found in the city, according to the resident.

"It was a big explosion. The sound was very loud. We went there as soon as we heard the sound of the explosion," said Ko Htoo, another resident. "A bomb squad from BE [the Engineers' Battalion] said it was a time bomb after they checked the debris stuck to nearby trees."

Another police official, who also asked to remain anonymous, acknowledged that the explosion may have been a targeted attack on the local military establishment.

"The blast could have targeted the military because the place is usually crowded with cadets from the Defense Services Technological Academy," he told The Irrawaddy.

"We do not know why they would do such an explosion, but we will hunt them down as soon as possible," he added.

When contacted by The Irrawaddy, provincial police officials declined to provide details on the ongoing investigation, but said that for security reasons, motorcycles and other vehicles would be inspected if considered suspect. Authorities would also check the visitor registrations of every Pyin Oo Lwin household.

Photo of the Week 08

Posted: 01 Jul 2013 01:23 AM PDT

 

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Rioters Renew Violence in Burma’s Arakan State

Posted: 30 Jun 2013 11:58 PM PDT

A house burns in the background as a man carries makeshift weapons during communal clashes in Arakan State last year in June. (Photo: The Irrawaddy)

RANGOON — Rioters torched two houses in a coastal town in Burma's Arakan State in the latest violence between Buddhists and minority Muslims, a government spokesman said, but a resident said security forces had restored order on Monday.

At least 237 people have been killed in Burma in religious violence over the past year and about 150,000 people have been displaced. Most of the victims were Muslim and the most deadly incidents happened in Arakan State, where about 800,000 Rohingya Muslims live, according to the United Nations.

In the latest flare-up, about 50 people gathered outside a police station in Thandwe on the west coast on Sunday after hearing a woman had been raped by "a man of another religion," government spokesman Ye Htut said on his Facebook page.

While the Thandwe riot was relatively minor, similar incidents in the past have led to larger and more deadly confrontations.

The rioters set two homes on fire at about 7 pm after police asked the crowd to disperse.

"The Burma police force is working to reveal the offenders and take action according to the law," Ye Htut said.

Three Muslims were injured in the fire, Ye Oo, a police deputy corporal in Thandwe, told Reuters by telephone.

Ye Htut said police had blocked roads into and out of the town, which has the closest airport to Ngapali beach, one of Burma's most popular beaches for tourists.

The United Nations said 140,000 people remain displaced in the state after clashes in June and October last year.

Two displaced people were killed and six wounded on June 27 when security forces used gunfire to disperse a crowd that had gathered at a military base in Kyein Ni Pyin, a camp for displaced persons in the Pauktaw area of Rakhine State.

Muslims make up about 5 percent of the 60 million people in Buddhist-majority Burma.

Malaysia Urges Burma to Stem Anti-Muslim Violence

Posted: 30 Jun 2013 11:51 PM PDT

An ethnic Rohingya from Burma and living in Malaysia holds a placard during a rally calling for a stop to the killings and violence toward the Muslim Rohingyas in Burma, near the Burma embassy in Kuala Lumpur on June 15, 2012. (Photo: Reuters)

Malaysia urged Burma on Sunday to take stronger action to prevent persecution of Muslims and bring the perpetrators to justice, the latest sign that the inter-communal violence is straining ties in Southeast Asia.

Thousands of ethnic Rohingya Muslims have fled Burma to escape the violence and worsening living conditions, many of them making their way by boat or overland to Muslim-majority Malaysia.

Anti-Muslim violence in Buddhist-dominated Burma erupted in western Arakan State last year and has spread into the central heartlands and areas near the old capital, Rangoon.

"Burma has to address the problem," Malaysian Foreign Minister Anifah Aman told reporters at a meeting of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) ministers in Brunei, making a rare intervention in another member's internal affairs.

"I know it's complex but they have to address the problem in a transparent manner so that we can see what actions had been taken … I think the perpetrators have to be brought to justice and so that it does not occur again."

Anifah said he had been satisfied by his Burma counterpart's response that the government was taking the issue seriously.

Burma Buddhists and Rohingya have clashed in violent incidents in Malaysia and Indonesia in recent weeks, adding to concerns that the violence could spill over into the region.

The UN refugee agency says about 28,000 Rohingyas are registered as refugees in Malaysia, but groups representing them say the real number of Burma Muslim immigrants is much higher and has surged this year because of the violence.

Critics say the Burma government has done little to bring instigators of the violence to justice or to stem a growing anti-Muslim movement in the country, which returned to democracy in 2011 after a half century of military rule.

Anifah said the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) had voiced concern that Asean's Muslim-majority nations were not doing more to resolve the problem. Malaysia's Bernama news agency also reported that Anifah had asked Burma to allow an OIC contact group to visit the country and be given full cooperation.

Muslims Trapped in Ghetto after Clashes in Burma

Posted: 30 Jun 2013 11:47 PM PDT

Policemen stop civilians at one of the road blocks that surround Aung Mingalar, Sittwe's last Muslim quarter that is home to 6,500 people. (Photo: Jpaing / The Irrawaddy)

SITTWE, Arakan State — From inside the neighborhood that has become their prison, they can look over the walls and fences and into a living city.

Stores are open out there. Sidewalk restaurants are serving bottles of Mandalay beer. There are no barbed-wire roadblocks marking neighborhood boundaries, no armed policemen guarding checkpoints. In the rest of Sittwe, this city of 200,000 people along Burma's coast, no one pays a bribe to take a sick baby to the doctor.

But here it's different.

Aung Mingalar is just a few square blocks. You can walk it in 10 minutes, stopping only when you come to the end of the road—7/8 any road—and a policeman with an assault rifle waves you back inside, back into a maze of shuttered storefronts, unemployment and boredom.

In the evenings, when bats fly through the twilight, the men gather for prayers at Aung Mingalar's main mosque, the one that wasn't destroyed in last year's violence.

Zahad Tuson is among them. He had spent his life pedaling fares around this state capital, a fraying town, built by British colonials, full of bureaucrats and monsoon-battered concrete buildings. Now his bicycle rickshaw sits at home unused. He hasn't left Aung Mingalar in nearly a year.

"We could go out whenever we wanted!" he says. His voice is a mixture of anger and wonder.

What has caused this place to become a ghetto that no one can leave and few can enter? A basic fact: Aung Mingalar is a Muslim neighborhood.

A year after sectarian violence tore through Burma, the fury of religious pogroms has hardened into an officially sanctioned sectarian divide, a foray into apartheid-style policies that has turned Aung Mingalar into a prison for Sittwe's Muslims and that threatens this country's fragile transition to democracy.

Muslims, Tuson says, are not welcome in today's Burma.

It's simple, he says: "They want us gone."

'They Want to Muslimize This Land'

For generations, Aung Mingalar existed as just another tangle of streets and alleys in the heart of Sittwe. It was a Muslim quarter; everybody knew that. But the distinction seldom meant much.

Until suddenly it meant everything.

Last year, violence twice erupted between two ethnic groups in this part of Burma: the Arakanese, who are Buddhist, and a Muslim minority known as the Rohingya. While carnage was widespread on both sides of the religious divide, it was Muslims who suffered most, and who continue to suffer badly more than a year later.

Across Arakan State, more than 200 people were killed, 70 percent of them Muslim. In Sittwe, where Muslims were once almost half the population, five of the six Muslim neighborhoods were destroyed. Over 135,000 people remain homeless in Arakan State, the vast majority of them Muslims forced into bamboo refugee camps that smell of dust and wood smoke and too many people living too close together.

The troubles here were, at least initially, driven by ethnicity as much as religion. To the Arakanese, who dominate this state, as well as to Burma's central government, the Rohingya are here illegally, "Bengalis" whose families slipped across the nearby border from what is now Bangladesh. Historians say Rohingya have been here for centuries, though many did come more recently. Their modern history has been a litany of oppression: the riots of 1942, the mass expulsions of 1978, the citizenship laws of 1982.

What started with the Rohingya has evolved into a broader anti-Muslim movement, helping ignite a series of attacks across Burma—from Meikhtila in the country's center, where Buddhist mobs beat dozens of Muslim students to death in March, to Lashio near the Chinese border, where Buddhist men swarmed through the city burning scores of Muslim-owned stores in May.

The violence is about religion and ethnicity, but also about what happens when decades of military rule begin giving way in the nation, and old political equations are clouded by the complexities of democracy.

In 2010, political change finally came to Burma, a profoundly isolated nation long ruled by a series of mysterious generals. Opposition leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi was freed from house imprisonment. National elections were held. Former political prisoners became politicians.

Amid the tumult—and with the military still wielding immense power behind the scenes—old animosities and new politicians flourished. Ethnic groups formed powerful regional parties. Buddhist nationalists, with a deep-seated suspicion of Muslims, moved from the fringes into the mainstream.

Political frustration fed on economic frustration, with millions of poor rural residents flocking to Burma's cities only to find continued poverty in ever-growing slums. In a country that is about 90 percent Buddhist, Burma's Muslims, who number as little as 4 percent of the population, became political bogeymen.

U Shwe Maung, a top official with the Rakhine Nationalities Development Party (RNDP), the state's most powerful party, will tell you about the problems with the Rohingya: They have too many children, they are angling for political clout, they claim to be citizens.

"We are not willing to live with them," the one-time high school English teacher says in his quiet voice. He's an avuncular man, friendly and unfailingly polite. "They want to Muslimize this land. They want power."

Anti-Muslim sentiment has been magnified by an increasingly virulent strain of Buddhist nationalism, as a once-obscure group of monks nurtures populist fears of a growing Muslim threat. Muslims are criminals, they say, a "poison" driving up land prices and pushing aside the Buddhist working class. Crowds pack monasteries and prayer halls to hear the monks' speeches. Recordings are sold in sidewalk stalls along Burma's streets.

"They will destroy our country, our religion, our people. They will destroy the next-generation Buddhist women, since their aim is to mix their blood with ours," a popular monk, Ashin Tayzaw Thar Ra, said in a speech earlier this year. "Soon, Buddhists will have to worship in silence and fear."

WWII Redux

In Aung Mingalar, they know all about fear.

The neighborhood is where Maung Than Win once served hundreds of meals a day at the little restaurant his father had opened, and where residents gathered at the Chat Cafe to gossip in the cool of twilight. It is where dozens of boys showed up every day for classes at Hafeez Skee's Islamic school, but most children attended secular schools.

It was widely seen as the wealthiest of Sittwe's Muslim neighborhoods, but it was hardly an island of economic isolation. It was a place where day laborers built thatch huts for themselves, and rich businessmen, their fortunes often made on small fleets of wooden fishing boats that troll the Bay of Bengal, built sprawling houses covered in shiny green tiles. A few families farmed gardens of watercress in a swampy area between some of the alleys. The main streets, once brick or cobblestone, had turned to dirt over the years.

"My grandfather was from Aung Mingalar. My father was from Aung Mingalar. I'm from Aung Mingalar," says Win, his teeth stained red from years of chewing betel nuts. At 32, he has spent nearly his entire life working at his restaurant, the Love Tea Shop. It filled with people every day, particularly after prayers at the mosque. "I just want to stay as long as I can."

Not that everything was perfect. Buddhist and Muslim residents of Sittwe agree at least on that.

There were fights, though they tended to be just one person against another. In the last sectarian violence, in 2001, only one person died in Sittwe. The last widespread bloodshed was during World War II, when the Rohingya backed the British colonial forces and the Arakanese supported the Japanese. Hundreds of people were killed.

"I had heard about the troubles then," says Ferus Ahmad, a pharmacist. "We thought something like this could never happen again."

But it did. It began last year on May 28, with the rape and murder of a Buddhist woman by a group of Rohingya men in a village a few hours from here. Days later, a bus carrying Muslim travelers was surrounded by a Buddhist mob and 10 Muslims were killed. Five days after that, Rohingya mobs attacked Arakanese near the Bangladesh border. It's unclear how many people died.

With fear spiraling on both sides, trouble came to Sittwe. Over five days, Arakanese and Rohingya mobs battled one another. By the end, hundreds of Arakanese homes had been destroyed, as had nearly every Rohingya neighborhood. Today, other than Aung Mingalar, Muslim Sittwe is little more than destroyed mosques and once-crowded communities grown over with grass and weeds, completely empty of residents.

During the street battles, the women and children of Aung Mingalar were put into a mosque for safety, while the men protected the neighborhood's edges. Then something unusual happened: The security forces arrived to help.

Across Burma, the army and the police have done little to protect Muslims through a year of violence, and rights groups say they have often joined in the attacks. It's still unclear why it was different in Aung Mingalar.

But while they arrived as protectors, those soldiers soon became jailers. Today, the security forces enforce the official ghetto. And the dominant story line remains: Not only did Muslims never need protection from Buddhists, but they destroyed their own neighborhoods.

"The Bengalis lit their own houses on fire, because they knew they would get another house" in the refugee camps, says U Win Myaing, the Arakan State assistant director for communications. "Plus, they thought the fires would spread to Rakhine [Arakanese] areas and burn those houses down."

Increasingly, such stories about Muslims are believed across Burma.

A Disintegrating Neighborhood

Today, Aung Mingalar is consuming itself.

House after wooden house has been torn down for firewood. The dead, who can no longer be taken out to the Muslim cemetery, are buried behind the mosque. Food, which comes from occasional government handouts and the twice-weekly markets some residents can attend, is scarce and expensive.

There are no stores left open, just a few food stalls and a makeshift pharmacy that sells laxatives and herbal headache medicine.

There are also few heroes. Residents say wealthy Rohingya have bought land from poorer or more desperate neighbors. While the authorities occasionally allow some Rohingya into the neighborhood to sell supplies, they charge double what customers pay on the outside.

"People aren't competing with each other," says Win, the tea shop owner, "but they are not working together either."

Officials refuse to say when—or if—Aung Mingalar will be allowed to rejoin the rest of Sittwe.

There is one way to get out. The bribe to pass the checkpoints is 10,000 kyats (about $10) each way, according to current and former residents. That's a lot of money here, but plenty of people are paying it. While no one is sure of the neighborhood's size—aid workers say it was probably about 4,000 before the violenc —it's now dropping fast.

"When everything they have is gone, people just want to leave," Win says.

Thousands have left Burma, paying smugglers to slip them into Malaysia or Thailand. But most head to the refugee camps outside towns, endless rows of bamboo shelters filled with Rohingya. Many of the camps are restricted areas—residents are not allowed to come and go as they wish—but most are also large enough to have their own economies.

Across Burma, many Muslims are now more closed-off than they once were, barricading their neighborhoods at night against possible attackers. But so far, at least, Aung Mingalar is the only sealed ghetto.

Ahmad, the pharmacist, lived in Aung Mingalar for 38 years. Until the violence of 2012, he owned a pharmacy in Sittwe's main market, a warren of shops near the port. But soon after the trouble started, Aung Mingalar was sealed and Ahmad couldn't get to his shop. The medicines expired. His customers went elsewhere. The shop has been closed for months.

Ahmad wonders at what has happened to his country. The 2010 transition was supposed to bring change, but he's seen nothing to encourage him.

"We now have a president, a government," says Ahmad, his button-down shirt faded from so many washings. "But it's like there is no ruler."

For many like him, the main sustenance now is memories. That is what keeps Ahmad going.

A couple of times a week, back when things were good, Ahmad would close his pharmacy, pick up his wife and two children at home and head to the Sittwe beach, barely a mile away. Now, only Arakanese are allowed at the beach and Ahmad has left the neighborhood where he grew up. His family is still there, but he has moved to the refugee camps, where he seeks work and tries to remember what normal felt like.

"We'd just walk along the beach," he says of those family outings. "I dream about that sometimes."

Southeast Asian Diplomats Hope for North Korea Talks at Summit

Posted: 30 Jun 2013 11:42 PM PDT

Foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) countries hold hands together with Asean Secretary-General Le Luong Minh, right, during the 46th Asean Foreign Ministers' Meeting in Bandar Seri Begawan on June 30, 2013. (Photo: Reuters / Ahim Rani)

BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, Brunei — Southeast Asian diplomats have not abandoned hope that this week's annual Asian security summit will provide a chance for North Korea and its neighbors to discuss restarting long-dormant disarmament talks on Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program, according to a joint statement released Sunday.

The top diplomats from North Korea and the five other nations involved in the now-stalled nuclear disarmament talks are gathering in Brunei for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) Regional Forum. The international standoff over North Korea's pursuit of nuclear weapons is expected to take center stage, along with other regional issues, including South China Sea territorial disputes.

In the last six months, North Korea has launched a long-range rocket and conducted an atomic test in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions banning the regime from nuclear and missile activity. Pyongyang calls the weapons buildup the core of its defense against US aggression, and has vowed to push ahead in constructing the arsenal as long as it feels threatened by the United States.

Top diplomats from the 10 Asean countries urged the six nations involved in past disarmament negotiations—North Korea, South Korea, the United States, Japan, Russia and China—to restart the talks. The disarmament-for-aid talks hosted by Beijing were last held in 2008.

"We emphasized the importance of dialogue aimed at promoting mutual understanding and confidence among all parties concerned with ensuring peace, security and stability on the Korean Peninsula," they said in a joint statement. "In this regard, we recommended that the [regional forum], where all six members to the six-party talks are also participants, could contribute to forging a conducive atmosphere for the resumption of the six-party talks."

Still, it's not clear whether North Korea will hold informal talks with the United States or South Korea on the sidelines of the forum. The governments in Seoul and Washington have said they have no immediate plans to meet privately with Pyongyang.

In recent weeks, North Korea has proposed restarting the talks, which once provided Pyongyang with crucial fuel and other aid in exchange for disarmament. But the United States and South Korea say North Korea first must demonstrate its sincerity on nuclear disarmament with concrete action.

"Recently, North Korea suddenly started a charm offensive. [South Korea] has always been open to a dialogue, but it will not have a dialogue for the sake of dialogue itself," South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se said during a meeting with his counterparts from Asean countries, China and Japan, according to South Korea's Yonhap news agency.

He said South Korea "hopes to see North Korea take the necessary actions toward denuclearization so that an appropriate environment conducive to the resumption of dialogues, such as the six-party talks, can be resumed," Yonhap said, citing a copy of Yun's remarks.

South Korea's Foreign Ministry said it couldn't immediately confirm the report.

The Southeast Asian diplomats' statement also said Asean countries support peaceful efforts toward building a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula and the early resumption of six-party talks.

North Korean Foreign Minister Pak Ui Chun arrived in Brunei on Sunday morning.

Washington, Seoul and Tokyo were reviewing a possible trilateral meeting in Brunei among US Secretary of State John Kerry and his South Korean and Japanese counterparts, according to South Korean officials.

The Asean Regional Forum has previously provided a chance to use informal, sideline talks to break stalemates over the nuclear issue. In 2011, top nuclear envoys from the two Koreas met on the sidelines of the forum in Bali, Indonesia, and agreed to work toward a resumption of the six-nation talks. The Koreas' foreign ministers held sideline talks in 2000, 2004, 2005 and 2007, and top diplomats from Pyongyang and Washington also met privately in 2004 and 2008.

Meanwhile, long-raging territorial rifts in the South China Sea remained a thorny issue in Brunei, with the Philippines calling China's recent deployment of naval and paramilitary ships in two disputed shoals part of Beijing's "increasing militarization" of disputed areas that could threaten regional stability.

Chinese surveillance ships seized the Scarborough Shoal last year following a tense standoff with Philippine vessels. Then a few weeks ago, China deployed a frigate, surveillance ships and fishing boats to Second Thomas Shoal, which the Philippines says is part of its regular territory, in a move Filipino diplomats feared could be a prelude to a Chinese takeover of the area.

"This is a violation of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea," Philippine Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario told fellow diplomats, referring to a 2002 accord between China and Asean that discourages aggressive moves that can provoke armed confrontations in disputed waters.

Southeast Asian nations wanted to turn the 2002 accord into a stronger, legally binding "code of conduct" to prevent the territorial rifts from turning violent, but China has not stated when it would sit down with Asean nations to negotiate such a pact.

In an apparent reference to the Philippines, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told reporters in Brunei later Sunday that he believes "any activity taken by individual claimant countries to go against the trend will not enjoy the support of the majority of countries and will not succeed either."

Associated Press writer Jim Gomez in Manila, Philippines, contributed to this report.

As Conservative Islam Rises in Indonesia, Polygamy Flourishes

Posted: 30 Jun 2013 11:38 PM PDT

Indonesian women wearing Muslim hijab head scarves hold a sign denouncing calls by Muslim groups encouraging the practice of polygamy among government employees during a protest by a women's rights group in Jakarta on Nov. 24, 2000. (Photo: Reuters)

Luthfi Hasan Ishaaq, the ex-chairman of Indonesia's Islamist-based Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), is currently on trial for corruption involving receipt of bribes in exchange for issuing higher beef import quotas though the agriculture ministry, which the party controls.

Luthfi also has been accused of funneling billions of rupiah to his three wives in order to launder money he received in bribes. He says his youngest was already 18 when he married her last year while she was still attending vocational school. The 51-year old Luthfi has 15 children from his marriages, presumably most from his first two wives.

PKS, which fancies itself an upholder of religious virtue, has been rocked by the twin graft scandals, first the beef and then revelation of Luthfi's secret girl-wife and corresponding abuse of power and privilege. Even the original bribery case was mired in sex because an aide to the PKS leader was arrested in the company of a college co-ed he had paid for sex in a luxury Jakarta hotel. Rumor has it that the co-ed has been a frequent companion of many senior PKS figures.

Many men marry extra wives secretly, making exact figures on polygamous marriages hard to determine. Polygamy was legalized in 1974 under Marriage Law No. 1. Men may take up to four wives but women may not take extra husbands.

Polygamy was, however, discouraged and restricted until the end of the reign of Suharto, when Islamic organizations demanded lifts on prohibitions of Islamic practices. In 2000 after pressure from the Muslim Unity Organzation (Persis), the prohibition on public servants having more than one wife was annulled.

Polygamy is permissible under Islam, and also justified by it. Across Islamic parties, the practice is common even though it is frowned upon by large swathes of Indonesian society. Other PKS officials with multiple wives are Communications Minister Tifatul Sembiring, and party officials Didin Amaruddin, Anis Matta and Zulkieflimansyah.

In 2009, the Indonesian Women's Solidarity group released a list of polygamous politicians just before the parliamentary and presidential elections and it briefly flared as a campaign issue. However these politicians remain buoyant in their political aspirations, with newly appointed PKS Chairman Anis Matta public about his two wives and soon-to-be 10 children.

In a climate of increasing Islamization of the public sphere and a simultaneous expansion of an educated middle class, polygamy has both its ardent supporters and indignant detractors. "There is no such thing as a polygamous marriage that benefits women," said National Commission on Violence against Women member Andy Yentriyani.

The behavior of PKS, the largest of the country's Islamic parties, leaves Indonesia's human rights and development objectives sorely impoverished. Not only does corruption perpetuate unequal social and economic relations, senior PKS officials send messages that represent impractical and unsustainable family units and broader social economic relations.

A recent Jakarta Globe story quoted Health Minister Nafsiah Mboi as stating that Indonesia's family planning programs had failed, as the 2014 Millennium Development Goals target of 2.1 births per woman was still at 2.6 in 2012. Yet polygamists demonstrate that they are above efforts to decrease excessive births, especially polygamists whose wealth indemnifies them from the concerns of the rural poor who strain to provide resources for large families.

More worryingly, Nafsiah said that child marriages are increasing, which adds to higher maternal mortality rates due to immature reproductive organs.

"Currently, instances of early marriage are increasing, and teenagers under 20 years old are sexually active," she said.

Indonesia's mortality rate is 17,520 cases per year, or two people per hour. Sudibyo Alimoeso, acting chief of the Family Planning Board (BKKBN), also said child marriage is a contributing factor to the number.

However the failures of the family planning board are illustrated by poorly-focused programs such as a counseling campaign to provide more information about the risks of childbirth for sexually immature women, which was only introduced in non-Islamic schools.

In order to address the problem of child marriage, maternal mortality, poverty, and gender inequality, clearly religio-cultural sources such as Islam should not be ignored, and with it the unequal patriarchal social relations it produces.

Rather than seeing such issues as sites for the formation and contest of masculinity, these behaviors have real consequences for society and for females. Luthfi and Co., with their penchant for teenagers and numerous offspring, perpetuate a cycle of inequality that results in poverty, the entrapment of women to their fertility and dependence on their husbands. This is primarily a problem for developing countries, and those in prominent political positions inadvertently exemplify detrimental traditions that stall women's progress.

The World Health Organization (WHO) describes child marriage as a complex and longstanding practice, rooted deeply in gender inequality, tradition and poverty.

"Social pressures within a community can lead families to wed young children. For example, some cultures believe marrying girls before they reach puberty will bring blessings on families. Some societies believe that early marriage will protect young girls from sexual attacks and violence and see it as a way to insure that their daughter will not become pregnant out of wedlock and bring dishonor to the family."

According to the WHO, child marriage is increasingly recognized as a violation of the rights of girls for significant reasons: It ends education, blocking any opportunity to gain vocational and life skills. It exposes girls to the risks of too-early pregnancy, child bearing, and motherhood before they are physically and psychologically ready. It increases their risk of intimate partner sexual violence and HIV infection.

Backwards ways of thinking about women, very young women included, the institutionalization through marriage of women's commodification in sexual relationships, the care and maintenance by multiple females of a central male patriarch, and even the benefit of multiple wives as vessels for the disbursement of illicit funds, are perpetuated and legitimized by officials like those in PKS.

Lauren Gumbs is a human rights student at Curtin University in Perth and holds a master's degree in Communications. She resides in East Java.

China Agrees to South China Sea Talks amid New Row with Manila

Posted: 30 Jun 2013 11:28 PM PDT

China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi, right, and his Brunei counterpart Prince Mohamed Bolkiah talk as they prepare for a group photo before the 14th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Plus Three Foreign Ministers Meeting in Bandar Seri Begawan on June 30, 2013. (Photo: Reuters / Ahim Rani)

BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, Brunei — China agreed to hold formal talks with Southeast Asian nations on a plan to ease maritime tensions on Sunday as the Philippines accused it of causing "increasing militarization" of the South China Sea, one of Asia's naval flashpoints.

The rebuke by Philippine Foreign Minister Albert del Rosario at a regional summit in Brunei came a day after China's state media warned of an inevitable "counterstrike" against the Philippines if it continued to provoke Beijing.

Friction between China and the Philippines over disputed territories has surged since last year due to several naval stand-offs as China asserts its vast claims over the oil and gas rich sea.

The heated rhetoric came as both China and the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) claimed progress in efforts to agree a mechanism aimed at defusing naval tensions.

China agreed to hold "official consultations" on a proposed Code of Conduct (CoC) governing naval actions at a meeting with Asean in China in September, a step that Thailand's foreign minister hailed as "very significant."

The two sides had already agreed to hold the foreign ministers' meeting, which will follow a special Asean ministers' gathering on the South China Sea issue in Thailand in August.

"We agreed to maritime cooperation to make our surrounding sea a sea of peace, friendship and cooperation," Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told reporters in Brunei.

But Wang stressed that any progress on agreeing the new framework would be dependent on countries following a confidence-building "declaration of conduct" agreed in 2002 which it accuses the Philippines of violating.

"Both China and other coastal states in the South China Sea are making efforts for a stable South China Sea. I believe any activity taken by individual claimant countries to go against the trend will not enjoy the support of the majority of countries and will not succeed either."

In the latest stand-off, the Philippines accused China of encroaching on its territory after three Chinese ships converged just 5 nautical miles (9 km) from a small reef where the Philippines maintains a small military force.

This month the Philippines moved more troops and supplies to the reef, which is within its 200-nautical mile (370 km) economic exclusion zone. China, which does not recognize the zone, condemned it as an "illegal occupation."

Del Rosario said the "massive" presence of Chinese military and paramilitary ships at the Second Thomas shoal and at another reef called the Scarborough Shoal—the site of a tense standoff last year—was a threat to regional peace.

"The statement on counterstrike is an irresponsible one. We condemn any threats of use of force," Del Rosario told reporters following a meeting of Asean foreign ministers.

He said the ministers had discussed China's ongoing "illegal" occupation of the Scarborough Shoal, which is just 124 nautical miles (230 km) of the Philippine coast.

The worsening dispute comes as Philippine-ally the United States, which says it has a national interest in freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, shifts its military attention back to Asia. Secretary of State John Kerry is due to arrive in Brunei on Monday to join the regional summit.

Critics say China is intent on cementing its claims over the sea through its superior and growing naval might, and has little interest in rushing to agree a code of conduct with Asean nations, four of which have competing claims.

Divisions among Asean over the maritime dispute burst into the open a year ago when a summit chaired by Chinese ally Cambodia failed to issue a closing communique for the first time in the group's 45-year history.

Additional reporting by Megha Rajagopalan.

Thailand’s Turn for Peace in Troubled South Offers Little Hope, So Far

Posted: 30 Jun 2013 08:59 PM PDT

Thai security personnel carry Malaysian flags found in Thailand's southern Yala Province. (Photo: Reuters)

BANGKOK — On the day that the results of Malaysia's general election were announced, confirming a narrow win for the incumbent, Prime Minister Najib Razak, there was an audible sigh of relief expressed in the Thai capital.

Such a response by Lt-Gen Paradorn Pattanatabut, head of the country's powerful National Security Council (NSC), to the May 5 poll was understandable. It was a spark of good news in two weeks of dismal tidings linked to Mr Paradorn's new challenge—charting a path to peace in the country's three southern provinces, where a bloody insurgency has been raging.

In welcoming another term for Mr Najib, Mr Paradorn showed his appreciation for the role that the Malaysian government has played in facilitating two rounds of "peace dialogues" in Kuala Lumpur. They have enabled Mr Paradorn, who heads Bangkok's negotiating team, to meet with Hassan Taib, chief liaison officer of the Barisan Revolusi Nasional–Coordinate (BRN-C). The latter is one of the most influential groups among an array of Malay-Muslim rebel organizations waging a militant campaign in the provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat, close to the Malaysian border.

In fact, the short, goatee-sporting Hassan was among the sources of bad news for Mr Paradorn. On the eve of their second round of talks in the Malaysian capital, Hassan delivered a verbal blast of demands using the video-sharing website YouTube, upsetting Thai conservatives and giving ammunition for doubters of the peace process in the local media.

This online message by Mr Hassan and another BRN-C hardliner called for Malaysia's role at the dialogues to be upgraded to a mediator and wanted the discussions to have international observers, ranging from the Association of Southeast Asian Nation (Asean) to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the global network of over 50 Muslim countries.

The five-point demands on April 28 also turned up the heat on Mr Paradorn's team by referring to the talks as a dialogue between "between Patani people and colonialist Siam" and insisting that Bangkok should consider the BRN-C as a "Patani people's liberation movement, not separatist." Such an attempt to raise the political significance of the BRN was being made, according to Hassan, to meet the demands of the Malay-Muslims, who are the predominant ethnic community in an otherwise Buddhist-dominant Thailand.

A similar justification was behind the BRN-C's fifth demand: for the Thai authorities to unconditionally release all Malay-Muslims in custody for alleged links to the insurgency and "remove all warrants."

Such openly publicized demands by the BRN-C caught Mr Paradorn off guard, forcing him into damage-control mode before he met Mr Hassan in Kuala Lumpur on April 29. Malaysia's role as a facilitator will remain unchanged and there is no need for other international observers, Mr Paradorn remarked, striking a dismissive tone. Yet to the other demands, he appeared conciliatory. It aimed to calm the worries of Thai nationalists, while at the same time convey to the BRN-C that he was prepared to listen to keep the peace talks on track.

He expressed a similar sentiment after he returned to Bangkok following eight hours of talks with the BRN-C. "There is something positive in the message they made on YouTube. It means they trust us to share their views," the tall and calm-looking Mr Paradorn revealed to a small group of foreign journalists at his office. "That is important because at this stage we need to create mutual trust and understanding."

And given the nature of the discussions so far, Mr Paradorn viewed the BRN-C's five-point demands as hardly a source of alarm—at least for now. "At this stage, there haven't been any negotiations, only a dialogue," he noted. "We are listening to each other."

Yet he has not stopped there. "We have asked Thai officials to listen to the conditions made by the BRN," he explained, revealing the extent to which Bangkok is prepared to go to keep the BRN-C and other Malay-Muslim negotiators at the peace table. "It is important to listen to the different views of local people."

If bending over backward to keep the BRN-C negotiators on board is Mr Paradorn's strategy, so far it has had little success in winning over the Malay-Muslim militants on the ground. The violence has continued with regular ferocity before and since the April 29 talks. One particularly gruesome attack happened in Pattani two days after the second peace dialogue, when four armed men dressed in black drove to a grocery store and killed six Buddhist civilians. The victims included a three-year-old boy.

And roadside bombs continue to be used by the insurgents targeting the military, police and government officials. The violence between Feb. 28, when Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra first acknowledged that her government had endorsed a peace pact with the BRN-C, and the second peace dialogue, at the end of April, has seen 23 people killed and 117 injured. They have contributed to a grim picture in the troubled south, where more than 5,300 people have been killed and over 9,000 injured since this latest cycle of the ethnic conflict erupted in January 2004. A majority of the dead are Malay-Muslims, with various arms of the security forces being fingered for the body count, as well as the Runda Kumpula Kecil (RKK), the armed fighters of the BRN-C.

That these setbacks have not dimmed the Yingluck administration's quest for peace is winning praise from a few conflict resolution experts based in the south. "The government is approaching the peace talks as a longer process, which is an important message to get out to those involved in the violence," noted one expert, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "The idea of sitting around the table is a significant step to stop the violence."

Such an attitude is a shift from the attempts by past Bangkok administrations. "The previous efforts were not process driven. It came across as an exercise in firefighting," the expert added. "And those efforts offered nothing to convince the Malay-Muslim militant groups that the Bangkok government was serious about resolving the conflict."

Already, the Yingluck administration has achieved a few milestones to its name since Feb. 28, when, during an official visit to meet her Malaysian counterpart, Mr Najib, a peace pact was signed between Mr Paradorn and Mr Hassan. The current government is the first to openly acknowledge that the conflict in the south is a separatist insurgency. It contrasts with the way the militants were described by previous governments (including one that was headed by a former army chief) as being members of drug networks, bandits, misguided Muslims or even mysterious "armed ninjas."

The BRN-C's YouTube statement to shape the peace dialogue also broke new ground. It is the first time that an organization involved in the Malay-Muslim insurgency has revealed a face in public offering a political manifesto, of sorts. Hitherto, the rebel groups preferred to spread their messages and demands through flyers, banners and posters that bore no hint of their authors' names.

The ground for these shifts was prepared by Ms Yingluck's elder brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, the former prime minister now living in exile to avoid a two-year jail term in Thailand for corruption. He turned to Malaysian premier Najib and the country's powerful Special Branch to rope in leaders of the BRN-C for a peace pact, says a source well connected to the Malay-Muslim insurgents. "Thaksin tried it last year, in March, when he met some of the Malay-Muslim leaders in Kuala Lumpur," the source revealed. "But it did not go anywhere, since Thaksin was in a big hurry, and there were no serious offers made."

Yet Mr Thaksin persisted, a fact that he even acknowledged in an interview with Thai Rath, Thailand's largest daily newspaper. The deal had been shaped over a year of discussions, he told the Thai-language newspaper shortly after the late February peace pact was inked.

For an insider of the governing Pheu Thai party, where Mr Thaksin is the de facto leader, the latter's role in the quest for peace is hardly surprising. After all, he admitted, the current cycle of violence was triggered during Mr Thaksin's first term as premier and escalated until he was ousted by the military in a September 2006 coup. "He has already made a public apology for his harsh policies in the Deep South," says the Pheu Thai insider. "The current peace process is one way of making amends."

But for the Yingluck government, challenges lie ahead once the current listening phase shifts gear to the tougher negotiating phase. After all, the current ethnic conflict is rooted in a troubled history going back to 1902, when the three southern provinces were annexed by Siam, as Thailand was called. Until then, these provinces were part of the Malay-Muslim kingdom of Pattani, which also stretched into northern Malaysia.

Bangkok-centric policies, coupled with economic, cultural and linguistic marginalization, fed resentment among the locals in Narathiwat, Yala and Pattani. The cry for separation and the rise of a Malay-Muslim militancy emerged in the last century.

"The Thai state see itself as superior and the Muslims [as being] at the receiving end of the state," says Sunai Phasuk, Thailand researcher for Human Rights Watch, the global rights campaigner. "The peace process will have to eventually address issues like discrimination and the lack of justice."

This story appeared in the June 2013 print issue of The Irrawaddy magazine.
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