The Irrawaddy Magazine

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Transnational Terrorism and ARSA’s Fight for a ‘Just Cause’ Posted: 16 Feb 2018 09:29 PM PST Sitting in their dilapidated ground floor apartment near the Indian city of Ghaziabad, Khalimullah and Faizal were discussing the fate of more than 700,000 Rohingya living in the Cox’s Bazar refugee camps in Bangladesh when they were distracted by the television. There was news of a Jan. 5 ambush by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) on Myanmar security forces in Rakhine State. Khalimullah and Faizal are Rohingya who made their way a year ago to India, where they have been watching the developments in Rakhine from afar. Their lives, if not ideal, are much better than of those living in the refugee camps in Cox's Bazar. They want to return to their homes in northern Rakhine and for the Myanmar government to fulfill the demands that have been spelled out by those living in the camps. But unlike the many Rohingya refugees who seem to support ARSA, they feel differently. A few days after the Jan. 5 attack, Khalimullah approached a journalist friend of mine in Delhi and told him that ARSA’s involvement in the conflict has worsened the plight of the Rohingya. "The more ARSA — which has been declared a terrorist group by Myanmar — tries to project itself as the savior of the Rohingya cause, the more it will mess up the entire situation," he said. One is forced to agree with Khalimullah, for no matter how small an ARSA-led assault may be, it is bound to provoke a major response from the military and have a huge political impact as well. The same concerns have been expressed by knowledgeable political analysts such as Yangon-based Richard Horsey in his recent interview with the New York Times. The Myanmar military has of late cut a sorry figure many times as it continues to deny the brutal atrocities it has unleashed on Rohingya civilians in retaliation for the ARSA attack of Aug. 25. The recent discovery of a mass graves could also prove true the UN’s concerns of a genocide targeting the Rohingya population. However, while we call for an independent investigation into the allegations — and there can perhaps be no substitute — there is an equally urgent need to go after ARSA and prevent it from adding fuel to the fire. It is debatable what ARSA represents today. But when leading international media call the outfit a "resistance” or even a “rebel” group, it does sound a bit ridiculous to say the least. It is indeed a matter of great curiosity that a resistance group should have links to, and get support for its "secret trainings" from, well-known terrorist outfits such as Jamaat-Ud Daawah, another name for the Pakistan-based Laskhar-e-Taiba. Indian intelligence agencies have more than once sounded this out in the media. Actually these trainings are not much of a secret anymore as ARSA cadre have been openly telling the media about them and issuing press handouts to support its claims. That the outfit started out as a faith movement in Pakistan in the shadow of Laskhar and Jaish-e-Mohammed only to later change its name to ARSA, and the fact that it has been openly issuing statements threatening to launch more attacks perhaps also lend credence to the view that the outfit has no intention of working toward a solution for the millions of displaced Rohingya. Even Khalimullah, who once supported rebellion, does not see ARSA as even close to representing one. He is perhaps better informed than many by the Indian media, which has taken pains to trace ARSA’s links to US-designated and banned Islamic terrorist groups such as Jaish and Laskhar. Over the past few years, the Indian media have regularly highlighted that ARSA leader Ata-Ullah was born in Karachi and formed the terror outfit Harakah al-Yaqin. Dossiers of his links to Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad and other Pakistan-based groups, and records with Indian intelligence services of his recent telephone conversations with some Rohingya men in India have led the Indian establishment to take a firm stand in favour of deporting Rohingya refugees from India. Much has already been written and said in Indian and international media about ARSA, including incriminating evidence of its involvement with various terrorist groups. For example: Aqa Mul Mujahideen is well connected to the “faith movement" formed by Ata-Ullah after the 2012 riots between Rohingya Muslims and Buddhists; Harakat ul Jihad al-Islami-Arakan, led by a Rohingya who goes by the name Abdus Qadoos Burmi, is said to have been instrumental in fostering international support for ARSA; Al-Qaeda offshoot Answar Gazawat-ul-Hind, in Kashmir, has been actively campaigning for the Rohingya in India. So it is not without reason that the Indian government and most of Indian civil society are worried about the terror aspects of the Rohingya debacle. Their alarm is only natural and has absolutely nothing to do with any kind of Islamophobia, as some may claim for the mere sake of argument. Therefore, when international media — as in the case of Al Jazeera in its report "Myanmar's ARSA: Freedom fighters or ‘terrorists’?” — describe India as backing Myanmar’s "clearance operations" against the Rohingya, they reflect a very misplaced and myopic view that refuses to see the problem in its entirety. India, or China for that matter, is not by any measure helping Myanmar with its crackdown on the Rohingya. Recently, professor Brahma Chellaney of the Center for Policy Research, a New Delhi-based think-tank, said that "external forces fomenting insurgent attacks in Rakhine bear considerable responsibility for the Rohingya’s current plight." I would argue that he has hit the bulls eye in many ways, for there are too many coincidences linking ARSA to external forces that preach hate and use terror as a weapon to realise their goals. But even going with the milder "resistance group" tag for the sake of pacifying the international media, would it be wrong to say that the presence of ARSA has done more harm than good? Without ARSA to worry about, it would certainly have been easier for Aung San Suu Kyi and her government to grab the opportunity to address the more serious allegations of ethnic cleansing. That opportunity vanished with the ARSA-led attack two days after the report was submitted. Continuing ARSA attacks and the military's response to them also limit the opportunity for a more democratic and transparent process of repatriation and for the protection of the returning Rohingya. The pressure on the Myanmar government and Aung San Suu Kyi to allow an independent investigation and access to northern Rakhine for humanitarian agencies and media must continue. But what must also start sooner than later is a push for international pressure to rein in ARSA and its violent ways. There are contradictions galore in ARSA's claim of fighting for the cause of its people. The proliferation of arms in the Rohingya camps in Cox’s Bazar via ARSA, with possible help from broader Islamist terror networks and militants in Bangladesh, raises questions about ARSA's real agenda. These arms have been used to silence the voices of the more than half-dozen Rohingya camp leaders killed for promoting repatriation. Khalimullah summed it up well when he said, "Of all the different narratives that are coming to the fore, the role of ARSA in fomenting the trouble and leaving innocent men, women and children to die and suffer in their camps cannot be ignored." Surely this gory tale, a vital component of the crisis in Rakhine, cannot and should not be overlooked if a comprehensive solution is to be worked out, one that not only deals with repatriation but provides justice for all, especially for the thousands of people killed by the security forces and Rakhine Buddhists. The author is a former senior journalist who has worked for national and international news media in India and elsewhere. Currently he is a contributing editor for The Irrawaddy. Nilesh Kumar, a journalist based in New Delhi, contributed reporting to this article. The post Transnational Terrorism and ARSA’s Fight for a ‘Just Cause’ appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Is Capital Punishment for Rapists the Answer? Posted: 16 Feb 2018 08:09 PM PST YANGON — If you are a teenage girl in Myanmar, your mother, grandmothers and aunts worry about you. You are told to dress modestly, never to go out alone and not to leave the house after sunset. You are forbidden to play with teenage boys when you start menstruating. All the while you are warned of the dangers of being raped. Almost every girl goes through her teens with that fear, a fear that gets passed on quietly from one generation to the next. Mothers worry for their girls and restrict their every move. But the rape of women and young girls is not declining. According to official figures from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MOHA), the rape of young children and women has increased for the past two years. Sexual violence against women has continued, perpetrated either by civilians or soldiers, and especially in conflict areas, where seven decades of civil war grind on. Severe punishment for the rapists, even when caught, is rare. But in the 21st century, women no longer shut their mouths. They provide peer support for victims and help report cases. And more rape cases are being reported, mostly in towns. In many cases of child rape, the culprit is a member of the extended family or a brother, sometimes even the victim’s father. Some of the victims are only two years old. "We are become aware of more of these cases as the female victims or their guardians speak out. In the past these cases were just hearsay because cases were not brought to the police as women were too shy to do so," said U Min Zaw Oo, founder and executive director of the Myanmar Institute for Peace and Security, a think tank. For the past few years, women’s rights advocates have been calling for legislation that better protects vulnerable women from rape. There has been a public outcry for harsher punishment for rapists, even the death penalty. Perspectives on Capital Punishment Some activists say rapists should be put to death because they won't bring any good to society. "These perpetrators should be punished with a death sentence because the current punishment is not enough," goes a common refrain. Some even say suspected rapists should be killed without a trial because the legal process takes too long. Others would prefer a lengthy prison sentence of perhaps 20 years. "What worries us about punishing a rapist with a death sentence is the victims' families or guardians won't speak up if the rapist is a close relative," said Daw Kyi Pyar, a Yangon Region lawmaker. "I don't support the death penalty because sometimes we forget that those rapists were acting because of their childhood experiences and that those actions have been transmitted," said Daw Yin Myo Su, founder of Inle Heritage and the first private community school in Nyaungshwe, in southern Shan State. If a rapist is sentenced to death, "it is not an answer to the case and it won't bring the victim immediate justice because the victim will have to live with the trauma for the rest of her life," said Daw Thet Thet Aung, a former political prisoner who now works for labor rights with the Future Ray of Light. Stronger Law Enforcement Needed Everyone agrees on the importance of the rule of law in preventing rape cases. "The rapists must receive harsh punishment in prison, but they don't have to be entitled to a pardon. Sadly, there have been presidential pardons in the past that have set those criminals free." Daw Thet Thet Aung said. U Min Zaw Oo said Myanmar’s judicial system should allow victims to file their own complaints, as in some other countries, as rapes usually have no witnesses. "The police do not have specific procedures for sexual violence cases. We need people who listen to their problems. We don't have such procedures. We need that kind of training and information sharing so that the victims can raise their voices," he added. Victims need psychological support services to help them rehabilitate their lives. When the victims are teenage girls, they can’t return to their schools because they feel scared and ashamed. In some cases the families even move to try to leave the experience behind. There have been many awareness campaigns on the rape of both minors and women. Legislation aiming to protect women from sexual violence is now at the attorney general’s office; advocates expect it to become law soon. "The [number of rape] cases can only fall when the legislative, judicial and law enforcement sectors and civil society groups work together," said Daw Kyi Pyar. Campaigns Need Male Support Most participants in awareness campaigns are women, who mostly pass on their message to other women. More men need to join them. "Men need to be educated that they can only have sexual intercourse with women of a certain age," said U Min Zaw Oo. "There needs to be more public awareness about the law regarding rape and the age for intercourse. The problem is that many men do not know about them." Advocates say they also know of unreported cases of sexual violence against young boys. In Myanmar culture, for a young boy to become a man he must live up to certain expectations; no one wants to be seen as weak. "They may feel twice as shy because culturally boys and men are not encouraged to talk about such issues openly and they try to avoid that public perception," said Daw Yin Myo Su. Social Norms In addition to strengthening legal protections and raising awareness, preventing rape also requires changing mindsets, cultural barriers and social norms. "We cannot neglect the social norms," said Cheery Zahau, a human rights advocate and 2017 N-Peace Award winner. She said there was no protection for minors because of social “norms and traditions that the men can do anything they want; such thinking and action needs to dissolve.” "Can we truly admit to ourselves why such rapes happen?" asked Daw Yin Myo Su. “It is because of our culture, a culture of not talking about sexuality openly. We have been told since our teenage years that talking about sex is not polite and that we should not speak out…. The mother won't talk to her daughter, and neither will the school. We were not taught in our teens about sexuality and reproductive health or how to deal with those feelings." In Myanmar society, our elders and law enforcement authorities say it is the girls and women who must take responsibility for preventing rape. But making only girls and women aware of the dangers and check their actions is not the answer. Legislation and awareness campaigns are important. But it is just as vital that everyone respects women and girls as fellow human beings. The post Is Capital Punishment for Rapists the Answer? appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

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